Insomnia vs traditional fantasy archtype fodder

Print PDF So I can't sleeeeeeep, I'm lying there trying to wear out my brain with imagining things and the like.
But! Sometimes this backfires and the imagining becomes far too interesting and now I'm awake and I have to share. SHARINGGGGG

So elves.

I do not like elves. Not liking elves is properly as trite as playing elves by now, I don't really know where popular opinion is with this. I could go look, but remaining ignorant of others opinions is a overlooked virtue. Anyway so I sez do my brain, "hey elves!" and brain is like yeah that was embrassing back in teenage years how damn cool they seemed and everyone always played a half elf wizard female and elves were the best and why? why? why? Anyway the past is another land, and that wretch is dead.
SO elves. Naked in the snow, immune to cold, lean, toned, like pilates instructors from a cold hell, chiseled cheek bones, pounding at your door , saying that they found your lost dog, (which is frozen solid) and laughing and trying to get your children to come play in the snow. They can't come inside of course, elves can't unless you invite them. However, you make the mistake of fearfully thanking them for
returning your dog. Which counts as accepting a elf gift. Which means they can use their glamour on you. So suddenly there's music and the smell of sunshine and fresh bread and royalty has come to visit because your child is actually the chosen one and you should open the door to let them in because they have so much wonderfully gifts to give...
 Elves are also contortionists and really good at climbing and hiding in small places. A rare elf gets into a let pretend game, where it trys to be human and wears clothing and goes on adventures, in the same way people play mmorpg in this world, as in they can get awfully attached to the things in the game, but its still just as game to them and they are always watching the world around them as a spectacle made just for them.

Half elves
So elves sometimes drag a child out in the snow, strip them naked , and mark them permanently with a frostburned hand print somewhere on their body. If the child manages to make it back home, they are said to have been "elf touched"
..this is getting way too fucking dark and molesty right now... sleeeeeeeep? Faery tales always do have that over lap with child abuse..and i want to  sleeeeppppppp not think about horrible horrible elves and how half the internet thinks this is comedy goldmine material....arghaaa

Half elves in their adult lives are driven individuals, resistant to cold, and capable of frightening acts of violence, especially surprising for the half elves slim build and quiet demeanor. Think of Rorschach from Watchmen as good starting template.

  Dwarfs
Dwarfs are people made entirely of guns
Mountains rise and fall, continents collide, stars flee the day, all through the turnings of the great machine. Pistons and cogs, of titanic size and inexorable purpose, are the true bones of this earth. Deep down in the endless factory and forges, passed clockwork bigger than cities, are the wombs dwarfs. Dwarfs are made in molds, with secret clay, and fired in cavernous kilns, and glazed in blood. Each clan has a identifying series of characteristics , The polishers have big noses and plaited beards, the Stokers triangle beards and monobrows, etc. The molds are more akin to typeset , allowing each clan to fire each dwarf with a variation of characteristics allowing easier identification between the batchs.

Some dwarfs snap and no longer hear the needs of the machine, and travel to the surface to drown the existential nightmare of their Un-needed lives , with violence and beer.

Gnomes
So earth elementals in classic mythology , let's have gnomes come from the centre of the earth.
Which is a canceri-ian prison, that they have spent the last 1000 years tunneling out of. The gnomes are like moles with horrible white eyes and big rock rending claws, and a mass of muscle on their backs like a hunch on a hunchback.
Now that gnomes have reached the surface, it seems to be far from the utopia paradise their den mothers whispered to them tales of in the black black depths.
The conclusion reached by the gnomes, is the surface is not the surface, but tantalizing close. And the burning orb that they see above them, "the Sun", is actually the last hole, the exit, the end of the tunnel, and the light shining through, the light of the perfect word!
Gnomes finding they can't dig into the air, now "tunnel" into the air, buliding towering earth towers like prolapsing of catacombs. Not all gnomes are slave to this task, some explore the "Vestibule" , luxuriating in the light and warmth. Note sunlight burns through gnome eyes quickly, luckily gnomes can just pop in fresh eyes from any other living creature, as long as they can fit into the gnomes eye sockets. After a week or so these eyes take on the appearance and properties of the gnome original eyes, until then, the eyes work as they would for the original owner. There are dire gnome magics to do with using the sight of others this way, and tools of war to gouge an enemys eyes out in the chaos of battle




Halflings
progression of ideas here..
one , halfings, literally half a person, nothing below the waist, staggering around on their arms. Not a lot to go on there. So to speak...
two, which then got me thinking about the movie Freaks, which had a tight knit group of carny freaks enacting their revenge against a couple who tried to use and betray one of them. Watch this movie, it is a fine, fine thing.
SO yeah halflings as human dwarfs/circus freaks, travelling around being carnys, ah look here's the youtube links
One of us
adorabubble
trailer

couldn't find my favourite scene , where a freak pulls out a switch blade.. just track down the damn movie already.

And then because that's kinda lazy, three, halflings as children who stopped getting older than 9, and no longer age. Becoming old and cruel in the body of a child, their bodies they mark  with knives, scarring tally marks, one for each year stolen from them. Anyone read Neil Gaiman's reboot of the Eternals? The character Sprite is a good sketch of the idea.

Orc,half orc
Okay so orcs, are like square footed hunched pig people, that live simple rustic lives in the woods, with their woven stick hovels, and acorn gathering and what not and will nurse abandoned human infants (these become half orcs), and once a year take a break from all this peasant nonsense to form huge squealing pitchfork and torch wielding mobs, that round up all the undesirables in the locale and burn them in a great big wickerman.

Half  orcs are human infants raised on orc milk (in fact sneaking a drop or two of orc milk in a infants food will insure the infant grows up hella ugly). This child will grow up to have the flat squarish feet and rotund hunched build of its nurse maid, but her or his face will be the most lovely in the land. This causes terrible dysphoria in most half orcs, their face making them feel alien from their adopted family, and appearing as a cruel mocking touch to humans, and so they  habitually cover their faces with a crude sack mask

okay I wanna go sleeep but then I thought BARDS
is there any take on bards not doomed? I would nay, as long as a bard attempts to play music while others are righteously battling, there is no redemption. Out of curiousity, does anyone know of  this scene ever illustrated? Like a party engaging some dire bastard, the fighter swinging a hella sword, wizard all with the lightning and the burning, the cleric with the hammer, the thieve stabbing or crossbowing and the bard just starting at the back strumming a fucking lute? Like even if it was bagpipes or a portable organ, it's just gonna look daft. Or in any fantasy novel, sure there's been music magic and bards but a battle scene described with the bard just standing there playing music?
Anyway whatever, if they float your corpse raft, they float your corpse raft,
so my best swing at a gritty bard reboot oh I'm too tired to laugh, is like not a "bard", but a "barred" ,
okay so the its like this, when a being dies , there's like a big black river your soul comes to, and a skeletal boatman giant, and you have a song that's like one of your extra souls Egypt style, and comes out of throat and your heart and your bones and it tells everything you were and weren't and the boatman, gives a nod, and takes you across to the land of no return. But some! They stand before the Boatman and have nothing. They stand there in silence. They have no song to sing the Boatman, and so they are Barred and sent back to this vale of tears.
SO
these BArds/barreds go about trying to hear and mimic enough of others death songs, so they too can go to the sweet peace of DEATH, and so they journey on paths that take them to blood and glory and battle and hospitals, where ever they can hear the sounds of death, so they may too know it.
So mechanically they would not wear armour but get natural bonus to a.c like a monk, and use weapons and sneaking, and as they level up they can sing OF DEATH, like screechs, and ultrasonic moans and weird undulations that cause bone to break and if they  get high enough level they get song that will let them die. Because if they die before knowing that song, they come back to life at level 1 and with 1 point taken off all their stats, to a minimum of 1. So they fuck up enough and they are some very unhappy furniture. Their bodies bear the palimpsest of their first death, seared flesh, still open wounds, rope burns etc. I'm imagining a kinda doomed pretty white haired albino, bared chest and flapping pirate shirt with guts and stitching , laughing madly and swinging a cruel edged saber. And no fucking perform skill or lutes.

I go sleep noww

1d100 table of mutations and wait, MASTODON

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So mastodon is all done and looking as cute as a  kitten with cute buttons eyes cutely shoved into its stupid kitten face. But as I am sans a house, my computer being all packed up, and me the delightful occupant of many, many couches right now, I'm having problems getting the photos off the camera and into the seething word noise of the internet.
So here's some stuff for campaign gleaning. A potential player asked me if they could play a mutant, and I was like nah, no mutants. BUT then I was like hey, why not mutants? I got all this magic handwavey radiation lying around the world, why not mutants?

Which made me think about 2000ad style stuff, and the kinda 80s mutant goofness, you know, that big lumpy 2 head kinda shit. Skateboard deck, ratfink blah blah. Which doesn't float my raft made from bodies, but if it floats your raft made from bodies, cool.

So I wanted something more like the brothel in The Scar, but you know, not all about genitals. Genitals. I have insect parts for genitals because I am the future's gift to you. The future didn't even spell your name  right in the card that came with me.

SO yeah the Kraus? Those dudes who lived in Kingdust city, and were taken over by the Tane? Yeah all their kids kept being ( nearly all) mutants, and they kept killing them, and then they were all old and dumb, and now the Tane run the show, and are like sure, mutants, why the hell not? And the surviving kraus were like ah fuck it, what do we know? And now no-one drinks from the third well tower.
Mutants are called fluxchildren, which sounds prog rock if you were gonna be mean about it, but I don't think I can use the word mutant until those Xmen movies no longer exist in my memory.

Playing a flux child is like a human character but you get to roll on this big table 4 times and keep 2 of the results. Everyone is kinda chill about fluxchildren, like they don't drive you out of town on fire, and they feel very cosmopolitan having you as a friend but they are never that cool with you being near their kids. So its like you are a homosexual in 1970's San Francisco.

These table entry's are written for a crude pathfinder system and designed to be low level. Most have little effect on game mechanics, or have left the game mechanics to on the moment things, because if you need a table to decide the reaction of Ye olde dung shoveler to a guy with skeleton hands, you need far more help than I can give.
Yes, some of these entries are lazy.

01 You always feel feverish to the touch , this means you have  5 points of cold resistance.
02 You have the stooped brutish build of a gorilla . A unloved gorilla. +2 str, -2 dex
03 You have a consumptive ethereal look. In fact in dim light light you are ever so slightly translucent.+2 to stealth, -2 con, +2 int or wis or cha. YOu choose.
04 You are a hyper active midget. You vibrate slightly when still. +2 dex - 2 con, and are size small
05 Your blood congeals fast and rock hard. After taking damage that would cause bleeding, you get +1 natural a.c. This is stacks to a +5modifier. The blood cracks and falls off after about a hour, or prolonged exposure to running water. Also this means you are no subject to additional bleeding damage effects, but blood draining would still get you, the blood not getting enough contact with air to congeal.
06 Your eyes can extend on stalks
07 You have retractable claws like a cat, these do 1d3 damage, crit on 20 for x2.
08 You have spurs on the back of your legs like a rooster or male platypus (except not poisonous). The do 1d6 dmg, crit on 19-20 for x2, but they attack as unproficient  weapon unless you have the unarmed combat feat.
09 Your lower body is that of a snake! hiss! snake!, take 10 feet off your move speed, but you can't be tripped.
10 You get one random corponaut power 1-6 1st level, 7-8 2nd level, and enough power points to use once a day.
11 You have no colour in your skin, eyes, hair or blood.
12 Very long tongue. Like a metre long. Stores handily when not in use.
13 Double jointed! +4 to escape artist. And because that's dull, your finger tips have tiny mouths on them. They quietly sing you to sleep and whisper in your sleep.
14 You have big porcupine quills coming out your back. Armour is like 3 times as much, but you have +4 natural a.c from rear attacks, and anyone attacking you with a small or smaller weapon takes 1d6 damage
15 You have a snail shell that you can retreat into, giving you +8 a.c but you can't see anything or move. . Are you slow? you betcha, 5 feet per round as you drag your sorry ass around. Get your self a cart or something. +2 str though from all the arm work it takes  to pull yourself around.
16 You can vomit up a collection of organs, which can move independently from your body and spy on stuff with the same senses you have. Because they have eyes and ears. The organs move at your half your normal speed, and you  -6 to constitution while your organs are outside your body. They have hit points equal to you unmodified con, and if slain you take a week to grow new ones (and suffering the -6 to con the whole time). You may channel touch range spells/powers from your organs.
17 There is small wrinkled conjoined twin somewhere on your body. Its asleep most of time, but it has one savant power it can use once a day, if you wake it up and ask it nicely.
18 Your face is blank like a spooky egg. A seemless when closed slit is how you eat. You draw your features on every morning. Well you don't haaaaave to. -4 cha in any case.
19 Arms are snakes. -4 to do anything with them that would need a thumb, cause they are snakes. No they don't have poison. Yes it sucks to be you
20 There is a small arm growing out of your chest. It is pitiful and weak, but it could hold a lantern or potion or something.
21 You have a centipedeesque body, with either arms or extra legs instead of the myriapod equivalent. Its about 3 times your normal body length. It means you count as large in all ways except reach. And +6 hit points. +2 to climb, and +20 to your movement
22 Centaur! But like a pantomime  horse , like a bent over human torso sticks out of your back. Is there a insane twin trapped in your butt? Lets hope not. Any way you count as large for purposes of overrun, bullrush and grapple and the like. But not in the sense of a.c or reach. + 10 feet speed as well.
23 You have gliding membranes like a flying squirrel or someone wearing a creepy skin poucho. This means you don't take falling damage as long as you can move 20 feet vertically for every ten feet fallen. It takes you like 20 feet to turn 90 degrees.
24 Prehensile tail. +2 to climb and acrobatics.
25 Froglike build. +4 acrobatics and add to ten feet to your jump height and length.
26 Another face is on the back of your head. It shows the opposite expression to you but does give you +2 to perception
27 You can run around real good on all your hands and feet. +10 feet speed when you doing this.
28 You have horrible fangs like a shark that eats glass and meth. Your bite is does 1d6 damage but still counts as unarmed attack for provoking attacks of opportunity.
29 Webbed hands and feet. +2 to swim.
30 You always feel cold to the touch, 5 points of fire/heat resistance.
31 A third eye is growing in your forehead. +1 to perception.
32 You shed and regrow your teeth in daily cycle
33 You must shed your skin once a week. This restores any stat damage you may have suffered, but it's process that takes a hour and leaves you weak and defenseless the whole time
34 The back of your head is a mass of writhing insectile limbs. The delicate hairs on them give you +2 perception
35 Instead of sleeping you must spend the time standing still and extending vein like tendrils out of your face and feet, drawing strange nutrition from the ether. This only can be done if the soil beneath your feet is fertile and suitable for growing stuff. Upon resting like this it acts as a restoration spell.
36 You have holes in your body, like a swiss cheese.
37. There is another bone to your arms given you a extra 5 feet of reach.
38 Your legs can unfold like uncanny origami , your height doubling, giving you another 20 feet of movement but make you unbalanced, - 2 dex when your legs are unfolded.
39 Your eye lids close  vertically.
40. When you are scared you sweat a mild poison of a bright blue tinge. Contact with this poison will force others to make a fort save at 15 or take 1d6 con damage
41 Your back is a writhing mass of insectile limbs tipped with poison stabbers, you may attack behind you at -2 , inflicting 1d6 damage and forcing a fort save at d.c 11+ your level or take a further 2d6 damage.
42Delciate translucent wings grow sublimely underneath your back and forearm skin. if concentrate for a minute, they softy spring forth, fluttering in the sunlight/moonlight(choose on character creation). If you spend 5 minutes like this you can regain 1d4 hitpoints or power points per level. This maybe done once a day, and you take an additional 2d6 damage from any attack while the wings are out.
43 Your skin is somehow sharp, to a soft touch feeling normal, but any fast movement against it is cut by a score of invisible razors. Anyone grappling with you if you are at least showing 40% skin takes  1d8 damage.
44  Unnaturally light, +4 to acrobatics and stealth (where noise is the primary concern), but you count as tiny for purposes of weight, eg bullrush, overrun, pressure plate etc.
45 Unnaturally heavy, the reverse of the above
46If you succeed in fortitude save against a poison you can spit it back as a ranged touch attack 1d4 rounds later. You may hold the poison in a hour before you have to make the original save again or be affected by it. You may only hold one poison at a time. The d.c of poison is the same as the original.
47 Your eyes project light constantly, so you can see in the dark, but you must close your eyes to hide.
48 hemophiliac. You take 1 point of damage after being damaged, until a heal check is made on you d.c 12. On the plus side Heal is a class skill for you if it wasn't already.
49 You can dislocate your jaw and eat stuff bigger than your head.
50 Your blood bursts into flame on contact with air, anyone damaging you with slashing or piercing attacks must make a ref save at d.c 10 + the damage inflicted or take 1d4 damage per 5 points of damage done to you (minimum 1d4, max 10d4)
51 You have massive shoulders a hunched over posture like some kinda bear. And soft white fur grows in patches over your body. This is not however fur, but a symbiotic fungus, that whispers to you secrets! +2 strength +2 wisdom
52  The hair on your head is an unusual colour. Choose. Hairs on head left in lightless water turn into snakes and leeches in 1d4 days.
53 Thorns grow from your body, they are long and spindle and red like dirty junkie syringes. Anyone grappling you or otherwise contacting your skin takes 1d6 damage - whatever natural a.c bonus they might have. They do not contract hep C because that was a simile I used before.
54 You can excrete fluffy white goop from your face openings. you may spin this disgusting but special blessing rapidly and freakishly into silk like cloth or rope. This takes 1d4 minutes  and you can produce 20 feet of rope or a 10 by 10 sheet per day. You have to eat twice as much that day though or its like you ate nothing at all. If had the profession skill in weaving you could make fancier stuff if the dm could stay awake long enough to listen to your dumb idea.
55 A snake lives n your brain, which is compressed but still with the thinking able. The snake share your thoughts and sorts your memory like a personal assistant . It can leave via your nose or mouth, and likes to spend an hour each day having a bit of a stretch and a mouse. While its inside your head you get +4 int, and +2 to all your knowledge skills. Choose a knowledge skill, the snake is an expert at that knowledge and you have to be pretend to be interested in it or the snake gets huffy and wouldn't help into bribed with mice or attention.
56If you scratch someone (as a unarmed attack) your nails tear off and burrow under their skin, causing great pain (-2 pain penalty on all rolls0 and 1d4 damage per round, until they make a fort save at dc 10+ your level. The can do this the round after been scratched, and make a new roll every round after that.
57 You have no teeth and must eat stuff like a fly, hoiking up digestion enzymes over your food and then soaking it up with your fan like tongue.
58 You can eerily copy other peoples voices. +4 to disguise when relevant.
59You smell like death to (1-2 mammals, 3-4 reptiles, 5-6 insects, 7-8 pterasaurs and birds)
-10 to handle animal checks against members of that type. On the plus side predators will only try and eat you if they are very hungry. Territory animals however are far more likely to go you.
60 Your blood is tiny, rice grain sized ants that are rainbow coloured and do the work of your blood. They sing all the fucking time too, but you have to have your ear right near them to hear. +2 con
61 Your legs taper to boney spikes, counter intuitively this makes you nimble , and graceful . +2 dex
62 You have crazy pheromones +2 cha
63 You never sleep. You can't sleep. -2 to any checks involving concentration because of constant mild hallucinations. Choose a  repetitive  task like knitting , mediating , counting , walking in circles, muttering, etc that you spend 4 hours doing instead of sleep to get the mechanical benefits of sleep. If the player suggests masturbation as an activity, they are dull and you should put cigarettes out them, and call them stinky ash tray and jeer at them. Fucking ashtray..
64Your hands are skeleton hands.
65You have a mouth inside your mouth that repeats what you say slightly after you say it giving you a slight echo effect.
66 your exhaled breathe is visable no matter what the temputure
67You have a different voice everyday
68 You have a nose like beak thing like someone grabbed your face and stretched to a point, ala that scene in beetle juice when those yuppie ghosts are learning to be scary
69You have skin like a rhino + 2 natural a.c bonus
70 You diet consists solely of 1-2 insect wings 3-4 flower petals 5-6 teeth 7-8 hair 9-10 soil
71 your hands close the other way
72 cyclops! -2 to ranged attacks because no depth perception for you
73You have weird excess skin in clumps around your body. +1 natural a.c
74 You make a bone blade pop out of the palm of hand. Treat as a short sword
75Instead of hands you have long frond things. +2 to resisting disarm attempts
76You skin has no pores and is slightly radiate
77Covered in fur!
78Massive lungs! double held breathe time and +2 to damage with blow guns
79 Tiny frogs hatch from cysts on you back and hatch and hop away in a 2 week cycle, if you catch and eat them you remember a dream you had forgotten. This could be a excuse for the d.m to give you a clue! Those frogs are pretty damn cute though..
80 Your hair is feathers
81 Your organs kinda wander around your body by them selves. Once a day you may treat a critical hit as a normal hit. -4 to heal checks on you though.
82 Anyone can feel your heart beat on any surface of your body. In fact if its quiet enough it's audible from up to ten feet away.
83You skin is slippery and eel like, +2 to escape artist and if you get set on fire , reduce the time on fire by 2 rounds. But you must drink twice as much water as a regular type person
84Your flesh is translucent, but your organs and bones are not. +2 to intimidate
85if you spend 1d4 rounds whispering a close like to an object, the next attack on it ignores hardness
86You cast no shadow
87You may shoot your finger nails off at people, treat as an attack with a +1 dart. You may fire one a round, and you regrow 1d4 back a day.
88 You are weirdly rubbery gaining damage resistance 5 against blunt weapons , +2 to grapple/ escape artist.. why have I so many escape artist mods? I don't even like to tie people up in real life
89 At least half your body is covered in tattoos. These move and frolic about when no one is looking. THEY GUIDE YOU +2 wis
90One of your arms is a giant lobster / scorpion claw! RWAAGA!. You can't really do shit with it except crush dudes like fat maggots. 1d8 damage crit on 20 for x3 damage, -4 to do anything delicate with it. You count as proficient in it.
91 Your head rotates 360 degrees
92 Your eyes change colour like a mood ring, and anyone making you cry (happy cry or sad cry but not onion cry) can drink your tears healing 2d8+2 hitpoints
93 The shadow you cast acts out your hidden desires
94 Horns! spiral blunt goat ones! long spikey impala ones! You choose, they count as a unarmed attack but 1d6 lethal damage , crit on 20 for x2
95 From your brow grows a crown (or tiara) of bone or coral
96 +2 ref save and you smell like candy and attract bees
97 +2 fort save and fuck it I'm tired, you .. bits of ash float out of your mouth when you speak
98+2 will save and have horrible big  pulsing veins on your head
99 You have a long plait of motile hair, that can be used by you like a whip or a ten feet rope and grappling hook
100 Your head is a part giant mushroom you fucking hippy, -2 cha. Any disease, poison or fungus attack that you make a successful fort safe from you may then release a spore attack a day later with the exact same effects, d.c etc. The spore attack maybe spored at one target up to 20 feet away with a ranged touch attack, (and a fort save) or everyone within 5 feet of you (fort save only, no attack roll needed)



That took too damn long. Beurghaa. Okay so my computer is set up and now you can be amazed at the mastodon (mastodon means nipple tooth apparently)! Mastodons are like elephants except kinda smaller, flatter heads and long tusks.
REGULAR GUY GOT A NEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDD

Regular guy, Rex got a need
Rex, Racer X
Brother is Speed
Brother is Speed
Brother is sex
Shut up, Pops
Rex, Racer X

Got a big white X
On the top of his car
Rex keeps his speed
In a little glass jar
Racer X on the road
Rex on the track
Little cartoon nips
Racer X on attack

Just a goddamn job
Just a goddamn job
Just a goddamn job
Just a goddamn job
Just a goddamn job
When you're hauling strips
Just a goddamn job
Rex needs his fix
OK

Just a man in a car
Racer X got a need
Come on, Five
I need a little more speed



OK
Rex is a man
He's the brother of sex
Aw, shut up Pops
Here's to Rex, Racer X
OK

HORNED DEVIL AND BETTERISHPHOTOS OF GERYON and then some campaign malarky

Print PDF Okay so I'm having trouble remembering what's a horned devil and what's a hamatula and what's a crogunsdnflkndfgn'dg and blah they all look like gargoyles. I fancied up the horned devil , because I had some flash fabric scraps

And I retinkered with Geryon, made his mouths look more like anus:

I've decided I'm bored of the alphabetically progression, and now will proceed randomly.
Rolling a d100 and counting down gives me..
A mastodon!
A mastodon is what I will make next. Unless anyone was so very exciting about seeing the ice devil?


Also here's some half-assed encounter tables I wrote last night when I couldn't sleep for your gleaning/amusement/derision
Decide on some arbitrary chance of an encounter
It happened?
cool,

roll a 1d8

1-3 is some kind of notable wild life encounter, like a what's that rustling in the bushes psych out, a game animal wandering dumbly in plain view, or like "aw isn't that bird amazing/an omen of doom"
4-5 Is a potentially combat type thing! phwoar! See tables below!
6-Is some kind of environmental hazard/obstacle. Not necessary appropriate to the terrain depending on your whimsy quota.
7-Strange! Mysterious ruins! Ominous geo-glyphs! Unidentifiable carcass(strangely mangled) Inviting statues! A voice in the dark! Spooky lights!
8-Freebie! Something benevolent, like a drinking water, a half picked over caravan still lootable, beneficial herbs , a nice safe cave, etc.

Potentially violent encounters for...
Mountains!
1d12
1- Wendigo
2-Snow panther
3-Furred Quetzalcoatlus
4-Sinister Goats
5-Corbis
6-Howling Albino man things bearing mummified corpse on throne!
7-Sky ticks
8-hoop snakes
9-Vulvines
10-Stilt walking insane cannibal degenerates!
11-Gravity Hounds
12-Gremlin(s)

Islands
1.Fishing spider
2.Giant coconut crab
3. Gluttonous
4.Hairless monkey with bits of machnes bolted to their heads, that nail people upside down to trees
5.Pygmy Axebeaks
6.Whip scorpion
7.Cyros
8.Harpooner snail (a giant cone shell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conus )
9.Half stuck men
10.Flux tainted shark. Swims in air. Blinks.
11.Rocketeer Trilobite
12.Lampreys that fall out of trees on you

Munnish Forests
1.Great dogs
2.Man hives.
3.Raptors (small
4.curmudgeon
5.Gorillas, head hunting
7.Tri wolves
8.Giant harvestman(Opilione)
9.Carnivorous kangaroos
10.giant albino kiwi
11.Murder spirit
12.Whip tailed lizard

Desert
1.Nomads/bandits
2.Tumble ball beetles
3.Ambush Turtle
4.Heatray scorpion
5.Glass eel
6.Desiccator
7.Dainty killer
8.Whirring cactus
9.Rippers (carnivorous kangaroo)
10.Preserver
11.Sand anomaly
12.Giraffe , dire, burning gaze

mangrove
1.Mauler frog
2.Ridden
3.Piranhadon
4.lobotomized brute
5.Squibbon
6.Strider Squid
7.Electric eel
8.mud giant
9.Vampire fly
10.Draping doom
11.Otter, maneater, giant
12.Carnictis


and needless expanded:
What are they doing for intelligent encounters?
(corbis,gremlin, fishing spider, bandits/nomads)
1 Searching!
2 Fleeing!
3 Traveling!
4 Hunting!
5 Lost!
6Guarding!
7Gathering!
8 Wandering!

no, really, I couldn't sleep
this could all be so compacted..

searching for:
1.for a lost item
2.for children! Aw!
3.for a criminal!
4.for an exit/entrance
5.for a friend!
6.for the enemy! grrr!

Fleeing from,
1. A monster!
2. prosecution!
3. A disaster!
4. murderers!

Hunting, they are hunting WHAT
1.why, something big and dangerous
2.some unfortunate intelligent creature,for EVIL reasons
3.some unfortunate intelligent creature,for GOOD reasons(like justice, or um.. to tell them their mums not dead?)
4. some ordinary food animal
5.some harmless but cute and rare
6.something complete bizarre , for reasons of DARK MEDICINE or PROPHECY or BECAUSE ITS STUPID LOOKING AND SHOULD DIE

Lost!
1.and their home is very near
2.they don't have a home
3.they are very far from home. And sad.
4.From somewhere impossible!

Guarding!
1 herd of animals
2 children playing
3 others of their kind gathering something
4 A fresh kill
5 a entrance/location
6 a wounded comrade

Gathering! its totally different from hunting and searching!
1. Medicine! herbs and shit
2.spoils from a battle site
3. plants/fungus/seaweed for eating
4.resources to build something out of, like a bridge!
5.some kinda fancy resource  like  dyes or clays or flowers MOTIVATED BY CULTURE
6.small edible animals caught in snares or nets

Travelling!
1. because they are gonna trade something!
2. because they need to buy something!
3.they are going home!
4.migrating!
5.to aid another group in war!
6.for some kind of ceremony reason, like attending a wedding or a funeral

Wandering! like traveling but you have no idea where you going and totally different than lost because you know where you've come from
1.Vision quest
2.exiled!
3.Bored!
4.looking for a new home!
5.crazy!
6.trouble seeking!


Oh and here's a brief description of those monsters mentioned above
GREAT DOGS
a massive gangly legged english mastiff, with glowing eyes and spittle. Hunt in eerily silenct packs.

WHIP TAILED LIZARD
its a great big skink, with a tail, twice its length, that tapers to a impossible point. Could slice a mans eyelids and he wouldn't know it until he tried to blink.

SKY TICKS
Ticks that swell up with air and drift up behind you like dreadfully balloons, then exhale , to ram into you and gorge on your blood. Only attack from behind, and dart for cover if you catch them sneaking up on you and turn around. Only to resume stalking you, the moment your back is turned, like some RETARDED CHILDREN'S GAME

TRI WOLVES
3 wolves joined together jowl to jowl to jowl, a demented triangle of fang and limb, alternating the bottom wolves in mid-charge, thus having a bizarre side tumbling movement even as they close the distance to your tender guts

MURDER SPIRIT
A floating gel like thing,its centre glowing with mandalas, it waves its mockery of limbs at you and makes you bleed with its stare


AMBUSH TURTLE:
its a snapping turtle that hides in sand dunes. yep.

TUMBLE BALL BEETLES
a mass of fleshing rending beetles that travel by locking limbs and forming a large tumble weed like ball. When the ball collides with meat, the structure collapses in a feast of agony!

GLASS EEL
A translucent eel, the thickness of horse's leg, diving through the sand. When it brushes against you, its smooth skin is so eerily sharp, it has disappeared beneath the sand by the time you blood starts gushing out

WENDIGO
The terror of the mountains, there furry white forms appearing benign form a distance, but with their leaps are horrible, suddenly covering 100 of metres in seconds, there black furless skulls snarling open with a mangle of teeth and gore. When they land, they can do so as lightly as snowflake , or with the sudden jarring impact their velocity demands. It is said they void waste on the wind , which entertains the mind in howls, and there it corrupts causing cannibalism and infanticide.

DAINTY KILLER
a glistening shimmering wind born jellyfish, its dangling ribbons cause paralysis. It will then carry the paralyzed victim to a great height and drop them.

PRESERVER
A hulking lizard thing , squatted on 2 legs, like a age crippled man, with long thin spines its height again crowning its head and back. Its named for its habit of impaling its kills on the end of its spines to wind dry. It cries salty red tears, which it anoints these bodies with, in cruel mockery of mourning, the banal reason being the tears deterring flys.

VAMPIRE FLY
a fly the size of a man, its back alive with squirming maggots. These are dropped in swooping dive bombs, the maggots latching on , and sucking blood. The maggots suck as much as they can in a short amount of time, then drop off into the water, where they rapidly swim away to begin metamorphosis into the adult form.
 
HALF STUCK MEN
unfortunates that have subjected to a cruel dose of slurring flux radiation, they randomly fluctuate between moving Slow, Hasted and frozen (and invulnerable) in time. They appear to be maddened by this strange agony that drives them to kill! kill! kill!
Some groups of halfstuckmen are synchronized, freezing , hasting and slowing together. Others deviant individually in time.
   
CYROS
a snake tracing figures 8 in the air, surrounded by a blue, freezing flame, it drinks heat and is to be feared

GLUTTONOUS
a pig that when fully opening its jaw, nearly splits in 2! infamous for one gluttonous luring hungry sailors by with its innocent piggy looks, the other gluttonous lying in wait close by.

RIDDEN
a large sword limbed arachnid that latchs on to the back of a monkey, punch its fangs through the eye sockets and usurping the monkey as a macabre steed.

HEAT RAY SCORPION
A large scorpion, with in place of the stinger, is a crystal lens, which with it focuses the suns rays in a killing beam.

SQUIBBONS, STRIDER SQUID:
see here
(strider squid as megasquid)

DRAPING DOOM
a sea anemone disguised as a tree

MUD GIANT
a slime mold colony that animates a mass of vines mud and branchs in looming form. It rears up like a wave and crashes down bludgeoning and drowning. Anyone played moonstone on the amiga?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5CZ6TqCgps

WHIRRING CACTUS
those big flying things in the hyrule plains in Zelda: ocarina of time

SAND ANOMALY
a malevolent point in space that whirls sand around it, killing by abrasion and feeding solely of the last breath of intelligent beings

GRAVITY HOUND
A thing like a vomiting bicep with mismatched legs that chooses down for itself

ROCKETEER TRILOBITE
A trilobite the size of a fist. When startled takes off at great speeds. The danger is that its half blind, the direction it flees in is random, and its quite capable of punching straight through a tree with its speed. It can be placated with soothing voices or funny dances.
 
PIRANHADON
A piranha evolved in a large ambush predator. From the book below

CARNICTUS
did you see king kong? yes, it was truly awful, but the scene where the worm thing sucks a guys head off? Thats a carnictus.
also if you see the The world of Kong in a 2nd hand book shop, get it. That turd of a movie had quite a amazing amount of detail done on skull island.

VULVINES
A hairless wrinkled bat ape thing. Squirts noxious oils on prey it can't defeat in a few rounds. This oil attracts predators.

MAULER FROG
a frog the size of a small dog with a iris arrangement of teeth , jumps and takes circular cuts of meat from prey, ala cookie cutter shark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_cutter_shark

CURMUDGEON
A shark so disagreeable it grew legs and chases people up trees.

....

So I think I excitedly talked up some shit about doing a bestiary in the style of a mixture of field notes and Pliny the Elder level failed research.The kind of nonsense above would be what to expect. The drawings, similar. If anyone would actually like to see this, I'll bother to get it done and scan it and put it here. Otherwise the players in my campaign will be the only ones unfortunate enough to be subjected to it.

UPDATE:
if the bestiary was to have stats what system do people prefer?

GERYON

Print PDF Okay , so camera died and then a gots a new one and then I leave it someplace then I find it, and yeah.
Geryon is a three bodied giant in the original greek mythology , which means it was a dude with one head and 3 bodies growing below it. Like a super siamese twin/trine. Then in Dantes inferno he's he cast as a chimera manticore animal part salad style. In d&d he's like a big hairy snake man with a giant horn. Then way later in 4th edition he's like 3 dudes coming out of a snake, in a ominous spooky way.
I , in my ways, decided to make Geryon 3 people devouring each other perpetually.

>> its likely I will take better photos when I learn to use the camera.
And I'll add some campaign notes some time.
OKAY THEN THNKS GHOSTBAT FOR CAMERAAAA

Blather, ERINYES

Print PDF So here I am sweating through my leopard print dress in the grip of some vile viral infection (but not meningitis, they stuck needles into my spine to know that), and wondering why its so damn difficult to get 3 or 4 people in the same place to actually start the damn campaign.
Which gives me plenty of time to go over the rules system i decided to use, pathfinder.
And on the outset it looked so stream lined, and so appealing to me... but, I don't want to have cut you pathfinder. but its for your own good, I wanted to use you straight of the shelf, but nooooo you had to go having tables of modifiers and bards and pointless rulings and now I have to cut you! <cut> You make me do this!
YOU! YOU! YOU!
<slice>
why can't I bullrush people into solid objects for damage? <stab>
Is it really that hard to to have a skills d.c table that goes like this:
d.c 5 a banal or trivial use of the skill, plausible for even the untrained and smelly
d.c 10 Routine, a typical use of the skill for some familiar with it
d.c 15 Tricky, requires waking up a bit for a trained user, a task that separates than suave from the cack handed
d.c 20 Impressive, the passing of which would draw attention and praise
d.c 25 Implausible, the type of thing which would make its retelling make people go like"really? HOly shit!"
d.c 30 Fuck off, as above but those same people would go "fuck off, your bullshiting me, pull the other one , its got bells on it, that's just fucked"
d.c 40 Legendary, a challenge that seems flat out impossible
<carve>
Someone who hangs out in combat playing an instrument, why? Why so much turd polishing of this concept?
<flay>
I guess some people like fine tuning and a sense of tactical detail. Me , I utterly hate looking stuff up.

I have rough concept in that rules should a)exist to validate fun choices and
b)should immediately be graspable in the context of the imagining of the game

I explain more about a) So for example, if its fun for you be thinking all cunning like and to have your character to jump up on a table to make it difficult for someone to grab them , this is validated by having some kinda mechanical back up, (which can be a on the spot thing and is far prefer than having to look something up).
That's not to say just having straight fluff without any crunch is bad, and overblown descriptions are truly the fried cheese of the gods,  but I personally found nothing but fluff, the whole interactive story style doesn't have the same immersion feel to it.
Having game mechanics means that a objective reality exists for the participants and having to work with, at and against that reality makes the creativity have more bite.
I'm digressing here but I reckon in someways creativity works better with limitations to channel it, like muscle anchored to bone , or water pouring through a narrowing hose pipe.

Up to a point though,  choices backed up mechanically should be those that are fun to make , ie "what horrible point object  does my character stick it in with?" as opposed to "how much does my character spend on getting clothing modified to fit them, because they are slightly shorter than average"

ANYWAY WHATEVER SO WHAT WHO CARES
PHOTOS!

scorpion whip!

scorpion!

Fun with Abulafia

Print PDF so made this

http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Dragon_forms


It comes across as a bit stuttered though, ie like "It is a fat dragon. It breathes fire. It is the enemy of the jacobs. It takes it in the butt. Its tail is saucy." Maybe I'll reworked it later, but I think it already chewed up a good chunk of time already.

Did notice there was a random dragon generator already, (Zak S creation?) , but felt like making one from scratch. Maybe should cross linked it somehow.
But Not Today Mr Bond

MUMMY

Print PDF So this is what an aborted dispater became. It's a mummy but less of a elaborate ritualized burial of a godking, and more of a stitch a sack around that dead(ish) guy and chuck him in a bog/dry desert cave.
There's a large amount of mummification rituals in the world, so it seems kinda lazy that fantasy mummys always seem to get the Egypt treatment.

Such as this one involving monks slowly eating poison;

http://www.weirdasianews.com/2009/03/20/mummified-japanese-monks-enlightened-punishment/
or the Incas

"took your damn time"
or these

 Chinchorro mummification:The Black mummy technique (5000 to 3000 BC) involved taking the dead person's body apart, treating it, and reassembling it. The head, arms, and legs were removed; the skin was often removed, too. The body was heat-dried, and the flesh and tissue were completely stripped from the bone. After reassembly, the body was then covered with a white ash paste, filling the gaps left by the reassembling process. The paste was also used to fill out the person's normal facial features. The person's skin (including facial skin with a wig attachment of short black human hair) was refitted on the body, sometimes in smaller pieces, sometimes in one almost-whole piece. Sometimes sea lion skin was used as well. Then the skin (or, in the case of children, who were often missing their skin layer, the white ash layer) was painted with manganese giving them a black color.
The Red mummy technique (2500 BC to 2000 BC) was a technique in which rather than disassemble the body, many incisions were made in the trunk and shoulders to remove internal organs and dry the body cavity. The head was cut from the body so that the brain could be removed. The body was packed with various materials to return it to somewhat more-normal dimensions, sticks used to strengthen it, and the incisions sewn up. The head was placed back on the body, this time with a wig made from tassels of human hair up to 60 cm long. A "hat" made out of clack clay held the wig in place. Except for the wig and often the (black) face, everything was then painted with red ochre.
The final style of Chinchorro mummification was the mud-coat. Artisans no longer removed the organs of the dead, instead a thick coat of mud, sand and a binder like egg or fish glue was used to cover the bodies. Once completed the mummies were cemented into their graves. The change in style may have come from exposure to outsiders and their different cultures or from the association of disease with the rotting corpses. This style of mummification lasted for 200 year, until the Chinchorro disappeared.

'La Doncella',

This mummy was found wearing a magnificent headdress, which meant she was probably an aclla or Sun Virgin. That is, she was chosen and sanctified as a toddler to live with other girls and women who would become royal wives, priestesses, and sacrifices. She also wore a brown dress, and was buried with several statues. Her hair was braided elaborately and she had a few white hairs, perhaps indicating emotional stress. She and the others are believed to have been drugged with , a maize beer, along with coca leaves, before being abandoned on the mountain.

Boy mummy

Some of the boy's clothes contained vomit mixed with blood, suggesting that he may have suffered from a pulmonary edema. It is believed that he died from suffocation. He was the only one of the mummies to be tied up, and a piece of cloth had been pulled around him tightly enough to crack his ribs and dislocate his pelvis.


actually lets cut the middle man, and here's wiki with a good list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy

Speaking of vulnerability to fire, has it ever bugged anyone else how plant/wood based creatures are vulnerable to fire in the majority of game mechanics?
Okay yes this is petty and irrelevant , but really you hold a lighter under a log and a lighter under your arm and see what gets fucked up first. And that's presuming the log is dry, a green log is gonna require a heap massive fire to get it going, the type a human would start to get fucked up just by being near. Something less treeish and more leafy planty would have delicate frondy bits to burn, but still not any worse than skin, eyeballs (which can boil), and then fat reserves just under that skin. Some models of human spontaneous combustion have a nylon item of clothing burning long enough to  get the fat going, and then its a big old human candle.
Its probably the precedent from  Ents being scared of forest fire , which if they are slow moving , would be scary. But forest fires are scary full stop. Except to eucalyptus trees. Those bastards actually like forest fires, have evolved thin papery bark  in order to spread the fire quickly past them and onto other trees. They also drop a lot of branches, aka kindling, and the sap is an effective fire starter, and , although maybe I'm thinking of a African tree here, can explode into fire by itself if the day gets hot enough. Eucalyptus seeds require a scotching to germinate, thus after a forest fire, when all the other trees have turned into fertilizing ash, the shoots of eucalyptus immediately spring up.

I digress,

 
Erinyes is nearly finished but going wrong.