#rowand rook and deckard

[delverschoicettrpg]

Filip's Fantastic Locations: Draconic Reserve Y-127 (Heart: The City Beneath)

Tier: 2 or 3 Domains: Desolate, Cursed Default Stress: D6 in the Ruby Splinter's fortress, D8 in the cavernous depths as yet untouched by any delver Haunts: None

The Heart has a love of stockpiling rare and impossible things: objects of art, weapons of techno-arcane destruction, magical beans. On occasion, the depths closest to its centre act as arcs of species long-extinct elsewhere; but what its inhabitants remember in tale and song, the Heart renders unto its own oozing approximation of reality.

The cavernous depth now known as Draconic Reserve Y-127 began its existence thus. Perhaps it would have remained so, a repository from which great dragons would venture off into the furthest reaches of the Heart and the wilder world. That was not meant to be. When Dagon Ashre, disgraced former alchemist of Spire, chanced upon the fathomless cavern full of draconic eggs waiting to hatch, she recognised in them an opportunity to expand her research. Her tinkering with the eggs culminated in the creation of a turbo-drug, kernel. Drawn from the embryotic fluid of dragon eggs and mixed in with the cursed witch-blood of Ashre herself, kernel proved capable of tapping into the collective ancestral memory of all the world's deceased dragons.

Users of kernel may find themselves lost in the memory of long-dead great wyrms to the point of abandoning all notions of their original identities and seeking a solipsistic existence of endless high in the belief that they are great dragons of old. For those of sufficiently strong will, much of value can be drawn from this memory: not only historic truths long-since forgotten but specific skills and morsels of draconic lore.

Dagon Ashre chose to distribute kernel via a band of a splintered cell of druids exiled from Redcap Grove (Heart, p. 148) for their heavy-handedness. Unfortunately for Ashre, her partners in crime soon decided her technical know-how was no reason for the alchemist to call the shots. They have since locked her in her own laboratory and have used threats of violence and starvation to force her to continue her production of the drug. Under the auspices of the so-called Ruby Splinter, the heart of Draconic Reserve Y-127 has been transformed into an insurmountable fortress.

Many hope to control the production of kernel: some within the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, for example, feel that the knowledge to at long last loosen the aelfir's grip on Spire may well be hidden within the collection of draconic memory. The Spire council might meanwhile suspect that the dragons of old knew of terrible and beautiful ways to dominate lesser beings, or experience such debauchery as not even the aelfir know. They would gladly learn these ways.

Still others seek to do away with the kernel trade entirely--drug lords of Spire such as the Threadneedle Sisters would gladly see this gaping wound into their bottom line closed. If the accursed cavern where the drug is produced were to be sealed off permanently…well, good riddance.

Somewhere, perhaps, a few souls even care for the plight of the endless draconic eggs fated to be rendered for a mere ingredient in the latest drug craze to come over the Cities Beneath and Above.

Special Rules:

Imbibing kernel allows any Delver to roll with mastery on one task of their choice at the cost of D10 Mind Stress (Brutal). The dangers of taking kernel, however, are myriad and are thus represented by the fallouts below.

Major Fallout, Mind: Lost in the Draconic Sauce It is impossible to remain sane within the sheer weight of collective draconic memory, so you don't. A part of you no longer believes the narrative of your life, but instead considers a very different one: of flight amid the endless crimson skies of a world much younger than this one, of great and terrible power, and so much more.

Severe Fallout, Mind: A Dragon Reborn: Your doubts are put to rest. The truth has never been more clear: you are a dragon of old. Noble of bearing, powerful beyond measure - a shame that this humanoid husk somehow keeps the power buried. If only you could rip and tear through your body to reach to the core, release your true self from these obscene bonds…

[delverschoicettrpg]

Thinking about Writing about ttRPGs - July 16, 2025

Submitting two articles on ttRPGs this year - one for a journal, one for a collection. One is a shorter essay, more personal, on the flagship titles published by Rowan Rook & Deckard - as requested by the editors. The other is a proper academic article, with all the bells and whistles. I'll be looking at Tolkien adaptations in the ttRPG space - and ain't that exciting?