#athousandthousandislands

[zedecksiew]

Caving Dead

Caves love cavers but find them difficult to comprehend. Mistakes occur.

They may not get that you are stuck. They may feel your scratches as amour. They may hear your dying gasps as climax.

Happy to tryst with so exotic a lover, they accept your dead flesh as a seed, and raise your children as their own.

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SKINFILLERS Ordinary. Frail. Slinking, sucking, smelling. Smothering kiss. Unprotected.

Like a leather jacket pulling itself up onto your bed.

They wrap about your neck, go for your face, guzzle air from your lips. They swell as you asphyxiate. If punctured, your breath escapes them in phrases:

1: “Watch out that’s pretty loose.” 2: “I’ve swam it before it’s fine.” 3: “Do you have the torch resin?” 4: “It’s a dead knot I know knots.” 5: “Smell that smells weird right.” 6: “Just need to warm up some.”

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NAILSTEALERS Ordinary. Frail. Sneaking, stealing, caressing. Cracked nails. Squirming speed.

Cobra-sized, inch-worming, nails pulled open – mouths.

They eat caving equipment: rope; picks; pitons you used to mark the way. They carry whatever they’ve eaten, undigested, fat like snakes that have swallowed rats.

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HEELDIGGERS Ordinary. Frail. Lying, leaping, kicking. Shins. Unprotected.

Legs, sticking out of rubble. Tragicomic victim of a cave-in?

Get close and it jumps you, bites your nape. It rides your shoulders. It is a burden: harm dealt to it manifests also in your thighs, your feet. Will take magic to remove.

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REACH OF THE ROACH GOD is now at the point where we have to cut stuff for length. These caving dead got the axe, unfortunately.

They were meant to occupy a similar niche as the very excellent Panic Attack Jacks from Patrick's "Veins Of The Earth" -- in that they are visceral reminders of the dangers of merely traversing caves.

But much simpler, more hantu-like? I wanted them to feel more like fauna than undead. The spirits of the dead are just a different kind of living creature, after all ...

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( Image sources: Panel from Grant Morrison's "The Mystery Play"; Art by Mun Kao; https://twitter.com/MydayNewbie/status/1250346992267481088 )

[zedecksiew]

Stalagmite-folk + Process Notes: Overloading the Random Table

Some orientation:

Stalagmite-folk are living, ambulatory speleothems. (They don’t have legs, but glide over mineral surfaces like ice on a floor.) They are organised into families: sibling sets, issue of a local stone-spirit father and the divine Mother Water.

Blind Elephant is a stone father whose marriage has come to a Bad End. So his children, the Blind Elephant family, are exiles.

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BLIND ELEPHANT, REFUGEE FAMILY

Maybe they’ve met flesh-people before. Or heard stories about daylanders. The novelty that you are distracts them from their troubles.

They know you to be:

Sightless, underground. They keep trying to sneak up and startle you.

Wild and murderous. He treats you like he would a dangerous animal.

Exotic specimens. “Your hair is so pretty! Can I touch it? Wow, stringy!”

Fascinatingly disgusting. “So you cry from your crotch? Can we see?”

Inferior in every way. She will speak over you, and never let you finish.

Poor, malnourished. They keep trying to feed you stalagmite-folk foods.

They have:

A peridot afro so big it messes with their balance. They indulge in too much olivine candy.

Shoulders sprouting jagged carbuncle spikes. The new pyrope supplements are working.

Corrosive breath. They have lava-folk friends, and love the taste of their acid-rich cuisine.

Painful joints. Every move, they grind like a rusty hinge. They drink too many bug slurries.

Rusty skin, streaks at a touch. They bulked up on iron ore, but have stopped working out.

A glowing body, searing hot. Torch resin is a narcotic to stalagmite-folk. They’re an addict.

They travelled with few belongings. Including:

A pet – a rock-porcupine. Will sniff out and try to steal metal objects, to chew on as snacks.

A club of ensorcelled citrine. Any spot it impacts transforms and shatters into yellow jewels.

A set of vials, filled with condiment powders. Any would lacerate your lungs, if breathed in.

A set of finely carved wooden serving platters. Easily scratched. Utterly impervious to heat.

A sword of witch salt. The first flesh creature it touches immediately mummifies. It shatters.

An unfinished younger sister they’d been sculpting. Without parents she will never be born.

Back in their own halls they made their living:

At a crystal farm. They can show you a clear path through the fields. Their family is known for fist-sized amethyst grapes and extra-sharp salt lilies.

As a glassmith. Their workshops were hells of fire and unbreathable fume. They made toy figurines so fine these come alive at their command.

Angling moonfish. The best fishing spots are always in the loneliest caverns; they could lead you down shortcuts or detours known to nobody else.

Practising the gut art. Using their stomachs as chemistry labs, they’d guzzle ingredients, and regurgitate potions. They kept stores of rare materials.

In a crude-oil mine. A nasty business. That liquid demon-stuff harbours all manner of perilous horrors. They are scarred, and trained in fighting arts.

At the creche. Not everybody in a family is interested in caring for younger siblings. Their creche-hall is full of nooks, to play hide-and-seek in.

Few will admit to you the terror they are all feeling. They blindly followed their stone father in his retreat. Without a home, with a wrecked family – who are they, really?

+++ +++ +++

PROCESS NOTES: OVERBURDENING THE RANDOM TABLE

As we crawl to a complete draft for REACH OF THE ROACH GOD, the problem I’ve had to solve for most often is space.

Word count => Ballooning page count ==> Added dimensions and weight ===> Shipping costs we may not be able to afford.

I blew much of my word budget on ROTRG first three sections. Not a bad thing, considering these are the full adventure modules. But it does mean things are getting tight, space-wise.

The random NPC generator up-post appears in our stalagmite-folk gazetteer. It is the only set of random tables that chapter gets. It has to:

Generate individual NPCs (who are these stalagmite-folk refugees?)

Detail a specific community (what is the Blind Elephant family like?)

Model non-specific communities and culture (what are stalagmite-folk like, in general?)

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World-building via random table, I guessss?

A powerful RPG design technology. Brian Yaksha discusses it a lot; his Rakehell is an object lesson for how the principle works.

Swathes of Luka Rejec’s Ultraviolet Grasslands are conveyed via random table. Emmy Allen’s toolbox setting books, Gardens Of Ynn and Stygian Library. The most robust RPG settings tend to do this? It simply makes the most sense.

My favourite recent example is Scrap Princess’s inspired-by-Shadowrun-and-2020s-Muskian-disaster-capitalism NooFutra:

A book of tables and tables and tables of bonkers ideas that mutate play and its world in wonderful ways. (Is it NooFutra or NooFutura? Anyway: it really is wonderful.)

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One thing that I like to do with the random generators in A Thousand Thousand Islands, because it fits the setting’s themes of porousness, anti-taxonomy, “one thing is always in relation to another thing”-ness –

Which I am now forced to do with ROTRG, out of necessity, simply because

I Just Don’t Have SPACE A R G H !

Is this: all the random generators in the book are consciously written as multiple tables, spliced together. Tables that, in a different, better-delineated RPG work, would exist as separate things / lists / rolls – designed for separate purposes and to output separate results.

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Presented here are the rough thoughts I had in mind, as I was making these d6 tables:

1: Sightless, underground. They keep trying to sneak up and startle you. 2: Wild and murderous. He treats you like he would a dangerous animal. 3: Exotic specimens. “Your hair is so pretty! Can I touch it? Wow, stringy!” 4: Fascinatingly disgusting. “So you cry from your crotch? Can we see?” 5: Inferior in every way. She will speak over you, and never let you finish. 6: Poor, malnourished. They keep trying to feed you stalagmite-folk foods.

This a reaction table + personality generator. (But then it’s a poor reaction table that isn’t also a personality generator.)

Also it’s a micro-aggressions table, meant to communicate how the stalagmite-folk are inclined to treat flesh-based persons. They aren’t Racists. They simply belong to a Superior Civilisation, you know? In a way it is their Burden.

1: A peridot afro so big it messes with their balance. They indulge in too much olivine candy. 2: Shoulders sprouting jagged carbuncle spikes. The new pyrope supplements are working. 3: Corrosive breath. They have lava-folk friends, and love the taste of their acid-rich cuisine. 4: Painful joints. Every move, they grind like a rusty hinge. They drink too many bug slurries. 5: Rusty skin, streaks at a touch. They bulked up on iron ore, but have stopped working out. 6: A glowing body, searing hot. Torch resin is a narcotic to stalagmite-folk. They’re an addict.

Physical attributes generator. (Meeting a minimum standard of gameability, because those are the “cosmetic” details players remember. So not “big afro guy”, but “guy with afro so big it makes him a liability while we’re spelunking”. Stuff like that.)

Plus a list of foodstuffs – detailing the stalagmite-folk’s general relationship to food, and alluding to their relationship with other groups (torch resin would be supplied by the pale-folk).

This here’s an example of word-count constraints determining creature design. The stalagmite-folk have this “you are what you eat” thing going on, mainly because I realised I could merge two random tables together if they did.

1: A pet – a rock-porcupine. Will sniff out and try to steal metal objects, to chew on as snacks. 2: A club of ensorcelled citrine. Any spot it impacts transforms and shatters into yellow jewels. 3: A set of vials, filled with condiment powders. Any would lacerate your lungs, if breathed in. 4: A set of finely carved wooden serving platters. Easily scratched. Utterly impervious to heat. 5: A sword of witch salt. The first flesh creature it touches immediately mummifies. It shatters. 6: An unfinished younger sister they’d been sculpting. Without parents she will never be born.

Simple treasure / magic items table.

But treasure tables aren’t simple anywhere, are they? Info on what the NPC has; what they can do, in play; material culture; what’s valuable versus what’s not in this culture; all that good shit.

1: At a crystal farm. They can show you a clear path through the fields. Their family is known for fist-sized amethyst grapes and extra-sharp salt lilies. 2: As a glassmith. Their workshops were hells of fire and unbreathable fume. They made toy figurines so fine these come alive at their command. 3: Angling moonfish. The best fishing spots are always in the loneliest caverns; they could lead you down shortcuts or detours known to nobody else. 4: Practising the gut art. Using their stomachs as chemistry labs, they’d guzzle ingredients, and regurgitate potions. They kept stores of rare materials. 5: In a crude-oil mine. A nasty business. That liquid demon-stuff harbours all manner of perilous horrors. They are scarred, and trained in fighting arts. 6: At the creche. Not everybody in a family is interested in caring for younger siblings. Their creche-hall is full of nooks, to play hide-and-seek in.

Professions table. Generates an NPC’s skill set.

It also tells you what their work-space was like. Considering that our stalagmite-folk gazetteer strongly suggests a “go explore the Blind Elephant’s home caves and figure out what’s going on” adventure – this tells where a particular NPC could be useful, should they tag along.

And those spatial descriptions also mean that this conveniently serves as a generator for Blind Elephant geography. You could roll on the table a coupla times, look at the spread of your results, and determine whether the Blind Elephant are a family of fisherpersons or miners or artisans.

Also meaning that, possibly, maybe, in theory, you could roll up any stalagmite-folk settlement, since the professions list is meant to communicate typical economic activities that the culture engages in.

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In my mind I see this stuff as an extension of Brendan / Necropraxis’s overloaded encounter die. That’s a keystone bit of design, in service of RPG procedure and its streamlining.

Could you do the same with RPG setting / adventure design?

What if your weather table was your location generator? What would that look like?

You’d lose granularity. (You’re removing a roll; setting certain weather-to-place relationships in stone). But what would you gain in terms of building the character of the world? (Hail always falls around the region’s stone megaliths, wonder why?)

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Does any of this work? Is any of this useful for anybody but myself? Don’t know.

Definitely these splicings push towards more specificity – so designers who are trying to make more toolbox-y things would find this dumb / counterproductive.

Is it useful to me?

I know I’m susceptible to overburdening a text. Not information-dense, just dense? Prose that does too much implying, and has left too much unsaid. Descriptions with too few explicit guardrails for players’ / GMs’ imaginations, they just never bother getting onboard.

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It has been useful, so far. I’m reasonably happy with our draft of the stalagmite-folk gazetteer. I think I experienced something not entirely unlike fun, while writing said draft. (Writing sucks ass; I never have fun writing.)

And I didn’t bust my word-count limit, this time. So there’s that.

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(Art by Mun Kao. The stalagmite-folk are part of REACH OF THE ROACH GOD, our first book; preorders are open.)

[zedecksiew]

Dendeng, In Search Of His Wife

Dendeng was very vain. His wife’s death made him angry; she dared leave him without warning.

He wanted her back. He would break into the City of Peace. A caretaker of that place tried to stop him at the gate, saying:

“If you steal from death you rob your own soul.”

But the caretaker was pale, and scrawny, and spoke softly. So Dendeng paid them no heed.

On the outskirts of the City of Peace he came upon two soldiers. Their spears clashed like hearts beating. Dendeng demanded they stop to show him the way.

The first soldier said: “We desire war. More and more! Give us your shield. Give us your sword.”

The second soldier asked: “What is more precious? The strength of your hand? Or your wife’s touch?”

Dendeng did not like tests. He was mighty, and not in battle only. So he gave the first soldier his sword, and he gave the second soldier his shield. The soldiers led him to a palace by the River of Hours. At the door there he was greeted by two maidens. Their hair hung like wisps of mountain mist. Dendeng smiled to seduce them.

The first maiden said: “We desire beauty. That which we have lost! Give us your hair. Give us your skin.” The second maiden said: “What is more precious? The love of others? Or your wife’s loyalty?”

Dendeng considered their words. He decided he was through with lustful needs. So he gave the first maiden his hair, and he gave the second maiden his skin.

The maidens announced Dendeng at the Court of Silence. There sat a prince upon a dais. The prince’s stillness was like a jade figurine; he did not move. Dendeng understood that the prince was mute.

Dendeng asked himself: What was more precious? His loud voice? Or his wife’s laughter?

Knowing the answer, Dendeng offered his tongue to the prince. This the prince accepted, and swallowed, and in Dendeng’s own voice the prince called out: “Come, beloved.”

So Dendeng’s wife appeared.

But she did not run to Dendeng’s arms. Instead she stepped onto the dais, and sat by the prince’s side. For now she was the prince’s wife.

“O Dendeng, who was my husband,” she said. “In life I loved you. Yet you beat me, and went with other women, and treated me as property. Your words were as torture to me. So in death I will do differently.”

At her command soldiers drove Dendeng from the Court of Silence with his own shield, his own sword. And Dendeng fled the palace and the River of Hours.

Finally Dendeng stood before the gate of the City of Peace. There he was unable to leave. He was voiceless, skinless, weak and stumbling – as low as the caretakers of that place.

Dendeng was too ashamed to face the living world again. None of his vanity remained.

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( Image source: http://www.collin-key.com/portfolios/toraja-funerals/ )

[zedecksiew]

What Do You Find At The Monk's Home?

MONK HOUSES

Outside: vegetables, flower pots. Inside: cots, partition screens. Noteworthy:

1: A heaped pile of orange robes, soiled. 2: Six tiny deities, silver, sharing an altar. 3: A bronze mirror, the width of a pomelo. 4: Letters on a desk. Addressed to a son. 5: A bow, with a quiver of poison arrows. 6: Three sets of black oversashes. Fresh.

Also hidden:

1: Paper talismans, folded into squares, tiled under the sleeping mat. Red ink, prevents bad dreams. Sepia ink, repels ghostly spirits. 2: A small clay jar, linen stopper, in loose earth by one of the stilts. Fish sauce, spicy and rich; if opened its aroma will overpower a room. 3: Dresses, at the bottom of a trunk. Silk brocade, silver thread, swordfish motifs. The swordfish marks their owner as a lowlander royal. 4: A diary. Invisible ink; writings appear when the passphrase is spoken: “Odoyoq.” Details torrid wet dreams starring a roach-faced hunk. 5: Toys, under a board. Phallic-shaped statuary of sumptuous women in sexual congress with snarling beasts. Stained, rubbed smooth. 6: An iron staff, swaddled, stowed in the rafters. One of the cursed Thousand Rods: turns any killing tool it touches into a copy of itself.

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(Part of REACH OF THE ROACH GOD -- our first A Thousand Thousand Islands book, WIP, and currently crowdfunding.)

[zedecksiew]

Guardians at the Temple of the Spider

Statues sculpted in the likeness of figures from Udarava’s life -- and therefore holy. They expect veneration. You may give them suggestions, never commands.

In their eyes, monks of the temple are limned in moonlight. To their noses, those who have broken temple rules stink of rotting meat.

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DOOR GUARDIANS

Buxom facsimiles of Sacred Deer, in high-relief brass, built into their teak doors.

In metallophone voices they finish each other’s sentences. They refuse to let laypersons through. “Gawking at the Temple’s distress.” “Will not nourish your soul.”

Unless you prove you can assist the monks. You do this by assisting them, first. They want:

1: “Scrubs.” “Our skin needs exfoliating.” Removing the verdigris takes a day. 2: “Treats.” “Tamarind candy, extra chewy.” That was Sacred Deer’s favourite. 3: “Garlands.” “Strung from jasmine, orchids, champaca.” One for every antler. 4: “Witnesses.” “Eight credible persons.” Willing to testify to your moral nature. 5: “Arms.” “Tridents are not enough.” Bring them weapons with better magics. 6: “Art.” “Sing to us a story.” If they are moved they will shed tears of mercury.

A pair of door guardians watches every inter-precinct gate.

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ROOF GUARDIANS

Finial approximations of Laughing Serpent, slithering across tiles, hanging off eaves.

No speech. As playful as otters. Harm them and they curse you: the next time it rains, the downpour curves towards you. Even a drizzle hits like a punch.

One roof guardian for every named building. Confined to their own roof. They freeze into dead metal if removed, and revive when they are returned to a reasonably roof-like structure.

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STONE GUARDIANS

Anthropomorphised versions of Vigorous Spider. Their mouths smile. They do not speak.

Three heads, three torsos, two legs. They move like stop-motion monsters. Each is subtly different; this one has:

1: Iron talons like grappling hooks. They can climb. 2: A crown on each head, shaped like stupas. Gold. 3: Tusks like a boar. They spit fleshing-eating venom. 4: A rhino mount. Its horn breaks bone with a touch. 5: Wings on their backs. Stone, stubby and useless. 6: A belt with a ruby. If pressed to it you fall asleep.

Sneaking past their four pairs of eyes is tough. They enforce Temple rules. They chase down any rulebreakers they smell, and drag these sinners to the Penance Hall.

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(For A Thousand Thousand Islands.)

( Image sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihaspati https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%81ga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phra_Phrom )

[zedecksiew]

Roach Maladies

Odoyoq was never mightiest among his siblings; he prevailed by other means. Ma Blat’s brood carries particular virulent malaises.

You are showing symptoms:

1: Eggs. The site of your wound swells. After a day, a roach swarm emerges. Concentrate, and you feel what they feel. 2: Belly spasm. Hereafter, when you defecate, you pass roach-like, jar-shaped droppings. This symptom is incurable. 3: Parasites. Wriggling under your skin. You require twice your usual rations. Each day the worms double in size. 4: Fever. Breaks in three days. Hereafter, you sweat milk. Attracts roaches. If they drink it they obey you for an hour. 5: Vomiting. Last a day. Hereafter, only food that has gone through another creature’s digestive tract will nourish you. 6: Rashes. Spreads from the site of your wound. The itch is distracting; after three days, you only think of scratching.

Attempting treatment requires a clean environment.

Catch three roach maladies? Reality itself begins to see you as part of Ma Blat's brood; roach repellents work against you.

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( Image source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/740912576202206312/ )

[zedecksiew]

Demon's Ex

You hunted demons. Then you fell in love with one.

When you battled the earth shook; when you took them to your bed the earth shivered. What beauty! What glory! Of course it ended badly. Such romances always do. They forced your hand. Did you destroy them?

Your lover is gone. They left you a parting gift: a baby, in your belly.

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You are pregnant -- though not affected in typical ways. You may be of any gender. You have HD, saves and proficiency progression as a Fighter.

Your lovemaking was vigorous. +2 strength or +2 dexterity. You are more careful with your company, now. +1 wisdom.

You are always hungry. You must eat enough for three persons every day, else begin to starve. Your baby fears discovery. You have no scent. You have advantage in hiding against priests and holy persons.

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You have lost all your demon-hunting arts, except:

1: Hornet’s Hive. Speak a magic word. All arrowheads you have touched explode, like bombs. 2: Viper In Wait. Standing still, you take the guise of furnishings appropriate to where you are. 3: Buffalo Horns. Once per day, your double punch has enough force to pierce a fortress wall. 4: Cockerel’s Head. Steady on your feet, you can never be knocked over, and you never slip. 5: Seven Petals. Conceal seven weapons on your person, regardless of size or circumstance. 6: Banyan’s Shade. Once per day, you may move an ally’s ills and injuries onto your own body.

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Despite yourself, you still think of your ex-lover, their:

1: Tusks -- girthy, sensually curved. You have an ivory charm that attracts boars. +2 to checks involving the capture and care of beasts. Nausea hits you at random. 2: Low growl, soft as a dream. You have a scroll of love poems from a dead city. +2 to checks involving songs and extinct languages. Nightmares haunt you nightly. 3: Scent like night-blooming flowers. You have a jasmine blossom that never wilts. +2 to checks involving floriculture and finding spirits. Your nose is always blocked. 4: Bronze skin, hot as sun-heated metal. You have a bronze shield, still warm. +2 to checks involving armour and metallurgy. Your nipples hurt and leak thin milk. 5: Genitals, studded with polyhedral jewels. You have a ruby that gently vibrates. +2 to checks involving carnal acts and inflicting pain. You keep needing to urinate. 6: Golden fur, billowing without the breeze. Actually gold; you’ve kept a tuft. +2 to checks involving wind and flowing liquids. Your temper hangs on a hair trigger.

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(Another character class for A Thousand Thousand Islands, like the Wise Serpent. Art by Mun Kao, of course.

Ostensibly these are for modern D&D editions. But I've been trying to write class abilities that aren't tied to specific system things; sticking to natural-language statements as often as possible.

If you are wondering how this demon hunter's pregnancy affects them -- am reserving that stuff for 2nd level and beyond.)

[zedecksiew]

Udarava Romances The Spider

In those days demons haunted our country. Night was feared and dawn dreaded, for every morning brought new tears: a missing mother, an absent son, a shredded cradle --

And never a body enough to bury.

On such days Udarava would not control his temper. As evil stalked the land, his heart flashed hot. With wanton arts his dagger bit demon flesh:

Cleaving head and horn; Snapping tooth and talon; Puncturing palm and pit.

Three moons Udarava danced his war dance. His steps led him to the mountain fastness of Vigorous Spider, who was then a mighty princess of demon-kind. She called from on high, when she spied him at her gate:

“O warrior! Why should we fight? Are we not kin, in nature? See what skill you have, in making violence!”

So Udarava looked at the path he left behind him. He saw:

Homes breached and burning; Fields stamped and spoiled; People mute and mangled.

Party to such evil, Udarava wept. His heart drowned in regret. He called out to his mother, Sacred Moon, begging forgiveness. Instead, her spirit spoke in his memory:

“O my son! You carry your father’s blood. You do not carry his nature! You need not continue his sins!”

Recalling this, Udarava knew peace. He knelt there on the mountainside. When Vigorous Spider fell upon him, he did not flinch -- he did not fight, though he was:

Squeezed by eight arms; Pierced by eight spears; Kissed by eight mouths.

With his legs and hands Udarava returned Vigorous Spider’s embrace. He would not let go. Though he whimpered, though he murmured, she could not get free. She found his submission very heavy.

And their weight together became so great, the ground itself could not hold them. A crack opened in the mountain. Into this crack toppled both warrior and princess, entwined --

Never to be seen for a hundred years.

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( Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thiania_bhamoensis_8.jpg )

[zedecksiew]

Wise Serpent

You are a cobra and therefore divine.

You were raised in a temple. The child of a supplicant trod on your tail, a toddler’s mistake -- but you bit him for his sacrilege, nonetheless. Maybe he died. Maybe you feel guilty.

What is the meaning of snake-hood? Is venom a necessary part of who you are? You have decided to leave your temple. Life abroad will test your answers.

+++

You are longer than two persons are tall. You have HD, saves, and proficiency progression as a Fighter.

You are quicker than screams. +2 dexterity. Your form describes creation. +1 wisdom.

You are a prince among serpents. You have advantage in interactions with snakes and snake-like creatures.

Your bite is fearful. d6 damage, delivers venom. A living victim exposed to your venom must save every ten minutes or suffer:

1: Blurred vision. They are blinded. 2: Vertigo. They are knocked prone. 3: Agony. Disadvantage on all checks. 4: Somnolence. They fall unconscious. 5: Nerve death. Full paralysis of a limb. 6: Visions. They see you as a dead relative.

A victim keeps rolling saves until they receive treatment, or a day has passed. If they suffer all six symptoms, they die.

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Your temple was dedicated to the divine principle of:

1: Appetite. You may home in, compass-like, on any creature whose skin you have tasted. 2: Grace. You traverse vertical inclines and ceilings as easily as you would level ground. 3: Healing. Your venom, dried into salts, neutralises poisons from any other living creature. 4: Change. Once per day, you may put on human form. This is quite clumsy. Lasts an hour. 5: Rain. You may control a liquid volume equal to your weight, moving it like another body. 6: Wealth. Your hood buds two pearls every month. Crushed, a pearl casts a random spell.

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Your first love was the temple’s:

1: Warden. You left them devastated. +2 to checks involving petty theft and pursuit. You have a whistle local authorities always hear. 2: Scrivener. It is still awkward. +2 to checks involving calligraphy and ciphers. You have a pen that only accepts living blood as ink. 3: Priestess. She pitied you, really. +2 to checks involving rituals and flattery. You have a codex considered obscene by most sects. 4: Sculptor. An unrequited crush. +2 to checks involving wood and whitesmithy. You have a bird statue, bone. It screeches gibberish. 5: Steward. You gorged on each other. +2 to checks involving sweets and ledgers. You have a jar of honey, a gift from a wasp god. 6: Piper. Your heart will never recover. +2 to checks involving patterns and choreography. You have a pet viper, faithful as any dog.

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(Another character class for A Thousand Thousand Islands, like the Quick Jackfruit. Was going to writing each one for a different RPG ruleset -- but I just fell into a D&D groove, I guess. There’s always the next one.

Mun Kao’s art suggests this snake is a charmer (geddit?), so it will likely get class abilities related to beguiling “disciples”.

These characters will probably get cleaned up and posted as free downloads on the webstore, eventually.)

[zedecksiew]

Exports of Youngest Hara

Fruit crops have lower tariffs. But few communities can repurpose land and plant trees at scale. The big orchards belong to aristos or foreign firms.

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OIL COCONUT

The water inside an oil coconut never forms flesh. It thickens into a fluid the taste and consistency of pus. But it burns fragrant, it burns smokeless.

Oil-coconut milk fills lamps throughout the region. Increasing cultivation is a hazard; the palm itself is flammable, tall, prone to lightning strikes.

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MONITORFRUIT

So-called because of its scaly skin; when ripe it is patterned with white circles, like chain-links. Dry and powdery lobes, within.

Used as a remedy for food poisoning and diarrhoea. Never eat more than three at a go. As a distilled concentrate it causes severe, possibly fatal constipation.

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BLACK COIR

Sometimes a palm puts out black coconuts. This fruit is ordinary in most respects -- except coir made from its husk looks like matted hair.

Black coir may stand in for real hair, in charms that require it. Say the name of the person you claim your false strand comes from. Reality shrugs, lets your lie pass.

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PERFUME APPLE

Pear-shaped, bright pink, essentially tasteless. Mainly valued for its scent, which is faint and floral. But somehow overrides all other odours.

The smell of the perfume apple frustrates hunting dogs. It masks the reek of a corpse. Prevents smelling salts and inhaled poisons from working.

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PIQUE ARRACK

Crunchy, never larger than a thumb -- the pique gandaria is the sourest fruit you will ever taste. Traditionally used to cure inebriation.

Mixing it with arrack produces a stimulating beverage: at once intoxicating and clarifying. A favourite of scholars cramming for exams.

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HAUNTED PLANTAIN

Sorcery may rip a banana goddess from her grove. The plants she leaves behind are orphans, desperate for love; they trap any spirit they can touch.

In their need they consume their prisoner. They bear fruits that bleed, that taste like meat. Officially illegal, yet all the rage in high-society dinner parties.

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(Part of A Thousand Thousand Islands.)

( Image sources: http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/ https://www.growables.org/index.html )

[zedecksiew]

Kuna Nor

Two sextagenerians lounge on their porch. They tease their daughter: a knife with a handle shaped like a smoke wisp.

“Visitors!” Kuna Nor says, as you approach. She longs to meet the wider world.

Her parents fall silent. Peer at you through their cataracts. When they see you are not who they fear -- they unclench their fists.

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RAJI AND SHEKA, CONCERNED PARENTS

Raji was touched by a plague spirit. A wandering monk with a blurred face saved his life. The monk asked for no payment, except the crafting of a small knife.

The monk left before Kuna was finished. So they raised the little knifeling as their own.

Sheka woke from her nap gasping, yesterday. She dreamt of the blurred-face monk. They are coming to take Kuna away.

[zedecksiew]

Oldest Hara

OLDEST HARA’S PEACE

Atop the hill Oldest Hara sang, holding her beguiled; and Youngest Hara swung, knocking off her head --

So was the demon Palalaq slain. Her head went tumbling, tumbling, tumbling.

Watching it tumble away, Oldest Hara felt woe beat his heart, and declared: “O my brother, I can tolerate violence no longer! I will cease adventure, and live my life in peace.”

Understanding each other, Youngest Hara departed, and Oldest Hara remained.

There atop the hill he built his house. And there atop the hill others built their houses also. Because word of Oldest Hara’s voice had called abroad, and many came -- to listen, to learn his songs, to hear him speak of peace.

But in the vastness of the world are those for whom peace is weakness. And these too came to the hill where Oldest Hara built his house.

Three river bandits, deaf to beauty; seven plague spirits, devoted to bile -- they roughhoused and robbed among the hillfolk, and Oldest Hara’s words would not stop them.

Watching such harm, Oldest Hara felt agony slice his heart, and cried: “O my brother, in peace I refused to look at power! Who now will protect my people for me?”

So the demon Palalaq reappeared, in answer. Her head came tumbling, tumbling, tumbling.

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PALALAQ’S HEAD

A lump of meteoric ore: pitted, scored.

The demon Palalaq taught Oldest Hara the arts of iron, murder, and smithy. His three children were forged from chunks of her head.

Smaller flakes go into every blade the town makes. In this way Palalaq is matriarch to every family here.

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(Art by Mun Kao. For A Thousand Thousand Islands.)

[zedecksiew]

Hundred Red Scale

TWELVE TWIST TONGUE, TOURING NOVELIST

He holds up two fingers and stamps his feet. “Twelve,” he says. Wiggles his head so his hat wobbles. “Twist.” Tastes the air. “Tongue.”

The audience applauds. “Thank you, thank you!” Twelve Twist Tongue says. His mouth and voice are not in sync; he speaks like a foreign-language dub. “Glad to be with you all. My first time in your city!”

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Twelve Twist Tongue holds up a scroll. The figures within are woven into the cloth, in browns and bright reds. As he unrolls the right side he rolls up the left -- it is a moving picture, tableau after tableau, in sequence.

He begins: “In the time before time ...”

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HUNDRED RED SCALE

In the time before time, Pa the man-god swam the breadth of the sea so he could be wed to the goddess Hundred Red Scale.

Hundred Red Scale’s gift was beauty: she had a gleaming hide, each a different shade of crimson.

Hundred Red Scale’s genius was love: she learned passion from her mother the earth, and practiced her lissom arts with orchid and otter, tiger and tern, heaving river and hard mountain. Lover to all, she was loved by all. 

This made her husband unhappy. Pa the man-god felt jealousy. Swimming the sea, on their return journey, she coupled with every fish they met. And the fishes raised hymns to Hundred Red Scale. 

Hearing praise for her, but none for him, her husband became enraged. He murdered her: cut off her head and hands and tail. Broke her teeth. Drank her blood.

After which Pa the man-god departed, leaving her pieces there, counting on the sea to swallow his sin.

But the waves fell in love with Hundred Red Scale, even as they ate her. They could not forget. Where they broke they whispered songs of her love -- and in such places mangroves grew:

Trees whose bark still weep the colour of the goddess Hundred Red Scale’s beauty.

(Art by Mun Kao. For A Thousand Thousand Islands.)

[zedecksiew]

Little Red Scale

EXAM DAY

The temple on Little Red Scale teaches weaving and dyeing. These are holy arts. And lucrative arts. Textiles are the Hundred Red Scales’ primary export.

So admission is competitive. Towards the end of the dry season candidates gather. You must dress in self-made clothing: plain, in sepia or red.

You should bring self-made gifts: curries or cakes; fresh fruits and greens; tools or furniture you planed yourself. The temple’s students are also its labour. Life skills definitely count in your favour.

You and other candidates must swim to the island at high tide. Shivering, your tribute hopefully still dry, you wait in a line on the narrow beach.

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Ultimately, the priests judge your cloth. An examiner scrutinises your soaked sarongs:

How well its weft winds through warp; How evenly colour covers its breadth; If the dye is fast, or leached by water.

The faults in your work may seem infinitesimal. The examiner may seem arbitrary or biased. They may prefer monitor-folk. They may prefer women.

Students will spend years cloistered on Little Red Scale. Rejects are dismissed. There are no appeals. Try again next year.

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(Art by Mun Kao. Part of A Thousand Thousand Islands.)

[zedecksiew]

Fish-Sauce Spirit

Sauce spirits dance in urns of anchovies and seaweed-salt and spice. Over the course of a year they transform these elements into an umber fluid of complex umami and intense odour.

Be careful! The smell will bowl you over.

The saucier leans over the mouth of an urn. She is listening to her spirits. This year, they tell her, they would like to be fed:

1: Sea grapes, from the mer-king’s private kelpyard. 2: A pint of blood from a child, not yet two years old.   3: Glowing mangosteens, from a forest-god’s grove. 4: A pot of sorghum wine, rescued from a shipwreck. 5: Tamarind paste, flavoured with a daughter’s tears.  6: A garland of flowers, fresh from a knight’s funeral. 7: Glutinous-rice cakes, made by a mountain hermit. 8: A banana heart, cut from a haunted banana plant. 9: Hairs plucked from the Monkey King’s sacred pate. 10: A scroll of ancient scripture, burnt into a fine ash.

The resulting sauce cannot be described in mere words. Kings will war to have its flavour at their dinner table.

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FISH-SAUCE DEMON

Anchovy souls are hungry ghosts. Sometimes a sauce spirit stumbles -- and is eaten. Thus is a demon born.

The urn shatters. A living tide of putrefying fry sweeps the deck. Smashes the other pots, swallows the saucier. It wants to taste your flavour. Every flavour!

It bites with a million tiny teeth. It may:

1: Gleam, invitingly. You cannot help yourself; you move closer.  2: Leap. Jumping down your throat it will wear you as a puppet. 3: Throw pseudopods. Its touch strips paint, and skin, and flesh.  4: Ooze, slow as molasses. So sticky, a bear could not get free.   5: Wobble like jelly. Its stench punches you with physical weight.  6: Shiver in frustration. All prepared foods spoil in its presence. 7: Spurt at your face. Its stink stains your spirit with terrible luck. 8: Whip tentacles about. These slice wood and bone and steel. 9: Slip into a body of water. Reappears on any connected shore. 10: Ripple, mesmerisingly. Meat you’ve eaten today reanimates.

It learns more of these things, with every living creature it tastes. All it eats it adds to itself.

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(Art by Mun Kao.)

[zedecksiew]

The Slave-Royal Trade

DUSTI-DUSTA’S SLAVERS

It is a city ruled by weretigers, in a folded lowland valley. It is a mountain of forgotten gods, unassailable except by air. It is an island you reach, after breathing your last breath.

In every story told about Dusti-Dusta, details change. Its servants are hidden: faces permanently blurred; voices as if run through a modulator. They are difficult to remember -- was one tall, and the other thin? Was there one missing a limb?

Dusti-Dusta trades in slaves. No ordinary slaves. These slavers are particular about pedigree. They only trade in royalty.

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SLAVE ROYALTY

Power begets power. Divinity often colours the blood of kings, invests them with majesty and magic. Royal saliva fortifies any potion.

It is now the height of fashion to own slaves of a royal lineage. A flex of enormous extravagance -- your pet prince must have servants of his own; paraphernalia suited to his station. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Not all of Dusti-Dusta’s wares are genuine. Many are lowborn, trained to play the part. Method acting works: if you binge and brag like a queen, can reality tell the difference?

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(Art by Mun Kao.

Part of A Thousand Thousand Islands. We have a website, now; check it out pls!)