A Continent of Banalities

Once again it's time for 31 Days Character Creation Challenge! We start with a modern day Whitehack character In Scarlet Town you fight your father’s foes Up on the hill a chilly wind blows You fight ‘em on high and you fight ‘em down in You fight ‘em with whisky, morphine and gin Diane Carlsson lives in Preston, Minnesota, the ‘trout capital of America’. If you’re not an outdoorsy type, there’s not much to do in Preston, but Diane is a girl with a calling of sorts. Diane’s a caver. She’s kinda had to become one, because of her father. When Diane was little, her father would tell her stories of Scarlet Town. It’d be mentioned in bedtime stories, sometimes just in passing. Sleeping Beauty’s castle was in Scarlet Town, and the Hundred Acre Wood was just outside of it. Diane was almost twelve before she realized that Scarlet Town did not figure in any of those stories. As she grew older, the stories changed too. Where they’d been fairy tales in her childhood, her father now talked abo...

The last A Crucible For Silver character (for now). Ravidi Ashbrewer Background: Mendicant Class: Hierophant (1) I was chosen for holy toil from my first breath. We were poor in material things, but rich in spirit. As an infant my mother bathed me in a sacred river, and I emerged free from sin. As such it is my lot to beg my way through life and spread the holy word to the furthest reaches of the world.  No home or family can be mine, for the whole world is my home, and every person my family. And those that truly love me in return give me the meager provisions I require. Like this stew.  At times like these I recall the words of Blessed Ronkor Seven Barrels: “I take the shape of the vessel into which I’m poured. Pour me only into the crystal of Spirit and I shall co… what? In answer to your question, captain, no I can't gather firewood. These hands are cleansed by the Most High! Now I must perform my postprandial meditation…  STR 11 DEX 11 WIL 14 HP 3 Defense +1d4 (armor...

  A fae general for A Crucible of Silver. A bit full of themselves Fenestriel Dudgeon  Background: Retired General Class: Fae Advisor (1) You mortals know nothing of our wars. The wars of the Fae were great and terrible! The Moon is an eyeball that was knocked out  when the Actual fought the Assumed to a standstill. Your ancestors were still picking fleas out of each other's fur. Habit won a pyrrhic victory over Novelty, and you people just said “dear me, it’s raining cats and dogs out there”. Prism warriors beat seven shades of ecru out of beige, and you said “look, a rainbow!” I was a general then, and might still be, if the leaders hadn’t sued for peace. I hammered my sword into a plowshare years ago, until the wars came back to haunt us; that is the thing with metal, it can be reforged. I’ll reforge you mortal rabble too.  STR 10 DEX 17 WIL 6 HP 4  Defense +1d4 (armor) Gear Ancient Armor (1d4) Short Sword (1d6) Symbolic Short Ax Political Enemies Old Wounds ...

A character for A Crucible For Silver , a game that's like a nephew to Into the Odd. It needs a bit more editing in my opinion, but the joy of making characters for it is undeniable. Swithin Goudenrath Background: Famous Actor Class: Rat-Thief (1) Why yes, I am the Swithin Goudenrath. Thank you for asking. Would you like an autograph? How about a recitation of my final soliloquy in Bucktoothed Came the Baroness ? Or maybe a thrilling performance of the final battle in Corlando ? Why am I out here with the Great Unwashed? Discrimination, dear. Plain and simple. I did a sold-out solo show. Alchemical Warfare , exactly. The war widows cried their absolute TITS off. Then some vulgarian whose name shan’t get past my lips wrote a pamphlet. This obscene hack put forth the idea that I was maligning our brave troops, and what was a filthy rat doing on stage anyway? I may have poked him with a salad fork, but that was tit-for-tat. His followers had no call to run me out of the city.  What? ...

 An Alien Brute for White Star. While the book has some 'brute species' on offer (Flash Gordon Hawkmen and SW Wookies in disguise are two of them) I opted for one of my own making. Kazarok, Khergedan bodyguard “Puny fans!” A Khergedan looks a lot like a humanoid rhino. The species is scattered on clan ships, after humans took their home world. Khergedan believe that the final victory will be theirs, since humans scheme and fight amongst themselves, while Khergedan have a sense of species-wide solidarity. Kazarok is an outlier in that he works for a human, the rockstar Mireen Varthek. Other Khergedan would probably have a few choice words for him, but he does not care (much). Kaz is working for music, a beauty ungraspable. Khergedan music is all rhythm. Intricate and complex structures of rhythm sure, but no melody. When he first heard Varthek’s hit “Skull Kisses'', it felt transcendent. Kaz has since learned that the one who creates the music need not themselves be faul...

The following is a knightly order for Paolo Greco's Mageblade! rpg. I think it's an overlooked gem.  I was reminded of the game because Paolo recently put out a third magical grimoire which may be used with the game. The Knights are people of leisure, lovers of good food and drink in ample measure. They are a ruddy-faced, pot-bellied lot who would probably perform all their heroics at the feasting table, if it were not for the pull of Luilekkerland. This place is sometimes called Cockaigne, Schlaraffenland or simply the Big Rock Candy Mountain. It is a place where fine libations flow in streams, sweets grow on bushes, and where quail fly into one’s mouth already roasted. While questing for this layabout's paradise the Knights will save the enslaved, slay dragons and brave moderate discomfort. Devotions Sleep After Toil, Port After Stormy Seas: The Mageblade draws a circle which protects 1d6+Focus number of people from bad weather and wandering predators and vermin. F...

The Driftwood Prince He rose out of the Endless Sea and hid in the shadow of a simple fisherman. The fisherman is a hollow shell of half-remembered mannerisms, and his words are those of the prince. He cannot die while the Prince lives, but is that really a life? The Driftwood Prince is a creature of the sea, and of dreams. Avarice is his one human trait, and even that is incomprehensible. What use would he have of riches? Some say that he hopes to amass enough wealth to ransom his sunken realm from the gods themselves. While he prefers the ostentatious and ornate, the prince will stoop to shake down a beggar as readily as rob the treasure chambers of kings. The Prince only exists once his host has taken something of monetary value from a person. Until that happens he can only lurk in the fisherman’s shadow, using him as a mouthpiece. This means that he might exist for one person, but not another, even if he stands before them both. The Prince may be bought off with riches...

Beyond the sea are towns with towers, carved with lions and lily flowers, And not a soul in all those lonely streets to while away the hours. James Ellroy Flecker - The Gates of Damascus I've decided writing up a monster a day for a month. They're using Mörk Borg stats, but are easy enough to use with other games. I'm using the term "monster" quite loosely. Thaarn, The Ghost Town Thaarn is the ghost of a town. It was conceived by Konelius Ulstrang, a master architect whose grand designs never left his mind. Thaarn is his masterpiece, a marvel of ivory, slate and dark wood. It floats, unadmired, in the space between this world and the next.  If you come across it in an unguarded moment, it will imprint on you. From that point on you live in Thaarn. No matter how far you travel Thaan will be there to meet you at day’s end. Even if you sleep rough in the forest or among the hills, you will wake up in Thaarn.  The town is a thing of beauty, with spi...

...I know what haunts like Ahem, here's a table for generating a job ghosts might want your player characters to do. D20 Job (Ghost) 1 “(Faction) evicted me from my haunt. Help me get it back”. 2 “I cannot find rest! I will haunt you until you help me”. 3 “Ghost hunters are hunting me. Get them to go away” 4 “I am fading from existence but I’m not ready to go”. 5 “I would pay to feel in possession of a body again. Could you procure one?” 6 “Avenge my death!” 7 “I need you to see that my dependents are safe” 8 “My remains aren’t properly buried”. 9 “I escaped from a great black engine underground, but my ghost-kin are still toiling in there”. 10 “My love is still a...

This another post inspired by one of Evlyn M's beautiful art pieces. Consider supporting her: https://www.patreon.com/evlynmoreau/posts The moon priestess is a great worker of magick. She is often spied by the broken-hearted, by insomniacs and by people on ketamine. She is unearthly and beautiful, having taken something of the moon’s light for herself. Her eyes are like twin blood moons. She is attended always by moths and sometimes by ensorcelled astronomers. Used with permission. The moon priestess communes with many lunar deities and creatures but worship none but Her Majesty the Moon. This is the magick of the moon priestess and the few with whom she deigns to share it. 1: Her Lips of Amber never part This may be basic social engineering rather than magic, but the results seem quite magical. The stillness of a full moon night has a profound effect on the human animal. The stillness is too immense and loud and the urge to fill it with one’s own noise can be irrep...

This post is based on a piece of art by Evlyn M . They call her the Bramble Granny or just the Crone. She was old when the old folks in their recliners were fat babies. Used with permission In the trailer parks and the low rises they will point her in the direction of where she used to live. She may live there still, in the place on the corner, the double-wide drowned in roses. Few will have seen her, and almost none have learned from her. These are the magicks of the Crone. 01: Tales of lovers lost at sea and drowned in fountains,  tales of babies lost in woods and lost on mountains This is a short song whose words will come to you as you sing it. First you must bind a handkerchief that has absorbed the tears of seven people. One must be dead, one must be broken-hearted, and one must be an infant. One of these must be you. You must carry the handkerchief at your throat for a week for the magick to take root. The magic makes one person weep. No one is immune, be they ...

This post is based on a beautiful drawing made by Evlyn M ( link to her Patreon ). Used with permission.  There are many stories about the wolf whale. Who can say which are true? (Roll 1D12) 1: It is a filter feeder, but what it filters is truth. That is why it avoids the haunts of humans. All our omissions and half-lies are a bastard to get out of its baleen hair. 2: The wolf whale’s song is so beautiful that only those with broken hearts can stand to hear it. (If this is true the listeners with whole hearts must roll a save or lose 1D4 Wisdom and gain the same amount in Charisma). 3: It is bigger than wolf and whale. Bigger than some cities even. Lazy-eyed monkeys live on its back. They eat fleas and weave elaborate wigs from the wolf whale’s hair. 4: The wolf whale is the child of the goddess Nyx. As such it is the spoiled younger sibling of the Fates, of Nemesis and Friendship. At night it sings to them and is rewarded with silvery treats and sugar jewelry. 5...

Here is a (D20) table of sounds and their sources one might hear in dungeons and deeper caves. 1: Stalagmites and stalactites wage war through plangent sonic attacks. Once they meet a peaceful synthesis is achieved, but the new protrusions never learn. Moving through the sonic field does 2D6 damage (Save for half damage). A skirmish. 2: The morose squeals of hogoblins. These porcine creatures have squealing competitions to settle minor disputes. This is often a prelude to combat. 3: The wind in the many natural chimneys creates a babbling tune, ever-changing. 4: A dwarven bagpipe, haunted by the near-amnesiac spectre  of its previous owner. It only plays when not observed directly. When the spectre’s killer is near it bleats out a raucous dwarven battle-song. 5: It’s gas escaping through a narrow vent. It is extremely flammable, and 1D4 rounds after the sound is heard it will ignite (3D6 damage, save for half damage). 6: It is a tear-inducing worksong from a legi...