No use hedging or making any bones about it; I want to be a professional writer. My plan is to gradually (read: as soon as possible) build a writing-related income until I can subsist on it in an inexpensive area (or until I predict that my savings will carry me to that point), at which point I will make preparations to exit my career to focus full-time on writing and the activities necessary to refine, promote, and distribute it.
The primary effort for the time being is Fierce Firelight, where I put up my stories, readings and interviews. Buzzsprout Spotify Google Apple RSS
Part of the ability to do something full-time is to have the resources to do it full-time, so I've set up a Patreon and ko-fi in support of Fierce Firelight.
It's good to have something to sell, so I'm commissioning a piece of art from Evlyn Moreau for Star Index, which I'll stat for several different games and then put on itch and dtrpg as a PDF. Once I have a full RPG book, I'll do a print run via Kickstarter.
When I was a little kid and they asked us what we wanted to do when we grew up, I gave two answers. The first answer I gave was "author," the second was something else. I already did the second thing, now it's time to pursue the first.
Note: Big ships are no slower than small ships, they’re just less maneuverable. The exception is the tessarakonteres, which may or may not be slower depending on its amenities.
d12
1 Liburna
2 Hemiola
3 Cataphracted bireme
4 Trihemiola
5 Trireme
6 Quadrireme
7 Quinquereme
8 Hexere
9 Octere
10 Dekares
11 Polyreme
12 Tessarakonteres
Fame of Captain
d12
1-4: Amateur
5-10: Professional
11-12: Famous
Deck Features
Amateur: 1 of the following
Professional: Roll a d4 (1-2: 1 of the following, 3-4: 2 of the following)
Famous: d4 of the following
d20
1 Selection of luxury yachts of almost every size smaller than the galley, ready to be cast off at any time
2 Pyramid (tomb to immediately inter the captain, or treasure hold, or personal residence; in any case makes a great firing platform)
3 Forecastle, aftcastle, midcastle
4 300’ crow’s nest
5 Huge golden mirror (vanity; possible thermal weapon vs stationary wooden targets)
6 Giant spider's web for rigging with dozens of colorful little birds in it, chirping desperately
7 Forecastle bathed in ethereal flames
8 Big serpent wrapped around the mainmast; smoke pours from the tips of its fangs
9 Long, sumptuous green carpet
10 Library and gymnasium
11 Geobukseon refit
12 Black and white tile interspersed with geometric pictograms framed in silver
13 Mainmast’s base is a tree with a giant eye in the hollow
14 Golden doors sporting radiant suns beneath the lantern-lit roots of the mainmast
15 Garden
16 Mosaics depicting famous stories
17 Indoor bath with hot water
18 Shrine with sacred, blazing brass tablets held in gothic gold safe, and a throne for the captain
19 Altar: can be to a deity, can sacrifice here (unreliably for speed/good winds/fair tides), can host a ghost/poltergeist, guardian spirit, possibly an elemental or demon depending on the type of altar. Additions: hierodules, eunuch priests, plunder pile
20 Below-deck brazier. You can throw things into the brazier to affect the rowers, and potentially the other crew
Brazier materials:
A seaweed that is pleasing to sea creatures when burnt
Some herbs/roots that will take the whole crew on a voyage to the netherworld
Powdered bones of ancestors that will summon them to egg on the rowers
Narwhal musth to drive the men berserk
Wildcat pheromones, wild lust with their tongues hanging past their own cheeks, translates decently to rowing power Drugs
Galley's Exterior
Amateur/Professional/Famous: 1 of the following. Famous may optionally roll d4
60 (d6 and d10)
1 Black velvet with milky scenes of hanging foliage, lilies and mushrooms
2 Black stipple over sepia with the outlines of hinted bats
3 Green velvet with white-furred snakes draped luxuriating across it, their faces like spoiled cats
4 Black with rabbit fur pouring across raised surfaces
5 Scaled with tens of thousands of interlocking and overlapping butterfly wings
6 Red leather with white spots a la fly agaric
7 Mosaic (sun saint, the phaerimm, fanged horses, cities on spider legs)
8 Dazzle pattern
9 Leopard print
10 Chinchilla
11 Whitewashed, with a bunch of really shitty graffiti on top
12 Stone fluting
13 Tiger hide
14 Blood red snakeskin
15 Lead sheets (primarily against woodworms)
16 Thousands of dead white hares, some gazing imperiously into nether space
17 Electric blue and azure stained glass
18 Midnight blue felt with rubies cut into blood drops falling in even sheets
19 Riot of fighting and dancing figures crisscrossing each other, a jet and alabaster bacchanal
20 Rolling tufts of lavender, purple and pale-red petals
21 Glossy black lacquer
22 Ladybug
23 Light blue with white suns as twin eyes by the prow, networks of goetic symbols falling in long black lashes behind them
24 Black whaleskin tattooed with gleaming blue fish, crashing waves, and coils of red twine here and there amongst them
25 Fishscale plates of gothic armor blued and hemmed in gold
26 Midnight blue barely visible over the soaring flocks of golden birds across its surface
27 Flaming hellscape wrought in gleaming amber
28 Tortoiseshell
29 Horsehair and pitch
30 Brocaded capes that are gold and black, bone and black, shimmering across stars so dense they’re like bright sand on dark skin
31 Sooty white like a storm cloud with rough regions of gold leaf here and there
32 Subtle brass organ pipes beneath portals of wrought iron; the groaning of the rowers hauling at ram speed emits a terrible bellowing
33 The great wings of skyrealm birds are spread against the hull, watercolor green and blue, rust on teal, splashes of wine into surges of whitewater
34 Shields hung across the body of the ship, vivid red and gleaming bronze, designs of prickly stars and leering grinning monster faces, beasts of prey and predation
35 Plaster of ground seashell to defeat flaming arrows
36 Black and gold, red-figure pottery effect; heroes, ladies, craftsmen, beastmen. Murders, sex, the harvest, running-about
37 Black and orange, black-figure pottery effect; serpents, battles, animals, industry
38 Black crisscrossed with diamonds of steel, a ruby shard at the heart of each
39 Reams of white curtain draped from the rails, hanging clean in the waterline
40 Scenes of robed wildcats wielding sabers assaulting pigs in sumptuous litters. Livid red backdrop
41 Glittering black at first; on close inspection a storm of black wolves with golden teeth and claws all fighting forward to reach the foe
42 Light blue darkening the rail as if the rising of the sky, and along the waterline temples gold in ivory scrollwork, against them saints and kings sporting solid gold haloes and cloaks of blue and black and purple encircled by intricate designs in all colors
43 Moss green with echoing bands of black which expand here and there like ripples in a swamp
44 Sheepskin
45 Black with amber metallic lines in the manner of a runestone running across it
46 Green with golden pictographic calligraphy
47 Subtle chessboard in dark and light gray; in front of it, dozens of hanging red-hemmed banners, identically sized but sporting varying imagery, each like shelves containing something centrally placed, decored between
48 Smooth bark
49 Bluish glass subtly reflecting the sea below and the stars above
50 Golden musculata like the sinews of a fish
51 The curving and recursive fern-fragments of an ornate carpet
52 Black and dark-green shards over light green fabric like a carpet of ivy
53 Pastel blue curls impressionistically imitating the sea beneath
54 Snowy opal
55 Chainmail
56 Alabaster, snowy owl wings flitting through the surface as if skirting a mist
57 Smooth bark, the vertical lines revealing watching figures partly defined by wood-rot fungus or else sanded planes. Here and there stippled green columns are used to depict hanging foliage from an implied canopy
58 Sepia linen sporting vivid pink and green pagodas, yellow and red blossoms in their trees, green and blue horses, purple crags and rich brown ibex
59 Vellum on which fans have inked their best wishes
60 Sleek black with explosions of gold suns and flowers, with leather bands sporting friezes of figures as gold constellations
Ship's Rails
Note on rails: can be a rail, or just whatever’s at the edge of the ship
Amateur/Professional: 1 of the following
Famous: Roll a d4 (1-2: 1 of the following, 3-4: 2 of the following)
d12
1 Wooden railing with vases and waving blades as supports
2 Entry towers skinned with pink velvet, floral blue curtains, orange light within, jade and gold canopies
3 Columns inlaid with switchbacking goosenecks and blades of orange and blue feathers up the center
4 An assortment of patiently watching, growling dogs, bears, wolves, rabbits and foxes
5 Trees fastened in planters by gold manacles and chains
8 Tall, waving sticks whose branching tips have turnips cut into moaning jack o' lanterns jammed between them
9 Hundreds of little skeletal kodamas, standing or hanging like fetishes; they may turn to watch things happening at sea or on the deck
10 Iron palisade against boarding
11 Ethereal deer gazing over the side of the ship
12 Rich moss, pale mushrooms
Prow Features
Amateur: 25% chance of 1
Professional: 1
Famous: 50% chance of 1, 50% chance of 2
d20
1 Eye: Black pupil, ivory lace over scrollworked gold iris
2 Spirals of three running legs emerging from each other, all over in bronze, as if running the ship through the water
3 White wings spread against hull
4 Spiraling jade fern leaves. Secretly very sharp to punish people attempting to climb up from the waterline
5 Giant green cat eyes, slit viperlike when the foe is spotted
6 Feathers carved into the wood; every last one is painted like a different bird
7 Black cats in dresses dancing with witches and skeletons
8 Depiction of rain, swan and sunlight spilling like serpents through boiling black clouds across a naked maiden
9 Painted badge indicating the naval squadron the galley used to belong to; sunset, sea horizon, seahorse breathing Greek fire over a melting hammerhead shark poking its head from the boiling water
10 Single image of a black goat leaping across a pale sun
11 Weaving snakes slithering forward to bite whatever the ship will ram
12 Ancestral warriors in headwraps, scale mail and cloaks depicting floods drowning fertile plains that spawned hordes of foes lean out of the sides of the bow, swords extended, water crashing around them
13 Nets filled with gold coins, tempting the foe: come and take them
14 Bronze cookware strung up against the side of the ship; very useful for making great feasts when the ship makes landfall, but also sounds a terrible portentous cacophony when the ship reaches ram speed
15 A gleaming lattice of gilded ribcages; may contain prisoners forced to endure the seafoam and splinters when the ram connects
16 Lovely curtains made up of stitched-together silk feathers sporting leafy highlights of white and blue; pulled back to reveal horrific grinning olm medusa heads of brass imprinted into the hull
17 Gongs whose suspended hammers are unstrung when preparing to make a ram attack, so that the gongs sound death as the galley crashes upon the waves
18 Observation decks a la box seats to watch a ram happen up close; can be sealed up in case of high waves and/or boarders from the waterline
19 Enchanted coral anchors that bring the ship undersea when aweigh, sealing the ship in an air bubble with the oars just outside it; this will gradually deplete and is no way to win races, as the ship is slower with the anchors in the water
20 The fleeces of mythological beasts slaughtered by the captain; gold fur, polycrystalline lattice hide, solid-state acid scales
Ram
Generally iron or bronze
Amateur/Professional: 1 of the following
Famous: 1, with a 25% chance of having 3 of the following in a triangular cluster
d40 (d4 and d10)
1 Kraken’s tongue
2 Lightning bolt (gilded)
3 Flamberge
4 Bound body with screaming face pointed up at the ship to be rammed
5 Characteristic tower of home port
6 Board game piece (horse, crenellated battlement, giant thimble)
13 A fist surrounded by an esoteric-looking chakram of light
14 Big middle finger
15 Stylized terrestrial battering ram with (tortoise) and all
16 Giant wiener
17 Cat’s head, slightly turned to one side, ears flat to nuzzle something
18 Unicorn head and horn
19 Whole front of ship shaped like the head of a narwhal
20 A really fat, mean-looking hummingbird with its long beak poised to pierce the offending ship
21 Giant rubyscaled carp with its tongue extended as ram; its mouth actually consumes passing fish
22 Salivating deathshead at the end of a spined neckbone
23 Diving peregrine falcon
24 Nudibranch horns
25 Snapping turtle head
26 Butting seahorse
27 Bamboo spear
28 Column made up of bodies falling into hell
29 Horse bucking back and kicking, the two hoofs touching, the rear legs forming the ram
30 Trilobite
31 Lighthouse with the brazier clearly stifled
32 Lit cigar about to be stubbed out into the enemy ship
33 Broadsword
34 Friendly dolphin
35 Giant pin between two fingers
36 Very pointy noise, as if part of the face of the ship's bow
37 Royal scepter of favored polity
38 Snowflake in dagger shape
39 Ornate knightly lance
40 Five-horned beetle head
Weapons
Amateur: One of the following
Professional: d4 of the following
Famous: 2d6 of the following
d120
1 Fire pots (at the end of long poles; dropped onto enemy deck)
2 Snake pots
3 Corvus
4 Sulfur smoke (emitter)
5 Hwacha
6 Huge slingshot that releases masses of razor-sharp caltrops
7 Kennel of rabid dogs released as broken arrow measure
8 Corvus
9 Harpax
10 Polybolos batteries
11 Bombard (1/20 chance of setting your ship on fire)
12 Rail handguns (tubes on poles)
13 Greek fire
14 Red hot, billowing sand
15 Swivel ballistae: Great against large creatures
16 Catapult/Mangonel
17 Trebuchet (likely to flip small ships; can be built into the hulls of the largest, particularly tesserakonteres because the weight can go between the hulls)
18 Elevated boarding ramp
19 Rambade fighting platform around ram
20 Giant net cast by a catapult or linked ballistae to foul up oars and deck operations
Prow Statue
Amateur/Professional/Famous: 1
Generally wood, often painted
d100 (d10 and d10)
1 A sheep-serpent with many thin black wings running up its body and great orange, blue, white and red feathers beneath the wings
2 Swan’s head, periodically closes its eyes and tosses its head to one side
3 Three-headed hairy dragon
4 Monastic woman with the face of a stylized owl
5 Wooden king in gorgeous soft silk cape in pale green with a broad golden hem with shaded leaves and blossoms
6 Golden queen draped in a golden pectoral plate sporting a medusa's head; she gives an imperious salute
7 Dark arrowhead-shaped pyramid with tentacles emerging from the space beneath it
8 Queen with a crown bearing a goetic star. She has giant bat wings
9 Black moth with midnight-blue constellation patterns in its wings. It wears a porcelain mask
10 Figure of a devil presenting its own head in its hands
11 Red-winged alabaster angel wracked by hands emerging from his own body
12 Rat King with subordinate rats held aloft in the air around it, fanned out like some kind of lotus
13 Some kind of creature composed of thick stalks of wheat with a single brown eye and a grinning, large-tooth mouth visible in amidst the bushy strands
14 Winged, feathered white worm with a giant, featureless orange eye at its tip
15 Frog poised in a bandana, clearly ready to leap onto the enemy ship
16 Rokurokubi whose head continually weaves around at the end of her wooden neck, seeking the best view of the situation. She does not speak but may attempt to point things out by jabbing her head at them
17 Leering, spiny, randy-looking tatzelwurm
18 Bull-headed spider with a grinning cat’s mouth
19 Wolfsheaded hydra
20 Phoenix with rose petals for neck feathers
21 Roaring wolf rearing, trying to shake off the blood-red chains that bind it to the deck
22 Hero with a sickle holding up the head of a kitsune
23 Pallid corpse riding a giant mosquito
24 Giant sword stuck in the deck impaling a satyr, a succubus and an ophanim in sequence
25 Giant rearing millipede with a staring eye on every segment
26 Grinning skull with a single giant red eye above the nose slits
27 Minotaur, bound and kneeling
28 Slathering, rangy werecat with gleaming pits for eyes
29 A maiden of solar fire sitting across the bow
30 Gray stone statue of a harpy with 12’ of rich orange hair
31 Minotaur ripping a virgin in half overhead
32 Solar roc with constellations in its wings, a sun disc on its head
33 Stag with rack of horns the breadth of a leafless tree
34 Dark satyr leading many nude men in chains
35 Man and woman entwined yet facing forward; their bodies are differing hues of marble
36 Warrior on horseback plunging a lance of light down into whatever the ship will ram
37 Angel with bare breasts, boar’s head, crow’s legs and a burning sword
38 Ornate-trousered, bat-winged cat standing upright sticking its tongue out irreverently
40 Rabbit in a kimono smoking a pipe
41 Horned, hairy lamprey with giant cackling mouth, set low in the water, just above or below the ram
42 Fanged frog with spiral eyes
43 Humanoid with goat heads facing left and right, golden lungs and guts visible within its red outline
44 Elegant maiden with nude and darkly-grinning yeti-like satyrs going arm-in-arm with her
45 Giant wolf with baby wolf sideways in its jaws
46 Love Goddess, hot pink, breasts glow bright red when nearing finish line
47 Woman transforming into a spider, holding her face in horror but staring at whatever the ship is pointed at
48 God of speed (winged sandals, winged helm, winged sword, wings, winged greaves, winged bracers, winged gauntlets, winged belt, being hoisted by fairies)
49 Cut-off head of a monstrous bear-serpent, its eyes crossed, its tongue lolling down the side of the ship, stone insects depicted alighting upon it
50 A chimera for the seasons: spring (stag), summer (lion), autumn (owl), and winter (arctic fox)
51 Horse with the eyes and legs of human women
52 A naked man made tree of slats hung with the leering flesh of many faces coiled into grotesque masks by age and sun
53 Clawed many-colored elephant with eight horns like chitinous tentacles, six eyes and a nose like a vast millipede
54 A lion with a stag’s antlers, an arctic fox’s fur and an owl’s legs and wings. An ow-lion
55 Death holding a pair of great eyeballs; when the ship is closing in on a successful ram the eyes burst into green flames
56 Flower with sprig-arms, in a dress
57 Goddess with stag beetle horns sporting a blood red sun between them
58 standing Persian cat with three layers of lavender eyes
59 Fairy girl sitting in a giant blade of grass, smirking down at the ship about to be rammed
60 Mothman lifting the moon to the sun
61 Indistinct vampiric wraith hiding in the crescent moon
62 Cyclopean serpent with its body-half hidden in its long, ragged hair
63 A giant vase with a stalk emerging from it, at the end of which is a dryad’s cool face
64 Maenad with a serpent for a headband whirling a thyrsus and a savannah cat through the air, stirring the crew and their enemies to fervor and madness
65 Naked man covered in tattooed woad, an encyclopedia of poisonous plants and animals
66 A saint sitting in a sea-monster’s mouth, reading a scroll charged with judgement
67 A hero hoisting a mountain to crash down onto the ship to be impaled
68 Hunger on an emaciated eyeless horse, carrying a pair of shackles for those to be conquered and a standard in red and black
69 Black lion weeping streams of pure gold
70 A hoplite kneeling on a smiling, naked man’s back, about to plunge a spatha through the man’s neck
71 A scroll charged with the execution of those to be rammed
72 A winged snapping turtle
73 The legged house of a witch; doubles as an actual house for the captain, and during a desperate battle it will uproot itself and serve as a mobile firing platform
74 A crab with one really giant, mean pincer raised, the other very small, guarding its belly
75 Aquasaurus
76 A really sexy caryatid
77 An ogre in full plate
78 A dancing, reveling girl, intended to be splashed with blood in the press of battle
79 A huge, bladed, golden pineapple
80 A skeleton, the bones of which are totally covered in feathers
81 A werecrocodile in fortification armor; not a scale is visible
82 A marine in blue greaves and white linothorax, a red thyreos and a black spear
83 A sentry dressed in a smock of hay to keep the rain off; he kneels, his sword sheathed and leaned between his knees, watching the horizon
84 A frog-ogre wielding a log as a club; it has many sets of antlers tucked between flaps cut into its skin, and has been painted here and there with blue feathers
85 An armored war elephant with a howdah; in battle, troops can board the howdah and skirmish, serving as an extra tower
86 A nude dryad, half tree to include her head; titillating art
87 The praying gleaming brass statue of a cross-legged lich
88 Naiad with many cascading peacock tails for hair, partially hiding her body
89 Hareman being grasped by the ears by a mailed executioner with a scimitar. The hareman is kneeling in prayer and the executioner looks resigned
90 White-winged three-headed cheetah
91 Androgynous figure with its head split in half as if by an axe; one side is male, the other female, and have a familial resemblance as if this is two versions of the same person, male and female
92 Cat lolling on its back with its paws curled above it
93 Another, smaller model galley with characteristics that can be rolled from this generator
94 Mermaid in a tall fisherman's cage
95 Tree made of fairy inkcap; these glow orange at night
96 Luminescent chromodoris lochi
97 Leafy sea dragon
98 Phyllodes imperialis caterpillar
99 Mighty-horned nudibranch
100 Satanic leaf-tailed gecko
Stern Statue
Amateur: N/A
Professional: 25% chance of 1
Famous: 1
d12
1 Serpent
2 Rattlesnake tail
3 Tiger tail
4 Scorpion tail
5 Longbow
6 Lyre
7 Crescent moon
8 Fist gripping raveled whip
9 Torch
10 Totem pole stacked with familiar spirits and deities
11 Column engraved with scenes from previous races, topped with (famous racer, captain’s father, captain, humiliating visage of most important defeated foe)
12 Rocky crag
Wake Features
What drifts in the ship's wake?
Amateur: N/A
Professional: 25% chance of 1
Famous: 50% chance of 1
1 Toadstools and sharp little seaflowers falling away from the ship
2 Fairies humming around, lit up at night
3 Little golden orbs drifting through the air, gradually sinking into the water, glowing
4 Drops of blood
5 Gradually fading stars in constellation on the water
6 Lightning arcing through the surface of the water
7 Red petals
8 Little floating paper lanterns
9 Little butterflies that linger on the surface for awhile and then take off
10 Mist
11 Acrid, churning charcoal smoke
12 Rolling cloudbanks
13 Venous stitchwork written in the waves like the surface of an iris
14 Peacock feathers
15 Dark algae and seaweed
16 A Golden mane of hair, like a celestial wise man’s beard
17 A great net; the ship is continually trawling
18 Little toadstools
19 Gold flakes
20 Pure mercury
His son was born shortly after Lepanto, but then died during childhood. It's as if he's handing the boy up to victory
Captains
Captain
60 (d6 and d10)
1 Crabman
2 Jellyfish that has constructed a semi-rigid mechanical chassis for its body
3 Giant sapient shrimp
4 Giant water strider; never actually gets on the ship, just rushes around shouting at the crew
5 Weremussel (eyes visible in darkness inside his shell; musscular arms and legs)
6 Siren (enthralled crew, though she doesn’t always use her song)
7 Drop of god semen and blood that has become beautiful cambion
8 Illusionist (utter mindfuck for competitors; target for early elimination, which he’s counting on)
9 Merking; galley is flooded and emerges halfway from the water, merman rowers blade coral oars between strokes underwater, hippocampi mush team helps offset drag; mermaid princess desperately tired of all this, wishes to escape this dreadful ship, if only for awhile
10 16' long sapient shipworm; only protrudes from the hull to give counsel
11 Living prow
12 Pyromancer who's loaded his ship up with fire pots
13 Lizard King
14 Giant, noodle-loving worm. Straightforwardly inclined to provide fellatio
15 Ancient sage who loves to read, only closing whatever book he's reading when ship operations require his special attention
16 Maenad
17 Living tree carved into a statue
18 Werewhal whose deep scars continually weep whale oil, massive bounty on his head
19 Kobold, former swabbie
20 Dryad
21 Naiad
22 Satyr
23 Efreeti
24 Golem
25 Treeman (joined with ship)
26 Harpy
27 Angel
28 Demilich that floats around shouting at people; cackles wildly when taking the lead
29 Oni
30 Really mad erinyes
31 Knight that loves to charge people with his galley, intuiting a category affinity between lancing and naval ramming
32 Woman surrounded by large, dangerous animals who she has tamed with a mere caress
33 Sphinx. Never shows emotion
34 Barbarian chief who uses the intensity of races to channel for his spirit-walking rituals
35 Demonologist who must win a race or be claimed by a demon who is no longer pleased by the demonologist's virgin sacrifices
36 An octopus in a barrel. It has two holes on the bottom and a hole on either side, plus a viewing slit for the octopus’s eyes
37 Wraith with many pale hands amidst the folds of its garments, antlers growing from its shoulders, a giant purple iris for a face and a goetic halo whirling about its crown
38 Butterflyman Prince
39 Earwigman Villain
40 Barnacleman; usually resides beneath the ship, keelhauls traitors across him
41 Giant cackling moth with a skeletal head
42 Sea witch; diminutive, wears a shag duster and tall conical hat which shades face; two perfectly round, lantern like eyes are visible beneath it; floats slightly off the surface at all times
43 Purple shroud with the outline of orange eyes streaked diagonally across its surface
44 She never leaves her bluish plate armor and golden helm made in a raven’s visage. She has fearsomely sharp claws in her gauntlets
45 Mind Flayer with mostly brain-bound crew. Habit of stress eating
46 Captains: Pair of armed serpents who regularly compete to devour as many warmbloods as possible in one day
47 Jet torc around a viper’s eye wreathed in blood orange fire; purple wings with feathers of molten fire radiate around the torc, and at the apex is a flanged black spike that gleams with yellow light
48 Berbalang
49 Giant hermit crab for which the ship is a shell; generally has his legs retracted so as to not generate too much drag, can walk the ship over land
50 Really old, creaky kappa who speaks painfully slowly but makes very wise decisions. Kind and tolerant unless you fart in his direction, in which case he will do everything possible to have you killed
51 Trickster spider, has a wooden mask
52 Remnant lord of precursor empire, trying to raise enough funds to recreate what was; white, ridged, ovular body with glassy spines around giant bulbous sacs of electric blue fluid
53 Ooze that has gained sapience; almost impossible to kill, even if you sink its ship and leave it behind. It can lose everyone and just gradually burble back to shore. It keeps a perfectly preserved, smiling human head floating inside of it as an attempt to put people at ease, though it speaks by electrifying its surface and creating a crackling vocoder-noise. Right now it's a harmless-looking guy, the ooze will eventually wise up and replace it with the head of a hot girl
54 Big game hunter who has graduated from living things and now primarily hunts galleys
55 Professional galley racer who has sponsorships from a bunch of different forests, lumber concerns and elvish holdouts, prominently featuring their wood, showering spectators with wood samples when they're close enough
56 Doppelganger imitating famous captain it's devoured
57 Neural worm currently inhabiting a trusted abbot; he's lately developed an unseemly preoccupation with racing, and has spent the abbey's funds to that effect
58 Leprechaun
59 Dark dwarf who's turned the ship into a biomechanical smog-belching nightmare
60 Giant dragonfly with the head of a horned sea-hag
Captain's Status
25% chance of an additional status: But what is the captain?
d20
(00: Sea Oligarchy, aka party of PCs)
1 Heir to monarchy
2 Kleptocrat who bought this to launder the money; will be in serious danger if he or she ever goes ashore, this ship doubles as a castle
3 Drug lord just looking for something to spend the money on
4 Master smuggler, this ship is their baby
5 Master courier
6 Fell slaver; once threw several hundred chained slaves overboard to lighten his ship enough to escape a pursuing navy
7 Naval commodore with dozens of ships killed, none captured
8 Politician of thalassocratic republic seeking to win fame for election or re-election
9 New naval captain being tested for command
10 Moralist philosopher seeking to demonstrate virtues in action
11 Impoverished genius given command of ship by consignor
12 Genius shipwright whose ship is amazing but whose rowers detest him
13 Undefeated admiral seeking to test himself in new endeavor
14 Famed slaver; leaves ghost ships drifting in his wake
15 Privateer who exclusively targets warships, never selling prizes, instead stripping them down for the choicest parts, which he adds to his race galley
16 Decadent emperor quietly hurried after by dismayed minders
17 Banker on vanity enterprise
18 Agent of the ichthyarchy
19 Robber baron
20 Commander of the polity's sea patrol
Captain's Supporting Characters
Amateur: 50% chance of 1
Professional: d4
Famous: d6
40 (d4 and d10)
1 Captain’s spouses (comfort captain endlessly)
2 Captain’s daughters (cheer/echo squad)
3 Captain's sutler
4 Soothsayer
5 Oracle
6 Seer
7 Chaplain to the Rowers
8 Marine padre
9 Loyal, straight-man first mate who will go energetically unhinged when freed to do his duty
10 Captain’s Confessor: continually goads captain on
11 Mercenary artillerist from distant empire; gaudy and impractical garb (looks like some kind of lacquered red candle flute) constant recitations and gestures may be religious devotion, propitiation of the gunpowder spirits or OCD; extremely touchy. Has a literal powder monkey in identical garb
12 Ship’s Purser, continually dismayed (except when apparently about to win; then becomes rabidly encouraging)
13 Political Officer: fanatically concerned about winning glory for whatever community the ship represents
14 Journalist allowed on board as publicity measure
15 Goat-horned, wrapping-swaddled thing hidden in the corner of the hold; cannot be clearly seen, doesn’t come out of the corner, retracts if grasped for. Can be induced to give advice
16 Shipwright
17 Woodworker
18 Captain's concubines
19 Giant serpent that the captain uses like a couch
20 The controversial use of feral humans as ship’s cats (rat catchers). They are beloved but prone to health issues and often put down.
21 Stowaway-turned-ship’s-mascot
22 Giant spider who can turn into a beautiful human woman and seduce
23 Panting, frothing she-wolf that rushes about, giving suck to the rowers
24 Moss-covered, undead, red-eyed falcon men before webbing them, liquefying and sucking out their guts. Serves the captain as an advisor, alchemist, and emissary
25 Mob minder here to make sure captain actually throws the race, as agreed
26 Champion javelin thrower; can pick people off on distant ships
27 Dark-spirited catoblepas advisor
28 Living boulder who wards off hostile spirits in exchange for small sacrifices; can also roll around in defense of the ship
29 Myrmecoleon steed
30 Pampered succubus
31 Mermaid exile; she has legs, but also a fish’s tail
32 Al-mi'raj which the captain continually strokes but also handles kind of roughly
33 Flumph advisor trying and failing to get the captain to do right
34 Sage that’s half cat; the left half of her body is skeletal, and flower petals continually weep out from between the bones
35 Embalmer who makes statuary displays out of those killed on the mission, arranging them dramatically on the ship for the duration of the event
36 Bodyguard with gigantism; nice guy, unless the captain orders him not to be
37 Ichthyarchical emissary; same species as the captain, can help smooth over conflicts with certain sea peoples, continually acts to influence the captain in favor of the Ichthyarchy.
38 The captain's loyal ass, brought along despite the awkwardness of a donkey walking on a ship's deck
39 A great red and white bird whose black tailfeathers produce delicious red berries; the bird feeds on these and feeds them to the crew, but doesn't necessarily want to be picked all the fucking time
40 Living scroll that can pop out and suddenly unravel, with what it wants to say written on it. New text will burn across its surface, the ash gradually blowing away in the wind, leaving blank vellum
Captain's Support Ships
Amateur/Professional: N/A
Famous: 10% chance of one being present
d4
1 Has a rescue ship on standby (the organizers won’t be providing one) to sail into the mix and get out as many survivors as possible
2 Halfling catering barge/steak and sausage fryer
3 Underworld titan's floating forge (water wheels and steam forges; makes quick upgrades to ship)
4 Light, fast warship to quickly go and take advantage of opportunities perceived outside the bounds of the racecourse
Sample Distinctive Garb for Captains
Amateur: N/A
Professional: 50% chance of 1
Famous: 1
d12
1 Necklace of assorted golden leaves
2 Golden koi flit through the air around him; a jeweled catlike white dragon slinks across his shoulders
3 Giant cavalier hat with an ostrich feather
4 Cloak that fastens to your cuff links so that black feathers run down your arms; may permit gliding from the crow’s nest
5 Black silk robe hemmed in gold; at the shoulders, golden wings rise to flank the head. Most effective when worn otherwise naked or with monotone underclothes
6 Black dress, the fabric of the sleeves and hem hang 8’ from the body in places, green and orange and gold
7 Golden stone braided beard
8 Humongous fur coat for cold nights at sea
9 Bright red cloak with golden eyes
10 An living eelskin that is warmed by passing water (worn around the body by a swimmer)
11 Carapace armor of hard lichen
12 Beautiful wings like midnight blue and black tortoiseshell with drifts of gold
Marines
Amateur: 1
Professional: Base 1, 25% chance of d4
Famous: Base 1, 50% chance of d4
60 (d6 and d10)
1 The captain’s many sons
2 Exiled terrorist death squad
3 Amazon archer squad
4 Gangers hired from a foodless, stone, half-flooded precursor arcology
5 Gladiators (commissioned from school or freed on condition of service, generally with inducements against mutiny)
5 Sacred Band
6 Maritime republic shipguards
7 Deserters
8 Armed Robbers
9 "Thorns" (evil men)
10 Naked longsword headhunters
11 Rhomphaiamen
12 Rentier elites fighting in Dendra panoply to maintain war skill
13 Fire worshippers
14 Takabara
15 Sparabara archer squads
16 Berserkers possessed by wild spirits and the souls of fractious heroes
17 Profoundly lazy island slingers. Lead ammunition
18 Assassins who get off and practice when the ship docks or comes near land
19 Adventurous Nobles
20 Corsair Billmen
21 Unit of secret police that has fallen into disfavor and is serving a tour on the ship as punishment. Extremely uneasy
22 Jacked clubmen
23 Steel bow dacoits
24 Free company
25 Human-faced serpent-parasites
26 Whalers; excellent with harpoons
27 Zealot militia; only have knives but absolutely determined, which counts for a lot at close range
28 A bunch of mutually-suspicious adventuring parties
29 Epilektoi epibatoi hoplites
30 Dirk-and-targe pole vault boarders
31 Falx peltasts
32 Criminals who ape the brutality of a predecessor empire despite having no appreciable ideology
33 Androphage archers
34 Argyraspides; can almost blind people during assaults on sunny days
35 Dismounted cataphracts; 100% armored, but don't let combat last too long in the hot sun
36 Traveling Knights
37 Harem Guards
38 Wagoneer Zagaiemen: Fight with 12' javelins that they use to repel enemies trying to get into their wagons on the deck of their ship; throw some of them for offensive purposes. Wagons can serve as lifeboats but aren't much for amphibious assaults
39 Light Longbowmen
40 Bolomen
41 Écorcheurs
42 Hill skirmishers; phenomenal when hurling javelins from a higher deck, but so used to falling back in the face of charges and so unused to the sea they may go straight off the deck
43 Fanatically loyal warrior retainers, will die when masters fall (suicidal charge or suicide)
44 Plants transfigured into creatures of muscle and bone
45 Painted pavisiers
46 Firepipe strelsy (blast flame, roll off tubes, charge with bardiche, unless the enemy ship is already on fire)
47 Lizardmen who have sworn themselves to the captain due to being treated with politeness
48 Sappers; will attempt to axe and/or blast themselves through the enemy's hull to get at the soft juicy rowers while wrong-footing the determined marines awaiting them on deck
49 Phalangites; giant spears, tiny shields. Almost impossible to board, extremely easy to skirmish
50 Lamellar fortification crossbowmen; dress in a hoistable, semi-rigid cloak of lamellar and oxhorn while wielding repeating crossbow. Can trade fire devilishly, must resort to two-handed spears up close
51 Naffatun; can sling the stuff or throw it up close; the captain is cagey because these guys have sworn to burn the ship rather than allow it to fall into enemy hands, all of their own volition
52 Men from the mangroves; magnificent at hiding in the rigging, the underside of the deck castles and in the oar ports, suddenly hurling javelins or handfuls of banana spiders at the enemy
53 Noble bastards fighting by broadsword and chainmail for the captain, with his or her promise to eventually forcibly enfeoff every last one of them in their homelands; the captain has actually done it a few times, swelling the ranks of his grizzled, colorful complement
54 Wereskin skirmishers; each wears a headdress of a beast, and in battle will gradually halfway transform into such a thing; therefore a band of them becomes a half-treefrog hurling javelins from midway up the mainmast, a half-board suddenly rushing you with two javelins and two tusks pointed, a half-jumping spider sprinkling caltrops from the air, and a half-dormouse off to squeak a report to the captain.
55 Fire lancers; their pole-tubes mount bayonets
56 Urumimen; can strike their bending swords over the side of the enemy deck
57 Sicklemen; might seem kind of corny until they're climbing up the side of your mighty polyreme
58 Canoe raiders, who can fight with their canoe as a kind of tower shield or ride it out for night raids and missions
59 Butterflymen; winged troops are a holy grail, but these guys are so prone to plunder and of lapping up the moisture that collects on the flesh of corpses that when you send these guys into battle you might not regain control of them again for a few days
60 Vanuastrans; can use the saltwater to form into any weapon, making them extremely versatile (and wounds they inflict hurt even more than usual). Less useful if they're suddenly deprived of water
Classification of Rowers
Amateur: d4
Professional: d6
Famous: d8
1 Slave Rowers
2 Prisoner Rowers
3 Pressed Rowers
4 Citizen Rowers
5 Marine Rowers
6 Professional Rowers
7 Competition Racing Crew
8 International Champion Team
Watercourses
Races
Amateur/Semipro: d4 stages with 1 element each
Open: d6 stages with d4 elements each
Invitational: d8 stages with 2d4 elements each
You must finish to collect the prize. Simply being the last one standing is not enough.
Stages are consecutive. Each stage is characterized by one or more elements.
3 Hostile riverlands (tribes etc; canoes and other boarders)
4 Stormy seas
5 Razor coral above and below the water
6 Constant lightning
7 Sea monster(s)
8 Dangerous geographical features (collapsing cliffs, tide that suddenly exposes dangerous crags, shifting, unpredictable ice floes)
9 Sea of profoundly powdery ("moon dust") sand, from which who-knows-what will emerge. Vast, shifting dunes like waves on a stirring sea, moving to be lifted on these and then subsequently ride their ridges down is a skill best rapidly acquired during such a stage. The sand becomes airborne in a flux stone region (need different name)
10 Presence of superweapon
11 Seacaves and tunnels
12 Flooded ruins/ruins at sea
13 Hermit state
14 Hostile series of locks (ie operated by people who don't want to let you pass; you'll have to dismount people and force the mechanisms)
15 Profound darkness
16 Naval graveyard
17 Body of giant creature (inside, outside, around, all of the above)
18 Drained undersea region
19 Labyrinth (natural or constructed)
20 Giant RGO
21 Robber states
22 Skylens; effect of sun is doubled
23 Hostile seas; sea creatures (whales, deadly giant jellyfish, climbing coconut crabs) will constantly assail the ship
24 Networked vortices
25 Volcano
26 Flux Stone Islands (floating islands that cause ship to float amongst them; use oars to push off of them, otherwise propulsion is all sails)
27 Nautical ossuary
28 Ancient aqueducts
29 Stelaes of listless melancholy; extra-hard to inspire rowers and crew, everyone generally gets super downcast and stops giving a shit about the race
30 Aerial hazards (from harpies to lightning up to rocs and dragons)
31 Urban canals
32 Swamps (must push way through using oars)
33 Demigod (result of program, nascent, disturbed)
34 Other plane
35 Occult site suffering astral corruption; entities may slip through from the void to devour individuals or whole ships
36 Giant salmon run, but with maneating swordfish
37 Enormous, rocky white water rapids
38 Extreme mist, to the point of fatiguing rowers
39 Lying stars
40 Giant ancient aqueducts
NPC Competitors
d4
1: d4
2: d6
3: d8
4: d10
Cargo prizes may be scattered across the stages for ambitious captains to seize upon, stored in dilapidated cargo ships or on tow barges)
d10 x 1000gp in:
d12
1 Betel
2 Paan
3 Perfume petals
4 Anaesthetic sponges
5 Areca
6 Ghee derived from adipocere
7 Graveyard cakes
8 Hyperoleaginous whale cancer
9 Sandalwood tincture
10 Seashells naturally alloyed with gold via filtration
11 Hyraceum
12 Succulent sea slugs (you can just suck on these puppies all day)
Race Host
d20
1 Storm giant
2 Solar angel
3 Deity
4 Demoness
5 Emperor taking bread & circuses measures; nevertheless his empire descends into chaos whenever there are games, as people become hyper-partisans for particular captains and massive industrial fortunes are wagered on the outcomes
6 Giant malevolent beholder who follows along, watching the race from above, guffawing malignly with his tongue hanging between his teeth
7 Great lunar bird with wings like lace; the whole race will be under cover as night with the moon glowing bright, where the bird and its guests will watch
8 Kraken, watching from below, perhaps stirring the sea where it pleases
9 Fairy Queen; whole race will get dreamier as it goes on
10 Creature with a head made up of a dozen overlapping disc-shaped eyes above alabaster tentacles, with a white spine that terminates in a radially-symmetric claw of bone. Its similarly bony hands and arms (actually sinew) outstretch to welcome you
11 A mountainous creature of stone that rises from the sucking sea with a lake balanced in its head. At the conclusion, the winners will be carried to the celebratory archipelago with their galley riding in the lake atop the creature
12 Forest of unknown plants inside of an asteroid, the ore on the surface of which continually sparks and hums. The creature itself is a network of radial stalks terminating in the soil walls of the asteroid, joined at the center in a rhombus of bark with a hair of pink ferns. It has painted blue bands across this bark in honor of the sea
13 Magistrate seeking to encourage investment in his sea region; a lot of his constituents are pissed about the chaos that the race will bring, but it's not a democracy
14 Divine crinoid
15 Tutelary deity
16 Dragon
17 Magical love princess
18 Gladiatorial ludus
19 Ethnic armed organization
20 Inscrutable myconid
Example Race: The Mount Ñosájá Classic
Open Race
6 stages
Host (15): Tutelary Deity
Stage 1: Mount Ñosájá
2 elements
(37) Enormous, rocky white water rapids
(33) Demigod
Summary: The race begins at the peak of Mount Ñosájá. Descend the rivers flowing from the snowmelt of a giant mountain; Iÿthúva, who is the rivers of the mountain and the host of the Classic, will be watching with keen interest, and may help or hinder those who demonstrate courage, cunning, or cowardice in this stage.
Stage 2: The Locks of Thùt
3 elements
(7) Sea monster(s)
(14) Hostile series of locks (ie operated by people who don't want to let you pass; you'll have to dismount people and force the mechanisms)
(29) Stelaes of listless melancholy; extra-hard to inspire rowers and crew, everyone generally gets super downcast and stops giving a shit about the race
Summary: The Blood Nagas of Ñikak operate the Locks of Thùt, controlling access to the Ñosáján underworld of Zkík. They are not expecting you. Traverse their locks but be warned: the mountain's underworld radiates melancholy, and your crews may grow listless as you approach and then move away from the Throats of Zkík, the entrances to the underworld which the locks feed into. Do not enter the underworld; your path is through the locks and into the sea.
Stage 3: The Arcology Archipelago of Shådåk
3 elements
(12) Flooded ruins/ruins at sea
(33) Demigod
(2) Pirate archipelago
Summary: Beyond the Locks of Thùt is the Ôsteo Sea, which contains an archipelago of stone ruins. This archipelago is notorious for the Pirates of Shådåk, fanatic plunderers who must surrender half of their treasure to the great and terrible bringer of magma, Dûnshet. This beast of the underfire opens pools of magma and then lava under permanent settlements which do not pay it tribute, so the pirates have never been extirpated from this sea.
The archipelago was once a stone arcology destroyed by Dûnshet for lack of tribute; the foundations of this once-great polity lay in confusion in the waters here, far above or just below.
Traverse the arcology archipelago and avoid your ship being turned into a tribute to Dûnshet. Find the Mouth of Zelåsh.
Stage 4: The Mouth of Zelåsh
1 element
(11) Seacaves and tunnels
Summary: The Mouth of Zelåsh, which is the sacred fane of Dûnshet, is a great heap of collapsed archipelago wherein the pirates deposit their treasures in endless waterlogged heaps of gold and ivory. There in the center is a great well of lava where Dûnshet moans in ecstasy as the treasure is placed in swirling rings around him.
Traverse the labyrinths of fallen stone, through Dûnshet's sacred chamber, and come out of the other side. This is the pirates' most sacred place and they will pursue you here with terror and fervor.
Stage 5: The Fangs of Dràlzàt
2 elements
(39) Lying stars
(10) Presence of superweapon
Summary: The way in and out of the fane of Dûnshet is guarded by horn-like silver pillars that rise from the ocean as if the teeth of a giant crocodile. The night sky is black here, for these silver pillars are charged with starlight, forever preventing the influence of fell Dûnshet from spreading beyond the Ôsteo Sea in this direction.
Beams of solar fusion dance from these silver teeth at random, filling the air with steam, cutting ships to flaming pieces. You must evade these beams and pass between the Fangs of Dràlzàt, the silver pillars that guard the way. You will be pursued by pirates here, no doubt; they will fear the wrath of their master more than the killing beams of a thousands suns.
Stage 6: The Shattered Sky
3 elements
(40) Giant ancient aqueducts
(38) Extreme mist, to the point of fatiguing rowers
(26) Flux stone islands (the ones for this course don't shift gravity for the ships)
Summary: The stone arcology that once stood over the Ôsteo Sea was given water by a network of aqueducts arising from the surrounding sea. In this portion of the ocean, chunks of the arcology still float in the sky, carrying their aqueducts from the surface of the ocean, up through pumping and purification chambers in and on the dead stone stone cityscape. Ride these aqueducts up to the finish in Thermal Hall, but beware: many of these aqueducts have crumbled or lead to sections of arcology that have long since fallen into the ocean, and should you slide with the tide down one of them, you will find yourself falling many hundreds of meters to your destruction on the deep.
Mist blows past these aqueducts from the Fangs of Dràlzàt far beneath, obscuring the safe path.
You will finish in a great thermal pool that served as the personal pleasure lake of a potentate, inside a great chamber of glossy stone tile. The first ship to touch this pool will be the victor.
Grand Prize: 60,000gp
So far, three ships have registered for the Classic:
Kachhapa
Dekares
The captain is a professional racer
Geobukseon refit (it's a turtle ship)
The exterior has subtle brass organ pipes beneath portals of wrought iron; the groaning of the rowers hauling at ram speed emits a terrible bellowing
It has an assortment of patiently watching, growling dogs, bears, wolves, rabbits and foxes
The ship has enchanted coral anchors that bring it undersea when aweigh, sealing the ship in an air bubble with the oars just outside it; this will gradually deplete and is no way to win races, as the ship is slower with the anchors in the water
The ship's ram has the shape of a snapping turtle's head (swapped with the ram of the Shadowfur before the race; the Kachhapa's original ram had the horns of a nudibranch)
Sports a boarding corvus
The prow carries a statue of a man and woman entwined yet facing forward; their bodies are differing hues of marble
The captain is a demilich that floats around shouting at people; cackles wildly when taking the lead
It is emotionally supported by its spouses, who comfort it endlessly. It has retained a chaplain to minister to the rowers; the chaplain is uneasy working for a demilich, but thinks of the rowers
The captain employs "Thorns", evil men, to do violence in its name
Its rowers have been pressed into service
Trihemiola Towers
Trihemiola
The captain is an amateur racer
Forecastle, aftcastle, midcastle. This ship is much taller than it is wide
The outside is covered in lead sheets (primarily against woodworms)
It has entry towers skinned with pink velvet, floral blue curtains, orange light within, jade and gold canopies
The ship's ram looks like a really fat, mean-looking hummingbird with its long beak poised to pierce the offending ship
Mounts a rotatable hwacha in the midcastle
The prow statue is a leering, spiny, randy-looking tatzelwurm
The captain is a sea witch; she is diminutive, wears a shag duster and tall conical hat which shades her face; two perfectly round, lantern like eyes are visible beneath it; she floats slightly off the surface at all times
When not racing, the captain is a master courier.
She has a sage that’s half cat; the left half of her body is skeletal, and flower petals continually weep out from between the bones. She's also allowed a journalist on board as publicity measure
The captain employs a bunch of mutually-suspicious adventuring parties on the ship; each is assigned one of the ship's many little castles or towers
Her rowers are professionals
Shadowfur
Liburna
The captain is a professional racer
Big serpent wrapped around the mainmast; smoke pours from the tips of its fangs
The exterior is black with rabbit fur pouring across raised surfaces
The deck is shaded by trees fastened in planters by gold manacles and chains
The front of the ship mount gongs whose suspended hammers are unstrung when preparing to make a ram attack, so that the gongs sound death as the galley crashes upon the waves
The ship's ram has the shape of the horns of a nudibranch
Sports a sulfur smoke emitter, a bombard and an elevated boarding ramp in its trees.
The prow statue is the god of speed (winged sandals, winged helm, winged sword, wings, winged greaves, winged bracers, winged gauntlets, winged belt, being hoisted by fairies)
The ship has a tigertail for a stern statue
The captain is a barbarian chief who uses the intensity of races to channel for his spirit-walking rituals
He retains a loyal, straight-man first mate who will go energetically unhinged when freed to do his duty. He has a political officer from his tribal confederation aboard, who is fanatically concerned about winning glory for the greater confederation, at the expense of the captain's tribe and gods if necessary. Set against the political officer is the captain's bodyguard, who has gigantism and is a nice guy except when the captain orders him not to be. The captain has enslaved a living scroll that can pop out and suddenly unravel, with what it wants to say written on it. New text will burn across its surface, the ash gradually blowing away in the wind, leaving blank vellum
The chieftain's men fight as firepipe strelsy (blast flame, roll off tubes, charge with bardiches, unless the enemy ship is already on fire)
He has pressed his rowers into service, but has not claimed them permanently as slaves
A hail of spears over an oncoming fleet, painted triremes lapping against blue waves, blue-armored men on chocolate wood, pinprick javelins flooding the blue sky. The crash and splinters, shearing oars, the sawdust wood-shop scent at sea.
The blaze of glory imprinted itself onto him like a half-seen sun to a man in a meadow. A lockpicker following a threadway to the highest place. Not to be burned on barriers, but to follow truth in the maze of light. A golden moment; a dollop of gold in time. The rosy flame of passion is evergreen.
As are Legos
Lately I've been recording and editing stories (editing the writing, editing the recordings) for Fierce Firelight; this is super time-consuming and I hope to find ways to streamline the process. I look forward to a time when I have the process down and can continually write new stories, edit them with Dan's help, record them, sand down the audio, and post them with as quick a turnaround as possible. There is a lot that I want to explore.
I interviewed Patrick Stuart about art in support of his upcoming book, Speak, False Machine, which is active on Kickstarter. Each funding tier will enable new art to be commissioned for the book, so even though it's already been funded, it's important that the project continues to grow.
Industrial-era treasure tables for tech-level ~1920 adventuring.
Index
Treasure Table A: Distinctive Individual Treasure
Treasure Table B: Couture
Treasure Table C: Lifestyle Items
Treasure Table D: Household Goods
Treasure Table E: Consumables
Treasure Table F: Land Vehicles
Treasure Table G: Sea Vehicles
Treasure Table H: Air Vehicles
Treasure Table I: Pets
Treasure Table J: Services, Memberships, and Events
Treasure Table K: Real Estate
Treasure Table L: Common Goons
Treasure Table M: Personnel
Treasure Table N: Diegetic Specialties
The unit of currency is the one ounce gold coin (❂), here equivalent in value to its roughly ~$2000 max in 2020 USD (~£1500 at the time or ~€1750).
Treasure Table A: Distinctive Individual Treasure
d100
1 A statuette of a creature that was created to compete with humanity but failed; not a neanderthal, for these creatures could never have been sexually assimilated. They were regarded as children of the sun, but whether this refers to our sun, or to the Monad, or to the center of the earth is not certain. The rage of these creatures’ creator is incalculable, as instead of destroying, sidelining or absorbing mankind, the creatures were defeated and gave the earliest human civilizations a great confidence boost, a seed of hope that persists unspoken to this day. The shape of this creature is difficult to describe but is essentially a great ocular amoeba covered in sliding plates of chitin that allow trunks of bioelectrically vitiated and continually-molten and reshaping polymer stalks bearing up tens of thousands of free-running and interconnecting polydextrous fibers capable of impossibly-fine manipulations of any substance, knit so close that they’re almost a foam between the stalks but become lengths capable of probing at the ends. The statue is cut from a single piece of greenstone; no museum or expert in carving would ever be able to ascertain how the fine fibers were wrought in stone by methods known to man. Luckily the individual fibers are fabulously resilient despite being thin as a human hair.
1250❂
2 A blade dipped in a cup of blue peony; now it will mark whatever is cut, even to great lengths and depths.
70❂
3 The fetal petrified child of an entity responsible for shaping the rivers of a fertile valley; unable to give it life in the open air despite the contribution of a human, the entity buried it in the valley’s earth as if to vitiate it with the life giving waters. Despite this earthen gestation the water-child did not regain animation, but did retain the mode of the valley distilled within it; if buried in the earth, waters will attend to it and nursemaid the earth in the process, springing rivers to life in otherwise arid land, or overflowing swamps and flood plains with excess.
5000❂
4 Six-inch golden fingernails.
10❂
5 A dagger formed from a suspendium stalactite in an empire of subterranean men enthralled to silicon feelers extending from forbidden caves, reshaping their servants into forms suitable for the ferocity of their methodology. If plunged into a dying heart, the skywardly-magnetic dagger will reform the body but instill a physical regression to a state of stygian servitude; at the finalization of the bloody transformation the transfixed one will have two hundred arms and the nine heads of a hydra spread across their shoulders and uppermost arms, brain linked between them through etheric backchannels.
1500❂
6 A porcelain bottle of stone-softening solvent stained vividly with the blossoming of fruit-bearing towers.
125❂
7 A crystal containing an endolithic retrovirus. It will dig its way in and replace your heart. Your blood will crystallize into almost fractal blossoms with impossibly sharp edges. Your blood is also magnetic; metal touching your flesh will stick to it, though can be pried away without damage. If you’re ever shot or stabbed in the heart, you’re unlikely to die (only 1/4 chance, with +1/4 for each time it’s happened before).
500❂
8 Golden barbed tongue-tip implant.
5❂
9 A petrified and gilded head, the child of a brood cast forth from a father of monstrous hatred and a mother who armed them in opposition to the tyrant. This one was crushed and crumpled in the confrontation and laden with gold from his father’s demigod claw, and yet the crystal tears of the mother or the ruby blood of the father’s wounds may be set innocuously in human jewelry, and if drawn near this relic may bring the maddened father or reclaiming golem-mother to the place where the head is borne.
250❂
10 Vitiating kiviak; the devourer becomes immune to cold and gains unlimited upper body endurance.
1500❂
11 In the earliest days when there were no cities but only farmers and the hunter gatherers who passed between their steads, there was a hunter-gatherer with ten-thousands lovers who he held under the midnight moon. They snuck out of rickety huts to run fingertips down his body under orchard boughs or on soft fallow earth. You are probably a descendent of his if you are from a city-state, as this kind of conduct would have had him murdered if he’d tried it among the tribes, but the toothless farmers could never catch him, adding to his allure among select female relatives. This object is a diadem of ancient gold whose apex weaves around pearls and rubies in a true lovers’ knot; legend has it that it was given to him in secret by the queen of the world’s first city-state before she destroyed his tribe in battle. By this time he had been fattened by the fruit-gifts of lovers and had lost his hunter’s prowess; nevertheless his memory lived on and was cherished.
300❂
12 Platinum charm of a burst heart.
5❂
13 The gifted fur of a sable ape; when in arctic, tundra and taiga regions, sable apes may leave food or snow shelters for the wearer of the fur. This is a highly prestigious item amongst those in the know, as the slightest stressor ruins the quality of a sable ape’s fur until the cryptohominid can calm itself in a freezing river.
500❂
14 Shards of designer crystal in the eyebrows.
10❂
15 The lays of ancient poets afraid of ethereal ineffectuality in the underworld; when read aloud and cast into a fire before armed companions, the reader will enter the company of select ancient heroes born of iresome and tempestuous ancient gods and their goddess-lovers who were planets, stars and quasars; only the destruction of armed men in battle can sooth the newborn hero’s resulting melancholy, though he will climb, fight and deceive as if purposed only for these things; with each death he feels himself closer to the promised nirvana, which is the only alternative to wraithhood in Tartarus, or so the old stories go. This is a form of blood magic; the killings committed by the hero do seem to embiggen and embolden his character, but this is simply the refinement of a portion of the slain ones’ memories and consciousness into phlogiston that is imbibed as a drug that transforms the mental state of the hero but does not determine his existential final destination (though may obliquely shape it, depending on the forces at play upon him).
250❂
16 Golden claws as legs.
450❂
17 A pearlescent mote within a red rose pinned to a man’s lapel. The mote is something wanting, waiting to be born. At some point it will dart into your body. Rains will come and raise mists, and silvery tendrils of spirit will emanate from your core. This is the budding mote exploring. It will guard its guardian; someday it may be brought forth; its shape and nature will partly reflect its gestation environment, namely the conduct and internal state of the player, but also it will address something necessary in this universe; otherwise its spark would never have come.
500❂
18 A paralyzed arsenic wasp containing a blend of adrenaline, amphetamine, antihistamine and antipsychotic; it would not be good for you to inject a swarm of these, but in a pinch it might be just what the doctor ordered.
10❂
19 A bottle that can think and transforms liquids into what it thinks you need. It was forged in the Bronze Age but has not yet updated its priors.
500❂
20 An amber locket; the amber lives and communes with the soil, a lighthouse over the earth in a place that is life but night to eyeless nature. When you die, if you are over soil you will crumble into it, preparing that place for a birth of something that you will of it; a lifegiving herb, fruit or sap oak; a structure, a shelter for something that cannot otherwise be held (at its will or against its will, depending); a sacred place, the home of a guardian spirit, a place of power. This will be negotiated and the GM will set the limits.
150❂
21 Gilded apple, intended for eating.
5❂
22 Can of chicory coffee that’s been modified with unknown crystals; these are the crystallized glint of an observation sun’s brief passage- its sui generis ions left residue on salt flats and obsidian crags. These crystals are of great interest to those wishing to research the strengthening of a beam of reflected light through the introduction of electrical power from a battery.
2250❂
23 Eyes replaced with sapphires; was previously blind.
15❂
24 This suppository of mitogenic oligomer changes the inputs mapping and feeding the physical state of the one who slides it into their skin and rather than the lowest-order components of their flesh and consciousness mapping onto a human schema they will instead be plugged into the base components of another force of animated consciousness, beings of the earliest times who surveillance this earth when it was still a storm of water and other churning elements, before distinct landforms when yet the lower surface of the sea could be walked upon. Beginning with the bones the one who wears this relic will begin to transform into motile gold, and will in time be able to carve slivers and shards off of their inner body to trade to unsuspecting women and men. Yet someday the gold will reach the person’s skin and show through the eyes, orbs of sparkling gold, and cuts will not bleed nor impacts bruise. Cut flesh will reveal only the glittering substance beneath, gunshots leaving permanent but otherwise harmless holes and cavities in the body of the transforming one. Then the skin will shift as well and the bearer will be as a living statue, yet with a voice as sonorous as such a figure in myth and with every inch of skin an eye, ear and tastebud. The thoughts of the transforming one will begin to shift as well, and instead of the nervous system informing thought, instead he will sense the state of all matter in the immediate vicinity, revealing its inner workings but also affecting the transforming one’s mood based on the platonic completeness of all matter around him, lending itself to strange obsessions, melancholy, and mania. If this were not enough to make him a pariah among his fellow men, they will often descend upon him with eyes to making riches of his corpse. Perhaps someday he will tire of this and make a donation of himself.
250❂
25 Beautiful white silk burial shroud, worn by one who is living.
5❂
26 A pair of smoke grenades modified by an entity for their owner. Their smoke dissipates blood. For this reason it is also profoundly unpleasant to enter, though you’ll have plenty of time to realize you’re losing blood unless you’re trapped.
20❂
27 A dark stone cask of turquoise body paint; when you coat yourself with it, you will be able to bud someone off of your body who will be your physical and potentially mental equal, and is initially an extension of your consciousness, but will, over two years, begin to develop a latent personality and a will of their own, yet retaining your abilities and memories, and the memories of the time when you were it. This doesn’t mean that they’ll believe they were the original; it cannot be predicted just what conclusion they will reach, or what they will want to do.
250❂
28 Necklace with five gilded skeletal hands in a radiant pattern.
30❂
29 To some entities, humans are like characters in a fiction, less real than they are yet somehow platonically refined, more extant in a story, more lionizable because of their struggles and victories in their simple domain, disposable yet admirable and even the source of interest in existence. This ingot of machairodus lahayishupup enamel serves as an attractor of attention for entities interested in such a thing; like it or not, the character will come to be viewed by a variety of entities who either wish to see their struggles or have some other reason for tuning into the life of a random (but perhaps somewhat select) human beings. The effects of this are difficult to predict; some entities may want to advise or help the character; others to throw challenges at them and perhaps even toy with them sadistically; some may be scouting for talent or other qualities.
100❂
30 Tiny porcelain swan hanging from one’s ear on a gold chain.
5❂
31 Strange crystalline dart that runs electroacid lines capable of transmitting work throughout whatever it’s stuck into, then runs a theoretical model of the object under various fracture states to determine viable partial joints if any; it breaks the object along these joints if possible, otherwise it jolts work towards surface extremities to move the object by throwing it one way and the another (e.g. The lower extremities of a dresser balanced by work thrown into its upper corners in the midst of its ambulations, thus animating it). This sends out an exocosmic beacon call for inhabitation; the object may be possessed by an entity interested in briefly controlling it (or for longer), though the objectives of the entity cannot be ascertained ahead of time. One way or another the sudden animation of the object is likely to scare the pants off anybody who isn’t expecting it.
25❂
31 Dagger with a magnificent flickering wisp of a blade. Elegant and interesting but will require a custom sheath; this guy just has it in his belt.
6❂
32 A tiny squat little idol that looks cut from an unknown stone but is in fact a real calcified body. It was once a god of manifold domains whose portfolio encompassed natural functions of the earth as well as heroes, civilizations and beasts. Over time the significance of this god shrank, as did his epic and chimeric form, until all that was left was fit for a domovoi and then for a child’s plaything. When clasped close to the chest, this idol imparts wordless but emotionally-charged memories of its once majestic scope, levying intuitions into the wearer across many domains. He or she will intuit knowledge and acquire desires pertaining to many ancient feuds and civilizations which are no longer known except for whichever of their trappings are left on the present time, or for the undercover antediluvian torch-carriers who seek rebirth of what once was but can never be again without radical existential reformation or bloodshed on the vastest scale.
10❂
33 Bull prepuce containing the powdered dry shit of an antediluvian roc, a cryptostygian imperial dodo, and an electrical phoenix all mixed together; gradually turns you into an azure avian bioform, though you will retain your humanoid chassis.
5000❂
34 Mask of wax, and beneath it, gold leaf.
5❂
35 A gilded durian whose gas is debilitating when the fruit is opened; the flesh, however, tastes like delicious green onion ice cream. If heated, the fruit will explode with the full gas effect plus deadly golden spikes hurled in a sphere.
10❂
36 The skull of a philosopher who was sacrificed by the insertion of star sapphires into his eyes and subsequent exposure to the elements. It has a seam around its crown where the cap can be removed, and inside is rich white fat. When burned, the smoke of this fat will remove the ability to speak or think in words, permanently, from all who breathe it. It was used as a means of control by the terrible exocosmic potentate of a before-times open-sky empire, but his mentally aphasic servants were subsequently defeated by neighboring civilizations, incapable of the necessary coordinations; most such skulls have unknowingly been used as candles but this one has survived, hidden among a preserved pyramid of skulls erected in a tumulus by conquering nomads who found it in a deserted temple and added it to their own handiwork.
15❂
37 A tiny bouquet of myrtle in the coat over the heart, slowly turning to gold. This will cease when removed from its place or if the host heart is stopped.
25❂
38 A phial of fecund blood capable of bearing divine brutality into the marrow of its injector. It forces great might, vigor, shapeliness, and health upon the injector, yet he must roll to resist the thrumming call to bloodshed when met with disrespect, inconsiderateness, or viciousness of character in a weakling. Failure can result in anything from a titanic blow to subduing the offender and breaking their fingers to literally pulling their head off in the most uncontrollable state of rage. This world is many decades from haloperidol; there is no mitigating against the requirement to roll against this cosmic rage, except that the injector’s close friends companions are exempt from triggering the rage as it seems to map partly onto ingroup/outgroup perceptions; the offense of someone unfamiliar increases exponentially to someone with this blood, as the true nature of their intentions and the implications of their actions cannot be fully ascertained.
50❂
39 Wad of coagulated blueschist. Worth something to geologists, worth fortunes to Occultists researching teleportation.
4000❂
40 Tiny black velvet bag containing the golden seeds of a plant that can produce fruit capable of serving as human organs, always beginning with a heart. External and semi-external organs such as eyes are also possible, though more common will be things like pancreases and appendices.
750❂
41 Liquor that will induce a blackout; assuming the imbiber is not watched constantly, they will awaken somewhere portentous.
400❂
42 A ring that promises to serve as a locus, conductor or fount of existential/exocosmic power to those with a small knowledge of the occult; in fact this ring is a reminder from an ancient sage to not give oneself over to external promises of easy paths to power. If the wearer serves as a willful transmitter of most forms of occult energy or perceptual inundation, it will reshape them into a form begetting a certain other cosmos and shift them there in the blink of the eye; essentially they will form an imperceptible portion of the bedrock of something, akin to becoming a rock in the center of the earth for us but in a structure far less subject to change and dissipation. They will remain there until that structure fundamentally changes or dissipates. The players should be certain they wish to do this before they subject someone to this fate; certain entities regard this action as so cruel as to deserve retribution, and others will wish to destroy anyone who uses such a thing because it could serve as an effective deterrence to people submitting themselves as Occult cat’s paws.
100❂
43 Rainforest root whose shavings duplicates the effects of methamphetamine, with all of the dependency but less of the degradation. An overdose will, however, melt your arms and legs.
5❂
44 Hollow statuette from antediluvian precursor; grows to encase you and gradually adds organs with biological functions not normally native to human beings. Work with the GM- for each session this character spends inside the statue, they gain specialized biological functions (e.g. a bloodhound’s scent, a jumping spider’s internal biology, amphibian’s respiratory system, flying squirrel’s membrane, etc).
5000❂
45 Surgically adapted penile bomb for a planned murder-suicide.
2❂
46 A seed that, when swallowed, becomes a tree whose limbs are your limbs, whose fruit lights your eyes from behind, whose sap is a conduit for the smallest things to impart their particularities into your inner bark (hemolymph, biological immortality, and symbiotic life nesting in your hollows).
1500❂
47 Winged pearl contained in a tiny golden bird’s cage. If released, the pearl is likely to fly away, reducing the huge museological value of the combined artifact.
2500❂
48 A black javelin that crackles with lightning; its head is that of a snake, and subtle scales cover its body. When hurled, there is an explosive thunderclap and with an earsplitting grinding of stone the javelin expands in fits and starts until it has become a jet black airborne serpent with arms, 40’ long and 6’ wide. Every movement of the serpent is accompanied by a deafening stone grinding. Freed from its bondage, it will mantically ascertain a course of action benefitting the players and carry it out, generally dispatching any foes present before picking up the players and any relevant NPCs and artifacts and then carrying them where they need to go. After this, there is a 50% chance it slithers into the sky and a 50% chance it claws its way down into the earth.
5000❂
49 Hundreds of gold threads woven throughout the hair.
3❂
50 Poultice made from the remnants of a prince killed in a surströmming explosion. When brought into the water, it will secrete a warming gel across the flesh of a person who it is applied to, and its gasses mixing with water will create large, slow, breathable air bubbles. The smell of the air and the wearer will, however, give the one smelling it a feeling like he or she is witnessing the apocalypse.
5❂
51 Jade fangs and emerald shards woven all throughout skin like scales.
10❂
52 The shrunken head of a man preserved in moldy flour; this is small enough to fit inside the coat, beneath the arm like a hanging weapon. The eyes, as clear and opaque as smoked glass, fetter the bearer’s vision when the hair is taken tightly in the fist. This makes the hand bleed; the hair enters the flesh.
15❂
53 Amber bolo tie containing golden wasps; when swung like a bola and shattered, the wasps irately attack everyone nearby, inducing anaphylactic shock.
8❂
54 Can of soup from an unknown company. This is not a real company. It is apparently a peppery chicken soup, but when drank, the consumer’s body bursts into a raging firestorm and restores itself to a platonic state; the individual will be healthy, symmetrical, muscular and hairless, though this will quickly fade if his or her lifestyle does not support these qualities. It does not reduce the age of the consumer, though it can heal maladies associated with aging.
5000❂
55 A blackbird that immolates when forces intent on murder close in around the one who feeds it. After 1d4 immolations it enters a long hibernation as a lump of coal.
500❂
56 A sextant from the city-state of Brinemarrow; it permits secret communion with the voices of select constellations representing heroes and spirits. These constellations will speak as the one they represent, but it will not be easy to determine whether one is speaking to an entity attempting to play out a legitimate masquerade as the personage in question, or whether the constellation is being used to observe you and rebroadcast tailored messaging from a xenocosmic influence cell.
25❂
57 A lighter whose walls are brass doors in miniature. It makes spiderweb behave something like thermite when ignited.
25❂
58 Bottle of chartreuse containing a sapient virus; when imbibed, it will begin to synthesize flakes of gold in your bloodstream, which you can gradually drain and distill into wealth. However, it also requires that you drink warm blood on a regular basis, and it is willing to cause fever if you do not. It is willing to infect other people with a very dangerous, non-gold-producing and nonsapient version of itself if met with true defiance.
15❂
59 An engraved root; place it against a shattered vein and it will enter both ends and serve the purpose of saving your life. Alas it will feed on the blood, and grow throughout the years until it runs through your vascular system, greatly stiffening you while imparting true cardiovascular resilience.
35❂
60 A string of pearls that are the tears of a great arctic sea moth. One who travels among the northern winds may carry the scent of lunar salts back to their weeper, who may alight on the deck to consider the bearer of the calcified things that its eyes have seen.
40❂
61 Hauberk made of diamond somehow fastened into tiny interlinked loops. Has an unbelievable glimmer. Has great value for research and museological purposes, though how much it would be worth to buyers of couture next to an equivalent weight of cut diamonds embedded into a designer shirt is uncertain.
250❂
62 A liquid rubber that can be solidified and molded into a desired form, as it becomes motile under sunlight before hardening forever into a polymer. Can be pushed into a mold after it begins hardening, allowing you to duplicate the dimensions of an existing object.
25❂
63 A tiny canvas upon which a scene can be painted. The paint can then be washed from the canvas and drank. The drinker will experience effect related to the thing that was illustrated, particularly if it was a real thing. This works d4 times before the canvas is too muddled to cleanly engender new forms; drinking the paint after this will carry great risk of existential contamination.
40❂
64 Ramrod for muskets. Shorn if its original purpose, it has adapted and you can use it to quickly stuff items that could fit down your throat into your stomach without trouble. You will need to acquire its counterpart, a dowsing rod, or the removal of these objects will mean hell on earth (or debilitating surgery).
25❂
65 Salamander that, when attached to a wall and ignited, will burn through it before the flame is consumed. A long period of secretion is necessary for second burn.
30❂
66 Prosthetic dummy arm, white, shiny and smooth as porcelain. Has no apparent mechanisms. An observer must conclude that the mechanisms are hidden beneath a supple polymer, but touching it will find it as hard as steel. In fact, the arm is capable of crushing rock, and cannot be pulled loose from the body without killing the wearer, as it extends cords throughout the wearers body, snaking round organs, reaching down into the feet and up around the eyes. There is feeling in the arm, but no pain. For an adventurer it is worth removing an arm, except how suspicious it is- the arm is a mechanical impossibility in this time.
125❂
67 A precipitate of metabolic cement that gradually replaces your bones with a stiff but flexible polymer. Your bones become night unbreakable, but lifting very heavy weights becomes untenable and you are still subject to e.g. brain damage from impacts.
50❂
68 A 1’ silvery chain with a clasp inscribed with a word in a dead and ancient tongue. When the chain is fastened around something and the word is spoken, the chain will instantly shrink to a size not perceptible to science. This will have the effect of cutting any matter whatsoever that is encircled by the chain when it shrinks. Naturally the chain will never be seen again; though it may still be present in some sense, most likely it will pass through other matter at some subatomic level and move along on forces we cannot define.
50❂
69 Grandfather clock taken from a bum cache; when it tolls, including accidentally, a wraith will horrifically mutilate everyone around the clock. Whether you want to hold onto this long enough to place it into a fortress of evil or even get it out of civilization is an open question.
75❂
70 The solid core of an ice asteroid that was highly charged with electricity; can be used as an emergency power source if kept in a cooler, though if you chip or melt it with your hands you will be killed by a massive electrical discharge. It is not technically a battery and is used to store information, though the means of ascertaining that information is beyond current science (but could be derived by certain entities).
40❂
71 Gold coin inserted into forehead for use on judgment day; bearer has sense of equanimity about it.
❂
72 A vial containing a thousand diseases in as many chambers; each will kill so fast that it could never spread in a way that would destroy a city-state, but be cautious, as many purchasers of this fell relic would use it to kickstart the bioweapons program of whatever cause they believe in.
40❂
73 Hatchet that petrifies flesh with blows that you strike, with the net effect of turning people who you hack up into firewood splash by splash.
10❂
74 A silver cord that guides by constellations at night when fastened about the temples. Care must be taken to not give offense to the figures in the constellations relevant to the journey, or the cord will begin to tighten in a debilitating way.
15❂
75 Baggie of uberstrychnine. Imparts ultra prowess for a few minutes before your muscles crush you to death.
3❂
76 A tincture distilled from the waterborne herbal flakes of an arboreal nightmare, green boughs hanging halfway into the water, washing their leaves about. The user can see sliplines- cracks in things that lead to other places but that only he can traverse.
175❂
77 Finely-tuned speedball of jenkem and krokodil.
2❂
78 A diamond-encrusted broach representing the trial of a ship’s captain by a merchant-mayor. It is an heirloom spirited out of a country by the family that comprised the ruling junta; they will want it back, and for all the power they’ve lost, none of their brutality has gone with it. Contains a disc of unknown metal. Guarantees that you will attract lightning in any kind of storm, or if electricity is arcing for some reason. Turns your blood into calcium if carried too long, though it remains functional and somehow prevents electrical burns.
250❂
79 Tiny engine of alloyed gold hanging from chain around neck. Could theoretically function as an engine powering a really small machine.
12.5❂
80 Tiny turtle whose shell is filled with explosives which can be detonated by lighting a one-minute fuse inside the shell.
10❂
81 A quilt that, when worn or laid under, rapidly heals, even to the point of creating cancer from cell growth and hypertension from excess blood; care must be taken to remove the one being healed at just the right time.
125❂
82 Key to a private bank vault. May take some detective work to track down which vault it belongs to if the most recent carrier stole it.
25❂
83 A mini piglet resting inside the collar or in a blazer’s inner pocket. It’s alive, yet it contains d4 gold coins, which the players will not discover unless they pick it up. If this is an actual piglet, the owner will have villainously sewn in the coins as a porcine kitty; if the pig is some kind of familiar, the coins will be dispensable from its mouth without blocking its throat
2❂ (sewn) / 15❂ (familiar)
84 Tiny ivory icon with a tortured man on a pole; this does not represent a redeemer, but a recalcitrant baron.
3❂
85 Tiny fiddle made by a master; scrollwork spills off the frets like ripples on ripples.
14❂
86 Beautiful cherrywood cigar cutter for fingers. Marked with burn etching: let mistakes be indelible that they tutor you.
3❂
87 Bracelet that was once used to chain people to searocks for sacrifice to an abyssal creature; one day the girl to be sacrificed filled her veins with poison and killed the creature when it devoured her. An entity blessed the bracelet, and one who wears it will be immune to the effects of physical contamination or supernatural transformation as long as that entity exists.
30❂
89 A Monadist holy symbol made by a ferociously tyrannical man whose offspring were all radial-limbed energy-based life forms of pure evil; he put his mostly ill-gotten fortune into this chest-size bejeweled iconostasis and retired to a monastery.
2500❂
90 Rosette that guarantees a postexistence; if the wearer is killed, his consciousness will be uploaded into a rosette and a distress pulse of a type calibrated to less-malevolent entities will be sent out across cosmoses. Whether or not an entity will present themselves to the character, and whether or not that entity’s nature will make for a desirable visitation, cannot be certain.
250❂
91 Brooch that transforms the dying wearer into a kind of tutelary deity for the local area; while the spirit of the character will not be able to leave the site upon which they died, they will have immediate, broad control over the local area; other entities will expect the character to act as the place’s guardian and refurbisher, though what they do is up to them. After a few days they will gain the ability to physically manifest in a form recognizable in myth; they will still be unable to leave the site.
250❂
92 Arrowhead that once contained a blood-burning poison; it was shot into the heart of a hero and pumped throughout his corpus, and his soul was trapped in the arrowhead. Rather than pure suicide, one who wishes to die or take a back seat in their own body may stab this into their heart; this will give birth to the hero once again in their own form, with their attendant skills and personality. The hero will, however, have to learn the modern profession of arms; it is not a coincidence that it was an arrowhead which pierced his heart.
30❂
93 A golden bit that nourishes a horse in health and hydration.
75❂
94 A melon-sized geode that serves as a womb of diamonds; carbon inserted into the center will gradually be forced into this form. Other objects will be crushed into near-nonexistence.
400❂
95 Petrified miasma of the corpses of select heroes which languish forever in a liminal layer between our cosmos and others in certain tunnels which become matter transformers capable of shunting a human consciousness into alternative states; when not transmitted abroad, bodies and spirits become energetic forms that are suitable to underlie our existence despite being radically altered. The corpses and the distilled psychological essence are accompanied and channeled by the spirits of some of those who were not heroes, singing in an eternal choir of lamentation or exaltation, gusting the miasma back out of the tunnel, where it can be collected and condensed into a kind of soft but solidified purple cloud. When eaten, the gummy fluff radically pushes back the eater’s accumulation of norepinephrine, thereby allowing the continuation of effort, focus, and psychological energy even in tasks that do not evoke interest or other impulse in the consumer.
30❂
96 Cloth of gold scarf that transforms a river into milk and honey. It will still be water wherever it does not touch the scarf.
75❂
97 Drop of petrified megaviper venom that serves as a sui generis gemstone.
20❂
98 Telluric incense from the innermost veins, partakes of the spores of the deepmoss, the shaven shear-dust of the world machine, the fumes of the outer highway and the morning mist of the Green Realm. When burned, roll a d4; it will channel the aforementioned things (the things, not their runoff) in 1-4 order in the local environment.
30❂
99 Bowl to cleanse the ritual impurity of homicide. In the myths of Cape Cittacotte, heroes are often aberrant and abhorrent. The knight, detective, and protecting parent shade flickeringly into the antihero and murderhobo when pleading and preparation fail. Any argument that they partake solely of the Apollonian is drowned out by the screams of agony and terror. This is the butcher’s bowl; he should be sent away, except that other meal turns the body into dust.
To the knight, detective, or parent who kills, the pacifist is not emulated, though is perhaps protected or sacralized in martyrdom, a superordinate reductio ad absurdum, the babe who can do nothing for others in the moment of truth except contain the lodestone spark of orientation. His words are divine nonsense. He is the star who will not scare the wolves away but may guide you through a wilderness that would make you an animal.
3❂
100 A beautiful wooden staff that, when unscrewed, reveals that it contains one long soppressata. When a second screw is twisted in the bottom, the sausage is extended from of the open top.
❂
Table A Notes:
Prices for this table assume the right buyer.
Most very rich industrialist/financier NPCs will be more interested in buying top-of-the-line, limited-release luxury goods or famous pieces of art from authorized dealers rather than artifacts of possible occult provenance.
I’m not saying these prices reflect absolute worth; I’m saying that diegetically this is what an NPC buyer will offer to pay you, absent an alternate GM call. The players could get more money through dedicated scouting, but potentially less if they wanted to quickly close the deal in the nearest city-state.
Treasure Table B: Couture
You open the ornate armoire. What do you find?
Roll d4 and d10. Use the d4 to indicate the table and the d10 for the entry.
1
1 Designer leather bomber jacket - 2-10❂
2 Designer heels: 2.5❂ - ∞
3 Designer wool wrap: 1.5❂
4 Designer woven leather boots for women (woven like a straw basket): 2❂
5 Designer sequin dress: 6.5❂
6 Designer jeans with shitty felt leaves and flowers sewn all over them, look like ass and the color’s too bright: 2❂
7 Designer child’s dress: ❂
8 Diamond encrusted pacifier, 250❂; built in alarm system I guess
9 Jewelry: Individual pieces are commonly 1❂-50❂. Truly famed pieces are 15000❂ - 75000❂
(One line of jewelry is extremely limited because the designer went to a bandit tribe and joined them on a spiritquest, retrieving artifacts from the netherworld and utilizing them in jewelry; the second time they did it they were all fused into a single nonfunctional body)
10 Ridiculous suit - qiviuk, vicuna, and pashmina. 6❂
2
1 Designer scarves: ❂
2 Hats- even at auction they rarely command more than 25❂
3 Face mask - 3000 diamonds, white gold structure - 125❂
4 Yellow gold bikini 12.5❂
5 Designer one-piece women’s swim suit 32❂, 500❂-2500❂ if you encrust it with a shitload of diamonds
6 Diamond encrusted smoked lenses: 12.5❂
7 Smoked lenses from a luxury carmaker, no diamonds: 25❂
8 Designer sunglasses, no diamonds: 200❂
9 Gold shirt, 7lbs, can’t be washed, 125❂
10 Dental grill: 10❂ (obsidian laid over teeth, alabaster, or yeah just diamonds)
3
1 Gold chain: 50❂
2 Designer watch: 50❂ (up to 300❂ with many complications)
3 Arctic sable: 250❂ for full coat (just one to wear on the shoulders is 75❂)
4 Ornate masks - popular in the world’s underworld. ~10❂. Mask materials:
-Porcelain facade
-Fresh rosewood
-Jet cut in argyle pattern
-Ebony and ivory cheque
-Harlequin: gems
5 Haute couture dress: 100❂, for royal weddings up to 150❂-200❂
1 Gold phalera to be worn over garb, generally up to 9 at once: 10❂ per
2 Golden fleece reserved for members of a particular fraternal order (good battle treasure): 75❂
3 Black gothic full plate, blued, silvered and elaborately gilded, basically ceremonial: 100❂
4 Gold musculata: 50❂
5 Golden mustache/beard: 7.5❂
6 Really tall top hat with gold cummerbund, white gloves, gold-headed cane: 5❂
Items from tomb cities (e.g. Vatrium, Thanofane)
7 Hair ring - hair of dead virginal maiden (true?)- ❂
8 Bone amulet - bone of saint (true?) - ❂
9 Shrunken head/hand of hero (true?) - 2❂-10❂ if sold to right buyer
10 Mantle meant to be worn by death priest (true) 7.5❂
Treasure Table C: Lifestyle Items
d20
1 Gold-hilted saber in ivory scabbard: 35❂
2 Designer bags - commonly 2.5❂-5❂, up to 50❂ off the rack. Crocodile skin, lambskin etc. Special editions ~1000❂ w/ rose gold and thousands of diamonds, 1d4 produced
3 Designer fishing kit 10❂
4 Designer surfboard 4❂ (HAS THE DESIGNER’S MONOGRAM ON IT WOOOOOOW)
5 Designer handbag built into a hula hoop 1.5❂
6 Designer bag made out of fucking tweed, looks like something that came out of your bellybutton - 3.5❂
Trashy horseshit
7 Designer bicycle, leather casing for the assembly of gears and chain - 10❂
16 Imperial Potentate shampoo, .5❂, per the real life equivalent, “rosemary, grape seed, nettle, sage, burdock, and chamomile, are an homage to Russia”
17 Diamond encrusted business cards: ❂ per
18 Pen with lots of diamonds, 750❂
19 Designer parasol: 2.5❂
20 Ornate staff honoring the Fates with a silver weathervane at the top: 3.5❂
Treasure Table D: Household Goods
d20
1 Bathtubs - often shaped like shit. Pure turquoise or a single piece of rock crystal - 100❂-400❂, 500❂ for gold, rare gemstone or ancient petrified wood 1000❂
2 Houseplants - Philodendron .5❂-❂-2❂, Monstera Adansonii Variegata is up to 20❂ and comes with a bunch of holes in the leaves
3 Chandelier with thousands of porcelain butterflies hanging from it: 50❂
4 Diamond-studded chess set, 250❂
5 Gold bassinet: 6500❂
6 Designer crib: 30❂
7 Grand piano: 30❂
8 Sumptuous carpets, custom-made, embroidered in the patterns of their land but bent to your symbology: 15❂-25❂
9 Gold toilet paper, comes around the neck of a bottle of champagne, gets gold flakes all over the floor, 700❂
10 Gold footstool, 110lbs, 750❂
11 Home radiotelegraphy station: 50❂
12 Home theater: 40❂
13 Home recording studio 35❂
14 Fine wooden medicine chest- containing lots of medicines. 5❂
15 Furniture in general - purpleheart wood, incised, rosewood (beware this is a big blood/conflict item), yaya, wenge, hand-oiling, layer paintings, single piece claro walnut, abanos, carpathian, Rococo design. 2.5❂-25❂
16 Luxury table: 25❂-100❂ (latter generally features lots of wood types)
17 Ornate ouija board, sometimes distributed at Reist funerals 5❂
18 Designer armchair 18❂
19 Home aquarium: .5❂-7.5❂
20 Little actual two-story house for your dog: 4❂
Treasure Table E: Consumables
d20 and then any other kind of die as well; on the second die, even result = first table and odd = second
Even Table
1 Truffles - black truffles from Heroon coastal oak .5❂ per lb, pig hunted mountain truffles 2.5❂/lb. Giant truffles auction for about 50❂ a lb
2 Coffee - most expensive normal coffee is ~.5❂/lb. Marsupial shit pouch-gestated stuff is more, like a full ❂.
3 Grapes and strawberries from exclusive grower - the orchard will fly them to you. They don’t produce SHIT ELSE. Every single one gets inspected with a magnifying glass. The strawberries are white with red seeds and do not ever touch the soil, and the grapes are red as tomatoes and really large. ❂ per order of fruit, ❂ per delivery.
4 Mango: NOT flown to you, costs a ❂, no fibrousness, extreme sugar content, soft, can eat the skin, comes with a really ergonomic and shapely little spoon.
5 Watermelon: 3❂ per, dark green, almost black, few seeds, brutally difficult to cultivate, high suicide rate among specialized farmers
6 Melon: 5❂-16❂ per, grown on like the plateau of Leng, slightly spicy, volcanic soil, massaged daily and given hats, looks like ancient cantaloupe flesh inside
7 Champagne - 50❂
8 Champagne red glove service 75❂ - call girl delivers it and then blows you. Clients must pass medical screening
9 You can buy 1000❂ champagne containing liquid gold in a diamond studded bottle you stupid motherfucker
10 A knucklehead bakes gold power into bread but it’s not really that expensive, we’ll say .25❂ for this
11 Sundae with vanilla ice cream from prestigious plantation, scoops covered in edible gold leaf, gilded almonds, truffles, side of caviar - Archzenith delicacy, costs a ❂
13 17.5❂ pudding, champagne jelly and champagne caviar, served in a Fabergé egg
Any dessert can go up to 5000❂ just by including inedible diamonds
14 Tea: ❂ per lb can be used many times without losing flavor, 12.5❂ for tea leaves painted in 25-carat gold and cut with golden scissors, 17.5❂/lb for tea fertilized with panda shit because they only absorb 30% of nutrients, tea from a few irreplaceable ancient trees harvested only very rarely 30❂
15 Beef from the cakevirgin cow; like 75% fat, .25❂ for a 2-lb steak
16 Mandrake mushrooms: sweet, spicy, NOT psychedelic. .5❂ for 2lbs
17 Truckle of Tourmaline moose cheese made in the tundra of its northernmost highlands. .5❂ a truckle, will get drastically more valuable if the Anarcho-Syndicalists take the Gorge.
18 Rare Bear Stew - made from the cubs of extremely rare bears, dried meat (chopped up live and then dropped live into boiling water) and fixings for this soup are .75❂/lb. Sold only in outpost and heartland Vice Fortresses; believed to ameliorate impotence. Many, many laborers, free, indentured and enslaved, are killed by bears or die falling through rocky crags attempting to find the bears’ spittle-fused bowers, though this is just a footnote because it doesn’t affect the price; those devoured by bears are, however, believed in some circles to add to the deliciousness and power of the stew.
17 Financier-brand cigarettes, wine-black exterior, each comes with a brass mouthpiece: ❂ a pack
18 Luxury cigars: .25❂-25❂. Comes with your name on it, filter infused with pearls, bunch of diamonds and gold leaf, delivered by a butler, aged 15 years
19 Cigar from ancient, extinct civilization; looks like a little rolled up piece of jerky: 250❂
20 Century egg that’s actually a century old: 25❂
Treasure Table F: Land Vehicles
Roll a d8 if you’re dealing with something for the road, and d12 to include all options; or d4 for something other than a personal motor vehicle.
Part 1 (d8)
1-5 Baseline luxury car (100❂-200❂); includes icy-looking metallic things running on the pure prestige of their name, nouveau riche candy-colored cars with wood wheels and leather interiors, and everything in between
6 Limited runs (1-3 dozen): 1250❂-2500❂, fewer up to 5000❂ (generally 1 car made per mil). Diamonds in the headlights and shit, foldout dining suite
7 Utterly decadent, intended to be sold to people with unlimited wealth like entrepôt owners: 7500❂-15000❂
8 Motorbikes - 100❂ - 1750❂, potentially more at auction
Part 2 (d12 or d4 counting forward)
9 Heavy hauler: essentially a giant tractor with a platform, can e.g. move ship components. 125❂
10 Diesel locomotive: 250❂-1000❂
11 Train cars: 50❂-100❂
Dining car, cattle car, coal bin, freight, passenger, sleeper, armored artillery monitor (gonna have to work the price on this one with the GM based on locality). Personal luxury: Bedrooms, chefs, stained glass domes, interiors as luxurious as any palace or private noviplane; add d12 x 500❂
12 Designer tricycle for children: 60❂
Treasure Table G: Sea Vehicles
d6
1 Megayacht, chartered from Megakratheon: costs from 100❂ to 500❂ per week. Employs novel use of suspendium in beams; still can’t do this with warships, they’re just too heavy.
Many megayachts have bays for seaplanes and yacht tenders, the biggest have landing strips sufficient for a biplane. Swimming pools, hot tubs, multiple bars
Cutting edge megayacht project: 300000❂
Current most expensive megayacht project: 250000❂, full complement of 70 personnel w/ 24 guest cabins (annual operating cost 1500❂-2500❂ including full complement wages)
The Yacht Squadron are the maintainers of Canalite megayachts in Twin Canals; they are military personnel who crew the Empire’s yachts and defend them in case of attack, which should be the primary concern for most megayacht owners in this world. They safeguard yachts under construction for foreigners until launch day, given the value of this to the economy of the Empire.
2 Cargo ship (d4)
{1} Ferry: Small 250❂-500❂, industrial 5000❂-10000❂
{2} Small freighter 5000❂
{3} Pretty large freighter: 12500❂
{4} Vast ship 25000❂-75000❂ max
Add 5000❂ for refrigeration and 2500❂ for roll on/off capacity (otherwise loaded by crane and even by hand; ships are generally not highly containerized in this era)
3 Seaplane tender: 12500❂, carries 8 seaplanes. Add a rack of diving suits w/ oxygen mechanism at 10❂ per suit and you’ve got the makings of a sea base here
4 Hospital ship: 75000❂ converted freighter. Floating 1000 bed hospital. Mandatory crew of 100, room for up to 1000 more medical personnel
5 Luxury passenger liner: 100000❂ (model: Olympic-class ocean liner). Think grand staircase with caryatids, smoking rooms, gyms, restaurants, cargo cranes, gardens, libraries, tennis courts, restaurants, Turkish baths, pool, Includes a pair of vast “millionaire’s suites” with 50m-long private decks. Baroque or Neoclassical decor
6 Big luxury sailboat: 25000❂ - includes mahogany library with fireplace. Add 25000❂ for movie theater and jacuzzi. Add 25000❂ for gym and submarine.
Treasure Table H: Air Vehicles
d12
Planes
1 Cargo noviplane: 2500❂
2 Butlered luxury noviplane: 2500❂-37500❂. Crew is 110❂ a year. Can pretty much make up whatever you want to have aboard as long as the plane will take off.
3 Common civilian biplane/seaplane: 40❂-100❂ (there are also parasol monoplanes).
4 Box-kite biplanes are often bedecked in glorious livery or art but are not really used for industrial transport 35❂-105❂
5 Scout biplane/seaplane: really a seat on wings, 25❂
Airships
6 Basic rigid airship: 5000❂, can mount two biplanes
7 Armed with some under-armor: 12500❂, low service ceiling, you’ll need to source bombs and launch from a place that’s cool with you having machine guns
8 Biplane carrier: 25000❂, as above but can carry racks of biplanes
9 Luxury airship: 25000❂ with +5000❂ or +10000❂ for additional cabins
10 Hot air balloon: 12.5❂
11 Personal Gliders (d6)
1 Normal soaring apparatus: A hang glider that you’re kind of integrated with like a pair of wings. Almost as dangerous as the personal ornithopter: 15❂
2 Storm wing apparatus: smaller wings but better in weather: 15❂
3 Experimental monoplane apparatus Notionally a monoplane but really an array of individual curved planes that resemble a monoplane and function under similar principles. Extremely sexy, extremely dangerous, though less likely to dive than the others. 20❂
4 Two-story: biplane array, can mount a small seat though good luck bailing out. 25❂
5 Large Biplane Apparatus: Huge and sexy. 30❂
6 Ornithopter: Just gorgeous with structurally-integral wingtip feather arrays and a trailing tail, but this thing will kill you if you let it seduce you. You hold onto it like a hang glider, it basically is a hang glider, wear a parachute if you’re at all high enough because if it goes into a nosedive you’re fucked. Basically if you roll a 1 you die no matter what your skill is. 50❂
12 Rotor kite: Can be towed for fun or oversight, generally not powerable on one’s own. 25❂
Luxury flight: 40❂
Treasure Table I: Pets
There’s a
d100
1-4 Dog
5-8 Cat
9-11 Horse
12-100 (Extended Menu)
Dogs
Top pet dogs are almost always 5❂-7.5❂, certain extremely rare breeds go up to 25❂, will pay a premium for a notable individual, people have paid over 750❂ for famed show winners.
Top breeds (d6):
1 Arctic Reaver
2 Love Rocket
3 Dwarf Gnome
4 Quasibear
5 Royal Mystic
6 Pufferhound
Working Dogs
d6
1 Belgian Malinois: 1.5❂. Can attack enemies but also be picked up by the handler
2 Doberman Pinscher: ❂
3 Bull Terrier: .75❂
4 German Shepherd (scout dog): ❂
5 Yorkshire Terrier (combat courier): .5❂ for run of the mill, 2.5❂-5❂ for pedigree dogs
6 Bloodhound - the ultimate trackers, but don’t expect them to confront the prey. 5.❂-2.5❂
For training, add 15❂-30❂:
Detection Dog: Narcotics, explosives, firearms
Guard Dog: Great for detecting people creeping up on your position
Guide Dog: A blinded PC may find this useful in their transition to NPC
Attack dog: Basically a static turret or a dog for bounty hunters that you release when a guy sprints into the woods or tresspasses or something
Scout dog- intermediate to docile detection dog and aggressive attack dog. Taught to distinguish human from animal scent
Tracking dog: long range man-finder, bloodhound best for this
Herding Dog
Team Dogs (haul light artillery and civilian milk carts)
S&R Dog
Sled Dog
Military-Messenger Dog
Cats
Up to 62.5❂, some 12.5❂-25❂, most 1.5❂-2.5❂.
Top breeds (d6):
1 Gigantic Pinecoon
2 Elfin Piglet
3 Archzenith Assassin (1 litter per year, 62.5❂ per cat)
4 Naked Molecat
5 Kadwan Cretin (flat-faced, tongue out)
6 Boondock Prizefighter (aristocratic or underworld bloodsports)
Horse
d6
1-2 Hobilar dragoon horse: 30❂
3-4 Thoroughbred stallion: 40❂
5-6 Vineforest polo horse: 100❂
Extended Menu
12 Candy Basslet: .5❂
13 Clarion Angelfish: 1.5❂
14 Wrought Iron Butterflyfish: 1.5❂
15 Australian flathead perch: 2.5❂ but it looks like a sock
16 Neptune Grouper: 3❂
17 Golden Basslet: 4❂, has to be collected by submarine
18 Bladefin Basslet: 5❂
19 Peppermint angelfish: 15❂
20 Freshwater polka dot stingray with genetic mutation rounding its head, must be hand-fed: 50❂
21 Platinum arowana: 200❂; basically albino. Lives 50+ years
22 Snow macaque: 1.5❂
23 Capuchin monkey: 4.5❂
24 Camel: 5❂
25 Hyacinth macaw: 5.5❂ - biggest flying parrot in the world
26 Palm cockatoo: 8❂
27 Savannah cat: crossbreed of domestic cat and African serval, 11❂, kind of looks like it’s disappointed in you. Litters are rare as servals and domestic cats generally do not wanna smash. Really popular
28 Chimp: 30❂
29 Arctic fox: .5❂
30 Crocodile: .5❂
31 Micro Piglet: ❂
32 Fennec Fox: 1.5❂, looks like it has beef with you
33 Kangaroo: 1.5❂
34 Kinkajou: 1.5❂, less if it’s really vicious
35 Two-toed sloth: 2❂
36 Ringtail Lemur: 2❂
37 Zebra: 2❂. Super aggressive
38 Cotton Top Tamarin: 2❂
39 Wallaby: 2.5❂. May come with kids. Less capable of triangle choking you to death than a kangaroo
40 Finger Monkey: 2.5❂
41 Owl Monkey: 3❂. Nocturnal
42 Bongo Antelope: 4.5❂. Expensive because they’re sourced IVO Feyglade and the nomads will tie you ass-first to a red ant hill
43 Toucan: 5❂. Super needy
44 Ocelot: 7.5❂. This thing will bite your scrote off
45 Alpaca: COMMENCE THE ALPACALYPSE
46 Koala: 50❂, can eat nothing but eucalyptus. Their habitats are basically held hostage by price gougers
47 Hippo: 55❂, eat 100lbs of food a day
48 Polar Bear: 200❂, weigh up to 1200lbs and stand 10’ tall
49 Elephant, 750❂
50 Giant Panda: Sort of meant to eat meat but generally must subsist off of bamboo, so it shits 40 times a day and has specific anti-cyanide adaptations. Give birth to twins in about 50% of pregnancies. Preyed upon by snow leopards, move to warmer climes in winter instead of hibernating, will roll in horseshit if necessary to keep warm. 750❂
51 Bush baby: 2❂
52 Moon Bear: 1.5❂, ruthlessly poached for delicious bile, which is believed to impart erection and solve medical maladies by the ruling classes of the Vice Fortresses, who suffer from massive hypochondria. Imagine that animals just cannot feel pain or negative emotions and that’s how people treat these things. That said, in the wild they’re super dangerous- for example, IRL in Kashmir a bear found four assault rifle-wielding insurgents in its den and managed to kill two and maul a third, and then presumably ate the pudding they were making like Goldilocks or something. I don’t know if they even had a chance to shoot it
53 Hawks and Falcons: .5❂ unless you’re in a hyper-aristocratic culture, then pedigree birds up to 125❂
54 Sugar Glider: .25❂
55 Binturong: looks like it’s seen some shit, .5❂
56 Chinchilla: .25❂, in the summer they cheaper
57 Armadillo: 1.5❂, will basically run relentless circuits around the place
58 Giant anteater: 3.5❂. “They look like huuumans! Shaggy huuuumans!” You know who you are
59 Dolphin: young 25❂-50❂, adult (up to 30) 50❂-100❂
60 Tiger 3.5❂-5❂, striped white tiger 15❂, pure white tiger 50❂
61 Lion 2.5❂-7.5❂
62 Snake - ball pythons 10❂-25❂, tree python in rare colors 500❂-1000❂ to aristocratic buyers
63 Genet: 1.5❂
64 Coatimundi: ❂
65 Tenerec: .25❂
66 Skunk: .25❂-.5❂
67 Squirrel .25❂
68 Marmoset: 2.5❂
69 Wolf: 1.5❂. 25% chance of biting you every day, more if you’re an edgelord, will bite and dominate everybody else. Will tear up your place like a bull in a china shop if brought indoors. Doesn’t respond well to coercion-based training, will ignore commands if it’s bored of you. Will annihilate small animals. All that goes for trained wolves raised around humans. They can smell as well as scenthounds, though
70 Llama: 1.5❂
71 Capybara: ❂
72 Possum: ❂
73 Zedonk: 2.5❂
74 Zorse: 15❂
75 Liger: .5❂, get really really huge, often die early when their hearts give out
76 Cama: 10❂
77 Llapaca: 5❂
78 King Cobra: .25❂-.5❂
79 Spitting Cobra: .5❂
80 Jaglion: 5❂
81 Pumapard: 5❂, tend towards dwarfism
82 Giant tortoise: 4❂
83 Great white shark: 500❂
84 Orca whale: 1500❂
85 Rhino: 15❂
86 750lb steer: .5❂ (beef cattle)
87 300lb pedigree hog: .25❂
88 Stud Pig: .25❂-1❂
89 Beefalo: ❂
90 Dzo: 2.5❂ (bigger, stronger and more productive of milk and meat than yaks or cattle in the regions where they meet, though the males are sterile)
91 Yakalo: 3.5❂
92 Bongotunga: 3.5❂
93 Geep: 2.5❂
94 Wholphin: 25❂
95 Narwhal: 1000❂
96 Narluga: 1500❂
97 Orangutan: .25❂
98 Owl: 2❂
99 Lynx: 2❂
100 Fainting Goat: .25❂
Note: Animals previously abused by owners command a huge price markup due to new owners being able to say that they have a “rescue dog” and have it be more than maudlin self-lionizing horseshit
Note: If a guy’s got a platinum arowana and you can get that thing out in a fishbowl to a reasonably wealthy city-state, you can make at least $100,000. This is industrial era treasure baby
Treasure Table J: Services, Memberships, and Events
d20
1 Top service hotel, giant suite in Diadem or Ascension (“Royal Suite”, oftentimes just one per building): 20❂-50❂ per night, generally you get a full personal staff to include chef, butler and private assistant, the largest ones have 5+ bedrooms, marble spa baths, multiple bars and powder rooms, and chauffeured luxury cars
2 Spa treatments- .25❂ a treatment, .5❂ a session, nights from ❂ to 1.5❂
3 High-level haircuts: starts at .25❂, a lot of what they can charge for is maintaining iconic looks, .5-1❂ for apex-level hairstylists. Full service where you get flown in, have a spa treatment, get a bunch of products and hobknob with the stylist can be 7.5❂-12.25❂; stylist can also fly to you for this
4 Stuff like the Bullingdon club (or Bohemian Grove, or Hellfire) membership: 100❂ + 10❂ dues
5 Money laundering services (gambling, modern art, real estate): 10% commission
6 Campaigning a dog in a top show: 50❂-100❂
7 Lunch for four at Eviratee: ❂. Restaurants that are equivalent to 3 Michelin stars start at .25❂ per meal, may need to book months in advance if it’s a place where a chef and staff takes care of a single table in a single room
8 Extensive reist burial at Vatrium, extensive entombment and proceedings at Thanofane: 500❂
9 Performance by notable musician: 50❂-750❂
10 Tattooing by master: .25❂ an hour, full tattoo being 3-30 hours, so .75❂-7.5❂
12 Surgically implanting hooks in your head so you can have gold chains for hair: 7.5❂
13 VIP box at race or opera: 4❂
14 Initiation with the Irae bandit tribe; this is like an extreme “West Cure”. Then you go on a raid with them. After that you have to leave, though.
They do this to make an outsider legible to them, and by extension the current state of outsiders; you come out with a psyche they can understand.
37.5❂
15 Weddings
Can run up to 5000❂-10000❂ for royal affairs and the mightiest merchant houses, can expect more like 1500❂-2500❂ for a splendid high society wedding for ~300 in Ascension.
7500❂-15000❂ you’re getting into true ostentation.
16 Funerals
2500❂-7500❂ for lavish state funerals involving the armed forces in republics, 25000❂-200000❂+ in opulent absolute monarchies
125❂-500❂ for lavish private funeral, assuming a one-day service
17 Staging events (d4)
1 World-class beauty pageant: 7500❂-10000❂
2 Lavish gladiatorial games lasting many days: 17500❂
3 Feast of the swans style mass-knighting ceremony: 4000❂
4 Debutante balls like the Waldorf-Astoria one: 1000❂
18 Crack legal representation: ❂ per hour
19 Bottle service at top club, own section to own room: Starts at .25❂-2.5❂
20 Buy-in at high-level casino-fortress tables: 25❂-250❂
Treasure Table K: Real Estate
Cabin: 10❂
Hideaway blacksite: 17.5❂
Add home alternating current generator 15’ long by 10’ wide by 15’ tall to any property - basically your own power station, requires mechanical energy/work of some kind to power. 50❂
Large apartments in the most exclusive floors of Diadem go for ~5❂ a month, studios more like 2.5❂
Giant beautiful castle-mansion (the lap of splendor and luxury but not really fortified) 75000❂
Enhancements to the grounds (d6)
1 Bosquet with garden rooms: 100❂
2 Nymphaeum with elaborate friezes on subject of your choice: 250❂
3 High mannerist sculpture: requires persuasion of the artist and an acceptable subject
4 Statue centerpiece, actually a solidified spirit- possibly quite unable to communicate or effectively move, may be like a statue, may be gelatinous or in other matter state
5 Garden centerpiece, actually a plant that was once a human and could become one again
6 An abbey or temple that you basically use as your relaxation/meeting grounds
Labor’s cheap, urban real estate is expensive
Multi-story penthouse in a major city: 5000❂-10000❂ to 50000❂-75000❂
Diadem penthouse/private manor in midtown Ascension: 150000❂
Note: Real estate in the most exclusive neighborhoods in Ascension, Troutbridge etc. some of them have clauses that may disallow adventurer types; exclusionary housing codes are not illegal basically anywhere except Great Loom, where they wouldn’t apply to that many people anyways
Cavern remodeled for occult fane, submarine bay: 12500❂
Tropical island rentals, guarded - 250❂
Guarded island in the Little Iguanas, or guarded island in the wine (if you don’t guard the latter you’re gonna lose it): 7500❂-12500❂ for a good-sized island with an attractive manor home and amenities on it. Up to 30000❂ for a nice big island with dozens of buildings, a huge built-up marina and a landing strip.
Best manors/country houses: 250,000❂
Governmental palaces could go for 2,750,000❂ if they were for sale
(Common examples of these things, either more modest or in less central locations, will generally go for half)
Giant modern sports stadium with all amenities: 250,000❂-500,000❂
Railroad: Generally 125❂ per mile if you’re laying down a stone bed. 62.5❂ if not.
Yeah you can build a personal railroad, but you can also charge fees if you expand an existing railroad or open yours for service
Treasure Table L: Common Goons
You’ve shot, stabbed or defenestrated a goon, and now you can do his pockets.
d100
GM: Value is d4❂ / 2
1 Sheaf of banknotes redeemable for coin at large banks
2 Small, silverchased musical instrument
3 Scrolled firearm plated in precious metals
4 Etched and silverchased dagger
5 Wad of panacea
6 Unused hand grenade
7 Valuable pharmaceuticals
8 Gold locket
9 Gold pocket watch
10 Goldclapsed snuff pouch
11 Gold cigarette case
12 Gold-plated lighter
13 Gold plated harmonica
14 Nacre face mask, worn hanging on chest inside shirt
15 Gold teeth
16 Pouch of cocaine (chance of being flour or something)
17 Wristwatch
18 Gold wedding band (or ear, nose, Prince Albert)
19 Silver wedding ring
20 Flashy rings
21 Gold-plated flask
22 Silver flask
23 Gold armlet (inside or outside shirt)
24 Gemstone necklace
25 Jeweled tie pin (in lapel if no tie, or through the nose or something if no lapel)
26 Sapphire or ruby-shard flower in shirt
27 Ivory sheath or holster
28 Gold inlaid lacquerwork fountain pen
29 Jewel-laid ivory cameo of a maenad eviscerating a sorcerer priest
89 Held-out ingot of meteoric dimagnesium triferrodiallosilicate - like 20❂ if you can find the proper merchant or manufacturing combine to acquire it
90 Golden spyglass
91 Jeweled cufflinks
92 Golden craniofacial prosthetic
93 Treasurebound journal; gold, nacre, carnelian
94 Gold bootspurs (may be practical, may be ostentatious and unnecessary)
95 Gilded feather in hat
96 Gold eye with (sapphire/emerald/ruby) and jet iris
97 Gold prosthetic hand
98 Jewel-encrusted pendant watch
99 Livery badge of association (animalform) to fraternal order, master or patron
100 Chinchilla greatcoat (or designer smoked lenses in hot environment)
Sample Backgrounds for Common Goons
d20
1 Served as a capo in a death camp or while a POW before rescue/release.
2 Amateur hitman known for only taking contracts where the target is unlikely to shoot back, like unsuspecting wives.
3 Anarcho-Syndicalist torturer booted from the organization for being too extreme.
4 Right wing death squad member in exile after his city-state’s defeat and his organization’s destruction (or his movement’s success and his personal marginalization as something no longer necessary or desirable).
5 Former low level mob soldier considered a cop magnet and ordered to leave town.
6 Policeman ousted for brutality.
7 Bounty hunter generally blacklisted due to being seemingly unable to take anybody alive.
8 Failed salesman driven to murderous rage, his gun the only thing he feels like he can understand and control.
9 Fighter for underground xenotheocracy at war with xenostygian existential puritans. Fled after column was rewound into obligate thermophiles; he managed to peel off the back before the endoliths reached him.
10 “Asset Protection” corporate mercenary kicked out after PR disaster.
11 Enforcer and living battery for cryptostygian data collation conspiracy; fled, now scared shitless of cryptostygians reaching him pretty much anywhere or holding power in ways most people can’t even imagine.
12 Followed along on a plunder crusade, some time later he washed up on shores of a nation near his homeland and did some time as a slave before escaping.
13 Clerk in service to the banker Knights Tarragon. Made off with a strongbox containing 250❂, spent it within a week.
14 A member of a gang of frontier fighters who specialized in knocking the slats out from under bandit tribes by massacring their homesteads when war parties were away; eventually they fell into a trap set to exploit this exact m.o.
The fighters were tortured and killed in unspeakable ways while this man watched; he was released to tell the tale, but not before having his nose, ears, scalp, foreskin, and pinkies cut off.
15 Red Charter sand thief who didn’t understand throughput and made off with a single barge of sand to sell it. Broke again several weeks later, on the run from former colleagues.
16 A mercenary fighting a colonial rebellion on behalf of an empire. The empire eventually negotiated the colony into becoming a protectorate, but one of the terms was that the mercenaries be handed over to the new state’s authorities. He managed to escape execution by fragging his company commander and claiming to have been pressed into servitude.
17 A rapparee who eventually turned in his band in for a reward and a commission; the occupying force neglected to give him either in the end, and he suffered a mock execution during which his band was hanged all at once and his trapdoor was the only one that didn’t drop, after which he was released.
18 Preacher who offered tutorship in morality to daughters of remote homesteaders, exploited the trust of their families, ended up killing two members of a posse of fathers pursuing him.
19 Servant who seduced a scullery maid, had her steal the lady’s jewels so they could run away and start a new life together. He cut her throat and then made off with the jewels, but had to abandon them at a guard checkpoint.
20 Made the heart-stabber of a rural cult, managed to just slip away when the rangers closed in.
Sample Outlooks for Common Goons
d20
1 I’m the kind of guy who’s meant to be a knight but I was born under the wrong circumstances, and society can’t accept the level that I operate at.
2 It doesn’t matter what the rules are or what’s fair. I’m me. I’m #1.
3 I’ve never had anything. All I’ve known are rats, roaches, shitty canned food, burning summers and freezing winters. I’m not gonna wait any longer. Other people are gonna die before I let myself go back into poverty.
4 I’m doing this to raise money for (d4) [International Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalism / My Liege / A Nationalist Militia Abroad / My Drug Habit].
5 Now I’ve got money, I’ve got respect, I’ve got freedom, and I’ve got ladies of the night. When I was just an average dude I never had those things. In light of that, why should I give a fuck about what YOU think?
6 I’m crazy so you’d better keep your distance. They should have killed me at birth or locked me up forever. Too bad. I don’t give a fuck who I kill and I cannot be predicted. Since I’ll never be held accountable, your best bet is to tread lightly and never tempt me.
7 I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t believe in violence. But if you fuck with me I HAVE to kill you or at least beat you senseless. PLEASE do not screw with me.
8 If you disrespect somebody then all bets are off. GOD I hope somebody fucks with me. An old woman or a quadriplegic could talk shit and I’d still beat their brains in.
9 Only a sucker would do something he doesn’t wanna do. Wage labor is tantamount to slavery and if you participate in it you deserve to be ripped off. I’m not gonna participate or such a corrupt, fucked up system or have any sympathy for anyone who does. Plus, after you’ve killed one person in a way the courts consider unjustified, what real difference is there in terms of consequence if you kill five? Ten? Twenty?
10 This is the way nobles behave. It’s the way republics and religions behave on the world stage. Don’t tell me I’m wrong to follow suit just because some other set of rules theoretically applies to you and I.
11 “Theft is but restitution carried out by an individual to his own benefit, being conscious of another's undue monopolization of collectively produced wealth” - Clément Duval
12 I’m a decent guy but don’t let me get ahold of some liquor or the animal’s coming out of the cage.
13 Society fucked me in every way and I’m a reflection of its brutality. I’m gonna get my revenge, and after that I’m sure I won’t be long for this earth. Things couldn’t have turned out for me any other way
14 If you give an inch they’ll take a mile. I’m not big or intimidating but if you slight me in any way I’ll stab you faster than you can believe. The alternative is to be subjected to brutality so relentless that I will kill before I allow myself to be carried one step in that direction.
15 My narrow identity group are the only real people and everybody else are utterly inferior and fair game. {Supremacism acquired in (d4): Prison / Filibustering expedition / Childhood / Ultranationalist military order unit}
16 My back’s against the wall. I’m just doing what I have to do in order to feed the people I care about. But give me any lip and I’ll kill you and bang your girlfriend.
17 This is all I know. If I has been weak, if I hadn’t become a predator, I’d have been brutalized in the worst way, by authority figures and peers. I have no friends, only potential victims, and the only person I’ve ever loved is my mother. She doesn’t know what I do and I’ll cut your head off before you tell her.
18 My religion sanctions the raiding of infidels, and I don’t think you’re one of the flock. This is god’s will, otherwise it wouldn’t be happening!
[..]
Fuck, I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me!
(d4: 1 Vier Reism, 2 Radiant Monadism, 3 some kind of polytheism and he worships the god of e.g. thievery/strife, 4 new interpretation of existing god)
19 This society’s gone to the dogs and I’m gonna get mine before it all goes down in flames.
20 The human race is obviously evil and everything else is bullshit, niceties, and sheltered naïveté. Your contemptible slave morality doesn’t apply to me so go fuck your own face before I do it. This is predator and prey.
Treasure Table M: Personnel
Labor is very cheap except for the most elite professions and renowned experts. Most people are looking for a *sure thing*. Players can retain employees pretty easily because however much of a menace to society an adventurer is, player characters usually treat loyal employees pretty well.
Select Roles (d6)
1 Personal psychotherapist: 42.5❂ per annum
2 Secretary who comes with her own team of secretaries: 90❂ per annum
3 Romantic “pets”; sugar daddy/mama relationships: 15❂-60❂ per annum
4 Personal crack attorney: 200❂ per annum
5 Chef: ❂ per week
6 Emergency room set up in your home (surgeon, a handful of supporting medical personnel, ward with equipment and supplies); people will hate you if they know about it unless you open it to the public. 500❂ to establish, 500❂ per year wages and supplies.
General Labor Price Bands
Price of labor in most developed city-states begins at 7.5❂-10❂. A single ❂ is for the truly desperate.
Skilled professional in specific field e.g. Administrator/courtesan/engineer/architect
Expert in non-applied academic discipline Knight: includes mutual oaths; generally you need some claim to nobility although you can found a Merchant House and freely employ knights
Psychologist
50❂+
Attorney
Surgeon
Famous artist
Famous courtesan
MERCENARIES
d6
1 Desperately poor gunman: 2.5❂-5❂ per annum
2 Retained criminal: 13❂ per annum
3 Competent former soldier: 35❂ per annum
4 ^Officer, bring on additional men to maximize value: 50❂ per annum
= 2767.5❂ per quarter, the minimum employment period (generally with 1 operation expected)
Multiply by 10 for a 10000-man Great Company (there are 2 or 3 in the world at any given time) ie 110700❂ per annum, or 111100❂ if the leader commands a premium for being in charge of such a huge unit.
These prices are for the kind of mercenaries that turn brigand in lean times and won’t be nearly as reliable as aristocratic house troops and retainers, though they may have more specialized expertise in e.g. combat engineering. For Swiss-style professionals, double or triple the above prices depending on veterancy and equipment i.e. integrated tanks, artillery and air support = triple price.
Treasure Table N: Diegetic Specialties
Noteworthy Shopping Districts
Black Atrium: Midtown Archzenith. Chic to heaps-of-pure-gold gaudy.
Skeleton Quay: Coastal marina in Cape Cittacotte with service to private resorts in the Little Iguanas. Dealers for almost every luxury brand in the world.
Dogtrash Alley: Attar. Avant-garde, still expensive as hell.
Specialties from city-states commonly mentioned hitherto
Mandrake: Furs, jewelry, ostentatious couture/national costumery, liquor, ornate and extreme weapons, highly skilled courtesans, highly skilled manservants and manservant-bodyguards, swords
Ascension: Aircraft, cars, luggage, the icier side of high fashion
Starling & Shrike (agents-only or with an agent as a guarantor): Ornate pistols, seized assets, banking and financial services
Atrialia: Maximum purity drugs, customized weapons which tend to be illegal elsewhere (get your dragon-headed flamethrower, grenades arbitrarily pineappled with obsidian, gilded mortar), the outrageous side of high fashion
