The Khagan of Soil was so slow that if he invited you over for supper, not only would you be done eating by the time he finished grace, but you would be hungry for breakfast by the time he swallowed the last bite of his meal. In his dotage, he became slower still, until his heart beat once an hour, like the chiming of a clock, and yet slower, until a whole year passed as a day for him, with spring as his morning and autumn as his dusk.
The slower he got, the wiser he became. At first he could listen closely for the ponderous language of the soil, then the centennial utterings of the stone beneath it, and then the slower and stranger liturgies of the things farthest below, until all of the secrets spoken by the earth were known to him: buried treasure, buried bodies, the coming of earthquakes, and the disposition of the dead.
He grew lonely in the quietude of his life, and spent sixty years making six children of clay and stone, three sons and three daughters, in hopes that they would keep him company. Even these beings of earth, however, were too impetuous to live with a man of such supreme slowness, and left him in his House to find their fortune in the world.
I’ve been looking over classic Traveler system generation. It gets the job done, but the number of steps has me thinking about compressing as much information into rolls as possible during procedural generation. These tables are still probably for expediting prep rather than truly enabling at-the-table generation, but they might make things go faster and maybe encourage thinking about the ways different pieces of setting information are related.
Step One: Roll d100 to determine settlement population and reference the 1s place on the table below:
unfortunately an image. couldn’t get merged cells to work otherwise.
Step 2: Use the number of dice indicated in the “Stat Roll” column to roll the settlement’s stats: Influence, Intellect, and Combat. Whether or not a given stat is even or odd influences the character of the settlement. Also, the highest stat represents the background and affiliation of the town’s leadership. Tied stats represent a power struggle in the town.
Influence: A representation of a settlement’s general health and prosperity. If there is uncertainty as to whether or not a good can be purchased or a service acquired, roll Influence. Influence leadership might be a mayor, a council, an elder, or a merchant.
Even: the settlement is sympathetic to the Moon Court.
Odd: the settlement is sympathetic to the Holy Ghost Brigade.
Intellect: A representation of a settlement’s education and technology level. If there’s uncertainty as to whether or not a question can be answered, a technology repaired, or an expert found, roll Intellect. Intellect leadership might be a university, a lead researcher at a local research station, or a deep science cult.
Even: Clean tech is favored and relatively easy to find. Ritual augmentation and deep science artifacts are frowned up to illegal.
Odd: Ritual technology is favored and deep science is preferred. Even shadier ritual augmentation might get a pass, and artifacts are highly valued.
Combat: represents the settlement’s security and military power. If there is a question as to whether not a settlement’s constabulary or military will show up in force, roll Combat. Combat leadership might be a noble and their knights ruling the settlement as their fief, a military garrison, or an unusually powerful sheriff.
Even: The local constabulary and military align with the nominal ruler of the territory.
Odd: law enforcement and military act in their own interest or the interests of someone other than the local government: the Holy Ghost Brigade, local bandits, themselves.
Stats can be used for conflict between settlements at scale; opposed Combat checks for armed conflicts or Intellect checks for espionage.
Also, failing a town stat roll should be complicating rather than terminating. If the players want to do some robbing and the village they’re in doesn’t yield anything suitable with an Influence roll, then maybe blowing a nearby bridge will fill the town up with laden caravans with nowhere to go (as opposed to a wealthier town where there might be a bank, ready to go).
Example Settlement
A couple of rolls gives us a settlement with 71 people. Rolling 2d10 for stats, that gives us a town with Influence 5, Intellect 15, and Combat 15 that has rebel sympathies, tolerates dubious deep technology, and is ruled by a military or law enforcement that is working in opposition to the standing local authority. Putting that together, we have…
The Village of Morrt
Influence 5, Intellect 15, and Combat 15
Morrt is a sprawl of shacks, dusty farms, and parched pastures. Travelers can get basic provisions and buy some water, but buying anything even a little expensive or unusual is going to be a longshot.
Odd Influence: rebel sympathy. Villagers are poor and hostile to the Moon Court and its representatives. They might harbor a fugitive, lie to a government official, withhold taxes, kill a knight in their sleep, or rally around a charismatic bandit or rebel.
Odd Intellect: deep science sympathy. A House of Iä cultist by the name of Yume lives in a shack at the edge of the village and has been proselytizing for a while. Nobody is likely to join the cult, but they are convinced in the utility of deep science. Villagers might scrape up money to send mercenaries on a vault expedition, look the other way if they see someone use a taboo ritual augmentation, or close their doors in the face of a Synod investigator.
Combat Leadership – Odd Combat: Rogue governance. The town has a noncommittal militia and is effectively run by its captain, a farmer named Sartain. He and his inner circle are Holy Ghost Brigade spies, funneling information he receives as village head from the Court. He might ask sympathetic travelers to sabotage a Court expedition, kill a villager who is close to discovering the truth, or stage a coup to formally declare Morrt a HGB town.
Skills
Padding out the skill list for a largely terrestrial game where access to technology is limited and working animals are common. Also, a lot of skills on the rules-as-written list aren’t useful, since space is probably going to be very hard to get into. For the social skills, I tried to tie them specifically into areas of expertise (knowledge of etiquette and legal precedent) rather than making them extensions of a non-existent Charisma stat (Persuasion, Deception, etc). I think it fits better with the spirit of the game and might open up some interesting dynamics.
Animal Handling is getting animals to do want you want within the bounds of their behavior and intelligence.
Ceremony is knowing of the lives and sayings of saints, poets, knights, and kings. If you want to convince someone of something based on precedent or decorum, Ceremony helps. It also lets you officiate things like weddings, funerals, christenings, etc.
Commerce is appraising the value of goods, knowing if you’re being cheated, finding a buyer, and getting a good price.
Creed is a replacement for Theology, representing a general knowledge of all the various religions and esoteric beings that proliferate in the desert. It probably specializes based on major religion or religion type, but I’m not that far yet.
Deep Science is knowledge of the impossible alien technology buried in vaults across the system. Working directly with deep tech will almost eventually turn you into something bad eventually, but a deep science check to study somewhat more conventional ritual technology will let you bypass the normal penalties (i.e. disadvantage on working with it unless you designed or built it yourself).
Herding is working with herd animals, getting them where you want them safely and quickly, knowing when they’re sick, reading their behavior, and so on.
Rites is a skill, representing knowledge of ettiquette for greetings, farewells, insults, haggling, marriages, funerals, alliances, and the like. If you want to suck up to someone by showing respect or a willingness to play by the rules, Rites helps.
Law represents knowledge of legal precedent and taboos. It lets you represent yourself or others in a trial and conduct a trial if all involved parties agree.
Riding is riding on animals. Driving still applies to things like carts and carriages–if you’re on an animal’s back, it’s riding.
Riding Specialization applies to a particular animal, like emperor mantis nymphs, camels, or elephant crabs.
Training is training and taming animals, as well as getting trained animals to actually follow their training.
I’ve been running Blades in the Dark with some success, and one thing I really like is that the abstracted wealth and gear system removes boring and time consuming inventory management and provisioning aspects from the game. I don’t know if I’d want to replicate it fully in a game like Mothership, but I think there are ways to elide lengthy shopping trips and fussy bean counting using BitD as an inspiration
Your Gear consists of possessions you own and have steady access to. If you lose or expend an item on your Gear list, you don’t have to buy it again–once you get some downtime at camp, you reacquire more. However, you only have enough resources for the quantities listed–you may have “Travel Kit” on your Gear list, but you can’t take more than one with you on an expedition or sell them at quantity. This is an abstraction of time and wealth.
You start with everything in the Standard Gear list, which represents the equipment a ne’er-do-well like you can buy, steal, and bargain for. Your background provides some Special Gear, which represents what you and only you can get from your family, contacts, downtime spent tinkering and repairing, etc.
Other Equipment
Everything else, you have to buy to acquire (and buy again to replace). If you pay 50 times the list price for an item on the list in the book, you can add it to the Gear of the whole party.
Encumbrance
Just because you have all of this stuff doesn’t mean you can take it will you all the time. You have inventory slots equal to STR/5, rounded up. Your mount has inventory slots equal to its Instinct/5, rounded up.
Up to three days’ worth of food, coffee, and tolerable liquor. Each day is 1 ENC.
Water calabash
1/2/3
Up to three day’s worth of water. Each day is 1 ENC.
Extra ammo
1/2/3
Each 1 ENC of ammo is enough to fully reload one of your firearms once.
……………………….
……
…
……
Weapon List
All firearms are ritual tech. Reloading a single shot requires a significant action. Each manufacturing company confers a different advantage on a critical hit:
Lilit & Sons: wounds a hit location. Use the system on page 10 of the Mothership Player’s Survival Guide to determine the location. Wounded hit locations confer disadvantage on relevant checks until healed.
Baruch Manufacturing Company: knockdown
Ptolemy Arms and Design: ×3 damage
Sidearm
DMG
RNG
Shots
Lilit Model 13
1d10
20/50/100 m
6
Baruch Visitation
3d10
2/10/50 m
3
Ptolemy Cavalier
2d10
10/25/75 m
8
Melee Weapon
DMG
RNG
Special
Hardwood Knife
1d10
CQC
Can be used while grappling
Ceramic Machete
2d10
CQC
Good for hacking through vegetation
Ceramic Bayonet
1d10
CQC
Can affix to any longarm
Ceramic Glaive
2d10
2 m
Requires two hand
Longarm
DMG
RNG
Shots
Special
Lilit Helminth
2d10
50/100/300
5
Until receiving medical treatment, struck target suffers disadvantage on Body saves to recover HP or overcome infection.
Lilit Nightingale
2d10
100/500/1000
1
Makes almost no noise.
Baruch Seraph
4d10
10/25/75 m
3
½ damage to occult enemies normally immune to physical harm
Baruch Testament
4d10
10/25/75 m
3
On a critical hit, target suffers disadvantage on their Fear save
Ptolemy Emissary
3d10
20/50/100 m
8
On a critical hit, target suffers 1d10 bleeding damage/round until bandaged
Ptolemy Chariot
3d10
20/50/100 m
8
Can reload 1 shot per round without taking a significant action.
…
…
…
…
Mounts
Mount
Combat
Speed
Instinct
ENC
Hit
Horse
15
45
45
9
2
Draft Hound
20
35
50
10
3
Mantid Nymph
25
75
15
3
1
Ritual Marionette
20
45
40
8
1
Ritual Augmentation
Metal pigment tattoos forming esoteric circuits for cranial and neurological stimulation, providing uncanny powers of perception and influence. Each ritual augmentation description lists the location of the tattoo, the permanent complication that results if the recipient fails a Body save during the administration of the augmention, and the effect of the augmentation when used.
Paying for higher quality materials and more competent surgeon-artists provides advantage on the Body save. Augmented characters may apply their Mysticism skill if they have it to any stat roll pertaining to use of the augmentation. Most augmentations except Water Sense will get you shunned, exiled, or executed, depending on the jurisdiction.
Suasion
Location
Back of head
Complication
Sanity save in presence of esoteric phenomena or suffer visual hallucinations
Effect
Requires eye contact to actuate. The target must make a Sanity save against the user’s Intellect or view user as friendly and appealing until they part company. Using Suasive augmentations successively on the same person makes it less effective; after the first successful Sanity save, a target becomes immune to this augmention from the same user, while failed saves confer advantage on subsequent saves.
Alethiometry
Location
Above and behind both ears
Complication
Sanity save in presence of esoteric phenomena or suffer total aphasia
Effect
The user can detect lies spoken in their presence at will. Written lies, lies transmitted electronically, or lies made in other languages and then translated into the speaker’s are not detectable. Very talented or esoterically gifted liars may be able to make a Sanity save to resist being caught.
Ignition
Location
Around the neck, centered on the throat
Complication
Can’t speak above a hoarse whisper
Effect
The user can subvocalize to ignite a human-sized or smaller creature or object within a 10 m cone in front of them. Creatures can make a Sanity save against the user’s Intellect to resist. Ignition deals 1d10 damage per round until extinguished.
Water Sense
Location
Back of tongue
Complication
Presence of large amounts of water causes migraines and visual auras
Effect
User can sense bodies of water within [Intellect] meters. Sensing water-based life forms or heavily adulterated bodies of water is possible, but requires an Intellect check with disadvantage. If given time to concentrate, the user can make Crisis Checks to extend the range (cumulative ×10 per Crisis Number). Using this ability attracts the attention of all esoterically sensitive entities within range.
Graviturgy
Location
Extending from temples to palms of hands
Complication
Failed Panic Checks cause local gravitational disturbances
Effect
User can crudely move and manipulate objects within [Intellect] meters (strength of a full grown person, dexterity and coordination as if one handed). Requires an Intellect check if there is some question as to whether or not an attempted feat is beyond the user’s ability. If given time to concentrate, the user can make Crisis Checks to increase the effective strength of this ability (cumulative ×2 per Crisis Number), but failure causes a catastrophic gravitational event. If used offensively, target can make an Armor save vs the user’s Intellect roll to resist, taking 1d10 damage on a failed save
I’ve been reading through Mothership, and want to use it to run a game modeled on Dune, Caves of Qud, and Moebius. Salvage-based scarcity culture endlessly recycling barely understood machinery, alien deep science reverse engineered into volatile and unreliable ritual technology, enormous draft insects hauling precious water across the desert. I spent a lot of time trying and failing to write a concise setting summary, so here’s an encounter table with some item and NPC descriptions instead.
by Moebius
by Moebius
Encounters
1
Moon Court bounty hunter in clean tech Janissary Frame
60 HP, 60 Combat, 30 Instinct, 40 Armor, Military Training, double move rate while in Frame.
2
Water Bearer carrying 50 days of water in a ritual tech cucurbit golem.
Water Bearer: 40 HP, 15 Combat, 35 Instinct, Creed, Geology, Rites Cucurbit Golem: 75 HP, 50 Combat, 15 Instinct, knockdown on a hit
3
Dog sledge trade caravan with 5000 credits worth of ritual tech
Surrounding dust storm limits visibility to 10m 5 (30) Hits, 65 Combat, 35 Instinct Make a Sanity save on first sight or become a lesser gul upon death
Vicious, but susceptible to taming (4): 45 HP, 45 Combat, 35 Instinct
9
Wandering Devil Merchant riding cucurbit golem
Knows how to implant any of its augments, requires 1000 credits Merchant: 50 HP, 35 Combat, 65 Instinct,Creed, Cybernetics, Rites, 3 random augments Cucurbit Golem: 3 Hits, 50 Combat, 15 Instinct, knockdown on a hit
10
Holy Ghost Brigade Sortie
Scout (4): 40 HP, 40 Combat, 30 Instinct, Military Training, Rimwise Sergeant: 50 HP, 45 Combat, 55 Instinct, Military Training, Creed, random ritual augment
cucurbit golem: a creaking ritual tech automaton with a head and torso formed from an enormous calabash, canine hind legs and humanlike forelimbs. Engraved with esoteric circuitry and typically painted with a fierce face. The automaton only obeys spoken commands from its owner; ownership can only be transferred verbally and in the automaton’s presence.
elder gul: an esoteric being, transfigured by death and time and the influence of some deep science mechanism. It is horse-sized, bone pale, shrouded by mirage shimmer, moving in a way that suggests a deer or maybe a wolf, commanding hot desert wind and bleaching the distinction between life and death just with its presence
Janissary Frame: +10% Armor and double move rate. A clean tech battle dress used exclusively by the Moon Court. Genetically keyed to its operator. Someone with knowledge in hacking or jury-rigging could trick it into working for an illicit user for a time with a sample of the real owner’s biological material, but it would take real cybernetics expertise to truly jailbreak it.
Rites and Creed: Rites is a skill, representing knowledge of protocol for greetings, farewells, insults, haggling, marriages, funerals, alliances, and the like. If you want to convince someone of something, knowledge of Rites helps. Creed is a replacement for Theology, representing a general knowledge of all the various religions and esoteric beings that proliferate in the desert. It probably specializes based on major religion or religion type, but I’m not that far yet.
ritual tech: Modern technology has been adulterated with superstition and supplemented with reverse-engineered alien deep science, yielding an unpredictable but strangely efficacious “ritual tech”. As there is little infrastructure for modern material science and resources are scarce, most structures, vehicles, and devices are made from ceramics, plastics, and engineered wood. Metal goods and strictly conventional technology, known as “clean tech”, are expensive and reserved for space-faring vessels, heavy manufacturing, and high quality weapons, all monopolized by the Moon Court. Anyone attempting to repair, modify, jury rig, hack, or otherwise work with a ritual tech device suffers disadvantage on checks, unless they constructed or designed the device themselves–ritual tech is groaty fake science interwoven with reality-warping alien principles, and requires a mix of intellect, luck, and trial and error. Clean tech confers no such disadvantage.
ritual augmentation: Metal pigment tattoos forming esoteric circuits for cranial and neurological stimulation, providing uncanny powers of perception and influence: ignition, suasion, water-sense, alethiometry, telekinesis, etc.
Water Bearers: traveling aesthetic members of a reputable dowsing cult. Dig wells using sanctified ritual drills and sell water to those far away from water sources. Deny rumors of deep science, but people who show too much interest in the topic tend to disappear.
People have been sharing the 10 RPGs that most influenced them. Here’s a handful of mine–they aren’t the ones that I like the most or played the most, but have certainly had the biggest impact on how I think about table top games and gaming.
If You Knew Now the Fullness of Your Coming Regret, by Constance Hughs
The entirety of the game consists of the names and brief biographies of 100 characters in Plangence, a small South Dakota town. Its first and only print run was taken from shelves when the remains of 24 of the people named in the book were found in the author’s South Dakota home.
Chrysanthemums, by Anonymous
A simulationist take on Heian-era romance distributed in the early 90s by floppy disk. Its complex flower-based resolution system was derided by critics as inaccessible and expensive, but it accumulated a cult following.
Cradled in the Holy Hollows of His Hands, by Josiah Jameson
A diceless system based around accurate recollection of Bible verses. Its author claimed playing the game was an act of worship, drawing censure from a variety of Christian spiritual leaders. Publication rights have lapsed since its distribution in the 80s, and the author’s estate disavows knowledge of the game.
Supplement V, by M.M. Batiste
An unsanctioned fifth supplement to Original Dungeons & Dragons featuring extensive rules for what the author describes as games in the “Grand Guignol style”. An expansively cruel and gruesomely scatalogical tract claiming inspiration from 100 Days of Sodom,L’histoire de l’œil, and of course the shows of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, its appendices included “rules modules” well ahead of the booklet’s time, describing options for ascending armor class and damage on a miss.
The Whole of the Law, by Anonymous
A series of allegedly false documents that loosely outline a modern fantasy horror setting in which a revanchist neopagan splinter sect stages a successful coup in the United States in the late 1990s. Sold loose-leaf in a shrink-wrapped manila folder, it was pulled from shelves in the early 2000s, perhaps the real string of arrests in West Virginia towns in which must of the metaplot’s action takes place.
Working on a low level 5e pathcrawl of sorts for a haunted stretch of Floridian wilderness.
Terrain
Palmetto Scrub. fronds just taller than your average person. You can shimmy up the periodic pine tree to see into adjacent hexes. Going off the trail through scrub counts as difficult terrain and requires you to make a DC 14 Dex save or take 1d4 damage per turn as you get cut up by vegetation and bit up by insects.
Pine Forest. Dark, cool, weirdly quiet, with close-set trees. The mist doesn’t entirely burn off in the mornings here. Going off the trail counts as difficult terrain.
Wetland. Mostly waist-deep muddy black water, dotted with soft-soiled islands that support sparse palm trees. Counts as difficult terrain, and hurrying requires a DC 14 Dex save or falling into a sump in the river bottom that you didn’t notice because you were in such a dang hurry. Swimming creatures get advantage on stealth checks here.
Pine Forest Encounters (1d6 by day, 1d8 by night)
2d8 bandits (pg 343 MM). Disadvantage on morale checks–they are actually teenagers and kids, and very hungry. You might get 1d4 of them to tag along if you talk them down and offer them food.
1d3 outlaws (pg 349 MM, see Scout). Will ambush if they can. The outlaw last in initiative order can cast produce flame cantrip at will and the hex warlock spell 1/long rest, but does not have a bow.
1d2 brown bears (pg 319 MM). Not interested in fighting. If the players win initiative and make noise without attacking, they make a Morale check with disadvantage or bolt. You can get good money for their pelts and teeth, though.
cougar (pg 339 MM, see Tiger). Stealth check vs lead player’s Passive Perception or else it falls on top of them and starts mauling. If the players notice it, it will track them semi-obviously until it has a good opening for attack. Flees if attacked, but always returns.
1d3 false raccoons (pg 318 MM, see Baboon). Can cast minor illusion at will and suggestion 1/day. Their heads don’t seen to join up with their bodies quite right, and their teeth are a little too human, and they can talk. They claim to be from a place ruled by November, where everything is wild and barren and twisted sideways. They like it here, though. They think they are going to stay.
Kehkerekhek, Mockingbird God. (pg 324 MM, see Giant Eagle). Can cast minor illusion, thaumaturgy, disguise self, and silent image at will. Phantasmal force and suggestion 1/day each. If he hasn’t taken damage on a turn, he can do a rude dance as an action, triggering an encounter check. Hates all False Beasts.
Knightingale (pg 350 MM, see Veteran). Vampire weaknesses. Can polymorph into a nightingale as an action. Armed with a saber and carbine made of red-tinted mercury glass.
Moonbeast (pg 347, see Mage). Can fly. Will ignore players until next encounter in return for a human life, the location of many victims, or the name of a member of the party. Otherwise, just wants to taste as much blood as possible. As pale and indistinct as a fish seen in deep water, looks something like a deer skeleton settled on its haunches when it comes to a rest.
Palmetto Encounters (1d6 by day, 1d8 by night)
2d8 bandits (pg 343 MM). Disadvantage on morale checks–they are actually teenagers and kids, and very hungry. You might get 1d4 of them to tag along if you talk them down and offer them food.
2d4 coyotes (pg 341 MM, see wolf). Will ambush if they can. Try to separate the enemy and chase them off into the scrub. Can be distracted by food.
1d2 giant spiders (pg 328 MM). If they get a surprise attack in, each will try to grab a PC and pull them into the scrub. They ignore the scrub as difficult terrain. Flee if it looks like they will lose, but will track PCs, waiting for an opportunity to attack by surprise again.
2d4 boars (pg 319 MM). Don’t ever roll Morale, won’t stop chasing. Their meat and guts are filled with vermin, but their pelts are still good.
1d4 false coyotes (pg 341 MM, see worg). Big coyotes, each with three tails and too many eyes scattered across their faces. They come from a place ruled by November, and they want this place for themselves. Each can cast tasha’s hideous laughter 1/day.
Grass House Dweller (pg 346, see druid). Palmetto scrub does not count as difficult terrain. Keeps the souls of those they kills in calabashes on their belt. If they start losing a fight, they reach right into the ground and pull out an enormous centipede like a person yanking a root out of the earth to distract their attackers as they run away. Will implacably seek revenge afterwards, though.
Knightingale (pg 350 MM, see Veteran). Vampire weaknesses. Can polymorph into a nightingale as an action. Armed with a saber and carbine made of red-tinted mercury glass.
DivineCarrion (pg 228 MM, see Mummy). A carcass of indeterminate provenance, bone visible, thin slices of rich red flesh peeking between mangled fur and too many limp limbs. Can move, but begins all encounters with a supernatural appeal to take a bite of it, which requires a DC 12 Cha save to resist. Those who succumb cannot regain hit points in any way, and rise as ghouls when they die unless the curse-disease is lifted. Hates all False Beasts.
Wetlands Encounters (1d6 by day, 1d8 by night)
2d4 bandits (pg 343 MM). Paddling along on rafts and coracles. Disadvantage on morale checks–they are actually teenagers and kids, and very hungry. You might get 1d4 of them to tag along if you talk them down and offer them food.
1d4 crocodiles (pg 320 MM). Likes to surprise attack and pull people into the dark water.
Horseshoe Crab (pg 324 see Giant Crab). Like to swarm and grapple a single target, dragging them underwater.
Elder Amphiuma (pg 324 MM, see Giant Constrictor Snake). Can also breathe water. Can cast thaumaturgy and guidance as cantrips at will; 1st level spell slot to cast command and animal friendship, 2nd level spell slot to cast augury. Friendly, if obscure and erratic. Hates False Beasts.
False Crocodile (pg 324, see giant crocodile). Walks on/swims with long human fingers, has wet and friendly eyes. Can cast command (recharges on a 5-6). Wants the pearl under the Elder Amphiuma’s tongue.
River House Dweller (pg 346, see druid). Has swim speed, can hold their breath for an hour. Keeps the souls of those they kills in reeds on their belt. If they start losing a fight, they stir up the waters, turning it into a seething mass of snakes. Will implacably seek revenge afterwards, though.
Knightingale (pg 350 MM, see Veteran). Vampire weaknesses. Can polymorph into a nightingale as an action. Armed with a saber and carbine made of red-tinted mercury glass.
Drowned Merchant (pg 24 MM, see basilisk). It wants for its waters to swallow more lives and goods, to learn dangerous secrets, for the crocodiles in its waters to be well fed. It will sell anything that has fallen into its home river, lake, or pond at considerable markup; reveal a secret know to someone who drowned in its waters
You might know me as Mateo from gloomtrain. I’ve decided to move my blog over to my own domain. As you might know, Google+ is being shut down within the year. I’ve been ramping down my social media use in general anyway, so I think this is an opportunity to cultivate a slower, kinder, and more thoughtful presence on the internet. I’m going to try to put my effort into more substantive blogging, instead of throwing out half-formed thoughts on G+ and then never developing them further. I’m also going to try to respond to comments more–I would often fail to do so on gloomtrain, due to a combination of blogger’s poor moderation tools and my own anxiety. Everyone who contacted me through gloomtrain has been very kind, and I appreciate it.
