jacinto adventures, classifieds, djinn, new barbary, npcs, san serafín

things to do in La Habana

It occurs to me that jinetero is a perfect term for adventurers, even if it doesn’t perfectly match the real-life contemporary definition. Anyway, here’s the lowdown on some of the player-adjacent factions in La Habana.

Red Hibiscus Society
A social club/trading consortium/gang based in La Habana. Their affinity for bypassing the Emir’s taxmen has made them natural allies of the Castilians of La Florida.

The chief of the Red Hibiscus Society is Yusuf, a colossal ex-bandit who has given up direct robbery for the relative ease and comfort of running a medium-sized crime syndicate. He always smells of violet water, and is rarely seen outside of his bath–he’s had a porcelain clawfoot tub installed in the Red Hibiscus Society Hall where he conducts most of his business so he doesn’t have to get out even as he works.

The Society regularly employs vagrants, vagabonds, and soldiers-of-fortune to carry out its interests, both legitimate and illegitimate, with at least one layer of plausible deniability.

  1. Deliver a sealed cask to the bar next to the Castilian embassy by the Docks. Expect trouble on the way, and do not open the barrel.
  2. Retrieve a package from the House of Honey and Salt, and deliver it at a dead drop location at the Royal Park. Wash your hands thoroughly with hot soap and water afterwards, do not breathe heavily around the package, and do not get it wet.
  3. Yusuf’s step-daughter is attending the Emir’s birthday and he suspects some pencil-necked egghead at the College is going to ask her to attend it with him. Explain to him why this is not a viable decision, but don’t do anything worse than breaking his knees.
  4. That bastard Admiral is holding out on Yusuf–the Castilian has, through various semilegal channgel, acquired Gran Morado, violet water made from the purest and most fragrant violets, said to restore vigor lost to age, bring good luck, grow your hair back, whiten your teeth, dispel melancholy, etc etc, but now he won’t sell it to Yusuf as promised. Help the Society seize some La Florida-bound shipments of fine liquor to help the Admiral see reason.

Saints of Honey and Salt
A religious order of sybaritic assassin-surgeons who operate out of hospital-brothel-temple-laboratories called Houses of Honey and Salt. They’re the best doctors in town, but also the best murderers-for-hire, so everybody needs them and nobody trusts them. Their influence is mostly a network of debt and favors–if you don’t owe something to the Saints, you owe something to someone who does. Everyone agrees they are Up To Something, but nobody really knows what it is.

  1. The Saints need a jaguar for their experiments. Definitely healthy and whole, preferably alive, but with a minimum of injuries if that isn’t possible.
  2. One of the Saints makes weekly rounds in Old Habana, giving free care to the sick. An upstart guild of sawbones have begun to threaten her and interfere with her work–guard her  this upcoming Sunday.
  3. A deliriously ill patient undergoing an experimental treatment has broken out of the House of Honey and Salt. Find them before the metamorphosis completes their illness gets the best of them.
  4. There was a pirate raid out east two days ago, and the Saints are expecting an influx of patients. Secure an emergency shipment of bandages and laudanum from the Castilians–and you don’t have to be friends with them afterwards.

The Klatch
A loose society of brujas, brujos, shamans, sorcerers, exorcists, theologians, and philosophers who frequent La Habana’s coffee houses and salons and who maintain correspondence with practitioners across New Barbary. They tacitly and informally police the supernatural community (such as it is) of La Habana, ensuring that devils, the dead, and hostile gods cannot hunt unchecked by more mundane authorities.

  1. The La Habana chapter of the Klatch believes a devil has taken up residence in the city. A reward of 50 pesetas to anyone who brings information leading to its banishment.
  2. The Emir’s favorite dancer has been possessed by a malicious spirit, and it’s taking most of her caretakers’ efforts just to keep it under control. Take a trip out to the Hungry Grandmother’s shrine and ask her for a purgative.
  3. An ambitious young thief has found a a djinni (again). His first wish was for a king’s fortune and his second was for 100 wives. Since you can surely imagine how well that’s going, get that brass ring off of his finger before he causes another international incident.
  4. The New Barbary Trading Company of Castile wants to build a warehouse and offices on what the Klatch believes to be the tomb of Blood Dews Upon The Lilies, a sainted ancestor liable to wake up again if disturbed. They aren’t listening to a bunch of witches, but perhaps you can find a way to be more persuasive?

The Souk
Almost any merchant in the Souk will part with goods or services in return for a favor. You can buy most things there, but here are a few of the odder services you can get:

FOOD

  • a nice hot meal. 10 pesetas. A hot meal and a rest fully heals your HP, though you might have lingering injuries, depending.
  • ingredients. 5 pesetas. If you have the skills, you can cook a hot meal without paying a premium for it, and you can do it out in the jungle or bush if you bring the right equipment. 
  • snack. If you take 10 and eat a snack, you recover 1d6 HP. You can only do this 1/day OR 1/genuine hazard faced.

TRANSPORT

  • emperor ghost spider. The most reliable form of transportation in New Barbary, these colossal spider spirits are bound and trained to carry passengers and cargo. Their castle-sized carapaces are hollowed out: the abdomen holds lodging and cargo storage, while their handlers work in the thorax and head, where the blood of their animal sacrifices propagates through channels carved into the spider’s chitin, and where the handler’s soothing prayers can more easily heard. The largest emperor ghost spiders can traverse across the shallower parts of the Caribbean, their legs long enough to reach the sea floor. 
  • magot porter. New Barbary macaques are big enough to stare a draft horse in the eyes without getting off all fours. They aren’t particularly fast, but they are strong enough to carry a person and all of their gear, and can traverse dense jungle and mountainous terrain. Overall reliable, handy, and peaceable, but if you do manage to anger or spook them they can pull your arms off without trying very hard. 
  • sedan chair. Mostly used in the city of Otra Tétuan. They have a faintly sinister reputation, since devils and the dead can use them to travel unseen, and powerful brujas will travel on sedan chairs carried by zombis. The spouses of Dead Ixe are infamous for being carried by their husband’s mummified servants. Normally, though, it’s old money, D-list royalty, and regular joes willing to pay a little extra for some swift and discrete transportation. 
  • cars. rare, expensive, loud, smelly. They drive spirits crazy, and most cars require apotropaics from front bumper to back just to keep ambient divine rage from shutting it down. Beloved by the nouveau riche and Flowerland industrialists. They can be rented. 

HELP

  • Competent mercenaries and guards will work for 50 pesetas a day, plus danger pay.
  • Hooligans, desperados, and ne’er-do-wells will work for 15 pesetas a day, and might try to squeeze danger pay out of you if they think they can get it.
  • Minor ghosts and spirits will work for 50 pesetas in sacrifices a day, though they are more erratic than the living and might demand further favors.
  • Godlings, loas, orishas, and the like don’t really have a pay rate–you have to negotiate on a case by case basis, and you usually have to find a medium in good standing with the entity to want to call on first.

jacinto classifieds, intro, Pernicious Albion

A Perfidious Primer

Queen’s Crossing is a mercantile town perched atop the greatest bridge spanning Albion’s River Dour. It teems with social climbing merchants (much to the revulsion of House Herpetu, Queen’s Crossing’s resident Old Money and the object of an endless parade of nouveau riche marriage proposals) and an equal number of cultists, who traffic with the wayward Spawn of Agorath that dream on the riverbed below.

You each have a room at the Hateford Home, a boarding house of middling reputation and adequate sanitation located in one of the rougher neighborhoods of Queen’s Crossing. It is run by Madam Eugenia, a truculent widow locally famous for the diameter of her forearms and talent with a hatchet. She often rents rooms to freelancers, vagabonds, and soldiers-of-fortune, and so hopeful clients often leave job postings, which as of yesterday are as follows:

From High House Herpetou
A sum of £1,500 for any who apprehend the despicable person or persons responsible for circulating threats against  that most majestic and virtuous of fairies, the Lord of No-pity, who has graced our Lady Herpetu with a visit. Contact Dame Balustrade at Castle Herpetu for details.

His Grace, the Lord of No-pity

From the Royal Society
A team of scholars has disappeared on an expedition to Osric’s Tor. £1,500 for returning them alive; £750 for returning their remains. We will also pay for any antiquities safely recovered from the site. Speak Professor Lately at the Queen’s College for the particulars.

Osric’s Tor
by Martin Bodman

From the Postmaster
Three of our couriers have failed to return from the village of Scavenger’s Weir. While it is admittedly a wretched little town, the sentimental bleating of those with relatives there has begun to wear on me, and these disappearances are interfering with my office’s function. £1,500 for resolving the situation.

jacinto classifieds, intro, is this gonna work, type v

midgard

EDIT: Hvitr and Gildarthe are from Servants of the Cinder Queen, a pretty awesome adventure that will hopefully be released outside of kickstarter soon.

The Midgard Archipelago consists of four main islands, each occupied by a demigoddess. They maintained the natural order of the Archipelago, and in return the people of Midgard didn’t do anything stupid like clear-cutting the forests or hunting animals to extinction. Then the Telluric Technarchy of the dwarves came, placing each island under governorship and sealing the goddesses in engine-temples to siphon their power. This is slowly killing Midgard; every year the days grow hotter, the nights grow colder, and both grow longer, while the crops become less and less plentiful and the islands sink inch by inch into the sea. It will take at least another century before this starts to pose major problems, but the dwarves will have extracted everything of value and left by then.

The Four Great Islands are:

  • bright Alfheim, former domain of Eir, Luminous Fairy of the Heavens, and homeland of the light elves. Lady Grasp, its dwarven governess, refracts the radiance of Eir to create foul radiation that twists the flesh of living things.
  • freezing Kaldhammer, former home of Gildarthe, Demon Fairy of Fire, and homeland of the cambion. Its dwarven governor is Lord Lazuli, who uses the geothermal rage of Gildarthe to fuel his factories and workshops 
  • twilit Nidheim, erstwhile demesne of Vor, Dreaming Fairy of Darkness, and homeland of the dark elves. Its dwarven governess is the Lady of Chalcedony, who taxes the dreams of the living and the souls of the dead by channeling the goddess’ strange emanations.
  • verdant Vangr, sometime domain of Syr, Giant Fairy of Earth, and homeland of the humans. Its dwarven governess is the Corundum Prince, who distills the blood of Syr into powerful elixirs. 

You can pick any class, but unlicensed magic is outlawed in the Archipelago on pain of death. Magic-users have to be subtle if they want to live. Paladins and Clerics can worship a member of the Norse Pantheon or a non-stupid god of their own devising. Warlocks make pacts with one of the four Goddesses (Archfey = Syr, Fiend = Gildarthe, Great Old One = Vor. Eir = Any. You can also choose the Summon Pact, which I will be modifying)

Tribes of the Archipelago
No one will look twice at any of the following races:
Humans
Light Elves
Dark Elves
Cambions
Moss Giants

Strangers to the Archipelago
People may react with fear or surprise when encountering the following races:
Dragonborn
Halflings
Dwarves
The Bufondi

Do not exist
Please don’t pick these. I’ve either made an alternative or they do something annoying. If you really want to play one, we can work something out.
Gnomes
Tiefling
Half-orc
Half-elves
High Elves

Elves

Ability Score Increase: +2 Dexterity
Age: live to ~800 years
Alignment: ???
Size: Medium (4 to 5 feet tall)
Speed: 30
Languages: Common and Elvish
Fairy Ancestors: You have advantage against charm spells and magic can’t put you to sleep

Subrace: Light Elves

Ability Score Increase: +1 Wisdom
Otherworldly: You can attempt to hide when lightly obscured
Fleet: Your movement speed is 40 feet
Hunter-gatherer: You have proficiency in the Survival and Nature skills

Subrace: Dark Elves

Ability Score Increase: +1 Intelligence
Darkvision: Natural darkness does not effect your vision in any way; you can see as easily in a sunny field as a pitch black room.
Childhood Training: You are proficient with your choice of smith’s tools, alchemist’s supplies, or mason’s tools.
Old Artifice: You can cast the Mending cantrip.

Midgardian Rumors

  1. The dwarves guard the goddesses so closely because if one escaped, their devices wouldn’t work on her island anymore.
  2. Syr, the fiercest of the fairies, only fell because the dwarves weakened her with cursed poison. If somebody found a remedy and gave it to her, she could could break free.
  3. The dwarves built the Storm Golem Hvitr to keep the Fire Fairy trapped, but they aren’t bothering with repairs like they used to.
  4. It took twelve of the dwarves’ greatest wizards to bind the Dark Fairy, but six have died since the invasion and the rest are past their prime.
  5. The dwarven Technarch commanded the dragon Fafnir to return to the capital after it defeated the Heaven Fairy, but everyone knows he’ll come back to Midgard if the situation turns against the dwarves.
  6. Legend has it that the old goddess of death hid the legendary ribbon Gleipnir in the bottom of her temple before it sank into the sea.
  7. Lady Grasp of Alfheim has a vault containing the magical cloak Spakri–it refuses to work for one such as she.
  8. the Lady of Chalcedony tried to make a false goddess with the souls she stole, but it escaped and now calls itself the Fairy of All Death
  9. The dwarves have devised a new substance called “gunpowder”and claim it will revolutionize their ability to crush you pathetic rebels.
  10. The dark elf resistance has formed an alliance with their old enemy, the vampires.
  11. The dwarves executed several members of the former Kaldhammer royal family for violating their house arrest.
  12. The dwarves are offering a bounty for any artifacts recovered from the Peripheral Islands.
  13. The dwarves are offering a bounty for any artifacts recovered from people who illegally possess them.
  14. The sea devils stir in their deep trenches, unchecked by the fairies.
  15. Sailors say that the haunted Manse Macabre is once again visible on the cursed Islet of Drear.
  16. The light elves have revived the ancient practice of lycanthropy in hopes of defeating the dwarves.
  17. Missionaries have arrived from the Technarchy, eager to convert the peoples of Midgard to worship of the Creator.
  18. A High Invigilator of the Technarchy has come to Midgard to root out illicit sorcery. He claims to have devised the ultimate magic-destroying technique.
  19. Something wicked hunts on the Isle of No Gods.
  20. The emissaries of The Bufondi are appalled by the dwarves’ policies in Midgard, but cannot act directly without violating their strict neutrality.

One thing in 5e I’m not so hot about is the number of freefloating per-rest abilities. Warlock Invocations have a similar problem–they often interlock oddly with spell slots, and even the cool at-will ones seem easy to forget. Having them be twice as good and twice as rare makes things easier all-round. I’d probably halve the number of invocations gain, rounded up, and let players pick from this list, along with a few others in the book I won’t copy out.
  • Barbarous Name: When someone says your full name, you know roughly how far away they are (give or take 10% of the distance) and in which direction
  • Clever Speech: You can speak and understand Droll, the language of cunning creatures, which include foxes, crocodiles, spiders, crows, ravens, jackals, and cats of any size. 
  • Cryptomancy: When you know a creature’s deepest secret or the true name it calls itself, its saves against your spells have disadvantage
  • Dark Speech: You can speak and understand Lament, the language of lesser undead. You can speak with zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and the like.
  • Fairy Flight: When calculating maximum jump distances and heights, add double your proficiency bonus in feet and treat standing jumps as running jumps
  • Fairy Glide: When you fall, you can slow your speed to 60′ per second as a reaction. While falling in this manner, you can move half your speed horizontally on your turn. You always land on your feet and take no damage from falling. 
  • Psychometry: When you make eye contact with a creature, they must make a Wisdom save vs your spell save DC or you learn their current emotional state and any supernatural allegiances
  • Suspiratio: You can breathe in water as well as air, and you are unaffected by foul odors and poisonous gasses.
  • Witchsmith: You gain proficiency with smith’s tools if you do not have it already. You can create magical weapons, which imposes disadvantage on your proficiency roll. Such weapons deal your choice of fire, cold, radiant, necrotic, lightning, or poison damage and count as magical for purposes of breaching supernatural defenses and harming spiritual beings. Creating this weapons requires acquiring expensive and dangerous metals. 
    jacinto adventures, classifieds, flowerland, World of Dungeons

    Flowerland Classified #2

    I of course try to be consistent/maintain continuity, but one thing I’m figuring out is economy, so rewards and prices might fluctuate some the first few sessions.

    • Guards for missionary trip still wanted. 200 sp/guard. Contact Sister Aggorath at the Church of the Queen Mother.
    • Looking for scrap metal. Supposed to be a whole city’s worth a ways to the north. Will pay 100 sp/pound. Contact Samuel at the Houndport Garage.
    • Rumor has it that the Queen’s Guard has just received a large number of suspicious crates, and they’ve begun to haul them out into the Swamp. I’d like to know what they’re up to, and I’ll pay 800 sp to whoever can satisfy my idle curiosity. I’ll throw in some extra if you find out why they’re buying up golden lotus powder. – Geoffrey
    • There’s an eerie black tower not far from the Mockingbird Village to the north. 600 sp to anyone that destroys it. Do not under any circumstances examine it closely. -Dame Balustrade, Knight Tentacular
    • 1,000 sp for information that leads to the identification and capture of those responsible for the threats against the Coyote Prince, an esteemed guest of the Crown – Office of the Interim Governor
    • 750 sp reward for information that leads to the identification or capture of the Crowley Street Murderer – Office of the Interim Governor
    • Giant specimens wanted. 50 sp per pound of beast, double if it’s alive. Contact Dr. Farefellow at the Royal Society Outpost.
    • EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY–AUCTION TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY IN THE BASEMENT OF THE IRON CONCH INN. WONDROUS SUN GIANT DEVICES, ASTOUNDING NIGHT DEMON ARTIFACTS, FASCINATING CURIOS OF THE SAVAGES OF ALAKANTHUS.