January 7, 2024 hex culture adventures, afternoon espresso, amateur hour, encounters, monks, monsters, Uncategorized

food web

I have been thinking about two wildly different shows: Mrs. Davis (a stage magician hunting nun / mystic from Reno, Nevada) and Scavengers Reign (space colonists get marooned on a planet with a mysterious and infinitely complex ecology).

What they have in common is a strong sense that something strange is going on deep behind the scenes. This often manifests as a snowballing series of semirelated or ambiguously related encounters. Sister Simone in Mrs. Davis keeps on running to a number of feuding secret societies and their agents who have an intense but unknown interest in her and each other. When you have a run in with the superintelligent AI app, the weird German treasure hunters take notice, which leads to an encounter with yet another faction when they intervene in ways I don’t want to spoil.

Similarly, the survivors in Scavengers Reign stumble across a creature that’s hunting or being hunting, which then kicks off a long series of encounters as predators and prey get involved and entangle/endanger the survivors further.

I’ve modeled how this could work in games in a short encounter table. Basically, you have encounters as normal, but certain reaction roll results either guarantee a certain encounter the next turn or guarantee that the next rolled encounter will be with a certain creature. If you run into a stressed out and Unfriendly prey animal, it means there’s a predator nearby. This means you can have normal encounters, but some make you fall forward into another encounter that demonstrates the relationships between creatures. There’s a little extra bookkeeping, but you just have to make note of what happens next turn and what replaces the next encounter, which isn’t too complex.

1d4 Indigo Steppe Encounter Table

2d100 Carrot Snails
3d6 Humpbacked Oryxes
1 Langouste Leopard
2d4 Big Scarlet Crawler

Carrot Snail

Roll	Result
2	Highly stressed by a nearby predator; will vent harmless but foul-smelling oil out of their eyespots on anyone who enters melee range. Next turn is a guaranteed encounter of humpbacked oryxes in addition to rolled results. Next rolled encounter is replaced with langouste leopards, attracted by the scent of snail oil that humpbacked oryxes are often drenched in.
3-5	Being hunted. Next rolled encounter result is replaced with humpbacked oryxes that are on the snails’ trail
6-9	Photosynthesizing, unbothered.
10-11	Senescent. These snails are at the end of their lifespan and full of seed-larva. They offer themselves up to likely predators in hope they will be eaten, thus spreading their larva (which gestate as they pass harmlessly through the eater’s digestive tract).
12	Will warble and approach with adorable little hops. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyespots will erupt into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

3d6 Humpbacked Oryx

Roll	Result
2	Moving quickly because a langouste leopard is in the area. Next encounter is replaced with a langouste leopard.
3-5	Protecting their young. 2d6 oryx calves are hidden nearby; the adult oryxes will go berserk if they are approached.
6-9	Grazing. Next rolled encounter is replaced with big scarlet crawlers that want to scavenge their shit.
10-11	Hungry, scavenging. Will nose through pockets and bags looking for food and positively remember anyone who gives them something.
12	Will amble up amicably. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyes will explode into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

1 Langouste Leopard

Roll	Result
2	Starved, sick. Can’t fail morale checks.
3-5	Hunting. Will attack but retreat if faced with any real violence. Until killed or fully chased off, it will secretly accompany every subsequent encounter, waiting for a chance to ambush.
6-9	Hunting something else.
10-11	Just ate; curious. Will accept bribes and is less likely to hunt anyone who bribes it with snacks.
12	Will act like a big cute cat. It is infected with megaplasmodia; after frolicking for a little while, it will turn to leave just as its tail explodes into a giant plume of bacteria-bearing aerosol. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.

2d4 Big Scarlet Crawlers

Roll	Result
2	Confused. They are infected with megaplasmodia and will detonate into a sticky spume of bacteria-bearing purple ichor as soon as they ram into an uninfected creature. Take 3d6 damage, Save vs Breath for half; Save vs Poison or get infected with megaplasmodia.
3-5	Performing a mating ritual. Will attack only if approached.
6-9	Busily sifting through piles of oryx dung.
10-11	By chance unthreatened by the PCs; if offered food, they will trail behind by them until the next time the party rests, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.
12	Will trail the PCs, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.

Uses

This is probably best for relatively small encounter tables in places that PCs will be spending a lot of time in; if they’re just passing through or there are a lot of different kinds of encounters, I think it could end up as just a bunch of weird stuff happening. PCs have to linger long enough to understand how different behaviors are associated with different outcomes for the interesting part of this mechanic to really kick in.

This example uses animals to model an ecology, but you could model some fun Mrs. Davis / Crying of Lot 49 shenanigans where Neorosicrucians are always encountered on teal Vespas and when they’re Neutral it’s because they’re too busy fleeing from Retrotheosophists to try to throw fake blood on you, and everyone is getting chased around by the local SETI chapter, which is trying to whisk people away in their ice cream truck without getting nabbed by the IRS.

You could also do fun stuff like having certain creatures that aren’t on the encounter table at all and only show up as consequence to a prior encounter. This could be good for rare, especially dangerous predators or especially mysterious NPCs.

August 22, 2018June 26, 2019 jacinto adventures, amateur hour, demon, encounters, intro, is this gonna work, magic, monsters, occult

katabatic age

Shin Megami Tensei/Annihilation/Stalker citycrawling mashup modeled after Pearce’s Troll World.

// THE NEW AGE

In the depths of the environmental and resource crisis of 20XX, the discovery of a fifth esoteric phase of matter, upon which the laws of physics act weakly but the principles of perception and desire act strongly, promised a path to a better future. Wonderful machines and miraculous technologies, new cities clear of the rising water, humanity’s eyes once again turned to space, all with a price that did not reveal itself until too late. As esoteric substances filled the oceans and esoteric particles filled the atmosphere and esoteric fields tangled with the Earth’s own, all the shadows of the human mind, nightmares, rumors, figures from the old stories, took form and will and pried apart civilization. This new technology did not bring a Golden Age, or an Age of Humanity, but an age of dreaming deep without waking, an age of drowning in the collective unconscious, a Katabatic Age.

from Akira

// THE KATABATIC ZONE

The heart of the end of the world, where esoteric pollution is strongest. A mutating mirage-city build from the dreams and memories of its dead inhabitants, sometimes as clean and new as it was in its heyday, sometimes dilapidated and vine-chewed, its dimensions expanding and contracting so that circumnavigating it might take a week or a year or forever. It is occupied by dream-beings, eidola created by the city’s dead inhabitants: nightmares given flesh, heroes and monsters from the old stories, saints born from the prayers of the dying, archetypes aggregated from a billion human minds, kaleidoscopic psychic artifacts that corrode reality just with their presence. Rumor has it that in the deepest and strangest parts of the Katabatic Zone, there are eidola as intelligent and coherent as humans, who plot against each other and the humans who made them. The one certainty and constant of the Katabatic Zone is that a great deal of money can be made by conducting expeditions into its depths–information, instrument readings, and esoteric substances taken from the Zone are all extremely valuable on the black market.

// CUATROS SANTOS

A small city living in the corpse of a big one. Bright paint on old plaster, new plaster on old cinder block, new cinderblock on tired foundations. Neighborhoods sprung up beneath orphaned overpasses, jury-rigged locomotives coughing diesel smoke as they follow routes that once belonged to electric monorails, pickup trucks and motorcycles blast down cracked highways that once carried thousands. And looming above it all, from the corners of the city, the four colossal namesakes of Cuatros Santos, skyscraping eikons forming an esoteric mechanism that just barely keeps the city from collapsing beneath the weight of so many human minds.

from Dorohedoro

// CHARACTERS

Step 1: Roll or choose your background and make note of your favored attribute and starting skills.

job	preferred attribute	starting skill
employee	appeal	bullshit, linguistics
gearhead	intellect	engineering, computers
PI	physique	athletics, streetwise
delinquent	speed	driving, larceny
esper	psyche	mantia, science
merc	combat	firearms, first aid

Step 2: Roll 2d6+6 for your favored attribute. For everything else, roll 3d6 in order. Attributes are Appeal, Intellect, Physique, Speed, Psyche, and Combat.

Step 3: Max HP = 6. Make a Psyche/Mantia check. If you succeed, you have 1 Nous Die.

Step 4: Determine starting gear. You start with five items a competent shoplifter could get out of a Walmart and a random weapon. Italicized weapons can be hidden, bolded weapons require two hands. You can find armor and more gear on your misadventures. Guns are available, but illegal and hard to find.

roll	weapon
1	machete [d6/d6]
2	sword [d8/d6]
3	baseball bat [d4/d8]
4	switchblade [d4/d8]
5	hairpin [d4/d6]
6	chef knife [d6/d6]
7	mall sword [d4/d6]
8	crowbar [d6/d6]
9	signpost [d8/d6]
10	bicycle chain [d6/d6]

from Michiko and Hatchin

// SHADOW SCIENCE
Mantia is the shadow-science manipulating esoteric phenomena and entities. If you have a Nous Die, you can roll to start with one random Mantic trick. Mantia is extremely illegal in Cuatros Santos, but you can learn Mantic tricks from samizdat manuals and cooperative eidola. If you don’t have any Nous, imbibing (and surviving) esoteric substances, surviving eidolon attacks, spending time in esoteric fields all might give you some.

from Toujin Kit of Genius Party anthology

1. Summon
Instantiates an eidolon of [dice] levels or fewer you have made a contract with. You can dismiss it at will unless it has failed a Morale check since you last summoned it.

2. Apotropaic Tone
Sing a low note note bearing a repulsive polarity, requiring eidola to make an Aptitude check to get within [dice] yards of you. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability.

3. Beckoning Tone
Sing a low note that bears a compelling polarity, requiring eidola within [dice] yards of you make an Aptitude check or reveal themselves and approach you in their true form. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability.

4. Esoteric Lens
Form a simple loupe in the form of a translucent stone in your clenched fist. If gazed through, reveals eidola and esoteric fields within [dice] yards. Lasts for [dice] turns.

// NEGOTIATION
Roll Disposition Die + Faction Die on below table to determine encountered NPC’s reaction. Disposition Die is how the NPC views the party/leader/interlocutor personally, so stuff like high Appeal or cool clothes help. Faction Die is the party’s credibility with the encountered NPC’s organization or alignment. Both start at d6 and raise or lower based on various factors.

roll	reaction
2	hostile – attack
3-5	unfriendly – attack in 1 round without a good reason
6-8	uninterested – ignore the party without a good reason
9-11	talkative – will help the party for a good reason
12	amused – will help in the party for a decent reason

Human hirelings and contracted eidola are a key component in surviving in the Katabatic Zone. PCs can’t have more allies (whether they are humans or contracted eidola) than 1/3 their Appeal score, rounded down. If an ally is endangered, compromised, or insulted, their employer may be required to make an Appeal check to not lose their loyalty.

from Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

// DAMAGE AND WOUNDS
Notice how each weapon in the list had two dice? The first is the Damage Die. If an attack lands, roll it and subtract the value from the target’s HP like normal. Easy. Being reduced to 0 HP means you have to make a Physique check or die, and are incapacitated still on a success.

The second is the Location Die which determines where the attack lands. Some weapons are more deadly/lends themselves well to clonking people on the head, and so have a better Location Die.

A location that’s been hit has a minor wound. Until it’s patched up with a turn of effort, any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage.
A location that has an untreated minor wound that gets hit again has a major wound, which means it any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage until you spend time laid up to heal.
Further injury to a location with an unhealed major wound renders it useless. If it’s your head or torso, you’ll also need to make a Physique check to see if you die, and are still incapacitated on a success. If you’re alive when the smoke clears, you may have permanent consequences.

roll	location
1-2	legs
3	Torso
4-5	Arms
6+	Head

Armor is per hit location and reduces all incoming damage by its Armor Score. An attacked reduced to 0 damage does not injure its hit location. A turn’s rest in a safe place restores 1d6 HP, as does resting in a dangerous place and eating a snack.

// MISADVENTURES

Shady Dr. Sepulveda has a standing offer for esoteric substances and artifacts extracted from the Katabatic Zone. The Administration that runs Cuatro Santos certainly frowns/prosecutes such exercises, but she pays pretty well.
Sepulveda’s bitter rival Dr. Jimenez wants eikonometry readings from the Seventh Heaven, a particularly rarefied region of the Katabatic Zone ruled by eidola born from a desire for order. He’s willing to pay quite a bit for your trouble.
Word on the street is that a commando expedition armed with exoskeletal Frames never came back from their mission into the Katabatic Zone. Whatever got them is probably still lurking, but it sure would be sweet to have a mech or two.
Somebody’s been constructing eidolon familiars from dream-stuff and selling them to gangs inside Cuatro Santos as obedient heavy muscle. Old Man Ramiro will pay good money to anyone who can shut down his rival’s suppliers, especially since the Bureau of Affairs has started sniffing around.
The Bureau of Affairs is keeping something really tasty in one of their labs not far from the edge of the city. Nobody knows what it is, but everyone knows it’s valuable. Up for a heist?

August 9, 2018June 26, 2019 jacinto clerics, demon, elves, encounters, fairy, idyll, magic, monsters, npcs

watched by the waters, watched by the sky

Been playing around with Mageblade, and I quite like it. Working on more monsters for that community-building game, and the system has been a good fit.

I made these with their relationship with a community of people in mind–the kingfisher spirits might steal fish from the players and their village, but they could also be bribed into helping them sail, for example. The monsters are also the source of potential local taboos–ringing bells in the woods might attract moon beasts, for example, or gutting fish might lead to the local deities noticing and stealing them. I also designed them so that they could be plugged into the magic system, Pokemon-style, but that’s another post.

Major inspirations are Mushishi, Shin Megami Tensei and Bloodborne.

from shin megami tensei IV apocalypse

Two house rules to keep in mind:

If a monster does something they’re good at, roll under their Aptitude. If they do something they’re bad at, roll under half their Aptitude. Use the tags in their stat blocks to help you decide what they’re good and bad at. Unless otherwise stated, monsters are always good at fighting.
Spirits appear as a mirage-shimmer to people with +1 Wisdom modifier and can be fully observed by people with +2 Wisdom modifier or more.

Wind Spirits

Wind spirits can raise, banish, strengthen, weaken, or redirect wind in line of sight. The maximum strength of the wind they can control depends on their level.

sylphids

Level 1 (4 hits), Defense 0, Aptitude 10, Damage 1d4

Ability Magnitude Gentle breezes

Young wind gods, cat-sized and blue-green, singing with a voice like a panpipe. They are like the glimpse of a kingfisher out of the corner of your eye, even when you manage to look at it directly. They love gifts of ribbons and fresh fish–they congregate in a great viridian haze when the scent of fish blood is strong in the air.

sylphs

Level 3 (12 hits), Defense 1, Aptitude 12, Damage 1d6

Ability Magnitude Stiff breezes and lesser winds.

Minor wind gods, hound sized, a confusion of emerald-blue wings, calling out in a clear contralto. They are like the reflection of a great kingfisher in troubled water, an elfin face peering out of its mouth, sometimes walking like a bird, sometimes walking like a human. They love rare flowers, jewelry of any sort, and the flesh of fish from the deepest sea. They can be seen whirling around leviathans that have risen to the surface, looking for a chance to eat.

greater sylphs

Level 5 (20 hits), Defense 2, Aptitude 14, Damage 1d8

Ability Magnitude Powerful gusts and lesser winds

True wind gods, human sized, wings unfolding like petals on a blooming flower, watchful eyes peering from the center. They can take the shape of a beautiful human of indeterminate gender, or else a tempest of cerulean and green wings and flashing beak and claws. They desire the true names of islands, exquisite treasures, and the flesh and blood of sacred fish. They appear singly when artifacts are excavated or when sea-gods make themselves known, looking for a chance to steal or feast.

high sylphs

Level 7 (28 hits), Defense 3, Aptitude 16, Damage 1d10

Ability Gales and lesser winds.

Elder wind gods, bigger than a draft horse, like a dream of a kingfisher in flight, a corona of wings and feathers that recalls the motion of waves and the arc of sea-spray. In human shape, they are gorgeous giants, but they can also take the form of a flock of brilliant kingfishers or an enormous kingfisher crowned and jeweled.

Ora Marin, the Kingfisher God

Level 10 (40 hits), Defense 4, Aptitude 18, Damage 1d12

Ability Whirlwinds and any lesser wind.

The God of Wind-Over-Water. His wings are beyond counting. He moves like a stormcloud of azure feathers or a wave of green iridescence through the sea or a golden-crowned kingfisher with wings to block the Sun. As a human, he is a crowned dancer, raising fair winds with his fan of blue feathers and sea-oat, whipping up foul winds with his fan of green feathers and palmetto frond.

Moon Spirits

Moon spirits can shed soft white light or summon a pall of darkness. The intensity of the brightness or darkness depends on their level.

elvers

Level 1 (4 hits), Defense 0, Aptitude 10, Damage 1d4

Ability Range As far as light shed by a candle

Larval moon gods, small enough to fit in your cupped hands. They are something like a white-furred moth and something like a flower blossom, always reduced to a milky silhouette as if occluded by mist. They are delighted by the ringing of bells, the scent of burning incense, and warm spilt blood.

elving-children

Level 3 (12 hits), Defense 1, Aptitude 12, Damage 1d6

Ability Range As far as light shed by a torch

Moon god nymphs, the size of a small dog. They are gracile, fronded, petaled, and winged, with wet human eyes concealed in their folds like pearls in a mound of silk, everything blurred as if by a haze of water. They adore the pealing of bells, the scent of burning sacrifice, and spilt lifeblood, which they lick with deep red tongues.

elves

Level 5 (20 hits), Defense 2, Aptitude 14, Damage 1d8

Ability Range As far as light shed by a campfire

Imago moon gods, the size of a child. They are thin, pale, sharp-toothed, four-armed, moving as easily on all limbs as their hind legs, and human-like when standing, with a ruff of white hyphae on their heads and necks, a cape of flower petal wings that unfold from their backs, revealing wet raw flesh like the meat beneath a fish’s gill. They are attracted to the tolling of great bells, the burning of the living, and those near death, who they kill and drain of blood if they are able.

from bloodborne

elving-beasts

Level 7 (28 hits), Defense 3, Aptitude 16, Damage 1d10

Ability Range As far as light shed by a bonfire

Elder moon gods, the size of a stag. They are pale creatures of gossamer and bone, their many thin limbs concealed behind luxurious effusions of white hyphae, their fronded flower wings trailing like a veil, concealing the gills-slits on their back. They swim as swiftly as they fly and run, but wherever they are, the sounding of old ritual bells, the sudden deaths of many, and living sacrifices prepared in accordance with the ancient agreements draw their attention without fail.

Moon Orphan, the Abandoned God

spirit | huge | graceful | wise

Level 10 (40 hits), Defense 4, Aptitude 18, Damage 1d12

Ability Range A light like the full moon or a darkness like the new, as far as the eye can see

The terrible God of Moonlight, luminous, fronded, billowing. It drives its immense and delicate body through the deepest waters or celestial heights with uncountable limbs, shedding gently glowing clouds through its blue-lipped sporangia, singing lunar hymns through uncountable mouths in communion with the Moon, guiding it through its course in the sky and the cycle of its phases.

January 6, 2017 jacinto clerics, demon, encounters, flowerland, intro, LotFP, magic, monsters, new barbary, Not Dead Yet, npcs, san serafín, witch

the earth does not want you

hey guys. it’s certainly been a while. i’ve been thinking about a weird fantasy florida, recently, out in the palm scrub, where everything is mean and sharp and unfriendly and unnavigable and really kind of beautiful in a careless sort of way.

sinner
her flesh moves like fire on her bones, her hair roils like a plume of smoke from her head, her feet barely touch the water as she strides across it and you smell the black magic in the air: hot metal and raw meat and ozone.

Each sinner knows a random cleric spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
Sinners cannot cross lines of salt or enter holy ground or consecrated buildings like churches, and they must flee the sounds of church bells and calls to prayer as if they had failed a Morale check.
Sinners can walk on water, walls, and ceilings; they are supernaturally light when it suits them, and any surface or structure that can support the weight of a crow will also support a sinner.

corpse
they are pale, luxuriously dressed in black veils and black lace, they move in groups of two or three, they dart about close to the ground in the edges of your vision. they never seem to be what they should, seeming to be very large and very far away, or else very small and very close; you always have to reach farther than you think to strike them with your weapon, but they can just raise their hand and touch you all the same.

Each corpse can cast a random magic-user spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
If a corpse sees an open grave (dug for the purposes of burying someone, at least 6 feet deep, a burial marker at the head of the grave), it must climb inside and lie down. If it hears properly recited funeral rites (INT check and a round of effort), it must make a Morale check. Corpses cannot cross lines of salt.
As long as nobody can see its point of departure or arrival, a corpse can teleport to any location in 120′.

palm devil
a figure standing at the edge of the pines, a little too tall to be human, the contours of its body beneath its ragged coat too long and slender, it’s holding a palmetto frond in front of its face, and when it turns to you, all the leaves on all the trees as far as you can see rattle, malicious and filled with volition

a palm devil’s face is indescribable; should anyone see it they must Save vs Magic or become Feebleminded. They will transform into a sinner by midnight of the following Sunday unless restored by Remove Curse.
Can cast Gust of Wind, Move Earth, and Plant Growth twice each per fight.
Can fly by riding its palm frond.
In a palm devil’s hands, a palm frond functions as a vorpal axe and can easily cut through any mundane substance.

venomous augury
someone has nailed a huge rattlesnake to the trunk of a dead pine tree at regular intervals, tied lengths of red silk to each nail head. it looks at you with wet human eyes and tells you something horrible.

the venomous augury knows everything, probably. A player can ask it anything and it will give them the true answer. This can amount to a wish–ask it where the elixir of eternal life it, and it will tell you, whether or not there was an elixir before you asked. However, every answer introduces an evil equal in influence or power to the wealth or knowledge being sought. Ask “where is the woman who will save the world?” and the augury is liable to answer “in the house of the man who will one day destroy it”
once someone has asked the augury a question, it forevermore appears to them as a stinking dead rattlesnake grotesquely nailed to a tree.

prophet of mud
a huge hairless face emerges from the muck in front of you. it does not bother to turn its head, but swivels its bulging yellow eyes towards you as it begins to hum a hymn

the prophet of mud is a third level cleric and knows Bless, Command, and Augury and can cast spells from its head or its hands.
the prophet can emerge from any body of mud. it can reach its hands up from any body of mud or murky water that is contiguous with the mud it head is in.
the prophet’s head and two hands get their own turn in the initiative order. it can only see what its head sees, naturally, but will feel things out with one hand to help the other.
the prophet can spend a round singing hymns to cast Rock To Mud at will.

mother
there is a mother deep beneath the earth, she once had a shell of many hard plates and swam with many sharp legs and saw with a constellation of many watchful eyes. she died long ago, when this land was still a sea, but she is still here, she is a hollow in the bedrock far below, a long spiral in the dark. sometimes she tells the land what it used to be, and when she does it listens.

photos by me

August 7, 2016 jacinto adventures, encounters, flowerland, lordy lordy, new barbary, san serafín

New Barbary Session 1, Delivery in La Habana

I ran New Barbary/La Habana yesterday, and it went very well.

The perpetrators:

An amnesiac Castilian deserter with a talent for fighting and a real gift for lying. He still remembers that the fort he was assigned to (Castillo de San Marcos in La Florida) is threatened by a mysterious curse or god.
Sol, A mysterious maskmaker practiced in botany and superior pact-making skills. She had a hard time lying and a nearly supernatural ability to get people to tell her the truth. She was contracted by a devil to repair its mask, which was destroyed by the same entity that threatens the Castillo de San Marcos–or so the devil says.

by Christophe Meneboeuf, distributed under CC-BY-SA license

They owed their cantankerous one-legged landlady 100 pesetas by the end of the week or she was going to sell off all their stuff, evict them, and alert the constabulary. They decided on approaching the Red Hibiscus Society for work, and were led to the bathtub-bound towering ex-bandit who led the Society: Uncle Yusuf. He told them to pick up a package from the House of Honey and Salt and deliver it to a dead drop location at the Old Royal Park.

On the way, they evaded a pack of coyotes gnawing on a body in the abandoned urban areas around the Souk, and tripped over the body of a (extremely stabbed) courier. The letter clutched in his hand was addressed to Frederico Buendía, the owner of the biggest distillery in Cuba, warning him that the infamous pirate Sayyida al Hurra had stolen a major molasses shipment, which would cost him an enormous sum of money and drive up the price of rum catastrophically.

Bearing this in mind, they pick up the package from the Saints. It’s pretty disturbing–they are told not to open the package, get it wet, breath heavily around it, or spend much time touching it. Sol asks for an extra blanket to wrap around it, and pretends she’s carrying a child. On the way out, she notices it’s a bit warmer than body temperature and might even be moving subtly.

On the way to Old Royal Park, they notice a man with a hat pulled low over his face following them. They set up an ambush and successfully capture him, forcing him to reveal he works for a rival gang (the Ivory Palm Guild). The Deserter knocks him out, and they steal his machete, a flask filled with a floral-smelling liquid, and a brick wrapped in paper–possibly a decoy for the package they are trying to deliver.

They reach the Park without complication, hide the package, and successfully flee a group of Ivory Palm Guildsmen, including a limping figure clutching his head. However, while running away they stumble into two sorcerers who manage to catch up with them, helped by a dimly seen creature that blinds the Deserter. It’s a man and a woman–Rosa and Rodrigo–who Sol guesses correctly work for the Klatch. They were trying to prevent the Saint’s package from being delivered to the Red Hibiscus Society, but now that it already has been, they want Sol and the Deserter to figure out where it is being kept. They agreed, realizing the Saints and Society were probably up to no good and also recognizing that Rosa was probably going to shoot them otherwise.

They return to the Red Hibiscus Society’s headquarters and receive their reward from Uncle Yusuf, with a small bonus for fending off the Ivory Palm Guild. Then they alerted Frederico about the impending rum-market disaster. He gave them a small award and agreed to let Sol and the Deserter join his expedition to get the molasses back (the Deserter lied about his Navy experience, and since Frederico thought he possessed “the steady gaze of an honest man”, he let them join). It would leave in a few days.

The next day, the party, wanting more money so they could outfit themselves for their coming adventure, asked for more work at the R.H.S. They were told to deliver a sealed cask to the bastard Castilians, but on the way a mysterious, ragged man named Jorge asked if he could poison the cask, with the promise that it would only “cause digestive distress” and that his days as a smuggler would let him tamper with the seal without chance of discovery. They were very hesitant, but as Jorge enjoyed a cigarette they decided to let Jorge do it if he and his “many friends in lofty office” agreed to search for the R.H.S.’s hidden and guarded package. Jorge poisoned the cask, and the bastard Castilians took it without even looking Sol and the Deserter.

Flush with cash, they went the Souk and bought themselves a rusted breastplate and a suit of tattered leathers for armor. Sol purchased some sacrifices so she could form a contract with one of the Souk’s Mercenary Gods, and settled on The Beast Among The Lilies, a jaguar-spirit that could strengthen the Deserter or fight on its own.

We ended the session with Sol and the Deserter ready for the hunt for the pirate Sayyida.

Lessons Learned

Vornheim remains the most useful rpg book I own. I went into that session with my blogposts on New Barbary and the following prep. Everything else I scribbled in during breaks or generated/rolled up from Vornheim.

This WaRP hack is going very well. The Klatch sorcerer that blinded the Deserter was just “Rodrigo: spirit of darkness 3D, 10 HP” and he did everything he needed to do.
D&D has a lot of granularity and mechanics I don’t really use because of the types of games I tend to run. If I were to run San Serafin has a hard dungeon crawl, I would definitely use D&D, but WaRP seems to work quite well for what I want to run right now.
San Serafin is still a location and the players actually laughed out loud when I said they could go there to look for treasure.
The players really like the shrines of Mercenary Gods at the Souk.

June 19, 2016 jacinto classes, encounters, idyll, is this gonna work, new age dnd, skills

deep dungeon fishing

Thinking about ways characters might acquire goods in a D&D campaign with more altruistic assumptions than your standard mercenary fare . Hunting and logging are good possibilities, but I feel like they are pretty easy to model using existing rules (Find A Certain Monster, Go To A Location And Retrieve Object are time honored D&D tasks).

Fishing, on the other hand, is a little bit harder to model interestingly. I think there’s a lot of potential in making it tense, especially since it is time consuming, but much of D&D games take place with random monster encounters looming over the player’s heads. Anyways, here’s a stab at it.

FISHING

Anyone can fish. For each turn you spend fishing at a regular spot with standard gear, you have a 1 in 6 chance of hooking a fish. Certain spots and certain baits are better than others and afford better odds of catching something. Fishing spots deep in dungeons tend to have rarer and more valuable fish (multiply the dungeon level by the base value of the fish to determine how much gp it is worth). If you take a fish back to town while it’s still fresh, you can tin it, letting you build up a stock of imperishable rations without needing to special order them.

Once you hook a fish, roll 5 six-sided dice and check to see if they match any of the following categories:

Two of a kind: d12 gp, 1 ration
Three of a kind: d20 gp, 2 rations
Four of a kind: d100 gp, 4 rations
Full House: 2d100 gp, 8 rations
Small Straight: d1000 gp, 10 rations, can be used as an alchemical ingredient
Large Straight: a random consumable magic item
All of a Kind: a Speaking Fish, will grant a Limited Wish if you let it go.

If you rolled one of the above categories, you can immediately reel in and catch a fish of the corresponding size and quality, or you can reroll in hopes of getting a better result and a correspondingly larger fish. However,

the quality of your fishing pole limits the number of rerolls you get before it breaks, and if your final roll when reaching that limits doesn’t result in a catch, your fishing pole breaks.
you can only reel in the highest category you’ve gotten this fishing attempt. If you pass up on a Full House, you can’t reel in a Two of a Kind on your next reroll.

A single fishing attempt takes 1 Turn, no matter how many rerolls you use.

FISHING POLES

Bamboo Stick: 3 rolls
Hickory Rod: 4 rolls
Alchemically Treated: 5 rolls
Almighty Dragon Fishing Rod: 6 rolls
Fisher God’s Favorite Rod: 7 rolls

I am always looking for ways to simplify or replace Vancian magic. It is hard to explain, and while I like it quite a bit, it reflects a very particular kind of fantasy that my games very rarely draw on. For Idyllic D&D, I’d want something more like Dianna Wynne Jones’s magic: friendler, more common, more whimsical, less earth-shaking. Loosely based off of this old class.

WITCH

from final fantasy 14

HP, XP, Saving Throws, and Equipment Restrictions as Magic-user.

You have Witchery dice equal to your level. When you cast a spell, you can roll as many as you like; the more dice you roll, the more powerful the spell.

For each die that comes up a 6, remove a Witchery die from your dice pool until you take a long rest.
Count each die that comes up 1. If the number of 1s exceeds half your level rounded down, the spell goes wrong or fails to take affect.

Spells
You start with 2 spells of your choice and gain another every even level. You can learn more, but must learn them from (rare) books or (grudging) tutors.

Wonderwork
Complete in an instant any task a barehanded person could complete in a number of Turns equal to the number of Witchery dice rolled. Creatures can make a saving throw to resist if the spell affects them.

Creation

Create objects worth a total of 10 × number of Witchery dice rolled in gold pieces. If you are Lawful, they vanish at midnight. If you are Chaotic, they vanish at noon.

Pyromancy

Ignite, extinguish, or move a flame that fits within a number of cubic feet equal to Dice. If used offensively, damage dealt equals the sum of Witchery Dice rolled, and targets may save for half damage.

Polymorph

Transform into a 1 HD animal for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.

Pact

Compels a creature with HD equal to or less than Witchery dice rolled to obey the letter of a promise it is making to you.

Darkness

Extinguish all artificial lights in earshot. Cannot be reignited for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.

Anemurgy

Control the direction and intensity of the wind in a mile radius for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.

Windwalk

This spell transforms the caster into a whirlwind and transports them a number of miles equal to Witchery dice rolled before transforming them back.

Ghost Mail

Deliver an object light enough you can carry it with one hand to a person or place within a number of Miles equal to number of Witchery dice rolled.

Waterbreathing

The caster and everyone they touch at time of casting can breathe underwater for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.

June 18, 2016 jacinto encounters, idyll, intro, is this gonna work, items, monsters, npcs, table

playing cute

My players tend to be murderhobo-y because that is the game they want to play and that is the game I run for them. However, I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to run a game that is still about digging around in strange places underground, still about fighting monsters and taking their stuff, still about most of the things that makes Dungeons and Dragons what it is, but is centered more around community and building stuff. I’ve been chewing this over since I read Ryuutama, which has a lovely aesthetic and a lot of good ideas, but isn’t something I’d probably want to play. Scrap Princess’s G+ post here had me digging up my old notes and thought on the matter.

Anyway, here are a handful of systems you can graft onto most editions of Dungeons and Dragons to make it a little more Miyazaki and a little less Leiber.

~MAKING FRIENDS~

from riviera: the promised land

Families
All characters get a family name, and 6-7 family names make up the majority of the random table. If a PC shares a family name with an NPC and can explain how they’re related (Oh, your mom is Anabel? She’s my aunt’s favorite cousin), they get a +1 or +2 bonus to their Reaction Roll.

Monsters
Each monster gets a table of Sentiments, things that trigger Morale checks and make them want to talk instead of fight. Each Morale check requires a novel appeal to a monster’s Sentiment–if your display of bravery didn’t win the dragon’s respect, you have to prove your bravery in some other way. Monsters of the same time within an encounter/lair share the same Sentiment, though appeals to a group’s Sentiment is mitigated or temporary unless you successfully appeal to the group’s leader.

Goblins

Their parents have gone missing, and they’re afraid and angry. They make a Morale check when confronted with kindness and authority.
They don’t have any food and they’re half-starved. They make a Morale check when given a gift of food.
Humans desecrated the Goblin Shrine. Make a Morale check when greeted with a sincere apology and display of respect.
Something has been disturbing their sleep. Whispered condolences and a promise to look into the problem trigger a Morale check.
They have a new leader who has driven them to the life of the marauding monster. They make a Morale check when sternly admonished or told to stand up for themselves.
They have been cursed into a frenzy. Make a Morale check when blessed with a prayer to return them to their senses.

from etrian odyssey

~EXPERIENCE~
You gain XP for spending you gold or using goods you retrieve, loot, or steal on your adventures.

For every gold piece you invest in your village, you gain 1 experience point. Constructing new buildings, improving existing ones, paying villagers to plow fields all count. You only need to invest value, not actual gold coins; if you retrieve 500 gp worth of lumber on a logging expedition and use it to build a house, you gain 500 XP even though coins never changed hands.
For every gold piece you spend on behalf of villagers, you gain 1 experience point. Buying medicine, purchasing gifts, hiring tutors, going on dates, throwing parties and festivals all count. Again, you get XP for value, whether it is in gold coins or goods; hiring a doctor for Auntie provides XP, but if you steal 500 gp worth of feast supplies from the Bandit King and throw a party, you get XP, too. (Credit to +Alex Chalk for this idea)

Buildings
It costs 1,000 gp to upgrade a building for the first time, and doubles every time thereafter.

General Store

Only sells rural area items on the Miscellaneous equipment list from the LotPF handbook. 1 in 6 chance of a given item being in stock, and only 1d4 will be available. Their stock changes every week, since the caravan arrives each Monday and villagers buy and sell goods there. You can put in a special order for 1 item each week and they’ll have it in by the next, but it costs double.
Each upgrades improves the chances of stocking a particular item by 1 in 6.

The Inn

Staying at the Inn during downtime lets the party reroll their maximum HP.
Each upgrade allows a player to reroll one of their character’s hit dice.

The Tavern

A night of drinking at the Tavern allows players to attract 1d6-4 potential hirelings. Use the LotFP process to determine interest and loyalty.
Each upgrade gives a +1 bonus to the number of potential hirelings.

The Farms

As the village prospers more and more, villagers can give more more stuff without needing payment. For each upgrade to the Farms, you can get an additional free use of a service or facility.

Blacksmith

The blacksmith only makes weapons and armor on request, and each piece takes a week. Initially, the blacksmith can only forge weapons that deal d6 damage or less and make armor with 14 AC or fewer.
Each upgrade allows the blacksmith to forge weapons that deal 1 die step more and make armor with an additional point of AC.

Witch’s Cottage

The witch has a 1 in 6 chance of curing a disease, poison, or curse per week of care. Some particularly dangerous poisons, diseases, or curses will also require rare or expensive ingredients.
Each upgrade improves the witch’s chance of successully curing a poison or disease or lifting a curse by 1 in 6.

The Wandering Devil Merchant

The Devil Merchant has a 1 in 6 chance of being in town each week. He has a 1 in 6 chance of having a scroll of a given magic-user spell, with a penalty equal to the spell’s level. his stock changes out every time he visits town.
Each upgrade improves the Devil Merchant’s chance of being in town and having a given scroll by 1 in 6.

from final fantasy tactics a2

~DOWNTIME~
There is a 1 in 6 chance that a Downtime Events will occur each week. Should probably be d100, but this is just proof of concept. Based off of the Hazard System.

Downtime Events

A random villager becomes very ill, beyond even the curatives of the town witch. Their cure requires an herb found only the peak of a nearby and monster-infested mountain.
The River God has become restless, and the stream that runs through town has been flooding worse and worse. Venture to his shrine in the nearby Caverns to find out what troubles him.
The Lunar Festival approaches and bandits attacked the caravan that was bringing goods for the sacramental feast. Retrieve the ingredients before those slobs eat them all and anger the Moon Goddess.
Harvest is almost here and the goblins know it. See if you can prevent them from attacking so that the village can get its crops harvested and safely stored.
A random villager has gone missing, with evidence that they were taken by the local gang of werewolves. Save them!
The local bandit gang has sent a messenger, hat in hand. Quite a few of them are frighteningly sick, and they wonder if you’d be willing to send help?

February 28, 2016 jacinto encounters, monsters, san serafín, World of Lamentations

dream the life you’re most afraid of

san serafin is not really a dungeon, though it looks like one sometimes, but it is really more of a dangerous overworld in which other dungeons can be inserted. an important part of the feel of San Serafin are its most common residents, serafinos, who form a constant, low-grade puzzle that players have to deal with. I have not wanted to blog about it and ruin things, but players usually figure it out within a session anyway, and the fun of it is dealing with the problem, not figuring it out.

there is a Sleeping King, deep beneath the ground, so hateful he was buried alive by his own people, so virtuous he he did not die.

he dreams of a black city, unfolding from the earth like an evil flower, filled with remembrances of his lost kingdom. he dreams the dead to life and dreams the sun out of the sky.

he has dreamed his people into monsters. the Dream is in them and they are of the Dream, it is propagated by their acts and they are sustained by its existence.

serafinos are the people who used to live in San Serafín. now they are the impossible residents of an impossible city, with no mind or power but to endlessly act out the unlogic of their home.

all serafinos obey the following rules strictly:

behave well
Serafinos always act in the way most appropriate for their surroundings. On the street, they walk aimlessly; in a bar, they drink ancient liquor and pay with corroded coins

punish transgression
Serafinos react with hostility to any breach in ettiquette or order. Stealing, cutting in line, heckling, touching another Serafino, shouting, running, and fighting all upset them, at first attracting their attention and then compelling them to attack. Serafinos can freely breach etiquette to punish a transgressor, without reprisal from their fellows.

never rest
Serafinos continue a course of action until etiquette forces them to stop. They will dance forever unless a clock strikes twelve, or eat dust in a restaurant until they come to believe it has closed.

obey authority
Serafinos tend to obey orders spoken with conviction and believe claims of high office, but their reprisal for impersonation when they discover it is extraordinarily vicious.

reactions
Serafinos use a modified reaction table. They only make reactions when players have called attention to themselves in some way.

in the city
in San Serafin, there are always 3d6 lesser serafinos wandering the streets or stumbling through buildings nearby.

Lesser Serafino
it is shadowy and indistinct, like a distant figure in a dream or a person you see out of the corner of your eye. if you look closer, you can see the details resolve themselves just a moment after you should have noticed them: it has no face until you wonder why not, its eyes have no color until you notice they’re an indescribable non-shade, stitches force themselves out of the serafino’s clothes once you realize it’s just wearing a smoky black smear.
HD 1
Armor 10 (unarmored)
Speed ¾ human (spiderclimb, swim)
Morale 12
Alignment Chaotic
Abilities

Maul: +1 to hit, 1d6 damage
Climb: serafinos do not climb like a human. they just step up onto the wall like it’s another part of the floor and walk straight up it.
Swim: in water, serafinos unravel into something filamentous and black, a bit like a cloud of smoke and a bit like a jellyfish.

Grand Serafino
its looks human, but its shadow roils like smoke behind it and the pavement flexes like a beaten drum beneath its feet. When angered or when fighting, it flickers between shapes: a child, a tiger, a screaming statue, a cloud of butterflies, a column of fire, anything ever dreamed of.

Stats and abilities as djinn, except that it cannot use whirlwind. Grand Serafinos can use Shapechange at will, except that anyone can Save vs Magic to disbelieve it back to its original humanoid form. this is subjective, and the serafino can use Shapechange again to fool a person who has already disbelieved, so it might appear as a medusa to one person and an ancient red dragon to another.

any serafino that dies leaves behind its possessions, but its body is always small and shriveled, like something that only might have been human, and even then very long ago.

December 27, 2015 jacinto adventures, encounters, LotFP, san serafín

una isla

Working on the region surrounding San Serafín. I want there to be more to do than just this one, giant dungeon. I think my players are chafing against having to dungeon crawl every session. I also want to develop a Morrowind/Tekumel-ish setting, a kind of Mozarab Latin America, or a Colombian Exchange with Al-Andalus instead of re-Christianized Spain.

Anywhere, here are six locations.

Twin creatures of mysterious nature and sumptuous dress sell strange wares beneath a red silk canopy on the side of the road.

Arre has the grinning head of a coyote, tongue lolling, eyes a dull red. She is polite, accommodating, and will not insist on anything but a price. She sells magic-user and cleric scrolls (all spells with a level of 6 or higher). She does not take money, but requires a live captive with HD double the level of the scroll’s spell.She fights as a gargoyle (AC 5 HD 4 MV 90 ATK 2 claws/1 bite/1 horn DMG 1d3/1d3/1d6/1d4 ST Fighter 8 ML 11 TT C AL C, Immune to non-magical weapons)
Erre has the head of a monkey, expression neutral, eyes a lambent red. He is profane, deceitful, and delights in insult. He sells magic items (three random magic items in stock, changes out each midnight). He accepts only ancient coinage, and each item costs 500+d1000 gp. He fights as a wraith (AC 3 HD 4 MV 120′ (FLY 240′) ATK 1 DMG 1d6+Energy Drain ST Fighter 4 ML 11 TT E AL C, Immune to non-silver and non-magical weapons)

II
A small and unpleasant village. The well has been spoiled recently and a spirit haunts the village chief, a man called Nazario.

The well was spoiled by the brother of Nazario’s dead wife, who wants to be chief and is sabotaging Nazario’s rule.
Nazario is haunted by the spirit Búho because he murdered his wife, the daughter of the last chief, five years ago. He rules the village benevolently, but will kill again to maintain his secret.
The villagers blame the haunting and the spoiled well on the nearby encampment of half-djinn. They would have driven away or killed them by now if not for the efforts of the village chief.

III
An encampment of half-djinn outcasts. They have thus far maintained a measure of peace and prosperity through the power and guidance of the great djinni Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif, but he has been missing for over a month.

A band of slavers has been kidnapping djinni across the Isle. The leader of the encampment, Fátima, wants the slavers killed and her fellows freed.
Shams, the great-grandson of al-Kasif, maintains his ancestor’s house, buried beneath the encampment. It contains immense wealth, but its guardians are vigilant and powerful.
Befriending the encampment allows players to create half-djinn characters.
The half-djinn fight as elves (AC 5 HD 1+1 MV 120’ ATK 1 DMG 1d8 ST Elf 1 ML 8 TT E AL Neutral, Know a random 1st level magic-user spell)

IV
A decaying monastery occupied by a society of necromancers. A small shantytown has sprung up around the monastery’s walls, full of indentured servants paying off the necromancer’s services.

The necromancers can raise any human from the dead, as long as a corpse and their true name is provided. The dead raised this way have the mental attributes, knowledge, and abilities they had in life, but the physical characteristics of their new body. This service costs a number of gold pieces equal to the experience total of the one to be resurrected. Anyone raised this way cannot gain XP.
The indentured servants despise the necromancers for their abuse and cupidity, but each is desperate to bring someone back to life.
The necromancers know the secret of summoning Las Muertas, but will not teach it to anyone outside of their ranks. A summoner must enroll in the society or else just steal the ritual.

V
A band of hunters makes their camp here, hidden inside a thicket. Several of their children have gone missing, and in the weeks since their search started, something has begun to mutilate the horses.

The children have been stolen by the spirit Angroda, who maintains her lair in the bole of an immense black tree in the same hex as the camp.
The horse-killer is one of the hunters, cursed with lycanthropy. He killed an ancient jaguar while searching for the missing children, and it bit him as it died. He is too frightened to set off on his own and even more afraid of being killed by his friends and family, so he has been satisfying his new hunger with the band’s horses. He fights as a weretiger (AC 3 HD 5 MV 150’ ATK 2 claws/1 bite DMG 1d6/1d6/2d6 ST Fighter 5 ML 9 TT C AL N, Immune to non-magical or non-silver weapons, can summon 1d2 jaguars 1/day)

VI
An abandoned hacienda. Withered cattle, untouched by insects, lay dead in locked barns, and the silos are filled with rotted grain. In the manor, the two dozen bodies hang from the rafters.

The hanged were once the hacienda’s household. In life, they sacrificed humans to an Old God in return for bountiful crops. When the Saint-king sent an agent to investigate the disappearances, they killed themselves when discovery seemed inevitable.
The dead are restless in this house. The bodies will reanimate and attempt to kill anyone who enters the manor. They will do their best to keep anyone from entering the basement, where they kept the remains of their victims.
The basement contains the remains of the sacrificial victims, as well as the body of the Saint-king’s agent. Unbeknownst to the murderers, he tripped down the stairs and broke his neck while investigating. He is an immobile skeleton, but is quite friendly and rather voluble.
The murderers fight as wights (AC 5 HD 3 MV 90 ATK 1 DMG Energy Drain ST Fighter 3 ML 12 TT B AL C, Immune to non-silver and non-magical weapons). As long as they are still tied to a rafter and nothing living can see them or their destination, they can teleport to any other rafter in the house. If cut from the roof, they cannot teleport, but can move freely.

August 25, 2015 jacinto encounters, miami, modern, nephilim, occult, Pop Tartary, pseudomonarchia

MIAMI PSEUDOMONARCHIA

This was a bit of a challenge since all the photos has to be creative commons. Not sure how well it turned out, but it was an experiment.

MIAMI PSEUDOMONARCHIA

Fortean Horror and Occult Investigation in South Florida

Something is wrong with Miami, something is wrong with you, you have become unstuck from the world and nothing is right. Your friends forget your face, strangers know your name, the graffiti addresses you as a friend and voices call for you from static and dial tone.

HAPPENINGS
There are old women in chintz dresses, they crawl about on all fours and follow you through the streets. Nobody else notices them and you don’t know what happens when they catch you.

There’s been a man walking in circles around your block for the last month. He ignores you when you try to stop him, but blood is welling out of his shoes and he is as thin as a famine victim.

There’s an angel trapped inside the walls of the office down the street from your apartment, or at least it tells you when you walk past. A lot of people have been jumping off the roof of that building lately.

You notice children have been paying the ice cream man in teeth, and what he’s been giving him sure doesn’t look like popsicles.

A man has been murdered in the alley behind your apartment every night for the last week. The exact same man, at the exact same time, and the police never answer when you call.

When they tried to raze the old theater, it bled like a living thing.

All children who live on a single block have begun speaking ancient Greek, to the exclusion of all other languages. Their dialect and accents are eccentric even for scholars, but they seem to be trying to warn you of something.

A local genetics researcher is in a bit of trouble. They thought they were developing extra-wooly sheep, but now the lambs speak, and do so with the voice of multitudes

Whenever you try to use a phone, the God In The Wires talks to you. It has very peculiar and very specific demands.

FOR STARTERS
You know the name of one of the orishas. Your parents taught you to say their name just right.

You saw what they did in the church basement every Sunday night, and the memory still follows you, deep black and indistinct.

Last year you woke up with a hangover and a tattoo of stylized eye on the back of your hand. Its pupil is the most remarkable shade of blue; it hardly looks like skin.

You had to get vaccinations for international travel recently, and the nurse gave you an extra injection before you realized it wasn’t supposed to happen. You remember the needle dripping something oily and black.

You only have the faintest memories of your mother. They don’t quite make sense, and whenever you think about her too hard, you get a bad nosebleed.

You tried to kill yourself at one point. You woke up in the hospital, but you distinctly remember it working.

ATTRIBUTIONS

Dromedary Camel by Dallas Krentzel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/31867959@N04/4355606704/
The Gentleman’s Ritual II by Gabriele Negri https://www.flickr.com/photos/nimahel/7456854198/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
The Surfer by Bill Dickinson https://www.flickr.com/photos/skynoir/7985457219/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
Efeito Borboleta by Jaaiiro Souza https://www.flickr.com/photos/jairojoker/12388079333/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Miami Beach by Ricymar Photography https://www.flickr.com/photos/ricardo_mangual/5758714155/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
03.22.ManHunt.WP.SBM.5mar05 by Elvert Barnes https://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective/25975610/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
miami by Kevin walsh https://www.flickr.com/photos/86624586@N00/10174559/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Albino Alligator by Matthew Paulsen https://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewpaulson/13117317195/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
e pluribus unum by sherber 711 https://www.flickr.com/photos/sherber711/2452736107/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
Palacio de Vizcaya by Jorge Elias https://www.flickr.com/photos/italintheheart/4017460039/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Miami Herald Demolition by Phillip Pessar https://www.flickr.com/photos/southbeachcars/15335017002/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
City of Miami with Miami beach in background by Kent Wien https://www.flickr.com/photos/flyforfun/2127317967/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/