Places to Go, Things to Kill

Leechmen

Leechmen are brought to the Dawnlands by meteorites, being a manifestation of the lesser sins of returning divine heroes. A Leechman is a single large leech, about 5' long, with other, smaller leeches attached to it. These smaller leeches serve as limbs, though leechmen are rarely humanoid, having up to a half dozen arms and legs each, with inactive or spare members draping pendulously from the main body. They use weapons of meteoric iron, speak in an aspirated whisper, and are inimical to all other forms of life. Leechmen are amphibious, and must remain moist, so they are often found in a range between their home crater and the nearest river, pond or lake. Leechmen are intelligent, but do not normally use magic.

Blotboils

The blotboil is a feared parasite that infects horses, cattle, sheep, goats and other ruminants. It looks like a patch of dark, mottled grass that retains its colour even in the deepest winter, when low grazing fodder sends animals hunting for what they can. After being chewed and consumed, the blotboil lodges in the digestive tract, where it begins feeding off the animal's blood. Blotboils grow rapidly - infection can take no more than a few weeks from digestion to eruption. As the blotboil consumes more blood, its tendrils grow long and thicker, and the mass of the creature increases until it is so large that it bursts forth from inside the chest of the animal. This is its most dangerous stage.

The blotboil's tentacles can be up to 12" long, and several inches thick. Each one is tipped with a keratinous needle that seeks out sources of new blood within reach - often the other members of the herd, or even the herdsman himself. A mature blotboil typically has between 10 and 20 tentacles. When the tentacles find a blood source, they stab into it and hold on, attempting to suck the creature dry. The needle tips exude a powerful neurotoxin that temporarily paralyses prey. After this frenzy of feeding is complete, the sated blotboil will raise its tentacles in the air and spray immature blotboils over the surrounding area before dying. The young quickly bury themselves in amongst the grass to repeat the cycle once more.

Places to Go, Things to Kill

The Hill of Release

The area surrounding the Hill of Release is the most monster-plagued part of the Dawnlands short of the inner depths of the Molten Whore, or the ruins of the Cities of Night. This is because the Hill of Release is where the Kaddish soulforgers traditionally release their creations once they no longer require them for any other purpose. This is done in a festive, congratulatory air, especially when its is a new Master Forger's first true-breeding species.

The hill itself is unassuming. It is located about a day's march south of the nearest hill fort, and consists of a set of large pits with gutters to release the creatures from, and a stone tower of four levels, with a balcony ringing the top level. The tower is known as the Impregnable Tower, and is sealed to visitors by the orders and magic of the soulforgers. When not being used, it is guarded from intrusion by the Thurakan Himex, a creature made of glass and shadow with a killing gaze that spares only those who know its command word.

Recent releases from the tower including a humanoid set of glass pipes whose whistling drives those who hear it insane, a collection of giant crabs with dog's heads for claws, a herd of horses made of quicksand into which anyone attempting to ride them is drawn inexorably, and a flock of ravens made of interlinked legs of brass spiders.

Soulforging

Soulforging is a unique magical technique practiced only amongst the Kaddish, and for a brief time, amongst a group of hobgoblin outlaws who stole the secret. The Kaddish jealously guard their knowledge of its operation, and the vast bulk of the population does not know the precise details. Even sages and savants have only partial accounts of some of the outer mysteries.

Soulforging involves the combination of one or more substances (metals, alchemical concoctions, naturally occurring substances, animals and plants) with the soul of a creature or person. This causes the permanent transformation of the subject into a new type of being. Depending on how severe the change and how many subjects are changed into a single consistent type, the end result may be true-breeding, able to reproduce naturally and create more of its own, or sterile, requiring consistent replenishment of the population by Master Forgers.

In the thousand-or-so years that the Kingdom of High Kaddish reigned, this art was cultivated to its very extremes, rashly and sadistically. Enemies of the state were soulforged into more servile forms, ordinary beasts became weapons of war, and the Dawnlands were overrun with failed experiments that continue to linger on into the present day. Since the revolution, the pace and scale of the transformations have decreased, but the Kaddish continue to experiment even in the modern day.

Soulforging is the exclusive preserve of the Order of Soulforgers, who consist of a class apart from the rest of Kaddish. The order is based in the imposing Forgetower, which also serves as the centre of its own ward. While students mingle with the ordinary population and are no safer than anyone else, the Master Forgers are feared and set apart from the usual bonds of obligation and vendetta that structure the ordinary population's life. The order does not have a clear head or orthocrat, and all students and masters are judged through the collective decision of the order.

A Master Forger is his own first masterwork. All Master Forgers are albinos, whatever their colouration at birth might have been. They lack all body hair, and dress solely in brilliant white robes with white kufis. If they were once elves, Burnt, or anything else, their features are remade to resemble humans. What has been seen of their bodies publicly indicates that they are covered in tatoos from wrist to collar to ankle. A student becomes a Master Forger when he is able to effect these transformations on himself and survive.

Soulforging is not sorcery, but part of the education of a Master Forger includes sorcery of the Psychomimetic school to assist their work, and most are expert sorcerers. They also often have a number of smaller soulforged creatures with magical abilities of various sorts on their person, hidden under the robes. Many of these are symbiotes bonded to the flesh of the Master Forger which extend his abilities in strange and unpredictable ways.

The order does not interfere in Kaddish politics normally, though it did provide some mild support for the revolutionaries once it became apparent they would win. They do however, demand a tribute from the rest of the city: All albino children and children with severe birth defects born in the lands of Kaddish, regardless of whom they are born to, or who owns them, must be sent to the Forgetower when they are seven years old, if they survive to this age. These are reshaped and upon adulthood are fully transformed into katalictors, unnaturally beautiful and perfect exemplars who serve the order as guards, assistants, servants, emissaries, and companions.

The order maintains its neutrality through its ability to muster brutal and vicious force against those who would seek to control it. On a handful of occasions, the Master Forgers have released deadly plagues and gigantic horrors directly into the city to disperse mobs or punish agitators against them, but this is an option of last resort. More often, they attempt to buy off opponents and dissidents with gifts. Most famous of these is the Halide Polyp, a symbiote that lodges in the digestive tract and allows the body to revive from otherwise fatal wounds.

Students and Master Forgers rarely leave the city of Kaddish, as they are the target of bandits, raiders and foreign powers eager for their secrets. Normally, powerful curses lain upon them during their first initiation prevent them from speaking about the details of what they know, but these spells are only unbreakable when tattooed upon the body of a Master Forger. The hobgoblin renegades who famously learnt how to soulforge did so by capturing a student visiting his family, and breaking the binding spells. The most common reason for leaving the city is to visit the Hill of Release. Soulforgers who journey there make sure to be well-guarded by their creations and by katalictor bodyguards.

The two things I'm going to be working on for the next little while for the setting are a dictionary of the Kaddic languages and a bestiary. I'll put the monsters up here as they come. Suggestions are welcome.

Places to Go, Things to Kill

Lithic Teratoma

Lithic teratomas are sessile, predatory cysts that develop with stone formations. When their feeding aperture (known as the "grike")  is closed, they blend into the karst formations of the plains and appear to be perfectly ordinary clints, or patches of limestone. When stepped on, the grike opens rapidly, and prey drops in. Small teratomas may resemble sinkholes, cracks, or pits when open, while larger ones form formidable chasms. Teratomas lack teeth, but they can close their grikes with incredible force, crushing captured prey to death or at least breaking off limbs if caught at the edge of the grike. Inside the teratoma, the creature is encysted and slowly dissolved, whether alive or dead. Teratomas use a caustic digestive juice, and are in general highly vulnerable to acid. Even a weak acid like vinegar will cause the grike to open and the teratoma to vomit its prey out. Travellers can spot lithic teratomas after rainfalls, when they spray the acidic rainwater out in geyser-like spumes, though the unwary may assume they are just geysers.

Mercurial Rays

Mercurial rays appear as great flapping sheets of quicksilver that soar overhead on the wind, before dropping down on prey and wrapping around them. An adult ray is large enough to wrap around a bear or bull easily. The body of the creature is near-liquid, and slicing it apart has no effect, as the pieces heal as soon as they are joined together. Rays are adept at catching and focusing sunlight to blind and burn their prey.

Rays are weakest once they have wrapped around their prey. The ray attempts to smother it, pouring itself through the nose and mouth into the lungs. Rays are susceptible to extremes of heat, and if a piece of the ray can be burnt with a torch or other flame, they will quickly evacuate their prey and flee. Rays are opportunistic hunters, and often seek out isolated prey, leaving most groups alone. They can travel rapidly on the winds, at great heights, and there may be little warning before they hurtle downwards.

Dogs

The Dawnlands has an abundance of dogs. All the major cultures raise, care for and use dogs in various ways. The Hill People in particular are fond of dogs, and raise great colonies of them.

The three most common breeds of dogs on the plains are known as "elf-eared", "spotted hunting dogs" and "eating dogs".

Elf-eared dogs have sharp, triangular ears, large builds, and thick coats. They tend to patches of grey and white, and are used for herding, guarding livestock and children, and pulling small carts. They are a gentle and intelligent breed, and are allowed into the home, especially in the wintertime when they provide needed body heat. They most closely resemble huskies. Young boys are given an elf-eared puppy to raise as a traditional gift around the time they can talk.

Spotted hunting dogs look similar to Australian cattle dogs, with the same calico colouring and build. Plainsdwellers use the dogs to beat and corral deer and bison, to catch escaped slaves, and to fight, either in wars and raids, or for their amusement. The dogs are bred for fearlessness and daring. Spotted hunting dogs are not normally allowed into the home, as their vicious character makes them dangerous around children. Spotted hunting dogs are common gifts between the Kadiz and Hill People when they are not raiding one another.

Eating dogs are the smallest of the three breeds. They are a small, mongrel breed similar to terriers with colours ranging from yellow to grizzled. While some Hill People cultivate them as a primary food source, they are mainly used as starvation food in bad winters and for ritual purposes. They are the only kind of dog normally eaten by the Kadiz and Hill People. They are ratters, diggers and watchdogs, surviving off table scraps, waste and small game, and they can be found ranging far out from any encampment. If they spot a traveller approaching, they give off loud yapping barks and follow him in, making noise the entire way.

As always, great stuff. :cool: More!

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;497053Lithic Teratoma

Having some experience with the more mundane kind, this brought a smile to my lips. Good job!

Quote from: The Butcher;497090As always, great stuff. :cool: More!



Having some experience with the more mundane kind, this brought a smile to my lips. Good job!

Thanks mate! Glad you like it. I was shuddering while looking at that Wikipedia article earlier today to refresh myself on the concept

My standard monster generation system is to combine a gross thing with a substance it is not normally made of and then give it a malign or predatory intention.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;496906A Master Forger is his own first masterwork. All Master Forgers are albinos, whatever their colouration at birth might have been. They lack all body hair, and dress solely in brilliant white robes with white kufis. If they were once elves, Burnt, or anything else, their features are remade to resemble humans. What has been seen of their bodies publicly indicates that they are covered in tatoos from wrist to collar to ankle. A student becomes a Master Forger when he is able to effect these transformations on himself and survive.

I really dig :cool: stuff like this. I realize this is kind of a weird question by how did you come up with the whole "look" of Master Forgers ? I see some references but can't put my finger on them.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;497130I really dig :cool: stuff like this. I realize this is kind of a weird question by how did you come up with the whole "look" of Master Forgers ? I see some references but can't put my finger on them.

Regards,
David R

Thanks!

There's a bunch of sources mixed together: Judge Holden from Blood Meridian, and my nightmares, which feature a recurrent scene of a pale, colourless figure menacing me while I sleep. The clothing is meant to be reminiscent of surgical gear, and the tattoos are partially inspired by the Patryn of the Deathgate Cycle and partly by Scythian tattoos.

New Uses for Skills

Culture (Own) - Find Common Ancestor

The custom on the plains is that two people with a nameable common ancestor are considered related, with further degrees of relation being less important than nearer ones. However, even distant relatives must be shown and in turn must obey guest-right, which spares them from violence to their person and property and binds them against the same. Therefore, when not openly hostile (i.e. on a raid), the first thing two bands of travellers do when they encounter one another, whether Hill People or Kadiz, is begin shouting out the names of their relatives from a safe distance.

While the lack of a common ancestor does not automatically make either party hostile, it does mean that either side is free to use force if they wish. The complex kinship web on the plains means that almost everyone, Hill Person and Kadiz alike, is related somehow if the two sides are adequately informed about their own genealogy. Note that merely because the ancestor was kidnapped or owned as a slave by the other side does not normally absolve one of guest-right.

An ordinary success means that the PC or NPC has identified a common, but distant ancestor by which they and their target are related.

A critical success means that the PC or NPC has identified a common, near ancestor they share (sister, brother, son, daughter, father, mother, uncle, aunt, first-degree cousin, wife, husband, concubine, catamite).

A failure means that no common ancestor can be identified.

A critical failure means that something about the genealogy gives offense to the other party, usually turning them hostile. This might be naming a hated foe as one's relative, or establishing a relation that is particularly embarrassing to the other party (A man's catamite is considered a close relation, but saying that someone's ancestor served as your ancestor's catamite is deeply shameful) or that casts unseemly aspersions about the other party's lineage (specifically adulterous relationships and sometimes bastardry).

This can be an opposed roll if one side is attempting to shirk guest-right. They downplay the relation, or present it as illegitimate or claim it as false.

Tattoos

The Kadiz and Hill People share a common culture of tattooing the body for various purposes. The type and location of a tattoo indicates a variety of information to other plainsdwellers which can be useful in a predominantly illiterate society. Gnolls do not normally receive tattoos, but may dye their fur in comparable ways if they so please. Almost all tattoos are done with either woad or bone black, giving two possible colours of blue and black for tattoos, with black being the more popular on men, and blue the more popular on women. The nomads (men and women alike) are naked or nude reasonably often in public, due to communal living conditions and simple necessity, and tattoos are seen as ornamenting the body in these conditions.

Men

Almost the entire adult male Kadiz population has at least one tattoo. This is the heart-sign, or name-sign. It is tattooed on the stomach as part of the ritual when a young man becomes an adult, where it is concealed from view most of the time. This tattoo normally takes the form of a complex polygon (usually a pentagon, hexagon, or octagon) around the navel with a unique design inside it. Often this design will be an animal or a unique geometric configuration of lines and circles. This serves as a representation of the person's name, and is often used as a brand, sigil, and signature to represent the person as needed. A messenger whose trustworthiness or veracity is in question may be asked to describe the name-sign of the person who sent them as a test. Otherwise, this tattoo is covered in public, and someone wandering around with it exposed may be accused of indecency.

The single most common tattoo after this, with around a third of the male population having variations on it, is a paired bull and wolf, representing the totemic gods of the Kadiz and Hill People. These are either on the arms, legs, pectorals or back. While the icons have a ritual significance, their popularity as a tattoo is just a fashion, and conveys no specific message about the bearer's piety or ritual skill. Skilled artists create complex variations on the theme, but most versions are just outlines of the pair looking angrily at one another.

The next most common types of markings are records of enemies slain, and marriage marks. Kills are recorded in repeating marks on the arms, usually either crosses, lines or chevrons that link up to one another. When a nomad takes a wife, he typically has a picture representing her tattooed somewhere on his body (often the buttocks or inner thighs). Horses, birds, antlers and hearts are all common. If the artist can write, he may even tattoo the name of the woman on, though this is considered somewhat daring as it allows someone else who can read to figure out who the nomad is married to if he is captured.

The third most common are purely decorative marks. These may commemorate nicknames, trades, well-known or meaningful incidents from the person's life, famous ancestors, ritual skill or be simply for aesthetic reasons. More common types include vertical lines from the eyes to jaw, with lines under the left-eye indicating that one is a priest of the Storm Bulls, and lines under the right eye indicating that one is sanctified to the Stone Pack. Tattoos of eyes are common for gnostics, while those sanctified to daimons usually have three black horizontal lines tattooed on their cheeks to warn others. Facial tattoos tend to be simple lines, while those located elsewhere are more complex. The current fashion is for young men to get a dragon or eagle on the collar, while older men will have thorn patterns around their wrists and ankles.

Women

Female tattoos are as common, but less regular than male tattoos, and most are for aesthetic reasons or as a marriage marker. Women who have taken on a male or neuter role in the clan often mimic male tattoo patterns, including a name-sign (which is the nomad equivalent of sporting a false phallus, and about as transgressive if discovered).

Marriage markers on women typically take the form of a thin horizontal line below the navel, with vertical lines intersecting it. The number of horizontal lines indicates how many times she has been married, with the number of vertical lines intersecting each band indicating what priority she had as a wife (so a man's first wife has one line, his second wife has two, etc.). These marks are not normally visible, as nomad women do not expose this part of the body in public, but may be examined by suitors, their mothers and their current wives during negotiations.

The current trends in female decoration are curving lines and rows of small, circular dots. In most cases, the dots and lines are intended to be provocative and sexually suggestive, and the typical design starts somewhere visible in normal clothing and continues in the direction of the buttocks, genitals or breasts, either growing slightly thicker or thinner as it goes. The most enticing are done in a black so thick it can be seen through a woman's underclothes (which are usually a sort of shapeless white sack of thin fabric with arms and leg holes).

A controversial but increasingly more common tattoo with an explicit sexual meaning is known as "the handles" and is two groups of five short lines splayed like fingers on a woman's back above the hips, following her ribs. Originally associated with prostitutes, it conveys an explicit sexual message and demand is growing amongst married women to entice their husbands.

Older women tend to have flowers, petals or birds in blue and black. These start at the neck or shoulders and rain down the body in aesthetically pleasing ways. Another common design involves horses stampeding or charging across the body, and yet another revolves around serpents coiling around the limbs.

Outside of these types of tattoo, women also sport smaller tattoos with the same meanings as men. Mementos of beloved children, trades, skills, origins of nicknames, and famous ancestors are all common. Women sanctified to daimons have the same three black lines tattooed on their faces. Beyond that specific condition, women do not tattoo their faces.

So basically your average band of nomads is gonna look like yakuza on horseback in any sort of hot weather. Tats are a lot easier to make than clothes, so the nomads express their individuality and sexual attractiveness through their tats, and their social rank and function through their clothes.

Places to Go, Things to Kill

Orvanshur

When a man falls in a sinkhole, geyser or cavern with water at the bottom, and drowns, his ghost may become a vicious spirit known as an "orvanshur", or pit-ghost. Orvanshurs seek to lure others to joining them in the pit. They possess a bewitching song and the ability to create false-gold, which they use to convince the living to explore their pits, where the orvanshur traps, boils and devours them. Orvanshurs in geyser fields are known to possess geysers and cause them to erupt unexpectedly, spraying boiling water on travellers who stray too close. An orvanshur resembles the person they once were, but made of steam. They can be banished by destroying their bodies, or by collapsing the pit their body is in, which counts as burying them.

Pine-meres

A pine-mere appears as a pine tree laying on the ground. They vary from about 2m to 5m long. Wary travellers will notice that they lack stumps and pine cones, and that their needles are green even if they should have browned. When a living creature approaches with a few metres, the pine-mere attempts to roll over them, using its "branches" to propel itself. The "needles" are just that - hard, keratinous needles the creature stabs into flesh to restrain and kill its prey. The branches wrap around prey as the trunk rolls to pin them underneath it so the pine-mere can feed. The "trunk" normally contains one or more boles that swing open to reveal feeding orifices. Packs of 3 or more pine-meres often gather together, coordinating their hunt. The skin of a pine-mere resembles bark, both in appearance and toughness, though the creatures are afraid of flame and will retreat if one is brought near to them. The blood of a pine-mere is good at treating cuts and scabs. The flesh is highly nutritious, though the taste is unpleasant.

Tulpa-Shoggoths

Formed from the chemically-induced nightmares of gnostics as assassins and guardians, tulpa-shoggoths appear as globs of psychedelic protoplasm larger than a cart, capable of shaping themselves into a variety of shapes as their masters' need. They are mainly used for slaying rival wizards, as a weapon of war by the Kaddish, and for guarding the sanctuaries of gnostics. Tulpa-Shoggoths have the peculiar quality that their creator can command them only while asleep. Gnostics who summon them often train themselves in lucid dreaming, where they summon the tulpa-shoggoth, reshape it and give it specific commands it will follow once they awake. The creator of a tulpa-shoggoth must dream of it every night (though it need not be the sole object of dreaming), or else it ceases to exist at dawn of the next day. Tulpa-Shoggoths are innately resistant to magic, and are themselves capable of casting any spell that their master knows. However, if a tulpa-shoggoth casts too many spells or uses too much of its power reshaping itself, it can fade out of existence.

Places to Go, Things to Kill

The Tomb of Thranisphane the Twice-Killed

Thranisphane was an ancient king of High Kaddish, one renowned for his wickedness and evil. Even death was not enough to stop Thranisphane, for he returned as an undead monster, slew his own children, and reigned over High Kaddish for ten years before he was slain once more while fighting the Black Eagle tribe of the Hill People. The Black Eagles took him within a circle of binding stones and sat him atop a throne made of red glass, with unbreakable pins through his wrists and ankles to hold him in place. Thranisphane still sits there, dead and yet not passed from this world, waiting for the end of time when he will break free and stride over the dead earth as its lord. Thranisphane knows many things, and though it is death to come too close, brave men may stand at the bottom of the hill and shout questions to him, which he will answer or not as he pleases, though his answers are not always truthful.

The twelve stones are arranged as four trilithon gates. Walking between gates kills the one who attempts it, but the gates are comparatively safe. Walking through a gate transports one to another point in time. All four gates were originally in the future of the Black Eagles, but as time has passed, the end point of one has passed into history. All people who will ever travel through the gate arrive within about an hour of the same point in time, with just enough displacement between petitioners to prevent jams. This means that the hill at each endpoint save one is relatively crowded.

The northern gate leads to the end of the world, to a few minutes before Thranisphane is released. This gate is no longer safe, as the number of petitioners present has become large enough that they cannot all petition Thranisphane before he is released, whereupon he kills anyone still remaining and strides forth as Lord of the Dead. The land from the hill is flat, level and grey, a featureless waste in all directions. Overhead, the sun is red and swollen, and the heat is unbearable.

The eastern gate leads to what is estimated to be millions of years in the future. The hill is underwater, and those who cannot breathe water will quickly drown. Hive-intelligences composed of schools of small fish have built a city of black stone around the hill, using enslaved cephalopod gnostics as labourers. They will not cross the barrier, and know nothing of the times of Kaddish save what Thranisphane and other travellers tell them.

The southern gate leads to tens of thousands of years in the future. The hill is surrounded by a blue glowing dome of force, and in the distant horizon, a city of red glass blocks looms. The people who live in this time do not approach the hill. The skeleton of a great serpent lays around the base of the hill, just inside the perimeter of the gates.

The western gate leads to shortly after the revolution in Kaddish (about two hundred years ago). This is the most commonly used gate, but at this time, a great serpent lives here. Anyone entering will arrive at the same time as the serpent, and be forced to fight it.

Stuff to Steal

Red Glass

Red glass in the Dawnlands is the solidified blood of Eternal Night. As it comes from before time began, it is an eternal substance not worn down by the ages, and was used by the Children of Night (the precursors to the Hill People) to build many things after Eternal Night was killed by the Dawnmen. The Bloody Star in which the First Murderer was imprisoned was built of red glass, as were the binding stones of Thranisphane, and the altars to Moon in every one of the Cities of Night were built of it. Few pieces of the stuff still remain, often intermixed with steel to produce the weapons of Hill People champions. It is worth more than its weight in gold, though it is almost impossible to quarry or chisel out of known sources. Where the people in the southern gate of Thranisphane's tomb found enough to build a city of the stuff is unknown, though it excites rumours that there are massive quantities of the stuff still to be found somewhere.

Jarek the Snake, to fulfill the rites of kingship and crown himself the king of the Monstrous Races, requires eight blocks taller and thicker than he is for the ritual. This will make him the first Lord of Night since Moon was slain, suzerain of all the tribes of the Children of Night, and possibly a demigod. He has two already, at a hidden location, and is searching for the other six. There are rumours that the hobgoblins at Balwan are searching for that city's altar on his behalf, which would give him a third pillar.