NaNoWriMo - Rebellion

Every year I sign up for NaNoWriMo and every year I never really finish. This year, rather than a novel, I plan on doing something functional. I want to wordsmith every blog post I have ever made and if possible, add an image for each.

I figure this task is on par with writing 50,000 words. And I think it is something I need to do anyway.

As I work on that, I will also wordsmith all of my publications and add more artwork to each.

It's a reasonable endeavor, at least more reasonable than kicking out a novel.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 35 - Lead of Calling

The Lead of Calling is a weak magical device used by country witches and sometimes huntsmen and trackers. The Lead of Calling will allow the user to call back a lost animal within a league of the wielder. The animal will take it's sweet time responding, often as much as 3 hours, but it will come. So long as the wielder's only intent is to collar and return the animal, the animal will behave as if it was charmed.

This Lead only works on domesticated animals, which does not include cats.

If the animal is more than 3 miles away, the Lead will indicate the direction to the animal.

There is a powerful and dangerous side effect to this magic item. If the animal is killed while on the lead, the holder will be struck down as if Mazed. They will be trapped in this maze until the animal is consumed, buried or naturally decays. The maze will continuously replay the animals last moments and the character cannot avoid this. There is no saving throw. The trapped person will also experience everything the animal's body experiences in death, from two perspectives, one of being the animal and one of being the Mazed watcher. They cannot starve, die of thirst or inclement weather in this condition. They may awake with one or more phobias or insanities from this effect.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 34 - Aerialist's Skin

Flying is a little more than throwing one's self at the ground and missing.

This week's magic item is the Aerialist's Skin. This item appears as a rolled runner made of some sort of soft parchment. It feels slightly tacky and can be either brightly colored or a natural tone. It can be found at magic academies as much as at traveling circuses. The runner is laid down along a course or under the trapeze in lieu of a net.

The Aerialist's Skin somehow contains a fractional dimension, meaning that it acts like a net or trampoline. It does not need to be suspended like a net, the falling victim's body penetrates into the fractional dimension of the Skin, rather than the cold, hard ground. The Skin's surface is soft, with a lot of give. It will reduce damage from speed or falling by 6d6 or the equivalent of falling from 60 feet. The tackiness of the surface is amplified by speed and impact meaning that a person falling onto it will not roll or bounce off.

The Aerialist's Skin is unlikely to find its way into a dungeon, but it is an interesting "consumer magic device" which the general public will have a small amount of experience with. Wizards use it to learn to fly. Circuses use it as a safety device for high wire acts. Creative thieves and thief acrobats may find a use for it in cat burglary.

The material is flammable, so usually it is wet down before use.

Pulling it together...

Well, I am trying to put together a Patreon Campaign. Patreon is a great idea, but realistically, it is a one stop shop for pulling together some sort of Campaign or major production. No one is there to just fork over money so you can "do some stuff and things".

So, what do I got?

I don't like the tier system, because assigning items/rewards to tiers is a bit wonky if the items don't have a 1 to 1 correspondence. Ok, I'll have to think about it. But what does someone get for a couple of bucks?

A city. Not a module, or a game, but a place to have their characters live in.

I have this great software called Worldographer from Inkwell Ideas. It produces maps like the one above. It comes with a license so you can use in commercial works. That ok, but it's someone else's art work. As a starting point, it's ok.

What comes next follows that person's work. As I look at these little icons, I start to think of how each one appears on the outside, from street level.

That image is how I picture those large villa structures on the upper right side of the map.

And of course, since I have the street view, I can easily image in the interiors.

Interiors give way to "who lives here?", which leads to character art and sheets. That I can do.

How would it look?

I would like an atlas feel, so that each of the facing pages reference each other. On the left page would be the color mini-map, a sketch and a hand drawn interior map of the structure.

On the right side would be a character sketch, a description and a character sheet. It would be very simple to rework the page so that the mini character sheet could be removed and replaced with more text for details of the area. Simply put, one would be D&D based while the other would be rule set agnostic.

I find myself naturally doing this as a part of the process of building my campaign. This one city will have 64 blocks or insula, so at a rate of two a month, I have a functional Patreon page for 2.6 years. Possibly more were I to branch out and do other themes, rule sets, etc.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 33 - Mortar of Pestilence

The Mortar of Pestilence is a massive variation of the Wondrous Decanter. They stand 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall. The Mortar must be mounted on some sort of pivot. They are often found on castle walls as a defense. They can disgorge 100 gallons of water, like 3 bathtubs full, in one second. This will cause 1d6 points of damage on impact and will push the victim back 1d12 feet for an addition 1d6 points of damage. If the surface struck is a slope, the victim will slide further and possibly take more damage. The target area is about 10 feet by 10 feet.

But what about the Pestilence? One of the first attempts to use the Mortar involved oil. A couple of pours of oil worked correctly, but it was found that water was far cheaper. One of the Mortars was not poured and over time, the oil went rancid. The oil was impossible to light and within minutes everyone with in 120 feet was sickened, including the defenders.

Oil will go bad within an hour when put in the Mortar. The sickness is airborne and will require a saving throw vs. Disease in the first round of pouring for everyone within 10 feet of the Mortar or within the target area at the base of the wall. A failed saving will sicken characters to the point that they will suffer -2 penalty on all ability scores and a -2 to attack. Anyone who enters the target area will need to make a save, even hours later. This effect will be washed away by the next rain or by pouring water on it. 

The mortar can be filled by bucket or by Create Water spells. Usually clerics will have to work in shifts to fill the whole vessel by magic. Buckets are easier than magic and nasty materials can be added to the vessel. Oil is most common, but so is sewage. Any organic material placed within the Mortar will rot and spoil within an hour and causes the disease effect. Aside from water, any substance placed in the Mortar will become so foul it will be unrecognizable and often does not operate as it should. For example, poison will not be a poison on decanting, oil and alcohols will not burn and milk... oh god. Milk!

Pouring acid into the Mortar of Pestilence will demagik the device and it will bubble and spatter out of the container over a period of 100 hours. Everything in the area must make a save as if they were splashed by the acid.