Aside from handling word slaves in the last Secret Santicore, I also fulfilled a couple of requests.

Here’s an orphan one that I rescued.

 

The Request:

 

Nature on the move. A table of magnificent and/or terrifying migrations. Would ideally contain:

 

1. What the creatures are

2. What sort of impact this migration has on the world

3. Who hunts and/or preys upon the migration

 

20/50/100 your choice Santicore!

 

 

	Nature on the Move	The Impact of Life
d20
1	The Many-Faced or Dividing Leopard Worm A creeping mass of black-spotted yellow fur, voids gaping within the bunched mess of a head, bristling teeth like oily black quills. 15ft long tails thicker than your thigh drag behind the bulk before splitting away, hair separating, contracting and slithering with a mouth all their own. Skinwalkers take the pelts as barbaric armour. The venom delivered by the caterpillar-like hairs that stand on end along their backs causes muscle spasms that can last for days. Older worms can eject hairs right out of their backs when threatened. The fibres alone contain enough venom to incapacitate ten burly men; if you take the pelt with the venom glands intact and keep them alive it will last indefinitely.	The worm mass doesn't really divide, it is made up of individuals moving together like a brood of Spitfire Grubs, but their faces do, split into even quarters bristling with quill teeth to better drag you down their gullets. Beyond defence and hunger related deaths and cripplings, the only thing left to mark their passing are the flimsy abandoned silk nests spun around large trees just within the woods, temporary shelter for a few days' hunting before continuing their journey. Due to the hairs woven amongst the silk, the only thing you'll earn by collecting it is a week of convulsions.
2	Spiders of Gushmora Exquisite neglect creeps in like rising waters, stranded wisps hanging from flowers turn to phantasmal curtains of translucent silk, undulating in the wind. The brood mothers can only walk upon silken threads, and so a tide of their thousand children spills out before them, draping webbed paths over grasslands and trees until their spinnerets run dry and their bodies break, replaced by siblings birthed during the journey. The Korhari Silk-Weavers follow the migration, gathering silk with long, pointed implements of bronze to be fed onto spinning wheels nestled within their gaily painted wagons, ornate and many-coloured behind a sea of white. The few months spent following the spiders will provide them with everything they need for the rest of the year, producing fine Korhari silks to be sold to the highest bidder. Killing any kind of spider before a Korhari is invitation to violence.	Absorbed by the ravenous hunger of the journey, the passing of the Spiders of Gushmora effects near-extinction upon insect populations caught in their path. In the weeks preceding the arrival of the migration, many animals will flee to other hunting grounds. First you notice that the birds no longer sing in the morning, then the rodents disappear from your larder, you hear predators padding away in the night. Many plant species will take months to recover with nothing left to spread their seed. The bite of the Spiders of Gushmora causes an accelerated rot, swollen wounds burst and spill decomposing flesh with an iridescent sheen much like the spider's exoskeleton, all fuchsia, purples and black. When the swollen boils appear across their chest and arms the victim will know they endured the amputation of their leg for nothing. Korhari assassins often travel ahead of the migration, ending those they find preparing to defend their lands.
3	Ignis Fatuus Floris Ethereal points of blue light float through the sunless dark, dancing on the wind. When the luminous seeds settle they sprout dark-stemmed flowers topped with thick bulbs, scored like a spiralling vortex. The feathery pink petals that sprout astride the spiral flutter in the breeze, until a strong enough wind blows in from the right direction and the pods violently ejaculate the next generation of seeds into the air in an unfurling explosion, one step closer to their destination. The Moulting Priests of the Seeping Dissonance seek to destroy the Ignis Fatuus Floris, why they will not say. They have been within reach of the flowers only twice, causing them to explode into an errant wind, thwarting the priests but setting the flowers back on their journey.	For the species to survive the flowers must survive. When the seeds first enter the soil they excrete a toxin that causes all plant life in the immediate area to wither away, eliminating any competition for the nutrients needed to grow. Unfortunately for the flower, the same toxin that kills flora causes intense hypnagogic hallucinations in fauna. If their needle-like thorns fail to deter wanderers or thrill-seeking boars hoping for a transcendent experience, the damaged flowers exude a chemical warning that causes the remaining flowers to disperse their seed into the nearest wind, regardless of direction.
4	Eels of the Nighted Depths None know where they come from or where they go, only the swarm of oil-slick flesh that undulates over the land, toothless, wrinkled maws stretching wide to consume creatures twice their size, slipping onward while the hapless beasts howl from within their stretched flesh, slowly succumbing to digestion. Apothecaries and Dabblers of the Black Arts lust for the flesh of the abyssopelagic nightmares. A piece of their blubbery leathered skin will buy a week's debauchery, their rock-hard sightless eyes would fetch an honest man's yearly wage, for a living intact specimen your very heart's darkest desire would be fulfilled.	Upturned ecosystems, lost pets, lost loves, insane bearded men kicking down your door demanding to know which direction the eels went.
5	The Periphery As people walk there seems to be a shadow not their own moving beside them, seen in their peripheral vision and absent when they turn. As the phenomena ceases in one settlement it emerges in another, trailing across the land until the reports finally cease after several months. The Scholars of the Seventh Seal seek any and all information pertaining to what they call The Periphery. Shared knowledge will be rewarded, false informers will never be found.	A lingering feeling amalgamated of dread and rapture, the subtly unnerving presence of the Scholars weeks after the event.
6	Xanthous Locust It begins with bands of gregarious wingless nymphs, a hopping carpet of bronze-tarnished mandibles, but when their density reaches fever pitch a flavescent metamorphosis takes place that sees their carapace harden into grotesque studded plates of rich yellow armour, glittering wings unfurling in the light. Their omnivorous plague migration sweeps over vegetation and flesh, a flying wall of hooked limbs and eager squirming labial palps. Communities with Forewarning often plant large crops of Mandrake before the oncoming swarm, a fragrance irresistible to the locusts, tearing roots from the ground after gorging upon the leaves and flowers. While it will not kill them, ingesting Mandrake renders the locusts lethargic and uninterested in pursuing further sustenance for at least a day. At night roosting locusts may be caught up in nets and baskets. Fried Xanthous Locust is said to be an unsurpassed delicacy.	Devastated crops and shrubberies, flesh chewed straight from the bone while you're still screaming and flailing, an abundantly delicious crunchy food source for those smarter than you.
7	Fog Walkers of the Broken Isle Magnificent striding things on slender multi-jointed limbs, symbiotic creatures hanging from their shaggy pelts with bright eyes and wicked little hands. The mottled fur of the creatures makes them nothing more than mossy discolouration among the grey coats of the Walker's short, stocky bodies until they move with alarming speed. The fog that seems to have carried away from the Broken Isle to surround the Walker's body is in reality a cloud of minuscule insects, feeding on the blood of the creatures before being sucked into the Walker's facial ducts for nourishment. What sustains the creatures is as yet unknown. Too sure-footed and strong of limb to be cut down from the ground, Companies of Landsharpuniere carefully select Walkers to bring down with harpoon and rope, protected by pikemen and foot soldiers from shrieking creatures in descent.	The Fog Walkers always seem to be accompanied by grey skies and light rain, as if their very presence had seeded the clouds. Vegetative growth after the rain is strong but somehow subtly wrong, vaguely reminiscent of the Broken Isle if you stare long enough.
8	Abysslodira Clacking pyramidal shells amble out of the sea encrusted with lustrous blue barnacles, their long hibernation in the depths at an end. Tortoise-like creatures the size of absurdly large wolves on a slow plod through whatever falls in their path. When confronted by another creature their small hard skulls raise high on startling long necks, pudgy grey skin stretching tight and regarding the stranger through glassy white eyes. If they perceive danger their head and limbs retract completely within nigh-impenetrable shells until the threat has passed, if there is no threat they renew their slow plod straight through you, smooth featureless faces rotating to stare all the while as you fall to the side. Various Birds land on the Abysslodira as they walk, dislodging barnacles from their shells with surprising ease and feasting where they land. The parasite they have eaten will cause the birds to fly without rest to the nearest suitable body of water, plunging into its depths to drown and decay, birthing a strange algae-like ooze from their feathered corpses.	Undeterrable from their path, the Abysslodira will plod over mountains and through battles with the same measured lackadaisical step until a cavalry charge causes them to drop to the ground, a wave of horses breaking over their blue-jewelled shells. Towns that find themselves host to the migration of the Abysslodira would be best advised to clear all obstruction and make them feel welcome, because it will take weeks for them to move out of the streets if some slight offence or threat causes them to retreat into their shells. The algal bloom bears a semi-sentience that sees it infect water supplies and drown animals before moving on to sample the next set of organisms it finds again and again before finally being swept back out to sea.
9	Caustic Sludge Crabs A plague of black carapaces spills from the protection of the Moldenwood in order to reach the Hollow Sea to spawn, crawling over the land in a blanket like a swarm of mites over a corpse. Within the woods the crabs are without predators, rock hard shells containing their liquid flesh, in the open air birds swoop amongst them in an attempt to carry away lone crabs before being dragged down amongst the swarm. Albino Ibis close a nictitating membrane of the same unhealthy pink as their wrinkled faces over their eyes to ward off snapping claws as they descend. After escaping with a crab they will lay it on a hard surface and peck a hole in the armour of its belly to expose the oily sludge beneath. Caustic to most creatures, the Ibis dilute it with their own vomit before sucking it up through long, curved beaks.	Little will stand in the way of the crab migration. Anything caught in their path will be pulled beneath by claws too numerous to count, bones picked clean in their wake, and a smashed crab will easily melt through armour with its spilled liquid flesh.
10	Diasporea The stranger moves towards you in slow, gliding steps, their body hunched inside a great coat covered in dry leaves and sticks and rotting plant matter. Metal trinkets and bones hang from the gnarled branches extending from their head like horns. A powdery whisper accompanies them as they move closer, and a low thrumming voice like rain asks where your dead grow. Light washes over the stranger’s coat as they move into the glow of your lantern, and you see the gaps amidst the sticks and filth. You see fungal sinew strung inside, like the forest floor caught in a web. A thick mass of lichen veil hangs in the hooded space below the stranger’s antlers, and ever more unexpected mounds and wooden horns are illuminated across their back. Small stout yellow round-capped mushrooms in jagged rows beneath its throat and chest quiver and begin to thrum against wood and bone, forming the words that politely ask again, “Where do your dead grow?” Colonies of fungus and mould that cobble debris together to gain a locomotive form. They will talk to you, they’ll even trade, but they have no empathy. They won’t understand why you’re so upset that they dug up your daughter, pulled her corpse apart, and placed the pieces amongst their body. Fragile but hard to kill permanently, and the spores that erupt from them in times of stress end up everywhere, and your flesh is ever so fertile.	The Diasporea have no predators or prey, only those ignorant enough to try to kill them then scream in horror at the release of their infectious spores. If you're savvy enough you may find yourself in possession of time-lost artefacts at the cost of a dead dog or an ancestor's corpse.
11	Cancerslugs As long as a man, putrescent yellow flesh glistening under thick layers of mucus as they emerge from swamps during the wet season, smelling of stale semen and broken drought. Generally placid, violent in short sharp bursts that you never expect. Their wounds bubble out in pink masses of vivid new flesh, deflating into yellow normality over the coming days. The Flesh Crafters continue to obtain samples of slug mucus for experimentation, but since the successful capture and confinement of a live specimen within their labs six years ago have shown no interest in further capture, in fact they show an aversion verging on disgust at the thought. Gold-Banded Broodsac Larvae attempt to invade the slugs, carried as sporocysts until they develop into Broodsacs as the slugs near settled areas or forests. The Broodsacs push into the slug's eyestalks and secrete chemicals that induce a compulsive need to climb the tallest thing it can find; an ancient tree, a belltower overlooking the town square. At its height the Broodsacs squirm and pulsate, golden Rorschachs glinting in the open sky until a bird of prey descends to tear it from the slug's head, the next stage of its life cycle begun. With the majority of its brain torn out the slug will fall to the earth, impacting in a disintegrating shower of yellow flesh bubbling regeneration even in death.	Sudden maddening irritations befall bare skin exposed to the thick mucus trails left in their wake, progressing into lesions and worse. Those unlucky enough to discover an allergy will spend the rest of their lives swaddled in cloth to hide the horror they have become.
12	Powder Deer Herds of them, white fur so pure it nearly glows. The female of the species, and the herd is almost entirely female, bear branching antlers as fragile as glass, shattered and disintegrating on impact. Semi-parasitic young hang from their backs, pink pupal piles of them with pliant manipulable bones that curl around their brood sisters and into their mother's fur. Monolithic among the herd is the Husband, black furred with a compact, upright body like a giraffe, its powerful chest supporting the thick, muscled neck that stretches up to a magnificent head crowned by twisting spires of horn as tall as its body, piercing the sky. Packs of Predatory Beasts try their luck harrying the migration, but lone predators would never dare. Before they disintegrate completely the Deer's shattered antlers fracture into splinters, leaving wounds full of powdered glass where they pierce the flesh. In dire situations the Husband tramps through the herd like an icebreaker, all discordant howling and rage, any shred of self-preservation lost. If the Husband perishes another Powder Deer will undergo a transmutation to take its place, but such things take time.	Their powdered antlers fertilise the growth of both bacteria and vegetation. Lush foliage and crops sprout where there has been conflict, but any wounds contaminated by the earth or even the plants themselves are likely to fester within mere hours.
13	Copulatorum Less a migration than a minor incursion, men and women bearing the faint scent of carnal knowledge arrive at secluded cabins, farms, taverns, palaces. The method of their approach and petition for solace varies, but invariably ends in an enticement to lay with them. Where their advances are rejected they leave with apology. Where accepted, people report seeing either a heavily pregnant woman or an obscenely obese man with a pendulous gut leaving in the small hours of the morning, while inside the homes are all torn flesh and a madness of blood and bile. Respected and Disregarded Organisations are all in consensus that the reports are utter fallacy, only lone eccentrics and outright lunatics seek out incidents of Copulatorum, though not all for the same reasons.	Jilted lovers, subsequent suspicious deaths, absurd stories and hangings.
14	Bowelbird Flocks of inky black birds with eyes like fresh-spilt blood alight on rooftops and concentric patterns in fields, named for a habit of digging amongst entrails after a slaughter, the Bowelbird is possessed with a desire for objects of the colour red, not gore. At each rest they erect crimson piles of thievery in ensanguined cairns, incomprehensible shrines which will be destroyed by various breeds of Simian if they happen across them, reproachful shrieks echoing through the trees.	Carcasses strewn open, crimson veils carried away, roses a-snatched mid-courting. Something much more were the cairns altogether allowed to stand.
15	Ulcerate Vermis Loathsome grey masses emerge from the sewers and water systems of the cities, slopping and rolling clumps of tentacles that make their way to the nearest patch of bare earth beyond the city walls, seemingly melting into the dirt. The majority of their migration takes place beneath the ground, but when it begins to rain they will emerge through shifting clumps of dirt, tumbling and running chaotically across the land amid the spattering drops. Apathetic Gastronomes savour them as a delicacy, and Various Unseemly Bookish-Types would rather like to get their hands on a specimen.	The light touch of a tentacle when you get too close to them opens a painless ulcer in your skin that will heal within a few days, but while it persists you remain mildly irritated over nothing. They often evade capture simply because those around them are too busy arguing over meaningless drivel.
16	Nightshade Unseen in the light of day, slinking through the night, melting into shelter when something is near. Beneath a tree you raise your head to the night sky to find a dark shadow towering over the leaves, staring down at you with furtive reflective orbs. One-Eyed Stygian Herbbalists have an unwholesome interest in the movements of the Nightshade.	Unearthly beautiful blossoms unfurling their shimmering black petals in the morning light provide the only marker that a Nightshade ever passed.
17	The Crawling Rot They emerge from their burrows, decaying with splitting flesh in the sunlight, undergoing regenerative transmorphosis throughout the night, an ever-shifting parade of warped flesh and cancerous disease. Every Being With a Sense of the Sanctity of Their Own Existence or Self-Preservation will avoid the Crawling Rot at any cost, even the carrion vermin know better than to meddle with their flesh.	You will know their passing by the rotting remnants of shed antlers, teeth, eyestalks and splitting jaws, twisted arms, segmented legs, tentacles and gore, you will know them by the smell.
18	Somnolent Broodmite Transportation is what they need; human, animal, they don't mind. The anaesthetic saliva of their bite renders the host unaware as the mites enter their body through holes bored in the legs, populating through the body, consuming everything non-vital to their needs over time. Somnambulance is induced when they reach the brain, carrying the Broodmites towards their desire. If they absolutely must be stopped, a human host will speak with others, but it won't make sense, like a lover waking you in the middle of the night during a dream.	For the most part no one will ever know that the Somnolent Broodmites have passed, but some may find the target of their hunt or planned thievery suddenly split apart by their attack, spilling piles of bloody mites in search of new transportation.
19	Jewelled Mounds of Ur Shambling masses of flesh little more than a delivery system for the rose-tinted crystals sprouting in clusters from their skin, hobbling on pairs of bony arms like crutches and cloven-footed hind legs. They travel towards the Valley of the Nine Streams and the anchored egg sacs already laid by their females within the sapphire waters. When they reach the stream's edge their unheard voices raise in a harmonic reverberation, bursting their fragile crystals over the water, releasing pink seed to fertilise the eggs. After this release the males will die, their corpses waiting food for their unhatched young. Uneducated Would-Be Jewel Thieves have sometimes killed Mounds in order to dislodge the giant crystals from their flesh, only to be rewarded with a burst of honey-thick semen for their troubles. The Mound's seed also happens to hold remarkable mutagenic potential, a property that makes it rather valuable to certain other parties.	Apart from theft-related mishaps, fish and amphibians that spawn from the Nine Streams during the same period are abundant in number and girth, even if their flesh does taste unnaturally salty, and their entrails form strange patterns amidst too-many bones.
20	Ash Spider Colossum Spread fractal shadows beneath them as they pass, light clouds of dust motes shaking free from segmented legs that stab the earth with every step, stretching straight up to lightly suspended plateau bodies bearing black monoliths that scratch the sky like lightning-struck trees. Shivering Bare-Fleshed Zealots worship the Ash Spiders as gods, climbing to their backs to partake in an endless liturgy amongst the monoliths. Blue-Bloat Bore Grubs infest the colossal limbs, burrowing tunnels as they feed.	Zealots crawl over the Spider's legs as they walk, digging out melon-sized grubs to gorge on succulent blue flesh. Madness sprouts in their wake, a religious fervour erupting in settlements that drives the afflicted to scale their new gods and worship at their peaks, replenishing the ranks of Zealots that have climbed within grasping mouths, food for the gods.

 

Want it in PDF? Well how about you download it in hyperlinked gorgeousness along with about 190 pages of other free content from from this link right here.

We finally managed to find the time to actually start our Cörpathium campaign again, so we cosied-up the studio, made two jugs of Goblin Punch [lots of apple/lime/kiwi/banana/mint juice and lime and pineapple soda water and vodka and… look lots of sugar and it ruined me for the next day and I lost my voice around the 6th hour but it was worth it, it tasted like the mid-point of a party where you’re like, “things could go horribly wrong, or this could be the best night of my life, I’m going to find out”], printed some fresh new character sheets, pulled up the spreadsheet for the Rookery of Van Möldus, and rolled our little hearts out.

 

I had this idea to start everyone as 0 level and only gain a class when they do something to earn it or find a spellbook they can read or have religious fever dreams or something, kind of like a DCC funnel except with a single character each and let loose in the sandbox instead of a set adventure. Have to say, it worked pretty damn well.

 

Everyone but Ellen used the automated NPC Birthing Sacs to get an idea for their character, so after rolling for equipment we ended up with:

 

Ellen: Senorita Dos Lumpos, Francish lady in a ridiculously big frothy skirt with a horrible rusted knife and a copper pot.

 

Roy: Azarnoush Al Zahir, softly spoken Moorish giant (17 Strength) carrying a bronze dagger broken from a statue, still with partial finger attachment, a corpsecatcher pole, and three black candles.

 

Rose: Maddock Mohrghast, an imposingly big but weak and clumsy Urgoth that may be mentally touched, carrying a sharp copper blade, a bottle of dark “bog” alcohol (that apparently he’s had since he was 7 and it grew his finger back? I don’t know they made that up while I was in the bathroom), two discarded censer balls from the Church of Dust and Ash, a leather satchel with charcoal pencils and half a notebook, two days worth of preserved rat, and a small collection of mouse skulls.

 

Michael: finally rolled an Intelligence over 5 (well, not on the first try but I let him roll them all again), Elena Sanguine, a petite Francish girl missing an eye, carrying a black blade and a tarnished brass looking glass full of creeping fungus.

 

Bulletpoint play report after the gameporn.

 

 

Read the rest…

Sometimes you suddenly need a big group of NPCs, like when you stumble into a brewhouse or swagger into a brothel or a cult abducts you or you accidentally start a gang war. And it’s a lot more fun to say “the big fat one-armed man takes another swing at you with his one arm” than “this scribbled note that says 3hp attacks you again”.

 

So I made a sped-up version of the NPC Birthing Sacs, complete with names and hit points for when you stab/chat them up, and an editable text box for each one so you can make notes right onto the webpage. Like the Birthing Sacs, the descriptions require some interpretation on your part; I might add more specific character quirks later but for now it’s all sparks.

 

You can play with this sexy new toy right here, and you’ll find permanent links for both it and the automated Birthing Sacs in the Library and sidebar.

 

 

What’s that? What sidebar? If you click the triangle it slides out a secret panel, didn’t you know that?

Some people are much more fancy than others, and when your players meet them you don’t want to be caught with your pants down saying, “um, they’re wearing like, a big, hat..”

So tables.

 

d20	Ostentatious Fashions
1	A thousand pearl-drop spiders, trying to cocoon them, repairing tears as they walk.
2	The lengthy feathers of one hundred birds plucked during their mating dance, splayed out in absurd plumes of colour from all the best parts.
3	A hanging gorget of lorica plumata, flimsy golden scales dangling over the naked breast, filmy silk underwear covering their modesty, leggings and loose sleeves sewn from the hides of Dividing Leopard Worms, venom milked from the (majority of the) defensive hairs for safety.
4	A brass monkey cage strapped to their back, extending above their head, anchored by an elaborately embroidered corset. The monkey has honey-coloured fur and void-black eyes, shrieking at you with a crimson void of a mouth. Monkey spit and shit stains their shoulders and they seem not to care.
5	Overlapping copper plates like a flower blooming up around their chest, face powdered with dabs of orange spices like an explosive spray of pollen.
6	An intricate set of leg armour carved from dark wood, with shingled shins and sickeningly colourful fungus growing from the backs of their thighs, bobbing fruiting bodies dusting spores in their wake as they walk.
7	Constrictive bands of silver polished to blinding, prickling with long randomly jutting spikes that necessitate dramatically raised arms and tiptoeing in a constant pose of ballet absurdity.
8	A floor-length black loincloth and naked skin dripped with malleable lava flows of resinous wax, the shimmering carapaces of entombed beetles and spiders visible through the translucent surface like veins of amber.
9	Deep purple robes open to expose flashes of naked skin, their oversized length smeared with muck and trailing silver chains leashed to a trio of albino monkeys with crimson script dyed in bands around their fur.
10	An eight-arch crown covered in vivid living fungus, probably crawling with insects, body draped in an apron of gold-dusted hanging lichen.
11	Prodigious weight held within a beaten copper plackart, absurdly round, plates of powdered breast jutting over its girth like balconies of naked flesh. Severely tapered legs sprout from the glittering ball covered in gauzy white ruched fabric, laced at intervals to form tiers of billowing pouches.
12	Night-dark fabric stitched together with exposed golden thread, weeping purple fruits impaled upon a collar of iron spikes extending above their head in a storm cloud of buzzing insects.
13	Half mask of horns, horns on the eyes horns on the temples horns horns horns. Lips painted lifeblood red and limbs wrapped all about with rich red velvet string, pale flesh bulging between the lines.
14	All puffed pantaloons and slashed sleeves, ruffled and pouchy in fabrics cut and dyed in resemblance of a cacophonous bouquet, a placid black bone china mask obscuring their face.
15	Ochre-painted naked skin but for a collar bearing five vertical spikes that support a black veil draped over their head.
16	The remains of two boars sewn into a kind of shawl, their rearing heads mounted on the shoulders, grotesque open tusked maws like screaming epaulettes, the outer foreleg of each sewn into a sleeve, their spines joining together, fused with thread, tails dangling salaciously about the wearer's glittering posterior, bedecked in a gown of clingy gold chainmail.
17	An elaborately decorated bustle sprouting from their hips, overlapping organic spiralled layers of silk making it look like an absurd voluptuous cocoon. And it is, carefully chosen so as to hatch a swarm of butterflies at the perfect moment of the night for maximum visual effect.
18	A big boofy bell-skirted dress made entirely of glass, it has to be lowered over her head by a team of sweating steady-handed attendants. The refraction of the angled glass means you never really get a good look at her tits, the moment you think you see a nipple it jumps six inches to the left.
19	Luscious bunched wrappings of fabric in violet hues around their legs and hips, framing a ceramic paunch of a belly plate, bone white and hanging over their groin, full of holes like a pot belly hive.
20	They kneel upon a small podium carried on the backs of two long-haired goats, wearing a girdle of hair that obscures their legs and tumbles down the goat's sides, fusing them together. Gold-dipped goat hooves line the lower back of their tight-stitched black leather bodysuit, each successive row showing more trembling leg up to their shoulder blades. They pout red lips and ring sulky bells hanging from the goat's curved horns as they pass you by.

 

“But Logan, what about cults, gangs, and social clubs, sometimes they dress alike!”

 

Got you covered.

 

 

d20	Cabalistic Aesthetics
1	Little finger removed from left hand and kept in a velvet-lined box where no one will ever find it.
2	Big puffed shoulders, one of them much larger, a tumour of coiled fabric. Sleek clinging moist drapery.
3	Esoteric symbology tattooed in black around their jawline and up to their lower lip, a solid black circle on their throat.
4	The whites of their eyes dyed a startling shade of violet, skin vigilantly powdered deathly pale.
5	Neck and throat painted bronze, stopping severely at the jawline.
6	Eyelids are painted metallic black and bear an inverted white triangle.
7	Sleek muscled limbs and a belly hanging in cellulite neglect. It's almost impressive in its absurdity.
8	A stubby off-white candle attached to the back of their hand by a mess of melted wax, lit at times appointed by their inscrutable religion.
9	An elaborate plaster chest-piece hanging from their neck, baroque floral sculpting like a painting's frame.
10	Ritual scarification of a flower opening in the centre of their chest.
11	Left arm dyed blue with the distilled pigment of the crushed petals of the lotus. [Stolen from one of my favourite little details in Vornheim]
12	Bottom lip split in the middle and cauterised to leave an ever-drooling gully of perfect pink flesh.
13	Eyelid removed from right eye, carrying a small glass jar of water with a brush attached to the lid to moisten their exposed eyeball.
14	A small orange bird attached to their left shoulder by a golden chain, singing coded messages to each other.
15	Oil of vitriol burned into the nape of their neck in a perfect bare hand print, fuck knows who did it, the hand prints are all the same.
16	They all have a stocky little black dog strapped to their chest, like a baby harness, it hangs there with its legs sticking out, limp paws hanging, staring at you through a porcelain doll mask, a low humming growl resonating from its ribcage.
17	Hands dip-died red past the wrist, nails tapered and lacquered black, copious amounts of white fabric.
18	Golden needles like quills bristling from the back of their necks.
19	A large sickly green poison dart frog, crawling over their face, attached to a delicate brass chain threaded between their ears, forehead, and nose by a circlet around its foot.
20	Fields of tiny oil-black mushrooms grow from the inner sides of their arms, constantly held slightly aloft from their body so as not to damage them, looking eery as fuck.

 

And hey, if you prefer visual aids over words, you can roll on this d20 Pinterest board I made instead.

 

 

Speaking of, Pinterest seems like a remarkably overlooked game tool, especially if you’re playing online.

 

Starting a new campaign or introducing new players and want to quickly convey the feel you’re going for? Throw a bunch of inspiration pictures on a Pinterest board and send everyone a link. Jeff Russell’s a sharp one so he’s already doing that here.

 

Prefer visual encounter tables to written ones? Number a board like I did with the fashions, and if you do want to know their stats or make other notes about them, you can put that shit in the image description below it!

 

The only real drawback of Pinterest is that you can’t reorder the images, and just when you think you’ve ordered them by adding them in sequence, it shows them in different orders at different resolutions. But pfft, whatever.

 

For your convenience there’s a whole lot more fashion compiled here, as well as a board more specifically tailored to Weavers of the Dark Arts.

 

Special fashion assistant thanks to my lady Rose with her fecund imagination and good looks.

The new Cörpathium character sheet has a lot of new/tweaked house rules on it, so let’s collect them here for a little more clarification, and to make it easier to refer/link back to them.

 

First of all a few little tweaks to basic LotFP rules.

• For one thing I’m giving everyone access to Combat Options. Only Fighters know how to fight recklessly or defensively? I call ballshit.
  …I meant to type bullshit but no, ballshit, that works.
• The bonus for carrying a shield doesn’t vary between melee and ranged AC, it’s +1 for a small shield and +2 for a large shield, but only Fighters can actually attack while using a large shield.
• Straight -5 AC when surprised/attacked from behind instead of losing Dexterity bonuses then -2 blah blah blah.
• I’m using the new firearms rules (see Brendan’s quick reference here), but the whole ignoring 5 points of actual worn armour but not your Dexterity modifier figure it out every time or record it on your sheet is too damn fiddly and mostly redundant. If a firearm is in armour piercing range, it ignores all your armour, too bad full plate, your AC is now 12 + Dexterity modifier. And forget reloading times, I don’t play with anyone that is going to spend 5-10 rounds reloading, so firearms are basically one-shot high damage armour punchers that everything is going to hear. That works for me.
• I ditched Architecture as a skill because it’s useless for my game and replaced it with Lore (cults, government, magic), and replaced Bushcraft with the more catch-all Naturalis, because Natural Philosophy and Taxonomy are valid occupations in Cörpathium and if your character wants to read up on things to have a bit more of an idea of the horrors that lurk out in Malles Vermald they have my blessing.
• Fuck alignment.

 

GAMBIT

 

Just my own name for Called Shots, Stunts, whatever, built from one of Brendan’s posts.

 

If you want to make some kind of specific attack roll to-hit twice.

If both hit, it happens.

If one misses, it doesn’t.

If both miss you fail so badly that you can’t do anything next round.

 

It also means two chances to roll a fumble, and depending on how fancy/absurd the intended attack is I might increase fumble range. “You want to slide onto your knees beneath the spider with two daggers and slice its legs off? Okay that’s awesome, but you’re going to mess up super, really badly if either roll comes up 4 or less.”

 

The reason I like this about a thousand times more than Called Shot (pick a range on d20, say 13-20, if you roll that you succeed, but if you roll the inverse range, 1-8, you fumble), which is what I was using before, is that it doesn’t disregard the AC of the thing you’re attacking, and characters with better Attack Bonuses are better at doing them, instead of the sickly wizard decapitating the giant mutated boar just because he rolled the number he picked.

 

 

 

MELEE

 

After talks with Jeremy Duncan I switched melee combat to a contested roll, because why put all the variation on the attacker and not the defender?

Ranged attacks still target a static AC, but melee resolves as d20 +AB vs. d20 +DB, your Defence Bonus being AC -12. If the attacker fumbles you get to cut them.

For even more vicious combat you could rule that whoever rolls highest deals damage, regardless of who was attacking.

 

 

 

NOTCHES

 

Notches stay pretty much the same as they always were, with the added Quality rules that Smiler and I (mainly Smiler) came up with.

Basically, every weapon has a Quality rating from 1-5, and whenever you roll that number or less when attacking the weapon takes a Notch.

Weapons can take a number of Notches equal to their damage die, but once they have two Notches roll two of the weapon’s damage die after every attack, hit or miss. If the roll is equal or less than the number of Notches, it breaks. So you might embarrassingly break your axe with a wild swing against the wall, or you might snap your dagger off in the merchant priest’s chest.

If the weapon takes another Notch after it has reached its limit, it breaks.

 

And because I’m now having people roll for their defence in melee, I can use the same Quality range for armour.

When rolling for defence, if the d20 comes up as that number or less and the attacker hits you, decrease the AC of your armour by 1.

 

The standard rate for repair is a tenth of the item’s full cost per Notch or AC point (so one Notch on a Medium sword costs 2 silver groats to repair, and it will set you back 100 silver groats to repair the point of damage that drugged-up Nun of the Lotus caused to your Heavy armour).

Prices are still subject to review and gouging.

 

 

 

WEAPONS

 

The weapon properties I originally posted have been tweaked slightly.

Weapon damage is still determined by its size, but depending on what it is…

• Sword: If you haven’t been hit this Round roll twice for damage, take the best.
• Hammer: +1 to-hit vs. Medium or better, successful hit reduces Heavy AC by 1.
• Axe: Two damage dice vs. Light or less.
• Flail: +1 to-hit vs. Medium or better, ignores shields, successful hit reduces Heavy AC by 1, roll twice for damage and take the best. Can choose to attack weapon, Strength check to disarm on hit. On any miss roll under your AC or hit yourself.
• Dagger: Contested d20 + AB + Str/Dex bonus to grapple after hit, automatically hitting Flesh in subsequent rounds until they kick you off.

Make a contested Initiative roll to attack first when someone with a smaller weapon closes into melee.

Long/Great weapons automatically attack first and do double damage against charges.

 

 

 

HIT POINTS

 

Again, pretty much the same as they always were.

Flesh is the measure of how much physical punishment you can take before passing out, and caps out at your full class HD, plus anything gained from a Constitution bonus.

Grit is the rest of the hp you gain, and is a measure of ways you learn to avoid injury, plus glancing blows, exhaustion whatever.

• Attacks reduce Grit first, and when it’s gone you start taking Flesh wounds.
• You lose consciousness at 0 Flesh, and die at minus half your class HD.
• If someone rolls a Critical hit against you but you still have Grit left, roll your Defence again. If it’s higher than their attack roll the damage affects your Grit first, otherwise it cuts straight to Flesh.
• Being attacked from behind or by surprise bypasses Grit, and any attack against Flesh that deals maximum weapon damage or half of your maximum Flesh causes a serious wound and removes any Grit you had left. Lost arms, plucked eyeballs, and messed-up innards don’t lend themselves to finesse.

After any encounter where you take a Flesh wound roll under your Constitution or contract an Infection.

If you don’t have any Flesh wounds, you can spend a Turn resting to regain Grit, roll your class HD.

 

From Josie’s Hit Point Stopwatch, when below half your Flesh hp, you will be unable to act after that many Rounds of physical exertion such as combat, or that many Turns of simple movement until treated.

Lose another point of Flesh every Round/Turn you try to push on.

 

And some dying rules because I figure most adventurers would have some kind of idea about first aid, and because the Poison save matches up nicely with which classes would probably be better at it:

• Once reduced to 0hp save vs. Poison every 2 Rounds. If you fail you die, if you succeed lose another hp.
• Stop bleeding out if you roll a 1. If another character tries to stabilise you, both players save vs. Poison.
• If both succeed, you regain consciousness at 1hp (but will lose consciousness if you do anything strenuous).
• If they succeed but you fail, you stabilise at 0hp.
• If both fail you die in their arms and they’re all “CURSE YOOOOOUUU! WHHHHYYYYY?”

I figure for it to be successful you need to stay with them for Rounds equal to negative hp. That seems about right.

 

 

 

ENCUMBRANCE

 

Because yes, I use it, I think it can be interesting. But I also don’t want it to be confusing or constrictive, which my first attempt kind of was.

I started pondering this back in September and think it’s pretty much perfect for what I want from encumbrance, which is the freedom to carry a pretty reasonable amount of stuff without constantly tracking it, but having it matter when it should.

• You can carry an amount of Worn Items equal to half your Dexterity or Strength, whichever is highest, rounded up.
  They can be strapped to you, in pouches, in orifices, just draw it on your sheet.
  Every additional Worn Item adds a -1 penalty to physical rolls.
  A quiver contains 20 arrows and counts as a single Worn Item.
  Medium armour counts as 1 item and Heavy armour counts as 2, Fighters don’t count armour as a Worn Item.
• Oversized items like two-handed weapons have to be on your person and count as 2 Worn Items. Ten foot poles don’t go in backpacks.
• When you wear a pack you are encumbered, move slower and take a -2 penalty to physical rolls. You can carry items in your pack equal to your Strength or Constitution, whichever is highest.
  (Bundle amounts mostly taken from Arnold K) You can carry small items like daggers and flasks in bundles of 3 as a single pack item.
  Even smaller things like iron spikes or sling bullets can be carried in bundles of 10 as a single pack item.
  300 coins can be carried as a single pack item.
• You can carry half that amount again, rounded up, but are even more encumbered, move at half speed and take -4 to physical rolls.
• Carrying any more than that means you can’t do anything other than shuffle around under the weight.
• Finding something in your pack during combat takes d3+1 per encumbrance level Rounds.

The immediate penalty for wearing a pack might seem harsh, but have you tried swinging your arms around while wearing a backpack? Awkward. If you want to fight as well as that other guy you’d better drop the bag.

 

 

 

THE FREAKS

 

Maleficar and Mystics remain intact, the only thing I changed is that being encumbered doesn’t make casting spells harder. If you want to risk more belongings transmuting into angry goo when you muck up a spell I’m not going to stop you. And Reading Magic is still a deathtrap.

 

Oh but hey Blood Magic/Sacrificial Lamb:

 

Maleficar can bleed themselves of hp for extra Cataclysm needed to cast. The cost is triple if the blood isn’t their own, and they need to smear themselves in it.

They can also will the void into taking a part of themselves for guaranteed casting of a spell of any level. Roll d6 and count down from the top of your Ability Scores. Permanently lose a point.

 

If a Mystic wants to heal a bled Maleficar, they have to make a Hand of God roll.

 

 

 

GIRLS ONLY WANT BOYFRIENDS WHO HAVE GREAT SKILLS

 

This one only occurred to me the other day so it needs to be tried out, but I don’t like Specialists being the only ones who can ever get better at skills ever.

So, if for some reason you needed to use a skill and succeeded, note it next to that skill. Note all of the times you successfully use that skill.

When you level up, roll a number of d6’s equal to your current skill level. If the result is equal or less than your number of successes, you gain a skill level.

Erase all your successes and start again.

 

For example:

 

Three Beard McGuigen, questionable Magic-User, found himself needing to find traps five times before he reached level 1, and only one of them blew off a body part. So that’s 4 successes.

He currently has a 1 in 6 skill level, so he rolls 1d6 and gets a 3. Hooray now he has a 2 in 6 chance of keeping his extremities when the Specialist isn’t around!

 

 

It all started when I found the old AD&D Lankhmar supplement, which features this gorgeous map right here:

See all those white boxes? The supplement contains neighbourhood geomorphs that you randomly insert when the players move off the main streets and into the ‘burbs, and even suggests changing the geomorph if the players don’t go back there for a while to make the city feel more alive. I know, it’s wonderful.

 

Around this time I was also having chats with the also wonderful Jeremy Duncan about mapping Cörpathium and his own Galbaruc, and the trouble of figuring out how much is too much, what to nail down and what to keep loose. Because as pretty as the above map is, forget that.

 

Really what I want is to capture the sprawling mutability of cities like Viriconium and Ambergris, something you experience by running around in it rather than poring over a lavishly drawn map, with just enough grounding to make it work as a game.

 

 

OKAY SO WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST SMART GUY?

 

Map your main streets. That gives you a framework, points of reference, clever/punny street names for players to remember. Everything else though? Doesn’t matter until it matters.

 

When your players want/need off a main street drop a d4 and a d6 (try to use a d6 with sharp corners, you need that random bounce). If the numbers match, there aren’t any reachable exits.

 

Otherwise, treat the d4 as the player’s position on the street, facing the way you are. The number is how many alleys they can see, and the points of the dice show the rough direction they’re in. Add them clockwise from whatever point is closest to the d6.

If there are 4 alleys put the 4th wherever.

You might prefer to drop the dice directly onto the map instead, do whatever makes you happy, I’m not your mother.

 

There’s also this roughly where the d6 landed:

 

1.  Someone left their door open

2.  Public house

3.  Sewer entrance

4.  Way to climb onto building

5.  Lesser street

6.  Intersecting lesser street

 

So if you rolled like below, there’s four reachable alleys; one back off in the direction of the 2, one ahead in the direction of the 1, one directly off to the right thanks to the 3, and another one wherever takes your fancy. The d6 came up as a 5, so there’s a lesser street leading away back on the left side of the main street.

 

 Okay so now we’re running around in alleys, fun!

 

Every time the players enter an alley, drop the d4 and d6 again and generate the exits like before, using the tables below. If the numbers are the same, there’s a complication.

 

 

	AlleyCrawling
d4	Points of Dice	d6
1	Alley.	1	Back door.
2	Alley.	2	Darkened nook.
3	Alley.	3	Boarded-over alley.
4	Alley.	4	Way to climb onto building.
		5	Reachable window.
		6	Alley complication.

 

 

Read the rest…

If for some reason the players ever decide to leave the joys of the Rookery, here’s its closest neighbour.

 

The Fogwalk, a borough of seaside views, commerce and depravity.

 

 

 

Sights, Smells, etc.

• Smells of salt, sweet fish, tarred wood and a lingering hangover.
• Moss grows around the docks and on the walls of nearby buildings. At night it glows a bright bioluminescent blue.
• The morning mist rolling in from the Hollow Sea to swirl about your ankles thins out through the day and returns at night.

Buildings:

• Strong black stone along the shore, towers raised up against the Hollow Sea, wide doors to admit cargo and release machines of war.
• Mixtures of stone and jettied wood the further you get from the sea.

Building: d6 storeys, d6 sub-levels (3-6 no sub-level).

Occupants: d10 per storey, 0 = currently unoccupied.

 

 

Activity

 

Morning:

Dockhands going to work, fish buyers with baskets, men with knotted arms and sharp knives removing barnacles from the docks.
Encounter chance 1 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on a 6
Chance of Godless: 20%/Turn

 

Noon:
Cargo unloaded, goods being shipped out and haggled for, Neophytic Sisters of the Cathedral of Lost Virtue waiting to lead more discerning seafarers back to the Cathedral and away from the Plaza of Earthly Lust.
Encounter chance 1 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on 6
Chance of Godless: 20%/Turn

 

Night:
Workers leaving, others arriving to unload the night cargo, revellers of the Plaza, Godless night watch.
-2 to reaction rolls unless inside the Plaza
Encounter chance 1 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on 5-6
Chance of Godless: 30%/Turn

 

 

Facts

• Murder Loot: d100 sp. Carrying Curio on a double.
• Dock Trade: They may be the most powerful trading company in the Dockmaw, but Haugroten & Sons are far from alone. Organisations like the Hollow Sea Co. and Leviathon Cargo Cult maintain a presence on the Dockmaw’s boards, generally hiring mercenary dockhands job-to-job. Many speculate that Haugroten & Sons allow their competition to persist merely to avoid boredom.

 

 

Read the rest…

The thing shambles at you out of the dark, its phallus half hard and bobbing before it as it walks, heavy testicles churning beneath its girth. Something viscous seems to be slowly dripping from its tip, until suddenly it sucks back inside. As you brace your shield and unsheathe your blade similarities to a snail’s eye occur to your subconscious. The thing shudders and retches on itself and the base of its cock swells to triple the original girth and continues to inflate until something you cannot fathom emerges from the tip. The beast wails in pain and terror and collapses to the floor.

 

Have you seen the snails infected by mind-controlling worms? Like that. Something that enters your penis and takes residence in your scrotum after consuming your testicles, it needs the room, it is not small. Penises can be surprisingly elastic, but fuck it hurts. But you don’t process that. The chemicals it’s pumping into your bloodstream just make you want to mate. Make you want to woo. It is always looking for the perfect host, someone pleasing to the opposite sex. It needs you to find a mate. It needs it to be consensual and loving. It needs your mate to care for the offspring once you have passed away from a mysterious wasting disease, right up until hundreds of its kind emerge from her womb amidst screams and blood and madness.

 

It is not completely averse to you engaging in same-sex relations, it has found that to be a very convenient way of entering a handsome new host.

 

Cocks can be both invaded and invading. NO ONE IS SAFE.

What better place to start in the greatest city of the new and ancient world than in a slum as a nobody?

 

This is the Rookery of Van Möldus, a borough of Cörpathium that you could probably use as a city all to itself if you really wanted to.

 

 

 

Sights, Smells, etc.

• Cold and damp, smells of fish rot and stinging salt.
• Makeshift shelters crowd alleys and cul-de-sacs.
• Purplish barnacles grow on buildings and side-walks, finding more nourishment in the squalor than the sea. They’ll attach to people if they stay still for long enough.

Buildings:

• Decrepit worn stone and rotting wood, roofs leak and wind whistles through the walls.
• Mostly two or three jettied stories, a mixture of stone and wood, many with basements that reach below sea level.
• No windows face the Hollow Sea, they only look inwards upon Cörpathium.
• No Deicidium.

Building: d4 storeys, d6 sub-levels (5-6 no sub-level).

Occupants: d10 x2 per storey, 0 = currently unoccupied.

 

 

 

Activity

 

Morning:
Drunks waking in the street with barnacles clinging to their flesh, the occasional fog-bloated corpse, beggars and waremongers drifting off to Möldenghast Blvd, men dumping buckets of barnacles recently removed from the Dockmaw.
-2 to reaction rolls
Encounter chance 1 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on a 6
Chance of Godless: 1%/Turn

 

(Unless someone is already running screaming to get them, Chance of Godless is rolled per Turn while something is happening in the open that shouldn’t be. Since there is no Deicidium in the Rookery and no one really cares about it chances are low, and there’s every possibility that even if they do show up, they’ll leave you to it. More on that later.)

 

Noon:
Idle cutthroats, strangers slinking between houses and alleys.
-2 to reaction rolls
Encounter chance 1 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on 6
Chance of Godless: 2%/Turn

 

Night:
Unaffiliated whores in doorways, drunks spilling from makeshift brewhouses, crumpled bodies thrown from fight dens, knives flashing in the dark.
-4 to reaction rolls
Encounter chance 2 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on a 6
Chance of Godless: N/A

 

 

 

Facts

• Murder Loot: d100 cp (even) /10 sp (odd). Carrying Curio on a double.
• Barnacles: If the purple-hued barnacle Cthalamus Siren, commonly known as Siren of the Slums is consumed, save vs. Poison. Failure results in an overwhelming desire to walk into the sea which lasts for d8 days.
• Rats: Can’t help but eat the barnacles, subsequently drowning themselves without fail. Other boroughs tend to herd any infestations towards the Rookery.
• Crime & Violence: Those who dwell within the Rookery rarely turn on each other unless cheated, insulted, or involved in rivalry. Cutpursing is reserved for those who live in neighbouring boroughs.
• Family Van Möldus: Own near every building worth owning in the Rookery. Lodging houses, Our Lady Sacculina, The Foetid Babe, The Cuckoo’s Nest, all pay rent into the hands of Van Möldus.

 

 

Read the rest…

Diasporea

 

The stranger moves towards you in slow, gliding steps, their body hunched inside a great coat covered in dry leaves and sticks and rotting plant matter. Metal trinkets and bones hang from the gnarled branches extending from their head like horns. A powdery whisper accompanies them as they move closer, and a low thrumming voice like rain asks where your dead grow.

Light washes over the stranger’s coat as they move into the glow of your lantern, and you see the gaps amidst the sticks and filth. You see fungal sinew strung inside, like the forest floor caught in a web. A thick mass of lichen veil hangs in the hooded space below the stranger’s antlers, and ever more unexpected mounds and wooden horns are illuminated across their back. Small stout yellow round-capped mushrooms in jagged rows beneath its throat and chest quiver and begin to thrum against wood and bone, forming the words that politely ask again, “Where do your dead grow?”

 

Colonies of fungus and mould that cobble debris together to gain a locomotive form. They will talk to you, they’ll even trade, but they have no empathy. They won’t understand why you’re so upset that they dug up your daughter, pulled her corpse apart, and placed the pieces amongst their body. Fragile but hard to kill permanently, and the spores that erupt from them in times of stress end up everywhere, and your flesh is ever so fertile.