A Pocket Bestiary & A Modest Proposal

I just finished a more elaborate, laid-out version of my blog posts about the Thin Desert. It grew a bit on the way, and my plan for a 12 page mini zine became a 32 page pocket bestiary. It is free for the taking over at drivethrurpg, The cover looks like this:

The idea is that this zine will provide the moving parts while a perhaps forthcoming companion zine will detail the things stuck in the sand: places of interest, a couple of dungeons and an example route through the desert.

While most of my roleplaying related reading comes from blogs, there is something to be said for physical artifacts. While I like making things, I'm not nearly as fond of the business or logistical side of cottage industry publishing. Personally, I tend to make small print runs to share with friends, my game group and the occasional fellow traveller that I happen to run into.

That being said: My physical copies of Hic Sunt Myrmeleones should be arriving shortly. When they do, I'd be happy to trade it (and copies of my older zines) for your physical zines, scribbles, drawings, whatever.

Drop me a line at kvartstid at gmail.com if you are interested!

Thin Desert Fauna: Dune Sirens

René Bull's "Salomé".

 Beautiful voices beckon the weary traveller to leave the ­relative safety of the road. Few can ­resist the alluring call of the desert Rå. ­Presenting as ­beauti­ful specimens of a suitable gender, these ­ancient homunculi drink the souls of their victims.

No. Appearing: 1d6 HD: 2+1 AC: Naked Morale: 8
Attacks: 1 Bite (1d6) MV: As human Saves As: Magic-User
Special 1: Charm those who listen. Save vs magic or succumb to their requests, fighting anyone trying to stop you.
Special 2: Drain victim of one permanent Cha per turn, healing 1d6 hp. Last in turn, melee range, interruptible.
Treasure: Each adorned with 2d100 worth of jewellery

Lair: Cave of Eyes
Dried-up bodies of varying age litter the floor. Puddles of ecstatic tears. 2d100 eyes have been placed in the crevices of the walls, ravenous for a glimpse of their masters/mistresses.

Spoors
Soft voices in the wind. Eyeless but otherwise unharmed bodies.

Rumours about dune sirens

1. They collect their victims’ eyes, bathing in their adoration.
2. The best way to hunt them is to let someone be entranced while connected to a long rope.
3. Once works of art, the sirens hunger for an audience.
4. No, they are the ghosts of unresolved love affairs
5. Spymasters and voyeurs pay handsomely for an eye hoard
6. Veteran ­caravan leaders fill their ears with wax or ­cotton. If you can’t hear them, they can’t entrance you.

Magic item: Never-Blinking Eye
Some eyes (5%) remain fully functional after the siren’s demise and work as prosthetics. A magic-user can spend a downtime ­period of at least a week to align herself with an eye, ­after which it can be used for remote surveillance. Takes up one memorization slot until deactivated, and must be in physical contact to be reactivated.

What is the dune siren doing?

1. Adored by aged pillar skeptic, taking its time to feed
2. Singing broken verses from ancient opera
3. Takes the shape of a pc:s childhood sweetheart
4. Presenting as the hazy memories of a night of debauchery
5. Rearranging its eye hoard to give everyone a better view
6. Bathing in a pool of tears, laughing with childish mirth

Thin Desert Fauna: Cinomolgus

The Cinomolgi are migratory birds, known for building their nests with cinnamon wood collected from some faraway clime. To hunt these dangerous predators is to court disaster, but a single nest lets a band of cinnamon hunters live comfortably for years. 

No. App.: 1 HD: 9 AC: As leather Morale: 8 Saves As: Fighter
Attacks: 1 Beak (2d8) or 2 Talons (1d8) MV: Triple human in air
Special 1: Lift victim hit with talons (save or brought to nest)
Special 2: When full, must pass a save to take to the air, and another not to break its nest with its own weight 

Lair: Cinnamon branch nest. High above in ancient pines. The ground below littered with feces, red-and-yellow feathers, pine cones and the bones of game. The nest itself an emperor’s ransom in cinnamon branches (worth 10d6 x 100 gp). 1d4-1 eggs, each enough for a week's worth of omelette.

Spoors: The smell of cinnamon, rotten meat, red-and-yellow feathers.

What is the cinomolgus doing?

1. Eating a still living goat
2. Circling above the pcs
3. Enticing a mate with its call and a trail of cinnamon bark
4. Teaching its young (1d4, stats as giant hawks) to fly
5. Fighting with jackals over a carcass
6. Wounded with lead arrows (Halp HP), a band of 2d6 hunters arrive within the hour.
   

1d6 facts about cinnamon hunters

1. Many belong to the Fragrant Society, a shadowy guild that supplies the over-indulged tastebuds of Canal gentry with the rare spices they require to be roused from their ennui
2. Some fashion light but tough breastplates (leather +1) from the speckled egg shells of their prey
   
3. They mimic the bird’s mating call with jet black shells
4. Fattened oxen used as bait make the bird too full to take to the sky
5. Leaden arrows are used to weigh down airborne birds
6. They are friendly to travellers, but known to use them as bird bait if the oxen runs out

Thin Desert Fauna: The Antlion

The Twin canals mirror each other so closely that astronomers of Earth have mistaken the doubling for an optical illusion.  Where Thoth curves, Nepenthes follows. And midway between them, their little sibling: The Thin Desert, where verdure cannot reach. A pseudo-canal of dunes, hills, ruined palaces. Testament to the fleeting touch of life, determined by its absence. While the Canal water levels are lower for each generation, the desert grows fatter.

Unlike the Great Vacuum, there is life of sorts in the Thin Desert -- like the lurking Antlion. I reduced it to stats as "any suitably large insect" in the small dungeon in Remnants of the Restless Republic. That is probably more than enough, but here's a developed version:

The Thin Desert Antlion

 

Body by Ross, head by Doré.

Bestiaries tell us that the antlion "has the fore parts of a lion and the hind parts of an ant". That is certainly true for the Red Planet variety. The lion head craves flesh and the ant body diverse herbs. Thus, what it devours cannot sustain it. The antlion is perpetually famished.

No. Appearing: 1 HD: 5 AC: As chain mail Morale: 9
Attacks: 1 Bite (1d10) then Drag below: Drags prey into the sand. Save or suffocate (1d6) every turn.
Move: As large cat, half while burrowing. Saves As: Fighter
Special: Surprises 4-in-6 from below. Alignment: Chaotic?
Treasure (in pit): 50% 3d100 gp, 25% 1d4 pieces of jewellery (2d100 each). 

Suggested spoors: Waves in sand, coughed up carcass balls, a lions roaring in the distance. 

The antlion’s lake: The antlion habitually loosens the earth around its pit, forming a quicksand lake that serves as a two-for-one trap and larder.

What is the antlion doing? (1d8)

1 Laying in wait in shallow pool of quicksand

2 Frantically eating a goat or lizard, purring and clicking

3 Roaring in raging hunger, greedily rubbing front legs

4 Impatiently drooling while struggling traveller is slowly drawn to bottom of quicksand lake

5 Sunbathing, too stuffed to move. Still very hungry.

6 Vomits undigested carcass ball. Whimpering.

7 Chased by goatherders with nets, torches and invectives

8 Cleaning its newly hatched (and inconsolably hungry) cubs

What are people (mostly goatherders) saying about antlions? (1d6)

1 Clever goatherders regularly stuff sacrificial goats full with nutritious salts and herbs, thus keeping local antlions alive but full, content and harmless.

2 More parsimonious goatherders throw poisoned meat into the antlion’s lake.

3 The pit in the centre of the sand lake is generally filled with bones. And sometimes the belongings of careless travellers.

4 Antlions can’t burrow through wet sand.

5 Somewhere in the depths there is an antlion queen, with the head of an ant and the body of a ­gargantuan lioness.

6 Naturalists suspect it is a moralist set piece from one of the ­Devout eras, intended to remind the populace of something.

Toad of Holding: Item, Monster, Dungeon Entrance

Jean-Charles Chenu, Encyclopedie d’histoire naturelle (1856)

[Edit 2020-04-26: I cleaned up and expanded on the idea and turned it into a 12 page mini zine available on DriveThruRPG ]

1. Origin of a Species

The era which is not to be referred to as the Age of Decadence (The reigns of the Nth-Emperors, up to and including to the reign of God-Queen Aelita, having been excised from Imperial annals) brought with it all the wonders and horrors of post-scarcity imagination. The Toads of Holding are one such living artefact of dubitable practicality.

Most likely as a result of a passing biomantic fancy, the migratory sexual drive of the common Arean toad was isolated and turned in on itself. Through this displacement of the species’ libidinal practices, love was forced to find another way – one that could be put to communicative uses. Turned introspective and sedentary, the amorous peregrinates of the toads were resumed as internal longing, the inside of the individual toad slowly expanding and – when reaching sexual maturity – forming spatial pseudopods, entwining and joining with the insides of others of its kind. This, in time, created a species-being pocket dimension of uncertain size dominated by a Sea of Acid, stretching on to a pharyngeal horizon.

This inner mating ball enabled the autopoiesis of the species, while also allowing those willing to be swallowed to travel over great distances, maw to maw. For a while worlds grew closer: ideas, dreams and passions circulated through the Ether at an almost unfathomable speed. But as so many other things conceived during those brief, feverish millenia, with Necessity seemingly exiled from the Red planet, the toads were soon put to new uses. Touring art exhibitions were muscled out by regiments of terracottieri, exotic food-stuffs by vehicles of destruction. The Inner Sea of Acid swarmed with the ships of would-be contenders for the throne, and a War of Entrails laid waste to most mature toads, closing down a species spanning network of teethless maws.
Some eggs remained. Now the remnants of the species are scattered around the world and, perhaps, beyond.

2. Magic Item: Eggs of Holding.

The size of an ostrich egg. Translucent, with a dark red yolk. Generally found in clusters of 2d4.

Effect: Eating an egg allows you to stash an item, no wider than your outstretched jaws, in your stomach for 24 hours. If not retrieved during that time, it is lost. 

The Eggs are quite valuable to the right buyer: A dynasty, a religious order, an elf. Anyone with the patience to take care of a toad during the generations it takes for it to reach adulthood.

CC: Mario Massone, see thumbnail for link

3. Monster: Tadpole of Holding

The size of pikes, perpetually hungry because of ever-expanding stomachs. Copper coloured, sometimes (50%) with legs and (25%) arms.

No. Appearing: 2d4 
HD: 1 AC: As leather

Attacks: 1 Suck attack

Damage: No damage on successful attack, but ST or lose 1 permanent HP for every successive turn until removed. Feel free to use exciting grapple rules. 
Movement: Twice human in water, (half the speed of humans on land with legs)

Morale: 4

Save As: Magic-User

Treasure: The flesh of a tadpole emaciates the consumer. Delicacy and a great way to signal wealth.

4. Monster/Retainer: Juvenile Toad of Holding

Once it grows out of its tadpole form, the toad’s inside expands at a much faster rate than its outside, and soon disconnects from the latter almost entirely. This petite portmonnä dimension forms a discrete space-beyond-space until it reaches adulthood.

This makes the juvenile toad a sought after beast of burden along the canals of the Red planet. Intelligence as a dog and temper as a goat.

If bribed with its food of choice, it holds up to [HDx3] items, and an accomplished toad tender can learn how to massage its stomach to make it vomit back the right object.

The wet, acidic environment of the stomach dimension necessitates the packaging of goods to protect it from being spoiled or corroded.

Likes: Maggots, water, silent reflection.

Dislikes: Snakes, harsh words.

NB: A toad in a toad breaks the world. Dissimilarly to Russian dolls, small toads do not fit neatly into larger ones. It rends reality as per any bag of holding worth its name. 

Table: Retrieval Failure

When attempting to retrieve items from an untrained or grumpy toad (hungry, exposed to the cold, too hot, dry, hurt – there will be no doubt when the toad is grumpy), roll a CHA. On a failure:

1 Stomach acid! Save or 1d4 acid damage

2 Nothing emerges

3 Extremely loud croak. Roll for wandering monsters.

4 Wrong item!

5 The sought after item is irretrievably lost

6 The toad starts to hibernate out of spite until its demands for food, moisture, care are met.

And, if you should find yourself at odds with a juvenile toad, a statblock:

No. Appearing: 1 
HD: 4 AC: As chain mail 

Movement: Twice human in water, as human on land

Attacks: 1 Bite (1d6, ST or lose one HP permanently)

Morale: 7 
Save As: Fighter

Treasure: 25% vomits random treasure at death

Alignment: Neutral

Special: Croak. Once per battle, it can make a load croak. Roll on applicable Wandering Monster table.

5. Monster or Dungeon Entrance: Elder Toad of Holding

Size, intelligence and memory as an elephant. Half closed eyes, glazed over and distant. Sighs. Found in canals, caves and the estates of the powerful. Might speak or barter if approached in the right way.

If you cover yourself in appropriate food for an ennui-haunted ancient amphibian, you will be promptly swallowed and transported to the Acid Sea and the Tongue Lands.

No. Appearing: 1

HD: 9 AC: As chain mail 

Movement: Twice human in water, half the speed of humans on land

Attacks: 1 Bite: 1d10, ST or lose all HP permanently. If the damage > the character’s HD, it is swallowed into the pocket dimension instead. OR Trample (50% each round). AOE, hits adjacent targets in melee distance, 4d8 damage.

Morale: 10

Save As: Fighter

Treasure: 25% vomits random treasure at death In Lair: 25% chance of egg cluster.

Alignment: Neutral

Special: Croak. Once per battle, it can make a load croak. Deafens all other combatants (ST: If successful 2d4 hours, if failed permanent). Roll on Wandering Monster table.

Special 2: Spew Reinforcements (When HP is halved): Roll on a random encounter table not appropriate for the setting; The toad vomits forth lost travellers or monsters from within. Roll reaction for the newly arrived.

6. An Example Encounter: Somewhere Between the Twin Canals of Thoth-Nepenthes

The echoing sounds of stone cutting fill the still air. At the bottom of an enormous marble quarry, an elder toad lounges in the shady interior of a giant covered cart.

The tent is surrounded by scruffy guards dressed in exotic livery. They are tasked with keeping the toad fed, moist and happy. When the toad gets too hot, it takes a swim in the turquoise water of the flooded lower part of the quarry. The guards know that this is not allowed by their employer, and uneasily passes the minutes on the square-cut beach. The toad knows that the swims make its tenders uneasy, which adds to the pleasure. 

Meanwhile, chain gangs of goblinesque workers cut up blocks of marble. The blocks are covered with maggots and snails, transported to the cart and promptly swallowed by the toad.

(An aristocrat of ill repute is amassing an army of condottieri inside the toads. The marble blocks are used for repairing the ancient Keep on the Acid Beach where s/he plots against the Throne. The pretender is trying to locate another maw; one hibernating somewhere under the Imperial residence on Phobos.

The chain gangs have been shanghaied from the driftwood labyrinth of Bricolage, an ad hoc settlement created by those marooned inside the toads generations ago. The sun is scorching their almost transparent skin. At least the work is better than being sent to the Toadstone mines.)

Harry Clarke Project - Tenebrous Dancing Instructor

TENEBROUS DANCING INSTRUCTOR
Once, the summer residence of the emperor of the Red Planet spanned the whole of Phobos. Now, the gardens and palaces are crumbling. The air is thinning and tigers stalk the corridors. The imperial court huddles around the Throne, a dwindling army of civil servants sifting the few good news fit for the monarch from mountains of censored ill tidings of wars lost and viceroys revolting.

Tried and convicted for crimes against good tastes lost, the shade of a choreographer sleeps in their prison, locked away in a music box, with a lone, waltzing figurine clutching air. When the handle is cranked, an atonal antiwaltz starts playing, too loud to fit the mechanics of the box. (Once playing, the mechanism continues to play for 1d4 hours.) And the dancing instructor chooses a new partner.

AC: As chainmail, missed attacks hit dancing partner
HD: 4
Movement: Twice human/As partner
Attacks: As partner
Damage: As partner
No. Appearing: 1
Save As: Fighter
Treasure: Music box
Alignment: Chaotic
Special: Possess partner.

When the music box starts playing, the dancing instructor attempts to possess a new partner (highest CHA, save vs magic or whatever) and starts dancing with wild abandonment. The dance is beyond the capabilities of most mortals (-1 HP/round for PCs with DEX under 16). Broken partners are replaced the next round. If interfered with, or if someone threatens the music box, the dancing pair attacks the offending character. When the music stops, the shade returns to their prison.