Clay & Blood

 

 

I have had a couple of half baked blog ideas about Machiavelli, terracottieri and canal states – but with scant opportunities to actually use them at a table, the impetus for finishing up my notes has been lacking. This year, using my commutes for Dungeon23 purposes and joining a work mate and her friends for a bit of roleplaying, the Red Planet has been on my mind again.

 

The Terracottieri

Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth.
Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

Soldiers sleep, soldiers eat, soldiers start mutinies. But you can’t run an empire without armies. Experiments with ­automata were not unknown during the Age of Decadence. Most were mere playthings, but some were put to more practical purposes. Like the Clay men, originally created to form the vast troupes of stage extras necessary for the city spanning plays that were in vogue among the carefree citizens of those splendid days. These ­ceramic mannequins completely lacked the nerves that human actors so frequently suffer from. And when called upon to speak, they never forgot a line. Unfortunately, they also lacked that ­special spark that turns lines, costumes, demeanor into hints of another world. Thus, they were soon banished from the stage, out of fashion and purpose. Loitering around the plazas, pulling at the covers of palanquins, begging for fresh clay.
A nuisance at best. Until war was reinvented, and old ­furnaces churned out new legions. They became the clay feet on which the Imperial peace rested, guaranteeing ­Phobos’ grasp on the Red Planet. And, incidentally, ­instrumental in ­turning an upstart general into the first (and last) emperor of the Mayfly Dynasty.
During these the latter days of the Red Planet, the techniques by which the animating principle was burned into clay are long lost. The ranks of clay soldiers have dwindled, churned down by great campaigns and dissipated by desertion. For the laws of ceramics, burned into hollow skulls to ensure absolute loyalty, have been circumvented. Sophists are in no short ­supply were everything that was once thought eternal crumbles, and through their mercenary maieutics they short circuit all but the most potent imperatives.
The remaining Terracottieri offer their services to the highest bidder. Together as a mold, or as lone wandering statues.

.

Giovanni Battista Bracelli (1624)

 

 

Well, terracottieri is, perhaps, not the greatest neologism the world has ever seen. But it does mark the point where ‘imperial’ and ‘clay soldier’ diverge into different directions. When the mechanical help turns unhelpful, some people are prone to add the qualifier ‘killer’ to ‘robot’. But, as Dr Reich once famously stated, perhaps the question is not why workers go on strike but, rather, why they keep coming to work. The same could be said for the automata set to replace them. And, incidentally, Čapek who coined the word ‘robot’ in his r. u. r. had them revolt in the very same play.
A statblock, for your convenience:

terracotta soldiers
no. appearing: 2d10 (20d10 in camp) hd: 1 ac: as plate
att: 1d6 mv: as human saves as: dwarf morale: 8

 

& Some Notes on Red Planet Warfare by way of Machiavelli

Spawned out of war games, there is no lack of mass combat rules of varying complexities in and next door to roleplaying games. If you are like me, they might be a bit too much. Diplomacy is more my favoured level of abstraction here. War is, of course, a horrible thing. Complex, traumatic enough to secrete theories. Some of the most famous are Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and the no-nonsense bad boy of political thinking, Machiavelli. The scoundrel who comes from one knows not where, carving out their own principality in the patchwork of regional powers, ancient ruins, local traditions, competing factions: A characterization of old-school rpgs, that doesn't rely on the premise of a frontier but rather a very lived-in place, oversaturated with lost opportunities and lost golden ages. (An aside: Colonialism in d&d has been much debated. I'd say there's a strong case that its tropes are present in its DNA: the 'empty' frontier invariably populated by para- or subhuman peoples etc, manifest destiny coming to the  renaissance fair, though I'm less convinced about the political gravity of that fact. The ideological tail is rarely the cause of the dog's bite.)

 

 

Angelo Fabbrini (1840s)

 

 

Anyway: That unknown prince on whom M. places his hopes for Italian unification looks very similar to the newly-rolled character, down to the fact that it is a prince who often fails to achieve what she sets out to do; a failed save against poison, a random encounter that comes at just that moment when fickle Fortuna seems to smile on her. If you squint, the Pazzi Conspiracy reads as a play report. But, more importantly:

Mercenaries, says Niccoló, are reluctant to die for their employers. That is what made the wars of his time a bit of a farce. Battles ended because the losing side was quick to run away or give themselves up as prisoners. Condottieri were not overly loyal to their (not overly loyal) employers. Allies were as worried about the success of their friends as they were eager for the downfall of their enemies. And changes in fortune often gave the oppositional parties in a city a pretext and means for regime change. This mirrors the situation among the Canal states quite well, down to the looming presence of Imperial Phobos -- too weak to strengthen its grip on the Planet, but quite strong enough to annihilate a particular upstart.

The reluctance to perish in battle would, I imagine, be exacerbated when many of the mercenaries in question are made from clay. These words from Gygax should probably be the portal paragraph of any and all mass combat on the Red Planet:

 

 "Morale is checked before and after combat, basing the determination on historical precedent, just as the fighting ability in actual cases was drawn upon to calculate melee results. A loss of 'heart' is at least as serious a defeat in combat, and perhaps more so, for most battles are won without the necessity of decimation of the losing side."

Any combat resolutions should set loyalty and morale values front and center; clear victories and defeats should be exceedingly rare. Payment of troops should be presented before any mechanisms for combat resolutions.

 

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

Read Magic, No Wait, Law

Wizards, we are told, are quite jealous when it comes to guarding their secrets. Legal knowledge, on the other hand, is generally thought of in terms of transparency: laws, to be functional and fair, should be available to anyone who is subject to them. This is of course more of an ideal conception than a material truth: Legal texts are not known for being easily deciphered by the layman. It is also a very modern conception. In Njàls Saga. A Critical Introduction, Lars Lönnroth sketches an altogether different approach to the law, as it was practiced on Iceland before the country became subjected to the Norwegian crown. It is an oral, secretive practicing of juridical formulae that a player of d&d might be tempted to call a 'vancian' system of law -- complete with an emphasis on memorization*: 

"As we have seen, every legal case [pre-Járnsíða] was handled as a case of civil litigation, in which neither plaintiff nor defendant could base his arguments on written documents but had to rely on oral tradition merely in order to find out what the law said. No wonder, then, that legal knowledge was often as jealously guarded as a family secret or that genealogies -- on which inheritance claims could be based -- were carefully memorized." (Lönnroth, Njáls Saga. A Critical Introduction, p. 213)

In some ways, the secrecy and the fragile balance is similar to how I envision natural law on the Red Planet: Remnants of a juridical caste, guarding and collecting potent formulations to force their own (or, more likely, their employer's) will on man and nature. It begs the question -- how many legal mysteries can a lvl 3 itinerant jurist memorize?

Here's a magic item with some bearing on the above discussion:

Footsteps, yes, but where is the feet that made them?

 

A small silver box.

Covered in flowing jugendesque etchings. Filled with talc powder. An invisible force creates and erases geometrical doodles in the powder. On the inside of the lid, a risque etching of a nude wind bound to an allegorical rack, the four cardinal winds pulling in different directions. The inner bottom of the box details the terms of the contract for the aerial servant bound to the box: Every week it can be employed as a porter (for six days) OR as a spy/scout (for an hour) OR as a courier (Max distance: 6 miles, double the speed of a racing horse). The contract stipulates that the owner must provide the elemental with one day of rest and one melody it has never heard before every week. 

About the elemental: 1 HP, reforms after 1d4 days if destroyed. Doesn't like the experience. It cannot fly, but is very fast and nimble. The spirit is mute, but can communicate via writing in the talc powder. It is invisible, but blowing powder or sand at it will temporarily reveal its contours.

...and its attitude: The elemental is addicted to music, and has gone without for ages. On a positive reaction roll it will make itself known when the box is opened, on a neutral or negative roll it will only make itself known if someone unearths the contract. It wants (from highest to lowest priority): 

• The box destroyed & to be freed
• To have a song written for it
  
• To hear new melodies (any new song mesmerizes it for the duration of the performance)
• To be addressed politely

If it is slighted, or an initial reaction roll goes poorly it will:

• Drop or hide items of sentimental importance to the owner of the box
• Make noise in the hopes of drawing hostile attention to the owner
• Word its reports to maximize the potential of misinterpretation
  

* The guarantee of the law on Iceland was, of course, very different from the material power it carries along the canals. It rested on a complex network of always competing, often feuding families. In many ways simply a method of giving forms to the blood feud that ensured it didn't develop into a full-scale civil war.

On Diminutive Deserts, Red Planet Commerce & 1d12 Thin Desert Caravans

 

 

While scouring the internet for public domain pictures of Thin deserts I stumbled upon one of its sibling: The Petit désert, as imagined by dadaist Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes in 1920. A ready-made drop table if ever there was one, but one using domino bricks in lieu of dice. A great idea and, I soon discovered, one explored a decade ago at Telecanter's Receding Rules. 

Since the desert's length mirrors the Canals, to actually map it in its entirety would be quite a time sink. Perhaps better to make random tables for generating a particular road, its characteristics, the points of interest surrounding it, and the hazards peculiar to it.

Still, there is something to be said for the other route suggested by the painting. And that is taking it literally. A stretch of desert with the occasional, giant domino brick. Eroded by time, and half covered in sand. And through those remnants of who-knows-what game: A stream of poetics bubbling with the impossible reveries & dunemares of the Sleeping City further upstream. 

Edrick from Vaults & Van Goghs suggested it might correspond to a certain stretch of the desert: The Eight-and-Score Barrows of the Domino Princelings. Or shrines of discarded deities who lost out in one grand metaphysical game of chance or other. Obvious, when you think about it. Speaking of that blog: The author just posted a useful and beautifully illustrated text on ancient martian air rifles, and has been employing the AI at Talk to Transformer for remixing some of the random tables from this blog. I learned several things I didn't know about Red Planet histories. Check it out!

 One probably should refrain from posts without any at least semi-useful content, so here's some relating to

Commerce, that two-faced sycophant of the Canal

The intimate connection between trade and waterways once seemed a bottomless source of bon mots for gifted (and not-so-gifted) aphorists. ”A rising tide lifts all boats” etc. This is reflected in the vernacular, where foam remains a stand-in for a handful of copper pieces. 

As the weathers wane and the Great Vacuum grow always-closer, the close-but-not-quite identity between canal and commerce that allowed esprit just enough room to maneuver has turned into a literal, pedestrian truth: Trade routes seldom stray far from the crumbling quays of the canals. There, ancient climes still provide breathable air, and travel by ship is significantly faster than the land routes. 

However: The overlapping weathers of the Twin Canals does provide some opportunity for semi-regular intra-canal communications, passing through the stretched-out wilderness of the Thin Desert. As one approaches the desert, estates and villages grow further and further apart. A striking contrast to the wild Thothic gardens and ancient Nepenthian wineries. Then lonely farmsteads, in a futile struggle against dust and sand. 

Caravans cross the Thin Desert, but only armed and only where the Imperial roads still trace a just perceptible line. If you follow the roads, it only takes a couple of days to cross the wilderness. However, this has shown itself to be quite enough time for caravans to get eaten, waylaid, driven mad or simply disappear. So: 

1d12 Caravans braving the Thin Desert

• 1 A train of porters, carrying amphoras of aged vinegar and baskets filled with thistles. The caravan is destined for the Flagellante Despondency of Athabasc
• 2 The Tithe of Persb. According to an ancient treaty, every 30 years the League of Hitae is required to hand over the flower of its youth to ensure the league's thralldom to the Temple of Persb. The balance of power has changed since then: Seldom has such a choice collection of half-witted, sickly speciments been collected. 25% that one is carrying a contagious disease.
• 3 A secretive band of cinnamon hunters. Bringing a great many oxen & armed with lead arrows. Will go off-road in their hunt for the fragrant nests of the voracious cinomolgus.
• 4 Opportunistic purveyors of statues. Half withered statues are very much in vogue along this stretch of the Canal. The caravan is one of many under equipped, over enthusiastic attempts to get rich quick before the fad ends. Will go off road at some point in search of statues. 50% chance that a competing caravan is being rushed together.
• 5 Pilgrims on their way to the pillar-sophists of the Spiralling Dialectic, where the sharpest minds of a generation show by example how fragile the balance of sanity, how fleeting the monuments of men and gods.
• 6 A cache of recently unearthed genealogical records, in a bid to upset power structures in crumbling Jamuna. Well armed, with a 25% risk of being waylaid every day.
• 7 Two competing porcelain merchants, forced to cooperate for safety. The mode du jour along the stretch of Canal they normally frequent is firmly in favour of organic dinnerware, making the prices on porcelain plummet. Hopefully fashions differ on the other side of the desert.
• 8 Frankincense traders. The leader of the caravan is covered in scars from his many encounters with the winged serpents that guard it. One of the ox-drivers have hidden a number of snake eggs, intent on creating his own frankincense grove.
• 9 Yeasts of many colors, collected for an exiled master cook trying to get into the good graces of the Emperor once more. A member of the court has vowed never to break bread made from the same yeast culture twice.
• 10 A quite ordinary caravan, the majority of trade goods being: 1. Almond milk. 2 Nutmeg. 3. Molluscs in oil. 4. Saffron. 5. Antiques from the lost glassworks of Nili Fossae. 6. Perfumed salts.
• 11 Covered carts, filled with rose bushes. The caravan is loaded with water, its members working in shifts to keep the roses well-watered and cared for. (Really a front for blue poppy smugglers. The flowers are illegal in most places along the Twin Canals, for fear of a second Sleeping City, but since they are a very potent stimulant for poets and mystics, there are always buyers.)
• 12 Peaches from the Dellavolpe estate. The stone of each peach is biomantically marked with the orchard’s seal of quality, and will not grow outside of the estate.

Thin Desert Travellers (2d8)

The unhappy fate of a lone pilgrim

Only the very foolish or very competent try to cross the Thin Desert alone. There are many things that would prey on the lone pilgrim, courier, graverobber. Better to wait for a caravan to join. Below a random table of travellers looking for travel companions. Some could be of use as hired help or as new pcs Some might rob you in your sleep. A majority might at the very least be slower than you when fleeing the spellridden pack of jackals pursuing your caravan.

 

 2d8 travellers

From Geschichte des Kostüms (1905).

2 Ancient urchin. Ever-Younger, disgraced viceroy of Lim. Spends his second youth as pickpocket and rumourmonger.
3 One-armed terracotta deserter, looking for blue clay to repair its cracked body.
4 Hopeful suitor with entourage, coffers filled with silk spiders busily weaving complicated apparel
5 Theatre troupe touring with new play. Beautiful animal masks, inane script. The actors know this, and wants a new play.
6 Fugitive from the Sleeping City. Has slept for centuries, now insomniac afraid of dreaming forth new horrors.
7 Jurist specializing in natural law. On the run after accidentally ruining a simple contract of dormancy with minor volcano.
8 Would-be settlers leaving dustbowled homestead
9 Landscape painter, with letters of recommendation to several prominent elementals
10 Sturgeonites, with carefully covered gills and webbed hands, moving a caviar nursery hidden among barrels of cider.
11 Pythagorean tutor. Belongs to sect practicing forbidden arithmetics. With complicated abacus, sack of chickpeas, two yawning pupils.
12 Imperial courier. The report she is carrying would bruise the fragile ego of the emperor, and spell her death. Splendid but impractical clothes. Sylph-in-a-bottle for one-way trip to Phobos.
13 Writer of travelogues, looking for exotic vistas and customs. Sack full of manuscripts, and a readership waiting for new book.
14 Connoisseur of drugs from the Microlevant-by-the-Thoth. Oscillates between obtrusive mania and oneiric reveries. Carries a traveller’s pharmacy with an impressive variety of stimulantia.
15 Astrologist, brooding over the movement of heavenly bodies, giving unasked-for interpretations of dreams and omens.
16 Retired mercenary, on her way to the Cutting Gardens to plant her scimitars for good. Too old, she says, for this shit.

 

On the Interpellation of Nature; or, The Sorcerer's Apprentice

 

Interpellation erodes natural law; not over night but over generations; meaning infiltrates dumb matter, whether stream, hill or bone, redrawing the borders that separate what has a voice and what lacks one. Elementalism & diablerie, poetry & necromancy are fruits growing on the same reality-twisting tree. On Earth, the over-saturation with meaning is just starting. On the Red Planet, it has reached its terminal stage: a dying world chorus of improbable voices slowly fading away.

Interpellation and its discontents

The great naturalists that ushered in the Age of Excess proceeded from a simple fact: Not every stone is a gnome. From this, they drew out the differentia specifica that distinguished dead object from personality, and elaborated it into an elementary theory of interpellation.

The proposition was the following: Where nature was treated like matter, worked on in silence – there nature remained dumb. But where mortals turned to it with prayers, curses, exhortations & admonitions – it became a moment in the moral economy and, in time, spoke back.

Taking advantage of the stream, the cliff, the wind became a matter of cultivating meaning. The sciences of Rhetoric and Law found new practical applications. A golden age, in many ways. Like Phobos above the Red Planet, Man's sovereignty over the elements seemed a foregone conclusion. But the continuous sophistication of nature soon meant that Fire refused to stay at its hearth, that the Wind refused its yoke. And thus started an era of strife between mortals and the forces of nature, and a struggle sometimes waged in the open, as civil war, and sometimes through intrigue and bargains.

 Nature was bound through a thousand treaties, formulated with all the sophistication that History's greatest lawyers could muster. Over time, this patchwork of servitutes and pacts grew into a bureaucratic jungle. Dying nobles gave freedom to a favourite among its djinni, juridical archives were lost in fires. A class of free elementals were slowly formed. Shaped in the image of Man they formed their own clubs and courts, salons and guilds. And what nature had once given freely and in abundance, it now refused to give at all or gave only in exchange for treasures fit for queens. Through personal adress, all the major forces of nature have gotten other interests than acting as ground water for their former masters. Why waste your life raining, heating, cooling, eroding, blowing when you could dance, travel the Ether, feud with your neighbors?

 

At the end of history

To the degree that the elements still perform those functions necessary for the preservation of life, they do so because they are bound by ancient, shrewdly formulated contracts – or because they gain something otherwise beyond their grasp. Some play at being local deities, content by the adoration and sacrifices of their flock. Quid pro quo is the only natural legislation.

The remnants of human civilization that huddle around the Canals thus owe their continuing existence to brittle documents, whose opaque formulations few understand the true meaning of. The great legal schools of the past have degenerated into scholastic, pseudo-religious doctrines. Documents and catalogues of archaic turns-of-phrase are traded or stolen, memorized but seldom understood. One can imagine the bitterness of those waves and winds who remain in thrall to the mere shadows of former tyrants.

 

 

On Natural Law & Those Who Wield It

I like the idea of a class of itinerant natural lawyers, brokering deals with ancient volcanoes, finding loopholes when the 10,000 year long lease on breathable air is running out for a Canal principality, and the Weather in question is dead set on leaving the quite frankly depressing surface of the Red Planet. I'm not sure how to implement such a class (or if it should be one?), but I guess reading Elric! or the different iterations of the warlock class might give me some ideas. Or the auction mechanic in Whitehack. Or a version of the 2d6 reaction table, with the rolls modified by the strength of the elemental, the terms of the contract, etc. Perhaps something like this:

Getting the elemental to the bargaining table might be tricky. Perhaps you have to defeat it, perhaps you can trick or flatter it. Perhaps you present a suitably lavish gift (rare firewoods for the salamander, a custom made map for the road elemental).

Finalizing the Contract (2d6)

• 1-2: Provoked to attack or leave (if defeated: dissipates into dumb nature)
• 3-4: Won't sign anything (if defeated: dissipates into dumb nature)
• 5-7: Temporary bound (1d4 uses), but missed something in the fine print
• 8-9: Temporary bound (1d4 uses), with significant price
• 10-11: Bound, with moderate price
• 12+: Bound, with trivial price

Modifications might be things such as:

• Anyone lacking legal training: -3 [Anyone can of course attempt to strike up a conversation with elementals, but perhaps the natural lawyer class gains bonuses through unearthed fragments of ancient natural law?)
  
• Cha 13+: +1
  
• The power has been defeated: +2
• The power has received a lavish gift: +1
• You have compromising gossip about the power: +1-6
  
• A determined number of uses <4: -1
• HD of the power is 1-4: -1
• 5-8: -2
  
• 9-11: -3
  
• 12+: -4

Without sample pacts this is all very abstract. But lets say we have a

 

ROAD ELEMENTAL (HD 6)

Prerequisite: Being on a paved road

Pact 1: The Scenic Route. Decrease the travel speed of a pursuer with HD miles per use.

Pact 2: Downhill All the Way: Increase the travel speed of the party with HD miles per use.

Pact 3:  Charm Caravan: The road elemental lures a caravan in this direction. Arrives in 1d6 hours, willing to sell basic supplies.

Prices: Trivial: A new milestone per use. Clean a significant portion of weeds. Moderate: Write a detailed travelogue/biography of the road. A formal apology from rival route.  Significant: The road wants to stretch onward, to the city of Palimpspolis.

...the range of prices would have to differ significantly between a HD1 breeze and the HD12 Weather of Jokk, of course.

Three considerations: 

Most importantly: 99 times out of a hundred, a pebble is just a pebble. Spontaneous interpellation works like erosion: It takes a very long time, and the final form is generally not very useful. A whisper in the wind, a pattern in granite. I don't want the Red Planet to turn into  a swords & sorcery reskin of Pokemon.

Also: It is not magic, per se. Not any more than rhetoric or gravitational theory is magic: More like engineering on a world were natural forces might engage you in conversation.

Finally: This is probably all too convoluted, and should be a whole lot more streamlined. 1, 2, 3, a thousand pacts, sure. But not as many fiddly mechanical bits.

 

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.

I Loot the Body, But Find No Coin

First attempt at cover for a possible d13 Tribes of Vacuum Nomads zine.

 I Loot the Body, But Find No Coin

Those who roam the Great Vacuum care little for conventional riches, but are by no means above the love of worldly possessions. Here's d13 things you might find on a fallen nomad:

1. Gourd filled with (actual) moonshine
2. Glass pearls in many different colours
3. Chipped dagger carved out of solid amber
4. Pet asp (Save or hp to zero and bed-ridden for 1d4 days)
5. Jar of honey
6. Illustrated bestiary of (mostly extinct) ocean fauna
7. Three torches discreetly interspersed with incense
8. Alligator boots, very well made.
9. Deed to family crypt below the canal city of Adomdes
10. Jade cup with motif of nursing tiger
11. Hyena skin cloak and a Mehen board, doubling as shield
12. Long-stemmed pipe and 7 doses of grinded bone. ­Imparts permanent appetite for Venusians as well as the one-time use of random lvl 1 spell (first and second smoke). After that, each use grants a lvl 2 spell but the smoker needs to save or suffer a debilitating stroke.
13. Pouch of cinnamon and a jet black porcelain shell; If blown, sounds like the mating call of the cinomolgus. 25% chance of attracting that ferocious bird if in mountain areas.

Speaking of worldly possessions: Toad of Holding and Remnants of the Restless Republic as physical artefacts below.

Fail again. Fail better. On Anastasis and those who provide it.

A PC dies, a player is too attached to let go: Between the Twin Canals, there is one option readily available: The Fountain of Second Youth. Here, a fortune can buy you a second chance -- but only one. What used to be a privilege of the imperial family and the higher echelons of the Ouroborée sect, changing circumstances have made available to the very lucky and the very rich.

The Autumn Palace & The Ouroborites

The Fountain is located in the center of The Autumn Palace of the Ever-Younger Emperors. Once rivalling the splendor of Phobos, the palace and its surrounding city is now a wilderness of broken architecture. The ruins are filled with white haired pilgrims, and those who would prey on them: robbers, two-bit oracles, peddlers of tonics and petitions, tavern owners, jackals, ghouls. And above: clouds of vultures, sometimes blotting out the sun.

The millennia have not been kind to the Ouroborite faith. There was a time when the High Mehen’s words would traverse the Red Planet in mere weeks, and worshipers would flock to the favoured cult of the Ever-Younger Emperors. Today, the Ouroborites are just barely tolerated by public opinion, and the ever-younger are openly reviled, especially by their proper heirs. In more than one Canal state those who age backwards are denied their former possessions and the civic rights of proper burghers.

The Ouroborite's godhead, The Laughing Hyena, imploring you to do the most of your second chance at life.

The Lottery

Nonetheless, the stigma is braved by many who fear death. Every morning, throngs of the soon-to-be-departed flock around a peristyle in the centre of the palace, forming lines to present their sealed-envelope offerings to the dried up Fountain, still standing before the Toppled Throne. When evening comes, the offerings disappear, and someone is chosen (At random? According to some hidden logic? A never-ending argument among the hopeful supplicants) to undergo the Rite in the subterranean halls of the ouroborites. (For a generous donation (2000+ gp) and a vow of discretion, the wealthy can bypass the Fountain's holy lottery and undergo the Rite.)

The money collected fund the ouroborée orphanages and charities for the elderly, from whose lips acolyte-caretakers collect the infantile blabber and senile ruminations for their always expanding corpus of religious texts.

The Rite

What is known is this: The rejuvenation procedure is generally initiated on the still-living. It will work on those who have not been dead for longer than a fortnight. After the rejuvenation, the revived body will grow ever-younger, until it reaches Second Childhood and, beyond that, the death from which there is no return: Unparturition.

The cost is 2000 gp OR a 1% chance per 150 gp in a petition envelope.

Short-term consequences: 

• After the Rite, the rejuveniled character requires a week-long period of convalescence.
  

Long-term consequences:

• Ages backward from time of death.
  

• -2 on reaction rolls if exposed as an ever-younger.
  

• Save against death or suffer an alteration (1d8):
  

1. Suffers from frequent deja vus.
2. Always new, creepily small milk teeth.
3. Irrevocably bald
4. Nails grow at an alarming speed, turns into faux ivory claws (1d4) if not filed down every day.
5. Minor oracle; can predict one mundane occurrence in exchange for debilitating migraine for the rest of the day
6. Half of face wrinkled; half smooth as a newborn’s
7. Re-roll HP every morning; keep if lower.
8. Accelerated youthfulness. 1d12 years younger every lvl up until unborn. Choose +1 str or dex every lvl up.

The Limits of Anastasis & What Really Goes On

No one, not even the Ever-Younger Emperors, has been allowed to undergo the Rite more than once. The particulars of the Rite is a sought after secret, and worth a lot to the right buyer. It is guarded thus, by seasoned acolytes half-way to Second childhood. Below the Autumn Palace, in the ancient catacombs that were there before the palace was built and remained after it was sacked, one of the few remaining vats of the Rejuvenile Heresy whirrs, its secrets lost to time. The supplicant, if still alive, is drugged to death. Then, the body is bathed for a night in the vat, filled with a mixture of acrid smelling herbs and the collected spittle of Little Ancients.

The Dirty Horde

The reason why the sect forbids a second reversal is that a second resurrection inevitably spells disaster; a breaking down of patterns, the fraying of an already-frayed vitality. It spawns abominations -- bearded children of impossible age, senile milk toothed beings that not even Death will go near. This is not known: The ouroborites keep the little ones, the Dirty Horde, in the catacombs below. Tending to them is penance, the collecting of the Holy Water saliva a small encouragement for a never-ending work. And, incidentally, gives them the key ingredient for the Rite.

LITTLE ANCIENTS
No. Appearing: 14
HD: 1 AC: Unarmoured.
Attacks: Bite (1d4, raise the damage a die each round after the first as they grow more teeth)
Movement: Like a small child Saves: Not at all Morale: 12
Special: When HP reach zero they fall asleep for 1d12 rounds, then awake with replenished HP
Wants: Sweets, eternal rest, pulling living things apart.
Treasure: Drools holy water, 1 vial/turn.
Always followed: By the Keeper of the Dirty Hoard. At the moment, that would be Molter Benjin, a lvl 5 cleric armed with a stick, infinite patience and a sizable bag of sugar.

Magic is a lost vice, ever rediscovered

(The following is just some loose thoughts: In our game we still use Whitehack's magic rules + d&d spells as unique treasure.)

Magic isn’t really a class. It is a series of bad life decisions.

But sure, let’s say there’s a class. On the understanding that it is a stand-in for a downward spiral, even (especially!) when it seems like an ascent. Those belonging to that class, the magic-users, have payed the price in full, and are versed in the ways of keeping spells in check. Still: There’s a silent minus before the levels: These are basement floors, circles of Hell, a losing of the tethers of reality.

Anyone can start using. The difference is that those who lack the secret regimens and fail-safes of the magic-user must always pay an individual price for every crumb of reality rending they dabble with. Practically speaking: They must pay for spells with a specific curse or disadvantage determined by the referee and connected to the spell’s effect, or (to speed the game along/when feeling uninspired) a generic price of a permanent -[spell level] to their lowest stat (to a minimum of 3, which marks the limits of their ability).

The price of magic must always have a practical in-game effect. Your eternal soul? Sure, but only if it makes people ill at ease around you (-1 on reaction rolls & double wages when hiring) or makes your shadow try to escape sharing your coming doom or whatever.

On Pacts and the Interpellation of Nature

Interpellating the forces of nature has its own problems, related to but distinct from spells: A Pact is a formalized quid pro quo, with the added complication of the tendency of elementals or things from beyond to wilfully misinterpret any command. The skilled jurist may minimize these problems, but never completely do away with them.

Prayers are simply pacts or spells with added sentimentality (generally optional: the observing of ritual is more important than the supplicant's intent).

Innovation is a lost art

"Oh, a way to make people fall asleep? That reminds me of The Dream Thief's Little Helper. Of course, that spell is slightly more subtle than what you are proposing."

A US Commissioner of Patents in the early 20th century is supposed to have said that ’everything that can be invented has been invented’. Apocryphal, it seems, and mostly illustrative of a certain kind of progress mongers’ tendency to reinvent a Dark age that compliments their own forward thinking. (I’m talking about the Elon Musks of the world here, not political progressives.)

But on the Red Planet, innovation is very much a lost art. At least in the spell business. People (and sturgeonites etc) have spent their lives in the shadows of the impossible accomplishments of a dozen Golden ages, and know that this is not one of them. So:

All spells have already been discovered at one point or other in history. Magical research is about finding and, at most, repurposing. Not about innovation. That era is long passed. Since we don't want the npcs to outshine the pcs, they are hacks and philologists as well. Make the spell name the overshadowing presence, never someone with an actual HD.*

So, like Vance’s Dying Earth wizards, Red Planet magic is rote based and almost-always carries the name of a much-more accomplished magician, a splendid city lost to the desert, a god no longer worshipped. Spells are found engraved in tombs, riding packs of jackals or in moldy grimoires. Like this one (reskinned, slightly modded spells from the Old-School Essentials spell lists, with suggested existential prices for non-mages):

Drusticc’s Abridged Dowry

Light of Last Sunrise (Like Light but): Steals a day's worth of light from the sun and stores it in a vessel. Every use shortens the sun’s life with a day; Sets your alignment to chaotic.
non-mages: -1 in lowest attribute OR Insomniac. After use, ST to benefit from your next rest.

The Untimely Passing of the Walls of Oxus (Like Rock to mud but): Turns stone to blood soaked sand, accompanied by the screams of Oxians’ massacred when the last siege was cut short by the sudden crumbling of their city walls.
non-mages: -5 in lowest attribute OR can never lock doors. Not a phobia, but a physical fact.

Ever-flowing Vintage of Tanaïs (Like Create water but): Wine instead of water. Not really created per se, but spirited away from the Imperial wine cellars on Phobos.
non-mages: -4 in lowest attribute OR Roll 1d6 each use: On 6 a cup bearer notices the theft and makes arrangements to trace it back to the caster and/or poisons the wine)

Ruic’s Taciturn Kiss: (Like Silence but): Removes the target’s speech with a kiss. No save allowed.
non-mages: -2 in lowest attribute OR permanently keeps the voice of whoever the caster last kissed.

* Excluding elves, obviously. They are always better than you. Though they did ruin the Green planet with their arrogance, even their failures are played out on a grander scale . The Unsealing of the Cornucopia was a tragedy; the fate of the Red planet merely a drawn-out farce in comparison. (Cf. http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com take on elves)