How to summon a demon in 5 easy steps

Step 1: Finding a suitable host

As demons solely reside in the Dreamworld, they cannot manifest in the Wakingworld without a host. Fortunately, as almost everything dreams almost anything can host a demon. Unfortunately, the demon is limited in what it can do based on the host it resides in. So finding a suitable host is all about what you want the demon you summon to be capable of.

The most limiting hosts are simple elements. A demon possessing earth can do little more than cause the earth to quake, while a demon possessing a wind can at most create a storm. 

Creatures on the other hand tend to be quite potent hosts. Mundane creatures allow the demon to move around without much notice, while exceptional beasts add to the demon's excessive power. 

It is important to remember that it generally is harder to control a demon if it has a more potent host, so make sure to really give your choice of host some thought. 

Step 2: Getting leverage to bargain with

As a rule, demons do not willing subserve themselves. Almost always they'll want something in return for their services and almost always this will be disagreeable to the warlock who did the summoning. 

It is therefore important to have some leverage prior to summoning so you can tilt negotiations in your favour. The easiest form of leverage is torment. Each demon has something that is insufferable to them, so make sure you know how to torment your demon of choice. 

Alternatively, you can offer the demon something they might be interested in. Generally, demons have designs on the mortal world, and aiding them in these might entice them to grant you some form of service in return. Be aware that the plans of most demons tend to have negative effects for mortals, so discretion is adviced. 

Step 3: Setting up the contract

In order to control the actions of a demon you have to enter into a contract with it. Contracts can be drawn up on basically anything and in any language, but they are to be signed in blood or a blood equivalent. 

Remember! Demons are not so different from you and I: given the chance they will try to weasle themselves out of agreements they find to be disagreeable in some way. 

It is therefore best to assume that whatever demon you summon will try to exploit a gap or loophole in the contract you have set up with them. 

To prevent this from happening it might help to envision yourself trying to find your way around the contract, or you might as a friend or relative to read the contract over and give you some feedback. 

Finally, remember to put in somesort of fulfillment clause. Once a contract is fulfilled it is generally desirable for the demon to back from whence it came. This is especially true if you have chosen to use torment as part of the bargaining. 

Step 4: Preparing the binding

If you want to make sure that a demon doesn't just run off the moment you've summoned them to do its own thing, you might want to consider binding the demon. 

Very few demons are willing to stick around to voluntarily sign a contract. And why would they, if you give them the alternative to simply walk away?

It is therefore important to find out how to bind your demon of choice. A proper binding allows you to keep the demon in place and has the benefit of protecting you from the demon while it can still hurt you. 

Part of preparing the binding is choosing a location. As a lot of bindings are relatively easy to break by anything that isn't the demon, it is advicable to set up the binding in a controled environment, preferably somewhere private and indoors. 

Step 5: Performing the summons

Summoning demons requires rituals specific to the demon you have in mind. Often these rituals require expensive materials, such as rare herbs, precious stones, or delicately crafted tools. 

Make sure you have sufficient access to the required materials, as the rituals can be quite specific and it isn't uncommon to have to start over more than once. 

If you have carefully prepared the summons in steps 1 through 4 of this guide you should be adequately prepared to deal with the demon of your choice. 

Congratulations, you are now officially a warlock.

Credits:

https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2024/01/youre-doing-demons-all-wrong.html for making me think about this subject again and bringing the idea of tormenting demons to my attention. 

https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2024/02/e-monsters-at-opera.html for giving me the idea of natural disasters as sentient being. 

These demons are part of the same world I am working on for #Lore24

Resurrection: Having my cake and eating it too

Resurrection is a part of classic D&D that don't really love. 

For one, I don't like the gameplay implications. If resurrection is relatively easy, it devalues death. If it is somewhat hard, you get this weird situation where a player has to play a temporary character, or sit out one or more sessions, while the rest of the party tries to get their old character back. Both of these things might be non-issues for lots of folks, but it isn't something I enjoy happening at my table. 

Second, I don't like the worldbuilding implications. If resurrection is possible, it seems weird to me that powerful individuals or institutions haven't used it to gain even more power, using it on the regular or monopolising the single use item(s) that allow for it. Especially if you have elves and stuff in your games (or other very long living peoples), as there is no real reason for them to not have sought out these options. 

Moreover, on a deeper level I don't really like the implied metaphysics of resurrection. It seems to almost always suggest the existence of some sort of christian soul, which is the essence of what you really are and contains your personality, emotions and memories, leaving the body to be either merely a container for said soul, or an annoying filter interfering with it. This worldview bores me and as someone who has studied philosophy is hard for me to accept as consistent. 

On the other hand, resurrection gives the GM fun gameplay options. From recurring adversaries, to post mortem hostage situations. And I think you can create some really fun narratives with the 'they returned from the dead but are forever changed' trope. 

So with that in mind, here is a suggestion for having resurrection without having resurrection:

It is impossible to resurrect a person. However, it is possible to have a demon posses a dead person's body. When the demon is cunning and has had a chance to observe the deceased during their life, they are able to do a very convincing imitation of the deceased person. Which is why some belief resurrection to be possible and why people continue to attempt it. 

This fixes all my problems with resurrection and allows me to have the bits I like. 

 

 

Various parasitic Goblins

I like goblins, so naturally I want to do a rework of them to fit into the same setting as these dwarfs, elves, orcs and halflings I made. 

The TL;DR is: Combine these lines from a post by Arnold K. on hobgoblins:

'Goblins are right horrible little bastards, and everything that joins them at their table will also become a right horrible little bastard, too.

It doesn't take long.  A few months of goblin food will do it.'

 with this:

 

and you should get the idea.  

Parasitic Fungal Goblins

Goblin is a name given to a variety of parasitic fungi that infect intelligent creatures through ingestion and take over the hosts bodies. Most of the time, the infection makes the host behave erratically, which is why this is the standard image of a Goblin. 

After infection is complete, the fungus fruits to create spores to spread out. The Goblin variants that survive the fruiting stage tend to lose their erratic behaviour and are often described with different names like Bugbear or Hob. 

Most Goblin fungi are specialised and tend to target only a few specific creatures. Here are a few:

Bursters/Potbellies/the Gaunt

Targets: humans and halflings.

Onset: Emotions of the host become more intense and swing suddenly.

Progression: Host begins losing weight and become restless. Collective memories of the fungus start to torment their dreams or pop into their minds for no apparent reason. Memories of the host start to disappear.

Fruiting: The host's mind is completely supplanted with that of the collective goblin. Their bellies begin to swell as they begin to produce spores. The hunger sets in and goblins will begin to raid, pillage and steal foodstuffs. Once there are too many spores, the belly bursts open slinging the spores far and wide. If a swollen belly is cut or pierced, such bursting happens as well. The spores contaminate food and drink and if ingested cause infection.

Skinners/Beastfolk/Barfers

Targets: warmblooded animals.

Onset: Host becomes sedated, glassy eyed, and stops taking care of itself.

Progression: Skin starts to buldge and come loose from the underlying tissue. The host is incapable of much more than lying around.

Fruiting: All tissue beneath the skin is consumed and replaced with fungus. The fungal body can quickly alter its shape to appear as a person wearing the skin as some sort of costume, or to fit in the skin as the original creature would and move around like it would, or some stage inbetween. They reproduce by feeding creatures on their barf. To prevent persecution and because they often find their bodies uninspiring these goblins almost never pick intelligent creatures as hosts.

Scarabs/Pyros/The Masked

Targets: dwarfs.

Onset: Heat regulation destabalises causing sudden burts of manic activity followed by slumps.

Progression: Duration of slumps increases as manic episodes become more and more rare. Personality starts to deteriorate as the host continuously mistakes their own as well as others identities.

Fruiting: The host dies. Its stone corpse is hollowed out further and filled with a fungal body which is protected by the hard stone crust of dead dwarf that remains. They require heat to create spores but are unable to produce this themselves. For this reason they raid villages, burning whatever they come across and stealing away victims the goblins use as warm bodypillows when they rest. Alongside bodies for warmth they bring back foodstuff to keep their living warm water bags alive. As they tend to live mostly near dwarfs, this is their most frequent target for abduction. And as they shed spores they infect the wood they feed to their dwarf abductees, causing them to slowly turn goblin as well.

Perchers/Dark Elves/The Corrupted

Targets: elves (and orcs, but orcs are a kind of elf).

Onset: Original infection remains mostly unnoticed.

Progression: During liquification prior to elf fission, the fungi in the elf spreads a sweet, musty smell. Unless another infected elf is liquifying nearby, nothing else happens.

Fruiting: If an infected elf attempts to liquify when near another liquifying, infected elf, their liquification is halted. They will attempt to reach a high place where they glue themselves to the surface. Meanwhile, the fungus quickly develops a fruit, which spreads second stage spores. Because elfs tend to only liquify near each other when they merge, this behaviour tends to infect the elves as they are merged, where the fungus quickly takes charge of the fission process. The resulting "elves" lack empathy and self-reflection and are easily aggitated. This almost always results in sudden attack on nearby people. As these corrupted elves die, the first stage spores in their blood end up mixing with pools of stagnant water, where a thirsty elf might accidentally ingest them. 

Orc variation: As orcs can no longer fission after they are born, only their broodmothers can become infected, causing them to spread the same musky smell. If an infected elf happens to fission nearby it will trigger the same effect on that host: it will move up, stick itself down, and begin to grow a fruit with second stage spores. If these spores infect the broodmother, they will produce new orcs using all the mass available, dying in the process. These orcs suffer from the same lack of empathy, lack of self-reflection, and aggitation as infected elves.

Snatchers/Bugbears/Shedders

Targets: humans (preferably children)

Onset: Host loses their sense of decency and inhibitions.

Progression: Hairloss. Elongation of limbs and ears. Sensitivity to sound, which combined with lack of decency and inhibitions in general causes them to behave increasingly erratic.

Fruiting: Most of the body becomes covered in 'hair' which sheds fungal spores. A new personality replaces that of the host, the host's original life only remembered as some sort of weird dream. They will continue to live until the hosts body would normally die, aging the same way as well. This is why would be bugbear parents prefer to infect children, as it means their own offspring will have a longer life as a bugbear. Because they continuously shed spores, all food prepared by bugbears will cause humans to get infected.

Ettin Fruit/Hobs/Vestigials

Targets: humans, halflings, elves and orcs.

Onset: A small head grows out of the neck of whomever ate the fruit. It has a mind of its own and remembers all the previous times this particular fungus infected someone. The same fungus always reincarnates as the same hob.

Progression: Over time the head grows and as it does the goblin gains more and more control over the host's body below the neck.

Fruiting: Once the host body has been completely taken over, spores are stored in the body. When the body dies, the spores either linger in the dirt waiting to infect a nearby fruit tree, or disperse on hot air hoping to land on a nearby fruit tree. From the spore, a false limb grows on the fruit tree, with a fruit similar to the host tree but shaped odly like the Hob's face. Eating the fruit causes infection. For some reason, pests and unintelligent animals all ignore the goblin fruit. 

Implications

Everyone hates goblins. They rely more directly than any other creature on the death of someone else in order to exist. But once they do, some are perfectly normal individuals. I feel like this creates interesting dilemma's and adds some shades of grey to what most inhabitants of the world would understandably consider to be horrid monsters that the world would be better for if they died. 

It also creates a strange potential for goblins as biological weapons. Especially if war breaks out between different fantasy creatures, allying with goblins that don't infect your people seems like a valid strategy. I especially imagine elves might do this, as they don't like to get their hands dirty and seem the most likely to be weird isolationists. 

From a gameplay perspective I like that some of these goblins not only attack the bodies/HP of the players, but also part of their inventory. If you get goblin on your food or water, it is practically wasted, dead weight you might want to cling onto if you want to risk infection to stave of starvation. 

I think I would let players play as Hobs, Beastfolk or Bugbears if they really wanted to, but the other goblins are too erratic to be playable I think. A hob's body isn't really anything special, they basically get the body of their host and wisdom way beyond their years. A Bugbear has better hearing and longer arms. Honestly I think that is a valid distinguishing feature. When two weapons are of equal length, arm hits are equally likely, but when one person has longer arms they can hit the torso or head of their opponents way more easily, so that is something I might consider. Beastfolk seem like they are the most interesting, as they are basically a wildshape that are limited to a single beast form. Probably a bit strong, but I imagine they aren't particularly strong or fast in their humanoid form. I mean, imagine trying to fight while wearing a heron suit. Seems cumbersome. 

Finally, I really like mechanics that take PCs away from players without killing them. Something about reintroducing a fallen friend as an enemy is fun to me, even if it is also super campy. It is something I would want to telegraph and use sparingly though. Goblin food is basically a save vs slow death mechanic, which feels bad to spring upon unsuspecting players. Maybe I'm just a softy though.

#lore24: february slushpost

The setting as a whole is still nameless, but the main region my worldbuilding has focussed on so far has been christened: The Basilisk Bay. 

As we are at the start of another month, here's a summary of the February work.

• Glowshroom Shine: Heavy liquor made from glow mushrooms. Glows faintly. Upon drinking your skin starts to glow for as long as you are buzzed.
  
  
• Blastroot: a swollen root vegetable the size of a baseball. When punctured or cracked it blasts open with a loud bang, caused by pressurized gasses.
  
  
• Shimmer Flute: A golden flute. Playing it causes surfaces the sound bounces off of to glow. Other than that it functions and sounds like a normal flute.
  
  
• Hob Goblins: Infect hosts through fruit, which grows from a branch grafted on a fruit tree. The fruit looks like a member from the host tree, but strangely shaped like a head. At the start of infection, a small head emerges from the neck of the host person, with memories and a personality of many past lives. Slowly the parasite takes over more and more of the host body, until the original host is nothing but a head along for the ride on what used to be their body. Once the host dies, the spores lie dormant, waiting for a fruit tree to grow nearby which it can latch on to.

Unfortunately, this is probably my source for this idea

• 6 known hobs:
1. Ban: Sadistic, but cares for their future body. Sees causing suffering as an artform which they are trying to master over their many lives.
   
2. Ro: Insecure, and wants badly to be popular. They have had many lives to learn to be charismatic, but as their aims are selfish and shallow, so are all their relations.
   
3. Ly: Wants to feel bad about taking over the host's body. Tries to negotiate an agreeable transitional period, but are rude and hurried whenever good byes take too long. 
   
4. Heb: Snobby, but with an incredibly aquired taste. Has grown bored of beauty and fineries, instead prefering fermentation, decay and offensive features.
   
5. Ange: Compulsive liar, tells tall tales based on rumours and legends they heard in a prior life. If their host pursues any of the more dangerous tales Ange gets extremely nasty.
   
6. Gur: Anxious mess, deadly afraid their future body will get hurt or expire prematurely and the will have to wait another indeterminate amount of time for another shot at life.
   
   
• Even with the recently built Gullsroost Lighthouse to guide them, many ships wreck near the Basilisk Bay. An entire industry has sprung up around the wrecking of ships, from demanding tribute for rescuing the crew, to salvaging and plundering boats no one tried to save, to putting up false pyres during storms to get shops to wreck themselves on the coast so they can be looted. Be ware of any coastal town with many bishing boats and almost no fishing nets! (Inspired by this video about the Block Island wreckers)
  
  
• Most Honest Herring: When in large schools, these fish seem to be able to understand human speech as they will direct those who seek aid. Unfortunately their name is ironic, and they always direct the needy towards the opposite of what they ask for. There is a folktale that the cabinboy of a ship distressed during a storm asked the herring to point towards their certain doom, and tricked them into pointing the ship to safety.
  
  
• Gullsroost Lighthouse was build at the request of the Shipping and Traders Company to prevent the frequent wrecking their ships experienced. They payed for the lionshare of the construction and as a 'neutral party' oversee its maintainance and staffing. In return they got toll right and any ship that enters port after it has been outside of the Basilisk Bay has to pay the fee upon docking. 
   
• The local Merchant Guild has joined the Shipping and Traders Company. As a part of this, most of the local members of the Guild have gone oversees to gain experience, while merchants from far away have come to the Bay to learn. As these folk only speak the Company tongue and whatever mumbling they call language back where they come from, they have a hard time integrating and the newfound influence of this 'foreign' version of the Merchant Guild is feared by locals. (Inspired by the historic Hanseatic League)
  
  
• The bright light of the Gullsroost Lighthouse has disturbed gull nesting behaviour, causing them to move elsewhere. This has affected the work of egg and guano collectors as well as the lives of folks living in nearby villages, which are now plagued by gulls.
  
  
• The Shipping and Traders Company has special tax exemptions, which they gained by aranging a special deal on handgonnes for the city watch.
  
  
• The Forsaken Vanguard is part of a hireling army controlled by the Shipping and Traders Company. The Company buys up punishment rights of convicts damned to the gallows. The nooses they thought to escape this way are used to make enchanted collars, which will strange those who attempt to flee or forsake their duty.
  
  
• Dirk Snitched is the unofficial commanding officer of the Forsaken Vanguard. Clearly punishing himself for some past mistake, Dirk has voluntarily served 5 campaings witht he Vangaurd. He is the only one to volunteer that many. On the battlefield he constantly risks it to save the lives of others in the Vanguard. He is build like a scar riddled ox, surprisingly quick on his feet, a mild demeanor and soft spoken.
  
  
• Lea Cheated has served the most campaigns of anyone in the Vangaurd, but none of them voluntary. She has a gambling problem and always gets back into trouble because of it.
  Her knife fighting style is renowned, and often cited as the reason she has been able to survive this many campaigns. It is all about deceit, constantly tricking opponents into a false sense of security by faking maximum range, pretending to be hurt after an attack missed, and disguising what is really a short range knife throw as an out of distance swing.
  She currently only gambles with 'fun people' (i.e. people who don't get too upset if she is unable to pay them) as a strategy to stay out of trouble. The only way anyone has ever managed to become her student was bywinning all her money in gambling and having her bet her skills on winning her losses back.
  
  
• Pith Dowell is chair of the Union of Thievery. Most consider them to be offputting, as they are incredibly direct and crass beyond belief. However, they are also extremely loyal to the union and its members, and fierce when defending them. Pith sees it as a challenge to alter how much people value things, either by undermining the assumpions that underly such beliefs, or by convincing folks of the merits of what they deemed worthless. Most of this is sport, but they'll insist it is to instruct new members on the maleability of value.
  
  
• The seafloor of Basilisk Bay is covered in myriad statues of various creatures all facing the same way. 

• The Dreamworld is a strange, chaotic parallel to the one we tend to call real. Wizards and witches know this source of Spells and Charms to be no less real than the waking world.
  As a real place, it also has its native inhabitants. They vary in shape and logic, making taxonomy near impossible. The only meaningful distinction to be made is between the benign Dreambeasts and the malign Night Terrors (also called Nightmares by common folk or Demons by warlocks). The former have no interest in the waking world, and dislike being forced to exist in it, whereas the latter are inamored with this rigid world in which they are more powerful than gods. They enter it, either through posession (which is difficult and thus rare) or by being summoned by a warlock.
  
  
• Through contracts warlocks are able to manifest a Demon's power. However, the cost is often more significant than it might initially seem. Due to these onforseen potential costs, warlocks are looked down upon by both the Wizards of the Dream Academy and the Witches of the Hidden Coven.
  
  
• Some dreambeasts will become familiars of Wizards, who use them to gather information in the Dreamworld. Wizards who have bonded with such dreambeasts are also able to temporarily manifest their familiar through a spell:
  
  
  Spell: Manifest Dreambeast/Partial Manifestation
  
  Manifest Dreambeast: For as long as you concentrate your dreambeast takes physical form and obeys your commands. Dreambeasts don't like it here, as our world seems non-sensical to them. When they are manifested they can be hurt and will immediately leave when this happens. If they survive their injuries, they will require time to recover in their own world.
  
  Partial Dreambeast Manifestation: For as long as you concentrate an aspect of your dreambeast manifests in the physical world. This could be its bite, sight, voice, hands, etc. and can be chose once the caster realises their spell will be only a partial sucess.
  
  
  
  Multiple (partial) manifestiations of the same dreambeast is possible, as the dreamworld is not bound by the same spatial concepts of identity as the waking world.
  
  
  
• Fropple: Fruittree which grows on the edge of water, with half of its roots in the ground and the other half submerged. Eating tis fruit grands temporary gills allowing land creatures to breath under water. Squirrels eat them to raid fish eggs, horses to graze water grasses. If a young horse eats to many fropples they turn into a kelpie.
  The interference of these newfound gills with a creatures normal breathing causes most to croak at random intervals, hence the name frog apple, or fropple.
  
  
• Wargs: When creatures kill a pack of wolves out of fear or hatred but for whatever reason leave a pup alive, this pup turns into a ward: an intelligent wolf capable of speech, with obsessive hatred for whatever species killed its family. Some work as lone wolves, others recruit packs of normal wolves, conspire with likeminded wargs, or even make alliances with enemies of the nearest representatives of the object of their vengeance.
  Sadly, warg behaviour, which is often the result of people acting based on onjust fear, often reinforces existing fear and hatred of wolves, or inspires it where there was none.
  
  
• The Corpse Eater of Rattlemill is an urban legend featuring the villager of this town famous for its meatpies. According to the tale, when the village was suffering from plague, the people were unable to bring in the harvest of care for the beasts. So to stave of hunger, they used the meat of those who died to the plague in their pies. Since then, they have become immune to this terrible disease, which is why they haven't suffered from it since.
  The story is a complete fabrication, but residents of Rattlemill still sometimes suffer due to this prejudice.
  
  
• Gooseflowers: A plant growing near water. Its flower like a cracked egg, when polinated fuses together. After a while a goose hatches from the petal egg and swims away. When eaten, the seeds in the goosefruit start growing inside the creature that ate it, causing extreme thirst, and killing their host. From the ground fertilized by the corpse a new Gooseflower grows. 

• A Giant Sea Serpant uses the Basilisk Bay as a creche for her spawn during summer. When the Submerged Island emerges, it gets trapped in the Bay and starts to get hungry.
  Prior to giving birth, the Sea Serpent and the father of her babies drive a whale into the bay, where she kills it to feed upon it together with her offspring. Many other fish flourish in the Bay due to this increase in available food. The Sea Serpent is such a regular visitor that its coming is celebrated by locals, who fear and respect the creature as a near divine entity.
  
  
• Curtle Swoon is captain of the Knights Joyous in the Basilisk Bay.
  On first impression he seems friendly, warm, and charismatic. However, he is zealously intolerant of any negative emotions and will yell at you with a manic smile to 'cheer up' and 'do something about it' whenever you show sign of distress. He is agressive, toxic positivity personified. 

Thoughts

The bay is starting to take shape a bit more in my mind due to this challenge. I write up a lot of weird creatures and plants I notice. The NPCs are usually low effort quickies, as it feels easy to me to come up with a character which embodies one these institutions and the institutions have already been made for a previous project. 

I notice that I had hoped that this challenge would help me get a regular writing habit. Instead, I tend to do most of these in a paniced hurry as my partner and I lie in bed and she would much rather we go to sleep already. Perhaps that is fitting given the name I go by online.

#lore24: Januari Slushpost

Though I failed to maintain #dungeon23, I am back again to attempt a daily rpg creation challenge. #lore24 is a challenge where you write up some worldbuilding for a setting, new or old. This seems much better suited to me for a daily challange, as bits of lore don't have to connect directly to previous bits, can vary in kind so they aren't all rooms (like #dungeon23) but can vary from places and items to factions and people. 

This is made for the same world I've been making fantasy creatures for in some of my previous posts. 

So, here's a summary of januari (not formatted by date, because some ideas got several days of attention):

• Dwarven ruins located in an inhospitable wasteland with no signs of any life. This huge fallen metropolis ran out of oil which was the foundation of their food source. Now only a ghost town remains.
  
  
• Elven oracles store information for the community in their bodies while locked away in sterile vaults. Body parts are send in after sterilization to add to the corpus of knowledge. They send out knowledge through their own bodyparts whenever circumstances force the elves to merge and lose their individual knowledge.
  
  
• Goblin are invasive fungi which infect you through ingestion. To procreate Goblins have to get you to consume spores. The early stages of infection are erratic, causing stereotypical goblin behaviour.  Their are various kinds of Goblin, each with different signs of infection, behavioural disprution during onset, and fruiting bodies. Many goblin bodies die as they fruit, but some mature into fungal-animal hybrids in which the fungus maintains stable control. These are often so different in their behaviour to the early stage 'goblin' that they gain different names, such as bugbears and hobs. Due to this parasitic nature of Goblin fungi, few people tolerate them as close neighbours. Often, they are seen as a scourge by and actively hunted. However, sovereigns have many times formed tennous alliances with goblin folk to destroy common enemies, with the promis of a goblin enclave and a stock of host bodies as a common part of the deal. (Inspired by goblinpunch goblins from this post and this Ze Frank video)
  
  
• Burster goblins target humans and halflings. Initial infection causes emotions to become extremely intens and shift suddenly. Memory and personality otherwise remain intact during this phase. Over the course of infection the host loses weight and becomes more and more restless until their original personality completely disappears. At the same time, collective memories surface in the mind of Goblin: work together with your kind or suffer like the others who chose solitude, capture halflings and humans alive to secure our future. Around this time the fungus has started to make spores in the belly, causing it to swell while the rest of their bodies have become gaunt. Their name comes from the endstage of infection: once their host body has become to weak to continue carrying them, their bellies burst open, flinging spores everywhere with the hope of infecting as much food as possible. Even before this final stage is reached do sharp attacks against the creature cause its belly to burst and spores to cover its assailant, with the hope of contaminating their food.
  
  
• Bugbears target humans exclusively, preferably human children, which they raise as their own once the stages of infection have been completed. Once infected the hosts lose all inhibition and decorum. As infection progresses, lims and ears elongate, hair starts falling out, and hosts become increasingly sensitive to sound. The final stage of infection causes 'hairs' to cover the body. These contain spores that drop when the bugbear scratches itself. Only at this stage does a new personality develop, which remembers the hosts life only as a faint nightmare they are glad to have woken up from, looking back on their "goblin phase" as embarassing adolesance. Their intelligence is similar to that of their host. (Inspired by the folklore bugbear which kidnaps children according to wikipedia)
  
  
• Perching goblins infect elves and orcs (which are basically elves). Because elves only merge once every few hundred years (or even less often if possible), the spores remain dormant in still water, infecting elves who drink it. There is little to no sign of infection of these elves right up until they prepare for merger. When elves liquify for fission or merger the fungus releases pheromones which cause rapid fungal growth in another infected elf. This rapidly deforming elf does not liquify and instead tries to get high, settles in place and starts to fruit a mushroon. If the timing is forgunate for the Goblin, their spores rain down on the merged elves, infecting the whole lot of them. From now on, the fungus enters a different stage. The elves which emerge from infected merger have increased aggression and decreased empathy and selfreflection, as well as false memories of being slighted by their neighbours. The result is almost always a sudden, brutal war the corrupted elves almost always lose. As they bleed out on the battlefields, their blood infects water where the spores lie dormant for future infection.
  
  
• When dormant spores of perching goblins manage to infect an orc broodmother, she starts to release pheremones as well. If an infected elf is near, this will trigger a similar perching behaviour as it does when elves merge. Only after active spores make it into the broodmother, she mass produces corrupted orces (same as corrupted elves), causing her to die.
  
  
• Garment goblins target warmblooded animals. They infect hosts by barfing food in their mouth, after which they consume the body beneath the skin almost entirely. With incredible speed, these goblins are able to alter their mass distribution, allowing them to i) wear the skin of their hosts much like those originally would and using their abilities accordingly, ii) take on a bipedal form wearing their host skin more like an ill fitting suit, and iii) anything in between these two forms. Though these goblins can technically infect humans and halflings, most of their communities found it not worth the retaliation humans and halflings tend to inflict upon them. Also, compared to flying herons, strong bears, and swift deer, humans and halflings are kind of boring. (Clearly inspired by the Boy and the Heron). 

• Stone goblins infect dwarfs through contaminated wood. Like garment goblins, they quickly kill their host, hollowing out the dwarfs body as their fungal body develops, leaving a stone shell to cover their soft bodies, which shrivel away in sunlight. They require warmth to grow and reproduce, which they do not produce themselves, causing them to capture dwarfs and warmblooded creatures alive, and burn down camps and villages. They also hoard dead wood to build pyres and feed to captive dwarfs to keep them alive. When they rest, they cuddle captives as if their body pillows, using the body heat to grow in size or to produce spores as they sleep. As they infect the wood they feed their captives, they continuously have to find new warm bodies.
  
  
• A halfling village with a single mother queen. Folks living here seem normal enough, but have cult like tendencies to go to extremes for 'the greater good'.
  
  
• Griffins can sense gold because: i) they need to display strength to attract a mate and gold is covetted by powerful entities and groups, or ii) because they are the king of beasts and gold is the king of metals, or iii) maybe the queen of metals? Do griffins fuck gold to procreate? Or iv) do they eat it to make golden griffing eggs? Or v) do the males use gold to make nests to attract females like some paradise birds use blue? (This is all one day's entree. I've been tired a lot).
  
  
• A society of orcs that has deified their broodmother. Fancy ornamentation surrounds her. Feeding her is a huge ritual.
  
  
• A society of orcs that has depersonalised their broodmother, seeing it as a biofactory which produces orcs as long as you provide raw materials.
  
  
• A strain of Goblin that takes over the central nervous system by not the brain. Victims are like the victims in Get Out: only able to watch as their bodies are used by the fungus to erattically destroy everything around them with the goal of spreading spores.
  
  
• Elves make sentient objects by incorporating their own flesh into them, creating an object that is like a close of the they are themselves at the moment of creation.
  
  
• Dwarves make sentient objects by freeing them from the stone much the same way they free other dwarves, creating unique persons in object form.
  
  
• Gilly Reefwalker sells trinkets scavanged from sunken ships they reach by walking the seafloor in their submersion suit. They ask for compensation only because they know it is expected, though really they don't care for money. What they do want is for someone to listen to their stories: each recovered treasure a tale. Gilly doesn't stare out their wares. Potential customers ask what they have in store, upon which Gilly produces one item at a time, leasurely telling you the details of where they found it, what they think it is, etc. only proceeding to the next item once the story of one item is done. Interruption or attempts to hurry offend. Gilly would always rather nothing than sell something to someone who 'clearly has no real interest'.
  
  
• Gilly's treasures: 

1. Bottle covered in whisperpocks: stores one whispered message at a time.
2. Treeshells: sound like wind through leaves when raised to one's ear. 
3. Horrorscope: Cracked telescope that shows the greates fear of whomever is looking. 
4. Leviathan line: Unbreakable wire.
5. Messbell: all who hear it become incredibly hungry. 
6. Brinewine: loved by collecters, salty profile. 
7. Dimensional porthole: open the window and salt water comes pouring out. 
8. Rustlas: rusty cutlas, rusts away other metals on contact. 
9. Blood pearl: Cure against anemia, beloved by vampires. 
10. Tridentures: Trident carved from seemonster tooth, seeks flesh eagerly during combat. 
11. Cursed pegleg: All who touch it can only use salty language.
12. Damp lantern: Only shines when wet. 
13. Calamity compas: points to where the nearest natural disaster will be. 
14. Sea idol: Mummified sea elf; contains memories of ancient sea elf society.
15. Hag slime: apply to be super slippery and immune to magic.
16. Wind catcher: Sack made of sails of the fastest ship in history. Can capture gusts to be stored and released later. 
17. Water resistant log: logbook of waterproof material. Half filled detailing a harrowing tale of a crew facing certain doom at sea.
18. Sappin net: incredibly light, byt feels unbearably heavy to those trapped underneath. 

• Gilly's shack is a patchwork mess of shipwrecks and driftwood. Closer to a midden than anything that could be called a house. When Gully is home they are either sorting through their posessions or working on diving equipment to get even further out into the water. Most of the time, however, Gilly is out hunting treasure or oily fish they use to make food from.
  
  
• A sunken island covered in ruins resurfaces, weird fish mosters attack the nearby shores. As it resurfaces a ship gets stranded on it. PCs are on it and have to fight their way off towards a smaller fishing vessle that ran aground closer to shore.
  
  
• The Academy of Dreams seek to maintain their independence through the hoarding of arcane knowledge. By maintaining their monopoly they hope to stay safe of persecution.
  
  
• The Hidden Coven aims to make life of commoners bearable, both now and in the future. Their cures are ruthlessly pragmatic, targetting the root cause. This makes them very impopular with those in power (who the coven often deems the root cause of a lot of suffering).
  
  
• The Joyous Knights wish to bring happiness to all and to eradicate sadness, no matter the cost.
  
  
• The Wilderness Wardens are sponsored by well meaning nobles to protect the status quo, while being a 'neutral' force for 'good'. Monstrous threats that upset the balance need to be eliminated.
  
  
• The local base of the Wilderness Wardens is a large hunting lodge. Walls of the main hall are crowded with hunting trophies of celebrated members.
  
  
• Wart Tongue Atris is senior warden at the lodge and overseens initiations. She is rumored to have tasted over a thousand different kinds of scat and can still describe each of them in nausiating vivid detail. Her knowledge of creatures is encyclopedic, but her specific interet means that no one voluntarily sits next to her during banquets more than once.
  
  
• Snake Eyed Jurgen is quartermaster at the lodge. His long canines, ashy skin, cold touch and titular snake eyes make him offputting to most the first time they meet him. He is also a very strict quartermaster, demanding good explanations for each item requested and his companion, Cane, helps him guard the stock closely. Really a big softy that just wants to do his job as good as possible. Quickly warms up to anyone who shows him kindness. (Coldblooded creatures heat up through external sources, it is weird we use it to describe someone who stays cold even when treated warm).
  
  
• Basper the Hidden Master is a halfling huntress using a spear. She greatly prefers the freedom of the outdoors, especially hard to reach places. To her, life is about proving yourself. This means so few people have ever seen her that descriptions vary wildly. Some suggest she is just a legend, or already dead. She stands short, even for a halfling, with hair clumped to her head, skin cracked like bark and a layer of insulating fat hiding her bulging muscles. When she isn't hunting, she listens to the gossip of local vegetation. Basper will only train those who prove themselves by completing some unreasonable request and show proper respect to plantlife. (This is meant to be a way PCs can do martial training in their downtime like described in this marizian's garden blogpost).
  

In Sum

I started with random ideas, tried to make some goblins which need some polishing before I make a dedicated post about them, got inspired to make a weird dwarven treasure hunter, which made me want to make a location I could put them in. If this focus on this one area remains I'd love to run a game in it some time. The funnel idea I had seems like it could be cool and gives incentive for the organisations to want to recruit these people: They know more about the weird island than anyone else.

Grasping at straws: New years resolution system

Didn't think I would respond to this challenge, but woke up this morning with an idea that would fit this, so here I am.

Grasping at straws:

• Whenever a PC does something dangerous they pull a straw, cord, twig or something similar from a bunch with one which is noticibly shorter/different while they cannot see the odd one out.
  
• Each long/common straw they draw is discarted.
• If they draw the short/different one, they are fucked. 

Variables:

Straw amount: 

The obvious way to tailor this resolution system to your needs is to vary the amount of good straws vs the amount of bad ones. 

The initial baseline you set will say something about how dangerous the world is/how capable the PCs are.

Varying up straw amount within a game will allow you to basically approach all die rolls, but in a shittier way if there are lots of different probablities, as you would have to have different bushels or count out the odds before each draw. 

However, you could have each PC have their own 'hand' and vary amount based on level (lower levels, worse odds), class (wizards have magic, but get in trouble faster), background (more skills = more lived experience = fewer good straws), etc. for more stable odds (less work) with varying odds for different characters. 

Straw recovery:

Another lever you can use is straw recovery. Depending on when you recover straw it starts to represent an abstraction of different things. If you never recover straw it might represent the luck of the star you were born under, if you only recover it in a safe place it is closer to your endurance, if you recover each time you fail it is more a narrative pacing device, and if you recover each conflict it represents your ability to get the better of your opponent. 

There is also no reason to assume straw recovery is instantaneous. Maybe you regain one straw for each way you spend in a safe location, rather than a set amount of time for recovery in general. Maybe you regain one straw for each sacrifice you make at the temple of your guardian spirit. This too says something about what is being abstracted with the straws.

Thougths

I think this would work alright. It doesn't really do anything particularly special: changing the amount of good straws vs bad straws is not inherrently different from changing the probilities on a dice. The only novel addition is that each succes increases the likely hood of future failure, though this is something you can simulate in other ways. Beggar's Choice, a small, free game by Adventures Buffo, does this by literally counting how often you try something risky. 

However, I have argued before that form and content both inform the experience. I can imagine the russian roulette-like effect feeling quite different from rolling a die with different probabilities each time. Each succes brings you closer to certain failure. For this reason, if I would ever use this, it would be in a game where desparation is a big part of the PCs experiences, though I think the chance that I would ever use this is small.

Half of what? A fictional etymology of 'halfling'

Written for the same as of yet unnamed world that my stoneborn dwarfs, slime mould elves, and elf-made orcs inhabit. 

Introduction

Many have speculated about the origin of the term 'Halfling'. Each of these speculations is of interest to us, because they reveal various aspects of the beings referred to by this term as well as the various way communities have related to them. 

What is interesting in each of these various origins is that by definition, 'halfling' is a relational term. It is the 'half' of something with is 'complete', or 'full'. It is this latter aspect that the various proposed origins of the word refer to.

The following origins each vary in both their popularity as well as their plausibility. We will comment on both, though we feel it necessary to start with the following disclaimer: This piece will not attempt to provide a single correct etymology, as there are in the opinion of the authors insufficient credible records to undertake such an endeavor at the time of writing. 

1. Half the length of a human

The most popular and least likely origin of the term refers to the halflings' average length in relation to size of an average, adult human. It is not uncommon for humans to see the world solely through the lense of their own existence. After all, some of them have at one point attempted to proclaim themselves 'the measure of all things'. 

Halfling length is one of their more easily observable qualities, and it is surprisingly consistent, as they stand between 90 and 100 cm for most of their lives. Compare this with elves, who come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, dwarfs, for whom size varies mostly on the availability of sustenance at the time of liberation, and even humans, who not only vary significantly in size throughout there lives, but also between various groups and, on occasion, particularly tall or short individuals.

However, the above is also why this origin of the term is one of the least likely. Dwarfs, elves and halflings themselves use the same word to refer to these beings. The inconsistent size of elves, the fact halflings are about two-thirds the length of most dwarfs, and, most damningly, the fact that halflings could not possibly be half the size of themselves makes this proposed origin an unlikely candidate.

2. Half the appetite of a human

An interesting variation on the above is based on the observation that halflings on average consume about half the food and drink of an average human. It suffers from the same problems as the above, but is worthy of note because it tells us something fascinating about halflings that might escape the notice of most:

Halflings, being half the length of an average adult human are only an eighth of the volume and (being made of the same elements in similar proportians) mass of that same adult human.

The fact that halflings on average consume not an eighth but half of what an average human consumes, means that for their size halflings eat four times as much as humans. And need to produce four times as much as well. 

This might seem like a throwaway fact, but will be of importance to understand the following proposed etymology. 

3. Half of a parent

Human offspring is often an object of fascination and ridicule among elves, dwarfs and orcs alike. However, halfling offspring is not only similarly helpless for a comparable amount of time, they are far more demanding, both on the parent's health delivering the child as well as on the providers. 

To safely birth a halfling child, the carrying parent needs to attain a size capable of carrying the relatively large offspring without crushing their organs during pregnancy, or causing severe rupturing during labour. For a prolonged period the parent will have to 'eat for two'. While in this 'reproductive state', the carrying parent is unable to perform many other tasks, thus being a significant drain on community resources while contributing relatively little to the acquisition of these resources.

The level of altriciality of their offspring, combined with the toll childbirth takes on the carrying parent causes most halfling communities to be able to support only very few child-carrying parents at a given time, and due to the investment required to be able to carry halfling children, carrying parents often remain in that role for more than a single pregnancy. 

Various halfling communities are structured around this distinguishing reproductive quality. In some cases the carrying parents find themselves at the top of a community hierarchy, concerning themselves with matters of economy and law as a way to contribute. Other times they find themselves at the very bottom of society, reduced to 'breeders' for the community. However, in nearly all cases other members have to contribute to help take care of the carrying parent as well as the child once it is born.

This has caused some to speculate that the term halfling is used in reference to the role a member has in the contribution to the parenting of young children. Those individuals we encounter are almost never currently pregnant, nor are they preparing for pregnancy, thus those individuals are all 'halflings' as opposed to the parent who actually gives birth to the child. 

There is some precedent for this: at least one halfling community in the Lower Dales refers to pregnant members with the prefix 'most whole', but it doesn't seem universally applicable and has no further evidence to support it.

4. Half civilized

The final etymology we will consider in this piece comes from a chapter on halflings in the propaganda piece 'On the inferiority of the Demihumans' written during the infamous Genocides of the Free Cities. In it the authors present their reasoning as to the inferiority of halfings to humans as such: "Halflings don't wear shoes, unlike civilized folk. However, they do wear clothes like civilized folk. Ergo, halflings are called such because they are only half civilized, i.e. somewhere between dumb animal and proper person." We think it goes without saying that this line of reasoning is not only childlike, but that the conclusion is blatantly false, as is to be expected of a piece of writing bearing the much frowned upon slur 'demihuman'.

This chapter in 'The inferiority' is the only source that proposes this rediculous etymology, but it does inadvertently touch on something interesting: Why do the halflings often forgo footwear that protect the soles? It turns out that halfling feet are different from those of humans. It is in fact one of the only biological differences between the two creatures other than average hight difference and appetite: Able-bodied halflings can hear through their feet, specifically low sounds that can travel quite far through the earth. No one is quite sure how it works, though they seem to share the feature with large animals from the steppes called Olifantens. 

Tangent: Combined with their relatively low weight, their ability to hear through their feet is often considered an explanation for another halfling trait: comparitively exeptional sneaking skills. Given the same amount of training, halflings seem to be better at moving about quitly than any other creature of similar size and weight.

Thoughts

Halflings/hobbits are hard to make interesting, because Tolkien seems to have invented them to be anything but interesting. They are small humans, from what I have read literally (as in they are the same species), who above all do not have an interest in adventuring. Except for sometimes, when a few of them do.

This aspect, that most halflings/hobbits are primarily interested in provincial pleasantries, but that on occasion an individual gets infected with uncharacteristic wanderlust, was hard to find an analogue for to use as a basis for making them more interesting. Until I started thinking about eusocial animals, like bees, ants and naked molerats. 

Members of these species focus primarily on their own hives/families, i.e. like Tolkien's hobbits their focus is incredibly local. However, it seems that to prevent too much incest, every once in a while some of them (often males) go out into the world to find different groups to mingle genes with, which seemed very similar to the stereotypical 'wanderlust' stricken halfling/hobbit to me.

The problem is that eusociality has similarities to some rather messed up social structures from history, and making behaviour like this innate for intelligent creatures is often frowned upon as well as it mirrors real world racism. Making halflings completely eusocial therefore seemed a bit iffy to me. I was afraid I would very quickly end up in what I'll call 'Harry Potter house elf' territory. To get something akin to the stereotypical 'hobbit' halfling, I tried to only universalize the preconditions for evolving eusociality (according to wikipedia). This way I, hopefully, allow for enough variety between cultures and individuals to stay clear of the aforementioned 'HPhe' territory. 

After getting that far I noticed that halflings were still too much like 'small humans' to me to be funny. So to make them slightly more interesting I tried to make sense of the 'no shoes' thing by taking inspiration from elephants and Toph from Avatar the last airbender.

The halflings are currently my least favourite of the creatures I've made for this world. So they might very well change or be removed entire in the future.

Orcs: an Elven mistake

We write this down so those who follow can take it as a warning. What you have been told about orcs is mostly false; fabrications to save the dignity of our people, and to stir up the vile required to hopefully right our wrong. Here is the truth: Orcs are corruptions of elves, made at the hight of our hubris. They are our biggest mistake.

The Sanctuary of Knowledge: dungeon and play report

For the first/zeroth edition of FKRCon I wrote a small adventure for 2nd Age, a setting communicated through twelve classes.

It featured the remnants of a religious research facility, with decrepit immortal monks, a mutant who believes she is an angel, strange magic gone awry and squealing mutant fetuses. I wrote up the dungeon in this file. 

Anouncement: 2nd Age is coming to FKRCON 26th-28th of may

This saturday (27th of may) I'll be running a 3 hour game of HUD-less/black box adventure gaming from 19:00 to 22:00 CET for 2-6 players. The adventure will be set in the 2nd Age (free on itch.io), a project I worked on with the brilliant Adventures Buffo. You can read some more about 2nd Age and my GMing style in these blogposts. 

If you are interested in joining my game or any of the other games that are organised for this digital con, join the FKR collective discord via the link in the poster.

About the game I'll be running:

The setting:

• The time period is faux early industrial Europe. I strive for bleak whimsy; definitely not a nice place but not grimdark.
• Characters are pawns of the Empire during its Second Age. They have been send overseas to one of the failed colonies of the First Age with the orders to reclaim this lost glory.
• Each character is a member of one of the organisations which keep the Empire running. Membership provides access to means, knowledge and status, as long as you are loyal and are contributing to strengthening the position of your organisation. 

The adventure:

• The Empire desires the reopening of a First Age research facility. Your organisations are ordered to send members to get a sense of the facility's current state and to salvage anything of use or value. Goods as well as individual reports are to be given to one of the desk clerks at the Governor's Office.
• Some of the organisations have a vested interest in the research facility. Players from those organisations will get goals which will initially be secret from the rest of the party and which might be in tension with orders from other organisations or even those of the Empire.
• No one knows exactly what is in the research facility. Which means most things won't be missed.

Character generation:

1. Pick or roll one of the 12 organisations from the 2nd Age supplement linked above.
2. Jot down the sign up bonus. the stipulation, and the abilities you get being of first rank in the organisation. Any ability that mentions a weapon or tool, grants you that weapon or tool.
   
3. Think of a name and some pronouns.
4. Reflect on the choices made which got you in this mess (including those you had no say in!)

Safety:

The adventure features themes of colonialism and imperialism, and at least hints of body horror. 

Before play, I will give players the option to publicly or privately let me know if there are any lines (don't even want this stuff mentioned) or veils (mention is ok, but no vivid descriptions please) that they would like the table/me to keep in mind. 

If at any time something during the game makes you uncomfortable, you are always free to (temporarily) leave the table, let everyone know publicly you don't like what is happening, and/or message me directly if it is something I am doing. 

The table is lgbt+ friendly. If you have a problem with that, my tables and the discord server on which I will run this game are not for you.