Secret Santicorn 2025, Part III: Pathetic Dragons

And now my last(?) gift to shove under the OSR Discord Secret Santicorn tree:

Sylvanas_iii - A dX table of medieval dragons that look nothing like any self-respecting dragon should (e.g. the original French tarrasque)

First of all, before diving into this assignment, I must ask, who gave St. George all the good press for killing such a puny dragon? I mean, this thing looks like it could barely accost a self-respecting princess. Not to mention an armed and armored knight. This creature looks like a hatchling. Clearly, the dragon was the victim here.

IT'S JUST A BABY!

Obviously, the tale grew in the telling. 

Anyway, let's go find some weirdos.

1. Ah yes, the Septacranial Fluharmonizer. A beast notable not for its breath weapon, but its melodious vocalizations. "Septs" are often curated as local attractions, fed on a fine selection of lamb and lemon balm to coax their performances for the local economy. The six prima heads harmonize, as the posterihead maintains a rhythmic drone. Their songs are described as like "living pipe organs" by aficionados and as "feral bagpipes" by their detractors.

Secret Santicorn 2025: Part II: D66 Winter Carousing Happenings

My second gift as a member of the OSR Discord Santicorn 2025 Reserves(tm). 

energycrow666 - Carousing tables themed around winter and/or its attendant festivals, such as solstice, yule, and the new year.

by Arthur Rackham

Oh no. Don't make me do another D66 list. Please no... 😜

Inspired this morning under the influence of two cups of coffee and a bowl of Chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats.

Party on!

Note: Realized I totally forgot a krampus encounter, as well as a Yule Cat. There are just too many winter traditions and hazards... 

And, from The Resurrectionists, a bit more history of Christmastime Chaos:

Update: Bonus Part II of the table can be found here....

Secret Santicorn 2025: Downtime Happenings...

I was tardy in signing up for the OSR Discord's annual "Secret Santicorn" writing prompt exchange. But I let the organizer know that I'd be happy to pick up an orphan "gift" if need be. And so I was called off the bench.

Hello _ !
Your gift is for Houndmoon, who asked for:
“Set of useful downtime activities & the locations and characters they’re attached to.”

I can do this. In the tune of D66, of course...

Ooo! Downtime. Whee. Another Carousing Table! Can I roll a Suspicious Rash? Sketchy Business Venture? Notice from a Noble?

Nah, give me Something Better. I want a Cool Trick. Preferably from a Mysterious Stranger! Let's get us some Downtime Boons!

How does one come upon a Boon? Not by Gift or Grift but by Reputation. The PC must have Done a Thing that Caught Someone's Attention. Perhaps the fighter doing in the beast in the Arena, the cleric dispelling some Infernal Being, the mage Touching the Arcane, the thief Stealing the Thing. This Deed draws the Attention of a Mentor or Benefactor. Someone not affiliated with the current adventure, but who may become a Part of the World as the story continues. But most importantly, someone who thinks the PC worthy of a New Ability. 

They will contact the PC, perhaps directly, by messenger, or even subterfuge. After all, not all of these mentors are affiliated with Proper Channels or the Orthodoxy. In some cases, gaining this knowledge may even have the potential to Mark the PC as a Heretic or Iconoclast. So Beware. Many Gifts come with a Cost. Not to mention, now that the PC has been Found Worthy of a Boon, the Patron will likely want them to Run an Errand, Return the Favor, or Complete a Deed...

"The Noble Patron"

Step into the Green Hell: A Jackson Joint

Second scenario that I've wrested from my scribbled notes and made presentable. There are plenty more lurking, waiting to be transcribed between real work, exercise, appointments, remembering to eat, walking the dogs...

Anyhow. A good looping space with a significant amount of green.

Interesting. 

What would be growing down there in the dark? I scribbled a bit before some random firing of a brain neuron reminded me that I'd written up a model for a spreading, aggressive invader. No, not kudzu.

So, an ooze that has gained some sort of decentralized, alien intelligence has taken over a shrine. And not only may the PCs want to clear it out, but one of the individuals interred there certainly wants it out of their space.

Watch where you step.

Download me here

 

Secret Santicorn 2024: Another Horror

Once again, from the depths of the OSR Discord craws the Santicorn, leaving the gifts of writing prompts to the good(?) denizens of the server.

You got shutteredroom’s prompt, “The Real Monster of which the Shitting Log of Catalonia is the sanity-protecting bowdlerization.”

First, a quick visit to Webster's to check something....

bowdlerization:
noun
The deletion of all passages considered to be indecent.
Similar: bowdlerisation, expurgation
The action or instance of bowdlerizing; the omission or removal of material considered vulgar or indecent.
The act of deleting or modifying all passages considered to be indecent. 

OK, gotcha. That's what I thought...

***

The portal from the Void opened, and the Entity entered the world. Fools twisted by promises of power and ancient knowledges from before the time that Men walked the land had called it, at a great cost of life and sanity. For, they knew, great power comes at great cost. Particularly if it is others that are paying with their lives. So they had spread war and desolation in their pursuit of this favor.

And desolation they received in turn. For the Entity had no interest in wisdom or power. Just madness and destruction. And piddling little evolved apes were not of consequence. XXX walked the land, its energies from outside of space burning a halo of destruction where it went.

source

However, some of these apes had slivers of power. Whether by craft, or energies arcane or divine. So they fought XXX, desperately and to little effect. After all, fighting a being whose name itself caused fear and madness was a nigh-impossible task. Only the Sightless, paladins blinded of all vision except that which saw auras of evil, were able to stand long before its predations.

They called upon their god, YYY, to aid them against this desolation in living form.

Late Delivery: Secret Santicorn 2023

 Christmas gifts that keep on giving? 

For the OSR secret santicorn, you've been paired with wyattwashere, who wants “A list of modern/urban creatures for use in horror-investigation games like Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. The weirder and more niche the better!”

Been on this one for a bit. 

I read through my Delta Green quickstart, and thumbed through my CoC. Through it all, the Hounds of Tindalos kept popping up in my imagination.

Good puppy (source)

So why not start from there?

<writing ensues>  

For inspiration, downloaded a glut of images from artist 0nedes, who heavily inspired a prior writing exercise, also with a dark horror/post-apocalypse vibe. 

I mean look at this cutie: 

Who could deny a darling creature like that? "Honey, it wants in!"

Additional inspiration via Dan Davis History, with a bit of Crecganford and Esoterica. Soundtrack by Cryo Chamber and other Dark Ambient channels.

So I'm not sure that I met the criteria for modern/urban, just for the fact that I created a mini-Mythos dating back to Neanderthal times and heavily influenced by Stone to early Bronze Age Indo-European cultures and myths. I mean, why use the published material when you can start from scratch? That said, I rounded up several modern references and occurrences that dovetail in with a potential 'reawakening' of beings/creatures, as well as some descriptions of the misguided or corrupted souls who may want to interact with it.

They Called Them Wolves (link permissions fixed)

Thanks also to Archon's Court for shepherding the project through this year.

Writing Prompt: Secret Jackalope 2022, Part IV

One more prompt from the OSR Discord "Secret Jackalope 2022" writing prompts (Round 2 assignments). This time, "Nonstandard creatures with useful bits and how to harvest them" via user @wyattwashere.

Nonstandard creatures, eh? 

Well, OK. I guess I'll delve back to the lunacy that is the 1981 Fiend Folio and pull up a few uncommon (and at least one better-known) critters and make up some stuff.

The harvested organs and products are each one element in the creation of their respective products, and other undetermined ingredients or reagents will be required....

1d7 Unpleasant Monsters and Their Useful Bits

The Adherer - The adherer is a creature resembling a mummy, but is not an undead. Instead, it secretes a “resinous solvent” that causes any weapons to stick to it until the creature is slain. Fortunately, it is susceptible to fire, and boiling water, in sufficient quantities, can break the adhesive's grip. The adhesion breaks down 5-10 turns after the creature's death.

Product: Although the excretions from this creature have been rumored to be ingredients for sovereign glue or universal solvent, wise practitioners of the alchemical arts know that this is folly. However, the “glue” has been incorporated into another reagent to help deal with more ghostly foes:

Spirit Gum: An application of this viscous fluid will cause an incorporeal foe to become semi-corporeal for 2d4 rounds, allowing them to take half-damage from non-magical weapons during that period. 

Adhesive from two adherers is required to create one use of spirit gum. The adhesive must be collected immediately upon the adherer's death by dissolving the adhesive in four gallons of hot water. The water is then distilled off to provide raw material for creation of the gum. 

Crypt Thing – This is a moderately powerful undead whose primary defense/effect is to teleport its foes to a random location (100-1000 feet distant, or up/down one dungeon level). 

Product: Arcane research has determined that this ability lies within the shriveled pituitary of the creature, nestled at the base of its mummified brain. Upon slaying one of these challenging undead, a knowledgeable individual may be able to identify and remove the gland with a magical weapon.

These may be used to create a Wand of Teleportation at half the time and expense. However, because of the corruptions inherent within the crypt thing's preservation and reanimation, there is a 2 in 20 chance that use of the item will send the user in a random direction consistent with the crypt thing's inherent abilities (table from FF, below).

Disenchanter – This aggravating creature's ability is magic drain, as it "feeds" on magical energy, attacking enchanted items and sucking out the magic through its extensible snout.

Product: The capacitor-like organ where a disenchanter "digests" enchantments resembles a stomach, but is packed with filaments capable of absorbing arcane energies. From this organ, an expert biomancer may create one of two devices. 

Writing Prompt: Secret Jackalope 2022, Part III

Sneaking in another uncompleted Secret Jackalope writing prompt off the OSR Discord:

Goblin Glenn Close requested:  "Party time! Please invent 6 festivals for a town or city in the setting of your choice."

Here we go:

Several years back, I roughed out an insular halfling collective of interconnected villages out in the hinterlands somewhere, so I suppose that they need a few celebrations specific to their community and individual settlements...  

1. First Bloom: The village of Amberhallow tenses with anticipation in the spring as the buds swell on the sacred tulip tree, an ancient, twisted growth in the center of the market square. It is a unique tree, with none like it in the forests, and although it blooms, no seeds ever germinate. It also hearkens the end of the Hungry Gap, as herbs and leafy greens begin to emerge. Oh yes, the blooms. Lots are drawn and food and drink laid in for the fete. Eyes can't help but drift to the tree as it greens and buds. What day and hour will it bloom, and who will receive the blessed tiding of the year for having guessed the closest to the emergent moment? At the sign of the first bloom, all tasks are dropped, all duties set aside, as the town explodes in joyous exultation, with gaunt residents pooling the remains of their stores to feast and dance, for the spring can't truly arrive until this storied tree reveals itself.

2. Burning Minds: Upon the summer solstice, the Myconids silently emerge from the deep forest to join the citizens of Birchspell for a week of spore-driven hallucination and hive-minding. Secrets are revealed and thoughts stripped bare during this week of ecstatic dance, commutation, and clairvoyance. It is a time of soul-baring and forgiveness, going back generations for the community, since they first made contact with the mysterious mushroom-folk. The Myconids receive, in turn, wagonloads of manure and corn whisky, which they carry back to their enclaves hidden within humid caverns deep in the forest for their own cultivations and purpose. 

3. The Scouts' Honor: The Bogaert Scouts are the community's watchful eyes and outriders. In the summer, they are honored in Myrkan with a festival of food and competitions. This is one of the few celebrations where outsiders join, as halfling marksmen, hunters, and snipers from far-flung communities ride in to try themselves against the Scouts. The Scouts and their guests compete in archery and slinging, both in accuracy and trick-shooting. Many apples are slain, and arrows are split. The sling competition of “Bonk the Giant” is always a crowd favorite, as the large wicker figure takes abuse from sling stones until collapsing into a splintered wreck. The celebration culminates with a hide-n-seek competition lasting three days, with the winner receiving the honorary Green Hood of Peplyn.

4. Call of the Bread: Upon the grain harvest comes the Call of the Bread, the hallowed celebration of the baked crafts. This is often the most festive and raucous of the community celebrations as the halflings gather in Myrkan to celebrate and eat. And eat. All things baked are joyously and intensely celebrated, and baking contests of complex artworks of bread, sweets, and rolls are the order of the day. Last year the theme was “Bread as Hats” and quite elaborate and tasty headgear was flaunted by the competing bakers.

5. Return of the Brown Cow: The hamlet of Deepshire releases a blessed cow into the Ablan Timberlands every spring. She fades into the dark forest, rumored to be haunted by the dead of failed pioneers, or by ineffable fey. Upon the bovine's return in the autumn (and somehow, she always returns), the village feasts and fetes, with the village elders and seers gathering around the prodigal beast to read auguries writ into the scars on her hide and ferment holy draughts from her milk. 

6. Grim Dance of the Winter Wolves: Held on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, lean villagers gather to make a solemn dance in their halls, howling in imitation of the wolves that call at the edges of the forest. At midnight, an extra pig, or perhaps a totem of salted meat, is left in the market square, to be stolen away by the wolves in the night. There are rumors that in past times, or during particularly harsh winters, that a resident would be chosen by lot to be drugged and left out as offering for the beasts, but if anyone inquires to this tale, the villagers will politely change the subject.

***

And Some Bonus Festivals:

Writing Prompt: Secret Jackalope 2022, Part II

Folks over on the OSR Discord have started sniping one another's Secret Jackalope prompts, adding to the variety, creativity, and insanity of the writing prompts.

And I need to loosen up my mind with a bit of free-writing.  So here's a request from user Sigmacastell: "1d10 Failed World-Ending Rituals"

Ok. 

First of all, a word from our sponsor: Tonight's creative muse is brought to you, in part, by Hellbent Kölsch.

Ahem...

Apocalypse 6. Opening the seals

1d10 (plus one) Failed World-Ending Rituals 

(or, Eleven Reasons That the World Was Inadvertently Saved From Certain Doom On This Fateful Night)

1. Dyslexia: The Ancestral Invocation of the Wraiths of Insanity was disrupted because Brother Llewellyn brought a vegan for the sacrifice instead of a virgin.

2. Scheduling Conflict*: Who could have known that both the the Creed of Greprithos and the Harbingers of Clarity would have foretold that their particular apocalypse rituals at the Stone of Perchaverack would occur on the same night intersecting a particular 200-year planetary alignment and gibbous moon? A serious kerfuffle ensued, followed by a coordination of Google calendars for the next bicentennial planetary alignment.

3. Pronunciation Error: The Chant of L'etllx inadvertently called up the Dark Lord's brother-in-law L'yttlx, who, instead of ushering in The Burning Winds, indoctrinated the Cult of the Wanderers of Aleflashi into a multi-level-marketing scheme, inspiring them to shill questionable dietary supplements and ergonomic sacrificial daggers to friends and relatives.   

4. Dress Code: Brother Simon wore the wrong socks to the Ancient Ceremony of Fiends. The Fiends are quite particular about their 100% merlino wool. Blends will just not do.

5. Procrastination: Fortunately the world-core-shattering Consuming Evocation of the Ghastly Monolith keeps getting postponed by the Cult of Our Holy Sister of the Frittering Nemesis.

6. Quality Control: No organic-certified(tm) sacrificial goats were available during the window of opportunity for the Paragons of the Comet's Star-Fall Ritual of the Chain of Disorder.

7. Divine Intervention: Planetary doom was delayed when the dark All-Father-God Croesten showed up when the Cult of Harrowed Emissaries summoned his son Antasban the Dire to enact the Bane of Mankind. Croesten admonished Antasban and grounded him for being out after the solar alignment, before likewise giving the cult a good scolding and leaving in a huff.

8. IT Problems: Vaccine-implanted 5G microchipping was found to be incompatible with the original coding used by the Antikythera mechanism for the Summoning of the Grave of Heaven.

9. Failure to Read the Terms and Conditions: Something-something first-born....

10. Global Warming: The Ritual of the Sallow Wolf has been canceled due to the death of the One-Tree Athachenth, which has been attributed to climate-change-driven invasive boring beetles.

11. Dead Language: The last native speaker of the Hallowed Tongue of the Hontintur passed away last week prior to the completion and quality-control verification of the final phonetic transcription of the Moon-Splitting Song of Vlu.

or perhaps pancakes...

Completed with some help from a few Random Name Generators.

* And, because user Jojiro was curious as to what constitutes a 'kerfuffle' when two apocalypse cults meet on the same foretold night:

Writing Prompt: Secret Jackalope 2022

What's in my Discord inbox today?

You've been paired with Rook#1407, who wants "Take a non-intelligent DND monster of your choosing from the 1977 Monster Manual, like a Roper or Bulette (or a couple of real world animals) and 'speculatively evolve' it into a few distinct evolutionary niches. Basically, take that creature and specialize it into a new environment or ecological role for several dozen million years and see what happens to it. It's more biological that putting gills on a Rust-Monster if it evolves into the oceans. Here's a great example; https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/home. Points for stats. Ten thousand million points for a couple of sketches of your new creatures. "

(Or perhaps After Man...)

Welcome to Secret Jackalope 2022. Been a couple of years (or maybe I just missed last year's effort)?

Anyway.

Meet the Hegemonic Cube.

Through assimilation of genetic material over generations of scavenging and predating, at some indistinguishable moment, the gelatinous cube reached a tipping point to gain an alien intelligence, after a fashion. 

Source

The body form modified from a cube into a lobed protoplasm that extruded throughout its territory, slowly creeping, branching and creating sensory nodes of massive neurons to "feel" its environment. The evolved "hegemonic cube" became a decentralized intelligence, with each nerve center sharing a portion of the creature's intelligence and memory, a redundant, multiple-parallel network.

Creatures of humanoid intelligences, or those similarly evolved, speak of feeling a 'static' in their minds upon approaching one of these slow-moving minds. Those who attempt to probe the cube's "minds" by mental means are often met with blasts of howling psychic energy that can stun, blind, or even destroy a mind. 

Although light sensitive, the "hegemonic cube" has no true vision, relying instead on the sensory input of chemical means. Likewise a "cube" will communicates with other colonies of its type via chemical means - establishing boundaries, or sharing memories and resources.

Happy Jackalope 2020! A Writing Prompt...

James Young has helped run the Secret Santicore community writing 'gift' project over the last secret years. With the demise of G+, the project was ported over at the OSR Discord Server. And with the current state of the world, James added the Easter equivalent for a bit of creativity and levity - Behold, the Secret Jackalope!

I've played in these projects on and off, so threw my prompt into the list. In return, I received my Secret Jackalope prompt:

Hello Vance!

The Jackalope is here, and requires a SACRIFICE.

SherlockHole requests the following gift:

Weird monsters to stalk through some post-apocalyptic ruins in a world with lovecraftian horrors & GLOG sorcerers, or some plot hooks/ a dungeon for investigations within a walled-off city at the edge of the world

And a prompt needs inspiration. Serendipitously, a piece of 'appropriate' art popped across my DeviantArt recommendations:

https://www.deviantart.com/ondes7

All things considered equal, this fit. And so did the rest of Ondes7's work, a collection of surreal and adequately creepy pen and ink and graphite pieces that fit the imagery of Lovecraftian horrors...

So off to the races with several atmosphere-pieces of creatures that have invaded the world from the Void.

So these monstrosities aren't statted out - more notes, impressions, and perhaps a few strategies that have been found effective to counter them. But hopefully something useful as think-pieces and inspiration for a twisted world.

And I did have to shoehorn some background for the city of Redoubt, and some rumor seeds, as well. Because apparently prompts for last cities is a thing for me...

So, thanks to SherlockHole for the prompt, and thanks to Ondes7 for a batch of inspiration.

Welcome to a City on at the edge of a ruined world, and the things that prowl beyond the walls. 

Secret Santicorn 2019 - The Last City

With the downfall of G+ and other distractions, I didn't track down last year's Secret Santicorn RPG "gift exchange." Fortunately, I stumbled upon its current manifestation within the Discord OSR group. Approximately one day before this year's entry deadline.

Whew.

And what request did the Santicorn have for me?

"It's time for the best part of Santicorn - making things!
Valker requests the following gift:
A summoning gone wrong has caused the sea level to rise significantly and almost destroyed civilization in the known world. Which being was responsible for such cataclysm, how are the standard cultures and/or races of your stereotypical fantasy setting dealing with the change and which factions are emerging in the wake of the disaster? Alternatively: there's only one island, and one city, left in the world. Tell me more about the city, who's inhabiting it and what prevents others to seize it."

I took on the second alternative - so Welcome to Bytlav, the Last City...

flickr.com/photos/seaharris

Thanks again to James Young for shepherding this thing through!