celebrate the
burning masses
standing on top of
traces
of civilization's ashes
celebrate the desert
wastes
starved of rain but
sunburns ache
on laboring back’s,
they baste
celebrate the
sorcerer
bringing liquid life
for supper
cross them, meet the
torturer
- Cratar children's
'rhyme'
It
is a time of FLINT and FANG.
The horizon stretches upward towards the last glittering black sun, SOLAS, on a
black space empty of stars. The land is starved from a Dry Ice Age. Water and
food are rare. Metal is nearly non-existent. Your life is cheap. Sorry. Welcome
to Disc-Oh.
The
world's gone to shit. Massive algal blooms cover the dead silt and salt seas. Magical
radiation and radiation radiation. Across super-blooming fields of
long-rooted grasses and woody shrubs, cheetah-fast axe-beaks
rip and tear throats for their meals. Grey snow falls near constantly around
the great glaciers, coating the petrified statues of dead gods and mammoth
boneyards. The jungles and bogs are filled with polluted water, the hunting
grounds of prowling owlbears.
Radiation storms bring blood-red rain out on the wastes, awakening the dormant cazador eggs buried beneath.
 |
Fog Harbor - Fallout 4
|
Human
and mutant nomads gather water from cacti or cut from the bladder of giant frogs
on their endless voyages. Water caravans travel between cities and outposts to trade
for luxury obsidian and coral. Sandaled raiders hide just out of view, both on
the seas and dusty roads.
The
cities are ruled by the luminous-tattooed SORCERER-KINGS. From their garden-citadels
surrounded by their armies and harems and magician cabals they allow clean water
to drip into the city. A day's work is enough to buy a day's food or
water. The corpulent wealthy adorn themselves with things from the sea or
serpents or plant life.
Some
Sorcerer-Kings
Porcelain Poly-Bodies of the Grand
Serai
The Ghoul Queen of
Necropolis-on-Sea
Beggar Lord of the City that
Crawls
Slug-Lord of Mezzanin, the Shell
City
Lucky
for you, this isn't the first time the world has ended. Ruins of past
civilizations, brought low by their own myriad calamities, lie buried in the
strata of history.
A
single clay tablet or parchment spell scroll is worth a year’s worth of water
if sold to a SORCERER-KING’s court. Who knows how much they’d pay for a
rifle-staff? When a court of magicians creates new tablets, they require large
amounts of energy. Some keep cadres of lotus slaves, others channel life from
plants. Casting too requires energy; most use their own blood as fuel or
shatter the tablet if untrained. They search for another way that involves less
screaming.
Weird
Places
Monastery of the Astral Dreamers
Ivory Tower
of the Cyclone
Terracotta Battle-Ship of the Long-Ago
People
or
who the hell am I?
Folk
of the Cities
1
– Former Slave
2
– Gong farmer
3
– Gladiator Contestant
4
– Shroom Farmer
5
– Slug Courier
6
– Black Glass Carver
Nomads
1
– Turkey Herder
2
– Ash-sailor
3
– Hunter
4
– Stilt-walker
5
– Bone Oracle
6
– Druid?
Caravanners
or Raiders
1
– Porter
2
– Performer
3
– Bounty Hunter
4
– Slaver
5
– Cultist
6
– Merchant
Looks
1 – Carp Mouth w/ Whiskers
2 – Owl-esque eyebrows
3 – Pointy Ears
4 – Odd Hair Color (Pink, Dark Green,
White, Dark Blue)
5 – Six spider eyes
6 – Tusked Canines
Creatures
Iconic
Creatures:
Ancient
Automatons, Axebeaks, Biomechanical Monstrosities, Camels, Cultists, Giant
Amoebas, Cazadors,
Hydras, Mammoths, Mummies, Mutated
Crabs, Owlbears,
Pterodactyls, Purple Worms, Radiation Ghouls, Sabre-tooth Tigers
Stuff
Items,
Tools, and Weapons
Cheap – Bone breaks fast,
easily found and carved by a Bone-smith
Normal – Flint, glass, leather,
and wood
Sharp – Obsidian mined
from volcanic farms
Tough – Ground stone
lasts for a lifetime once chiseled out
Common
Weapons – Slings, clubs, blowguns, spears, whips, knives, macahuitl, and hand-axes
Uncommon
Weapons – Mauls, great-axes, staves, boomerangs, machetes, and bows
Shields
and Armor
Heavy – Ceramic plates,
layered sheets of wood, giant crab or tortoise shells
Light – Mantis-man chitin
(seen as cannibalism in places), quilted leathers, or salt-soaked cotton
None – Layered silks,
ritual tattoos, feathered shawls, hooded leathers
Metal
Dread
Bronze
- dredged up from the seas, unearthed in tombs, or fallen to earth in meteor
strikes. Looks like gold, strong as bronze, never rusts, and retains heat for centuries
Based on Dark Sun, Black Sands, The Ultraviolet Grasslands, Zothique, Hubris, Centerra, Fallout 3 + 4 + NV, Dark Souls, Borderlands 1, Rage 1 + 2, Discworld, and all the gonzo worlds of the OSR
