Thursday, October 29, 2020

Spells of Summer's End

 The following is a list of magic spells that can become available to the players in the Everlasting Summer. Utilizes the Underneath system.

Costs remain hidden from the Players. You (the GM) know what they are, but the players should not. If the spells are ever reduced to a simple cost/benefit analysis, then they shall cease to seem dangerous, scary, and unknowable.


BANISHMENT OF THE NORTHERN WIND

(To postpone the threat of the Old God for a period of 47 Years, this ritual must be performed. Descriptions of the ritual can be found in the Wizard's Observation Tower, the Lighthouse, the Witch's Hut, or the hidden safe within the Devart Mansion.)

The Banishment Requires the following reagents:

  • One who is to be betrothed, anointed with the Ritual of Purity.
  • Thirty three Petoskey Stones, arranged in a circle containing a triangle. Twenty seven form the circle. Six form the triangle.
  • Three wind chimes made from goats bones, hoisted on branches of wind-fallen trees and arranged at the points of the triangle.
  • An ordained priest if on land, or a ship's captain if on the water, who is to speak the magic words of the ritual: "A'aqur harbath..." 

The Ritual of Purity requires powdered alicorn, the unicorn's horn, mixed with fresh human blood. This can either be obtained by: 

1) Slaying / trapping / mutilating The Unicorn. 
2) Harvesting/Stealing the Unicorn's Horn mushroom from the Witch's Garden. 
3) Diving deep into Lake Superior and dredging up the Alicorn-Coral.
4) Powdering narwhal tusk.

This mixture is painted upon the person who is to be betrothed, who is to be a woman who has had at least one period, and who has not had children, chanting the words "A'aqur harbath... A'aqur harbath... A'aqur harbath..." Once complete, the betrothed may enter the ritual circle. If she has not been purified, then she will vaporize on the spot, along with all nearby observers.

If successful, winds will blow during the ritual setup. Thunderstorms will appear. During the final chanting of the incantation a rope tornado will descend from the sky and pick up the betrothed, who will forever disappear into the sky. The banishment will then be complete.

((Secret Fact: The Ritual of Purity can actually be performed on anyone of any sex, age, or disposition successfully. The gendered nature is a holdover from the very first successful use of the ritual, which just so happened to use a young woman. It has not changed since nobody has been willing to experiment with a ritual that, if done incorrectly, results in the deaths of the caster and all nearby observers.))


WINDS OF A'AQUR

A'AQUR, that which chases the flashpoint of the end. The great entropic force bears winds of incalculable destruction. To wield just a tiny fraction is shattering. The winds of the North bear such heat and force as to turn its target to ash.




Costs: 1 Instinct and Body for every Day that's eclipsed since the start of the Everlasting Summer.

Effect: Deal 3 Hits to the target.

Requires 1 Round of preparation and chanting.

If this reduces the target to 0 Hits, it disintegrates, leaving nothing but black ash on the nearby terrain.


FORESIGHT

Invoke the Middle Eye. See what the future holds.

Costs: Roll one 1d6 per times used. Takes one 1) Resolve 2) Instinct 3) Body 4) Empathy 5) Insight 6) Nothing

Effect: The Game Master rolls the next random encounter and shares with you, and only you, the result. You immediate gain knowledge of it - it's Name, Appearance, and Attacks (if any).




IMPRISONMENT OF THE UNICORN

To capture the unicorn and harvest its magical flesh requires one who is pure of spirit and one whose soul is black as nothing.

Required Materials: A noose of cold iron or of gold, attached to a sturdy chain, fashioned by one of ancient royal blood.

Costs: The Hunter: 3 Maximum Empathy. 
The Pure: 2 Maximum Resolve.

Effect: The one pure of spirit places the noose upon the unicorn, entrapping it. When this happens, it cannot use magic or resist its captors in any way. It can, however, speak.



THE POISONED APPLE

A favorite product of banished horticultural witches. The effort and careful long term preparations of this spell make it very difficult to produce: if the sprouting apple tree is not fed with blood for even a single day then the brew will simply be poisonous and produce no charm.
Required Materials: An apple tree, fed with the blood of the caster every day until it sprouts fruit. The brew which it is dipped in requires Hemlock, Giant Hogweed, and Deadly Nightshade.

Costs: Reduces number of remaining years by half. (Halves Body)

Effect: Produces a bountiful red apple of pristine quality and comeliness. That which eats the apple will become charmed. It will operates under your commands in a despondent fugue for three days, after which it shall enter into an endless coma.


BANISHMENT OF THE TROLL

The Troll is an enduring creature. Its regeneration ensures that even the smallest pieces will eventually reform into the great totality.



Required Materials: A Flame of Alexandria (Simply, any flame made by burning books, scrolls, or magical incantations.) Approximately three gallons of grease derived from pigs, cows, or fish.

Costs: 1 Resolve per Meat consumed during Adventure.

Effect: The Troll must first be slain or incapacitated by reducing it to 0 Hits in Combat. Then every one of its pieces must be collected, mixed with the grease, then lit on fire by bringing it to 310 C using the Flame of Alexandria. Once this is done The Troll will evaporate and be permanently destroyed.


THE BODY ELECTRIC

A development of Arthur Conrad, Third Keeper of the Cult Electric. In order to cast the spell, the caster must undergo a conscious electroconvulsive therapy session. This procedure is excruciatingly painful, and can easily result in the deaths of frail individuals.

The procedure always changes a person's personality, often in opposing ways: if they were kind they may grow cruel, if they were lazy they may grow obsessively motivated, if they were dissociative they may become sober, or vice versa.

Required Materials: An electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) machine, four metal pylons arranged in a parallelogram around the to-be caster's head. A series of five lightbulbs in parallel, which the person undergoing the procedure is to stare at.

Costs: Initial procedure costs 2 Body. Each cast costs 1 Empathy per switch explicitly flipped since the procedure was instituted. Resets every time the player explicitly discharges static electricity. (min. 1)

Effect: Allows the caster to 'read' electrical equipment by touching exposed wires, giving them an innate sense of the extent of the networks involved, who might be observing them, and what might be contained within them. 

The spellcaster may also do one of the following tasks:
  • Overload the network, tripping circuit breakers and shutting down all power within a city block's distance.
  • Gain vision of an entire security network's cameras. If desired feed false images into the security feed.
  • Audibly hear any cell phone calls and texts within 1 mile.

REVEAL

Pierce your own eye. Unleash the iris-colored fog that will sweep across the hidden and unveil the truth.

Costs: 1 Eye, still attached. (-1 Instinct, -1 Body)

Effect: Exposes the true forms of anything within the immediate area. Low Insight Thresholds are disregarded, hidden objects and doors are revealed, and illusions are dispelled.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Encounters of Summer's End


IT = Insight Threshold. For Underneath.

If Below Insight Threshold, Then Monster Appears as Low Insight Appearance.


UNIVERSAL ENCOUNTERS


d10

Monster

IT

Low Insight Appearance

Description

What It Does

Injuries

1

Suicide Ghost

3*

Phantom Scream

Pale - Erratic - Splattered - Weeping - Glitching - Swallowing the Gun

Stalks Peripheral Vision - Always Behind You - Angry Scream - Possession, Swallow the Gun - Gunshot - Gore Pollock

Suicide by Gun - Blood Drenching

2

Bride of A’aqur

6*

Twirling Gust

A Face In the Midst of the Gust - A Woman - Hair Whipping and Whirling

She Screams - And Is Gone

Despair

3

Hell Hound

2

Rapid Dog

Eyes Like Candles In The Dark - Teeth Too Long - It’s Fast

Tears Through Obstacles - Bounds and Leaps - Rips and Tears, and Laughs a Human Laugh - Tracks

Torn Muscles - Bleeding - Paranoia

4

Black Obelisk

5*

Empty Space

Cold To Touch - Jagged - Sharp - Impossible Placed

Frantic Whispering - Grants Insight

Paranoia - Schizophrenia - Psychosis

5

A’aqur Cultist

1*

Stranger

Hoodie - Mask - Strange Wind Chimes - Skin Burned by Nuclear Winds

Erratic Movements - Stalking - Spying

Wind Burns

6

A’aqur Cultist Hunter

7

Militia Member

Patterns in the Camo - Mask of Wooden Chimes - Hunting Rifle - No Body, Only Wind

Waits An Eternity - Zeros The Field - Takes A Shot - Gone With the Wind

Gunshot - Punctured Arterty - Wind Burns

7

Leviathan Agent

8*

FBI Special Agent

A Man Made of Many Men - Serene Face - Golden Scepter - The All-Powerful State Personified

Photographs - Converses - Interrogates - Arrests - Wields Authority - Command Spells

Bullet Wounds - Legal Action - Forgetfulness

8

Hole

6*

Nothing

Quiet - Deep - Conspicuous - Smooth Edged - Enticing

Pedestrians Crawl In - Nothing Comes Out

Gone - Obsession

9

Strange Mist

2

Fog

Effervescent - Pooling - Swirling - Strange Lights

Fogs the Windows - Crawls Along Ground - Stains - Lunges - Tendrils

Black Lungs - Noisy Coughing - Blindness

10

Vampire

4

Rich Old Man

Pale - Elderly - Track Marks - Covered in Red Tubes - Attached at Hip to Drained Youth - Needles in Hands

Lurks - Labored Breathing - Steals the Blood - Steals the Flesh - Attaches It To Itself - He Will Live Forever! - Living Ponzi Scheme

Blood Loss - Liver Disease - HUNGER - Needles In Skin - Stolen Organs


BEACH ENCOUNTERS


d10

Monster

IT

Low Insight Appearance

Description

What It Does

Injuries

1

Mermaid

3*

Big Fish

Fish Head - Human Legs - It’s Upset - Very Upset

Lurks in the Tide - Watching - Baiting With Movement - Stalks From Water - Attacks and Drags Separated People

Fish Jaw - Bleeding - Drowning - Bisected

2

Siren

3

Pretty Women + Sinkhole

Three Beautiful Young Women - They Are The Fingers - The Hand Hides Under Sand

Shouts for Help - Asks for a Lift - Things Go Wrong - Check Out the Water - Eyes - Maw - Hand - Ambush

Eaten - Entranced

3

Shambling Flotsam

2

Sea Anemone

Smells Like Trash - Shuffles Blindly - Green Seaweeds and Porous Wood - Underneath, Spines Like Anemones

Slowly Moves Around - If Touched, Springs - Floats On Waves

Pain Poison - Rending Bleed - Infection

4

Bloated Corpse

1

Beached Whale

Ebbs with the Waves - Face In Water - Raisen Skin and Swollen - Smells Like Sewage

Stands Up - It Has No Mouth - It Tries to Scream - Then Explodes

Bone Shrapnel - Infection - Vomiting

5

Drowned Ghost

3*

Trick of the Light

A Dangling Thing - Floating Mid Air - Like Bait on the Line - It Soundlessly Gasps Like a Fish Out of Water

It Floats Serenely - It Twitches This Way Quickly - It Notices - Lungs Fill With Fluid

Drowning - Coughing

6

Water Vampire

4

Hull Hit Something

Mistaken For Flotsam - Darts Under The Boat With Uncanny Speed

Handle Appears On Bottom of Boat - A Knocking On The Hull - This Door Wasn’t Here - Open and It Floods - Blood in the Water

Drowning - Blood Loss - Vampirism

7

Sphere of Annihilation

5

Giant Bubble

Black as Pitch - Brownian Moving - Packs of Three

Magnetically Drawn to Things - Swallows Them Whole - Both Gone

Gone - Annihilated Limbs

8

Troll

5

Huge Black Bear

Too Tall - Cloaked - Strong Flashlight - Sniffs the Air - Quiet as a Mouse

Light Turns Red - It’s Seen You - The Light Freezes You, Like Deer

Broken Bones, Eaten

9

Angler

6*

Dead Fish Pile

Corpses Piled Up - Mass Grave - One of Them’s Fresh - Hand Stuck in the Mass - Dead-Eyed Jaw Terror Just Off Shore

Waits for the Investigator - Springs Like a Snare - Into the Water - Long Teeth

Snared - Bleeding - Amputation - Eaten

10

The Elf

5^

Water Spirits?

Big Stocky Man - Long Beautiful Hair and Petite Beard - Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall

It Moves The Stones - It Moves the Bramble - It Breaks Down the Walls - It Shatters the Wards - Fight or Argue, And It’s Gone.

Increases Empathy - Increases Encounter Chance


WOODS ENCOUNTERS


d10

Monster

IT

Low Insight Appearance

Description

What It Does

Injuries

1

Unicorn

3/6**

Unicorn / Cyclopism Deer

It Was a Deer - One Crackling Horn - One Too-Wide Central Eye - It Stares - Something Crawls Inside The Eye

Spells Have No Power Here - Crescendo Screams: “BwaaaaAAAAAAHHHH!!” - The Thing Comes Crawling Out Of The Eye - It Flees

Horn-Gored - Cyclopism, Then Death - Magical Feedback

2

Meat Grinder

5

Falling Tree

Something Feels Off - There’s Something Ahead - You See Nothing

Invisible Until Entered - Like a Mini Supernova - Spins Things Around Mid Air Until Thrown Apart

Gravitationally Annihilated - Motion Sickness

3

Webs

3

Spider Webs

Grey Fuzzy Material - Lattices - Perforates the Corners Like It’s Hiding - Drapes From Trees Like Old Curtains

On Contact, Hissing - On Contact, Burning

You’re Fine For Three Days, Then Sudden Death.

4

Vortex

3

Swamp Gas

Unnatural Swirling, Erratic Motions, Kidpix Alteration on Reality

Gravitates - Lunges - Shakes like a marble in a jar.

Lost in Time and Space - Shrapnel Wound - Swirling

5

Most Dangerous Game

8

Crazed Hunter Wearing Deerskin

The Deer Has a Gun - The Eyes Black Holes - Moves Like a Chinese Dragon - The Skin Bulges and Writhes - Smells Like Fresh Death

From One Eye a Rifle Slowly Emerges - CRACK - The Hunt Is On!

Gore - Gunshot Wound

6

Crawling Mold

2

Elder Muskrat

Veins in the Walls - Pounding Heartbeat - Flesh Moss

Swells - Ebs - Polyps - Crawls - Squirts Lymph 

Arrhythmia - Polyping Flesh - Explosion 

7

Moon Wasp

4

Knife Drone

Wasp-Buzzing - Mirror Laden - Dark Aperture, Uncanny Mathematical Movements - Glint on the Sun - Cackling Mandibles

Comes from over the treetops - Hovers, watching - Uncanny agility - Kamikazes-Dives

Lacerations - Infected Wounds - Bleeding - Social Media Exposure

8

Mad Horse

1

Panicking Horse

Whinnying - Kicking, Jumping - Twisted Face - Exposed Teeth and Tongue - Mad Eyes

It Knows Too Much - Evil Eye - Charges - Kicks and Bites - Swallows Whole

Swallowed - Broken Bones - Distended Jaw - Vore Obsession

9

Bog Mouths

7*

Red Pitcher Plants

Whispering In The Air - Louder and Louder - From The Ground Red Lips - Teeth On The End of a Disgusting Tube

Bites If Tempted - Mimicries Helpless Human - Groups Lunge and Bite Like Lampreys - Spits Acid

Dissolved - Bleeding Bite

10

The Elf

5^

Tree Spirits?

Big Stocky Man - Long Beautiful Hair and Petite Beard - Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall

It Moves The Stones - It Moves the Bramble - It Breaks Down the Walls - It Shatters the Wards - Fight or Argue, And It’s Gone.

Increases Empathy - Increases Encounter Chance



TOWN ENCOUNTERS


d10

Monster

IT

Low Insight Appearance

Description

What It Does

Injuries

1

Good Neighbor

7^

Friendly Neighbor

Voice From The Other Side of the Fence, The Door - A Man, Like Your Dad - It Cannot Be Seen

It Asks Questions - “How Was Your Day?” - “Fine Weather, Isn’t It?” - “Say, Do You Mind If I Borrow Your Hedge Trimmer?”

Reduces Empathy - Reduces Encounter Chance - Permanently Closes Shops

2

Unmarked Van

3

Child Kidnappers

White Exterior - No License Plate - Rooftop Spinning Camera - Unpiloted - Strong Sputtering.

Idles - Stops - Stalks - Idles Again - Van Doors Fly Open Into Vacuum Void.

Lost in Time and Space - Crushed Bones - Broken Ribs.

3

Anonymous Police

5

Federal Police

Riot Gear - Sunglasses - No ID - Incomprehensible Speech -  Armored Vehicles With Strange Machines - Tear Gas Haze

Blocks Road - Clouds of Gas - Sonic Weapon - Loiterers Get Shot - Blockade Runners Get Lethal Force

Concussion - Abduction - Broken Bones - Blindness - Deafness - Mind Scrambling

4

Corona Extractor

1

Junkie

Pale Face - No Pupils - Long Needles and Tubes

Finds the Fresh Corpses - Finds the Incapacitated - Stoops Low - Needle in the Eye - Collect the Liquids

Blindness - Addiction - Stigmata

5

Stalker

0

-

Uncanny Mask - Phone Snapshots - Leaning on Corners - White Rag in Hand

Follows - Keeps Distance - Ambush Isolated Members - Chloroform from Behind - Frantic Apologies During Assault

Abduction - Unconsciousness - Broken Nose

6

Glitcher

4

Meth Head

Static Laden - Impossibly Fast - Twitchy Textures - Frictionless - Infinite Rotational Energy

Clips Through Walls - Teleports - Feedback Screech - Spreads the Glitch - It Tries to Speak, To Warn

Glitching - Broken Record - Fall Under The Kill Plane

7

Rocket Man

7

Suicidal Fresh Driver

Engine Screaming - 120 mph in 30 mph Zone - Full Throttle No Brakes - Being of Pure Light

Doppler Driveby - Rocket Sleds Into Tree/House/Crowd - Crash and Burn - Absolutely Nothing Left

Need For Speed - Shrapnel

8

Crawling Lightning

5

Downed Power Line

Thunder In the Distance - Lightning Crawls the Ground

Move Or Die - It Moves Randomly - Animals Scream As They Die In Its Path

Lightning Shock - Screaming - PTSD

9

Ghoul

3

Escaped Mental Patient

Lumbering Gait - Heavy Breathing - Flash of Teeth - Eyes Like Saucers - Blood, Blood.

Sniffs - Drools - Screams - Charges and Bites.

Paralysis - Bleeding - Blood Sepsis - Deep Hunger.

10

Specular

6^

Black Cat

Eyes Big As Saucers - Black Withered Flesh - Shivering - Squelching - Hungry

Sits In The Middle of the Path - Watches - Watches - Hisses and Shrieks - Cowers Off

Ocular Enlargement - Bad Luck


*Will not interact or attack characters below its IT threshold.

**The Unicorn has multiple Insight Thresholds.

^Generally non-hostile.