[Secret Jackalope] New Darwin

Secret Jackalope for Isaak H.

~~~~~~

They named the town after that whose teachings they held most dear.
Never having read more of his writing than that oft-recited axiom: 'Survival of the Fittest'.

It is not a place for intellectuals. It's a place for truth-isms and life savings converted into weapon stocks and canned beans. Brought the county to #1 in the country for density of nutritional fiber-per-square-mile, all on its own. Half the people will tell you that they'll resort to cannibalism and banditry without moral quandary when, not if, the shit hits the fan. The obesity rate is 77%.

~~~~~~

New Darwin is a Prepper town, population 57. Place it in whatever biome you wish. For me, it'll be underground. It has a continuously-growing canned food supply that can sustain those 57 people for 90 years, provided one half doesn't eat the other first. The average life expectancy for these 10 people is 50.

PUBLIC PLACES

"The Big Arse"
Everyone jokingly calls it that, but nobody's supposed to (it makes Robert and Mack uncomfortable). Underground bunker leads to a can't-unsee-it entrance: big circular metal door flanked by two voluptuous pads of insulation.

There are enough weapons and ammo inside the arsenal to overthrow a small nation. People from town donate extra ammo and weapons to the communal stockpile. Managed by Nathan.

The Commons
This is where the people of New Darwin think about how they're going to punish criminals and bandits during the apocalypse. Everyone has spent some time or another fantasizing about using the old oak tree for hangings, or setting up a stockades, or digging a pit to fill full of snakes.

Everyone's got their own plans for how they want to develop The Commons during the apocalypse, and it's likely to become a serious (even violent) point of contention once shit hits the fan.

Someone's publicly fantasizing and reminiscing about establishing...

1. A Hanging Tree
2. A Wheel of Death
3. Stockades for Misdemeanors
4. Medieval Cage Torture, with Spikes
5. A Field of Spikes
6. A Pit of Snakes

Firing Range
Nobody around for miles. Numerous wrecks of cars pilfered with holes. Somebody's set up a bunch of umbrellas to protect from the sun. Somebody else has a habit of making strange patterns on the ground with bullet casings, and it's starting to weird everyone out.

Twice a year Mack likes to bring out a Minigun and fire off a few thousand rounds.

The Patchwork Wall
Everyone in town is required to contribute something to The Wall. One share of one segment every season. As such, it's a ridiculous patchwork - like fifty different walls all trying to be one. Perhaps, if anyone except Robert actually cared about building a wall, it'd be decent.

It has as many weak points as people in town +1, which is to say 58. It has 58 weak points. It is functionally useless, keeping out neither animal nor man. As an art installation, however, it's moderately interesting.

This section of The Patchwork Wall is...

1. Stacked cinder blocks
2. Wooden palisade with extra spikes
3. Chain link
4. A moat
5. Unfinished
6. Cobbled stone
7. Sheet metal
8. Massively graffiti'd on the outside
9. Solid cement
10. Moldy unsupported drywall.

EVENTS

Use once then discard.

1. They're attacking! Who?? We don't know! Town is on full alert, everyone's got their guns. Every public alley is now a killzone to anyone looking remotely suspicious. False alarm from a miscommunication from Big Mac.
2. A posse is being rounded up to confront two college-age backpackers near the perimeter. It's probably going to amount to an assault charge.
3. Bulk shipment. An anonymous townsperson brought in a bulk shipment, and nobody's sure what to do with 10,000... 1) Heads of broccoli   2) Packages of plastic army men.   3) Fruit juicers    4) Civil War reenactment hats   5) Bottles of hair conditioner   6) Nondenominational Christmas sweaters
4. Factionalism. Roll 1d6 twice on People below. They're taking opposing sides on the issue of... 1) Letting in new members   2) Saving vs. Spending   3) Water Management   4) Pets? Yes/No
5. A sheriff's deputy has arrived. Investigating a missing person's case. He's getting completely stonewalled and is increasingly frustrated by these people.
6. War of the Worlds. Someone's pranking the ham radio operators into thinking that body snatchers are taking over. Things could get dangerous if the rumors aren't quelled and the source identified. (Note: Being investigative makes you seem more like a doppelganger.)
7. Infiltration. A mole for the government has just been exposed. People are trying to decide what to do with them.
8. Standoff on the range. Heated argument about shooting may lead to an actual shooting. You can hear the shouting from anywhere in town.
9. Mines - Serious medical accident. Someone was experimenting with making land mines and got themselves blown up, along with seriously injuring a few innocent folks. The worst news is that there might be more land mines on the property.
10. Oil discovered on property. News is spreading quickly. If the whole town finds out then so will the multinationals. If the whole town finds out then there will be speculators everywhere.

PEOPLE

Generally, people will trade for things they hoard. They'll give things they're generous with for free, if you're considered a trusted person.

1. Mack "Big Mac" Johnson
Age: 52
Appearance: Hamburger scar with a side of balding.
Hoards: Gold, Mayonnaise (Eggs), .45 ammunition
Generous With: Axiomatic Truth-isms
Notes: He loves, loves, to run everybody, especially his family, through surprise mock exercises to test the security of New Darwin. Excessively so. People are fine with drills now and again, but they're getting real sick of him jumping out of bushes, in mask with guns and bayonet, and 'mock-robbing' everyone at gunpoint, 'testing for weakness'. Everyone hates this, but they tolerate it because he's a figure of authority.

2. Anastasia Johnson
Age: 35
Appearance: Tired, exasperated, but relieved.
Hoards: Money, Contact Lenses, Documents
Generous With: Information
Notes: Pretends to be spoiled. Hates all this Prepping business. But that's because she's lived through an apocalypse: a siege that lasted years. She's the only person in New Darwin who's been tested, and has skills she keeps to herself out of distrust for everyone else.

3. Nathan
Age: 36
Appearance: A bundle of toothpicks and freckles wearing camo pants.
Hoards: Guns, More Guns, Vitamins
Generous With: Blame
Notes: Takes four times the amount of vitamins per day than a person should. This is slowly causing organ damage to his liver and kidneys. He's starting to think somebody is poisoning him - technically this is true - and when he finds out he'll 'shoot that person dead'. He suspects the women first, because 'poison is a woman's weapon', and Robert because he thinks his onerous criticism means he'd like him dead.

4. Rebecca
Age: 36
Appearance: Ponytail, sunglasses. Jogger.
Hoards: Silver, .22 LR ammunition, porno mags
Generous With: Tools
Notes: Doesn't actually read, enjoy, or even like porn mags. She simply believes they'll be worth their weight in gold once the apocalypse hits. Cheery personality. Her generosity with tools greatly annoys Robert.

5. Pam O'Neil
Age: 49
Appearance: Floral pattern dresses and a cane.
Hoards: Insulin, Wine, Pickles (Vegetables)
Generous With: Maps
Notes: Diabetic. Meticulously maintains refrigeration units to maintain said hoard of Insulin. This has made her a decent amateur electrician.

6. Robert O'Neil
Age: 54
Appearance: Weathered elder with a raisin of a mole
Hoards: Bibles, .22 LR ammunition, Tools
Generous With: Onerous Criticism
Notes: When all the religious leaders inevitably die in the apocalypse (from 'being too weak'), he plans to fill the vacuum (and 'get it right this time'). Gets into snippy fights with Rebecca when she's generous with tools.

7. Alex Johnson
Age: 6
Appearance: Dumb haircut, first few teeth fell out
Hoards: Jellybeans, Small Animals, Action Figures
Generous With: Guides and Tours
Notes: Nice kid, hard to understand. Speaks a barely-decipherable fusion of English and Russian.

Alex Schroeder's Campaign Questions

I have, in fact, been running my campaign for a while, so I'll offer some reflections for Alex S's recent inquiry. We play 5e D&D.

How many sessions have you been playing, more or less?
Give or take 70.

How long have you been running this campaign?
Since October 2015.

Have you had long breaks? If so, how did you pick it up again?
There was one or two points around the 1 year and 2 year marks where we didn't play in at least a month.

How many people are at the table when you play?
Between 3-6. Averages 4.

How many characters are in the party when you play?
Each player controls 2 characters, but only plays one at a time. This was due to some shenanigans I'll explain later.

How many players have you had in total over that time period, not counting guest appearances?
11. Of the initial 4 who I began with, 1 remains in full and 1 remains part time.

About two years in, due to lack of activity I decided to revamp the campaign and begin a second play group made of entirely new people acting simultaneously within the campaign world. Eventually, as numbers dwindled, I combined the two groups again into one.

Have you had guest appearances? How did it go? Did you gain regular players that way?
Sometimes we'd have one of my siblings make a guest appearance, or had someone's husband show up. It went pretty fine. Usually they were quite impressed with how I ran things.

What have the character levels been over time?
Levels 1-13. Rapidly progressed over the first two years until level 11. Then, when the second group was formed, I brought peoples' levels down to be closer to newcomers. They've steadily crept up and equalized until they're now at 13.

What classes did the players pick? Did you add new classes over time?
We've had everything at one point or another except a Sorcerer. We added the Artificer when it came out recently.

Tell me about some adventures you ran over that time that I might enjoy hearing about?
I think my best one was an assassination plot against the party. I used one of Arnold K's d6 Assassins, Wizened Grudlow specifically. Had him announce his arrival 24 Hours ahead of time, like all good assassins do. In a metagame effect, I wrote down all of Grudlow's resources and tactics on small sheets of paper, folded them up, then put them in the middle of the table before the players even started planning their defense. I then let them prepare.

Party did some information gathering first. Found out that an Archmage they'd recently stolen from had hired the assassin. They then broke into the Bureau of Spatial and Temporal Matters, went back in time to try and alter the present, and spectacularly ensured that the assassination would occur. Grudlow, even in the past, out-foxed 'em. At least, though, they knew some more about who was coming after them.

They prepped a holdout at the Black Magic Fraternity's headquarters. Clocks placed every square meter to track Grudlow as he approached. Exploding suicidal zombies. Black Magic Brothers armed to the teeth. A Thousand Curses to be flung upon he who crossed the threshold.

Grudlow approaches. Time slows down. I'm playing that assassin theme from Kill Bill on my laptop, but distorted and reversed. I unveil Grudlow's chef strategy, placed there at the start of the session: he's going to burn the place down from the outside and watch everyone slow roast. He throws two torches in through the front door.

Suicide zombies out. Next preemptive strategy revealed: sniper on the roof. Nails the zombies, they explode on contact. Place is on fire. Party leaves through the back alley, having seen what happened to the zombies. They had Haste potions before, so they use them to escape the flames. In the back alley, they get ambushed by a shapeshifter and a trash wizard. Deal with them easy enough, despite their Haste as well.

After that, they approach the main alley where Grudlow is waiting. Monk takes a peek, avoiding a shot from the sniper. Fighter takes the next shot on a shield while the monk uses their Adjacency Glove (TM) to become adjacent to the sniper, then monk-kicks him off the roof.

Grudlow's got two lackeys with him. I reveal the next bit of paper: a hostage. He took an important employee of the party, and now he had a knife at her throat. Monk wins initiative, thinks he can save the hostage with some quick moves. As this happens, the last bit of paper gets revealed: the hostage is a disguised assassin. The monk goes from full health to dead in a single turn, shanked by a poison blade and cut to pieces by Grudlow.

Then begins the chase. During which, the lackeys take some hits and leave before going down. Grudlow pursues to the bitter end. With his constant Slow aura he's able to keep up with the party no matter what. Three turns of the luckiest Hold Person saves in favor of the party keep Grudlow frozen while the party beats him down. Barely. Of the 4 PCs that started: one dead, one unconscious, one mutilated, and one standing.

Have the rule changes over that time? Do you maintain a house-rules document?
I do maintain a house-rules document, or rather, a couple. We began RAW, then an injury table was added, then Saving Throws for certain abilities and spells were shifted around. Then I threw out the WotC Monster Manual entirely and stuck with my homebrew.

Has the setting changed over time?
It has. Things shift around and change whenever I think of better ideas for them, or the old ideas run out of juice. A lot of my old material has been replaced. A recent example was that I entirely replaced my old Wizard City with the entirely new Wizard City that I'm writing on my blog right now, but having the city zip up in a bubble and undergo a 50 year timeskip.

How much in-game distance did the party cover, how big is the area they have visited?
They have access to an airship, but the world of Tidelock is very compressed. They've probably covered an area the size of India.

Have you used proprietary setting books? Like, could you publish your campaign or would you be in trouble if you did?
The campaign world is like... 5 campaigns worth of materials. Nearly all of them have some proprietary adventurers thrown in to fill up the gaps, but nothing that couldn't easily be excised. I'd need to change the names of my Archmages - they're a bunch of Greyhawk character names.

Secret Santicore - Flowery Orcs

This one's for Gorinch. Happy Santicore!

Why do Orcs have orchids on their banners and shields?

Testimonies from the folk who killed them.

"Well, because orcs are plants, of course. Of course! Who didn't know that? I mean, they pop out of the earth like crocuses after a Spring rain, right in time for war season. Everyone knows that, like they know foxes are birthed of fall leaves and wind comes from giants' farts. It's the equivalent of putting a human head or a hand as the symbol on your banner. You want to get your point across about how brutal your war party is."

Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur of 1899

"It's a symbol of their elite warrior caste. It lets their enemies know that they seek a Flower Death - one born of highest skill and glory in ritual battle. Those who die this way are rewarded greatly by their gods in the afterlife. Orcs displaying this banner expect to fight duels with particular members of the opposition - soldiers they've heard about or have known personally, either before a battle or during it. Other popular formats of the combat include fighting as pairs, or small groups of 4-16. The key, though, is that both sides it must be balanced in numbers. All participants in this fighting are to be awarded the Flower Death, regardless of victory."

"The pollen of the orchid induces a mighty bloodlust in the orcs. You will often see them shaking their banners and crashing their shields. This releases the stored pollen, causing a rallying surge of rage to those nearby."

"It is a reminder. A symbol of the divine betrayal between elves and orc kind, for an orchid was a gift of unrequited love of the first orc to the first elf. Since the first of elves spurned their friendship, their descendants have known only conflict and war. The orchid serves as a reminder of the original sin of elves."

"The orchids are obtained when an elf warrior completes his training by scaling the Matterhorn, where the snow white flowers exclusively grow. The orcs staple them to their shields and banners to testify that they slew these great warriors."

"I heard it started as a practical joke, or a lost bet. Orchids on shields? Hilarious! Ridiculous! But then they found out that gnolls are deathly afraid of them, and flee in terror at the sight. Now it's practiced without irony."

"Part of the Orc mating ritual. The women hoist the orchid banner to proudly claim that only those who best them in combat shall earn their hand in marriage. The men who fail are slain. Ahh, courtship!"

"Divine mandate declares that if you're going to bring ugliness into the world, you must balance it with beauty. This provides a conundrum for war: one of the ugliest acts a culture can enact. To maintain the protection of the gods, the Orcs plant orchids and other flowering things after battles, turning blood and gut-stained scorched earth into mausoleum-gardens. It's not uncommon for these flowering plants to bear sweet fruit, called Clarets. The use of The Orchid motif on their shields and banners communicates just how ugly the Orcs plan on getting. If there are few orchids, expect an orderly battle with possibility of surrender. If there are many, anticipate a painful bloodbath."

From Steven Universe

"There is a magic secret known by the Orcs. Those things which bear the Seal of the Orchid of Thios are indestructible in the Spring time. They shall not be torn or splintered, be it shield, banner, or man. however, in one season's time they shall inevitably wither and die, in body and soul. This loss is acceptable for shields and banners as they have no use after war season. For men, however, it is only acceptable for those seeking a martyr's oblivion."

Deadwind Redux

I'm a little late to the New New Crobuzon party. Previous entries: Pandeimos, New Twain, City of Stones and Spirits, City of Emination, The Last City, Thaw, Unnamed City, The City by the Styx.

Back when I'm pretty sure barely a single soul read my blog, I wrote about the Island-City of Deadwind. And now that the possibly exists that I may actually need to run it, it's time for some revisions. And, perhaps, this shall coincide with the semi-recent city challenge! As just so happens, its format works pretty well for how I imagined the city.

Three Humanoid Minorities: Drow, Orcs, Falselings (Tieflings). 

Three Monstrosities: Gullmen (Harpies), Statues (Golems), The Ghost of Liberty (Otyugh)

Deadwind

How does one design a just society? This was the question at the heart of the birth of Deadwind. To answer it, two principles were assumed:

1) Everyone is to have basic liberties afforded to everyone else.
2) Everyone should have opportunities to hold power.

The Prophetess Sarah Burckenfield, channeling the Goddess Liberty, stricken with divine inspiration, declared magnanimously to her followers:

"A JUST SOCIETY IS A FREE SOCIETY. GO, NOW, MY DISCIPLES, AND BUILD A CITY UPON THE ROCK WHICH THE VENGEFUL WINDS SCORN. BUILD, AND BE FREE IN THE LIBERTY I SHALL PROVIDE!"

And so it was thus. On the Island-City of Deadwind, by divine mandate the hands of power shall change every three days. There shall be unceasing revolution, that the powers of Leviathan should never take hold. Thus, shall everyone benefit from the universal liberties and true equality owed to all people.

Deadwind, in its truest sense, is an anarchistic pirate colony with civil unrest built into its bones. It has no monetary system, no codified laws, and no entrenched class systems... At least none lasting longer than three days. Everyone has virtually the same opportunities as anyone else to temporarily hold the trappings of power, no matter how fit or unfit they may be. Trappings of power backed up by a goddess, no less.

To determine the government for the present three-day period, I'd recommend using the most interesting forms of government you can find. Such as These, And These. And when you've run out of great ideas or feel like throwing things to the dice gods, then consult the table:

ON THE THIRD NIGHT, THE GODDESS LIBERTY DOTH ANNOUNCE...

d30	The Government Shall Be A(n)...	Formed By...	Contested Governments Shall Be Resolved By...
1	Anarchy (None)	Captains	Duelling Tournament
2		Merchants	Races
3		Priests	Oral Argument
4	Republic (The Elect)	Children	Runoff Election
5		Adults	Scavenger Hunt
6		Thieves	Bribery
7	Oligarchy (The Few)	Non-Natives	Board Games
8		Natives	Wrestling
9		Prostitutes	Lottery
10	Democracy (Everyone)	Capitalists	Prophecy
11		Slaves	Poetry / Rap Battle
12		The Illiterate	King of the Hill
13	Monarchy (The Chosen)	The Disenfranchised	Battle Royale
14		The Dead	Rock-Paper-Scissors
15		The Rich	Essay
16	Tyranny (The Illegitimate)	The Elderly	The Dice
17		Children	Fishing
18		Philosophers	Eating
19	Law-Abiding Society	Bards	Personal Sacrifice
20		Warriors	Strength
21		Literally Everyone	Stamina
22	Federation (Roll twice or thrice on next columns)	The Mob	Seduction
23		Corporations	Craftsmanship
24		The Least-Qualified	Pets
25	Technocracy (The Skilled)	Police	Drug Use
26		Magic-Users	Suicide (Martyrdom)
27		Monsters	Russian Roulette
28	Omniarchy (Gestalt Consciousness)	The Loudest	Dangerous Feat
29		The Smartest	Resource-Gathering
30		Apprentices	Nothing. Civil Strife It Is!

CULTURE

So, let's say you've achieved ultimate divinely-mandated power. What can you do? Well... Virtually anything, provided it won't bring absolute end to the society. Most people in Deadwind, however, decide to do nothing with their power. Absolutely nothing. It's the safest option, to be sure, for Deadwind has a strong culture of eventual reprisals against those who use their power to inconvenience others. The riskiest maneuver you can do is to piss someone off, no matter how much power they wield, 'cause that can turn around before Sunday.

People will usually obey any commands given to them by people in authority, though they typically won't like it. These are usually pirates and pirate-aligned folk, after all, they have a mean anti-authoritarian streak. Completely disobeying, however, is considered a moderate sacrilege. Revolution and dissent is expected, when the time is right. Rebellion is not.

The second most common occurrence is that the people in power throw a party in their own honor. It's like the equivalent of a payday celebration, lasting three days and nights, usually including all the losers of the Contested Government, to make sure there's no sour feelings which might result in reprisals.

Singing is common and public. The combination of sailing culture and the dubiousness of property ownership means instruments and other material entertainments can be rare. If someone's doing something on Deadwind, there's probably a song or a tune about it.

DROW

If there's one thing Drow hate, it's being told how to organize their society by a freedom-loving goddess. But if there's one thing Drow love, it's chaos in a foreign country.

Drow who can't make it in Twilight City make the arduous journey to Deadwind in hopes of wielding power and getting rich. The egalitarian pirate culture is well-suited to countering the biases against them they find in other societies. There's a deep subconscious connection between the Drow and the Ocean, and many of them describe taking to a waves as a kind of awakening - a rediscovery of a past life, a delve into genetic cultural memory.

How much suspicion the Drow are treated with is largely dependent on how many there are. A lone Drow alone doesn't ruffle any freedom-feathers for the Deadwinders. A pair of Drow is a conspiracy. Three is a Coup. The more Drow together, the more they are mistreated with intimidation, violence, and (temporary) systematic oppression.

ORCS

Everyone's got their own definition of Freedom. For the Orcs, that definition usually involves their personal freedom to inflict physical violence. They rarely get the idea of Deadwind.

As such, they're usually the first question a government addresses: What do we do with those darned Orcs? Do we ignore them? Exile them? Imprisonment? Genocide? Force them into gladiatorial combat? (They usually approve of that one.) Force them to clean the docks? (They hate that one, more than the genocide, actually.)

Orc-lead governments on the island are almost always all the same thing: The Purge. Three days of continuous violence and anarchy. Liberty has never interfered with this form of government, but it's not very popular with the Deadwinders, and almost always results in new-government-led reprisals following that period.

FALSELINGS

Everyone finds these guys hilarious. Philosophers? On Deadwind?! Everyone's pretty sure Philosophy has been solved forever, and all those Falselings are just beating a dead horse whenever they pontificate on the ideal forms of government.

Historical case-in-point, the Falseling Philosopher-King Astranarilus famously gained rulership some thirty years ago by a monumental 100% mandate from the populace through his superior skills of rhetoric and rulership. Those three days were the most prosperous and peaceful the city had known in its entire history. Folks named their children after him. Strangers pledged their lives in service to his greatness. People were writing and singing songs about him by his government's end!

The very next day, a toddler-king made him eat shit. Literally. Three days of the only act of government being "Astranarilus must eat poop all day long!". And he did it. He ate shit as only the greatest philosopher-king could eat shit: like a fucking god. He died from eating too much excrement, and was promptly buried at sea. And so he passed into legend...

And this is why nobody takes the Falselings seriously anymore. It doesn't matter how great and perfect your ideas are, because the next day a complete moron could have you eating poop.

GULLMEN

From Ugly Americans

Filthy flying fat humans with seagull brains and feathers, stealing food and folk alike, for FREEDOM. Their catch-all catchphrase, the "FREEDOM" squawk. Steal food from your hand? "Freedom!" Kidnap a baby to sell to slaver-pirates for rotten fish? "FREEDOM!!" Dive bomb poop in your yawning open mouth at the crest of dawn?

"FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!"

Maybe they just really really like Freedom TM? Or maybe that's their language: consisting entirely of tonal and contextual permutations of the word "Freedom". Or maybe they just use that word a lot because they know it triggers a sympathetic Pavlovian response in the freedom-loving populace of Deadwind. Maybe... Maybe! Maybe they're just operating on the Truest, the greatest, the most ultimate levels of liberty! The kind that involves pooping in unsuspecting peoples' open mouths.

Anyway, nobody cares if you mistreat or kill them. Except maybe some of the more aesthetically-minded Liberty Clerics, those weirdos.

STATUES

Statues of the Goddess Liberty - the defense system for the preservation of the city's society. If any person or faction becomes so powerful that they could effectively prevent the transference of power as divinely mandated, the Goddess herself possesses these statues to, let's say... equal the playing field...

...WITH GIANT STONE FISTS OF FREEDOM!

The Goddess Liberty and her army of muse-golems will beat your ass into a puddle of soup for the Gullmen to slurp up if you mess with her mandate. They're immune to divine magic. They're ten feet tall and hard as nails. There are more of them than can be taken account. And if somehow all of them are destroyed she'll start animating coffins, bloody pieces of furniture, houses, or whole-damned sea-faring ships.

Fear the Barricade Elemental

This has famously happened several times in the oral history of Deadwind, almost always to foreign visitors who, once coming into power by the lottery of Liberty's mandate, refused to give it up once their allotted time was finished, or tried to break the system by guile and cleverness.

For Example: The now-infamous Drow House Siliman, upon gaining power, lead by the newly christened Novo-Matriarch Uulisil, quickly created a class structure to use one-third of the population to sell the other two-thirds of the island's population into slavery and ship them abroad. During the spare time they destroyed every single Liberty statue on the island. At 3 Day's end, the ships carrying the island's population morphed into giant Liberty ship-mechas and blasted the Drow into oblivion while angry freed-mobs rained projectiles from their shoulders.

The Orcs, once upon gaining power, simply decided to round everyone up and slaughter them all at once. They succeeded in a few instances, before the Barricade Elementals came.

The Wizards of Chronulus, upon gaining power, attempted to extend their 3-Day rule by using time magic to repeat the same three days over and over. Guess who's still stuck in that revolutionary time loop? It sure as hell ain't the people living there now!

THE GHOST OF LIBERTY

Dark Souls 2 - The Gutter

Well... At this point in writing this post I have made two references to ingesting poop, which is exactly two more references than I wanted or intended to make. Might as well make it a hat trick.

There's a spirit of the city. A ghost, some call it. The Ghost of Liberty. It lives in the narrow dead-end alleys, down under the filthy Gullman-infested docks, by the seashore caves among shrines of flotsam and ocean-weeds. It causes coffins to spring from their graves and barricades to suddenly explode like volcanic spew. Where detritus gathers (as often it does) the spirit lingers, disassembling and scattering and disappearing the waste. It keeps the architecture narrow and winding, it makes deep places of stacked refuse and collapses monuments of projected power into sinkholes.

The Ghost is to the city as a beaver is to its river: it moderates the ecosystem. It provides shelter and it taketh away. It tears up city blocks overnight and rebuilds them askew and crooked. It maximizes surface area. It whispers in alien dialects to the soft vulnerable minds of pirate drunkards, telling them the secrets of its sustenance...

"Release thine bowels in the gutter. Nobody will know. I doth require snack."