Monday, March 8, 2021

Poor Auction

Found by the Wish Well in Wizard City Hexcrawl.

Cruel as Wizard City is, it is not without minute capacity for empathy for the plight of the impoverished. Historically, when the number of wizards in poverty achieves critical mass the city tends to boil over into rebellion, and rebelling wizards are particularly hazardous for capital.

So, after the Second Giant Fist Rebellion of 579, a process was instituted for residential districts to shoulder virtually all the responsibility of assisting the poor... Which naturally gravitated towards the lowest bidder. Districts periodically form assemblies constituting of various property owners to auction off the assignment of handling poor wizards short on magic, known as Poor Auctions. Anyone can partake in these Auctions, provided they can convince the assembly that they're actually doing what they say they'll be doing... Or sometimes not. (Exploitation and fraud are common in these auctions. Nobody's brought them to Suit Court yet, though.)

The resources and facilities provided by these Poor Auctions, while technically free, are notoriously inadequate and inhumane. Anyone can access them, provided they seem impoverished enough.

WHAT ACCOMODATIONS FOR THE MAGICALLY IMPOVERISHED?

d12

Eating...

Clothing...

Living In...

Medical...

Funeral...

1

Transmuted Krill

A used bath towel

An Enlarged Hand-Me-Down Shoe

One shot of cheap whiskey per night.

Thrown in the river.

2

Table scraps, like a dog.

Conspicuous bright orange jumpsuit

A lowest-bidder poorhouse

The communal bandages and splints.

Tossed in the Bottomless Pit.

3

Whey. Nothing but whey.

Bloodstained smock

An extradimensional closet.

Whatever gets scavenged from The Junk Pile

Fed to stray dogs.

4

One half-loaf of moldy bread per day.

Amateur avant garde rejected prototype jerkins

A sewer junction

Whatever gets scavenged from Surgeon Row

Doubled up into an already occupied grave.

5

Thin watery gruel.

Clownishly oversized pantaloons

A sweatshop

Free test samples from medical companies.

Shredded into plant fertilizer.

6

As many roasted rats as you can catch.

Regulation army surplus underwear

The Poor House

Expired serums.

Zombified for work detail.

7

Compacted cockroach protein bars.

Bags N’ Rags

Inexplicable trash cave

“Nothing a little fire won’t cure!”

Donated to science.

8

Anything Soup

Reject ‘Intelligent’ Clothing

A decent cage, as far as cages go

Free amputations.

Adorn a serial-killer’s trophy room.

9

The leftover sticks from Meat-On-A-Stick

A single leaf for modesty

Literal house of cards

Someone shouts at you to ‘just feel better’

Buried in the Junk Pile.

10

Gruel cut with sawdust

Newspaper toga

Gingerbread lean-to (doubles as food!)

A bucket full of anti-louse powder

Catapulted into another district.

11

Grass clippings mixed in water

Louse powder and a burlap sack

A whale’s mouth

Cold showers

Rendered into luxury soap.

12

Get your own food!

Two tank tops

Not-So-Horrible Black Void™

Medical, what medical??

Properly buried, but nobody cares to recall their name.

5 comments:

  1. > Someone shouts at you to ‘just feel better’

    Ah, just like Boarding School

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think this table needs a 13th entry. "Prayer" all across the board.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is so horrible that it loops around into hilarity.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What gets transmuted into the krill?

    Or rather, what *doesn't*? Pretty sure the fifth column might be involved...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh no! Bodies are way too valuable to become krill. Flesh is always in high demand from biomancers and necromancers. Things become krill that wouldn't even make it into a sausage.

      Delete