Thursday, September 2, 2021

The Go

The Go is a wide open green at the heart of the Chronulean campus in Wizard City Hexcrawl. It used to be called "The Diagonal Green". Then eventually the students shortened it to "The Diagon". Then "Diago". Then, simply, "The Go"...  Age is the best indicator for which of these names will be used.

'The Go' is host to a number of University-sponsored and sanctioned activities. It's a popular destination for recruitment and solicitation, due to the considerable foot traffic it gets.

d20

What’s Happening?

1

Two ten-foot solid iron statues of old rich donors are about to have a duel. 

They’ve been doing this for years... They’re picking weapons: 

1) Their canes 2) Fisticuffs 3) Whatever they can grab nearby, like you! 

4) Pistols (Cannons), Twenty Paces 5) Swords stolen from other statues 

6) Pokemon battle with a tiger statue fighting a swan statue.

2

Recruitment drive for “Drain The Drain!”. 

Student wizard activists are soliciting questions to passers: 

1) “Are you comfortable having a giant pool of arcanoactive waste next to YOUR drinking water?”

2) “Hey... Can I interest you guys in like… Saving the world?” (He’s here to get laid)

3) “Hi! Would you like to contribute to SLAYING THE MAGICAL MUCK MONSTER?”

4) Until The Drain gets cleaned, THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! (Shows off horrible mutation)

3

A Brawl. 

4d6 wizard students are having a fistfight. Plenty of spectators. There are no sides. Nobody has any idea why this is happening, they’re just happy to be involved. The Dean is about to show up in force with five of his clones in approximately 2d4 Minutes to break it up and make examples.

4

University Activity Club is Recruiting Members. 

They’ve got a table set up and literature to pass out. 

1) Lightball League - No Contact, No Points, (No Fun)

2) Academic Fencing - Cool facial scars, only moderate chance of hospitalization.

3) Spell Study Club - In case you wanted your extracurricular to be more studying.

4) Knitting League - Competitive. Very competitive. People DIE in Knitting League.

5) Mental Gymnastics Club - For academics, philosophers, politicians, and pedants.

6) The Young Warlocks - A social movement for the de-stigmatization of Pact magic.

7) S.R.C. (Secret Reactionary Committee) -  “A secret committee for the disestablishment of secret committees.”

8) Cloning Clones Club - Want to make clones? Don’t like the ethical or spiritual complications? Then just clone clones instead! (It’s NOT the same!)

5

Internship Drive. 

Companies are recruiting interns for dangerous work and/or free labor.

1) The Security Enterprise Corporation needs a secretary-in-training. Redheads only.

2) Magic Hat Holdings requires a coffee-getter for their Arcane Exchange team. Linebacking skills preferred.

3) Torch-Holders and Porters required for Extranational Expeditions. Funeral expenses provided.

4) Chronulean Patent Enforcement Force requires someone who can read. To read things. You will not be paid.

5) The Bookprinter’s Cartel - Learn monopolization skills and bashing skulls.

6) Crypt Currencies LLC - Nobody is sure how anything works or what work is being done, but money is made, so nobody questions it.

7) Do you like arson AND extortion? Join the Fire Brigade!

8) Failing in your studies? Have you considered police brutality as a career? Join Patent Enforcement today!

6-12

Students Hanging Out.

1) Spider Studies Major is spinning web-hammocks in a tree. Pretty cool.

2) Sophomores tossing a Lightball back and forth using their Light wands. No risk of contact.

3) Couple of green pals, photosynthesizing. Tank tops and sunglasses.

4) Friends chilling around a magic circle, holding hands. Doesn’t seem terribly ominous.

5) Pair of gals casually chatting about blood magic.

6) Meditative grad student is focusing on visions of the apocalypse. Does not want to be disturbed.

7) Freshmen cautiously picking at mysterious jiggling food acquired from off-campus.

8) A few juniors are walking their familiars and chatting about summoning sword demons.

9) Two brains-in-jars privately giggling and badmouthing professors.

10) Two-headed senior is having a conversation with themself about how annoying eavesdroppers are.

11) Gaggle of juniors talking loudly and acting inebriated, drinking out of bagged bottles secretly containing weird little demons.

12) Elven music major is waving around a grass reed, conducting a symphony of cicadas and crickets.

13) An Accounting student is simultaneously counting every person entered, step taken, and word spoken in The Go.

14) Two amateur linguists are attempting to Speak with Earth on the rock monument devoted to the Class of 499.

15) A cheery senior from the Department of Torture is outlining their thesis on the history of skin flaying to a group of horrified freshmen.

16) A lass is practicing enunciation to summon a disease demon… “DISSSS-entery.. Hmm, no… Dis-EN-tery…” Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe without a proper subject.

17) Three lads are practicing drawing perfect circles with chalk. Harder than it looks.

18) A tall guy is feeding the squirrels and turning them purple.

19) A small cohort of students are writing advertisements for cults in chalk on the sidewalk. (See: #17)

20) Three juniors with strange goggles are staring up high, aghast at something invisible and giant.

13

Protest. 

6d10 people present.

1) Students Against Textbook Hikes - The Bookprinter’s Cartel hiked textbook prices again. People are understandably upset. Great place to ask around for black market locations on and off campus. Cartel infiltrators present.

2) Custodians For Additional Designated Shrines - Nobody present. They won their demands. Nobody messes with the Custodians, not even Administration.

3) Faculty Against Proliferation of Cults - There are just far too many cults. How do we even keep track of them all? It seems like there’s a dozen every day. They’re not anti-cult (they’re fine with older ones), just anti-new-cult.

4) Graduate Students Against Committee Protocols - There is exactly one very brave graduate student. They’re probably doomed.

5) Student Groups Against Systematic Brainwashing - They've done this yearly protest at least four times in the last month alone.

6) Students and Faculty for Departmental Peace - They want an end of hostilities with the pariah History Department. Concessions and Pardons should be given to bring an end to the violence.

14

Special Event! 

6d10 Students present.

1) Academic Triathlon - Elite students compete in three back-to-back categories: memorization, incantation, and somatics. 

2) Renewal of the Abjurative Demons - Powerful summoning ritual performed by faculty to summon tolerable demons that will keep truly dangerous demons at bay for another harvest season.

3) The Department of Spying is having its monthly Spy vs. Spy war game. People are being faux-abducted and assassinated with probably-harmless magic.

4) Concert. Loud experimental bands approved by student secret committees. Large crowd gathered.

15

Panhandler. 

They will move on or be removed by The Dean within 1 Hour.

1) Brain in a jar of a guy who sounds drunk, despite having no orifices or body. “Hey, spare some brain fluid?”

2) Forgetful Student. “Can I bug you for a couch to surf? I lost my memories and don’t have a place to stay.”

3) Reality Junky. “Spare some Spellgold? This reality just ain’t good enough anymore, y’know?”

4) Bum Animancer. “Hey man, got some juice? I haven’t bestowed the gift of sentience in like… hours!”

5) Bum Transmuter. “Want some change?”

6) Curse Eater. Holding a cardboard sign:  “Any Curse Helps. Fates Bless.” Will literally eat cursed stuff.

16

A Tour. 

One tour guide plus 4d6 attendees in tow.

1) Student orientation tour. Tour guide talks about how the statues periodically duel, what buildings to avoid, and to NOT TOUCH THE UNIVERSITY SEAL.

2) Student re-orientation tour. Occasionally students lose their memories and must be reacquainted with the university.

3) Administrative Audit. Shadow-faced suits on route to a PURGE. They carry bloody swords and faculty evaluations.

4) Business Wizards. Suits and balding heads. On their way to witness some potentially profitable science.

17

Advertisement!

1) Magic Mouth. Only appears if you’re in debt. “NEED CREDIT?? Shark Loans! No questions asked!”

2) Chalk message. “Church of the Spoon. Sundays at 3.”

3) Flyers. “If you can understand this expression, join the Hypermath Cult.” Total mathematical nonsense… unless you’re high or hallucinating.

4) Chalk message. “Don’t look at page 26.” Code for the latest issue of The Waking Eye - which page will cause the magazine to self-destruct.

18

Construction. Hazardous

3d10 Spatial Engineers from the Bureau of Space and Time are here, moving entire buildings around. Blockades are set up. The Go has become a labyrinth. An uncareful student can fall in and find a building has been moved on top of them.

19

Anomalous Event. 

Something strange is happening…

1) All students present are standing perfectly still, gazing up at the sky. After a few moments they continue on with their routines, oblivious to what just happened.

2) The Greens are permeated with strange holes in reality. If one’s not careful one can fall in and become Lost in Space and Time.

3) A student is screaming and clutching their head, ranting about ‘the programming inside us all. The Archmages, they’re controlling everyone!’. Secret police from the city are about to arrive and make him disappear.

4) “Eat The Rich” scrawled in chalk. After seeing this, the next time one encounters a wealthy individual they’ll try to cannibalize them.

5) Mural painted on the sidewalk: a black-robed individual in the distance, as if coming from out of the desert. Contagious memetic virus. Visions of this approaching man. When he arrives within a week, one will be compelled to mindlessly head east into the desert (and likely perish from exposure).

6) Mystical Portal has appeared. It goes to a random location in the city.

20

Nothing… 

(Which always means something.) Overrides other entries if rolled.

1) The Go is entirely empty, except for the Statues.

2) The Go is entirely empty, even the Statues.

3) The Go simply does not exist right now. You enter one side and exit out the other without remembering a thing.

4) The Go does not exist narratively or sequentially in your campaign. Skip over it entirely and accept no questions.

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