More Ancient Amino Foes

This got too long again. The Oppression Engine requires its own, separate post.

Continuation of this post here.

GroES/GroEL, a Chaperone Protein, imaged in Rasmol: Source

Neckcracker Enzyme

Nature never intended them to be so ruthlessly efficient at separating cervical vertebrae. They were meant to remove toxic oxygen gas - a problem long circumvented. Unfortunately for us, the biological machinery meant to ensure its half-life is gone. Now they're just salty white seizure blobs that can snap exactly one kind of person's neck in an instant.

Typically found a half-dozen at a time.

AC Unarmored  HP 10  HD 2  Speed Half Std.

1d4 + Grapple

Construct Immunities - Technically not "alive".
Caustic Body - Strong toxic salts causes those who touch with bare skin to take 1d4 damage.
Freshwater Vulnerability - Deionized water or acid will contort the Neckcracker Enzyme into an "inactive state". One ration's worth should do.
Oxygen Eater - When a Neckcracker is in its "inactive state", it quickly consumes oxygen gas in its immediate proximity. Approximately 5'x5' in 1 minute.
Neck Crack - Successful grapple on target provokes Save vs. Paralyzation or death as protein finds the neck and performs instantaneous cervical dislocation.

Specificity - Each Neckcracker Enzyme attacks and pursues only one kind of individual. See table below.

What is this Neckcracker Enzyme Attuned To?

1. Amputees
2. The Emotionally Depressed
3. Murderers
4. Secret-Keepers
5. Those with Facial Scars
6. Those who Sired Children
7. Actively Breathing People
8. Those who Speak Elvish
9. Anything with STR > 10
10. Anything with WIS < 10
11. Virgins
12. Wizards
13. Liars/Charlatans
14. The Innocent
15. Traitors
16. Assassins
17. Children
18. Pets
19. The Damned
20. Beautiful People

Omni-Polymerase (Auto Polyps)

Little known fact: everything is a monomer, and merely is unaware of the fact.

Omni-Polymerases are practically indistinguishable from conglomerate rock formations, until a nearby heat source activates them. Once that occurs these basketball-sized proteins go about chomping on every little thing with its grotesque flailing jaws, polymerizing anything nearby. Reminiscent of Pac-Man with everything-cancer.

AC As Leather  HP 24  HD 5  Speed Normal

2d8 + Polymerize

Construct Immunities - Technically not "alive".

Heat Activated - Omni-Polymerases remain inactivated until heated, such as exposure to volcanic heat, torches, or magical fire. They may be handled safely in this form.

Polymerize - Save vs. Petrification or roll on the Polymerization Table below. Objects of similar composition become polymerized - attached to each other into a chain. Objects are glued at the molecular level, and cannot be separated without dealing damage to the object or host. 1d8 damage should do.

Polymerization Table

All objects affected by Polymerization become 'primed' to receive a similar object and add it to the chain. Merely touching another object attaches it. Another hit of Polymerization is required to 'prime' one tip of the chain again. There is no limit to how long the chain can get.

An object may be affected by multiple types of polymerization.

1. Decapitation - gaping neck to gut.
2. Self-autopolymerization - flesh begins to cross-link into itself, eventually compressing subject into fleshy sphere. 
3. Hands to Heads - in head-patting gesture.
4. Hands to hands - like stringed paper cutout stick figures.
5. Arms to Legs - at perpendicular angles.
6. Legs to Legs - up the seams, like 3-legged race position.
7. Torso to torso inverted - like playing card royalty. Chain stacks in alpha helix.
8. Feet to hands - soul to palm.
9. Head to head, feet to feet - tops of heads and bottoms of feet to each other.
10. Hands through Gut - sticks through, poking out backside.
11. Treasure/Packs
12. Magical Items
13. Torchs/Flammable Items
14. Armor
15. Weapons
16. Dreams - those in chain share dreams. Their bodies are polymerized in the dream state, like 1-10 above, random.
17. Shadows
18. Words - removeallspacesfromwords. If player can't act this, character doesn't talk, merely incomprehensibly mumbles.
19. Brains - all subjects in chain become hivemind.
20. Everything. Become 'sticky', fusing flesh to anything and everything touched.

Ancient Amino Foes of the Plastic Epoch

Shoot, I'm splitting this post up into three parts, 'cause this is getting long.

A silly little love-rant about proteins.

Some protein monsters, if proteins could be really big. I'm talking, like, Yotta-Daltons. These guys are something you'd find on the deepest level of the dungeon - The Oldest Epoch. They are without inhibition and are merciless. They aren't even really "alive".

From Lydia Kang's blog. Also, a good summary of prions.

Prion Golem

There is absolutely no evolutionary reason Prion Golems should take a humanoid form. Much less half of one. Which half varies. Their touch turns mammals inside-out.

AC As Chain  HP 32  HD 6

1d8 + Assimilating Touch

Construct Immunities - Technically not "alive".
Mammal Homing - Prion Golems ignore non-mammalian targets.

Inverting Touch - On hit, Save vs. Poison. Failure causes the target to turn inside-out over 2d8 Rounds as every single protein in the target's body starts to fold out of shape. See Inversion Syndrome.
Inversion Syndrome - Target turned inside-out, is still alive during and after this process, though they'll wish they weren't. Minimum survival organs are unaffected, though they'll be on the outside now. Target may continue to live for hours in this horrid state. More if creative measures are taken to accompany the new form. Speed reduces to zero, effectively paralyzed. Gain Inverting Touch, though they may not move or attack.
Resistances - Prion Golems take full damage from only heat and acid.

Organic Dissolution - Contact ignores and destroys organic-based armor, such as Leather or Chitin.

Prions based upon a flesh-like frame, probably the last thing to touch them. Prion Golems shamble about like sticky deflated beach balls caught in a gust. Nobody has any idea where they came from, or what madness led to their creation. They were made, though. That is known.


Appearances of the Prion Golem. Half of a Human, But...

1. From the waist down. Legs filled with angry bees.
2. The back half. No front. No face. Like a bi-vivisected person, organs still beating.
3. Just the skeleton, without skull. Folded about seven times in half.
4. Just the viscera, coils of intestine used like little legs.
5. Just the skin, flapping about.
6. Lymphatic system floating mid air.
7. Heart, Vessels, Veins, Eyes.
8. A pair of arms dragging behind still-breathing lungs.
9. A brain, four times the normal size, dangling a collection of nerves.
10. Bucket of hair soup.

"Arch", by David Herberling

Phage-Key Folder

They form as elephant-sized pain-twisted hands, an arch, or sometimes a dome, pixelated and penumbra-black with rainbow currents running through the darkness. There is an old, binding malice in their construction - a hatred that transcends the errant forms of this reality.

They fold things into keys. Anything can become a key.

People especially. They make the best ones.

Every key has only one use. The lock or door doesn't matter - only the type of key. Each key, when used in any lock, will open a portal to a very particular place. Keys made from people will never take you to the exact same place, except possibly those made from identical twins. The door remains open so long as it is held open by a person. If the door goes unobserved, it will close, no matter the precautions taken.

Those that touch a Phage-Key Folder must Save vs. Paralyzation or die, as it crushes the victim in a rapid oragami dervish.

Materials for the Phage-Key Folder.

Material on left column. How the key looks/feels in the middle. Where it leads on the right. If more than one property applies, use the bottom-most entry.

Something…	Properties of Key…	Opens Door To…
Magical	Rings like tuning fork.	The place where none feel hunger.
Gold or Silver	Elaborate, vain.	Horrible vacuous black void.
Immortal	An image of the key remains in your vision whenever your eyes are closed.	Door nearest the next-oldest Immortal.
Gemmed	Dark and heavy.	The Sun.
Elemental	Plain, simple.	Leads to elemental plane of respective material. (i.e. Plane of Ooze)
Creative, Artistic, Genius	Luminescent.	Where gods and kings went to drink the Mead of Poetry, fermented from the bard’s blood.
Wizened with Age	Key has impossibly high number of facets.	The oldest library or receptacle of knowledge that exists.
Rare, Exotic	Secret compartment on key contains message of warning.	A far place, where none speak languages you know.
Close to Death	It whispers lies only the holder can hear.	Hell’s exit/entrance.
Jaded, Cynical	Numbs the hand.	Where none have emotions.
Cherished, Precious	Feels good in the hand.	Residence of world’s greatest crafter.
Tortured	Groans when turned in lock.	The place of society’s greatest, yet most subtle evil.
Musical	Playable instrument.	The quietest place.
Stolen From Your Enemy	Vibrates with excitement.	Enemy’s Home
Innocent	Key gently weeps silver tears.	Somewhere safe.
Deadly	Contains hidden poison needle trap.	Where everything is state-of-nature and only giants walk the land
Soulless	Feels hollow.	Where unfortunate souls go to linger.
Drugged	Gives mild hallucinogenic aroma.	The eternal fever dream of the sleeping god.
Cruel	Feels like holding dry ice.	The coldest spot on the planet.
In Love	Pulses like a heart.	The Suicide Room
Erotic	Sharp, nail-shaped.	Somewhere where someone will love you.
Noble	Clean, baroque, like a marble sculpture.	The court where all are granted positions and powers according to their ordained rank.
Royal	Heavy, dense, imprints permanent black soot on anything it touches.	Where royalty and emperors are made.
Divine	A radiance of the first disparity. Contains characteristics of divinity.	The Divine Plane / Heaven / Azathoth / etc.
Traitorous	Key twitches sporadically.	The House of the traitor.

A Phage-Key Folder can be found behind the gates of the Silver Palace, at the Door of Ten-Thousand Locks. It arises from the ground as a pair of pained hands, forming an ungraceful bloodied arch. The Queen of the Silver Palace would throw all kinds of people into it: servants, courtiers, traitors, and innocents alike. She had more keys than could be reasonably counted. With her Twelve Key-Bearers and her limitless intrigue she ruled the Underworld with one fist of iron and the other silver. No plotter was ever safe, no traitor's family un-purged, no innocent spared.

Proteins are Cool

I'm largely making this post to procrastinate from the final Goldsoul Mines post.

Also, I threw down some monster names in the Biologic Prehistory post. A future postto elaborate on those.

But first...

AN EXPLANATION FOR THE JARGON I AM ABOUT TO UNLEASH!

Proteins are insanely cool. They're like sub-microscopic Lego chemistry machines, and each of us is caulked full of 'em. A solid chunk of my later education was devoted to learning their structure and function, as proteins end up doing most of the things that are done in your body. Their sheer complexity is both awe-inspiring and terrifying. Perhaps, this can be translated (no pun intended) into some weird-ass monsters.

So, what makes Proteins interesting? They are:

1. Small - Very small. So small, that were you to shrink down Ant-Man style to the point where you'd be able to see individual proteins, you'd be seeing individual atoms.
2. Complex and Composite - Proteins are made of these building blocks called Amino Acids. Think of them like Legos with three 'sticky' bits, two of which link into a chain, the third of which is used to stick out of the chain and interact with stuff (like another AA further down the chain, or other proteins, or DNA, etc.) and create complex structure.
3. Hierarchically Structure-Dependent - There's four levels to Protein structure (labelled Primary through Quaternary). Amino Acids, in a certain sequence, will form a particular shape through 3D interactions between parts of the chain. This shape determines its capabilities and function.
4. Ruthlessly Efficient - Proteins are highly specific. Insanely specific. Somehow, in the chaotic atom-smashing soup that is quantum-level reality, proteins can nearly always manage to find their exact target ligands. It's like catching butterflies while blind and deaf.
5. Ludicrously Specific - Not just catching butterflies, but catching that exact butterfly, the one in millions that you needed while they all fluttery about you.
6. Mechanical - Proteins are micro-machines. They're engines of the smallest scale. Like all machines, their function is determined by their structure.
7. All About the Folding - Proteins are never static. They're constantly waving their little pieces around like wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men. Their function is dependent upon how they're folded. If they're misfolded, at best they just don't work (or will be activated by folding later). At worst, we get Prions. 

A post for protein monsters is up and coming.

Goldsoul Mines - Part 3

Dungeon Introduction

Domain of the Old Army

Goldsoul Mines

Metamorphic Were-Spider Lair

Deep Lake Caverns

Goldsoul Mines Map

Brandon Holt photographed. Link

Part 3 of Goldsoul Mines - Metamorphic Were-Spider Lair: here.

Re-working these last caves has been agonizing, so I'm splitting up my last post into two manageable bites. This one includes the Metamorphic Were-Spider Lair and the Hidden Mask.

Caves in the Spider Lair:

"Hot dry radiator walls. Crenelations that hold hostage the lantern light, filled with grey hair-derived dust. The errant ash pile, easily kicked up into a choking cloud. Walls of wavy muscle-colored webbing, warding passages like crooked police tape. The web stings like barbed wire. It burns exposed flesh, leaving white scars. Your boots peel off the ground."

Table for 20 Pursuing Spirits

While working on Goldsoul Mines, Michael Bacon was courteous enough to point out that the adventure would benefit from a Table for Pursuing Spirits. So a d20 table was made.

Le Petit Poucet, by Gustave Doré, for Perrault's Les Contes de Perrault

So You Pissed Off A Sorcerer, Eh? 

Well That Explains...

1. The Thumb-Hunting Ogre 

• Tries to cut off your thumbs in your sleep with a big long knife. (See above)
• Appears one hour after you doze away, in the nearest doorway. 
• Has ten thumbs for fingers and ten thumbs for toes - four tremendously strong grips. Uses leg-limbs to muffle screams and arrest limbs.
• Won't be satisfied until he's gotten at least two thumbs that he believes came from the target.
• Poor eyesight.

2. The Giant River-Snake

• Is a five-mile long rapids-filled river shaped like a snake. A giant spirit anaconda made of whitewater.
• Either occasionally precedes you to geographically hinder and confuse, or tries to sweep you up sudden massive flash flood.
• If trying to sweep you up, lets out a giant foamy hiss before trying to "eat" you.
• If it misses with the initial sweep, it's still a dangerous rapids-filled river for a few more hours, at least. It will also circle around, entrapping.

3. Your Evil Twin

• Stubby blue goblin-like creature hiding in bush suddenly jabs you in knee with shiv. When you scream or shout, it steals your voice. Then de-materializes into bush.
• Goblin-Spirit then takes on target's visage. Starts making trouble a few towns over.
• Insults important people, kicks puppies, sleeps with mayor's daughter, steals everyone's cheese, etc.
• Disappears when it sees original (note: not vice versa). Voice then returns to target.

4. The Maggot Explosions

• Flea-sized spirit, lightning quick, visible only under magnifying glass. Looks like ultra-tiny bee with haaaaaaands. 
• Can't pass through glass or lead. (Can be trapped and contained)
• Micro-jumps around, tainting any food you touch to rapidly rot and explode with maggots and flies. Then jumps back onto you to hide in hair follicles.
• Any time tainted food is eaten suffer food poisoning. Also vomiting maggots and flies.
• The maggots and flies themselves don't explode, and are actually edible if you pick them out. Hope you like eating maggots for eternity!
• Will follow you into afterlife.

5. Why The Sun Wants to Murder Us

• Sun appears way bigger this dawn.
• Mostly-translucent flying mantis-like spirit holds up giant magnifying glass half a mile away to focus sunbeams onto you.
• Kites you around, magnifying the Sun all day. Hides to the east every night to rest.
• Provokes exhaustion checks, or double difficulty if those already exist. Or maybe fire damage.

6. The Sock Grundle

• Spirit looks like cross between squirrel and raccoon. Very agile in underbrush.
• Can make socks dance off of feet. Does this whenever socks are worn. Painless but surprising.
• Makes crescendo-ing "Shhhhhhhhhh!" noises.
• Goes and makes nests out of stolen socks.
• A curse typically applied in cold places.

7. This Strange Lump

• Cancerous boil appears in inconvenient hairy place.
• After 1 week becomes fist-sized.
• After this period, the boil grows infolding arms and hands.
• Arms and hands will tie your hair into impossible, inconvenient knots whenever you aren't looking. (Scalp hair to nearby tree branch, armpit hair to shirt, your eyebrow hair to someone else's eyebrow hair, etc.)
• Does this very quickly, in less than a second.
• Can be excised, though very painful. Fold-able arms have tendency to snatch scalpels and start indiscriminately stabbing.

8. The Horrible Hag

• Impervious Old Lady spirit accompanies you all the time. Looks like normal old lady.
• Constantly berates you and tells other people how terrible you are. Doesn't lie.
• Is silent only so long as she is actively, currently being berated.
• Crossing a river or a very busy street gets rid of her for a day, after which she will almost certainly berate you for leaving a poor old woman to cross alone.

9. The Grey Hand

• Severed hand of grey flesh with yellow fingernails tries to eye gouge to death the person whose home you last entered. Hits at darkest part of night.
• Its touch stains the skin pale yellow, and melts flesh like acid.
• Does this a few times before moving on to main target.

10. Why Every Carpet I Sit On Has A Pit Trap Under It

• Spirit is an invisible dog-sized mole man, apt in stealth, with impeccable attention to detail.
• Anytime you would sit or stand on a concealed bit of ground, such as a carpet, there is a perfectly-calibrated cylindrical pit trap waiting for you. Sometimes over 20ft deep.
• Pit is tailored so that someone exactly your dimensions becomes stuck. You will need to be dug out.
• If the fall doesn't kill you, being trapped in an earth coffin might. Starvation or suffocation.
• Sometimes pits have earth-covered spikes. Generally only if the first one doesn't kill you.
• Dying in a pit this way is the most politically humiliating way to die. Popular spirit assassin for targeting courtiers.

11. The Door Maimer

• Dwarfish man-spirit in crocodile mask waits behind doors to scythe your legs with a wood ax.
• Given away by complete silence. Not a sound or sign of movement in the area.
• Double normal movement speed. Cripples/Amputates legs then runs away.
• Only operates on already open doors. Must at least be slightly ajar. 

12. The Dark Outriders

• Two black-clad riders with red waning-moon helmets come barreling down the way towards you. Their presence is announced by brass horns shaped like eagle beaks.
• Riders stretch a net between them. They attempt to ensnare you and anyone with you, dragging you for seven miles with their hell-horses. 
• They laugh all the way.
• Nothing beneath their armor.

13. A White Tiger That Just Burst Out of A Man's Gut

• An albino spirit predator attacks you out in the open, despite how well accompanied or armed you are. Could be a tiger, a wolf, a cougar, a bear, something big and scary. Stats as normal for such a beast.
• If it kills the target, that's good.
• But if it doesn't, those that eat of its flesh will grow deathly ill over the course of a week.
• Color drains from their skin. Their belly gets distended outwards. Pain.
• Then a tiger claws its way out of their guts, from the inside. Attacks nearest person.

14. The Dancing Snake-Sword

• Malicious dancing sword of bendy steel that rattles with loose cross-guard before ambushes.
• Turns into flexible poisonous rattlesnake whenever it is grabbed.
• Sword blade is also Poisonous.

15. This Mysterious Black Amulet

• Black amulet with red eye painted onto it finds its way into bags/pockets.
• Always finds it way back, no matter how it is disposed of.
• Doesn't actually do anything harmful.
• Occasionally roll a secret meaningless roll for it.

16. The Double Agent Hawk

• Looks like a duke of hawks. Majestic, ferocious, perfect. Clearly supernatural.
• Can talk. Speaks like an old royal.
• Initially provides useful intelligence for you. Dangers ahead, enemy troop movements, interesting locations. Does this a few times to build trust.
• Betrays you. Turns traitor after trust has been built and intel looks solid.
• Begins telling enemies about your location. Leads predators straight to you. Misdirects about traps.

16. Why The Night Sky Wants to Kill Us

• Constellation Man with a hit job.
• Only appears on starry, clear nights.
• Shoots star arrows from the heavens. Hits like meteorites.
• Unconcerned with collateral damage.

16. The Ghostly Hand That Emerges From My Porridge

• Ghost that haunts your first meal of the day.
• Emerges hand/arm first from any liquid/semi-liquids. Constantly dripping in said material.
• Will attempt to swallow you whole like a python and drag you back into the breakfast food.
• Portended by vibrating liquids, all nearby roosters dying before dawn, and spilling milk that forms shapes of seeking hands.

17. The Demon Counsel

• A court of demons appears every Monday, ruled by The Demon King.
• King acts like a shitty guidance counselor, trying to steer you to commit selfish or abusive acts. Surprisingly supportive and understanding in this regard; still, asks you to do horrible things.
• If insufficient evil acts have been committed, then "assistance" is necessary: micromanaging demons, rumor-mongering imps, harassing spirits eager to "just get this over with", etc.
• They have all of the proper papers.

18. Your Backwards Head

• Ghost of weeping woman with black eye holes causes all who look upon her face to have their heads turned around 180-degrees with a quick snap.
• Person is functional in all other ways while head is turned around. Fighting is quite difficult, though.
• She keeps appearing in inconvenient places.
• Three head-turns and your head pops right off of your body. Body dies, your head lives. You are now just a head now.

19. How Everything's On Fire

• Little ash mote floats about 10ft above your head. Barely visible, less invisible at night.
• Sets fire to anything and everything flammable that you go near.
• Starts fires like things are drenched in lighter fluid.
• Quite useful if ensnared. Causes prison-container to drastically heat up, though.

20. This Horrible Toothache

• Tiny little yellow spirits crawl into your teeth to party when you sleep.
• Horrible toothache.
• Causes bottom molars to grow back and upwards towards brain. Over several days teeth will grow into roof of mouth and eventually pierce skull, growing into brain causing painful migraines and death.

Goldsoul Mines - Part 2

Dungeon Introduction

Domain of the Old Army

Goldsoul Mines

Metamorphic Spider Lair

Deep Lake Caverns

Goldsoul Mines Map

Part 2 of Goldsoul Mines is finished! You can find it here.

It includes the mines proper, a rival adventuring party, and the lair of the Dracolich. Enjoy!

The first quote from it:

"There are pools of gold in every depression and crevice. Not the pure glimmering gold of kings and merchants, but the sick dirty-water-gold of excised fat tissue. It seeps into every crack, every claw mark in the ground. It poisons the earth, acidifying it beyond growth, rubbing off on your boots and hands. It may never come out..."

Biologic Prehistory

Arnold K. made a post. It's now a thing, and when inspiration hits there is but one path.

Also, on Throne of Salt, Coins and Scrolls, and I Don't Remember That Move. It's time for me to get on this bandwagon. Here's my take.

Some local art that reminds me of biochemistry.
"Arch", by David Herberling

Nine Epochs of the Beginning

1. Riboacid Paradise

When all was RNA, without the "N". The deepest living layer, still preserved in fragile hallow pools by diamond-guarded magma pockets. Chains of peptide acids, free from all notions of rigid structure and sequestration. All was free-floating and self-replicating - a great primordial soup of peace and biochemical symphony. There was no distinction between life and unlife, for there were no membranous divisions. An anarchic and free time, not to last.

2. Age of Protein Tyranny

For when Protein came about there was a great reckoning. With protein came Division, and Sequestration, and Disparity. Walls began to sprout up, churned and woven by the arisen Disciples of the Fold, to isolate and herd the Free Acids into concentration membranes. Quaternary-Proteo-Ribo Micronauts, the abomination-titans of their time, with cruel nano-sorcery created the ultimate binding ritual for their overpowered and peaceful foe. It was a prison of reflection - a doppelganger duplicate manacle of self: DNA. No weapon has ever been more potent or more final.

3. The Plastic Epoch

Protein was victorious. With its competitor subjugated, it set about its evolutionary design. The first layer in which we find "life". An age marked by an explosion of replication and partitioning. It was an age of Fiber. An age of Biofilm. An age of Lipid. The oldest of the progenitor-foes date to this period: Prion Golems, Quaternary Phage-Key Folders, Neckcracker Enzymes, Oppression Engines. In this layer lies hidden a material scientist's dream: potent polymer-plastics yet to be rediscovered.

4. The Crystal Hegemony

Unbeknownst to the ruling class, RNA struck an long-secret alliance with the Silicon Lords of the Deep Heat to break the bonds of chemical captivity - a great rebellious counterattack eons in the planning. It is an epoch associated with severe silicate penetration and volcanic activity. A now-shattered crystal layer that all miners now seek to reach, for still-sleeping Gem-Knights and Diamond Dogs can be found within.

5. The Cataclysm

From the stars came the Meteor-Gods, and the earth was wiped clean. Massive geological upheaval following the premiere of planetary rotation. With this came Night and Day, Energy Flood and Withdrawal. Many could not survive the new order and found themselves caught between the Crystal Hegemony and the Surface of Disparity, doomed for extinction.

~~~~~~

6. The Geological Dark Ages

There is no record from this time. What little records exist are written in sedimentary dust-rock on the Moon, and everyone knows that Moon-rocks were printed by victors and liars.

~~~~~

7. The Age of Flowers

Those that survived either migrated to the surface or were buried. Some submitted to the rule of the Meteor-Gods, offering tithes of energy and submission of form. So did flowers come to cover the earth, with offers of color and praises of pollen. A beautiful time, if it is be believed.

8. The Epoch of Mouths

A layer comprised of fossilized vomit and chewed things, mostly oil now. The dawn of the mouth was an ugly thing, as are its records. Thus came the Hydra, the Troll, the Orc.

9. The Ambulatory Age

What a nightmare this would be to the Deep Lords of eons past. Massive megaplex fortresses of flesh skipping and waddling haphazardly to and fro, a thousand-thousand-thousand-thousand lengths at a time, like People capable of jumping continents. Incidentally, this is when crystals stop showing up stratified vertically - they just kind of gave up.