The Sharing of Cups (GLoGmas 25 for Knicks & Knacks)

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With a shout throughout the air,
delivered at the doorway,
"Please, just one more cup we'll share?"

As the travellers prepare,
its the exact phrase they say
with a shout throughout the air.

The beggar does too declare
in his drought and his dismay
"Please just one more cup we'll share?"

Celebrants may loudly blare
the same at the break of day,
with a shout throughout the air.

Mothers, gripped by their despair, 
hold sons, fated for the fray,
"Please... just one more cup we'll share..."

We too say this fool's prayer
to try and hold Fate at bay
with a shout throughout the air:
"Please just one more cup we'll share?"

- transcribed from a strange visitor to the flats

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Where water is precious, the sharing of a cup is a simple but powerful act. A drop of unity, mercy, and kindness in a world that can be parched of it. Come! Sit! Sip of my cup! Be merry and share stories of...

d20 Encounters in the Salt Flats

1. Šuqurtum: A woman, fiddling with the criss-cross of flags travellers follow from one shelter to the next in their journeys. She is clearly directing them toward an old half-buried wagon thats been set up as a stall. She is garbed in faded rose-colored veils, with distinctively scratched-up rose-tinted goggles. Her wares are as sketchy as she is.
1. Jarred squeezings from used Hopeberry bandages. Totally more medicinal this way...
2. Fruit of the sacred grove- instantly nourishing. (Actually dyed clusters of crust crab eggs, which are ready to burst into a million tiny skittering babies as soon as it would be inconvenient).
3. Genuine magic totem. (Its just a salt-desiccated corpse; granted one that has somehow shrunken down to about 8" tall, but not magic).
4. A cage full of hyjerboa (see Encounter 6; no other catches)
5. One-use weapon oil- you only need to use it to protect metal weapons once!  (Good for about 1d6 hours, after which mundane wood and metal disintegrate.)  
6. A sack full of black peppercorns (Actually high quality! But stolen.)
   
   
2. Abandoned haven: Entombed in salt. The ground beneath it appears to have given way in places, causing structures to tilt at weird angles. In theory some small pools of brackish water might be here in a pinch, but every surface is coated with jagged sharp crystals that look almost as if they were sprayed on.
   
   
3. Perez and Zerah:  They are identical twin brothers, dressed in fine blue and red clothes respectively. Each occupies a deep trench, facing opposite one another. Together the brothers inherited a vast fortune, which is hidden somewhere nearby. Neither can claim it though due to their paranoia about being betrayed by their brother. Both brothers are promising a share of their fortune to whomever can kill their brother for them.
   
   
4. Neruptah: Decadent sadist sorcerer, walking around the flats wearing nothing but caked entrails and encrusted salt. If he can directly touch your exposed flesh (which is hard given the typical kit needed for the salt), you will begin to drown in your own bodily fluids (which can only be sorted either via a trained healer, or a risky impromptu lancing to relieve the surface tension of the bubble inside the throat).
   
   
5. Nabu: You'll hear him before you see him, as he is wearing numerous hollow lacquered waterbulbs stuck to his body like suckers. They clunk together as he wanders around. He is a diminutive and soft-spoken man, belying his true wanton depravity. He subjects himself to dehydration-induced hallucinations in order to divine hidden auspicious signs for the construction of temples or divining of water, or just to revel in the pleasurable hallucinations.
   
   

   

   like human centipede three together, and remove the eyes/ears

   
   
6. Hyjerboa: Hyjerboa sort of look like long, six-legged jerboa. Their kidneys are hyper efficient, such that they rarely urinate and when they do its basically a few granules of dust. They are extremely dangerous pests as this dust instantly taints any water it comes in contact with; entire pools of water downwind become uretic. They barely have any meat on them, and offer no nutrition even if you could eat a bunch of them.
   
   
7. Nāṣir: A rubbery, tanned, shrivelled little man, sitting half-naked on a hammock stretched between two mangrove trees and concealed underneath a silken net to protect from the sun and the salt. He carries a large, hollow, rusty poker which he uses to point and scratch his back with. He will do everything he can to have people approach him.
•  The trees are actually Creeping Mangrels, which will attack anyone nearby. Once they take something down, Nāṣir will use his poker like a straw and slurp up their fluids alongside his Mangrels- which is how he survives.
• Nāṣir controls the Mangrels through carefully flicking leftover fluids around to bait them, or poking them with his poker. Mostly poking.
• If he ever descends from his spot, the Mangrels attack him immediately.
• If he is forced into the sunlight, he will catch fire immediately.
  
  
8. Qudāšu: A woman dressed in black that has been bleached by the sun and the salt. She is revered for her commitment to her late father, as she has been using Refresh to keep the last meal her father cooked for her fresh for a few decades at this point. She desperately holds onto memories of him, only nibbling on crumbs from the meal occasionally.
   
   
9. Delilah: She is the scion of a powerful clan, which she abuses to no end. All through the area, she is known for indulging in all sorts of cruel and petty acts. However, she gets away with it not just thanks to her birthright but thanks to being able to use Calm on victims and witnesses. Attacking honoured guests for stealing attention? Haha that's okay. Steal food from a child's hands? Even the child doesn't cry. Kicks someone's pet? Nobody bats an eye. The initial outrage is always soothed, and the punishments quietly forgotten amidst excuses of "she's just how she is." Woe betide you if you become the target of her attention.
   
   
10. Gouger Gang: Prisoners all, who were condemned into slavery for their crimes. Each moans of their supposed innocence, as they toil in the hot sun to dig out troughs to catch rainwater. Their taskmaster, Khafre, is a slave as well. He always handles his charges with a firm yet understanding hand, but he's been slipping into more definite cruelty lately. If he can work everyone just a little harder, he may yet earn his freedom. Surely soon, surely just a little harder?
    
    
11. Meresankh: She's a saltrunner, whose appearance is marred by bloody bandages and torn clothing. Meresankh recently ran into conflict with the rest of her group, and so she's been forced to survive on the run. She secretly rendezvous with the Gouger Gang (Encounter 10) while Khafre sleeps. She's trying to work out an escape attempt, in exchange for the Gang's help in raiding the rich supplies of her former group (Encounter 14).
    
    
12. Enoch: A veteran of some water skirmish many years ago, these days Enoch is content living on the fringes of society and noodling for mud eels. Despite the dangers and the bitter slimy meat of the eels, Enoch is happy. In exchange for some goods or a hard day's work, he'll even pass you a bowl of boiled eel and give you some pointers on how to use stilts to navigate the mud flats.
    
    
13. Metumetam: Metumetam is a nice young man, but sheltered and stupid. He has lived most of his life in luxury. However thanks to recent misfortunes he has been forced to use the last of his family's resource on supplies, to venture out into the flats and secure a new livelihood. He is heading out soon, and is woefully over-prepared despite the protestations of those who know better. His heavy pack is laden with numerous redundant tools and emergency rations and the like.
    
    

    

    an Egyptian Vulture

    
    
14. Saltrunners: Each one is dressed in a marigold veil, and white coverings whose gloves and boots have been dyed black by ash and dust. They stalk Metumetam (Encounter 13), waiting for him to enter the flats and die from his hubris. If they are hassled: they will throw powdered saltwick into pursuers' faces, kick up salt clouds, and then scatter as they circle around for a better opportunity later.
    
    
15. Agam: A massive brawny woman, with wild-eyes only magnified by goggle lenses and a full-face mask in lieu of a veil. She claims to be from the foothills of the mountains at the edge of the world. She's heading back there soon, to a little valley where its verdant and green and nobody is ever thirsty. If you're interested, why don't you come join her? All will be welcome in the valley!
• Underneath her coverings, there are just coils of Puddle Lattice in the shape of a woman. Her uncovered face is nothing but eyes mounted on thorns in front of an empty hole. Whatever she is, she roves across the land tricking travellers into following her- slowly letting them tire on the journey before killing and consuming them.
  
  
16. Cult of the Salt Devil: Despite the name they are more like people who never grew up from disturbed youths, than an existential threat. Their like-minded group experiments with halioss- trying to come up with new ways to produce it, new things to do with it, etc. Many of them are there just to enjoy torturing small animals with the stuff in secret. Who knows how a charismatic leader or a new fascination might transform the group though...
    
    
17. Oryxutan: Imagine an orangutan, except covered in bone-white crocodilian scales and with horns like an oryx. The Oryxutan are slow, lumbering, sturdy creatures. They mainly loiter by the edge of muddy waters- sleeping and rolling in the mud to stay cool. When they hunt though, they do so with startling quickness. They slam their horned heads to stun creatures, before either grabbing them and snapping their necks or smashing them to death against the flats. They are often characters in parables. Stupid slow creatures- tricked into playing or lapping up salt- who somehow still succeed over their clever counterparts, whom let arrogance dull their diligence.
    
    
18. Uncontacted Haven: An isolated haven- no outsider has made it through their defences to speak with them. All that is known is that they are guarded by numerous archers, who pelt outsiders with blunted arrows with amazing accuracy and force. Those who have managed to make their way closer are instead shot with long piercing arrows that pin them to the ground, littering the flats around the town with the corpses of people left to desiccate in the salt and sun.
    
    
19. Asherah: A Barbarian, sleeping outside in the shade. She's like a pest rooting around in a pile of refuse. She doesn't care for or understand people, but she craves the delicious food and drinks they produce. She sits outside of places and causes trouble until she's bribed with her wants or forced out by the keepers of the peace. Asherah is also deaf, cursed with the sound of cacophonous thunder ringing in her ears after some unknown offence to a worshiper of Storm. As such, they fly into rage easily and often.
    
    
20. False Stars: Little insects, whose bellies light up like the stars. They emerge at night, and guide travellers off their intended course. They somehow are able to coordinate this such that they often cause multiple travellers to encounter one another in the dead of night. In the ensuing distraction, the swarm of False Stars descend on any exposed supplies and consume as much as they can before they can be swatted away.

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I feel really lucky this GLoGmas! I remember first reading the wonderful setting posts over at Knicks & Knacks earlier this year and appreciating the vibes, so writing this has been a genuine pleasure! In fact this was almost entirely written the night announcements went up, going straight through until sunrise in a joyful little all-nighter haze.

CommonUse (aka aredoaktree), thank you so much for the copiously salty playground! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

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Wizard of One (GLOG Class)

"I fear not the wizard who has practiced 10,000 spells once, but I fear the wizard who has practiced one spell once."

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I don't normally write mainline-GLOG classes, so apologies in advance if this is janky! It's definitely more of a vibe-piece.

Inspired by a discussion on the server between Louis & Anti

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Wizard of One, aka Crawling Wizard, aka Legless Wizard, aka Magic Enthusiast, aka the Dunning–Kruger School

you're playing as this guy

Starting Items: an incomplete mostly-plagiarised thesis regarding That One Spell, showy over-designed villain outfit which doesn't fit quite right (mechanically: seen either as menacing or silly, whichever would be most obviously inconvenient in that moment)

Starting Skills: None

A - That One Spell, Master of One, Lifting With Your Back

B - Feet On The Ground

C - Walk the Walk

D - Leg in the Door

• That One Spell: Pick another GLOG Wizard Class. You may either:
• Have your character know one of the Legendary Spells of this class, your choice.
• Alternatively: you may choose for your character to know any one other spell from the associated spell list instead as long as it is a.) flashy and b.) violent.

• Master of One: Your character cannot learn any other spells / rituals / etc. They can't use the Cantrips from the selected class, and do not get the Perk or the Drawback. They do however suffer the associated Mishaps & Dooms of that class when using That One Spell.

• Lifting With Your Back: Your character casts magic like they lift with their back and not their legs. Your character does not normally have MD. Instead: whenever you wish to cast That One Spell, you may use any number of dice you wish. When you do so, your character takes [sum] as damage. Additionally:
  
• When directly insulted, save. On a failure: your character must cast That One Spell in some way that shows how important and powerful they are.
• Each time your character casts That One Spell in a given encounter / scene / etc: you must cast it for one more dice than you did previously.

Beginning the journey with a single step.

• Feet On The Ground: Whenever your character has an experience on their adventures that broadens their worldview, challenges their beliefs, helps build a positive relationship, etc.- write it down.
  
  Whenever they would be compelled to cast That One Spell or cast with additional dice, you may instead cross off one experience from the list instead.

• Walk the Walk: Your character gains the Perk & Drawback of their associated GLOG Wizard Class. They also gain 1 MD, which functions as normal / doesn't harm them.

• Leg in the Door: Your character has learned to use their legs- enough to stand on their own two feet and walk out of their hole. They lose all Templates of this class aside from this one, and gain the first one from the GLOG Wizard Class you initially selected, with all that entails. They advance through this class twice as fast as normal.
  
  Your character still knows That One Spell. If they ever use it again, they can do so for the maximum possible effect (whatever this means depending on the spell; negotiate with your GM), but your character instantly suffers the final Doom of their new class.

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This post by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY 4.0, and may be used by anyone with proper attribution.

[MUGM] Ghoulism

Wax from a hot candle, flicked onto the wrist, will pool and form into auspicious writing on the outstretched palm of a Ghoul. If a suspected Ghoul does not submit to this testing, treat them accordingly.

Never allow a Ghoul to speak six or more words in a row, and never allow their spoken words to brush against or mingle with yours. If possible beat a Pilgrim's drum six times in between each exchange, to clear the air. In an emergency, a pause of at least a minute or so may act as risky substitute.

Proper ear protection is also recommended when contact with a Ghoul must occur. It goes without saying that looking into the eyes of a Ghoul or touching a Ghoul is too risky.

If you suspect a written work to have been created by a Ghoul, it should not be viewed directly. Instead submerge it in water if possible, or below coloured glass.

Gestured language, music without vocals, and works of art created by Ghouls are clean; but it is recommended to avoid this anyway, to avoid building sympathy for the Ghoul.

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Ghoulism is rare, in and above The Mound. Nobody is quite sure how one contracts Ghoulism, though it mainly appears to occur through close contact with a current Ghoul. As such, Ghouls are shunned & pitied by most communities.

Those afflicted with Ghoulism may only eat that which is:

    1. capable of speech

    2. not afflicted with Ghoulism

Most Ghouls appear sickly and malnourished due to their limited diets.

Some subsist by farming animals capable of mimicry- colourful rodents, blowering ants, the like.

In more lenient societies Ghouls are allowed to beg or do work in exchange for consuming the recently deceased.  This is almost always dangerous, unseemly, and done out of sight; though exceptions do exist.

Many Pilgrimmages also manage isolated communities for those afflicted with Ghoulism. 

And the storied Tudhead Academy for example, is entirely staffed by Ghoulish teachers- always hiding behind lattice screens and beating drums throughout lecture. Many elite and powerful families send their children, along with a few scholarship "snackers" for the teachers, to study there. The graduating class sizes may be small, but the pressure surely molded them to be great.

Rumours tell of other potential hopes for Ghouls too.

Wild-ghouls, learning to speak the language of the beasts they consume.

Orchards of sweet-singing ghouledible fruit, from trees grown in mulched songbirds.

Mystics capable of sustaining themselves on pure words alone.

Elsewise, all that is left for the truly desperate or outcast Ghoul is the hunting and cannibalising of people on the edge of society. Though that's only rumours, right?

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This post © 2025 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

[Gudgeon Moon] Ite, The Four Fold World

Ite, the Four-Fold World, was the first recorded Splash. If the stories of the Pilgrims of Yordsk are to be believed, it was a world divided into four tetraspheres by huge oceanic trenches. Each tetrasphere was dominated by one of the species which survived into the modern day.

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Myrivada

Each Myrivadan is roughly about ~1.6 - 1.7 meters tall, and look like a golden statue. Each one bears a rough humanoid form- like an abstract or symbolic depiction of a person- with no other consistencies in art style. Their poses also can vary, but most often depict gentle and restful poses.

Their bodies are not actually metallic, but some form of stiff exoskeleton. It is semi-permeable, as they are able to eat and drink merely through touching it, quickly vanishing food whenever you look away for a moment. When speaking, their voices actually come from the vibration of their exoskeleton, giving a certain resonance to their voices.

Their bodies also seem to have very limited flexibility, if any. While in polite company they often sit locked in their poses, relying on the kindness of others, subtle magic, or other implements in order to survive.

When they need to act or move though, a Myrivadan will reveal the truth. Below their exoskeleton are thousands of squirming insects, curled up in zen-like repose. They can briefly stir, and just barely phase out from inside in order to hold objects, move their bodies, etc. Under normal circumstances, they cannot leave a Myrivadan's body any more than your fingers could leave yours.

Despite seemingly being a colony being, Myrivadans possess one consciousness. Each insect merely gives rise to the whole.

Myrivadans do not breed. Instead: 10,000 Myrivadans seem to ever exist at one time. When one dies, it explodes into a cloud of ash and insect husks. At the same time: another Myrivada will spontaneously birth a new one as a fully-formed statue that branches and breaks off from itself.

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Doubberrean (aka Doub)

Doub can vary widely in height, but conventional modern designs usually stand about ~2.4 meters tall. They are roughly humanoid shaped, but they have wide stout limbs and bodies covered in many layers of blubber and thick leathery grey skin.

A Doub's head is relatively under proportional, and is made up almost entirely by a long bulbous trunk-like nose and wide eyes with long horizontal slit-like pupils.

Their bodies do not have any bones, only fat and muscle and organs. They are held up purely by tension and blood pressure. You can hear their hearts flapping loudly from nearby, pumping the milky porridge that is their blood.

Doub do not breed either. Instead they may only be crafted by another Doub. Most Doub do not wish to talk about this process, as its an instinctual and base sort of subject.

In order for a Doub to craft another Doub, they must first obtain a Doub Totem. This sort of looks like a cross between a foetus, a sleeping goat, and a germinating seed. It is made of some sort of soft metal- which looks like lead, is warm to the touch, but squishy like flesh. It is about the size of a chess piece, and is basically indestructible. However Doub Totems once were made is knowledge lost to the First Splash, so only a limited number exist on The Mound.

The crafting Doub will then collect a pile of blubber and meat, sculpt the final body for the new Doub, and then insert the totem somewhere hidden and deep inside the new Doub.

The crafting Doub are known as the parent or parents of the new Doub, however respect is also given to the ancestor who last bore their totem. Doub born from the same totem often share similarities and certain inherited peculiarities (verbal tics, preferences, tendencies) from their ancestor, but is a unique being besides.

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Gofka

Essentially, a Gofka looks like a small sentient boulder with a face carved into it.

Despite appearances, they aren't quite rocks. Their bodies are typically much less denser than most stone, such that even a decently large Gofka weighs barely more than 90 kg. They also can be chipped and damaged easily by conventional weapons, revealing an inside closer to wet fluffy kinetic sand.

They rely on using their facial muscles and stony mouths in order to move around and do things. As such, there's a stereotype about Gofka being rather slow or silly or getting stuck in odd places. This is far from a universal truth though as Gofka are a long-lived and durable people, often content to simply live at a slower pace. Through the use of mounts, spells, massive slingshots, or legendary spinning warriors they also can be as fearsome as any other species on The Mound.

Gofka do not have biological sexes and innately seem to have trouble recognising it on a biological level. As such they also do not breed, instead seeming to undergo some form of rare spontaneous generation from certain patches of stone found in The Mound. 

Despite this they do instinctually build harems. Gofka will marry any number of beings whom they are friendly with, which they will erroneously claim as "wives" no matter their gender. In that sense Gofka often act as match makers of a sort, with plenty of "sneak breeding" occurring blatantly out in the open within their harems.

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Bas & Baso

Each Bas consists of a skin-covered snake-like body, about half a meter long, which ends in a hand instead of a head. These hands have five digits, including the thumb.

These Bas can join together by either intertwining their snake-like bodies, or grasping each other with their hands. Together the resulting clump of Bas forms a sort of colony being, known as a Baso.

Once joined, the Baso's shape is usually locked into whatever shape they chose. Often just a bigger snake-like form is popular, however humanoid or tauroid shapes are common too as a matter of utility. Some Baso will even have other objects threaded into their for such as armour or storage spaces. Baso normally cannot change their forms or break apart and reform.

Each Bas is part of the Baso, and the Baso is the sum of it's Bas. It's sort of like if every organ in your body was kind of it's own person, but the composites still also make up you.

Bas(o) cannot read or speak, but have an incredibly deft sense of touch such that they can still see and hear through vibration alone (as a sort of blindsight).

Under ideal conditions, with nutrition and bedrest, a Bas can divide and produce a new Bas over about four weeks. This new Bas can then be used in a few different ways:

• Internally: The Bas is merely integrated into the existing Baso network.

• Division: The new Bas is split off, potentially with other new Bas, in order to form a new Baso network. (This is more akin to creating a new being by splitting off aspects of yourself).

• Joining: Two or more Baso networks may contribute Bas to create a new Baso, resulting in a new sort of hybrid Baso.

Division and Joining is very serious, as its literally giving up portions of yourself in order to create new life (to continue the metaphor, imagine chopping off some organs to make a baby). It is a very complex and intimate affair.

Two individual Bas can in theory merge to create a new Baso, but this is seen almost as a sort of death to birth new life.

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This post © 2025 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

HOU: Quick Character Generator

This is just a quickie character generator for HOU, in preparation for running a game for some folks later. Thanks to Spwack for the provided quick table tools!

Eventually I intend to make a more detailed one, so please forgive any jank.

• If your character ends up with any duplicate Features (outside of spell casting), just re-roll the whole character.
• You may be prompted to pick something, mainly for Skills. Feel free to just think up or select something appropriate to the setting.
• I didn't implement a random [Law] generator. Please see F16.2 for reference instead.

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[One-off Dungeon] The Tower of Ausrud

About a week or so ago, the wonderful Hilander prompted me to get back into writing up proper dungeons.

A lot more of my personal experience I feel has focused on cultivating weird situations for players to engage in while wandering about in more open pointcrawl / sandbox sort of situations, as opposed to traditional dungeon crawling. So this was a good change of pace!

Overall this dungeon was originally going to be for Cloak & Sword, but as I was writing it a little bit each night I feel like the tone drifted way too far from the chivalry and romance of the setting. (The main focus of the scenario is essentially escaping an extended hostage scenario run by nature spirits occupying an ethereal bug zapper after all).

So I rehab'd what was there into something a little more setting-agnostic, though with French accenting and a bit of implied setting of En Plus Paris (perhaps in a potential future where an English led Industrial Revolution is threatening nature?).

I also specifically wrote it for my own rule set as more of a testing / starter dungeon; which in practical terms means that there's very little numbers & dice to adapt.

As an important note: I usually write and prep content in Obsidian, with no sort of considerations for print or sharing it directly with others. When I was trying to export this out to a more shareable format, I ran into a lot of trouble as the usual cool tricks and formatting I employ all broke and weren't working.

So instead I forced it into a Google Doc to get at least the general flow & hyperlinks working, but it's definitely not formatted amazingly. Apologies!

Click here to check The Tower of Ausrud!

(unless you know me in real life since I'll probably be running it sometime soon)

Appendix O

Different GLOG / OSR posters - This kind of is a given for everyone sharing these I guess? But I felt the need to state the obvious. I've been reading different blogs for about a decade or so at this point, made one like 7 years ago, and then have dipped in and out here and there due to being busy with life and a little nervous to put my work up and out there.

On the right I have a list of about ~100 or so blogs, probably not a complete list given some going dead / forgetting but  it's the closest I could get. Please check some out in case you haven't! Each one has some form of nugget or useful info or thought which has stuck with me, and hopefully you can find something too.

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Formative Things, Growing Up

- Vietnamese Catholicism, yet also Jesus Christ Superstar (specifically only the 1973 version)

- getting called zipperhead a lot; getting into a lot of fights

- that kid who would slam his head into the pavement until someone hung out with him

- cooking with family

- fuckin' BIONICLES were the shit

- Majora's Mask (if it was not super obvious)

- Star Trek TNG & DS9 (deeply, deeply flawed but there's warmth)

- Batman TAS

- Runescape (my brother always used to drag me along to play MMOs; and I would always play them "wrong" by just wandering around and not grinding)

- Life Is Beautiful (1997)

- Doctor Who (specifically watching the Tom Baker era with my dad on crappy tapes; but when the revival happened he also got discs of that as soon as he could)

- They Might Be Giants

- Kung Fu Hustle (and other iconic or crappy martial arts movies on crappy tapes)

- MST3K (riffing is one thing, but I feel like you also have to have an appreciation for the reach and attempt by B-Movie producers; feel the heart)

- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

- Philosophical debates, specifically the real stupid kind you have in cars while driving around and killing time

- The Twilight Zone

- Things people would watch at 3 AM when they can't sleep, or old books that were left lying around, or half-remembered magazines from before you were born

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Circa whatever, this is just becoming a random list of things I have consumed sorry

- Oingo Boingo, Cardiacs, etc (if anyone has suggestions for bands with this kind of sound please let me know)

- Yes, Khan, Eros, lots of other weird sorta prog or adjacent music

- Disco Elysium

- Twin Peaks

- Magic: the Gathering, but specifically only Mirrodin and it's sequel block only

- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

- Fullmetal Alchemist

- Dungeon Meshi

- Dorohedoro

- Dr. McNinja and other independent webcomics

- the works of Evan Dahm

- the From Software catalog

- Into the Breach

- Coen Brothers movies

- the Fargo TV Show

- Motorman by David Ohle, and related works

- The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem

- Leonora Carrington's writings

- a lot of collections of short anthology stories; read to my wife before bed

Setting: The Mound Under the Gudgeon Moon

Back in 2023 I made a short sort of video-pitch for a setting linked on the blog here. In the years since I've been fleshing it out into a big bloated setting thing after work, but I've been hesitant to properly put it out there. Thanks to Hilander, Isabelle, EcksianRaven, and Archon's Court for giving me a reminder to just post and let things go how they will.

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Imagine if the universe was a cup.

Falling into that cup are countless upon countless droplets.

Each of those droplets is a world, sometimes inhabited by life and sometimes not.

Eventually each of those droplets splashes and breaks apart into that cup.

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Each planet follows this same trajectory, falling from the top of the universe before breaking up due to its Roche Limit and Splashing across the infinite wide flat plane of earth at the bottom of the universe.

As most planets are uninhabited and most of that plane empty, a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it.

Some planets do harbour life though, and they react to impending cataclysmic doom in different ways.

• Some planets don't have sentient life, or aren't advanced enough to even be aware of whats going on until it's too late.
• Others may be cursed with awareness through charts, optics, or magic, but be entirely helpless to do anything. They can only watch as their world ends.
• Many societies and civilisations may embrace the promised Splash that will end them.
• Some very lucky forms of life have some form of advantage to survive the Splash.
• Even more rarely: a society will do something.

The focus of this setting is following the descendants of these Splash-survivors, eking out survival on a specific portion of the bottom of the universe known as The Mound.

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The Mound is a statistical freak on the surface.

Hundreds of years ago: Ite, the Four-Fold World fell and Splashed. Thanks to the unique physiologies of the four species who lived there, all survived and went about rebuilding their society amidst the ashes of their world.

Then only a few centuries ago: Torrid, the Warring Realm, Splashed down in the exact same spot. A war-torn world home to dozens of species, only a precious few survived the Splash thanks to retooling doomsday bunkers or employing arcs meant to outlast their enemies.

Only a few decades later, a third planet fell in nearly the same spot, however this one didn't even survive entering the atmosphere. It just burned up in a bang. It's referred to as "Old Blare" or "The Haunt" colloquially.

Then came Uisge of Blue Waves- a world entirely dominated by endless blue seas. Most denizens of this world died, however some denizens from the deepest depths managed to survive the impact thanks to the water.

Then came the 5th Splash: Feerbodo, the Quiet Place, a relatively-peaceful world that came together and tried to do whatever they could to survive and preserve their culture; to mixed success. 

Thus: The Mound was formed. A vast crater with a mound of planetary debris in the center from so many ruined civilizations.

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Mound society became defined by the Splashes.

The surface was a barren, inhospitable place. No light or warmth, like the surface of the moon if it got shelled into a crater every few generations. To try and wander off into the infinite cold abyss is suicide, and doesn't even guarantee another planet won't fall on your head.

Most denizens took to living underground, living in tunnels in the earth formed from layer upon layer of broken planetoid. Their societies formed in relation to building up enough resources and protection to survive complete upheaval whenever the next Splash might come, and digging through the wreckage of The Mound for whatever relics of past worlds might help them survive.

Some though, the exiled or mad sorcerers, formed civilisations on the barren surface as well.

This status quo lasted until around 70 years ago.

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As The Mound braced for the next Splash, a cool blue dot rapidly growing in the sky, something miraculous happened.

It just stopped.

A glowing rock, defying every known law and just unbelievably hanging in the sky. So it was named: The Gudgeon Moon.

After a while of poking their heads out and checking for safety, the denizens of the Mound came to adjust.

Some societies look at the Moon as a threat, a bomb waiting to go off. Better to just stay down below and wait it out.

Others have moved above ground and settled on the surface, flourishing in it's cool moonlight and rapidly expanding beyond the bounds of any underground culture.

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This is the age of exploration and expansion the players find themselves in- whether expanding out across the moonlit surface, reaching for the fringes of the infinite expanse, plotting to build ladders to the moon, or digging through the hidden depths of the Mound.

• Despite the apocalyptic tones, I am shooting for a sort of hopefulness throughout it. Like this isn't a pacifist game, but I imagine combat-as-a-puzzle and violence as a desperate solution. And despite everyone living in a planetary mass burial site, it's more about building and growth as opposed to Mad Max'ing it.
• And despite all the planets and such, the overall tone is definitely sticking more to gonzo weird swords and magic as opposed to science and technology.
• System-wise, I originally was building everything for OUH; but actually I'm shifting it more toward HOU instead now.
• Purposefully: this setting has no humans, dwarves, elves, etc. It's purely weirdo gonzo alien type guys. Expect lots of posts about speculative or magical biology.
• (I heavily debated this one. Originally, I'm an all-human setting / keep things simple and relatable kind of guy in play to keep things approachable for players. But goddamn do I like writing weirdos so now my players will have to build sentient buddha statues and ghost powered mecha).
• While there are all sorts of creatures, I am sticking to the One-of-a-Kind model for Monsters. Every one unique, with a name.
• There's a lot of setting mysteries that I have write ups for I may allude at but not include here, just since I have players whom may read the blog.
• What's out there on the edges of the world?
• What's up with the Gudgeon Moon?
• What's down below the flat plane if we dig greedily and deeply?
• etc etc

It's something I've spent the last few years writing a few hundred documents on, and I just hope its something to somebody.

Thank you for reading.

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This post © 2025 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

HOU: Personal Highlights from ~98 Templates

I put out my homebrew ruleset back on 8/18, and as part of that I had a second document drawn up of Features (which are sort of analogous to Delta Templates, except instead of having set-conditions to unlock them characters are expected to find & learn them in the world as a form of loot).

A lot of these Features I straight adapted from my last ruleset- which I started in 2020, put out publicly in 2022, and have basically been constantly making small adjustments to in years since until this last radical redesign. 

Point of all this being: I have always debated how to talk about this in blog-form. 98 is a lot to talk about, the current 98 entries are already listed in full elsewhere, many general concepts like Word-Based Spellcasting I've had around for a while in some form, and many others are general ideas familiar to the blogosphere.

So: I'm just gonna do a long-ass post highlighting some favorite design thoughts. If you'd rather just read the full 98 directly, please check out the Features pdf here.

HOU: Inventory Based Initiative

In a previous post I gave some broad thoughts on generally using a FILO Initiative System.

I also am going to be testing out using (relatively) static Initiative Values, which are determined directly based off a player character's Inventory Slots.

• Every character has ten Inventory Slots by default.
• Three of these are "Fast Slots" characters can freely grab items from, the rest require an action to grab them from their pack and such.
• Generally: most items take up one Slot each.
• Your character can carry up to 5 additional Items, but this makes them Encumbered; making them slower / less acrobatic / etc.
• If your character ever attempts to carry 16+ Inventory Slots of Items, they go at the bottom of Initiative and are immobilised.

• Your character's Initiative Value (IV) is equal to 10 - the number of filled Inventory Slots they currently have.
• (Carrying items in Encumbrance can lower your IV into the negatives).

When Initiative is called for, participants declare actions going from bottom to top. Then they are resolved going from top to bottom, to allow for all those FILO shenanigans.

I feel like overall this is a little game-y and abstracted, but still works well?

- As a player, you have to make the decision: do I carry more armour, equipment, etc. to be ready for any situation? Or do I try to go in with very little and rely on being quick?

- You can adjust your IV on the fly by just dropping shit. Heavily armoured knight needs to even the odds against a speedy boy? Dramatically tear off your armour and close the distance. Or is your party lugging a bunch of loot out of the dungeon? Is the loot worth your life, or is it better to try and figure out a clever way to retrieve it later?

- Having a hireling carry things becomes a really good strategy, but also puts that hireling actively at risk as they are slow and vulnerable.

- Originally I was going to consider having spellcasters be forced to carry a bunch of magical paraphernalia, which would also place them lower in turn order along with heavily armoured knights? But for now I figured as a better catchall, all magic goes at the bottom of Initiative regardless of what you're carrying, just as a general sort of balance.

- Any effects which play with Inventories now also play with Initiative. Besides making it fun to brew ideas, it also reinforces players needing to consider their Inventory. 

- Beware the naked guy speed running around with nothing but a sword.

Strain

This mechanic is pretty much ripped straight from the GLOGosphere (if anybody has a good citation let me know), but along with the above it gets recontextualized to do a lot more lifting.

Whenever players do something physically exhausting- such as using a specific ability, engaging in some physical activity, etc) they must fill one of their Inventory Slots with Strain as well. This Strain can only be cleared out by resting, relaxing, etc.

- So acquiring Strain sort of acts as another risk vs reward sort of mechanic for players to engage in. Do you do the flashy or decisive thing, but take a penalty to your Initiative & Inventory until you can take a rest? Or is it better to hold out and wait for a better time?

- Besides injuries / afflictions, it's also one of the primary motivators for having players take rests or downtimes to heal off their Strain.

- Since I'm going mostly diceless, Strain also acts as a way to settle direct physical contests by just auctioning how much Strain either side is willing to take on so that their desired outcome happens.

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This post © 2025 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

HOU: Word-Based Spellcasting, Diceless Version

A while back I shared my previous versions of a Word-based spell casting system. I've heavily revised it since though so, consider this a fresh-ish version. The basic guts of it go something like this:

To cast a spell: your character selects [Words] they know from their list of known [Words]- usually a [Verb] + [Noun] pairing- and describes what they are hoping to achieve with their spell and what they are targeting.

They then must determine what sort of Law(s) they must follow to cast the spell; sort of akin to this post at Was It Likely?. These Laws are given out by their templates, so different forms of spell casting might follow different Laws.

The rules your character must follow to learn [Words] and the specific rules by which they resolve these spells are determined entirely by the class templates which granted their spell casting ability.

That's really the main bones of it as far as the system-agnostic end of it goes. In a practical sense: imagine instead of writing unique spells, a lot of that energy gets shifted to going into creating unique ways for characters to interact with Words & unique Laws which they must follow in casting their spells.

1. Everyone interacts with [Words] differently depending on what "class" they are.

Besides there being a lot of variance with [Words], how a character acquires and uses [Words] also adds a lot of texture to how different forms of spell casters operate. This isn't just like, how a character literally learns a [Word] within the fiction of the setting, but I also mean on a practical mechanical level.

- What if you could only learn one Verb ever? one Noun? Creating a sort of hyper-specialised caster (a personal favourite of mine, Go Snake Wizard!) 

- What if your character only learned Nouns, but they could be flexible in their application?

- What about a character whom learns Adjectives?

- What if you didn't permanently learn [Words], but instead had to perform [Word] games that tell stories in order to use a [Word]?

- What if your character constantly had to be observant of whats around them, in order to pull [Words] from that and write freestyle poems to cast spells?

- What if your character could also use their [Words] to change their Laws? Or program their spells?

Certain [Words] are definitely very, very powerful (e.g. [Person]); so either limiting them or using them as high-end loot is important.

2. Basically: each Law for a spell is either a While or an If/Then statement.

I guess in theory there's probably other models that work? But wracking my brain this is what I thought was natural and practical.

"You can [Strike] [Lightning], but it only will strike the highest point nearby outdoors."

"While your character is touching the ground, they [Enhance] their [Strength]."

"If your character swallows an egg whole, then on the spot they can [Elongate] [Snake]."

Really the important part is that the Law needs to pose a significant penalty, restriction, etc. They need to make using the spell really fiddly and interesting and annoying to use, but fun to set up. Imagine trying to figure out how to [Strike] [Lightning] on a specific target in the middle of a dense city for example. Spells REQUIRING shenanigans by the player to activate.

If players want to do spell-research kind of stuff, creating or modifying Laws is a great way to do that too.

3. Some more personal, system-specific sort of magic thoughts related to my current rules draft:

- Since spell casting is super fiddly to activate and use, and it's also extra slow and interruptible, I don't intend to limit the actual usage rate of spell casting. Sling spells all day, be free wizard! The only mechanical limitation for that then is that I also limit spell casting so that it cannot restore wounds, heal the dead, etc. Any limited resource remains limited. (I personally also don't care for healers mechanically much anyway, but that's more a personal pick so grain of salt).

- I like every spell-caster to not just feel different, but to operate on different rules to each other whenever possible. The sort of chassis-differentiation thing from my last house rules carried over here, but now also the addition of Laws pushes that even further to make everyone a whacky bastard. Truly a precious revelatory yoink from Was It Likely.

- I feel like Words + Laws are easy to come up with on the fly as a GM, but I also hope the systems in play let players get loose with it too. In my last set of house rules, I had a player whom only could manipulate [Garments] who did all sorts of whacky anime bullshit despite that limitation, and just being surprised by players in that way is one of my favourite things.

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This post © 2025 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

HOU: Distress as Brain Posture, FILO, Other Combat Thoughts

(I laid out a sort of post-plan previously but not even one proper post in and I'm abandoning it. Sorry! But it's in the name of "just post" energy).

I mentioned my plan for a Balance-based HP system prior. More or less all of that remained true into the current draft, so I'm just going to jump off from there to quickly wrap up combat-thoughts.

Distress

As another character-sheet-attackable, imagine Posture HP again but for your mind. But different.

When something significantly unsettling, stressful, spooky, or ゴゴゴ happens- your character becomes Distressed. This isn't long-term stress or morale or anything like that, this is gauging pure jump-scare moment-to-moment adrenaline reaction sort of stuff.

With a moment to Steady themselves, your character can easily take a breath and recompose themselves; just like with their Balance for the Posture system.

But if some more bullshit catches them off guard, that means it's up to the player to pick whether its fight or flight.

• Fight: press on and face it, but you are shaky and easy pickings the whole time
• Flight: running away is honestly such a good strategy

Or for a little more nuance, there's the other 3 F's.

• Freeze: Freezing up in a dangerous situation is probably not advantageous (although, if you are in a safe enough spot that a friend can shake you out of it?), but I also can picture Distress being used in situations where taking a second to think can help as well. Giving a speech and your rival throws you off? Sitting in a slowly ticking death trap? Freaking out might mess you up more than the reaction tine lost.
• Forfeit: Surrender often can lead to unique situations!
• Faint: Okay this one probably for sure isn't ever going to be picked by the players, but it's not for them. Since their enemies also operate on the same rules, all of these 5 F's also can act as alternative non-violent ways of ending a conflict mechanically.

Afflictions

"Injuring" players is more codified as giving them "Afflictions"; as a sort of catch-all for any less-conventional injuries, mutations, etc. While I have some example ones written down, a lot of these can just be thought of as "placing a restriction on what the target can do." Slash their hand? Can't use that hand. Burn their eyes? Can't see anything. More creative mechanical options work too, but I figure on-the-fly this is simple & intuitive enough.

Engagement

Everyone (only sometimes) has a sort of secret extra layer of defence in melee combat: you actually have to be in range to swing a weapon at them.

In HOU, this might mean using your whole turn to 1. move up to them and 2. begin combat with them proper. While it's a little less intuitive, I think it will be important mechanically?

• It really really disincentives charging in swinging. If you run right in and start the fight, you're basically giving them the chance to swing at you first. Instead either circling each other and waiting for the right move, ganging up on someone, using cheap tricks, etc is way safer!
• If the target also happens to be faster than you and you run in to engage them 1:1, they basically can easily wipe you out without an exit strategy.
• Conversely and more importantly: it gives players a chance to react with any sort of violent monster that would run right up to them and start swinging.
• Spells & Projectile Weapons sort of ignore this, but they also tend to be slower in Initiative and have other considerations to worry about.

Weapons

I have boiled everything down into 5- technically*- kinds of weapons.

This all starts with just like, your stock standard one-handed Melee weapon, serving as the archetype against which any other kind of weapon is judged.

• Small: In my previous house rules grappling basically meant that targets using small weapons auto-hit each other, and targets using big dumb weapons auto-missed. That sort of ethos of grappling-as-equalizer carries on here too. Per the Balance post, a target wearing a ton of armour might be real tough to deal with in conventional 1:1 non-magical combat; but getting the drop on them and grabbing and shanking them where they are unarmored hopefully feels like an intuitive strategy for players.

• Ranged: With every character essentially having limited actions, theater of the mind, & 2 HP- Ranged weapons would basically be unstoppable. Besides just including cover as balance, making Ranged Weapons act lower in Initiative felt natural. It gives players times to observe the threat, and dramatically dive to cover before they become pincushions.

• Heavy: Since there is no HP, Big Weapon = More Damage wasn't on the table. So instead, again trying to think of real combat a bit, Big Weapon = Controlling the Space, like swinging around a big sword or holding people off with a polearm. Mechanically this became attacking targets without being engaged; making the threat more naturally that charging in against the guy with the big weapon means they can poke you before you poke them.

• Binding: I'll level with you: I wanted a non-violent option for players and thought all the ropey/chain weapons were a good way to do it.

*Technically whether a weapon is blunt / slashing / piercing sort of matters, but really its the sort of thing that can be figured contextually right? Mace beats skeleton, axe beats plant, etc.

FILO Initiative

I originally adopted a FILO each-character-has-a-turn system for a few reasons.

1. In TTRPGs, I Don't Like Healers

A lot of better & older writing exists on this so I'll be brief, but the role of "sit and undo our mistakes" in more standard D&D type games stinks.

In older version of my house rules, instead I adopted an Estus Flask sort of system as a precursor to my current Balance system. Every player could heal themselves a little bit by just steadying themselves. If a player still wanted to engage in supportive play, instead they had to distract enemies, make openings or protect players to create that precious window for them to take care of themselves.

That sort of thought carries over here, just even moreso when everyone sorta has 2 HP.

2. Interrupting People is Fun

You ever think of those scenes in martials arts flicks or like swashbuckling sword movies where the bad guy is about to strike someone down and then another character unexpectedly jumps in to defend them?

Or in a heist movie when someone does a last minute improvisation to cover up a mistake?

Or like you ever play a game and someone is about to do a winning play but then you last minute stop them?

I love that shit- and FILO is a really good way of getting that dynamism and turnabout energy in any situation, combat or non-combat.

3. Timing as a Form of Defence

Besides whats been brought up previously- being fast lets you dictate fights + interrupting people trying to harm you- the existence of a clear & visible turn order also gives players a little buffer, sort of like a strategy game.

You know whose going to be coming up when, so the timing & information really help players formulate strategies... if they aren't distracted, which blessedly I haven't had to deal with as much since college.

4. Timing Makes for Fun Character Abilities

Depending on how deep a breakdown I do for the list of abilities I wrote, I can go into this more in-depth, but design-space wise I love letting players bend rules and cheat. Messing with the turn order or action economy in general is a nice intuitive fun way to provide them then with defence, offense, utility, etc all in one.

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This post © 2025 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Heading Out Unknowingly - Intro

original art provided by my lovely wife, CV Pham

Since I read this awesome post at Was It Likely, I've been itching to give my house rules a radical rewrite. For what interests me more specifically in play- seeing people deal with strange situations- it just made sense!

I initially talked about some of the ideas I was forming in this post, and I intend to sort of formalise and continue with that in order to share ideas in post-form over the next few weeks.

1. Balance: a Posture-based HP System
2. Distress, FILO, Engagement, Afflictions, Weapons
3. Diceless Spellcasting using Words & Laws
4. Inventory Based Initiative
5. Feature Highlights

(As of 9/1/25: I've said most of what I had to say here; if I ever have anything else to add it will be added to this index).

If you'd rather also just read the whole thing now sans commentary, it is also finished and out now on itch as Heading Out Unknowingly.

It isn't quite GLOGosphere and I think it's not quite as true or as cool as Cottonmouth-proper, but its something I made heavily inspired by both after lurking and watching for years.

Thank you all for everything.

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This post © 2025 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Columbos & Sherlocks: L'Inspecteur

Remember that one brief month when people were hacking Cloak and Sword games into classical murder mysteries?

Class: L'Inspecteur 

Starting Paraphernalia: relatively modest shabby clothes, a conspicuous injury or well-controlled innocent sort of vice, some sort of unconventional skill not befitting an investigator (gardening, opera, etc)

You are not an officer of the law or a professional detective. You are a little old woman who professionally tends gardens, an old priest who rides around the village on his bicycle, an elderly novelist who travels place to place for writing inspiration. Wherever you go though, you always seem to be chased by murder.

George Fort Gibbs, for G. K. Chesterton's short story "The Sign of the Broken Sword"

Who, Me?: As long as you actively keep up appearances as doddering, old, and a little daft- characters whom do NOT have Esprit for you will treat you as a nosy nuisance they wish to be rid of as soon as possible. They are willing to do any small task to get rid of you- answer a question, let you view their room, etc.- but they would never do anything as drastic as attempting to harm you, let alone kill you.

People Person: As long as both characters are in the same room you can tell what, if any, sort of relationship they have (e.g. romance, rivalry, family, held Esprit, etc). This does not work if they are obscured, dead, or wearing any sort of mask or face covering.

Connections: By considering two pieces of evidence in your mind for an hour, you can determine if they are connected or not as well as generally how they are connected. You cannot use this ability again until you uncover another piece of evidence or some other development happens with the investigation.

One More Thing: If you ask someone a question they weren't expecting or ask them at an unexpected time, they are compelled to either answer truthfully or to offer up a barely-believable lie; the kind that might be suspicious but not actively evidence of wrongdoing.

Astound the Experts: If your character makes some keen deduction, uncovers an overlooked piece of evidence, or otherwise performs some impressive detective work- any officers of the law or experts in a field useful to the immediate investigation hold Esprit for your character until the end of the investigation.

Know a Guy: Once per investigation, you may declare your character "knows a guy." This guy is an expert in some skill or field which none of the current party members or NPCs involved in the investigation possesses. They may interpret or examine a single clue or piece of evidence for the party to completely contextualise and offer expert advice on it (e.g. a forensics specialist to examine blood spatters, a clockmaker to act as an expert witness to check if the clock was tampered with to potentially disprove an alibi, etc). This "guy" can either be a recurring minor character who "happened to be in town," or a new minor bit part depending.

Detective Vision: Your character can tell if evidence has been tampered with, or if a piece of evidence is conspicuously absent. They cannot tell what is missing or how something has been altered, they merely know that "something isn't quite right here..."

Did It For Love: If anyone lies on behalf of someone else, you can instantly tell that they are lying. You don't know for who or why exactly they are lying, just that they are.

Has There Been a Murder?: Upon first visiting a town or city, roll 1d10. On a 10, a local prominent figure has recently been murdered and the culprit is still at large. If your character was already investigating a murder, somehow these murders are connected.

Stay in Town: Any chivalrous or honest folk must heed your orders to stay in town at their residences while a murder investigation is occurring; or they may appear guilty. Any dishonourable, meal-a-day sorts though may come and go as they please; but this will mark them as a guilty person in the eyes of the law.

Announcement: If your character possess some key piece of evidence that was formerly hidden (e.g. the murder weapon which was thrown in the lake, fibres from the culprits' jacket, etc) they may shake it around and make a public announcement about it. The culprit, whomever they are, are compelled to make some move to cover up their crime. This is done completely secretly, however it still done sloppily (creating yet more inconsistencies or evidence thanks to the tampering) or without alibi (the culprit acting at a suspicious time).

Oh, Really?: Whenever your character makes some form of obvious mistake (e.g. getting a time wrong, a character's name wrong, etc) any NPC whom witnesses it is compelled to correct them, even if this would divulge other information (e.g. invalidating an alibi, revealing they know a character they claimed to have never met before). If multiple NPCs are present, this ability defaults to the smuggest most egotistical one present.

J'Accuse!: Your character may publicly announce that they have solved the case. All suspects and persons involved in the case must show up at the time and location of your choosing. All present have Esprit for you until you are done presenting your case, and none of them may actively harm anyone else while they hold Esprit for you. If your character ever fails to accuse the correct culprit, they lose this ability and may never gain it again.

Howdunnit: Once ever, you may declare that your character knows exactly what happened. The GM must describe the murder, in perfect detail, leaving out no clue or tell. Now, this just leaves your character to figure out how to prove the facts of the case in a way that would hold up in the eyes of the law.

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Since this post was part of a community event, Columbos & Sherlocks: L'Inspecteur by Ro Pham is marked CC BY 4.0

Angevine Cloak and Sword

The province of Angevine is located along the far borders of Manteu, nestled in the valleys of the Bebrye Mountains.

It is an afterthought in the minds of many noble families bickering in En Plus Paris, a territory that has changed hands between the neighbouring powers a dozen times in the many different wars which have occurred across Ganymed. Even then most of these conflicts were the boring margin notes of glamorous campaigns; with perhaps the only noteworthy event being the gallant march of General Ymlin leading his army across the frozen mountain passes and into the heart of the country (a move so bold and yet so gauche so as to be unreproducible).

To those aligned with the Cardinal and his interests however, the question of the Principalities weighs heavy on the mind.

Crespi

Just barely past living memory, the prominent D'Angevine family was all but wiped out in the Patte de Chat Massacre. Some suspect the machinations of the former Grand Duke and his tragic folly, while others blame it on a raid by a foreign power or perhaps a plot of the Dragoman. The only survivor of the Cat's Paw, Baroness Coulrina D`Angevine, never spoke of the incident while she lived; instead living a private life away from court with her close personal friend, one of the Marquesses of neighbouring Les Lances, at her estate. Both of them lived to ripe old age and died weeks apart from each other some ten or fifteen years ago, leaving no formal heirs.

However, if the rumour is to be believed, the clergymen attending the dying Baroness witnessed a miracle.

Whispering the traditional prayers of her people with her dying breaths, the Baroness' body burst forth into the first seven of the holy servitors that are the Principalities.

Had this happened once, it would have been a miracle propelling D'Angevine to Sainthood. The fact that now multiple members of the faithful in Angevine have now had similar miracles occur over the last decade or so, is what has lead the Cardinal and his flock to worry.

Mstislavovo Gospel book cover

Principality

(also called Rulers, halfangels, or to doubters: favele)

Physical Description

• Each Principality shares the same "default" appearance, sort of looking like each one uses the same soft-faced boy or young woman as their starting "base."
• Each one additionally has 1d4 unique traits to distinguish themselves. These are usually the most prominent features of whomever birthed them (e.g. a Principality born to a man with a long nose and prominent smile lines would likely have a long nose and prominent smile lines).
• Principalities do not have genitals, anuses, etc.
• The neck of each Principality is wreathed with tiny white bird wings.
• Each has a varying number of wings, usually around 2d6. The number of wings is viewed auspiciously by Angevine locals.
• At rest, the wings sort of fold up around the neck, like a priest's collar.
• The Principality may, at will, flex out their neck-wings. When they do they seem to glow with the light of a migraine aura, and you can see the sun through your closed eyes or the building you're in or if it's night. The wind also seems to rush around them, harmlessly jostling everything (like that thing in Ghibli movies sometimes? I would find a clip but I can't be assed to search for it).
• They seldom do this though, as it is fearsome. Typically it is only reserved to stir Esprit in the penitent or the downtrodden of the faith, and call them into action.

Physiology

• Principalities seemingly are born to answer the prayers of the faithful in Angevine (and only in Angevine; though outside members of the faith on pilgrimage appear to be able to produce them). They still very seldomly appear, and do not appear to every petitioner. What seems to help the odds are:
• praying specifically in the name of St. D'Angevine (dubiously heretical considering she has not formally received sainthood)
• being elderly
• being an orphan
• having a prominent frailty, disability, etc
• being a child 
• being particularly innocent- a hermit, a virgin, etc
• praying a lot for this to happen. a LOT
• going on pilgrimages or quests or other chivalric/holy things
• Principalities are born by bursting forth from the heads of the faithful.
• This literally splits their heads open. The process is excruciating and takes about three days- one for the Principality to claw its way out, one for the wound to scab over after, and one for it to heal into a feather-lined scar.
• Despite the pain, the only lasting harm to the faithful is usually the feather-lined scar, which is usually viewed as a mark of veneration.
• Principalities are born fully formed.
• (You know those depictions of medieval/renaissance babies drawn as weird little adult men? Reverse that- these are like adults who have been drawn as little babies).
• Principalities' minds are human-like, but either due to their nature or their experiences they aren't quite human.
• While they are generally a little confused and naive, the mind of a Principality is fully formed with a handful of skills useful to running and maintaining society (e.g. a Principality born knowing how to collect tax, knowing how to administer orphanages, etc).
• Principalities are not motivated by fearsomeness, violence, danger, etc. You could completely gut one and they would be completely unmoved beyond the waste it makes.
• Similarly: they are pacifistic by nature, and cannot bring themselves to directly harm another living being.
• Principalities do not need to eat or drink. Instead: they are physically maintained by holding Esprit for the faithful.
• Typically shortly after being born, this manifests as admiration and praising of their parent. However they may also may latch onto any number of holy men, martyrs, Saints, etc
• When a Principality dies, their neck wings unfurl and their heads pop off before flying off into the sunset. Amongst their kind, they claim that they are leaving their non-angelic half behind to join with the rest of the angelic host until the end of days.

Honestly all the cherub heads are giving me deja vu. Did somebody else make a post at some point with like a ton of baby heads with wings? Feels very GLOG, hope I'm not treading old ground

Compared to the other provinces of Manteu, Angevine was lacking in almost every way. Nothing but small hamlets sipping at rivers of ice-melt, rime-covered bushes of stout dark berries, and valleys lined with Patte de Chat flowers. No great armies, no wise scholars, no plentiful resources.

However, now Angevine has been blessed with a resource in the Principalities.

Due to a very dubious loophole, technically each Principality is kin to Baroness D`Angevine through their angelic birth. This means technically each one is part noble, partially of their parent's lineage, and (potentially) part angelic being. To bolster his resources for his war with the queen in the surrounding provinces and avoid the question, the King grants each newly born Principality the title of Vidame through arrangements with the local bishops.

The eldest and most fiery (relatively, in the terms of angelic pacifists) of the original Principalities born from Baroness D`Angevine is the exception, instead inheriting her barony as Baron D`Angevine L'Lèvre. However, the Baron largely operates in the region through his many advisors, and is seldom seen outside of holy days.

This all is deeply upsetting to the existing local nobility, largely Queen loyalists, who quietly seek to undermine and reestablish things properly in the region without upsetting the faithful or the peasantry. Wouldn't want to risk a revolt, schism, etc. on top of the current civil conflict.

In practical terms: the Principalities all are born to labor for the betterment of Angevine through all manner of holy functions to maintain society. They are technically subjects of the King, however in practice they answer to the Cardinal. They are also known for their charity and magnanimity, which has earned them the devotion of many poor faithful souls.

Principalities in power in Angevine also have given rise to their own unique forms of court intrigue.

• While they cannot directly harm one another, they very much can order harm upon another for the sake of a greater good. If they witness it though, they themselves immediately will die; and bringing it up too much can make them ill.
• Halfangels can commit minor violence if its in defence of the innocent. So, if one needs to fight, often they will bring around a child or an old person to defend in the fray. Often this is their parent. Also often they are not very good at fighting, because of course they aren't.
• Angevine is a land of hospitality, where every guest is expected to give a gift to their host. So violence between two Principalities often takes the form of horrific white elephant feuds. Given their pure nature, Principalities cannot neglect or turn down the gift; so to do maximum harm one might gift the other something that requires intense and laborious personal care, like a rare plant from the Academie Gramarie or a creature from far flung Noblessie.