Friday, April 1, 2011

Random Queen Encounter Table

In 5837, on the fiftieth anniversary of Queen Victoriana’s acession to the throne of Grand Lludd, a plan was unveiled which was to assure that her reign and the glory that had accompanied it would never come to an end. The most trusted and skilled alchemists of the empire set about to great several clones of the queen, which were to be grown to adulthood in alchemical vats in a hidden underground complex--the Preserved Queen, she and her duplicates would be called. In the panic and chaos of the Great War, various factions of the government took it upon themselves to open vats prematurely, and perhaps some were damaged by the Staarkish bombardment and opened on their own. The result is that multiple iterations of the Queen may be encountered in the Lluddish Isles.

Given that various versions of the Queen are more likely to be encountered in certain places, this is really more of a random adventure table, than just one for a random encounter (roll d6):

1 - Queen Victoriana, Prima, born of woman: now over a hundred years old, but augmented with anagathics and magical artifice. She rides a spider-limbed walking throne, and bears a powerful eye and hand brought back from the astral by agents of the crown. She is not amused by the young copies vying for her throne. She occupies the royal residence in the countryside.

2.- Victoriana Le Fay (Seconda): corrupted by fae blood (or perhaps a darker lineage) in the formative stages, she has hair of a most unnatural red, and ram’s horns--and perhaps a devil’s tail. She occupies an abandon priory (surrounded by savage, living topiaries) from which she stages elaborate, drug-fueled orgies. She has little interest in controlling more than her dissipated followers, but she will not bow to a copy of herself.

3 - Victory (Tertia): an attractive woman in her twenties, she commands in the fog-choked, and morlock-haunted, capital of Lugdun. She personally (and recklessly) leads bands to rescue survivors and bring them to the hermetically sealed shelters, and also to retrieve supplies from roof-top airship drops. She is seldom far from her fashionable gasmask (the only defense against the poison, mutagenic fog) and her wonderbuss.

4 - Vee (Quarta) macrocephalic, and bodily atrophied, this clone was damaged in the war, and scheduled for culling, but was rescued by a cult of mutated, and mentally damaged civil servants. Her vat has been enshrined at the Science Museum, and attached to an analytical engine, through which she may deliver her pronouncements and prophecies through binary code.

5 - The Dread Queen (Quinta) - A ghost haunting the palace, feeding off the life-force of the living. She appears the same age as living Prima, but her clone body succumbed to old age after exposure to Staarkish toxic gas. She hunts for this body, and will torture any who fall into her hands to find it, but it has already been incinerated.

6 - The Darkling Child (Sexta) - Created in desperation by thaumaturgists willing to see the empire continue at any cost, this youngest queen is a girl of around seven, walled away and warded in a secret playroom. She does not eat or sleep--she is as much of the Outer Dark, as she is royal blood. She waits, and her power grows.

9 comments:

Chris said...

That as some sweet stuff Trey. Shades of Luther Arkwright, which is the highest of recommendations in my eyes.

Long may Her Perpetual Majesty reign over us!

netherwerks said...

@Chris beat me to it. This definitely feels like Luther Arkwright--in the best possible way. Very cool. This would make a really off-the-wall Living Table over at DM Muse, just saying...

Trey said...

Thanks guys. I haven't thought about Luther Arkwright in years. I need to dig that out and reread it.

Needles said...

Awesome sauce! Thank you Tray!

Trey said...

Thanks Needles!

Tom Fitzgerald said...

Spectacular and inspiring work.

Trey said...

Thanks, Tom!

satyre said...

Definitely one of the best posts I've read this month. Keep on keeping on.

Trey said...

Thanks, Satyre. Glad you enjoyed it.