A Special Snowflake Called Azurth

Art by Jeff Call

Humza K, author of the Legacy of Bieth and newest Hydra Cooperative member, has started a series of interview posts at the Hydra blog about "Special Snowflake" D&D settings. His interview with me regarding the Land of Azurth was the first published.

Go read it here.

Another Strange Stars Fate Tease

The Strange Star Fate Rule Book draws ever closer. Here are two sample pages. The title page featuring art by Adam Moore:

And the character record sheet:

Kickstart A World of Visceral Adventure

Looking for a good Kickstarter? Even if you're not, I've got one for you. Friend of the Sorcerer's Skull, Mike "Wrathofzombie" Evans brings you a detailed setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics: The World of Hubris. Mike calls it a "high-octane, meat-grinder, weird fantasy setting," and I'd say that's just about right. Want to see for yourself? Check out his blog and where it has been developing. You also see some great art the likes of David Lewis Johnson and Jason Sholtis have done for the setting. If you like what you see (and why wouldn't you?) throw some love the Kickstarter's way.

Wednesday Comics: Over the Garden Wall

Over the Garden Wall #1 & 2 (2015), Written by Patrick McHale; Art by Jim Campbell.

Boom! Studios is in the midst of a four issue limited series expanding on the 2014 Cartoon Network mini-series (whose virtues I've extolled before), Over the Garden Wall. The series presents additional adventures of Wirt and Gregory in their wandering through the fairy-tale like Unknown as they attempt to find a way back home. It manages to well-capture the series' feel--not surprising since the writer is the show's creator.

Issue #1 is set between episodes 3 and 4 of the mini-series. Wirt, Gregory, and the bluejay Beatrice are trying to get to the house of Adelaide of the Pasture. They wind up attending a tea party and performing odd chores (which Wirt can never get right). It all ends in tears--a house's tears, in fact--and the trio moves on.

Issue #2 takes place between Episodes 4 and 5 and features the backstory of Fred the horse who joined our protagonists when they left the tavern at the end of Episode 4. It features the foibles of over-honesty, and a strange encounter with a perhaps-ghostly Highwayman (the same one who sang the song in Episode 4) in a covered bridge at night.

Two more issues are to come.

New SWN Backgrounds for Strange Stars

Work continues on the Stars Without Number/Old School Sci-Fi Game of your choice compatible version of Strange Stars (release date update, when I have good data to give you!) and heres an outtake: new character backgrounds.

Bureaucrat
Despite the ubiquity of nonsophont minds, there are still plenty of sophont middle managers, datapushers, administrators, and salarymen, in the ranks of government and corporations. Some of them get tired of jockeying a desk for substandard pay and give it up for something more exciting.
Skills: Bureaucracy, Culture/World, either Culture/Corporate or Profession/Legal, Steward

Businessperson
Small time entrepreneurs and up and coming junior executives exist on every civilized world. Sometimes they chafe against bureaucracy or make some bad decisions and decide to look for better markets.
Skills: Business, Culture/Any, Persuade, Steward

Data Prospector
There's a lot of valuable information buried in the depths of a planetary or system noospheres. Data prospectors mine the infospace for value. Sometimes they find things that make them decide to have a look at what's beyond their world for themselves.
Skills: Computer, Culture/Any, Perception, either Bureaucracy or Tech/Any

Entertainer
On every world, in every time, sophonts have wanted to be entertained. Many musicians, thespians, or courtesans, decide to become itinerants, seeing the galaxy as they make their living.
Skills: Art/Any Performing Art, Culture/Artist Subculture, Persuade, one other skill

Hacker
Everyone uses computers without even thinking about it, but hackers know the very soul of the networks. Some of them are criminals, some of them work to stop criminals. Either way, it can be easy to get on the wrong side of the wrong people and find it expedient to get out of the local jurisdiction.
Skills: Computer, either Bureaucracy, Culture/Corporate or Culture/Criminal, Persuade, Tech/Any but Astronautic, Maltech, or Medical

Journalist
News is everywhere and journalists are there to sift through the data and bring connection and context to their audience. Some get the idea to go gonzo and get in the stories themselves, while some others make enemies in places of power. Both sorts can be encountered among the Strange Stars.
Skills: Culture/Any, Perception, Persuade, and one other skill.

Law Enforcement
Beat cop, port authority security contractor, or corporate investigator, the law enforcer does a tough job, often for little reward. Is it any wonder some of them look for a way to put their skills to more lucrative use?
Skills: Combat/Any, Culture/World, Perception, Security

Medtech
Most actual medicine is before by expert systems and bots, but sophont beings usually like a friendly, sophont face on their healthcare. The medtech provides that. Occasionally, though they have an itch to really put their skills to use in situations where they can't rely on bots to do the real work.
Skills: Profession/Medical, Culture/World, Science, Tech/Medical

Psychtech
In an age of nanopsychotherapy to deal with serious mental illness, the "sophont touch" is still prized--particularly by the wealthy. An understanding of sophont psychology is a skill that has a lot of uses, though.
Skills: Culture/World,  Persuade, Profession/Mental Health, either Perception or Tech/Medical

Goblinic Slime

In the Land of Azurth, Goblins don't reproduce in the manner of humankind or humanish creatures, but instead they arise from pools of a viscious, green fluid, faintly luminescent in darkness. This fluid, which wells up from the depths beneath Subazurth, is called goblinic slime--or sometimes "goblin snot" in the vulgate of the Underfolk.

How many goblins and how fast they arise depends on available sources of energy and the volume of slime. Even a pool only a few inches dead and a couple of feet across, and in a cool, dark place can produce at least a few goblin larva. Deeper or larger pools, warmed by heat from the depths, can produce hundreds, even thousands. In ideal conditions, goblins wallow in their pools until virtually adult size, but where resources are scarce, they may crawl worth as tiny goblings only inches tall (1 HP) and are certainly a menace to others when their are a foot to two feet tall (2d4 HP).

Goblins are born sexless, but at apparent maturity (in terms of size), a slight majority develop male or female sexual characteristics, seemingly at random. While some goblins (regardless of sex) enthusiastically engage in sexual activity, reproduction never results.

There are rumors of remote places in Subazurth where slime pools are associated with strange machinery--hissing valves, wheezing pumps, gurgling pipes, and the like--attended by other goblins in great numbers. These are places the prudent avoid.

 Learned texts disagree on whether goblin slime is edible, if unappetizing [a Constitution save DC 15 is necessary to avoid vomiting] or toxic to the unwise ingester by means of internal goblinization. If the former sources are to be believed, slime causes a rumbling in the bowels and strange dreams, but also may confer the ability to understand the native goblinic tongue (40% chance) for 1d10 days. If the more pessimistic sources are take for true, at a failed DC 13 Constitution save, goblins will propagate inside the individual within 1d10 days leading to 2d4 points damage a day and a DC 11 Constitution save to avoid death as they try to emerge.

Giants of Azurth

The Giants of Azurth are a varied lot, not strictly fitting into Gygaxian categories. The giants in the country of Yanth are typically primitive and almost certainly not very bright, though they are not necessarily evil (though they're likely to be). This:

And this:

Would reflect your typical Yanth giant. There is some evidence that was not always the case and that in some remote time (maybe before Azurth became Azurth) there were floating cities of blue-skinned, giantish folk, who enjoyed a life of science fictional splendor as only mid-century America could correctly imagine. They looked something like this:

They all disappeared and their cloud cities are mostly abandoned, except perhaps for a few degenerate examples.

Beyond Yanth, in the countries of Sang and Virid, giants are often less human looking and more uniformly hostile--though still not exclusively. This would be a giant you might find in those lands: