GLoGtober '21 Day 5 - Green is What is Left When Ardor Fades, When Passion Dies, When We Die

    For the GLoGtober conversion prompt. Inspired by the movie The Green Knight.

Knight of Spring

Pierre Droal

Starting Equipment: A bronze battleaxe [described below]. The Horn of Springtide [described below]. A set of plant-covered chainmail armor [+4 AC, 4 slots]. A direram mount [described below].
Starting Skill [d6]: Botany, Alchemy, Geography, Chivalry, Animal Handling, Survival.

Level 1: Fae Immortality, Superiority of Arms
Level 2: Greentongue
Level 3: Thirst for Blood
Level 4: The Storms of Spring

Fae Immortality
    You used to be human, but are not so now. You left your humanity behind in your reliquary. The reliquary itself is a small bronze-bound chest of living wood containing your bones. You sacrificed your bones to the Thousand Gods for eternal life and power. In place of them, you have a structure of living wood that can only be broken by a knight.
    Every time you die, after 1d8-[level] days, you will return fully healed from the earth near your reliquary. You do not regain lost equipment with this feature.

Superiority of Arms
    Any weapon you wield, even your fist, has its damage die scaled up one. For example, a light weapon would deal 1d8 damage, while a medium weapon would deal 2d6 damage. When a heavy weapon is scaled up one, it is 3d6 damage.

Greentongue
    You can speak Root, the language of plants, trees, and flowers. This can be used to converse with them but it can also be used to command them. [level] times, you may utter in Elderspeak a command to the plants within 30' of you. Some example greentongue commands are:

1. Grow: Plants equal to your [level] grow up to 30 extra feet over the course of d6 rounds.
   
2. Ensnare: Roots burst from the earth and trap your opponents for [level] rounds if they fail a DEX Check of 11+[level].
3. Ripen: Plants equal to your [level] grow large fruit, even if they couldn't before. These fruits count as [level] days of rations.
4. Sunder: A single plant explodes, dealing [level] piercing damage to all within 10'.
   

    Some ways to regain your greentongue abilities: make a large sacrifice to the Thousand Gods, awaken an ent, kill an enemy knight, restore a fairy ruler to power, etcetera.

Thirst for Blood
    You can now attack twice per round. You force Morale Checks on all 1 HD minions who see you. Your name is whispered throughout the land, for all the good and ill that brings.

The Storms of Spring
    You rival the power of some of the Thousand Gods. You have 5 points to distribute across your character sheet. They can increase any stat. People will worship you and try to slay you in equal measure.

Adam Glazer

The Armaments of Springtide

1. A bronze battleaxe. A two-headed bronze battleaxe with a haft of living wood. Deals 3d6+STR damage and takes up 2 Inventory Slots. Can be thrown 20' and returns magically to its wielder's hand.
2. The Horn of Springtide. A great instrument of ram's horn. 1 Inventory Slot. The horn itself is engraved with Elderspeak runes detailing the Maiden of Spring. If an action is spent blowing it, the Wild Hunt appears the next round. The hunters are composed of 1d4+1 faery knights, 1d6+1 faery huntsmen, and 2d6+1 direwolves. The horn can only be used once before it has to recharge again. To recharge, dip it in the blood of a king.
3. Direram Mount. A regal direram. 3 HD ram with an Armor Class of 12. Has a 2d6 gore attack. Can speak to all animals in their native tongues and is quite persuasive.

GLoGtober '21 Day 4 - Traincrawl Engineward Entries

    Traincrawl. I never thought I would be writing about trains on my game blog given my dislike of train games, but here I am. I am working on the engineward portion of the Immortal Train, while my collaborator theisticGilthoniel is writing the coldward portion.

    The Traincrawl is a depthcrawl. When you enter a new car, roll a d6 on both tables, adding the distance in number of cars from your starting car (so the first car you explore will be +0, the second +1, etc.). Every car has a 2 in 6 chance of being semi-permanently inhabited, and each inhabited car has a 50% chance of having a party and a 50% chance of having a murder mystery. If the car cannot be feasibly inhabited by humans, dwarves live there.

Car

1. Boxcar
2. Seating Car (six seats wide)
3. Seating Car (four seats wide)
4. Dining Car
5. Sleeping Car
6. Observation Car
7. Tavern Car
8. Prison Car
9. Slave Car
10. Torture Car
11. Mine Car
12. Tomb Car
13. Arena Car
14. Eugenics Car
15. Ritual Car
16. Engine Car
17. Assembly Car
18. Angelic Car
19. Beacon Car
20. Locomotive Car

Details

1. Empty
2. Hot
3. Dirty
4. Burning
5. Industrious
6. Ruined
7. Dead scrappers
8. Dead dwarves
9. Unstable
10. Massive exposed silver train-wheels
11. Protruding machinery
12. Massive orrery
13. Lava pools
14. Clumps of iron
15. Bloodstained
16. Dead angel
17. Smoke-filled
18. First generation murals
19. Heavily guarded
20. Ominously silent

Encounters

1. Empty
2. Outgoing scrappers
3. Returning scrappers
4. Pacifistic, but hunted, cyborgs
5. Fire cultists
6. Dwarf soldiers
7. Drunk dwarves
8. Imprisoned slaves
9. Slave village
10. An angel torturer and tortured slaves
11. Dwarf miners
12. First generation tomb
13. Blood-sport arena
14. Angel gene-manipulator and its mutant servants
15. Engine cult
16. Grand Enginepriest
17. The Assembly Master
18. The Lord-Ophanim
19. Sentient chained star
20. The Conductor

GLoGtober '21 Day 2 - Stygia, A Land of Ash

The northwest, a land of ash and folly

     In a past age, the Stygian kingdoms ruled the northwest of the world. Their land was not like verdant and magical Arcadia; it was barren and mountainous, and the humans there fought unendingly for resources. They, like all human tribes, were ruled by Kings.

    But the Arcadian Kings and the Stygian Kings were not the same. The Stygian Kings were a hard-pressed lot, as, unlike their Arcadian neighbors, their kingdoms were far less abundant in resources and people. The Stygian Kings still revered the Titans while the more advanced Arcadians worshipped the six sacred metals.

    Everything remained this way for hundreds of years, until, as always, one individual changed the course of history. Her true name has been forgotten and now she is referred to as the Flamescar Worm. The Worm used to be a female King and artist of the Witch-in-the-woods. She came up with the brilliant idea to start consuming magical energy, including the souls of her fellow artists. She started to consume the sacred metals, especially gold. Then, she found the original Knight of Eyes, a great stone card engraved with a divine rune.

    And consumed it.

    Her skin blackened and became scaly, her tongue and fangs serpentine. Her eyes, reflecting her diet, became spheres the color of molten gold. Wings sprouted from her back and her breath became that of scarlet flame.

Anato Finnstark

   It was midnight when the Flamescar Worm burst from her blazing palace, letting out a screech that alerted all the Kings in Stygia that a new power was on the rise. In perhaps the only time in the long history of Stygia, the mountain Kings united. The goal of the combined kings? Kill their vermicular foe. The Kings traveled to the lair of the Flamescar Worm and fought her there. In their hubris, they thought they could defeat her.

    An innumerable number of Kings died that day. The ashy detritus of their bodies still blows from Worm’s Peak. A few wandering families of artists settled down near the Flamescar Worm’s lair and have become her devout acolytes. Most of the Stygians, King-less, decided to migrate to the mountains of the world, becoming the dwarfs.

GLoGtober '21 Day 1.5 - Oredon the Drowned

    For theisticGilthoniel's planetary fantasy setting and also a second surprise GLoGtober collaboration post because I love lore.

Eric Elwell

" A flooded, tropical world. The only things that rise above the waters are the gilded spires of the previous civilization. Plant life flourishes under the water and around the ancient towers. Only has a few permanent inhabitants, mainly fishers and pirates on woven barges."

The Association of Towers

    Deep within the tropical jungles of Oredon, ancient spires jut out of the ground, piercing the sky like solitary daggers. These steel towers were once home to the Tower-Dwellers, a precursor species. From recovered bones and crumbling art, they are shone to have been ten foot tall individuals They are thought to have been a warlike race, as most of the towers are heaps of ash and their bones are found in mass graves. What wiped them out is unknown, but their towers hold technological artifacts of great power, which have drawn the curious and greedy eyes of a few Stormsages.
    They have set up the Association of Towers, a loose coalition of scholars, archaeologists, and magic-users that ostensibly work together to recover the Tower-Dwellers culture and technology. In actuality, they are bunch of feuding, pretentious bastards who horde and exploit technology.

The City of Bazaar

    Oredon is host to a single great city: Bazaar, the City of Pirates. It sprawls horizontally across the water, composed of thousands of ships. Every pirate creed in the world regards this as "neutral territory", by which I mean "don't get caught and you're fine". A mobile city pulled by four chained blue whales, Bazaar is a place of criminals, outlaws, and sailors. It is ruled by the four specialized pirate captains: a Whalemaster, in charge of directing the whales, a Trademaster, who tracks all the deals and oaths made within the city, a Dockmaster, who lets ships in and out of Bazaar, and a Warmaster, in charge of the defense of the city.

Peter Dimitrov

The Harbingers of the Flood

    The Towers once stood proud on the surface of Oredon before being swallowed by the tides. The Harbingers of the Flood seek to bring them and their inhabitants back. Although they count several Stormsages and Necromancers among their ranks, the Harbingers are mostly made up of common people who desire an peaceful civilization without pirates and crazy Tower-mages. The Harbingers' leader is Sigbjorn Mikaelsson, a prophet who receives messages from underneath the waves commanding him to take back the fallen Towers from the tides.
    A shadow war against Bazaar and all it represents started around one hundred years ago and continues to this day.

d6 Hooks

1. A new Tower has been found in the wilderness. You are part of an expedition funded by a Stormsage to claim it.
2. You work for a Stormsage (maybe one of the party members) who hired you to assassinate another member of the Association of Towers.
3. A coup is happening in Bazaar, like always, except you're part of it. Usurp the Whalemaster and take her place.
4. You're part of a crew that just joined Bazaar. Explore the city and don't die.
5. The Warmaster was recently wounded in a sailing accident. Now is your chance to finish him and leave Bazaar leaderless.
6. You are part of a Harbinger group that was sent beneath the waves in an ancient iron apparatus to explore one of the fallen Towers.