this fox always gives me good advice

'If you will only listen,' said the fox, 'it can be done. When you come
to the king, and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must say, "Here
she is!" Then he will be very joyful; and you will mount the golden
horse that they are to give you, and put out your hand to take leave of
them; but shake hands with the princess last. Then lift her quickly on
to the horse behind you; clap your spurs to his side, and gallop away as
fast as you can.'

All went right: then the fox said, 'When you come to the castle where
the bird is, I will stay with the princess at the door, and you will
ride in and speak to the king; and when he sees that it is the right
horse, he will bring out the bird; but you must sit still, and say that
you want to look at it, to see whether it is the true golden bird; and
when you get it into your hand, ride away.'

 

at the gates of new cardine

(scavenged forgotten play report from facebook, february 2012)

we got back with the heads and the shifter lady was like "what happened to your friends?" and we're like "oh, they're dead or something" and she says "well, here's your three tickets to new cardine"

so we're not sure what to do with the third ticket. we can't sell it because all the people in the town would swamp us if they knew we had it. and we can't save it for you guys because there's only one and there's no safe place to leave it, so

so - eventually, we conduct the chocolate factory/golden ticket scam, except we never tell anybody that there's a prize, it's just us selling cheap chocolates for no reason.

but at the end of the day this kid comes up and he's like," i won the prize, what is it?" so kit casts sleep on him and we stuff him in a sack and make the two hour trek to the wall.

we get to the gate and it's just packed with soldiers, and one dude at a desk. we show him our papers. "me and this guy and the kid in this sack are going to new cardine."

so he's like "ok."

and then he's like "OPEN THE GATES"

and it's this ridiculous moment with lights shining and angels singing and everyone is clapping.

and then we're on the other side and i dump out the kind and we're like, "welp, enjoy your new life, kid"

and he's like, "what? you have to look after me now, i'm a kid"

"what? you're thinking about it all wrong. don't worry! you're in New Cardine, now!"

and then i'm singing this - new CARdine - they've got everyTHING you NEED and there's a musical montage

and then gordy's like, "the kid is stunned"

cool. we stealth away.

MIND APES, BOTTLE-WIGHTS, PEOPLE of DUST, KIKIMORA, HARBINGER MOTHS, and TWINLINGS

MIND APE (4HD)
telepathic, its brain is exposed within a glass cylinder. blasts you with its mind bullets. whenever it uses psychic powers, there’s a 1-in-3 chance its brain will explode.

BOTTLE-WIGHT
a tall figure, its head enclosed in a glass shell, opaque. it attacks and grabs with long spindly claws. if the shell is broken, it reveals a second shell, transparent. inside that- a button, on a third shell, this one filled with blue liquid. If the button is depressed, the third shell comes loose, and the wight collapses. On the next turns the liquid turns purple, then red, then it explodes into 3 stars. each star cuts its way into a nearby target. A maker of bottle-wights is called a bottler.

PEOPLE of DUST

1 proud	named but faceless people	with eyes sewed up	studying a portrait 1
2 miserable	trapdoor women	blind	attending a dark liturgy 2
3 friendly	soot children	painted blue	drinking tea 3
4 hospitable	creatures of bone	in thick makeup	within a dense fog of toxins 4
5 shy	creatures of wood	in purple cloaks	searching through junk 5
6 volatile	creatures of the forest	wearing masks of the sun god	searching corpses' pockets 6
7 hungry	small furry animals	writhing with eternal flame	surrounded by books 7
8 delicate	small leathery animals	victims of severe burns	in a room ringed with sigils 8
9 fancy	little men	with teeth filed to points	slumbering 9
10 damned	beggars	covered in blades	waiting to die 10
11 humble	twisted men	held together with bandages	waiting for an old friend 11
12 vengeful	clockwork women	covered in beetles	drinking heavily 12

(alternate PEOPLE of DUST generator on abulafia)

the KIKIMORA

KIKIMORA (1HD)
(group: 1 lv3 kikimora in 300)
filthy tiny women, veiled, with long sharp twisted faces, living in secret among humans. very polite, doing good deeds. They love liquor. If mistreated, will break things, cause mischief, gather, and try to murder their hosts.

HARBINGER MOTHS prefigure some event by d4 days, depending on their color, they may indicate coming storms, political strife, good fortune, plague - a black swarm indicates the discoverer's death.

TWINLING
(group: a lv3 twinling in 3, a lv5 in 6, a lv7 twinling maven in 9)
a little girl in a black and white dress. has a one-in-three chance to see you, even standing right in front of her. once she’s seen you, she goes and gets the others - moving on all fours like a spider or a cat. cuts at you with her claws. steals you away, to see the maven. speaks TWILL, the language of birds.
A TWINLING MAVEN, a woman all in red, with eyes that are all-black orbs; speaks TWILL and COMMON. is of two minds. can bisect things at will - splitting them neatly and evenly in two, with each half retaining 50% of the characteristics of the whole.

suggested new character class: the smeller

you could be a smeller.

instead of being a filthy fighter or a filthy rogue or a filthy witch; you are a like a filthy normal guy but with a good sense of smell




but then the smeller character doesn't just have to always smell stuff, like the fighter doesn't have to just fight and the wizard doesn't have to only do wizard stuff, the smeller would also have like weapons and hang out with filthy kings and could dress up and whatever like a d&d guy.

apart from that the morphology doesn't matter, maybe they're a dog, maybe a talking dog, a rat man, or a chewbacca, a horse, or a pale elf,  or a big lizard guy, or a normal human, it's up to the player to choose and the dm what's allowed

so the smeller could be like "what does the guy smell like - is he frightened?" or "i smell the air, which way did he go?" or "i smell the dagger - is it a cursed dagger?" and you'd have to answer a lot of questions like this. the dm chooses how much/ how little information the smeller can learn this way.

is that a good class? i can't be sure, it seems fun though