kengr

No idea *where* this came from, but there I was laying in bed half-asleep after reading some LitRPG fiction.

And suddenly I was picturing am old-style "panty raid". Only done as an RPG or even FRPG scenario...

The mind boggles.

A couple of alignments that occurred to me:
Chaotic weird
Chaotic cute

"weird" might also be "ADHD". "IE "easily distractable. I don't think it cpould be lawful, though I suppose neutral is possible.

"Cute"? not sure if it could be lawful or neutral. Might be divided into "uwu" and "kawaiii!"

Came up with a weird idea while half awake.

Gypsy style wagon. Drawn by flamingos.

Ok, weird, maybe some nice local color. Then I remembered that pic of a T-Rex skeleton covered in lawn flamingos (caption: A flock of flamingos can strip a T-Rex to the bone in 90 seconds)

Suddenly that wagon isn't silly...

Today's Oglaf had a new-to-me tag above it "disrespect magical books, get papercuts"

That sent my mind off on a tangent.

The first (and most obvious) was "vampire books". Which led to memories of books in comics and stories that got activated by blood.

That led to it having to be *fresh* blood. And having blood be a trigger for or magic items/symbols/etc.

This seems to be an area worthy of exploration.

It also led to the idea of hidden needles in the hilt/grip of weapons to draw the blood to activate the spell (or more likely, curse).

That led to the idea of the needle injecting something like green slime.

After a bit of thought, I realized that for best results you'd want something more fluid (to spread via the veins), a bit slower to act, and that dropped tiny bits as it travelled.

Call it pink slime. It'd be thin enough to get picked up by the blood, even in capillaries, and flow with the blood as droplets.

It'd leave behind cells or smaller droplets as it spread. They'd latch onto some tissue and start growing and (mostly) releasing new droplets in to the bloodstream.

When the concentration got high enough to indicate that they'd spread throughout the host, they'd switch to attacking the surrounding tissues aggressively.

So the unfortunately person/creature would feel a tiny prick, then be ok for a period of time from minutes to hours. and then start dissolving into goo as the slime attacked all thru their body.

This is what happens when my brain free associates.

I have to present this more or less in order for full impact.

First, we've all heard of pink slime (yuck) the stuck they make out of ;eftover bits of alleged meat.

Second, D&D has a monster called green slime.

Third, most gaming depictions of orcs make them green.

So... Is green slime what left over after a evil mage/cleric is done harvesting the "useful" parts of orcs?

Another unrelated set of thoughts was triggered by one of those "player in VR game suddenly winds up in another world" stories.

In this case one her her first, "this isn't a game anymore" moments was when she needed to pee.,.. bodily functions not being something that games worry about much.

That got me wondering what rules for that sort of thing would look like.,

Then I realized that would open a can of worms most players would want no part of given the number of evil GMs out there. Just think of the monsters and traps that might be triggered by urination or defecation!

Cindiru fish might seem trivial in comparision

Something reminded me of the old Fritz Lieber story A Pail of Air. And by more obscure than usual though processes I came up with an idea for an FRPG campaign.

Picture your typical "medieval plus magic" world. Now have an analogous disaster befall it.

So daylight is rapidly getting weaker and things are getting colder and colder.

At first the underground dwellers won't notice much, nor will deep water dwellers. And a number of magical critters won't notice at all.

First really bad point will be when all the rivers and lakes freeze over. Ditto for parts of the seas.

That kills some forms of transit, kills water power, and is likely the far end of the demise of normal agriculture. Also make getting water a lot harder.

Deep wells will keep working until the freeze gets deep enough. After that, it'll pretty much be magic only to get water unless you are willing to burn even more fuel than you are already.

Eventually the oceans will be completely frozen over (unless you have some extra odd oceans :-)

At the second tipping point is when gases start freezing out of the air. CO2 will go first. So it'll be snowing dry ice flakes. Be careful about tracking that inside. You could suffocate everyone.

When the oxygen freezes out, any survivor without magical aid, will be doing the "Pail of Air" bit. And only surviving because there are large enough stores of food and fuel left behind by those who weren't as lucky.

Folks with access to magic of the right sorts willbe doing ok, though they'll be using a *lot* of it for just survival.

Different GMs will come up with their own ideas from this sort of starting point.

A campaign set there *before* the start of the Unending Cold Time offer all sorts of challenges coping with the apparent "end of the world".

Or you could start a campaign after it's gotten to the frozen air point. Things would be stable, but very very different.

Then there's the old evil GM standby of having a "normal" party get dumped there. Obviously they'd need to wind up somewhere they can survive for a while (deep dungeon, abandoned stronghold with the "life support" still runing, etc)

Many years ago in my weekly D&D campaign the party had gotten pretty chewed up. As I recall, no one died, but most of them were pretty low on hit points.

They'd left the ruined castle proper (everything above the ground floor was gone, and there was a partially water filled *crater* in part of the ground floor. An *elliptical* crater). They were heading across the large open area between the keep and the outer wall.

The gatehouse passageway was *huge* (as I recall, something like 50 feet across and 150 feet long). They'd just entered it when they encountered a small party of clerics heading in. From their symbols it was obvious they were of the evil variety.

Being as beat up as they were, the player party would just as soon not have another fight. They'd have almost certainly *won*, but they really didn't need the extra damage that'd ensue.

So some shouted negotiations took place as the two parties faced each other some distance apart. They'd just managed to agree to use opposite sides of the passage (at 50 feet, that was enough separation for both sides to feel mostly safe)

Then it occurred to one of the players that even *evil* clerics have cure spells. And it'd be nice to get healed some before they got back to town.

Since the dungeon was on a large island in a lake and the town was on another island over a mile away, this was actually a good idea. They might encounter some other problem before they got back to their boats, or encounter something while rowing back to town.

So, more negotiations. They wanted to buy some cure serious wounds spells. Much discussion amongst the evil clerics.

"Ok, it'll be a thousand golds apiece."

"A thousand! That's outrageous. They'e only 500 in town!"

The cleric shrugged. "So go to town. We're here, the price is a thousand each."

Much arguing but the player party gave in. Everybody watched carefully as the worst injured got healed. They were somewhat better, and the parties went on their ways. The player party got back to town ok and got healed up and everything.

A couple of months later, they hear some folks laughing themselves silly in a tavern. So they ask what's so funny.

Seems that the story was about how some priests of [????] had swindled some adventures. They'd charged them for cure serious but only cast cure light.

The players were *not* happy, as a cure light (in town) was only 100 gold. So they hadn't paid double the price, they'd paid *ten times* the price.

And this, children is how my players learned a painful lesson about the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge. Among other things.

It was hard keeping a straight face while negotiating that scene. And it was hard to wait all those weeks before I let the players find out. But *oh* was it satisfying. :-)

I'm looking for the specs on an old D&D spell. I was able to check my set of original D&D books, and it wasn't in any of those, so it's probably from AD&D first edition. But those books are pretty buried.

Anyway, it was a moderately high level spell, and let the caster summon(?) an extradimensional 10x10 room. I think he had to cast it on a doorway or other opening which became the door to the room.

At higher levels he got bigger rooms.

He could put stuff in it, and it'd be there when he opened a door to the room again.

Anyway, if it sounds familiar to anyone, I'd like the spell name and any other info you can dig up including verbal somatic and material components if any as well as the restrictions.

Thanks in advance.

It'll help with a story idea.

While dreaming last might at one point I was watching a game D&D or some other RPG. I had an idea based on the fact that the players were attacking into a room.

In the light of day, it's a bit sillyish, but what the heck.

Sort of like a large die (as in the singular of dice). It has concave/recessed faces, with raised pips. Much like dice for the blind.

the pips are actually something like BBs. You toss it into a room and the faces detonate one at a time propelling the pips like bullets.

As I said, in the light of day it's more silly than neat, but what the hey.

Had a flash of a bit of scene for something. Maybe a story, maybe a gaming session.

Guy wakes up after losing a fight. He's still in his armor, but tied quite securely.

Someone steps into view with an unsheathed dagger.

"We have a few questioned we'd like answered.."

The man with the dagger bends down and casually and apparently effortlessly cuts the straps holding the armor together.

He then picks up one of the smaller plates and glances at the prisoner again.

"As I said we have some questions."

As he speaks the prisoner's eyes bug out. Because his captor is *whittling* at the steel plate with that dagger.