#gurps fantasy

[oldschoolfrp]

Undead wizards have more than a lifetime of study and experience (Eric Richards, GURPS Fantasy, Steve Jackson Games, 1986)

[mr-groovyart]

Had such a fun GURPS session that it fuelled me into sketching these.

Only context i'll provide is the girl by the wall is a 500pt legendary NPC we have no chance to fight. She may be able to parry bullets but she can't parry rizz.

[oldschoolfrp]

"Elementals are spirits embodying an element -- Earth, Air, Fire, or Water." (George "Speed" Webber, GURPS Fantasy, Steve Jackson Games, 1986)

[oldschoolfrp]

The castle was prepared to defend against an army.  When one old man arrived to demand their surrender, they laughed and refused him entry.  (GURPS Fantasy, Steve Jackson Games, 1986)

[desertleviathan]

Dragons of Aclodoc, epilogue

Sorry for the walls of text.  I’m feeling an itching in my fingers that says art of some of those weirdos is coming soon, though!

Of the seven, only Camael and Avrakhaerdrashda have shown up in person in my GURPS Fantasy games, for obvious enough reasons.  But I’ve got story hooks brewing that could lead to almost all of the others.

Except Rahab.  If Rahab shows up, that’s kind of a Game Over scenario right now.  I’m sure I’ll figure out something with him eventually, though.

[desertleviathan]

More Dragons in Aclodoc

As a follow-up to the last post, here’s some specific dirt on the Seven Elder Dragons of Aclodoc, who aren’t really Dragons, but are actually more like Dragon-shaped Cosmic Horrors.  But that’s close enough.

Some time after being remade (multiple times in some cases), the Seven turned their attention to the Vox Terminus, the boundary in outer space beyond which the Voice of the Gods had no further influence.  Beyond that point there was only emptiness, from which Monsters would occasionally erupt.  Alone among the creations of the Gods, the Seven could pass beyond the Vox Terminus without being destroyed.  The Gods themselves could do this, but had other duties within the world.  Curious as to the source of the monsters, and to the possibility of other worlds with other Gods hanging in the Void, six of the seven took wing to explore.  At first they returned regularly to rest and recuperate, but gaps between these visits grew longer and longer.  It has been over two thousand years since any of them has been seen within the world.  The seventh stayed behind to guard the world, and in time became the chief servant of the Prime Architect, the last survivor of the first generation of the Gods.

These are their names and their traits, as of the last time they were seen.

Camael, who Proclaims the Laws: Also called the Chronicler, the Star Seraph, and sometimes the Celestial Leviathan (by people ignorant that The Leviathan is the Calamitous Beast of Void).  He keeps his lair on the second moon, called Caeverru in the Old Elvish language, meaning roughly House of the Shining Guardian.  There, he keeps a library where innumerable lesser ex-angels document the history of every soul that has ever moved through the world.  He is the Prime Architect's most trusted servant, one of only a handful of beings who still interact regularly with that august personage, and is the de facto Chief Executive of the Celestial City, through authority both delegated to him and commandeered by him.  In ancient times, he used to walk the earth as a Man, because coming close to the world in his Dragon Shape would cause atmospheric and tidal disruptions.  At some point, the Chronicler became acquainted with the First Emperor of Mojatar Elas, and learned from him the secret magic of having more than one body at once.  Since then, Camael the Dragon and Camael the Man have generally existed simultaneously.  It has been many hundreds of years since they last recombined, and the two halves may have grown apart in temperament and objectives.

Of the seven, Camael's form retained more overtly Angelic traits after his transformation.  He has six eyes that resemble glass orbs full of fog or smoke, a pair each attuned to what was, what is, and what may yet be.  Within their respective timeframes, the left eye of each pair perceives what is just, while the right perceives what is unjust.  He also has six wings with rainbow crystalline feathers, and six limbs with six nimble digits a piece.  His scales are mirror-bright, and his blood is quicksilver.  His breath is the white fire that kindles the stars, and he makes regular visits across the heavens to stoke their flames.  He is vast and bright enough that he can be seen by the naked eye traveling to and from the second moon, even during the day.

Donryu, who Sanctifies the Covenant: When the Gods began to fall silent, either dying and re-entering the world as mortals, or entering stasis until their skills were needed again, they explicitly ceded rulership of the world to their first mortal descendants, the Wizard-Kings of Old Malstron.  Among these, the House Caradoc was selected to be first, owing to their ties of kinship to the Prime Architect, who was uncle to the house founder.  One of the Great Dragons refused to recognize their authority, so as a display of power the Caradoc Elders slew her and caused her to be reborn in a shape that partook strongly of the Element of Air, which was their specific magical dominion.  As a further display, they used that aspect of Air Magic that has dominion over Language to purge records of her old name and identity.  Relations were tense between the Caradocs and Donryu for some time, but she eventually forgave later generations and established a stronger working relationship with them, if only because she could secure greater autonomy by not struggling against them so much.  When the Caradocs were deposed and scattered, and House Donovan assumed the high seat, Donryu delivered scrolls containing her secret wisdom to the surviving members of smaller families that were affiliated with the Caradocs, but not directly tied to the primary bloodline.  These scrolls included the philosophy of combat that would eventually form the Pandemonium Adept magic style.  Then, rather than bow to the Donovans, she turned her attention Beyond and took flight to the Void, the last of her kin to do so aside from Camael.

Wherever Donryu is, in the world or beyond it, the color of her scales reflects the sky over Meridian, capital city of Old Malstron where she was reborn.  Her serpentine body has four legs, with three claws each, made of air so cold it has frozen solid.  Her mane is a cloud that grows dark and thunderous when she is agitated, and though she has no wings she can form them as needed by calling and subjugating tornadoes.  Her whiskers are long tendrils of azure lightning.  Her breath is a hurricane that could scour the world clean if she unleashed its full strength.  She has five stern sapphire eyes, that see all the currents of magic as they flow between the Five Realms that make up the World.  Of course, this makes her quite blind while she dwells beyond the World, but her supernal senses of smell and hearing are more than enough to compensate.  When she is in a fury, her scales flush dark as iron, her eyes well with blood, and her lightning flashes crimson.

Rahab, who Pierces the Gates: When the Gods were still figuring out the whole business of what would happen to the dead, and where those newly born would come from, Rahab volunteered to be the first to experience the cycle of reincarnation, and prove the stability of the system.  Like all the Great Dragons, Rahab doesn't require a typical biological source to be reborn.  When he dies, his substance will dissolve into the elemental currents of the world, drifting freely until his spirit has passed through the wheel and is ready to return.  At this time, his substance will gather into an Egg, which may just shimmer into being out of nothing, or may be laid by some baffled mother of an unrelated species.  Because he drank of the waters of Lethe before they were given the trait of erasing memories, he is the only known being who can pass around the wheel without memories of his last life being suppressed.  Other beings who die are reborn as something new, but Rahab is always Rahab.  This made him fearless, a bit reckless, and by far the most warlike of the Dragons.  Rahab has passed around the wheel eight times, twice as often as all of his siblings combined.  On several occasions, it only became clear that he had died out beyond the Vox Terminus because his soul appeared in the Underworld.

Physically, he has been described as a cross between a hooded cobra and a manta ray, slate colored and splotched with pea-green patches, with vast sail-like fins/wings that can blot out the sun.  The undersides of his wings are clustered with pale seven-fingered arms, each of which holds a weapon that was forged from one of the lower ex-angels that were directly subordinate to him.  He has four tawny tiger eyes, which see war, pestilence, famine and death.  They also see normal stuff, because he paid some dwarves back in the day to forge him magical lenses for them.  They are configured to see ahead, behind, and to either side at all times (and thus has a tactical vulnerability to assault from above or below).  He has a crest of spines that exude a potent toxin, but from which one of the key ingredients for the Panacea can be brewed.  His breath is a riot of heat and color that inspires battle frenzy in those who survive its blistering touch.  He has no legs, because he is always in motion, never at rest.

Astraea, who Nurtures the Light: Though Camael's flame kindles the stars, Astaea provided the star-matter that Camael sets alight, jewels that she placed in the heavens at the very edge of the Vox Terminus.  The Sun of this world is a different order of construct from the Stars, but similar to them, and she participated in its construction as well.  In ancient times she was the most social of the Dragons, and the most beloved by common folk.  It is still common in many cultures to invoke her name in blessing over a pregnancy or a birth.  The Stellar Dwarves, who fly their brass ships to the outer edges of space and service the mechanical structures inside of the stars she built, claim they've seen her come close to the Vox Terminus many times since leaving.  When she appears, she will hang in the void, gazing into the World for a time, but never entering it.  Like Balor, she yearns to Create, but her dream is to add to the World rather than assemble her own.  Sometimes she finds herself compelled to consume the flesh of Void Monsters that she has slain, something all the Dragons were explicitly forbidden from doing before they departed.  It is unclear how doing so has changed her nature, but it is almost certainly not healthy.

Astraea's skin and scales are translucent, and her bones appear nacreous.  Weird lights move within her, sometimes assembling into spirals and masses that an observer from a better-organized universe would recognize as galaxies.  The outsides of her wings grow with leaves like feathers, which go from springtime green to deeper emerald, and finally autumn brown at the edges.  The insides of her wings are coated in fine golden fur, with rose veins tracing labyrinthine patterns over them.  Sometimes pale lights will dance across these patterns and collect at points, becoming delicate white blossoms that grow strange fruit.  She is very embarrassed by this for some reason, and will consume shed fruits herself.  Unlike her kin, Astraea's exhalation is nothing special... but her inhalation brings her the essence of everything it touches, allowing her a complete multi-faceted comprehension of whatever she tastes.  She has four legs with a certain feline quality, which is responsible for the nickname Mother Sphinx.  Astraea has three clusters of insectile compound eyes, to see what is pure, what is impure, and what is as yet untested.

Balor, who Remembers the Name: Balor was the first Dragon to pass the Vox Terminus, and it has been the longest since he returned.  Of the seven, he was the most certain that there were other worlds out there to discover.  Over time he has become less interested in finding other worlds, and more interested in finding the specific flavor and texture of Emptiness where a New World might be created, so that he can rule over his own creation as a New God.  In ancient days, he walked the world in many forms and bred with many mortals, both men and beasts.  Strains of Balor's blood still run strong in the world, causing weird mutations and magical abilities.  Balor has died once, but becomes violently angry when anyone reminds him of Baldr, who was a great deal more comely than Balor.  There is profound instinctive animosity between descendants of Baldr and descendants of Balor, for this reason.

Balor's scales are royal purple, while his underbelly is gold, and his teeth and talons are a green so deep as to be nearly black.  He has an equine mane of wormlike grey tendrils.  He has a single horrible eye, yellowed and bloodshot, that sees farther and truer than any other ever created, whose venomous green pupil splits open into a mouth.  His eye is his greatest weapon, but also his greatest vulnerability, and his wings and body are covered with false eyes.  He can blink them all at once to change where the True Eye is located.  His breath is a poison that dissolves the substance of everything it touches.  He is forbidden from doing so intentionally within the Vox Terminus, but accidents do happen.  Whenever he destroys a living being thusly, a pustule will grow somewhere on his body that contains their spirit, only releasing it when pierced by a weapon of comparable hardness to his own adamantine fangs.  His flesh was absolutely riddled with such growths as of his last sighting, passengers who will only escape him if the dangers beyond the world manage to end his current life.  He has two legs, two wings, and two tails that twine together in a helical shape.  Balor also has a second green-brown eye, that is [i]just[/i] an eye, which conspicuously looks nothing like either its blighted counterpart or any of its decoys, and remains fixed on the right side of his head.  While the demon eye sees what is weak, the mundane eye sees what is strong.

Kabandha, who Questions the Doctrines: When Kabandha was an Angel, her task was to challenge the Gods, helping them refine their plans by puncturing faulty logic.  As this rebelliousness was more deeply encoded into her nature, she feared Falling tremendously, and was among the first to volunteer to be remade.  Like most of the projects the Gods indulged in, their first few attempts were... messy.  Kabandha obsessively stakes out an ever-increasing spread of conquered territory... in the Void Beyond, where such things are absolutely meaningless.  Before she left the world, Kabandha's lingering contrarian urges compelled her to doubt the Gods' choice of stewards, and she established a strange mixture of a cult and a holding company, that still acquires wealth and property in her name.

Kabandha is easily the most monstrous of her kin.  Her skin is like oily leather, riddled with scars, calluses, and irregular clusters of gritty mud-colored scales.  Her body is roughly spherical, with hundreds of mouths on long tentacles and wings erupting in all directions.  Her mouths have massive hook-like fangs that are nearly impossible to dislodge from something they have bit into.  She has no hands, feet, or tails, but her dry crimson tongues are quite long and prehensile.  Her wings are like ragged grey cloth, scratched with weird sigils from the fluids of Void Beasts.  When she slays Void Creatures, she does not consume them as Astraea sometimes does, but she adorns herself in decorations made from their bodies, trinkets of bone and ichor.  She has accumulated enough of these ornaments that she can sometimes fool Void Monsters into thinking that she is one of them, getting much closer before she attacks.  At the center of her body mass she has one eye, with a spiral-shaped violet pupil, which sees [i]everything[/i].  She is far too diminished from her Angelic self to make use of this limitless flood of data however, and generally focuses on a comprehensive awareness of a small local region at any given time.  Her breath is a rancid oilslick miasma that gives anyone who touches it a fatal rotting disease.

Avrakhaerdrashda, who Reconciles the Paradox: This entity has taken great pains to conceal their nature.  This much is known - when they were an Angel, their function was determined to be disruptive to the safety of the world, due to flaws in their design.  Rather than be judged heretical, they willingly sequestered themself in a private dimensional fold until their creators were ready to call them forth and adjust their properties.  Their faith in the Gods was greater than the Gods deserved, and they were not called forth until well after the determination had already been made to remake all the Angels into other things.  During their seclusion, they were not free to act, but they were free to think, and contemplated the World in great detail.  They would not presume to say that they could have done a better job under similar circumstances than the Gods did, but they have identified flaws that are within their capacity to correct, and strives to do so.  Since leaving the world, they mostly hang in one place not too far beyond the Vox Terminus, but invisible to the Stellar Dwarves, where they craft servants out of their own shadow and send them scurrying about to do their bidding.  In secret, they send such shadows back to the world quite regularly, and have taken an active hand in guiding modern history.  They were responsible for teaching the First Emperor the advanced blind-fighting techniques that allowed him and his order of Paladins to do battle with Void Monsters in the most common shape they took inside of the world, and they regularly communicate with the leaders of House Malich, training them to more effectively use their Shadow magic to police the borders of the world from within.  Avrakhaerdrashda has died twice, but managed to conceal this fact.  Rahab seeks the Void Monsters out most aggressively, but Avrakhaerdrashda has ferreted out their secrets well enough to draw a greater share of their ire.  Their current name isn't actually Avrakhaerdrashda, but because of their policy of intense secrecy, both of their subsequent incarnations have been able to pass themselves off as the original without being called on it.  For that matter, Avrakhaerdrashda probably wasn't the original incarnation's Name either.

Avrakhaerdrashda's features are shrouded in darkness, so that all that can be seen is a draconic silhouette, and two unsettling cheshire grins.  They appear to have two heads on two long necks with eel-like crests, an upright posture with two five-toed legs, a rounded midsection, a long tail kept tightly coiled like a chameleon, and two tiny vestigial arms.  Their wings are strangely structured, with seven many-jointed stalks on either side and webbing stretched between them.  If they have eyes, the number and characteristics thereof are unknown.  If they have sex or gender, they have chosen not to reveal these facets of themself.  Their breath is liquid darkness, which is different from the actual Void in a way that's very complicated and only useful to Sorcerers.  Fortunately, they [i]are[/i] a Sorcerer of no small skill, and can shape this darkness into anything they need, unlike the True Void that resists having substance imposed upon it.  If any of the other six learned that Avrakhaerdrashda had this capability, especially Astraea or Balor who have ambitions of Creation themselves, they would stop at nothing to steal the secret.

[desertleviathan]

Dragons in Aclodoc

So a forum conversation got me writing down a bunch of stuff for Aclodoc, my GURPS Fantasy tabletop setting, that had previously just been rolling around in my head.  Mostly about Dragons, but also about Angels and Elementals, because those are related to Dragons.

When uncontrolled Elemental Magic is left to accumulate, it tends to congeal into entities, the ultimate expressions of which are Calamitous Beasts, vast creatures that express the most chaotic traits of that Element.  If there's a lot of Water Magic sloshing around, it will become various lower-order Elementals, and if enough of those meet, they'll combine (often violently) and evolve until the ultimate manifestation thereof is The Kraken.  Likewise, with unbound Fire Magic becoming The Phoenix, unbound Wood Magic becoming The Manticore, and so on.

It's not uncommon for lower Elementals that have grown complex enough to display self-awareness to assume traits of their Calamitous Beast as an act of vanity, well before they are powerful enough to actually become that Beast.  It is also typical for Wizards to evoke temporary manifestations of the Beasts as resonant vessels for complex magic spells (so, like Final Fantasy Summons).  But it will always be fairly clear to an observer if, for example, a particular Elemental Earth creature is a Behemoth or The Behemoth.

In this world's magic system, there are eight "Common" elements, and two "Noble" elements.  However, the Noble Elements are defined by their relationships to the Common Elements, respectively representing the lesser eight blended in perfect unity, and the complete absence of the lesser eight.  When the Void is allowed to accumulate, therein lies the seed of Leviathan.  Conversely, the Calamitous Beast of Harmony exists only in theory.  Only the lowest Elementals of that aspect have been created under laboratory conditions, with stable lifespans comparable to exotic elements in the real world.  This much is theorized, if the Beast of Harmony could be brought into the world - that its shape would be an emblem of unrivaled creative power, a five-dimensional glyph of one of the True Names of God.

The Angels created at the dawn of time as servants to the Gods were [i]not[/i] Harmony Elementals, but explaining the exact differences between them is a subject for advanced classes at the Malstronic Academy of Sorcery.  When the Angels discovered their inherent capacity to Fall, those who remained loyal feared that corruption was inevitable.  They asked that the Gods remake them into something other than Angels, so that they would no longer contain the potential to become Devils.  Seven of the most powerful Angels chose to be remade as Dragons, and many of the lower ranked ex-Angels displayed draconic traits, even when they became magic swords, human-like beings, or geographic locations.  These details would make Arcane Theorists extremely suspicious about the true nature of the Beast of Harmony, if most of this lore weren't lost in the current era.

[oldschoolfrp]

Dragon’s maw (Nick Petrosino, GURPS Fantasy, Steve Jackson Games, 1986.)