Thursday, July 31, 2014

July 2014 RPG Blog Carnival Wrap-Up


It's nearly Midnight, but instead of turning into a pumpkin or whatever, here's the Wrap-Up Post for the July 2014 RPG Blog Carnival.

The theme this month was Invasive Species. We had nine excellent entries, not counting our own contributions; two of which were by Leicester. Thanks to all of you who participated in this month's RPG Blog Carnival. It was quite a lot of fun to read all the very well written and thought provoking entries.



Leicester's Ramble gave us four minor amphibious horrors that have shown up in the kingdom recently. The Rage Salamander, Thunder Frogs and Pustule Toads are bad enough, then you get the Bleeding Caecillian...ouch!

The Githyanki Diaspora blog provided a means of customizing a Githyanki Invasion using 6d6 to suit your campaign. The Githyanki are one of the truly classic Invasive Species to come out of gaming, and this is a fun set of tables just begging to be used.

The MindWeave Role-Playing Platform featured the Tulkem, a reptilian invasive species that aggressively take over territory by expanding swampland and flooding-out their neighbors and competitors.

Tower of the Archmage released their first issue of their brand-new RPG-zine The Archmage's Octavo and this inaugural issue happens to feature an invasive species! It's a free pdf, so you've got nothing to lose by checking it out, and besides it's really good stuff. There's also a map by Dyson Logos in this issue, so you know it has a great map to go with the new monster, and did I mention there are rules for handling Carousing as Magical Research for Wizards? Go Get it.

Leicester's Ramble featured a fun bit of flash fiction as a second-helping of invasive species goodness. It reminded me a bit of the old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits stories, in a good way. I'm still hoping to read another new installment of Farthing and Tig!

Over at the World Builder Blog they were Preparing for the Invasion and featured the half-devil/half-aberrant Morchia and the mind-controlling parasitic Mystauk, both statted-up for the new 5th Edition rules. Both are excellent monsters and worth taking a look at and could be converted over to another edition fairly easily.

Tales of a GM blog told us all about an intriguing invasive species...a giant albino leech that served a player character as an animal companion! I enjoyed this post a great deal as it would fit right in with Wermspittle in a heart-beat.

Eric's Gaming Pulse took on the task of presenting humanity as an invasive species in space. He raises some interesting points and postulates a setting where more highly advanced aliens hire-on humans as their preferred interstellar workforce since humans require less intensive life support systems than other species. There's some real magic to this premise and you really need to read his post if you're at all interested in a fun scifi twist on the invasive species premise.

Porky delivered a very sparse but effective set of rules for adding financiers into the mix at the table in The Rule of the Jungle and the Self-Invasive Species. It reminded me a little bit of Sir A.C. Doyle's The Lost World and similar stories along those lines where there is always someone with money getting involved, the rich investor who backs an expedition only to force their way on board and try to run things...this is another very well thought-out post well worth your time to read it over and consider how it might fit into your game.


As for ourselves, we posted about the Black Zones, a few Aquatic Terrors for Gus L., Six Nasty Things from the Black Zones, Sickly Yellow Phantoms, Killing Frost, our Third Sewer Encounter table, the Fleshwrought Servitors of Varug, a set of paper minis for the Rilligong, a set of paper minis including several very invasive species such as the Yelg Froth, Bugs, Stompers and there was a picture of a Mucoid included in the photo of our work-space that we posted for Jack. We also did a new robot T-shirt, but those 'bots aren't particularly invasive, so never mind that.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this month's RPG Blog Carnival!
Next Month's Theme is: Devious Dungeons and the Host will be: Mindweave Role-Playing.



Everything you might want to know about the RPG Blog Carnival is available all in one place, including How to ParticipateHow to Sign-Up to Host a Carnival, as well as some handy advice for How to Host a Carnival if your topic gets accepted. You can also browse through the Archives of Past Carnivals and check to see what's coming next.

The RPG Blog Carnival is sponsored and supported by the RPG Blog Alliance. You can find out more about the RPGBA by clicking these links:

The RPGBA site
The RPGBA FAQ

Bujilli: Episode 100

Previously...
Bujilli and Leeja were brought before the Queen of the Soulless by an ancient killing-machine. There before the Throne of Opals they watched as representatives and agents of the Triumvirate, who may or may not be the secret masters of Wermspittle, argued among one another even as Outside Forces laid siege to the remnants of the ancient Redoubt. The Soulless Queen was betrayed by her Grandmother who was conspiring with a Morlock Elder-Gardener to reactivate or reconfigure the cubic World Engine. The Queen escaped and Gazbonti the Jester now offers Bujilli and Leeja an opportunity to escape using a Synchronocitor*...

Gazbonti adjusted his grip on his severed head. Having been summarily decapitated by the Queen's Grandmother didn't seem to inconvenience him very much.

He drew back a cloth-of-gold covering, revealing a strange mechanism lying there on top of the cubic altar-table-object.

Bujilli recognized it. A Synchronocitor. After all this time he had finally found one. Now he wasn't so sure he wanted one. He wasn't trying to run away, not like he had been when he had allowed the Gem to guide him. The Gem had taught him many things. Whispered to him in his sleep, shown him things in his dreams; lied to him in the pursuit of some unfathomable scheme he still did not understand.

He hesitated. He wasn't sure taking-up this mechanism and using it to flee the Throne Room was the best option.

"But..."

"Looking a gift-horse in the mouth, eh?" Gazbonti nodded sagely as he laughed sinisterly. It was difficult to trust this weird harlequin figure. Bujilli knew nothing of him...or those whom he truly served...

"Let's get out of here!" Hissed Leeja. She was past caring about the niceties and details--she could see that it was only a matter of time before Very Bad Things would start to happen to both of them.

BOOM!

The chamber vibrated under the impact. Bujilli reached out. Gazbonti grinned, nodded eagerly; his eyes glittering with irony and malice. Leeja lashed out at the Jester, her claws raking red lines across his face.

"Wait!" She knocked Bujilli's hand aside.

Gazbonti laughed loudly, then took on a mock-sober expression as he whispered; "You're running out of time."

He then watched the dribble of blood running from the furrows cut into his pasty flesh. The wounds sealed. Healed. Left no trace. He stuck out his obscenely long and curling tongue as his hands lifted his head back into place between his shoulders. It settled back into place with a loud, disgusting sucking noise.

BOOM!

"I must be going." Gazbonti bowed, fluttering a blood-speckled hand-kerchief as he bent so far over at the waist that he very nearly brushed the floor with his pointy nose. The over-sized green finch fluttered down beside him and he leaped into the saddle.

"I suggest you get moving children. Those two have terrible dispositions even when they aren't in the midst of a temper tantrum. You'd do well to get out of here before--"

BOOM!

 "Alas and alack--the moment of unquiet desperation is upon us. Hiyo Yorick! Away!" Green wings snapped into motion and Gazbonti was carried onwards and upwards to disappear behind rib-like arches and a jumble of strange protrusions dangling from the domed ceiling overhead.

"Do we have any alternative to this...thing?" Leeja gripped Bujilli's wrist tightly.

"Not really. The portal we entered by is guarded by a Manshonyagger. Who knows how long we could wander about this place looking for some sort of exit..."

"You have no spells you could use?"

"No. Not really. Nothing that would do much more than make things worse, really..."

"Then let's use this Synchronocitor-thing. You seemed to recognize it when the Jester first offered it to you."

"I...have been told about such things by an...unreliable source."

"It is supposed to take you where you want to go, right?"

"Basically..."

"Fine. Let's use it to go to Hedrard and Lemuel. Directly. That ought to solve our current predicament and give us a chance to get the jump on whomever has abducted our friends."

"I..." Bujilli considered Leeja's plan. It made sense. But he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

BOOM!

 SSSHHHRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

"Now!" Leeja yelled.

Bujili reached out. Gripped the Synchronocitor. Lifted it overhead.

The staff-like mechanism gurgled. Shimmered. Awoke in his hands, insinuated itself into his mind by way of his flesh:

DESTINATION

Bujilli closed his eyes. He recalled the impressions he had received through his link to Lemuel**. He didn't trust the words, the message with the directions that he'd been given. He knew all too well how such things could be subject to coercion; he'd fought Yeren who were notorious for such tricks and he had no intention of falling for such possible subterfuge.

There was a blinking green oval rotating in his field of vision. The Synchronocitor was ready to make the transition.

Bujilli took Leeja by the hand. She smiled. He nodded. The Synchronocitor shivered, went ice cold.

They faded out from the Throne Room just as all hell broke loose and swarms of killing machines and other shapes stormed into the place.

Everything lurched suddenly. Sharply.

A flash of emerald green.

Wind shrieked and howled around them. A lurid red sky loomed overhead. Flickering lines of psychically-charged force raced frenetically around the rim of a circular space in an attempt to capture them. Prancing, capering shapes emanated a deep and abiding hunger for their souls, their minds, their individuality. The Synchronocitor jerked hard over to the right, nearly tearing free from Bujilli's grip. Blackness bloomed all around them. Shattered sigils and screaming geometries collapsed into oblivion then everything twisted along the yelgic axis. They were suspended between the Yr-Nhhngr and Ydmos. They glimpsed the dim outline of Yian-Ho and felt the subcutaneous vibrations of the singing flame. Another shift and a green-lit plain flowed off into infinity before them. Then it ended. Abruptly.

Silence. Darkness. The synchronocitor was inert, though covered in frost that was already beginning to melt.

Five faint circles of light faded out, one after the other in rapid succession.

They had arrived.

Cold wind shrieked past them. Ominous clouds boiled in rage overhead. Lightning splintered the night as thunder rolled across the darkness. They were at the top-most point of a vast tower, a huge ruined pile that was a jumbled and sloppily-stacked mess of architectural layers and levels that stretched down below them for what could only be miles and miles.

"You came. Saints look away. You damn fool kids came after us." Hedrard hung her head. Passed out. Her chains held her upright.

"Release us." Lemuel moaned, barely audible over the wind.

A round hatch began to rotate as it rose from the bare, stone floor.

A flash of lightning. Bujilli could see that this space was essentially a flattened trapezoid with five crude menhirs set at the points. Lemuel and Hedrard were chained to two of the menhirs. Other shapes were slumped or suspended from the remaining stones. They might or might not be humanoid...

Leeja looked to Bujilli; "Now what?"

Heavy red light spilled forth from the opening hatch-way.

Bujilli...


What should Bujill do next?

You Decide!




*The Synchronocitor was first mentioned in Episode One. It is a mechanism allowing the wielder to travel between worlds, planes and dimensions. Bujilli entered the dungeons below Zormur's Palace in search of a Synchronocitor he was led to believe could be found down there by the Gem of Muktra. The Gem of Muktra was with Bujilli from Episode One until he left it behind in the underworld below Zormur's Palace in Episode Fifteen. The Gem has since found a new companion...

** We learned that Lemuel and Hedrard were being held prisoner in Episode 93.




Welcome to our 100th Episode.



Initiative: Roll 1d6 each for (1) Bujilli, (2) Leeja, (3) Lemuel, (4) Hedrard (-2 penalty), (5) Whatever is coming up through the hatch.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions let me know in the comments, or via email.

What happens next is up to you, the readers.

You Decide!

Previous                                Next

Series Indexes
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six


About Bujilli (What is This?) | Who is Bujilli? | How to Play

Bujilli's Spells | Little Brown Journals | Loot Tally | House Rules

Episode Guides
Series One (Episodes 1-19)
Series Two (Episode 20-36)
Series Three (Episodes 37-49)
Series Four (Episodes 50-68)
Series Five (Episodes 69-99)
Series Six(Episodes 100-ongoing)

Labyrinth Lord   |   Advanced Edition Companion

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Stompers (Heroes and Other Worlds)


Stompers (Territorial)
#1d4; ST20  DX12 MV6; AR-1; DM 1d6; TR (Pouch, Lair X2)


Strange, mostly-reptilian beings, the Stompers appeared suddenly from seemingly nowhere and laid waste to fiefdom after fiefdom as they descended upon the fertile fields of  isolated farmsteads and baronies like a plague of locusts. What they could not immediately consume, they carried off or burned. Then winter came. The Stompers seemed to be completely unfamiliar with notion that the seasons might change, that a cold winter might follow the warmth of summer. Wherever they came from, they did not have such changeable seasons.

Unfortunately, the Stompers survived their first winter and have gone on to invade, despoil and lay waste to a host of small villages and farming communities. The people cry out for help. Surely someone, somewhere will come to their aid in this time of dire trouble...


Example Counter from Set One













Heroes & Other Worlds is a fantasy adventure game inspired by Metagaming's classic Melee/Wizard/TFT games, with some elements taken from the Moldvay edition of the oldest and largest table top RPG. The system is simple, easy to learn, very flexible and a lot of fun. It uses standard six-sided dice and can be used to revive and re-play some of those classic old adventures like Death Test...or one of the programmed adventures from Dark City Games...or to create brand new ones. There is a dedicated H&OW forum, G+ community, some nifty free resources (Including Issue 0 of The Cauldron, the official Heroes & Other Worlds fan-zine). The rules are available HERE.

We're currently working on a set of counters and an adventure for Heroes & Other Worlds that makes use of those counters...so you will be seeing the Stomper and it's cohorts in the near future.

...and yes, the Stompers are an Invasive Species, so this post is part of this month's RPG Blog Carnival.

Progress Report: July 2014

A Few of this week's Sketches
This month I managed to get a short-short story published over at 365 Tomorrows, posted another flash fiction piece inspired by a prompt from Ganymeder, and finally got all the links fixed and updated for Zeelia Episodes 1-20, as well as posting the Datadex/Appendix, and the entry for the Jarpha.

I'm going to be writing a slew of new eight-sentence-episodes for Series Two of Zeelia in the next couple of days, depending on how things go with a couple of other very time-consuming projects. The goal is to get back to posting weekly eight-sentence installments of Zeelia's continuing adventures every Saturday at my writing blog. Maybe I can get that going next week...fingers crossed.

In-between all the work on Zeelia, Bujilli (99 Episodes!), Charlotte, and the other serial currently under-production, I have a few more short stories about to go through the editorial wringer, so wish me luck. There's a couple of Wermspittle stories in the mix, and I'm working on some stuff for another site as well now that Gnosiomandus has left the Academy...I'll have more details on that in the coming weeks.

Last week I cleared-out some old designs from our Zazzle shops and uploaded a few new things, like the Stomper T-shirt...and a few things from some projects that'll be coming out in August (if all goes according to plan).

I'm still working on a few Hereticwerks projects as well...including the Octopo and Others Counter-set for Heroes & Other Worlds, A new character sheet, some more paper minis, Three New Mini-Dungeons, GL-2, Ghoulish Glyphs, and the first volume of the Blue Grimoire. I also uncovered my folder of AD&D articles that I did back in the day for Silver Griffin, including a few things that never got into print for whatever reason. I'm considering putting together an compilation pdf of this stuff...Or I might send some of it off to & Magazine.

GL-1: Taglar's Tomb (Revised & Expanded) has been doing pretty well over at RPGnow / DriveThruRPG. It looks like we're going to hit the beer-money mark just in time for my birthday, so we'll get a photo or two taken at our favorite local brew-pub as we toast all you wonderful people who have generously supported the ongoing silly-gamer-stuff we do here at Hereticwerks. Thank you, a million times over, thank you!

I also have an adventure that will be appearing in Tim Short's excellent RPG-zine The Manor issue 7...not sure if it will come out before the end of the month, but it was fun to do and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Tomorrow we begin Series Six for Bujilli with Episode 100, then I'm taking Friday off for my birthday. Posting will be a bit sporadic for the next couple of weeks as I wrap-up a lot of work offline in order to get some more projects completed and out there.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Bugs...

Here's a sample image from a series of nasty little bugs who live in the dim-spaces in-between the actual sewers, tunnels and cellars...and sometimes in-between the walls of particularly disreputable or dilapidated buildings...in Wermspittle and elsewhere. Not quite a cricket, not exactly a roach, they are an accidentally hybridized species who owe their unfortunate existence in no small part to random dumpings of Spectral Brine and other hazardous waste-products left behind by illicit distillers and the like. These verminous things fashion cuirasses from other creatures' cocoons or egg-husks and they are very adept at using mandible-sickles to catch and cut-off the antennae of their preferred insectine enemies...though they have developed a definite taste for the flesh of rats...which has led to some intense interstitial skirmishes between the two unter-factions...

A Few Robots More T-Shirt

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Bujilli: Episode 99

Previously...
Bujilli and Leeja destroyed a Morlock Tripod before making use of Sprague's Access-Point to the planar layer of the Purple Forest where they met Silas Grompf and Midwife Shael who wanted to end one lingering war in order to start another...with Bujilli and Leeja's help...


Bujilli looked out upon the clearing, churned to mud and soon to be saturated with blood in the prosecution of some sad, sick operatic paroxysm of meaningless destruction. It was grim. Desperate times led to desperate measures. The chain of escalating reactions was dragging everything--and everyone--down into chaos, death and ruin. It had the aspect of some sort of call and response; someone nameless and unknown called a tune and everyone either joined in the unthinking idiot-dance or hummed along in a toxic loop of ever-escalating feedback. It all seemed so futile. Pointless.

Or was it so pointless? A disturbing thought wriggled into his brain, something his Uncle had asked him repeatedly and often during his earliest and most brutal 'lessons' in sorcery; 'Who benefited from things being this way?'

Who indeed?

There was much shouting, yelling, orders and commands; it seemed that the battle had already begun, rather it had always been there among them, a lingering foulness poisoning them all from within their own ranks. Stoic soldiers took their positions and readied the engines of war, the well-oiled and maintained tools of their traditional trade. Sad-eyed and resigned midwives trampled the delicate blue grass as they went from one group to the next muttering trite homilies and performing small mercies, comforting those whose nerves were already fraying and tending to the small wounds and injuries stirred-up by all the helter-skelter movement. They were all prepared for the inevitable confrontation they all seemed hell-bent to rush into yet another drastic confrontation pell-mell. Impending violence crackled through everything like static electricity.

"So are you in, or are you out? Times a'wating and a lot of us have some dying to do..." Grompf signaled to one of his couriers.

Bujilli could feel more than one set of eyes focused on him. Leeja's hand was firmly wrapped around his own. Whatever happened next, they were going to face it together as partners. And more. He wondered if it would be enough.

"Your war is never going to be over, is it?" Bujilli closed his eyes for a brief moment, the better to focus on the swirling pattern of glyphs and icons dancing in his field of vision as Counsel mapped out the probabilities and likelihoods of thousands of permutations of choices, decisions and actions...and their reactions. There was a strange symmetry to it all, except for a thread of darkness that wound its way through and around and between everything like a slithering black serpent. A serpent with more than one head. Yes. He could see the shape of it now.

Secret Masters moving about behind the scenes, tugging at strings like puppet-masters. Conspiracies within conspiracies, wheels within wheels; the real enemy was--

Shunk! SCREETCH!!

Blood spattered Bujilli's face. A soldier hacked in two. Another. Another. Red and black robes did nothing to hide the malevolent form of a Manshonyagger hacking its way through the ranks of Grompfs' forces to reach Bujilli. The deadly manschine wielded a wickedly sharp two-handed sword it used to devastating effect. Sergeants began to bark orders and troops fell back, gave the killing machine a clear path. Officers conferred with one another and loudly considered a variety of options and responses while waiting for orders from higher up the command food-chain that would absolve them of ordering anything that could unduly impair their chances of advancement. Stretcher-bearers built from sticks and straw rushed in to retrieve the wounded and recover the remains of the dead.

Bujilli drew out his hand-axe, prepared a spell. Leeja looked into his eyes--she was afraid of this ancient horror from a long dead time and place--but she was determined to back him up whatever the cost.

IT IS THE TIME AS FORESEEN. The machine declared as it stopped right before Bujilli.

Grompf made to issue some orders but Bujilli gestured him to silence. They locked eyes for an uneasy moment, but the old commander relented. He recognized the futility of fighting something his troops were not ready to face. With a nod he turned away from Bujilli and began whispering orders to his couriers and runners. This thing might have surprised them, but the Sewer Militia had a few surprises of their own.

"You have come for me, I presume?" Bujilli examined the machine-thing. It had a deadly elegance to it; a killing mechanism clothed in sanctified robes, a triangle-headed golden key hung about its metal neck on a chain of alternating sunbursts and moons.

YOU ARE SUMMONED.

"By whom am I summoned? To what end?" He wished that he had been able to spend more time studying the Twenty Deadly Planes and attuning himself to at least one of them so he could call upon those techniques...he had a sinking feeling they might be needed sooner rather than later.

SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED.

Bujilli stifled a laugh; "Why must they be obeyed?"

SHE WHO BECAME DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS, TO PRESERVE LIFE.

The smirk left his lips. The pattern in his field of vision coalesced into a twisted web leading to a central golden nexus and this killing machine was the key he hadn't realized he had been looking for until that very moment.

It was time to go.

Whatever it might cost.

Alone.

The Manshonyagger held out the golden key. The way opened up before him. A Portal through darkness.

Bujilli glanced over to Leeja. She smiled. He laughed. Hand-in-hand they leaped through the Portal.

Together.

The Portal went opaque as the sword-bearing machine took up its station; it guarded the threshold.

Two robed figures approached from out of the darkness in-between sets of Gothic arches that seemed to extend for miles and miles. One wore densely green-black robes with a distinctly bluish sheen like fish-scales and a silver mask trimmed in lapis and azure; it bore a simple white cup in its left hand. The other wore dark, heavy crimson robes with tiny, gleaming threads of luminous red squiggling through the fabric like sparks; it wore a mask of gold chased with red and a scattering of rubies and it bore a censer filled with smoldering coals and flickering flames. The two figures remained utterly silent as they walked around Bujilli and Leeja three times, sprinkling them with water and wafting incense-smoke upon them with each stately step. Then they stopped across from one another and stepped back. They each wore an ornate mantle or collar-thing set with glimmering opals.

"The forms have been observed. All is in readiness."

A third figure approached bearing a lantern that drowned-out all sight outside the radius of its radiance. More robes; this time one side was stark white, the other ashen-black. A mask of bronze or some other alloy, set with pearls and nodules of various sorts in recursive, spiraling swirls. A chain of alternating sunburst and moons, similar but fancier than the one the Manshonyagger had worn, was artfully draped across their shoulders. Dozens of plump, gleaming opals dangled from the larger chain on tiny little chains of their own. In its gauntleted right hand was a wand that it raised overhead.

"All is rightly warded and properly defended."

The figure turned, shining its light back along the way it had come, revealing a winding metal ribbon that lead directly into the midst of a vast, circular chamber with a ponderous basalt cube hovering in the center. The red and blue figures took up positions directly opposite one another. In-between them was a figure in white dimming to dove-gray flanked by a pair of pillars, one black, the other white, and before them was another, larger hovering cube. Opposite them was a throne and upon it sat a Queen. She was breathtakingly beautiful and She wore hundreds of opals worked into her elaborate headdress, mantle and train of gold.

"Your soul has wandered long in the darkness of ignorance; constant prey to blind, imbalanced forces. Would you pledge yourself to my service if I were to bring you into the light of understanding? I wonder..."

"Who?" Bujilli choked out the one-word. His throat was constricted with shock and awe. He had expected many thing, all of them dark, foreboding and gratuitously dangerous...nothing quite like this, certainly nothing quite so overwhelmingly exquisite and radiant.

"Do not toy with the young man--he is no longer a boy." Another woman stepped out of the encircling shadows to playfully chastise the Queen. This one wore no robes, only a sort of tunic bound at the waist with a heavy war-girdle girt with a slender scarlet sword in a transparent scabbard. She wore only one opal that dangled on a silver chain between her breasts. Her features flowed and changed with each step she took towards the throne. Her voice echoed softly with multitudes of overlapping whispers.

"We are the Soulless. We are the ones you've been looking for, though you never realized it until our sentinel awoke from its long slumber at the right moment to conduct you thither."

"Why am I here? What do you want with us?" Bujilli wondered at the bizarre tableau set before him. This was not what he had expected. At all.

"We are part of a Triumvirate great grand daughter. The others--"

"--Are Not Here! This is My Domain. I am Queen in this place."

"And yet I remain. I was queen before you; I can be Queen again. If need be."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I have dared much. It was I who crushed a universe--"

"--and nought remains. Yes. We all know; and we grow weary of your re-telling of it. Yes, you saved us all and we're ever so grateful, but that was another time and another place; what have you done for us lately great grandmother?"

"For one thing I made sure that the Star-Begotten and the Children of Earth were made present for this meeting."

"How Dare You!" Screamed the Queen from Her throne.

"Utopia has fallen. Paradise is lost. Yet we remain." A large Morlock in blackened half-plate armor lurched into the light of the chamber to take his place beside the Queen's rebellious grandmother.

"We have not forgotten, nor have we abandoned our kith and kin." A tall, slender man  flanked by three armored blobs mounted atop ridiculously delicate-seeming tripods slipped through the air to take up his spot on the other side of woman girt with a scarlet sword. His skin was translucent, his skull over-large and his fingers were so multiply-jointed as to be more like tentacles. He had softly luminous liquid gold-green eyes when he looked towards Leeja that took on a warm ochre and gold cast as he glanced at Bujilli, that shifted to dark violet irises as he faced the Queen.

The old morlock cleared his throat and began to recite; "We were the inheritors of a dying world, when your mother called upon us to quit the Nightlands, to seek the extended light of day--"

"Blah, blah, blah; we all know the litany--"

"Not all. They might like to hear it."

"I fail to see the point--"

"Exactly. You in your prescience did not foresee my actions, nor have you been able to ascertain how the things these two have set into motion will play out. We have reached the end of the line, daughter."

"We the living sought to escape a dead and dying place. We had run out of time." The tall man gestured expansively with his too-flexible fingers.

The morlock-elder grumbled over-loudly; "Not true. We still had plenty of time; we had run out of--"

"Enough! If you squabble through this we'll never get to the end, let alone anything resembling a point!"

The Queen clapped her perfect hands together three times;

"Gazbonti! Jester--attend me! Your Queen so commands!"

SQUAWK! flutter-flutter.

A very large green finch landed before the throne. Astride it sat a bow-legged, hunchbacked man in motley.

"I hear and obey, oh my Queen!" and with a sly flourish of his tri-horned head-dress Gazbonti tumbled off of the huge green finch, rolled to his feet and took a bow.

No one clapped. Leeja stifled a girlish giggle, for which the clever jester was quite grateful.

"You have the space of one hundred words to explain things to these two. Do so adequately and you may keep your head. For a bit longer."

The jester bowed solemnly to his Queen then turned to face Bujilli and Leeja.

"All things grow old and eventually perish; even Immortals must bow to Time's tyranny, if only slightly, or else become timeless and lose the ability to operate effectively within our shared frame of experience. Very nearly at the end of one universe that was collapsing into oblivion, an engine was built--"

"By our ancestors!" roared the morlock.

"By our designs!" hissed the translucent-skinned man.

"By our command!" chuckled the Queen's Grandmother; She who had given that very order.

"Yes, well,, let me begin again. To make a long story short, the Triumvirate you see represented here," his hand swept out to include the three principles standing before the throne; "tried to escape their fate. They managed to twist their world out of its universe into another...but only after they sacrificed another world, one just on the very brink of burgeoning life...by transposing one world for the other. Their world, this one, took up position in an unspoiled timeline...the other world was cast into the ruined waste of their previous existence where it became the seed for something none of them had expected. They call it Zalchis."

"Zalchis?!" Bujilli felt his blood go ice cold.

"Yes. You've heard of it?" Gazbonti grinned sheepishly.

"I've heard of it." He nodded.

"Have you then? How?" Demanded the Queen.

"I once carried the Gem of Muktra*. It whispered to me of Zalchis. Among other things."

"No doubt. Did it guide you to the Nameless City, or did it lead you into the Blade Mazes of Kalkendru** instead?"

"I was led into Kalkendru..."

"And yet you survived. Was this one with you at the time?" The Queen gestured dismissively towards Leeja.

"No. I was alone. Save for the Gem."

"Impressive. Where is the Gem of Muktra now?"

"I neither know, nor care. I left it behind, before I reached Wermspittle."

"Pity. It might have proven quite useful."

BOOM!

The entire chamber rocked slightly. The lambent blue flames of the censers at each of the four cardinal directions cut out with a collective whuff.

"What was that?"

The translucent man bowed slightly from the waist; "I do believe it is time to be going."

The Tripod-mounted blob-things skittered around him in a defensive pattern as he retraced his steps to the passageway by which he had entered the throne chamber.

"Time to adapt or die, daughter." The scarlet sword snicked free of its scabbard.

"Our part of the bargain is fulfilled. There is no going back now." The old morlock made a familiar gesture and an ashwood staff festooned with a number of clacking bones slipped back into his grip from somewhere else.

"What is the meaning of this?!" The Queen rose from Her throne in quivering outrage.

"I am third eldest of our kind. I am pre-eminent among our kind by virtue of having destroyed my elders and eliminating any who oppose me--"

BOOM!

"We don't have time for this. We need to get the Engine ready. You'll have plenty of time to address old grievances and quarrels afterwards." The old morlock shambled over towards the hovering black cube across from the throne.

"I'm reclaiming what is mine."

SNICKT.

The scarlet blade scraped across the throne, leaving a deep rut.

The Queen was retreating to the passage-way behind the throne.

Gazbonti attempted to placate the Queen's Grandmother.

His head flew from his shoulders.

The green finch squawked in alarm and fluttered up into the elaborately arched ceiling to hide from the sizzling red sword.

BOOM!

The woman with the sword ran to her morlock conspirator and began to help him set the cubic engine to working.

Gazbonti's body picked-up his severed head and walked up to Bujilli;

"You'd probably best get going as well. She's obviously in a foul mood. It's only going to get worse once they discover how I sabotaged things."

"Leave? How?"

"Follow me." Gazbonti led them over to the central cube hovering inches above the smooth floor. It was almost altar-like and there was a cloth draped across the top of it.

The headless jester grabbed the cloth and dragged it off of the cube to reveal a strange staff-like object...

"The Synchronocitor!"

"Well yes. You were expecting a jar of peanut butter instead?"

"No. I don't know what I was expecting."

"Good. Better to not get disappointed as much that way."

"But..."

"Looking a gift-horse in the mouth, eh?"

"Let's get out of here!" Hissed Leeja.

Bujilli...


What should Bujill do next?

You Decide!




*The Gem of Muktra was with Bujilli from Episode One until he left it behind in the underworld below Zormur's Palace in Episode Fifteen. The Gem has since found a new companion...

** We learned a little bit of Bujilli's time in Kalkendru in Episode 41.



Now we come to the close of Series Five. Our next episode will be our 100th and the beginning of Series Six.

Should Bujilli take up the Synchronocitor and use it to leave this place? Or should he find some other way out of here? Perhaps he could follow the translucent man and his Mucoid honor guard? There is the Portal that he and Leeja used to come into this place, but it is guarded by a Manshonyagger...

If Bujilli does take up the Synchronocitor...where should he and Leeja go?

Initiative: Roll 1d6 each for (1) Bujilli, (2) Leeja, (3) Gazbonti, (4) Helen, (5) Morrigael, (6) whomever is causing those loud noises.

Reaction: The Synchronocitor is elligible for a Reaction Roll, so it would be handy if someone could roll 2d6, and consult the Monster Reaction Table on p. 52 of Labyrinth Lord.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions let me know in the comments, or via email.

What happens next is up to you, the readers.

You Decide!

Previous                                  Next

Series Indexes
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six


About Bujilli (What is This?) | Who is Bujilli? | How to Play

Bujilli's Spells | Little Brown Journals | Loot Tally | House Rules

Episode Guides
Series One (Episodes 1-19)
Series Two (Episode 20-36)
Series Three (Episodes 37-49)
Series Four (Episodes 50-68)
Series Five (Episodes 69-99)
Series Six(Episodes 100-ongoing)

Labyrinth Lord   |   Advanced Edition Companion

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

A Quick Peek at my Workspace for Jack

This is a photo of my current work-in-progress this morning, not counting the writing-chores, editing, revision and lay-out stuff, but you get some idea of what I'm up to: Critters, counters, caverns, cut-up critters, mucoids...yeah, more mucoids...and Octopos, or rather Octosoldiers over there on the upper left.

Here's a web-friendly version of the raw scan of the sketchbook on the left...

If the counter set works out, we're going to look into converting some of them into tokens for one of the virtual table-top services, as well as convert a few into paper-miniatures.

Oh, I forgot to include the other dozen robots. Well, gotta leave something for next time...

Working...

We're making progress on the next couple of projects. The critter above is a sample of one of the things that is getting close to being ready to go...

Friday, July 18, 2014

Free Paper Miniatures (Set Zero)

Click to Download for Free

Have a Set of Free Paper-Miniatures. We hope you have fun with them at the table!

If you're interested, the descriptions/Labyrinth Lord statistics for the Cerebroblob, Ferric Blob, Garganta SlugGloomswallow, Iron Pig, Orb ClusterOrbiculateRaging Blob, ToaderValja, Xal Daemon, and Yelg Froth have all appeared in previous posts.We included a set of links on the back page of the pdf.

Some of these could have benefited from a little more work, but since the original files were lost in the big drive-crash, that's not going to happen. Instead of going back and rebuilding these paper-miniatures, we've opted to start working on a couple of brand new series of paper-miniatures and will have a preview in the next few weeks.

(1d6) Rilligong Paper-Miniatures

Click to Download (1d6) Rilligong for Free
Six Rilligong Paper-Miniatures. If you want stats for Mutant Future or Rogue Space, we've got you covered. Have fun!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Bujilli: Episode 98

Previously...
Bujilli brought Leeja to the Grampus and Krampus Tavern where they met green-toothed Triddel and Vushka, who was now the owner of the place. Vushka promised to help, gave them a room, and went off to carry out some errands, leaving Bujilli alone with an unconscious Leeja. So he put the time to good use and started reading through one of the Little Brown Journals he had stolen from his Uncle, who had in turn stolen them from Bujilli's father...

"We need to go n--"

The outside wall flashed red. Stone screamed and wood charred into ashes that reminded him of Triddel. Bujilli squatted down and retrieved her pistol. It was heavy, with three triangular barrels. The lock-mechanism looked like some sort of gyroscope. It reeked of something foul that he couldn't quite place.

He looked at the cleaver stuck more than an inch-deep in the floor where Triddel had dropped it. Bujilli wanted no part of that thing. It reminded him of Unfred and bad things he'd as soon forget.

Then it struck him; the smell was Salted Shot, like he'd been hit with back at the Beast Pens*.

Vushka turned and ran. She didn't have time for discussion. She intended to do something.

Leeja tugged at his hand. She was headed to the access-point where Sprague was waiting for them.

"Hold it. Why? Why should we go to Sprague right this minute?"

"He's waiting for us--"

Red fury screamed through the back wall. Plaster erupted in a cloud of hot dust. Draped burst into flames despite being labelled 'flame-proof.' The bed was beginning to smolder.

"Let him wait. We need to do something about those Tripods--"

"That's insane!"

"Letting them burn us down while we argue is what's really crazy. I'm going out there. With Vushka. You do what you think is best." Bujilli hefted the odd pistol and shifted his hand-axe into a comfortable grip as he headed out the door. Once down the stairs he began to run and he didn't look back.

BOOM!

A red ray had penetrated a near-by building that must have had a methane pocket built-up under it. Maybe it used to be an unlicensed cess-pit.

The door exploded in a red haze of splinters and flames. Bujilli tucked and rolled through it--he was running too hard to stop himself.

A moment of heat and chaos.

He picked himself off of the cobblestones. Leeja was next to him. Her hair was slightly singed along the left side.

He nodded, turned to face the oncoming Tripod, then charged the closest of its three segmented legs.

His hand-axe bit deep into the yellow metal, especially where there were patches of pinkish corrosion.

The Tripod halted in its tracks.

Bujilli jammed Triddel's pistol into his belt, then shimmied up the metal limb using his hand-axe to hack-out hand and foot holds in the metal.

SKREEEEENNNK

He looked up. A hatch was splitting into three sections as it pulled back to reveal--

Bujilli grabbed the pistol and fired. Fired. Fired again. Satisfied it was empty, he discarded the pistol and started climbing in earnest.

Drip. Drip. Blood spattered his shoulders as he climbed. A body tumbled past him. Shaggy white mane, over-large eyes; it had to be some sort of Morlock.

Someone jabbed at him with a five-tined fork. Bujilli ducked under the wicked weapon and lunged in through the hatch. He towered over the morlock with the fork. It was a funny feeling. He was usually shorter than average.

The morlock stabbed at his guts. Bujilli chopped the morlock's weapon in two. Then he slid forward and slammed the haft of his hand-axe across the morlock's throat. He'd learned how to do that fighting Yeren as a child, as a warrior allowed to join the fighting, but whom no one would ever help or back-up. Quite a few of his mother's folk had been openly disappointed every time he managed to return from fighting the yeren.

He pushed. Hard. The morlock tried to scramble backwards but only managed to trip over something. The body of another morlock. Bujilli seized the advantage. He pulled out the manticore-pistol and jammed the barrel into the morlock's forehead. He hated to bluff, but it seemed like it might work this time.

"Yield or die!" He tried to sound as threatening as he could manage. It came out raspy, like some awkward adolescent playing air-pirates in the wood-lot. a game he was never allowed to take part in as a child.

"Yield!" The morlock shrieked in all too obvious relief.

Bujilli stepped back. Holstered the pistol before his prisoner might spot that it was unloaded. Gestured with his hand-axe; "Why were you hunting me?"

"Who are you?" the morlock pilot scowled in confusion.

"Why did you attack the tavern?"

"We were eliminating dangerous elements from the street. The tavern and other buildings were merely collateral damage." The pilot wriggled to the side, trying to adjust their position so they were not jammed up against some sort of machinery.

A huge explosion violently shook the Tripod.

Bujilli went to the gaping hatch. He could see one of the other Tripods completely enveloped in flames and slowly teetering over against a burned-out temple of some sort. He suspected that was Vushka's handiwork.

Leeja grabbed at him. He dropped his hand-axe and pulled her through the hatch. No sooner was she through than she tripped him.

The morlock pilot snarled as he fired his palm-pistol.

The glass dart missed Bujilli's head by a hairsbredth.

He retrieved his hand-axe and advanced on the pilot who was frantically trying to reload the small gun.

"Please. I have children..."

"Drop the weapon."

It clattered across the rigid mesh floor. Leeja picked it up and slipped it into her belt-pouch.

"What should we do with her?"

Bujilli took a good look at the pilot. She wore an old-fashioned uniform. The red epaulettes and triangular badge on her sleeves were from the Red Army. He recognized them from the recruiting and propaganda posters he'd passed in the alleys and streets. There were a lot of old posters and broadsheets in this place. Perhaps no one ever took them down.

"It depends on how truthfully she answers my questions."

"The real Tripods will be here in less than a day. We received word of the attack and were given special orders to seek you out and eliminate you by any means necessary."

"How did you receive word?"

"Courier pigeon. We've stayed in contact with our forces for generations using those birds."

"Why target me? How did you find me?"

"We are trained from birth to not question our orders. It is a luxury we can not afford in these difficult times. your elimination was posted as part of a list of over a hundred other agitators and trouble-makers specified by the General as high priority targets as part of emergency measures now in effect."

Leeja snapped her hair across the pilot's wrist before she could grab hold of a particular lever.

Bujilli smacked the pilot with the flat of his hand-axe; "I'm not sure whether or not we're ever going to get anything useful from this one...but I am fairly certain that we can't afford to linger here much longer. He looked around for some way to sabotage the Tripod. He went up the ladder to the control pod. It was cramped, but he managed to release all the pigeons from their cages. Then he found the Anti-Capture Protocol lever next to the seat labelled 'political officer only.' It had a timer set right above it, so he pulled the lever until the alarm sounded. Then he scrambled down the ladder and grabbed Leeja; "Let's go!"

They got half-way down the leg with the hand-holds before the main body of the Tripod erupted in green flames.

Neither of them stuck around to watch what happened next, instead they both dropped to the street and started running towards the third Tripod.

They got there just in time to watch Vushka smash a boarding pike into the rear resonator assembly.

The Tripod--and Vushka along with it--faded out.

"Scheiss!" Leeja hissed in disgust. They only just avoided getting pulled along after the Tripod to wherever it was going to wind up next.

"We're running out of time. The Red Army is on the way to attack Wermspittle inside of a day, if we can believe what the pilot told us."

"We need to get to Sprague."

They both looked back at the Grampus-and-Krampus tavern. Neither of them were thrilled about running into a burning building, but a lot of the damage appeared superficial.

"Do we go back in there? Will Sprague still be holding the access-point open for us?"

"There's only one way to find out." Leeja grabbed Bujilli's hand and they started running back towards the tavern together.

The main room was smoky, but the flames had died out already. A lot of the stuff in there was somewhat resistant to flames. They headed back up the stairs. There was a gaping hole blasted through the wall of their room giving them a view of the ruined Tripods and the swarms of people trying to put out the scattered fires.

The access-point was still there. Still open.

Leeja looked at Bujilli.

"Let's go see Sprague then."

They stepped through the shimmering lozenge of purple light and stepped out into a gentle rain. Majestic, ancient trees surrounded them. The sky overhead was deep violet and filled with rain clouds. At first Bujilli thought that they had been betrayed to the Purple Clouds, but these were only rain clouds, not malevolent world-killing miasmas. He hoped.

"Good. You've come." Sprague relinquished his hold over the access-point and it shrunk down to nothingness.

"We've come, but I want to know why you brought us here. Wherever 'here' is."

"Welcome to the Purple Forest." Shael croaked from her make-shift pallet. She was in a bad way. Her left arm was missing. Someone had very nearly taken her head as well.

"What happened?" Leeja's claws snapped out as she rushed to her aunt.

"She was given a choice. Same as you two." An old man in heavily mended and mis-matching armor leaned on a heavy walking stick to get a better look at Leeja. His eyes were hard, dark, cold, but he seemed to approve of what he saw in her eyes and leaned back ever so slightly. With a chill she realized he had been prepared to put her down if necessary.

"What choice? Who are you?" Leeja demanded.

"I'm not important."

"Silas! You promised that you'd be honest with them." Shael scolded the grizzled old man whose armor smelled bad.

"Yes. I did. I am. Ahem. My name is Silas Grompf. You might have heard of me by now."

"I've heard of you. A little. you run the Sewer Miliita." Bujilli looked away from the old man and his shabby armor. He scanned the trees surrounding them. Some of them were moving in decidedly non-tree-like ways. He mentally nudged his Counsel;

/Machine?/

//Yes?//

/Have you been paying attention?/

//Yes.//

/I need your help./

//Yes.//

/Can you help me determine what the best course of action is going forward? How I, how we, might make things better without making them worse, without getting killed trying to do it, either./

//Yes.//

/Then get to work./

//Working.//

"Good. If you've heard anything about me then you know that I'm a right rotten bastard. That will save us some unnecessary frivolities."

"What is this choice you're offering us?" Leeja hissed.

"I'm here to ask you both to join the fight--"

"Scheiss! Another recruitment attempt."

"No. Not just another attempt. Your last chance to do something worth the doing and the dying. I hope."

"That sounds ominous. Are you making some kind of threat?" Leejas' gold-green eyes were slitted like an angry cat.

"No threat. You've both accumulated plenty of that sort of thing already."

"Why should we join the Sewer Militia over any of the other factions that have already tried to get us on their side?" Bujilli considered the old man...there was something very different going on here. He wasn't sure what, jut yet, but he had a sense that this was not simply some sort of attempt to get them to come over to a particular side.

"You shouldn't."

"But?"

"Leeja. Bujilli," Shael coughed, wiped away blood; "Silas is not here to get you to come over to his side. Nor am I here to get you to take up the cause of the Seamstresses."

"Then what..."

"You two have stirred-up the hornet's nest something fierce. I, for one, appreciate that a great deal. But I'm a bitter old curmudgeon with a powerful hate for the status quo, so that's probably as could be expected."

"I don't--"

"The Rebellion is over."

"What?"

"The Midwive's Rebellion is irrelevant and it needs to end. We must settle things. Once and for all."

"You two? Here? Now?"

"We can start the process. Finally. But it will take time. And we need help." Shael glared at Silas Grompf. He hocked a wad of phlegm and spat it towards the nearest tree.

"So you two have made some sort of deal--"

"Not quite as much of a deal as what we need to make with you two..."

"Oh really?" Bujilli was distracted by a swirling mass of icons and glyphs that were resolving themselves into some sort of pattern within his field of vision. Counsel had some extrapolations of possible choice-paths and consequence-streams for him to examine. Each one shifted in response to his attention and morphed into a brighter, more coherent set of options as he explored options or rejected obvious dead-ends.

Seamstresses. Midwives. Sewer Militia. The Corruption Trade. The Academy. The Medical College. Morquin and the Athenaeum. Confectioners and Candy-men. Butchers. Comprachicos. The Gardeners. The Farm Enclaves. Idvard and his private library. The Perdu and the Unseen. The Arena-keepers. Yellow Journalists. The Desert Fathers, Purple Clouds and their Purple Hordes. Hedrard and the forest-folk. Beatrice Eberhard. The Wretched and their bitter lords. The meddlers from Latterkamp. The Ignobles of New Chillon. The Toy-Makers and Doll Houses. The Wermic Host. Tsalalians, morlocks, eloi, and all the other refugees and ethnic groups struggling to survive in this place. The number of factions and players and meddlers active in Wermspittle was well beyond anything it could ever be expected to support.

The place had too many concurrent wars running simultaneously. Too many voices competing to be heard over the screams of their victims.

"Yes. Really." Old Grompf eyed Bujilli suspiciously. As if he could see the projection Counsel was presenting to him.

"What sort of deal?" Leeja came over and took up her place beside Bujilli.

Broken. Everything was broken. He could see that more clearly than ever before. All the competing, squabbling and feuding factions were locked in hundreds of pointless, ultimately destructive conflicts.

Each one turned against another by...

"I think young master Bujilli just might be on the verge--"

"Colony. They've colonized Wermspittle. Infested it. Poisoned everyone until they can't function without their toxins..."

"Who? The Corruption Trade?" Shael sounded vindicated, despite the raspiness in her voice from her damaged throat.

"Their masters." Bujilli saw it now.

"Masters? But I thought that the Corruption Trade were the real masters behind everything in this place..."

"No. They serve the Wermic Host." He could trace the lines of confluence and conflict mapped out for him by his Counsel. The central factor wasn't the ghouls, the morlocks, the cults, the ones everyone blamed or held liable. One group was behind all the others, clever manipulators, insidious, they were the true masters of Wermspittle. He felt that he ought to have realized that when he purged their influence from Sharisse**, when he was offered some sort of truce by the chorus of voices speaking through Triddel back at the tavern.

"But the host make it possible to survive through the winter..." Shael parroted the old familiar lie. It tasted like bitter ashes in her mouth even as she spoke.

"No. They don't. They make it impossible to survive without their 'help.' They keep poisoning the low lands, which means all those farm enclaves have to send their children into the city before they go sterile or start to develop worse defects." It was a sinister, yet elegant pattern. The Wermic Host were seen as necessary to the survival of everyone, and they had made it so by their constant poisoning of the water supply, the soil, the food...

"But the low lands were affected by the old weapons..." Shael began to piece it all together for herself. She had been accustomed to the carefully woven tapestry of assumptions and implications maintained by the Werms...as the daunting realization settled upon her, she grew increasingly uneasy.

"Yes. Centuries ago. The Wermic Host have tainted, tampered with and sabotaged every attempt to clean-up the low lands ever since." Silas Grompf bowed his head; "We drove out the Fetidians. We cleared-out the slither-mobs and mold-cultures wherever we could reach them. At least we used to, before the treaties with Yellowholm and the fungal congress put a stop to that. Now we're riddled with vermin sympathizers, crawling with infected collaborators, addicts sick with yellow fungi and infested with werm-kin above and below the Near Deeps. Everything we fought for has been taken over from within by hook and by crook thanks to the Ignobles and their treachery and there hasn't been a damned thing we could do about it. Until now."

"What has changed?" Leeja scoffed. She wasn't sure she trusted old Grompf.

"You two." He snapped his walking stick into a spear and made a gesture with his left hand, a sort of circular motion overhead. The spear unfurled a banner; the gray disk on black field of the Sewer Militia. Bujilli hadn't noticed it before, but the disk was actually an ancient coin of some sort.

Hup Hup Hup  Sergeants bellowed and officers directed underlings. Abatis-works were set into place. Barrels were rolled into place. Heavy stakes were set into the soggy ground. The clearing became a fortified staging zone.

Armored soldiers from the Sewer Militia and the Wall Guard took up positions along the perimeter of the clearing. Each group of five had one flame-thrower, one of the galvanic weapons crackling with pent-up electricity like the one Bujilli had left with Idvard, and at least one heavy prod-type crossbow fitted with what might be captured Black Smoke cannisters. Here and there among the troops could be seen a blue toque or a rusty-red stocking-cap. Spinsters wielding bodkins and crones carrying antique fowling pieces had attached themselves to various groups. Some would act as medics, the rest would do what they could with needles, hexes and other things.

A small corps of red-breasted skirmishers took up position on either side of Bujilli and Leeja. Elite werm-killers. Their unit insignia was a robin pulling a toothy-werm from the ground.

"We've spent generations fighting, dying, bleeding and entertaining the werms. Now it's time to change that once and for all. Will you join us?"

Counsel rearranged the flowing mass of icons into one configuration after another. Each permutation, every projection showed mass chaos, devastation, destruction...death. The estimated odds of survival were extremely variable and never remained constant. Each time some piece moved, another faction shifted, the odds had to be recalculated.

The only certainty Counsel could determine was that Silas Grompf, Shael and all these soldiers were very, very likely to all be dead or worse within the next four hours unless Bujilli worked out some sort of an arrangement with them...and even then...things looked grim. Except for one thing.

Bujilli smiled broadly. He wasn't alone in this place. He had friends. He had made the mistake of looking at it all from the viewpoint of what made him valuable in this conflict, and that was a mistake born of ego. It was never about him; it was about his connections, his friends.

That was when Bujill knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.

"So are you in, or are you out? Times a'wating and a lot of us have some dying to do..."

Bujilli could feel more than one set of eyes focused on him...

What should Bujill do next?

You Decide!



* Bujilli woke up being dragged through the alleys by Unfred after being shot in Episode 34.

** Sharisse was part of the group that ambushed Bujilli and Leeja back in Episode 29, was captured by Bujilli in Episode 30, was revealed to be Werm-Ridden in Episode 31Sharisse had the werms removed in Episode 32 and Episode 33, (it was in Episode 33 that Bujilli put together his spell of Purging Green Flames, one of the new spells to be featured in our forthcoming grimoire), and Sharisse was then sent on her way. She re-connected with Gudrun, who was being manipulated to wrongly blame Bujilli for the death of her brother and ever since then Sharisse and Gudrun have become friends and followers of Bujilli. Both young girls were featured in the short story Of a Feather. Sharisse and Gudrun were both involved in the battle with the MirrorBorn back at Sprague's offices in the East Wing of the Academy that kicked off around Episode 74. We'll be seeing more of Sharisse soon...as she has gone off with Gnosiomandus as one of his grad-student/bodyguard/agents...


Should Bujilli join forces with Silas Grompf? Would he be better off trying to contact Mistress Eberhard? Should he go rescue Hedrard? Try to contact Gnosiomandus and get him to come back? Or do you have a better idea or suggestions? Let me know!  

Initiative: Roll 1d6 each for (1) Bujilli, (2) Leeja, (3) Silas Grompf, (4) Sprague, (5) Shael, (6) The Wermic Host.

Reaction: Now we could use a Reaction Roll for Commandant Zulmer who is coming up along the path to address Shael and Grompf about the disposition of their combined forces. Roll 2d6, and consult the Monster Reaction Table on p. 52 of Labyrinth Lord. He's spoiling for a fight...

As always, if you have questions or suggestions let me know in the comments, or via email.

What happens next is up to you, the readers.

You Decide!

Previous                                Next

Series Indexes
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six


About Bujilli (What is This?) | Who is Bujilli? | How to Play

Bujilli's Spells | Little Brown Journals | Loot Tally | House Rules

Episode Guides
Series One (Episodes 1-19)
Series Two (Episode 20-36)
Series Three (Episodes 37-49)
Series Four (Episodes 50-68)
Series Five (Episodes 69-99)
Series Six(Episodes 100-ongoing)

Labyrinth Lord   |   Advanced Edition Companion