Monday 22 November 2021

WHALEFALL: Inventory worldbuilding

 

WHALEFALLS

They appear where the walls of realspace are weakened- at the conjunction of jump lanes, the site of drive accidents, near the wounds of Gaunt incursions. Somewhere far above us, in some golden dimension of vectors and light and heavenly uncolour, they died- and now they fall. They fall longer and further than anything has fallen before, tumbling between dimensions, through cracks and tears, until at last they land here. The ocean floor, the abyssal plane. 


And here now the scavengers come to feast, to crawl within these rough beasts, asteroid-sized titans of strange flesh, impossible biology. 


The mad, the hungry, the desperate, the alien.



The Cutter

Carving away at the Corpse of a god; for love, for credits, for obsession. Make your fortune and get out fast, or it’ll take you, body and soul.


  1. Vibro-cleaver. Mono edged, 200hr battery life. 2-handed haft attachment for cutting at a distance. Leather grip, the hide of your master.

  2. Paring Sword for delicate work; carving fat from bone from muscle.

  3. Stents; holds open flesh liable to collapse. Extends to 3m when triggered.

  4. Vacsuit, carved with wards. The Corpse warp biology by their very presence, and wreak havoc on an unprotected body.

  5. Guild tattoos, patterns of red and black. The Bloody House takes a third of your haul, but you can count on their protection when it comes down to it.

  6. Apprentice. Rake-thin girl, an orphan. Quick with a blade. She cleans the meat from your boots and you teach her everything you know.

  7. Shuttle. Leaky, cramped, mostly owned by the Guild. Home, such as it is.

  8. Refrigerated vacuum containers for valuable finds; Blue Meat, Black Meat, Pearls and Red Marrow, oil and ambergris.

  9. Collapsible SMG, Crawler-toxin rounds. Will see off most of the arasites and predators that the Corpse brought with it.

  10. Digging beast; something like a giant maggot crossed with a spider, head a mass of feelers and grinding teeth. Carves through WHALE-flesh like butter Traded from the Gaunt for a keg of engine-fuel vodka.

  11. Synthetic ‘meat’ buns, artificial teriyaki flavour. Organic substances close to the Corpse tend to go strange.

  12. Minor mutation, delicate fleshy frilling on your hips. The toxicity of the Corpse builds up despite the best preparations, and this is a sign that the seasonal limit is close.

  13. Totem to the Butcher-gods, worn on a cord at the wrist. Metal and stone. The sanctioned action is to cut.



The Gaunt

You and your swarm hitched a ride on a dimensional wind, following the Breacher as it fell down to Realspace. The local sophonts have a shanty-town here; you decided to stay awhile.


  1. Host body. Traded, not stolen; you aren't a heretic. Some kind of livestock, bred by the Butcher Guilds for compatibility. After bonding, resembles a skinny hazard suit crossed with a pig and an octopus.

  2. Jar of plastic cut-offs marinated in alcohol made by locals. Delicious.

  3. Realspace form, a glowing white worm, lined with tendrils. Interwoven with your host for as long as you’ll stay here.

  4. Unraveller. Weapon of your Spawn-mother/father/descendent, handed down to you. A twisting, knobbled rod that blooms into fractal thorns. You haven't had to use it yet, and you hope not to.

  5. Large collection of nude portraits, your beverage of choice. Humans make such beautiful art.

  6. Laser Cutter, taken from the dead. Produces fascinating beams of heat and energy. These hurt, as you have learned.

  7. Garment woven from acrylic thread- a bodysuit and hood. A concession to human sensibilities. Also a snack in an emergency.

  8. Sheaf of poetry carved on thin ceramic tablets; a gift from your companion. Dark, brooding, violent- a delight to the senses.

  9. Maps of the Corpse; irregular spheroids of bone, delicately carved and warped. Your career as a guide would be hard without it.

  10. Receipt chit for a unique chimerical sleeve, currently growing in its womb-pod. You have grown attached to the human that calls you ‘’lover’, and don’t intend to lose them to the realspace disease of entropy.

  11. Immigration papers. The Bloody Houses welcome your kind and the wealth you can bring them, but insist on bureaucracy. 

  12. Structure resembling a bonsai tree of screaming faces; made from Blue Meat and Iron. Communication device, lets you call home. You don’t often, it gives your neighbors nightmares.

  13. Oil lamp. In the depths of the Corpse, electricity cannot flow. The flickering unlight shows the way.



The Cannibal Sister

You learned at the feet of the Red Nuns; of the God-Corpse’ fall from heaven, of the secrets of Meat and Bone. With blade and song you guide the wayward souls who eat at your God.


  1. Your tools, bewildering array of blades stored in a leather satchel. No soul in the Corpse can be left behind, lest God consume them.

  2. Prayer-book, containing the songs and rites of your order. Metal and plastic

  3. Webbing of Corpse-flesh, traded from the Gaunt, inserted around the intestines. Protection from Prion disease.

  4. Habit; tunic, apron, headscarf. Crafted from skin of fallen Priests and Black Flesh cord.

  5. Cermet belly-plate. Your gut is where you keep the souls of your flock; injury to it is unthinkable.

  6. Highly-trained vocal cords. Polyphonic Overtone throat-singing  takes a lot of practice.

  7. Major mutation; tube-like structures erupting from your back, fingers splitting fractally.


  1. Goch/Petric Microcomp B-series loaded with the collected series of shitty cop procedural Flash/Burn and some strategy games.

  2. Custom biogland inserted in the thigh, produces steady drip of estrogen and anti-androgens.

  3. Packed lunch- smoked thigh-meat jerky, chunks of raw liver, fermented marrow drink.

  4. Bobble-headed Gaunt figurine. Ophelia Cheng Von Patel is the local Alpha, and an enterprising one at that. She even sells pin-ups.

  5. Hammer, head in the shape of a meat tenderizer. Weapon of your order. Biotech inertia device in the handle; when activated a good swing hits with around 0.5Knwt.

  6. Wedding scars, unique pattern across the forehead. Your partner is a teamster, contracted to a long-haul cargo vessel. You won’t see her for another four months.

Thursday 4 November 2021

Ghouls and a Wizard

 


 
Class: Ghouls
Sometimes starvation doesn't kill. Not completely. Out of desperation, anger, sheer bloody-mindedness, the unfortunate can keep going. 
 
A half-life, their bodies animated by the bottomless pit of hunger that has made its home inside them. It moves them ever-onward. They are slaves to it.
 
They make their homes in the alleyways and gutters, the sewers of megacities, sleeping in the corners of abandoned stations. 
 
Grey things, pale things. 
 
Ghouls.
 
 
Major features:
  • Tall, gangly humanoids. Usually between 7-8ft
  • Thick, leathery skin. Withered, gaunt appearence.
  • Good night vision. 
  • Long long arms and legs. 
  • Elongated heads, huge lantern-like eyes.
 
Becoming a ghoul
Not that hard.  When you are at the edge of starvation, make a Sanity save. If this is successful, the PC has 1 day to find and consume fresh, dead human meat. A ghoul can usually survive on not that much at all- but the first time, they need it all.
 
Over the following week, the PC will transform into a Ghoul, undergoing the following changes:
  • +10% Speed, +10% Strength, -5% Sanity save
  • Claw attack: 3d10, save or paralysis
  • +7% Armour from thick hide and deadened pain response
  • Loss of humanity. You are capable of friendship, but people are always meat first.
  • Cannot be any kind of magician- the hunger leaves no room for anything else. 
  • Immune to vaccum exposure, no need to breathe or sleep.
  • Must consume dead human flesh.
The base state of a Ghoul is Hungry.
 
Starving: Going three days without eating corpse-flesh causes a loss of higher functions- all Intellect tests at (-), cannot use any Expert skills.
 
Ravenous: Going a week reduces the PC to a near-animalistic state. They are capable of recognizing friend from foe, but must take a sanity save to avoid attempting to eat any humans they encounter, suffering 1d10 stress on a success.  Cannot use any skills.

Feral: Going 2 weeks or more, the PC will be lost-for now. Any meat will return them to a Ravenous state.
 
Hibernation: Going 3 months without food, a Ghoul will enter a state of suspended animation. They do not register on heat sensors, and can exist this way for centuries. Any movement within 10 meters causes them to awake, drifting slowly towards prey, mouths agape.

Shipbreaking old derelicts lost in the void is a dangerous profession. They sometimes have Ghouls in them.
 

 

Marga and HEE-Beta-8892 "R███"

A vibrating ball of violence and trauma, wrapped in a stained tracksuit and shaggy ginger hair. Gaunt appearence, hard eyes- far too hard for a 12-year old. If anyone cared, she could be helped- but there is very little help to be had for runaways out on the rim.
 
 
Marga is a wielder of the Art, and a fairly potent one at that. You can find her in rimworld ports, hive city underworlds, stowing away in the depths of a bulk hauler. She's a hitman for hire, something which she's pretty good at thanks to her contract with The Bomb Devil.
 
Marga, Explosion Child
Stats:  H:3(20) I:50 C:30 Potency:58
Favoured Lies:
  • Red Arts:  
    • Fragged: Transforms a nearby object into plastic explosives, function as Frag Grenade.
  • Red-White Arts:
    • Collars: Body Save or skin around neck shifts and warps, becoming a ring of cysts full of explosive biochemicals. Marga can detonate these at will. 
  • White Arts:   
    • Detonation: Marga rolls Potency. On success, 2d10 damage from explosive blast. If this brings a character to 0 they violently explode, dealing 5d10 damage to anyone nearby.
  • Black Arts: 
    •  Kaboom: Marga rolls Potency at (-). On failure she takes 1 hit of damage. On success, a large bomb is created within 20m, detonating on Marga's command. 5d10 to everything within 100 meters.
 Inventory:
  • Shiv, fashioned from blast-glass. 2d10, weapon of last resort
  • Unregistered credstick, 500kcr loaded
  • 5 packets of MEGAFLAVOUR Instant ramen tubes, pork flavour
  • Hip flask, high-proof Devil Liquor
  • 2nd-hand Vacsuit
  • Ragged felt toy, Mog the Alien
  • Red scarf, a token from HEE-Beta-8892
  • Scribbled protective charms, plastered to her body beneath clothes.
 
So far, Marga has killed one other wizard and eaten their Tumour, and the toxicity build-up has exacerbated her existing unstable nature. She will become a Devil within three years if left unchecked.

The Devil that holds her contract is unusually fond of her. If she is close to death, there is a 20% chance that HEE-Beta-8892 will intervene. PCs are unlikely to survive this.
 
Using Marga
Marga is a murderer-for-hire, her use of the Art being solely focussed on violence. As an enemy she'll lay traps for the players using her Fragged power, following up with  Detonation, with Kaboom as a last resort to cover a retreat. 
If she needs bodies, she'll use Collar on randos and threaten them into compliance. 

As an assassin, her fee is 50kcr. 70% clearance rate, don't expect subtely.