D20 Fantasy: In The Desert

 

The priest gently held the elf's face in his gauntleted hands. Then he began to squeeze. They screamed, face turning wonderful hues of red, white, purple, and blue as their blood vessels exploded. He dug around with his thumbs until they felt wet; vitreous humor soaking the maille as cerulean eyes turned to jelly. The elf gurgled curse after curse, withering body and brain. But Iron Hand girded his flesh and Oil Lamp lit the way. He brought his palms together and their bones broke like a bird's.

...

A stench woke the priest from his dream. Acrid and sharp, it struck his throat with a dull pain he found vaguely pleasurable. He lay on a filthy stone floor, bound with rawhide. Shame flushed his wrinkled face. He'd been paralysed, or charmed, or slept, or laid low by any other myriad of low-level tricks. 

Then he saw his companions and had to choke back a laugh. The fighter snored, drooling into his beard. The thief was trussed up on a spit like a suckling pig, slathered in the eucalyptus oil that must have roused him. Best of all was the wizard, hairless and naked but still held aloft by his spell. Their captors, clearly baffled by the dwarf's persistent levitation, had anchored him to the floor with a length of rope. 

Like the bloated corpse of a stillborn babe, leashed to its mother's womb.

The priest rose, breaking his restraints in one smooth motion. The room was dark and hazy, lit only by the fire beneath the roasting halfling. He made out a vague shape at the edges of his perceptions and surged forwards. Bright red eyes turned to meet his. A flash of recognition played out across the priest's brain. The ochre soil. The shade of the acacia. The crimson orbs staring at him from the sea of grass.

He closed his eyes and the spell harmlessly washed over him. He didn't need to see to kill. The form of the beast was strange, but close enough to a man for his practiced hands. His fingers found purchase in its filthy silk tunic, then dug into greasy flesh. The monsterman brayed like a donkey, releasing hot breath that reeked of eucalyptus. He heard its friends surround him, felt them stab their blades into his back. Through the armour all it did was bruise. The priest breathed in, savouring the moment. He wrapped his hands around its fat head. He felt around with his thumbs.

Then he began to squeeze.

D20 Fantasy: Among The Noisy Heavens

A gang of outback drovers had an arrangement with a local outpost of Mi-Go vivisectionists. They'd offer up the occasional outlaw or captured autochthon for the aliens to chopshop. In exchange, the Million Favoured Ones left them and their sheep alone.

But the bugs appear to have broken the pact. The stockmen's flocks lie dead, decapitated and covered in bizarre burn marks. Strange lights buzz in the skies. Roadwardens investigated the attacks, but only one came back - sans half his skull. He rambled about stars trying to eat him. Then his brains fell out.

To Rule Is My Birthright (GLoG Race-As-Class: Elf)

Gustave Moreau

"And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them. And they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants.

And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind."
Book of Enoch [3:7]

The New Age - Play Report Round-Up 1

I've fallen behind on my New Age play reports. Rather than try to remember precise details and give a blow-by-blow of each sessions, I'll be writing up vignettes of interesting moments. 

This is only half of what I intend to write, but considering this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for over 2 months, I thought I'd at least get something out.

Junji Ito