D20 Fantasy: Garden Of Thorns

The dying woman spoke. Fulan frowned, unable to make it out through the fluid filling her lungs. He rose, wiping his blade on a dead orc's buffcoat. To her credit, the adventurer did not cower as he approached. The warrior squatted in front of her; bare feet protected from the malpais by a quarter-inch of gnarled calluses. The outlander's eyes met his, bloodshot and hateful. She gurgled the word again, loud enough for the entire warband to hear.

"Cannibal". 

Fulan threw his head back and laughed, the cruel sound echoed by the other soldiers who spoke her foreign tongue. He moved to strike her with his cimeter, but she did not flinch. With a grin, he severed her potion bandolier. The warrior scooped up the bottled spells and beheld their contents, ignoring the string of fresh epithets and curses the owner levied at him. 

Mummia from Hogman's Plain. Mellified man from the Hot Lands. Troll's blood from the Peat Bogs. Changeling skin, Umber eyes, Naga fangs, Medusa hair, Minotaur horn. She drank the corpses of thousands, yet cried over his sacred rites. Were these not men? Did they not think, speak, love, and hate?

His eyes flicked to her defiant face, then to the barrels of carmine she'd been transporting. Payment for services rendered, for powder and shot delivered to the hated dogmen. His calloused thumb brushed against his own musket. He was sorely tempted to spark his flinted skin, to watch her face explode into vaporised meat. To leave her ruined corpse to the beak things and bonehounds and ghuls. But it wouldn't be right. She had fought well, nearly punching through his ambush with fire, faith, and steel. 

So he knelt before her and began to cut.

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.

Revisiting The Directory

Eduardo Valdés-Hevia

Over the past couple months I've finally settled on a formatting style I like; it's only taken me ~4 years to make my various TTRPG products look cohesive. To celebrate I decided to revisit the scenario directory I made for my Delta Green content a few years back. 

Dragoleaf's Directory now has all of my work in one place. I'll be linking it under "My TTRPG Content", as well as on the N@TO Discord. If you're a player of mine and notice something is missing, let me know via a comment here or a direct message through Discord. 

In addition to compiling all my content, I've also gone through and updated everything to the unified format I mention prior. I haven't revisited any unfinished scenarios yet, that's on the backburner until I complete the projects I'm currently working on.

Thanks for stopping by!

Even More Gods

Eucharius Rösslin

BLOODY MOTHER

Neutral goddess of midwifery and pregnancy. Deaths in childbirth are a specter terrorising every race and creed. Without Bloody Mother's loving ministrations, infant mortality would quadruple overnight. 

The Mother's clerics are wandering healers renowned for zealously defending the pregnant and the newlyborn. Some fundamentalists also punish breaches of moral law; absentee parents are chastised or beaten, rapists are mutilated or executed in cruel and unusual fashions. More progressive sects have pioneered pregnancy tests, contraceptives, abortions and caesarean deliveries. 

Religious orthodoxy states that Bloody Mother is either an aspect of the Knacker or Grain Goddess, but her worship likely predates both religions.

Manor of Montecruz - Session 2

Four adventurers stood in the Manor's hidden basement. There was no doubt that this place had become a den for smugglers. There was treasure to be had in retaking it.

Before they could push onwards, a nearby crate flew open and a filthy man tumbled out. Once bound with coarse ropes, he'd been freed by the gnawing of a trio of rats. Seeing the adventurers, the man introduced himself as "Vermin-Tongue", but hastily amended his title to "Vee" upon seeing their scornful reactions.

"The Lonely Rat Boy", from Dishonored

Manor of Montecruz - Session 1.5

Trudging through snow, four adventurers approached a decrepit mansion.

• Cornyx, a Level 1 Warrior-Priest. 

• Dr. Holmen, Level 1 Chirurgeon.

• Malakai, Level 1 Templar. 

• Yvonne, Level 1 Illusionist.

Yvonne was here to reclaim an ancestral birthright. The others were just hoping the tavern hearsay about a stash of alchemical gold was true (and that the rumour of ghostly hauntings wasn't). 

Water-clogged stormclouds blotted out the dying sun and a thick sea-mist had rolled in from the jagged coastline of the Empty Sea, so Cornyx lit his torch and Yvonne cast Light. They began a thorough perimeter sweep of the house, prying open boarded-up windows and searching for tracks. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, they carefully breached the main doors.

Art from TSR's "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh"

Manor of Montecruz - Session 1

The world grows cold. 

A decade ago a new Ice Age began, dubbed the “Eternal Winter” by those who survived the subsequent famine, social upheaval and mass violence. Madmen whisper that the Sun is dying, its energy devoured by a nameless entity from beyond the stars.

Most of mankind fled to the “Central Territories” - hot, equatorial land with rich soil that can still support crops. But the Territories are densely overpopulated, riddled with starvation and disease, and ruled by a sorcerous madman. So many instead seek out a life in the “Frontier”, the icy extent of the known world. 

Frostpunk Concept Art