Slush 2023-09
The pips in my watermelon. I wanted to get better at collecting these, but kept making my ideas into full posts. I can assure you that these ones lack that minimum quality, but are just as worrying.
Photo by HistoryAnorak, CC-BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The used-car lot wiggly man is an American Janus.
- A face on each side.
- Found at the crossroads.
- Associated with the turning of the year.
In the game of MUSCLES, your stats are LIFT, BENCH, GRIP, BPM, and MACROS.
Adventure idea: a 419 scam that’s half-true. There really is a prince trying to smuggle their wealth out of the country, and not just an advance fee, they require the PC’s direct assistance. Although initially a sketchy proposition, creditors eventually find themselves on a list of generous supporters of a new government-in-exile (and consequently on a list of official persona non grata of the nation in question). Repayment after the revolution.
Before the beginning, before the world was flat, before gravity had decided on its limitations, and before there were days to be numbered, Lucifer asked God, “Can you make a rock so heavy that you can’t move it?” (This was not an unusual question. As God’s debugger, it was his job to nitpick and ask questions.)
“No,” said God. “Weight is only measured by movement. The rock that cannot move is weightless.”
“Ah, c’mon,” said Lucifer. “That’s not really in the spirit of things. You know what I meant.” “There is only one way to be sure then,” said God. (This was untrue, God could have Known it.)
So God made a rock, enormous in size (although this was really just for show). And the rock could not be moved. It was not heavy, it was weightless: it didn’t have the parameters needed. It could be relocated as surely as God could erase and recreate it elsewhere with a thought. But it never moved. And it’s still out there, at the edge of creation, if you travel far enough.
In a past life, I basked in the glow of the Earth’s warm blood, solitary and unmoving. Every day the wound in my home grew closer and warmer. I never met the Sun, but I imagined that it was like this: the exquisite contentment of being overtaken, of being drawn into the benevolent, sustaining inferno one last time.
When I read the rules of craps, it sounds boring. But if you play craps, it’s actually pretty fun. The big lesson is that fun can’t be predicted from the page: it’s about so many other factors. The small lesson is that someone needs to make craps-based combat.
In a past life I attained total enlightenment. I saw the wheel and comprehended the cycle of life and death and rebirth. I understood the dance of suffering and desire and was free of it. Then I chose to do it again. What else would there be?
I want magic to be weirder (always). This doesn’t have to be hard, we can just tweak existing spells. Fireball becomes Firecube. Acid Arrow becomes Acid Gull. Etc. This would be easier to seed via treasure, rather than at character creation.
“Demo mode” is a bigram palindrome.
It doesn’t make sense that each color of dragon is its own species with its own breeding population. Much easier to say that dragons are extreme heterozygotes, like apples, and that within a clutch there will be all kinds.
“Excel poem complex” uses each letter twice, but doesn’t divide cleanly.
Gawain is a mortal subject to conflicting codes, and is ultimately forgiven. Cú Chulainn, an immortal in a similar circumstance, cannot be.
Sketch of a Cairn starter adventure: Goodman Giles is Dead. As the snow is melting word gets around: Goodman Giles died over the winter. The party meets at his remote cabin, bound to carry his body to the local chapel via ancient coffin roads. But something is waiting for his body and something else wants his soul.
It will flee if it has fewer HP than the maximum amount of damage dealt to it before by anyone in its presence.
- Sokka and Zuko are in a hot air balloon with a diameter of 10 m. The temperature outside the balloon is 20 °C. If Sokka and Zuko each weigh 60 kg and the basket weighs 60 kg, how hot must Zuko keep the air inside the balloon to remain afloat? (Assumptions: balloon is weightless and spherical, air is ideal, atmospheric pressure.)
- Over the boiling lake, assume the air temperature is 100 °C. How much hotter does Zuko need to make the air to stay afloat?
- What can you conclude from the change in Zuko’s required output?
Extraplanar Payments:
- LG—bones
- CG—hallucinogens
- LE—bones
- CE—oaths
- NG—memories
- NE—tears
- LN—proofs
- CN—eggs
- Fire—crude oil
- Water—baleen
- Earth—metallic aluminum
- Air—samaras