Time Capsules

City by Sascha Grosser, modified. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Between the formation of earth and the birth of man, the moles built an empire. Its inverted spires plunged deep into the crust, gluttering with dim riches, and mirroring the gentle rolling molehills above. Engineer armies paved the surface in basalt webs for merchants to trade seeds and spices now long extinct. And yet their seer-kings, unrivaled in the present age, all saw the same end: the world was not theirs to keep. To survive, they must dig deeper, leave the surface. Faced with this certainty the moles resolved that their empire, their wisdom, should not be lost. Bakers, hummers, scholars, worm-trappers, gardeners, keraticurists, surveyors, magicians, politicians, all kinds of moles resolved to record their achievements for whatever circumstance would succeed them. And, fearing some spiteful godling or jealous hoarder would endanger their legacy, they hid their secrets in stone and scattered them in nodules across the globe. And then they left for deeper lands, collapsing the way behind them.

You’ve just now cracked open one such geode. What’s inside? (1d20)

1. Fable of a seer who played dice (inhaled).
2. Recipe for centipede coulibiac (inhaled).
3. Traditional hum for six voices (inhaled).
4. Report about conditions in the submerged kingdoms (inhaled).
5. Star-nosed mole erotica (inhaled).
6. Silver medallion for wrestling.
7. Lucky brass marble.
8. Seeds of a particularly juicy tomato cultivar.
9. Ivory miniature of a regal mole.
10. Ceramic info-cube (requires cube-reader).
11. Map of the basalt highways (inhaled).
12. Clear vision of a future event (inhaled).
13. The languages of volcanic rocks (inhaled).
14. Immunity to blinding light (inhaled).
15. Tapping patterns to attract and herd worms (inhaled).
16. Pouch of dream-spores.
17. Perpetual rubber bouncy-ball.
18. Everlasting gobstopper, umami.
19. A yard of magician’s cloaking silk.
20. 6” unbreakable claw.

Inhaled knowledge is imparted to all present at the opening to smell it, and afterwards must be transmitted by other means.

from Les Animaux, via Wikimedia Commons.

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