I know I later on want my players to travel through a big desert between plotpoints and I want them to encounter something on the way, to serve as a bit of a break from the overall story. I've just not come up with what that something is yet.
Settlement: Ris’civar, the Thriving Ruin
“The sands tell me that only doom awaits you on your journey, so why not stay here a while, and forestall that tragic end?”
Setup: Protected by the vast stretches of arid wilderness on all sides, the oasis village of Ris’civar lingers on in the ruins of a once grand empire. Thriving despite the hostility of its environment the way plants spring up through cracks in worked stone.
Far from any traderoutes, the settlement deals primarily with nomads and hinterlanders, as well as those pilgrims seeking word from the oft rumored Oracle of Ruin. The oracle is a mysterious position, said to date back thousands of years to the court soothsayers of a long fallen civilization. These mystics foresaw their ruler’s end and the dissolution of her holdings, and so were exiled to the far edges of the empire, only to watch in grim satisfaction as calamity after calamity struck and their foretelling came to pass.
Adventure Hooks:
It’d be a shame to visit a town with an oracle and not pay your respects. The temple where the oracle dwells is of course expecting them, and after paying a small tribute they are allowed within. Nakhtmut, the current oracle of ruin is a dour figure, gifted with the ability to see the future in the distribution of falling sand, but unable to divine anything but misfortune. They spend their days in a fatalistic reverie, revewing the labrynth of choice and calamity in their turning glass over and over and over, weighed down with their own potential failures to the point where focusing on someone else’s impending doom is quite the boon for them. The party may ask any number of questions of the oracle, but all seem to turn out bad in the end.
The actual village of Ris’civar is sheltered by the ruins of a much larger, far more ancient settlement, dating back to the time of the old empire. Though much of these structures have been swallowed by the sand, a few remain open for delving. The Wind-eaten battlements and dune-flooded palace foundations may yet give up their secrets and their treasures to an inquisitive party looking for a break from traveling.
If you’re still looking for adventure beyond the restful oasis settlement, consider having a group of gnoll fanatics dispatch a raiding party in the region, or perhaps have some feral drakes patrol the skies, looking for some travelers to carry back to their nests.
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Question. Would you consider the adeptus astartes, aka the space marines, different enough from baseline humans to be a creature of their own, or would they be humans with some templates added on top?
I don’t know enough about Warhammer 40K to answer that question. My biggest exposure to the setting was writing the skaven up for this blog.
@theyrezi Thanks! I find it super cathartic and I’m glad you enjoy seeing them!
@gher-bear Thanks a lot! I like some of the older ones, but the redos always feel like a breath of fresh air.
@arachcobra Thank you! Often the different angle is an attempt at capturing the midpoint between the different poses, to make for a smoother transition between stages in the line up :)
@foolishly-snowy lol thank you 😂 The feedback on the Feebas post was great because half of the comments were like “beautiful!” “it looks so good now!” and the other were like “good job, now it’s even more hideous!”.
@tiredkravitz (great name) Thank you for the kind words! <3 It’s nice to hear that some people check out the old designs when I post a redo.
@hashkivenu Thank you!! I feel like the new one has a really good personality to it.
@asklyra Thanks! A lot of them were from a while ago, but I’d be happy to see what I remember from working on them. This post is getting a bit long as it is, but are there any lines in particular you’d like to hear about? Redos from other comparison posts are fine to ask about as well.
Anon, that's so sweet, thank you for sharing it with me :') I think it's really helpful and important for any kind of artist or creative to look back at past work to see how much they've grown. I'm really happy my post inspired you to take a look at your own work and see how far you've come!!
Inspired by my girlfriend, how about a brewing conflict between jinn and humans, caused by problems on both sides, such as for example certain jinn believing and acting like they are above mortal law and customs(How dare that guardsman ask what I'm doing. He can be a salmon now) and certain mortals trying to force jinn into servitude and wish-granting by bottling them or magically stuffing them in lamps.
I like it, but lets go with a microcosm of the problem so that players have something bitesize do deal with before trying for full scale societal reform.
Merchant: Raziid the Reliquarian, and his Attentive Shadow
I know your kind, uninterested in salvaging anything that can’t be hawked for coin or brandished at your next target, but I promise you there is true value in what I will ask you to collect. Besides the numerous oppertunities to learn about the past, there are also a select cadre of collectors with whom I am acquainted who will give you commissions unlike anything you’d otherwise find sifting through ruins for trinkets.
So, do we have a deal?
Setup: for every daring expedition into darkened dungeons or far off forgotten cities, there must be someone to pick through and appraise the treasures brought back by adventurers to determine their true value. Raziid is just such a dwarf, well versed in history, magical theory, and economics, with an extensive network of scholars, informants, and buyers to tell him just what something might be approaching its maximum value.
Among these contacts there is one that Raziid keeps most hidden, a bound djinn with a name of hissing sand and creeping chill that translates as “Memory of Incense” or “Memo” as the reliquarian is want to call him. Once a scholar among their kind, this gaunt and ashen figure now serves as Raziid’s source of information on the mysteries of the djinn, forced to give over the lore of his people piecemeal, including the location of their hidden temples, and the secret names that can be used to bind them.
However much Memory of Incense wishes to escape, they are bound to an etched emerald phial which Raziid keeps always on his person, containing the primal ember of the djinn’s being, and are prevented from in any way openly acting against the reliquarian by the same binding magic.
Adventure Hooks:
In addition to his services as an appraiser, Raziid plans and supplies expiations out into the wilderness, and can be a very valuable patron for a party to have as they’re first getting their start in the world. Equipping the party with necessary survival gear and filling them in with background information it might take them months to collect on their own. Generally these missions are to specific ruins where the party is free to take what they want, so long as they make room in their packs for a selection of historically important items.
While he has several interested buyers, Raziid’s current patron is a provincial governor who is obsessed with the legacy of a line of ancient kings from the age of first empires. Most specifically in their various relics and mechanisms by which they asserted their control over the populace. Raziid has already gifted this noble with several refurbished artifacts, including an amulet that commands a bronze construct as a bodyguard, and a circlet that warns the bearer of hostile intent. If the party ends up questing for the antiquarian for too long, they may end up inadvertently supplying this upstart tyrant with the means of his ascension to true villainy.
Those who dwell around Raziid’s storefront may have the sensation of being watched, or catch sight of a cloaked figure out of the corner of their eye arranging shelves or huddled over some ancient scroll. This is Memory-of-Incense, slowly taking measure of the party and drafting the first steps of their escape plan. Raziid will hand down two missions: recover the silver lyre said to have once been strummed by the goddess of strife (located in some ruin somewhere, as artifacts often are), and the hunting of an imperial drake for its gustrings. When repaired, the lyre is said to create some of the most beautiful music known to mortal ears , and unbeknownsed to Raziid, a resonance capable of shattering fine crystalline objects within a few feet (including the Phial which binds the djinn to service). A short time after finishing their missions, the players will stumble into the Reliquarian’s shop to find the inventory looted, the djinn gone, and the proprietor dead, drained of all life by his now escaped servant.
I’m putting this under the cut because while this is a hill I will die on, it’s a rather SMALL hill and I don’t think anyone just browsing through should be bothered with my hot-takes on modern misinterpretations of mythology.
So, long story short: The way modern culture (and d&d) interprets genie wishes as some kind of reality bending ace in the hole is completely wrong, and has more to do with disney movies than actual mythology. Going back to the Islamic and pre-islamic mythologies, Djinn were a race of creatures alongside angels and humans, and could be rightly compared to European fey, Indian asura, or Japanese yaokai. They were supernatural people with myraid abilities, and those abilities didn’t include popping things into existence.
When Aladdin in 1001 nights wishes for the genie to give him a palace, the genie doesn’t just wink and create one out of thin air... the genie goes and makes Aladin a palace by hand, just super fast because he’s a supernatural creature.
The thing you have to keep in mind is that the culture that originated the myths of djinn servants was a SLAVER culture, one in which capturing enemies and expecting them perform services for you was preferable to killing them. The three “wishes” that the genie owes to the bearer of the lamp before his freedom are merely three tasks he can perform before his slavery ends.
To bring us back to the adventure prompt: Memory-of-Incense is Razzid’s slave, magically compelled to obey him by the fact that the reliquarian holds what is effectively the djinn’s heart in his hands. Likewise, when M.o.I. gets free, he may be supernaturally obligated to perform a favor for the party, as many spirits are compelled to do in order to correct some kind of hospitality imbalance.
