d66 Sci-Fi Horror Room Details

Because I've had DOOM, Mothership, Alien, Aliens, Teleglitch, et cetera on the mind lately, and because boring rooms are boring.

ONE

1. Flashing emergency lights
2. Hanging chains
3. Open electrical ductwork
4. Venting steam, 2 meters max visibility
5. Storage crates littered about
6. Private improvised work/rest area

TWO

1. Jury-rigged lighting
2. Large AC fans / vents
3. Schematics and printouts strewn about
4. Sealed capsule, 1000 kg. Contains Plastic Death Tree
5. Pitch black
6. Super loud

THREE

1. Weirdly tiered (about 1 meter difference, good for cover)
2. Metal grill over wire / steam pipes / liquid / drop
3. Effluent access, pipes
4. Broken mainframe materials
5. Extra flooring / wall / ceiling covers, some glass
6. Stacks of corpses in body bags

FOUR

1. 2d6 barrels of unstable fuel
2. Artificial park
3. Foundry re-flow, open, molten metal
4. Demon sigils carved everywhere, humming faintly
5. Graffiti'd with rumors
6. Emergency computer terminal 

FIVE

1. Large industrial bags of trash everywhere
2. Vaulted ceiling, thick columns
3. Large acquariums
4. Spare algae farms
5. Crates full of flour, (one secretly contains powder-based drugs, worth 30k credits)
6. Overgrown with lightvine, 3 meters visibility despite light as it hangs down from ceiling

SIX

1. Filled with acrid smoke
2. Lots of nooks and crannies, dim
3. Bright and very spartan
4. Shot up, ceiling panels creaking, falling
5. Narrow, twisting like guts
6. Loose floor panels

DOOM in an RPG

I wanted to play DOOM as an RPG. (Happy 25th anniversary, DOOM!) There are two things you need: Stay Frosty and Exemplars and Eidolons.

Stay Frosty is an RPG about playing a bunch of Doom Marines or Aliens' Space Marines running around, getting stressed, which makes you more competent until you make an unlucky save and then TENSION EXPLODES and you're murdering everything and ignoring tactics, possibly until you die. It's like if Mothership were about just playing marines and people panic by doing Billy-style last stands from Predator. Remove armor, throw away gun, attack big bad with a giant knife. The reason I don't just use it vanilla, is that the PCs are still fairly flimsy, _especially_ if you want to just run 1 PC against squads of enemies like a Doom Slayer.

To up the PC power level, I use damage, Gifts, and HP/HD from Exemplars and Eidolons.

Exemplars and Eidolons is about playing supernaturally-powerful thieves, wizards, or warriors. Your warrior can take on groups of 1 HD fools and destroy them all, punch through walls, never needs to sleep, that kind of thing. E&E evolved into Godbound, where the PCs are even more over-the-top, but E&E is perfect for what I want to play: solo Doom Slayer vs the first level of that game.

So your PC has 4 stats (Stay Frosty): Brawn, Brains, Dexterity, Willpower. Roll 3d6 and sum. You roll _equal to or over_ your stat: So Brains 9 is like '9+', and you want to roll a 9 or higher. If none of your stats are 5+, set one to 5+. Enemies try to hurt you (or terrify you) by rolling a d20 under your stat, and you subtract the difference between their level and yours from the roll.

Stay Frosty is a Black Hack hack that figured out to make everything the PCs want to do roll over. 20s are good! You use your stats to resolve attacks, unbreaking an APC's engine, wire electricity through a bulkhead, dodge falling rains of fire, that kind of thing.

Tension is as per Stay Frosty - you get tenser and better at kicking ass, until Tension Explodes and you flub your Willpower save and then you're fighting a cyberdemon with a knife. There's also critical hit and critical fail tables in there that I'll use. And enemies, mission generators, pointcrawling advice.

You can carry 21 - Brawn items.

You have 8 HP and gain 4 per level. Monsters use their HD as their HP. Armor is ablative HP that gets ruined and replaced just like in DOOM. Back-and-breast armor has 2 hp, a helmet has 1 hp. You could probably cobble together arm and leg armor and have up to 5 hp - for a 1 HD soldier that's a lot of extra survivability. Perhaps too much, we'll see when I run this more.

Damage is: weapons do 1d6 to 1d20 damage, a roll of 1 is 0 damage, 2-5 is 1 hp/HD of damage, 6-8 is 2 hp/HD, 9+ is 4 hp/HD. A combat knife does 1d6 damage, a pistol does 1d8, as does a 1-handed sword, as do some cheap assault rifles. A good rifle or two-handed weapon does 1d10 or more damage - a chainsaw might do 1d12, as might a super shotgun at optimal range. A BFG does 1d20 damage to an area of enemies but has like 1-2 shots taking up inventory slots.

So the damage is one huge thing that ups a single PC's survivability. You start with 8 hit points, you can take out 1 HD enemies with 1 hit, you can probably go toe-to-toe with a decent-sized demon/alien monster and survive.

You get 2 Effort, from Exemplars and Eidolons. You spend that to use some of your E&E Gifts.

You get some of the Warrior or Generic gifts - 3 at level 1. So you might be able to fight large groups of your-HD-or-less monsters and only get attacked once, or you can rip bulkhead doors down given a few minutes, or you can spend effort for the combat to nat 20 hit your enemy. To me this is another thing that we see the Doom Slayer do all the time.

Passages of Planet Psychon

Rescuing this from Google+:

Here's a Passage-style oraclular list but for Planet Psychon or Ultra Violet Grasslands or whatever Heavy Metal / Moebius inspired thing you want. Some are from Passage, because it has a great list of words in there.

How To Use This: Roll 3d20 and make up a scene or thing or resolve some action using the Oracular Words! That's about it. 

1. Weakness
2. Might
3. PSI
4. Magic
5. Tech
6. Ancient
7. New
8. Crimson
9. Jade
10. Fuchsia
11. Azure
12. Light
13. Shadow
14. Memory
15. Hallucination
16. Walls
17. Portal
18. Discovery
19. Loss
20. Gods

The only thing that really needs explanation is the colors.

CRIMSON: Blood, Chaos, violence, brick, sky, rivers, motion

JADE: Wealth, vegetation, jungle, food, decoration, labyrinthine, complexity

FUCHSIA: Mutation, dust storms, sky, weather, skin, pools

AZURE: Sky, wind, air, starkness, openness, expanse, stillness in motion

Gods can be AI Gods, actual Gods, agents of Gods, false gods...

Memories or Hallucinations can be dreams, dream-quests, desires.

Planet Psychon has a lot of tables for weather, what the hex you're in looks like or sounds like, colors, etc. It's great, it's really vivid. UVG has some similar things going on with its illustrations and descriptions. Google them! They're AWESOME!

Passage is also pretty great. It's here: https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250996/Passage--A-Storytelling-Exploration-Game-for-Exactly-One-Player

Gamma World lives, Gamma World dies, Gamma World lives again

Gamma World 1e is for sale again! I have Metamorphosis Alpha from Goodman Games, but it's nice to see 1e GW back in pdf and print, all legit.

GW streamlines the subsystem-happy Metamorphosis Alpha - not as much as I would myself, but enough to make a difference. No longer are there different 2d6-for-bows and 3d6-for-laser-guns to-hit rules. I can kind of see the appeal of them - it makes some weapons feel very different! But practically when you're dealing with lots of different armor classes, it seems like it would get clunky.

To streamline GW further you could take the 6 stats - Physical Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Mental Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma, and run using roll-under rules, Black Hack style. Or roll a d20 + stat >= 20, so you're back in Roll High or Die land. Psychic combat is just two fools rolling their mental strength against one another, radiation is just rolling + Constitution, minus the radiation intensity level.

'There's no attempt to scale things to the players' - Mearls on Gamma World

Also, in the vein of Gamma World returning: Mike Mearls is playtesting a new Gamma World, as a 5E DnD hack. It's funny because I'm not super into 5e, but this is really cool. It sounds like Mearls is nailing the gonzo crazy stuff that happens in GW, and also trying to make it not just a 5E DnD game - it sounds more like you go in gameplay loops of exploring, scavenging, discovering, and kinda-sorta base building. That's over here.

More of the system is described here - this char creation is brilliant and right in line with a Black Hack style game. Take 18 dice, distribute them among your stats, roll and see what you get. You can roll 5d6 for one stat and 1d6 for another. The Tech Level stuff is also great - roll under Intelligence, but you better roll _over_ the 1d4, 1d6 or 1d8 you roll for the tech level, or you have a Big Problem. The teddy-bear-shaped claymore mine explodes in your face! The gun starts firing and will not stop! The tank is moving backwards now and accelerating to 60mph! I think that in Mearls' system you're probably rolling over and the 1d4, 1d6, etc is just to make some low roll failures really bad, but I could also see making it 'success with problems' where you figure out how the thing works, but now you have to survive activating it badly!

I am impressed that just a few details about this hack by Mearls are so evocative of GW and so easily transportable to other games, but that's the beauty of these systems - they play off one another and are highly modular. It's easy to take some components from something based on 5E and throw it into a Black Hack hack.

Quill: Troika Edition Rev 1

I really love Quill. For solo gaming, it really paces things perfectly for me. This is an attempt to use Troika! and Quill White Box together.

Before each paragraph, roll a Luck check as normal. Within the paragraph, make an appropriate Skill check of some kind based on what you're writing. At the end, decrease or increase your Stamina. Once per letter instead of decreasing stamina you can take some other form of consequences - you use up some gear, you get in a worse situation for subsequent paragraphs, etc.

Pass Luck Check

• Pass Skill Check: +2 Stamina!
• Fail Skill Check: Damage as club

Fail Luck Check

• Pass Skill Check: Damage as dagger
• Fail Skill Check: Damage as sword

Between letters you can regain 2d6 stamina and 2d6 luck, and test for learning / improving skills. For the reader, a random amount of time passes: d66 1) minutes 2-3) hours 4-5) days 6) months 

This might be a bit too 'you died' for some folks. I picked clubs forgetting that they actually can do quite a bit of damage. But the idea is that if you fail 1 of the 2 checks, there's some kind of negative consequence, if you fail both, it's really bad. Of course, this also disincentivized casting spells, as they use up stamina, so some more thought is probably needed.

In the next rev I imagine luck tests will be to find / acquire needed gear which may give bonuses on skill checks, at the cost of 3 Luck per check (rather than 1). A failed skill check may or may not lead to Stamina loss, depending on the fiction.

Scenarios

Crashing Into Troika

Scenario: You are the lone awakened being aboard a Pilgrimage Barge. Row upon row of plinths house the frozen Sleepers awaiting the day of religious awakening. But of course, your peaceful days of loneliness and holo-dueling are coming to an end. 

Good Phrase / Bad Phrase

Sleepers / endless rows of freezing coffins

Yowling Alarum / strange warbling music

sluggish controls / dead stick

Impact Throne / trash-filled escape pod cavity

Cracked, beached barge / smoldering ruin

Helpful robed being / angry wizardling

Space Tick / warp monster

Cracked Firmament / rent skyway

free Hospitallers / drunk barber chiurgeon 

Bumbling local sheriff / flint-eyed lawman

rent-controlled under-hostel / lower bridge tarp-dwelling

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Tilting Windmills

Scenario: The local lightening-generators, a series of windmills, stand still in the becalmed air. Power rationing cripples the area and makes for angry mobs. You must somehow marshal some ineffable (or otherwise) force to prevail upon these conditions and make them tolerable again, lest the local constabulary burn you as a witch.

Good Phrase / Bad Phrase

Utterly becalmed / annual stilled months

Rolling brownouts / blackened city blocks

Angry mobs / riotous ruin cultists

Local Giant Labor Council 7734 / uncooperative officials

Massive whale sandwiches / silo of gruel

Plasmic air-condensors / Glimmer Empire artifacts

Gold-burning backup generators / picky power-shitters

Winning hand / Falsified cards

Giant electrovores / mutant underground leach-eels

Quick caravan / slow lines of refugees

Generous Noble House / tittering sentient-hunters

Quillhammer 40,000 rev 1 and play

I was inspired a bit by dice-pools from Wrath and Glory, the new 40k tabletop RPG, and am as always inspired by Quill when playing a solo game because it's my favorite for pacing and adventure design.

Also inspired by Quill and Dragon by Tarsicio Lucas, which combines traditional DnD with Quill and gave me the idea to try this with other systems.  

The system:

You have 4 stats. Faith, Kill, Warp, Politick. You pick a good word / bad word pair and roll your d6: your stat dice and a difficulty die. For your stat dice, a 4 or 5 is a success, a 6 is two successes.

Difficulty die result	Successes needed
1	1
2-4	3
5	4
6	5

This was actually a little too easy - or I was lucky the first time around. Next time the difficulty die roll is just the number of successes needed. Roll a 6, need 6, roll a 4, need 4, etc. That is simpler to remember.

I had let a shit-tier PC start with a 6, 5, 4, 4 in stats. This was also probably too high, was basing this from looking at W&G PCs at Tier 3 (ie space marines or mortal equivalent, where their highest aptitude was around 9-11 or so).

So in the future: you need a number of successes equal to a d6 you roll, the difficulty die. You don't know the difficulty in advance. You have some stats: FAITH, KILL, and WARP. (After rev 1 of the playthrough, it felt like Politick was out of place. Perhaps due to the subject matter.) Maybe you sneak around by praying to the Emperor, maybe you're mildly psychic in a way that doesn't attract warp demons, maybe you sneak thanks to your assassin training (ie use KILL). Tech priests definitely keep technology running with Faith. Maybe WARP is just your knowledge of and ability to track / detect / Inquisitor after Warp-tainted heretics, rather than a measure of your own heretical taint.

You roll your stat dice and the difficulty die. If you succeed you write a paragraph using the Good Phrase. If you fail, use the Bad Phrase, and lose 1 HP. If you lose all your HP, you die. You start with 4. You can recover 2 HP between letters. You can die mid-letter, just have a colophon of the crushing despair of eternal war.

You cannot use the same stat until you've rolled for the other ones. Or you can but you can't repeat a stat more than twice per letter.

Adventure:

Battle Barge Serf

Summary: You are a serf aboard a battle barge, rendering hereditary service to the Angel Legion of Omega Angels. They blur through combat katas in practice on a totally foreign end of the 5 km long ship. You have lived all of your life on or around The Gun, making sure it is anointed and in working order, chanting prayers in its aiming room to aid it should it be required to fire.

Good phrase / Bad phrase

1. daily work / ceaseless toil
2. loader servitor / rotting mecha-zombie
3. heretical cult / xeno artifact worshipers
4. burning wreckage / Chaos lamprey boarderships
5. Librarian's faithful servant / harshly-speaking mechanoskull
6. heretical space hulk / holy redoubt of the old Empire
7. corridor delta-omega 4 / 4km hallway
8. intact purity seals / mouldering wax fragments
9. happily humming machinery / spiteful machine spirit
10. noble Angel / suspicious space marine

Playthrough 1:

Tiber Flackson

Ultramarine serf

Aboard the battle barge, His Golden Will

Tier 1

Faith 6

Kill 5

Warp 4

Politick 4

1/1 Fate (as per WFRP, or my warped understanding of it. A reroll metacurrency, I gave Flackson one because I figured he would be mincemeat.)

0917880.M41

Daily work / ceaseless toil

FAITH. Diff 3, Successes: 3

My daily work done in joy, I pray for our sibling vessel in our chapel at the base of The Gun. I light a candle, rendered from old candle-stubs and fat, and pray to the Emperor to watch over all of us as we journey through the Wyrd, as we near 94 days in this languid hellscape. The candle burns brightly in the small chapel, its glow reflected in the low plasteel ceiling. The machine spirits around us growl softly as though in prayers of their own to the Emperor.

0923880.M41

heretical cult / xeno artifact worshipers.

KILL. Diff 5, success 4. Spend 1 Fate to reroll and get 6 successes

Heresy hides even in Holy Terra, and as there, so here. Aftwards of The Gun, near the Power Inversion Anterior Hemisphere 3, a Gun-sister on her morning Physics-cal Trainings overheard deranged chanting. Gun-brothers and sisters drew arms while runners left to tell the Holy Angels. But our blood was up, we were determined to show them our Faith lest they purge the lot of us and let the Emperor guide the worthy in the next life.

By the time the runners got to our Angels, my mother's mother's mother's chainsword had already tasted the blood and flesh of heretics. A bolter-round trap nearly kilt me, but the tiny tocket detonated prematurely when it struck my Icon of the Emperor, who surely saved me this day. I am expected to return to full efficiency soon, and will likely be able to speak once our barber-surgeon pulls the last few metal fragments from my throat and jaw.

0940880.M41

heretical space hulk / holy redoubt

WARP. Diff 3, Success 4 (2 6's!)

We were prostrated in our sacred velocity harnesses today as the ship's machine spirit roared challenges across the warp at a heretical space hulk and bent our route around it. Ancient Imperial ships twisted in a mockery of their old forms. I noticed my bunkmate, Garrell, genuflecting towards them as we lay in the Targetting Room, watching in case we needed to rain down vengeance from The Gun. When maneuvers ended I arose and slew Garrell, who did not struggle. He knew he had faltered and accepted his death. May the God-Emperor forgive him.

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Noble Angel / suspicious space marine

POLITICK Diff 3, Success 3

A noble Angel soldier came to confirm the elimination of the recent heretics and destruction of their works. We of The Gun provided a full accounting. The giant lumbered through, filling our wide ammunition-delivery portals and corridors with his armored bulk. His wise eyes judged us and found us worthy. May the Emperor watch over him. Blessed are we who dwell among His Angels.

0947880.M41

Intact purity seals / mouldering wax fragments

FAITH diff 3, success 4

Despite, or because of the trust of that lumbering Angel, I was struck by doubt and journeyed deep into the dark within The Gun. I have crawled now for 7 hours through its humming guts. Every power access and every jam-clearing station have displayed intact purity seals, and I have left candles burning and prayers in my wake, lighting the journey. The Emperor lights all our journeys through this dark universe. May he live forever.

Plundering the Copy Vats: Encounters

I enjoyed +Chris McDowall's Small Tables and have written one for encounters within the abandoned Copy Vats.

1. 4 Bad Copies. 1 hp, 8 Str, d6 bent swords, walk sideways, want to find reflections and destroy reflections. 
2. 10 Bad Copies. As above, trying to destroy puddles of water by stamping or drinking. First time you roll this, one has a mirror Daemon / Oddity they're going to destroy next.
3. Copied Sage. 8 hp, 13 Str, 16 Cha. d6 + 2 Voice of Ponderousness (area). Wants to obtain the last copy of Transfixation, somewhere in a Vat copy receiver chamber.
4. Perfect Copy. 9 hp, 14 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Cha, d6+2 heavy fists. Nude, wants to eliminate inadequate life, and/or be worshipped. 
5. 6 Copy Cultists. 5 hp, d6 rifles, bad trip gas grenade, Cha save or feel like they're really ok, 1d6 Cha damage to ignore this. Want to take copy machines, live forever via copying. Will take any relic from the vats.
6. Radueirel, Angel. Dex 13, Cha 12, Str 9, hp 4. Twin people occupying a mirrored space, which follows them around, reflecting ranged attacks that target the one in the mirror. Survives unless you step into mirror and kill reflection (which has the same stats). Wants to create perfect lossless copies, knows the Perfect Copy is flawed. 

Damage against Angels is impaired.

Inspired by Bastion Ein Sof

I'm running something with this and the Maze tables from Maze Rats. When I roll a 1 on either d6, there's going to be some Copy Vat nearby. Table for vat contents / functionality soon.

Bastion Ein Sof review

Oh yeah, Bastion Ein Sof! I haven't heard a peep about this around on the interwebs. It's a setting for Into the Odd, taking place after the apocalyptic destruction of Bastion. There are some other post-apocalyptic Into the Odd hacks, but this is distinctly less Mad Max and more weirdly metaphysical.

The remnants of humanity crouch in the shadows of Giants, beings which cannot be directly seen. The Angels and their minions cannot come into the shadows, and so there humanity is safe. But the Giants are vulnerable to the machinations of the Angels, and require tribute to continue to provide shelter, to stand still. Humans must tithe silver, Angel blood, or their own flesh to the Giants.

It's evocative and creepy. The Angels can be wounded and can change form, sometimes turning into Oddities or Arcanum, which Ein Sof dubs 'Daemons.' Daemons can, when destroyed, turn back into Angels, so you have a built-in risk/reward for arcanum.

The setting is mythic - the Angels Destroyed Bastion, and the Giants came to save us. The Giants Destroyed Bastion to save us from ourselves. Angels can turn into Giants, PCs can be Angels somehow rendered mortal and able to entire Bastion. The setting is amorphous, shifting, unclear, rumor, like how the crystal of fact would shatter or cloud, after an apocalypse.

The setting is not perfect - in its current form there are a few mechanical things I'm not totally clear on, or that the author wanted to leave up to the DM or the table. You owe the giants a tithe at the end of every session, so in theory you're returning from your expedition. It's not clear, the book states "At the end of every session, you must cross the gates of Heaven" and that this is when sacrifice is made. If not made, the Giant may, based on a 2d6 roll, inflict harm upon the humans in its shadow.

So the gates of Heaven are not described, but I think that's easy enough to envision or hack. I run short sessions so I'd probably have an expedition take 2 and have this happen on the PC's return.

The other strange quibble is how gear purchases are made - to create a character, you get random equipment from a d66 chart, but this random equipment system is suggested as the way characters buy anything at any time. It's odd and not elaborated upon. You have an equal chance of getting a fine weapon, a Daemon, a normal weapon, a drum, a dog, a ferret, a fine hat... So, I can see some players being into this weird shop selling random unknown things like something out of The Legend of Zelda, but I can equally imagine people being annoyed. Still, it's not hard to just use the equipment prices from Into the Odd here.

Oh, there is a third quibble - there is no PDF of this. It only costs four quid plus postage from the UK, which is not insane, but I cannot imagine a PDF would hurt. The book is also quite small, so the fonts are a little small, especially the tables. A PDF could ameliorate that.

The setting slightly hacks damage rules - you only need a d6 for damage rolls, which range from 1d3, d6, d6+2, and then to 2d6 for heavy weapons. I'm fond of this, the game is built to only need a d20 and a d6, as all the random tables follow Chris' Small Tables approach.

Characters have a failed career from a d66 table, and a question - generally telling us, via the question, about the job, and letting the players add some person linking them to the setting or to another character. The book suggests that one should think of what the backgrounds mean and perhaps even ask the players for setting information related to their profession, which one can take or leave at one's preference. Either way the backgrounds are useful for imagining the world.

So the 26 page book, slightly larger than a Field Notes pocket notebook, has principles for running the game, character creation rules, Daemons, Angels with examples and a table of what they turn into when wounded, Giants and examples and their Tribute, and an example adventure with random encounters and some detailed locations. There's a 1d6 reaction roll and some small random tables for giants/angels and their domain, and some locations. For an ashcan edition, it feels like plenty thanks to how much is implied, for me.

Overall it is fantastic for four quid. If you're interested in an apocalypse which concerns itself with shadow-walled cities and evil Angels at the border, Bastion Ein Sof is what you need.

What Automates This Golden Barge?

How does your campaign ship run? Is it a horizon fort which suddenly appears in a new place, its walls leaking blood into the fresh earth and staining your footprint upon new land? Have you been aboard your golden barge so long that you cannot sleep without the sibilant chanting of the kobold barge-worshipers who keep the engine going? Did the ghosts of prior crews chase away that para-demon which tried to stalk the stony corridors of your comet-ship?

What automates this campaign ship? roll 2d6

1. Kobold barge-worshipers
2. Skeletons, semisentient, various stages of decay, various levels of radiation
3. semi-sentient crew vine. 50% some poison ivy
4. unseen servants running off mana batteries
5. precision feng shui of the architecture
6. tiny clay golems made in a small kiln from exotic dirt
7. blue electric gnomes
8. ghosts of prior crew
9. manipulating a scale model of the vehicle at its helm, 'just works'
10. bound demon-crew

The crew has needs of their own. Skeletons need replacement parts, kobolds need some food. Demons want shore leave but gods help the shore.

Quill Scenarios: Academia de Asasinos, Lost Seedship

Basement-Dwelling University Town Resident

You are on a bucolic island, Kalla, roomed in the basement of an old friend, Boory al-Safufi. She is a wonderful host and a professor at the local college. Which is actually the Academia de Asesinos. Tenured positions are limited, and several enterprising postdocs want Boory's position. They are less interested in waiting for her to retire than they are in exploring the practical application of their research.

Profile: You are writing a 'newcomer's perspective' article for the campus paper, Black Poisoned Glove. They want a piece for incoming freshmen, giving them a little special insight into the lives of their professors.

Ink Pot

corpse / dead student

contact poison / Last Sleep

doorknob trap / finger-pinch razor

morbid writings / theoretical treatise

ambitious postdoc / Karol "Wire" Rallner

small crossbow / alley piece

hairpin / concealed weapon

friendly lecture / veiled threat

rope / silk strand

casual admission / orchestrated falsehood

library / wizardarium

steel wire / garrote part

academic robes / discrete armor

folding sword / Blood Sup

blurry garment of many faces / scrambler suit

Results

5 or less: An attempt on Boory's life catches you in the crossfire. You wake up in a drifting cathedral / hospital ship, having lost all your items. If you had no items, you are dead.

6-9: You manage to make 15 gp off your article - the newspaper is reasonably happy. 

10+: The newspaper loves your think-piece and gives you 30gp, and a mostly-used bottle of Ink of Correction (1 use left).

Lost Seedship

You are adrift in a seedship in the deep blue. The craft is a little smaller than a launch, comfortable enough for short trips, but you've been aboard it for weeks. Its living body slowly pulses and gurgles in the sun, amidst your dwindling supplies. The clouds above and below are a haze, and no islands or moons are in sight.

Profile => You are writing a daily log while watching carefully for any signs of civilization. Or just food and water.

Ink Pot 

 friendly vessel / mirage

blue flowers / rain catchers

undermast / stinger

flying fish / cloud trout

rations / venerable MREs of the wizard war

parasites / drumhead beetles 

giant bats / seedeaters

man-sized bat / young seedeater

drifting ship / dead hulk

flares / illusion wands

windy storm / drop tempest

still / becalmed

white noise crystal / radio

5 or less: You find land with water, but you are marooned on a will-o-wisp laden island. See "Marooned" and take the Wisp Whisperer class.

6-9: You manage to signal to a nearby naval vessel, which takes you onboard and treats you for exposure and malnutrition. Your journal is detailed enough that they pay you 15 gp as an explorer's fee, as you had drifted through uncharted sky. They'll drop you at King's Port after a few more weeks (see 'Fire in the Sky').

10+: The naval vessel rewards you with 30 gp and a small bottle of Cinder Ink (3 uses) for your detailed cartographic maps of the uncharted area. They'll drop you at King's Port after a few more weeks (see 'Fire in the Sky').

OWL FACE

My daughter helped me with this one.

3 HD
No. Encountered: d4 + 1
4 in 6 sneak
4 in 6 detect sneaks
fly
hypno-eye: save or you cannot attack or break eye contact with the owl face in question. You get to re-save every time it or another Owl Face attacks you.
Wants: they steal magic, tech, and fabric and take them to their 'nest' in the deep woods to build strange machines

Looks like a human in a long cloak wearing a painted wooden mask. Of course, it's not a mask, and their cloaks are a strange set of boneless membrane that allows them to fly at a decent pace. They move from village to village, stripping them of various items, occasionally attacking people (1d6 claws) but generally doing hit-and-run attacks. (On a successful hit, they can disarm, trip, or temporarily blind someone, typically allowing them to flee.)

Quill Whitebox Crewing Sky Pirate Actual Play

Renald, esteemed magic-user and writer of wonderous words, having escaped the Tandalosian prison moon, finds himself crewing on a sky pirate's ship. Everything is wonderful but nevertheless he is planning out a new place to go.

(My language rolls look like this (456 +1), indicating I rolled 3d6 and got a 4, 5, and 6, allowing me to use a superior word and get a plus 1 for the letter. I often forget to try to use a flourish, but when I do, an F:1 indicates the flourish and roll for it.)

Dearest Boory - 

I hope this missive finds you well! Rufus and I find ourselves working upon the Old Hand, near  Horus' Marker (145 +1), and I was wondering, if you can find the time and space, if we can leave Captain Windsong's delightful vessel and visit you for a time. P: 5,4 +1

We may bring a few friendly will o' wisps, as they reneged on their deal with the captain - well, with me, acting as the captain. They have stayed on to be close to me! Fortunately the crew, who cannot possibly spy on these letters, have been the soul of understanding. They haven't even blamed the last sky squid attack on my 'devil magic' and my 'whispering hell lights' (245 +1). Though they have jokingly presented these colorful phrases. P: 6, 3 +1

Nor has the sighting of a Tandalos destroyer been laid at my feet (466 +1), for failing to summon a sufficient storm. As I told the crew, the Tandalos bloodhound half-golems can't possibly track one through the skies and aether. P: 1,1

Besides, all the crew saw me lead the defense against Tandalos boarders, when they flew in on a flight skiff at night, charging onto the decks, their vibro-cutlasses held aloft! (F: 2, 626 +1) They were very well-disciplined; they didn't scream their war-cries until they were almost atop me. I was on watch, you see. It's not as though they make me sleep above-deck because of my 'evil eye.' (No penmanship yet)

As an aside, my face, scalp, hands and feet are now covered in black line-art tattoos thanks to some gangers from the prison with some insight into metaphysics, and/or raving madness. However, despite the gangers' strange thought patterns, the tattoos function quite well as mystic armor, and repelled a sword blow or three as I summoned a strong enough aether wind to wash away some of the boarders. The Old Hand teetered and rocked as I did so, and the crew came to my aid, for which I am eternally grateful. P: 5,2 +1

After the fight was over, I and an older crewman set to swabbing the deck. I found a gem pistol (undischarged) in the coil of rope I had napped in, and Benjamos, the crewman, taught me a slow, low shanty (F: 3, 343). I'd love to sing it for you, so write back if I can room, perhaps, in your hidden basement? P: 4, 4 +1 (because magic user)

The wisps are humming now. I'll nod off soon. See you in a fortnight, hopefully!

-Renald

Score: 9

Quill Whitebox Scenario: Aboard a Sky Pirate's Ship

You are crewing on Captain Windsong's vessel, the Old Hand, earning your way elsewhere. Windsong is an honorable man by pirate standards, and runs a tight ship. Old friend or not, there are no passengers, only crew or prisoners. So you are now crew. You will contribute to the well-being of the skyboat or you will be marooned.

Profile: You have another old friend in the region, Boory al-Safufi, a person of letters who dwells in a small college upon a bucolic island. It's possible she could take you in for a few weeks while you seek out less piratical, more direct transportation.

Ink Pot

air kraken / sky squid
old coins / millenial doubloons
old island / Horus' Marker
 gliding varmit / saileater
enemy vessel / Tandalosian destroyer
privateers / anti-pirate task force
boarding gear / glide harness
sword / vibro-cutlass
cat / good luck charm
shanty / Rum's Blues
crystal / engine heart
bylaws / pirate's code
cargo / spider silks
refugees / fleeing Antillians

Results

5-: You are marooned.
6-9: 20gp, an alright haul, and some of the crew even like you
10+: 40gp, cask of rum, the crew will miss you

Quill Sky Jail Actual Play

Dearest Captain Windsong - 

I find myself imprisoned Northish and below Antillus, in a Tandalos prison moon (355, +1), and urgently request your aid. I believe the transmit crystal I've found will allow me to describe a way for you to both rescue me, and profit. P: 3, 4 (+1)

The moon is a tiny, ugly fist of stone, orbiting a larger island of waterfalls and jungle. Within the fist's clutches are many hair-fine veins of adamantium (456, +1), and every week shipments are lashed to the surface and collected by a mildly-armed transport. This shipment's lashings could be cut a day early - the prison has no vessel which could easily collect the entire shipment, and through my magic I could waft some of the crates and myself to the island. P: 2, 5 (+1)

The dominant group in my sector, the packing quadrant, are a group of crazed gangers (231) who spout philosophical drivel. I have nevertheless ensorcelled a lieutenant in their midst, who will help me gain access to the crates before they are nailed shut. All he asks is that I become a semi-member via the application of a few tattoos. P: 3, 4 (+1)

I have also made a pact with the native spark spirits (445, +1), who now hide deep within the mine. They will help confuse the moon's exterior sensorium during my jettisoning, in exchange for passage off the moon and on your vessel. They ask only that we find them the nearest uninhabited moon to dwell upon. Given that they will help me escape and you gain valuable ore, I have agreed to their terms. P: 3, 5 +1

I must carry out my escape within 3 weeks - I fear by then they will discover my magus soul and bring me before some horrid device (F: 4, 243), in order to animate another ticking clockwork soldier. P: 4, 1 +1

Please come before then, for myself and your adamantium.

Yours in Hope,
Renald

PS Rufus, my cat, is also aboard the moon, and would obviously come with me. Cheers!

Score: 7, escaped!

Quill White Box: Prison in the Sky, Clockwork Automata Class

Captured by Tandalos magitech automata, you were transported via a black iron skyship to a small prison moon, where you may expect a life of forced labor or conversion to a clockwork golem, in time. But you've managed to steal back your writing gear and a sending crystal.

Profile: A pirate or privateer in the area, Captain Lest Windsong, is known to you, and could aid your escape if you can describe it well. The interior of the moon, where you now reside, is maze-like. The empire filled it with territorial gangs, while machine-clad guards stand aloof, preventing escape but not violence.

Ink Pot
PA / iron speaker crystal
ichor / crimson ferrofluid
crazed gangers / Last Thought monks
arresting magic / anti-riot halt invocation
sublevel / dank underwarren
will o' wisps / native spark sprites
elder guardsman / Bloody Red McDermont
fight / rowdy brawl
store / illicit canteen
ore / adamantium
poster / escape tunnel
the hole / converted torture chamber
horrid device / soulthresher
jail / prison moon

Results
5-: You do not escape, and are converted to a magitech automata via the soulthresher. You wake up in 1d6 years as a Freed Clockwork Automata, see below

6-9: You manage to steal 15 gp in your escape for yourself.

10+: You manage to steal 30 gp and can take +1 to 2 rolls in the Captain Windsong's Vessel letter.

Freed Clockwork Automata

Heart: 1 die
Penmanship: 3 dice
Language: 2 dice.

Overdrive: 3 times per letter, you may add a bonus die to a roll. You may add multiple bonus die to a roll, and can use these after rolling your normal dice. You overclock your internal magitech network of energy, emitting smoke and steam, but thankfully not anywhere near the parchment upon which you write.

You've been lost in your shell's combat katas for at least a year, degrading your ability to use flourishes to draw people in with your passion. Inside the vessel, your feelings wash over you as though from a great distance. Each letter you write is as precisely executed as your combat routines, aiding your penmanship. You inbuild word repository is more than adequate for parsing orders, but the memory buffer you have may constrain the vocabulary you could otherwise recall.

Quill White Box: Sky City Under Attack

Antillus, one of the great Sky Cities, is under attack. The Tandalos Empire's airships have blockaded the city and landed marines and clockwork golems to capture the Queen and her prince, destroy the city guard, and lay claim to the capitol of the Azure Skyway.

Profile: You are describing your actions during the attack to a friend, M'Kala Brightborn - you either escape from the city or bunker down to carry out guerrilla attacks. M'Kala grows blockade-running seedships and could get supplies in, or provide you with the means to get further away from the city.

Ink Pot
fires / raging conflagration
broke / sundered
footsoldiers / Tandalos Marines Bevel Division
alley / shadowy lane
elevator / venerable lift
safehouse / discreet
airboat / willowy skysloop
golem / magitech automata
tunnel / Builder's vent
weapons / humming armament
comms / speaking crystal

Outcomes
5 or less: You are captured before any supplies or seedships can arrive. See JAILBREAK scenario

6-9: A seedship arrives in a fairly timely fashion. 15 gp in supplies arrive.

10+: 30 gp in supplies arrive from a stealthy, agile seedship. 

ACTUAL LETTER
Writ by Renald, Sorcerer
Heart: 1 die
Penmanship: 2 die
Language: 3 die

Dearest M'Kala -

I awoke to the airships of the Tandalos Empire pouring fire into buildings and roads nearby. From my balcony, as I stood dumbstruck, I could see their footsoldiers marching in the streets, clearing buildings, fighting our guardsmen. P: 1, 1

I draped my robes about me and drew the fire of my Will close. I put Rufus in the armored cat carrier you sent - thank you again for that! Opening my apartment door, I was facing a blade-handed magitech automata (+1). P: 6, 4

It drew back its slender, black iron limb, but I was swifter, electricity cracking from my gesturing hand into it. I believe the Empire had spied out the homes of at least some of us war veterans - why else would this thing come calling to my door? Pondering such over the slagged heap of ceramic and ore, I headed to the venerable lift (+1), a Builder-relic which always calms me with its strange music. I took it to the sub-basement, but my fears were such that I scarce noticed its sounds. P: 4, 4 (+1)

I sought the inter-building tunnel connection and heard echoing retorts of firearms, screams, shouted orders. Truly it must be Tandalos spies which let them take the city, if they had already begun to use our subterranean infrastructure to move about. P: 6, 1 (+1)

I happened upon Klos and some of his fellow guardsmen - we now seek a cache of humming armaments (+1) with which we will strike back against these Tandalos cowards. M'Kala, if you can, we desperately need a seedship of supplies from you. Only yours are subtle enough to skip through the blockade. I fear that without your help, our efforts will be for naught. P: 3, 1

- Renald

5 points, a failure. Renald is captured and jailed, and I write from the Jailbreak scenario.

Fighting Former Presidents

I had too weird of a dream to not write it up. I think I've read and thought about cyber ninjas too much. (In progress Black Hack cyber ninja game wooo)

Using foul magics, an unknown group tried to kill me and my son. We investigated, and found out who the nefarious bastards were: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We confronted them in my high school library, where they were idly surfing the internet. I asked if we could take things outside, to reduce civilian casualties, and they agreed. We met across the street, in a golf course (not actually across the street from my high school library).

"I want to thank you two for coming," I said, as Lincoln struck a kung fu pose. He nodded graciously, smiling. "But I can't thank you for your attempt on my life, on my son's life!" I shouted. His visage was filled with rage. He charged me.

I remember fighting him off. I was thrown into the air by Washington, but in true anime ninja style, I pushed off the air and rocketed down at him, feet first. Just before I could crush him, Lincoln grabbed my ankles and held me aloft by them. He laughed cruelly.

Washington went after my son, and Lincoln, though weighed down by me, began swinging me about like a club.

He eventually tired of trying to hit my son with me, and hurled me away. When I recovered and rushed back, they were holding my son down, trying to break his knee. I superman leapt at Washington. I slammed into him and the sky and green tumbled around us. We found ourselves in a sand trap, grappling.

Washington drew a 1911 pistol from his coat and I grabbed his wrist just as he fired. Sand exploded around me as the gun fired again and again. With my free hand I grabbed his throat and crushed it. Washington died with a surprised look on his face. I took up his gun.

Lincoln was grappling my son as I rose from the trap.

"It's over, Lincoln!"

He pushed away from my boy (obligatory God of War BOI yell). He stood up, glaring at me.

"You don't understand. Four score and seven years ago, a great prophesy -"

I shot Lincoln in the chest. I didn't need to hear why he was in the right. I just needed to save my son.

Techno-Psychic Samurai Hack

This is a combination of ideas from The Black Hack and Techno-Psychic Samurai. And watching actual plays of Metal Gear Rising. I have not playtested anything yet, use at your own risk. This isn't done either - I need to think through cyberware and psychic powers a bit, action feat-things you may gain when you level, etc.

Vat-Grown Ronin

You are a vat-grown samurai, or a human head and partial face atop a robotic body. You do not roll for your attributes, your manufacturers tried to leave nothing to chance. Despite their best efforts, you have regained or created your own will and purpose. You are a ronin.

Attributes:

Samurai: Used for fighting and etiquette

Techno: Interface with technology, use implants if necessary, hack, etc. Used to sneak through laser tripwires or past robots or security cameras.

Psychic: Your ability to sense others chi fields, read their intent, and use esper powers. Used to sneak around organic entities.

Philosophizing: Used to debate others, try to sway them to your point of view or distract them before a dishonorable sneaky attack.

Assign: 15, 13, 11, 9 to the four stats.

You begin with 22 hit points. You have 4 hit dice for the purposes of fighting.

(Edit: optional thoughts. I want to cap stat growth at 16, after running the Rad Hack for some kids who rolled really well. Just so even at best there's a chance of failure. Or - stats and HP do not grow as you level up. You can switch any two attributes when you level up, if you can explain why it happened.)

You advance mechanically by gaining some abilities (esper, feat-things) that should be more about having different options for approaching problems, rather than just 'fight moar better.' Which happens anyway, in the sense that a 6HD enemy gets easier to solo when you advance.

You roll-under your stats to do things, just like in the Black Hack. Enemies with higher HD than you are harder to hit or debate - add the difference between their HD and yours to the roll.

All weapons and trained unarmed attacks do 1d6 damage. Some weapons or cyberfists can expend chi batteries to add +1 or +2 to the roll. This is a nod to Tenra Bansho Zero, another inspiration. Philosophizing can also do damage; see conflict, below.

Conflict

Combat and conflicts are a little different - you describe what you do and that happens. You can't describe insta-gibbing someone though, but you can describe hits, damage, and the like. You do this before you roll any dice, and what you say happens. You then roll to hit and roll damage as normal, but these things are about reducing one side's narrative control, rather than rolling to figure out what you can describe.

If your enemy runs out of HP after rolling and subtracting HP, you get to narrate how you win - knocking them out, killing them, them running off. You might have whittled them down via philosophizing, and they may become friendlier to your cause.

If the enemy still has HP, the enemy gets to do the same thing in the next round - throwing you through a wall, beating you with a sword and spraying blood around, shaking your convictions to the core with some argument. HP are a measure of whether you get to keep narrating in the conflict or not. This is an idea from Norbert over here, where he probably describes it better than I do.

todo
esper powers

cyberware

example enemies

Shaved Bullet Mishap Table

Background

I'd been reading FUTUREPUNK lately and had a hankering to play some OSR cyberpunk stuff.

Here is Scrap Princess' original post about shadowrun. It is the greatest post on shadowrun I've ever read, and really applies well to making cyberpunk more dystopian and crazy.

Here's a Reddit post summing up Scrap Princess' awesome post on Shadowrun.

She mentioned how guns and ammo in the cyberpunk future are like electronic devices and shitty chargers / cables but a million times worse. So you can find a gun and no bullets, or a gun and like there are 10 bullets for it in the city. BUT you can probably find a street vendor who can shave some bullets and can use some of those in your gun, and there totally won't be a table of terrible things that can happen when you use them.

If stuff is in parenthesis, that's GM knowledge, don't share it with the players without a roll, or without the player asking good questions. Sometimes bullets fail in ways that are weird or not obvious.

Totally not a table of terrible things that happen when you use scrap bullets.

1. Keyholes - the bullet doesn't engage the rifling in the barrel, doesn't spin like a football, but tumbles like a dodo thrown from a cliff. Damage disadvantage, aim disadvantage.
2. Cartridge case cracks, warps, jammed in place. Shot goes off as normal, but you need metal fingers or tools and a quiet minute to pry it out. Metal fingers means you can do it in one round.
3. The casing stovepipes coming out, is in pieces. Gun fires as normal, but you have to work the gun to clear the case, turn it upside-down, shake it, etc. Low/normal dexterity characters need a whole round; high dex means you can do it as a free action. If using a revolver, ignore this!
4. Squib round. Gun barely makes a noise, has little recoil. (The bullet is lodged in the barrel.) Describe that, roll to notice / know what this is, if that's your system. If you fire the gun again without spending minutes hammering the bullet out of the barrel, the gun will explode. Hopefully the PC wasn't using auto fire or it's boom time.
5. Barrel cracks from too-hard / too-powerful round. Damage and aim disadvantage going forward. Each shot afterwards has a 1/6 chance of the gun exploding.
6. Bullet shatters as it exits the barrel. Aim advantage, damage disadvantage.
7. Misfire, gun goes 'click,' low/normal dex means 1 round to clear. Revolvers can just keep firing - you clear the misfire by pulling the trigger more.
8. Misfire, see above (actually a hang fire shhhh. Gun will shoot in some number of seconds). Low/normal dex = 1 round to clear. If cleared, 50/50 chance the gun explodes when the bullet detonates out of battery, otherwise it pops off on the ground and the brass casing flies off, pretty harmless if you're not standing directly atop it. If using a revolver, can keep firing, but gun explodes in 1d4 rounds. (The textbook / at the range thing to do is keep the gun pointing in a safe direction and wait 30 seconds, but hah, like shadow runners are gonna do that. If they did then it's like taking an aimed shot.) (PCs probably know that misfires and hangfires happen, and that they closely resemble each other for the first couple of seconds.)
9. Badly shaped. Aim disadvantage.
10. Accidentally armor-piercing. Ignores armor. (An IRL myth of bullet shaving.)
11. Accidentally hollow-point. Damage advantage, armor is stronger against this.
12. Gun goes click. Bullet jams in the magazine. Can reload to keep using the gun. Need a few minutes to fix the magazine or to get any other bullets out of it.
13. Tracer round! Can ignite gasoline, makes a bright zippy light pointing right back at you.
14. Depleted Uranium Round! Ignores armor, dust from the bullet can give birth defects or cancer.
15. Hyper Round. Super loud, huge blast, 1/6 detonates non-hyper-tech guns. Check if deafened for 1d6 hours, or explodes a silencer if attached. No damage bonus, this was a marketing gimmick.
16. Ripper Round. Delayed-fuse exploding monofilament. 50% it explodes in battery (ie in the gun) and wrecks gun and guaranteed does damage to PC, no roll to avoid like below. Otherwise damage advantage, ignores armor. They never worked the bugs out, so these never caught on.
17. Gun fires but it was shaved so much, practically a blank. At point-blank range the gun has damage disadvantage, otherwise no effect on target.
18. 911 e-phone round. Summons a very confused DocWagon in 1d20 rounds. Emits a loud screeching alarm from the wound / thing shot.
19. Curved shot. Cannot hit target, roll attack against someone else randomly to your front. 
20. Curved upward shot. Goes almost straight up. Normal attack at point blank range, otherwise you just made loud noise woo hoo.

When should you roll on this table

It depends on how shitty you want shaved bullets to be. If I was running Futurepunk I'd make every scrap bullet use roll 1d6, on a 5-6 you don't have to roll on this table. (The tradeoff is slowing down combat potentially, but, EH. Just roll an extra d6 that's a different color, or have the GM roll for mishaps and the player roll for firing.) My goal is to make an excuse for people to use swords in a cyberpunk dystopia. Or for, as someone stated in the Scrap thread, for characters to beat each other to death with their phones.

Shaved bullets should be awful; high-tech guns should roll on some kind of 'high tech malfunction' table per use or so as well. Anything good that works consistently should be some rarified high-tech that people will kill over. Or some rare modern gun which wasn't destroyed by a weapon-eater nanite cloud during the Digital Wars.

Gun Explodes Rules for Futurepunk

Roll 2d6. Roll 3d6 if you have really serious gloves, a riot helmet with a face-shield, fully enclosed armor is maybe 4d6, etc. If any die is a 5 or a 6, you're fine! Otherwise you can take damage, get disoriented, get knocked down, whatever, the GM makes a hard move kind of thing.

Answering an Age-Old Question: Can an RPG session fit on a postcard?

Yes it can! I wouldn't have written a post simply stating 'NO' in 40-point font.

In Mailhouse 1, I try to work (yet again!) but find things... difficult. As hard as a banana split, as simple as VCR assembly, as easy as falling up from a log.

In Mailhouse 2 a small dog (terrier?) attempts to purchase an antler for the purposes of gnawing. Do dogs grind their teeth and, if so, does it matter? I actually don't attempt to answer that question. Spoilers. I will say this is inspired by reading lots to a young toddler, so things are a lot less dark.

Again, these games are based on the Funhouse RPG I found whilst scrolling through the Lone Wolf G+ roleplaying community. Come to a decision point, make a list of possible outcomes, and roll. Mailhouse 1 is also inspired by the Surrealist game of never being able to leave a particular room, but when walking out (and immediately coming back in), something changes.

These postcards were sent to my niece and nephew.

MAILHOUSE 1

MAILHOUSE 2 MR MEEPLES EDITION

Funhouse Surreal Solo Play 2: Office Edition

I come into the office and it’s Monday. I leave and come back and it’s Tuesday. Then I leave and come back again and it’s Wednesday, then Thursday, Friday. I don’t return until Monday again, go in, work, leave. Then

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 5

I come in the next day. No one is around but a confused support agent, O_____. He stares at me but doesn’t say anything. 

“Pretty dead for a Tuesday, eh?”

“It’s Saturday.”

I laugh. O_____ does a lot of deadpan humor. He keeps looking at me calmly and I slowly see he’s not kidding. 

“Yeah, but… It’s Tuesday,” I say, still trying to get in on the joke. 

“Listen C_____. It’s Saturday. I saw you Wednesday, remember?”

“No. No, it was Monday. Yesterday was Monday. Let me… I’m going to call my wife.” I say, walking away.

“Get her to tell you it’s fucking Saturday!” He calls out behind me.

I walk out and am suddenly back in and

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 3

Some people have shown up. Several people. No one was in the hall. Right? No one came in the back, the back door and the front door are right next to each other in the same hallway. I could see them both. I’m just not sure if I remember being in the hallway.

O_____ is gone from the support room. His manager’s computer is on, unlocked. I look at the time displayed at the top. The day of the week: Thursday.

“What the hell, what the hell. What the fuck.” I murmur. 

“C_____?”

“Hey, hey man,” I say to the support manager, who is directly behind me. “Sorry, I blanked out, was just, ah, you know.”

“Hah, well, week’s almost over, C_____.”

“Yeah.”

I flee to my desk and open my laptop. Pull up a calendar. Time has passed, time has flown by. Almost two weeks I can’t account for. I look at emails… I’ve responded to things during my missing time. Pull up my tickets, work to-do notes.

1. I have no work to do
2. One ticket: ‘get out’
3. Normal workload
4. Strange meeting with CEO
5. Text moving around (lazily? hypnotically? like a predator?)
6. Feed sheep

d6 => 5

The text wavers in front of me, as though I were trying to read it across summer asphalt. The letters twist and dip. I can’t read anything. I pull out my phone, try to call my wife, J_____. Same deal. I numbly thumb the too-bright screen and a YouTube video plays, loud, someone running a tabletop game. People laughing. People - the real ones in the office - look at me over the cubicle walls. Nervous faces.

I apologize and they lower behind the fabric walls. 

I can’t read, I can’t work. I reach for a piece of paper. I know I can get through this, somehow. I can write something and see what happens.

Writing

1. A ransom note that appears to have been made from glue and cut-up magazines
2. A sentient, self-aware poem (which is nevertheless not very good) 
3. I realize I’ve signed something but I can’t tell what
4. I’ve drawn the office building but it’s on fire
5. A sketch of a spiral or vortex
6. The paper is black as a void

d6 => 5

A spiral. It holds my mind in place and I am falling, falling down it. Faster and yet slower, so fast and yet I never get closer to the center. Floating.

The office is full of floating debris, cables, people floating in midair. People hover above their gently drifting monitors and peck at keyboards perched in their laps. 

My boss pushes out of his offices and wafts over to my cube. 

“There’s still chicken biscuits in the break room, C_____.”

“Ah… great!”

“Are you alright? You look a little peaked.”

“Oh you know, just, you know. Thursday for you.”

He nods as if I said something sensible and pushes off my cubicle, which creaks, heading down the hallway. 

OK, ok. OK. I drew something and things changed. I could draw… going home. And get out of the office. 

I begin writing, scrawling, drawing. I can’t tell. 

Writing

1. A drawing of the car ride home
2. My third eye opening
3. The building is on fire
4. Dogs have taken over
5. Printers are spewing out papers like machine guns
6. I am a baby at a daycare

d6 => 3

The drawing of burning cubicles shakes in my hands. I smell smoke. 

People are on the bounce, flinging themselves down the main hallway as smoke fills the air. I flail after them, slamming off carpeted walls. The fire flows in zero g. I see that the fancy lounge part of the office has been converted to escape pods. Looking out the windows I see stars and void. I get in an escape pod and strap myself in. The hatch irises shut and I am slammed into my crash harness and am suddenly back in the office.

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 2

It’s the day before, I remember it now, every detail. I walk in backwards and say goodbye backwards to my boss. Other people filter into place in reverse. I unpress buttons and words are rubbed off the screens, which I can read again, as I turn something into nothing. 

I want to try to escape before lunch, before I have to pull food out of my mouth, form it a bite at a time. Hell, I’d like to escape before my last bathroom break of the day.

But my thoughts are empty, useless, without action, and my acts are on rails. I cannot break the past. I pour water out of my mouth into an upturned cup and leave the office to go to the bathroom. When I return

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 1

It’s Tuesday. It’s the day after Monday. I work a normal day. I go home and I work from home the rest of the week.