Apocalypse (Glaugust #5)

My fifth Glaugust post. Prompt: “Write the last post on your blog, which is also how one (or all) of your worlds will end. you can write other posts after this one! but whenever you hang up your hat, (or die), people can reread this post and know it was your last one.”  

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One thousand years ago a darkness began to spread in the Glittergold city. Today, the city is finally overtaken, and the city is dead. No lights at night, no business by day, the city is still and quiet, and will not be revived. Even its neighboring swamp, once wriggling with life, is motionless.

In another world, the Cactusfolk finally succeeded in building their mirror complex, desertifying the entire region. Their fisherfolk neighbors are annihilated by a combination of flood and tragic balance related accidents. The Brightlily is detonated by a mad druid, blanketing its forest in not-radioactivity. Bangshot Manor is ransacked by AGRILep; its aquarium smashed and its treasures looted.

So too, has an end come to this blog. No more bandwagons. No more pointless technical analyses of forgotten games. No more quantitative surveys of the glogosphere. No more amateur art. No more Glaugust.

The quasi-obscure sidebar links are gone. The sunny two tone botanical banner and hyperlinks that annoyingly look like normal text have been replaced with emptiness. The archive tree which requires more clicks than it really should has been blessedly deleted.

Once, this blog was the digital terminus of a pipeline of "creativity". Now it’s gone. The windows of this digital building have been shuttered. Dozens of precious posts are no more. Sinusoidal freakshow is gone, and it’s not coming back, not in a million years.

Rest assured, it was no small task to stop the relentless scratching of my pen. I’ve developed a small lesion in my brain at exactly the spot marked “DnD”. In addition I’ve gotten six full time jobs and fifteen children. The blogger platform is being shuttered, and all my work deleted without notice. The internet has fragmented into hundreds of feudal intranets, and blogging has become a lost art.

Elves were recently discovered to be real, so it’s no longer necessary for me to speculate about them. Both my hands were badly broken in a tragic LARPing accident. My computer with its many precious local-only notes was stolen. Discord has required all users to share their name, fingerprints and social security number; the Phlox server has disbanded and there are no alternatives.

I was permanently banned from what remains of discord for clicking the honeypot channel too many times. My readership has dropped to zero. I was in fact, voted the first, second, and third place worst blog of any sort in a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center.  The word “blogger” has become synonymous with “dirty villein” and when I go out into public I am pelted with tomatoes.

Despite these reasons and many more, I do not stop easily. My hand quakes and my heart flutters; my compulsive posting and deep need to export elfgame words is an integrated part of me and not easily or painlessly stopped. And yet, my frame is human, and its limits have been exceeded. The juddering End has arrived. Darkness slides over this chapter of my life, an irreplaceable loss. Farewell. 

 

 

If Only a Ball of Twine Could Help with Heartbreak (Glaugust #4)

My fourth Glaugust post. Prompt: “Some roadfreaks for a passage that isn't a road - canalfreaks, hyperlanefreaks, portalfreaks, etc.” 

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Here are two sets of freaks and some mazes

1d6 emotional journey freaks

These freaks delight in the beginning, middle and end of a particular feeling. They may find subtle variants of a feeling or indulge in broad classics. May help a player go on a trip as well.

1. Kinjara, traveler of rage
Practices snarling in the mirror. Wears sharktooth earrings and bloody handwraps. Enjoys afternoon anger and forest fury. Good at shouting.

2. Solepoid, traveler of sorrow
Wears a glittering blue veil. Has honed the mid-sentence sob to a fine art. Can appreciate a post cry calm as much as anybody but prefers a languid bed sadness in fall. Slow blinker.

3. Karbleblax, traveler of joy
Wears lots of green and sits in green fields. Doesn’t talk much.

4. Sintherpier, traveler of fear
A wide ranging gourmand of the terrifying, loves cheap jumpscares, body horror, and unsettling or cosmological fear vectors. Enjoys scaring others and has an extensive mask collection. Physically strong and handy with a spear.

5. Oglaf, traveler of disgust
Yoked man who loves how his throat feels when he sees cockroaches, unsound fiscal policy, and certain oyster formations.

6. Mandy, traveler of surprise
Can appreciate a basic startle, but really goes in for the bigger stuff: unexpected pregnancy, earthquakes, betrayal by a trusted comrade. Has red hair.

1d6 maze freaks

These freaks love completing mazes but also getting lost in them. The tasteful thickness of a wall. The tasteful thickness of a tasteful minotaur.

1. Glamwulf, architect
Gnome who dreams in Escher stair structures. Believes that mazes do not need to be inherently solvable. For Glamwulf, solutions are a sometimes interesting byproduct of the curious wanderer.

2. Carlisle, brain wizard
Enjoys modeling mazes more than partaking in them. His study is full of equation scrolls, charcoal, and rulers. Thinks three dimensional mazes are especially exciting but has been unable to find the funding for more than a few rooms.

3. Danzo, turmoil ninja
Likes rolling around a maze blindfolded and spun until he pukes. Communicates in complex hand signs.

4. Danielle, speed runner
Is a trained acrobat and wears jumping boots. Like an octopus, she will sometimes just take the lid off a maze and go over the top. Once completed a maze in negative time, somehow.

5. Celeste, masonry addict
Swears that a small amount of concrete in breakfast is good for the digestion. Loves smelling, touching, and tasting walls. Cuboid.

6. Conrad, Minotaur
Thinks mazes can be great for contemplation and likes how quiet they can be.

 

1d4 Mazes for the Freaks

1. Many Kinds of Stone
Completely dark inside, but each stone wall segment has a unique texture. Can navigate with extremely good touch memory.

2. Under the Sea
A straight underwater tunnel that is 100m long. Looks like it’s 10m long.

3. One Thousand Sad Trees
Each tree will try and tell entrants a sad story, each sadder than the last.

4. Pan’s Labyrinth
Entrants have to strap goat hoofs onto their feet and drink lots of wine for this one.

 

 

Kickstart My Heart (Glaugust #3)

My third Glaugust post. Prompt: “Perpetual motion”

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An unceasing heart machine is a smooth metal device that replaces an organic heart. It’s powered by the movement of the user and as long as they move it will never stop. Conversely, if the user rests for more than a couple minutes, so will the heart.

Commonly called an iron heart, the unceasing heart machine is about the size of a fist. Surgical installation requires cutting open the recipient’s breastbone, restricting bloodflow with clamps and hemostatic powder, removing the flesh heart with cauterizing tools, and then inserting the metal heart.

After insertion and recovery, the iron hearted may have difficulty adapting to their new organ. The unceasing heart machine is painful to use and creaks like an old door hinge. Sleep is nearly impossible without a specialized limb manipulation and motion harness. Such harnesses resemble a supported treadmill, where a body can “rest” in a facsimile of human waking life, supported by machine arms or human attendants.

An iron heart may last a long time, but the rest of a user’s body is not so durable. Long term survivors of an unceasing heart machine often have extensive prosthetics and mechanical enhancement: clicking fine-iron leg supports, a carved wooden back stabilizer, a spidery, reverse jointed metal hand from a local artificer.  

An iron heart is quite valuable, and after its user has died, it will often be extracted, repaired, and installed in someone new. Some say that an iron heart retains some of the memories and feelings of its old owner. Recent recipients might find themselves remembering pasts they never had, nostalgia for places they’ve never been, and love for people long dead.

An evil use of an unceasing heart machine is forced insertion into a slave or other bonded laborer. This is illegal or technically illegal in many places, but in the fertile agricultural lands south of the Glittergold city where slavery is common, many slave owners will install iron hearts in slaves they think will survive the surgery.

Even though the surgery is expensive, slavers see it as a worthwhile investment. The iron heart ensures a laborer will work or at least move all their waking hours and this additional productivity usually pays for the heart in a few years. It also acts as an escape deterrent, as slaves with an iron heart need sleep harnesses to survive, which are hard to find on the run.

For those slaves who do escape, successful reversal of the surgery is rare and difficult. A suitable heart must be found, and few survive a second excavation of their chest cavity. More commonly, escapes slaves will dedicated themselves to some great effort, freeing more slaves, pursuing vengeance, or even simply continuing to work but for wages. For those who cannot escape, it’s not uncommon for iron hearted slaves who no longer wish to live to simply lie down in a field. They will lie as still as they can as their blood shudders to a halt.

In addition to slaves, the old and wealthy may voluntarily take an iron heart to extend their lives. The surgery and new heart may be painful but old age is painful anyway, and an iron heart may easily give another decade of life.

The exercise they take must be continual but it is gentler than the work of a day laborer, and their sleep motion machines are more comfortable. The forced exercise may even be beneficial. In the Glittergold city, groups of old iron hearts might be found walking together. Crude treadmills are common in where the elderly live and work. An eating hall, scriptorium, or courtroom may have them.

Although laborers and the elderly are the most common iron hearted, a few singular individuals may undertake the surgery as well. A mad sword saint who wishes to sacrifice their whole self to their craft might take an iron heart. A vengeful youth, a prophet, anyone who burns inside already might see little downside to such a heart.

Digital Scouring in Glittergold City (Glaugust #2)

cw: moderate gore, self harm
My second Glaugust post. Prompt: “Frightening anachronisms”

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When young nobles in the Glittergold city come of age, their hands are cut off. It’s a proud and difficult time in their lives. They are given every comfort and medical necessity, but when their wrists are fully grown, they are locked into a device with a suspended heavy blade. Once the youth is secured, the blade is dropped on the soft joint near the ends of their arms, removing their hands. The resulting wound is quickly cauterized and the newly unhanded spends weeks in pampered recovery. This process is dangerous and traumatic but necessary, for it allows them to receive new hands which can be kept properly clean as befits their station.

After recovering from their severance, a gentleman will receive their first pair of adult hands. Common materials are porcelain, wrought iron, or fine hardwood. These hands of maturity are invariably delicate, finely worked, and useless. The hands may be in different poses depending on the vocation of the recipient: a soldier may have a claw hand, or an orator might have a pointing hand. In addition to varied poses, material styles or techniques change much like clothing fashion does. Currently, hollow glass hands lit from within by lamp oil are popular.

After their first pair of hands are installed, cleaning begins immediately and lasts as long as the noble lives or until their bankruptcy. Hands are cleaned continually and thoroughly. Fine scented scrubs, harsh lather, acidic scouring, and flaming purification are all common cleaning methods. Performing these functions to sensate hands would be very painful, but with the correct hands, cleaning can be continued without stopping.

Wherever a noble goes they are followed by cleaning attendants, experts or artisans whose primary job is to clean and service their hands. The wealthy re-handed do not feed themselves, put on their own clothes, or go to the toilet alone. They require assistance for these tasks and additionally, their hands must constantly be cleaned. At night the hands are removed and cleaned through the night. Hands wear out over time from this continual attention, and need to be replaced. Less wealthy gentry will use hard wearing materials that may only need replacing every few months. The very rich or ostentatious will have hands that last only days or hours.

The most luxurious hands are human hands taken from slaves, debtors, criminals, or other social undesirables. They do not last very long, and are expensive to produce. Generally, only one hand is taken from a donor, as it’s seen as unnecessarily cruel to remove both hands, and additionally it’s a mark of nobility to have both hands removed. There are many one handed poor in the city.

Some of the nobility have their hands detached during most of the day in addition to the night, reserving full attachment for formal or ceremonial occasions. These eccentrics say the extra distance from the constant cleaning is more comfortable and convenient, and the hands are kept in clear and obvious view. If anything, their hands are able to receive a higher standard of care this way. Such extended detachments are uncommon however, and considered undignified or embarrassing by polite society.

If a gentleman loses the wealth necessary to maintain their hands, they will soon lose their status as a member of the ruling class. Perhaps they will be restored by good fortune, but if not, they will simply be the rare beggar missing two hands instead of one.

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Credit to my real life friend Noah for helping me with the brainstorming of this post

 

Lake Jars (Glaugust #1)

Glaugust2026 prompt "Water Levels"

Lake Jars  

A lake jar can be a large skin, clay vessel or lidded barrel. Watertight materials are traditional but linen and hemp bags can also work. A lake jar tends to be about the size and weight of an adult human. When full it contains a lake demon and about three trillion liters of water.

Typically a lake jar will have one primary opening sealed with protective charms, bangles, or tokens. The jar can be opened with two or three minutes effort and then its water can be scooped or poured out until it’s empty. A full jar may easily take decades to empty, even if it’s never refilled. If a user opens the jar and puts their ear to the opening they may hear a deep echo, distant sloshing, or the whispers of the lake demon.

A lake jar has many large uses despite its small size and they are highly sought after by mariners, siege engineers, and agronomists. They are not common, however, as creating one destroys a lake and much of the surrounding countryside. Creating a lake jar in one’s home country is generally considered a crime. Rather than make a new jar, users will often refill an existing jar slowly though mundane means; a rain catchment system or a stream.

Harvesting lake jars abroad however, can be very lucrative. Jar harvesters will look for unusually large of strange lakes where demons are most likely to be found. Lake demons are quite shy but they can sometimes be found on the shore of their lake: counting reeds, skipping stones, digging in the mud, or napping. An individual or team or hunters will need to capture the demon, move it a few hundred yards from the lake, and secure it. Several stakes of iron or hard wood is usually enough. Demons do not like being separated from their lake and a captured one will roll its pale eyes and its heart will beat like a big drum in its chest.

After two or three days the lake will miss its demon and come looking for it, sending tendrils of water onto the land. Once these tendrils see the demon, the lake will come for the demon. The demon should then quickly be put in a large empty jar. The lake will follow the demon into the jar, and fill it up over six to eight weeks. This is very fast for a lake and most vegetation, trees, wildlife, and buildings in the area will suffer damage.

Once in the jar, the demon will sit at the bottom, waiting to escape, and speaking to those who will listen. If the demon is able to leave the jar and its captors are still alive, it will hunt for them, creeping through the night and dripping through the day. It will smell streams and listen to the clouds. It will carry stakes of its own for the day it finds those who stole its home. 

 

Topple the Eepeeyay

This post brought to you by the deus faction post. 

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Setting: The infamous Glittergold city abutted by a very large and recently grown swamp.

Faction: The Eepeeyay, cultists who hate the city and live in the swamp. Experts in camouflage. 

Three members:  

• Gator, a huge man with an alligator head. On a mission to purify the swamp of city influence.
• Slough, a former florist who plans to flood Glittergold, to swampify it for its own good. 
• Lovelace, a scientist.

Their relationships:

• Gator would eat Slough given half a chance.
• Slough wants Gator's swampmobile.
• Lovelace is in love with Gator but has never told him.

Their sources of legitimacy or power: 

Gator has:

• PERSONAL STRENGTH. Dude is yoked and can tear your arms off. Wears a flak jacket.
• THOUSANDS OF CROCODILES. He whispers to them and pets them.   
• THE SWAMPMOBILE. By far the fastest thing in the swamp. Very hard to see when stationary. 

Slough has:

• TAI CHI. The kind that can snap necks. 
• FRIENDLY SNAKES. They often carry messages and their bites make you feel fuzzy. 
• CITY CONTACTS. Unlike most members of the Eepeeyay, Slough talks to people in the city sometimes.

Lovelace has:

• A HAND CANNON. It's heavy for a pistol but she thinks it looks cool. 
• FLESH EATING VIRUSES. Resting in petri dishes, they glow green in the dark. 
• GLASS-IRON WALLS. Transparent walls that section off experimental zones of the swamp.

 

My drawing, based on this photo by Melissa Askew  

 

the fierce fierce sun

I felt embarrassed after being included in Phlox's list of glog blogs despite not having posted for several months, so I put together this little post. 

As the weather continues to heat up in my locality I've been thinking more about UV protection and how to keep myself safe from the sky's invisible danger rays. So, here are some exposure effects for overland travel.

Perhaps every day of travel without adequate protection in a scorched place you could roll on this table. 

1. The UVX rays of the double suns infiltrate your skin, twisting your exposed cells into something... stranger. The skin on your arms and face forms deep loose wrinkles, with hard patches that glint in the light. This new skin provides protection equivalent to a leather jerkin and is painful to the touch. If you do not receive expensive and complex treatment to restore your skin within one year, all of it will slough off and you will die.

2. The heat weighs down on you like a sack of bricks as your body reaches an especially unsafe temperature. You experience blurred vision, nausea and dizziness and move at half speed. If you do not find substantial shade or other notable source of coolness within one hour, your brain will boil in your skull, and your speech will be reduced to grunting monosyllables.   

3. The many-pointed sun takes a particular interest in you, whispering promises of peace and safety. You see a small and shaded garden in the far distance: a mirage. Make a WIS check or wander off to pursue this lovely vision.  

4. The UVZ rays of the distant moon creep over the horizon, pale as fingers. If you do not have the correct goggles, sight lens, shade screen, etc, you must, within ten minutes, shut your eyes and wrap several layers of fabric around your head for the rest of the day. Otherwise your eyes will fall out of your head, leaving only bleached sockets behind. 

5. A small and deadly hole in your water canteen has leaked all your personal water out over the past several hours. Your party must share their precious and limited water with you within the day or your tongue will swell up and you will fall face down in the dirt, immobile and easy prey for the local wildlife. 

6. You see a rare prism-vulture gliding on a thermal. These ancient scavengers reflect the sun's light through their translucent bodies, scattering bands of colored light onto the land below. It is a sign of very good luck. You suffer no ill effects from the landscape today despite your unprepared foolishness.  

 

 

Photo by Leonie Zettl