Ecoheroism and Dragonspill

 

A dragon embodies fire, poison, and wrath. Slaying the monster doesn't make it safe!

Every part of the dragon's body, from claws to gizzard to skin, is uniquely hazardous.

Burying the heart will poison the groundwater for fifty leagues around. Burning the skin scars the sky for decades. Leaving the ribs exposed brings down a curse on the slayer's descendants. The lungs keep pumping out smog. The claws spread drought.

If left to decay, the dragon's hatefulness seeps into the environment, causing terror and ruin for leagues around.

​Ecoheroism is a system-neutral tabletop roleplaying game supplement developing this idea.

To engage in ecoheroism​ is to deal with a dragon carcass in a responsible, safe, and environmentally friendly way.

Do you tie it to a church bell? Drop it in a volcano? Bury it fifty feet underground?

Find the best way to safely dispose of the bits of a dragon carcass, or experience a dragonspill: the terrible environmental consequences of your failure.​

  

Random tables! Fantasy environmentalism! Esoteric lore! Gory humour!

​

Fantasy gaming meets environmental rehabilitation and bomb disposal.

For use with any fantasy TTRPG. Get it now!​

 

Ecoheroism is downloadable for pay-what-you-want at: 

Itch dot io

RPG Trader

DriveThruRPG

 

 

1d20 wizardly afflictions

In the vein of 1d20 spells from a cursed spellbook, here's 

1d20 wizardly afflictions

Art by Perplexing Ruins

1. Localised portent. The patient's viscera rearranges into meaningful forms. Small objects nearby may transform into birds or comets.
2. Mano-a-manomania. An uncontrollable obsession with magical duels. Treatable with high dosage antimagic.
3. Sympathetic polymorph. The patient reflexively takes on the forms they magically impose on others.
4. Partial possession. Intermittently under the control of imps or quasi-elemental spirits. Contagious.
5. Cetaceanthropy. Transmitted by bite (usually a disease of krill). The patient swims amok on the night of the full moon.
6. Antimitosis. Sometimes called 'void disease'. Incurable reverse aging accompanied by disintegration of bodily tissues.
7. Clone narcissism. Obsession with the perfection of one's own form, growing in a vat.
8. St Belthin's Fever. Infection occurs during thunderstorms. Symptoms include glowing eyes, shivers, electrical discharge.
9. Intestinal bookworms. Ubiquitous parasitic reminder about proper hand hygiene while reading mouldering tomes.
10. Persistent featherweight. A lingering spell reduces the patient's mass. Prolonged affliction causes brittle bones and muscle atrophy.
11. Psychic papercut. Stinging pain in the mind brought on by telepathically reading recklessly fast.
12. Orb-gazer's wrist. Strain caused by the weight of an overheavy head resting chin-on-upturned-palm.
13. Oak gall stones. A solstice-time disease, thought to be caused by mishandling of galls during preparation of magical inks.
14. Chronic hubris. Pathological egotism characterised by challenges offered against the gods. However, see also early onset apotheosis for differential diagnosis.
15. Transitive curse. A tomb-hex heritable from mentors, yes-men, and ideological allies.
16. Wand splinter. Burrows deeper to get away from any tweezers not made of meteorite iron.
17. Petridermis. Overuse of protective spells leads to gradual stoneification of the patient's skin. Very bad for the pores.
18. Prophetic bones. Generally benign. Affected bones have a telltale ache on planes where the concept of weather does not exist.
19. Component magnetism. A lingering magnetic attraction to moss, sulfur, dried spiders, guano, and so on. Brought on by reckless overreliance on telekinesis.
20. Early onset apotheosis. A traumatic rupture in the godhead leads to total or partial deification.

I had been thinking about Discworld's magical afflictions (like 'planets'), and that made me wonder what sort of bedevilments the Thirty Wicked Wizards would suffer from.

 

For more build-your-own wizardly fever-dream content, check out my zine, Wiki Articles Are Wizards [citation needed].

1d20 spells from a cursed spellbook

 
The magician's curséd tome has protections both obvious and subtle. Here are some infuriating and dangerous spells to include as traps.

1. Abrogate Healing
2. Aura of Increasing Entropy
3. Circle of Protection Against Air
4. Conjure Wasps
5. Detect Traps Mostly
6. Exocoelomic Retreat
7. Fuse Portals
8. Gain Enmity
9. Hear Everything
10. Illusory Respite
11. Infectious Disdain
12. Invisn'tbility
13. Power Word: Disoblige
14. Protection From Gut Flora
15. Quine
16. See Transparency
17. Summon Self
18. Teleport Within Error
19. Transitive Curse
20. True Time Stop

Bonus: 1d8 annoying trap spells that are basically just puns

1. Char Person
2. Enchant Armoire
3. Feather Fill
4. Gourds and Warts
5. Grater Conjuration
6. Levigate Self
7. Stone's Kin
8. Unseen Serpent