City of 100 Gods Pt.7: The Artisans Quarter plus Ward 41. The Gardeners

In a Neolithic proto-Megalopolis where each individual ward has its own deity, it's hard to find a denizen embracing the concept of a single, creator god. But the artisans know, for they carry the divine knowledge that can only be imparted by The Creator. For She made this world through craft and by design, and She shared this power with her children – through her ten avatars.

The Mesopotamian Goddess Bau

This post continues our ongoing exploration of the City of a Hundred Gods: 

Part 1... City Limits

Part 2... Gates and Ladders
Part 3... Further Along the Ladders

Part 4... The Last Ladders

Part N.... Navigating the City

Part  5... Traders Wake

Part 6... Final Traders Wake Wards 

Let us meet the Artisans!

City of 100 Gods Pt. 6, Traders Wake: The Ocean Lord (37), He Who Distributes the Grain (38), He Who Prospers (39); The Temple of Bread (40)

An ongoing project to map a Neolithic proto-Megalopolis, one ward/god at a time. This particular post closes out the city's Breadbasket, poetically known as Traders Wake due to the two major canal basins and grain market. Here is where the tendrils of the city's extensive reach gather the blood they have leached from the land, and here the denizens suck at its acrid teats for sustenance.

The Destruction of Sodom Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) 

Part 1... City Limits

Part 2... Gates and Ladders
Part 3... Further Along the Ladders

Part 4... The Last Ladders

Part N.... Navigating the City

Part  5... Traders Wake

City of 100 Gods Pt. 5, Traders Wake: They Who Store The Grain (35); The Deep One (36)

This post is part of a series concerning the City of a Hundred Gods, a proto-Neolithic megalopolis brimming with conflicting factions, a technocratic theocracy and unique encounter tables for each ward.

Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1874)

City of a Hundred Gods: The Story So Far

Part 1... City Limits

Part 2... Gates and Ladders
Part 3... Further Along the Ladders

Part 4... The Last Ladders

Part N....Navigating the City

...but now we turn to a new district, known to poets and administrators alike as Traders Wake, though  common folk know all these wards as The Bread Basket...

City of 100 Gods 4/10: The Last Ladders

These are the final wards of The Ladders, the City of a Hundred Gods' warren of slums lying beyond its perimeter walls. Movement through the district is brought to life by day and night encounter tables in this post. Initial thoughts for abstracting the map and navigating the city are here, but this is up for revision. 

The setting assumes PCs are outcast hunting gatherers visiting a Neolithic proto-city, but this could easily be re-skinned for an antediluvian/weird bronze age sword-and-sorcery game

The walls of Ichan-Qаl’а, Khiva, Uzbekistan

 31. The Kite-Flyer (Cloud Temple)

CITY OF A HUNDRED GODS: Part 2/10... the remaining gates and the Ladders

The Sea of Tents, the Black River and Dusk Gate have previously been described, alongside their patron deities the Shit-Beetle, the Goddess of the Lime-Slake and more. Have a look at that post before coming back here:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/02/city-of-hundred-gods-part-110-city.html

Actually, read THIS post and come back here. The Bad Doctor shared this just as I was writing my slightly undercooked entry for the RPG Blog carnival, and I had to postpone reading it until I'd finished it, lest I gave up entirely. I'm glad I did: this is damn fine. Excellently selection of augmenting images, too:

https://wasitlikely.blogspot.com/2024/12/gods-of-stolen-world.html

Oh and then read THIS post, too, because Shuttered Room has come up with something very, very good for Secret Santicore: an ice age (past? present? future? it'll work as each of those) settlement, partly inspired by module B4. Another great example of minimalist worldbuilding:

https://shutteredroom.blogspot.com/2024/12/no-holidays-this-season-secret.html.

Sometimes it's hard not to feel like the ugly sister to Cinderella when stood beside such luminaries. I don't know if you ever get similar feelings but—assuming that you also have an RPG blog, which is likely—whenever I do I try to be thankful that I'm at least at the ball. 

Anyway, here's some more of my own gods, native to a sprawling Neolithic proto-city.

Ruins of Çatalhöyük—which could be the title of YOUR next adventure, couldn't it?

D12 Meteoric Metals

I had a draft of the post D12 Anomalous Orbs sat unpublished for long enough to justify its "retroactive dating", so it sits neatly in the April posts... but this is genuinely hot-off-the-press, unadulterated May 2024 content just for you.

When I first used the phrase STAR METAL in PARIAH volume 1 I imagined the reader would assume this to be meteoric iron, though I made no explicit statement regarding its nature... though a while back I washed my hands of a monster created by cryptomnesia known as an Ancient One  Now fully immersed in UFO lore and the existence of supposed “exotic materials”, I thought it would be fun to come up with a list of alternative material properties for “star metal”. In addition to the usual fantasy sources, this table was inspired by anecdotal accounts from ufology and the preindustrial metallurgists and alchemists. There used to be a spiritual element (pun intended) to material science which is sadly lacking today!

Cubic of polished meteoric iron illustrating the Widmanstaetten structure

Statting a God: Death

This post follows up my earlier post on Aziza, Queen of Dawn, wherein I tried to turn an encounter with a goddess into a different kind of mini-game rather than a combat encounter. Using this as a template for each of the "ruling spirits" of the the other realms of Pariah, I set to work on Death...

Nergal: a Sumerian death god

Note: I almost immediately reneged on my original brief and ended providing options for turning this into a combat encounter... if only because the death of death is a fun and familiar trope.

Artefacts of the Others

As explained in my last a recent post I think I'm nearly done with hand-wringing and "anxietising" over my post frequency (or lack thereof). Life is complex at the moment and I will just have to deal with it, hoping that the future will provide more opportunities to play and to create.

That said, I have plenty of drafts sat on the ol' slush-pile awaiting a cursory polish, and I will attempt to drip feed these out to you as the weeks and months go by. This is one such slush-post: the Artefacts of the Others...

Roadside Picnic concept art by Alex Andreev https://www.behance.net/gallery/19310523/ZONA 

This post is at least partly inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic, though the contents were originally designed for use in burgeoning Pariah adventure/sandbox City of Ghosts. Another inspiration—the great Semiurge of Archons March On—I shall pace the generator proper at the top of the pile:

The form, materiality and the effect these artefacts produce may not make any real sense: this is not a bug, it's a feature. A Neolithic person would have no idea what to do with a Marshall combi amp, but taking it apart they'd gain multiple capacitors capable of delivering powerful shocks, lots of shiny copper and a fuck-off big magnet. Similarly, artefacts are fragments of larger wholes, beyond the ken of the average pariah, but still capable of producing incredible supernatural effects.

Read on to find out how the generator slots together (1d20 tables listed below)

D66 Enchanted Items

Have I done one of these before? Feels like I should have... maybe I'm thinking of that I search the body post I did recently. In any case, here are some magic items for your proto-Neolithic campaign:

Neolithic grave goods, possibly magical.

CITY OF A HUNDRED GODS: Part 1/10 City Limits

Jewel at the Foot of the Mountain. The Bridge Over the Great River. City of Many Stairs. Gateway to the Sun and Heavens. The Endless village. The city has nearly as many names as the number of deities to whom its inhabitants pray... and it is this peculiar feature that grants its most familiar name: the City of a Hundred Gods.

Was going to use this as the cover for PARIAH volume 2 then remembered...
...we ripped it off Assassin's Creed...

To outsiders these "gods" are hungry, capricious demons that thrive on that unique misery endemic to urbanised societies... but to those born within sight of the city's incredible walls, they are entities worthy of their devotion. The myriad cults venerating these one hundred deities each work in synergy to make the metropolis greater than the sum of its parts.

So come then, let us explore each district via the "gods" venerated there, starting with the outskirts of the city and of course its walls.

HEARTH SPIRITS: Neolithic House Ghosts

Discussing the etymology of hobgoblin on the discord server was a reminder that the idea of a "kitchen ghost" or "hearth spirit" is common to many cultures across the globe. Hob is used by a lot of British people to describe their stovetop, an evolution of the hot plate that once kept pots simmering on traditional stoves. Goblin, of course, was a type of fey creature rather than a rat-faced runt with green (or orange) skin and a selection of  pointy sticks. The hobgoblin was thus a kitchen-based domestic spirit and not the larger kinds [of orc], as suggested by Gandalf.

They used to be fun, now they're just another "proud warrior race" trope.

In protestant Europe (and in many of the lands the countries of that cultural sphere once occupied) belief in this spirit and the practice of honouring it has largely died out over the last few centuries along with many of that culture's folk traditions. The guilty party in this case being the religiosity of the reformation and the "rationalism" of the later enlightenment period. 

More Neolithic Settlements—City of Ghosts/PARIAH

 A confluence of currents, including but not limited to...

• ...a third national lockdown in the UK and a slow economy...
• ...the imminence of ZINE QUEST 3...
• ...discord discussion about cities & settlements...
• ...revisiting the Others, a fantasy precursor civilisation with a cool generator: https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-others-pariah-city-of-ghosts.html

...has lead me back to this idea that cities and settlements could do more (or at least could feel more interesting) in the implied PARIAH setting.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this 9,000 year old Neolithic dwelling is better than my house.

So: using (and augmenting) the tables in this post:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2020/05/neolithic-settlements.html

....I've assembled a generator for four different types of settlement: RURAL (the kind that should number in the dozens-per-agricultural-hex), MAJOR SETTLEMENT (the home of a chieftain or regional leader) SACRED SITE (what it says on the tin) and the CITY.

Sketches for My Sweetheart, The Beyond

The many realms beyond the Here & Now have begun to be rendered in finer detail, first with There, the place of dead spirits and later with Dusk, the Labyrinth of the Twilight of Civilisations. Material exists for Sun and Dawn (to be featured soon), leaving the more ambiguous realms of Moon and The Beyond up in the air (fittingly). 

Beyond the Aquila Rift, truly cosmic horror episode of Love, Death and Robots. 

I had a few notes for the Beyond which I wanted to share. 

The Dusk Realm: Procedurally Generated Parallel World, more thoughts

This post was posted on Christmas Day 2020. It is unlikely that I will be within reach of anything remotely internet related for the duration of that day, so I'm hastily jotting this down in the last hour of Christmas eve... whatever goes up, goes up!

This is about a realm of alternative consciousness not ordinarily detectable to ordinary human senses. Nonetheless it sits within the reality of the world of PARIAH, and can be explored through the proper usage of the ritual magic or potent entheogens. I started to write about it here:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2020/12/dusk-realm-adventures-in-entheogeneering.html

...and it is in some ways a variation of a concept espoused here:

 https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2020/01/nsr-planescape-labyrinths-of-hod.html

Also I'm re-using the DMT locust image again:

The Realm of the Dead II: More Delving into Death

In this post about "There", the Realm of the dead a look is taken into another world, a home to non-human intelligence and as a source of magic. This realm of the dead exists in parallel to the Here and Now (the world detectable to ordinary human sensation) yet is beyond the limits of ordinary perception. Ritual, magic and—most importantly—drugs enable pariahs to alter their perception and explore the world of the dead.

Three randomly generated components determine the experience of a pariah in the realm of the dead. They are:

• Vignette: a typical scene encountered in the dead realm.
• Environment: the backdrop against which the vignette is occurring. This will alter the manner in which the PCs perceive the vignette and also the way in which they may interact with it.
• Ancestor: vignettes are "performed" by dead spirits... in any scene, one of those actors will be a dead spirit known to at least one of the PCs in one way.

Thus from a shortlist which I am attempting to expand (on an almost daily basis help me please God) we can start to build a variety of random scenes to provide unique experiences each time the Realm of the Dead is visited.

Dusk Realm: Adventures in Entheogeneering

This was written at a point in time prior to my mastery of chronomancy. It may refer to things that have not yet happened that I had not yet realised had not yet happened. In any case, this is written as the 17th entry of the self-imposed advent challenge.

In Pariah, Volume 1 seven different realms are described — very briefly — as both a home to non-human intelligence and as a source of magic. One of these seven realms is the Dusk, a world described as "the vespers of knowledge" but also "the twilight of civilisation". It exists in parallel to that of the Here and Now yet beyond the limits of ordinary perception. Ritual, magic and—most importantly—drugs enable pariahs to alter their perception and explore this world.

The entheogen most commonly associated with Dusk is obtained from cactus buttons.

Cactus Buttons by Abigail Lingford

Dusk exist (predictably) as a counterpoint to dawn: in crude terms, it is the  law to the chaos. It aligns with previous work written on the labyrinth of Hod .

Hahah "work..."

Magiography (Mages are monks, monks are mages)

There's quite a convoluted story as to how I came back to tabletop gaming and how this blog came into being—a story which one day I shall tell. For now you will have to content yourself with the following flake of my life: once, I was attempting to design  a video game using RPG Maker. 

It went through various iterations, but core to all of them was the act of researching and studying magic.

The Alchemist by Erol Otus

It's difficult for me to explain quite why I find this model of the magician (as cloistered academic) so appealing. Perhaps its the fact that my youthful academic promise remains unfulfilled, or that my adult pea-brain is still mystified as to how universities came into being in the first place (against the backdrop of warring church and state... people were just able to swan off and read?). In any case, the "academic magician" is an archetype I've wanted to interrogate more closely for a long time now.

This is explicitly not about Harry Potter.

The Realm of the Dead: Further Adventures in Entheogeneering

In Pariah, Volume 1 seven different realms are described — very briefly — as both a home to non-human intelligence and as a source of magic. One of these seven realms is the Here and Now of the world understood by human senses, with the other sixth realms existing in parallel to this but beyond the limits of ordinary perception. Ritual, magic and—most importantly—drugs enable pariahs to alter their perception and explore the worlds unfolding before them.

 

Still from Altered States

Though there's clear parallels here with the planar adventures of D&D, I really wanted to capture the otherworldliness somehow, so implored pariah players to come up with alternative approaches to play including swapping character sheets or playing completely different games all together.

Of course, the secret plan was to write an adventure/setting book for each realm, and I alluded to some experiments in a previous pariah post involving a trip to the realm of the dead. 

Jones' Oracular Dungeon Generator

 So nearly one year ago now (in a time before COVID-19) I received a very special gift from Jones Smith aka Screwhead McDuff aka Mr Screw-on-head in the form of a post-Roman, pre-Saxon Britain hexcrawl generator. I'm quite some way off from putting that into action (there sits in my blog-in a draft post ten months old) but in the meantime I wish to draw your attention to this:

https://wasitlikely.blogspot.com/2019/10/oracular-dungeon-generation-and.html

It's a way to create and populate dungeons that are as interesting as their maps.

The Undertemple of Imperfect Reflection by Foot of the Mountain Adventures

(actually it's also a way to make a map)

This is the first of a number of posts I have planned where I use some other creators' tools and see what pops out of the other end. This particular methodology was inspired by Chris McDowall's spark tables.

NB. This is very much a work in progress. I go through the first 5 stages with the intention of 

SOME SIMIANS

CW: Mind control, cannibalism

Before you continue, please read Arnold Kemp's glog class the baboonist because you should.

It has been mentioned that there's no manifestation of the archetypal spirits of apes, since like humans they are intelligent creatures with their own ambitions.

This does not mean that every ape (nor their monkey cousins) encountered is mundane encounter.

Far from it.

What follows is a list of five simians that might be encountered in the primeval world of PARIAH.

Monkey—a former familiar

Sorcerers, wisewomen and witches sometimes like to bind a spell-spirit to an animal to create a familiar: a loyal but sometimes frustratingly stupid servant. Monkeys are often favoured for their prehensile hands, and their binocular vision (when peering through your familiar's eyes, it's nice if those eyes are familiar).

When the sorcerer dies, the spirit returns to their realm of origin. However, there exists fates worse than death, and while these can be a living hell for those that befall them they likewise leave their familiar spirits stranded in the Here & Now.