Friday, January 25, 2019

dten encounters in a weird desert

i wrote these for Micah a while ago. not sure if he ever used them. basic premise - there are tears in reality in this desert due to eldritch hearts.

1 alchemy assassins
Drinkers of the heart, they trip on the shit and go into a comatose state. When they do so, out in the desert, from the tears in reality spill these Mr. Game and Watch looking, multi-colored little fuckers. They are 2-D and use this to their advantage (if they stand sideways they essentially vanish). Their psychedelic colors mirage in the hot sun and mesmerize those who stare too long.

2 scar-sniffing hounds
gangs of hunting dogs from rival tribes try to "set up" around these tears in reality. You can discern a reality tear if there are too many dogs around. Additional signs: if a dog is howling at the sand, or several sizes too large as if seen through a magnifying glass, if it floats lazily like a half-filled balloon, and if the dog is in fact a human pretending to be a dog.

3 reality warping cockroaches
As strange as it may seem, through these tears in reality, cockroaches crawl out. Maybe they really can survive anything. There isn't much strange about them, except they they seek the comfort of human companionship. They like to crawl between clothes, where fabric meets skin. When they find a nice spot (underside of wrist or under left breast) they give you an exchange. The truest of sight in exchange for control of your body. What they do when they control your body varies, but it typically involves additional human companionship, platonic or not. But with the truest of sight you can see all things broken, from a broken belt buckle to a broken heart.

4 bleeding-sky syndrome
The sky gets sick sometimes. Maybe not your sky, but this sky, here in the desert, it gets sick and hurts itself. It's a dark thing, yes. The ideal of it at least. But the execution is strange more than dark. Cloud cut the sky, parting the blue like a bed sheet (with much the same noise) and letting the black behind it spill out. The the cut bleeds. It's like rain except it comes out like blood from a wound, and is black like the night sky. Inside this plasmic liquid are boiling hot stars which can be harvested. If they are not harvested they give birth to changelings (or something else equally strange).

5 horror faces
These are people who has touched the reality scars, or were there when they were made, or who have merely looked at one such scar for too long and maybe said some things about the scar they really shouldn't have. Their faces warp into picasso-esque portraits which alter with their moods. Limbs can sprout from these new heads. They cannot control these limbs and sometimes they cannot even control their mood. Keeping them calm is paramount, lest you be dragged kicking and screaming into their gaping purple maw, never to return.

6 hot heads
Bald giants with weak, frail bodies and big, fat heads. If their head gets to hot it explodes, so they bury their head in the sand to stay cool. If you see normal sized bodies sticking up from the sand, be careful there's not a large head under there.

7 straw tooths
These pale kids walk with umbrellas that cast jet-black shadows (so they appear like floating umbrellas with a sheet of black underneath). They will not tell you where they came from. They will only float to the nearest scar, stick their bendy-straw teeth into said scar, and drink whatever is inside. If interrupted they will drink you instead, even if they hate the taste.

8 sand druids
Sand druids eat sand and lay under shallow pools of sand to sleep. They do not come out in the light, only at night. At night they crawl on the sand, eating tasty patches. They are afraid of humans and most things and prefer to hide. But their knowledge of the desert is tremendous, even if accidental. You see, the patches of good sand all seem to form a line, like a leyline, that leads between places of magic (the tears, certain cities, etc). So if you follow them they will surely lead you someplace interesting.

9 court of glass
This mausoleum made of glass appears to the holy in mirages. When you see a mirage in the distance reach out as if to grasp a doorknob and you will find it. Inside it is cool and safe, and you can see out into the desert through the glass walls. Everything inside is glass and fragile and the building demands ease. If you shatter the walls (or anything inside) then the Glass Angels will come for you and force-feed you your future sharded in glass.

10 landmines
There are landmines under the sand. Be careful.

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