Locations & Active World Building - Olor: The City of A Thousand Smells

 As a reader and GM I'm fairly allergic to lore. Nothing turns me off running a game more than having to slog through pages of terse world building. But at the same time I love running games in fantastical and fully realised worlds - I love those moments where things feel wondrously alien and coherent at the same time. Although sometimes I feel like it can be a struggle to balance these two things.

One of the first OSR books I read was Yoon-Suin by David McGrogan and I was amazed by the evocative random tables that filled the book. Instead of presenting a long quasi-historical account of geography and architecture, Yoon-Suin lets you build your own mosaic of characters, locations, factions and sexy slug merchants. You paint your own picture. 

I like to think of this as active world building - presenting a world in motion, full of active participants living their lives and showing a culture not telling you about it. The information presented should take the reader on a journey - but it should be their journey. They choose what order to read the book and what details are important to them or they can even leave it entirely up to chance. I think that gives a reader a wondrous sense of discovery not just from the text but how they engage with it - in how ideas can be combined and digested. 

For the Celestial Coast I'm trying to present setting information how I like to read it - in small and usable chunks. Which means following one of the great OSR maxim  - if information can be presented in a random table then put it in a random table. 

My plan for issue one of the zine is to have the core rules, character creation including 36 backgrounds and a series of double page spreads for some key locations within the Celestial Coast. Each of those key locations will consist of a series of random tables which I hope will deliver enough active world building that the reader is able to build their own version of that location in their head and at the table. 

d20 smells in Olor - The City of 1000 Scents

1. Sharp, piscine aromas splatter from portside vendors frying freshly caught whelks to add to their bubbling pots of fish soup. 

2. The odd petrichor scent of salty stone after a calcified rainstorm clears.

3. A synthetic vinegary zest flows from jars of roewine fermenting outside cheap restaurants.

4. Ammonia whiffs of cephalopod ink when morning papers filled with militaristic bravado are delivered to filthy street corners. 

5. Stark floral pheromones at the exclusive natural philosophers’ markets, where merchants sell precious variegated flowers found only in the peaks of the Lupine Mountains. 

6. A pungent sulfurous pong of onionmen scurrying under feet in the sticky sewers. 

7. Mild nuttiness from overworked longshoremen washing their crusty hands with adipose soap. 

8. Algae infused incense burns as Orthodock sailors prayers to their Drowned Saint. 

9. Syrupy noxiousness of a gastric garbage heaps slowly eroding the city’s litter. 

10. A metallic sweat pierces the nostrils when passing the rusted statue of the deposed King of Gualle.

11. The burnt sweetness of black honey sold to fundraise for an old priest's mellification.

12. A warm, bitumen effluvium in the late afternoon when lamplighters fill the streetlights with oils extracted from fallen stars. 

13. Pine scented smoke rising from cliffside mansions of the fishing magnates as they fix the prices of the daily catch. 

14. The ripe fruitiness when carts filled with juicy flat peaches are brought down from nearby mountain villages. 

15. Traces of damp wood emanate from recently refurbished fishing cottages by the Vieux Port, painted in pastel colours that twin the more affluent City of Peaca. 

16. A dehydrated urine mist clouds the street where those with the Celestial Sickness lay their rotting beds. 

17. A rich earthy bouquet spills from top restaurants when cooking rare cuts of truffalo meat, bought at exuberant prices from shady poachers returning from hunts deep in the Lupine mountains.

18. A bittersweet waft of gunpowder reminds starving sailors of their failed revolutions. 

19. The halitosis smiles of solarmancers selling their revolutionary star-powered technological wonders (guaranteed not to burst into flames this time). 

20. Rotten bile and terror are the last things you smell when in the presence of the Living Fatberg that lives deep beneath the city.

On Remixing the Minotaur & Monsters from the Marble Empire

As inspiration for the Celestial Coast, I’ve been rereading Jorge Luis Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings - which in many ways feels like a precursor to the Monster Manual. The book is a compendium of fantastical monsters from history and literature written by Borges in his usual playfully poetic prose. Like anything by Borges, I can not recommend it enough and it definitely serves as a great resource for monster ideas if you’re looking for something pre-gygaxian.

However what inspired me on this reading was from the preface, in which Borges writes:

 “...a monster is no more than a combination of parts of real beings, and the possible permutations border on the infinite. In the centaur, the horse and man are blended;  in the Minotaur the bull and man (Dante imagined it as having the face of a man and the body of a bull); and in this way it seems we could evolve an endless variety of monsters.”

Which leads me to think specifically about the minotaur.

This is the saddest minotaur I could find. 

We all have a shared idea of what a minotaur looks like, a bipedal humanoid man with a bull’s head that exists to chase those lost in a labyrinth. That should feel scary, it should feel monstrous, but the image of the minotaur is so well known and explored that it's not. We understand the monster and so it is no longer unknown to us and we are not no longer scared. 

For me the idea of the minotaur should tap into that very primal human fear that we are not at the top of the food chain. There is always something bigger than us, something chasing us and when it catches us there is no escape. 

So how do we make the minotaur scary again? How do we make it monstrous? 

My idea is to steal from Dante and remix that minotaur. 

Cheer up buddy. It's time for a make-over.

A passionless human face contorted onto a bull’s body. Tight pale skin stretched against the muscular neck of the beast. Ivory white horns protruding from its forehead. Sweaty fur covering its giant torso. The slap of four prehensile feet echoing along the halls of the labyrinth. Always angry, always moving, always ready to hunt you down. 

There are an infinite number of animals that can be combined together to create new monsters. However there is also an infinite number of ways of combining those animals together.

So here are some classical Greek/Roman monsters that I’ve remixed in some way or another for eventual use in the Celestial Coast. For the setting the idea being is that the modern countries are built on the ruins of the Marble Empire, an unknown ancient civilization, so scattered throughout the coastline and mountains are ruins still containing treasures and of course monsters. I want the monsters to feel mythic but at the same time appear fresh and unknown. 

These should all be compatible with Electric Bastionland/Into The Odd/Cairn as that’s the system I’ll be using for the Celestial Coast. The formatting for the monsters is inspired by how Yochai Gal lays them out in Cairn because it rocks. 

The names are all a bit dumb at the moment, I was thinking of calling them stuff like “He who rages endlessly through architecture of loss to find you for his eternal hunt” but I didn’t, you can do that though if you want. 

1. The Reverse Minotaur - 12 HP, 1 Armor, 18 STR, 12 DEX, 8 WIL, Ivory Horns (both d10) ⬤ Colossal muscular bull with an emotionless human face and brutish prehensile feet. Stinks of musk and sweat. Grunts with a low roar.  ⬤ Prefers the hunt to the kill. Chases anyone running away from it or trying to retreat, even if it is currently engaged in combat.  ⬤ Critical Damage: The target is gored upon the Reverse Minotaur’s horns. A STR save is needed to remove them by hand.  

2. The Anti-Gorgon - 8 HP, 12 STR, 12 DEX, 16 WIL, Snake Bite (d8) ⬤ Bald humanoid with a giant unkempt beard of hissing snakes. Eyes made of glowing marble. Snake-like tail that rattles. ⬤ Moves slowly and methodically. Always searching for stone statues. ⬤ As an action it can stare at a statue, giving it life and turning it into flesh. Flesh Statue - 4 HP, 11 STR, Meaty Punch (d6). Flesh Statues follow any command given by the Anti-Gorgon for as long as they are visible.

3. The Cydra - 6HP, 9 STR, 16 DEX, 9 WIL, Tail Whip (each d6) ⬤ Giant snake head with d6 long tails. ⬤ The tails are constantly wriggling and squirming so it struggles to move in a straight line. ⬤ Whenever critical damage is dealt to the Cydra it has a 50/50 chance of ignoring the effects, sprouting a new tail and gaining 2d6 STR.

4. The Tocsin (4 HP, 8 STR, 12 DEX, 14 WIL, Beautiful Talons (d6) ⬤ Bird headed women with painfully bad singing voices.  ⬤ They usually travel in groups of 3 or 4 and migrating to safe or secure locations. ⬤ Anyone that hears the Tocsin’s awful song must make a WIL save or be filled with panic and an urge to run away from the singing.

5. The Panclops (10 HP, 15 STR, 11 DEX, 7 WIL, Eye Brawl (d8) ⬤ A giant humanoid covered in eyes. Its skin has eyes, its teeth has eyes, its eyes have eyes. ⬤ Can see from every direction. Sleeps with many eyes open. Always looking out for intruders. Love seeing new things with all those eyes. ⬤ If the Panclops’ entire body is completely blinded by bright light it is unable to see or act. 

6. Cerbepuss (4 HP, 7 STR, 18 DEX, 16 WIL, Hellclaw (d6) ⬤ A elegant and sleek black cat with three heads. Its eyes burn bright like an inferno. ⬤ Wherever it steps a small fire starts. ⬤ If you show the proper admiration and respect for the cat’s staggering, heavenly beauty it may consider showing you the way to the underworld. 

The Celestial Coast

I'm becoming increasingly inspired and jealous by all of the amazing work I'm seeing in Zinequest 3. So I've decided I'm gently going to begin work on my fantasy heartbreaker RPG zine because, like that dumb scorpion on catching a ride on that even dumber frog, I can't help it - it is my nature. 

This has come from both a desire to explore a kind of fantasy world that I feel has a fairly untapped potential and as a natural extension of the Electric Bastionland/Ultraviolet Grasslands hack I’ve been running. Both those games can be described as OSR (or NSR or sword dream or art punk) but their tones are both somewhat different from the usual muddy and bloody grimdarkery. Like these two games that I’ve had so much great RPG times out of, I want to make something colourful, light and inclusive that is still perilous, weird and intriguing. 

A land of sun and sorcery, beauty and danger. Filled with pastel buildings, glamourous beaches, winding mountainous roads, sunkissed castles, political intrigue, decadent artists, exiled nobles and casinos filled with dangerous treasures. 

Inspired by my love of mediterranean history and landscapes, Italian & French folk stories, Roman & Greek mythology, the writings of Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges & Umberto Eco and the criminal capers of characters like Lupin the Third, Charlie Croker & Diabolik. 

And so to The Celestial Coast, a solarpunk pastel fantasy-riviera anticanon setting using a rules-light system inspired by Electric Bastionland/Into the Odd, Knave, Cairn, The Ultraviolet Grasslands, Magical Industrial Revolution and every other amazing RPG book I've read over the last year. 

The aim of this blog is to document the design process and my attempt to create a small zine that I will definitely not probably sell at a huge loss. Below are some of my original notes for the setting as well as a d10 table of wonders within the setting. If you’re reading this and have any feedback or ideas let me know as everything about this project still feels very malleable at the moment. Also none of this has yet been playtested so everything is very likely to change once it’s hit the table. 

Please ignore my awful map design. I'm still learning how not to be bad at this.  Please ignore my awful map design. I'm still learning how not to be bad at this.

Who knew heaven was so blue? Welcome to the Celestial Coast where the sun shines brighter, the food tastes better and the vices cut deeper.  Nestled between the borders of The Republic of Gualle, the Kingdom of Calegari and the newly independent Principality of Stello Astra lies the coast filled with glamour, mystique and extravagance.  Swim in the cosmic tides of Midnight Ocean where lemon coloured sand glitters under the astral light of the nocturnal sky.  Gamble with luminary artists, foreign dignitaries and industry leaders at the Nova Azure Casino, the fabulous monument to grandeur at the centre of Stello Astra. Hike along the sublime trails of the Lupine Mountains, filled with remarkable nature, serene villages and ancient marble ruins throughout the colossal stone landscape.  Marvel at the bleeding edge sun-ships powered by fallen stars fished from the bottom of the Midnight Ocean! But behind the glitz and the games hides secrets and shames.  In seaside resorts, outlaw princesses and hardened criminals conspire over opulent liqueur.  In stormy caves, masked Calegari spies whisper softly about public assassinations.  In crumbling forts, the solarmancers of Gualle experiments with volatile new magics.  Tensions are high but so are the tides. Rumours of war fill the salty air. Gualle and Calegari are running out of ways to show each other they’ve got nothing to lose. And when the cold war gets hot, where better to start fighting than a place where the climate is just right.  Who knew heaven was so blue? Welcome to the Celestial Coast.

D10 wonders of the Celestial coast

1. At night the Midnight Ocean gleams and sparkles with the cosmic light of thousands of fallen stars that have descended deep into the sky blue sea.
2. Painters, princes and provocateurs parade along the Promenade of Saints in the pastel city of Peaca. 
3. In a quiet valley within the Lupine Mountains sits the Coiled Tower, a mysterious colossal edifice that swivels and contorts daily in new and terrifying ways. 
4. Beneath the inky water that dominates the flooded streets of Vento, are waterlogged temples that tell an enigmatic and secret history of the sinking metropolis.
5. Olor, the city of a thousand smells, is named so because of the Vieux Port where the morning market is filled with peculiar sea critters, fresh cases of roewine and fragments of fallen stars fished from the bottom of the sea. 
6. Pious followers of the Lady of Perpetual Perforation make yearly pilgrimages to the Cochlea Abbey atop Mount Zittire to pray before the eternally bleeding ears of the saintly sculpture within the chapel.
7. The recently constructed Luminary Observatory’s sleek modernist design is testament to the grand machination of Gualle, built to track and study falling stars so that the republic may unlock the technological mysteries hidden within them.
8. Every spring the Fluorescent Beach is covered by chromatic jellyfish that glow and sing harmoniously along the pebbled shore.
9. Along sprawling roads ascending high into Lupine mountain villages are vine covered white dolmens built by the once great Marble Empire, rumoured to still be full of marvelous stone relics. 
10. In Monte Vega, the ostentation city at the heart of Stello Astra, is the Nova Azure Casino, a dazzling solar-powered complex built as a playground for the rich and powerful - beneath the sleek gaming rooms are impenetrable vaults holding the treasures of exiled kings and nefarious criminals.