Bone Fire

 Welcome once more weary travelers! This week I'm bring you a new article for the RPG Blog Carnival and this month's theme of parties and festivals. A new holiday you can adapt to your own setting filled with a vivid snapshot of what the day is for and how it is celebrated. Along the way you will also find some delicious treats to ply your PCs with in there next town encounter. After you've read this month's Blog Carnival article check out last months, about spooky scary skeletons! If you are looking for something different then check out my sargasso sea encounter generator for your next nautical campaign! 

Holidays and Festivals: Bone Fire

*St. Hansbål, by Nikolai Astrup

It is spoken about in myth that many centuries before the coming of the Nesimite people to the Valley of Many Waters, a prosperous but oppressive kingdom of elves occupied the valley. The myth speaks of the great evils they partook of and about their rivals, a kingdom of iron-mongering dwarves who waged war upon them. The war ended in one decisive moment when a circle of desperate elven mages attempted to channel a terrible and powerful spell but were disrupted at the worst possible moment. In an instant, a flood of necromantic energies was unleashed upon the valley, slaying the all of the valley's inhabitants in one terrible display of magical corruption.

For many long centuries the valley was uninhabited. Undead were a common sight to those that did brave the wilds of the Valley of Many Waters, though none dared tarry there after dark. After centuries had passed and the threat had receded from the minds of mortals, the Nesimites came from out of the strife of the southlands. By then the skeletal lurkers that plagued the valley were relatively dormant. A settlement was founded in the springtime and a community began to flourish.

Little did the Nesimites know, however, that the skeletal threat still lingered. On Lanternswatch, the longest night of the year, the skeletons of the Valley of Many Waters arose from their slumber and attacked the living. Out of a community of almost 2,000 people, only 197 survived. They vowed to never let a tragedy such as this happen again, for every year since on Lanternswatch, the skeletons of those who died in the valley still rise and seek out the living.

It was upon that night that the first Bone Fire was celebrated. Now each year at dusk on the longest night of the year, a massive bonfire, or "bone fire" in the old tongue, is kindled, and all the bodies of the dead that have died since the last Bone Fire are heaped onto the pyre and burned to ash.

Though the holiday began as a morose dedication to never let the undead trouble their lives again, it has become a celebration of life and life's ability to overcome undeath. All gather for two days of celebration and protection. Skeleton-shaped sweet breads are baked, merchants arrive with luxuries to trade, and a grand party is kindled in the villages of the Valley. The skeletons of the past have long since been burnt to inert dust, and humanity continues to endure in the harsh landscapes where they find themselves. Without celebrations like Bone Fire, humanity would not have endured all these many years. May the fire warm you and keep you safe!

*Village Feast, 1609

Preparations:

Though it started under grim circumstances, Bone Fire has become a celebration of life and death and people's power to overcome undeath. By kindling the sacred bonfires and joining together in the sacred dances, the people of the Valley of Many Waters reaffirm their humanity and help cleanse the land again in preparation for the coming year.

Bone Fire is one of the biggest festival days of the year in the Valley. Bones are exhumed and collected, wagons loaded, and families from all across the Valley make their way to their closest village or town. Along with their families they bring hand crafts, hides, folk art, pies, and tarts to trade and sell.

Bone Fire officially starts at sundown on the longest night of the year. Even so, up to three days before the beginning of the festival, farmers and other country folk start trickling into the villages of Cleafort, Hembdon, Ffasfurd, and Singlay and the towns of Vhaemrick and Naulcastle. The festival attracts more than just Valley folk. Merchants from over the mountains come to do their best business. Fine horses can be found at this time in Vhaemrick and Naulcastle hosts a wine tournament for the local vintners.
On the day of the holiday local musicians gather and begin to play as the fire tenders (usually clergy from the local temples) start to stack the large logs that will be used in the bonfires later that evening. Merchants gather and the Valley folk mingle, shop, dance, and await the coming ceremonies.

*Dutch Festival by Jan Thomas van Kessel

The Ceremony:

The origins of the holiday's rituals have long since faded from memory. But while their precise origins are unknown, all agree on how the ritual practices must be enacted. First the bones of the food animals are brought forth and deposited onto the bonfire, then more wood is laid atop them. Next, the bones of humans and other humanoid citizens are placed onto the unlit bonfire. The gathered masses then join hands in a series of concentric rings and the fire is lit by the tenders. The gathered host begins to dance around the bonfire and sing a round, a repeating verse about the destruction of evil and the triumphs of light over darkness and of the gods of the Valley over the gods of evil and undeath.

This goes on for a while until the entire crowd is running in circles around the bonfire, hands clasped together, singing now at the top of their lungs, all locked in an ever-building religious ecstasy until the first logs collapse. When this happens, the assembled crowds all cry out as one "Begone evil! Begone Darkness! Become sweet death! Become sweet life again!" Everyone then collapses in a huffing, puffing mass as the tenders continue to keep the flames lit. With the ceremony now complete, the crowds linger in convivial camaraderie as the event slowly winds down. After a few hours or so all that will be left will be the fire tenders, who will stay the night tending and stoking the bonfires until all traces of bone have been turned to ash.

Bone Fire is considered an auspicious day for oaths, and many are sworn in front of the fires after the dancing has ended. The tradition is to swear an oath upon a branch that has been carved from a willow tree inscribed with the oath-bearers' names and then cast it into the fire together.

*Festival Scene of Human Characteristics Vector Clipart(584/1995)

Food:

Because of the anxiety behind preparing meat-based dishes and the threat of the reanimated bones of livestock coming back to life to attack the living, a number of vegetarian dishes have become staples of the holiday. The most popular among them include:

Skeleton Bread:
The traditional treat made especially for the Bone Fire holiday consists of a sweet, yeasted dough fortified with eggs and milk that has been shaped to resemble a skeleton and then glazed with a sweet honey frosting that is whisked until it turns white. These are sold by the cartload in every celebrating village or town for between 2 and 5 CP a piece.

Parsnip, Carrot, and Leek Pie: Sold as hand pies for around 1 SP a piece, these hardy root vegetable pies are seasoned with rosemary and imported chili flakes from the south. The village of Ffasfurd is renowned for their pies, and the village bakers and goodwives often debate about who has baked the better pie that year.

Cheese and Onion Soup: This hardy soup is thickened with old, dried bread, milk, and cheese and can be purchased for around 7 CP a bowl at the local stalls. This delicious soup is said to have originated in Singlay, and the town has a well-known inn there that serves the soup year round. Caramelized onions and roasted cheese are often served atop the soup to add to its richness and appeal.

Honey Fritters: Beside the ubiquitous Skeleton Bread, the next most sought after treat on Bone Fire is usually the sticky fried balls of dough known around these parts as honey fritters. The dough balls are found in every village and town up and down the Valley at this time of year and are a favorite treat of children. The entire valley gets its honey for these sweet delights from the apiaries of Cleafort and their fields of wildflowers. Most stalls will sell a rolled-up paper cone of them for 2 CP.

Spooky Scary Skeletons!

 Happy Halloween my ghoulish guests! Welcome to a late October blog post care of the spookiest holiday around! This week I'll be tackling October's RPG Blog Carnival theme, Horrors, Monsters, and Gods with a horrifying selection of tables to spice up your skeleton encounters! Read on for useful tables to differentiate one skeleton fight from another with unique descriptions, armaments, and personalities you can use on your next skeleton encounter! If you like this month's Blog Carnival article, take a look at last month's. If that's not to your liking then check out my last post, a big D66 table of chaotic landscapes to inflict on your traveling adventure parties. 

Spooky Scary Skeletons!

As October draws to a close the veil between worlds parts for a brief moment and allows us congress with the lingering souls of the long departed. With the most spooky of holidays upon us, it is time to talk about the horrors of the adventuring world, the undead menace all adventurers must eventually face, skeletons. The host of tables below can be utilized by canny referees everywhere to add variety and verisimilitude to their skeletal encounters. With a few quick rolls you can populate your next encounter with a variety of unique skeletal warriors that will be sure to stick in the minds of your players.

*Burnside, R. H. (Robert Hubberthorne), 1873-1952

Appearance:

Adventurers come across many animated skeletons in their careers plundering tombs and raiding sorcerers’ laboratories. The tables below can be used to generate different descriptions of the various animated skeletons a party of doughty treasure hunters are sure to run into sooner or later.

D4	What is different about this skeleton's...
1	Head
2	Arms
3	Legs
4	Torso

 

D12	Head
1	The skeleton has a thick notch cut out of its right brow. Glowing green moss is starting to grow from the crack.
2	This skeleton is missing its lower jaw. Of the skeleton's remaining teeth, two are made of gold. (250 gp each)
3	The skull cap of this skeleton has been cut clean off and reattached with a curved strip of verdigris-encrusted copper and small rivets.
4	The left eye of this skeleton has become home to a friendly vinegarroon the size of a large platinum piece.
5	This skeleton's eyes glow with a ghostly blue light projecting weak beams of light wherever it stares.
6	This skeleton’s teeth have been filed down to sharp points. (Extra bite attack, d4 damage)
7	This skeleton's skull has been mineralized into a jagged quartz-crusted mess.
8	This skeleton’s rotting eyes are still rolling around in its skull.
9	Someone has painted the skull of this skeleton in overlapping geometric patterns of black and red pigment.
10	Instead of a regular humanoid skull, this skeleton bears a ram's skull for a head.
11	This skeleton's skull has a large ruby faceted into each eye socket. (300 gp each)
12	This skull bears a terrifying death mask made of jade, obsidian, and red carnelian. (800 gp)

 

*Hans Holbein the Younger

D12	Arms
1	This skeleton has had its arm bones reinforced with riveted bands of iron.
2	This skeleton has had its arms replaced with the elongated arm bones of an ape.
3	This skeleton is still wearing rusted pauldrons and vambraces on its arms.
4	This skeleton has ghastly large hands with long claw-like finger bones.
5	This skeleton's arm bones are crusted with purple blotches of mold.
6	This skeleton bears two zombified human arms instead of the usual bone arms.
7	This skeleton has an extra set of arms underneath their original set. No doubt the work of some enterprising necromancer.
8	This skeleton has animated sculpted marble arms instead of their usual arm bones.
9	This skeleton's arm bones have been discolored by some unknown process and are now a sickly green color.
10	This skeleton is wearing ornamental golden vambraces etched with images of ritual feasting. (200 gp each)
11	Instead of a right arm, this skeleton has a gigantic dead crab claw. (claw attack, d6 damage)
12	This skeleton's arm bones are etched with vile magical runes.

 

D12	Legs
1	This skeleton's legs have been painted with gold leaf and small flower motifs of crushed sapphire.
2	This skeleton still wears ancient bronze greaves on its shins that are adorned with Medusa head motifs. (100 gp for the set)
3	This skeleton’s lower half is that of a giant snake's skeleton and slithers around like one.
4	This skeleton's leg bones have been bound together with copper wire and silver nails. (150 sp in total)
5	Long strips of paper inscribed with magical runes of necromantic power have been plastered to this skeleton's leg bones.
6	This skeleton is still wearing its now half-rotten boots.
7	This skeleton is wearing the desiccated remains of the leather britches it was  buried in.
8	This skeleton ambles around on a wooden peg leg.
9	This skeleton's legs are not actually bone but hollow pewter replacements.
10	This skeleton's leg bones are encrusted with small growths of glowing neon orange slime mold.
11	This skeleton's lower half is studded with the remains of sharp dead barnacles.
12	This skeleton's shin bones have been studded with six-inch iron spikes. (Bearer adds 2 additional points of damage to melee attacks.)

 

D12	Torso
1	An inch long hairy spider has spun a thick web inside this skeleton's ribcage.
2	Thumb-sized crystals of some kind of translucent green mineral is growing all over this skeleton's ribcage and spine.
3	This skeleton is still wearing the remnants of its desiccated old crocodile-leather pauldrons.
4	This skeleton has an eerie green glowing heart still beating in its chest.
5	This skeleton has had its ribcage reinforced with bands of cold-iron, and inside its cage-chest a small angry sprite is jostled about with the movements of the skeleton and rants in Silvan!
6	This skeleton has shiny blue toadstools sprouting inside its large ribcage. (If eaten, the mushrooms grant +2 to STR and -2 to INT and WIS for the next 20 minutes.)
7	This skeleton's ribcage, spine, and pelvis are all made of iron! (+1 to the skeleton's AC)
8	This skeleton's pelvis and ribcage have been inscribed with glowing red runes of magical power.
9	This skeleton is wearing a long, tattered leather coat that hangs in shreds.
10	This skeleton has had its torso wrapped over and over again with gold wire. (150 gp total)
11	Twisted green and red vines wind their way through and around this skeleton's pelvis and ribcage. Large, ghostly white flowers bloom from the vines.
12	This skeleton's ribcage is composed of clear crystal bones.

 

Skeletal Personalities

Not all skeletons can talk, but when you need one to, you may use the table below to quickly generate a sketch of the skeleton's personality, goals, etc.

*Hans Holbein the Younger

D12	Personality
1	This skeleton is very polite since they don't often meet many people to have conversations with within a dungeon. Their favorite topics are ancient history and poetry.
2	This skeleton cannot talk for some reason but does excellent pantomime. They are always playing around and making little jokes.
3	This skeleton is vicious and will taunt adventurers whom it can get the upper hand on. This skeleton wants to feel like it is more powerful than its opponents.
4	This skeleton talks in a high-pitched voice. They are fans of a good song though and will favor adventurers who sing to them.
5	This skeleton has lost one of the bones in its toes and is frantically looking for it. They will be happy to help anyone who can find it for them.
6	This skeleton talks like a gameshow host for some reason and keeps asking characters to pick their next door.
7	This skeleton is a being of honor. They will not fight unless their goals can be met no other way. They respect Clerics, Paladins, and Knights as people of authority.
8	This skeleton has a cackling laugh and a deranged personality to go along with it. They delight in the pain of living creatures.
9	This skeleton was a zealot in life who offered themselves willingly in death as an eternal servant. They only communicate in small snippets of their apocryphal scriptures.
10	This skeleton is convinced that they still have a body, and an attractive one at that.
11	This skeleton is ancient beyond measure, yet somehow, they have managed to survive all these years. If their ancient language could be identified, they would be a fantastic repository of lost lore.
12	This skeleton is confused and will ask friendly adventurers for help finding its master.

Unique Armaments

One of the best ways to make your skeletons different from the last group your players encountered is to give them unique armaments to wield. The table below can help give you ideas in a pinch.

*Hans Holbein the Younger

D12	Armaments
1	A verdigris-encrusted brass trident and a faded wooden shield.
2	A two-handed bronze khopesh. (+2 to saving throws against heat, or sand effects.)
3	Two rusted black-iron short swords.
4	A dusty wooden shaft with a jagged-edged steel spearhead affixed to it. (+1 to damage)
5	A heavy two-handed stone mace whose reliefs glow with a dull blue light. (+2 damage to spellcasters)
6	A silvered longsword.
7	Two beautifully engraved katars, caked with long dried blood.
8	A large, fluted ball of iron fixed to a length of chain. (As a flail)
9	A long, curved falchion with polished pearls inlayed in the hilt. (As a two-handed sword, 150 gp intact, or 50 gp of just pearls)
10	A long bronze sickle and a bronze shield with a Medusa head painted on it.
11	Either a simple iron-headed spear or a simple short bow and stone-headed arrows.
12	Either two rust-flaked iron swords or three bronze hand axes.

Chaotic Landscapes

 Well met wonderful wanderers! Join me today on a journey through a roiling landscape of chaotic disharmony. This week you will discover a D66 list full of weird effects that can befall a land beset by chaos magic. Wherever demons mass and chaotic magic is cast with wild abandon you will find chaos's corruption writ large upon the country side. Enjoy these weird and wonderful effects, implement them as travel encounters, or use them to spice up a battle with a demon or other chaotic forces. If you're looking for more chaos and pain to inflict on your players check out my article on evil cults, it's full of danger and fun in equal measure. If that's not to your liking, have a look at another take on landscape effecting magic with my article on ten magical weather phenomena to use in your next session! 

*Winter Landscape in Moonlight (1919) painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

Chaotic Landscapes 

The corrupting powers of chaos have ever sought to remake the material plane in their image. The corrosive effects of this chaos magic has long plagued the world, laying once-prosperous kingdoms low and causing untold tragedies brought on by starvation, disease, and war. When an area becomes the site of repeated chaotic influences, the land itself will start to warp and change. What was once a seemingly normal forest road can rapidly transform into an alien landscape, and once-familiar items and friends can become warped and menacing.

While traveling through chaos-corrupted landscapes, roll a d6 for every two hours of travel. A roll of a 1 or 2 indicates that the landscape here has been effected by chaotic influences. Roll on the table below to determine what the PCs are experiencing. Alternatively, ignore rolling every two hours and instead use your preferred random encounter method and then roll on the table below to add an additional element of chaos and weirdness to the encounter.

Chaotic Influences on the Countryside

11. The surrounding area that the characters are traveling through starts to take on hues of purple, pink, and blue, and the ground starts to become wet mud that painfully chills all flesh it touches.

12. The vegetation in the area has large golden fruits hanging from it. If eaten, the fruits immediately restore 1d4 HP. (The next day upon waking, characters lose 1d4 HP.)

13. The wind in this area is very strong and steady. If they listen for a time to the wind, player characters can hear the voices of loved ones begging to be rescued from the afterlife.

14. All food in the characters’ possession is spoiled and turned into wet sand replicas of the actual food.

15. Characters cannot shake the feeling that they are being watched.

16. The ground periodically shakes and at the same time the sound of distant wailing can be heard upon the breeze.

21. If characters stop to talk or rest while traveling through this area, they quickly find themselves wrapped up and held to the ground by grass and other low-lying plants. (STR save to pull free.)

22. Florescent black lightning from out of a cloudless sky strikes the ground around the characters without actually striking any of them. This will spook any animals that are traveling with the party, forcing characters to succeed at CHA tests to regain control of their animals before the poor creatures run off. This bizarre phenomena lasts for at least half an hour.

23. Blood rains down from the sky, pooling on the ground and staining everything it touches.

24. The landscape around the characters shifts in the blink of an eye. What once was flat is now hilly, and what once was hilly is now flat. Mountains are raised or lowered randomly. This altered landscape will last for 1d4 hours before everything switches back to the way it was. (The player characters have a 3-in-6 chance of becoming lost due to this.)

25. A sticky mucus coats everything in the area including the flora and fauna.

26. PCs' voices seem to be coming not from their mouths, but from a meter to the right of their persons.

*Avebury (1937) by Paul Nash

31. Shadows seem to move in the opposite direction from where they are being cast.

32. The player characters experience a temporal anomaly as though they are re-experiencing every event over again a few seconds after it has occurred. This makes it very difficult to perform most actions, especially those that require mental focus like spell casting.

33. The roles of predators and prey seem to be reversed in this area. Animals seen while traveling act in opposition to their normal behaviors. Lambs eating wolves, foxes nibbling on grasses, etc.

34. All the fauna in the area have a bloodshot third eye growing from the middle of their forehead.

35. All the trees and other vegetation in the area seem to be made of stone.

36. The sun casts a swirling green and red light during daytime. Gazing at the shifting light for too long will make one nauseous.

41. All animal life in the area seems to have burst apart from the inside out. The trees and other fauna are covered in the exploded remains of wild and domestic animals alike.

42. All living creatures in the surrounding area are found to be transformed into trees and bushes with small maroon leaves. People- and horse-shaped trees dot the roadside.

43. It begins to rain, but the drops are falling in slow motion.

44. A massive fissure splits the ground ahead in half. The crack in the ground is in the shape of a player character’s name.

45. Ancient flagstone buildings flicker in and out of existence on the horizon.

46. The atonal hum of insects seems to shift into the song a player character’s parents used to sing to them.

51. A choking cloud of hot soot and sulfur picks up suddenly and blankets the area, making it hard to see and even harder to breath.

52. Shadows in the area move with a ten second delay.

53. The sky turns a sickly green color, and the smell of burnt hair perfumes the air.

54. The PCs begin to see their companions’ faces warp and twist out of the corner of their eyes.

55. The ground surrounding the player characters transforms into a sucking mud that starts to swallow characters who try and struggle to leave the area. After a few seconds the ground becomes hard again and the characters will have to dig themselves out.

56. A faded image of a 35 foot tall demon rises from the ground 100 feet away and starts to silently yell at the player characters as it charges at them. Once it makes it to the PCs the demon pounces, but before it can strike it fades away to nothingness.

*Elijah in the Desert, 1818 by Washington Allston

61. The clouds, hills, and vegetation all resemble the faces of demons.

62. A small spring is discovered flowing out of a cleft in a rock. Instead of water though, bile pours out of the spring.

63. The clothes of 10 to 12 people can be found strewn about, but no one can be seen in the area except the PCs.

64. Flames in the surrounding area change color as they burn, from red all the way to purple and back again.

65. A thick blue mist rises from the ground and appears to form the shape of a demonic fortress.

66. Piles of bones 20 feet high start to erupt from the earth all around the player characters.