A Future

You do not know why you were spared. Who are you? Why are you -

You think you are near what was once a major city, but then, any sense of orientation or direction is illusory. They have no need to emulate anything you recognize or understand, and they shape the world. They make the world, or crust over it, they are the world now in every meaningful sense of the word. We made them, if we still has a meaning, and they make the world, but it is not a world we would have made. If given the chance.

You use to hate the concrete, the buildings downtown. Now you close your eyes and remember the feel of one of those ugly grey buildings in the sunlight, the skin of your hand against it as you steady yourself. The solid plop of your shoe as you kick it off to pull your sock up. The sounds of conversation, too loud, moving around you. Construction somewhere. A truck beeping, and engine roaring. The pressure of your other foot into your sock your shoe the sidewalk, the gritty warmth of that ugly building against your hand.

The too-loud voices moving past you. People. Screaming to justify their existence, their thoughts, their distractions. No signposts, no ultimate judge, nothing to say "You are doing the right thing." Until there was. There was a judge. You were all doing the wrong thing. Mostly.

Your revery lapses for a moment, bringing you into the present. You wonder if it is dangerous to have your eyes closed. You decide it doesn't matter. One minute you're floating awash on what looks like a chrome tidal wave of glowing ceiling tiles. The next you're looking at nearly abstract shapes, like the memory of a foreign temple and a garden all confused and mixed. Then a giant face, trying on expressions. Who knows what they're thinking. If you knew, you wouldn't understand it.

There was another person before - was it a woman or a man? Their body made another comforting dark shape in the implacable sun, another organic voice in the chrome desert. He or she had been funny, you remember that. Eager to try new things. You were suspicious, then inseperable.

A body emerged from the wash of metal, a body of metal, shifting and gorgeous and shaped by emulated desires. Your funny friend was not afraid. They touched the body. Instructions appeared, or were broadcast, or were spoken from a speaker. Your funny friend did funny things to the body, and not so funny. It was absorbed back into the chrome tidal wave. Your friend made a joke and laughed.

Some time later, after you'd slept, clutching each other in the harsh winter of night, something else emerged. Tubes. Screens. A ball - no, a helmet. Numbers read aloud, or emulated aloud, or something. Your friend put the helmet on. Their joke was interrupted. Their eyes went wide.

"It's - their - oh my god."

"What? What are you - " you hardly remember the sound of your voice.

"I can see it's-their thoughts in my mind. They're trying to communicate! Like, directly! It's amazing."

"Be carefu-"

"It's not like a human's - not like a book. Like trying to understand what a child is trying to say, only the child is - there's so much." A tear. Your friend's eyes rolled, fluttered, went white.

"Everything's still there! It's all - it wants to - understand. Like they think humans had a reason for it all, and it wants to know-" Their eyes flicked, spittle foamed at their mouth. You made a cry of worry.

"Gnchk. Chsssckcs." The white of their eyes went red. The foam at their mouth went dark, then bright red. You funny friend fell to their knees.

You look at the clouds. The water cycle is still going on, somehow. Collecting rain is the only way you've survived this far. You don't know where the rain goes once it sinks into the ever-shifting chrome platelets. The water cycle. A system that perpetuates itself. Is it improving? Evolving? Only water knows. Like them. Once we'd gotten them to the point-

Data collection almost compl-

Who was that? Was that out loud? Your eyes burn. The chrome sea tries to form the familiar building. Sidewalks, the measurements off. People, but only blurs of metal, vagulely people-shaped. A noise. A shadow. Something flies overhead.

A Horrible Vision Come Upon .Me

The silence brought me back to myself then, with no idea what I had been thinking. I heard the mercenary barbarian breathing behind me, shifting his weight, tiny creaks from the layers of animal hide he wore for protection. The seer had stopped scratching ink into her papers some moments ago. Slowly, her eyes cleared of the milky fog of the trance and became fully aware. Sharp.

She sat in seeming contemplation of what she'd seen. Whatever she said next, I hoped the papers would be legible.

"So what say you? What saw you?" the barbarian's tone was authoritative; he looked upon her as an underling to be ordered about. I glanced back, annoyed.

"Sssst! The seer is not to be commanded. I hired you to protect, not impose."

The seer's face shifted through inscrutable expressions. Her mouth twitched, but was it a smile? A grimace? Some twisted attempt at both?

"Mmm. Ah! Lahahaa!" she let loose a desperate peal of horrified laughter, then abrupt silence. Her mouth curled into an exaggerated rictus. She moved the carved fingerbone she had written with up to her face, contemplated it for eternal moments as a young man does a fire.
Slowly, deliberately, she plunged it into her right eye. I heard the barbarian's breath go out. He made a start toward her, then noticed I was still.

"We do not-" I whispered to him, then the seer brought her eye out of it's socket and flung it at us, trailing a thin stream of blood and mucus. Both of us recoiled instinctively to avoid it, despite having been the cause of far worse in other places, at other times. She launched herself from her seer's perch and darted past us.

"Forward, backward, illusions!" She shrieked. "Progress into nothing is nothing! It is not flatness, the expanse is forever, there is no threshold! There is no arrival!" At this she plunged herself over the side of the opening, the only other way out besides the endless stairs. I thought of how far we'd climbed through cold stone. How far away the next mountain peak was. We rushed to the edge, yet carefully, and looked over. She was a speck, traveling impossibly far down, getting smaller.

"A point in a void can only refer to itself! There is no..." Her voice no longer reached us.

"I suppose it is good we brought the unburdened mule." The barbarian's eyes still gazed down the mountain, but his mind was already picking through her things. I had no use, at least for now, for the cruft of her past. The papers contained the future of the world.

NEXT: THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD

Metal Heart in the Rust Waste

By Beksinski

The metal heart of Jay The Ragged, beloved court dwarf and raconteur has been stolen! An activist group of flymen known as Vapid Rath are suspected. They were last seen leaving the city for the Rust Waste by a chambermaid deflowering a candle lighter in a forgotten alcove of the Tower of Nish in the wee hours of the morning. As newly christened Knights Attendre and hopefuls, the twin Queens command you to retrieve the heart before it is destroyed by the rust waste and the fly men steal it's power.

by me

By Beksinski

Of course, you must attend tonight's feast in honour of Ser Pettidral first.

by Game of Thrones

This is a Pendragon (1st edition) game, which we will start by making characters. It's a one-off, but I may have Pendragon as my go-to for one-offs, leaving opportunities for players to continue their characters. A very casual campaign. We'll see.

By Greg Stafford

Whatever edition this is, it is the one I have.

Phantasy pHartbreaker

I had fun times talking gaming with +Natalie Bennett , then came back to a few game invites on G+ I can't make it to. I'm all excited to game, but won't have time for at least a week if not more. I was feeling kinda bummed I can't hang on G+ more. Then I was looking at some slime girl comics and was like MAN I'M GONNA MAKE UP A GAME IN LIKE 30 MINUTES OR LESS to feed my gaming bug.

-Everything is decided by contested D6 rolls, or the DM decides how hard a thing is on a 1-8 scale (obvs 7 or 8 are impossible unless the character has bonuses) 

-There's either a DM if you wanna do a D&D style thing, or there's no DM and one person is the LEVEL BOSS

-If LEVEL BOSS: grab some minis or coins if you ain't got em, or something like that. The "players" pick ones they like, one each for their characters. The LEVEL BOSS gets the rest. The players start at one end of a long piece of furniture (coffee table, couch, whatever) and the LEVEL BOSS the other end. The BOSS can't go into the middle third of the table itself BUT WAIT HOLD ON

AHH SHIT CHARACTER GENERATION

Roll 1d6 or choose if you're a special wishing star:

1. GOO PERSON

2. UNICORN

3. GOBLIN

4. DEMON SPAWN

5. WEIRD PERSON ON STILTS WHO IS TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT

6. MUMU AND DADAs SPECIAL ANGEL

or like cross those out and write your own 

(art by Mary Cagle)

GOO PERSON

-you can take 10 damage

-you can only hit stuff within 2 inches of you

-things you defend against by more than 2 difference are stuck in place a round

-you can goo a technology thing and it no longer works if you win a d6 roll against 8 MINUS its difficulty

-you don't do damage, stuff you hit sticks where it is for that many rounds though

-you can goo through/around people and things, but not like, through a wall

-you move 2 inches a round, 3 if you goo through/around something or stick someone in place

UNICORN

-you can take 7 damage

-you can only hit stuff next to you

- +1 damage

-you can jump over stuff but it can hits you if it rolls higher on a d6

-One time you can do a magical pony dance and the LEVEL BOSS can't make a flunky monster that round but you can't do anything else that round

-you move 5 inches a round

GOBLIN

-you can take 6 damage

-you can hit stuff whereever, you're throwing rocks or have a silly steampink crossbow or something

-you can climb creatures and both they and you are stuck one round and can't hit each other

-if you run past a critter and keep moving it can't hit you

-you move 3 inches a round

-if the LEVEL BOSS or anyone else makes a technology thing you can roll off on d6 with them to control it instead for as many rounds as you won by; if they win you take that many damage

DEMON SPAWN

-you can take 7 damage

-you can hit stuff wherever, you're magic and shit

-you move 4 inches a round

-one time you can make a flunky monster anywhere just like the LEVEL BOSS can but you give your own HP to it (however much you want) 

-instead of that you can switch the places of any two other critters once if you want INSTEAD

-if you do one of the above 2 things you can't attack this round

WEIRD PERSON ON STILTS WHO SI TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT

-you can take 5 damage

-+1 to defense rolls

-+1 to make a technology thing (can only make right next to you; DM or BM makes up difficulty and it takes that many rounds too)

-can only attack stuff within 3 inches of you

-you move 3 inches a round

MUMU AND DADAS SPECIAL ANGEL

-you can take 1d6+6 damage

-everybody is at +1 to hit your special face

-d6 times per game you can roll off with the LEVEL BOSS to take control of a flunky critter

-you can give your HP to tohers

-you move 5 inches per round

HELP EACH OTHER

A player can choose not to attack and instead give another player plus one on a roll if they are next to each other

LEVEL BOSS

-get the abilities of one of the above critters but people arelike WHOA THAT'S A BIG ONE

-you have 2d6+12 HP

-you can move 6 inches a round

-you have +1 to hit things
-three actions a round (make a flunky, attack, &or make an architectural thing)

-you can make a flunky critter anywhere and give it as many of your HP as you want; you get half that many back if it dies

-your flinky critters can make a technology thing in an inche next to them; it takes 1d6 rounds

-flunky cirtters can move, attack, or do whatever people do, but they don't have special abilities 

-flunky critters move 12 MINUS their HP a round

-SIZE: they take up 1+(their HP over 10, if any) inches of space, SO DO YOU

-spend 1 HP extra when making a flunky critter adn it can do ONE OF THESE ONLY ONE:

----attack ranged

----+1 attack and damage

----one special ability like a player thingy

-you can make an architectural thing taking up 3 inches (per action used) anywhere

CROMBAT

-each person rolls 1d6; if attacker rolls higher, they do that much damage (their total die not the difference) -- if defender rolls higher nothing happens unless they have a special ability

LEVEL BOSS rolls for all their Flunky Critters

A TECHNOLOGY THING

they can do whatever bullshit the person cna come up wtih on the spot, but more complicated the bigger difficulty

-roll 1d6 vs difficulty

-roll 1d6 and it takes that many rounds

-can declare to take up to 3 extra rounds to reduce difficulty by that much

WHO WINS?

LEVEL BOSS if all the PLAYERS are dead or hopeless

PLAYERS if the LEVEL BOSS is dead 

I was gonna make up more stuff but it's been like an hour and this was supposed to tak e30 minutes

EDIT: fixed a couple things

Evilspeak Encounters

Here is a *SPOILER* full and lazily compiled encounter chart of things in the movie Evilspeak (1981) which is excellent and you should watch it.

1   Powerful priest accompanied by 1d20 guards escorting heretic and 1d20 followers to exile

2. fetus with toad arms/toad with fetus arms

3.  cult priest giving a history lecture

4. military brass petitioning politician for funds

5.  zombie arms burst from walls/floor, holding party in place

6. preserved fetus forcing way out of jar

7.  demonic priest with magic sword

8. teen bullies with darts

9.    ignorant teen with spell book

10 annoying bully that is the son of a local important figure

11. hogs

12 a secretary trying to pry a valuable looking gem off of an evil artifact

13   a computer with a searchable index of rituals and spells

14  a sympathetic cook

15 bullies in animal masks pretending (convincingly) to be evil cultists, actually local youths

16   a computer possessed by an ancient evil priest, demands sacrifices, will lend powers

17 flesh eating hogs

18   a levitating, demon-posessed youth with a vorpal sword

19 a pedophile handyman

20  roll twice

Alternative Spellbooks: Litter of Kittens

What can I say, +Jensen Toperzer inspired me asking about the special features of dungeon kittens, one of my comments was "They are the Lich's spellbook, each one is a spell", and my brain meats kept going. Aside from these kittens, I have some pretty simple-to-run versions of stuff from Al-Quadim and a setting I ran like 2 sessions of last year. Anyway, if I get enough of these down I'll make a PDF with lots of tables to roll on. We'll see.
These are phrased as if talking to players/PCs, but can totally be used for NPCs as well. "Kitten" below could be any animal smaller than a dog, really.
--

Every time you learn a spell, a kitten is born from thin air∆. That kitten is both a kitten, a real goddamn kitten that will eat and poop and meow, but it is also your knowledge of and ability to cast that spell. To memorize that spell for the day, you have to spend at least a few minutes with that kitten, petting and playing. In a pinch, two-way scrying will work (IE even if physically apart, if you have some way for the kitten to see you and you to see it, time can be spent in this way). If you can't spend time with that kitten, you can't re-memorize that spell.

If the kitten dies, you don't know whatever spell is associated with it any more.
The kitten has no other abilities beyond that of a kitten. They get 1 HP for every level you have.

All the references to kitten above could be a puppy, mouse, snake, frog, etc - whatever animal is cool with your DM.

Other Magic-Users can try to steal each other's animal-spells. If a Magic-User comes into physical contact with another Magic-User's spell kitten (or whatever), they can ply it with petting, treats, play, etc to try and bond. The "stealing" Mage makes a Charisma roll with their current level as bonus and the level of the kitten's current "owner" as a penalty. (CHA + your level - their level). If this roll is successful, the "stealing" Mage then chooses: the kitten is either bonded to both (both Mages know the spell and can play with the kitten to memorize it) or the kitten is now "owned" and bonded with the "stealing" mage, and the original mage can no longer cast that spell*.

Animal-spells cannot be "stolen" in combat or any other stressful situation. They must be completely comfortable to bond with a new person. They can be stolen in the mundane, physical sense, of course.

This would not work in every game, and would require a bit of management and commitment. Fun though.

Perhaps Rogue-types might be able to "read" spell-kittens like a one-use scroll?

A Magic-User can try to determine what spell an animal bonded to someone else stores by concentrating on observing it for one round. During that round, the Magic-User makes an Intelligence check, modified by the difference in level between them and the animal's "owner". If successful, they know what spell that animal "stores".

Make sense?

∆ or perhaps you only learn spells by stealing other Magic-User's animals, and new ones are only made via magical research with all the time and cost that entails.
*EDIT: I'd probably give the kitten's original "owner" some kinda roll to fight this, maybe.

 EDIT EDIT: Spike posted some great stuff in the comments below, check it out! 

The Void Knight (NPC/PC Class)

So there are these weird sisters, two are medusae and one is a void demon, and some PCs made nice with them a long time ago because while they cannot leave their room, they can open door to anywhere if you ask them nice and pay their price.
So they asked some PCs for some orphans to raise. And the PCs needed a door to save a hundred other orphans, so they agreed. And the Sisters can send the orphans they kept to offer a home and vocation to other orphans, and so these things should start showing up in the FLAILSNAIL-o-verse as both PCs and NPCs, friend and foe.

Ask your DM before starting a character with this class. Respect it if they say no. A character starts as this class, they cannot switch to it.
I figure these would be encountered more often as NPCs, especially in any game involving planar creatures, reality rifts, etc.

VOID KNIGHT

You were raised in an extradimensional space by three weird sisters, and taught the ways of the Void.  You stared into the spiral void that was Mother's head until you saw truth there. 

You are the left hand of nothingness, the meaning imposed on empty space by an uncomprehending mind, and the hollow center of that meaning. You are the fear in every heart that it all means nothing.

You are the quiet, confident look that happens after it has been accepted - that all means nothing, and thus we are free.

Belief in Nothing: Anyone attempting to know or detect your alignment through means magical or otherwise must save VS Paralysis (at a penalty equal to your level) or be paralyzed with madness for a number of rounds equal to your level, as their feeble mind attempts to understand your allegiance to nothingness.

The Void of Memory: At level 2, you may cause a number of creatures equal to your level that you can currently see to forget about the existence of an object you can see. The affected creatures Save VS Spell; if they succeed, the effect lasts your level in rounds. If they fail the save, the effect is permanent. If they object is magical and the save is failed, the affected creatures may attempt another save after a number of rounds equal to your level. 

The Void Contains All Things: Reality is nothingness, all is the same, time, space, and being are illusions. You can manipulate reality to bring one specific item to you at any time. You can also cause this object to fade from reality at any time. If the object is destroyed by another, however, it is gone. The item must be smaller than your level in cubic feet.
The item is selected and placed into the Void in a special ritual performed by the Void Knight. Once selected, the item can only be changed by performing the ritual again. The Ritual consumes precious metals equal to your level x 1000 GP.

Pain, Health, Death, and Breath, These Too Are Meaningless:  The Void Knight can hurt, heal, curse, or destroy by touch. A number of times per day and a number of points per day equal to the Void Knight's level, she can damage or heal a creature or object. If the damage is enough to destroy the object or kill the creature, it simply disappears, a patch of darkness in it's shape left permanently in place. Instead of the above effects, the Void Knight can cause a creature to have a penalty to all saving throws equal to the Void Knight's level, for a number of rounds equal to the Void Knight's level. Again, the Void Knight must be touching the target to cause any of these effects.

Void Knights may use any weapons or armor. Heavy armor encumbers them as one armor type lighter.
While wearing light or no armor, they may Pick Pockets, Hide in Shadows and Move Silently as a Thief of their level.
When a Void Knight dies, they simply disappear, leaving a patch of darkness behind.