Venture
Seeds are inspired more than a bit by the capsule adventures (of various
stripes and in different departments) in the old Journal of the Traveller’s Aid
Society Sometimes more a casual
encounter, sometimes more of an Amber Zone.
Venture
seeds are – obviously – adventure seeds. Which is to say, little mobile elements that the Judge can pepper throughout their game to serve as minor encounters or a full session
or more of gaming. From a more
in-universe standpoint, they represent ‘opportunities’ for the Player
Characters.
Venture
seeds should always, ideally, follow the maxim – “ take a risk, maybe get
something.”
Always.
Sometimes
they are hose jobs, and sometimes there are actual fortunes to be made. More often
they will gain in experience both in the traditional gaming sense and in the
seeing the universe sense.
In Galaxy
Black, being well-traveled is functionally a superpower, looked at in the
right way….
Other
venture seeds already in this blog
For example....
The Black Book of Ancient Atlantis
also called the Book of Black Bindings, the White Book of Atlantis, and “the
Holding of Darkness in Bands of White and Text”
History
and Lore Is an ancient work of
Prehistoric Teranaya. For much of
Teranaya’s immediate pre-spaceflight history, it represented the greatest
single sum total work of Black Magick known in the world at that time, a sort
of compilation of all of a previous era’s greatest evils.
It is
said that one of the first paths of vampiric un-death is due this book and it’s
fell incantations and esoteric formulae. The final sinful decades of Last
Atlantis saw many occult groups rise in power in that land but only in that
time did such a scholarly work of such black evil come to be or could have come
to be.
But this
is Teranaya, where Hell has come and gone, in struggles both literal and
figurative since literally intelligent life has existed upon it’s mass. Here the first fallen was loosed, and then
bound, and then loosed again for final destruction. Here the very prison at
hell’s Centre itself was set in the bay of a mortal city in a monumental act of
mortal hubris. Here Hell itself came
calling after the bill after Teranaya unleashed the Technarchy on a younger
galaxy, a wave of extermination, genocide, and death ending in the comparative
purity of hell’s own flame. Here, Teranaya
was burned and yet risen anew.
So, it
may be inferred that even at a young stage of development, those Terran
sorcerers knew something special about the black arts.
Description
and Paraphysical Qualities
The book
is wrought of what tests positive for a primitive strain of what the modern
Imperium calls Saurid. IT has been
suggested that the theorized Ancient Empire of Saurids may have at some point
established an equatorial colony on Prehistoric Teranaya at some point though
no evidence currently exists to support such a hypothesis.
Thick
black leather that has proven metaphysically resilient to fire, cold and other
extremes of temperature (indeed, it is Void rated and could be – and has been –
evacuated into the vacuum of space without apparent damage or degradation)
notoriously the book also contains (some would maintain primarily exists as
a strong magnetic field that is capable of discharging electrical impulses
and weak plasma exposures. The upward limit of the book’s tensile strength has
yet to be determined.
The pages
are sewn together patches of Saurid and other, precursor species, skin, while
the ink, the strange white ink used throughout upon it’s black pages tests
98.l9% positive for Homo sapiens recens, a sapiens sapiens
precursor known primarily as the periodic inhabitants of ancient Atlantis, esp.
in its second and final ages.
The book
has been shown to have multidimensional existence and possesses Correct
Geometry for a Sacred Vessel. It bleeds
unknown energies and negative energy fields at seemingly random intervals. Attempts to duplicate the work metaphysically
have failed and most spectacularly. At least two Grand Curses await any who
attempt it, likely killing the idle curious. It will not scan or upload into
virtual modeling. IT is blank to pure
data and most datalife cannot perceive much of the book or its contents.
Attempting to fully replicate the book physically have been successful (see
below) but even then, must be sufficiently flawed to avoid triggering the
second of the two great curses, which even if survived, will pass on
indefinitely to one’s offspring and or one’s heirs.
Contents
The book
is a major work of necromantic and conjuration magic, as well as containing
fair insights into self – directed transformation magics of a physical nature,
including alchemy. The book contains
lavish summoning’s and invocations for a variety of ancient demons and space
monsters, as well as mysterious spectral entities from a primitive Sub-ether. There is also much metaphysical contemplation
of the Void, presented as a ‘behavior guide’ to ‘hardening the heart and soul’
against the nature of the work.
The book
contains many formulae for transformation into a variety of necromantic
un-death states, though the Blight Curse that one invokes to induce a vampiric
state is contained, in precise and complete detail, only within the Saurid skin
pages of this Ancient work.
Summonings: Invocations: Transformations
Succubi
& incubi Sutekh Blight Curse
(vampirism)
Star
demons the Black Pharaoh living mummification prep
Psychopomps Yig of the Egg alchemy transform H to
SF[1]
Lethe
Elementals Great Cthulhu a poss. Path to lichdom
Spectres,
Wraiths various lords of
death alchemy ghoul creation rite
Memory
Eaters minor Void
entities zombie salts
Space
monsters Star beasts alchemy void mead
body
The book
also details the ancient-even-then language of the serpent people who were by
then largely extinct, having been long hunted for their esoteric knowledge.
Further it provides a basis for magic invoking that people’s great powers. Yig of the Egg among others.
Also,
within the book’s pages are several pages dedicated to the ‘questionable
alchemy’ of that people.
Allegedly
the book was used once in prehistoric times to banish all vampires from the
world. Possibly this is an echo however
from a similar book in an adjacent Splinter.
When used
as a focus for casting magic, +1 to the spell check results. When one with the
arcane affinity for Black Magick uses it thus, they at +3 to their spell check
results, and likely also unlock other aspects of the tome that are not
otherwise observable in normal space-time conditions.
Collection
and Location
The book
is commonly (and falsely) believed to be on some private display within the
Thetyel Family compound on Irzibete. However, this is a forgery, and a known
one. A single use transcription and
fabrication copy, lacking any actual enchantments and fragmenting much of the
lore inside, exists there instead…created by that noble family, in a private
arrangement with the Dean of Esoteric Studies at the Imperial Science
Academy.
The Real
book is located at the ISA’s Holdfast pyramid located at Teranaya’s Equator.
There, it is under some manner of “contained study” within the Dean’s purview
The
Future and its’ Secrets
It is
doubtful that anyone involved realizes how much more effective the book is at
what it does on the world of its’ origin.
While the stars of that world’s night sky have changed considerably
since this book was incepted, they are close enough to still effectively add 1
to all bonuses previously described while being used and studies on Teranaya
itself.
This
would effectively mean +4 to all spell check results in the hands of a black
magician, and if they were invoking the forces of hell within, they would earn
the like bonus from Teranaya’s metaphysical poles (Heaven and Hell respectively[2]
+2/+3) making it a +7…bonused by the above to +8.
That
could be dangerous. But surely no
one in the Imperial Science Academy would have more than scholarly interest in
such a work, right?
Happy Halloween
