Q&A Splinters – Sailing on the Seas of Infinity

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Things I think you should know about the Splinters book

It is in many senses a Book of Worlds.   Some parallel some fundamental some very very esoteric. Some may sound familiar…some few may even be familiar but most of this Is not something you’ve seen before.   

So, let’s Q&A this shit.  Trust me I can hear these coming.  Relax.

We have Control. 

What is with al this rampant Christianity in this book?  Huh?  From You?

So look, Satan and Lilith are cited in the core book  -that means, Dark Lord willing, they are free to use on the table and Fair Play. 

So yes I’s there, so is my usual metric ass loads of faithful and remixed Greek Mythology (that’s a thing for me, if you maybe are  unaware of ……me at all)  which mix pleasantly in a nice post classic Milton-Faust stew.  

Hey if it came rom Blavatsky it’s the D&D cosmology.  Which isn’t this – this is DCC – but I can do similar things to get a particular effect.  

In Any case, for those who care about such things, this continues with the Book of Scarlet Abomination and some of my non-games work as doing double duty as a work of esoterica. 

In this case, the whole Splinters book and by extension one can infer the underlying cosmology of all of my DCC books then, is one of (to quote my darling spouse)  “Total Gnostic Bullshit” albeit mixed heavily with a highly feminist spin on all things rabbinical and apocryphal. 

There are no long winded speculations on the nature of Sophia (well there is but you won’t recognize it as such) but it is  HEAVILY implied that Adam was made from the rib of Lilith who then fucked off as she had better things to do than stick around in this walled garden. 

Nothing really earth shattering but Statements of purpose and intent nonetheless. Workings. Sigils. Whatever the kids call them these days.  

It’s all Art To ME.  

Is this a Judges book?  A players? Book?

There aren’t a lot of actual Supplement type books for DCC (by design) so I have cut this weird little niche out here where that’s basically all I do.   Traditiaonlly my assumption has always been it’s he Judge reading the book (at least) which is as much for economic reasons as anything else.  I do like to give players stuff though even if I despise the sort of 3e era of “Constant Stream of Player Stimulation” splatbook bloat. Ew. 

Let me put it this way

There are a bunch of weird zero levels in this book

There is a strong Appendix N tradition of people from here being drawn to otherwhere, it’s almost founded on it.  I thought it would be an interesting way to get across the different alternate worlds by making them sources of zero levels to be whisked away to wherever the Judge wants.

At a con sometime someone REALY should use this book to spawn Zeros for a game of Intrigue At the Courts of Chaos.     Dead people who have escaped the Underworld, pirates from the south China sea 75 years after world war 3, secret assassin-surgeons of 18th century Free France, all in one party.  A fun headache for any Judge who has run that one before. 

Big ups to this by the way, one of my total faves of the whole DCC line as it’s just so unexpected on every level.   And you can remix it ENDLESSLY

(Someone gave the Egg to Tamarah once.  MISTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE;  the Lords of Chaos wee amused…and quite pissed) 

The adventure I have planned as he follow up to the Patrons of the Fairy Chaos book is heavily influenced by Courts of Chaos in that it’s a fish out of water scenario at a wedding of cosmic entities…all of whom have agendas  IF I ever finish it.)  

Anything else you want peeps to know?

While I’ve thought about this as my Big Moorcock book to a certain extent  (Though parts of Galaxy Black really fit that appellation far better) I should have to say that postproduction this is even more my Big Zelazny book.  

Both Amber series, the Dilvish books, even some obscure stuff like a few items from Unicorn Variations and Eye of Cat.   (Obscure stuff I’m not lifting anything here.  But I am shameless about showing my references. It’s part of the game’s tradition AFAIAC;  DCC stealth elevates the whole hobby every time it goes on about its sources IMO- EMBRACE THE LITRACHA)

Also this by itself paired off with the DCC rulebook makes for a wicked weird basic urban fantasy hack.   I think if you glance at the right angle you can see Numinagents from there.  (another place you can see bits and bobs of both Numinagents and its twisted companion Nomads lay int  creature makers in the Judges Guide.  Deliberate plug. 

Maybe somewhere down the road I will take this and the Fair Folk books and bits and pieces of other things (lots from the Tammy book) and make some strange Coraline/Labyrinth/Neverwhere/Newford /Under London type Urban Fantasy book thing for DCC.   

That would need to be a really pretty book though. I wouldn’t feel right otherwise

Anything else?

Yeah I really want to run a magical girl type game lately I don’t know why.   It may involve gemstones or dinosaurs or both if I’m feeling saucy.  We’ll see what happens.  This is pretty much me trolling for willing victims. 

Also, it’s not in the book but your DCC characters  _really_ should have not problems finding the world of Etherscope or something very much like it if they go playing bout the stuff in the Splinters book at all.   The clever reader will see it.  That was a great book. 

IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL IF SOMEONE DID AN  DCC UPDATE 

SPLINTERS sailing the seas of infinity 

 releases the first week of November 2021 

Sub-ethernat ranked patreon backers will see it substantially earlier however. 

Teoc’fnenahl - A succubus and trader in fate

The demon before you has pale skin, chalk in colour but of much smoother, richer texture, such that it almost but not quite seethes with an inner glow of red.   Her eyes are swollen red orbs shot through with black and yellow veins, irises that are either snake or cat-like (depending on the angle) watch you with an immortal’s patience.  Her hair is that precise, freshly shed blood colour, spilling out behind her and around her shoulders like so much liquid silk.

Y-you can’t look at her mouth. Those lips.  Thinking stops immediately-

Fanged.  You remember that they are fanged and look away.  She chuckles, a throaty and knowing sound.

There is a table, covered in a light layer of what seems black felt, in a semicircle around her.   “Her” seems appropriate but you really don’t know.  The last one had skin of actual smoke and smoldering ash….which was unsettling.

She laughs again, challenging now, a deep rustling of ...curtains? Behind her.

They say her kind has wings.

There is a crack and she lays a spread from a deck of cards before you.   

Smiling

(INVITING - THOSE FANGS - perfect, warm, hopeless THOSE FANGS),

 Perfect lilac and pearl fingernails tracing the silver edges of the plaques, both offer and obscene caress.  

            “Cards?” musical. Lower Like the perfect card shark, with every passing deal or shuffle of the cards the deck itself changes shape and colour and detail.  

Any game of chance played with the aid of cards may be played here for any stakes that either will claim or have.   This does mean that the cards can be literally anything that Teoc wants them to be, up to and including any flavour of Tarot Deck or such things as Decks of Many Things etc. whether they can duplicate Amber trumps is up to the Judge)  

          “Door?” Just behind and to the right of her, sliding open like a hidden door panel in the air itself, is a rectangular doorway of irregular dimension and coruscating purple and red light.   “Where do you wish to be today?  Who do you want to be?”

She can open a door to theoretically anywhere in the multiverse; likely as that she is to attempt to trick the characters to walk through into a type of particular place - the inside of someone’s mind, into another’s body, etc etc.  (This is in fact her preferred means of disposing of irritating mortals;  some have found themselves drug addicts in 1970s new york, stone statues magically bound to watch sorcerer’s treasure rooms, or within some bard’s inner world, in addition to ‘merely’ sending people to their sun, or the 8th Hell, or the Lightless Flesh Realm of Infinite Crawling Life, or ancient Blackmoor, or wherever/whenever.).

        “RED?”  The moment any but the slightest interest is shown a decanter will appear, and she will pour the purest form of what seems to be pure liquid colour into the hexagonal but transparent glass.

          “What is it?”

          She proffers the glass to you. “It is RED.  Drink it, and feel the fire burn you.”

Other services she can offer

She is happy to inseminate one.  If for some reason there are difficulties in this arena, or one merely wishes to taste sex of the Pit, she will be happy to indulge you.  If two (or more*) people which to procreate despite biological or other differences she will be happy to “intercede as facilitator,” even providing or procuring additional ‘genetic material’ as needed.  

She will be equally happy to indulge any other such carnal acts and in any form desired.  She will know any particular tastes or desires of course, sometimes before the victim er possessor themself knows.   

Despite the above she does not offer actual time travel (at least not into the past, she can almost certainly send people into the / a future at will) as, while a demon, being a succubus she has sufficient sense of self to find the paradoxes thus unleashed personally threatening; consequently she will instead send characters into one of the infinite parallel worldlines most similar to the time and place in which the characters describe.  IF one does not exist she can probably create a (small) pocket dimension that resembles one, at least for a while (say … an adventure session).  

* Three parents via succubus? This practice is called "a Marriage in Hell”: and it is exactly what it says on the tin....despite expectations such a child will be fully mortal with perhaps an extra demon trait or so and a slight proclivity towards chaos and magic. I.e. most 0 level would-be wizard characters could qualify.

Teoc’fnenahl is merely one of the many members of Tamarah's court that you may meet in the Book of Scarlet Abomination (drive thru link) now available for the DCC rpg.