Feed the Witch’s Bloodflowers

Feed the Witch’s Bloodflowers

You have successfully journeyed to and petitioned to gain audience to the Seer Witch of the Violet Fens; she greets you and leads you forward into her garden where she stops to show you her BLOODFLOWERS.

A 20x30 patch of red and black flowering plants, appearing as somewhat oversized /exaggerated rose petals surrounding a pink and black orchid’s inner workings. They are warm to the touch (she says) and they reach for her hands when she gestures over them.  She claims that some have been pleased to flatter her by ‘feeding’ her flower beds.

The stems wave in the non-existent wind and gently meeping if you approach to ‘feed’ them.

What do you feed them?

1	Water – HOW DIRTY IS THE WATER? (If not known determine by %) If water is more than 67% dirty, then her flowers immediately dissolved into putrid brown and purple mud.  The Fen Witch is now super honked off and throws 9d6 of lightning at d5 members of your party, conveniently standing in a line up unless specifically and previously stated otherwise.  Roll init.  The Fen Witch should be pretty tough – equal to an 11th level magic-user or thereabouts.   Most of her magic involves throwing curses, weaponized bad luck, and gruesome transformations your way.  Also elements.  Speaking of, on her next attack, she ignites anything mundane and flammable the party is carrying or, you know, wearing. D3 points of damage the first round, d2 the second, and one point the final round if they are still peeling out of flaming robes etc. If water is less than 67% dirty then the flowers turn chalky white.   Immediately a 10x10 thundercloud appears over the PCs and dispenses life giving rainwater.   If 01-32% dirty then 3d8 points of damage are healed by the single round rain shower.   If 33-46 % dirty then 2d6 points are so healed, and if 46-66% dirty then 1d6 of healing rain ensues. UNLESS HOLY WATER, then 0% dirty – The flowers sizzle and crack like frying bacon on contact with the now smoldering vapor that was your holy water.  In an instant the whole mass dissolves into a puddle of greenish, putrid slime.  The Fen Which, meanwhile, polymorphs (or perhaps De-polymorphs) into (or from) the shape of Be-Nighel, least angel of guardian forces, a 12 foot battle maiden resplendent in shimmering celestial armor of mithril and cobalt.   Smiling in acknowledgment she claims “You have passed the test, sinful mortals.” And immediately gates you to the source of what you seek, answering any other question within her purview honestly in the meantime.  Anyone foolish enough to attack even a least angel will be counter attacked by a 12 HD creature who strikes with the Holy, Avenging, and Vorpal qualities.  Once she collects the offender’s head, she disappears, gone forever. Did you feed it unholy water?  Wow really?  You’ll go far and then you’ll die bad.  With an exultant cry in low-middling Barazhad of I’M FREE The flowers immediately fuse into Dionaeheus Drosaria, known else as  FLARGNIVIGORTH the FLORAL CATASTROPHIE, (AC -2 / 22 HD 10 HP around 60; immune to non-magical missiles and non-magical fire.) who in one single attack springs, eats, and consumes the Fen Witch.  “How can its Floral Dreadfulness assist you mortal? “ The abyssal arch druid can do almost anything involving demon flowers.
2	Milk – Cow’s Milk?  Hundreds of tiny little mouths audibly slurp up that which was meant for calves.  The witch nods once and sees to your question.   If Hathor or another cow goddess exists in your campaign, you may have just honked Her off. Goat’s Milk?   Better.  It turns blue when it splashes over the bloody rose petals and is rapidly absorbed into the thing.  Meanwhile its stalk grows several inches over a few minutes time. Mare’s Milk – the milk itself recoils from the flower petals as though a living thing.  Tendrils from the inner folds of the flower snap out and audibly suck the milk from mid-air where it attempts to flee with a scream. (Yes this is just as surreal as it sounds.)  Mother’s Milk – human milk? I’m not going ask why you’re carrying that around in a wineskin but whatever.  The flowers hungrily devour it directly, the veins noticeably swelling to absorb every drop.  Secretly, the donor is given one (demonic) wish.
3	Wine – IS IT WATERED?  Y/N Yes  - That which fed the offending liquid is consumed in a fireball of spontaneous human (or elven, dwarfen, etc.) combustion; 10d6 of stinky gas blasting organic residue erupt from the feeder, likely (at least) splitting them in half, if not making them explode outright. If less than 0 hp remain, then after the fireball (which lights nothing else on fire) only charred bits of teeth and bone remain.  No - The flowers drink it, as though they possessed a mouth, esophagus and so on. You have no idea how they are doing it but they consume as much as you feed. If you have wine remaining they seem to “follow” you until you leave the area.   The witch smiles and answers your questions.
4	Blood – the most obvious…save that they don’t drink blood. You pour the stuff of life itself uselessly over the succulent, fleshy blood petals.  The witch laughs at you. She will tell you nothing and your quest has failed.   You are teleported home (1 in 6) or (5 in 6) to room (roll a d24) in the Judge’s favorite scenario or adventure.  IF this makes no goddam sense either roll with it or have the whole thing be a pollen induced hallucination that wears off in d12 rooms’ worth of encounters. Either way you keep the XP. Either way, if you’re dead, you die.  If you still care about your quest thereafter, the witch will tell you what you wish to know and offer to transport you there via scrying portal or giant bird-demon.
5	Mead – You lucky soul you.  You are either very lucky, very wise, or very very favored by the Gods (assuming there is a meaningful distinction anyway).  The open petals of the flower or flowers so anointed turn a shade of golden-amber immediately.   The Floral Abomination has not had a drink in SOOOO LOOOONG and certainly not Godsblessed mead.  When the mead-donor next dies, they will immediately be reborn d24 hours later as a PC possible class possessing half their current experience points but not necessarily as their original class or race (or gender, or age, or sex, or ethnicity, or any other such thing).
6	Not a Damn Thing – Smart.  Also safe and so not very daring. Not at all. Your next expenditure of luck will cost double as a reminder to take the occasional risk you so-called adventurer you.

Voyages in the Sub ether

The Sub ether

Sub-etheric voyage complications sub table

1	Without so much as a wink of translocation energy, a Ferryman now stands on the bridge waiting its toll.
2	Dance Along the Edge - possibly your navigator is pushing her limits, or the Ship’s God is especially heady with worship but the combined limits of ship, etheric protections, and power have been reached if not exceeded.   Likely will arrive at destination d5 days sooner than projected, even if this is impossible.  Also psychic spillover affects all unshielded passengers and non-crew life forms :  sleep, arousal, hunger, communal clustering, communal grazing, communal grooming
3	Energy curve - vessel momentarily passes alongside an etheric region of great energy bending; (1-3 amplification, 4-6 drain) In amplification,  Apply effect 2. Above, stage all energy effects upward *four* stages on the dice chain, and all batteries become charged, lights grow brighter, etc.   Those with recent injuries will heal four times faster;   In Drain, Again apply 2. Above but all affected parties become sluggish and sleep.  Those with hibernation tendencies will fall into such a state.  All light and sound are dimmed for the duration of the voyage.  Thought passes slower.  Dreams do not seem to occur.   All energy effects are reduced 4 steps on the dice chain.   Those who are injured will heal four times slower than normal and magical / technological healing is affected by the energy curve as above.  Thank your Navigator or Ship’s God right now.
4	Grazing the Toum-Var  - Ship’s energy screens or the like graze the outer edge of the bleed;  1d7+12 dimensional analogs spawn near or replace local versions immediately.
5	The first Sub-ether...follows you home.  Voyage occurs without incident; At arrival however, those on ship are (and remain) entangled with supernal phenomenon taking the form of a constant monotonous chanting. It is apparently in their own accent but no known language.  IT loops every 3.14 minutes and remains persistent for 3d20 hours...unless another etheric voyage is undertaken in that time after which it does not further persist. .
6	Visions.  1D5 aboard ships simultaneously experience a vision; Any with Seer abilities may share it to others. Vision Thing table (D8) 1)    Ship’s destruction 2)   Something occurring at destination 3)   A quest object 4)   A danger in the nearby or oncoming sub-ether 5)   A premonition of warning or disaster from long dead civilization 6)  The death of billions on a world as it is destroyed, thousands of lights away. 7)   The Death Sun gazes into you 8)   Endless dead bleeding bodies or other terrible scene- Pick from Plague, Revolution, Racial Purity, Law, Chaos, or Undead Fun.

And faster than you can say Event Horizon....

Little known sub dimensional pathways through the aether

1	The soul roads - patrolled and protected by the armies of the Hell gods, ensuring the traffic of souls to the Pit. For a toll or other agreed upon stand-in, they may give ships and voyagers access to the deeper planes via such a road.   Be wary.
2	The Red Lodge - the vessel overlaps, however briefly in transit, with a hallucinatory conceptual space defined by desire, hunger, life, passion, and violence.   The crew is randomly distributed across this hallucinatory mindscape until they can find a way to break free.  Good luck. Also, cancel your plans for the evening, this is a misjump.
3	The City of Dreams - impossibly tall, thin glass towers throbbing with red and yellow glow are everywhere packed in too tightly together.  Immediately your vessel is surrounded by little beings with tremendously deep eyes.  “You aren’t supposed to be here.”  All goes black.  Consciousness regained 1d12+5 hours later…..somewhere along the ship’s intended path of travel. Maybe.
4	The Metropolis – Dim recollections, missing time, soul terror, examinations, you arrive at your destination 1d8 hours prior to your departure.  Violate your light cone at peril. No one seems to recall who suggested the pathway – it is gone from your memory.
5	Nightmare 102 - it gets...bad.  Reality goes runny.  Each and every individual mote of consciousness spends the next period of conceptual existence trapped in a hell of their own making.  IT must be endured;  5d12 real hours later, the ship will arrive at its destination point.  All those who have “died” in the meantime must make a DC 20 Fort save or they will experience immediate death by system shock.
6	The Writhe - ship now voyaging through an only semi-material realm wrought of small writhing, scuttling insect analogs.  Sacrifices must be honored every d12 hours or the creatures making up matter in this realm will attempt to infest and consume the vessel and its contents.   Sacrifices must take the form of those openly displaying the most fear. They must die afraid.

So while digging around in my files (I was going to share One Thing Out.  Four hours later I've reorged half of my drive.  This is why putting that organization thing off will bite you in the end) and ran across a thing I wrote....sometime.  IT made me laugh and I want to test settings so.....here you go.

The Gm has just has decided "F@!$% this session" tale

01-05 FAREWELL TOUR NEEDS ROADIES

In a flash of cheap trilocation magic, the character is suddenly on tour with a pandimensional intergalactic rock band, on its farewell tour before it dives out toward the big spiral galaxy you’ve got nearby.  It is weird and groovy and Daft Punk and Love and Rockets, and Liverpool, and Tanith Lee, the Tomorrow People, Andre Norton and any 50 issues of Heavy Metal (as long as they are the first 50) all rolled up burned to dust and smoked fine.

Age 1d10+4 years; biological clock reset to starting character age plus 1d4 or new body if this takes the character beyond their natural lifespan.

Character learns a smattering of Spoken/Audio-Gestural PanGal and the basic starways around the Greater Magellanic Cloud and in particular it’s largely telepathic and aquatic Galactic Federation.  

Work Visa - esperlingua impaired Galactic Federation / Zone exchange (10 local years remain)

1or more (roll a d4 and add one) programmed amoeba

• Translator film (ear-audial nerve)
• Scribescum (floating ink-like fungal ‘crobe, translates 500 written languages)
• Gutwash

And finally the gravimetric key to a space yacht in definite port in a space station orbiting a Mass recharge station on the far side of 1987A.

15-20 YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN HITCHHIKER

Maybe an old teleport spell misfired and it’s Just Now Going Off.  Or the party’s nemesis threw a delayed curse at them. Or radiation from the crashed starfreighter they looted is interfering with their metaphysical powers. Whatever.  The character/party is abruptly elsewhere - in the hold of a passing space freighter.

(System shock or blow oats after moment of total disorientation;  Thief-acrobats, monks, Illusionist, Assassins, some rangers, Horizon Walkers, Gatecrashers, etc. may save to avoid  Teleporters, and most Clairvoyants immune;  most experienced space travellers immune)

However, a crime has been committed aboard just prior and the strategy computers compute that YOUR character has the best chance of resolving the situation.   (Ref: pick the paladin or other character with obvious moral compass and axe to grind. Need not be good)

Depending on nature of ship and crew this could mean the other characters are fitted with explosive bolts or could be considered as part of the “needed computation.”   

76-80 SCREW ALL OF YOU WE’RE PLAYING GANGBUSTERS

All chaotic characters are now the mob.  All Lawful characters are g-men; all Neutrals are journalists, or cops, or bystanders.   Start with the basic game and go.  Bonus points to the Referee if the Irish mob call the characters Chlurichans.

Ref’s option as to whether PCs retain their magic/sf gear and powers while they are here and if escape is possible (or desirable!)

86-90 BLACK SITE BLACK SITE!!!!

The Imperial Navy has received authorization to sterilize the site and the containing 28.4 mi hex surrounding down to a micrometer.   Antimatter is probably involved at some point.  

To hell with this Tom Cruise shit, unless you can save v. Gamma Rays don’t even ask about survivability

23% of being flung to some far plane, planet, time, place, dimension, or game system, perhaps indefinitely.   No save unless you’d rather be dead.

(Referee:  play Khyber Pass by Ministry REALLY LOUD and theatrically tear up your notes if you are so inclined.  Just for this hex though. )    

96-00 THE REFEREE HAS FINALLY HAD IT

Demons pour from torn holes in reality.  The uncoiled uncoil and tear their way from underneath and rage across your world’s landscape.  The Gods smite all who oppose them. IF there be no true Gods, then Unimaginable Space Horrors do it instead

(Really, difference?)  

The moon(s) go dark or red or both.   The sun's) shine at night or when they aren’t supposed to.  Dogs and cats...you know.

IN a rain of burning raging fire, all life is extinguished.  But next week the Ref would like you to consider a game called Top Secret…...