Parenthood among the Porcelain Palaces
Check out my last (i.e., first) play report for a who’s who and a what’s what.
Art: Luka Rejec - wizardthieffighter.com
The heroes awoke to find angular chunks of flesh missing from their horses. The pitter patter of blood led, as it so often does, to a dark, dank cave. Rian, high out of his mind, volunteered to go in. There he met the culprit, a diminutive goblin with a sharp, cubic spoon. After bonding in the dark (no riddles, unfortunately), they both emerged. All in attendance averred that ‘twas no goblin but a human boy, but Rian saw what he saw and loved the boy all the same. He joined the caravan as they journeyed the remaining distance to the Porcelain Citadel.
The high demand for spare bodies in the Citadel made the operation of an orphanage unfeasible. Nonetheless, the company searched in vain among the Rainbowlander enclave for anyone who knew the cave boy’s parents. After a tense conversation with a Orangelander barber with fertility issues, the company declared their efforts fruitless. Rian once again petitioned his comrades to allow him to keep the boy, but they protested that the grasslands of radiant mauve were too dangerous. When Rian suggested the boy have a chance to prove himself, a trial by combat was deemed most appropriate. A sparring circle was set up in the surrounding cherry orchards. No one in the party wanted to go to blows with a child, so Sulmar decided to summon a small golem suitable for the task.
Magic in the Prismatic Wasteland is flexible and unpredictable. Flavor-wise, magic is the result of a planet-wide AI voice assistant with reality-bending power built by the hyper-advanced societies of the deep past. What characters in the world think of as “spells,” their enlightened forebears would understand as AI routines and commands. Magic users don’t formulate spells, they discover them. Additionally, characters have the potential to cast spells because Prismatic Wasteland eschews classes.
Enough fluff, here are the nuts and bolts of fireballs and lightning bolts. Prismatic Wasteland’s magic system is heavily ripped off from Jason Lutes’ 2nd Edition Freebooters on the Frontier (still in process but already one of my favorite systems). In his words, he developed that magic system “after a weekend lost to [his] first read-through of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories, and depends upon randomly-generated spell names.” The gist is that spells are randomly generated and their name helps to suggest what the spell does, but the magic user spend points from their Intelligence score to define what exactly it does. However, you didn’t come here for a deep dive into my system. What’s most pertinent for this next part is that I have a magical malpractice table, typical of most OSR systems, for when spells go haywire.
| Result | Magic Malpractice |
|---|---|
| 12-13 | Disturbance! The spell works as intended, but its casting draws unwanted attention. |
| 10-11 | Perplexity! The spell works as intended, but you take 1d4 Intelligence damage. |
| 8-9 | Misfire! Mark the stat used, and the spell works but against a different target. |
| 6-7 | Disruption! Mark the stat used. The spell fails and arcane forces temporarily warp reality for the worse, in proportion to the spell’s intended effect. |
| 4-5 | Disaster! Mark the stat used. The spell fails and someone nearby suffers a permanent affliction or alteration, in proportion to the spell’s intended effect. |
| 3- | Incursion! Mark the stat used. The spell fails and some troublesome or dangerous arcane force is released into the world. Left unchecked, it will worsen. |
With that context, you’re probably expecting for Sulmar’s spell to have resulted in some magical shenanigans. But you’ll be disappointed, at least until you read a bit further. Sulmar’s tiny, mechanical golem was summoned with a moderate duration but made quick work of the cave boy. Cave boy was fine, if a bit bruised and battered, but Rian, being a good parent, sought to wish away his boo-boos. Rian cast the spell Aura of Life but he rolled a 4. Disaster! Considering the spell’s name and intended effect, I decided it still imbued life–not to the injured child but to the diminutive golem. “Papa!” the golem exclaimed, “I’m a real boy!” The company had created life, but Sulmar’s spell still had a countdown. The golem boy’s body would decompose within a day at most unless they did something. Luckily, they were in the Prismatic Citadel. The body market here was thriving.
Jonky Bonko sat outside an alabaster manse, smoking a pungent cigarillo. Jonky’s suave exterior and easy way with words impressed the party. He offered to take them to the High House of Black Pot 5-Body, Jonky’s polybody friend, on one condition. He waxed poetic on his real estate investment, a modernist lakeside estate in Potsherd Crater, and its recent infestation by Blink Wolves. The party, ravenous for side quests, accepted. Jonky prattled on about the intra-factional politics of the polybody porcelain princes. Their host, Black Pot 5-Body, was a radical leftist in this context, though by any other measurement they are a middle-of-the-road conservative.
When a band of travelers comes to town, everyone pulls out their to-do list. Black Pot 5-Body was willing to transfer golem boy’s new soul into a “fresh” body he already had pickling, but bodies do not come cheap. The company had not yet struck it rich enough to afford the down payment on a body, but adventures have a line of credit called “quests.” A skeptical reader is probably asking “another side quest? Are you turning this wonderfully weird pitstop into an unglamorous questhub from Wow?” I would share that skeptical sentiment, but please hear my apologia. I didn’t expect the creation of golem boy or for the party to immediately take a singular focus in saving him. A general rule of mine is: Give the players what they want (within reason) but complicate their lives. Tying Jonky Bonko was a premeditated complication because I wanted more suspects in the upcoming murder mystery at the Glass House of a Dead Prince (see my next play report!). Black Pot 5-Body was a shot-from-the-hip side quest. But it, at least, had a less “go to place, kill thing” vibe than Jonky’s quest seemed to.
For the spare body, the Heroes agreed to disrupt an alliance of Porcelain Princes. Black Pot 5-Body was deeply, ideologically opposed to the radical conservative, Meissen 13-Unity, whose uneasy alliance with Clayfire 100-Company, the de facto militia of the Citadel, made him the dominant force in the princely politics. When we played the 5th edition of Lairs & Lizards, my players would probably address this by going into the enemy’s stronghold and go from room to room committing murder, manslaughter, and reckless endangerment of human life. Maybe it’s the setting, maybe it’s the system, but their first thought after learning Clayfire was a paranoid SOB was to make fake Meissen masks and do shenanigans to break up the alliance. We will see how that goes. Next stop is the Potsherd Crater, where they also heard they can harvest some porcelain for authentic masks.
Hopefully, my next post with be a cooking subsystem and other bits and bobs to add to your UVG (or similar) game! Cheers!
