SEX DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL : THE TTRPG and other updates too

Hey everyone, I haven't been posting much but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything. I am still working on the Sunscorched Marshes, right now I am doing the hexmap which is gonna be really big, and contributing to a really exciting GLOG zine I will post more about when it is released. But as a fun little distraction I also started writing SEX DRUGS AND ROCK & ROLL: THE TTRPG, a lite silly game with lots of random tables. Here are a bunch of scraps I have so far, with random tables and very basic rules. content warning for discussion of sex and drugs, of course

What lies beyond Creation?

Jewish mythology has this concept of an 'unfinished corner' of Creation. I was introduced to it, like many other kids, through ghost stories. Older kids tried to scare me and my friends by telling us about the empty blanks of the far North, inhabited only by wicked spirits who just loved to gobble up little girls....

I re-encountered the myth as an adult in the book Tree of Souls by Howard Schwartz, then began to find references to it in other Jewish mythological works as well. He provides the text of the myth in the book sample on his website:

All of Creation had been completed except for the north corner of the world. God began
to create it, but left it unfinished, saying, “Whoever declares himself to be God, let him come and finish this corner, and then all shall know he is a god.” There, in that unfinished corner, demons, winds, earthquakes, and evil spirits dwell, and from there  they come forth to the world, as it is said, From the north shall disaster break loose (Jer. 1:14).
When the Sabbath departs, great bands of evil spirits set out from there and roam the world. Because of the cold north wind, the north was identified as the abode of evil spirits.This myth explains why—because that part of creation is unfinished. Here God makes a challenge to those who assert that they are divinities. The true test for a divinity is the ability to create a world. So God left one corner of the world unfinished, with the challenge that anyone who could finish it would indeed be a true god. Of course, the clear implication is that such a creation would be impossible.Rabbi Moshe Hayim Luzzatto offers a different perspective about unfinished creation:“God began Creation but left it unfinished so that man could eventually bring itto completion” (Adir ba-Marom).
The Kotzker Rebbe said of this unfinished corner of creation: “One little corner—God left one little corner in darkness so that we may hide in it!”
Sources: Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 3 ; Midrash Konen in Beit ha-Midrash 2:30; Sefer ha- Zikhronot 1:7;
The Book of Jubilees 2:2; Zohar 1:14b; Siah Sarfei Kodesh; Or ha-Ganuz.

So, Creation was intentionally left 'unfinished' up North. What interests me is that things very much are stated to exist in this place- yet apparently because of their malicious nature they mark the very place as separate from the normal, 'finished' world. Is this an innate quality of evil things- that they detach their own worlds from those created without such evil?

I'm also interested in the challenge the unfinished corner represents. It's a pretty great power move on God's part- if you think you're so great, go turn this awful wasteland into a proper part of reality, then we'll talk. Sounds like an excuse for an adventure in a frozen hellscape to me!

So, a wizard set you on fire

3 types of magical fire. They’re often illegal in civilized places. 

Astral Bloom

Casting an astral bloom steals a wisp of fire from the nearest star to create a mini-star.

It’s called an astral bloom because the little new star is unstable- when it explodes it looks like a beautiful blooming flower just before it nukes the surrounding area. 

It's about a foot in diameter, too bright to look directly at it, smells like ozone, and will burn you to death in an instant if you touch it. The sound of its internal combustions is as loud as a jet turbine.

Direct exposure to an astral bloom causes sunburn, radiation sickness, mutations, and death.

All stars have nature spirits called Pleiades, of course. An astral bloom’s newly-formed Pleiad is loyal, naïve, friendly, and easy to manipulate.

An astral bloom is so small that its lifespan is only a few years; when it dies it explodes into a supernova, then a black hole, and its Pleiad becomes a hateful, starving specter.

Temporal Blaze

It begins its existence as a massive inferno & when left alone dwindles into nothing. Everything that makes a normal fire smaller makes a temporal fire grow, & vice versa.

It looks like an inverted version of a normal fire- red smoldering core with blue flames leaping around the edges. It smells like old books & sounds like a high-pitched staticky hiss- a TV with no signal. It doesn’t hurt you when you touch it. 

In the smoke that curls up from a temporal fire, you can see the past & the future in a disjointed conflation. When you see a person through the smoke, you may see them as they looked when they were younger & as they will look when they are dead.

when a blaze is big enough, things can come out of the smoke-visions, exploding into the present. Sometimes these things are monsters you’re supposed to fight in twenty years. Sometimes people you watched die a long time ago come into the present & thus escape their fate.

Temporal blazes emit pure oxygen. Breathing causes oxygen toxicity. You get dazed, nauseated, pass out, your central nervous system falls apart & spasms until you die or get help.

When you pass out your scorched psyche bombards you with fragments of your past & your future. These visions are always accurate but there’s no context provided. if you’re going to die in the temporal blaze, you see your own death. that’s all that’s left in your future. 

Atlantean Fire-in-Water

Innocent name, evil purpose. The gods cursed the people of Atlantis for inventing Fire-in-Water.

This is a liquid form of fire, slick and oily and as hot as lava. Stinks like burning gasoline. It feeds on other liquids. A drop of Fire-in-Water can set a pond aflame. 

Sweat, spit, tears, blood- all commingle with Fire-in-Water. At least half of the human body is water and therefore flammable. 

Weapons dipped in oil and then set on Fire-in-Water are terrifically destructive. They pierce the skin, inject Fire-in-Water right into the body, and then all your blood’s on fire. Ouch.