Jack Vance Walks Into a Pilates Studio

So I read through Jack Vance's significant corpus this year. It was very edifying.  And satisfactory to finally be reading some Appendix N material.

Why if, you all knew how shallow my Appendix N exposure truly was, you'd punch a hole in your computer screen, break your keyboard over your knee, and urinate all over your hard drive. Then you'd put all of those things in a box, fill it with ox blood and the chimneysweep's curse, and mail it to me.

That's the singular reason why I don't post my address online.

Anyway, Jack Vance is awesome.  I get the appeal of Vancian magic.  I do, I really do.  It's a fantastic storytelling device.  Chekov's ammo, really.

But.

Nowhere does he have spell levels. Vance's wizards are more flexible than that.

The Abominable Island

Before she ascended, Ianu (blessed be Her name) taught us that the waters of River of Souls carries our souls into the afterlife.

Since her time, the River of Souls has become choked with pollution from Gattica and runoff from cursed Cauterus, becoming mildly poisonous in the process. In some places, it is more like quicksand than water.  One time the river even caught fire for a couple of days.

Regardless, pilgrims still flock to its holy waters to bathe and purify themselves for the new year.

The river empties into the salty water of Greywing Bay.  True to it's name, the air above the Bay is filled with a great number of the little grey birds.  Their chirps of tekeli-li-li are said to be in honor of the prophetess Ianu (blessed be her name), and their beaks are used to snatch the souls of the unwilling dead and bring them to their eternal reward.

If you go further out into Greywing bay--just over the horizon, really--you will see the island.

Statistical Weight

One big difference from old school DnD and younger forms is the weight that it gives stats.

That is: how much STUFF does the Intelligence stat actually do in your system of choice?  How many pieces of the mechanics does your Strength stat touch?  Obviously, the trend through different editions of DnD has been for stats to carry more and more weight.  But why?

This is sort of a complicated question, and it lies at the heart of the different design philosophies.  Here's a pie chart for credibility.

Six Pirates and a Bird

Six more pirates to go with the last twelve.

13. Queen Zio Zalavendi

Rumored to be an actual queen from the darklands, Queen Zio is a darklander, and is said to be beautiful in the darklander way (teeth dyed black and filed to points, elegant pink scars framing her eyes, constantly erect nipples). Her ship is a worm-rigged galleon with a worm stable beneath the waterline. It's 50'-long otterworms can pull the ship through doldrums or they can be mounted by her crew to form sea-cavalry. She has a small fleet of three other ships, and has a terrific rivalry with Captain Calico Kill, the self-professed “Pirate Queen”. It's rare for the pirates to hold court without one trying to kill another. Her ship is The Ulula and her flag is a double-ended trident.

14. The Green Lady

She (it) is a sludge vampire. That's all you really need to know about her. Her ship's masthead is the head and shoulders of a taxidermied elephant (that she supposedly drained herself). She is fantastically beautiful (shapeshifters always are) and dabbles in poisons and alchemies belowdecks. Many of the multi-colored gases are highly toxic, and so are vented through the masts, which are hollow. Her ship is The Lucky Gardener (referencing a well-known dirty joke) and her flag is an elephant's head.

Twelve Pirates

Still working on the Land of Flowers.  It's gonna involve sailing, and the best part about writing encounter charts for sailing is the pirates, obviously.

You know how people are always calling pirates Foobeard or Plunderbeard and shit?  Centerra has a similar convention.  Boy pirates often take the name of Jack, and lady pirates often take the name of Jane.  It's common enough that "jacks and janes" usually refers to a pirate crew, but the captains rename themselves so its totally literal for them.

I've included their ethnicity.  A lot of them are marinel, because they're the seafaringest race.