The Aviary of The Contemptuous Saint - Into the Odd Challenge

Alex challenged me with this:

"Dungeon. 5 rooms minimum, 10 maximum. Max 3 pages, map included. Theme: birds. Everything should be pretty. Nothing can be ugly. Nothing can be gross. Everything's outward appearance should be pleasant and delicate. The place should nonetheless leave you feeling creeped out and uncomfortable. Include an Arcana that's a frescoe."

Whew!  A bit far afield from my usual dusty musty catacombs and sewage-filled tunnels, but this makes it all the more challenging!

More on that issue later.

For now, take this Monster and Arcanum as the first salvo in our Into The Odd duel, sir!

Slogging Faepog

These are simply chassis of Alumel and fine porcelain wired around a seething pickled Fairy.  Highly illegal in most multiverses, since the magical fae battery that powers and motivates it is a breach of the 1876 French-Alfgrimnean Paranormal Torture Conventions. Any Fae creatures that see these monotonous abominations will become unhinged and attack immediately.  The Faepog can complete simple tasks and carry non-heavy items, and are often used as couriers and laborers when the tasks are delicate and non-pressing.  In the presence of cold iron, the magic that suppresses their natural chaotic whimsy begins to degrade, and they can become spiteful and violent in the manner of a belligerent drunk. To create one, start with a stout sealable jar, some fine brandy, and a pixie, nixie, sprite or smallish elf.

HP 4, Armor 1, attacks with pointy digits for 1d6.  If the jar is broken, the fae critter inside will retreat and tattle on everybody involved.

Arcanum: Merfolk Pennywhistle that when blown, the user can walk through water as if it were air for as long as the whistling continues - however they will drown in air and can swim through it for the same duration.  The whistling trebles the chances for random encounters owing to its shrillness and may arouse the ire of Dagon and Neptune

Into The Odd - mini review

Into The Odd

Seems suspiciously rules-lite; I mean there's little to get in the way of a fast game with 3 stats and HP. I'm seriously trying hard to imagine so simple a game... There was that one mod that reduced the DW stats to just the modifiers that the 3d6 would have given you - admirable, in my opinion.

character creation is Lickety split, and the main drivers of the game : arcana are essentially weird magic items.  Level advancement comes in a couple of simple well-delineated stages.

I could see some really trippy mods for this : Luck, Dungeon World moves, Realms of Crawling Chaos items. Sanity rules maybe, and uh, that Oz game I always go on about could get shoehorned in there.

It's class- and race-free, and the setting is implicitly freeing to cook up your own stuff.  I think you could use this to play "Over The Garden Wall" from last month like in about 4 minutes you're off and running. A nice compromise between some more trad RPG and narrative type things

I'm suitably intrigued.  Very easy to grok and customize and quaint and charming little pseudo random charts are abounding.  It's vague enough to permit a great deal of creativity and just barely rulesy enough to stay together for a game that will need no consultation of the book under time pressure

3.5 out of 5.3 wizard hats, with a finger of algae-laced bourbon floated over the top

Beware the sacrilege!