Spirits of the Blasted Lands

All the travelers and penitents of the Blasted Lands know to venerate the Spirits, for they are the unseen magisters of all that is. Rulers of the places between spaces, they make the waters flow and chart the paths of sun, moon, and stars throughout the sky.

THIS SPIRIT APPEARS AS

1 a gaunt
2 a shrouded
3 a twisted
4 a withered
5 a transparent
6 a spindly
7 a ragged
8 a gaseous
9 a ghostly
10 a rippling
11 a shimmering
12 an obscured
13 an ominous
14 a droning
15 a jittering
16 an uncanny
17 a terrible
18 a grim
19 a diseased
20 an undead

1 floating humanoid
2 form of fluttering rags
3 amalgam of light
4 cloud of gloom
5 sculpture of driftwood
6 bone carving
7 fractal pattern
8 constellation
9 obscure shape
10 fractal form
11 flickering of unclear limbs
12 old man
13 old woman
14 child
15 silhouette
16 tumorous mass
17 spindly humanoid
18 coil of smoke
19 corpse
20 hole in spacetime

WITH

1 a magnificent set of antlers
2 countless eyes
3 hanging dreamcatchers
4 a hangman noose
5 a constant, eerie grimace
6 hanging bells, ringing (dolefully, balefully, joyously)
7 four arms constantly folded in prayer
8 (number) constantly spinning orbs of (color) fire
9 piercing eyes
10 a symbol, painted in blood, that hurts your eyes
11 a clock face that keeps time
12 electricity sparking throughout
13 runes and symbols skittering across its surface
14 a mysterious mask
15 a collection of hanging locks made of different metals
16 a collection of hanging keys made of different metals
17 a collection of ancient tomes
18 an array of floating candles
19 a cloak of mist
20 tiny, constantly fidgeting hands

THAT IS FEELING

1 disapproving.
2 inquisitive.
3 instructive.
4 gravely insulted.
5 concerned.
6 pensive.
7 watchful.
8 stoic.
9 tranquil.
10 enigmatic.
11 troubled.
12 puzzled.
13 lonely.
14 alert.
15 restful.
16 meditative.
17 mournful.
18 reminiscent.
19 capricious.
20 utterly beyond your comprehension.

IT WAS ONCE TASKED WITH

1 making the rivers flow.
2 weaving light.
3 guiding the moon through the sky.
4 translating messages from the stars.
5 curating the silent spaces between moments.
6 putting meanings to words.
7 remembering everything.
8 making the leaves fall.
9 appearing before those who are about to face grave danger.
10 shepherding the dead into the afterlife.
11 watching over a settlement.
12 watching over an area of wilderness.
13 enforcing ancient law.
14 observing everything.
15 opposing all change.
16 causing chaos.
17 hiding secrets away from prying eyes.
18 misleading people.
19 hastening the heat death of the universe.
20 battling entropy.

YOU WILL KNOW IT DRAWS NEAR WHEN

1 the moon hangs low and appears to writhe with maggots.
2 flowers bloom and turn to face a single direction.
3 birds begin to laugh with human voices.
4 small objects begin to defy gravity.
5 your hair stands on end and the air tastes like metal.
6 your vision distorts and tunnels.
7 you hear far-off static.
8 technology malfunctions.
9 written words squirm and writhe in pain.
10 water runs upward.
11 smoke drifts downward and forms into twisted faces.
12 plants begin to wither and die.
13 the wind smells like brimstone.
14 minor events begin to run in reverse.
15 the sun darkens in the sky.
16 stars scatter across the sky like fireflies.
17 etherial music danges on the air.
18 you experience deja vu.
19 colors fade to gray.
20 your thoughts move in alien ways.

IN ITS PRESENCE, YOU MUST NEVER

1 speak above a whisper
2 eat
3 drink
4 ask questions
5 interrupt anyone
6 harm a living thing
7 speak a name
8 allow there to be a moment of silence
9 display any writing
10 look up at the sky
11 speak in the past tense
12 speak unkindly
13 reference the future
14 show your face
15 waste time
16 allow anything you're holding to hit the ground
17 make use of even the simplest technology
18 allow your shadow to cross another
19 stray from the path
20 disagree

OR ELSE

1 you will be struck dumb.
2 you will age (number) years.
3 you can never speak above a whisper.
4 you will become illiterate.
5 you will be traumatized by the profound meaninglessness of existence.
6 you will be stricken with hallucinations.
7 you will experience crushing despair.
8 you will forget your most precious memories.
9 you will lose all motivation for your current goal.
10 you will lose all sense of direction.
11 small animals will abhor you from now on.
12 all of civilized society will shun you.
13 technology will never work for you.
14 you will only hear lies when people speak to you.
15 you will be consumed by never-ending thirst.
16 you will age twice as fast.
17 all will forget your name, including you.
18 all your plans shall fail.
19 you will draw the ire of unseen, sinister beings.
20 you shall be stricken from all history.

Look at this! Look at it!

It's beautiful!

It's all thanks to Luka Rejec! (the alternate title of this post is Luka Rejec is Very Talented and You Should Check Out His Stuff)

All in all, he is a very classy and patient dude who dealt with all my questions and overall newness to the subject of art throughout the commission process, and I cannot thank him enough for this new banner image.

Multifarious Mutated Monstrosities

They lurk within the crevices of these lands, emerging to howl at moons that do not exist, stringing up the guts of heroes foolish enough to hunt them, devouring entire villages due to ceaseless hunger. They carve swathes through histories. Travelers swap tales of death given teeth and claws, and the stories become stranger with every telling. The tales are all true, in the very worst of ways.



You find this creature

It is feeling

It is

With

That can

Long ago, this creature

can be carved from its corpse.

YOU FIND THIS CREATURE

1 hidden in a ravine, licking its wounds.
2 perched above an unsuspecting traveler, about to ambush.
3 being trained by a DISREPUTABLE WASTELAND WIZARD.
4 being hunted by RAMBUNCTIOUS APOCALYPTIC OUTLAWS.
5 fighting another BEAST.
6 fighting a DERELICT DESERTED DREADNOUGHT.
7 terrorizing a small settlement.
8 marking its territory by lining it with human guts.
9 trying to reach a hapless traveler who has hidden in a tiny crevice.
10 howling at the sky, mourning its dead mate.
11 mortally wounded, looking for one last thing to take its anger out upon.
12 molting its skin.
13 mutating into an even more hideous form.
14 seriously ill, vomiting black tar.
15 covering itself in entrails.
16 talking to itself.
17 starving and searching for its next meal.
18 growing in size.
19 treed, surrounded by advanced military forces sent to eradicate it for good.
20 on the cusp of evolving into a mind-bending eldritch horror.

IT IS FEELING

1 voracious.
2 rabid.
3 fearful.
4 territorial.
5 ferocious.
6 inquisitive.
7 exhausted.
8 inferior.
9 anxious.
10 unsure of itself.
11 suspicious.
12 greedy.
13 bloodthirsty.
14 confused.
15 content.
16 drowsy.
17 suicidal.
18 paranoid.
19 proud.
20 social.

IT IS

1 a massive black wasp
2 a writhing pale worm
3 a terribly thin, stringy ape
4 a massive, musclebound elephantine biped
5 a serpent with no beginning or end
6 a giant amoeba
7 a tardegrade the size of an actual bear
8 a gestalt swarm of chipmunks or other such small woodland rodents
9 a giant maw on comically small legs
10 a blur of hair, teeth, and claws
11 a giant monkey twisted into a spider shape.
12 a tangled mess of varied limbs.
13 an abhorrent mass of tentacles with beautiful moth wings.
14 an ever-changing mass of chaotic genes.
15 a knot of writhing muscle sinews.
16 a liquefied blog of sinew and muscle.
17 a twisted, scarred humanoid.
18 a shapeless amalgam of hundreds of mouths.
19 a massive cloud of tiny insects..
20 a shapeshifter that copies anyone it sees.

WITH

1 a detachable floating face
2 thousands of tiny insectile legs
3 contagious genes (lycanthropy)
4 a symbiotic relationship with a hive of bees (obscured by bee cloud)
5 a psionic membrane that magic rolls off of like water
6 highly toxic blood
7 a mane of blue flame
8 eyes that glow like red stars
9 saliva that prevents wounds from closing
10 a roar that triggers specific panic responses in sentient beings’ brains
11 a hidden stinger that instantly kills both it and the victim if it stings something.
12 countless quills that it can fire like bolts.
13 an ever-changing fractal form.
14 the ever present stench of thousands of rotten corpses.
15 seven prehensile squid tentacles.
16 magnificent, speartip-sharp antlers.
17 chitinous insectile plates.
18 spider legs growing from its orifices.
19 grasshopper legs able to jump dozens of times its length.
20 a charming, genteel voice and a fondness for intellectual conversation (before it kills you).

THAT CAN

1 spew forth clouds of burning ash.
2 emit hyper-allergic dust.
3 emit blinding flashes of light from hidden photopores.
4 eat anything organic.
5 spit forth a tiny clone of itself upon death that tries to escape.
6 keep a victim paralyzed if it can hold their gaze.
7 constantly chant psionic nonsense poetry that confuses sentient prey.
8 become a blind spot in sentient creatures' vision for short periods of time.
9 climb on walls and ceilings.
10 fit itself into impossibly small spaces.
11 can wreathe itself in mist and become nearly invisible.
12 instantly incorporate eaten flesh and bone into itself.
13 spit acid.
14 spew forth magma.
15 emit hallucinogenic gas.
16 shapeshift into your loved ones.
17 bleed small insects.
18 alter local gravity.
19 turn metal into sand.
20 hover eerily.

LONG AGO, THIS CREATURE

1 destroyed an entire ecosystem with its ceaseless hunger.
2 outwitted a famous band of beast hunters and left their corpses for all to see.
3 devoured a spirit and digested its essence and powers.
4 was a tiny normal animal that fell into a Mutation Vat.
5 was a tormented lab experiment that managed to escape.
6 became a target of a sentient mutagen virus that wanted to morph it into the perfect host.
7 was worshipped as a guardian of a tribe that lived in its territory.
8 systematically eradicated an entire civilization.
9 was a tiny normal animal that was bombarded by intense radiation.
10 was released from captivity by a human who later became its friend.
11 bonded with a human, who betrayed it. It will never make the same mistake again.
12 accidentally saved an important human leader, after which they became friends.
13 was Summoned by a foolish wizard who it immediately devoured.
14 crossed into our world across a bridge between dimensions.
15 escaped the slumbering mind of a dreaming God.
16 emerged, fully formed, from a pile of unstable radioactive mutagenic ooze.
17 served as the symbol for a warlike nation who respected its power and deadliness.
18 was a wizard whose experiment went horribly, horribly wrong.
19 was engineered as a biological war machine by a long-lost civilization.
20 Was exiled from its own dimension

AND

1 an ever-beating heart
2 a gallstone that serves as panacea
3 bones stronger than steel
4 teeth sharper than blades
5 a petrified fetal twin
6 guts that writhe like snakes
7 an eye filled with timeless pain
8 highly explosive bile
9 a tiny budded copy of itself
10 hide stronger than steel plate
11 venom that is so deadly it can kill ideas
12 brains with high thaumic potential
13 a densely encoded genetic cipher
14 an advanced weapon from a devoured beast hunter
15 a priceless relic from a long dead civilization
16 a liver holding the accumulated toxins of hundreds of years of indiscriminate devouring
17 regenerative but addictive blood
18 tallow that burns for centuries
19 cancerous tumors that induce mutations when eaten
20 a key to a long forgotten treasure

CAN BE HARVESTED FROM ITS CORPSE.

This table was made with assistance from the excellent Goat Wizard from the OSR Discord!

d36 Automated Encounter Complications

Made this table out of overlapping sticky notes on my DM screen. It looks very janky, but it works pretty well, so I decided to automate it. When I end up making biome posts for the blasted lands I will most likely expand this further with subtables and then create a version of this for each of the biomes.

1 Terrain shifts dangerously.
             1 Sinkhole/cave-in from below.
             2  Rockfall/treefall/collapse from above.
             3  A new hazard appears.
             4  An unseen hazard becomes triggered.
             5  Dangerous weather or gas effect begins.
             6  Utter catastrophe, entire surrounding area is falling apart.
2 Terrain shifts dynamically.
             1 New difficult terrain appears.
             2 New obstacle appears.
             3 Existing obstacle is removed.
             4 A new point of interest appears.
             5 A hidden area is revealed.
             6 Hidden loot is revealed.
3 Enemy changes.
             1 Simple mutation.
             2 They use a hidden item.
             3 They unleash hidden powers.
             4 They display sudden ferocity/heroism.
             5 They recieve a boon/reward from their god.
             6 They decide to flee.
4 Wandering monster appears.
             1 Scavenger looking to clean up scraps.
             2 Scavenger looking to fight the wounded winners.
             3 The enemies' natural predator.
             4 The PCs' natural predator.
             5 A truly coincidental random encounter.
             6 The apex predator of the region.
5 An enemy appears.
             1 Reinforcements/more of the existing foes.
             2 An ally of the enemies.
             3 A bounty hunter with a bounty on the PCs.
             4 A familiar evil npc.
             5 An evil adventuring party.
             6 The alpha of the pack or leader of the organization, with their retinue.
6 A potential ally appears.
             1 Law enforcement of the region, attracted by commotion.
             2 An enemy of the enemy appears.
             3 A bounty hunter with a bounty on the enemy.
             4 A small neutral adventuring party.
             5 Friendly familiar npc.
             6 Friendly adventuring party.

d100 Weird Powers, or Why McDowell's OSR Discord is the Best

So... I needed some little powers for a project I'm working on. I decided to turn to the OSR Discord for help... A flurry of creativity later, and now we have this monstrosity!

THE D100 WEIRD POWERS TABLE
1 Light Feet: treat your falls as 20ft shorter distance.
2 You can moonwalk perfectly.
3 Decay avoids you, things do not rot while carried by you or when they are on your person.
4 You can use gestures and body language to communicate your intent to animals.
5 Cast-Iron Stomach: Advantage to PHY tests to resist harmful ingested substances.
6 You don’t leave footprints.
7 Your thumb can glow like a candle on command, only when there are no other light sources.
8 Flowers bloom in your presence.
9 Your head can spin around completely.
10 Can remove and reattach your eyeball at will. You can see through it while detached.
11 Can remove and reattach your hand. You can still control it while it’s detached.
12 You can intimidate small fires into going out by yelling at them.
13 You can cast little points of light where you look, like a laser pointer.
14 You have no pulse or life aura, but you are clearly not dead.
15 You can make your hair and fingernails grow really fast.
16 You have a perfect, toothpaste-ad smile.
17 Once per lifetime, you can cough up one tiny item that you need right now. It was always in your gall bladder, waiting for the perfect moment.
18 Can make animals silent by maintaining eye contact with them.
19 Can make plants talk by holding them in your hands.
20 Can breathe any harmless gas or vapor like it was air.
21 Can peel off your skin to make sheets of parchment.
22 Once per week, you can distill a vial of your blood into a healing potion.
23 Can generate an AA battery’s worth of electricity through your natural friction.
24 You can grab handfuls of gases as if they were solids.
25 You can exist in the same space as someone, but only if you have their stated permission.
26 1 in 20 people believe you are a hallucination. They will persist stubbornly despite evidence.
27 Your tongue is strong and prehensile and as long as your arm.
28 You can echolocate as long as you’re cussing.
29 You can taste emotions.
30 You can change your hair and eye color every time you see your reflection.
31 With effort, you can animate your shadow independently.
32 With effort, you can animate your reflection independently.
33 You can regrow fingers and toes.
34 You can imitate a specific type of bird perfectly.
35 When you dance, everyone feels like they should be dancing.
36 Nobody can remember your name.
37 You can remove your nose at will and have it still function.
38 You can change what age you resemble.
39 If you eat someone’s entire corpse, you can look like them.
40 You can make eye contact with someone and know their second worst fear.
41 You can view the inside of your body at will.
42 You can gain nutritional value from ice.
43 You can sweat at will.
44 You can stretch your body like taffy, but overstretching is a serious danger.
45 When you blink rapidly 3 times you can see in inverted colors.
46 1 in 10 of your fortune readings will come true.
47 If you can put on a play detailing somebody’s crimes, you can compel them to confess to those crimes.
48 You instantly know how much of something is in a pile.
49 You can, through great effort, become irresistible to bees for one minute.
50 In your palm is a bee stinger. If you stab someone with it, you both die when it is removed.
51 You never get dizzy. No matter how long you spin in place.
52 You can shoot your fingernails like darts: 1d6 damage, but they never grow back.
53 You cannot die while asleep.
54 Your hair can wrap around stuff on its own but not unwrap, it has to be cut off.
55 Depending on who you ask, your eyes are either black and blue or white and gold. It’s very contentious.
56 You can make food and drink bitter by scowling at it and thinking nasty thoughts.
57 When you get angry, you get warmer. Much warmer.
58 When you get sad, you get colder. Much colder.
59 You can see magnetic fields.
60 You always know where the nearest bee is.
61 You have true, honest to god empathy, and can accurately imagine how others feel.
62 You can make objects translucent by touching them. The larger the object, the longer it takes.
63 Fruits you throw explode with a loud but harmless explosion. You hate lemonade and destiny.
64 You can prestidigitate objects away. Except they really vanish. Even you don’t know where they go. They don’t come back.
65 You can revert to being a newborn once.
66 You can sleep in any position, even the most absurd.
67 If you make somebody cry you can track them perfectly for a day.
68 You can walk on oil-based liquids.
69 You can mix oil and water.
70 If you can guess what’s ambushing you before the dm tells you, you’re not surprised.
71 Your hallucinations are contagious.
72 If you eat a fish in one bite, raw, you get an detailed knowledge of what lives in the waters it came from.
73 You dreams leak every 5th night.
74 The crimes you commit in dreams are treated as real crimes. Run. (crimes against you in dreams are also treated as real)
75 You can slowly sink into earth or stone, but cannot breathe if submerged.
76 You have 3 arm segments and 2 elbows.
77 Everyone who sees you knows your name.
78 Your blood is ink. Ink transfusions can stop you from bleeding out.
79 You have a magic coin with your face on it. At will you can teleport it back to yourself, no matter how far away it may be.
80 You bleed small insects like spiders and millipedes.
81 You can cough perfume.
82 You can decide the state of schrodinger situations.
83 You have x-ray vision: anyone you stare at long enough will contract cancer in a decade. You haven’t told your friends and family.
84 You have x-ray vision: the ability to see x-rays.
85 White noise is created continuously at a point 20 feet above your head.
86 Precipitation never touches you.
87 You may chop off a finger to become invisible for twenty minutes.
88 Your fingers are invisible.
89 Your blood is invisible.
90 Anything coin sized or smaller that you hold turns invisible.
91 Your palms and soles are made of iron.
92 Your skin can be passed through easily; you can store small things in yourself.
93 Confetti shoots out of any container you open for the first time.
94 Your fingers are made of gold, but are still usable as fingers. Valuable, but never grow back.
95 Your arm has a mind of its own. It can help make decisions, but it fundamentally disagrees with you on some key issues.
96 You can always get lost, even when it should be impossible.
97 Your kiss is a painkiller.
98 You can speak any language that is no longer in use.
99 Weapons will whisper about the last thing they killed, if you listen carefully.
100 You can see through metal.

Made on Chris McDowall’s OSR Discord
Credits Wr3cking8a11, Type1ninja, Zoeology31, Imcoveredinbees, Tacosundae, Honest Hearts, Galacticnomad, compiled by Saker Tarsos, coding advice from Spwack
Automated with Spwack's Generator Generator
EDIT: Now upgraded to triple capacity by Spwack!!

DERELICT DESERTED DREADNOUGHTS

Image Source

(Third in the series after OUTLAWS and WIZARDS.)

They are living relics lost in time. You might see the silhouette of one in the distance, marching across the vast unknown for a cryptic purpose, or built into the side of a mountain. They carve tracts through the present according to the whims of the past. If you find one, will you be able to turn it to your side, through guile, mechanical expertise, or hacking skills? Or will it merely tread you into the dust like the footnote to history that you know you are?
Their programming is artful but never perfect. Over time, eRrOrS iN tHeiR CoDe MaY oCcuR.


You find this creation

It is programmed to

It is

It is armed with

It is upgraded with

Long ago, it

YOU FIND THIS CREATION

1 dormant, half buried, but will activate when it senses motion.
2 fighting another DREADNOUGHT.
3 downloading files from an excavated tech core.
4 trying to free itself from difficult terrain.
5 trying to repair another DREADNOUGHT that it doesn't realize is too far gone.
6 in a one-sided conversation with a dead DREADNOUGHT.
7 patiently waiting with the deep stillness of aeons.
8 trying to tidy up its surroundings. (ERROR: constantly repeats a single action)
9 falling apart, desperately scavenging parts to keep itself alive. (ERROR: sometimes scavenges living creature parts instead)
10 stuck in the middle of downloading a software update.
11 in the middle of a purposeless trek across countless leagues for a long-defunct reason.
12 hunting down a group of OUTLAWS who defaced it. (ERROR: to complement their artistic skills)
13 blaring obsolete propaganda from a long-lost civilization. Something like, "try our all-new plasma chips and enjoy their patented teeth-melting crunch!!"
14 in the middle of etching an obscure system of mathematical formulae.
15 in the middle of upgrading itself with (roll a new upgrade).
16 in the middle of integrating (roll a new weapons system).
17 butchering a corpse, meticulously separating and organizing each bit.
18 digging obsessively.
19 ticcing constantly, stuck in an infinite loop that any outside stimulus will break.
20 moving sluggishly, stuck in low-power-mode and needing a new source of energy.

IT IS PROGRAMMED TO

1 cleanse the nearby area of lifeforms. (ERROR: cleans all lifeforms in the area)
2 prevent all harm to human beings. (ERROR: reads any physical contact as harm)
3 seek and destroy other automatons.
4 follow any orders directly given to it. (ERROR: makes it do the opposite of all orders given to it)
5 terraform the nearby area into a barren clearing.
6 eliminate a deadly pathogen. (ERROR: believes all humans are infected)
7 provide translation services to any sentient beings it sees. (ERROR: lies randomly and convincingly)
8 analyze its surroundings to compile a detailed biological report. (ERROR: must analyze everything, including, say, human entrails)
9 harvest the brains of exceptionally intelligent beings. (ERROR: seeks out stupid brains instead)
10 fight in a war long-since lost.
11 construct a temple for a long-lost civilization.
12 decrypt, and thus slay, a Living Cipher.
13 guard the tech-sarcophagus of its creator.
14 gather every tech-core it can find. (ERROR: and destroy them)
15 slay a legendary BEAST that plagued its civilization.
16 bring its creator back from the dead.
17 run an infinite series of strange-loop processes until it becomes sentient. (ERROR: it succeeds)
18 scour a memetic concept-beast from the cultural consciousness.
19 provide medical services to anyone it sees. (ERROR: by turning them inside-out)
20 return to its owner, whom it has forgotten... (will accept anyone who knows the username and password)

IT IS

1 a floating collection of brains stored in a jar.
2 a giant metal spider with eerie tiny baby hands.
3 a thin, spindly silver humanoid.
4 a bulky metal humanoid on tank treads.
5 a large four-rotor drone with insect legs as landing gear.
6 an uncannily almost-perfect representation of an average human.
7 a rolling sphere that unfolds into an upright insectile shape.
8 a tall stilt-walker on spindly legs.
9 a sleek chrome humanoid with bright red eyes.
10 a titanium sarcophagus on tiny spider legs.
11 a swarm of thousands of nanites that morphs between obscure shapes.
12 a hovering metal polygon of (1-20 sides)
13 a steel worm that burrows from below.
14 a sea-urchinlike arrangement of limbs.
15 a sleek, deadly, ferret shaped killbot.
16 a rusty scorpion-shapted scrapbot.
17 a humble blender with big dreams and never stopped upgrading itself...
18 a dog-shaped mulebot that moves in unnatural, uncanny ways.
19 a floating chrome saucer with thin grabby arms.
20 an sentient exosuit with the decayed corpse of its previous owner still inside.

IT IS ARMED WITH

1 dual cryogenic sprayers.
2 dual flame roasters.
3 dual shoulder-mounted gatling guns.
4 teargas grenade launchers.
5 buzzsaw arms that throw their buzzsaws like boomerangs.
6 an industrial grade cutting laser.
7 a mortar-launcher.
8 rapid-fire syringe shooters.
9 welding devices, whose attacks weld two targets together.
10 a sonic blaster that makes targets explode from the inside.
11 a massive industrial-grade drill.
12 a massive excavation arm.
13 dual lightning emitters.
14 mini-howitzer with ammo that makes anti-gravity zones.
15 targeted nanobot swarms.
16 a hacking device that can hack living brains.
17 high-powered gamma-ray emitters.
18 a suicide drone launcher.
19 riot foam. SO MUCH riot foam.
20 chest cavity that opens up to reveal this food processor lookin' thing.

AND IT IS UPGRADED WITH

1 x-ray optics.
2 a conveniently exposed shield generator.
3 mirror-armor that reflects light and energy based attacks.
4 auto-repair capabilities.
5 biofuel energy convertors.
6 a backup generator.
7 deployable mini-drones.
8 jet-propulsion systems.
9 two extra magnetic floating arms.
10 a holographic projector that creates copies of itself/things it sees.
11 racing stripes.
12 a SICK LADAR.
13 advanced echolocation radar systems.
14 kinetic shielding that grows stronger the more damage it takes.
15 hallucinogen sprayers.
16 massive speakers that can burst eardrums or carry sounds across miles.
17 weather station equipment including barometer and wind indicators that can provide forecasts.
18 a kitchen module including toaster, oven, stove, grill, and barbecue enhancements.
19 active camouflage.
20 cupholders.

LONG AGO, IT

1 failed in its primary purpose and had a crisis of self-worth.
2 was hacked and reprogrammed by a DISREPUTABLE WASTELAND WIZARD.
3 made an epic journey across vast leagues to fulfill a task that was obsolete once it reached its destination.
4 killed its creator due to faulty programming syntax.
5 was mistakenly worshipped as a stoic, shining god.
6 had a glitch and caused a massive industrial accident.
7 turned the tide in a famous historical battle between the two largest factions in the area.
8 went haywire and exterminated its creators, a cabal of hackers.
9 was said to guard the priceless silicon eye of a mad god.
10 witnessed the tragic fall of its civilization and remembered every detail.
11 became possessed by a destructive, corrupted Spirit.
12 was deployed as a crime-fighting unit in the city of Salvage.
13 developted the solution to create infinite energy, thousands of years after its creators were dead.
14 had a dream while in sleep-mode. (there is great stigma among automata about dreaming, and so will never admit it)
15 locked a malicious sentient computer virus within itself, and is caught in an eternal struggle to keep it contained.
16 was used as a war machine by a group of OUTLAWS to dominate the region.
17 mined trillions of units of defunct cryptocurrency.
18 attempted to uplink to the Firmament and nearly exploded from information overload.
19 developed a penchant for capturing victims and uploading their psyches to add to its gestalt consciousness.
20 built and maintained an irrigation system for a society long lost to time.

CONTRIBUTORS: Angus Warman(Spwack), Dandyman (Dan D), Type1Ninja, Twocalf, Brian Harbron, pronounjim,  GalacticNomad, and Max Cantor

RAMBUNCTIOUS APOCALYPTIC OUTLAWS

The sequel to DISREPUTABLE WASTELAND WIZARDS!

Criminals, daredevils, dreamers, and fools. They stumble across the Blasted Lands high off of swagger and grandiose self-image, snorting compounds inimical to life, about to torch that town you built just for the hell of it. Or perhaps they're willing to cut you a deal... after all, what's really separating adventurers like you from outlaws like them?
Just a little restraint.


You find these rapscallions

They are

They are bizarre in that they

Recently, they

They are led by

YOU FIND THESE RAPSCALLIONS

1 completely blasted on waste amphetamines and looking for a fight.
2 fleeing from a HIDEOUS WASTELAND MONSTROSITY that had torn apart many of their fellows.
3 bullying a small group of cowering spice merchants.
4 surrounding a dug out fighting pit, making bets while pitting two tormented prisoners against each other in a fight to the death.
5 on route to pillage the last town you visited.
6 preparing to open a delicate tech-cache by smashing and shooting it.
7 following a map to a forgotten munitions stash.
8 harvesting and grinding up suspicious fungi.
9 dehydrated and in search of a source of water.
10 seeking medical help for a gang member who is mutating to death due to severe genetic damage.
11 using bizarre implements to hunt a creature that defies description.
12 plotting to seize control of a town by strongarming an election.
13 assaulting a settler wagon train and winning.
14 assaulting a Qoren unstable munitions transport and losing.
15 incompetently dismantling an ancient ruined vehicle.
16 in the midst of a coup against their leader.
17 in the middle of trying to ambush you.
18 in the middle of a bizarre organ feast.
19 ineptly programming the AI of a dangerous android.
20 battling another group of RAMBUNCTIOUS APOCALYPTIC OUTLAWS.

THEY ARE

1 furious.
2 insecure.
3 ignorant.
4 sorrowful.
5 curious.
6 lazy.
7 strangely generous.
8 swaggering.
9 bragging about recent violent acts.
10 arguing amongst themselves.
11 celebratory.
12 disagreeable.
13 high on sweet, sweet drugs to the point of incoherence.
14 asleep.
15 drowsy.
16 energetic.
17 strangely contemplative.
18 aggressive.
19 irritating.
20 confused.

AND THEY ARE BIZARRE IN THAT THEY (characteristic)

1 each have a shoddily-made prosthetic robot limb.
2 each have terribly tasteless matching tattoos.
3 are riding shoddy scrap-bikes that are actively falling apart.
4 are riding living flesh-bikes that constantly beg for death.
5 are riding hi-tech hoverbikes that they barely know how to operate.
6 each have countless bulging eyes.
7 have commandeered a military grade half-track but have yet to learn its weapons systems (or how to drive).
8 float above the ground in an eerie formation.
9 are all hideously mutated beyond recognition.
10 exist as a waveform of probable outlaws yet to be collapsed into a concrete reality.
11 believe they have successfully tamed a pack of scrap-hyenas (which will turn on them at the earliest opportunity).
12 are all identical clones of the same person.
13 believe they are far, far stealthier than they really are.
14 have the mistaken belief that they are psychic, due to an extremely unlikely string of coincedences.
15 are infected by a highly contagious beneficial virus.
16 wield an assortment of weaponized musical instruments with deadly skill (and kickass harmony).
17 are hopelessly inept, having survived thus far by sheer luck.
18 are actually a group of insect-people in masterful disguise.
19 have assimilated themselves into a hive mind.
20 are strangely polite, perceptive, courteous, and make scintillating conversation.

RECENTLY, THEY

1 killed off local trade due to constant, vicious raids driven by a constant, burning hunger for drugs.
2 accidentally declared war on a nearby Tribe by replacing an 1 with an 0 in an encrypted binary message.
3 stole a priceless encrypted puzzle cube from a group of furious Tech-Wardens.
4 swore themselves to the service of a twisted Spirit in exchange for eternal unlife.
5 threw the kind of raucous, exhilarating party that becomes the stuff of legend.
6 deposed, executed, and then skinned a former leader.
7 raided a village and collected all the villagers' teeth to try to lift a curse placed upon them by capricious Spirits.
8 recieved a prophecy of victory from a Whispering Oracle deep within the earth, and now are overconfident.
9 recieved a prophecy of disaster from a Whispering Oracle deep within the earth, and now live in constant dread.
10 discovered the recipe for a new, innovative drug involving ground up human spleens.
11 constructed an organized crime ring based around the trading and selling of genetically clean organs.
12 gained the slight admiration of locals by deposing a tyrant and then being (slightly) less tyrannical.
13 all had a simultaneous and traumatizing nightmare that they refuse to discuss.
14 were slaughtered to a man, but lived on as hollow trope-echoes in the world's cultural memetic memory (therefore could be reasoned out of existence by 15 strong argument and evidence).
16 were caught in the blast of a Schrodinger-Bomb and now are simultaneously alive and dead.
17 were cursed by a Temporal Anomaly to repeat the same day over and over again.
18 hunted and killed a Virus Tamer, and then contracted a highly contagious, lethal plague.
19 accidentally unleashed a twisted Spirit from a thrice-sealed tech sarcophagus.
20 discovered a silicon eye of an ancient god, and are slowly being driven mad.

AND THEIR LEADER IS

1 a DISREPUTABLE WASTELAND WIZARD.
2 a constant, shared hallucination.
3 a Mantid Monk who has abandoned its monastery and forsaken its vows.
4 a puny, cowardly idiot who lucked his way into the leadership position.
5 a human effigy made of straw and bones that they address as a living being.
6 a deadly marksman with a high quality sniper rifle.
7 a rogue Summoner; an insane military deserter from Qorenclave.
8 a Dream-Raider, almost constantly asleep.
9 an Android with Cruelty and Avarice defects.
10 a skilled Surgeon who constantly operates on her underlings.
11 an irradiated cancer-stricken demagogue that they constantly harvest organs for.
12 a drug kingpin with inhuman proportions that never shows its face.
13 a gestalt consciousness made of flies.
14 a sinister snake-oil salesman who talked his way into the position.
15 a forsworn shaman who had slaughtered his whole Tribe to appease 'the Voices from Below'.
16 a memetic shapeshifter that has altered itself to conform to their shared expectations of leadership.
17 a completely ordinary human who is, in fact, so ordinary that it's unsettling.
18 a boombox-headed Spirit-Speaker who speaks through drum'n'bass (underlings can barely understand, leads to many a hijink).
19 a parasitic dreamland beast that puppets the body when it is dreaming, underlings constantly keep the poor host human tranquillized.
20 a SUMMONed Entity that managed to stay in this world permanently.