Friday 22 November 2013

d100 Saucy Posters and Flyers of Shadel Port

Junkmail is an underrated field in fantasy RPG and there is plenty of prime advertising space in many fantasy settings. This blog is to change that.

In Shadel Port paper is the cheapest on Free Erth so the advances in printing and technology are superior to all the Third Empire and the Dragon Empire of the far East. Shadel Port is a fascist dictatorship with mutant ghettos, secret police, hidden dungeons and tunnels, and worse. But it has free press as long as Barron not mocked or disrespected. That is torture or death if judge feels mercy. Free to print wild slander, personal secrets of your enemies, advertising for your show or cult, whatever. A foriegn Noble remarked the people of Shadel Port have the most shit free bums in the world for the kindly waifs who give them out paper in the street. others think they are collectable and virtually any worth a copper or even a silver in other lands. Some sailors collect and sell them on side and they even have become valued at least a copper piece. Some are stained or unpopular and prices may vary tavern to tavern. Some abandon them in latrines, carriages, hotels and restaurant tables. Locals may refuse to accept "paper junk money".

Nightly lads roam the streets to paste the town. They avoid the law who beat and imprison them. Some posters are handed out as smaller flyers or even sold as artworks, novelties or even official religious blessing posters with motivational slogans of the prophets such as: "Hang in there Kobold". Flyers are distributed by children who when older become pasters  Many practice graffiti on the side for fun, art,  revenge, dissent or insanity. Some get recruited by galleries, guilds, secret police, gangs, cults and more. They are local heroes in places where gangs victims are most broke and out of control. Gangs control popular walls and districts for own or tax paying authorised pasters. Outsiders may be ignorant about this code. Nobody covers Barron's edicts within a month (not much as they have use by date stamps on them).

The Barron is Lawful Evil and some say in one of his dungeons is an entrance to the Nine Hells. They say that about the super volcano that is Monster Island goes to Tiamat's Volcano in Hell. Hmmmm. He has besides many freedoms and high literacy the only nation with conscription of commoners. Other nations fear and joke about this. Common men well fed with clothes and weapons have won every battle agains warrior aristocrats and barbarian nobility. Scum from across the world come to Shadel Port, most end up in a slum, laves or dead  if they have little labour. Undead and goblinoid labour are hard to compete with for weak men. The masked secret police serve him directly and are fanatics. Many agents are watched by magical scrying devices or guardian spirits. Some of the leaders of this force are aid to be part devil.

add B&W flyer or sample free or 1cp
large A3 B&W versions 4cp
large A2 B&W versions 6cp
large A1 Spot colour or duotone 1sp
large A3 three colour versions 1sp
large A3 B&W hand coloured map or artwork 1gp

a bucket, and brush 10cp
a bucket of glue 1cp
a broom for big high jobs 3cp

Images with women most collectable and increase in value, especially if art good. Theatre shows, maps and artworks also popular.

B&W unless stated as having colour.

d20 General Type of poster
1 Wanted - offers to buy and sell goods
and bounties offered by the state on state enemies
2 Live Show - performances sell seats with posters and
3 JobAds - flyers for job wanted and men selling skills, seeking
apprentices, selling slaves
4 Hoax - practical joke or fake made by anarchists or the secret police as a trap
5 Slander - personal abuse about some mighty citizen or racist trash talk (No elves!)
6 Official New Edicts - new rules, statutes, zoning permits, condemned and banned goods
7 News - groups put up teasers of their stories of their small press and broadsheets
8 Merchant Ads - processed foodstuffs, household goods, clothes, shops and stores
9 Political - political posters for guild, union, students, city officials or State propaganda
10 Doomsday Warnings - warnings of perils and end of the world is coming

11 Poems - popular poems may have many genres, some sold by bards for popular use
12 Artwork - popular editions of fine art for common mounting in the home or workplace
13 Cartoon
- popular print image often scandalous, lurid and tabloid 
14 Portrait - popular leaders, holy folk, actresses, prostitutes and other popular persons
15 Exotic Language - poster commissioned in exotic foreign or non human language.
16 Medicine -
ads for miracle cures, treatments, healers, exorcists, priests
17 Pornography -
brothel ads and filthy trash art for sailors, rakes, old perverts
18
Religious - holy prayer and motivational quotes, some illuminated or hand coloured
19 Danger! - local warning about some recent hazard in area
20
Arcane and Occult - magical signs, portents and signs, ads for magicians

d100 Saucy Posters and Flyers of Shadel Port
These more specific examples. Some have a price.

1 Offering fees for information on certain persons and places or industries or streets
2 Offering d10xd6 silver reward for head of criminal, gold if alive
3 Reward d6xd6 silver for information about a particular crime or offer to buy goods back
4 Request to buy or sell a magic item, weapon or armour
5 Request to buy sell or trade merchant goods
6 Ad for discounted flawed or stolen goods
7 Ad for cursed magic item, weapon or armour
8 Employer offering work d4 1=labour 2=criminal racket 3=assault or murder 4=proper job
9 Worker offering services with biographies, portraits, fancy calling cards, references, etc
10 Buying, selling or trading apprentices, parents keen to offload children as
11 Buying and trading slaves and convict labourers
12 Buying and trading household servants, often sold by parents with life contracts
13 Buying and selling and trading livestock
14 Fake official decree mocking the establishment and spreading discomfort
15 Strange artwork causing slight discomfort and alienation from existence
16 Vandalised poster modified into something else, possibly just dicks drawn on them
17 The Yellow Sign make a WIS save or accumulate enigmatic Hastur factor points*
18 Crude angry dirty poems about ex-lovers bad habits and awfulness
19 Public denouncements such as a rich person says they "never done it"
20 Racial slurs complaining about goblinoids or demihumans or beastfolk or mutants
21 Scandalous character assassination, tell tall stories about important persons
22 New petty law about zoning, parking, turnip tax, litter, anti-corpse in well dumping policy
23 New laws threatening treason or tax fraud with torture, death or imprisonment
24 New laws threatening banned cults, gangs, goods, magic items, dark arts, new vices
25 New laws anti dealing in forbidden magic, arms, drugs, gunpowder, curses, potions
26 Print of the city featuring civic buildings, palaces and bridges
27 Portrait of the Barron with montage of city history and peoples looking a stern guardian
28 Portrait of the Emperor with symbols of status and power and the sun god
29 Portrait of a religious leader, holy person, hermit, monk saint, priest, angel or god 
30 Portrait of the local wardmaster or guild or union leader often for elections 
31
Portrait of great heroes, warriors, scoundrels and wizards looting dungeons
32 Portraits of the Barron in his black mask with heads of a dragon, demon and giant 
33 Portrait of the emperor with imperial regalia, symbols and his golden throne and family
34 Offencive poem ridiculing somebody with sexual innuendo
35 Posters of the mad young emperor as a scary tyrant striking madly, draped if finery
36 Charicarature of Emperor as effeminate dandy looking in mirror having sex with relative
37 Buy Xyaggazigs Brushes, the best magic brushes your home can get
38 Alchemical brewers Incorporated brew batches of potions at a discount
39 Ad for a local corner store like baker, butcher, farmer, dairymaid
40 Finest wizard robes come to Danex direct, imports, local, best prices widest range
41 Best meat comes from Donnisar's butchery and slaughterhouse, free treat for every child
42 Morefax general supplies - needs for everyone from home owners to dungeon delvers
43 Tobendaar iron rations are the best iron rations - there good for you
44 24 tonnes of rice in harbour tomorrow, wharf auction, warehouse 25 of dolphin head lane
45 Lady Ellington and sex slave orc scandal -full story in Shadel Port dock workers paper
46 Trade tensions with Empire worsen since recent talks full story in maritime guild daily
47 Do not trust the Mortiford family, they are all a bunch of stuck up bloodsuckers
48 Miss Lillian Duverte is not a virgin nor innocent, despite her fathers guards and thug
49 Master Chartford is a lying fake, his maps got my friends killed, curse his family and pets
50 Vote for Karl Mantiforte as ward leader of district 42, he is honest and licks the corrupt
51 Embarrassing pro mayor
wrestling a lion (a bit creepy and sexual) put up by fansboys 
52 First part of a saucy poem with where you can buy the rest for only d4 cp
53 Come see the dancing harlots in the dance of the vampire bats, sold out shows
54 Amazing Arnoud's Animal circus, freaks, acrobats, clowns, puppets, live decapitations!
55 Harbourside sideshows with games of skill and chance, fortune tellers and animal fights
56 Hall of hideous mutants, live vivisection and adult only shows not fit for clergy or ladies
57 Tally's Pit fighting arena for gentlemen, boxing sword fighting, women and dwarf fights!
58 Come to the theatre for smashing night out, experience culture or laugh with commoners
59 Discount magic weapons and treasures, come to Barneys Forge, one day only
60 Obey the Barron, hey fights for freedom from tyranny and want! one of many in series
61 Orphans the cheapest in town, do as you will them to, beaten into obedience by experts
62 Scarlet comet coming to destroy world, donate to temple of Anu or else!
63 Rats in your house tired and listless? Coughing? your house might have the plague!
64 Mutants! keep them in the ghetto where they belong, by the dockers union
65 Map of the empire 1cp small, 1sp large, colour 1gp
66 Dungeon maps, bought and sold, many proven gold winners at Old Tom's dungeon maps
67 Prints of naked ladies (some go too far!) with details on where to purchase copy
68 Popular print "The path of virtue" showing how to live the good life
69 Popular satirical print "The path of vice" showing exactly where to find depraved city life
70 Ad for brothel featuring portraits of pretty girls, 1in6 specialised in unusual types
71 Ad for poster printing and pasting services or removing posters and graffiti
72 Ad to recover stolen goods or bounty hunting or assassination or mercenary services
73  Beware of Elves or giants or mutants or dwarves posters put up by paranoid haters
74 Repent at the temple before it is too late, doomsday coming with colour art
75 Warning about entering ruins for unauthorised looting
76 Why not join the Army or Marines: Free Boots, meat every day, respect for life! 
77 Secret police posters: Have you been plotting?, Traitors always get found, and others
78 Colour poster of the great emperors taken from old coins with empire map
79 Map of the Empire or the occupied lands of the island, colour 1gp
80 Map of city with districts, some second hand scrawled with notes
81 Shock broadsheet headline: Barron bans baby eating bastards!
82 Shock broadsheet headline: Barron bans baby eating bastards!
83 Shock broadsheet headline: Barron bans baby eating bastards!
84 Shock broadsheet headline: Barron bans baby eating bastards!
85 Non human or exotic foreign language poster, mostly ads
86 Add seeking women for wives , concubines, prostitutes of religious rites
87 Escaped slave or criminal or bridegroom wanted poster
88 Miracle pox cure ointment, the seamans friend!
89 Ad for local brothel or prostitute or sex act, highly collectible by foreign sailors
90 Ad for local show often with ladies, bizarre physical feats, magic or animal acts
91 Ad for local bar or concert or theatre show, often brightly coloured and repeated
92 Every day children disappear into the city sewers: are yours next? public warning
93 Posters with diabolic runes demanding obedience and servitude to the Barron forever
94 Gladiator battle festival this weekend! Men, beast and monsters die for honour
95 Who will live and die in the Dungeon of Death this week? Ask your local bookmaker
96 Dungeon maps sometimes distributed by monsters or disgruntled failed adventurers
97 Crew needed for pirate raider, must be heartless stone cold killers with love of the sea
98 Ad for upcoming religious or other local festival day with celebrations abound
99 Cheap convict slave boat arriving soon, don't miss your chance for these cheap slaves!
100 Temple seek brave men for quest, risk and reward in this life and the next!

1d3 times a year you roll vs this score - if roll under get a horrible encounter with polypy white undead or insectoid demon or cultists

3 comments:

  1. This and the pamphlet post are awesome. Makes me want to whip some up and leave them on the table before each game session.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i saw them - they are great - a zine full would be nice - id happily make some up...

      Delete
    2. That would be fun. I've been wanting to do somethiing zine-ish for while now (have not done one in what feels like forever).

      Delete

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