The Animus of Xor

Game cancelled so we sat about talking about game settings which inspired content for many blogs to come. Lots of inspirational ideas including Xor, Hell and my Superhero setting (we will have more plane travelling when we run it next so we can do weirder stuff and have TORG style shenanigans and use lots of different RPG settings). A goat adventure seed and some more weird village things too.

Hell thoughts included a patrons of hell who help you kind of escape from hell but might be cons. Also rumours in hell so players can be tempted to go on like all your lost treasure in bottom of hell, honest. Your patrons or rumours might inform you af alternate routes in hell through boiler room, sewers or dungeons instead of the faster gates that make you pass horrible tests. As boiler room is a area of hell between the layers which is used when you need to cheat to get to the next layer I will add a sewer hell as well for a alternate between hell. Possibly my sentient dungeon dimension might be in between layers of hell but would need to be set at higher threat level.

Im mostly done with a d100 evil substances for sale list for a request from a reader via G+. Apparently I am the d100 God now. I scoff at your d30 tables with only two possible outcomes. I like d12 cos it is under used, dam 2d6!

Considered some more racial mod ideas for Xor. Halflings option to reskin as a race of fatties who love comfort and food. Elves reskin option as skinnies - hard working, no fun, logical and efficient who fight the fatties. The fatties fill their trenches with treats and pillows and stoves and snacks so tend to loose. Fattypuffs and Thinifers book i read as a kid is awesome inspiration. More giant babies - colossal baby giants need to be a monster type and a race of baby men (reskin from dwarfs?) who are angry and demand respect (Dr Who Xygons are babymen with suction cups and bio tech fits in with Xor). A more child like reskin of hobbit might be a goer. Mutants and shamans should be character types. Possibly resist urge to redo whole rules set. Have done lots of drawings of buildings, doors, border designs even a prison made of eyestalk posts with barbed wire like growths connecting them like a fence. Have considered more biotech stuff for Xor to replace other tech and some might view Xor as a biological machine (possibly haywire) Dwarf might be good biotech masters who grow houses, weapons and living armour. Some other ideas too for starting native on Xor including using skin colour table and a table of basic mutations and body mods.

Animus is the life force all beings on Xor partake in. Xor itself has the strongest shadow over Xor and is mostly distant and deals with communication on simplest emotional or automatic response. Many spirits make up the remaining animus including spirits of the dead awaiting reincarnation, elementals and evil demon spirits and even the spirits of Xor subsystems which might be more communicative or even more god like. The animus keeps everything living, moving and breathing but also breeding, evolving and mutating.

Animus is one of the four elements of Xor among bone, meat, water and animus. Wizards schools specializing in it are common. Druids have domain over the animus and its use to fertilize and alter life, they recognise Xor for more than individuality or sentience. Priests talk of Xor as i sentient willful being who cares about things besides just growing and living. Evil priests and necromancers are opposite of working with the animus. They trick and misuse it for power and death, they use the ant animus, the negative anti-life force of death. Psionics is a branch of magic that deals directly with the animus and users can manipulate their own spirit to in turn control their own body or manipulate the minds of others. Many psionic spells use remnants of life energy and discarded thoughts and emotions.

Xor and the animus are parts of the same thing but they could manifest as separate. Each is in fact made of many smaller units of cells and spirits that manifest as separate. Xor is not just the world, all beings in Xor are Xor also. There are many strange philosophies on Xor. Monster worship or worship of local terrain features like giant mouths in the earth is common too. Nymphs and sewer monsters and pit beast might be worshipped. Invading elementals or demons or other planar invaders might declare they desire worship. Even warlords or kings or wizards or priests might declare they are gods or prophets who commune with Xor. Elementals on Xor often use local mass to form from with their spirits.

Water - sewerage, urine, milk, blood, sperm, oil, tears, sweat, stomach acid, serum, spit, wax
Earth - bone, desiccated dead skin, feces, scabs, teeth, keratin, smegma, Calloused dead skin
Air - air is available but could include methane, carbon dioxide, might contain strong odours
Fire - is rare on Xor but might include auroras, electrical neural energy or field of rapid oxidisation

This is a table you can add to hex descriptions to see how the Animus of Xor is behaving locally. Its a good thing to roll to have a overall hex event that life is dealing with or use to change a hex players civilise too much. Fighting biological processes can be a adventure or this stuff could just be part of background scenery.

d12 Phenomena could be stopped by...
1 Finding a organ in a subdermal tunnel complex guarded by monsters like trolls
2 Contact the spirit of Xor somehow at a special place of find a archpriest or prophet
3 All because of a comet (a hairy star) that could be traveled to or contacted
4 A lost temple in a underground abandoned citadel swarming with goblins who worship a demon
5 A beast or demon or wizard is to blame and must be killed their hiding place or lair
6 Someone has damaged or taken some organ they found wounding the world, it might be healed
7 Local spirit lord or part or animus spirit must be contacted in a strange magical wilderness area
8 Area has become sick weakening the land spirit and attracting evil and malignant beings
9 Demonic chaos has breached here with several low rank demons or something worse come through
10 Evil cult of necromancers or chaos or worse performing a ritual that must be stopped
11 A mighty wizard, lich lord or greater demon has made a stronghold where it works its evil scheme
12 A special nutrient fed into the right mouth might stimulate the animus to roll a new activity

Maybe the Animus is mad at adventurers?

d20 Animus Activity in this hex
1 Everything in area suffers low fertility and races pray to Xor for children and food
2 Everything in area suffers high fertility and races enjoy plenty of food and children
3 Quakes occur and land changes terrain making mapping difficult and revealing new things
4 New race arrives and sets up a colony with own strange livestock
5 Huge ecological shift and species waging war some even modifying terrain
6 Area being sealed of with barrier of growth, liquid, bone wall making it hard to enter or exit
7 New species appearing and becoming common challenging the local ecology and inhabitants
8 A new mutation appearing in several dominant species possibly warning of changes to come
9 Hex is changing to another terrain type slowly animal life is changing
10 Hex is changing to another terrain type slowly undoing past damage or catastrophe
11 Pocket of other terrain type is spreading and growing slowly or a older one has a few pockets left
12 Spirits of a particular type become more common and deal with local shaman and holy folk
13 Hostile other planar spirits are manifesting and seeking cults and waging war against other creeds
14 Species from earth has somehow migrated here might thrive or die off or adapt or mutate
15 Area has species evolving and adapting to terrain and locals find next generation diferent
16 Area has species devolving becoming bigger, dumber, more savage and children are throwbacks
17 Lower order of life increasing including fungus, slimes, oozes or cancer growths
18 Higher order of life increasing more life intelligent and symbiotic to local terrain on Xor
19 Xor developing more intense interest in area with increase in observation organs like eyes and ears
20 Xor running on autonomous systems reacting to life and problems and evocation with little effort
21 Everything here grossly obese and glutinous from the land of plenty, some creatures die if exerted
22 Everything wiry, scrawny, hungry and mean, might feint from hunger, most desperate to eat
23 Great migration of creatures, possibly with new adaptions come from underwater or underland
24 A major species relied on has migrated away leaving local life hard and desperate
25 Mana rain of mysterious foodstuff falls and when not eaten grows into luscious growths
26 Blight of fungus or cancer or illness strikes area disrupting local food chain
27 Area hotter with warmer ground temperature, a seasonal fever makes everything sweaty
28 Area chillier with ground temperature dropping and life becoming fatter, blubbery or hairier
29 Water level and humidity rising area sweaty with fungus growths and rashes across land
30 Air is dry and surface skin cracking and becoming tired and wrinkly, everything thirsty
31 Life and terrain becomes increasingly hostile and violently carnivorous and territorial
32 Life and terrain becomes sedate and passive, lazing around and becoming uncaringly blissful
33 Life becomes amorous and local monsters and life constantly aroused and some aggressive
34 Swarm of some usually small creature drowns landscape with rivers of migrating critters
35 Bioluminescence common in area often from several common growths or organs or species
36 Area is uncommonly dark and many creatures adapted to nocturnal life come out at night
37 Area is uncommonly bright and can harm eyes, natural reflecting surfaces and shade makers thrive
38 Flesh of Xor has become toxic making many species desperate for food and change diet
39 Hair growth sprout everywhere and on every living thing often moulting occurs seasonally
40 Everything shedding skin like snakes leaving huge loose piles of dried skin and flakes
41 Area is Ill and a unnatural hue comes over the land and infects many living things
42 Area spawning fully grown creatures and babies from pits and holes
43 Faces on landforms previously idiotic or unmoving become active and self aware for a season
44 High number of local creatures begin to use magic or psionic powers
45 High number of local life suffers mutations and some turn into horrible tentacled things
46 Area covered in sores might be lumpy pustules or open bleeding sores
47 Area crowing moles rapidly over land, spreading patches of brown velvet and odd hairy lumps
48 Pits and chasms to the under land opening and creatures from below coming up to look
49 Mountains of alien garbage and off worlders swallowed up from another plane dumped here
50 Prehistoric pods rise to surface releasing ancient long extinct life forms that cause trouble
51 New species or type of human migrated here and interbreeding occurring and potential change
52 Goblins begin sprouting in holes and caves working on some project like altering terrain type
53 Elves or some superior race appears to create a new stronghold in the area and flex their muscles
54 Dwarfs have come to develop a massive project like a biological citadel or bridge or dam
55 Fat dumpy halflings come out of hidden places and start trying to integrate into local populations
56 Goblins in area starting to breed and mutate into hobgoblins and bugbears
57 Locals who have become largest or greedy become ogres over night, mayhem ensues
58 Some one chops up a troll into tiny pieces that grow into a plague of the cancerous horrors
59 Gnomes are discovered thriving burrow villages hidden from men and sculpt Xor flesh kindly
60 Orcs begin to grow from areas with bogs of dead skin and rancid body fluids accumulate
61 Throwback ecology as dinosaurs and lizard men emerge from subdermal cyst looking for war
62 Throwback ecology of fishmen arise from tadpoles in primal ooze
63 Swaying fleshy tendrils emerging from ground for a season seems harmless but hypnotic
64 Narcotic bleeding flesh flowers emerge for a few days inducing hallucinations and pacifism
65 Gnomes grow from earth, hang around people judging them morally through song and dance
66 Elves or some other strange race are seducing humans with pheromone potions for breeding
67 Derro dwarves in underworld manipulate local animus and peoples moods with psionic weapon
68 Dark dwarves reveal a fortress that bursts from the ground, functional and full of angry dwarfs
69 Morlock dwarfs arive and build a hidden slave camp and kidnapping spree for slaves and food
70 Locals found a ancient eldren citadel, just a few dreamy immortals inside, villagers want loot
71 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life amourous and hybridised
72 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life fights and eat each other
73 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life euphoric and empathic
74 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life finds places to hibernate a season
75 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life hide in sealed homes
76 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life flees area in great swarms
77 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life flatulent and ground vents flammable gas
78 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life locates to a shelter or shrine or monument
79 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones life and terrain changes skin colours
80 Strange new growth emerge releasing pheromones trigger gender changing
81 Land and life become youthful and gleamingly optimistic restoring fertility to many older beings
82 Land and life become aged and wrinkly, slower and confused making most life infertile
83 Electrical activity from neural surges creates storms or auroras in the sky, headaches increase
84 Blindness for several days strikes all living adult creatures after they remark they see colour better
85 Collective mind of all life becomes attuned, performs some feat of terrain or astral engineering
86 Unimind of all life forms sends emanation to space then everything returns to normal
87 Psychic phenomena like poltergeists and petty spirits abound keeping shamen busy
88 All life becomes sentient and able to speak for a season, 5% permanently changed
89 Every living thing receives impression of a enemy being or creature the animus wants destroyed
90 Every living thing in hex informed of a corrupted with sickness location and avoids it unless evil
91 Everyone can see normally invisible spirits for a night swimming and swarming everywhere
92 Every living thing passes out for an hour and nobody has any idea what happened in that time
93 Undead semi absorbed corpses burst from the ground and roam about looking for moving meat
94 Giant or dragon or dinosaur emerges from long slumber and goes on a hungry rampage
95 Kobolds or gremlins or gnomes swarm dancing, pranking and drinking all the fermented drinks
96 Hex ecology begins to overflow and invade a adjacent hex which might not meet local approval
97 Animus has confined band or party of outsiders by letting them occupy a village to keep them still
98 Whole hex rises above neighboring lands and new mountains grow in a year log growth spurt
99 A infected cyst deep in the underworld bursts erupting diseased monsters and chaos to surface
100 A previously damaged or scarified or sick area heals over a season or faster with help