Thirty Acquaintances from the Fog (Outshire)

 Remember Outshire? 

Here are thirty powerful Foglings for a wizard to conjure, associate with, bribe, and be cursed by. They’ll function perfectly well as fairy princes for any other game, though, I wager. 

1. Suppermoth

Lord Suppermoth, Old Stringer, Ríagalta, Mister Bloody Tea, Wicked Wilfred, Straightwarp 

When interacting with humans, he appears in grey and green garments, five centuries or more out of fashion and very dusty, with a thickly powdered wig. He has black half-moon glasses, darker eyes, and black circular blots on his face like somebody stubbed out a cigar on him. Hunched, creeping, constantly itching at something, twitching from something. His skin feels rough, like old cloth.  

Upon arrival, he sets up a tea party, and begins to establish each guest’s position in the social hierarchy. 

Conveyance: A carriage, made of discarded tableware, wooden debris and thick fabric, pulled by handsome “horses” with many shining black eyes, slender legs, and obscuring jackets of expensive green tweed. 

Demeanour: Polite, hidebound, anxious, neurotic, occasionally vicious. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Manners, Hierarchy, Sleeping People, Dancing, History, Things That Number Eight, Social Obligations, Traditions

Specific Hatreds: Fire, Naked Blades, Loud Noises, Talkative Peasants, Revolution 

Manic Obsessions: Textiles, City Gates, Braids, Waltzing, Social Debuts, Order 

Preferred Payments: Rare Delicacies, Tapestries, Invitations to Social Events 

Token: A small silver bell, to be rung.

Table Manners? Flawless. If circumstance causes Suppermoth to be rude at the table, he maims himself penitentially. 

Servants: 

• Delicate Footmen - 1HD - Slender-limbed, precise, gracile and dark-eyed, dressed to match their master, like old-fashioned servants. Slinking, sly, silent, give flirtatious looks when Suppermoth isn’t looking. Bloodsucking lancelike tongues. 

• Masked Knights - 3HD - Tall, long-limbed men. Very pale and waxy, with combed-back hair. Wear oddly modern green frock coats, cashmere trousers in grey, and dark circular sunglasses. Carry revolvers inside their coats, but when they really want to kill someone, razor-tipped black chitin limbs stab out of the palms of their hands. 

• Undelicate Footmen - 5HD - Thick limbed and wider than oxen. Have a full-body covering of thick, bristly black hair, striped with orange, which pokes out of their ill-fitting outfits. Their heads are simply gigantic, wet mouths, with a stinking moustache above like horns of hair, and a massive beard reaching to their navel below. Tiny eyes, dark and shiny like buttons, hide in the moustache-hair. Dreadfully strong, utterly mannerless, efficiently brutal. 

2. Flawfinder 

Inquisitor Often, Monsignor Muttering, Lord Eyeglass, Prodpoke, Judge Beak, Peter Pricker 

When interacting with humans, he appears as a tall, hunched, wide-shouldered man, with light blue skin, a prominent, pointed nose, and huge dark eyes, within which shimmer an otherworldly luminance. He has shiny, waxy blonde hair and long, slender hands. He wears a dark coat with a great high collar, massive lapels, and huge cuffs that try to engulf his hands. The interior pockets rattle with metal and glass, or rustle with paper and cloth.  

Upon arrival, Flawfinder will carefully inspect the face of everyone present with magnifying glass, thermometer, callipers, acupuncture needles, and so on, then cross-reference them against a huge binder full of information on his myriad cases and pursuits.  

Conveyance: An approximation of an high-set motorcar, made of unconnected rattling mechanical parts, coughing steam and dribbling black oil. Finely upholstered seats are filthy with oil and grime. 

Demeanour: Intent, prying, judgemental, grouchy, envious. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Standards of Behaviour, Forensics, Childbirth, Criminal Investigations, The Vices of the Famous, Secrets Told to Nobody. 

Specific Hatreds: Locked Doors, Frailty, Stupidity, Vice, Addiction, Fast Music.

Manic Obsessions: Virtue, Mothers, Philanthropy, Causes of Bad Behaviour, Social Decay

Preferred Payments: Public Justice for Misdeeds, Fine Glassware, Clues

Token: A sharp piece of dark blue glass. 

Table Manners? Makes no mess, but has no sense of etiquette. 

Servants:

• Inquirers - 1HD - Mostly human, apart from their mirrored eyes and twine-like hair. Dressed darkly and modernly, in huge coats and bowler hats. Observe and record. Sometimes mistaken for foreign journalists, or secret government agents. 

• Charitors - 3HD - Matronly, rotund figures, dressed like All-Church nuns, wearing huge bottle glasses and cotton face-masks. Slow-moving and precise. They protect the weak, except if Flawfinder deems them unsalvageable. Syringes extend from their fingers, restoring HP, removing pain, or inflicting drowsiness with a prick. 

• Inspectors - 5HD - Lumbering, long-legged and gangly. Navy-blue straightjackets, long necks, and heavy metal scissor heads like perverse beaks. Searchlight eyes burn off disguises, illusions and enchantments. Garden-fork feet crush, impale and tear. Flightless, and oddly afraid of flying things. Sent for difficult cases.

3. Witherly

Lady Witherly, Mother Huntress, Madam Branches, Maggie Lace, Eyeslice, The Unmarried Lady 

High-booted and kid-gloved, when interacting with humans. She appears in the dress of a country aristocrat, clad in a mixture of stout tweed, and pellucid, lacy chiffon. Sadly, all ruined with a significant quantity of blood. Some of the blood seems to come from the wounds in her slender neck - tall, strong and pale like a castle tower. The rest is not hers. She carries a large, old-fashioned rifle, rusty and wrecked, and a shooting-stick, much the same. Belted by her waist, a perpetually bloody sword, of the kind old aristocrats swaggered with. Her face is a porcelain mask, precisely symmetrical, with red lips and red eyes. Her black and gory hair hangs in the air, like she is under deep water. 

Upon arrival, she will hand you a freshly killed animal corpse, and recommend you take a bite. 

Conveyance: A headless and rotting horse, bridled with bloody rawhide and sharp hooks.

Demeanour: Arch, languid, coy, sadistic, psychotic. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Hunting, The Forest, Serial Killers, Dissection, Murder Scenes, Vivisection, Autopsy, Assassins, Victims of Murder

Specific Hatreds: Drunks, Burnt Bodies, Realistic Art, Motor Vehicles 

Manic Obsessions: Viscera, Cartography, Firearms, Edged Weaponry, Cheating Husbands 

Preferred Payments: An Afternoon’s Sport, Interesting Corpses, Detailed Maps 

Token: A teacup, to be filled with blood. 

Table Manners? Aristocratic, but with animalistic habits, if meat is being served. 

Servants: 

• Fine Game - 1HD - Beautiful, slightly-ethereal men and women, with very soft skin, pretty hair and bright red lips. They’re dressed in nothing but skimpy animal hides and stupid little horned headbands. They regenerate from most any injury they suffer near-immediately, but are mostly harmless. They love to be shot, impaled and cut apart. 

• Groundskeepers - 3HD - Heavy-bodied, clubfooted men, clad in thick tweed, with briary faces and scuffed flat caps. Armed with guns, axes, billhooks and giant shears. Move slowly, but deliberately, and are very good at blending into darkness. 

• Trophy-swains - 5HD - Huge, extremely muscular men, bollock-naked and covered in scars. Their heads are replaced by those of stags, bulls, wolves or lions. They have hunting-trophies, animal-parts and hides sewn directly into their skin, and wield huge axes and executioners’ swords. 

4. Crushmill 

Giant Crushmill, Bone-grinder, Aglæca, Grandfather Growler, Old Chain, Airhater, Cloudshooter, Thunderfeet 

Five times the height of a tall man, Giant Crushmill is banded with the colours of stone, clad only in lichen and moss. His head is over-tall and craggedy, and his hands are seven-fingered. Upon every finger is a crude bronze ring set with a luminous, perfect gem. His beard is like thick hanging moss, heavy with dust and dripping with water. His brows are two massive beetles that scuttle about his forehead to make expressions, and his eyes are two luminous rainbow gems, which cast beams of light when he is awake. 

Upon arrival, he uncurls from the fetal position, rising from an impossibly deep slumber. He will recount, to anyone listening, all the geological dreams he has just had, which can be used to predict the future (of geology). 

Conveyance: A flood of mud, ice-shards, rocks and dirty water, which washes him into sight like an iceberg. 

Demeanour: Ponderous, stubborn, grandfatherly, philosophical, occasionally incoherent. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Landslides, Ruins, Soil, Stone, Spinal Cords, Geology, Pressure, Living Things Older Than Fifty

Specific Hatreds: Timidity, Flight, Aircraft, Rude Children, Gambling, Lightning 

Manic Obsessions: Refinement, Deep Time, Dreams, Fragility, Resilience 

Preferred Payments: Cut Gems, Stone Sculptures, Airship Crashes 

Token: A cracked-open geode of significant weight. You may need a cart to take it home. 

Table Manners? Would be excellent, had he a table sized for himself. 

Servants:

• Emets - 1HD - Small, dark-eyed women with stone-grey skin, black eyes and black teeth. They wear shiny black armour, and carry huge shiny shears. Incredibly strong, despite their fragility, and move in large groups. Laconic, diligent, efficient, always hungry. 

• Brōcs - 3HD - Large, grey-haired men, with iron-grey skin, white eyes, and white fangs. Resemble unwelcoming grandfathers in furs, byrnies and cloaks. Quite strong, but even more durable, repelling mundane weaponry. Quiet, brave, honourable, occasionally fly into a rage. 

• Moldywarpes - 5HD - Gigantic fuzzy-soft men with heavy hands. Covered in midnight black fur all over, with tiny luminous eyes that cast rainbow beams like bullseye lanterns. Claws of flint and scent of soil. Presaged by sucking mudpits, able to move under the surface of the soil with a great rumbling. Intelligent enough to learn spells and to bribe people. When not speaking or burrowing, perfectly silent, make no footsteps or prints.  

5. Hastily

Lady Go, Lieutenant Luck, Hastings, Madam Crop, Broad Bessie, General Panic, Captain Overrun

When interacting with humans, she takes the shape of a muscular, very tall, and very broad-shouldered woman, with flaxen hair, a heavy, ruddy face, and a spiralling horn projecting from her forehead. She wears a semi-old-fashioned military uniform, all of it slightly small and ill-fitting. A long tailed, double-breasted ochre jacket with shiny brass buttons, red-brown jodhpurs, high black boots with spurs and toe-spikes, all topped off by a towering black shako with a horsehair crest. By her waist, she carries a pair of cap-and-ball revolvers and a big murderous knife. 

Upon arrival, Hastily barges into whatever situation was going on and takes command, literally or otherwise, arranging everyone according to unseen rules contained exclusively in her heavy head.

Conveyance: A lathered, exhausted-looking black stallion, in military barding. 

Demeanour: Generous, rambling, overfamiliar, easily amused, wilfully ignorant.

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Duels, Flanking Actions, Desperate Last Stands, Heroism, Charisma, Friends in High Places, Prospects of Promotion, Military Hierarchies, Generals

Specific Hatreds: Sourness, Cowards, Daughters Disloyal to Mothers, Card Games, Pride 

Manic Obsessions: Riding Animals, Cannons, Sweetness, Cavalry, Honour, Breasts 

Preferred Payments: Honey and Sugar, Well-Bred Race-Horses, Authentic Medals 

Token: A shiny brass medal, with an irregular seven pointed star and a ribbon banded yellow and pink.

Table Manners? Passable, but she monopolises conversation insufferably. 

Servants:

• Stablehands - 1HD - Small, timid women with horses’ ears and hooved feet (shod in steel). They wear sunshine-yellow dresses and heavy leather gloves, and react to everything Hastily does with wide-eyed, semi-romantic adulation and praise. Slightly dopey, mostly harmless. 

• Dragoons - 3HD - Cavalrymen astride black warhorses, wearing ochre-and-gold uniforms in the style of the last century. They’re armed with short carbines, long curved sabres, and have razor-sharp metal spikes in place of their faces. Brave beyond reason, not very intelligent, but honourable. 

• Slippers - 5HD - Gigantic freakass dun horses, with three heads, eight legs and two tails apiece. More or less immune to mundane weaponry due to their thick and twisted musculature, they can cross a county in a single dark night, run down a fleeing horse, or smash through a brick wall, all with the same wild-eyed, foaming, homicidal panic. 

6. Lornluck 

Master Lornluck, Prince Poverty, The Marionettist, Pipsqueak, Twodice, Gamnian, Little Maple-Wood, Young Stringer 

When interacting with humans, Lornluck’s small frame drops in from above on thick fraying strings. They’re tied to his limbs, and to iron rings set into his wooden accoutrements, at shoulders, elbows, hips, and the back of the neck. He is dressed in a sky-blue kerchief, all ragged, and a thick, worn blue woolen jacket. His head is encased in a wooden mask, depicting a puppet-head with painted eyes, a peg-nose and a hinged jaw. Likewise, his torso is locked within a painted wooden shirt, and his arms and legs are clad in painted, polished maple. But is he a puppet? A neck of soft skin is visible there, veined blue. 

Upon arrival, Lornluck hands you two six-sided dice, and asks you to roll. The closer to twelve you get, the less he likes you, because you’re lucky. (For the GM: reverse Lornluck’s Reaction Rolls) 

Conveyance: His strings, which lower him out of the Fog and suspend him off the ground. 

Demeanour: Morose, fatalistic, hangdog, unkind, loves gallows humour. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: The Destitute, Flood Control, Loans,  Theatres, Condemned Criminals, Bad Luck, Superstitions, Curses, Those At Death’s Door 

Specific Hatreds: Lucky People, The Extremely Wealthy, Minimalist Theatre, The Colour Yellow, Debtors  

Manic Obsessions: Gambling, Marionettes, Subtlety, Bad Actors, The Afterlife, Perfectness

Preferred Payments: Favours, Manipulations, Game Boards and Pieces

Token: A six-sided die, made of polished maplewood, with blue pips. The one is an eye. 

Table Manners? No worse than the average churl of Outshire. 

Servants

• Chancers - 1HD - Greasy, easy-going fellows, resembling malnourished men dressed in black rags and plain wooden masks, with strings tied tight around their necks, trailing off behind them. Appear to serve Lornluck unwillingly, to pay him back for something. If they do something Lornluck dislikes, the string around their neck goes taut, and yanks them off or up, out of sight. Almost remarkable in their lack of other skills and capacities. 

• Sorrowfuls - 3HD - Strange women dressed in black and white, with old-fashioned bonnets, faces like painted wooden masks, and baskets of black and white flowers. The flowers are poisonous, and they have long shiny daggers up their sleeves. Can spread massive black-and-white wings and take to the air, when needed. Settle Lornluck’s debts when people don’t pay him back. 

• Giant Hands - 5HD - Reach from the Fog on giant arms. Move around carriages and wagons like toy pieces between finger and thumb. Whump houses flat with a heavy palmstrike. Wind back for punches that derail trains and crash airships. Can’t be meaningfully killed, but if you deplete their HP, you’ll break a finger or snap a nail in a bloody way, and the hand whips away back into the Fog with a rumbling wince like thunder. 

Alfred Sisley

7. Tinecase

Knifegrinder, Mister Tinecase, Peregrine Pointer, Errementari, Ne’er-again, Badleg, The Keen One, Fair-manners 

When interacting with humans, Tinecase appears as a well-turned out, clean, fastidious sort of gentleman, dressed all in dark grey, save for a red cravat. His frock coat is buttoned up to his long neck, and atop his head he wears a dark grey silk top hat, with a red ribbon. Oddly enough, to complete the outfit, he wears a pair of old-fashioned manacles with broken chains on his wrists. He walks with a limp. His face is olive-skinned and handsome, aside from a single strange flaw. It lies across the sinister side of his face, not quite a scar, more like a stress-fracture in metal. It destroys one of his eyes, diverts the straight, narrow line of his nose, and quirks a corner of his mouth into a permanent lopsided frown. He is always carrying a black leather briefcase. 

Upon arrival, Tinecase begins to pull an inexplicable amount of folding furniture out from his briefcase, setting up a sort of merchant’s stall wherever you’ve met him. 

Conveyance: A plain, durable motorcar, with long running-boards, a smoking engine, and slender spoked wheels. Tinecase drives it himself, wearing goggles while doing so. 

Demeanour: Dispassionate, diligent, intelligent, paranoid, creative. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Swords, Flags, Forges, Dexterity, Mineshafts, Metallurgy, Volcanoes, Railways, Motorcars, Exhaustion

Specific Hatreds: Dry Textures, Rain, Pigeons, Rust, Puns, Cheats, Mud, Binding Oaths, Monarchy, Aircraft 

Manic Obsessions: Edged Weapons, Heroism, Skill, Hard Work, Commerce, Imprisonment, Borders 

Preferred Payments: Large-Denomination Paper Money, Unusual Metals, Herbal Gin

Token: A small whetstone. 

Table Manners? Excellent, if old-fashioned. 

Servants

• Decoys - 1HD - Exact visual replicas of Tinecase’s human disguise. Speak with his voice, have his manners, have his facial flaw, and carry briefcases - though, inside theirs, there are only hundreds of knives. About as resilient as potmetal. Seem to have no will of their own. 

• Secretaries - 3HD - Shimmering winged heat-hazes, with bodies of smoke, fiery eyes, and womens’ voices, turned usually to harsh ends. Braggadocious and passionate, they only behave politely in the physical presence of Tinecase (or his Decoys, because they can’t tell). Ignite fires, appear uninvited, bully the shit out of you if you show weakness. They appear to attack anyone they believe has wronged Tinecase, usually without him requesting or implying they should do so. 

• Assistants - 5HD - They are very rarely seen, for they move through soil like water, and very rarely feel a need to surface. You will only know of their presence in shaking earth, sinkholes, collapsing foundations, and burning vents opening up underfoot. If somehow dragged to the surface, they appear as massive, coal-black faceless men, with fiery holes in the palms of their huge hands, and legs snapped off above the knee. 

8. Griptackle 

Stranglehands, Master Low-Roads, Many Limbs, Fingerchurl, Toothy, Little Grip, Scuttle, Mountain-son, Darklume 

When interacting with humans, Griptackle takes the shape of a large, milk-white, human-like creature, with eight pairs of long arms and six pairs of long legs, an extended, sinuous torso, thin hips, and a head made up of two huge projecting sawlike jaws with a single large eye perching beside them. The eye is pallid and bloodshot, and in their mouth is a long, green tongue that numbs at a touch. Griptackle glows a luminous blue-green in the dark, and likes to do so. 

Upon arrival, Griptackle scuttles across the floor and jams themselves into the nearest small space that will fit them, and doesn’t come out until the conversation’s over. If met in total darkness, Griptackle may extract themselves slightly earlier, if the conversation is enjoyable. 

Conveyance: A spiral-walled tunnel, full of luminous insects, that opens in the nearest stone surface. 

Demeanour: Irritable, socially clumsy, fearful, shy, occasionally morose. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: The Lonely, Violent Tendencies, Wells, Strength, Trespassers, Claustrophobia, Blindness, Watchmen, Campfires, Agoraphobia, Sealed Places, Back Alleys, Tunnels, Cellars

Specific Hatreds: Crowds, Pesticides, Markets, Open Spaces, Pursuit, Loud Noises, Champions, Feasting Halls

Manic Obsessions: Safety, Invulnerability, Monstrousness, Difference, Admiration, Love, Buttocks  

Preferred Payments: Bags of Silver Coins, Tobacco, Poems

Token: A bioluminescent insect husk. 

Table Manners? Very bad in all areas under consideration.  

Servants

• Wild Eyes - 1HD - Huge human eyeballs teetering around on tall, slender insect legs. Their eyes cast a cone of weird violet light, and they flee more or less any danger. Griptackle sees exactly what they see, and (if one happens to be in danger) roots for it from a great distance like someone watching a baby animal trying to outrun a predator in a nature documentary. 

• Silent Mouths -  3HD - Bell-shaped creatures with hundreds of tiny cilia-like legs. The mouth of the “bell” is, in fact, a gigantic mouth, leading into an acidic, tooth-filled interior. The silent mouths use their hundreds of little legs to dig into sand or soil, then sit, mouth open, awaiting a meal. Griptackle tastes exactly what they taste. 

• Whittles - 5HD - A massive thing with no front or back, an undifferentiated, cloaklike mass of diaphanous living material, warm and stifling, it flies on the night-winds with great ease to drop on someone and cut them off from the life-giving air. Griptackle feels what they feel. It’s unclear how (or if) they see. 

9. Leadenlay 

Lord and Lady Smoke, Sooty, Path-Finder, Tall-tales, Findtones, Tamefire, Open-the-way, Swagger-much 

When interacting with humans, Leadenlay appears as a tall, beautiful, androgynous figure, with gunmetal grey skin, shining coppery hair in box-braids, and brass-coloured irises. They wear a wide brimmed white hat, with a black ribbon, a white shirt, strange little stringy tie, a heavy fringed white jacket, and black leather over-trousers. They have a pair of holstered revolvers, and exceedingly loud, jangling spurs. When they’re in a bad mood, their glares put holes in things. They usually don’t use this on wizards - too much hassle. 

Upon arrival, Leadenlay swaggers to the nearest seat and starts telling an outlandish story. Don’t you dare interrupt, no matter how winding the story ends up being.  

Conveyance: Either a chestnut mare with a golden mane, or an inexplicable red-brown door with a golden lock, situated where it wasn’t before. 

Demeanour: Laconic, dry, sardonic, swaggering, intense. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Metallurgy, Gunsmithing, Bullet Wounds, Old Songs, Locks and Keys, Routes and Roads, Trajectories, Rhythms, Railways 

Specific Hatreds: Glass, Insects, The Gender Conforming, The Tone Deaf, False Dichotomies, High Winds, Missed Shots

Manic Obsessions: Alloys, Liberty, Music, Escape, Firearms, Sudden Death, The Horizon, Mathematics 

Preferred Payments: Aged Whiskies, Obscure Songs, Gold Ornaments 

Token: A shiny bullet, with your literal name on it.

Table Manners? Bad. They have a habit of spitting, and carving into the table with a knife. 

Servants

• Gildy Runners - 1HD - Knee high flightless birds, springy and faster than a horse. They have golden feathers, golden down, and bright shining golden crests, but their wagging, bouncing tails are merely brass. Leadenlay sometimes challenges people to catch a Gildy Runner while obeying certain restrictions and conditions, in exchange for something. The birds themselves are easily-startled and nervous. 

• Hard Riders - 3HD - Faceless men of shiny bronze, like old heroic statues, wearing metal bandoliers, baldrics, boots and broad-brimmed hats. They arrive astride segmented metal mares with brass gramophone-cone heads. Wield heavy revolvers, rifles and shotguns. Hard in the sense their smooth skin is metallic, resistant to bullets and entirely impervious to blades. Also hard in the sense that they have erections, but we presume that’s personal business.  

• Locomotives - 5HD - Massive lurching iron things with heavy beetle-like bodies, rows of wheels on their sides, and a tall, articulated neck of brass,ending in a head with a gun barrel like a long beak. These things appear on and use the railways to get around, lobbing artillery with a victorious birdlike squawk. If push comes to shove, though, they can walk on their wheels like a giant bug to pursue (slowly) away from the rails. 

10. Aspengore 

Marquis Aspengore, Tangleduke, Dragon of the Marshes, Prince Poison, Mossy Hillock, Herb-lore, Luwyd, Lord Flood

When interacting with humans, Aspengore takes the shape of a large, fat man with woad-blue skin, unclad except from a healthy covering of algae, moss, leaves, living vines, and a pale shed snakeskin worn as a sort of sash. Yew branches jut out of his head at odd angles, seemingly growing from his scalp. His hands and feet are rough and gnarled, with a barklike texture. His eyes are yellow-gold, with vertical slit pupils, and his canine teeth are prominent black-tipped fangs. 

Upon arrival Aspengore demands you either sing one of his old songs, or perform his preferred ritual of greeting. Don’t tell me your village shamans have forgotten already, eh? 

Conveyance: A chair atop a monstrous, fat lizard, of immense size and a murderous nature. It has dull green-black scales, and dull red eyes. He calls it Gorgodrilium. 

Demeanour: Traditionalist, jovial, proud, slothful, loves to scare people. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: The Wetlands, Rivers, Cooking, Serpents, Poisons, Medicines, The Growth of Plants, Agriculture, Overgrown Places, Reptiles, Damp Rot 

Specific Hatreds: Clothing, Walls, Raids, Disrespect, Birds of Prey, Cities, Urban Life, Secularism

Manic Obsessions: Theft, Cuckoldry, Shrines, Ritual, Rhizomes, Psychedelia, Chaoskampf, Secure Hiding Places 

Preferred Payments: White Oxen, Incense, Vodka

Token: A scrap of shed snakeskin. 

Table Manners? Excellent conversation, lacking etiquette, eats with his hands. 

Servants

• Nixies - 1HD - Lazy beautiful hedonistic cultists, with skin painted(?) blue, teal or green. Wear headgear depicting fish, frogs and snakes, otherwise, nothing but the occasional flower. They are great gluttons, and never start a fight on their own initiative, much preferring to sing and sunbathe. They can completely vanish into bodies of freshwater, charm the unwary, and spit accurately a distance of fifty feet. 

• Invokers - 3HD - Wild-haired figures, tall snake-faced men, wading waist deep in the bogs, their corded, tattooed arms raised high over their heads in gestures of sorcery and warding. Their spells work only as extensions of Aspengore’s power, of course. Perhaps Aspengore’s parody of a wizard, when anything troubles them, their skin explodes open, and out crawls a thick-scaled, hissing amphisbaena, ready to crush and coil. 

• River Monsters - 5HD - Gigantic snake-fish with foul tempers, extremely venomous spit, spiny tails, and hard boat-smashing heads. Can survive for hours slithering over land, like to do so to get the drop on you. Proud and aggressive, insatiable gluttons, entirely fearless, never retreat. Will deign to serve as conveyance through water if Aspengore explicitly orders them to do so thrice, though they obey his other commands immediately. The command to never eat their passengers is a separate one. 

11. Jaggedy

Marquise Jaggedy, Serjeant Jags, Headtaker, General Despair, Moll Jackknife, Axemarks, Mother Burial, Steelhead, Bloody Bull 

When interacting with humans, Jaggedy takes the form of a heavy, broadly-built woman - more solid than muscular, with a thick neck, hair burnt short, and smoking holes in place of eyes. She’s corpse-pale, even slightly blue. She wears arrowhead earrings and caltrop rings, and a tight wire “choker”, that discolours the skin a purplish red. She wears a military uniform in blood-red, grey and white, all raggedy, burnt and singed. Her boots are stained with a thick mixture of mud and blood. She lugs around leather bags full of bones and rotting cut-off heads, has a holstered handgun, and carries a hatchet. 

Upon arrival, Jaggedy uses her hatchet-blade to mark the strongest person present with a wavy scar. If nobody is notably strong (14+ STR), she’ll not mark anyone. If someone already marked by her is present when she arrives, add four to her Reaction Roll. 

Conveyance: A black wooden wagon, that pulls itself without horses or oxen, piled high with rusty weaponry, shields, guns, airship bombs, caltrops and lances. 

Demeanour: Standoffish, curt, proud, po-faced, destructively curious.

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Footsoldiers, Regiments, Pragmatic Decisions, Bombs, Labour Unions, Kine, Battlefields, Mass Graves, Arms and Armour, Temporary Structures, Fog of War 

Specific Hatreds: Poshness, Monarchies, Intrigue, Waste, Weakness, Tyranny, Smut 

Manic Obsessions: Hatred, Glory, Utopia, Fraternity, Upheaval, Chokepoints, Choking, The Coming Decade 

Preferred Payments: Prize Pigs, Barrels of Ale, Human Heads  

Token: An bent iron penny with a notch taken out of it and a strange bull crest, of no familiar origin. 

Table Manners? Doesn’t talk, just silently eats and drinks everything she’s offered. If she finds it insufficient, she’ll help herself to your dinner, too. 

Servants

• Regimenters - 1HD - Soldier-like figures with old-fashioned muskets, thumping along with iron boots locked to their feet and iron masks locked to their heads. Drink oil through a slot in their mask, see through smoke and haze as if it wasn’t there. Wear blood red double-breasted coats, like no military you’ve ever heard of, and lug around rusty bayonets and grenados. Violent, grumbling, relentless, more careless than cruel. Feel a great sense of esprit de corps. Some teams are assigned to mortars or battering rams, if Jaggedy calls for it. 

• Headchoppers - 3HD - Huge masked men, wearing bag hoods and thick, segmented iron gauntlets. Their legs are tall iron shafts like pillars, attached in the manner of crude prosthetics, in a bloody, gangrenous sort of way. They stump around, crushing feet and kicking through doors, wielding gigantic chip-edged axes. Will abandon a given task to pursue and murder a noble. Jaggedy could prevent this habit, but she doesn’t, because it suits her fine. 

• Iron Bulls - 5HD - As the name suggests - massive bulls, made of solid black iron, with eyes glowing a gasfire blue in the night, and a bloody red in the day. Their horns are wicked impaling spears, and their tails are chains tipped with a spiked ball. Some of them contain reservoirs of burning fuel, or choking gas, or thousands of caltrops. 

12. Spuckle 

Ickle Spuckle, Little Grub, Wee Tadpole, Little Aelfraed, The Innocent, The Lord’s Niece, the Lady’s Nephew, Fogspawn, Silly Spuckle 

In all cases, they appear as a child, no older than seven - an albino, dressed in old-fashioned, formal black clothing, along with little leather shoes, a bonnet with a ribbon, and a black scarf. Their clothing shimmers multicoloured when they’re happy or in a good mood. They have long curly white hair, and strange, gelatinous looking eyes, that shimmer with lights of a strange non-colour when reflecting the sun. They treat the rest of the Foglings in this list as some kind of large extended group of impressive aunts and uncles - they, in turn, have varying levels of tolerance for Spuckle, though never aim to harm them. Can a Fogling be “young?” Are they born, per se? Spuckle doesn’t seem to know, either way. 

Upon arrival, Spuckle demands that you start playing something like hopscotch, hide-and-seek or duck-duck-goose. They’re a sore loser and a sore winner, but they’ll only cry if you refuse. 

Conveyance: None? They arrive really suddenly when called, without much circumstance, just popping out from behind a tree or under a table. 

Demeanour: Innocent, extremely curious, easily frightened, distracted, insufferably whimsical. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Frogs, Imaginary Things, Dreams, Children, Larvae, Eggs, Fake Colours, Places Not on Maps, Other Foglings (Especially Servants) 

Specific Hatreds: Boredom, The Elderly, Clocks, Dusk, Meanness, Fogling Hunters (Others find them risible, or good sport)

Manic Obsessions: Games, Friends, Danger, Coolness, Transformations, Their “Aunts and Uncles” 

Preferred Payments: Sweets, Games, Toys 

Token: A live, ugly, slightly smelly newt, with a name like “Princess Fart” or “Stupid Poxy”, which you must keep alive, otherwise Spuckle will bawl their little eyes out. 

Table Manners? Dreadful. Never stops talking, messy, has a habit of abandoning a meal halfway. 

Servants

• Playmates - 1HD - Gelatinous, translucent silhouettes of children, wearing various multi-coloured hats. They fill in the roles in Spuckle’s games, but they don’t seem to give much of a hoot about them. They sometimes even giggle happily if they get splattered, such as by an automobile running into them, or a wizard standing on them. The Playmates appear to have no form or purpose save to play in the games, and get splattered. Perhaps if Spuckle is “young”, then these represent their early forays into needful servants? 

• Nurses - 3HD - Towering figures, seven feet tall, like a flowing black dress worn by an invisible, portly woman. They have floating faces like simple smiling masks, and translucent, nearly-invisible tresses of rainbow hair curl around their shoulders. A few are always around Spuckle, occasionally picking them up and holding them in their arms, or placing them upon their knees, or giving them strange little boiled sweets. If Spuckle demands it on a whim, however, their touch suddenly becomes acidic and dissolving, and their hands are strong. 

• Minders - 5HD - Absolutely massive storks, four times your height, with false-colour eyes and a faint rainbow shimmer to their feathers. When you’re near Spuckle, one or two are always visible in the distance, like watchtowers. The Minders are murderously protective of Spuckle, and happy to intercede on their behalf, though the Innocent seems to have no ability to control them. If Spuckle starts to cry, they start approaching. Perfectly silent. Their beaks can punch through steel. 

13. Ink

Dauber, The Malicious Hand, Penflick, Lord Stain, Irongall, Rumourmonger, Lord Letters, Glypher, That Journalist, Correspondent 

When Ink interacts with humans, he appears as a silhouette of pure, shiny black, with a pair of bright, pupilless white eyes and a shiny toothy grin visible in his head. From this silhouette, you can just about make out the shape of a man with short, neat hair, dressed in fine, modernly-cut clothing. If he grows angry, his silhouette distorts, adding horns, wings, claws, tails, fangs, even extra limbs, according to no clear logic. The only thing not within his silhouette is his book - he carries around a huge grimoire with steel covers, stuffed with papers tucked between the thick pages. 

Upon arrival, Ink records the names of all present, sketches their faces, then files them away in his book. 

Conveyance: An expensive carriage, high-wheeled and elegant, with black windows, drawn by black ponies. One of Ink’s Associates drives it, while he himself sits in the opulently cushioned back. 

Demeanour: Wry, intelligent, curious, envious, occasionally cruel.

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Institutional Secrets, Scandals, Reports, Secret Identities, Bureaucracy, Newspapers, Spies, Thresholds, The Educated, Events in the Night-Time 

Specific Hatreds: Boring People, Silence, Ordinary Days, Muteness, Smoke, Obscuration, Criticism 

Manic Obsessions: Humiliation, Falls from Grace, Poetry, Astrology, Evil, Shame, Dioramas

Preferred Payments: Witness Statements, Salacious Details, Cigars 

Token: A small piece of thick rag-paper, the neat text upon which explains that it is Ink’s token, irreplaceable except by him, and should not be folded more than twice. 

Table Manners? Entirely serviceable and unremarkable. 

Servants

• Muckrakers - 1HD - Amphibious frog-men-fish that slither and squirm in the rivers and sewers, projecting eyestalks above water-level to observe and remember. In the dark, they come out above water to squirm into your house and listen to your private conversations. They have long, sticky tongues that can grab and pull with the dexterity of a strong right arm. When they return to Ink, they mutter their gathered secrets from human mouths. 

• Associates - 3HD - Oddly damp fellows, with large dark eyes, and smooth rubbery skin, like a tight mask pulled on over something else. Wear modern, dark clothing, with long frock coats, and carry demure, polite single-shot pistols. Excellent listeners, excellent conversationalists, never blink. Monomaniac focus on the comfort of Ink. 

• Scandals - 5HD - Twisted, inky silhouettes of cavorting bodies, stomping about on many legs and arms, with many eyeless, long-tongued heads. They appear in the corner of dark rooms at night to strangle and bash while giggling and whispering. They know exactly what you did. They’re going to tell everyone. If you survive. 

14. Turpin

Uncle Turpin, Old Hideous, Master Lard, Gutiziatsu, Lord Lucre, Billfold, Master Mill, Moneybag, Blotter

When interacting with humans, Turpin takes the form of a massively rotund and obese man, completely hairless, with reddish skin and dull, smoky black eyes. All of his teeth are perfect white molars. He wears a different outfit depending on the time of day and time of year, with silk pajamas and dressing gowns at night, and the expensive garbs of a modern industrialist-aristo in daylight hours. Regardless, his thick fingers, six per hand, are covered in gold and silver rings. His ankles are thicker than his thighs, and his feet are elephantine blocks of fat, bare and unshoed. It seems unlikely he can rise from his wheeled conveyance. 

Upon arrival, Turpin begins to actively network, finding out exactly what it is you do, for who, and for how much. 

Conveyance: An opulent mechanical wheeled throne, heavily cushioned and belching smoke from a back-mounted engine. It has a built-in side table, for a bottle of wine and a tray of canapés.  

Demeanour: Avuncular, crude, callous, cunning, gossipy. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Workshops, Factories, Refineries, Obsessions, Making Money, Hidden Treasure, Tools, Broken Limbs

Specific Hatreds: Malfunction, Fratricide, Laziness, Disease, Tweeness 

Manic Obsessions: Secrets to Success, Hot Metal, Opulence, Human Crafts, Branding (Like To Cattle), Currency Debasement, Banking 

Preferred Payments: Pounds of Silver, Hours of Skilled Labour, Fine Vintages

Token: A stamped-steel chit with the words “TURPIN’S TOKEN” around a depiction of his jovial face on one side. 

Table Manners? Extremely messy eater. A burper and boor. 

Servants

• Trodden - 1HD - Miserable, sooty shadows, wearing the suggestions of flat-caps and straw hats. Their faces are just dark smoke, with faintly luminous white eyes. They carry various tools - scythes, hoes, hammers, wrenches. They are very slow, moving as if in pain, but they are tireless, and arrive in huge groups at Turpin’s orders. He’ll lend you fifty or so, for a job, if he likes you. 

• Overseers - 3HD - Unstable, chattering mechanical men, stumbling and lurching and belching smoke. They have tall stovepipe heads, with shiny half-moon grins of polished silver teeth, and searchlight eyes. Each is about twelve feet tall, with stiltlike legs ending in heavy metal feet, splayed like a wading bird’s. They’re armed with long-barreled shotguns, burning-gas flamethrowers, and rattling gatlings. 

• Fat Cats - 5HD - Fluffy, overweight, grinning housecats the size of an automobile. Either tortoiseshell or calico, they have round, cutesy faces, huge luminous yellow eyes, and soft, brushlike tails. Don’t get comfortable - their huge mitteny paws and round whiskered faces contain murderous puncturing fangs and wicked sickle claws. They view the average human being rather like a mouse, and wizards something like a smaller, more annoying cat. 

15. Cullman 

Captain Cullman, Bruxist, Lord Locket, Manculler, Peter Puller, Holmganger, King of Swords, Headsplitter, Cleanshirt 

When interacting with humans, Cullman assumes the shape of a tall, broad-shouldered man, with huge owl-like eyes and pristinely clean, paper-white skin. He has a narrow, pointed face, and thick dark red hair. He wears fastidiously neat and clean clothing - a dark frock coat, dark straight-legged trousers, black boots, and a bright red cravat. He is always armed with a large two handed sword, which he sometimes uses like a cane, and a large-calibre rifle slung over one shoulder. He also has a pair of pliers concealed in his sleeve. 

Upon arrival, Cullman bows and observes those gathered to meet him in intent silence, for a few seconds. He is only comfortable around the weak and the easily minced, so if anyone among the gathered is a skilled fighter, subtract two from his Reaction Roll. 

Conveyance:  A bizarre metal horse, with a rearing roaring head, a spiked wheel in place of each pair of legs, and a rattling, coughing, sputtering engine. Handlebars on the back of the horse’s head allow Cullman to keep steering at the speeds he reaches. 

Demeanour: Icy, selfish, murderous, diligent, fragile ego. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Executioners, Teeth, Dentistry, Tribunals, Impossible Gunshots, Lethal Traps, Swordmasters, Snipers, Pica, Piercing Wounds 

Specific Hatreds: Surprise Victories, Old Married Couples, Getting Blood on Himself, Rivals, Underdogs, Dying of Old Age, Peaceful Lives 

Manic Obsessions: Deadly Duels, Lost Love, Dramatic Deaths, Mastery, Homoeroticism, Impossibilities 

Preferred Payments: Exciting Challenges, New Servants, Strange Teeth 

Token: A cracked molar, snapped at the root. 

Table Manners? Never eats around humans. Just stares. 

Servants

• Squires - 1HD - Neatly-turned out young men in black waistcoats and trousers, with a red neckerchief and collarless white shirts. When outside, they add a black coat and bowler. They’re usually hanging around Cullman, with whetstones, spare ammunition, and the like. Quiet and polite. Pale and bloodless. 

• Scouts - 1HD - Young women in practical clothing, with straw hats and red ribbons around their necks, dressed like they’re going out for an afternoon cycling. Indeed, they do move around on lightweight metal bicycles, carrying spyglasses, notepads and picnic baskets. Adventurous and forthright. Pale and bloodless. 

• Fodder - 1HD - Strange little weirdos, their bare bodies blotchy and covered in swellings. Their heads are just sets of teeth, and they can yell, howl and curse as loud as a foghorn. They move in massive groups, trying to leap onto people, weigh them down, and strangle them with their asymmetrical hands. Bloodless. 

Unlike most Foglings of his station, Cullman prefers to settle unpleasant matters very personally. 

By Paige Ring

16. Spintail

Hated Spintail, Lord Spintria, Seen-briefly, Flickerflare, The Young Gentleman’s Friend, The Uninvited Guest, King Burglar, Cuckmaker 

When interacting with humans, Spintail takes the shape of a short, slender, lithe man, wearing a bright orange double-breasted coat, tight black trousers, tall flared boots, and a white shirt with a frilly collar and cuffs. His face is obscured by a point-nosed, beaklike mask with triangular eyes, and his red hair is shiny, curly and free-flowing. Upon one of his fingers, he wears a large ring set with a luminous, fiery gem, that can cast light in a lantern-glow or a narrow, precise beam. 

Upon arrival, Spintail bows deeply, then immediately begins to flirt with the person wearing the most open wealth and/or showing the most skin. 

Conveyance: A blackwood hatch covered in bent nails, which opens into an inexplicable pitch-black network of crawlspace tunnels. 

Demeanour: Whimsical, devious, duplicitous, charming, cultured. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Castles, Keyrings, Patrols, Vaults, Hideouts, Forbidden Meetings, Adultery, Daring Escapes, Concubines 

Specific Hatreds: Caution, Boredom, Optimisation, Isolation, Inflexible Rules 

Manic Obsessions: Kingship, Impenetrability, Fame, Daring, Forbiddenness, Tunnels, Competition 

Preferred Payments: Perfect Pears, Gold Rings, The Cut-Off Tails of Still Living Animals 

Token: A gilded key, curlicued and polished, with an orange ribbon attached to it. 

Table Manners? Almost impeccable, though occasionally he pranks at dinner. 

Servants:

• Low Peons - 1HD - Strange little caricatures of ancient peasants with mousy faces, dressed in liripipe hoods and floppy shoes, no taller than your waist. Creep around giggling, making farting noises and surreptitiously drinking ale. Completely committed to whatever stupid thing is on Spintail’s agenda this week, happy to die for him. If they escape you and leap into any hole that’ll fit them, they can vanish away into Spintail’s tunnels. 

• Hairy Monks - 3HD - Frowning, nearly-human faces, strange pale and uncanny, attached to a long-armed body covered in thick black fur, all stuffed into an orangey-brown cassock. Carry around books of stories and songs, and (reluctantly, grumblingly) sing the praises of Spintail. They are very sober, forthright and honest, which you might think Spintail’d hate, until you learn each has a rebellious hairy tail that acts of its own accord, and constantly troubles them. 

• Red Riders - 5HD - When Spintail goes out hunting, which isn’t common, he brings these lads - chuckling, grinning youths with slender, pointed faces, long thin swords, orange-red jackets, white trousers, and wild red hair. They have the morality of young drunk rich men at university, and Spintail’s presence only makes them worse. They ride bizarre furry mammalian steeds, with long folding legs, long narrow heads, and sinuous, snakelike bodies - these slipsteeds can be ridden in and out of tiny tunnel entrances at full tilt. 

17. Shedface

Madam Mask, Visage, The Florist, The Lady of Honeybees, Newlife, Spring Maiden, Madam Thorns, Ainsel, Mother’o’many

When interacting with humans, Shedface appears as a tall, pale, slender woman, with white flower-petals in place of her hair. Her face is frightful and masklike - bright red, with an over-wide mouth, pointed ears, huge teeth, and tiny irises wavering back and forth in deep sockets. She wears a clinging, lacy white dress, with the slight soft dampness of plant-matter, and a short red mantle, clasped with a silver flower broach. Her legs seem to fade off into nothing before her feet touch the ground, but she remains upright all the same. 

Upon arrival, Shedface begins to act in a protective and semi-motherly manner to the weakest, sickliest person present (determine this by finding the lowest total STR & CON). 

Conveyance: An absolutely massive, fuzzy bumblebee, wearing a white collar with a silver flower buckle. 

Demeanour: Kindly, intense, thoughtful, fearless, incisive. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Disguises, The Meadows, Eyes, Cocoons, New Lives, Flowers, Spring, Bees, Cocoons, Spring Weather, Adoptions, The Bonds Between People 

Specific Hatreds: Sad Stories, Unfulfilled Potential, Natural Disasters, Industrial Disasters, War, Sudden Upheavals, Thunder

Manic Obsessions: Miens, Appearances, Potential, Hands, Chrysalises, Countenances, The Inner World, Truth, Love

Preferred Payments: Patisserie Goods, Flowers of Silver and Gold, Autobiographies 

Token: A waxy fake flower, in the colour she thinks you’ll like (she doesn’t ask). 

Table Manners? Excellent among longtime friends, awful otherwise. 

Servants

• Peaseblossoms - 1HD - Light-limbed, flutter-winged creatures resembling storybook fairies, with bright pastel skin and flower-petal clothes. Their wide eyes, like patterned marbles, capture all that is before them in the most beautiful detail. They love to gossip to Shedface, to you, and to each other. They form into little cliques, and friend-groups, dancing away the day in carefree happiness. They call Shedface “Mama”. 

• Alraunes - 3HD - Gigantic roses, which grow from the sides of unrelated plants, like tumours. At Shedface’s command, they bloom open, projecting brightly-coloured beautiful women, with needle-like fingers, flowing hair, and dark eyes, as if they wear kohl. The smell of the Alraune confuses reason, and their blood is a powerful somnolent poison. 

• Alvearies - 5HD - Gigantic beehives, dripping with honey and wax, spilling around corners and growing against walls, into the shape of a slumbering, reclining woman. The bees are the dreams of the Alveary, self-creating and unimpeded by walls. Their skins cause amnesia and depersonalisation, and the flowers they gather pollen from are the mouths of sleeping people. 

18. Wickerwise

Churl Wickerwise, Elder Brume, Kiln-Keeper, Old Drone, Smoketongue, Old Strongspine, Hazeman, Bookburner

When interacting with humans, Wickerwise appears as an old, clear-eyed man, with dark brown skin, a grey curly beard, and silver-grey hair that curls around his head like a cloud of smoke. He is always smoking a long pipe, and lit tapers wind through his hair. His clothing is humble and charred, tightly tied with packed straw, and he lugs around a large wicker basket full of good-quality charcoal. He goes barefoot and wields an iron poker, sometimes as a cane. 

Upon arrival, Wickerwise strikes up a conversation, trying to establish the thoughts of those present on his manic obsessions (this is unusual: most Foglings consider themselves the sole authority on their obsessions, and wouldn’t even want the opinions of a feeling human, much less a heartless wizard). 

Conveyance: A large grey-and-brown goat, with smoking brands for horns, and a disinterested expression. 

Demeanour: Gruff, thoughtful, laconic, rude, occasionally dissociated. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Smoke, Forgotten Things, Intuition, Understanding, Repressed Memories, Destroyed Evidence, Connection, Obscuration, Silence 

Specific Hatreds: Winter, The Written Word, Gossip, Muckraking, Theodicy, Humiliation of People, Manipulation, Demagoguery 

Manic Obsessions: Truth, Eternity, Exile, Solitude, Uniqueness, Remnants, Holiness 

Preferred Payments: Philosophical Discussions, Prophecies, Books (to Burn)

Token: An endlessly smoking incense stick. 

Table Manners? Tries to be polite, but is unfamiliar with proper etiquette. Doesn’t take advice. 

Servants

• Char-Dolls - 1HD - Staggering, stumping images, built of charcoal, burnt rope and smouldering embers. They move in an unsteady dance in great circles, unbothered by the world - unless they detect a book, newspaper, clay tablet, poster or the like nearby. Then, they are seized by a terrible animus, and pursue it with their stiff smouldering fingers - to lay touch to it, and destroy it. 

• Fire-towers - 3HD - High-stacked puzzled-together piles of burning wood, like narrow vertical bonfires, reaching the height of two stories or more. They watch over places Wickerwise commands them to, spitting down lashes of flames onto gossips, politicians and journalists (along with anyone else they’re ordered to). Explode into a wave of hot ash when collapsed. 

• Ashlings - 5HD - Burning ghosts with secret names, ember-filled clouds of hot choking air and haze, that occasionally shimmer and shift into dancing, charcoal-dark silhouettes, with burning eyes and fingers. Impossibly graceful, feel the world intuitively, burn that which they find evil. Wickerwise made them such that even he could not forbid them from following their deepest desires. 

19. Skinstake

Old Town Flesher, Pigbutcher, Mister Cutters, Bloodpainter, Spatterer, Moll Cutbelly, Butcher’s Boy, Madam Peeler, Fresh Liver  

When interacting with humans, Skinstake assumes the shape of a too-tall, too-thin, lanky and androgynous figure, with a creepy grin, pale pink skin, and long, limp black hair. Their mouth doesn’t even move when they talk, and neither do their bloodshot, black-irised eyes. Their whole body is rail thin, with a double-length neck, aside from their boxy shoulders and hips. They wear dirty, bloodstained clothing, such as a poor townie of a few centuries ago might have worn - it is ill-fitting and ragged. Their long-fingered sinister hand is bloody and entirely skinless, and they use it to leave red handprints where their influence is felt. 

Upon arrival, Skinstake kneels down and begins to sharpen their knives. They’re probably still taller than your full height. 

Conveyance: A huge, slavering wolfhound, with grey fur and bloodstained teeth. 

Demeanour: Cheerful, unpleasant, unhesitant, overly friendly, occasionally aggressive. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Flesh, Sharpness, Weak Points, Eunuchs, Resilience, Constitution, Muscle, Skin, Tattoos, Broken Limbs, Art Studios, Murder Scenes, Abattoirs

Specific Hatreds: Spiders, Machines, Trees, Invulnerability, Impassable Boundaries, Cheating, Derivative Art, Copycat Killers 

Manic Obsessions: Meat, Revenge, Creativity, Genius, Big Numbers, Genitals, Critical Flaws, Collapse, Exsanguination  

Preferred Payments: Large Quantities of Good Salt, Pornography, Artworks Made with Blood or Bone

Token: A twisted cut into your flesh that instantly scars over. 

Table Manners? Awful and messy. Carnivorous. 

Servants

• Stitch-jobs - 1HD - Skinstake’s sketches. Small creative projects - gut cord holding together random assortments of bloody body-parts, stumbling and thumping about in a cubist sort of a way. Most of them are no taller than your shoulder, and fall apart on suffering a critical hit. If Skinstake is in a bad mood, however, they will send orders to the Stitch-jobs to combine, stacking their HD together and rapidly creating gigantic frankenstein abominations. 

• Sarcophagi - 3HD - Barrel-torsos and bent limbs, with round bald skinless heads, open nasal cavities, small white eyes, and gnashing mouths. As these things rip off chunks of flesh and swallow them, they swell up, and their thin limbs become strong and muscular. Eventually, they can even stand upright, instead of crawling like huge ticks. Their blood and flesh is violently poisonous, and they are aware they can make a town uninhabitable by dying in a water source. 

• Behemoths - 9HD - Extremely rare to see. Skinstake only turns to them for situations where they really just want to fuck everything up. Elephantine beasts, bare raw muscle and bone, covered in spikes. Incapable of subtlety, the nightmare of little villages near the Fog. The beast grows as it devours, ‘til it grows too heavy for its own frame to handle and explodes into an omnidirectional flood of raw gore. 

20. Pinnace

Smallcaptain, Doctor Pinnace, Saesteorra, The King’s Chirurgeon, Lord Fish, Evendivider, Mister Shore 

When interacting with humans, he takes the appearance of a very slender, beautiful man, with golden hair and sea-green eyes, with a frighteningly symmetrical appearance. He wears a navy-blue shirt with short sleeves, sandals, and white shorts that are slightly too short for society’s current tolerance. Depending on the weather, he either adds a shimmering, squirming fish-scaled scarf, perfectly reflective dark sunglasses, or a translucent, gelatinous hat resembling a jellyfish. No matter what, he is always carrying a fancy cocktail in an expensive blue glass, with a shelled mussel for a garnish. 

Upon arrival, Pinnace offers everyone a cocktail. He pours the spirits very generously. 

Conveyance: A somewhat inexplicable yacht, all in pristine whites and blues, with no sail and slack ropes. It can show up even in closed off bodies of water, stagnant ponds, or the municipal swimming pool in Mariongold.

Demeanour: Casual, urbane, overfamiliar, louche, occasionally paranoid. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Facial Features, Symmetry, Parties, Fat, Charts, Internal Injuries, Schedules, Routes, Records, Gossip, Rock Pools 

Specific Hatreds: Prisons, Asymmetry, Absences, Strict Moral Standards, and oddly enough, The Fog 

Manic Obsessions: Exploration, Sensory Experiences, Aesthetics, Masturbation, Secrets, Prettiness, Freedom 

Preferred Payments: Rare Flavours, Old Maps, Juicy Gossip 

Token: A small glass bottle of potent rubbing alcohol, labelled messily as being from Dr. Pinnace’s Floating Clinic.  

Table Manners? Not exactly aristocratic, but passable for the middle class. 

Servants

• Remoras - 1HD - Pinnace’s hangers-on, so to speak. Populate his parties. Flat-headed, grey and gormless, dressed in fashion that will likely be modern in ten years. Perfectly symmetrical. Always holding a fresh drink, always acting like the most annoying middle-aged drunks you’ve ever met. If killed violently, they go off like a grenade filled with seawater and white meat. 

• Paralabraxes - 3HD - Pinnace’s actual staff - double-duty waiter-orderlies, they pile out of his boat in a ghibli-style henchman stampede at the slightest provocation. Block-headed, dressed in plain brown boiler-suits, with shiny amber-coloured goggles, webbed fingers, and scaled faces. Perfectly symmetrical. Extremely strong, extremely stupid, move three-dimensionally with great speed underwater. 

• Ophiuroids - 5HD - Gigantic five-limbed radially-symmetrical monsters, which share the yacht’s ability to show up in any water that’ll hold them. Monstrously strong, they love to strangle and drown. Pinnace acts like they’re something like huge charming dogs, instead of remorseless sea monsters. He dotes on them, pets them, and gives them all names like “Fufubelle”, “Ms. Minnie” and “Pretty Pickle”. 

21. Winterknave 

Lord Winterknave, Duke of Dying Slowly, Langknife, Walter ‘o’ Winter, Midwinternight Lover, Foe-friend, The Secret Secretary, Flees-fire 

When interacting with humans, Winterknave assumes the appearance of a fully-covered, finely-dressed gentleman, in a deep blue justacorps decorated with silver embroidery, a tricorn hat, a filigreed beaked mask, suede gloves, a thick scarf, a white cravat, frosty boots, and a broach shaped like a silver snowflake set with a black broach. If he has just arrived, he will also be wearing a voluminous, fringed black cloak, of some thick but somehow freezing material. 

Upon arrival, Winterknave introduces himself extravagantly, tries to establish who if any among the present are single, and who is a member of what political party. He proceeds to flirt with the married people and antagonise the position of the present majority. 

Conveyance: A finely filigreed white carriage, covered in unmelting frost and rime, hung with icicles, and pulled by two gigantic white weasels. 

Demeanour: Gossipy, flighty, prying, dramatic, occasionally murderous. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: The Cold, Politics, Advisors, Ice, Hidden Chambers, Weather Prediction, Confessions, Knives, Political Parties, Winter Weather, Frozen Lakes

Specific Hatreds: Dawn, Midsummer, The Sun, Rubies, Burning Wickermen, Foxes

Manic Obsessions: Endings, Plays, Coups, Treachery, Cliques, Thighs, Exile, Spies 

Preferred Payments: Rare Manuscripts, Bags of Silver Coins, Diamonds 

Token: A silver feather broach. 

Table Manners? Aristocratically proper, but a very picky eater. 

Servants: 

• Gaberlunzie - 1HD - Appear mostly as normal, handsome, bearded men, who are picturesquely poor and vagrant. The one thing they share are fancy blue cloaks - if they’re anywhere near the fog, these cloaks are clad with a faint twinkling layer of ice. If the Gaberlunzie is killed, his body dissolves into snow, and the cloak flies away as if a set of wings - it was the true fogling all along, and the body was a convenient decoy. 

• Thin-Ices - 3HD - Strange little foglings. Stored, usually, as jars of content, inert blue water, when poured out, they become mobile patches of thin black ice, on the other-side of which is a pool of freezing water contained outside of space. One of its surfaces borders on the world, and the other side on the Fog. 

• Magpie and Jackdaw - 7HD - Winterknave’s beautiful wife and beautiful husband, whom he is not especially loyal to. Magpie is a tall, slender woman, clad in a white dress, a black scarf, black gloves, and black sunglasses. She carries a black umbrella, which has a vicious poisoned spike. Jackdaw is a chiselled, athletic man, in black formal clothing, wearing white shoes, white gloves, a white cravat, and white opaque “glasses”. He carries a white briefcase, which is full of lethally sharp icicles. Both wear blue snowflake earrings.  Whether by Winterknave’s order or not, they constantly plot to bump him off - they never succeed, but the plans get more elaborate and collaterally lethal every year. 

22. Wignail

Buggerlugs, Old Wig, Bodach, Hang-to-the-side, Deadalready, Old Bastard, Leathery, Elder Bile, Spinning-Wheel, Ruler Wig

He has an unfathomably wrinkled face, hanging off whatever skull nature fashioned him like a leather bag. Clinging around that, an empty, dark mouth, watery all-white eyes, and a great streaming mass of thin silver hair. He wears truly ragged robes, perhaps once finely decorated in the style of the ancient emperors, but now rendered threadbare and ugly by time. His legs rarely obey his orders, but he somehow gets around just fine when you’re not looking at him. His leathery hands seem to just be skin and bones, but contained in them is a terrible strength. 

Upon arrival, Wignail sits there doing nothing until you do something. What the fuck is he supposed to be, a trained circus monkey? You better’ve called him here for something good, wizard. (His Reaction Rolls are neutral at best)

Conveyance: A huge, tan-coloured mastiff. He clings to its neck like a living collar, perched on its withers. 

Demeanour: Irritable, laconic, cynical, unexcited, dishonest. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Old Houses, Preservation, Fallen Empires, Mummification, Inheritance, Deafness, Lost People, Grandparents, Sealed Wills, Interruptions, Sealed Rooms, Royal Treasures, Wisdom

Specific Hatreds: Enthusiasm, Loud Noises, Nearby Mourning, Modernity (The last fifty years of anything), Most People (9-in-10 chance, extreme hatred on a 1) 

Manic Obsessions: Uncertainty, The Future, State Collapse, Oblivion, Propriety, Peace 

Preferred Payments: Secrets, Prophecies, Authentic Ancient Things (Even Potsherds)

Token: A cracked gem without any glint. 

Table Manners? Sits in silence, can’t eat anything that requires chewing, slurps his soups. Otherwise, pretty good. 

Servants:

• Slimes - 1HD - Undifferentiated protoplasmic masses. Heavy, acidic, foul-smelling, Bubble occasionally. Slimes can merge into larger slimes, combining their HD. Their silence, and ability to dissolve most anything, appeals to Wignail’s sensibilities. 

• The Old Guards - 3HD - Wignail doesn’t like to bother these august foglings, despite their clear loyalty to him. They are towering, clad in slightly rusted ancient chainmail, enclosed helms, and decorated surcoats. They wield massive polearms, far too heavy for an ordinary human, and are exceedingly lethal with them. Tactical and laconic, their sheer disdain for modern warfare protects them from bullets and bombs. 

• Homicides - 5HD - Wignail only calls upon these creatures when persistently annoyed by someone he has an extreme hatred for. They resemble gigantic, unnatural combinations of hunting hounds, muscular women, and falcons, in varying configurations. All of them are grotesque, excellent at hiding in darkness, and shriek loud like a train whistle when they burst out to rip you to pieces. Wignail doesn’t even like them - too loud, too ugly. 

23. Vamberly

Captain Vamberly, Mister Twister, Victualhog, Manshape, Snowy-pass King, Ibiltaria, Baboon, Cocksnapper 

When interacting with humans, Vamberly takes the shape of an incredibly hairy, muscled man, with a wild mane of black hair, streaked with white. His skin is leathery, brown and weatherbeaten, and his black eyebrows are gigantic and expressive. His eyes are gold-coloured and glint in the dark. He has a fang-filled mouth, and his shirt, open to the navel, shows a chest so hairy as to almost be furred. His large, muscular frame squeezed into a rustic hillman’s colourful costume, but it’s all in reds, oranges and blacks. He leans on a long-handled axe like a walking stick, and is always armed with a half-full bottle of brandy, which he drinks directly from and never shares.    

Upon arrival, Vamberly insults everyone present in as crude and nasty a way as he can think of, just to set the tone. Anyone who objects to an insult gets another one. Vamberly is exceedingly happy to escalate all the way to violence. 

Conveyance: A huge and ugly goat, with shaggy black hair, autumn-orange eyes, and crazy spiralling horns. 

Demeanour: Wrathful, ungenerous, luddite, arrogant, hair-trigger temper. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: The Mountains, Whirlwinds, Goats, Snow, Bears, Rage, Phalluses, Starving People, Whitewater Rivers, Cannibals

Specific Hatreds: Firstborns, Modern Technology, Weakness, Rats, Crows, Horses

Manic Obsessions: Firstborns, Masculinity, Megafauna, Insult, Terror, Power, Superlativity, Challenge  

Preferred Payments: Firstborns, Spices, Brandy 

Token: An iron caltrop with barbed ends. 

Table Manners? Not very good. A messy eater, and an uncultured conversationalist. 

Servants:

• Redcaps - 1HD - Tiny, frightening, goblin-like creatures, with exaggerated pointy faces, ochre skin, and long drooping ears that rattle with piercings. Each wears heavy iron boots, carries a knife and a hammer, and wears a long, red cap, always freshly sodden with blood. They cannot exist in the world without fresh blood to soak their hats in, so they tend to hurry to violence. Morality somewhere between football hooligans and terrorists. 

• Krampuses - 3HD - Strange, hirsute, hopping men, with lolling pointed tongues, sharp goat’s horns, and a single hooved foot. They have a puckish, mean, spirited manner, and when carrying out Vamberly’s orders, they always add a strange twist to amuse themselves. Go about armed with billhooks and pitchforks. Seem to be more powerful in the cold, and even more so in winter. 

• Mathans - 6HD - Fat, hairy, towering men and women wearing frightful toothy masks and little else, banded like barrels with muscle. They have thick, scarred hides, heavy clawed hands and wear belts of rattling wooden beads  They obsess over honey like it’s gold, their own gluttony commonly distracts them, they have a supernatural ability to smash down barriers, and they can’t die to wounds made by mortal weaponry. Whatever they are, they seem confident Vamberly didn’t create them, and sometimes, he needs to bribe them to get them to obey him. 

Caspar David Friedrich

24. Splice 

Madam Splice, Lady Fish, Missus Split, Pearly Queen, Messysplit, Mother’s Friend, Madam Deepwater, Lady Landwalker, Fuath

When interacting with humans, Splice dons the appearance of a large, fat woman, easily ten feet tall, with blue-grey skin and webbed fingers decorated with rings of silver and polished coral. She poses reclined to one side, her thick, gilled neck graced by a necklace of luminous pearls. In her overwide mouth, her teeth are like a shark’s. She spits them out, occasionally. Despite being sodden, her black hair nevertheless forms into a mass of neat curls. She wears a long, frilly, sodden purple dress covered in fishlike scales, which obscures her feet - her feet which she is very insistent that she has, and she’s very insulted by any kind of suggestion that she doesn’t have feet, or that they’re somehow abnormal. So don’t bring it up. Besides the dress, she wears a translucent white shawl of finely-trimmed organza, golden conch earrings, and shimmering jade bangles. 

Upon arrival, if you summoned her somewhere dry, Splice immediately floods the locale to give her conveyance somewhere to be. Should have thought ahead, dearie! 

Conveyance: A gigantic shadowy shape which never surfaces above water, only opening its toothy maw to raise Splice up on its blood red tongue. 

Demeanour: Proud, stubborn, intellectual, gluttonous, occasionally histrionic.

Knowledge Of and Power Over: The Sea, Large Animals, Tumours, Sunken Ships, Gravity, Wombs, Cravings, Mutations, Disgust, Growth, The Tides 

Specific Hatreds: Malnourishment, Birds, Disagreement, Bacteria, Being Ignored, Uninteresting Conversation, Shirkers, Rude Young People

Manic Obsessions: Evolution, Feet, The Sky, Hatred, Amphibians, Shipwrecks, Captains, Nobly Done Duty

Preferred Payments: Ships, Good Rum, Cut Gems 

Token: A shiny, malformed pearl. 

Table Manners? Shockingly bad. Liable to get food everywhere.

Servants

• Mendacities - 1HD - Near-spherical, blundering fish, swimming through the air. They somewhat resemble groupers, with overlarge mouths, tiny purple pinprick eyes, and spiny fins working overtime. When Splice wants something, she sends shoals of these things to inhale them whole, and swim back to her carrying them. They are remarkably flexible and capacious, but kidnapping a whole human is just about their limit. 

• Audacities - 3HD - Huge squid, at first plain white and suspended in the air as if it is water. When they need to, they alter their colours, and become almost impossible to see, squirming and shifting into the corners of the room, the air between you and your dinner guests, or the back seat of your carriage. Splice sometimes assigns them to tail people, and sets a condition for them to unleash their vicious beak. When they do, they suddenly turn their colours to a frightful rainbow phantasmagoria. 

• Voracities - 5HD - Fright of frights, a great shark like seen in the sea off Mariel, big enough to devour a man in two bites - improved, horribly, by the addition of shiny, spiny crab’s legs, bright orange, marching away in sets either side, propelling the swaying, biting shark far, far inland. Fairly universally destructive, unlike normal sharks. 

25. Vicepest 

Lord Vicepest, Minister Worm, Thumbscrews, Pandect, The Low Official, Sir Pent, Miserable Pest, Neverwelcome, The Honourable Member for the Bottom of the Barrel  

When interacting with humans, Vicepest appears as a small, stooped man, dressed in a green frock coat and black formal suit, with a black cravat, black socks and black leather gloves. A tight leather mask is pulled over his head, with metal mesh eye-covers and decorative rusty “fangs” set into it. Over this, he wears a pair of slightly bent spectacles. He carries a little black attaché case, has a bright yellow pocket-square, and leaves behind oily, staining bootprints. His gloves are likewise oily. 

Upon arrival, you’ll notice the smell before you notice him - sickly, choking, cloying, sweet and bitter in turns, with a heavy undertone of rot. 

Conveyance: A tall black carriage without windows, with metal spikes around the doors. It is drawn by a pair of gigantic cockroaches, and operates without a driver.  

Demeanour: Obliging, slimy, vain, vicious, lacks any empathy. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Crawling Things, Laws, Organised Crime, Architecture, Filth, Corruption, Torturers, Prisons, Institutions, Sewers  

Specific Hatreds: Transparency, Windows, Poor People, Lye, Observation, Newspapers, Rural Life , Sunlight, Soap

Manic Obsessions: Impurity, Elections, Panopticon, Theodicy, Examples, Rules, Exceptions, Guilt

Preferred Payments: Luxury Goods, Useful Acquaintances, Envelopes of Paper Money 

Token: A green paper passport full of garbled text.  

Table Manners? Excellent, apart from the fact that he reeks. 

Servants

• Lawyers - 1HD -  Pale, sly men in fine black suits, with green ties. Knowledgeable, Profit-motivated, remorseless. Return harm dealt to them twice over through unclear occult methods. Have a habit of crawling on all fours when unobserved. Sent by Vicepest to harangue, torment and trouble, like bad omens.  

• Policemen - 3HD - Red-faced, mandibled men, with flesh the consistency of cooked gammon. Wear tall domed helmets with rusty metal badges, dark green uniforms with patina’d copper buttons, and wield spiked metal clubs. Proud, meat-headed, cruel, slavishly obedient to Vicepest. Also equipped with bicycles and mean, rotten ponies. 

• Crooked Judges - 5HD - Massive, reeking things, unstable and rattling, like stilts jammed into a black robe, with a rotten pumpkin head and a ragged flea-filled wig, hanging off inexplicable pulpits. They’re immobile, but have a habit of appearing like someone’s going around and setting them up. Inside the cloak, a terrible stinking darkness, which throws out rusted weapons, chains and cages on metal arms, to murder and imprison.

26. Grisewood 

Miss Grisewood, Maiden Mock, Lady Anemone, Bookeater, Miss Marcesce, Lady Samara, Prude of the Woods, Tallteeth

When interacting with humans, Grisewood appears as a slender, dark-haired woman, with snow-pale skin and dark, fluttering eyelashes. She has strange, eye-spot-like blemishes on her cheeks, flat chisel teeth, and a slender, proboscis-like tongue. Her hair is long and black, but has a sort of ghostly pattern of ash-grey and mouse-brown across it as it falls like a curtain. She wears dark, heavy tweeds, modestly cut like a school-teacher. At her cuffs and the hem of her long dress, you can see that her hands and feet are twisting black roots, asymmetrical grasping appendages, creaking and squirming. She always carries a long, flexible metal rod, something like a switch, and easily eight feet in length. 

Upon arrival, Grisewood takes her long switch and draws a circle around you - either scraping into dirt, or carving into your nice parquet flooring, she cares not. You may not exit it while talking to her, or she becomes cross. 

Conveyance: A black-and-white curtain, full of small irregular holes, which sweeps across whichever doorway or aperture Grisewood plans to arrive by. 

Demeanour: Enthusiastic, wide-eyed, airheaded, unwise, occasionally callous. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: The Lost,Fences, Landlords, The Social Tapestry, Boundaries, Books, Fabric, Drowsiness, Old Clothes, Teachers, Sages, Autumn Weather, Dry Rot

Specific Hatreds: Fire, Floods, Bad Guests, Cruel Parents, Ignorance, Trespassers, Religious Zeal, Snakes

Manic Obsessions: Discarded Things, Holes, Gaps, Orphans, Bindings, Impossibility, Information, Completeness, Rhizomes, Interlinked Things

Preferred Payments: Absinthe, Silks, Books (to Eat, Absorbing the Knowledge)

Token: A tiny glassware insect, insanely fragile. 

Table Manners? Excellent, except she has a hard time distinguishing the edible and inedible - nut-shells, fish-bones, and occasionally cutlery. 

Servants:

• Will’o’Wisp - 1HD - Little grey flames, cold to the touch and incredibly fast. Wroughtwork iron lanterns serve as their shelters and houses, and Grisewood scatters a few wherever she has influence. The wisps can burn you with focus, but their famous passion, of course, is to lead travellers astray, into the power of Grisewood. 

• Fifealds - 3HD - Huge moth-butterflies, with soft black-and-white wings and enough variation in features to frustrate any lepidopterist. Another thing which may frustrate lepidopterists is the habit that Fifealds have of eating the flesh of anyone who stares at them too long. They are extremely fast and dextrous in flight, and Grisewood mostly uses them to deliver letters. 

• Scribes - 5HD - Fungal entities, a living network of sweet, meaty mycelium coiling under the soil. It fruits into two kinds of mushrooms - tall, thin black mushrooms, their round cap graced by an eye, which are lethally toxic, and short, white, sturdy mushrooms, their cap replaced by a grasping hand, which are violently psychedelic. 

27. Sticksmite 

Churl Sticksmite, Clouter, Charlie Darling, Lord Tallsky, Flingstone, Braveman, Stoneking, Regicide, House-shaker

When interacting with humans, Sticksmite takes the shape of a huge, muscular man, full of youthful energy. His skin is a dark tan, his eyes are a violent purple, and his hair (and copious body hair) is cloud white. His face and body are covered in zigzag scars and tattoos. He carries a gigantic blackthorn club, and wears the skin of a lion, the fur of a bear, the feathers of an eagle, and (on a knotted cord about his neck) an apparently human hand, twice the normal size. The hand wears a shiny ring of jade-coloured glass, and occasionally twitches. A small cloud hangs about his shoulders, and it spits hail and rumbles thunder when he’s angry. 

Upon arrival, Sticksmite demands to know who your chief or king is. Increasingly he is confused and frustrated when people respond with terms like “mayor”, “governor”, “member of parliament” and so forth. If you somehow have an authentic chief or king to cite, add three to his Reaction Roll. 

Conveyance: A grunting, shaggy, hairy ox, with a red tinge, and silver chains looped over its horns. 

Demeanour: Gluttonous, stupid, jovial, impatient, easily amused. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Orchards, The Concussed, The Drunk, Chieftains, Fruit, Angry Mobs, Herds, Strongmen, Broken Bones, Raids, Summer Weather, Young Kings

Specific Hatreds: Wimps, Bad Hosts, Rivers, Snakes, Lacking Meals, Sobriety, Wetlands, Kings of Kings

Manic Obsessions: Skulls, Lethal Injuries, Threesomes, Chaoskampf, Glory, The Moment, Theft, Pinnacles 

Preferred Payments: Prize Roosters, Gold Coins, Meteor Iron 

Token: An unmelting hailstone. 

Table Manners? Boorish and villeinlike on a good day. 

Servants

• Koryos - 1HD - Wild, fur-clad youths, with wolf-eyes, clad in furs and hides. They wield stone-headed weapons and bark and laugh in long-forgotten languages. Their eyes burn with a purplish light. Each band of Koryos is accompanied by a rogue cloud that spits down the appropriate measure of rain, snow, hail, and lightning.  

• Bullroarers - 3HD - Tall, athletic women with strange carven wooden objects in place of their heads - discs, plectrum-like shapes, animal figurines, puzzle pieces. They are shrouded in a purple auroral radiance, and carry tall wooden staves like strange mystics. They fly with ease and agility, and can produce a deafening, boneshaking drone on a whim. 

• Champions - 5HD - Huge, jovial men, with purple-red skin, hard as iron, and fiery meteor heads. They leave a burning streak across your vision as they leap and charge. Generally more in it for posturing and intimidation than actual violence, but their huge iron swords are not all for show. This is what becomes of particularly successful Koryos. 

28. Mottlepool 

Professor Mottlepool, Docent Dimlights, Lodestones, Master Cracklebang, Earth-to-Sky, Grounder, Lord Acid

When interacting with humans, Mottlepool appears as a small, rotund, balding man, with a fine moustache and a slight stoop. He wears dusty, chalky grey garments with a distinctly cave-like smell about them, of a cut and fabric that indicates slightly faded grandeur, or a fine old family fallen on somewhat hard times. Despite this, he is hatless and wigless, and decries most social traditions as guff, theatrics and bunkum! His eyes are covered by round dark glasses, because they are infinitely receding pits full of sparkling yellowish plasmas, and his hands are covered by dark rubber gloves, because they are steel, and let off sparks when touching metal. 

Upon arrival, Mottlepool goes around introducing himself to everyone and inquiring after their qualifications. If there are no scientists or engineers present, subtract four from his Reaction Roll. 

Conveyance: A bizarre aerodyne aircraft that does not seem like it should fly - all metal wings, clunking engines and rattling wheels. It usually arrives by crash-landing, throwing Mottlepool out. He has to rebuild it before he can leave. 

Demeanour: Whimsical, proud, extravagant, hyperbolic, overdramatic. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Electricity, Experiments, Machines, Universities, Acts of Hubris, Magnetism, Falling People, Laboratories, Thunderstorms, Glassware, Deep Caves, Intelligence 

Specific Hatreds: Safety Standards, Sunny Weather, Bureaucracy, Being Patronised To, Unsolvable Mysteries 

Manic Obsessions: Invention, Democracy, Phlogiston, Solutions (All Senses), Lateral Thinking, Transmutation, Aether, Modernity 

Preferred Payments: New Technology, Large Amounts of Raw Materials, Scientific Papers

Token: A coil of copper wire, tied into a decorative monkey’s fist knot.  

Table Manners? Only good when his mood is good. 

Servants:

• Sparks - 1HD - Leaping star-headed jolts of electricity, bright and lively, with tiny pointy hands and feet that burn crazed black penmark patterns wherever they go. Can animate machinery or explode into lethal leaping lightning. Barely a foot tall. 

• True-Northmen - 3HD - Smooth-shelled machines of mysterious dark grey metal. Speak in booming voices, with glowing eyes, hovering a foot above the ground. Make philosophical pronouncements and transmit the will of Mottlepool. Control powerful magnetic forces, allowing them to lift entire autocars, crumple the sides of trains, destroy guns, and the like. 

• Cavespawn - 5HD - Ancient servants of an older form of Mottlepool. Gigantic pallid centipedes, with jagged thundering rows of legs and scything silvery mandibles sparking with bursts of lightning. Their tall antennae deliver lethal shocks at a touch, and their chitin buzzes with a powerful magnetism - not only are metal weapons next to useless, they’ll keep them if you land the blow. 

29. Bellbark 

The No-Father, His Holiness Bellbark, High Prelate of the No-Church, Docent Deadhead, Doctor Woodworm, The Buried Father

When interacting with humans, Bellbark dons an appearance like a gaunt, old, worn and weary priest, ten feet tall, with a crooked back that leans him to one side. His face is often smiling, even if corpse-grey and covered with gravedirt. He wears off-white church vestments, across which ants and termites occasionally scuttle. His hair is tonsured and grey, though you wouldn’t know, due to his tall mitre, covered in marcescent leaves. He smells of wet soil.  

Upon arrival, Bellbark leads a false mass with a sacrament of rotten fruit. 

Conveyance: A birchwood bier, borne by his penitents, upon which he lies under a moldy white shroud.   

Demeanour: Solemn, patient, loving, cautious, occasionally inert.  

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Religion, Theology, Philosophy, Graveyards, Tombs, Hopelessness, Victims, Holy Places, Dead Bodies, Burial Locations

Specific Hatreds: Treachery, Atheism, Selfishness, Haste, Heroic Last Stands, Avarice, Pride, Cruelty 

Manic Obsessions: His No-Church, Salvation, Unity, Hollowness, Theodicy, Eschatology, Cosmogony, Escape   

Preferred Payments: Penitent Actions, Significant Corpses, Missionary Work for His No-Church 

Token: A perfect glass ring, alike to those worn by priests of the All Church, save his casts no shadow. 

Table Manners? Perfect. Improves the table manners of others by his example. 

Servants:

• Penitents - 1HD - Figures resembling freshly buried corpses, clad in the burial clothing of various ages of history, hair tied up in grey cloths. Seem calm, seem reassured by Bellbark’s guidance. Happy to assist anyone. It’s impossible to tell if they’re truly the souls of the recently deceased, shepherded by the No-Father, or just the idea of such. Pacifistic. 

• Pastors - 3HD - Seemingly ordinary men and women of late middle age, albeit with holes instead of eyes, sunken cheeks, and visibly rotting hands. They go about wearing decayed, damaged blue robes, and crumpled round hats. They carry the Empty Book of the No-Church, and preach Bellbark’s message of pacifistic, caring nihilism. If troubled, they can collapse into a great mass of worms and bury away through the earth. Pacifistic. 

• Prelates - 5HD - Nine feet tall, with frightful skeletal faces, birettas, ruined green robes, and long, bony arms reaching out from their torso, which is a mass of grave-dirt, rot, and too-many-ribs. Despite their extremely frightful aspect, their primary purpose is as wrathful guardians of corpses and sacred places, who tear apart those who would disrespect, rob or misuse with sharp bony fingers. When pressed, they can breathe a choking acidic gas from their empty mouths. 

30. William 

Him. 

When interacting with humans, he appears as a large, strong man, covered in scars and boils, with limp yellow hair and watery blue eyes. He’s dressed in ragged old-fashioned clothing, in red and brown, topped with a crumpled brown hat with a floppy brim. All of his clothing is filthy, his hands are covered in dirt, especially under his ragged fingernails, and his feet are caked in black mud. When he breathes out, smoke follows inexplicably. When he gets angry, his fingernails become claws, his watery eyes turn to bright flames, and short horns jab out of his forehead. 

Before he leaves, he will replace his token. 

Conveyance: His own bare and muddy feet. 

Demeanour: Jovial, psychopathic, greasy, dog-hating, hideously cruel. 

Knowledge Of and Power Over: Nationalism, War, Wolves, Assassinations, Mercenaries, Secret Burials, Fire

Specific Hatreds: Love, Dogs, Peace, Plenty, Unity, Goodness, Children

Manic Obsessions: Gruesome Deaths, Aircraft, Monarchy, Crime, Moral Degradation, Blood 

Preferred Payments: Sapient Sacrifices, Random Chaos, Arson 

Token: A fresh human eyeball. 

Table Manners? Execrable. 

Servants: None, for who can stand him?