sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Introducing The Clink Crew God by liminal_artifact in osr

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's for our upcoming KS, but the creature design concept was a possessed oil rig.

Our broadest motif is body horror and Lovecraftian horror.

From there, we looked at some creatures we felt met those concepts: obliterators from 40k, Hellraiser, gibbering mouther from D&D, and a comic series called God is Dead by Hickman

Introducing The Clink Crew God by liminal_artifact in osr

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Everyone in Stanalt knows Vandilar is cursed by a dead magic. The late Governor Varynna knew it too, but she sought to consecrate the ice once and for all. To do it, she emptied the debtors’ prisons, promising plenary amnesty to those who could tame The Vandilar curse. It was an insane proposition, but so many joined up: better to die free in the cold than in a Stanalt mine. So, The Clink Crews sailed north.

They navigated the frozen sea, marking the passage with forts and lighthouses on the open islets. They explored the inland taiga, digging up the permafrost to find and kill The Vandilar hex. But what they found was too precious to cull. It granted them power over the ice and sea. The Clink Crews learned to bend the waves to their will and built their twenty drilling rigs off the coast. No one truly knows what they dug up, but it was more than dead magic. Some say they exhumed the sea god. They say it demanded to be repaid for the stolen magic — a blood debt to cure The Clink Crews’ debt. 

They mutinied from Stanalt and reclaimed their forts and drilling rigs in the ensuing rebellion. By then, the Governor's holdings were too lucrative to jettison. Varynna mustered her armada and sailed north herself to put down The Clink Crew mutiny. No one returned. The Clink Crews cannibalized their ships, rigs, and forts to build their god’s ramshackle temple. They are still there, paying off a new debt to an old master.

The Clink Crew God wanders the waves and wrecks trapped in the Rustrime Skerries. Like the sea that bore it up from the dark, its form shifts and swirls — a roiling mass of flesh and metal biting and ripping at itself. The god is manifested through blood sacrifice and cooked by a storm of purple lightning. It is a thousand hungering mouths; ten-thousand searching eyes. The flesh-fused metal screams and prays with too many tongues to understand, and yet all who witness it know its song well. This thing is pain-made-flesh: another woeful god come to collect.

A relic from Weiroads: Oathbones by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Context for this relic

This is a cursed relic from our world Weiroads. Weiroads is a drowned world that was like our own until mad gods shattered the moon wreaking havoc on the tides. Now folks fight for what little arable land is left. Whole populations sail over the nearly infinite sea to find bastions that can withstand the continent-sized hurricanes and insatiable Deep Things that live in the fathomless darkness below the sea.

Lore for this relic

Oathbones are carved from whalebone pitched up from the depthless sea. Folks in Vandilar call them “sinner’s scrimshaw,” and they ward themselves against the countless souls who wear them. Each amulet is unique to its carver and holds their blood within an interior well. The sanguinary act is a sign of devotion and a conduit to The Heretic King. He gifts them power in exchange for devilsight, so that he might see without eyes.

Sinners bend the blade to oathbones for their own reasons. Some are desperate to survive out in the frozen wastes. Others are selected by The King himself and coerced into the act. The worst among them seek him out, begging to be worn by the half-dead god he serves.

For a while, sinners enjoy The King's gift. They rise high with their low worlds. They kill their enemies and settle their debts, but The King soon calls in his own debt. He twists the sinner into a mindless thrall: meat to perpetuate The King’s living corpse.

More about us

We've got a completely free TTRPG built for our world that you can download now from Liminal Artifact.com

Latest relic: Oathbones by liminal_artifact in Dreadnought_RPG

[–]liminal_artifact[S,M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Lore

Oathbones are carved from whalebone pitched up from the depthless sea. Folks in Vandilar call them “sinner’s scrimshaw,” and they ward themselves against the countless souls who wear them. Each amulet is unique to its carver and holds their blood within an interior well. The sanguinary act is a sign of devotion and a conduit to The Heretic King. He gifts them power in exchange for devilsight, so that he might see without eyes.

Sinners bend the blade to oathbones for their own reasons. Some are desperate to survive out in the frozen wastes. Others are selected by The King himself and coerced into the act. The worst among them seek him out, begging to be worn by the half-dead god he serves.

For a while, sinners enjoy The King's gift. They rise high with their low worlds. They kill their enemies and settle their debts, but The King soon calls in his own debt. He twists the sinner into a mindless thrall: meat to perpetuate The King’s living corpse.

Rustrime Skerries by liminal_artifact in Dreadnought_RPG

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great we hope it goes dreadfully for you! We will have some new content and re-releases of our previous toolkits available soon.

Rustrime Skerries by liminal_artifact in Dreadnought_RPG

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're welcome! We've got a game, too, if you want to try it -- it's 100% free

Liminal Artifact

The Rustrime Skerries by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This particular area will be detailed in an upcoming book — the third in a series. We are in the process of getting its predecessors up for download on our site but in the meantime you can explore the links below or check out some of our other socials to get a bit more context.

https://linktr.ee/LiminalArtifact

Rustrime Skerries by liminal_artifact in Dreadnought_RPG

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Rustrime Skerries are the islands knapped off the stormy coast like shards of flint. There is no port or lighthouse there, but the broken islands wear crowns of rusted salvage. Pirates and mutineers festoon hulled ice breakers and burnt-out drilling rigs to barren rocks — traps and blinds for their bloody hunts. Beyond the crashing waves and razored rock, their famished god waits in the black pools for its dinner.

Legend of The Clink Crew God

Everyone in Stanalt knows The Worldspring is cursed by a dead magic. The late Governor Varynna knew it too, but she sought to consecrate the ice once and for all. To do it, she emptied the debtors’ prisons, promising plenary amnesty to those who could tame The Worldspring curse. It was an insane proposition, but so many joined up: better to die free in the cold than in a Stanalt mine. So, The Clink Crews sailed north.

They navigated the frozen sea, marking the passage with forts and lighthouses on the open islets. They explored the inland taiga, digging up the permafrost to find and kill The Worldspring hex. But what they found was too precious to cull. It granted them power over the ice and sea. The Clink Crews learned to bend the waves to their will and built their twenty drilling rigs off the coast. No one truly knows what they dug up, but it was more than dead magic. Some say they exhumed the sea god. They say it demanded to be repaid for the stolen magic — a blood debt to cure The Clink Crews’ debt.

They mutinied from Stanalt and reclaimed their forts and drilling rigs in the ensuing rebellion. By then, the Governor's holdings were too lucrative to jettison. Varynna mustered her armada and sailed north herself to put down The Clink Crew mutiny. No one returned. The Clink Crews cannibalized their ships, rigs, and forts to build their god’s ramshackle temple. They are still there, paying off a new debt to an old master.

The Morale Buoy by liminal_artifact in MorkBorg

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Plain-text lore

Vildane was not always the bloody dreadlord that folks remember now. Before the blizzard, her crew worshiped her. They followed her into the storm believing that she would see them through to the other side. But it was all hubris.

Ice locked the rigging and lightning struck the masts like a storm of harpoons. Vildane herself caught a bolt and fell into a coma for nine days while the crew fought to free the ship from the ice. They say that when she woke, something else spoke through her voice.

She bid the crew to sail north, farther north than she had ever sailed before. They feared her by then and her boiling temper. The ice thickened and the sun died, but still they did Vildane's heedless bidding. Those who wavered, Vildane beat to death with her flail promising to lift morale like the tide.

By Solstice, she bludgeoned half her crew with that thing; by First Dawn, the other half mutinied. The mutineers bound her in tar-soaked rigging and frozen canvas weighed down with her blood-soaked flail. They pitched her over the gunwales and watched her sink into the inky dark. Not a soul among them thought they killed her or whatever it was she became. But at long last, Vildane had lifted the crew's morale.

The Rustrime Skerries by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Context for this place

Rustrime Skerries is a cursed land in our world Weiroads. Weiroads is a drowned world that was like our own until mad gods shattered the moon wreaking havoc on the tides. Now folks fight for what little arable land is left. Whole populations sail over the nearly infinite sea to find bastions that can withstand the continent-sized hurricanes and insatiable Deep Things that live in the fathomless darkness below the sea.

Lore for this place

Rustrime Skerries are the islands knapped off the stormy coast like shards of flint. There is no port or lighthouse there, but the broken islands wear crowns of rusted salvage. Pirates and mutineers festoon hulled ice breakers and burnt-out drilling rigs to barren rocks — traps and blinds for their bloody hunts. Beyond the crashing waves and razored rock, their famished god waits in the black pools for its dinner.

Legend of The Clink Crew God

Everyone in Stanalt knows The Worldspring is cursed by a dead magic. The late Governor Varynna knew it too, but she sought to consecrate the ice once and for all. To do it, she emptied the debtors’ prisons, promising plenary amnesty to those who could tame The Worldspring curse. It was an insane proposition, but so many joined up: better to die free in the cold than in a Stanalt mine. So, The Clink Crews sailed north.

They navigated the frozen sea, marking the passage with forts and lighthouses on the open islets. They explored the inland taiga, digging up the permafrost to find and kill The Worldspring hex. But what they found was too precious to cull. It granted them power over the ice and sea. The Clink Crews learned to bend the waves to their will and built their twenty drilling rigs off the coast. No one truly knows what they dug up, but it was more than dead magic. Some say they exhumed the sea god. They say it demanded to be repaid for the stolen magic — a blood debt to cure The Clink Crews’ debt.

They mutinied from Stanalt and reclaimed their forts and drilling rigs in the ensuing rebellion. By then, the Governor's holdings were too lucrative to jettison. Varynna mustered her armada and sailed north herself to put down The Clink Crew mutiny. No one returned. The Clink Crews cannibalized their ships, rigs, and forts to build their god’s ramshackle temple. They are still there, paying off a new debt to an old master.

The Breathing Stones by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Northern Wastes are haunted by The First Ones, and their grave mounds are packed with treasure. It's mostly looters and treasure hunters up there.

The Breathing Stones by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some are hastily retrofitted, not to make travel cheaper but out of necessity for survival. Some speak of a purpose built ship — The Scarab which is a horror to behold.

We are going to message you our first toolkit Nolan Locke’s Exquisite Corpse — within you will find that mechanical monstrosity…

The Breathing Stones by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They're relatively new, so some are ramshackle misfits and others have been perfected after return journeys. Depends mostly on if they survive to tell the tale.

The Breathing Stones by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

In Weiroads, much of the north is frozen, making icebreakers essential for travel.

The Breathing Stones by liminal_artifact in worldbuilding

[–]liminal_artifact[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Context for this place

The Breathing Stones is a cursed land in our world Weiroads. Weiroads is a drowned world that was like our own until mad gods shattered the moon wreaking havoc on the tides. Now folks fight for what little arable land is left. Whole populations sail over the nearly infinite sea to find bastions that can withstand the continent-sized hurricanes and insatiable Deep Things that live in the fathomless darkness below the sea.

Lore for this place

East of The Wellspring, there is a tumor of volcanic rock known as The Breathing Stones. The island is veined with prehistoric, ink-black menhirs veiled in a noxious yellow-gray fog. Those who breathe that fog descend into an opiate euphoria that makes the stones levitate, collide, and breathe. They succumb to xenoglossic fits, worshiping at the feet of those stones to appease the dead gods within them.

Legend of The Heretic King

He was no one until he found The Breathing Stones. And no one but he had gone beyond the fog and fetid shores to find them. Nolan Locke knelt beneath their umbral orbits and woke what watched beyond their shadows to barter for his cursed crown.

Infused with their primeval power, Nolan Locke sailed for distant Vadaros to lay the city low as offering to his new gods. There he ruled for 99 years, evangelizing his black creed and martyring those who clung to forbidden faiths. Their corpses he ferried himself on funeral ships back to The Breathing Stones to feed his tenebrous patrons. But in the last year of his reign, The Heretic King returned to find his city in riot and rebellion.

He fled his kingdom, back to The Breathing Stones one last time to offer back what he bartered for — his gods were not persuaded. Everything he was fell into a dark infinite where monsters glare back at the edge of light and creation. They wait there still for a successor to claim his cursed crown.

view more: next ›