Accommodation in Bastion

Electric Bastionland puts you in debt, with a failed career, and generally assumes you've left home in order to pursue your get-out-of-debt-quick scheme.

But I've certainly had players ask about whether they have a home. I usually just handwave it with the above explanation, but what if the players really want to know?

Roll 6d6 in order.

Roll 1: What type of home?
1: A forgotten hovel. 
2-3: Borough-funded dormitory room above/below/amongst a place of business
4-6: A rented bedsit, but you're out at the end of the week

Roll 2: Where is it?
1: Embarrassingly, you can't find your way back.
2-3: One Borough over. 
4-6: Right here in this Borough.

Roll 3: Who do you share it with?
1: Vermin
2-3: Someone was already there, so now you share. You don't really get on. 
4-6: d6 family or friends, wanted or not. 

Roll 4: What's the first thing people notice?
1: Well, you'd never let outsiders in.
2-3: The shamefully outdated décor. 
4-6: The inconvenient way you need to access the property. 

Roll 5: Any neighbours?
1: You can hear them but you never see them. 
2-3: They vanished recently and their place got boarded up. 
4-6: Yeah, and they're always knocking-on. 

Roll 6: Wait, what's that noise?
1: Oh yeah, it got demolished. 
2-3: The electricity/water/heat is out and you're at the end of the waitlist for a repair. 
4-6: It's just an annoying hum/drip/clicking. You got used to it. 

Landmark Sites - Hazard

The next two landmarks will be the overtly bad ones. No positive spin on this, a Hazard is just a place you want to avoid.

Unless...

Well, let’s make this one a place that you’ll want to avoid unless you’re looking for a very specific thing, which will be the Treasure point in our site map. 

EDIT: Looking back on this sentence above I can confirm that I abandoned this and just made it an awful place you wouldn’t want to go to. Enjoy!

Let’s take a prompt to get things moving. 

Hazard Prompt: Earsplitting Screams

Something leaps out at me here. We could break this prompt down into just “Ear Splitting” or “Splitting Screams”. We’ll make this place horrible one way or another. How about a weird hermit that wants to take the ears of anybody who passes through. Perhaps they’re pretending to be a seer, but they’re actually just an ear-collecting weirdo. Let’s run with that. 

We’ll roll on a few spark tables to give us a bank of ideas to pull from or discard:

Sky: Pale Streaks
Fauna: Placid Canines
Feature: Desecrated Waterfall
Wonder: Pleasure Water
Drama: Banishment Letters
Appearance: Sickly Crude
Voice: Strong Friendly
Desire: Knowledge Recognition

The description for hazards says “push through or turn back” so I’m taking that very literally here and trying out a completely linear site. 

Site - Grotto of the Ear Warlock

Key

Circle: Feature
Triangle: Danger
Diamond: Treasure
Line: Open path
Crossed Line: Closed path
Dotted Line: Hidden path
Arrow: Entrance
Dotted Arrow: Hidden entrance

Locations

Entrance: Amid slippery crags, crude wooden barriers shelter an opening behind a waterfall. This looks to be the only way ahead without turning back. 

1: Tunnels wind down to a tight squeeze. It’s tough to fit through but somehow impossible to return back through. Only the Warlock knows the Terric Mantra required to reopen the passageway. 

2: Steam rises from vents in this crooked cavern. Breathing in the steam causes a pleasing sensation at first, then intense muscle spasms (lose d6 VIG). Breathing through a damp cloth protects against this. 

3: Amidst stalactites and foul pools, the Ear Warlock bathes. Though he appears sickly, cloaked in rags, he booms with a welcoming voice. He won’t outright say that he’s a Seer, but does everything to suggest that to the Knights. In fact, he has no power beyond knowing the tricks of this grotto. If Knights ask for guidance he offers baseless predictions in return for an ear. Cutting off an ear causes d6 VIG loss and holds no power for the Warlock, simply adding it to his collection. 

4: Two matted old dogs sleep on a bed of slimy moss. They seem utterly content, occasionally stealing an ear from their master’s collection. 

5: The Warlock’s sleeping quarters, if you can call it that. A heap of rags for a bed, a small metal chest hidden within, containing the letter of banishment he received from the ruler of the Realm. The warlock has boarded up the passageway and warns the Knights that only the worthy should pass through. 

6: One tight squeeze after another, the rocks like sandpaper. An utter dead-end, though the Warlock insists that the worthy can find passage through. In fact, there is another Terric Mantra allowing passage out into the wider world, but he would only reveal it out of true desperation or a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the Realm.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This post was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site the week after its original publication.

If you want to support my blog, podcasts, and video content then head over to my Patreon.

Landmark Sites - Monument

Described as places of inspiration. Spending a phase here restores Spirit, so they’re typically one of the most straightforwardly beneficial landmarks to come across.

But what if you already have full Spirit? Dwellings and Sanctums can restore Vigour and Clarity respectively, but beyond that they at least have somebody to talk to and get some information from. What else can a monument offer? Well... not much, really, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it a nice little flavourful place to encounter. 

So let’s see what happens as we turn one into a site. We’ll start with a random monument prompt from the book. 

Monument Prompt: Buried library. 

Okay, neat, well this is already feeling like it could become a useful place for the Knights to get pointed toward in search of knowledge. 

We’ll mess around with the distribution of the points and routes in there, maybe removing dangers altogether, making it more of a welcoming exploration site.

I’ll roll on a few spark tables to get some extra juice:

Landscape: Dry Bog (!) Flora: Sturdy Brambles Wonder: Temptation Plants

Dry Bog is one of those combinations that doesn’t quite make sense, but I remember rolling it previously and using it as a sort of quicksand. Yeah, it’s not technically dry but remember the point of a spark table is to spark ideas, not give you a canonical answer straight out of the box.

Instead of quicksand here I’m imagining a riverland that’s dried up, now overrun by thick brambles. As the wind blows through them it sounds like whispering voices from within. Our library is “buried” beneath this strange flora, as well as the earth itself. 

Site - The Barrow of Words

Key

Circle: Feature

Triangle: Danger

Diamond: Treasure

Line: Open path

Crossed Line: Closed path

Dotted Line: Hidden path

Arrow: Entrance

Dotted Arrow: Hidden entrance

Overview

Amid the trenches of a dried-up riverland, thick-stemmed brambles block the way, a narrow trail cut through, but always at risk of being covered back up. Wind blowing through this tangle sounds like indistinct whispers. 

Deep within the brambles, a simple standing stone marks a mound. Those who can cut a path through find an open mound, but not for corpses. 

Locations

Entrance 1 (to 1): Requires cutting through a mass of thorns, then an open barrow entrance into the darkness. 

1: Hall of Dead Words - Vast stone tablets inscribed in a long forgotten script. Something about them is comforting, restoring the Spirit of those who look over them or touch them. 

2: The Library - Sprawling racks of tablets in stone, clay, marble, each in a different script, all completely illegible. Any Seer that learns about this urges the Knights to destroy this place. Beneath a collapsed rack a shaft leads down to 4. 

3: The Unlit Stairway - A seemingly endless spiral staircase. Only traveling in total darkness allows passage to the other side. 

4: Librarian Beetle Colony - A great nest of small blue beetles. They scutter harmlessly over any who enter here, investigating them thoroughly, before scurrying up to the Library to scratch cryptic symbols onto the tablets. 

5: Hall of Forbidden Words - A sealed sarcophagus. Opening it up reveals six tablets. Even attempting to read their forgotten script causes d10 Spirit loss. 

6: Muse Fountain - Statues of a child and a skeleton support each side of a great vase. The fountain isn’t working, and the water below sits stagnant.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This post was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site the week after its original publication.

If you want to support my blog, podcasts, and video content then head over to my Patreon.

Landmark Sites - Sanctum

Each Sanctum is a sacred home to a seer. They are typically mysterious by nature, so by expanding this sanctum into a site we can make it difficult for the knights to find the seer, or perhaps not even realise that this is a sanctum at all. 

Let’s roll a seer and take the sanctum prompt for a different page.

The Drowned Seer
VIG 3, CLA 3, SPI 5, 2GD

• Said to be at the bottom of a small but impossibly deep pond. Soggy acolytes gather at the shore to speak her intent.
• Sees from every river and body of fresh water, but utterly blind to the sea. 
• Wants to protect knights. Occasionally floats useful items to the surface

Sanctum Prompt: Raven Roost

The prompt doesn’t immediately mesh with the seer, but that’s an opportunity to get creative. Instead of ravens let’s use a black heron, the site based around its nest. A good excuse to learn a bit about Herons’ nesting behaviours and put a twist on it. I’m learning now that these usually solitary birds come together to form a treetop colony, or heronry, while nesting. 

But who cares about real nature, let’s see what the Bodleian Bestiary has to say about Herons. In summary: 

• Hates rain, flying above clouds to avoid storms, so their flight is seen as a storm omen
• It’s flight symbolises those who raise their minds above earthly things to embrace the serenity of heaven
• Its nesting symbolises finding solace in the eternal (treetops) over the transitory (river)
• White and grey herons live alongside, representing innocence and penitence respectively

That last point is interesting if we’re making a black heron. We’ll lean into what that could represent. 

Site - The Black Heronry

Key

Circle: Feature
Triangle: Danger
Diamond: Treasure
Line: Open path
Crossed Line: Closed path
Dotted Line: Hidden path
Arrow: Entrance
Dotted Arrow: Hidden entrance

Overview
A copse of willow trees twist together, tangled in a canopy of matted branches. Water drips from above, forming winding streams that spread underfoot in all directions. 

Locations

Entrance 1 (to 2): Hanging branches form a climbable curtain of foliage. 

Entrance 2 (to 6, hidden): Beneath the roots a cramped chute is hollowed into a trunk, providing passage up to the canopy. 

1: Treetop Waterfall - Gnarled, slippery bark makes for a dangerous climb (to 1). Going up through the water (to 3) causes upsetting visions of famine and war in the Realm. 

2: Lower Branches - d6 great black herons (3gd, d8 beak) snap at intruders. In rain or thunder they’re off flying above the clouds. Clear climbable branches lead up (to 1). Squeezing through a gap in the bark leads to 5. 

3: The Heronry - A cluster of black heron nests, filled with young in spring, deserted at the rest of the year. They bow in reverence to knights who have drawn blood this season. They despise anyone else and peck and caw at them with little effect. Dangling branches shield walkways across the branches (to 1 and 6). Breaking through the thick wall of bark leads to 4.  

4: The Seer’s Pool - A pond contained with the canopy of a huge willow. See the Seer’s description. 

5: Abandoned Nest - A great nest hidden in a hollowed out trunk. Strewn with small clothes, a rag doll, a wooden spoon. Another Seer was raised here. 

6: Delicate Canopy Top - Can be crawled over only without carrying any heavy gear whatsoever, otherwise it breaks. It’s a dangerous leap down to the Seer’s Pool. A passage down to the Heronry can be broken through the branches. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This post was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site the week after its original publication.

If you want to support my blog, podcasts, and video content then head over to my Patreon.