New PDF From Steve: Tatterdemalion Terrors!

[Steve Long]

You can blame Lord Liaden for this one. He asked a question that got me thinking, and that's never a good idea.

 

The Book Of The Empress describes the eerie, dangerous patchwork Qliphothic dimension of Tatterdemalion. This PDF details five types of monsters characters might encounter in that horrid place:

 

—Carrionites, whose semi-undead flesh constantly remolds itself into different forms;

 

—the Foul-Skinned Men, humanoid warriors whose very touch is corruptive both physically and spiritually;

 

—Orons, invisible things who seem to be composed entirely of fanged mouths;

 

—Skeinrippers, who have the power to harm living beings by attacking their destinies; and

 

—Zodiac Beasts, predators said to be made of the stuff between constellations

 

 

And it only costs $1, so check it out!

 

 

Tatterdemalion Terrors

[Lord Liaden]

Considering how cool these beasties turned out, I'm more than willing to accept the blame and take a tiny sliver of the credit.

[bubba smith]

I got my copy thanks

[DShomshak]

And I'll get mine this weekend. This sounds excellent. Bravo, Steve!

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

I solicited Steve Long's opinion as to whether it would be fair to quote his brief description of the dimension of Tatterdemalion from Book Of The Empress, as that would give context to the creatures in his new PDF. He saw no problem with that, so:

 

"This Qliphothic dimension might be better described as an agglomeration of leftover dimensions. As planes of reality decay or corrode and become Qliphothic, sometimes they tear apart or shrink. By a process not even mystics understand, dozens of these “dimensional fragments” have become attracted to one another by some gravity-like extradimensional force and coalesced to form a patchwork reality Humans would call Tatterdemalion.

 

In Tatterdemalion, the “landscape” (such as it is) can change entirely over just a few miles as a traveler crosses from a fragment of one dimenstion to a fragment of another. Where the two fragments were previously similar or have “knitted together” well, this change may be gradual and subtle, but in most cases it’s as abrupt as a cliff’s edge. And since they’re rotten pieces of ancient dimensions, none of the “zones” of Tatterdemalion are in any way pleasant.

 

The creatures and beings who once inhabited the various component realms of Tatterdemalion have mingled and interbred throughout the eons, creating things monstrous and strange even by Qliphothic standards. Some of them that Champions Universe Earth superheroes have encountered include..." (BOTE p. 146)

 

And here we get the brief descriptions of the creatures that Steve put in his blurb for Tatterdemalion Terrors, above.

[Opale]

Hail Qliphoth !

 

oops

 

 

Tentacular Opale

[Opale]

Btw, I attempted to buy it too, and the delivery failed... who should I adress with my problem ?

[Lord Liaden]

I guess that would be Jason Walters, since he deals with the online store (and pretty much everything else Hero Games-related, these days). Click the "Contact Us" link at the top of this webpage.

 

But did you try downloading it again? If you successfully purchased it you should be able to. Under the "Client Area" link up top, "Purchases" should take you to where you can download it.

[Opale]

i don't see it in the Purchase page, tough I receive the confirmation from Paypal of the sale :/

 

Very odd

[bubba smith]

have you checked your downloads ?

[Steve Long]

What LL said -- Jason's the person to contact (via the "Contact Us" button) if you continue to have problems.

[Opale]

Nothing in downloads, mail was sent this morning.

 

I pray the Edom Kings to go eat Jason if he doesn't fix it

[Steve Long]

I'm sure Jason will get back to you as soon as he can. But FYI, the Burning Man festival is currently taking place basically in his backyard, so he may be a bit distracted for a day or three more.

[Steve]

I didn't know he attended those.

[Steve Long]

I'm not sure to what extent he attends the festival. I was being literal:  the damn thing is set up right next door to his ranch, so it's kind of a distraction regardless.

[L. Marcus]

I do hope the damn kids stays off his lawn.

[Lord Liaden]

If they don't, Steve just gave him a whole bunch of things to eat them.

[Opale]

Thanks for making me get infos about this festival, I didn't know about

 

Seems like a fun popular party of a kind. 

Is that festival only happening in the Nevada state by the way ? 

 

Burning Opale - could have been a witch at old times

[Lord Liaden]

BTW I just purchased and downloaded a copy of TT from the online store, without difficulty. So whatever problem Opale encountered, it's not universal.

[Lord Liaden]

I've been discussing the Qliphoth, and talking up Tatterdemalion Terrors, on the Champions Online discussion forums, where I received a very interesting question from one of the CO players using the handle, "bluegrassbeast," which elicited information with storytelling potential:

Quick question.. just how.. 'hostile' is Tatterdemalion to quote-unquote 'normal' life? Could /do small communities of survivors of these dead dimensions still exist and subsist enough to continue, particularly if they had some superhuman blood in the mix?

Not having enough information to provide a definitive answer, I passed the question on to the source, Steve Long:

It's entirely possible for small communities of survivors of the dead/decaying dimensions that form Tatterdemalion to continue to live in Tatterdemalion -- at least for a time. After all, there are too many great story possibilities involved in that sort of thing to think otherwise!   That's where monstrous beings like the ones in Tatterdemalion Terrors come from:  they didn't necessarily start out that way, they "evolved" into such horrifying forms.

There are a couple of factors to keep in mind. First, what would the "survivor" of the death/decay/corruption of a dimension look like? Even with superhuman attributes, he might already have become just as "rotted" or "weakened" as the dimension he's a native of. Second, no matter how powerful a survivor might be, the nature of Tatterdemalion is inherently "corruptive." If you remain there, sooner or later it will affect you, eventually turning you into something monstrous. In the case of large groups/races, they'll slowly "evolve" towards evil forms/existences; with an individual the process may differ or be particularly strange or unusual. That could be the whole basis of a campaign -- trying to resist the corruption long enough to accomplish something "meaningful" in Tatterdemalion (perhaps "removing" a piece of the patchwork and trying to restore it to the status of a healthy dimension).

[Comic]

Okay, some great ideas for cosplay. Erm.. anyone have any suggestions how to go about an invisible fanged mouths costume?

[DShomshak]

In his reply, Steve essentially gave the plot seed of one of the adventures in my second Supermage playtest campaign:

 

PCs lured through a Gate in an ancient Buddhist monastery to an enclave of humans in a decaying dimension, under siege from Qliphothic forces and slowly losing their own humanity. When them PCs followed the horrors to the source, they reached a dimension on the edge of oblivion called the Pale Cathedral that now consisted only of a single cathedral built of bones. Its inhabitants, the Harab Serapel or Ravens of Dispersion, had drawn in the PCs as apart of a plan to stave off annihilation for another age or two. (The Ravens were so ancient they considered the Kings of Edom to be multiversal newcomers; they had been spirits of Art before Los/Urthona became Prime Avatar.) PC Artifex convinced them to jettison the Pale Cathedral as metaphysical reaction mass in a last-ditch attempt to rise back up the Tree of Life and re-create themselves. One of them survived. Artifex called it a win.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Opale]

Ah so Artifex, from The Ultimate Super Mage 5th Ed is a PC

 

Are Jezeray and the Satyr character too ? 

[Lord Liaden]

I had a fun few sessions GMing a group of PCs playing "the Ultimate Mystics," made up of the sample heroes described in The Ultimate Mystic source book: Jezeray Illyescu/ Zontar Bok, Artifex, Pagan, Chrysaor. Tiger-Man, and Sarah Redhawk.

 

BTW Jezery/Zontar, Artifex, and Pagan (originally called "Morningstar") were given full write-ups and Hero 4E character sheets in Dean's Ultimate Super Mage book. In reference to Dean's post above, while the Ravens of Dispersion are briefly mentioned in The Mystic World for the current CU, the companion to USM, The Super Mage Bestiary, described and statted them and the Pale Cathedral in considerable detail.

 

No few characters and plots from those books made it into my games at one time or another. Ah, good days.

[Lord Liaden]

Okay, some great ideas for cosplay. Erm.. anyone have any suggestions how to go about an invisible fanged mouths costume?

 

I think I ran into a Foul-Skinned Man at a convention or three.