I've got somewhat of a strange request. I'm trying to come up with 100 different tiny tiny stories for recorder stones. So far I've got 25. I'll get there eventually, but I'm sure the variety will be a bit richer if I get some help from a few people here.
I'm talking only 10 to 20 lines per 'story' maximum.
I'll post a few examples of ones I or my s.o. already made in the next post.
If some are wondering about the why, here's the why:
Why :D
My players ended up in Sigil last session. They ended up mid-joining the society of sensation at the end of that session. They are reaching the higher levels now, and in my campaign I'm trying to spread the ever growing expected wealth levels among diverse and plausible sources. One thing I came up with, was to have each of them experience several recorder stones, and each stone would give them a small inherent bonus (skill, save, ability, etc...) that fitted the experience. (Don't worry, there's an ingame reason why the experiences of the stones will have such a profound effect on them) I wanted each of them to have the option to choose 10 stones out of 100 different stones which would each have their own colour, texture, etc...
When posting experiences, keep in mind, that my players know next to nothing of planescape. ;)
(And our actual campaign world is Toril if that matters)
The longing is unbearable. The object of her affection is so close, yet the there is a distance between them that cannot be bridged. She looks at the soft, silken face of the beautiful succubus, the same longing reflected in her radiant eyes.. Their hearts ache for each others touch.
Her eyes trace the rounding of her hips. They linger on the gentle curve of her belly, tracing it downwards to the hidden spot that urges for her affection, while her lover returns the attention.
Their love cannot be.
It's not fair!
They both reach out, opposing their fate.
Where their hands touch, the water ripples outward, distorting the image of her lover.
30. Boundaries
Their pride almost reached a level of rapture. The ritual was complete. Thanat'hael saw his own feelings reflected in the faces of his colleague wizards. The rift in front of them was opening. Colours of all sorts radiated on him and his euphoric fellows, as their portal stretched throughout the known realms and beyond. No one had ever reached this far, no one had ever peered beyond the boundaries of reality.
The portal focused on its end destination.
It was.... wrong.
The first thing Thanat'hael saw was a writhing mass of tentacles and the colour purple. Then that image lost cohesion, for forms did not belong in the realm they had opened.
The first thing he heard was one of the other wizards laughing. It was Idril Calafas. She wouldn't stop laughing. She clawed at her eyes, trying to remove them from their sockets. The new realm was bleeding into their world, trying to form colours and shapes and sounds so it could exist here. Another wizard started floating upwards, while his body was twisting, changing, into the most horrible of sounds.
I must warn...Others must know!
Thanat'hael ordered his legs to run, away from this. But away was becoming up, and up was becoming ripples. The maniacal laughter and cries were warping his spirit, while he tried to maintain some order into his perception. He couldn't.
38. Reliable
Monodrone twenty-five thousand sixty-three was mining.
-”Ore,” it said, digging up the substance it had been shown and which it recognised.
“Ore, ore, ore.” There was a lot of ore in this spot. The little modron's task was to mine it until its instructions were renewed, one and three thirds of a billionth of one Passing in the future.
“Ore”, it repeated, as it recognised more of the stuff in the place where it was digging. It did not, however, recognise the creatures sneaking up on him. They did not behave or look like a duodrone, or anything he had ever seen, and it had been around for little short of one and a half tenth of a Passing.
-”Ignore,” the monodrone said, mining on. “Ignore, ignore. Ore. Ore ore ore.”
44. Birth
Nameless was picked up. It knew it would never see the others again, at least not in this form. Nameless was chosen. The others would remain. Many of them would die. The air was cold, to its moist body. It wasn't immersed in fluid any more. Its source of food was gone. But it would get a new one. A scream as Nameless was put in its new home. Another scream as it started to eat its way undisturbed, to the fresh source of brainy material. In seven days, its new host would be transformed into its own body, and it would truly join the illithid community.
You get the gist. :D
The sword which was once light in my hands is a dragging weight at my belt, hanging loosely on a waist now smaller than it fits. I have had to discard my armor... too heavy. The settlement is too far away, and I know I will not reach it. Another paladin fallen in the desert in the service of our Lord. I suppose my name will be added to a roster of honor somewhere.
At least, being able to call forth water, I am spared death from thirst. It is a worse death than hunger, I am told. I wouldn't know. This one is lasting long enough for me.
Tracks. Apparently one of the foes I wounded earlier is in even worse shape than me; I come across him lying helpless in the sun, panting, buzzards waiting above.
He is... entirely helpless. And I have a sword.
I fall to.
Finishing, I thirst, and call for water. None comes. And the settlement is very far away.
It seems I shall have the opportunity to compare deaths after all.
Tremorsense
You are blind; but this does not matter. There is no light here. But there is life. It burrows, it walks, it dances, above and below and within the strata that surround us. Every instant the dance communicates itself to you, tells you the pattern and the flow of their movements. To be without this would be true blindness.
Holy Word
The stone cannot hold the sound, but the sound is not the point of this stone. Many of its intended audience would be slain by the very syllables! No, the point of this stone is the glory of the utterance itself. Follow me... there is no foe here. I stand before Creation, alone in the wilderness, and simply for your benefit, for the sake of teaching, I speak the word.
Oh, if only you could hear it. Music, laughter, cries of wondrous delight, all can be discerned in the ringing tones. Such beauty requires man and deity to work together; it can only come from tongue and throat aided by divine power. It fills me with contentment and joy; it leaves me awestruck; the aftermath of the onslaught of power leaves me shaking. In the fading echoes I can hear the simple promise that is the domain of all those gods that uphold truth over lies, and my conviction is strengthened and renewed.
There doesn't seem to be much traffic here anymore.
I'm only distantly keeping track of the anouncements on 4th edition. I'm more of a 'we'll see what it is when it's there' person. If I like what I see then, that's good. If I won't, I'll stick to the 3.X and 2nd edition books I have, no problem.
"Careful. Just breathe. Be calm, Nesalia."
Soyee wades through the water, takes a scented cool towel and presses it to the head of the young elf girl, who is panting and sweating profoundly, half floating in the baths.
"Hold it there, mister Nomahead," The blue-skinned elf says, wading
back through the water. She smiles encouragingly.
"It won't be long... Just a few more pushes."
Nesalia grits her teeth. Her clawed hands dig deep gashes in the marble of the bath's rim.
"It... HURTS!" She screams, her eyes flaring green. "Too much. Don't
wanna have a baby. Take one... later. Ugggh."
Soyee shakes her head, still smiling.
"You will love him or her later. I have seen it a thousand times...
once more..."
Small red clouds billowed up from the water, as the miracle of life
is happening.
Soyee feels around, she can feel it coming, the head of the child.
A primal scream echoed through the halls of the Ministry of Water and over the waters outside the bath house.
And then a moment silence.
And a wail.
Nesalia looks up, sweat pooring from her face, tears running from her
eyes, her hands having dug deep gashes in the arm of her husband.
"What... what..?"
Soyee holds up the baby, whose wails herald the start of its life,
and pressed it in the mothers arms.
"Congratulations," she says. "It's... an elf."
A Knight of Tender Passion
Three priests, two men and a woman, surround any even younger woman, the leader steps forward and stares down at her.
"Your sexual deviant ways have brought not but shame upon our order! You have slept with the high father! You we'll be punished for this!”
"But... But I love him! And he loves me!"
"Pah, Ridiculous! You will take your punishment for disgracing the high father, and then you shall be cast from our order!"
"Really? Sounds to me like she ought to be commended for breathing some life and passion back into that old fool!”
The priest turnaround stare at a highly beautiful woman that steps from the shadows. She wears light flowing robes, clasped by a symbol of a valentine heart, tentacles reaching around from behind.
"How dare you speak of the high father like that! You will be punished as well infidel!”
The priests moved as if to restrain the woman, but she ducks down and gently tap each of them whispering “Go find them”. She walks over to the young woman her hand extended in friendship, as each of the priests stares in to space for a moment. They look at each other, the woman and the man clasp hands and walk out, majestic smiles on there faces.
"Why... George... Why didn't you ever say something?..."
"I thought... I thought you would never consider..."
The second man, dashes up the stairs, muttering something about... "Only one hundred miles to Greyhawk..."
The woman picks the girl up and embraces her. She lets go and then smiles.
“Hello my dear, my name is Grace, Harem Knight of Skydin and Knight of Tender Passion. My Master Skydin would like to have a word with you…”
A Unusual Hero...
the woman runs down the alley her sandals clicking against the slick cobblestones.
"Come on little missy we're going to have some fun!"
The three men behind her slowly gaining, she just can't seem to run fast enough. Suddenly her sandals slide on the pavement and she falls tumbling To the ground. She tries to get up and finds a boot placed into her back.
"Now why'd you go and run? Now me and the boys are all stressed out, guess we'll have to take it out on you!"
The man reaches down to grab her shirt when a voice rings out from the alley.
"Try to touch that girl and you'll regret it."
The man looks up to see a cloaked man with a dagger at his side.
"What are you going to do about it? I'm a trained fighter! I can hack you to pieces with this!"
He draws from his side a huge sword.
"Now beat it before me and the boys beat you!"
The cloaked man shakes his head.
"I'm terribly sorry but I can't do that. Now, I suggest you will let the woman go before things get nasty."
"Things have already gotten nasty little punk, time to die!" The man jumps up and leaps at the robed man his sword swinging down. The cloaked man steps aside easily dodging the sword.
"Well, I guess this is unavoidable than."
He waves his hands and the man drops like a stone to the cobblestones, groaning in pain and holding his crotch.
"What the hell did you do to me!"
The cloaked man smiles and bends down.
"Well, since you don't seem to have the maturity to use one of those I just removed it.”
The other two men are startled, but they draw their own swords and run at the cloaked man. He looks up at the oncoming attackers, waves his hands and mutters a word, and both men trip and fall as they find their clothes about their ankles, their swords dropping from their hands. As they struggle to get back up to the cloaked man walks up to them and taps them on the head. Suddenly, instead of two men standing before the woman, there are two rather ugly looking women. The men stared at him in confusion as they see their new body parts. The cloaked man winks at them and makes a shooing motion with his hand.
"now if you hurry along and get home you ladies might just get back before the guards show up and “ escort” you to their barracks for the night. Naked women running about the streets are good commodity after all! Or, I could just get bored and cast a little black tentacles spell!”
The men run screaming into the night. The man walks over the woman and holds out hand. "Cypher Richards, Ero Mage at your service. May I walk you home?”
Scix had sat in constellation 354 for thousands of years... the Nerra watching peacefully as people lived there lives in his mirrors, primping and preening, waking and sleeping... It had been long time in deed as his mirrors moved from place to place and was held by royalty after royalty. Then... One day...something happened.
His 3rd mirror was given to a small child.
Mirrors where more common now, and a mother decided to give this mirror to her child as a 6th birthday gift. Now this child, this little girl, wasn't particularly beautiful, or stunning, or talented, or smart. But Scix liked the little girl. She was sweet and kind to all around her. Scix watched her through her mirror for years, as she grew to a teenager, then a young woman. Then... her mother died. She was taken to a house of a suitor who she had no love for. He watched her cry... and cry as she unpacked her things. Scix's felt something hurt deep inside... something he didn't know he had... a heart.
Then... Night fell.
There had been no time for a wedding, even if she would have consented to it. But that night, he came into the room and looked at the girl... and began to undress... she refused... and he refused to listen. She cried as he took hold of her... and started to scream as she was thrown on the bed.
Scix felts something snap inside of him. He stepped through the mirror, his mirror sword held high, and plunged it into the man's back. The girl screamed in terror as the boy's eyes rolled back in death, and slumped off to the side. She stared at the mirror man, screaming in terror. Scix sits on the bed beside the girl as she tries to scramble away. He places a finger to his lips...
"Shhhhuuusshhh...."
He reaches over and hugs her, his reflective skin warm as normal ones. He then pickes her up... and kisses her... and walks through his mirror... And she and scix defeated her clone and she lived in the mirror through the rest of the ages... the lady in the mirror...
I've cut a bit in your last two stories. They were a bit long. But I like them.
I can't believe how this suddenly skyrocketed thanks to the help of all the contributors. (The vast majority of them are on my duplicate thread on the planewalker boards) Yesterday I had the honours of posting story number 80. Now thanks to the vast amount of help I got, I'm already given the honours of posting stories number 97 and 98!
Balance
-What... what is going on?!
Etina watched in shock as her troops were ambushed by a horde of the Dark one.
-How did they know...
She pulls her sword, ready to jump to the aid of her men. Anam stops her.
-Don't stop me, I have to help them. They are being slaughtered!
-It's quite an even battle actually, Anam says calmly.
She looks puzzled for a moment.
-You, ...you betrayed us!
Anam nods and reveals his true form, his coppery skin and his ridged forehead. Etina still didn't understand. She had expected a monster.
-Why?! Why damn you! You know what they stand for! Why are you helping them?!
-You are as dangerous as they are. We can't allow the balance to be disrupted. Good and evil must be held at bay.
Order? (The questionmark is part of the title ;))
Ray'ada takes another sip from his glass. "Ah, there's truly nothing sweeter than Elysian dewberry wine, is there friend?"
Mudizi is still looking at his present, one eye twitching.
"Is there something wrong?"
"You brought me a red lamp."
Ray'ada glances briefly at the oil lamp he'd just give his Slaadi friend.
"Yes?"
"I told you I like blue," Mudizi grumbles.
"So you did, so you did... But you changed your mind didn't you?"
There's a moment of silence.
"How did you know?"
Ray'ada laughs. "Friend, you always change your mind; I can set my clock to it." He pulls out his little mechanical gimmick. It was slowing down. It would need rewinding soon.
Mudizi's croak is like a deep sigh.
"It isn't funny! The others, they all avoid me. They find me too predictable, too orderly. They say they can smell it. I'm an outcast!"
"But they are wrong friend. They are so very wrong. You are the epitome of chaos. There's nothing more predictable than the unpredictability of your kin. They all are, each and every one of them. Don't you see the order in that? You break that order, you are the unexpected flawed link in an otherwise nicely polished orderly chain of untrustworthiness and unpredictability."
While Mudizi was deeply thinking about his words, Ray'ada refilled his glass, one corner of his lips smiling.
The Warrior's Proposal
"Matthais, I have to be the luckiest woman in the world to have found you."
Matthais smiles and kisses her on the top of her head.
"No Cleo... I'm the luckiest man on earth to have found you. I love you so very much it's crazy. Your wonderful, pure and simple. I love you so much... I'd do anything for you."
"The same goes for me my love."
After the show is done, Matthais holds her close.
"The show was beutiful wasn't it?"
He kisses her softly... and then sighs.... he'd have to have the courage now...
"Cleo... as a princess... are you promised to anyone? For land or any other such nonsense? I know that's common practice for humans, but I don't know about Nymphs."
Cleo's eyes light up even more and she blushes.
"No I'm not. My father said that he would let me choose who I married. He knew that I was capable of finding my own prince charming. Why...why do you ask?"
Matthais smiles...Thank God.
He steps off the bed, walks around to her, and kneels.
"Because... Because I want to be your prince. I Want to spend my entire life with you."
He reaches around and pulls out a black box. He opens the box, and inside is a silver ring, set into it a Grey diamond, a jet of pure white streaking down the middle.
"Cleo... will you be my wife?"
Cleo's eyes fill with tears of happiness.
"Do you really need to ask? Of course I'll be yours for the rest of our lives."
She lets him put on the ring then kisses him sending chills down his spine.
The majority of contributions (and some of my own stories) are on this thread on the planewalker site:
http://www.planewalker.com/forums/viewThread.php?intPostID=36940
Thankyou Thankyou