Wednesday, November 6, 2013

In the Burned-Over Districts (Wermspittle)

Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon dead bodies. I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the Fulham Road. They had been dead many days, so that I hurried quickly past them. The black powder covered them over, and softened their outlines. One or two had been disturbed by dogs...
The War of the Worlds, Book Two, Chapter Eight

One Hundred Things Littering the Streets of the Burned Over Districts in Wermspittle
  1. Crushed and scattered bones of several cats and rabbits.
  2. Farther on was a tattered woman in a heap on a doorstep; the hand that hung over her knee was gashed and bled down her rusty brown dress, and a smashed magnum of champagne formed a pool across the pavement. She seemed asleep, but she was dead.
  3. Battered tin trunk packed with clothes, all slightly moldy and saturated by mud.
  4. Nearly half a cord of dry fire-wood piled under a tarpaulin beside the collapsed wrought-iron steps to a burned-out building.
  5. A mound of (3d10) charred corpses. No sign of whomever stacked them.
  6. Red Weeds have taken-over a section of the street that is now densely overgrown to a depth of (3d4) feet. There are puddles of water underneath the red fronds, in some places the water is over six feet deep and there is a small chance to slip and possibly drown.
  7. Green-grocer's cart with a smashed wheel. Stripped of anything useful. A swarm of Knife-Flies or Puffer-Maggots may have taken-up residence in the thing. You can find out if you disturb them.
  8. Straw hat trampled into the now hardened mud.
  9. A battered ceremonial cutlass, heavily notched from much use.
  10. Dirty hatchet next to a caved-in hole.
  11. Garden wheel-barrow filled with wet dirt.
  12. Red Fronds form a sort of canopy over the street. They are also infested with hundreds of tiny bats that feed upon the blood-red berries produced by this variety of Red Weed. The bats also like the taste of human blood, which is amazingly similar to the sap they normally feed upon.
  13. Pack of well-worn cards.
  14. A pair of reading glasses, missing the lenses.
  15. (2d4) gold chains and a watch scattered on the ground, having fallen from a looter's sack.
  16. Another skeleton, with the arms dislocated and removed several yards from the body.
  17. Black Smoke cylinder, half-buried in a mound of rubble and debris. [Appears to be a dud.]
  18. Skull of a sheep, picked clean.
  19. Handsome selenite paperweight. The inscription has been scratched into illegibility.
  20. Man covered in black dust, thoroughly insensible and stupid due to a binge of Dim Ichor.
  21. Overturned coach. All the wheels are missing.
  22. A spoon.
  23. Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid have been spattered all about the place. It has mostly dried. It smells faintly metallic and causes dysentery if handled or comes into contact with bare flesh.
  24. You notice an ominously noxious smell emanating from a near-by grate.
  25. Broken and battered ice-box torn loose from a bar. Only a few maggots inside.
  26. A dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in its jaws coming headlong towards you, followed by a pack of starving mongrels in howling pursuit.
  27. A shapeless mass of gnawed gristle of indeterminate nature.
  28. Red Creepers have pulled-down two buildings, completely burying an alley-way.
  29. Two smashed bicycles. A good deal of blood smeared on the seat of one of them.
  30. A multitude of dogs are fighting over the grisly contents of a partially exposed plague pit.
  31. A great circular pit extending downwards more than 600 feet. The walls are crumbling gravel and give off wisps of a faint greenish vapor when disturbed. The bottom of the pit is submerged under 30 feet of stagnant water coated with a heavy layer of black scum.
  32. Six feet of a rudely severed metal tentacle.
  33. A lingering cloud of Black Smoke (Type I). [Save or suffer 3d6 per round of exposure. Water nullifies the smoke, reducing it to a gritty residue. Dense, inky; tends to swirl oddly, almost fluidly, and is substantially heavier than air.]
  34. Two filthy squatters caught-up in a dim contest of whispers tumble out from behind a pile of rubble as they wrestle over the last of their food. In the midst of their sad struggle, a dog runs away with their tin of biscuits.
  35. A dense mound of inert blue powder slowly sifting into the cracks and crevices all around it.
  36. The desiccated, exsanguinated corpse of a stout, ruddy, well-dressed middle-aged man of some consequence; he's been dead for about three days. Triangular wound in abdomen crusted over with dried blood and mucous.
  37. Dirty and bedraggled, a Frothy Repenter shambles along babbling snatches of garbled scripture and old advertising slogans. A yellowish foam dribbles from their lips. Anyone they bite must Save at -2 or go mad themselves. They are inconsolable, driven by instinct and fear, looking for anything to eat or drink, and will attack upon sighting anything they think might be edible.
  38. A bloodied meat chopper left lying on the steps to a cellar scullery.
  39. Three rickety doors have been stacked one atop the other.
  40. (4d10) pounds of loose coal scattered from a large dented bucket left lying in the street.
  41. Broken glass covers the ground in a roughly thirty-foot radius. The whole area reeks of wine, urine and burnt meat. It might be possible to locate (1d4) intact bottles of wine or beer, all of it of low quality.
  42. The cold remains of a week-old bonfire built-up from heaps of furniture dragged from the nearest houses.
  43. A gas mask missing the lenses.
  44. (1d4) hungry dogs watch you warily. They seem afraid of you.
  45. A yellow metal bench ripped loose from its concrete pad and propped-up against the door of a half-collapsed building.
  46. (1d6) empty biscuit tins rolling around on the ground.
  47. A glass of rain-water coated with black scum.
  48. Cast-iron pump-handle. It was recently used as a make-shift club. Bits of skin, hair and blood still attached at the end.
  49. A wretchedly scrawny dog that will not stop barking no matter what you might try.
  50. (4d6) Blackened Birds flutter out from a near-by pit. Each of them explodes into a cloud of Black Smoke (Type II) upon taking more than 3 points of damage. [Save at -2 penalty or suffer 4d4 damage for next 2d6 rounds as blood transforms into a toxic black ooze. Nullified by water, but becomes extremely flammable if exposed to alcohol and will burst into flames inflicting 3d6 damage in a twenty foot radius.]
  51. Small mound of grayish-blue powder. Incredibly slippery. Only slightly toxic. [Save +2 or suffer 1d4 damage, affected area permanently stained light bluish.]
  52. (3d4) inert skeletons coated in black grit.
  53. A slipper.
  54. A gaunt gray cat slinks along a wall. It ignores you.
  55. Loose rubble. [60% chance of it collapsing. Save or DEX Check, fail and it inflicts 2d6 damage. Player can opt to take no damage but be buried to a depth of (3d4) feet underneath the debris.]
  56. (1d4) Red Trees growing out of a section of ruined wall. The gnarled roots have infiltrated every nook and cranny of the old stonework. Viscous red sap drips like blood from the trees, making the surrounding area slippery (Dex check). The sap dries into a scab-like mess that causes 1d4 damage if left on exposed skin.
  57. (2d4) candles in a water-logged cardboard box.
  58. Black thorn-bushes have sprouted-up through the cobbles.
  59. A rather lordly carriage, burned into a shambles.
  60. Two human skeletons--not bodies, but skeletons--picked clean.
  61. Burnt trees. Burnt grass. The cobbles and a section of near-by wall is intensely scorched. If examined closely, one can make out several shadow-like shapes indelibly burned into the stones.
  62. A layer of gray clinkers mixed-in with a fine, sooty gray ash covers the street. There is a thin crust formed from exposure to the rain. Disturbing the crust will stir up a cloying, choking cloud of dust that has the stench of burned meat. [Reduce visibility to 10%, Save or be incapacitated by choking and coughing for 1d4 rounds.]
  63. (1d4) Feral Children amuse themselves throwing stones at you from a roof-top. They quickly disperse and go into hiding if confronted or convincingly threatened with violence. They are not scared. Only waiting for the right opportunity.
  64. A fragment of yellowish-white metal that looks like part of some cylindrical-shaped structure.
  65. The cart of a ginger-beer peddler, smashed and splintered as though stepped on by a huge, rounded foot.
  66. An old-fashioned tricycle, with a small front wheel, bent into scrap-metal.
  67. Three charred bodies clumped together.
  68. A blood-stained and slightly singed white flag juts up from the dried muck surrounding a broken section of pavement.
  69. A clock. The hands are missing. So are the weights.
  70. A set of binoculars missing the lenses.
  71. A bent and pitted parabolic mirror of unknown composition.
  72. Lingering green smoke. It coils sluggishly in the air, but otherwise seems harmless.
  73. Dozens of splintered, fractured and partially-melted bricks scattered across the ground from a wall that still bulges as though exposed to an incredible amount of heat.
  74. A broken wine-glass. 
  75. (2d4) dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there.
  76. Two spades stuck into the side of a rough hole dug into the side of a rampart-like mound of tightly-packed earth that mostly buries what remains of the next three houses.
  77. An expensive hand-carved pipe.
  78. A badly cracked chimney collapses into a pile of debris and a quickly-dispersed cloud of soot and dust.
  79. Eight full place-settings in fine silver, wrapped-up in an elegant table-cloth and lying half-submerged in a puddle of foul-smelling water.
  80. A lurid green glare lights up the night. A falling star.
  81. A heap of black broadcloth and two boots. Look more closely and you'll see it's a dead soldier.
  82. There is a sharp resinous tang of burning in the air. But no sign of what is burning. Nor where.
  83. The broken remains of a caisson, all the ammunition is gone.
  84. A broken cash-box. Sifting through the dried mud will reveal (3d6) random coins.
  85. Dismal gray stems jut up from a dense thicket of Red Weeds.
  86. A smashed heliograph.
  87. A little hand-truck, piled with unclean-looking bundles and shabby furniture.
  88. What looks to be a cannon, possibly a 12-pounder, only it has been somehow melted and slightly flattened, like a stick of butter left out too long in the sun.
  89. (1d4) golf clubs. No bag. Just the clubs.
  90. A small outhouse door piled with a variety of cheap household goods.
  91. (1d12) fragments of some sort of glittery bronze-type alloy.
  92. A woman's shawl trampled into a puddle of ruddy-brown fluid. The fluid has a pudding-like consistency, but seems inert.
  93. This hospital tent has been burned down to a smoldering frame. It's unclear if there are any bodies mixed-in with the charred debris.
  94. A small portmanteau, its owner still clutches it, the last third of their body is so much black soot and cracked bones.
  95. Overturned, the front-end of this motor-cart is badly smashed-in. The batteries in the back-end are mostly broken, leaking and quite useless.
  96. A slender, black whip. The handle has been snapped.
  97. Some bloody rags. Torn and ragged. They were removed by violence.
  98. Burnt, blackened and crumpled horribly, the ruined observation balloon dangles from the dead branches of a dead tree wreathed in Red Creepers.
  99. (3d6) Bread Ration Tickets blow across the cobbles. Worthless.
  100. A pile of globes, forms and copy-books removed from a children's school. All of it reeks of heating oil. The small band of Orphans who were setting-up this trap were jumped by someone, or something else. There's a good bit of blood spattered on the cobbles not far from the pile of school house debris.




4 comments:

  1. Great stuff. Practically everyone is a seed for an adventure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. War of the worlds is a big inspiration. It was fun building a table inspired by things found by the protagonist over the course of the novel. It also proved very easy to convert the entries over to Wermspittle-stuff...so adapting it on to another setting ought to be a snap.

      Delete
  2. There's a huge amount in there, individual stories, but also bigger pictures, and the more unfinished narratives are especially interesting, potentially with a very long way to run. The tone that binds it all is rich too - Wermspittle really adds to the material.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Porky. Re-reading Wells has been a lot of fun. It's good to get some of this stuff out there once and for all, instead of remaining buried in notes and old folders for the last few years...

      Delete

Thanks for your comment. We value your feedback and appreciate your support of our efforts.