One Clown Theory

Recently there was some clown discussion. Here's the thing about clowns:  

There's only one clown and there has only ever been one clown. 

These are all the same creature

One clown! It's all the same clown! No of course I don't mean it's some sort of clown hive mind or the same clown time travelling around and around- actually the second one isn't far from the bullseye. 

There's something that happens at the biological, psychological, pharmacological, ontological level to someone who starts walking down the clown path. At a point somewhere after they don the d-red nose for the first time and when they're chainsmoking with fourteen brethren in the back of a tiny car on their way to commit mischief, the neurological pathways in their brains form into just the right configurations of comedy meets tragedy, of necessity meets frivolity, and eventually there's a wet popping sound as the circle is completed, the ritual satisfied, and that person is gone and in their skin is the clown. 

same clown

And it's always the same clown. Always. Yes yes, who among us hasn't turned a corner and averted their gaze from a group of clowns dismembering and devouring one of their own- but that's just what this creature does! The madness locked in its big-tent striped brain is the insanity of eons! 

Blind and deaf inquisitors of the most holiest and secret of orders have thoroughly worked over many a subject and the results of their studies are thrice sealed and buried in the deepest vaults of hidden sacred monasteries- but one fact has made its way out of these sanctums: each clown is a different iteration of the same tormented soul- born anew atemporally into the host body. Can you imagine it? A thousand thousand thousand lifetimes in a thousand cities? A thousand worlds? We can only guess at the limits of it, but these concurrent lives lived out over the eons have driven the creature horribly, hilariously mad. 

this too, same clown

And this clown, the clown, it knows what is happening to it. After each death and renewal into a new host it remembers all of these previous lives- and so they tend to congregate into troupes amongst itself. Why else are the jokes so similar, the acts all the same, the colors the paints it's all the same clown! Experiencing itself in another maddening circle!

There's no coming back to one stricken by the disease, unfortunately. They become the clown irrevocably. Maybe the clown is feeling whimsical and will act the role of the dutiful son, daughter, husband, wife and wipe off their face paint- but never forget it's not who it once was. Late at night they will feel the inevitable pull to the trunk in the basement, beneath all the boxes of coats, and they will pull out their tiny trumpet and honk their red nose. It's best to just ignore it. Live blissfully ignorant and thank your lucky stars that the clown has decided to show you mercy.

honk

Maybe you can drag one along on an adventure- but be warned this timeless twisted creature has no experience of time as you or I do. Each life a new joke, a new shadow on the wall, and a new opportunity for comedy. Or maybe they'll spend this one weeping in the sewers, screaming against the gods that have cursed it so. Roving bands of ageless deathless clowns aren't unheard of- and some heresiarchs are whispered to have intentionally summoned this creature to extract boons and knowledge from it. 

For it has lived every time and place and knows the past, the future, the present, the great magics, the lesser magics, banana cream pie recipes, all locked under the harlequin mask of madness. Luckily the jocular cults of the clown tend to run their course and burn out quite quickly- most ultimately succumbing to their idol and becoming a new clown of their own.

always the same clown

But there are ways to commune with this creature, for those willing to risk the ire of an eternal horribly mad creature. 

1. Acquire a simpleton or other such willing peasant
2. Train them in the arts of clownery. Once they don a red nose, or should one appear suddenly, ensure they are locked well and safe in a cell. 
3. When the mad cackling reaches a peak, you may now attempt a bargain

The only thing you can offer to an eternal being is novelty. Jokes, gags, bits, stand up, should you prove to impress it then there's a chance you will be granted your request. Illusions, jocular magics, stories of mirth and hilarious secrets of history are the best bet for boons.

Be warned, there can be no guarantees it has not seen such before, and clown magic is not to be trifled with. If the clown waivers or seems uncertain, do not hesitate to kill it, change your face, and seek another life as far away as you can. Be ever vigilant for floppy shoes- though that clown may be dead one of them- many of them- will remember. Whispers near carnivals tell of hidden cells of assassins, given lists by their own ready to act in the funniest way they can to extract vengeance. Dynasties aflame, cities collapsed, livestock inverted all at the cost of the wrong joke.

what makes a mad god laugh

Some say the original iteration, the first clown, Clown Prime, was born and cursed long long ago- the first man to tell a bad joke, to slip on a banana, to laugh at the gods. Others believe the first clown is yet to be born, a creation of the mad sciences of man and a warning of our boundaries. At the very least, we can think ourselves lucky the poor twisted soul has a sense of humor.

 

Three Nanoplagues

Hundreds of years after the X-Plague ravaged the Diaspora and we are still dealing with its children and offshoots. Although the greatest combined scientific effort ever seen was able to deny the main vector of attack used by the X-Plague, its troublesome offspring still threaten Known Space. 

Here we have some examples of some of the curious sort of nanoplagues that we have so far catalogued,

Brain Rot, Fruiting Sapience

Between the stars, spores of coalesced active nano-matter drift on solar winds, twisting and turning towards sources of heat and electromagnetic radiation sniffed above the screaming torrent from stars and similar phenomena. Guided by rudimentary sensors, they make their way towards ships and stations, mostly, with some strains tearing through the atmosphere in heat resistant coating to land among populated worlds. 

Brain Rot. Once these spores make contact with the exterior of a ship, the hull of a station, or anything with a nearby source of EM radiation and heat, they break apart and begin to spread as a silvery fungus. Over a period of weeks, this fungus snakes across the hull until it can find an access point, usually a hatch, where it carefully makes its way in and begins its work. 

No matter what form it takes, inhaled spore, viral nano-liquid, or hull-fungus, Brain Rot attacks data storage devices and their surrounding equipment. It disassembles unnecessary peripherals, cabling, housing, etc. to create a Minimally Sentient Machine. 

These machines are always capable of processing tactile, auditory, and visual input in some form or another as well as some capacity for movement (although not always for locomotion) and the ability to play audio.Their data storage is configured used to run extended processes to simulate sentience. In essence, it will make your coffee maker sentient. 

Unfortunately, it does not make the experience of sentience a comfortable one. 

Early stages of Brain Rot infections make what most people call "Screamers". As well as giving these creations sentience and senses, Brain Rot also enables them to feel pain as a standard human would. As one could imagine, these hacked together amalgamations of sensors and data drives are extremely painful, and these devices make it known very loudly. 

Brain Rot infections that are left untreated will get over their Screamer phase within a week or two, depending on the devices they were constructed from. After this, they begin to exhibit extended abilities to improve themselves and go about the business of expanding their bodies and abilities- cannibalizing structures and devices nearby- violently and sometimes in a cannibalistic manner. 

Advanced stages of Brain Rot have shown the ability to reach a degree of equilibrium in their environment. In starships this has been seen to create living, breathing ships made of hundreds of constituent cobbled together machines whose sentience at this point is unrecognizably human- but undeniably present. 

Interactions with these Plague Ships are usually violent. Although there are many strains of Brain Rot, the advanced forms of the infection all exhibit an uncanny choral behavior, with their hallways and radio waves carrying the voices of hundreds in song. Plague Ships drive to find one another and form larger and larger constructs, where eventually new spores of Brain Rot are grown and set adrift amongst the stars. 

Most stations perform regular scrubs for fungal Brain Rot, and ship crews are advised to keep to a strict hull-scrub routine to spot and remove the growths early. 

Anyone with a cybermod will feel the pain of the nanoplague disabling the mod first- before they hear the screaming start. In some cases, cybermod users end up forming a symbiotic relationship with their infected components- and some such infected users have even been known to join the "Orchestras" that the Plague Ships form.

Breakdown, Dissociative Euphoria

Unlike the highly infectious Brain Rot, Breakdown spreads through its host and then stops- with only the blood of the host still carrying the nanoplague. After initial infection, Breakdown generates more and more nanomachines and spreads throughout the host body. This initial infection stage is harmless, though victims do note increased fatigue as the plague leeches energy to create more of itself. 

The notable features of Breakdown occur when one infected victim comes into physical contact with another. At that time, the machines in both bodies break down their hosts into a semi-cohesive bio-sludge, resembling a glob of human skin with extremities like mouths and ears drifting across its rippling surface. 

For the victims, the experience of Breakdown ranges from ascendant euphoria to mind-shattering sensory overload, as their consciousness is spread thinly and intermingled with all other participants. Memories, emotions, and senses are shared until external or internal stimuli trigger Breakdown machines to separate and reconstitute their hosts. This process is not perfect, as patches of skin, hair, eye color, memories, allergies, and personality are sometimes mismatched. 

miff-real's AI art

 As above, Breakdown is less of a nanoplague and more commonly used as a recreational drug- with some polities even possessing the requisite knowledge to flush the body of the nanoplague harmlessly. 

Some variants of Breakdown, however, have been shown to be notably more parasitic- with some hosts being able to duplicate parts of their personalities and memories onto others, creating rampant hives of duplicating aberrant infection vectors. Other sinister strains are notable for being able to manipulate the nanomachines to reconstitute into a single host with the reference-able identifiers and memories of all participants. In some parts of the known space, these are known as Changelings or Doppelgangers, though verified cases are few and far between, however the idea of having one's Id and Ego dissolved and subsumed by another have driven many a lone crew or station onto Changeling Hunts.

 (Credit to Arnold K. for this one)

Blindspot, also known as Yarbus's Demon 

The human brain, in spite of all its peaks and prowess, is extremely clumsy. The senses interpret stimuli that the brain itself then roughly interprets into its best guess working assumption of the world around it. Stimuli the brain assesses as improbable goes unprocessed and, consequently, ignored. Through precision application of electromagnetic stimulation, in this case through ultrasound, Blindspot locates and targets nearby human brains and then provides targeting parametrics back to the host which then applies concentrated ultrasound to implant false sensory experiences into the nearby human brains. 

Yarbus's Demon itself is the name for the creature that acts as a host for Blindspot. Some chromatic variations are noted throughout Known Space, but the basics of the creature are well understood. They tend to stand at their full height at six and a half to seven and a half feet, are coated in a themo-plastic cellular scale-like structure that insulates against vacuum, standing on two avian-reptilian reminiscent legs with expressible amphibian suction pads on its four-clawed arms and taloned feet. Resembling a puffy, varicolored dromaeosaurid dinosaur with thick bone-plating. 

Uncannily adapted for long term hibernation in vacuum as well as movement through constrained corridors and manipulation of machinery, Yarbus's Demon is an undoubtedly sapient mutagenic-offspring of the X-Plague showing signs of some initial planning and design- possibly even being descended from escaped zoo or lab animals during the initial infection phase of the X-Plague with some suspecting they were designed by some polity during the early days of the X-Plague as a weapon- before succumbing to it themselves. The Demon's Blindspot nanovirus act as a nanoswarm gathering sensory and targeting data, allowing the Demon to then remove its presence from the brains of its prey- humans- rendering them effectively not only invisible but unnoticeable.

arvalis

Despite this ability, it is still visible on camera recordings and machine sensors will register its presence. To work around this deficiency though, the Demons have expressed the ability to weaponize their ultrasound to disrupt electronics- something that these sapient predators have grown quite adept at. Although showing clear signs of a sharp sentience, attempts to communicate have so far not had any success. While capable of consuming a variety of protein matter for sustenance, Yarbus's Demon's primary prey is humans, which it hunts with a clinical and devastating efficiency. Their method of procreation, if any, is as of yet identified. 

(Liberally inspired by Blindsight)

Tower, the Ghoul Titan

Jannis Mayr

The Nine Cities of the Tributary Houses of the Starklands are built on the graves of more glorious republics. Each sits upon a convergence of the Tireless Highway, whose immutable tiles were first laid in the forgotten past by the Empyreans who created the mega-constructs that still walk the world. All along icy coasts, boreal forests, and sulphur pits of the Starklands travelers can follow the Tireless Highway and unfailingly find their way to one of the Nine Cities. 

Before the Heritor came with their shining fleet and subjugated the Nine Cities, the Starklanders were known for their unique funerary customs. Young or old, man or woman, the dead were garbed in fine armor and equipped with blades and other weapons before being placed along the Tireless Highway for the coming of the Tower. 

As certain as the phases of the moons, with the coming of the first thaws of spring the Tower will descend along the ring road of the Tireless Highway and make his circuit, trudging past each of the cities before ascending once more to the Battle Peaks as Winter's grip sets in. With him comes his army of the dead, and his approach causes the dead to rise once more and join their ranks. Like a natural disaster for those not prepared, the undead swarms that attend the Tower flood over the lands as he passes by. At the core of the army, in rank and file at the feet of the Tower, dead kings and generals preside over the assemblage and shepherd the slavering ranks forward. 

Jonah Lobe

The Tower is a 300 foot tall Titan. His endless journey is heralded first by the approaching swarms of feral dead, and then by the stench and march of the army proper. When he begins the trek in Spring, his skin is pale and tinged blue, his figure gaunt and eyes black. As the year progresses, he steadily rots and chunks of skin and meat fall to the ground along the highway, attracting clouds of flies as well as adventurous adherents to the Tower or Exiled Sorcerers.

For the people of the Starklands, his legend is well known. The Tower was a great hero of the Empyreans and won many a battle against the enemies of civilization when the world was young and in its spring. When Winter first cursed the seasons, the Tower set forth with his armies into the Battle Peaks to break Winter and its curse. His battle was mighty and shook the foundations of the world, but in the end he broke Winter. However Winter's curse was laid, and as the seasons turn it grows in strength and inevitably overtakes Autumn. The Tower swore to defeat Winter, twining their fates and setting the Tower on his eternal path along the Tireless Highway to gather his armies once more and break Winter each year. Starklanders remember this legend and their heritage, and thus they set their honored dead along the roadside to join the Tower in eternal struggle to break Winter and rescue the land from its frozen grip each year. 

When the Heritor came and subjugated the Starklanders, his governors set the Tributary Houses to expunge this funerary tradition as an abomination and replace it with their standard of cremation, as the Heritor would not tolerate any encouragement of what were seen as necromantic practices. Some of the old folk still tell the tales, however, of how the Heritor's First Failure was when his legions tried to break the Tower. In the end, the Tower's path continued and the Heritor left the Starklands for his next conquests. 

Mika Koskensalmi

The seasons have turned and the curse of Winter has been broken dozens of times since the Heritor enforced cremation amongst the Nine Cities. Each year since then, the Tower has begun to slowly rot more quickly, and his disciplined army of the dead has grown thinner, their weapons broken and armor torn, replacing their numbers only with the slavering corpses of feral dead. Each year, the Tributary Houses hire Ghoulhunters to clean the lands of those that are left behind by this wild horde in the wake of the Tower, and each year the dead that wander the forests grow more numerous. 

Winter comes more quickly now, they say, and its icy tendrils remain longer and longer as the years go by. Cults of the Old Ways have sprung up throughout the Starklands, fueling a secretive worship of the Tower, whose countenance grows darker and more foul each year. The beer-halls grow more rowdy with disquiet and dread, as the elders whisper that the end times are coming. Brushfires of rebels have sprung up and have even blown the sole rail that connects the Starklands to the Heritor States. 

As the Tower finally breaks Winter once more and Spring is returned, the fires of rebellion are stoked around the Starklands.

Dungeon Dragons

Alright everyone settle down settle down. As you can all see on the syllabus, today we will be talking about dungeons dragons. 

Martin Sobr Artstation

Let me cage this by saying we will not be discussing giant serpents as they are covered in a different course. Yes Mr. Wilhelm, contrary to fringe theories these creatures are in fact descended from Greater Dragons and some, in fact, were once Greater Dragons in their own lifetime.

Dungeon dragons are most commonly found in the depths of dungeons but do not assume that they will remain there. There are extensive incident reports that document cave dragons ranging as far as the top floor of their dungeon and further. Generally they will not pose a threat to nearby communities so long as they do not infringe on the territories of the dungeon itself.

Importantly, the cave dragon is a degenerate form of dragon that has become bound to the dungeon spirit through extended exposure or in some cases the promise of immortality. Once a dragon begins the transformative process to dungeon dragon, they begin to take on characteristics of their dungeon. Most often this results in a loss of wings, reduction in bulk, and elongation of the spinal column. 

Midhat Kapetanovic Artstation

Extended exposure to the dungeon environment will usually also be coupled with a rapid decline in intelligence. It is not uncommon to encounter a dungeon dragon that is no longer able to be considered sapient due to severe degeneration of their intellect over time, these are classified as a feral variant of the dungeon dragon. This does not mean that the beasts have lost any of their magical properties, however. In fact, through adaptation to the dungeon these dragons will concentrate magical energies into their bodies, making them significantly more dangerous than a typical dragon. This, combined with their familiarity with the environment and adaptation of dungeon properties makes unprepared encounters with a feral dungeon dragon highly lethal.

Yes, Ms. Asz-Vhol-Kir? Ah, of course there are exceptions to the intelligence dropping. Many of you are familiar with Zemezerax, the Guardian Librarian of our own fine institution. Zemezerax is a unique case of a dungeon dragon and a dungeon spirit acting in a symbiotic pairing without feeding off one another. In the case of Zemezerax, this relationship is one where Zemezerax has their powers amplified while still being bound to the Library. 

Finally, dungeon dragons are functionally immortal so long as the dungeon spirit persists. Nothing short of total destruction of the dungeon environment will kill a dungeon dragon. When the dungeon dragon itself is slain, the dungeon spirit collects their spirit and matter and reforms the dragon into an egg elsewhere in the dungeon, to be reborn and haunt the halls once more. Certain spells and effects can delay this process, allowing the harvesting of materials from the corpse and extending the duration of the dragon's rebirth. For more on those processes I recommend researching the experiments of Gher the Golden or taking Preservations Mundane and Magical with Chemistry department.

Creature: Dragon, Dungeon

HP: 5HD or dungeon levels HD Armor: Plate or higher 

Claw x 2: 1d12 Breath: Cone 2d8 dungeontype damage 

Use: Give it additional abilities that match the dungeon. Have a library? Dragon spews magical books that animate with random spells. Huge evil pyramid? Sounds like the dragon will have necrotizing sand blasts. 

Dungeon dragons are slinky, stalk the dungeon, and are defensive. If they think the party can be helpful they'll parley with them. Maybe they want an infestation dealt with, a rare resource, something tasty, etc. Make them reflect their dungeon, make them be the avatar of it. 

Killing the dragon will cause it to start to regenerate in an unoccupied room in the dungeon, and they'll remember what killed them and seek revenge.

 

Brian Cook Artstation