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.

 

To Swallow a Spider

Once, there was a young milkmaid. Fair-haired and soft-hearted, the envy of her sisters and the pride of her family. Day by day she milked her family's two cows and carried her pails through the winding village roads, warm and joyful faces greeted her at each delivery. 

On one such ordinary spring day she saw a shadow fallen along the roadside, couched in mud and grime. The shadow hacked and coughed, no shadow but a haggard old woman in deep- painful throes. As the milkmaid neared the shadow resolved to a cloaked, old woman- heaving on all fours and mewling in the mud. 

A hand shot out from the shadow of the cloak, the hood falling, and the old woman pled to the milkmaid "Oh golden-haired maiden, please! But a drink of your sweet harvest would set my humors right!" The fallen hood revealed the gurgling buboes and boiling warts that sloughed about her stricken visage, and terror beat its drum in the milkmaid's stomach. She cut wide around the woman and turned her face away, hurrying along her route.

With another hack and bloody cough the haggard woman pled once more- but the milkmaid hardened her heart and took to a run. Hauling herself to her knees, the witch then gestured and damned her curse to the milkmaid: 

"May you be ruin! May your beauty be your bane and your heart be hollwed! May your presence curdle the virtues of good men and may you be a crawling hive! May you die unburied and only then succumb to the rot you spread!" 

And with that last issue, she heaved her final breath and fell stricken in the mud, the terrified milkmaid fleeing along the road. 

The curse laid by the wayside witch festered in the milkmaid's mind, but she dare not repeat it for she feared the torch. 

That day, the milk she delivered was found to have spoiled overnight.

All through the night, the milkmaid tossed and turned with dark dreams of crawling claws and the evil eye, ever glaring. But, she woke and set to housework before making her deliveries as normal. All through the day, she would swat at an especially persistent fly and would jump at every shadow she saw.

It did not take long for the milkmaid to realize the witch's curse. At first, the hens stopped laying eggs- with their final clutch found rotten and molded. Not long after, the cows stopped giving milk, and her families' debts began to pile. 

Next, her father was stricken with a terrible sickness that soon consumed her sisters and mother as well. All bed ridden but the maid herself, who now was plagued by the flies that found her throughout the day. She slapped and swatted, catching hundreds until the house was empty of them, but then come morning a cloud of the biting, buzzing, swarming menace was back and stronger. 

The very frames of the house began to sag, mold sporing in the corners and consuming the rafters. One by one, the milkmaid buried each of her family in the churchyard, and with each death the village turned. Day by day, they shut their doors to the milkmaid and turned their faces to her plight. What's worse, those who did still speak with her told of the villagers turning cruel to one another, spats and fights sprung up among the kindest of folk and a hate boiled in their hearts. 

Despite her plight, a rowdy crowd of suitors began to plague her home- each a young farmhand or apprentice from the village who began turning to a cruel visage spotted through a window or a figure standing in the dark of the wood. They quarreled in her yard and pled for her hand- though the maid shut them all out of her home as she saw their teeth sharpening and eyes yellowing day by day. 

One night, the maid shut up each window and barricaded herself inside as the shouts became cackles and the suitors beat upon the home. Howling and shouts from outside ebbed and flowed, smoke and iron were on the wind and she sat up swatting flies all night, daring not to sleep.

Come morning the maid discovered what had become of her village and her home- now sagged and mold-ridden it would not stand another night. Blood spilled throughout the village, homes burnt and twisted- cruel faces smiled down at her from hanging bodies in the square. All that stood was the church. 

She sought sanctuary inside with the young priest- himself bloodied and bereaved by the terror of the night before. In begging prayer, the milkmaid came to realize the issue of her misfortune- as she choked and coughed- a black clot of wriggling flies coming up in her hand. Using a silvered plate as her mirror, she watched as the biting flies that plagued her would one by one issue from her mouth.

The church filled with these flies and everywhere they touched began to rot, benches falling to pieces, stone spotting with mold, hanging cloth shriveling and flower turning to fungus. Despite the horror unfolding, it was the priest's eyes yellowing and breath laboring that finally drove the milkmaid to flee and lock herself in the undercroft. 

In desperate prayer the maid sat by light of a single candle, the flies buzzed angrily around the locked crypt. The shroud of biting darkness swallowing up the light bit by bit- it parted suddenly as salvation crept into the candlelight.

Palm-sized, rose red, legs clean and sharp black, eyes gleaming with quiet hunger, the maid's mind slowed and began to set cold and clear as she made eye contact with the great spider.

Perhaps not an answer to her prayer, but a solution to her plight. The maid wiped away her tears, her heart emptied of fear. She reached out her hand to the spider.

Bringing it to her lips, she opened her mouth and the spider crawled inside with measured care, fluttering step by step down her throat.

It did not take long for the flies to stop, as the spider swallowed them up. Not long after, the spider too swallowed up the maddened priest outside.

The maid stood in the rotten chapel's archway and faced a new morning, the corpse of her village strewn about in front of her- but the rot stench could not bother her anymore. Fear and sorrow too, the spider swallowed. 

And still, it was hungry.

Tatum Cho

 

"The average person swallows 8 spiders per year. Susan Spidermouth, who swallowed 30,000 spider eggs thus becoming the ultimate spider incubator, is an outlier and should not be counted."

Tarna the Spider-Maid

8 HP, 8 STR, 14 DEX, 14 WIL (d6 dagger or d10 bite)

• A pretty young woman, cannot speak. Her insides are hollowed by the spider that symbiotically lives inside, keeping her limbs moving. Hungry. Can eat curses.
  
• Charms as per spell and can kiss a willing target to spit a Hollowing Spider into their mouth.
• Critical Damage: Paralyzes target (d8 DEX damage) with a spider-kiss. 
  

Hollow Zombie

4 HP, 6 STR, 6 DEX, 6 WIL (damage as weapon)

• An unwilling host to a Hollowing Spider. Hungry.
• Young Hollows are ravenous and mindless. Older Hollows can mimic human behavior but cannot speak.

 

An aside on curses.

There are many kinds of curses, from little malisons that bedevil a wayward adventurer to bloodline-tethered divine retribution. 

Some tables never use curses, some do. Delta did a good look at the history of the curse, Jon of Medieval Melodies did a look as well, and Noisms wrote a bit about curses as insanity too. I'm most partial to the table of flavorful curses from Swords & Scrolls.

Let's take a gander at what a curse looks like mechanically from something like Lamentations of the Flame Princess (though this is similar to most retroclones' format of the curse):

Bestow Curse (the reverse of Remove Curse) can bring about any number of unfortunate effects upon a being, determined by the caster and Referee. Some limits of effect must be enforced. Typical possibilities are limited to no more than a –2 pen alty to saving throws or –4 to hit, an ability being reduced by 50%. These effects can have any number of creative symptoms. The victim can avoid being affected by Bestow Curse with a successful saving throw versus Magic.

For best effect, players getting cursed should have a bit more flavor to it than just the modifier penalties above, and and iteration of a straight Remove Curse should be used with caution. A setting environment filled with curse-slinging witches and undead loses its luster if you can just hit up the local cleric for your monthly curse-check and get an inoculation just in case.

Curses should be unique and curses should have weight to them. To lay a curse is to set wrong a right, bend fate to a twisted bend and set a foul spirit on someone. 

In the worst of cases, anyone can lay a curse with their dying breath and enough vigor behind it- at the cost of the curse-layer's soul becoming that maleficent spirit enforcing the curse- and no curse worth a soul should be something generic.

A curse should have two components. 

1: A unique effect that impacts how a character functions in the world, whether this be changes to rolls or NPC reactions- make it work within the fiction and make it be felt.

2: At least two ways to break it. Some unique format is best- as with Noisms' take of unique breaking conditions to be met- but make sure that the player knows how to break a curse. Both a unique condition and some ludicrously expensive resolution as a backup would do the trick.