I have been doing this for twelve years now. Writing against RPG-a-Day. Against. Again and again. Every day, every August, since 2015. Most often on my own, sometimes collaboratively with others here on d6ideas or across different (German) blogs.
2015: ArtifactaDay
2016: Loot-a-Day
2017: Rival-a-Day
2018: Ad-Blog
2019: RPG+Ally+a+Day
2020: Not One Step Back
2021: Veteran-a-Day
2022: The Thousand Titles of the Cat Emperor
2023: Sommerverdichtung (German only)
2024: CampaignConceptaDay
2025: A-Piece-of-History-Every-Day / Calculating World(s)history
And now? The German next door neighbours at Kritischer Fehlschlag have issued the rallying cry “Crime Scene” (German).
But here? After twelve years of doing this dirty work? There is but one possible answer:
The Dirty Dozen.
Interpreted via the lense of the so called Dirty Dozen of persistent organic pollutants such as DDT and dioxins (although an earlier thought was the likewise so called Dirty Dozen of biological weapons and this might still colour some of the entries).
One-hundred-and-fourty-four poisons and pollutants (in the widest, freest sense). Twelve each for twelve systems. Thirty-one days. Twelve years. Against RPG-a-Day. Again.
Magical particulate matter was the firt thing I noted down when thinking about how to tackle this topic for D&D. From that grew the idea of… well, particulate matter resulting from the burning of scrolls and spellbooks and magical items, flakes of dried ink and tiny scraps of vellum from scribing scrolls, fragments of material spell components, residue from used scrolls, remnants of slowly disintegrating consumable items. All sorted by school and only affecting the environment (or rather its inhabitants) once a great enough concentration has built up – as will only happen in places where the same magic is used again and again over very long periods of time, or else in an environment that has seen the mass conflagration of magic.
- Abjuration – in high enough concentrations, abjuration dust causes the saves against the spells of affected characters to be made with a +1 modifier
- Divination – in high enough concentrations, alteration dust causes affected characters who cast a divination spell or whom are targeted by a divination spell to lose 1d3-2 points of Wisdom
- Evocation – in high enough concentrations, evocation dust causes affected characters who cast an evocation spell or whom are targeted by an evocation spell to take 1 hitpoint damage
- Alteration – in high enough concentrations, alteration dust causes affected characters who cast an alteration spell or whom are targeted by an alteration spell to save versus polymorph or lose 1 point of (1-2) Strength, (3-4) Dexterity, or (5-6) Constituion gain 1 point of (1-2) Strength, (3-4) Dexterity, or (5-6) Constituion
- Enchantment – in high enough concentrations, enchantment dust causes affected characters who cast an enchantment spell on a target to be treated as if their target had simultaneously cast the same spell upon them
- Necromancy – in high enough concentrations, necromancy dust causes affected characters who cast a necromancy spell or whom are targeted by a necromancy spell to age 1 year