Loot-a-Day, Day 17: Treasure from a river, pond or pool
The Nilbog Frother
The constant urban decay of Mort and its surrounding industrial regions brings forth its own range of ecosystems. Among those are bogs which sometimes develop over time within areas combining the prerequisite organic matter and an inadequate outflow of the everpresent rain water and waste water. Such bogs become the basis of entire biotopes and may also gain cultural and economic importance for Mort’s intelligent inhabitants. It is in this context, that the increase in the discoveries of bog bodies – apparently victims of ritual killings – can be placed.
The so called Nilbog Frother is one such bog body. The combination of the conditions in the bog and the concentration of drugs in the body results in the extensive Nuke Tendon augmentations of the body still remaining viable – they would just have to be stripped from the body.
Why SLA Industries?
Our initial thought was to have this treasure as the grave goods found with a bog body. That may seem good at first glance, however, there is the slight problem that there are usually no grave goods associated with bog bodies as these seem to have mostly been sacrifices or judicial killings. So, what might reasonably be found on or with a bog body? The bodies themselves are so well preserved due to the conditions in the bog which help with preserving organic matter. That points towards organic treasure. Organic treasure? Of course, in an RPG context that could turn out to be simply some items made from organic materials, but it could als mean actual organs. Limbs. Implants, maybe? That can work for some fantasy games (the undead augmentations from the fantasy-section of d20 Cyberscape come immediately to mind, as do any number of grafts from D&D third edition supplements or stuff like Earthdawn’s worm eyes), but probably the more impressing association is with games falling under the broad heading of “cyberpunk” or which take or share elements or inspiration with them. Such games, however, often seem to miss out on the time involved with a genuine bog body developing. SLA Industries, however, brings all of it together. It’s got the biological augmentations, it’s got the timespans, it’s got the room to place some bogs on Mort and it even presents some excellent tie-ins for ritual sacrifices (and/or ritual justice). Sold.
In other news: Should you become aware of any reference to green jelly, you are entitled to eat it, too.
Loot-a-Day is a month-long German blogging challenge by fellow German blogger Greifenklaue, who was inspired by ArtifactaDay which we ran last August as a counterpoint to RPGaDay in Germany. We followed up on this with two more marathons of daily content about artificial creatures and science-gone-too-far, respectively, and now Greifenklaue seeks to spread the format.