Loot-a-Day, Day 1: Treasure from a monster’s hoard
Shaft of the Ceramic God
This reliquiary is made of high quality ceramics and precious metals. It is covered in circuit patterns, bone-like limbs, blades and cables. Its overall shape is vaguely reminiscient of the stump of Salvation Tower.
Within the reliquiary, a human penis rests immersed of preserving fluid. The member is complete and has been apparently been removed with great care and skill.
DNA prints identify the member as belongig to a Thresher Inc. powersuit pilot who was last reported active on Mort. How it came to be inside the reliquiary, and how the reliquiary came to be inside the lair of a manchine, where it can be found sitting among other – though far less carefully stored – amputated limbs, is far more challenging to reconstruct.
The Thresher pilot was ambushed by a manchine cult. According to the cultists’ beliefs, the phallus of such a powerful enemy of SLA Industries would allow their worshipped manchine to sire a sort of mechanical messias with a chosen member of the cult. However, the manchine itself turned out to be far more interested in harvesting the cultists’ limbs, when the entire congregation gathered for the big ceremony in which they presented it with the Shaft of the Ceramic God they had collected in its honour.
Why SLA Industries?
Because neither Unknown Armies nor D&D.
Treasure from a monster’s hoard … that has to be the most boring kick-off possible. Three coppers – that would also constitute treasure from a monster’s hoard. So, we had to do something else about this, some sort of additional input to make this click, something like Danger Dave’s call of “make it the Devil Dick!”. Well, the Devil Dick is a staple from one of our Unknown Armies games, however, the shopkeeper usually in its possession does not really seem to qualify as a monster. What about D&D, then? The phallus of a Baatezu for example. Or a cursed Immovable Rod. Or the Shaft of the Golden God… …or: not the shaft of a golden god, but of a ceramic one! Which settled it on SLA Industries. This left only the issue of what kind of monster would keep the amputated penis of a Thresher pilot around its lair? How about carrien? Or cannibals? Maybe in some sort of ritual context? Or…
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.