5 Scrolls (magic system/language puzzle)

Above: Front panel of decorated wooden chest, found in the tomb of the Elder King, ancient lord of the elves.

Below: Five scrolls, found inside the chest. Of scrolls, this is known:

• They are made from the still-living bark of a mana-rich, now-extinct tree (called a livingtree, or a thauma tree, from an archaic word for magic).
• They are vanishingly rare, and always written Old Elvish, a dead language. (In fact, magic itself is not currently practiced. There are no wizards in this age.) 
• One activates a scroll by reading it aloud, which causes it to ignite and burn to ash.
• Elf grave goods are always trapped: at least two of these scrolls will kill the caster. 

A clever player can use these five scrolls to become the setting's one and only wizard.

seveneves fixfic

 

today i slay the perfidiouf brainworm. Spoilers ahead.

Cool shit:

• society of interconnected orbital habitats, forming a ring around an uninhabitable hell-planet
• entire human race bottlenecked thru 7 women
• all-female society supported by genetic engineering and parthenogenesis (I don't remember what Stephenson's justification for this was but apparently men are poorly suited to life in space? rolling with it for now

The Eves were most experienced in robotics, applied physics, genetics, and scheming. They also had access to a sociologist who they rarely used.

Like all the worst scifi characters, the Eves in charge look down on politics, religion, and the uneducated masses. There is no world in which they could govern more than 40 people.

There are no historians on the ship: imagine all of human history as recollected by 8 traumatized astronauts (4 americans, 1 brit, 1 italian, 1 soviet, and 1 generic-muslim-country-stephenson-doesn't-specify).

 

The first generation is raised under close supervision. 8 women raising dozens of children in a space station, while also working full time to prevent said space station from exploding. Poor Luisa, post-menopausal, has to keep the children from killing themselves and the Eves from killing each other.

How do they prepare their children for life without their guidance? What happens to their vision of the future when they die? How does a generation ship survive a generation shift?

 

Model Organ Polydactyly (GLOG Class: Frankenstein)

MogaChumu
"hey this doesn't look like a class about a mad scientist attracted to his cousin" shut the fuck up

You are a lump of disposable tissue. You exist as a proof-of-concept, or an organ bank, or an unintentional byproduct of industrial science.

You belong to someone who expects very little of you. Maybe, if you ever turn out to be worth anything, they'll visit.

MANIKIN
Start with: needle and thread, spare limb, bottle of formaldehyde.
+1 Limb per template
A - Spare Parts, Doppelganger
B - Galvanize
C - Myriapod
D - Doctor, Divorce

A: Spare Parts
With scalpel, needle, thread, and 10 minutes, you can harmlessly remove your own limbs/organs and replace them with someone else's. (Limbs/organs you stitch onto others are non-functional, and subject to graft-versus-host disease.)

You can use as many limbs as you started with, plus [templates], in any configuration.

You can sacrifice one of your limbs to reduce incoming damage by d12. You can protect anyone in reach this way, including yourself.

A: Doppelganger
You look and sound exactly like someone important, minus the stitches.

B: Galvanize
You are full of red lightning and mad science. Your bare hands deal an additional d4 lightning damage, and you can use them as defibrillator paddles. (return to life on a 1-in-10 if they died in the last minute)

C: Myriapod
If you have 4+ arms, you can make an additional attack per round.

If you have 4+ legs, you can run fast as a horse in a straight line.

If you have 2 or more heads, you have +1 MD.

D: Doctor
You can now stitch functional limbs/organs onto others. This takes a day's work, plus a full year of recovery for your patient.

D: Divorce
With a season's work, you split in two. Distribute your limbs between your two bodies. You are now playing two separate characters: you can do twice as many things, be in two places at once, and so on.

Your two halves do not share thoughts or memories after the operation.

 

JIN LH
it is rumored an order of church-adopted manikin secretly monitor those who practice certain excessive forms of mad science.

Yeong-Hao Han
it is said another path exists for those of welcoming flesh: instead of division, fusion.

d12 Funny limbs found in a dungeon

1. dragon head. Breathes fire, obviously. Speaks eloquently, less obviously
2. dead artist's hands, can reproduce her works with high accuracy
   
3. Sticky mimic tongue (the kind you get at chuck e cheese for 1000 tickets but really big)
4. Black iron prosthetic of the highest craftsdwarfsmanship, concealed heavy crossbow
5. pirate peg-leg with secret compartment and swiss army tip
   
6. Sleipnir hoof (can walk straight into Hell)
7. minecart wheels (so you can roll on the tracks) 
8. Ogre's dominant arm, an adept torturer
9. flash-fossilized priest's hands clasped in prayer, project a field of blessings
10. Giant praying mantis claw, +1
11. Curse-etched leg of the green lich, the knee aches when goody two shoes adventurers are near
12. 18ft albino anaconda
    

(some classes demand their own treasure. This class can make do with whatever's lying around)

galaxyspark