Category: Planarch Codex: Astral Repository: Job Board

This is the most obscure thing I’ve ever written for the Planarch Codex, but I though it would be fun to reshare it here. It was originally posted in a group about hip-hop and RPGs.

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Dear Sucka MCs,

Hip-hop is introduced to the city of Dis 1,500 years in the future. You, however, have decided you can’t wait that long. As members of the gifted-but-inexperienced crew, An Immortal Ruckus [or insert your crew’s name here], you got tired of being straight-up destroyed by every mediocre MC in the year 4268 of the Sultana’s reign, so you’ve magically time-traveled 3,000 years in the past to “invent” hip-hop and become the undisputed Lordz of Dis.

Have your best MC roll+CHA to see how this has gone so far:

On a 10+, you have successfully cultivated a small but vibrant scene. Sure, the music isn’t quite what you had in mind, since it’s often a couple of fiddle players doing ragtime in the background while one of you beats out a rhythm on a cast-iron kettle, and your crowds are mostly ratmen and spiderfolk so far, but it’s a start, right? And this one spider, who calls herself The Most Loquacious Widow, would honestly be quite sick on the mic, if there were actual mics, and if you could prevent her from stopping to feed on audience members in the middle of her set.

On a 7-9, there’s not a scene exactly, but it hasn’t been a complete catastrophe. You’ve gotten a regular gig at a small, slime-covered bar near the old river and there’s a crowd of folks who you suspect are necromancers and diabolists who show up every Sultanasday to hear you spit. Afterwards, they come up and converse with you about “where the rhymes come from” and their connection with the dark arts, which is cool but also a bit creepy. Let me know if you’ve hooked up with any of the more attractive sorcerers yet.

On a 6-, come on, you think you were the only crew who’d thought of this idea? There’s a well-established cross-temporal guild known as the Elemental Guardians who make it their business to protect the “proper” (that is to say, temporally linear) development of hip-hop in the known planes. History and context, they claim, matter a lot in preserving the authenticity of the medium and its natural spread. While you appreciate their theoretical position, it’s hard to have a conversation when they’re hunting your asses down. Can you escape, or defeat them in an epic, magical rap battle across time, space, and the 63 boroughs of Dis?

Hugs and kisses,

Your GM

Glorious Burden: Child of Destiny

(Totally inspired by the comic book series Saga, which is essentially just the Planarch Codex in space)

Some jobs aren’t tasks that you perform and then are done with. Take, for example, parenthood. By some means — whether of your own doing, the mechanations of others, or a happenstance of fate — you have come into possession of a (the?) child of destiny. Or, really, they have come into possession of you.

Their Destiny Awaits: Create a countdown! For a one-shot it probably has three boxes. For a campaign or long arc it might have 5 or 6 to start. Whenever the child demonstrates their specialness, fulfills some minor prophecy, or manifests strange powers, mark a box in their countdown. When all their boxes are full, their true destiny manifests, in whole or in part. If you continue to play afterwards, keep creating new countdowns until the child’s destiny has fully come into being. (Maybe the child also ages 1 year every time they complete a countdown? See if that makes sense in your fiction, but they should slowly grow up. Or consider skipping ahead a few years every once in a while.)

I Won’t Allow That to Happen: Anyone — you, other people in your group, total strangers, enemies — can, at any time, no matter the situation, choose to place themselves in protection of the child. In such an instance, say what harm or circumstances you want to prevent the child from suffering, and the GM makes a move against you or those around you instead. Consequently, while the child may bring misfortune and difficulties, it is rarely in any true danger. Such simple suffering is not the fate that destiny has in store for it.

The Child is the Key: There are many forces after the child that wish to use or manipulate it for their own purposes. Heck, maybe you should be counted among them. To determine the others, the GM can just roll jobs as normal, but always have the child be the target. Unlike normal jobs, the GM doesn’t necessarily have to ask if you accept the forces arrayed against you (unless you’re totally squicked out by some of them, in which case, the GM should just roll up some different ones, since it’s super simple). You’ve kind of accepted a load of trouble when you got involved with the child of destiny. From now on, you don’t really have to go looking for trouble; trouble will find you. Good luck!

THE TERMS OF SURRENDER

Job Results: Diplomat, Protection, Refugee, Distant Parish.

Dame Ester Al-Miriam Rainthrush (of mixed djinn and elven heritage) is the Sultana’s war diplomat, set out to negotiate the terms of surrender with the denizens of planes who struggle in vain to resist the advance of Dis. She seeks additional guards to supplement her standard retinue of three Road Wardens (Ker, Momus, and Nemesis), for she has been dispatched to the newest borough of Dis: the Nobel Parish of Ebullion, a former minor hell of boiling, adjoined to the ravenous city through its underground sewers and cisterns.

The denizens of Ebullion, both mortal shades and demonkind, were not at all displeased with the city’s invasion of their plane. In fact, they were overjoyed that they could finally escape from their prison of boiling seas and skies of burning vapors. Consequently, refugees have abandoned Ebullion for its neighboring parishes in mass numbers, violating the conditions of the plane’s surrender (i.e. that they would stay and help develop the parish into a steam-powered industrial center) and menacing several already unstable portions of the city.

Dame Rainthrush is traveling to meet with Lord Protector Abezethibou, the archfiend who was previously the greatest warlord of Ebullion. As part of the terms of surrender, Abezethibou is to rule the Parish of Ebullion for 101 years as lord protector, before peacefully handing over control to an elected parish council. However, with the treaty already violated by the mass refugee flow, things are not off to a good start.

Indeed, Abezethibou himself has become a refugee, leaving Ebullion and assuming control of the Blood Friars, a gang of demon-touched assassins that dominate the criminal underbelly of the Ghostworks, a neighboring parish that was formerly the space-sarcophagus of the dark god Abaddon (see Dark Heart, p.32). Should be a fun trip, trying to track him down and hold him to the mystically-binding agreement.

Dangers include some or all of the following:

– the Blood Friars, who will attempt to prevent any meeting

– Abezethibou himself, who likes to think he is free to do as he pleases

– refugees of Ebullion, most of whom never wish to return home

– the death traps of the space-sarcophagus, many of which remain

– Dame Rainthrush and the Road Wardens, who will enforce the treaty

– wealthy industrialists, seeking to reap the riches of the newest parishes, such as Ebullion & the Ghostworks