Skeletongue

In the same way that all humans grow to maturity with an instinctive knowledge of mankind's common tongue, and every beast knows, without being taught, the language of its kind, so it is with skeletons. They all share the same rattling, teeth-clacking "speech."  

Skeletongue is an easy language for others to learn. The difficulties of pronunciation that come with other languages are irrelevant and the natural vocabulary of the language is very small. The precise rhythms can be tricky to imitate at first, but once the cadence is found, the rest of it usually proves straightforward. At the more demanding schools of necromancy, students are expected to master the language in less than a month.

The written langue is similarly rudimentary. The traditional script is just a line of dots and dashes.

Of course, such a simple language comes with a number of disadvantages. It takes a long time to say anything complex. Nuance and tone are next to impossible to convey (This is an unfortunate, given the lack of facial expression for most of its speakers.). Finally, the language has very limited variation in volume. You cannot shout in Skeletongue. 

Disney

Given these limitations, skeletons use gesture and pantomime to indicate emotion and communicate in loud environments. As a result, emphatic conversations often looks like a comical, gesticulating dance to outsiders.

Disney

Although skeletons themselves never do it, others who know the language can use it to communicate by tapping stones together, or even flashing a light. Relays of signal lamps, communicating via skeletongue, have become popular in some regions as a method of long range communication.

Bunkers & Dragons: Machine Guns for D&D

Crappy notebook map

In watching a series of WWII history vids on YouTube, I had the idea that mid-20th century infantry tactics could make for a novel series of D&D adventures. 

Squad tactics, pivoting off machine-guns, fields of fire and flanking maneuvers feel very chess like. Figuring out how to assault a position with interlocking fields of fire without getting splattered seems like a worthy challenge. 

Demoniad (Part 2)

Continuing from Part 1

The Abyss

At their purest, demons exist in non-space, in non-time. They have no memories and no conception of a future. They have no bodies and no ability to perceive.  For them, there is only the present and, insatiable desire. In the void, their hunger has no object, interaction is impossible. This existence is horrible.

Bosch

The realities that we know are islands in this nothingness, mere specks.

Imaginary Metaphysics

Berkeley

Preamble: I doubt that my players care about the metaphysics of my D&D world, but thinking about how it all fits together, makes imagining a world more fun for me. In order to keep it straight in my own head and perhaps provide an overview if anyone happens to be interested, I've started formulating my ideas on the page.

An Introduction

You think therefore you exist.

Your thoughts exist because you think them.

In the world of your imagination, you have full control. Everything is fully malleable to your whims and changes as you will it. When you forget or get distracted, it all disappears.

You are not the only consciousness, not the only will. There are others. We'll call them "souls."

How do you interact with other souls? There must be some shared space, an environment of interaction where your ideas and theirs coexist and where concepts are held in common. We call this "reality"

Reality is very different than your imaginary world. Its objects are not dependent on you for existence. It operates on rules external to you. You cannot rearrange everything merely by wishing it so. Instead you are limited by your position, limited by the force of your will, limited by the wills and perceptions of others. Fortunately, you have a vehicle for interaction, this is your "body."

A body is an intellectual tool, used for navigating shared reality. It compiles the compounding structures, rules and limitations that you encounter and organizes your perceptions into something comprehensible. This processed experience appears to you as the physical world. Matter and energy represent shared ideas. Physical space corresponds to conceptual positioning.

Your perceptive facilities manifest as bodily organs (eyes, ears etc.) and you affect the shared reality through the actions of your body. When your hand moves an object, it moves for everyone. You can communicate with other souls via manipulation of physical reality (like the air vibrations produced with your voice).

"Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes"

- Ulysses, James Joyce  

Participation in reality is non-elective. You are anchored to your body and through it, perceptions pour into your consciousness. All external information comes in through your body and is processed through the frame of physicality. Other souls perceive you and you are accessible to their wills. In a significant way, you are stuck in the material world.

This is your situation.

___

This could describe "real" reality. I'll get into fantasy below. 

Demoniad (Part 1)

Demons are perhaps the foremost antagonist in my D&D setting. I conceptualize them as a blend of traditional chaotic-evil D&D demons, Warhammer's chaos daemons and Lovecraft's malevolent Outer Gods.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

- The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

The expanse between worlds is not empty. Compressed into the spaces around coherent realities, demons fill the non-places in infinite numbers. They thrash and batter at the boundaries of existence, pressing in greedily, eager to corporealize and burn the world.

Demons are the incarnate manifestations of chaos. They hate structure and constraint above all else. The only thing saving the multiverse from overwhelming annihilation is their inability to organize.