I Wrote My Hometown. Weird Stuff Came Out.

Diary of Kip, A No Good Rogue, Trying to Do (Some) Good

The Magopolypse wasn't all bad. It did introduce the whole world, to the concept of magic. Annoyingly, only some people have access to it. The weirder and more intellectually obsessive you are, the more magically inclined you are. Some non-wizards can "self induce" a magical state to access powers, but doing so incurs a risk of insanity. Like a mental cold you can catch by walking around wet and naked. The academics were hit badly. That and the basement dwellers. Some can control it, wielding great power. Others cannot.

Gobcreek

No one knows what creek the town is named after. Some say it's an underground spring. Maybe it dried up long ago. Must have been important, if it had to be the name of a whole town.

The sunset starts early and ends late. The sky looks bruised and battered by the end, a display of pinks, blues, yellows and purples, casting everybody's drab faces in vibrant tones.

The Library

The library folks are nice, so long as you are not late returning books and equipment.

They became an institution pretty quick. Suddenly they were the main power around. Presumably it's the same for other areas, we don't know. Maybe somewhere else it's the plumbers who took over and became the main ruling body. Hard to say. Or a group of mimes, wouldn't that be scary. No, that doesn't make sense. Why would mimes form a body of municipal government. Would be hard to get legislation done, with all the miming going on.

Things to do in the library:

Renting of equipment. Crossbows, climbing gear, swords, grappling hooks, books on foraging, mushrooms, how to hunt, a heavy orange-sized steel ball that whispers other people's desires to you.

The do's and don'ts of the library:

1. FOR GODS SAKE DO NOT RUN OR SHOUT OR MAKE TOO MUCH NOISE. THE LIBRARIANS WILL KNOW. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

The library seems to have attracted some magopological energy as of late. There has been an increase in the number of specters and parageniune activity. Sightings include:

1. Floating cat, seemingly harmless.
2. Librarian ghosts. Ear piercing shush, enraged by anything above a whisper.
3. Large mass of sentient congealed blood. Gross smelling. Aggressive.
4. Bipedal large multi-headed cockroaches. Scavenging for food.
5. Crazed wizards, former academics. Ranting about Phlogistonic Pattern Recognition.
6. Wizards' apprentices, former engineering students, stuck in a math fever dream, panicking and ranting about upcoming exams and long gone ancient well-animated YouTube math videos.
7. Giant pythons, unknown if magical and/or sentient.
8. Long dead computers, suddenly waking and talking with primitive speech to text voices. Wants the dust of dead batteries.
9. Talking books that flap their hardback lips when speaking. Wants freedom.
10. Ghosts of pre-magopolypse janitors. Enraged by anything unclean. Would like to see children happy.

Projects Orchestrated by the Library

1. Dig a trench so that the bridge that doesn't go anywhere actually does something.
2. Expand the library.
3. Strengthen library fortifications.
4. Arm librarians with crossbows.
5. Send expeditionary teams to search the closed off and probably cursed industrial harbor for treasure and artifacts.
6. Eradicate nearby camp of goblinoids.

The Lead Librarian, Sanne "Iron Hair"

"Welcome! I can see you have taken the outside with you." (looks down at shoes, gives a large squinty smile, no teeth shown)

Thick red glasses, pageboy hair. She does not like to hear her nickname spoken aloud. Getting a nice haircut these days is hard, but Sanne makes it a top priority. Most people say it's so sharp it can cut steel.

A stare that makes your blood curl. Nice, but in a very aggressive way. You can sense a switch that could be turned any second. Will see the expansion of library influence. Cares deeply about the safety of her librarian staff. Will lend one out if the cause suits the library.

Sanne Iron Hair
Diff 5 
HP 28, Hard to hit, Crossbow and Knife - d4, d8
If near the library, does a loud two-toned "whoop" yelp (surprisingly annoying), summoning the nearest librarian to help her in a couple of rounds.

The Fjord

Supposedly always was a shitty place for swimming. Too much walking before it was deep enough. So you'd just end up cold and up to your knees in murky water, having stepped through what felt like a kilometre of seaweed and sharp slimy rocks.

Now it's even worse, with how unpredictable the tides are. But it's fun for exploration. Every time the mega tide recedes, the whole seafloor is visible. Lots of weird things to find:

1. Keys.
2. Bicycles, rusted and broken but repairable.
3. Coins, great for slingshots.
4. Mudbeasts, aggressive.
5. Swords and axes.
6. Lots of pens for some reason, still functional.
7. Magical artifacts.
8. Dying fish.
9. Mud gnomes, cranky.
10. Empty cans of beer.
11. Water damaged trading cards.
12. Unopened cans of beer.

Sometimes rafts of newcomers come in when the tide is right. They've fled from their own city. Apparently they got something worse than librarians there. They are usually nice, if a bit overenthusiastic. Sometimes a little too curious about what our little place has to offer them.

What did the high tide wash up on shore?

1. A still functioning phone, power bank attached (5 charges). Has pictures of unknown people, they seem happy. Most functions work, no internet or service, obviously. An ancient LLM installed locally. Always answers with "it's not this, it's that" and "let's delve into the key issue", and sometimes an unreadable amount of em dashes. Usually has useful information, if a little tiresome.

The Peach Orchard

"The best fucking peaches I've ever tasted."

The owner, Jern, young guy (born post-magopolypse, apparent from the weirdness of his name). Tall, round head with short stiff blond hair. Birthmark on his temple.

Lots of peach thieves. Too shy to complain about the thieft, but close to going out of business as a result.

Inherited the business from his father.

Communal Eating

Sometimes we'll be blessed by the presence of the rare sight and sound of a somewhat in tune guitar. Most evenings it's just beatboxing and bad freestyle rapping.

Stories and rumours are shared in the light of the communal fire. Lots of gossip as well. If anyone has behaved badly, it's usually discussed there. Its the closest thing to a court we have, besides the reign of the librarians.

Goblinoids

Seems like the magopolypse kind of increased the traits already present in a person. Like we were all pushed to our most extremes. Kind of like how your mood gets more extreme when you're drunk. I don't know if it happened instantly or as a slow decline, but somehow I think what was once people became, well, unpeople. They live outside of town. They are not evil per se, just very disruptive to society, and you know, humans.

Do-Gooders

Because farming is pretty fucking boring, and I guess because the world is worth making better, some of us have chosen the path of heroes, adventurers, explorers. Unfortunately the really lame name of Do-Gooder has stuck around.

But all in all it's a fun job. You can rent some stuff from the library (DO NOT RETURN IT LATE), go on adventure, slay some evil, and return before dark and sleep comfortably, if a little sore, in your bed.

Church Market

The bigger of the two churches in town. The large stone sides are stained green and grey, and the roof is half gone. Still, it's where the daily market takes place. Terrible acoustics. Some feel captivated by the past importance and give echoed new-religion speeches while the rest of the town does their daily shopping.

Stalls:

1. Jern: Delicious, sweet peaches.
2. Gablin: Magopological Curios. Mostly cosmetic knick knacks, but has some magic items (see below).
3. Karl's Rope Shop: Really excited about ropes and knots for some reason. Says he sailed on a historic replica ship in the before times.
4. The Fish Shop: Most fish look a little under the weather. The freshly pan fried fishcakes are really good though and smell wonderful.
5. Sera's Weapons: Intimidatingly beautiful, muscular and confident. Most townsfolk find their voices higher pitched than normal when ordering from her. Usually has at least one interesting weapon.

Gablin's Magopological Curios:

1. Woodyfier: A wand that turns wooden objects into trees, roughly four times the size of the original. Multiple pieces of wood can be combined before activation to form a larger tree.
2. Shrink Dart: A dart that shrinks any object or creature to a third of its original size. The effect lasts as long as the dart remains lodged in the target.
3. Acid Thread: A spool of thread. Tightened around an object, it slowly dissolves it.
4. Gravity Pants: Pants that make you very hard to shove or trip. Jumping, climbing and swimming become rather difficult.
5. Murn: A clay urn with a lid. Speak into it. When the urn is destroyed, it plays back everything it has heard since the lid was removed, from the beginning.
6. Byeglass: A spyglass that makes whatever you look at invisible to everyone but you.
7. Memory Mug: This mug remembers every liquid ever poured into it. Add a liquid and after a few minutes it transforms into a random previous liquid. Mug history so far. Beer, beer, water, poison, water, soapy water, wine.