Visit Corpus: The Living City

Corpus: The Living City

Viewed over time and from a sufficiently distant vantage, Corpus appears as a festering wound upon the landscape. Architecture bubbles up as inflamed tissue only to burst and leak the fluid of human exodus after any number of inevitable localized disasters. The dead tissue of uninhabited buildings becomes infested by maggoty squatters and slowly rots away to looting and neglect. The resulting topography is as layered, richly textured, and chaotic as a cancerous tumor. Temples, brothels, and emporiums stack and flow upon and within one another. Buildings are cannibalized to erect eclectic new structures with a frequency that renders entire districts unrecognizable from one visit to the next.

Grifter's Wharf

Few tourists fresh from the terrestrial spaceports at the heart of Corpus retain possession of their wealth and belongings for further than a handful of strides after disembarking. The tourist district of Grifter's Wharf surrounds the port in a great ring of structures densely piled on atop each other, ensnaring all with sticky, saccharine commercialism and confounding architecture.

• Gift shops hawk Holy Mountain themed shirts, mugs, religious iconography, rocks, and other tchotchkes.
• Kitschy, themed restaurants, bars, and hookah dens decorated with plastic torture implements and climbing equipment peddle swill at exorbitant prices.
• Coffee-aged, crudely forged maps, prophetic scrolls, and other clues are proffered conspiratorially in dingy alleys and back rooms. Most lead nowhere, and the rest conclude in bandit dens and ambush spots.
• General stores sell defective, shoddy equipment and rancid provisions.
• Apothecaries market miracle cures to desperate, diseased travelers.

Navigating Grifter's Wharf

Surrounding the landing pads, a throng of bodies creates an introductory tableau to the dynamics of Corpus.

• Within the immediate vicinity is 1 of each: Tourist, Profiteer, and Mystic.
• A money changer attempts to reel in tourists fresh off the boat, passing worthless prayer beads off as currency necessary to purchase anything on the sphere.

A ring of shops form the outer wall of Grifter's Wharf, filtering tourists according to need and desire.

• Exterior entrances into shops are 1 way turnstiles. Near impossible to cheat without dismantling.
• Interior exits lead laterally into adjacent shops via 2-way turnstiles, cost 1 sp to cross. Chain of shops loops infinitely and unbroken around the ring.
• Interior of each store protected by d6 Guards (stats as Profiteer), wielding store-appropriate weapons and wearing thematic uniforms.
• Most other employees are tourists who got stuck after running out of coin.
• Each shop has a secret back entrance only the guards know how to access.

Shop Generator

1. Taffy's	Milkshake	Emporium
2. Premium	Haze	Dungeon
3. Not Your Grandmother's	Meat	Shack
4. Bartholemew VI's	Trading	and Bar
5. Occult	Miracle	Pit
6. Sphere's Largest	Gift	Shrine

Narrow, twisting side streets and alleys lead past the shops to nowhere in particular.

• Confusing signage and meandering architecture makes navigation difficult.
• Possible escape routes include climbing over rooftops or tunneling through buildings.
• Cursory exploration leads to fake dungeon created to entice traveling adventurers: The Tomb of Sithisian the Wise.
• Failed navigation or aimless wandering leads to trouble:
• Cornered in dead end by d6 Acolyte Mystics, forced to pray at knife-point.
• Encounter a lost and wandering monster, such as a Tiger or Ogre (see Troika Bestiary).

The Tomb of Sithisian the Wise

• Entrance marked "Tomb of Sithisian the Wise", meagerly disguised by fake moss and other detritus.
• Door at bottom of staircase must be pulled open, else plastic spiders fall from ceiling.
• Harmless, cardboard skeletons pop up from coffins in antechamber.
• Lid to the sarcophagus of Sithisian is stuck, and muffled proverbs and vague wisdoms can be heard from inside, along with the thumping of the animatronic failing to escape its container.
• At the end, a chest receives payment (1 sp) and dispenses plastic baubles, and another coin slot in the wall (2 sp) ejects group photos of the party taken in the skeleton room.

Tourists and the Profiteers Who Love Them

Tourists

Spurred by lucrative kickback schemes for interplanetary travel agents, the Sphere of the Holy Mountain has become one of the more popular tourist destinations in recent years. Few find the vacation exactly what they imagined, but their experience is invariably difficult to forget.

1. An adventurer squandered all their wealth and vitality in the search of the Holy Mountain. Roll d66 on the Troika! background table, and choose one possession as their last remaining item. The poor soul will sell or pawn the object for cheap, dearly needing food and a ticket home (stats as Profiteer, Mien of Tourist).
2. A pickpocket's wet dream obliviously gawks at landmarks while a bulging purse hangs at his waist.
3. A space hipster who's ironically visiting this tourist trap of a sphere to soak in the camp and nasally complain about its inanity.
4. A troop of big game hunters seeks to kill at least one of everything on the sphere (stats as Profiteer, Mien of Tourist, Armour 0, damage as Fusil).
5. A gaggle of young school children from the academy of the Cordial Wizard God wearing adorable wizardly uniforms are herded by an ill-prepared and increasingly distressed chaperone. If threatened or prankishly inclined, the children start casting random spells.
6. A Squad of Chaos Knights, sold on the idea of crusading on the sphere, find there's little they can do to raise its chaotic magnitudes but try anyway (stats as Profiteer, Mien of Tourist, Armour 2, damage as Maul).

Profiteers

The Sphere of the Holy Mountain is full of exclusive deals proffered in hushed and confidential tones.

1. A troop of charlatans who emulate a true order of mystics, and scam aspiring followers. Roll on the Mystics table to see which group they impersonate.
2. Census takers corral new arrivals and question them in an attempt to come to grips with the local population. They are secretly a marketing group collecting data to target ads demographic targeting.
3. A company of miracle prospectors scours the sphere for holy relics and mystical phenomena.
4. A snake oil wholesaler attempts to offload their stock to enterprising entrepreneurs, and offers a tantalizing recruitment scheme for introducing other salesmen to the system.
5. Con-folk precariously balance jugs of soured wine and veer into likely marks. Once shattered, their owners claim the vessels once contained product of the finest vintage and demand outrageous sums in payment.
6. Psychic Hygienists in spotless purple and white jumpsuits extol the benefits of practical minimalism and fashionable asceticism. These seers visit your home or evaluate your unloaded pack to divine the future of each of your possessions. They "dispose" of each item they foresee you never using again, to relieve you of unnecessary burdens. Many clients are surprised that some of their most valuable possessions will be entirely useless to their future selves.

Stats

Tourist

Skill 4

Stamina 6

Initiative 1

Armour 0

Damage as Knife

Mien

1. Confused
2. Awestruck
3. Overconfident
4. Homesick
5. Curious
6. Rude

Profiteer

Skill 7

Stamina 8

Initiative 2

Armour 1

Damage as Weapon

Mien

1. Vigilant
2. Desperate
3. Imperious
4. Patronizing
5. Remorseful
6. Fawning

Images Befitting an Obscure Sphere

I hoard inspirational art like a pack rat. Here's an assortment of the pieces I find most Troikian, in no particular order.

Ivan Rastrigin

Akiya Kageichi

Matt Cunningham

ratfactor

Parker Steven Jackson

Parker Steven Jackson

Alex Kuno

Craig Gleason

Jakub Rebelka

Ben Avlis

Sarunas Macijauskas

Pierre Raveneau

Chenthooran Nambiarooran

Chenthooran Nambiarooran

Parker Steven Jackson

Anton Solovianchyk

Edward Delandre

(cannot find source/artist)

Joseph Mugnaini

beeple

Kilian Eng

Alex Kuno

Robbie Trevino

Mystics in Search of the Holy Mountain

Much of the population of the Sphere of the Holy Mountain fancies themselves something of a sage, and some even have enough chutzpah to gain a bit of a following. Conventional religions who set up shop here have little chance against these tenacious domestic breeds.

The following mystical orders use the stats for generic Acolyte Mystics and Master Mystics, but each has their own unique features listed as Special.

Orders of Mystics

1. The Vulcanized Pact believes that the Holy Mountain is rather a volcano, and summiting it would trigger an apocalyptic eruption. They employ various schemes to deceive mystics into blaspheming and straying from their path.
1. They publicize the idea that the holy mountain is actually on a different sphere.
2. They employ temptresses to dissuade believers from their path.
3. They swap holy texts for similar but heretical ones, to trick devout mouths into uttering heresy.
• Special: Members of this order have the Spells Babble and Befuddle.
2. This heretical fellowship dedicates themselves to anti-spiritualism. They attempt to defile all that is holy and commit every blasphemy, believing this the true path to enlightenment.
• Special: Members of this order have the Spells Shatter and Undo.
3. The Martyrers seek truth in the screaming eyes and distant words of those nursed on their Judas Cradles and broken on their Catherine Wheels.
• Special: Members of this order have +1 Armour, deal damage as Axe, and have the spells Assassin's Dagger and Darksee.
4. This sect of a popular religion believes in a holistic use of their sacred text. They bring copies of it with them everywhere, in order to tear out pages to use as tissues or toilet paper. They clothe themselves entirely in stitched-together pages. They fight by hitting people with the tome.
• Special: Members of this order have +1 Armour and deal damage as Club.
5. This cult frequently tests their piety via such deadly trials as pistolet roulette, being bitten by venomous snakes, and being burned alive. They have a high turnover. The gauntlet is open to all who would seek to gain esteem with the order, though unwilling participants have been known to receive judgement (to the benefit of their enemies). One who succeeds the trials fairly gains Enlightenment, though some prefer to ensure their survival by cheating.
• Special: Members of this order deal damage as Pistolet, and have the Spell Zed.
6. The Rainbow Threshers deem all but their holy wavelength false. Some of their order have undergone excruciating rituals to purify their retinas of blasphemous receptors, rendering their vision monotone.
• Special: Members of this order have the spells Light, Jolt, and Flash.

Stats

Acolyte Mystic

Skill 6
Stamina 7
Initiative 2
Armour 0
Damage as knife
Mien
1. Bloodthirsty
2. Panicked
3. Ritualistic
4. Bored
5. Evangelical
6. Disillusioned

Special
The acolyte has the Spells Exorcism, Presence, and Read Entrails.

Master Mystic

Skill 9
Stamina 14
Initiative 3
Armour 2
Damage as Staff
Mien
1. Bloodthirsty
2. Megalomaniacal
3. Ritualistic
4. Despondent
5. Evangelical
6. Heretical

Special
The master has the spells of an acolyte, plus Illusion and Levitate.

Use

Now that we have a bunch of Mystical orders written up, we can plug them into random encounters with minimal effort. Here are some simple examples that can be made more interesting by rolling to determine the Orders and Mien of the Mystics:

• Two groups from different orders, composed of d6 Acolytes lead by a Master, converge on a large and deserted plaza.
• An Acolyte struggles with a stubborn sacred cow.
• d3 Acolytes vandalize the temple of another order. If the players have erected or seized a religious structure of their own, they are the victims.
• A pupilless Master Mystic attempts to take the players under their wing.

Second Batch of Backgrounds

7) Conspicuous Amnesiac

Your role as a literary device sticks out as a sore thumb. Your past goals and personality traits elude you like an itch on the small of your back, though there are many who would lend a helping hand. Would-be adversaries give you a wide berth, and a flock of sycophants crowd around you—hoping to cash in on your inevitably heroic fate or recovered high status. Ambitious Viziers or desperately leaderless empires have historically used amnesiacs as malleable tools of succession, to mixed results.

Possessions
- Ragged and filthy, though unmistakably exquisite clothing
- A hollow brass tube OR slimy lead shot OR an inescapable trail of insects
- A capriciously brilliant gemstone OR an onyx sword hilt OR a heavy, gilt tome with exclusively blank pages

Skills
None

Special
- Though you begin as helpless as a child, your past talents may be resurrected with practice. When you learn a new Skill or train or advance an acquired one, you may test your luck to see if your subject was known to your past self. If you succeed, you may roll twice to vie for improvement.

8) Custom Barge Racer

The viscous membrane that connects the spheres is to many simply an obstacle on the path to their destination. To you, it is a stadium and a playground. The spheres are merely places to repair, restock, and renovate, but the sea of Nothing is where you and your competitors truly live. Some racers are in it for prize winnings, others for fame or admiration, but all share an all-consuming desire for speed.

Possessions
- A Golden Barge, in truth owned by a wealthy patron
- An inordinate number of small supplemental sails OR an emergency silver-combustion engine OR sail-shredding cannons
- A well-used boarding pike

Skills
4 Golden Barge Pilot
2 Astrology
2 Awareness
2 Spear Fighting
1 Climb
1 Mathmology
1 Strength

9) Chased Chaste Chase

You’ve jilted the priest at the sacrificial alter, fleeing your virginal destiny, but your purpose stinks upon you like a rotten egg. Your original captors aren’t the only ones greedily dreaming of pushing you into a volcano or flaying you over the gaping mouths of devout parishioners—you must maintain constant vigilance when around any priest. Perhaps you can evade your fate by losing that which they hold sacred, but it’s a dubious task.

Possessions
- Torn bits of cloth that pass for clothes
- A length of chain still bound to your wrist (Damage as club)
- A ceremonial dagger and your severed though still-beating heart OR a crucible of molten lava (cools in 2d6 days) OR a Cacogen Death Mask that conveys +2 Second Sight
- Numerous golden bangles worth d66 silver pennies OR a sacrilegious tome containing the teachings of 2 Random Spells.

Skills
3 Run
1 Climb
1 Acrobatics
1 Etiquette
1 Club Fighting

10) Absurd Vigilante

In the less policed spheres, there are those who take up the mantle of a defender of innocents, though few take so dramatic an approach as you. The alternate identity that you wear to mask your true self has consumed your life to a frightful degree. You’ve crafted a heart-wrenching backstory to justify your prolific violence, but truly, you’re just in it for the thrills.

Possessions
- A lovingly fashioned costume, themed around your randomly rolled spell, complete with cape
- A deck of calling cards
- A weapon of your choice, if you choose Weapon Fighting

Skills
3 Spell – Random (Troika Table 5)
3 Disguise
3 Unarmed Fighting
2 Acrobatics
2 Strength
2 Run
1 Climb
1 Fly OR 2 Weapon Fighting (of your choice) OR 4 Second Sight

Special
You have a weakness, so absurdly niche that it would seem impossible to exploit. When subject to this vulnerability, your Base Skill and Luck temporarily drop to 0.

11) The Killer

You live an inoffensive life. Your friends know you as a harmless wallflower. Strangers find you meek, even pathetic. However, deep within you lies a dormant monster. You are a sleeper cell—the finely honed tool of person or persons unknown. Even in your normal life, your purpose finds ways to leak from your otherwise unassuming exterior. You have a secret, nasty vice that you can’t help but indulge. Time will tell when, and at whose behest, you will be unleashed upon which unsuspecting victim.

Possessions
- A thin dagger sewn into your clothing that you only know about when activated
- A cyanide capsule, likewise hidden

Skills
1 Etiquette

Special
When the command word is given, you must do everything in your power to track down and kill your designated target. While activated, you gain the following skills:
5 Sword Fighting
5 Knife Fighting
4 Tracking
4 Run
3 Strength
3 Poison

12) Haunted Medic

Behind the brazen charges and bristling armies that sweep and collide across the spheres, you wage your own war in hellish ditches and ramshackle huts that pass for operating theatres. Almost as spectacular and strange as the weapons that make them, the wounds of your patients constitute the intricate intrigues at the heart of your feverishly wrought dramas. You’ve been at this too long, and finally caught a body that snapped your typically adamantine heartstrings. The wars left behind, will your quaking hands and quivering lips prove fatal for your new comrades?

Possessions
- A surgeon’s kit, disused aside from a dwindling supply of painkillers
- A half-empty bottle of strong spirits

Skills
2 Awareness
1 Trapping
1 Poison
1 Healing

Special
The bottle or the pill are the only ways you’ve managed to dull the screams and still your tremulations. When thoroughly soused, you gain a +4 bonus to Healing but -1 to everything else.

First Batch of Backgrounds

1) Food

Some adventurers try to kill monsters from the outside, impotently sliding their blades against tough hides. You know better.

Possessions

- Aromatic spices and rotten meats

- Full body chain suit (Moderate Armour)

- Carving knife

- Gall stone trophy from a vanquished foe

Skills

4 Tunnel Fighting

2 Disguise

1 Evaluate

1 Poison

1 Knife Fighting

2) Monumentalist

While your companions are busy wrestling and hacking away at some foe, you're already planning the bloodstone obelisk that will forever mark this place. Your paths through the spheres are marked by cairns, tombstones, and temples. For you, the only things worth remembering are written in stone.

Possessions

- Hammer and chisel

- Pulleys and rope

- A jar of gold leaf

- A sled

- A pack mule

Skills

4 Masonry

3 Mathmology

1 Most Obscure Languages

1 Secret Signs - Masons

1 Evaluate

1 Awareness

1 Climb

3) Rainbow Thresher

All but the holy wavelength are false. Some members of your order have purified their retinas to expunge the blasphemous receptors, but you retain yours to bear witness to their grotesque vibrations. Let the gods sort heretics into ultraviolet heavens and infrared hells, you have painting to do.

Possessions

- A prism

- Robes and tassels dyed the sacred shade

- Pigments and binding agents

Skills

3 Spell - Light

2 Mathmology

2 Second Sight

2 Spell - Jolt

1 Spell - Darksee

1 Spell – Flash

4) Maiden Bearer

You carry the maw of your god upon your back, and your god is always hungry.

Possessions

- An iron maiden

- Hooks and chains

- A nasty little trap of your own invention

Skills

3 Wrestling

3 Strength

2 Run

1 Tracking

1 Trapping

Special

Your iron god takes up 4 equipment slots. Once its thorny chambers are filled with a wriggling sacrifice and the door is shut, it doubles in weight and cannot be opened until your god is satiated—usually about 1 day. Your god never needs cleaning.

5) Miracle Cure Salesmen

You were the only survivor of an expedition to the fountain of youth, and you’ve carried back as much of the legendary waters with you as you could. However, eternity is proving too short a time to make your fortune hawking your miraculous wares. You meander from sphere to sphere, seeking out the desperate and the gullible after being laughed out of throne rooms and grand halls. Maybe somewhere there’s one fool enough, or a deal cheap enough, to offload some of your priceless haul.

Possessions

- Water from the fountain of youth, stoppered in tacky curio bottles

- Dirty, threadbare rags

- Banners bearing slogans of previous marketing attempts

Skills

1 Awareness

1 Run

1 Sneak

1 Swim

1 Trapping

Special

You never age.

6) Masonic Campaign Manager

The candidates are secret, the districts jagged, voter registration arcane, but there’s an election to be run. It’s your job to find babies to wave and hands to kiss for your future club president… whoever they might be.

Possessions

- A crate of campaign pins

- A poisoner’s ring

- A list of suspected opposition candidates

Skills

4 Secret Signs – Secret Sphere Domination Organization

3 Etiquette

2 Poison

1 Disguise

1 Awareness

1 Astrology

Special:

If you win the election, your candidate will assume a mantle of unspeakable power. You may be awarded for your efforts with obscene wealth, an influential office, or a firm handshake.