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Post by hengest on Jan 15, 2022 20:13:58 GMT -5
255) You are sure you saw a man staggering along the side of the road, but when you look again, you see only a hole that must lead to the burrow of some small beast.
256) Fermented vegetables are all the rage among the monied classes.
257) Her hat has a large blue-purple plume to the right of the family crest, which is some kind of cat.
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Post by hengest on Jan 15, 2022 23:17:16 GMT -5
258) Concave face cut into the rock.
259) Six wrens assembling one nest.
260) Many local stories center on a scarecrow character.
**Special: "Once upon a time there was a King in the North who had won many wars, but now he was old." -first line of The Story of Sigurd in the Red Fairy book, said by John Garth to have been memorable to Tolkien.
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Post by hengest on Jan 16, 2022 9:07:25 GMT -5
261) Village ruled by a witch weak in magic.
262) Migratory lynxes.
263) You stumble upon a lake burial.
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Post by hengest on Jan 16, 2022 10:31:49 GMT -5
264) Unspeaking owl with a good head for simple machines.
265) A downpour after every battle under the open sky.
266) Underground river in a cavern gently lit by foxfire.
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Post by hengest on Jan 16, 2022 11:44:49 GMT -5
267) The source of self-cooking oats.
268) The outermost wall of the city is the oldest.
269) A tower covered with exceptionally thick ivy.
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Post by hengest on Jan 16, 2022 11:51:57 GMT -5
270) Underground passage with chain threaded through a track on the ceiling.
271) Touching the stone causes it to fall open and spill its hot contents all over.
272) The caretaker of the ruins.
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Post by hengest on Jan 16, 2022 12:53:53 GMT -5
273) After he died, his armor kept fighting.
274) The sun failed to come up all day, and what finally rose from behind the mountains cast a crackling blackness, a kind of darkness to see by, across the sky and over the trembling world.
275) The lord of the manor feels very foot tramping across his land.
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Post by hengest on Jan 16, 2022 17:04:10 GMT -5
276) The Sallow Sand.
277) Swallow the potion to believe that nothing can harm you.
278) The Turtle of the Lake.
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Post by hengest on Jan 17, 2022 17:02:12 GMT -5
279) "The dried ones you see here are all cap, very fine for the wandering man such as yourself!"
280) As you step through the doorway, the chill grips you instantly and you feel your eyes begin to close.
281) A chamber of portraits, all in outlandish garb and with expressions strange to you.
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Post by hengest on Jan 18, 2022 19:19:14 GMT -5
282) Talking apple guides you to a hidden orchard in exchange for your scattering its seeds after you eat it.
283) Those who enter the mirror are replaced by their other selves.
284) The warrior-maid's one-of-a-kind boomerang mace has won many a skirmish.
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Post by hengest on Jan 20, 2022 21:59:32 GMT -5
285) Sharing a roasted onion is a sign of brotherhood.
286) Around here, face-paint for warriors is considered a joke.
287) All business dealing must be conducted in the bathhouse.
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Post by hengest on Jan 20, 2022 22:03:20 GMT -5
288) When the snow falls, you can see a circle some eight feet in diameter in the town square where the snow doe snot stick at all.
289) You have difficulty understanding the speech of two locals and then realize they are having difficulty understanding each other.
290) As you dig down, the earth itself feels rotten.
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Post by hengest on Jan 20, 2022 22:44:08 GMT -5
291) Two castles facing each other, each centered on a high hill, one of them abandoned.
292) When this bit of chalk rubs off on your hands, you feel stronger.
293) Stone armor.
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Post by hengest on Jan 20, 2022 22:52:44 GMT -5
294) Stilts, once a sign of wealth, now degenerated to crutches.
295) Rollable attribute: Voice
296) Beard and head hair textures reversed in these mountain men.
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Post by hengest on Jan 21, 2022 14:22:04 GMT -5
297) The overgrown herb garden of an abandoned hospital.
298) A gold-plated coffin.
299) City walls lined with pumpkins.
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Post by hengest on Jan 21, 2022 14:32:07 GMT -5
300) The wool of these sheep is undoubtedly magical.
301) The baron moonlights as a barkeep.
302) Sounds from a dark pond at midnight.
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Post by hengest on Jan 21, 2022 16:47:36 GMT -5
303) Dawn Redwood stands alone, eight feet wide, in the middle of the pond.
304) Flames visible under the water.
305) "I was born in this dungeon."
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Post by hengest on Jan 21, 2022 17:00:36 GMT -5
307) As you wade into the water, you notice your hands begin to look scaly.
308) "No potato! Only pork!"
309) The half-onion dome shows a small bedroom inside that looks onto the city.
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Post by hengest on Jan 22, 2022 21:48:24 GMT -5
310) Pond restores dead fish to life.
311) They call him the Stone Hand.
312) Giant mushrooms blown apart by gale-force winds.
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Post by hengest on Jan 22, 2022 21:51:43 GMT -5
313) You are nearly struck by a large child on a sled.
314) The potion smells fresh but foul when you sniff the cork.
315) Tip a bit of food into the cauldron to enter the inn.
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Post by hengest on Jan 22, 2022 21:57:58 GMT -5
316) Two plump-bodied birds that stand taller than any of you are guarding the gate to this sun-drenched keep.
317) The color of your torchflame keeps changing.
318) There is nowhere to sleep but this field of smooth stones.
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Post by hengest on Jan 24, 2022 17:04:22 GMT -5
319) Illusory bathhouse complex surrounding real hot springs.
320) As you finger the bracelets in the tray, one slips onto your wrist.
321) Quickgrass.
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Post by hengest on Jan 27, 2022 17:44:41 GMT -5
322) Sanity check at the city gate.
323) Former king is a luthier.
324) The city has guards active and no one else.
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Post by hengest on Jan 27, 2022 18:11:26 GMT -5
325) Nocturnal meadow elves.
326) Trees whose fruit look like dangling hands.
327) Day-long memory hiccups.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 27, 2022 19:12:10 GMT -5
On this thread, I will try to come up with mini-hooks. If you want to riff on or develop one, please feel free to post! Or if you want to post your own mini-hook. I'm allowing basically anything that fits into a reasonable sentence or sentence fragment (this is just a rule for myself). OK, I am going to go through all of the mini-hooks and look at them closer. I may make comments on some of them or ask some questions on some of them or something else. I am very likely not going to comment on everyone or at least I do not expect to.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 27, 2022 19:17:22 GMT -5
1) Two English sparrows, one turning to gold while the other turns back to flesh. 2) When you wake in the treehouse in the morning, you see the forest has been flooded almost beyond recognition. 3) Clay knuckles that encourage you to pull your punches. 1) I am assuming here that one is always gold while one is always flesh, but they each alternate between the two states. Questions: How frequently do they switch states? Are there any other effects when this happens? Do you detect magic on them? Do they have any useful or annoying abilities? 2) Question: Have you ever been in this forest before? Were you expecting a storm at the time you went to sleep? Hmm, how long did you sleep? Did you sleep one night or many night? How large are the trees? 3) Are your own knuckles clay or are these something you wear? Is this a magical effect? Are you able to remove them?
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 27, 2022 19:23:31 GMT -5
4) Modern but pre-automobile city (London or Moscow, 1870) but has only medieval European music. 5) Race with nails that grow "backwards" out of all knuckles but not on fingertips. 6) Human-sized rats with their own developed culture living alongside human settlements. 4) What is the significance of medieval European music? What happened that music stopped developing? Is there anything else that also did not develop since the more medieval times? Did a more severe Black Plague happen and cause this? Or did the Black Plague not happen and is this one of the changes as a result? 5) What effect does this have on the race? Are these nails really sharp and dangerous? Do these nails interfere with the races dexterity? 6) In what ways do they differ from the rats that we know? How do these rats and humans get along? Are they subservient to humans? Or are they equals? Why or why not?
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 27, 2022 19:27:38 GMT -5
7) Intelligent ball lightning. 8) Steel is an alloy composed mostly of gold. 9) St. Elmo's fire as a sign of winter coming. 7) What is the life span? Is there a set number of these intelligences that reincarnate over and over and die over and over? Can they decide where they strike? Can they travel a great distance before striking? 8) What are the other components? What is the formula? Is there some special method of manufacture? It is easily enchanted or is it difficult? 9) How soon after St. Elmo's fire starts happening, does winter happen?
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 27, 2022 19:33:30 GMT -5
10) City-state where the ability to fly is a recessive characteristic. 11) River runs the other way sometimes. 12) Trap designed as a trap that has failed and become a boon. 10) Does this land have floating islands, as in Avatar? Or does this land have those who live on clouds? Perhaps these with the ability are privileged to adventure in these otherwise unreachable places. 11) Does this happen near the coast as a response to tides? Or does this happen where there is a significant elevation change, such as rapids or a waterfall? 12) Hmm, what kind of a trap that has failed would become a boon? Hmm, a trap built where magic naturally flows and randomly alters the things it touches.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 27, 2022 19:38:11 GMT -5
13) Firearm-like weapons conceived of, but the users have thought only of bladed projectiles. 14) Dead pond begins refilling. 15) A race that bleeds flowers. 13) That is quite logical. 14) How or why is the pond dead? How did it become dead? Hmm it begins refilling, so it has dried up? Does it die and then refill as a function of the seasons? Is this a cycle, does this repeat year after year? What does it look like when it dies? When it refills? Does anything live in it when it is filled? If dead means it has dried up, what do you see when it is dead? 15) What kind of flowers? Is there something special about the flowers? Do they have special powers? Are they used in potions or poultices? Are they a spell component? (not that I use such things. )
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