Zoot's Locker

Made With Love

2020-04-14

Warmhands knew there was more to the old saying, what in his eyes would be an axiom, a meal made with love is a meal made true. Care-wrought he called it. Constant contact or use, repeated over years or decades imprinted on the humours of an object to the point, almost, of giving it life. A particularly favoured quill might leap from the pot to the fingers of its paramour at exactly the right moment or even finish their sentences. A rope might coil out and catch that fumbling fool it adores so much. Or, a maid might mourn the umbrella which threw itself upon her attacker with no thought for itself, keeping it always on her mantle in the hopes it would stir again one day.
It helped, of course, that he was a conjurer. What took decades in the hands of a lay man took mere months in his spellbound palms. Yes there were faster and more reliable ways to animate an object if you were powerful enough, however, he considered that other way quite barbaric. He stretched his gnarled old fingers and scratched at his scraggly beard. If he was being honest with himself, as he felt he ought, he truly just preferred the company of things to people. People often become attached to inanimate objects, and sometimes, the objects become attached back. To cosset an object is to give it a portion of one's own life, the old wisdom teaches. Treat it with affection and it may respond in kind. Given how long this process normally takes few try and fewer are successful. The majority of those who do form this bond stumble into it due to a natural love and care for an object, something of great personal significance. This all breaks down when you bring a wizard into it. Someone so firmly connected to chaos changes the world around them by default and yet, even with their great advantage, the effort involved in producing an awakened object greatly exceeds the reward. For most. The rest are often known as hoarders or hermits.
But what does this mean in practice? Not much, I haven't made a class, dungeon, monster or rules based on the above. I'm considering it, I make no promises. Maybe next time you need a familiar you'll think cloak instead of owl. It would certainly explain why they don't seem to be around all that often but are always right at hand.

Future Content

2019-02-24

Hi All,
Hoping to actually start adding some content at some point, generators and such. Maybe some extra maps, we'll see, I do tend to get distracted. In case you're interested I've put together an RSS Feed.

Map download and stl

2018-08-24

Because both these questions get asked a lot, you can download the whole barovia map here. You can also get an (admittedly dodgy) stl for 3d printing on thingiverse, here. I plan on improving this to match the nice smooth model used on this website. Sadly, if it were easy I'd have done it already. I've also added the geotiff this is based on. It's the most complete version of the model so if you want to try your hand at creating an stl, that'd be the place to start.

Off with the Fairies

2018-08-13

Sorry for the lack of content, the wee beasties have stolen me again. In the meantime, why not check out my 3d Map of Barovia?