d30ish Table of Things That May or May Not Be Safe or Beneficial While Traversing the Fray

Guess I'll call it the Anchor table. In the depths of Gloom City, an anchor might help keep reality together, or at least a small bit of stability in the shifty shadows. They're like mini-relics for the individual, de-abstracting the world just enough to get your all too human ass back to where things are things you know. Unless you're not human really. Then nothing will help you.

 

1. A Golden State license plate from the hot-rod era that has never been destroyed regardless of all the complete wrecks the cars it's been on have suffered. R34 P3R.
2. Silver .45 with painted grips: Our Holy Venerated Teen Mother looking serene, hands in the typical prayer position. Said to belong to a guy who managed to actually retire, but the guy he gave it to was killed first time out.
3. Currently unopenable briefcase. Something is rattling around inside there. Sounds different every time it's shaken.
   
4. Aviator shades. In twilight the polarization causes the wearer to "hallucinate" things that probably used to be there.
5. Card for lifetime meals at Drive-N-Burger. Accepted at all locations forever.
6. A Carcosa County library card for one "Carter, Rand." paperclipped to a book request fulfillment at the research desk. The card is old as fuck, and the request expiration date is written for Feb 31st of next year.
7. Dusty bottle of old old scotch with a faded label that tastes like hell, but people who like spirits seem to love. Used at important meetings of that sort, the parties involved unusually never seem to choose deception. There's around 2/3s left.
8. A mini magic 8-ball on a key-ring. The icosahedron inside usually seems to be blank, but every once in a while displays a faded message.
9. Lucky tie with a red sheen. Someone always compliments it a few minutes before violence breaks out. But sure seems like it's always noticed by anyone assailing the wearer. Even through massive chaos or whirling melee. Might be a problem.
10. Hand made dancin' shoes. Never slip on even the slickest surfaces. The blood won't quite clean off though.

11. Magnetic key card for Metropolitan Hotel and Resort, in an envelope upon which "It's still in there" is handwritten.
12. A leathern foldout wallet pyroscripted with the name Del Lorenzo. Inside are old-fashioned lock picks of surprising usability.
13. That tire iron you carry in the car. The engraving of the brand name must've gotten pretty screwed up in manufacture; whatever those odd symbols are seem almost intelligible.
14. Yellowed piece of lined paper with most of a shopping list on it written in a hand unlike your own. Ends with your name and "See you when I wake up. Love y..." The rest is torn off. You don't remember who may have written it.
15. Fancy pocketwatch. Runs backwards and a bit fast. Always meant to get it fixed, but it's been fun to open it up when something's about to go down, and see how often real time matches the hands when things go topsy-turvy.
    
16. Lucky dice. I mean, they're lucky, right? Just don't bring them back to that casino.
17. The World War trench lighter on the old chain you wear works about half the time normally. But it always lights in the dark. Said that's how grampa got sniped lighting his Chesterfield during a wartime blackout.
18. An honest to goodness Denku Beacon Pro+ flip phone. It's slightly big, heavier than it ought to be. Speaker's shitty, your voice comes out staticky, and the battery life is terrible. But it always works as long as it's charged, and seems to be effectively indestructible.
19. You got the skull. Everyone wants the skull. Someone else might even say they have it, but you know this is the one.
20. Post free-love era Top-Floor Adult Magazine. Nothing of real interest except a letter in the "Reader's Open Window" section, wherein a typically surprised tone leading to a porno worthy liason couches oddly accurate descriptions of a modern Department secure location. It really veers into the uncanny when the adult acrobatics are mentioned to "awaken something in containment" and implies that the ecstatic ritual is replicable. Fantasies, huh?
21. Sealed vial of clear liquid with gold flakes. The flakes continuously swirl in a clockwise direction. Except sometimes they don't.
22. Sweet skull grin gaiter style mask. Smells mildly of gasoline and oranges. Effectively filters out most toxic bullshit that might be expected to permeate the air in situations of conflict.

 

23. A pocketknife you've had since you were young. You got a nasty scar across one finger when it closed accidentally after slipping in the groove of the initials you were carving into the handball court backstop. That scar right there...wait maybe the other finger. Well, at least the blade's always sharp.
24. Hells yeah Championship ring from that sports team you love. Serious gems, expensive as sin. They may win again someday, but collectors and jewel heads and money hungry types find that ring irresistible.
25. Cuff-links of the Special Operations Director, World War era. The scratches on the back obviously have to mean something right? It's said he's still alive in a warm West Coast sanitarium.
26. The highly confident agent that presented you with the mirrored flask insisted it would be useful in more than one way. The water it contains is guaranteed to come from the Mission San Ode Legere, blessed and pure as it springs from a crack deep below the church and bubbles up into the font.
27. That sleeve dagger you have, a black iron spike with a heavy head-thumping ball on the end, has always slipped from its sheath. Truth be told, it's sort of a fidget now, to let the round iron drop into you hand, then tuck the dagger back up, let it drop, push it back up, let it drop, ....
28. Couple of tickets to the Symphony Hall, reserved way in advance. Everything ought to be neatly finished by then, and you can meet again there. The Promise said you'll come together once again no matter what happened before. If you can just make it there.
    
29. Garage decal for Jothell Spacewerks, yet to be applied to your vehicle. Weird name, but excellent custom work.
30. Been holding onto that handmade fishing lure. The thing reminds you of the cabin out there next to the Slizare River. Probably a nice place to retire; pretty safe, out of the way. Wonder if the old lure-maker is still there?
31. (Bonus!) A single yet to be scratched $1 Golden State Lottery ticket called "2nd Chance Tonight." Losing tickets can be scanned for possible rewards at participating locations; the only participating location anyone has ever seen is a lonesome Fas-Gas Qwik Mart out in Carcosa County.

 

[(From a curious point in time, different then when I first made the table): thank you to a particular awesome individual who noticed the formatting somehow doubled number 5! Which means groans I had to go back and renumber the other 21 grr entries. And cut one! (And I didn't! Take that extra entry!)]

At the time I made the first 10 entries, and I had 20 more entries to throw in there, I realized to my utter horror that the system I tentatively had in mind only used d6s! Ye gods! (And if that one didn't work, there is a 0e game that I rather like that might have served my uses. d100. Stress and panic stuff....Fine. It was Mothership; I's talking about hacking Mothership. Sheesh.)

But now? It was obviously already floating toward my own weird system Zeroturn, since the whole thing is already Gloom City adjacent. I haaaaave to get that (re)written up. Slick it up a bit. Rebrand it Zerolite or something. Or SWIFT. (It'll make sense later.) 

It also occured to me today that Glare World might not work, because of the intitials "GW" which just might already be used. Hah. So the big weird setting that includes the Backstage of the Universe stuff is probably going to be called Gloom City, Glare Country. Means all of this mythic West-y highway stuff could just be Glare Country. Hm. Geecee-geecee?

But still, Gloom City: Mayhem is what's been rattling about on top so far. Maybe it ought to be The Fray. I like that one with it's double-meaning, but I don't like that one because I have no idea if the band with that name sucks or not. SAUS (say it out loud, you know) for Subtle and Unsubtle is a close contender though. But then it should be like Violence SAUS or something. Man, that would be fun to say.