The First 31 Things

Average Despotic Helping Javelin Casting-Spears of the Conqueror were manufactured for seven decades at the slave-factories of the Coal-Fed-Undercroft. These were the symbols of the despot’s rise, the emblem of their reign & the signal to their foes. Despite the 70 years’ of war the despot never did conquer the land and died ignominiously in a pit. The javelins are still prevalent – a peculiar surplus of a bygone war.

Worldly Endeavoring Innovative Sharp Serpentine Cheetah Disguise (Whew) Sensational Cat Masque worn at the height of the winter season at the demesne of a petty, but connected prince, this masque was the unconventional star of the gala. Though it is de rigueur for bored & contemptuous nobility to wear such a masque – this one is nevertheless rather avant garde. Fashioned to resemble the always weeping face of a cat, the masque has concealed within it the fangs of a deadly cobra – which can be used surreptitiously to poison one’s social superiors or rivals.

An Elite Cutting Cutter A Master Shiv – one of the fabled relics of the depths of Eternal Bondage Warren Seven, the shiv of shivs, the cutter of cutters. A crude implement fashioned with so much malice, so much terror & cunning that it cuts other blades as it cuts flesh – and it certainly cuts flesh. Hidden until needed, and frequently needed one of the master shivs is never noticed until it is too late.

Grotesque Trendy Triangular Grayscale Mercantile Marble Measuring Rod Ostentatious Merchant's Scale - Both tacky & flashy, this is a marble rod with a few commercial uses. The scale is a sign of petite bourgeoisie affluence in the culture that fashioned it. It measures coins by size - if one follows the marks along its grotesquely carved sides - which are made to resemble naked women of improbable proportions. It also measures by weight - if it is laid on a firm surface the angled instrument - all made of gray marble - can be used to measure out, with good accuracy, the weights of small objects.

A Scrupulous Fabric Rerebrace Mantle of the Saint's Shroud - The true believers who follow the faith of the saints regard their martyrdom as a passage into the next world, a beautiful and perfect world at war with an evil and corrupt earth. The relics of the saints are considered holy & magically powerful. So much so that the death shrouds of the departed saints are commonly fashioned into suits of armor - stiffened with the blood of the slain saints - these mantles are worn into battle by the most devoted of the saint's believers.

Extraordinary Pudgy Serrated Kaleidoscopic Ectoplasm Flail Ghost Rainbow Pendulum - The implement of a large creature - maybe an ogre or an orc - this extraordinary flail is composed not of steel & chain but of the jagged ectoplasmic substance of ghosts. In the right light the flail casts a shimmering cascade of whirling colors, almost hypnotic. In the hands of a giant this might be an inscrutible tool but at your size it makes a crediable weapon.

Pestilent Endless Dark Frightening Possum Plague Totem - This unseemly beast - a scrawny, tattered & dingy possum has been in your family's possession for generations. It is undying & possibly unliving. It is endless. It is also a harbinger of disease & a vector for plague. You can brandish it, when you wish, to universal dismay, but you cannot get rid of it. It is a totem creature and it always seems to find its way back to you.

Comical Significant Flame Coat Famous Clown Coat - A long and comically proportioned coat. This garment is ragged & patchwork by contrivance - meant to elicit a humorous response - its main comedy gimmick is how it bursts into flames on command. Not quite magical and not quite alchemical, the process by which the coat bursts into multihued flames is a trade secret that you have to re-rig intermittently. The coat's fame derives from its previous owner - a performer of renown.

Useful Massive Regular Fang Tool-Tooth - One of your front teeth is notably larger & stronger than the others and it is remarkably useful. Good for severing ropes, prying apart stuck items, even for gnawing through wood or metal. You've been known to sharpen blades & cut through bolts with your tool-tooth and at need your old fang makes a fair weapon - though it's never quite pleasant biting a monster or enemy.

Ritualistic Slender Next Champions Diamond Frustrating Slug Gastropod Idol - The champion must run a race, each year. This is what keeps the sun in the sky, the running of the race by a champion. Of course they wouldn't be much in the way of champions if the race were easy. No. Everyone in the polity must attempt to frustrate the Champion and they do so by throwing effigies and idols of the dark gods of the pantheon - those who wish to extinguish the sun. When your turn as champion came you chose something else. Either run the race and be pelted possibly to death, or take the idol and go. It's a slender affair- resembling a kind of slug- one of the baser villain gods of the pantheon - and it's encrusted with jewels, diamonds. It's worth a small fortune no doubt but not enough to die for - and look, the sun is still rising anyhow.

Spearing Insect It's a Mosquito - You have a pet mosquito

Stern Tremendous Tattered Marine Gold Koi The Great Gold Carp - not quite lucky and not quite unlucky the Great Gold Carp is auspicious. It's moustache-like whiskers are long & grant the creature and intense, almost hostile expression. It's quite large of course, almost as big as an Orc and it's gold. Not gold in color, but gold. Its scales are pure gold, that is, where they remain intact. Treasure hunters haven't been kind to the Great Gold Carp. It's up to you to care for the creature - which is why you've brought it with you.

Denim Coat Your Dad's Sweet Jacket - Your dad is pretty cool. That's what he tells you. You're not so sure but maybe he was once cool? His Sweet Jacket seems to suggest that he might have been. It's a torn & beat up denim jacket that' pinned together with patches & emblems of bands & gangs & fictional nations. It's pretty much The Coolest. And it kind of still fits your dad - so maybe he's right. Anyhow - he gave it to you because you're going on an adventure.

Disconcerting Mongoose Rikki Tikki Terror - As mongooses go, this one is pretty weird - it's unpleasant is what it is. It's like a typical mongoose except for how it's also a cobra. It's got a cobra hood and it does a cobra's hypnotic dance… Still, it's got four furry legs and hunts snakes. Doesn't make it any less creepy.

Enthusiastic Liliputian Pioneering Tawny Majestic Beaver Invasive Miniature Beavers - Somewhere in between a mouse and a rat in size, these shaggy little creatures are flat-tailed aquatic dam-builders, beavers. They're common in your homeland - known for breeding at a terrific pace and for damming & controlling the flow of rivers. They're an essential part of your home's ecology - so why not bring them to the North as a boon to future settlements? The few you carry with you were given you by the kings & queens of your homeland - from the regnal stock, they're the exemplary specimens of these beasts that can be found

Beautiful Mini Textile Belt Quilt Sash - A lovely wide belt made of many beautiful scraps of patterned cloth. It's quite comfortable and very distinct.

Impossible Baby Millionth Immaculate Baize Staff One Millionth Baby's Green Felt Staff - An edict went out - centuries ago - that every baby be swaddled in green felt - and that in time, the swaddling clothes be wrapped tightly and formed into a rolled up tube - a staff. Each of these felt staves - given rigidity by the tightness of the wrapping & the application of secret varnishes became emblematic of the many generations as each was carried by everyone in the culture. The edict, the ancient mandate held that the thousandth-thousand child would be the last, the final progeny of the line. And so it was. You might be the last baby of your society - or you might have the last baby's staff from an unrelated culture.

Lithium Pitons Mermaid Fireworks - These arrowheads of elemental lithium are stored in a small keg full of naptha. When properly used these arrowheads are exposed to water where they react vividly by exploding into silvery light which burns luminously undersea.

Opportunistic Ruby Dagger Barbed Hairpin - A ruby crusted hairpin that hides cruel barbs when the rubies on its stem are properly manipulated. The hairpin makes a cunning and pernicious dagger that's easily concealed.

Dumb Garnet Gilded Ladder Preposterous Carriage Stairs - This small, portable stairway was intended no doubt for the royalty of some opulent nation. Now in your possession, these golden stairs encrusted with garnets give easier access to carriages, help you mount horses & are otherwise modestly useful for reaching things on top shelves.

Adequate Coruscating Forged Enchanting Staff Tool Wizard's Reservior - In the land of your origins there are wizards of no small power and have been for many generations. Among them they carry their vanity in the form of fabulous staves - each brimming with enchantments. The staff of a wizard requires a goodly bit of maintenance in order to remain magically effective - and so the invention of one wizard became a sought after item - the Wizard's reservior is an adequate little device that bends the dimensional harmonics so that it can re-enchant magical staves & other items.

Obdurate Advanced Trapezoidal Burnt Mechanical Rabbit Hedgehog Stubborn Mechano-Pet - All the rage long ago, the mechano-pet was a vaguely wholesome combination of clockwork, phlogiston, rabbit & hedgehog. Yours still is all of that, and stubborn too. Where the others have quit, given up the ghost, ceased to function - yours still works. It's a rarity & an oddity in most places, but a few in the world will recognize it fondly as one of childhood's own gimcracks.

Morbid Smallish Blocky Immaculate Metropolitan Toga Your Mourning Toga - As a child you wore this toga frequently - a garment used as a sign of official mourning, it was in constant use as plagues and famine struck the great city of your birth. Over time the toga - 10 yards of dark wool, finely woven - came to represent many, many failings & difficulties in your life. You keep it now, and wear it when it suits you - an elegant momento of a more tragic age.

Secondhand Sturdy Religious Lens The Sin-Seer's Monocle - The Sin-Seer of your town was a wicked individual, coarse & full of harsh punishments. When you held the mirror up it was a scandal - on you of course - for your impudence - but more on the Sin-Seer, the mirror wouldn't relent & the old cleric fell into a fit. You swiped the Monocle for yourself & ever since you've had the knack for spotting the dirtiest deeds that stain the hands of the wicked.

Pitiful Baggy Crude Slug Mortar & Pestle Petrified Snail Mill - You crush the roots & grind the leaves, you make powders & poisons, tinctures & tonics. It's not just the ingredients though - that you know. It's the vessel - an ancient snail-shell, of some kind - a fossil maybe? And for the pestle, the petrified remnant of the snail - or maybe a slug? It's ugly to look at, puffed & wrinkled as it is, it looks like... Well, it's not polite to say in mixed company just what the wrinkled old gray thing looks like - but it grinds the leaves & roots just right, adds a bit of antique magic.

Dreaded Trim Hazy Sand Sling Sand Caster - A weapon without like or peer, handed down to you from its inventor. This armament - simple in design - a sling woven of cloud & dust, the gauzy tendrils of the sirrocco bound together into a sling. Used to scatter & scare the desert jackals rather than to kill - it throws volleys of grit rather than stones - unerring little projectiles that irritate rather than harm. And yet, in many ways much worse than a simple stone between the eyes.

Useful Asbestos Sundial Fire Clock - What the sundial lacks in nighttime utility the Fire Clock adequately compensates for. When placed in a fire, any fire, the Fire Clock stays cool to the touch, impenetrable to heat it nevertheless reacts to light. When placed int the fire the clock shows the hour, as if the flame knew it and were happy to tell.

Awesome Common Primal Whole Arcane Poniard Complete Blade - In ancient ages when the gods created the heavens they did so during a war amongs themselves & the void that divides. Among the gods' champions were the umpteenth powers, the mountains & the oceans & the moons - all of these living geomorphs, covering the unformed sky - battling with space itself left marks that remain in the world still. An old broken hill, small for a mountain but of an ancient temper - a fallen comet, a mountain from space that was once a warrior - its fingers long spikes, its nails complete swords. Complete. There were 10 once, all of the awesome swords fallen to earth, the fingers of a mountain that was a soldier in the sky. You've one - a whole one - complete.

Subtle Microscopic Maroon Seraphic Samite Descending Talisman Kiss of a Falling Angel - Once, when you were born an angel came to see you and left a mark upon you - its unutterably white lips against your maroon, just born lips. A kiss that passed on the germ of the angelic, the dust of stars & the image of heaven itself - retained in your mind, a permanent notion of what could be and what might be lost. It abides in you, subtly, surfacing only at times of despair when need for clear vision is greatest.

Putrid Shadowed Lead Pills Those Bitter Bullets - A small passel of bullets - lead balls used for slings & as shot for harquebuses. These though, are peculiar. Having been used at some point to pierce the tenebrous hide of the Night Monster they have become somewhat tainted, somewhat mystic and somewhat sought after. These bullets are colored with the blood of the Night Monster & it's ichor scored them with hideous epithets in its strange, starry language. Now they grant peculiar powers over shadow - allowing you better vision & better stealth when you have the nerve & the desperation to actually swallow one.

A Quantity of Crafy Voluminous Aboriginal Miasma Sheep The Plague Drove - Those who settled in your homeland brought with them their own breeds of barnyard beasts. Among them were the diaphonous wooled ewes of modern providence. This particular breed - while giving a fine wool has an extremely unhelpful, even dangerous feature & that is that their wool gathers & disperses contagion. Where this drove of sheep go there follows a plague. Driven away & out the shepherds of this storied breed relenquished their herds and you ended up with a few.