INCUNABULI

Beastmen

Benton — Fri, 01 May 2026 01:12:17 +0000

A pair of grouse flushed from the sweetgrass. Two swift cracks split the morning air. A lop-eared hound scrambled down the line of fire, reaching one bloodied gamebird before it met the earth. The other fluttered high into the budding treeline, feathers backlit by the rising sun. “Good girl!” cried Amalan, breathing white in the […]

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Daemonism

Benton — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:03:50 +0000

She brushed away a patch of snow, revealing a circle in the stone: A ring carved with a halo of runes. Sniffling in the cold, she picked ice out of the letters with a gloved finger. “Ah, you found it!” She looked up. Over her stood a plump ragman in a beaver coat and auburn […]

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A Moon for Every Season

Benton — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 23:12:00 +0000

Over a crown of mountains, the sky opened. And through the parting veil bloomed the autumn moon: Burning, huge, larded in vapor. Smoking like a tropospheric fumarole. Swollen hot with a fever absent the wind-bitten slopes and rippling waters of the mountain tarn. And the moon neared—terrifically. Its swelling luminance burst through night’s black nimbostratus […]

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Beauty

Benton — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 20:41:00 +0000

Goardon gazed, consumed by the fresco. It loomed, levitating in the dark, in an alcove deep in the palace’s basalt walls. Illuminated by a single beam of light, the mere crackled plaster, on its humble board of walnut, seemed to live. The flesh ivory yellow. The downturned daze disdainful. The ample lip dispassionate. “What is […]

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A Handful of Sorcery

Benton — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 20:23:58 +0000

d100 magic knucklebones. Surgically implanted, they grant unnatural powers in exchange for the nutrient salts of the wearer's blood. Artifacts, all. Ancient, all. Knucklebones' powers and accompanying prestige are worth any and all suffering and disfigurement entailed in their implantation within the delicate structures of the hand.

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The Competition

Benton — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 22:28:13 +0000

Adventurers do not abide the competition. Should a rival venturing party be meet in pursuit of the same goal, they are often swiftly bound to violence. In the field, or in the hole, as it may be, a gang of cutters faced with a fellow gang will near-invariably set upon each other like lions. Cautious, skirting diplomacy may sometimes occur, rarely. But when it does, it is backed by a slow retreat, by hands left uneasily to rest on gun-grips and...

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A First Impression

Benton — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 16:18:00 +0000

The Reaction Roll: The following is a mechanic from the Incunabuli Playtest: Intelligent NPCs determine their starting disposition toward individual player characters via a reaction roll. The roll is made upon first meeting the character, and should be made again after some time has passed or circumstances have changed.

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Foreign Gentlemen

Benton — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:43:00 +0000

In the mild autumn of 3.444, aliens landed on the balmy shore of peninsular Alagór. Aliens in boxy arks with sails battened like webbed fingers. Furry, wet-eyed, long-tongued creatures, reminiscent of otters or long-bodied bears.

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Neosorcery

Benton — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 02:42:00 +0000

On the cobbled gatepost, there sat a skull. A human skull, set in a divot midst the stones. Brown and crusted. A fresh wreath of dried daisy pixies, their heads torn off, crowned it. A lump of clay was tied in its gaping jaw, traced with runes. On the road, two Ward Rangers stared at […]

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A Second Chance

Benton — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:46:00 +0000

There exists in the cells of some humans a rare genetic quirk. A survival mechanism mutated seemingly at random and without hereditary president, so rare that it is practically unknown to science. It is expressed only after apparent death.

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