TEXT: Lords of Gossamer & Shadow
  Lords of Gossamer & Shadow
  Lords of Gossamer & Shadow
  Lords of Gossamer & Shadow    
      
          
   
      
      
      
  by
  by
  by
  by    Matt Banach
  Matt Banach
  Matt Banach
  Matt Banach
  
   
   
  Rite Publishing Presents: 
   
   
  Gossamer Worlds: Brokeworld
  Gossamer Worlds: Brokeworld
  Gossamer Worlds: Brokeworld
  Gossamer Worlds: Brokeworld        
   
   
  Explorer
  Explorer
  Explorer
  Explorer (Author): Matt Banach 
  Seeker
  Seeker
  Seeker
  Seeker    (Editor): Steven D. Russell 
  Searcher
  Searcher
  Searcher
  Searcher (Cover Artist): Trung Ta Ha  
  Trailbl
  Trailbl
  Trailbl
  Trailblaaaazzzzer
  er
  er
  er    (Interior Artists): Trung Ta Ha   
  Pioneer
  Pioneer
  Pioneer
  Pioneer (Trade Dress): James “Devin Knight” Hazelett  
  Lost Boy
  Lost Boy
  Lost Boy
  Lost Boy (Layout and Publisher): Steven D. Russell 
   
   
   
   
  Special Thanks to Jason Durall for his help in developing this.  
   
   
   
  Based on Lords of Gossamer & Shadow by Jason Durall 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Gossamer Worlds: Brokeworld Copyright © 2014 Steven D. Russell All rights reserved. Lords of Gossamer and Shadow Copyright © 2012-2013 Steven D. Russell All rights 
  reserved. Erick Wujcik’s Diceless Role-Playing and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Diceless by Design Publishing, LLC, and are used under license.  
  See http://Rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=1447 for more information on Erick Wujcik’s Diceless Role-Playing. 
   
  Some rights reserved. The ccover image and interior art work by Trun Ta Ha is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License 
  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ 
   
  
  1 
   
  “I descended a series of rickety catwalks 
  into a cavernous tomb of corroded steel 
  and filthy concrete, appointed like the 
  basement of some dilapidated industrial 
  complex. The boxy orifices of several 
  hundred garbage chutes pocked the 
  darkened ceiling, and occasionally some 
  scrap of junk from the unknowable 
  infinity above would clatter down to add 
  to the shifting mounds of rubbish. If the 
  Grand Stair had an ass-end, this was it. 
  In the center of the sloping floor, the 
  rusted metal Door dropped open like a 
  trap, loosing another load of detritus 
  into the howling wasteland below.”  
  - Travelogue 
   
   
  Brokeworld 
  is 
  a 
  dump. 
  The 
  polluted, wind-blasted landscape is made 
  up entirely of junk stretching out as far as 
  the eye can see – scrap-littered plains, 
  treacherously shifting hills, and gaping 
  pits formed by sinkholes and seismic 
  tremors. 
  I 
  reckon 
  that 
  Brokeworld 
  probably 
  once 
  supported 
  its 
  own 
  misfortunate civilization, but anything 
  original to the world hasn't been seen in 
  millennia, buried under a miles-thick 
  crust of compacted rubbish. Somewhere 
  far below the tunnel-riddled upper strata 
  of refuse might be the tops of crystal 
  skyscrapers and mountains made of solid 
  electrum, but I don't think there's a sane 
  soul alive willing to dig through all that 
  crap to find them. 
   
   
  Either 
  by 
  the 
  Grand 
  Stair's 
  unfathomable design or some tragic 
  cosmic happenstance, the place long ago 
  became a dumping ground for other 
  Gossamer worlds, and in rare instances 
  the Grand Stair itself. Hence, the variety 
  of 
  detritus 
  coating 
  the 
  place 
  is 
  staggeringly diverse, and nearly any 
  imaginable scrap of technology that is 
  defective, corrupted, or damaged can be 
  found amongst the seemingly infinite 
  piles. I once tripped into a pile of a dozen 
  broken syringes, a shattered pinball 
  machine, and a fusion pistol with a 
  breached reactor housing. Most of the 
  stuff comes through Doors that function 
  as garbage chutes, depositing fresh 
  batches 
  of 
  the 
  rotten 
  at 
  irregular 
  intervals, but it is obvious that some 
  things on Brokeworld are just too big to 
  have come through that way. Somewhere 
  there's an entire coastal city that got 
  wiped from the face of a Gossamer world 
  during a mysterious typhoon, only to end 
  up stranded in Brokeworld. The entirety 
  of the city's inhabitants – those who had 
  survived the typhoon, that is – were 
  eaten by gremlins within a fortnight.  
   
   
  Gremlins are the worst. If any 
  group claims dominion over Brokeworld, 
  its them, though individually they're 
  nothing 
  more 
  than 
  pests. 
  As 
  a 
  phenomenon, 
  however, 
  they're 
  an 
  apocalyptic 
  contagion. 
  The 
  little 
  misshapen bastards can change their 
  size, 
  getting 
  into 
  anything 
  and 
  everything. The clever ones can even 
  infest electronics, becoming contagious 
  computer viruses of the most destructive 
  variety. In addition to sabotaging any 
  technology they can get their scrabbling 
  claws 
  on, 
  gremlins 
  defecate 
  on 
  everything, 
  which 
  is 
  both 
  utterly 
  disgusting and genuinely dangerous. 
  Their acidic fecal matter contains spores 
  
  2 
   
   
   
  primed to bloom into crops of gremlin 
  offspring, and more than one Gossamer 
  Lord has committed the vile faux pas of 
  tracking an infestation of gremlins into 
  someone else's Domain because he 
  neglected to wipe his boots.  
   
   
  The Unmade haunt the fresher 
  scrapheaps, scrounging and hunting. 
  These 
  wretched 
  souls 
  were 
  once 
  constructs or practitioners of the Eidolon 
  who fell from grace, lost themselves, or 
  otherwise succumbed to Brokeworld's 
  corrupting 
  influence. 
  Irreparably 
  shattered but not quite dead, they're 
  cursed with the obsessive hope that they 
  can restore the perfect pattern they once 
  knew by harvesting it from still-working 
  material. They're wrong. What results are 
  twisted, cannibalistic junk-golems who 
  merely perpetuate the cycle of decay. 
  Lesser Unmade are pathetic cyborgs and 
  misfit toys begging for circuits and rusty 
  gears, but the Greater Unmade can rival 
  a Gossamer Lord – some might've been 
  one. 
   
   
  Doors into or out of Brokeworld 
  are 
  notoriously 
  unreliable, 
  often 
  shrouded or one-way, and it always 
  seems easier to enter than to leave. Doors 
  diverted from other locations sometimes 
  
  3 
   
  divert to Brokeworld, either by the Grand 
  Stair's inscrutable intent or a Master of 
  the Grand Stair's sloppy or malicious 
  tampering. New Doors to Brokeworld 
  have a tendency to appear in areas where 
  something's been broken, whether it be a 
  Gossamer Lord shattered in a duel or one 
  of those rare instances when something 
  destructive actually befalls the décor of 
  the Grand Stair itself. Once, after a 
  tragically ill-advised battle in a parlor-
  like hallway of the Grand Stair, I watched 
  a Door appear and open on its own, 
  taking a ruptured suit of armor, a few 
  broken vases, and one of my shoes with 
  it. All too often, Doors out of Brokeworld 
  malfunction or sever themselves unless 
  one makes a specific, deliberate effort to 
  secure them for a return trip. However, 
  holding a Door to Brokeworld open is 
  also treacherous – while they do not 
  possess the powers of a Warden or 
  Master of the Grand Stair, gremlins have 
  an inherent ability to pierce the veil that 
  normally 
  prevents 
  inhabitants 
  of 
  Gossamer worlds from noticing Doors, 
  along with the ability to pass through 
  such 
  Doors. 
  Gremlins 
  crave 
  the 
  opportunity to wreak havoc in bright, 
  shiny new worlds, and some Masters of 
  the Grand Stair make it a policy to sever 
  any Door to Brokeworld on principle 
  immediately, just to keep the gremlin 
  pestilence contained. 
   
   
  The current primary Door to 
  Brokeworld empties downward out of a 
  metal 
  trapdoor 
  hanging 
  from 
  the 
  underside of the rusty remains of an oil-
  drilling platform. The platform perches 
  unsteadily on its remaining pylons atop a 
  large hill of junk overlooking the vast 
  expanse of Brokeworld's heaps and a 
  nearby field of relatively fresh scrap pits 
  prowled by the Unmade. The Gossamer 
  Lord’s name this region “The Pits” 
  because of the common and dangerous 
  sinkholes. One idiot once thought he'd 
  avoid the terrain's pitfalls by bringing 
  along a jetpack – which worked great 
  until the gremlins got into it and he 
  plunged screaming into a chasm, after 
  exploding. 
   
   
  Beneath the pit-fields, the gremlin 
  warrens stretch for countless miles, 
  riddling the crust of the entire world like 
  the 
  tunnels 
  of 
  an 
  insane 
  anthill. 
  Practically designed to collapse, the 
  warrens are a ludicrously treacherous 
  place to tread. The gremlins know this, 
  and make it a point to drag newly arrived 
  treasures and potential valuables down 
  deep, all the better to lure brave 
  explorers 
  into 
  suicidal 
  spelunking. 
  There's a nasty rumor going around that 
  the current embodiment of gremlin 
  horde-chief Splintertooth has some plum 
  Dwimmerlaik battle-engines down there 
  with hardly a scratch on them. 
   
   
  Brokeworld doesn't have oceans or 
  seas, but it does have a big wet spot. 
  Choked with snarling shoals of rusted 
  junk and dense patches of flotsam, the 
  shallow 
  cesspool 
  is 
  completely 
  unnavigable but nevertheless teems with 
  activity. Tentacled mutant monstrosities 
  lurk in the foul fluid and amphibious 
  gremlins prowl the jagged beaches, 
  making cruel sport of the hapless Lesser 
  Unmade who go there sifting for batteries 
  
  4 
   
  and spare parts. In a rare showing of 
  willpower 
  and 
  organization, 
  a 
  particularly powerful Greater Unmade 
  calling himself Lord Black Saturday has 
  recently assembled a small pirate fleet of 
  ramshackle hovercraft and patrols the 
  junk-shoals robbing visitors of their 
  precious technology and spreading false 
  hope of deliverance from their curse 
  amongst 
  the Unmade. 
  I 
  can 
  only 
  presume that his inevitable ruin will be 
  spectacularly tragic. 
   
   
  Brokeworld is dangerous because 
  people 
  underestimate 
  the 
  pervasive 
  power of the Umbra there. Like I said, 
  superficially, it is a dump, and hence it is 
  all too easy to dismiss it as a hapless 
  garbage 
  planet 
  and 
  yet 
  brave 
  the 
  wasteland anyway because you need to 
  pursue a holed-up Umbra Master or 
  search for an artifact lost on the Grand 
  Stair. I did finally find my lost shoe, by 
  the way. But, Brokeworld is insidious, 
  relentless, and utterly exemplary of the 
  cosmic principle that everything will 
  break down, and all designs, no matter 
  how perfect, will crumble into chaos. 
  Most of the examples are physical – 
  defective technology, ruined buildings, 
  corrupting grime – but some of the 
  overwhelming 
  entropic 
  effect 
  is 
  intangible. Plans have a tendency to go 
  awry there, so on any trip to Brokeworld 
  you can bet that intelligence will be 
  skewed, loyalties will fray, and exit 
  strategies will fail. It's an incredibly 
  unlucky place, and has an uncanny knack 
  for breaking down even the most 
  untouchable explorers. 
   
  ~ Yaeger Zane 
   
  Brokeworld Domain Table 
  �����������
  �������
  �����������������������������������������������������
  �������������
  Magic is Known and Believed (though very few denizens practice with 
  any skill) 
  ����������
  Restricted Access [2 Points] (Doors malfunction and are notoriously 
  unreliable) 
  ������
  Personal Domain [1 Point] (presently unclaimed by any Gossamer 
  Lord) 
  ����������
  Control of Contents [1 Point] (only an Umbra Master can claim 
  Brokeworld) 
  ��������������
  ������������
  Eidolon – Weak  
  Umbra – Powerful  
  Wrighting – Blocked 
  ���������
  Unlucky. Every day a character spends in Brokeworld, they lose one 
  point of Good Stuff (if they have any), or gain one point of Bad Stuff (if 
  they have Zero Stuff or Bad Stuff). This effect is temporary for 
  Gossamer Lords, and characters revert to their “normal” quantity and 
  quality of Stuff immediately upon leaving Brokeworld. 
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Amber/Lords Of Gossamer And Shadow/Gossamer Worlds/Brokeworld.pdf