It’s been a bit. I’ve been lazy. I’ve also been working on another issue of Mysthead. I might also have started to post some game stuff to itch.io. Mostly bespoke classes for Old School Essentials and an adventure.

One thing I want to add to my game table are condition cards that impact roleplay as opposed to mechanics. One inspiration was the card game The Grizzled, but I’m sure it’s been used elsewhere. So I took that idea and mushed it with the notion of what if languages could be infected with astral lichens and, lo, scrypt was born!

…

Scrypt is a living language despite being millennia old.

A remnant of the wars between the proto-gods, scrypt thrives like a linguistic lichen within the fertile soil of other languages. When one reads scrypt the words remain inside the mind. This can allow an untrained person to cast spells. However, it may also allow suggestions, enchantments, and worse to take root in the minds of the unwary. More importantly, scrypt attracts aetheric parasites when not maintained properly. Using scrypt is not to be done lightly.

Beware of scrypt-skull!

After every use of a scrypt-carrying scroll, the user must make a WILL save. If they fail, consult the table below. Effects last D4 hours.

(Give a reward, XP, fortune point, whatever, to players who make a valiant effort.)

1. Jobberknowl: All nouns must be reversed when spoken, ie “knife” becomes “efink”.
2. Dretched: Replace the first syllable of polysyllabic word with the prefix “dretch-”
3. Coranto: Speaker must knock twice at the start and end of every sentence.
4. Imbrangle: The speaker must start every sentence with “Imbrangletanglemangle…”
5. Zelant: The speaker must include at least one blasphemous phrase in every sentence.
6. Nullfidious: The speaker can only answer questions in the negative, although they believe they are answering accurately.
7. Grudgins: All nouns are replaced with names of prepared foods like “pickled herrings” or “sliced ham”.
8. Javeljaum: Classic spoonerisms, swap the prominent sounds of close words.
9. Igniferent: The speaker must discuss the flammability of every noun they mention when speaking.
10. Stelltwire: Speaker must replace spoken nouns with words that rhyme with the intended words.
11. Colsleck: Speaker inverts the syllables of words when speaking.
12. Chrysopo: Speaker appends the syllable -opo to every syllable they speak.
13. Cinqpace: All numbers are increased by one, ie “Anyone for tennis?” becomes “Anytwo five elevenis?”
14. Xeriff: The speaker gains a fluent knowledge to a centuries outdated legal code and references it constantly.
15. Saltimbanco: The speaker turns every conversation into a sales pitch for Saltimbanco, an invigorating health elixir.
16. Katexoken: The speaker will only speak if addressed as royalty.
17. Dogbolt: Speaker must add -og- before each vowel in a syllable.
18. Nist: The speaker can not remember the exact name for any item or person.
19. Haqueton: Speaker drops the first letter of every word.
20. Yblent: Speaker must shift vowels one place to the right (“a” becomes “e”) while speaking.

And that’s that. My goal is to get the rest of the zine done before December, which I am on track to do. That’ll be over on my Patreon when it goes live. There’s a poll there now to determine next year’s old weird book to read.