Glåugust Challenges 2026: Conceding Defeat

 

I was doing a thing. It’s called “Glåugust” and from context, it seems to be about GLOG stuff. Being an incorrigible contrarian, I tried to do the challenge but with DCC RPG. Alas, between work, gaming, and family crises, I have become woefully sidetracked. So, I present to you, my three unfinished, final entries for Glåugust 2026.

Glåugust Challenge 4: “A lost spellbook, its contents, and the factions/individuals that vie for it.”

I’m doing a thing. It’s called “Glåugust” and from context, it seems to be about GLOG stuff. Being an incorrigible contrarian, I’m trying to do the challenge but with DCC RPG.

The Six-Sided Spellbook

Composed of hexagonal plates of a metal as lustrous as gold yet herder than steel, this “book” hinges outward irregularly, its 64 paper-thin plates spread out over a 20’ by 20’ area if fully extended. Seemingly of Atlantean origin, it contains all the arcane spells in the DCC RPG Core Rulebook along with other more obscure ones at the judge’s whim: All spells carry the Slow Cast (result 13) and Greater Power (result 93) mercurial magic effects in addition to individual mercurial results. While all this would make a treasure almost beyond compare to arcanists, the true value lies in a ritual: The Unbinding of The Chains of The Prison Gods. With suitable relics and the blood of thousands, this ritual can loose an exiled patron, god, or great spirit from one of many prison realms on the periphery of reality.

The Six-Sided Spellbook is safeguarded by five creatures

“Jade” (full name:  Phased Psychic Defence Construct, Designate Jade Claw, 4^th Cohort, of The House of The Sun Descending) is at Atlantean thought-construct: to preserve energy, it usually exists in a visible but non-corporeal form capable of short-distance speech that looks like wisps of green smoke in a vague shape. It can however, assume a physical form, resembling a tailless deer with a feline head sculpted entirely from green jade. Its directive is to protect the Spellbook and prevent the casting of The Unbinding ritual.

Phased Psychic Defence Construct, Designate Jade Claw, 4^th Cohort, of The House of The Sun Descending (type III “demon,” independent/High Atlantean)

Alsit the Furtive is a 500-year old elf who met the last Atlantean-descended guardian of the Spellbook. His patron is The Fates, and he casts as a 4^th-level Elf with Int 16.

Wal of The Eerie Eyes has reptilian eyes that can hypnotize normal humans; her voluminous robes conceal other, more inhuman eyes scattered over her body.

Nadon the Perceptive is totally hairless, his skin tattooed with an obscure pattern (circuitry). He is a servant of Tetraplex, a quantum AI data aggregator/search engine from Terra A.D. (see the Mutant Crawl Classics Core Rulebook). At his patron’s behest, he intends to steal and/or destroy the Spellbook eventually, but at the moment has been distracted by figuring out the secrets of its manufacture.

“Vigil” (full name: Inquisitor Steadfast Vigil) is an inquisitor-priest of an esoteric religious order who has relinquished his name and all his hair as part of his stewardship over the spellbook.

The Heretic Berserkers

The Heretic Berserkers were cast out of Barbarian Atlantis for their god-loving ways: They follow their obscure Atlantean deity Yothanas, lord of those possessed or driven mad by emotions and/or ideals, who was sealed away during the High Ages for his disruptive influence. They seek to free him and usher in an age of uncontrolled passion.

During their exile, they have interbred with many peoples, selecting mates from barbaric warrior cultures: Most have rather bronze skin, but paler and darker individuals are not unusual. Heights average 7’ tall. The prominent cheekbones, high-set eyes, and slight taper of their straight chins mark them as sharing a peculiar ancestry, even without their occasional atavism detailed below.

The group seeking the spellbook is led by three greater heretic berserkers (Lover, Slayer, and Thinker), rounded out by 12 lesser heretic berserkers and 36 normal human berserkers (as per the DCC RPG core rulebook)

Lover is a flirty woman, 7’ tall, with dark skin and green hair. She loves wholly, completely, absolutely; she cannot countenance leaving her loves, nor putting them in danger by taking them with her, or, worse still, allowing them to love or be loved by another. So, as an act of supreme love, she kills them.

Slayer is a bit taller than 7’, with tanned skin, six fingers on each hand, and some stray locks of green hair amidst his brown beard. Outside of battle, he’s a layabout who can scarce scrounge the energy needed to eat; in combat, he’s a blood-drinking, flesh-eating, frenzied beast. The change is abrupt. He idly fancies Lover, but has yet to expend any effort in pursuing her.

Thinker is the leader of the band. Pale-skinned and dark-haired, he has no hallmarks of Atlantean ancestry beyond his 7’ height. Thinker cannot feel emotions; he understands them, for he has seen them in others, but he cannot feel them. He has concluded that the world has been wounded by the imprisonment of Yothanas: ALL beings are actually suffering from dulled emotions while he remains absent, he is merely an exceptionally unfortunate victim. By freeing him, the world will be restored and Thinker will know happiness for literally the first time in his life.

Cage-Face

The enigmatic Cage-Face is a priest of the Atlantean god Haptagyth, god of prisons and prisoners. He was once a normal human, but his brain and heart were removed by his master and are safeguarded in cages, turning him into an un-dead in spirit if not truth. He wears a cage over his head and carries a wide assortment of forks, skewers, scalpels, needles, straws,

Walking Gibbets
Horrific giant cages with four bird-like legs, the giggling heads of three-eyed wolves, and interior chain-tentacles to bind prey with.

 

Glåugust Challenge 5: “A location where roughly 80% or more of the language is directly lifted from a single author”

For this challenge, I have chosen Howard Philips Lovecraft.

Remote in the desert lies the nameless tower, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages. The first human people had found monstrous ruins left by those who had dwelt there before—vague waves of unknown entities which had filtered down from the stars and lived out their aeons on a forgotten, nascent world. There is no legend so old as to give it a name, or to recall that it was ever alive; but it is told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by grandams in the tents of sheiks so that all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why.

Man-lizards always watch and guard the tower, their hooded forms amidst the walls, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. Possibly they think you are foolish for coming to the nameless tower of marble and beryl.

The ground floor is dreaded and deserted save for the man-lizards, sandstorms having long since effaced any carvings which may have been upon the walls. The staircase down is a spiral with low, narrow stone treads.

The cellar is the haunt of man-lizards and their hellish god or patron daemon Ktanthul; some mystic phosphorescence illuminates the chamber, and odors of incense and corruption join in sickening concert. They fight to annihilation.

The sub-cellar is like a huge, dark church full of dark passages and having high ceilings where the eye can find only cobwebs and shadows, certain altars and stones suggesting forgotten rites of terrible, revolting, and inexplicable nature. The largest, in the center of the room, has certain features on the upper surface which indicated its connection with fire—probably burnt offerings; the momentous central altar, balanced by some unknown species of counterweight, can be tilted backward with a combined Strength score of 30.  Through a nearly square opening in the tiled floor, sprawling on a flight of stone steps so prodigiously worn that it was little more than an inclined plane at the center, are a ghastly array of human or semi-human bones. Above the hellishly littered steps arch a descending passage seemingly chiseled from the solid rock, and conducting a current of air. This current is not a sudden and noxious rush as from a closed vault, but a cool breeze with something of freshness in it. Dwarves or stoneworkers examining the hewn walls make the odd observation that the passage, according to the direction of the strokes, must have been chiseled from beneath.

After ploughing down a few steps amidst the gnawed bones, venues of limitless night seemed to radiate in every direction. For yards about the steps extend an insane tangle of human bones, or bones at least as human as those on the steps. Like a foamy sea they stretch; somewhere dark sticky water is lapping at piers of bones. Through a window on all time and space, Gormo and Morgo, those half-formed shapes of hell, stalk those who dare disturb the Shining Eyes of the Heretic Mummy, materializing in 1d3 rounds. 

 

Glåugust Challenge 6: “You're heard of microclasses, right? What does a megaclass look like?”

Admittedly, this one stumped me as it deals with something very specific to GLOG, but then I had an idea that I think fits the spirit of the challenge.

THE OMNI-ADVENTURER

Eternal Champions! Princes of Universe! If you do not tremble at their approach then you shall tremble at their departure!

What terrible powers do they wield? All of them!

This class possesses the abilities/powers/features of every DCC RPG-compatible book the judge owns, and has the best progressions for spells/skills/saves/attack bonus. HOWEVER, anything that's triggered by a natural 1 triggers on every natural 1: Fumble an attack and you get a fumble, divine disapproval, and corruption!