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[Roboson]

Ages of the past, of which recollection has eroded into legend and finally been crushed  into clouded antiquity, set still the skies and choked all beneath them. Of all which remains, unfettered and unharmed, lay only that which was beyond the pervasive gaze of the starlit skies, now darkened and withered. Old old things slumber there in the dark. Life persists, perhaps twisted by events of yore or perhaps just marching onward down the path of survival of the fittest into a future form unknown and unknowable, but yet life persists. So is the case with the dwarves, and the elves, and the various kin of the depth lords. Yet of them, one is, by many standards, unique among the various folk beneath the stone sky. The isolated tribes of perhaps trollish descent, who have for eons long before and will continue on hence, passed down one of the oldest magics of the depths: fleshmancy.

Welcome to Fleshmancy, my strange underworld setting where weird creatures, places and events are the goal. Play as a demigod in charge of a lost civilization, which has slid back into tribalism. Uncover ancient ruins and explore whatever nonsense I can come up with. Use ancient magics to build war machines and modern luxuries out of monsters and mortal alike. Parley with neighboring civilizations and avoid the ire of territorial underworld monstrosities.

Each turn all players receive the report of what’s going on in the civilization. Then each player gets a player action and an expedition action. Player actions are generally related to fleshmancy, using your powers to create new species from parts collected on expeditions. This can be a tedious process, and players may wish to spend their action researching any dubious creature designs before committing hard fought resources.  Expedition actions entail sending your forces out into the wider world to do your bidding in one way or another. This can be the collection of new materials for your experiments, or simply exploring the world and it’s various locales.

That’s the gist of it. This is a small, low rules game about exploration and experimentation. It’s a semi-serious setting, even if that setting isn’t always serious. Don’t expect  a descent into memery and all that. If I had to sum it up, this is a game for people who are interested by the prospect of engaging with the matter of using transmogrification magic to solve problems in strange and unusual ways.

Character Sheet:
You are a demigod, if not by heritage, then in power. A powerful fleshmancer, but lacking in all other magical abilities. Beyond that, your appearance and backstory can be most anything. You and your compatriots each rule over one of the clans which together inhabit the ancient cavern of the fleshmancers.

Name:

Appearance:
(As a Demi-God, you may select any suitable form, whether it be a mortal shape or twisted monstrosity is up to you.)

Backstory:
 (A bit of history on yourself and how you came to rule over your clan.)

Clan Name:

Clan Specialization:
(Each clan tends to have a specialization that has helped them survive in this harsh world, and which knowledge and technique has been amassed over the generations).

Clan Distinguishing Feature: (Over time, through fleshmancy or simply via exposure to the twisted magic of this place, your people have gained a trait which sets them apart from the other clans).

Clan Culture:
(While the five clans live in close proximity, individual cultures have developed over the generations.)

[Roboson]

Reserved

[Maximum Spin]

Name: Kalamos

Appearance: An excessively eager young man of dark complexion, with no obvious externally visible deformity.

Backstory: I won the right to rule the clan in a drinking contest, because I drank more boiling blood than anyone else could.

Clan Name: Phlegethonid

Clan Specialization: Fire and heat.

Clan Distinguishing Feature: Overpressure, boiling blood, fired from the eyes.

Clan Culture: Sanguine, with occasional choleric outbursts. Many parties, some of which don't end in violence.

[RoseHeart]

Name: Kilgor

Appearance: A red cloud of smoke with yellow eyes.

Backstory: When the cosmos was created, Kilgor suffered from the stretching and pulling of atoms. The experience was so shocking they spent billions of years in confusion, not creating anything like the others. The demigod finally found a quiet planet to practice fleshmancy, and the perfect beings to practice on.

Clan Name: Hisskin

Clan Specialization: Underground dwellings

Clan Distinguishing Feature: Acid Blood

Clan Culture: They generally hibernate and do nothing, until they decide to do something, swarming the task.

[crazyabe]

Spoiler: Filled Sheet (click to show/hide)

Name: Jsheq once bound

Appearance:
from the waste up- a mostly man, from the waste down- his body is formed in the shape of lizard flesh, covered in scales and ending in claws.
He has three sets of arms.
and his head, and mid right hand are both fleshless.
He wears the still living hides of beasts he has hunted, as well as Manacles of iron bound around his hands and neck as a reminder of his history
His body is scarred, these scars kept because each one signifies a victory where a lesser man would have fallen.
IMAGE FOR CLARITY

Backstory:
Jsheq was not born to Clan Ak'mar, rather he was born to a tiny clan splintered off Clan Phlegethonid- that unknowingly made home within the lands clan Ak'mar claims dominion over.
He was barely 5 cycles of age when Clan Ak'mar raided them, and would have fallen with his kin had the previous High elder of Clan Ak'mar not found amusement at the sight of one so young holding arms against adult men and women, in turn he was simply enslaved.
He does not know exactly how long he was enslaved for, he can only remember the Arena, fighting men women, slaves and criminals, man and beast- all for the amusement of the elders.
one day, he simply snapped- something awoke in him- all he could recall was blood, drinking the blood of the elders, and when he awoke- he found a truth of the clan he did not know; one who slays another in the clan, keeps what they kill.

Clan Name: Ak'mar

Clan Specialization: Metallurgy, Clan Ak'mar holds the secrets of metal- and have learned how to best attach pieces of it to creatures of flesh over time.

Clan Distinguishing Feature: Bestial instincts; The men and women of clan Ak'man have strong instincts, allowing them to react faster to less obvious threats- some who have honed this extra sense to a great degree can even tell how dangerous a beast or man is at a single glance.

Clan Culture:
Militarist, and Authoritarian, yet surprisingly Egalitarian.
There is a distinct chain of command, from the highest elder down to the lowest slave, but within that hierarchy everyone on a specific level has the exact same rights and responsibilities, and anyone of the same level can challenge another who is higher up for their position, or at the same or a lower level for their possessions, through the combat (though it's considered rude to challenge those who are 'lower' of rank).

[Demonic Spoon]

Name: Lingka

Appearance:
A hypnotically swirling cloud of wasps

Backstory:
Lingka was once the greatest Fleshmancer of his generation of Brakbarians. He didn't start out that way however. At first he was merely average, but as his peers fell to fleshwarping accidents and experiments gone wrong, or disease, or wild beast attacks or other myriad dangers, eventually he was the only one left. He had become more skilled over time, more skilled than any of his peers had been, more skilled than anyone else in the clan, yet still felt incredibly threatened by his own mortality, and it was clear to him that life was incredibly fragile down here in the dark.

He carried out research on various animals, and pushed back the edges of fleshmancy, until he eventually came upon a solution. Ignoring the pleas of his fellow clansmen to smell reason and sanity, Lingka carried a radical ritual, having a colony of slaver wasps inject all of his flesh with their eggs, hatching into parasitic young that slowly began to take over his body. He had found a blasphemous rite in an ancient moldy clay tablet, speaking of how to create the worm that walks, and using his rich experience and years of research, had modified to better suit himself.

As the wasp larvae ate at his flesh, he used his fleshmancy to enhance the functioning of their brains and imprint fragments of his own consciousness into them. Slowly, even as they ate him alive, Lingka endured terrifying agony to in turn pour not just his flesh into them, but also his mind and soul. Eventually the parasitic wasps hatched from their macabre cocoon, flying out of the desiccated husk that once was Lingka in a terrifyingly beautiful tide. And as they spoke in a humming sussuration to the nervous clansmen, the Brakbar realized that this was now Lingka, the wasp-swarm, ever-growing itself by laying eggs in prey, only able to die if the entire was somehow wiped out all at once. It seemed, that Lingka had finally defeated mortality, perhaps becoming a demigod, whispered the elders.

Clan Name: Brakbar

Clan Specialization:
By specially modifying the brains of their fleshmanced creations, the Brakbarians can share their senses even across a distance, and even give the creations very simple commands, though doing so is mentally draining and can potentially render a Brakbarian unconscious if they overdo it.

Clan Distinguishing Feature: The Brakbarians, seeking an edge in the dark world, which is like a constant knifefight in a crowded barroom right after the lights went out, consistently added long, feathery antennae from certain cavemoths to their heads, which grants them a great sense of smell, as well as being quite touch sensitive, allowing them to detect air-current and windflow to some extent. Eventually these became hereditary.

Clan Culture:
In the strange timeless eternal twilight of the cthonic world, Brakbar has adapted to harsh realities of the plague-ridden, parasite-infested, predator-filled hellhole they scrape by in. What little resources and food their is, is shared communally, and the Brakbar freely share their knowledge and experience with each other. They have a primitive writing system, consisting of indentations and bumps made in clay tablets, which can be read by touch. They tend to be quiet and reclusive, always worrying about some predator spotting them amidst the labyrinth tunnels. Generally, those who have survived longer, and thus proven their skill and experience, are expected to lead the other Brakbarians for the common good.

[BlackPaladin99]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name: ?

Appearance: ?

Backstory: ?

Clan Name: Auramis

Clan Specialization: MInd over matter/psionics

Clan Distinguishing Feature: telepathy

Clan Culture: unknown.  very secretive.

this good?

[Egan_BW]

Name: Ta Zie

Appearance: A wizened old woman in yellow robes, seemingly on the edge of death from old age. Behind a blindfold, her eye sockets are empty. Possesses eight fluffy red tails.

Backstory: The Aatha are lead by the elder. This is how it has always been. When the old elder died, Ta Zie was just a child, but her blood made her suitable for the role. As such, she changed her own body to assume the role.

Clan Name: Aatha

Clan Specialization: Military strategy and organization

Clan Distinguishing Feature: Aatha are born with special eyes, able to see well in low light conditions. They will grow tails which indicate rank, from one tail for a fresh soldier up to eight for the Elder.

Clan Culture: Strongly militarized. Aatha are an army, and every adult is a soldier. Rank is absolute, all Aatha must follow the orders of their direct superior at all times. In spite of this apparent militarism, Aatha will avoid conflicts where possible and aren't warmongers; after all, in any fight they stand to lose family and kin.

[Horizon]

Spoiler: Harbinger of Conflict (click to show/hide)

Name: Mordregan
Appearance: A towering eight foot tall humanoid, with charcoal black skin tinged crimson around his wrists and ankles. Mordregan's face resembles a canines with large rams horns sprouting where the ears should be, he is hairless and has eyes that burn red like hot embers.
Backstory: Kador, are a kratocratic civilization. The strong lead the weak and conquer all who dare defy their will. As Kador are demon blooded they owe their lives to the god what birthed them. Mordregan was born of divinity, the largest of the Kador and the most terrifying to behold; thus named Harbinger of Conflict, Mordregan will crush all who oppose the Kador way of bloody death at their hands, no one is safe from the ire of the Kador.
Clan Name: Kador'ath
Clan Specialization: Primitive strength, Subjugation of weaker species and Ruthlessness.
Clan Distinguishing Feature: Kador live relatively short life spans due to their way of life, however they are born warriors of great strength and stature. Their sense of smell is especially strong, and their bodies are used to natural extremities.
Clan Culture: As stated before the Kador'ath follow a kratocratic way of life, however under Mordregan's command the clan has become far more aggressive taking a more tribalistic kratocracy, he as the chief of his people being the biggest and strongest Kador the Harbinger has lead unopposed.

[TricMagic]

Spoiler: Appearance: (click to show/hide)

Clan Specialization: Necromancy

Backstory/Clan Name/Distinguishing Feature/Tradition:
Over the years, the people of Ungroth have grown limber and skeletal, pake. Theirs' is not the strength of mortality, but the undead. When a clan member 'dies', that does not need be the end, for regents exist to revive them to true 'life'. These regents have long been valued and fought over. And so over the centuries there have been many extinctions where greed led to death, leading them to the pitiful state you see them now. Hungry, tired, unmotivated, the energy that once filled them is gone, the secrets of the regents lost. Barely moving husks... Until you came awake, the chains and flesh which bound you laid forgotten and rotting.

And so Strider Deak walks the land once more.

Where once the clan was comprised of great necropolises, art, culture, and sin, now all that remains is a crumbling façade, the underground sewers all that exist, sealed from the world. And in the deepest depths lies your prison, seals broken and yourself freed. With ancient knowledge and power weakened, you came and conquered the remnant tribes, and it is up to you to raise them up once more. If only so you have something to do, this is a pathetic showing of a people that once ruled a large section of the world's caverns.

Name: Strider Deak
He who sipped of the Elixir of Life, and came to rule as a King in times long gone. Knowledge of the ancient arts, skilled with the Scythe, felled by treachery, and sealed before his revival. He who revives once every year gone by, a time of weakness and renewal. He very much enjoys the finer things in life & death, reaping foes, gathering great beasts for the feasts, enslaving artists into undeath. While the other Striders are missing in this time(not that that is a bad thing given one of them likely sealed him), he brings knowledge of Necromancy back to a clan that has forgotten the taste of Lifeblood and Souls. While he could reap them, better to have somewhat useful underlings that won't die easily. Raised Skeletons aren't worth much and it will take time and a workshop to make anything better.

[Kilojoule Proton]

Name: Chirrupchirp

Appearance: A blindfolded, bat-winged man in fine, gem-studded robes

Backstory: When the man who now calls himself Chirrupchirp lost his parents, the grief-stricken youth ran off into uncharted tunnels for days before succumbing to exhaustion, thirst, and hunger. He remembers little of what happened during his fateful flight but that the Waning Moon clan took pity on him and adopted him. Soon, he started an apprenticeship under the eccentric chirurgeon Moon-Eyes, who was something of an oddity even for a Waning Moon chirurgeon for his obsession with interspecific limb transplants, for which he had built up a rather large library of reagents. As Chirrupchirp advanced in his studies, he, too, began taking on students of the fleshmantic arts and soon began leading expeditions for stranger_^s' organs and limbs.

After a bad fall during one such expedition saw old Chirrupchirp's arms amputated to halt a fierce infection, Moon-Eyes was only too happy to make him the first recipient of an interspecific limb transplant in clan history and promptly attached greatly enlarged bat wings to his stumps. Addled by febrile nightmares and hallucinations not helped by Moon-Eyes' untested concoctions, Chirrupchirp claims to have seen a vision of the clan's demise at the hands of hostile, jealous clans should the fleshmancers fail and talked his colleagues and disciples into supporting his bid for clan leadership.

Come the next meeting of clan elders, Chirrupchirp challenged Flaxtooth, the clan chief at that point, to a duel for his position. The result was a decisive victory thanks to Chirrupchirp's wings, but the perceived unfairness of his victory drew no small amount of complaint from the elders. In time, some of them were convinced that at least some of Chirrupchirp's ramblings were prophetic and came around, but as matters go, it's far from settled. As of the latest meeting of the elders, Chirrupchirp and his supporters successfully moved to rename the seemingly pessimistically named clan, thus spitting on the memory of many generations of Waning Moon chiefs for no reason beyond aesthetics and souring even some of the more sympathetic elders to his rule...

Clan Name: Crescent Moon

Clan Specialization: The Crescent Moon clan is notable for its work on resizing limbs and organs without compromising physiological requirements or structural integrity. Once applied largely to domestic animals and plants, Chirrupchirp's tenure has seen the clan's fleshmantic expertise turned toward the creation of giant and tiny scouts, workers, and soldiers as well.

Clan Distinguishing Feature: Most clan members come in ridiculously large or small sizes hyperspecialized for their professions, and over the last few years, an increasing number of them carry limbs from various wildlife also tuned for their jobs.

Clan Culture: Even considering Chirrupchirp's arrival and disruption, the Crescent Moon clan is a relatively young clan, and outsiders still make up a significant fraction of the clan's members by marriage. The clan's agenda is set by its chief, but whether it gets enacted is up to its council of clan elders. Made up of masters of various trades and heads of families, the council decides whether the chief's initiatives are to be pursued in full, in part, or not at all. Lately, the families' representatives have felt that Chirrupchirp has given too many concessions to the trade representatives in pushing for ever more surgically specialized workers at the significant expense of sculpting their youth into uncanny shapes and body plans.

Today, outside Crescent Moon caverns, the clan is often derided as an attempt at creating an ant colony from eminently unsuitable creatures, namely, people with hopes and aspirations. This wasn't always the case; during its days as the Waning Moon clan, the most outsiders would likely comment on was the availability of animals and produce in unusual but useful sizes. From miniaturized giant cave spiders to cart-pulling purring maggots and from short-toothed cave tigers to giant radishes, their obsession with size was perceived to be their eccentricity.

Spoiler: Removed (click to show/hide)

Name: Velvet Lantern

Appearance: A bipedal fungus-encrusted tortoise with three additional mismatched arms emerging from holes in his shell and cloak. One is a mammalian arm, another is a tarantula leg, and still another one is currently covered in fruiting bodies and unrecognizable. In keeping with her name, Velvet Lantern is generally seen with a dim sickly green lantern on a staff.

Backstory: As the only surviving child of the late Ylneth matriarch Velvet Speaker, Velvet Lantern's accession to clan head was relatively smooth and unmarred by the usual jockeying that characterized such events. Always more comfortable in the fungineering laboratories than in the clan square, her term has been characterized by increased attention to the refinement of various fungal strains with special attention to improving interspecific grafts like her three extra arms and the distant goal of replicating some of the mythic creatures depicted in tales of a world above even the highest tunnels.

Clan Name: Ylneth

Clan Specialization: Fungotech for everything from sustenance to insect husbandry. The Ylneth are famous for their export of dipteran milk and wormsilk, both secreted by purring maggots rendered docile by club fungus intervention.

Clan Distinguishing Feature: Living in harmony with tamed (even domesticated) fungi, the Ylneth have grown accustomed to constant exposure to spores of many kinds. It is not uncommon for members to grow clothing or "clothing" from fuzzy molds or decorate themselves with tattoos of glowing mushrooms. Most members sport at least a few actively fruiting mushrooms specially selected to signal some combination of profession, age, and family. Clan members typically wear crude, beak-shaped air filters and cover themselves in oilskin cloaks when traveling abroad to avoid spreading potentially deadly spores to bystanders. This isn't universal by any means, and some members will flaunt their fungal growths outside to Velvet Lantern's chagrin.

Clan Culture: Combined with the the Ylneth wish to lead a quiet life, the miasma hanging around Ylneth passages lends itself to peaceful isolationism with tunnels closed more for the benefit of outsiders than for real protection. Even the Velvet, the moist, edible blend of mildews they use as a turf and wallcover, can be a foul, life-threatening irritant to those not raised in and on it.

A number of innovative members have recently conducted unsuccessful experiments involving communicating with each other using the underlying mycelia of the Velvet as a medium. Notably, they disagree with the common wisdom that the only plausible means of communicating through the Velvet is by casting precise mixtures of spores, or sporecasting.

[Roboson]

Tric and KJP, it seems I’ve gummed up the works here a bit. Fungalmancy and necromancy fall outside of the purview of fleshmancy. That element has been established in pervious games, but I see now it’s not expressly mentioned on this thread.

In any case, it does make your submissions partially unacceptable. Once again, my fault on the lack of detail there. I’ve not closed submissions yet, so if either of you would like to revise your submission, I’d appreciate it.

[TricMagic]

What are the major details of Flashmancy?

[BlackPaladin99]

mine edited in.

[crazyabe]

What are the major details of Flashmancy?

If I remember correctly, in the first or second fleshmancy game way back in 2015, the rules of fleshmancy went along the lines of this

(1)You can move and rearrange, but you cannot change flesh. What I mean by this is you cannot easily change one type of flesh to another. You cannot take a leg and make an eye. That’s just not how it works. Muscle is muscle, organs are organs, brains are brains, bones are bones. You get the point. (Its possible but not easy or cheap)
(2) You cannot use dead parts. Once something is dead, its dead for good. You are NOT a necromancer.
(3) Fleshmancy can be used on yourself and friends to improve yourselves. This is risky and may have adverse effects.
(4) The process of fleshmancy (referred to as fleshing) is slow and detailed. I expect intricate explanations of your magic. You’re not waving a wand here, you’re reconstructing a living creature. If your explanation is lacking, your creature will be lacking.

Note that it hasn't been 100% consistent across *ALL* fleshmancy games, (sometimes it's easy to turn one part to another, other times he hasn't required as much detail) but the general 'cant directly fleshmancy dead stuff' part has been the same in every game.