The Coriandrome Circus: About the Circus

The Autumnal Swarm

The Autumnal Swarm are a Burroughsian infestation of mental vermin. They wish to control the Eternal City and the Crossroads, and to destroy the World Tree. The swarm is always searching for doors that lead to the crossroads or that lead to places that can be used to weaken the tree. Thus, swarm hosts are often found near doorways to other worlds and waystations to doors.

See Helter Skelter for more about the Autumnal Swarm. The swarm travels through the crawlspace of the world. The Circus is a breeding ground for the swarm: it attracts people for the pupa to pupate in. Most of the camp followers are pupae and many of the workers are.

The Circus also has Butterfly Warriors protecting itself, and the standard warriors of the swarm infiltrating local communities and searching out things or people the Circus wants to find. When near the circus, they work in conjunction with the Hot Air Witches.

The tablet of Enki

The circus has the tablet of faith; they’d love to have the tablets of law and of music and of course wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to gain any of the tablets.

If the tablet of faith is ever taken from the circus, the circus will crumble to dust, and all of its denizens scramble away into the desert.

If the tablet is ever threatened, the circus will pack up and leave. It takes two hours for the circus to leave; when it is packed up and ready, it will get on the train and go away, if possible. Or it will load up wagons and the wagons will drive themselves away.

If you know where the doorway is that the circus used to get to this world, that’s where it will head. Otherwise, the circus will be able to find a doorway within d50 miles on a railroad track or roadway, or within d100 miles if in natural surroundings (for this reason, the circus almost always sets up on a roadway).

Magic resistance

Because there are so many beetlepede spies in the circus, there is always a magic resistance everywhere except in the maze, which is slightly disjointed from the rest of the circus. Any time anyone uses magic (including circus performers such as Old Granny), roll 2d6 for the additional magic resistance in that area at that time. The magic resistance you rolled will last until the end of the scene and will be used for all magic. It is also the number of beetlepede spies that can respond within one minute.

A place of power

Because the circus has one of the tablets of Enki, the tablet of faith, the area within the walls is a level one place of power. Because of the circus’s influence, it is ordered evil.

Divine Guidance

If a prophet requests Divine Guidance, try something like these:

1. Hanging from the tree of life, the one-eyed man does not dice with the trickster for fate.

2. In the Hall of Karma, what appears impossible is real, and what is real appears impossible.

3. There are bugs burrowing in the world tree.

4. When you sell your soul for power, you are not the one who benefits from that power.

5. Empty lives breed hollow souls.

6. The abandoned house is soon infested; the infested house is quickly abandoned.

Use them and change them as appropriate for the cares of the deity that provided the spirit.

Random encounters

Every six hours there is a 50% chance of an encounter. You can also use this if they choose to go looking for unspecified people to talk to. If they want someone who knows something specific, have one of them make a Perception roll. If successful, go down the list of circus visitors, camp-followers, and circus workers until you find someone who actually knows what they’re looking for answers on (otherwise, roll randomly as normal).

It’s not a bad idea to put a circus worker in the mix who they have a connection with. In our game, Rigan Clenriquen was the grandmother of one of the player characters.