Spellbook Schmellbook

Twenty-One Mnemonic Tools for Magic-Users

1. A book, whether leathern grimoire, apprentice's lesson book, recipe file or collection of dirty limericks which are in fact cunning linguistic mnemonics
2. A Rune-carved staff or magic wand
3. The wizard's own beard or hair, with spell components woven into it in a complex arrangement of knots
4. A pointy wizard's cap, magician's silk top hat or priestly miter.
5. A talking mirror or mask of the wizard's own face
6. The shell of a great conch into which new spells are spoken when learned and echoed back each morning
7. A deck of cards depicting strange glyphs or scenes of thaumaturgical symbolism
8. A strand of fetishes worn around the neck
9. A familiar animal or homunculus which dwells in the wizard's robes or pouch, creeping out to whisper spells while its master sleeps.
10. Pill box, klein bottle or syringe providing a daily dosage of spells
11. Brazier, censer or pipe from which magic is smoked or inhaled
12. Yarrow stalks, knuckle bones, or dice with which a day's spells may be divined
13. A transistor radio tuned to a secret frequency
14. A star chart or planar codex indicating the locations of the gods, demons or aliens who send the mage her spells
15. An illustrated broadsheet depicting sacred postures or arcane calisthenics
16. A cube of shifting cubes, which must be properly ordered according to the enchantments desired
17. Musical instrument on which spells may be rehearsed
18. A tiny ceremonial blade and stylus the sorcerer uses to write his spells in blood
19. Chymical oils, unguents or paints used to mark the wizard's skin
20. Chess, backgammon or go board on which the day's spells are played through
21. Mother box, wrist-computer or Personal Dweomer Assistant

More Words

One way to think of Wohoon is: Gamma World rewritten as weird fantasy rather than a science fantasy setting. Admittedly that's a fine and perhaps spurious distinction. Like Gamma World Wohoon is post-apocalyptic. There will be robots and rayguns and possibly  probably definitely giant radioactive monsters rising from the depths to occasionally stomp across the landscape. There will be mutants, and how.

But in essence it's a fantasy world. Hobbs, elves and dwarfs, goblins, ghouls and giants, the whole schmeer. It's just that it takes place after your basic act of magical hubris blasted the best part of civilization into rubble and splinters. The hills are alive -- in some cases quite literally -- with wild magic. Whole forests are twisted by polymorphic radiation into impossible shapes, ogrish trees with beards of jangling glass and leaves of paper.

Time is broken too. The cataclysm that doomed Wohoon was caused by a cabal of chronomancers, believed to have been flung far into the future, and worshipped by furtive cults as the Gods Yet to Come. In some places time spins backward, or loops upon itself. Skyscrapers and clocktowers rise up from the shallow waters of the Sea of Clocks. The lost objects of a thousand worlds and ten thousand generations accumulate in a junkyard somewhere south. Folk from other times are drawn here as well: lost zeppelineers, dinosaur herders, mad scientists. Undeath is chronomantical in nature, a generally foul attempt to thwart the proper passage of time.

I'm already well past 25 words and the edge of coherence, but here's a few more, in the sentenceless manner Noisms suggests:

Bandits, slavers; nomadic fey; bat-faced goblins, orc parthenogenesis; molemen at the center of the earth; a dragon-locomotive 500 miles long; scattered villages, trading moots, no nations; only local gods.

Wohoon, in less than 10 words

Thundarr the Barbarian, with backgrounds drawn by Salvador Dali.

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There are a lot of great settings being cooked up at the moment: Thool, Athanor, The Valley of Blue Snails, Yoon-Suin, Cinder. If you're working on one, I'd love to hear a summary in 25 words or less (And please post a link if you've got someplace online where you go on and on about it!).

Thirty Wizards of Wohoon

1. The Abominable Anton Phraint
2. Aname Rebus, lexicomancer, cabalist and dungeon cartographer.
3. Armored-In-Teeth, Papa Shark's horse, sea dwarf houngan.
4. Black Jenkin, Eater of Cats, a goblin fevercloak.
5. The Blue Witch, Arfuun of the Husk
6. Brindle the Skiver, were-rat curio merchant and unabashed recruiter for the lycanthropic lifestyle.
7. Doctor Optogon (Uncle Spider, Old Twelve-Eyes), the beholder librarian of deChirico. Flightless but quite mobile in his arcano-mechanical spider harness.
8. Elruss Wu Jinn (Old Dirty Bastard), madman, mushroom eater, master of the 36 Hexagrams.
9. Falash the Leech, a healer, of sorts.
10. Geenya Dare, the Child Lich of Roonok.
11. Gusten Cipher, a moleman monster-builder specialized in flesh golems.
12. Idal Rodavlas, Archaeo-mnemo-dweomerist.
13. Iovolovoi, Mirror of Dawn, Fulcrum of Noonday, Warder of Dusk, high priest of a sun god chained to a pillar in the desert.
14. Ishkish the Cutter
15. Kibreel Shellback, lizard-man witch doctor of Ten Tree Fen and Binyah Sump.
16. Laughing Margett, druidess and blood-drinker, whose mirth bares a mouthful of thorns
17. Mamsy Illmazer, Mother Ulcer, goblin clanmother and fevercloak.
18. Moon Mad, the Voice of Bronze, a collective mind that animates a score of living bronze statues scattered across Wohoon.
19. The Protean, a colossal mass of seething sentient mud, crackling with radiation and insane with the magic of the scores of wizards it has enveloped.
20. Ooloosk the Whisperer
21. Orvix Alt, a moleman monster-builder specialized in gargantua.
22. Otsana Muraz, enchantress and bandit queen, leading her charmed bravos against slavers and merchants alike.
23. Shining Obwoon, a princeling of the elves, grown so fat with sweetmeats and nectar he can no longer stand.
24. Suling, Hermit of the Bamboo, a mendicant monk with a cloak of bells and a basket over his head, piping strange tunes on a reed flute.
25. Thomas Nodisen Alv, Wizard of Olmen Peak, machine-mage. "The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around;" he is rebuilding his own body for the fourth time.
26. Tolobeq the Imp, inventorist of the junk heaps of Oscura.
27. Triskelion
28. Yugnav Sety (the Sleeper, the Silent Captain), adrift on the Sea of Clocks in a rusted iron barque, dreaming a thousand-year-dream.
29. Zemyel Vetch (Wretch, Twitch), itinerant alchemist, abuser of his own wares, sometime venefice.
30. Zosimos Umon, an accident of magic, a homunculus born of a drop of a wizard's blood and the clay where the blood was spilled.

MP3: Mariee Sioux, Wizard (Compact Disc & Download)
Early version of a track from Mariee's debut album. Final version and lots more at her Myspace page.
MP3: Gianluigi Trovesi, C'era una strega, c'era una fata (Compact Disc & Download)
Once upon a time in the witch wood...