This post is messier than my usual fare. I just had to get the procedures out of my head.
There is no abstraction in harm.
No balanced fight. No encounter.
Every bullet is a choice spat into the world.
Every scream, a godless prayer made of nerves and melted teeth.
You want to kill? You go through Sloppy Drippy tables.
Not encounter design. Not "combat rounds."
You go through meat. Through the SLOPPY DRIPPY. Through torsos that do not consent.
RIG and GUN goes through GUT.
The material of combat in CORPSE//WORK is not clean.
It is so material, it fucks sideways through bodies, stories, integrity and agency.
Yeah, sure.
You might survive. You might get lucky.
But the rules here don’t preserve you. They make you wish they hadn’t.
Threshold saves mean you live through it. Impact helps you understand how having your eye shot out affects you.
But they (likely) won’t save your eye.
Or your sex.
Or your spine.
FKR means you negotiate —but once the bullet is fired, we negotiate with blood.
Procedure overtakes and violates the sacredness.
And your gun—your rig, your feed, your fevered rounds—wants something from you.
Wants prayers. Wants names. Wants meaning.
Harm is material and horrible and governed by bullet trajectories. It is so-so-material, and shits entirely sideways on personal integrity. Full of FKR materiality.
Guns have rituals.
Combat has rules.
All is full of material. Steel. Casing. Plehgm. Vomit. Blood. Bones. Brains
You can write poetry with it:
Just be prepared to stutter the rhyme as your knee craters and explodes.
Death Calls. Juan Gimenez.
KILLING
The psychopomp determines if its a called shot or not. Player rolls
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Hit/AIM not described: "I spray wildly"/"I SWING MY AXE OVERHEAD" 2d6 on the hit location table. Roll twice on the relevant sloppy drippy. Apply that
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Called Shots: 2d6. "I breathe steadily, to try to shoot him in the eye" Claim the category you want to hit. That category now fills the category before. Eyes can't go lower, so they take hands. Roll once on the relevant sloppy drippy
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Sloppy Drippy: If it was not clear, this is the meat of it all. Not to be skipped. Describe it as where every bullet gets interpreted. V I O L E N T L Y. Roll on the table. Eat consequence. Lap it up.
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Mooks vs Non-Mooks: Mooks die (but they can come back, remember). Others get threshold saves. (yep, this system has a mook distinction. Psychopomp's discretion apart from the former clause)
You may say you want to supress, watch over someone, or make a dark bargain. It is the psychopomp that determines if it is real.
To suppress//Help is to direct your violence in a general direction and say: No one passes here without the chance to suffer. You name a zone, a trigger, a condition—and load your will into a d6.Choose a number. Put the die face up on the table as a reminder.
When anyone does something that can trigger it - if they step wrong, and roll a die.
It is also an effect added to any roll that could cause the target to face the violence. A friend can throw the unlucky soul into your cone of fire.
Until then, your breath is bait. Your presence is threat. You are seen. And anything seen in CORPSE//WORK can bleed.
To watchdog is worse. You indirectly say: I lie in wait for this. Your gaze splits. Your action is withheld. Your body is half-here, half-bound in promise. If your vigil is broken from the outside, the Psychopomp makes it hurt worse. They may also withhold information as your attention is not fully yours.
But if what you wait for comes, you act—but not freely. They choose: give you what you want or suffer what you set. You became consequence, and consequence has a cost.
A dark bargain is when your character wants something so badly that you will pay who-ever is willing to answer to alter fact as it happens. You may reroll any amount of dice (yours or someone else) if you make the bargain aloud: state what you are willing to pay, what contract is honored, who suffers. The Psychopomp decides if the cost is enough, and makes sure the bargain will be DARK. write it on your list.
GUNGUNGUN
Most of the mechanics are taken from that post. So credit goes fully to her.
I had to try to work them into something that has no numbers. It took a couple of weeks. I don't think i did her justice.
LOCK rounds loaded with purpose, kissed into place, ritual complete. Without LOCK, there is no BURN. Without commitment, there is no harm.
BURN is to spend what you LOCK. X rounds, triggered for effect. You BURN to shoot, to scream, to rupture. Burn effects may blind, deafen, or change the terrain of pain. You do not burn casually. You burn to change the fiction.
OVERDRIVE is rupture. By forcing excess—jamming rounds, rerouting intent—you make the weapon unstable. It is now poorly maintained or worse. Some OVERDRIVES scorch the hand that holds them. Some know your name.
MAX is the limit of your chamber. You cannot carry more than this. If you try, the gun may spill.
RANGE is named, not measured.
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Right Behind You – close enough to taste you.
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Across the Room – a shout away.
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Down the Road – long sight, long silence.
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In the Distance – sniper, ritual, mythic.
Guns need direct line of sight. They do not fire through smoke or total dark, unless something in them is watching.
If poorly maintained, guns may jam. Each combat since cleaning adds 1-in-6 chance to fail, per time you shoot. Cleaning takes an hour. Clearing a jam takes a beat. Some weapons demand blood or silence to be cleaned. Some require a mirror and a lie.
Exposure shifts the world:
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COVERED: You dart, vanish, breathe through smoke.
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OPEN: You are a figure. A target. Some effects require this vulnerability—your stance becomes a sacrifice.
The gun is not a tool. It is a relationship. LOCK. BURN. OPEN. OVERDRIVE.
Everything that bleeds from it starts with your breath.
I am not so creative... I tend to think in taxonomies, and not specifics. I get halfmade ideas - and I need to make better mind pictures to concretisize anything
So here are some of the vectors most interesting to consider when gunning for a gun, implant, or RIG-armament.
CALIBER – not a number, but a descriptor: needle-rounds, salt-pellets, compressed ichor globes, roach-shells, ceramic slugs, opal glass capsules, BEES!
PROPELLANT – flammable oil? piezo-gel? mouth-fired? compressed scream? phlegm bulb? Each might leak, spoil, or explode under pressure.
FEED TYPE – single load? rotary chamber? kiss-loaded? siphoned from your spinal fluid? You must perform the load.
TIMING//ACTION
WIND-UP – does it require tension or a prayer to prime?
COOLING – must it be cooled in blood, ice, moonlight, buried in a corpse, or by sobbing on it?
OVERHEAT RISK – becomes searing, painful to hold. Fuses to your hand. Occult branding possible. Or become a favored user, with all that entails.
CHARGE-TO-FIRE TIME – is it immediate, or does it scream for 3 seconds before launching?
INTERFACING//USE
RIG INTIMACY – tongue-tied rig, nerve-socketed, bone-welded, or skin-threaded. What does it take to use IT//YOU.
SELF-WILL – some guns resist being wielded. You must ask nicely. Or feed its NEED. or must CHOKE afterwards.
SEVERANCE RISK – pulling free might cost a memory, a fingernail, or your ability to cry.
HACK VECTOR – what must be touched or spoken to take control of you?
(MAL)FUNCTIONS//FAILURE
JAMMED STATE – does it hum, pulse, weep blood, or lock like a spasm?
CLEARING RITUAL – must you kiss the barrel? Confess a regret? Tear something from yourself?
CLEANING NEEDS – takes vinegar and rose-oil. Or virgin spit. Or silence. or you CHOKE (or something specific happens.
MISFIRE TYPE – ricochet? whimper and fizzle? launches your bones instead of bullets?
SENSES//EFFECTS
SOUND PROFILE – ZOK? wet glumph? static wail? name-scream? Is it silent, but causes other sensory effects.
SMOKE//FLASH TRAIL – shimmering violet haze? acidic stench? rainbow ash?
EFFECTS – teeth grow along the wound; a new eye opens during use; target levitates and shatters.
POSITIONING//REACH
OPTIMAL RANGE – named, not measured: Right Behind You, Across the Room, Down the Road, In the Distance.
LINE OF SIGHT – does it arc, curve, track? Needs eye contact? Needs eye removal?
COVER INTERACTION – can fire through curtains but not smoke; is blocked by prayer; ignores trees, but not mirrors.
BODY//WEIGHT//WEAR
MOUNT TYPE – in-arm implant? shoulder nest? strapped to spine? worn like a hat?
WEIGHT EFFECT – makes you lean; slows your breath; causes nosebleeds when carried more than 6 hours.
CARRY VULNERABILITY – is it seen? Do enemies smell it? Does it rattle when you lie?
RITUALS//EMOTIONS
NAMING RITE – each shot calls out the name of someone you failed.
BOND REQUIREMENT – will not fire unless you offer it something: a wound, a word, a truth.
SYMPATHY-LINKED – if used on someone you love, the wound appears in your dreams. Or your gut.
RIG DREAMS – when you sleep, it watches. When you die, it remembers.
And some things I cannot categorize:
- Wet Misfire: Fires a scream that deafens you for 1d4 rounds.
- Recoil Rebirth: If fired near death, you are thrown backward and rebirthed—naked, fresh, unable to speak until you collect yourself. CHOKE: scream in panic and pain as you regrow.
- Feedforward Lock: The rig loops its last action, repeating it until it is destroyed or submerged.
- Sympathetic Burn: You feel the pain you inflict.
- Refusal Mode: It will not harm someone who reminds it of you.
- Panic Howl: It emits a noise that draws the attention of everyone within three rooms.
- Snap Inversion: It turns inward and scars your spine.
- Grief Cascade: in Grief, the gun runs amok, unstearable, wanting vengeance.
- Lung Flood: Every time you pull the trigger, you inhale water. CHOKE: claw at your neck, drowning - or take time to gulp it down.
BULLETS FOR MY GUN
You pay an Obol, or unspool a thread of memory, and for that payment you can now invest casings with that meaning. At some dark cost.
Ammunition isn’t just a resource—it’s a repertoire of personal myth. Some are sold in backroom altars. Others are gifted in dreams. You can always fire a basic round, sure—but why waste the moment?
It is this beautiful idea from The Bad Doctor, every number pried from it.
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