Toyland

Properties of Toyland

• Nobody dies in Toyland
• Only children and toys may enworkmenin Toyland.
• Any toy can be found in Toyland.

Challenges of Toyland

Play!

0 or less: Call down the Damien's dread enforcers, who will demand to know precisely who is engaging in unauthorized play with his toys! Or break the toy you're playing with. Ooops!

1: Well, that was fun!

3: Make other kids jealous of how much fun you're having.

5: You've learned something while playing with what is clearly an educational toy. Oh no!

7: Your play is actually exactly as fun as you hoped it would be. The things you always wanted to happen when you play? They happen. It might not be good, but they happen!

Trouble and Tools:

• “Nobody plays with my toys but me!” (3): Damien Bogsworth has issued his decree, and so none may play with any of the toys of toyland but himself! Anyone attempting to bypass this Trouble inevitably gains the attention of one of Damien's informants, who will call down Damien's enforcers on the interloper. Still, consider applying a trouble of 1, as toys are so terrified of being cast into the Dungeon of Lost Toys that they tend to keep to themselves and avoid strange children.
• Tool: The Seven Fabled Toys (+4): The Seven Fabled Toys, if the deign to descend from Toy Mountain to play with a child, will so empower that child's play that even the most surly child will experience impossible delight and have fun. They're often highly educational (boo!).

Toy City

The largest collections of toys in all the world, the once great megatropolis of merriment has bloated into a crime-ridden monstrosity under Damien's ruthless reign. Once, toy soldiers guarded its walls, while tops spun upright and balls and jacks got along and Lego laborers worked tirelessly to keep the doll houses and block skyscrapers in top condition. Now, barbie dolls turn tricks on the street corners. Bouncing balls have learned to stay within their homes lest a rogue jack puncture them. Gangs of laughing, rampaging Sock Monkeys have taken to the streets, gleefully ripping the stuffing from rag dolls who don't fork over their protection coins. Only Damien's favorite toys, franchise merchandizing and exclusive collectibles, walk the streets unmolested under the watchful eyes of Damien's enforcers like the Commando Elite. And even they know their days are numbered, for when the next movie catches Damien's attention, or a sudden surge in production drops a toy's value, the Tyrant of Toyland's whimsical interests will change.

Properties of Toy City

• Corruption (Trouble 2): Toy City rots beneath Damien's rule. Those who want to achieve anything meaningful in city must grease the palms of a higher official or particpate in the criminal underworld to get something done. Unless a toy (or a child) is willing to accept some of Toy City's corruption into themselves, they face Trouble worth 2 points whenever they try to do anything in Toy City.
• You can find anything in Toy City (+1): If someone is looking for a lost toy or a specific brand of toy, or useful information, Toy City is the best place to do it. It will not help you find mystical or legendary toys, however.
• Let's play Licenses and Legal Fees!: Toy City lets you bypass Damien's Decree by seeking bureaucratic permission to play with one of the Toys of Toyland. Alas, you still have to deal with Corruption.

Description Snippets:

• The faded colors of the once bright blocks that make up the towering skyscrapers, once set against a glorious, sun-blazing skyline, now mostly hidden in the oppressive grey-clouds of Damien's disapproval.
• The haunting laughter of a villainous Sock Monkey, followed by the loud pop of a ball or a balloon, and then the tiny, electronic sound of a police siren.
• The chipped paint of a Barbie's lips, the fading luster of her once-golden hair, a broken heel clinging to her permanently tip-toed feet, her too-short, glossy skirt showing a vast expanse of posable, plastic thigh, and her electronic croak of “Want to play?”
• A momentary glimpse of wooden fruit on a table and the frightened google-eyes of a doll through the window of a dollhouse before she yanks the cotton curtains closed.
• The click-clack of a rubicks cube over an intersection, while slot cars rev their electrical engine, waiting for its red face to turn green.

Find one of the Seven Fabled Toys of Toyland

0 or less: The hinterlands of Toyland pose many dangers. You cannot die in toyland, but that doesn't mean you want to meet a feral Teddy Bear either. Or perhaps one of the Seven Fabled Toys finds you and is very ill-disposed towards you.

1: What an adventure! At least you had fun.

2: You find something. It might not be one of the Seven Fabled Toys, and it might not even be a clue towards one of them, but you find something.

4: You've found a very important clue to one of the Seven Fabled Toys, or perhaps even attracted their attention and gained an audience with one of their mediaries, who wants to know what you seek, or pronounces you unworthy.

5: You do not find one of the Seven Fabled Toys, but you do learn something of what it means to be worthy of their attention. Perhaps you regain some of your childlike innocence, or you learn to value toys, or you learn the importance of sharing.

7: You find one of the seven fabled toys. They may or may not be well-disposed towards you. What now?

9: You find one of the seven fabled toys and enlightenment. You understand why this quest was important for you personally and in making the change necessary in your life, you have gained the favor of one of the Seven Fabled Toys of Toyland. They will fulfill your request.

Bonds, Afflictions, Trouble and Tools:

• Tool: The Holiday Wish Catalog(+1): The Holiday Wish Catalog, released by Rosens Ltd, is the only known catalog in the world to contain information on the Seven Fabled Toys of Toyland (sometimes, they even include listings that allow you to buy one, but Damien's influence has prevented that for over a century). Consulting one can make it easier for you to find one of the Seven Fabled Toys.
• Trouble: You are Unworthy (-3): To approach one of the seven fabled toys of toyland, one must have childlike innocence, a profound appreciation of toys and the secret lives they lead, and you must embrace the Kindergarten Virtues, such as sharing, taking naps at the right time, not bullying others, being nice to your parents, etc. Bypass this trouble if you are willing to incur the wrath of of one of the toys, or to be changed.
• Bond (Childlike Innocence): If one is willing to be changed by the seven fabled toys of toyland, treat this as a Wound that inflicts a Bond for Childlike Innocence or some other Kindergarten Virtue. For mere mortals, this often changes them into children, or possibly even into toys, who thereafter become one of the mediaries of the Fabled Toy.

Toy Mountain

Toy Mountain is a fabled mountain found in the most distant reaches of Toyland, beyond the Bathtub Sea, past the desolate Sandbox wastes and further even than the Great Backyard Forest. The Toys of Toyland never die, but they know that eventually, their lives in Toyland itself must somehow end. The unworthy and wicked toys who prick their child's fight or refuse to be shared or work hard to lose themselves in the bottom of the toybox end up, inevitably, in the Dungeon of Lost Toys. But the worthy and faithful toys are sometimes welcomed by the Gods of Toyland, the Seven Fabled Toys to the great and wondrous Toy Mountain. According to some stories, the mountain itself is built out of the endless resting-boxes of millennia of good toys slowly accumulating in this, the most sacred of places in Toyland.

Properties of Toy Mountain

• Unforgiving Wilderness: Anyone who seeks to get to Toy Mountain must face a gauntlet of physical dangers enough to extinguish the courage of even the hardiest toy. While toys cannot be lost, they can be melted by the deserts, soaked by sea, or devoured by the great hounds that roam the Backyard Forests.
• Home to the Gods (+3): Any attempts to find the Seven Fabled Toys will be far more successful if undertaken here.
• Finding God: Those who come to Toy Mountain often walk away changed. It's possible that characters might acquire one of the following Wounds:
  
  • Bond: Feral Toy 1: The toy forgets its child and loses its connection to its original purpose, and joins the roving feral tribes of toys in the wastes that surround Toy Mountain.
  • Affliction: I see the true lives of toys 1: You have been touched by the power of the Seven Fabled Toys, and you can see and hear what other mortals cannot: the slow blink of a dolls eyes, the whispered gossip toys share with one another about their children, etc.
• Trouble: Beyond the Tyrant's Grasp (-4): The Seven Fabled Toys reject the authority of Damien Bogsworth, and represent the core of the Estate's conflict with Damien. They have used their considerable power to erect a Miraculous barrier that makes the mountain itself seem to shift and move if the agents of Damien attempt to come closer to it. If you're a loyal agent of Damien Bogsworth, you must surmount this Trouble or have some magic that lets you ignore it.

Description Snippets

• The mountain smells musty, like an attic full of old, treasured toys, and sunlight pours through dust motes like gold shooting through floating diamonds, and at the top of a mountain, the silhouette of a mysterious-but-familiar toy gazes upon you, before turning his back on you and losing himself higher up in the mountain.
• A painted river, churning blue and white with fish-like paint-flecks of silver, flows down the plastic green sides of the mountain, flowing past a forest of toothpick trees and a small-but-exquisitely detailed village full of blobby looking half-people and windmills that turn against a non-existent wind. In the distance, against dark blue cardboard sky, back-lit lightning flashes to recorded thunder.
• The churning heat of red-painted, baking-soda-and-vinegar lava boils out over the top of a paper-mache peak, spilling its red guts out over the blasted landscape and sending nearby toys scurrying for cover.
• The peak of Toy Mountain is covered in gift-wrapped packages and small, wooden pine trees. The frozen stillness of Christmas anticipation brings a hallowed frostiness to this sacred spot. If you reach up, you feel like you could almost touch the sky and, with it, achieve the aspirations of every toy: to become forever beloved.
• Flash! Behold, one of the seven fabled toys. The sun surmounts its head like a halo. It stands perfectly, like a toy in the window on a cold, Christmas morning. Its face contains the beauty of the most coveted toy, with the perfection of a catalog advertisement. Its voice is the breathless excitement of a child describing the toy they want most. Its touch is the loving caress of a child taking their precious toy into their grasp for the first time, full of electric thrill. The Fabled Toy beckons you forward. You are blessed!

Rescue a Lost Childhood Toy

0 or less: Perhaps your toy has joined the resistance and your actions have lead to Damien uncovering it and foil its attempt to restore the True King of Toyland. Oops! Or perhaps you get lost in the search for your toy and become afflicted with Nostalgia. Or perhaps Damien uncovers your efforts and throws you into his Dungeon of Lost Toys.

1: Toyland is kind of neat! Make some new friends

3: You don't find your lost, childhood toy, but your quest speaks to the hearts of those in toyland. They whisper of you and grow envious of your toy, who has such a loyal master.

4: You found your lost, childhood toy! Hopefully, it's not in trouble!

6: The toys in toyland are moved by your actions. They rally around you, as a good child who seeks to protect her toys, and look to your for leadership against the despotic reign of Damien. Will you join them in their fight to overthrow Damien?

7: You find your lost, childhood toy. You find all of your lost, childhood toys, or you also find the means to free them or fix them. Things return to how you remember them as a child!

Bonds, Afflictions, Trouble and Tools:

• Bond: Nostalgia (1): You're afflicted with an inflated sense of how wonderful your child was and a deep yearning to be as you were back then. Treat this as a wound that can occur if you find a lost, childhood toy, or if someone brings one to you.

The Dungeon of Lost Toys

In the bowels of the Great Toy Castle lies the Dungeon of Lost Toys. Most Toys believe the Kings of Toyland constructed the dungeon to house the worst of the toys, and in a sense, that’s true. The first King did indeed dig deep into the core of Toyland to hide away the 13 Hell Toys, but what he found was a vast network of forbidding plastic, lego, clay and paper-mache tunnels. The presence of the 13 hell toys warped it further, expanding and twisting the tunnels back in upon themselves.

The highest levels of the dungeon, those closest to the Great Toy Castle resemble what one would expect of a prison, and here, Damien keeps his political prisoners. Deeper yet, where the artificial plastic and wood give way to more natural paper-mache and clay, the 13 Hell Toys are kept in vaults, and the tunnels, caverns and grottos begin to spider throughout the core of toyland, ever shifting under the influence of the hell toys. Sometimes, prisoners escape and make their way into the bowels of the dungeon, where they are never heard from again. For the toys of toyland, the Dungeon of Lost Toys is hell.

Properties of The Dungeon of Lost Toys

• Trouble: Tight Security (-3): Any attempt to rescue a lost childhood toy that's been cast into the Dungeon of Lost Toys requires you to either overcome this trouble, or deal with the security directly, or accept that your toy might have been irreparably lost or destroyed by Damien's torture.
• The Forbidden Toybox: In the most secure depths of the Dungeon, there lay scattered and lost vaults wherein the 13 hell-toys, those toys exiled by the first King of Toyland for being too dangerous. Finding one of these is worth an additional -2 trouble, for a total of -5 trouble!
• Lost Pathways: The deepest bowels of the Dungeon of Lost Toys connects to the Reincarnation Engine, allowing one to travel from one Chancel to the other.
• Lost (Wound): Toys cannot die, but they can become Lost.  Any such Lost toy can always be found in the bowels of the Dungeon of Lost Toys.

Description Snippets

• The slow groan of a multi-colored, camo-toned, puddle of waxy like plastic that was once a G.I. Joe, that slowly gropes its way across the plastic bricks of the dungeon.
• Amidst the scattered fluff and red thread of Damien's many victims, a barbie-dolls head has been spiked atop a sharpened pencil, with its hair shorn to stubs. Its painted eyes slowly flutter own, deep green and full of pain. “Help me,” it pleads.
• The plastic walls and floors feel rough and cool to the touch. Green Fun Express™ glow-in-the-dark goo slowly drips down the wall with a disgustingly squishing sound and a strange, hungry burbling.
• In the bowels of the dungeon, where the shadows grow thickest and rubber spiders dangle on frightful rubber strings, toys move sluggishly behind plastic bars, except for one, where the open, orange manacles of a My Pet Monster™ rest empty in mute testimony to its escaped denizen. In the cell behind you, a haunted doll's mouth begins to rattle up and down as she cackles electronically “Want to play? Want to play?”

Fight the forces of Damien Bogsworth!

0 or less: You suffer defeat! You've been wounded in some way, or captured and dragged off to the Dungeon of Lost Toys! Or, even if you survive, some of your allies will almost certainly suffer an ill-fate, or you'll bring the gimlet eye of Damien Bogsworth upon you.

1: You fought the forces of Damien Bogsworth. Perhaps you didn't win, but you at least have satisfaction of knowing you didn't go quietly into the night.

3: You fought the forces of Damien Bogsworth and your efforts have rocked toyland. Barbie wants to interview you. Damien puts out crayon wanted posters out for you. Your efforts have made an impact and not gone unnoticed.

4: You achieved some measure of victory! You've captured Toy City, or freed some toys from the Dungeon of Lost toys! Damien will certainly remember that!

6: The Toys of Toyland watch your efforts breathlessly. Dare they hope? Many rally to your side, and you soon find yourself swamped with an army.

7: The armies of Damien Bogsworth lay crushed beneath your iron heel. The dismembered body of one of the Commando Elite begs for your mercy. Damien still has plenty of forces, but his power has definitely been greatly diminished by this victory.

9: By clever strategem, you have forced the armies of Damien Bogsworth to surrender, or even to join your side. No toys were destroyed this day! Indeed, those who faced you now reconsider their decision and realize that, through you, a united and whole Toyland might be possible.

Trouble and Tools:

• Damien Bogsworth's leadership: If Damien himself leads his forces, this becomes a contest.
• Trouble: Commando Elite (-2): The Commando Elite are the finest fighting force currently in Toyland. If they join the battle, beware! If Damien wields them in a contest, they give him an Edge of +2.
• Tool: An Army of Tin Soldiers (+1): The old tin soldiers can still fight with the ferociousness of the Napoleonic armies upon which they were founded, if one can still find enough of them.
• The Might of a Fabled Toy (+4): Few things can compare, in toyland, to the power of one of the Fabled Seven Toys, except perhaps all seven.

The Great Toy Castle

Accumulating over the millennia that Toyland has existed, it is every toy castle ever built by children. It has spires topped with triangle blocks, walls built from LEGO bricks, and is fronted by the leering plastic of Castle Greyskull. It is the seat of the King of Toyland, and held in the greatest respect by all Toys. It is the literal center of Toyland just as it is the symbolic center of the Estate of Toys. He who holds the Great Toy Castle holds the Power of Toys.

Properties of the Great Toy Castle

• Edge: The Throne of Toys (+5): The Throne of Toys is the ultimate authority of power in all the lands of toys. Those who sit upon it utterly dominate the politics of Toyland. Anyone who resists them in a contest of political authority must contend with an Edge of +5.
• Toy Royalty (+2): The Great Toy Castle houses the most noble toys in toyland, only the finest.  Anyone who wants to play with these toys gain +2 from the extra satisfaction and happiness those toys will bring them!
• Affliction (Packaged): Damien Bogsworth keeps the Great Vault of Packaged Toys in the depths of the Great Toy Castle. Those captured fighting him might find themselves afflicted with this Wound. It preserves their value while assuring they can no longer effectively oppose him. This is too much for some toys to bear, though, who are sometimes utterly changed from Toys (which are meant to be played with) and into Collectibles.

Description Snippets

• The loud blare of commercial trumpets, the excited chatter of toys, and the popping sound of confetti bombs bursting to cast a rain of color and ribbon streamers down onto the streets near the Great Toy Castle.
• The swoop of the newest, coolest toy jets as they buzz the castle. The rhythmic, marching plastic click-click-click of Damien's armies as they patrol the walls.
• The imagination-firing vastness of the great castle, like an ever-growing pile of grandeur, heaped up by the dreams of every child who has ever put a toy crown on his head and a sheet about his shoulders.
• The hushed, excited silence within the great castle, lit by strings of light-bright bulbs, with speak-and-reads announcing the room you've entered.
• The grandeur of the court room, with its wood-block thrown, the exquisite burger-king crown jewels of toy land still in their original packaging, awaiting the next king of Toyland, while Magistrate Bopit informs you, in rapid sequence, of what protocols are expected of you in the august presence of King Damien Bogsworth.