A U V G C o m p a n i o n

ZOA
Of the VAstlAnds

L u k a R e j e c
Ramiferous Hexaraffes Why This Work Exists
The third pengling expedition to the With unusual thanks to ‘GrinningManiac’ for saying “I tried to make a random
Lilac Spherelands was the first to generator for UVG monsters where it was a bunch of tables that produced things
observe the ramiferous hexaraffe in its like "Vomish/Mind-Burned/Ka-/Ba-/Ha-" and "Mummies/Centipedes/Lions" but I
natural habitat. Previous specimens couldn't quite get it to make anything useful. Anyone had any similar generators?”
were only known from scattered skulls,
teeth, and armored dermal platelets. In With necessary thanks to Jane Goodall for visiting my school when I was young and
this sunset shot, taken by expedition speaking with such verve and wonder about the living creatures of our world.
lumographer Opa Belljump IV, three
cormorous skinbirds can be seen at the With eternal thanks to my wife, who stands by me in spirit though more than eight
same watering hole as a hexaraffe pair. thousand kilometres of lockdown (and a lot of Russia) separate us.
The cormorous skinbird’s oil glands are
prized by the nomad parfumiers of the With gracious thanks to the 470 heroes of the Stratometaship who see value in
Southern Route (secondary variant). strange adventures into unknown lands, in search of ineffable creatures.

—Luka, May 2020

ART & WRITING COPYRIGHT © 2020 by Luka Rejec

LAYOUT: Luka Rejec

EDITING: Someday
PUBLISHING: Olly Media Inc.
PATREON: www.patreon.com/wizardthieffighter
SITE: www.wizardthieffighter.com

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 zOA
/ ˈzoʊ ə /

Plural form of zoon from New Latin from Greek zôion "animal," derivative from
the base of zṓō, zṓein (Homeric), zô, zên (Attic) "to be alive, live," going back to
Indo-European *gwi̯éh3-(u)- "live" (whence also Tocharian B śāyau "[I] live"), full
grade of a stem attested elsewhere with zero grade as *gwih3-u-, whence Latin
vīvō, vīvere "to live," Old Church Slavic živǫ, žiti, Old Prussian giwa "(s/he) lives,"
Latvian dzīvu "(I) live," Sanskrit jīvati "(s/he) lives," Avestan juuaiti.

Source: “Zoo.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zoo Accessed 18.04.2020.

Contents
The Neozoa 4
Funding a Research Expedition 5
Making Neozoa 6
Comparing Notes 7
Neozoa Generator: What is It? 8
Neozoa Modificator: How is It
Strange? 12
Studying the Zoa 14
Observing New Creatures 14
Researching Creatures in Depth 16
The Vastlands 20
The World Is Flux 22
Warning: Fool of Words
This booklet is full of hard words. Actual
scientific jargon, invented words, and
even, sometimes, sheer technobabble.

This is intentional. The roleplay conceit

is that the heroes are more-or-less
competent naturalists on a [faux] grand
scientific expedition. The players are not
and shouldn’t worry about precise
pronunciation or meaning. Treat the
biological technobabble as inspiration,
not instruction.

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 The Neozoa
Why We Are So Wise
Neozoa
Many archaic myth-complexes state Why do we know more things than other peoples? Why, in fact, are we so
that long long ago there was a fixed clever? We have never pondered over questions that are not questions. We
number of living creature templates in have never squandered our strength. Of actual ontological difficulties, for
the Given World. The number 400 is instance, we have no experience. We have never known what it is to feel sinful.
often transmitted as the initial number
of all the varieties of plants, animals, Unlike the degenerate quarterlings—those comical creatures that scuttle in
fungi, protozoa, golems, and their ragged ruins—we know that a builder for the Given World is a too
sentiences. This number is likely palpably clumsy solution of things; a solution which shows a lack of delicacy
coincidental, since a baseline human towards us thinkers—at bottom magical builders are really no more than a
has twenty digits on their hands and coarse and rude prohibition of us: ye shall not know!
feet and the phrase ‘a score’s score’ is
used as a metaphor for ‘countless’. No, we are much more interested in another question—a question upon which
the salvation of humanity depends to a far greater degree than it does upon any
In these myths, a side effect of the piece of constructivist theology. I refer to nutrition.
waste-maker’s actions was the
breakdown of this initial perfect order. We feed ourselves to attain the maximum of virtù. We feed our city to attain our
Thermidore Notto’s translation of the maximum of power. We ingest the zoa in their green multitudes and excrete
Pseudovila Lamentika puts it poetically, waste and reason and technology. Yes! The product of our minds is the product
“they [the waste-maker] let a hundred of alimentation. The quarterling intellect is indigestion; it can assimilate
corrupted flowers bloom and a hundred nothing, because they surrender animal vigour on the altar of clumsy spirit and
hundred seeds to spread and there was prohibitions against the consumption of ought but the 400 pure zoa. This
a flourishing of the weeds and the axis negation of good digestion is the real sin against the imagined builder.
of the world was thrown off the
equilibrium of perfection.” We accept the natural order of the world. Not superfluous and foolish idealism
reveling in ignorance of physiological matters. This is simply fact. Present, not
As every contemporary student of the given. The world is an orb of change. The vastlands are an endlessly fecund
biomantic and vivifactorial arts knows, breeding ground of monsters and food. Of dangers and fuels. Of maladies and
the variety and number of creatures and cures. This is life in its green riot. What has been the greatest objection to life
hybrids and chimeras is countless and hitherto?—Magic builder. Star Hwah. First Elf.
uncountable. The source code of life is
ever-plentiful, throwing up innovations We are so clever because we do not think. We look. We study. We listen. We
from generation to generation. One smell. We taste. We eat. Every year, every moon, every day, every moment, the
glow-eyed antelope stretches its neck generative forces of the vastlands create new life. The acumen of two thousand
to reach high branches, its child is born years of academic thought in the decadent arcology villages would not have
with a neck twice as long, its grandchild sufficed to guess the marvels of the fecund Green. Where pious fools consume
thrice as long, and soon a new soil ants, we parade meat trees slathered in the rendered fat of pig bats grilled
giraffelope strain is loose upon the on fires fed by the emissions of the bloating scums. Where they read fading
sclerophyl savanna. This is the nature of scratches on scuffed plastic, we print volumes on great sheets of paper oak.
things, and no serious scholic argues Where they sleep under itching garments of hair and polyester, we have finest
that epigenetic recombination is not the silk from the pendle spider and armour from the chitin-bearing giant vole.
dominant and natural form of biological
change and adaptation in our world. How have we become so good? So much better than the abundant quarter-
lings? How we become what we are is down to that masterpiece in the art of
self-preservation, which is selfishness. We ride the vastlands and we make
them our own. We take the ever-growing zoa of the vastlands and turn them
into our food, into our technologies, into our science, into our will to power.

—Zéro Abisés, Unquartered Revolution: Hunting Monsters in the Vastlands

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Funding a Research Expedition
Most zoologists and dungeoneers share a major problem: funds. The main
difference is that a group of maleducated dungeon hoboes has very limited
opportunities to secure expedition funding (or even a steady job).

1. Who is funding it? 2. How do they hope to benefit? 3. What extra help do they offer?
i. Secret cult of the Blue God. i. Confirmation of their faith. i. Religious oldtech scholar.
ii. R.L.D. institute of applied ii. Useful and efficient food sources. ii. Moral rectitude commissar.
proletarian sciences. iii. Religious truth-enhancing serums. iii. Slaved logic engine atoning for its
iii. Zealous religious research order iv. Methods for spontaneously machine sins.
loyal to the cogflower inquisition. generating of new creatures. iv. Branch representative of the
iv. E.C. museum on the origin and v. Valuable pets. regional colonial trading company.
modification of species. vi. Palliative drugs to optimize life v. Attractive marketing influencer.
v. Investment banking concern. quality over long periods. vi. Synthetic human drug sampler.
vi. Pharmaceutical conglomerate. vii. Wonder drugs to help the poor. vii. Senior big game hunting guide.
vii. Rich and eccentric philanthropist. viii. Superior farm animals. viii. Heretical biomancer agronomist.
viii. Heavily indebted and misanthropic ix. Sources of industrial raw materials. ix. Applied biomechanical engineer.
capitalist landlord. x. Humorous animals or vegetables. x. Uplifting musician humanitarian.
ix. Nouveau riche industrialist. xi. Weapons-grade monsters. xi. Vometech-augmented savant
x. Multinational circus franchise. xii. Charismatic poster-creatures for researcher.
xi. Secretive military research fund raising. xii. Wealthy animal-loving sybarite.
laboratory. xiii. Proof of the superiority of the xiii. Loyal and upright sargeant of the
xii. Environmentalist country club. state’s environmental policies (and immortal presidential guard.
xiii. Spouse of an autocratic hereditary a supply of exotic furs). xiv. Capable but midly corrupt military
president. xiv. Discrete venoms and toxins. quartermaster major.
xiv. Ambitious general in the trans- xv. Mind-expanding extracts. xv. Alcoholic bone-reading oracle and
national circle road consortium. xvi. Prestigious new theories confirming dowser.
xv. Secret enlightenmentist society. the empire’s natural dominance. xvi. Zealous imperial anthropologist.
xvi. Royal republican imperial society. xvii. Opiates for the masses to optimize xvii. Nervous biomantically uplifted
xvii. Criminal drug conglomerate. self-perception over long periods. lower lifeform servant (slave).
xviii. Local governor with cultural xviii. Attractions for the white elephant xviii. Unctious but canny bureaucrat.
inferiority complex. zoo project. xix. Annoying but intensely capable
xix. Underfunded second-tier university. xix. Practical biotechnical processes to administrative scientist.
xx. Prestigious aristocratic university. justify continued funding. xx. Well-connected aristocratic gentle-
xx. Pure science to spur blue ocean person naturalist.
disruptive commercial innovation.

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