Pluvid

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  • The Man under the Ash

    The Man under the Ash

    I went down a rabbit hole of Brussels lore and mysticism recently, and along the way I got inspired by the strata of city that at some point burned down, or the parts of the river Senne were buried because of its foul stench. So from this I made the Mister under the Ash, a demon of sorts.

    Meneer Onder d’as Man under the Ash

    An honest, hungry demon of the buried city. It rides night trams and old tunnels, opens sealed ways, and charges you in the little things that make you you.
    Born where the Senne, ash, and concrete press together like urban compost.

    • Deals are clear, literal wording.
    • Greedy for things people want to keep (habits, anchors, comforts).
    • You have 7 stops to decide.

    Appearance

    Rust-skin with a damp sheen. Touch leaves an orange ring that fades. Smell of wet metal and warm bakery after rain. Calm eyes, station LEDs flicker in them.

    Created with ChatGPT

    Haunts

    Sainte-Catherine & Vismet; Tour Noire; under Boulevard Anspach above the Senne vaults; Beurs/De Brouckère pre-métro galleries; Lemonnier/Anneessens stairwells; Coudenberg/Rue Isabelle site; Marolles service tunnels; Anderlecht abattoir drains after rain.

    Underground rue Isabelle

    vaulted and built over after the fire of 1731

    Abilities

    • Ghost Stop: after seven stops, manifests a platform/door where the city remembers one. Lasts a few minutes.
    • Rust Bloom: Touch corrodes locks, hinges, rails; small radius ages fast (1–3 m).
    • Name-Bind: A spoken or written true spelling lets it bind a subtle effect (reroute, hush, lost memory).
    • Weigh the Car: Shifts center of mass: luggage slides, doors settle, a carriage levels.
    • Layer Sense: Reads buried strata.
    • PA Ride-along: Briefly hijacks loudspeakers.

    Sainctelette Ghost Metro Station
    Never finished, never used.

    Weaknesses / counters

    Fresh plaster (≤7 days) stings; Saint-Michel’s sanctified bronze/bells scramble its count; new stamped infrastructure plans shrink its range; theft from it triggers seven nights of blocked passages.

    Prices it demands

    1. Your exact way home on autopilot (you’ll always hesitate at one corner).
    2. The true spelling of your first name (you answer a beat late forever).
    3. A lucky coin/stone carried for years.
    4. Your spot at the bar where staff nod without asking.
    5. The unlock pattern/PIN you never changed (muscle memory erased).
    6. The smell of safety from your winter coat.
    7. A song fragment that stops your panic.
    8. The back-up key hidden under a pot (and the confidence tied to it).
    9. A month of small good breaks coming up.
    10. The story you tell about how you met your partner (the meeting stays; the story goes blank).

    Evidence

    Fading rust rings on bars and tickets; validators log “phantom” taps; CCTV doors half-open at non-stops; old lettering bleeding through repaint; victims report missing habits: routes, smells, reflex answers to their name.

    Case hooks

    • Ticket of a Name: STIB logs tie a burst of validator pings to one commuter’s initials the night a sinkhole opens on Anspach.
    • Phantom Platform, Beurs: Night staff hear doors open at 02:07. Two commuters exited “between stations.”
    • ISABELLE: Fresh paint in a Coudenberg service hall keeps ghosting the word; workers refuse another coat.
    • Lost Way Home: Marolles residents report “blank corners” where their feet forget the turn; accidents spike after rain.
    • Abattoir Rot: Anderlecht loading bay fuses under orange bloom; cameras show light dips every seventh second.
  • Building a Character Generator for Sunken Stars

    Building a Character Generator for Sunken Stars

    Using Claude Code

    Background

    I’ve built character generators before. One for the Umerican Survival Guide (usg.pluvid.com), and another for an earlier version of Sunken Stars. This one follows the same structure—generate a full character sheet with one click, something fast and practical for testing, improvisation, or pickup play.

    This time I used Claude Code, a tool by Anthropic built for writing and interpreting structured code. The idea was simple: hand the model a few PDFs, ask it to build a generator, and refine from there.

    The Process

    The initial results weren’t good. Claude misunderstood key mechanics, muddled traits with backgrounds, and invented a few rules of its own. But the framework was there. With some back-and-forth—adjusting prompts, fixing data by hand, clarifying how the system fits together—the output slowly improved.

    Because Sunken Stars is modular, the logic was easy to isolate. Patrons, classes, backgrounds, regions—they all sit in clear lanes. Once those were defined, the generator began producing clean, usable characters.

    The result lives here:
    https://dump.pluvid.com/sunkengen

    It creates a complete character: stats, background, region, class, items, and a brief description. It still benefits from oversight—especially around edge cases—but it’s functional and quick.

    Cost

    Between formatting, testing, and refinements, the total compute cost landed somewhere between 30 and 50 euros. Not negligible, but not outrageous either.

    It’s worth noting that while the AI handles layout and logic well, it doesn’t understand tone or intent. Trait descriptions sometimes drift, mechanical balance needs verifying, and regional context can get flattened. The tool saves time, but doesn’t replace thoughtful design.

    Conclusion

    The generator works. It doesn’t cover everything, but it does enough. It makes character creation faster, lowers the barrier to entry for new players, and lays groundwork for future tools—NPC builders, encounter generators, maybe even a voyage planner.

    For now, this one does its job and that’s awesome.