Wonderland - Jags

Name: Lucky Quarter
Description: A bicentennial quarter (United States) or other ironically
recognizable coin (100 Yen, etc.) made of highly distilled blessings or
good fortune. Seems especially clean and shiny – never dull.
Lucky Quarters don’t lose coin tosses; if put in a pot, they add +10
to the owner’s gambling skill for that hand. If put in a slot machine,
they’ll win the jackpot. A lucky quarter’s luck runs out eventually
– they can modify between 10 and 100pts worth of rolls (a coin flip
costs 1 pt, a gambling hand, 10. Winning the lottery requires rolling
a “0” three times on 4d-4; and costs enough points to bring each roll
to 0 – using your lucky quarter to buy a lottery ticket risks losing the
quarter without ensuring you’ll be rich); once a lucky quarter is spent
or used up, it’ll (probably) never be lucky for the owner again… but it
will recharge and will be useful to someone else a few years later
Reflection: An iconic piece of change
Society
The society that exists on Chessboard Four is one that we are luckily
cannot get to Chessboard Zero directly: human-kind is the raw material
that is used in every ritual, every factory, every mill. Humans are a mass
of dreams, wants, needs, consuming desires, and internalized lies.
Since all of those things (and more) have
physical essences on the lower Chessboards,
humankind is a resource, a fuel, and a
currency.
The Naughts
The predominant form of life on Chessboard
Four are the Naughts. They appear as human
beings (usually, but not always, trim) whose
faces are a smooth, round hole that extends
all the way through their heads. Their dress
usually says something about their place in
society and they are very conscious of their
uniforms.
Naughts can “speak” in a whistling, pipe-like
language that after a time is understood in
the listener’s native tongue.
Almost the entirety of the Naughts lives is
somehow devoted to in the trade in deep
elements. They buy and sell and extract a
fluid that is human vice incarnate. They
study the architecture of Awe and fill books
with their dissertations on almost imaginary
edifices written in a strange tongue. They
buy and sample human dreams, taking the
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Deeper Mysteries - Chessboards