Mythical beasts and places of Stoke-on-Trent:
My unofficial expansion for The Midderlands RPG, a British RPG in the spirit of Monty Python and old-school White Dwarf type RPGs. This runs on Swords & Wizardry Complete, now free as the S&W Revised PDF.
Update: revised slightly to be in line with the “Stoke Pottington” section of the second book for the Midderlands, which I’ve now seen. Stoke Pottington is in Staffershire. What follows assume you’ve read the “Stoke Pottington” section.
Turnstool Market at Turst | Tunstall Market. (Akin to Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. This is where Josiah Hedgewood sells his magic-focusing pots).
Broodwell Woods | Bradwell Woods. (A dark place of brooding and grumpy ghosts. The older name for the woods was ‘the Burgweard’).
Trent Thumb Gurndens | Trentham Gardens. (A weird garden of Thumbelina Hall, full of plants with gurning faces, and leaves like hands with deformed thumbs. Lady Thumbelina despises Josiah Hedgewood for taking the peasants off their ‘rightful place’ on the soggy land and giving them regular indoor work at good wages).
Eat Rear | Etruria. (A very strange but festive ‘greasy cafe’ in a small wood called Festival Part, run by gnomes who escaped into the wild from the gardens at Josiah Hedgewood’s mansion. These gnomes were originally small prototype Clay Golems, made that way because Mrs. Hedgewood wanted garden gnomes as workers in the garden).
Bastard Bank | Basford Bank (A steep place, impossible to climb up. Used for new-recruit training practice by the Clay Guard).
The Lemmy of Borslemy | Lemmy (A fearsome shrieking beast, believed to be extinct… but its voice can still be heard on dark nights…)
The Poorlands | The Moorlands. (Full of ragged folk, vicious thistles and bullywarts, and emaciated ponies in need of rescue).
Snootcastle-under-Rhyme | Newcastle-under-Lyme. (Full of snooty folk who fancy themselves as poets. They often have ‘poetry-duels’ with each other, wounding each other with terribly bad poetry).
Harrop | (Name of a hat-maker or ‘hatter’, located on a little old lane that runs up behind the Bastard Bank. His curious hats enable one to see glimpses of the future, under certain circumstances, when worn. Friend of Josiah Hedgewood).
Honeylee or known officially as Hanelet | Hanley. (A blissful utopia, where no-one ever works and yet wine and honey perpetually flows from the golden bottle-ovens. Possibly just a dream induced by eating too many owl-cakes).
Meow Cop | Mow Cop. (Strange hilltop castle ruin which serves as a cat-rescue home and also a residence for old cat-ladies. Not all the moggies there are what they appear to be…).
Bear Town | Congleton. (Notorious for having sold the town’s only book to buy a dancing bear. The bear was later elected to be Mayor).
Hairthistle | Harecastle. (Triffid-like walking plants found between Turnstool Market and the Broodwell Woods, that will sneak up on walkers and give them a nasty nip while plucking out some body-hair. At night they all retire into the Hairthistle Tunnel).
Moonthistle | Found on the fringes and in the glades of the dark Broodwell Woods. (The dreamy moony variety of the Hairthistle plant – see above. Spiky but non-aggressive, glowing softly in the dark, and it doesn’t ‘walk’. Can be used as a carrying lamp on dark nights, but they are so adorable that benighted travellers are disinclined to pluck them).
Kidsgrubs of Kidsgroove | Kidsgrove. (A nasty-looking insect of the district, bright green and poisonous to adults but edible to certain ‘groovy’ musical children who inhabit Kidsgroove. The grub sometimes conveys temporary magical powers when eaten, usually powers relating to ‘musical magic’…).
Burt365 | Bet365. (A team of young wizards who will deliver Burt anywhere, 365 days a year. Burt is not too happy about this, and would rather be up on his allotment).
The Up Handee Duck | ‘Up Hanley, Duck’ (Tame ducks that can be trained to work as not very skilled, but very cheap, handymen on the river. Good at repairing the underside of Josiah Hedgewood’s boats with blobs of tar, but not much else).
Burrs Loom at Borslemy | Burslem. (A gigantic and dark hilltop barn, where spindles packed with horrid plant-burrs from the barren Poorlands are used to run monstrous spider-silk looms).
Owl-cake | Oatcake. (A surprisingly tasty flat pancake made from owl droppings. First, catch your owl…).
Owt-cake | Oatcake. (Not to be confused with the Owlcake. Made from ‘owt, and is thus invisible).
The Potty Loo Line | The Potteries Loop Line. (Travelling toilets on primitive rails. For the use of the Clay Guard only. Other folk have great difficulty grasping this new concept of the ‘rails-away’).
Wool Standing | Wolstanton. (A town of talking but rather woolly-minded sheep. They walk upright like men, and demand to be treated as such).
The Wedgeweird | Wedgwood. (A silent clay-covered golem, tattooed all over in blue-and-white patterns that resemble bird-droppings. Unconnected with the Clay Golems, but akin to a natural/supernatural wild Clay Golem, and as such cannot be given commands).
The Surly Knell | The Sentinel. (The doom-laden local town-crier, full of dire news of crime and grime).
Creel | Keele. (A small and very insular community of creel basket-makers. World experts on basket-making, but utterly clueless about anything else).
Stuck | Stoke. (A small pottery hamlet, part of Stoke Pottington but so small and obscure it went un-noticed by the chroniclers. So full of sticky wet clay that the inhabitants can’t drag themselves out of it).
Wetport and Longspurt | Westport and Longport. (Has a certain reputation, locally, for its ‘amorous’ ladies who are always eager to ‘serve’ the Clay Guard. The name ‘port’ was originally given because it’s where Josiah Hedgewood stores his wares in warehouses, for sending down the water to the Great City of Lunden. Groups of stowaways have been known to hide in the barges, seeking a free and easy ride to Lunden).
Bull-Terror | Staffordshire Bull Terrier. (A bull-size wild dog with luminous green eyes, scary but harmless unless provoked. Must be fed daily with Pigweed).
The Prancing Pony | (A painting of a frisky white pony on an inn sign-board, that has come to life and escaped into the landscape. Some local rustic informers say it has also grown a horn and is now a small unicorn).
Wittersack | (A hand-sized talking fungus, of scrotal shape and appearance. Especially likely to infest the beer-cellars of ill-kept inns, where it ‘witters on’ drunkenly and interminably. It mostly talks about the ribald and uncouth matters it has faintly overheard being discussed by the inn’s patrons upstairs).
Bawl Holes | Marl Holes. (Old deep clay-digging pits, used to supply the first potteries but now disused and left to become small lakes. Local children talk of a ‘Granny Grinny’ who lurks beneath the bright-green pond-weed, and who it is said will drag them in if they venture too close to the water).
