DMing Chemistry

 The Great Beasts are one of the names given to the first of each kind of animal the gods made. Other names include the Guardians, Animal Forefathers, and That Really Huge Animal I Saw One Time, You Wouldn't Believe It. As the first of their kind, they exemplify everything the animal is meant to be, always looking immaculate, in their prime, and in perfect physical health. They are also gigantic. Mouse is easily the size of a cart, Wolf is larger than most houses, and really big animals like Aurochs is even larger than that. It is said that the Great Beasts don't ever stop growing, and as such they just kept getting bigger and bigger since the creation of the world. The Great Beasts are also intelligent, and remember their long life well, so they are an invaluable source of information about past events they witnessed. Unfortunately they spend, and have spent most of their time wandering the uncharted wilderness, rarely coming into contact with humans. They have been around for...

 One of the easiest ways to deal with a demon or malevolent spirit is to trap it in an incantation bowl and bury it in the ground. However that is not not the only way evil can get buried underground. Powerful sorcerers can trap various entities in other items (usually statues of the entity in question), or cursed items can get buried deliberately. Sometimes these buried dangers are older than anyone can remember, and indeed some are even said to have been left behind by Those Who Came Before .  Needless to say, this makes mining, sapping, or digging any kind of tunnel or even just a particularly deep ditch potentially quite dangerous, and usually before starting such works, it is customary to perform animal (sometimes even human or other sentient creature) sacrifice, both to seek the help of the more benevolent gods in protecting the diggers from these dangers, but also to the buried things themselves, in order to placate them. The other common way to mitigate these dangers ...

  Incantation bowls are a common magic item sold for relatively cheap in most markets. As the name suggests, they are simple bowls with written incantations on their inner surface. They are used to trap demons  and other spirits by slapping the bowl on top of the creature. Unless there is a large gap between the bowl and the ground, the demon or spirit cannot leave.  Incantation bowls come in different sizes and can be made from various materials, depending on the creature they are meant to trap. Larger entities obviously require larger bowls, though it must be noted that only the entity's original size counts for trapping purposes. Spirits or demons who have shapeshifted into larger sizes will shrink down to their original size when they come into contact with the bowl. Stronger entities require stronger incantations, which require the bowl to be made out of different materials than the standard clay or wooden bowls.  Incantation bowls can be made for general use, ...

Spellthieves are small spirits that can take a variety of physical forms, thought they can also choose to be immaterial. Their most famous ability, the one they are named after, is to steal spells from any mortal who uses magic. The spells stolen this way simply vanish from the victim’s mind, leaving them unable to be cast. The amount of spells a given spellthief can hold varies from individual to individual, but is usually between three and twelve. The stolen spells return to their original owner at the next sunrise. Some mortals are able to make pacts with spellthieves, gaining the ability to cast the spells the spellthief has stolen. Each such spell can be cast once before it returns to its original owner, and the spellthief has to go and retrieve it once more if its master wants to cast the spell again. These mortals are commonly called spellthieves as well. Needless to say, these pacts are extremely illegal, and if one is found out to have made them, their punishment is usually ...