September 1, 2024: My Corn Is So Elegant, It Perspires

I recently saw an article on "corn sweat" and how it's affecting the weather in my Midwestern part of the world. The article goes into more details, but basically, growing corn lets off a lot of moisture, which increases the humidity, which makes things hotter.

It's one of those terms that gets tossed out every so often and then immediately forgotten by me, until I remember it the next year as a thing that happens.

Thinking through this gaming-wise, I just love the idea in RPG worlds of weird, random events effecting big changes that folks just vaguely know about and have an assigned term for. It's getting hotter? Corn sweat. Is it harder to breathe in the kingdom? Must be cave-fume season. All tech in the cyberpunk world is on the fritz? That'll happen on patch day.

Maybe there's an explanation, maybe not. It's especially flavorful to have locals in an area nod knowingly at something they refuse to elaborate on: "That's what you get for wearing boots during the possumunk heat!" the townsfolk mutter as they throw buckets of water on the heroes.

Perhaps this'll spark ideas for you; if so, feel free to share on the forums. In the meantime, I need to go adjust my air conditioning . . . what with all the sweating corn.

-- Steven Marsh