jacinto classes, i am sick, LotFP, Pernicious Albion, spell

Warlock 3.0

Warlock, a class for Lamentations of the Flame Princess
HP, XP, and Saving Throws as Magic-user

 

Albion crawls with failed divinity: fallen angels, dethroned fairy queens, rogue incubi, all the exiles and rejects of Faerie and the Hereafter. While most look upon these beings as gods or demons, to be feared or adored, warlocks are those cunning or foolish individuals who instead see opportunity. Eschewing the hard study of magicians and the enlightenment of clerics, warlocks rely on their talent as rhetors to broker deals with these beings. All power they gain is through trade, and so they must constantly perform servies or find payments for their patrons. This struggle often pushes warlocks into the ranks of Albion’s freelancers and mercenaries.

The locus of a warlock’s magical power is her contract, which contains the seals and signatures of every spirit with which she has formed a pact. Contracts describe the kinds of requests signatories will grant, as well as the kinds of tasks the warlock will perform in return. Signatories reward warlocks who have proved their worth and make a greater range of favors available as they gain levels.

A warlock starts with a contract with a single spirit. She may add any number of spirits to her contract, but must first find them and make them signatories, usually in return for a some sort of service.

A warlock can request favors from her signatories as often as she wishes. However, spirits are fickle; they may grant the request without question, demand payment, or punish the warlock for pestering them unless appeased in some way. Warlocks do not need to settle their debts to signatories immediately, but outstanding obligations sour a spirit’s disposition and make it more difficult to extract favors from them.

Signatory: Old Queen Mab
She was ancient when the heath lay deep beneath the sea.
Sphere: Curses
As the sometime Queen of Faerie, Mab above all else desires revenge against the King of Roses Red, who deposed her, and the supposed allies who let him. When she speaks with her vassals, she seizes control of a nearby animal or weak-willed human and speaks through their mouth.

The Curse of Many Lances
Prerequisite: 1st level Warlock
Mab inflicts a curse of the warlock’s design that pertains to lances, bleeding, wounds, or impalement.

The Curse of Stitched Eye
Prerequisite: 3rd level Warlock 
Mab inflicts a curse of the warlock’s design that pertains to dreams, insomnia, sleep, or sleep walking.

The Curse of Eternal Darkness
Prerequisite: 5th level Warlock
Mab inflicts a curse of the warlock’s design that pertains to darkness, night, occlusion, or the color black.

The Curse of Chains
Prerequisite: 7th level Warlock 
Mab inflicts a curse of the warlock’s design that pertains to bondage, chains, imprisonment, limitation, or servitude.

The Curse of Changed Flesh
Prerequisite: 9th level Warlock 
Mab inflicts a curse of the warlock’s design that pertains to metamorphosis or any other sort of bodily transformation.

For the Referee
When a warlock calls on their signatory, the Referee makes a reaction roll to determine their initial disposition. Most favors should be no more effective than a spell a magician of the warlock’s level could cast. If they are more powerful, apply a penalty; signatories should grant extravagant requests either in modified form or in return for very difficult or dangerous services.

Feel free to apply bonuses or penalties based on the situation—favors that align with a signatory’s goals (or at least amuse them) might get a bonus, while those that offend a signatory’s sensibilities might receive a penalty.

  • Malicious: The signatory harms the warlock or otherwise complicates their situation in a manner pertaining to their Sphere, and the warlock takes a -1 penalty to the next reaction roll with this signatory
  • Annoyed: The signatory harms the warlock or otherwise complicates their situation in a manner pertaining to their Sphere
  • Bored: The signatory does nothing.
  • Interested: The signatory is inclined to grant the warlock’s request
  • Cooperative: The signatory is inclined to grant the warlock’s request, and the warlock gains a +1 bonus to the next reaction roll with this signatory.

Once the Referee has made the reaction roll, the warlock must actually convince their signatory to perform the favor. This proceeds like any other conversation with an NPC. The warlock says what they want, the signatory states their price, and then they haggle. However, this requires a great deal of extemporizing, so here is a heuristic to use if you get stuck:

There are three broad classes of things signatories want: Sacrifices, Rituals, and Services. Agreeing to perform a Ritual or Sacrifice each increases a signatory’s reaction by 1 step. Agreeing to perform a Service has a variable effect, depending on its difficulty and complexity, but a Service that takes a session to complete should increase the signatory’s reaction by two steps.

Warlocks do not need to perform Sacrifices, Rituals, or Services immediately, but for every outstanding Ritual or Sacrifice, the warlock takes an cumulative -1 penalty to signatory reaction Rolls. Services cause a -2 penalty to signatory reaction rolls.

Rituals
When a warlock offers to perform a Ritual in negotiation, roll on the following table to determine which the signatory wants.
Performing a ritual takes 1 Turn and requires chalk and incense.

  1. Perform a ritual over the body of a recently slain foe, claiming their soul for the signatory.
  2. Perform a ritual to summon an agent of the signatory into the area.
  3. Perform a ritual to banish a rival’s influence from the area.
  4. Perform a ritual to attune the area to the signatory’s sphere.
  5. Perform a ritual to erase all evidence of the signatory’s meddling.
  6. Capture someone nearby and compel or convince them to swear a binding oath, making them an agent of the signatory.

Sacrifices
When a warlock offers to perform a Sacrifice in negotiation, roll on the following table to determine which the signatory wants.
Sacrifices take 1 Round. Sacrificing a live, healthy goat (1 Turn) takes the place of any Sacrifice.

  1. Blood: d6+level damage
  2. Flesh: d4 Strength damage
  3. Grace: d4 Dexterity damage
  4. Judgment: d4 Wisdom damage
  5. Nous: d4 Charisma damage
  6. Time: incapacitated for d6 Turns
  7. Vigor: d4 Constitution damage
  8. Wit: d4 Intelligence damage 

Services
Queen Mab’s services usually involve some of the following:

Objects

  1. Explosives
  2. Poison
  3. Regalia
  4. An exquisite meal
  5. A curse
  6. An ancient and enchanted weapon
  7. A treaty from times primeval
  8. A parasol
  9. A gown
  10. A rose

People

  1. A spy
  2. A knight
  3. A child
  4. A cook
  5. A maid
  6. A shepherd
  7. A lord or lady
  8. An ambassador
  9. A magician
  10. The King of Roses Red

Incidents

  1. Sabotage
  2. Assassination
  3. Marriage
  4. Sowing the earth with salt
  5. Framing someone for a crime
  6. Transformation
  7. Defenestration
  8. Decapitation
  9. Burial
  10. A feast

Locations

  1. A busy kitchen
  2. A terrible prison
  3. A haunted barrow
  4. A decaying castle
  5. A splendid ballroom
  6. The cold and empty moor
  7. The Kingdom of Faerie
  8. A moonlit glade
  9. A backwater village
  10. A haberdashery

Dispositions

  1. A hated rival
  2. A friend betrayed
  3. A wrathful widow(er)
  4. A murderous parent
  5. An erstwhile ally
  6. An aging guardian
  7. A fading beauty
  8. A vengeful victim
  9. An old friend
  10. A loyal servant
    jacinto Uncategorized

    Albion Hangout Play Report 1

    THE SUSPECTS
    Goldenloin
    Murderous 10 year old eunuch warlock; has a contract with the mad angel Penemue

    Bartholomew III
    Pseudo-noble conman fighter with a taste for forbidden romance

    Jessica
    Androgynous vampire; howling fop; carries a parasol and a coffin

    Janet Snakehole (erm)
    Bartholomew III’s pseudo-noble conwoman partner-in-crime; possesses unspecified talents, possibly has a gift for assassination

    Korgan/Kergan/Can’t remember his name
    Gnarled mystic; wearer of loincloths; warlock bound to Old Queen Mab, the fairy of malediction

    THE CRIMES
    The party begins in Queen’s Crossing, where they elected to take on the job posted by the town’s Postmaster, which required them to venture to the tiny village of Scavenger’s Weir to find out why all couriers sent there have vanished. They decided to take the somewhat more dangerous route through Albion’s untamed Greywood, on the southern/eastern side of the River Dour. After about half a day’s travel, they see a watchtower peeking over the trees and decide to investigate, coming upon an old Roman fort in suspiciously good repair.

    Janet and Jessica sneak forward as the rest of the party hangs back. Janet steps on a branch (i.e. Jeremy immediately fails his Stealth check), and the guards in the fort’s watchtowers call out. They receive her enthusiastically (i.e. I rolled an 11 on their Reaction check) and demand that she join forces with them.

    Jessica leaps from her hiding spot and suggests that they work for the party instead. In response, a woman in resplendent centurion armor bursts out of the gate (followed by several disheveled “Praetorians” mumbling in execrable Latin) and tells Jessica to stop talking and sit down. She introduces herself as the Empress Henrietta and demands that the party join her or die. That such an earthy personage in such martial gear call herself Empress  “offends Jessica’s imperialist sensibilities”, and the vampire says that she is no head of state. Henrietta’s lackeys gasp, and she tries to stab Jessica in the face. There’s a fight, with highlights as follows:

    • Goldenloin swears fealty to Henrietta in the middle of the fight and tries and fails to stab her in the back after she retreats upon being shot in the neck.
    • Jessica gets laid out by a well-placed bullet, while Bartholomew III is reduced to 0 HP. He tries to revive her by wringing the blood from his wound into Jessica’s mouth, which doesn’t work until after the fight.
    • Korgan catches up with the party, calls upon Old Queen Mab to impale his enemies with lances, and she sucks out his vitality instead.
    • Henrietta gets increasingly wild-eyed and shouty

    The battle ends when Janet staves in Empress Henrietta’s head with a pistol grip. The Empress’ soldiers immediately give up, and start drinking and playing dice in the corner of the fort as soon as they can. Bartholomew III rings squeezes some of Henrietta’s blood into Jessica’s mouth, who manages to revive. The ex-legionaries tell Jessica that the Empress was once Professor Henrietta Lately at the Royal Society, according to the monogram she brought with her, before she decided to set out into the wilderness in pursuit of Empire. They were once bandits, but she tore out their bosses jugular with her teeth and scared them into submission. The party finds an aged, mangy horse, painted white and burdened with poorly gilted riding tack, which they use to carry the potentially valuable antique armor they lifted from the Empress dethroned.

    They follow the river onward and encounter a crumbling, partially submerged keep slumping into the water. After a brief investigation, Goldenloin calls upon the knowledge of Penemue to determine how safe spending the night in the keep would be. Upon doing so, he discovers a scrimshawed skull behind a piece of rubble, which reads as follows:

    My dearest Goldenloin,

    I have considered your proposal and would like to accept, but I’m afraid you must lend me some of your sanity in return.

    –your friend, P.

    Goldenloin accepts the terms (takes d4 Wisdom damage) and sees that the keep is dangerous, but not insurmountably so. Bartholomew III bravely asserts that his fate is not to die in some keep, and plunges onward with the party in tow. They go down a set of steps into a large, empty antechamber, with another flight of stairs leading deeper, which they take. About 10 feet down, a howling, pallid man charges Bartholomew, and they grapple on the ground as the party looks on. Jessica tries to stab the man, but sees multiple pinprick scars on his neck, and realizes he is “the help” of some vampire. As he says this, a soaking wet, muck-covered woman in antique finery emerges from the gloom and welcomes Jessica as an equal (rolled really high reaction rolls this session). She also thanks Jessica for bringing so many snacks. Jessica apologizes and says that the party isn’t ripe yet–like cheese, humans are best eaten aged. The vampire accepts this explanation, crushes the head of her thrall with a spiked heel for his rudeness, and drags him into the dark by a leg. More importantly, she promises to leave the party alone and will let them stay in her empty antechamber.

    They leave the following evening, which allows Jessica to travel about without suffering in the sunlight. While they rest, goes on a jaunt for a meal, and by a great deal of luck comes upon a Dr. Adelphus and his hirsute bodyguard MR CRUSHMORE, surveying land for possible purchase. Jessica Charms Mr. Crushmore, and Dr. Adelphus leaves his enamored bodyguard in disgust.

    The party bypasses any more potentially complicating encounters and arrives at Scavenger’s Weirat sunrise (I said sunset, but that was wrong). It is a small town, consisting of a series of houses perched atop islands, with bridges and weirs crisscrossing in between. A newly constructed palisade surrounds the party of the town on the banks. Ezekiel, the guardsman, reluctantly lets the party in at the feeble sight of Goldenloin crying for food, despite the protests of Mrs. Chamberlain, a hunched and powerfully built woman adorned with a great number of guns.

    ~~TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR THE INCIDENT(?) AT SCAVANGER’S WEIR~~
    RETROSPECT
    I’m honestly a big softy when it comes to player death, and whenever I have strict rules about it, I put them in place really erratically. I’d rather have more generous rules I enforce fairly and consistently.
    Adapted from 5e:
    • 1 or more HP means you’re hale ‘n’ hearty
    • If you HP is between 0 and half your negative Constitution score, rounded up, you are dying. You can roll to recover on each of your turns. Roll a d20. On a 10+, you enjoy 1 success. On a 9-, you suffer 1 failure. After 3 successes, you are back to 1 HP. After 3 failures, you die
    • Vampires don’t bleed out, so when their HP is between 0 and half their negative Constitution score, they are simply unconscious. However, they can’t recover on their own either. If they are fed HP in blood worth half their Con score, they wake up with 1 HP
    • If you have less HP than half your negative Constitution score, you die
    • Enemies have no problem hitting you while you’re down

    There is now a Medic skill. Everyone has a 1 in 6 chance of succeeding, and Specialists can improve it like any other skill. Succeeding a Medic check gives a patient an additional recovery success, while failing one gives them an additional recovery failure.

    I’m also really liking reaction rolls. The party was really lucky this session, and I think I could represent ambivalent or friendly reactions in more interesting ways, but I think having randomly determined hostility makes things better, overall.

    jacinto angels, clerics, LotFP, Pernicious Albion, table

    Advanced Angelology

    RUMORS

    1. The Grigori Fell because they gave knowledge to humanity before the divinely appointed time.
    2. Even the angels do not know why they were banished from Heaven.
    3. The Grigori live in the Sunless Lands because it is closer to Paradise.
    4. The Grigori are actually just demons. They look like that to confuse you.
    5. The Grigori snatch people up and take them to Heaven, in hopes that God will forgive them
    6. If the Grigori catch you, they will whisper spells into your ear until you think like them.
    7. The Grigori see out of the eyes of their Watchers
    8. If you become a Watcher, the Grigori will carry you to Heaven when you die
    9. If you become a Watcher, the Grigori will eat your soul when you die
    10. There are exactly 2401 Grigori in the world.
    11. If you use a Grigori’s weapon, it will hunt you down for stealing it.
    12. The Grigori fight endlessly against the legions of Hell.
    13. Out in the wilderness, there’s a paradise built by angels.
    14. The Grigori are secretly allies with the legions of Hell.
    15. Some Grigori are buried underground, trapped there when they Fell.
    16. The fairies are children of the Grigori
    17. The giants are children of the Grigori
    18. If you swear yourself into their service, some Grigori will tell you their secrets
    19. Grigori can’t be harmed by humans.
    20. The hearts of the Grigori are giant jewels.

    Angel/Grigori
    HD: Variable
    AC: 18/Armor Gematria
    Damage: Angelic Weapon, based on sphere
    MV: 1.5x Unencumbered human (fly and hover)
    Alignment: Lawful, duh

    Angels’ abilities are determine by their Sphere, Domain, and Weapon. They always have goals related to their domain; Angels of Love will try to matchmake while Angels of the Truth will try to bring old crimes to light. They are unsubtle, react with violence when opposed in any way, and have such a poor understanding of human anatomy that they can easily kill someone on accident. The Grigori are not stupid, however, and often work through human proxies.
     
    Armor Gematria: Angels do not take damage that is a multiple of or contains the same digit as their sphere. So an Angel of the Sixth Sphere would suffer no HP loss if their attacker rolled 6, 12, 16, or 18 damage. Angels of the First Sphere only take damage that is a multiple of 13 or 666.

    SPHERE

    1. First Sphere: 21 HD
    2. Second Sphere: 18 HD
    3. Third Sphere: 15 HD
    4. Fourth Sphere: 12 HD
    5. Fifth Sphere: 9 HD
    6. Sixth Sphere: 6 HD
    7. Seventh Sphere: 3 HD
    8. Reroll, has lost its weapon

    DOMAIN

    1. Artifice
      • Can cast Major Creation at will without the material component
      • Can cause any man-made device to cease function
    2. Death
      • Those who see its dreadful countenance must Save vs Poison or be reduced to 0 HP
      • Can Speak With Dead and Animate Dead at will
      • While in line of sight of the angel, when any creature makes a saving throw that would prevent instant death, they roll twice and take the lower result
      • While in line of sight of the angel, all HP recover is as half as effective.
    3. Dreams
      • Immune to sleep spells. 
      • Can physically enter dreams
      • Can cast Sleep and Change Self at will. 
      • Can create a waking dream at will. This functions as casting Phantasmal Supergoria, except that the illusion can consist of any number of objects and creatures with no volume restriction and can target all creatures in line of sight of the angel. Watchers, though insane, generally retain their sense of fair play and will not dream anyone into the bottom of the ocean or the center of the Earth unless they’re really angry.
    4. Fire
      • Immune to heat and flame. 
      • Wrapped in a fiery shroud with a radius equal to its HD in feet that deals damage equal to its HD per Turn/10 minutes and ignites anything flammable. 
      • Can cast Heat Metal, Resist Fire, and Faerie Fire at will.
      • Can snuff flame with a volume equal to 10*HD in cubic feet.
    5. Fury
      • Can cast Howl of the Moon at full potency at any time. 
      • For every 25% of its HP it loses, the angel doubles in size and deals an extra d8 damage with melee attacks.
    6. Life: 
      • The angel can change its shape into that of any non-magical animal
      • Can create a non-magical animal once per day
      • Can speak with animals
      • Can Charm animals with no saving throw.
      • The angel can raise the dead, though there are Consequences.
    7. Love
      • At will, the angel can make any two sentient creatures in line of sight fall in love with each other; both must Save vs Magic or feel as though they had successfully and simultaneously cast Charm Person on each other. If one saves and the other doesn’t, the love is unreciprocated, and if anyone succeeds on their save to resist the angel’s power, they are forever immune to it.
    8. Mathematics: Once per Turn, the Angel can ban a quantity of numbers equal to 8-its sphere.
      • Whenever a dice roll results in a banned number, the check counts as a failure, the damage counts as 0, or the random roll results in nothing.
      • If you are using a grid, no one can move a number of spaces equal to a banned number
      • Groups with a banned number of members cannot approach the angel; if “1”, “2”, and “4” are banned, a party of 5 combatants could only attack the angel as a group of 3 or 5.
      • While in line of sight of the angel, any representations of a banned number are illegible, and no one can say the number’s name.
      • The angel cannot ban the same number two Turns in row.
    9. Moon
      • Can cast Veil, Disguise Self, and Faerie Fire at will
      • Can cast Reverse Gravity once. 1 in 12 chance each Turn/10 minutes of regaining the ability to cast.
    10. Mercy
      • No one under the gaze of the angel can feel pain. Successful sneak attacks and backstabs go unnoticed
      • Anyone who flees in line of sight of the angel moves twice as fast
      • Anyone under 10% of their maximum HP must Save vs Magic or die every Turn while in line of sight of the angel.
    11. Night 
      • Can cast Darkness at will.
      • Can create a 240 ft diameter circle of Night around itself, a creature, an object or a point in space. At the outermost edge of the area of effect, the sun hangs low on the horizon; halfway to the epicenter, strange constellations and a sickly red moon hang in the sky; at the epicenter, it is as dark as a moonless night. It can maintain a number of these zones equal to its Sphere.
    12. Poetry 
      • Can cast Comprehend Languages and Obscure Languages on any creature it sees at will
      • Can banish prosody–while this is in effect, characters in line of sight of the angel can only perform actions that their players describe in metered or rhyming verse
    13. Prophecy
      • Can cast Quest once a day
      • Can cast Vision with no risk of price or failure once a week
      • Once per Turn/10 minutes, the angel can determine whether or not a creature in line of sight would be successful if they 
    14. Storms
      • Can cast Control Weather at will
      • Can cast Magic Missile in the form of lightning as a Magic-user with as many levels as it has HD
    15. Sea: 
      • Can cast Airy Water, Part Water, Strange Waters Water Breathing, and Water Walk at will. 
      • Can also create a number of gallons of water equal to 10*its HD once; it has a 1 in 6 chance of regaining this ability per Turn/10 minutes.
    16. Sorcery 
      • Knows 3 spells of each spell level from the Magic-user list. Can cast each 1/day
    17. Sun
      • Can cast Light at will
      • Can create a 240 ft diameter circle of Day around itself, a creature, an object or a point in space. At the outermost edge of the area of effect, a warm sun hangs in perpetual daybreak; halfway to the epicenter, the sun is orange and the air unseasonably warm; at the epicenter, the sun is an alarming golden-red and everything is unbearably hot, preventing anyone there from naturally recovering HP and requiring them to drink twice as much water. The center slowly changes into a desert. The angel can maintain a number of these zones equal to its Sphere.
    18. Time 
      • Always Hasted
      • Can create a field of distorted time, Slowing everything but itself within 100 ft
      • Can cast Time Stop and Temporal Stasis 1/day each
      • If you ask nice, it can send you through time
    19. Truth 
      • Always knows when someone is lying or not; whenever someone in their presence lies, they take d6*half Angel’s HD (rounded up) damage, Save vs Magic for half.
      • Constant True Seeing effect
    20.  Two domains; roll twice on this table

      WEAPON
      Determine Weapon CharacteristicsSphere and Damage

      1. Angel of the First Sphere: 2d12 damage
      2. Angel of the Second Sphere: 1d20 damage
      3. Angel of the Third Sphere: 1d12 damage
      4. Angel of the Fourth Sphere: 1d10 damage
      5. Angel of the Fifth Sphere: 1d8 damage
      6. Angel of the Sixth Sphere: 1d6 damage
      7. Angel of the Seventh Sphere: 1d4 damage
      8. Roll again; has lost weapon (if you find a weapon, this means the original owner is dead)

      Device

      1. Hierogram, to be embedded in the wielder’s palm
      2. Halo, activated at will 
      3. Scroll, 1 handed
      4. Trumpet, 1 handed
      5. Sword, 1 handed, can be used as a regular melee weapon for 1d12 damage
      6. Crosier, 2 handed
      7. Bow, 2 handed, can fire mundane projectile as longbow at double range
      8. Icon, human sized and very heavy, business end is an outstretched hand
      9. Armor*, piloted
      10. Chariot*, piloted

      Power

      1. 1d6 uses
      2. 2d6 uses
      3. 3d6 uses
      4. 4d6 uses
      5. 5d6 uses
      6. 6d6 uses

      Adorned With

      1. Beautiful Wings
      2. Exquisite Faces
      3. Slender Hands
      4. Watchful Eyes
      5. Singing mouths
      6. Heavenly Verses
      7. Celestial Diagrams

      Wrought from… (roll twice)

      1. Gold
      2. Silver
      3. Platinum
      4. Jet
      5. Ivory
      6. Alabaster
      7. Chalcedony
      8. Marble

      Medium

      1. Silver Flame
      2. Brilliant Arrows
      3. Spears of Lightning
      4. Invisible Force
      5. Shining Spheres
      6. Spirals of Molten Gold
      7. Burning Words
      8. Crystal Feathers
      Trajectory 

      1. Medium plummets from heavens to target (doesn’t work inside, but will ruin the roof)
      2. Medium launches in a straight line from device 
      3. Medium issues in a cone shape from device
      4. Medium erupts from target’s orifices
      5. Medium erupts from ground beneath target (can’t strike high-flying targets)
      6. Medium forms a circle around user, than lashes outward 

      Miraculous Properties

      Each device has a 1 in 6 chance of having one of the following:

      1. Survivors of this weapon’s attack are branded with a sigil that prevents them from lying
      2. This weapon can take on the shape and properties of any melee weapon at the will of its wielder
      3. This weapon can take on the shape and properties of any ranged at the will of its wielder
      4. Wielder can sacrifice this device to bring the recently dead to life, though there are side-effect
      5. Those slayed by this weapon have a 1 in 6 chance of returning as 1 HP cherubs loyal to the wielder
      6. Wielder can use this device to summon any angel whose true name they know
      7. If the wielder defeats or finds the device’s original owner, they can cast a spell relating to the angel’s domain 1/day
      8. Operates on the principles of warfare gematria; when this weapon’s damage roll is a number that is a multiple of the wielder’s level or HD, double the damage

      *Armor and Chariots
      These work as ships in combat. Armor has 5 SP and a 2 in 6 chance of being able to fly; Chariots have 10 SP and always can fly.. 

       
        jacinto classifieds, intro, Pernicious Albion

        A Perfidious Primer

        Queen’s Crossing is a mercantile town perched atop the greatest bridge spanning Albion’s River Dour. It teems with social climbing merchants (much to the revulsion of House Herpetu, Queen’s Crossing’s resident Old Money and the object of an endless parade of nouveau riche marriage proposals) and an equal number of cultists, who traffic with the wayward Spawn of Agorath that dream on the riverbed below.

        You each have a room at the Hateford Home, a boarding house of middling reputation and adequate sanitation located in one of the rougher neighborhoods of Queen’s Crossing. It is run by Madam Eugenia, a truculent widow locally famous for the diameter of her forearms and talent with a hatchet. She often rents rooms to freelancers, vagabonds, and soldiers-of-fortune, and so hopeful clients often leave job postings, which as of yesterday are as follows:

        From High House Herpetou
        A sum of £1,500 for any who apprehend the despicable person or persons responsible for circulating threats against  that most majestic and virtuous of fairies, the Lord of No-pity, who has graced our Lady Herpetu with a visit. Contact Dame Balustrade at Castle Herpetu for details.

        His Grace, the Lord of No-pity

        From the Royal Society
        A team of scholars has disappeared on an expedition to Osric’s Tor. £1,500 for returning them alive; £750 for returning their remains. We will also pay for any antiquities safely recovered from the site. Speak Professor Lately at the Queen’s College for the particulars.

        Osric’s Tor
        by Martin Bodman

        From the Postmaster
        Three of our couriers have failed to return from the village of Scavenger’s Weir. While it is admittedly a wretched little town, the sentimental bleating of those with relatives there has begun to wear on me, and these disappearances are interfering with my office’s function. £1,500 for resolving the situation.

        jacinto classes, is this gonna work, LotFP

        over and over and over

        Inching forward with Albion, but I need to get this out of my head.

        1. I have an incurable fixation with Final Fantasy style summons and Pokemon style monster collection
        2. I like applying existing rules to classes (Starvation rules for vampires, reaction rules for warlocks)
        3. I have been think the anime series Mononoke (not to be confused with the Miyazaki film), a show that involves a great deal of spirit-wrangling
        4. I have been reading 1e Oriental Adventures and the fact that the shugenja and wu jen are barely different from clerics and wizards annoys me. I don’t like it when classes are matters of Find+Replace, and the heavy handedness of their depiction of Asia doesn’t help.
        5. I read Flying Swordsman, and I want more thematically from the Animist than what they’re giving me.
        6. It just occurred to me that the monsters from my unsuccessful Summoner class are just fancy retainers, which Lamentations of the Flame Princess conveniently already has rules for.

        Basically, when you want to hire a retainer, you have to spend a small sum of money to get the word out, the DM decides how many people show up, and then they roll 3d6 twice on this table, with various bonuses and penalties based on how attractive your offer is. The first roll is to see if they accept the job, while the second is to see what their morale is.

        So the goal is to make an animist/shaman/summoner type class that is easy to learn and use as LotFP’s retainer rules, which a group is conceivably already using.

        Spiritualist, a class for Lamentations of the Flame Princess

        from Mononoke

        HP, XP, Attack Bonus, and Saving throws as Cleric

        You traffic with spirits, fairies, ghosts, revenants, grudges, and poltergeists of all sorts. Sometimes you can bind them to your will.

        Spiritualists learn how to summon and bind spirits with rituals. Each ritual conjures a different kind of spirit, and an animist must learn a ritual from a teacher or text in order to perform it. Regardless, each ritual costs 100 sp×HD of the spirit it summons and takes a number of hours equal to the spirit’s HD.

        When you conjure a spirit, roll 3d6 on the both columns of the Summoning table. For both rolls, you should…

        • Add half your level, rounded up
        • Add +1 for ritual component or instrument you expend in the summoning. As you grow in power, spirits demand rarer and more exotic substances and devices; each costs 10% of the total silver pieces you had to acquire to reach your current level. 
        • Add a bonus to to the roll based on Terms you are willing to accept on the spirit’s service. You might give up the ability to command a spirit to fight, for example, or only be able to use the spirit in combat against evil creatures. This is up to the DM’s discretion and the player’s creativity.
        • Subtract the spirit’s HD
        • Subtract the total number of HD of spirits you currently have bound
        SUMMONING TABLE

        If you roll a 10 or lower on the Result column, then the spirit enters this world to do as it pleases, which probably involves attacking you or fleeing to perform mischief elsewhere. If you roll an 11 or higher, it is bound to you and must obey your orders to the letter, though certain types of commands strain the ritual bindings you have placed on it. You can command bound spirits to inhabit objects such as knives, staves, lamps, and rings. No more than 1 spirit can inhabit a given object.

        The second roll determines its Obedience score, which is a measure of the binding ritual’s power and functions similarly to Morale and Loyalty in a mortal retainer. The Referee will keep the Obedience score secret–you don’t get to know what it is.

        Check a spirit’s Obedience when…

        • You command it to violate one of its Taboos or otherwise act against its nature
        • You command it to exercise one of its Talents or otherwise call upon its supernatural abilities
        • You make the spirit feel afraid humiliated, angry, or otherwise upset, either due to a command you have given it or your attitude towards it
        • You fail to bind a spirit during a summoning
        • A spirit bound to you dies.

        To make an Obedience check, roll 2d6. If the result is under the spirit’s Obedience, then the ritual bindings hold and it will do as you say. If the result is higher, the spirit breaks from your control. Simple, easy commands like carrying a moderate amount of equipment, transmitting messages, or cleaning a room do not require Obedience checks.

        Spiritualists can re-perform the rituals of spirits they have already summoned, in hopes of making them more obedient.

        If a spirit is reduced to 0 HP, it returns to the Spirit World until called back again.

        Safely releasing a spirit takes 1 Turn per HD.

        If a spiritualist dies, all spirits bound to them are immediately and simultaneously released.

        by Kawanabe Kyōsai
        Spirits and Rituals

        Spiritualists start with knowledge of two of the following:
        1. Balance Spirit Ritual
        2. Homunculus Ritual
        3. Sylph Ritual
        4. Undine Ritual
        5. Salamander Ritual
        6. Gnome Ritual
        from Mononoke


        Balance Spirit (Scale Tsukumogami)
        HD: ½-10
        HP: 1d8, regardless of HD 
        AC: 12
        Attack: None
        MV: Half as fast as a human (fly and hover)
        Alignment: Lawful

        A spirit that takes the form of a jeweled set of scales, born from a balance used for 100 years. Incapable of both speech and violence, balance spirits can sense the disturbances that evil beings caused in the material and spiritual worlds. 

        • Talent: Lean towards the most powerful Chaotic spiritual presence within 100 ft, no matter how much it has concealed itself.
        • Talent: Spend 1 Round to create a single, perfect copy of itself. The copy has all the same abilities as the original, but the total number of balance spirits cannot exceed twice the original’s HD.

        Homunculus
        HD: 1
        AC: 12
        Attack: d4 (fist)
        MV: as a human
        Alignment: Neutral

        A simple servitor spirit; appears as a child-sized figure of grey clay. Homunculi are good cooks, porters, messengers, and cleaners, but they are adverse to violence and not much use in a fight.

        • Taboo: Fighting or putting itself in danger

        Sylph
        HD: 1
        AC: 12
        Attack: d4 (razor ribbon)
        MV: twice as fast as an unencumbered human (hover and fly)
        Alignment: Neutral

        Diminutive, androgynous, of avian aspect: the least spirits of air. Sylph are distracted, haughty, and obsessed with etiquette; they respond well to courtly mannerisms and are easily fooled by a sudden change in subject. They will fall in love with any prince or princess they see. Sylph hold power over wind and are about as strong as a cat.

        • Talent: 5 in 6 chance of following a scent it already knows over land
        • Talent: Creating brief gusts of wind, which cannot be stronger than the wind necessary to knock over a tent
        • Taboo: Harming a beautiful thing or person in any way; harming an artist

        Undine
        HD: 1
        AC: 12
        Attack: d6 (claws)
        MV: walk as a heavily encumbered human; swim twice as fast as an unencumbered human
        Alignment: Neutral

        Minor spirits of water, possessing a serpentine aspect. Undine are malicious, possessive, and compulsive coquettes. They love gifts, displays of submission, and music. They delight in drowning the rude and stupid. Undine can command the flow of water and are about as strong as a child

        • Talent: Create up to a gallon of water
        • Talent: Flood a victim’s lungs with water (3 in 6 Assassinate/Sneak Attack skill; only works on air-breathing creatures submerged in water) 
        • Taboo: Creating loud or many noises; harming a musician or an instrument

        Gnome
        HD: 1
        AC: 14
        Attack: d6 (club)
        MV: walk as a lightly encumbered human; climb the same speed
        Alignment: Neutral

        A lesser earth spirit of simian aspect. Gnomes are gluttonous, illogical, prone to enigmatic sayings.

        Gnomes have a talent for working earth, and have an effective 18 Strength. They also have a great respect for artifice and engineering of all kinds and do their best not to harm man-made objects.

        • Talent: Dig, mine, quarry, and otherwise move earth twice as fast as a human and without tools
        • Taboo: Damage or put at risk craftsmanship of any sort; includes all man-made objects and devices

        Salamander
        HD: 1
        AC: 12
        Attack: d6 (bite), d8 (flame)
        MV: walk as a unencumbered human; teleport between any two points joined by a contiguous fire
        Alignment: Neutral

        A petty fire spirit of feline aspect. Salamanders can create a sudden burst of flame the size of a small campfire within shortbow range, igniting flammable objects and dealing d8 damage to creatures (Save vs Breath to negate). Preservation, protection, and self-control are foreign to salamanders; commanding one to do anything that is not entertaining or destructive requires an Obedience check.

        Idol of Truth
        HD: 4
        AC: 16
        Attack: d8 (fists)
        MV: As fast as heavily encumbered human
        Alignment: Lawful

        A stony spirit that appears as an animate statue. It effectively has 18 Strength, and though it can speak, it must be ordered to do and and can say nothing but the last honest statement uttered in its presence. Idols love honesty, revelation, knowledge, and obeying the law; ordering an Idol to break the law, destroy books or records, cover up evidence, or perform similarly duplicitous actions will test its Obedience.

        Spirit of Salvation
        HD: 10
        AC: 16
        Attack: d20 (sword)
        MV: As fast as an unencumbered human
        Alignment: Lawful

        A heavenly swordsman of surpassing skill, sent by the gods to purge Earth of evil. The Spirit of Salvation is immune to spells and its attacks bypass all resistances. However, it is bound by immutable celestial laws. The Spirit of Salvation can only be commanded to attack Chaotic spirits, and only after the spiritualist has determined…

        • The evil spirit’s Form, or true shape and name
        • The evil spirit’s Reason, or deepest desire
        • The evil spirit’s Truth, or the circumstances that created it

        These count as Terms, and provide a +3 bonus to the roll to determine the Spirit’s loyalty. Traditionally, spiritualists allow Spirits of Salvation to spend the time between battles inside of a sword.

        jacinto type v

        Stupid Idea Revue: Witchy Horrorshow Academy Redux

        Centuries ago, a forgotten mystic founded the Scholomance, a college built to train fledgling witches and sorcerers, lest solitude and caprice drive them to make mischief out of magic. It flourished over the years, attracting the best and most ambitious magi, but its final headmaster, the Wizard Loshe, trafficked with what mortals ought not and invited a spirit of foul knowledge and dark power into his mind. It subjugated his will, seized his body, and began remaking the school in its own wicked image. His former friends and colleagues fled, taking their students with them, and sealed the Scholomance away behind wards and walls and unaging guardians.

        But the walls have cracked, the wards have weakened, and the guardians grown slack in their duty. Lady Agatha, descendant of the Deputy Headmistress who led the flight from the Scholomance, has returned with students in hopes of lifting the pall of dark magic from the school and banishing whatever feeble remnants of Headmaster Loshe that might remain.

        from Knights in the Nightmare

        Years later, she’s still at it. The process of exploring the castle has become an education in itself, and alums of the Headmistress’ “academy” have developed a reputation for eccentric genius, honed in the bizarre and dangerous halls of the Scholomance. You are a student there, and a resident of the shanty town that has developed just inside the castle’s front gate, beneath the eccentric and careless auspices of Deputy Headmistress Agatha. To refine your craft, pay for lessons, and uncover wealth and powerful objects, you must venture into the Scholomance with your fellow students.

        Character Creation

        Roll 3d6 for Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Record the associated modifier.

        Attribute
        Modifier
        3
        -3
        4-5
        -2
        6-8
        -1
        9-12
        +0
        13-15
        +1
        16-17
        +2
        18
        +3

        Vocation

        from Persona Q

        Athlete 
        d10+Constitution modifier HP 
        Saving Throws: Strength and Constitution
        Every time you level up, you gain a skill point to invest in weapon expertise. You can invest a skill point in expertise for a single type of weapon, and each point gives you a +1 to attack rolls and damage.

        Prodigy
        d6+Constitution modifier HP 
        Saving throws: Charisma and Wisdom
        Every time you level up, you gain an extra skill point to invest in spells.

        Witch Scout
        d8+Constitution modifier HP 
        Saving throws: Dexterity and Wisdom
        Every time you level up, you gain a skill point to invest in one of the following:

        • Bushcraft
        • Climb 
        • First Aid
        • Stealth

        Academic
        d8+Constitution modifier HP
        Saving Throws: Intelligence and Dexterity
        Every time you level up, you gain a skill point to invest in one of the following:

        • Languages  
        • Search 
        • Tinker 
        • Teratology
        Magic 
        from Silent Hill

        You have a wand, which you need to cast spells. You can cast a spell as often as you wish, and the range of a spell is about the same as a shortbow. A spell can replicate the effect of any simple tool, weapon, or mechanical object, such as a torch, grappling hook, bow and arrow, or ladder. You must always describe what the spell looks like.

        You start with a 1 in 6 chance of successfully casting any given spell. If you fail a spell, you must wait 1 round before you can cast a spell again. You can allocate skill points to a spell in order to permanently increase its odds of success. You start with 4 skill points and gain 2 more every time you gain a level. The list of spells is not set; you can invent them, as long as they fit the parameters for magic stated above. 

        Duration spells last a number of exploration Round equal to half your level, rounded up. If a spell faces particularly strong resistance (binding a struggling enemy, lifting a heavy rock), you must succeed an Intelligence check with a bonus equal to your level.

        Equipment

        • Manuals give you a skill point in a particular spell.
        • You can carry a number of significant items equal to your Strength score without being encumbered. 100 bottlecaps count as a significant item.
        • Currency is in dollars and cents. In the barter economy, bottlecaps are worth a cent, cigarettes are worth a dollar, and souls are worth 10 dollars.
        • All characters begin with 1 white button down shirt, 1 pair of black slacks, 1 black robe, 1 wand, and a number of the following, based on your focus.
        Athletes and Prodigies get roll on the following table 6 times.
        Witch Scouts and Academics roll on the following table 9 times.

        1-1-1: Aegis (Shield) Spell Manual
        1-1-2: Levitation (Pulley) Manual
        1-1-3: Bondage (Rope or Chain) Manual
        1-1-4: Attraction (Grappling Hook) Manual
        1-1-5: Impingement (Bow and Arrow) Manual
        1-1-6: Incandescence (Torch) Manual
        1-2-1: Inscription (Marker) Manual
        1-2-2: Quickening (Roller Skates) Manual
        1-2-3: Repulsion (Pole) Manual
        1-2-4: Resonance (Magnet) Manual
        1-2-5: Incision (Blade) Manual
        1-2-6: Ascendance (Lever and Fulcrum) Manual
        1-3-2: Gravitation (Weight) Manual
        1-3-3: Aviation (Parachute) Manual
        1-3-4: Obscuration (Blindfold) Manual
        1-3-5: Ministration (Bandage) Manual
        1-3-6: Reflection (Mirror) Manual
        1-4-1: Equalization (Hammer) Manual
        1-4-1: Entanglement (Net) Manual
        1-4-2: Aeration (Fan) Manual
        1-4-3: Conveyance (Cart) Manual
        1-4-4: Observance (Spyglass) Manual
        1-4-5: Amplification (Megaphone) Manual
        1-4-6: Strangulation (Noose) Manual
        1-5-1: Intonation (Bell) Manual 
        1-5-2: Lubrication (Grease) Manual
        1-5-3: Containment (Bowl) Manual
        1-5-4: Obfuscation (Curtain) Manual
        1-5-5: Hydrurgy (Pump) Manual
        1-5-6: Immurement (Wall) Manual
        1-6-1: Hydration (Water) Manual
        1-6-2: Dissimulation (Mask) Manual
        1-6-3: Adherence (Glue) Manual
        1-6-4: Rotation Manual
        1-6-5: Blockage (Lock) Manual
        1-6-6: Stricture (Needle and Thread) Manual
        2-1-1: Weapon: Pitchfork (d6)
        2-1-2: Weapon: Shepherd’s crook (d4, reach)
        2-1-3: Weapon: Scythe (d8)
        2-1-4: Weapon: Sickle (d6)
        2-1-5: Weapon: Hatchet (d6)
        2-1-6: Weapon: Mallet (d4)
        2-2-1: Weapon: Chef’s knife (d6)
        2-2-2: Weapon: Cleaver (d8)
        2-2-3: Weapon: Straight razor (d6)
        2-2-4: Weapon: Table leg with bent nail (d6)
        2-2-5: Weapon: Broom (sharpened handle) (d6)
        2-2-6: Weapon: Cane (d4)
        2-3-1: Weapon: Fencing foil (d8)
        2-3-2: Weapon: Oar (d6)
        2-3-3: Weapon: Bat (d6)
        2-3-4: Ranged Weapon: Lawn darts, 12 (d4)
        2-3-5: Ranged Weapon: Bow and arrow, 12 (d6)
        2-3-6: Weapon: Anchor (d10)
        2-4-1: Weapon: Decorative sword (d8)
        2-4-2: Weapon: Serving fork (d4)
        2-4-3: Weapon: Brazier (d6)
        2-4-4: Weapon: Curtain rod (d6, reach)
        2-4-5: Weapon: Poker (d6)
        2-4-6: Weapon: Roasting spit (d6)
        2-5-1: Ranged Weapon: Tomahawk (d8)
        2-5-2: Ranged Weapon: Boomerang (d4)
        2-5-3: Ranged Weapon: Blowgun, 12 darts (d4)
        2-5-4: Ranged Weapon: Blunderbuss, (damage depends on ammo used)
        2-5-5: Weapon: katana, d10
        2-5-6: Weapon: Military saber, d10
        2-6-1: Half-used pack of cigarettes
        2-6-2: Pack of Goetia trading cards (10 cards, each worth d20 bottle caps)
        2-6-3: Bottle caps (100)
        2-6-4: Box of snack cakes
        2-6-5: Saucy chapbook
        2-6-6: Hall pass
        3-1-1: Armor: Pot with eyeholes (+1 AC)
        3-1-2: Armor: Mascot head (+1 AC)
        3-1-3: Armor: Rugby helmet (+1 AC)
        3-1-4: Armor: Hockey mask (+1 AC)
        3-1-5: Armor: Antique helm (+1 AC)
        3-1-6: Armor: Large skull (+1 AC)
        3-2-1: Armor: Hammered tin breastplate (+2 AC)
        3-2-2: Armor: Shin guards (+1 AC)
        3-2-3: Armor: Heavy poncho (+1 AC)
        3-2-4: Armor: Shoulder pads (+1 AC)
        3-2-5: Armor: Fencing jacket (+2 AC)
        3-2-6: Armor: Parka (+1 AC)
        3-3-1: Armor: Antique gauntlets (+2 AC)
        3-3-2: Armor: Plywood Shield (+1 AC)
        3-3-3: Armor: Platter Shield (+1 AC)
        3-3-4: Armor: Work gloves (+1 AC)
        3-3-5: Armor: Boxing gloves (+1 AC)
        3-3-6: Armor: Garbage lid shield (+1 AC)
        3-4-1: High heels (+1 Cha saves)
        3-4-2: Red silk robe(+1 Wis saves)
        3-4-3: glasses (+1 Int saves)
        3-4-4: Tuxedo (+1 Cha saves)
        3-4-5: Evening gown (+1 Dex saves)
        3-4-6: Furs (+1 Int saves)
        3-5-1: DIY tattoo kit (+1 Int saves)
        3-5-2: DIY piercing kit (+1 Cha saves)
        3-5-3: Makeup kit (+1 Wisdom saves)
        3-5-4: Pomade (+1 Str saves)
        3-5-5: Hair dye (+1 Cha saves)
        3-5-6: Cat ear headband (+1 Dex saves)
        3-6-1: Weapon: Switchblade (d4) (+1 Dex saves)
        3-6-2: Weapon: Brass knuckles (d4) (+1 Con saves)
        3-6-3: Bag of rocks
        3-6-4: Shiv
        3-6-5: Bicycle chain
        3-6-6: Slingshot
        4-1-1: Cat
        4-1-2: Dog
        4-1-3: Crow
        4-1-4: Serpent
        4-1-5: Bat
        4-1-6: Weasel
        4-2-1: Spyglass
        4-2-2: Magnifying glass
        4-2-3: Rope, 50’
        4-2-4: Bear trap
        4-2-5: Compact mirror
        4-2-6: Rucksack
        4-3-1: Straw hat (+1 Wis saves)
        4-3-2: Heavy cloak (+1 Con saves)
        4-3-3: Umbrella
        4-3-4: Tent
        4-3-5: Sleeping bag
        4-3-6: Box of matches
        4-4-1: Wound kit
        4-4-2: Curse kit
        4-4-3: Vermifuge kit
        4-4-4: Fever kit
        4-4-5: Cough kit
        4-4-6: Venom Kit
        4-5-1: Phylactery (full)
        4-5-2: Phylactery (empty)
        4-5-3: Bottled rest
        4-5-4: Bottled dream
        4-5-5: Silver hoop
        4-5-6: Red paint
        4-6-1: Homunculus
        4-6-2: Dog skeleton
        4-6-3: Chalk
        4-6-4: Vial of blood
        4-6-5: Vial of blessed water
        4-6-6: Sticks of incense (6)
        5-1-1: Pouch of golden lotus powder
        5-1-2: Bottle of laudanum
        5-1-3: Bottle of wine
        5-1-4: Bottle of fine liquor
        5-1-5: Bottle of loathsome liquor
        5-1-6: Bottle of cough syrup
        5-2-1: Keg of gunpowder
        5-2-2: Magnesium flares (3)
        5-2-3: Firecrackers (6)
        5-2-4: box of matches
        5-2-5: flask of kerosene
        5-2-6: Candles (12)
        5-3-1: String of garlic
        5-3-2: Blue glass eye
        5-3-3: jar of salt
        5-3-4: wooden stakes (24)
        5-3-5: Weapon: silver-plated knife
        5-3-6: Silver bell
        5-4-1: Goggles
        5-4-2: Armor: Leather apron
        5-4-3: box of glass eyes
        5-4-4: Box of pins
        5-4-5: Jar of formaldehyde
        5-4-6: Mannequin
        5-5-1: Atlas of the Scholomance
        5-5-2: Location of 1 secret passage
        5-5-3: Demonological treatise
        5-5-4: Botanical treatise
        5-5-5: Bestiary
        5-5-6: Necrology
        5-6-1: Flute
        5-6-2: Violin
        5-6-3: Harp
        5-6-4: Pound of clay
        5-6-5: watercolors
        5-6-6: hammer and chisel
        6-1-1: compass
        6-1-2: pound of lard
        6-1-3: sack of marbles
        6-1-4: Copper wire, 20’
        6-1-5: dark glasses
        6-1-6: camera
        6-2-1: tin of fish
        6-2-2: name of lesser demon
        6-2-3: bicycle
        6-2-4: roller skates
        6-2-5: pot of glue
        6-2-6: bolt cutters
        6-3-1: manacles
        6-3-2: flask of acid
        6-3-3: padlock and key
        6-3-4: notebook and pen
        6-3-5: goldfish in bow
        6-3-6: needle and thread
        6-4-1: bushel of apples
        6-4-2: human skull
        6-4-3: diamond ring
        6-4-4: pearl necklace
        6-4-5: Sublimated Darkness
        6-4-6: Hardened Flame
        6-5-1: Clarified water
        6-5-2: Rare Earth
        6-5-3: Reified Aether
        6-5-4: Immortal Blood
        6-5-5: Chloroplasm
        6-5-6: sack of sandwiches
        6-6-1: Malodorous cheese
        6-6-2: choice cut of meat
        6-6-3: Dead chicken
        6-6-4: itching powder
        6-6-5: stink bomb

        6-6-6: whoopee cushion


        Rules 

        • To make a saving throw, roll d20+relevant attribute modifier. If the saving throw is your class’ specialty, add half your level, rounded up, to the roll. 
        • To gain a level, you have to bribe an older student 10 times your level in dollars for a private lesson. Every time you level up, you gain 1 HP and 2 skill points for spells. Your class may grant you an additional skill point as well. 
        • To regain all of your HP, eat a meal in a place of safety. 
         Monsters and NPCs

        A lot of the monsters are unique and invincible (at first, at least), but not unbeatable–they can be chased off, imprisoned, or wounded for a time. At the Scholomance, rumors are a sort of currency. Adventuring students can learn to detect the approach of monsters by picking up nursery rhymes, gossip, and speculation at the encampment in the Great Hall.

        The Weeping Spiders
        by Odilon Redon
        The Gurning Spiders
        by Odilon Redon
        The Chaplain
        from Persona 4

        The Nurse
        from Persona 4

        The Gardener
        from Soul Sacrifice
        Baphomet
        from Persona

        The Cats of Headmaster Loshe 
        by Max Ernst
        by Max Ernst

        by Max Ernst




        The Headmistress performs a conjuration.
        by Max Ernst
        The Perfectible Children of Birds
        by Max Ernst
        by Max Ernst

        by Max Ernst

        The Lords and Ladies of Easter Sunday
        by Max Ernst


        An Immanent Snake
        by Max Ernst
        Arabesque, Mother of the Hungry Geometries
        by Max Ernst
        A Dysphynx and the object of its Fascination.
        by Max Ernst
        The Man With the Long White Hands
        by Edward Gorey

        Not Pictured: The Man with a Clock for a Face, the Sinful Coterie, the 13 Hours, the Inverse Children, the Scissor Club, the Order of Chess, the Janitors, the Mumblers, the Holy Bats, the Empty Choristers

        jacinto classes, spell

        The House Without Walls

        Since Magic-users can learn any number of spells or any level, the real restriction to casting how many spells they actually find. This is a good opportunity for adventuring. If a Magic-user wants to learn the Slaying Spell, they need to find the long-hidden elves of the Bone House, whereas if they want to know Invoke Elemental, they need to trek over the the Summoner’s College of the Goths.

        The elves of the Branch House live in the Hallows, a forest grown over the ruins of an antediluvian necropolis. They worship their patron and progenitor, He Walks In The Woods, a beast-god associated with poison, wolves, crows, shapeshifting, and hunting. The elves live in encampments scattered across Hallows, each positioned over one of the primary entrances to the catacombs beneath. The Branch House guards the tombs below, ensuring that the restless dead stay inside and the greedy living stay above. They are currently struggling against the rogue Warlock Liebestod, who wants access to the treasure and knowledge locked within the necropolis’ vaults.

        Spells of the Branch House Magi

        It Hunts Again
        Component: A basket woven from the stem of aglaophotis, that rarest and most potent of herbs
        Target: The corpse of an animal, placed inside the basket
        The caster falls to the ground insensate and assumes control of the creature inside the basket. The spell lasts until the caster chooses to end it, and the animal appears healthy and alive for the duration, regardless of the condition of their body. The caster can use this spell in any animal they can fit in the basket, so the larger it is, the greater the range of animals the spell works on.

        This Is The Change (Polymorph)
        Component: A long flint razor, kept in a scabbard of bear’s gut
        The caster slices open their belly with the razor, and their new form shucks itself free.

        The House Without Walls (Teleport)
        Component: A bag of oak leaves, individually consecrated
        The caster and targets vanish in a sudden billow of leaves.

        It Was But Is Not (Baleful Polymorph)
        Component: a life-sized effigy of a human or elf
        The caster traces an X over the eyes, mouth, and heart of the effigy. In this version of the spell, the target does not need to make a System Shock check, and they do not retain their intelligence, personality, or knowledge.


        The Beasts of the Branch House
        I really like the idea of players gaining new character options as they explore, but I also want to keep everything pretty simple. Multiclassing is a good outlet for this–the way multiclassing works in Delving Deeper is perfectly functional, but as it has been amply demonstrated, there are cooler ways to do it.

        An elf of the Branch House can advance as either a Thief and a Fighter or a Magic-user and a Fighter. They can transform at will into an elf-beast, which takes 1 turn. In their elf form, they function as their non-Fighter class, and cannot use the Fighter’s combat matrix or class abilities. In their elf-beast shape, they function as a Fighter only, and cannot cast spells as a Magic-user or use skills as a Thief. Though their saving throws progress as any dual-classed character, elves of the Branch House track maximum HP and damage received separately for each of their classes. They deduct damage from their Thief or Magic-user HP when they are in their elf shape and deduct damage from their Fighter HP when they are in their elf-beast shape. When one form reaches 0 HP, the elf immediately changes into the other, and cannot return to the other shape until they it has at least 1 HP. Restored HP spills over from one form to the other.

        In their beast shape, elves of the Branch House

        • can deal damage with unarmed attacks
        • have a natural AC of 5
        • are treated as having 18 Strength
        • cannot use weapons, shields, or armor of any sort.
        • cannot speak or perform complex tasks

        The Synod finds such foul sorcery gravely disordered and invites all practitioners to submit themselves to an Inquisitorial Officer, so that they may redeem themselves in the eyes of Heaven.

        Art is from Dark Souls 2, Skyrim, and Demon’s Souls, respectively

        jacinto clerics, delving deeper, elves, original dungeons and dragons

        OD&D Gods

        Lawful Clerics draw on the (ostensibly) benevolent power of Heaven. The Synod is an ancient group of such clerics that administers to laypeople, collects tithes, patrols the wilderness, excises heresies from the body politic, and hunts demons. Not all Lawful Clerics belong to the Synod, and the Synod generally respects those who do not, but anyone who acts directly against it finds themselves branded outlaws or blasphemers.

        Though the Synod recognizes only the godhead of Heaven, they acknowledge the existence of an assortment of holy entities. The Synod teaches that they are heavenly spirits, angels, and saints, but heathens and elves claim that they are simply nature spirits, monsters, and powerful magic-users that have bowed to the Synod’s will. Sigrid, for example, is the Saint of Truth to believers and the Lightning Witch to infidels. Lawful Clerics can choose to affiliate with a particular patron:

        • Hvitr, Divine Spirit of Storms
        • Sigrid. Saint of Truth
        • RATHMA, Angel of Dreams
        • Tzepesh, Saint of War

        Chaotic Clerics worship ancient spirits. The Synod call these beings devils and monsters. She Dances Fire, for example, is known as the Flame Demon Gildarthe to the village of Meervold. Since the End, the Synod has with considerable success bound or banished many of the old gods and killed or converted their followers. Nevertheless, cults persist, and the elves and worshipers work endlessly to release their deities.

        • He Walks In The Woods
        • The Night Is Now
        • She Dances Fire
        • Her Children Are Many
        • No Breath In Her Palace
        • The Waves Will Be Here

        All elves are descended from these gods and claim to be minor divinities themselves. Known tribes of elves include:

        • pale blue elves of the Salt House, who breathe water as easily as air
        • red-fleshed elves of the Basalt House, who stand in flame unburned
        • empty-eyed elves of the Bone House, who neither breathe nor dream

        Elf names include

          1. The Sea Is A Lie
          2. Where Nobody Goes
          3. His Black Feather Crown
          4. The Sun Is Not
          5. Stirring In The Hills
          6. The Salt Bites
          7. He Sings Moonlight
          8. It Will Be Still
          9. Her Blood Is Fire
          10. There Never Was
          11. He Sleeps In The Depths
          12. His Hour Is Midnight
              jacinto Uncategorized

              Carnivals

              Who Runs The Show?

              1. Clown Lord Risible, greatest fool of this generation and liege of all mimes
              2. Prodigy John, luminary legerdemainist, master prestidigitator, and “author of 1,000 new forms of lovemaking”
              3. Dame Carmilla, who’s six foot seven and punches her weight
              4. Timothy Tenpenny, the six-armed, legless King of Freaks
              5. Lady Caruthers, entrepreneurial runaway and heir of the Ancient House of Caruthers
              6. Dr. Malleus, renegade medical professional and connoisseur of the taboo

              What’s It Called?

              1. The Grand Circus
              2. The Carnivalé Mysteriosum
              3. The Fabulous Sensorium
              4. The High Spectacle
              5. Cirque du Dieu
              6.  The Most Fantabulous Five Ringed Circus

              What’s Their Secret?

              1. Clowns are deep-cover demihuman spies
              2. All performers are clandestine agents of the Crown
              3. They smuggle rebels, renegades, and undesirables out of the country by disguising them as performers.
              4. All performers are planning a coup to dislodge the reigning monarch
              5. Anyone who starts working here can’t leave until they find someone to take their place
              6. Nothing, but all the performers are really nervous

              What’s the Hook?

              1. All of the circus freaks look completely average, but everyone else is acting otherwise
              2. Locals start disappearing whenever this circus is in town
              3. A circus cart tips over and bodies spill out
              4. The mayor of the nearest town wants these carnie hooligans gone, and he wants them gone now.
              5. Each traveling circus follows its own special route through the country, and once a century converge on a particular small town.
              6. When the circus started setting up, all wildlife fled and all livestock tried to escape. The grass is growing away from their tent.

              Who Are the Performers?

              1. Eliza and Beliza Teliza, twin stage magicians with a talent for sword-swallowing and fire-breathing
              2. Tiborius, who is either a chimera with its goat and snake heads cut off, or a really big lion
              3. Lady Timora, a fortune-teller who can’t tell your future but can cast Fireball
              4. Terror Clown
              5. Father Farfello, faith healer and novice exorcist
              6. Hermel, who plays a sometimes-explosive calliope