jacinto classes, encounters, idyll, is this gonna work, new age dnd, skills

deep dungeon fishing

Thinking about ways characters might acquire goods in a D&D campaign with more altruistic assumptions than your standard mercenary fare . Hunting and logging are good possibilities, but I feel like they are pretty easy to model using existing rules (Find A Certain Monster, Go To A Location And Retrieve Object are time honored D&D tasks). 
Fishing, on the other hand, is a little bit harder to model interestingly. I think there’s a lot of potential in making it tense, especially since it is time consuming, but much of D&D games take place with random monster encounters looming over the player’s heads. Anyways, here’s a stab at it.

FISHING

Anyone can fish. For each turn you spend fishing at a regular spot with standard gear, you have a 1 in 6 chance of hooking a fish. Certain spots and certain baits are better than others and afford better odds of catching something. Fishing spots deep in dungeons tend to have rarer and more valuable fish (multiply the dungeon level by the base value of the fish to determine how much gp it is worth). If you take a fish back to town while it’s still fresh, you can tin it, letting you build up a stock of imperishable rations without needing to special order them.

Once you hook a fish, roll 5 six-sided dice and check to see if they match any of the following categories:
Two of a kind: d12 gp, 1 ration
Three of a kind: d20 gp, 2 rations
Four of a kind: d100 gp, 4 rations
Full House: 2d100 gp, 8 rations
Small Straight: d1000 gp, 10 rations, can be used as an alchemical ingredient
Large Straight: a random consumable magic item
All of a Kind: a Speaking Fish, will grant a Limited Wish if you let it go.
 If you rolled one of the above categories, you can immediately reel in and catch a fish of the corresponding size and quality, or you can reroll in hopes of getting a better result and a correspondingly larger fish. However, 
  • the quality of your fishing pole limits the number of rerolls you get before it breaks, and if your final roll when reaching that limits doesn’t result in a catch, your fishing pole breaks.
  • you can only reel in the highest category you’ve gotten this fishing attempt. If you pass up on a Full House, you can’t reel in a Two of a Kind on your next reroll.
A single fishing attempt takes 1 Turn, no matter how many rerolls you use.
 
FISHING POLES  

Bamboo Stick: 3 rolls
Hickory Rod: 4 rolls
Alchemically Treated: 5 rolls
Almighty Dragon Fishing Rod: 6 rolls
Fisher God’s Favorite Rod: 7 rolls

I am always looking for ways to simplify or replace Vancian magic. It is hard to explain, and while I like it quite a bit, it reflects a very particular kind of fantasy that my games very rarely draw on. For Idyllic D&D, I’d want something more like Dianna Wynne Jones’s magic: friendler, more common, more whimsical, less earth-shaking. Loosely based off of this old class.

WITCH
from final fantasy 14
HP, XP, Saving Throws, and Equipment Restrictions as Magic-user.
You have Witchery dice equal to your level. When you cast a spell, you can roll as many as you like; the more dice you roll, the more powerful the spell.
  • For each die that comes up a 6, remove a Witchery die from your dice pool until you take a long rest.
  • Count each die that comes up 1. If the number of 1s exceeds half your level rounded down, the spell goes wrong or fails to take affect.

Spells
You start with 2 spells of your choice and gain another every even level. You can learn more, but must learn them from (rare) books or (grudging) tutors.

Wonderwork
Complete in an instant any task a barehanded person could complete in a number of Turns equal to the number of Witchery dice rolled. Creatures can make a saving throw to resist if the spell affects them.

Creation 
Create objects worth a total of 10 × number of Witchery dice rolled in gold pieces. If you are Lawful, they vanish at midnight. If you are Chaotic, they vanish at noon.

Pyromancy
Ignite, extinguish, or move a flame that fits within a number of cubic feet equal to Dice. If used offensively, damage dealt equals the sum of Witchery Dice rolled, and targets may save for half damage.
Polymorph
Transform into a 1 HD animal for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.

Pact
Compels a creature with HD equal to or less than Witchery dice rolled to obey the letter of a promise it is making to you.

Darkness
Extinguish all artificial lights in earshot. Cannot be reignited for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.

Anemurgy
Control the direction and intensity of the wind in a mile radius for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.
Windwalk
This spell transforms the caster into a whirlwind and transports them a number of miles equal to Witchery dice rolled before transforming them back. 

Ghost Mail 
Deliver an object light enough you can carry it with one hand to a person or place within a number of Miles equal to number of Witchery dice rolled.

Waterbreathing
The caster and everyone they touch at time of casting can breathe underwater for a number of Turns equal to Witchery dice rolled.
jacinto encounters, idyll, intro, is this gonna work, items, monsters, npcs, table

playing cute

My players tend to be murderhobo-y because that is the game they want to play and that is the game I run for them. However, I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to run a game that is still about digging around in strange places underground, still about fighting monsters and taking their stuff, still about most of the things that makes Dungeons and Dragons what it is, but is centered more around community and building stuff. I’ve been chewing this over since I read Ryuutama, which has a lovely aesthetic and a lot of good ideas, but isn’t something I’d probably want to play. Scrap Princess’s G+ post here had me digging up my old notes and thought on the matter.

Anyway, here are a handful of systems you can graft onto most editions of Dungeons and Dragons to make it a little more Miyazaki and a little less Leiber.

~MAKING FRIENDS~

from riviera: the promised land

Families
All characters get a family name, and 6-7 family names make up the majority of the random table. If a PC shares a family name with an NPC and can explain how they’re related (Oh, your mom is Anabel? She’s my aunt’s favorite cousin), they get a +1 or +2 bonus to their Reaction Roll.

Monsters
Each monster gets a table of Sentiments, things that trigger Morale checks and make them want to talk instead of fight. Each Morale check requires a novel appeal to a monster’s Sentiment–if your display of bravery didn’t win the dragon’s respect, you have to prove your bravery in some other way. Monsters of the same time within an encounter/lair share the same Sentiment, though appeals to a group’s Sentiment is mitigated or temporary unless you successfully appeal to the group’s leader.

Goblins

  1. Their parents have gone missing, and they’re afraid and angry. They make a Morale check when confronted with kindness and authority.
  2. They don’t have any food and they’re half-starved. They make a Morale check when given a gift of food.
  3. Humans desecrated the Goblin Shrine. Make a Morale check when greeted with a sincere apology and display of respect.
  4. Something has been disturbing their sleep. Whispered condolences and a promise to look into the problem trigger a Morale check.
  5. They have a new leader who has driven them to the life of the marauding monster. They make a Morale check when sternly admonished or told to stand up for themselves.
  6. They have been cursed into a frenzy. Make a Morale check when blessed with a prayer to return them to their senses.
from etrian odyssey
from etrian odyssey

~EXPERIENCE~
You gain XP for spending you gold or using goods you retrieve, loot, or steal on your adventures.

  • For every gold piece you invest in your village, you gain 1 experience point. Constructing new buildings, improving existing ones, paying villagers to plow fields all count. You only need to invest value, not actual gold coins; if you retrieve 500 gp worth of lumber on a logging expedition and use it to build a house, you gain 500 XP even though coins never changed hands.
  • For every gold piece you spend on behalf of villagers, you gain 1 experience point. Buying medicine, purchasing gifts, hiring tutors, going on dates, throwing parties and festivals all count. Again, you get XP for value, whether it is in gold coins or goods; hiring a doctor for Auntie provides XP, but if you steal 500 gp worth of feast supplies from the Bandit King and throw a party, you get XP, too. (Credit to +Alex Chalk for this idea)

Buildings 
It costs 1,000 gp to upgrade a building for the first time, and doubles every time thereafter.

General Store

  • Only sells rural area items on the Miscellaneous equipment list from the LotPF handbook. 1 in 6 chance of a given item being in stock, and only 1d4 will be available. Their stock changes every week, since the caravan arrives each Monday and villagers buy and sell goods there. You can put in a special order for 1 item each week and they’ll have it in by the next, but it costs double.
  • Each upgrades improves the chances of stocking a particular item by 1 in 6.

The Inn

  • Staying at the Inn during downtime lets the party reroll their maximum HP.
  • Each upgrade allows a player to reroll one of their character’s hit dice.

The Tavern

  • A night of drinking at the Tavern allows players to attract 1d6-4 potential hirelings. Use the LotFP process to determine interest and loyalty.
  • Each upgrade gives a +1 bonus to the number of potential hirelings.

The Farms

  • As the village prospers more and more, villagers can give more more stuff without needing payment. For each upgrade to the Farms, you can get an additional free use of a service or facility.

Blacksmith

  • The blacksmith only makes weapons and armor on request, and each piece takes a week. Initially, the blacksmith can only forge weapons that deal d6 damage or less and make armor with 14 AC or fewer.
  • Each upgrade allows the blacksmith to forge weapons that deal 1 die step more and make armor with an additional point of AC.

Witch’s Cottage

  • The witch has a 1 in 6 chance of curing a disease, poison, or curse per week of care. Some particularly dangerous poisons, diseases, or curses will also require rare or expensive ingredients.
  • Each upgrade improves the witch’s chance of successully curing a poison or disease or lifting a curse by 1 in 6.

The Wandering Devil Merchant

  • The Devil Merchant has a 1 in 6 chance of being in town each week. He has a 1 in 6 chance of having a scroll of a given magic-user spell, with a penalty equal to the spell’s level. his stock changes out every time he visits town.
  • Each upgrade improves the Devil Merchant’s chance of being in town and having a given scroll by 1 in 6. 

from final fantasy tactics a2


~DOWNTIME~
There is a 1 in 6 chance that a Downtime Events will occur each week. Should probably be d100, but this is just proof of concept. Based off of the Hazard System.

Downtime Events

  1. A random villager becomes very ill, beyond even the curatives of the town witch. Their cure requires an herb found only the peak of a nearby and monster-infested mountain.
  2. The River God has become restless, and the stream that runs through town has been flooding worse and worse. Venture to his shrine in the nearby Caverns to find out what troubles him.
  3. The Lunar Festival approaches and bandits attacked the caravan that was bringing goods for the sacramental feast. Retrieve the ingredients before those slobs eat them all and anger the Moon Goddess.
  4. Harvest is almost here and the goblins know it. See if you can prevent them from attacking so that the village can get its crops harvested and safely stored.
  5. A random villager has gone missing, with evidence that they were taken by the local gang of werewolves. Save them!
  6. The local bandit gang has sent a messenger, hat in hand. Quite a few of them are frighteningly sick, and they wonder if you’d be willing to send help?
jacinto clerics, delving deeper, rituals, san serafín

here in the house of death

a few gods with a focus on the way they interact with people and the way their worshipers perceive them. also, a demihuman race-as-species you should be able to slot in to most nearly any game. i tried to make it play distinctly from human characters without demanding a lot of buy in from players. borrowed some of the d&d language as word game rules in this dungeon of signs post.

Heche Ke Eche
Mama Muerte, The Sheikha of the Dead

The first of the living to die, and the first of the dead to return to the Lands of the living. Pray to Heche Ke Eche to raise the dead, speak with the deceased, or save someone from death’s door. She is cruel, wise, patient, a friend to the dispossessed and an enemy of the arrogant. She likes rum, cash, cigars, and prefers her shrines and temples gaudy and personal.

Worshipers of Heche Ke Eche pray like this: “Oye mama, I have a favor to ask you…” Praying to Heche Ke Eche is like asking your mom for money. Her most devout followers are scrupulously casual and try to never be impressed with anything. If they do not bow and scrape to their own goddess, why should they worry too much about you?
El Grangúl
Papa Fin, the Sheikh of the Dead

Built the wall between the Lands of the Living and the Lands of the Dead. Pray to El Grangúl to exorcise ghosts, keep the dead in their graves, and your ancestors out of your business. He is orderly, condescending, charitable, and an enemy to liars. He likes sacramental wine (you can sometimes get him to bend the laws of nature if he’s drunk enough), golden doubloons, flowers, and prefers his shrines and temples symmetrical and carefully tended.

Worshipers of El Grangúl pray like this: “Permiso, padre, I have something to ask you…” Praying to El Grangúl is like admitting to your dad you did something stupid. His most devout followers keep records of their prayers in black-bound ledgers, so that they always remember what their patron has done for them.

The Gunsaints
Sabata, Sartana, & Django; the Calamity Three; Pistoleros Santos

The three best sharpshooters in the history of Labyrinthium; they killed each other in a three-way standoff and then banded together in a mythical shootout with Death itself. Now they are a tripartite demidivinity with power over Gunmetal, Gunpowder, and Lead. Pray to the Gunsaints to see your bullets fly true, to ruin the weapons of your enemy, and to successfully complete a mission of vengeance. The Gunsaints like bullets, antique guns, and personal mementos, and prefer shrines constructed in moments of desperation.
Worshipers of the Gunsaints pray like this: “I swear by the three I’ll kill this motherfucker dead.” Praying to the Gunsaints makes you feel fierce and sick and angry. Their most devout followers carry three guns, one for each saint, so that they can better understand the act of murder.

Other gods: Hatüey No-saint, Caracaracol, Shams del Sur, Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif, The Queen of Sheba

The Cats of New Barbary
A race for old school Dungeons and Dragons

The Cats of New Barbary are not cats at all, but something like a leopard, something like an Old Barbary macaque, with clever clawed hands and yellow lamplike eyes. They stand three feet tall when crouched on all fours, and can walk on two, though they don’t like to. They aren’t quite as intelligent as humans, and they struggle to speak. The Cats of New Barbary often live in ruins claimed by the jungle, but they can integrate into human society surprisingly well–several regional saints are Cats, and an infamous New Barbary crime boss is one as well.

Cats of New Barbary can be clerics, thieves, or fighters. They cannot be magic-users.

  • The Cats of New Barbary cannot wear armor heavier than leather regardless of class, and it costs twice as much to fit their inhuman frames. They cannot wield weapons, but their unarmed attacks deal d6 damage.
  • They cannot use scrolls or magic items, regardless of class, but there are a few methods for making their claws bypass supernatural immunities.
  • They can climb any surface a human could conceivably scale, and they do not need equipment or a skill check to do it.
  • They can run twice as fast when on all fours, but they can’t carry anything in their hands when doing so.
  • The Cats of New Barbary have a powerful sense of smell, and can track a scent they know as a bloodhound (4 in 6 chance of success).
  • Outside of New Barbary, the Cats do not enjoy the same legal rights as humans, and Cats unaccompanied by humans are frequently kidnapped, bought, sold, murdered, and chased away without repercussion.
  • The Cats of New Barbary can understand language as well as any human, but a Cat can only speak a number of words equal to its Intelligence score. These are chosen at character creation, and can be from any language. All Cats of New Barbary know sign language, which lets them communicate more freely with anyone who knows it, but their capacity for self-expression is limited–they cannot use any word with more than two syllables when communicating this way.
jacinto classes, LotFP, magic, occult, rituals, table

lamentation final fantasy

that stupid tonberry shanked your summoner before she got all the words out, and now whatever it was she was trying to call up is coming out wrong.

from final fantasy tactics a2

How Is Your Summoner Ruining Ivalice? 

  1. RAMUH. He’s gnarled arms and twisted hands, with skin like lightning-blackened bark, braided into concentric rings. They spin like a confused gyroscope around a lone eye, brilliant with the spiteful white flare of a lightning strike.
  2. SHIVA. She’s a storm of pale blue flower petals, each frozen stone-hard and razor-sharp. They ring like crystal when they strike each other, producing a beautiful, piercing tone that hurts the roots of your teeth and makes your nose bleed.
  3. IFRIT. He’s a creeping patch of consumption, a heaving mass of cinder and charcoal that burns without flame or light everything it touches. Sly yellow eyes well up out of IFRIT as he slides forward, quickly boiling away to nothing from the heat of his internal flame.
  4. MADEEN. She is an endless rotting blossom of wings: swan wings, bat wings, insect wings unfurling, growing, and putrescing off of her shoulders. They twitch and flap, but do not allow for flight; she uses them to drag her limp body on the ground, leaving a trail of black ichor behind.
  5. FAMFRIT. He is a silhouette in the distance of a rainstorm, a shadowy figure seen only in the reflection on the lake’s surface, he is slender black hands rising up from the waters, dozens of them, dragging in fishing lines and nets and boats and swimmers, he is a great slick bulk resting at the bottom, where it is too dark to see.
  6. CARBUNCLE. She is a strange and contagious growth, painful cysts filled with crystallized pus, garnet buboes and diamond teratomas that tear at the flesh around them, epidemics of priceless corpses and hospital massacres.
jacinto amateur hour, Carcosa, intro, magic, modern, nephilim, Pop Tartary, pseudomonarchia

yer a wizard, henry

Henry Flagler was most famously a Florida industrialist, but he had other, more esoteric interests, pursued in ritual garb on the manicured lawns of his estate or chased down in a naked frenzy among the swamp and cypress. Henry Flagler was a dedicated occultist, and used a considerable portion of his wealth to establish Black Cypress College, a private institution with a mission to plumb the breadth and depth of the magical sciences.

actually Flagler College

You are a magician, possessed of a wonderful and secret power. As such, you have been accepted to Black Cypress College to further your craft and the advancement of magical knowledge. What you find there might be corrupt, venal, sclerotic, and frequently disturbing, but right now, it’s all you have.

Character Creation

Factors and Factions

Virgo Invictus
Something like the John Birch Society by way of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a far right secret society dedicated to the propagation, destruction, imprisonment, resurrection, or study (possible all of the above) of an ancient spiritual entity known as Virgo, Victor, or sometimes just V.

The Grecians
A mystic order of alcoholics who hold bacchanals in the cypress swamps. They claim to learn magical secrets during the ecstasies from Dionysus Krocodilia, an etymologically suspect and distinctly Floridian aspect of the Greek deity himself. Several Grecians have gone missing lately, perhaps drowned in the swamp, perhaps devoured by their fellows in a fit, perhaps feuding with the local Santeria community.

The Deans
The quasi-immortal administrators of the College. Nearly a century of access to the generous (and free) faculty dining hall  has rendered them immensely fat, alcoholic, hematomatic, wracked with gout, yellowed with jaundice, and nearly identical in their grotesqueness. There are thirteen of them, each ruder than the last, and they hate each other more with every passing year. Rumor has it they have hatched a scheme to restore their youthful vigor

The ██████
Everyone knows that the College has a ██████, which is odd since nobody can bring themselves to talk about him. Or her. Or it, really, since the ██████ gone unseen since the founding of the school, and the door to their office is always and unpickably locked. Students and faculty have looked into the College’s reclusive ██████ over the years, and it has always ended in tears, murder, or mysterious disappearances resolved by sudden showers of gore during Commencement.

Golconda, by Renee Magritte
jacinto classes, i am sick, is this gonna work, new age dnd, ranger, type v

ranger danger

OK, so everyone likes to complain about beastmaster Rangers in fifth edition D&D because they’re not very optimized. Which is fine, but I also don’t like them because their a little boring. This is an archetype about making animal friends. So less of the worrying about action economy and more of the giant wolf mothers. This is based heavily off of the spell planar ally.

from princess mononoke
Geomancer, Ranger Archetype

Geomancy
Starting at level 3, you can perform a 10 minute ritual to summon a little god of the wild. It appears witin 5 feet of you as a beast of your choice, though little gods with a CR greater than ½ your level will not bother to appear. Little gods can speak Common and Sylvan.

When the creature appears, it is under no compulsion to behave in any particular way. You can ask the creature to perform a service in exchange for payment, but it isn’t obliged to do so. The requested task could range from simple (fly us across the chasm, or help us fight a battle) to complex (spy on our enemies, or protect us during our foray into the dungeon). You must be able to communicate with the creature to bargain for its services.

Payment can take a variety of forms. A little god might require you to construct or repair its shrine, kill a rival, or perform a ritual. Some little gods might exchange their service for a quest undertaken by you. As a rule of thumb, a task that takes minutes requires 50 gp/minute, a task that takes hours requires 500 gp/hour, and a task that takes days requires 5,000 gp/day. These payments can change based on the circumstances and nature of the little god; if a task is aligned to the little god’s ethos, the payment might be halved or even waived. Easy or nonhazardous tasks might cost less, while dangerous ones might cost more. Little gods don’t accept tasks that seem suicidal.

You can also expend spell slots to gift little gods with a measure of immanence; generally, the little god will perform a task that takes a number of minutes equal to or less than the sum of the levels of the expended spell slots.

After the little god completes the task, or when the agreed-upon duration of service expires, the creature dissipates back into the wild after reporting back to you, if appropriate to the task and if possible. If you are unable to agree on a price for the little god’s service, it dissipates immediately.

A little god enlisted to join your group counts as a member of it, receiving a full share of experience points awarded.

Once you have performed this ritual, you cannot perform it again until the little god completes its task or dies.

from legend of zelda: ocarina of time

Wild Treaty
At level 7, you can establish a particularly friendly relationship with a certain clan of little gods. Pick a beast you can summon as a little god (such as a raven, brown bear, giant spider, etc.) You can speak to that type of creature as the speak with beasts spell, and all such creatures will be neutral, if not friendly, to you and your allies as long as you do not attack, they are not magically compelled, and you do not actively work against their interests.

Every time you gain a level, you can change your chosen type of beast for another.

Greater Gods
At level 11, pick an elemental, dragon, or fey creature with a CR equal to or less than ½ your level. You can use your Geomancy ability to summon little gods that take the form of that creature. If you meet an elemental, dragon, or fey creature with a CR equal to or less than ½ your level and receive explicit permission from it, you can summon little gods that take the form of that creature, too. Generally, you must perform a favor or pay a price before it will give such permission.

from princess mononoke

Demand Favor
Starting at level 17, you can compel a little god summoned with your Geomancy ability to perform a favor for you that lasts no longer than 1 minute. You must take a short rest before you can use this ability again.

jacinto fairy, intro, is this gonna work, magic, occult, Pernicious Albion, spell, type v

MAGICIANS: THE MAGICKING: THE RPG

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a very good novel that you should read. I have been wanting to run a game based on it (Austen pastiche in moody Napoleonic-era Britain; wicked fairies, whimsical magicians, intrigue, kidnapping, murder) for quite some time; my setting Pernicious Albion is me turning it into a D&D game. I have been wanting to run something more true to form, but it’s a bit tough. Magicians operate in quite a different scale than most people; one of my favorite parts of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a footnote where the author tells us Spain considered demanding reparations for one of the main characters after he rearranged a fair chunk of its geography.

Ars Magica and Fate are obvious solutions, but I’m not too hot on actually running them. This is a bullshit hack, but its starts to get at the feel I’m going for.

Character Creation
Make a 5th edition character. Pick human as the race, and do not pick a class. You are all Magicians.

Magicians start with 10d6 Magic dice. This represents the strength of their sorcery. They can temporarily lose Magic dice through exertion, but they can never have more than their maximum.

Magicians do not have a set list of spells. Each time they cast one, they determine what it does by assigning dice to its Duration, Range, Area Of Effect, and Intensity. Each category must have at least one dice, and can have up to 5. The total number of dice assigned to a spell cannot exceed a magician’s current Magic dice.

Once a magician has determined a spell’s effects, they roll all of the assigned dice.

  • When a dice comes up 6, the magician removes it from their pool of Magic dice until they take a long rest.
  • If a number of dice greater than a magician’s level come up 1, the spell is a botch. Something happens, and it is related to the spell’s effect, but only incidental to what the magician wanted to happen.

Casting a spell does not expend Magic dice unless they come up a 6. Unless the spell is a botch, the spell always works, even if the magician loses or runs out of dice.

The following charts state how many dice a magician must assign to a given category in order to achieve a given effect. All spells use the same Duration, Range, and Area Of Effect Tables, but no two spells use the same Intensity table.

Most of the tables are self explanatory. Area Of Effect details the size of the area effected around the actual spell. Intensity (each Intensity table is listed with each spell) details the greatest creature, object, or concept that can be affected by the spell. If a magician has an Area Of Effect that encompasses an entire city but an Intensity of “a torchfire” when casting the spell It Burns, they could put out every candle in town. If Intensity ever seems to encroach on Area of Effect, just use whichever the magician has placed more dice in.

DURATION

1d6 A moment
2d6 A day
3d6 A week
4d6 A month
5d6 A year and a day

RANGE

1d6 an arm’s span
2d6 a stone’s throw
3d6 shouting distance
4d6 within sight
5d6 out beyond the horizon

AREA OF EFFECT.

1d6 all within an arm’s span
2d6 all within the range of a thrown stone
3d6 all within shouting distance
4d6 all within sight
5d6 all to out beyond the horizon

Spells
There are, of course, far more spells than this. Magicians start with 3.

Utterance of Black Feathers
Allows a magician to perform feats of manipulation, transformation, summoning, and destruction pertaining to crows.
INTENSITY

1d6 one crow
2d6 thirteen crows
3d6 a murder of crows
4d6 crows to cover a field
5d6 crows to blacken the sky

Breath of the Holy Earth
Allows a magician to call forth, direct, and banish wind. (+Alex Chalk gets credit for this one)
INTENSITY

1d6 a draft
2d6 a breeze
3d6 a gust
4d6 a gale
5d6 a whirlwind

It Burns
Allows a magician to enkindle, throw, extinguish, shape, and otherwise manipulate flame.
INTENSITY

1d6 a torchfire
2d6 a campfire
3d6 a bonfire
4d6 a funeral pyre
5d6 a housefire

Fingers of Night
Allows a magician to create, shape, and banish darkness

INTENSITY

1d6 a shadow like that of a passing cloud
2d6 the gloom of a thick forest
3d6 night, just as the last of the sun is leaving the sky
4d6 a moonless night
5d6 a darkness heavy enough to be felt

Greatest Folly
Allows a magician to ignite, strengthen, diminish, and twist feelings of affection.

INTENSITY

1d6 Delight
2d6 Friendship
3d6 Infatuation
4d6 Craven Obsession
5d6 Love

Really should put up a setting sketch, but I’m tired and don’t feel very good so eh. Tomorrow maybe. Here’s some pictures of magicians.

the Lackaday Twins (not actual title, by John Singer Sargent)

John Pharoah, Ursurper to the Northern Throne (not actual title, from El Shaddai)

Lord Umberlin of  the Bells (not actual title, from etrian odyssey)
Claude the Gaul, wanted in 10 counties for violating the course of history (from Persona 5, not actual title)
jacinto dark souls, delving deeper, san serafín, wonders and wickedness

contrarian alignment and extra spell schools

New schools for Brendan’s spells without levels. (Spell duration is caster’s level by default.) It’s more Dark Souls-inspired stuff.

I’ve been wanting to play around a little bit with subclasses and Spells Without Levels (or Wonders and Wickedness, the quite good book complication). Gating certain spell schools behind alignment seems like a good and simple start, but requiring a sorcerer to learn from an NPC is another good option.

This post largely assumes you’re using Original Dungeons and Dragons or Delving Deeper, but it shouldn’t be too hard to adapt to another ruleset.

Contrarian Alignment
Lawful is primordial darkness, an awful and immaculate stillness, the deceased Titan-esque old order of gods, the undead. It is the nature of Dark and Law to be changeless, unending, antithetical to mortals.

Chaos is light and day, the fire of the Sun but also Hell. The new order of gods, as well as demons, are Chaotic; It is the nature of Chaos and Light to be vital, changing, but also temporal. Chaotic creatures might be extremely long lived, but none of them are immortal.

Hexes
A strange and profane school of magic draw from the primordial dark that covered the Earth before time began. Only Lawful sorcerers can learn and cast hexes.

by inoue takehiko
  1. Anaesthesia: one creature must save or lose the use of one of its senses (touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing), chosen by the sorcerer, for the duration of the spell.
  2. Darkness: the sorcerer screams, and all ordinary sources of light (torches, bonfires, lamps, lightbulbs) in earshot immediately extinguish and cannot be relit for the duration of the spell.
  3. Become Hexbeast: a sorcerer twists into a vaguely anthropomorphic and ivory-masked version of one of the following creatures, their face concealed behind an ivory mask. A sorcerer rolls randomly the first time they cast this spell, but afterwards turn into the same hexbeast every time. There is a way to make this spell permanent, at terrible cost. Sorcerers can still cast spells while a hexbeast, and retain their HP and HD.
    1. Ape
    2. Crocodile
    3. Giant Bat
    4. Giant Spider
    5. Wolf
    6. Young Roc
  4. Howl: the sorcerer howls, and all living creatures in earshot must make a Morale check
  5. Summon Phantom: the sorcerer calls forth the ghost of a dead humanoid. This hex requires that the sorcerer know the phantom’s name or have one of their dear possessions. The phantom has the same abilities and attributes as they did in life. If the sorcerer has more HD than the phantom, it will serve them loyally for the hex’s duration; otherwise, it must be convinced to take a particular course of action.
  6. Elegy: causes an immortal or inhuman being (such as an elf, djinni, vampire, or demon) to save or become mortal for the duration of the hex. They lose all intrinsic supernatural abilities and weaknesses (including damage immunity) and gain all of the advantages and disadvantages of being human.
  7. Excruciate: this hex takes a full round to cast; if the sorcerer takes damage while casting, the spell fails. Upon completion of this hex, all creatures within the sorcerer’s line of sight take damage equal to the sorcerer’s level in dice.
  8. Ruin: breaks a non-magical and inanimate object that can fit inside a number of cubic feet equal to the sorcerer’s level, such as door, sword, statue, piece of armor, or chain link. The nature of the break is up to the sorcerer; the object can fracture, break cleanly as if sliced, or collapse into dust.

Hieromancy
A school of magic taught in temples and churches that calls upon the refulgent power of Heaven.. Only Chaotic sorcerers can learn and cast hieromantic spells.

  1. Command: a number of HD of creatures obey a one word command shouted by the sorcerer. Can be cast upon a single creature with more HD than the sorcerer, but it is entitled to a save.
  2. Taboo: a number of HD of creatures are incapable of performing a one word ban shouted by the sorcerer. Can be cast upon a single creature with more HD than the sorcerer, but it is entitled to a save.
  3. Light: the sorcerer conjures a golden light that illuminates as a torch. It can be directed to float above the palm, head, or weapon of a willing creature. 
  4. Second Chance: rerolls the HD of a single creature. Unwilling targets may make a saving throw to resist.
  5. Creation: conjures an item with a value equal to or less than 100×caster’s level, which lasts for the duration of this spell.
  6. Panacea: cures a creature of a poison or disease afflicting them. If the poison or disease is magical, they must succeed a saving throw to recover.
  7.  Prophecy: determines if a particular course of action will lead to Weal, Woe, or Neither within a number of turns equal to the sorcerer’s level.
  8. Banish: all creatures of sorcererous, demonic, dark, or generally unholy nature must make a Morale check. If they do not have a Morale check generally, it is equal to 6+half their level.

Pyromancy
Only pyromancers can use pyromancy. Pyromancers have a number of Fire dice equal to half their level, rounded up. This represents the size of their internal Fire.

Each time a pyromancer casts a pyromantic spell, they roll a number of Fire dice corresponding with the size of the flame they are creating or manipulating (e.g. if you are conjuring a torchflame in your hand, roll 1d6. If you are hurling a bonfire-sized flame at a monster, roll 3d6). If any of the dice come up 6, the pyromancer removes them from their pool of Fire dice, and note that their internal Fire has shrunk by a corresponding amount. If their are using fire as a weapon, they also use this roll to determine damage. Enemies may Save vs Breath for half damage.

Level 1: (1d6) torchflame: can fit in the palm of their hand.
Level 3: (2d6) campfire: can fit in a bucket
Level 5: (3d6) bonfire: can fit in the bed of a pickup truck, requires two hands to hold
Level 7: (4d6) pyre: can fit in a bedroom, requires two hands to hold
Level 9: (5d6) conflagration: can fit in a barn, requires two hands to hold

Pyromancers recover all of their Fire dice by resting in a warm, safe place. They can never have more Fire dice than the limit indicated by their level.

Pyromancers can learn the following spells.

1. Bolt: hurl a flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire.
2. Extinguish: Put out a flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire.
3. Enkindle: make a flame grow up to the size of your internal Fire.
4. Remand: cause a flame up to the size of your internal Fire to unburn something it has consumed.
5. Conflagration: conjure a burst of flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire
6. Ancient Flame: cast upon ashes to determine what they were before they were burnt. The size of your internal Fire determines how old the ashes can be:

(1d6) torchflame: a week
(2d6) campfire: a year
(3d6) bonfire: a decade
(4d6) pyre: a century
(5d6) conflagration: an epoch or more

7. Transference: move a flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire
8. Black Flame: cause a flame equal to or smaller than your internal Fire to stop shedding heat or light. 

jacinto amateur hour, delving deeper, dungeon, san serafín

mischief afoot


There is a city where nobody goes,
a city of sepulchers, a city by the sea.
It is ruled by a Sleeping King, bound deep inside the earth. 
He dreams of a great dark kingdom, 
he dreams the dead to life, 
he dreams his people into monsters 
and the day into endless night. 
You have awoken on a beach of black sand. 
The sun sits too red and too heavy on the western horizon, and the waters are cold and dark.
You are in the city where nobody goes, 
you are in the Dream of the Sleeping King.
This place will not abide you, but how will you get out?

LABYRINTHIUM: SAN SERAFIN
The First Stratum
 (an old-school dark fantasy role-playing game setting featuring masked devils, mummified saints, jaguar witches, sybaritic assassin-surgeons, a looming apocalypse, Borgesian horror, and procedures for generating the seven levels of the worst city on earth.)
San Serafín is a procedural urban point-crawl set in a Latin American necropolis, and includes 
  • several Original Dungeons and Dragons-friendly classes, such as animist-priest Mediums and crudely powerful Pyromancers
  • a setting-specific equipment list that assumes newly created characters start out marooned on a desert island
  • rules for salvaging and scavenging with little hope of finding civilization
  • a large cast of eccentric NPCs and unsettling monsters
  • other stuff



Here’s a sample spread:

jacinto classes, delving deeper, LotFP, san serafín

pyromancer class

A simple shooty-blasty magic class suitable for old school games. Intended to approximate Dark Souls pyromancy without getting too caught up in the specific mechanics of it.

Pyromancer
HP, XP, Saving Throws, and Combat Abilities as a Cleric.

from dark souls

Also called Fire Witches, Children of Chaos

Every pyromancer has a piece of Fire in them. Not fire, but primordial Fire, the bright, smokeless flame from which the djinn were made, a spark of the flame that ignited the Sun.

Pyromancers are invulnerable to ordinary fire and receive a +2 bonus to saving throws versus magical fire and dragon breath. When they do take fire damage, they subtract 1 from each die of damage. they take.

Pyromancers have a number of Fire dice equal to half their level, rounded up. This represents the size of their internal Fire.

Level 1: (1d6) torchflame: can fit in the palm of their hand.
Level 3: (2d6) campfire: can fit in a bucket
Level 5: (3d6) bonfire: can fit in the bed of a pickup truck, requires two hands to hold
Level 7: (4d6) pyre: can fit in a bedroom, requires two hands to hold
Level 9: (5d6) conflagration: can fit in a barn, requires two hands to hold

Pyromancer can use pyromancy to do the following within 40 ft/sling range:

  • conjure a flame the size of their Fire or smaller in the palm of their hand for 1 Turn.
  • hurl a flame the size of their Fire or smaller.
  • extinguish a flame the size of their Fire or smaller.
  • move an existing flame the size of their Fire or smaller to any other spot in range

When a pyromancer uses pyromancy, they roll a number of Fire dice corresponding with the size of the flame they are creating or manipulating (e.g. if you are conjuring a torchflame in your hand, roll 1d6. If you are hurling a bonfire-sized flame at a monster, roll 3d6). If any of the dice come up 6, the pyromancer removes them from their pool of Fire dice, and note that their internal Fire has shrunk by a corresponding amount. If their are using fire as a weapon, they also use this roll to determine damage. Enemies may Save vs Breath for half damage.

A pyromancer can recover 1 Fire die by drinking a flask of oil. Pyromancers recover all of their Fire dice by resting in a warm, safe place. They can never have more Fire dice than the limit indicated by their level.

But What About Fireball?
Magic as practiced by wizards is fundamentally antithetical to fire. Spells like Fireball, Wall of Fire, and so on produces actinic wer-light that burns without heat and smells like burning metal. There is a piece of forbidden war magic known as False Sun that can create true fire, but only the most unsavory of sorcerers speak of it, and even then quietly.