In the interest of not spending three years on a project without ever mentioning it a single time until several months after it’s out, I am going to talk about one of my current projects
A turn-of-the-century urban fantasy game about a post-revolution anarchobureacracy pulled tight between a violent return to reactionary form and something better (?). Involves evil industrialists, dueling postal services, a society of rogue chefs who worship the absent God of Liberation, and ghost-eating ravens.
It’s a bit messy and somewhat incomplete, but playable by the determined
Players are supernatural outcasts / troubleshooters who pingpong among the many eccentric factions of the city
The book includes several character types (foxes, ravens, ogres, witches, and sages), a rundown of the city’s main locations, and a bunch of factions with example NPCs and the ventures they send you on, plus some worldbuilding details and a couple encounters I’m trying to build up into a larger table.
Rules are 24XX
Heavily inspired by Eccentric Family, The Night is Short Walk On Girl, and indirectly by Mage the Awakening, the Crying of Lot 49 and Malcom Harris’ Palo Alto (especially the bits about 19th century financiers and industrialists).
Big new book by me and my buddy Jackson about a big horrible haunted swamp available here. It actually since November but I realized I never talked about it on here.
The sendup is as follows…
A century ago, the Black Heron College performed an experiment into the nature of Death and caused a great disaster. The site of this catastrophe came to be known as The Saint John Forbidden Territory.
A hundred by hundred yawning miles of sawgrass, palmetto hammock, winding river, and overrun industry—all reclaimed by the Dead. In the territory, the land forgets itself, geography flexing and twisting like a straining muscle, the progression of days stuttering and jumping like a broken zoetrope.
You are a freelance exorcist, compelled or driven to enter the Territory. You wield the remnants of Death’s instruments: arts and tools left over from Her now-unfinished work. It is your duty to carry on against the growing disaster. The depths spread, and the Dead stand against you.
Put them back in their graves.
It has art by The Scrap Princess and a bunch of scary photographs Jackson and his wife took out in some wetlands and some cool public domain art. It’s pay what you want, also.
We have a print edition in the works. Print production is not my favorite thing in the world so it’s going slow but here’s pictures of the proofs.
please excuse my nasty tableThrone of Limbs illustration by Scrap
Old Work
Ram said some people were looking for some of my old pdfs. I’m going to relink them here and fix their original posts, because there’s some kind of funky permissions problem with them. These were all quite early efforts, and I would do them quite differently now, but here they are.
I have been thinking about two wildly different shows: Mrs. Davis (a stage magician hunting nun / mystic from Reno, Nevada) and Scavengers Reign (space colonists get marooned on a planet with a mysterious and infinitely complex ecology).
What they have in common is a strong sense that something strange is going on deep behind the scenes. This often manifests as a snowballing series of semirelated or ambiguously related encounters. Sister Simone in Mrs. Davis keeps on running to a number of feuding secret societies and their agents who have an intense but unknown interest in her and each other. When you have a run in with the superintelligent AI app, the weird German treasure hunters take notice, which leads to an encounter with yet another faction when they intervene in ways I don’t want to spoil.
Similarly, the survivors in Scavengers Reign stumble across a creature that’s hunting or being hunting, which then kicks off a long series of encounters as predators and prey get involved and entangle/endanger the survivors further.
I’ve modeled how this could work in games in a short encounter table. Basically, you have encounters as normal, but certain reaction roll results either guarantee a certain encounter the next turn or guarantee that the next rolled encounter will be with a certain creature. If you run into a stressed out and Unfriendly prey animal, it means there’s a predator nearby. This means you can have normal encounters, but some make you fall forward into another encounter that demonstrates the relationships between creatures. There’s a little extra bookkeeping, but you just have to make note of what happens next turn and what replaces the next encounter, which isn’t too complex.
1d4 Indigo Steppe Encounter Table
2d100 Carrot Snails
3d6 Humpbacked Oryxes
1 Langouste Leopard
2d4 Big Scarlet Crawler
Carrot Snail
Roll
Result
2
Highly stressed by a nearby predator; will vent harmless but foul-smelling oil out of their eyespots on anyone who enters melee range. Next turn is a guaranteed encounter of humpbacked oryxes in addition to rolled results. Next rolled encounter is replaced with langouste leopards, attracted by the scent of snail oil that humpbacked oryxes are often drenched in.
3-5
Being hunted. Next rolled encounter result is replaced with humpbacked oryxes that are on the snails’ trail
6-9
Photosynthesizing, unbothered.
10-11
Senescent. These snails are at the end of their lifespan and full of seed-larva. They offer themselves up to likely predators in hope they will be eaten, thus spreading their larva (which gestate as they pass harmlessly through the eater’s digestive tract).
12
Will warble and approach with adorable little hops. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyespots will erupt into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.
3d6 Humpbacked Oryx
Roll
Result
2
Moving quickly because a langouste leopard is in the area. Next encounter is replaced with a langouste leopard.
3-5
Protecting their young. 2d6 oryx calves are hidden nearby; the adult oryxes will go berserk if they are approached.
6-9
Grazing. Next rolled encounter is replaced with big scarlet crawlers that want to scavenge their shit.
10-11
Hungry, scavenging. Will nose through pockets and bags looking for food and positively remember anyone who gives them something.
12
Will amble up amicably. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyes will explode into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.
1 Langouste Leopard
Roll
Result
2
Starved, sick. Can’t fail morale checks.
3-5
Hunting. Will attack but retreat if faced with any real violence. Until killed or fully chased off, it will secretly accompany every subsequent encounter, waiting for a chance to ambush.
6-9
Hunting something else.
10-11
Just ate; curious. Will accept bribes and is less likely to hunt anyone who bribes it with snacks.
12
Will act like a big cute cat. It is infected with megaplasmodia; after frolicking for a little while, it will turn to leave just as its tail explodes into a giant plume of bacteria-bearing aerosol. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.
2d4 Big Scarlet Crawlers
Roll
Result
2
Confused. They are infected with megaplasmodia and will detonate into a sticky spume of bacteria-bearing purple ichor as soon as they ram into an uninfected creature. Take 3d6 damage, Save vs Breath for half; Save vs Poison or get infected with megaplasmodia.
3-5
Performing a mating ritual. Will attack only if approached.
6-9
Busily sifting through piles of oryx dung.
10-11
By chance unthreatened by the PCs; if offered food, they will trail behind by them until the next time the party rests, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.
12
Will trail the PCs, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.
Uses
This is probably best for relatively small encounter tables in places that PCs will be spending a lot of time in; if they’re just passing through or there are a lot of different kinds of encounters, I think it could end up as just a bunch of weird stuff happening. PCs have to linger long enough to understand how different behaviors are associated with different outcomes for the interesting part of this mechanic to really kick in.
This example uses animals to model an ecology, but you could model some fun Mrs. Davis / Crying of Lot 49 shenanigans where Neorosicrucians are always encountered on teal Vespas and when they’re Neutral it’s because they’re too busy fleeing from Retrotheosophists to try to throw fake blood on you, and everyone is getting chased around by the local SETI chapter, which is trying to whisk people away in their ice cream truck without getting nabbed by the IRS.
You could also do fun stuff like having certain creatures that aren’t on the encounter table at all and only show up as consequence to a prior encounter. This could be good for rare, especially dangerous predators or especially mysterious NPCs.
Break!! is coming out soon. The draft pdf is very good and I want to run it. Put together a little setting sketch/player brief that remixes the default setting a little. I wanted to do something that made a West Marches-esque game that enables easy drop-in / drop-out but also longer arcs, so I busted the four primary zones in Break up into Spelljammer-esque planes and put a simple pathcrawl on top of them. Players can pick from a list of jobs and missions designed to be finished in 1-2 sessions.
Intro
The Cosmos is broken up into innumerable worlds, all but inaccessible to each other. However, the brave and knowledgeable may voyage between them on the interdimensional Sea of Erebus. It is a vast and jewel-black abyss with a sparse scattering of Stations that permit entry into their respective worlds.
You are the crew of an ancient celestial craft able to traverse the perilous waters of Erebus: a legendary heavenliner. It looks something like an old-fashioned passenger ship and something like an Art Deco cathedral. It is your perilous and lucrative job to ferry passengers and carry cargo from world to world.
Starlines
Starlines are currents of aether that link the Station of every world in Erebus. They are visible as golden threads, just beneath the surface of Erebus’ waters. The starline that links the four Known Worlds is called the Crescent Line. The Halfmoon Line once linked the two farthest worlds, the Blazing Garden and the Wistful Dark, and allowed access to the Worlds Beyond, but it has long since been lost.
Worlds and their Stations
There are four Known Worlds: the Blazing Garden, the Buried Kingdom, the Twilight Meridian, and the Wistful Dark (i.e. the four primary zones in Break!!). They were once one world, but some long-passed cataclysm wrenched them apart and scattered them across Erebus.
Each world has a Station on the Crescent Line. They are enormous, beautiful buildings, constructed lovingly by an unknown hand, and each contains a gateway to their respective world.
Wistful Dark’s Station Lamentorum: An elegant neo-Gothic confection illuminated by indigo lamps and crowned by a clocktower. The worldside Station is a vine-swathed ruin in the Shadowed Lands, meaning that importing goods into and out of the Wistful Dark requires a lengthy caravan journey. A bustling caravanserai has cropped up around the worldside Station, but it faces the bandits and undead that make their home in the Shadowed Lands. Rumor has it that the Erebus-side Station contains a hidden sub-basement where the Unshaped hid some fabulous artifact.
Twilight Meridian’s Station Nubium: An immense pavilion built from fragrant wood of an unknown tree, illuminated with heatless braziers that burn rosy pink and pale purple. The worldside Station is a well-tended, albeit much smaller twin located not far outside the capital of the Seven Holy Isles, guarded (and taxed) by the Shogun’s court. Rumor has it that somewhere in the Pavilion’s mazelike chambers lies a coffin containing an ingenious shipwright imprisoned eternally for defying the gods before their banishment.
Buried Kingdom’s Station Ingenii: A Cyclopean edifice blanketed with moss and lichen, illuminated poorly with fireflies and luminescent fungus. The worldside Station is a totally unmanaged grotto, and all manner of precious goods, illicit or otherwise, spill in and out of the bazaar that has sprung up in its vicinity. Rumor has it that Station Ingenii’s depths contain some hint of the fate of the long-lost giants.
Blazing Garden’s Station Crisium: A palatial monument of red sandstone and embellishments in gold and branching red coral. Its worldside Station is part of an extensive dragonshrine complex in Taaga, which mediates between heavenliner crews and the worldside community of merchants doing brisk business. Rumor has it that the gardens that line the Erebus-side Station bloom with mythological herbs and flowers once every hundred years.
Image by NASA. Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Demimondes
Some worlds are small enough to float on the surface of Erebus without a Station. They might be artificial, constructed by asura, deva, or especially powerful sorcerers, or fragments of ancient worlds eroded down to wandering islands.
The most famous demimonde is the Lantern House, constructed by Sagess Saith as a hotel for affluent travelers of Erebus. Her magic, aligned with shadow, flame, and smoke, maintained the Halfmoon Line. When the Lantern House went dark some centuries ago, the Halfmoon Line vanished with it. Bringing light back to the Lantern House could restore the Line, but voyaging into the gulf between worlds with only dead reckoning and a determined crew would require a surpassingly talented navigator. This is to say nothing of confronting whatever power extinguished the Lantern House to begin with.
Lost Worlds
Through the Halfmoon Line are the Lost Worlds, half-remembered through centuries of isolation.
Malian, the profane cosmopolis built into a fathomless borehole rumored to reach into Hell. Almost anything can be bought here, but almost nothing is ultimately worth the price.
Myrkholt, an archaic land ruled by nobles and knights. It is endlessly endangered by the beasts of the forest depths, and it is haunted by the legacy of its immortal monarch, the Once and Future King.
Carillon, a land of stargazing scholars and fanatical exorcists. At war with beings from beyond the stars, and home to technology that rivals the Old Iron Kingdom in its heyday.
Jobs
I’m incredibly disinterested in simulating arbitrage, so this is going to be a bit simplified. You get paid for worlds traveled and the type of job. You can only take one job at a time. If I accidentally jacked up the math (likely) this may get adjusted.
Standard Deliveries just mean you need to keep the cargo intact and get to the destination at some point. You will get paid unless you really fuck around.
Express Deliveries have a deadline, usually a number of days equal to how many worlds away the destination is. If you don’t reach the destination in time, you don’t get paid, and you might piss off somebody important.
Standard and Express Passengers follow the same rules as Standard and Express Deliveries, except also you need to keep the passenger alive and reasonably comfortable.
VIP Passengers follow the same rules as above except the passenger expects a higher level of accommodation and comfort and more dangerous people want them dead. If you fail an Express VIP job you are in Big Trouble.
Single-world hops generally require some additional work or trouble, like delivering a package or escorting a passenger to a location within the world, not just its Station, or fending off a specific party that wants what you are delivering. If multi-world hops require this, pay is doubled.
Worlds Away
Standard Delivery
Express Delivery
Standard Passenger
Express Passenger
Standard VIP
Express VIP
1
100 coins
200 coins
500 coins
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
2
200 coins
500 coins
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
10 gems
3
500 coins
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
10 gems
20 gems
4+ Worlds
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
10 gems
20 gems
50 gems
The Heavenliner
You and your followers are the crew. You don’t answer to anyone, but you need to pay your own way in terms of food and fuel.
Decide on a name for the heavenliner.
Right now, you can only access the helm, the main deck, and the cargo hold, but it is more than enough to fit lucrative cargo, yourself, and your possessions. You can hire and artificer to cut a key to open more decks and quarters in the heavenliner, which gives you access to more resources, room for cargo, and facilities. A key costs as much as the facility it unlocks takes to buy (check the Property section of the rulebook). The heavenliner is a demimonde unto itself, so you’ll never run out of space if you’re willing to pay for it.
You can cut keys for workshops. Otherwise you need to rent one worldside.
You need to cut a key for a kitchen and hut-equivalent quarters before you can take on passengers
You need to cut a key for kitchens and townhouse-equivalent quarters before you can take on VIP passengers.
You need to cut a key for a livestock deck (costs as much as a townhouse) before you get mounts or pack animals.
You need to cut a key for a moonpool (costs as much as a townhouse) before you can carry vehicles.
You can increase the heavenliner’s inventory by 20 slots for the cost of a hut.
Travel
Follow Journey Procedure while traveling Erebus. It takes a day to get from one Station to the next (at least on the Crescent Line).
The Heavenliner can carry 40 slots. A job requires 20 in terms of parcels, passengers, and their effects. If you eschew a job and just want to explore, you can carry more supplies.
The heavenliner drinks aether from the Sea of Erebus; you need to keep yourselves fed, watered, and hale, but fuel is not an issue.
Shin Megami Tensei/Annihilation/Stalker citycrawling mashup modeled after Pearce’s Troll World.
// THE NEW AGE
In the depths of the environmental and resource crisis of 20XX, the discovery of a fifth esoteric phase of matter, upon which the laws of physics act weakly but the principles of perception and desire act strongly, promised a path to a better future. Wonderful machines and miraculous technologies, new cities clear of the rising water, humanity’s eyes once again turned to space, all with a price that did not reveal itself until too late. As esoteric substances filled the oceans and esoteric particles filled the atmosphere and esoteric fields tangled with the Earth’s own, all the shadows of the human mind, nightmares, rumors, figures from the old stories, took form and will and pried apart civilization. This new technology did not bring a Golden Age, or an Age of Humanity, but an age of dreaming deep without waking, an age of drowning in the collective unconscious, a Katabatic Age.
from Akira
// THE KATABATIC ZONE
The heart of the end of the world, where esoteric pollution is strongest. A mutating mirage-city build from the dreams and memories of its dead inhabitants, sometimes as clean and new as it was in its heyday, sometimes dilapidated and vine-chewed, its dimensions expanding and contracting so that circumnavigating it might take a week or a year or forever. It is occupied by dream-beings, eidola created by the city’s dead inhabitants: nightmares given flesh, heroes and monsters from the old stories, saints born from the prayers of the dying, archetypes aggregated from a billion human minds, kaleidoscopic psychic artifacts that corrode reality just with their presence. Rumor has it that in the deepest and strangest parts of the Katabatic Zone, there are eidola as intelligent and coherent as humans, who plot against each other and the humans who made them. The one certainty and constant of the Katabatic Zone is that a great deal of money can be made by conducting expeditions into its depths–information, instrument readings, and esoteric substances taken from the Zone are all extremely valuable on the black market.
// CUATROS SANTOS
A small city living in the corpse of a big one. Bright paint on old plaster, new plaster on old cinder block, new cinderblock on tired foundations. Neighborhoods sprung up beneath orphaned overpasses, jury-rigged locomotives coughing diesel smoke as they follow routes that once belonged to electric monorails, pickup trucks and motorcycles blast down cracked highways that once carried thousands. And looming above it all, from the corners of the city, the four colossal namesakes of Cuatros Santos, skyscraping eikons forming an esoteric mechanism that just barely keeps the city from collapsing beneath the weight of so many human minds.
from Dorohedoro
// CHARACTERS
Step 1: Roll or choose your background and make note of your favored attribute and starting skills.
job
preferred attribute
starting skill
employee
appeal
bullshit, linguistics
gearhead
intellect
engineering, computers
PI
physique
athletics, streetwise
delinquent
speed
driving, larceny
esper
psyche
mantia, science
merc
combat
firearms, first aid
Step 2: Roll 2d6+6 for your favored attribute. For everything else, roll 3d6 in order. Attributes are Appeal, Intellect, Physique, Speed, Psyche, and Combat.
Step 3: Max HP = 6. Make a Psyche/Mantia check. If you succeed, you have 1 Nous Die. Step 4: Determine starting gear. You start with five items a competent shoplifter could get out of a Walmart and a random weapon. Italicized weapons can be hidden, bolded weapons require two hands. You can find armor and more gear on your misadventures. Guns are available, but illegal and hard to find.
roll
weapon
1
machete [d6/d6]
2
sword [d8/d6]
3
baseball bat [d4/d8]
4
switchblade [d4/d8]
5
hairpin [d4/d6]
6
chef knife [d6/d6]
7
mall sword [d4/d6]
8
crowbar [d6/d6]
9
signpost [d8/d6]
10
bicycle chain [d6/d6]
from Michiko and Hatchin
// SHADOW SCIENCE Mantia is the shadow-science manipulating esoteric phenomena and entities. If you have a Nous Die, you can roll to start with one random Mantic trick. Mantia is extremely illegal in Cuatros Santos, but you can learn Mantic tricks from samizdat manuals and cooperative eidola. If you don’t have any Nous, imbibing (and surviving) esoteric substances, surviving eidolon attacks, spending time in esoteric fields all might give you some.
from Toujin Kit of Genius Party anthology
1. Summon Instantiates an eidolon of [dice] levels or fewer you have made a contract with. You can dismiss it at will unless it has failed a Morale check since you last summoned it.
2. Apotropaic Tone Sing a low note note bearing a repulsive polarity, requiring eidola to make an Aptitude check to get within [dice] yards of you. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability. 3. Beckoning Tone Sing a low note that bears a compelling polarity, requiring eidola within [dice] yards of you make an Aptitude check or reveal themselves and approach you in their true form. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability.
4. Esoteric Lens Form a simple loupe in the form of a translucent stone in your clenched fist. If gazed through, reveals eidola and esoteric fields within [dice] yards. Lasts for [dice] turns.
// NEGOTIATION Roll Disposition Die + Faction Die on below table to determine encountered NPC’s reaction. Disposition Die is how the NPC views the party/leader/interlocutor personally, so stuff like high Appeal or cool clothes help. Faction Die is the party’s credibility with the encountered NPC’s organization or alignment. Both start at d6 and raise or lower based on various factors.
roll
reaction
2
hostile – attack
3-5
unfriendly – attack in 1 round without a good reason
6-8
uninterested – ignore the party without a good reason
9-11
talkative – will help the party for a good reason
12
amused – will help in the party for a decent reason
Human hirelings and contracted eidola are a key component in surviving in the Katabatic Zone. PCs can’t have more allies (whether they are humans or contracted eidola) than 1/3 their Appeal score, rounded down. If an ally is endangered, compromised, or insulted, their employer may be required to make an Appeal check to not lose their loyalty.
from Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
// DAMAGE AND WOUNDS Notice how each weapon in the list had two dice? The first is the Damage Die. If an attack lands, roll it and subtract the value from the target’s HP like normal. Easy. Being reduced to 0 HP means you have to make a Physique check or die, and are incapacitated still on a success.
The second is the Location Die which determines where the attack lands. Some weapons are more deadly/lends themselves well to clonking people on the head, and so have a better Location Die.
A location that’s been hit has a minor wound. Until it’s patched up with a turn of effort, any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage.
A location that has an untreated minor wound that gets hit again has a major wound, which means it any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage until you spend time laid up to heal.
Further injury to a location with an unhealed major wound renders it useless. If it’s your head or torso, you’ll also need to make a Physique check to see if you die, and are still incapacitated on a success. If you’re alive when the smoke clears, you may have permanent consequences.
roll
location
1-2
legs
3
Torso
4-5
Arms
6+
Head
Armor is per hit location and reduces all incoming damage by its Armor Score. An attacked reduced to 0 damage does not injure its hit location. A turn’s rest in a safe place restores 1d6 HP, as does resting in a dangerous place and eating a snack.
// MISADVENTURES
Shady Dr. Sepulveda has a standing offer for esoteric substances and artifacts extracted from the Katabatic Zone. The Administration that runs Cuatro Santos certainly frowns/prosecutes such exercises, but she pays pretty well.
Sepulveda’s bitter rival Dr. Jimenez wants eikonometry readings from the Seventh Heaven, a particularly rarefied region of the Katabatic Zone ruled by eidola born from a desire for order. He’s willing to pay quite a bit for your trouble.
Word on the street is that a commando expedition armed with exoskeletal Frames never came back from their mission into the Katabatic Zone. Whatever got them is probably still lurking, but it sure would be sweet to have a mech or two.
Somebody’s been constructing eidolon familiars from dream-stuff and selling them to gangs inside Cuatro Santos as obedient heavy muscle. Old Man Ramiro will pay good money to anyone who can shut down his rival’s suppliers, especially since the Bureau of Affairs has started sniffing around.
The Bureau of Affairs is keeping something really tasty in one of their labs not far from the edge of the city. Nobody knows what it is, but everyone knows it’s valuable. Up for a heist?
I’ve been working on a village-building based D&D campaign. One of the things I want to do is tie character progression to exploration, and a way to do that is make classes available based on which NPCs the party has allied with or even brought back to their settlement. For this reason, I picked a random advancement scheme, where players roll 1d100 twice on a table associated with their character class to see what they get when they level up. They can choose choose to roll on the tables of unlocked specialty classes, which means they don’t need to roll a whole new character to realize the benefits of making allies and gaining access to new stuff.
Since this model of D&D is based on building relationships and developing a home base, I want making friends to be on the table as much as possible. This class is unlocked by normalizing relations with the Orminger King, the local dragon and source of many monsters incursions (and sagacious-monarch-turned-abhuman-monster). It also complicates the player’s relationship with most normative NPCs while potentially making it easier to seek peaceful solutions with monsters. Moreover, since this is a low HP class prone to drawing aggression while still having some pretty piquant abilities, players will hopefully be dealing with the mix of power and vulnerability that makes the archetypes behind this class compelling.
Also also, it’s a bit of a rough draft. I’m not terribly worried about balance since it’s random and also players need to go to a lot of trouble to make it available in the first place, but it could still be an issue.
Based on: Ganon, Howl, Witch of the Waste, Queen Beryl, Apostles from Berserk, Maleficent, animist wizards, there’s probably some Dark Souls in here if I’m being honest with myself
from full metal alchemist
WARLOCK
Requisites: make peace with the Orminger King
You are gorgeous and monstrous, magnificent and grotesque. Your magic is born from the darkness of the new moon and the blackness in the deepest earth. People think you’re not entirely human, and they’re not entirely wrong–the wilds and the ruins and the lonely places of the world are filled with the monstrous shells of the god-kings and wicked scholars who were consumed by the power you now bear. By its nature, your magic has left a sorcerous mark somewhere on your body: your palm, your tongue, your belly, your breast. In cosmopolitan areas, people who recognize you as a warlock will be discomfited, wary, and very polite. In more superstitious areas, people will be outright terrified of you–maybe enough to do what you ask, perhaps enough to just try to kill you.
from magi: labyrinth of magic
HD: 1d4
Saves: as Magic-user
XP: as Magic-user
Prerequisite: have an emissary of the Orminger King join your village. New characters can be warlocks once the prerequisite is met, but existing magic-users can select it as a subclass.
The first time you roll on the Warlock table, you gain the ability to assume a monstrous aspect at will, giving you +1 Defense and allowing you to deal d6 damage with unarmed attacks. You cannot wield weapons or wear armor, in this form and most civilized peoples will attack you on sight. If they see you transform, they will seek to jail or execute you, even in human shape. Moreover, while you wear your monstrous shape, the Referee may require you to make a Wis check to resist the impulse to do something greedy or spiteful, if a compelling opportunity presents itself. The appearance of your monster-shape is up to you, though your face always remains the same even as your body changes.
Entries in a list separated by slashes show what is available with each subsequent reroll of that entry.
roll
new ability
1-40
+1 Spell Die
41-60
+1 Save
61-65
Your beast form gains one of the following movement types: climb, swim, clumsy flight. Pick another on reroll.
66-70
Your beast form gain skill of your choice from the following list: Track, Sense, Camouflage. Pick another on a reroll.
71-75
Your beast form’s size becomes Large and you gain +1 to Str and -1 to Dex checks. Lose the Dex penalty on reroll.
76-80
Your beast form has armor as leather/chain/plate.
81-85
Wormtongue. Gain a skill of your choice from the following list: Tempt, Deceive, Intimidate. Pick another on a reroll.
86-90
Dark Glamor. At will, you can wrap yourself in a mantle of dark power, allowing you to transform your clothing as you please and making you appear taller, more imposing, perhaps more appealing and perhaps more hideous. In this aspect your have +1/2/3 Disposition Die size from those prone to temptation and sycophancy; -1 Disposition Die size from those who value basic decency and bravery.
91-95
Minions. You have 1/2/3 Level 0 homunculi allies. They are dark silhouettes of humans, suggestive of ooze in the way their bodies give and sway with each motion. If they wear human clothes, nobody will be able to notice that their appearance is strange. If they die or get lost, you can brew one per downtime up to your max. They are very stupid.
96
Covenant. If someone breaks the word of a promise they made to you, they suffer a -2/4/6 penalty on their saving throws against your spells, and you instinctively know their direction and approximate distance. It must be a promise you genuinely wanted kept, and this ability ceases to function if you forgive them for their transgression.
97
All Shall Love Me. +1/2/3 Faction Die size with monsters.
98
Forbidden Power. When you cast a spell, you can choose to roll with d8s/d10s/12s instead. Each die still expends on a result of 4+.
99
Menace. Enemies in line of sight of you suffer -1/2 Morale.
100
Dark Garden. You rule a 1 acre demiplane that contains your lair. Its appearance is a matter of negotiation between you and the Referee. It can house and feed 1/2/3 people per day. It is totally inaccessible, but if you spend a long rest in a civilized place, you can choose to incorporate the gate to your demiplane into the location in such a way that even longtime locals may not notice it. If you close the gate to your demiplane from the outside, you can choose to send it away again. Anything native to your lair taken out of it vanishes into thick black smoke as soon as it crosses the threshold.
from spirited away
THE ORMINGER KING
A man’s impassive face, pale and immense, set onto a black-furred body, sinuous, graceful, larger than an elephant, walking on the fingertips of splayed human hands. Its great wings are like a crow’s. It is mad, mournful, vicious. It lives in the ruins of the Royal Archives, gently turning pages with giant fingertips. It brews and decants shadow-fleshed homunculi to send on raids for occult reagents and, once in a rare while, companions. It knows many spells of darkness and transformation.
RULES
I draw on some homebrew rules in a few of the entries, so here are explanations:
Magic
You can cast any spell you know. You have a number of Spell Dice, a pool of d6s which represent a combination of your innate magical affinity and experience with your craft. With more Spell Dice, you can cast more powerful spells more often. When you cast a spell, roll any number of your Spell Dice. Examine the result of each die and add up the results. Dice that come up 4+ are expended, and you cannot roll them again until your take a long rest.
from howl’s moving castle
Reactions/Personality Dice/Disposition Dice
The Referee makes Reaction Rolls on the usual table. However, they are not necessarily made with the traditional 2d6. One die is the Faction Die, and represents the encountered creature’s relationship with the organizations, groups, species, clans, etc the party or party leader is a member of. The other is the Disposition Die, which represents the encountered creature’s gut reaction to the party or party leader, a combination of the PC’s personal appeal and the creature’s mood. Both dice start at d6 and are increased by factors that would improve reaction and decreased by factors that would worsen it. Some characters have explicit bonuses to one or both dice, but the Referee can also apply modifiers ad hoc. Example: A handsome cleric wandering a dungeon encounters an incubus. The Referee determines that the Faction Die should be a d4, since demons find clerics tediously Lawful. The Disposition Die, on the other hand, is a d8, because incubi respect physical appeal.
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.
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.
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
I speed wrote/designed this today, so it’s a little uneven, but here are four 5th edition classes (with kits) that A) fit onto a single page and B) don’t make me feel like I’m doing calculus. They cover the major archetypes, though the clericky/warlocky one isn’t all that faithful to the traditional Van Helsing type. Pictures of the pages below and a download link here.
Upon the Ancient Shores of Albion an Evil Makes Its Way
A Most Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet is now on sale. You can get it here
What is A Most Pernicious Pamphlet?
It is an A5, 17 page staple-bound booklet on my old school rpg campaign setting, Pernicious Albion. It’s all insane angel conspiracies, occult aristocracy, revenant Romans, tennis with vampires, evil couture, Ars Goetia, royal spawning pits, realpolitik, light homoeroticism, and lakes of human teeth, but for now, you get the pamphlet, which contains
two ruleset-agnostic classes: the vampire and the warlock
modifications to the cleric and the magic-user
three supernatual patrons with tables for motivations, goals, and methods
equipment, services, weapons, and armor tables designed for new characters in eerie fairy tale settings
Esoteric languages
Why should I buy it? I’d like to think it is filled with good ideas you can include in your game, but also
I wrote this with an aim to compress setting description and character creation into a single process: the classes, starting equipment, and languages all convey Albion to players without the need for a lot of exposition. This might be a good template for you if you want to do the same.
