hex culture clerics, is this gonna work, magic, spell

offerings

Watching Chainsaw Man, thinking about Alex’s discussion of designing adventures around spells (and the vagueness of OSE’s phantasmal force) and well as Deeper in the Game’s magic items and philosophy behind them.

These are two abilities PCs can pick up; I would consider putting them at the end of their own adventures, seeding them in as treasure, or making them the result of magic research. I would think they’d fit most into what characters can do around level 5 (the Snake can do 5d6 damage in a very similar manner to lightning bolt, plus a bunch of other mean bullshit, but only a very limited number of times). They also require the DM to commit to particular kinds of games (not being too wishy-washy about how much time has passed for the Snake, making sure that a looming threat of social violence eventually gets acted on). The Snake also assumed that enemies have 1d8-sized HD; it becomes too strong if HD are 1d6 (so just bump its damage die size down to d4, I guess)

I would also think about making these count against follower limits imposed by Charisma, since someone cutting creepy deals is offputting and it categorizes them as a social relationship mechanically.

You could also drop these in at level 1 as a DM if you were comfortable to running the kind of game where the consequences of how PCs solve problems really matters. If anything goes in the dungeon, then these are just strong and creepy (which is fine); if a bunch of scrubs punching a hole through the local dragon subjects them to all kinds of troublesome scrutiny, then these are much more interesting.

I don’t imagine the Snake or the Foxes as having much explanation in the world; they are cruel and unfamiliar things that have an unknowable interest in a particular PC.

The Snake

Congratulations. You have formed a contract with the Snake. You may sacrifice one of your fingernails to give it a single command. You do not know why the Snake wants your fingernails. It probably just enjoys hurting you.

Photograph of a snake skeleton arranged in a spiral
Year of the Snake by Shenhung Lin CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Any time the Snake’s damage is mentioned, use 5d6. For each fingernail you give it, add +1 to the roll. For each creature it devours with more HD than it has damage dice, add 1d6 to the roll. For example, if you have given it 3 fingernails, its damage is 5d6+3. If it successfully devours a 7 HD wereboar, its damage increases to 6d6+3. 

The Snake can only materialize in places within your line of sight and within earshot of your voice. The Snake materializes without fanfare or sound for the briefest moment to perform the acts you command before vanishing.

On your turn, you can command the Snake to do any of the following. 

  • Snake, strike. You can simply tell the Snake to attack. It can attack a single target, or all creatures in a 100’ by 5‘ line. The line can originate from any point in range and has the orientation of your choice. The attack deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this attack deals more damage than ½ their maximum HP, they must Save (vs Magic) again or the attack will kill them instantly as the Snake carves a hole through their body.
  • Snake, devour. You can tell the Snake to devour a single creature. This deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this damage exceeds their maximum HP, the Snake successfully devours them, and can vomit them up as a separate favor. If this does not reduce the enemy to 0 HP, they stick in the Snake’s craw for a moment before it dematerializes. This annoys the Snake, and the next favor you ask of it requires an additional fingernail. It will tell you if it thinks it will not be able to devour a creature before it takes the fingernail.
  • Snake, release. You can tell the Snake to vomit up an enemy it has devoured for you. This enemy has ½ their normal HP and 10 AC, but retains all other abilities and statistics and acts as your perfectly loyal follower. It dissolves into oily smoke when reduced to 0 HP or the fingernail you sacrificed for it finishes growing back.
  • Snake, destroy. You can tell the Snake to obliterate a tube of solid, non-magical matter up to 100 ft in length and 5 ft in diameter. The tube can be in any shape or configuration (a cylinder, a spiral, a torus). The Snake obliterates this material by traveling through it; if it encounters a creature, it will deal its damage to them as if it had attacked and then immediately vanish (leaving the job of destroying the object or volume incomplete).

At any time you or an ally in range are about to take damage (after the attack is declared but before any dice are rolled)

  • Snake, protect. You can tell the Snake to block the attack. Roll its damage, then deduct incoming damage by that amount. If it does not negate all damage, its physical body is destroyed, which it will spend many mortal lifetimes regenerating. It is in your best interest to be dead by then.

Fingernails

Trace your hands (or at least your fingers) on the back of your character sheet and draw on fingernails. Whenever you offer one to the Serpent, right the in-game date you used it, so it’s easy to remember you’re missing it (and also to make it easier to remember when it grows back)

Though it always hurts more than you expect when the Snake claims a fingernail, no matter how many times it happens, you find your reaction oddly muted: no desire to flinch or cringe or clutch your hand. The Snake is particular and precise, and so the wound is nearly nonexistent; there is minimal bleeding and no trauma to the tissue. The Snake simply makes you unwhole. This is also what it does when it attacks your enemies. 

The Snake always leaves your nail matrix perfectly intact, so that you can grow more fingernails for it to claim. It takes six months in-game months for a fingernail to grow back. If your game has downtime turns where there is a change of a random event, six of those will do.

If you need to call the Snake and have no fingernails left, there is no cause for concern. Perhaps there is something else you could offer instead?

The Foxes

Oh dear. You have formed a contract with the Foxes. Decide how many out of the five of them you have made a contract with, here and now. For each one, someone in your future will tell you a disastrous and believable lie, even if it contradicts their own nature and they believe they have no reason to deceive you. Everyone has a reason now, and it is the Foxes.

You can now command any number of Foxes to create illusions. Assigning more Foxes to an illusion increases the number of people it can deceive and the number of senses it can manipulate. Targets of an illusion may make a Save (vs Magic) to avoid being deceived, with a penalty equal to the number of Foxes assigned to the illusion. On a successful Save, they realize something is pushing and pulling at their mind.

No. of FoxesNo. of Targets
11
22
3~5
4~10
5~20

Foxes are fickle and lazy. When you create an illusion, roll 1d6 for each Fox you assign to its creation. For each die that comes up a 1-3, one of your Foxes loses interest in helping you until your next downtime, preventing you from commanding them until then.

The Foxes do not accompany you on your adventures. However, your shadow, reflection, and appearance to other in dreams sometimes seem to have yellow eyes, sharp teeth, or perhaps a bushy and poorly concealed tail.

Illusions

Illusions can deceive senses in any way you please. You can make a target perceive something that does not exist at all, like a person or a wall. Illusions can move and act, such as an illusory wave fluttering in the breeze or an illusory person conversing and moving around (though it’s just the Foxes acting behind the scenes, of course). 

You can also alter perception: wholly occlude someone’s vision, make an ally in their sight look like someone else, or prevent them from perceiving a particular person or object. You can also do something like make someone’s voice sound higher or lower, or make it sound like everything they say is an insult. 

Illusions exist purely in the perception of their targets, but are shared amongst targets; an illusion brings a single, attenuated reality into being for those its deceives. For example, if one illusion affects two enemies, they must both perceive the same event unfolding. You could not make one enemy see an illusory dragon and the other see an illusory tree. You could create an illusion that depicts both or either, however. You could also set two groups of Foxes on two different illusions, though this would  take more rounds if you are in combat and  the individual illusions would not be able to deceive as many senses.

You can give false solidity to an illusion with the sense of touch. This does not allow illusions to support weight. For example, the victim of an illusion can’t walk through an illusory wall if the illusion deceives their sense of touch, but they would fall through illusory stairs. An illusory gale that includes the sense of touch would make its victim stumble and fall, but it could never lift them off the ground or propel them.

If an illusion ends up depicting something impossible (someone falls through solid-feeling illusory stairs, for example, or an illusory dragon picks them up with painful and powerful claws and then they are not actually lifted off the ground), the victim who witnesses the paradox may make a Save (vs Magic) to see overcome the illusion, thus losing all perception of it but experiencing stark reality once again. If they fail, they will confabulate the paradox away.

You can perceive your illusions and underlying reality simultaneously and without confusion. Illusions last until they wholly leave your perception.

Example

You have a contract with four of the Foxes, having decided five grievous lies in your life would be too many. You encounter a party of six goblins who seem like they might attack you. You command three of your foxes to deceive them with an illusion; you decide the illusion should impact sight, sound, and touch and affect five of the goblins. You tell three of your foxes to make it appear in the sight of five of the goblins that the sixth has drawn his weapon and attacked his fellow. The five deceived goblins see the sixth raise his club and strike; they feel the splatter of blood. The false target feels the impact of the club and the sound of it crunching his bones. The goblins gang up on the false attacker, and then begin brawling amongst themselves.

jacinto adventures, amateur hour, demon, encounters, intro, is this gonna work, magic, monsters, occult

katabatic age

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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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?
jacinto amateur hour, classes, is this gonna work, monsters, Not Dead Yet, table, witch

this isn’t even my final form

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.
from sailor moon
jacinto classes, flowerland, is this gonna work, magic, monsters, rituals, spell

flower power

I have been rereading about Coins and Scrolls wizards and Goblin Punch spellcasters and have been thinking about my own dice pool magic system (scroll down a little past the fishing stuff). The dice pool makes magic feel more like this amorphous reserve of supernatural influence instead of a bunch of bullets in a gun, while preserving the resource management aspect that makes Vancian magic appeal to me. You’re never quite sure how much you can and should do in a day.

I’ve also been rereading Wonders and Wickedness and reading Paolo’s Marvels and Malisons. I like the distinctness of spell schools and have been thinking about how those would manifest in Flowerland (i.e. the blog post below)
 
ON HOUSES
Planes are the Old World’s crude understanding of the shape of Creation. As the peoples of Flowerland know, our world is made of structures, not surfaces–Houses, not Planes. The Grass House, the Mud House, the Moon House, the Iron House, the Ash House, the Salt House, and the elusive Labyrinth Betwixt are the most known in Flowerland, though of course there are others, some obscure, some defunct. The Houses respect neither topology nor topography–if you walk towards the palmetto scrub, you approach the Grass House as well, and as midnight or noon draw near, so too does the Grass House, whether or not you think you are moving. Should you, in the heat of summer and the brightness of noon, find carrion-eaters crowded around a kill out in the scrub, watch your step carefully–when the auguries of Grass are many, you stand on the threshold of its House.

Magic is: opening a door to a House and shaping what comes out, calling forth its denizens to do your bidding.

SORCERERS
HP, XP, Saves, Skills as wizard/magic-user

You have Power dice equal to your level. When you cast a spell, you can roll as many of them as you like; the more dice you roll, the greater its effect. When a description refer to a spell’s Power, that is the number of dice the caster rolled for it.

  • For each die that comes up a 1 or a 6, after you resolve the spell’s effects, remove a Power die from your dice pool until you take a long rest. (Rolling a 1 means you whiffed it a little and rolling a 6 means you exhausted some part of yourself)
  • If you get pairs, Something Bad happens 
  • If you get triples, Something Terrible happens

At level 1, pick a House: Grass, Mud, Moon, Iron, Salt, or Ash. You know two random spells from its list. you can cast any spell you know, but you can only learn spells from your House. you do so by exploring your House, by bribing and pestering other sorcerers into tutoring you, or studying another sorcerer’s notes. You can learn to cast spells from other Houses, but each has its own requirements.

    THE GRASS HOUSE
    If you are a sorcerer and did not choose Grass as your House at level 1, you can gain attain its power and access its spells by eating the divine carrion at the center of the Grass House, soft like custard, rich like dessert, foul beyond comprehension.
         Sorcerers who can cast Grass House spells find carrion equally delicious and disgusting and can live off of it without fear of disease or malnutrition.

    GRASS CURSE
    Under the roof of the Grass House, your shadow is a curse, and when you cast your shadow you cast your curse also. The sorcerer can cast their Grass Curse on someone touching their shadow, inflicting them with a persistent sunstroke that bestows a penalty to all rolls equal to the spell’s Power on a failed save. If sorcerer’s shadow is being cast in the hot sun–the Grass House sun, the cruel sun that scorches the palmetto scrub and bakes the sugar sand trails–spell gains a +1 Power without the sorcerer needing to roll another die. This hex lasts until the victim immerses themselves in very cold water or another sorcerer lifts it with magic.

    • Something Bad: You put too much of yourself into the curse. You can’t regain any dice lost in the casting of this spell until the victim is cured or you eat them (takes at least an hour).
    • Something Terrible: You are afflicted with the Grass Curse, but the only way to lift it is to cure the victim while they still live. Failing that, there are some exceedingly rare and dangerous to procure cures.

    WEAVE SIGN OF GRASS
    A sorcerer casts this spell by spending an evening weaving grass, withes, reeds, or similar vegetable material into a palm-sized medallion bearing the Sign of Grass. If they lose any Power from this casting, they cannot ever recover it from resting, and must restore their lost Power in some other (dangerous, difficult, and probably disturbing) way. The wearer of the Sign of Grass receives a bonus to stealth checks equal to the spell’s Power while in scrub, forests, the prairie, or other similar environs.

    • Something Bad: the Sign bestows a minor curse in addition to its benefit.
    • Something terrible: the Sign bestows a major curse in addition to its benefit.

    If the sorcerer wishes, they can automatically incorporate a minor or major curse into the Sign. However, this causes Something Bad and Something Terrible to permanently afflict them with the same curse bound to the Sign.

    PACT OF GRASS
    Summons a Child of Grass with HD equal to the spell’s Power and HP equal to the sum of its Power dice. The Child appears as an oversized coyote on all fours, a thief with hair the color of dust and eyes the color of rainwater when it lurches to its feet, and a crow when it leaps into the air (as wolf, as thief with levels equal to its HD, as bird with trivial combat statistics). The Child of Grass remains as long as it pleases, but it only remains bound to the sorcerer’s service for a number of turns equal to the spell’s Power, at which point it is free to do as it pleases, though the sorcerer may bribe it into further service.

    • Something Bad: the Child of Grass wants something like: to eat carrion (either very fresh or very ripe), to make mischief, to know where its summoner lives. It will turn on the sorcerer if it doesn’t get it very soon.
    • Something Terrible: the Child of Grass appears and turns on the sorcerer, either attacking right away or fucking off back to town to start raising hell. It cannot be summoned again until the sorcerer hunts down and eats it.

    BLADE OF GRASS
    Make a blade of sawgrass or a saw palm frond impossibly strong and sharp. Sawgrass acts as a one-handed, bladed weapon of fine make (1d6+1 damage) while a saw palm frond acts as a two-handed, bladed weapon of equal quality (1d8+1 damage). The blades are sharp enough to cut through steel as if it were firewood and damage enemies resistant to nonmagical damage. The effect lasts a number of turns equal to the spell’s Power.

    • Something Bad: the Grass House turns against the sorcerer, making all grass like blades to them. Leaves and fronds are as sharp and strong as steel: walking on grass deals 1d4 damage/round and ruins shoes and boots, walking through scrub deals 1d12/round and reduces  AC by an equal amound (down to sorcerer’s unarmored AC value). Lasts
    • Something Terrible: the Child of Grass appears and turns on the sorcerer. It cannot be summoned again until the sorcerer hunts down and eats it.

    MILKWEED GIFT
    The sorcerer cuts open their inner arm, dealing damage as dagger, and milkweed sap oozes out. When applied to an injury, it heals HP equal to the sum of the spell’s Power dice. The sap can be apportioned between multiple people, but it loses its power after a turn. The HP damage caused by this spell can only be healed with time–only time can give back what the Grass House has taken.

    • Something Bad: The Gift’s sap attracts a colossal swarm of red butterflies to the caster. This makes stealth nearly impossible, and the caster takes +1 damage from weapon attacks as the butterflies lap at the wound with anticoagulant proboscises.
    • Something Terrible: The Gift does not heal properly. Each day, the sorcerer must make a saving throw or the wound will ooze milkweed adulterated with blood and the sorcerer loses 1 point of Constitution. This lasts until the sorcerer undergoes some pretty serious curse-lifting effort or they die.

    EAT SHAPE
    This spell has two uses: if the sorcerer casts this spell on a ripe animal carcass that had HD in life equal to or less than the spell’s Power, they can eat it to turn into the creature. They can also cast the spell to turn into a creature they have already consumed in this manner, though the Power still has to meet or exceed its HD. The spell lasts until the sorcerer chooses to change back, but they cannot speak, cast spells, or recover Power until they do. In animal shape, sorcerers look like carrion–sticky with blood, broken bones emerging from their hide, dirt and roots tangled in their ruff.

    • Something Bad: the sorcerer cannot turn back into their original shape until sunset or dawn, whichever is further away.
    • Something Terrible: the sorcerer cannot turn back into their original shape at all, barring powerful ritual intervention

    THE NATURE OF HOUSES
    Unclear. Dungeons/universes/deities/spell schools. Some were raised or destroyed just past recent memory (such as when Heche Ke Eche, Cacica of the Dead, stopped shut all the doors and ways to the Ghost House with great lead nails and destroyed all of its extant dwellers in a terrible fit of pique, or the night the Moon House was born or perhaps opened agin from the disastrous sinking of Don Fernando’s barge). Others have been around for as long as recorded history, maybe built by something that came before, maybe born from the ritual weight of natural phenomena. Some Houses seem to have volition, some seem content to be a location, others are nearly impossible to enter and barely have internal geography. The Ghost House had doors of the sort that Heche Ke Eche could nail shut (according to legend), but the ways to the Moon House are still waters and bone-filled groves and the shadows of the jacarandas in moonlight.

      jacinto clerics, flowerland, is this gonna work, magic, new barbary, occult, san serafín, spell, type v

      hocus pocus

      An open-ended magic system I’m going to use for my simplified 5e game, but you could pretty easily hack it for most D&D-likes. Owes a lot to Pearce’s 5e ritual system.

      A warlock or cleric can perform a ritual to achieve nearly any effect, as long as it pertains to a Ritual Court they belong to. The casting time of a ritual depends on its intensity, value, and utility; the more expensive and difficult the ritual’s effects would be to achieve using mundane means, the longer it takes to perform the ritual.

      by Berta Lum

      A ritual’s difficulty is determined by the value of the goods or services it replicates. Warlocks make a CHA check and clerics make a WIS check.

      If it’s no dearer than a copper piece: DC 12 and take a Turn
      If it’s no dearer than a silver piece: DC 14 and take an hour
      If it’s no dearer than a gold piece: DC 16 and take a day
      If it’s no dearer than a platinum piece: DC 18 and take a week
      If it can’t be had for love or money: DC 20 and take a month, from new moon to full

      As an example, if a Annie Oleander of the Ritual Court of Ash wants to kill a rival from afar, she might decide to fill his house with poisonous smoke. Because hiring an assassin to kill someone costs more than a gold piece, she must pass a DC 18 Charisma check and take a week. Unburning a spent torch, on the other hand, would only take a Turn and require a DC 12 check , because a torch can be bought for a copper.

      Duration
      A ritual’s effect has a usage die that represents its duration. Each time the ritual’s effects are used or strained in some way, check the die. Ritual effects are fleeting and the die should be checked frequently; a ritual-created sword might be checked every time it is used, while a golem created by a ritual might be checked every time it takes damage. The poisonous smoke Annie Oleander conjured would be checked every time her victim finished reciting a Bible verse or opened a window for ventilation.

      The sacrifice a cleric or warlock offers as part of a ritual determines the size of the ritual’s usage die:

      • 1d4: requires nothing
      • 1d6: 1d6 HP in blood, a favor that takes a brief part of a session, or a component worth at least a copper piece
      • 1d8: 1d8 HP in blood, a favor that takes the better part of a session, or a component worth at least a silver piece
      • 1d10: 1d10 HP in blood, a favor that takes an entire session, or a component worth at least a gold piece
      • 1d12: 1d12 HP in blood, a favor that takes several sessions, or a component worth at least a platinum piece

      The Ritual Courts

      1. Ash
      2. Mud
      3. Grass
      4. Corpses
      5. Beasts
      6. The Sun
      7. The Moon
      8. The Dark 

       

        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 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 elves, is this gonna work, new age dnd, san serafín, skills

        White Box Backgrounds

        In an old school game, I don’t think I like thieves as a class. I like the idea of their skillset being accessible to everyone who goes around stealing things out of old tombs. Also,  they feel like a background in the Type V sense, and I really like that aspect of the game. So here are a bunch of Type V style backgrounds for Whitebox, including the thief.

        This is based off of the 5MORE system.

        When you do something that is difficult, or when failure is both possible and interesting…
        Roll 1d6. Add a cumulative +1 to this roll for each of the following:

        • your relevant ability score is 13 or higher
        • your equipment is high quality or particularly effective
        • you are trained in a relevant skill
        • it’s an easy task or the circumstances are favorable.

        Get a 5 or higher. Add a cumulative +1 to this target number for each of the following:

        • your relevant ability score is 8 or lower
        • your equipment is shoddy or not made for the job
        • the task requires specialized knowledge you don’t have
        • it’s a difficult task or the circumstances are unfavorable

        Thief
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Sneak (Dexterity)
        • Sleight of Hand (Dexterity)
        • Pick Locks* (Dexterity)
        • Lie (Charisma)

        You take things what aren’t yours. As long as you are in a settlement, you can find a fence who will buy stolen goods. You also always know how to get in touch with the local ruling gang.

        Acolyte 
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Metaphysics (Intelligence)
        • Dowsing (Wisdom)
        • Medicine* (Intelligence) 
        • Performance: Oratory (Charisma)

        Your fellow practitioners are generally well disposed towards you by default, and you can use temples of your religion as a free place to say or a sanctuary (though they won’t put up your friends for free)

        Assassin
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Disguise (Intelligence)
        • Poison-making* (Intelligence)
        • Sneak (Dexterity) 
        • Athletics (Strength)

        Assassins always know where to find clients looking for a murderer for hire.

        Scholar
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Metaphysics (Intelligence)
        • Medicine* (Intelligence)
        • History (Intelligence)
        • Nature (Intelligence)

        You know a Terrible Secret. Figure out what it is with your Referee.

        Professional
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Tinker* (Intelligence)
        • Profession: Player’s choice [blacksmithing, sculpting, baking, whatever] (Intelligence)
        • Lie (Charisma)
        • Appraise (Intelligence)

        While in a settled area, you can earn back your room and board by practicing your profession.

        Performer
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Lie (Charisma)
        • Performance: Player’s Choice [dancing, singing, flute-playing, whatever] (Charisma)
        • Athletics (Strength)
        • Sleight of Hand (Dexterity)

        You know a Terrible Secret. Figure out what it is with your Referee.

        Hunter
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Sneak (Dexterity)
        • Tinker* (Intelligence)
        • Track (Wisdom)
        • Nature (Intelligence)

        By spending a day to hunt and forage, you can find enough food to sustain d3 people for a single day.

        (One good thing about how this works is that you can use it for race, too)
        Tiger
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Sneak (Dexterity)
        • Track (Wisdom)
        • Athletics (Strength)
        • Nature (Intelligence)

        You’re literally a tiger. You deal d8 damage with unarmed attacks, you can live off of raw food, and you heal naturally even when sleeping outside or in dungeons. Unfortunately, you have to get armor custom made and it costs twice as much, and people are kind of afraid of you.

        Wood Elf
        Pick 3 skills:

        • Sneak (Dexterity)
        • History (Intelligence)
        • Dowsing (Wisdom)
        • Nature (Intelligence)

        You don’t age.