jacinto intro, items, LotFP, original dungeons and dragons, san serafín

you’ve met with a terrible fate

You were all on a ship headed to the continent of El Sur. You didn’t make it there.

Instead, you have woken up on a strange beach of black sand and dark water, the sun too large and too red on the western horizon. You have nothing but the salt-crusted clothes on your back, and the following items that washed up with you. You can take as much or as little as you want, but you can only take what you can carry and you have to share with everybody else. Assume you have as many bags, packs, and pouches as you need to haul this stuff around.

We are using this encumbrance system. You do not know the next opportunity you will have resupply.

Weapons

  1. The sword: d8 damage, +1 damage if wielded with 2 hands
  2. The spear: d6 damage, 2 handed, a reach weapon
  3. The bow: d6 damage, 120′ range, two handed, comes with 18 arrows
  4. The sling: d4 damage, 60′ range, one handed, you can always find ammunition
  5. The stave: d4 damage, lets you cast a random 5e cantrip (nothing that sheds light, all damage dice are reduced by 1 step) one every 10 minutes (1 Turn)
  6. The daggers: d4 damage, can make two attacks if you’re wielding both
  7. The axe: 1d10 damage, two handed
  8. The bomb: 40′ range, everything within 20′ takes 4d6 damage when it goes off

Armor

  1. The yellow baldric: +1 AC, +1 to saves vs poison
  2. The patched hide: +1 AC
  3. The rusted chain: +2 AC, encumbers
  4. The piecemeal plate: +3 AC, encumbers moderately
  5. The shield: +1 AC, requires a free hand
  6. The black, fur-trimmed robe: +2 to saving throws versus magic
  7. The blue silk robe: +1 to all saving throws
  8. The red vestments: +3 AC vs Chaotic creatures

Equipment

  1. Book: The Seraphic Atlas (+1 to Metaphysics checks)
  2. Book: A Child’s Guide to the Wild (+1 to Nature checks)
  3. Book: A Catalogue of Human Failure (+1 to History checks)
  4. A holy rite (Turn Chaos as a 2nd level cleric 1/day)
  5. lockpicks (required to make Pick Locks)
  6. pot of ointment (heal 1d4 HP. Has 1d10 doses)
  7. 100′ of rope
  8. grappling hook and 25′ of rope
  9. Doctor’s bag (required to make Medicine checks)
  10. Poisoner’s pack (required to make Poison-making checks)
  11. Disguise kit (required to make Disguise checks)
  12. 10 hard biscuits
  13. 10 full waterskins
  14. a lantern
  15. 6 flasks of oil
  16. 6 torches
  17. ghost food (can be used as a medium offering to any god)
  18. a 1 pound block of lard
  19. a flute
  20. a dozen metal spikes
  21. A lighter
  22. A pack of cigarettes
  23. a bottle of rum
  24. a flare gun 
  25. a pouch with 6 strange coins
  26. A beautiful ruby ring
  27. A cloth doll
    jacinto classes, clerics, demon, djinn, LotFP, occult, original dungeons and dragons, san serafín

    a god is a kind of monster

    This blog is slowly turning into an extended and not very good meditation on how clerics work, so bear with me while I get it out of my system. I’m working on some dice drop tables that could actually be of use to someone for next post. I recently did a reread of the Games With Others archives, so this post leans on Pearce’s work here.

    SO:
    Fighters solve problems with violence.
    Thieves solve problems with trickery.
    Magic-users solve problems by knowing things, or, depending on how you see it, breaking the rules.
    Clerics tend to exist in this space between  fighters and magic-users: they have okay spells and an okay capacity for violence. This is perfectly fine, but when I crunch clerics down to the aesthetic core that actually appeals to me, I get:

    Clerics solve problems by getting someone else to do it for them.

    Reading over the Original Dungeons and Dragons rules, the 2d6 reaction check was originally used to determine the outcome of transactions, rather than a more general way to figure out an NPC’s attitude towards the players. This meshes well with the idea of clerics doing things by proxy, but I think there is a better, easier, and more satisfying way to do that then my old warlock class.

    From Monstress 1. written by Marjorie Liu,, art by Sana Takeda
    Spirit Medium

    Progression
    HP, XP, attack bonus, saving throws as Cleric. Equipment restrictions as magic-user.

    Commune
    You understand and can be understood by any monster, even if you do not share a language.

    Bargain
    Influence a monster or band of allied monsters. You can do this to soothe hostile creatures or extract services from neutral to friendly ones. To Bargain, you must offer the monsters some form of payment and then make a reaction check. Mediums can only do this once per band of allied monsters per encounter. 

         2: The monster becomes hostile and attacks. If it was already hostile, it attacks the medium.
         3-5: The monster refuses the offer, or continues its current course of action.
         6-8: The monster refuses the offer, but will reconsider if the medium gives better terms.
         9-11: The monster accepts the offer.
         12: The monster accepts the offer and gives the medium its name.

    by Bertha Lum

    This is predicated on the medium offering suitable terms. Monsters pretty universally accept fresh blood (d6 HP worth for something simple like getting them to cast a 1st level spell, help in a fight, give information on the locals, or settle down if they have only a few HD, but a major secret, protection for a whole adventure, or calming a dragon could require quite a bit more); however, if the medium has an item appropriate for the monster (rare incense for a mummy, or a flower for a dryad, for example), they can use it as payment instead. These items are quite probably expensive, but they also encumber as at least 1 significant item each. Mediums can also offer to kill rivals, track down treasure, restore shrines, observe a taboo, whatever. Referees should feel free to have monsters make suggestions.

    Summon
    When you knows a monster’s true name, you can call it forth whenever you wish. Chant its name, carve its name into the ground, burn a paper doll with its name on it, whatever. A Turn later, it shows up, stepping out of a shadow, welling up out of the earth, or scuttling down from the ceiling. You can then Bargain with it.

    Miracle
    If a monster knows a spell, you can Bargain for the ability to cast it once.

    Mitsukuni Defying the Skeleton Spectre Invoked by Princess Takiyasha by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

    The way I use “monster” here presupposed a Princess Mononoke-esque animist universe where animals, gods, and monsters all sort of exist on the same spectrum. Mediums shouldn’t be able to use Bargain on a bandit (though it would be fun to put otherwise human magic-users in the monster category, now that I think about it). If you’re going for a more naturalist feel, you could limit Bargain to only explicitly supernatural critters (ghosts, djinni, elementals, etc).

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

    OD&D Gods

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Elf names include

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