December 11, 2022December 11, 2022 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 Foxes	No. of Targets
1	1
2	2
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.

October 10, 2017June 26, 2019 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.

July 20, 2017 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

Ash
Mud
Grass
Corpses
Beasts
The Sun
The Moon
The Dark

August 23, 2016 jacinto new age dnd, spell

good, actually

So Pathfinder gets a lot of crap for being enormously complicated, but many of its spells–particularly the obscure ones–are quite good.

Swarm Skin

Climbing Beanstalk

Whip of Spiders

Curse of Burning Sleep

Anonymous Interaction

Mirror Hideaway and Mirror Transport

Dance of a Hundred Cuts

Marionette Possession

Reckless Infatuation

Burning Gaze

Threefold Aspect

March 19, 2016 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)

February 4, 2016 jacinto classes, clerics, LotFP, san serafín, spell, table

beneath the teeming heavens

Here’s a big ole generator that makes monsters/gods that are suitable as retainers. Got the idea from this and this.

there are a handful of gods of middling power scattered across the island of San Serafín (the Red and Gold Rebel, Dreaming Beast Al-Mi’raj, YV YN YR, but starting shamans must call out into the void and take whatever minor spirit answers.

from persona

GENERATING A GOD

Roll 1d20 to determine the god’s stat block. All gods start with 2 HD.
Roll 1d20 to determine the god’s shape
Roll 1d20 to determine the god’s domain

A god can use its Major Power 1/day and its minor power at will.
Minor powers in parentheses are movement types
Gods can cast spells with a range of Self as Touch spells if they target their shaman
A god’s Aspect affects its appearance

click to make it bigger

GENERATING A GOD’S NAME

Roll 1d4 to determine how many syllables compose the god’s name.
Roll 1d100 to determine which syllables compose the god’s name.

from final fantasy 12 revenant wings

January 24, 2016 jacinto classes, demon, djinn, spell, type v

pokédungeon

I don’t like Find Familiar or Conjure X spells in 5e D&D, and I’ve been circling around the idea on how to fix them for a while. I think this is how I will do it next time I run Type V–spells that call up a critter what does as you say, but prevents the caster from recovering the spell slot used until the creature is dismissed. This sort of amortizes the benefit of a spell slot over the course of a day, as opposed to making them a single-use get-out-of-jail-free cards. It also gives me a measure for what these creatures should be able to do–there needs to be a reason to pick this spell over any other 1st level spell. Finally, it means I don’t have to fuss with class mechanics, which is a big plus. How to implement this:

Wizards can get this spell as is.
Warlocks can get this as an Invocation that lets them use a Warlock slot to cast it 1/day. (Being able to cast it 1/short rest would let warlocks be able to easily circumvent the cost of losing the spell for the day, since they could just dismiss the creature and take a short rest.)

I’ll probably make a version for 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th levels, as well. Stronger versions might only be for a single creature.

Minor Covenant
1st-level conjuration

Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: 10 feet
Component: V, S, M (an opal, ruby, piece of quartz, or sapphire worth at least 50 gp)
Duration: Permanent

You summon a lesser spirit that appears in an unoccupied space that you can see in range. A spirit summoned by this spell disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or you choose to end the spell, which takes an action. As long as this spell is in effect, you cannot regain use of the spell slot you used to cast it.

The kind of material component you use determines the kind of lesser spirit this spell summons.

An opal summons a sylph
A ruby summons a least djinn
A piece of quartz summons an true gnome
A sapphire summons an undine

The spirit will not attempt to harm you or your companions. It receives its own place in initiative. The spirit obeys any verbal commands you issue it (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any commands to it, the spirit will follow you without taking any other action.

As an action, you can temporarily dismiss the lesser spirit. It disappears into the Void where it awaits your summons. As an action while it is temporarily dismissed, you can cause it to reappear in any unoccupied space within 10 feet of you.

The spirit can break free from the bonds of this spell. It may make a Wisdom save whenever

you give the spirit a new command
you insult the spirit or place it in egregious danger
you command the spirit to perform an action that requires it to ignore one of its compulsions or perform one of its taboos.

If the spirit succeeds its Wisdom saving throw, it breaks free from your control, becomes hostile to you and no longer obeys your commands. You cannot temporarily dismiss it, and ending the spell no longer causes the spirit to disappear, though it does allow you to recover the spell slot used to cast this spell.

Sylph

from bravely default

Small elemental, unaligned

AC: 15
HP: 6
Speed: 0 ft, fly 30 ft.
STR: 4 (-3) DEX: 20 (+5) CON: 8 (-1)
INT: 10 (+0) WIS: 10 (+0) CHA: 12 (+1)
Skills: Perception +2, Sleight of Hand +7, Stealth +7
Damage Resistances: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning
Languages: Common, Sylvan
CR: 1/8

ABILITIES

Innate Spellcasting (at will): The sylph can innately cast the cantrip Gust. Its spellcasting ability is Charisma.
Keen Smell: The sylph has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.
Ethereal: Sylphs can squeeze through spaces as if they were Tiny creatures

ACTIONS

Superior Invisibility: The sylph magically turns invisible until its concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). Any equipment the sylph wears or carries turns invisible with it.

DISPOSITION
Sylphs are spirits of air and propriety. They despise rudeness, ugliness, and violence, and delight in courtesy, beauty, quietude, and refined conversation. Despite their ostensibly peaceable and orderly natures, sylphs will steal, murder, and torment to punish those they have deemed transgressors.

from final fantasy 12 revenant wings

True Gnome

Medium elemental, unaligned

AC: 11 (natural armor)
HP: 19
Speed: 30 ft
STR: 15 (+2) DEX: 10 (+0) CON: 14 (+2)
INT: 4 (-3) WIS: 12 (+1) CHA: 12 (+1)
Skills: Perception +2, Nature +4
Damage Resistances: slashing, piercing
Languages: Common, Celestial
ABILITIES

Innate Spellcasting (at will): The true gnome can innately cast the cantrip Mold Earth. Its spellcasting ability is Charisma.
Quiet Strength: The true gnome has advantage on Strength checks to lift, carry, bend, break, and otherwise manipulate inanimate objects

ACTIONS

Punch: Melee Weapon Attack. +4 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 2d4+2 bludgeoning damage.

DISPOSITION
Ursulines are spirits of earth and obligation. They dislike dishonesty, destruction, and disorder, and appreciate respect for wildlife, honesty, prudence, and sleeping.

from final fantasy

Least Djinni

Small elemental, unaligned

AC: 15 (natural armor)
HP: 2
Speed: 0 ft, fly 40 ft
STR: 18 (+4) DEX: 12 (+1) CON: 10 (+0)
INT: 10 (+0) WIS: 8 (-1) CHA: 14 (+2)
Skills: Stealth +3, Athletics +6
Damage Resistances: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning
Damage Immunities: fire
Languages: Common, Primordial
ABILITIES

Innate Spellcasting (at will): The ursuline can innately cast the cantrip Control Flames. Its spellcasting ability is Charisma.

ACTIONS

Discern Desire: The least djinni touches a creature and magically knows what the creature most desires at that moment.
Bite: Melee Weapon Attack, +6 to hit, 1 reach 5 ft, one target. d4+4 piercing damage, and the target must succeed in a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 1 minute.
Invisibility: The least djinni magically turns invisible until it attacks or casts a spell, or until concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). Any equipment the least djinn wears or carries is invisible with it.

DISPOSITION
Djinn are spirits of flame and desire. They dislike equivocation, moderation, and cowardice. They love the exertion of power, achieving desires, and eating.

Undine

Medium elemental, unaligned

AC: 2
HP: 9
Speed: 25 ft, swim 40 ft
STR: 6 (+2) DEX: 12 (+1) CON: 8 (+2)
INT: 11 (+0) WIS: 10 (+0) CHA: 16 (+3)
Skills: Persuasion +5, Performance +5
Damage Resistances: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning
Languages: Common, Primordial
ABILITIES

Innate Spellcasting (at will): The undine can innately cast the cantrip Shape Water. Its spellcasting ability is Charisma.
Translucency: The undine can become invisible in water as a bonus action
Amorphous:The undine can squeeze through a space as narrow as 1 inch without squeezing

ABILITIES

Claw: Melee Weapon Attack, +3 to hit, 1 reach 5 ft, one target. d6+1 piercing damage, and the target must succeed in a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 1 minute.

DISPOSITION
Undine are spirits of water and vanity. They dislike dirt, modesty, poverty, and circumspection. They like performance, ostentation, and cleanliness. They really love drowning people.

October 11, 2015 jacinto classes, LotFP, occult, san serafín, spell, table

Meet the Witch

A class! This is another draft of one I’ve done before, except I cleaned up the layout a lot. This art is by Alphonse Mucha–the previous picture by neev is going elsewhere in the zine now.

click me i get bigger

You can get a pdf of the witch class here.

And yeah, I’m thinking that San Serafín is going to get some sort of print release. I’ve finally figured out the look of it, I think.

May 4, 2015 jacinto Carcosa, classes, clerics, Pernicious Albion, spell

eat your heart out

Queen Agorath is an incomprehensible goddess-behemoth that resides in the hadopelagic void beneath Creation. Nobody remembers how or when she became Queen of Albion, but inquirers into that particular subject have died in sufficiently discomfiting numbers that more or less everyone has stopped trying to figure it out. By all mortal measures, the Queen is quite insane, but despite a few fits of psychotic pique every few centuries, she does a rather passable job of keeping the country running, and her mortal Council can be counted on to attend to the details that might slip her royal mind.

Queen Agorath is the goddess of black magic and bodily transformation. Her Royal Clerics can only cast the reversed versions of reversible spells. They cannot Turn Undead, but can transform into creatures.

When a Royal Cleric eats a beast’s heart and succeeds a saving throw, she gains the ability to transform into that creature once per day for 10×level minutes (a number of Turns equal to her level), gaining all its powers and abilities for that time. The cleric receives a +1 bonus to her saving throw for every ritually significant step she takes while eating the heart; the Queen’s ritual sensibilities tend towards the perversely elegant and darkly sumptuous.

from tale of tales

Examples:

Eating the heart off of a plate of precious metal
Eating the heart while dressed in an luxurious gown
Incorporating the heart into exquisite confectionary
Being fed the heart by silent and finely-dressed servants

Eating the heart of a creature with more hit dice than the cleric has levels does nothing. Furthermore, a cleric’s flesh can only remember so many shapes; a Royal Cleric can only learn a number of forms equal to half her level rounded up. Successfully consuming a heart while at this limit requires that she forget one of her existing forms.

from bloodborne

March 9, 2015 jacinto angels, clerics, LotFP, monsters, Pernicious Albion, spell

Lawful Awful

The Watchers are secret society of humans who have pledged themselves to the cause of the Grigori. The communicate with each other through coded messages and dreams, arranged by their angelic patrons. Most Watchers are just regular people with eccentric religious views and a casual disregard for the kind of bodily harm their masters tend to cause, but a few have been transformed as a reward for their service.

Soteriomancer
HD 2-10 Speed human
Armor none Attack staff
Morale 10 Alignment Lawful
Magicians who have sworn to aid the Grigori. They are often members of Albion’s occult aristocratic class, keeping their allegiances secret as they sabotage their fellows and excavate sleeping angels.

Soteriomancers function as magicians with levels equal to their HD. They know a number of Spiritualism spells equal to half their level and can expend any prepared spell to cast Refine Corpus instead.

Refine Corpus
The caster transforms a single human within 10 ft into a more virtuous being. The caster can apply half their level to the target’s saving throw if they so choose. This miracle has 7 variations. Soteriomancers acquire a new variation every level in ascending orders.

Subtly alters the brain structure of the target, preventing them from ever sleeping again. The target may make a Save vs Magic; on a success, they no longer need to sleep anyway. On a failure, they will suffer the effects of sleep deprivation until they go mad and die.
Sublimates the target’s digestive organs into nothing. The target may make a Save vs Magic; on a success, they can subsist purely on aether and no longer need to eat or drink. On a failure, they will die or thirst and starvation during the days to come.
Destroys the ability of the target’s body to regulate its temperature–they no longer produce body heat and cannot sweat or shiver. The target may Save vs Magic; on a success, they are completely untroubled by any temperature a natural climate can produce; on a failure, they die of hypothermia over the next few hours as their body becomes room temperature.
The target’s lungs and associated respiratory organs dissolve into intangible golden dust. The target may make a Save vs Magic; on a success; they no longer need to breath. On a failure, they will quickly suffocate.
The target no longer ages. The target may Save vs Magic; on a success, they may enjoy their new immortality. On a failure, this stasis prevents their body from healing itself–all wounds they suffer become permanent and all damage they take affects their maximum HP
The target becomes perfectly androgynous and biologically sexless. The target may Save vs Magic; on a success, they become immune to Charm spells. On a failure, they henceforth automatically fail all Saves vs Poison/Death.
The target must Save vs Magic or be enthralled by the soteriomancer, pledging themselves to the cause of the Grigori with no thought of previous alliance. They also undergo the seven previous versions of Refine Corpus, one per Turn in ascending order, automatically succeeding each saving throw. On the seventh Turn, they transform into an angel with HD equal to their level rounded to the nearest multiple of 3.

Lazarene Knight
HD 1-10 Speed human
Armor none Attack sword
Morale 12 Alignment Lawful

from Darkest Dungeon

The body of a great warrior, mummified and possessed by the soul of a particularly virtuous Watcher. They wear winged golden armor, and beneath are wrapped in bandages anointed with myrrh. All Lazarene Knights carry a massive bronze jar and their back, which they use to capture souls and spirits. Knights can be Turned as undead, which is the subject of a number of heated theological debates.

Lazarene Knights can cast Soul Harvest at will. Captured souls are trapped in the Knight’s jar and Charmed/infatuated with the angel that raised the Lazarene Knight from the dead. When encountered, Knights start with d6+1 souls in their jar.

A Knight can expend 1 soul to do any of the following:

Send the soul to the Hereafter that creates a pillar of golden fire that deals d6×half HD of the soul
Have the soul animate and control a number of HD of undead equal to its own HD. This purges any disease, decay, and corruption from the bodies.
Send the soul to possess someone. This functions as the Bewitch/Charm Person spell.
Allow the soul to possess them. This heals the Knight for d6×half HD of the soul, and causes the Knight to speak in first person plural.