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 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, LotFP, magic, occult, rituals, table

lamentation final fantasy

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

from final fantasy tactics a2

How Is Your Summoner Ruining Ivalice? 

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

prototype easy treasure generation

There are two things that I find to be just unmitigatedly bad in old school Dungeons and Dragons: Turn Undead and treasure generation. I’m still working in the first, but I need a good, easy to use loot generator like two years ago, so here’s what I’ve cobbled together. Since I guess this blog is just a restatement of games with others, it’s based off of the generator here, and has a similar rationale–players are forced to explore more and more dangerous areas if they want to find treasure, gain XP, or even stay supplied.

the rules
When you loot a corpse or go through a room, roll 1d10+level+number of times you have already looted the area or corpse. This takes 1 Turn and a roll of the encounter die.

If you roll higher than the corpse’s HD or higher than 3+dungeon level, you just find junk and will only ever find junk.

If you roll equal to or less than that, compare the natural result of the 1d10 roll (so don’t add your level or number of items you have looted) to the Loot Table.

Black Sand is precipitated dream-stuff. It falls gently and diffusely everywhere in San Serafin, but in sufficient quantities it is of some value to various NPCs. Burning it at a campfire provides XP equal to its value.

Treasures come in several different types. Incense/candles can be used in barter with the Dead or burned on an altar for XP. Hearts can be used in barter with a  devil or buried in a graveyard for XP. Coins can be used to trade with Serafinos, if you can get them to talk to you.

Bartering is dangerous, difficult, and kind of unfair, so scavenging for supplies is actually important–getting the gear result is not supposed to be a dud roll at all.

Loot Table

  1. Random gear
  2. Random supplies
  3. Black Sand (value = d100xHD of creature or d100xdungeon level)
  4. Treasure (value=d1000xHD or dungeon level)
  5. high quality gear
  6. secret/map fragment
  7. Consumable Magic Item
  8. Enchanted Magic Item
  9. a secret
  10. Artifact

Random Supplies (1d8)

  1. torch
  2. ration
  3. flask of oil
  4. lantern
  5. lighter
  6. 1d20 arrows

Quality Gear

  1. Compass
  2. Rapier
  3. Scimitars
  4. leather armor
  5. chain armor
  6. plate armor
  7. warhammer
  8. greatsword
  9. glaive
  10. longbow
  11. crossbow
  12. javelin

Consumable Magic Item

  1. MU spell scroll with level = ½ current dungeon level
  2. Cleric spell scroll with level = ½ current dungeon level
  3. Potion of Diminution: makes drinker mouse-sized for d6+1 Turns
  4. Potion of Polymorph
  5. Potion of Protection from Heat
  6. Potion of Protection from Cold
  7. Potion of False Death: appear as undead, even to the undead, for d6+1 Turns
  8. Potion of Sanctuary
  9. Potion of Waterbreathing
  10. Potion of Cure Light Wounds
  11. Potion of Dragonbreath: make a breath attack as a red dragon; deals damage equal to your current HP
  12. Potion of Cure Disease

Enchanted Magic Item

  1. Pyromantic Sigil: once belonged to a pyromancer betrayed by his own children. Allows the wielder to cast a fiery version of Magic Missile. Has a 1 in 10 chance of failing with each use, but can be recharged with a bottle of Midnight Oil.
  2. Scales of Shaday: Once belonged to a cleric who was declared anathema for violating the course of history. Allows the wielder to Detect Magic and Detect Evil at will.
  3. Viper-embroidered Veil: lost by a thief renowned for her virtue. Allows the wielder to cast Invisibility on themselves 1/hour.
  4. Ring of Ages: once belonged to a powerful alchemist who committed a terrible betrayal to attain eternal life. The wearer does not age so long as they wear it.
  5. Mask of Granosa: created from a beast god’s corpse by an evil mask-maker. Wearer grows sharp claws and fierce fangs and can make unarmed attacks as a grizzly bear (1d4/1d4/1d8)
  6. Six Ways To Sunday: a six-shooter machined by a hated exorcist. Can only be fired 6 times a week; recovers all of its ammunition on Sunday at noon. d12 damage at longbow range, ignores AC provided by armor

I’m keeping Secrets and Artifacts under my hat.

This isn’t  the only way to get treasure. There are various NPCs with unique spells, items, and classes you can’t get anywhere else, but they have to be discovered and courted.

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

  1. Roll 1d20 to determine the god’s stat block. All gods start with 2 HD.
  2. Roll 1d20 to determine the god’s shape
  3. 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

  1. Roll 1d4 to determine how many syllables compose the god’s name.
  2. Roll 1d100 to determine which syllables compose the god’s name.
 
 
from final fantasy 12 revenant wings
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.

jacinto items, npcs, table, treasure

magic items and the people who use them

There aren’t many magic items locked away in chests in San Serafín. They’re usually in the possession of someone or somebody, whether they be an adventurer or one of the Dead. Someone lucky enough to find a magic weapon is pretty much guaranteed to become a local celebrity, and someone tough enough to keep it probably has a successful career as an adventurer ahead of them.

1. Six Ways To Sunday
A six-shooter revolver machined by an infamous exorcist. On a successful hit against on undead creature, the gun Turns them as a cleric with 2 more levels than the wielder’s level and deals damage equal to the turn result. If shot at a living creature, it simply deals 2d6 damage. This gun takes regular ammunition, but can only be reloaded on Sunday at noon.

Six Ways to Sunday is carried by Soledad (Lawful Fighter LVL 3). She is looking for the body of her son and she wants to find the Body of San Serafín so she can destroy the city permanently.

2. Glorious Face of the Sun
A mask that once belonged to a member of an extinct clan of devils. Anyone who wears it is considered the 12th Solar Devil by all other devils. It can create a temporary field of Day or Night once every 24 hours, but each use attracts the attention of a random devil looking to expand its portfolio.

Glorious Face of the Sun is currently being worn by Usmail (Chaotic MU LVL 4). He is on a search for immortality without joining the ranks of the Dead.

3. The First Sword
Anyone with this broadsword in their hands cannot be harmed by edged metal weapons.

The First Sword is now in the possession of the Hummingbird Knight (Neutral Fighter LVL 4). She wears a feathered mask, and has become an adventurer simply out of a desire for wealth. She can also polymorph into a hummingbird at will.

4. Galconda
A red-bladed shortsword blessed by the blood of the First Saint. Its wounds do not bleed or hurt, and it is said anyone killed by it is guaranteed a place in Heaven. A successful Sneak Attack with Galconda does not alert the attacker’s presence to the victim.

Galconda’s owner is Amorente (Lawful Cleric LVL 2). She is a Saint of Honey and Salt and adventures to gather the wealth and power necessary to start a radical utopian commune.

5. Sunshine
A six-shooter that fires projectiles sanctified by the Sun. It doesn’t take regular ammunition; one turn in direct, bright sunlight recovers 1 bullet.

Sunshine is owned by Jaguar Boy (Neutral Fighter LVL 6), a high school students who moonlights as an adventurer out of sheer boredom.

6. The Cutting Wind
A one-handed war fan. When waved, creates a gust of wind that cuts like a knife, dealing d8 damage. Range is as spear, and it uses Dex for the attack roll.

The Cutting Wind’s wielder is Doña Yolanda (MU LVL 2), a washed up opera singer with an axe to grind. To wants to become an indefatigable warrior and extract bloody retribution from her former employer.

7. The Hot Black Flame
An ugly black cinder that shimmers with dark flame, which can be used to throw fire for d10 damage at javelin range. A two handed weapon; the wielder must hold it in one hand and pull fire to throw with the other. (Uses Brendan’s ammo die rules. If you run out, you have to find a flask of Midnight Oil to refresh the flame)

The Hot Black Flame’s owner is Yuma (Chaotic Cleric LVL 3). She wants to unmask the devils and restore them to their former, (relatively) benevolent divinity.

8. The Finger of God
A ring of silver metal, about six inches in diameter. The wielder can reach inside the hoop to pull out a spear of lightning, which they can throw at longbow range for d8 damage. A two handed weapon. (Uses Brendan’s ammo die rules. If you run out, you have to find a flask of Oil of Joy to reconsecrate the ring.)

The Finger of God’s wielder is simply called the Padre (Lawful Magic-user LVL 5). He has formed a pact with the Dead and works to further their goals.

Unaccounted for:

  • The Zehir: a divine weapon rumored to have the power to destroy minds
  • The Aleph: a fragment of omniscience
  • Tizona: a sword with power over fire
  • Colada: a sword that frightens the wicked
  • The Book of Sand: contains all human knowledge
  • The Body of San Serafín: grants a Wish
jacinto adventures, afternoon espresso, angels, megadungeon murder mystery, monsters, san serafín, table

XIII

This is kind of an experiment. Every session there is a 1 in 6 chance of one of these things coming up or being mentioned or whatever. It’s a conspiracy generator. Not the best format, but it was fun to write so whatever.

by Dominic Alves, distributed under CC

I
There is a god, and its name is Thirteen. It is the lord of inversion and the architect of misfortune; its clerics wear yellow and hold power over doppelgangers, oozes, and devils. The Constables hunt its worshipers like animals, but there always seems to be more.

by Jerry Kirkhart, distributed under CC

II
There is a society, and nobody knows its name or its members. Everyone who matters has gone to one of their parties–they only invite thirteen people at a time, and it’s terribly difficult to secure an invitation. Sometimes people don’t come back, but that just makes it all the more exciting, doesn’t it?

III
There is a city where nobody goes, a city of sepulchers, a city by the sea. You can’t find it on a map, and no matter how far you travel, you won’t ever reach it. Some priests say the gods cut it out of this world like a tumor, but if you take a certain route, passing through certain cursed doorways and traversing certain cursed crossroads, you will arrive on one of its thirteen grand avenues, which intersect in the center like a spider’s web or a perverse star. The dead hang by cables from the telephone wires.

IV
There is a man by the side of the road, and he is shouting at you. He speaks of an angel with thirteen wings and a hydra with thirteen heads. He says he will be dead soon, but this is a thing that you all must know.

V
You found a book about a crow with thirteen eyes, scattered across its face like any ugly constellation. It is terrible old and utterly malign: a colossal rival of dragons, a gleeful anthropophage, a bearer of curses. It steals children from their parents, raises them and loves them with all its evil heart. They don’t grow up human.

by Anne-Sophie Leens, distributed under CC

VI
There is a syndicate with thirteen captains. They traffic in drugs, slaves, and precious metals; they are undercutting just about every major player in the city. Nobody can figure out who their suppliers are, or where their shipments are coming from, but everyone wants them gone. The Weaver’s Guild has placed a colossal bounty on the heads of their leaders, but it’s only resulted in a lot of dead assassins.

VII
Somebody murdered a Saint of Honey and Salt, carving a thirteen-pointed star into their chest. The local House has promised blood, and rumor has it they’ve had to purge their ranks of spies, though the details are fuzzy on who they were working for.

VIII
This buried and desecrated temple is the home to thirteen warlocks:

  • Gog and Magog, the hateful witch-children, each of which draws magic from the other
  • Illhammer, who casts spells with a mace fashioned from a devil’s femur
  • The Perfect Child of Man, who wears a yellow hood. The emissary of a god-city exiled from this world
  • Ratbelly, the red eyed waif, bound by her own oaths to the Forbidden Hour, which once sat between midnight and 1 a.m
  • Catbelly: the neurasthenic malefic, carried on a silk palanquin by 5 horned skeletons and empowered by a devil of smoke and blue fire
  • Murderboy: he walks on ceilings and weeps black tar; he was raised by a spider the size of a school bus that still sings him to sleep
  • Toothgirl: a creeping obsessive, built a god of neon tubes and rat bones that tells her who to kill
  • Gurn: she can unhinge her jaw like a snake and spit out almost anything she wants; cursed by her mother to be killed by a weapon of her own making.
  • Mammon: everything he does looks awkward and wrong, like a dog walking on its hind legs or a man running on all fours. A centipede lives in his clothes that teaches him the secrets of secret-eating and memory-killing
  • Nadir: wild haired troglodyte who lives at the bottom of a hole, which moves around when nobody’s looking. Sold her soul to a gravity angel, so she can’t pick herself off the ground.
  • Maculata: jelly-fleshed voyeur with a visible skeleton; holds congress with puddings, oozes, and jellies of all sorts.
  • Maastricht: a wretched old man with metal teeth, his pact with Satan makes him nigh omnipotent; his secret weakness is that he can only move when you’re looking at him

IX
There’s a series of thirteen pamphlets everyone’s reading. They make you remember things you’d forgotten, give you advice that makes you feel smart and capable and stronger, they make you forget your own inadequacy and weakness and stupidity, they make you want to find the other pamphlets, but they’re so hard to find and you can’t figure out where they come from. Everyone says something wonderful happens if you read all thirteen.

I’m tired of writing now. I’ll probably write more and I want to find a d13 for this.

jacinto Pernicious Albion, table

mother dearest father mine

had 3:00 pm double shot of espresso today so I am RIDING HIGH and LIVING LARGE. Strictly mechanical bonuses and penalties for races bore me like nothing else so here’s some that aren’t that.
 

Cambions
by Luisa Uribe, distributed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Humans born under the auspices of a lord or lady of Hell are known as cambions. This can be a legal, magical, or familial relationship; a cambion might be the inadvisable fruit of a union between an incubus and a human, or his parents might have appointed a Prince of Hell to be his godfather. Regardless, a cambion carries within himself a modicum of infernal power.

A Gift From Father: Roll on the table below to determine which which demon the cambion claims his inheritance from:

  1. Malphas: The cambion’s eyes are pale and beady, like a crow’s. He possesses a small and venomous familiar, most often a serpent or spider. It can speak English and Lament. It has a 4 in 6 chance of knowing any given fact about a particular subject, but if it does does not actually know the answer to a question, it will lie convincingly. The familiar is simply knowledgeable; it doesn’t have any more access to information than an exceedingly well read scholar. The familiar will not suffer to be removed from its master’s person, and can evade all attempts at detection and capture. Its can deal no damage, but its venom causes excruciating pain for d6 turns. Roll a d4 at character creation to determine the familiar’s area of expertise:
    1. Demonology: The familiar knows all about the names, behaviors, powers, appearances, and weaknesses of demons.
    2. Sorcery: The familiar knows all about the names, effects, limitations, and histories of spells, enchantments, curses, and rituals devised by humans.
    3. Angelology: The familiar knows all about the names, behaviors, powers, appearances, and weaknesses of angels. 
    4. History: The familiar knows all about the history of Albion and can answer questions about archaeology, historical figures, paleontology, and architecture.
  2. Astaroth: The cambion’s left eye bears the Sigil of Astaroth. While this eye is open, a cambion can see things as they really are, and must make a saving throw every round or take d6 Wisdom damage as sheer stark reality erodes his sanity. However, while this eye is open, the cambion may also do one of the following (randomly determined at character creation):
    1. Perceive magic, discern the invisible, and see through illusions
    2. See the sin each person in line of sight most wants to commit
    3. See the sin each person in line of sight last committed
    4. See what action each person in line of sight intends on performing next round
  3. Ose: The cambion’s teeth and sharp and yellow and curved, like a leopard’s. He can insert a thought into somebody’s mind by forming the sign of the horns in their direction. The thought must be short enough to be said with a single breath. The victim of this magic may not make a save, but is under no compunction to act on the thought in any way—they simply believe it to be their own idea.
  4. Buer: The cambion has a lion’s tail. When he drags his forefinger along a rough surface, his fingertip combusts like a giant phosphorus match. It burns until the cambion chooses to extinguish it and does not hurt him in any way.
  5. Amaimon: When the cambion breathes into somebody’s ear, he can control what dreams they have the following night. No matter how unpleasant the dreams, this cannot prevent the victim from getting a full night’s rest on its own, but it can affect their mood.
  6. Bathin: The cambion can instantaneously travel as half as far as he can run in a round, so long as both his point of departure and arrival are unobserved by thinking creatures. The exact details of this process are mysterious, even to the cambion.
  7. Belial: The cambion can give false life to a poppet or small doll, transforming it into a clever and loyal familiar. It is swift and subtle, but cannot lift more than a pound and forever ceases to function the moment anyone other than the cambion lays eyes on it. The cambion can create such familiars at will, but can have only one at a time.
  8. Asmoday: By tracing a five pointed star in the air with his forefinger, the cambion can perform a minor, short range hex, such as severing a rope, shattering a pane of glass, or spoiling a piece of food. 

    Mooncalf
    screencap from Only Lovers Left Alive

     All fairies are bound by immutable laws, and one of them is a prohibition against theft. A fairy may seize reparations for some slight or claim a price for services rendered, but none may simply take what they wish. When a fairy plucks a child a child from the cradle for whatever reason, they always leave behind a mooncalf, a strangeling, changeling elf-child born from some mysterious and doubtlessly unnerving copulative process.

    Mooncalves make for exceedingly ugly babies, to the distress of their adoptive parents, but usually grow into a kind of disturbing beauty, an extreme jolie laide.

    Roll 1d4 times to determine the mooncalf’s characteristics

    1. Albinism
    2. Cleft palate
    3. Dwarfism or Gigantism
    4. Hairlessness
    5. Heterochromatic eyes
    6. Minor animal aspect
    7. Minor plant aspect
    8. Polydactyly
    9. Sexlessness
    10. Vitiligo

    Honesty: Mooncalves cannot utter a lie or break a promise. This is a physical prohibition; changelings may violate an oath no more than humans can lift themselves up by their own hair. However, mooncalves are free to mislead or omit and are must honor only the word of a promise.

    Glamor: A mooncalf can alter its appearance and voice however its pleases, so long as the result is within natural human variation. It may also change the seeming of its clothing and gear. Such glamors fool all the senses. Mooncalves must assume their true form while on consecrated ground. They take d6 damage if they walk beneath a horseshoe.

    Languages: Mooncalves speak Fol, the language of fairies.

    jacinto encounters, LotFP, monsters, Pernicious Albion, table

    Albion Encounter Tables

    Albion’s wilderness encounter tables use 3d6. I like the distribution on this–the tail ends of the bell curve have scary/useful NPCs, while the middle bits have more common monsters and criminals.

    Another trick I’m interested in trying is having monster/NPC behavior tied to the number you encounter. For example, if the Referee determines that the party encounters d6 goblins, a roll of 2 or less means that you meet 2 goblins fleeing from something else on the encounter table, while a roll of 5 or more means they are hauling a little extra treasure after a victory. This lets you vary encounters more without relying in longer tables or lots of extra dice rolling.

    3d6 In the windy moors of Albion…

    • 3: The Morrígan (ancient Britonnic war-witch, majordomo of the House of Death, potential warlock signatory)
    • 4: Merchant with 2d6 bodyguards; if there are 9+, they plan on robbing their employer
    • 5: Noble with 2d6 bodyguards; if there are 9+, they are transporting a prisoner
    • 6: d6+3 knights; if there are 7+, they have sworn fealty to the lord of the nearest domain; on a 6-, they are on a mission from a distant domain
    • 7: d6+3 Watcher Cultists
    • 8: Shepherd (armed with a gun) with d6+1 Albion hounds and 3d6 sheep
    • 9: Malkin (enormous, evil cats)
    • 10: 2d6 bandits; if there are 10+, they are hauling £2d100 in trade goods
    • 11: 2d6 wolves; if there are 10+, they are attacking another creature on this table
    • 12: 2d6 Britons; if there are 7+, they are being pursued by constables
    • 13: Spakehound
    • 14: d6 Wights
    • 15: 2d6 Vampires, level equals 13-No. Appearing. Masquerading as (1-Nobles 2-Magician and servants 3-Bandits 4-Knights)
    • 16. 2d6 Werewolves, level equals 13-No. Appearing. Masquerading as (1-Bandits 2-Britons 3-Merchant and bodyguards 4-Hunters)
    • 17. Magician and d6 bodyguards. If there are 4+, the magician intends to use them in a ritual
    • 18. Lady of Joy-forgotten (sybaritic fairy-noble recently banished from her domain by a rival aristocrat)