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 amateur hour, Carcosa, intro, magic, modern, nephilim, Pop Tartary, pseudomonarchia

yer a wizard, henry

Henry Flagler was most famously a Florida industrialist, but he had other, more esoteric interests, pursued in ritual garb on the manicured lawns of his estate or chased down in a naked frenzy among the swamp and cypress. Henry Flagler was a dedicated occultist, and used a considerable portion of his wealth to establish Black Cypress College, a private institution with a mission to plumb the breadth and depth of the magical sciences.

actually Flagler College

You are a magician, possessed of a wonderful and secret power. As such, you have been accepted to Black Cypress College to further your craft and the advancement of magical knowledge. What you find there might be corrupt, venal, sclerotic, and frequently disturbing, but right now, it’s all you have.

Character Creation

Factors and Factions

Virgo Invictus
Something like the John Birch Society by way of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a far right secret society dedicated to the propagation, destruction, imprisonment, resurrection, or study (possible all of the above) of an ancient spiritual entity known as Virgo, Victor, or sometimes just V.

The Grecians
A mystic order of alcoholics who hold bacchanals in the cypress swamps. They claim to learn magical secrets during the ecstasies from Dionysus Krocodilia, an etymologically suspect and distinctly Floridian aspect of the Greek deity himself. Several Grecians have gone missing lately, perhaps drowned in the swamp, perhaps devoured by their fellows in a fit, perhaps feuding with the local Santeria community.

The Deans
The quasi-immortal administrators of the College. Nearly a century of access to the generous (and free) faculty dining hall  has rendered them immensely fat, alcoholic, hematomatic, wracked with gout, yellowed with jaundice, and nearly identical in their grotesqueness. There are thirteen of them, each ruder than the last, and they hate each other more with every passing year. Rumor has it they have hatched a scheme to restore their youthful vigor

The ██████
Everyone knows that the College has a ██████, which is odd since nobody can bring themselves to talk about him. Or her. Or it, really, since the ██████ gone unseen since the founding of the school, and the door to their office is always and unpickably locked. Students and faculty have looked into the College’s reclusive ██████ over the years, and it has always ended in tears, murder, or mysterious disappearances resolved by sudden showers of gore during Commencement.

Golconda, by Renee Magritte
jacinto classes, i am sick, is this gonna work, new age dnd, ranger, type v

ranger danger

OK, so everyone likes to complain about beastmaster Rangers in fifth edition D&D because they’re not very optimized. Which is fine, but I also don’t like them because their a little boring. This is an archetype about making animal friends. So less of the worrying about action economy and more of the giant wolf mothers. This is based heavily off of the spell planar ally.

from princess mononoke
Geomancer, Ranger Archetype

Geomancy
Starting at level 3, you can perform a 10 minute ritual to summon a little god of the wild. It appears witin 5 feet of you as a beast of your choice, though little gods with a CR greater than ½ your level will not bother to appear. Little gods can speak Common and Sylvan.

When the creature appears, it is under no compulsion to behave in any particular way. You can ask the creature to perform a service in exchange for payment, but it isn’t obliged to do so. The requested task could range from simple (fly us across the chasm, or help us fight a battle) to complex (spy on our enemies, or protect us during our foray into the dungeon). You must be able to communicate with the creature to bargain for its services.

Payment can take a variety of forms. A little god might require you to construct or repair its shrine, kill a rival, or perform a ritual. Some little gods might exchange their service for a quest undertaken by you. As a rule of thumb, a task that takes minutes requires 50 gp/minute, a task that takes hours requires 500 gp/hour, and a task that takes days requires 5,000 gp/day. These payments can change based on the circumstances and nature of the little god; if a task is aligned to the little god’s ethos, the payment might be halved or even waived. Easy or nonhazardous tasks might cost less, while dangerous ones might cost more. Little gods don’t accept tasks that seem suicidal.

You can also expend spell slots to gift little gods with a measure of immanence; generally, the little god will perform a task that takes a number of minutes equal to or less than the sum of the levels of the expended spell slots.

After the little god completes the task, or when the agreed-upon duration of service expires, the creature dissipates back into the wild after reporting back to you, if appropriate to the task and if possible. If you are unable to agree on a price for the little god’s service, it dissipates immediately.

A little god enlisted to join your group counts as a member of it, receiving a full share of experience points awarded.

Once you have performed this ritual, you cannot perform it again until the little god completes its task or dies.

from legend of zelda: ocarina of time

Wild Treaty
At level 7, you can establish a particularly friendly relationship with a certain clan of little gods. Pick a beast you can summon as a little god (such as a raven, brown bear, giant spider, etc.) You can speak to that type of creature as the speak with beasts spell, and all such creatures will be neutral, if not friendly, to you and your allies as long as you do not attack, they are not magically compelled, and you do not actively work against their interests.

Every time you gain a level, you can change your chosen type of beast for another.

Greater Gods
At level 11, pick an elemental, dragon, or fey creature with a CR equal to or less than ½ your level. You can use your Geomancy ability to summon little gods that take the form of that creature. If you meet an elemental, dragon, or fey creature with a CR equal to or less than ½ your level and receive explicit permission from it, you can summon little gods that take the form of that creature, too. Generally, you must perform a favor or pay a price before it will give such permission.

from princess mononoke

Demand Favor
Starting at level 17, you can compel a little god summoned with your Geomancy ability to perform a favor for you that lasts no longer than 1 minute. You must take a short rest before you can use this ability again.

jacinto fairy, intro, is this gonna work, magic, occult, Pernicious Albion, spell, type v

MAGICIANS: THE MAGICKING: THE RPG

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a very good novel that you should read. I have been wanting to run a game based on it (Austen pastiche in moody Napoleonic-era Britain; wicked fairies, whimsical magicians, intrigue, kidnapping, murder) for quite some time; my setting Pernicious Albion is me turning it into a D&D game. I have been wanting to run something more true to form, but it’s a bit tough. Magicians operate in quite a different scale than most people; one of my favorite parts of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a footnote where the author tells us Spain considered demanding reparations for one of the main characters after he rearranged a fair chunk of its geography.

Ars Magica and Fate are obvious solutions, but I’m not too hot on actually running them. This is a bullshit hack, but its starts to get at the feel I’m going for.

Character Creation
Make a 5th edition character. Pick human as the race, and do not pick a class. You are all Magicians.

Magicians start with 10d6 Magic dice. This represents the strength of their sorcery. They can temporarily lose Magic dice through exertion, but they can never have more than their maximum.

Magicians do not have a set list of spells. Each time they cast one, they determine what it does by assigning dice to its Duration, Range, Area Of Effect, and Intensity. Each category must have at least one dice, and can have up to 5. The total number of dice assigned to a spell cannot exceed a magician’s current Magic dice.

Once a magician has determined a spell’s effects, they roll all of the assigned dice.

  • When a dice comes up 6, the magician removes it from their pool of Magic dice until they take a long rest.
  • If a number of dice greater than a magician’s level come up 1, the spell is a botch. Something happens, and it is related to the spell’s effect, but only incidental to what the magician wanted to happen.

Casting a spell does not expend Magic dice unless they come up a 6. Unless the spell is a botch, the spell always works, even if the magician loses or runs out of dice.

The following charts state how many dice a magician must assign to a given category in order to achieve a given effect. All spells use the same Duration, Range, and Area Of Effect Tables, but no two spells use the same Intensity table.

Most of the tables are self explanatory. Area Of Effect details the size of the area effected around the actual spell. Intensity (each Intensity table is listed with each spell) details the greatest creature, object, or concept that can be affected by the spell. If a magician has an Area Of Effect that encompasses an entire city but an Intensity of “a torchfire” when casting the spell It Burns, they could put out every candle in town. If Intensity ever seems to encroach on Area of Effect, just use whichever the magician has placed more dice in.

DURATION

1d6 A moment
2d6 A day
3d6 A week
4d6 A month
5d6 A year and a day

RANGE

1d6 an arm’s span
2d6 a stone’s throw
3d6 shouting distance
4d6 within sight
5d6 out beyond the horizon

AREA OF EFFECT.

1d6 all within an arm’s span
2d6 all within the range of a thrown stone
3d6 all within shouting distance
4d6 all within sight
5d6 all to out beyond the horizon

Spells
There are, of course, far more spells than this. Magicians start with 3.

Utterance of Black Feathers
Allows a magician to perform feats of manipulation, transformation, summoning, and destruction pertaining to crows.
INTENSITY

1d6 one crow
2d6 thirteen crows
3d6 a murder of crows
4d6 crows to cover a field
5d6 crows to blacken the sky

Breath of the Holy Earth
Allows a magician to call forth, direct, and banish wind. (+Alex Chalk gets credit for this one)
INTENSITY

1d6 a draft
2d6 a breeze
3d6 a gust
4d6 a gale
5d6 a whirlwind

It Burns
Allows a magician to enkindle, throw, extinguish, shape, and otherwise manipulate flame.
INTENSITY

1d6 a torchfire
2d6 a campfire
3d6 a bonfire
4d6 a funeral pyre
5d6 a housefire

Fingers of Night
Allows a magician to create, shape, and banish darkness

INTENSITY

1d6 a shadow like that of a passing cloud
2d6 the gloom of a thick forest
3d6 night, just as the last of the sun is leaving the sky
4d6 a moonless night
5d6 a darkness heavy enough to be felt

Greatest Folly
Allows a magician to ignite, strengthen, diminish, and twist feelings of affection.

INTENSITY

1d6 Delight
2d6 Friendship
3d6 Infatuation
4d6 Craven Obsession
5d6 Love

Really should put up a setting sketch, but I’m tired and don’t feel very good so eh. Tomorrow maybe. Here’s some pictures of magicians.

the Lackaday Twins (not actual title, by John Singer Sargent)

John Pharoah, Ursurper to the Northern Throne (not actual title, from El Shaddai)

Lord Umberlin of  the Bells (not actual title, from etrian odyssey)
Claude the Gaul, wanted in 10 counties for violating the course of history (from Persona 5, not actual title)
jacinto dark souls, delving deeper, san serafín, wonders and wickedness

contrarian alignment and extra spell schools

New schools for Brendan’s spells without levels. (Spell duration is caster’s level by default.) It’s more Dark Souls-inspired stuff.

I’ve been wanting to play around a little bit with subclasses and Spells Without Levels (or Wonders and Wickedness, the quite good book complication). Gating certain spell schools behind alignment seems like a good and simple start, but requiring a sorcerer to learn from an NPC is another good option.

This post largely assumes you’re using Original Dungeons and Dragons or Delving Deeper, but it shouldn’t be too hard to adapt to another ruleset.

Contrarian Alignment
Lawful is primordial darkness, an awful and immaculate stillness, the deceased Titan-esque old order of gods, the undead. It is the nature of Dark and Law to be changeless, unending, antithetical to mortals.

Chaos is light and day, the fire of the Sun but also Hell. The new order of gods, as well as demons, are Chaotic; It is the nature of Chaos and Light to be vital, changing, but also temporal. Chaotic creatures might be extremely long lived, but none of them are immortal.

Hexes
A strange and profane school of magic draw from the primordial dark that covered the Earth before time began. Only Lawful sorcerers can learn and cast hexes.

by inoue takehiko
  1. Anaesthesia: one creature must save or lose the use of one of its senses (touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing), chosen by the sorcerer, for the duration of the spell.
  2. Darkness: the sorcerer screams, and all ordinary sources of light (torches, bonfires, lamps, lightbulbs) in earshot immediately extinguish and cannot be relit for the duration of the spell.
  3. Become Hexbeast: a sorcerer twists into a vaguely anthropomorphic and ivory-masked version of one of the following creatures, their face concealed behind an ivory mask. A sorcerer rolls randomly the first time they cast this spell, but afterwards turn into the same hexbeast every time. There is a way to make this spell permanent, at terrible cost. Sorcerers can still cast spells while a hexbeast, and retain their HP and HD.
    1. Ape
    2. Crocodile
    3. Giant Bat
    4. Giant Spider
    5. Wolf
    6. Young Roc
  4. Howl: the sorcerer howls, and all living creatures in earshot must make a Morale check
  5. Summon Phantom: the sorcerer calls forth the ghost of a dead humanoid. This hex requires that the sorcerer know the phantom’s name or have one of their dear possessions. The phantom has the same abilities and attributes as they did in life. If the sorcerer has more HD than the phantom, it will serve them loyally for the hex’s duration; otherwise, it must be convinced to take a particular course of action.
  6. Elegy: causes an immortal or inhuman being (such as an elf, djinni, vampire, or demon) to save or become mortal for the duration of the hex. They lose all intrinsic supernatural abilities and weaknesses (including damage immunity) and gain all of the advantages and disadvantages of being human.
  7. Excruciate: this hex takes a full round to cast; if the sorcerer takes damage while casting, the spell fails. Upon completion of this hex, all creatures within the sorcerer’s line of sight take damage equal to the sorcerer’s level in dice.
  8. Ruin: breaks a non-magical and inanimate object that can fit inside a number of cubic feet equal to the sorcerer’s level, such as door, sword, statue, piece of armor, or chain link. The nature of the break is up to the sorcerer; the object can fracture, break cleanly as if sliced, or collapse into dust.

Hieromancy
A school of magic taught in temples and churches that calls upon the refulgent power of Heaven.. Only Chaotic sorcerers can learn and cast hieromantic spells.

  1. Command: a number of HD of creatures obey a one word command shouted by the sorcerer. Can be cast upon a single creature with more HD than the sorcerer, but it is entitled to a save.
  2. Taboo: a number of HD of creatures are incapable of performing a one word ban shouted by the sorcerer. Can be cast upon a single creature with more HD than the sorcerer, but it is entitled to a save.
  3. Light: the sorcerer conjures a golden light that illuminates as a torch. It can be directed to float above the palm, head, or weapon of a willing creature. 
  4. Second Chance: rerolls the HD of a single creature. Unwilling targets may make a saving throw to resist.
  5. Creation: conjures an item with a value equal to or less than 100×caster’s level, which lasts for the duration of this spell.
  6. Panacea: cures a creature of a poison or disease afflicting them. If the poison or disease is magical, they must succeed a saving throw to recover.
  7.  Prophecy: determines if a particular course of action will lead to Weal, Woe, or Neither within a number of turns equal to the sorcerer’s level.
  8. Banish: all creatures of sorcererous, demonic, dark, or generally unholy nature must make a Morale check. If they do not have a Morale check generally, it is equal to 6+half their level.

Pyromancy
Only pyromancers can use pyromancy. Pyromancers have a number of Fire dice equal to half their level, rounded up. This represents the size of their internal Fire.

Each time a pyromancer casts a pyromantic spell, they roll a number of Fire dice corresponding with the size of the flame they are creating or manipulating (e.g. if you are conjuring a torchflame in your hand, roll 1d6. If you are hurling a bonfire-sized flame at a monster, roll 3d6). If any of the dice come up 6, the pyromancer removes them from their pool of Fire dice, and note that their internal Fire has shrunk by a corresponding amount. If their are using fire as a weapon, they also use this roll to determine damage. Enemies may Save vs Breath for half damage.

Level 1: (1d6) torchflame: can fit in the palm of their hand.
Level 3: (2d6) campfire: can fit in a bucket
Level 5: (3d6) bonfire: can fit in the bed of a pickup truck, requires two hands to hold
Level 7: (4d6) pyre: can fit in a bedroom, requires two hands to hold
Level 9: (5d6) conflagration: can fit in a barn, requires two hands to hold

Pyromancers recover all of their Fire dice by resting in a warm, safe place. They can never have more Fire dice than the limit indicated by their level.

Pyromancers can learn the following spells.

1. Bolt: hurl a flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire.
2. Extinguish: Put out a flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire.
3. Enkindle: make a flame grow up to the size of your internal Fire.
4. Remand: cause a flame up to the size of your internal Fire to unburn something it has consumed.
5. Conflagration: conjure a burst of flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire
6. Ancient Flame: cast upon ashes to determine what they were before they were burnt. The size of your internal Fire determines how old the ashes can be:

(1d6) torchflame: a week
(2d6) campfire: a year
(3d6) bonfire: a decade
(4d6) pyre: a century
(5d6) conflagration: an epoch or more

7. Transference: move a flame equal to or less than the size of your internal Fire
8. Black Flame: cause a flame equal to or smaller than your internal Fire to stop shedding heat or light. 

jacinto amateur hour, delving deeper, dungeon, san serafín

mischief afoot


There is a city where nobody goes,
a city of sepulchers, a city by the sea.
It is ruled by a Sleeping King, bound deep inside the earth. 
He dreams of a great dark kingdom, 
he dreams the dead to life, 
he dreams his people into monsters 
and the day into endless night. 
You have awoken on a beach of black sand. 
The sun sits too red and too heavy on the western horizon, and the waters are cold and dark.
You are in the city where nobody goes, 
you are in the Dream of the Sleeping King.
This place will not abide you, but how will you get out?

LABYRINTHIUM: SAN SERAFIN
The First Stratum
 (an old-school dark fantasy role-playing game setting featuring masked devils, mummified saints, jaguar witches, sybaritic assassin-surgeons, a looming apocalypse, Borgesian horror, and procedures for generating the seven levels of the worst city on earth.)
San Serafín is a procedural urban point-crawl set in a Latin American necropolis, and includes 
  • several Original Dungeons and Dragons-friendly classes, such as animist-priest Mediums and crudely powerful Pyromancers
  • a setting-specific equipment list that assumes newly created characters start out marooned on a desert island
  • rules for salvaging and scavenging with little hope of finding civilization
  • a large cast of eccentric NPCs and unsettling monsters
  • other stuff



Here’s a sample spread:

jacinto classes, delving deeper, LotFP, san serafín

pyromancer class

A simple shooty-blasty magic class suitable for old school games. Intended to approximate Dark Souls pyromancy without getting too caught up in the specific mechanics of it.

Pyromancer
HP, XP, Saving Throws, and Combat Abilities as a Cleric.

from dark souls

Also called Fire Witches, Children of Chaos

Every pyromancer has a piece of Fire in them. Not fire, but primordial Fire, the bright, smokeless flame from which the djinn were made, a spark of the flame that ignited the Sun.

Pyromancers are invulnerable to ordinary fire and receive a +2 bonus to saving throws versus magical fire and dragon breath. When they do take fire damage, they subtract 1 from each die of damage. they take.

Pyromancers have a number of Fire dice equal to half their level, rounded up. This represents the size of their internal Fire.

Level 1: (1d6) torchflame: can fit in the palm of their hand.
Level 3: (2d6) campfire: can fit in a bucket
Level 5: (3d6) bonfire: can fit in the bed of a pickup truck, requires two hands to hold
Level 7: (4d6) pyre: can fit in a bedroom, requires two hands to hold
Level 9: (5d6) conflagration: can fit in a barn, requires two hands to hold

Pyromancer can use pyromancy to do the following within 40 ft/sling range:

  • conjure a flame the size of their Fire or smaller in the palm of their hand for 1 Turn.
  • hurl a flame the size of their Fire or smaller.
  • extinguish a flame the size of their Fire or smaller.
  • move an existing flame the size of their Fire or smaller to any other spot in range

When a pyromancer uses pyromancy, they roll a number of Fire dice corresponding with the size of the flame they are creating or manipulating (e.g. if you are conjuring a torchflame in your hand, roll 1d6. If you are hurling a bonfire-sized flame at a monster, roll 3d6). If any of the dice come up 6, the pyromancer removes them from their pool of Fire dice, and note that their internal Fire has shrunk by a corresponding amount. If their are using fire as a weapon, they also use this roll to determine damage. Enemies may Save vs Breath for half damage.

A pyromancer can recover 1 Fire die by drinking a flask of oil. Pyromancers recover all of their Fire dice by resting in a warm, safe place. They can never have more Fire dice than the limit indicated by their level.

But What About Fireball?
Magic as practiced by wizards is fundamentally antithetical to fire. Spells like Fireball, Wall of Fire, and so on produces actinic wer-light that burns without heat and smells like burning metal. There is a piece of forbidden war magic known as False Sun that can create true fire, but only the most unsavory of sorcerers speak of it, and even then quietly.

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 encounters, monsters, san serafín, World of Lamentations

dream the life you’re most afraid of

san serafin is not really a dungeon, though it looks like one sometimes, but it is really more of a dangerous overworld in which other dungeons can be inserted. an important part of the feel of San Serafin are its most common residents, serafinos, who form a constant, low-grade puzzle that players have to deal with. I have not wanted to blog about it and ruin things, but players usually figure it out within a session anyway, and the fun of it is dealing with the problem, not figuring it out.

there is a Sleeping King, deep beneath the ground, so hateful he was buried alive by his own people, so virtuous he he did not die.

he dreams of a black city, unfolding from the earth like an evil flower, filled with remembrances of his lost kingdom. he dreams the dead to life and dreams the sun out of the sky.

he has dreamed his people into monsters. the Dream is in them and they are of the Dream, it is propagated by their acts and they are sustained by its existence.

serafinos are the people who used to live in San Serafín. now they are the impossible residents of an impossible city, with no mind or power but to endlessly act out the unlogic of their home.


all serafinos obey the following rules strictly:

behave well
Serafinos always act in the way most appropriate for their surroundings. On  the street, they walk aimlessly; in a bar, they drink ancient liquor and pay with corroded coins

punish transgression
Serafinos react with hostility to any breach in ettiquette or order. Stealing, cutting in line, heckling, touching another Serafino, shouting, running, and fighting all upset them, at first attracting their attention and then compelling them to attack. Serafinos can freely  breach etiquette to punish a transgressor, without reprisal from their fellows.

never rest
Serafinos continue a course of action until etiquette forces them to stop. They will dance forever unless a clock strikes twelve, or eat dust in a restaurant until they come to believe it has closed.

obey authority
Serafinos tend to obey orders spoken with conviction and believe claims of high office, but their reprisal for impersonation when they discover it is extraordinarily vicious.

reactions
Serafinos use a modified reaction table. They only make reactions when players have called attention to themselves in some way.

in the city
in San Serafin, there are always 3d6 lesser serafinos wandering the streets or stumbling through buildings nearby.

Lesser Serafino
it is shadowy and indistinct, like a distant figure in a dream or a person you see out of the corner of your eye. if you look closer, you can see the details resolve themselves just a moment after you should have noticed them: it has no face until you wonder why not, its eyes have no color until you notice they’re an indescribable non-shade, stitches force themselves out of the serafino’s clothes once you realize it’s just wearing a smoky black smear.
HD 1
Armor 10 (unarmored)
Speed  ¾ human (spiderclimb, swim)
Morale 12
Alignment Chaotic
Abilities

  • Maul: +1 to hit, 1d6 damage
  • Climb: serafinos do not climb like a human. they just step up onto the wall like it’s another part of the floor and walk straight up it.  
  • Swim: in water, serafinos unravel into something filamentous and black, a bit like a cloud of smoke and a bit like a jellyfish.

Grand Serafino
its looks human, but its shadow roils like smoke behind it and the pavement flexes like a beaten drum beneath its feet. When angered or when fighting, it flickers between shapes: a child, a tiger, a screaming statue, a cloud of butterflies, a column of fire, anything ever dreamed of.

Stats and abilities as djinn, except that it cannot use whirlwind. Grand Serafinos can use Shapechange at will, except that anyone can Save vs Magic to disbelieve it back to its original humanoid form. this is subjective, and the serafino can use Shapechange  again to fool a person who has already disbelieved, so it might appear as a medusa to one person and an ancient red dragon to another.

any serafino that dies leaves behind its possessions, but its body is always small and shriveled, like something that only might have been human, and even then very long ago.

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