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

White Box Backgrounds

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

This is based off of the 5MORE system.

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

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

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

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

Thief
Pick 3 skills:

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

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

Acolyte 
Pick 3 skills:

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

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

Assassin
Pick 3 skills:

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

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

Scholar
Pick 3 skills:

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

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

Professional
Pick 3 skills:

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

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

Performer
Pick 3 skills:

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

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

Hunter
Pick 3 skills:

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

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

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

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

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

Wood Elf
Pick 3 skills:

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

You don’t age.

jacinto amateur hour, classes, is this gonna work, new age dnd

reinventing the wheel

I speed wrote/designed this today, so it’s a little uneven, but here are four 5th edition classes (with kits) that A) fit onto a single page and B) don’t make me feel like I’m doing calculus. They cover the major archetypes, though the clericky/warlocky one isn’t all that faithful to the traditional Van Helsing type. Pictures of the pages below and a download link here.

jacinto classes, is this gonna work, new age dnd, type v, witch

55555

Thinking about running 5e again, probably for San Serafín.

In 5th edition, if you want to play a nature character, you can pick one of the following.

  • Druids
  • Nature Clerics
  • Nature Paladins
  • Rangers
  • Barbarians (some barbarians are extra nature-y. don’t get those ones confused with the barbarians that are extra angry)
  • Fighters with Survival, Nature, and Animal Handling skills 

These do have various amounts of hippy and a broad range of mechanical differences, but explaining them even to a very engaged, interested player is KIND OF A LOT. I am playing a 5e game where it took a player three sessions before she could regularly remember if her class was a wizard, warlock, or sorcerer, and that makes sense. You  have to dig through the book to really get the differences–there’s nothing about the names that really let you know how they actually work. SO, I’m crushing down the class list to four and then rewriting archetypes to cover a wider range of characters.

FIGHTERS are slashy smashy stabby types. (Paladins, Rangers, and Barbarians are getting collapsed into fighter). Monks, too, probably.

  • Champions: You fight more better
  • Barbarian/Ranger: Ferocious Conan type, also pretty good out in the wilds
  • Paladin: Knightly righteous dude, can cast some spells.

WARLOCKS are witchy and wild and traffic in gods and monsters. (Clerics and Druids are getting collapsed into warlock). They can learn to Wild Shape as a Pact Boon and can choose the Pact of Many Gods for a animist/priest/medium type deal. I’ll probably write a patron for a benevolent Abrahamic deity type.

ROGUES are thieves and assassins.

WIZARDS are scholarly magic types.

Sorcerers, Bards, and maybe Monks are out.

Fighter Martial Archetype: Paladin
THIRD LEVEL
Spellcasting. When you reach third level, you can cast cleric spells.

Cantrips. You learn two cantrips of your choice from the cleric spell list.

Spell Slots. The Paladin spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have to cast spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

Spells Known of 1st level and higher. You know three 1st level cleric spells of your choice. The Spells Known column on the Paladin spellcasting table shows when you learn more cleric spells of 1st level or higher. Each of these spells must be a level for which you have slots. When you gain a level of Fighter, you can replace one of the cleric spells you know with another spell of your choice from cleric spell list that you have slots for.

Spellcasting ability. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your cleric spells. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you sue your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a cleric spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

     Spell Save DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + Wisdom modifier
     Spell Attack modifier = proficiency bonus + Wisdom modifier

Sense Evil and Good. You know if there is an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead within thirty feet of you, as well as its general direction.

SEVENTH LEVEL
Weapon Bond. At 7th level, you learn a ritual that creates a magical bond between yourself and one weapon. you perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can be done during a long rest. The weapon must be within your reach during the ritual, at the conclusion of which you touch the weapon and forge the bond.
     Once you have bonded the weapon to yourself, you can’t be disarmed of that weapon unless you are incapacitated. If it is on the same plane of existence, you can summon that weapon as a bonus action on your turn, causing it to instantly teleport to your hand. For purposes of damage immunity, your bonded weapons counts as magical.
     You can have up to two bonded weapons, but can summon only one at a time with your bonus action. If you attempt to bond with a third weapon, you must break the bond with one of the other two.

TENTH LEVEL
Divine health. You are immune to disease. You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and gain resistance to poison damage.

FIFTEENTH LEVEL
Taboo. You can issue a divinely enforced edict, preventing all around you from breaking a rule of your creation
     When you use this ability, you shout a one-word command. All creatures in earshot must make a Charisma save vs your spell save DC every time they attempt to perform that action. If a creature fails their saving throw, they cannot attempt to perform that action again until the beginning of their next turn. This lasts until you lose Concentration or move from the spot you created the taboo.
     You must take a short rest before you can use this ability again.

EIGHTEENTH LEVEL
Occult resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against all spells.

Warlock Abilities
Patron: The Many Gods
You have formed a pact with a minor deity: a beast, dragon, elemental, fey, fiend, or aberration with some measure of immanence. They cannot provide you with the kind of power an Archfey, Fiend, or Great Old One can, but they are also willing to help you personally–you can help them as much as they can help you.
     You can summon one of your patrons with a 10 minute ritual. You can ask it to cast a spell it knows or to perform some other favor, like convey you to a destination, help you in a fight, deliver a message, or retrieve an object. Patrons always require something in return–they feed off of occult power, and you can always expend a spell slot as payment, but they also accept the expenditure of hit dice, blood, favors, treasure, or anything else that aligns with their ethos and goals. More powerful patrons require more sacrifice. Patrons are NPCs like any other–there is always a chance they will demand more for a favor, refuse to help you, or even temporarily become hostile.
     You do not learn spells of 1st level or above. Whenever you would learn a spell, you can give the ability to cast it to one of your patrons. Patrons can cast such spells at will at your behest, enabled by your payments/sacrifices, but when operating on their own prerogative can only cast each spell they know once per long rest.
     You start with a single patron. It is a beast, dragon, elemental, fey, fiend, undead, celestial, or aberration with a CR of 1 or less. It can cast your Spells Known at level 1.
     When one of your patrons is reduced to 0 HP, you can revive it with an 8 hour ritual.
      You can gain a patron by establishing friendly contact with a creature and completing a 1 hour ritual in its presence. You can always understand you patron, even if you do not share a language or it does not have a language.

Warlock Pact Boon: Pact of Borrowed Skin

You can use the Druid’s Wild Shape class feature once per short rest.

Warlock Eldritch Invocations

Shapeshifter

Prerequisite: Pact of Borrowed Skin, 5th level

You can Wild Shape into creatures with a CR of 1/4 your level or less.

Maleficence

Prerequisite: Pact of Borrowed Skin, 15th level.

You can Wild Shape into dragons as well as beasts.

jacinto classes, clerics, demon, djinn, LotFP, occult, original dungeons and dragons, san serafín

a god is a kind of monster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Bertha Lum

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

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

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

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

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

jacinto Uncategorized

san serafín backgrounds

Might be getting some new school players next time I run San Serafín, so here are some analogues to the traditional fantasy races so as not to shock them with race as class.

  • Lilim are like elves/tieflings, styled off of the Jadis from The Magician’s Nephew
  • Gatikos are like haflings/gnomes/wood elves
  • Tragafuegos are like dragonborn/tieflings/dwarves

 
Children of Eve
A clan descended from the children of Adam and Eve. They are regular humans.

  • Will To Live: Humans die when they reach -4-level HP, rather than the normal -4 HP. 
  • Quick Study: Humans usually have some sort of brief career before turning to adventuring life. Each has a skill (Baking, Smithing, Dancing, Poetry). They can perform the basics without trouble, and for difficult applications must roll equal  to or less than 1+Intelligence modifier on a d6 to succeed. They may support themselves using this trade between adventures if they wish.
  • Lucky Bastards: Humans receive a +1 bonus to saving throws.

Lilim

A clan descended from the child of Lilith and Adam. They are tall and beautiful and deeply unlovely. They are not native to El Sur, but came here centuries ago on barges of black glass and golden filigree. The lilim are  cousins of monsters, inventors of magic, feared for the power of their aesthetic. Lilim are always Chaotic.

  • Monstrous Youth: Lilim do not age once they reach adulthood.
  • Kin to Monsters: Lilim receive a +1 to Reaction rolls when dealing with other creatures descended from Lilith.
  • Ancient Memory: If a lilim is particularly old, they might be able to recall information from Back In The Day. To successfully remember something that occurred longer than a natural human lifetime ago, they must roll equal to or less than 1+ ⅓ level on a d6.

 Gatikos

A clan founded by a cat-loving saint. Widely known for their false cat ears, which they wear out of deeply rooted personal conviction.

  • Graceful: Gatikos can squeeze through any space a child could and count as half their weight when determining if a surface or structure can support them.
  • Dreadful Appetite: Gatikos can subsist twice as long off of seafood-based rations and cannot get sick from mundane, food-borne illnesses
  • Nose For Trouble: Gatikos hone their sense of smell from a young age. If they have smelled something before, they can track it by odor if it has passed through in the last hour. This is not infallible, and a gatiko must roll equal to or less than 1+⅓ level on a d6 to successfully track.

Tragafuegos

A clan founded by a djinn. They season their food with the toxic red salts found on the slopes of volcanoes in El Sur. Their breath is cool and mineral, and they have developed strange tolerances due to their diet.

  • Breath Weapon: Tragafuegos can ignite their breath with a source of flame. They can use this as a breath attack (d8 damage, range as spear, save for half damage).
  • Strange Appetite: Tragafuegos can use flasks of oil as rations.
  • Fireproof: Tragafuegos reduce all fire damage they take by 6. 
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 adventures, classes, garden, is this gonna work, LotFP, monsters, npcs, occult, san serafín

that old time religion

“Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he was not sure of his footing, where he might be walking on water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown.”
 from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood

Thinking about this post. Also thinking about Mononoke. The standard old school D&D cleric worships an impersonal, benevolent god. That’s an okay model, but I like the idea of deities as more present, dangerous, and visceral. A little more animist, I guess. Clerics can befriend gods, or form grudging alliances with them, or press them into service. Sometimes, clerics have to kill them. In this model, gods are NPCs and spells and adventures in one, and they influence clerics (shamans really, I guess) in direct ways.

Anyways, here’s a sketch of what this would look like:

She rebelled against her masters, so they tied her to a tree out in the scrub and left her there to die. When she finally became too tired to kick away the coyotes, when she had nothing but three days of hunger and three days of thirst, when her will to live exceeded anything her body could do, she swore by the blood in her mouth and then sun in her eyes that there would be a reckoning.

There is a tree in courtyard of the mayor’s house in the village of Segundo. It grows the most remarkable red flowers and draws the most remarkable red butterflies. The mayor ignores them, but every morning he pours a bottle of excellent red wine on the tree’s roots, and girdles its trunk with another red sash. He is a fine man, the nephew of the old lord, so the Segunderos ignore these eccentricities, but they wonder why he would lavish so much attention on a tree while ignoring the fruits of his labor, or why he would grow so fearful when he found out the merchant wouldn’t be bringing any shipments of wine for the second season in a row.

La Dama Roja, Goddess of Blood and Sunshine
AC 16 HD 3+1 MV 90’ (30′) ATK Spear DMG 1d8+1 ST Fighter 3 AL Chaotic
Spells, at will: Light, Command, Cure/Inflict Light Wounds

The true name of La Dama, the one that will let a shaman make a pact with her, is carved into the trunk of the tree in the mayor’s courtyard, beneath the dozens of tattered red sashes. If the shaman botches the pact-making ritual, she will do her best to brutally murder the mayor, who was the man who tied her to the tree all those years ago. If the shaman helps her kill the mayor, her Loyalty will increase by d4. 

If a shaman wishes to extract a favor from a god without making a Loyalty check, they can make it an offering. La Dama accepts only blood. A small task, like casting a 1st level spell, participating in a fight tipped in the Goddess’ advantage, or translating the words of a creature that can’t communicate with humans, might require d6 HP. Major favors, like casting a 5th+ level spell, joining a fight with desperate odds, or revealing a powerful and ancient secret, might require 5d6 HP.

The Goddess of Blood and Sunshine makes a Loyalty check or requires an offering when the shaman violates one her her taboos in front of her, or when the shaman asks her to violate one of her taboos:

  • BEG NO PARDONS
  • SHOW NO MERCY
  • BOW TO NO ONE
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.

    jacinto Uncategorized

    kingdom of the midnight hour

    A little interested in the new 5e SRD/OGL thing going on. DM’s Guild is far less attractive, but it does have me thinking how I would run Forgotten Realms. This is how I’d do the Shadowfell.

    Kingdom of the Midnight Hour
    whence all darkness springs and whence all shadows return. Without light, it is simply an endless void; with light, the shadow of everything that every that ever was or ever happened lives there. The thinking shadows maintain desperate radiant cities. The poorest shadows huddle half-real around hexed coals, while the shadows of kings live in white-hot palaces of imported steel.

    The more powerful the shadow, the brighter the light it needs to exist.  The shadows of gods, down in the Deepest Dark, would need a stolen star to truly exist; instead, they lie nascent and semireal in the dim radiance they have managed to hoard, manipulating events in the Prime Material so that they can breach into reality.

    Subluna
    a city in the Kingdom located on the shadow the moon casts upon the face of the earth during a solar eclipse; its periodic emergence into the Prime Material plane has made it a center of commerce. It is best known for its aircraft: undead giant moths, their carapaces hollowed out for passengers, their wings filigreed with occult silver wire. These are chiefly designed, built, and piloted by a society of exiled Moon Elves, come to live on the shadow of their former home.

    Denizens
    Shadows do not and cannot die, barring extreme and magical circumstances, but in darkness, they must wait in helpless semiconscious potentiality until illuminated once again. Since the Kingdom of the Midnight Hour is infinitely large, falling into darkness might mean years of centuries or millennia or an eternity of imprisonment. Shadows of sentient creatures will, naturally, make any effort to avoid this. Some sell  themselves to wizards in the Prime Material plane as familiars, while others labor as indentured servants to extraplanar masters in return for a magical source of light. Some, however, find a physical medium for their bodies, and it is these that can become adventurers.

    Shadows speak a dialect of the Lingua Obscura, a shadow of a long-lost language. In its classical form, it is used to speak the unspeakable and describe the indescribable, but even creatures as esoteric and sentient shadows struggle with such powerful idioms.

    Powers
    The nominal ruler of the Kingdom of Midnight is King Evening Falls Not Gently, more commonly known as King Gently. It is a dragon eaten by its own shadow, and administers its erratic and violent rule from the White Hot Palace.

    King Gently’s rivals include

    • the Holy Terrors, a triumvirate consisting of the shadows of angels
    • Baron Bar Vashar, an ancient vampire of noble bearing, charitable disposition, and bottomless appetite
    • the Inverse Princess, the less of whom is spoken the better

    Elsewhere

    • The Resplendent Kingdom of Noon (i.e. the Feywild) is home to fairies and reflections. 
    • Kara Karakai, the City At the Bottom of the World (i.e. Sigil)
    • The Gardens of Flame (Plane of Fire), home to everything ever burnt to ash, a paradise and inferno in one.
    • The Abyss: a hell divided into an infinite number of layers, each one dedicated to an infinitely specific kind of sin. An inquiry into the nature of evil.
    jacinto lordy lordy, Pernicious Albion

    SPACE MAGIC

    So I found this mess while digging through my unpublished blog posts. It’s Pernicious Albion circa January 2013, back when it was based directly off of Carcosa, as you can probably tell from the amount of gonzo science fiction elements.

    ORBITAL WIZARD
    Aurelian is a lich that has blasted himself into space with stolen Moth Elf technology, strapped himself onto an arcane satellite, and parked himself in geosynchronous orbit above Silver Fork Carcosa, observing it with grafted-on telescopic eyes. He projects his magic down to the surface with great metal dishes, and is the terror of several small towns scattered across the Western Hemisphere, though cities generally have enough magicians to keep them safe. He also has a small network of spies, which he maintains through magical communication. He often sells information to various Dark Lords, Fairy Sorcerers, and Lunar Giants, as there is nothing he cannot see. However, his field of view when zoomed in is incredibly narrow (the party doesn’t have to worry about being Fireballed from high orbit), so while he can watch everyone that passes through a town, he can’t find them wandering the countryside. Aurelian covets the space station occupied by the gravity dragon known as Charles V, as it is both secure and filled with texts describing the strange space-warping and cthonic magic of the station’s inhabitant. If the party makes a name for themselves and the lich’s spies find out, he will offer to pay them an outrageous sum of money if they kill Charles V. Aurelian will provide the transportation.

    GRAVITY DRAGON
    Charles V is neither chromatic nor metallic; the dragons of Carcosa are affiliated with greater powers and stranger frequencies. He has taken up residence in an abandoned Moth Elf space station, which traces a crazed trajectory high above Carcosa’s surface. His size is immaterial; Charles V occupies several planes and can snake his away around obstacles along alien axes. He does not attack with anything so unsubtle as fiery breathe, and favors tearing of chunks of his enemies with small gravity fields. Depleted uranium weapons deal double damage against him. In addition to various magical tracts, Charles V’s hoard contains maps marking the locations of several other dragon lairs. More on this later.

    OTHER DRAGONS
    Include gamma dragons, are white hot and cause terrible sickness in nearby communities; tidal dragons, which manifest themselves as waves (regardless of the material they travel through, so they are like sentient, mobile Tacoma Narrows Bridge disasters); entropy dragons, which induce catastrophic disorder through their breathe.

    ON SORCERERS IN SILVER FORK CARCOSA

    This is actually recycled stuff from an abandoned campaign
    I hate pointy hats and robes, so in Silver Fork Carcosa, all sorcerers have something terribly, terribly wrong with them.
    About this sorcerer
    • Is bound in an immense brass coffin; carried about on a palanquin by blindfolded and gagged slaves who act in perfect coordination
    • Has a furnace for a heart; requires coal to live
    • Only has one eye located in the back of their throat; must open mouth wide to see
    • Has long, stilt-like legs that terminate in iron spikes
    • Has a head is put on upside down
    • Has lungs that don’t work; golem servant pumps a set of bellows stuck into abdomen
    • Has been embalmed and stuffed with rose petals; perfectly ambulatory
    •  Exudes a powerful odor of lemons
    • Has the voice of a screaming choir
    • Has a millipede instead of legs
    • Has a face (not a mask) carved from ivory; if removed, you can see their brain
    • Is always on fire
    • Has elephant tusks growing from their elbows
    • Has smoke instead of blood
    • Has extra-long, exposed, articulating ribs
    • Has small tentacles instead of teeth
    • Moves in time with the ticking of the giant clock embedded in chest
    • Verbal components of spells manifest themselves as razor blades tumbling from sorcerer’s lips
    • Bulging chameleon eyes afford panoramic view 
    •  Nearly limp body carried about on spider-legged apparatus