Thinking about dragonborn for an upcoming 5e game I’ll be running/playing in. This is designed to be laid atop dragonborn as they are in the book, so there aren’t any additional or different mechanics at the moment.
Dragonborn are not a distinct people; they are lucky or unfortunate inheritors of dragon nature, and can be found among humans, elves, or anyone who consorts with dragons.
Some families are familiar with their inheritance, each generation instructing the next in the pursuit of dragonhood. There are even communities of dragonborn, or polities led by a dragon-natured line. Other families learn of their ancestry when their newborn’s first screaming breath is accompanied with a plume of smoke.
Dragon nature is fierce but fitful, and what marks a dragonborn depends on both random chance and how wholeheartedly their embrace dragonhood; those who embrace it metamorphose slowly to become more dragonlike. Pick some or all of the following signs at character creation. You may choose additional signs each time you gain a level.
Signs of the Dragon
Horns
Sharp eye teeth
Fingers terminating in claws
A scaled tail
A thick mane growing from the scalp and neck, sometimes extending a distance down the spine
Dragon facial features (somewhere between a crocodile and a cat), sometimes sparing the mandible
Scales, usually densest on the back, back of the neck, and back of the arms
Digitigrade, clawed feet
Reptilian eyes
from Monster Child by Sang-Yoon Lee
Dragonborn in the world
Dragonborn families and communities are complicated.
Those who wholeheartedly embrace their nature may shed their human senescence and mortality before dying, allowing them to pursue metamorphosis without end.
Rarely, a member of a dragonborn family will give birth to a wriggling wyrmling–a miraculous portent, for such wyrm-get will grow up to be wise and immense, dragons in truth.
Conversely, an elder dragonborn may occasionally find a human infant working themselves free from their clutch.
The path to dragonhood is long and uncertain, and dragonborn may find themselves wandering from it. Ancient dragonborn can undergo exploratory metamorphoses or make a mistake in their embrace of dragon nature, splitting or duplicating appendages, growing human limbs at dragon scale, exposing muscle or organs through gaps in integument, losing some or all of their scales to reveal glabrous flesh, sprouting gills or filmy insect wings, fungal hyphae, fleshy cerata, mineral growths, roots, and so on. Most ancient dragonborn bear signs of this error or experimentation, but a few are lost to it. They shed aspects of their human nature without attaining the dragon equivalent (morality, memory, ability to dream or sleep), causing them to become erratic or even mindless.
Dark Souls 3 concept art
Dragonborn Communities and Factions
Dragon Lepers. Those who nurse the memorial plague of the Green Dragon. It brings longevity along with mutation, slowly bending the afflicted towards the dead dragon’s shape across centuries. Limbs stretch and bones twist, the disease knitting torn skin back together with keratinized integument and shredded muscle with pulpy hyphae. Dragon Lepers share their dreams, always on the edge of a bottomless mire into which the Green Dragon’s vast corpse sinks.
Golden Dragon Alchemists. Students of the Golden Dragon who accentuate their inheritance with ritual medicine. They pierce themselves with needles forged from the gold of its body and drink elixirs distilled from its crumbling bones, gaining extended life, but also something of the old dragon’s greed. They are marked by their golden eyes and golden canines, and sometimes the horns that push through their temples. Most are hermits or pursue their craft in isolated schools, but every few generations a royal line or noble house turn to dragon alchemy to improve their family’s grasp on power.
Derelict Dwellers. The bearers of the blessing of the Blue Dragon. Its body is the foundation of a vast atoll and flourishing coral reef; every generation, some number of the atoll’s dwellers are born with coral horns or faints sparks on their breath. Derelict dwellers who embrace their fate live forever, but become slower and more brittle with age, eventually becoming as sessile as the coral that made them. Some choose to settle in the shallows around the atoll as immortal additions to the crackling reef that forms their home; others travel to distant seas to form the basis of a wholly new storm reef.
High House of Sigurd. Descended from a storied dragonhunter who drank up the lifeblood of the Red Dragon in an inspired violation of the great taboo. Inheriting his cursed and stolen strength, they have established themselves as a member of the aristocracy, a privilege they defend with weapons forged in their elders’ dragonfire. Their cannoneers and brass-clad dragoons are especially hated.
Others:The Crystal Dragon Rite – dragonborn collective that conducts dialogues with celestial bodies from icy mountaintops; Gravetenders – inheritors of the Black Dragon who cultivate the worms that feast on its body and brew artificial souls to do their bidding.
from Claymorefrom ClaymoreDark Souls 3 concept artSekiro Concept ArtDark Souls 1 Concept art
I have been thinking about two wildly different shows: Mrs. Davis (a stage magician hunting nun / mystic from Reno, Nevada) and Scavengers Reign (space colonists get marooned on a planet with a mysterious and infinitely complex ecology).
What they have in common is a strong sense that something strange is going on deep behind the scenes. This often manifests as a snowballing series of semirelated or ambiguously related encounters. Sister Simone in Mrs. Davis keeps on running to a number of feuding secret societies and their agents who have an intense but unknown interest in her and each other. When you have a run in with the superintelligent AI app, the weird German treasure hunters take notice, which leads to an encounter with yet another faction when they intervene in ways I don’t want to spoil.
Similarly, the survivors in Scavengers Reign stumble across a creature that’s hunting or being hunting, which then kicks off a long series of encounters as predators and prey get involved and entangle/endanger the survivors further.
I’ve modeled how this could work in games in a short encounter table. Basically, you have encounters as normal, but certain reaction roll results either guarantee a certain encounter the next turn or guarantee that the next rolled encounter will be with a certain creature. If you run into a stressed out and Unfriendly prey animal, it means there’s a predator nearby. This means you can have normal encounters, but some make you fall forward into another encounter that demonstrates the relationships between creatures. There’s a little extra bookkeeping, but you just have to make note of what happens next turn and what replaces the next encounter, which isn’t too complex.
1d4 Indigo Steppe Encounter Table
2d100 Carrot Snails
3d6 Humpbacked Oryxes
1 Langouste Leopard
2d4 Big Scarlet Crawler
Carrot Snail
Roll
Result
2
Highly stressed by a nearby predator; will vent harmless but foul-smelling oil out of their eyespots on anyone who enters melee range. Next turn is a guaranteed encounter of humpbacked oryxes in addition to rolled results. Next rolled encounter is replaced with langouste leopards, attracted by the scent of snail oil that humpbacked oryxes are often drenched in.
3-5
Being hunted. Next rolled encounter result is replaced with humpbacked oryxes that are on the snails’ trail
6-9
Photosynthesizing, unbothered.
10-11
Senescent. These snails are at the end of their lifespan and full of seed-larva. They offer themselves up to likely predators in hope they will be eaten, thus spreading their larva (which gestate as they pass harmlessly through the eater’s digestive tract).
12
Will warble and approach with adorable little hops. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyespots will erupt into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.
3d6 Humpbacked Oryx
Roll
Result
2
Moving quickly because a langouste leopard is in the area. Next encounter is replaced with a langouste leopard.
3-5
Protecting their young. 2d6 oryx calves are hidden nearby; the adult oryxes will go berserk if they are approached.
6-9
Grazing. Next rolled encounter is replaced with big scarlet crawlers that want to scavenge their shit.
10-11
Hungry, scavenging. Will nose through pockets and bags looking for food and positively remember anyone who gives them something.
12
Will amble up amicably. They are infected with megaplasmodia; their eyes will explode into plumes of bacteria-bearing aerosol upon entering melee range of any uninfected creature. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.
1 Langouste Leopard
Roll
Result
2
Starved, sick. Can’t fail morale checks.
3-5
Hunting. Will attack but retreat if faced with any real violence. Until killed or fully chased off, it will secretly accompany every subsequent encounter, waiting for a chance to ambush.
6-9
Hunting something else.
10-11
Just ate; curious. Will accept bribes and is less likely to hunt anyone who bribes it with snacks.
12
Will act like a big cute cat. It is infected with megaplasmodia; after frolicking for a little while, it will turn to leave just as its tail explodes into a giant plume of bacteria-bearing aerosol. Save vs Poison get infected with megaplasmodia.
2d4 Big Scarlet Crawlers
Roll
Result
2
Confused. They are infected with megaplasmodia and will detonate into a sticky spume of bacteria-bearing purple ichor as soon as they ram into an uninfected creature. Take 3d6 damage, Save vs Breath for half; Save vs Poison or get infected with megaplasmodia.
3-5
Performing a mating ritual. Will attack only if approached.
6-9
Busily sifting through piles of oryx dung.
10-11
By chance unthreatened by the PCs; if offered food, they will trail behind by them until the next time the party rests, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.
12
Will trail the PCs, effacing all trace of their passage; negates all impending encounters. If there are no impending encounters, players can choose to reroll the encounter die the next time an encounter is rolled.
Uses
This is probably best for relatively small encounter tables in places that PCs will be spending a lot of time in; if they’re just passing through or there are a lot of different kinds of encounters, I think it could end up as just a bunch of weird stuff happening. PCs have to linger long enough to understand how different behaviors are associated with different outcomes for the interesting part of this mechanic to really kick in.
This example uses animals to model an ecology, but you could model some fun Mrs. Davis / Crying of Lot 49 shenanigans where Neorosicrucians are always encountered on teal Vespas and when they’re Neutral it’s because they’re too busy fleeing from Retrotheosophists to try to throw fake blood on you, and everyone is getting chased around by the local SETI chapter, which is trying to whisk people away in their ice cream truck without getting nabbed by the IRS.
You could also do fun stuff like having certain creatures that aren’t on the encounter table at all and only show up as consequence to a prior encounter. This could be good for rare, especially dangerous predators or especially mysterious NPCs.
Break!! is coming out soon. The draft pdf is very good and I want to run it. Put together a little setting sketch/player brief that remixes the default setting a little. I wanted to do something that made a West Marches-esque game that enables easy drop-in / drop-out but also longer arcs, so I busted the four primary zones in Break up into Spelljammer-esque planes and put a simple pathcrawl on top of them. Players can pick from a list of jobs and missions designed to be finished in 1-2 sessions.
Intro
The Cosmos is broken up into innumerable worlds, all but inaccessible to each other. However, the brave and knowledgeable may voyage between them on the interdimensional Sea of Erebus. It is a vast and jewel-black abyss with a sparse scattering of Stations that permit entry into their respective worlds.
You are the crew of an ancient celestial craft able to traverse the perilous waters of Erebus: a legendary heavenliner. It looks something like an old-fashioned passenger ship and something like an Art Deco cathedral. It is your perilous and lucrative job to ferry passengers and carry cargo from world to world.
Starlines
Starlines are currents of aether that link the Station of every world in Erebus. They are visible as golden threads, just beneath the surface of Erebus’ waters. The starline that links the four Known Worlds is called the Crescent Line. The Halfmoon Line once linked the two farthest worlds, the Blazing Garden and the Wistful Dark, and allowed access to the Worlds Beyond, but it has long since been lost.
Worlds and their Stations
There are four Known Worlds: the Blazing Garden, the Buried Kingdom, the Twilight Meridian, and the Wistful Dark (i.e. the four primary zones in Break!!). They were once one world, but some long-passed cataclysm wrenched them apart and scattered them across Erebus.
Each world has a Station on the Crescent Line. They are enormous, beautiful buildings, constructed lovingly by an unknown hand, and each contains a gateway to their respective world.
Wistful Dark’s Station Lamentorum: An elegant neo-Gothic confection illuminated by indigo lamps and crowned by a clocktower. The worldside Station is a vine-swathed ruin in the Shadowed Lands, meaning that importing goods into and out of the Wistful Dark requires a lengthy caravan journey. A bustling caravanserai has cropped up around the worldside Station, but it faces the bandits and undead that make their home in the Shadowed Lands. Rumor has it that the Erebus-side Station contains a hidden sub-basement where the Unshaped hid some fabulous artifact.
Twilight Meridian’s Station Nubium: An immense pavilion built from fragrant wood of an unknown tree, illuminated with heatless braziers that burn rosy pink and pale purple. The worldside Station is a well-tended, albeit much smaller twin located not far outside the capital of the Seven Holy Isles, guarded (and taxed) by the Shogun’s court. Rumor has it that somewhere in the Pavilion’s mazelike chambers lies a coffin containing an ingenious shipwright imprisoned eternally for defying the gods before their banishment.
Buried Kingdom’s Station Ingenii: A Cyclopean edifice blanketed with moss and lichen, illuminated poorly with fireflies and luminescent fungus. The worldside Station is a totally unmanaged grotto, and all manner of precious goods, illicit or otherwise, spill in and out of the bazaar that has sprung up in its vicinity. Rumor has it that Station Ingenii’s depths contain some hint of the fate of the long-lost giants.
Blazing Garden’s Station Crisium: A palatial monument of red sandstone and embellishments in gold and branching red coral. Its worldside Station is part of an extensive dragonshrine complex in Taaga, which mediates between heavenliner crews and the worldside community of merchants doing brisk business. Rumor has it that the gardens that line the Erebus-side Station bloom with mythological herbs and flowers once every hundred years.
Image by NASA. Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Demimondes
Some worlds are small enough to float on the surface of Erebus without a Station. They might be artificial, constructed by asura, deva, or especially powerful sorcerers, or fragments of ancient worlds eroded down to wandering islands.
The most famous demimonde is the Lantern House, constructed by Sagess Saith as a hotel for affluent travelers of Erebus. Her magic, aligned with shadow, flame, and smoke, maintained the Halfmoon Line. When the Lantern House went dark some centuries ago, the Halfmoon Line vanished with it. Bringing light back to the Lantern House could restore the Line, but voyaging into the gulf between worlds with only dead reckoning and a determined crew would require a surpassingly talented navigator. This is to say nothing of confronting whatever power extinguished the Lantern House to begin with.
Lost Worlds
Through the Halfmoon Line are the Lost Worlds, half-remembered through centuries of isolation.
Malian, the profane cosmopolis built into a fathomless borehole rumored to reach into Hell. Almost anything can be bought here, but almost nothing is ultimately worth the price.
Myrkholt, an archaic land ruled by nobles and knights. It is endlessly endangered by the beasts of the forest depths, and it is haunted by the legacy of its immortal monarch, the Once and Future King.
Carillon, a land of stargazing scholars and fanatical exorcists. At war with beings from beyond the stars, and home to technology that rivals the Old Iron Kingdom in its heyday.
Jobs
I’m incredibly disinterested in simulating arbitrage, so this is going to be a bit simplified. You get paid for worlds traveled and the type of job. You can only take one job at a time. If I accidentally jacked up the math (likely) this may get adjusted.
Standard Deliveries just mean you need to keep the cargo intact and get to the destination at some point. You will get paid unless you really fuck around.
Express Deliveries have a deadline, usually a number of days equal to how many worlds away the destination is. If you don’t reach the destination in time, you don’t get paid, and you might piss off somebody important.
Standard and Express Passengers follow the same rules as Standard and Express Deliveries, except also you need to keep the passenger alive and reasonably comfortable.
VIP Passengers follow the same rules as above except the passenger expects a higher level of accommodation and comfort and more dangerous people want them dead. If you fail an Express VIP job you are in Big Trouble.
Single-world hops generally require some additional work or trouble, like delivering a package or escorting a passenger to a location within the world, not just its Station, or fending off a specific party that wants what you are delivering. If multi-world hops require this, pay is doubled.
Worlds Away
Standard Delivery
Express Delivery
Standard Passenger
Express Passenger
Standard VIP
Express VIP
1
100 coins
200 coins
500 coins
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
2
200 coins
500 coins
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
10 gems
3
500 coins
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
10 gems
20 gems
4+ Worlds
1 gem
2 gems
5 gems
10 gems
20 gems
50 gems
The Heavenliner
You and your followers are the crew. You don’t answer to anyone, but you need to pay your own way in terms of food and fuel.
Decide on a name for the heavenliner.
Right now, you can only access the helm, the main deck, and the cargo hold, but it is more than enough to fit lucrative cargo, yourself, and your possessions. You can hire and artificer to cut a key to open more decks and quarters in the heavenliner, which gives you access to more resources, room for cargo, and facilities. A key costs as much as the facility it unlocks takes to buy (check the Property section of the rulebook). The heavenliner is a demimonde unto itself, so you’ll never run out of space if you’re willing to pay for it.
You can cut keys for workshops. Otherwise you need to rent one worldside.
You need to cut a key for a kitchen and hut-equivalent quarters before you can take on passengers
You need to cut a key for kitchens and townhouse-equivalent quarters before you can take on VIP passengers.
You need to cut a key for a livestock deck (costs as much as a townhouse) before you get mounts or pack animals.
You need to cut a key for a moonpool (costs as much as a townhouse) before you can carry vehicles.
You can increase the heavenliner’s inventory by 20 slots for the cost of a hut.
Travel
Follow Journey Procedure while traveling Erebus. It takes a day to get from one Station to the next (at least on the Crescent Line).
The Heavenliner can carry 40 slots. A job requires 20 in terms of parcels, passengers, and their effects. If you eschew a job and just want to explore, you can carry more supplies.
The heavenliner drinks aether from the Sea of Erebus; you need to keep yourselves fed, watered, and hale, but fuel is not an issue.
These are two abilities PCs can pick up; I would consider putting them at the end of their own adventures, seeding them in as treasure, or making them the result of magic research. I would think they’d fit most into what characters can do around level 5 (the Snake can do 5d6 damage in a very similar manner to lightning bolt, plus a bunch of other mean bullshit, but only a very limited number of times). They also require the DM to commit to particular kinds of games (not being too wishy-washy about how much time has passed for the Snake, making sure that a looming threat of social violence eventually gets acted on). The Snake also assumed that enemies have 1d8-sized HD; it becomes too strong if HD are 1d6 (so just bump its damage die size down to d4, I guess)
I would also think about making these count against follower limits imposed by Charisma, since someone cutting creepy deals is offputting and it categorizes them as a social relationship mechanically.
You could also drop these in at level 1 as a DM if you were comfortable to running the kind of game where the consequences of how PCs solve problems really matters. If anything goes in the dungeon, then these are just strong and creepy (which is fine); if a bunch of scrubs punching a hole through the local dragon subjects them to all kinds of troublesome scrutiny, then these are much more interesting.
I don’t imagine the Snake or the Foxes as having much explanation in the world; they are cruel and unfamiliar things that have an unknowable interest in a particular PC.
The Snake
Congratulations. You have formed a contract with the Snake. You may sacrifice one of your fingernails to give it a single command. You do not know why the Snake wants your fingernails. It probably just enjoys hurting you.
Any time the Snake’s damage is mentioned, use 5d6. For each fingernail you give it, add +1 to the roll. For each creature it devours with more HD than it has damage dice, add 1d6 to the roll. For example, if you have given it 3 fingernails, its damage is 5d6+3. If it successfully devours a 7 HD wereboar, its damage increases to 6d6+3.
The Snake can only materialize in places within your line of sight and within earshot of your voice. The Snake materializes without fanfare or sound for the briefest moment to perform the acts you command before vanishing.
On your turn, you can command the Snake to do any of the following.
Snake, strike. You can simply tell the Snake to attack. It can attack a single target, or all creatures in a 100’ by 5‘ line. The line can originate from any point in range and has the orientation of your choice. The attack deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this attack deals more damage than ½ their maximum HP, they must Save (vs Magic) again or the attack will kill them instantly as the Snake carves a hole through their body.
Snake, devour. You can tell the Snake to devour a single creature. This deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this damage exceeds their maximum HP, the Snake successfully devours them, and can vomit them up as a separate favor. If this does not reduce the enemy to 0 HP, they stick in the Snake’s craw for a moment before it dematerializes. This annoys the Snake, and the next favor you ask of it requires an additional fingernail. It will tell you if it thinks it will not be able to devour a creature before it takes the fingernail.
Snake, release. You can tell the Snake to vomit up an enemy it has devoured for you. This enemy has ½ their normal HP and 10 AC, but retains all other abilities and statistics and acts as your perfectly loyal follower. It dissolves into oily smoke when reduced to 0 HP or the fingernail you sacrificed for it finishes growing back.
Snake, destroy. You can tell the Snake to obliterate a tube of solid, non-magical matter up to 100 ft in length and 5 ft in diameter. The tube can be in any shape or configuration (a cylinder, a spiral, a torus). The Snake obliterates this material by traveling through it; if it encounters a creature, it will deal its damage to them as if it had attacked and then immediately vanish (leaving the job of destroying the object or volume incomplete).
At any time you or an ally in range are about to take damage (after the attack is declared but before any dice are rolled)
Snake, protect. You can tell the Snake to block the attack. Roll its damage, then deduct incoming damage by that amount. If it does not negate all damage, its physical body is destroyed, which it will spend many mortal lifetimes regenerating. It is in your best interest to be dead by then.
Fingernails
Trace your hands (or at least your fingers) on the back of your character sheet and draw on fingernails. Whenever you offer one to the Serpent, right the in-game date you used it, so it’s easy to remember you’re missing it (and also to make it easier to remember when it grows back)
Though it always hurts more than you expect when the Snake claims a fingernail, no matter how many times it happens, you find your reaction oddly muted: no desire to flinch or cringe or clutch your hand. The Snake is particular and precise, and so the wound is nearly nonexistent; there is minimal bleeding and no trauma to the tissue. The Snake simply makes you unwhole. This is also what it does when it attacks your enemies.
The Snake always leaves your nail matrix perfectly intact, so that you can grow more fingernails for it to claim. It takes six months in-game months for a fingernail to grow back. If your game has downtime turns where there is a change of a random event, six of those will do.
If you need to call the Snake and have no fingernails left, there is no cause for concern. Perhaps there is something else you could offer instead?
The Foxes
Oh dear. You have formed a contract with the Foxes. Decide how many out of the five of them you have made a contract with, here and now. For each one, someone in your future will tell you a disastrous and believable lie, even if it contradicts their own nature and they believe they have no reason to deceive you. Everyone has a reason now, and it is the Foxes.
You can now command any number of Foxes to create illusions. Assigning more Foxes to an illusion increases the number of people it can deceive and the number of senses it can manipulate. Targets of an illusion may make a Save (vs Magic) to avoid being deceived, with a penalty equal to the number of Foxes assigned to the illusion. On a successful Save, they realize something is pushing and pulling at their mind.
No. of Foxes
No. of Targets
1
1
2
2
3
~5
4
~10
5
~20
Foxes are fickle and lazy. When you create an illusion, roll 1d6 for each Fox you assign to its creation. For each die that comes up a 1-3, one of your Foxes loses interest in helping you until your next downtime, preventing you from commanding them until then.
The Foxes do not accompany you on your adventures. However, your shadow, reflection, and appearance to other in dreams sometimes seem to have yellow eyes, sharp teeth, or perhaps a bushy and poorly concealed tail.
Illusions
Illusions can deceive senses in any way you please. You can make a target perceive something that does not exist at all, like a person or a wall. Illusions can move and act, such as an illusory wave fluttering in the breeze or an illusory person conversing and moving around (though it’s just the Foxes acting behind the scenes, of course).
You can also alter perception: wholly occlude someone’s vision, make an ally in their sight look like someone else, or prevent them from perceiving a particular person or object. You can also do something like make someone’s voice sound higher or lower, or make it sound like everything they say is an insult.
Illusions exist purely in the perception of their targets, but are shared amongst targets; an illusion brings a single, attenuated reality into being for those its deceives. For example, if one illusion affects two enemies, they must both perceive the same event unfolding. You could not make one enemy see an illusory dragon and the other see an illusory tree. You could create an illusion that depicts both or either, however. You could also set two groups of Foxes on two different illusions, though this would take more rounds if you are in combat and the individual illusions would not be able to deceive as many senses.
You can give false solidity to an illusion with the sense of touch. This does not allow illusions to support weight. For example, the victim of an illusion can’t walk through an illusory wall if the illusion deceives their sense of touch, but they would fall through illusory stairs. An illusory gale that includes the sense of touch would make its victim stumble and fall, but it could never lift them off the ground or propel them.
If an illusion ends up depicting something impossible (someone falls through solid-feeling illusory stairs, for example, or an illusory dragon picks them up with painful and powerful claws and then they are not actually lifted off the ground), the victim who witnesses the paradox may make a Save (vs Magic) to see overcome the illusion, thus losing all perception of it but experiencing stark reality once again. If they fail, they will confabulate the paradox away.
You can perceive your illusions and underlying reality simultaneously and without confusion. Illusions last until they wholly leave your perception.
Example
You have a contract with four of the Foxes, having decided five grievous lies in your life would be too many. You encounter a party of six goblins who seem like they might attack you. You command three of your foxes to deceive them with an illusion; you decide the illusion should impact sight, sound, and touch and affect five of the goblins. You tell three of your foxes to make it appear in the sight of five of the goblins that the sixth has drawn his weapon and attacked his fellow. The five deceived goblins see the sixth raise his club and strike; they feel the splatter of blood. The false target feels the impact of the club and the sound of it crunching his bones. The goblins gang up on the false attacker, and then begin brawling amongst themselves.
Had this marinating in drafts for forever and finally had the energy to finish it. I’ve been thinking about mechanics that are grounded as much as possible in the consensus and intuition of the play group and encoded as little as possible in the written rules themselves (related the FKR principles that have been bouncing around lately). These are magic rules for a game in the vein of Runequest or Earthsea I’ve been thinking about running lately.
They really only work in a pretty technologically limited setting (the game is Bronze Age-ish), since they’re keyed off of “things within human capacity” which gets really thorny when you have much past that.
Sorcery
Sorcery is an art that provides supernatural means to mundane ends–with their magic, a sorcerer can perform any feat within human capacity, but nothing more. Raising the dead, inspiring true love, lifting castles into the sky, and other ancient acts of magic are entirely beyond latter-day sorcerers. Within this limitation, however, sorcerers can still achieve much–forging a blade without a hammer or fire, transporting themselves great distances without a cart or mount, persuading people without speaking a word, performing dangerous labor from great distances, auguring long-lost secrets without cracking open a book.
Sorcerers are not equally learned in all forms of sorcery, however. The practice is divided into Lores, each a domain of sorcery that focuses on a single field of human endeavor. The Lore of Stone allows a sorcerer to cleave and shape rock like a mason; the Lore of the Forge allows them to stoke small flames into roaring fires and shape raw metal into smithed goods like a blacksmith. Lores are still constrained by the limits of sorcery; a Stone-sorcerer could raise a tower from living rock, but not create one from thin air; a Forge-sorcerer could turn iron ingots into a sword but could not magic up a blade from nothing.
Although sorcery can wholly replace the time, equipment, and labor necessary to achieve something, the more a sorcerer leans on their own power, the more difficult and dangerous the magic is. To safely, effectively, and reliably cast a spell, a sorcerer needs occult equipment, components, and time roughly equal to what would be needed to perform the act though mundane means. A dearth of resources can be overcome with talent and experience, but always brings some level of risk.
Lores
Stone: magic of masons. Cleave rocks, raise stone structures, etc.
Yoke: magic of animal husbandry. Train, soothe, command, care for animals, etc.
Path: magic of travelers. Travel great distances, move at great speeds, scale walls and mountains, etc
Bough: magic of hunters. Camouflage, track, kill at a distance, etc.
Forge: magic of blacksmiths. Stoke flames, shape metal, smith objects, etc
Bone: magic of doctors. Augur diagnoses, clean and treat wounds, etc.
Examples:
A Stone-sorcerer destroying a boulder might bring a staff to shape their magic the way that someone else might use a sledgehammer to direct their strength. In a pinch, they could try to crush the boulder with no gear, but this could exhaust them, injure them, or end in a botched or incomplete job.
A Yoke-sorcerer ensorcelling a dog to obey their commands might prepare a series of ritually treated meals for the dog to take the place of the food someone else would use to reward it during training. They could try to fall back on their own power and will, but this could sicken or injure them or the dog, or lead to the dog becoming aggressive and feral instead.
A Path-sorcerer could construct a ritual palanquin to carry them to a neighboring town the way someone else would use a cart. Carrying themselves with their own sorcery could injure them or lead them to the wrong place.
Procedure:
The player declares what they are trying to achieve with the spell and how it is going to happen. It must be within human capacity and it must pertain to their Lore.
If their PC has the time and resources equivalent to what the task would take normally, it just works.
If they do not have or are not willing to dedicate the time and resources, the Referee tells them how many dice to roll. If they are well-equipped, they roll 3d6. If they are moderately prepared, they roll 2d6. If they are unprepared, they roll 1d6. Sorcerers who go through brutal training, bathe in moonlight on auspicious nights, complete pilgrimages to locations of great power, wield relics of great power, etc, roll an extra regardless of level of preparation.
If the player’s highest die is 5+, the spell works. If the highest die is 3-4, the spell simply fails. If the highest die is 1-2, the spell fails and there is some backlash: the sorcerer is exhausted or injured, the spell causes an undesirable effect, etc.
Taboo Sorcery
Wisdom of the Beasts
Greedy sorcerers may reach for powers beyond what has been allotted to humans by consuming the lifeblood of an animal. This is a grave taboo–to be one thing and not another is the lot of all mortal life, and the mingling of kinds recalls the dark and formless Chaos that preceded the world as it is known today. A sorcerer who has attained the Wisdom of a beast may achieve anything that it could, just as a Lore affords the powers of human effort. A beast, more than anything, is capable of being itself, and so Wisdom-stealing sorcerers may also assume the form of animals they have consumed.
The Wisdom of the Bear allows a sorcerer to exert immense force, tear apart obstacles and enemies, and scale trees and walls.
The Wisdom of the Crow allows a sorcerer to fly, to stand on slender tree branches, and communicate with flocks of other crows.
The Wisdom of the Eel allows a sorcerer to breathe underwater and swim at great speed.
The Wisdom of the Asp allows a sorcerer to inflict venomous wounds and travel through the narrowest of spaces.
The most terrible heights a sorcerer may ascend are by consuming the lifeblood of a divine beast: dragons, sea-serpents, great-wolves, corpse-eagles.
Forbidden Knowledge
There are Lores that are persecuted at every opportunity by right-thinking people: The Lore of the Rack, perfected by torturers, the Lore of Belladonna, devised by poisoners, and the Lore of the Throne, invented by tyrants. The books that contain them have been burned, the people who learned them have been ground into dust and buried in secret places. The smallest hint that someone has recovered even a part of these Lores will bring down terrible reprisal from regular people, town governments, empires.
There are also Lores that are treated with suspicion or banned in some jurisdictions, but do not necessarily carry a universal taboo. Anything that impinges on the mind of another, allows secrets of others to be augured, or inflicts grievous injury causes too much trouble to be trusted, even if they can only induce a person to do something within the boundaries of their nature and morals.
Heart: magic of courtesans. Persuade, mislead, and seduce.
Jaw: magic of gossips. Divine rumors, start whisper campaigns, stir up mobs.
Tome: magic of scholars. Augur any information that has been written or remembered.
Scale: magic of merchants. Augur the value of objects, divine what people want, reveal the composition of coins, ingots, and other things.
Blade: magic of warriors, Cut, gouge, crush, pierce, but also ward off blows.
Been thinking about starting locations after rereading the excellent Fishtown, particularly ways it could change or grow with time, so here’s a die-drop starting area in the style of Majula or the Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls. I have the itch to mess with rules, so it uses Into the Odd for no particular reason. Been bouncing between that and Troika for my next game.
screenshot from Dark Souls 2
How to Use it
Regenerate the starting area periodically to see who’s left and who has returned
Regenerate whenever there’s a TPK to represent time passing / things changing
Make your own — all it requires is 15-20 NPCs. Each has
A name and profession
An appearance and (usually portable) shelter
A line of dialogue that generally indicates what they want
Maybe a secret
screenshot from Breath of the Wild
Die Drop
Roll a d4, a d6, a d8, a d10, and a d12 on a sheet of paper.
The die’s size represents the profession of the vendor
The die’s value indicates which merchant of the given profession is present
The die’s location indicates where the vendor is in camp.
1d4 – Merchant
Sells tools and rations for 1s each
Kikiriki
Cosette
Junero
Rochambeau
1d6 Smith
Sells hand and field weapons for 5s each
Sinfarrier
Godsmith Rosario
Royal Smith Soleil
Gravesmith Sartana
or greater – Nobody
1d8 Doctor
Sells antitoxin, vermifuges, bandages, and antiseptic for 5s each. Their sickrooms costs 5s a day, and allow players to recover from wounds without risk of infection.
Lamplady Yuma
Goodly Doctor Vire
Relict Iuste
Lonely Vedra
or greater – Nobody
1d10 Magician
Hexwright Jupitere
Hidden Lunaire
The Orminger
or greater – Nobody
1d12 Stranger
You have to meet additional strangers out in the world before they start visiting camp.
Beasty Saith
or greater – Nobody
Friends
Beastly Saith
Oh, how this collar itches…they tell of a blade in the woods to the west that could cut off such a thing…I’d give you quite the toothsome reward. Ahahaha!
A colossal leopard in a golden chain collar, sprawled out on silk cushions and blankets beneath the shelter of a red pavilion, illuminated by fuming braziers.
A stranger. Accompanies clients as a hireling for 10 gp per expedition. +1d6 HP and +1 to STR and DEX for every 10 gp paid. Even if she seems to die, she can be found back in camp as if nothing had happened. Demands utter respect.
5 HP, 14 STR, 12 DEX, 11 WIL, 1 Armor, d8 damage
Cosette
I heard the deacon buried treasure in the old church’s graveyard before the hunters burned everything down. Bet there are some real nice shinies in that dirt.
A woman in a black silk coat and a tricorn hat pulled low, slouched against a hound-drawn wagon.
Sells gear. also, if players lose something that isn’t actively being sought by somebody else, it will likely end up in Cosette’s inventory in a session or two.
Godsmith Rosario
The fire, the fire, the forge’s flame…nobody remembers anymore…get me one branch of holy cedar, and I’ll smith you something like I did in the old days…hmmhmmhmm.
A toweringly tall and beautiful woman working before a forge that burns with with pearly fire.
A smith. Her refined weapons will not break or lose their edge from any mundane force or power.
Junero
Have you seen my husband? He left for the quarry to trap rabbits yesterday, but hasn’t come back.
Salt-and-pepper stubble, wears a bandana to keep his hair out of his eyes, drinking something pungent out of a gourd on his belt, sells his wares from a creaking rickshaw.
Sells gear. If assured of the party’s good intentions, he will sell charms for 5 gp each. Charms provide a +1 bonus to a stat until the first time a check with that stat is failed. Characters can only carry one charm at a time or none of them work. Possession of a charm is punishable by death by the law of the Carillon.
Goodly Doctor Vire
The denizens of yon belltower brew medicines beyond compare. A recipe, an ingredient, a shred of their flesh…oh, the ills I might cure with just a taste!
Blindfolded with linen embroidered in gold with a single eye, wears a doctor’s white coat oddly trimmed with gold damask, works out of a lean-to of pine planks and oilcloth.
A doctor. Brews one dose of red oil a week, which can be used to revive a mostly whole corpse to 1 HP and at least 1 in each stat if it has died in the last hour.
Gravesmith Sartana
The temper’s the thing, my friend…the best metal and the hottest flame do nothing without the right quench…would you have some blood?
A stooped and wiry man who stares into the sickly flame of his forage with pale eyes, surrounded by barrels sealed shut with paper talismans.
A smith. If furnished a fresh corpse, he will forge a weapon that deals damage equal to the damage the creature could deal with an unarmed melee attack.
Hexwright Jupitere
Fetch me the heart of a hunter, still fresh…heehee…I’ll bring those pompous belltenders right down to their knees…
Wears black robes trimmed with fur, conceal their face with a fine black veil weighed with silver coins.
A magician.
Blank and Rotted Tome: read to learn unbecoming
Tarnished Silver Grimoire: read to learn darksome song
Hidden Lunaire
Oh, hello there.
An immaculate white tent, the brilliant lamp inside projecting its occupant’s silhouette against the side. The tent’s entrance is crudely stitched shut with rawhide. Entering the tent reveals there is nobody inside.
A magician.
Blue Sticky Lump: consume to learn eye
Warm and Knotted Coil: consume to learn hands
Twisted Tooth: consume to learn maw
Pale Blue Cerata: consume to learn bloom
Kikiriki
Dubious and questionable, the lot of them. Listen to me, and I’ll tell you what’s what. Keeheehee!
A wicked little fellow in a crow mask who hawks his wares from beneath a ragged awning.
Sells gear, as well as random rumors for 3 gp a piece.
Kikiriki’s Rumors
The priests of the old church buried their treasures in the graveyard before they all burned. Stupid! Stupid! The dead want for nothing!
‘Ware the hunters of yon belltower. I hear one is stalking prey as we speak. Don’t let them get you! Keeheeheehee!
Some blundering trapper got himself caught by the thing that lurks in the quarry. What fool! There won’t be enough to bury!
They say the light of a new moon reveals the unseen. Doesn’t make any sense to me.
Oh the foundry on the lip of yon quarry, that hateful place, where my w–well, where I lost something I need. They say the metals they smelted there are useful and wicked beyond compare…
There grows a lone tree of holy cedar in the deepest part of the western forest. I once knew a lady of the old court who said a flame stoked with such wood is blessed for as long as it burns.
A noble of the distant Leopardy was exiled here many years ago. He’ll fight at your side for a fee and the chance to spill some blood.
A spring flows to the west, on the top of yon mountain. Deep waters flowing on high…truly auspicious, no? Keeheheehee!
I hear them tell of a goodly doctor who brews spurious concoctions from the flesh of yon belltower’s denizens. Not that I would ever drink such a thing.
A passing magician remarked that a bellhunter’s heart must be filled with spite and ire, unsurpassed kindling for a terrible curse.
In Tarrow Town, right beneath yon belltower, there is a boarded up workshop sealed with the mark of the Carillon…I wonder what misfortunes and curiosities could hide within?
Long ago, before even the fall of the old courts, a cursed king’s cursed crown was cast into the pits to the east. Who would want such a thing, I wonder?
Lamplady Yuma
The night of the new moon…truly a revelatory time…hehehe!
Long black hair, pale brown eyes that almost seem tinged with pink or red, wears voluminous vestments and a cassock. Her clinic is a collapsible A-frame tent with smoky braziers burning by the entrance.
Provides services as a doctor. Sells up to one bottle of blue oil a week, which restores 1d12 HP.
Suffers from a painful and wasting disease, is keeping it in check under the tutelage of Kith BYS, whose crypt lies hidden beneath her clinic. The treatments are slowly transforming her into something sinuous and many-eyed. If the hunters of the Carillon find out they will kill her and everyone in her clinic.
Lonely Vedra
In the shadow of yon belltower lies a town of useful fools, sheep for the dogs of the Carillon. Find the casket that lies in the well of my old workshop there, return it to me unopened, and you shall be richly rewarded.
A woman with an enormous quantity of graying hair, stirring a seething cauldron in a cottage with a tarp roof.
A doctor. Once a week, sells a Slippery Blue Mass that gives the user +1 Armor when swallowed. The user must make a WIL check every 10 minutes or the effect ends.
The Orminger
Ah…I’ve come so far, but not far enough, I’m afraid…my crown, my old crown, it lies lost in the caverns to the east…I’ve all but forgotten so much, but it still calls to me…please…
A beautiful and impassive giant, easily twice as tall as a human, sprawled out on the ground, cheek flat against the dirt, only their face visible, their strange proportions and unfamiliar limbs both concealed and suggested by their voluminous robes.
A magician. Reaches out gently with a huge and elegant hand and touches your brow with an elegant forefinger, bestowing a roll on the warlock table.
Relict Iuste
There is a mountaintop spring, past even the western woods, where water from the most profound depths flows…I should like a taste of it, someday.
A potbellied old man swathed in tattoos in an unfamiliar script, wearing nothing but an open vest and breeches, smoking a rich-smelling pipe beneath an oversized umbrella.
A doctor. Once a week, sells a huge and foul-tasting pill that gives advantage on STR checks and disadvantage on DEX checks. The user must make a WIL check every 10 minutes or the effect ends.
Rochambeau
Customers, on this night of all nights? Take care…I hear a visitor from yon belltower is on the hunt…
Wears an oversized canvas coat and drawstring pants, sells her wares out from under a tattered awning illuminated by humming phosphor globes.
Sells gear, as well as boxes of myrrh cigarillos for 10 gp each. Smoking a myrrh cigarillo keeps you from aging one day, and monsters hate the taste of a myrrh-smoker’s flesh.
Royal Smith Soleil
Oh, don’t look at me like that, I know already. Fetch me a bottle of the deep waters from the western mountaintop if you’re so bothered.
A baboon in a leather apron accompanied by a swarm of macaque assistants with serious faces in a cyclopean stone workshop.
A smith. Sells medium and heavy armor.
Sinfarrier
There’s a foundry on the far side of the quarry…bring me the ingots you find there… I’ll make you something you won’t soon forget…hahahaha!
A lanky man in a heavy ceramic mask and a thick leather apron hammering on a curious porcelain anvil. Ram horns curl from his head, perhaps part of his headgear?
A smith. His vicious weapons, made from black iron and flanged with silvery edges, deal +1 Critical Damage
