There are no system neutral rangers

Anyway, here's a system neutral ranger:

• Whenever you go someplace new, its name appears in the dark souls map font. If there is no name, you get to name it, and the gm must retroactively justify the name. (So if the name is valley of gold, perhaps the inhabitants wear lots of gold, or perhaps the valley is simply full of golden flowers.)
• You can speak to places as if they were people. They can answer questions about destroyed landmarks, people who used to live here, and the events of yesterday.
• Forests, old manors, sewer systems: places, like people, have desires. You can learn these by asking. If you fulfill a place's desire, it becomes friendly to you: you never get lost, and always have the home turf advantage.
• In every place, there is a keystone: a person or object holding everything together. (Removing it causes famine, collapse, etc.) You know where to find it. If it's missing, you can give up your character to become a keystone.

[note: there's enough abilities to spread into ABCD templates, but they're not so potent that they can't all fit on a single class in a level-less system]

[also note: this still falls into the third major pitfall of ranger classes, where having 2+ rangers in the party is completely redundant]

[also also note: the personification of places is an abstraction of a ranger's skill at navigating, tracking, and knowing things others don't. No genius loci or nature spirits are required in-setting for these abilities to function]

Here's some locations with the extra bits this class suggests you should have:

• Ono Woods. Wants: The last two bears in the forest to fall in love. Keystone: Not the tallest, but the widest oak. If it's felled, no one will be able to hunt here ever again.
• New Laguarat. Wants: A messiah elected into office. Keystone: The real estate bubble.
• Station 16. Wants: The destruction of the late doctor's research reports. Keystone: The backup generator, which runs life support. 

the Spiceomancy Trading Card Game

This is a productivity game, for when you need a little extra motivation. 

When you complete a task, or a series of tasks, open a booster pack by clicking the button below. Then, save the images to a folder. The more tasks you complete, the more your collection will grow.

Treat these images as physical cards. If you get a second copy of a card, keep both. If you trade cards with a friend, delete your card as you download theirs.

Optional Rule: Bonus Packs If you have three copies of the same card, you can trade them in for another pack. If you have a set of three cards that share a theme (size, color, fungi, etc.), you can trade them in for another pack.

Optional Rule: Rare Cards You can trade in a rare card for another pack, with the caveat that you can only keep the cards that share a theme with the traded rare.

Optional Rule: Big Spender You can give $5 to a charitable cause for another pack. (Here's one.)

For the collectors, there are currently 22 28 common cards, 11 20 uncommon, and 8 13 rare, not including foils.

For the powergamers, please post your decklists below. The meta currently favors Chomik Combo, but the next expansion will probably shake things up.

Update: Oct 3, 2025 - Added 20 new cards to fill out the higher rarities, plus an additional 26(!!!!) submitted by guest artists Morgan Miller, Thorø Murphy, Locheil/Nothic's Eye, VikugnaVikugna, and Archon! These will appear in regular boosters, as well as in the new guest artist packs, for those of you after that chase foil Cool Ant.

One Century Setting

A new worldbuilding project is a balm on many wounds. Here is a truth: in worldbuilding, the smallest timelines are the most virtuous. Here is a prompt: a setting that is only 100 years old.

In the beginning, the giant Worol is struck in the head by a projectile and killed. Molga, Valki, and Getal tumble out of his skull, trembling and fully formed. They wail over his corpse. Then, they each take a sharp piece of his skull as a weapon, and depart to hunt their father's killer.

Next, Woros is born from the weeping wound of Worol. They try to save him, but too many pieces are missing to patch the hole. However, thru their labors, they deliver three more siblings from their father's corpse: Herde, Pilor, and Dwrna.

The orphans of Worol bicker over his body and divide him into seven realms. The head, chest, and guts are claimed by the four younger siblings. The itinerant elder siblings are left with the fingers, toes, and hair.

 

Molga, Valki, and Getal track down the assassin, a giant named Nefyrkalang, in parts unseen. Scheming, they bring her the headblood of Worol in a tremendous bathtub. She drinks, and becomes intoxicated; they cut her sleeping form into Nef, Yr, Ka, and Lang, the four despoilers.

The world is carefully ordered and always more complex, but its edges are scarred and decayed. These are the marks of the despoilers, who continue to assault the body of Worol from parts unseen. Each major impact—fleshmade meteor, bilious rain—marks the passage of a year.

Woros, the mourning child, creates a titanium idol in Worol's image. Mischievous Valki pricks one statue with his nail, and it screams "ouch!" and springs to life. The child is named Walan, and the siblings dote on him and give him many gifts, and come to desire their own children as well. Born in Worol's image themselves, they excel at creating.

[However, none of them can create life alone. Dwrna, in her experiments in solitude, only succeeds in creating empty, hungry husks: vampires.]

Many more children are born: Wodnol, Worgael, Wacha, Modwyn, Morfael, Melfed, Velde, Gaewyn, Geled, Grita, Hedest, Panic, Polrod, Dwalde, Dwenki, and Dworga. They are pocket-sized beside their parents, and constructed of metal and stone. And they too are craftsmen, born ready to make their mark upon the world: Dwalde creates the iron trees. Geled builds his palace on the cold outer sea. Panic blows the clouds from glass. Polrod manufactures lightning bolts.

Vengeful Getal still nurses a grudge. Fearful Molga tries to kill Getal before he can act, but fails. The siblings are splintered by the fallout, and their territories and children are divided.

Imagine you are the first of the third generation: a child of Polrod or Hedest or Dworga, and grandchild of Woros or Molga or Getal. You were carved of metal or stone, with notable defects: you are (relatively) small, soft, and susceptible to the taint of flesh and blood.

Your uncles own the caves and mountains. The world is a factory, ticking to your forefathers' ends, but rusting and rotting from the outside.

It's not too late. The world is only 100 years old.

This post is not about Seveneves.

Witchlance

 

The witches of Krakow live in their beasts. A direct successor to the witch hut, their hollowed out chests and stretched pelts serve as a sturdy, mobile ritual space. Occasionally, they are reinforced from within with cast iron: an artifact of the witch-wars.

The relationship is not symbiotic. The beast is dead. You pilot it with magic.

* * *

 

Control is sympathetic. The beast is innervated with path runes, and the pilots get matching tattoos. Arm to arm, leg to leg, arm to leg: motion is more important than anatomy.

• All paths lead both ways. In exchange for control, the pilot suffers damage to that limb as if it were their own.
• Multiple pilots can control a single limb, if they share a notable bond (romance, rivalry, secret family tie).

The beast's mobility reflects that of the pilot. Pro wrestling moves are on the table. Anime bullshit is on the table with modifications to the main body (see below).

A beast with x MHD (mecha hit dice) has x^2 slots of internals. Each slot can hold:

• 1 witch w/ minimal living quarters + piloting space
• however much cargo 10 witches could carry on foot
• 1 injury
• 1 ritual space
• 1 body mod (spring-loaded tendons, spinnerets, giant sword-arm)

1HD beasts are low-magic single-pilot operations. 3HD is the sweet spot for a proper squad.

The greatest witchbeast of the modern age is Shelob (5HD+5, deployed to the Eastern front, good at biting planes out of the sky), who took the title from Methuselah Indigo (8HD, decommissioned somewhere in the Alps, legendarily stealthy).

Attacks at mech-scale always hit and always cause at least one (1) injury: A random internal slot is damaged. Rituals prepared in that space trigger, cargo is destroyed. If a witch is hit, a limb is disabled instead.

Every 6th point of damage causes another injury.

(Mech damage deals 6x damage to non-mechs. Non-mechs deal 6x less damage to mechs, rounded down. 1MHD = 6HD) 

A ritual space holds a near-complete magic ritual. They take hours to set up, and minutes to complete, such that a witch under fire can hurriedly trigger the ritual in combat.

A ritual can be powered up by devoting multiple slots to it. (see below)

You are a witch a team of witches piloting a biopunk mecha.

First, pick a frame and name it. They're 3HD w/ two arms and legs unless otherwise specified.

1. Bear - Hungry abdominal maw churns other mechs in a grapple. (+1 injury/turn) Worshiped as a dead god by a string of villages in the Carpathians.
2. Crow - Natural sprinter on long scaly legs. Hussar wings mark you as loyal monarchists from a distance.
3. Hound - Speaks internally in the voice of mission control, who can identify other frames from description. Fireproof.
4. Frog & Toad - 2HD each. Airtight internals. Soviet mass production model.
5. Ram - +1 injury to ramming maneuvers. Obliterates non-reinforced walls. Former insignias painted over with bright spirals.
6. Stag - Four arms, four legs. Immovable. Pursued relentlessly by the iron coven.
7. Hare - Left arm damaged irreparably. Second pair of eyes glimpses the future. Terrifies Germans.
8. Fox - May act on its own when threatened. Particularly active under the full moon.
9. Owl - Huge wings (gliding only). Disconcertingly silent. Two such frames guard the current chief of state.
10. Trout - Mech-scale cast-iron sword. Ancestral protector of a minor royal lineage.
11. Centipede - Innumerable arms. Frightening to behold, nightmarish to pilot.
12. Chomik - 2HD, four short legs. A cramped, scurrying frame never meant for the front lines. Always underestimated.

Then, each witch picks a perk.

1. Hypermobile - You're hard to grapple. If your limb would break, it's disabled for a day instead.
2. Delicious Blood - Adding your blood to a ritual makes it cast twice. Doing this twice in one day makes you dizzy; thrice kills you.
3. Familiar - An exceedingly clever cat, or a 1HD personal mech. (Your pick.)
4. Surgical License - You can install parts from one mech onto another as body mods.
5. Crow's Feet - You fall slowly and climb easily. You can board hostile mechs with minimal effort.
6. Magic Hat - It's bigger than you are. Other witches respect the drip.
7. Witchy Trigger Finger - You can prepare rituals to trigger within seconds instead of minutes, such that a witch under fire can trigger many rituals in a single round of combat. Misfire on a 1-in-6 whenever your mech gets hit.
8. Rag Doll Mask - Never to be removed. You have a mission, a child's wish you must fulfill. Nothing can make you act against this wish: charms fail, force falters.
9. AT Mines - Six of them.
10. Cackle - Terrifies non-witches.
11. That Warm Wet Feeling - While piloting, your first hit against any mech deals +1 injury.
12. A ritual.
1. Rite of the Poppet - Take control of up to [slots x 6]HD of corpses. This is the same ritual that binds pilots to their beastly bodies, and functions accordingly.
2. Blood From Stone - The earth splits. On your next turn, lava spills forth, dealing [slots]d6 mech damage.
3. Circle Ward - Create a spherical barrier that bars everything of a particular category from entry (or exit) until it takes [slots]d6 mech damage.
4. Forecast - Foresee the next week of weather, or the next [slots] turns of combat. (Play them out. If you don't like the result, return to the moment of casting.)
5. Ail - Blow a mist which causes [slots] of the following: vertigo, babbling, trembling, bleeding, selective blindness, blasphemy.
6. True Love - Fill a cauldron with liquid. The first few drops are a potent love potion; the rest is a mild entheogen.
7. Blackthorn - Make a lethal weapon from a twig, branch, or tree. It deals +1 injury for each additional [slot].
8. Flight - [slots x 6]HD of things grow functional wings. These last until sunrise.
9. Quest - Call a [slots x 6]HD spectral host to point the way to glory.
10. Bog - An acre of land becomes evil, leech-ridden, boot-sucking swamp. For each additional [slot], add an adjective: poisonous, bottomless, flammable, haunted, barbed wire, creeping.
11. Curse - [slots x 6]HD of things assume bestial forms. True love's kiss breaks the curse.
12. Walk Thru Dreams - The world derealizes with a sigh. Everything half-submerges into the underlying mythohistoric realm. For each additional [slot], a random character enters the scene. Also, the mechs all start talking.

Appendix N: Treelancer, Witch Hat Atelier, Evangelion

Appendix S

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