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

bandwagon

Neuropathological Sidekicks for Wizards

Maufesto (vice: refined taste; spell: detect poison)
(except anything nonalcoholic also counts as poison)

When something especially frightening, dramatic, or embarrassing occurs, gain a random Vice (d40).

1. Chain Smoker (Cannot hold breath, persistent stink)
2. Nervous Giggles (-1 to Stealth checks)
3. Refined Taste (Cannot drink water)
4. Daydreams (Act last in initiative)
5. Absent-Minded (-1 to Brains checks)
6. Miserable Bastard (-1 to Reaction rolls)
7. Bleeding Heart (Take 1 damage after each of your attacks)
8. Twitchy Eye (Cannot aim for shit)
9. The Yips (-1 to Strength checks)
10. Creepy Smile (-1 to Charisma checks)
11. Shaky Hands (Cannot pick locks or defuse bombs)
12. Milk Drinker (Only drink milk)
13. Poor Hygiene (-1 to Reaction rolls)
14. 'Fraidy Cat (Afraid below 1/2 HP) All characters have an immutable fear response: fight, flee, freeze, or fawn. If you don't know yours, pick or roll it whenever it becomes relevant.
15. Honorbound (Cannot retreat)
16. Queasy (-1 to Constitution checks)
17. Doomed (-1 to Fate checks) 
18. Bottomless (Consume double rations)
19. Rage Machine (Yell before each of your attacks)
20. Punching Bag (Take +1 damage from striking attacks)
21. Flagellant (Take +1 damage from slashing attacks)
22. Martyr (Take +1 damage from stabbing attacks)
23. Penny Pincher (Cannot part with money)
24. Sloppy (-1 to Grace checks)
25. High Strung (-1 to Nerve checks)
26. Lazy (Cannot run)
27. Fainting Spells (Save or lose a turn when a spell is cast)
28. High Roller (Save or raise the stakes)
29. Dependent (Choose another character, -1 to all checks when they are not in the room)
30. Claustrophobia (Cannot enter crawlspaces)
31. Erotophobia (Cannot enter brothels)
32. Godless (Cannot enter churches)
33. Teetotaler (Cannot drink alcohol)
34. Sinking Feeling (Cannot swim)
35. Dumb (Monosyllabic speech)
36. Emotionless (-1 to Reaction rolls)
37. Gullible (-2 to save vs lies)
38. Flirtatious (-2 to save vs charms)
39. Willowy (-2 to save vs threats)
40. Regicidal (Recognize other co-conspirators on sight)

Each vice you have grants +20xp until cured. Vices can be reliably cured by churches and brothels (like in Darkest Dungeon :D) and less reliably by a wizard or psychotherapist.

They aren't intended to be part of your character forever, unless you find them endearing. (see below)

Adan (vice: sinking feeling; spell: black tentacle)
(if there is neither water nor mirror nearby, it emerges from your pupil)

To a psychopaladin, or anyone else who can see spirits, vices are daemons (psychic shoulder-entities who cast spells and give bad advice). You may recognize some of these from the two daemon posts: for example, Dolores is the punching bag and Despite is honorbound. If you possess those vices, those daemons will be the ones on your shoulder, whispering in your ear and voicing your basest instincts.

[Also, each daemon is linked to a spell. Thus, all daemons have three names: the vice, given by doctors; the spell, given by wizards; and their own, used for personal affairs]

Vices are what happen when you possess a daemon. What happens when a daemon possesses you?

Possession is an entry on the overloaded encounter die. Make a mental save or treat with laudanum. Otherwise, you are possessed: choose arm, leg, or mouth. The daemon can commandeer those body parts to fulfill its whims.

For example, Corus wants to pocket the family photograph that doesn't belong to you. She'll first try to convince you to do it. If you refuse and she's in your right arm, she'll snatch it herself. If she's in your mouth, she'll beg pathetically for it. 

[Digression: fighting your daemons in public makes you look mad, which NPCs hate. It is socially acceptable in the Doggerlands for women to be a little mad, but not too much.]

If you agree to pocket it, she'll be placated, and you can use this to bargain with her in the future: I did you a favor last time, so you be quiet now. Not all daemons are unreasonable.

Multiple possessions must occupy different body parts. You can let a different daemon into each limb, or allow one to take over your whole body.

If you get possessed while you have no more parts to possess, you go completely mad. Roll a new PC.

[This, to me, is a more salient dungeon crawling clock than rations or lantern oil. Your mileage may vary.]

Thea (vice: dependent; spell: half duplicate)
(the missing half is always the most important part)

 The 40 vices above and the 40 daemons in the other posts don't line up, but I'm sure y'all can make it work. Here's four more to make up the difference.

• Chérie - A lump of black stone shaped like a fetus in various stages of development. Perceptive, vulgar, intellectually dishonest. Feigns helplessness to get what she desires most of all: cigars. When cast, an object you touch cries like a baby for [sum] minutes.
• Vestal - A rusty chain around your neck. Dreamily compares you to a drowned corpse; would like you to play along, cold, wet, and breathless. Cries distractingly if you have sex. When cast, your target can't breathe for as long as you hold your breath.
• Sven - You, slowly pulling snakes out of a hole in your head, with a fork. Appears in mirrors, rasps painfully. Wants to destroy everything that reminds you of your past. When cast, forget the last [sum] minutes, removing any vices gained (and other mental hitchhikers).
• Onoskelis - The back half of a pale horse. Startles at the slightest provocation, then gets mad at you for laughing at her. (She thinks everyone who isn't also terrified is laughing at her.) When cast, kick a wizard in the head for [sum] damage. All of their prepared spells go off at once, simultaneously and randomly.

more nsfw ahead

surprise ttrpg book review thinkaloud

Eagle-eyed readers may notice the table of vices is stolen from/inspired by Vice & Violence, a pornographic(!) free(!!!!) fantasy ttrpg by Rapscallion. The rest of this post is a list of various things from V&V that I liked and intend to steal for my games (more than Daggerheart ever did for me), because this is my blog and I do what I want.

Girls Like Us (procedures for a city campaign)

by 02png

4 city procedures-slash-npcs for Glaugust 2025, + a campaign premise

Character creation

Pick up to two that you like about yourself, and at least two that you don't.

• Arms - Lifting, dragging (inventory slots)
• Body - Vomiting
• Legs - Running, jumping, parkour
• Flesh - Physical touch, sex with the lights off
• Skin - Flirting, sex with the lights on
• Bone - Not breaking
• Sinew - Throwing chairs, bending bars
• Good Luck - Lottery tickets + car crashes

Body + Bone are for saves versus wet/hot and cold/hard harm, respectively. (Diarrhea is wet/hot, a bat to the shins is cold/hard.)

Everything else is self explanatory, I think.

You go to the City to fix what's wrong with you. Longer legs, fuller flesh, metal bones, extra arms.

To survive in the City, you must contend with the Powers That Be. 

The Hustle

A crossroads demon. Black-humored, hypermasc, forgiving. It wants your time and your dignity. If you need more money faster, it cheers and calls for a game of chance; stake your health, or your self esteem, or a relationship you treasure.

Real doctors want real money. Fake doctors want favors (harder to quantify, easier to game). They all respect the Hustle.

[Instead of modeling the City, I choose to personify it. Take everything about this literally; you can talk to the Hustle. You can shake its hand. You can seduce it, even fuck it, but you can't change it. The same is true for the other Powers That Be.]

The Grid

If you have a job, use real money, or sign for anything, you're on the grid: Each week, you may be randomly (1-in-6, gm rolls secretly) selected for surveillance. If you're under surveillance and commit a crime, a cop will bust into the room in an hour.

Rigid, hopelessly neurotic, femme in the way a GPS is femme. It wants to meet your friends, and collects people like dolls. It can turn a blind eye in exchange for a secret. Its cultists turn up in police departments and suspiciously high tech trailer parks; it still accepts human sacrifice.

The Noise

Chatter, bright lights, tabloids. You contract it by using the internet, visiting the financial district, or interacting with a carrier for a few hours.

• Stage 1: You're a carrier. Progresses on a weekly coin flip.
• Stage 2: Each week, worsen dysphoria for a random stat by 1 stage. Progresses when you don't like anything about yourself.
• Stage 3: Completely immobile. Progresses to terminal on a weekly coin flip: make a new character.

You can medicate the Noise with houseplants and booktok and anime body pillows and little treats and coffee dates and a cat that looks at you like you're the only person in the world even though you can only afford dry food and cheap litter, but you can't cure it. 

The Dark

If you're walking alone late at night, if you smile at the wrong man, if you forget to lock your door at night, it kills you.

You must perform the rites. You need a home, you need a man, you need a gun. Even with all of these things, the Dark visits on a 1-in-6 (weekly). First, it will try the front door. Then, it will try the window. You may not notice it came to visit, so check carefully. After each visit, you must improve the rites- change locks, move house, buy a bigger gun- or it will get in next time.

When the Dark comes to visit, there is a 50% chance it's someone you know. Do they know you live alone? Did you tell them your apartment number? Did you give them your spare key? It's your fault, says the voice at the foot of the bed. You made it too easy. It's your fault.

DEATH DEATH DEATH

For GLAUGust 2025.

The table of consequences is 20 entries long. Each dungeon gets its own table. The first entry is always DEATH.

To attack...

1. Choose a specific injury (blind, burned, disarmed) or DEATH.
2. Write it down on the table under any entry.
3. Roll on the table of consequences (d20). Everything under that entry happens.

More dangerous attacks roll smaller die sizes. Fighters roll twice and pick one.

To kill a dragon, mere DEATH will not suffice. You need DEATH DEATH DEATH.