Monday, May 18, 2026

Worldbuilding Wizard (GLOG Class: Sorcerer)


eli minaya

In the first age, magic was the great and terrible flood which carved creation into shape. The flow has since been dammed, reduced to a trickle of piddling cantrips, like invisibility and fireball.

Two theories prevail on the wizard apocalypse. The first claims that all magic, including anaerobic respiration and true love, will one day dry up. The second claims that one day, randomly and without warning, the dam will break.


SORCERER
Start with: four spells; your choice of sword, harp, or magic cow; flammable blood
A - Origin Magic
B - Fame
C - Omens
D - Signature Spell

A - Origin Magic
You are a bottomless wellspring of origin magic, which is like regular magic but better in every way. Choose whether this is effortless or debilitatingly painful for you.

When you cast a spell, it is fearsome, catastrophic, or otherwise excessive in its effects. (For example, you may cast knock to open a door, and in doing so destroy every door in the dungeon, and the town, and also the next town over.)

  • The first rule of origin magic is the rule of 3s: your spell must do more than you intended, and also something else, and also one more thing. You and your gm should take turns describing these, escalating each time.

After casting, make a note of the spell you cast and whether the results were fearsome, tricky, noble, or wicked. (For example, knocking down a castle gate in wartime is fearsome, but knocking open a portal to fairy land is tricky.) These are the deeds you will be known by.

  • The second rule of origin magic is the event rule: your spell must go down as a significant event in local history. An easy way to fulfill this condition is to create a permanent landmark: a thicket glamoured by invisibility, or a barren waste with fireball.

You can only cast each spell once, even if you learn a second copy of it.

  • The third rule of origin magic is the rule of worldbuilding: your spell must force the gm to write something down about the world that has been forever changed, preferably while sighing and googling something about medieval population dynamics.
  • The final rule of origin magic is "a wizard did it": your spell must create some kind of monster as a byproduct. This part is completely up to the gm. The monster doesn't have to reveal itself immediately; when it does, roll reaction for hostility.

B - Fame
Every significant NPC knows your name and deeds.

You also gain an additional ability based on which type of deed you have the most of:

  • If you have a fearsome reputation, you can make an additional attack per round.
  • If you have a tricky reputation, your disguises are always perfect, and can even fool gods.
  • If you have a noble reputation, you can speak with swords and horses.
  • If you have a wicked reputation, lower level creatures freeze in fear when you glare at them.

C - Omens
You learn four more spells. Once all four have been cast, you die (or at least retire in a way that permanently removes you from the game).

This is totally natural and expected; it's basically wizard puberty.

Also, you can receive two-word omens about the future if you have ten minutes and appropriate divinatory tools. (You may use any and all methods interchangeably, from ornithomancy to ouija.)

D - Signature Spell
Choose a spell you've cast before. Whenever you confiscate a dangerous magical artifact, land a critical hit, or dream of drowning, you can cast that spell again.

 

witch hat atelier

Play this class to punish your gm. It's fairly rules-agnostic, so feel free to grab spells from anywhere. Here's some to get you started:

  1. Jam
    [sum] doors, windows, or similar gateways can't fully close. If slammed shut, they violently bounce back open, dealing [highest] damage to the slammer. You may cast this in response to a door (etc.) closing.
  2. Testament
    If the target dies in the next [minute/hour/day/year], they collapse into a ball of black ice, dealing [sum] damage to everything in the room. (This is how lichmoths achieve metamorphosis.)
  3. Venom
    You become as venomous as any creature you hold in your hands, and your blood becomes the antidote.
  4. Chip
    Put a dent in anything--even an adamantine shield--without breaking it. If it wasn't working before, it starts working. If it was, it stops working for the next [sum] minutes. Gods find this shit extremely aggravating.
  5. Axle
    Rotate an object [90/180/270/360] degrees instantly. Living things get a save vs a broken neck.
  6. Dizzy
    Target loses their sense of balance. If cast with 4 or more MD, target loses their sense of gravity as well, and falls in a random direction.

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Thronesposting

kids these days always on their god damn thrones
 

There are no mundane thrones.

A king's throne can delude you (echoes of former grandeur). A lich's throne can possess you. A god's throne will evaporate you. 

The oldest valleys were the thrones of giants. Life grows wild in these places, towering many-crowned stags and titanic long-robed slugs. Men raised in these valleys grow tall; giants raised outside of these valleys diminish. (What was, will be.)

[Why does this happen? The soul (which is contained in a jewel-like organ in the ass, keep up) leaves an indelible imprint on the world. A heavier soul leaves a deeper imprint. This is as true of a dragon's lair as it is of a king's throne.]

 

Wizards, kings, and wizard-kings all require thrones. They spend inordinate amounts of time sat in a sort of meditation/cultivation: the technical term for this is brooding. This funnels power into the throne, to various magical ends...

d20 Throne Effects

  1. All things that die nearby immediately arise as undead.
  2. Walks under its own power on six powerful leonine legs.
  3. Drains the blood of illegitimate kings.
  4. Controls the flooding of the two closest rivers. 
  5. Reveals the future in apocalyptic fragments.
  6. Sees thru all depictions of the King's Eye. [☸]
  7. Midas curse!!!!!
  8. Projects close range divine terror field. Can be extended with psychic training.
  9. Invites gnomes. Generates whimsy at industrial scales.
  10. Shoots beholder beams. +1 beam per mounted jewel. 
  11. Gradually grows, turning you into a giant. 
  12. As supercomputer.
  13. Guarded by two angels.
  14. Shapeshifts, conceals, disguises, glamours, and beguiles.
  15. Calls barbarian warriors from faraway lands.
  16. Grants passage into dreams.
  17. Blinds God.
  18. Bestows d12 superhuman heirs.
  19. Summons spirits of pestilence.
  20. Ages you backwards.

A dynastic throne has been cultivated for many lifetimes, and therefore possesses many effects. A stolen throne is just as potent, but volatile and willful.


Powerful thrones are embedded in the world. They can't be moved: if you want to abuse the wizard's recliner, you'll have to move in with him. Likewise, if the recliner starts giving you trouble, you'll have to move out to be rid of it.

In the wake of a great and powerful evil, the land must be abandoned. What remains is a husk ruled by the throne itself. The undynasts call these cicada cities.

A broken throne eventually fades. If some brave soul were to enter a cicada city and destroy the throne, the land would eventually return to its natural state.

[The process takes hundreds of years, so it's not a serious priority for anyone with the power to do anything. Those who seek the cicada cities usually do so for less altruistic reasons.] 

Friday, March 27, 2026

Dogbox: 3 Dungeons + Fairies

pei lee

Spoilers, I guess, for Dogbox.

I've started with the three smallest dungeons and their hexes, as a warmup. Lil design ramble at the end.

Friday, March 20, 2026

Dogbox

Cath Celdaenn! ...is not an easy setting to share. The Doggerlands are much more cohesive because they exist outside of me: amphibious where Cath is hadopelagic.

The domain game is still far far far far far over the horizon, but before that I'd like to stick wheels on this setting and take it for a spin. Thankfully, Mssr. Primeumaton has provided a bandwagon-like structure I can siphon gas from (do bandwagons have gas?)

Here's me throwing my hat over the fence. Expect all of these bullet points as blogposts sometime this year.

bit o process sketching

You play as disinherited failscions sent to live in the countryside. You have until the social season (3 months) to...

  1. ...make 1000 sovereigns and buy your way back into high society.
  2. ...get engaged to someone rich and powerful.
  3. ...get your inheritance back.

If you fail, you die (socially).

The Hexcrawl

  1. The manor you live in. Haunted, obviously.
  2. Town. Beyond this point, the rest of the world. 1 vampire + 7 vampire hunters in a hostel (because I would like to try my hand at ripping off penny dreadful)
  3. Village. Depopulated and destitute. Mutant plague? let's go with that
  4. Hills. Two manor-castles hosting rival parties.
  5. Battlefield. Three manor-castles, fuck it. Also haunted, obviously.
  6. Fairy forest. Real wilderness, like in prehistoric times. +1 castle overrun by fairies.
  7. Sump. Poison salt marsh dark souls shithole. +1 castle sliding into the sea.

The Dungeon(s)

  • Bythesea Castle (small)
  • Shithole Village (small)
  • The Manor (big as i can manage)

To Do List

  • a decent class pdf
  • streamlined player-facing vice rules
  • manor creation rules: pick one of the 8 houses, pick npc entourage, pick shitty bastard cousins
  • runnable dungeons (for once in my fucking life)
  • 3 hooks + encounter table per hex <-- woahh buddy dont hurt yourself
  • 8+ romance ready npcs 

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Crazy? I was crazy once (GLOG Class: Mad Scientist)


In lieu of reworking the sleuth I have decided there are not enough wizards in this setting


MAD MAN MAGIC MAN
Start with: loose silverware, straitjacket and/or fancy hat, jokebook full of Schemes, schemebook full of jokes
-1 Save vs possession per template
A - 4 Vices, Reagents
B - Spell Coupling
C - Humorist
D - See Spirits or Selective Blindness

Reagents
You scrounge up [level] slots of reagent during downtime. (These are highly controlled substances: your level represents your ability to synthesize and stabilize, or procure illicitly.)

You can cast your vices as spells by spending reagent. Roll a d6 for each slot spent. For each die that rolls 1, 2, or 3, you get the slot back. (it's just MD you carry around)

Anyone can use reagents this way. You're just the plug.

Spell Coupling
You can couple your vices together: when one is cast, the other is cast for free.

Vices uncouple on a 1-in-6 during downtime. When they do, gain a new vice.

Humorist
You can balance a person's humors to remove a vice from them. This takes an hour and a slot of reagent.

The removed vice is captured in a "potion", which you can drink to gain the vice, or destroy to summon an angry spirit (as grenade).

Coupled vices take twice as much time and resources to remove.

Selective Blindness
If you would see horrors beyond comprehension, you can instead choose not to see them.



[design notes: i think a good wizard pushes the magic system to its limit. This one is not that, but i think it's offset by every spell talking and having history with one another.]

[The tone turned out much friendlier and more prosocial than I initially planned (i.e. making your spells kiss and have babies, having a "heal" on C template) but in retrospect that's about right for a glogzard in gothic horror. I like when non-support classes have support mechanics because it saves me having to write a cleric]

[Also, there's enough grimdark "insanity" mechanics-- so help me god, this one's going to be about funny little guys]