Sunday, July 9, 2023

Ruined City Guns (GLOG Class: Gun-Shepherd)

alone lee

The story goes that Mad Knight Narn invented gunpowder by pulling it out of his giant hat.

This is a lie; the people of what would become the Land of Ashen Rain had been making gunpowder since the advent of banging-two-rocks-together. Narn's greatest contribution to the craft was a philosophical one.


Gunpowder can be made many ways--a testament to the world's natural inclination to explode. Ashlanders and Gun-Shepherds each start knowing one of d100 Ways of Unmaking, unique recipes with terrible properties. Some examples:

  • Primary ingredients are pine tree sap and saltpetre. Clumps into sticky globs. Produces brilliant gold flame; ogres weep inconsolably at the sight.
  • Primary ingredients are sulfur and solid darkness. Eerily silent. Fills the room with a cloud of smoke that only Skeletons can see through.
  • Primary ingredients are irradiated carbon and ignitite. Produces dirty pink smoke. Wounds inflicted fill with baby teeth, and can only be treated by a dentist.
  • Primary ingredients are ghostrot and flint. Smokeless and howling. Those burned become sleepless and appear as corpses.

Sharing these recipes is taboo to Ashlanders and a bad idea for Gun-Shepherds, but it happens. The recipe everybody knows is saltpetre and sulfur, which explodes much the way you'd expect.

[Immortal Undozen was shot eighteen times and thrown into a lake for sharing this much. To this day, her tribe claims she was interrupted before she could reveal the third and final ingredient.]


GUNS

There are two types in the City: primitive handcannons/firelances, and modern rifles and sidearms. The former are forged at the behest of nascent warlords, hungry to carve out their own chunk of history. The latter were brought here from the future, and are by-and-large impossible to service and reload; they may as well be magic.


There are, in fact, gun cults in the City; disenfranchised maniacs who stumble upon overwhelming lethal force and wrap their lives around it. Most notable are Aris and Akat, rivalrous guns who were elevated to Sainthood. Their respective blessings let you shoot people with finger-guns and turn fresh corpses into dust. They accept offerings of fancy ammunition.

There are also gun clerics. They are rightfully hated as knock-off swordwives. They take vows of ultraviolence, and wander.

these guys are probably involved, somehow

 

anyway! the class!

You're a woman with a gun. Those rejected by polite society flock to you. Then you give them a gun.

EBOSHI
Start with: Unflinchingly loyal goon; big important-looking hat; two guns.
+1 to Hit per template, increased to +2 to Hit per template against men who've betrayed you.
A - Perfect For Ruling The World, +1 Way of Unmaking
B - Arms Race, A Wolf’s Head Still Bites
C - +3 Ways of Unmaking
D - Gun Control, To Kill A God

A: Perfect For Ruling The World
You start with two prototype firearms. They’re heavy hand cannons that deal 3d6 damage, take two rounds to reload, and are useless when wet.

Even if you miss, you still roll damage dice. If you roll doubles, something fucks up. It’ll take an hour to fix. You also take 1d6 damage (or 2d6 for triples, and so on).

You consistently have enough powder to arm yourself and one other. Arming more people (or making custom explosives and so on) requires securing a significant source of each primary ingredient.

You can teach others to make more of your prototypes; they're expensive, but not inaccessible to any settlement with a forge.

B: Arms Race
Choose or invent a firearms upgrade. If you have a dedicated workshop, you can spend a Season to choose or invent another. Some examples:

  1. Rifled, +2 to hit
  2. Breech loading, takes 1 less round to reload
  3. Reduced weight, deals -1d6
  4. Only fucks up on triples
  5. Damage dice explode on 6s
  6. Set enemies hit on fire
You can learn more from other Gun-Shepherds, and mix and match upgrades when commissioning new guns.

B: A Wolf’s Head Still Bites
When you arrive at death’s door, you get a free attack. It is guaranteed to hit. You have to make the attack; if there is no one left to hurt but your closest friends, you will hurt your closest friends.

D: Gun Control
You're never caught off-guard when gunpowder is involved. If someone turns one of your own guns against you, you can cause it to misfire with a wink.

D: To Kill A God
You and those you command directly can shoot and kill that which would otherwise be intangible, immortal, and/or indestructible.

You are known to any and all who seek immortality.

[the eboshi is more a social class than a martial one, about surrounding yourself with more and more dangerous allies, until your cadre of warlords implodes]

No comments:

Post a Comment