6 Page Grimoires (Printable)

Download, print, fold, hand to new player, play.

Some design notes:

• Inspired by: 5e's clunky ass magic system (out of spite); various zines ; Into the Breach, somehow
  
• I """"balanced"""" these for a hypothetical all-wizard-no-spell-slots 5e game that will never happen. A more refined game/hack would help these books shine, but I haven't figured out what that would be yet
• in the theoretical grimoirehack, all players would play wizards, each dungeon would have a new grimoire for treasure, and each player would have some kind of... rubber stamp? yeah, a stamp (unique wizard seal) for marking which pages of which grimoires they've learned. i think that's fun
• yes, you can learn from more than one grimoire (wizard multiclassing). There's some obvious cross-grimoire synergies in these 6
• i wanted to make a randomizer that scrambles the grimoire pages and makes a printout, but i got lazy
  
• This is technically a GLOGtober post, except its for my own prompt (Physical Game Pieces) so it doesn't count IM GOING TO FAIL AGAI

300 Word Hack: EVIL FUCKING TRAIN

For GLOGtober '24, based on other peoples' thoughts on Mothership, deus' review(? retrospective?) of Abandon All Hope, and my own fear and fascination with public transportation.

Unplaytested, probably unplayable. I haven't watched any Twilight Zone but I suspect I'm ripping it off by proxy.

Here's some train ambience.

i've figured it out

er fanart by arles48

[spoilers ahead for Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, and all the Five Nights at Freddy's games]

scifi slush

have you ever noticed how fucking long this guy's leg is in the movie poster? why did they do that?

There are only two good scifi settings. I write about one constantly and see the other in my dreams.

* * *

The OASIS (yes, that OASIS) is an abandoned metaverse project. Once, it made headlines as the future of telecommuting. Twelve years of development, 2.6 trillion dollars, and four major lawsuits later, everyone collectively realized the technology was useless. GSS pulled the plug, and thirteen billion VR headsets simultaneously bricked.

Except not all of the headsets are dead. Inexplicably, the servers are still online. A few, no more than fifty, offer stable portals to the bloated, over-simulated, advertiser-ravaged, AI-generated corporate hellscape that is the OASIS.

You are stuck at home. You have in your possession, by sheer luck, a working headset. The same is true of your friends, none of whom you have ever met, or could ever meet, in real life. All the people who matter to you are inside the OASIS.

[This setting is not about the OASIS, or any of the stuff Ernest Cline thinks is cool. I think it's about a Discord server.]

* * *

For as long as we've known about extrasolars, people have been sending songs into space. It's cheap, and your music will bounce around in space forever. A bunch of early startups pitched it as a form of artistic pseudo-immortality.

Now it's the Scramble. If you dip your head into radiospace, you'll hear a million million songs playing simultaneously, alongside a billion billion half-baked podcast episodes and a trillion trillion advertisements for products that don't exist anymore.

You can still stick an antenna up, if you care, and try to decode something. A message in a bottle from millennia ago, an out-of-tune ukelele, a "will you marry me?", a conspiracy theory, a jingle for e-cigarettes. It's mostly noise. You can spend hours deconvolving a signal and end up with fartnoise.wav.

Radio communication is pretty much borked. There's no out-screaming the Scramble.

* * *

Microsimulations are modular miniature virtual reality environments. You buy them out of gacha machines (they come as colorful plastic finger-length cubes) and snap them together with magnets. They're inhabited by little AIs, which provide the main mode of play: when you click them together, the two spaces become connected by a swirling portal, and the AIs from each side start talking to/killing each other. It's like a modular ant farm - you're invited to shake the simulation and watch the inhabitants freak out.

So one day a swirling portal appears just outside your window

* * *

[i get a little freaked when cooking videos start by showing you the finished product. The causality of it is all fucked - you haven't cooked anything yet, but there's food. This happens in movies and books ("three days earlier...") but for some reason when it's done casually, with a phone camera and a solo creator, it unnerves me]

We cracked time perception with the PlayStation C. "Dilate your chronosight; turn a five minute breather into a six-hour gaming session; no need for bathroom breaks!"

The limits were pushed. The thought barrier was established: 940 thinks/ms, no further.

You actually can go faster. The technology is widely described as "quantum bullshit" (it actually has nothing to do with quantum mechanics and is closer to distributed computing - you're using more than one neuron to simultaneously process the present and the future. sidebar, can you tell i fucking hate writing scifi because im really bad at it??)

Quantum Bullshit lets you 1) see the future. This is the big money-maker, all the day traders dedicate more than half of their neurons to next year's stock market (they creep further forward in time every day, drifting away in their speculator arcologies)

2) live in the past. Thirty of my neurons are still eating my breakfast. All virtual reality environments are severely chronofucked. There's an ad in the paper for the iPhone 103 before the 102S is even out, because advertisers know your attention will be here when it does. The ad reads: "New features, probably! Maybe it'll look like this!"

(This technology has NOT been introduced to the prison sector because that system is a well-oiled machine with NO flaws and ZERO ethical oversight.)

* * *

The Scramble isn't dying down, like we thought it would. It's actually getting warmer - radio waves shortening into microwave patches, then into infrared flares. Some time in the next millennium, the Scramble will crawl into the visible light spectrum, and the night sky will runneth over with static like an old CRT.

victorian romance slush pile

The goal here is not a "victorian romance game". The goal is a set of rules/mechanics/setting considerations that make genre emulation more possible within a larger game.

http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/01/romance-plots-in-rpgs.html

The Rake, the Heroine, the Wallflower --> strong archetypes- too heavy handed. wallflower class????

xp rewards the goal is to permit genre emulation, direct incentives hog too much space. there are no rewards for happily ever after. there are no rewards for decades of cold, loveless marriage

Secret Identities

Everyone has multiple names which together constitute their true name. If someone knows your true name, they can do wack shit to you, so some of these names have to be secret.

Idea #1: Your secret names are your secret identities. This makes them a limited resource - you can't make up a secret identity, you have eight identities at most

Idea #2: your names are magic. If you walk out of the room and re-enter under a different name, you'll be treated as a different person. You don't need a mask to do this, but you should at least muss up your hair or change your clothes - everyone's a bit faceblind, but they aren't stupid.

Rules of Engagement

Victorian romance is all about living in a society that tells you what to do, then choosing to defy or compromise with that society. It requires restrictions to fight against.

Players defy restrictions instinctually - without those restrictions, victorian romance has no stakes.

Idea #3: The primary means by which social norms are enforced among the elite is loss of inheritance. Your inheritance is your lifeline. In a game with such an absurd degree of wealth inequality*, losing your inheritance is game over. Social change is not possible so long as the same power structures that make the PCs important remain in place.

This doesn't work on players with nothing to lose, i.e. classic dungeon crawling types. It does work on the heiress NPC they are trying to woo, so that's something.

*by absurd wealth inequality, i mean you can commission a dress made of living moths or erect a giant statue of yourself on your private dressage course or buy a mansion and fill it with ghosts without too much thought. let them eat cake type beat

General Rules of Engagement (WIP)

• All scions are expected to participate in the social season. This is also when all the politics and sports and shit happens.
  
• All scions are expected to debut by age 28 at the latest. It is typical to debut by age 22.
  
• All scions are expected to be married by age 35 at the latest. If you are not at least engaged by age 30, people will begin making arrangements for you.
• Bigamy is frowned upon unless you have high CHA.
• Divorce is frowned upon.
• Queerness, in all of its forms, is frowned upon.
• Courtship is formalized thru the exchange of letters. Failing to do so is tantamount to keeping your relationship secret, which is forbidden.
  
• Courtship outside of one's House is forbidden except as part of a political alliance.
  
• Courtship below one's social standing is extremely forbidden. You will lose your inheritance; your partner will lose everything.
• The Heads of House have the final say in your courtship, marriage, and sex life.

There's also House specific rules

• Scions of this House must marry outside of their House. They host debutante balls for foreign royalty.
  
• This House encourages bigamy. Their scions are expected to marry at least twice by 35.

Break enough of these rules and you become a failscion - no inheritance, no prospects, just a bunch of relatives who think you're a failure. Failscions play a very different kind of game - one where they crawl into a dungeon with nothing and try to claw their way back to wealth.

Idea #4: Domain management and dungeoncrawling are two very different game modes. The scion/failscion dichotomy matches nicely to it. A game where you oscillate in and out of social grace based on how well you can adapt to a restrictive social code(????)

Binaries

High society can tolerate queerness. What it cannot tolerate is a lapse in procedure.

Idea #5: In courtship, the feminine role is passive and the masculine is aggressive. If a man takes the feminine role in courtship, or a woman takes the masculine, they must overcompensate to better fit their courtship-gender --> if a woman makes the first move on a man, she must also: lead when dancing, drive, and duel any rivals with pistols at dawn. If they get married, she will be the groom.

[why bother? i think gray areas for queerness are good, but i want to make sure i replace any restriction i remove with one thats equally fun (by which i mean annoying). Not sure if this is the right solution]

may 👁cu🏠my🦌

CRAFTSMAN

You are a craftsman. You belong to a Society of other craftsmen - people who teach you skills and look out for you. You pay dues, and occasionally do them favors.

The more you learn, the more they will be willing to teach you. Maybe one day, you’ll have something to teach them.

CRAFTSMAN
Start with: society membership; fancy stationery (40g); tools of the trade
+1 Sneak and +1 Inventory Slot per template
A - Skills, Missions, Dues
B - Rites

A: Skills
You know two of your Society’s skills.

Skills add +2 to associa𐘈ed checks and saves. 

A: Dues
Membership is not free. You owe 20g in dues at the end of each year.

As long as you are behind on your dues, you are technically forbidden from practicing the trades of the Society.

B: Rites
You know the rites of initiation, condemnation, and mobilization, with the following effects:

 

We cannot see without feeling. We cannot learn without touching.

Are you ready for your first lesson?

DC20

I was going to throw this in a random Discord channel. Then I remembered I have a dedicated place for screaming into the void.

This is an ugly post. If you respect me as a creative, maybe skip this one.

THERE ARE NO NEW IDEAS IN THIS POST

Below are 8 styles for Loch's Duelist.

BE WARNED! All of them are remixes of styles found in the original post or here or here. I refuse to do any more work than I have to!!! I want to play with stolen content!! I am a lazy lazy man!!!!

Each style can be learned for free if you belong to the right House. (i have left the styles unlabeled as a fun little puzzle, and certainly not out of laziness.)

Ψ - Hellenitsu
The “ultimate combat style for gentle folk”, invented by Lady Hadford Hellen after three years abroad in the far Western colony of Badasqua. Eventually perfected by beating the shit out of Eldon street toughs until she was satisfied; she was arrested twelve times in the process.
You may have learned it from a Hellenist at a party, or from one of her self-defense manuals.

1. Stance: Sovereign Style – You parry attacks from other fighters with a d8. Fighters can’t save against your techniques.
2. Technique: Umbrella – When you land an attack, you may yoink whatever they’re holding out of their hands. Fighters get a save.
3. Technique: Overcoat – When you parry an attack, you may ensnare their weapon in a cloak or other piece of clothing, disarming them. Fighters get a save.
4. Technique: Roundhouse Kick – You may forgo both of your attacks to aim a big ol’ kick at their big ol’ head. If it hits, you deal exactly 8 damage and knock your opponent away or prone. Fighters and massive foes may save to keep their footing.

Ψ - Catholic
The palace style of Catlan. Adheres to their strict moral code of self-preservation (you belong to your father, mother, and God before yourself, so it is your responsibility to protect their investment). Defensive, sometimes overly so, but capable of great cruelty. Requires a small dagger in the offhand.
You may have learned it from a sword-chaplain, or from a small sky-blue book.

1. Technique: Quick Step – You may dodge a single attack flawlessly.
2. Stance: Control – You parry with a d8 and can’t be disarmed.
3. Stance: Punishment – You deal +2 damage to anyone who has tried to harm you or someone you are sworn to protect.
4. Stance: See Guilt – Shame, guilt and embarrassment appear to you as blue-black smoke.

Ψ - Bear Standard
A dramatic two-handed style. Originally developed for killing bears, later stigmatized by its association with executioners in the post-Glorian eras.
You may have learned it from an executioner, or from a standing stone in rural West-of-Spine.

1. Technique: Ambush – When attacking a target that can’t see you, you have advantage and deal double damage.
2. Stance: Walk Lightly – You are invisible in foliage and leave no footprints.
3. Stance: Eat Well – You deal +2 damage to animals and wild beasts. When you kill an animal, the meat will be tender and delicious.
4. Technique: Mercy – When you hear someone say the words “please kill me now”, you may instantly kill them, no save.

Ψ - Low Brasilian
The infamous sword-style of the McIlleigh Company, intercontinental mercenaries who quashed uprisings in all of the Doggerlands’ colonies. Sometimes called “Killy-killy” by those with black senses of humour.
You might have learned it from a McIlleigh, or from a bloodstained confessional.

1. Technique: Rose – If you miss an attack, you may flourish and immediately move 15’ in any direction.
2. Technique: Carnation – Before you attack, your sword blooms with harsh red weirdlight – an enemy must save or be blinded.
3. Stance: Careful Analysis – You can See HD and See AC.
4. Stance: Manhunter – You deal +2 damage to humans. The scars of your weapons ache – the pain intensifies when you can see your victim, alerting them to your presence.

Ψ - The Method
Invented in the Shaylese wars by an anatomist-slash-evolutionist-slash-cannibal-expat named Shago. He was tasked with developing the perfect killing arts; allegedly, he learned how to turn a pile of meat into a living person, then performed the procedure in reverse.
You may have learned it from a veteran of the Southern Offense, or from a roan-bound journal.

1. Stance: Efficiency – When you hit two successful attacks on the same target, you can make another for free.
2. Technique: Humerus – When making an attack, you can lash out violently – target must save or have one of their arms (your choice) disabled for 1d6 days. You can fix that arm with a firm handshake.
3. Technique: Sudden Cut – You draw your sheathed sword and immediately make one attack. You can do this before initiative rolls.
4. Technique: Obliterate Dead – Obliterate a dead body; it cannot be identified by any means. Everyone who sees this happen must save or cower in fear. You can do this right as you land a killing blow.

Ψ - Lament
Discrete cloak-fighting style popularized by Irma of West Ordea, who attributed its invention to a fallen angel (she was, like her countrymen, a Paradisiac zealot). Practitioners of the style are employed by heads of House to quietly neutralize assassins at high society events. Nobles who study this style are thought paranoid. Requires a cloak or cape of fine quality.
You may have learned it from a very fancy bodyguard, or from a tome that fell from the sky.

1. Technique: Clean the Blade – If you parry or avoid an attack with a weapon, you can wipe the weapon clean on your cloak to remove poison, oil, rust, and so on. If the weapon was magic, its magical properties transfer to your cloak.
2. Technique: Charcuterie – You can sacrifice food or drink in your hand or on a nearby table to parry with d12. If someone gets food or drink on them from this, it will be the attacker.
3. Technique: Waltz – Before you attack, you may trade places with someone in arm’s reach.
4. Stance: Guardian – You may parry attacks directed at anything within arm’s reach.

Ψ - Volpe
An elegant, showy style, favored by criminals and rakes. The name belongs to a legendary thief from Algodoré, who has evaded capture, old age, and even death for several centuries.
You might have learned it from a retired footpad in a smoky room, or from a loose sheaf of papers.

1. Technique: Daylight Robbery – When you could riposte, you can instead take an item from an enemy’s inventory.
2. Technique: The Goad – When you make a successful attack, you can embarrass the target (such as by cutting your monogram into their clothes) - enraged, they will attack you next round if able. Fighters may save against this.
3. Stance: Defense in Motion – While moving, you have +2 AC and can parry arrows and bullets.
4. Technique: Call & Response – You may use another fighter’s technique immediately (at most one round) after they do.

Ψ - Flying Crocodile Kung Fu
A traditionally barehanded style from the Royce, the origins of which remain shrouded in mystery.
You may have learned it from a enthusiastic Royalist, or from a half-dozen half-translated scrolls.

1. Stance: Always Armed – Your unarmed strikes deal double damage.
2. Stance: Stolen Flight – You weigh as much as an eagle so long as you hold your breath.
3. Technique: From Above – You may make a free attack with advantage against a target whose head is below you.
4. Technique: Death Roll – You may forgo an attack to deal d10 damage to anything you’re holding with both hands. Massive foes may save for half damage.
   

flying crocodile kung fu

 

Last True Mouthpiece (GLOG Class: Ichabod)

When a person is put to death, after the verdict is read and the headsman’s sword falls, the body may stand again, full of the howling voice of God. This phenomenon is called the Mercy, and it is how the Church collects ichabods.

Ichabods bear none of the responsibility for their crimes prior to decapitation. This is because, during the Mercy, all the sin in their body rushes to their head (or perhaps sin always lived in the head, hiding between the teeth and above the soft palate. The Church is divided, as always.) They often go on to become high-ranking Church members.

The Mercy is the last of God’s miracles that the Rationalists consistently fail to explain. (No one buys the Mouveing Humours hypothesis.) It is irrefutable proof that God still has his eye on the Doggerlands.

* * *

This is the fourth class for the Victorian setting collab I'm working on with Noblesse Goblige, the same setting as last week's Sleuth. It's mostly stolen from Skerples’ Paladin of the Word.

It's all a big WIP, I just gotta get it offa my brain for now ya dig

* * *

ICHABOD
Start with: cult symbol; little red journal; equally headless horse
+1 MD per template
A - Beloved, Beheaded, The Voice
B - Speak with Dead
C - Speak with Everything
D - Ten Commandments

A: Beloved
Pious Doggerlanders respect and trust you, so long as you don’t (openly) harm people who don’t seem to deserve it. Everyone assumes you are good unless you give them a reason to believe otherwise.

A: Beheaded
You’ve been beheaded, and yet live. You are undead and mute. You are not blind or deaf.

For a princely sum you can be fitted with an array of brass horns, thru which you can “speak” in mournful honks.

Your head is out there, also undead, full of hate and sin and criminal intent. If you’re on good terms with the Church, they may let you keep it. Otherwise, it's in a Decapitorium somewhere. If your head is destroyed, you die.

A: The Voice
By His will, you walk; with His voice, you speak.

You can command others.

Command – You shout a [dice]-word command. Another person that can hear and understand you must Save or obey.

If you know their true, full name, they get -4 on their Save.

If you have gone at least a full day without using command, they get -2 on their Save. A full week, month, year, and decade each give an additional -2 to Save, up to -10.

A poorly phrased command can have unexpected effects. Commanding a dying man to LIVE!!! might cause more problems than it solves.

B: Speak with Dead
You can command corpses, briefly animating them with the same voice that moves your lungs.

C: Speak with Everything
You can command all things, even inanimate objects. You could command a tree to give you its fruit or a grave to exhume a corpse.

D: Ten Commandments
Your commands last forever, or until you lift them, with no additional Saves after the first. You may have up to ten commands active simultaneously. 

 

Names of God
Divided between and jealously guarded by the Houses as cultic secrets (the Church has tried, and failed, to unify the Cults of Man, to disastrous results).

You learn a cult’s name by being initiated in all of their mysteries. Learning more is politically awkward, but it can be done.

[these are extremely WIP]

1. The Cult of Eldon operates within the City of Eldon and worships the god Eldon. They’re city planners following convoluted infrastructural rituals. As the oldest cult, they jealously guard The First Name; if you know it, your commands are two words longer, and cannot be shorter than three words.
   Their Decapitorium is in Eldon.
2. The River Cults are dedicated to individual members of an interconnected pantheon. Educated persons are familiar with their myths in the forms of famous oratorios, which the cults begrudgingly accept. As the largest cult(s), they jealously guard The Family Name; if you know them, you can command crowds.
   Their Decapitorium is in Cândyf.
3. The Cult of the Armistice was born from the teachings of the wandering prophet Panin, who many believe to have been God in disguise. They preach peace and internationality. As a foreign cult, they jealously guard The Strange Name; if you know it, you can command creatures that don’t share a language with you.
   Their Decapitorium is in Basqoté.
4. The Red Cult worships the god Aber. They gather on thunderstorm nights. Lady Erin Sookholme is a member; she often arrives at functions painted in animal blood (the Lady considers herself a tastemaker). As a storm cult, they jealously guard The Shout; if you know it, you can command the wind. When you do, your MD always return.
   Their Decapitorium is somewhere in the Nirbarber Wood.
5. [wip] 

wikipedia says headless saints are called cephalophores; i didn't like the name because it sounded too much like some kind of octopus wizard

how do i sneak carved pumpkins into this class? scrolls? magic totems? stylish accessories?

a fashionable ichabod

Eliminate the Impossible (GLOG Class: Sleuth)

jim steranko

Lord John Martin-Evos. The Duchess, Issandra Mything. Tellurus Oath. Mary fucking Majors.

 

Great minds actually have very little in common. 

 

* * *

 

This is the third class for the Victorian setting collab I'm working on with Noblesse Goblige, the same setting as last month's Psychopaladin. It was made in collaboration with Noblesse Goblige and Nothic's Eye, and also stolen from Numbers Aren't Real in large, jagged chunks.

 

This isn't just a detective class, although the influences are front and center. It's a catch-all for thinkers, inventors, scientists, renaissance men, egomaniacal intellectuals, soon-to-be-eaten-by-an-eldritch-horror professors, and so on.

 

The mysteries are a bit of a cheat - instead of introducing setting details organically, they're stashed in a player-facing document. Is this better? worse? I'm honestly not sure. its a draft anyway

* * *

 

SLEUTH
Start with: photographic memory; flawless timepiece worth 33g; incorruptible yet bumbling goon.
+1 Brains and +1 Language per template
A - Intellectual Authority, Deduction
B - Great Mysteries
C - Immune to illusions, disguises, and booby traps
D - Mentor, Immune to ego death
 

A: Intellectual Authority
You can walk around laboratories, college campuses and crime scenes unimpeded. No one will stop you from fucking around with dangerous and/or delicate artifacts and/or equipment; they assume you know what you’re doing.

 

Everyone has to call you your choice of doctor, inspector, professor, or some other appropriate honorific. Yes, even people who don’t know you. Yes, even the old gods. Yes, even your mum.
 

A: Deduction
If you consider two clues for a minute, you have a revelation about how they are (or aren't) connected. Every time you do this, Save with Brains or suffer a splitting migraine, preventing you from thinking clearly until you rest or self-medicate.

B: Great Mysteries
Each Season, choose one of the Great Mysteries to pursue (see below). You spend sleepless nights turning it over in your mind. You can only pursue one Great Mystery at a time, in your obsessive way.

 

As long as you are pursuing a Great Mystery, you have its cantrip. If you solve it, gain the cantrip permanently.

 

The list of Great Mysteries is not exhaustive.

 

D: Mentor
Those who can’t do, teach. You are the exception that proves the rule.

 

If you spend a season tutoring someone else, they gain 200XP OR begin pursuing a Great Mystery (your choice). If you choose the Mystery, they gain its cantrip for as long as they like.

 

When one of your students solves a Great Mystery, gain its cantrip permanently.

 

8 Great Mysteries

1. What separates men from beasts?
Evolution! Hah! That John, what funny ideas he has! But men are not mere beasts, no matter what the radical phylogenists say – and the proof is inside of you! Nurse, scalpel!
Cantrip: You can learn someone’s name by tasting their blood. This works on more than just people – for example, you can learn the make and model of an automobile by tasting its brake fluid.

2. Who discovered the Doggerlands?
Each House claims the whole of the Doggerlands as their ancestral home. Of course, your House was first to set foot on its salt-caked shores – but how do you prove it?
Cantrip: You can tell the exact time since an object was made or broken by smelling it.

3. Who stole the Philosopher’s Stone?
Ever since the Night of Tarnished Truth – the greatest heist in recorded history – the Catlani have been slowly draining this country of all its gold reserves. Your ancestors figured out alchemy a long time ago, so why are you still in debt?
Cantrip: You can smell gold through walls and inside locked chests and shallow graves. You can smell especially ludicrous quantities three miles upwind.

4. Where did the dragons go?
The Ayt speak of dragons on the docks. You didn’t believe them, until you saw today’s paper: dragon bones discovered, half-buried on Mither’s Finger. Imagine the headlines if you found one – a dragon, that is – and put it in Eldon Zoo where it belongs.
Cantrip: Your pipe is ALWAYS lit.

5. Where does color come from?
Once, the world was monochrome, as seen in old photographs and ancient stone reliefs. Now there are nauseating greens and pinks and robins-eggs and chartreuses and and a
Cantrip: You see in silversight, which illuminates fingerprints, footprints, other peoples’ line-of-sight, and thieves with less templates than you.

6. Who puts the stars in the sky?
Every few months, a new star appears in the sky, to astrologer’s delight... and sailor’s chagrin.
Cantrip: Your eyes are both magnifying glasses and telescopes. They switch every hour.

7. Who is Fate (and Why does she hate you)?
The colonies have fallen. The sea is receding. The Houses are crumbling to ruin. You keep losing your socks, and that dancer from Shakies isn’t returning your missives.
Cantrip: You can learn if someone is your enemy by kissing them.

8. How does one sail backwards?
There are five winds – the four Cardinals, and Time. The former have been stalwart allies of the Doggerlands, except the lazy and sluttish West wind. The latter has not.
Cantrip: You can see exactly eleven minutes and six seconds into the past by covering all but one of your eyes.

Six Layers Deep (GLOG Class: Psychopaladin)

liviu mihai

The mind is a house party, so said Dr. Anne⚿Helfurther⚿. Hundreds of guests are in attendance, the legions of daemons which guide personality and action, but the chaos is constrained by the prescripts of the event itself. Those on the guest list are bound by etiquette, but others can act freely. Herein lies the source of madness- an uninvited guest.

 * * *

On the streets of Pardon, fashionable ladies buy foreign corpses for their parlor rooms. Certain preservation techniques and careful attention to humidity keeps them from rotting on the table; thick perfume keeps the room from filling with death-stink. It's all perfectly sanitary.

When a fashionable lady hosts a party, the corpse in the parlor room is unwrapped and inspected. The fashionable ladies in their fashionable gloves poke and prod at it. They ooo and aaa at its many piercings: those Ouralian women are mad, they titter, how do they even eat with holes in their stomachs?

(on 6th and Freytors, a savvy corpsevendor carves intricate scars into a boring cadaver)

Then the fashionable ladies call a psychonaut, who helps them step into the corpse's dreams. They see the reedboats on the River of Seven Venoms. They walk like tourists on antimony shores. They break for tea in the shadow of the second largest moon ziggurat. They have a grand old time.

Sometimes, a fashionable lady dies in a corpse-dream. It's slightly less common than an alligator attack. It's tragic, yes, but people still keep pet alligators.

 * * *

Psychotherapy is as much a martial art as it is a science. Rogue daemons are rarely keen to vacate their hosts, and never fight a straightforward brawl, so a paladin must be ready for anything.

(This is the second class for the Victorian setting collab I'm working on with Nobless Goblige, the same setting as last month's Vampire. There are eight noble Houses, with eight different bloods. It's a whole thing.)

PSYCHOPALADIN
Start with: any weapon; copper-lined vest (as chain); 6 vials of laudanum (3/slot); practitioner’s license; a thick skull; totem, pocket-sized.
+1 to Hit and +1 Save per template
A - Group Psychonautics, Light Sleeper
B - See Spirits, +1 Daemon
C - Self-Assessment
D - Smite

If you aren’t high, drunk, dreaming, or otherwise in an altered state of mind, you lose access to all of your Psychopaladin features except Group Psychonautics.

A: Group Psychonautics
With fifteen minutes and enough drugs to share, you can transport any number of willing people and objects into the dreams of another willing person or corpse.

People are always somewhere inside their own dreams.

If you die in a dream, you die in real life. Likewise for injury, mutations, treasures, and so on. Dreams are dungeons, basically.

A: Light Sleeper
You can keep track of your surroundings even when your consciousness is altered or elsewhere. You can surface from a dream at will, so long as you have your totem.

You sleep with your eyes open. 

B: See Spirits
You can see spirits of all stripes, which are usually invisible. You can see a wizard’s prepared spells, perched on their shoulder like overgrown crows.

This is how you notice the daemon on your shoulder. (see below)

C: Self-Assessment
You can transport yourself and others into your own dreams via psychonautics. This is one way to recruit more daemons.

D: Smite
With precise application of sudden blunt force trauma, you can dislodge daemons, spirits, ghosts, curses, spells, and humors from their containers, and forcibly manifest them in the waking world. The target must be willing, or fully immobilized, or you must roll 20+ to hit.

If you hit them with your head, you can force them into your dreams instead. This is another way to recruit more daemons.

d20 Daemons
Daemons start with 2HD, are ostensibly friendly, and whisper lots of (mostly bad) advice in your ear. They inform your personality, or are informed by it: philosophers are still debating this point. Other Psychopaladins can see and hear them, as well as certain sensitive types.

If you're on good terms with a daemon, it will let you cast it like a spell. If you do, roll their HD instead of MD.

1. Dolores – An orb of scarred flesh with five simian limbs. Melodramatic, romantic. Isn’t satisfied unless you’re constantly berating her. When cast, reduce the next damage you take by [sum].
2. Cambion – A black hare with human hands. Anxious, pleasure-seeking. Other daemons want nothing to do with her. When cast, establish a psychic link between yourself and up to [sum] targets, to share emotional states, sensations, and damage.
3. Evil Jack – An eight-fingered fist with a mouth in the palm. Tells you to kill everyone. Isn’t satisfied unless you hurt at least one person every day. When cast, make [highest] attacks. They can’t be nonlethal.
4. Frontalis – A wolf’s head with the eyes stitched shut. Political, smug, dumber than sand. Needs to be the smartest person thing in the room. When cast, witness what happened here exactly six (choose [dice]) seconds, minutes, hours, days, and/or years ago. Be warned: observing the past can change the present.
5. Titivillus – A wretched, puggish little man with blue skin and horns. Insufferable nerd. Openly resents you for having a social life. When cast, exchange the contents of two texts. If cast with two or more dice, one of those texts can be a painting, engraving, or similarly major work.
6. Vainglory – A kingly greatsword, constellated with rubies and emeralds, blunt as a brick. Prolix, gossipy, jealous, superlatively evil. Demands dramatic monologues. When cast, sharpen a blunt object; it loses its edge after dealing [sum] damage. He’s invisible to anyone who can’t see spirits, but that doesn’t mean he’s weightless.
7. Leviathan – A dead, stinking angler fish, chopped up like sashimi. Foul-mouthed, delusional. Demands you treat him like a KING, DAMMIT!!!! When cast, [sum] peasants, guards, soldiers, goons, or dumb animals follow your next order without question.
8. Hugo – A hanged policeman’s corpse. Has a black sense of humor. Fascists are attracted to him like flies to a… well, to a carcass. When cast, become immune to the law until you blink [sum] times.
9. Subclavius – An eagle with abs, biceps, and a cock. Commanding, paternal. Has deeply sexist and racist views which they expect you to share. When cast, perform a feat of strength as if you were [sum] strong men.
10. Yeqon – A chorus, in the Greek theater sense, of rats. Musical, critical, professionally distant. Reports on your imminent (imaginary) demise in the third person. When cast, give [sum] animals the ability to sing with Yeqon’s voice.
11. New World Order – A humming pyramid of black glass. Personable, poetic, utterly insane. Babbles incessantly about conspiracy theories, and makes your dreams weirder. When cast, fire a [sum] damage beam from each open eye; you’re blind in that eye for the rest of the day.
12. Agares – A crocodile-hawk with terribly human eyes. Merciful, thoughtful, pacifistic. Randomly trades places with her sister/alternate personality Agreas, who is her complete opposite and only speaks Daemonic (French). When cast, learn [sum] words in another language for a fleeting moment.
13. Monkey – A monkey-shaped hole in the world full of static and bad ideas. Wants all the things a monkey wants. Makes your body hair grow thicker and darker, just by existing. When cast, force any machine that can hear you to obey a [sum] word command.
14. Kosmos – A broken marble bust of a handsome woman, draped in multicolored silk. Educated in the social rituals of other, inferior cultures. Disdains all displays of genuine emotion. When cast, turn [dice] of your body parts into immobile stone until you laugh.
15. Zelos – A ticking apocalypse clock. Fatalistic, raving, but not unintelligible. The only thing that cheers her up is the cold eventuality of complete anthropogenic catastrophe. When cast, rewind an object’s position and state to where it was [sum] seconds ago.
16. Beatrix – A skeletal amber finger. Replaces your trigger finger on your dominant hand. Only speaks in the presence of royalty, whom she hates. When cast, automatically reload a weapon the next [sum] times it is fired.
17. Paracelsus – An undulating fungal mass, constantly changing its shape and color. Fidgety, easily bored. Will point at things and demand you lick them to find out what they taste like. When cast, create an illusion which affects [dice] senses.
18. Indicis – A bone-and-skin dreamcatcher. Feral, reactive, barely sapient. Hates moving at “dungeon speed”. When cast, emit an ear-splitting scream that reveals shapes and movement up to [dice] rooms away.
19. Ladyfingers – A sourceless shadow puppet cast by clawed hands. Hates when you spend money, unless you’re doing it to make money. Full of get-rich-quick schemes. When cast, teleport [sum] slots of things your shadow is touching into your hands.
20. Xiomara – A disembodied stork’s wing. Understands you, gives actual good advice. Will never give up on you. When cast, nothing happens.

fuck it, tag yourself

Drink Deep, Beloved Son (GLOG Class: Vampire)

When John Martin-Evos first published his biological theories, he hypothesized that the modern vampire had arisen from a simple walking-leech, uplifted unto its sophisticated modern design to fill the unique biological niche found in the blood-soaked parlor rooms of Old Doggerland. In these clandestine environments, reasoned Martin-Evos, a social parasite could sample the eight flavors of royalty at its leisure.

To no one's surprise, John Martin-Evos was later killed by a vampire.

(This class is a prototype for a Victorian-ish setting project/domain game thing I'm working on with Noblesse Goblige! As part of that project, you're supposed to choose an ancestral House/bloodline to belong to- here's a quick rundown of them as they stand:

1. House Devinsen - Steampipe hats, fancy cars. New money industrialists. Bleed gasoline; heraldic beast is a bat or raven.
2. House Larsene - Once-great naval power, landlocked by the receding seas. Bleed seawater; heraldic beast is a horse.
3. House Rhayadder - Ancestral backstabbers. Bleed poison; heraldic beast is a platonic worm, argued to be a snake, eel, or lamprey by various historians.
4. House Norbury - The Northerners everyone thinks of as barbarians. Bleed moonshine; heraldic beast is a wolf.
5. House Sardon - Bacchanalian-traditionalist bankers. Old money. Bleed ambrosia, or honey, in layman's terms; heraldic beast is a bee.
6. House Oleone - Eternally disrespected failscions. If history is a joke, they are the butt. Bleed olive oil; heraldic beast is a somewhat dopey lion.
7. House of John - Bleed molten lead; heraldic beast is a burning peacock, sometimes called a phoenix.
   
8. House Mything - Bleed luminiferous ether; heraldic beast is a calygreyhound.
   

Every other class affects or is affected by your choice of House in some way.)

Anyway, the class:

VAMPIRE Start with: Flowing cape; ruby earring (in actuality, your heart); duelist’s sidearm; no inheritance; friends in all the right places. +1 Will and +1 Glamour per template A - Bite, Invitation, Fascinating, Immune to charms B - Drink Deep C - +1 Attack per turn D - Beloved by Sheep
Δ - Discerning Taste

Glamours
With each template, choose another aspect of Royalty to manifest.

1. You see perfectly through 30' of darkness, smoke, dark water, and dramatic fog.
2. Every season, a d4 HD vampire-hunter shows up in your Domain to kill you.
3. You always appear in a cloud of dramatic fog.
4. You can see through paintings of yourself.
5. If you grab someone by the back of their neck, you can make them say anything you want in their voice. This works even if they're unconscious.
6. When you die, a giant crow arrives to take your body somewhere else.
7. Old age slides off of you like water.
8. You can detach your head, roll it around, and reattach it.
9. All undead regardless of origin treat you the way you deserve to be treated – like royalty.
10. You have no bones. You can squeeze thru any space larger than a banana.
11. With a taste of someone's blood, you can peek into their future and receive a one word omen.
12. You can take the form of your House's heraldic beast. (For Norbury, a wolf; for Sardon, a bee; etc. etc.)

A: Bite
Your bite deals d4 damage, increased by one die size (d4 → d6 → d8 → d10 → d12) for each of the following:

• Your target is physically smaller than you.
• Your target is sexually or romantically involved with you.
• Your target is indebted or subservient to you and/or your House.
• Your target trusts you completely, in this exact moment.

A: Invitation You can’t cross a threshold without being invited in. You have an invitation to every major party, council, and public event.

A: Fascinating
You have a stat called Fascinating, which starts at 2. Whenever you befriend a significant NPC or woo a lover, increase your Fascinating stat by 1.

When speaking privately with an NPC, you may reveal a dire secret (yours or theirs) to roll 1d6. If the result is less than or equal to your Fascinating stat, you charm that NPC, and then reduce your Fascinating stat by the amount rolled. Charmed NPCs trust you and consider you a friend. (Charming people does not increase your Fascinating stat.)

You can do this to PCs as well provided you get consent from their player beforehand.

B: Drink Deep
You can drain any container of blood in seconds, with the following effects:

• Your bite heals you for as much damage as you deal.
• You can exsanguinate a fresh corpse to heal d4 HP.
• You are immune to the negative effects of drinking any blood type, including poison, alcohol, and molten lead.
• You can suck the gas out of an automobile, suck the honey out of a hive, suck the sea water out of a drowning sailor’s lungs…

D: Beloved by Sheep
When you enter a scene, if it is nighttime or sufficiently overcast, you charm every minor NPC present. This makes you immune to attacks by goons, soldiers, servants, guards, and so on, unless you attack them or their allies first.

Δ: Discerning Taste
The first time you drink the blood of a wizard, you gain +1 MD.

The first time you drink the blood of a giant, you gain +4 HP.

The first time you drink the blood of a dragon, you gain wings of darkness. 

Caster Beware! (Grimoire)

redslug (tumblr)

bandwagon bandwagon bandwagon bandwagon bandwagon bandwagon

1. Uninjure – Peel [sum] injuries off of yourself and others, like stickers. You can adhere these onto other things, most commonly an effigy (representing an ancestral foe) or toy (called a banebear). If you don't do this properly before sunrise, or if the chosen effigy is not given a hero's burial, the injuries befall the caster. Caster Beware! A wounded effigy (1-4HD, agony) may rise vengeful under a harvest moon. 

2. Exact Exchange – Cast on treasure worth exactly one thousand gp. That treasure is now worth the exact amount necessary to buy one thing from anyone, provided they are willing to part with it (this is how Saint Zenigo bought lightning bolts from the sky). Caster Beware! Monetary value is one of the 33 divine laws, next to gravity and the Hippocratic oath. When it is broken, a silver coin will appear on your forehead, marking you as an enemy of bankers, numismatists, accounting-beasts (dragons), and Count Argad. 

3. Diagnose – Learn the Myers-Briggs personality type of a target (animate or otherwise), then flip up to [dice] of their tendencies. Caster Beware! Mind-altering magic is always a two-way street. For each tendency of theirs you flip, the target may choose to flip one of yours. 

4. Agastaman's Torch-Bearing Lad – Conjure [dice]HD a cloud of moths around a light source. The cloud keeps the light source aloft and follows diligently. Caster Beware! The Torch-Bearing Lads Union has been known to stalk wizards who publicize this spell's existence. Not to mention Agastaman himself, found dead in his tower after slipping on an orange peel... 

5. Gracine's Garden – A sunflower rapidly grows out of each of up to [sum] target heads. Caster Beware! Removing the flower is painful (1d4 damage + 1d4 lost memories)! Gracine advises you wait a few months for the flower to wither, or cut it with a limestone knife. 

6. Swarm of Darkest Night – Conjure a swarm of climate-appropriate winged creatures. They blot out the sun for six seconds/minutes/hours/days. Caster Beware! The swarm is not yours; rather, it is a mere side-effect of summoning the demon named Porgithal ([dice]HD, rhymes with "orbital"). Now he's free, making mischief somewhere within a three mile radius, and must be sent back to Hell before anyone can cast Swarm of Darkest Night again. He looks like a pig standing on two chicken legs. Thankfully, he's not very subtle. 

7. Skate – Wherever you step, you slide frictionlessly. Caster Beware! You might fall down and get hurt :(((

8. Shape Skull – Reshape your skull (don't worry about the gunk inside). Choose [dice] of the following:

• You have very cool antlers. People respect you more.
• You have a single, short, powerful horn on your forehead that can punch thru iron.
• You have a powerful (1d8) bite attack.
  
• You have a partition to separate memories/ideas/skills from the rest of your mind.

Caster Beware! This spell is almost exclusively and obsessively studied by socially-inept magical racists, who may mistake you for one of them. This will get you kicked out of actual cool non-racist wizard institutions.

9. Corpse Orb – Turn a corpse you can see into a 1' diameter sphere. This works on the undead. Caster Beware! Spherical undead are (1d4): 1) harmless; 2) immobilized; 3) just as dangerous; 4) faster and deadlier than their non-spherical counterparts.

10. Grave Curse – Target deserving, unwilling victim must save or turn into a medusa, dracula, thatcher, or other pathetic creature of the night. (entirely unchanged from phlox's version, i just wanted to remind myself to put this on more spell lists because it rocks)

Working Through the Backblog

I am three months behind on blogging. Since then, 142ish blog posts have been linked on the GLOG server. In catching myself up, I decided for basically no reason at all to note my favorites: (i had a lot of favorites)