The JAR

This is not a heartbreaker.

I default to g20 for pickup games, but I keep missing certain house rules. This will be my default going forward (living document, obvs). The jar is there to contain the scope. (easy to share, read, remember)

The only "new" idea is the partial offloading of encounter and morale rolls to the players. Ideally this makes my life easier by reminding everyone that the rules exist and are fun to interact with. (fortune should probably give bonus xp)

I can already see bits I need to fix- I'll try to wait until I play with them before tinkering more

bad worldbuilding advice // fractal worldbuilding

All worldbuilding advice falls into three categories.

• procedure
• slushpile
• categories

The good ones do one category very well. The rest can't pick a lane.

 

Procedures are ordered lists of tasks, ideal for when one has too many ideas to write down.

A good procedure is specific and arbitrary. No room for questions or hesitation or reasoning, nothing to distract from the numbered list. Compromise is the enemy: you get a drill sergeant dragging you thru the muck towards the finish line.

And waiting for you at the finish line is a satisfying result. Maps, random tables, stats, pretty pictures, published blog posts: these are the dopaminergic rewards for doing the work. This is essential because I deserve a little treat for doign a good job

(Morgan "Horse girl" Dungeonfruit is very good at these.)

Slushpiles are the opposite of procedures. These are for when one has lots of drive but no ideas.

A good slushpile is all vibes. It's shapes and colors, sounds and smells. It's dragon sex on the moon. It's poetry and rabbit holes and dyks. It's fun to say (makes you smile when you mouth the words). It's not wasting your fucking time.

A great slushpile is just a leeeeeeeeetle bit shit. The friction between you and them is what rubs the ideas out of their head and into yours.

(Semi "Demonetized Again" urge is very good at these.)

 

Categories are complete bunk. Tier lists, personality tests, tvtropes: astrology at best, hobby phrenology at worst.

These exist only to waste your time.

 

* * *

The worst worldbuilding advice is "Think."

Think about tectonic plates. Think about rain shadow. Think about where food and water come from. Think about how religion informs culture informs religion. Think about real world history. Think about art that inspires you. Think about biology and physics. Think about purpose built architecture.

Thinking is detailing is connecting is fixing is editing. Thinking is not worldbuilding. You cannot think a blank page full.

weed's fractal gallery

Here's a fractal worldbuilding procedure.

Start with 5/7 words. (generate randomly, then replace the lame ones)

1. talkative
2. plastic
3. linear
4. microscopic 
5. thinking (/neg)

Assign a wizard to each.

1. blabboth, the rambling skeleton
2. griatina, grandcaster crustacean
3. EVIL SWORD LESBIAN
4. rb, mnscl
5. james L. magrotype, first of the braincels

Zoom in on the most interesting one. Griatina. What's she like?

1. She talks to crabs.
2. She has a false eye.
3. She has a toy sword that can actually kill you. All of her tools are toys that work too well: things so fake they loop back around to being superreal.
4. Her children are half-crabs because she a freak. They are called orcs.
5. Her evil plan is to become immortal and huge, like, planet-sized.

Okay, what about EVIL SWORD LESBIAN?

1. She talks to swords.
2. She has a false corpus callosum. Exposure to the sword dimension gets her cut in half all the time, but she's learned to just zwoop the halves back together. Her right and left halves are rarely on the same page.
3. She has a lot of swords (duh, jesus, listen to yourself)
4. Her children are pushmipulyus: things she cut in half and put back together wrong.
5. Her evil plan is to get back together with her ex.

What about the map? I want some kind of, uh, island chain. What's up on those?

1. Singing rocks.
2. Artificial transplant cities trying to blend in.
3. Bamboo forests.
4. Germ countries, germ politics. Giant colored algae mats disputing borders with salmonella clouds.
5. Poor sad troglodyte people trying not to get uplifted by annoying missionary scientists

I like the germs! Tell me about the germs!

1. They get together at an evil disease forum every month when the moon is full.
2. One of them is a prion disease that turns you into a raggedy ann doll.
3. One of them is rust
4. They live very short lives. Talking to a disease is very annoying to the disease, because you talk so slow.
5. They were, like the troglodytes, forcibly uplifted by those damn missionaries, no doubt related to JLM, that scoundrel.

Zoom in further. A dungeon! A 5-room dungeon! :^)

1. Puzzle: Tracking down and isolating the germ in charge at one of these evil disease forums. Pretend to be cholera?
2. Trick: It's a masquerade ball, complicating the above.
3. Conflict: Chronic Wasting Disease is here. Gotta kill her to save the elk population. Unfortunately she has two swords and knows krav maga.
4. Entrance: Giant nose obelisk full of diseased bats. Crawl up the nostril and you'll shrink to germ size.
5. Reward: Germs present that are useful to contract/recruit/befriend, like autism BAD JOKE DELETE LATER

Stop. Zoom out. What's going on one level above the wizards?

1. Songs on the wind, the symphonia cirrostrata.
2. Morphic continents being pushed around by rogue giants, still building the world (how meta!)
3. Giant orthocerid tower to heaven (100 floor mmojrpg hogwash with cambrian angels and shit)
4. Sooooo many tiny islands, like sooooooo many. Someone broke all the continents apart (which is why the germs are so specialized, and the animals too, everything's filling weird ecological niches)
5. Of course, there's the petty, shitty wizards and their thoughts (/neg) 
6. And a secret sixth thing: the bottom of the ocean, where the elves do.

Get it? Zoom in, zoom out. Fill the pattern, break the pattern. Chase interest, reuse, recycle. Write now, think later.

eat your fackin vegetablrs

D6x6 Catamarans

for Glaugust 2026

A catamaran is like a boat with a thigh gap, and is recognizable from a distance as fairy bullshit.

The flag on the catamaran depicts...

1. ...many long-necked animals twisted together in a senseless knot. (braids save or vomit)
2. ...the logos of many generous sponsors.
3. ...an absence.
4. ...an agreeable androgyne with ai slop hands. 
5. ...many offensive political and military icons smushed together into a hyperproblematic, lightly sentient symbolic gestalt.
6. ...a beast playing an instrument. 

The catamaran is skippered by...

1. ...2d6 fairy slavers. Will trade people for memories and ephemera.
2. ...1d6 fairy poets. Will trade forgotten histories (and XP) for people. (Traded persons return years later with murky memories and a level in muse.)
3. ...1 fairy godmother. Will turn you into a fucking pumpkin for breathing on her.
4. ...3d20 skeleton pirates. Really crammed in there.
5. ...1d3 tigers. Invisible until you get too close.
6. ...2 snakes. Doing their best.

While aboard the catamaran...

1. ...one cannot be heard unless they speak in verse.
2. ...one's head rolls off their shoulders harmlessly. 
3. ...one falls asleep. (Fairies are dangerously competent sleepwalkers.)
4. ...right left east west north south up down here there before after inside and out are all swapped (but not reversed) (does that make sense?)
5. ...all metal apologizes, emits a high pitched shriek, glows green, and explodes into acid.
6. ...one is, technically, a ghost.

The right hull of the catamaran contains...

1. ...a cache of tommyguns.
2. ...the body of a saint.
3. ...plutonium sherds.
4. ...spare fairy parts (2 sets).
5. ...a terrarium full of tiny people. Requires feeding twice daily.
6. ...bees!

The left hull of the catamaran contains... 

1. ...a dragon heartstring harp.
2. ...a sentient demon sword floating in blood.
3. ...a bunch of tangled cables with no discernible purpose. 
4. ...cooked rice.
5. ...a portal to the mirror realm.
6. ...hibernating gnomes.

The gap between the twin hulls of the catamaran can...

1. ...sing of its own accord, but does so backwards.
2. ...chew and swallow smaller vessels.
3. ...open a portal to fairyland.
4. ...alter the color and buoyancy of the surrounding water.
5. ...create riptides. 
6. ...shoot psychic beams 40 yards. 

 

The skipper of a catamaran is often at the mercy of the boat's disposition, forced to visit islands or greet other vessels until the catamaran's curiosity is satisfied. Adult catamarans have 12HD and speak howl, the language of ghosts, cats, and storms. They are not particularly loyal, but appreciate a thorough deck scrub (or hull, depending on temperament).

A catamaran can only be encountered on a river, in the sea, in the sky, or in a dream. A wise man keeps their feet firmly planted on dry land.

The Ashes to Ashes Cube (a 360 card Play report)

I met a glogger from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose :dmthink:,
And :screiming: lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Locheil Locheil, Best To Ever Do It:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

→ Here ← is a 360 card Magic: the Gathering cube based on the setting of Qal Ashen and the associated domain game, Ashes to Ashes.

The primer explains the project from a mechanical angle. In this post, I'd like to gush about the game that inspired it, as well as tell a few stories from the past three years of gaming.

Flowers without names

Today I saw a flower of which I did not know the name. It had a low bushy frame, upon which were arranged five clusters of flowers, and each cluster thereof was a cone of which, from tip to hilt, the hue shifted from pink to orange, like little sunset spears. And it smelled nice.

I kept an eye out after that. I saw thick-veined viscera leaves, globes of baby blue asterisks, pale porcelain street lamps, leggy pom-poms with drooping heads—cheer up cheerleader! the bees love you for you!

My partner can put names to flowers, which is a kind of magic. The same is true for anyone familiar with birds and bugs (the kinds that aren’t ants or beetles or flies: the potpourri) and rocks and cetera. In my eyes, they have a claim to these subjects I do not.

The word for great subject knowledge is mastery. Is this mint or milkweed? The master knows. The flower belongs to its master, who keeps its name in a box. Master, master! Open the box! (Thankfully, the kind master made the front of glass.)

I am the kind of person who uses words without knowing their meanings, only their contexts. I have to describe the flower, and you have to find the flower. Without mastery, we cannot hold it: neither shape nor color will fix fast. (Master, the pins! the paraformaldehyde!)

 

Celds have few names for animals. There are cows, there are dogs, and there are beasts.

(The King of the Celds once named every animal, but these were lost.)

laura bifano

many images to follow

Outdex

Huh? What?
It's like an index, but reversed. Instead of helping you navigate my blog, I'm helping myself navigate everyone else's. Each hex links to a Spiceomancy-certified all time club banger post. Go ahead, click one!

Oh, like an Appendix N?
Kind of. The reason I gathered all these links in one place is to help myself keep track of my favorites. I'm sure you'll enjoy these posts (to reiterate: they're all very good), but that's circumstantial to me enjoying them.

Neat! So why a hex map?
pretty :)

Dogbox: 6 Manors

Spoilers for Dogbox, again.

No dungeons this time, just a lot of Guys. It's still incomplete, but a bit o posting helps me build up motivation for the hard parts, だから許して下さいねえ?

Ruined City Flunkies

8 microclasses for characters that tried to multiclass and failed. Relationships to the original cath classes are left as an exercise to the reader.

 

Unraveled
You can transform into blue smoke for a round, with the following effects:

• You are intangible. You drop everything in your hands, with the exception of spectral weapons.
• You can fly, at the speed of a rolling fog. A strong gust will send you flying.
• You lose one year of memories, oldest first.

 

Cinder
Your burns mark you as one who plays with fire; you are barred from holy places.

Choose any number greater than 0 to represent the severity of your burns. You lose that much maximum HP and take that much less damage from fire, lightning, acid, poison, and cold.

Hollow
You have made a hole somewhere in your body — lined with clay and stone — in the pursuit of sorcerous power. Instead, something took up residence within. (d8)

1. Ghost. Appears as a cold spot. Eats heat from your fingertips.
2. Dray. Easily bribed with nuts. An agile-albeit-disloyal messenger.
3. Asp. Venomous. Catlike indifference.
4. Crab. Gluttonous. Eats ghosts as easily as carrion.
5. Bees. Industrious. Large enough hives can be considered intelligent.
6. Fairy. Cherubic sparrow wings. Childish carnivore. #mytwig
7. Salamander. Tempestuous. Multichromatic. Fond of cigarettes.
8. Stone cylinder. Slots in almost perfectly. While it's in, you remember how to read a dead language.

Prisoner
For your crimes, you were trapped in a confining metal helm. You are immune to damage above the neck. Also, you don't need to eat or drink, which is good because you can't take off the helmet, ever.

 

Cursed / Scapegrace
You have been cursed by a saint. (d8)

1. Hounded. Add 1d6 wild dogs to an entry on every encounter table.
2. Gold and sunlight are both blindingly bright to your eyes.
3. Taboo. Other players choose six words. Whenever you say one of them, take 1 damage. Then, if you’ve said all of them, explode (3d6! damage).
4. Replace one of your hands with a thumbless mantid claw (d6).
5. A storm follows you, waiting to pounce. The next time you see the open sky, lightning will strike you (6d6).
6. Structures you build collapse in a day.
7. You weigh as much as a feather. Strong winds or blows send you flying.
8. When frightened, save versus your whole skeleton popping out. It takes ten minutes to put your skin back on. (Skeletons can’t talk.)

You also start with a +1 magic tool. (d8)

1. Cowbell
2. Billhook
3. Kagura suzu
4. Yew rod
5. Blue feathered dart
6. Snakeskin veil
7. Brass chime
8. Red-soled sandal

Rambler / Idiot
You can get lost at will. Spend an exploration turn to transport yourself and all traveling companions somewhere you've never been before at random, ignoring plausibility. For example, you can overland travel three hexes in the time it would take to travel one, or stumble into a room that was locked from the inside.

You can't do this again until you produce a map of the new area to the gm's satisfaction.

 

Deserter
You deal +2 damage. Additionally, you take 2 damage whenever you attack. If this reduces you to 0 HP, you are instantly beheaded.

 

Bard
You know two songs. (Brief rituals that make others think of you as a potential friend. You can use them in response to bad reaction rolls, before a fight breaks out. Some require instrumentation to perform.)

1. Singer describes filling a wound with alcohol; alluding to an apocalyptic flood. Resonates with former warriors and wizards.
2. Singer laments the howling stone songs of their forebears, which are no longer well known. Resonates with the elderly and with trolls.
3. Singer describes a departed kinsman's misadventures as a rancorous spirit warrior. Resonates with reckless teenagers and frogs.
4. Singer describes no-strings-attached sex with a series of vagabonds. Resonates with big ol' sluts.
5. Singer describes a kinsman growing bloody horns. Resonates with those who are ashamed of a brother or sister.
6. Singer compares themselves to the Elysian fields of Qua We; lamenting a lover lost. Resonates with the abandoned and nostalgic.
7. Singer compares a great passion to being lit on fire. People love chanting the BURN, BURN, BURN part. Resonates with artists and solar atavists.
8. Singer describes falling in love with a beautiful cowherd. Singer is obviously very superficial. Resonates with young, foolish men.

it's all about the fucking cat

!!!content warning!!!
!!!scary!!! 

Full spoilers for Obsession (2026) you have been WARNED now let me get this off my chest

In Favor Of Repetition

It bears repeating.

In Cath Celdaenn, there are two kinds of dungeons: forts and temples. The former belongs to a warlord (or headless army; or upstart band of celds) and throbs with activity; the latter belongs to a saint and is still as permafrost. In the former, fight, steal, destroy, sing; in the latter, move silently and be perfectly polite.

In Wheel of Horses, there are two kinds of dungeons: vaults and ships. The former contain ancient and valuable things, long buried, suddenly unsealed. The latter fall from the sky and break into thousands of pieces. Both are swarmed by scavengers, who are in turn devoured by devils.

In HELLUVA STARSTUCK RAILBOSS, there are two kinds of dungeons: lobbies and hives (basically a demon's house). The former are corporate liminalia with giant monsters walking around for no good reason; you go here to conduct business, like to get a passport or smth. The latter are severely inhabited by demons and full of kitschy crap; you go here to steal said kitschy crap.

In Girls Like Us, there are two kinds of dungeons: clubs and trespassing.

In the time zones, there are exactly 24 dungeons.

In the Doggerlands, there is one dungeon: the basement (which bleeds into the attic and the closet).

The 5e Conversion Nobody Asked For

Below is a (conspicuously incomplete) 5e conversion of my frankenstein glog class, in a sort of inverted deusian mode.

I'm not sure what I'll use it for; sometimes my projects serve no one, not even myself.

 

[LAYOUT CREATED WITH HOMEBREWERY] Design discussion below. 

 

The first and most obvious hurdle when converting to 5e is the class length. GLOG classes have, for the most part, four abilities. The 5e barbarian has 16, 20 if you count the subclasses separately. Filling 20 levels takes a lot of text! (you can see I'm still four abilities short of a full set) 

I knew I wanted the frankenstein to be some kind of tank, so I used the barbarian as a base. Setting aside subclasses, the 5e martials mostly follow this pattern:

• important mechanic at level 1 and 2 (rage! reckless attack!)
• level 3 subclass ability
• level 5 extra attack
• level <11 third fun mechanic (brutal critical!)
• some late game upgrades to previous abilities 
• bunch o cruft to smooth out the combat math

sidebar: I rarely write "balanced" classes, but I know it's important to 5e play culture to pursue balanced combat, so I did a bit of research on the current homebrew scene and their expectations. I'm asking if I should take my shoes off before I enter your home. This is arguably my most culturally sensitive post.

The takeaway is that you don't really need 20 good ideas to write a 5e class: you need three, and a willingness to crib a bunch of sauceless ones from the rest of the players handbook.

Placing abilities in the level 5-15 range was especially tricky. Martials start needing more tools to counter save-or-suck effects around level 9, but abilities like mad science and speak with head can't come too late or they won't see play. When writing glog I like to introduce all the central mechanics by template B, and just start fucking around for C and D; but if i come up with a funny idea for a D template, I find myself trying to fit it into B so it's more likely to see play. A similar concept applies in this format

Here I strayed from the path: I didn't fully embrace the relentless rages and slippery minds of dnd design, in part because without playtesting I didn't have a good sense of what holes needed filling (you don't end up at an ability like diamond soul without rigorous combat-sim-ing)

jason chan

The subclasses were really easy to write: as deus has observed, 5e subclasses and glog classes have the same "four fun ideas" structure. I suspect this is why fifthdragon's 5e subclass conversions work so seamlessly: the core class chassis is the really wonky part of 5e design, needing to be conceptually stripped down AND stuffed full of extra mechanics.

My favorite is the undead (ofc, it hews closest to my concept for the original frankenstein): its charge mechanic was on the base chassis for a while before i realized it wasn't one of the three central mechanics.

My second favorite is the construct, which i fell in love with aesthetically but couldnt quite crack mechanically. They're a stalker assassin(????) puppet murder doll goddammit i forgot to rename their abililties w/e fuck it post that shit

goals for a more complete writeup:

• a lifepath or background table (i like player aids that are a little game-y and aren't massive blocks of text)
• +1/2 subclass abilities? (they're more fun to write than the base class, and it would be cool if the murder doll had a "cracked face" ability of some kind)
• table of interesting starting limbs (5e equipment tables are pretty open ended but a toolbox class deserves smth more specific, with like lockpick hands and pogo feet)

Your Only Move Is (GLOG Class: Hustler)

 

HUSTLER
Start with: Two weapons (see below)
+2 Techniques per template
A - Combo
B - Like a Book
C - Yomi
D - Hustle

A: Combo
Whenever you roll to deal damage, you may reroll the damage to begin a combo.

• If the new amount exceeds your last damage roll, it becomes the damage dealt. You may repeat this process to extend the combo.
• If the new amount is equal to the current damage, you drop the combo and can't reroll again.
• If the new amount is below the current damage, you drop the combo AND get punished: your target gets a free hit on you.

Example: You hit for 3 with a sword (d8). You extend and this time roll a 5. You've now landed a 2-hit combo and dealt 5 damage total.

You can freely swap items between your hands, pockets, stowed inventory, and immediate surroundings in the middle of your combo.

Keep track of your longest combo, for bragging rights if nothing else.

 

B: Like a Book
If you know someone well enough, you can read them.

First, declare three nontrivial facts you know about them. Next, declare an action. You learn how your target would immediately react to your action. (Basically ask "If I do X, what will they do in response?")

You can read someone in response to dropping your combo on them, negating your last roll; or to reduce their incoming damage to you by d12.

If you are mistaken in one of your nontrivial facts, the information you get from your read will also be mistaken. (Noble gm, lie thru your teeth!)

You can't do this again until you meditate for an hour, learn three new things about them, or crit them.

 

C: Yomi
You can read mysterious levers, magic items, empty hallways, dead bodies, and other non-living things.

You still need to declare three nontrivial facts. ("The sword is made of gold" is trivial, because you can observe it without prior context. "The sword belonged to Juan Guerrera" is better. "This room is an altar to Hel." You get the idea.)

When reading hallways, levers, and other dungeon features, you may choose to read the dungeon itself.

When reading a corpse, you learn how they would have reacted if they were still alive. ("If I did X, what would they have done in response?")

 

D: Hustle
You deal additional damage equal to the length of your current combo. (i.e. if you are rolling to extend a two-hit combo, you add +2 damage to the result.) (Yes, you can now deal theoretically infinite damage.)

You also get a free read against lower level fighters.

Weapons
If your gm is cool they'll let you use these for other classes too.

1. Ninja pot pourri (d4) — 20 shuriken/kunai/caltrops/noisemakers/bladed fans/etc. hidden all over your person. You can throw up to 1 + [templates] of them at a time.
2. Unarmed strikes (d6) — Your bare hands, feet, elbows, knees, and forehead. Intense training has made them resistant to heat, cold, electricity, and gentleness.
3. Katana (d10) — The sharpest of all swords (which deal a mere d8). With each strike, you can teleport behind your target.
4. Lunar Arc (d6) — Silvery bow. Pins clothes to walls. Deals d8 when bathed in moonlight.
5. Flames (d6 per template) — From your own mouth. Reload by eating spicy food.
6. Tome (d6) — On your third hit in a combo, cast a spell at +1MD for free:
1. Frost — [sum] damage, doubled against fire types.
2. Skull — Conjure [sum] floating spectral skulls. Opportunistically bite those who get too close for 1 damage and then vanish (basically a "pool" of damage you can add to your attacks).
3. Boost — Send yourself flying [sum] x 10' in any direction.
4. Trance — Until combat ends, [sum] targets have +1 to hit and damage and hear a battle rhythm that allows them to communicate wordlessly and instinctually at any distance.
7. Bone Claws (d6/d6) — Schlorp out of your wrists, dealing d6 damage to you.
8. Orb (d4) — Floating telekinetic runed stone sphere. Obeys your thoughts. Can exert as much force as one of your arms.
9. Pistolfoot (d6) — 10' VERTICAL LEAP KICK BIRDS (& birdlike beafts wink nudge) OUT THE AIR
10. Lasso (d6) — Can crack as a whip or wrangle a varmint from afar.
11. Bioelectricity (up to d6) — Zaps out of your palm. The target becomes charged, taking or dealing +d6 damage from or with a metal weapon, once.
12. Phantom limb (d6) — Replaces your dominant hand. Deals damage by aging its victims that many years.
13. Princess (d4/d4) — A willful and fearless animal. Spend your attack to command her. Deals d6s against creatures her size, like gnomes and squirrels.
14. Slab of iron (d12) — A piece of metal too huge and unwieldy to be called a sword. -4 to hit.
15. Orcaxe (d8) — d12 against orcoid body plans. 
16. Boulder (varies) — Torn out of the ground or wall, as available. Deals d4/d6/d8/d10/d12, depending on how many slots heavy it is. A brick is a 1-slot boulder.
17. Revolver (2d6) — Six-shooter. Figure out how to reload it.
18. Mist clone jutsu (varies) — Roll damage twice and take the higher. Clone dies in a single hit, can't dodge, and is created with no equipment. Fleeting sentience.
19. Fender (d12) — You turn into a car and hit people with yourself. Take all the damage you deal.
20. Everything else (d4) — Anything you can get your hands on counts as an improvised weapon. 

Interesting Maids

fkey

Doggerlands PCs are all pure-blooded dogs. Their servants, however, are imported from various nations and small isles.

For the most part, maids of a given type are all the same. You don’t need to know much more than that; you definitely shouldn't play as one of these.

1. Ardward
Smugeyed tawnylipped longwits too clever for their own good. Wear hats shaped like little boxes, which they use to hide their long, silky hair from lascivious suitors. If you are pursued by an ardward, throw a book on the ground; they'll be compelled to kneel down and scan it for grammatical errors. They're fast readers, so make it a big book.

2. Scuriani
Flattongued flipflopping slickbacks. Closely related to ducks, who they hate. The hair on their neck changes hues with their environment and emotions. Men are emotional, women are taciturn, both are easily goaded into knife fighting.

3. Dalula
Mooneyed mousy blacksaps. Born in litters of two or four: only children are especially ominous. Predisposed to diabolism, possession, and eldritch madness; otherwise personable and polite. A flame lit by a dalula burns deep, sinful crimson; it is bad luck to let a dalula carry your candle.

4. Cigner
Craning darksocketed peekers. Very hard to see in the dark, aside from their yellow pinprick pupils. Ghoulish laughter (save vs nausea), puerile sense of humor. Hide their hands, which are often deformed. Fighting custom revolves around roundhouse kicking each other in the neck.

5. Mau-mau
Sallow softboned meltymouths. Blush green. Slow to illness, quick to injury. Kindly to the point of superstition. If too harshly criticized, they bleed.

6. Iron Coastal
Clamcracking sexless boulderbrows. Glitter in the sun like fresh asphalt. Ears fold back when scheming, which is most of the time. Looking at the ocean grants them a profound sense of comfort, nostalgia, and also light precognition. Also called whalekin or welsh.

7. Nari
Lackwise hamhocked unicorns. Work quickly in the cold and glacially elsewhere. Strong singers and stronger swimmers. Born to a rich culinary and oratory tradition. Overvalued for their horns; a stumped nari is worth nothing at all.

8. Ogre
Braggadocious rosegoggled beerwolves. Drink like sinkholes and fight like bull elephants. Partially colorblind and completely artblind: beautiful dresses are like camouflage to them.

9. White
Bulbfingered blinkless beanpoles. Look older than they actually are. Pathologically restless. Every white is given an esoteric metal device at birth, the function of which they must decipher via obsessive fidgeting to attain maturity. To know this function is to know one very, very intimately.

10. Ester
Semitranslucent and perpetually on the verge of tears. Sentimental psychopaths: killing an ant makes them cry; slaughtering a calf does not. Fall in love with rivers and especially shapely hills. Molt once a year; it takes a week and a half, and is very messy.

11. Malisian
Zippertoothed picknosed filchos. Superarticulated fingers will flit into your pockets unless you brandish an iron arrow at them; a goodhearted malisian will sate this urge by simply misplacing your belongings. Quietly competent in malefic, the written language of the first necromancers; any malisian who learns magic gets their fingers cut off. They have no country.

12. Praian
Gloamy looseleaf horsecels. Laugh easily and quietly. Invented the game of charades and the dark art of mime. Hopeless romantics with showy courtship rituals. Compensate for their incomprehensible accents by having nothing of import to say.

a cigner, iron coastal, and white
as interpreted by my fiancee 

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.

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.] 

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.

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 

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]

Dynamics (classes for 2+ pcs)

In place of a class, you may start with two dynamics. Each dynamic is shared with at least one other character. (distribute starting items between both characters)

Dynamics level up and gain templates like classes. Everyone in a dynamic contributes equal XP towards its progression. You decide which of your dynamics to put XP towards.

Sleuths
Start with: magnifying glass, pipe, limp
A - In all fields of knowledge, one of you can answer exam questions on a 5-in-6.
B - You are both in pursuit of a Great Mystery.
C - You cannot compromise evidence or destroy information.
D - You know exactly what your partner is about to say or do, even when you are miles apart.

Foils
Start with: épées, loveless engagement, criminal record
A - Each partner gets a different duelist technique.
B - You get +1 attack/turn when fighting back-to-back.
C - You can Save to riposte any attack on your partner. If you fail, you take the hit in their place.
D - Once, you can bring your partner back from the brink of death with a kiss.

Spellbreeders
Start with: two random spells, sack of kibble (3 slots), butterfly net
A - Each partner gets +1 MD.
B - If you cast a spell at the same time as your partner, they combine to produce a new one. They decay back into their components after casting.
C - When you combine spells, you choose between two or more potential offspring spells to cast. (The gm has to give you at least two.)
D - When you combine spells, you keep the new spell in addition to all its components.

Faithful
Start with: book of prayers, flask of gin, durable leather boots
A - One of you is immune to blasphemy. The other is immune to prayer.
B - You deal max damage to undead.
C - You and your partner can swap immunities and alignments 1/day.
D - You know the names and HD of each angel or demon you meet.

Runaways
Start with: crossbow, silver ring, torn wedding dress
A - When one of you escapes, the other does too.
B - You can forgo an attack to guarantee that your partner's lands.
C - You and your partner fit together in any space larger than a briefcase.
D - Your movement can't be slowed or stopped by anything, including sleeping curses and solid walls.

Hunters
Start with: matching scars, absorbing novella, harmonica
A - Treat your teeth and nails as daggers.
B - You can secretly and wordlessly communicate with your partner via knowing looks and nonverbal cues.
C - You can deal d6 damage to your partner to attack again on your turn. You can do this any number of times.
D - You can howl to summon your partner and/or d6 wolves (or wolf equivalents) to your side 1/day.

rosewaterjelly

Dalmatians

not like this at all

For a brief period in history, God lived on the earth. Leading by example, He built the first house, grew the first plants, and slaughtered the first cow. The proper way of doing things was demonstrated, and everyone was fat and happy.

Next, He turned his attention to the arts. He sang the first song, penned the first poem, and carved the first sculpture. The proper way of doing things was demonstrated, and everyone was beautiful and clever.

Finally, He wrote down everything He knew about the sciences, which was everything. The truth of things was made certain, and everyone was wise and well-read.

But sages continued to enter the house of the All-Knowing, asking inane questions and seeking prophetic knowledge (which could have been theirs if they'd bothered to read the damn book). Leave my home at once, He raged. Those who do not sow are not fit for the fruit. The sages went home, and found their wives, their mothers, and themselves with children.

* * *

Dalmatian-- sesame seed birthmarks; Church-instructed
HD 1; AC as monk; Dewclaw 1d6

The name "dalmatian" comes from the warrior tribe who constitute God's apocalyptic supersoldier army in the late Certainties. They are direct descendants of God, sans opposable thumbs. They're born randomly and rarely, only slightly more common in hamlets amidst the Almer foothills, then immediately handed over to the Church. (Their deformities make them useless to rural families.)

The Almer folk have been in decline for a generation and a half, yet more dalmatians are born each year. This is considered a mixed blessing, as spotted infants can be sold to the Church for a decent sum.

Each dalmatian is trained in a very narrow field of science which becomes their expertise. They can answer any question about their expertise with encyclopedic knowledge bordering on precognition, except for those that start with why? (They are often at odds with contemporary intellectuals, who are very-- perhaps overly-- concerned with why?)

d20 expertises

1. Forest management 
2. Psychoanalysis 
3. Osteology 
4. Mycology
5. Hagiography
6. Forensics
7. Meteorology
8. Imaginary numbers 
9. Carpentry 
10. Shaylese military history 
11. Massage
12. Optics
13. Nephrology 
14. Heliophysics 
15. Demonology (Mammon to Orobas)
16. Wildlife photography
17. CSS styling
18. Geometry (up to six-sided polygons) 
19. Stenography 
20. Wolves

Uneducated dalmatians don't get any special intelligence ability: they tend to burn out and pivot to erotic portraiture. 

When one dies, a terrible windstorm ravages the area for eight days.

like this
but w/o thumbs

Double-sided Torchflower

For a horror-themed basementcrawl. Here's the proof-of-concept:

oooo so slick so pretty

I think hexflowers are fun in concept but in practice I don't care much to simulate realistic weather patterns.

What I think has more potential is the flip: the first time the lights go out, you swap to an alternate random encounter table. Note: 

• You can turn the lights out on purpose to flip at will. (You can use this to escape the slasher: basically a 1/crawl random encounter reroll)
• The other table is more dangerous/weird/rewarding. It's less of a dungeoneering clock (for that I prefer possession) and more of a choice between incomparables.
• There's no way to flip back: once you experience the dark, the vibes are off until you see sunlight again.

Anyway, I doubt I'll use the flower over a pair of lists, but if you want to try it out:

1. Chandelier: Tries to fall on you.
2. Organ words; Warm wet; Hands: These are unsettling architectural features.
3. Slip: The door leads somewhere it shouldn't.
4. Lost: The way back leads somewhere it shouldn't.
5. Memory: A childhood memory, arriving unbidden. I made this with family-trauma-having gothic heroines in mind.
6. Ghost: Of the wandering variety.
7. Thunder: From below.
8. Burning metal: Door handles, fixtures, candle sticks-- everything hurts to touch.
9. Hungry room: Tries to eat you! AAAAAA!!! 
10. Hell door: Very convenient if you want to talk to the devil.