Reinventing The Beholder - The Ontocritic (GLOG Bandwagoning)

 Another day, another GLOG blogosphere bandwagon. This time it's a classic monster; the Beholder.

Also Spellweavers, a criminally underused monster.

Ontocritics are powerful and by human standards quite insane. They are tall many-limbed humanoids that dwell in remote cavern grottoes deep in the roots of mountains, These lairs are often entirely inaccessible without access to powerful magic (which the creatures have innately), but may sometimes contain some ventilation shafts or claustraphobic crawlways to allow its servants to come and go without needing to call upon their master's power. The creatures are fortunately quite rare and universally solitary for a simple but defining reason; every Ontocritic develops unique personal beliefs during adolescence that once hardened as they enter adulthood they will defend with megalomaniacal fervour beyond that of any human zealot. 

An Ontocritic literally cannot stand to have their opinions criticised in any way, reacting to even the slightest disagreement with merciless violence as if disagreement caused it physical pain. Given that every Ontocritic has a unique idiosyncratic worldview they by their nature cannot form communities among themselves, instead they use their powers to brainwash members of other races into sycophantic obedience and set themselves up as petty kings of their own delusional fiefdoms. Only a once-a-decade estrus cycle brings them to meet in groups, where they conduct their courtship rituals in careful silence and part wordlessly once consumated. Young Ontocritcs flee their mothers' lair once they realise their own identity has asserted itself, the only time in their lives where their instinctive rage at disagreement is replaced with fear.

However, once fully grown and established an Ontocritic has little to fear from anything. Within the palms of each of their six hands is an eye-like organ capable of projecting a reality interdiction field that negates or replaces some aspect of the world within its field of view. With these fields it can render reality into forms more agreeable to it, like a painter layering pigment upon a canvas. The noted diabolist Zhu Fengming in his opus 'Fire Meditations' numbered being subjected to all six of an Ontocritic's fields at once as one of the eight Corporeal Hells that can be experienced while still alive which he recommended all practitioners of the Path of Screams to seek out so that they might steel themselves for the afterlife.

Ontocritic

12HD (72hp) AC 15 (leathery keratinous skin), Morale 8, 12 if criticised (see below)

Alignment: Any

No. Appearing: 1, plus 4d4+4 sycophants of Normal Stature (1-3HD).

Movement: 12", employs its Field of Intangibility to walk through walls.

% In Lair: 80%

Attacks: An Ontocritic will not typically fight conventionally, instead relying on its fields to disorient and disable its foes. Each round the Ontocritic can choose which direction its fields are pointed, each being 9" cones. Eight potential options are presented below, others may exist. At any one time the Ontocritic can only have six fields active, one for each hand. It may change what kind of field each hand projects on its initiative, and may have more than once instance of the same field active. Unless otherwise specified, exposure to any Ontocritic field requires a seperate Save vs. Wands each.

• Field of Blindness: Save or be rendered blind, as the spell Blindess.
• Field of Deafness: Save or be rendered deaf, as the spell Deafness, ho hum.
• Field of Anhedonia: Save or become unable to benefit from plusses outside of your base stats, including from class abilities, spells and magic items - whatever's on your character table is all you get Sonny-Jim.
• Field of Agnosia: Save or all your attacks are directed against random targets, as per the Confusion spell, nobody is more familiar to you than anyone else. Ontocritcs' sycophants are not immune to this, which doesn't stop their master sending them in to the fight anyway.
• Field of Achronia: Save or time's passage becomes incomprehensible, minutes seem to pass in centuries, hours in attoseconds. This is a gussied up stun effect, save or lose your action each round.
• Field of Agony: Save or take 8d6 illusory damage (all restored if you succeed a save). This cannot actually kill, but those reduced to 0hp are rendered unconscious and if not saved will likely be taken back to the Ontocritic's Lair and be hypnotised into sycophancy.
• Field of Intangibility: Renders matter within its area incapable of interaction with matter outside it. The Ontocritic uses this to walk through walls to its hidden cave Lair and disable foes with ranged weapons.
• Field of Entropy: Save or become unable to heal or otherwise restore expended resources until you are outside the field.

Ontocritics prefer to fight in narrow corridors where they can direct all their fields on attackers at once, ideally on a corner where they can keep ranged attackers suppressed with their Field of Intangibility. If attacked from multiple sides, engaged in melee or subjected to ranged weapons they will attempt to flee back to their lair. Defeated enemies are usually left disabled by their Field of Agony rather than dead, and if not recovered by their companions will be hauled off to the Ontocritic's lair for brainwashing into a Charmed sycophant by means of a combination of torture, sensory deprivation and application of the Ontocritic's hypnotic gaze (a little known feature of the species). This process takes 1 hour per HD of the victim, and can only be removed by application of a combination of Remove Curse, Modify Memory and Dispel Magic cast in sequence. They are capable of wielding weapons, but largely distain doing so as it requires them to use a hand which could otherwise be employed to project a field, but some Ontocritics do employ Magic User tools such as Wands of Frost.

One of the best tactics for fighting an Ontocritic is to capture and interrogate one of its sycophants for the details of their master's worldview. Faced with criticism of their cherished beliefs an Ontocritics' morale becomes unbreakable and it will fight to the death without fleeing, seeking to destroy or utterly humble its detractor.

What does this Ontocritic believe? D12:

1. Birds are homunculi created by wizards to spy on the surface world.
2. Elven swords are folded 10,000 times and can cut through plate armour like paper.
3. Elven swords are made of moldy pig iron and can be snapped over your knee.
4. Fireballs aren't real, are you kidding me? You really expect me to believe that a 3rd level spell could do that much damage?
5. Of COURSE the Derr0 control the world's banks.
6. The human kingdoms' success is just a front for the return of the serpent people.
7. STRICT TIME RECORDS MUST BE KEPT.
8. Peasantry is just a stalling tactic by low-skill kings who can't manage a kingdom where citizens are capable of rising to power.
9. Pick a religion, this Ontocritic is really into it.
10. All religions are false! I am the only true god!
11. The nobles don't want you to know this but the halflings in the Shire are free you can take them home I have 458 halflings.
12. I am not subject to maritime law!

There Is No Skill In What I do - Church Assassin (GLOG Class) (Bandwagoning)

The GLOG is going through a bit of a bandwagon again, this is mine.

The Erĝeshmál are a rumour, albeit a persistant one - a hidden cabal of fanatic-assassins whose origin stretches back to the very beginning of the Latterine Church, when the message of the Latter Prophet was scorned and its followers subjected to all manner of persecution and humiliation. The Erĝeshmál (from the Sassálid "fangs of prophecy") protected the faithful from organised pogroms and official censures through covert assassination, guided by a whisper network of hidden Latterines in the servants' chambers of a thousand palaces and, it is claimed, by inspired visions. This is history though, and the Latterine Church waxes strong across the surface of the World - there is no more reason for borderline heresies the likes of the Erĝeshmál to exist; with half the world's crowns bowing to the Deiarch on her throne in Súnelamar, what use would she have for a few silent knives in the dark?

Class: Church Assassin
You are a member of a hidden cabal of killers whose hands are guided by prophecy. You have never studied the blade, no-one taught you how to scale castle walls or pick locks, how to hide in plain sight or the secret evil ways by which men can be seperated from their souls quickly and efficiently. You need know none of these dreadful, sinful things that uproot the rightful order of creation. You spent your time in prayer, supplication and denial so that when the time came that you were needed angels would guide your hands far more surely than any training.

Starting Skill: None.

Equipment: Beggar's rags (as normal clothing, +1 to Reaction Rolls to be ignored), bronze alms bowl, bronze kitchen knife (light weapon in your hands, d3 in another's (see "Needful Things" below)), rosary (strung on garotte wire, +1d4 to grappling damage), d6 silver pieces and d6x10 copper pieces.

Every Template gives +1 Portent Die

A: Needful Things, Portents
B: The Call, +1d6 Critical Damage
C: On Angel's Wings
D: The Appointed Time, +1d6 Critical Damage

A: Needful Things
You are not proficient in any weapons or armour. However, you can wield any object of appropriate size as a light or medium weapon, even if it isn't intended as one. You can also expend a Portent of Success to automatically find any mundane equipment item somewhere in your immediate surroundings, no matter how unlikely. Items acquired this way will somehow be lost or stolen by the end of the day.

A: Portents
Your movements are clumsy, artless and imprecise, yet somehow your knife finds its way past the thickest armour and the most practiced defences while your foe's most deft blows are somehow turned by sudden stumbles and distractions, as if some unseen puppeteer guided you.

At the start of the day roll a number of Portent Dice (d6s). Each die that rolls a 1-3 grants you a Portent of Failure, while each that rolls 4-6 grants a Portent of Success. Rolls of 1 and 6 explode, granting their Portent of Failure/Success as normal and being rerolled for another.

You may expend a Portent of Failure to cause someone within your line of sight to fail a roll of your choice, as an interrupt. You must have some way of influencing them, even if as little as a whistle or a thrown pebble at the right moment.

You may expend a Portent of Success to automatically succeed at some roll you or another within line of sight are required to make. As above, you must have some way of influencing the target if it is not yourself. When used for attack rolls this counts as a Critical Hit.

B: The Call
When setting out on a mission, dungeon delve, quest or what-have-you you may pray for guidance. Ask the DM "Is there someone here who the gods wish me to kill?", and he will answer with a vision of their face and rough location - enough to narrow it down to within one quadrant of a given dungeon floor. If you kill them you may regain all your expended Portents.

C: On Angel's Wings
When someone attacks you and misses, either naturally or because of a Portent of Failure, they suffer d6 coincidental damage as they sprain their ankles, stumble into your weapon, crack their head on nearby objects or some other such improbable bungle. If their failure was a result of a natural 1, they instead take your Critical Damage.

D: The Appointed Time
This is what you have been preparing for, the reason you were placed upon the World.

First of all, you apprehend the true name Dust, and may teach it to sorcerers if you wish, they will expect to have to do you a great service in return. Aiding and abetting sorcerers is a sinful act, but you may assume special dispensation in service of a greater good.

Secondly, you are immune to sorcerous commands directed at yourself - your actions are not your own, so the word of Man has no control over you.

Finally; once, ever, you may declare a single target within your line of sight your destined kill. If there is any possibility of you even being able to deal them damage, the next time you successfully attack them they die. The archvillain can be right in the middle of his big climactic speech before his assembled minions and you run out of the crowd and clock him in the temple with a rock and he falls down dead. No save, no nothing; dead dead DEAD. Furthermore, their soul becomes entangled with your own - they cannot be ressurected, reincarnated or the like without you being physically present at the ritual, and if you die before then their soul is carried off to final judgement with you, never to be reborn again. If, however, they are not able to be harmed by any weapon or resource you currently have access to - you've wasted your chance.

Dolmenwood Firearms (OSR)

 Dolmenwood has a very nice expanded equipment list, with sub-pages for dogs, horses, pipeweed, food and drink, herbs and fungi and more besides. What it doesn't have is firearms. And while some may argue that they don't fit in a medieval folkloric game, I'd say that any setting featuring themes of civilisation encroaching on nature is ripe for gunsmoke, and a werewolf is always best disposed of with a silver bullet. Plus, as G. R. Michael has pointed out, guns are older than plate armour.

A Drune Cottager reminds you whose land you're on.

Firearms have a small but significant history in Dolmenwood, they were first carried to the region by crusaders of the Pluritine Church during the Triple Compact. These early matchlock handgonnes and cannons had a number of properties that made them exquisitely useful during the war to banish the Cold Prince - the blasting fire of gunpowder was anathema to the Prince and his court's cold magic, the noise and flash of their muzzles terrified the dangerous animals of the wood into staying clear of the battlefields and dispersed fae cavalry, and few things sting an elf quite like a slug of raw iron ore from the barrel of a handgonne. Though this time is all but myth, the practice of gunnery remained and was adapted by many of Dolmenwood's inhabitants ever since. Woldish firearms are inevitably artisanal, and frequently heirloom items. No large gun forges exist and only Castle Brackenwolde has the resources necessary to cast cannon, leaving the crafting of new guns exclusively as bespoke items by the wood's rare gunsmiths and the occasional hobbyist.

Weapon	Cost	Damage	Weight	Size	Qualities
Pistol	50gp	2d6	20	Small	Missile (50′ / 100′ / 150′), Reload, Armour Piercing
Musket	125gp	2d8	100	Medium	Missile (80′ / 160′ / 240′), Reload, Armour Piercing
Prigwort Blunderbuss	160gp	d10	100	Medium	Cone 9', Reload
Drunic Jezzail	225gp	4d4	140	Large	Elf-Shooter, Custom Grip, Reload, Armour Piercing
Mossling Woodlock	40gp	d12	100	Medium	Bursting, Cone 6', Reload
High-Rifle	300gp	2d8+2	140	Large	Rifled (160′ / 240′), Reload, Armour Piercing

SPECIAL NOTE: Adventuring, Dungeoneering and Firearms

A door with a normal lock can be automatically opened by shooting the lock off with any firearm, allowing the attackers to roll for Surprise as normal when entering combat unless they have already alerted the inhabitants on the other side. 

Normal animals can be scared off by the report of a firearm, forcing them to immediately check morale with a penalty of -1 per firearm shot in the current round. Creatures of 4HD+ or of a monstrous nature (DM decides what qualifies as a monster or a natural creature) are unaffected.

Any round in which firearms are employed in a dungeon triggers an automatic wandering monster roll, as the noise and commotion attracts the dungeon's fearless and ferocious defenders.

New Weapon Qualities

Bursting: This firearm is not particularly well made, and if rolling either minimum or maximum damage it has burst its barrel and is rendered inoperable junk.

Cone #': These firearms fire a wide spray of projectiles. Attacks made with this firearm are not rolled, instead every target within a cone of the specified number of dungeon spaces may make a Save for half damage.

Custom Grip: This firearm has been specially made for its user, to fit their specific grip and proportions. It provides its creator with +1 to hit, in the hands of anyone else it has a 3:6 chance of reducing their to-hit by -1, 2:6 chance of no benefit, and 1:6 chance of fitting them perfectly, allowing them to benefit of the +1 to hit as if the original owner.

Elf-Shooter: This gun has a reinforced barrel that allows it to fire cold iron bullets without risk of damage. Firearms without this quality that are loaded with cold iron bullets (costing double that of lead, as per DPB, 119) are damaged on a natural 1 attack roll, suffering a cumulative -1 penalty to hit and damage until repaired by a capable gunsmith, normally costing 20% of the weapon's base value per -1 penalty removed.

Rifled: As Missile (DPB, 118) but it has no Long range category, only short (+1 Attack) and medium.

Weapon Descriptions

Prigwort Blunderbuss: Used by coachmen to protect carts carrying Prigwort's famous exports of ale and spirits on their journeys throughout the wood. Known for their comically wide flaring barrels designed to facilitate reloading while atop a rumbling cart fleeing pursuers at high speed. 

Drunic Jezzail: Sometimes called "elf-shooters" by their cottager creators. Drunes sometimes take the mechanisms from muskets produced elsewhere and marry them to a extra-long reinforced barrels to allow them to endure firing slugs of hard, cold iron. Drunes make these guns just for themselves and their rare allies, and covet them almost as greedily as magic. They are usually heavily decorated by their owners with runes of spite and striking and strung with all manner of charms and talismans.

Mossling Woodlock: Maybe Dolmenwood's most unusual firearm, the mosslings make them from bored-out logs of hard woods like oak or cherry, wrapped tightly with sheets of leather or lengths of tarred rope to help contain the detonation. Ammunition is usually an assortment of pebbles, pinecones, hard nuts and wood chips, and propellant provided by the mossling's dampfire mould (see below), and ignited by a simple touch-hole and flame. These weapons are fairly shoddy and not expected to last many battles but are very effective at allowing a small group of mosslings to fend off much larger numbers, and as they are able to produce cheap propellant fairly easily are quite common among mossling militas.

High-Rifle: This sophisticated and elegant weapon is a legacy of High-Hankle's refined culture. Extremely accurate due to its rifling, long barrel and variable sights, it is intended for both sports hunting and for sniping ground targets from griffonback. High-Hankle's griffonriders have developed a special method for firing between their mount's wingbeats, making long, swivelling, tracking shots during their gliding periods.

Ammunition	Cost	Weight
Gunpowder (20)	25gp	20
Bullets, cast lead (20)	2gp	20
Gunpowder, Dampfire (20)	15gp	20

Most firearms can be loaded with basically anything that will fit down the barrel - unless using special ammunition the only cost is for gunpowder.

Ammunition Descriptions

Gunpowder: Proper corned gunpowder, the end of the gongfarmer's trade that people don't laugh about. In case you were wondering, a loose pile of gunpowder will deal d6 damage in a 5' radius for every 10 shots worth of the stuff is present, with a Save permitted for half damage. For every 2d6 damage the radius of the explosion increases by 5'. 

Bullets, cast lead: These are properly made, military grade bullets that have been cast in a special mold and carefully shaved with a sharp blade of any flashing that would seriously impede the bullet's flight. These minor masterworks grant a +1 to Attack.

Gunpowder, Dampfire: This is not true gunpowder, but rather a rare species of mould that is cultivated by some mossling communities. Scraped off and allowed to dry in the sun, this greasy black powder makes quite an acceptable cheap replacement for standard gunpowder. It detonates with a squeaky pop rather than a thunderous boom but it is no less loud for it. Dampfire is rare outside of mulchgrove. For every two hexes away from the region the likelihood of it being available drops by -1:6.

Base Matter Rendered Into Light - The Chandler's Grimoire

 Intended to accompany Skerple's components system here. Also maybe belated bandwagonning?

The High Chandlers are a curious case in the use of the synthesist's craft, focusing more on combining their spell components beforehand according to proscribed patterns than the usual whimiscally slap-dash witchcraft seen in those who practice this typically rustic form of spellworking. Perhaps for this reason their guild managed to reach much higher degree of respectability than that of others who employ the craft, not as vaunted as the magi of the Word, but at least on par with the Alchemists. 

A Chandler's workspace is as full of bric-a-brac as any other component-caster, just a bit more homogenous.

Benefits of candle magic;
While somewhat constrained compared to conventional witchcraft, candle magic is not without its compensations, and they are significant;

1. Component Space Efficiency: A completed magic candle takes up only one slot in a magician's component pouch but functions as two for the sake of the spell it was made for.
2. Candle Charms: A prepared candle can be given to another to use. The chandler must charge it with their own spell points beforehand, which remain committed until either the candle is used or the chandler chooses to withdraw their power - whichever comes first. The roll to see if the next casting will require more spell points is made by the person who ignites the candle and applies to them, not the chandler. e.g. a chandler creates a charged candle for a client that normally costs the chandler 1 spell point to cast, the client burns the candle and rolls a 5 - the next time the client needs a candle of that type it will cost 2 spell points to charge, but if the chandler wanted to use that candle spell themselves it would still only cost them 1 spell point. In this fashion chandlers are able to sell the same spell effects to different clients for many years without losing the power needed.
3. Candle Duration: Most candle spells can be made optionally to last as long as the candle is lit, ending only when the candle burns out or is extinguished. A typical spell candle is about the size of a birthday candle and lasts 30 minutes, but larger candles can be made at greater cost - simply multiply the cost of materials and the component size to determine the duration. Giant pillar candles often have multiple wicks to minimise the chance that all will be accidentally extinguished at once, which ends the magic, while smaller ones are best kept in lanterns. Note that candle-spells made without this option instead burn with an inextinguishable cold flame that consumes the components contained in the candle by the time the spell's duration has elapsed.

THE GRIMOIRE

A Candle to Find a Murderer
Take thee tallow taken from a good scenthound, one that has been trained by a hunter is good, one that has been trained by a hunter of men is best. Render it well and colour and scent it to your liking. For the wick, fashion it from a cord unwound from a hangman's rope. If intending to use the candle's spell yourself no further measures need be made, but if passing it to one of the uninitated as a charm add a drop of your blood to the tallow and a thread of your hair to the cord to lend it potency. Dip the wick and chant thusly once between coating; 

Find for vengence, find for hope, find for justice, find for rope.

I have been vouchsafed that the spell is more eficacious if spoken in the phlegmatic tongue of Oldenwael, but I cannot confirm the truth of this. To complete the spell, cut the victim's name into the wax and light - the candle's flame and smoke shall be as a compass needle for their slayer.

A Candle to Cleanse a Sickhouse
Take thee finest beeswax of purest white, as are in high demand by the temples. Melt it well and remove from the flame, before it begins to cloud add one tenth its weight in essence of lavender, some use oil of verbena to the same effect but it has never worked for me and in any case is not as strongly scented or noble, for the lavender was brought to our land by the men of the imperium whose works can reliably be considered superior to native ways. It is not suitable to cloud the wax with your blood if giving the candle to another, instead double-strengthen the wick with a thread of your robe and a hair of your head instead to lend it your potence - the wick is of no concern in this spell and I favour hemp or barkcloth cord to recoup the expense of the wax and essence. To complete the spell, light the candle while exclaiming "Avaunt, avaunt, unclean winds and spirits!" You will know it has worked if the circle of your flame's light is free of dustmotes and other airborne spores, which it will drive before it like a wind. No man who carries such a candle will contract the pox, nor will he choke on bad winds, even if he were to luncheon in a plague ward. If burned beside the bed of a patient they will not spread their sickness to others and may recover at greater speed.

The Leyndell Perfumers were forefront in my mind when thinking of Chandler Lore.

A Candle to Walk Unseen At Night
Take thee common tallow and blacken it with soot - I have heard tell that some use the tallow of cats instead but those who request this are like to be low sorts and unwilling to part with the coin such costly materials demand, but it may prove efficaceous. On the wick one cannot scrimp, however; only the spun threads of a thiefs' cloak will suffice (this your client may be able to supply themselves, charge them not a whit less!). Dip it in silence and darkness, by touch and familiarity of your workplace - it matters not if the result is unbeautiful. Empower with blood and hair as standard, but beware - any diviner worth their lamen can find you by it, so pick your clients wisely and the foolish and unfortunate deny. When the candle is lit and the spell is completed, only the bearer of the candle will be able to see the light it casts.

A Candle to Cast a Shadowy Death
Take thee the tallow of a werewolf, the bloodier its reign of terror before being felled the better for this purpose - this alone should warn you of the dire nature of this spell, which we do not reveal to outsiders or offer in sale to any clients besides the King and his appointed agents. Some say a female werewolf produces a slyer killer while a male a more fierce one, but this may be mere chatter - the fat of a werewolf that died of old age however is a fearsome reagent indeed! Render it well and colour and scent to your liking. For the wick take a silken strangler's cord, sometimes called a garotte in the cities of the east, and snip it free of its handles or thumb-loops. Adding too much of yourself to such a candle is, I feel, unwise and may lead to the spell being confused as to its target - if making it for another add no more than one of your hairs and one thread of your robe - NEVER blood such a candle! To complete the spell, carve the name of the intended victim into the wax and fix their image in your mind as you light the wick, saying "O, beast of smoke and shadows, I call on you to hunt!". You will see that the candle flame casts a shadow antipodal to your own, one of bestial caste and terrible swiftness, like the moving image created by a zoetrope. This will hunt your target unerringly and though it be made of shadows - and proof against blades and all mortal weapons besides fire - it can yet tear and rend flesh and wood alike as if it were solid. It will fix its attentions on the target, ignoring all others save those that try to rise in its quarry's defence or those who through flame or sorcery deal it injury.

This is how Chandlers would look as a Soulsian enemy (or NPC merchant?)

A Candle to Sting the Eyes of Darksome Beasts
Take thee wax harvested from a hive that has stung to death a mammal or a reptile of any size (cage together a mouse and the hive if you must), melt it well and colour and scent to your liking - crimson is traditional and auspicious for this work, but not necessary. The wick must be made of nettle fibre cord, easily found and harvested in summer once the nettle-tips are no longer good for eating. Dip the wick whilst speaking this Undercommon malediction between each coating;

Mong bạn nhìn thấy ánh sáng.

I do not know the meaning of this phrase myself, but I am assured that creatures of the dark places of the world consider it a dire and terrible curse. Add two parts of yourself to the mix if intended for a client; blood, hair or thread, it matters not. When lit, the candle will burn with a terrible piercing bright red flame. Those creatures that have the faculty such that they may see clearly by night will find this light especially painful and turn their faces from it as if put pepper in their eyes. Doubly so for those creatures who fear the light of the sun, who will be driven before the candle's light shrieking as if lashed by the whips of hell.

A Fulminating Candle to Dismay a Foe
Take thee tallow from a fighting bull, one which has gored a matador is best but not strictly necessary as long as it has fought on the sands. The wick must be wooden, made of lighting-struck oak, soaked in oil and allowed to dry in sunlight - olive is best, but any will suffice. The tapers should be small and fit well in the palm of the hand, with enough weight to be thrown a goodly distance. Colour and scent to your liking - be sure to pick a memorable combination! Dire results could come from mixing up this candle with others! Brightest saffron yellow and the scent of long pepper and grains of paradise are traditional. To employ, light the candle and cast it forth from your person immediately. Within five heartbeats of its lighting it will burst forth with a blast of light and buffeting force such to knock an armoured man from his feet and cast him back five paces. A foeman can so be rendered momentarily blind and dazed, ripe for the misericorde.

When you travel in dark places, carry a light.

Clerics as Prophets (Esoteric Lorebuilding)

 Clerics are odd ducks. Their classical image of the mailed crusader with a religious proscription against wielding bladed weapons deliberately evokes medieval warrior-priests of the Archbishop Turpin and Odo of Bayeux vein. But while those fellows were members of a powerful Church with clear heirarchy and vast political power, the adventuring cleric is free to roam the backroads and wildnerness, associating with thieves, bandits and witches, and if they run afoul of the authorities they can expect to be treated like any other homeless vagabond. The various incarnations of the Cleric from OD&D to 5E have expounded on their power to call down miracles and avaunt unquiet souls, but conspicuously absent has been any reference to the political power of the church or temple they represent. This is strange on the face of it, priests have always wielded a lot of social clout - but our adventuring cleric is unmoored.

There's plenty of ways I could develop subsystems and add class abilities, but I don't like changing something when I can just recontextualise it instead. And for the adventuring cleric, one little tweak to how clerics are conceptualised makes everything about its design make perfect sense;

Clerics aren't priests, they're prophets.

You have no political power or support from a wider Church as a cleric because there isn't one. Oh, there's religions out there, sure - whole heirarchies of temples, pontiffs and priests - and you're not part of it.

Bearer of the Word

As an adventuring cleric you're a revelation, a new Word coming out of the wilderness to shake the foundations of the earth. If the wider religious heirarchy hears about you they're probably not going to welcome you with open arms; they're probably going to either laugh at you or ignore you. Once you start getting more notoriety they're going to denounce you as a heretic, maybe try to get you burned at the stake if your message is a bit too radical. Once you hit Name level and start gathering real power, they're going to start sweating bullets and quietly packing the silverwear into easily-moved trunks. Either way, they're not going to help you.

Terrible Purpose

But adventurers? Freethinkers and desperadoes, living by their wits and determination. The kind of folk who decide to make a profession out of wresting handfuls of grave goods from nameless horrors deep beneath the earth aren't the sort to look askance at a fellow for worshipping strange gods and preaching radical heresies, not when he can heal with a touch and cast back the unquiet dead by force of will. Sinners one and all - the ones who need to hear your Word the most.

Shake the Foundations

When a player wants to be a cleric I now tell them to invent the name of their god and the tenets of their faith themselves and that nobody before them in the current mileu has ever heard of it. This might be because they're a foreigner, a missionary from a mysterious land far, far away (with accompanying odd customs), or they're the first to hear the voice of a nascent god in the wilderness. As they grow in notoriety and perform great deeds, so too does the power of their god over the land swell - this is why their god can't just grant them miracles on command; their power is finite and constrained - the cleric's god is at first little more than a whisper on the wind, but quickly grows to titanic proportions.

Inner Mysteries

The spell list of all clerics is broadly similar because the divine itself has a certain essential nature - that of bringing Order out of chaos. Curative spells like cure light wounds and restoration just return broken parts of creation back to their intact state, but really that's all any clerical spell does. All clerical spells are essentially just glimpses into the world as it should be, sinless and unfallen. In the world as it should be water would refuse to drown, bar the way or even moisten the robes of the righteous - that's how a cleric casts water walk, by reminding the waters of their duty. Command and Gease/Quest? People should obey a servant of the gods. Flame strike? That's just the sun and stars fulfilling their intended purpose as weapons against the forces of darkness.

Of course there are gods of Chaos and Darkness, too. Sometimes they're just the guys who cast the reversed versions of Cleric spells and command rather than turn undead by default, but in my home games clerics are exclusively the servants of Order. The gods of Chaos have their priests, of course - they're just represented by Magic-Users.

Again, this is not an excercise in changing the class - it's an excercise in not changing it, keeping it exactly as written without any need to make the game world change to fit the way clerics are actually played. That said, if players want to add one or two spells per level of their own devising to their clerical spell list to flesh out their ethos I'm more than happy - I'm ecstatic in fact.

Lightbringer

The Folly of Alchemists is Believing Man is Perfectable - Fantastic Implants

Originally intended to be GLOGTOBER content, but that ship has long since sailed, ho-hum.

Inspired by this incredible post (and excellent blog overall).

The sorcerers of old were ever searching of ways to transcend their feeble biology, to allow their bodies to match the transcendant powers their minds were able to encompass. Of these practices the rite of lichdom is by far the most enduring, but in the tombs of sorcerers who sought to expand their powers rather than prolong their lives can be found relics of another tradition - the replacement of mundane flesh with fantastical artifice.

d66 Eye Replacements
11. Adamant Orb: Completely indestructible, ignore any facial wounds that target this eye. You will never be permanently blinded while you have it.

12. Apatite Deciever: Brilliant blue faceted apatite. Allows you to cast an illusion over your face, letting your features appear however you wish.

13. Autochthonic Eye: Mummified eye of an elder race, like the serpentmen or gigantes, set in amber. Lets you read their language and understand the purpose and operation of their artifacts instantly by sight.

14. Balorian Marker: Emits an eye-wateringly bright but narrow red beam of light. Anyone you make eye contact with must save or be dazzled. If implanted on your dominant side, allows you to aim ranged weapons with startling accuracy (+2 to hit). Makes stealth impossible in the dark unless you wear a patch over it - the light is visible even through your eyelid.

15. Bibliographic Oculus: Marble orb, bound with brass rings, set with a quartz lens. Records up to five thousand pages worth of text that has been presented before it, allows you to recall it to your vision at will. Can function as a spellbook.

16. Cathexic Monitor: Polished welo opal, set with a ring of rosegold on one side to imitate a iris. Allows you to see how much emotional energy is invested in objects, by a roseate glow about them. Things nobody cares about are unlit, while something considered very important is limned with a rosy flame.

21. Clay Eye: Simple orb of fired river clay, with a stylus-marked sclera and pupil. Lets you identify the presence of motive force in animated objects, golems and the like without having to see them move.

22. Coalblack Sphere: Carved and resin-varnished coal, perfect in every detail right down to the veins on the surface of the eye. Staring at something intently and squinting causes it to catch fire as if a lit torch had been pressed up against it, thrice per day. 

23. Daguerrotypic Lens: A sphere of polished tin, set with a dark lens of smoky quartz. Lets you perfectly memorize up to 15 images and recall them to memory. If implanted on the same side as your dominant hand, you can sketch or paint the scene from memory in photorealistic detail in a tenth of the time it would normally take an artist to depict.

24. Diamond Gaze: Faceted and uncomfortable, the socket it is placed in weeps metalic gold resin that collects like candlewax around the lower eyelid. You may determine the market value of gems automatically, and identify magical gems and jewellery.

25. Excogigating Oculus: A perfect sphere of hardened glass, within which can be seen moving thousands of intricate clockwork mechanisms and miniscule diamond lenses. Roll a d20 at the start of the day, at any time thereafter you may swap the result of this die with any other made by yourself or anyone within your field of vision.

26. Fane Orbit: Brass, with a cinnabar lens, intricately inscribed with minute Adamic script. Can be possessed by a noncorporeal being, allowing them to see through it and communicate telepathically with the wearer. The wearer gains the possessing being's visual abilities, if any.

31. Gorgonized Sphere: Polished granite, with a jagged vein of malachite running through like a serpent's slit-eye. Closing your other eye (if present) and looking through it alone makes you immune to the petrifying gazes of basilisks and medusae. 

32. Hoarfrost Orb: Clear crystal sphere filled with a viscous liquid and flecks of silvery powder. The wearer's vision is not obscured by snow or fog, no matter how thick.

33. Habile Eye: Ivory inlaid with silver in geometric patterns radiating out from an aquamarine lens. Guides the bearer's hand-eye coordination, increasing their skill in delicate tasks such as trap-disarmament and similar tasks, as if they were a Thief of the 3rd level (or giving a Thief +3 levels worth of skill improvements in Climbing, Disarming and Lock Picking).

34. Isocratic Orb: A clear glass sphere, changes its surface to match exactly the wearer's original eye. Persons making eye contact with the wearer automatically assume them to be of equal social status to themselves, regardless of their current attire or familiarity, until given reason to suspect otherwise - at which point they may make a Save vs. Devices to shake off the enchantment.

35. Jacinth Apotropaic: Bright orange cabouchon with a cat's-eye reflectivity. Renders the bearer immune to disease-like curses such as mummy rot, lycanthropy and wasting sickness caused by a Bestow Curse spell and magically induced fear.

36. Karyote Stone: Looks like a bacterium the size of a grape, firm and slightly rubbery to the touch with organelles swimming within. When placed inisde the eye socket will slowly divide into smaller and smaller subdivisions over the course of a week, eventually forming a new biological eye of random colour and possibly belonging to another species, which divides once more to produce a copy of the stone. 

41. Lachrymose Spherule: Marble with a bloodstone cornea. Once per day on command it will weep a single tear of an oily crimson fluid which will act as a Cure Disease potion to anyone who imbibes it within an hour of it forming, and emits a subtle scent in the immediate area which drives vampires and other blood-drinkers into a berserk frenzy, throwing off their human guises and bearing their snarling fangs openly.

42. Malediction Optic: Obsidian inlaid with minute geometric patterns of silver. Allows the wearer to percieve curses on beings and objects as floating achromatic notation in the language of bygone Koth. If the wearer doesn't speak Kothic they can still see curses in this way, but if they also speak the language it will provide details on the nature on the curse and has a 2:6 chance of revealing a non-spell method for removing the curse.

43. Nacreous Spheroid: A beautiful pearlescent orb, optical distortions on its surface give the impression of a rainbow-coloured swirling iris when viewed from the right angle. Amplifies the bearer's charisma to superhuman levels, doubling their hireling limit and loyalty and allowing them to cast Suggestion a number of times per day equal to their Charisma bonus, if any.

44. Numiform Eyecap: An ancient electrum 1 Obol coin, such as those placed over the eyes of the dead. Placed in an empty eyesocket it will affix in place and allow the bearer to see through the ghost of their lost eye. This ghost-eye can see into the spirit world and allows the bearer to percieve invisible undead.

45. Oriform Orbit: Horribly organic, looks like a ball of human gum-tissue with a double row of tiny teeth on one side. Unlike other eyes on this list it provides no replacement vision in the lost eye, however once in place the bearer may open the 'mouth' and if the eye of a dead being is placed in it the bearer may see through it, gaining any special vision modes they once possessed, or allow the Oriform Orbit to chew it up and eat it, allowing the bearer to see the last 5 seconds of the dead's life.

46. Paynim Ocule: Basalt, iris is an incised triskele. The bearer is able to read Ogham and has their alignment move one step toward Chaotic.

51. Quern Gaze: A short cylindrical ring rather than a sphere, granite with a borehole in the centre. Can exert a tortional force on whatever it is directed at, crushing it to a fine powder. This acts as a Disintegrate spell that only functions on brittle, non-living substances, thrice per day.

52. Relucent Cusp: Mirror-shined and featureless. Gives a 50% chance of reflecting back any gaze attacks directed against the bearer.

53. Sable Stone: A light-drinking black stone with a bright star at its centre acting as a pupil. Thrice per day it may absorb all light in a given area, acting as a Darkness spell. However, before the Darkness effect may be cast again, the absorbed light must be first expelled, either diffusely as a Light spell or as a penetrating beam of laser light - dealing 3d6 damage in a 120ft line, save vs. wands for no damage.

54. Setiferous Sensor: Resembles a fossilised sea urchin. When inserted into the eye socket it exudes spines in all directions, painfully embedding itself in the cavity beyond the capacity to be removed without a Regeneration or Heal spell to save the patient from dying in the process. While unsightly, it does provide the bearer with subtle senses beyond the limits of human perception - the bearer gains the ability to detect vibrations in the air produced by moving objects, giving them a 5:6 chance of detecting ambush and negating the attack bonus to sneak attacks.

55. Telestic Witness: Appears to be a piece of midnight sky fashioned into a sphere, with a tiny swirling nebula as its iris and a black hole as its pupil. Once per day permits the bearer to identify the exact nature and function of any kind of weird dungeon shit they find - magic mirrors, sinister altars, bottomless wells of chaos, that kind of jazz. No mucking about, just tell them exactly what it does.

56. Thelemic Monocule: A plain white marble marked with a hexagrammatic ideogram on one side. Acts as proof against any visually-induced mind control effects, such as Hypnotic Pattern or the entrancing gaze of a vampire.

61. Ultion Glare: Initially appears to be a nondescript glass eye that changes to mimic the bearer's original, but when in sight of monstrous humanoids it becomes a baleful slitted and bloodshot red, twisting the bearer's face involuntarily into a snarl and filling their mind with images of slaughter. The bearer gains a bonus equal to their level to damage against orcs, goblins, ogres, giants and other such marauding humanoids, exactly as a Ranger does. They automatically reroll any friendly result on reaction rolls with such creatures.

62. Vaticidal Oculus: Smoky quartz with a flower-spray inclusion of iron oxide at its core. The bearer is immune to any effect that alters luck, fate or probabilities, such as Bless/Bane or portent dice, seeming to step through impossible parabolas of time and space to disregard such oracular chicanery.

63. Willemite Revealer: A brilliant yellow-green gem. Permits the bearer to percieve strange radiations - including magic but explicity excluding curses and illusions - as flourescences within their field of vision, and with practice and experimentation to tell them apart.

64. Xylotomous Eye: Tungsten steel with a spiral screw-head pattern as its iris. Permits the bearer to see through wooden surfaces. Even a coating of paint will obstruct this sight, so it's less useful in seeing through buildings than might be expected but it could allow someone to spy through floorboards with great ease, and is exceptionally useful in spotting things hidden in a forest, granting a +2 bonus to surprise rolls in forested environments.

65. Yantra Stone: A brilliantly coloured enamel sphere covered with a circular geometric diagram. A Cleric who bears this eye treats their effective Wisdom as 4 points higher for purposes of determining bonus spells per day.

66. Zendic Orb: Gold-bright brass, set with the ideogram for "Truth" in the ancient tongue of High Acheron. Divine magic washes off the bearer like water from a duck's back, granting them 80% magic resistance against Clerical or Druidic spells. 

d12 Tooth Replacements
1. Aeviternal Molar: A flawless recreation of an actual human molar (actually slightly larger than modern human, due to the creator having a greater concentration of neanderthal blood than is common in the present day), cast in indestructible black adamant. Grants the bearer immunity to the failure chance of potions of longevity - they can prolong their life indefinately though the use of such potions without the cumulative chance of the effect being reversed.

2. Aerobic Incisor: Coffee-brown and horribly pitted along the inner side. Produces enough oxygen to allow the bearer to survive without an external source of air as long as their airway is not obstructed (such as by being strangled).

3. Bacchanalian Cuspid: Carved from crimson Alexandrite. Allows the bearer to throw off the effects of drunkeness with a moment's thought and acts as a Neutralise Poison spell that only affects ingested toxins.

4. Canicidal Canine: Sharp, conical, formed of gray alien metal shot through with silvery streaks of unknown provenance. The bearer's bite injects a save-or-die poison on any dog or wolf-like creature, including werewolves, wolfweres, wargs and the like.

5. Demephitising Dental: A row of flanged and rugose alagdonite mandibular incisors. Purifies the bearer's breath, both inward - allowing them to ignore poisonous gasses and spores by simply breathing through the mouth - and out; eliminating halitosis.

6. Eclipsis Razor: A maxillary central incisor of titanium-capped cerulite. Allows the bearer to make their speech silent to specific individuals, as many as they choose - though they must be aware of them at the time this power is invoked.

7. Furibund Fang: Silver, longer and sharper than human and intricately cast with symbols of baying wolves, packed together tight as sardines. Allows the bearer to enter into a berserker rage, wherein they increase their To Hit and Melee Damage by +2, decrease their AC by -2, and gain 2d6 temporary hit points for 3 rounds. User must consume several handfuls of raw red meat before using this power again.

8. Grammarye Tusk: Ametrine lower canine, inset with a tiny silverwork shrine to Yig the serpent god. A magic-user with this tooth may once per day choose to increase one of the numerical variables of their spells (such as range or damage) by 50% before casting.

9. Hamartia Taster: An oddly sharp ammolite molar. By tasting the flesh of a creature you can determine any special vulnerabilities or resistances it has. 

10. Irroborating Molar: Lead-gray and metallic. Grows into and through the bones of the user's skull, converting the bone into living steel. The bearer has a 2:6 chance of ignoring critical hits, due to the added internal protection.

11. Tentiginous Mandibular:  Crystal-clear mellite incisor. Increases the bearer's Charisma by 2 points and allows them to cast Dominate by kiss once per day - only one target can be Dominated in this way at any given time, the prior victim being freed from influence if another is targetted.

12. Winterkill Fangs: Replaces both the user's maxillary canines with translucent white feldspar fangs. The bearer's breath mists in hot weather but doesn't in cold. Grants resistance to harm from cold weather, reduces damage from cold-based spells by half, and allows the bearer to breathe a Cone of Cold once per day per point of Constitution bonus.

d12 Fingernail Replacements
1. Batrachian Touch: Patterned like a poison arrow frog. The bearer's attacks inject lethal poison on a critical hit, requiring a save vs. death.

2. Drepanoid Talon: Squamous and reddish brown, like the back of a pangolin. On command extends into a curled sickle-blade. Acts as a dagger in melee combat, and gives the bearer advantage on grappling and climbing rolls.

3. Evirating Claw: Pointed and porcelain-like, shot through with pulsing crimson veins. With a touch the victim must save vs. death or suffer a great langour and muscular ache, reducing their melee damage by -4.

4. Foveate Plate: A plate of horribly pitted leaden metal, like the surface of the moon. Bestows 2d6 bonus hit points, rerolled each dawn, from a paramagnetic field encasing the bearer's skin.

5. Hastate Nail: Shaped like the head of an assegai, cast in dark bronze. The bearer's arm can extend 10ft with a whiplike speed, striking as a spear in melee combat.

6. Kinematic Claw: Mirror-shined and intricately inscribed with geometric diagrams. The bearer can perfectly replicate any hand motion they observe. Amongst other uses, this can allow them to copy a person's writing while observing them from a distance.

7. Nebulising Nail: Initially translucent and colourless, spotted along its surface with tiny pores. By touching it to a liquid substance the nail will absorb it, taking on the same colour. Thereafter it will emit the absorbed substance as a gaseous puff in a 90-degree 3' spray.

8. Obsidian Tecpatl: Razor-sharp and black as night, carved with a side-profile of a skeletal face, could easily cut through a binding rope with a minute's work. If dipped in the blood of a freshly-killed sapient humanoid, holds a charge that can be used to activate any other implant that has limited uses per day.

9. Puissant Finger: Silver-chrome and inset with the constellation Orion in tiny diamonds. The finger it is attached to can be slowly pressed through any solid surface like it was made of wet clay. Useless in combat as it must be pressed in the same place for a few seconds before it will take effect, but can make peep-holes or slowly cut through any surface less than a finger's thickness.

10. Quaffing Digit: Striated and porous like pumice. Allows the user to taste potions to determine their properties by placing their fingertip in the liquid. If tasting would ordinarily reduce the potency of the potion, it is not affected in this case, if the potion is poisoned, cursed or caustic the nail can be sacrificed instead of conferring its penalty to the victim - it turns black, shrivels up and drops off, allowing the victim's normal nail to eventually regrow.

11. Smiting Nail: Silvered, bearing the image of a warrior saint's deathmask. Once per day enwreathes a weapon held in the hand that bears the nail with a radiant silver flame, adding +2d4 damage to the next attack made with it and forcing the target to Save or be stunned with agony for 1 round.

12. Upheaving Claw: Black iron thumbnail, squared like a chisel. Endows the arm that bears it with tremendous strength for purposes of lifting only. The bearer could haul an oxcart off a trapped person one-handed but would not be able to carry it even a single step.

I HAVE LASER BEAMS COMING OUT OF MY HEAD - (GLOG Psychic Paths)

The common man has infinite options available to them, and like the diffuse rays of the sun their will presses itself only lightly upon the World. The true master prunes his will, aligns and collimates it, as a lens focuses light into a narrow point - and the World burns beneath it.

These being possible advancement paths for Locheil's psychic. Go read it first or little of this will make much sense.

MY FOCUS IS EXCHANGE

A: My Paradigm is... I will never go back on my word.

From it I gain the Power... Dis For Dat

I can trade anything for anything. The exchange doesn't have to be balanced, because value is subjective, but everyone involved has to agree it's worth their while. A rich man could buy a year of a bum's lifespan for a million bucks. A soldier could sell his marksmanship skills in exchange for a would-be terrorist's previously peaceful life. More prosaically, people within my Crown can swap places with eachother freely.

B: My Paradigm is...  I will never steal.

From it I gain the Power...  Here For There

I can trade the places of anything inanimate or consenting within my Crown, including myself. If I exchange the places of things that are of radically different mass they both create sonic booms, which can stun and deafen anybody nearby - including myself.

C: My Paradigm is...  I will never work for free.

From it I gain the Power...  Fuck You, Pay Me

Anyone who wishes to attack me or force me to do something I do not wish to must pay me for the privilege. The minimum payment is one gold piece, but each seperate act requires an individual payment - if the gnoll who wants to gut me throws a platium piece they get one attack, not ten. Payment can be in goods as well as legal tender, but the one-for-one rule still applies.

D: My Paradigm is...  I will never accept charity.

From it I gain the Power...  Equivalent Exchange

I can transform objects I own into other things. If exchanging goods for goods, some bastard cosmic exchequer taxes the transaction, meaning I can only transform it into something of half its market value or less. If exchanging legal tender (including gold and gems) for goods though, the transformation occurs at the market price. I can also combine the value of things with identical characteristics, like merging two 50' ropes into one 100' rope or a pile of small diamonds into one big diamond with the combined value of them all (this particular ability makes me incredibly popular with wizards). All coins are considered to have 'identical characteristics' for this purpose, so that giant mound of copper coins I found at the bottom of the last dungeon can be quite easily squidged down into a more manageable pocketful of platinum.

MY FOCUS IS ORDER

A: My Paradigm is... I will never enter a home unwelcomed.

From it I gain the Power... Inviolable Domain

I can exclude a broad or narrow category of things from the area of my Crown, one at a time. They simply cease to exist within it. Whatever I choose applies to me as well, but I can game it through specificity - if I choose projectiles then any bullets in my gun will dissappear, but if I narrow it down to bullets and use a crossbow, I'm good. The excluded things go back to existing once they leave the area of my Crown or I change it to exclude something else.

B: My Paradigm is...  I will never vandalise a work of art.

From it I gain the Power...  Crystalise

I can convert dead or inorganic matter within my Crown into a changeless crystalline form that is immune to the passage of time and back again. Living organic matter can be encapsulated within it but not converted. Beings that have been so encysted (they should probably get a Save to avoid it) remain alive, not aging and requiring no nourishment nor air and could be chipped out but outside my Crown crystalised material returns to its normal state in about 10 minutes in any case. Crystalised air has equivalent physical resilience to ice, but feels warm like polystyrene to the touch. Anything I Crystalise is vulnerable to a Shatter spell.

C: My Paradigm is...  I will never break a written contract.

From it I gain the Power... Indivisible

No part of my body can be separated from the whole, nor can my effects be removed from me against my will. I can still be poked full of holes and have my organs lacerated and bones broken, but I will never die of blood loss or being beheaded. Likewise I cannot be disarmed or pickpocketed, any attempt to do so finds the item held as firm as an immovable rod.

D: My Paradigm is...  I will never damage a work of artifice.

From it I gain the Power...  Pyramid Power

Things that spend time within my Crown subtly get better over time, slowly moving toward their ideal form. Entropy itself flees before my Crown; rust returns to healthy iron, cracks meld together, dirt sloughs like water from waxpaper, dull blades become sharp. The effect extends to living things; diseases halt in their progression and in time reverse their course, wounds never fester and heal at thrice the normal pace and never leave scars, people even age backwards or forwards at an accelerated pace until they reach the age where they are at their physical peak, though it is rare for someone other than myself to be within my Crown long enough to see such an impact. Given enough time, objects and even people might even become better than they were at their best; blades cut atomic-thin, silk ropes become as tough as carbon fibre, skin and muscle as clean and defined as marble statuary.

MY FOCUS IS IDOLATRY

A: My Paradigm is...  I will never take up arms.

From it I gain the Power... Stone Shadow

I can transform my body into a statue carved from solid stone of my choice. I can then step outside of the statue, leaving it behind - it is real and permanent, even if it leaves my Crown. If I grapple someone and leave them trapped in a stony headlock they're probably not getting out without help or a hammer and chisel. Given enough time I can create relatively stable walls or other structures out of interlocking statues of myself, mortared together with naught but handholds and embraces.

B: My Paradigm is...  I will never refuse an offering of food, drink or incense.

From it I gain the Power...  White Jade Shintai

By my will, as many statues created through Stone Shadow as I have levels can be declared Idols. Each Idol has its own Crown, I can see and hear through all my Idols and count as standing in their place for purposes of Telekinesis, Telepathy and Manifestation. At will I can dissappear from where I stand to step out of them. When I do so I cannot leave the area of the Idol's Crown, but I really have moved places and can take back anything I find there with me when I return. If I wish to declare a new Idol once I have reached my limit, one of my previously created Idols of my choosing crumbles to dust.

C: My Paradigm is...  I will never mistreat social outcasts or show unearned respect to the mighty.

From it I gain the Power...  Army of God

I can animate the statues created through Stone Shadow and control them as if they were my own body while they are within my Crown. All the animated statues are as subject to my Paradigms as I am, and so may not bear weapons, but their fists are still made of stone.

D: My Paradigm is...  I will never desecrate a sacred place.

From it I gain the Power...  Smoke of Sacrifice

I gain power from people who worship at my Idols. Any item left within my Idol's Crown as a sacrifice transforms into smoke and is inhaled by the Idol. I can summon to hand anything they sacrifice, and gain one point I can apply to any number on my character sheet for every magnitude of worshippers I have (10, 100, 1000, etc.). Finally, if someone prays before my Idol for a blessing I can bestow them a Power that fulfils their wish, along with a Paradigm of my choosing - as many such blessings as I have Templates can exist at any one time.