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.

Dark and sinister man, have at thee - GLOG Duelling Styles

Answering Locheil's challenge here.

Loch's original post mentioned Lessons that some fighting styles had, but didn't elaborate on them. I interpreted them as extra special bonuses you could gain once mastering all techniques within a given style. I leave it up to the DM how they are acquired, probably via questing.

Ψ - Gloriam
Style of the de Voltenes, an aasimar noble family descended from ancient heroes, now sadly degenerate and impious - their youngest son rumoured to have been born a tiefling as divine punishment and sent to the New World aboard a slave barge to save the family's face. Requires the use of a silvered blade.

1. Technique: Ave Igna - Shout a holy word aloud as you execute a lunging fleché and the wound site sparks on contact - your attack causes fire damage on a hit, and may set flammable things alight.
2. Stance: Pinhead Dance - As long as you have an elegant weapon in hand, you cannot lose your balance no matter how narrow or unsure the surface you stand upon. What is considered elegant changes with fashion and circumstance, but in general; rapier yes, thousand-folded eastern disembowelling scimitar yes, sledgehammer no, lochaber axe no.
3. Technique: Speculum Solis - Use the mirror-polished surface of your silvered sword to dazzle your foe. Target must Save or be blinded for one round, in addition to being stabbed. Only useable outdoors in the daytime or with an equivalent source of light - a Daylight spell is fine.
4. Stance: Immaculate - You cannot be muddied, bloodied, dusted, splattered or moistened by the to-and-fro of combat. Mostly this is just showing off, but exceptionally useful when fighting things that have acid for blood, emit gouts of spores when poked, or other such nonsense.

Lesson of Gloriam: On Angel's Wings - At will you may change your body weight to be equivalent to the weight of your sin. The DM will judge how sinful you are, based on past conduct. A truly light soul can fall like a feather and skip across the surface of a pond with a few dainty taps of their toes to propel them. A thoroughly wicked soul cracks pavement tiles when they tread and could make a carthorse strain to pull them from where they stand.

Ψ - Calcolo
Enthusiastic application of the skills taught at the Drezelli School of Mathematics, whose students can be found in most wine bars after exam-season, gleefully taking eachother apart with algorithmic precision. Requires the use of a cubit rod in the offhand.

1. Technique: Point Control - You can never roll lower than your last attack roll in this combat. i.e. If you rolled an 11 one round, and 7 the next, your second roll is considered to have been an 11. The next round your minimum roll would be 7.
2. Technique: Measure Twice - If you win initiative, you may choose to let your opponent act before you. If you do, ignore any bonus to their AC that comes from any type of armour that has gaps - including scales and the like.
3. Stance: Music of the Primes - When your attack roll comes up 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 or 19, you deal an additional 1 point of damage, even if the attack would not otherwise hit.
4. Stance: Long Division - The AC you get from Panache is doubled versus arrows and hurled daggers and the like as long as you have not moved in the past round. Seeming to cross an infinite number of divisions between you and the archer, they are very easy to swat aside.

Lesson of Calcolo: Number of the Beast - At the start of each day you have done at least two of the following things the night before that are pleasing to the Devil;

1. Got riotously drunk.
2. Played a game of probability for money.
3. Attended a lecture on one of the natural sciences.
4. Got in a fight.

...roll a d6. You may add or subtract the result of that d6 from any roll you or another makes today, after which it is discarded. If you roll a 6, keep it and roll another d6, up to a total of three dice.

Ψ - Lirippé

Discrete cloak-fighting style popularised by Antigonese Bladewards, designed to neutralise assassins hiding among the fashionable set to target their masters. Requires a cloak or cape of fine quality.

1. Technique: Clean the Blade - An envenomed weapon that attacks you and misses has its poison wiped clean on your cloak.
2. Technique: Toro! - You may apply your Panache bonus to AC to another person within arm's reach. You do not personally benefit from it in any round you use this technique. If you know Clean the Blade, you may apply it on attacks you intercept this way.
3. Technique: Olé! - You may Parry against attacks directed at another person within arm's reach.
4. Stance: Capa y Espada - While in this stance anyone carrying a concealed weapon must make an opposed Wisdom check or you know exactly what they're carrying, and when you Riposte you may choose to disarm your opponent instead of attacking.

Lesson of Lirippé: The Horns - If you die in defence of another, you have a 2 in 6 chance of instead miraculously pulling through, leaving you on 1hp.

Ψ - SoÞwide

Personal style of the wide-eyed barbarian turned sanctioned witch-hunter Aethelwulf the Questioner, who loathes wizards and takes grim delight in putting them to the question.

1. Technique: Fear & Surprise - If you win initiative on the first round of combat you can backstab your target for +4 to Attack and double damage, providing you have enough movement to run up behind them.
2. Stance: Ruthless Efficiency - You deal +2 damage to anyone who has Magic Dice.
3. Stance: Fanatical Devotion - If you are charmed or otherwise mentally compelled the one who charmed you takes d6 psychic damage every round the effect remains active.
4. Stance: Scarlet Robed - While garbed in cardinal's red you add your [level] to Saves vs. unholy magics. This includes most necromancy, all demonology and anything from a witch's spell list, but not fireballs and lightning bolts and the like.

Lesson of SoÞwide: The Question - You have permanent sanpaku eyes. When you defeat someone you may scream a question in their face, they must Save or answer as honestly as they can before they are removed from combat.

Ψ - Scytta

A style of archery perfected by outlaw poachers and bandit woodsmen of the Stonewood Forest, rumoured to have made deals with druids and witches to keep their brigand villages hidden from outsiders. Requires the use of a longbow and stone-headed arrows.

1. Technique: Stag-Piercer - Add your Strength modifier to damage with bowshots within Close range.
2. Technique: Legs & Eyes - Ignore cover penalties from any shields smaller than a pavise.
3. Stance: Hunter's Eye - Each round you spend aiming, reduce the effective range bracket of the target by one step.
4. Stance: Wind Wyrd - Ignore weather-related penalties to shooting, even in howling winds and torrential rain you can find just the right place to put an arrow in the air such that the wind will carry it where you want it. Supernatural weather may force you to make a Save to oppose it, but you still can.

Lesson of Scytta: Fruit of the Yew - Given a day to forage in a forested environment you can manufacture a single poison arrow that deals 4d6 damage or 2d6 on a successful Save. You can have as many poison arrows in existence at any one time as you have Templates.

Nothing Stays Dead Forever - Mushroom Wizard (GLOG)

 Why not just take one spell from DCC and turn it into a whole GLOG wizard? Yeah, lets do that.

Use your favourite GLOG wizard chassis

Starting Equipment: Big silly sadogasa hat, tan-coloured linen robes, wide utility belt covered in tooled leather pouches, 6 empty phials, 2 phials of yellow mold spores, tiny duster bellows, 2 pieces of Sporulated Oddities.

Perk: You can detect and identify funguses, slimes and molds within a 60ft radius without a roll, through a combination of intimate understanding of their growing conditions and a practiced nose. You are proficient in blowguns and poison.

Drawback: When you sleep you experience uncontrollable psychadellic visions, if roused from sleep before you would naturally awaken you act as if under a Confusion spell every round you do not pass a Save vs. Poison, until you either return to sleep or pass 3 tests.

Cantrips:

• Touch a surface to leave behind a bioluminescent slime patch that glows softly whenever something significantly magical (1MD or more worth) comes within 5ft of it.
• Spend an MD to make a useful or edible fungus grow enough to provide 1 dose/meal.
• Instantly cause any liquid that has sugars in it to ferment into crude but respectable alcohol.

Spells:

1. Choking Mold
Your magic drives the omnipresent mold and mildew spores in the area into sudden extraordinary fecundity, until they have filled an area 10'x[dice] diameter with choking, toxic particles. Air-breathing creatures within that area are incapacitated for [sum] rounds by coughing fits unless they make a Save vs. Poison, able to do no more than move their normal walking speed and defend themselves - they still keep their full AC but may not attack, cast spells or use supernatural abilities that require focus and concentration. Hypothetically impossible to cast in extremely clean areas, but the spores you tramp around on your person will usually do the job in that case.

2. Ablative Polypores
The caster causes the dermal yeasts of the target to go into a bloom, covering their skin with a layer of spongy, leathery chitin. The target reduces any physical damage taken by [dice], the spell ends on the next sunrise or when it has absorbed [sum] damage, whichever comes first.

3. Entangling Hyphae
The caster indicates a point of earthen or wooden surface and 30' long whipping tendrils of fungal matter as thick as hemp ropes explode from it, attacking anyone in the area with a bonus equal to the wizard's own attack bonus +[dice]. Anyone successfully attacked is snared and may not move until they have freed themselves by dealing the hyphae a total of [sum] damage with a bladed weapon, hitting automatically. This damage must be dealt seperately for each creature snared. Once the initial explosion of tendrils is over others may enter the area without risk of being attacked. At the end of any round where a creature is still snared they take d6+[dice] damage from the crushing tendrils.

4. Shape Mold
The caster causes thick, rubbery, fungal matter to come into existence where they gesture and forms it into simple solid shapes such as walls, ramps, pillars, blocks, funnels, umbrellas and bridges. The total fungal mass equals [dice] 5' blocks or 10' sheets and are stable as long as their ends rest on solid ground. Mold matter is about as tough as polystyrene - in large blocks it's sturdy enough to bear a man's weight and would take a full minute of work with a bladed weapon to hack through, but the thinner sheets will crumble under any serious weight - they are however air and watertight and look solid enough at first glance, even though anyone with the strength of a goblin or more could easily push their way through.

5. Medishroom
The caster causes the fungal flora of the target to repair their injuries - dermal yeasts growing over wounds like bandages, reducing inflammation and relieving pain. The target heals [sum] points of damage. If cast with 2+ MD the target is also instantly cured of any fungal poison, disease or parasite. If cast with 4+ MD the target also regenerates any lost limbs or organs, and gets a new Save against any non-fungal poisons, diseases or parasites.

6. Psilocybic Vision
Credit to Deus-ex-Parabola's Zouave - though, annoyingly, not the version currently on his blog - for the mechanics of this.
The caster induces a potent and revelatory hallucinatory state on the target, who gets two Saves vs. Magic; the first to throw off any madness or mind-affecting ailments, the second to avoid [sum] rounds of traumatic and violent hallucinations, as a Confusion spell. The target gains a +/-[dice] bonus or penalty to their saves, divided between both as the caster desires.

7. Slimemold Form
The caster disolves their body and gear into a protoplasmic state for [sum] rounds, during which time they can slime under doors or through bars and the like, move along any surface in defiance of gravity and are immune to harm that doesn't come from fire, cold or acid. While in this state they may not attack or cast any other spells and their senses besides touch are quite dull - simple eyespots let them detect the presence and rough direction of light and movement and they can hear as if through a pillow.

8. Puffball
A big purple puffball swells into existence at the targeted point until it reaches the size of a football, then promptly explodes into a cloud of toxic spores. Creatures and objects composed of organic matter (including wooden and flesh constructs and corporeal undead) within a 10'x[dice] diameter area take [sum] damage, Save for half. Creatures and objects destroyed by this damage are reduced to nutritious compost.

9. Sporulate Shroomen
With a wave of their hand and a puff of spores the caster causes [best]+[dice] human-height toadstools to suddenly come into being, shortly afterwards growing crude faces, arms and legs, uprooting themselves and doing the wizard's bidding for [dice] turns, after which they revert to being mundane - if rather large - toadstools. Shroomen have the base stats of 0-level Men-at-Arms in leather armour who deal d6 damage with their clublike fists, but are utterly fearless and gain a bonus to attack, damage and hit points equal to +[dice]. For each MD spent after the first, add one of the following bonuses;

• All Shroomen can form chitinous melee or throwing weapons out of their own corpus once per round. These strike as +0 magical weapons but are otherwise mundane examples of their type from the equipment list. These weapons cannot be seperated from the Shrooman for more than a round without decaying into mulch.
• Their armour class is improved by one step, i.e. from Leather to Chain, Chain to Scale, Scale to Plate.
• Anything that draws breath which starts its round in an adjacent square to a Shrooman must Save vs. Poison or suffer d4 damage.
• Morale checks made in a 20' radius of a Shrooman are made at a [dice] penalty from the clouds of psychogenic spores.

10. Cordyceps Command
The victim of this vile spell must Save vs. Magic or be rendered entirely without a will of their own, obeying the last command given to them regardless of source for [sum] minutes. If the caster wishes they may invest a MD in the victim, which is set aside from their pool and not rolled until the spell is ended - while this MD is invested the caster may percieve through the victim's senses and send them commands telepathically.

11. Chartreuse Destruction
The caster flicks their finger and projects a single droplet of the horrifically deadly green slime at a the target, requiring an attack roll ignoring armour but not dodge bonuses. Victims who do not recieve disease-curing magic must cut, burn or freeze away the affected area by dealing themselves [sum]+[dice] damage within d4 rounds (others may help), or collapse into a pool of green slime, quite dead.

12. The Knowledge & Conversation of Aklo-Myotes, Eater of Death
Meditating on bare earth, the caster comes into contact with Aklo-Myotes - a globe-spanning sentient mycelial mat that is one of the oldest life-forms in existence - it was consuming their flesh that first sparked true intellect in mankind. In return for the wizard's magical energies Aklo-Myotes can perform several useful services. They will flawlessly answer [best] questions related to history, geography, mathematics, biology or chemistry. It is worth remembering that Aklo-Myotes is a being purely of the physical world - it has no spirit or soul to speak of, just a towering but wholly material intellect, and is thus utterly ignorant of spiritual matters. Aklo-Myotes does however pay scrupulous attention to anything related to lifeforms and especially dying things, has perfect memory, is almost omniscient within the sphere of the planet's surface and is very nearly as old as life itself. For greater negotiated payments, ranging from MD being automatically expended to sacrifices, errands and quests undertaken by the caster, Aklo-Myotes can  perform greater feats. This includes assisting with developing new fungal, biomantic, necromantic or geomantic spells, causing enormous natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis by rippling its massive body beneath the earth or changing a whole 6-mile hex of terrain into another type over the course of a season, such as draining a swamp into pastoral land or raising hills on previously flat ground.

Mishaps

1. Arcane Allergen: Your body and mind start rejecting your magic, MD return only on a 1 for 24hrs.
2. Urgh: You double-over in helpless nausea for d3 rounds after the spell is cast.
3. Agnosia: You briefly lose the ability to tell people apart - the best you can do is friend and foe, any attack or spell that targets others has a random chance of hitting the intended person in the group for d6 minutes.
4. I feel weird: Gain a random fungal mutation; after [sum] rounds make a Save vs. Magic, on a failure it's permanent.
5. Yarghble: Vomit up a giant pool of proteinous purple liquid in a 10' radius centred on yourself. Anyone fighting in or moving through it must Save vs. Paralysis or fall prone on the slippery mess.
6. Ohshi-!: Mycotoxins briefly induce potent but wholly uncontrolled psychic powers. Everyone within 20' - yourself included - takes a blast of [sum] psychic damage.

Dooms

1. Nocturnal: You take a [Templates] penalty to saving throws made while standing in direct sunlight. You only regain hit points through rest if you sleep during the day.
2. Anyone else getting trails?: At the start of each day, make a Save vs. Magic, on a failure you are completely insensate for d12 hours, lost in phantasmagoric visions. Without curative magic the best anyone can do for you is tie you up and pull you along on a lead until you calm down.
3. The Shroom Doom: The wizard takes root and over the course of a day and a night transforms into a Brain Fungus. Sentient but unable to take any physical action other than shrieking incoherently and only able to sense moving objects within 30' by vibration. After each week the wizard must make a Save vs. Death or go completely mad, Brain Funguses in this state are incapable of rational thought and use their spells to attack anyone coming within their sensory radius.

Avoid your Doom by undergoing an Astral Quest into the centre of your mind, being crowned the Myconid King or gaining a new, better brain.

Sporulated Oddities
1. Can of Dwarf Yogurt: Actually a kind of mold that converts leaves, twigs, moss and other random bits of organic matter into a nutritious but terribly sour brown yogurt-like slime. Allows you to live (poorly) on otherwise inedible plant matter, if not kept supplied with feedstock and water it dies after 3 days. 1 slot.
2. Portable 1-man tent: Very easy to assemble and disassemble, throw it out and peg it down. Folds up into 1 slot.
3. Bioluminescent Lantern: Not as bright as a normal lantern, illuminating out to a 20ft radius, but only needs a spoonful of fertilizer daily for fuel. Distinctive blueish light. 1 slot.
4. Long-stemmed smoking pipe: with a pouch of suspicious tobacco and a box of matches. 0 slots.
5. Six phials of antifungal powder: Gives an extra Save against the effects of fungal toxins and diseases. 1/3 of a slot each.
6. Big knife: It's just a big knife, as a short sword in combat, well made and maintained, has a little honing bar that screws into the handle. 1 slot.
7. Pair of knee-high waterproof boots: Absolutely essential for fungus-farming, made of one solid piece of alchemical faux-leather, sweaty. 1 slot, 0 when worn.
8. Long-handled tongs: Made of springy metal with wooden handles. 1 slot.
9. Spray Mister: Currently full of a fertilizer-water mix, could be filled with all sorts of things. 1 slot.
10. Spidersilk Scarf: Decorated with a fetching pattern. Wrapped twice around your face, gives advantage on Saves against airborne particles. 0 slots.
11. 50' of rope: Oddly organic in texture, like a spooled-up leathery tendril. 1 slot.
12. Quarterstaff: 6 foot of waxed oak, brass shoe, anything that you can't kill with a magic missile you can probably see off with a good whack. 1 slot.
13. Pack of mushroom-themed playing cards: A bit grubby, from your time hustling the other apprentices at Whist (at which you are Skilled). 0 slots.
14. Hammer and 10 iron spikes: When you don't have them you'll wish you did. 2 slots.
15. Thurible and 10 cones of incense: Covers up unpleasant scents. 1 slot.
16. Sack of fertilizer: If mixed with sugar, startlingly explosive. On it's own, smelly. 2 slots.
17. Bamboo Blowgun: A meter long, fires darts the length of daggers. A medium ranged weapon. Comes with 5 darts. 1 slot.
18. A jug of mushroom wine. Tastes like regular wine with a musty finish. 1 slot.
19. A farmer's almanac. For the current year, contains weather foreacasts, planting tables and assorted bits of useful knowledge. 1:6 chance once per session that it has advice relevant to a current problem that would also interfere with agricultural-types. Retains this property for 1 year, then it's good toilet paper. 1 slot.
20 a curious treasure;

1. A pair of +1 scissors: Steel with an ormolu finish, as a dagger if used as a weapon. 1/2 a slot.
2. Sapient Treefrog: Speaks common, mildly toxic skin - could be really toxic if condensed and mixed with pure alcohol. Used to be a mushroom-thief. 1 slot.
3. Tin Bucket of Potion of Mushroom Growth: Makes regular mushrooms into giant ones, the whole bucket could make a toadstool you could hollow out and use as a house. Bucket has a lid held on with little clamps on the sides. 4 slots.
4. Wand of Acid Arrow: One cubit of bogwood & verdigrised copper. Holds 1MD, regenerating at dawn. 1/2 a slot.
5. Antishawl: Woven from brown-mold mycelium, eats heat - the wearer is immune to heatstroke in all but the most absurdly hot weather, and gets advantage on saves even in those cases. 1 slot, 0 when worn (but it would be chilly to wear it all the time).
6. Jar of Adamant Glass: Looks like a regular glass kilner jar, actually made of transparent adamant - completely indestructible and seals spirit-tight. 1 slot.

Concerning the Abbreviated Races - Dwarves, Halflings & Gnomes

Extract from Ode Diminutis Propinquis Hominum: Demi-humans and Their Habits, by master wizard Athanasious Great-Wand, called "the Glaucous".

There is a common misconception even among scholars of demi-anthropology that the three taxonomies of Dvergar, Rotundus and Gnomii represent different branching clades on the tree of life. My own examination of these groups has revealed a startling truth; there is in fact only one demi-human race of foreshortened stature, and its truest form is represented by the common or mountain dwarf! That this truth has gone unrecognised is due to certain cultural and biological peculiarities, namely the dwarven shame-culture and unusually complex relationship with their humoural balance and local morphogenic fields. It is still remarkable that this revelation should have gone un-noticed for so long, given the inviability of so many physically similar species occupying the same subterrene ecological niche. To explicate;

Halflings represent the dwarf in a kind of prolongued neotenic stage. It is oft remarked that humans find halflings endearing due to their resemblance to human children, it is for this very reason that they are repulsive and annoying to dwarves - to whom they resemble overgrown dwarven children. Dwarves are dependant on strenuous physical exertion during their adolescence - ideally in low-light conditions, somewhat analogous to the growth of rhubarb in a forcing shed - to promote the production of the melancholic and choleric humours that complete their metamorphosis into hirstute and mesomorphic adulthood. Deprived of the rigors of anvil, shield-wall and mine-face their naturally strong sanguine humours take precedence, physique tends toward portliness and beard growth ends at the mutton-chop if at all. An intermediate example of this can be observed in the valley dwarves who trade with the human kingdoms and supply their mountain-dwelling cousins with the products of the surface world. While still stout and hirstute by human standards, the valley dwarves - who maintain their humour balance through heavy agriculture and forestry - are notably willowier, softer-featured and higher-voiced than the mountain dwarf and less taciturn and dour in temprament. I conjecture that halfling communities likely form in the aftermath of dwarven civil wars which are customarily concluded with mass exiles. 

Fig. 1, the halfling dissolute.

Those exiles unable to find another mountain home may have adopted human customs to survive, engaged in light agrarianism and forage, dug subterrene homes in sod hills rather than carved out of stone, and over time abandoned the practices that lead to dwarven adulthood entirely. A further proof of this conjecture is the halfling custom of going unbooted - traditional dwarven culture considers bare feet risqué in the extreme, and it is easy to imagine that exiles with grievance might adopt taboo-breaking behaviour as a means of thumbing their nose against their culture of birth. The halfling's famed skill at thievery, stealth and the burgling arts may also originate from the other major cause of exile among the dwarf holds - crime. I suspect that it would not be uncommon for entrenched halfling communities to find their numbers periodically added to by exiled dwarves tried for thievery, and that over time a corpus of knowledge regarding thiefcraft could accumulate among their descendants, preserved in the cultural background noise much as children's games are passed on from one generation to the next almost unaltered for milennia.

The final proof, and I think the most pellucid of them all, is the periodic dwarven practice of abducting or press-ganging halflings into military service. This author has observed this practice in person on one occasion when he participated in it first-hand! In this I was playing the role of the dwarves' agent, the vital initial stage - humans who have regular contact with halfling communities are induced through bribery to spy upon the inhabitants and identify a likely target - favouring a young, spry halfling of good (or at least decent) moral character and imaginative temprament, which it is hoped is indicative of an underlying courage and sense of adventure. I was then given orders to scratch a dvergar rune on the door or gatepost of the target. I observed from afar as by dead of night a troupe of dwarves dressed in hoods and common clothes rather than their customary armour for sake of stealth, though still carrying weapons concealed beneath their cloaks, invaded the halfling's home and after a night-long process of indoctrination involving alcohol, the singing of folk-songs and much back-slapping encouragement not dissimilar to that observed among adolescent human males, elicited their target to leave behind his home and comforts to join them on a venture to retake an orc-infested dwarfhold!

Halflings who have been subjected to this practice - which I believe is an attempt by the dwarves to induce a kind of moral fortitude and essential "dwarfiness" to grow in what they consider to be a redeemable case of halfling degeneracy - do indeed take on a more dwarf-like spirit thereafter. While they never metamorphose into true dwarves, they tend to be more willful, stoic and often regard other halflings as frivolous and petty. A great many of these halfling janissaries will spend long years even after their release from dwarven service pining for the majesty of the mountains and even take to wearing armour and relishing the lustre of gold and hammered steel. In time some of them return to the dwarfholds and, I think likely though I cannot confirm, marry into them and thus restore their lineage from exile.

Regarding Gnomes the matter is somewhat more straightforward, though no less fascinating - it is oft opined that dwarves have no talent for the arcane arts, that their innate resistence borne from the heavy concentrations of certain metalic salts in their bloodstream - particularly sal ferrum and sal plumbum - precludes them from ever gaining the facility outside from the priest class who in any case are mere intermediaries for the power of their gods and not true spellcasters. This, I say, is not so! While it is in fact the case that the dwarven race produces a deficit of arcanists this is for a far more profound reason than the talent being lacking among their kind, but rather because so few with the talent are willing to endure the consequences; namely the malady known as gnomism!

Fig. 2, the gnomish adept, age: 42

Gnomism, from the dvergar "gnomri" meaning ash or slag with connotations of being used up or withered, is a wasting sickness that afflicts all dwarves who practice the mystical arts. The aformentioned blood salts react strongly with the presence of arcane forces - when these forces come from outside the body these reactions serve to protect the dwarf from the effects of hostile enchantments, but when they come from within as is the case when a spell is memorised and cast, the dwarf finds their very humours rebelling against them. Like a man subjected to a long-term infection, the humoural reactions leech health and vitality from the victim's marrow. A dwarf who has fully initiated into wizardry will soon find their muscles shrinking, their skin wizening, their hair and beard becoming wiry and coarse. Unlike the neoteny experienced by halflings, gnomism resembles a form of progeria - the subject comes to resemble an elderly human in miniature, crook-backed and wiry of frame. Perhaps even more significant than the physical changes is the mental impact of gnomism - the sparking of arcane energies in the salt-laden grey matter of the brain results in bouts of whimsy and mild hallucination often resulting in eccentric obsessiveness as a coping mechanism to remain focused on the present.

While these effects are extreme, curiously they do not actually diminish the lifespan of the subject, nor do they suffer any of the common maladies of senescence such as rheumetism or hearing loss. In fact, there is strong evidence that gnome lifespans can in fact be longer than that of their hale peers despite their frail appearance. This can perhaps be attributed to the anti-entropic nature of certain magical energies, the pyr technikon ordering their humours and sustaining them long past the point where mere gross animal vitality would have failed. This explanation does fall down somewhat in the case of the progeny of gnomes - for indeed, gnomism is partially inheritable, with a chance of being contracted by the descendants of any gnome if their spouse is a non-suffering dwarf and a certainty if both parents are gnomes - who do not have to be magi to still suffer and benefit from the effects of gnomism. This author would conjecture that in these cases even if not trained in their use the vital pneumatic channels for magical force likely still exist within these offspring.

Unlike halfings, gnomes are not outcasts from broader dwarven society. There is no particular law in dwarven legislature against dabbling with the arcane - though there are some prohibitions against tempting the young with promises of eldritch power. Any adult dwarf of sound mind who is willing to brave the consequences is within their right to study the arcane arts. As the number of gnomes grows while the dwarven population struggles to avoid diminishing, this is likely to change in the future - though given the glacial rate at which dwarven jurisprudence advances this change will no doubt be some time coming. This author predicts that within two centuries dwarven law will require any dwarf who wishes to pursue the magical arts produce at least one issue before their descent into gnomism, for simple reason that many dwarven families already pressure this condition upon their magically inclined relatives in an unofficial capacity.

Gnomes live in close proximity to dwarves, though not too close - their communities that resemble inverted subterrene wizard's towers (for the same sound reason that aboveground magisters construct their domiciles - that being to concentrate geomantic forces) located on the outskirts, just seperate from the main dwarfhold. It would be perhaps unkind to liken them to leper colonies, given that they are far from being dour sanitoriums but rather lively and collegiate in character, but the principle of isolation from the untainted remains the same. Some gnomes, particularly those of the second and third generations, have even taken to abandoning dvergar society altogether and strike out to found new homes of their own in geomantically agreeable locations, with some even going so far as to abandon their clan-names and establish new lineages.

Tl;dr: There's only one human-looking shortarse race and that's dwarves. Halflings are dwarven thieves, gnomes are dwarven wizards. Inspired by By This Axe: The Cyclopedia of Dwarven Civilisation.

Languages of Megara - GLOG/OSR

 Megara is a world where the spoken word carries a lot of weight, all magic comes from Words of the lingua supernal, the ontologically perfect language from which the One God sung the world into being. If you are a sorcerer then you already speak lingua supernal, albeit like a grunting beast that has been taught to yowl a roughly understandable approximation of it's immaculate beauty. It's not really the sort of thing you use to converse with other mortals though, for its clarity of meaning is so pure that reality - itself merely an echo of its speech - changes to match it. All classes in Megara have a supernatural capstone ability in which they acquire and internalise one Word of the lingua supernal, be it the Soulknife's understanding of the Blade that lets them cut even the immaterial, or the binding oaths and invincible sangfroid that come from a Caste Noble's Blood.

But there are other languages, ones less blasting and unbearable in their clarity but safe for common use. All characters begin knowing one of these mortal tongues, plus another for every point of Intelligence bonus they have. Additional languages can attempt to be learned as a season action, at a cost of 500gp of tuition and books. An already known language can attempt to be mastered, also taking a season action and 1000gp. In either case the chance of successfully learning or mastering the language is 1:6, modified by Intelligence Modifier and number of prior attempts, if any. A starting character may at their choice spend two starting languages to master one. 

As all languages are debased forms of the lingua supernal, mastering one has a small supernatural effect. Some languages have a written form that is rarely used or exclusive to the higher caste, and must be learned seperately from the spoken tongue.

Cthondine
Cthond was the mightiest of the great magiocracies that controlled the western continent. The Jet Obelisks that demarked the territories of the Cthondine Autocracy can be found as far to the south as Heraclium and as far to the north as the banks of the Ypra River - and when the Ironmen came south across that river, Cthond was the first to feel their wrath. Yet today the legacy of Cthond is its tongue, spoken even further abroad after its fall than it was at its height. Cthondine has a complex system of conjugations that make it highly accurate, but can lead a novice speaker to stumble into clownish malapropism.
Written: Yes
Mastery: Cthondine is especially suited to giving commands. When NPC's under your command fail a Morale check, you may reroll one of the dice - the second result stands.

Emmanican
A land plagued with a surfeit of philosophers, Emmanica is the archipelago home to a people of omnivorous intellect that has stood largely untroubled by either sorcery or barbarians for centuries and is only now beginning to stretch its muscles and feel its own strength. Emmanican is sybilant and methodical, with a great richness in its description of the World as it relates to the Self.
Written: Yes
Mastery: Your grounding in Emmanican formal logic reduces the duration of mind-affecting evocations and other such magical effects by half. If ordinarily permanent, you are permitted a saving throw to cast off the enchantment once per week.

Kikalese
The Kikala plateu would be unremarkable save for its people; herdsmen who claim the title of King, sorcerers who are considered holy rather than damned, and the only people whose reputation for martial excellence is sufficiently great to deter even the rapacious Tongen Khaganate. Kikalese is rapid and onomatopoeic, containing barked consonants designed to be heard clearly over long distances against the mountain wind.
Written: No
Mastery: You can predict the weather and track herd animals with 85% accuracy. It's probably worth remembering that horses are herd animals.

Sassálid
Ancient rivals of the Autarchs of Cthond, the Sassálid Imperium was a place steeped in the twin scourges of power and luxury. Having long since subjected nearly the entirety of the southern continent to their imperial dominion and reigned unopposed for over a millennium the Sassálid Pashas were free to bask in the reflected glory of their ancestors and invent ever more impressive titles for themselves. Sassálid is an unctuous tongue, drifting from the lips like incense smoke.
Written: Yes
Mastery: You reroll any result of immediate hostility on reaction rolls with demons, and they will be marginally more reasonable in dealing with you, accepting any offered compromise as long as it is not massively favouring you over them, e.g. taking the souls of two captives rather than yours.

Tongen
Tongue of the rising power of the Tong Khaganate, currently the largest and by far the most precocious empire in the world. It has become the lingua franca of the entire eastern hemisphere and is required to use the Lam, the Khaganate's extensive mail system - by imperial decree the Lam will carry no message that is not written exclusively in Tongen. Tongen is a forthright language, filled with plosive consonants.
Written: Yes, must be learned seperately from spoken.
Mastery: You can convey broad meanings to horses and eagles, they will understand and will obey commands as long as they are favourably disposed to you or sufficiently bribed. They can reply to you but only in exclamations of 'Yes!', 'No!', 'Here!' or 'Danger!'

Nuncerian Glyphs
Nobody needs to learn Nuncerian, this eldritch language more than any other carries potent resonance with the lingua supernal, with some calling it the written language of God. First discovered on the plains of Nunceria, when a mighty earthquake unearthed buried steles etched with the history of a long-vanished prehuman people. The contents of the steles were deemed so awfully heretical and in contravention of all decency and truth that they were smashed to pieces and scattered into the ocean. Still, more and more Nuncerian markers are still discovered from time to time and the Cthondine Autocracy was fond of using it to issue proclamations throughout its expanse, so that none could claim ignorance of the law. Words written in Nuncerian Glyphs are automatically understood by their beholders, without having to learn it.
Written: Yes, only.
Mastery: You can now write Nuncerian Glyphs, with all that entails. Nuncerian Glyphs require a third dimension to function, and so must be inscribed upon stone, wood or clay with appropriate tools.

Yrensprecht
The Ironmen are still considered the epitome of the barbarian by all people south of the Ypra, and are viewed as much as boogeymen as they are fellow humans. Still, some small amount of trade and congress does take place along the border of old Cthond, and a cunning merchant does well to learn the rudiments of their harsh, growling tongue if they are to acquire their incomparable tools and arms of Steely Iron in return for the perfumes, silks and wines of the south. Its written form is called Brande, angular runes designed to be carved with a blade or chisel, and is almost exclusively the province of the Ironmen's priest-caste.
Written: Yes, must be learned seperately from spoken - never taught willingly to non-Ironmen.
Mastery: If you spend a round spitting invective at a sorcerer who is casting an evocation you may roll a D6 and deduct the result from the [sum] of their working, on a 4-6 you also deduct 1 [dice] from their working, but cannot perform this trick again until you have rested your voice for 8 hours.

The Brand - A Class for Ransack

 A conversion of Locheil's Rotless, which I have been having tremendous fun playing in his Qal Ashen game, for Ransack by Justin Todd, who also writes a damn fine game;

By deWitteillustration

Play Report - The Palace of Unquiet Repose

This being a play report of the first session of The Palace of Unquiet Repose played with Hyperborea 3e, which seemed a good easthetic fit.

The party set off from Iotha at the bidding of the astrologer Orixerxes. Three of them there were; Proculus, a legionary of grim aspect and cold wrath, still clad in his velite wolfskin. Skaris - called "the Hideous", though it must have been some barbaric jest for he was of middling looks - a tattooed pict and veteran of the fyrd.  Freygunnr, a warrior woman of the uttermost north, cast out of her tribe for practicing the cruel magic of galdr, which by her people's custom is reserved for men and bespeaks of strange lusts when women take interest in it. There may have been some truth in this, as it was not only desire for the astrologer's gold that they set off across the Glass Waste but also lust for his daughters, which he promised in marriage or bondage to each of them in return for one task; bring him the Grimoire of Uyu-Yadmogh, Prince of Princes, Eater of Children, last sorcerer-king of Tzyan!

They joined a caravan funded by Orixerxes to get them across the desert with water-laden camels, vital in the parched desert. With them they brought a local, Old Jaffa - a noted thief and reprobate down on his luck and offering his services as a professional house breaker for a crust of bread and a warm tent alone. On the second night out of Iotha their rest was interrupted however by a great wailing and howling from the deep desert. They feared to venture beyond the light of their campfires and so endured a sleepless night and a gruelling day, hoping they left the hideous shrieking behind them.

It was not to be so. The shrieks and clamour continued, though the keen ear of Skaris noted fewer voices in the darkness. Alas he did not guess the meaning behind this, and when dawn broke one of the caravan's camels was found disemboweled and throat bitten out in the night - and, too, Old Jaffa, a way outside the camp... with the party's runic blades in his pack. They left the fleabitten thief's corpse to feed the vultures, and the next night they girded for battle.

On the fourth night, nothing came - not wailing nor attack. On the fifth night, they - wisely it would transpire - did not take this for a sign they had escaped the turab'shaytan, as the caravaneers had taken to calling their stalker, and continued to post watches throughout the night. It was on first watch when Proculus, strong in thew but never the most observant for his senses were ever clouded by red mist and the clangor of distant battlefields, heard the death-rattle of a caravaneer and investigated to find a hideous aglomeration of bird, beast and emaciated man - the Dust Stalker! Meanwhile, Skaris' - drunk on Freygunnr's mead, was woken by the agony of a second beast's jaws clamping down upon his shoulder, fare tearing the meat loose before his hand gripped his rune-axe and dealt it a blow in kind, the creature recoiling in pain but not before its raking claws left track-marks like an ardent lover down his chest. The commotion woke Freygunnr, who had been sharing the same tent and was a lighter sleeper than Skaris. The two quickly realised that the beast was a match for both of them, and it would be a cruel and bloody fight.

Not so for Proculus, the giant velite took raking cuts and crushing bites but his lorica hamata held firm and with a skilful pirhouette that belied his great size, sidestepped the creature's lunging assault and beheaded it at the same time with one cleanly economical motion. The Dust Stalker facing Freygunnr and Skaris sensed it's mate's death but it only drove it to further fury. Skaris, nearly unmanned, broke a flask of enriched lamp oil over the beast's bony head and quit the field, having judged from its motions that on an open plain he could outrun it. Freygunnr spat at the cowardice of the pict who would leave a woman to face the axe-gang and held her ground, igniting the beast with a kicked over brazier. Even the fire though could not drive off the maddened beast and still it pressed its attack, dealing her many gashes and blows. Proculus, however, was too much for it to endure and when he entered the fray with his spatha still wet with its mate's blood, it made to quit the field with an eye to lick its wounds and return for vengeance. Freygunnr's arrows cut short that game - striking once in the shoulder and then, when it turned to hiss its contempt, spearing it  in the eye.

No further devilry haunted the caravan on the sixth and seventh nights, and through uninterrupted rest and judicious application of Freygunnr's enchanted mead, they arrived at the desert basin forseen by Orixerxes relatively hale and whole. It would prove fortunate that they were.

Looming out of the desert sands stood an edifice of ancient craft, a sphinx composed of parts dragon, scorpion, demon and man wrought in black stone. Skaris, eager to make up for his past cowardice, was the first to approach the foreboding structure and with his keen eye honed by the forests of his homeland found a block that had been loosened by subsidence, needing only a little lubrication to clear the grit that held it. His first suggestion of using some of the party's precious water resulted in a cuff from Freygunnr, who took Skaris' wineskin and used the contents instead, much to his dismay. The block revealed a steep shaft leading down into the earth, they fastened a rope by means of an iron hook Skaris kept and judging Proculus to be the most capable of surviving whatever lay at the bottom sent him first. The grade of the shaft quickly grew steeper than was visible from the surface, and unable to control his descent Proculus hit the bottom hard, and there triggered the first of the deathtraps laid to protect the rest of Uyu-Yadmogh. He was buried under a hail of rocks and sand, and only his prodigious strength saved him from being entombed when he dug himself to freedom before his breath ran out.

With the bottom of the shaft now fully filled with sand and rubble, the three were forced to dig a narrow crawl-shaft through into the horizontal channel, using up a full torch-flame's time in the effort but at last they were into the structure proper. Behind a sliding panel of tarnished bronze lay a circular chamber containing a charnel pit filled with blackened bones, ringed about with murals of lurid aspect, depicting the rise and ultimate fall of Uyu-Yadmogh, and the ultimate fate of Tzyan driven before the Solar and Lunar Hosts of heaven. On an altar Skaris found a dagger of black steel stamped with flesh-crawling runes. Freygunnar recalled a time when the old vikti who taught her recounted tales of weapons from ancient times, made from a black alloy that could only be forged in purest darkness, which allowed their bearers to speak to unearthly evils through some foul rite. They took the southwest passage out of the charnel room and at its terminus found a hallway lined with statues of Uyu-Yadmogh in tricephalic aspect, bearing aloft mauls and hammers as symbols of his power. Skaris wisely tested the floor panel between the first set of statues with a pole, only to find that it had been reduced from 10' to 8' by a scything blade that whipped killing-fast from the statues at knee-height.

As they pondered how to proceed, a tingling and burning sensation along their skin alerted them to another threat posed by this hall, and once their armour began to tarnish and discolour from an acrid mist that had begun to fill it, they swiftly hauled the door panel shut and resolved to try another path.

Testing the southwestern path they came to another circular chamber, domed and with its walls covered in stone masks of wailing faces with cavernous gullets. At its end a heavy bronze basin filled to the brim with glittering gold coins. At this point they were wary for the wiles of wizards and opted to not even set foot in the chamber, but instead to use Skaris' skill with a lasso to pull the basin of gold off the plinth toward them, caring not if some of the coins spilled in the process. And so they did, almost half the coins spilled from the basin as soon as it hit the ground - but more to the point, their scepticism was validated as the stone mouths began to gush forth sand like waterfall cataracts! They wasted no time in reeling in the basin before the chamber was fully flooded and rejoiced in their canniness - until they realised that the golden coins were naught but painted clay! Cursing the treachery of sorcerers they trudged back, dejected. Only Freygunnr seemed undismayed, for she knew a rune that could make the obvious fakes pass for real coin to the unwary - at least for a while.

The encounter, however financially disappointing, did give Skaris an idea - to use the heavy bronze basin as a weight to trigger the traps in the Hall of Judgement, and so pass to its end. The others watched in mingled trepidation and amusement as he hopped from space to space, tossing the basin like a child playing hopscotch, even as the acidic vapours tore at his flesh! Through persistence and barbaric obstinance did he finally make it to the end, though by then his skin was so scarred by the vapours that his moniker was starting to sound like a presentiment or gaesa. With the traps revealed, Proculus and Freygunnr were able to make it through the hall faster, and with less exposure to the caustic mist that spilled from the mouths of Uyu-Yadmogh's idols.

At the hall's terminus, there scribed upon a panel of bronze in sigils that could be read even though it was a script none of them had ever been taught, as though written in the secret language of the soul was an simple warning;

ANCIENT TRAPS ARE BUT THE FIRST,

THE MOST LENIENT, OF MY GUARDIANS.

Uncowed by such necromancer's tricks, they slid the panel aside, to reveal a dark miracle; a coastline of black sand and petrified trees upon a sea of shimmering quicksilver, each pebble of beachstone the artifice of a master crafter, testament to the monumental power and hubris of its commisioner. And there, at it's centre, an artificial island upon which lay a necropolis of black stone and looming out of the silver sea another ghastly tricephalic idol of the Eater of Children, cast in onyx some thirty cubits in height. And there they stood for a moment in stunned awe, and wondered what manner of mind, what force of hand and skill, could make such a thing manifest?

Time alone would tell if they would live to know.