I published for the One Page RPG Jam!

It's a Dunsanian classless system written in-universe. Check it out!

Class: Jongleur

GLoG style

1. Really Good Juggling, "Leap, Whistle, and Fart"
2. Magic for Some Reason
3. Wondrous Catch, Mimic
4. Contortion, Buffoun

6 Level

1. Really Good Juggling, "Leap, Whistle, and Fart"
2. Magic for Some Reason
3. Mimic
4. Wondrous Catch
5. Contortion
6. Buffoun

Starting Equipment: 4 balls, 4 knives, 2 juggler's torches, silly outfit, cynical outlook on life

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Class Feature: Really Good Juggling

Given 1 round of preparations, you may juggle [Level+4] handheld items. As long as the ceiling is high enough, you may throw them high enough that they only touch your hands once every two rounds. You may also juggle [Level-1] items with limbs which aren't your hands. When juggling different objects, note down the order in which you juggle them. You may throw up to half (rounded down) of the items juggled with one action, though items thrown in the same round must follow the looping order of your juggling. These items function as improvised (or unimprovised) thrown weapons.

If the number of items juggled is greater than quadruple the HD/Level of an enemy present, that enemy must make a morale check, either regarding you as harmless or fleeing in terror on a failure. This only affects a given enemy once.

Class Feature: Leap, Whistle, and Fart

By making a fool of yourself, you may evoke a jovial response from otherwise hostile enemies. This requires one round of breathing, mental, and abdominal exercises, after which you may perform [Level] rounds of stupid slapstick. Enemies of anything other than the iciest temperaments will pause to chuckle, and more sanguine enemies will break down laughing for a few rounds. Allies must save to remain unaffected.

Kate Beaton, of course

Class Feature: Magic, for Some Reason

When you gain this feature, and every time you level up thereafter, roll a d6. On a six, gain one magic token* and one random spell from the following list:

1. Speak with the Dead
2. Find Familiar
3. ESP
4. Illusion
5. Hex
6. Color Spray

These spells are not obviously identifiable as spells when you cast them (appearing to be slight of hand or other tricks). They are still magical in nature. 

Regardless of whether you actually gain a spell, you detect as a magic-user and are considered on par with a witch or necromancer by any priests or other religious officials (this doesn't affect how laypeople view you. Probably they will react with utter confusion if they witness and recognize you doing magic).

Class Feature: Mimic

You may impersonate the voice and mannerisms of a being you have seen or heard. This is a non-magical effect and thus cannot effect the physical appearance. However, if physical appearance is ignored or disguised, you are at once indistinguishable from the being you are impersonating and a hilarious caricature of that same being. Overly serious close relations might be able to tell, but most people would simply think their acquaintance is more funny and/or self-aware than usual.

If performed in front of the individual in question, the individual either finds it hilarious or enraging (50/50).

Kate Beaton

Class Feature: Wondrous Catch

You may catch thrown objects, as long as the attack roll was less than [level*2]. These objects may automatically be added to your juggling if you are juggling when it was thrown. You may also catch magical attacks if the spell attack was less than [level]. The magical attack vanishes if you stop juggling it.

Class Feature: Contortion

You may perform superhuman feats of flexibility. You may fit through any hole larger than your head. As well you may cartwheel and somersault to halve fall damage (space permitting). You can walk on your hands as easily as you walk on your feet.

Class Feature: Bouffon

Your lungs store a surprising amount of air (and other things too). You may use your breath to create a powerful air current. As well, you may breath fire as long as you have fuel and a source to light it. This fire breath acts as a young red dragon's breath.

Mechanical Notes

Powerful early game, eh late game. The Bard without the Bard, the Rogue without the Rogue. The jongleur has the ability to "end" a reasonable amount of early encounters (maybe not as good as a well placed Sleep, but with the ability to take out a lot of those who weren't affected), and then a lot of situational abilities, and one ability which is almost only a downside. The enterprising Glogger could probably crib this for their custom modular rogue class. Probably the level effects need to be rescaled for six level progression. Still, enemy of the church at level 2 is a pretty bad downside in most GLoG settings.

I don't think it would be hard to make a Kagura dancer, Dionysia actor, or other holy entertainer by just swapping out the arcane spells for divine.

* Magic Token is approximately 1d2 spells slots or 1 magic dice. I'm going to use this from now on, because I do not like to write "spell slots/magic dice/etc."; maybe I should just call it a Thaum and be done.

Exhortations to the Bloggers

                                                                                    

Exhortations to the Bloggers, which may be an Accompaniment to Arnold K., Taken mostly from Clement of Alexandria

The Seven Ways of "Introducing Deception and of Procuring Gods"

1. "Some men were deceived from the first about the spectacle of the heavens.Trusting solely to sight, they gazed at the movements of the heavenly bodies, and in wonder deified them, giving them the name of gods"
2. "Others, when gathering the cultivated fruits of plants that spring from the earth, called the corn Demeter"
3. "Others, after reflecting upon the punishments of evil-doing, make gods out of their experiences of retribution, worshipping the very calamities"
4. "Even certain of the philosophers themselves, following the men of poetry, came to represent as deities the types of your emotions, such as Fear, Love, Joy, Hope; just as, of course, Epimenides did of old, when he set up altars in Athens to Insolence and Shamelessness."
5. "Some gods arise from the mere circumstances of life deified in men’s eyes and fashioned in bodily form" (meaning death and fate and so on)
6. "There is a sixth way... according to which men reckon them to be twelve in number" (i.e. Top-down, genealogy and mythology)
7. "Finally... there remains that which arises from the divine beneficence shown towards men; for, since men did not understand it was God who benefited them, they invented certain saviours" (Mistake a real god for a fake one)

"Do not therefore seek diligently after godless sanctuaries, nor after mouths of caverns full of jugglery", a list of shrines:

1. the Thesprotian caldron
2. the Cirrhaean tripod
3. the Dodonian copper
4. the old stump honoured by the desert sands
5. The Castalian spring 
6. the spring of Colophon
   

Exhortation to the Greeks, by Clement of Alexandria (or pseudo-Clement) is a (very funny) polemic written telling Christians not to participate in mystery cults, and, to a lesser degree, telling the pagans that they should stop being fools and become Christians. It provides a biased, but very useful, humorous, and short look at the workings of greek religion and of pagan religions in general, and I think it is a good accompaniment to Arnold K.'s post on religions as a primary/secondary source.

Katabax's Hypothetical Enfleshment

Katabax was a necromancer, biomancer, and a madman. This was a spell he made after observing his colleagues raising giant humanoids from mammoth bones, or making a big snake from human bones.

Katabax's Hypothetical Enfleshment

Target: an Animated Skeleton, bone golem, or some other osteomorphic beast within ten feet

Material Requirements: fresh meat, of an amount equal to the flesh that will cover the skeleton. Optionally a brain and working organs.

Duration: 1 hour

Effect: The bones of the creature are covered in quickly growing flesh and non-differentiated viscera. This includes eyes and muscles, but no other organs by default. it is finished off with skin. This creature now counts as living, but (if no other organs are involved) has no pulse or breath, and has only the consciousness possessed by the animated skeleton it was formed from.

If the skeleton this was cast on was made from the bones of only one creature, it creates that creature's precise physical form. However, if the skeleton was an amalgam of different creatures, or possessed inaccuracies in placement or number of bones, the spell "does its best". 50% chance the spell picks randomly from the perceptions and theories of the possible creature possessed by all viewing, 50% chance it makes a horrible skin-and-bone-lizard-thing or some sort of frog.

Necro-biomantic energies keep this creature "alive" for the duration of the spell, but this does not keep the creature from breaking its legs under its weight, flexing so hard its bones shatter, etc. If the creature has the requisite organs to keep it alive (brain, digestive tract, lungs, heart), but these organs come from a creature with a different bodyplan, it can live for 1d4 weeks before succumbing to health issues. If these organs are from a very similar creature, it can live for 2d6-1 months before it is struck down by enraged spiritual forces. Otherwise, it dies immediately after the duration expires.

If a complete human skeleton is used, and the caster has no idea what the dead person would have looked like, it invariably produces a tight-faced, chipper white man named John who claims he is a door-to-door salesman from 1950s America. If a skeleton from one individual is used, and the caster or party know who they are, the individual in question is produced, or at least the individual as imagined by the group (e.g. flanderization, catch-phrases at inopportune times, general expectedness and a lack of the ability to grow or change. It is basically an empty vessel filled with surface impressions). This being has a 45% chance of being possessed by a demon when created, and a 15% chance per week thereafter. The demon will pretend they are the individual back from the dead and try to create evil or kill various people of import.

Class: Ineffectual Villain(s)

Definitely A Bad Guy

You are evil. For sure. You just hang around these goody-two-shoes because it's convenient. Those do-gooders know it too because you tell them often and theatrically.

GLoG

Skills: Theater, Engineering, Tragic Backstory

1: Schemes, Unlucky-Luck, Contraptions

2: Theatricality, +1 Unluck

3: Improvise, +1 Unluck

4: The Boss, We Live Here Too

Six Level
1: Schemes, Unlucky-Luck
2: Contraptions, +1 Unluck
3: Theatricality
4: Improvise, +1 Unluck
5: The Boss, +1 Unluck
6: We Live Here Too

Class Feature: Schemes

You have a plan. Those fools have lead you right to the key to World Domination! Now you just need to get it before they do.

You always have the same general knowledge as the rest of the party, sans maybe a few key details. This knowledge comes from spying on them. You are also always near the party, to the point of being able to intervene, steal, or kidnap when you desire. The party has no knowledge of your presence until you make yourself known. You can steal, kidnap, or intervene 1 time per level per day before your villainous pride forces you to reveal yourself, or else the sudden disappearance becomes noticeable. 

As well, when a magic item or other treasure becomes known to you, you may stipulate an alternate use for that treasure, which may become relevant if you steal it. This item becomes the Target of your scheme until you select a new target

Additionally, if a XP-for-GP system is used, you instead gain XP for every GP you acquire which then falls into the hands of the main party to your dismay.

Class Feature: Unlucky-Luck

You don't always succeed, but you live to see another day. You have a pool of Unluck, which you may use to accomplish your nefarious ends. You may invest a point of Unluck into your schemes to bring you a substantial amount closer to the Target of your scheme through some improbable circumstance. For instance: You fall down a cliff into a secret entrance to the dungeon, a more substantial villain bungles up and the treasure falls into your hands, you crack a joke which you then realize is insight into the puzzle, or some improbable object literally falls from the sky. This can only be used twice for every one "step" that the main party makes toward the same goal.

While you still have at least one point Unluck uninvested, any damage that would kill you instead sends you non-lethally flying, scurrying away, captured temporarily, etc. This consumes the point of Unluck. If this is not your last point of Unluck, you may attempt to make a wise-crack about the situation. If the DM approves of your joke, you may regain up to half your HP and invest that point into your scheme.

If you spend your last point of Unluck on anything, you fall victim to your own Hilarious Hubris. Your contraption explodes, your web of lies falls apart, the treasure had some trap or curse, or the rest of the party beats you handily. If this point allows you to actually have the target in your possession, and there is another group physically present, the target falls preferentially into the hands of a group that isn't the party. But if only the party is present, the target falls to them (and you get XP). This whole process returns all invested Unluck (thus, you cannot die directly to Hilarious Hubris). This returned Unluck cannot be invested toward the same scheme. Hubris gives an additional save on lingering effects such as curses and diseases when you recover from whatever incapacitation it results in.

Class Feature: Contraptions

You may invest Unluck to produce a device of villainy! Using at least one Unluck and a downtime action, you may create a vehicle, inator, or trap. These devices (which may be mechanical or magical) have certain standard qualities, depending on what it is:

• Vehicle: Requires access to a town to construct. A mode of transportation which can travel over/in your choice of land, sky, sea, or some other exotic thing. The standard qualities are: Not-Fast, Self-Destructive, and Ridiculous.
• Inator: Requires access to a town to construct A ray or machine which produces an overly specific (and ontologically fragile) effect. The standard qualities are: Stationary, Self-Destructive, and Ridiculous.
• Trap: A trap which prevents movement or escape. The standard qualities are: Stationary, Rescuable, Non-lethal.

The standard qualities may be removed by spending additional Unluck, at a rate of 1 point per quality, or replaced with another quality at a rate of 1 point per 2 qualities. 

• Non-Lethal: This device draws no blood, has no poison, and cannot produce any permanent harm aside from bruises.
• Not-Fast: This device moves slowly, but moves on its own power. If this quality is standard and removed, it moves quickly.
• Remote-Control: This device has a remote control which may effect its other functions. Self-Destruct counts as a function.
• Rescuable: The effect produced by this device may be dispelled with reasonable effort by anyone unaffected by those effects.
• Ridiculous: This device is clearly out of the ordinary. Removing or replacing this quality does not change its appearance, but covers it with a sheet so its nature is not clear until it is used. Alternatively, removing it causes it to be mistaken for modern art (assuming modern art exists).
• Self-Destructive: This device has a button on it which makes it explode, for some reason. When it explodes, you may choose whether it deals damage, whether that damage is lethal, and how much damage it does (maximum [level]d6). This also irresistibly damages you, or causes a karmic backlash for the same amount of damage. Lethal damage dealt this way cannot be resisted with Unluck, but  non-lethal damage dealt this way can (and must) be resisted.
• Stationary: This device cannot move.

[Optional rule: Creating devices more than once a week leaves you broke, unless all of those devices were traps. You'll scrape up enough to survive (and probably build more devices), but you won't have any spending money]

Class Feature: Theatricality

When you act with Flamboyance and Panache (e.g. declaring your presence, swooping in at the last moment, jump from a window, ride a rope ladder away), you gain an extra Unluck point (max one). Additionally, while you are acting this way and have not invested your extra Unluck, you are considered mostly harmless by authorities. The extra Unluck lasts for [level] hours and cannot be invested in schemes. If you fail to act with Flamboyance and Panache (e.g. get ruffled, put on a serious face, try and kill someone, invest Unluck in a scheme), you pratfall, destroying whatever that Unluck was invested in (returning the rest of the dice to you). This is not Hilarious Hubris, and those remaining Unluck points may be reinvested in the scheme. The first action of Flamboyance and Panache after a pratfall automatically succeeds (all others are adjudicated normally).

Class Feature: Improvise

If you get distracted from your original scheme without succumbing to Humorous Hubris, you gain an extra Unluck point which is invested in your Scheme. If you get distracted from the new scheme, gain 2 points. This only effects distraction where the new scheme gives a higher value treasure (measured by the alternate use stipulated when the treasure is targeted)

The Boss

You are subservient to a greater villain, who is vastly more competent with extensive resource networks. If you can contact and convince The Boss of the value of your scheme, he may send you a Device with your choice of qualities, or several underlings to aid you. Underlings are trained for combat and will follow your orders with high morale but test morale as normal hirelings if you spend an invest an Unluck point in a scheme, Pratfall, or if one of your devices self-destructs. Custom Devices may be of any type, but are wrecked if you use more than half your Unluck (not counting extra Unluck). You lose both if you fall to humorous hubris.

If you wreck your custom device or lose control of your hirelings and don't deliver the treasure to the boss, you go broke and can't call on the boss until you've proven yourself.

If you wreck the device or lose control of hirelings and do deliver the treasure, you get paid and get 1.5 times the XP value for the treasure.

If you don't wreck the device, keep the hirelings, and deliver the treasure, you get paid and get 2 times XP for the treasure and you get to keep whatever the boss gave you.

If you don't wreck your assets but don't get the treasure, you have to convince the boss that you still need them (or just lie and say you are still on your previous scheme).

We Live Here Too

If the world is in danger, or some villain of incomparable cruelty is opposing the main party, you may invest your Unluck to bumble your way into helping the party. Spending Unluck in this way never incurs Hubris. Instead, if you spend your last Unluck in this way, you have the choice of:

• Joining the Party. This may cause a change of class.
• Overthrow the Boss. This may cause your character to become an NPC.
• Maintain Status Quo: You return to your bumbling, losing a level (you may be allowed to keep stat increases)

Mechanical Commentary

This class comes with a built in game-play loop: Discover Treasure, Beat PCs to Treasure through Tricks and Bumbling, Fail Hilariously in the Final Confrontation. Despite the apparent goal of villainy, the narrative role of this class is more like a guardian angel. It hides in the shadows, and prevents the ill effects of cursed treasure, and removes the treasure from the hands of the larger villains. It's also very survivable, with some pretty powerful tools.

The cons are that you will almost never keep any items or money, there is a lot of DM fiat, and (as mentioned before) you are a side character who is almost destined to lose. Could that be considered balanced? Probably not. Could this even be used in a standard fantasy game? Probably not. This is mostly just a collection of possible mechanics to remix as you'd like.

Ritual Purity Rules

I gotta write this before Arnold does

Based on some recent posts by Arnold K and some older posts on Whose Measure God Could Not Take, as well as the content of Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas.

Ritual Purity is a concept present in most world religions. It is often conflated with, though far less often actually identical to, Morality in the context of world religion. It is, of course, concerned with the distinction between pure and impure, clean and unclean. Generally this is important because being unclean is a dangerous state, or a state unfit to preform necessary or socially acceptable activities. An unclean person is not an evil person or a damned person*. It's the difference between, say, an altar-cloth with a pentagram pattern and a altar-cloth which had someone accidentally bleed on it. One is detestable, the other is simply currently unfit.

Uncleanness is most often spread via physical contact. For instance, in Judaism, it is unclean to touch the dead, or to touch someone who is diseased. Sometimes you become unclean simply from yourself, such as in the case of menstruation or nocturnal emissions. Sometimes you become unclean from necessary activities, such as giving birth or butchering an animal. Sometimes a group of people is naturally unclean, and becomes ostracized.

And of course, there are ways to become clean. Bathing. Sacrifice. Time. Unless, of course, you are inherently unclean.

Ritual Purity almost always has some effect relating to religion, as the name implies. Most often, priests must be clean to go about their duties. Offerings must be clean (or sometimes very unclean), lest you call wrath upon yourself. Magicians, depending on the culture, either had to be very clean or very unclean in order to work their magic. According to Mary Douglas, some amount of purity was always required of the Indian upper caste and those who interacted with them.

Now, some rules.

Purity Scale

[unclean/clean things in square brackets may be substituted in the list on player choice]

• Immaculate: You are almost too pure. The spiritual forces of the world ingratiate themselves to you, and the presence of gods is comfortable to you. Sometimes kings make sacrifices to you. It's really quite inconvenient. Gain 1 [magic], which you can use to cast *any* spell. Alternatively, with a short and well known ritual, you can gain the service of a lesser spirit permanently (this causes you to become unclean). When you become unclean, you take 1d6 damage. If you die before becoming unclean, you trigger a divine cataclysm which consumes the surrounding area (which definitely will kill your allies and level/blight/erase nearby towns). Alternatively, you become an amazing human sacrifice. If anyone can sacrifice you to the gods without causing you to become unclean, they gain two levels and a minor wish (this is vaguely known to everyone who passes a contested wisdom check). Things which are unclean: touching another human, touching dirt, eating, wearing dyed clothes [crying or laughing, walking, having another look on you, talking].
• Pure: You are pure enough to interact safely with divine things. The requisite level of knowledge and wealth needed to maintain this state probably qualifies you to be a priest in a pinch. Sometimes it qualifies you to be the center of a cult. If you can already cast spells, you can cast as though you were one level higher a number of times per day equal to your level, and have +1 on two saves of your choice. Things which are impure to you: Mud, touching Clean people, being wounded, eating meat [speaking above a whisper, speaking less than a shout, wearing mixed fabrics, entering a tomb, drinking alcohol]. Things that make you more pure: blessed springs, miracles, a month of fasting and intense baths, actual fire. 
• Clean: You are pure enough to interact at all with nobility. Most normal people occupy this space, and most of the rest are clean ~30% of the time regardless. No effect. Impure things: Shit, Sex, Blood, Dead Bodies, Being Sick, Eating Impure Things [Stagnant water, having a beard, not having a beard]. Purifying things: a day of heavy washing, confessing sins, being anointed with oil, using a talisman, abstaining from sex and alcohol for a week.
• Unclean: It's mildly rude to talk with clean people. Spells have a X% chance of not working, where X is every hour you have been unclean. Impure things: Necrophilia, touching untouchable people, Coprophagia, demonic food, murder, rape, making unclean sacrifices [tanning animal hides, smithing, vagrancy, leprosy, becoming a scapegoat]
• Untouchable: You are considered disgusting by society, and are heavily discriminated against. You may not be allowed to enter stores or inns, and you certainly can never be seen by a priest. Nothing is more impure than you, and you cannot become clean except by incredible extraneous circumstances. You receive 1 [magic] which may be used to cast impure spells which regenerates at midnight. You can expend this during downtime to make a wealthy-level wage in some impure craft. If you choose to be a member of the untouchable caste at character creation, you get two [magic] instead.