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Thursday, September 9, 2021

Legendary MOSAIC


Sword King

You were chosen by the Field of Swords and became the Rightful Heir of some long-dead kingdom.

Items: a Magic Sword of the Three Word Variety, Traveling Clothes, a Tower overlooking a Hamlet which has submitted to you. Also probably the Party, who are your backers.

Benefit: you are a King. If you state your Kingship, peasants who don't know your kingdom is long dead will treat you with all the deference necessary to get you out of their hair.

Drawback: You are basically viewed as a bandit lord by nobles and free legitimacy points by the false monarchs of today.

Sunderer

You are a Slayer, a Killer, and something truly Terrible. Rip and Tear.

Items: 4 Swords, 3 Spears, 2 Axes, and barely modest Rags.

Benefit: If a weapon is anything short of adamant, you can sunder it to deal twice the damage. For the rest of the combat, your Pure Killing Intent functions as that weapon.

Drawback: Combats do not end until either every creature you can reach easily is dead, or you are dead. You must attack so long as combat lasts.

Green Knight

Elven airs hang heavily about you, an atmosphere of repose and contemplation.

Items:  a Sword of strange metal, verdigris'd Panoply, a powerful Rune

Benefit: If you would be slain, and you still possess your Rune, you instead take a long rest. This still applies even if you are decapitated. For a year afterward, any attack can fell you.

Drawback: You have to rest twice as long as others. 

Red Knight

You've cultivated something of an image, and you wield yourself like a weapon.

Items: a Sword, a Halberd, a Shield with a prominent and well known Blazon, and fearsome Armor

Benefit: Everyone either loves or hates you. If someone is perfectly neutral, you get to choose.*

Drawback: You must save or reciprocate all reactions.

White Knight

Good people don't need as many rules as you do. Good people don't try so hard.

Items: a Sword, a Shield, a faithful Horse, a Lance, and a Quest

Benefit: You can declare something as impeding your Quest. If you've been a good boy, a miracle might happen, and the problem will be solved. Or maybe someone realizes they'd be interfering with a capital "Q" Quest, and respects that.

Drawback: If you act irreverent or frivolous, or kill a bunch of people, your Quest abandons you and you are left with the horrid knot in the center of your heart.

Black Knight

Items: a Lance and Horse, a nondescript Shield, and concealing Armor

Benefit: You get to kill people and get away with it.

Drawback: Several broad classes of people hate your guts.

White Mage

You are a student of the Art Radiant. A shard of LIGHT has wedged inside your soul.

Items: Dirt repellent Robes, a Big Stick, a Bow made from metal only you can wield, and a bunch of Tchotchkes and Talismans.

Benefit: You can make objects glow. This takes concentration, and can't be done walking, but doesn't actually require you to see. The light lasts as long for as long as you took preparing the object. It sheds light as a torch. You can half the time to make it twice as bright, or double it to make it half as bright. You can tenth the time to make it into any type of light you desire (sunlight, moonlight, octarine, jale, cosmogone, etc.). This light can slowly heal wounds if you focus it on doing so.

Drawback: When you attack a creature that is not a shadow**, you cannot make light for an hour. This stacks.

Sorcerer

You are a student of the Art Fulminant. The World ought bow.

Items: Impractical Robes, a Big Stick, and Orb of fine crystal, Notes on metaphysical realities and the natures of things, 10 uses of various Alchemical Salts.

Benefit: You can make a magical attack of any sort of element you choose. This acts like a bow. It can deal more damage than a bow, but is in proportion harder to use. This difficulty doesn't apply when targeting inanimate objects

Drawback: You are very obviously a sorcerer. Also, using one of these ranged attacks consumes an significant reagent of a nature corresponding with the element (alchemical salts count as any "standard" element). Really powerful spells need more than one ingredient. Ingredients for alchemical salts cost as much as 3 torches

Conjurer

You are a student of the Art Fantastic. Indeed, indeed, it is an Art.

Items: Formal Coat, a Wand, a collection of Mirrors, an elaborate brass Brazier, and a stately Pipe, and 3 Smoke Bombs.

Benefit: You may conjure illusions. The borders of the illusion must be defined by the mirrors you set out, and it takes time to appear according to the time it takes smoke from a special fire you set to fill the area. It can make moving creatures and effects that apply to all the senses. The mirror rule does not apply to illusions on yourself or another creature but the smoke rule does.

Drawback: The conjurations are obviously Fake, or at least obviously magical. You might make a jeweled palace but close inspection reveals it to be cardboard and paste-jewels, or all a trick of light. Conjurations can be made real, or seemingly so, if you know a secret fact about them and their inner nature (for instance, a demon's true name, a ghost's resting place, the origin of gold, etc.).

Witch

You are a student of the Art Malignant. By heaven, you do not mean to be!

Items: Tattered Wraps, darkling Shroud, a bronze Sickle, and a Familiar

Benefit: By glaring at a Person (and specifically a Person) for one minute, you can inflict them with a wasting curse which causes them to slowly die over the course of a week. People carry talismans against this sort of thing, so it doesn't always work, and if someone notices you they might say an incantation or use some other mundane means to stop you.

Drawback: When you successfully use your curse, you become more of a monster

Cultist of Storms

You have devoted yourself to the Winds and Thunders

Items: Plain white Robe, Gold Circlet, Straight Oak Wand, Stormy Eyes.

Benefit: You can tell precipitation a day in advance. You can call storms, which arrive in 24 hours. Unless there is a specific curse on the land, this always works, though you roll a d6: on 1, 2, or 3, it comes with the strength you want; on 4 or 5, it is a day long torrent which might sweep away villages; on 6, it is a either a biblical flood OR you get pregnant. You must stay in the area for it to take affect, and the storm follows you around for its duration.

Drawback: When it rains, you lose yourself in ecstatic frenzy. You can still vaguely direct yourself, but you are compelled to stay outside in the rain, and cannot do anything that doesn't abide by vigorous activity.

Cultist of Idols

You devote yourself to Worship

Items: a fancy Tunic, a Cloak, a carving Knife, Chisel, Hammer, resinous Incense, an Idol of some small god, and Facepaint indicating your holiness.

Benefit: You know how to make idols and shrines beloved by the gods, and the rituals to consecrate them. The level of materials required for an acceptable shrine or idol depends on the god. Shrines are like intercoms, Idols are like houses. Shrines (which are normally pretty simple) act as places where offerings can be made and communication had. Idols are the physical and local presence of a god. Sufficiently fancy objects of devotion tend to distract gods from whatever justice they were dispensing.

Drawback: You have to make an offering to every idol you pass by, or you lose your holiness.

Cultist of Mystery

Some break in your mind leads you to search for things beyond and below daemons and the dead, far out in the depths of the black cosmos and the unseen earth.

Items: Black Robes, a Mask with an eye on it, a Ten-Foot-Pole, a Lantern with a magic cover, a Feather of some import.

Benefit: If you use the magic cover on your lantern, it sheds a light only you can see, which reveals some traps (never all). You know a way to enter the land of dreams and shadows.

Drawback: Choose something that your fellows would want to know. You cannot tell it to them.


Cultist of Passions

LIFE burns in you: LIFE that fucks and kills and eats!

Items: Revealing "Clothes", Thyrsus, strong Alcohol, Honey, raw Meat, Poetry, and a Shortness of Breath.

Benefit: You get double benefit from all downtime activities that aren't rest or work. Your hands count as daggers.

Drawback: When there is any roll to see what you do, the DM may choose either the one rolled or one of the results adjacent.

Flamen

In the morning, the lauds. At noon, sacrifices for his health. In the evening, vespers. The tectonic clockwork of law. May his majesty be preserved, may he reign forever. It'll go on without you, you hope.

Items: Samite Vestements, an ornate Censer, a Book of Hours.

Benefit: You know a ritual for safeguarding a person. It takes an hour, must be performed thrice per day for full effect, and takes a day of intense expenditure to start up. So long as you perform it, the target will not die before his appointed end, and will generally find success and favor.

Drawback: If you don't perform the ritual after you start it, all fortunes are reversed. Might be avoided by loudly mourning and holding a lavish fake funeral for the target. Also the ritual is generally reserved for the local ruler only and is illegal for anyone else. Also you generally have somewhere else to be.

 

*Mechanically: When rolling reaction checks, results above 7 are treated as one result higher, and below seven are treated as one result lower, specifically towards you. On seven exactly, you get to choose exactly what the person thinks of you. (results higher than the highest might be worship or infatuation, and lower than the lowest might be undying hatred)

 **Purposefully vague

Thanks to Gorinich for being my local MOSAIC Strict addict and helping me abide by its principals.

1 comment:

  1. I'm a fan of all of these, especially the naming of the Arts!

    ReplyDelete