Mazes and Minotaurs Houserule: Minor Interventions

Gonna be going on a vacation with my WIFE (new development!) and her family, and the people want Greek mythology, so I'm gonna be starting a Mazes and Minotaurs campaign (or maybe just doing a one shot). As a ruleset, it's worth giving a look: It's unserious, creative, seemingly very playable, and full of little editorial blurbs talking about the spurious history of the game and of gaming as a whole. Also it's free, and well laid out (even with its hilarious and/or cringeworthy clip-art illustrations). Since I'm going to run it, I wanted to write down a little houserule before I forget.

While it takes a priest to invoke the mighty Divine Intervention of one of the Olympian gods, the lesser gods of earth and sky, of virtue and happenstance, may be called forth by any character. To call a god, a character must perform an invocation lasting a full combat round and naming (if only vaguely) the god they desire to appear, and then must roll a d20, modified by their Luck, Level, and (in the case of Magicians) their class's Magical Talent (Orphic Voice, Elemental Mastery, etc.), against a target number of 20. An unmodified roll of 20 always succeeds.

On a success, the god named (or another appropriate god or spirit of the GM's choice) appears, "stepping out" onto the scene like an actor from the chorus or from some unseeable backstage. The character who invoked the god has, of course, no control over them whatsoever, and they are by default a neutral observer to the events before them (the GM might also make a reaction roll, if the god is fickle enough). They may be propitiated, however, to make them well-disposed to the invoker's requests (or, by contrast, offended, or propitiated by an enemy). The powers of the lesser gods are not to be taken lightly, though they tend to favor less spectacular displays of power than the Olympians. At least, they may replicate any effect of mortal magic (though tending towards their domain), and several more powerful and subtle effects, and cannot be killed by any mundane means.

On a failure, the god does not appear before mortal eyes (though the gods are always watching in matters of their concern). They cannot be invoked again for a nebulous and entirely arbitrary amount of time. Magicians of all types (who, of course, deal regularly with such spirits) may expend their Power points to reroll a failed invocation: 3 power points will allow a single reroll, while 6 power points (equivalent to a true Divine Intervention) ensures that the lesser god appears.

However, Magicians can only reroll invocations to lesser gods over which they have sway: Elementalists and Nymphs have sway over the elemental and natural gods of their domains, gods of rivers, winds, or flames; Lyrists and Sorcerers have sway over the gods of the human heart, personifications like Death, Justice, and Rage, as well as the shades of the dead; and Priests have sway over the gods who act as servants of their Patron god, such as the clouds of Zeus, the muses of Apollo, or the furies of Athena (as well as those gods who are the servants of all the gods, such as Iris or Hebe).

Lesser gods may also be propitiated through longer and more expensive invocations. These longer rites take 10 minutes, and include a sacrifice of some equivalent monetary value (whether through throwing gold in a lake, burning expensive incense, pouring expensive wine, or the slaughter of animals or people). This starts at 1 Gold Coin for a +1 bonus to the invocation roll (and to the reaction roll, if the GM makes one), and increases to +2 at 10 gold coins, +3 at 100 gold coins, etc.

This houserule I think takes care of a few big gaps in the original rules. Firstly, the lack of non-olympian god representation (common in Greek myth content from the nerds of the 80s). I feel that the common appearance of the gods of all sorts is an integral part of the feeling of a Greek myth or a Greek drama. It is a poor representation of Greek myth that does not allow the river Scamander to take offense to Achilles, or Right Logic and Wrong Logic to debate in the Academe of Socrates.

Secondly, the lack of non-combat spells for many of the magicians. An Elementalist of Air can call up winds to serve as a shield, but has no power to fill the sails of a trireme. A Sorcerer can command the living, but has no ability to perform that most basic form of hellenic magic which calls up the spirits of the dead. The Astute and GLOG-minded reader will notice parallels to the most prototypical and elegant GLOG magic ability. The ability to transform a physical task into a roleplay negotiation is probably one of the most fun magic rules ever written, in my opinion, and should probably be included in whatever setting has room for it (the prospect of persuading a Warp Drive occurs to me, and tantalizes). Fair credit to Loch as well, whose Magos was not far from my mind as I wrote this.

GLAUGUST TAX: SPELL(S) OF THE EVIL KING

I cannot, I think, elaborate all the spells of the evil king, but I can write one, with some wifely help.

Turquoise Doom
R: Touch T: Object, creature, or concept weighing less than 10^[dice] pounds D: Permanent
Encases the target in [sum] layers of beautiful and indestructible eggshell, blue like that of a robin (and also the size and weight of a robin's egg, no matter what is contained therin). Each layer may only be broken by genuine tears of sorrow for the thing contained therein. For each layer, a different person must weep. The tears don't need to fall onto the egg: it suffices that they fall on any earth worked by human hands. Laughter is nearly weightless, and your own death is around 1000 pounds. The EVIL KING's death is trapped this way, though none know it, and he considers it safe, since who on earth would cry over his death?

Dirt Simple Domains (OSE?)

 

dunno the source, alas

Thinking (as usual?) about clerics. You know that I like gods with some personality. But there's certainly an aesthetic space for something a bit more one-note. Sometimes all that is relevant to a game is that such-and-such shrine is dedicated to the god of fire, or my cleric worships the sword-god, or this blade is holy to the god of frogs. The assumed cleric of an old school game (I'm using OSE as the example, cause its easy) is devoted to the god (possibly God) of light or law or life or something, or conversely to evil/chaos/death. They don't often have strictures, at least not by default, that would prevent them from, say, graverobbing. They're just supposed to, vaguely, advance the cause of good.

So, let's think similarly about the cleric of the god of frogs. They aren't bound that "thou shalt always be slimy" by the trickster frog Glorn. They worship simply the god of frogs, and will try to "advance the cause of frogs", whatever that entails, but in the same vague way that the fighter wants to avenge their parents. When you have a cleric like this, here is what you can do:

First, determine if the deity is lawful, neutral, or chaotic. You can pretty much just let the player pick, or use whatever alignment they are gonna be. This tells you if they are going to use the normal or reversed version of spells, of course.

Then, pick whichever spell on the cleric spell list is least fitting to the god, and replace that with the most fitting spell from the MU spell list of the same level (or illusionist/druid spell list, if you are using the full rules). This can be a bit tricky with only the MU spell list since they can be a little generic, but remember that being old-school doesn't mean we are banned from reflavoring things. For instance, for the god of frogs, I would replace Light with Shield (I would choose Sleep, but we all know Sleep is a bit overpowered)

When the cleric reaches higher levels of spells, repeat this process with the new level, taking into account any fun flavor your cleric mentioned about their god. Our frog god at second level will lose Bless and get Hypnotic Pattern. 

Finally, if you'd like, you can replace Turn Undead with a category of creature that the god would be opposed to. You could also Turn that category as well as undead, maybe increasing the effective HD of the turned creature. I think the god of frogs would be neutral on the subject of undead, but would rather loathe birds.

I don't pretend that this is a new idea or houserules, I just wanted to write about it. I might write up a short list of simple gods like this just for fun later on. I think if I were to add clerics to Fifth Fantasy, it would be in a similar vein.