Moieties, Dichotomies, and Polarities

All the cool Philosophies nowadays have meaningless categories. Generate your own with the button above! The first word of every pair is one part, the second word is the other. If you get two conflicting words, then there are two axes to this duality, and everything has values on both axes.

Glog Class: Duelist

 Duelists are fighters who specialize in one-on-one combat, obviously. The Duelist's main weapon is their sword, which they use to

You thought you were going to read a blog post about fancy sword fighters, but really you've activated my trap card! Despite my never having watched Yugioh, I will make a decisive post about it because I think its hilarious.

A/Δ: A Children's Card Game, +1 Card
B: The Shadow Realm, +1 Card
C: Heart of the Cards, +1 Card
D: Play Pokemon for Everyone's Souls, +1 Card

A Children's Card Game

Get weirdly invested in some cards (and out of game bring a deck for yourself and enough for the DM to make ones for certain NPCs)

You are really good at one game (mtg, pokemon, yugioh, etc. It should be one everyone at the table knows). Pare down the game in whatever way makes it quick enough for the game-in-a-game to not be an issue. You have one card, unique in your deck, which basically makes you win if you can get it out (+1 every level). The DM might let you "summon" that card, as though casting a spell. If you challenge someone to a card duel in game, they probably know the rules, have a deck, and might accept if intelligent and not currently violent.

The Shadow Realm

If someone would otherwise accept your duel, you can set some ludicrous material or metaphysical stakes. The stakes must be in the possession of the participants, but can be things like memories, working limbs, or their corporeal form. At the end of the duel, the loser loses their stake (up to the DM if the winner gains their stake). If you send someone to the shadow realm that still counts as murder.

The Heart of the Cards

You can lose 1d10 HP, or 1 Card to search your deck for a card and put it on top.

Play Pokemon for Everyone's Souls

You can stake the fate of the world on a duel. That is, you can decide to start the apocalypse if you win the duel, or stop the apocalypse if you win against the one who started it.

GLoG class: Invoker

 

Some things are so great that their names, their symbols, even their pots and pans become infused with power. You draw on those things.

Starting Equipment: Robes, a Dagger, a book of Lore, and your Relic 

A/Δ: Relic, Lore and Speech
B: Prophecy, +1 MD
C: Power against Power, +1 MD
D: Aspect, +1 MD

Relic

Obtain a Relic. Recognize its power.
You possess some fragment or leaving of a Legendary Power. Determine that legendary power and the relic you possess when you take this class. Perhaps it is a rock cut by Excalibur, an idol of a god, a saint's teeth, a sea-worn stone, etc. While you possess your relic, you have +1 MD* and can cast 2 spells relating to it (negotiated with the DM). If you collect additional relics relating to either the Legendary Power or something of its kind, you get 1 spell from them

Lore and Speech

Study deeply your Relic with all available materials.
When you come across a thing of the same general class as your Legendary Power (a sword for Excalibur, a knight or king for Arthur, a god for Anu, etc.), you can ask one question about it and know the answer, and you know the proper etiquette, rituals, and language to converse with it properly.

Prophecy

You may take 1 damage commune with your relic and receive cryptic visions related to it. You might receive information about the whereabouts and doings of your Legendary Power, hints as to the locations of more relics, warnings about the past or future, or any other prophetic shit. May not be useful or comprehensible.

Power against Power

You may use MD to invoke your Legendary Power against an enemy. If the enemy fails a save, they are put into enchanted sleep/death/magically imprisoned/banished/etc. The number of MD spent determines the difficulty of the requirement to rescue them (negotiated with the DM). A creature encountering their body/prison (or you, if their body is not present) knows subconsciously their nature and the nature of their binding.

Aspect

You may spend all your MD to summon the merest shred of your Legendary Power, manifesting either as an item, creature, or change to your very being.

Example Power: the Holy Grail

Relic: vial of the Blood
Spells: Transubstantiation**, New Covenant**

Relic: shield of Lancelot
Spells: Protection from Fire

Relic: shard of the Cross
Spells: Crucify**

Example Power: the Moon

Relic: Moonstone Orb
Spells: Moonlight**, Capture Light**

Relic: Silvered Mirror
Spells: Truesight

Relic: Water of the Maria
Spells: Control Water

Relic: Lycanthrope tooth
Spells: Animal Form

 
*If you lose the main relic, but have gained other MD from this class, you lose 1 MD (unspent preferentially) but don't lose your spells. If you lose your additional relics, you lose their spells. You might be able to switch which is your main, ask your DM.

**I don't really want to write these right now but you're clever and can probably get what I'm going for.

Notes: Its a generalized Orbseeker! Orb-purists will think I am lessening it, but I don't really care. Sometimes you wanna seek swords, not orbs, or you wanna be a relic-hunting cleric, or maybe you are a wizard collecting physicalized spells, or you are a spirit-hunter collecting trophies. Its a class with many nuances, I think. Do you collect shit? Does that shit have a vaguely unified theme? This is for you!

If players try some chicanery, like a moon invoker saying that any old thing touched by the moonlight is a relic, let them! But lock the good spells behind the actually cool relics, and enforce encumbrance strictly. That rock you found? It has a spell, and that spell is Be a Rock.

As always, my progress is done at 3 AM so this is probably bad and needs revising.

Þe key of Fanſie: a game for monks and scribes

(the key of fancy)

   Monks were literate, had leisure time, and were prone to both gambling and creativity. It is inconceivable that they did not play RPGs. Nonetheless, RPGs written in the monastic context are not forthcoming. Thus, we must make do.

 As in our age, the d6 was by far the most common of dice in medieval times. Though in many times and places, dice were forbidden by both common and monastic law, in practice, it was treated much the same as the monastic law against indulgence in food and alcohol.

Though, of course, not all monks were so flagrant. It is possible some monasteries would have used a point-based resolution system, or, more likely, coin flip based. In fact, given that dice were very commonly weighted in the medieval era, coin flip based decisions would've probably been more fair (can coins be weighted?). Considering these factors, we will give our game a coin (or coin like token, like a wood nickel) based resolution system.

It seems to me unlikely that there would exist classes as we would think of them (i.e. as a bundle of special rules and bonuses). There would however be specific archetypes accounted for. I'd imagine something like a list of archetypes and descriptions. For instance:

Magician

A foolish one who trafficks with fell powers. Despised by the good and christian when recognized, beloved of the pagan and worldly. May tell the future, or ensorcell the unwitting.

Rather than:

Magician

A wielder of magic. May cast spells from the list found on page xx a number of times per day equal to their level. Has x hitpoints, and saves as y.

So a sort of class restricted FKR. You are restricted in which things you might be, but those things don't have strictly defined mathematical benefits or universal features. 

And speaking of classes, lets talk about what those might be. The fantasy analogue of the middle ages (for fantasy did not truly exist yet) was a mix of oriental, biblical, and classical tropes, filtered through the medieval worldview. You'd have greek gods, heroes, and monsters, except they wear tunics and hose rather than chitons and sandals, and the gods are called fairies or spirits or allegories. King Solomon is there, so are the ruins of babel. There may or may not be demonic antagonists (whether demons were a matter to tell stories and joke about seemed to vary). Dragons are there, but likely compared with other fantastic beasts like lions and giraffes. Magic exists, but is more like medicine or astrology, and also is morally neutral at its very best. Christianity may or may not be depicted. Anachronism is high.

The Key of Fancie 

Notes: I am dissatisfied with this as it exists now, but I'm unsure of my expertise, ability, and free time to fix it, so if anyone has any suggestion or edits, feel free to suggest them. As well, if you feel the desire to make your own Game for Monks, I would be ecstatic to see them.

                                                     

Not RPG: Good Friday post

According to the ancient duty, this I must proclaim to you: Today is the highest and most sorrowful of days. Today, the Lord God has made himself low and detestable. Today he has made himself Barabbas, that we might be Christ. Today we are joined with fallen nature in our weeping, in our joy, and in our rescue. 

The Lord has borne the pain that we have deserved. We have been cruel, unjust, and unkind, and the bitter cup we have mixed has been taken from us. We have been liars, hypocrites, and haters of the truth. The truth has shown Himself to us, and we have killed him. But, praise God, there is now a mystery, for He has intended the highest evil for Greatest Good.

This I declare as my testimony, as truth

 Recommended listening

GLoG: Sourcerer (bad, probably)

 

I'm gonna do this better than Skerp

You are deeply magical. And it only gets worse from there.

A: MAGIC, +1 Thaum

B: Impossible Genius, +2 Thaum

C: Unreality, Dreamscaping, +3 Thaum

D: An Ounce of Control, +4 Thaum

MAGIC

Everything Impossible is trying to tear you open and eat The World. The World's laws are trying to implode you like a deep sea submarine. You are barely holding it together at any point in time. But, like any great battle, you hold all of both sides rapt with attention.

You can cast any spell in whatever gloghack you are playing in.

Your magic dice are called Thaum. They only deplete on a 6 (see below), and you must cast as many as possible on a spell. You exude MAGIC constantly, like radiation from a star. All other spellcasters who can see you add magic dice to all their spells equal to the Thaum you currently contain. Spellcasters who don't use magic dice instead add one of whatever determines their spell power, and either add a point of whatever determines their mishaps, take one damage to a mental stat, or mutate.

When you are in a stressful situation, save or cast a DM determined spell centered on yourself. This cannot be a damaging spell which only has one target. If you are not a valid target, the nearest valid target is chosen. This depletes your Thaum on a 4 or higher.

Impossible Genius

When you make a check with your mental stats, you always add a bonus equal to your current Thaum. You must also take damage equal to your Thaum, save for half.

Unreality

You have utter control of the space contained in a sphere of radius equal to (2^Thaum) feet. When you change something in that sphere, roll to deplete an amount of Thaum equal to the magnitude of the change (adjudicated by DM, dealing one damage per Thaum). Everything reverts back to normal when you leave that area (people revive on the spot where you disintegrated them, gold turns back to lead, wondrous palaces become nothing, and the people sleeping in them wake up on the ground).

 

Dreamscaping

You may choose to sleep for as long as you want. For every 2 hours slept in addition to the normal eight, you remove one Thaum. This creates a fully realistic dreamworld that is (10^Thaum Removed) feet in diameter, and lasts for (5^Thaum Removed) hours. There may be some sanity consequences for removing more than 3 or 4 Thaum (intense loneliness, perception of others as mere figments, hedonism and depravity, godlike delusions which may or may not be correct).

An Ounce of Control

When you roll a Thaum, you may shift the number up or down by one for the purposes of controlling depletion.

 

If you die, you die. Up to the DM how you suffer dooms, but if you get to the end of the track you completely vanish, such that you never were. 

[Sometimes you just want an overpowered class that explodes or cripples themself after like 2 levels. Be the most magical motherfucker possible until you die of not existing or just brain hemmoraging]

Town and Settlement Rules

 

Krzysztof Maziarz

When you are inside a town, things take either wilderness/hex turns (three in a day), town turns (take the whole day), or downtime turns (take a week). Each town has 2 stats: Earthly and Otherworldly. Earthly represents the population, resources, and temporal influence. Otherworldly represents the prevalence and power of the mystical. Each ranges from 1 to 5. A 1 in Earthly indicates a hamlet, 2-3 a town, 4 a city, and 5 a metropolis. Similarly, a 1 in Otherworldly indicates minimal magical presence, 2-3 would be average, 4 probably contains some notable society of magicians or priests, and 5 would be something like Endon in Magical Industrial Revolution. 

Hex Turn Actions

Find Shop

To find a shop, first determine what category of item or service you are looking for. Then, roll under the relevant town stat on a d6. If it succeeds, you find the item or service. If you fail, you don't. Repeat this. If you succeed, it is a specialist shop. If you fail, it is a shelf or hidden inventory in a more general shop, containing perhaps 3 items. If the category is simple necessities (typically food or farming equipment), you find one, but can still roll to see if it is high quality fancy stuff.

If the settlement is of considerable size, one can take a second hex turn to try again. If it is small, the DM may say that there is no more stores in town to check. If it has a Bazaar or Market, roll twice and take the better.

Find Quest

To find a quest, roll both stats. If one or both is over, there is a problem in the associated aspect which could do with solving. When it is solved, somebody of that aspect owes you a favor.

Religious Attendance

By spending a tenth of your recent earnings, you buy some sacrifices/donate to the church/purify yourself with incense. You become Ritually Pure, and gain the favor of local religious-types. As well, roll under Otherworldly and you get a minor blessing (post forthcoming).

Have a Good Meal

By spending twice the cost of a ration, gain 1d6 HP (or temporary HP) and have a nice meal. You only benefit from this once per downtime period, but if there is a different pleasant, restful thing in town, like a hot-springs, patisserie, or lodge, you can gain an identical benefit from that.

Local delicacies:

Town Turn Actions

Get an object repaired

Choose an object you want repaired, re-enchanted, or elsewise fixed. Roll under the corresponding town stat, and you find tools, materials, and possibly expertise to do so. Otherwise, it is only half repaired, and may break again or not work perfectly.

Do Chores

You do enough odd jobs and errands to afford 3 rations, or else obtain three rations worth of favors.

Relax

You decompress after some traumatic adventuring, and clean all the blood and muck off yourself. The combination of your civil attitude and appearance gives you a +2 to reaction rolls with people.

A Night on the Town

You go out drinking responsibly, having a good time at some pub or nightclub. Spend at least 3 rations, but no more than 10 rations. This counts for 1.5 times the XP.

Rumor Gathering

The Old Ladies, Bartenders, and Midwives share you the gossip. Roll under Earthly and you get some blackmail material, roll under Otherworldly and you hear some true sounding spooky happenings. In addition, roll on whatever rumor table you have at this time.

Downtime Actions 

Train

Working by yourself or with a teacher, you learn part of one skill. By spending three (possibly non-consecutive) downtime actions training that skill, you can become proficient. You gain a small benefit or feature, as well. For instance, the ability to make a second unarmed attack, the ability to pick a specific kind of lock, or the ability to try an impress someone with snippets of a language.

If one of your stats is below average, you could raise that stat by 1, up to slightly above average.

Research

You put out feelers and gather information, whether ancient lore or castle blueprints. If you roll under the relevant town stat, you find at least one piece of information regarding your subject of study. For instance, you might find a stanza of a poem, a useful diagram, or a map with a few rooms filled in. It is definitely true. Otherwise, treat this as several rolls on the rumor table.

Magical Experiments

Select one spell of yours, or one rune or scroll you've found. Describe as well the way you will be experimenting. Depending on the way you experiment, an intelligence (or other mental stat) check, a roll under the town stat, or a sacrifice of materials or coin may be required. You learn a version of that spell which is appropriate to your caster level and is changed slightly to reflect your conclusions. If you fail, save vs. magic or take (caster level)d10 damage.

Set up a Base

You use favors, money, and elbow grease to set up a little place where the party can meet, sleep, and do a bit of preparation. Roll over Earthly and its free, because it was abandoned or you made it yourself. Roll twice more: if the first is under Earthly, it has the amenities you are used to (such that you no longer need to roll for tools for Repairing Objects); if the second is under Otherworldly, it has magical resources enough to do Magical Experiments.

朱玮玮/Zhu Weiwei

[These are abstractions for when you don't want to play out the whole thing, or for when you are unsure of something. If you can run everything by yourself with full detail, and you want to, then you should!]