A Rough Sort (Trio of GLOG Classes)

    Got a couple of classes rattling around in my brain. Thought I'd publish them here, so at least someone might get use out of them.

"Chocolate"! AI generated, with a watermark from some sleazebaggianos... and yet, still "chocolate".

    The Thieves World series consisted of sword-and-sorcery anthologies of stories written by some of the most influential fantasists of the 70s and 80s (including the never-more-than-just-out-of-frame Marion Zimmer Bradley). They were mostly pretty terrible books, containing mostly pretty terrible stories — at best, they reach the height of "pastiches of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith" and at the worst they're about the unshakeable love between an author-insert and a prepubescent. I've read the first two out of twelve collections, and there have already been 3 or 4 stories where a man infiltrates a wizard's house by sneaking in through the hidden escape route backwards (like in Rogues in the House, January 1934, a story worth reading). But I take real joy in crummy, crime-ridden fantasy cities, and because my current weekly game has taken the party to one (and stuck them there for a good while) I've been scaring up brain-fodder.

    The connections between Thieves World and 1980s fantasy tabletop gaming is obvious, worth discussing, and has been discussed elsewhere in long essays and shit. Go read those if you're interested; I'm only here to post some classes.

    I suppose I have one thought to share with you, a bit of Theory before the content. A common thread in the GLOG is the idea that the class is the primary medium by which the player understands the world. Vivanter has a post about class selection as the way players signal what kind of game they want to play. I couldn't find this post in time for publishing, but I've read some good posts (possibly from Grognardia?) about how Jack Vance and other sword-and-sorcery authors used throw-away references to strange peoples, secret cults and far-off lands to good effect, giving the impression that their worlds were much broader and deeper than they probably were.
    Here's that thought I promised you, reader: you don't need to write any "lore" or "setting info". You don't need a timeline, and you hardly ever need a map (unless the map is cool). The classes can speak for themselves. In Thieves World each new weird guy — Shadowspawn the witch-blood burglar; Tempus the murderously sociopathic avatar to a host of gods; Lythande the magical pedophile (written by Marion Zimmer Bradley); many more — expands and deepens the setting exponentially. Just come up with good ideas! That's all you need!

    "Nobody knows how big Sanctuary [the city which the stories are set in] really is. Anytime any one of us needs a secret meeting place we just create one – Sanctuary is either very large or very cramped." - Lynn Abbey, author, co-editor of Thieves World

Wizard School: Three Primes

    When several factors beloved by the Lord of the Three Primes align in the life of a soon-to-be acolyte (among them the loss of all family ties, a certain bloodless interest in the human body, and a talent for dark magic), then the Black Book of Sal-Carrion may appear to them, bound in soft, creamy hide, lettered in red ink. Its secrets are cruel, and difficult to believe — but if you have the inclination, surely it wouldn't be so hard to disprove them.

Perk: By your education, dress and manner of speech you are recognized as a gentleman-medico. You're permitted to enter places that are usually forbidden to wizards, adventurers, or common surgeons. Highly-placed people trust your judgment, and seek your advice in emergencies. 
Drawback: Peasants and children makes a reaction check when they realize what you are. They may attempt to ward you off with an apple. 
Cantrips: 

1. Once per disease you are infected with, you may attempt to pass it to another person who fails a save.
2. When you spill blood, you may choose to have it disappear before it touches the ground.
3. Given a bird and a windup toy, you may make one windup bird with 10 minutes of work.

Spells:

1. Abstemious Supply
   R: touch T: see description D: permanent
   The caster passes their hand over a target not produced or previously affected by this spell, revealing [best] extra doses, portions or slots of...
   1MD: any food or drink...
   2MD: or poison or drug...
   3MD: or potion or magical ingredient...
   4MD: or small creature or object. 
2. Dirty Needle
   R: self T: n/a D: [dice] hits
   Caster draws a light epee +1 from thin air, and gains proficiency in such weapons for the duration. Those struck by the blade save v. disease or contract one of the following at random: blinding sickness, bubonic plague, cackle fever, filth fever, leprosy, mindfire, red ache, shakes, or slimy doom.
3. Ant Haul
   R: touch T: creature D: [sum] hours.
   [dice] copies of the creature appear. They follow the original in a long line, mimicking its actions, and carrying its burdens.  If slain, or at the end of the duration, the copies curl up into a dry little ball. Each corpse may be boiled into 1 ration of unpleasant soup.
4. Carrion Compass
   R: touch T: corpse or undead creature of [dice] HD or fewer D: [sum] miles
   Caster touches a part of the target, traditionally an organ or bone, and it begins to levitate. If the target was a corpse, their piece begins to slowly levitate towards the person they would most blame for their death (if murdered, this is typically their killer). If the target is an undead, their piece begins to slowly levitate towards its controller; if they had no controller, the piece levitates towards their resurrector; if raised as undead by some curséd tomb or battlefield or artifact instead of a necromancer, the piece levitates towards some curséd tomb or battlefield or artifact; if none of these things are the case, or if they were the case but the controller/resurrector/curséd tomb has been slain or destroyed, the piece burns to ash. 
5. Face of the Devourer
   R: touch T: creature D: [sum] minutes
   Target's face gains a hideous new shape, such as a half-melted visage with insect legs instead of teeth, seeping pits instead of eyes, and suckered tongues dangling from its misshapen mouth. The face is different every time this spell is cast. This spell does not interfere with the target’s senses or breathing, though it might prevent the target from speaking. The face is so horrible that it triggers a morale check with a [dice] penalty in any creature who looks upon it, including the target if they glance in the mirror. When dealing with outsiders, the face instead grants a reaction bonus equal to [dice]. Additionally, the target gains a medium bite attack for the duration.
6. Know the Enemy
   R: sight T: creature of [sum] HP or fewer D: instant
   Choose a target within range. Learn [dice] relevant facts about them (of the kind appropriate for Assassins, Monster Hunters or Gumshoes) instantly.
7. Furious Rat
   R: n/a T: n/a D: see description
   Caster summons a rat with [sum] hitpoints and [dice] levels in Berserker to their hand. Once the rat is flung, it's go time.
8. Placebo Effect
   R: touch T: damaged or sick creature D: one day
   Caster mutters some mumbo-jumbo and target "heals" up to [sum] hitpoints and [dice] injuries, fatal wounds or diseases. All damage the target takes is doubled for the duration of the spell, or until they have received a total of [sum] damage (before doubling). Every time the target takes damage, a random injury, fatal wound or disease reasserts itself. 
9. Woundweep
   R: 30' T: damaged creature D: instant
   Target saves or takes as much damage as they are already missing from their max HP (e.g. a creature at 6/9 hitpoints is now at 3/9 hitpoints). This process is excruciating. The damage cannot directly kill the target, but if it reduces them to 0 hitpoints they must check constitution or fall unconscious from the pain, and if they have sustained any injuries they must again check constitution or suffer that injury a second time.
10. Retained Foreign Object
    R: touch T: living creature D: indefinite
    Before casting this spell, the caster must carefully open an incision in the target's torso... actually, it need not be that careful, any gaping wound will do, but casters with medical backgrounds can do this without damaging the patient. An object of up to [dice] inventory slots can then be inserted into the target's torso. Objects can be immediately and harmlessly retrieved by casting Retained Foreign Object again with [dice] equal to or greater than the desired object's slots. Objects can be slowly and painfully retrieved the old fashioned way as well. Targets cannot retain more than [CON score] inventory slots of foreign objects.
11. Sedition
    R: n/a T: 30' cone, originating from caster D: [sum] days
    Caster points a finger and utters a word of power, and a flash of unseemly light radiates throughout the target cone. Intelligent creatures of [dice] HD or fewer caught within the light must save or be filled with an overwhelming death-drive, in the form of a hostile persona in their own minds. This new persona is a creature with the same memories, stats, class &c as its host, but diametrically opposed morality and worldview, and an irrational hatred of those the original persona considered allies. Control over the body (which the old and new persona must share, as neither is able to destroy the other without also destroying themselves) is determined by rolling 1d6: on a result of 1–4, the persona currently controlling the body maintains control. Control is checked when Sedition is cast, when affected creatures take damage, and when affected creatures wake from sleep. Whichever persona is not in control at the end of the duration disappears, though further casts of Sedition will reawaken them.
12. Waste Vitality
    R: sight T: entity with magic dice D: instant
    Caster focuses their will for a moment to roll [dice] of the target's MD, expending them as normal. When this happens, target must check intelligence or also cast a random prepared spell in a not-entirely-controlled manner.

Mishaps:

1. MD only return on a 1–2 for 24 hours.
2. Take 1d6 damage as stitches tear.
3. Random mutation for 1d6 rounds, then make a save. Permanent if you fail.
4. You develop a sudden and uncharacteristic fear of blood. For 24 hours, seeing blood spilled requires you to check constitution or spend a round vomiting.
5. Every edge within 10' of you dulls blunt as butter. Affected tools, weapons and ammunition suffer a -2 penalty to all actions (checks, attacks, damage rolls &c) until reground.
6. You develop strange symptoms of horrific medical experimentation. Save: on a failure take 1d6 damage and describe the gnarly and intimidating scar/condition/big metal bolts in your neck. On a success, take no damage and describe a more understated scar.

Dooms of Sal-Carrion:

1. As payment, your master takes your ability to recognize individuals by their appearance. Marks of position or role (crowns, collars, robes) can still be perceived, but you are entirely faceblind, to the point of being unable to distinguish an elf from an orc or a small child from a shrunken elder. It may be best to have a trusted set of friends (say, fellow adventurers) carry your letters to NPCs rather than meet them in person.
2. As payment, your master takes your face. The exposed skullbone gets very chilly without a good scarf.
3. As payment, your master takes your eyes, tongue, ears, both legs, and right hand. It's time to retire to a quiet university somewhere and write monographs.

You can avoid this horrible fate by creating a new biological species, by traveling secretly to Sal-Carrion and editing the Lord of Three Prime's own double-entry accounts, or by convincing someone who truly loves you to willingly give up their face, eyes, tongue, ears, both legs and right hand for your sake.

Barbarian: Cloudskater

    Tall, thin, broad-browed, blue-eyed strangers come migrating in silk-tented hordes every few years. You don't see them much before dusk. They'll do most things for pay. They're barbarians, of course, but not the common kind, if common kinds there be. 

Skills: 1. Love songs 2. Siege engines 3. Armory maintenance

Starting Equipment: boltcutters (as medium, but must be used in two hands), blue lantern, crescent harp, silver medallion

• A Little Shadow
• B Close Encounter
• C Memory of Drums
• D Round Worlder

Little Shadow
    Your wear a silver medallion around your neck, which is a token of the Moon's love for you and of the protection she has granted your people. So long as you never show this token to her jealous lover, the Sun, your jump distance is trebled and you take only 1d6 points of damage for every complete 30' you fall. Should you fail to conceal the token, by mistake or malice, you lose this benefit and gain the ire of the Sun. His light will burn you like fire. This continues until you create or obtain a replacement token made from at least 1 slot of silver that has never been touched by sunlight. 

    While you are raging, your jump distance increases by a factor of 10, and you take 1d6 points of damage for every complete 100' you fall. Additionally, you may only fall 100' per round. 

Close Encounter

    You can spend a point of Rage to cause a willing person, or a roughly person-sized object, to rise into the sky on a beam of light. It is trivial to move out of the way of the light, so unwilling persons must first be pacified. Later, you can spend a point of Rage to cause that person or object to descend from the sky in the same manner. 9-in-10 that the same one comes down as went up. 4-in-6 odds nothing really weird has happened. 

Memory of Drums
    Every night you dream of war in heaven. Your visions are of ships of blue glass rigged with silver wire and morning mist, swords that burn, warriors slain without a touch by air too cold to breathe, bows and lances of light, starry horns blowing silent signals, and other beautiful things no one else can understand. In your waking hours you possess a sourceless knowledge of how to build, maintain and use inexplicable devices.

    Each inexplicable device has a cost in materials (listed generically, generally available in a city or a relevant workshop) and in sourceless knowledge. You have 1 point of sourceless knowledge per level. Every time you sleep, you may reinvest and redistribute any amount of sourceless knowledge, though your devices will quickly fail without your constant upkeep. 

Inexplicable Devices:

1. Lightning Sling.
   Cost: 10x polearm, 1 sourceless knowledge.
   This inexplicable device resembles a bident with a crescent-shaped buttspike and two toothed blades, each canted about 30° off from where a single blade would be. A cumbersome massive weapon, capable of devastating scything blows, with significant reach. If held from the bottom with one hand in the crescent, the Sling may project a 20' thunderbolt that catches metallic objects and either violently pulls or explosively pushes them. May be used to grapple with armored targets at range, or to pick up medium or heavy swords (or other all-metal weapons and objects) and fling them 60'. 
2. Lamplighting Knife.
   Cost: 10x sword, 1 sourceless knowledge.
   This inexplicable device resembles a rainmaker with a textured rubber exterior, about ten inches long and an inch in diameter. It rattles pleasantly when shook because it is full of lead pellets. When sharply flicked, as if getting blood off a sword, a 24" baton of liquid lead extends from one end of the device. This baton remains for one minute, and then automatically retracts and cannot be reactivated for an hour. Used as a weapon, this is a light club +2, and deals an additional 1d8 fire damage to creatures who aren't very heavily insulated. Mind the spatter.
   
3. Reflective Stonebow.
   Cost: 10x crossbow for the weapon, 10x arrows for the ammunition, 2 sourceless knowledge.
   This inexplicable device resembles a heavy fiddle of some polished marble-like material, with long darts of black metal. When the darts are drawn across one or more of the weapon's four steel strings, they are launched with varying effects to a range of about 330'. You know how to produce the following effects, though others may be possible:
• Slaying. All of the dart except its head burn up in flight. It inflicts 2d6 damage to one target. 
• Frangible. The dart disintegrates into a cloud of shrapnel. It inflicts 1d10 damage in a 10' radius sphere, save for half.
• Freeze Missile. Struck target saves or is rendered immobile for 1d6 rounds.
• Marking. Dart burns to nothing in flight, leaving a trail of randomly-colored thick smoke that lingers for ten minutes. 
4. Ascetic Shield.
   Cost : 10x shield, 2 sourceless knowledge.
   This inexplicable device resembles a flat disc of almost-transparent sky-blue glass, about 4' in diameter. When attached to your arm (donning or doffing the shield takes half an hour), it grants you a +4 bonus to AC. When held over your head, it can bear about 800 pounds of weight comfortably without slowing or fatiguing you, so long as your arm is raised. If carrying more than 800 pounds, the shield violently explodes.
5. Horned Helmet.
   Cost: as plate, 3 sourceless knowledge.
   This inexplicable device resembles a black glass sallet with long feathery antennae like a moth's. When wearing this helmet, you may broadcast thoughts to targets within 330' whose names you know. If you are struck with a critical hit while wearing it, the helmet peacefully explodes, and all creatures within 3280' besides yourself take 1d12 psychic damage. 
6. Hippoere Lectern.
   Cost: 10x horse, 2 sourceless knowledge.
   This inexplicable device resembles those gizmos the Battle Droids are flying around on chasing Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace. It moves faster than a horse, and hovers 3' off the ground while in motion, but if [rider's Constitution score] + [number of occupied slots in rider's inventory, excepting chi] ever equals 21 or higher, the lectern violently explodes.

Round Worlder

    While raging, your personal gravity changes to the direction your feet are pointing at the start of each round. 

Rogue: Ratbastard

    In far-away cities your kind is often born, even in the best families. In this cold and dry foreign land you are practically unheard of. Suits you just fine. 

    A Ratbastard is like a Hellbastard, but with oily black rats instead of ink. Your kind seems to fall, inevitably, into a life of crime. It makes sense, I suppose; your blood is so much thicker than water. 

    You are a Rogue, with all that that implies. 

Skills: 1. Horsery 2. Foreign literature 3. Lies

Starting Equipment: set of ridiculous clothes, sword with two blades (medium), flask of cheese-flavored liquor (3 doses)

• A Still a Rat, However Mutable My Form
• B Veil of Rodents
• C Inveterate Gnawer, Poisonous Teleport 
• D All Bastard

Still a Rat

    Your veins are full of rats. These rats are dangerous criminals. You may surreptitiously nibble on things your fingers are touching — cheese, ropes, faces, &c. When you strike someone with a sneak attack and have a free off-hand, you may make an additional attack against them at +[level] to-hit for 1d6 chewing damage. 

However Mutable My Form

    Your veins are, as mentioned, full of rats. For every point of damage you take, 1d6 rats spill forth and flee. When you would take a fatal wound, you are instead dispersed into the local environs. You will reform [max HP] weeks later, less one day for each rat which escaped the fatal wound (not the rats that you've lost in general, those guys ran off to find cheese). Friends and associates are accustomed to you disappearing for months at a time. In theory it would be possible to permanently kill you by tracking down every rat that you have ever been and destroying it, but this is obviously impractical. 

    On your character sheet, write down "LIST OF FEARS". When something disperses you, add that thing to the list of fears; record the name of a person if it was a homicide, otherwise write down the hazard. You must pass a save vs. fear to approach that FEAR in the future. If something is on the list multiple times, you must pass multiple saves. Begin play with a FEAR rolled from the following list:

1. Fire
2. The Sea
3. Cats
4. Delicious-Smelling Food
5. Something??? in a Wizard's Tower
6. A Grue

Veil of Rodents

    You may willingly separate yourself into a teeming swarm of rats. They occupy at least a five-foot square, and at most a ten-foot square. As a swarm, you take 1 damage from most sources, normal damage from fire, and the maximum amount of damage from explosions, bursts of poison gas, &c. On your turn in combat the swarm may force any number of creatures standing in it to save or take 1d6 damage. The swarm may pass through any opening or tunnel large enough for a rat. If the swarm takes 6 damage or more from any source, you are dispersed. It takes at least a round for the swarm to reform into you, more if they're spread out (say, on the rafters of a feasting hall you've snook up into).

Inveterate Gnawer

    Your teeth, even in human form, grow continually. They are slightly harder and more durable than aluminum.

Poisonous Teleport

    Whatever area you are in always seems to be teeming with bright-eyed sable-furred rats. Once per round, you can disappear from where you are standing and reappear up to 20' away in a location a rat could have reached. 

All Bastard
    In your human form you have a prehensile tail and can squeeze into any gap your skull can fit through. As a rats, you can speak with your human's voice. 

Self Same King (GLOG Setting, Campaign Material)

    It has been some two centuries, many many generations of the smallfolk, since the goblins of Hybrasil threw off the yoke of their ogre masters and chased the invading tallfolk back into the sea. But the Goblin King aged and died, as goblins do, and his advisors — the prophesied adventurers who guided him to adulthood and power, and gathered the regalia of his previous incarnations — followed him into the dark long ago, even the blessed Rellek who was favored by the Goddess of Death. The Free Kingdoms that so many goblins died to create have not grown stronger or more powerful with the passing of years. 

    There are old enemies in Hybrasil, and new threats. The Torch Paladins are as proud and cruel today as they ever were before they were forced at lancepoint to bend the knee. From the south the Hobgoblin Empire swallows the island up, mile by mile, town by town. In the north the immortal Dimitar, the ruler of planet Xater and the so-called "Space Hitler", is once more preparing to invade the realms of flesh and blood. Even the lands of the dead are not peaceful, as the Red Lady and the Raven Queen squabble over souls, and in doing so allow the Ghoul and the Lich to slink back through the Gates of Life.

    But you don't care about that, of course. You don't even know who any of those people or places are; you weren't in my Pathfinder game, you haven't met any of these characters, and you aren't one of the players who rewrote the history of this world by "discovering" the "scepter" of the "goblin-king of old" (unless you were, in which case: Hello. Tell Rellek's player he still owes me $5 from the last Creator Clash). You're here for the first time. I can hear you saying to yourself "Michael, what is all this shit?"

    Here, read a little farther and I'll tell you. 

A map of a section of the eastern coast of Hybrasil. Marked on it are three of its largest cities.

The World

    Hybrasil is a large island (think more like Australia than Britain) a great distance to the south and west of the continent of Oriens. Oriens is the home of the tallfolk; elfs, dwarves, humans and &c. Hybrasil is the home of goblinoids. Some centuries ago, Oriens attempted a major colonization effort in Hybrasil. This effort was largely a failure, but it did do enough damage to the political fabric of the island to allow its perennial lower-classes to rise in a revolution. 

    The grimy port-town that was the center of the colonization effort, Orlivka, now serves as the capital of the Free Goblin Kingdoms; "free" in that the ogres who once ruled the region were all hanged, "goblin" in that a lot of its peoples are goblins, "kingdoms" in that they liked the sound of that word (their political structure is more like a palace economy with dozens of minor outlying counties). To the west is Hark, a gnomic (i.e. built by gnomes) tiered city on the slope of a mountain in the Dry Court range. To the south is Laetia, a city built in an enormous swamp and inhabited mostly by various kinds of lizard.

    Hybrasil and Oriens are landmasses on a plane also called "Oriens", because all the plane-hopping wizards live on that continent. The plane of Oriens is unique in that it is closely orbited by seven other "planets" (i.e. the diminutive of "plane"). 

    Hold a prism up to sunlight, and observe the colors on the wall: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. In your world perhaps this happens because of "frequencies" of "photons" or something. On this plane, this happens because of the influence of the Planets. 

1. Red Planet, with red suns hanging low over a red desert, rusted machines and scattered wheels of bad purpose. Exhaustion.
2. Orange Planet, where there is labor, sweat, the drive to build. Purpose.
3. Yellow Planet, incomprehensible to humans, a place of sickening wrath. Fury.
4. Green Planet, primeval forest with predators in every shadow. gnomes love this place. Panic.
5. Blue Planet, the color of the sky and no earth beneath your feet, falling into a gathering storm forever. Awe.
6. Indigo Planet, a whispery world, dark tarns, long shadows. He who waits for dawn here waits for all time. Terror.
7. Violet Planet, great stone halls, tattered hangings, golden ornaments. Avarice.

    Fairies come from the Planets. Gnomes live there too, but they come back sometimes. It's more of a vacation than an exile.

Its People

    The smallfolk, sometimes called "goblins" or "goblinoids", are native to the land of Hybrasil. Though as a whole they tend short, the ogres are some of the largest intelligent creatures in the world. Similarly, while the tallfolk of Hybrasil (sometimes called "humanoids") are generally big, the term includes halflings, who are no larger than a hobgoblin. Humans are larger and sturdier than almost all other races, and far more numerous than ogres. Most racial features you may have seen in other RPG worlds do not breed "true" in Hybrasil and Oriens, and you may encounter people with an elfen appearance but a human's strength, or an orcish face but a goblin's fear of sunlight. 

    But the tallfolk and smallfolk are not the only kind of people. The veil between worlds is thin in Hybrasil, and you will encounter many whose lives have been touched by other planes and planets. "Planetouched", "fey" and "alien" are common words for these people. Any character can be a goblinoid or a humanoid, but your highest and lowest stat (as rolled at character creation) also give you options to be one of these planetouched. Planetouched may resemble goblinoid or humanoid creatures, or may be entirely novel (though they're mostly upright bipeds), at your discretion.

• Smallfolk (any stats)
  The goblins, hobgoblins, orcs and bugbears. The smallfolk are short, wiry and covered in dense orange fur. "Race", as Hybrasilians understand it, is mostly a function of size. Goblins may be only a little over one meter high, while each step above them adds 30 or 40 centimeters. Pureblooded ogres easily reach 3 meters and 300 kilograms (ogres are not PC options).
  Strength: Choose or roll 1d4
  
  1. Tiny. You can slip into any space a fox could. 
  2. Marcher. +2 inventory slots.
  3. Precise. You can balance on anything that can bear your weight. 
  4. Gnawing Animal. Chew through a branch or a wooden door in ten minutes. Lost teeth are replaced in a month.
  
  Weakness: Choose or roll 1d4
  1. Cringing. Save vs. obedience when commanded. 
  2. Mook. Afraid of being alone. 
  3. Macho. Save vs. blind rage when insulted.
  4. Brutal. Save to leave a fight before at least one casualty. 
• Tallfolk (any stats)
  The humans, elfs, dwarves and halflings. The tallfolk are tall, sturdy and largely hairless. "Race", as those from Oriens understand it, is extremely complicated. The smallfolk don't care. Humans may be two meters tall, goliaths and elfs and dwarfs a head shorter than men, and halflings are no bigger than a child. 
  Strength: Choose or roll 1d4
  1. Educated. Extra skill. 
  2. Dark-Eyed Beauty. See by starlight. +1 reaction. 
  3. Iron Stomach. Identify potions and poisons with a little nip, no negative consequences.
  4. Vermin's Foe. +2 to-hit with a thrown object. 
  
  Weakness: Choose or roll 1d4
  1. Protean. -4 to saves vs. mutation or transformation. 
  2. Delicate. Save vs. disgust when apologizing or interacting with filth. 
  3. Greedy. Save vs. blind rage when a non-party member has treasure that ought to be yours.
  4. Foreign. -1 to reactions. 
   
• Frog (Strength highest)
  Damp and bowlegged, green and a touch slimy, inveterate explorers. Despite cruel stereotypes frog-people do not subsist mostly on bugs.
  Strength: Your thick limbs let you jump 30' horizontally or 10' vertically from standing. You can hold your breath for 10 minutes, and can move through water as easily as on land.
  Weakness: You gain 1 slot of torpor every day, plus 1 every 12 hours in an arid environment. 1 slot of torpor is removed when you bathe your entire body in fresh water for half an hour. If your inventory fills with torpor, you are mostly unresponsive, cannot participate in combat, and travel at 1/6th speed.
• Strawman (Strength lowest)
  Mostly harmless. Perhaps literally an animated scarecrow, but more likely a figure molded from dreamstuff in the Great Unconscious (not that strawmen have any concept of the metaphysics involved). 
  Strength: You are totally immune to falling damage or any other form of massive impact. You can crumple into a pile of clothes at-will and reform yourself at any time. Birds are terrified of you.
  Weakness: You are a creature of artifice, not a child of nature. You must wear old gloves to touch the world, and secondhand boots to walk around. Without them you cannot interact with the world. Sources of fire deal maximum damage to you, and you become limp and powerless in water.
• Beetle (Constitution highest).
  Rarely seen unarmored. Flesh may be banded, or russet, or the color of old teeth, while the face and fingertips are shining metallic or gemstone hues.
  Strength: You start with a suit of samurai armor (medium), a tachi (heavy) and a wakizashi (medium, wisdom-based). You can sleep comfortably in your armor, and if your gear is lost or damaged you can replace it in a week or repair it in 8 hours.
  Weakness: You may not ignore an honorable demand for a duel, and when you meet another beetle you must duel them.
• Gnome (Constitution lowest)
  Very wee. Size of a toddler, with the wrinkly face of an old man. Centuries ago this was their land, before they were forced to retreat beyond the Gates. Gnomes like on other planets now — the Green, mostly — but they've been known to come back. 
  Strength: You can fit anywhere a child could hide, and can perfectly disguise yourself as a boring inanimate object while holding your breath. 
  Weakness: The touch of iron weapons (not iron tools, not bronze or stone weapons) burn you for double damage. Save to miss an opportunity to scare the shit out of an innocent.
• Serpent (Dexterity highest)
  Lithe bodies, skin dry and cold to the touch. Held in superstitious horror for their glowing eyes. Capable of great evil. 
  Strength: Non-serpents cannot break eye contact with you on their own. While maintaining eye contact, you may force someone to make a save every round or walk 10' closer to you, even if this takes them into danger or walks them off a cliff. Once in grappling range you may force someone to save or stand rigid and helpless. 
  Weakness: You are loathed. Folk consider your gaze assault, whether or not you try to hypnotize them, so you must keep your eyes downcast in towns. Few temples permit you entrance.
• Panda (Dexterity lowest)
  Fuzzy and round. For some reason I can't grasp, people just love to have pandas around. I say: let 'em die. This is Michael talking, out-of-character. I do not like pandas. 
  Strength: You are characterized by your bold black-and-white coat and rotund body, which people find endearing. These give you +2 AC and +2 HP. 
  Weakness: All Panda-people are born with a crippling addiction to panacea, a substance refined on a different planet and imported at great expense by Panda cartels. For each day you do not consume at least one dose of panacea, you gain a cumulative -1 to all d20 rolls. After 3 weeks without panacea or medical attention, you die.
• Worker (Intelligence highest)
  The female of the species. Tiny black eyes, long black nails, black-and-yellow wool. A long thick tail ends in a sawtoothed spike. Every worker is a harried emcel. 
  Strength: You can gain a slot of exhaustion to work like ten men for an hour. Your blood is bitter black poison; anyone who bites you takes as much damage as they deal. You can viciously sting for 2d8 damage, taking [highest] yourself as you use your own blood as venom. 
  Weakness: Your rations must be syrup and liquor. Save when insulted or fly into a destructive rage. 
• Drone (Intelligence lowest)
  The male of the species. Enormous black eyes, long black nails, black-and-yellow wool. A long thick tail ends in a tuft of yellow hair that might resemble a spike, if the light is bad. Every drone is a hopeless romantic.
  Strength: You have a thick fluffy coat and a good heart, which give you resistance to fire, cold, weather and magic. Anyone you're holding on to has the same resistance. 
  Weakness: Your rations must be syrup and liquor. Save when you see beauty or fall hopelessly in love, again.
• Owl (Wisdom highest)
  Sons of fear, daughters of the night. They appear like a normal person, except for their terrible shadows. The lives of owls are short and brutal; "You'll never go far, but you'll make a lot of people come up short". 
  Strength: See by starlight, and up to 10x zoom. Your shadow is that of a great bird. When not in sunlight you may draw the shadow up over yourself and fly, silently, faster than a man can run. Your flight is steady enough to move down a 10' hallway without touching walls or floor, but you cannot hover, and you need a 10' square to turn 90°.
  Weakness: You are completely blind in sunlight, and must wear a blindfold or hood to protect your eyes. You must save to make any noise other than a wordless scream.
• Peevish Lizard (Wisdom lowest)
  Chunky, scaled, lazy. The lizards hate to do anything that doesn't involve basking in a warm pond, but that lifestyle can get expensive. This is the great injustice of the world.
  Strength: Your jaws cannot be unfastened from something without the aid of a metal crowbar. You can eat a ration to heal 1 HP, and are immune to fire.
  Weakness: You eat and sleep so rarely that you require neither while on an adventure. Instead, you must regulate your body temperature. You gain 1 slot of torpor every day, plus 1 every 12 hours in a cold environment. 1 slot of torpor is removed when you bask in a large fire or on a rock in direct sunlight for 6 hours. If your inventory fills with torpor, you are mostly unresponsive, cannot participate in combat, and travel at 1/6th normal speed. 
• Unicorn (Xharisma highest)
  

  Generations have lived and died
  in the shadow of the unicorn.
  Schools of prestige and power have been founded,
  dedicated to the hunt.
  Kingdoms have burnt forests to find it.
  Fortunes have been reduced to nothing.
  Still, they hunt the Unicorn.

  
  Strength: You have a 2' horn sticking out of your head. It is as sharp as a medium sword, and cannot break or be removed against your will. You can take 1d6 points of stat injuries for one the following magical effects, applied with a touch of your horn:
1. Heal someone for HP equal to stats lost
2. Damage an undead for HD equal to stats lost
3. Burst a lock, bend bars or shatter a chain
4. Cure a malady, such as blindness or paralysis
5. Undo a curse or hex
6. Produce brilliant light from your horn until next you sleep
Weakness: Your blood is precious. The equivalent of 1 point of maximum HP reduction, sprinkled on a field, makes it rich and bountiful; consumed as a potion it cures wounds; applied to the skin it grants the appearance of youth; kept safe and allowed to heal between harvests you could provide this bounty for a long, long time. Even the most callow of wizardlings could use your horn as a wand that would make them living legends. Everyone you meet knows all these things, 1-in-10 are willing to seize the opportunity. 
• Swan (Xharisma lowest)
  Beautiful, doomed. Legends tell of swan-maidens, and the vengeful princes that love them, and the foolish humans that try to enslave them by stealing their coat-of-feathers — or of young men cursed to spend half their lives as birds, and the rest of their lives as cripples. 
  Strength: You own a great coat of white feathers. Pulled completely around you it turns you into an enormous swan. Worn halfway on and halfway off, and it transforms you into an angelic being with thunderous wings. 
  Weakness: Disaster is waiting for every swan, at the end of the line. You have disadvantage on avoiding your Disaster and its sources deal double damage to you. Choose a Disaster, or roll on the following list: 
  1. long falls
  2. legs failing you
  3. serial killer
  4. poisoned by mistake or lack of care
  5. burning building
  6. horns of a wild beast

Gods of Hybrasil

    The native gods are simple and powerful: the Sun, the Moon, the Rain, the Sea and Winter. The invaders brought others: a whole host of gods and goddesses of Magic, Chaos, Law and the like. The two pantheons are uncomfortable with each other, but open war has never broken out. 

    The most adventurer-relevant deities are as follows: 

Wee Jas

The powers of Vanity, Law, Arcana, Death 

The Witch-Goddess, the Red Lady Mother of Magicians, Watcher of the Well, the Gate of Death, Abomination of Necromancers, the Dark-Eyed Lady

Demeanour: Haughty, diligent, grasping, afraid, conspiratorial, far-seeing 

Symbols: Red skull on a red field, a fireball, an eye with red kohl, a tall human woman in dark clothes and red jewelry, a broken hourglass, a wishing well

Common Worshipers: Wizards, ghoul-hunters, those who perform burials, communist necromancers (the ones who want free undead labor), hags

Why do people suffer? They have forgotten their place and themselves, and have struggled against the world. Or they're demons or necromancers: FUCK those guys 

Ban: Stealing the souls of the dead, which are her property. Raising mindless undead and allowing them to walk unchecked, which is disgusting to her. Raising intelligent undead, which are a blasphemy. Opening connections between between mortal realms and the worlds of the dead.

Wrath: Real Old Testament rains-of-fire. 

Sacrament: Proper burial of the dead and maintenance of tombs. Destruction of the lich and the demon. The closing of portals, the sewing-up of rents in the veil. 

Blessing: A taste of a single drop from her well of power, which makes mortals into mages.

Claw

The powers of Law, Punishment, Submission

The Torch of Heaven, our Overseer, Balancer of the Pans, President-9th-Class of Hell, King of the Burning Times 

Demeanour: Proud, literal, humorless, bureaucratic, patronizing, protective

Symbols: Fiery sword, crossed torch and shovel, black burn over the eye, locks, barbed chains, three cuts

Common Worshipers: Devils, servants of devils, paladins, pirate hunters

Why do people suffer? All planes and all life exist at the sufferance of the Absolute, who is oddly permissive of the sins of intelligent life. 

Ban: Defying the laws of legitimate authorities. Opening portals. Anarchy.

Wrath: A sharp sword in the hands of a Torch Paladin

Sacrament: None.

Blessing: Grit and fortitude, given to some and withheld from others unfairly.

Neath

The powers of Sorcery, Knowledge, Disaster

The All-Seeing Eye, the Troubled God, the Single Twin, the Dark Master, the Bright Master, the Mystery of Faith, Great Fearsome One

Demeanour: Changeable, generous, paranoid, ruining, unpredictable

Symbols: Pyramid with eye and rays, face split in two halves of black and white, glass sphere, black and white stripes, magical explosions

Common Worshipers: Mages, scholars, apocalyptic cultists, spells, students, magical creatures

Why do people suffer? There is no suffering, but sometimes people choose the long, arduous path of mundanity, foolishly believing this to be "better" or "more character-building" in some way. Why struggle when you could wave your hand and get what you want?

Ban: Mundanity

Wrath: Dreams of brain-melting chaos, when he's mad at an individual. Patches of dead magic, when he punished a whole region.

Sacrament: Any great ritual of magic. Its purpose is inconsequential: the Greatness of the Work is what Neath adores. 

Blessing: Power and knowledge — the good kind, the kind that gets you in trouble.