Ruling the City of G_d (GLOG Class: Noble)

One thousand years is a long time,
but at last it comes to an end.
Meanwhile, is it any greater accomplishment
to be a rich corpse than a poor one?
Jewels of jade and pearl are put in the mouths
of the illustrious dead
to conserve their bodies.
They do the dead no good, but they'll fetch a fine price
to feed the children of the tomb robbers.
    - the Unnamed Text.

    I'm writing this as a pastiche of Locheil's excellent Sacred One. Someone complimented the class but sighed that it was so setting-specific, and I asserted that I could canonize it into the Unfinished World without much trouble. Here's my attempt to do so.

Source: King Yellow by fermarkun.

Imperial Clan, by presumed rank:

1. Prince of the First Blood (apparent heir)
2. Commanding Prince
3. Virtuous Prince
4. Banner Prince

    All of the above are considered potential inheritors of the Old Throne (that granted by the Old G_ds).

5. Duke of the First Blood (cadet line)
6. Bulwark Duke

    All of the above enjoy the Five Privileges (the list varies, but usually includes access to the Imperial Library, use of Imperial seals for personal correspondence, lantern-bearing priests, the right to hunt in any forest, red carriage wheels, purple horse reins, reported entrance, dragon-patterned clothing, bodyguards from the ranks of the Fork-Tailed Creature Banner).

7. Lesser Duke
8. Lesser Bulwark Duke

    All of the above possess their rank by agnacy (i.e. the Emperor cannot make more nor strip them of their titles).


Irregular titles, by presumed rank:

1. Prince of the First-and-One-Half Blood
2. Prince of Command
3. Inferior Prince
4. Empty-Ranked Prince
5. Duke Beyond Rankings
6. Indivisible Count

    All of the above possess their rank by agnacy.

7.5. Master of the Banner (inherited generalship)
8. Lesser Master
9. Master of a Lesser Banner
10. Lesser Master of One-Fifteenth-of-One-Quarter-of-One-Banner (~300 men)

Nobility not related to the Emperor, by presumed rank:

5. Common Duke
6. Marquis (on the marches)
7. Count (in a county)

    All of the above outrank all civilians, regardless of military rank or achievement.

8. Viscount
9. Baron (has a nice house)

Class: Cadet

    You are a Cadet; a distant relative of supreme power, with some of the advantages and none of the parental love. If you care, roll 3d6 to determine how many families exist between yours and the Imperial Audience Chamber, and 2d4-1 to see how many older siblings you have. You might have had a privileged upbringing, but you've been left alone to bum around, or to pursue lesser careers in commerce, law, religion (so long as you don't shove it down our throats), academia, military service or minor government office.
    As a Cadet you get +1 to saves every [level]. You can wear light or medium armor and wield shields. You can ride a horse too if it comes to it. Cadets never fumble with swords, polearms or guns.

Skills: 1. Hunting 2. History 3. Legal nonsense. You can speak the primal language of the spirits.
Starting Equipment: Hunting costume (as leather), cool halfcape, ringsword with chain threaded through the pommel (medium), shortbow and quiver with 20 arrows OR specially-modified snapchance, two items of your choice from the list of quality gear, one mantra in the primal language.

• A Unbroken Line, Sanctuary, immunity to being ignored
• B Lightning Dream, Calming Voice
• C Durability, +2 chi
• D Right of Passage, +1 chi

Unbroken Line
    You are the most notable member of any group. When you are angry, your eyes darken and your voice rings out over others. Demons and devils treat you with worrying familiarity and uncharacteristic friendliness.
Sanctuary
    Unless and until you initiate a fight, non-sacred creatures must save or be unable to harm you.

Lightning Dream
    When dreaming, drunk, high or otherwise in an altered state, your soul can walk in a place scholars of the secret history call the Lightning Dream. When your civilization invents trains, the Lightning Dream will be compared to an empty train platform built for crowds of giants. The roof far above your head is studded with skylights which let in unsteady blue light, and the walls with windows that look out upon smoky forests, nightmare-landscapes of bone, hills and valleys of rotting flesh, darkness. The many paths and rails and turnings and branches of the Dream fold in on each other; small rooms vanish into the horizon yet swell to terrible halls as you approach; three lefts don't make a right; shadows bay in their far-off hunts. The place is clearly not built to be navigated by foot.
    In the Dream, you may speak in secret with other visitors, and leave messages for each other to find. You can bring people to the Lightning Dream as guests by sleeping next to them, getting drunk from the same wine, high from the same chemic, etc. Those who have the right to be there can banish guests you bring, and you can do the same to the guests of others.
Calming Voice
    You may attempt to calm all listeners with soothing words. Intelligent creatures get a save. Mindless undead, and beasts with fewer HD than you, fail automatically. When a creature fails the save their emotions dull to grey outlines, anger drains, joy becomes hollow, battle-lust fades.
    After using your Calming Voice you can't use it again until you have done at least two of the following: get a full night's rest, drink a dose of wine, repeat your mantra aloud in the primal language for two hours.

Durability
    The meandering paths of the Lightning Dream have led you to a revelation about kung-fu, and punching, and likewise kicking. You have a pool of chi which you can use as a monk of the same level as you (though you get less chi than a real monk does).

Right of Passage
    You may walk through the Gates of Hell. Denizens of Hell, the Judges of the Dead and all demons and devils treat you as an honoured personage. Unintelligent undead are incapable of initiating violence against you.

Quality Gear (choose or roll 2d20):

1. Hunting Costume. Green felt and brown leather. Comes with a pointy bycocket, hood, lots of leather straps and belts, knee-high boots. 0 slots worn, 2 carried.
   
2. Ringsword with Chain. Classic Aeshean sword. Rather like a large rapier or an elongated broadsword, and named for its large ring pommel. Yours has a kusari-fundo threaded through that pommel, in emulation of your ancestors, and you can use the chain to make grapple checks at a range of 10' instead of attacking. 1 slot
   
3. Shortbow and quiver of 20 arrows. Effective range of 20', with -1 to-hit for every complete 10' past that. 1 slot for the shortbow and 1 for the quiver.
   
4. Double-Barreled Snapchance. A classic black powder pistol in a configuration preferred by duelists with tight schedules. Deals 2d6 damage at 10', -1 to-hit for every complete 10' past that, firing with disadvantage if you moved on your turn. Barrels may be fired and reloaded separately (1 minute reload per barrel), or together for disadvantage on both shots . If you roll a nat 1 with a second shot loaded, you fire the second shot as well and take 1d6-1 damage from the gun snapping up into your teeth. 1 slot.
   
5. Scrimshawed Powder Horn. Contains up to ten doses of black powder. Converts hours of lamp-oil into black powder at a rate of one dose per day. The apparently-abstract art deco designs on the powder horn are very alarming to manufactories who can read them. 1 slot.
   
6. Samite Robe. Thick cendree silk ceremonial robe (as unarmored, +1 to reaction rolls), with gold-thread stitches and hidden layers of fine chardun mail (secret +2 to AC, ha!). Very hard to launder. 0 slots worn, 2 carried.
   
7. Musical Instrument. Any you want, so long as it can be played upside down while singing. Probably 1 slot.
   
8. Bottle of Fine Wine. I'm going to be honest, it's a big bottle (as light) but it's only 3 doses of wine for you. 1/3rd slot.
   
9. Bottle of Oxymel. Good for you, puts hair on your chest. One dose heals 1 point of stat damage. 3 doses, 1/3rd slot
   
10. Adamant Signet Ring. A Cadet is absolutely not supposed to have this, and someone is absolutely coming to take it away from you.
    
11. Trio of Sacred Arrows. One with a head of chardun (flies silently), one of ossgold (effective against the undead), one of adamant (always deals maximum damage).
    
12. Contracted Builder. For reasons neither you nor they know, the Old Man in the Ice has directed them to follow you around and do what you say. They aren't gracious about it. 1st level Builder, 6HP, starting equipment + mattock, 9 morale. If you make them carry more than 3 slots of non-treasure, they'll find an excuse to break it or lose it.
    
13. Sashimono. A tall banner worn vertically on a long pole, identifying your army and rank to distant observers. The flag is reversible, showing either the black-and-white banner of the Empire or the black-and-blue banner of the Fork Tailed Creature Banner.
    
14. Advice of Wo Ding to his Son. An antecataclysmic mirror-for-princes in the guise of a book on hunting deer, and other (more interesting) prey. Full of aphorisms as well-known, beloved and constantly-misquoted as "it's better to act and repent than to not act and regret" and "it is better to be feared than to be loved" and such are in our world. Referencing this book (i.e. working with it open in one hand) grants an extra check on hunting-related tasks. 1/3rd slot.
    
15. Big sack of 500 iron pennies. Newly-minted and shiny. Worth 5gp total. 5 slots.
    
16. Newest Imperial printing of the Magolg par artenbrar. A truly immense tome, though still unfinished; huge sections of the text (and, therefore, decades or centuries of history) are lacunae, perhaps lost forever. Referencing this book grants an extra check on identifying historic artifacts and monsters. 1 slot.
    
17. Bucket of Opiates. A ceramic coupe with an opinel lock lid, containing 10 recreational doses of mostly poppy or 5 lethal doses. 1 slot.
    
18. Clerical Mask. Either a black deathshead (in laquered steel), a white infant (in porcelain), a violet elder (in painted wood) or a green dog (an elaborate felt plushie). Completely authentic, presumably stolen.
    
19. Golden Dagger. A light weapon, breaking on a nat 1. 1/3rd slot.
    
20. A strange or inexplicable curio. Roll 1d6:
    
    1. Cunning replica of the Emperor's sword, ONE UNBROKEN LINE. A trained sword-ologist would be able to tell it's a counterfeit, because it has its name written on it, and that name is ONE BROKEN LINE.
       
    2. Salamander Skin with Asbestos Fur. Sometimes believed to be the literal skin of a literal fire-dwelling amphibian, but skeptical scholars assert the name is only a metaphor, and these capes are actually made by a secret race of cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers. Totally fireproof. 1 slot.
       
    3. Severed Hand of a Lich. Comes in a black velvet bag, to protect it from the sun. Occasionally tries to drum messages into your hand if you hold it.
       
    4. Ossgold Mask. Resembles the faceless mask of the prophet Aeshe (pbuh), but made of ossgold instead of iron, and doesn't need to be fastened to your skull with five nails. One of your relatives tried to start a new Heresy with this, but didn't get far.
       
    5. Bottle of honey from the lips of a Queen of the Herds. Serves as a healing potion. 1/3rd slot.
       
    6. Ring of Finger Detection. Small copper band with a black square stone. When pressed to a doorway of an enclosed room, pulses to indicate the number of fingers (digits that this ring could be worn on) inside. Counts the fingers of both the dead and the living.
       

Mantras (choose or roll 1d6):

1. In the lost age
   where the jewels hide and
   the sword sticks in
   the waiting stone
   still warm from his hand
   
2. Sincerity becomes apparent, and
   what is apparent becomes manifest, and
   what is manifest becomes brilliant, and
   what is brilliant affects others, and
   when sincerity affects others, they are changed by it, therefore
   it is characteristic of the most entire sincerity to foreknow, because
   
3. Though much is taken, much abides, and
   we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, yet still
   that which we are, we are, because
   
4. Time is the substance I am made of.
   Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river.
   Time is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger.
   Time is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.
5. The whole earth is sick of your search for knowledge.
   I am not offering information;
   I seek to destroy the wisdom of the wise;
   I seek to frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent; because
   
6. I have never done anything wrong to anyone!
   And if the whole world is turning against me, I know
   It's only because of pure hatred, envy and indignation, because
   
   

O Friendless One (GLOG Class: Summoner Pathfinder Conversion)

    "Many search the Far Realms for the strength to change the world, and some find it. Yet none traffick more devoutly than the Summoner. She bonds with a particular entity, the Eidolon, who gains power as she becomes more proficient in his Summoning. Over time the two become one, even sharing the same soul. This power comes at a cost, as all worthwhile things do; other elements of her life must be secondary to time spent enhancing the powers and exploring the nature of her Eidolon."
         - unknown source

Source: Threnody by SRaffa.

    Imagine you're a child, and there's a man who lives at the end of the road. He's crazy. Everyone knows, and you know it too. Everyone says, and you say it too. But your friends have never spoken to him, and neither have you. One day you talk to him, and he makes sense. Perfect sense. More sense than you ever thought possible.
    So now what?

Class: Summoner

    You are a Summoner, an arcanist who drifts from orthodoxy into devotion to a specific summoned entity. As a Summoner, you are a half-caster, gaining an MD at templates A and C. You cast spells like an Orthodox Wizard either from your head (you may hold as many spells in your head as you have MD) or out of a book (in which case your turn is last in combat) as a wizard would.
    The main focus of your class, however, is your Eidolon, a strange creature from outside the normal bounds of time and space. The Eidolon is controlled by you as a second character. Their loyalty is absolute and unwavering, but their abilities and personalities are variegate. Rules for Eidolon creation and evolution are found at the bottom of this post.
    If you have at least one template of Summoner, you may wear light armor, and never fumble while using knives, clubs or staves.

Skills: 1. Wildlife Biology 2. Haute-culture 3. Chirurgy
Starting Equipment: fashionable traveling clothes (as unarmored), walking stick (light), spellbook (10 spells maximum, contains a random orthodox spell), and one piece of wizard kit from the list at the bottom of this post.

• A Eidolon, Bond Senses, +1 MD, +2 EP
• B Shield Ally, +3 EP
• C Maker's Call, +1 MD, +1 EP
• D Aspect, +3 EP

Eidolon
    You are accompanied by a constant companion who begins play about the size of a big dog (that's about 50kg), though proportions may vary (see Identities below). Its body is apparently made from modeling clay and origami. The Eidolon has a character sheet you need to keep track of because the DM has enough to worry about. Its starting physical stats and armor class are as Poodle, and starting mental stats are equal to yours. Its XP total and [level] is always the same as yours. Its HP total is the maximum its [level] would allow. If you think of your Eidolon as a really fucked up dog it will help you predict how it interacts with the world when being set on fire, or falling off of a cliff, or being trapped in a cage, or being trapped in a cage as the cage is thrown off the side of a boat into the ocean, or in other situations I can't think of right now but will certainly come up.
    Your Eidolon never regenerates HP. Instead, you can instantly transfer any amount of your own hitpoints to it at-will. If it would take a fatal wound, it disappears with a pop, and can be resummoned at 1 HP with a ten minute ritual and 3 of your own hitpoints.
    Your Eidolon can hear and feel through its skin and can communicate with you psionically. If it has eyes (which you may need to furnish yourself!), it may see, and if it has a mouth it may speak. If it can't see then it must move by dead reckoning, shin-collision and your guidance. If it can't speak then you will have to do the talking for it.
    At first level and every time you gain a level thereafter, you will gain evolution points. You can spend these EP on more limbs, greebles and abilities for your Eidolon. You may reassign your total EP pool every time you gain a level, if you wish. The physical body of your Eidolon is merely a 3-dimensional cubesection of its true 11-dimensional form, so it can (seem to) take an almost entirely different shape as you understand it better. There are other sources of evolution points, and other opportunities to reassign them, but you'll have to find those yourself.
Bond Senses
    For a round at a time, up to [level] times per dawn, you may completely inhabit your Eidolon's mind, seeing what it sees, hearing what it hears, tasting and smelling and feeling what it tastes and smells and feels, and experiencing its emotions.

Shield Ally
    Your Eidolon can protect you, in ways more esoteric than just deflecting a sword-stroke with a limb. While within arm's reach of your Eidolon you have a +2 to AC and all saves.

Maker's Call
    Once per dawn, by speaking its name and gesturing, you may bring your Eidolon to your side instantly. It appears with any equipment it was wearing or holding, and any creature smaller than itself that it was grappling.

Aspect
    A facet of yourself is permanently part of your Eidolon, and a part of your Eidolon is forever a part of you. You may divert up to two evolution points to yourself, altering one of your forms to better match the other.

Eidolon

    The word "Eidolon" refers to a vast and crushing intelligence existing outside the bounds of space and time, and also to the tiny portion of them which your mind is able to support the existence of inside those bounds. The broad personality of that first one is determined by rolling on a random table (or you could just pick, but I have included a table to help you make a weird little freak). The specific capabilities of that second one are purchased by you with evolution points, which you gain as you level up.

What Is Your Eidolon Like?

Temperaments (roll if you wish):

1. Choleric (Hot-Dry). Aggressive, brave, spiteful, domineering, proud, ambitious, blunt. Eager for action, reluctant to contemplate. Sometimes mean by accident.
2. Sanguine (Hot-Wet). Outgoing, magnanimous, presumptuous, clingy, social, influential, hysterical. Always having a good time and happy to share. Not difficult to motivate, but difficult to keep focused.
3. Phlegmatic (Cold-Wet). Placid, contemplative, agreeable, imaginative, lazy, sensitive, indulgent. Contented, in a fat sort of way. Says less than they know.
4. Melancholic (Cold-Dry). Serene, cool, distracted, thorough, anal-retentive, traditional, patient. Chooses understanding over control, when given the option. Must be bullied into sharing thoughts or taking action.

Etiquettes (roll twice. Your Eidolon speaks these lingoes fluently):

1. Esoterica, lingua franca of the academic world, spoken by scholars and the expensively-educated.
2. Ledger, in which columns of credit and debit are recorded, spoken by accountants and revenuers.
3. Argot, unprintable gibberish of crime and payout, spoken by thieves and fences. 
4. Centrinel, light on words but heavy on meaningful winks, jaw juts, eyebrow wiggles, glances and fingers rubbed against thumbs, spoken by guards and watchmen.
5. Jargon, half technical and half made up to scare greenhorns, spoken by monster hunters and "freelance archaeologists".
6. Entendre, sometimes with more than one meaning, spoken by the upper-crust and those who wish to exploit their naivete and money.
7. Grumbling, muttered by the seething riffraff, spoken by henchmen and would-be barricadoes.

Fears (roll once. Your Eidolon must pass a morale check or be turned from these things):

1. Sunlight
2. Silver
3. Genuine Laughter
   
4. Salt
5. Prayer
6. Mathematics
7. Fire
8. Poetry
   
9. Wild Animals
10. Sorcery

Identities (the identity of your Eidolon dictates their initial shape):

1. Quadruped.
   Legs/legs/head, bite/eyes.
   More like a fat badger than a tiger or horse at this stage.
   
2. Biped.
   Legs/arms/human size, natural armor/violence.
   Awful blind headless homunculus, like a mannequin from a department store for blemmyes.
   
3. Serpent.
   Head, tail/bite/strangling/natural armor/climbing/eyes.
   As big as a Burmese Python. Could be a skilled assassin with a little training.
   
4. Avian.
   Legs/wings/head, bite/eyes.
   Monstrous creature larger than any flying bird in the natural world.
   
5. Fish.
   Tentacle mass/tentacles, strangling/gills/swimming.
   Grotesque squirming thing from the deeps. Sure to disgust and frighten those who see it.
   
6. Bug.
   Legs/legs/legs, climbing/climbing.
   🐛🥰.
   

Evolutions:

    The base form of the Eidolon gives 8 EP worth of evolutions, but these may not be redistributed when the Summoner levels up. Evolutions that add body parts can be taken multiple times. If an evolution requires another, other evolutions can't be applied to the same one — e.g. if your Eidolon has claws on its legs it cannot have hooves on the same legs, and if it has improved damage on its claws it can't improve them again. Evolutions which require a specific Identity don't need to be applied to another evolution and can be taken multiple times. You may have three sets of limbs per size-related evolution. All these rules make sense, I think.

1-point Evolutions:

1. Bite. Requires a head or the Fish Identity. Gives a maw filled with teeth or spines and one attack as a heavy weapon.
2. Bloodcurdling Scream. Requires a head or the Avian Identity. Allows the Eidolon to produce a truly awful sound at a high volume, like a banshee or a pterodactyl or a piece of industrial machinery. Probably requires a morale check from NPCs the first time they hear it, or more often than that if they know what it means and are afraid of the Eidolon. Different screams require different morale checks.
3. Camouflage. Requires a disguised substance. Allows the Eidolon to shift its appearance slightly to blend in with its surroundings, allowing it to hide in plain sight and giving it advantage on stealth-related checks while standing still.
   
4. Claws. Requires arms or legs. Gives blades or spikes and two attacks as light weapons.
   
5. Climbing. Allows the Eidolon to climb like a monkey. Take twice to climb like a spider.
   
6. Eyes. Requires a head or the Biped or Bug Identity. Gives eyes, eyestalks or compound lenses allowing the Eidolon to see like a human. Can be taken any number of times for superior field of vision.
   
7. Disguised Substance. The Eidolon appears to be made out of meat, or metal, or wood, or a combination of such, or whatever else you please. Purely cosmetic. 
8. Gills. Allows the Eidolon to breathe underwater. 
9. Grease Glands. Produce one pint of flammable mucus or fuel per day, enough to create a decent firebomb or render a 5' by 5' square patch of floor as slick as black ice.
   
10. Hooves. Requires legs. Gives steely hooves and one attack as a medium weapon, counting as two-handed if both legs are involved.
    
11. Horrible Presence. Children and small animals flee the Eidolon. Hirelings and enemies suffer a -1 penalty to morale.
    
12. Improved Damage. Requires a natural attack. That attack's damage die steps up once.
    
13. Mount. Allows the Eidolon to carry a creature of the same size without slowing down.
    
14. Natural Armor. +2 AC. May be taken four times.
    
15. Pincers. Requires arms or tentacles. Gives a pair of powerful graspers and one attack which grapples the target automatically. 
16. Pleasant Voice. Requires a head or the Bug Identity. Gives the Eidolon a mouth or voxcaster
    
17. Pounce. Requires two sets of legs or the Quadruped Identity. Allows the Eidolon to leap as far as it could move in a round.
    
18. Scent. Requires a head or the Fish identity. Gives fleshy whiskers, a snuffling nose or a VNO allowing the Eidolon to follow scents like a hound.
    
19. Slippery. Gives a mucusy coating or slick exoskeleton and a +4 on any check to escape a grapple or slide through a tight space.
    
20. Sticky. Gives a mucusy coating or millions of tiny barbs and a +4 on any check to initiate a grapple or cling to a position.
    
21. Sting. Requires tentacles or a tail. Gives a misericorde barb or voulge spike and one attack as a heavy weapon.
    
22. Strangling. Requires tentacles or a tail or the Serpent identity. Allows the Eidolon to attempt to strangle a grappled enemy as a free action on its turn, requiring them to pass a save or fall unconscious.
    
23. Swimming. Gives fins, swimmerets or webbed digits and allows the Eidolon to move through water as quickly as they can on land.
    
24. Tail. Gives a tufted, scaled, bony, furred or chainlink prehensile tail and one attack as a light weapon. 
25. Trash Compactor Stomach. Requires a head or a bite. Allows the Eidolon to consume up to [level] slots of equipment and items, which slowly break down over the course of the day. When a slot of organic items break down, the Eidolon regains 1 hitpoint.
    
26. Violence. Gives +1 to-hit. May be taken four times.
    

2-point Evolutions:

1. Arms. Gives a pair of arms with delicate grasping hands. Assumed to be roughly monkey/human/giant sized. 
2. Caltrops. Allows the Eidolon to generate caltrops of metal or quill, [level] 5' by 5' squares' worth a day. 
3. Cipher. Gives the Eidolon a cipher score of 2. It needs hands to pick locks and such, but it can be stealthy immediately.
   
4. Energy Immunity. Ignore damage from fire, lightning or explosions. May be taken three times.
5. Energy Source. Requires energy immunity. Allows the Eidolon to produce a field of any energy it is immune to, dealing 1d6 point of damage with a body slam or per round to anyone who touches it against its will (save negates). With fire it has a heat-shimmer effect, lightning errant crackling sparks, and explosions give it deeply unpleasant visual bugs.
   
6. Enhanced Sight. Requires eyes. Gives your choice of night vision, heat vision, wizard vision, cleric vision or "upgrades" those eyes to one of the New Eyes.
   
7. Human Size. Makes the Eidolon big and bulky at about 100kg, which (for example) would make a Biped into a big thuggish lad or a Quadruped into a mountain lion or a Fish into a big-ass fish. Strength and Constitution are set to 18.
   
8. Head. Gives a lump of material for other things to stick onto. Comes with ears and a face, if you want.
   
9. Impenetrable Hide. Requires at least two levels of Natural Armor. Half-damage from weapons.
   
10. Legs. Gives a pair of legs with sturdy feet. One set of legs allows the Eidolon to walk and run at human speed, two sets twice as fast, three sets &c. Can be taken fifty times.
    
11. Magic Spell. Gives 1MD and a spell the Eidolon might have picked up somewhere.
    
12. Multiattack. Allows the Eidolon to make an extra attack on its turn. May be taken twice. 
13. Rage. Gives the Eidolon two points of Rage.
    
14. Tentacle Mass. Gives a squirming mass of tentacles. Each set counts for two sets of legs when swimming.
    
15. Tentacles. Gives a pair of rubbery or rubbery tentacles. Like arms, but better at strangling and worse at playing the piano.
    
16. Tremorsense. Allows the Eidolon to sense movement across surfaces they're touching within 60'.
    
17. Venom. Requires a bite or a sting. The attack can deal damage to a stat instead of HP, or some other effect negotiated with the DM. Better venoms might have daily-usage restrictions.
    
18. Wings. Gives a pair of feathery, leathery or canvasy wings which allow the Eidolon to fly at their walking speed.
    

3-point Evolutions:

1. Amorphous. The Eidolon's flesh is mechanically undifferentiated and free of bottlenecks and weakpoints. They may squeeze through gaps the size of their head (assuming they had one), are immune to all poisons, and cannot be dealt critical hits or sneak attacks. 
2. Anfractuous. The Eidolon may split into two smaller versions of itself, each with half HP (losing the odd point). No other stats change, and normal restrictions on limbs do not apply. Eidolons of normal size may split once into two tiny forms. Eidolons of human size may split twice into two normal-sized versions, and so on. All smaller versions must be destroyed before the original Eidolon may be resummoned.
   
3. Appearance. The Eidolon may appear angelic, demonic, undead or as some other kind of monster relevant to the campaign. They suffer the weaknesses and gain the strengths of that kind of monster.
   
4. Breath. Requires a head. Gives a breath attack like a dragon.
   
5. Burrow. The Eidolon can tunnel through the earth at a rate of 5' per minute, leaving a hole large enough for a creature of their size to crawl through. If selected twice, they may burrow through solid stone at a rate of 5' per hour.
   
6. Commanding Presence. The Eidolon is unusually regal and intimidating. People can feel it looking at them, if it has eyes.
   
7. Disease. Requires a natural weapon. Attacks from the natural weapon spread your choice of bubonic plague, leprosy, lyme disease or the common cold. Normal infection chances apply.
   
8. Giant Size. Requires human size. Makes the Eidolon huge and looming at about 300kg, which (for example) would make a Biped eleven feet tall or a Quadruped a slender horse or a Bug into a real motherfucker. Strength and Constitution are set to 30.  
9. Hypnotism. Requires eyes. Gives the Eidolon a friendly smile. Those who fail the morale check must obey your one-word commands which don't directly harm them ("wait" to someone in an active warzone is O.K, "approach" to someone on the other side of a deep pit is not). 
   
10. Spinnerets. Gives a set of spinnerets, allowing the Eidolon to produce [level]*30' of silk cord per day, and an extra 30' per hitpoint spent.
    
11. Swallow. Requires a bite. Allows the Eidolon to attempt to eat a grappled enemy, requiring them to pass a save or be swallowed whole. While swallowed, they take 1d6 damage every round if the Eidolon wishes and are immobilized. If the Eidolon is killed, or if they are dealt 6 damage in a single attack, or at-will, the swallowed creature is released.
    

Wizard Kit:

1. Fashionable Traveling Clothes. 0 slots worn, 2 slots carried.
   
2. Walking Stick. Has a skull on it, or a smiling ducky. ⅓rd slot.
   
3. Spellbook. Yours, being fairly Orthodox, is bound in "human skin" (cheap imitation) and written in "blood" (brown ink). Ten spells total. 1 slot.
   
4. Black Veil. Woven in such a way that it conceals your face without significantly worsening your vision.
   
5. Grapnel and 50' of silk rope.
   
6. Exotic Throwing Disk. A razor-sharp medium weapon in your hands, a light weapon that deals damage to its owner on a fumble to anyone unfamiliar with it. 1 slot.
   
7. Hooded Lantern. Fine specialist gear, sheds light for 24 hours on a dose of kerosene, light may be concealed. 1 slot.
   
8. Three grenadoes. Six-second fuze (can detonate this turn or the next in combat, your choice), 2d6 damage within 30', save negates. 1 slot each.
   
9. 3d Model of a 4d Cube. Very helpful when explaining the concept of higher dimensions. ⅓rd slot
   
10. Rhyming Dictionary. 1/3rd slot.
    
11. Roadmap of the Moon. Indicates a total absence of roads on the moon, though there are some pages missing.
    
12. Roadmap of the Mood. Indicates a total absence of roads in the mood of the room. Usually, anyway. Its content shifts.
    
13. Triple-Length Pistol. Classic black-powder pistol with an exaggeratedly long barrel. About the size, shape and weight of a foot attached to a long calf. Deals 2d6 damage on a hit, takes a full minute to reload, and fires with disadvantage if you moved this turn. -1 to-hit for every full 30 feet between you and the target. 2 slots.
    
14. Loud Boots. Make a truly astonishing amount of noise as you walk, tends to scare away wild animals. 1 slot.
    
15. Glass Eye. Tiiiiny hidden compartment. Can be put in your socket, if you've got a spare.
    
16. Flash Powder. Blinds those who look directly at the explosion for 3 rounds on a failed save. 3 doses.
    
17. Oriental Barometer. Odd little gizmo, shaped like an artificial flower, which changes color to indicate how close one is to water.
    
18. Science Glove. For your right hand. Resists fire, acid, and broken glass.
    
19. Superstition Glove. For your left hand. Woven with threads of alchemical sapphire, a material tangible to ghosts.
    
20. A weird or inexplicable curio. Roll 1d6 on the following list:
    
    1. A red-gold coin whose two sides are the Donkey and the Elephant. When flipped, always comes up Skull somehow.
    2. Cosmic Bait. Looks just like a human's soul, but made from sparkly vinyl. Almost irresistible.
       
    3. Pair of voidglasses. Like sunglasses, but for looking at things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
       
    4. Intimidating Hat. Hard to explain why, but this hat is really scary. NPCs are nonplussed. 1 slot.
       
    5. Scale model of Hell.
       
    6. A single Ten Armies Boot. Two of them would have all sorts of incredible uses, but a single one only lets you balance perfectly on one foot while bracing the other (the one wearing the boot) in the air.
       

The Best Case Scenario 1.1: Any Day Now

    Check the sidebar under "Houserules" for the most up-to-date ruleset!



    Maybe ten, maybe a dozen games of Best Case Scenario have been run by several DMs for an assortment of players. The game functions. It's even pretty fun (I've run three four sessions myself and enjoyed it, and the players probably enjoyed it as well, not that I asked them). But there are a few developments we've thought of, and a few tweaks and rules complications I want to include. I'm going to write them out here as a mostly-unsorted list of modifications and additions to the rules found in this post.

    Many people in the Eastern Depot of the mage-ciphered and backwards-written secret GLOG Discord have helped with brainstorming and playtesting, but I'd like to specifically thank friends-of-the-blog Archon, Xenophon of Athens and semiurge for their contributions.

Source: in image.

Mission Classification and Generation

    Missions in Best Case Scenario are rated on three-level scale corresponding to the discretion required to complete them:

• CLOSED-EYE is for missions civilians should never even realize happened. Plain clothes, silenced weapons, small groups, absolutely no rocket launchers.
• OPEN-EYE is for missions where fireteams can operate openly while under false pretenses. Strap on your body armor and your AR-15, slide a cowboy hat on your head and a fake police badge in your wallet, and get ready to say "nothing to see here folks, move along". Consider this short film in the SCP universe.
• THIRD-EYE is for missions where there is no danger of civilian involvement, or where the stakes are so high that civilians become expendable. Consider this short film in the SCP universe.

    As with Object Classes on the SCP Wiki, these don't correlate with how dangerous the mission is. They correlate with how expensive the mission is going to be, and how much of a headache the Rules of Engagement are for the fireteam involved.

    Here's an example of a dangerous C-E mission: your team has to capture a telepath with the ability to inflict aneurysms with eye contact, he knows he's being hunted and is trying to hide in the crowds at Times Square, you must catch him alive. Here's an example of an easy T-E mission: a cult with a compound in the Mojave Desert is preparing to summon a Great Old One, they're six miles away from the nearest public road, roll in there with attack helicopters and armored vehicles and blow the place to Hell. Those are both off the top of my head, for free, for you and whatever use you want to put them to.

    CatDragon of the platinum-cored Werthers Original secret GLOG Discord assembled this here random generator to give you a mission prompt. I've used the generator a few times to good effect.

New Equipment and Budget

    There were a few oversights, a few obvious missing pieces, and one or two balance problems (like the machine pistol being the best choice in most situations). With counsel from others the weapon list has been updated. For ease of use, inventory is now based on slots. Every character has 5 slots and all guns are listed with the amount of slots they take up.

    Concealable (can be worn under clothing, can be drawn and fired with one hand. Assume it takes at least a round to retrieve a weapon from concealment. You cannot attach underbarrel grenade launchers or shotguns to concealable weapons).

• Semiauto: Takes priority, -1 to Attacks at medium range, no long range. 16/15 ammo. 1 slot.
• Revolver: Takes priority. 6/6 ammo. 1 slot.
• Machine Pistol: Takes priority, cannot Aim, no long range. 21/20 ammo. Automatic. 2 slots.
• Concealable Melee (knuckles, e-tool, knife, tomahawk): Takes priority, +1 to Attacks at melee range, no other ranges. No ammo. 1 slot.

    Large (can be concealed in a golf bag or a guitar case or the like if need be, takes time to retrieve if concealed, must be operated with two hands).

• Assault Rifle: 31/30 ammo. Automatic. 2 slots.
• Sharpshooter Rifle: Ignore range penalties. 21/20 ammo. 2 slots.
• Shotgun: +1 to Attacks at short range, no long range. 6/5 ammo. 2 slots.
• Grenade Launcher: 1/1 ammo. 2 slots.
• Large Melee (sledgehammer, battle axe, katana, pitchfork): +2 to Attacks at melee range, no other ranges. No ammo. 1 slot.

    Bulky (cannot be concealed without being dismantled and stored in a case).

• Antimateriel Rifle: +1 to Attacks, ignore range penalties. 6/5 ammo. 3 slots.
• LMG: +1 to Attacks when Suppressing. 201/200 ammo. Automatic. 3 slots.
• Flamethrower: +2 to Attacks when Suppressing. No medium or long range. Can only be used to Suppress. 3/3 ammo, Suppression only uses 1.

    In the gear section, body armor has also been updated.

• Soft Armor: -1 to Attacks against you, can be worn under civilian clothing. Lost when you are wounded.
• Heavy Armor: -2 to Attacks against you, doesn't stack with soft armor. Lost when you are wounded.
  
• Helmet: If the die in an Attack against you comes up 6, it is 5 instead. Destroyed when this happens.
• Ballistic Shield: Provides moveable cover for one person.
  

    The Grenadier's special launcher is one of those big revolving ones. It has 6/6 ammo but is otherwise mechanically identical. The Sapper's extra gear does not count against his inventory limit.

    You can spend a point of Budget to give someone an extra piece of equipment, not just something weird like a flamethrower or a laptop. I thought I wrote that in the original post but I guess I waffled on whether it was useful or balanced and ultimately forgot.

Source: Trevor Henderson

Updated Combat Actions and New CO Resource

• Attack. Roll a d6, add bonuses and subtract penalties. On a result of 4 the target is lightly wounded, on a 5 the target is seriously wounded, on a 6 or above they are dead. This is assuming mortal human enemies, of course. If you were using a gun, subtract 1 from your Ammo.
• Burst. As an Attack, but with a +1 bonus. Subtract the die result from your Ammo. Only automatic weapons may Burst.
• Suppress. Select up to a 45° angle as your target area. Those in or passing through the target area are Attacked unless they are in cover. Subtract 10 from your Ammo. Only automatic weapons may Suppress.
• Reload. Swap out one magazine for another, replace a belt, or load a grenade or two shells into a grenade launcher or shotgun.
• Interact. Push a button, open a door, grab some documents and shove them into a hip bag, or any other thing which necessitates a moment of attention and thus precludes staring down your ironsights with an itchy trigger finger.
• Aim. Enter Aiming. While Aiming, all Attacks and Bursts roll 2d6 and take the higher result. Moving or taking any action besides Attacking (such as reloading) puts you out of Aiming.
• Hide. Enter nearby cover or concealment. Targets in cover may not be directly Attacked, targets in concealment cannot be Attacked except by explosions or Suppression.
• Sprint. Move an additional 3m. This movement may take you up a ladder or across a gap of of less than 3m.
• Rally. Roll a d6 to calm a Panicked ally, succeeding on a 4 or higher.

    Your CO has a pool of a special resource called Command. He starts with 1/1 points and regains all points between missions. Command can be spent on effects for fireteam members who can see and hear their CO (the CO can almost always see and hear himself). I'll call these Ploys, because I was reading Kill Team.

    Basic Ploys any CO knows:

• May take two actions instead of acting + moving.
• May receive a wound one level lower than they otherwise would have.
• May Attack a target that is concealed from them but not from the CO.

    Additional points of Command may be given as a reward for successful missions. Maybe you can get more Ploys as a reward too? Here's a few extra for that purpose:

• May take priority with a large weapon.
• May Sprint and make a melee Attack as one action.
• May make a final Attack before they die.
• May avoid damage from an explosion.
• May roll two dice in an Attack and take the highest.
  

Source.

Lore and Setting Details and Such

    Every SCP-alike needs some weird guys to fight with over who gets the magical television that lets you talk to Martian ghosts. Here's a list dreamed up in the coup-resistant GLOG Discord:

• Final Directive: A faction of the U.S. intelligence community which believes that global thermonuclear war occurred sometime in the 1980s and we live in a collective hallucination generated from sheer denial. Intend to wake everyone up by causing an actual nuclear war. Not our problem, unless they're using anomalous means, in which case it becomes an urgent problem for us specifically.
  
• The Agency: Possibly the European branch of our organization, or perhaps a peer rival (a non-organization group with similar access to information and resources), or maybe time travel is involved. They operate just like we do.
• Resurrectionists: A decentralized group, loosely in communication with each other, of necromancers and grave robbers who graveyards and cemeteries as free sources of supernatural power. 
  
• Children of K'nit Xaun: A cult of those born of fertilizations from a clinic run by a now-discredited and scandalized doctor who tampered with the sperm supply. Believe themselves to be the next step of humanity, and demigods whose father is older than the world itself. Presumed to be a black-budget project escaped into the wild.
• Black Museum: Hostile antagonists (non-organization with knowledge of the supernatural) who interrupt organization operations to steal paperweights (anomalous objects) or kill and bag spookums (anomalous objects). Presumed to be at least a peer of the organization, though they have never attempted contact, and captured agents either crack cyanide teeth or suffer total end-of-biological-life with no obvious cause.
• Fleshgod Inheritors: Somewhere between a cult and a street gang, collecting and eating pieces of Stel Alune, an ancient superorganism. Authentic pieces of Stel Alune are rare and difficult to find, but luckily (for them) Inheritors grow identical organs in their own bodies after consumption.
• Fleischwulf: A post-neo-nazi gang with attached eccentric academics and garage inventors. Believe Hitler was a little off-base: rather than history being an eternal conflict between primordial races,  it is an eternal conflict between beautiful, ingenious Artifice and rampant, repugnant Nature.

Source: in image.

General Notes and Clarifications

    Fireteams are superhumanly coordinated. They can advance or attack without needing to spend precious seconds screaming at one another or fiddling with radios. This power is a pretty significant advantage for the players, and as the DM you should lean into it. NPC biker gangs and cultists should be overly cautious, wasting time hiding behind cover, or overly aggressive, charging out into danger and gunfire. They should have trouble with tactics more advanced than "run at the enemy", "stay put", and "flee", and they should bark at one another to keep players informed of these cunning stratagems. Making common mooks dipshits serves the shared fantasy of the game twofold; it lets the player-controlled elite black-ops fishmen killers be very good at killing fishmen, and it provides a starker contrast when your elite black-ops fishman killer gets eaten alive by a Siberian Antigorilla which suddenly flew out of the dark and grabbed him.

    Lowering the threshold also gives you more room to be creative. A dozen pipewrench-and-pistol wielding gangbangers in an abandoned car lot make for a simple encounter, but you can flex your DMing muscles a little and put one of them on the roof of a building in cover with a rifle, or plant some IED booby traps around for the PCs or their enemies to stumble into. Makes combat with fireteams just as competent and well-equiped as yours feel dangerous and interesting. I haven't been doing this, but you should do as I say and not as I do.


    Numerical bonuses are additive, e.g. the Semiauto gets a -1 to Attacks at medium range, and Attacks at medium range have a -1 penalty, so that's a -2 total. Extra dice are selective, e.g. if you have one thing that lets you roll an extra die and take the higher (like Aiming), and another thing that lets you roll an extra die and take the higher (like a Ploy), you roll 3 dice and take the highest.


    BCS takes place in an alternate universe where hand grenades and grenade launcher grenades are the same thing.


    You can attach underbarrel shotguns to a shotgun. This lets you fire an additional 5 shots before needing to reload, because the underbarrel shotgun is an effective and a versatile tool.


    COs are immune to Morale loss in any form. They aren't scared when monsters appear, or when things explode — hold on a moment, this is a good opportunity to enumerate situations which call for a Morale check:

• When a member of a fireteam dies, all survivors check Morale.
• When someone in cover avoids being hit by a frag grenade, they check Morale.
• When someone in cover avoids being hit by Suppression, they check Morale.
• When members of a fireteam spot a spookum they didn't expect (because they weren't told there would be any or because they were looking for a different one), they check Morale. They can then warn other members.
  
• When a fireteam realizes they have wandered into a timewarp/living dream/anti-reality/haunted house, all members check Morale.
  

    The DM may call for additional Morale checks as he sees fit.


    Since the rules for Morale and Aiming have changed a little, here are updated versions of the marksman and chaplain roles:

• Marksman: +1 to Attacks while Aiming. If Invested, +1 to Attacks per round spent Aiming, up to a maximum of +3.
  
• Chaplain: The first Morale check in a mission is automatically passed. If Invested, the Chaplain automatically succeeds at Rally checks once per soldier per mission.
  

    I promised that I would post some missions, and I intend to keep that promise at some nebulous point in the undefined future. Here are two missions from Archon to keep you entertained in the meanwhile.

Black Books

   
    "Black Books", in the style of Mr. Halton. For more titles to add to your library, see here and here.

Source: Real Fantasy: Teenage Witch, by milkmindart

Dawn of Civilization, Egypt, and Chaldea

     An early 20th-century worth of psychohistory and ethnography by notorious North American White Raven Society member Sefton Milburn on the topic of the origin of the three sophont species native to Earth; Human, Kemetic and the now-orbital Bit-Yakin. Interaction between the first two species created the Black and White races of Milburn's taxonomy. He has no explanation for Asia and the Americas, besides suggesting the Bit-Yakin may have constructed and peopled them.

Pences de meon Pedre

    The autobiography of Brame Cagot, an 11th-century Norman sorcerer and serial killer. The 20th-century scholar who translated this English edition chose, unlike his Victorian predecessors, to include the stream-of-consciousness narratives of incest, patricide, autocoprophilia, and the murder and ritual crassifaction (filling with molten gold) of young women in Rouen, mostly prostitutes. Cagot claims the reason his rituals failed was that the young women he murdered were not virgins. Famously, Brame was executed by Norman authorities on Christmas morning in 1035 by forced consumption of molten gold. His last words were a promise to return in a state of immortality; this he failed to do.

De Attarum Mysteriis

    An etiquette book by an unknown author, printed in France shortly before the Revolution for the education of young scions of occulted noble families. The text consists of long descriptions of various classes of Hellish, Outside and Inverted entities, their manner of greeting, their manner of dining, their preferred offerings, and their (sometimes very complicated) systems of names, reputations and droit de seigneur.

Gods of Dead Ivy

    A novel by American author Melissa Boudreaux published in 1994. The opening sentence reads, "the sun-silvered white door sat in a sun-silvered white wall, which time and weather and unforgiving day had worn and split and slowly covered with crackling leaves and vines like a creeping brown pelt". Every subsequent word not present in the title, publishing boilerplate or first sentence is either a non-English phantomnation or completely unrecognizable (e.g. "bzlkkro", "paaniymet", "ahharrattattaddadd". Though several Melissa Boudreauxes exist in the United States, according to their own testimony none have ever published a book.

Die Welt der Spinne

    A late 19th-century genealogy of the influential but largely unrecognized Spinne family of Boston. The book details their expulsion from the NRW region of Germany, their arrival in the New World, and the murderous rituals they performed to propitiate many-legged mechanical gods who blessed them with success in the oil and rail industries. The author, Ariel Badge, appears to have been a member of a cadet branch of the Spinne family, one which was expected to offer sacrifices on a generation-to-generation timescale.

El Mitos

    A 16th-century bestiary and travelog written by the Spaniard "Erodotos de Peres Mentirosa" the pen name of an unknown author, possibly Cervantes or (as the book claims) one of his associates. It contains reports and eyewitness accounts of cryptozoological beings from Mediterranean Europe, the Near East and Jerusalem. Erodotos explains how a hidalgo with limited equipment and resources might hunt or banish vampires, ghuls, genii, ogres, "spirits of air" and "mandrake-mouthed tigers", among many others.

Dlinyy Yubi

    A Meiji-restoration era gospel on the teachings of "The Man With Your Face", a Hokkaido stylite mystic, and the practices of the "Long Finger Society", his worshipers and successors. The surreal dogma of the Man With Your Face is usually considered to only appeal to the most dedicated of scholars; to own a copy of the book is itself the prize, as agents of the Long Fingers use the most extreme acts of violence to recover copies of the book and destroy those who have read it outside the context of their Society.

The Search For Meaning, Volume IX

    One volume of the magnum opus of English art restorer and famous art forger Tom Keating. Over the course of his art career, Keating (a socialist) wrote the estimated 2,000,000 words of The Search for Meaning by hand in one-hundred-eighteen large composition books. He never contacted publishers, so this work (which is said to adequately explain Man's purpose in the universe) exists only as scattered manuscripts and a few handmade copies.

Hard Travel to Desecrated Places

    The personal diary of an 18th-century Swedish nobleman named Magnus de la Gardie. It recounts his "black pilgrimage" — a journey taken by members of some occult brotherhoods to the accursed Galilean city of Chorazin. Hand-drawn maps in the margins indicate that Count Magnus ultimately reached a subterranean portion of the city, where he presumably remained for the six years before his return home.

Mai Doon Izahn

    A portfolio traceable to early renaissance Florence at the most recent. Every second sheet of this unusual and anonymous work unfolds to double-size, and thus the book contains twenty-four hand-painted triptychs in a fantastical style reminiscent of Bosch. While some themes — war and devastation, poverty, religious awakening — and some locations — Rome, Istanbul and Kristiania — are recognizable, the majority are incomprehensible, and many panels depict something other than typical three-dimensional space. The twenty-first triptych depicts, in sparse shades of dark grey, a broad river, with a lone boatmen looking over his shoulder at the viewer. The remaining three triptychs are entirely black.

Quarter Hour of Writing Challenge: Dimensions

    Dimensions. Alternate dimensions? Multiple timelines? Many worlds?

    I can see them in my head. Think of the "Bulk", the totality of timelines, the arc of the multiverse, as a city full of skyscrapers. Some people think of it like a tree. That's wrong. A tree fills in the empty space. It grows denser as it grows. The Bulk is defined by its empty space. Instead of a tree branching off forever, imagine rising up from the street-level of a city, and how the buildings would look as you went. You'd ascend past the tops of some of them; those that survived might stay the same, or their facades might narrow like the Empire State Building, but they certainly wouldn't get larger as you went up. The Bulk grows less dense, infinitely less dense, as it goes on. Most of the world is missing.

Map of the universe - read from the bottom up, not top to bottom

    Similar timelines tend to converge — this is what people famously perceive as the Roediger Effect, when their memories clash with "recorded" """history""". Some presents, many pasts, one future. Scholars of the Bulk believe that each timeline (there's more than one, and travel between them is almost convenient) is miming one ur-timeline and one series of events (this is the Blue Stoplight Effect), and one day that Universal Goal will be achieved and the world will end (?).

    To reiterate: the multiverse does not diverge into infinite timelines. The universe splits in two whenever a coin is flipped, sure, that's Quantum, but it doesn't matter. The two timelines will run together again shortly, like water flowing around an obstruction. The multiverse converges into one timeline, or none. When you go back in time you need to be careful not to step on a butterfly, or there will be swastikas flying over the White House when you get back to the present. But you're still impotent, and ineffective, and you can't change your own future, because universe used to care about butterflies, but it doesn't any more.

    How many timelines are there? Not that many, really. High triple digits. The ones that have diverged from your own might seem strange, but even weirder are the timelines that were never (yet) connected to yours. Universes where planets are empty spaces in infinities of rock. Universes where up is down. How does that make sense, you ask? I don't know. I don't come from such a place. I came from a timeline where — oop 15 minutes is up.

Extra Credit Jackalope (Hexcrawl Inside An Elf)

    Jackalope entry for Robot_Face of the OSR discord, who asked for "A handful of hexes for a microscopic hexcrawl inside a human (or elf or something) body".

    This hexcrawl takes place on the reddened banks of the Arteria River, a major route between the Lower Body and the lands of the Upper and the Lower Legs.

A1, Atheroma Swamp

    A witch lives in this hex in a little hut that does not walk. As the Arterial Road ends here, she makes a meager living crafting embol-boats for travelers. The monks in C2 dislike her because of some old grudge, maybe related to a bad business deal, that neither party feels comfortable explaining.

Atheroma Witch
2HD humanoid, AC as unarmored, morale 6
Movement: Doddering old lady
Morality: Stern dowager (Lawful Neutral)
Intelligence: Wise and classically educated
Attacks: Cane (1d6 at +0), or spell
Magic: Create/Destroy Embolism, Poison Gas. 2MD.

B1, Pulse Wizard

    A clocktower stands on an island in the middle of the river. Its thumping, reverberating tones can be heard every hour on the hour in A1, B2 and C1 and sharp-eyed characters can see its silhouette from the shore. A Pulse Wizard lives in the tower and studies the bizarre geological phenomena he calls the "pulse". Esoteric tomes suggest the world is, itself, a living thing — if this is true, is the Pulse connected to some sort of cosmic heart? If this is true, why has it slowed so much in the last five years? He guesses at an answer which he does not want to be true.

Pulse Wizard
5HD humanoid, AC as unarmored, morale 9
Movement: Doddering old man
Morality: No sense of right or wrong (Chaotic Neutral)
Intelligence: Too smart for his own good, head full of horrible notions and old books
Attacks: Staff (1d6+1 at +1), or spell
Magic: Digestion Ball, Synaptic Lightning, Summon Macrophage, Bull's Adrenaline. 5MD.

B2, Road

    A long, dusty stretch of road, approaching near the river at its western end. Roll for two encounters in this hex.

C1, Mysterious Cave

    An overhang prevents you from seeing the cave's mouth from atop the cliff, but characters who investigate can see the disturbance it makes in the river's red current. As the DM you can slap any flooded dungeon you like in there.

C2, Golden Apple Abbey

    The main gate of the abbey is wide, and the monks welcome all visitors. They worship the Golden Blood Cells and believe that those who live good lives will be reincarnated as such. In the center of the abbey grounds is a tree that grows golden fruit. Liquor distilled from the apples will serve as healing-potion, and the monks will be generous with the stuff if you bring your own bottles and do them some small favors, such as delivering packages or insulting postcards to their neighbours.

C3, Femur Tower

    The tower reaches miles into the "sky" and is visible from every other hex. The tetrahedron that floats above it casts down golden light during the "day" and is dark at "night". You could march a parade through the door, with fireworks and Garfield balloons, and have plenty of room to spare. What's in there? I don't know. A megadungeon. A lost Golden Apple monk whose friends want him back. Something like that.

D1, Road

   A long, dusty stretch of road, running close enough to the river to smell it. Roll for two encounters in this hex.

D2, Hog Farm

    A man named Farmer Toad (who is a frogman, oddly enough) lives here and raises bloodcorn and miniaturized giant microscopic pigs. He is friendly, and will pay good money cobs of red corn for any golden liquor you have. He pours it all in a big bath in his house that he sleeps in, hoping to become immortal and/or a Golden Blood Cell.

Miniaturized Giant Microscopic Hog
4HD porcine, AC as leather, morale 10
Movement: Shockingly fast and powerful
Morality: Proud, hierarchical, hungry (Lawful Evil)
Intelligence: Illiterate, but smart enough to lay traps.
Attacks: Gore (1d6+4, +4 to-hit), topple (with a +4 to grappling checks), savage a downed opponent (2d6+4)

Farmer Toad
2HD humanoid, AC as unarmored, morale 7
Movement: Slow waddle but big hops.
Morality: Quaintly reactionary (Neutral Good)
Intelligence: No
Attacks: Pitchfork (1d8, +2 to-hit), thrown rock (1d1, 10' range intervals, +2 to-hit)

D3, Road

    A long, dusty stretch of road. The ground around it is littered with broken pieces of statue carved from elfbone. A signpost is erected here, helpfully stating GOLDEN ABBEY ←→ GUTS CITY. Roll for two encounters in this hex.

Encounters:

• 2. Many Wizards. Wearing "protective suits" which closely resemble fishbowls and several waxed canvas sacks stitched together with yarn. Claim to be from Another World.
  
• 3. Golden Blood Cell. A floating mote of light. Majestic. Mesmerizing. They are invincible to non-cursed weaponry, but thankfully are never hostile to creatures with 10 xharisma or more. Their only attack is to engulf a target and blend their flesh and bone. This attack raises xharisma to 12, if it was lower, and reduces max HP by 1 for each point of difference.
• 4. White Blood Cell. A slimy white thing vaguely resembling a four-meter-tall elf. Ignores most creatures with a sneer. May demand "identification" from elfs or other fae-blooded creatures, and will attack if not placated. Fights as a 3HD fighting-man and is armed with a superlativesword or halberd.
• 5. Red Blood Cell. A slimy red thing vaguely resembling an elf, overburdened with crates of raw trade goods, which it is carrying on foot to who-knows-where. Will defend itself as a 1HD fighting-man if interrupted or provoked. Armed with a pair of iron shortswords.
• 6. Pilgrims, golden. Visiting the Golden Abbey in C2 and taking in the local attractions. Probably doing odd jobs for the monks.
  
• 7. Pilgrims, bone. Visiting the Femur Tower in C3 and taking in the local attractions. They're planning on exploring the megadungeon and plundering it for theological insights.
  
• 8. Pilgrims, thought. Visiting the Pulse Wizard in his tower at B1 and taking in the local attractions. Constantly bickering about cosmology. They hope the wizard can clear up a few points from his Ph.D dissertation, back when he studied in the Brain.
  
• 9. 1d4 Escaped Hogs. As Miniaturized Giant Microscopic Hog in D2. Hungry, and mad about it.
  
• 10. Merchant, eastbound. A small caravan of 1d3+1 carts, pulled by platelet-oxen. They've come from the exotic and faraway lands of the Lower Leg and are equipped with katanas and such. Carrying silk and erotic picture-books.
  
• 11. Merchant, westbound. A middling caravan of 1d6+1 carts, pulled by platelet-horses. They've come from Guts City with a few tons of pneumatic farm equipment and religious picture-books.
  
• 12. Confused Dragon. Why the Hell is he here. What the Hell is this place. Who the Hell are you people. You better answer fast, you're looking pretty snackable. As an 8HD dragon, color of your choice.
  

They Do Not Know How To Do Right (GLOG Classes: Rogue 5e Conversions)

    Among 5e classes, the Rogue is probably my favorite. His design is most in line with my own preferences; mostly he can just do things, you know? He can just climb things. He doesn't have a pool of class resource points, his abilities aren't all 1/day for no obvious diegetic reason, there aren't too many long and complicated bits of bookkeeping to his tricks ("Deals XdY of Z damage A times per B-rest, to creatures of C type, half on a successful W save, unless they're resistant to Z damage in which case 3/4ths are dealt as G damage"). They convert into GLOG beautifully, much more easily than the monk or the barbarian. Thanks be to Liches of the members-only GLOG club for his help.

Source: Rogue Moodboard - Celtic Heroes by Dave Allsop

Rogue

    Rogues do not draw power from a semi-mystic source. All the power they need can be found in a sharp knife and a fat purse of gold. And yet it seems like they must be something supernatural about them. Why can a thief scale a wall which, seen in daylight, would be too sheer for a spider? How can an assassin approach her target unchallenged, strike him down, and then fade back into the crowd? Does gold appear in the treasure chest where there was no gold? Was it hidden by a veil only the rogue could pierce? Was it simply Lady Luck who left it there, for years, undiscovered by generations of greedy searchers? And when a commander unrolls his map to discuss his battle-plans just as the rogue bends down to eavesdrop, when an unlabeled package opens to reveal just the tool you needed, when a lock opens soundlessly with barely a touch — what do you call that?

    Monks speak of the flow of chi, the scales of karma, or the turning of the tao, or fickle earthly fortune. Wizards shrug and chalk it up to entropy. Rogues who benefited from a proper thieving education call these circumstances cipher; the tendency-of-things. "Tendency of things towards what?" you ask. Some rogues sneer and say "There is no 'towards', no universal goal, only the tendencies". Some rogues tap their nose and wink and say nothing. Some rogues go perfectly still for a long moment, and then change the subject in a quavering voice.

    All rogues have a cipher score equal to their [templates] in their rogue class. Given some unusual tools (1 slot for a case) and a few moments of fiddling, they have a cipher-in-6 chance of succeeding a cipher check in addition to normal resolution rules. The cipher skills are, according to tradition, to Climb Sheer Surfaces, Find Or Remove Traps, Hear Noises, Hide In Shadows, Move Silently, Pick Pockets and Pick Locks.

     Rogues also have a sneak attack while wielding a light weapon in one hand and attacking a distracted target. Targets who don't know the rogue is there or are engaging with another enemy are assumed to be distracted, though particularly experienced combatants might force a sneak check to avoid their perception. Sneak attacks roll 1d8 for damage, with to-hit and damage bonus modified by the rogue's cipher and their highest ability bonus (dexterous rogues stab with grace, smart rogues identify stab-vulnerable points, wise rogues stab at the right moment &c).

    Unless otherwise mentioned you may wear light armor only, may not use shields, and are proficient with hatchets, knives, clubs, slings and any weapon you start with.

Arcane Trickster

    There is a tendency for the unnatural to burn.

    It isn't uncommon for a failed student of magic to turn to theft. Whether expelled for incompetence, exiled for the darkness in their souls, or left to pick up the pieces after the destruction of their school, these students (sometimes called "tricksters", "mousers" or "scunners") can be simply too spell-mazed to return to normal life. If sufficiently askew from the rest of mankind, they may even become aware of cipher.

Skills: 1. Arcana 2. Ancient languages 3. Duels and knife-fights
Starting Equipment: Stylish street-fight stiletto (light weapon), student's robes in white or black (as unarmored), esoteric tome, pack of scented candles (3 doses), case of unusual tools.

• A Good Trick, +2 skill
• B Sneak Enchantment
• C Invisible Assistance, +2 sneak
• D Thief of Fire

Good Trick
    Your training lets you cast from scrolls as a wizard of equivalent level, and you know one random spell from any wizard school of your choice which you cast with an MD that is always lost. Additionally, you may project an invisible mage-hand 30' away, which is strong enough to slowly move tiny objects (coins, gems, cards, keys), though it does not have enough motive force to deal damage.

Sneak Enchantment
    When you bespell someone from hiding, they have disadvantage on any saves.

Invisible Assistance
    Your mage-hand has been strengthened by practice and can now lift up to five pounds. Once per enemy per combat, you can tap someone on the shoulder to distract them for a round.

Thief of Fire
    With a bottle and the use of your mage-hand, you may pickmind a spell and an MD from an unsuspecting caster and store it for your own use. You can try to do this when someone casts a spell on you in combat if you pass a save.

Assassin

    There is a tendency for the living to die.

    Few use cipher for wholesome purposes, but none turn it to such violent ends as the assassins. Assassins may join religious orders (and call themselves "sicarim"), or form professional guilds (and call themselves "hitmen"), or work for high society on word-of-mouth (and call themselves "Mr. So-and-so") — regardless, they kill.

Skills: 1. Courtly etiquette 2. Advanced esoteric theology 3. Intimidation
Starting Equipment: Manhunter Tomahawk (light weapon), spooky mask (your choice of skull, animal or animal skull), badass black leather and silk suit (as unarmored), makeup kit, collection of wigs, case of unusual tools.

• A Quick Win, +2 initiative
• B Mr. Thus-And-Such, +1 to-hit
• C Let Me In, +2 initiative
• D Invisible Stalker, +1 to-hit

Quick Win
    In open combat, you have advantage on attacks against enemies whose turns are after yours.

Mr. Thus-And-Such
    With a week and a few 10s of gp to the right friends, you can create a foolproof false identity. For example, you might acquire appropriate clothing, letters of introduction, and official-looking certification to establish yourself as a member of a trading house from a remote city so you can insinuate yourself into the company of other wealthy merchants. The effect is perfect; NPCs will genuinely believe your false identity is a real independent person unless they see you don or doff the disguise.

Let Me In
    Spend three hours studying someone, their voice, their mannerisms, their stride, their handwriting &c. Thereafter you can unerringly mimic those things.

Invisible Stalker
    In a crowded scene , when your exact position hasn't been established yet, you can declare that any generic NPC was really you in a disguise. If you've copied a named NPC in the scene with Let Me In, you can declare that they are really you in a disguise.

Inquisitive

    There is a tendency for the secret to disclose.

    One of the few who use cipher for wholesome purposes. Inquisitives (who often style themselves as "investigators", or even "detectives") root out lies and conspiracies habitually. They are often unassuming, perhaps even faintly ridiculous, but murderers, cheats and fellow cipher-aware who underestimate an inquisitive are sure to find their carefully-laid plans unraveling.

Skills: 1. Quaint village life 2. Being foreign 3. Street magic
Starting Equipment: Ridiculous hat, unfashionable clothes (as unarmored), little notebook and stubby pencil, case of unusual tools.

• A Nosy Parker, +2 save
• B Many Friends,+1 HP
• C Obvious Ruse, +2 skill
• D Capacity To Spit At Back Of Head: Neutralized

Nosy Parker
    Years of irritating fiddling and inquiry have made you a master of investigation, and of hounding down liars. If you consider two clues for a full minute, you have a revelation about how they are (or aren't) connected. Every time you do this you have a cumulative 1-in-6 chance of coming down with a splitting migraine, preventing you from doing anything useful until you get a full night's rest. If an NPC states something you know is a conscious lie, you may mark them as a liar. You may sneak attack people who are marked even if you otherwise couldn't.

Many Friends
    In every city's underbelly there are a few burglars who owe you their freedom from gaol, and in every high-class salon there's an aunt with a remittance-man nephew who gives her grief. When you need something unsavory, like identifying a gang tag or purchasing explosives, you always know who to ask and there's a cipher-in-6 chance they owe you a favor already.

Obvious Ruse
    Elementary deceptions might fool your quaint, comic-relief friends, but you notice them at once. You can literally smell illusions and mechanical booby traps at 30'.

Capacity To Spit At Back Of Head: Neutralized
    There is a time for everything; a time to work and a time to rest, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to engage in psychological cat-and-mouse games and a time to pounce. Your sneak attacks against marked enemies deal an extra 3d6 damage.

Mastermind

    There is a tendency for the proud to fall.

    Cipher is often turned to practical ends; stealth, skulduggery, murder, rapine. But it is easily applied to the more abstracted fields of diplomacy and politics. Masterminds (who strive to one day be called "viziers") excel at these more subtle applications, and so rise high.

Skills: 1. Forging paperwork 2. Alchemy 3. Mystery religions
Starting Equipment: elaborate turban, silk formalwear (as unarmored, +1 to reactions), wickedly-curved kukri (light), oil lamp with faded lettering, case of unusual tools.

• A Voice of Reason, +2 save
• B Game Instinct, +2 HP
• C Discretion, +2 save
• D Smooth Brain, +2 HP

Voice of Reason
    Your soothing voice can fake any accent or verbal mannerism, and always sounds local and trustworthy. With shouted advice, you can give advantage on a d20 check to a friend within 30' when they are attacking an enemy you can see or attempting to use a skill you are also proficient in.

Game Instinct
    With a full minute of study, you can intuit if another person has a better intelligence, wisdom or xharisma score than you, and can guess their HD and cipher score (if any).

Discretion
    When an attack would hit you, you can choose to cower behind an adjacent person (friend or foe) and let them be hit instead. If the original to-hit roll doesn't beat their AC, the attack misses entirely.

Smooth Brain
    Your brain runs on several virtual levels; schemes within schemes, wheels within wheels. Your thoughts cannot be read, and if you know someone is trying you can put up fake thoughts for the mindreader to think he's reading. Magical truth detection always pings you as truthful.

Phantom

    There is a tendency for the dead to not rest.

    When balanced on the knife's edge between the world of shadow-casting men and the screaming infinity of Death, most fall to the other side. This is true of the living but also of the dead. Every phantom (sometimes called "revenants", though this is incorrect) was once a normal person, before a close brush with their own mortality revealed cipher behind every action and reaction that occurs.

Starting Equipment: grave cerements (as unarmored, -1 to reaction and enemy morale checks), stonebow (1d6 at 20', -1 to-hit every 20' thereafter), spade (medium), fistful of tallow candles (3 doses), case of unusual tools.

• A Bleak Memories
• B Grim Reminders
• C Dark Presence
• D Unpleasant Toll

Bleak Memories
    Lost spirits follow you, and your dreams are filled with last moments. Every time you wake, choose a skill, such rope-tying or navigation or brewing. You may use that skill until the next time you sleep. Additionally, your sneak attacks are mimicked by invisible hands. The damage of a successful sneak attack is applied to a different person within 30'. This exhausts the spirits, and you must sleep before using this feature again.

Grim Reminders
    When someone dies in your presence, you can pocket a little smidgen of their soul for later use. This bit of soul takes the form of a trinket, such as a coin or artificial flower or playing card. You may carry up to your cipher score of trinkets at one time. When you would fail a save, you can destroy a trinket to reroll it. You can destroy a trinket to revitalize (heh) the spirits around you, granting another use of their sneak attack duplication. Finally, you can destroy a trinket to summon the ghost of the person you took it from. They will answer one question concisely (for they are eager to return to Death), but are not bound to tell the truth, and might hold a grudge if you're the one who killed them.

Dark Presence
    With a sigh, you can partially fade from the world of the living. While in this form you float slowly, invisibly, and intangibly. You can pass through mundane barriers less than 10' thick; for the purposes of detection and warding you are a ghost. The effect lasts for ten minutes or until you end it yourself. You may only do this once per waking period, unless you fuel it by destroying a trinket.

Unpleasant Toll
    The ghosts who imitate your sneak attack do so for two targets within 30', possibly including your original target. Every time you wake you are holding an additional trinket. The ghosts associated with these trinkets have more interest in the world of the living, and may be stranger or more powerful than the usual sort.

Scout

    There is a tendency for the tamed to turn.

    Rangers come in many forms, but most operate on an instinctual level and never understand why they are so comfortable far from their fellow man. The rare handful with both talent and comprehension ("spies" in military nomenclature) are at risk of becoming more than mere footmen.

Skills: 1. Equipment maintenance 2. Horses 3. Military hierarchy.
Starting Equipment: Boring but practical armor (as chain, which you may wear), tomahawk (light), flint and steel, combination breathing reed and dodgy blowgun, newspaper with eyeholes cut out, case of unusual tools.

• A Skirmisher, +1 to-hit
  
• B Wide Ranging, +1 HP
  
• C The Thrill, +1 AC
  
• D Sell Dear, +1 HP
  

Skirmisher
    Once per combat round, on anyone's turn, you may scuttle 10'. That's the trick to not getting hit, see?

Wide Ranging
    Choose two of the following adjectives: barren, populated, abandoned, forested, frigid, windswept, arid, damp, craggy, dark, coastal, spooky. While in an area described by that adjective, you can light a fire (given tools, fuel, 60 minutes and cooperative weather), find enough food for one person, follow tracks a day old, and may protect one person from poor conditions.
    Every time you level up, select another adjective. Effects stack. Adjectives may be selected multiple times.

The Thrill
    Foxes might have beautiful tails, but dogs live longer. You gain +1 to-hit and damage against an unintelligent target for each of the following things you know: its age, sex, proper scientific name, and where it slept last night.

Sell Dear
    Dogs might have friends, but that's no reason for the fox to bare his neck to their teeth. You have an extra attack on your turn against a second target.

Swashbuckler

    There is a tendency for the confident to succeed.

    Tired deck-hands and hirelings sit in taverns and spin strange yarns of dashing adventurers, brave hedge knights and avaricious captains of the sea. How did the illustrious Rathbone scale the Starry Tower unseen just to fight her way down to the bottom with a princess over each shoulder? How did ol' Calico Kite jump the deck of the Maiden Voyage before the hook-lines were set? When the whole town was burned by a vengeful red dragon, why was Nine-Fingers Gellman (who'd stolen the beast's egg in the first place) left unharmed? Well, they say, it's just that some are born who can smell the cipher.

Skills: 1. Entertaining crowds 2. Mixology 3. Monsterology
Starting Equipment: colossal feathery hat, sabre (light), officer's uniform (as unarmored, your choice of nationality), grapnel and 50' of rope, impressive medals, shiny black boots, case of unusual tools.

• A Macaroni, +2 initiative
• B Rakehell, +1 HP
• C Nogoodnik, +1 AC
• D Broken on the Wheel, +1 HP

Macaroni
    They lied; good looks are never a curse. Those who can see your face are distracted if you wish.

Rakehell
    You're dashed interesting and that's that. You may challenge intelligent targets in combat, forcing them to spend their next turn attacking you instead of anyone else, or charm them out of combat, making them consider you at least an acquaintance. They check morale to avoid either case.

Nogoodnik
    Leaping Gaps, Outrunning Guards and Swinging On Chandeliers are cipher skills for you. In fact, any feat of acrobatics is a cipher skill for you, if the DM lets you get away with it.

Broken on the Wheel
    Attacking With A Light Weapon is a cipher skill for you, and so is Not Taking Damage From Something That Obviously Should Have Hit You.

Thief

    There is a tendency for the money to turn up safe in my pockets, somehow. Not my fault. Be more careful next time.

    The thief needs no introduction, and has no other common names. There was no first thief outside of legend. Few enough show up in legends at all, let alone history books. Sure, maybe a common thief isn't as glamorous as a swashbuckler or an assassin. But every thief knows, in their heart of hearts, what really matters is a full heart, reliable friends, and... and... an amusing third entry to a list three entries long. Damn, where'd it go?

Skills: 1. Architecture 2. Art history 3. Numismatics
Starting Equipment: Dark clothing (as unarmored), lead cosh (light), grapnel and 100' of elf-hair rope, diamond-tipped hand drill.

• A Fast Hands, Second-Story Work, +2 sneak
• B Supreme Sneak, +2 sneak
• C Use Magic, +2 sneak
• D Catlike Reflex, +2 sneak

Fast Hands
    Faster than the eye, even. You may use cipher skills in combat, and a single hairpin counts as a full case of unusual tools.
Second-Story Work
    Like a spider. You can climb as fast as you can walk.

Supreme Sneak
    You may invert any of your cipher skills to lay traps, render walls unscalable to your brother-thieves, see in the dark, or do whatever else needs to be done to keep lesser sneaks firmly in their place.

Use Magic
    You deceive like you breathe. If it comes up, you count as any class, race, sex, age or demographic that would most benefit you. Magic items recognize you as their rightful wielder, magical identity-checks ping you as "okay I guess", and somewhere out there a very confused angel has confused your records with that of a 90 year old grandmother who is also a 20th level paladin and a pro-bono defense lawyer for cancerous orphaned bunny rabbits.

Catlike Reflexes
    The first round of combat, take two full turns.