Magic Items

1. Black Box. Inside are three glass spheres which shatter when thrown, teleporting the thrower to the point of impact. The box regenerates all three spheres every week, and they lose potency after a day of being removed from inside.
2. Gray Resin Cube. At a mental trigger, takes a snapshot of the room the holder is currently standing in. A separate mental trigger allows the holder to enter the room. The holder can bring as much as they want into the room, including other creatures, but all foreign objects must leave the room with the holder. Nothing created by the cube can be removed unless sufficiently transformed (eaten, crushed into powder, breathed in.)
3. Bone Knife. When its blade is planted into the ground it teleports the last creature whose blood touched the blade to the place that it is planted.
   
4. Glass Sphere. Can shrink down one living plant and store it inside. The plant thereon produces 1 pieces of its natural produce per day (One Apple, Pinecone, Sheaf of Wheat, etc.) Plants can be swapped out by a mental trigger.
5. Brass Coin. Heads is a grinning cat, tails is a fishbone. Teleports back to the holder's hand when dropped. A cheerful voice reports how far it fell.
6. Opaline Circlet. Chased with copper. A mental trigger circles the wearer's head in a diaphanous bubble which provides 360 degree vision and 12 hours of breathable air.
7. Ivory Staff. A carved spiral staircase winds up its length. Teleports the holder up one "level" of whatever structure they are in when the butt is slammed against the floor. Carries one person at a time only.
8. Rocket Chair. Ordinary dining chair. Rockets violently 200ft when activated by sitting in it an pointing in any direction. Can be activated unintentionally
   
9. Mirrored Gauntlet. Bears engravings of the last source of damage to injure the wearer, which can be projected as a silver phantom from the palm. Can even copy magical weapons, spells, and dragon-fire.
10. Elf-Hair Rope. A twenty-five/fifty foot coil of rope. Five different command words, when spoken aloud, cause it to perform various functions. "Rise, Knot, Loose, Contract, Lengthen."
11. Black Headless Skeleton. Abdomen stuffed with cobalt organs. Resurrects severed heads placed on its neck and allows them to puppet it as their own body. Fingertips are always unpleasantly cold.
12. Notched Leather Bootstrap. Brass buckle shaped like a noose. If the holder wraps it around their own neck, they can lift themselves up to 15' off the ground. Deeply unpleasant experience.
13. Lizard Tail Ring. Allows limbs to be detached at will. Detached limbs are sessile.
14. Lover's Goblet. Polychrome in lazuline and malachite. Two creatures who shed blood into the goblet and then drink will exchange bodies permanently. This can be repeated back and forth until your DM throws something at you.
15. Crystal Sword. Can melt and freeze into different shapes at a mental trigger.
16. Velvet Glove. Darker than black. At a mental trigger, either stores one discrete object in extra-dimensional space or retrieves that object. Object can be any size, shape, weight, or complexity, so long as it can be successfully argued to be a single object. Unwilling creatures cannot be placed into the glove.
17. Basalt Crown. Turns the wearer to stone when placed on head. Wearer cannot be wearing any other kind of headgear. Wearer reverts when the crown is removed.
18. Canine Ring. Allows the wearer to mentally communicate with dogs and wolves; who hold them in esteem.
19. Prayer Beads with Mummified Hand. Carved from Sandalwood. Worn around the neck or as a belt, serves the wearer as a third arm.
20. Bronze Breastplate. Engraved keyhole pattern along the collar. Becomes immovable at a mental trigger. 
21. Crystal Decanter. Hermetically sealed. Teleports fluids out of other containers and into itself when its spout touches them. Can reverse this process at a mental trigger.
22. Cedar Coffin. Painted Black. Corpses placed inside are processed into their constituent parts. Rendered fats, bones, leathers, meats and blood. Each corpse takes about a minute to process, and touching the coffin during the process allows the owner to mentally control the level of refinement (Bone into chips, powder, or broth? Fat into wax, oil, or lard? Etc.) The coffin is capable of rendering down esoteric corpses, such as golems, elementals, and aberrations.
23. Cedar Coffin. Painted Blue. A creature sealed inside falls into suspended animation. Their heart does not beat, they do not breathe, and they do not age or need to eat. They don't even dream.
24. Fish-Leather Sandals. Studded with pearl and coral. Water-Walking. Can be turned on an off at a mental trigger.
25. Clay Fertility Icon. Polychrome in redstone and malachite. A pregnant creature or egg touching the statue's domed belly is decanted. The statue functions as an accelerated exo-womb, and gives birth to healthy young in 24 hours.
26. Lavender Boots. Calf length, studded with Onyx. Allows the wearer to walk on ceilings, but not walls.
27. Pocket Psalter. Gilded spine, tied closed with a silken ribbon. Eats other books and indexes their contents when unobserved. Sentient, loyal and eager to please its reader, communicates via simpering footnotes. Wants to eventually organize all information in the world into a singular volume.
28. Twinned Silver Chokers. Bears the image of the crescent moon, waning and waxing, in onyx and opaline. Wearers of either choker can choose to take damage for the other.
29. Verdigris crusted Gauntlet. Corroded joints locked into a sign of benediction. It slips on easily, despite its contortion, but cannot hold a weapon. Any creature struck on the forehead by its fingertips slips into shallow slumber, woken easily by pain or the furor of battle.
30. Metamorphic Mercurium. A globule of mirror-metal which shifts to take the shape of the last inanimate object to touch its surface. A mental trigger from its holder dissolves it back into its liquid form. Capable of mimicking organic objects, and even other magic items.
31. Silver Cube. Unfolds into a self-assembling crane and basket elevator at a mental trigger. Basket is comfortably enclosed and features a pleasant, if repetitive, selection of music.
32. Hickory Pole. Variable length, extensible and retractable at mental trigger by holder. Maximum 20' minimum 5'.
33. Frog Helmet. Chased in malachite. Wearer gains a whip-fast adhesive tongue 10' in length.
34. Grasshopper Chitin Boots. Allows the wearer to shrink down to be 1" tall at a mental trigger, then back to normal size.
35. Diadem of Blades. Golden crown bearing swords of silver, each pommel capped by a heliotrope. At the wearer's mental trigger all swords within 100' resonate and release a pulse of sharpness, slashing their own bearers.
36. Dullahan's Gorget. Pitted black iron. The wearer can survive without their head.
37. Phial of Ferrofluid. Contains half a liter of ferrofluid. The holder of the iron phial can command the fluid, which has the intelligence of a trained dog and the strength of an equal quantity of egg whites. Its magnetic properties allow it to manipulate metal objects much more easily. Needs to "sleep" inside the phial for 8 hours every day.
38. Woeful Gray Statuette. Snarling black teeth beneath a hinged jaw. Vomits up a cloud of opaque smoke while its mouth is open. Produces just enough to fill whatever room it is in, bounded by doorways and windows.
39. Stone Gauntlet. At a mental trigger, manifests a horse-sized stone hand which mimics its actions. The hand cannot levitate or exert any more force than leverage provides, and must move around like a spider.
40. Petrified Sponge. Absorbs a gallon of water into an extra-dimensional space every minute. At a mental trigger, swaps to releasing a gallon of water per minute. Maximum capacity is 64 gallons.
41. Emotional Support Moon. Revolves around the wearer's head. Capable of snatching small objects and dragging them into its own orbit.
42. Cube-Topped Copper Staff. Creates 5' cubes of orange resin when its tip touches the ground. Cubes are anchored to the place they are created. All cubes puff into fragrant smoke when the staff's butt is struck against the floor. A total of 10 cubes can be created at a time.
43. Copper Wristwatch. Clicking the button on the top teleports the wearer, and one other creature they are touching, to the location the wearer was standing 6 seconds ago.
44. Red Phrygian Cap. At a mental trigger, swaps itself with another piece of headgear the wearer can see.
45. Green Quiver. Leather tooled with a vine pattern. Every morning 7 arrows appear inside the quiver, and any extant arrows from the quiver vanish. These arrows create thick blooms of ivy wherever they strike.
46. Brass Shield. Horseshoe device embossed on the front. At a mental trigger, any metal object touching the shield is adhered to it. It requires a fair amount of leverage and effort to separate adhered objects. A second mental trigger releases all adhered objects.
47. Silver Lockbox. Encrusted with rubies and engraved with swirling symbols. The inside is lined with white velvet. The inside of the lid bears an image of a human body, organs included.  Each internal organ raises from the surface as a button. If someone puts a drop of blood into the velvet interior, and presses a button, the lockbox snaps shut and locks. After 24 hours, the box opens, and a viable clonal organ is produced corresponding to the pressed button.
48. Glass prosthesis. Crystal clear, with needle-like talons. The stump fuses automatically to someone missing an arm and morphs to fit their body, including handedness. At a mental trigger the needle talons slurp up about a liter’s worth of liquid, and at the same trigger, inject it. Injecting someone with random bullshit is agonizingly fatal, though not always immediately.
49. Gray Pouch. Embroidered with the device of an eye. 6 stone beads replenish at dawn, you know the drill. Each seed tossed to the ground blooms into a stone statue, taking a form that the tosser imagines. Pouch contains a latent sentience that flies into a black rage if any of the statues are sold, and any future statues grown animate and attempt to strangle the offending party to death with their cold stone hands.
50. Plain Ivory Band. Wearer can grow any hair and nails on their body to any length they desire at will.
51. Small Cookie Tin. Contains a single wax wrapped lump (6 grams) of silvery metal, refreshes at dawn. When chewed, the lump becomes tacky and adhesive. When the chewer says the word “boom” the gum explodes with the equivalent force of plastic explosives.
52. Modest Townhouse. Materials left in the house overnight are used by a team of mechanical puppets that live inside the walls to maintain and expand the house. Expansion can be directed by providing blueprints. There’s a secret room in the basement where the shed blood, hair and skin flakes of residents are slowly turned into living puppets that, when completed, will attempt to murder and replace the inhabitants. (For the sake off portability/being dungeon treasure, it begins as a cart sized box on wheels, which unfolds into a pile of building materials and puppets that immediately begin work.)
53. Hooked Copper Rod. Allows the bearer a sixth sense which sees foreign objects inside the bodies of others. The rod can pass through flesh without distorting it, and share that ability with foreign objects at the bearer's discretion. Can be used to remove piercings, arrow wounds, and parasites. Cannot be used to harm other creatures in any way, included just hitting them with it.
54. Gargoyle Head. Pitted dark stone. Soaks up a gallon of liquid, then, at a mental trigger, vomits it with the force of a pressure washer. 
55. Weird Ass Doll. Twelve ivory arms attached to a torso. No legs or head. Activated by twisting the silver winding key in the center of its spine. One full wind lasts an hour, during which the doll attends to its winder’s needs with incredibly speed and skill. It can cook, clean, assist dressing and undressing, curry a horse, and anything only an entire team of servants could.
56. Brass Amulet. Shaped like a doorknob. Pressing the metal against the wearer’s flesh and twisting opens their chest like a drawer, revealing an empty internal space stretching from hips to clavicle. The walls of the internal space are made of planed and polished bone, and breaking or damaging it in any way is agonizingly painful, and wounds opened inside bleed. Objects inside the space only cause discomfort if they are too large to properly fit, otherwise they are functionally weightless. The internal space  becomes an extradimensional pocket after the door is closed, and persists even if the amulet is removed.
57. Brass Helm. Sculpted after two fused heads, who share an eye in the middle. One is a man with a wild mane of hair, curly beard, the other is a weak-chinned woman with short cropped hair. If the wearer speaks another creature’s name, with intent, the wearer and that creature see out of each other’s eyes instead of their own until another name is spoken. The wearer speaking their own name or removing the helm ends the effect.
58. Golden Staff. Wrought of all one piece, haft is scored to improve grip, the pattern is shaped like interlaced hands grasping one another’s wrists. The top or butt of the haft can grab and release items like a third hand at a mental signal. Grasped items can be reliably used as “heads” for the weapon.
59. Golden Bell. When rung, summons the animal that likes  the ringer the most. *Can* be a person, more likely a dog. Cats like you more than you think.
60. Blue Staff. Tall enamel staff, swan topper. At a mental trigger, the bearer creates a beach ball sized spatial distortion within their sight. Anything observing this distortion supernaturally intuits its behavior, even animals and constructs. Anything looking into the distortion can change the angle at which they can see through it. Objects launched by an observer through the distortion exit at this angle… a creature leaping counts as a launched object
61. Blue Leather Boots. Platform heels. When clicked together, generate a bouncy blue trampoline on the first solid surface below the wearer.
62. Black Onyx Tablet. Engraved silver text reads “Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet Conectetur Adipiscing Elit.” when read aloud by a living creature, generates a duplicate of the reader. Duplicate has all the mental capacity and memories of the original, and lasts for 24 hours. The duplicate is hollow and has no internal structure, and bursts like a bubble of any significant force is applied. At any point in its lifespan it can merge with its original, and confer all the memories and knowledge that it gathered in that time. The tablet can be used 1d6+1 times every day, reroll at dawn.
63. Silver Poniard. Black leather grip. Things impaled with the blade rapidly inflate with air. Has an explosive effect on living flesh.
64. Fanged Talisman. Wearer grows a set of pharyngeal jaws down their throat, inside their anus, and inside their vagina (if applicable.)
    Jaws persist for a week after removal.
    
65. Floating Crystal Bubble. follows first person to touch it while inert, who becomes the designated owner. At a mental command it can be set to follow another creature with whom the current owner is familiar, who then becomes the next owner.  This can be made conditional on the current owner’s death. The current owner can place a living creature inside, after which only the occupant or the owner of the bubble can retrieve it. The bubble provides air and light to the occupant, and protects it from every avenue of attack.
66. Octagonal Crystalline Staff. Man height, translucent, tinged slightly pink. Slamming the butt on the ground sprouts a lattice of 16 copies of the staff from a surface within range, each copy is space exactly 3 feet from the next. Copies have the proportionate strength of stone, and last until the staff is used again, or for 7 hours. If a copy would be inside of something else, it does not form until that obstruction is moved.
67. Grey Chalk. Leaves marks but is not apparently diminished by use. Any object not moving under its own power (ie - anything other than a construct or creature,) treats the lines drawn by the chalk as a brick wall extending six feet from the surface they are drawn on. This includes water, air, arrows, and fire, but not light or anything worn or carried by a living creature. Marks lose potency after an hour, but can be refreshed entirely by a tap of the chalk.
68. Golden Frying Pan. Can cook anything, rocks, water, ice, etc, and turn it into food. No man has ever tasted rock sirloin, fried ice, or doornail flambée. These ingredients may be poisonous, disgusting, disgusting… or delicious, tender, and perfectly moist. This is Terra incognita for everyone involved.
69. Black Roughspun Bag. Fills with brackish green salt every morning, all existing green salt vanishes. Salt is foul and poisonous, enough to sicken but not actually kill. Eating more than a spoonful causes immediate vomiting. Causes a rash on human skin, causes toads, slugs, and other creatures with permeable skin incredible distress. Any wound rubbed with it will not heal until thoroughly cleaned, even if healing magic is applied.
70. Red Staff. Tall enamel staff, topped by a carving of a flock of bats. By slamming the butt of the staff against the ground, the bearer is given six seconds of dilated time to act. An affected creature can perceive and affect nothing around them, except their own body and objects they are wearing, carrying, or holding. The bearer can reposition their limbs and body however they wish, including releasing the staff, but their center of mass will remain in the same position. Telefrag protection is in place, but imperfect, and may result in the bearer’s body being painfully or fatally contorted. Released objects cannot move more than three feet from the bearer, and lose all angular momentum when exiting dilated time.
71. Green Staff. Tall enamel staff, topped by a carving of an apple tree. When the butt is slammed against the ground, creates a wretched hunchbacked gnome that obeys one verbal command then withers into dust. Has the proportional strength of a toddler, mewls in pitiful agony for its entire existence. Creating a second creature destroys the first.
72. Striped Belt. Pastel pink, white, and blue. Bears an astrological symbol for a buckle. Wearer can mentally alter their primary and secondary sex characteristics at will. Changes persist after removal of the belt.
73. Supine Amulet. Depicts a copper figure reclining, hands behind their head, ankles lazily crossed. At a mental trigger sends the wearer back to the last bed they fell asleep in without any objects they are currently wearing or carrying, except for the amulet itself.
74. Blue Sword. Sky blue metal spun into a two edged blade. Can strike anyone the wearer can see as if they were standing next to one another- but anyone struck can do the same to the wielder.
75. Green Pouch. Decorations shaped like a stylized frog's eyes and tongue. Place a coin made of brass, silver, gold, or jade into the pouch, and a moment later, it is transformed into a frog. The frogs cannot be turned back into coins.
76.  Sky Blue Pouch. Embroidered with rainbow beans. Fills with seven beans every morning. Each bean can grant one bean wish when tossed onto the ground. Bean wishes are incredibly unimpressive. Example bean wishes: making a small flash of light, becoming a regular bean sprout, becoming half a cup of coffee, creating a high pitched noise that sounds like a gnome screaming “bean.” When in doubt, creates a puff of smoke that leaves behind a little note that says "out of order."
77. Brown Leather Pouch. Single wooden button. Full of cotton. Worn on belt. Wearer can, at will, wrap any part of their body in cotton, over or under clothing. Enough cotton in the bag to cover an adult human from head to toe in cotton padding, which serves as surprisingly effective armor.
78. Red Dueling Cape. Lights on fire/extinguishes at a mental trigger. Wearer is immune to its flames, nearby creatures and objects are not.
79. Blue Candlestick. Holder can mentally control the color, brightness, and even the direction of the flame. Can get uncomfortably bright. Can be used as laser pointer.
80. Red Candlestick. Any solid object the flame touches instantly lights on fire as if it had been doused in gasoline.
81. Horse Headed Rod. Carved from walnut. Brass eyes. Leather bit and Bridle. Can be ridden like a horse, so long as the rider makes occasional horse noises with their mouth. Can also be used as a club which strikes with the force of a horse’s kick.
82. Black Metal Bell. Acid etched with geometric patterns. When rung, all creatures who can hear it, or would be able to hear it if they were not deafened, immediately lose their balance and fall over.
83. Ball of Metal Roaches. Size and weight of a shotput. Roaches come alive as a swarm after landing. The thrower must give them a verbal command as the ball is flying, which they follow to the letter. Roaches become inert after being slapped/stomped on, or being soaked in water. Once 2/3rds of the roaches are inert, they all swarm back together and form a ball again.
84. Green Spear. Plant-leather haft, curled into a spiral. Head knapped from obsidian. About a foot from the tip and butt are straight enough to grab. Thrusting extends the spear up to fifteen feet like a striking snake. Grabbing the top and slamming the butt into the ground allows the wielder to pole-vault. Freaks out like a dying eel if thrown.
85. Red Drawstring Bag. Embroidered with a black ant. Small, fits about three fingers to the knuckle. Anything placed inside the bag will appear 6’ in front of whoever is wearing it on their belt, magnified 20 times in size. Changes to the large version affect the small version. Large version vanishes like a mirage if it gets more than 100’ from the bag.
86. Black Spear. Haft of glossy wood, smooth but easy to grip. Head is forged from black steel. At the approach of an enemy (determined by the spear,) the head falls off the spear. If the haft is used as a quarterstaff, the head begins flying around as a projectile, striking each foe that is hit by the haft on the reverse side of the attack they are receiving.
87. Grey Drawstring Bag. Wails like a dying cat when opened. Does not need to pause for breath. Will never stop until drawn shut.
88. Black Belt. Black reptile leather with knee length panels, so it’s more of a weird skirt. The panels are made of red brick shingles, wheat straw, wood, wet ice, felt, glass, and basalt.
    At a mental trigger, belt panels can be placed as 10’ square tiles, either replacing an existing floor, or sticking out of a wall. The belt can be coerced into making walls.
    Damaged panels must be replaced by feeding it the missing materials.
89. Black Velvet Bag. Bag of seven marbles, various materials, iron, brass, ruby, glass, wood, ceramic, and even one apparently made of unmelting ice. Whoever wears the bag on their belt can mentally control the marbles, causing them to roll across the floor at will. Every morning, the marbles teleport back into the bag.
90. Golden Spear. A mental command fires a metal net from the butt.
91. Grey Spear. Diamond shaped head, looks to be carved out of unpolished stone or wood. Striking or dragging the spear’s butt against a surface creates adhesive bubbles of grey tar.
92. Slag Ring. Made from a dozen tiny swords fused together. When pressed against a non-living tool or other object, that object warps into a weapon bearing the object’s properties. The resulting weapons are not always intuitive or apparently designed for a human to use.
93. Silver Saber. Swept knuckle guard made from brass, studded with small rubies and onyxes. Turns invisible when held. The blade can adjust its length by up to an entire foot at will.
94. Silver Spoon. At a mental command from the bearer, teleports a single spoonful of visible material into itself. Does not work on metal. Does work on living flesh. Somehow both more and less useful as a weapon than you would think.
95. One Inch Tall Sarcophagus. Has a freaky little mummy inside. The mummy is a little freak and does whatever you want but he's totally messed up in the head.
96. White Staff. Tall enamel staff, teapot topper. Slamming the butt against the ground makes every creature in the room with you glow faintly blue for the next 6 seconds.
97. Cedar Stepladder. Small ladder, easily carried in two hands or on the back. At a mental command, extends in length up to 150'. (Ladders are very scary in real life.)
98. Soot-Stained Longsword. Weeps the last liquid it was fully immersed in. Can be toggled on and off by a mental command. Was last immersed in a bucket of flaming tar.
99. Six Fingered Gloves. Allow the wearer to don or doff articles of clothing and armor with a single touch. Does NOT work on other people. 
100. Baby Statuette. When cradled with at least one arm, allows the bearer to vanish and reappear directly behind someone who is looking directly at them with a mental trigger.

100 cool magic items are hard. These suck, I hate them all now. Nobody reads this blog. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAughhh.

Hit Dice as Stamina

 Elden SoulsKiroBorne is all the rage these days.

 

Everybody secretly has a really shitty combat system they think is really good cooking in their heads. This is mine. 

It is almost certainly broken as hell and not fun at all at the table. You should add it to your own Gloghack, Cairnfork, OSEmake, Bastionlike, Knavourite Retroclone.

 

BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE 

Rol a d6 to determine Hit Location (more on that later,) then roll your weapon dice, apply modifiers like Strength or your attack bonus or whatever. Weapon dice explode; whenever you roll max damage, roll another one of your damage dice and add it to the result. If you close your eyes it almost tastes like critical hits.

GETTING THE SHIT BEATEN OUT OF YOU

You have no HP. Every hit strikes a random location. Getting hit in the head or stomach is a bad idea.

If you take damage it becomes a Wound. You can have SUM Wounds equal to your CON Score before you pass out from the pain. At SUM Wounds double your CON Score, you die from shock.

At:

2 Wounds: You get a nasty Flesh-Wound. You'll live, but it will scar. (Record your scars somewhere on your character sheet.)

4 Wounds: The injury is deep enough to bleed 1d6 wounds worth of lifeblood each turn you don't clamp a free hand over it. (You take this damage to no specific location, just tally it next to your other limbs.) Tourniquets are your friend.

6 Wounds: Maimed; you can't use this limb for much of anything, least of all quickly. Fingers won't close around anything heavier than a pebble, legs won't support your weight, you can't take a full breath or keep anything in your stomach, you're heavily concussed and can only mumble and see two feet in front of you, etc.

8 Wounds: Mangled beyond repair. Arms or legs severed, ribcage shattered, skull crushed or decapitated. Instant death if this is your head, and you're going to need to be very very lucky if it's your torso.

A 1-2 hits your arms,  3-4 hits legs, 5 hits torso, 6 hits head. Odds are left, Evens are right.

 

ARMOR

Equip armor per limb. Each limb worth of armor takes up an Inventory Slot.

Hide 1 AC

Gambeson 2 AC

Leather  3 AC

Chain 4 AC

Scale 5 AC

Plate 6 AC

Subtract AC from damage received. It's not rocket science.

You can't rest in metal armor, and it makes enough noise that monsters will be expecting you when you finally round the corner. Plus, forget about swimming.

This is the part that I'm least comfortable with. Armor is weird and hashtag balancing it is actually really hard without getting stupid and fiddly in ways that I don't find fun.

DODGING

When you take damage, after your AC is subtracted from the enemy's roll, you can roll as many of your hit dice (Which are assumed to be d6's,) as you feel necessary. The SUM of your hit dice is subtracted from the damage, representing your ability to roll with the punches, dodge, and generally not get your shit pushed in by people with sharp objects. However, any hit dice you roll that show a 5 or a 6 are exhausted, and can't be used again until you've eaten a full meal (At least two of: Hot, with Meat, or with Alcohol,) and slept at least 6 hours.

 

BLOCKING 

Action economy is weird when you're system agnostic. In systems with two actions, blocking costs one, in systems with movement actions blocking is a movement action, in systems with only one action and movement- you can't block if you were moving on your last turn. Blocking does not require Hit Dice, it redirects all damage from the targeted Hit Location to the shield. All shields have 6 HP.

Shields are made of;

Leather: 2 AC

Wood: 4 AC

Metal: 6 AC

PRESS

I'm calling it Press, because Advantage was taken. When you have someone flanked, or prone, or otherwise at a disadvantage, you gain a Press. You can also roll a Hit Die in exchange for a Press. The Hit Die exhausts as usual.

These press bonuses can be stacked.

• Choose hit location
• +2 Damage
• Bypass Shield
• Control Weapon (Renders one of their arms unusable until they drop their weapon or use this press against you)
• Sunder 1 point of AC
  

 

RANGE

 Get in there and kick their asses. Weapons are used at four ranges, Distant, Far, Standard, and Close. Changing Ranges takes your movement. Only Ranged weapons can be used at Distant, Ranged and thrown weapons can attack at Far, all melee weapons can be used at Standard, and all One-handed weapons can be used at Close, except Spears. Two handed weapons and spears are bludgeons at Close range.

It requires a movement action, or round of movement or whatever your system uses to move between ranges. You can roll a Hit Dice to move an extra range increment.

 

WEAPON LIST

• Fists/d1/Hard to inflict anything worse than a concussion
  
• Bludgeon/d4/anything not meant to be used as a blunt weapon
  
• Dagger/d4/Ignores armor at Close range. Can be thrown
  
• Sword/d6/Not a bludgeon when used to smash things with the cross-guard.
  
• Spear/d6/Grants 1 Press against anyone with a shorter weapon. Can be thrown. Can't be used in Close range.
  
• Hammer/d6/Ignores 1 point of armor
• Axe/d6/+2 damage against shields and prone.
• Big Sword/d12/Two handed, Incredibly lethal.
• Big Mace/d8/Two handed, Ignores 2 points of armor
• Pole Arm/d10/Two handed, Grants 1 Press against anyone with a shorter weapon.
  

PERKS, FIGHTING STYLES, AND OTHER THINGS THAT ARE MOST CERTAINLY NOT FEATS

 

1. Tough; All your wound thresholds are increased by 1; you get a flesh wound at 3 wounds, start bleeding at 5, etc.
2. Unarmored; You always get a free bonus Hit Dice to dodge. Make sure that you keep it separate from your other hit dice, since it doesn't matter if this one gets exhausted. This only works if you're unarmored, duh.
3. Parryfreak; You can roll one Weapon Die (exploding) instead of any Hit Die. If this reduces the incoming damage to zero, you deal any leftover "parry" into damage to the enemy.
4. Brutal; You can roll one Hit Dice per attack and add it to your damage.
   

 

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Ranged attacks, Armor rethinking, Grappling, dual wielding, Tripping, weaboo bullshit weaponry.

 

The Overbright

 See this post by Skerples because it's really cool.

 Also this flash game.

Basically my first introduction to fantasy (Beyond a book of Greek Myths my mother read to me,) was the Dark Elf trilogy by R.A. Salvatore, so I love the Underdark as a concept. 

But what about the Overbright?

 

First off, put on your cartoon logic hat. You can walk on clouds, mine them and juice them with your hands for water. Cloud-soil can take seeds like dirt and grow vines and trees. There are grazing herds of pegasi in elysian cloud meadows miles above the land's surface. The centers of clouds become denser, solidifying into striated marble, which is just as heavy as the land-bound stuff, but hangs in the air all the same.

The Overbright is Isolated yet interconnected. Islands drift together, conjoin or split into smaller cloud islands. Birds and floating souls can cross easily, but clod-footed ground-dwellers need lighter-than-air sky canoes and pegasi driven chariots to get around. This leads to extreme isolation- the denizens of most islands seldom leave, but they are not in danger of starving or stagnating, since migratory birds and sky-bound nomads bring trade and food. Sunlight is abundant in the Overbright, making agriculture and photosynthesis a viable form of subsistence. A good many wizards travel to the Overbright to build their towers- the solitude works wonders for their research.

But don't expect the Overbright to be all sunshine and rainbows, though those certainly do figure in. Just because it's in the sky doesn't mean that it's a paradise. You think the underdark invented danger? The Night Below was a crack in the burning Earth when the Overbright was a storm as tall as the horizon, formed from the oceans turned to steam hotter than flame. It's like they say; as above, so below.

The interplay of distance and gravity have a strong affect on Overbright navigation. You can see the lands below, but going down there is almost impossible, since doing so would break every bone in your body. Therefore it's fun to play with that "so close, so far" relationship. Imagine mile long fishing lines reeling up catches from oceans below. The peaks of great mountains brush past as sky-goats disembark, having traveled the whole of the world atop their temporary cloud pasture.

The Overbright is Formless and Ancient. The shifting nature of cloud-islands means that it is impossible to chart the distances between them. Imagine trying to map a three-dimensional ocean of ice bergs that keep smashing into each other. Individual mountain sized clouds become shifting labyrinths, the surfaces on the outside remain, but the geography churns with the wind. All the same, the contents of the islands are ancient.

Due to the difficulty of getting around, when an island becomes abandoned it could be centuries before it is discovered by an explorer. There are ancient crystal sarcophagi held suspended at the peaks of white cloud mountains, marble coliseums of the cyclopes manned by the floating spirits of their long dead slaves, titanic forests held within the hollow pillars of the sky; all of these places untread by mortal feet in centuries.

This makes the Overbright genuinely alien. There are creatures up there that have been extinct for millennia on the surface. There are creatures made for grand cosmic plans for the surface that never panned out: the work of dead gods who never returned home to their private skybound workshops. There are ancient empires and hidden sky kingdoms and wild offshoot tribes of people that genuinely don't know that there's a whole world down there, just like most people don't know that there's a tyrannical dystopia in "that cloud over there that looks like a shoe."

Metal is rare, any bronze or steel in the Overbright came from the surface at some point. Without magma, the largest cloud islands instead churn with unshed lightning, which boils cloudsoil into metamorphic sky-marble, or crystallizes it into igneous fulgurite. Most material crafting in the Overbright must therefore be done with bone, cloudstone, and wood.

 

 

The Overbright is Big. It stretches from about a mile away from the surface to the edge of space. That's a whole lot of sky.

So how do I get there?

1. Climbing. Tall enough towers, giant beanstalks, mountains.

2. Divine Benediction. Sometimes the angels painted on chapel ceilings reach down and pull you up.

3. Tornadoes. If you survive getting sucked up into the sky, you might just realize you're not in Kansas anymore.

4. Invitation. Sometimes, somebody lowers a rope. If they're nice, it's got a basket big enough for you and your friends attached.

5. Fog. A fog bank is just a cloud that fell down from the Overbright. Sometimes they rise back up with you on them, sometimes you can find a staircase made out of cloudstuff. 

6. Riding something with wings. Dragons, Megaravens, helicopters. If it can fly, it can probably land you on a sky island.

 

(2) The Stone of Caliber

Terrain- Rocky, Wet, highland, A river runs southward through the hex, shallow enough to ford where it meets a lake in the center. 

The Lake: Shallow and silty water, lily-pads and humming skeeters and water striding spiders. Long legged birds stalk the thrushes.

Odd effects/ bodies left in the water here do not rot or degrade. The bottom of the pool is littered with corpses in blankets and tapestries weighed down by smoothed stones. The nearby town of Omadien buries their dead here. The pond's ecosystem treats the corpses as any other stone, and does not eat of their flesh. The same applies to wild animals that fall in and drown, but anything native to the ecosystem such as moss or fish is fair game.

The island// center of the lake. There is a large stone that rises from the green, and an anvil on top. There is a Riftsabre thrust through the anvil and into the stone. The Sabre looks to be made from gold wires woven together and burnished, and is as tall as a man. The flat of the blade on either side is woven into the glyphs "Cherish" and "Abandon." Excavation would reveal the stone to be perfectly spherical deposit of alternating granite and basalt. Caliber cannot be pulled free by any means, unless the challenge bears the mark of conquest upon their skin.

Stuff:

2. A historian from a noble house and a coterie of scribes  and servants. Examining Caliber and noting its markings and shape for posterity.

3. A handful of Falconer hunters are letting their birds drink from the river.

4. Pallblood Knight taking a rest. They hold their boots in one hand and stroll across the water.

5. Village folk harvesting water lilies from the lake.

6. Gaggle of foolish youths forded the river in a lily-fishing boat, are taking turns trying to pull Caliber from the anvil.

7. Village folk fetching water.

8. A giant dog is drinking from the river.

9. Recurring NPC.

10. Outlaws in a flat canoe creep along the river, trying to hide corpses that they've fetched from the lake beneath a tarp. Headed downriver to sell the bodies to necrophages.

11. Sentient pod of dolphins. Very lost. Speak by psychically vibrating your inner ear.

12. The elder of Omadien and some priests are blessing Caliber with rosewater and rice.

Riftsabre: A sword from an older time when men were more knowledgeable of Divine Alchemy. They are typically the size of a Zweihander and made of unknown materials. They are harder than any mundane material, and thus cannot be sampled for experimentation. Riftsabres are rarely all one piece, rather woven from multiple threads like wicker, often into the shape of glyphs and pictures. No two Riftsabres are alike. Their shapes are fanciful, but due to their attributes this ornamentation does not affect their use. Despite being held like any other sword, the weight of the weapon falls onto the wielder's center of mass. (Though Riftsabres are separated into "male" and "female" categories, men have difficulty using women's Riftsabres, though women have less difficulty using men's. Thus the use of counterweight belts is common among Rift-Duelists.) Whatever causes this odd weight distribution also provides perfect leverage- Riftsabres face almost no resistance against their cutting edge from any position. They can be used mid-air, underwater, and are almost impossible to remove from another's hand against their will. Since the knowledge of their construction is lost to all but the most powerful cults, they are incredibly valuable. They're magic super-swords, you get it.

Rift - Sabre

(Rift- Both in the otherworldly sense and the Breaking sense. The blades are the provenance of angels, and their capacity for destruction is infamous.) (Sabre- in the sense of dueling. Often the only method of defeating a Rift-Duelist is by single combat. The length and power of a Riftsabre allow them to decimate halberdiers and even pikemen on a field. Sabre also bring to mind the role of cavalry lancers.)

Metabolist

 

Through strict breeding, surgical alteration, or intense meditation, your body has been molded into a living crucible. You practice the primordial art which precedes all others; biochemistry. All arts, sciences, philosophies and moralities collapse towards a singular point, towards the slavish desires of the gastrointestinal tract. The body is merely a mechanism for the ingestion of organic matter, and the mind is merely the body's operator. Thus, mastery of the self does not revolve around discipline of the body or mind, but of mastery over Metabolism.

Skills: 1. Cooking, 2. Philosophy, 3. Anatomy.

Never fumble with knives or axes, can wear up to 4 slots worth of armor.

Starting Equipment: Apron (1 slot of armor, emblazoned with your guild mandala,) Cleaver (Functions as a hand axe, can be thrown,) Cannibalism License (1 Slot worth of paperwork in a fire/waterproof envelope.)

A. Crop, Catabolism +1 MD
B. Internal Alchemy +1 MD
C. Twin Minds +1 MD
D. The Body Electric +1 MD

(A) Crop: You have the uncanny ability to eat things without digesting them. Gain [Template] inventory slots inside your stomach. You cannot store anything poisonous or sharp in them. Acidic is fine though, since that's what your stomach is for. You can store liquids and organic material without soiling, damaging, or mixing them.

(A) Catabolism: Roll MD to break chemical bonds within your body and release it as bio-electricity through the following effects. Your hands are always warm, and you can survive exposure to elements as if your were wearing a full fur coat, even if you're naked.

• Burning Hands: Deal [sum] burning damage to a creature or object you touch. Roll to attack a creature, no damage on a miss.
  
• Mage Hand: Pull a small (1 slot or fewer) object within [sum]x5' towards you. If the object is held, the creature gets a save vs. wands.
  
• Magic Missile: Launch a piece of ammunition or thrown weapon as if it were fired normally, dealing +1 damage.
• Shove: Shove a creature the same size as you or smaller back [dice]x5'

(B) Internal Alchemy: Blood, Bile, and Fat are the primary ingredients of alchemy. Your body produces them in surplus. Roll MD to create materials within your guts and expel them from your hands. There may be further techniques to learn from tomes and experimentation, seek them out to gain new abilities. You may also give yourself kidney stones and ulcers at will.

• Acid Spray: Deal 2d4 damage to things within a [sum]x5' cone of you. Creatures save vs. wands to avoid damage. You can also simply create [dice] slots of acid within your stomach inventory.
• Web: Launch a net of woven collagen, creatures within a [sum]x5' cone of you must save vs. wands or be webbed. Creatures trapped in the web may move half their speed or act on each of their turns, but not both. The web is flammable, if any webbed creature is struck by fire, all webbed creatures take [dice] fire damage and are freed from the web.
• Fog Cloud: Spray greasy smoke from your hands, creating a cloud of fog with a diameter of [sum]x5'. Any attack made through the smoke takes a -2 penalty for blindness, if appropriate.
• Create Food: Spray milk everywhere within a [sum]x5' cone of you. Doesn't deal any damage, but thoroughly soaks everything in its radius. You ca also simply create [dice] slots of cheese within your stomach inventory, which work as rations. The party will not thank you.

(C) Twin Minds: Your stomach has a mind of its own. If you are mind controlled, unconscious, or otherwise no longer in control of your actions, you still control the use of your spells. Decapitation is no longer lethal to you, you must be beheaded and disemboweled before you will die.

(D) The Body Electric: Fire runs through your veins. Expend 1 MD without rolling it to take an extra turn in combat, this can be done at any time, even interrupting an enemy's attack.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

1. War Shears (2 slots:) A pair of serrated scissors as tall as a man. The outside edge is also sharpened. It has been engraved with a map of the digestive system. Damage as a great-sword.
2. Destrier (3 HD creature:) A black horse with the wrong kind of hooves. Its guts are boiling hot. Can be ridden or used as a pack beast. Cowardly and proud, it refuses to engage in a fight where it could be injured.
   
3. Candied Durian: A black goat's horn hollowed out and filled with its own whipped fat and slices of durian. Decadent and sweet. 3 doses.
4. Salt (2 slots:) A sack filled with salt.
5. Gelatine: A tin of powdered gelatin. Turns 1 slot worth of water into 4 slots worth of translucent, jiggling, jelly. 6 doses.
6. Ammo case: A rectangular box of brass, engraved with a picture of a rib cage filled with blackbirds. Inside there are 12 lead bullets inscribed with the picture of a bird, fit for a sling or pistol.
7. Metal Dentures (no slots worn, 1 slot in inventory:) Replaces your teeth, sometimes with an ivory veneer to disguise their nature. You can chew anything that used to be alive, and they can be removed to be used as bullets for a sling or pistol.
8. Sack of Mice: A snack for the road. 2d6 inside.
   

Propaganda

1. A waterlogged poster that peeled off of a wall. The poster depicts a scene from a point of view in a post modern "pop" style; vibrant colors and unblemished subjects lacking the bite of modernism or the surreality of impressionism. PROSTITUTION DIABOLIK, say bold red and yellow letters above an attractive naked woman with horns, cloven hooves and a forked tail squatting at the end of a bed. Her vagina has teeth and a pair of hands belonging to the POV character are raised in a defensive posture towards her, indicating fear or distress. Smaller letters at the bottom rail against the use of Nocturnal Biomechanica as sex workers, citing Nationalist rhetoric as reasoning to avoid copulation with them. This line of posters was swiftly discontinued by the Bureau Dei Poliscie Dei Moralitie after it became associated with pornography, particularly for it's popularity among those with a fetish for humanoid Nocturnal Biomechanica.
2. An invasive aura-spike construct that produces the grating mental message: DRINK THE POTION [IMBIBE//LIQUID]: IMMEDIACY! Followed by the faint taste of Gambeton brand Cola and the activation of the salivary gland. Produced several Thousand Sange lawsuits against Gambeton Recreational Fluids which ultimately drove the company to bankruptcy. Due to embezzlement and governmental incompetence,  residents of Ystopl-West still report frequent encounters with this obnoxious mental advertisement, despite apparent attempts to hunt them down and scrub them from the collective unconscious. (Aura-spike constructs are externalized thoughts made out of "thought stuff" that can forcefully implant images and sensations into the minds of others without consent. Their use in advertisement is legal, but regulated. This one in particular has a shape like an invisible sea urchin the size of an apple.)
3. A strutting man with diaphanous skin, bones warped into whirlpools and branches, and three eyes. "It's free!" He says, 'So long as you get this written on your chest!" The blinking patches of bio-luminescence on his chest read: "Uderbrau Cosmetik Re-Configurations- West Reeve Street Apt. 56, call or appointment. Skeletal, Muscular, Integuementary, and Sexual Organ!!"
4. A plain yellowing flier, crumpled from being stuffed into pockets and used as a bookmark. Donate Blood; Church of Djarkine, it says at the top, followed by a list of local locations and phone numbers, and the bold print: DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN. The fine print admits that all proceeds from selling your blood to the local depository will go to buying back the skull of a saint that they pawned.
5. A newspaper clipping with a heliotype of an elegant woman, dressed in a fine pelerine and weighed down by several silver chains draped around her neck and wrists. Though the heliotype is in black and white, the alchemical denotation AU is written in her lipstick and eyeshadow. She's holding a pair of black engraved pistols and smiling. The column is titled "Eleanora's Arms Exquisite- Nothung's Liquid Coldfire Action Revolvers, the modern housewife's firearm?" The review is favorable, and there's a number at the end to call Nothung Firearms and place an order; the listed price is 20,000 Sange.
6. A cheaply produced pamphlet titled: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHOTUV DEEP WELL. The ensuing sixteen pages of insanity detail the anonymous author's belief that the world is not flat, but rather an octagonal polyhedron untouched by gravity. The illusion of flatness is given by the fact that each face of the polyhedron is flat, and the Fade Miasma is an artificial phenomenon maintained by the powers that be. The Chotuv Deep Well connection appears to be an attempt at relevancy, given the recent leak of the autopsy heliotypes, rather than a legitimate belief that the deep well somehow went sideways and breached into another facet of the octagonal earth. Reputable among the circles of the conspiratorially minded, but easily debunked by the recordings of the Abyssal Expeditions and the Trans-Miasma heliotypes of the sun passing beneath the ocean and into the underworld through the Maw.
7. A "comic book" featuring several popular publications, issue #432, called Serial Comedy Weekly. Features Tomas Bhekin's famous talking rat Sylvester.
8. A bronze statue of a proud Armiger wearing Carapace armor and bearing a three pronged lance. He has a sword belted to his side, and his helmet has an anachronistic plume. The plaque reads: "Behold the thin barrier which stands valiantly between your unworthy self and the rapacious hordes of the third world! Will you continue to cower like a woman while the very spine of our civilization is at risk, or will you stand proudly like a man, and enlist today?" There's a piece of graffiti on the statue's base which reads "I'm going to fuck your wife like a woman while you're busy killing strikers in Kvalte."
   

Axionic Theory Part 1

    In 103 P.A. a philosopher named Philethone described the smallest piece of material; a mote of which there could be no division, a fundamental unit of matter which came to be called the atom. [1] Things have gotten more complicated since then. See appended document 23-A for a primer on currently understood atomic alchemy and a chart of all currently derived elemental atoms. Philethone had more to say, of course. Namely that women were a separate parasitic breed of creature created by a second god that lived beneath the world, a claim which is currently unsubstantiated by the bureau, and largely conflicts with the universe's current cosmotheology. [2] [3] See appended document 24-A for a brief primer on classical Philethonian philosophies on gender, and appended document 24-B for Anaya Dknurr's 'Modern Gender Politik and the Shadow of Philethonic Misogyny.' Philethone had one other, vital theory, written upon fourty-eight mirror-polished sheets of silver flattened from his reward in denari for designing the Prison of Glass. This was the last work he ever published before being killed and eaten by his long time rival and castigator, Mastigione, and it may be the most important alchemical text ever created. [4]

    Philethone's Axionic theory is thus; Atoms are the smallest division of physical matter, Axions are the smallest unit of Law. Furthermore, using a telescope, Kamera Obscure, and a weighted token (often translated as denari, but was more likely a special carving of wood or bone used for gambling,) [17] Philethon determined that sunlight was capable of altering probability. Or rather, that a lack of sunlight altered the properties of the unobserved in significant ways. [18] See Figure 19 for a graphical depiction of this experiment.

    Modern Axionic theory is far removed from the primitive chance-based haruspicy that Philethone engaged in. The Langley-Shoru experiment (More commonly called Langley device, accounting for Tepelev Shoru's arrest following the hallmark 1548 Federal Tribunal case criminalizing "Hunter-Killer cannibalism,") first implemented the "candle in a dark room effect" to empirically observe Axions and their properties directly. The results were historic. [35] While the Axionic sciences are still in their infancy, their use has become an indespensible component in modern industrial alchemy. Indeed, the formation of the Southern Antrpol Commercial Agglomerate, its eventual collapse to Communist barbarism, and forceful reformation into the Dhristvailian Annex can all be directly attributed to putting Axionic theory to practice. [36]

    In broad terms, Modern Axionic Theory states that the Sun, which is held within the rails placed for it by the Archons, is the source of all Law, which manifests as a particle called an Axion. Axions emit a field of law, a particle interaction similar to magnetism which causes moderates the actions of all objects within. Speaking colloquially; Sunlight enforces the laws of creation. This can be easily observed in the "Chotuv Deep Well Incident." See appended document 47-A for a copy of the Antrpol Tribunal dedicated to the grisly accident, and appended documents 47-B, C and D for the autopsy heliotypes of the three resulting bodies. See appended documents 47-E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, and N for dental records and personality profiles of the original ten engineers. This Interaction can be seen in the (depreciated) [48] Saburov equation. Note that while modern Alchemists prefer the [49] Leinski-Sacches equation for industrial applications, the Saburov equation with experimental constants is fully sufficient for engineering operations, hazard assessment protocols, and legal deniability. [50]

    The modern Langley device uses a triplicate extrusion chamber created of shaldqin [54] though the prototype revealed at the 1647 World's Fair included a "deep layer internal focus chamber" created solely from Nocturnal materials. [55] This design would allow for theoretically impossible internal alchemical manufacturing; which Osmund Bertajii described as "The key to the Architect's prison; the philosopher's stone at last realized. Langley's sublime genius finally given manifest form." [56] The Bureau has extended lines of communication to the three living Langley Khaibit, which have unfortunately proven unproductive. While modern Langley devices use a baseline of 1.83*10^-13 ꙮ, [57] the prototype could reach the theoretical minimum of 6.66*10^-27 ꙮ, provided the outer shell were built in a sub-marine Stelle along the Kuvaddich coastline- the Ultima Thule of Axionic pollution. See appended document 50 for calculations. A modern Langley device uses Axionic stimulation via controlled coldfire-sunstone detonation on a diaphenous internal shaldqin-2 membrane while the internal environment is regulated by a series of pumps which removed the humourous media and filter it through another shaldqin membrane to remove axionic media. [58] Precipitation and manipulation of quasi-nocturnal chemicals is done through use of tertiary internal chambers- though the necessity of using real materials is a potential limiter, requiring a minimal axionic threshold to maintain physical identity. [59] Separation of axionic media and quasi-nocturnal product is crucial, an axionic contamination could render the final product useless or worse. See appended document 51-A for a comprehensive list of all documented Langley device axiom contamination pseudo-material disasters.

    Shoru Tepelev's comments on the device were recorded, but not published, by the Alchemia Regalia journal, which they were willing to share with the bureau when requested. See appended document 51-A for public response to the device during the fair, and 52-B for response afterwards by alchemical journals. On review, it seems the Tepelev's comments were simply not incendiary enough for tabloid publishing; "It's a good idea. Every factory in Qolnorra should buy one."