GLOGtober '24: Three Oracles

 For challenge 5 of glogtober I will be doing the prompt 'Oracles and Sages', specifically I'll be doing three oracles.

The first thing you need to know about an oracle is that you should never go to one. They do not tell you anything you need to know. Each prophesy is a curse that will twist your fate. Do not let them shackle you to providence, chart your own fate. If you do not heed my advice, there are three I know by name.

Simeon

She can be found in taverns where dancers spin into the night,

cafes where people exchange poems,

and of course casinos.

Simeon is one of the few oracles who accepts payment in coin,

however the denomination does not matter to her.

What matters to her is that it's traveled far and passed through many hands,

after all it's money makes the world go round.

Revolving Fortunes (d6)

1. On your next journey you will get lost, but you will end up somewhere just as intresting.
2. Your mother will die soon, unless she's already dead in which case it's your turn to be one.
3. You'll soon have a lot more plates to spin, new projects, new responsibility, new you. It will feel like too much, but I trust you'll pull through.
4. There is something you need to let go of, but you your greed will not permit it. Needless to say your suffer for it.
5. Ever wanted to travel the world? Very soon there will be an ending, and then a beginning. I suggest you start packing as soon as you leave.
6. Oof, sorry for the loss. It's natural to grieve, but you can't cry over spilled milk forever.

Distal

You can find him by the river under the full moon.

He can be found in his cave the rest of the month, but it's far too dangerous.

He misses the moon so much, so much.

Tell him of who you miss,

who you've lost.

Reminence with him and he may tell you what to look forward to.

Aching Omens (d6)

1. Whizz, clatter, shatter. Machines get lonely too. Shatter, sputter. If her engineer still saw her then she would buzz along, instead her heartbreak will take your leg.
2. Scritch, scratch. You will find a most wonderful rug. Thread and fiber, such lovely knots. Buy it for any price they ask or steal it if you have to. Such lovely knots. Trust me, this rug has the answers.
3. Hiccup. Cough. There is a child out there, maybe not a child, who never had any friends, any any friends. Ahem. You will be this maybe child's first friend.
4. SCREEEE, CHOMP. A harpy will attack you! SLASH, STOMP. A harpy will attack you!
5. Plink, plink, plink. It will rain tomorrow, and the day after that. Swoosh. You won't ever find a satisfying answer to that question you didn't ask me. Splash.
6. Crackle, CRASH. Lightning will strike you. Sizzle. Rejoice, for you will find a secret in it's scars.

Babirusa

It sits in a dried out old well in the old part of town.

There used to be a gallows up there,

did you know that?

Executions used to be the main spectacle around here,

but that's beside the point.

When you descend down that well on the rope they have left there

bring some flowers. Some say it matters if thier fresh or wilted.

Shove those flowers in it's overstuffed maw,

and take exactly one.

Floral Augury

1. Dark Crimson Rose: Death for someone else, inherentance for you. Vultures will try to take it.
2. Nasturtium: If you have never walked the war path before, you will find victory. If you have, some upstart will take your head.
3. Arborvitae: Rest easy, you will experince a period of rest soon. Expect to have a warm reunion from an old friend.
4. Snapdragon: You will be betrayed by a frog in your sleep.
5. Yarrow: You will be fused with another being, your blood vessels split open your skin and intwine with thiers. This will bring both of you true and lasting joy.
6. Snapdragon: It is a good time to scheme, your next act of treachery will be be executed flawlessly.

Notes:

Sometimes it's good to relax and just write some cryptic shit. Each oracle here is inspired by a card from a oracle deck and each prophesy is inspired by a different card from the same. Simeon comes from the traditional Rider-Waite Tarot. Distal draws on Nick Bantock's the river and Barbirusa comes from Travis McHenry's Hieronymus Bosch Tarot. Can you guess what the card behind each one is? Also, the river isn't technically an oracle deck but a 'ask questions about your subconcious' deck. I also wouldn't recommend buying the Hieronymus Bosch Tarot, the compositions such becouse they are just randomly cropped Bosch paintings and I don't like the canonical meanings of it's cards.

GLOGtober '24: Inside You Are Two Wolves (minimum)

 For challenge 3 of glogtober I will do "Esoteric Orders and Creeds'. Since there are as many days left in the month as I have challenges left, I think I'm going to play a bit fast and lose with the prompt. I have an idea I want to make a post about and picked the prompt that best matches it rather then the other way around. 

Recently on the GLOG discord there have been a fair few discussions on experince, and unrelatedly I have been playing in a CAIN campaign recently which has an experince system that I really like. So I'm going to extract the rules I like and want to talk about and write them up as thier own little unmoored subsystem.

Two Wolves Experince

This alternative experince system is suitable for campaigns in which you want player characters to get more powerful by struggling with internal conflicts and abandoning thier old methods for new ones.

Each character starts with a Creed selected from the ones listed below. Each Creed grants you two tendencies, normal and bolded. At the end of a session go down the checklist and get one XP for every question answered 'yes'.

• Did you follow your first tendency?
• Did you follow at least one bolded tendency?
• Did you follow two or more bolded tendencies?

When your experince bar is full (3 segments), you can cash it in to gain an advance. 

If I had a specific framework to attach this system to, there would be a list of things to spend advances on. If attached to a GLOG, each level costs [level]+1 advances, and advances can be spent to gain 'small' abilities like spells or martial techniques. Each Creed would also have a small list of abilities that you can purchase only when you have that Creed, but you still keep them after you switch to a different one.

During downtime you can change your Creed to another one if you feel like your old Creed no longer fits your character. This causes you to lose the Creed's normal tendency, but you keep all your old bolded ones.

Creeds

• Beast
• Get into a fight
• Hold Back
• Doomed
• Deomonstrate you humanity
• Demonstrate your distance from humanity
• Guardian
• Protect your people
• Leave nobody behind
• Moth
• Uncover hidden or uncomfortable truths about the world
• Uncover hidden or uncomfortable truths about yourself
• Temperance
• put people before the mission
• Harm someone intentionally
• Songbird
• Get someone to do your bidding
• Do something selfless
• Demon
• Enrich yourself
• Give something valuable away

This is an example list with a handful of the 'Creeds' stolen directly from CAIN to give the vibe of how these things are structured. For an actual game I would write a list specific to it's paramters.

Discussion

First of all, let me tell you what I left out that CAIN had. In CAIN you also get XP just for surviving a session and getting injured or afflicted during that, which I excluded becouse I want focus on the Creeds specicially. In CAIN they are called Agendas and 'tendencies' are called agenda items. I renamed them only so that this post fit the glogtober challenge on a technicality. Last thing I omitted are five agenda abilities each CAIN Agenda has. I don't think there is much point trying to make system agnostic versions of those.

Now let me talk about why I think this system is worth stealing. You dear reader are probably a roleplayer of the OSR tradition who looks down on how FORGE descended games ask you to assign points for how much story you've did in a session. You may consider yourself an artiste who plays a little freak for the love of the craft not becouse some leafs of paper offered you a carrot to do so, or you prefer to make choices specifically consistantly from the perspective of the character and not a director who's writing said character. As an artiste who plays little freaks myself, I like this experince systems becouse while does ask me to do book-keeping, in return it gives me intresting prompts to take my characters in directions I would not naturally take them.

The character I play in the previously mentioned CAIN campaign as she first appeared. She is an exorcist for the clandestine organization CAIN, who's goal is to kill all the Sins spawned from the trauma of psychically sensitive individuals. She is not human, she is an exorcist, who like any psychically sensitive person is at risk of turning into a Sin herself. Her Blasphemy (type of psychic power) is JAUNT, which includes powers like telepathy, possesion, astral projection and most relevent to her the power to invite other willing targets into her brain, this power is called Passanger. We've played three missions over 6 sessions and not once did she use Passanger for the intended purpose of allowing an ally to act through her, but she's invited each mission's Sin to enter her, except for the one who very clearly does not want to go in there. At the beginning I gave her the Moth agenda becouse I wanted her to be be a psychic goo-drinker, someone who learns too much and suffers for it.

During the first mission I wasn't able to come up anything good for the her second agenda item "Uncover hidden or uncomfortable truths about yourself". On the second mission I switched to Temperance partially becouse I was already playing her as someone who helped people, partially to represent the personality of a different PC bleeding into her own via telepathy. The Sin for the second mission was classified as a Centipede, which are fueled by pure seething hatred. So I decided that when she lets the Centipede into her mind she will have the horrible realization that she has not been able to feel hate for the last two years she's been in CAIN custody, and that is why she has this wierd desire to invite trauma demons into her brain. As a result of this she cut off a tiny piece of the Centipede and bound it to be her familiar and 'prosthetic hatred'. I absolutly loved this development, but it's not something that would have occured to me without the agenda item serving as a prompt.

I think each rule in an RPG needs to justify it's existance against the gold standard of roleplaying, good old fashioned make belief. For a rule to be worth keeping around it needs to allow something that you wouldn't get from free form. The experince systems in many FORGE descended rpgs fail at this, but I like what CAIN does becouse it prompts my character to change in ways I like but would am not have come up with in a vacuum. Since each pair agenda items pull the character in opposite directions hitting both triggers over the course of a single session while both staying in character becomes a fairly well defined challenge, which makes it fun and satisfying to get right. I don't think this system is to everyone's tastes, but I find it really fun.

GLOGtober '24: Completely Normal Girl With Too Much Blood

 For my glogtober seventh challenge but fourth entry I will be doing the prompt of ‘Romance’. I have had the weird idea for a class who’s premise was “what if you had too much blood and you needed a vampire friend to leech off the excess?” since last Glogtober and I have finally penned it. 

Warning: This class touches on themes of romance and sexuality as filtered through the fantasy of vampires. It’s advised to talk with your group on how you want to handle those topics. Playing this as a spooky minion gathering class without a hint of romance is totally possible.

Additionally this class refers to the player as female and vampires as male but there aren’t any gender restrictions.

Completely Normal Girl 

With Too Much Blood

Choose or randomly roll a background for starting skill and equipment.

For each Completely Normal Girl With Too Much Blood template get +1 HRTS.

A: Eternal Spring, Object of Desire, Can I Fix Him? 

B: Arterial Secret, Random Life Lesson, Chose Life Lesson

C: Deep Veins, Random Life Lesson

D: Vital Revelation, Chosen Life Lesson

What is a vampire?

Not just draculas who take the shapes of bats and mist, a vampire can be any of the dark and supernormal things that stalk the night in search of human blood. It matters not if they are undead, otherworldly demons, mutated beasts, or particularly depraved sorcerers. What matters is that they are full of things like prizes, and value, and quite a lot of hatred, and they would REALLY rather like to replace any and all of those things with your blood, and basically by any means possible. 

Their myriad forms include werewolves, mafiosos, ghouls, incubuses, chupacabras, necromancers, some sorts of mosquito and maybe a really big frog.

A: Eternal Spring

You were always a weak and sickly child. You would constantly suffer bloody noses, have trouble focusing on anything and spray blood everywhere from the smallest cuts. This terrible Blood has burdened you for as long as you lived.

After each meal, you gain d6 Vitae. One unit of Vitae takes up an inventory slot. At 5 Vitae you start to feel dizzy and faint, requiring a Wisdom check to concentrate, at 10 Vitae you fall unconscious, only waking up when Vitae lowers below 10. There are four ways to rid yourself of it.

• Recuperation: It can be converted one for one to heal your HP during rest.

• Mosquito: Vitae can be removed by a dracula or some sort of mosquito. Which is basically fine because they are made to do this. When such a creature deals melee damage to you, it will take Vitae before HP. 4 Vitae is enough to feed a medium sized vampire for a week.

• Frog: Vitae can also be removed by, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog. This is bad because they are not made for removing blood, and your Blood knows this. When such a creature deals melee damage to you, it also takes an equal amount of Vitae. If you don’t have any spare Vitae then it just deals damage as normal.

• Bloodletting: Anyone skilled with medicine can relieve you of your Vitae like a mosquito, an amateur  kprelieves you like a frog. If they bottle it, then they need to gather at least 4 Vitae for a useful magical or alchemical reagent. Oh, also you're a universal blood donor.

A: Object of Desire

Other girls are prettier, more popular, and more accomplished. Despite being plain and unnoteworthy you have many admirers in the dark.

Whenever you bleed, the scent is carried far and wide. The GM rolls an additional encounter check to see if it's picked up by a nearby vampire.

Reaction rolls with vampires are one step more extreme then the rolled result. Negative results mean the monster tries to eat you then and there. Positive results mean it will perform a service for a taste of your Vitae, asking for less the better the result. 

A: Can I Fix Him?

There are vampires who are not like the others. Somewhere buried beneath the prizes and hatred you can see an ember of humanity.

When you can look into the eyes of a vampire ask the GM “Can I fix him?” and the GM will give one of the following answers.

• No, it is set in its nature.

• No, but you can make him worse.

• Yes, and you can make him worse.

You can recruit vampires that you can fix or make worse as unreliable hirelings paid in Vitae instead of gold. A vampire who you have changed for better or for worse can be made into a loyal retainer. Retainer vampires prioritize your well being above all else and follow all your orders to the letter, but still have the vampire nature.

If you use this power on a player character who qualifies as a vampire, the player answers instead of the GM. If you have the power to change him and both players consent to it, the vampire player can take the Suitor feature.

Δ:Suitor

Be a vampire and devote yourself to your ideal prey, a Completely Normal Girl With Too Much Blood. From now on she is your Admired.

As long as you are a vampire and she is a human your relationship is ultimately doomed. You can seek a solution or quit courting her, but until then you have the following.

• Passion: When you see your Admired bleed, make a Wisdom check or do something impulsive. Make sure everyone at the table is on the same page on what an acceptable outburst is, this isn’t a blank check to be an asshole or gross.

• Gentleness: Even if the type of vampire you are feeds like a Frog, you can feed on your Admired like a Mosquito.

• Devotion: You can not mistake her scent for anything else. You can always find her.

• Attention: With a simple gesture or a few words of encouragement she can give up her action or movement to give you another one.

• Sacrifice: Once a day you can suddenly appear to take a blow meant for your Admired, even if it doesn’t make sense how you got there.

B: Arterial Secret

You now understand what your Blood has been trying to tell you all this time. It is not a curse, but a gift, and as any gift it must be given willingly.

• Heal: Your Vitae is eager to leave your body. You can convert it one for one to heal HP damage of someone you're touching.

• Empower: You may grant any number of Blood Dice (which can be substituted for MD, MD, SD, CD, etc.) for a round to someone you're touching. After the Blood Dice are rolled you lose [sum] Vitae. Careful, excess Vitae loss is dealt as damage instead.

C: Not in Vein

Your Blood understands you now. It apologizes for being overbearing, it will no longer cloud your thoughts or burst from your nose.  

Vitae no longer takes up inventory slots, and you only start feeling dizzy and faint at 10 Vitae. No amount of Vitae can make you fall unconscious.

D: Vital Revelation

You know it’s kinda silly to treat your own blood as a foreign entity, where did you even get that idea? Blood isn’t even what vampires are after, not really, sure they think it’s blood but what they really crave is your animating spirit. The force that drives you to live, laugh and love. Sure, it is in your blood, but it’s also in your bone marrow, and your heart, and EVERY organ, from the top of your head to the tippies of your toeses. They just don’t get it. If anyone tries to steal your energy they will taste only copper and their own ashes.

You are immune to mind control, possession and coercion.

Your Vitae can not be taken from you forcefully. If you do not grant permission Mosquito attacks do nothing and Frog attacks only deal normal HP damage. For the same reason you can also veto effects that drain your life, soul or levels.

Life Lessons

As you grow to understand yourself, your friends, the world and the things that hunt you, learn things you never expected. When prompted to get a random Life Lesson roll a d8, rerolling if you get a duplicate.

1. Be careful who you trust. You can now smell auras, lies and malicious intent.

2. Discretion is the better part of valor. You can slow your heartbeat to hide your presence from predators and supernatural detection. If you stay still you can play dead.

3. To live is to eat. You can freely speak with wet blood but it is free to lie. Blood is loyal to its source and only understands the body and feelings older than letters.

4. We are not meant to live alone. When you share your Vitae with another, you can form a sympathetic bond. This allows you to use the Arterial Secret on them as long as you can see them, and involuntarily share dreams with each other. Sympathetic bonds can be severed with a micro-divorce. With a small ritual you can trace the psychic connections that are attached to you or your bonded. The only way a fell influence could prevent you from tracking it down is by severing the connection.

5. People see what they want to see. There are advantages in presenting yourself as small and meek. Unless given a reason, people will naturally lower their guard around you and remember your suggestions as their own ideas. Sharp cookies get a check to catch either trick.

6. A pedestal is just a tall rock. As far as anyone is concerned, you’ve always had royal blood. Everyone will treat you as a noble and by chance you come across an opportunity to secure a legitimate title.

7. Nobody knows everything. You can Empower yourself to cast spells. When you Empower another spell caster, you can learn a spell from them, but only once.

8. Sometimes violence is the answer. You can Empower yourself to perform an feat of strength, agility or endurance. Adding a [dice] bonus to the roll and dealing [sum] damage if it’s an attack. This feat can also be performed with any part of your body; grappling with your loose hair, lifting heavy objects with one finger, etc.

Notes:

GLOGtober '24: Nothing New Under The Sun

For my third entry of glogtober, I rolled the following prompt from Vivanter, 'Real world artwork that inspires your RPG practice.' I was struggling coming up with something gameable to share, but I think this is an intresting enough thought to share (also it's half way throught the month and I have some more entries to get throught).

I have a habit of playing characters with gimmicks. The earliest characters I remember playing in an online context were a Rogue who invested in STR and improvised combat instead of DEX, a Bard who couldn't speak and was a 'lone wolf'. The Rogue was killed becouse the GM uncharitably did not assume that I moved away from the falling blade trap I was tryint to steal, and the second was awful to play becouse he couldn't speak. Both from the same crummy game with internet randos, that I joined somewhere in the middle of and uncerimonously ghosted. I likely would not even remember those two if I didn't have this old picture of the Bard. The Rogue also had an image somewhere but I could not find it. Apparently that Bard's name was Cruster Slentread if this file name is anything to go by.

More recently, a few years back I played Elena Smirt, who's gimmick is that I extrapolated this xkcd comic into a diety.

Over the last week I have started playing a very cutsey Domestic Witch. The seed for her character was that I wanted to play with the theme of domestication described in the post and play a character on a quest to make the whole world cute and cuddly. When it was established that the campaign's starting town is going to have sheep, I decided to make her a shepard, which drew comparsion to Tiffany Aching from the GM.

And that is when* it hit me, that all this time I have been unknownly copying Sir Terry Pratchett's style of character writing for as long as I have lived. A lot of Terry Pratchett's characters are built around what I've been calling a "gimmick", which often means a joke and a subversion of expectations that rotate around some theme.

Rincewind for example has two. First is his cowardice which the text expounds on the nature of, in subversion of a more typical fantasy story where you would expect the author to meditate on the nature of bravery. Second is that despite being a wizard, Rincewind sucks at magic and the twist is that this is becouse all his spell slots are occupied by a single massive spell. I do not know if the this was satire on Vancian magic as seen in D&D or Vance directly, becouse I read these books as child without the cultural context. Either way, in contrast to a clever magician who uses wierd tricks to get themselves out of trouble, Rincewind has the most powerful magic spell in the world that does him no good, so he just runs away.

Another character is Carrot Ironfoundersson, whose central joke can be summerized as "What if the prophesized king had better things to do then retake the throne?". He's got other jokes, like how he grew up as a dwarf, and how is genuinely a very good and honest person. The complexity of this character is built by stacking the jokes and riffing on them.

Is there anything useful that can be gleamed from this? Early childhood experinces can inform your tastes for the rest of your life, and maybe I should read something new so I have a larger pool of references to subconciously draw on.

Also, thinking about Carrot reminded me of a different character from the Watch branch, Angua. Part of her character development in one of the books was a reveal that werewolves stuck between wolves and humans are effectively dogs. This plays with the concept of domestication. Coincidentally I have started to play a class which also plays around with that theme.

I am truly doomed.

*Technically the realization came when I noticed simularities between some of the characters and Carrot, but the way I'm telling it to you reads better. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on and all that.

GLOGtober '24: Low Alchemy

 For my second glogtober post this year I have 'Collaborate on a post with another person who got this result.' which I am doing with Sylvanas over at the Red Lantern. Together we worked on a set of rules for alchemy that they were already been considering, then we both made some some a set of recipies for it.

Flowers of Antimony

The work of alchemy requires the right Knowledge, to Gather the right reagents, each swelling with the right Essence, that can be Concocted with the right recipe. If you do not choose your reagents carefully, you might suffer an Unpleasent Mishap.

Knowledge

Alchemy is a specialized set of knowledge that requires time to learn. To use alchemy you need either an appropriate class feature or skill that unlocks it for you. Unless otherwise stated, a starting alchemist knows how to gather every essence but Cognition from magical creatures, plants and minerals. Novice alchemists start with the first recipe of their chosen tradition and roll a 1d6, rerolling ones for the second recipe they know. New recipes are as simple to get as any closely kept trade secret, by apprenticeship, theft or experimentation. Check with your GM on the costs and opportunities associated with each.

Gathering

An alchemist can spend 10 minutes to gather a number of reagents (1/3 B) from a magical creature equal to its HD, or one Reagent from a magical plant or mineral. Each source has an affinity for one or more alchemical essences, and the alchemist is free to choose from this list which essence each Reagent belongs to. Some especially powerful and powerful sources can provide Reagents that contain multiple essences. 

The essence of Cognition can be found in the souls of intelligent beings, but to gather it is forbidden. Alchemists are assumed not to know how to gather it by default, but can learn from secret tomes, hidden masters, or terrible experimentation.

Essence

There are seven essences, six of which have opposing pairs. Each living thing has a balance of all seven within them. The alchemist as such is only able to capture the most potent expressions of essence the world provides. Without the divine touch, any concoction made with opposing essences becomes unstable. 

• Earth: The essence of the soil, stubbornness and the roots that hold firm. Opposed by Air.
• Water: The essence of flow, tranquility, and deep dark things. Opposed by Fire.
• Air: The essence of the sky, lightness, and laughter. Opposed by Earth.
• Fire: The essence of energy, passion, creation and destruction in equal measure. Opposed by Water.
• Perdition: The essence of decay, chaos and howling in the distance. Opposed by Order.
• Order: The essence of structure, beauty and that which lasts. Opposed by Perdition.
• Cognition: The essence of thought. The taboo essence, for it’s impossible to gather without making someone lesser. Opposed by nothing.

Concocting

Over the course of 10 minutes, you may use a number of reagents [R] up to your level+1 to create a potion (1/3 B, Thrown 30’) following a recipe you know. The potency of each recipe is scaled off of the amount of reagents [R] used, and usually has requirements to be met (e.g. required essences, mundane components). Often, the addition of a particular essence or other component can modify the result further. 

Concoctions that use reagents of opposing essences are considered Unstable, and roll on the Unpleasant Mishap table when used or disturbed by excess temperature shifts or motion. Rare reagents and a downtime action may allow you to create new recipes with Referee approval.

Unpleasant Mishaps

Roll 2d6 upon using the concoction or if it is suddenly disturbed.

2. Concoction does absolutely nothing.

3. Effective [R]/2 and any negative effects are inverted into positive ones.

4. Effective [R] - 2

5. Effect applies, but on a considerable delay

6. Effective [R] - 1

7. Normal Effect

8. Effective [R] + 1

9. Effect applies, much earlier than expected.

10. Effective [R] + 2

11. Effective [R]*2 and any positive effects are inverted into negative ones.

12. Concoction transforms into an ooze with [R] HD.

Scribing

Some words are spelt correctly only when the proper ink is used. To scribe a spell you need an ink concocted with potency 2, modified as follows.

• -1 for each of the ink’s essences that match the spell’s essences.
• +1 for each of the ink’s essences that do not match the spell’s essence.
• +2 if the spell is notably rare or powerful.

Additionally, inks with essences opposing a spell can not be used to scribe that spell, unless that spell contains opposing essences.

Crafting

Instead of quickly brewed into a consumables, reagents can be used in the construction of permanent items with downtime, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

Low Alchemy

When people think of alchemy they usually do not think of their local herbalists and poultice makers. They think of those men in high towers who burn noxious sludge for the king, or charlatans trying to cheat their way into that former man’s shoes. Not all practitioners seek the Magnum Opus, not everyone is rich and safe enough to wait for their perfect solutions. Someone needs to be fed today, someone needs to be healed before they bleed out, someone needs to die immediately. Less successful practitioners live as simple apothecaries or rarely dust off their grandmother’s book of recipes. More successful practitioners are pushed to the fringe, practicing their craft in secret or hiding out in the woods. Yet they still see plenty of business, however sinister their reputation is, because however glorious the transmutations promised for tomorrow, we need the change today.

Recipes

1. Hearty Stew 

Requirements: [R] quantity of rations, and a bubbling cauldron. 

Cook the ingredients you have into a stew allowing you stretch your rations further with the additional kick from the reagents. For each reagent and ration put in you get enough to feed two people. You also get the following bonuses during the rest where you eat the stew.

• Earth: Hard earth can not disturb your sleep.
• Water: Reroll a healing die of your choice.
• Air: Recover an additional Fatigue.
• Fire: Cold or rain can not ruin your rest.

2. Melancholic Potion 

Requirements: Earth, another Earth for 3+ [R]. 

A brew to bolster the cold and dry humor of black bile in the target. If ingested by a target suffering charm, panic or stress heals [R]d6 HP or grants an additional save with a +[R] bonus, whichever one would be most beneficial. 

Otherwise it brings out the melancholic temperament in the target, making them calm and distracted for the next [R] hours. During this time, they must save to act on extreme emotions but get +[R] against fear.

3. Phlegmatic Potion 

Requirements: Water, another Water for 3+ [R]. 

A brew to bolster the cold and wet humor of phlegm in the target. If ingested by a target suffering from burns, acid or poison heals [R]d6 HP or grants an additional save with a +[R] bonus, whichever one would be most beneficial. 

Otherwise it brings out the phlegmatic temperament in the target, making them lethargic and introspective for the next [R] hours. During this time, they have to save to not fall into a deep sleep when comfortable or bored but recover +[R] HP when resting. If you include poppy seed and have 3+ [R], the sleep is indefinite.

4. Sanguine Potion 

Requirements: Air, another Air for 3+ [R]. 

A brew to bolster the hot and wet humor of blood in the target. If ingested by a target suffering blunt, piercing or stabbing damage it heals [R]d6 HP or grants an additional save with a +[R] bonus, whichever one would be most beneficial. 

Otherwise it brings out the sanguine temperament in the target, making them enthusiastic and talkative for the next [R] hours. During this time they need to make a save to not get charmed by anyone they speak with but get +[R] on reaction rolls. If you include cardamom and have 3+ [R], the target is permanently charmed by the first person they see.

5. Choleric Potion 

Requirements: Fire, another Fire for 3+ [R]. 

A brew to bolster the hot and dry humor of yellow bile in the target. If ingested by a target suffering from slowness, petrification or nausea heals [R]d6 HP or grants an additional save with a +[R] bonus, whichever one would be most beneficial. 

Otherwise it brings out the choleric temperament in the target, making them irritable and alert for the next [R] hours. During this time they need to pass a save not to act impulsively when provoked but get +[R] on initiative rolls.

6. Delicious Syrup 

Requirements: Air, a key reagent that needs to be appetizing to something. 

For the next [R] x 10 minutes, the target smells and tastes delicious to creatures who would happily eat the key reagent. If Perdition is included, the effect is inverted, making the target smell and taste repulsive instead.

7. Slugslick Grease

Requirements: Water, Earth for 3+[R]. 

Create [R] * 5 doses of very slippery lubricant. A single dose covers an area with a diameter of 5 feet. If drunk, negates the effects of anything you ingest for the rest of the day; food, edible poisons and potions have no effect, they pass right through you. 

If [R] is three or greater, it does not dry or wash out for a week.

8. Wedweb Glue 

Requirements: Earth, Order for 3+[R]. 

Creates 5 doses of permanent adhesive that’s effective for binding materials that match the sources of the reagents, and can be separated with a check at a -[R] penalty. A single dose covers an area with a diameter of 5 feet. 

If [R] is three or greater then Sovereign Glue is made. Able to fuse anything to anything, not breakable by anything less than alkahest. 

If Perdition is used then the same reagent the Perdition essence came from dissolves the adhesive. If one of the reagents is hooves then it works on all organic matter, not just those from creatures.

9. Concealing Ointment 

Requirements: Air, Water for 3+[R].

Brew an ointment that masks the scent of [R] individuals or an area of [R]*5 ft in radius until the end of their rest. The target can not be found by the noses of beasts for the duration, unless the creature has an unerring nose in which case they get to make a check to overcome this. 

If Air is substituted with Fire the ointment hides the warmth of your soul instead, protecting from the dead and demonic thing instead of beasts. 

If Air is substituted with Cognition the ointment affects the mind not the senses, making the target seem unimportant background information to outside observers, this doesn’t work on the mindless or the enlightened.

10. Flying Ointment 

Requirements: Water, Air for 3+[R].

The user of this ointment can rub it between their gums and under their eyes to have the boundaries between here and there melt away, allowing them to see spirits for [R] x 10 minutes. Be wary though, if you can see a spirit then they can definitely see you. The drinker gets +[R] on reactions with spirits of aligning essences and -[R] on opposing ones. 

If [R] is three or greater,  the user will project astrally for the duration, leaving their body vulnerable. 

If someone who can see spirits already, they get one MD for the duration, or [R] MD if the ointment has Fire.

11. Bear Shirt 

Requirements: Earth, at least one reagent from a beast.

While traditionally made from the skins of bears, reagents from any beast can be fashioned into a shirt, cloak or mask that grants the aspect of a beast until the user rests. Unfortunately these charms are unstable if different species went into them. 

If [R] is three or less, the alchemist chooses [R] beastly boons that the shirt grants and any number of small cosmetic changes. If a mishap changes [R] total the GM chooses which boons to add or take away.

• The natural weapons of a beast. Claw, fang, horn.
• The special sense of a beast. Night vision, keen scent,echolocation.
• The skin of the beast. Granting armor or elemental resistances it had.
• Transforming a pair of limbs to that of a beast. Arms to wings, feet to hooves or padded paws.
• Gaining a new limb. Tail, tentacle, singular new wing.
• A characteristic flaw or drawback of a beast.

If [R] is greater than three, the GM chooses which of the possible beasts the target transforms into including a chimera at their discretion. A beast’s form constrains the user’s mind, making them unable to perform complex plans while still recognising who their allies are, this drawback is nullified if Cognition is included. 

12. Subtle Poison 

Requirements: Anything can poison if there is enough of it, minimum [R] of 2.

Brew odorless and tasteless poison that makes the victim save or die during their next rest. Casual inspection from a layman will not reveal the poison, but those wise in alchemy, medicine, or murder can make a check to detect it. The poison can also be diluted into [R] * 5 doses of a medicine matching the essences used, such as a contraceptive, anesthesia or laxative. The poison will also have additional effects based on what essences that went into it.

• Earth: The victim’s joints lock in place and their heart stops. If they pass the save then they are merely paralyzed for [R] rounds.
• Water: The victim has their strength drained from sweat, vomit or diarrhea. If they pass their save, they take [R] fatigue instead.
• Air: The victim does not suffer. Unless Fire is also used in which case they only appear to not suffer.
• Fire: The victim contorts in agony as they die. If they pass their save, they only suffer [R]d3 damage.
• Perdition: It’s fast acting, the target makes their save immediately.
• Order: This poison is controlled. Treat failed saves as passed saves that also knock the target unconscious, and passed saves do nothing.

Common Reagents

1. Sage: When harvested during a strong gale, this herb becomes infused with Air essence.
2. Belladonna: Deadly nightshade when harvested under the new moon can grant either Water or Perdition.
3. Fairy Ring Mushrooms: It is known that boundaries hold power. The mushrooms that grow around the edge to the land of faire soak up that power and grow plump and toxic. Collect them for Earth and Perdition essence.
4. Mandragora: This highly potent root is prized in both alchemy and sorcery, the difficulty generally lies not in finding it but in harvesting it safely. When pulled out of the ground it gives out an ear piercing scream that is sure to kill any man. If you know how to do it safely, then they can be a reliable source of Fire essence.
5. Corpse Fat: It’s a grisly thing when a man gets hanged. A ghoulish spectacle meant to dissuade malefactors and right wrongs. Regardless, if you're on good terms with the executioner and not too squamish it can be a rare legal source of Cognition essence.
6. Sacred Spring Water: In the Grey-Black Forests the Judges maintain watch over the holy springs. If you respect their laws then they will grant you their waters. Those sweet and bitter waters have the essences of Water and Order.

Notes

This system is mostly Sylvanas's child, as far as the rules are concerned. As far as the 12 recipies I wrote I'd like to aknowledge Phlox's simple poison rules as a guide for the subtle poison rules, even if I as the freak I am I made these rules more complicated then they need to be, and goblin punch's Alchemy and Oozes from which Slimeslick, Wedweb, Delisious Syrup and Concealing Ointment are all furthlessly stolen fron.

GLOGtober '24: The Caterwaul

 It's another glogtober folks, so let's start things off by getting in spirit for the season with challenge 1: Some Spooky Halloween Monsters.

Caterwaul

Cats stare at into empty spaces becouse they see spirits, everyone knows that. Just as cats lick them selves to keep clean, the staring at empty spaces also serves hyigene. It keeps the spirit they are staring down from trying to enter them. Cats are naturally more vulnerable to possession like human psychics, but unlike them the habits for keeping parasites out come to them instinctively so cats much more rarely possessed. However no defence is perfect, and on a cool autumn night, something slimey and slick might crawl into your old cat's skin, coil itself in knots around the instestines until it's impossible to tell where the thing ends and cat begins. In it's pain it will wail something horrible, the unmistakable shrill cry of a Caterwaul¹.

When a Caterwaul is born, a a high pitched howling caterwaul is heard by everyone in a half a mile radius. Usually prompting people to round up thier children, sick and elderly (wise), escape (unhelpful), start killing the closest avaliable cats (unfruitful) or hunt down the thing down (best left to the professionals). Hunters must be called forth as quickly as possible, before it can start sucking out breath out of the weak and vulnerable. 

Each day in which no one knows where the Caterwaul is, roll a d8. If the d8 is equal or lower to the Caterwaul's current stage, then it's manage to suck the breath out of someone, increasing it's stage by one and completely healing it. Even if a Caterwaul kills multiple people during the same day, it will only take the breath from one of them at a time, and sometimes forget to even do that. It takes some time to process someone's breath you see. If the afflicted community has an organized and calm response to the threat, increase the die size to d10, if everything falls to chaos decrease it to a d6.

1. Stats as cat. These little bastard start out as slightly more clever cat. It will only target those who are defenceless and alone. Toddlers, senile elders and passed out drunks.
2. Stats as cat. Having stolen one breath, the Caterwaul can use it's victim's voice and the intellegence of a small child to trick others. It can give an awful hiss that sends the feeling of pins and needles down a random limb, forcing a person to fail thier next action, but it only works on each target once.
3. Stats as goblin. The little bastard grows in size to around that of a child, and start targeting those who are able bodies but foolish. They will put new grubby little hands to all sorts of mischief. Pit traps, buckets placed above doors and the exploration of weaponry. Thier mimicry of the voices they stole starts to have a notably cat-like twang.
4. Stats as goblin. Bothered by the inconvience of thier size, the Caterwaul figures out how to compress into the size of a rat. The voices from all the breathes it stole will merge into one unique voice, that can no longer force failed actions with a hiss. It becomes able to flatten itself onto a wall, to smoothly glide across the surface or pretend to be a drawing. Some of it's traps become impossible and nonsencial, like making your knives drunk or causing doors to scream.
5. Stats as imp. It can freely change it's size anywhere from a rat to an adult man and turn invisible except for it's mouth. The Caterwaul grows bolder, attacking anyone caught alone. Not going straight for the kill anymore, but toying with them, the way that cats do.
6. Stats as imp. The Caterwaul gains the power to shapeshift into any creature within it's size range. It however can not change the color of it's eyes, fur or skin and it's voice or wounds can't be hidden. It's as smart as any man, and just as wicked.
7. Stats as tiger. Increasing it's largest size to match and losing the power to flatten onto walls. It is now so bold as to target small groups, slowely wittling them down for sport.
8. Stats as tiger. At this stage it completely loses intrest in breath, and moves a meat based diet normal for a feline this size. The Caterwaul gains the power to extend it's neck, limbs and tail to ridiculously long sizes, allowing it to make melee attacks at a range of 30' and silently skulking on long spindly legs at a pace of 4x normal speed. Which it will probably use to run away and find some where secluded to have a nice little cat nap.

Footnotes

1. The name Caterwaul was suggested by Sylvanas on the GLOG discord refering to this post. Once I've seen this post I can't help but agree that these creatures should find thier way into the Halloween canon and will be trying to convince my friends and family that this is a thing.

Additional thanks to the good people of the GLOG server who suggested wierd powers for these bastards. I tried to incorporate as much of what you said into this thing as possible.

Technically the prompt is for Spooky Halloween Monsters, but I think this counts becouse there are multiple distinct forms in this guy.

EDIT: When I first published this, this guy rolled every dungeon turn, now I've changed it to be every day after some discussion on the GLOG server. There is a lot that can be scaled here to be honest. I also tweaked a few of the stages after the fact.

EDIT 2: After revisiting this boy, I decided to remove flight completely becouse it's already mobile enough with the flatten power. I also decided that at stage 7 it loses the power to flatten against walls to simplify the end result which gets a different mobility power at stage 8. Now a mature Caterwaul is merely a size-changing and stretchy tiger who can disguise itself and turn invisible. Three of those are are variations on the same theme of shapeshifting and the last one is a reference the Chessire Cat, which gives a mature Caterwaul a much clearer identity. Also I limited it's shapeshifting to not change it's voice so that it's a little easier to figure out.