Thursday, August 14, 2025

My Mouth is Full of Dust (Class: Rogue)

I found this Cloak and Sword class while browsing some sketchy sites that probably gave me virus or two. Inexplicably from what I can find this class originated from the Horror supplement and has nothing to do with the Sanguine class despite fitting each other quite well.

Vampyr

Start with: Stylish but dated nobleman’s clothes, disguise kit and a rapier.


Spawn of Hell: Your Fertility type is I, and you may not rest on hollowed ground.


Guest of the Court: With a minute of preperation you can appear as a noble of high enough status to be allowed in any court but low enough that he won’t be the center of attention. This noble has +2 reaction with unsuspecting nobles and romantics. On entering this guise, you may choose to appear as either a frightfully handsome gentleman or an eerily beautiful lady, swapping virility and fertility as appropriate. This noble’s skin is so very pale.  This is not your true form.


Guest of the Woods: With a minute of preperation you can appear as a wolf of high enough status to be allowed in any inter-pack gathering but low enough that it won’t be the center of attention. This wolf has +2 reaction with unsuspecting wolves, -2 with peasants and -1 with common soldiers. On entering this guise, you may appear either as an unnervingly quiet stalker or a horrifically large beast, swapping virility and fertility as appropriate. This wolf’s fur is so very dark. This is not your true form.


La Mascarade: While you are in the guise of a guest, you can not be reached in a way that matters. You are immune to fear, Charm, Esprit, Love and death. However, you can mimic those things convincingly if you need to. When you would die, the guise merely gets destroyed and your true form is revealed, leaving you at 1 Elon.


The Reveal: You may sunder your current guise like you would armour, which causes your attacker to be stunned for a round in addition to the normal effects.


Naked Shadow: Your true form is a cloud of sulfurous black particles clumped around a heart with teeth. In this form you can fly as an arrow and fit through any hole your heart can pass through. Against normal weaponry your AC has double the dexterity bonus because they can have effect if they manage to hit your heart, but you take damage as normal when attacked with fire or magic.


Unearthly: Your likeness can never show up correctly in paintings or mirrors. When under a guise you may freely fly as fast as a raven, when out of guise fly as fast as an arrow.


Blood of the Earth: You consume blood instead of food.

  • The average hireling contains 5 rations of blood. Losing 1 tires them; losing 2 exhausts them; and losing 3 or more kills them.

  • Liquid blood rations are fragile and 3x as heavy as normal rations.

  • You can eat normal food (to maintain appearances, or enjoy the flavor), but don't digest it.

Your bite with either your toothed heart or the teeth a guise deals d4 damage, increased by one die size each (d4 → d6 → d8 → d10 → d12) if your target:

  • ...is physically smaller than you.

  • ...is sexually or romantically involved with you.

  • ...is indebted or subservient to you.

  • ...trusts you completely, in this exact moment.

Vampirism is punishable by death, but this rarely applies to the rich and powerful. Maintain plausible deniability, and the Church will leave you alone. Hunt your impoverished kin, and they'll reward you.


Doppleganger: With 10 minutes of preperation you may put on the guise of someone who's blood you have tasted within the last sunset.


Dark Magnetism: When you are touching someone you can take 1 damage to send a particle of your self into them to Charm them. This effect lasts until they next would lose or gain Esprit.


(The difference between Charm and Esprit in Cloak and Sword is rather confusing. But from what I understand it’s meant to be passive where Esprit is active. When you hold Esprit for someone, you're trying to get something from them, whereas when someone Charms you it dulls your mind and makes you more malleable to their suggestions. The most notable difference is that Charm does not lead to romance. Generally speaking Esprit overrides Charm. The only exception I’ve found is the Nothing ability of the Beguine, which I think is an interesting way to represent a mysterious connection to the Divine, even if mechanically it’s a little wonky.)


Loyalties: Willing or unwilling, you are the deniable servant of dark powers. Roll on the table below 1d3 times to see who you are bound to. If you roll the same result twice, that indicates a different NPC who fits that category.

  1. Grendelle Archfiend

  2. Tarnished Angel

  3. Fay Lord

  4. The Order of the Fly

  5. The Scholomance

  6. The Cardinal

Each of these is a Figure of Le Great Game, but you might not know each one. The GM secretly chooses one which of the campaign Figures are your patrons. After the Lions/Foxes/Wolves procedure, your patrons use dead drops or intermediaries to give you a mission and an amount of weeks in which to complete them, unless you are already on a mission. If you succeed in that time you gain a Favor with them, if not then you get an Impatience. 


On the start of each month roll against each patron’s impatience with you. If you roll below the value, then they consider you a liability and discretely tip off vampire hunters to your location.


Favors can be used to cancel out Impatience, a week of help from one of your patrons’s other agents, information or 100 silver.


Sunflower Shells and Cherry Pits: The undigested remains of what you once more. Choose two of these.

  • Gain the Ferocity ability of the Lupe.

  • You may perform one Working from the Magician of your choice, using either the relevant components or by paying 1 Elon.

  • Gain the Association ability of the Noble’s Man.

  • Gain Los Estrallas ability of the Fay.

  • Gain Cruel Barb ability of the Damosel.

  • Gain Excommunicat ability of the Huguenot.

Drink From My Cup Til It Runith Over (Class: Cleric)

Everyone remember the conversion of the Cloak and Sword Sanguine class I made last year that was inspired from the half burned pages I stole from someone's attic? Well, I did some digging and have managed to track down a fully copy of class from an old magizine. Turns out I missed a major part of the class in my glog version of it. I think there's three other humor based classes out there based on the name but I haven't been able to track them down. I think the funny thing about this class is it's obviously meant to be intended only for women but nothing about it says you have to do that, I think the thought of a male character wanting to play this character simply did not occur to the author.

Sanguine


Start with: Frumpy and outdated noblewomen’s clothes, a lancet, a roll of bandage and a bundle of very strong scented herbs.


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, grasping Esprit, being charmed, scared or another sudden surge of feeling, you gain d6 Vitae. At 5 Vitae you start to feel dizzy and faint, requiring WIS checks to think straight, at 10 Vitae you are overwhelmed and fall unconcious, 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 Elon 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 Elon. Two Vitae are equal to 1 blood ration.
  • 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 relieves 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.


Object of Desire: Other girls are prettier, more popular, and more accomplished. Despite being plain and unnoteworthy you have many admirers in the dark. Upon sight, monsters and angels hold Esprit for you, even vampyrs in guises. When you bleed, any present monsters or angels who can smell you must immediately make an Esprit Reaction Roll, with these modified results.

2 or less: If a monster attempts to eat you then and there, if an angel flees to not be a monster.
3-5: Demands allegiance.
6-8: Demands a service.
9-11: Offers a service.
12 or more: Pledges service.


Can I Fix Him?: There are monsters 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 monster 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.
Monsters which you change for the better or the worse fall in love with you.

Demure: You have the Harmlessness and Suggestion Graces for free, but without the MD. Roll the MD as normal and lose that much Vitae. You can’t use these Graces if your out of Vitae.
  • Harmlessness- seem so helpless that unless you do violence or interfere directly, for [sum] minutes no one will harm you worse than dragging you around by the arm.
  • Suggestion- target saves at -[sum] or remember a suggestion you made as their own idea.
Sympathy: When you and another person have some combination of holding Esprit for each other or have drank each other’s blood, a sympathetic bond is formed. This means that you both involuntarily share dreams and can use divination to find out how far away you are, in what direction and your current state. A sympathetic bond can be severed by an ordained priest or beguine.

Sylphe Sister: Due to the overabundance of your sanguine humor, spirits of blood, air, merriment and swords will reveal themselves to you and treat you as a younger sibling. Your Fertility type is S, despite being human.

Flutter: When you feel strong emotions a gentle summer breeze will blow around you, seemingly coincidentally. While this is happening you may spend Vitae to do the following.
  • Spend it 1 for 1 to heal the Elon of someone you're fond of within sight.
  • Spend 1 to blow away a piece of paper, knock away someone’s hat or so forth.
  • Spend 2 to make the weapon of someone protecting you count as magical.
  • Spend 2 to wreath helpful winds around someone you want to protect, granting them +2 AC.
  • Spend 2 to whisper a message and have it be carried on the wind to the target regardless of distance.
Fury: When you see someone gravely injure someone you hold Esprit for, a hot and wet gale winds coil around you. Everything not nailed down gets blown around, everyone except you has -3 to hit and you need to make a WIS save or cause a ruinous thunderstorm to descend on your current location. You may also spend Vitae or Elon 1 to 1 to increase either your to-hit or damage.

Saturday, August 9, 2025

Write These Name in Mercury (Class: ???)

I actually wrote this class way back during the original Cloak and Sword bandwagon, but was never quite happy with it so never posted it. It just sat in my drafts with the spider witch and the Lovely Dark CLERIC. The recent revival of the trend has gotten dig it back up.

Enigma


Start with: Ill-fitting clothes and an ill-fitting face.

Nobody Was Close: Neither of your parents were there when you were born. You are so very alone. You hold Esprit for them and can hold Esprit for no one else until you meet them.

Mystery: Everything is so hazy, you do not know what home is but you need to find it anyway. Nobody can tell you what you are, they don’t know. Peasants think you're a devil, nobles think you're a ghost, priests think you're impossible and angels have forgotten. Speculate all you want, the GM may not directly state the answer. You will need to infer from the evidence you have. When someone (including yourself) performs a test to uncover information about your nature, they state a hypothesis for what they expect to happen and roll a d6.
  • 1. Their hypothesis is proven correct.
  • 2-3. Their hypothesis is partially correct and something goes wrong.
  • 4-6: Their hypothesis is wrong, either nothing of note happens or something goes very wrong.
Record the result somewhere, if someone performs a test under the same conditions, the results will be the same. Truth seekers and occultists which realise you do not fit known laws hold Esprit for you.

Night Creature: You are foreign yet familiar, like a half remembered stranger. Maybe if you could just find someone else like you, you wouldn’t be so lonely. You do not suffer -2 reaction with desperate forgotten things, Night’s agents and those favored by the moon. You suffer only -1 with wolves and woodsman. With everyone else you have a -2 reaction.

Sculpt Flesh: You can sculpt flesh as if it were clay with your hands or tools wet with your spit. The process is mercifully painless but the affected flesh will treat its new arrangement as natural. 
  • With a simple swipe of your hand, you can cause horrible disfigurement. Opening new holes where there shouldn’t be and closing holes that should be open.
  • With a few minutes to an hour, you can do sloppy work, leaving thumb prints and odd shapes. Enough to perform life emergency surgery or make someone’s face unrecognizable. 
  • With a few hours of work, you can get something pretty decent. It won’t hold up to close inspection but it’s not immediately horrifying. With this time and good lighting, you can safely perform almost any surgery without the need of scalpel or anesthetic.
  • With many hours of work, you can make it near perfect, with only a hint of the uncanny.
  • To sculpt a convincing replica of an existing person, you need a good reference. Such as extensive and detailed drawings or their fresh corpse.

Roads To Nowhere: There are paths that only you can see, and doors only you notice. If you step in them you are taken somewhere that is to the outdoors as the outdoors are to indoors. There the wind bites, light withers and darkness swallows. A route through this space ages anyone there by 2d10 months, but is untrackable by anyone who does not know those Roads.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

The First Time Changes You (Class: Assassin)

 

Assassin bandwagon, woo! Shout out to the unreality of numbers, from who I stole a lot of the mechanics.

Bleeding Heart


Starting Equipment: Unassuming clothes, a sentimental rock, 3 doses of sedatives, sad eyes, a case of tools from your second skill and a case of unusual tools.
Skills: Philosphy and 1.Anesthesiologist 2. Painter 3. Sheltered Child
Requirement: You can not take this class if you have killed.

A: Cipher, Innocence
B: Understanding
C: Gentleness
D: Cain

A: Cipher

There are grooves in the world, certain tendencies that things follow, the way water tends to go down hill. Grass frows, birds fly, Sun shines and people get hurt. You don't have to like it to get how this works.

You have a cipher score equal to your [templates] in Assassin. Given some unusual tools (1 slot for a case) and a few moments of fiddling, they have a cipher-in-6 chance of succeeding a cipher check, in addition to whatever the normal resolution rules are. The cipher skills of the assassins are, according to tradition, to Climb Sheer SurfacesFind Or Remove TrapsHide In ShadowsMove SilentlyPick LocksIdentify Substances and Surprise Target.

A: Innocence

You have never taken a life, but you do think about it every day. Your mind keeps drifting back to it. The ethics of what it means to kill, the countless ways someone can die, what it mans for men and dreams to end. It keeps you up at night. You fear that one day the world will force your hand, you fear that you won't be able to live with the guilt, you fear that you might like it.

The first creature you chose to kill, dies. You must still have means to do it, like a sharp rock within arm's reach or a momment with thier drink and poison. However there are no rolls or saves, it just happens.

Fortunatly for you, if the target is impervious to the method you used to kill it, then your one attempt is not wasted. However aside from that you only ever do this once, make it count.

B: Understanding

Show Vulnerability is a cipher skill for you. If you know someone's deeply personal secret, and they know a personal secret of your, then if either kills the other, they will suffer True Death.

After you first kill, you will learn the usual way these things work. For every fact that you know about your target, you have an additional +1 damage and to-hit during surprise rounds, up to a max of +4. These don't have to be major facts, but they cannot be trivial. "Drinks Earl Grey tea", "Commands the fifth cavalry", "Is named Ostruchus Poncelroy" are all good facts. "Is currently inside his tent", "Is a man", "Has two arms" are not. If you could learn it by looking at a snapshot of the current scene, it's trivial (thanks deus (thanks Arnold)).

C: Gentleness

Your hands are steady, your eyes unclouded, your heartbeat almost imperceptible. You can not kill accidentally, but if the method is excessively brutal it will still leave life-altering scars. If you are careful with your methods then you get to choose what wounds you inflict.

D: Cain

Your first kill can be used to end anything. A god, an idea, a law of reality. The only means you need is weapon that has not tasted blood. However, without Understanding it might not stay dead.

...

What? Do you want something else? You've been given the oppertunity to kill anything, what more could you ask for? If you already had your first kill before reaching template D, you'd benefit from multiclassing into something else.