Smoke Kisses Sky - Session 2 Report: In Which I Vent

Last wednesday I ran the second session of Smoke Kisses Sky and I had a much more difficult time with it. I think it went well enough from the player's end, but I came away from it unsatisfied. Gloomy person that I am I might not have written up this report at all, if not for an encouraging comment on the last post. Therefor I am going to make a post, but a lot of it is going to be complaining about how I ran this session, you have been warned.

The session picked up where we left off, in the basement of the old apothecary, where everyone encountered the oracle Distel. I quickly established that everyone feels a sense of instintual fear, and that this creature can deal damage to max HP, however it's currently non-hostile. Matilda managed to navigate throught a conversation with it without aggravating the shade, learned some rambled clues about what is going on, but the ever unlucky Rosemary recieved an omen that she'd be struck by lightning. Then a huge part of the session was spent grappling with blood vines before they were methodically taken care of with Dame's vorpal shears and some shears found in the cellar. This was a major paint point for me, more on this later. With the blood vines cleared away, an old alchemical lab was uncovered with a corpse in the center of the vines whose dried blood is bright red. I mentioned that Matilda as an alchemist would know that this blood is powerful and she could use the heart as an air reagent, however this would negatively effect her reputation with her followers, so she decided not to desecrate the body. From the alchemical lab they looted several books and unidentified alchemical supplies, most notable a ciphered alchemical recipe book. Then avoiding the room where Distel resides, they went into a boarded up room and found the Sphinx of Black Quarts. Realsing it was magical and powerful but unable to read the description, they headed back to the town, had a nice sauna, listened to the Glazier explain the meaning of sphinxes a little and made plans to hunt the Beast of Yelenin the next morning.

Grappling

I don't like how I ran grappling the blood vines. I attempted to use the g24 grappling rules for this, but ran into the problem that most of the rules do not apply when one of the opponants is a pile of vines spread across the room. This resulted in a lot of opposed Might checks that I don't think were clear in thier exact consequence and not a lot of interaction with the fiction. Which meant that I was very hesitant to inflict segnificant consequences for anything that happened, and it sorta fell flat. The information I gave for running the blood vines turned out to be insufficent. I think I either should have had more of a mechanical backing or taken a more fiction first approach. 

Mental Load

The party has four npc followers and I don't have the bandwith of having them all act in a way that I feel is "in character" becouse that would just devolve in me playing a game with myself while the player sits there and watches as Dame the Vivisector charges into a fight. I think that will need to be changed somewhat. It doesn't help that I consistantly forget various details. Like at the start of the session I said "You have a set of keys from the corpse upstairs, becouse I forgot to say that they were lying on the ground in plain view at the time." Which I think is fine but I feel embarressed about. Also in the middle of the session I had to change Fatigue from "put X to disable a class feature or skill" to "takes an inventory slot" on account of how the companions do not have class features or skills listed, becouse I don't want to track those on top of everything else. I also didn't have the bandwith to do anything intresting with daemons and vices, which I find a bit dissapointing.

Conviction and Experince

At the end of this session, Matilda has leveled up without ever firing her gun, which I think both of us are a little dissapointed by. I think this might largely be my fault for how I glued together adventures. I don't think I like the experince triggers in Hilander's Houserules, at least not in this campaign. I've written about experince triggers before, and I am of the opinon that those mechanics are at thier best where they are used to encourage you to do fun dramatic things. Hilander's experince triggers are mostly sensible, and do not really serve that purpose. The except is the trigger based off of Conviction which has yet to be hit, becouse Alice has not been very mechanically minded about this game. It doesn't feel like it's really serving it's purpose. There is also currently an elephant in the room which is that I don't know how or when I want the npc followers to progress.

Conclusions

I can ramble could bring up countless subjects. However here are some take aways from writing this amount of thoughts out. I think the take away is that I need to prep smarter, so that improvisation doesn't feel bad. I should maybe cut down the amount of things I need to keep track of. Also I need to figure out what kind of game I actually want to run and what kind of game Alice wants to play. Currently she is a pretty quiet player and it'd be unsustainable if the game is mostly me talking at her.

Smokes Kisses Sky - Session 1 Report: Welcome to the Marsh

Yesterday I ran the first session of Smoke Kisses Sky, a duet campaign I’m running for a friend in the physical world. You know who you are please don’t read any further and spoil yourself on what was going on behind the curtain. Let’s call her Alice in this post, which is not her real name buy beats calling her “my friend” or “the player”.

In proper GLOG fashion it’s stitched together from many different pieces, run on Hilander’s House Rules, except with G24 weapons categories. Alice is playing firstGokun’s Gun Shepherd but also knows Low Alchemy. It is set under the Shadow of Glory, but also along the Jabberwocky river (from the hit yet-unreleased community zine the char3terie). Also it uses doggerland vices and daemons.

I wanted to do a narrative retelling of the session and have two drafts of this post where I attempted to do so, but I have kinda given up on that. It was a fun session and a successfully eased both the character and player into an unfamiliar world, but not one that's easy to retell. It involved a lot of exposition that was dynamic as a conversation, but I haven’t found a good way to translate it into text (a better writer might be able to, but not me as I am now). So instead I’m going to talk about what parts of the session I want to talk about.

As a brief overview, the Gun Shepherd Seo-Yun Matilda arrives in a small town of Yelenin that has been besieged by a terrible beast, hitching a ride on a steamboat owned by a hunter to come here to hunt the thing. The first thing she sees is a ritualized duel, during which she talks with a friendly gnome who explains who all the people are and why everyone around here is wearing face paint. The duel concludes in a stalemate, and in the evening she eats dinner at the local tavern/gambling den/temple, where she hears rumors, learns more about who the local important people are and joins forces with other shady characters here to hunt the beast, one of which helps her get her own face paint. Then in the morning she travels through the swamp with her new companions to the abandoned apothecary half a day’s walk out of town. On the way there they encounter a weird person trying to sell them old junk. Arriving at the cabin they do some classic dungeon exploration, one of the companions has her arm possessed, and the weird person threatens and gets its head instantly beheaded. The session ends with a different monster poking out its head through a hole in the wall.

Arrows in your Quiver

In this session I had a specific objective outside just running a good game. That objective was to organically introduce and teach the four customs I outlined in my last post.

The custom I feel that I conveyed the best was Painted Faces, and it was also the one we spent the most time exploring. At one point Alice asked what the face paint of one of the character’s was after I forgot to introduce it when they first appeared, and she commented about how useful it was in post session discussion. Both of which I’m needlessly happy with.

The second best communicated custom was Generosity which I managed to set up as a little mystery. In the tavern I introduced the Father as a petty tyrant who went out his way to serve food to everyone himself. Later when I explained how Generosity works, Alice had an “aha” moment when she understood how the people around here are being extorted.

The Law of Blades was introduced with the duel, but took a back seat. Which I think makes sense because it’s not a custom she immediately needs to understand to meaningfully interact with the setting. It’s something that would become more important the closer you get to domain play and the campaign isn’t there yet.

Sauna Speech was not mentioned at all, and the importance of saunas is only hinted at here and there. I didn’t bring it up at all because Sauna Speech is something that will come up naturally during post-adventure downtime and after Alice has familiarized herself with the characters.

Lesson on Characterisation

The Beast of Yelenin is an adventure with 10 npcs, and I added 4 more on top in my prep to add characters relevant to the setting, plus one more gnomish farmer was invented in play. All of them got introduced, but a few stood out. The two characters who intrigued Alice the most was the Glazier, one of the priests I invented to represent the element of Crystal. He immediately grabbed her attention because he’s a skeleton with cracks repaired with gold like with Kintsugi and was destainful of everyone. The second was Dame the Vivisector who has the cool factor of being a huge knight who talks to her enormous iridescent shears. The thing these two share is that they paint evocative images in your mind. I wasn’t able to find the post but Bad Doctor had written once about describing evocative scenes with specific details. I think I understand how to do that more now. Next session I think I’ll be able to bring a little more sauce to the characters who were bland this session. Which actually includes the marsh, since at the time I was trying to sort out overland travel procedures.

Also I'm fond of the bandit Bellum even thought he hasn't had any particularly noteworthy moments yet. He's ended up just being a friendly and easy going guy.

Poor Rosemary

One of the characters who became more interesting during play was Rosemary, one of the hunters attracted by the bounty, who is also a gun-user and a foreigner. One of the encounters was someone getting possessed, and this threat has been well established beforehand with most npcs commenting to Matilda to get her face painted. So during the exploration of the cabin the dice decided that someone’s arm was going to be possessed by Dogsbody whose vice is Poor Hygiene. At first I was looking over what everyone’s Faces depicted to decide which one Dogsbody liked the most, until I remembered that I completely forgot about Rosemary and how Faceless she is, so she got possessed. There was a moment of tension where Alice wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, then Rosemary started picking her nose. Alice is yet to be told who Dogsbody is or what his deal is, she only knows that Rosemary is possessed. Later when combat starts in the cellar, Rosemary has to fight her arm that is trying to shove expired jam in her mouth. This is all pretty funny and I think firstGokun has nailed it with these rules. They add a good amount of chaos to the proceedings.

Unfortunate Mettie

The cabin is from my Old Apothecary adventure, which I placed outside of Yelenin since it’s an adventure I’ve wanted to run for a bit. Both times she was encountered the dice decided she would show up as a devilishly handsome business man, and I don’t think I liked how I played that out. I am somewhat tempted to replace that option in her shapeshifting table with something else because the encounter of her trying to sell a rusty old kettle turned out kinda weak. Either way the second time she was encountered was when the party was rummaging in the cellar. Mettie came down the stairs and started yelling at the party to leave, and extending her neck and arms unnaturally. Alice’s character Matilda asked if the it is the beast, to which Mettie responded with “Yes!” hoping to scare them. I forgot which one of us realised it first, but we both realised that Dame the Vivisector would immediately attack Mettie because of how giddy she has been about the hunt she has been. So then I spend some time pulling up the rules for combat, we roll initiative, I figure out what everyone’s HP total is, then Dame kills Mettie with a single snicker-snak of her shears. I think I could have played Mettie a bit more intelligently, but it is what it is. Specifically I should have had her attempt to appear in different forms to try and scare away the party on the way to the cabin, and probably had her whisper into Matilda’s ears to leave while invisible instead of walking straight into the arms of a 7ft tall knight.

Guns

There is an interesting consequence from how Alice is playing a Gun Shepherd, which is that I had to change firearms to fit the class’s assumptions. The 5 muskets the Family had were changed to be fire lances, which functioned like the Gun Shepherd’s gun but with one less damage die unable to be reloaded in combat. The Son’s pistol was replaced with a long bow, because I just watched Princess Mononoke where bows are cool. The Son’s Wife’s blunderbuss was replaced with a smoke bomb, because I think that fits her character. Rosemary’s musket went unchanged and she has changed to be a Gun Shepherd herself. Tuesday’s pistols are actually upgraded to modern pistols and are specified to be rare ancient artifacts not reproducible in the modern day. Finally the canon also went unchanged.

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

Witches know the medicinal and poisonous properties of common plants on sight, and can figure out the properties of uncommon plants with around 30 minutes of testing. From years of consuming it in small doses, witches are immune to their favorite poison.

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.

GLOG/Witch-tober Day13: Large Black Cat

 Based off the prompts of black cat and tribe I was thinking of a tribe that has witches who ride big black cats but I can't think of anything for the tribe I've only got an idea for the cats.

The idea is that these witches use magic to make the cats huge but because magic is fake as shit, the way physics are applied to it is scaled incorrectly, because it's not "truly" huge. From the cat's perspective it's the world that's in miniature. For example the squared cubed law is ignored, they can jump just as high as they are used too jumping, if the cat could originally jump 1 foot, and it was scaled up x10, then it now jumps 10 feet rather then what an animal of that size and weight should be able to jump. They still weight as much as a house cat when in regard to the question of can something can hold their weight, even if they have a person riding on top of them. And they would still react to dogs and loud noises as if they were their natural size. Part of their traits would be "as tiger" and part would be "as house cat", but I'm not sure how to divide it. The simplest would be "whichever one is more advantagous" but I want there to flaws in this magic. Like for example should they have hp "as tiger" or "as house cat"? I'm sure that I want them to "eat as house cat, but move magnitudes faster with all the trace of a housecat" to justify witches riding them and lead too cool scenes like them sitting on something that big should not be able to sit on. I'm imagining these cats being animated in a Ghibli film, so that's the sort of magical aesthetic I'm going for here. I don't know I'm rambling, the day has been long.

You know, would my kind readers post their takes in the comments, let's have a bit of a discussion going.

GLOG/Witch-tober Day 11: SPACE LOVER

 "Hey Gorinich, where are the witches for the last two days? Are you going to cram 3 days into a post again and be very pissy about it?"

No, everything is fine, they are just bidding their time.

Since I was denied cuddles by circumstance this weekend I'm going to make this post wholesome. The two in the drawing are called Xorp and Sally respectfully.

Micro Class: Loving Witch

start with a sensitive heart, a collection of pressed flowers and club with a nail in it.

A: On your character sheet list of entities who you Love and who Love you back, parasocial relationships don't count, you must interact with each other. Adding or removing people from this list is mediated by the fiction. You get [template] MD when resting with someone you Love which can be used to give a bonus to any roll your Loved make in addition to the normal uses of MD. When you see someone you Love seriously hurt take stress equal the damage they are taking. (I run stress as any other damage, but when it takes you out it causes you to have a mental breakdown rather then succumb to physical injures.)

B: Beneficial spells you cast on those you Love have their sum doubled. You can redirect harmful magics directed at your Loved onto yourself. Your attacks do max damage against those who have seriously harmed your Loved ones.

C: You can use MD to heal your Loved ones, and obstacles preventing you from helping them when they need you will vanish by serendipity.

D: You don't need to rest with someone Loved to get MD because in a way they are always with you. You can speak with them through dreams and can always find a way to each other. Any of your Loved can gain as many Loving Witch templates as they want, and can even replace curse templates with them.

Dooms of the Loving Witch:

While you can use whatever mishap table you have at hand, magic cast by a Loving Witch uses these Dooms.

1. You have trouble realizing when your Loved ones need time to themselves. You gain fatigue each hour your not with one of them.

2. You have trouble understanding that your Loved ones have a life outside of you. You need to compel your Loved ones to pay attention to you, they do get a Char save against it.

3. Your Love has turned to possessiveness, your Loving Witch abilities no longer work but if you get your hands on some other magics, then spells to control or manipulate your Loved ones are twice as effective.

To save yourself and your Loved ones from these Dooms, you must let them go.

Race: Grey Alien

Reroll: Int

Perk: You always correctly identify what a weird space thing is.

Drawback: Roll with disadvantage against diseases not from space.

Notes:

The one thing I don't like about the Loving Witch is that even thought you can have any amount of Loved beings, the way some of the abilities are written might make more sense for it you only have one. Also I'm not sure I correctly captured the how Love be with this class, but that's a universal problem that art has.

Maybe I should have written up Xorp and Sally as characters but I am so much more comfortable with microclasses.

A thought I just remembered from back when I made the Fading Curse class, but I don't think I wrote it out anywhere, is that I tend to treat GLOG classes as a kind of poetic form describing a possibility space of a character or archetype. This is especially true with microclasses which encourage an economy of words similar to actual poetic forms.

GLOG/Witch-tober Day 8: God damn it.

Curse you procrastination.

Because time is limited, I am going to just today's drawings into a meme, instead of GLOG content.

GLOG/Witch-tober Day 5: AAAAAAHH

 Opps, I got off track almost immediately, that's alright I'll solve this issue with some microclasses! I'm realizing that the witch prompts I'm working off are based off the beliefs of actual people, so I'll try to have tasteful fantasy depictions of these practices. 

2:Pumpkin Witch

Starts with a pumpkin patch, a gardening shed full of tools and a huge quantity of candy.

A: Pumpkins fed by your blood count as your children and get +1MD for magics of plants growing, fires burning and Harvest.

B: You can see through the eyes of the jack-o-lanterns you've carved.+1MD

C: By placing the soul of a lost child into a pumpkin and carefully tending to it from October 1st to Hallow's Eve, you can grow a Halloween Dog* as a familiar at first level. +1MD

D: You understand the cycle of life and death, and that your magic is that of a Psychopomp. You can use this knowledge to cheat your way out of death or to become a Reaper** after death. +1MD.

*This a microclass I wrote a while ago, it fits the aesthetic.

Halloween Dog

start with a black coat and yellow eyes 

A) Your a doggo with all that entails, but your also spooky. When unobserved, you can act like a cat, rat or bat. 

B) Track scared people like a bloodhound. When you howl or yap real good, lightning strikes in the distance. 

C) You are a creature of the Hallowed Day. When unobserved, you can act like a skeleton, ghost or spider. D) You can now to join Hell or the Wild Hunt. Become a Hellhound to track sinners like a bloodhound and have the body temperature of a industrial furnace or a Dandy Dog which allows you to run across the sky and shoot lightning (treat as javelins).

**I make no promises about defining what a Reaper is.

3:Crystal Witch

Starts with a pouch of 1d6 different crystals, and a tome on crystals.

A: You know the ritual uses of various crystals and gems for manipulating spiritual energies. When you set out to do a work with crystals (such as cleansing a person or amplifying good energies in an area), you need to roll equal or lower then the amount of distinct crystals you have to see if you have the right one on you. Roll a 1d6 if the effect is subtle and maybe not even existent, 1d10 if it would cause an obvious spiritual disturbance, 1d20 if it's something that even normal humans would feel. The GM can say how much time and effort the ritual is going to take based on how powerful the effect is.

B:You attract a kobold familiar(as in an mine spirit not the dragon servant. Stats as a goblin, but invisible and able to swim through earth.). The kobold interacts with the spirit world and crystals. They will help find and retrieve crystals as long as you feed them and look after their health.

C: You figure out how to store magical energies within a crystal. If you spend 1.5 the time needed to normally produce the workings, you can store the energies inside a crystal, to go off at a thought.

D: You can Talk To Crystals.

4:Crow Witch

Starts with a dark cloak and the trust of a murder of 3d6 crows.

A: You can telepathically speak with the crows your allied with. They trust you to communicate relay information between the murder, your like a psychic radio operator. +1 MD for spells of color and sound.

B: Black is what you get when you combine all the colors together. Your visual illusions cast on crows have a permanent duration, 1d6 of the crows have a talent for mimicry and can teach it to the others if given a couple months. +1MD.

C: You can transform into a crow at will, but you need to make a Cha save back into a human. +1MD.

D: If you and your murder fly together in as spiral formation to form a PRISMATIC VORTEX. Everyone within it's radius will have wild synesthesia and the it's radius expands by 1 mile each hour you can maintain it. (each hour roll for a constitution check to keep flying and 1d6-3 to see how many crows drop out of the spiral. When over half of the crows are out, the cortex is ceases. You don't have to stay in the vortex for it to continue.)

5:Modern Witch

starts with a smart phone two random spells and 50 alt accounts on various websites.

A: You have a sense for the vibes of social media posts. You can perform a vibe check to claim it. If the vibe hasn't already been claimed then the vibe is yours. If it has been claimed then you and the vibe-holder make contested cha saves, loser takes 2d6 psychic damage and the winner gets the vibe. Vibes can be used as consumable MD for spells that target those who interacted with the original post and can be traded with other witches and powers strange.

B: You can spend a vibe to enforce the Map onto the Territory. Either make someone unable to perceive surprises by only allowing them to see what they expect or restraining their behavior to only things what their internet persona would do.

C: You automatically claim any vibes produced by your posts or by posts that reference your posts or posts you've made. 

D: By spending any amount of vibes and an evening you can create a Simulacra that will follow your every command. Simulacra are spirits that completely lack physical presence but have an online one, and consume a vibe a day. When they get 2 vibes, they gain a level in Modern Witch, same at the thresholds of 4,8 and 16. When they get 32 vibes, they achieve free will.

Notes:

I'd like to apologize to all the witches I drew for rendering them so poorly and to Crystal and Crow especially in particular for not drawing them in a conceptually interesting way. This is what I get for poor time management.

In my mind a good witch class has two things. Magic powers that "ramp" over time from the witch doing something weird and familiars. Pumpkin Witches grow pumpkin patches, Crystal Witches collect crystals and Modern Witches collect vibes. Crow Witch can technically collect crows or have their murder grow with the birth of new crows but it does go hard on the "familiar" angle. I also think the recreated the "what does everyone else do when the hacker character plays the hacking minigame" with the Modern Witch. I like the concept but I don't think it can stand on it's own without a dedicated social media subsystem. Plus I think the vibe counting turned out too fiddly.

GLOG/Witch-tober Day 1: Shoot for the stars.

Nothing gets me to actually produce content as inktober does. But for this year I'm doing something wierd. 

https://sunderedshillings.blogspot.com/2020/09/glogtober.html

So this year for inktober I'm going to do two things at once. I'm going to do the Glogtober, because I am a gretchling, and I'm going to do witchtober because I wanna draw cute and/or creepy gals. I'm blending the two prompts together into an illustration of a witch and some GLOGery that's related to them.

Encounter: Elena the Star Witch.

HD: 1

Appearance: A lady with a huge floppy hat, a really long rifle and eyes that glimmer turned to the sky.

Voice: Loud and energetic, like a Shonen character.

Wants: To kill God.

Morality: Is personally insulted when bad things happen to good people. Will fight anyone.

Intelligence: A quick-thinker and but bad at thinking things throught.

Armor: none

Move: normal

Morale: As a trained solider.

Attack: The rifle FOR THE STARS, which does damage as listed below and two random spells preferably but not necessarily star themed.

Elena can be placed in an encounter table on the road. When the players meet her she's heading in the direction of an important holysite in your setting.

Artifact:

FOR THE STARS

An old worn rifle, that aside from having lived this long is unremarkable  except for one thing. Instead of loading bullets you can pluck a star out of the sky for it's ammunition. When you shoot a star from FOR THE STARS, the shot will travel really far and cause an explosion the size of a small nuclear warhead. This will however cause the gun to melt into slag. This shot can also kill gods.