Since I last posted — and since Twitter is now a tirefire for real — I joined another Mastodon-based instance, chirp.enworld.org, and this time around things are going a lot more smoothly. So that’s a yay.
Last night from work in a fit of something, I scratched out an extremely bare-bones little game that squeezed into one toot; I called it Moonpack:
//Moonpack//
° You are a werewolf. °
● spend 4 +1s on: Folk (tools, making), Wolf (wilderness, hunt), Moon (magic, shifting)
● pick a Sept; +1 to in-theme tests.
Ironjaws, Shadow Fang, Greenphase, Ghostsnare, Wild Hunt, Gravehowl
● Tests: 2d6, diffs 4(easy)/8/10/12+(mythic)
> add +1s to total
● Werewolf: +2 fight, +1 Moon; silver weakness
● Enemies
> may need 1+ succ. to defeat
Bonewolves, Sunswallowers, Black Moon Apex ...
> diff. sets danger
● Injury: 3 pips. Werewolf has 4; be careful!
And then bolted on a second toot, with a few extra magic(idea)s and a little more for Septs:
//Moonpack appendix//
° gifts of the moon °
● Moon-magic:
Predator's Stare, Changebite, Steelfur, Moonbow, Silent Howling, Silverfangs, Beastform Night, Moon's Frenzy, Hunter's Balm, Grey Halo, Flame Halo, Preymark, Spirit Snare, Corpsespeak
● Septs:
Ironjaws (protect, fight)
Shadow Fang (info network)
Greenphase (cultivation)
Ghostsnare (spirit trapping + exorcism)
Wild Hunt (tracking + terrorizing)
Gravehowl (underworld dealings)
Nightwatch (secrets, histories)
Clawwrights (mystic crafters)
Maybe I’ll squeeze it onto a (business? post?)card someday? Or expand it and make a trifold or summat?
It was an interesting exercise in Just Write, though —
Category: tinyrpg
psionics in the works
Over the last stretch of weeks, after contemplating the idea for most of last fall (I can be very slow), I’ve been putting together a set of psionic talents for pocketrpg stuff.
(I’m kind of thinking of tweaking the phrasing of a few of them and releasing a Creative Commons version of the talents themselves, like I did when I put out a hundred CC spells over the holidays)
And yeah, I basically used the tried-and-true thematic subdivisions, because
1) they work so why change it
2) they’ve existed through all branches of specfic as well as through sff rpgs
However! My end results have seven paths/schools/disciplines/whatever, instead of the “usual” (A)D&D six, for the following reasons and rambling train of thought to get to the end result:
1) I liked some of the ideas behind the Metapsionics discipline in 2e, but not all of them, and also the idea of locking stuff behind/into “the uber discipline” was and is annoying
2) similarly I really like the Metacreativity discipline in 3e, because making stuff is cool, manipulating ectoplasm — originally as much considering a psychic manifestation as a ~ghosty manifestation, thanks so much Ghostbusters *grumbles* — is cool, and why I never liked anything to do with crystal anythings why do you ask *shifty look*
3) if psionics is powered by your will, your “you”, your spirit/soul/insert-whatever-term, there should be spirit stuff in general
4) buuuut I hate the (often frankly creepy and not in a horror way) “occult” trappings that get slathered all over that end of things (a turnoff I have with Pathfinder’s approach to psionics, for example, because it lays it on thick)
5) I wanted to try to avoid the exoticizing/Orientalizing that keeps slinking into psionics stuff, from names to definitions
Also “telepathy” needed some tweaking, although in the end it really is about messing with people’s minds as much as talking to them and that’s annoying. I’ve avoided the worst mind control, though, I hope.
So in the end I have seven groups, labeled with one-word titles because frankly I think a good amount of the “psionics doesn’t belong in fantasy” crowd — aside from having missed whole branches of the fantasy genre in general for the many decades — are put off by the oft-deliberate pseudo-scientific name schemes in place.
To whit:
– Sight (“clairsentience”)
– Mind (“telepathy”)
– Body (“psychometabolism”)
– Forces (“psychokinetics”)
– Motion (“psychoportation”)
– Matter (3e “metacreativity”, tweaked just a smidge)
– Spirit (“metapsionics” 2e stripped down and recombined with spirit- and ghosty- and intangible stuff)
Twelve talents each, and I did my best to avoid jargon with the talent names also. (oh gawd I wrote another 80-odd thingers plz end me *lol*)
Hopefully I get some simple formatting done and these up by the end of the week or maybe next week. Definitely debating over a CC version also though.
And of course, nothing’s stopping anyone from using these, once they’re up, as just another pile of spells to add to a spell pool anyway; there’s nothing inherently different about them in the end. It’s all cool.
(I’m kind of thinking of tweaking the phrasing of a few of them and releasing a Creative Commons version of the talents themselves, like I did when I put out a hundred CC spells over the holidays)
And yeah, I basically used the tried-and-true thematic subdivisions, because
1) they work so why change it
2) they’ve existed through all branches of specfic as well as through sff rpgs
However! My end results have seven paths/schools/disciplines/whatever, instead of the “usual” (A)D&D six, for the following reasons and rambling train of thought to get to the end result:
1) I liked some of the ideas behind the Metapsionics discipline in 2e, but not all of them, and also the idea of locking stuff behind/into “the uber discipline” was and is annoying
2) similarly I really like the Metacreativity discipline in 3e, because making stuff is cool, manipulating ectoplasm — originally as much considering a psychic manifestation as a ~ghosty manifestation, thanks so much Ghostbusters *grumbles* — is cool, and why I never liked anything to do with crystal anythings why do you ask *shifty look*
3) if psionics is powered by your will, your “you”, your spirit/soul/insert-whatever-term, there should be spirit stuff in general
4) buuuut I hate the (often frankly creepy and not in a horror way) “occult” trappings that get slathered all over that end of things (a turnoff I have with Pathfinder’s approach to psionics, for example, because it lays it on thick)
5) I wanted to try to avoid the exoticizing/Orientalizing that keeps slinking into psionics stuff, from names to definitions
Also “telepathy” needed some tweaking, although in the end it really is about messing with people’s minds as much as talking to them and that’s annoying. I’ve avoided the worst mind control, though, I hope.
So in the end I have seven groups, labeled with one-word titles because frankly I think a good amount of the “psionics doesn’t belong in fantasy” crowd — aside from having missed whole branches of the fantasy genre in general for the many decades — are put off by the oft-deliberate pseudo-scientific name schemes in place.
To whit:
– Sight (“clairsentience”)
– Mind (“telepathy”)
– Body (“psychometabolism”)
– Forces (“psychokinetics”)
– Motion (“psychoportation”)
– Matter (3e “metacreativity”, tweaked just a smidge)
– Spirit (“metapsionics” 2e stripped down and recombined with spirit- and ghosty- and intangible stuff)
Twelve talents each, and I did my best to avoid jargon with the talent names also. (oh gawd I wrote another 80-odd thingers plz end me *lol*)
Hopefully I get some simple formatting done and these up by the end of the week or maybe next week. Definitely debating over a CC version also though.
And of course, nothing’s stopping anyone from using these, once they’re up, as just another pile of spells to add to a spell pool anyway; there’s nothing inherently different about them in the end. It’s all cool.
Dicember 2021 – runic
Runes are a collection of small enchantments — or evocations of the power of the world, or bits of spirit knowledge, or however you choose to apply them in your game — that anyone can pick up and learn.
There are no “spell slots” or the equivalent involved, just the knowledge of the rune and the time to prepare it. Once made, a rune may be kept almost indefinitely; however, they certainly aren’t immune to being lost, damaged or erased, or deliberately destroyed. Activating a rune — which requires contact — expends the power of it, but the physical rune may often remain and can be “topped up”.
The number of runes an individual may have prepared depends entirely on their available materials and time. The number of runes which may be used in a day, however, are limited by one’s fortitude and will (i.e. the higher of a character’s applicable attributes — Body and Psyche for Wandering Jewel Moons, Constitution and Wisdom for OSE/The Black Hack/etc — divided by 3).
Some sample runes:
01. Gleam: Limns supernatural things or manifestations in a soft, brief glow
02. Soothe: Calms the nerves, removes fear and lifts fogginess of the mind or heart
03. Mend: Restores a repairable object; think torn clothing
04. Sustain: Nourishes as a good meal and drink does
05. Ignite: Kindles a flame, or grants fire’s warmth
06. Freeze: Induces cold, potentially enough to cause frost
07. Illuminate: Creates light of the power and duration of a candle
08. Communicate: Understand an unknown language until encounter with it ends
09. Hold: Seal a portal or container closed
10. Inspire: Uplifting surge ensures next task will succeed
11. Abjure: Repel specified malignant forces for a dawn-dusk cycle (or reverse)
12. Heal: Banish disease or infection, last injury knits twice as fast
You can give them more interesting names, of course, even simple ones, maybe something like
01. Wyrdrune
02. Heartrune
03. Weaverune
04. Breadrune
05. Flamerune
06. Frostrune
07. Brightrune
08. Speechrune
09. Lockrune
10. Faterune
11. Wardrune
12. Bloodrune
Each rune requires at least two of several possible elements in order to be successfully created; perhaps a specific colour of pigment, a particular addition to that pigment, or a burin or knife or stylus or brush made at least partially from a specific substance. Some may also have a “preferred” material to be placed upon.
It’s not a terrible idea to also design some omni-applicable elements — perhaps suitably unusual or rare — to give out as goals, or simply as a flavour to add.
An example set of associations, using the runes above:
01. seashell; silver; dew; ivory tool
02. applewood; rose; wine; willow tool
03. leather; tawny; dust; oak tool
04. maplewood; green; blood; willow tool
05. jet; orange; ash; iron tool
06. glass; azure; salts; iron tool
07. horn; yellow; wax; oak tool
08. paper; violet; sugar; ivory tool
09. foil; black; resin; iron tool
10. copper; gold; gall; willow tool
11. parchment; red; incense; ivory tool
12. linen; green; marigold; oak tool
* omni-applicable — black rosewood or tree ivory; ultramarine; musk; moonsilver or sungold tool
There are no “spell slots” or the equivalent involved, just the knowledge of the rune and the time to prepare it. Once made, a rune may be kept almost indefinitely; however, they certainly aren’t immune to being lost, damaged or erased, or deliberately destroyed. Activating a rune — which requires contact — expends the power of it, but the physical rune may often remain and can be “topped up”.
The number of runes an individual may have prepared depends entirely on their available materials and time. The number of runes which may be used in a day, however, are limited by one’s fortitude and will (i.e. the higher of a character’s applicable attributes — Body and Psyche for Wandering Jewel Moons, Constitution and Wisdom for OSE/The Black Hack/etc — divided by 3).
Some sample runes:
01. Gleam: Limns supernatural things or manifestations in a soft, brief glow
02. Soothe: Calms the nerves, removes fear and lifts fogginess of the mind or heart
03. Mend: Restores a repairable object; think torn clothing
04. Sustain: Nourishes as a good meal and drink does
05. Ignite: Kindles a flame, or grants fire’s warmth
06. Freeze: Induces cold, potentially enough to cause frost
07. Illuminate: Creates light of the power and duration of a candle
08. Communicate: Understand an unknown language until encounter with it ends
09. Hold: Seal a portal or container closed
10. Inspire: Uplifting surge ensures next task will succeed
11. Abjure: Repel specified malignant forces for a dawn-dusk cycle (or reverse)
12. Heal: Banish disease or infection, last injury knits twice as fast
You can give them more interesting names, of course, even simple ones, maybe something like
01. Wyrdrune
02. Heartrune
03. Weaverune
04. Breadrune
05. Flamerune
06. Frostrune
07. Brightrune
08. Speechrune
09. Lockrune
10. Faterune
11. Wardrune
12. Bloodrune
Each rune requires at least two of several possible elements in order to be successfully created; perhaps a specific colour of pigment, a particular addition to that pigment, or a burin or knife or stylus or brush made at least partially from a specific substance. Some may also have a “preferred” material to be placed upon.
It’s not a terrible idea to also design some omni-applicable elements — perhaps suitably unusual or rare — to give out as goals, or simply as a flavour to add.
An example set of associations, using the runes above:
01. seashell; silver; dew; ivory tool
02. applewood; rose; wine; willow tool
03. leather; tawny; dust; oak tool
04. maplewood; green; blood; willow tool
05. jet; orange; ash; iron tool
06. glass; azure; salts; iron tool
07. horn; yellow; wax; oak tool
08. paper; violet; sugar; ivory tool
09. foil; black; resin; iron tool
10. copper; gold; gall; willow tool
11. parchment; red; incense; ivory tool
12. linen; green; marigold; oak tool
* omni-applicable — black rosewood or tree ivory; ultramarine; musk; moonsilver or sungold tool
Some mini magical schools
Shamelessly inspired by having been digging at a venerable jrpg for months upon months at this point (lol), here are ten wee schools of magic, eight spells each.
There was some tweaking involved in setting these out, which was no surprise; magic doesn’t need as much “utility” in a jrpg. Or, I suppose, tabletop could use slightly more variety than “how to smite critters faster while making sure they they don’t smite you”, ha. Nonetheless, I think I kept the categories intact and adapted some key spells along the way.
Spells are all short and to the point, meant for for pocketrpg / The Black Hack / Knave / Cairn / similar such games, but with a detail or three could be added elsewhere without too much fuss, I imagine —
Opposing Schools: Eight of the ten have opposing schools, as follows:
Wind <-> Earth
Flame <-> Water
Light <-> Darkness
Mirage <-> Sorcery
Spirit and Wickedness do not oppose, despite being a “leftover pair”, and can be freely combined.
Air
01. Windrazor: Focused blast of air does 1d6 damage.02. Windcalling: Summons an air elemental [Average] to act on behalf of the summoner. 10 min. + 10 min./Essence spent.
03. Unseen Wings: Target gains ability to fly. 1d4 hrs.
04. Barrier Breeze: Enveloping cocoon of winds blocks 4 airborne attacks. 10 min.
05. Windwhisper: Message up to 5 min. long travels to chosen recipient on a tiny whispering breeze.
06. Tempest: 2d4 targets are struck by lightning and stormwinds for 1d4 damage.
07. Sparktouch: Imbues weapon with lightning; +1 damage, counts as lightning/wind damage. 5 turns.
08. Storm Frenzy: Speed of the storm grants two actions/turn. 2d6 turns. 1 Ess.
Earth
01. Weight of Stone: Target acts every second turn, moves at 1/2 speed. 2d4 minutes.02. Calcify: Target turns to stone. 2 Essence.
03. Crystal Carapace: Increase Armour Points by 2. 1 hr.
04. Earthcalling: Summons an earth elemental [Average] to act on behalf of the summoner. 10 min. + 10 min./Essence spent.
05. Draw From The Earth: Regenerate 1 Essence/hr for 8 hrs; “phantom” Essence is lost from injury first, cannot fuel magic, and is lost when duration ends.
06. Diamond Edge: Next physical attack does max damage. 1 Essence.
07. Earthhome: Raises earth and stone shelter for up to 6 individuals. 8 hrs.
08. Bounty: Conjures basic foodstuffs for one meal. (stops working for individual after 1d4 days unless they get mundane food.)
Flame
01. Flamegout: Ribbon of flame does 1d6+1 damage.02. Hearthfires: Subject is immune to cold damage for 1 hr, or ambient warmth is created in Nearby radius. 2d4 hrs.
03. Firetouch: Imbues weapon with fire energy; +1 damage, counts as flame damage. 10 min.
04. Coronal Coronet: Flame aura deals 1d3 fire damage to next 2 sources of injury. 1 hr or until triggered.
05. Flamecalling: Summons a fire elemental [Average] to act on behalf of summoner. 10 min. + 10 min./Essence spent.
06. Immolation: 1d6 fire damage to all within Nearby range. 1 Essence.
07. Memory of Ashes: Instantly incinerate a target. 2 Essence.
08. Burnfever: Heals subject of illness, mundane or magical.
Water
01. Torrent: Blast of water does 1d6 damage.02. Wavecalling: Summons a water elemental [Average] to act on behalf of summoner. 10 min. + 10 min./Essence spent.
03. Mire: Waterlogs area up to Nearby range, slowing physical actions to every other turn. 2d8 turns. 1 Essence.
04. Purifying Font: Cleanses one subject of poison, or renders tainted supplies edible/drinkable.
05. Glacial: Ice shards inflict 1d6 damage to all in Nearby range. 1 Essence.
06. Frostmantle: Subject is immune to heat damage for 1 hr, or ambient coolness is created in Nearby radius. 2d4 hrs.
07. Vital Rain: Conjures healing waters, 1d4 Essence.
08. Underwave: Breathe water, swim as easily as walking. 4 hrs.
Light
01. Heartlight: Remove mental or emotional duress and debuffs from target, or grant +1 to Psyche to resist next such influence.02. Day’s Truth: Sense deliberate lies or obfuscations. 10 min.
03. Lantern: Create light (of chosen colour) as strong as a lantern, either stationary or following target. 6 hrs.
04. Suntouched: Heal 1d4+1 Essence.
05. Starburst: Deal 1d4+1 light damage.
06. Moonblade: Summon weapon of pale glittering light; Advantage on attacks, 1d8+1 damage, lasts 4 turns. 2 Essence.
07. Revelation: Cures subject of blindness, paralysis, and similar restrictions.
08. Clarity: Waves of blinding light deal 1d6 damage to 2d8 targets. 1 Essence.
Darkness
01. Shadowbind: Paralyzes target with shadowy coils. 2d4 turns.02. Afraid Of The Dark: 1d4 subjects are struck with terror and try to flee.
03. Black Curtain: Cloaks Nearby area in darkness. 6 hrs.
04. Deny The Light: Target is blinded. 2d4 hrs, or until dispelled/treated if 1 Essence spent.
05. Darkblade: Summon weapon of utter darkness; Advantage on attacks, 1d8+1 damage, lasts 4 turns. 2 Essence.
06. Despair: Inflicts Disadvantage on target’s next test.
07. Shadowpuppet: Turn target’s shadow against them; will attack target as [Average] antagonist, dealing 1d4 damage if defeated. 6 turns.
08. Shadowalk: Step into darkness, come out in another shadow or darkness up to Far Away range. 1 Essence.
Mirage
01. Unseen Passage: Subject turns invisible. 2d8 min.02. Dreamtime: Send 2d4 targets to sleep. 1 hr or until woken up.
03. Misdirection: Subject will choose wrong target for own actions, believing choice correct, for next 3 actions.
04. Phantasm: Create illusionary object or location, up to size of large chamber. 4 hrs.
05. Masque: Change outward appearance or create intangible copy of subject. 2 hrs. or until masque is touched.
06. Daze: Target is confused and wanders aimlessly. 5 min.
07. Piercing Unreality: Dispel illusions, enchantments, magical barriers.
08. Labyrinth: Target is convinced they are trapped in a maze, left in fugue state. 1 Essence.
Sorcery
01. Mystic Bolt: Bolt of energy deals 1d3 damage, no save.02. Sorcerer’s Shawl: Subject is cloaked in magic field that absorbs 8 Essence of damage before dissipating.
03. Powerfont: Boost damage from an ally’s next spell by half again, or double the duration of their non-battle spell. 1 Essence.
04. Reading The Past: Touch an object, discover last purposes and owner.
05. Counterspell: Shuts down next incoming magic; can undo magic just cast (current or previous turn) for 1 Essence.
06. Energy Storm: Deals 1d3 damage to all in Nearby range, no save.
07. Baneward: Create magic trap that does 1d4 damage when triggered. 24 hrs.
08. Sorcerer’s Sight: Choose to sense magic, illusions, or spirits. 10 min.
Spirit
01. A Burden Shared: Take on some or all of another’s injuries.02. Insight: Grants Advantage on next test.
03. Weight Of A Soul: Immobilize 1d6+1 targets. 1d4 turns.
04. Castigate: Target becomes non-hostile (unless Psyche test is successful; then are probably enraged).
05. Warding: Declare area up to Nearby range impassable by specific entity or creature type. 1 Essence. 8 hrs.
06. Soulflame: 1d10 damage to target up to Far Away, no save. 2 Essence.
07. Heartreading: Discern subject’s intentions in a general sense (friendly, suspicious, etc).
08. Crucible: Halve incoming damage. 1 Essence. 4 turns.
Wickedness
01. Dead Walking: Animate corpse or skeleton; uses deceased’s attibutes.02. Crawling Blight: Poisons target, 1d4 damage/turn. 1 Essence. 6 turns.
03. Curse of Spite: Halves target’s attributes. 1 hr. (2 Essence: until dispelled)
04. Soul Siphon: Inflict 1d6 damage on target, gaining damage dealt as Essence.
05. Wracking: Stun 2d6 targets for one turn.
06. Blackened Wounds: Next attack on subject will continue to bleed, 1 Essence/turn, until treated.
07. Bleak Marionette: Target comes under caster’s control; takes 1 damage/min. until out of Essence or control is lifted/broken.
08. Nadir: All non-Wickedness magic Nearby requires +1 Essence surcharge. 2 Essence. 1 day.
Planar travel: Ringwalking
Work on my pocket-planes addon has gotten some core portions committed to words. Yay!
One of those is ringwalking; in other words, how all this dimensional-planar-world travel is actually happening a lot of the time.
(not all the time, of course, because there’s still plenty of place for mysterious arches and exactingly-wrought spells and magical doodads that just need twisted and poked in the right way)
Do your characters like collecting patterns and brushing up on calligraphy and illo work by any chance?
Ringwalking
To ringwalk across the planes, one must be taught; and then, one must have learned the pattern of the ring of ghostly sigils that needs to be inscribed (on a surface or even in empty air, though that’s certainly more difficult) in order to open said ring and walk on through to the other side ~
- Inscribing a ring requires two successful tests, one of Alacrity and one of Psyche. Failing the Psyche test means that the ring fails to ignite at all; failing the Alacrity test means a flaw in the pattern of sigils, and you wind up somewhere other than the intended destination, and the greater the failure of the test the farther out you find yourself.
- 1 advancement point may be spent to indicate the memorization of a specific pattern to the point that no rolls need be made barring extreme circumstances.
- Inscribing a ring will take at least a few minutes, even if the pattern has been memorized. (2d6 is a nice roll.) Conditions at the time may add to that!
- Some patterns are easy to inscribe, the plane familiar (like one’s home) or easy to reach, and give a bonus (+1 to +3) to one or both attributes; similarly, others are fiendishly tricky, or the plane is distant, tenuously connected, barricaded by gods or dragons or wards, or otherwise a complication.
- It’s possible to find patterns that have been written down! Of course, whether enough information is also there to say anything about the destination is a trickier question, and so is the accuracy of any such information — or the accuracy of the sigils themselves, for that matter. More than one ringwalker learned a broken ring from physical records and found themselves walking into very unexpected terrain indeed.
two wee adventure pocketmods
This weekend I got to poking around at work and first coloured, then chopped up, some scans I made a while back of minimaps I drew even further back. Then, in a fit of why not, I stuck the minimaps onto fresh sheets of paper, folded them up and cut them into pocketmods, and wrote adventures around them.
It worked out better than I expected?
So I scanned them (which worked … not as well, and as it turns out my ornery scanner clips the edges off of full sheets; next time, I won’t write/doodle so close to the edges then, nyeh) and tossed them onto Google Drive, because why not *lol*
You have to deal with my handwriting, though ;3
#RPGaDay 2020
For the first time in aeons, I’m going to try to tackle entries for RPGaDay whee ~
Not “about” rpgs, mind you, because I’m bad at that and it raises my stress levels when I don’t have Opinions[tm] on a lot of things. Instead I’m going to make a tweet-sized entry for each and post them on Twitter, system-agnostic or geared towards the Jewel Moons/LES “tinyrpg” and also compile them here in this post. At the end, if I’ve done enough, I’ll put them in a little pocketmod or zine 😀
So, without further ado I suppose —
01. Beginning
Tracer Of Voices: Rested on a copy of a text (on any surface, paper to silk to stone to flesh), this writing tablet of smoky quartz and golden wax will display the original version of that text, no matter how far back in time it may have existed.
02. Change
Crafter’s Plasm: A hand-sized drop of primordium, encased in a shell of adamant glass, which will take the shape of any tool (or set thereof) small enough to be wielded in one hand. If the shell is broken, the wielder takes on a change to their form.
03. Thread
* Plucking Red Threads: Discern general details of the most important person for target within visual range, as well as individual’s location.
* Gateway Weaving: Nearly-invisible pattern holds fast any who try to cross through door or gateway. 4 hrs.
04. Vision
All-Eye Wings: Place a drop of your blood on the tongue of this tiny stone bird and it takes flight, showing you what it sees.
Lapis Lazuli: magic
Cairngorm: shades
Serpentine: living creatures
Carbuncle: machina
Opal: primal flux
Topaz: high emotion
05. Tribute
Parter Of Veils: A bowl of unassuming brown-slip ceramic, large enough to need cradling in both hands. If a letter is written to the dearly departed along the inside, and gifts of food and trifles honestly made, at night the deceased will visit.
06. Forest
Moongrove Of A Million Spirits: Trunks of silver-green bamboo soar overhead, rustling faintly in the lack of wind; and every year the Moongrove spreads.
And every slim shaft contains milky opals in its nodes; every opal, a ghost drawn from the soil …
07. Couple
Jackals Of Frost And Flame [Average antagonists]
– damage aura (fire/ice), immunity (fire/ice)
– regeneration (2 Essence/turn)
– Counterspell
These lean and long-legged elemental canines are always seen in pairs and are said to purge sins — and sinners.
08. Shade
* Relieving Canopy: phantom shadowsilk protects from effects of bright light, sunlight, heat. 4 hrs.
* Umbral Porter: subject transports up to twice body weight in objects inside own shadow. 8 hrs.
* Shadowbarb: 1d4 damage, blind 2 hrs + until healed
09. Light
* Dead Illumination: pale light soothes and pleases 1d6 unliving, improving reaction towards caster.
* I See!: recieve answer to one short (10 words or less) question or problem.
* Tiy’s Candle: floating orb remains unseen until danger threatens. 4 hrs.
10. Want
Fell-Wings Revelation: A palm-sized fat teardrop of amber-red, transparent, and warm to the touch, the Revelation shows in its depths what its holder wishes for more than anything else.
No matter what it is.
No matter if they will admit what it is.
11. Stack
The Nacreous Towers: This vale of towering pillars — of uncountable small, shelly, ancient remnants — have strange power yet. Power to change anything tucked into their crevices into something new; to whisper fossil’d secrets, if a shell is swallowed.
12. Message
Tailwind: Riders and other couriers more than happy to carry samizdat right along with more mundane string-sealed parchment packets, wax jars and folded letters. By saddle, hoof, fin and wing, Tailwind can get where folks on the ground need them to go.
13. Rest
Wayfinding: On lonely roads, a traveler may chance on a wayfinding — a small cottage of weathered wood. The host is gracious, so long as no mention is made of silvery hooves.
In the morning the wayfinding is gone, and a moon-mark remains on the flesh.
14. Banner
Oriflamme Of The Heart-Sapphire: Long-lost and legendary, cut from darkest skyvelvet and embroidered with silks drawn from the promises of all who swore to follow the Heart’s teachings. Its discoverer could claim much, from Hearthold to the star-blades.
15. Frame
Phantom Barrier Adornment: Not so much a door or window casing as the series of delicate inscriptions placed on it, barring the entry of inclement weather or any creature smaller than a cat unless carried inside. Even a large bay may be so encircled.
16. Dramatic Nightcaper [Average antagonist] - Psyche increase - vulnerability: silver, wine - Captive Audience Sometimes traveling entertainers don't die pleasantly, and their bright tattered remnants roam in search of the life -- and song -- they've lost.
17. Comfort
What-You-Need: Before you pluck this silvery-grey small flower without knowing what will happen; the bloom whispers it into your mind. An unseen anima rises, to manifest as whatever best suits in your time of trial; a hug, warmth, soothing words …
18. Meet
Coralheart: Odd little scallops, with thick shells of rose-to-carmine, ridged and heart-shaped; placed on forehead or throat, a shell will project a speaking image of you to whoever has the matching half. Some like to do this just to see who answers.
19. Tower
Iunia: A massive, striated, azure shard stabbing itself towards heaven, surrounded by the remnants of four others, their gilded spires splintered.
Every sixth dawn, a door irises open at Iunia’s base.
Every fourth, thunder like metal wings from within.
20. Investigate
Recorders: Sometimes primordia seeps, leaving a cyst deep underground. Those cysts can grow, spawning strange growths and hollows filled with wondrous horrors linked to the cystseed.
When the dungeon breaches the surface, Recorders move in.
21. Push
Marbolete: Over-fertilization, a bit of ill-luck, and sweetfields and water meadows may find their crops thinned out and heaved high by impossibly large and stocky, stone-dense mushrooms.
But, hollowed out, marboletes do make grand little cottages …
22. Rare Sky-Merled Martikhoras [Major antagonist] - Earthbolt (1d8 ranged, 1/2 rounds) - cloudform - venom 2 Ess./turn When storm and stone align, the heights spawn not a common martikhoras, but a beast whose emerald craggy hide is spangled white and azure.
23. Edge
Water Knives: Ground from mussel or abalone or spiny oyster, a water knife is a blunt oval blade of polished nacre, gripped between thumb and forefinger. Run lightly along a wound, the knife dissolves, washing away injury (up to 2 Ess.) and poison both.
24. Humour
Nanba’s Icepick: A decrepit-looking thing, its cherrywood grip scratched and pockmarked and the actual pick freckled with tiny rust spots, the tip slightly out of true. But with a touch to one’s skin, one learns just how to break any ice with goodwill.
25. Lever
Saint Rhodon’s Grace: The snapped shaft of the worn blackthorn prybar used by the custodian of the bonehall to free the jeweled saint from their cella before the wyldfires collapsed the structure. Holding Grace aloft wards off flames and the wicked dead.
26. Strange
Lily-Bulb Conveying: There are those who know how to place a message of no more than five breaths into a star lily; and since these lilies spread by great thin runners, and spawn many bulbs, the word can creep.
Grapevines are considered unreliable.
27. Favour
Reciprocal: When someone has done a great service, but it’s not the time nor the place for one to repay, one can draw forth a reciprocal to offer instead — a slightly-flattened, golden, bubbled orb. When held and wished on, it calls one to service.
28. Close
Seal-Twice: Affixed to any correspondence, this evening-blue wax contains a second missive mystically encoded into its substance. To release, the seal must be removed and then attached to a suitably folded, blank document; if broken, all is lost.
29. Ride - Proper Carriage: A mount's tack/harness now fits with maximum comfort, 6 hrs - Grey Invitation: Allow a deceased soul to inhabit you, sharing skills - Irisride: Reach out to the spirit of an extant rainbow and be carried to any place the bow extends over
30. Portal
Ringwalk: Not a place or an object but a process, most commonly associated with (and taught by) the loose guild of the same name; with the knowledge of the right glyphs, and the ability to trace them, a Ring may be drawn to step into another world …
31. Experience
Bone-Wisdom Distillation: At times, the sum of a life’s lessons and knowledge — and more rarefied elements still — concentrate within a single, crystallized bit of a corpse’s skeleton. Liquefy and consume in blood or wine or both, and gain all.
Lost Emblem Saga
A post! A miracle! And a new game to go with it …? A game!
Let’s not even kid around, the last several months have been hellish. x_x I’m not going to belabour the hows and whys of it all, because we’re all in the same boat, so onward to what I’ve been doing to keep my head above water.
Namely expending on the tinyrpg framework I’ve been making pocketmods for in order to, basically, “make my own Fire Emblem”. *lol*
Look, the turn the franchise has been taking in the last stretch has been making me exceedingly cranky, so instead of raging into the void, why not make my own rpg for spinning those tropes? And my own little “Fire Emblem” setting to go with it? And it would give me something to tinker with while the actual real world was on fire >.>;; I could even try to format it as a quarter-page zine, based on one of the sizes I make notebooks for …
So I did. It took me part of May and nearly all of June but I did.
(I’ve probably committed a score of sins with that quarter-page format but hey, it printed and sewed together?)
It’s still a pretty un-fancy beast, but I think I did okie. And I added some colour to the map this time, lol. The link is just below — this time to an itch.io page, because I made a few different files/formats and this was easier than Drive. Apologies.
The link: Lost Emblem Saga
[tinyprg] Steel Blossom Dreams
When I put Nine Black Jewel Moons together, I asked my flatmate if there were any other kind of implied setting I might tinker with; their answer is best summarized as “Legend Of The 5 Rings, but with more yokai and maybe more not!Japan fantasy”.
I tossed around the idea along with the other things I’ve herded cats around for, since another reskin would be fairly straightforward. The upheaval around FFG’s rpg department in the tail end of last year gave me a bit of a jolt (and prompted the silliness of the “family name” tables in the finished PocketMod) … and then the fantasy!Japan collided with my budding idea of trying to make settings or adventures of various scopes to also fit the format, and months later here we are.
Steel Blossom Dreams needs Nine Black Jewel Moons, as the rules are in that PocketMod, and I’ve tried to use as many English-equivalent terms as possible to cut down on explanations in a very limited space; this is most obvious in the antagonist lists (so, “sickle weasel” instead of “kamaitachi”, for example). Arguably by the nature of the beast it would be easy to take the basicness of SBD and have it all look like any fantasy you might like, I suppose.
Six Swords Rising is a tiny setting overview that is rules-free and, technically, can work with whatever you want to use it with.
I’m sort of considering trying to moosh the rules portions (+ magic talents and such) from NBJM and these two iterations together into a little zine thing, but I haven’t decided yet. It’d probably still be pretty bare-bones, but all the parts would be in one place?
Nine Black Jewel Moons: Scattered Jewels
Well, I have done the thing, or at least a thing — a companion document of sorts for Nine Black Jewel Moons. Scattered Jewels has two small rules options, some enchantments and prodigies of the primordia, more ideas for antagonists, a scatter of NPCs and a few brief sketches of new places beyond the Edge of the world.
I have an idea or two for a small adventure I could fit on a pocketmod that would use Jewel Moons, if not quite~ the setting itself, being much smaller in scope. We’ll see if I can figure it out?
A companion with some ideas for Neon Burning Skies is, at least, almost finished …
Another Hamsterish Hoard 