How Phlox Does It

 Grace of Choir of Fire described a few different ways of running games on a very literal level of personal habit, which inspired Louis of Garamondia to describe his own approach, and they have both inspired me. Speaking quickly to my current play:

Endless Eons

I run a weekly in-person game for my husband, brother, and a couple friends. My prep is front-loaded-- I wrote encounter generators and regioncrawling generators and a couple dungeons before the game started, and I've largely been coasting off of those. I made a reference document for an important alien conlang, but I've only referenced it a couple times. We all rolled starting characters together (I designed a character sheet!), and players came up with their concepts. Against my normal advice, their backstories and life histories pretty explicitly will not matter to the game. I put some intention in ensuring that we wouldn't ever have to wonder why these characters travel together despite disparate situations, but when new PCs join the party everyone jokes about "having a good feeling" about this stranger and immediately offer them a spot on the board of their company.

After only a couple sessions as wandering adventurers, the party entered a city and immediately started constructing a pyramid of graft and politics that became the main focus of the campaign. Between sessions, I came up with a stack of random, specific events for that city and scheduled them to happen every 1d2 in-game weeks. Since then, the party has deviated from the political game to raid a couple dungeons or explore new regions, but an average session involves talking to NPCs and handling two or three political flashpoints. A couple players are more comfortable driving the action and setting scenes, while the other two are less active but still engaged.

Typically, the game is at a friend's house. Sometimes when he can't host I do, and if more than one player can't make it we cancel, but I feel bad about it. We usually talk for an hour or more about movies and politics before the game starts, which I often feel bad about. From there we play for maybe three hours, or stop earlier if we reach a very good stopping point. Then we usually gab for a bit longer.

When I started running this game, I was worried about the hassle of bringing my laptop over to a friend's house every week. I therefore planned my prep so that it all stayed in a notebook or my phone. When I'm setting up, I place two sets of dice out for the players, a set of dice and a bunch of rolldown d20s (to track HP of monsters) close at hand for myself. I open my notebook, which is mostly lists of NPCs (names in pen, details in pencil), with some logistical concerns and lists in the margins. I swap my phone's internet app to the Endless Eons tabs (name generator, generators on my blog, a couple Paper and Pencil blogposts, a website that lists the etymology of real-world places). If the party is abroad, I pull out the player-facing map for them (by tradition for this campaign, drawn on paper towels).

I have regioncrawl maps for my own use, as when they're dungeoneering I have a full map for myself on grid paper. One player takes extensive notes and maps. Another player takes notes on his character's clothes and personal projects. A third player tracks ongoing expenses and the party treasury. The fourth player does not take notes.

We do not use minis, music, or battlemaps. Players speak in-character, and I largely do as well.

 

Great Chronicle of the Raven

This is a duet game with my husband, our first attempt at Vampire the masquerade 5E. It has a bespoke structure, with a 12th generation vampire in modern nights who reads the accounts of his vampiric forebears, with the player gaming through the flashpoints of their long existence. Thus, it's a game with one DM, one player, and nine PCs, spanning from prehistory to now. Again I tried to front-load prep, listing over a hundred and fifty vampires in the modern DC area, plus versions of the vampiric population from two earlier points in history. I made a chart of how the vampire clans changed over time, a reference sheet for their magic disciplines, and a timeline with a column for each PC. I made a reference document for the unfamiliar modern rules and a PC generator to become familiar with them. I walked the player through the intricacies of character creation, then generated the other eight PCs myself. It's understood that the 12th generator vampire probably won't die, but the others are fair game once they sire the next vampire in the chain-- this set-up is weird.

By design, the contents of a given session will vary a lot. I try to ask the player earlier that day which PC he wants to focus on-- usually we play a full session as one character or split it between the 12th gen and an ancestor. Then we need to determine when exactly in that character's unlife we are focusing on-- so far he prefers to go in chronological order for a given PC's story. Either he will have a plan for what he wants to do or we'll skip to the next event on my big timeline. 

Some events are covered in abstract, where he describes his plans and we roll dice to see how well it goes. This is especially important for pacing-- we don't need to roleplay everything the vampire De Corbin does in 11th century France, the game is not about 11th century France. Sometimes it requires actual scenes, or whole scenarios and adventures, like when he wanted to visit the very important vampiric community of Constantinople. Those characters, and his impression of them, will probably color a lot of later play, so I make a cast of kindred. In this example, I happened to make a generator that fits the era and region, so I used that as a base and mostly improvised changes. I look over the list of vampires in Constantinople until I spot a couple that would generate a lot of business and call that part good. Then I do quick googling about the likely route the character takes and copy down the results of one or more "travel gates" (generated by a button in the PC generator blogpost) which provide sparks for potential events that happen on the way. The travel spark tables actually require more thought than the destination, so in the couple hours between when I ask the player what he wants to do and when we actually play, I spend the most time staring at those and trying to figure out if X or Y city was actually a notable enough location in 1045 for the PC to stop off there, and whether it's controlled by the Byzantines or the Abbasids.

Reading the accounts of the ancestors allows for stories where 12 years can pass and it ain't no thing, but play for the 12th gen vampire follows a more conventional approach. There might be skips of a week or two, but we might play through a sequence going from night to night to night, with enough interruptions, human investigation, and hostile vampire activity to prevent the PC from resting too much on his laurels. This isn't very OSRcore-- the DM is essentially improvising plot in a character-focused journey-- but it works for us and for the odd premise of the campaign.

Playing this weekly game is very important to my husband. We never cancel and almost never reschedule. I sit on the couch, bring up my many tabs on my laptop, and play a little song to signify the start of the game. He is often cooking something or sitting across the room, and only bring up his sheet when he needs to roll something. There's a lot of sessions that are just characters talking to each other, so even in a tradful game like VtM we might not roll very much. When we do roll, because 5E uses proprietary dice, we use an online dice roller. Though there's a lot of conversation, I'm more comfortable than average summarizing and paraphrasing my NPCs otherwise to keep things rolling.

 

Habits
Most games I run are more like the former game, but I'm always doing some kind of weekly ongoing duet game with the husband. When I run for a group, I really enjoy the more OSR approach, whether that's GLoG or a BX hack or something else, and I try to keep things running briskly, with a realistic idea about how much time I might have to prep intricacies between sessions. When I daydream about games I want to run, I'm dreaming about door D&D, with adventure locations full of quicksand and dart traps and green knights. Duet games are really good for the slightly more bespoke premise, and allow for premises with a solitary protagonist, which is super common in other story forms but practically untapped in (good) RPGs. How do you solve the classic sci-fi RPG issues around giving every player something important to do in ship combat? Have only one player. What if only one player wants to read and annotate a novel for your Dracula Dossier game? Only play with that player (and also marry and smooch him).

As I mentioned, I really like to front-load my work when running campaigns. It's easiest to power through prep when I'm excited about the game, and often my prep helps me to become conversant in the rules and procedures. The last campaign I completed, using Hilander's Lost Fable system, was my first game with that system, so  understanding it quickly was important.

Like Grace and Louis, I hope you'll consider blogging about your own way of running things. It would be really neat to compare! 

This Sleep of Forgetfulness Will Not Last Forever (Classes: Magic-User and Chancer; d100 Spells)

 

art by Rebecca Storm

    Casting a spell requires a free hand and a strong voice. The aspects in the soul (housed in the organs) can't be entrapped in armor, but may be dignified by robes or other rich things.

    Common magic items include:

• Robes. Quality magical robes give +1 MD and some extra effect
• Wands. Cast spells with a certain number of MD a certain number of times.
• Diagrams. Drawings that evoke to the learned the insights needed to cast a spell— highly referential, very culturally contextually. Can be quickly imitated to release the spell in the diagram, expending it, or studied for three days to be learned with a d20 roll.

 Class: Magic-User

    Thanks to Louis, whose specialist I largely pulled from. 

    In Yarfu, magicians are called wizards because they have a reputation for wisdom, or for overwisdom. Students of the world as illuminated by Saver Heol, their traditions were wrought in academies which now moulder in ruins. The highest places of the Savadur are normally reserved for wizards.

    Start with a knife, 20 darts, an ornate hat, and two specialist toolkits of your choice— examples might include: a paint set, a set of surgeon's hooks, actors’ makeup, climbing gear, the makings for poisoning, a telescope. Start with a Lore of three topics

    +1 MD and +2 spells per template

• A: Lore, Quick
• B: Wizard Vision, Cool-Headed, 
• C: Practical Trade, Immunity to Sleep
• D: Instrumentalize

Lore: Made up a variety of topics you've studied and pondered. Remember, there is no writing here, so to study something fully you have to have visited strange and remote places, spoken to long-lived people, and connected dots on your own. Suitable topics includes:

• Any common artisan profession
• History and Etiology
• Military science
• Mathematics and architecture
• Surgery
• Curselore
• Folklore
• Poetry
• Philology
• Desertlore
• Bushcraft
• Arctica
• Alchemy
• Geopolitics
• Mythology
• Ex Chetera

The lowest possible roll for a skill check pertaining to a topic of your lore is 10. Most academics in Crocodole use the preceding list, minus the artisan professions thing, as a "total" taxonomy of knowledge.

Quick: You are skilled with all one-handed melee weapons and pick things up quickly when you need to. You can be taught something complicated by someone who knows what they’re doing, and will be able to do that thing as a passable amateur for the rest of the day.

Wizard Vision: One of your eyes changes to a random color. It can now see invisibility, and detect magic. If you lock eyes with another person you can tell how many MD they have.

Coolheaded: You can choose whether you wish to be affected by intimidation, seduction, charm, etc. This only works on non-magical effects. (I get that this is largely already true for PCs, but consider it extra license and a warning about magician NPCs.)

Practical Trade: If you make a melee attack on a target who is not aware of your presence, your attack inflicts an additional 2d8 damage. 

Instrumentalize: You can push yourself in pursuit of your goals. Once per day, you may do one of the following:

• When you take a turn, you can take another one immediately afterwards.
• You may attack three times instead of once.
• You may move at three times your normal speed for one turn.
• You may roll three times for a single ability or skill check, and choose the highest result

Spells
Magician players should work together with the DM to invent custom spells. A d100 table of the most common spells can be found here:

(Some of these spells are from Ashes to Ashes by Loch Eil. Crabalanche by Dunkey Halton)

 d100 magic spells (on repeats, round towards 100, or towards 1 if you're a priest of Saver Heol)

1. Sacred Bond - With a one hour ritual, establish a bond between yourself and another creature whom you trust, which contains [sum] points. You may each draw points from the bond to restore missing HP. You may only have one Sacred Bond at a time.
2. Ramose's Wall of Bronze - [dice * 5] bronze panels the height and width of an average human rise up from the ground. You can arrange them how you like. They have images of warriors on them. 
3. Beryx's Deferral - This spell is cast in response to taking damage. The incoming damage is reduced by [sum], and [dice] black pins appear in your arms. Wrenching these pins free deals 1d10 damage to you. If you have more pins in you than you have Max HP, you die by rotting over the course of a minute.
4. Water of the Mure - Choose an aperture you can see. White water pours from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. That soaked with the water cannot do violence and barely exerts friction. Shoes walk as though on ice, hammers tickle, and damage cannot be done.
5. Yanessa's Glorious Emanation - Transform into a ray of light, firing at an impossible speed towards any location within sight. The journey burns and weakens you to the tune of [lowest]+2 damage, and you may "bounce" your journey, turning at up to [dice]-1 non-black surfaces.
6. Sanctuary - Designate a space of up to [sum] by [sum] cubits that are currently warmed by the light of the sun. The undead cannot transgress the space and animals and those with evil intent must test morale to enter it. Lasts [dice] days.
7. Aset's Possession of the Power - Target corpse explodes for [dice]d6 damage, up to its HD total, in a [sum]x4 cubit radius. This spell can target an undead creature, but if it is not destroyed by the damage it does not explode out.
8. Water of the Prive - Choose an aperture you can see. Runny green water flows from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. It ignites flammable objects, and deals ~1d6 damage to someone the first time they touch it.
9. Ease Burden - summon [a yoke/a wheelbarrow/a cart/an ulu].
10. Water of the Al - Choose an aperture you can see. Thick sludge pours from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. The waters are sticky, and after ten minutes harden into a kind of groddy resin.
11. Hoopoe's Crown - Remove your head covering, and vibrant feathers (the color of your wizard eye, if you have one), bolding present themselves. You are the most prominent member of your group, and  those you newly encounter roll reaction at +2. The spell lasts for [dice] hours, and affected encounters reroll their reaction at the end of that time.
12. Teneniu's Royalty - Cause [dice] objects of up to [sum] stones to float in a gentle orbit around you for up to [dice] hours.
13. Izolda's Flare - At your solemn word, "Los-Kadur-Ra," the sun looses a missile of fire and light, and 1 minute later (or five minutes at night), it arrives, blasting the area you designate, dealing [dice]d6! damage to anyone present and scattering wooden structures as well as [marking/damaging/destroying/destroying and penetrating] stone or clay.
14. Magic Mouth - draw a simple image of a mouth on a surface. Whenever someone passes by it, or does some other triggering act you specify, the mouth animates, repeating a message you speak as you cast the spell lasting up to [sum] seconds.
15. Soft Animals of Your Body - weep and shiver, and vomit [sum] falcons. They cannot be easily commanded, but have a sense that they're on your side.
16. Instant Summons - You mark items with a special glyph that you learn when you learn this spell. You may snap your fingers and summon a marked item, expending an MD. You can have [level] active glyphs at once. The absolute maximum size of objects that can be moved is 20 slots. 
17. Mantra of the Plover - You yank the living spirit from yourself or a willing ally, in a movement like tearing a sheet off of someone's head. The character is undead for [sum] minutes, and doesn't take damage from being dismembered as long as the pieces come together before the spell ends. We should be well prepared.
18. Unnamed Hive - Follow an ache that tells you how to find the [dice] nearest places where a kiss was shared.
19. Gael's Memorialism - absorb [sum] XP and [dice] memories from a recently deceased human. If 4+ dice are invested, 500+ gp in funeral expense is expended, and the total HD of deceased figures involved in the ritual is 10+, summons a Mourner Giant, loyal to the caster but foul of temperament.
20. Tiye's Vantablade - summon a light-eating one-handed khopesh into your hand. For each die invested, choose one effect: 1. Foes attacking you treat light levels as dimmer than they otherwise are. 2. You get advantage on your attacks with the vantablade. 3. deal +1d4 damage with the first wound inflicted by the vantablade each round. 4. the blade shrieks and drinks blood, causing a morale test for worldly foes when it is summoned and when it slays a significant enemy.
21. Water of the Acon - Choose an aperture you can see. Scintillating yellow fluid pours from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. Wild beasts and undead cannot cross the waters.
22. First Men - Summon a 4 HD slime warrior and get +[dice] reaction with it. It gets +[dice] to morale if following your orders. Lasts [1 hour/1 day/1month/indefinitely]. Slimes without plants and fellows of their kind will grow sad.
23. Mantra of the Obelisk - In [lowest] Turns, do the skilled work of 10 laborers or architects acting in 1 Turn
24. Adorn the Case - Create an unguent which can preserve a body for [sum]x[dice] days. If this unguent is slathered on a weapon, it instead makes that weapon deal double damage against the undead for [highest] hits.
25. Prima Vedex - Assess up to [sum] symbols divided among [dice] objects as though they spoke their intention, context, subtext, exc.
26. Mantra of the Shining Gem - Enemies must test Morale to attack you for the first [dice] rounds of a combat. Lasts for 1 hour.
27. Yannez's True Strike - The next [dice] attacks you make within the next hour get +20 to hit.
28. Diet of Wyrms - Your sweat starts to glisten luridly. Those who touch you within the next [sum] without protection come into contact with a burning poison (1d4 damage), and must test Morale (or save with talent, for PCs) to resist immediately releasing you.
29. Water of the Pict - Choose an aperture you can see. Mirrorous fluid flows from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. Your will can shift its aspect to make the water seem to resemble anything.
30. Soul Jars - With a defiant twist, remove [dice] of your organs and place it in a vessel. You get +[dice] x 2 HP until the organ is replaced, and if the organ is your brain you can wear a helmet without interfering with spellcasting. The spell cannot be recast until the organs are returned to your body, and if one is destroyed you suffer the result.
31. Gwen's Sweet Archaic Song - Send a poem [sum] seconds long to a recipient you have met before. It arrives in their mind 1d6 x 10 minutes later.
32. Flicker - [highest] times after you cast this spell, you can choose to not be real when something tangible would affect you, such as an attack or a spell. You are unreal until the end of your next turn.
33. Nimlot's Little Slip - Make a chamber or labyrinth "skippable", going directly from an entrance to another area it has connected to which you've been to. Maintain the slip for [dice]+[dice] Turns.
34. Karoma's Dancing Blade - animates weapon to attack with +[dice] to-hit until it’s done [sum] damage.
35. Anger - For ten minutes, the next [sum] times someone tries to attack you, you get to attack them first.
36. Sorana's Courage - heal [sum] Morale divided among those you choose.
37. Ligia's Monstrous Form - Perform a sort of Haukepo'khe dance and transform into a bald woman of striated stone and metal. Gain [dice] DR for 30 minutes.
38. Animate Cloak - Your shadow animates and extends to follow your orders, moving up to [sum] cubits away and affecting objects and people with [sum] x 10% of human strength. It can be damaged by fire and has [sum] HP.
39. From Beneath, Devourer - You may crawl through the ground and breath dirt for [sum] minutes. Attacking foes from below grapples them.
40. Tara's Silent Hound - summon a silent (but vicious) greyhound that serves you for an hour. Invest 2 MD to make it a silent wolf, 3 MD to call two wolves, or 4+ MD for them to have ever-burning fur.
41. Telekinesis - lift [sum]x2 equipment slots of substance or [dice] people. Lasts [dice] minutes.
42. Become Ooze - You know, ooze! Lasts [sum] minutes.
43. Indifferent Rays - Swirl and dance and hop around a space, and after two rounds a half-cubit orb will give off a burning light for an hour, dealing 1d6 damage to organic things. Anyone reduced to 0 rolls on the atomic Table of Consequences. You have [sum] temporary HP to resist radiation for the duration of the spell.
44. Samzun's Arson - cavort and conjure [dice] 10x10 cubits of fire created.
45. Siamun's Command of Wealth - [sum] slots’s worth of coins act according to your command with [sum] x 10% of a human's strength.
46. Tenenan's Passage - Make a cut in your head (dealing 1 damage), then go unhindered through [highest] barriers. Makes a light twinkling sound.
47. Blade Atomic Blazing - Empower a weapon. It casts colorful light [sum] feet, damages ghosts, and inflicts [dice] fatigue on a successful hit for [sum] minutes. The spell is powered by a great fiery furnace deep underground
48. Flame Unto Flame - cause a fire to grow in heat. If enclosed in an oven, a kiln, or a hole, it becomes a marvelous furnace, though any item placed within burns with Atomic energy for [sum] times the duration it is inserted. The flame lasts up to [dice] hours
49. Wild Beasts - You summon [sum]HD of slavering beasts up from the ground. They are hostile to everyone
50. Mantra of the Large Pond - For one hour, see your surroundings as they might appear decades and centuries later, ruins of ruins. There is a [dice]-[dungeon level] in-6 chance of a rent ceiling that allows natural light to show, and a +[dice]-in-6 chance of searching for secret doors and other hidden things.
51. Sovereign of All the World - bleed a stinking green acid from beneath the nail of your pointer finger for [dice] rounds. Each round of contact destroys non-magical material— a fist of metal, a head of stone, a chest of wood, a horse of dirt, exc. the acid may be used as a melee attack for 1d10 damage.
52. Scorpion Sting - Summon a curved light knife made of chitin. The first creature stabbed with this knife takes [sum] extra poison damage, save for half.
53. Become Newt - You transform into a small lizard (the color of your wizard eye, if you have one), capable of climbing slowly and running at human speed. This lasts for four hours. During that time, you have [dice] HP.
54. Ally Across Time - Summon up to [dice] alternate selves. You may instead summon fewer selves to get rerolls. 
55. Sapphire Snake Bolt - Fire a beam 150 ft., bouncing up to [dice] times. Targets save or take [sum] damage.
56. Remote Viewing - See any space up to [sum]x10 feet away.
57. Water of the Cry - Choose an aperture you can see. Cerulean water pours from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. The water numbs and makes heavy, and makes living things giddy with excitement.
58. Mimic - Disguise yourself as an object you have seen, which is smaller than a cart. The object must at least be big enough to contain your body, unless you cast with 3 or more MD, then it can be any size, down to a pin. Objects you mimic work perfectly well for mundane purposes. You can be harmed and injured normally if people attack your Mimic’d form. 
59. Morvan's Acid Arrows - conjures [sum] bolts of lurid yellow acid you can throw like a bow sends arrows.
60. Animate Objects - Up to [dice] objects will be able to move of their own volition, [sum] rounds strenuous actions, [sum] minutes otherwise. Objects have a [dice]-in-8 chance of being particularly loyal, this is only rolled the first time you cast the spell on a particular target.
61. Tanguy's Coldsnap - An area [dice] x 5’ in diameter is exposed to a sudden burst of frigid cold. Creatures in the area take [sum] cold damage, water freezes, & so on. The area gradually returns to its normal temperature over the course of an hour.
62. Comprehend Languages - You understand and speak one language perfectly for [dice] Turns.
63. Siamu's Crabalanche - Point at a crevice and crabs start pouring out of it. Like a hundred crabs per round. They don't really do anything, just mill around for a while and then wander off. Lasts for [sum] rounds.
64. Water of the Vote - Choose an aperture you can see. Stinking fluid pools from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. This is flammable, and belches yellow smoke upon ignition.
65. Silence - [dice] creatures are made incapable of making sound for [sum] minutes. With 4MD, can instead make a single creature permanently silent
66. Mantra of the Crocodile - Seem to be a log, pillar of rough stone, or similar knobbly furnishing. You are totally silent. Lasts for [dice] hours or [until you take a step/until you are seen taking a step/until you attack/until you release the spell.]
67. Promethean Shriek - Call fire towards you by calling its name ("AAAAAAAH"). For up to [sum] rounds, pull a flame from up to 40 cubits away into your open mouth. On later rounds, you may spit the flames elsewhere as an attack or to set it safely onto good fuel.
68. Ego - Gain [sum] temporary HP and turn undead of [dice] HD or fewer.
69. Threading Dew - For [sum] rounds, instead of moving a normal distance you may flow like wind in the trees, seeming to suddenly appear elsewhere without having to physically traverse the distance.
70. Imperial Heart - Make a heart small and black and hard. It is indestructible and, if inscribed with the image of a river, immoble, even hanging in the air. Lasts [sum] minutes.
71. Jackal-Son-Of-Jackal - eat flesh and at least one organ from a dead body to learn the answer to [sum] questions. -1 die to compel honesty, -1 die to ensure full mental faculties. Eating a rotting organ has a [days dead]-in-20 chance of contracting a harmful akh.
72. Stone Plague - Your touch ‘infects’ stone or clay, transforming [sum] cubic cubits into damp sand over the course of [dice] minutes
73. Hide - Enchant a hooded cloak to disguise you from [highest] senses, sight counting as two. Fire touching your cloak reveals you. 
74. Enervate - Inflict [dice] Fatigue on a target, or [sum] if you have a part of their body in your hand (plucked strands of hair, for example).
75. Corpse Mask - Turn a corpse’s face into a magical mask with [dice] of the following properties while worn: resemble the face’s owner, gain their voice, learn one of their languages, recognize what they recognize. 
76. Snakelike Jaw - swallow things whole and get an extra attack each round, biting with +[dice] to-hit , +4 if you are stuck in or grappling. Lasts 1 Turn.
77. Night Dog Bite - Shivering, you make an extremity or object undetectable by pressure, sound, or pain for [sum] minutes
78. Leaden Bandage - The next [dice] magical objects you touch writhe and scream. If [sum] exceeds their HD, spellcasters and magical creatures are also affected, though only once per casting of the spell.
79. Shatter - Target object is struck as though by [sum] iron hammers, with a loud bang. 
80. Door to Chaos - Tracing a line of blood along the frame of a portal, name up to [sum] doors (minimum [lowest]) within a quarter-league that you have seen. Anyone passing through this door appears in a random door from among the ones you designate. Lasts 1 full day.
81. Animating Force - distribute [sum] HP among [dice] corpses, each one ritually prepared. They stand and serve as simple servants, clumsy fighters, and poor conversationalists. They lose 1 HP per day due to erosion.
82. Orbs of Lightning - String up to [sum] electric orbs throughout an area, no closer to each other than 4 cubits. Coming within 1 cubit of an orb causes a sharp discharge, expending the orb to deal 1d4 damage. Lasts 6 hours.
83. Viorel's Fumigade - spit [dice] bulging, scored seeds up. When thrown, a seed emits a hazy poison, filling a space with an 8-cubit radius, dealing 1 damage per round to all living and/or plant creatures. A seed retains potency for 1 day before crusting and sugaring over into an ingestible hallucinogenic sweet.
84. Rubbery Body - Immune to bludgeoning, fall damage and similar things. Amazing contortions. Lasts [sum] minutes.
85. Send Out - You transform into a buzzard. This lasts for [sum] minutes. During that time, you have [dice]x[dice] HP.
86. Torch - Breath on [the ground/a piece of architecture/an item/a face]. It glows with light (the color of your wizard eye, if you have one) in a 30' radius [for 4 hours/for a month/until broken/until broken]. An affected creature saves with favor or is blinded by the light
87. Sleep - [sum] HD of creatures suddenly enter a waking dream, sleepwalking as though living out their vision.
88. Tréphina's Cynical Work - Take a turn to perform an occult bone massage to heal [sum] HP, spending 5 to instead heal an injury.
89. Lust - Track someone by scent for [dice] hours. Get +[sum] to notice details about them but -[sum] to resist their deceptions.
90. Water of the Ride - Choose an aperture you can see. Thick red foam pours from it for [sum] rounds, inundating the surroundings. While it moves, it makes a baying sound that attracts living things (MOR test to resist), and functions as low-density blood, if you might need any.
91. Charm Person - One person with [sum] or fewer HD and wearing no charms or amulets treats you as a friend and teacher for a month and a day.
92. Ironflesh - Turn up to [highest] sixths of your body into immobile iron. Lasts until you desire otherwise.
93. Viamanse - [know the direction of the nearest road/intuit everyone who has walked a particular trail/ken the provenance of an item/bind a tiffin giant to serve you for 101 days]
94. Mantra of the Dark Green Hill - You and up to [sum] characters pass through [sum] nights. If cast in a forlorn place, instead that place passes through those nights, essentially existing in a time between time until the spell ends. You do not regain MD in these nights.
95. Babble - Issue [dice] commands to plant creatures. They will obey, provided they are not attacked, but impose [lowest] strictures on you in return. Their demands are usually irrational, rather than overtly dangerous.
96. Maelys's Eclipse - cast a heavy shadow on up to [dice] targets. Can make a person anonymous, conceal a doorway, exc. lasts [1 Turn/1 hour/1 day/until the target is bathed in the light of a rising sun.]
97. Ovidiu's Illusion - Create a moving, silent image which lasts for [sum] minutes, centred on a tiny songbird you conjure, which flies away into the sky at the spell’s end. You can move and reshape it as you like if the songbird can hear you whistle. If the songbird is killed, the illusion is destroyed. 
98. Darkness - Summon a black torch, which sheds darkness as a torch does light. It lasts for [sum] minutes. 
99. Enora's Dark Star - Play your hand over a flame. Its color becomes grey (or the color of your wizard eye if you have one], and you may have it switch between shedding light to shedding fog. It burns for [sum] x 10 minutes.
100. Mutant spell! Roll twice and combine. 

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Class: Chancer

In the "jianghu scene" of Yarfu, there aren't really any characters of the chancer type. Stories from abroad speak of slinking wildmen, at home in the places where trees grow so thick they blot out Saver Heol's light, hirsute outlaws who fly on stone birds, assassinate priests, and lie. Thus "chancer" is a term of derogation and disdain.
 

In Hiding and Without Renown (Classes: Ironmonger and Journeyman)

 Armor

  Armor is simple. You have an AC (pronounced "Ahs"), which is 10 if unarmored, 12 if wearing a helm, 14 if wearing a cuirass or other armored shirt and a helm, and 16 if wearing lamellar and a helm. Normally to cast spells the aspects in the soul (housed in the organs) can't be entrapped in armor, but may be dignified by robes or other rich things

Class: Ironmonger

   Ironmongers have an unsavory reputation in Yarfu, though rumors say they are exalted abroad. Their loose order is united by one ambivalent decree, to go where the sun does not warm, and find who you are when no one is watching.
   Start with: an iron shortspear, an iron mask, an iron hammer and twenty nails-of-iron, a skull, a cosmetic kit, and a hood.

   Every template after the first, get +1 MD and +1 to-hit. (Beware, you don't learn any spells from leveling up. (This is the grindset class.))

• A: Cantrips
• B: Comity, Iron Spell
• C: Blood Eyes
• D: Residue
• E: Bounty

Cantrips: with a touch, you can sharpen a blade, sense a metal's purity, conjure a metal glove, or drive a nail. You can use the sling, throwing sticks, and any one-handed bladed weapon.

Comity: You know Kavetek, the language of Ironmongers, elves, giant ferrets, and barren fiends.

Iron Spell: When wearing anything lighter than lamellar, you can cast spells as long as you keep one hand free.

Blood Eyes: Iron suffuses your HP, strengthening its "degree". By pressing your tongue hard into the roof of your mouth, you can push your second eyes into place. They glow red, and pierce through the darkness like bulls-eyes, allowing you to see in the dark up to 60'. They are blinded by mist and fog.

Residue: your sweat is poisonous to non-ironmongers. Those who swallow a shot of it save with magical amulets or take 1d6 damage. Your mounts and lovers develop shallow scarring.

Bounty: as long as you carry at least four inventory slots of iron objects beyond the armor you wear and any weapons in your hand, you may reroll a single MD in every spell you cast.

 Inventory

   Inventory is simple. You have twenty slots. Some identical items can bundle (e.g. a quiver of arrows, a tranch of torches, a sac of ball bearings). Helmets and armored shirts each take up two slots, while lamellar takes up four. Otherwise pretty much everything is just one slot unless specified.

Class: Journeyman

   Strangers in the midst of the vo, and awkwardly received among the savadur. Journeymen are blamed for ancient wrongs, and they make the high and powerful feel guilty. They are considered to be of the race of man, more out of honor than conviction. 
   Start with: an extra two feet of height and five pounds of hair, an oversized spear, an empty skull-sized cage, a jug of houch, and a wheelbarrow (five slots, carries twenty when rolled) with straps to carry it over the shoulder.

• A: Physique, Food for Energy
• B: Comity
• C: Guise
• D: All Of The Rules

Physique: Your nails are like daggers. You can use all weapons and armor that suit your great size, and attack with +2 to-hit. You have a 4-in-6 chance of hearing remote sounds, and can smell blood up to 100' away, discerning between blood fresh, long-shed, that of a hot blooded fighter, or that of a personage or degree-strengthened ironmonger. 

Food for Energy: Get +1 HP when you eat something you find in a dungeon, abandoned hive, or other dangerous location. You can use this ability multiple times per day, but each instance must be more gross or more dangerous than the last. 

Comity: Normal retainers and followers in your employ get -1 morale. They see something in you that disquiets them, even if they followed you gladly before. Rodents, vermin, and other ratainers get +2 morale. You may squeak with rats as though you spoke their language. 

Guise: Like twisting into an acrobat's knot, you may take on a human seeming, including 2-in-6 chance of depicting a particular person, +1 with their clothes, +1 with their tongue, +1 if you know what they love most of all. 

All of the Rules: Your ancestors were made by the wizards of eld, set out for servitude and study. Those chains still connect you to magic, occultation, and the life after life, and you have become aware of the tug that always pulls you. You can grapple magic-users, ghosts, and apparitions from a distance of 100', and do not suffer penalties for any akhs you endure.
 

At the Last, Abundant Equipment for the Tomb (Classes: Fighter and Ranger)

HP and Saves

HP is a measure of your vital spirit (pronounced "hep"). Level 1 PCs start with 6 HP, which is reduced by harms and regained at a rate of 1d6 HP every sunrise. At 0 HP, roll on the Table of Consequences so secret and revolutionary, I haven't written it yet.

There are three types of saves, and they all start at +0.

• Talent: Physical skill.
• Favor: Divine grace.
• Magical Amulets: efficacy of charms and icons.

To test with a save, roll a d20, plus the bonus, and try to get a 13 or higher.  

Class: Fighter

In Yarfu, the bow is the prince of all weapons. Note with pride the fighter's facility with it. Vo men are sought for formal armies in each nation-state, standardizing the more diverse martial traditions that precurse them.
Start with a horn bow and arrows, a spear, a helmet and chain shirt, a tin of pink poppies, a fierce mask, and a bright blanket.

• A: Comity, National Pastime
• B: Captain
• C: +1 attack
• D: Hot Blood

Comity: You know how to use all weapons, including the bow. If you own a magical bow, you are brothers with all other true warriors who carry one. No one can punish you for winning a fair fight against another archer, and you are entitled to what they carried into that fight. You get +4 to-hit with all weapons, and when unarmed.

National Pastime: You are proficient in the fighting style of your people, and honor or shame them by your deeds. Here are some nearby styles:

• The fighters of Faras are dartiers, and their javelins throw a foe off-balance (reduce AC by 2 for a round)
• The maidens of Sawl are moirologists, and when their morale would fail them they keen, slowing or severing the spirit of the undead.
• The knights of Qusair are soldiers, and when they lay low a foe they can attack another one immediately with the fallen enemy's own weapon.
• Zanquecant People are ambushers, and when striking an enemy's flank with an axe, they get an extra attack.
• The Savadur Pacoste Clan are witches, and their charges ignore all resistance and immunity to damage.
• The Savadur Saritur Clan are totemists, and when wearing scale armor they can leap 16 cubits horizontally or 8 cubits vertically.

Captain: No matter now indifferent or cruel you are, you can always find a number of 1 HD Fighters equal to your level in a community.
Hot Blood: You get +4 HP and are immune to the cold, capable of lending that warmth to [level] snuggle pals. Those who drink your blood feel your emotions.

Origins and Speech

• Vo Wanderer. You speak your national language and one other language of your choice.
• Vo Citizen. Decide if you're a nationalist. If you are, you speak your national language, get +2 reaction when receiving reward, position, etc from the nation-state, and get -1 reaction with vo whose nations aren't allied with yours in the war. If you're not a nationalist, you speak your national language and a local language you can use to exclude anyone from more than 100 miles away.
• Savadur Priest. You speak a national language and a dialect of Kha (called, for obscure historical reasons, by ranking. You speak First Kha, Second Kha, etc., up to the Eighth Kha.) Dialects near in number are easier to understand. Kha has no written form, save heraldic strangifiers painted on walls or stamped in armor to You get -1 reaction with Savadurs of other clans.

Nearby languages:

• Crocodolean: spoken by people of the nation, and therefore skeletons, scarab swarms, garden ogres, and crocodiles.
• Abydor: spoken in Abydor, and therefore by Turgid Bastards and gliding lizards. Hostile to Crocodole.
• Vezan: spoken in Vezan, and therefore by temple ogres, rams, rock baboons, and rebel dogs. Hostile to Crocodole.
• Zaun: spoken in Zau, and therefore by Visceral Bearers, aubade fey, and shaggy dingoes. In a compact with Crocodole.
• Koumoulen: spoken in Koumoul and therefore by Wasting Bearers, rock baboons, and maned wolves. Unaligned.
• Tremanian: spoken in Tremanan and therefore by cometary ogres, scrub flies, and pangolins. Hostile to Crocodole.

Class: Ranger

There are many undeveloped places in Yarfu, rugged terrain haunted by the dead. The realm of mankind is narrow, and a rugged few resist the press of chaos on its borders.
Start with a khopesh, a machete, 40' of rope, a portable tent, a tinderbox, climbing gear, a Douglas gray cloak, and four javelins.

• A: Turn Undead, Ranger
• B: Comity
• C: Apotropaic Trophies
• D: Kingsfoil

Turn Undead: You get +2 to-hit and +2 damage vs undead creatures, and undead foes have -1 morale.

 Ranger: You are trained with snares, melee weapons, and the use of slings and javelins. Each overland turn, pick one of the following:

• Forage: gain +1 ration from biting heads off lizards, enticing snowlice with drops of blood, sucking on that secret herb, exc.
• Survey: +1-in-6 chance of detecting hidden or secret features.
• Scout: +1-in-6 surprise chance for you, -1-in-6 surprise for encounters.

Comity: You now qualify for one of several societies of rangers. In Yarfu, there are three of note:

• The Tatouet. Claim to be descended from ancient rebels. They mark their chins with ink and tattoo dots onto their arms and legs. When in a desert region, you can sense secret routes and weather changes.
• Maa Kheru. Claim to be of a hereditary line descended from Saver Heol, despite membership based on skill and achievement. They know the name of the secret herb. Wear golden jewelry in brow piercings and oiled dark boots. When in a scrubland region, you can sense secret routes and weather changes.
• Plijet Hudjefa. Mostly linger and stare with sinister intention and foreign moustache. When in a tundra region, you can sense secret routes and weather changes.

Apotropaic Trophies: Keep a record of every type of creature whose blood, flesh, or other leavings you've incorporated into your amulets. Add+2 to any saves made to resist such a creature. For human types, the bonus rather applies to the traps and hazards of their hive or other home complex.

Kingsfoil: a sweet lie has swept Yarfu, one that organizes its many people into a tight handful of nation-states, languages, and destinies. It is a reality the unpainted border denies, and in your dreams you practice the liberator's perfect blow. Deal +3 damage to serpents and those who claim dominion over more than one hive.

The Second-Last Seal of Poza (Megadungeon Outline)

 

A prison larger than any city
Built on the first prison ever built
Build to restrain the god that wants to eat the world
Built with seven seals (no fewer would do)
Each seal built to forget how to break
The prison abandoned, except for its first charge
Full of traps and hateful remains
And magic things now precious
You enter through a window that seems untrespassed
And find
Sitting on a pile of blood-slick coins
The pieces of the second-last seal 

(I am not precommitting to publishing this in detail. If I ever run Poza Hive, I want to use the sort of shorthand that doesn't work for a blogpost.)

Poza, the hive to trap the devil, was once the greatest project in all the world. Before Yarfu Empire ever rose, its garrisons boasted 5,000 fountains for drinking water, 450 public ovens, a great hospital that accommodated 8,000 patients and which cured all diseases, anguishes, and even old age; 800 lawyers, 100 eidetic historians, 10,000 savadur of all columns, and 100 armorers manufacturing the famous Pozan armors.

Goodwill is the first well to run dry. By the time Yarfu fell, the garrison had fallen to fewer than a hundred wardens, and it was said each was assigned to discouraging an entire company of outlaws, or two tribes of giant hounds, or four squadrons of squatters. Meanwhile, its coffers swelled perversely, for reasons widely believed to be the Lone Prisoner's own connivances. For unknown and counterfeit reasons, the gibbering plants that infest most of the continent flee the prison's surroundings, making Poza the safest and richest death-trap that stories tell of.

The god is so inimical, he is not even worshipped by the perverse or insane. Thus, as interlopers get further down, increasing levels of Revulsion (the opposite of a mythic underworld that hates you, a Morally Responsible underworld that wants to keep the god imprisoned.) For each point of Revulsion, a +1-in-6 chance of a door being stuck, a door closing behind you, a trap re-arming after a day; a +1-in-12 chance of a random encounter per turn; a -1 Morale for non-retainer hirelings and mercenaries.

Each stratum of the hive has a revulsion score and a level, to guide how dangerous and how much treasure can be found, in standard dungeon tradition.

Levels of the Hive

• Towers of Poza (Revulsion 0, level 3) Includes the roof in general, and any courtyards open to the air. Stalked by Archer-Shades, souls dedicated to the devil in life and claimed as his soldiery. Unable to free him, they loiter about the dungeon, waiting for their general to lead them to work ruin. Many narrow walkways and potential parkours, and many cruel sightlines with an untiring archer waiting at the other end. The skeletons of bygone adventurers carry loot to foreshadow what exists below. A small chapterhouse of the few remaining wardens exists under constant siege in the klochdi, and if befriended they will teach the signals of the bells to a party of adventurers. A pod of mourning fey haunt the mastabas, their speaker Painstaking Song commemorating one of the broken seals on the devil's prison, now broken in three pieces.
• Dock (Revulsion 0, level 1) Picked-over trade sector, with graffiti drawings that hint to the existence of traps. "Mastered" by Purposeful Morvan, an iron-monger who wears a metal skull and seeks to capture fighters for the arena in a deeper section. His complex conceals a hidden well leading deeper.
• Upper Hive (Revulsion 1, level 1) Three or so interweaving floors. Home to the Giant Hounds, wild outlaws whose doctrine states that the sun god Saver Heol is already dead, as well as scarabs and the occasional great cat. Every surface is painted with many colors, and the air is heavy with apprehension. One of the devil's seals lies here, forgotten and unguarded.
• Hospital of Universal Recovery (Revulsion 2, level 2) Once an emporium of wonders. Now patrolled by the Masked Procession, reduced to a cursed half-life and lead by cruel and contagious akhs that were unleashed from a storeroom of exorcized evils. Kept concealed in the Ti Amun, a stash of miracle cures still remain. The Solarium bottoms out on this level, and the Masked Ones never enter it for fear of the sunlight. In a grand gallery stands the idol of Panacea, who promises the fulfilment of wishes in exchange for pieces of the seals on the devil's cage.
• The Knotted Ostaleries (Revulsion 2, level 3) An internecine nest of tunnels adjoining the hospital where many stalls and shops once stood. At the far end, a visitor's quarter is now a nest to Vil of the Darkened Soul, an Ahohedaxuox Dragon who drags herself through the many tunnels seeking food for her three kits. An intact seal lies in this nest, and pieces of another are strewn through the tunnels.
• Echoing Shafts (Revulsion 3, level 3) Mines and high halls, for the depths around the devil are always impregnated with gold. Patrolled by Abyssals, the remnants of those guards whose long vigil changed them. They are warriors so empty that you can literally fall into them like a pit. Cloqmarin, a demigod spirit from distant lands, cajoles and mocks them from his great arena, the only place free from bad air and firedamp on the level. Those who win three battles in his blasted pit win their freedom, but those who win five are granted a hasty marriage. Stories of the vampire Cloqmarin's beauty and sexual facility never die in Yarfu, but the fate of his many lovers is never explored. For a pillow, he rests his head on a broken seal.
• Quiet Underworld (Revulsion 4, level 4) Flooded with black water, hot to the touch, fog rising languidly. Skeletons lie waterlogged and forgotten, ready to wake and claw some life from interlopers. This level is the enjoyment of the Feasters of Tenvalijenn, glutton-demons, carrion-eaters— filthy with a profusion of waste. The war temple still stands on this sunken level, heat emanating from it. Within, stored in a reliquary no demon can open, is the Disc of Gwen, which sings in the presence of a piece of the prison seals. Elsewhere on the level, past a totally flooded annex, a ritual bed leads into the Dream of War.
• The Dream of War (Revulsion 1, level 5) Green dust and embers blow down from the sky. It is a memory of the days before the devil imprisoned, a siege of the infant Saver Heol's leaden citadel. Demigods and vanr abound, and nameless things. If the infant sun dies, the whole dream darkens, chills, and fills with screams. In a work space beneath the palace, the heroine Gwen forges the first seal. Visitors of the dream, if they would fall, wake before hitting the ground. Besides the battlements, there are some very very deep drops. Awakening shows that you lose what you've lost and gained what you've found, and death in the dream is death in waking— a silver scarab tears at your head and heart, and rather than generating a new PC normally you may start as a level 1d4+1 Journeyman with a horrifically debilitating Akh.
• Fires of Fire (Revulsion 3, level 4) Patrolled by Visceral Bearers, who grow in wide rings around the furnaces, waiting eternally for the fires to die down. Standard fire level, with lava and gouts of flame and such. Hidden behind a lead door that must be melted by seven different levers which heat it seven different ways, a glass forge can remake seals from their constituent pieces, and render them pliable enough to re-apply up to an hour after heating them.
• The Prison (Revulsion 6, level 5) A small complex. Thinly attended by Rebel Khepri, emanations of Saver Heol that now burn with the light of darkness— ultraviolet, infrared, and other colors beyond sight. Soft-spoken, dignified, quick-thinking. Invisibly burning blades and chariots brutally sharpened. Graffiti drawings by those few who made it to the depths. The devil leans against a cell, its walls invisible and unbreakable. Those who feel carefully find the wall cuts off not only the cell, but a tall portal that leads on to the final level of the hive. Only a final seal hangs on the wall's seams, glassy and undarkened. The devil watches visitors with impassive confidence, and will not speak unless spoken to. He will not lie. If asked what he wants, he says he wants to leave the prison. If asked for inducements, he will promise anything to the person who removes the final seal, and he will follow through on his promise, not twisting its intention but not desisting from his own eventual goal of devouring the sun. If asked about the portal, he says it leads to the promise, and points out that it cannot be accessed without freeing him. If the last seal is removed, he performs any promised actions, then flies out of Poza Hive to do as he wilt. Only approaching with seals readied by the glass forge will make him desperate to deal.
•  The Promise (Revulsion 0, level 6) Not to be publicly revealed. “It is a well-known tendency in tales that are popular and long re-told for them to be enlarged, until they become ‘cycles’, taking up or being linked to other stories with which they at first has slender connexions, or none at all. One of the methods used in this process is to provide the original hero with a son, either a newly invented one, or a character in another story. In either case the son will tend to have similar adventures, with variation, to those of the father.” Tolkien, commentary on Beowulf translation, line 734