Full GLOG Hack: Vain the Sword

NOTE: THIS IS NOW OUT-OF-DATE. THE SECOND EDITION CAN BE FOUND HERE <---

Click for the link!

Thanks as ever to Arnold K., Skerples, and all the rest. I will try to attentively update this document as mistakes become apparent.

Read a review by SunderedWorldDM here, or thoughts from others (including Arnold K.) in the comments below.

Highlights:

• Functioning table of contents with links
• renaming anything in the game that sounds like it's for nerd accountants
• Roll-under stats
• Separate dodge-and-block defense
• a collection of classic and strange base classes, each up to level 4
• strange languages
• skills are perhaps magic?
• charisma as godly grace, charisma-based "battle cry" initiative
• light-based critical fumble chance
• Gods! Arcana! Gigre!
• advice on exploration and hexcrawling
• an appendix N
• An example dungeon adventure, "Brenton's Bride."

June 28, 2020 Update

• Renamed "race" to "folk."
• Added more description for each folk.
• Changed how dodge and HP works to simplify math.
• Cleaned up headers and similar things.
• Rather than saying you get one ken from your lot and one of your choice, I just wrote every lot to give you an additional ken.
• Dreamer's dream hunting now more concrete. Introduced nightmare injuries.
• Replaced dreamer spell "speak with birds" with "argue with birds," since speaking with birds is available to anyone who wants to learn the language.
• Modified talismans.
• Reformated death and dismemberment table. Made minor edits.
• Updated acolyte dictates.

July 15, 2020 Update

• Replaced ordena with talking animals. They were fine, but playing an ordena is not a sufficiently dramatic change. Also, talking animals keep showing up as NPCs anyway.

Holy Selmat, with Prejudice

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -H.L. Mencken, Prejudices

The time has come. Feats and paragraph-long spells have been banished, and awful goblins, hands full of abbreviated monster stats and pre-alpha rulesets, emerge from their hiding places to declare victory. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. The Gods of the Copybook Heading with terror and slaughter return. Etc.

I have begun the conversion of my weekly game in Holy Selmat to GLOG. I've found sufficient GLOG classes for most of the current PCs, but since two of them are classes unique to Holy Selmat, I've decided to take a crack at giving them something unique.

Art by Roman Chally

WITNESS

A variation of Type1Ninja's Bard class.

For every fifteen years you’ve been alive, increase your save by 1. Starting skill: history A: Eidetic Memory, Make Known, Witness B: Tale of Monsters, Relax C: Tale of Treasure, Group Witness D: Mythologize, Legends

Eidetic Memory- You automatically remember everything that you witness

Make Known- When you expound something in a public place, everyone in the area knows about it within one week. (When you talk to someone, roll under your Charisma to see if they believe it.)

Witness- Before another player rolls, use your action to witness them, which gives them advantage (roll twice, use best) on their roll. Uses per day equal to your number of witness templates.

Tale of Mortals- Sing about a past figure, who is now real. Takes at least 10 minutes. Uses per session equal to your number of witness templates. The GM may deny this ability if your claims are ridiculous, irrelevant, or conflict with known information. There’s a 50% chance that the next important person you meet is similar to this figure.

Relax- Once per day, you can play especially relaxing music. Allies who can hear you regain 1d4 HP. This is non-magical healing. If you use this ability out of combat, allies instead gain 2d4 + your Charisma bonus HP.

Tale of Treasure- Sing about a treasure hoard, including one specific item that you make up, which now exists. Takes at least 10 minutes. Uses per session equal to your number of Bard templates, shared with Tale of Monsters. The GM may deny this ability if your claims are ridiculous, irrelevant, or conflict with known information, but you might get a bonus for listing the curses as well as blessings. The next time you get a lead on treasure, the specific location of the item is revealed.

Group Witness- As Witness, but you can use it at the beginning of a round to grant your entire party the buff. Unlike Witness, you can only use this ability once per day.

Mythologize- As Tale of Mortals and Treasure, but you can sing about entire dungeons or anything else you can think of.

Legends Born- Guarantee that someone succeeds on a single roll, as long as it's plausible that they could succeed. Usable once per session. 

PRACTITIONER

Starting skill: drugcrafting A: Alchemy, Commandments, +1 MD B: Smite, See evil, +1 to hit C: Chemic, +1 MD D: Reckoning, +1 to hit

Alchemy: You begin play knowing two footnotes and three random formulae. More formulae can be learned through study.

Commandments: Must remain silent every seventh day. On all other days, must compose a verse or measure in remembrance. Must only eat seeds and meat. Indiscretion is a mortal sin. Additionally, you can see around corners but dead bodies are unclean to you.

Smite: Once per day, designate a wicked target. For the duration of combat, deal an extra +1d6 damage to that target.

See evil: Can identify wicked creatures at a glance. It's like a whole other color. I know a lot of people don't use alignment, but this is the holy land. Some things are antithetical to the world's grand purpose.

Chemic: When you reduce an opponent to 0 HP, you may immediately use one of your formulae. Additionally, you may start researching new forms of Gigre, an undertaking that takes a great deal of resources.

Reckoning: When you kill the target of your smite, you may immediately designate a new target. You may choose to regain a magic die. If you do, the threshold for mishaps and dooms decreases by one.

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Practitioner Footnotes:

1. Smell Drugs: range 40'
2. Know God: reveals if a holy epithet belongs to a god you know of.
3. Alter disease: can direct illnesses to act differently. Like diplomacy but different.

Practitioner formulae are a combination of holy, alchemical, and combat-oriented spells. Some examples:

1. Rubbery Body: +3 defense against bludgeoning. Immune to fall damage and similar things. Amazing contortions. Lasts [dice] minutes.
2. Shrink: For [dice] hours, target becomes half their size.
3. Adhesive Spittle: ranged attack to stick target in place for [dice] rounds.
4. Truth paste: when consumed, cannot lie. 2 MD: must answer all questions.

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak

William Blake. A crisis bears witnessing

When the world was being formed and focused, God required witnesses to look over the mortals to come. So was placed the city of Gath, perched on an island over the deepest lake in the world. So were made the dwarves of Gath, who see for God.

They have been made to last until the end of the Earth, and their hairs are starting to grey. Mostly they stay in Gath, sending out individuals to witness important events. Almost every battle in the history of Selmat was fought within sight of Gath so that God may see it, and by this point the lake is surrounded by ruins and corpses. It is said that they make iron weapons from the blood of those centuries of slain, and it is true. Within the city, the dwarves mostly just tell each other stories so that they may be remembered forever. For fun, they also like to share satires of centuries-old events

Hubert Robert. Out of the View of God

The Biritists of Selmat honor the dwarves, and to see one is more rare than to see an angel. Kings send messengers to Gath to request the presence of a dwarf for historic events, and these requests are often granted. Noryists, fearful of the pantheon from which their god was exiled, are likewise fearful of dwarves.

This is perhaps wise.

Karl Kopinski

Witnesses

Witnesses are like bards but less musical. They use wisdom instead of charisma for all the "bard" stuff, and their performances are states of perfect recall triggered by the crush of history. 

Witnesses get +1 to knowledge skills for every fifteen years they've been alive. This is somewhat impressive for PCs, but makes knowledge checks auto-successes for dwarf witnesses, since they are as old as the world itself. (Dwarves are not a PC race in Holy Selmat.)

Smart players will note that they have perfect recall of events that take place while doing a witness performance, and perform during events that they want to remember, which I think makes a lot of sense. One of the books I read in anticipation of running Holy Selmat was Green Ronin's TESTAMENT, which included the psalmist class in a similar niche to the witness. This one is a bit less bardy that the psalmist, and a bit less... specific?