Vain the Sword Character Generator

T-H-I-E-F: the Spellthief Guild

An entry into Lexi's Thief Guild system for GLOG. This one is not intended to be specifically compatible with Vain the Sword, but could be brought up to speed with a modicum of effort. It is based on one of my favorite D&D 3.5 classes, the Spellthief, though I hope this class is more broadly useful.

Sabriel

Starting equipment: a handaxe, a bump key, cloth armor, fingerless gloves, a brass idol

Skills (2, d6): 1. ancient history, 2. acrobatics, 3. tattooistry, 4. hobnobbing, 5. vagrancy, 6. cold reading

Spellsnatching

✧:if you prepare for it on the previous turn, you can snatch a spell out of the air as it is being cast and immediately cast it yourself with the same MD roll, incurring any mishaps or dooms. If the MD used exceed your level, you must test intelligence or lose control of the spell.

✧✧:Now when you save against a spell or stab a wizard in the back, you may snatch a spell as above. Snatched spells can be held for up to 1 hour before use.

✧✧✧: You may render a magical item inert for one day to acquire a use of its power in the form of a spell. This will sometimes be straightforward, sometimes require adjudication.

Familiar

✧:You gain the services of a small, loyal animal. It understands simple one-word commands, optionally accompanied by a point.

✧✧: This familiar is now of humanoid-level intelligence and gains the ability to speak all languages you speak. 

✧✧✧: The familiar now regularly confers with magical experts among its own kind. Gain 1 MD, and learn two spells that would be known by a wizard of your familiar's type (e.g. charm vermin for owls, detect traps for mice, hypnotize for snakes)

Tavern Bravery

✧: When under the influence, gain immunity to fear and advantage on madness and carousing checks.

✧✧: Immediately before a job or delve, go to a public place to boast. If you do, test your charisma to get 2d4 random bravos and rowdies to assist you right now. If you fail your charisma test, you still get one. As time goes on, reason threatens to make them leave.

✧✧✧: As above, but double the number of bravos and rowdies you bring along. Also, once per job you may reroll any d20 roll as long as a bravo or rowdy is watching you.

Cheap Tricks

✧: you now have the ability to use scrolls and similar items as though a wizard of your level. You can almost always convince a layperson that a nonmagical item is magical, at least for a little while.

✧✧: With patter and distracting fetishes, you can ask questions that go unnoticed. Once per conversation, make an opposed charisma roll. If you succeed, they quickly answer a question without realizing it.

✧✧✧: Gain 1 MD that can only be used while gesticulating and waving baubles around. Also, you may learn spells from magic items as though they were scrolls.

Opportunistic Piety

✧: you may turn undead as a cleric, taking 1d4 rounds to try an eclectic mix of prayers and holy symbols.

✧✧: You may steal and cast whatever the cleric version of spells are in this version, just like spellsnatching ✧ for normal MD spells. Also, if any foe strikes you while you are taking no offensive action and begging them to stop, gain 1 hp.

✧✧✧: As above, but when you save against a cleric spell or stab a cleric in the back, you may snatch a spell as above.

Sandman

✧:When you touch a sleeping or unconscious person (or share a dream with them), you may steal a random spell, allowing you to cast it at any point in the next hour with +1 MD (minimum 1.)

✧✧:When you touch a sleeping or unconscious person (or share a dream with them), you may interrogate their unconscious selves, halfway between reading their minds and casting speak with dead. Ask one question per level you possess. 

✧✧✧: Your dreams are prophetic and strange. +1 MD and when you are physically attacked you may spend MD to add to your AC, losing spent MD as normal.

In Vain Condemning Glorious War: Vain the Sword Mass Combat

*The contents of this post have not been playtested. Consider this a brainstorm. I am not a historian.*

Gustave Dore

I've been following Gundobad's investigation of a system for mass combat, and their interest in the topic has sparked my own. The presumed setting of Vain the Sword includes plenty of potential for skirmish and battle. When there is an effective procedure to run mass combat, the serendipity of play can have better outcomes than when I simply chose an outcome by fiat.

Gundobad does well in establishing their goals for a mass combat system, and I will try to do the same. I'm looking for a system that:

• focuses on forces between 30 and 200 strong
• works with, not replaces, existing combat rules
• easily allows major characters to have major impacts
• is very dangerous
• is inspired by, but not beholden to, ancient historical combat.
• is inspired by, but not beholden to, ancient romanticism about combat.

So, we recall that combat in VtS uses a charisma-based "battle cry" initiative, that attacks are made by rolling under strength, that damage is based on the weapon used, that there are two kinds of defenses-- block and dodge, that maneuvers are pretty much happening constantly, and that we start rolling on dismemberment tables after someone runs out of hp. All of this can be tweaked to represent mass combat.

The battle cry concept is directly transferable. I would use the commander of a force's charisma, to emphasize the larger-than-life personality of many battle narratives. (No leader? Go last in the initiative order.)

Larger forces should have greater capacity for damage, and be more resilient. We'll say each force one standard attack against other forces for each ~20 combatants it has. Maybe starting HP is straight up equal to the number of combatants in a force. You can never more than double the number of attacks against a force that it can make; there's not enough room.

Damage based on weapon use can work, but there should be some contingency for combined arms. The multiple attacks in a turn should represent the weapon composition, and influence what maneuvers are possible.

• light weapons (slings and sidearms) 1d6 damage
• medium weapons (spears and khopeshes) 1d8 damage
• heavy weapons (polearms and greatclubs) 1d10 damage

Defenses probably need to be changed. Armor should still be relevant, so the average Block score of the unit can be used. Rather than Dodge, we can substitute something like cohesion, a representation of how well the force holds together, scored up to six.

• barbarian cohesion -2
• average cohesion 0
• trained cohesion 2
• veteran cohesion 4
• hivemind cohesion 6

Individual maneuvers are probably too small-scale, as are normal combat rounds. One mass combat round should represent multiple minutes. Formation maneuvers should have some hope of efficacy, and can be commanded by the leader of the force. (No leader, no maneuvers)

HP, despite its name and inconsistency in fiction, could be a surprisingly good fit for mass combat. We'll say that HP = number of people in the force, but losing 1 HP doesn't mean someone dies. A military unit can sustain surprisingly few casualties before a rout. Its combat efficacy might not actually degrade very much before breaking, and that is an interesting dynamic I would like to emulate. We can recast HP as morale or discipline, and write a quick dismemberment table to represent the outcome of flight, from chaos to rout. Roll 1d12+negative morale:

• 1+: Chaos. Get -4 to cohesion and maximum morale for X days.
• 11+: Flight. Force immediately attempts escape, no longer making attacks. Orders given to aid in escape will still be followed. Force commander can spend the force's turn testing 1/2 their charisma to rally.
• 16+: Rout. As above, but no orders are followed. For every round the force is pursued, have the army test dexterity. If it succeeds, d10*5% escape this round and half as many are killed. If failed, D10*5% are killed this round and half as many escape.

I think we should let forces break up and reform if they want. So if there's a force of 100 people, it can split into two forces of 50 people. Splitting into anything smaller than 30 renders those slivers ineffective in mass combat as forces.

For every 25 combatants in a force, there is a champion. These champions may make attacks, cast spells, or take other actions at any point in their force's turn. Unless their action is totally defensive, an opposed champion can target them with their own actions; dueling champions will be common. Player characters who are not champions can still take actions, but not in ways that will significantly affect the entire opposing force. They can take actions that will aid allied champions. Also, this means there will always be at least a couple named NPC opponents.

Being in a battle is dangerous. PCs sticking their necks out can be targeted by opposing forces, which get +2 to hit and +1d6 damage if the danger of "fighting lots of people at once" is not mitigated. This applies to champions as well.

At all times, keep in mind that these are minor skirmishes for a small society. The bronze age Zhou dynasty easily mobilized armies of 4,500 combatants. They were better at logistics than, say, the people of Mesomergos, and they didn't need to answer a giant's riddle to ford a river. When you're trying to keep 100 people fed, military operations are essential. If you are directly on a river, friendly barges will do the trick. If you're not, you have to carry most of your food with you. As a DM, if a PC is leading a battle, by no means give them a strategy-game style assessment of what's going on. Make clear how they know what information they know. Use of a chariot as a mobile command center should be prized. Messengers and scouts should feel invaluable to player commanders.

Fortifications should be big deals. They should limit the total amount of attacks per side, and provide serious defense bonuses. Siege engines are not assumed. If you want to get into a walled city, you have to incite treachery or use a strategem of war. Even if you have large numbers, expect to wait around outside your foe's gates while they go hungry. You have a supply chain yourself, right?

Example Forces

Oathkeeper Albrecht's Levy:

• HP 100. Five STR 12 attacks (three 1d8 spears, two 1d6 slings). Four champion attacks.
• Block 2, Cohesion 2.
• Battle Cry: For the Falcon! +15 (if led by Albrecht)
• Champions: Oathkeeper Albrecht (warrior 3), Xeuin Sworn (thief 1/warrior 2), Janik Sworn (warrior 2), Wei Ning (wizard 2)

Marauding Bandits:

• HP 40. Two STR 12 attacks (one 1d6 knives, one 1d6 slings). One champion attack.
• Block 2, Cohesion -2.
• Battle Cry: Your money or your lives! +12
• Champion: Li Shortnarrow (thief 2)

Hypothetical Chapter of Sworn:

• HP 30. One STR 14 attack (one 1d8 spear). One champion attack.
• Block 3, Cohesion 4.
• Battle Cry: A tangled mess of personalized calls +12
• Champion: Han Sworn the elder (warrior 2/practitioner 2) 

Uzay's Mysterious Legion:

• HP 200. Ten STR 12 attacks (five 1d8 spears, two 1d10 longspears, three 1d8 bows, two 1d6 slings). Eight champion attacks.
• Block 4, Cohesion 4.
• Battle Cry: a lyrical call and response, referencing events and places you know not +13
• Champions: Khayam (wizard 2), Tendren (warrior 1), Kalo (thief 1/warrior 1), Tendren the elder (wizard 1), Akiar (warrior 2), Calormon (dreamer 3), Shasa (witness 1), Luszi (warrior 2)

d30 Social Dilemmas in Mesomergos

The Mesomergos setting has plenty to offer in small-to-moderate sized dungeons for classic dungeoncrawls, but I have also been using it to focus on other kinds of scenarios and adventures. Characters are likely to acquire servants, suitors, favors, and even titles if they survive past level one, and all of these serve to embed them in society. This is desirable not only because I like characters to have connections and because it makes participation in the fictional culture more natural; it's also desirable because it offers new ways to hook players into scenarios beyond the promise of gold.

Good scenarios can make use of dilemmas, forcing one or more player characters to make a choice between two ambiguous options. Because this is a multiplayer game where we don't want to actually restrict someone to two choices, DMs should accept clever ways around the dilemma. A good dilemma should apply some pressure. The default state of doing nothing should be unfavorable. Most importantly, the stakes should be valuable to the character or characters. If the only downside of an action is dishonoring your mother and you don't mind dishonoring your mother, it is not a dilemma.

art by Thorø Larsen

A theme of Mesomergos is the proliferation of rules. Characters are frequently bound by the laws of gods and the laws of men, by feudal loyalty and bonds of the heart, the restriction of social expectation and fey wishes. Dilemmas pay this theme off in a game-able way. "You have to obey your lord" is a setting expectation. "You have to obey your lord, and he's asking you to betray your god" is a problem for players to worry over.

d30 Social Dilemmas

1. Recaps allow you passage instead of challenge, if you promise to be their friend. Your ruler later commands you to clear out their hovel.
2. You are a bastard of a ruler’s spouse, but that ruler suspects you are their lover. The truth would dishonor your parent, the lie puts you in danger.
3. Following a rumor that a woman will jeopardize a certain town, the local ruler orders a mass execution of women there(!) Bonus points if the ruler is a woman.
4. Your ruler has done a dishonorable deed, and demands you help them to keep it hidden.
5. While in a foreign ruler’s court, they demand you swear yourself to them, or else be put to death
6. The law requires you to help defend your lord when they are attacked, but they keep lighting the signal beacons as a joke to amuse their favorite concubine
7. During a revolt, a minister steals the ruler’s child and hides them. The motive for this is unknown, and both the ruler and the dissidents seek to possess the heir.
8. Your parent covets your lover, whether or not they know that you love them.
9. A foreign ruler has fallen in love with you from afar, and makes war to possess you.
10. To marry a ruler’s offspring, they require some impossible task.
11. Your ruler has offended the gods, and they afflict the land in obvious punishment. Many push to replace him.
12. You are supposed to go out and support your ruler in battle, but divine omens tell you that to do so would bring down terrible destruction.
13. Your ruler has constructed an idol of a god, merely to blaspheme it and beat it in games of lalon. Its expression grows angrier and its muscles grow larger with each passing day.
14. You gave up your maidenhood to your lad, who disappeared. He may have been taken by fey? In any case, your parents are trying to marry you off soon, and if any but your lad discovers you are not a maid, you will be shamed and ostracized.
15. An elfin knight has promised not to harm you while under the protection of the local ruler. Said ruler, aware of this, seeks to exploit your labor under threat of exile.
16. A goblin army has arrived from nowhere, claiming their ruler was offered safe passage by an emperor 300 years ago and has not returned; they have “come to investigate.” Their ruler is actually still around, lying in prison forgotten.
17. Your lover promised their firstborn to a goblin many years ago, and now the time to make good nears.
18. Your lover, stolen by gremlins, will only be ransomed back to you for some onerous task.
19. A goblin from a nearby tower has granted you a boon, contingent on you coming over for dinner. This is a binding promise. You receive a divine vision warning you that the tower will be smote at an appointed time. Can you fulfill your promise before the tower is turned to rubble?
20. Whosoever possesses all nine of an ancient hero's cauldrons shall rule fairyland. One such cauldron was consecrated to a god and put in their temple. Now gnomes demand it back.
21. In this part of the country, women cannot conduct surgery. One you cannot afford to lose desperately requires an expert surgeon, but the only one near enough is the bandit blade-runner of Bijou Bluff.
22. Your parents made a contract with a sorcerer to aid in your conception on the condition that you would be offered to the sorcerer as an apprentice or as a bride. Your coming of age ceremony is next week.
23. Homophobia is troublesome.
24. No person of your sex may profane the grounds of a holy enclave, but you desperately require something deep within that cannot or will not be brought out to you.
25. You are set to marry a noble, only to learn that they are having an affair with your sibling, unlawful unless consummated. You stand to lose a fortune in gifts and dowry if the wedding is called off, or to be shamed if the affair is discovered indelicately. A capricious bureaucrat is already suspicious.
26. The local ruler scatters the families belonging to a partisan group to discourage insurrection. Your beloved is to be sent far away, and you know not where.
27. A prideful ruler forbids proper burial of a deceased enemy, but if you do not honor the body, the gods will punish you.
28. A mulberry tree is sent as an omen of bad laws. As long as they persist, it will grow out of control and overtake everything. No one in power acknowledges this.
29. Two lovers are forcibly parted, one made to take a vow of chastity. How can the lovers be rightly reunited?
30. Your lover is some kind of divine demihuman, with no property or occupation. Without some token or proof, your parents and community will not accept this as a proper match for marriage.