Cancer Warlock

It's time for another dose of body horror! The Oblidisideryptch's Warlock is one of my favorite additions to the GLOG (I wrote a previous Patron for it, the Baleful Star), and I've been considering adding it to Mimics & Miscreants. Of course, as a consummate tinkerer, I can't leave well enough alone, so here's my take on the Warlock and an all-new Patron for it: Cancer!

Warlock

Power corrupts. But what's a little corruption among friends?

Level 1: Patron, 1 maximum Credit, 2 Spells
Level 2: Beseech, +1 max Credit, +2 Spells
Level 3: d10 Credit Dice, +1 max Credit, +2 Spells
Level 4: Patron's Gift, +1 max Credit, +2 Spells

Hit Die: d4
Starting Equipment: see Patron
Skills (d6): 1. Art, 2. Etiquette, 3. Hermitry, 4. Lore, 5. Occult, 6. Theology

Patron: A powerful being that has lent you a portion of its power in exchange for your loyalty and service. You can cast Warlock spells from your Patron's list using the Patron Spellcasting rules. Your patron also gives you a passive Boon, and grants you three minor powers as at-will Favors. As you cast spells, you will accrue Debt. This Debt can be reduced by performing Services from the list of Services your patron may require of you. Your patron requests a random service when you gain Debt, and many services scale for each point of Debt you have.

Patron Spellcasting: As you cast a spell, you may cast it with a number of Credit Dice (d8s) up to your maximum Credit. Whenever you roll the maximum 2 numbers on a Credit Die (7-8 on d8, 5-6 on d6, etc.), gain 1 Debt and learn what Service your patron requires of you to pay it off. Step down the size of your Credit Dice once for each Debt you have. Performing a service for your patron removes 1 Debt. When your Debt decreases your Credit Dice below a d2, you can't cast spells until you pay off your Debt.

Beseech: Ask your patron for help. They'll give it in some form, though if you have more debt it'll be less useful - and patrons have odd concepts of what may be helpful. Always accumulates 1 Debt.

Patron's Gift: Your patron marks you for good as their servant, giving you a permanent powerful beneficial mutation (specified in the patron's entry). They can't take this away.

Some Patrons
Old Scratch, the devil at the crossroads
The Baleful Star, which hates and fears
The esteemed law firm of Semiramis-Nebuchadnezzar-Shamsi
Tawantinsuyu Imperial Armories (for Sun and Emperor!)
A small spider that lives in your brain and is very excited to explore

Patron: Cancer

by Bogdan Rezunenko

Your closest friend, so near and dear to your heart. Literally.

Something grows inside you. It made its intentions known when it first pushed on your organs and distended your skin. It would devour you, slay you in its feverish thirst for unchecked riotous growth. Life, the ultimate killer.

You spoke to it that night. Promised it life, promised it growth, promised it food, promised it everything - if only it spared your life. You are your cancer's weapon, its pawn to do what it will with a world it can only see in terms of Self and Not Yet Self, But Soon.

It gives you frenetic power, vast biological energies unleashed through cellular esoteries. It runs rampant through your veins and tissues, replicating furiously, creating more You-And-It every second. Your skin hangs loose, growing new lumps of meat. You're always just too warm to the touch, as the cancer burns calorie after calorie in its relentless quest.

Even if you-the-mind die, you-the-cancer will live on, growing and growing, in a thousand shapes in a thousand bodies. Immortality, of a sort, is in your grasp, if only you give yourself over to its power and its will. Others will call you deranged. You call yourself pragmatic. Your cancer calls you friend.

Starting Equipment: Random mutation, scalpel, jar with one of your many tumors
Boon: You always roll hit dice with advantage, as the cancer grows without mercy or restraint.

Favors
1. You can bud off 2 HP as a ration. HP spent this way cannot be restored until you take a daily rest.
2. Your cancer fights other diseases for you, to protect both you and itself. You're immune to mundane disease, and save with advantage against others.
3. At the beginning of each day, you may roll a d6. Up to (templates) times, you may subtract 2 points from that ability score to gain +1 to another of your choice.

Obligations
1. Feed Debt HD of creatures to your cancer.
2. Let Debt HP of your blood over the dying.
3. Save Debt lives from grievous injuries.
4. Seed your cancerous cells over Debt new living beings.
5. Give over your body to the cancer for Debt nights, where it will run rampant and consume.
6. Integrate something with Debt new, unique properties into your cancer so it can adapt and mutate.
7. Destroy Debt HD of undead.
8. Gain a new mutation.

Patron's Gift: Your cancer overtakes you, and you become a mass of undifferentiated cells, writhing and mutable. At any time, you may sacrifice HP equal to the number of mutations you have to roll on the mutation table. These mutations reset after a daily rest.

Spells
1. Apoptose: A (sum)' diameter sphere of living material you touch dies off and sloughs away. An unwilling target instead takes (sum) necrotic damage (CON save for half).

2. Alter Self: Take on up to (sum) physical characteristics of a creature you touch. If (dice) >= the creature's HD, you may become a copy of that creature. Lasts for (sum) minutes/hours/days/weeks (1/2/3/4 dice)

3. Autoharuspicy: Disembowel yourself to tell the future. Sacrifice up to (sum) HP. You may ask the GM a question, and (sum) follow-up clarification questions, about the consequences of a potential action you may take. The GM is not obligated to answer fully, but must answer truthfully.

4. Cancerous Healing: Touch a living creature. They regain (sum) hit points. Unless you give them a random mutation as well, this can’t heal them above ¼/⅓/½/full (1/2/3/4 dice).

5. Cancerous Regeneration: Touch a creature. Heal (dice)*2 ability score damage. Can’t restore points above (sum)+6 (so a sum of 6 couldn’t heal a score to above 12), unless you give them a random mutation as well. At 4 or more dice, can heal fatal wounds if you have >50% of the corpse and regenerated within 3 rounds of death.

6. Cancer-Twin: Create clones of (dice) of your organs. They can be internal or external, and in any location on your body. At 2+ dice, you can make it an autonomous creature, and at 3+ dice you can create a clone of your entire body. It lasts for (sum) minutes.

7. Consume: A chunk of you opens up into a toothy, jagged maw. Bite attacks deal d4 slashing damage (step up once for each die past the first) and the target saves vs. you swallowing a random Cut from them (as Butcher). Lasts for (sum) minutes.

8. Debone: Steal up to (sum) bones from someone you touch on bare skin. Starts with whichever bone is closest to where you touch them. They get a CON save to reduce this to just one bone. The bones end up in your hand, and this leaves no open wounds.

9. Emergency Transplant: You touch 2 bodies and select 2 organs within them. The organs flow through you, swapping hosts. Each target body may make a CON save to resist this effect. They must be the same organ, unless (sum) is greater than 10. (credit to T AKW)

10. Evolve: Inflict (dice) mutations from a mutation table of your choice on a creature you touch (or yourself). Roll at random, but you may pick a mutation of your choice from +/-(sum) results on the table (so a sum of 3 and a roll of 12 on the table would let you pick a mutation between 9 and 15). If (sum) is 20 or higher, you may instead give them a random Organ from an Adulterated Lineage of the Primordial Flesh (+2 to an ability score of your choice, roll lineage randomly).

11. Meld: Take two living things smaller than a head (1D)/a person (2D)/a wagon (3D)/a house (4D) with HD <= and combine them into a new whole, with the abilities and weaknesses of each. Unwilling creatures get an INT save on cast and each time interval, and fused creatures must either share the new body or fight with each other for it (roll INT or WIS or CHA (mind's choice), high roller takes control each time interval). Lasts for (sum) minutes/hours/days/weeks (1/2/3/4 dice)

12. Raise Dead: Touch a corpse, or an object that was once living. It returns to a facsimile of its living form, and becomes (dice) HD divided between up to (dice) separate creatures. Each undead created this way has abilities based on its form. You can break up corpses this way, like into a flesh blob and a skeleton, or a skinwraith and nerve-jellyfish. You can control up to (level)*2 HD of undead at once. They re-die after (sum) minutes (1D)/hours (2D)/days (3D)/months (4D).