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Thursday, April 8, 2021

GLΔG: Extra Wizard Templates

Δ templates are an interesting GLOG phenomenon that I've wanted to work with for a while now. Caput Caprae describes them here as features earned through a diagetic achievement - rather than earning enough XP to make it to the next level, your character must prove their mettle through performing specific feats.
 
These templates below are additions to deus ex parabola's excellent delta-template wizards. Read their post first; this builds off of their work. The numbers in parentheses are the template level; you need a level 1 template to be able to earn level 2 templates, and a level 2 template to earn level-3 templates. Power, greater power, and supreme power are level 0, 2, and 3 templates respectively (refer to deus's post). All wizards begin their magical endeavors by finding an object of Power, whether a dread grimoire, an arcane crystal, a contract with an entity, or anything else suitably dangerous to both their moral compass and immortal soul.

(1) Armor
    Wear a set of full-plate armor for a month. If you remove it, even to sleep or to bathe, you must start again.
    While you close your eyes and hold your breath, you are treated as if you are wearing plate armor until you open your eyes, breathe, or are touched skin-to-skin.
    With greater power, you can grant this protection to someone else within line of sight (at time of closing your eyes) instead of yourself. With supreme power, you can grant this protection to up to a dozen people.
 
(1) Familiar
Feed a piece of your body to a creature and sleep beside it each night for a month. If the creature dies or leaves you, start again.
The familiar becomes as intelligent as you, and you learn each others' languages. Any harm inflicted to the one of you is inflicted proportionally on the other as well; its aging slows to match yours.
With greater power you can see through its eyes when you close yours, and direct its body when you sleep. With supreme power you may change your familiar's size up to ten times in either direction at will.

(1) Hold
    Stand perfectly still for a full day. If you are moved or take any action more significant than a breath, you must start again.
    While you make eye contact with someone or something, you may prevent them from moving.
    With greater power, you can force them to mimic the moves you make (to the best of its ability).

(1) Illusion
    Dissect a sensory organ while still attached to a living creature and make meticulous notes. If you lose these notes, start again.
    You can create lifelike illusions within line of sight that fool the senses connected to the organs of the types of creature you've dissected (dissecting a human eye lets you fool the human eye, dissecting a cat's tongue lets you fool a cat's tongue, etc). These illusions are dispelled as soon as you are no longer within line of sight, or by another magician with power over illusions.
    With greater power, these illusions can persist for a year and a day. With supreme power, these illusions can persist indefinitely.

(1) Scrying
    Live on the highest floor of a tower for a month without descending. If you descend even one floor during this month, if the tower is destroyed, or if someone else sets foot on that floor of the tower, you must start again.
    When you close your eyes, you may observe the world as if you were at the top of that tower on a cloudless night with a full moon.
    With greater power, your scrying-sight is as that of a hawk's, and you can detect magic by sight. With supreme power, you may act as if you were at the top of that tower, and wield your powers within your scrying-sight.

(1) Summoning
    Learn a being's true name and inscribe it on your object of Power in your own blood. These are often recorded in ancient grimoires, on other magicians' objects of Power, and without fail the inside of the being's skull. If their true name is removed from your object of Power, or if they learn your true name, you lose all power over them.
    By inscribing a circle in your own blood and speaking the true name aloud three times, you may summon the being into that circle. It will return to whence it came once the circle is broken.
    With greater power, whenever you speak its true name, you can cause it immense pain or pleasure.

(2) Apprenticeship
    Take on a hapless fool with no other prospects in life and no magical aptitude of their own as an apprentice. Provide them with an appropriate object of Power, and induct them into the ways of wizardry. If they ever gain greater power (or supreme power), strike out on their own, or strike at you in anger, you must start again.
    Whenever an apprentice of yours gains a power, you gain it as well for as long as they are your apprentice.
    With greater power, you may take on multiple apprentices, and they cannot strike at you in anger without forfeiting their own magical abilities. With supreme power, your apprentices may gain greater power and take on apprentices of their own without leaving the fold. You gain access to all powers learned by your apprentices' apprentices as well.

(2) Enchantment
    Learn the blacksmith's art from a master smith, living under their tutelage for a year and a day. Once you have completed your training, if they ever smith another item, they gain this template and you lose it.
    Items that you smith function twice as well as their mundane counterparts; lifting double the weight, moving double the speed, inflicting wounds twice as terrible, preventing twice the bodily harm.
    With greater power, invert these items' bonuses when wielded against you (double damage becomes half damage). With supreme power, these items can be up to five times as powerful.

(2) Necromancy
    Be buried alive, and convince others of your demise. If all those convinced of your death learn the truth of the matter, you must do this again.
    With access to a corpse with an intact skull, dead within the last year and a day (though it need not be humanoid), you may raise it as a walking corpse or as a spirit. Walking corpses carry out your bidding, and can obey simple instructions of three words or less. Spirits can be spoken with as they were in life, but require a sacrifice in order to speak with more than once. These undead are dispelled once their skulls are destroyed, at your bidding, or once they are older than a year and a day. You can raise as many undead as there are living people who believe you are dead.
    With greater power, you can raise dead deceased any amount of time ago, and they can follow a short phrase of instructions. With supreme power, you may raise a spirit to inhabit its corpse, and so they will obey instructions as complex as they could in life, and will last eternally unless otherwise damaged.

(2) Precognition
    Blind and deafen yourself for a month. If you see or hear anything before the month ends, you must start again.
    Write down a course of action and sleep with it beside you. When you sleep, you can see an incomplete but accurate account of what would occur within the next day if you take that action.
    With greater power, the time span extends to a month, and you can ask about the actions of other individuals as well. With supreme power, the time span extends to a year, and you can ask about the actions of organizations and nations.

(3) Life Eternal
    Construct a dungeon and place your object of Power at its heart. If your object of power is removed, you must return it to the heart of the dungeon or start again with a new dungeon.
    You cannot die of disease, old age, or mundane accident. You retain access to the magic granted by your object of Power while it remains at the heart of your dungeon.

(3) Mind Control
    Drive one person mad with desire, another mad with hate, another mad with grief, another mad with ecstasy, another mad with vanity, and another mad with duty. Take meticulous notes. If you lose these notes, start again.
    When you speak, you cannot be ignored by anyone within earshot, and one-word instructions will be followed reflexively until the person actively tries to stop themself (with a successful save).
    With greater power, your instructions can be up to a sentence long, and each time someone follows one of your instructions willingly, breaking free of your control the next time will requires an additional save. With supreme power, anything with a mind is susceptible to your influence (including but not limited to animals and spirits), and your control can be conveyed through the written word.

(3) Weather
    Visit and spend a month recording detailed notes regarding each of the highest peak you know of, the hottest desert you know of, the stormiest sea you know of, and the coldest glacier you know of. If you lose these notes, start again.
    By marking out a regular shape with pure-silver effigies of your object of Power (each will cost about as much as equipping a knight in full plate and warhorse), you can create and dispel winds and clouds within that shape in realms lower than the peak, colder than the desert, calmer than that sea, and warmer than that glacier. All weather effects dissipate if an effigy is moved; however, the effigies cannot be moved or harmed by weather created this way.
    With greater power, you can create and dispel storms of types common to the region. With supreme power, you can cause storms of types unheard of in the region, as well as catastrophic weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, or meteor impacts.

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