The Immortal Art of Fleshcraft

Fleshcraft makes Ogoath go 'round. To hear one of its practitioners speak of it, they are the sole force between the blood-red lamplight of civilization and the total decay of the rotting turtle-corpse. Those who control the meat control the universe, and their powers tap in not to "magic" or whatever "divinity" survived the loss of the Old World and death of its gods, but into the base raw bleeding truth of reality. And while they aren't technically wrong, most fleshcrafters have (in addition to their power) taken on the egos of old-world wizards with none of the pretension of secrecy or solitude.

by Igor Vitkovskiy

If one would listen to the butchers speak of them, fleshcrafters have no respect for the world that's adopted them. They walk openly, twisting meat to their basest whims, capricious children who've stolen their parents' big fancy knives and are chopping up the walls to see the pretty patterns they can make. Their empire killed the world. Their domain is life-made-cancerous, mind without moral, craft without code.

I've given the Butchers their due. Their rivals now demand the podium.

Fleshcrafter

Paint with all the pleasures of the flesh.

Level 1: Fleshcrafting, 2 Techniques, 2 Forms, 1 Flesh Die
Level 2: +1 Technique, +1 Form, +1 FD, +1 HD
Level 3: +1 Technique, +1 Form, +1 FD, +1 HD
Level 4: +1 Technique, +1 Form, +1 FD, +1 HD

Hit Die: d4
Starting Equipment: Scalpel, bone saw (d6 damage and reveal an organ of choice), red leather robes, sheaf of skin-parchment with anatomical diagrams, a bone-vial of each Form you know
Skills (d6): 1. Etiquette, 2. Gardening, 3. Lore, 4. Sculpture, 5. Surgery, 6. Undertaking

Fleshcrafting: Combine a Technique you know and a Form you know to perform an action. Absorb Blood. Grow Bone. Speak to Emotion. Their effects are broad and often self-evident. Roll any number of your Flesh Dice (d6s) in the process. In addition to the damage dealt by the Law of Consumption (see below), they burn out on a 6. 1 can be restored by lunch; all can be restored after a daily rest. If you roll doubles, a Mishap occurs. On triples, gain a Doom.

There's some limitations of what you can do with these. Any numerical effect (damage, duration in minutes or hours, bonus, penalty, etc) can't be greater than either (dice) or (sum); which is the limit is up to the GM. I recommend looking at the Mimics & Miscreants spell list for equivalent effects.

All fleshcrafting follows Three Laws. These laws are well-founded, well-tested, and seem inherent to the Art.

The Law of Consumption. Action requires calories. Greater changes, such as those wrought by magic, require more. Your body will devour itself in your quest for power. Whenever you fleshcraft, you take (dice) damage.

The Law of Contact. Fleshcraft requires touch between the crafter and the form. It is an Art of the body, and so the body is central to its workings. The closer the flesh one wants to shape to their point of contact, the easier it is to shape. Forms separated by a membranous barrier like skin, or like the lining of an organ (if you wish to only affect the material inside) roll your Flesh Dice with disadvantage.

The Law of Continuity. Forms remain the form they are. One cannot transmute blood to bone, or acid to eyes, or skin to cancer, (et cetera), through fleshcraft. That is the provence of mundane biology and naught else.

You may violate one law, and suffer a Mishap.
You may violate two laws, and suffer a Doom.
You may violate all three laws, and be consumed by the Art.

 
Techniques
1. Absorb
2. Animate
3. Bind
4. Burn
5. Command
6. Consume
7. Divide
8. Dowse
9. Engrave
10. Extract
11. Grow
12. Hide
13. Inflict
14. Mutate
15. Restore
16. Shrivel
17. Smooth
18. Speak To
19. Ward
20. Weave

Forms
1. Acid
2. Bile
3. Blood
4. Bone
5. Brain
6. Cancer
7. Emotion
8. Eyes
9. Face
10. Guts
11. Hair
12. Heart
13. Limb
14. Meat
15. Nails
16. Nerves
17. Pain
18. Rot
19. Sense
20. Skin

Fleshcrafting Mishaps
1-2. Decay. Halve a random physical ability score for the rest of the day.
3-4. Mutation. Gain a random negative mutation for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, roll a d6. On a 1, it is permanent.
5-6. Independence. The Form you wanted to manipulate? It decides its had enough of you, and a (dice) HP chunk of it removes itself from you to become an independent being.

Fleshcrafting Dooms
First Doom: Lose a Form. This inexplicably does not kill you, but it will do everything else that losing it would. Losing a seemingly negative form still has negative effects - losing Rot would prevent your cells from dying (commensurately, losing Cancer prevents cell growth).
Second Doom: Lose another Form.
Final Doom: Your individuality sloughs off as you merge with all flesh and organic matter around you. You are not "dead" in a technical sense, but you have become part of something so much greater that you cannot continue play as a player character.

Thieves' Guilds

There's been a renewed interest recently in making GLOG classes that are extensible, like the original Wizard and its schools. I've been part of working on several of these before - Bottomless Sarcophagus' Witch, Oblidisideryptch's Barbarian and Warlock, I even wrote a Bard, so I decided to take a crack at a class I haven't really touched: the Thief. To give it a little more mechanical identity, I've decided to give the thief access to some storygame-esque skills.

While Wizards can warp the fabric of reality, and Clerics can channel the powers of the gods, Thieves are so good that the narrative itself bends to their whims. They can retroactively choose to have prepared just the tool for the job, or set up a trap in just the right place, or realize they've always known the language that the merchants speak. It might rub some people the wrong way, but it's my class and my rules and I think it's really cool to let the Thief have some definition of its own. Of course, other Guilds will provide other ability sets, and hopefully I come back to add more.

These Thieves have Guilds, like Wizards' Schools or Bards' Genres. The Guild you belong to determines the suite of 6 abilities you can rank up in. Each ability has 3 ranks. At level 1, you start with 2 abilities, each at rank 1, and as you level up you both increase the rank of the abilities you have and gain new abilities at rank 1.

Thief

Level 1: Gain 2 abilities at rank 1
Level 2: Rank up an ability you have, then gain a new ability at rank 1
Level 3: Rank up 2 abilities you have
Level 4: Rank up 2 abilities you have, then gain all abilities you don't have yet at rank 1

Hit Die: d6

Specific abilities, equipment, and skills are all determined by the Guild a thief belongs to.

Thieves Guild

 Possession is nine-tenths of the law. That last tenth is the tricky bit...

Starting Equipment: 2 daggers, a dark cloak, set of lockpicks, roll 2 extra random items
Skills (2, d6): 1. Acrobat, 2. Bully, 3. Forger, 4. Gambler, 5. Lookout, 6. Pickpocket

Abilities

1: Bag of Tricks
    ✧: You have a Bag of Tricks, which takes up 2 inventory slots. While you have inventory slots in your Bag that haven't yet been filled with defined items, you may produce a mundane tool of neglegible value from your Bag that will help you solve a current problem. It then takes up one of the inventory slots in your Bag of Tricks. You may clean out and refill your Bag when you return to town.
    ✧✧: Your Bag now has 4 slots.
    ✧✧✧: Your Bag no longer contributes to encumbrance.
2: Opportunist
    ✧: Whenever you would gain advantage to hit, you may also roll damage with advantage.
    ✧✧: Whenever you would gain advantage on a roll, you may reroll 1s.
    ✧✧✧: Whenever you would gain advantage on a roll, you may roll 3 results instead of 2 and take the best.
3: Prepwork
    ✧: On a 1 in 6, you may declare that you've set up a minor environmental effect nearby in an area that you would've had access to within the recent past, and trigger that effect.
    ✧✧: One automatic success per day, then 2 in 6 for each following attempt.
    ✧✧✧: 3 in 6 for each following attempt, and you can have retroactively set up effects in any area you plausibly could have had access to at any time in the past.
4: Second Story Worker
    ✧: You can climb vertical surfaces as quickly as you can walk.
    ✧✧: Double your move speed and jump distance.
    ✧✧✧: You can climb upside down as quickly as you can walk. Halve fall damage.
5: Thick as Thieves
    ✧: You can recruit d4 thugs in town who're loyal so long as they'll get a cut of the loot and are sure they'll make it out alive. They will flee, cheat, or betray you and each other if either of those conditions becomes sufficiently murky.
    ✧✧: d6 thugs or d4 thieves, each with 1 rank in a random thief ability (besides this one).
    ✧✧✧: 2d6 thugs or 2d4 thieves, each with 2 ranks in a random thief ability (besides this one).
6: Tricky Fingers
    ✧: Whenever you try to perform sleight of hand (lockpicking, pickpocketing, etc), failure won't alert anyone who isn't already paying attention to you.
    ✧✧: You leave no trace of tampering, or specific traces of your choice, when you perform sleight of hand (whether you succeed or fail).
    ✧✧✧: Whenever someone tries to retrieve or draw an item, you can (on a 2-in-6, with 1 guaranteed success per day) reveal that you actually burgled it from them at some point in the recent past (if you had access).

Seamstresses Guild

You'd be surprised what people let slip when they're in the company of a good listener.

Starting Equipment: 3 sets of fancy clothes, 3 stilettos, bottle of liquor, makeup kit, noble's calling card
Skills (2, d6): 1. Artist, 2. Casanova/Seductress/Them Fatale, 3. Dancer, 4. Gambler, 5. Poet, 6. Seamstress (but for real)


Abilities

1. Con Artist
    ✧: So long as no one can verify what you’re saying is wrong, you can lie through your teeth and they’ll believe you for at least d6 minutes.
    ✧✧: d6 hours.
    ✧✧✧: Even if they can verify, they'll believe you over other people until the end of the duration.
2. Cunning Linguist
    ✧: Three times, you may encounter a language that the party does not understand, and reveal that you speak that language. Add that language to your character sheet, you are now fluent in it.
    ✧✧: You can attempt to translate any language you don't speak. The GM rolls a d6 secretly for the number of errors you make in the translation.
    ✧✧✧: You can crudely communicate with anything that has a language. Gain the ability to speak with (d6: 1. Birds, 2. Clothing, 3. Doors, 4. Gold, 5. Fire, 6. Weapons)
3. Fancy
    ✧: Fancy clothes give you a +2 AC bonus.
    ✧✧: Can choose to ablate fancy clothing like a shield; reducing the damage from one attack by d12 points but ruining your outfit in the process.
    ✧✧✧: Given a short rest, you can make any outfit into a fancy outfit through sheer willpower and coordination.
4. Seductive Wiles
    ✧: You can keep someone engaged in conversation with you, to the exclusion of all else, for an hour. This makes them less hostile, and on a 2-in-6 they let valuable information slip.
    ✧✧: You don’t have to roll to impersonate someone in casual conversation, but gaps in your knowledge can still reveal you. 4-in-6 to let info slip.
    ✧✧✧: You can choose which specific information they reveal, if any, and you can keep them talking for d6 hours.
5. Thick as Thieves
    ✧: You can recruit d4 thugs in town who're loyal so long as they'll get a cut of the loot and are sure they'll make it out alive. They will flee, cheat, or betray you and each other if either of those conditions becomes sufficiently murky.
    ✧✧: d6 thugs or d4 thieves, each with 1 rank in a random thief ability (besides this one).
    ✧✧✧: 2d6 thugs or 2d4 thieves, each with 2 ranks in a random thief ability (besides this one).
6. Tricky Fingers
    ✧: Whenever you try to perform sleight of hand (lockpicking, pickpocketing, etc), failure won't alert anyone who isn't already paying attention to you.
    ✧✧: You leave no trace of tampering, or specific traces of your choice, when you perform sleight of hand (whether you succeed or fail).
    ✧✧✧: Whenever someone tries to retrieve or draw an item, you can (on a 2-in-6, with 1 guaranteed success per day) reveal that you actually burgled it from them at some point in the recent past (if you had access).

Archaeologists Guild

That belongs in a museum! No, *my* museum, not yours... no, not even if you're still using it, now hand it over, it's priceless!

Starting Equipment: Case of maps and pens, wide-brimmed hat, machete, whip, leather armor
Skills (2, d6): 1. Cartography, 2. History, 3. Merchantry, 4. Occult, 5. Religion, 6. Soldier

Abilities

1. Appraisal
    ✧: You can tell the rough value (within an order of magnitude) and historical/geographic provenance of items, architecture, etc. You know how to dismantle them to get 20% value from the more manageable components, rather than the ordinary 10% for defaced art.
    ✧✧: You can identify that an object, effect, or creature is magic on sight. Gain the ability to Speak with Art.
    ✧✧✧: Gain the ability to Speak with Magic.
2. Bag of Tricks
    ✧: You have a Bag of Tricks, which takes up 2 inventory slots. While you have inventory slots in your Bag that haven't yet been filled with defined items, you may produce a mundane tool of neglegible value from your Bag that will help you solve a current problem. It then takes up one of the inventory slots in your Bag of Tricks. You may clean out and refill your Bag when you return to town.
    ✧✧: Your Bag now has 4 slots.
    ✧✧✧: Your Bag no longer contributes to encumbrance.
3. Cunning Linguist
    ✧: Three times, you may encounter a language that the party does not understand, and reveal that you speak that language. Add that language to your character sheet, you are now fluent in it.
    ✧✧: You can attempt to translate any language you don't speak. The GM rolls a d6 secretly for the number of errors you make in the translation.
    ✧✧✧: You can crudely communicate with anything that has a language. Gain the ability to speak with (d6: 1. Birds, 2. Clothing, 3. Doors, 4. Gold, 5. Fire, 6. Weapons)
4. Danger Sense
    ✧: 3-in-6 chance of acting in surprise round when ambushed, advantage on saves against effects you haven't seen yet.
    ✧✧: Always act in surprise rounds; always act first in initiative order.
    ✧✧✧: Once, you may cheat death.
5. Historian
    ✧: On a 1-in-6, you may declare a historical fact relevant to the current situation (negotiate it with the GM). Whether correct or not, it's believed to be true in the current era.
    ✧✧: One automatic success per day, then 2-in-6 for each following event.
    ✧✧✧: 3-in-6, and the historical facts you declare can be outlandish - but your reputation will make them believed.
6. Second Story Worker
    ✧: You can climb vertical surfaces as quickly as you can walk.
    ✧✧: Double your move speed and jump distance.
    ✧✧✧: You can climb upside down as quickly as you can walk. Halve fall damage.

The Far Traveler

The Traveler is probably the class I'd like to run a mono-class game of the most, with something like a d100 list of locations and a caravan-based plot. Such is their design that they're very modular; they could work for practically any genre or setting - merely replace the Been There table with planets for a sci-fi game, or nations, or just other biomes familiar and strange.

Traveler

by Daarken

Level 1: Been There, Done That
Level 2: +1 Done That, We've Met (2 Contact Dice)
Level 3: +1 Done That, +1 Contact Die
Level 4: +1 Done that, +1 Contact Die

Hit Die: d6
Starting Equipment: Sturdy warm cloak, heavy boots, random melee weapon, leather gambeson, leather greaves, set of dice or cards, telescope, annotated map of surrounding lands and logbook
Skills (d20, roll twice): 
1. Animal Handling
2. Astrology
3. Banditry
4. Begging
5. Butchery
6. Cartography
7. Foraging
8. Fortune Telling
9. Herbology
10. Holding Liquor
11. Hunting
12. Languages
13. Medicine
14. Merchantry
15. Pilgrimage
16. Riding
17. Sailing
18. Surviving Improbably
19. Tinkering
20. Use Rope

Been There: Roll three times on the following table for exotic locations you've traveled through. If you roll a duplicate, instead pick from the results above and below it (or just roll until you get a unique result). Each comes with a corresponding perk. When in similar locations, or the locations themselves, you have advantage on wayfinding/navigation, know the dangers of the region and their tell-tale omens, and double your party's travel speed.

These locations are specific to the Meatropolis and the Turtle-Corpse. Make new ones or rename these ones to flavor your setting. Or don't, and just assume there's a gigantic meat wasteland somewhere out there (that might be more fun, tbh).

1. The Meatropolis. The last city in a world gone rotten, pretending it's somehow immune from the pervasive rot and decay. They haven't seen the Turtle like you have. They think they're safe in their bone-spires, protected from parasites and disease by their reliance on blood-iron. They talk a big game, but they're soft like unworked muscle. You never settled down there; you brought trophies from the rest of the Turtle and feasted for weeks on the resulting riches, then left drained and bare-footed once the spoils ran dry.

You have a debt of d10*d10*d10gp (or indentured servitude until you complete a task to recover something worth same), and begin at level 2. You cannot level up until you've paid off your debt.

2. Cyclopean Shell-Ruins. Vast halls carved for people twice as tall as you, now frosted over from exposure, condensation, and neglect. The howls of fleshcrafted creatures too stubborn to die (and giants snoring in their stored slumber, awaiting a war for their awakening) still resound across its barren shellscape. You still remember the stars twinkling their baleful songs high above, and the comforting loneliness of the jagged ice.

You can map spaces with echolocation. Reveals room shapes and hollow walls. Makes a high-pitched keening audible anywhere within the mapped range.

3. Arterial Lattices. The Turtle's disparate organs are stitched together by arteries and veins, each as thick around as the greatest towers of the old world. While the blood clots and drips away at Ogoath's extremities, auxiliary hearts continue their frenzied pumping - for now. You crewed a subsanguine, ferrying passengers and cargoes from organ to organ and port to port, dodging blood cells playing sentry, cancerkrakens, parasite bloodworms, and - of course - vampirates.

You can identify things by tasting their blood. Pick one of the following to learn when you do (can't get more than one kind of info per creature):
- Time since blood separated from owner
- You can recognize the owner by smell
- Types of recent stressors, afflictions, substances in the owner's blood

4. Fungal Forests. At the skin and scales and fins of the turtle, the rot has set in deep. Spores from the farthest stars have taken root, growing mycological ecosystems and spreading their roots far. They've become a hunting ground for their own mutant food chains, all ultimately scavenging the rancid yet omnipresent meat of Ogoath. Gasbags floating on toxic fumes, sinuous insects twisting their way through tall stalk-forests, rains of glimmering spores whose appearance belies their danger - it's a realm of plenty, and power, and beauty, and if you make even one wrong move you could get eaten by the very ground you walk on. You harvested exotic spores and sap and carapaces from the deadly alien ecosystem, touching the ground little more than once a week, rappeling between trees and hunting in the choked vertical maze of decay.

You can scale surfaces at your walking speed, and can catch yourself midway when you fall within arm's reach of a surface (roll a d6 to see how far you fall before catching yourself, 6 is near the top, 1 is near the bottom). You still take falling damage.

5. Incubator Fields. They boil with eggs, birthing and metastasizing and hatching. Orphaned turtletomas (as the mutant hatchlings are affectionately termed) flock in hunting packs through withered egg-tubes. They're good eating, and even better trained as pack-beasts, mounts, or pets. Your travels brought you here, to the lands where all disputes are settled with custom-bred turtles, and cities are hacked into the side of giant eggshells.

You have a pet turtletoma. It's the size and personality of a round, slow german shepherd and has d6 each of eyes, heads, tails, shells, and legs, as well as a random positive mutation. Whenever you level up, it gains a new positive or mixed mutation and a new hit die (d6).

6. Starfolk Refuges. In sheer metal, woven and forged, dotting Ogoath's underbelly, lie the Refuges. Generation ships from worlds that ended long ago, seeking a new world undying. They failed in their quest, but bring strange devices and creations to the Turtle which may someday prove its salvation - or its final doom. You learned some ship of starfolk's tricks, and lived among them for a time, swathed in iron, breathing through a mask.

You speak a star-language. You have whatever new organs are needed to speak it - mandibles, internal gizzards, hooting membranes... The star-languages are spoken by certain starfolk, and carry the force of the dominions of stars with them. No lies can be spoken in star-language, and creatures from the stars will respond to it instinctively (if not necessarily positively).

7. Gigaparasite Corpse. The whalefall (turtlefall?) of Ogoath's death brought forth the vast gigapredators and scavengers between the stars. They gorged themselves and burrowed deep; some remain chewing through the bounty, others were brought down by heroic (Pyrrhic) effort when they encroached on people's homes. The corpses themselves often became shantytowns, where undesirables were sent to hack apart the star-hardened carapace and convert it into weapons. You traveled through a corpse the size of a nation, where the abundance of weapons and scarcity of meat pushed many to war and many more to eat the inedible.

You can prepare and eat the rotting dead. Your immune system will tolerate 1 ration's worth of rotting, awful, impossibly decayed meat a day.

8. Liveria. Where everything ends up, eventually. A mass of the purified dead, walking again as even entropy is purged from their flayed bones. Toxins and bile drip from the liver, to maintain fabled utopias of salt-crystal spires atop the gorged organ. The livches trade blessings for baubles, trinkets, mementos of the world outside, unable to leave the source of their immortality. Bring rot, and treasure, and you will leave rich in purified flesh.

Owed a favor by a livch. The favor comes in the form of a glob of stem cells in your liver. When you need them most, they will become what you need, and the livch's debt will be paid.

9. Alveol Tradewinds. Winds and weather systems gust furiously through the cavernous gaps between organs. Skyriders fly skin-gliders on the currents, leading charges through bloody thunderstorms against their fellows over petty grievances. The shrieking winds drive one to ever-greater feats of strength and madness, creating and destroying heroes every day, abraded like children's toys. Elementals spark to life in the bitter-cold sky, tearing themselves from winds and flesh into necromantic ravagers that know only hate. You flew the horror-skies with wild abandon, for fun or glory or repentance. While your time there has ended, the winds still howl in your nightmares.

You can pick out specific sounds from the background noise no matter how loud or quiet an area is. You cannot be ambushed by anything that can make noise.

10. Cemetery Brain. Ogoath's mind was always impenetrable, both in content and in location, until it died and began to rot. Instead of fungal blooms or parasite infestations, it serenely crumbles away, eroded by the stellar winds and the footsteps of plunderers. Ghosts of memories flit between barely-active neurons, and qualia jump into the minds of other mortals, desperate to be experienced once more. In life, Ogoath learned secrets of the stars and the worlds and deep time; secrets that still call to travelers and adventurers from across its corpse. You sought knowledge, tightly bound your skin with rags and bandages to protect from the scouring thoughts and burning winds, and came out alive - perhaps wiser, perhaps more knowledgeable, perhaps less you than you went in.

You know what it is like to be the Turtle. Your spine is its spine, your mouth its beak, your hands its fins. Your mind knows the scale of aeons and the rumblings of continents upon your shell. When the world comes knocking, you can muster the strength of a world to resist its imposition upon your splendor. Retreat into your mind-shell and become unresponsive for a day, to resist any mental effect.

11. Fleshplains. Muscle fibers from here to the horizon, twitching with the last electrochemical rivers of neural input. The ground trembles, but still you run, for there's still a week's travel between here and the next bolthole. If you aren't there, then, you'll be crushed as the muscle folds in on itself. Life on the fleshplains is an unending race against time, hiding from the landscape itself contorting in death throes. You are stillness where the world is convulsion, you have learned to read the faintest quivers in expression and the tremors in the ground to stay on your feet both literally and metaphorically.

You can't fall down or be knocked over when on a flat surface. You can read hidden meanings and emotions in microexpressions.

12. The Blood Sea. The Cyclopean Empire sliced the top off the heart in their final turtle-shaping project, and revealed an ocean of blood as vast and as deep as a world. You plied its seething, bubbling currents, visiting ports around the sea and islands of clotsam that float atop its surface. All manner of dangers and defenses lurk below the opaque surface, but you've come to an uneasy detente with them - enough standoffs and near-misses has accustomed them to your presence.

Creatures borne of the Turtle will not attack you if you personally don't provoke them first.

Done That: Your journeys have changed you and given you power. Whether it's techniques other travelers have taught you, ways the environment has twisted you, or tricks you picked up along the way, these have kept you alive - and will continue to do so, Turtle willing.

1. Positive mutation
2. Supernatural mutation
3. Mixed mutation
4. Cosmetic mutation, roll again
5. Negative mutation, roll again
6. Random spell and 1 magic die
7. 3 random cuts (as Butcher)
8. Random talent (as Thief)
9. Random fighting style (as Fighter)
10. Random formula, can make with 1 die (as Chemist)

We've Met: Spend Contact Dice in a social interaction to realize you know someone in the interaction from your travels, and roll 1 die for each feature you want them to have. The extent and usefulness of the feature is based on how well you roll. You can spend multiple dice on one feature to take the highest of those dice. If you roll doubles when making a Contact, also roll a Complication. Spent Contact Dice return on a long rest, or when you enter a new settlement.

Sample Features
Information: 1. Common local wisdom → 6. Secrets known to few
Item: 1. They've got something similar, but you'll need to be creative → 6. They've got exactly what you need and are willing to share
Location: 1. Temporary access to a generic kind of place you're looking for → 6. Round-the-clock access to the exact venue you need
Relationship: 1. You met once, a long time ago → 6. You've been close since childhood
Skill: 1. Decent at a relevant skill → 6. Multiple class levels
Loyalty: 1. You met them once on the road and parted amicably → 6. You travelled the Turtle together, sharing fortune and hardship, and are as close as family

Complications
1. They want a favor from you before they help you out.
2. They're in danger and can't do anything that would attract attention.
3. They don't remember you. Oops.
4. They're doing something you find distasteful, perhaps at cross purposes to your aims.
5. They're working with/in a relationship with someone who doesn't like you, who's around making their own demands.
6. Their value to you has been misrepresented somehow. Decrease their highest feature by 2 (if it goes negative, they're actively going to hinder you).

The Chemist

I've had a whole bunch of cool ideas locked up in my Mad Scientist Witch for a long time. I've also been looking for another class for The Turtle Moved, my meatpunk setting, to replace clerics. The solution? The miracle of chemistry!

Chemist

by Daeyoon Huh

"Two parts boil, one part bubble, one part toil, one part trouble... nonsense. Bring me the saltpeter and sulfur."

Level 1: Alchemy, Reagent Hunter, 2 Formulae
Level 2: 1 Trick, +1 Formula
Level 3: +1 Trick, +1 Formula
Level 4: Magnum Opus, +1 Formula, +1 Trick

Hit Die: d6
Starting Equipment: Cauldron, alchemical tools (tongs, vials, solvents, etc), book of formulae, 3 reagents
Skills: Alchemy and d6: 1. Cooking, 2. Cultistry, 3. Herbology, 4. Philosophy, 5. Poisoning, 6. Witchcraft

Alchemy: With a cauldron and your alchemical tools, you have the training to make alchemical Crafts out of the Formulae you know. To do alchemy, you invest a part of yourself into your work. When you make a Craft with a Formula, you expend one or more magical or valuable Reagents (some examples: d100 Catalysts), and roll up to (level) d6s. Subtract the (sum) from the listed ability score, until the Craft is used up. Use the chosen number of (dice) and the rolled (sum) where listed in the Craft. The Craft's effects will vary based on the properties of the Reagent you used.

Reagent Hunter: You have an eye for magical trinkets with alchemical properties. You can lick an item to determine if it's magical (or at least not-mundane-enough to be worth turning into a Craft). When you're in an interesting location, you can harvest a reagent from the area on a (level)-in-6.

Tricks: Little things you've figured out to make your job easier.
1. Alchemic Grafts: You may fuse your Crafts into the bodies of living things. When fused, they apply the stat penalty to their host, but last for their maximum duration.
2. Magic Maker: There's magic in anything if you use enough layers of metaphor. You can construct a new reagent from a mundane item, given a laboratory and a daily rest. Crafts made with these reagents are capped at 1 die and 1 sum.
3. Mass Production: When you mix a Formula, you may make up to (sum) Crafts with (sum) divided across them. (dice) for each of these Crafts is 1.
4. Mutatis Mutandis: You can add an extra (die) to mutate your Craft on the spell mutation table. Don't add this die to (dice) or (sum), but do subtract the result from the listed score.
5. Quick Mix: You can mix a Formula in one turn, instead of ten minutes. If you do, subtract (dice)*6 from the listed score, instead of (sum). Takes the whole turn, you still need the cauldron.
6. Scrimper: You can reuse reagents once. When reused, (sum) = (dice).

Magnum Opus: Invent a new formula! Sacrifice points from a random score each time you mix it.

Formulae

1. Bomb (STR): Invest your strength into a purely destructive tool. When used, it explodes, dealing (sum) damage of a type relevant to the reagent (save for half) in a (dice)*10' radius and applying an effect based on the reagent's properties. Can set to detonate on a timer or on impact (or both!). Spent points return after detonation.

2. Drug (STR): Create a drug that when taken gives +(dice) to one score and -(dice) to another, and a relevant positive and negative mutation or a relative mixed mutation. Lasts for (sum) hours. After the duration ends, anyone who takes the drug must CON save vs. addiction. Failure makes the penalties stay around until you've spent a week sober for each hit you've taken. Spent points return after the drug is taken.

3. Creation (DEX): The reagent becomes a (sum)*(sum)' cube of related material! Can be set to transmute on a timer or impact. Lasts for (sum) minutes/hours/days/months (1/2/3/4 dice). Spent points return after duration expires. You may make it expire early with special solvents from your kit.

4. Ray (DEX): Slowly release the built-up magical energies of the reagent to fire rays that deal (dice)d6 damage of a type relevant to the reagent and apply a relevant effect (range 100'), equivalent to a minor wound. May make the effect stronger (equivalent to a major wound) by forgoing damage. Has (sum) charges. Spent points return after it runs out of charges.

5. Salve (CON): Restore or remove (sum) HP when applied (your choice) and give the applied creature either a temporary relevant mutation or resistance or vulnerability to a relevant damage type or effect. The effect lasts for (sum) minutes/hours/days (1/2/3+ dice) or until the salve is removed (it's probably not waterproof). Spent points return when effect expires.

6. Scroll (CON): Convert the reagent into a spell-capturing device that imprisons a relevant spell on a prepared piece of vellum soaked in pungent alchemical lures. It becomes a scroll with (dice) and (sum) equal to what you invested in the formula. Spent points return when the scroll is used.

7. Philosophy (INT): Write literature and theories inspired by your studies of a reagent. Disseminate it in town to get (sum) followers with skills and social status relevant to the reagent. They treat you as a near-spiritual leader, and form a cult of personality around you - though they won't actively go into combat for you, they'll do favors for shreds of your wisdom. You may also pick (dice) of the following.
- One follower has a class level in a relevant class
- d6 of your followers are of a higher social class, with connections in relevant places
- (dice) of your followers are willing to die for your cause
- Your followers have 10^(dice)gp they're willing to spend on the cause, no strings attached
Spent points return when you leave the development of the philosophy to others, causing your cult to leave you, or when you break the trust of your followers and they decide the philosophy is better off without you.

8. Spirit (INT): Summon and bind a powerful, intelligent spirit that's drawn to the reagent. It will perform (dice) favors for you. The spirit's power and capabilities are determined by (sum) (1 is a dog, 6 is a person, 12 is a wizard, 18 is an angel). When you dismiss it, or when the favors run out, you get the  points back.

9. Transmutation (WIS): You convert the reagent into a new similar magically potent thing. Any crafts made with it can't have (sum) higher than the first (sum) rolled for this. Needs an additional (die) to convert something already converted. Get points back when the reagent is destroyed or made into a Craft.

10. Paint (WIS): Apply a relevant property of the reagent to the surface or item you paint. Makes (sum)*dice square feet of paint. Restore points when paint is removed (you can do this with a paint scraper or with solvents in your alchemy kit).

11. Food (CHA): Cook a dish with up to (sum) servings. Each serving counts as a ration, provides a relevant temporary mutation ((sum) minutes), and has a property of the reagent (like keeping well, or tasting excellent, or poisoning the eater - see Butcher Cuts for inspiration). Points return when dish eaten and mutations wear off.

12. Homunculus (CHA): Create a being that follows your orders. It has base 8 in each ability score, with +(sum) to (dice) of those scores of your choice. It takes a form influenced by the reagent's nature, and has (dice) properties derived from the reagent. It's more independent the more (dice) you invest (dog/child/adult/outsider (1/2/3/4 dice)). It lasts for (sum) hours/days/weeks/months (1/2/3/4 dice). Points return whem homunculus is destroyed (you may destroy it yourself, though life preserves itself at any cost...)

Anyone else who wants to make a Craft out of a formula can try, with appropriate instructions (an elementary alchemy textbook would be a good start), but the value of each die is capped at the number of the following they have: advanced books on alchemy, an additional copy of the reagent, an expert on hand to help out, a year of alchemy training (this stacks up to three times).

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).

Witness the Carbarian

So I just wrote up vehicle rules, and was rightly pointed out that this is perfect for a Mad Max game. Then I heard the pun, and this followed.

[Vehicle Rules]

[Berzerker Rules]

Berzerker Conduit: Carbarian

OH, WHAT A LOVELY DAY!

The smell of nitro in your mouth. The stolen blood in your veins running as hot as detonating gasoline. Your vehicle shudders beneath you, itching, revving, screaming for you to wield it, to maim, to kill, to be Witnessed. You will oblige the machine, even if it means your death. Shiny and chrome, you will ride eternal on the Fury Road.

(Quick reminder for the Berzerker rules: You have a conduit, and gain its Passive benefit. You have Rage Dice, which are d4s. When you want to enter a rage, roll any number of your Rage Dice. THe rage lasts for (sum) minutes. Rage Dice burn out on 3s or 4s, and only return on a daily or long rest. When you roll doubles or triples on your Rage Dice, you get the related effect from your Conduit.

While raging, you get an extra attack each round, (sum) bonus temporary Hit Points, and can use the Active benefit at the cost of cutting (dice) minutes off your rage. You can't take any actions that don't contribute to you brutally murdering things while you're raging, and it automatically expires when all enemies are dead, subdued, or driven off, regardless of how much time is left. You can try to end your rage early on a 1-in-4.)

Your conduit is your vehicle. Begin with a vehicle of a randomly-determined type (1. Bike, 2. Car, 3. Van, 4. Truck, 5. Light Mech, 6. Heavy Mech); roll for all its stats with advantage and pick 2 Accessories.

Passive: One With The Machine
You pass all saves to mitigate damage from Breaches. Whenever you would restore HP from a rest, you may instead restore that many HP to your vehicle.

Active: WITNESS ME
Sacrifice 1d4 of your own HP to do one of the following:
- Restore that many of your Vehicle's HP
- Step up your Fuel die, or restore it to a d4 if you're out of gas
- Increase your Speed by that much
- Pass a Handling test to move further
- Make a Charisma check. If you succeed, Stunt (as per the human-scale combat rules).

Doubles
1. Triple your Speed. Automatically Breach.
2. You can pick which Breaches or Wounds your attacks with your vehicle deal. Halve your Speed.
3. Increase the range of squares you can move to by 1. Successful Handling tests increase it by a further 1. Anyone else in the vehicle while you're moving has to save or take d4 bludgeoning damage.
4. Take no damage from Ramming attacks. You can't reduce your Speed.

Triples
1. Whenever you deal damage to a vehicle, you can move your Speed again in any direction. You take damage with advantage from Ramming attacks.
2. Treat your Vehicle as if it had an additional Accessory of your choice. Using that Accessory costs 1 Vehicle HP.
3. Whenever you attack with your vehicle, you must make a Charisma check to perform a Stunt of your choice. Whenever any of your Stunts fail, you suffer d4 Psychic damage.
4. Roll twice on the Doubles table.

by Shane Molina

Introducing the All-New 1019 Toyota Barbarian

I'm playing in a 5e game right now broadly styled after (I am told) JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run. It's a race, run rather loosely (incredibly so by the standards of 5e), and the party has a battlewagon that I take great joy in using as my primary weapon. I'm not quite satisfied with just rolling endless Athletics tests, however, so I decided after seeing the excellent pen-and-paper game Racetrack that I could write up some proper system-agnostic (though GLOG-intended) Vehicle rules. These aren't as rules-light as some of the stuff I've written, instead intended for a game in which vehicles play center stage.

by 47ness

Vehicles are treated similarly to characters and have the following stats, which can be tested like player character stats in relevant circumstances. All stats are determined by the vehicle's Chassis, which gives typical ranges for the stats.

POWer: top speed, acceleration
HANdling: maneuverability, stopping distance
DURability: withstanding damage, pushing limits
CAPacity: the number of people/stuff it can hold comfortably (1 CAP ~ 10 inventory slots, or one person)
FUel: the maximum size of the Fuel die.
Hit Points: as player HP, though measured on a different scale. Damage from person-scale weapons is always minimized unless it's really strong, by the same token damage to people from a vehicle-scale attack is always maximized.

Movement
This system of vehicle movement requires a grid, and broadly follows the rules of Racetrack. Vehicles are marked at intersections of grid lines, not in individual squares, and they move between these points. On its turn, a vehicle can move once. From a standstill it can move to any adjacent point; while in motion it moves almost the same distance and direction it moved the previous turn, but its trajectory can be altered to one of the eight points surrounding the point it would move to if it maintained course and speed. These can be affected further in various ways, detailed below.

Your Speed is the number of grid squares you're traveling in height+width (if you're moving 4 up and 2 across, your speed is 6). Your Power is the upper safe limit on the vehicle's speed. You may make a Power test before moving to increase or decrease your speed by up to the amount of points you succeed by (must follow same ratio as to keep direction of movement constant, rounding down).
If you want to increase speed past Power, make a Durability test. If you fail, take d4 damage from the strain. Whenever your Speed is above your Power, you make Handling tests at disadvantage.
You can make a Handling test to increase the range of squares you can move to by 1, and an additional 1 for each 5 points you succeed by.

Every hour, or whenever you make a move that would deplete Fuel, roll the Fuel die. On a 1, it downgrades. When it's a d4 and downgrades, you're Out Of Gas and need to refuel.

When a vehicle would collide with another vehicle (whether by intentionally ramming or spinning out of control), both take damage equal to the other's hit die, +1 for every 5 POW each vehicle is traveling at (DUR save for half).
Vehicles use DUR to defend against attacks. Any damage that causes a Vehicle to fall to or below 0 HP causes a roll on the Breach table. When a vehicle is reduced to -max HP, it's Slagged; roll to see how.

Breach Table
1. Slowed; lose Speed equal to 2*damage taken, all occupants take d4 damage (DEX save halves)
2. Hull Breach; random occupant takes max damage from breaching effect (CON save halves)
3. Chassis Cracked; -4 DUR, random occupant must save or be thrown from vehicle
4. Popped Tire; -3 HAN, -3 POW
5. Fuel Tank Breached; take FU Die fire damage; everyone inside takes half that much damage (CON save negates)
6. Steering Cut; must pass a HAN save to not move at random; additional Breaches of this result give -3 HAN

Slagged Table
1. Flipped; vehicle is overturned, move vehicle 2 points in random direction and all occupants take vehicle's HD bludgeoning damage (DEX save halves)
2. Shredded; nothing of the outer chassis remains. All occupants take half damage from the attacking weapon (DEX save negates)
3. Burnout; engine block and all interior systems catch fire, all occupants take d8 fire damage (CON save negates)
4. Out of Control; vehicle will continue moving in current direction at increasing speed (making DUR tests to do so each round) until it either crashes or shreds itself from failed DUR tests.

Chassis
Bike: d4 HD, 4d6 drop lowest POW, 4d6 drop lowest HAN, 2d6 DUR, d2 CAP, d6 FU
Car: d6 HD, 3d6 POW, 3d6 HAN, 3d6 DUR, 2d4 CAP, d8 FU
Van: d8 HD, 3d6 POW, 4d6 drop highest HAN, 4d6 drop lowest DUR, 2d6 CAP, d10 FU
Truck: d10 HD, 3d6 POW, 2d6 HAN, 4d6 drop lowest DUR, 3d6 CAP, d10 FU
Tank: d12 HD, 3d6 POW, 1d6 HAN, 4d8 drop lowest DUR, 2d4 CAP, d6 FU
Train: d10 HD, 5d6 POW, 1d6 HAN, 4d6 drop lowest DUR, 6d6 CAP, needs tracks, d12 FU

Light Mech: d6 HD, 3d6/2 POW, 4d6 drop lowest HAN, 3d6 DUR, d2 CAP, d8 FU, Crawler
Heavy Mech: d10 HD, 2d6/2 POW, 3d6 HAN, 4d6 drop lowest DUR, d4 CAP, d8 FU, Crawler
Titanomech: 2d12 HD, 1d6/2 POW, 2d6 HAN, 6d6 DUR, d6 CAP, d4 FU, Crawler

Accessories
Ablative Armor: Reduce damage taken until first Breach by 1 for each attack
All Wheel Drive: Can move twice per turn, at half distance each move
Autobrain: Doesn't need a pilot, will follow simple orders (a short program of directional and acceleration instructions) input through levers in pilot's seat and continue executing them until complete or OVERRIDE switch thrown. 1-in-20 chance to fail to execute any particular order.
Crash Bags: On first Breach, prevent all damage dealt to occupants
Crawler: Legs instead of wheels. Halve POW, but increase range of altering trajectory during move by 1.
Ejection Seat: Can eject pilot in case of Breach or when manually triggered. Launches occupant 2d10*10' away from vehicle. Seat has parachute, deploys on a 5-in-6.
Extra Fuel Tank: Step up maximum FU die size
Extra Seats: Max out CAP
Jump Booster: Deplete FU 1 step to vertically jump (HAN test)*10' up. Test DUR on landing, on fail take HD damage.
Living Quarters: It's got amenities which (CAP/2) people can take proper daily rests in.
Monster Wheels: Advantage on HAN tests to cross rough terrain, ramming also lets you run over the target and make an additional ramming attack
Mounted Weapon: Vehicle-sized weapon; typically some sort of mounted crossbow or cannon, perhaps something more exotic. Deals damage as appropriate human-scale weapon, but sized for vehicles. Always deals max damage to human-scale targets. Takes up 1 CAP.
Muted Engine: Roll over your POW+current Speed to drive stealthily.
Pressurized: Fully sealed environment; unless ruptured, immune to smoke/gas/water/etc
Ramming Prow: Deal ramming damage with advantage, when ramming with prow you take damage at disadvantage
Spiky: Step up damage die for dealing damage ramming or when rammed
Tow Cable: Make an attack against another target to latch onto it, POW test to pull target along with you, only 1 latched target per cable
Trailer: Roll CAP dice and add them to total CAP, anything in those slots are open-air
Treads: Halve POW, but ignore terrain penalties
Turbocharger: Roll to deplete FU to automatically succeed on POW test (if speeding up, roll until you succeed)

Delilah's Different Dealership's Fantastic Selection of Assorted Conveyances
Melf's Magnificent Manacycle (Bike)
POW 18, HAN 13, DUR 5, CAP 1, d6 FU, HP 2
Crash Bags, Ejection Seat

General Magicks 1013 Adventurer (Car)
POW 6, HAN 14, DUR 11, CAP 5, d10 FU, HP 4
Extra Fuel Tank, All Wheel Drive

Kitbashed Battlewagon (Truck)
POW 7, HAN 4, DUR 14, CAP 12, d10 FU, HP 7
Turbocharger, Ramming Prow

Scrapper Unit 01 (Light Mech)
POW 5, HAN 11, DUR 9, CAP 2, d8 FU, HP 5
Crawler, Mounted Cannon, Tow Cable

Some Terrains
Paved Road: No effects
Ice: Handling test to alter trajectory; if you fail alter it at random
Rough Terrain: Make all Power tests with disadvantage
Heavy Precipitation: All tests that require visual acuity are at disadvantage within sight range, and impossible outside it, also may make terrain count as Ice
Thick Brush: All increases in Speed are halved, all decreases are doubled
Back Alleys: Speed-in-100 chance of hitting something important you didn't see whenever you move (examples: cabbage stand, steam valve, flock of dire pigeons, scaffolding, iron fence, pedestrian)
Traffic Jam: Top Speed capped at 3 (if you're lucky)

The Artificer

There's been a recent influx of inventors in the GLOGosphere. B44L's Inventor, Arnold K.'s Kludger, and now I'm throwing my hat in the ring with something I've been working on for a while. Tinkering with it, with allen keys and tiny tweezers, tightening bolts and gluing joints, alloying inks and bytes into a well-oiled machine.

Artificer

"Deus ex machina? Then what does that make me?"

Level 1: Fixer, Inventor, 2 Blueprints, d6 Creation Die
Level 2: Overcharge, Rigger, +1 Blueprint, d8 CD
Level 3: Kitbash, +1 Blueprint, d10 CD
Level 4: Strange Mood, +1 Blueprint of choice, d12 CD

Hit Die: d4
Starting Equipment: Toolkit (inc. screwdrivers, chisels, handsaw, tweezers, wrenches, etc.), crowbar, sketchbook of diagrams, charcoal pens, large backpack (+3 inventory slots) full of 3 slots of materials (roll on table)
Skills (roll 2): 1. Alchemy, 2. Architecture, 3. Art, 4. Clockmaking, 5. Engineering, 6. Lore, 7. Mathematics, 8. Merchantry, 9. Natural Philosophy, 10. Sculpting, 11. Tinkering, 12. Use Rope

Fixer: With the right parts, you can repair mundane items to brand-new. Takes an hour at least if the original parts aren't all there; longer for larger or more broken objects.

Inventor: You've studied how to build complex machines from raw materials. Each machine has a Blueprint, a list of Descriptors, and some Functions. When you roll to learn a Blueprint (either at character creation or on level-up), roll your Creation Die on the Blueprints list.

Blueprints define the basic structure of the creation. Use your CD if you need a damage die or some other measure of effectiveness, roll CD with disadvantage if you're using it outside its functions.

Descriptors are adjectives and phrases applied to the creation, based on the materials used in its construction.

Functions are things the creation can do by default. All creations have a base function listed on their Blueprint, that you can modify. Adding additional functions requires more materials.

When you want to build a creation, select at least as many slots of raw materials as the Blueprint requires and roll your Creation Die for each one. If you roll a 6+ for that material, you can add a Descriptor based on the material to the creation. If you roll a 1 or a 2, you can add an additional Function based on the material to your creation. No matter the results of the rolls, you create it and consume all the materials you used in the process.

Building a creation takes 1 hour per CD. You can choose to do a rush job and complete it in 10 minutes per slot of material, but it will break irreparably within 24 hours or the first time you critically fail while using it, whichever comes first.

Sample Materials
1. Base metal (iron, copper, tin, etc)
2. Refined metal (steel, bronze, etc)
3. Precious metal (silver, gold, platinum, etc)
4. Wood
5. Clockwork
6. Preserved animal parts (leather, bladders, bone, etc)
7. Cut gems
8. Raw gems

Blueprints
1. Tool (3+ materials): Held, lets you apply force to objects. A shovel, a sword, etc.
2. Garment (3+ materials): Worn, gives you a passive bonus. Armor, a cloak, etc.
3. Vessel (1+ materials): A bottle of something. Consumed on use.
4. Gauge (2+ materials): Measures something. An hourglass, a telescope, a thermometer, etc.
5. Launcher (4+ materials): Fires something at range; whether that be a material used in its creation or whatever you put in it.
6. Apparatus (5+ materials): Exists in place, can be disassembled and moved. A shelter, a workbench, a printing press.
7. Transport (5+ materials): Moves under its own power, is directly controlled.
8. Material (2+ materials): Fuses the properties of its components. Always provides a descriptor or a function (your choice) to follow-up creations.
9. Homunculus (4+ materials): Moves under its own power and follows simple directions.
10. Prosthesis (4+ materials): Is fused with a living creature and acts as a limb or organ.
11. Life (6+ materials): A nonsapient creature that moves and acts of its own accord.
12. Mind (8+ materials): An inanimate thinking machine with the reasoning powers of any mortal.

Overcharge: You can destroy an item as you use it to vastly increase its efficacy. Make all rolls involved in its use with double advantage (roll three times, take highest).

Rigger: You can set up networks of tripwires and pressure plates (etc) that activate your creations in response to the environment. 1 slot of materials becomes CD triggers. The materials are consumed, and the triggers break on activation.

Kitbash: With 1 slot of relevant materials to bridge the two, you can combine two of your creations into something greater than the sum of their parts. Each additional creation you add costs additional slots of materials equal to the number of creations already kitbashed together.

Strange Mood: You are Inspired. The plans for something brilliant and utterly new spring into your mind, and from your mind to a dozen notebooks. It is your life's work, your ultimate ambition, an idea so powerful that because it does not yet exist you must work tirelessly to bring it into being. You get to invent something entirely new of your choice. It will work. The GM will tell you what you need to make it. Go forth and do so.

Violence is Never the Answer but Always an Option

My Turning People Into Corpses post is popular and gets linked around every so often, but is actually pretty outdated. I've overhauled the combat in Mimics & Miscreants a few times now, and I think it's at the point where it's stable enough for me to make a new post. It shares the chit initative, multiple choices defenses, and dismemberment tables of the original version, but has been refined in several important ways that I comment on below.

Initiative
Everyone in the combat gets a chit. Draw chits out of a bag at random; whoever’s chit is drawn takes their turn. When the bag runs out of chits, put all the chits back in and start a new round.

This doesn't depend on DEX anymore, and everyone gets a turn every round. If you want to go first, get a surprise round; otherwise it's anyone's game.

On Your Turn
Can attack and move, or do something else and move, or attack and do something else. Casting a spell or spell-like ability takes your whole turn.

This hasn't changed. Speed is whatever makes sense for your game, I always run combat in theater of the mind (or with minimal visual aid) so actual distances don't quite make sense for me. If you want, use the default 30ft walk/60ft run distances, modified as appropriate by folk and calling.

Fighting 
Attacking: Roll d20+your attack ability (Strength in melee, Dexterity at range, Intelligence for spells, Wisdom for miracles). If your enemy has Armor, you have to meet 20+Armor instead of just 20.

Mimics & Miscreants is now modifierless and sum-to-20. Roll a d20, add the whole appropriate ability score, and see if you meet or beat 20. If you do, you succeed.

If you hit, roll damage. If your enemy has taken more damage this round that their Armor, Wound them. If you fail, they can Take It or Dodge. Natural 1s always miss, and natural 20s roll double damage dice.

Armor now also negates Wounds, in a way I borrowed from the excellent card game Keyforge. Once you've taken more damage than your Armor, you'll start getting Wounded; this refreshes each round. Heavy armor is good against one person, but you'll be overwhelmed by hordes or barrages.

Stunts: When you attack, if you want to do something more complicated with your attack (like tripping, shield sundering, pushing, called shots…), you can Stunt. To Stunt, attack with disadvantage, but inflict that extra effect if you hit (in addition to damage).

No one Stunts in my games. I don't know how these rules hold up in play.

Unarmed Attacks deal d4 bludgeoning damage by default. If you're dual-wielding, you can make 2 attacks per turn, but you step down your damage dice.

Defending: Roll d20+Dexterity+Armor. If you succeed, you can Dodge or Take It. On a 20, you also get to take an extra turn afterwards. On a 1, they crit you for double damage dice. If you fail, the enemy rolls damage and Wounds you if the damage is greater than your armor.

Only the players roll in this system. If you want enemies to be more accurate, you can impose disadvantage or other penalties on Defense rolls. One of my philosophies is that players shouldn't just be sitting there listening to the GM recite numbers, because I've been both a player and a GM in that situation and it's boring no matter which side of the table you're on. Players also like rolling dice, no matter what OSR theorists like to say about rolling as few dice as possible, and I'm here to give them their polyhedron fix.

Dodge: Take no damage and move 5'. If you can’t move 5’, you can’t dodge.

You can choose to either evade all the damage or take some of it. If you're surrounded, you'll have to start taking damage. Making Dodging a viable but not ideal option is one of the trickiest problems I've faced in this system, and I'm still not convinced I've cracked it.

Take It (melee): Both sides deal damage, rolled with disadvantage.

This is why you'd choose to take damage - you get to hit back. It's less likely to Wound, but still can chip away (or, with a lucky roll and large enough weapon, inflict some serious damage). Gives players something to do when attacked, which is nice.

Take It (ranged): You take damage (rolled with disadvantage), and can shoot back if you have a ranged attack. This can keep going until someone dodges or dies.

I haven't tried this yet in play. Might need tweaking to prevent endless ranged duels, or maybe those are fun enough to keep this as part of the system.

Parrying: If you’re wielding an item that lets you parry (like a rapier or a buckler) when you Take It in melee, you can make a regular attack back. If you hit, you deal damage and take no damage; if you miss they must Take It - or parry back!

This now extends Taking It, and gives faster characters a choice instead of just dodging every attack. Obviously if you can't parry (hi Wizards), you'll just dodge, but thieves and rangers and everyone addicted to rapiers because they're so powerful in 5e are going to have a good time.

Resting
A short rest takes 10 minutes of downtime and consumes 1 ration. You may spend a Hit Die to roll it and restore that much HP. Heal 1 ability damage. -d4 Stress.

A daily rest takes 8 hours of sleep and downtime and consumes 1 ration. Roll any HD you have left to heal HP, then regain all spent HD. Heal 1 HD of ability damage. -d8 Stress.

A long rest takes a week of sleep, shelter, downtime, and full meals. Set your HP to maximum, roll all HD and heal that much ability damage, set Stress to 0.

One of the big changes to Wounds is that they're all based on damaging ability scores now. Instead of healing discrete wounds (which made little sense with lost body parts), you now just heal the mechanical damage.

Hit Points and Wounds
HP represents your ability to shrug off major damage. You can keep fighting until your wounds become incapacitating. You might not want to. At character creation, you start with 1 Hit Die, which by default is a d6. You spend and roll Hit Dice to restore HP. Some Callings or Folk modify the die size. Some Callings also gain more Hit Dice when you level up.

When you’re wounded by a hit, if it reduces you to ≥0 HP and you've taken more damage this turn than you have Armor, take a random Minor Wound from the appropriate damage table. If it reduces you to <0 HP, take a random Major Wound instead. Whenever you take a Major Wound that you’ve already taken this combat, save vs. death.

Wounds now aren't based on the amount of damage dealt, they're rolled on a table (because I love me my random tables) and you don't instantly die at -10 anymore. Instead, you have to abrade your opponent's hit points, then overwhelm their armor to inflict Major Wounds and finish them off.

Physical Wounds
Bludgeoning
Minor
1. Knockdown. They fall prone; can’t dodge, crawl half speed, disadvantage on attack/defense, take move to stand
2. Disarm. Knock their weapon out of their hand. If they can’t be disarmed, reroll.
3. Fractured arm. -1 DEX, disadvantage on attacks (hit ends)
4. Hobbled leg. -1 STR, CON save to move (save ends)
5. Rattled. -1 INT, -1 WIS
6. Sundered. -2 Armor, this breaks shield if they have one (if they have no shield or armor, reroll).

Major
1-2. Concussed. -2 INT, -2 WIS, -2 CHA. Save vs. unconsciousness.
3-4. Bones shattered. Leg or arm becomes unusable. -2 STR. Save vs. knockdown and halve speed if leg, -2 DEX if arm.
5-6. Organs pulped. -4 CON.

Piercing
Minor
1. Bleeding. Next attack deals damage with advantage.
2. Pinned. If you leave your weapon in, you can disable their arm/leg while it’s in. Removing it gives -2 CON.
3. Punctured guts. -1 CON, -1 STR.
4. Eye gouged. DEX save vs. blinding (save ends). Disadvantage on attacks (hit ends).
5. Laceration. Hurts like hell, take 1 fewer action next turn or d3 damage.
6. Armor penetrating. -3 Armor against your attacks.

Major
1-2. Lose an eye. -2 DEX, -2 CHA, disadvantage on tasks that need depth perception.
3-4. Punctured lung. -1 CON whenever you make a physical test.
5-6. Skewered. -3 CON, pinned to whatever’s behind you, whatever’s behind you takes half damage from the attack.

Slashing
Minor
1. Tendon severed. Disadvantage on attacks or CON save to move (your choice).
2. Laceration. Hurts like hell, take 1 fewer action next turn or d3 damage.
3. Finger loss. DEX save vs. disarm, -1 DEX.
4. Sliced. Chunk of them falls off. -2 max HP (heal as ability damage).
5. Cleaved. Attack keeps going to adjacent enemy, deals half damage to them.
6. Facial scar. DEX save vs. blinding (save ends). -2 CHA.

Major
1-2. Lose an arm. -2 DEX, -2 STR, one fewer arm.
3-4. Gaping wound. -3 CON; each turn it goes without medical attention take -1 STR and -1 DEX.
5-6. Lose a leg. -4 STR, knocked down, one fewer leg.

Firearm
Minor
1-2. Holed. Next attack deals damage with advantage.
3-4. Deafened. Save vs. deafening (save ends), -1 INT, -1 WIS from ringing in ears.
5-6. Embedded. -1 DEX, CON save to move (save ends).

Major
1-3. Organ ruined. -3 to a random ability score, gain d6 Stress.
4-6. Blown apart. Lose a (d6: 1. hand, 2. arm, 3. leg, 4. eye, 5. ear, 6. jaw).

Elemental Wounds
Acid
Minor: Etched. -2 Armor, can go into negatives. Healed as ability damage.
Major: Scoured. d3 items are melted away.

Cold
Minor: Chilled. -1 DEX. stuck to whatever you’re touching. STR save to break free.
Major: Frostbitten. -2 DEX. STR save to move, attack, or defend until rest.

Fire
Minor: Scorched. -1 CON. 1 random flammable object burns away.
Major: Blazing. Inflict Scorching each turn until fire is put out.

Lightning
Minor: Shocked. STR save vs. disarm. -1 STR and -1 DEX. -2 STR and -2 DEX if wearing metal armor.
Major: Paralyzed. -2 STR, CON save vs. paralysis (save ends). If wearing metal armor, fail the first save.

Necrotic
Minor: Withered. -1 STR, -1 DEX, -1 CON.
Major: Aged. -1 to each ability score.

Psychic
Minor: Panicked. -1 WIS, gain d6 Stress.
Major: Traumatized. -1 INT, -1 WIS, -1 CHA, gain d6 Stress.

You can adapt my Esoteric Wounds simply by making the 0-4 wound the Minor Wound, the 5-9 one the Major Wound, and the 10+ one an effect on death.

A Mind is a Horrible Thing to WASTE

I'll let this class SPEAK for itself; it's pretty much an extension of my previous post on psionics, after I realized that I could carve it into a class (as I'm wont to do with any of my ideas).

Psion

(art by Peter Mohrbacher)

You THINK, therefore you ARE.

Level 1: WORD, choose a Dictate
Level 2: Echoes, random Dictate
Level 3: Devotees, choose a Dictate
Level 4: Choose a Dictate, random Dictate

Hit Die: d6
Starting Equipment: Common clothes, light of inspiration in your eyes, sheaf of scribblings on the essential nature of the universe
Skills (d6):
1. Art
2. Hermitage
3. Languages
4. Lore
5. Occult
6. Poetry

WORD: You are a WORD. To wield your psionic powers, compose a sentence that uses your WORD as the main verb. Roll 1d6 for each word in the sentence. If the total is less than your INT, the sentence occurs, to the letter. If the total is greater, the GM gets to change 1 of the words in the sentence (besides your word) for each die that came up 3 or greater, then the new sentence takes effect. In any case, something will happen. Psionic effects only persist while you are within line of sight. You can only have (INT) words of effects going at any time.

Echoes: Where you walk, your WORD occurs around you and lingers. You know when others attempt to WORD around you, and once you have WORDed, the next (Psion level) others trying to WORD near you or in your footsteps have either advantage or disadvantage (your choice, though you must choose one for all WORDing).

Devotees: As you travel through populated areas, you collect disciples through the sheer power of your presence. They won't leave you alone, at least, not for long. You could grant them cosmic wisdom, or perhaps merely spread half-truths and white lies. Regardless, you have up to 10 hangers-on, collecting d6 in each town you come across (step die up or down in settlements of other sizes). Some will seek you out from far and wide. They will follow orders that you cloak in authority and mysticism - and are also easy fodder for your WORD, if you wish to wield it in less tasteful ways.

Dictates
1. Aeon. Your WORD transcends time itself. Temporal prepositions like when, tomorrow, in an hour, etc. do not count towards your word limit or contribute d6s to your roll.
2. Anagrammatist. You can also wield WORDs that are anagrams (whole or partial) of your WORD. If you do, it counts as 3 words for your sentence.
3. Animator. Your sentences can animate objects to perform your WORD. When you make a sentence, you can have an object around you wield your WORD as if it was speaking the sentence.
4. Ascetic. You can sustain yourself on WORDs alone. When you successfully speak a sentence of six or more words, you can heal a minor wound or ignore your need for a ration during a rest.
5. Dictator. Your wordness is far deeper than others. Others you can see must make a CHA save to WORD without your permission.
6. Empath. You hear thoughts of creatures within line of sight that align with your WORD. You can dive deeper into a creature's mind on a (Psion level)-in-6 and view a memory of your choice that aligns with your WORD.
7. Far Traveler. You can teleport to anywhere that is under the effect of one of your sentences. You may do this (Psion level) times per day.
8. Flesh-speaker. Your body is malleable, shaped by your WORD. References to you and your biology are immutable in your sentences, and you can maintain an additional (Psion level)*3 words of sentences referring to your body.
9. Gourmand. When you eat something, you can choose a WORD it is. That WORD is immutable in your sentences. You can only have (Psion level) of words eaten at any one time.
10. Icon. You have advantage on actions that involve your WORD, so long as you have an audience of at least 10 who know what you're doing.
11. Intensifier. Intensification or diminutive adjectives don't count to your word limit or contribute d6s to your roll.
12. Legate. Your sentences are LAW. If you wish, they can linger in a location even once you have departed. Whenever you pronounce a new LAW, there is a (Psion level)-in-6 that your previous LAWs remain in place even if this would exceed your INT in words.
13. Psirurgeon. You can implant thoughts with your WORD in others' minds on a (Psion level)-in-6. If you can read minds, you can also remove thoughts or memories with your WORD on a (Psion level)-in-6.
14. Punctual. Invent a piece of punctuation. You can use it in your sentences.
15. Scribe. You can wield WORDs that are one letter different from your WORD, either by replacement, addition, or deletion. If you do, it counts as 3 words for your sentence.
16. Seer. You can divine when a specific action with your WORD will take place. Compose and roll for a sentence as if you were trying to wield your WORD. If you succeed, you know when and where that action will next occur. If you fail, that future becomes cloudy, and you cannot divine it again.
17. Truenamer. Names do not count as words for your sentences, and are as immutable as your WORD.
18. Universal Linguist. You speak and understand all languages, but only when you are talking about a subject related to your WORD.
19. Warmind. Acts of violence you commit with your WORD will always cause harm to the target you intended.
20. World-Poet. You can also wield words that rhyme with your WORD. If you do, it counts as 3 words for your sentence.

Sample WORDs (d50)
1. ACCEPT
2. AM
3. BE
4. BECOME
5. BEGIN
6. BEND
7. BRING
8. BURN
9. CALL
10. CHANGE
11. CHOOSE
12. COME
13. COVER
14. CREATE
15. DEMAND
16. DENY
17. EAT
18. END
19. ENTER
20. EXCEED
21. EXPAND
22. FEEL
23. FIND
24. GIVE
25. GO
26. GROW
27. HELP
28. KEEP
29. KNOW
30. LEAVE
31. LEAVE
32. LIE
33. LOOK
34. LOVE
35. MOVE
36. NAME
37. NEED
38. PUSH
39. PUT
40. RUIN
41. SAVE
42. SHOW
43. SPEAK
44. STRIKE
45. TAKE
46. TEAR
47. THINK
48. TRY
49. TURN
50. WANT