Following on from the last post, here’s some actual Mystics.
Devotee of the Corpulent One
They Worship What Now?
More a projection of collective behaviour and desire than a real deity, the Corpulent One manifests as an enormous bloated humanoid being that sprouts arms and various other body parts almost at random from its pustulent body.
Devotees worship him in excess of all things, food, liquor, narcotics, lust.
Facts and Foibles
- Devotees do not have a measure of Faith, but must be in a constant state of intoxication or excess to perform rituals. While in this state they are at -2 for all physical rolls, and unless you’re terrible at life should be role-played like the messy hedonists they are.
- Devotees often make use of glass cups to help maintain a constant state of inebriation. A liquid narcotic is poured into the cup and heated, which the Devotee then suctions to their back for absorption through the skin. This or something like it is what passes for a Holy Symbol among Devotees.
- If they are sober but wish to cast a ritual the Devotee must make a Test of Faith roll, or may gain d4 temporary Faith points by performing an act of excess like necking a full bottle of moonshine or devouring an entire roasted boar leg.
- On a 20 on Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me the Devotee loses their mind and transforms into a manifestation of the Corpulent One with a healthy appetite. HD equal to the Devotee’s level, 1 +1 per HD attacks with multiple arms and mouths, 20% chance per round of vomiting in a 10′ spray, save vs. Poison or trip balls. Everyone is on the menu.
Rituals
Delirium Tremens
Mystic Level 1
Duration: Instantaneous
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: Touch
The Devotee drains themselves of all intoxicants and narcotic effects, becoming utterly sober, and transfers it to a single target.
The target must save vs. Poison with a penalty equal to caster level or shiver and shake and sweat and retch and shit themselves to death under the full weight of a Devotee’s worship of excess.
If they save they’ll still be cripplingly intoxicated for the next 3d8 hours.
Endless Feast
Mystic Level 1 (replaces Turn Undead)
Duration: It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Casting Time: 2 rounds
Range: 60′
A feast forms out of the surrounding area; trees bend and break themselves into a table, fully-laden platters form from dust and refuse and vapour swirls out of the air and settles as wine into goblets.
1d6 + caster level beings within view who aren’t Devotees of the Corpulent One must save vs. Magic at -2 or begin to partake in the feast. Other Mystics can save as normal and people of the Devotee’s choosing can save at +2. Creatures who are above human-like desires are unaffected.
While the feast continues anyone that comes within 10′ must save to avoid joining. Anyone trying to drag someone away from the feast will find that they’re grafted to the seat.
A further save can be made every day to try to leave the feast, but the amount of food and wine consumed each day decreases Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength by 1 (if they don’t have ability scores, just figure out which one of those things they’d have the most of and set an appropriate number). Once any score reaches zero the Corpulent One manifests at the table and consumes them, laughing hysterically and gulping from a great goblet of wine.
Seeing this causes anyone still partaking in the feast to save at a further -1 from then on.
Casting Endless Feast immediately sobers the Devotee.
Womb of the Wounded Wretch (inspired by Protest the Hero – Wretch)
They Worship What Now?
A fertile mother of gods, mutilated and no longer able to conceive.
Sometimes a woman’s pregnancy stagnates in their 8th term, they have prophetic dreams of the terrible glory of their child and of the Wretch who has blessed them. Some choose to become Wombs.
In a constant state of pregnancy, their divine power comes from the foetus they carry.
The Wretch is a real being, but the maddening thing she is gestating inside the Womb is no god.
Facts and Foibles
- Wombs Cure Wounds by allowing others to suckle on their lactating breasts.
- Their Holy Symbol is a string of children’s teeth, wrapped around their wrist like a rosary. Where the teeth come from is not up for discussion.
- They have a maximum Dexterity of 8.
- On a 20 on That Which Should Not Be the Womb collapses into labour, her body torn open as she gives birth as Summon, HD equal to Womb’s level.
Rituals
An Infant’s Despair
Mystic Level 1 (replaces Turn Undead)
Duration: 1d4+2 turns
Casting Time: 2 rounds
Range: 120′
Roll 2d6 on Turn Undead table as normal.
If successful 1d6 + caster level beings hear nothing but the agonised cries of offspring of their species and flee either to escape the sound or find the child. The Womb can continue to roll every round until she fails or the ritual ends.
While the Womb remains in place performing the ritual, other beings, including her companions, cannot stand to be within 10′ of her until the ritual ends.
Creatures that do not produce children are unaffected.
A result of “D” means they hear the sound of the Womb’s child and flock to her, understanding her through the child, willing to do anything she wishes until they perish. Anything.
Malpractice | |
1d20 | |
1 | The target's throat seizes up and the milk they have consumed churns in their stomach, melting their stomach lining and causing damage equal to the healing ritual used. |
2 | The wound is healed but for the next d6 hours the target needs to drink from the Womb every 2 turns or they become dizzy and nauseous and collapse. |
3 | Tiny fingers emerge from the wound and will remain there twiddling about for the next d4 days. These hp cannot be healed until the fingers are gone. |
4 | The wound is healed but every night for the next week the target has terrible prophetic dreams about the Womb's nightmare child and the apocalypse it will wreak. |
5 | The moment the taste of milk touches their tongue the target's mind is filled with the hysterical world-shaking screams of the Womb's child, they fall to the floor, retching in pain, and reduce their Wisdom by 4 for the next d8 hours, during which time they cannot be healed. |
6 | The wound is healed but the target's teeth fall out. Blood fills their mouth and new teeth are already growing, falling from their jaw again as soon as they have emerged. Until this ends in d6 hours the target takes a -2 penalty to all rolls. |
7 | The target feels that rather than drinking from the Womb's breast, they are being drunk by it. The target loses a further d2hp. |
8 | The wound is healed but the target becomes catatonic for the next d8 hours. They awake with +1 Wisdom and never speak of what they dreamt. |
9 | The target begins to taste copper, the Womb's own blood flows from her breasts, healing the wound but taking equal damage. |
10 | The unborn child pulls itself from the Womb, everyone witnesses this but no one is able to move, the child slides down her legs, dragging its umbilical cord behind it, and climbs to your wound. It looks into your eyes and dispassionately opens its mouth, shrieking like a distant wind, it wraps its mouth around your wound and you feel something drawn from your flesh; blood and infection and something more. You all watch as it crawls away and pulls itself back into the Womb, forcing her legs apart to allow it entry. The wound is healed and none of you will remember any of this. |
11 | No hp are healed, the target sheds a layer of skin, shivering and shaking like a moist rebirth. |
12 | The wound is healed but the target suddenly realises that their face has grafted to the Womb's breast. Either the breast or the target's mouth and a goodly portion of their cheek will need to be removed to get them apart. |
13 | No hp are healed, as the target is drinking something yanks them between the Womb's legs and is trying to pull them all the way in, physics have lost their meaning. Opposed Strength check against a Strength of 12 + caster level. |
14 | Drinking from the Womb, the target regains half the rolled amount of hp, but they can feel themselves changing, it feels wrong but they cannot stop, they need their fill, this change is divine. Roll on Transmutation table. |
15 | No hp are healed, the target loses consciousness and decreases a random ability score by 1, the Womb stumbles with a cramped belly, others may or may nor notice the teeth dripping from between her legs. |
16 | No hp are healed, eyes open from within the target's flesh, blinking away the blood as they emerge at random, they see everything, the target can never put it to words, they decrease Intelligence by d6 and add it to Wisdom. |
17 | No hp are healed, everyone within 30' must save vs. Magic or scream in terror as they feel something chewing within their mind, permanently losing 1 point of Intelligence and gaining a random Insanity. The Womb herself is unaffected. |
18 | The wound is healed but the target's belly soon becomes swollen and painful, like a malnourished child. The target must save vs. Poison every day to reverse the swelling of their belly, taking a penalty to physical rolls for every stage it advances. Unknown to them a child of the Wounded Wretch is trying to gestate inside them. To completely recover, the target must make 3 saves in a row, if they fail a save it swells back to where it started, and if they fail 3 times in a row their body and everything it contained bursts like a balloon full of offal, neither the target or the child able to bear the strain of birthing from the target's unsuitable shell. Any healing from a Womb of the Wounded Wretch during this time will actually progress the condition. |
19 | No hp are restored, the Womb collapses in agony for turns equal to the healing ritual used, blood seeps from between her legs and she loses d4hp, it feels like being eaten from within. |
20 | The wound is healed, but the next time they sleep the target must save vs. Poison. If they fail, the Womb's child will leave its mother in the dark of night, crawling to the target in jealousy, wanting its mother's milk, draining much more than that.In the morning all that the party will find is a twisted dry husk, bones collapsed and shattered into fragments and a skull stretched into a surrealist's terror. |
Ashen Other Symbosiate
They Worship What Now?
Who even knows.
Covered in dark, angry welts and boils, host to what they see as the physical manifestation of their strange god.
Facts and Foibles
- They can cause gangly creatures resembling a hybrid of spider, crab, and flea to hatch from their flesh. The creatures seem composed of dark, damp clumps and shards of ash. Doing so costs the Symbosiate 2hp/rounds per HD of creatures hatched, either as a swarm or as a single large creature. If a creature is hatched using only 1hp/round it will have d4 hp, deals the same flat amount of damage, and will crumble after that many rounds.
- My god lives in me.. They gain d4 Faith after hatching creatures from their flesh of a full HD or more.
- Their Holy Symbol consists of a ring on every finger carved from burnt bone.
- They Cure Wounds by vomiting a clump of tiny creatures onto the wound who knit the flesh back together, often sealing themselves inside and decomposing like a salve.
- On a 20 on Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me the Symbosiate’s body is ripped apart in the hatching of a creature/creatures with HD equal to the Symbosiate’s level + 6.
Rituals
Bearer of the Catharsis Censer
Mystic Level 1 (replaces Turn Undead)
Duration: 1d4+2 turns
Casting Time: 2 rounds
Range: 60′
Roll 2d6 on Turn Undead table as normal.
If successful smoke billows outwards from the Symbosiate in swirls and waves, and 1d6 + caster level beings that breathe it in find there are things crawling inside their lungs, through their veins, around their brain.
Chemicals released by the things crawling inside them trigger a breakdown of emotional walls, some become hysterical, others enraged, some wail and lament until their throats bleed. Repressed memories and feelings, not entirely their own, are torn to the surface and those affected are paralysed by overwhelming emotion.
The Symbosiate can continue to roll every round until they fail or the ritual ends.
When the ritual ends some of those affected will be ruined by what they were forced to experience, while others will have been given a new lease on life, purged and made new.
While the Symbosiate remains in place performing the ritual, other beings, including their companions, cannot stand to be within 10′ until the ritual ends.
A result of “D” means the Symbosiate can choose to destroy their minds, or take them on as death-loyal followers.
Lover of Bakhri of the Black Pit, the Leaping One, the Crooked One, Blood of the Harvest
(inspired by Goatsbride by Richard Gavin, from the Fungi anthology)
They Worship What Now?
A divine black goat with a phallus like a snake, constantly engorged, the pupils of its eyes are a void, the ichor of its blood darker and sweeter than wine, reeking the musty stench of carnal knowledge incarnate.
Facts and Foibles
- They decorate themselves in tattoos or scars of great single goat eyes, they need no other Holy Symbol.
- Traditionally, pierced by a hundred spears, Bakhri spilt his blood on the field where the first vineyard grew. Communities observant of Bakhri still sacrifice a goat over their fields before sewing the next harvest.
- They save vs. Poison 1 better than normal.
- They cast rituals a round faster than other Mystics as their power is more of a primal release, but can only regain Faith by communing with Bakhri in the woods at night. Any woods. They gain d8 Faith for every hour spent with him, but must save vs. Poison for every hour after the second or succumb to death throes of ecstasy, permanently losing 1 Constitution.
- They cure wounds by lapping at it like a fawn.
- Bakhri can be killed, but he will return. Crops near to the woods infest with a sweet vibrant mould, and one by one the community will dream of Bakhri, drawn to the woods at night until he appears once more. He is not truly a god, just something in the woods beyond our ken.
- On a 20 on Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me, Bakhri appears and his lover fawns before him, copulating in view of all, lifted up, impaled and living on his mighty phallus as intoxication and decay clouds from his nostrils and he brings an orgy of torn flesh to everything around him. HD equal to Lover’s level, save vs. Poison each round or suffer half movement and a penalty equal to HD for any action within 30′, with a stacking 10% chance of succumbing to primal lust every time you fail.
Rituals
The Carnal Cornucopia
Cleric Level 1 (replaces Turn Undead)
Duration: 1d4+2 turns
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: 60′
Roll 2d6 on Turn Undead table as normal.
If successful the Lover of Bakhri shakes and sweats and 1d6 + caster level beings are overcome by the dread scent of olde lust. Phantom ghostlights the colour of gaudy new exposed flesh draw them away, leading them on a pilgrimage to copulate in terror with the great Bakhri.
Bakhri’s Lover can continue to roll every round until they fail or the ritual ends.
Creatures without sexual desire are unaffected.
While Bakhri’s lover is shivering in place releasing this scent, enemies are filled with dread and can move no further if they approach within 10′, while allies within 10′ find themselves drawn to the Lover and must save vs. Magic to take any action other than fawning over them.
A result of “D” means those affected collapse in supplication to Bakhri’s lover, begging for all manner of debasement. Bakhri’s lover can choose to flood their senses, killing them with pleasure, or welcome them into his/her arms as a death-loyal harem. Unnatural beings with HD greater than the caster’s level are allowed a save vs. Magic. If successful they do not wish to be debased, they wish to debase.
Malpractice | |
1d20 | |
1 | As Bakhri's lover laps at the wound a blue fungus is left in the wake of their tongue, colonising into the wound and causing damage equal to the healing ritual used. |
2 | The wound is healed but for the next d6 turns the target shakes and collapses in a fever sweat if they move more than 10' away from Bakhri's lover. |
3 | Diseased looking green hairy lichen sprouts from the wound, the target loses function in their legs and can do nothing but beg for sexual gratification. These hp cannot be healed until someone responds to their pleading or the moss withers away and dies in d4 turns. |
4 | The wound is healed but a great goat eye opens in its centre. Its iris is a galaxy, its pupil the absence of everything. |
5 | The target's blood begins to flow like wine and Bakhri's lover cannot resist drinking deeper, opposed Strength check at -2 for the target, every time the target fails to kick them off Bakhri's lover drinks another hp of blood from the wound. |
6 | The wound is healed but green moss speckled with sparks of black and blue grows over the area, whenever you are affected by aggressive magic the moss grows, feeding from it. |
7 | The sensation of Bakhri's lover's tongue on their wound overcomes the target and they push the Lover's head away, driving their own fingers into the wound, relishing the blurred boundary of pain, inflicting another d2 points of damage to themselves. |
8 | Dead foliage wraps around the target like a chrysalis, like a forest floor. It will open in d8 turns, leaving the target completely healed and increasing their Constitution by 1. Small nodules of bone can be felt on the back of their head, their back is a patchwork of scratches and there are teeth marks on the back of their neck. |
9 | Bakhri's lover weeps as they lap at the wound, their tears running into the flesh as it seals closed, healing it but taking equal damage themselves. |
10 | The wound is healed but from this moment on, when the target looks at Bakhri's lover they see something clinging to their back. Enormous phantom horns curling from its skull, half as large as it is, its eyes are those of a demoniac goat, constantly dripping viscous blood that morphs and rolls as it splatters over Bakhri's lover, ghostlights with hands and mouths and tongues constantly float around the engorged glowing phallus writhing from its groin. |
11 | No hp are restored, as they walk away dark blood oozes from the target's wounds, and musty vines slowly sprout up where it lands. |
12 | The wound is healed but thick curls of dark fur grow from the target's groin and their cock (if female they grow one) swells with blood, taking on a plum hue and remaining painfully erect and over double its normal size no matter what the target does. They may need to visit Bakhri with his Lover to remove the affliction. |
13 | No hp are restored, a deep purple snake emerges from the wound, shedding its skin after emerging mere inches, its quivering pink flesh continuing to writhe out as purple skin rolls and bunches above the wound, eyeless, with a stiff shallow mouth that opens like a sigh, seeking Bakhri's lover's throat. The target loses another d2hp and Bakhri's lover spends a turn swallowing the tender pink serpent. |
14 | The target's bones snap and stretch, their face elongates, moss-covered horns spiral from their skull, their shoulders raise and broaden and their spine curls into a hunch, dangling ropey arms tipped in blackened claws past fur-covered backturned knees, a familiar ancient scent wafts over Bakhri's lover. The target regains half the rolled amount of hp, their wounds still oozing purple blood as they walk on cloven feet. Save vs. Poison to revert in d6 turns, otherwise remain as a chosen of Bakhri. |
15 | No hp are restored, withered black grapes grow from the wound. Anyone who eats of them gains 1 Dexterity. |
16 | No hp are restored, the wound grows tufts of fur around it, it will never heal even when the hp have been regained, its inner surface will merely seal. During the night the target feels phantom touches probing into their wound. |
17 | No hp are restored, Bakhri's lover sweats uncontrollably and everyone within 30' must save vs. Poison or enter an orgiastic frenzy with no regard for anything but lust for the next d6 turns. Bakhri's lover is not allowed a save. |
18 | The wound is healed but the area around it soon itches intensely, sprouting small shoots of wheat and mould. The target must save vs. Poison every day to prevent the condition progressing and taking over more of their body, taking a penalty to physical rolls for every stage it advances. To completely recover, the target must make 3 saves in a row, if they fail a save it regresses to its initial condition, and if they fail 3 times in a row their body collapses in a veritable compost pile, supporting enormous deformed shoots of vibrantly coated wheat. Any healing from a Lover of Bakhri during this time will actually progress the condition. |
19 | No hp are restored, at the first taste of blood Bakhri's lover shrieks in agony, their stomach churning. Save vs. Poison, otherwise roots sprout from the Lover's belly, anchoring them to the ground as parts of their body begin to burst into seeds of flesh and settle on the ground about them, a gnarled, ancient vineyard overgrowing around them in an ever-widening area. |
20 | The wound is healed, but the next time they sleep the target must save vs. Poison. If they fail, they answer Bakhri's call, wandering off naked into the night. Their body will never be found. |
And there you go.
As with the Maleficar business, I’d like to put together a decent PDF of the Mystic rules and tables. I’d say the Mystics will have a few more rituals by then too.
In the meantime you can download the tables and Mystics from Penny Pamphlets for some good times.
I love this. I really like the idea that clerics of different gods fuck up in different ways. It’s the other side of the coin from god-specific spell lists, but doesn’t require the players to look any stuff up.
There’s another layer here, too: the idea that clerics of different gods cast the same spell in different ways. That, also could be explored a little bit.
Also, you must have very tolerant players. There’s like five times up there where stuff shoots out of or into a vagina. Just sayin’.
Hahahaha, most of those do involve the Womb of the Wounded Wretch though, and she’s very vagina-oriented to begin with.
You kind of know what you’re signing up for when you decide to play a Womb.