Nameless Searcher asks:

“can ur poo turn in two a fungus or worm as i feel like summons running up an down my body”

 

Dear Reader,

Thankyou for your query regarding poo, and its inherent ability to form a portal through which fungal worms may be summoned!

The sensation you describe running up and down your body is in fact the molecules of your very being vibrating at a different frequency in order to allow entrance from the beyond, and should subside within 3-4 days once the fruiting conqueror has settled within the new confines of your flesh. In the meantime, it would be wise to refrain from inspecting your rectum in any way, as the sudden appearance of a finger, or leering eyes reflected in a mirror, could be construed as aggression by your new symbiotic god, elevating its rage to fevered heights that would make the very mountains weep.

As in all things, deal with your new guest with softness and compassion, and in no time at all you will begin to reap the fruit that your warmth and poo has sown.

 

With Heartfelt Regards,

Last Gasp.

So you’re sloshing about in hot muck swinging knives around, sounds like a germ orgy to me.

 

I love the theory of the Humours and the batshit insanity that is medical history, so what started as a list of medical services in Cörpathium turned into four tables of available cures from the major practitioners and the side effects of their failure, as well as a table of Infections and Diseases for them to cure. Because your 3rd Level Cleric isn’t always going to be around you know.

 

After any encounter where you take a flesh wound, roll under your Constitution. If you fail you have contracted an Infection, which probably won’t slow you down too much but it’ll be really icky. If you roll an ultimate-fail 20 that’s not infected, you’ve gone and caught yourself a Disease.

Once you have an Infection or Disease you can stop rolling, anything else that tries to get inside you just gets eaten up by the established bacteria.

 

 

	Infections -– 4d4 hours to manifest
d12
1	Your skin grows raw and red and sprouts enormous blood blisters that swell to the size of a small apple before popping in arcs of putrid plasma, over and over again like boiling mud baths.
2	Pus weeps from your throat and crusts into barnacle-like lesions on your neck, causing intense pain if you speak anything but lies.
3	A crater-like pox mars the flesh around the wound and creeps up your neck. The vinegary stench grows when you are under stress or heightened excitement and puffs of yellow vapour vent from the pox. Save vs. Poison or suffer the effects of Confusion.
4	The wound will not heal properly; rather than closing, small bunches of fleshy tendrils emerge from the cloven flesh, like the fingers of babies.
5	Thick black tears leak from your eyes, clouding your vision, and you find that after you have wiped them away, when your fingers are stained black with oil, your eyelids cling together every time you blink, your hands stiffen, like fingertrap lockjaw.
6	The skin around the wound hardens and crusts in blackening shards like a burning tree, then begins its creeping spread. +1 AC for the first week is pretty great, but then your joints begin to stiffen, walking becomes a chore, you'd rather lay down in the dirt, bury your fingers and breathe in the muck..
7	Your organs grind and groan like a wounded animal. Every d8 hours you will spend d2 Turns in agony while you pass a grotesque opalescent kidney stone. After you've stopped crying you can sell it as a spell component.
8	The sound of dogs barking inflicts searing pain upon your bowels, you break out in fragrant pink boils in the sun, you have an overwhelming craving for all manner of crawling insects.
9	Every d6 hours you disgorge a surging mass of green bile that continues to bubble and churn after it has left your throat.
10	Gob Rot. Your gums fester and peel back, you swallow parts of your tongue as it begins to putrefy, teeth drool out of your mouth while you speak.
11	Swollen boils sprout from your skin, oddly puckered like an anus. If they are still present after a week, the next time you are amongst a large group of people they unfurl like glistening mucus-coated blossoms of skin, violently jettisoning flesh spores into the air.
12	Fibrous purple fronds curl out from your skin, interwoven and fragile, ever-growing. It would be beautiful if they weren't siphoning off your blood supply.

 

 

 

	Diseases -– 4d8 hours to manifest, roll cure chance twice and take the lowest
d12
1	Sticky, caustic sweat beads from your pores. It burns those that touch you like watered-down acid and corrodes anything exposed to your skin within d4 Turns.
2	Tendrils of skin sprout in patches, softly swaying and bulbous at their tips. A fluid bubbles from them like snail slime trying to scare away a predator, the same consistency, the scent of compost. It is a sympathetic narcotic, every time someone takes the slime upon their tongue in order to explore the feculent gardens of their mind in search of lost inspirations, you lose yourself in the same experience.
3	The flesh around the wound becomes spongy, pliant, it exudes the scent of fuchsia. Synaesthesia ravages your psyche, and pulling away clumps of your deteriorating body makes the most deliriously beautiful music.
4	Leprous Crawl. Your flesh sloughs, a bicep one moment and a sack of atrophied muscle hanging from bone in a skin bag the next. But that's not what bothers you, it's when it comes back. Creeping up the bone, tendons attaching, muscle re-adhering, the sucking sounds within your skin. It never rebuilds the same way and your skin is starting to smell of rot. Re-roll Strength each time.
5	Your belly distends, swollen with bacteria and gas. During any physical exertion roll under Constitution to control the horrendous flatulence brimming for release. Week Two: The bloated skin of your belly is a roadmap of stretch marks, the next failed roll will see your stomach split and spilt.
6	Clothing has to be peeled away, you sweat like mucus, everyone seems to walk too fast for you. Day Two: Veins pulse beneath translucent skin, you wonder if your legs are beginning to atrophy, you know you're being neurotic but you're so tired, everyone else is so fast. Day Three: The flesh of your legs has jellied, you can see bone through blueish muck in the shape of a thigh, the translucent skin has spread up to your ribs. Day Four: Your legs collapse, lost all integrity. You might survive another day before it reaches your brain.
7	You wholeheartedly believe that tiny men with the faces of carrion birds pull themselves from your yellow blisters to whisper the secrets of the cosmos to you. Day Two: They teach you a random 9th Level Spell. When you cast it you don't realise that nothing happened, that you were mumbling gibberish, you believe yourself all-powerful. They promise you so much more. Day Three: Your companions must die, they know too much, the carrion told you so.
8	Fingers, fingers everywhere. They start as bony nubs but they emerge soon enough, calloused, without fingernails, twitching and catching on things.
9	Your skin is pocked with holes like the back of a pregnant frog. Fleshy nodules emerge to squirt thin streams of noxious green fluid before retreating back inside your skin. It isn't an infestation, it is your own flesh, and it is growing larger.
10	Resinous Influenza. It's not the bleary leaking eyes that bother you, nor the deep-bone ache or even the delirious shakes. It's the absurd amount of mucus that you expel every time you sneeze and the fact that it sets like resin almost as soon as it touches your exposed skin. Your face begins to look like a grotesque melted mask and that is not a good look for anyone.
11	The Worm of Entropy grows within your bowels, emerging from your body at night to raise up and taste the air. Not an invader, grown from your own flesh. Week One: Whenever you come into contact with a new person/entity make a Reaction Roll for yourself to figure out how you feel about them. Any time a group comes to consensus there is a 2 in 6 chance that you outright dissent. Week Two: Strength and Constitution decrease by d4 each. At night you have the uncomfortable sensation of being watched. Week Three: Your body suffers 2d4 minor Mutations. The worm is more bold now, and can be seen slipping from various orifices so that it can peer out at you. Week Four: Your flesh loses its integrity, collapsing into a gibbering pile of sentient filth from which the worm emerges, laughing sludge sloughing from it's many-hued flanks. It is transmution made flesh, save vs. Hysterical Weeping.
12	It starts with a dry itch, dustings of dead flakes falling from your skin as you scratch like chronic dandruff, turning strangely polychromatic as it settles. Week Two: It's in the flesh now, your skin has almost entirely itched away and you're scratching canals into the muscle beneath. It doesn't even look like flesh and blood anymore, just polychromatic granularity like a bathbomb. Week Three: Your hands have been ground away so you rub your itching limbs together as best you can, grinding biceps over your torso, crushing your chin against your chest. Week Four: Without anything left to scratch it with, you find that your flesh slowly regrows, but the moment your limbs build back into moveable stumps.. The polychromous decay is a powerful spell component and many of those who contract its disease end up as limbless torsos in a Maleficar's basement, unable to scream through dust-filled lungs, forever regenerating porous dusty flesh only to have it scraped away.

 

And now for the fun part! Roll randomly for a cure depending on your contacts and budget. If a cure works I doubt I’d establish it as the ongoing remedy for that condition though, this is an age of experimentation.

Since a large part of these working is a placebo effect, players should get bonuses to the chance of success if they can demonstrate that they truly believe in their authenticity. If someone collected the components for their own eel blood and crab egg enema I would give them some god damn bonuses.

 

Continue onwards for the cures or head straight to Penny Pamphlets to download everything in a spreadsheet.

 

Read the rest…

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.

 

 

 

	Malpractice
1d20
1	The flesh within the wound begins to consume itself, releasing an intense smell of rot amidst a cacophony of sucking noises and causing damage equal to the healing ritual used.
2	The wound is healed but for the next d6 hours the target is on a rollercoaster of uppers and downers, every time they try to do anything more difficult than walking there is a 50% chance of a new narcotic effect kicking in, preventing them from completing the action.
3	Boils and blisters that smell like a hangover bubble up around the wound, the target is at -2 to physical rolls for the next d4 days. These hp cannot be healed until the blisters are gone.
4	The wound heals, but little foetus arms grow out of it overnight.
5	Fat begins to flow out of the wound like a split liposuction bag, strange rodents appear out of nowhere to drink the fat until it dries up in d8 turns. These hp cannot be healed until it dries up.
6	The wound is healed but short tendrils of flesh grow from the area. Unless they are smeared with something they can consume at least once a day they will digest the flesh around them and plant the seeds for more tendrils.
7	The wound smells irresistible and the Devotee takes a d2 bite out of it.
8	The wound is healed but the target now suffers a loss of self control, needing to save vs. Poison to resist any intoxicants in their vicinity.
9	Pound of Flesh. The Devotee tears a chunk of flesh from their own body and grafts it into the target, healing the wound but taking equal damage.
10	The wound is healed but does not completely close, luminescent blue mushrooms with shimmering green gills grow from the wound, they are highly hallucinogenic when consumed but deal 1hp of damage with a 10% chance of addiction/growing from the eater's own body. They fruit once a week and turn to black sludge after 2 days.
11	No hp are restored, pink blisters swell around the Devotee's throat and burst, sending them on an acid trip for the next d6 turns.
12	The wound is healed, but the target's body swells and bloats, reducing Dexterity by 2 until they lose the weight.
13	No hp are restored, and the intoxicating smell seeping from the wound requires everyone, including the target, to save vs. Poison to stop themselves tearing at the target's flesh for consumption.
14	Chittering teeth emerge amidst the torn flesh and snap shut into a grotesque mouth where the wound used to be. The target must feed it every day or lose 1hp as the flesh around it decays.
15	No hp are restored and the target's blood flows out of their wounds, eventually turning into a clear alcohol before it stops draining out. The target is somehow able to live, but their Intelligence is reduced by 2, the Devotee would like very much to drink from them, and their blood is now flammable.
16	No hp are restored, effect as Delirium Tremens but with a bonus instead of penalty equal to caster level.
17	No hp are restored, thick round bulbs of flesh sprout all over the Devotee and burst in a yellow cloud like sporing mushrooms. Everyone within 30' must save vs. Poison or collapse in a comatose drug nightmare for the next d6 turns. The Devotee is not allowed a save.
18	The wound is healed but the area around it soon begins to turn green, weeping foul-smelling fluids and becoming almost gelatinous. 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 seething pile of bubbling green filth. Any healing from a Devotee of the Corpulent One during this time will actually progress the condition.
19	No hp are restored, the Devotee's belly splits open and spills their intestines onto the floor, causing damage equal to the healing ritual used. If they survive, their innards grow back and they regain the hp lost.
20	The wound is healed, but the next time they sleep the target must save vs. Poison or erupt in a manifestation of the Corpulent One, tearing and digesting their own flesh until there is nothing left but a pungent stain. The rest of the party will definitely hear this.

 

Read the rest…

 

Hey Logan, how do you do Hit Points?

 

Hit Points up to class starting Hit Die + Constitution modifiers measure the character’s ability to withstand injury before passing out; let’s call them Flesh. Hit Points gained beyond that measure the character’s ability to avoid injury; let’s call them Grit.

 

For example (using LotFP classes):

 

Brutus the Shamed, Deserter of the Travelling Arena (…a Fighter) rolls max Hit Points (8) and a Constitution of 17 (+2) at 1st level. At 10 Flesh he’s a strapping young specimen.

At 2nd level he rolls for Hit Points and gains 1. He already has his full class Hit Die so this goes towards Grit, and his Constitution mod pushes his Flesh up to 12. Seems like he’s been too focussed on re-living that last match with the Travelling Arena and crushing skulls to learn much about avoiding fireballs, but the scorching doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.

 

Maggie Calhoun, Undisputed Mistress of Misappropriation (Specialist) rolls 4hp (2 below max) and a Constitution of 16 (+2) at 1st level. Maggie’s a sprightly lass but her starting 6 Flesh shows that pickings have been a bit slim in the slums of Brackenholm, hence skipping town with the buff yet daft Brutus after that fateful night in the arena tent.

At 2nd level she rolls for Hit Points and gains 6. This fills out her class Hit Die and leaves 4 points for Grit, while her Constitution mod gives her another 2 Flesh. Maggie now has 10 Flesh plus 4 Grit. Seems like she’s been pilfering rations from Brutus while he’s brooding, and watching from the shadows enough to learn quite a little bit about not getting stabbed.

 

Arnestus Rutherford, Bookwyrm (Magic-User) rolls 3hp (3 below max) and a Constitution of 10 (no mod) at 1st level. At only 3 Flesh Arnestus is looking rather sickly since Brutus and Maggie convinced him to leave the Hall Between the Walls.

At 2nd level he rolls for Hit Points and gains 3. Arnestus now has his maximum 6 Flesh, but has spent too much time coming back to grips with food to learn much about the outside world.

 

 

Damage affects Grit first, which to the character will mean near misses, stunning blows, generally getting worn out by all this ducking and weaving, superficial wounds that can simply be strapped, so on and so forth. When Grit is gone the character is too worn down to ward off real physical harm, and starts taking Flesh wounds.

A character loses consciousness if reduced to 0 Flesh, and dies if reduced to negative half the class advancement Hit Die. An enemy attacking an unconscious character automatically disembowels them and feasts on the goods within.

When a critical hit is rolled against a character with Grit, the attacker has anticipated the character’s foolish jumping and stabbed them square in the chest, bypassing Grit and damaging Flesh (or in either case doing something rad that makes sense in the situation with any damage affecting the appropriate thing).

 

Attacking from behind or by surprise bypasses Grit and damages Flesh, and any single attack that deals either maximum damage or half of the character’s total Flesh worth of damage directly to Flesh causes a serious wound. This can mean losing a limb, an eye, being wounded so deeply that it will never heal properly and therefore reducing stats, blah blah blah figure it out. Suffering a serious wound will also mean the loss of any remaining Grit; finesse is hard to maintain when the gushing blood from your shoulder stump has slicked the floor around you.

 

For example:

 

Brutus the Shamed, Deserter of the Travelling Arena has had too much to drink at the Withering Apple (good cider) and insulted the local swordmaster’s trousers. And if there’s one thing Swordmaster Reginald cares about more than swordplay, it’s fashion. Reginald lunges at Brutus’ head with his rapier, scores a hit, and deals 2 damage. Brutus stood statue still but leant his head to the side, avoiding being stabbed in the face by losing his 1 point of Grit and taking 1 Flesh damage after most of his left ear comes away with the rapier.

 

In the ruckus Maggie has crept around the edge of the crowd, hoping to lift whatever that shiny thing in this old bald man’s pocket is. Unfortunately for Maggie this old bald man is a Digestive Servitor and much more aware than she gave him credit for. As Maggie draws near he turns to face her, milky-eyed and utterly hairless as his jaw drops and a torrent of yellow filth spews from his gullet. Maggie makes to roll out of the way across a table but he’s scored a critical hit and dealt 8 points of damage. Maggie leaves a sickly orange mess across the table as she rolls and by the time she hits the floor on the other side her gams are nothing but blackened bone. The critical hit bypassed Maggie’s Grit, and the serious wound causes her to lose all of said Grit as she drags herself across the floor on splintering fingernails, struggling to remain conscious on her remaining 2 points of Flesh.

 

Arnestus is still in the corner trying to tackle his Sheep’s Heel Pie.

 

 

 

BE HEALED!

 

Outside of combat, characters can roll to regain their class advancement Hit Die worth of Grit for every 10 minutes spent resting or sleeping (so Arnestus can regain 1d4 every 10 minutes). During this time they’re patching up superficial wounds, bragging to regain their confidence or just generally calming the fuck down. This does NOT have to be done in a safe place, but dropping down for a nap right after you’ve gutted the Plague Prophet in front of his congregation may not be the best idea.

Note that if the character has less than half their Flesh they can’t regain Grit until that’s dealt with via sorcery or surgeon; they’re a little too preoccupied with their spilt intestines to be practising feints.

 

 

MAGICAL HEALING IN A BOTTLE?!

 

Yeah I don’t buy in to a vial of liquid that has been infused with the same power as the Devotee of the Corpulent One who keeps trying to convert us.

In place of Healing Potions I like a nice flask of Cuckold’s Courage.

 

Cuckold’s Courage:

The (allegedly) original brew comes in a bottle printed with a woman’s face blowing a cheeky kiss and wearing stag horns, which by popular lore was first brewed for an apothecary’s brother unable to deal with his infamously unfaithful wife, but its like can be found almost anywhere. Other names it has been found under include Deadbeat’s Draught, Slattern’s Ruin, and the always subtle Hang The Harlot.

It is a mixture of booze, narcotics, and some other things you probably don’t want to know about prepared by your local alchemist or apothecary. Being lucrative as all hell, the preparation of Cuckold’s Courage is fiercely guarded by those who’ve had the knowledge passed on to them, so good luck figuring out how to brew your own.

Cuckold’s Courage costs 50 silver groats (or whatever your standard currency is) per d6 it is brewed to restore, plus a 50sp tip of the hat to the brewer. Cuckold’s Courage can ONLY be used to restore Grit, not Flesh. It can, however, be used to increase Grit above normal limits for d6 hours, and will immediately end stunning effects.

If the character drinks more than 2 bottles within 24 hours they run the risk of adverse affects and addiction.

 

 

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIIIS?!?!

 

Well I guess it depends on what you feel makes more sense.

Option Number One being that the longer a character adventures around the more injury they are able to sustain, until they can walk around with arrows sticking out of their spines and flaps of flesh hanging off like it ain’t a thing.

Or, Option Number Two being that while they do become somewhat hardier, the longer a character adventures around the more they learn about avoiding injury, whether it be sidestepping a sword thrust they would have been too clumsy to avoid when they first started out, or where best to hide when a wizard starts mumbling and his eyes get all glowy.

 

Me I’m all about Option Number Two.

It makes sense in terms of progression; at 1st level the characters are fairly inexperienced regarding the things they’ll be facing, but the more they learn the better they get at not losing body parts. So the longer they’re around the more competent they become but remain human rather than turning into demigod battlewagons.

It also does away with a lot of resource-management healing. When pretty much every fight is going to mean flesh wounds there’s going to be a lot of magical healing being thrown around before we make it out of this hellhole. But when sliding the last cultist off your sword with 1 point of Grit left means that you fought with everything you had to avoid being cut by their filth-encrusted blades, you can have a bit of a rest on a bed made of their corpses or neck a bottle of Cuckold’s Courage and you’re good to go.

It also means that combat is ALWAYS a dangerous option. Brutus can reach 7th level and have let’s say 40 Grit on top of his (thanks to Constitution mods) 22 Flesh, but a critical hit in the second round of combat can mean his opponent managed to anticipate his next move and cut his legs out from under him. Or that a peasant got reeeeeally lucky with his pitchfork.

 

 

[Addendum: some dying and infection mechanics have been added to this in The House of Rules]