Back in this post I mentioned testing out new Mystic rules, and the new religion we made up based around a Florian Bertmer illustration entitled “Order of the Seven Serpents”.

Well I’m pretty sure I’ve smoothed them out to a point where they’re both easy and flexible enough for public consumption, so here you go.

 

The actual cards are below (I print them on A4 card, punch out the holes and bind them to make a little book), but this is the general idea:

• Mystics no longer have set spell lists.
• Instead, they can attempt to make anything happen that they think their god would be in to (though there are general guidelines called Liturgies that make some things harder to make happen than others).
• After announcing what they want, they make a 4d6 roll on the Invocation table, which can be altered by using Favour points that they’ve earned by doing appropriately religious things.
• I got over LotFP’s dreary nihilistic “there are no gods just delusion”, it’s much more fun if the things Mystics are worshipping are actually real.
  There are still going to be mishaps, but instead of being the Mystic’s delusion wavering or their god suddenly getting pissed off for no good reason, it’ll be because their god doesn’t really understand what is appropriate. So if Roy’s snake worshipper Tipanius fudges a roll in the middle of combat and gets Inopportune Favour and falls to his knees vomiting an unending torrent of slick adult snakes, the Seven Serpents will be like, “Oh haha what, you didn’t want to give birth to a thousand snakes from your mouth right now? Haha whoops sorry love you xoxo.”
• There will be specific spells that Mystics can find, where they just have to use a number of Favour points rather than rolling, but those will be things to go out and find from different cults and libraries and stuff.

 

Click to make readable.

 

And Malpractice is still a thing so here’s the table for the Seven Serpents:

 

 

d20	Malpractice - Order of the Seven Serpents
1	A black serpent slithers its shimmering body from the target, inflicting a further d4 damage as it emerges.
2	The ritual succeeds, but the target's skin becomes progressively tighter, causing an increasing -1 penalty to physical rolls every Turn, after 3 Turns their movement halves, after 6 Turns they will need to shed their skin.
3	Snake eggs form in the wound or wherever else seems suitably awkward, and the target can't be mystically healed or cured until they hatch in 2d8 hours or are accidentally destroyed. If they hatch, the target is immediately healed of all ailments and can make a one-time appeal to the Seven Serpents. If they are intentionally destroyed, a venom-dripping sludge snake forms from the yolk and attacks whoever is responsible.
4	The ritual succeeds, but an incredibly long snake tongue permanently glides in and out of the site of the wound (or other part of the body if there was no wound). It is perfectly linked to the target's sensory system, tasting the air for them, making it harder to be surprised, and easier to find things by scent.
5	For the next day the target cannot bear to keep their eyes open in bright light, but with their eyes closed can feel vibrations and sense nearby heat.
6	The ritual succeeds, but the target's skin grows dry and cracked, flaking away to reveal beautiful iridescent scales. They find themselves able to squeeze and compress themselves through anything big enough to fit their head.
7	Part of the target's skin peels back as if it were trying to renew what lies beneath, but all that lies beneath is bleeding muscle. Take d6 damage.
8	The ritual succeeds, but a churning grows in the target's stomach, inflating it, until a month later they spontaneously give birth to a stream of juvenile snakes from whichever orifice seems most convenient. This will happen every month.
9	The ritual succeeds, but tissue-eating venom bubbles up from the target's body and consumes d6hp of the Mystic's flesh before diluting.
10	The ritual succeeds, but part of the target's body withers and falls away to enhance their sleek silhouette, roll a d6: 1: An entire arm. 2: An entire hand. 3-4: d6 fingers, target's pick. 5: An entire foot. 6: An entire leg.
11	The target's saliva becomes envenomed for d4 Turns, and they'll need to let it drool out to avoid poisoning themselves by swallowing.
12	The ritual succeeds, but the target finds that a rather phallic stubby snake grows from their body. They accidentally discover that rubbing the snake and causing it to cough up coagulated venom causes it to diminish somewhat, though it seems the process would need to be repeated at least d20 times before the snake phallus clears up.
13	Gnarled curling horns twist out of the back of the target's skull and a furry, huffing goat's face emerges from their neck, opening its mouth to vomit slick red baby snakes down the target's back. Target must save vs. Poison to stop it continuing to birth and permanently stealing half of their hit points. If they stop it birthing it will remain as it is and bleat and vomit in surprise any time someone sneaks up on them.
14	The target's torso elongates, their legs shrivel and twist about one another, fusing, scales push out like growing fingernails, leaving the target with the lashing lower body of a giant serpent.
15	The target's blood turns cold, they'll need to find ways to keep warm in cold environments away from the sun to avoid losing all physical bonuses and moving at half speed.
16	The target notices small glistening tongues flicker intermittently from slits in the tips of the fingers of one arm. Over the next few days their fingers fatten, muscle in the arm turns fatty and their bones seem to break down, their fingernails fall away and scored lines open over the top of their fingers and up to their shoulder. Five serpents dwell within the arm and move it in sinuous curls, emerging up through the slits to let the arm casing slip off and hang limp to allow them to strike. Charisma check to call them out, granting 5 bite attacks, roll on Poison table for each successful bite. They'll stay active as long as you make a Charisma check every Round, but will spend a Turn getting back into your arm after the first failure. 12AC/DB, on a successful melee hit an extra snake is affected for every 2 points above target. If any of them are killed you don't need to make Charisma checks while attacking the thing responsible.
17	Anything within 30' that has eyes must save vs. Magic, otherwise small golden snakes push out from their eyes and break them like eggs, falling to the ground in a pool of yolk and occular fluid. More eggs will grow in the sockets in d12 hours, and can be turned back into eyes if the Mystic successfully heals them. If the Mystic fails, birth more snakes. Repeat.
18	The ritual succeeds, but musty hair grows in patches over their body, and two bony nubs can be felt on their skull. The target must save vs. Poison every day to prevent the condition progressing, 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 they complete their transformation into an ordinary goat with a lit candle on its forehead that never burns out. Any healing from a Servant of the Seven Serpents during this time will actually progress the condition.
19	The Mystic can feel something digging at their mind and must save vs. Poison. If they fail their body is torn apart from within by emerging singing bluebirds that swirl into the sky and fall upon all those around them.
20	The ritual succeeds, but the next time they sleep the target must save vs. Poison. If they fail, their body slowly transmutes and slithers away throughout the night until there is nothing left of them but a dry outer skin.

 

The thing I like most about these rules is that I can have Mystics of different religions running around that actual feel and play like they have different religions, without having to do, like, any work. It pretty much just happens.

 

If you’d like to make your own you can download the InDesign file for the cards from Penny Pamphlets or click here, and spend 5 minutes altering the Liturgies and Inherent Abilities to whatever religion you like.

 

And if you can’t be bothered actually writing a Malpractice table beforehand you can just use this template and make up the specifics as you need them:

 

 

d20	Malpractice Template
1	Target takes damage.
2	Ritual succeeds, but target is subject to an ongoing debilitation. (roll on Duration table)
3	Target is subject to an ongoing effect or alteration, no mystical healing or cures until it ends. (roll on Duration table)
4	Ritual succeeds, but target is subject to a permanent effect or alteration.
5	Target is subject to an ongoing debilitation. (roll on Duration table)
6	Ritual succeeds, but target is subject to a permanent effect or alteration.
7	Target takes damage.
8	Ritual succeeds, but target is subject to a permanent effect or alteration.
9	The ritual succeeds, but the Mystic takes damage.
10	Ritual succeeds, but target is subject to a permanent effect or alteration.
11	Target is subject to an ongoing effect or alteration. (roll on Duration table)
12	Ritual succeeds, but target is subject to a permanent effect or alteration until they perform a task to remove it.
13	Major mishap involving detrimental alteration, loss of hp or stats, etc.
14	Target is subject to a major permanent effect or alteration.
15	Target is subject to a permanent effect or alteration.
16	Target is subject to a permanent effect or alteration.
17	Area affect that everyone within 30' must make a save to avoid.
18	The ritual succeeds, but the target is subject to a progressing condition. The target must save vs. Poison every day to prevent the condition progressing, 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 the condition results in their spectacular death. Any healing from a Mystic of the same religion during this time will actually progress the condition.
19	Mystic must save vs. Poison or die.
20	The ritual succeeds, but the target must save vs. Poison the next night or die.

Not every potion will make you shrink, Alice.

 

 

	Unexpected Side-Effect of Consuming this Unknown Substance
d20
1	Random Mutation.
2	Your skin turns a mottled purple, like a spreading rash, over time it loses its elasticity and grows more than it should, forming wrinkled folds.
3	You hear hundreds of voices talking over each other in your head for the next d4 Turns. The thoughts of the people around you are in there somewhere.
4	It was full of the eggs of some parasitic insect. The next time you're in a crowd of people make an Intelligence check to resist the urge to embrace the nearest person in an open-mouthed kiss as you regurgitate larvae down their throat to start the next development cycle. They need to be passed on three times to reach maturity. If you resist, the larvae will die and pass out of your system.
5	Everything but your circulatory system seems to dissolve into invisibility. You can see things crawling through the space where your flesh should be.
6	Your mind goes into overdrive, flooded with possibilities. For the next hour gain a d6 bonus to each knowledge check, save, and to-hit roll. After an hour you lose consciousness for d4 Turns, with a 20% chance of gaining a random Insanity, and a 10% chance of gaining permanent knowledge of a new spell, regardless of class.
7	Your gender changes, but not very well.
8	You reek of rotting meat for the next d4 days.
9	For the next d4 days any wounds that don't kill you outright heal d6hp/Round, flesh knitting before the eyes of your bewildered foes. When the effect ends there is a percentage chance equal to hp healed that your old wounds continue healing at an accelerated rate, developing bulbous cancerous growths. If they are allowed to grow to the size of a fist they will contain a luminous green gem like a cluster of bubbles.
10	You develop extreme photosensitivity for the next 2d4 days; spending more than an hour in direct sunlight causes steam to rise from your broiling skin, I wouldn't push it.
11	The bones in your arms become soft and elasticised for d4 Turns, hanging down below your knees. They still function but it's hard to move anything but your hands, you kind of need to swing them in the right direction.
12	Scent of Fear. For the next day you exude pheromones that trigger danger signals, that mark you as an alpha predator. Animals will not attack you unless desperate, you gain appropriate bonuses to intimidation, and intelligent beings attacking you in melee must make an Intelligence check to swallow their panic.
13	Fertile Fields. Small plants and fungus sprout from your skin, it's fucking painful. Soon your back and shoulders look like rainforest undergrowth.
14	You start seeing a cherub with bored-out black hole eyes floating around you, but it doesn't exist for anyone else. The more you talk to it the more it is able to interact with reality.
15	Your teeth blacken and fall from your shrunken gums, your tongue burns as it splits like a dividing worm and stretches to twice its original length.
16	Neurons fire and multiply like catastrophic culture in a Petri dish, latent telesthesia manifests and small puckered holes open around your skull, venting thin vaporous streams. For d4 days you are able to implant irresistible mental suggestion or alter memory and perception in others simply by rolling under your Intelligence; if you wish to force them do something unthinkable or open an imploding pocket of nothingness inside their grey matter they may save vs. Poison. When the duration ends the subsiding electrical fever will cause a deterioration that permanently decreases your Intelligence by double the duration. In your heightened mental state you know this will happen. You also know that the only way to prevent the cerebral decay is to consume the brain of someone who trusts you implicitly.
17	Nothing special, you are just intoxicated, but it is a very good intoxication.
18	Your organs liquefy and leak out but you don't mind, because they are being replaced by new ones, new ones that are alive all by themselves and whisper within the cavities of your flesh and heal you and will never let you die, no matter how many times you are mangled and torn apart, no matter how much your mind begins to slip away from you, no matter how hard you cry and beg for it to all just end, they will never let you die.
19	Spilt bodily fluids take on an ethereal phosphorescent glow, marking trails and inciting awkward copulatory conversations. They are also highly flammable. Putting out a match on your tongue would conflagrate your head.
20	A Cure for Unhealthy Bibliophilic Tendencies. Touching books causes your skin to crawl, a burning itch that swells up from the palms of your hands, reading more than a few lines brings tears of near pure salt to your eyes, and soon the musty smell alone of a time-worn tome causes you to spill your stomach across the floor.

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…

Every Magic-User develops their own method of writing magical formulae, like some kind of sorcerous cipher, preventing their knowledge from being read by the plebeian unworthy.

Every other Magic-User knows the spell Read Magic, which they can cast and read anything they want.

 

Wait what? When did deciphering a madman’s work become such a throwaway bit of bag of tricks nonsense? If I was a wizard my spellbook would be overflowing with false passages and curses and traps like some kind of nightmare word labyrinth of doom, not presenting itself on a podium for the next first-day-of-magic-school Johnny that comes along. Read MY magic? I fucking think not.

So sure, Read Magic allows you to read magical writings, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to read it right.

 

When Reading Magic, save vs. Magic. Your Referee will probably apply penalties or bonuses depending on what you’re trying to read, and you can apply bonuses by concentrating really hard and using additional Cataclysm points before rolling. The number by which you succeed or fail is applied as a bonus or penalty to the 3d6 roll your Referee now makes in seeecret.

 

 

3d6	Cunning Linguists
14-18	Success
11-13	Success/Librarian's Lament
8-10	Librarian's Lament
5-7	Chaos Reigns
1-4	Tome of Terror

 

	Librarian's Lament
1d20	(d10 if the writing isn't in a book)
1	You birth a wriggling pink rat with a young version of your own face out of your mouth. It scrambles away and out of sight. It will grow to about the size of a pug, it develops translucent flaps of skin to glide on, it keeps showing up to foil your plans.
2	Tiny hideous mouths split open over the surface of the object and begin to scream.
3	Cold pink mist swells up from the object and wafts out in a 30' radius, save vs. Poison or lie down to sleep in a blanket of fog.
4	You read the writing as something utterly different, you have no reason to believe that it isn't right. If it is a spell, the first time you try to cast it a Chaos Reigns roll is triggered.
5	The object bearing the writing bursts into flame like a pile of magnesium.
6	Your eyes snap open wide and fill with churning pink clouds, black at the edges like a storm, dim flashes of light perceivable in their midst. You find yourself blind, groping in lurid darkness, until your eyes settle back on the page. Your eyes are permanently ensorcelled, unable to see anything but writing, but able to decipher any written language or cipher without aid of any kind. You may find that there is a kind of poetry in the fibre of the world itself, but learning to read that will take some time.
7	Get up from the table, go to the nearest bookshelf, close your eyes, pull down a book, flip to a random page, scan down and read the first few lines that catch your eye. For the next 2d4 days save vs. Magic whenever you want to start a conversation or cast a spell, if you fail the only words to come out are those lines over and over again.
8	Vow of Poverty. You just cursed yourself. Precious metals and gems rot within your presence, visibly deteriorating every day, leaving nothing but discoloured muck after a week of being within 15' of you.
9	Five trails of gently floating green lights appear, wafting into your lungs as they reach you. The lights are leading demoniac hounds with the hands of men and voices of children to you from various directions. Every 8 hours roll a d4 per remaining hound, on a 4 they have come to collect you.
10	Your nearest companion compulsively stabs you with whatever blade is closest to hand. A copper serpent slithers from the wound and into your hands, its blood-slicked scales are carven with arcane knowledge. (Hand the player the Magic-User spell list, they gain any spells they can legibly write down within 10 seconds. To cast the spell they must ingest a number of copper coins equal to spell level. The spells use Cataclysm as normal but do not need to be written in a spellbook or memorised.) After 10 seconds the serpent will strike out at whoever is holding it, pumping black venom into their veins if its fangs find flesh.
11	Heat emanates from the page and you absent-mindedly place your hand against it to feel the warmth. The ink burns into your skin like a tattoo. The first lie you tell will become true, and the writing on your hand will change to remind you of that for all time.
12	The book's cover grows course and hairy, legs sprout from the spine and it leaps from your hands, running across the room and up the wall. It points a strange cloaca at you from the base of its spine and expels clumps of bright green mildew at you that burns the skin, flapping away to the other side of the room if you get too close.
13	The edges of the book slice your fingers open before it drops to the floor, leaving tiny rows of perfect bloodless papercuts. They will never heal, and from this moment forth you will bleed prose. It is not for me to know what secrets may be found in your blood.
14	The book decomposes into hundreds of tiny paper mite crabs, they swarm over your arms, digging into your flesh, searching for orifices. If more than 50% of them find their way inside you, gain a spell of a random level, but you can no longer eat anything other than paper, mumbling incoherent script when you are hungry.
15	The page splits horizontally and unfolds, then vertically and unfolds, then horizontally.. again and again until the page is 15' wide. In the centre is a sketched doorway, the handle is so realistic you feel that you could reach out and grab it. If you open the door roll 1d6. The door leads you.. 1. Into the chambers of a disrobed person of note who does not take kindly to the intrusion. 2. Into a room piled high with glittering treasures. Anything you take will immediately adhere into your skin, and it will take part of you with it if torn away. Opening the door will lead you back into the room where the book lay. 3. Into the lair of a great black serpent, slumbering after feeding. Shapes like hands push out the skin of its distended belly and you hear far-off whimpering. If it wakes, its yellow cut-glass eyes flash with hate and it will regurgitate its meal before attacking, bathing them in a hot flush of digestive juices that melt their limbs and prevent escape. Otherwise, it intends to digest them slow, they may yet survive, you have but to release them.. (Within the snake's belly is: 1-2. The person who originally wrote the words. 3. A buxom lass sacrificed to the serpent, sacrificed for consorting with devils. 4. A foolhardy adventurer brought here in search of a sacrificial hoard, collected over centuries. 5-6. A mewling litter of children, they imprint on the first person they see as their mother with animal intelligence, they are stronger and more agile than they look) 4. Into a dimly lit subterranean room, connected by secret stair to the lavish home above. Yellow wax drips from walls and altars, icy fingers caress your spine as the light flickers over strange stains, a hand-written tome rests on a dais, dedicated to the glory of the Yellow Queen. 5. Back where you just came from. You watch yourself move towards the book, attempting to read its secrets, watching it unfurl into a doorway, stepping inside.. The more you allow things to progress as they were the more of you there are, watching yourself watching yourself in neverending sequence until you stop yourself from reading the book, at which point every you that stepped through the doorway is un-happened, sucked back out of reality in pockets of agony. 6. Into your chrysalis deep below the earth. There you will sleep for years to come, until the changes are complete, until your terrible maniacal glory can be loosed upon the world.
16	The book shrieks and tears itself in half, blood falls to the floor instead of paper fragments, the missing half regrows, the books tear themselves in half, blood falls to the floor... The books continue to replicate in this way until there are several hundred, shrieking in a pool of blood. The blood tastes like learning.
17	Tendrils snap out from the crease of the book, penetrating your chest and belly, churning as some drain and others pump. Your organs liquefy and drain out with your blood, and in its place your body fills with fluid like liquid golden light. You glow like a pinkish-gold beacon, and take a -5 penalty to saves vs. Magic, but cannot be poisoned and gain a d4 bonus to Cast the Bones and Conduit of the Cosmos rolls.
18	You read the words aloud and all who hear them age d20 years. Save vs. Magic, if you fail you continue to read. Repeat. Anyone who reaches the age of 90 during this time falls apart like disintegrating paper.
19	Violet light flashes from the pages, in your temporary blindness you can hear the resonance of your own thoughts. When you look back at the book you are staring at your own placid face, when you cry out it is the face in the book that opens its mouth and screams, not the featureless mess of words plastered around your swollen eyes.
20	The pages of the book begin to flip back, growing faster, pulling at the air around you, the flurry of paper flipping between the covers of the book consists of more pages than the book could possibly have contained. The pull at the air around you grows stronger, small objects begin to lift from the floor and disappear between the pages, your feet begin to shift..

 

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…

Okay so Clerics. First of all, I’m going to call them Mystics (or Cabalists, The Possess’d, Prophets, Seers, Emissaries, or Daemonseed depending on who you talk to). It’s never really made sense to me how holy missionary warrior priests end up robbing tombs with a bunch of misfits, but Mystics, spreading the word/infection of their strange god as they travel and getting some sweet loot while doing it, that makes sense.

 

Now, while I hold with the LotFP notion that there are no real gods and for the most part the deluded Mystics themselves are the ones with the power, let’s ignore that for now. Mystics are meant to draw their power from a god, some higher being, something that allows them to perform what might as well be miracles. However, mechanically they don’t work any differently to Magic-Users, their faith doesn’t come into things other than as flavouring. They have a set number of spells that they can cast per day and after that they dust off their hands and say “Welp, that’s that, I won’t bother god again until tomorrow.”

That’s some bullshit.

 

In my setting Mystics do not have a set spell limit, they have an ongoing Faith tally which measures both the strength of their belief and their perceived divine favour, and casting a Mystic spell uses Faith points equal to its level.

Mystics gain Faith by witnessing what they would interpret as divine intervention or proof of their god, or by actively achieving things in their name. When they slaughter the priest of a rival cult, when they convert a crowd of listeners, when they call out to their god and their fortunes change, when they eat a hallucinogenic mushroom and their god copulates with them while proclaiming their destiny, the Mystic gains d4 Faith. Your Referee will tell you when you’ve gained Faith, don’t be asking for it.

When the Mystic does something their god would not approve of or witnesses something which would shake their belief; a commune of the converted found diseased deformed and starved, a call for help which goes unanswered, a nocturnal visit by a creeping hulking thing which whispers terrible secrets of the endless sky into the Mystic’s ear heedless to the invocation of their god, they lose 2d4 Faith.

 

Yes that’s right, playing your Cleric like an actual Cleric will allow them to do more Cleric things, I know, it’s genius.

 

One of my favourite little bits in Vornheim is a random encounter table entry with a Cleric of Vorn kneeling in the snow crying out “Why? Why has thou forsaken me?????”, and it excites me that that is something which could happen naturally during a game simply because of the way a Mystic’s Faith works.

 

Mystics don’t prepare spells in advance, they may call upon any power they know, but it takes a round longer than normal Cleric spells as it’s more of a rite or ritual than a release of stored power. In fact let’s just call them rituals instead of spells.

After they have reached their Faith limit, the Mystic may attempt further pleas to their god with a 3d6 Test of Faith roll, with a penalty applied for every point needed after the first. If they suffer a Crisis of Faith or worse, they suffer a 2d4 penalty to Faith in addition to any other effects. My example Mystics also have personalised Malpractice tables for Crisis of Faith or Inverse Effect results while trying to heal someone.

 

3d6	Test of Faith
14-18	Success
11-13	Success/Crisis of Faith
8-10	Crisis of Faith
5-7	Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me
1-4	Inverse Effect/Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me

Mystics can also attempt to amplify their rituals with a Hand of God roll. Bonuses can be applied by sacrificing additional Faith before rolling. The player announces what they want to happen, and the Referee applies penalties accordingly. An effect without penalties would be something like double duration/benefit.

Attempting to perform the same ritual more than once in a day also requires a Hand of God roll, gods get bored easily. Bonuses can be applied by sacrificing additional Faith before rolling.

 

3d6	Hand of God
14-18	Success
10-13	Success/Crisis of Faith
8-10	Inverse Effect
5-7	Inverse Effect/Crisis of Faith
1-4	Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me

It’s fun to keep in mind that there is no god and this is all in the Mystic’s head, anything physical manifested by their delusion.

 

	Crisis of Faith
1d20
1	Visions of floating in the infinite while your god slowly consumes your mind and flesh fill your senses. For d2 turns collapse in terror/ecstasy depending on your god.
2	Yellow blisters swell all over your body, within days you can see small creatures gestating within.
3	You find yourself in a dark, dust-strewn burgundy room. There are no windows, no doors, a lamp burns atop a broken chest in the centre of the room. A misshapen creature who was once a man drags itself from a darkened corner. It offers you one wish, whatever you desire will be yours. If you refuse you find yourself back where you began, if you make a request take the place of the misshapen fool in the burgundy room.
4	Thunder roars like a mountain falling into the sea and blasphemous creatures rain down. They hop and crawl and angry blue welts raise where they drag their tongues across your flesh. In d4 days more pull themselves out of the welts without breaking the surface of your skin.
5	You find a wicker effigy in the corner of the room, behind a tree, beneath a stone, it was there all along. You have no choice but to set it alight. The embers cool and the ash falls away from an unharmed young child, surely sent by your god. When no one is watching they eat crawling vermin and wicker grows from behind their ears.
6	You and those within 60' who don't save vs. Magic experience the agonising birth of your god for the next 2d6 rounds. They just want you to know how much they went through for you, and you've let them down.
7	The floor splits and steam the colour of orange rot billows out like a mushroom cloud. Darkness rolls within its mass and everyone but the caster must save vs. Poison. Those who fail lapse into seizures and speak in tongues for the next turn. Days afterward they'll notice the swollen lump at the base of their skull.
8	Insect legs bristle out of your skin like hair, when you break them they leak the blood of infants died in the womb. It smells like limbo.
9	Eyes open across your chest, filled with pinpricked wells of tar. Looking at a random companion, you now realise that they hope to murder your god, how did you not see it before?
10	Stigmata. Pain racks your body as if splintering wooden spikes were being pushed into your flesh, wounds stretch open and blood seeps out around the edge. The blood is dark and viscous and reeks of age. Lose d4hp.
11	Locusts the colour of bronze infested with corrosion pull themselves from the pores of your skin and swarm around you. Stumble around in a cloud of wings and mandibles for 2d4 rounds until they burrow back into your flesh.
12	You begin to weep tears of blood and mucus, before they hit the ground they curl upwards and float into the sky.
13	The integrity of the Mystic's flesh becomes dubious, they feel numb and lesions break out across their skin. For the next d6 days they take double damage. Every time they curse their god there is a 10% chance of the condition lasting a further d6 days.
14	You draw a dagger and slash across your stomach, you tear your intestines out of the way and take hold of the clay urn within, you smash it on the floor and seize the preserved bladder from amongst the broken clay and dried flowers, you tear at it with your teeth until it opens and stare into the face of your mother, you drive your thumbs into her eyes until they burst and release a lilac vapour into the air amidst her screaming, your god laughs and you awake in a cold sweat.
15	Your tongue burns with an intense heat, you open your mouth and spit something to the floor, you smell your roasted flesh, your saliva still pops and sizzles. The orange hunk of metal on the ground cools into an image of a plump locust, lying on its back displaying bloated clusters of eggs coating its abdomen like a lobster. Whether you keep the idol or not you dream of the Locust Queen for the next month, of her desire for her children to blanket the land, of your special role in all this.
16	Your eyes burn from your head as if something has drooled acid into them. You find you can sense people's intentions, but can no longer get around without being led.
17	The next time you sleep you dream of a figure hooded in blue velvet, their mere presence makes your skin crawl and you feel as if you're going to be sick. In a voice like discarded cicada shells being crushed together they ask if you desire to be shown the truth. If you accept they will show you the truth behind your power, make a Test of Faith roll. For anything but absolute success, your mind refuses to understand the revelation, roll on the relevant table. If you succeed, you no longer require Faith to perform rituals, but are now free of any kind of religious direction..
18	You vomit hundreds of gold coins which immediately melt into the floor. For the next d4 days every time you try to cast a spell you vomit melting coins instead, losing 2d4 Faith.
19	The area within 60' becomes the absolute absence of light for the next 2d6 hours. There are things moving within.
20	A bloated foot-long maggot with a hundred black eyes pushes its way out of your throat. Fingers like anemone fronds bristle at the ends of the stubby round legs near its head. It rolls onto its back and its belly splits open in a clean line down the middle, coiled intestines and organs unimagined bulge out of the wound, it smells like fresh fruit in a rose garden. Eat from its belly and age 2d10 years and gain a level.

 

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A mysterious chaotic unstable force permeates the very air we breath, most are oblivious to its existence, but there are those learned and reckless enough to tap into its vastness, and at any cost untold power and vision will be theirs.

Every day the Magic-User will sit down with their spellbook to memorise a certain number of….

 

Fuck that. A Magic-User’s spell limit is how many spells they can SAFELY cast. Not how good their memory is (or how many spells the mind can contain if you prefer, if that was my problem I’d bring some goddamn notes with me), but how many times they can channel otherworldly energy through themselves before they become exhausted and things start to go awry.

 

In my setting, there is no memorising of spells, if a Maleficar (also known as Hagborn, Wormeater, Plague’d One, Harbinger, or just plain Witch) has their spellbook with them they may cast any spell they know. Unless they already found the spell in preparation, casting from a spellbook takes one round longer than usual while they turn through the pages to that cherished spot, so Maleficar often carry items bearing the formula for spells they may need quickly, their minds are too full and scattered to perfectly memorise spells.

 

For example:

 

Corfus Gnash the Bloodied, (Maleficar, obviously) wears a breastplate bearing an iron bookrest and candle holder, which secures his spellbook to his chest with leather straps attached to his shoulders. The notched axe he carries has his formula for Stinking Cloud carved into the haft, something he often finds useful in a tight spot. If you ever got close enough to see his inner arms you would also find the scarred formulas for Army of One and Gaseous Form, researched and carved into his flesh during his short imprisonment.

 

Osman Vermald (another Maleficar, imagine that) does not carry a spellbook, instead each spell has been lovingly inscribed into a rat skull and hung from his neck and arms. He raised each rat from birth and can find them at a moment’s notice.

 

The Further Adventures of Tearing Power from Beyond

 

I like my Magic-Users nasty and strange, and no matter how dirty they are as soon as they sit down to memorise spells for the day they look like the prissiest wussies at the garden party.

In that spirit, I’ve mentioned risky spellcasting several times in the play reports I’ve posted, which is an idea I first gleaned from False Machine.

 

When they can’t cast any more spells safely, Maleficar may attempt to cast further spells with a 3d6 Cast the Bones roll. A penalty is applied for every spell level above 1st, but bonuses may be applied by using appropriate spell components, requiring a further round per bonus to prepare. There can be consequences to this. For a minor consequence roll on the Chaos Reigns table. When you’ve done fucked up roll on That Which Should Not Be.

 

3d6	Cast the Bones
14-18	Success
11-13	Success/Chaos Reigns
8-10	Chaos Reigns
5-7	Success/That Which Should Not Be
1-4	That Which Should Not Be

 

Further to that, taking damage doesn’t stop you from casting, but it does mean you need to make a Cast the Bones roll with a penalty equal to the damage you took if you want to maintain your concentration.

Maleficar can also attempt to cast any spell they know without reading from their spellbook or an item, but since that’s an awful lot to remember it requires a Cast the Bones roll, with a penalty for every spell level above 1st.

Encumbrance doesn’t stop players from casting, that’s dumb, as long as they can move they cast spells. Besides, the more they’re carrying the more will turn into goo when they have a spell mishap.

 

I like the Dungeon Crawl Classics idea of spells having variable effects, however, I also think that having a table for every single spell is an enormous pain in everyone’s butt.

In my setting spells normally have the same effect every time, after all a lot of time and willpower is spent learning to harness that spell in a specific way. But if the Maleficar wishes, they can relax their hold on the spell, attempting to create a greater affect with a 3d6 Conduit of the Cosmos roll. The player announces what they want to happen, and the Referee applies penalties accordingly. An effect without penalties would be something like double duration/damage.

e.g. If a 1st level Maleficar wants their Magic Missile to throw out two missiles, that would be a normal roll. However if they want the missile to enter their enemy’s head and crackle and grow until it explodes, spraying his friends with skull shrapnel and brain lightning, that’s probably going to be a roll at -4.

Creativity should be encouraged, so if the Maleficar spontaneously conceives of a way to use the fundamentals of a spell they know for a different purpose, they can attempt it with a Conduit of the Cosmos roll, taking penalties as the Referee sees fit, and bonuses up to +4 if it is significantly less powerful than the true spell.

 

3d6	Conduit of the Cosmos
14-18	Success
11-13	Success/Chaos Reigns
8-10	Spell Collapse
5-7	Spell Collapse/Chaos Reigns
1-4	That Which Should Not Be

 

On a result of Spell Collapse roll or just decide what makes most sense for the spell/situation.

 

1d6	Spell Collapse
1	Normal spell effect inflicted on caster
2	Half spell effect inflicted on caster
3-4	Spell works in unexpected way use your imaginaaaation)
5	Half spell effect inflicted on random target
6	Half spell effect inflicted on target

 

	Chaos Reigns
1d20
1	Roll on Abyssal Side-Effects. Not only does this effect happen now, but every time you cast this spell from now on.
2	That's new... Roll on Transmutation table.
3	A rotting golden idol melts out of thin air and hovers in the centre of the area. Everyone present rolls 3d6, including animals and inhuman monsters. Whoever rolled highest increases a random ability score by 1. Whoever rolled lowest loses 1 from the same ability score. Anyone that rolls: 18 may make a wish. Roll again. If you roll less than 13 it goes horribly wrong. 14 has golden maggots to the value of 500sp wriggle out of their tear ducts. 10 gains a random insanity. 6 permanently sheds their hair, nails and teeth. 3 collapses in agony as enormous blisters swell from their flesh and burst, releasing mud-fleshed olive green creatures somewhere between a lobster and a squid, as they writhe on the ground their flesh turns the same mud olive and the creatures consume them before the whole scene collapses in a reeking puddle.
4	A screaming hairless hound manifests, it disembowels itself with fleshy pink hands, then offers you its entrails. Screaming all the while from its toothless maw.
5	You start violently weeping and you don't know why. Anyone looking at you while you weep can see a dripping halo of blood over your head.
6	Save vs. Magical Device every time you want to read something from your spellbook. If you fail all you can read is a shorthand account of all your personal shortcomings in the hand of whoever you have held most dear in life.
7	The caster's mind switches place with that of a random enemy, or if no enemies are present, that of a man-sized putrid pink anthropomorphic toadbeast that claws its way out of the ground. The caster retains their spellcasting abilities.
8	The scent of rotting cabbage wafts through the air within 30' of the caster. Save vs. Poison. Those who fail shake and sweat as if with a fever and become sexually uncontrollable for the next d4 turns (each rolls separately).
9	A pale green mist billows from the caster's mouth and they lose consciousness for d8 turns. During this time the player may control the mist. They cannot communicate, move at a Lightly Encumbered rate, can expand to fill a 30' radius, and are affected by things as a normal mist would be. Anyone who breathes in the mist must save vs. Poison or die as their lungs liquefy.
10	Everyone within 30' begins to feel an itching in their flesh, and if they look closely they will notice pores stretching and closing as if something was moving through them. Something is now moving beneath the skin and it burns. If anyone digs into their flesh they will discover shimmering turquoise things like jellyfish the size of fingernails, but with tentacles that harden like glass needles. After d6 rounds the itching stops and the jellyfish disappear.
11	You fall to your knees and regurgitate (roll d8): 1. Green algae filled with struggling black crabs. 2. Bubbling water, you hear whispers and childlike laughter as the bubbles expand and burst. 3. A golden eel with the face of a man. 4. A bloated, pregnant rat whose belly splits open when it hits the floor, spilling its young. 5. A pool of gritty tar. A multi-sided puzzle box is slowly revealed in the centre of the puddle, it doesn't appear to emerge from the floor, more like it remains still and the tar sinks down from its sides. You can't be sure of how many sides, you always seem to lose count. You have no idea how it fit through your mouth let alone your throat. 6. Blood. And eyes and teeth and hair. Like a burst tumor. 7. Writing. Not on paper, not in patterns, just writing. It doesn't make sense and nobody else can see anything but vomit but you regurgitate writing. It tells you how you die. But you can't read it, the words won't make sense, and they keep moving, and you try to hold them down but they slip through your fingers, but you know that the writing tells you everything. If only you could read it. 8. Eight gold coins. If these coins are used to buy something, that night the person who used the coin will dream of the one they gave it to. The air is nothing but bushfire-black fog, and molten gold runs from their face. It might fill their mouth, their eye sockets, pour from their ears.. They desire to murder you with a psychotic rage, you wronged them, why did you wrong them? If you kill them in your dream you will wake up covered in blood and brain matter, standing on their bed in what used to be their head. And vice versa.
12	A plant grows in the caster's stomach. One night per week d3 dry black tendrils emerge from the caster's orifices and bear glossy plump deep purple fruit. In the centre of the fruit is a small black multi-limbed figure in a foetal position, of the same consistency as the fruit. If the caster has been acting immorally the fruit is sweet and grants increased Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence, with a 25% chance of addiction. If the caster has been acting morally the fruit tastes of ash and salt and induces extreme paranoia and jealousy.
13	Everything the caster is wearing* has a 50% chance of (roll d6): 1. Decomposing into a swarm of cooing lime green spiders which caress you with their tiny limbs. 2. Turning into rose-coloured glass that reflects things all wrong. 3. Becoming pliable and moist. It will fuse to your skin the next time you touch it. 4. Puffing into a foul smelling dust which swirls in place for a few minutes, then reforms, then puffs into dust, and so on. 5. Splashing to the ground like thick paint. 6. Turning into hair from some kind of beast you've never seen before, some parts still have bits of scalp attached and tiny lice swarm throughout. *Packs count as one item but anything important inside gets its own roll.
14	A dog runs into the area, if you were attacking someone it immediately latches onto them. He's just the cutest most loyal little dog ever yes he is. Anyone else that looks at it sees its fur shivering and shaking while its head splits open and the monkey skull within screams at them.
15	The caster vomits forth an enormous pink toad which croaks loudly and collapses into a puddle of slime. For the next 3 hours everyone who was within earshot must save vs. Poison when they wish to speak, otherwise they vomit up a small pink toad which stares and follows them. The bumps on its back constantly sweat beads of black fluid. If you actively lick one there is a 3 in 6 chance it cures you, otherwise you hallucinate for a number of turns equal to your roll, with a 10% chance of gaining a random insanity.
16	Black Blood. The caster's Strength increases to 18 and they fly into a murderous frenzy. Any wound they sustain immediately sprays acidic boiling black blood. Every round there is a 50% chance the caster sprays blood from their eyes as a 10' ranged attack in addition to their other actions. This lasts for d8 rounds, after which the caster blacks out for that many hours.
17	Everyone within view of the caster must save vs. Magic. Those who fail begin to give birth through their mouths, umbilical cord and placenta and all. The foetus is them. If they kill it there are no consequences, if they allow it to live it will leech a year of their life every day, growing visibly older. If they eat the child, increase a random ability score by 1. Do this again for every day the child has lived.
18	Your lips seal shut like they never existed and your tongue seems to double in size, it's moving around your mouth and feels like it's getting bigger, it's trying to choke you. If you bite your tongue in half you'll find that your mouth is full of black, legged maggots, and your lips were never sealed shut. 50% chance you really did bite your tongue in half.
19	Beacon of Sin. Others find it hard to repress taboo desires around you. A trail of incest and lynchings is left in your wake for the next d6 weeks, with 6 being permanent.
20	Everything in a 5' radius around the caster is liquefied into a foul-smelling orange pus. Including the floor, their hair, and everything they are wearing. Researching spells the caster had already learned only takes half as long as usual. There's a 50% chance that living beings completely caught in the sphere will retain their sentience despite liquefying into pus.

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