Class: Leer

Here is another monster-slayer class, the quotes and pictures once again taken from the books.

leer(s), also called perspicrith ("sense-holder"), sensurist, cognister or vatiseer. A creepy lot trained in seeing small and otherwise missed detail, remembering faces, following scents and trails, spying, shadowing, and all such prying arts; and the use of the sthenicon.

They soak their eyes over a period of months in special [potions] collectively called washes or opthasaums, which irreparably change the colors of their eyes and permanently alter the abilities of their sight. The first of these opthasaums prepares the eye for transformation and is called Saum of Adparat or adparatic syrup. After a month of soaking in this wash, one hour each day, the leer spends another month soaking his or her eyes in either of two washes: Bile of Vatës will make the more common leer known as a laggard with brown and yellow eyes, and cognistercus or Swill of Cognit the less common falsemen, with red and blue eyes. The whole process of changing a person's eyes is called adparation, and one can tell a leer by these weirdly colored orbs. Each leer also takes particular kinds of [potions] to enhance his or her capacities in day-to-day duties.

Leers are highly sought after: laggards in the wild places to warn against monsters or other lurking dangers, and to track brigands, smugglers and escaped prisoners; falsemen in the cities to work for the wealthy and for government, wheedling out the dishonest and sycophantic, and interrogating the suspicious. Though they alter their biology in a chemical way, they are not regarded with nearly as much suspicion or loathing as lahzars and are not questioned as potential gudgeons [man-made monsters].

A leer wearing a sthenicon.

Falseman

falseman (falsemen), also called liedermen; leers who can tell a person's true emotional state, and thus can determine whether or not that person is being truthful. The washes they use to change their eyes make the whites turn bloody red and the irises go a bright pale blue.

A: Sense Lies, Contacts
B: Literacy, Memorization
C: Prominence
D: Embarrassing Secret

You gain +1 known language per Falseman template.

Starting Skill: (d6) 1. Etiquette, 2. Law, 3. Streetwise, 4. Investigation, 5. Espionage, 6. Politics.

Starting Items:

• dagger,
• proofing (any clothes you want, Def as leather),
• sthenicon (see below).

Sense Lies
You are well-versed in body language and can smell minor changes of mood. You know when someone is lying. They can evade, they can remain silent, but if they go to speak, they cannot hide their lies from you.

Contacts
Through both informants and official channels, you are often in the know on important informations. You are the first one to learn new gossips, and you have a 1-in-6 chance to have already heard something about any newly introduced NPC.

With a successful Charisma check, you may ask a favour of a contact. The favour will be things not generally available to the average person. The contact will not endanger himself or his employment, and may negotiate a payment or favour in return if the request is difficult or unpleasant.

You may call upon these contacts [Leer templates] per adventure.

Literacy
You can read and write. Most people can do both, but you can really write. Your letters allow for persuasion rolls at a distance. You can also roll under Intelligence to see the intentions of an author, the delicate themes of a poem, or the inconsistencies in a complex text.

Memorization
You have photographic memory. You can memorize any length of text after one reading. You can also search any location you have seen retrospectively, inspecting details you have not paid attention to before.

Prominence
Once per round, you can choose to be the most prominent person in a group or the least prominent person in a group.

Falsemen are sometimes employed as silent observers and discreet advisers, sometimes as spies and investigators, sometimes as terrifying interrogators or skillful barristers. They can switch between remaining unseen and unheard, and being the most interesting person in the room with frightening ease.

Embarrassing Secret
Once per person when you talk to them at least for a few minutes, you can discover a secret they would rather keep hidden. The GM will describe it to you.

A kraulschwimmen,
one of the monsters to be hunted by leers.

Laggard

laggard(s); a leer who can see through things, into dark and hidden places, and notice things far off. The name comes from the word "lag", which means to scour or scrub something. The washes they use to change their eyes make the whites turn olive-brown while the irises become a deep yellow.

A: Sense Hidden, Track
B: Vigilance
C: Danger Sense
D: Trackless Step, Bait

You gain +1 Stealth while in wilderness per Laggard template.

Starting Skill: (d6) 1. Hunting, 2. Trapping, 3. Bushcraft, 4. Monster Lore, 5. Animal Lore, 6. Pathfinding.

Starting Items:

• knupel,
• proofing (any clothes you want, Def as leather),
• sthenicon (see below).

knupel, also called virga; the most rough and knobbly of all the cudgels, it is often awarded to those who gain mastery of a bastinade [stick-fighting martial art]. A knupel is about 4½ feet to 5 feet long, thick at the hitting end and thinner at the strap-bound handle. Regarded as a "battlefield" weapon, a knupel can cause horrendous injuries.

Sense Hidden
You have low-light vision, requiring next to no light to see (though you still cannot see in total darkness). You easily notice anything amiss in your surroundings.

Depending on your GM, you should either be alerted whenever there is something interesting nearby (though you will have to find what exactly triggered your sixth sense yourself), or you receive advantage on all perception rolls (which is boring).

Track
Rather than requiring exploding 1d4 of exploration turns to follow a track, you only need simple 1d4 of exploration turns. Furthermore when you find the track of any creature or group, you learn a piece of useful information about them, and then one new information per hour of tracking.

Vigilance
Once per day when the GM gives you the Omen for an encounter, you can choose to reroll the encounter and get a different one. You must accept the new result.

Danger Sense
If you are surprised, you have a 50% chance to act on the surprise round anyway. If you encounter a creature no one in the group has seen before, you can roll under your Intelligence to remember a detail or weakness, provided the creature is not unique.

Trackless Step
As long as you are not in a significant rush, you leave no trail and cannot be tracked.

Bait
You can automatically trigger an encounter by putting out a bait and waiting in ambush.

Another leer with a sthenicon.

Sthenicon

sthenicon(s), also called leer-box or simply box; a biologue [biological tool] used to seek out tiny or hidden smells, and to show things difficult to see - whether hidden or far off - more clearly.

Usually a simple, dark wooden box, with leather straps and buckles. The back, which goes against the face, is hollowed out and sealed within with a doeskin-like material. On each side of this protrude stubby brass horns. Air and the attendant odors enter through these hornlets and, by the organics inside, are rendered more odoriferous. If the compactly folded membrane inside that enhances smells so effectively was spread out, it would stretch around 120 squares of feet.

At the middle of the top of the box is a modest lens, through which vision is received. Upon the sides of the sthenicon, at the same height as the lens, are three slots, which the user can push in and out in various ways to alter the nature of how he sees. A small hole in one of the lower corners is bored into the front of the box, apparently to render the user more audible when talking, so that the device need not be removed to allow the wearer to speak. Another slot in the bottom of the box allows soups, thin stews and special [potions] that augment the use of this tool to be slurped with only minor inconvenience. The whole kit is fastened to the head - over the whole face - with the straps and buckles mentioned earlier.

If a sthenicon is worn for too long, the organs within can begin to grow into the user's own nasal membrane and even into the skin of the face. After about a week, the box could still be taken off, though the leer would find tendrils up their nose that would tear out painfully. After a month of wearing a sthenicon, it could not be removed without surgery and the loss of the front of one's face.

Used mostly by leers, who are highly trained in its use, and swallow special [potions] beforehand to help make their senses sharper and sniff exotic powders to retard the invasion of the biologue's organs.

As you put on a sthenicon, it will cover your whole face and press it against the warm, pliable artificial organs within. Its main function is to grant you a sense of smell on par with a scent hound. You can tell apart human, animal and monster scents, track different scent trails, and easily recognize anything and anyone you had smelled before. In addition, the different settings of its lens mechanism allow the leer to see as if through a spyglass, or with wizard vision.

One needs an extensive training to interpret sthenicon readings correctly, and thus very few non-leers can use it. Even leers need an hour after they put on their sthenicon to adjust to the altered sensory input, so you cannot just constantly don and doff it. However, your can become accustomed to the strange senses bestowed by a sthenicon, and for every day you wear it, you gain +1 to all perception checks, up to a maximum of your level. This bonus resets when you remove the sthenicon.

The organs inside tend to painfully grow into your nose and face, only to be ripped out when you take the sthenicon off, leaving nasty scars. For every day you use a sthenicon, you take 1 Charisma damage once you take it off. This damage heals normally, except it won't mend properly unless you refrain from using the sthenicon until it fully heals. Should you wear your sthenicon long enough to be reduced to 0 Cha by the damage you would take upon removing it, you will need surgical help to survive.

A brodchin.

Finally, here are two fun types of chemicals that the leers can use (or that can be used against them):

signifer(s); the distinct parts of a scent or other trail that aid leers in their work. One of the more remarkable applications of a signifer is a group of [potions] known as anavoids, which leers use to mark someone or something they want to trail, following the distinct scent wherever it may lead. The best anavoids will last for weeks even in water, and are hard to detect by fellow leers, seeming more like a natural smell to all but the person who used it. It has been known for talented and well set-up leers to follow an anavoided trail even on ship from one harbor to another.

nullodour(s); a [potion] designed to hide or confuse or fake certain smells. Its most common use is to mask the distinctive odor of a person, so that he or she remains unnoticed by monsters. Also highly effective against leers.

Class: Lahzar

Here is the first type of monster-slayers found on the Half-Continent. All quotes and pictures below are taken from the the books.

lahzar(s), sometimes spelled in old texts as "lazhar"; also called catharcriths, thanatocates ("death-bearers"), orgulars ("haughty ones" - the name once given to the heroes of old), spooks-and-pukes or just spooks.

Though no one knows for sure, it is commonly held that lahzars first appeared in the Empire around [the year] 1263, over a century before the Battle of the Gates. They were said to be among the survivors of [a previously unknown civilization] from far northwest beyond the Half-Continent who called themselves the Cathars. It was rumored that these Cathars were fleeing the destruction of their realm by the rise of one or many false-gods. Settling in the far west beyond Hamlin and Pechenneg, and in the once small stronghold of Sinster in the east, these Cathar refugees brought with them their ancient surgical knowledge, techniques unknown in the Half-Continent except to a learned few.

These techniques were called clysmosurgia and involved grafting into a person's body special organs - called mimetic organs - harvested from monsters, altered, and grown in vats. Once put inside a person's body, these mimetic organs could give the subject unheard-of abilities; the power to generate deadly arcs of electricity inside the body (the fulgar), or send forth brain-frying waves of bioelectricity (the wit). Clysmosurgia was quickly rejected by the conservative as a form of "dark" or "black" habilistics (also called morbidology), and it was declared illegal throughout the Empire. Yet since their refuges were, and still are, beyond the Imperial jurisdiction, the Cathar surgeons continued their work.

To put a person through clysmosurgia is called transmogrification, and a person so transmogrified is called a "lahzar", a Cathar word meaning "those who have returned (from the grave)", called so because of the long period they are under the surgeon's knife. One side effect of having these impostor organs within them is a constant dull ache, occasionally sharp. For wits it manifests itself behind the eyes and in their skulls; for fulgars it hurts in their arms and shoulders and down in their guts. Even a lahzar's scars might ache on cold days. Another problem is gauntness caused by the overworking of their pith - what we would call "the metabolism" and "the immune system" - as their bodies strive to accommodate the intruding flesh; this can bring on mood swings and even psychotic episodes. Lahzars might be powerful, but they are far from happy folk.

It took almost three quarters of a century before people began to catch on to just how much more effective these new lahzars were against monsters. During that period lahzars were outlawed in Imperial lands. Their success at the Battle of the Gates, employed in disobedience to Imperial law, won them a grudging acceptance in society. Since then, while clysmosurgia remains an illegal realm of habilistics, lahzars themselves have been legitimized, their labors rivaling and even eclipsing the work of the traditional skolds [monster-hunting alchemists].

Because, however, lahzars have so many alien organs stuck into them, it is still a topical parlor-room debate as to whether or not lahzars are actually a kind of gudgeon [a man-made monster, an abomination]. This is an idea that lahzars find completely offensive and refute utterly. As a consequence of this question, their foul moods and strange drafts, lahzars are still considered pariahs, a necessary evil.

Even with an expensive set of proofing [armoured clothing], non-lahzars would find them extremely difficult to beat in a fight, and this has granted them a status that is not low but simply outside the existing social ranks. This unique status has made becoming a lahzar popular with the fashionably bored young sets of the gentry and the peers, and they spend large chests of their mama and papa's [gold] to make the trip to Sinster and seek out the best transmogrifer they can afford. A surgeon of average skill will perform clysmosurgia for about 1 200 [gp]; the best will do it for about 3 000 [gp]. Payment can be made in advance, or over a period of time from the lahzar's earnings as a monster-slayer, soldier or bodyguard.

After an initial period of interviews and testing, a subject is either refused or allowed to proceed. A refused subject is free to seek another surgeon. If accepted, it takes several days to complete the operations to make a person into a lahzar (transmogrify them). The whole time the subject is kept drugged and strapped to the cutting table. Once the transmogrification has been done, and the lahzar has been "made", it can take anywhere from one month to half a year for a person to recover. During this recovery they receive training from the surgeon's aides in the ways of a wit or a fulgar. From time to time it is common for lahzars to return to their surgeon for observation and "repairs" - operations to mend damage caused by illness, organ rot, spasming or violent injury. These repairs require only a day or so under the knife and a fortnight at the most for healing afterward.

The "skills" or "abilities" or "powers" their organs give to a lahzar are called potencies (sing. potency). It is these potencies that make a lahzar so effective against monsters (and people too for that matter). The arcs and lightning of a fulgar and the mental and sensory assaults of a wit are much more consistent in their deadly power and easier to deliver than a skold's [deadly concoctions]. Despite this lahzars are regarded less as civilization's heroes and more as a distasteful new "fad".

Obviously lahzars will charge for their services, commanding high prices for the efficacy of their labors. In a quiet year they can earn around 200 [gp]; in bumper years when monsters are overactive this can rise to 500 [gp].

Miss Europa, a fulgar, wielding a fuse.

Fulgar

fulgar(s) (said "fool-garr"), also astrapecrith ("lightning-holder"); a lahzar whose surgically inserted organs (known as the systemis astraphecum) allow him or her to make, store and release immense charges of electricity. [...] Fulgars get their name from the artificial organ known as the Column of Fulgis, a jellylike muscle that produces the electrical charges they wield. Most fulgars mark themselves with the spoor [alchemical tattoo] of a diamond, which is the universally recognized sign of their kind. [The potencies of fulgars] are known as eclatics.

A: +1 PD, Potencies, Chemical Dependency, Arcing
B: +1 PD, Resisting, Vacillating
C: +1 PD, Impelling
D: +1 PD, Thermistoring, Factotum

Starting items:

• fulgaris,
• proofing (any clothes you want, Def as leather),
• ingredients for a week's worth of treacle (see below),
• a crippling debt to your surgeon.

fulgaris (said "fool-ger-riss"); two poles of differing lengths used by fulgars to extend their reach and give a thermistor control over bolts of lightning. The longer pole is the fuse [treat as a staff], the shorter being the stage [treat as a club]. Both fulgaris are wound tightly with copper or iron fulgurite wire and capped at each end with ferrules of the same metals.

Potencies
You have been surgically altered to gain strange, inhuman powers, called potencies.

You may channel your powers using Potency Dice (PD). Each time you wish to use one of your abilities, invest any number of your PD. The [sum] of the PD rolled, as well as the number of [dice] invested, may affect the result.

Unlike the MD of a wizard, your PD always return to your pool and can be used any number of times per day. However, each time you use your powers, add +1 SD (Strain Die) to your pool. You must roll all your SD whenever your roll any PD. These dice do not count towards the [sum] or [dice] of any given potency, but they do count towards the multiples (doubles, triples, and so on). Use two different colours of dice.

spasm or spasming; wretched condition where a lahzar's body rebels for a moment against the foreign organs squeezed within it and the organs fight back. This happens when the mimetic organs are being used and is usually as a result of not taking one's Cathar's Treacle and the rest. It is, however, a risk (very slight) that lahzars run all the time, whether they have taken their concoctions or not.

The results of spasming can be various, from a slight strain within that goes away after a few hours to severe internal hemorrhaging and serious organ damage. After spasming, a lahzar often needs to return to his or her transmogrifier (lahzar-making surgeon) for observation and even further operations.

Every time you roll a multiple of any number on your dice, you suffer a bout of spasming from overexertion of your mimetic organs. Roll on the table below using Xd6, where X is the multiple you rolled (eg. when you roll a double, roll 2d6 and look below).

1. (You will not roll this.)
2. You feel a momentary sharp pain (in your chest for fulgars, or headache for wits), but nothing worse happens.
3. Muscle cramps leave you fatigued. You gain 1d6 Fatigue that fills one inventory slot each.
4. You are deaf and mute for 1d6 rounds.
5. You fall prone in pain, screaming.
6. A mild seizure twitches your body. You gain 2 extra SD.
7. You feel weary and aching. The PD used for this potency are burned and will return only with the next long rest.
8. You take 1d6 damage as blood drips out of your mouth or nose.
9. You are blind for 1d6 rounds.
10. A painful seizure nearly overwhelms you. You have disadvantage on your next roll.
11. Your potencies run wild for 1d6 rounds. For fulgars, anyone touching you takes 1d6 damage. For wits, anyone within 10' must Save or fall prone due to vertigo.
12. The potency fails spectacularly, doing the opposite of what it should. The GM will tell you the exact effects.
13. You are paralyzed with seizures for 1d6 rounds.
14. Your mimetic organs hurt badly. You will gain no benefits from sleep this night.
15. If a fulgar, your limbs twitch and cannot be stopped. If a wit, you have a splitting headache. You have disadvantage on all rolls for an hour.
16. You take 2d6 damage as your spasming muscles strain against your creaking bones.
17. A fit of convulsions leaves you weakened. You take 1d6 Str damage.
18. A powerful spasm nearly snaps your bones. You take 1d6 Dex damage.
19. You suffer constant mild cramps. You take 1d6 Con damage.
20. You scream in unbearable pain and fall unconscious for 1d6 hours. Nothing can rouse you sooner.
21. (And more.) You spasm violently, breaking your bones and snapping your spine. You die.

Note that the potencies of fulgars do not mix well with larger amounts of water, while wits have no such problems.

Chemical Dependency

Cathar's Treacle, treacle or plaudamentum; draft [potion] drunk by lahzars. Its main function is to stop all the surgically introduced organs (mimetic organs) and connective tissues within a lahzar's body from rejecting their host. The nature of the ingredients and the way in which they react means that Cathar's Treacle does not keep for very long at all, a few hours at best, and has to be made afresh each time. It must be taken two times per day, or the lahzar risks spasming. If lahzars go more than a few days without the treacle, their organs start to rot within them, and after a week without it the lahzar's doom is certain. The parts, or ingredients, for Cathar's Treacle are as follows:

• 10 of water
• 1 of bezoariac
• ½ of rhatany
• ¼ of Sugar of Nnun
• 1 of xthylistic curd
• ½ of belladonna (optional)

There are other drafts that a lahzar must take periodically, but Cathar's Treacle is the most important. For fulgars the next most important is a daily dose of fulgura sagrada or saltegrade. For wits it is a daily drink of iambic ichor; Friscan's wead every two days; and two tots of cordial of Sammany three times a week, plus other traces throughout their lives.

Such dependency is a trade-off for the immense power they possess. A physician would also recommend a dose of evander every so often to lift the spirits and fortify the body.

You need to make and take your treacle, removing all SD when you drink it. Replenishing the ingredients for a dose of treacle costs roughly as much as a healing potion would. Ignore the other drafts except for flavour reasons.

Every day you skip your treacle, not only you won't get rid of your SD, but also risk a [days without treacle]-in-20 chance of organ rejection and subsequent gangrene. Roll every day until you start to take your treacle again, or the check succeeds. Once your body rejects the mimetic organs within, treacle can no longer help you and you will take 1d6 Con damage per day until you can be seen and fixed by a surgeon.

Arcing
R: touch; T: creature; D: 0

The most basic skill of fulgars, you can generate a charge of electricity and release it by touch. Indeed, a fulgar has to make physical contact for their potencies to have any effect, as the electricity must be earthed to do its work.

Your arcing deals [sum] + [dice] damage.

Resisting
R: 0; T: self; D: [sum] rounds

You build up a charge and store it until your whole body becomes charged with electricity. Anyone touching you (directly or through conductive object) will get the full force of the shock, taking [dice] damage.

Vacillating
R: 0; T: self; D: concentration, up to [sum] minutes

A nifty little eclatic whereby fulgars send a mild arc through themselves to be protected from the potencies of a wit (or impelling of another fulgar). It is a variation on resisting, but without storing the charge. The harder a wit tries, the stronger the fulgar needs to make the arc.

Vacillating can help against any psychic attacks, illusions or influences, including spells and various special abilities. You need to invest [dice] equal to your opponent to prevent their powers. It is up to the GM to gauge how many [dice] are necessary to counteract effect that do not use [dice] to measure their power.

Impelling
R: touch; T: living creature; D: concentration, up to [sum] rounds

A bizarre potency that requires experience and talent to master, whereby fulgars take hold of people and make them move or not move as the fulgar sees fit. It is done by subtle manipulations of a continuous charge running through the victim and requires a lot of energy to perform. The best results are achieved when the fulgar has a firm grip on his or her foe.

Resistance to electric damage prevents the effects of this potency, and creatures of HD higher than [dice] x 2 are also immune.

Thermistoring
R: 100'; T: creature; D: 0

Another potency requiring great skill and wisdom, it involves bringing lightning bolts down from the sky. This is the only potency that does not need touch to have effect, for the fulgar acts as a channel for the bolt, directing its blast to targets. However, it does require the use of fulgaris. The better a fulgar gets at thermistoring, the greater control he or she has over the bolt's final direction.

The target takes [sum] damage and must Save or be stunned for [dice] rounds. While this potency normally needs to be performed under open, overcast sky, other sources of powerful electricity can also be channelled and redirected. It can even be used as a reaction to send a lightning bolt back at its caster.

Factotum

factotum; personal servant and clerk of a peer or other person of rank or circumstance. Lahzars have taken to employing a factotum to take care of the boring day-to-day trifles: picking up contracts, collecting fees for services rendered, looking for food and accommodation, writing correspondence, heavy lifting and even making their drafts.

You have attracted a loyal hireling that can prepare your treacle and help with general necessities.

A black-eyed wit.

Wit

wit(s), also called neuroticrith ("holder of a distorted mind") or strivener; a kind of lahzar whose potencies cannot be seen like the sparks and flashes of a fulgar, but are rather felt. Collectively called antics, these potencies are subtle and more sinister, affecting the victim's mind, brain and nervous system. They are all variations on an invisible bioelectrical field, a pulse of energy called "frission" [also colloquially known as "fishing"], that wits make with their surgically introduced organs. The use of frission is called witting.

A wit who is [newly made or] "green" has little control over the direction of the frission and it tends to radiate all about. With practice wits gain control over the area and direction of their frission till they can send it to a particular point. Most wits need to see what they are aiming at, but the most talented need only gently [probe], find the target and afflict it from afar.

Wits must be careful with all their potencies; if they overreach themselves and push too hard, they risk a violent bout of spasming. Excessive use of any of the antics will leave them exhausted and prone to illness. Along with this, after only a few months of witting, they will begin to lose their hair until they become completely bald. Some then show their baldness with pride; others cover it with often brightly colored and jauntily styled wigs. Either is a telltale mark of a wit. They also mark themselves with the spoor of an arrow on the arch of an eyebrow, between the eyes, or the corner or lower lid of one or both eyes; this is the universally recognized sign of their kind.

Wits are trusted even less than fulgars, and their surly demeanor (due in some part to the constant pain they suffer) does little to help their grim reputation.

A: +1 PD, Potencies, Chemical Dependency, Sending
B: +1 PD, Scathing
C: +1 PD, Writhing
D: +1 PD, Faking, Factotum

Starting items:

• proofing (any clothes you want, Def as leather),
• ingredients for a week's worth of treacle,
• a crippling debt to your surgeon.

proofing; a proofed garment, that is clothes alchemically treated until they become sturdy and armoured, as good as any ancient metal armour.

For Potencies, Chemical Dependency and Factotum, see above.

Sending
R: [dice] x 50' radius; T: area; D: concentration, up to [sum] rounds

Also known as probing, this is the most basic and best-known antic, involving a "sending and returning" of frission all about the wit. With probing, a wit can get a mental image or feeling of where all sources of electricity are about them, whether it's the bioelectricity of an animal, a person or a monster, or the electric current within a machine or a biologue (living machine).

It takes practice for wits to understand and interpret the returning. With experience they can actually recognize the distinct electrical flutterings of a particular person, and so sending can be used to track down and find people. Beyond the cities, this antic is used to warn early of a monster's approach, well before any scout can tell.

As a side effect of this potency, any living creature caught in the frission will feel sick or dizzy, and even faint for a moment, throwing off concentration or causing a misstep or fumble. Those who might suffer from travel sickness will be worse affected, vomiting and staggering.

If the wit is not hiding her sending, all creatures caught in the affected area will feel her probing and the general direction from where it comes. Any creature within half the range must also Save or suffer disadvantage on their next roll from nausea.

The very best wits can send with only the slightest disturbance to those around them. Such a wit can attempt to hide her probing, rolling under her Int. With a success, creatures of HD equal or lower than the wit cannot feel the sending at all, while creatures of higher HD can feel faint traces of probing, but not the direction. With a failure, creatures will feel the probing normally, but due to its subdued effects will not suffer nausea.

Scathing
R: 30'; T: creature or area; D: 0

Probably the most notorious of the antics, scathing (or strivening) is a raw pouring forth of psychic power that twists and agonizes the mind. With it, an experienced wit can lay flat a whole room of foes, while the most skilled can use it to permanently break, or even kill with frightening accuracy.

When used as an area attack, the targets caught within must Save or suffer a stronger version of the malaise than comes with probing. On a success, they will have a disadvantage on their next roll from nausea. On a failure, they fall prone in seizures and loose their next turn. Creatures of HD higher than [dice] x 2 are immune to this effect.

When used against a single foe, the creature takes [sum] damage and must Save or take disadvantage on all rolls for [dice] rounds.

Sometimes referred to as "the eye of death" or "the death glare".

Writhing
R: 50'; T: creature; D: [sum] rounds

With this antic a neuroticrith can cause aches and pains in the victims' limbs, forcing them to twitch and stagger. Conversely, it can be used to temporarily numb people and leave them without feeling. Worse yet, writhing is also used to momentarily blind, or stop ears from working, or render a person mute. It requires a goodly amount of experience and a modicum of talent to use this potency with any effect.

Pick [dice] of the following effects:

• Penalty of -2 to Attack. This option can be picked multiple times.
• Penalty of -2 to Defense. This option can be picked multiple times.
• Blindness.
• Muteness.
• Deafness.

Faking
R: 50'; T: creature; D: concentration, up to [sum] rounds

This is a very difficult potency, with the wit requiring a view of his or her victim. With delicate, subtle and precisely aimed probings of their frission, the wit can make a person think that he or she has heard or felt something, when in reality there is nothing. The best wits can even make people see what is not there. People can be driven barmy with such unseen pestering, or have their attention diverted at just the wrong moment.

With 1 [die], nothing more than an unintelligible whispers or a faint touch can be faked. With 4 [dice], you could make your unfortunate victim talk to illusory people, read an illusory book, or explore an illusory room. Note that faking always targets a single creature - the illusion is mental and cannot be perceived by anyone else.

Lady Threnody, a young wit.

Of Monsters and Men

I recently finished reading the Monster Blood Tattoo series by D. M. Cornish, and I probably never saw a story more appropriate to be used as a setting for OSR. Even if you didn't want to read the story itself, the books contain massive Explicarium and Appendices with enough information to run a game in that strange world. Really, I somewhat suspect the author from playing tabletops as he was writing this one...

The world where the trilogy takes place, the Half-Continent, is basically a Victorian Europe caught in a constant struggle between men and monsters. There is an actual metaphysical war between civilization that tames the land by cultivation and "threwd", a genius loci or monster-producing awareness of the wild nature. Humans build cities, each one a hole in the threwd and a bastion against monsters, protecting the surrounding farmland but rarely strong enough to push far against the wilds. Nature responds by sending monsters to fight humanity off.

A nicker.

And yes, there are monsters everywhere. Unless you are within the safe streets of a city, monsters will most likely prowl nearby. All villages are built with a protection of strong walls, all mansions are more like fortresses. Larger roads are patrolled by the military and travellers hire bodyguards. The farther away you go from a centre of civilization, the more common and dangerous the monsters will get. They crawl out from various swamps and muds "impregnated" by threwd, countless in numbers and an ever-looming threat over humanity. They come in every size and shape - goblinoid grinnlings; animal-headed glamgorns, huge umbergogs, aquatic kraulschwimmen, and more, ever stranger creatures. Every forest, river, mountain or marsh will have some, and they will come out at night, invading into the fields, pastures and orchards unless deterred. And should you forget to lock the doors and windows of your fortified house, they may very well eat you.

A glamgorn.

Yet monsters are not mindless killers. They are as intelligent as humans, and very much varied in their attitudes. Many despise humans for their conquest of the wilds, many like the taste of human flesh (or horse meat, monsters are said to love horse meat), but way more monsters would just like to be left at peace. Precious few are even benign, hoping to reconcile monsters and men. And they are also not just disorganized packs or solitary wanderers (quite some are, but not all). The wild lands are ruled over by urchin-lords, monster nobility so ancient and soaked with threwd they basically have psychic powers (there is no true magic, so psychic powers and alchemy is as close as you will get to supernatural). The deep seas then hide the dormant false-gods, gargantuan monsters of apocalyptic powers, inspiring cults (monstrous or human) that try to find ways of waking them so that their false-god can rule over the world.

The Vinegar Sea hides even stranger monsters.

For their part, the people of the Haacobin Empire (a collection of city-states where the story takes place) see monsters as pests to be eradicated, and threwd as a challenge to be overcome. Of course, there are the "heretical, monster-loving" kingdoms that the Empire wages war at, and which maybe live in relative harmony with monsters. But in the Empire, any sympathy to monsters is a capital offense, and even being accused of monster-love can get you exiled into the hostile countryside. And because of this philosophy of "the only good monster is a dead monster", of course there are various monster-slayers and adventurers - how convenient for tabletop gaming!

An undead, man-made monster.

Your usual murderhobo party will appreciate the organised quest-givers, as the number of monster-slayers and monsters to be slain had given raise to the so called "knaveries". A knavery is an administrative establishment where all the hireling slayers, professional killers and freelance murderers can get commission to work on government-declared monster-hunts or private contracts. Monster slaying is rather lucrative business - there are never enough soldiers to keep all the public roads in the country safe, merchants will gladly pay to have their precious cargo protected, and rich land owners or remote villages are always pestered by some troublesome monster. Many cities even offer prize money for every monster’s head you bring.

A monster-slayer.

Monster slaying is also a deadly business. As the average monsters has every physical advantage over humans (even the two feet tall boggles are said to be stronger than a grown man, to say nothing about claws, fangs or armoured skin), monster-slayers need some gimmick to level the playing field. Sure, there are flintlock firearms, but that alone is not enough when monsters may be large and tough enough to shrug off cannonballs. I already mentioned alchemy, though, which is powerful, widespread, diverse and oft-used.

A lahzar.

For starters, there is proofed clothing - clothes alchemically treated to reinforce them against both blade and claw. You can wear a frock coat instead of a chain mail, yet still get comparable protection, and with more expensive alchemical concoctions, better defensive abilities can be achieved. Thus using medieval setting is no longer required to maintain the idea of effective armour, and your players can let their fashion sense run wild as they search for the best-looking armoured embroidery. No one would be caught outside of a city without proofing. Even better, proofing solves the problem I have with firearms in many fantasy worlds - why didn't they quickly spread and made melee combat obsolete? But when everyone is walking around in bulletproof clothes, you can still reliably whack them with a pole-axe or a war hammer.

The Appendices contain explanations
of nearly everything, with pictures.
All of the pictures here actually come
from the books.

But I digressed a bit from actually slaying the monsters. For this, there are many concoctions, acids and monster-poisons - skolds are professional battle alchemists, hurling explosives, combustibles, or caustic and toxic chemicals. Other potions can enhance the abilities of normal humans - leers take drugs that help them to see in shadows or darkness and notice minor details, or use biologues (artificially grown living tools and machines) to track monsters by smell and find their hiding places. There are also the dangerous lahzars, given psychic powers by a combination of alchemy and surgery. And even the common monster-slayer can take advantage of envenomed blade or bullet, and when the job is done they will chug down one of the many restoratives (yes, there are healing potions, or something pretty close).

A leer wearing a smell-enhancing olfactologue.

Alchemy has great many uses, and just as many misuses. While lahzars skirt the line of legality, there are strictly illegal practises of mad alchemists who use human cadavers, butchered monsters and ancient chemistry to create gudgeons - undead made-monsters, Frankenstein-esque brutes and stitched beasts of war. Maybe your players would like the profit that comes from trafficking stolen human bodies and living monsters? Such dark trades can pay really well, as gudgeons are valued both as "super soldiers", and as opponents to  captured monsters in underground fights for the entertainment of the wealthy and aristocratic. On the other hand, monsters see gudgeons as the ultimate blasphemy and will try to destroy them on sight. Maybe the players can find an unexpected ally when hunting such a zombified abomination, or help monsters free their kin from a fighting pit? Either way, they will be hanged if discovered, as smugglers or as monster-lovers.

A single skold against a massive war-gudgeon.

All in all, the Half-Continent would make for an excellent adventuring location. The only thing missing in the books are some forgotten dungeons to explore, if you need those in your game.

I think I might try to adapt some of ideas for OSR...

d20 Alternative Spellbooks

Wizards need a place to store all of their currently unused spells. While most have a spellbook, there is always someone who feels the need to break traditions. Such a mage might want to roll on this table.

Boooring!

1. Runed Equipment: Etched, engraved or embroidered on your equipment, you can easily carry your spells on you. Roll d6: 1) runestaff, 2) runesword, 3) athame, 5) runic armour, 6) rune-covered robe.
2. Thought-cup: Filled with slowly swirling, dimly glowing liquid thoughts, your spells are still bound by your mind, just not within your head.
3. Faberge Spell-egg: Made of gold and jewels, this tiny egg is both precious and powerful. Each gem shines with the magic of a spell trapped inside.
4. Brain-in-a-jar: There is no better place to store excess spells than a wizard's mind. Removing the wizard and keeping just the mind makes the storage much more portable.
5. Poppet: Strange, often terrifying figurines, voodoo dolls, marionettes and puppets. Some spells can possess the poppet that imprisons them, and talk or even move.
6. Familiar: Familiars can hold one spell each, and even cast it at your behalf. Threat them well, or they will be more of an annoying hindrance rather than the great boon they can be. Roll d6: 1) fleas, 2) bees, 3) seahorses in a jar, 4) fat worms, 5) butterflies, 6) tiny lizards.
7. Jewelry: Spell-pendants, rings of power, bewitched earrings, or enchanted golden chain-links. The mark of snobby sorcerers or upstart wizardlings.
8. Flowers (Bonsai): With sigils on their leaves and blossoms radiating octarine, you smell it to prepare spells.
9. Candles (Incense): Melt wax and breathe in your spell, then add a wick of old wizard robes. You can light it and inhale the fragrant fumes to prepare your spells.
10. Tattoos: Every spell requires a unique picture to capture its essence. Be very careful not to have your skin cut and the tattoos ruined.
11. Playing Cards: Never play against a gambler-mage. Their cards change places and switch colours, and will explode in magic missiles if you call their tricks.
12. Pouch of Tokens: Often used by shamans, witch doctors and travelling ledgermains, such simple and ordinary-looking pouch can be inherited through many generations. Roll d6: 1) engraved bones, 2) painted pebbles, 3) enchanted seeds, 4) rainbow pearls, 5) ancient coins, 6) tiny prayer strips.
13. Animated Skull: When you cannot preserve a wizard's brain, bind their ghost to their skull. They can keep your spells and offer valuable insight or advice. However, it's not recommended to use dead family members or known gossipers.
14. Hair Braids: Wizards of Shan Tar-El never cut their hair and plait them into ever more complex braids. Their odd hairstyles easily distinguish them against the more common wizardly lot, and the story of their archmage Samson is well known up to this day.
15. Unending Song: You are forever humming, gently singing the unending song, your spells weaved into the melody and verses. You speak in rhymes and scream in harmony. Even when you sleep will the spells keep the tune of magic alive.
16. Mirror: There is your double on the other side of your mirror. Coincidentally, they are also a wizard and would not mind at all to keep your spare spells.
17. Cauldron: Ever-bubbling is a witch's cauldron, full of strange concoction that constantly changes colour and smell. This is where you store your spells - in potions that can be drunk to prepare them.
18. Crystal Ball: Tiny specks of light float within your crystal ball, each a spell of different colour. Touch the surface with your finger and they will approach or scatter, just like tiny fish.
19. Sea Conch: Most conches can be put to your ear to listen to the murmur of the sea. But an enchanted one whispers instead with the voices of trapped spells, ready to climb through your ear right into your mind.
20. Tumour: It is said that biomancers never use a spellbook, no. They grow repulsive spell-tumours and cancerous pseudo-organs, which betrays both their great skill and great insanity.

Much less boring!

Here are d6 more inconvenient spellbook alternatives, because wizards never use the easy way when things can be made needlessly complicated.

1. Trees: A garden wizard may have an orchard, a druid his sacred grove. Such trees, when left imbued with spells for too long, can evolve into treants.
2. Murals: Everyone likes a good mural. Another advantage is that magic-infused masonry tends to be hardy and long-lasting. It may come as solace that if you are leave from your tower and die as a result of your inaccessible spells, the tower will still endure for many centuries in pristine condition.
3. Feng-shui Garden: With symbols and sigils etched into the very landscape, your spells will channel the raw power of ley lines. This may be as dangerous as it sounds.
4. Stars: There are few stranger things to see than an astrologist using horoscopes to call spells from far away stars and constellations. Inexperienced star mages should be careful, as more than just spells can come.
5. Assistants: It's obvious, isn't it? Wizards can store spells in their minds, so with a few apprentices or interns, you won't need a spellbook anymore!
6. Collection: It's inconvenient, vain and pompous; it's exactly what a filthy rich wizard would do. Collect the most expensive, most weird and most inappropriate items, then imbue your spells into them. Roll d8: 1) religious relics, 2) paintings and tapestries, 3) melody machines, 4) stuffed extinct animals, 5) puzzle boxes, 6) sculptures, 7) mummified sorcerers, 8) vintage wines.

Can you guess which tree holds what spell?

Transmute for Fun and Profit

As suggested in a previous post, wizards often breed a single spell into many dissimilar forms. Sometimes the breeding offers nothing more than a variety of appearances, but skillful spell-breeders can subtly tweak and alter the spell over several generations until they can gain a very different effect.

While stone to flesh or rock to mud are a staple of any wizardly library, more rare and strange version of this spell have been bred. Maybe the sorceress whose tower your players just burglarised had one in her spellbook?

Many of the material combination below can cause damage on use. As a rule of thumb, they either deal [sum] damage at once, or [dice] damage per round. All other effects are better left to the GM to adjudicate.

I rolled fruit to gold.

Transmute [Material] to [Material]
R: 30'; T: any; D: concentration, up to [sum] minutes

You transmute a material into another material. If [sum] is 12 or greater, you may choose to make the duration permanent.

With 1 [die], you may transform a handful of material. With 2 [dice] a bucket, with 3 [dice] a tub, and with 4 [dice] a waggon.

Roll twice on the d100 table below to find which material you can transmute into which:

1. acid
2. adamant
3. aether
4. air
5. alcohol
6. ash
7. blood
8. bone
9. bread
10. candy
11. clay
12. cloth
13. coal
14. copper
15. coral
16. crystal
17. dark matter
18. drugs
19. dust
20. ectoplasm
21. electricity / lightning
22. fart
23. feathers
24. fire
25. flesh
26. food
27. fossil
28. fruit
29. fungus
30. gas
31. gems
32. glass
33. glue
34. gold
35. grease
36. gunpowder
37. hair
38. honey
39. horns
40. chitin
41. ice
42. illusion
43. ink
44. iron
45. ivory
46. lava / magma
47. lead
48. leather
49. light
50. lye / chemical base
51. mercury
52. milk
53. mithril
54. mud
55. nails / claws
56. paint
57. panacea
58. paper
59. petroleum
60. plants
61. plastic
62. platinum
63. poison
64. porridge
65. quintessence
66. raw magic
67. rot
68. rubber
69. saliva
70. salt
71. sand
72. seashell
73. shadows / darkness
74. silk
75. silver
76. skin
77. slime / ooze
78. smoke
79. snot
80. snow
81. soil
82. steam / fog
83. stone
84. sulphur
85. sweat
86. tar
87. tears
88. teeth
89. tin
90. uranium
91. urine
92. vacuum
93. vermin / insects
94. vodka
95. void
96. vomit
97. water
98. wax
99. wine
100. wood

I guess vomit to raw magic sounded better on paper... Nah, it's cool.

Wizards never know when to stop, so of course there were some who attempted to breed transmute spells capable of ever stranger changes. Eventually, they ran out of physical materials and tried to change the metaphysical.

Here is a bonus table of d20 metaphysical qualities than also can be transmuted:

1. anger
2. boredom
3. death
4. disgust
5. envy
6. hatred
7. joy
8. life
9. love
10. lust
11. memories
12. music
13. pain
14. serenity
15. shame
16. silence
17. sorrow
18. surprise
19. terror
20. trust

My first roll on this table got me... pain to boredom. Yeah, I think it will work just fine.

POWDER: Time Enough for Love

I like POWDER. A lot. I would even say that it's one of the best roguelikes out there. Not the best, but that's because there is no "best in every aspect" roguelike (and if there was, it would probably be IVAN). But POWDER has most of the things I consider highly enjoyable. (And if you've already heard about POWDER, jump to the next heading.)

Sunfire melts everything nearby into lava...
by Kastrol over at Discord

I absolutely love how deep the interactions can be, how many strange thing it lets you pull off. Dip a potion of smoke into a potion of poison, then throw the concoction to release poisoned smoke. Or dip a sword into a potion of greek fire, creating flaming sword. Zap a door with a wand of invisibility to make them disappear, creating a secret door. Push a boulder onto a creature in a pit to bury it alive. Dig yourself out after an enemy does just that to you, but quickly or you will suffocate.

You can play with lava, water and steam. Some tricks may even border on exploits, but they break the game in a fun way, not stupid, tedious, or completely overpowered way. Before you ask, I use kiting only when strictly necessary (cockatrices and green dragons), because I can't be bothered to dance around every single creature just to get one free hit in. I'm not trying for an optimal gameplay, I'm trying to have fun.

Items are all useful and equipment diverse and interesting, even if armour can be a bit boring. Heavier armour gives higher AC and other stats don't matter. Only one god cares about the noise you make in heavier armour, and stealth is not elaborate enough to really take your armour into account, AFAIK. Some weapon skills are also much harder to use effectively than others. But there are very fun magical weapons and artifacts, and interaction among other items I have already mentioned above. Identification is easy enough that it's fun rather than tedious like in some other games.

Dungeon is quite diverse - classic dungeon, broken rooms, mazes, large rooms and hallways, caves... Add in many hand-made rooms with strategically placed out-of-depth monsters. Make the floors small enough that they are quick to explore and hard to use for easy escapes and infinite resting. Limit the dungeon to 25 floors.

This is actually one of the main reason I really like POWDER - it's short enough to make dying bearable, diverse enough to make every new game interesting, so you don't even mind dying, and yet long enough to let you explore your options and make your character grow. It's also very hard and deadly. Great combination, if you ask me.

And of course there is the god/class system, very unique and interesting. You always have a choice and can change your mind. Nothing forces you into some playstyle or other, and everything is available to you, should you need it or want to try it out. You can change from a barbarian to a mage with some effort, and sometimes you will have to because of good random drops or bad luck.

Speaking of mages, spells in POWDER are simply the best. I think Mr. Lair somewhere mentioned that you should only add a new spell to a game if you will need a substantial amount of new code to do so. Spells in POWDER are true to this - each is different, interesting and useful. Probably only Mage Guild, a roguelike specifically oriented on playing a mage, can compare in the selection of cool spells. Even for the most basic spells, POWDER gives you Fireball which explodes on hit, Frost Bolt which can create ice bridges, Lightning Bolt which ricochets from walls and Poison Bolt which does no damage at first, but allows you to stack deadly damage over time. Later spells in POWDER are stupendously powerful, and can even allow you to reshape large parts of the dungeon.

Given that it's available for about half a bajillion platforms (including Android and iOS), I always return for another game when I have a little time and my phone.

I sadly have no screenshots from my run,
so here are some by the courtesy of Google.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

I've won POWDER a couple of times, the very first time as a pure barbarian. I like to call it a berserk challenge, even though it's not much of a challenge. I would recommend this to anyone trying to learn the game - go with H'ruth and don't look back. Do not cast spells, get speed boots if possible, and you'll be all right. Once you have enough of the mindless slaughter, you can try other gods, spellcasting and other strategies.

But I also tried going for other pure classes. Warlord (pure fighter) is nearly as easy as berserk. Maybe even easier, as you have one spell slot for something like Teleport. Pure rogue (I'm not sure what to call it, because Quizar offers a bit of a thief, a ranger and a swashbuckler) is a great mix of might and magic. Both death knight (pure necromancer) and priest (pure cleric) are very powerful if you can somehow deal with their strict requirements in the early game. Chaos knight (pure cultist of Xom) is just a rollercoaster of luck, but can be the strongest build in the game. I have yet to try wanderer (pure adventurer, aka atheist, aka why-would-you?), but they should be possible, even if weak because of the slow growth of HP and MP combined with no divine boons.

But only yesterday I had a nearly successful archmage run (pure wizard). That is a challenge, because Belweir does not give you any HP - you start with 15 and that's it, unless you manage to raise it by other means. Not that easy to survive past very early game, especially if you get hit by some spell.

I started that run with a tome of fire and earth, basically giving me access to some of the best spells I could ask for - Sticky Flames for damage while I run from the monsters I can't take a hit from, Sunfire to nuke everything and everyone (once I have the necessary MP), Dig to circumvent impossible monsters and create shortcuts, Entomb to be safe while resting for MP.

Already a good start, it turned into an awesome start once I found an utility staff on floor 2. This gives you the must-have spells for surviving a slow, careful run. Especially Possess is invaluable, allowing you to dominate any monster and make it fight for you or kill itself while you're (relatively) safe. It also gives you Teleport (get out of jail free), Preserve (permanent food) and Stone to Flesh (more food, plus you can survive cockatrices and kill golems).

I did quite a bit of kiting and resting to have enough MP for damage, teleports and Entomb, but I was surviving. That was a nice change given my previous attempts at pure wizard. Unfortunately, casting that many spells really pisses off H'ruth and eventually, he started to let it show. At floor 5, I was hit with his poison punishment. With 15 HP and no potion or spell to cure it, I ran in a mad hope to find something that could save me, or at least praying (not literally, because praying will not help in POWDER) for a divine intervention. Otherwise, I was dead.

No, the tileset is not childish, it's adorable!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Spells

I entered a room I wasn't in before. It was one of the pre-made rooms, with a unique lich and two of his buddies trapped behind some boulders. Promptly, one of the liches hit me with Poison Bolt. Now I had hardly any health left and was Deadly Poisoned, so I had a single turn remaining. Nothing better to do, I cast Possess on the unique lich - and he failed his saving throw! Suddenly I was in the body of a unique lich named Tr'lrd'dl, with about 100 HP and 160 MP - better than my previous 15 HP, right? I also had the two new pet liches, as the buddies of Tr'lrd'dl remained tamed after me stealing his body.

I was in a better shape then before, but not safe yet. I was living on a borrowed time as my unconscious body was probably already dead from the poison. When the possession expires, you normally get returned to your original body, but I had no body to return to...

So I tried something called Kender's Body Hop. I teleported to my dead old body, took the utility staff, thus giving my lich body access to Possess spell, then possessed one of my buddy liches. Body hopping capitalises on the way the game tracks how long before it should return you to your body - I was in a different body when it tried to take me back to my old corpse, so nothing happened and when the second possession expired, I permanently returned into the body of Tr'lrd'dl.

This, of course, was an incredible power-up. From 15 to 100 HP, plus increased mana, plus all lich abilities and spells, plus I was still worshipping Belweir and thus technically still on an archmage run. The game became a bit of a magical power trip as I started to crush the dungeon and its denizens.

 

Braindead!

With the kind help of a wand of polymorph, I was able to access most of the various spellbooks and learn all the useful spells. Thankfully I had a ring of fire resistance, so the vulnerability to fire that normally threatens a lich was not such a problem to me. The silver circlet was a helm of telepathy in this game, much inferior to a helm of warning if you ask me, and thus not a loss. I even found an amulet of unchanging soon after, protecting me from the pesky cockatrices.

I descended deeper, amassed artifacts (notably a short sword that granted me reflection, which I dual wielded for the rest of the game with my staff), blew stuff apart with Sunfire and Lightning Bolts, and made Belweir happy. I got all the way down to the Cretan minotaur, the first boss, killing him with a single casting of Chain Lightning. Good times.

Taking the y-rune guarded by the minotaur with me, I went to the caves. Here, the large open floors with lots of enemies actually forced me to play slower and safer. While I still had no real trouble defeating them, iron golems, kobold assassins or large turtloids are powerful enough to make even an archmage like I was take a pause. Except when you drown them all in lava, of course.

The most worrisome monsters proved to be soul suckers (Curse them!). Imagine an exposed brain, floating towards you through the gloomy cavern, twitching its loose spinal cord impatiently. Then a strange lightness hits you in the chest and you vomit up a tiny spark of light trapped in a stream of oily black smoke. That was the souls sucker casting Soul Suck on you, stealing a sliver of your soul and all your skills and spells with it. You loose all your powers (temporarily, thank Belweir), and end up amnesiac and confused, while the soul sucker now has access to the whole breadth of your abilities. Expect to be pelted with your most powerful spells immediately afterwards.

Well, I was prepared this time with a secret trick up my sleeves - I learned Soul Suck too! I just had to be quick enough and steal their memories immediately when they entered my line of sight, and them it was a jolly old brainslaughter as the poor soul sucker milled about, confused and incapable of doing anything at all.

Tridudes!

 

How to Lose Friends & Alienate Self

Anyway, I arrived on the dungeon level 20, where something special awaits. Remember that y-rune I picked up from the cold, dead hands of the minotaur? There is an extradimensional portal on floor 20 that lets you through when you have this rune. And through I went, to a strange, otherworldly, even alien place. Specifically, this portal leads to a spaceships of the tridudes, bizarre three-armed alien creatures somehow tied to the mad god Xom (or rather ><0|\/|, as it calls itself). This special, somewhat dangerous level holds the second of three bosses in POWDER, the golden tridude.

Massacring through its underlings, I was thinking about the best way of how to tackle it. The golden tridude is immune to most elements and has reflection, so magical assault is difficult. It has relatively good armour class and very strong attacks, so only a true warrior should challenge it in melee. But as I neared its lair (or I guess the command bridge of the spaceship), I realized I still have the spell that saved my skin on the very start of this game. I waltzed to the room and cast Possess on the golden tridude.

It resisted, which was a bit anticlimatic, but by then I had enough mana to cast again and again. After several attempts, I was controlling the boss, a massive 2x2 creature, and could do whatever I wished to! So I killed all the other tridudes in the room to protect my dormant body, dropped all the artifacts and other gear the golden tridude carried, forgot all of its spells so that it could not spew acid at me, and then got the brightest idea ever. It was fun walking around in a huge body, and I could reach the portal...

I released my possession to drop the y-rune on the ground, then possessed the golden tridude again. I grabbed the rune in my big stolen body, trod to the portal and went through. Experiment successful, you can use stairs and portals in a possessed 2x2 body! There were some monsters left in the cave so I had fun hitting many of them at once thanks to my massive body, until a thought struck me - the possession will time out sooner or later. And my body lies in the spaceship, on the other side of the portal. And you can only go through the portal when you carry the y-rune. The rune that my possessed golden tridude carries. I dashed back to the portal, because I only needed to get the golden tridude back to the spaceship, where I could possess it again or kill it to get the y-rune back. The possession timed out when I was two squares away from the portal...

And so I was returned to my body in the spaceship, the portal permanently impassable. There was nothing I could do, no way to fix my folly.

The Golden Tridude by kennydalman

 

The Forever Man

I killed every last tridude on the ship, then revived some as zombies and skeletons to keep me company. I even managed to hit one purple tridude with Ghastify and carried enough spare magic items and artifacts to make it completely invulnerable. And of course, I was still a lich, so inediate and immortal. I had my own spaceship, a demigod lieutenant and an army of the dead, a room full of various spoils of my conquest, and a bleak eternity of soaring among the stars, forsaken and forgotten.

So that is the story of Tr'lrd'dl, the Lich Among Stars. May he spread the gospel of Belweir to whatever strange worlds his spaceship will drift to in the eons to come.

Edit: I have fanart!
 

by Kastrol / kennydalman
(click for full resolution)