Class: Nightmare

One of the players in my just-finished D&D 5e campaign rides a nightmare. In preparation for switching to GLOG, I want to let them play as the nightmare.

from D&D 5e

 

A: Nightmarish, Fiery, Horse That Leaps Over Land And Sea And Sky

B: choose one of Dream Travel or Dimensional Travel

C: Fiery Steed, Trample

D: Fiery Breath and the other Travel ability

Nightmarish

You are a horse, but scary. You cannot speak, but can communicate with those you know well.

You have no hands, but can run really fast (double standard Movement Speed) and count your Strength Might twice for the purposes of Inventory Slots.

Your teeth are razor-sharp and your hooves smoulder - deal d10 damage "unarmed". You can only eat meat.

Fiery

Your mane and tail are on fire. You have fire resistance and shed light as a lantern.

Horse That Leaps Over Land And Sea And Sky

You can walk on water. You can also run on air, but must end each movement action on a solid ground, or fall.

Fiery Steed

You are now immune to fire and may confer fire resistance to one rider.

Trample

You can move through the space of any creature smaller than you and test Might. On success, they are knocked prone and get no attacks of opportunity against you.

You may trample multiple creatures in a single movement, as long as you fail no Might test. On a failed Might test, you lose the rest of your movement.

Fiery Breath

Deal 2d8 fire damage in a 15 feet cone. You can breathe again once you devour a ration's worth of raw flesh.

Dream Travel

Instead of a long rest, you and your rider may dive into the Dreamlands. You can follow the scent of anyone whose blood you have ever tasted and enter their dreaming, if they are currently asleep. Dreamers will remember their interactions with you as strange nightmares.

Sidebar: Willpower (wp) is basically mental hp or sanity, decreased by stress rather than damage. Once you run out of wp, you start freaking out and may gain Vice if you take further stress. I should post the full rules one day.

In a dream, your attacks deal stress rather than damage. If your target is reduced to 0 wp, they wake up covered in cold sweat, their rest forestalled, and gain a Vice of phobia towards you.

Should your dreaming form be reduced to 0 hp or wp, you wake up. This may strand your rider, if they were not riding you at the moment of your return to the waking world.

Dimensional Travel

You can smell dimensional intersections - fey crossings, thin places, inactive portals, etc. Take 1 Fatigue to kick open a rift in such a weak location. It stays open for d6 minutes.

In most of Creation, Twilight is close enough that you can always open a portal there.

Class: Mer-Cursed

Sometimes, you are left broken, swaying as flotsam with the waves.

Sometimes, you are found by the Kraken.

Sometimes, you fall in love.

 

Underwater Breathing - The Awakening

 

A: Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep

Only women may advance to further templates.

B: His Control Stops With the Shore, random Gift

C: choose two Gifts

Δ: gain another Gift when you give up your legs, your ability to breathe air, or your human speech

Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep

You have a skin as gray and slippery as an eel, rows of sharp shark teeth (d6), bulging eyes that can see in minimal light, and a hunger for raw flesh. You can breathe underwater and swim as easily and quickly as you would move on dry land.

His Control Stops With the Shore

Your cravings for raw flesh grow insistent. Animal meat satisfies, but feels a bit empty. Man-flesh, on the other hand, is a glorious delight to your palate. Eating man-flesh once per week stops your ageing; once per day reverses it towards your prime. Each HD of man-flesh consumed also grants you +1 max hp until you next rest.

d6 Gifts of the Fathomless Depths

1. Beauty Untarnished: She cares. At will, cover your cursed blessed form with a glamour, gaining the appearance of a gorgeous land-dweller. You may also weave illusory clothes and hide any injuries, blemishes, grime, blood splatters or other imperfections.
2. Voice Unbridled: Her Your Her voice is bewitchingly beautiful. When you sing, name an emotion and test Charisma/Singing. On success, your song provokes that emotion as long as you keep singing. On failure, it still has a profound effect, but with unintended, possibly disastrous consequences.
3. Words Unnecessary: They all care. You can speak with all water-dwelling creatures.
4. Things Unsaid: You are one of them now. You have a sonar-like awareness of your surroundings while in water.
5. Promise Unbroken: You would kill for them. For her. Your scaled skin is as tough as chainmail and your overlarge teeth can shatter steel (d10 damage).
6. Love Unconditional: She reciprocates. You can cast and learn spells as a wizard. Gain 1 MD and 2 spells chosen from the sea sorceress, servant of the sea, deep mage or nereid spell lists.

Class: Gnome

Gnomes are an artificial race created by Dark Lady Ta-tiki-tekh-uata, the Witch Mother, to serve as her attendants, spies and enforcers. Some sources suggest that she tried to replicate the long-lost Sidhe biomantic recipe for turning humans into elves, others claim that she did so successfully, but used her plentiful goblin slaves as the base stock instead of her much more sparse human subjects - in any case, gnomes were the result.

No one has a satisfactory answer for the colourful cap thing.

 

Old Gnome Wizard by Skywise00

 

This is a racial class, so its template A can only be gained during character creation. Inspired by Konsumterra.

I have no love for gnomes. They are surprisingly bland fey dwarves. There is no strong theme, no nice twist that would make me want them in my world. Yet for some reason, my players want to play as gnomes. Or rabbits. Making gnomes a regional offshoot of goblins gives them a place in the world, but at the same time, there don't need to be any gnomes save for the player characters, unless the party travels to Pflec. I can live with that.

  

High level grey cap gnome
From here.

  

Quest: Visit Pflec or the Witch Mother's lost demesne.

Language: Sylvan (Red, Green, Gold, Blue, Grey) or Pflecian (Svirfneblin)

Items: gnome cap, tool of your hereditary trade

Skills: (per sub-species) Parade, Recall Details, Music, Cooking, Tinkering, Ward-Breaking

Age: There was a mild imperfection in the biomantic formula used to create this race. Gnomes reach adulthood at age 20, but their appearance ages faster than that. A twenty years old, young adult gnome will look like a human in their sixties or seventies. They only get wrinklier and more stooped with age, though this does not affect their physical capabilities much. Gnomes live up to 200 years and in old age start to develop plant-like characteristics - wrinkles become bark, beard is more moss than hair. This is another flaw of the biomantic formula.

A: Gnome Cap, Small Stature

B: Gnomish Magic, +1 MD

Gnome Cap

Gnomes possess an innate magical spark than can be imbued into a special cap, which must be made by the gnome's own hands and have the appropriate colour. Only gnomes can use a gnome cap, but they can use any gnome's cap. Each breed of gnomes has a different power that they can imbue into their cap.

Each gnome can only make one cap at a time. Should they wish to make a new one, the old one must be destroyed first for the gnome's spark of magic to return and be ready for imbuement again. Thus gnomes are highly protective of their cap. Stealing a cap is seen as a heinous crime in gnome communities, often resulting in harsh punishments. Similarly, confiscating one's cap is a harsh punishment reserved for the most vile criminals.

You cannot wear both a cap and a helmet.

Small Stature

You only need half as many rations as a grown man. You can fit into small spaces rather comfortably.

Many items will be bulky for you due to awkward size. You can only wield long weapons (long sword, spear) with both hands and cannot use heavy weapons (great sword, halberd) at all.

You cannot reach the top shelf.

Gnomish Magic

You have learned to use your magical gift similarly to a wizard, though you do not possess a spellbook. Gain 1 Magic Die. Each subspecies gains two spells:

• Red: death scythe, speak with blood
• Green: misty step, speak with animals
• Gold: part crowd, unseen orchestra
• Blue: clean up, speak with doors
• Grey: make material, move earth
• Death: non-detection, spell collapse

You have to be touching your cap to cast your spells - your spells are "memorised" in your cap.

 

Young blue cap gnome
From here.

  

Gnome, Red Cap

Red cap gnomes were soldiers and enforcers. Once the most plentiful of gnomes, their numbers were mercilessly culled when the Dark Ones fell, the remaining few fleeing to Pflec or abroad.

Red Cap

When you put on your cap after it has been drenched in fresh blood (enough to actually drench it, a few drops will not suffice), you can take any number of Fatigue points - that number will be X. You gain Xd6 temporary HP, deal +X damage in melee, roll Strength with +X bonus and count as X size categories larger for grappling purposes (without actually growing larger). This lasts until you lose all the temporary HP or take off the cap.

Gnome, Green Cap

Green cap gnomes were scouts and messengers. Most have found refuge among wood elves or druids.

Green Cap

When you put on your cap, you can transform into a natural animal - specifically the animal whose blood and viscera was used during the creation of your cap. This animal can be no larger than a dog and no smaller than a mouse. You can transform as often as you wish, but your equipment (except for the cap) doesn't transform with you, you cannot speak (unless the animal can) and you can only use the animal's abilities while transformed. Your HP carries over between forms.

Gnome, Gold Cap

Gold cap gnomes were entertainers and designers.

Gold Cap

You can manifest tangible illusions from your cap, no larger than what would fit into the cap. For lack of a better term, these illusions are like a hardlight hologram. They can be be pretty much any inanimate object, but they do not have any special effects (illusory potion does nothing), they pop when they would take damage, deal damage or get overexerted (illusory dagger or crowbar are pretty useless) and they last no longer than 10 minutes.

Gnome, Blue Cap

Blue cap gnomes were servants and spies.

Blue Cap

When you put on your cap and close your eyes, you become invisible.

When you put on your cap and hold your breath, you become as light as a feather. When damaged or otherwise distracted, roll Concentration to keep holding your breath.

Gnome, Grey Cap

Grey cap gnomes were custodians and sappers.

Grey Cap

You can manifest small tools and spare parts from your cap, which can be used to repair various mechanisms, from locks to clocks. If not handled by a gnome for more than a day, anything you manifested from your cap crumbles into fine sand - pretty disastrous for any mechanism.

With an hour of time, you can construct a small, fragile clockwork device that performs a simple function. For example, it could be a walking toy soldier, a lighter or a music box.

Gnome, Death Cap

Death cap gnomes are a splinter group of gnomes who rebelled against the Witch Mother and helped the Attnamese Empire in toppling the Dark Ones. They call themselves Svirfneblin and ignorant commoners sometimes know them as Bog Gnomes - a name whispered with disgust and fear. Once the designated infiltrators and saboteurs, they carried out a series of attacks that turned Pflec - a thin stretch of land between the river Amir and the Trollish Peaks - from the breadbasket of the Dark Ones to a haunted, miasmatic wasteland of spellborn horrors.

After the war, imperial magistrates granted the Pflecian Marshes to Svirfneblin along with Hin halflings and some of the few survivors of the dwarven genocide as their new sovereign territory. The so-called "gnomish dictatorship" is the direct result of the resulting anti-imperial sentiment. Hidden behind a nigh-impenetrable mix of mires, mutated war-beasts and curse-warped illusions, Svirfneblin have established tightly controlled enclaves run with relentless efficiency and ruthless surveillance. Paranoid, secretive and unapologetically authoritarian, the Svirfneblin are widely hated for their plundering raids, river blockades disguised as taxation and the occasional disappearing of useful individuals from the borderlands.

And yet, for all their cruelty, they have made their death-bogs thrive.

Black Cap

When you put on your cap, you are warded against all magic. Any magic used on you - baleful or benign - has a 50% chance of failing.

Note that you will have to drop your cap when you want to be for example healed. Also note that your cap doesn't help you against secondary effects of spells. For example, ground coated with a grease spell will still be slippery.

Other subspecies of gnomes exist, such as quicklings and darklings, but they are a) basically extinct and b) not a player race.

 

  

Spells:

Clean Up

Up to [highest] creatures or objects within 30' no larger than a human/horse/ogre/dragon are instantly cleaned, groomed and perfumed.

One may specify the grooming, e.g. shaving, shaping or trimming of the beard; type of perfume, etc. This does not destroy the filth, merely puts it into a neat pile on the side.

Adapted from the handsome wizard.

Death Scythe

Plunge your arm into a corpse and pull a black scythe from its chest as it crumbles into dust. The scythe deals 1d8+[dice] damage, or double damage to creatures of the same type as the corpse. It lasts for [sum] rounds/minutes/hours/until dismissed.

Adapted from the necromancer.

Make Material

R: 60'

Produce [dice] slots worth of basic items or equipment from thin air. They are very low-quality and have a 50% chance of breaking when used. You may produce [sum] slots of items instead, but they will be of such poor quality that they always break on first use. Broken items or items older than a day crumble into fine sand.

Adapted from the manufacturing wizard.

Misty Step

R: self and touch; T: creature; D: [sum] rounds

Transform into a fog cloud. You can fly at your normal movement speed, but lose all senses except for touch. For every [dice] after the first, you can take someone with you.

Move Earth

D: concentration

Control a small amount of earth within 30'.

At 1 [dice], you can (a) excavate a bucket's worth of dirt, (b) shape the same amount, (c) cause the earth to swallow a small item or a non-resisting person, (d) knock over a shoddy shack with a tiny tremor.

At 2 [dice], you can move a wheelbarrow's worth and even make the earth slowly levitate.

More [dice] increase the effects further.

Adapted from the garden wizard.

Non-Detection

R: touch; T: [dice] creatures, places or objects no larger than a wagon; D: [sum] hours

Target is warded against divination magic. The target and anything on or in the target cannot be detected or perceived through magical means.

Part Crowd

Raise your hands over your head, then swing them down. Along a 500' line, creatures move out of the way, opening a clear path. Hostile creatures get a Save. The path closes naturally in 2d6 rounds.

Stolen from the civic wizard.

Speak with [thing]

Talk to [thing] for [sum] (real-life) minutes, or ask [dice] questions it must answer. Each [thing] only knows what it cares about:

• Animals care about food, shelter, safety, etc.
• Blood knows about sex and violence, instinct and base wants.
• Doors know what is behind them and who uses them.

Spell Collapse

R: direct line of sight; T: spellcaster; D: reaction

The target caster must make a Concentration check at -[dice], or their spell collapses. In that case, roll d6:

1. Normal spell effect inflicted on target caster.
2. Half spell effect inflicted on target caster.
3. Half spell effect inflicted on you.
4. Half spell effect inflicted on random target.
5. Half spell effect inflicted on original target.
6. Spell works in an unexpected way. GM tells you how.

Adapted from the metamancer.

Unseen Orchestra

D: concentration

You are surrounded by instrumental music, as a single musician at 1 [die] and a full orchestra at 4 [dice]. It can play any song you have heard before, but cannot duplicate speech. The effect can either follow you, or stay anchored to the spot where it was cast.

Adapted from the elf wizard.

 

Svirfneblin butler by edubenavente

  

Gnomeblight is a poison developed by Svirfneblin and used profusely against their red-capped brethren during the war. It causes mild gastrointestinal inconvenience when ingested by most species, but rapid necrosis on touch to gnomes - they must Save vs Death; on success they "merely" take 2d6 Con damage. The formula is a tightly guarded state secret of the gnomish dictatorship.

Class: Really Twitchy Hare

They call themselves Tu'er Ye, but are better known as Harelings, Harengon, Rabbitfolk, Tabbits or Al-mi'raj. They are few and rarely encountered. Their burrows are hidden in the deepest forests and never allow outsiders in. They love to gather knowledge and devote themselves to the search for truth - perhaps because they have lost their own truth.

There are multiple conflicting histories of the Tu'er Ye, each burrow usually subscribing to one version of their racial genesis:

• They were created by Dark Lady Ta-tiki-tekh-uata as a more exciting prey for her wild hunts.
• They are the chosen warriors of the Moon Rabbit, a god slain in an ancient war, and shall await his glorious return.
• They were once simple rabbits who made an unwitting covenant with fey forest spirits, gaining sentience.
• They are closely related to the mutated ratlings and their Horned Lords. This is a shameful secret and should never be revealed.
• They have escaped from an alternate timeline where rabbitfolk are the norm, not humans.
• They are just a boring evolved animal, like humans.
• All of the above are true for at least one burrow. Tu'er Ye are subject to a strange phenomenon called "lapinisation", being coincidentally recreated again and again.

And there are probably many, many more.

 

From Armello.

 

This is a racial class, so its template A can only be gained during character creation.

Quest: Learn at least two secret histories of the Tu'er Ye.

Language: Usagi, a language whistled at high frequency. If a person who does not know this language hears it, they may mistake it for the sound of birds chirping. There is no written form of Usagi.

Skills: (d4) Decipher, Hide, Overhear, Storytelling

Age: Tu'er Ye are considered adults at the age of 10 and their lifespan is about 50 years. However, many adventurous Tu'er Ye run from home to travel the world as young "teenagers" - about 5 years old.

A: Leporine, Hare-Trigger

B: Lucky Footwork, Bunny Hop

C: Panic Attack

Leporine

You are a bipedal lagomorph, thankfully with opposable thumbs.

You are pretty small - about 3 feet. You have half carrying capacity and many items will be bulky for you due to awkward size. You can only wield long weapons (long sword, spear) with both hands and cannot use heavy weapons (great sword, halberd) at all. You can fit into small spaces rather comfortably. Despite your size, you can run and jump as fast as a human and still need the normal amount of rations due to fast metabolism.

You have long ears (+2 to hearing checks per template) and can hear slightly into ultrasound.

You have disadvantage on saves vs fear.

Hare-Trigger

You are as tense as a bowstring. If you interrupt the GM before they properly describe a new location or opposition, you can take an extra action. This does not work once you know what the target or danger is.

Lucky Footwork

Against effects that allow a Dexterity save for half, take no damage on success and half on failure.

Against other effects that could conceivably be dodged, you may as a reaction reduce their damage to half.

Bunny Hop

You can jump double the normal distance.

Panic Attack

When you fail a save vs fear, you can take an extra action to attack or run away, before any negatives are applied. You can choose to fail a save vs fear against anything, anytime, though you can only be afraid of one thing at a time. Stop being afraid before using this ability again.

 

The Long Patrol by Kekai Kotaki

 

Δ: Jackalope

Travel between burrows and learn their stories.

You grow antlers, a sign of divine favour according to your people's traditions. You gain trust and respect of all Tu'er Ye, but face an inescapable wrath if this trust is ever betrayed.

You can speak with all living things. This lets you comprehend and be comprehended by humans, animals, monsters, etc.; but does not work on for example undead, writing or recordings.

Class: Ogre Ape

Depending on the setting, this could be an ogre, an ape, or an ogre ape. (Or a half-giant, or a goliath, even a really brawny barbarian. Any big guy/gal, really.) It has a touch of James Young's barbarian, SaltyGoo's ogre and Skerples' brawler.

Ogre Sitting by vshen

 

Quest: Visit the Ape Islands, or defeat and devour a bear by your lonesome.

Language: dialect basically unheard of Around Here

Items: loincloth, greatclub (d10)

Skills: Astrology, Cooking, Fishing, Herb Lore

A: Unconquered, Half-Naked

B: choose one of Commanding Roar or Powerful Presence

C: Unyielding

D: choose one of Silverback Punch or Withstand

Unconquered

You are an eight foot tall slab of muscle.

Your unarmed attacks deal d6 damage and other melee attacks +d6 damage.

Take half damage from things smaller than you.

Edit: Double your base maximum HP.

This probably requires a bit of an explanation. In my current ruleset, you have base HP based on Constitution and extra HP from class levels. So if your rules have for example Meat and Grit, double the Meat. If nothing like that is applicable, maybe step up their hit dice, or simply give them +2 HP per level?

Half-Naked

You are immune to the negative effects of weather and hypothermia.

Commanding Roar

Once per encounter, you can give a one-word command to a humanoid that is smaller than you. It can choose to fall prone instead of obeying the order.

Powerful Presence

At the start of each round, you can decide how creatures smaller than you react to you: They either avoid fighting you unless there is no other choice, or they gang up on you, ignoring your teammates.

Unyielding

Once ever when you would die, instead regain full HP and gain a cool scar.

Silverback Punch

Once per session, you can knock anything unconscious. This can be used even against things like golems or doors, where unconsciousness should be interpreted liberally.

Withstand

Once per session, completely ignore an attack or effect. If it would normally continue further, you also shield everyone behind you.

This negates secondary effects too (If a trap swings a huge stone hammer at you and you withstand it with your face, you also won't be knocked back.), but may not help much against ongoing effects. (When splashed with liquid flame, you can withstand the initial damage, but you will still be on fire.)

GLOG: Class Quests and Campaign Metaprogression

One common way of dealing with the endless classes of GLOG is to have only a limited few available in each campaign, and then maybe add more as players go through characters and find new things. I like this, but I want to make the process of unlocking new classes as player-facing as possible.

One common way of dealing with multiclassing - and GLOG is basically tailor-made for easy multiclassing - is to require an in-world justification for suddenly taking a wizard template with your barbarian. I like this as well, because while multiclassing is more than fine, I would like to see some buildup before a character switches classes. Once again, though, this should be as player-facing as possible.

Therefore, I will be adding a "class quest" for each class, which will have a dual purpose: One, any character who wishes to multiclass into a class will have to carry out the corresponding quest before they can take its template A. Two, anyone in the party fulfilling a class quest (in-game, not in a backstory, you munchkins), whether they multiclass into that class or not, will unlock the class for future new characters. Exploits that do not fit a certain class' quest but would make sense still count for both purposes, at the GM's discretion - the class quests are here as a guideline for the players rather than the GM.

Ideally, common classes will have easy quests while weirder and rarer classes will have quests that are harder to accomplish, maybe even limited to a specific location/event/faction. This will hopefully have the side benefit of encouraging exploration of every nook and cranny of the world. Some players are sadly risk-averse and will avoid places such as the Swamp of Mutilation or the Screaming Tower of Slow and Painful Death unless there is a tangible benefit in going to such places. Knowing that you will get a new class out of dying in there might be just the push they need.

I am thinking of starting the next campaign with a funnel - everyone will be a 0th level human and all classes will be locked. They will also get a list of all the classes they can unlock and their quests. This should provide a nice set of goals the party can work towards before they find personal goals or unearth other plots and problems.

By Varguy

 

d20 Class Quests

1. Warrior: Triumph over a powerful foe, or watch your friends get slaughtered.
2. Soldier: Enlist in a military.
3. Knight: Be knighted.
   
4. Duelist: Win a duel, or lose a duel but win the crowd.
5. Thief: Steal something valuable, or escape certain doom.
6. Assassin: Get away with murder, or take money for killing someone.
7. Mountebank: Frame someone else for your crimes.
8. Ranger: Survive several days in the wilderness, or save an animal at personal risk.
9. Wizard, Orthodox: Enroll in a Wizard University, or impersonate a mage and make at least a village believe you.
10. Wizard, Illusionist: Take glamour from a Fae, or fake your death.
11. Wizard, Biomancer: Mutate through incaution, or have a body part replaced or grafted.
12. Wizard, Necromancer: Murder a family member, or visit the Land of the Dead.
13. Alchemist: Consume a magical substance without knowing its effects, or cause a huge explosion.
    
14. Barrow Sword: Steal an ancient cursed blade from a barrow.
15. Noble House:  Play as a child of a previous character.
16. Paladin of the Word: Keep a secret to your detriment, or learn a True Name of God.
    
17. Paladin of the Wild: Hunt, kill and eat a bear.
    
18. Sand-Cursed: Visit haunted desert ruins.
19. Songstress of Many Tongues: Lose your tongue.
20. Sword Exorcist: Die to save innocents.

d12 Race-as-Class Quests

1. Centaur: Receive hospitality from a centaur tribe.
2. Dragonborn: Work for a dragon, or consume dragon flesh.
3. Dwarf: Carouse away 1000 gp, or cause trouble for yourself by being greedy.
   
4. Elf: Eat or marry a Fae.
5. Goblin: Have a contraption you built explode.
6. Kobold: Worship a dragon, or die in a dungeon trap.
7. Orc: Ride a giant wolf to battle.
   
8. Really Evil Goat: Sacrifice a goat to the Dark Powers.
   
9. Really Good Dog: Save a dog.
10. Tiefling: Have sex in Hell.
11. Troll: Visit the city of Trollamor, or consume troll flesh.
12. Vampire: Drink vampire blood after being bitten by one, or commit murder-suicide.

Any ideas for good class quests?

GLOG: Everything is a Template

Race-as-class is the only true way and everyone doing it differently is doing it wrong.

Beastfolk Party by WarpZoneTrigger

 

Okay, now that I've started a flame war, an explanation is in order. I have been struggling with races in my GLOG, or how to implement them in a way that supports character-making consistent with the world as I envision it. Here are my personal design goals:

1. I like largely human worlds surrounded by weirdness you can venture out into. While the standard super-simplified races of GLOG work fine mechanically, having that many easily used races encourages players to be something strange rather than the plain old human, so you end up with a menagerie of a party. Which is not a problem, except that a thousand lings force a different vibe on the game than what I prefer.
2. I want humans to be plain and basic. That means you can play up both the weirdness around them and how their adventuring life is changing them. Every mutation, every new ability is making them stranger and more interesting, which is much harder to properly emphasize when you already start pretty weird. On the other hand, just giving them a free skill/feat/attribute point to make them desirable is pure gameist trash.
3. I do want other races to be available, but I think they work better in juxtaposition to the mostly human civilization around them. They should have interesting abilities that set them apart, and here the design space of only one perk and one flaw, as is custom for GLOG races, is actually quite limiting. Some races could do with more abilities, even more power, so there needs to be a way of scaling different races rather than fitting them all in the same mould.
4. I also don't want to limit race/class combinations, as standard race-as-class often does by locking you into the abilities of only your race. Let there be halfling barbarians and half-ogre courtesans.

So I want humans to be boring and desirable at the same time, and without giving them any numeric bonuses. You can see my dilemma, now.

I may have figured it out. It's in the first sentence. It's a wheel re-invented, really, but I'm still excited to try it out.

Every non-human race is a class now, whose template A you can only take at character creation. Some races will only consist of template A, some may have more templates with more powers and abilities. Multiclassing is the heart of GLOG anyway, so every character can now take up to five templates and starts with two. If you want to be a dwarf cleric, take the templates Dwarf A and Cleric A.

And humans? They are the assumed race for anyone with no racial templates. They literally have no abilities at all, yet they could (hopefully) be quite desirable with their "ability" to start with two class templates, and to finish a whole class and then take one more template from another one.

We shall see if this actually works as intended.

QHW, Day 30: Dwarves

Dwarves need metal. Dwarves eat metal.

Dwarven society is stratified into castes, which in turn are based on the metal which a dwarf can afford to eat. (This can be quite useful for PC dwarves, who can switch between racial benefits simply by changing their diet and waiting for their body to adjust.) More wealthy dwarves can afford better metals, which in turn marks them as belonging to a higher caste. If a dwarf doesn't eat metal, they will grow weak, sickly, and eventually die.

The Alloyed
Any dwarf who switched from one diet to another. It takes several days for one metal to be cleared from the body and superseded with a new one, during which time the dwarf's skin is mottled and uneven, often with rust-pimples or cracks.

Politely ignored if it's a dwarf mid-transition between castes, often with a celebration if they change into a higher caste. Dwarves who keep changing their caste and are more often Alloyed than not, disparagingly called the "slags", are widely considered untrustworthy and ignored impolitely.

The Impures
The lowest caste is composed of dwarves who do not always have access to the same cheap metal every day, or just don't have enough energy left to care. These are the labourers and unskilled workers.

Copper Dwarves have increased stamina, though overdose can lead to restlessness and insomnia. Tin Dwarves have somewhat enhanced senses, especially in the dark. Overdose can lead to migraines. Bronze Dwarves have a lesser version of both, which is especially useful for the miners.

Bronze Dwarves are not considered Alloyed and don't get the tell-tale signs of changing a diet, even if they eat two different metals.

Iron Dwarves, Ferrics
The military caste. Iron Dwarves are stronger and tougher, with overdose leading to the numbing of pain and all emotions.

Many dwarven veterans are unwilling to ever change their diet, as they have brutally slaughtered many enemies while under the influence of iron and losing the numbness would quickly lead to PTSD. Swallowing a large amount of iron at once to intentionally overdose can be used by dwarves of any caste as an emergency painkiller, though it leads to them becoming Alloyed if they weren't Ferrics.

Silver Dwarves, Argents
The craftsdwarves, artisans and artists. Silver Dwarves have augmented creativity, imagination, empathy and emotional intelligence, but overdose can leave them with hallucinations or something akin to a bipolar disorder.

Despite their social nature, many Argents choose to lead a reclusive life, as silver diet sometimes leads to embarrassingly undwarven behaviour, like freely expressing your feelings!

Gold Dwarves, Aureans
The leaders, merchants and scholars. Gold Dwarves have augmented mental capacity, memory retention and brain plasticity, allowing them to learn quickly and easily outwit most others. An overdose leads to a loss of empathy and moral restraints, allowing one to stay calm, objective and profitable even in the face of death and despair. As such, many Aureans eat more gold than would be necessary.

Occultum Dwarves, Occultins
Dwarves never have a natural gift for magic, but they can gain one by eating occultum. This is quite often lethal, but those who survive the first dose are rewarded with sorcerous powers. Occultum Dwarves rarely change their diet unless forced to by circumstances, as they cannot return to occultum without risking their life with that first dose again.

An occultum overdose has roughly equal chance of either a massive explosion, or a transformation into a mighty spirit of the earth.

Quicksilver Dwarves, Mercurials
Mercurials are not a part of the dwarven society. They are outcasts, considered monstrous and perverse. They are feared, despised and only whispered about in stories to frighten children. Their blood is a deadly poison, thus they steal the blood of other dwarves to survive. Just like quicksilver, they are malleable, able to change their appearance at will, or even dissolve their body into a pool of living mercury.

Some stories also claim that Mercurials are immortal. Many dwarven lands ban mercury to forestall the temptation and prevent the rise of dwarf-eating monstrosities in their midst.

QHW, Day 22: ...in SPACE!!!

Oort

• Knot of long, multi-limbed insectoid limbs with no central body. Silicon based.
• Every joint is covered in sensory whiskers. Extremely sensitive to electricity and vibrations.
• They communicate via bioelectric signals. Can interface directly with their organic-electronic technology.
• They live off thermoelectricity. To feed, they lie down with one limb in sunlight and the other in darkness.
• Vacuum-proof, cannot survive in planetary gravity.
• Their kilometre-long ships are actually their females.
• Merchants. They fill their ships with cargo and travel at sub-light speeds to new systems.
• Due to their slow travel, they often have strange technologies and ancient objects for sale.

Zeno
They have nothing in common with humans, not even a distant space-faring ancestor, yet they are completely human looking. On the outside.

On the inside:

• Two hearts.
• Rib plates.
• Nictitating membrane.
• Don't sleep, they enter a trance for two hours a day.
• Extremely long, prehensile tongue.
• Can see in infra/ultra, but only black and white. Thus they have trouble understanding human art and fashion.
• When pregnant, can hold an embryo in stasis for years.
• Long lived, don't shrivel and wrinkle, but instead loose pigmentation. Old Zeno are albino.

QHW, Day 7: Humanoid Races

Baseline Humans, True Men

• Citizens of the few arcologies that were not damaged or destroyed.
• Cults of pure blood are rampant, with all other strains of humanity seen as only good to be enslaved or purged.

Cyborgs, Shellers, Aug-Men

• Second-class citizens of the arcologies, super-soldiers and specialized slave-workers. Dependant on the few skilled surgeons and remaining auto-docs, thus kept in line.
• Out in the Rad Wastes, they either die of implant rejection, or thrive as invincible warlords.

Robodroids, Mech-Men

• They never were human and thus don't cling to a humanoid shape. Intelligent vehicles, buildings, etc.
  
• Immune to hunger, thirst, asphyxiation, fatigue, poisons and diseases, but suffer from nanites, malware and EMP.

Chimerae, Splicers, Beast Men

• Humans cross-mutated with animals via careful gene-engineering, gaining useful perks with minimal downsides.
• Range from a human with a few animal characteristics to a humanoid animal.
• Unlike mutants, they breed true, including with their parent species. Many splicer tribes roam the Rad Wastes.
• Radiation exposure often times turns them feral and mindlessly hostile before resulting in mutations.
  

Synths, Fake Men

• Shapeshifters. A brain-box suspended in metamorphic synth-flesh.
• Can also spend their biomass for various effects, like fabricating bone items, breathing toxic gas, shooting enamel-bullets, or creating independent, non-intelligent life forms.

Replicants, Vat Babies

• Their DNA was hand-crafted to make them peak human, and it shows. Their brains were pruned to make them obedient and happy to serve, but it didn't work. They have no belly buttons.
• Created in batches of hundreds of clones. Some pre-Turn sites will have tribes of people that all share the same face.
• Extremely vulnerable to radiation due to their delicate DNA.
  

Holograms, eGhosts, Hollow Men

• They all have a phylactery, a tiny piece of tech containing their mindstate, a holo projector and a power source.
• Can freely switch between soft- and hardlight, but hardlight drains their power reserves fast.
• Most were once powerful people who sought immortality. Now they are the tyrant kings and queens of the Rad Wastes.

Blighters, Zeds, Chem-Men

• Gene-plagues and chemical superweapons depopulated whole countries during the Turn. A tiny fraction of a percent of the victims survived, albeit changed.
• Extremely resistant to diseases, toxins, chemicals and radiation. Basically unageing. Their bodily fluids swiftly kill most lifeforms.
• Shunned by all, they live in isolated villages or abandoned pre-Turn sites deep in the Rad Wastes.

QHW, Day 6: Radiation

Dreamers

• Humans with a non-intelligent symbiont which grants them psionic powers.
• The symbiont can cross from one host to another, usually on the host's death, taking some memories with them.
• A single host is sometimes called an incarnation, with the switch between hosts being a reincarnation.
• Strong emotions carry over the best between incarnations. It is not unheard of feuds or affairs between Dreamers that span multiple reincarnations.
• Like an unborn baby, a symbiont absorbs any radiation the host is exposed to. This makes the host mostly immune to the Rad Wastes, but it also affects the psionics of the symbiont, increasing their power at the cost of stability and reliability.
• Some Dreamers purposefully expose themselves to radiation in hopes of getting a temporary power boost. However, an overdose will leave the symbiont broken, with their powers unshackled and uncontrollable. Such monstrosity is known as a Nightmare.
• Awakening is a rare and dreaded quirk where the symbiont gains full sapience. An Awakened takes over the host body and subsumes the self of the host completely.
• An Awakened will sometimes quickly jump from one body to another to gain the skills and knowledge of the hosts.
• Awakened are mortally afraid of Nightmares.

Class: Random Advancement Vampire

Vampirism - You don't need to eat, sleep, or breath, but you must drink blood. Allergic to sunlight. Powers and weaknesses develop as you drink more people.

 
A character of mine in a Finders Keepers game currently has this trait. The question remains, what kind of powers and weaknesses will a vampire develop? You can use the generator below - once you drink enough blood, press the button and you will gain one random power and one random weakness.

While the powers and weaknesses were created with Finders Keepers* in mind, they can easily be used for vampiric characters in any Into the Odd-style game. To make it work as a GLOG class, you could grant Vampirism and one roll on the generator at template A, then one extra roll each level. Or just use it to inspire powers for your NPC vampires.

 
Dead blood is any blood removed from a living body for over an hour, or taken from a dead body that already started to grow cold.

To feed someone your blood, take d4 damage unless otherwise specified.

*) Some of the abilities are frankly stolen from there.

Weres of Vanth

Weres are notorious if rare on Vanth, the victims of a hereditary curse that brings about excessive hair growth*, alarming allergies and a monthly involuntary transmogrification associated with one of the Vanth's moons. The origin of the curse varies by the family line, from a pissed-off deity or experimental gene splicing going awry to the unspeakable depravity of bestiality. (Who am I kidding, it was the bestiality most of the time.)
 

While certain level of animosity against these animal-shifters is not uncommon, a poll carried out in the Realm of the Hobling Emperor and the cities along the western coast of the Sea of Great Peril showed that most citizens are accepting of their therianthropic neighbours, as long as all fowl devoured during the full moon is promptly compensated for. In the south-eastern jungles, Weres even tend to hold positions as revered druids, shamans or other religious leaders, due to the belief that they can commune with the spirits of nature much more easily than other folk, especially in their animal form.

By contrast in the Slaver Kingdoms, Weres are considered a high-priced commodity, as they can be sold either as curios to extravagant nobles, or as quality breeding stock**. And don't even ask about the Shunned Towns.

A recent study published in the Paranature journal suggests that it is not advisable to tell any jokes along the lines of "You mamma was a bitch. Literally." in the presence of Weres. The study concluded that such a joke tends to elicit a brutal, violent reaction from 93.7 % of Weres.

 

Wereshark, werecheetah, werebat and weregator.

 
Were-animal
When you roll this racial option, assemble your therianthropic curse from the tables below, then roll on the table of races again to find your actual race when you're not prowling the night in animal form.
 

Wereserpent
From Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

 
Beast Form
You turn into an animal form. Roll here.

If you don't like the result, you may reroll, but only once. If your beast form is particularly tiny, you may turn into a swarm of such animals instead.

While in your were-form, you have all abilities that the animal would possess, whether extra combat effects, better senses, or new forms of movement, but you cannot wield weapons or wear armour. Wounds carry over between forms.

You always shape-shift into your animal form on the night when your moon is full, and cannot turn back until morning when you revert automatically. At any other time, you may try and roll Great Feat to change. This roll can only be attempted once per day, whether to turn into an animal, or to turn back.

You can communicate with animals of similar type as your beastly form, no matter your current form.
 
d20 Banes
When exposed to your Bane (skin contact for the materials, otherwise as appropriate), take d4 damage per round. When attacked with your Bane, take double damage.

1. silver,
2. gold,
3. iron (but not steel),
4. copper (including bronze),
5. chrome,
6. obsidian,
7. gems,
8. glass,
9. ice (but not snow),
10. paper,
11. fresh wood,
12. old bones,
13. synthetic fibre and plastic,
14. sea water,
15. alcohol,
16. garlic,
17. music and singing,
18. phasics,
19. magic spells and weapons,
20. the light of your moon; you change on new moon instead.

d8 Moons

1. Black Moon
2. Green Moon
3. Grey Moon
4. Half-Moon
5. Red Moon
6. Skull Moon
7. White Moon
8. Yellow Moon

Vanth actually has nine moons, occasionally. The Blue Moon, also known as the Capricious Traveller or the Stargazer's Bother, tends to appear sporadically for a few days, then not be seen for many months. Its erratic presence thankfully doesn't affect any vanthian Weres, who would otherwise be quite inconveniently at the mercy of its quantum whimsy.
 

Good old werewolf transformation.
From Hemlock Grove

  
*) Not to be confused with the much more common super-hair-growth mutation. Also note that non-mammalian Weres tend to develop small patches of feathers or scales instead of becoming hirsute.
**) It has been shown that interbreeding with Weres increases the intelligence of animal offsprings to near-human levels. The loose alliance of several Were tribes known as the Horse Tamers voluntarily uses this quirk of biology to breed their world-famous, highly intelligent horses.