Be On Your Guard (More GLOG Magician Schools, Arise Ye Wretched)

The previous post contained lies - or perhaps this one does. Conjuration was not merely split into Dislocation and Goety—it was, in fact, the Ur-School, singular in its power and purpose, and subjected to a sevenfold split to create the modern categories of Gnosticism.

Other coherent paradigms of magic exist: Necromancy, devised by Unræd and kept jealously by the Curators of Necropolex, harnessed to maintain the stalwart independence of the Necropoles; Illusion, secreted away in a dream to the otherside of the Hex, where it found wide popularity in the academies of Jiangskr and High Isshin-Daga; Dislocation, an art traditionally kept by diasporic clans of nomadic mountain-people who can be found in all the high places of the Hex, leaping from one peak to another.

Conjuration herself, Queen of the Arcana, long rumored to be the subject of clandestine investigations in dusty Panopticon basements, each new generation producing some sublime quicksilver genius who inevitably burns all her talents and potentials on attempting to reconcile the syntactic gaps in that which was broken.

Source: Delphin Casado

 

Necromancy

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER):

1. Ice
2. Keratin
3. Ash
4. Bone
5. POISON
6. HOPE
7. BLOOD
8. DEATH

Implements: 

1. Skull - Animate [Word] to obey one-word commands, or release a drifting cloud of [Word].
2. Tome - Ask a question of [Word], or bind sentience into a mass of [Word].
3. Gun - Fabricate bullets from [Word], or lay a curse of [Word] with a shot.
4. Scythe - Mark something for death by [Word], or harvest [Word] from the dead or incapacitated.
5. GRAVE - Take [Word] into yourself to enhance power and vitality, or chimaerize two beings of [Word]. Immobile.

Praxis: Gain +[Templates] temporary HP upon waking, which are expended prior to any regular HP. When a living being dies within your Crown, gain 1 point of temporary HP, up to a maximum of [Templates]*2 at any given time. Your hair and nails count as Light weapons.

Illusion

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER):

1. Mist
2. Glass
3. Smoke
4. Silk
5. MOON
6. MUSIC
7. AUDIENCE
8. MEMORY

Implements:

1. Veil - Vanish into [Word], or craft an uncanny disguise from [Word].
2. Fan - Redirect attentions to or from [Word], or banish illusions with [Word].
3. Torch - Conjure a silent image from [Word], or release a disorienting burst of [Word].
4. Censer - Fill your Crown with illusory [Word], or trap a single subject in a false world of [Word].
5. STAGE - Dude, fuck if I know. I'll come back and put something in here later. Immobile.

Praxis: See through illusions worked by beings with less HD than you. You can project a swarm of [Templates] mirror images around you. Targeted attacks against you have only a 1-in-[Templates] chance of success, increasing by +1 per failed attempt and +2 per successful attempt until success is guaranteed. 

 

Dislocation

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER):

1. Dust
2. Rain
3. Birds
4. Paper
5. LIFE
6. TREASURE
7. DOOR
8. MIRROR

Implements:

1. Bead - When thrown, appear at point of impact in a burst of [Word].
2. Knot - Exchange locations with [Word] within your crown, or return to the location where the knot was tied in a burst of [Word].
3. Key - Allow unhindered movement through [Word], or open a passage between two instances of [Word] within your Crown.
4. Bolt - Split yourself into clones made from [Word], or teleport [Word] with a touch to anywhere within your Crown.
5. GATE - Teleport yourself to any [Word] you are aware of, anywhere, or open a doorway into an extradimensional Demiplane of [Word] the size of your Crown. Immobile. 

Praxis: Gain +[Templates] equipment slots, held in an extradimensional space and retrieved with a mudra. On your turn, take 1 Fatigue to materialize anywhere you could walk in one round, ignoring difficult terrain and hazards but not barriers. 

Conjuration

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER): 

1. Fire
2. Water
3. Earth
4. Wind
5. Wood
6. Metal
7. Darkness
8. SUN
9. STAR 
10. LIFE
11. SPIRIT
12. MEMORY
13. THOUGHT
14. DIVINITY
    

Implements:

1. Staff - Create a sphere or wall of [Word]. 3 Slots.
2. Sword - Divide or parry [Word] with a strike. 2 Slots.
3. Grail - Distill a potion of [Word], or cause one who drinks from the grail to be wracked with [Word] at your will. 2 Slots.
4. Pentacle - Call forth a being of [Word], or exchange to compel a favor from [Word]. 1 Slot.
5. Mirror - Trap or deflect [Word] while the mirror is aloft. 2 Slots.
6. Orb - Get a vision of nearby [Word], or something in nearby [Word]. 4 Slots.
7. Key - Allow unhindered movement through [Word], or open a passage between two instances of [Word] within your Crown.
8. WELL - Call forth an unlimited font of [Word], or realize a Wish via [Word].

Praxis: Creatures of your [Word]s must Save to knowingly harm you.

Q&A Section

A brief Q&A, featuring a mix of questions I was actually asked by people on Discord and questions that I've made up to give myself an opportunity to elaborate on things.

Q: Are Implements the same things as normal objects? Like, can a Transmuter just pick up any old hammer and do Transmutations with it?

A: No :). In the modern day, Implements are machined according to precise numerological ratios and inlaid with gold circuitry to make them proper vessels for magic. You can't buy a new one at a supermarket, but specialists can probably sell them to you for about 100g a pop.

Q: Can you learn new Words? 

A: Yes, but it's hard as hell. Some kind of Quest for Power or other major undertaking is needed in order to alter your school's guiding logic enough to accommodate new inputs. 

Q: How about Implements?

A: Ditto. The Gnostic trades flexibility for reliability. If you want to be picking up new spells all over the place, go play an Occultist.

Q: So how do magic spells actually work? Mechanically?

A: Because of the wide variety of possible [Word] inputs, I figured less is more when writing Implement descriptions and neglected to write a proper GLOG-style spell description. You know how to write these, plop down some [Sum]s and some [Dice]s and so forth and get to casting!

Q: Does a particular Word/Implement combo always result in the same spell?

A: I've actually been thinking about this, and rolling it around in my head, especially in the context of the "hotrod spell" bandwagon that was going in the GLOGosphere in times of yore. While I'll leave how permissive you want to be down to the individual GM, I'd say that, at minimum, you should allow different Magicians to cast different variants on the same spell—one guy's Sphere of Fire can be a classic Fireball, another a rolling orb, a third a lingering firestorm, and so forth. If you allow one Magician to devise multiple variants of the same spell, you should probably require each interpretation to be tied to a different Implement. It'd be neat if, for instance, you could gank another magus and steal her Implements to gain access to the specific hotrod versions of spells that she knew.

Q: Blah blah blah I have questions etc etc

A: Too bad, I'm bored of this format. Go DM me on Discord or something.

3+1 Neat Catalysts

Modifiers are a subset of Catalysts that must be integrated into Implements and modify all spells cast with it. They are typically non-consumable, but must be used every time the Implement is called on, and cannot easily be exchanged.

1. Attuner -  One of the most ubiquitous Modifiers - a 1-slot attachment to an Implement that attunes it to a single Word, making it unable to channel any other Word but granting all spells cast a +3 to [Sum]. The form and composition of the Attuner is specific to the Word and the Implement it modifies.

2. Multi-Threader - A complex 2-slot splitter matrix that allows a spell to be cast with two Words at the price of halved [Sum]. 

3. Silencer - A 1-slot aetheroresonant baffle that causes spells to be silent or invisible, at the cost of -3 to [Sum]. Decoheres on a Mishap, causing the release of all stored light and sound in a blinding and deafening flashbang burst.
   

You ever think about how a tower is basically just a really big wizard's staff? Me neither, I think my delightful girlfriend actually pointed that out. Anyways:

+1. TOWER - Increase the radius of your Crown by an order of magnitude for every story beyond the first.

Subtle Body, Luminiferous Mind (GLOG Psychic, Arise Ye Wretched)

Presented without comment. This is a part of the Hex setting that I've been poking at for a good while.

 

Lucid 

A: Crown, Intent, Manifestation

B: Scanner, Lingering Intent

C: Inception, Evanescence

D: WAKE UP.

A: Crown

Like the Magician, you too have a Crown of 10m radius per [Template], suggesting a deep symmetry between traditional magic and Lucidity. Some theoreticians, in fact, have labeled it a third form of magic—Solipsistic. You, however, are far more limited by your Crown. 

Not only do your powers fail to affect anything outside your Crown, but all changes you make to the world are fully reverted once the affected subjects leave your Crown. This should be interpreted fairly strictly—for instance, if a Lucid were to shuffle the contents of a room via telemotive force and then leave, all items would snap back to their original locations as if they had never moved at all (and, who knows—maybe they didn't). 

There are two exceptions to this, which are really only one exception, referred to collectively as the Aleph-Taw Principle: Life and Death remain constant across the bounds of wakefulness. Or, to put it another way: you die (or get pregnant) in the dream, you die in real life.

While you possess a Crown, all your sleep is completely dreamless. 

A: Intent

While in theory your capability to alter the world within your Crown is near-infinite, the slippery nature of dream-logic causes your actual power to be bottlenecked by your ability to focus. In order to exert the true measure of your strength against a target, you must fix your Intent on it. This usually involves intense staring, putting fingers to temples, mantra chanting, &c, but does not strictly require an outwards show of exertion.

Most of your Attainments will specify a general effect, which can be brought to bear on anything within your Crown at any time, and an enhanced effect which can only be used against targets of your Intent. 

You may channel Intent on up to [Templates] subjects at any given time. The targets of your Intent can be switched with a Maneuver. If something exits your Crown, you instantly lose Intent on it.

When taking damage, your Intent can flicker—Save or lose Intent. This can be reestablished via the normal process. 

You can "stack" multiple instances of Intent on a single target to intensify the effect of your Attainments. They take -2 to Saves against your abilities per level of Intent past the first, and many abilities will designate additional effects for higher levels of Intent.

A: Attainments

These are the primary categories in which your reality-warping power manifests. You gain [Templates] of these abilities, rolled or chosen from the list. You can wield your psychopowers with about as effort as swinging a sword or casting a spell (read: they take a "standard action," whatever that means), requiring no expenditure of MD or Fatigue or any other such resource. 

If an Attainment directly alters another person, they can probably Save against it. 

1. Ergotics 
1. General: Fire a bolt of reioplasma for 1d6 damage.
2. Intent: Fire a continuous beam of reioplasma from your crown chakra for 1d6/1d8/1d10/2d6 damage every round, flowing around obstacles and penetrating all armor and resistances.
2. Telemotion 
1. General: Apply a force about as strong as a two-handed shove in a single direction.
2. Intent: Seize something in a telemotive grip as strong as [an ordinary person/an Olympian athlete/a wild beast/a giant]. Intelligent subjects get an additional Save if you attempt to manipulate them in a way that violates their self-image. Most people tend not to imagine themselves as horribly injured.
3. Reformatting 
1. General: Cause something to have superficially different features (wrong number of fingers, clocks showing wrong numbers, etc...). 
2. Intent: Completely reshape a subject into something [of the same type (e.g. human→different human)/in the same general category (e.g. human→pig)/in the same ballpark (e.g. human→great soft jelly thing)/of any kind at all (e.g. human→toaster)]. 
4. Realization 
1. General: Pull any common pocket-sized item from your pockets whenever you need it.
2. Intent: Conjure anything up to the size of [a sword/a bazooka/a car/an airplane] from thin air. 
5. Excitation 
1. General: Apply a heat like a butane torch.
2. Intent: Cause an object to heat violently, resulting in [ignition/melting/incineration/detonation]. Intelligent beings get an extra Save at +10 against this if applied directly to their person. 
6. Body-Lightness 
1. General: Float around like you're weightless, or fully submerged underwater, or suspended from wires.
2. Intent: Gain flight as fast and elegant as [a sparrow/a falcon/a biplane/a fifth generation supermaneuverable fighter jet].
7. Esperance 
1. General: View colored auras corresponding to emotions around intelligent beings. 
2. Intent: Read [surface thoughts/intentions & beliefs/core memories/complete mind-meld].
8. Attraction 
1. General: Make a verbal suggestion or change somebody's attitude towards you one step along the chain of Nemesis→Adversary→Irritant→Stranger→Acquaintance→Friend→Partner.
2. Intent: Dominate somebody, controlling their body like [a marionette (badly)/a marionette (skillfully)/a dyspraxic person/your own body].

B: Scanner

By making eye contact with another Lucid, a Gnostic, or any other class that has a Crown, you gain the ability to use their Crown as your own, and vice-versa. You can dedicate your Intent to negating your opponent's on a one-to-one basis.

When you kill another Crown-bearer, your own crown expands by 2m.

B: Lingering Intent

Once you've fixed your Intent, you can maintain it even once the target has left your Crown. While you are no longer able to make active changes, any effects of your Attainments will persist until you refocus your Intent.

Your Intent is reset when you sleep. 

C: Inception

At any time, you can cause your Crown to "pop" like a diaphanous bubble, causing it to vanish without reverting changes. In this way, you can make real, permanent alterations to the universe, at the cost of your Crown.

To regain your Lucidity, you must obtain a new Crown. The most common way to do this is to kill another Crown-bearer and take theirs, but dream-quests to have new ones forged at the anvils of the Valkyries, daemon-pacts, super-science serums, etc... are always alternative options.

C: Evanescence

Just as a veil of forgetfulness occults the dreaming world from the waking, so to do the workings of your art fade from the minds of your subjects. If you so choose, intelligent beings must Save upon exiting your Crown to recall any events that occurred within in any substantive detail.  

D: WAKE UP.

If you would die, instead you can sunder your Crown to WAKE UP. When you WAKE UP WAKE UP PLEASE WAKE UP, you reappear in your bed, fully unharmed, unsure whether or not IT'S ALL A DREAM. If YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP in the presence of others, they perceive your apparent death as usual; YOUR FAMILY will WANT YOU BACK, your FRIENDS will NEED YOU, and so forth.

You can regain your Crown in the usual manner.

  

Do Not Hate My Obedience And Do Not Love My Self-Control (GLOG Spellcaster, Arise Ye Wretched)

This post owes a great deal to Locheil's Wonder-Worker and lovely Purplecthulhu's Magician, and was written for my Hex setting.

 

In order to buttress magic against the loss of mystery caused by the proliferation of certain spells, a stabilizing grammar needs to be employed, founded on certain underlying axioms and developed along consensus lines. Æthelræd the Great, considered the greatest magician of history and the founder of the Gnostic tradition, laid out seven disciplines or schools in his seminal Gnosis of Æthelræd which would come to be taught at the Panopticon of Heptaphalyx.

In the early days, after Æthelræd split themselves into a man, a woman, and a eunuch (called Æthelwulf, Æthelflaed, and Unræd, respectively) but before WWI, most Magicians behaved like Nasuverse Magi: utterly amoral combinations of mystics, academics, and aristocrats, individually obsessed with a joint Magnum Opus—the search for the Grammaton—and willing to treat human life as grist for the mill in pursuit of its attainment.

Ever since the Wizard Wars, this count has declined a bit, and the average Magician finds herself unfortunately rather more fettered than her noble forebears. Illusion was stolen by Cthonian dreamthieves in WWII, and Conjuration was split down the seams into Dislocation and Calling in the aftermath of WWIV for being too damn overpowered. The current Panopticon of Pentaphalyx teaches five orthodox schools, each rigorously explored by generations of logicians. You, like most Gnostics, are tutored in one of those five. You are commonly perceived somewhat like a lawyer: a professional sociopath, but a somewhat glamorous one.

Source: Me, sketching

 

Gnostic Magician

Skills: 1) Trivium, 2) Quadrivium, 3) Binge-Drinking

Equipment: One Implement of your School, a color-coded leather greatcoat, single-breasted, with academic honors pinned on the breast, a Light muzzle-loader, a pair of specs or shades (depending on your CHA score), 5000gp of debt.

A: Crown, Grammarye, School, +1 MD

B: Eye-Body Praxis, +1 MD

C: Schoolmaster or Interdisciplinary Studies, +1 MD

D: Thunder Perfect Mind, +1 MD

A: Crown

You can only do direct magic inside your ‘Crown’, a ‘magic circle’ which is [templates] * 10 meters.

Effects that would leave your Crown falter and fail unless otherwise stated. Effects must originate within your Crown.

A: Grammarye

To work spells, combine a Word, an Implement, one or more MD, and up to [templates] Catalysts.

Your Words are imprinted into your brain and are not easily communicated or modified. Learn 2 new Words at every level from your School(s)’ list..

Implements are obtained in play. Each School has a list of Implements that can successfully channel their magic.

Magic Dice (MD) are the resource spent to cast spells. All MD are restored upon the conclusion of a full night’s sleep. When a spell is cast, one or more MD are allocated - all dice are rolled, [Sum] amd [Dice] are tabulated, and all dice that show 4+ are expended until the next proper rest.

Catalysts are objects or reagents, often consumable, that modify a spell’s effects. I can’t be bothered to write any right now, so just imagine I wrote a bunch and they’re all really, really cool.

A: School

Your School determines your Words and Implements. 

Evocation

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER):

1. Fire
2. Force
3. Radiance
4. Lightning
5. SUN
6. GRAVITY
7. SHADOW
8. MAGNETISM

Implements:

1. Wand - Create a missile or wisp of [Word]. 1 Slot.
2. Rod - Create a line or shield of [Word]. 2 Slots.
3. Staff - Create a sphere or wall of [Word]. 3 Slots.
4. Broomstick - Create a cone of [Word] or be propelled by a jet of [Word]. 4 Slots.
5. OBELISK - Afflict all in your Crown with [Word], or destroy all [Word] in your Crown. Immobile.

Transmutation

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER):

1. Acid
2. Wood
3. Blade
4. Crystal
5. MUSCLE
6. METAL
7. STONE
8. FUEL

Implements:

1. Gauntlet - Make a strike imbued with [Word], or against [Word] within your Crown. 1 Slot.
2. Sword - Divide or parry [Word] with a strike. 2 Slots.
3. Hammer - Break or repair [Word] with a strike. 3 Slots.
4. Chain - Move or immobilize [Word]. 4 Slots.
5. CRUCIBLE - Freely sculpt [Word] as if clay,or transform [Word] to another substance of [Word]. Immobile.

Divination

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER):

1. Dreams
2. Sight
3. Cloud
4. Writing
5. WATER
6. THOUGHT
7. STAR
8. DIVINITY

Implements:

1. Blindfold - See through or see through [Word] in or above your Crown. 1 Slot.
2. Bow - Make an arrow out of [Word], or fire an arrow that seeks [Word]. 2 Slots. 
3. Tarot - Ask a yes/no question about [Word], or receive a numerical prediction about [Word]. 1 Slot.
4. Orb - Get a vision of nearby [Word], or something in nearby [Word]. 4 Slots.
5. POOL - Send a message via [Word], or cause [Word] that you know the location of to be within your Crown. Immobile.

Enchantment

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER)

1. Fear
2. Rage
3. Grief
4. Lust
5. LOVE
6. FAITH
7. WISDOM
8. ROYALTY

Implements:

1. Mask - Inspire or dampen [Word] within yourself, or inflict [Word] upon another with a gaze. 1 Slot.
2. Ring - Issue a command to creatures in the grips of [Word] or [Word] itself, or cause the wearer of a linked ring to be continuously driven to [Word]. 1 Slot.
3. Grail - Distill a potion of [Word], or cause one who drinks from the grail to be wracked with [Word] at your will. 2 Slots.
4. Instrument - Animate creatures or objects of [Word], and [Word] itself, to behave according to or opposite their nature. 2-4 Slots.
5. FLAG - Inspire [Word] in all witnesses, or obedience to a set of ideals of [Word], within your Crown. Immobile.

Abjuration

Words (Regular/SCHOOLMASTER):

1. Undead
2. Beast
3. Disease
4. Machine
5. MAGIC
6. SPIRIT
7. DRAGON
8. HUMAN

Implements:

1. Salt - Prevent [Word] from crossing a boundary line or marker, or render someone untouchable to [Word]. 
2. Mirror - Trap or deflect [Word] while the mirror is aloft.
3. Bell - Drive out all [Word] from your Crown, or be alerted if [Word] enters your Crown.
4. Lockbox - Draw in [Word], sealing it in your lockbox, or release that which is currently contained.
5. CUBE - Draw all [Word] in your Crown into the cube, or torment everything within the cube with [Word]. Immobile.

B: Eye-Body Praxis

You gain the ability to see Crowns, and experience unmistakable synaesthetic feedback (of a form specific to each practitioner) when actually inside a foreign Crown, instantly alerting you regardless of condition (drunk, asleep, etc…) and allowing you to recognize familiar magicians. You also gain a +3 to Saves against Occult magic.

Additionally, certain cultivations and practices specific to each School result in unique capacities innate to your particular mind-body-perception complex.

1. Evocation - You can hover unassisted at a height of up to [Templates] x 2 meters, and glide safely on energetic jets that project from your fingertips. This also allows your hands and feet to serve as Light weapons, with a damage type of one of your [Words].
2. Transmutation - You gain a permanent [Templates] of DR against anything softer than your [Words], and can meditate for ten minutes to transform up to ⅙ of your body to one of your [Words].
3. Divination - You gain a permanent +[Templates] to Initiative and, while focused (i.e. uninjured, well-fed, not engaging in complex arithmetic) have a flat 1-in-6 chance of dodging anything that can be dodged via precognition.
4. Enchantment - You gain a +1 to all Reactions, even if they know you’re an Enchanter. You can animate up to [Templates] slots worth of items to follow you around, perform basic tasks according to their nature and your [Words], etc…
5. Abjuration - You gain 14 base AC from mage armor, and can ward up to [Templates] willing individuals, making them within your Crown at any distance for the purposes of protective magic.

C: Schoolmaster

You fully dedicate yourself to the practice of a single school. You become capable of learning the other four Words, listed in ALL CAPS.

C: Interdisciplinary Studies

You become capable of learning the Words of one other School, and using their first two Implements.

D: Thunder Perfect Mind

You receive a glimpse of the Grammaton, and knowledge of a Quest for Power you could undertake to reach it. Even just this fragmentary comprehension is enough to strike you deaf, blind, and dumb, but your ability to read the underlying propositions and syllogisms of the Universe more than compensates, giving you omnivision (as Beholder) within your Crown and a cool text-to-speech voice.

Since this is slightly bullshit for Diviners, who already had a bunch of abilities about seeing through/in/whatever things inside their Crown, they now get to consider their Crown to be [Templates] kilometers for the purposes of their divinations, and also they can point at 1 HD losers and make them Save vs. Permanent Insanity.

You also gain a Mental Inventory of 10 slots, which you can use to cast spells without Implements. Come up with a Word+Implement combination and record it—thereafter, you can cast this specific spell without the physical implement in hand. Each spell occupies a number of slots equal to the Implement it would normally require—for “immobile” Implements, we will conveniently reckon them as requiring 10 slots. You can swap these out during downtime.

 

A New Direction (Beholder Bandwagon)

 Beholder Bandwagon. Beholder Bandwagon! A Beholder for the Hex.

Created in antediluvian times by agencies unknown as a counter-occult bioweapon, the Beholder (yeah, I'm using the name—so what) is a four-dimensional cryptoid organism that classes as one of the deadliest "living" beings ever observed in nature. 

This example is one of the most commonly used to illustrate the nature of extradimensional beings, up there with the classic "pencil through bent paper" wormhole example, but I'll indulge in it for the sake of clarity. Suppose, for a second, a two-dimensional world, one in which all of existence is encapsulated in a flat plane. If you, a three-dimensional being, were to interact with this world—say, if you were to put your hand through it—only a thin two-dimensional slice of your body would be visible in that world at any given moment. Imagine the imagery obtained from an MRI, brain or bone or organ being revealed layer-by-layer, only a small fraction of the body visible at any given moment, with the overall structure only gleaned by compositing all of those glimpses. If you were to interact with dwellers of that two-dimensional world they would perceive your hand as a wall of flesh suddenly growing out of a point of contact, warping and undulating weirdly as the appendage tapers or widens. If you were to stick a finger from each hand into the world the flatlanders would perceive them as being entirely unconnected, with no way of knowing that they were both parts of a greater invisible entity. If you were to poke one right in the middle they would be felled by unknowable forces, their insides suddenly swelling and parting to admit the intrusion of foreign flesh from a direction they are literally incapable of perceiving. 

This is the terror of the Beholder.

It appears first as a great eye, about as wide across as an avtomotive wheel. It opens into empty space like a Cheshire grin, lidded with folded space. It's disconcertingly humanoid, with delicate, full lashes and a depthless quality, but it's also disconcertingly inhuman — it possesses perfect horizontal symmetry, no tear duct visible at either corner. Clusters of similar, smaller eyes froth into existence around it, like bubbles surfacing in still water. Its gaze provokes an extreme sense of scopaesthesia. It has within the field of vision of its main eye what might be described as omnivision, an ability to see through all substances in all spectra at all scales down to the atomicular level, and omnidirectional wide-spectrum vision from all of its secondary eyes. 

Important note: the Beholder doesn't need to lower itself to a covolumetric "elevation" in order to watch you - it can remain perched at a different fourth-dimensional coordinate and perceive you via the ergotic fluctuations of certain four-dimensional particules as they pass through your volume. It gains a much fuller view of you by dropping onto your level, however, since light, cathode rays, etc... only scatter three-dimensionally. 

The full observation of the Beholder is so complete that it makes Occult magic completely impossible within the vision cone of its primary eye thanks to overwhelming noospheric interference. 

It attacks via a number of chitinous stingers attached to long dendrites. The attack comes from impossible (to us) angles and strikes the inside of a person while leaving the outside untouched. For centuries, this was believed to be a gaze-propagated basiliskform attack—the Beholder looks at someone, they fall down dead with their insides churned up by some invisible power. Only with recent advances in cryptozoetics has the true attack vector finally become known.

Beholder

HD: 6

AC: 10

Hit: +5/+10

Damage: 2d6 x4

Movement: As horse, 4D

Intelligence/Mien: As human who has enjoyed the privilege to hurt others with impunity since childhood.

Omen: A scent like burnt sugar and cloves - the only mark of the Beholder that can be perceived even when it is lurking outside of the local volume, as the aromatic particules disperse in four dimensions. 

• In addition to omnivision, the Beholder projects an Antioccult Field within the vision cone of its primary eye. All Occult magic is impossible under such intense observation, and even Gnostic magicians must Save to successfully work their spells.
  
• The Beholder can make four stinger attacks at a range of 60' (that's how long the dendrites are). The attacks ignore all external armor. If the target is within the cone of its omnivision its hit bonus advances to +10. It loses its hit bonus altogether and takes a -5 penalty if attacking from dimensional concealment, reducing by 1 per failed attack as it finds range.
  
• The Beholder can retreat back into fourth-dimensional displacement to avoid attacks. It does this reflexively, and gets a Save to determine whether it retreats before or after the attack. If the attacker is within the cone of its omnivision it gets a +5 to the throw, as it can perceive the intent to attack percolating in the assailant's brain before they even consciously make the decision to strike. Extremely fast projectiles (like those fired from an azothic railcannon or a scorpion gaussbow) can circumvent the Save.
• The Beholder can make a "called shot" with its stingers, making a single attack that only deals 1 damage. On a successful hit, the target must Save or be subjected to the Beholder's choice of Sleep, Paralysis, Blindness, Deafness, etc... as it uses the fine points of its stingers to precisely manipulate their internal anatomy.

 

Arise, Ye Wretched (Settingpost Pt. I)

 The year is 9984 AD (After Deluge). The clock reads two minutes to midnight. The guns of the Western Phalanx and the Symbiocombinist Intermarium bristle at one another across the steaming gulf of the Mesonesian Sea. Serried rows of Azimuti cataphracts crowd the hardstand of staging grounds and forward operating bases on the Damascene-Orthox border, waiting for the call to action - Radic ekranoplans churn up milky spindrift contrails as they carve up the blue waters in endless military exercises, noctilucent cores ticking away in their sleek ceramometallic bellies. Proxy wars in Cthonia, terrorist actionism in the Argolith, coups and color revolutions in the Aeonics, endless political violence in the Interdark—all the armaments of this bloody hundredth century lie poised to go off, annihilating the known world in an orgy of noctilucent destruction. How did we get here? 

The Big Fucking Mappe

The Short War & the Long War

The current international order was forged in the crucible of the Solar War of 9923-9944, sometimes referred to as the Panpelagic Conflict in stuffy academic texts, which saw the last of the Sun Kings fall after four-hundred years of divine righteous kingship. The four initial antagonists were Great Azimut and the Crown Entente powers of the Grand Principality of Ormillión, the Divine Sybilline Empire, and the Oblas Mandate. The former represented the waxing power of bourgeois æquital fructism, the latter three the waning strength of the old solar monarchies. 

 

The flags of the initial Solar War combatants - Azimut, Ormillión, Sybilline, Oblas

 

Over the twenty-year course, these alliances were tested, reorganized, calcified, and broken. The Radical Revolution of '27 tore open a new front as the fructists and coronists alike fought to stamp out the dual scourge of combinism and symbionism and retake their maritime colonies from the Free Radas; Sybilline underwent a fructist-democratic reform and shifted loyalties, forming the nucleus of the Western Phalanx; Ormillión's spine was broken in the three-day Battle of Ballistree, the largest and most costly cataphract battle in history which saw the Ormilláis chivalric class ultimately decimated at the hands of the endless waves of Azimuti conscript-catanachs. Ultimately, the two great victors of the battle were capital and international symbiocombinism—after the Unconquerable Sun had been bombed out of Oblast airspace and the noctilucent blackout had settled, a bipolar world had emerged, split between the old superpower of Great Azimut and the rising new beast of the Free Radas.   

It might fill you with foreboding to know that this twenty-year convulsion is colloquially referred to as "the Short War." 

 

Azimuti & Radic flags

Fructism is broadly what we would understand as "capitalism," the mode of production associated with the dominance of the commodity-form, the transfer of surplus labor-value from the proletariat to the bourgeois capitalist class via the mechanism of commodified wage labor, &c. It derives its name from the principle of fructus, one of the three rights constituting private ownership of property (this is real, go look it up), and was first coined by æquite philosopher and economist Balane Nouvelle, writing under the pen-name Adam Cadmon in the declining age of the Orthosybilline Empire. It was adopted most eagerly in the lands that would become Great Azimut, where a weak aristocracy and swelling class of æquite burghers took up the torch of free commerce and splintered the thousand-year empire in the War of Continental Independence. 

 

Symbiocombinism is a portmanteau of symbionism and combinism, two major antifructist Shakyist ideologies which have somehow managed to not explode into pointless and cataclysmic infighting (this is the most idealistic element of the setting by far). 

• Symbionism broadly constitutes the "peasant movement," an agrarian revolutionary ideology based on land reform, environmentalism, and maintaining traditional treaty obligations to the spirits of the land. It's something like Maoism, something like Georgism, something like animism. 
• Combinism broadly constitutes the "proletarian movement," an industrial revolutionary ideology based on workplace democracy, vanguardism, and forge-cultism; the name comes from the famous, doomed Navis Combine. These guys are kind of like fairly orthodox Marxist-Leninists if Bukharin had won the post-Lenin power struggle—you might also compare the dominant strain to Dengism.

 Along with militant antifructism, the main thing that unites these two philosophies is a shared intellectual tradition; both have their roots in the socioalchemical writings of 99th-century concretic philosopher Shakya bint Petram, whose landmark treatise on the fructist mode of production, The Book of the Tree of Life and Death, formed the basis of all later Shakyan political economics and also ushered in a concretic methodological revolution in the field of socioalchemy. Her work, in turn, was based on the New Law movement of the early 99th century, and the late 98th-century works of Isambard de Jing.

 

These two clashing ideologies form the opposing poles of the postbellum world, the dynamo for the forty-year arrested conflict known as the "Long War." 

The Shape of the World

It's like this:

It's a hexagonal plate. Azimut, the Radas, the Sun Kings - this is all the upper world, the world of blue sea and blue sky, with a hot sun and hemmed in by ice-walls. There's a whole other land on the underside, past the separating layer of the Interdark, referred to as Cthonia by the topsiders—this land has a gelid shadowcasting antisun, a blazing firewall at its borders, and a flat white daytime sky. Gravity "flips" at the median line, at the dead center of the Interdark. Above the Sun and below the Anti-Sun are "Heaven" and "Hell," inhabited by modron-angels and slaad-devils, respectively. Around the suns, created by their corkscrewing ontoaetheric emanations, are the gyres, which keep things whirling ever round. Finally, at the very top and bottom of the world are the star-studded black firmament and white atrament; nobody knows all that much about them, since the stars shoot lasers at anything that gets too close.

 

Modern science is now acutely aware that the hex is only a small part of the larger world - gyronautic probes have observed an fathomless tesselated honeycomb-grid of hexes beyond the wall. Extramural exploration is still in its infancy—building a vessel capable of escaping the vortex of the gyres is inordinately difficult and expensive, and tunneling through the walls comes with its own host of hazards.

 

In theory, you could "escape" the hex via the Interdark, which is open on the sides—indeed, many creatures have—but this is no less hazardous. Many of the most dangerous creatures and intelligences of the universe are drawn to dwell in this no-man's-land, supping on the enormous ergogradient that transfers heat from the cold icewalls to the burning firewall. This is the kind of place where the average wandering encounter HD is, like, 15.

 

Great Azimut

The wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. Something like America by way of France by way of bubble-era Japan. She was born in the harsh Orthosybilline hinterlands during the War of Continental Independence in 9706 AD, and it was her gallowglasses that saw the Emperor executed by scaphism and the Winter Sun permanently extinguished. She emerged from the Solar War triumphant and hungry, having lost her overseas colonies but gained massive swathes of the wealthy, temperate Eostrelands from Ormillíon. 

 

Incomplete land of Great Azimut, exclusing the Antemuralian Territory. Cities, roads, etc... not exhaustively filled in.

 

 

Her capital is rainy Navis, where the President and the Sidereal Assembly sit; her largest city is the ex-Ormilláis capital of Réalta, something which causes the Navigates (the demonym for Navis-dwellers) no shortage of ill-feelings. So total was her defeat of her erstwhile neighbor that the Ormilláis monarchy resides in Réalta instead of the diminished Oestrelands rump-state, enthroned within the prison-palace at the mouth of the Peregrin River, kept alive solely to keep the Midnight Sun burning over the City That Never Sleeps. Other major world cities within her borders include Les Séraphins, Ballistree, Sanktierre, and Kuronevre. 

 

Azimut is the de-facto leader of the Western Phalanx (WestPhal), a NATO-esque collective defense organization comprised of signatories to the Treaty of Sankt-Guianne. Major signatories include: Jenieve, Ysja, Damaskos, Rûnya, the Argolith, Sybilline, Karsht, Altioc, Kyrn, Niban, Bisr (Republic of), Uncari, Vipasse, Hith, Eblis, Deme, Vraso, Iqiru, Hazido, Yrn, and South Nyava. 

Rough map of allegiances - WestPhal in green, Intermarium in orange.

As an economic power, many of the world's most powerful corporations and commensalities are headquartered in Azimut, including Black Snow, the public-private contractor that serves as the Azimuti intelligence service, having won a state-issued monopoly in the Contract Wars after the infamous "Bloody Boardroom" massacres in the Ventôse of '63. As a cultural power, much of the world's music, film, theater, and drugs flow from within its borders. As a military power, she boasts the most well-trained and well-funded cataphract corps in the world, is heavily invested in the intermediate-range missile leg of the noctilucent triangle, and is behind cutting-edge experiments into applied fulminance, dracoweapons, and translocative magecraft, thanks to her large strategic reserves of red mercury. 

 

Angels & Demons

It is necessary to note that "angel" and "demon" are (topsider) human appellations - the preferred internal nomenclature is Modron and Slaad. The Cthonians refer to them as "daevas" and "asuras," and have a generally pessimistic approach to the moral quality of the whole lot of them. 

 

The Modrons are geometric mechanical beings who claim to have been constructed from prima materia by the godhead itself. They reside within an icosahedral megastructure hovering in the eye of the gyres above the Sun, and descend to the Earth for missions of varying scrutability. 

Behold: a Planetar

 These range in body-plan from small cylindrical courierforms to octahedral aetherocrystalline Planetar warforms which route beams of furious plasma through transdimensional conduits to the heart of the sun to cubic seraphs with thrusters inset in each face to massive Dyson-spheroid Solars studded with esoteric theotechnological immanentizer devices. The Modron were those who handed down the divine right of kings to the solar monarchies, who kindled five new suns and granted them to five human kingdoms to shine evermore on their domains so long as their dynasty yet sat the throne. They are still fairly pissed about the development of æquitism, and will routinely beam intrusive techno-coronist thoughts into random peoples' brains in the hope that one of them will become ardentized and commit a terrorist bombing.

The slaad are anurid creatures who are awfully cagey about their origins. They live in exile beneath the gelid antisun and are consummate shapers of flesh and bone—though, ironically, they are completely unable to alter the ugliness of their own forms. They hatch broods from their back, squirt pressurized beams of boiling alkahest from their eyes, and tempt mortals to sin for their own amusement.

 The Modron and the Slaad have an ancient rivalry of cataclysmic proportions. The scars of their antediluvian battles are literally carved into the shape of the world. Their turboweapons remain buried in sunken vaults. Their one joint project, the protomen, are the cause of all there is to come. 

Magique

Magic is divided into two categories - Gnostic and Occult. Gnostic magic is the coherent realm of gramarye and goety, the sorceries that are broadly compatible with a rational-scientific epistemology. Occult magic literally runs on secrecy—the fewer people know a particular spell or working, the more powerful it becomes. The former is taught in academies and madrassas, the latter is the subject of conspiracy theories.

 

Both branches of magic have a defined Goal, in the same way that alchemists have the general goal of attaining the Magnum Opus. 

• Gnostics seek, naturally, Gnosis—they believe that, would someone attain perfect knowledge of all phenomena, they would also have perfect understanding of all sensuous quality attached to existence, in essence attaining the subjective perspective of God and allowing for Henosis: unity with the godhead.
•  Occultists seek the total erasure of the perceiving self, essentially attempting to turn themselves into philosophical liches—if awareness interferes with the occult, then the greatest occultist of all must not even be aware of her own spells as she casts them. 
  

The Four Fuels

Modern day alchemy has identified four major fuel sources:

1. Black naphtha, which has the property of combustion - this works more or less exactly the way gasoline works in our world, and is of similar extraction. 
2. White powder, which is cooked up from a mixture of phosphor and saltpeter and has the property of fusillance. When ignited, white powder goes up in a small green-white flash and a big bang of pure kinetic force. White powder is the dominant fusillant used in thunderarms and bombs; white powder guns have minimal muzzle flashes (mostly a blur of displaced air) but extremely loud reports. While muzzle heating is not a major limiter on fire rate, vibratory resonance can shake guns and bones to pieces if allowed to build up unchecked. Also, since this is the 80s, it can of course be snorted for a wicked high.
3. Yellow gold, which has the property of noctilucence. When refined into heavy gold and subjected to N-ray bombardment, gold is debased into depleted gold (or "pyrite," in proper scientific parlance) and releases enormous quantities of noctilucent energy. A noctilucent detonation looks like an immense gold-white flash, like firelight glinting off a coin magnified to unimaginable proportions. As the blast subsides it gradually tarnishes into that purple-green-white-blue-pink octarine color you see when you press on your closed eyelids, except it's not an artefact of vision damage, it's the world that sees it that way. Finally, the octarine fades away leaving dense clouds of fuligin blackout, which disperse according to wind, blanketing the land in darkness and making the nights longer, the days colder, the shadows deeper, and the faces of strangers subtly more menacing.
4. Red mercury, which has the property of fulminance. When correctly triggered, red mercury erupts into jagged-edged arcs and filaments of bloodred lightning that leave behind splinters and faults in space as they flicker in and out of existence. These discharges are enormously energetic, and degrade the fabric of the local metric as the redout builds up. This is the rarest and most potent of fuels, only used in cutting-edge technology and weapons research, and the most powerful of sorcerous rites. 

I'm Getting Bored of Writing

I'll post another one of these sometime. I have no idea how to write a fucking settingpost—this is deeply ennervating compared to just thinking about things or riffing with friends about fantasy bullshit. Shoutout to Loch, Purplecthulhu, PriestessofSpiders, Eos, Louis, Archon, and probably at least one other person I'm forgetting right now for chatting about this setting with me in DMs.

 

There is No Peace but the Sword (GLOG Sword-Saint Wizard School)

This is the season of not letting the Perfect be the enemy of the Good. Nearly two full years ago I wrote this variant on the Sword-Saint as a magic school, in the standard GLOG format. I never ended up posting it for reasons that I can't quite remember, but it was a perfectly serviceable piece of work, so here it is now.

Judith and Holofernes, Goya.

Sword-Saint (Again)

Perk: By the sword alone may you be slain. Other forces can conspire to bring you to 1 HP, but only a sword can put you down for good.
Drawback: You cannot own anything but swords. Tools of peace fall from trembling, insensate fingers.

Cantrips:

1. Swallow a sword whole, to be regurgitated at will. You may carry any number of swords like this.

2. Cause a held sword to reflect sunlight as if you were standing in an open field. Produces lighting roughly equivalent to a candle.

3. Whistle a tone on the edge of human hearing. As long as you hold the note, unsheathed swords in earshot will resonate and produce a clearly audible hum. You can tell their size and shape by the tone and volume.

Spell List:

1. Smite
   R: A sword's length, T: A Man, D: 0
   Deal [Sum]+[Dice] damage to a single man—if she is holding a sword, she may Save to avoid damage. On a successful Save, your blades lock together with a bassy, stomach-churning thunderclap; earth splinters, grass flattens, horsemen are unseated, and peasants look on in awe. 

2. Rite of Contest
   R: [Dice]x10', T: —, D: See description
   Draw a ring of blood and corpses up to [Dice]x10' in diameter. Standing in one spot in a pitched melee and killing everyone around you for a while will probably do the trick. When a worthy foe enters the circle, you may invoke the Rite of Contest. Neither you nor she may leave the ring until one is dead or [Sum] blows have been exchanged. Nothing from outside may harm anyone in the ring while the Rite is ongoing. If you and your opponent both survive the Rite, take +1 on Reaction Rolls with each other.

3. Kusanagi
   R: Arm's reach, T: ∞, D: [Dice] combat rounds
   For up to [Dice] combat rounds, you can strike anything and everything within arm's reach once every round with your sword. This includes people, arrows, insects, droplets of liquid, germs—so long as it's in the macroscopic regime, it's fair game.

4. The Rule of Beasts
   R: 0, T: Yourself, D: However long you can hold a cool stance
   Allow up to [Dice] blows to strike you unopposed; if you still stand at the end, you will return them [Dice]fold. All will know the terrible bargain you offer.

5. Sword Glare
   R: 60', T: Up to [Dice] men standing within 10' of each other, D: [Sum] combat rounds
   When standing within the light of a source at least as bright as the full moon, catch the light with the edge of your blade and cast it into your foes' eyes. They take 1d6+[Dice] damage and must Save or be blinded for [Sum] combat rounds.

6. Absolute Territory
   R: [Dice]x50', T: —, D: [Sum] days
   Plant up to [Dice]+1 swords firmly into the earth, with no two blades separated by more than [Dice]x50'. Anyone passing between them who has reasont o fear the blade (e.g. peasants, archers, gods) must Save or be overcome with a crushing sense of foreboding that forestalls their passage. The swords cannot be removed without significant effort, and require a Save at -4 each to simply approach close enough to try.

7. Flying Sword
   R: 0, T: A trusted sword, D: [Dice] exploration turns
   Imbue a sword with the ability to soar like a bird—standing on it permits rapid aerial transport. At 1D, it flies like a vulture; at 2D, like a falcon; at 3D, like a biplane; at 4D, like a supermaneuverable fighter jet. Save to keep your footing when pulling high-gee maneuvers.

8. World Splitter
   R: See description, T: Spacetime, D: See description
   Cut the span between worlds. With a sharp blade, open a wound in the world that allows instantaneous transit between spatially separated locales. At 1D, the rent can link to a point up to [Sum]x100' away for [Sum] combat rounds; at 2D, a point up to [Sum] miles away for [Sum] exploration turns; at 3D, anywhere you're familiar with within the same world for [Sum] days; at 4D, at any point in any world, forever.
   Each time you use this ability, add +[Dice] to a running sum, then roll 1d20. If you roll equal to or under that number, your transgressions against reality provoke some sort of hostile response—reduce the sum by an amount equal to the rolled value. The GM will afflict you with some sort of monster or calumny; the higher the roll, the more dangerous.

9. Blade-Turning Mantle
   R: 60', T: [Sum] HD of enemies, D: 0
   Turn [Sum] HD of swords as an exorcist turns undead. Swords with [Dice] HD or fewer fly away as if struck, or turn heavy and leaden in their wielders' hands. If cast with 4 MD, this spell destroys swords of 1 HD—they rust, shatter, or dissolve into a sharp, fine dust. Mundane swords (can there truly be such a thing?) have the HD of their wielder. Ancestral or spell-worked swords have their own HD to be determined at the GM's discretion.

10. Caladbolg
    R: As far as the eye can see, T: —, D: 0
    A stroke of your sword that can strike anything you can clearly see. Deals +[Sum] damage to inanimate objects, and splits them cleanly.

11. Sovereignty
    R: ∞, T: A sword, D: 0
    Call a sword's name to summon it to your hand. At 1D, it flies with the speed of a swallow; at 2D, a galloping horse, and tears through fabric walls; at 3D, like an arrow, and bursts through wooden and thin stone walls; at 4D, like a bullet, and can crack and rend through the living earth itself.
    If an enemy has a sword in hand, they can Save at a penalty of -[Dice] to keep a hold of it. If they do not know their sword's name, they automatically fail this save.
    The most famous swords will have hidden true names. 

12. Kintsugi
    R: 0, T: [Dice] broken swords, D: See description
    Take the shards of [Dice]+1 sundered blades and marry them, restoring their majesty. The resultant sword has the combined size and properties of all the swords and shatters on a hit roll of [Dice] or less.
    Alternatively, repair a single blade of up to +[Dice] quality.

 

Deep Roots are Not Reached by the Frost (GLOG Ranger)

 

You are first and foremost a scribe. Before teaching you the bow and the gun, the sword and the knife and the hunting spear, medicine and woodcraft, the secret ways to smell and hear and taste, before any of those things, your master taught you to write. You crouch in the hollows of thorny black woods, listening to the terrorbirds screech and the stirges buzz, and scribble down your observations with ink-stained fingers. You analyze, dissect, and taxonomize, in service of your God, your king, your order, your employer, or just your own quixotic obsession. 

 

You are a Ranger, and your field of study is the hunting, capturing, and killing of living things. 

 

The Message, Roman Kupriianov

Ranger 

 

Starting Equipment: A heavy jezzail, a pair of twinned oxtail machetes (can be wielded together as a medium sword or unlocked into two light swords), a thick woolen chokha and bashlyk, eight bullets—seven leaden, one silver—stored in goblin-bone gazyrs, a red-tinted candle lantern, a tinderbox, a bag of saddle jerky, a tea-brick, a writing kit, and a battered tin kettle and mug.

 

A: Monster Manual, Strider

B: Situational Awareness, +1 Attack/Round

C: Dogged Pursuit

D: Monster Master

A: Monster Manual

You have possession of a Monster Manual, a folio of yellowed vellum bound in the hide of a forest demigod, passed down to you by your predecessor. It is a (mostly) true and honest copy of the bestiary that the GM is using. It is weatherproof, waterproof, fireproof, acid-proof, even stab-proof enough to be used as an improvised shield. You are sworn on pain of death to never allow a non-Ranger to read it, nor to reveal its secrets to the uninitiated.

It isn't perfectly accurate—when encountering a new monster, the GM is allowed to change one thing. If you can successfully correct the monster entry, you gain a permanent +[Templates] to Hit against it and its ilk.

A: Strider

You can free-climb any natural surface as fast as you can crawl, or make an assisted climb as fast as you can walk. You can move silently while outdoors, and leave as much trace in mud, gravel, or deep snow as you do on bare stone. So long as you can see the sun or stars you always know what direction you're facing, and can travel at twice the ordinary rate while alone or in the company of fellow Rangers.

 

(Hint: the hides of colossal beasts count as "natural surfaces")

B: Situational Awareness

By tasting the soil, putting your ear to the ground, etc... you can tell if the hex or room you're standing in would be classified as Monster, Empty, Trap, or Special. If you attain a commanding position from which to survey, you can make this determination for adjacent areas as well.

C: Dogged Pursuit

If you make eye contact with someone or something, you can place your hunter's mark on them. They will experience this as paranoia, chills, and bouts of night terrors—eventually, a black spot will develop on their palm, growing as you approach, a literal mark of your pursuit. So long as they're marked, you always know exactly where they are.

You can only have one person marked at a time, and the only way to lift the mark is to kill the target. If you die while you have someone marked, you will return as a revenant, to continue your pursuit 'till the end of time.

D: Monster Master

Upon amending your Monster Manual, you are allowed to make one additional change of your own choice. The change must be reasonable, reflecting a weakness or property that could be discovered from studying it during and after your encounter. This change is now true, and the GM must update their own bestiary to reflect it.