The Alphabet of Outer Beings - M is for Miracle

Image Source: https://www.deviantart.com/artdeepmind/art/Cleric-675034125

M is for Miracle

Miracles are the stuff of divine legend. The handiwork of a divine hand reaching down to the mortal plane and performing the impossible, but what is impossible in a world of wizards and magic, of dragons and demons? When a faithful cleric of a god can heal with a touch and blast enemies with divine retribution as easily as he kneels to pray what does "miracle" really mean in that context?

Table M1: 1d20 Miracles in a World Full of Magic

1. The local temple's holy symbol begins to weep (or bleed). Collecting and drinking this fluid will cure disease and heal injury. 
2. A virulent plague that leaves naught but death in its wake fails to infect the citizens of an especially pious town. 
3. A raging fire burns down an entire town/city except for the temple of the deity.
4. The local lord (or duke, or king, etc) swaps alignment on the eve of a significant holy day. 
5. Within the bounds of a certain holy site all present can comprehend all languages.
6. An endangered town is taken wholly out of their native plain and into the deity's divine home as a means of protection, it returns to the mortal plain for 1 day every month. 
7. The image of the deity's divine symbol on a battlefield rallies the faithful troops to defeat a greater force.
8. A downtrodden faithful is given a prophetic view of the divine plan, restoring his faith and setting into action events that serve the deity's plans.
9. The deity reaches out and blights the lands, killing hundreds, but preventing an invasion by a hoard of monsters which would have killed thousands. 
10. The deity reaches out and smites the world itself, sundering the land and creating a geographical barrier between his chosen people and their enemies.
11. The words of the deity's chosen priests and clerics are always understood but any who hear them. 
12. A starving group of hundreds of faithful are able to eat their fill from a single day's worth of rations donated by a charitable person.
13. The deity curses the land of a wicked queen with unending drought until she repents her ways.
14. The spirit of a long dead champion of the deity descends from the divine plain to protect the deity's next champion as a child.
15. A town or kingdom who have disobeyed the deity are struck down by natural disaster, but those few pious citizens are away or given divine warning to leave. 
16. On the highest holy day of the faith no mortal worshiper of a given deity perishes.  
17. A wandering people, the only remaining mortals who worship a deity, settle in an otherwise harsh and barren land, but find that their crops yield bountiful harvests and their beasts grow healthy and strong. 
18. A king is divinely linked to his lands with his health and well-being becoming inexorably linked to that of the land. 
19. For a period of one day both sides in a war were enabled to feel all the wounds they inflicted upon the opposite side. 
20. A child, orphaned by monsters, rises up and protects their village without any formal training despite all odds.  

Nuts & Bolts #154 - Hacking the Cypher System - Nightbane & Cyphers

This is a follow up to this post about using the Cypher System, and especially the design aspects laid out by Unmasked, to resurrect one of my favorite game settings: Nightbane.

So after kicking things off successfully with the characters finding their true nature as shape-shifting monsters of shadow and darkness (though really they are more dual nature, and they aren't evil per-se, so monsters may be a bit racist) the third session finally found myself as GM with an opportunity to expand the setting for the characters. While washing the blood off himself one of the PCs found himself drawn into the bathroom mirror and into the shadow-Earth known as the Nightlands.

With his arrival into this place I also had the first opportunity to provide one of the PCs with a cypher. I'm using this game to try out something a little different for cyphers. Firstly, cyphers are going to be PC abilities and not physical objects, kind of like a subtle cypher, but without the need for the effects to be subtle. Secondly the source of cyphers will depend on the character's supernatural nature. A nightspawn (because Todd McFarland can't sue me for using the game's original title!) gain cyphers from the nightlands, the shadowy alternate earth which may also be their home dimension. They essentially get to charge up strange and powerful one off abilities when visiting that realm; abilities that will stick with them until used.

The half-vampire dhampirs gain cyphers by consuming blood, providing them with a very real hero vs. monster struggle for players to (hopefully) have fun with. Human psychics will need to spend time in the astral realm, the dream realm, or during intense meditation (depending on their particular psychic leaning). Ordinary humans will almost certainly be associated with the covert remnants of the legitimate US government (a.k.a. the Spook Squad) and have access to prototypes and special devices that with act as more traditional cyphers.

I'm hoping that this will work to make cyphers feel integral to the setting in the way that they do for Numenera. Likewise, I hope that this will give the players something to sink their teeth into for role-play purposes. Time and more sessions will determine how well this works.

Holiday Interlude 2018 #2 - Gobbler Golem

Image Source: https://imgur.com/jgEGqMH

What happens in Holidayland when the loopier wizards get their hands on the leftovers?

Previous Holiday Interludes

• 2014
• #1 - Gingerbread Dragon
• #2 - Gingerbread Ninjas
• 2015 
• #1 - Octoclaus the Santapus
• #2 - The Ginger-mech Man
• #3 - Krampus
• 2016
• #1 - Frostborn Snowmen
• #2 - Reindeer
• 2017
• #1 - Turkeysaurus Rex
• #2 - Father Time
• 2018
• #1 - Headless Horsemen

Gobbler Golem

I don't know if the day after Thanksgiving sandwich is a thing across the US or just here in the Northeast but it's probably my favorite part of the holiday. A monstrous layering of basically everything left over from the day before (or even just earlier in the day) into a sandwich that is greater than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately some foolish or insane wizard thought to make a golem using the same philosophy, and in Holidayland there are a LOT of diverse leftovers to built with.

Primary in a Gobbler golem are bones of crusty bread, muscles of roast beast, and blood of gravy or cranberry sauce. Carrots, peas, green bean casserole, and even squash are also often incorporated into the shambling mass of leftovers.

DCC/MCC

Init -1; Atk Fist +3 melee (1d8+3), Vomit SP; AC 14; HD 4d12; MV 20’; Act 2d20; SP Gravy Vomit 20' cone (1d12 damage; DC 14 Reflex save for half); Cranberry Vomit 50' range, targets within 10' are immobilized (DC 14 Reflex save for half speed); Immune to poisons and mind control; SV Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +0; AL N.

Cypher System

Level: 4 (TN 12)
Health: 12 • Armor: 0
Damage: 4
Movement: Immediate
Modifications: Immune to poison and mind control.
Combat: In combat the gobbler golem will make up to 3 attacks each round, attacking with its meaty fists and feet for two of them dealing 4 damage each, and vomiting either a molten stream of gravy up to short range for 4 damage, or a sticky glob of cranberry that immobilizes targets for 4 rounds,
Interaction: The gobbler golem will act on its last orders until it fulfills them or is destroyed.
Use: Gobbler golems are used by holiday wizards driven insane by the takeover of holidayland by Christmas.
Loot: A defeated gobbler golem will yield at least 600 pounds of edible leftovers, and probably one or two cyphers thoroughly soaked in various fluids.
GM Intrusion: The gobbler golem consumes one or more other holiday creatures and adding their mass to its own splits into two gobbler golems with full health (and possibly strange new abilities).