a Tale in the Telling (GLoG Class: the Mythmaker)

Pacts are one way to gain power through a spirit's dealings, another is to tame lesser souls you find around you. Of course, there is occasionally a circumstance where that relationship is less transactional, when a spirit deigns to simply give a gift, and watch what drama follows.

 

[A]: Spiritual Favor, Heroic Gambit

[B]: Renowned Warrior

[C]: Unexpected Trick

[D]: The Victor Stands Bloody Handed

Spiritual Favor:

Whether you earned their favor through an impressive feat, pity, or sheer luck, you have found yourself blessed by a powerful spirit. You gain one of the following:

1. Gift of the Scorned: one of your hands has the resting temperature of a hot ember. once per day you can produce a cone of flame (1d6 save reduces by half).
2. Gift of the Prisoner: You possess a blade that is itself possessed, and counts as a magic weapon. It shackles an additional six lives to your own. When the sixth is lost, the blade shatters.
3. Gift of the Grief-Eater: Your voice carries across great distances. You can scream loud enough to rupture the eardrums of all around you, doing so renders you speechless for the remainder of the day.
4. Gift of the Watcher: up to [templates] times per day, may re-roll any dice, taking the new result.
5. Gift of the Staunch: If you have time to dig your heels into the ground, nothing can knock you off your feet. If you attack without doing any other actions in a round, add 1 to your Injury roll.
6. Gift of the Tyrant: Objects you break are utterly destroyed, incapable of reconstruction. If you roll exactly your build score while making an attack, you may choose any object on your target to sunder.

Heroic Gambit:

If you would die in such a way as it would occur off-screen, such as wrestling with a tentacled monster as the current carries you downstream, being eaten whole by a giant beast, or falling down a dark hole, you have an templates-in-6 chance of instead surviving with whatever the maximum recovery period of the system is. After that time has passed, the character can chance upon the party once more.

 

Renowned Warrior

Tales of your exploits have begun to spread to even the unlikeliest of corners. Whether famous or infamous, people are immediately familiar if you announce yourself, and have a Templates-in-6 chance of recognizing you by sight alone.

Other warriors will always accept your challenge to a duel, and cowards will quickly debase themselves or else flee if threatened. If you are known to be dishonorable in your challenges, your opponents will know this and act in kind. 

 

 Unexpected Trick

 Once per turn, you may make a free maneuver in combat. You can only do this if the maneuver is something that you have not (in common knowledge) done before.

 

The Victor Stands Bloody Handed

 As long as your hands are coated in fresh blood that isn't your own, you may add an extra d6 to any combat maneuver rolls. You also roll with an extra Injury Die on successful attacks.

 

Was uncredited in my images folder. Internet is too enshittified to track down a source.

This class is meant to encourage taking risks, and designed to be played in which players have a stable of characters to play. The inspirations for this class were the Champion, from Locheil; along with the Summoner from Hilander's Lost Fable.

Puncher

 

Starting Gear: Powdered Jerky, One-quart Flask, 50 lb. Training Weights (x2).

[A]: Physique of Fists, Techniques

[B]: Devoted Student

[C]: Techniques

[D]: Perfected Form

Physique of Fists

You have exceptionally powerful muscles honed by years of training that are all specialized towards the punching motion. You can treat your punches as lethal weapons, and always count as having at least 15 in your Build score as long as the roll is relevant to making a punching motion.

  

Techniques

You have an additional Injury Dice to roll each time you attack, this Injury Dice can only be applied when using a Technique that you know. Any time you roll a 6 on your additional Injury Dice, it is expended for the remainder of the day. Each time you gain this template, you get an additional Injury Die to use on your techniques, as well as a new technique from the list below. Extra die applied via crits can be used on techniques.

1. Cradle of Fists: Apply [most] to the target you're choosing to attack. The first target is pushed into another target who applies the [least] die, or into an immobile object causing the first target to also take [least] die. Both targets are knocked over.
2. Gut Punch: Target has the wind knocked out of them and vomits up the [most] most recent things they've eaten. They will only take defensive actions for [least] rounds. 
3. Soul-Searing Sucker-punch: The target has their soul knocked out of their body for [least], temporarily leaving them defenseless against all but magical attacks. If any result of your rolls for this technique are a duplicate, the target is immediately possessed by something very angry and very scary.
4. Steely Fist: Trade hardness with a nearby object for [dice] rounds. Your initial Injury Dice will automatically be rolled as a 1-6 based on how hard the object is with a 1 being harder than a fist, and a 6 being harder than metal. You still roll your additional Injury Dice as applied to the technique but only for the first attack. You can also use this technique to attempt to break the object you traded hardness with, applying [dice]*the hardness of your fists adding any Injury Dice applied to the technique. 

 

Devoted Student

If you successfully save someone weaker than what you defended them from, you gain them as a follower. Your follower will attempt to mimic your actions, but is ultimately useless in combat. You can only have one such follower at any given time, and they can be commanded to do things as a hireling, but with an additional 1d6 bonus when rolling to convince them to do something they otherwise wouldn't do. If your follower ever sufficiently proves themselves in combat, they cease becoming your follower and gain their first template as a Puncher.

 

Perfected Form

You gain an additional Injury Die. Whenever you roll exactly your Build score, or a 15 while making an attack, you can choose to roll any number of Injuries as long as you continue to have unexpended Injury Dice in your pool.

Practice of the Elusive Hound

    Casters who practice of the elusive hound come from a mono-theistic kingdom to the west of the archipelago, and act as the priestly sect of that kingdom. They journey out beyond their kingdom to proselytize to those they view as worshipping djinn, an "evil" long ago eradicated from their lands. Their efforts are, however earnest, fruitless as their river god's influence only reaches as far as the sea before it is swallowed.

    The spirits they control tend to take the form of dogs, they are called forth with a whistle or a wave of the hand before darting out from down low to their target. These spirits come from the souls of their dead across the sea, but are much easier to come by among the isles of the archipelago.

    Smokewater is considered sacred to them, it is a drug that is used to tame spirits, and they can quickly grow impudent if not sourced with it. In appearance, it looks like dark inky water, and holds most of the same properties as regular water, but does not wet that which it touches and leaves the throat dry and wanting.

Observances:

1. Cannot cast without carrying smokewater on your person.
2. Astral projection is performed by staring into water which obscures its bottom.
3. Wear foreign clothes of rich blue, supplemented by gold jewelry.
4. Must not eat of any creature of the water.

You can remold your spirits into the hound form upon tethering them. Doing so causes them to be immediately hostile towards you, however.

You can negate a Disobedience from one of your casts by expending 1/3 of your smokewater. If the spirit has the houndform, this uses none.

 

Starting Equipment: A gourd filled with smokewater, Incense, Censer.

Spells:

1. Weakness - Pick [Dice] of the following effects: Target cannot stand, Target cannot raise arms to strike, target can not heal through any means, target must test under their Build to briefly open their eyes. Lasts until the caster ends it or loses sight of the target.
2. Darkness -An area of a 5 meter radius centered on any target within sight of the caster is treated as [dice] steps darker than previously. Any fires in the radius are snuffed in a breath of air.
3. Fetch - Retrieves an item that can be held in hand  from up to [sum]x5 feet in front of you, anybody already holding the item gets a save to resist letting it go.
4. Animate Object: You imbue [dice] equipment slots worth of inanimate objects with a spirit of sentience, and can give them a command of up to [sum] words long. Lasts until the command is finished or the caster ends it. If you choose to, you can remove the spell from your character sheet and imbue the object with complete sentience.
5. Relay Scent - Your spirit can pick up on any scents within [dice] miles or dungeon rooms of you. If at least two dice are invested, you can pick a particular direction.
6. Forget Me, Not - Target will assume that all events from the last [dice] minutes, were simply part of a dream. As long as nothing shatters that belief, it stays that way.
7. Necrography - Target corpse answers [dice] questions you ask it. These answers come from the flesh and  relate to experiences such as food, pain, or adrenaline responses.
8. Black Hand - Pick [dice] of the following options, you can select an option twice: One arm becomes invisible, along with any small handheld object, one large handheld object becomes invisible.
   These invisible limbs and objects are replaced with a regular arm doing any action you choose for it to do.

Pinnacles:

Started thinking about how I want to do pinnacles and decided I'd rather have them be a list shared by the entire casting class.
Before this class gets posted, there'll be an updated version of the Soulcaster that includes them.

GLoG Class: Struggler

The following is an adaptation of the Avenger class made by another user over in the GLoG server on discord. Check it out if you haven't and maybe say hi if you do.

Starting Equipment: 

[A]: Target, Background, Collateral

[B]: Grit, Commit

[C]: Spirit of Vengeance

[D]: Mastery of Determination

Target

Choose someone who unjustly wronged you; they should be powerful enough that it may take years to achieve revenge. You may choose multiple targets, if you so desire.

Background

Choose or roll to see how you were wronged, and gain the selected skill:

Imprisonment: Stealth - You can vanish from the scene at any time, only to appear as if 

from nowhere at an opportune moment.

Murder: Scrutiny - You can always tell when someone harbors ill-will towards you.

Slander: Rumor-sniffing - while gathering rumours, either through corroboration

 and communication, you can remove 1d3 false rumours at random.

Marooning: Navigation - No matter where you are, you always know your bearing to 

one specific location.

Exploitation: Scrounging - If you dig around for 10 minutes, you can always find a

substitute, makeshift, or jury-rigged basic tool that’ll last one use.

Abuse: Deception - As long as you speak around the truth, nobody will ever

suspect you may have misled them.

Collateral

Record the names of those you unjustly harm in the course of your vengeance, and how.

Once your vengeance is complete, lose all your Struggler templates (except your [D] template), as you no longer need them, and roll 1d20. If the result is greater than the number of collateral casualties you have recorded, nothing happens. Otherwise, the corresponding Collateral casualty is now a Struggler, targeting you, with half your XP. If this is implausible, choose another such. If they are dead, then they in fact miraculously survived.

Grit

You  can go without sleep or food for a number of days equal to your Build score before collapsing from exhaustion.

Commit

Before making an attack roll, you can call a result on the Hit Location Table, if you roll the called result, you can make a second attack for free against the same target.

Spirit of Vengeance

You attract the attention of a random Angel, they may occasionally help you achieve your vengeance free of charge, but more often they’ll ask a price. They will be inherently manipulative and deceptive with their goals. If you wish, you may add them to your Targets, and they will be none the wiser.

Mastery of Determination

Over the course of a downtime, you achieve a breakthrough in some field. Perhaps you achieved mastery as a duelist, or learned powerful magic. Choose any template from another available class or come up with one of your own, and gain its benefits.

Single Template Classes

As I've toyed around with the idea of classes with less than four templates, I've had the idea in the back of my mind about using classes that are only a single template. There are a few ways that can be done, such as the Animal People made by Deus ex Parabola. The way I've been thinking about using them however, is as a little surprise. Maybe you touched something you shouldn't have, or played around in a place where once was cast fell magics. Maybe something touched you while you were there, and now it's waiting inside until it's time for it to say hello.

Infected

Maybe it was that weird eyeless fish you ate last week, but you've started feeling a little funny. It's a bit harder to keep food down, your muscles always seem to be sore, and that's besides the chronic ticks you've started to develop. It almost feels like something's crawling under your skin at night, maybe you've started to realize something's infected you.

[A]: Parasitism, Flight Instinct

Parasitism

You are a body made host by a colony of parasitic worms, manipulating your muscles and actions. 

At any time, as long as theirs's an unconscious body nearby, you can choose to move the colony to a new body. This is a horrific display, and will no doubt kill the current host if they're not already dead, but you get to reroll your Build score.

Flight Instinct

You can give a few helpful parasites to a friend in order to "Help a friend out". If the individual ever loses control of their body, the parasites can move them out of harm's way, usually by fleeing the location. For every week somebody spends with a parasite in them, roll an x-in-6 where x is the number of weeks they've had the parasites, if the result is less, make a note that they are Infected. Upon their next level up, they gain the Infected template. Parasites can usually be removed by selectively applying poisons to the body, assuming one knows they're present.

Charged

Maybe you got pricked by a weird needled tube in the bottom floor of the dungeon, or swallowed a mouthful of the salty green liquid in the big old vat. Whatever caused it, it's set your blood boiling, and you feel more charged up than ever.

[A]: Life-blood, Sulfur's Animus

Life-blood

Your blood runs green and much hotter than it used to. If let out of the body it'll give off a temperature about equal to a campfire for up to an hour. Your body gives off an ambient warmth about equivalent to a candle in distance and intensity.

Sulfur's Animus

Your new blood wasn't meant to be blood, it was an energy source for a star-killing super-weapon, until you stole it. You can focus the energy into a devastating blast which vaporizes most objects and structures immediately surrounding you. Each time you use this ability, you lose 1d3 inventory slots as your internals seize up and your body fails.

UPDATED: GLoG Wizard Chassis: the Soulcaster

Starting Gear: Ceremonial Garb (identifies you as a soulcaster), knife, birdcage.

[A]: Tethered Souls, Spells +1 MD

[B]: Soul Vision, +1 MD

[C]: Spiritual Shunting, Astral Travels +1 MD

[D]: Vomit Soul, +1 MD

Tethered Souls

You can tether additional souls to your body, allowing you to cast them as spells. You begin play with two spells from your school, determined randomly. And generate both their spirit score and personality.

Whenever you level up, if you visit a center dedicated to your tradition, you can roll for an additional spell from your starting spell list.

Spells

You cast spells with a number of dice called Magic Dice, or MD. A level one Soulcaster begins play with one MD. You can invest as many MD into a spell as you currently have. Each time a spent MD rolls a 3-6, it is depleted for the day and can no longer be used.

Whenever you roll doubles, roll on the disobediences table. Which table you roll on depends on whether that spell likes you.

When you roll triples, the spell you are currently casting wrests control over your body. If this ever happens with the same spell twice, this effect is permanent.

Soul Vision

You can see the souls inside living beings. This allows you to see whether or not a creature has a soul, as well as allowing you to see where an invisible being would be.

Additionally, you can pick up on small markings within wildlife areas that tell you when you're in a Guardian Spirit's territory.

Spiritual Shunting

You can shift unwanted curses or pacts onto the spirits who are tethered to you, make sure to keep track of these. If a spirit with curses or pacts placed on it has taken you over, you regain any of those attached afflictions. Additionally, if a spell-soul of yours breaks a pact you have made, they are affected by that pact. It should go without saying that using this effect on one of your spell-spirits will cause them to dislike you.

Astral Travels

You can choose to enter the astral realm in whatever way your practice allows you to, bringing you to a cosmic realm wherein the true forms of spirits reside. Your Spell-Souls guide you on this journey, with all that implies. In this realm, it can be far easier to seek out and speak with particular spirits, even from great distances.

Vomit Soul

You gain the ability to cast your own soul out of your body. This takes the form of one of this class' Pinnacle Spells, chosen at random. Each time you do this, there is a 1-in-6 chance one of the other souls you have tethered to yourself will take control over your body, this chance increases by one for each spell-soul you have that actively hates you. When this happens, you gain that spell's Spirit score and personality.

Pinnacle Spell List (1d6)

1.  Deluge - An area of [dice] mile radius centered on yourself receives heavy rain for [dice] days. If cast with one [die], clouds gather over the course of [least] days, to steadily rain on the target area for the duration. If cast with two, clouds hurry to the area on sudden winds over [least] hours. If cast with three, the clouds are visibly dragged across the sky within [least] minutes. Casting with four [dice] will cause you to expel dark storm clouds which form immediately, and the duration is extended to [sum] days.
2. Fireball - An explosion is called at a point [sum] feet from the caster that has a [dice]*5 foot radius. Any creatures caught within the explosion immediately incurs a Serious wound. Breakable structures are blasted away.
3. Love and Death - If [sum] exceeds the caster's Spirit score, the target is killed, and their spirit is stolen by the caster. If [sum] does not exceed the caster's Spirit score, the target gains a Serious wound.
4. Mighty Wind - You expel a powerful blast of wind. At one [die], it's powerful enough to knock a bird out of the sky. At two [die], it's powerful enough to knock a person off their feet. At three [die], it's powerful enough to knock an elephant off their feet or lift a person [sum] feet backwards in the air. At four [die], it's powerful enough to (temporarily) knock spirits out of their vessels.
5. Untamed Soul - Your vessel cracks and your spirit spills out into a radius of [dice]*10 feet centered on your body. [sum] spirits in the radius must be devoured and erased permanently, this can include your own spell-spirits; you can remove one [dice] from your [sum] to instead devour a Guardian spirit in this way. If a living creature's spirit is devoured in this way, it becomes a mindless beast.
6. Raise Earth - You lift an area of up to [dice] miles (surface area) out of the ground. At one [die], this will create a sandbar or hill. At two [die], it creates a rocky atoll or a large hill. At three-to-four [die], this will create an island or mountain.

Disobediences 

 Friendly

1.  Double the effective range (if applicable), otherwise double the number of targets for the spells duration.
2. The spell fizzles
3. Expend one of your MD spent to cast the spell in addition to any that would expend naturally.
4. Double the duration of the spell (if applicable), otherwise double its potency.
5. You cannot cast for 1d6 rounds.
6. The spell cannot be used for the remainder of the day.

Hostile 

1. Expend all of the MD used to cast the spell.
2. Roll any MD remaining in your pool and add them to the dice used to cast the spell.
3. Change one of the targets of the spell to either yourself or someone you care about if applicable. If the spell isn't harmful, instead it targets something that makes it as inconvenient to use as possible.
4. A different, random spell you know gets cast instead.
5. You cannot cast for the rest of the day.
6. The spell breaks its tether and flees. 

Regurgitative alchemist (GLoG Class)

Starting Gear: mortar and pestle, chalk, jar of snake venom, Prepared components for 1 potion.

[A]: Extra Stomachs, Esophigeal Reaction

[B]: The Path to the Heart is the Stomach

[C]: Smoke Tricks, Eureka

Extra Stomachs - You have three extra stomachs, each of which can hold two negligable items. As you swallow, you can choose which stomach(s) the swallowed items go to. Items can only leave a stomach by choosing to regurgitate the full contents of a given stomach. Nothing that is left in your stomachs will affect you in any way unless left in overnight; in which case they will be digested, with all that entails.

Esophigeal Reaction - By regurgitating certain components at the same time, you can belch out a cloud, which effects a 3m diameter circle, with you at the back of it. The effect lasts 1d6 rounds.

The Path to the Heart is the Stomach - Whenever you would gain any number of fatal wounds. You can instead choose to permanently lose 1 stomach and immediately stabilize.

Smoke Tricks - You can now change the shape of your belch, choosing what areas it affects, as long as the cloud stays within a 3m radius of your person.

Eureka: - You have a stroke of genius, and can, as a player, create your own Reaction.

 Reactions

1. Breath of Life

    Components - bone-dry twig, aged feces

Sprouts up bushes and local flora in the area, as well as boosting growth in existing flora dramatically. If there is already local plant life in the area, it becomes impassible until cleared out.

2. Aspect of the serpent

    Components - A snake fang, psychedelic mushroom

Intelligent creatures within the cloud must save or begin mindlessly wriggling along the ground while sticking their tongues out.

3. Rising Sun

    Components - a salt rock, wet earth, bird eye

A wave of intense heat is felt a moment before the affected area is ungulfed in an explosion. Anyone in the area immediately rolls wounds.

4. Transposition

    Components - brimstone , pine resin, nightshade

A cloud of ash envelopes the area, switch places with anybody in the cloud.

5. Irritation

     Components - burnt wood, poison ivy, oil

Dramatically increases the amount of irritants in the surrounding air, causing coughing, choking, and a burning sensation in those who inhale it.

6. Sucking Sands

    Components - driftwood, fish eye, baked clay

The area becomes malleable and wet. Creatures and objects touching surfaces in the area begin to fold into the surface, making it difficult to get out. Eventually a creature left inside the area will be pulled in fully and suffocate.

Corvid Friend (not to be confused with covid)

You get +1 HP for every Corvid Friend template you possess.

Starting skills (1d3): Lockpicking, Gangster, Scavenger

Starting equipment: A beak, claws, and an identifying feature.

Templates:

[A]: Crow, Best Friends

[B]: mimickry, Comforting Grip, +1 Defense

[C]: Fly-By-Attack, Wing Buffet

[D]: Murder, +1 defense.

Crow

You are a crow (or raven I guess). You can fly in any reasonably open spaces but will probably never be able to carry others. You can claw people to deal 1 nonlethal damage, and can use tools, so long as a crow could reasonably hold said tool. You have no inventory slots, but can carry up to one object of your size or smaller in either your claws or beak. Because of your size, you can occupy the same space as any other creature.

Best Friends

You choose another PC to be your best friend. Whenever you are in the same space, you both get a +2 to all d20 rolls made at the same time, against the same thing.

Mimickry

You can mimick many ambient sounds in nature. This could be another bird's call, the ringing of a bell, or an animals call, but not a human voice. Anyone can attempt a save to realize that the sound is slightly off, and they will know something is up.

Comforting Grip

You can perch on the shoulder or arm of your best friend to give them advantage on a save check.

Fly-By-Attack

If you are in flight, you may make an attack roll on an opponent who must save or be knocked prone. Save vs. dex to remain aloft.

Wing Buffet

Whenever you make a critical attack on an opponent, you may grab onto their face and buffet them with your wings blinding them. Each turn, they may save vs. dex to remove you.

Murder

If you spend a day in any settlement spreading rumours about an individual among the local crow population, those crows will be biased against that individual and go out of their way to annoy or hurt that individual.

At any time, you can make a call which will attract 3d6 crows to you. They will attack any individual they have a bias as long as you are too.