Let's Check out that Spooky Mansion, Gang! - a Haunted House Generator

          From a design stand-point, what's not to love about a haunted house? It's got everything, a built-in mystery, antagonist and setting, common points of reference to your players; it can be ideal for use as a one-shot or bottle episode if you're pressed for time. Any place you can possibly think of can be haunted, or used as the basis for a haunting, but it is vital that there be a reason for the ghost's actions and a reason for the players to bother exploring those reasons. Otherwise they're just random skellies in the woods.

          This set of tables seeks to give you fodder for your games in the form of several built in attributes to determine the sort of location and ghosts your haunt may feature. To use this generator simply roll 4d8 and consult the tables below.

d8	What kind of location is it?
1	A mansion, villa, château or other large, multi-roomed abode.
2	Somewhere traditionally associated with healing, such as a hospital or the temple of a god of health.
3	Site of a battle or wide-scale conflict.
4	A geographic location such as a grove, lake or cave.
5-6	Somewhere associated with death, such as a graveyard or charnel ground.
7	The entirety of a small settlement, or for larger communities, a district of the city.
8	Roll again, ignoring this result if it comes up again. In addition to it's other attributes, the location is also abandoned.

d8	What caused this place to become haunted?
1-3	A violent and senseless murder, perhaps even more than one.
4-5	The owners simply died one day, probably of old age, sickness, or misfortune. They apparently didn't get the message and just stuck around.
6	An Oath was broken at this place, and the oathbreaker is damned to haunt the site.
7	Some powerful Aberration, Dragon or another eldritch being died here. They never really left.
8	A semi-divine being, such as an Outsider or a powerful Warlock or Cleric, died here. Their soul still lurks in the area, aspecting it towards their alignment.

d8	How can the ghosts here affect mortals?
1	Violently, and with great hostility. The ghosts here will manifest and attempt to attack interlopers.
2	Undead are inevitably drawn to the place where these ghosts are trapped. The spirits can influence their behavior to carry out their wills.
3	The ghosts exist as illusions, figments and strange notions inside the minds of visitors. The spirits will attempt to ensnare those under it's influence into freeing it, or to help it move on.
4	These spirits are invisible and intangible, but they have the ability to move objects, and can do so at high enough velocity to do damage.
5	Any who come to this place are at risk of possession by the souls that dwell here, from sapient beings to animals.
6	The specters here have the ability to influence heat and cold, able to cause patches of ice or even manifest balls of flame.
7	Distant from this world, these shades can see past what mortals can. They can share their insights into the future with those that sleep within their haunt, whether the victim wishes it or not.
8	Memories and recollections are toys for these ghosts, able to replay spans of time from their subject's minds, or to cloud their thoughts and make them forget what has transpired here.

d8	What do the ghosts here desire?
1-2	Freedom! Escape! To roam the world as they will as a disembodied spirit.
3-4	Vengeance on their tormentors, whether their murderers, or those that simply wronged them in life.
5	Resolution, restitution or justice for what has been done to them.
6	Respect and deference in the form of sacrifice and worship.
7	To endlessly repeat the circumstances leading up to their deaths.
8	Slaking the various vices that they held to in life, in spite of whether or not that's still possible.

Potent Potions, Sorcerous Surgeries, & Terrible Transmogrifications - Part II

          

          The first post in this series introduced the basic concept of what I am retroactively terming Simple & Complex Investments. We'll be saving Complex Investments for next time, and we'll go over Simple Investments in this article. The example that I used to kick us off last time was drawn from the Upgrade Items common in many video games. In essence, the character finds or purchases something which could in some way represent an integral shift to their character (e.g. pegasus wings, vampire's blood, giant articulated iron fists,) and then undergoes a process such as a ritual, surgery or training regimen. Afterwards they gain new or altered abilities, as well as another avenue by which to interact with the setting.

          From a design standpoint, the intent of an Investment is not to simply enhance your character's statistics or abilities directly (though many can certainly do that) but to provide a new avenue for role-playing and problem-solving. In many ways a Simple Investments are similar to Spells, though they lack explicit duration and have vastly steeper conditions. When paying for Formulae, it is important to keep in mind the impact that this would be having on the character in game. If a ritual were to cost 1,200 XP, 1,200 SP and 2 weeks of recovery after ingesting phosphorescent mushrooms harvested from a trackless jungle on the third moon orbiting the PC's planet, there's more to that than simply some costs to pay and time out from adventuring to endure. Character changes this vast are only meaningful if they're allowed some time to breathe.

          The costs to a PC for an Investment can be broken down into four categories, not all of which need be present; Experience, Money, an Object, or an Activity, which taken together allow the PC to make the proposed change to their character. It is important to note that while spending XP on an Investment it does not count towards their class table, conversely it also does not count against the PC's maximum level, if any.

          Below are six examples of what we can do with the Simple Investment system. Please note that balance with these is something of a secondary consideration. These are meant to be culminations of a character arc or the reward for massive amounts of legwork on the part of players.

Name	Cost	Effect
Weight of Iron Fists	1,000 XP, 1,000 SP, a set of magical gauntlets, an extremely painful ritual lasting 2 hours, 1 week of healing time.	Increase the character's unarmed damage by two steps (d2 becomes d6, d4 becomes d8, etc), the character's fists count as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance or other similar effects. The character cannot remove the gauntlets, nor can they perform any tasks requiring fine manipulation.

Name	Cost	Effect
Naga's Bite	700 XP, the poison glands and fangs from a Naga, a delicate oral surgery which lasts 6 hours, 3 days of recovery time.	The PC can now spit poison from their fangs at a distance of up to 12 feet. The poison can cause blindness for 2d4 rounds on a failed save. The PC can spit poison a number of times per day equal to the CON modifier (minimum 1.)

Name	Cost	Effect
Anointment of Pyrisous'	200 XP, 2,000 GP of Ambrosia, self-immolation on an altar fire and either 5d12 damage or the intercession of the altar's deity.	The Character gains resistance to all non-magic damage. The eye of the deity who's altar was used is on the subject - this is not a good thing.

Name	Cost	Effect
Donning the Bear Shirt	1,000 XP, the hide of a bear that you have hunted and slain by yourself, a shamanic ritual lasting 12 hours.	The Subject may shape-shift into a bear of the the same type of the hide that was used in the ritual a number of times per day equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum 1.) The transformation lasts for 10 minutes.

Name	Cost	Effect
Wizard Eyes!	500 XP, 300 GP in various components, the eyes of a spellcaster, a ritual performed by a spellcaster lasting 1 hour. (XP cost is waived if the subject is a spellcaster themselves)	The recipient of the ritual can now see into the spirit world. The particulars of this will probably vary by setting, but the subject can now see incorporeal or otherwise normally intangible beings. These beings will almost certainly notice that they are being observed.

Name	Cost	Effect
Ares' Hand	300 XP, 500 SP in various unguents and ointments, a one-handed melee weapon, a 3 hour long surgery, 1 week of convalescence.	One of the PC's arms has been replaced from the elbow down with a weapon of the same type used in the ritual. The weapon is part of their very soul - if it were to be hacked off and regrown with magic, it would regrow into the weapon. The weapon is considered magic for the purposes overcoming resistance or other similar effects.

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An Old School Update

          I wanted to let long-time and new readers know that all of the classes that I have made so far have been updated to reflect adherence to Old School Essential rules. While they are already fairly easy to adapt, I wanted to make it official by adding attribute requirements, weapon and armor proficiencies, max levels and known languages. Going forwards my intention is to develop for both Lamentations and OSE simultaneously whenever I can. If I have missed anything, or if I have overlooked anything, I would really love to hear about it in the comments. Thanks for reading folks.

Potent Potions, Sorcerous Surgeries & Terrible Transmogrifications - Part I

          Aftermarket upgrades are a mixed bag. For every backup camera or key less entry, there are ugly looking spoilers and gaudy under-lights. Attempts at upgrading or altering characters after their creation can also come off as similarly forced; Some of my favorite video game franchises growing up, the Shining Series, or the Ogre Battle games, simply had characters transforming into different classes without much rhyme or reasons upon getting a certain item.

          The most egregious example of this phenomenon in my mind was in Shining Force II, where you could obtain an item for your Centaur Knight known as a Pegasus Wing, which upon level 20 would allow them to be promoted into a Pegasus Knight. I always wondered what was transpiring behind the scenes here, was the item facilitating a sort of magical ritual? Was some other party member grafting Pegasus wings onto them in some back-alley? While the idea of a character having a paradigm shift a la Gandalf or Cecil certainly has an appeal, it can quickly grow to absurd levels.

          Multiclassing or trying to reflect other forms of dramatic character changes has fared little better in table-top games. oD&D had the craziness that was dual-classing (seriously, outside of when I played the Baldur's Gate series I never saw any one dual-class) and the oft-confusing mess that was multi-classing, but 3.X/Pathfinder were little better in that regard, growing particularly infamous at the latter part of the 3.X era. Why is the fighter eating green rocks and turning into the Jolly Green Giant? Is there a decent in-game reason for your party's Wizard to have gotten obsessed with Prismatic Wall & Prismatic Sphere to the point where they've developed an entirely new school of magic off of it? Realistically I know that Referees and Players are likely justifying these changes during the course of play, but why not embrace the utter strangeness and simply bake the transformations in? Science Fiction games such as Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020 have embraced this approach since their inception. Fantasy Fiction is rife with examples of characters undergoing terrible changes to better meet the challenges set before them, or simply for kicks. Dr. Jekyll and the Invisible Man leap to mind, but there's also Geralt (and Witchers in general) from the Witcher, and my favorite by far, the Jägermonsters from Girl Genius.

          With all that rambling out of the way, I present a somewhat novel approach to spending Experience and Gold points: Upgrades! These renovations to the character can take many forms, but I've broken them down into two broad categories:

1. One-time, permanent changes which require a mid to large initial sum of GP or XP from the PC. These can be things such as grafted body parts; blessings or investments by a deity or other similar creature; or body and mind-warping rituals, potions or tinctures.
2. Long-term investments which grow increasingly powerful as the PC redirects their XP towards them. The character's progression on their class table stops as they put XP towards the upgrade.

         The first sort is by far the easiest to develop and implement, all we need is a basic idea of what the process is supposed to accomplish and then assign costs in either Gold, XP, or both, along with any other requirements that seem necessary. To use the example above about converting a Centaur Knight into a Pegasus Knight, our ritual/potion/surgery may look something like this:

Name	Cost	Effect
Theft of Icarus	500gp, 1500xp, A set of wings able to feasibly keep the subject aloft. 2 Weeks of recovery time.	The PC gains a Fly speed equal to that of their Move speed. The character may not hover, but may split choose to split their movement between walking or flying. Members of the species that the wings are from now hate and loathe the character.

          The second kind of persistent change to a character requires a far greater commitment on both the PC and the Referee's part, but is superficially similar in many ways to taking levels for a class. Much like a class, all effects are cumulative, and must be taken in order. If a character has built up enough XP, GP or other costs associated with the transformation, the question as to whether or not they can buy multiple levels at once is at the discretion of the Referee. In this example I'll use the transmogrification of a character into a Jägerkin from Girl Genius:

Jägerbräu Transformation

Level	Cost	Effect
1	2,000 XP, a proprietary brew, followed by a successful save vs Poison or immediate death*.	Disadvantage on any Saves from a Heterodyne or their inventions. Roll once on the Jägerkin mutations table. +2 HP.
2	2,250 XP	+1 Attack Bonus. +2 HP.
3	2,500 XP	Roll once on the Jägerkin Mutations table. +2 HP. +1 AC.
4	3,000 XP	Subject grows physically larger, gaining +2 to STR in the process. +1 Attack Bonus. +2 HP.

          *: You could also have them simply pass out for 48 hours if they fail instead. I guess.

Jägerkin Mutations

1d10*	Effect
1	The Jägermonster grows a coat of bristly fur over their entire body. They gain advantage against saves or skill checks involving suffering through inclement or cold weather.
2	Glowing, reflective eyes which grant the imbiber Darkvision.
3	The subject's skin can shift color to suit their environment, or their emotional state. They gain advantage on all stealth checks, provided they stand still for at least a turn.
4	The Jägerkin grows claws, sharp teeth, horns or other farms of natural weaponry. Regardless of it's form, this increases the Jäger's unarmed damage by a step - d2 becomes d4, d4 becomes d6, etc.
5	The subject's body heals with unnatural speed, doubling the amount of HP they restore upon resting. They can also reattach limbs, provided they're largely in one piece.
6	Advantage on all skill rolls involving scent or tracking.
7	Resistance to a form of elemental damage; roll 1d4: 1) Fire, 2) Electricity, 3) Cold, 4) Acid.
8	The Jägerkin gains advantage on all rolls to resist fear or terror.
9	The Jägermonster becomes unusually fleet of foot, gaining 10' to their move speed.
10	The Jägerkin is just ridiculously tough. They gain +5 HP.

          *: Re-roll redundant results.

          With those examples, we'll draw this article to a close. Next up in this series, we're going to be going over the Short Changes! Thanks for reading!

          All artwork and intellectual property belongs to their respective owners, and will be taken down at their discretion. Please don't sue me Phil, I've been reading your comics since 'What's new with Phil and Dixie?'

The Courser - LotFP Custom Class

          Every magic-user is a tyrant in waiting. From the lowliest hedge witch, to the haughtiest archmage, all of them are at risk of turning into domineering monsters. How can someone who can change their shape, or bewitch the minds of decent folk every be truly trustworthy? While most simply make their peace with this imbalance of power, there are those who cannot. They may have suffered at the hands of these so-called wonder workers, watching lives and livelihoods disappear with little more than a gesture and some funny sounding words. A great deal of Coursers are self-made magical serial killers, but there are also secret societies based around creating them, government entities that train them, and certain faiths who produce their own stripes of witch hunters. While these grim men and women can be a welcome sight for those who take umbrage with spellcasters, most fear associating with them too closely for fear of drawing the ire of the Witch.

          The tools that Coursers find to strike back at their supposed oppressors - strange rituals that leave their souls hollow and hungry for magic, potions or tinctures which allow them to pull spells from their targets with but a touch, ritual diets and daily exercises or postures which allow them to better resist bedevilment, exotic metals and symbols which burn the minds and trap the spells of magic-users who look upon them - all of it is bent into the service of their mission. Coursers rarely, if ever retire, theirs is a path of sorrow and violence.

Level	Experience	HP	Paralyze	Poison	Beath	Device	Magic	Dweomer Limit
1	0	1d8	10	8	13	9	12	4
2	2,200	1d6	10	8	13	9	12	+1
3	4,400	1d6	10	8	13	9	12	+1
4	8,800	1d6	8	6	10	7	10	+1
5	17,600	1d6	8	6	10	7	10	+1
6	35,200	1d6	8	6	10	7	10	+1
7	70,400	1d6	6	4	7	5	8	+1
8	140,800	1d6	6	4	7	5	8	+1
9	281,600	+2*	6	4	7	5	8	+1
10	422,400	+2*	4	2	4	3	6	+1
11	563,200	+2*	4	2	4	3	6	+1
12+	+140,800/lvl	+2*	2	2	4	2	4	+1

*: Constitution modifiers no longer apply

OSE & B/X rules

Requirements	Minimum CON 12, Minimum INT 12
Prime Requisite	CON and INT
Hit Dice	d6
Thac0 Table	As Rogue
Maximum Level	14
Armor	Any, including shields
Weapons	Any
Languages	Alignment, Common

          Coursers are not spellcasters, and are in many ways both their opposites and dependent upon them for their powers. Coursers have a pool of points known as Dweomer, which can be used in various ways, but most notably to reflect magical energies back at their source or to empower the Courser. Dweomer is stored in, or on the the Courser's person, either inside their bodies as magical energy, or in carried or worn objects. Coursers gain more capacity to store Dweomer as they level up, as reflected in their class table. Any Dweomer in excess of a Courser's capacity is lost.

          Dweomer can be gained by draining charges from magical items such as scrolls, staves, rods and wands, stealing spell slots from magic-users, clerics and other spellcasters by physically touching them, being targeted by spells (whether those be friendly or hostile) or eldritch abilities, or consuming the remains of magical creatures. Objects can only be drained of Dweomer once every 24 hours. Drained charges also drain the maximum charges that an item possesses, when the object reaches 0, it is useless. Spell slots are drained from spellcasters by way of physical contact. The slots are drained on a one-for-one basis, starting with their lowest level spell slots and working up from there. The Spellcaster's controller chooses which spells are lost.

Method	Dweomer Gained
Being targeted by an enemy spell or similar effect.	+2
Striking a Spellcaster with an unarmed attack.	+2
Grappling a Spellcaster.	+1/round
Draining a scroll, potion or other similar item.	+2
Draining a wand/staff/rod or other item's charges.	+1 for every 2 charges drained
Consuming the remains of a supernatural creature, such as a Basilisk's eyes or a Dragon's marrow.	+2
Draining a spellbook, codex or other eldritch repository	+1 for every spell in the book.
Destroying a magic item with a numeric bonus	2 x the item's bonus

          Dweomer is used to enhance and empower Coursers in their hunts against Magic-users and other eldritch beings. These enhancements are known as Boons. Boons take an action to enact, and they do not count as magic in any way for the purposes of anti-magic fields or other similar effects.

Boon Name	Cost	Effect
Soul Fortress	3	For the next 8 hours, if the Courser would be targeted by an effect emanating from a magic-user and they are entitled to a save, they may roll twice and take the better of the two results.
Smite	1/die	Smite is cast in response to being targeted by a spell. Whether they save successfully or not, the Courser uses the conduit that the spell has forged between the caster and themselves to smite them at the same time. The Courser deals 1d6 for each point Dweomer that they spend, though this cannot exceed their level.
Reverse Hex	3	By simply touching someone with a spell currently affecting them, the Courser may cast off the offending enchantment. Unwilling targets are entitled to a Magic Save. The Courser may target themselves with this Boon.
Wyrd Reconstruction	2/die	The Courser's wounds simply re-knit, fueled by the energies of their foes. The Courser heals 1d6 for each 2 points of Dweomer that they spend.
Disrupt Spell	1/round	The Courser causes magic around them to become more difficult and time consuming to cast. By spending a Dweomer each round, any spells which are attempted in their presence are delayed by a round. The caster of the spell must continue to attempt to cast the spell or it fails.
Eldritch Bottle	1/level of Spell	Instead of absorbing the energies of a spell cast upon them as Dweomer, the Courser attempts to capture the spell for use later. The Courser must save against the spell, and then may use this Boon. The spell is reserved, and any Dweomer used to capture it cannot be used for any other purpose until the spell is cast. The spell is cast at the save caster level as the original. A Courser may store only a single spell at a time, and only for a number of hours equal to their character level.