Secret Santicorn 2018: The Lich Who Saved Christmas

Made by yours truly

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land
Not a creature was stirring, and fate was at hand;
Trees of pine, bushes juniper, and tall pillars of oak
Occluded all vision as a near-dead-man awoke;

My children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of bereavement danced in my head;
And I in the snow-banks, their cold downy drifts,
In the forest hounded by bandits and robbed of my gifts,

When out on the horizon a motion was made,
I sprang from the dune, braced for a second raid.
Away from sight I dove in a flash,
huddled by a tree, face covered in sash.

The moon on the breast of the old-treaded snow
Gave a ghastly light to objects below,
When, what to my worrying eyes should appear,
But a gaunt figure astride and was quickly near,

His face was split by the gash of his teeth,
Nothing else was shown through his hair, nor beneath;
He had a sunken face, and withered black nails,
and he drug quite a path with his long coattails.

In the grip of his claws, he held fast a small toy,
the very same stuffed bear I'd picked out for my boy;
A widening of craw and a crane of his head,
Soon gave me to know I was as good as dead;

He spoke not a word, but gestured straight for my home,
And filled me with longing; A fool I was to roam,
now prone shivering at the feet of this beast,
this last gift I knew would survive me at least;

The creature's dread grin faded, slowly melting adieu,
And his crimson robe bled through the solid white view;
But I heard him cackle, ere he moved out of sight,
HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Pelznickel. He is truly named Zinigol of Immortal Sorcery, The Two Right Handed. In times immemorial, Zinigol undertook the ancient rites and became a Lich; a being of eternal life and rotting form. Centuries past by from his Hyperborean birth, and Christmas arrived. It was beginning to peter out (relatively) soon after its creation when Zinigol took notice.
In the jolly, red-clad figurehead of the holiday, Zinigol found an opportunity for cover. If he were to relocate to the North Pole, spend a year or two delivering gifts, and turned away any investigators with illusory spells, he could pass as Santa Claus and have a base of operations that no wily adventurers would seek out. It was foolproof!

Sadly for Zinigol, he was too careful in his work. Time's passage is harder to perceive when one reaches as advanced an age as he, and immortality distorts the view even further. Years of gift-giving quickly became decades, and decades became centuries, and on and on. A millennia later and Zinigol's withering old mind was bent out of shape.
He is Santa Claus, now. Except more like the Futurama S.C, where he'll kill you dead if he ever lays eye on you. His standards were already made up, now they're completely distorted. Gifts and baubles are devilish. No treats, only tortures. Christmas was saved, and ruined, by the same man.


LotFP: Armor 18, Movement 200', 9th level Magic-User, 100 hp, gnarled claws 1d10+paralysis(as ghoul) or magic, Morale 16.
DCC RPG: Init +4; Atk claw +7 melee (1d12+3) or magic; AC 18; HD 12d12; MV walk 50'; Act 2d20; SP un-dead traits, paralysis(as ghoul), phylactery, spells as 9th level wizard; SV Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +2; AL C.

By this point in his un-life, Santa Claus' phylactery has become something new.. something different. Most are physical vessels for soulstuff that direct the reassembly of matter into a new form for the Lich. Santa's phylactery has shifted over his loooonnnggg life to be the very Spirit of Christmas itself. So long as children and childish persons believe in him, he will reform at his base of operation; a ruined Soviet drifting station in the Arctic Ocean. Its machinery has been refitted to churn out diabolic devices of torture and mayhem painted in a thin veneer of childish glee.

(Merry Crustmas, TLN! I hope this satisfies what you imagined when you thought of the Lich who Saved Christmas. Thanks so much for all the wonderful posts and inspiration since I found your blog! This monster man was a lot of fun to think around. I'd love to run a modern-day fantasy thing someday. This would certainly be that world's Santa Claus!)

Wordsmith Wizards: Practitioners of Paronym Follow-up

Recently, I've become very taken with the OSR (and +Arnold K's GLOG in particular) and I started to compile some homebrew rules and classes and whatnot for my future use.

My table took a look at the doc I was working on, and found +Type1 Ninja's Cleric rendition to be very fun! The very first spell they made was Annihilate Baby, so of course they fucking liked it.

They desperately wanted an equivalently random school for the wizard, and so I obliged.

(Thanks so much to +Martin O and his Paronym wizard order, which I shamelessly riffed off of, my players for their feedback, and to +Ben Milton for his fantastic magic tables in Maze Rats that I happily stole.)

Wordsmith Wizard

Status: Chartered

The world was spoken into being, many say. The Wordsmiths are obsessed with language, and seek to unravel its secrets to reshape reality. The current state of affairs is.. grim, but the pursuit goes on.

Perk: You remember everything you read exactly as it is written. Gain the Law skill.

Drawback: To cast spells, you must be able to speak and hear yourself clearly. The words don’t come out right otherwise.

Cantrips

1. You can touch paper and some form of pigmented fluid, instantly creating a full page’s worth of words from your thoughts OR editing words on the paper.

2. You can burn a Magic Die to change, remove, or add a letter to one word of a spell you cast.

3. You can create enough ink to fill a teacup once a day.

Spells

	Effect	Element	Form
Ethereal	Unobservable Forces	High Concepts & Metaphysics	Intangible Manifestations
Physical	Observable Forces	Classical Elements & Flora/Fauna	Tangible Reality

For this wizard’s spell list, you will pick any two categories below and roll to generate each spell.

Generally, any two of the categories explained above will produce sensible spells. (Excluding Form and Form, because Loop of Trap doesn't exactly seem cool, but you do you. Although, Loop of TrapS sounds kinda awesome...)

When rolling, use 2d6; one for the individual block and one for the numbered entry therein.

EX: I get a 3 and a 5 for my Physical Effects roll, so I get Illuminating.

1. Physical Effects
1.Animating 2.Attracting 3.Binding 4.Blossoming 5.Consuming 6.Creeping	1.Crushing 2.Diminishing 3.Dividing 4.Duplicating 5.Enveloping 6.Expanding	1.Fusing 2.Grasping 3.Hastening 4.Hindering 5.Illuminating 6.Imprisoning
1.Levitating 2.Opening 3.Petrifying 4.Phasing 5.Piercing 6.Pursuing	1.Reflecting 2.Regenerating 3.Rending 4.Repelling 5.Resurrecting 6.Screaming	1.Sealing 2.Shapeshifting 3.Shielding 4.Spawning 5.Transmuting 6.Transporting

2. Physical Elements
1.Acid 2.Amber 3.Bark 4.Blood 5.Bone 6.Brine	1.Clay 2.Crow 3.Crystal 4.Ember 5 Flesh 6.Fungus	1.Glass 2.Honey 3.Ice 4.Insect 5.Iron 6.Lava
1.Moss 2.Obsidian 3.Oil 4.Poison 5.Rat 6.Salt	1.Sand 2.Sap 3.Serpent 4.Slime 5.Stone 6.Tar	1.Thorn 2.Vine 3.Water 4.Wine 5.Wood 6.Worm

3. Physical Forms
1.Altar 2.Armor 3.Arrow 4.Beast 5.Blade 6.Cauldron	1.Chain 2.Chariot 3.Claw 4.Cloak 5.Colossus 6.Crown	1.Elemental 2.Eye 3.Fountain 4.Gate 5.Golem 6.Hammer
1.Horn 2.Key 3.Mask 4.Monolith 5.Pit 6.Prison	1.Sentinel 2.Servant 3.Shield 4.Spear 5.Stead 6.Swarm	1.Tentacle 2.Throne 3.Torch 4.Trap 5.Wall 6.Web

4. Ethereal Effects
1.Avenging 2.Banishing 3.Bewildering 4.Blinding 5.Charming 6.Communicating	1.Compelling 2.Concealing 3.Deafening 4.Deceiving 5.Deciphering 6.Disguising	1.Dispelling 2.Emboldening 3.Encoding 4.Energizing 5.Enlightening 6.Enraging
1.Excruciating 2.Foreseeing 3.Intoxicating 4.Maddening 5.Mesmerizing 6.Mindreading	1.Nullifying 2.Paralyzing 3.Revealing 4.Revolting 5.Scrying 6.Silencing	1.Soothing 2.Summoning 3.Terrifying 4.Warding 5.Wearying 6.Withering

5. Ethereal Elements
1.Ash 2.Chaos 3.Distortion 4.Dream 5.Dust 6.Echo	1.Ectoplasm 2.Fire 3.Fog 4.Ghost 5.Harmony 6.Heat	1.Law 2.Lightning 3.Memory 4.Mind 5.Mutation 6.Negation
1.Plague 2.Plasma 3.Probability 4.Rain 5.Rot 6.Shadow	1.Smoke 2.Snow 3.Soul 4.Star 5.Stasis 6.Steam	1.Thunder 2.Time 3.Void 4.Warp 5.Whisper 6.Wind

6. Ethereal Forms
1.Aura 2.Beacon 3.Beam 4.Blast 5.Blob 6.Bolt	1.Bubble 2.Call 3.Cascade 4.Circle 5.Cloud 6.Coil	1.Cone 2.Cube 3.Dance 4.Disk 5.Field 6.Form
1.Gaze 2.Loop 3.Moment 4.Nexus 5.Portal 6.Pulse	1.Pyramid 2.Ray 3.Shard 4.Sphere 5.Spray 6.Storm	1.Swarm 2.Torrent 3.Touch 4.Vortex 5.Wave 6.Word

Emblem Spells

11. Paronym

You speak amendments unto reality’s laws with authority. You can take any two words from the spells on your list and smush those into a new spell upon casting. For each MD invested, the effect is strengthened (whatever that means) and you may change 1 letter in either word. The exact effects are debated upon by you and the GM.

12. Tongues

R: touch T: [dice] creatures D: [sum] days

Eyes turn a worn beige, and whatever words are read or heard scroll over them in inky print. The affected are able to interpret any attempt at communication with utter accuracy. Improvised hand gestures, symbology in dying blood, and the Language of Gods are all fair game.

Mishaps

1. MD only return to your pool on a 1-2 for 24 hours
2. Take 1d6 damage.
3. Random mutation for 1d6 rounds, then Save. Permanent if you fail.

4. Blinded for 1d6 rounds.

5. Spell targets you (if harmful) or enemy (if beneficial) or fizzles (if neutral)

6. Deafened for 1d6 rounds.

Dooms

1. You are unable to understand written or nonverbal communication for 1 day, and must save or misunderstand spoken communication for the duration.

2. You are unable to understand any language or form of communication for 3 days. Words actively flee from you.

3. You lose the gift of communication permanently, locked inside of your mind and body without escape or reprieve. The quiet will likely drive you insane immediately.

This doom can be avoided by seamlessly assimilating two different cultures (with different languages) into one, or by inventing a complete language from the ground up.

Design Notes

This school's cantrips and dooms are my primary attempt to deliver the flavor of this class. I imagine them, in my world at least, to be the most anal-retentive of all the schools. They have all the skills necessary to create incredibly rich and decisive treatises on the world, and their biggest power and temptation is to alter the world through their words. (Not unlike the Sorcerer from Skerples.) I hope that comes across in this class.

That's my first blog post, everybody. There it is. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.