Other Crews

Rival adventuring parties are a classic device. But if I expect one to appear more than once, I'd like to make it an explicit foil to the party, differing most in only one aspect. This is not a complete taxonomy, only a brainstorm of common narrative roles.

Aspirational

Anything you can do, these guys do better. In the best case, they're friendly and distant, fighting far-off battles. Maybe they like you and occasionally check in. Maybe they really like you and they'd go so far as to sacrifice for you.

Counterpoint

These guys are Gary: they look down on you and just by chance know all your weaknesses. It's not that they're better, they're just accidentally your worst matchup. And they'll take your girl/guy/job/reputation.

Sucks

Anything these guys do, anyone else could do better. These guys are you, half a campaign ago. Maybe they're fans! Maybe they're impostors!

Done

After you have everything you want and settle down, you might become these guys. Of course, anything that risks the status quo might stir them from their comfortable retirement.

Gumptionless

If you were to give up or turn back, you might become these guys. They'll fight to stop anyone trying where they've failed before: after all, they know it's no use.

Immoderate

These guys will cross every line you've ever drawn. They'll betray allies, fight dirty, lie, cheat, steal, kill, all of it.

Rich

This crew didn't earn their strength like you. They bought themselves tools and influence. They took shortcuts and their power is consequently brittle. Tools fail, followers defect.

Alternative

These doppelgangers just did small things different. Maybe they're aligned with an opposing faction, maybe they're from a different homeland. But they want the same things as you and operate similarly.

A Pair of Failed Careers

Into the Odd is my one-shot game of choice. It has just enough of everything. Just enough mechanics, just enough character, just enough world. I understand where Electric Bastionland is coming from, but it's always seemed like the "just a little too much" counterpart for my purposes. That said, the Failed Careers are elegant little thought-forms, similar to Troika! backgrounds, and I had some fun putting these two on paper. With some quick wombo.art (I'm a little meh on it, but it works), they're ready to go.

Courier

You took things places.

Sample Names
Major, Fries, Tate, Owney

You Get
Uniform, Letter Opener (d6, concealable)

Cash	What stopped you?
£1	Snow. Take a heavy down coat (Armor 1, Bulky).
£2	Rain. Take rubberized boots.
£3	Heat. Take a light metal water bottle.
£4	Gloom of night. Take a lantern.
£5	Forgery. Take a jeweler's loupe.
£6	Honor. Take one letter, unopened, undeliverable.

HP	What were you good at?
1	First-class mail. Test Wil to turn dogs.
2	Special deliveries. Take one bicycle. You can outrace anyone on a paved street, but cannot stop or notice anything along the way.
3	Packaging. Never break a fragile object.
4	Routing. For any address know the name of someone who has lived there or lives there now.
5	Labelling. Immediately and accurately know the weight of anything held in one hand.
6	Paper routes. Always know this morning's headlines.

If you are the youngest player,
the whole group is 10k in debt to the vagrant's HOA. You technically can't sleep on the streets.

Burnboss

If you don't set small fires, the big ones will rage uncontrollably.

Sample Names
Morgan, Smollex, Danver, Kangg

You Get
Shovel, Hatchet (d6)

Cash	How'd you get out of the game?
£1	Deregulation. Take a directory of your competitors (d6).
£2	Technical arson. Take an expired license.
£3	Backdraft. Take no hair.
£4	Antidrought. It is still raining when the game starts, wherever you were licensed.
£5	Aggressive noncompete. Other crews will not talk to you.
£6	Burncrew mutiny. Take one gilt-edged page from a holy book, a hole burned thru the center.

HP	How did you start fires?
1	Flamethrower. Take one (d6, Blast, Bulky).
2	Ritual duel. Take one flint sword (d8, sparks against steel).
3	Pyrokinesis. Test Wil to ignite any dry material, once/day.
4	Advanced optics. Take one magnifying glass.
5	Alchemy. Take three firebombs (d6 Damage each round until extinguished).
6	The old-fashioned way. Take one fancy lighter. You can do tricks with it.

If you are the youngest player,
the whole group is 10k in debt to Hurly & Sons Insurance Insurance Insurance. Collateral damage incurred is not added to your debt.

Game Jams and More to Fight Social Isolation Blues

I added art to my entry in the Troika! Tarot Jam (11 days left at time of writing), and I now consider it finished. For these I wanted to communicate a lot of flavor without the standard explanatory preamble, to help them fit in such a small space. I think a lot of the backgrounds would be better remixed, but can stand alone as-is. I only hope that the illustrations aren't so specific that they interfere with anyone's interpretations of their own characters.

I don't technically have more time during social isolation because of work. But I still need things to occupy my mind, so here are some RPG-related activities:

• Troika! Tarot Jam
• Good Morning Apocalypse Game Jam
• The Great Khan's Celtic Adventure Contest
• Cone of Negative Energy: Please Stay Home Bundle
• Free PDFs from Exalted Funeral

There are also lots of other things:

• Entertaining Yourself in Times of Quarantine
• Virtual School Activities (all kinds of cameras and virtual museums)
• The National Mall [Cherry Blossom] Bloom Cam
• The Localhost Gallery (A Minecraft Art Gallery)
• Streaming Concerts
• A Streaming Variety Show
• Catch a Sourdough Starter

Please, stay safe and support each other.

Secret Santicorn 2019

Sky Seeker asked:
Dear Santicorn,
Please bring me

New ways to mess with time/space/fate, be it mechanics, spells, worldbuilding or beyond. If pokemon can reboot the universe to patch in a baby god we can do better: https://youtu.be/GxC1kXm_AVs

The Slipsoul – a Character Option

Infinite parallel universes teem around us, multitudes branching out with every decision and movement. Normally, these worlds are inaccessible and inhospitable. But when you die, your mind does not go gently into the night, but casts about wildly to find purchase on any reality that will take it. When you’re lucky, it’s relatively close to the world your remember.

These rules assume a D&D-ish game, but could be easily adapted to others. Mechanical effects, if any, are left as an exercise for the referee and the effects of further re-rolls are left open to negotiation.

Whenever you fail a death save, roll on the slide table and appear stabilized, but in a different reality. That this reality is different is apparent only to you. For example, if you roll “No eyes” the wound is old, and your companions may remember how you lost them. If you later re-roll the same number, you find yourself instead in the universe the next column over, as your mind reaches for further and further branches of reality. For example, if you roll a “1” a second time, then you still have no eyes, but find yourself able to see spirits.

The Slide Table

d12	First	Second	Third	Fourth
1	No eyes.	See spirits.	See the past.	Something else sees what you see.
2	Covered in tattoos.	Know and can cast random spell.	Spell casts itself when you take damage.	No one else can cast the spell.
3	Dave loyally follows you everywhere.	Davinia also follows you everywhere.	Dave & Davinia are retired in the city.	Nobody has ever heard of Dave or Davinia.
4	Pockets full of money.	Warrant for your arrest.	Owe a criminal favor.	Run a small gang.
5	Forsaken by religions.	Resting grants no benefit.	There are no stars.	Free from the wheel of death and rebirth.
6	No fingers on off hand.	Off-arm is a tentacle.	+d6 tentacles.	You are an octopus.
7	Lycanthropy.	Contacts despise you.	Covered in scars.	+d6 wolf companions.
8	Slide on any failed save.	Slide instead of save.	Optionally, slide instead of skill check.	Roll twice when sliding.
9	Super nice clothes.	Parents look for you.	Assassin targets you.	Inherit a small estate.
10	Require double rations.	Do not need sleep when you rest.	Cannot heal naturally.	Begin to rot.
11	Very short.	Darkvision.	Stonecunning.	Ancestors will aid you.
12	False leg.	Key hidden in leg.	Compartments in limbs.	Need regular maintenance.

Printout

I also made this printout of the table, so that you might have the satisfaction of striking the universes you've already rolled.

Licking the Bowl

Taking the prompt as "petty uses of cosmic power", I also sketched out two other ideas.

Fold Self – a GLOG Spell

When you rest to heal, you can choose not to heal any number of HP, instead leaving part of yourself (astrally) in that location. When casting the spell, roll [dice] over (max HP - HP at that location) to transport yourself and your carried objects to that location. This isn't really teleportation, it's more like squeezing a four-dimensional water wiggly.

Johnny Luckturner – an NPC Outline

Recently broke off from a larger organization and they're not happy about it. All their best people have returned broken or not at all. Maybe a bunch of bumbling patsies could get the job done?

Whenever multiple dice are rolled against Johnny, only the worst value is used (even if they would normally sum). Sneak attacks, advantages, fireballs, etc. all fall flat before his absurd luck. He doesn't know how this works though, and he's a pretty average combatant.

Here Are Some Characters

Here are some backgrounds for characters. It's mostly specialists, because that's where I started.

Your specialist . . .

• is a jeweler, seeking gems of great value.
• is an explorer, seeking or returned from exotic lands.
• is an archaeologist, searching for the secrets of lost civilizations.
• is a political exile, waiting to return home.
• is a black priest, charged with keeping the church's secrets secret.
• is a barbarian, skilled in ways that civilization has forgotten.
• is a migrant worker, willing to help out locals for a bed or a meal.
• is a tinker, but will take on other odd jobs.
• is a busker, but with a lost instrument.
• is a common beggar.
• is an organ grinder, whose monkey ran away.
• comes from a nomadic culture.
• is a traveling merchant, freshly cleaned out from a deal gone awry.
• is a fence, but is branching out into "acquisitions".
• is a jester who spoke too much truth to power.
• is an actor, separated from their troupe.
• is an acrobat.
• ran away from a terrible apprenticeship.
• is a sailor on shore leave.
• trained as a domestic servant.
• is a smuggler, on the lookout for new routes.
• is a quack doctor, peddling alcoholic tonics.
• is a professional burglar.
• is a pickpocket street urchin. Singing optional.
• is a con artist, in search of a mark.
• is a con artist, whose parter was recently taken in.
• is a gangster, whose connections have soured recently.
• is a rake, seeking to take his mind off of a doubtless life-threatening liver disorder.
• is a spy, awaiting orders from a foreign nation.
• is a bandit/pirate (depending on feasibility).
• is a poacher.
• is a halfling in search of adventure.
• is a trained assassin.
• was a military scout.
• escaped slavery.

Your fighter . . .

• was a bouncer.
• is a bodyguard.
• is a noble knight on an inscrutable quest.
• is a digraced knight, exiled from the court.
• was an infantryman.
• is a mercenary, between jobs.
• is a bounty hunter.
• is a barbarian, unmatched in the art of combat.
• escaped from a laboratory.
• was a prizefighter, but is getting old.
• apprenticed as a blacksmith.
• was a collier or miner.
• escaped from prison.
• is a lawman.
• is a bandit/pirate (depending on feasibility).
• is a dwarf.
• is from a long line of warriors.
• is a deserter.
• is a berserker.
• is a local hero in their remote hometown.
• was an Olympian athlete.

Your magic user . . .

• is a wild talent with psionic powers.
• made a pact with the devil.
• speaks with elementals.
• is an elf.
• is proud to be self-taught.
• learned Atlantean secrets.
• was abducted by aliens.
• apprenticed with an insane wizard.
• graduated valedictorian at Wizard Academy.
• dropped out of Wizard Academy.
• was taught magic by nature spirits.
• has dragon blood running through their veins.
• has no memory of his life before now.
• happens to have not died in the last century (but is still mortal).
• was an advisor to kings and generals.
• died once. Might even still be dead. Isn't sure.
• is a bard.
• can't return to it's home dimension.

Your cleric . . .

• is an orphan, raised by the church.
• once was blind, but now can see.
• once could see, but now is blind.
• is a pacifist.
• is a reformed death cultist.
• once received a vision.
• is personally an atheist.
• is a millenarian, convinced that the end is nigh.
• is an inquisitor, charged with rooting out heresy.
• acts obsessive about rituals. Practices them like clockwork.
• is a shaman, who calls upon ancestral spirits.
• is a druid, who remembers the old ways.
• is not the child of prophecy, but sees how you could make that mistake.
• was an ascetic monk, living on the fringes of society.
• was recently accused of heretical beliefs.
• is a street preacher, spreading the gospel to all who will listen.
• is a pamphleteer, too shy to preach on the streets.
• almost died once, but was saved by grace alone.