Tarot Wizardry

Character Creation

To generate a character, draw six tarot cards and lay them out as follows.

Place the first card in the middle of the spread. This card represents your character’s personality, attitude towards the world, and present state of mind.

Place the second card horizontally across the first card, and interpret it upright. This card represents an obstacle in their life that is so great they believe only magic can address it.

Place the third card to the west of the first card. This card represents why and how your character became a wizard. Write down a skill associated with this part of your character’s life.

Place the fourth card to the east of the first card. This card represents your character’s near future if they do not act to prevent it.

Place the fifth card to the north of the first card. This card represents what your character uses magic to achieve, or how they channel their occult prowess. Write down a skill associated with this part of your character’s life.

Place the sixth card to the south of the first card. This card represents their equipment, trappings, and resources. Write down a skill associated with this part of your character’s life.

Once you have established your character, build your character’s magical Practice. For each suit of the tarot, choose an aspect or element of the world associated with that suit. When your character casts a spell with a card of that suit, their spell manifests as an effect in that chosen medium. For example, a character with the Swords aspect of Perception could use Swords cards to obscure themselves from others, create illusions, scry over great distances, or identify the nature of magical effects.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: See Aspects & Practices below to get ideas. There is no comprehensive list.

Finally, designate one of your character’s Aspects as their Prime Aspect (also called their Home Demesne, Favoured Sphere, Chosen School, etc.). Your character has a special affinity for this aspect of reality, which empowers their spells in that suit.

Play

At the start of each session, each player draws 5 cards from the shared tarot deck. The cards in each player’s hand represent the spells that they can cast this session. The GM draws 7 cards, which represent the challenges they can bring to bear against the player characters.  Whenever the GM runs out of cards in their hand, they draw back up to 7.

To cast a spell, play a tarot card from your hand and interpret its meaning in the context of your character’s magic abilities. After determining the outcome of your spell, put it in the communal discard pile. Magic always affects the world unless explicitly counterspelled, so use magic wisely (or at least prepare yourself for the consequences of failure).

AUTHOR’S NOTE: If you can't narratively apply a card's meaning to a challenge, you can't use it to overcome that challenge. Don’t let this discourage you: twist meanings and wield wordplay to make your will manifest.

When you cast a spell, if the difficulty of the challenge has not already been set, the GM plays a card from their hand or reveals the top card of the deck to determine the task’s challenge rating. If you play a card in the Minor Arcana, you succeed if your spell’s value meets or beats the challenge’s rating (Court cards are 11s, Aces are 12). If you play a card in the Major Arcana, it always succeeds unless opposed by another Major Arcanum, but you suffer a Wound for channeling such a powerful magical effect.

Challenges have a visible rating between 0 (utterly inconsequential) and 15 (impossible without the strongest magic). If you have a relevant skill, whether chosen at character creation or acquired during play, reduce the CR by 2. To achieve a difficult task with mundane efforts, roll 1d10. You succeed if you meet or beat the challenge’s rating. If you fail, the GM narrates the consequences of your actions. You may attempt to save yourself from mundane failure by taking a Wound to cast a spell before the consequences take full effect.

When a player runs out of cards in their hand, their magic is temporarily exhausted until the next session. During the session, if they rest for at least an in-game day and have cleared all of their Wounds, they draw a new hand of 5 cards.

If the deck runs out of cards, you have strained magic itself to a breaking point. Call the session, even if you’re in the middle of something important.

Wounds and Scars

A player character can suffer 3 Wounds before becoming Incapacitated. Any Wound past the third also immediately incapacitates the character. An Incapacitated character cannot make rolls or cast spells until the end of the scene.

If you have 1 Wound, you need a day of rest to clear your wounds. If you have 2 Wounds, you need a week of rest instead. If you have 3 or more Wounds, you need a month of rest to clear your wounds, and one Wound is converted into a permanent Scar. Scars cannot be healed and count towards your total Wounds for the purpose of Incapacitation (but not rest durations). When you take your third Scar, you die.

Removing a wound without resting is a rating 9 challenge. If you fail to remove a Wound, it immediately becomes a Scar.

Wounds and Scars can be physical, mental, occult, spiritual, or even reputational. With cosmic power comes cosmic vulnerability — hexes, curses, and geases all function within the Wound and Scar system.

Enemies

Mundane enemies are represented with static challenge ratings and are handled through narrative play.

Supernatural enemies are represented by a pile of up to 3 face-down cards. When a supernatural enemy threatens a character or a character attempts to overcome the enemy, if that enemy has no face-up cards, the GM reveals the top card of the pile. That card sets the rating for a challenge associated with that enemy. Once all of the enemy’s cards have been overcome, the enemy is defeated.

An enemy wizard has their own hand of 5 cards, their own practice and aspects, and can suffer up to 3 Wounds just like a player character.

Spells

When you play a tarot card to solve a problem, describe how you work magic to address the situation. This description must take two things into consideration: the meaning of the card itself, and your character’s Aspects.

Your character associates an aspect of reality with each suit. When you play a card of a suit, your magic expresses itself through that aspect. Minor Works in your Prime Aspect are called Prime Works, and count their value at +2.

Minor Works

When you play a card in the Minor Arcana, perform a Minor Work. Describe the spell that you cast by interpreting the meaning of the card you played through the lens of your aspect for its suit. For example, if your aspect for Swords is Fire, when you play the Two of Swords, interpret its meanings (such as Avoidance) through that lens. Perhaps you erect a barrier of flame between yourself and an enemy, or you temporarily quell a raging inferno.

Minor Works cannot last longer than the scene, though their effects on the mundane world may linger.

Court cards (traditionally the Page, Knight, Queen, and King of each suit) are part of the Minor Arcana, but share a value of 11 and have an additional suit based on their seat at Court. The Page is associated with Earth, and therefore with Pentacles. The same is true for Knights with Fire and Wands, Queens with Water and Cups, and Kings with Air and Swords. Spells cast with Court cards are Prime Works if either their printed or associated suit match your Prime Aspect.

Furthermore, as Court cards are often used to represent people, they are an effective tool to influence, target, or even summon beings represented by the card in question.

When two Minor Works oppose each other, the spell with the higher value wins out and its caster narrates the ultimate result. Resolve ties between Minor Workings of equivalent value by referencing the suits’ respective elemental dignities.

Support (Wands vs. Swords, or Cups vs. Pentacles): Combine. The spells synthesize into a greater whole. If only one of the constituent spells is a Prime Work, that caster gains control of the gestalt spell; if neither or both of the spells are Prime, the spell becomes uncontrolled.

Weaken (Wands vs. Cups, or Swords vs. Pentacles): Counterspell. Both spells fizzle in their casters’ hands, and inflict damage

Neutral (Wands vs. Pentacles, or Swords vs. Cups): Ships passing. If only one of the spells is a Prime Work, its caster wins. Otherwise, both spells take effect but cannot affect each other.

Strengthen (A suit vs. itself): The Price of Hubris. The spells combine into a Major Work with value equal to their sum and run Rampant. Roll on the Magnum Opus table. This is only possible if a card is played against itself, which shouldn’t happen if you’re only playing with a single deck, but magic oft refuses such mundane strictures.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: These only happen on ties. Don’t worry about the mechanical effects of elemental dignities in other circumstances.

Major Works

When you play a card in the Major Arcana, perform a Major Work. Major Works obviate any mundane challenge and surmount any Minor Work. Furthermore, Major Arcana do not have suits — their effects are so powerful that they can only be channeled through your Prime Aspect. They are not, however, Prime Works — they are something greater.

Major works cannot last longer than the session, and their effects on the mundane world will reverberate.

    A Major Work is also taxing on its caster. To cast a Major Work, you must suffer a Wound. The nature and narrative impact of the Wound are dictated by the card’s meaning and your ultimate intentions for the spell.

When two Major Works clash, roll 2d6 on the Magnum Opus table. An even result means that the Major work with the higher value wins; an odd result means that the Major work with the lower value wins. Before the work resolves, the Magnum Opus result takes effect.

Magnum Opus

12. Projection (As Above). All of your Minor Works for the rest of the session are Prime Works, regardless of their suit or aspect.
11. Exaltation. An angel of your Prime Aspect arrives to deliver your spell in person. It will hang around until the end of the scene.
10. Congelation. Choose one of your non-Prime Aspects. Until the end of the session, that Aspect becomes your Prime Aspect.
9. Multiplication. Until the end of the scene, Minor Arcana may be played as previous Minor Arcana that have been played (and resolved) this scene.
8. Conjunction. Reveal the top card of the deck.
7. Cibation. Draw a card.
6. Dissolution. Discard your hand, then draw 3 cards.
5. Calcination. The spell sets everything it touches on fire, even and especially things that are impervious to mundane flames.
4. Separation. Your skin splits with uncontainable magic power. Take a Wound, and your spell runs Rampant.
3. Putrefaction. Everything nearby begins to wilt, wither, and rot. Everyone in the scene suffers a Wound.
2. Sublimation (So Below). For the rest of the session, all cards are played reversed.

Rampant spells become NPCs under the GM’s control. They may take the form of elementals, spirits, demons, daemons, daimons, or other supernatural beings with inscrutable and orthogonal goals. While they dissipate at the end of the scene or session in accordance with their power, they may return of their own volition or be summoned by an enterprising practitioner.

Aspects & Practices

A practice is a set of correspondences between tarot suits and aspects of reality. These are not mandatory (you can always modify, mix-and-match, or wholly ignore them), but cultural contexts and established occult orders make it easier to find people who use these combinations of aspects.

A Practitioner may select any Aspect of their Practice as their Prime Aspect. A Daemonic practitioner focused on Commanding will behave very differently from one whose Prime is Contracts, Communing, or Calling; while their Minor workings are similar, their Major workings are entirely different.

Practice: Technomancy
Swords — Machines
Wands — Creation
Cups — Data
Pentacles — Money

Practice: Daemonic
Swords — Calling
Wands — Commanding
Cups — Communing
Pentacles — Contracts

Practice: Elementalism
Swords — Air
Wands — Fire
Cups — Water
Pentacles — Earth

Practice: Psychic
Swords — Perception
Wands — Instinct
Cups — Emotion
Pentacles — Memory

Practice: Traveling
Swords — Motion
Wands — Impulse
Cups — Time
Pentacles — Resistance

Practice: Witchcraft
Swords — Hexes
Wands — Animation
Cups — Divination
Pentacles — Healing

Practice: The World
Swords — Weather
Wands — Growth
Cups — Dreams
Pentacles — Flora & Fauna

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I referenced the Rider-Waite-Smith deck when writing this system due to its ubiquity, but these rules should work for even nonstandard decks — homebrew as necessary.

Advanced Workings

With an hour of proper preparations and focus, you may discard a card to perform Divination and look at the top card of the deck.

You may use an evening without distractions or discomfort to Meditate. At the end of your Meditation, discard a card of your choice and draw a replacement. You cannot Meditate in this way more than once a day.

With a night of hard work, concentration, and precise preparations, you may perform Ritual Magic. Describe the spell you are preparing to cast, then draw a card, then play a card from your hand. If the card you play does not have an appropriate meaning for the spell, the spell will act unpredictably even on a success.

When several wizards work together, they may create a spread of multiple cards that imparts greater meaning, versatility, and/or specificity to the resulting spell. Each wizard may only contribute a single card to a spread, and the spread’s value is the highest value of a minor arcana within it. Spreads cannot be Prime Works, but spreads comprised of exclusively Major Arcana are some of the most powerful and dangerous Workings a wizard can wield.

The Witch (GLOG Class)

It's GLOGtober! Happy GLOGtober, everyone.

Witch

You treat with otherworldly powers as an equal, or at least as a petitioner worth their attentions. Conventionally, witches intercede between mortals and their local supernatural powers for good harvests, safe childbirths, and clemency from transgressions. As empires metastasize across the Continent and wizards yoke the mystical to their will, the place of the Witch has become increasingly one of protecting the supernatural from mortals, rather than the other way around. Courts of entities great and small seek advocates, providing power to those who keep the old ways alive in these troubled times.

by Bogdan Rezunenko

Hit Die: 1d6.
Starting Skills: 2 of: Medicine, Headology, Nature, Local Lore, the Occult, Cooking
Starting Equipment: A large hat, a thick cloak with many hidden pockets, an athame (a ritual knife that inflicts 1d6 slashing or piercing damage), smelling salts, the skeleton of a small animal, sheaves of dried herbs and spices, a vial of something else’s blood, and your patron’s augury tools (if any).

Starting Abilities: The Craft, Patronage, a Gift
Advancement: Whenever you level up in the Witch class, gain an additional Gift.

The Craft
When a Witch performs a Working, they make a Craft Roll by rolling 1d20 and try to roll less than or equal to their Charisma. On a failure, they may attempt to Renegotiate by paying [witch] HP or appealing to their Patron with a compelling argument that this Working is in their interest. If the GM feels that their appeal would be granted (a blood payment is always accepted), the Witch rolls again and must accept the new result.

Success on the first roll is called an Assent, and is the most powerful. Success on the second roll is called a Concord, and is less powerful or requires further sacrifice from the Witch. Failure is called a Dismissal, and may impair the Witch going forwards.

Every Witch has learned the following three Workings from their Patron.

Augury
Assent: The Witch may ask their patron any question and receive an answer that their Patron believes would aid them. If the question interests the Patron, they may permit a series of clarification questions until they are no longer interested.
Concord: The Witch may ask their Patron one of their listed Augury questions. If the question interests the Patron, they may permit a single clarification question.
Dismissal: The Patron provides the Witch with a question regarding the current situation that they believe the Witch should ask or seek the answer to. The Witch cannot use Augury again until they have found a satisfactory answer and informed their Patron.

Hex
Assent: The Witch inflicts [witch]d6 damage to a target they can see, as well as a status effect associated with the manifestation of this particular hex.
Concord: The Witch inflicts 1d6 damage to a target they can see, and the target saves vs. the hex’s status effect.
Dismissal: Both the target and the Witch must save vs. the hex’s status effect.

Hexes also allow the witch to manipulate their environment in supernatural ways. If a hex targets an inanimate object, you do not need to make a Craft roll — it always counts as Concord.

Some hexes have save ends, others have action ends or damage ends. These are conditions under which the status effect is resolved. Saves are rolled after damage is applied, but at the start of the turn.

Summoning
Assent: Conjure a major or minor summon. These creatures are willing to perform services until the Witch dismisses them or they are in danger of death.
Concord: Conjure a minor summon with a single hit die. It’s willing to perform services until the Witch dismisses it or it’s hurt.
Dismissal: All your extant summons are recalled into the service of the Patron.

Minor Summon
1 HD, AC 8, +[witch] to hit. The size of a songbird, a kitten, or a loaf of bread. Choose three that represent the form and function of your summon.
    1. Melee attack: 1d6 damage of an appropriate type.
    2. Ranged attack: 1d3 damage of an appropriate type.
    3. Exceptional movement ability.
    4. Exceptional senses.
    5. Tiny and +4 AC.
    6. Something else.

Major Summon
[witch]+1 HD, AC 12, +[witch] to hit and damage. Human-sized, though not necessarily humanoid. Choose three that represent the form and function of your summon.
    1. Melee attack: 1d10 damage of an appropriate type.
    2. Ranged attack: 1d6 damage of an appropriate type to a target within range.
    3. Exceptional movement ability.
    4. Exceptional senses.
    5. Large and +4 AC.
    6. Something else.

Patronage
Witches gain their power through an ongoing relationship with great and inhuman powers that exist within and without the world.

Select a court of Patron powers. You can contact them to ask them questions, provide portions of their power, and to send emissaries that intercede on your behalf.

The Old Gods of the Wilds, the Storm, and Faerie

Names: The Verdant Maiden, the Crimson Mother, the Gloaming Crone, the King in Summer, the Prince of Spring, the Thunderous Duke, Diregreen, the Winterjack, Old Man Oak, the Skyblind Queen, the Mycelial Hells.

Augury: Take a handful of fresh soil, rainwater, or plant matter and chew until your mouth tastes of nothing else. Spit the remains into your hand and feel it drip through your fingers to commune with the basest truths of the world.
Augury Questions
- How did this place come to be?
- What is being overlooked here?
- What will happen if this place, creature, or situation is left undisturbed?

Hexes
- A hail of thorns tear at skin and lodge there. Bleed for [witch] damage per round (save ends).
- Vines constrict the target’s limbs, holding them in position (save or damage ends).
- A flash of lightning and peal of thunder. Target is blinded and deafened (save ends).
- Hallucinatory visions that swarm and multiply. Target cannot discern the location of allies, enemies, or objects (save ends).

Summoning: A pixie, a will-o-wisp, a dryad, a minor zephyr, living lightning.

The New Gods of Flesh, Steel, and Coin

Names: The Fleshtender, the Sunsmith, the Watcher-in-the-Walls, Lady Quickfingers, the Bloody Legion, Old King Coal, the Iron Maiden, the Crimson Mother, the Gleaming Crone, the Judge of Hearts, the Geometer, the Marque of Masques, Duke Tomorrow, Baron Count.

Augury: Set a small fire and stare unblinking into its depths. With the light of the fire scorched into your eyes, stare at a naked blade. The afterimage of the light will answer your questions in a series of blazing, demanding images.
Augury Questions
- Who controls this place or situation?
- What is being concealed here?
- What happened here in the recent past?

Hexes
- A burning brand scorches the target’s skin. The target is set aflame for [witch] damage per round (save or full-round action ends).
- You swing a knife through the air and the target’s skin splits open in harmony. Bleed for [witch] damage per round (save ends).
- You twist your fingers and the target’s flesh knots into horrid forms. Target is disarmed and weakened, dealing -4 damage on all its attacks (save ends).
- You deliver a cutting remark that perfectly undermines the target’s status. Target cannot be taken seriously or be obeyed (save ends).

Summons: A homunculus, a clockwork servant, a living fire, a mimic, a faceless soldier, a chimaera.

The Near Gods of the Harvest, Revelry, and Beasts

Names: Rrrgororr, the Friend to Friends, the Dire Pack, the Virgin Huntress, Father Fall and Mother Autumn, the Gloaming Crone, the Marque of Masques, Hissbuzz, the Jolly Baron, the Turning Wheel, the Fateweaver, the Lanternjack, Lord Almanac.

Augury: Throw the bones and read their facings, positions, and relations. Relay the tale the bones tell as faithfully as you desire, for only in the telling is meaning made. Carve a new bone if you must, but only from a creature you have killed and eaten.
Augury Questions
- What is hiding here?
- Who does this situation, creature, or place serve?
- What is weak or vulnerable here?

Hexes
- Your target is infected with a fast-acting disease that produces boils, lesions, and other horrid symptoms. They must spend an action each round clawing at their skin and vomiting (save ends).
- You intoxicate your target with the carelessness of revelry. They have -4 AC (save or action ends).
- A bite mark tears into your target’s flesh. They bleed for [witch] damage per round (save ends).
- Your target is overcome with atavistic terror. They cannot approach you or a target of your choice (save or damage ends).

Summons: A faithful beast, a scarecrow, a swarm, a flock, a fae reveler, animated farm equipment, a jack o’ lantern.

The Far Gods of the Heavens, the Moon, and the Night

Names: The Starguide, the Moon-Maiden, the Night-Mother, the Gleaming Crone, the Sunsmith, the Geometer, the Skyblind Queen, Qolendra-Qa, the Starlit Path, the Traveling Moon, the Loom of Fate, the Baleful Star.

Augury: Ask your question, then draw a spread from your tarot deck. Interpret the cards with the gravitas they deserve, but know that there are always deeper meanings hidden in their fractal geometries.
Augury Questions
- Who set these events in motion?
- What is hidden from my perspective here?
- How could everything go wrong here?

Hexes
- A beam of starlight scorches your target with the utter cold of deepest night. They’re frostbitten and move at half speed (save ends).
- You snip lines of the target’s fate and sew them into a less fortunate tapestry. They have disadvantage on attack rolls and skill checks (save ends).
- With a baleful stare, you shroud the target’s senses in the lightless and soundless depths of the void. They’re blinded and deafened (save or damage ends).
- You drag the target down with the gravity of far-off worlds or liberate them from the world’s pull to float them helplessly in midair. They are immobilized and either immune to forced movement or move twice as far when pushed (save ends).

Summons: A moonmite, a ghost that never was, living frost, a faceless reflection, a wisp of a star, a being from the darkest skies.

Gifts
Your patrons provide Gifts as a reward for your dedication, or less charitably, so that you can better carry out their work. Whenever you gain this ability, take an additional Gift you have not yet chosen.

Mark of Favour
You have a visible mutation that marks you as a witch. It provides you with an exceptional sense, an exceptional movement ability, a natural weapon, or another ability of a similar kind. This mutation cannot be hidden by magic and requires impractical clothing to fully conceal. You may choose this gift more than once.

Place of Power
You have worked with your patrons to create a personal place of great power such as a cottage, a henge, or a garden. You have an additional reroll for Workings in your place of power, though successes on any reroll still count as Concord rather than Assent. You may change your Place of Power during downtime, but you cannot take it with you on adventures.

Familiar
You have a permanent Minor Summon that cannot be dismissed. Choose its traits, name, and form when you receive this Gift. The familiar is at least as intelligent as you and knows it. Whenever it would die, it instead vanishes to lick its wounds and will return when you next Summon (in addition to anything else you summon, even on a result of Dismissal). Furthermore, you can speak with creatures of a similar kind to your familiar, though they may not want to talk to you.

Cauldron of Making
You have a large cauldron that lets you mix potions, poultices, poisons, and stews with useful properties. When you set up your Cauldron over a fire, fill it with clean water, bring it to a rolling boil, and fill it with relevant reagents and ingredients, you may make a Craft roll.
    Assent: You brew [witch] potions with two effects of your choice.
    Concord: Brew [witch] potions with one effect of your choice and one of the GM’s choice.
    Dismissal: The reagents and ingredients denature into a tasty but mundane stew that counts as one ration per member of your party.

Potion Effects
1. Heal 1d6 HP or inflict 1d6 damage.
2. Automatically succeed on a saving throw vs. an ongoing condition or cause the next [witch] saves against an ongoing condition to automatically fail.
3. Inflict one of your patrons’ Hex effects.
4. Provide an exceptional sense or movement ability for one hour.
5. Increase or decrease an ability score by [witch] points for one hour. This does not apply to your Craft rolls.
6. Brew an additional 1d6 potions, but they only have a single effect.
7. Something else; negotiated with your GM.

Wyrd Transport
You have a powerful mount, enchanted item, or an animate conveyance that allows you to move yourself and your allies at great speed and with great safety. It can hold the entire party and their equipment, as well as a wagon-load of other cargo. It travels overland at the speed of a horse-drawn carriage, but is better at traversing difficult terrain. Your transport refuses to engage in combat, though if it is attacked it has 8HD, deals 2d6 damage on a melee attack, and always acts after all other combatants.

Book of Wyrds
Add the following modifiers to the Assent criteria for your Workings.

Augury
If you sleep on your question, you can converse with one of your patrons regarding your question in your dreams. If you have a large mirror in addition to your scrying tools, your patron can answer your questions with specific images.

Hex
You can hex up to [witch] additional targets. If you do, each target only takes 1d6 damage.
After rolling damage, you can forgo dealing damage to impose a -damage penalty to saves vs. the hex’s effects.

Summon
You may call [witch]+1 minor summons instead of a major summon.

When you Summon, you may dismiss three or more extant major summons to call a greater summon. The greater summon will perform a single service and will see it done to its own satisfaction, which is quite thorough but indiscriminate.

A greater summon is large, has 4+[witch]HD, inflicts 1d12+[witch] damage with its attacks, and has many other powerful abilities. Each greater summon is unique, intelligent, and has many names. Once you have called a greater summon and it has completed its task, it is likely to return of its own accord and is by no means an ally.

The Baker

I wrote a Butcher class for the GLOG, now I'm writing a Baker. Maybe someday I'll get around to writing a Candlestick Maker...

Inspiration credit goes to my lovely girlfriend, who has the magical power of bending yeast to her will. She makes the best cinnamon buns I've ever eaten; I'm so spoiled.

by oione

Baker (or, Yeast Witch)

Level 1: Doughsmith, Leaven
Level 2: Breadwitch, Doughbender
Level 3: Proofing
Level 4: Yeastmother

Hit Die: d6
Starting Equipment: 3 sacks of flour, 1 dozen eggs, sack of sugar, bags of assorted spices (including but not limited to salt, pepper, chili, cinnamon, rosemary, etc.), apron, large serrated knife OR sickle, jarred sourdough starter with a rudimentary hive mind (stats as the worlds smallest ooze).
Skills: Baking (duh).

Doughsmith
You can twist and bake dough into mundane equipment. It goes stale and moldy over the course of a week, and breaks on natural 20 or natural 1. A sack of flour makes 1 inventory slot of equipment - a sword, a helmet, 50' of bready rope.

Leaven
With an hour's work, you can turn a sack of flour into a day's delicious rations (13 loaves or buns, if you need a number). You can warm your hands to bake bread as you touch it.

Doughbender
You can shape and manipulate yeasted dough and baked loaves with your mind. Telekinyeastis, if you will.

Breadwitch
You may apply magical effects to your breads from Leaven. At level 3, you may experiment with new recipes, rolling twice on the list instead of choosing one. If you find ingredients in the wild that seem edible, you can bake them into your breads to provide effects that aren't on this list - negotiate with your GM.
1. Hafling Spice-Buns. Restores templates health when eaten.
2. Elven Lembas. Eater will not tire for 24 hours of travel.
3. Dwarven Battlebread. Can be used as a bludgeoning weapon, shield, armor, etc. depending on its shape and size.
4. Faerie Sweetroll. Eater saves vs. charm.
5. Changeling Loaf-Cake. Eater saves vs. sleep.
6. Devil's Pumpernickel. Is magically warm, emits a gentle glow until it goes stale.
7. Orcish Flatbread. If eaten, provides resistance to cold, poison, and mental effects until metabolized.
8. Fungusfolk Rye. Contains ergot; causes hallucinations and religious ecstasy.
9. Earthvein Eggbread. Shelf-stable; won't go stale or moldy.
10. Dragonsbreath Garlic Bread. Makes your breath awful. Provides one use of a breath weapon; deals no damage but enemies save vs. fleeing. Even if they succeed, they cannot approach you until the scent dissipates.
11. Quickling Quickbread. No yeast involved! Immune to yeast-magic.
12. Bagels of Holding. You can nest these bagels inside their holes, allowing you to fit 13 bagels into the space of 1 bagel. It's efficient! And so dense they make effective throwing weapons (d6 damage).
13. Goblin Biscuits. They smell rancid but taste delicious. Can distract wild animals - and might even buy you their favor. Will make you a dog's absolute best friend until you run out of biscuits.

Proofing
Can spontaneously proof yeasted dough, growing it up to 13 times its volume. Dough proofed this way can't be used for magical bread, and can't be proofed again. While proofing, the dough will ooze through openings and split open containers until it reaches the target volume, no matter what's in its path.

Yeastmother
You can bestow a kind of sentience on unbaked yeasted dough, and it will obey you like a swarm of ants crossed with a large, excitable dog. This does work on dough you've magically proofed, but you can only have one blob of pet yeast at a time.

Yeast Witch Adventure Seeds
1. The townsfolk say there's a witch in the woods, living in a house made of gingerbread. Get her recipe so the village can rebuild after a recent storm - but be warned; it's said she only respects visitors who can show her true baking prowess. The rest, she bakes into her (admittedly scrumptious) pies.

2. A plague of cookie-men menaces the streets, knocking pies off of windowsills and agitating for the rights of yeast! You'll be paid handsomely if you deal with whatever's causing these disturbances (it's probably a witch lurking in the sewers, angry that her bakery got gentrified into a newfangled magic vape shop).

3. The wealthy and pompous Earl of Montrevis is demanding a brand-new delicacy for his next soiree, and will pay handsomely for whichever baker can produce the most fantastic concoction. The prize money, however, will only go to one of the entrants - are you ready for the bake-off of the century? The competition is (literally) cutthroat.

4. In the heart of the Rhuan desert, beneath the ruins of the Kingdom of Greatest Rhu, some say there once lived a baker who had the secret to perfect, delicious, nutritious, never-spoiling trail rations. This would revolutionize sea travel and adventuring forever, so a number of nobles and guild leaders are recruiting adventurers to delve into these ruins and return with the spoils. Are you brave enough to join the Club of the Sand-Witch?

5. A famine has struck the city of Trest! There is no bread for the workers, no treats for the children, and the royal family has the gall to hoard their overflowing larders and tell the starving masses to eat cake. Bakers are in high demand by both the nobles (to keep their vittles flowing) and the nascent  revolutionaries (for an army marches on its stomach).

6. Someone keeps multiplying loaves and fishes and is founding a cult of personality around good works, feeding the hungry, and trashing moneylenders' shops. What's their deal? Are they a yeast witch? Could you get in on the ground floor of this?

Glitch Witch

The universe has rules. Discovering them is a task that archmages set their entire lives to. Once they're discovered, however, mages move on to the next rule, the next discovery, the next horizon. You know, however, that there's still so much work to be done. You take the hooks the mages have set in reality, and pull oh-so-gently, to twist the world to your designs. Perhaps you aren't so gentle. You slash at reality, hack it to your whims, pull it apart and insert your will between the cogs of the machine. The world is but words, and you are the author of its turning.

Glitch Witch

(a GLOG witch tradition, read this first)

they just deleted the Wicked Glitch of the West and are following the Yellow-Striped Cable to find an installation wizard for .ozz files
image by Thomas Putnam

White Hat (d4 Work Die)
Perk: Ignore the first Attention you draw each day.

Signs
1. You can leave short comments on items and in areas. When the item is handled or area is stepped into, the message you left shimmers into view until the item is put down or area left.
2. You have an icon of authority that gives you a significant amount of magical clout. It works as authorization and a mark of accomplishment within magical groups and organizations.

Emblem Work: Resolve Conflict
Range: 10'; Target: a group of (sum) or fewer individuals participating in an ongoing conflict; Duration: (sum) rounds
Temporarily forcibly de-escalate a conflict. Swords are blunted, impacts are softened, even harsh words seem forgivable and minds seem swayable by mere reasonable persuasion. This effectively gives you a chance to start from a clean slate after things have gone wrong. If you piss the targets off again, however, they'll go right back to hostility. When the duration expires, the targets return to their previously hostile state. Doesn't work twice on the same target.

Grey Hat (d6 Work Die)
Perk: You can read the Universal Logs. You have a 1-day log of everything that's happened within 10' of you, whether you know about it or not, down to the resolution of specific actions and words. Consulting the logs takes a minimum of 10 minutes.
Drawback: Your mind is constantly racing to find more efficient solutions, whether or not they're a "good idea". You have disadvantage on Wisdom tests.

Signs
1. You can interface with arcanotechnological devices, even those from aeons long-past. On a witch level-in-6 you can identify their broad function, and the general use of any controls.
2. When you sleep, you enter a dreamstate where you can test out your items and abilities without limit on a simulated environment that matches the surrounding area. The dream doesn't replicate other characters or creatures, and you can't fall asleep in the dream.

Emblem Work: Edit Logs
Range: yes; Target: reality; Duration: (sum) minutes
Add/subtract/change (sum) words in the universal logs that you can read from the past (sum) rounds (1D)/minutes (2D)/hours (3D)/days (4D). This causes (dice) paradoxes, one when you cast this spell, and the rest at the end of the duration.

Black Hat (d8 Work Die)
Drawback: You can't prevent Attentions and must suffer the consequences of your actions.

Signs
1. Obscure your identity by decreasing your face's resolution. Your face appears as a pixelated blob, and can't be personally identified by onlookers.
2. You know of drop points in town where you can put items and recieve random possibly-useful items of similar value within the hour. Each time you do this at a particular drop point, its usefulness will drop, and you might be giving the items to people working against you.

Emblem Work: Hack the Planet
Range: variable; Target: variable; Duration: variable
Replicate the effect of a spell or Glitch Witch work of your choice. This also replicates the effect of another spell at random, targeted at you.

Works
1. Clip
Range: touch; Target: creature or object; Duration: (sum) rounds
Target becomes intangible. If it shares a location with another object or creature at the end of the duration, each takes (sum) math damage as the universe sorts out where they're supposed to be.

2. Copy/Paste
Range: touch; Target: creature with (dice) or fewer HD, or object smaller than a head (1D)/person (2D)/horse (3D)/dragon (4D); Duration: (sum) minutes
Saves an image of target into your brain; can paste copies of target (sum) times during duration. Copies all last until the end of the duration. Copying a creature is lossy; pasted creatures take (sum)*(dice) math damage instantly and have (dice) mutations.

3. Deform Mesh
Range: 100'; Target: object or creature; Duration: (sum) rounds
Crudely stretch and squish up to (dice) parts of the target's shape up to (dice) sizes larger or smaller. This doesn't deal damage (the target continues to function somewhat normally even though their organs might now be half-size), though it can be supremely uncomfortable.

4. Hard Reboot
Range: touch; Target: creature; Duration: (sum) rounds
Target freezes up for (sum) rounds as they reset to however they were at the start of the day. This does one of the following of your choice, and (dice) random additional effects.
1. Heal all wounds suffered
2. Restore all lost HP
3. Return Stress to original value
4. Return conditions like magical effects or poisons to morning state
5. Erase all memories formed
6. Take (sum) psychic damage
7. Can't handle items that were picked up between day start and reboot until next day
8. Everyone else forgets interactions with target since day start

5. Loop
Range: 10'; Target: object or creature; Duration: see below
Target repeats its last (dice) actions. If they fail where they previously succeeded, or succeed where they previously failed, they break out of the loop. Every additional time you loop something, (dice)-in-6 of getting caught in the loop yourself.

6. Model Swap
Range: touch; Target: two objects or creatures; Duration: (sum) minutes
The targets swap bodies. They retain their own mental stats and abilities, but may not be able to use them properly. Inanimate objects that become possessed with people become animated; objects given minds act according to their nature (a shovel will want to dig, a crystal ball will want to predict the future, etc.) Two swapped objects will switch properties and magical abilities, but retain physical stats - for example, two swapped weapons will retain their damage die size, but switch weapon abilities and any magical properties.

7. Terminal Dump
Range: touch; Target: (sum)*10^(dice)' area; Duration: instant
A log of everything that's happened in the target area in the last (sum) minutes (1D)/days (2D)/years (3D)/ever (4D) is dumped into your brain. Gain (sum) stress whenever you try to sort through it to find something.

8. Typecast
Range: touch; Target: object or creature; Duration: (sum) minutes
Target physically appears as and gains (dice) abilities of a more specific subtype of target (like a sword becoming a rapier, or a fighter becoming a cavalier) until reality catches up. Every time the target does something that it couldn't do normally (i.e. that it gained from this ability), on a (dice)-in-6, decrease duration by 1 minute.

Attentions
1. Bluescreen. You fall unconscious for (sum) rounds. Allies can wake you up early, but you'll take (sum) psychic damage.
2. System error. Part of your brain crashes. You can't use one of your ability scores (chosen at random) for the rest of the day. Restore it by moving resources over from your other stats, and taking disadvantage on all physical checks if it's a physical score, or mental checks if it's a mental score.
3. Null pointer. You can no longer interact with whatever you tried to Work, and it disappears from your (and only your) view. It returns after you daily rest. You can make it come back early by focusing entirely on fixing the error while taking a short rest.
4. Overload. Take (sum) math damage unless you step down your Work die for further Works you cast today.
5. Hacking duel! A rival Glitch Witch has taken notice of your skills, and wants to prove they're more elite than you. They'll set a time  and conditions for a duel, within the next 24 hours - if you no-show, you'll be blacklisted among local organizations that care about such things. Including the authorities.
6. Reality's antivirus wants you gone. Roll a Paradox unless you undo your Work and leave what you've done with it spotless before you next rest.

Losing Your Grip
1. You can't accept that others have better ideas than you. Either you need to convince yourself that it was actually your idea all along, or make enough of a contribution to the plan that you can call it yours.
2. You become incredibly paranoid. Anyone who's heard information about you can't be trusted. Everyone who walks by you on the street is a potential nefarious actor. Statistically, you know *someone* is out to get you, and obviously the only thing to do is to be forever on your guard.
3. Remove Strength from your sheet. You can no longer physically manipulate objects except through your Works and Signs.
4. You become a ghost in the machine, acting solely through terminal commands executed through the fabric of reality. You can't interact with people in any meaningful way; you've surpassed mortality entirely.

Wyrd Transports
Glitch Witches' Wyrd Transports aren't means of travel; rather, they're ways to avoid it. When you gain the Wyrd Transport feature, you can dub a suitable location as your lair and create a trinket that serves as a remote observer. While in your lair, you can cast your Works as if you were at your remote observer, and see and hear through it. The maximum number of Work Dice you can spend on Works cast through a remote observer is limited by your distance from the observer: 1 for anywhere in the same region, 2 for anywhere in the same city, 3 for within a city block, and 4 for anywhere in the lair or the building the lair is situated in.
Sample Lairs
1. Sewer bolthole
2. Relative's basement
3. Public library
4. Castle tower
5. Small business backroom
6. Abandoned warehouse

Math Wounds
0-4: Migraine. You get a splitting headache and have disadvantage on all mental saves.
5-9: Nerd-sniped. Whenever you would take an action, until you rest, save vs. working on the math problem to the exclusion of everything else.
10+: Number crunched. Your brain is crushed into a small ball by sheer weight of numbers and falls out your mouth.

d100 Catalysts

Catalysts for Mad Scientist Witches (or eccentric semimagical loot for anyone else)

d100
1. Sparking clockwork heart
2. Dragonbreath sac
3. Stitch of time
4. Giant's molar
5. Inert ice-9 crystal
6. Brain in a jar
7. A book of dark magic
8. Captured starlight
9. Lump of stem cells
10. Colossal squid eye
11. Self-winding coil
12. Hole in the universe
13. 1 gram of unobtanium
14. Egg of unknown origin
15. Self-replicating spore
16. Essential salts
17. Singing crystal
18. Golem animation paper
19. Preserved mimic
20. Your own skull from the future
21. Very minor god in a box
22. Past-reflecting mirror
23. Dog residue
24. Fang of dire cobra
25. Tiny rolled-up dimension
26. Die that always rolls 1s
27. Tarrasque scale
28. Universal solvent
29. Infernal contract
30. Snow globe with tiny people inside
31. Vial of suspicious blood
32. Your diploma (it's got to be good for something)
33. True love's kiss
34. Powdered magic sword
35. Golden idol
36. Dripping ball of ooze
37. Bottle of ancient liquor
38. Mysterious contraption that detonates an explosive powder to propel a small metal pellet a great distance at incredible speed
39. Microscopic black hole
40. Evil play
41. Knucklebones of a saint
42. Storm in a bottle
43. Mountain heartgem
44. Plague vial
45. Alien organ, meat
46. Alien organ, instrument
47. Frictionless orb
48. Evidence of absence
49. Tyrannosaur tooth, fossilized
50. Proof of the end of the world, irrefutable
51. Causal loop
52. Titan-bee honey
53. Carbon nanotubes
54. Self-sustaining force field
55. Preserved man-o-war
56. Your own hippocampus, surgically removed
57. Intricate clockwork box of unknown function
58. Famous painting
59. Soul in a bag
60. Radioactive sludge
61. Lock of nymph hair
62. Spidersilk Gordian knot
63. Trapped angelic visage
64. Witch's cauldron
65. Lamp that projects darkness
66. Consecrated silver coin
67. Kaiju bone powder
68. Calculation engine, miniaturized
69. Universal lubricant
70. Giant evil catfish lung
71. Cold fusion core
72. Your mentor's ghost
73. Roll of duct tape
74. Jar of ectoplasm
75. Bound elemental
76. Powerless djinn
77. Soylent paste
78. Roc feather
79. How To Destroy The Earth, first ed. printing
80. Memory crystal
81. Intrusive thought
82. Summoning stone
83. Animate spell, bottled
84. Brass telescope
85. Dead language inscribed on tablet
86. Meteorite, ferrous
87. Pure energy
88. Whale oil
89. Trapped nightmare
90. Forgettable lump
91. Destabilized genetic material
92. Forged royal seal
93. Dire prawn
94. 5-dimensional cube
95. Abhorrent vacuum
96. Gate to hell
97. Phoenix ashes
98. Very small moon
99. Battery, powered by friendship
100. Roll twice and combine them.

Mad Scientist (Witch Tradition)

There have always been those who dare push the boundaries of what society says "should be". Once, they were called witches, women on the fringes of town who dared seek knowledge forbidden and strange. They were visionaries, persecuted by mobs who couldn't accept their genius. You carry their fraught legacy into an era of bottled lightning and harnessed fire, eagerly leaping at the chance to create - nay, command - the future.

Mad Scientist

(a tradition for The Bottomless Sarcophagus' GLOG witches)

(by megamoth on DeviantArt)

You'll show them. You'll show them all.

Undergrad (d4 Work Die)
Perk: You only need half the usual amount of sleep and food.
Signs
1. You instantly ferment a plate of food or bottle of drink.
2. You sprint at triple walking speed.
Emblem Work: Hold My Ale, Watch This
Range: N/A; Target: self; Duration: [sum] minutes
Perform one improbable physical stunt as if you had rolled a critical hit on the roll. At the end of this work's duration, feel the repercussions as if you had rolled a critical failure.

Graduate (d6 Work Die)
Perk: You have a stipend of [level]*10gp from your program that you can use to buy equipment and catalysts when you're in town.
Drawback: You don't have those three crucial letters after your name (PhD), so no one takes you seriously.
Signs
1. You scan through an entire shelf of books for a piece of information in d6 minutes.
2. You retrieve a helpful tool of your choice from somewhere on your person.
Emblem Work: Thesis Defense
Range: N/A; Target: self; Duration: [sum] minutes
You gain an impenetrable shield against all effects relating to [dice] catalysts you possess. Other effects force a save vs. discombobulation, if you fail, this work ends prematurely.

Professor (d8 Work Die)
Drawback: You have to spend 10+2d20 hours a week giving lectures and grading papers. If you fail to keep up with the demands of your position, save vs. Losing Your Grip.
Signs
1. As long as you're doing a long and convoluted technobabbly explanation, you have the full attention of everyone who can hear you.
2. When you're in town, you can call on a hapless TA to do menial labor for you (this can't help you with your drawback, unfortunately). You can also bring them along on adventures as a hireling for course credit.
Emblem Work: Doctor of Forbidden Science
Range: N/A; Target: N/A; Duration: N/A
Your next [dice] works last for double time and have double range. This work automatically causes a Mishap after those works end.

Works
All works of mad science need a magical or technological catalyst to power them; it is not consumed unless the work says so. A d20 table with sample catalysts is provided below.

1. The Crude Mortal Form Is So... Limited
Range: touch; Target: creature; Duration: [sum] minutes
Target gets [dice] of the following (can pick same effect multiple times):
- a relevant positive or negative mutation (ex. book of dark magic → can be turned as undead; stitch of time → falls slower)
- + or -[dice] to a relevant ability score
- protection from or vulnerability to a relevant effect (ex. gram of unobtanium → radiation resistance; self-replicating spore → vulnerable to poison)
- becomes 1 size larger or smaller

2. Behold My Death Ray!
Range: 100ft; Target: [dice] creatures/objects adjacent to each other; Duration: instant
Deal [sum] damage of a relevant type to each target, they save vs. a relevant effect (ex. sparking clockwork heart → save vs. electrocution; dragonbreath sac → save vs. burning; jar of stem cells → save vs. mutation, brain in a jar → save vs. mind control)

3. It's Aliiiiiiiiive!
Range: touch; Target: catalyst; Duration: [sum] hours
You cobble together an animated servant out of a catalyst and surrounding materials (ex. golem animation paper → golem; egg of unknown origin → baby dinosaur; your own future skull → mini-you). 1 die makes it tiny (1HD), 2 dice makes it small (2HD), 3 dice makes it your size (3HD), 4 dice makes it up to big (4HD), 1 extra die makes it permanent and consumes the catalyst. It has a relevant ability and movement type, and uses your work die for hit dice and to attack if you so command it. Takes [dice] hours to create, or [dice] days if permanent.

4. The World Is Not Enough
Range: [sum]*30ft sphere; Target: area; Duration: [sum] minutes
You use a catalyst to project a relevant effect in the area around you. This can be a localized benefit or penalty (ex. giant's molar → everything gets bigger), a terrain change (ex. singing crystal → rocks grow crystal spikes), weather (ex. inert ice-9 crystal → hailstorm), a change in lighting conditions or temperature (ex. captured starlight → bright illumination), etc.

5. They're Really More Like Suggestions Of Thermodynamics
Range: touch; Target: catalyst(s); Duration: instant
Turn a catalyst you have into up to [sum]ft^3 of a relevant material (ex. colossal squid eye → water, preserved mimic → flesh, self-winding coil → sheet metal) in a crude shape of your choice. This consumes the catalyst. Alternatively, you may use this to combine two of your catalysts into a new, related catalyst of the GM's discretion.

6. Oh, That's Where I Left It!
Range: N/A; Target: N/A; Duration: instant
Detect the direction to the nearest [dice] things within [sum]*100 feet similar to the catalyst (ex. essential salts → find undead, self-winding coil → find mechanisms, your own skull from the future → find mad scientists).

7. I've Seen Things You People Wouldn't Believe...
Range: N/A; Target: one creature or item; Duration: instant
Use a catalyst in combination with a helpless creature or item in your possession to learn one fact of your choice about it. (6-[dice], 3-[dice] if catalyst similar to target) in 6 chance to destroy the creature or item in the process.

8. That's Not How That Works!
Range: 100ft; Target: one effect or ability; Duration: instant
As a reaction to a spell, ability or spell-like effect, you can channel the power of a similar catalyst and roll a d20 under [sum] to nullify that effect.

Attentions
1. Local law enforcement is alerted to your presence. They're going to ask you the difficult questions: namely, do you have a permit for that? They're going to show up in 1d6 hours or when you get back to town to confiscate 1d6 of your Catalysts and Crafts; forfeiting the offending catalyst or craft prevents this.
2. Nearby creatures are attracted to your meddling. You automatically run into a random encounter in the next d6 hours. You can prevent this by setting out a distraction for them that will keep them occupied.
3. Some local peasants have seen or heard about your science and it frightens them. Within the next day they will find a moment to throw stones at you and shout profanities, dealing 1d6 damage. Saving a peasant's life or livelihood prevents this. as does showing the peasants who's boss.
4. An inquisitor is on your tail, warning the populace and confiscating items of power. Locals give you the cold shoulder for d6 days, and won't sell to you or buy from you. Making a donation (10gp or equivalent in favors) to the local church prevents/ends this.
5. A local rival mad scientist wants to put you in your place. They will publicly confront you with their own works and devices sometime in the next 24 hours. You can avoid this by giving them a peace offering of some information or materials they'd be interested in.
6. The catalyst goes haywire and starts to change you. You gain a random mutation for d6 hours. At the end, save or it's permanent. You can prevent this by getting the catalyst as far away from you as possible and doing some mad first aid to nullify the mutation.

Losing Your Grip
1. Two of your catalysts combine and react in a devastating way, causing a 30 foot radius explosion that deals 2d6 damage of a relevant type and destroys both catalysts. Gain a spellscar.
2. It's so simple, can't they see? You inevitably steer conversations to finding ways to use or enhance your creations, and other subjects bore or enrage you. Disadvantage in social situations that don't involve your work.
3. Nothing will stand in your way, not law, not money, not petty morality. Remove Wisdom from your character sheet entirely. Your moral compass points towards one thing alone: advancing SCIENCE at any cost.
4. Your creation consumes you in an ironic and entirely preventable way. Hubris is the ultimate fate of any proper mad scientist.

Sample Wyrd Transports
1. Flycycle - It's a bike that can fly.
2. Enthralled Troll - You've plugged so much stuff into its brain that it's not really a troll anymore, legally.
3. Teleporting Box - It's surprisingly roomy. Takes the amount of time it would take to run the equivalent distance to charge.
4. Desk Chair with Jet Engines - It's got enough seatbelts. Probably.
5. Carriage of Doom - It moves on its own gigantic spiked wheels, churning with a ferocity like a living creature.
6. Giant Reanimated Pterodactyl - It's not a dinosaur. Why do they keep calling it a dinosaur?

Starting Equipment
Witch (Mad Scientist) A: 2 random catalysts, discipline-specific textbook, lab coat, goggles
Witch (Mad Scientist) B: 1 additional random catalyst, 2 random books, toolbox

d20 Catalysts:
1. Sparking clockwork heart
2. Dragonbreath sac
3. Stitch of time
4. Giant's molar
5. Inert ice-9 crystal
6. Brain in a jar
7. A book of dark magic
8. Captured starlight
9. Lump of stem cells
10. Colossal squid eye
11. Self-winding coil
12. Hole in the universe
13. 1 gram of unobtanium
14. Egg of unknown origin
15. Self-replicating spore
16. Essential salts
17. Singing crystal
18. Golem animation paper
19. Preserved mimic
20. Your own skull from the future