Simple Folk Magic system

A simple magic system for "cunning folk" type casters. I've used it as a feature of bucolic Halflings and in pseudo-historical settings.

These little spells (rhyming verbal incantations) either replicate a low-level Cleric or Magic-User spell or achieve a small desired effect (Referee’s discretion).

Cleric spells: Bless, Command, Cure Light Wounds, Protection from Evil, Purify Food & Drink, Remove Fear, Sanctuary, Delay Poison, Heroism, Resist Cold
Magic-User spells: Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Light, Mending, Unseen Servant

The maximum number of attempts (successful or failed) each day is equal to the character’s level (or one, in the case of unlevelled NPCs). The chance of success increases as the character progresses in level:

Level Chance of success
0*            1-in-6
1-2           2-in-6
3-4           3-in-6
5-6           4-in-6
7-8           5-in-6
9+    automatic success

Spells can be cast as a group effort. Each member of the group must be of the cunning folk. Add up the levels of all participants (treat level-0 as a "half" for this purpose), and use the total to define the chance of success.

An attempt can also be expanded to gain “advantage” on an attack roll or a saving throw (roll 2d20 and take the higher result). This works automatically, but has to be declared before the roll is made.

"Folk Hero" random advancement table

1d12 random features your folk hero type character can gain when leveling up! Made this for a friend's setting. Inspired by Russian folk-tales.

1. If you wear a simple linen shirt, it counts as chainmail for AC purposes, but remains a non-encumbering item.
2. Your save against Magic with a +2 bonus if you are standing barefoot on ground.
3. People tell stories about your exploits. Commoners and simple folk roll Reaction twice and keep the better result.
4. The longer your hair and beard, the stronger you are! You can gain up to 3 points to Strength over time. However, if you go bald, you lose twice the amount.
5. Slayer of monsters! You gain +2 to hit creatures over HD 6 in melee combat.
6. Wandering hero… You get +1 on all your saves, but if you sleep in one place more than once, you lose this benefit forever.
7. Your Hit die for this level is one higher than your class would provide (d6<d8<d10<d12).
8. Feats of strength! Double your Open Doors/Bend Bars skill.
9. Your fame attracts followers! You gain a henchman, whose Loyalty is rolled on 1d6+6.
10. Brotherhood of heroes: ancient heroes you encounter roll Reaction twice and keep the better result.
11. Human to the core: you gain +2 bonus to resist vampiric charm, hypnosis, and similar effects. You are also always moved to tears by folk music.
12. You learn the location of a fabled magic sword buried underground! To claim the weapon, you must defeat a guardian or pass a test. Roll on the sub-table to see which weapon awaits you:

Magic weapons sub-table (d5):

1. Mech-samosek. The holder of the self-swinging sword always fights as if under the effect of the spell One Man Army.
2. Mech-kladenets. When this sword strikes, sparks fly in all directions, illuminating a 20’ area and revealing invisible creatures for a split second.
3. Luk-samostrel. This bow always has the advantage of targeting (+4 to hit).
4. Aspid-zmey. Once per day, this sword can turn into a giant snake at the command word and fight for the hero (HD 2, AC as leather, Move as unencumbered, 1 attack: 1d3 damage, save against Poison or incapacitated for as many rounds as the damage rolled)
5. Kolchan ognennyj. Arrows stored in this magical quiver become fiery bolts of destruction. They ignore 5 points of armor and do 1d8 damage.

[Magic Item] Whistles!

Whistles are cool. 

Most of these whistles can be used as simple musical instruments or for signaling. However, if they are played in a special way, under special circumstances, they produce interesting and even magical effects.

Non-magic whistles

These whistles don’t count (detect) as magic items, but have special uses.

Bird call whistles

This covers a whole category of small whistles that very closely imitate bird sounds. Most whistles can only reproduce one given call. However, there are more advanced instruments that imitate a range of sounds related to a single bird (e.g. a magpie’s distress call, mating song, etc.). This type is commonly used by hunters to lure their prey.

When sounded, birds of the given type (and also some other animals that might know the given call) in the vicinity react in an appropriate way: gather at the sound’s source, flee, “answer” and so on.

Shriller-triller

Small, simple tin whistle.

The loud, piercing tone of this whistle is unpleasant to most, but downright painful to creatures and people with exceptional hearing (canines, most fey, characters with high Wisdom, creatures with bonus/advantage on Perception checks related to sounds, etc.). Such creatures instantly take 1 [1d3] damage. Additionally, they must save against Paralyzation [DC 12 Wisdom save] or be deafened for 1 minute.

                                                                       

Pipe of a Thousand Shrills

Small metallic whistle, with a single blowhole. But then the pipe is divided into many tubes, twisted, interlocking, with many holes for the air to exit. This strange configuration produces a chaotic mess of simultaneous sounds when blown.

Everybody who hears the whistle for the first time must save against Paralyzation [DC 12 Wisdom save] or be confused for 1d6 rounds, suffering a -2 penalty [disadvantage] on all checks, saves, attack rolls. If somebody has already heard this whistle, it has no effect.

Dream whistle

Medium-length bone whistle with three holes. Adorned with engraved floral patterns.

If the eight possible notes of this whistle are played quietly, in a rising-falling succession, for at least 30 minutes, over a sleeping person, their dreams become exceptionally sweet and soothing. This sleep facilitates natural healing, effectively doubling healing rates. Furthermore, if the sleeper is tortured by recurring nightmares, night terrors, sleep paralyzes or other similar natural or supernatural effects, going to sleep with the Dream whistle playing negates them.

In the right (or rather – wrong) hands, the Dream whistle can have detrimental effects as well. Different rhythmic patterns can be developed through lengthy experimentation. They cause severe nightmares, make the sleeper sensitive to hypnotic suggestion, bar the sleeper from waking up…

Magic whistles

These whistles count (and detect) as magic items.

Hound-master’s whistle

Made from a piece of a deer antler, with a silver mouthpiece. Its single mid-range tone is strong, audible at a long distance.

If sounded during dawn or twilight (20 minutes before/after sunrise/sunset), a blink dog (HD 4, AC 16, 120’, Morale 8, bite +4, 1d6 damage, blink = teleport, range 40’, can attack once before or after teleporting) [MM, p. 319] appears. It serves the sounder of the whistle loyally in combat and hunt. It disappears after 1 hour.

The whistle holds 1d8 charges.

The Three Lovers

A set of three bulbous clay whistles, shaped to resemble nude humanoid figures, with emphasized sex organs marking the place where one has to blow into the whistle.

If three people play the three whistles simultaneously for 10 minutes, they enter into a state of shared consciousness. Roll 1d6 for the effect. Some forms of this connection are hierarchic. In such cases, the person with the highest Charisma score becomes the “Center” of the connection. Resolve draws by comparing Wisdom scores next, then by rolling.

1	A telepathic link is forged between the three participants. The Center can freely send and receive messages. The other two participants can only receive from and send messages to the Center.
2	Two participants are merged with the Center’s body, essentially forming a new character. It retains the Center’s class/race, on the Center’s level + 2. Take the highest Strength, Dexterity and Constitution scores among all participants. Combine all their Hit dice and roll up hit points. Retain the Center’s Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma, spell-casting ability, known spells, special features. One spell and one special ability/feature can be added from each of the other participants.
3	For the duration of the spell, the physical appearance and biological traits of the participants change to resemble each other. They all take on a combined, merged look, which contains elements of all their original features. Body type, sex, voices, pigmentation, etc. all move towards a middle ground between the three of them. They cannot be distinguished without magical means.
4	All participants can use the highest Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma bonuses among them instead of their own while they are connected by the Three Lovers.
5	All participants perceive the world through the Center’s five senses, but lose their own.
6	If the participants fall asleep during the effect of the whistles, they enter a shared dream world. Here they are the Three Lovers, a mythical love triangle.

After 1 hour, the connection is severed, and all effects are reverted. All participants must save against Paralyzation [DC 18 Wisdom save] or take 1d8 [1d12 psychic] damage. Furthermore, if the save fails, there is a 3-in-6 chance that the participants fall in love with each other, forming a complex and deadly love triangle.

* Stats/mechanics for LotFP [and 5e D&D in square brackets]

40 masks for secret cults

Recently in my campaign the players encountered a secret underground cult (as usual).

The gimmick is that all cultists wear different masks, so I came up with a bunch of them:

	1 Animal	2 Demon	3 Theatrical	4 Carnival
1	rat in a hat	horned god	young lover	gold frame
2	sinister cat	beak of horrors	rich old geezer	blue velvet
3	smiling pig	red with fangs	hag	frills and glitter
4	gnarling dog	three-eyed	comic relief	butterfly wings
5	raven with huge beak	iron teeth	single tear under left eye	comes with a veil
6	bat with bloody snout	completely flat; no face; red	cheated & angry	Cyrano de Bergerac
7	fish with feathers	mouth behind bars, Dr. Lecter	cuckolded husband	mirror surface reflects others
8	owl with bleeding eyes	blue with vertical mouth	distorted by pain	seductive silver eyelashes
9	wounded wolf	orange scales	happy face	crimson tears
10	deer, antlers sawn off	three tortured faces	ignorance is bliss	classic Venetian

Most masks are relatively simple, but expressive, hand-made by cult members. The masks don’t have big protruding parts, because they are meant to be worn while moving around in confined places (tunnels and dungeons), or while cavorting naked in the forest.

Animal masks are more or less identifiable natural animals.

Demon masks are nightmarish visions of carved wood and papier-mâché.

Theatrical masks are meant to represent a single emotion or a well-known character type from popular plays.

Carnival masks are halfmasks, covering the area of the eyes and nose. They were obtained in the city.

Downhill Race - a cheese-rolling contest minigame

Need a merry and possibly deadly folk festivity for your setting’s rural areas? Why not consider the famous Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling race at Gloucester?

I wrote up some rules for a minigame for a cheese-rolling contest player characters can enter, and, possibly, win.

There are two eerie alternative outcomes of the contest too, for that weird horror touch.

Download PDF

Have fun!!!

[Swamp '70] George Rodrigue paintings

The paintings of George Rodrigue (1944-2013), depicting life in rural Louisiana have an eerie, haunting quality to them... Definitely inspiring. Check out the site of Wendy Rodrigue (the artist's wife), it has background info on several paintings.

Aioli Dinner (1971)

Doc Moses, Cajun Traiteur (1974)

"A traiteur is a Cajun folk doctor with a special, inherited gift for healing one ailment. In George’s painting, Doc Moses heals earaches. He pours a ring of salt around the patient and touches his ears. Amazingly, only the healer must believe. The patient’s skepticism does not affect the cure." (source)

The Cajun Bride of Oak Alley (1974)

"In 1850, on the occasion of the simultaneous weddings of his two daughters, Durand’s slaves decorated the arboreal alley in a manner befitting his most eccentric nature. Prolific web-spinning spiders were brought in (some say from the nearby Atchafalaya Basin, others say from as far away as China) and were released in the trees to go about their arachnidan business. Then slaves went to their task of coating the dewy, billowing webs with gold and silver dust blown from bellows. And under this splendidly shimmering canopy proceeded the ethereal promenade of the wedding party and its two thousand guests." (source)

The Shark-Man, Nanaue

I was reading a collection of Hawaiian folk tales, and stumbled upon a great and horrific one about Nanaue, the Shark-Man.

Nanaue is the son of a human female and the Shark King.

"...a fine healthy boy, apparently the same as any other child, but he had, besides the normal mouth of a human being, a shark's mouth on his back between the shoulder blades."

There is a DC villain of the same name, but he is a full-blown humanoid shark, which, frankly, I find less horrifying, than the shark mouth grafted onto an otherwise normal human body, and who only occasionally turns into a shark. 

DJ or DM? - RPG soundtracks

Background music is a time-honoured game master tool, perfect for setting the atmosphere of the session. Ideally the soundtrack has to be of the ambient sort, from the Brian Eno gray zone of “as ignorable as it is interesting”. There are many ready-made solutions, which work perfectly (e.g. Cryo Chamber ambient releases for dark fantasy/horror games), but I tend to go the extra mile, and most of my prep time is spent compiling the perfect playlist for the upcoming session.

I love RPGs and I love weird obscure music.

So here’s a sample of what I’d used for an early modern LotFP game. This mix conveys melancholia and a sense of the weird, but it is not overtly dark or oppressive. It features both ambientish materials and a selection of period music. Just make sure you put the playlist on shuffle: too much period music in one bunch leads to a Ren-faire atmosphere. But if the short harpsichord interludes are mixed with brooding ambient, it’s great.

MIXTAPE – “17^th Century Schizoid Man”

Mort Garson – Black Mass/Lucifer (1971)

Pioneering electronic composer Mort Garson created several “occult” themed albums (Ataraxia: The Unexplained (1970) being one of the other prominent ones), but Black Mass/Lucifer is my favourite… For today’s listener, this doesn’t sound like a grim & dark “Satanic” album – but it’s wonderfully weird and creative.

Anna Själv Tredje – Tussilago Fanfara (1977)

This Swedish gem is one of my favourites. Atmospherically it goes from mellow and fairy-tale qualities to eerie otherworldliness. Abstract synth music tends to work great, and I find that even if sometimes it sounds “futuristic” (with cosmic beeps and echoes), it blends in perfectly with a pseudo-historical setting.

Henry Purcell – The Suites for Harpsichord [Played by Colin Tilney] (1979)

Tilney is a renowned master of early keyboard instruments, and there are many albums where he plays old harpsichords and organs. Any compilation of baroque music is great, but Tilney is my personal preference.

The City Waites – Sorcery and Spectres: Songs of the Supernatural (1995)

Music from the other end of the social hierarchy: a collection of traditional folk songs, broadside ballads (and some chamber music too). This album is great, but you have to go through the songs first, because some of them can be distracting, and, as such, have no place in your session background music.

Check out also Popular Tunes in 17^th Century England (1980) by the Broadside Band, or any other similar compilation.

The Unquiet Void – Scorpio (1999) & Poisoned Dreams (2004)

If the list sounds too up-beat, add some Lovecraftian horror ambient!

Klaus Morlock – The Bridmore Lodge Tapes (2014)

Nowadays there is certainly a revival of “hauntological” music, inspired by the Berlin school of electronic music, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and many other weird apparitions. Check out the Ghost Box label and their ilk, or, for instance, Klaus Morlock. The Devon Folklore Tapes series is great as well.

John Foxx – London Overgrown (2015)

More haunting synth washes, this time by John Foxx (of Ultravox fame). I love London Overgrown, because thematically it depicts a world after the downfall of humanity... But if this sonic vision is too new-agey and soothing, replace it with an unhealthy dose of Lustmord or Atrium Carceri.

The Radiophonic Workshop – Burials in Several Earths (2017)

Closing of the list is a recent release by the revived BBC Radiophonic Workshop... this tapestry of noises, drones, chimes, buzzing synths proves that they are truly the masters of their art.

[Actual Play] A Field in Lorraine #1 [LotFP]

Recently I've ran a short session of LotFP, using ideas from A Field in Lorraine as the setting. It wasn't a spectacular session, because most players were tired after work, but we still wanted to get together and play a bit.

The characters are traumatized mercenaries in the Thirty Years' War, who are heading back home. There's a weaponsmith/engineer who was buried in a tunnel for some time (Specialist), a soldier who was burnt by quicklime (Fighter), and a mercenary who dabbles in the black arts and killed off his own platoon by summoning a demon he couldn't control (Magic-User).

The players first encountered a ruined village. One of the houses was inhabited by a lone woman, who kept everything in order and cooked meals for the characters - but it turned out that she thought that they were her long-lost husband and children. I wanted to include this small scene to emphasize the inhumane and sanity-wrecking nature of the setting.

Then the characters met two noblemen and their entourage, who turned out to be high officials of the Church, sent to investigate the case of mass stigmatization in a near-by village. The players traveled together with them to that village, then stayed at the inn for the night. The village had the heavy odor of chemicals hanging above it: the players soon learned that its source was the tannery. The locals were all discussing the miracle: the Five Sacred Wounds have appeared on the bodies of several villagers.

In the inn they were approached secretly by a local merchant (and owner of the aforementioned tannery). He said that he was afraid that the clergymen, who are also infamous witch hunters, will investigate the miracles, and then go after the rich people of the village, accusing them and their families. He said that this took place in many other places beforehand. The players agreed to move to his house and act as bodyguards while the witch hunters are in town. The next day they followed around the witch hunters a bit, while they visited the houses of stigmatized people.

We finished at this point, the session serving basically as an introduction. The tone was set as I wanted, but, of course, the lack of action is always a bad thing... Something you always have to keep in mind when GMing!

Betrayer

There is this tendency, that I tend to play video games mostly during times when I'm SWAMPED with tons of IRL stuff and work... They are a great way to relax and to procrastinate. To write tabletop RPG-related stuff or to play, you need to be able to concentrate more; while computer games can be played for full effect even when tired.

Lately, I've been playing a game called Betrayer.

It's a first-person action/RPG hybrid, set in 17th century Colonial Virginia...

The whole game is presented in grayscale, with red accents. It seems kinda gimmicky, but it really adds to the whole atmosphere. There is an option to colorize the graphics, but I prefer the original b&w world (you can tune the dark & light balance, contrast, so it's not as heavy on the eyes as you would expect).

You fight using period weapons: bows, crossbows, pistols and muskets - these last two deal high damage, but reload times are very long, a nice realistic touch. Usually you only get to fire each gun once per combat...

You slowly work your way through the game world, fighting possessed Spaniards and flaming Savage Braves (this game is 'colonial' in many ways...), investigate clues scattered around the map, try to learn what kind of evil possesses the land. Sometimes you have to enter into the shadow worlds, a dark parallel dimension, which allows you to interact with the flipside of this horrorshow. In this mode, you can cleanse objects and chat with the spirits of the deceased.

Quite an engaging game, overall, so I really recommend it.

[LotFP] Cunning Folk, WIP

The setting document on "A Field in Lorraine" keeps on growing and growing -- one day I will put up the extended version. I keep adding stuff that I find as I go, so right now it's a bit chaotic, but with some editing it can be turned into a supplement that others can use as well.

I like Clerics in fantasy games, but in a 17th century weird horror fantasy they seem a bit out of place. "Divine spells", as described, are too "clean". The modus operandi, so to speak, of Catholic exorcists, Jewish cabbalists (as I see, they are best described as a mix of Magic-Users and Clerics), Protestant witch hunters are very different.

And then there are the Cunning Folk, the practitioners of all sorts of witchery and popular magic. This term, although it originates from English culture, can be used as an "umbrella term" for the entire phenomenon (see the entry on Cunning folk & the literature listing in Wikipedia for starters).

English	cunning folk, wise men and women		French	devins-guérisseurs, leveurs de sorts
German	Hexenmeister, Kräuthexen		Slavic	vedmak
Dutch	toverdokters, duivelbanners		Danish	kloge folk
Italian	benandanti		Spanish	curanderos
Swedish	klok gumma (“wise old woman”), klok gubbe (“wise old man”)		Portuguese	curandeiros, benzedeiros, mulheres de virtude (“woman of virtue”)

Cunning Folk are definitely something I want to include in my Early Modern Weird Europe. That's why I included in the first version of "A Field in Lorraine" various ideas and folk magic spells. But now I think this can be made into a class.

Instead of working from a set spell list, the Cunning Folk would rely on two types of manipulations:

1. "Folk magic", encompassing everything from folk medicine recipes to love charms and various practices to help out "around the house". These "spells" are part of an extensive and very convoluted oral tradition. Christian prayer and pre-Christian beliefs are intermingled. Although they are considered to be tried and trusted, there is only a limited chance that any given superstition or cantrip really has a magical effect.
   
   I included a list of such spells in the first version of "A Field in Lorraine".
   
   
   A great variety of spells can be culled from "Long Lost Friend" (or "Long-Hidden Friend", "Der Lange Verborgene Freund"), a collection of pow-wow spells compiled in the 1820s by the Pennsylvania Dutch healer John George Hohman (see the text here). These practices are clearly based on tradition brought along from Europe; mixed with Christian prayer. Includes three folk variants of Hold Person, "Immobilize a Thief": "How to cause male or female thieves to stand still, without being able to move backward or forward?"
   A great read.
   
   But there is also...
2. Magic done with the help of a Familiar.
   Now this is a very different can of worms. A Familiar spirit is low-tier supernatural entity, a small demon, which assists the practitioner. 

These two types can overlap, and the assistance of a Familiar greatly increases the chance of a traditional folk spell to take effect.

An image of a witch and her familiar spirits taken from a publication that dealt with the witch trials of Elizabeth Stile, Mother Dutten, Mother Devell and Mother Margaret in Windsor, 1579.

There is an eerie passage (Q. 4) in "The Discovery of Witches" by Matthew Hopkins from 1647, in which the familiars of a witch are described. They materialize in vaguely animal forms:

"1. Holt, who came in like a white kitling. 

2. Jarmara, who came in like a fat Spaniel without any legs at all, she said she kept him fat, for she clapt her hand on her belly and said he suckt good blood from her body. 

3. Vinegar Tom, who was like a long-legg'd Greyhound, with an head like an Oxe, with a long taile and broad eyes, who when this discoverer spoke to, and bade him goe to the place provided for him and his Angels, immediately transformed himselfe into the shape of a child of foure yeeres old without a head, and gave halfe a dozen turnes about the house, and vanished at the doore. 

4. Sack and Sugar, like a black Rabbet.

5. Newes, like a Polcat."

I hope I will be able to find time to turn this into something.

Ideally, there should be a nice random table for Familiars (maybe taking ideas from the LotFP Summon spell?); some rules that govern the "working relationship" of the Cunning Folk and their Familiars; and ideas for the GM about "Familiars gone bad".