d12 Birthsigns

Totally not a bootleg zodiac

Today it’s my birthday so I’m putting together a simple birthsign table intended to be compatible with classic D&D-ish games. It’s not an original idea, actually a bit overdone, but it’s fun nevertheless! And also a good way to incentivize tracking timen and character birthdays.

Each is taken from western zodiac, sometimes adapted so everything is either an animal or some human figure (a deity?). I also add a more-or-less-babilonian-inspired equivalent if you want to go for a less obvious route, have differing cultures like modern/ancient, lawful/chaotic etc.

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Cantrip powder: a fistful of magic

wizard doing wizard stuff
Cleanus Underpantus!

Cantrips or level 0 spells were introduced in AD&D 1e and have been part of D&D since then. Most of us don’t use cantrips in our old-school games, but it’s undeniable that the image of a magic user doing small effects and tricks is powerful, and it fits a big part of the source literature for fantasy games. So naturally people look for ways to codify that into the game even if it’s mainly for flavor, with no expenditure of “serious” resources.

This is an attempt at doing that while staying old-school.

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