8 Thieves from Beyond the Wall

More Beyond the Wall playbooks converted into Archetypes, this time focusing on the Thieves (or Rogues, as they are called in Beyond the Wall, although Specialist would suit some of them much better). 

These ones are intended for Vayra's Ultimate Thief, but should be compatible with niosis' Hunter as well.

Ben McEntee

1. Adventurous Trader
Starting Equipment: nice clothes (+1 reaction), crossbow (heavy), stiletto (light), merchant's scales, ledger and writing supplies, 200 silvers' worth of common trade goods, cart drawn by a mule (1 HD). 
Skill: Haggling
Benefit: You have 2 extra inventory slots. Items stored in these slots are perfectly concealed on you. In addition, you usually can tell what it would take to bribe a guard or official. 
Drawback: You owe 1d6 × 1000 silvers to a powerful and dangerous lender. They expect regular payments of 10% each week, and if you fall behind, they'll send collectors. Or worse.

Note: Ultimate Thief already has Hidden Pockets as a template ability, but I usually remove it as I prefer the class to be on the lighter side, especially combined with an Archetype.
    
2. Untested Thief
Starting Equipment: dark clothing, blackjack (light), forearm dagger (light), boot knife (light), set of lockpicks, rough rope (10m) with grappling hook, chalk. 
Skill: Streetwise
Benefit: You are proficient in thieves' cant, a secret language of symbols, signs, and coded speech used by criminals. This allows you to disguise anything you say as mundane conversation, identify fellow thieves, and leave and recognize hidden marks and warnings of the criminal underworld. 
Drawback: Your first job went bad and you were made the scapegoat of a crime you may or may not have committed. When you arrive at a settlement, there's a chance the local authorities have your description: 1-in-6 in villages, 2-in-6 in towns, and 3-in-6 in big cities and capitals.
    
3. Local Performer
Starting Equipment: colorful clothes (+1 reaction), shortsword (medium), musical instrument of your choice, hat with a feather, make-up kit, small mirror, deck of cards. 
Skill: Performance (specify type)
Benefit: When you perform, you can captivate listeners within earshot for up to [templates × 10] minutes, causing them to ignore most other things. If you work your recent adventures or some gossip into the performance, people in nearby settlements will have heard about it within a week. 
Drawback: You crave the spotlight. Whenever there's an opportunity to perform or someone asks you to, you must save to resist, even when it's dangerous, inconvenient, or would blow your cover.
    
4. Dungeon Delver
Starting Equipment: scavenged armor (+2 AC), war pick (medium), bullwhip (light), 3-meter pole, shovel, oil lantern, thick sturdy rope (20m). 
Skill: Architecture
Benefit: You are utterly at home in dungeons and ruins, and suffer no combat penalties from rough terrain, cramped spaces, or dim light. By knocking on a wall, you can tell if there is an open space or any hazards behind it, like water, creatures, mechanisms built into the wall etc. 
Drawback: After your time spent underground, the open sky feels vast and oppressive. When fighting outdoors with no cover above your head, you always act last in the initiative order.
    
5. Young Woodsman
Starting Equipment: hard leather vest (+2 AC), trusty hatchet (medium), whittling knife (light), 1d4 jaw traps, hooded cloak, net big enough for a large boar. 
Skill: Trapping
Benefit: While in the wilderness, you can spend 10 minutes to camouflage yourself, another person, or an object (most likely a trap) in dirt, mud, and surrounding foliage. Camouflaged targets are functionally invisible in the current environment as long as they're not moving. 
Drawback: You have -2 reaction with predatory animals like bears and wolves, as they recognize you as potential competition. In combat, such beasts will prioritize attacking you.
    
6. Gifted Dilettante
Starting Equipment: fine clothes (+1 reaction), cane-sword (medium), letter opener (light), 1d6 books on random topics, golden pocket watch, writing supplies, a winning smile. 
Skill: Etiquette
Benefit: You can read and write at triple speed. When faced with a task requiring a specific skill or knowledge, there is a [templates]-in-6 chance that you recall enough from your studies to act as if you have that skill (for this instance only) or know the relevant factoid. 
Drawback: Most things come naturally to you, until they don't. You must save to ask for help, admit your ignorance, or let someone else take the lead, even when it's clearly the wisest choice.
    
7. Learned Tutor
Starting Equipment: scholarly robes, walking stick (medium), ornate dagger (light), reference tome, educational charts and diagrams, smoking pipe, heirloom memento. 
Skill: Logic
Benefit:  You can teach any skill you know (including its special ability) to up to [templates] people during a rest. Each following day, they must save or forget it. Additionally, by spending 10 minutes examining something, you uncover one useful fact about it, but only once per target. 
Drawback: When you encounter a new curiosity, like an inscription, device, creature, or some other mystery, you must save or waste 10 minutes fussing over it. This doesn't activate your Benefit.
    
8. Assistant Beast Keeper
Starting Equipment: leather apron, wide-brimmed hat, shepherd's crook (medium), skinning knife (light), sack of animal feed, comb and shears, loyal beast of your choosing (1 HD). 
Skill: Animal Ken
Benefit: Animals will never attack you unless you provoke them first. You can pacify an angry, scared, or hostile animal with a touch on a [templates]-in-6 chance, and command a pacified animal to perform a non-dangerous action on another [templates]-in-6 chance.
Drawback: You smell like the barn, which most folk find unpleasant and which tends to betray your presence, making hiding difficult. If you manage to wash the stench off or mask it with perfume, you lose your Benefit until it returns to you.

*** 

Bonus!  

Since Ultimate Thief's skills are mainly suited for a real rat bastard, which is not exactly the vibe for Beyond the Wall, I've expanded the original list to a d30 and added some new, mostly wholesome skills into the mix. Most of them are adapted from Lexi's Scholar and Gokun's Craftsman (for those in the know).

1d10 (more) Thief Skills

1. Stealth
   You can do loud things (running, fighting, breaking stuff) very quietly, and do quiet things (walking, climbing, pulling a knife, rummaging around in a backpack) in absolute silence.
   
   Note: This is just Ultimate Thief's capstone turned into a skill, since I had a different capstone for it in mind. There are only 9 actually new skills, sorry for false advertising 😔
   
   
2. Astronomy
   When in view of the night sky, you can navigate by stars, accurately forecast weather for a week, and make predictions about the future (receiving one accurate, but cryptic detail on a 1-in-6 chance).
   
   
3. Physiology
   Gain a second save against disease. With 10 minutes of examination, you can determine all mundane ailments a living body is suffering from or the exact cause of death of a dead one.
   
   
4. Art
   You have perfect visual recall, and never forget faces, scenes, symbols etc. With proper materials and an hour of work, you can reproduce anything you've seen in a lifelike painting.
   
   
5. Esoterica
   You can read magical scripts and identify whether a specific item or phenomenon is magical in nature, with a 2-in-6 chance to accurately determine the exact magical effect.
   
   
6. Escape Artistry
   You can undo any knot and slip out of shackles and other bindings. Your body is able to contort through any hole no smaller than your head.
   
   
7. Law
   You can write legally-binding contracts, and slip hidden clauses into them with a 3-in-6 chance (causing unintended loopholes on a failure). You also have a 2-in-6 chance to argue someone out of legal charges.
   
   
8. Gambling
   When playing games of chance, you can choose to cheat by rolling twice and picking which result to use. You have a 4-in-6 chance to spot when someone is bluffing or cheating, in or out of the game.
   
   
9. Theology
   By looking into someone's eyes, you can tell if they are burdened by shame, guilt, sin, or true devotion. You count as an ordained cleric for the purposes of officiating marriages and funeral rites.
   
   
10. Mathematics
    You can estimate distance, weight, trajectory, and time with unsettling precision. You may automatically catch anything thrown to you, or snatch projectiles out of thin air that were aimed at you but missed.
    
    

8 Fighters from Beyond the Wall

I feel that Beyond the Wall is treated by the OSR community very similarly to how Hellboy comics are treated by the comic community: whenever it gets brought up, people's thoughts on it usually range from "it's pretty good" to "one of my favorite things ever", but subsequent discussion rarely lasts beyond that.

Because of that, as someone who considers Beyond the Wall their OSR system of choice, I was quite excited to learn that Vivanter of Mediums and Messages decided to try it out. Even though the system ended up not quite working for him, the resulting overview (which I found to be quite agreeable for the most part) made me reconsider my own issues with the game. 

Inspired by Vivanter's playbook conversions, I decided to try something similar and convert 8 select playbooks into Archetypes for Vayra's Ultimate Fighter, although they would probably work just as fine for niosis' Warrior too.

As is tradition, most of the mechanics were shamelessly stolen from other, much more talented people.

Ben McEntee

1. Would-Be Knight
Starting Equipment: chainmail and tabard (+4 AC), shield (+1 AC), arming sword (medium), fine rope (20 m), silver flask, your own horse (2 HD). 
Skill: Heraldry
Benefit: When you challenge someone to single combat, they must save or be compelled to accept. Once the combat starts, they will continue to fight you until one of you yields, falls, or if someone else intervenes. 
Drawback: You must follow a code of honor. You are forbidden from attacking helpless foes, breaking your word, refusing combat challenges, and using underhanded tactics like poison. If you violate the code, you lose all Fighter templates until you complete an act of penance.
    
2. Last of a Fallen House
Starting Equipment: nobleman's clothes (+1 reaction), rapier (medium), parrying dagger (light), bottle of expensive wine, threadworn but kingly cloak, signet ring with your House's sigil. 
Skill: Leadership 
Benefit: When unarmored, you add [templates × 2] to your AC, representing your poise and graceful footwork. If you're hobbled, humiliated, or visibly disheveled, you lose this benefit until you restore your composure and appearance. 
Drawback: If someone slights or insults your noble standing, your House's legacy, or you personally, you must save to resist violently lashing out in response.
    
3. New Watchman
Starting Equipment: gambeson (+2 AC), spear (medium), bow (medium), loud horn, hooded lantern, iron keyring with unlabeled keys, loyal watchdog (1 HD). 
Skill: Alertness 
Benefit: You cannot be ambushed, meaning that you always get to act during a surprise round. Additionally, you add [templates] to your initiative rolls. 
Drawback: You suffer -2 reaction with thieves, con artists, and other criminal types, and they instinctively distrust you. If you speak while disguised, you always betray your identity somehow.
    
4. Village Hero
Starting Equipment: patchwork leathers (+2 AC), sturdiest shield in the village (+2 AC), hardy club (medium), simple knife (light), lucky trophy from the threat you defeated, gnarly scar. 
Skill: Folklore 
Benefit: You have +2 reaction with peasants and other commoners, and can easily find food, shelter, or information in any village you visit. In addition, you are immune to fear. 
Drawback: The threat you once defeated survived, and is now your nemesis. Determine with your GM who or what it is. At the worst possible moment, your nemesis will return to finish the job, heralded only by the aching of your scar.
    
5. Retired Veteran
Starting Equipment: worn brigandine (+4 AC), notched halberd (heavy), old dagger (light), waterskin, set of 10 iron spikes, really good boots, faded sash with your company's colors, old wounds. 
Skill: Tactics 
Benefit: Whenever you arrive at a new place, there is a 3-in-6 chance you've visited it in the past. If you have, the GM will tell you three things you remember about it: one danger to watch out for, one point of interest, and one useful old contact that's not necessarily friendly. 
Drawback: Your old wounds slow you down, halving your effective movement. You can push yourself to move at full speed for one round, but take 1 nonlethal damage as your wounds act up.
    
6. Failed Ranger
Starting Equipment: waxed hide (+2 AC), longbow (heavy), hunting knife (light), heavy cloak, flint and tinder, bird call whistle, tarnished mark of your order. 
Skill: Hunting 
Benefit: While in untamed wilderness, you can forage enough food for up to [templates] people and track trails left by creatures up to [templates] days ago without fail. 
Drawback: You abandoned the safety of hearth and home and grew too accustomed to the wild. You gain no rest benefits when resting in civilized places such as towns, villages, or inns.
    
7. Lost Barbarian
Starting Equipment: fur garb (+2 AC), blade of unseen make (medium), bow of unseen make (medium), bottle of alcohol unique to your culture (intoxicating to any constitution), token of your home. 
Skill: Survival 
Benefit: You have devised a patchwork tongue of words and phrases borrowed from many cultures and people you have encountered. When you speak it to someone, there is a 2-in-6 chance they still grasp your meaning. This also applies to animals. 
Drawback: You suffer -2 reaction with nobles and other city-dwellers, as your foreign ways scare and confuse them. There is a 2-in-6 chance any paid service will refuse you, unless you pay double.
    
8. Nobleman's Wild Daughter
Starting Equipment: oversized chainmail (+4 AC), heirloom greatsword (heavy), concealed dagger (light), stashed dress, vial of perfume, handkerchief embroidered with your family crest, personal journal. 
Skill: History 
Benefit: When you hear someone voice doubt in your abilities or dismiss you for your birth, you gain advantage on rolls made to prove them wrong. This also applies to attack rolls against them. 
Drawback: You are being pursued by 1d4 scorned suitors who sought to marry into your family. Whenever you invoke your family name or are recognized as nobility while in a settlement, there is a 3-in-6 chance one of them tracks you down within a day.

 

The Sky for Roof, Mountains for Walls (Class: Cossack)

For Cloak-and-Sword, again. This one shares a lot of DNA with Phlox's iconic Barbarian.

Józef Brandt

Class: Volni
Start with: colorful foreign clothes, decorated fur hat, a shashka sabre, a nagaika short whip, a big bottle of chihir (intoxicating to any constitution), an animal companion (see below). 

You are one of the Volni, free semi-nomadic people of the east. You hail from Dikoe Pole (known in Manteu as Le Territoire Indompté, or simply The Wild Steppe), a region of mostly unexplored sprawling steppes located between the Dragoman Empire to the south and the northern Tsardom, where laws imposed by its neighbors seldom take hold.

Twinsoul: At the moment of your birth, the soul that was meant for you split in two, and one half entered an animal that was born at the exact same time. This is a common occurrence for the Volni and an important part of their culture.

You are accompanied by an incredibly loyal and smart 2 HD animal (usually a horse, though wolves and eagles aren't unheard of), with which you share a soul. This has the following implications:

• You can share senses by closing your eyes and concentrating.
• You can feel each other's emotions and pain when close together.
• You can tell the rough direction to one another when far apart.
• Anyone who holds Esprit for one also holds it for the other.
• Your companion's lifespan is extended to match your own.
• For purposes of faith and magic, you are a single soul in two bodies.

Mechanically, you essentially control both the animal companion and the Volni. In combat, the animal companion acts on the same turn as the Volni.

If one of you dies, the other is doomed to perish within a year.

Steel and Saddle: When rolling damage, you add an extra damage die for each of the following and take the highest result:

• You used one of the traditional Volni weapons, like your shashka or nagaika.
• You fight alongside your animal companion.
• You are outnumbered 2-to-1 or more.

Patchwork Tongue: You speak Surjik, in addition to any other languages you might know. Surjik is the native language of the steppes, composed of words and phrases borrowed from every culture your people ever encountered (which is most of them).

When speaking Surjik to someone who doesn't, there is a 1-in-6 chance for them to still understand what you're saying. This also applies to animals. 

Iron Guts: Your tolerance for alcohol is impressive. For you, weak alcohol (like ale or wine) acts like water, and strong alcohol (like vodka) acts like weak alcohol. After downing a full bottle of strong alcohol, you are immune to fear until you become sober again. If relevant, you have +4 to saves vs getting stupidly drunk.

People you spend the whole night drinking with hold Esprit for you, and you for them.

Story-Fated: When rolling for consequences of Carousing, you may roll twice and pick. If you do, you now hold mutual Esprit with one of the people involved and are bound by fate to cross paths again, for better or worse. 

Steppe-Born: You never suffer penalties when camping or sleeping out in the wilderness, no matter the weather or other natural conditions. However, you suffer those penalties when you are forced to sleep under a roof instead of an open sky.

Wind-Guided: When traveling, you never leave foot- or hoofprints, nor scent by which you can be tracked. You can make sure that none of the ones you travel with leave them either, as long as all of you slow down and travel at half speed. 

Barbare: Your rough foreign manners tend to put people off. You have -2 to reactions from nobles and other more civilized city-dwellers, and are forbidden from entering churches without explicit permission.

Moderation in All Things (Class: Humourist)

For Cloak-and-Sword.

Class: Humourist
Start with: Treated skin-covering garb, a scalpel, a doctor's bag, phlebotomy tools, too many jars and vials.

Leech: With an hour of work, you may extract 1 HD's worth of a specific Humour from a willing or unconscious body. A body contains an amount of Humours equal to its HD, and replenishes 1 HD's worth per day if parted. A Humourless body does not die, but instead becomes sluggish and apathetic.

The Humours are:

• Blood: the Humour of joy and affability. Can be found in children, happy lovers, courtesans, dogs, and angels.
• Black Bile: the Humour of sadness and creativity. Can be found in poets, failed actors, noble scions, crows, and ghosts.
• Yellow Bile: the Humour of anger and daring. Can be found in military officers, athletes, revolutionaries, lions, and demons.
• Phlegm: the Humour of patience and contemplation. Can be found in scholars, priests, old people, turtles, and gargoyles.

A body with more than 1 HD may hold more than a single type of Humour, depending on how many categories it falls under at once (elderly actors, scions turned revolutionaries, bears (considered by some to be the link between dogs and lions), sickly young women).

Temperance: With 10 minutes of work, you may inject 1 HD of an extracted Humour into a willing or unconscious body.
If the body is injured, roll 2d6 and restore Elan for the greater of the two results if the chosen Humour matches the body, or the lesser if it doesn't.
If the body is not injured, it gains the following effect based on the chosen Humour until the end of the day or until it suffers damage (which will violently release the excess Humours), whichever comes first:

• Blood: +1 to reactions and +1 to saves vs love. Must save or be a people pleaser if asked to do something.
• Black Bile: +1 to hit and 1-in-6 chance to see invisible things like angels and muses. Must save or inconsolably cry whenever anything bad happens to you or anyone else.
• Yellow Bile: +1 damage and +1 to saves vs fear. Must save or fly into a rage at any perceived slight.
• Phlegm: +1 AC and 1-in-6 chance to already know the relevant factoid in addition to any other lore roll. Must save or refuse to act without lengthy deliberation when presented with a choice.

Multiple injections of the same Humour stack, increasing numerical bonuses by 1, but adding -2 to saves vs the related drawback.

Bedside Manner: Upon being seen, you are immediately recognized as a physician. You never seem out of place at social gatherings and are always welcome at any club you visit. You have a +2 to reactions from ill nobles and commoners, unless there is already another physician present.
A noble is considered to be ill when any ailment is causing them the slightest discomfort.
A commoner is considered to be ill when any ailment actively interferes with their work.

Life Debt: Anyone you save from certain death through medical intervention holds Esprit for you. Those who held Esprit for them and were present at the time will also hold Esprit for you.

Shorthand: You can write exceptionally fast, matching and sometimes exceeding talking speed. Text written this way is unintelligible to anyone except you and those who you teach how to read it. You are literate in Gryce in addition to any other languages you might know.

Mithridatism: You have +2 to saves against diseases and poisons. If you succeed the save against the same disease or poison three times, you become completely immune to it.

Diagnosis: With 10 minutes of uninterrupted examination, you can precisely determine all mundane ailments a body is suffering from, as well as its current Elan and Fertility type. This also reveals familial connections to any others previously diagnosed by you.

Non Nocere: If you ever attack anyone you previously diagnosed and the attack hits, you kill them instantly, no save. If at least one other person was present, you immediately become an outlaw and lose all social standing. Even if you were alone, you still lose all your Humourist abilities.

 

Credit to Grace on the GLOG server for inspiring this class