Great Forest Spirit Generator

This is the center of your campaign. All characters want to find this thing, either to kill it or to ask a favor from it or to protect it from something else.

It is a god of life and of death. Its soul is this Forest and its flesh its manifestation. During the day, the Great Forest Spirit is a creature that can be touched and, some say, even killed. At night, it is a Walker, the unseen and formless danger under the boughs, the strange sounds dancing on strange winds.

Pick up one of every die type from d4 to d20. Roll them all, and consult the tables below. This will be your Great Forest Spirit.


d4 The Forest Spirit has the face of...

1. A man, painted blood red
2. A woman, made out of porcelain
3. An infant, made out of gold
4. A leper, studded with coral

d6 ...and the body of a...

1. Elk
2. Wolf
3. Boar
4. Lion-Dog
5. Bear
6. Giant Salamander

d8 Its body is strange! It has...

1. Horns that branch like trees growing along its body.
2. Tattoos of blood and mud that swirl along its limbs.
3. Too many tails.
4. A body ten lengths too long.
5. Multiple heads that stretch from its shoulders.
6. Neither flesh nor skin, just cracked bones.
7. Ivory spikes that encapsulate its limbs.
8. Additional faces on the side of its head.

d10 At night, it becomes something vicious, a(n)...

1. Giant made out of translucence.
2. Great skeleton wreathed in bells.
3. Giant version of itself, whose body reflects the cosmos.
4. Demonic version of itself that floats over the canopy.
5. Featureless version of itself, massive and terrifying.
6. Draconic version of itself, gripping a pearl and spiraling above the canopy.
7. Amalgamation of 2 other creatures that live in the forest.
8. Elemental version of itself, giant and made out of soil, root, and flame.
9. Featureless monk who neither moves nor speaks.
10. Wild and violent creature whose gilded eyes are the only thing visible.

d12 Around it...

1. Flowers blossom from its footprints and then wither.
2. Trees creak and groan, as if being moved by strong winds.
3. The sun and moon shine brightly where it walks.
4. A wall of rain trails after it.
5. Wildfires spark and die where it looks.
6. Artificial tools, such as clothing, guns, swords, etc, return to their natural states when looked at.
7. Small springs fountain from its footprints.
8. Bells ring in the distance when it is nearby.
9. The air tastes of ozone and copper, as if lightning were about to strike.
10. Tree spirits manifest and watch the Forest Spirit like a captive theatre audience.
11. Ice forms along the length of trees and flesh.
12. Fossilized bones are unearthed from the ground.

d20 And if you kill it...

1. Its head will grant you immortality if you drink the fluids it produces.
2. And take its eyes, if consumed, will allow you to see how all things will one day die.
3. And take its lips, if worn like a necklace, will allow you to breath life into the dead by killing another.
4. And take its hide, if worn, will give you command of all beasts.
5. And paint its blood onto your flesh, you will become immune to all Demonic Curses.
6. And string its feet to weapons, those weapons will turn men into demons by killing them.
7. And take its liver, if consumed, will render all poisons impotent to you.
8. And take its vocal chords, if eaten, will allow you to speak to trees and bones.
9. And take its flesh, if burned and the smoke captured, will allow you to strip the lives of all who smell it.
10. And take its brain, if consumed, will teach you the future.
11. And take its genitals, if worn like a necklace, will ensure all children you have will become kings.
12. And take its face, if worn like a mask, will make all men who see you worship you.
13. And hollow out its stomach, it will be able to contain any amount of anything you put into it.
14. And flay its skull, it will vomit liquid gold for eight thousand years.
15. And plant its flesh like seeds, it will create a Great Forest that you are the god of.
16. All creatures will be turn into dumb beasts, to be hunted for meat or treated like plants.
17. It will turn into a headless monstrosity and steal life until it finds its missing organs.
18. All living things that the killer touches will wither and die.
19. The sun will set and never rise again.
20. You will turn into a dumb beast, possessed by greed and bloodlust.

GREAT FOREST SPIRIT

HD: Either Infinite in Day/Night Forms, or 1 while transforming

AC: As leather

SPEED: x2 that of man
MORALE: 12

ATTACKS:

• Life & Death: +12 to hit. Either fall to 0 HP and die or be restored to 1 HP if dead.

SPECIAL

• At night, the Great Forest Spirit becomes a Nightwalker. In this form, it can reach any enemy it chooses within its forest, though it must still roll to hit.
• Anything the Great Forest Spirit focus on becomes overgrown with flora. If this happens for two rounds, the thing becomes unusable.
• Curses are automatically invoked when in the presence of the Great Forest Spirit.
• If given a living sacrifice, the Great Forest Spirit can transfer HP from the sacrifice to another creature of its choice, including itself.
• If the Great Forest Spirit dies, all spirits and gods residing within its forest do so as well.
• Touching the Great Forest Spirit directly results in instant death unless it has died.
• It takes 5 rounds for the Great Forest Spirit to change between its Day/Night forms.

Demonic Curses are Born from the Hatred-Fueled Ambition of Gods Turned Demons

When a god is fatally wounded and possessed with Ambition, corruption will darken its blood into worms and it will curse all things that touch it. Trees, flowers, stones, flesh--all rot, all are twisted.

See the demon's touch festering on his arm

Pick up a d8. This is your CURSE DIE. Then, roll for your curse and consult the table below. Whenever you make use of your curse, roll your Curse Die. On an 8, reduce you maximum hit points by 1. Next time you roll your Curse Die, you reduce your hit points by 2 on a 7-8. This trend continues until you reduce your maximum hit points by 8 whenever you use your curse. Yes, this will kill you--eventually.

There are TWO types of curses: Granted Curses & Demonic Curses. The former are the curses given to you by a witch or a god or something similar. The latter are  curses given to you when touched by something demonic or twisted. This blog post deals with the latter.

LIFTING YOUR CURSE

Frostbitten & Mutilated has an amazing d100 table for methods to break or lift a curse. If you don't want to use that, there are various Esoteries that can do the trick. Rare they are, and most times death itself is the only true cure.

Deny the curse to keep your life.

DEMONIC CURSES 

Using your curse forces you to do the thing it requires; for example, if the curse says you must attack something, then you MUST attack something to get the benefit of the curse. The curse, once invoked, has a lasting effect that ends at the end of the next round.

When choosing your curse, roll 1d20. That's your curse.

1. Hatred's Arm. When invoked, anger and fear overwhelm your character and you must attack or break something. Add additional damage dice equal to your character level when you roll damage next.
2. Move Beyond Death. When invoked, you hate all forms of happiness and must attempt to make something you see angry or emotionally hurt. At 0 hit points, you can stay conscious and active every turn you deal damage to something or someone.
3. Flesh For Skill. When invoked, you see all things as liars and can believe nothing anyone tells you. If you eat something's flesh or drink its blood, you gain 1 skill that it knows and can use it for 1 hour of time.
4. Attract Armies. When invoked, you believe yourself as the greatest leader, and ignore anything anyone else says. The next person whom you issue an order to must follow that order or suffer d6 damage. The order cannot force them to damage themselves.
5. Making the Heavens Move. When invoked, you know that you must do this thing and will do it, no matter what consequences are to be paid. When using Strength to push, move, or lift something, you do so automatically as long it isn't something ridiculous like a mountain.
6. Become Truer Than Their Mothers. When invoked, you lose all hostility for any creature that you can see. Up to 8 creatures that you can see become your followers/hirelings you as long as they weren't hostile already.
7. Wolf's Revenge. When invoked, choose an enemy that you hate beyond all else. You can make no other actions until you make an attack against that enemy, and you cannot attack it for 24 hours after invoking the curse. The attack is an automatic critical hit.
8. Smell Blood Like Honey. When invoked, everyone that can see you begins to bleed from both their nose and eyes. You know the secrets and goals of one bleeding creature that you can see.
9. Devour Murderer. Invokes only when you fall to 0 hit points. Every creature that sees your corpse must save vs Magic or die, giving you their hit points.
10. Worm Vomit. When invoked, you vomit worms made of thick ichor. These worms will crawl towards a person, place, or object that you're seeking for 2 rounds before melting.
11. Pain's Exhibitionism. Invokes only when you suffer damage, forcing you to damage yourself more. Any creature that sees you take damage suffers the same damage you are taking.
12. Remember Not the Taste of Tea. Invokes whenever you damage a creature. Said creature forgets who it was and what it was doing until the end of the next round.
13. Dominate Cowards. When invoked, you must show others that you are superior when compared to them, even if by force. Any creature that makes a moral check against you reduces their moral score by 6.
14. Memory's Dream. When invoked, you forget everything you know about one creature close to you that you can see. The next non-curse die you roll is treated as if you rolled the highest number possible.
15. Loyalty Misbegotten. When invoked, you realize loyalty is a lie and you must betray someone you have befriended or served. Any creature that sees this loses their action(s) on their next turn.
16. An Eye Trained on the Past. When invoked, you gain a hunger for another creature's eyes that must be fulfilled. When you consume an eye, you can see any 1 moment or image that the eye has seen.
17. Mutilations That Will Not Be Seen. When invoked, you must damage yourself so that others advert their eyes. Creatures that see you instantly forgot they saw you, and act as if you were never there.
18. Breaking That Will Break Sin. When invoked, you gain the urge to break or damage the next object you touch. Said object breaks and becomes utterly useless.
19. Words Eating Ambition like Snakes. When invoked, you must remind everyone you see that their goals and desires are pointless compared to yours. A creature you can see has their Ambition reduced to 0.
20. Actions Break Harmony like Rivers Do Mountains. When invoked, you must remind everyone that you can see that their peace is a treacherous lie. A creature you can see has their Harmony reduced to 0.

Breaking That Will Break Sin.

Esoteries are Strange and Supernatural Things that Replace Spells

I don't like spells. Or rather, I don't like "understood" magic. It's never been to my taste. Now, that doesn't mean I don't like Wizards and Sorcerers and Arcane Schools--it just means I don't like them in the traditional sense.

So, I'm working on throwing spells out of my game. And with them, the magic-user and cleric. I want to try and bring in a new way to execute the supernatural in my game--to imagine magic beyond spells. My answer right now is through Esoteries.

We're gettin' weird

There are eight categories of Esoteries. Each category works different, does different things, and covers different concepts. The point of Esoteries is that any character, from thief to fighter to mystic, can make use of some type of Estoerty. Or, they cannot--and they aren't punished for having the magic VIP Cards that are included in modern day spell lists.

The eight types of Esoteries are:

1. Curios. Strange magical things with a single purpose. A branch that blossoms white flowers when an angel is nearby or black when a demon's presence is close.
2. Curses. Exactly what's on the tin. Curses will be a special condition that gives you a benefit at the cost of something dear--or they can be something that flat out ruins you.
3. Miracles. Praying to the divine for a miracle from them. Pantheons and specific gods offer different miracles. These are once-in-a-lifetime events that cannot be replicated in your game, and are the rarest type of Esotery to make use of. See here for an example of how these would work.
4. Mysticisms. Practices that allow one to interact with the supernatural. Think making a complex circle of salt to keep out curses, or a special way of meditation that allows your body to increase in size.
5. Pacts. You've made a pact with something. You agree to a number of conditions; the more conditions you agree too, the more the thing that made the pact with you will aid you. 
6. Psionics. Mind powers. Gotta love mind powers, man.
7. Sacraments. Religious rituals your character has undergone. Provide some strange benefit but at a roleplay cost; if you do something that breaks your pantheon's code, you lose the benefits of the sacrament and can even become cursed.
8. Sorceries. Strange powers that manifest basically as spells, but on a grander scale and providing some crazy effects. These are literally your Vagines are Magic-style spells.

The name scheme is a happy little accident.

Anyway, a lot of people will wonder why not just use spells for all of this. To me, spells represent codified magic. You memorize a spell with a name like Asshole's Heavenly Kiss and you cast it and you write it in your spellbook. That doesn't cut it for me. I want to have different kinds of supernatural things going on that the players can draw from--more diversified than loot and spells. Of course, a you can look at this list and say "Well you made eight categories..." and yes, you're right, I did categorize the supernatural. But these effects can't be replicated. They aren't things that can be reverse engineered.

Arcane Universities and the like study Esoteries and are made weird by them, and sometimes they discover new ones, but they don't understand them like a standard D&D wizard does the arcane, or how Hogwarts magicians understand the supernatural. 

I'll probably need to make examples of each type of Esotery and their mechanics before people really buy onto this idea, but I think it shows a lot of promise for where the supernatural can go outside of just spells and artefacts. 

If you wanted, you could probably use spells with this system with no problem, especially if it's a vancian system. But I think you might get a couple overlapping effects and your game would be very magical because of it. Right now, I'm thinking I would draw on 1-4 of these Esotery Categories when making a system and say "This is magic in this setting." So something like Dark Sun would have Psionics and Sacraments. The Heaven Bless'd & Burned has Curios, Miracles, and Mysticisms. Ultimately, one all these are done, they should allow for settings I or others make to feel different in terms of magic beyond having lots of spells or no spells.

Harmony & Ambition: Making Alignment Worth Something

Wanted to make a system for alignment for my Revelations of the Mononoke Princess idea. One's alignment can either help them directly or help them assist others, mirroring stuff like Lady Eboshi shooting off the head of the Forest Spirit, or San helping Ashitaka recover from his wounds.

Lady Eboshi

When you make a character, you have three points to distribute amongst your alignments. The two alignments, Harmony and Ambition, are described as:

HARMONY
One's desire to be at peace, and to keep all things stable. One lacking in Harmony is selfish and arrogant, whilst having too much Harmony makes one stupid as a beast and unable to effect the world in any meaningful way.

Characters who are more Harmony than Ambition are the Lepers, Moro, or Toki.

AMBITION
One's desire to achieve what they want, and to improve themselves. One lacking in Ambition is easily influenced and unable to control their lives, whilst having too much Ambition steals one's empathy and leaves them unable to co-exist with others.

Characters who are more Ambition than Harmony are Lady Eboshi, Jigo, or Okkoto.

A character who is in balance, with both pools being equal, is Prince Ashitaka. These characters are considered as "seeing with eyes unclouded by hate."

When playing Revelations of the Mononoke Princess, you can invoke your alignment to give your character's pushes. They have a number of d4 equal to the number of points in their highest rated alignment. So, if you have 2 Ambition and 1 Harmony, you have 2d4 Ambition dice and 0 Harmony dice.

WHEN YOU ASSIST ANOTHER PLAYER, NPC, OR CREATURE
When helping something, you can spend up to all of your Harmony dice and add the rolled number(s) to the helped creature's roll.

WHEN YOU ARE DAMAGING ANOTHER PLAYER, NPC, OR CREATURE
When rolling for damage, you can spend up to all of your Ambition dice and add the rolled number(s) to the damage roll.

Other mechanics, such as Curses or Gods, draw on your Harmony and Ambition dice as well, but those will be explained in another blog post.

Once you've spent any of your alignment dice, you don't regain them again until you level up. When you level up, you also add an additional point to one of your alignment pools. If both pools are of equal size, choose one alignment: that is your dominant alignment. You can change your dominant alignment after spending at least 12 hours in meditation. You can only spend a number of dice equal to your highest alignment pool, so if you have 3/3 in both and spend 3d4, you can't meditate and then have another 3d4 for the other side of the coin.

You can never have more than 4 points in a specific alignment. Should both pools be maxed, you must spend all dice before leveling up in order to keep both pools in balance. If you've spent more from one pool as compared to the other, you lose a point in the opposite alignment. This is to make it difficult to stay in balance, similar to how Prince Ashitaka was tried in many different ways while being in harmony.

A bullet is a hefty trial.

Revelations of the Mononoke Princess

Somewhere to the west, there is a forest. It is the gods' last home. Bountiful is it, rich in game and mineral, overwhelming in potential for human ambitions to be made manifest. With rifle and iron pellets, gods are pushed back, and Harmony wars with Ambition.

Tree spirits.

When a god is struck by this bullet and gives in to its ambition to throw back the imperialistic needs of humans, it is possessed by its hatred. The resultant demon goes wild and flees the forest. In its wake is a trail of curses that latch onto the innocent like ticks to dogs. But ambition is not wholly evil, and it is only through harnessing it that life can keep itself from degrading into small, dumb animals.

Thus, a revelation. Harmony is needed to curb ambition and to keep peace; ambition is needed to prevent harmony from reducing all to the sorrowful state of pets and foolish game. At the center of this revelation is the Old Forest, where human countries invade to claim what resources they can. There, in their Iron Towns and carved-out hunting grounds, god and man struggle and curses blossom like sakura from samurai corpses.

God turned demon.

WHO ARE YOU?
You're an adventurer. You have come to the Old Forest for one of the following reasons:

• Ambition [Wealth/Power/Resource/Fame]. Mine iron, cut legendary wood, find mystical plants, steal the fangs of wolf gods--there is natural treasure to be had and power to be gained!
• Cursed. A demon has cursed you, and you have traveled to the Old Forest to find a way to cleanse yourself.
• God-Child. You were raised by the gods and you fight against the lust-looting that humans from outside the forest are participating in.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

In future blog posts I'll elaborate on each one of these. Here is a sample list of ideas for what games could be like:

• Hunt gods for their mystical organs.
• Protect and benefit from the iron mining towns.
• Fight with the gods to overthrow the various human outposts and towns.
• Ignore both sides of the conflict and look for something mystical that will benefit specifically you.

RULES IDEAS

• Give the two alignments, Harmony & Ambition, some mechanic heft.
• Tables of god organs and their possible uses.
• Curses that demons can place on you that must be cleansed, despite what benefits they may give.
• Having followers in the forms of minor gods.
• Rules for ambushes and the benefits of being an effective hunter.

God followers.

Mystic Cabals are Irradiated Societies Rebuilding the World Despite the Neverending Apocalypse

A follow up from the post here. If something "has mysticism X," the number that is the X is the number rolled on the Radiance Mysticism table in the linked blog post.

Mystic in meditation. 

CABALS

Radiant Mystics form communities called cabals with one another. These cabals are loose; they don't often gather, and to join one is to swear only to aid one another when desperation comes knocking.

The purpose of these cabals is to form a society in the Heaven Burned. "Dragons will never leave," reckon the Mystics. Likewise, the Heaven Bless'd is no home for those who have given in to the power of Radiance. These cabals, built inside the many different environs of the Heaven Burned, will be the spots civilization blossoms from in this new era. 

Discovering a cabal is never a boon or bane. The mystics will defend themselves and they will help those they stumble upon when obsidian is sheathed. Secretly, the Gatherer's Lodge has mapped out where many of these cabals are so that they can make use of them for supplies and shelters. While the propaganda machine inside the Heaven Bless'd paints them as dragon-cursed monsters, Heaven Burned veterans know them as a splintered, strange people, neither to be befriended or made enemies of--just used.

There are three well-known cabals taught to expeditioners during their final lessons. These cabals are large, carrying more than a hundred mystics each, and have established their own power-niches across the Heaven Burned. 

Each cabal is led by a guru, who is treated as the creator of the cabal or its current most capable leader.

VIVID CHILDREN

LEADER: Sees Stars in Empty Skies (Empty for short). An old guru, forever meditating underneath the boughs of a petrified tree. Has mysticism 9. Eats little, drinks less, speaks almost none unless Radiance is out of control.

AESTHETIC: Vivid Children wear no cloth clothing, and instead wear gems, glass, and metal, all which hangs from their limbs, over their sex, and from their noses and hair. 

DETAILS: The Vivid Children name themselves so because of their herding of Irradiated Souls. Making their home in a strikingly large Murdered Forest, the Children use their abilities to bring in the Irradiated and to give them what the Freedom From Flesh. Through strange rituals invoking the name of the Half-Sun and of Tiamat, they have learned how to give the Irradiated the gift of reincarnation. This process fills the sky above the Murdered Forest with iridescent stars of fading radiance--a vivid sky that births vivid children.

RELATIONSHIPS: Vivid Children assist Gatherers and Dragon Wives both. If an expedition proves to be too violent, or if some other Burned power comes sweeping through, the radiant stars can be called down through ritual, overdosing anything that enters the forest and providing a swift, painful, mutated death. Because of this, the Cuanatoil and the Opal Heart cabals avoid open conflict with the Children. Expeditions are taught to avoid them unless Radiance becomes a rampant problem.

WHAT THEY WANT:

• To reincarnate Irradiated Souls.
• To control Radiance levels in the Heaven Burned.
• To create a society where Radiance elevates, not burns, it.

WHAT THEY DON'T WANT:

• For more Tzitzimitl to appear.
• For Radiance to destroy more lives than it already has.
• For the other two cabals to interfere with their Radiance studies.

SAMPLE NPCS:

• Eats Left Handed is a young girl with mysticism 6. She is the liaison between the guru and the expedition.
• Glistens Gold is an adult man with mysticism 2. He is the premiere Irradiated Soul hunter of the cabal.
• Nauiah is a genderless child around age 9. Like the guru, they have mysticism 9, and thus are believed to one day become the next guru. The adult cabal members protects and cherishes this child more than any other.

WHAT THEY MAY ASK THE PARTY FOR:

• Assistance in finding Irradiated Souls to the east for Freeing their Flesh.
• Assistance in destroying Tzitzimitl spotted to the north.
• Investigating what happened to a lone Mystic who has disappeared after venturing West, close to Cuanatoil territory.

THE CUANATOIL

LEADER: Xertlan. As a guru, he is known for his warlike methods. Has mysticism 3 and uses it to convince his people that he is omnipotent, and that dead gods have bequeathed on him Divine Authority.

AESTHETIC: Direwolf and hyena tanned leathers worn as skirts. Bones for gauntlets, shoes, weapons. Feathers to protect themselves from radiation, looted from Gatherers that they hunt and kill or trade with Dragon Wives for. Painted hieroglyphs and images on body with blue paint made from Bless'd Blood Worms.

DETAILS: Cuanatoil is the name the cabal's first guru. They are warlike, and wish to steal back the knowledge of man first stolen by hyenas. They hunt great cackles and use their brains in strange rituals, mixing it with Bless'd Blood Worms to create their enlightening body paint. All Cuanatoil believe that knowledge can be worn. They are not wrong. Direwolves hate them for taking their food source, and Cuanatoil in turn treat direwolves as their main diet. Wearing hyena-worm-brain paint increases one's intelligence to 20 and increases 1 skill to a 6-in-6 chance of success for 24 hours.

RELATIONSHIPS: Gatherers have valuables that aid the Cuanatoil on their hunts, and thus are killed and their goods taken by force. They fear Dragon Wives for they have seen their rages and will aid them when called upon. All Cuanatoil worship Ereshteteo and follow her from place to place. To sacrifice one's self to the Goddess of Annihilation is to be granted the forbidden knowledge that can only be understood by the obliterated. 

WHAT THEY WANT:

• To gain all lost knowledge.
• To achieve enlightenment and to free themselves from the cycle of reincarnation through violence.
• To earn the love of Ereshteteo.

WHAT THEY DON'T WANT:

• For knowledge to disappear for good.
• For Gatherers to steal knowledge before they can take it.
• For them to die and be reincarnated before they attain tree renunciation.

SAMPLE NPCS:

• Gluttony the Seer is a withered man who consumes the eyes of the Bless'd. He has mysticism 7, and through their eyes he helps inform the hunts where they must go.
• Xoco is a middle-aged woman with mysticism 20. She believes herself to be a Goddess of Knowledge and her primary symbol is the Bless'd Blood Worm. She guides the current guru.
• Manazashah stalks after expeditions and sleeps when they are setting up camp. He has mysticism 14, and through his dreams he learns their secrets.

WHAT THEY MAY ASK THE PARTY FOR:

• To serve as bait to draw out a Fang War.
• Assistance in finding the painted, flayed skin of one of their missing mystics.
• To tell them everything they know about Ereshteteo's latest movements.

THE OPAL HEARTS OF LAMENTING DJINN

LEADER: Eleuiah, Smoker of Wishes. She has a harem of efreeti and old opal kings and old opal wraiths. She has mysticism 19, and thus is the natural enemy of all wing'd creatures. 

AESTHETIC: Long strips of cloth dyed yellow and black and embroidered like tapestries wrap around their bodies, their limbs, their mouths, and their heads in great turbans. Forever are they chewing hashish leaves traded with gatherers. Their skin is either the color of milk or the color of a starless night--both a result of their union with efreeti.

DETAILS: The Opal Hearts of Lamenting Djinn (Opal Hearts for short) are mystics who have freed efreeti from their servitude to old opal kings, and likewise serve the old opal kings as councilors and seers. They attend ghosts and wraiths and organize the pilgrimages from their home Pyre City to other parts of the Heaven Burned. They can speak with the dead and reawaken the memories of past lives in the reincarnated or reborn. All Opal Hearts spend hours staring into smoke stacks so that they can see the many pasts of the Heaven Burned.

RELATIONSHIPS: Pyre Cities are not to be invaded by any souls, and expeditions are thus their natural enemies. Dragon Wives bring expeditions with them and thus are to be rebuffed or killed. They will trade peacefully, exchanging cultural artefacts in their Pyre City home in exchange for hashish, so long as those they trade with swear to avoid any Pyre City they find. Old Dragonslayer fraternities are given refuge in exchange for them protecting pilgrimages. Efreeti are their lovers. Their children, called djinn, are believed to be scions of great mystical power.

WHAT THEY WANT:

• To usher in a new world order of djinn mysticism.
• To see all opal wraiths and kings laid to rest.
• To learn from the mistakes of the dead so that they are not ever repeated.

WHAT THEY DON'T WANT:

• For others to take secrets they have yet unearthed.
• For efreeti to remain enslaved to the folly of old opal kings.
• For the dead to keep hoarding the tools needed to create the future.

SAMPLE NPCS:

• Sharizad, who keeps a consort of Old Opal Princesses and Princes. She has mysticism 18, and uses her power to open up the way to pyre tombs and forgotten ruins.
• That Which Grieves is forever set aflame. They have mysticism 15 and use it to recover from their traumas. The immolations they go through soothe the rages of the old opal wraiths and efreeti.
• Lonely Pershatl, an old man who is in love with the dead, and who will kill others so that they can join his harem. Has mysticism 11.

WHAT THEY MAY ASK THE PARTY TO DO:

• Assist them in protecting a pilgrimage to a distant Pyre City.
• Assist them in calming the riotous souls of an Old Opal King.
• Assist them in driving out a dragon from a Pyre City.

JeuJeuBee

CREATING YOUR OWN CABAL

Roll on the following tables and connect the dots for creating your own cabal of Radiant Mystics.

NAME

1. Those Whose Eyes Bleed Lies
2. Seers of Haunted Moons
3. The Coatlkander
4. Order of the Quiets
5. Choirs That Sing Memories
6. Wanderers of Mictkalla

ENVIRON WHERE THEIR CABAL'S BASE IS

1. The Abyss
2. The Ashpits
3. Blood Bogs
4. A Murdered Forest
5. A Pyre City
6. The Shattered Crowns

IDENTIFYING AESTHETIC

1. Ritual scarification forming intricate patterns across the skin.
2. Strange masks forged from opal and soot.
3. Lower jaw and five random fingers are replaced with irradiated clay.
4. Eyes, mouth, ears, and nose all stitched shut.
5. Right arm held up and kept there until it atrophies and freezes in place.
6. Bundled head to toe in strange skins to hide their identities.

CURRENT GURU

1. Someone possessed by a legion of Old Opal Wraiths.
2. The caretaker of a dying Burned Widow.
3. A great hunter who has eaten the hearts of one of every type of creature.
4. An old sage who has survived since the hatching of dragons.
5. A dead god whose symbols bleed orders into the thoughts of the cabal.
6. Four children who share the same mind and identity.

CULTURAL BELIEF

1. The Heaven Burned needs Bless'd blood to restore it self. This cabal captures and sacrifices human victims.
2. That the Heaven Burned is actually a paradise, and that one must simply be high off narcotics and radiance to see it.
3. That stuffing wounds with direwolf saliva and soot that they can become immortal and invulnerable.
4. That deep underground there is a seed waiting to blossom into a new forest. They are forever searching for an Abyss that leads to the center of the world.
5. That by replacing an eye with opal they can see through it all other Heavens and thus travel to them.
6. That by meditating in their chosen environ and ignoring all other things, they will exit the cycle of reincarnation and become something greater.

After rolling for these 5 options, decide their connections, if any, to the following factions:

• The Gatherers.
• Dragon Wives.
• Hyenas or Direwolves.
• Other cabals.
• Ereshteteo or Tiamat.

Then name 3 things they want and three things they don't want. Your cabal is now complete and ready to make things weird. 

Burned Widows are Dragon Wives Possessed by Radiance and Doomed Wyrms

When a dragon wife slays her husband, a piece of the wyrm follows her. These pieces are what keep the divine engine inside of her roaring whenever she encounters something draconic to kill. But, should her Radiance score double past its threshold, the grief of these doomed dragon souls will blossom into something more. If not given immediate attention, she is immolated in the sickening light of Radiance and transforms.

Rises from the pyre doth the Burned Widow.

She is grief and hatred and regret. A wife who has murdered her lover. She is a threat to the Heaven Bless'd and a weeping queen of the Heaven Burned.

Tiamat claims them as her greatest warriors.

Commission from Ragnar Pendon

WHAT DOES A BURNED WIDOW WANT?
Choose 1d4.

• To kill all Dragon Wives, so that they do not suffer as the Burned Widow does.
• To bear children again. The Burned Widow will sacrifice 1000 human hearts to regain her fertility.
• To die. The Burned Widow will attack anything she finds, in hopes that it kills her.
• To forget the dragons she's killed. The Burned Widow will defend any draconic beings being attacked.
• For dragons to go extinct. The Burned Widow will guard a clutch of dragon eggs with her life.

WHAT DOES A BURNED WIDOW NOT WANT?

Choose 1.

• To hear about the City. The Burned Widow will rip the tongues out of anyone who mentions it.
• To be reminded of what she was.
• To be alone. The Burned Widow will sever the limbs of her enemies and drag them to her lair to keep her company.
• 1 thing that all other Burned Widows want.

SIGNS OF A NEARBY BURNED WIDOW

Choose 1. All effects begin within 1 mile of the Burned Widow.

• It begins to rain ash and soot and visibility drops to 5 feet.
• The shadows of dragons race around the environment, but no dragons are in sight.
• Thunder forms clear words in your language. They are threatening and regretful.
• Draconic Radiance increases in the area. All living creatures hear white noise and their vision frequently fills with static.
• The world appears darker, and every living creature experiences their own form of the chills, as if they were being watched.

THE BURNED WIDOW

HD: 10 (or multiples of 10, up to 30)

AC: As Highly Magical Plate + Shield

Attacks:

• Three attacks with any weapon from the Bless'd Armory. For each damage roll, roll twice and take the highest.

Speed: Human x2
Morale: 10 

Special

• Roll 1 time on the Dragon Mutation's table and 2 times per HD on the Dragon Wife Class Feature's table. The Burned Widow has these features.
• The Burned Widow has the Dragon Wife drakocide features. It does not have the normal triggers. Instead, it triggers as tier 1 against any creature, tier 2 against creatures who have killed dragons, and tier 3 against Dragon Wives.
• The Burned Widow has a breath weapon. Roll for it on the Dragon Breath Weapon table.
• The Burned Widow turns into ash when reduced to 0 hit points and reforms 1d10 days later somewhere in the Shattered Crowns.  Every time she reforms, reduce her maximum HD by 5, to a minimum of 1. If destroyed when she has 1 HD, she is permanently destroyed.
• The Burned Widow regenerates 1d6 hit points every round. If damaged by a dragon, the Burned Widow doesn't regenerate the next round.

Palace of the High-King

A great ziggurat of blue-painted stone looms above the island of petty temples, omen reading huts, and medicine drinker shacks that girdle it.

This'll do until I get the commission in.

Armies of god tenders bustle about, performing tasks to keep the divine happy. They are slaves and they are servants and they are the happiest of the Bless’d for they have both purpose and safety bestowed upon them by their masters.

Hundreds of shrines and offerings are left upon the sides of the ziggurat. Four sets of stairs wind their way up. The more desperate the prayer, the more steps you take. Never do you enter the zenith temple. It is made of clay and reed and appears a shack itself, but inside is where gods dwell and you are no god nor their tender.

This is the Palace of the High-King, this shack that sits a top majesty. When one enters, they are taken into a seperate world inside the Heaven Bless’d. Here, in the presence of gods, miracles are forged and the Heaven Bless’d is made safe.

Why Visit the Palace of the High-King?

Roll, choose, or create a reason.

1. A god tender approaches you, telling you that one of the gods has summoned you for audience.
2. You wish to view a god, but have no permission to enter the Palace. Thus, you sneak in, and search the god out for their blessing.
3. Your place of work surrounds the Palace, and a god tender calls on you for aid.
4. You’ve heard great treasures lie unattended inside the Palace and you wish to steal them.
5. There is a Hanging Garden locked away in there, and you wish to hunt in it.
6. Many god tenders have died as of late, and you wish to replace one of them.

ROOM SUMMARY OF THE PALACE OF THE HIGH-KING

This is a basic summary of what will be found as you explore the Palace. Detailed sections below. Numbers correspond to rooms. Connecting the rooms are hallways, where the floors are stone, and the curved ceilings and walls made of reed.

1. Blood-Stained God Foyer. The opening foyer of the palace. Leads to rooms 2, 3, and 4.
2. Heliograph Epics of All Heavens. A room covered in heliograph murals. Leads to room 5.
3. Pyre-Beds. The pyre-beds of the god tenders. Leads to room 6.
4. Throne Baths of Heaven’s King. The audience chamber of the former High King and current Steward-King. Leads to rooms 8, 9, 10, and 11.
5. Symbol Graves, Untended & Unworn. Where divine symbols are gathered and stored from the dead and forgotten gods.
6. Bloodletting Sanctity Chamber. Where the god tenders perform auto-sacrifice.
7. Sealed Gate of the Hanging Garden of the High King. Leads to the appropriately titled Hanging Garden.
8. Torture Room of the Four Oracles. Where the god’s four personal Handless Priests live and rant prophecies.
9. Union of the Palace Heavens. The nexus that leads to the personal domains of each of the gods. Leads to rooms 13, 14, 15, and 16.
10. Heart of the Radiant Heretic. Where the Radiant Saint who tricked the High King is sealed away.
11. Prison Where Hells are Made. The torture-prison where the worst criminals are interred.
12. Where Sunbeams Meet and Guide. Directly above room 4 is a glassed opening. Touching it transports one to any location within the Heaven Bless’d that the sun can touch.
13. Half-Grave of the Half-Sun. The Palace Heaven of Half-Sun Sintotec.
14. The Sobbing Grotto. The Palace Heaven of Veiled Weeper Allalotl.
15. Empty Space Beyond. The Palace Heaven of Gatekeeper Metamm.
16. Where Crucifixions are Worshipped. The Palace Heaven of Blood Dream Xoash.

HEAVEN’S GUARDS

When exploring the palace without a god tender guide, there is a 3-in-6 chance that every hallway and room will have 2d6 palace guards. These guards are 1st level fighters and wear the gilded skins of animals they’ve hunted and had blessed by Half-Sun Sintotec. When reduced to 0 hp, they transform into beasts of your choosing, such as wolves, lions, tigers, jaguars, etc. When reduced to 0 hp in this form, they cry out, summoning another 2d6 palace guards in 1d4 rounds to the area.

Additionally, every room has a 5-in-6 chance of having a god tender inside. If the god tender sees the party has no guide, they will interrogate them. If the party does not convince the guide otherwise, they will run and find 2d6 palace guards and return with them in 1d8 rounds.

Palace guards will imprison player's reduced to 0 hit points and stabilize them so that they do not die. Player's will be imprisoned in the Prison Where Hells are Made for 1d12 days before being taken for trial before Half-Sun Sintotec in the Throne Baths of the High-King.

ENCOUNTERS IN THE PALACE OF THE HIGH-KING

Roll 1d6 for every room entered. On a 5 or lower, there are god tenders in the room if it is daylight hours, or a 1-in-6 chance during night time, with exceptions. If there is an encounter, roll a d6 on the chart below. Replace used options with your own.

1. 1d4 god tenders are secretly discussing how to best introduce dragon worship to the Heaven Bless’d. Act suspiciously when discovered.
2. 1d10 god tenders are kneeling and praying. They are oblivious to what goes on around them, increasing sneaking odds by +1.
3. 1d6 god tenders are doped on opium and hashish. They will see the party as gods and begin to follow them around, cutting themselves and filling the parties footsteps with the shed blood.
4. A senior god tender is tutoring 2d12 neophyte god tenders on the history and purpose of the current room. The senior god tender, if cowed, will lead to the neophytes being made docile as well.
5. Two god tenders are petting each other in this room. Embarrassed, they will run off when discovered. It will be an additional 3d8 rounds before they find the courage to call the guards.
6. 4d10 god tenders are holding a meeting in this room, discussing various matters of state and faith. There are already 4d6 guards gathered here to protect them.

ROOMS IN THE PALACE OF THE HIGH-KING

Objects considered treasure if removed from the Palace and taken to safety have their value beside them in parenthesis. The value represents an individual item; if there are multiple, each is worth the listed amount. Treasure here is only considered treasure if stolen and taken to a place for personal use or benefit outside the Palace. Brackets contain numbers of rooms that hallways lead too.

1. BLOOD STAINED GOD-FOYER

Enter through the shack’s only doorway. The chamber is twice the size it should be. Brown-red stains cover the stone floor and fill the foyer with the metallic smell of spilled blood. Statues at the corner of each room shaped like strange creatures (400sp). They whisper your secrets as you approach them. Three hallways yawn before you--one on the north wall, one on the east, and one on the west [2, 3, 4]. From the ceiling hang 400 tecpatl daggers (20sp).

2. Heliograph Epics of All Heavens.

Western hallway spits you out into a chamber the size of a small island. Thousands of 60-foot tall, 120-foot wide stone tablets (1,000sp) lined up in rows. Each has been burned with heliographs telling the complete history of the Hunter’s High Heaven and the Heaven Bless’d & Burned. Touching one allows you to see that moment in history play out in real time. 1-in-100 chance you find the moment in history you are looking for, increasing to a 1-in-2 chance if guided by god tender. Where are the missing moments in history? Stairs in center of chamber descend underground [5].

3. Pyre-Beds.

Eastern hallway leads you to god tender living quarters. At any time there are 60+1d20 god tenders sleeping on litteral pyres. The flames are golden and do not burn, but instead lull one into a sleep where they can lucidly dream at will. Some god-tenders are talking, others kissing, others making featherwork. No privacy anywhere to be had. Somewhere, someone is throat singing. A stone hallway leads eastwards [6].

4. Throne Baths of the High-King.

Northern hallway takes one to the audience chambers. Massive, with marble galleries on the sides for Midnight Plumed and god tenders to watch. Thirteen pools, each 30 feet in diameter, cover the ground. At the back is one bigger than the rest, with a throne built into part of it. Here, the kings listen, decree, and bathe. Bathing in any pool heals all missing hit points and makes one weep blood into the water. If bathing without permission, be cursed, and reduced to 1 hit point until service has been performed in gods’ name. Four hallways stand in the back of this chamber [8, 9, 10, 11]. 1-in-6 chance of audience currently being held.

5. Symbol Graves, Untended & Unworn

Down the stairs one will find a stone antechamber, barely lit, cold, smelling of blood, urine, and sex. God tenders are only allowed to enter here when their eyes have been stitched shut, and can only crawl on hands and knees. Decorating the walls are countless Heavenly Gears. See Appendix A for a listing of them, and tables to create your own. Touching a Heavenly Gear requires a save vs magic or be possessed by the god’s dying moments. Fly into a rampage, killing everything as death pains wrack your body and the apocalypse claims your mind.

6. Bloodletting Sanctity Chamber

Yawning eastern hallway leads to individual chambers encased in stone half-domes. Smells of wet meat and flayed skin. Weeping comes from different chambers. Inside, god tenders lean over bowls and penetrate themselves with needles and slice their genitals to create god-wine. Drink the fresh blood and reset your miracle die as if it had never been used. All god tenders here are  too high to recognize others.

7. Sealed Gate of the Hanging Garden of the High King

The gate is broken to pieces and scattered throughout the rooms. Each room has a 6-in-6 chance of holding a gate piece, requiring a thorough search to find, going down by 1 for each piece found. Arrange all six pieces in the Throne Baths of the High-King [4] to create the gate. Instructions and spells needed to activate it found in the Heliograph Epics of All Heavens [2].

8. Torture Room of the Four Oracles.

The most western hallway leads to a stone chamber sectioned into quarters with reed walls. Within each room lies a Handless Priest, mutilated, filling their quarter with the stentch of death. God tenders come in, torture, and ruin these oracle liches to extract futures like venom from a snakebite. Inflict 20 points of damage onto a Handless Priest and roll on the Prophecy table. Receiving a prophecy more than once indicates an increase in truth and urgency with each hearing.

1. Gurgle the blood of a god and spit it on the eggs of a woman and know then at that moment a thousand breaths will pass between the setting of the Half-Sun and the rising of the moon and the murder of your enemy.
2. Feathers sprouting from your ears will let you know that the Mystics are near and when they are near they will sneer and say to themselves let us take that one’s heart and bring it here, to our home which all things fear.
3. Obsidian glass will cut your feet. Look into the blood then. Stir it with your finger. A flower will blossom. A dragon will roar. On the horizon will sit what you search for, or something worse still.
4. Listen. Look with eyes unclouded by faith. Forgive her, and she will let you live, and will see you home.

9. Union of the Palace Heavens

Hallway opens up on a great cathedral. Featherworks decorate walls and shrines (100sp). Underneath a sky window and situated in a beam of bright light are four clay tablets that stand as tall as men. Each is emblazoned with another god. Smell incense and entrails as you touch them and are warped to one of the four Palace Heavens [13, 14, 15, 16].

10. Heart of the Radiant Heretic

This dark chamber is filled with the stank of animal breath and the sweet smell of pollinated flowers. He hangs from the far back wall. From the reeds sprout four flowers and from each flower blossoms a tiger’s head and each head holds a different limb. The Radiant Saint hangs from them, he who led to the High-King’s death and the High-Queen’s theft, impaled upon three glass spears through his chest (1000sp). Speaks not, the Radiant Saint, beyond a prayer to Tiamat. Gods will torture him for pleasure and god tenders do as ordered. If presented with a Radiant Mystic, he will awaken and tell them what must be done to free him--a kiss from a Dragon Wife and the forgiveness of a Medicine Drinker.

11. Prison Where Hells are Made

A vertical prison lined with stairs. Feather-decorated obsidian bars slice the hands of those who touch them without the Steward-King’s summons. Inside each cell is a criminal who has gone too far to be tried by the masses. Or, they know secrets they should not, and draconic heresy has envenomed their hearts and minds. Each cell is small, fits one body, must stand and not sit. Piss and shit mix with flowers up and down the prison. Fed honey, water, blood, and executed flesh.

12. Where Sunbeams Meet and Guide

Above the Throne Baths of the High-King [4] sits a sun-window. Stand underneath it, pray to the gods, and be born to any location in the Heaven Bless’d that the sun touches. Happens fast, but at a cost. Skin burned badly, eyes blinded for an hour, and body radiates an authoritative lume. No encounter rolls are made here.

13. Half-Grave of the Half-Sun

A vast lake of liquid gold stretches out before you. No borders, horizon burns with sun flares. Islands of giant, gilded skulls float and are covered in weapons sheathed hilt-deep(500sp). The sky is the color of a bruise. It is hot, sweltering, and the air smells of a forge. Half-Sun Sintotec walks across the surface, inspecting weapons. God tenders follow after him, their legs gilded and their bodies horribly burned. When they die they become gilded skull-islands and Sintotec sticks weapons into them as reminders. 1-in-6 chance standing on liquid sun every round to die as your body is vaporized from the heat. If without a guide, Half-Sun Sinotec will engage in combat on sight.

14. The Sobbing Grotto

Mangroves flooded by water a foot deep. Butterflies dance from branch to branch and perfume the air with jasmine and rose. The deeper one goes into the mangroves, the thicker the water becomes until it transforms totally into blood. Weeping can be heard from virtually every part of this Palace Heaven. Its source is Veiled Weeper Allalotl, sitting in a tree, weeping, her god tenders catching the blood dripping from her feet and staring into it for prophecy and blessing (5000sp). If without a guide, her Heavenly Gear swarms you.

15. Empty Space Beyond

From here, one can see all of creation. The Shattered Crowns, the Ashpits, the Pyre Cities, the Radiant Auroras--all of it. You are falling. The air is cold. You are thousands of miles above the surface of heaven, but you will not lose consciousness as you fall. Rare is it that Gatekeeper Metamm can be found here, and when you finally hit the ground, you wake up inside of the Union of the Palace Heavens, hardly a minute having passed since you left [9].

16. Where Crucifixions are Worshipped

Behold Blood Dream Xoash. He is crucified before you in a chamber black. The only lights come from the torches that hang from the crucified corpses of executed prisoners that surround the god. He sleeps and will not be awoken through any less than the death of the host the symbols are divinely welded too. Crucified prisoners who still draw breath sleep as well, their dreams feeding the great Blood Dream. Feathers pin their hands into stone, wood, and glass. They stretch deep into the abyss. God tenders kneel before their god and will guide anyone who appears, guided or not, into the Hanging Garden of the Blood Dream with drugs and auto-sacrifice.