Session Report: Jackal of the Hateful Sands

Ran a game today using my following rule hacks:

• Mancy
• COMMANDMENT Spells
• Psionics & Disciple Class
• Commandment Character Creation
• The Sphinx Class

Players were a Sphinx (Tamunos), a Magic-User using Commandment spells (Hakim), and a Disciple (Nehab). All were 4th level.

This was the interest post I put up for the session:

God-King Ishgal, Who Swallows Seas, has grown tired of bandits hunting the borders of his glorious Asur, the City of Twisted Metals.

Heading these bandits is the Jackal of the Hateful Sands--a mysterious warlock who has communed with strange daemons to learn the secrets of arcane spells many.

He has sent you lot to go and find the Jackal, take the head from his shoulders, and to bring the Jackal's spellbook back so that the Radiant Ishgal may consume its many pages of knowledge.

A guide has led you through the Mirror-Shattered Mountains and to the treacherous Bloodstone Pass. She will take you no further; the jackal rules everything in the pass and beyond. But your mission is granted and you have no choice but to follow through or die

Tyler Smith 

SESSION REPORT

They started at the Bloodstone Pass, a camel each, with the guide--an elderly woman, seemingly blind but a savant of this area--leaving them to do what must be done. The players came up with a plan: travel down the pass and let themselves be bait, trusting in their spells and powers to save them and to reverse track the Jackal's agents.

As they traveled, Nehab at the front, Hakim behind her, and Tamunos flying in the air above the pass, Tamunos noticed the stone by an outcropping ruffling. Thinking it dangerous, he began to fly lower. At the same time, Nehab used a wild talent to see danger in the future, and saw bolas and bandits descending on them from the ravine's lips. This prophecy proved true, as a bola missed Tamunos, and a whistle echoed along the pass. Nehab told Hakim of this vision and used another wild talent to project the memory into the sphinx's mind. Tamunos grabbed spell components off of his camel and ascended again.

Both Nehab and Hakim hit on the right side of the ravine, opposite where Tamunos had seen the "ruffling stone", and hid with their camels in front of them. Hakim cast a spell as well. Taking a skull anointed with sacred oil, he hid it behind a cut of rock veiled in shadow and covered it with his cloak. This allowed him to cast the commandment spell Anointed Skull's Midnight Whispers. The whispering of the dead oozed from Hakim as a protective field, and he went to hide alongside Nehab.

Tamunos foolishly ignored the vision projected into his mind and flew to the ravine lip to cast a spell. From behind an arrow struck him, interrupting the casting. Then three bolas flew at him. Two were dodged, but one wrapped around his wings, causing him to fall 40 feet to the ground, taking near fatal damage. Then the bandits reached the ravine's lip, bows and bola at the ready.

Nehab looked to the sole bandit on the right side of the ravine and used a psionic ability, Persona Swap to switch her mind with the bandit's own. As the bandit was put into Nehab's body and was hostile towards Hakim, the whispers of the dead fucked with his head, sending him into a horrible fight and thus unable to act. In the same breath, Hakim put a crown of twigs and feathers on his head, casting Begut the Nest of Crowns. A massive murder of crows was conjured forth by this, blotting out the sun and descending on everyone involved. The chipping made it impossible to communicate, the black wings beating made it near impossible to move and see, and nothing anyone had could deal with this super-murder. During this, Tamunos mixed the blood of his wounds with strange ointments, beginning the casting of Gift Them Their Misfortune.

One bandit did nothing. The one beside it tried to whistle, but the sound was drowned out. The third jumped into the ravine. They disappeared, teleporting to the ground safely, before throwing back their hood. Inscribed on their forehead was a disciple's tattoo, glowing with light. The bandit's eyes were sewn shut, but their third eye allowed them to know where its prey hid. Nehab, in the body of the other bandit, jumped off the ravine, committing suicide. Her persona then smacked back into her body, and the bandit's back to its corpse, killing it. Hakim than began to move towards where Tamunos fell.

Nolan Brewer

Tamunos stood, as only his wings were bound, and reunited with Hakim amidst the murder. Hakim used a bronze dagger to cut the bola off, and Tamunos strode forward. Here, he ran into the Bandit-Disciple, who took a step back and cloned himself. The clone drew forth a bronze scimitar and, surrounded by the endless murder of crows, prepared for battle. But Hakim's aura of whispers was still working, infecting the Bandit-Disciple's mind. They dropped their scimitar, allowing for Tamunos to move past them and apply his spell to the clone's originator.

It dealt 22 points of damage, doubling the hit points Tamunos had lost. The bandit's head, not its neck, turned like a dish rag being wringed out. Then the entire body exploded into a blood smear, the equipment destroyed, and the clone dissipating. The two bandits, psionically sensing their friend was dead, fled. 

Hakim removed his crown, dissipating the murder of crows. They searched the suicided bandit's body, finding a dagger, some food and water, and a bronze necklace incribed with a love poem. Hakim used his geomancy to see the past of the Bloodstone Pass. He saw:

1. Bandits hunting caravans.
2. Bandits riding out to war against Azur.
3. Three merchants being sacrificed by the Jackal of the Hateful Sands.
4. The Jackal of the Hateful Sands summoning forth daemons and angels and imbuing them into the stone.
5. A perfectly hidden location just outside the entrance of the Bloodstone Pass.
6. A great opening at the mountain's summit that bandits used as a second entrance into their base.

They returned there to lick their wounds and plan. At the same time, Nehab used a psionic power to stalk the earlier bandits. She discovered a massive complex of caves where the bandits hid, alongside countless women, children, and elderly.

The made no plan the first night, but at dawn they heard the Jackal's voice booming through the Mirror-Shattered Mountains, calling for Ishgar's dogs to show themselves. Obviously, they did not.

The next day, they made a plan. Hakim and Nehab would stalk up to the mountain summit for recon, while Tamunos licked his wounds.

It worked, for the most part. Hyenas, strangely enough, almost found Tamunos but did not and ascended the mountain. Night fell and Hakim/Nehab hid behind massive boulders, 30 feet or so away from the broken mountain's peak. All rocks had been cleared for that 30 feet, making it impossible to approach without someone somehow seeing them. At night, too, the cackling of hyena could be heard, and their loping shapes seen in the darkness. Nehab hatched another plan.

She bound her arms and legs, and had Hakim gag her. Then she Persona Swapped with a hyena. The gagged body of Nehab could not move, and Hakim cast Bare the Slave's Heart on her, enslaving the hyena's mind and keeping her quiet. Hyena-Nehab stalked to the mountain's peak, only to see the Jackal of the Hateful sands floating above the secret entrance, rotating slowly in the air. The Jackal attempted to cast some spell on Hyena-Nehab, and was satisfied in thinking it worked, though it did not. Hyena-Nehab raced back down and saw, now that the eyes of the hyena in this pack were all gold in color. They were bewitched. Nehab, not wanting to fall under this curse, returned to her original body.

During this, Tamunos affixed a stone stele to the ground, casting To This Point, Bring the East and Move the Warlord's Statue, creating a protective zone for himself as well as an ornate statue in the God-King's image with which to protect himself.

Martin Deschambault

Meanwhile, Hakim cast Nail to Them the Nomad's Curse. On it he wrote the sacrifice of each merchant, thus giving the spell three wrongs, onto a scroll of papyrus. Then he nailed it to the territory of the Jackal, and the two fled back down the mountain.

Strange, they found it, when they saw the Jackal floating over there hideout! They hid, and Nehab tried to use False Input to trick the Jackal into seeing something in the distance. The Jackal turned, and they moved to get back to their hideout. But the Jackal's head turned 180* back towards them. FOOLS! he screamed. Dust began to rise into the air, and battle began.

Tamunos took the sphinx's lion shape and bounded out of the hideout with the statue close behind. He commanded it to attack, and the statue reared back with its spear.

Hakim had in his possession a lighting-rich opal. He crushed it in his hand and sent a lightning bolt hurtling at the Jackal alongside the spear coming from the other direction. The Jackal rose both hands, one towards each attack. The lightning smashed against an invisible barrier and scattered, but not before singing the entirety of the Jackal's left arm. The spear stopped mid-flight and turned to dust, alongside the statue.

Though hurt, the Jackal of the Hateful Sands was not defeated. And he showed the party how he earned his name. Sands stormed around him, then coalesced into a massive swarm of scorpions, scarabs, hornets, and spiders, as he cast Transfigure Dust to Vermin. The swarms lashed out. Tamunos's stele attracted many of them, protecting himself. Nehab was able to fend many off psionically, and thus only took 6 points of damage. Hakim, however, was overtaken in a flash. When the swarm scattered, all that was left was desiccated flesh, torn clothing, and devoured bones. Haki was dead.

Nehab hid, going into a psionic attack mode but failing to break through the Jackal's mental defenses. Tamunos spread his wings and went to attack the Jackal. He did not get close. The Jackal moved a hand in a circle, carving a moat into the ground under him that would have to be flown over. In the moat coalesced the forms of countless man-eating crocidiles, courtesy of the Set Loose the Crocodiles spell. The Jackal also tried to place a curse on Tamunos, but the magic-resistance of being a sphinx protected him.

Nehab appeared, let loose another psionic attack. This one broke through, but just barely. Tamunos conjured forth another Warlord Statue underneath the Jackal. But before they could clash again, the sun rose, and the Jackal's phantasm faded, ending combat.

Hakim dead, the two decided to flee, knowing their secret location had been compromised. They were hounded by mustang-riding bandits and a clan of hyena. However they found reenforcements from God-King Ishgar, Who Swallows Sea, and the bandits were repelled. When they finally returned to the capital, expecting punishment, they found Ishgar beside himself with joy. He had been scrying on the battle, after all, and saw that Nomad's Curse take effect. Weakened by the lightning bolt and psionic attacks, the Jackal of the Hateful Sands died on the third day, his soul curse-blackened and his flesh dessicated. With the Jackal removed, his forces put the bandits and the people they cared for to the sword, and Ishgar bound the daemons and angels to his service.

Blake Rottinger

Thus ended the one-shot.

Overall went well! The "looseness" of the spells and powers led to some creative works, and the combats were fun, as were the little stealth missions the players attempted. Can't wait to do another!

COMMANDMENT: Magic-User Spells Based Off Egyptian + Mesopotamian + Grecian Magic

Magic-Users in COMMANDMENT are different than those in classical OD&D. Their magics stems from the cultural mythologies of Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, and Egypt. They were not casting spells like light or hold portal. As useful as these may be while traversing a world Iron-plagued and rotting away, those are not the tools these magicians had.

A future post will be done for Cleric spells, as they are things dictated by omens, celestial events, and long prayers. Meanwhile, Magic-User spells are those sorceries learned by mankind from sphinx and spirit.

Below, 36 spells are offered for any game, really, if you want to add some spice to a warlock's life. Keep in mind all spells require a save vs Wands (or whatever your magic save is in your game). Research for these spells was done through a smattering of historical sources, none more valuable than Egpytian Magic by E. A. Wallis Budge. These spells are not intended to be 1 for 1 recreations of Egyptian/Mesopotamian magic, but instead spells inspired by these folklores.

Likely in the future, I'll turn a bunch of folk magic from these books, as well as key spells from the original MU spell list into enchanted items or potions. Easy treasure, really.

Note: " indicates multiply # by 10. So 1" is 10 feet

by Yeve Drovossekova

FIRST LEVEL

1. Anointed Skull's Midnight Whispers
2. Bare the Slave's Heart
3. Gift Them Their Misfortune
4. Nail to Them the Nomad's Curse
5. Tongue that Dream-Speaks
6. Ward the Evil Eye

SECOND LEVEL

1. Beget the Nest of Crowns
2. Blind the Readers of These Spells
3. Dusk that Settles On Mud
4. Keep Dead the Dead
5. Move the Warlord's Statue
6. To this Point, Bring the East

THIRD LEVEL

1. Exorcise the Hated Evil
2. Gather Forth All the World's Waves
3. Loosen Soul
4. Set Loose the Crocodiles
5. Spreading of the Repelling Minerals
6. Transfigure Dust to Vermin

FOURTH LEVEL

1. Block of Slaughter
2. From the Heaven's Eye, See Sin
3. Mold the Waxen Sacrifice
4. Paint a Curse Upon the Tomb
5. Passage Through the Underworld 
6. Ruin That which Ruins Me

FIFTH LEVEL

1. Evil Eye
2. Fashion the Chimera
3. Favor
4. Rule
5. Upon Me I Bestow the Strength of the Dead
6. Walk Again, Those Countless Dead

SIXTH LEVEL

1. Chain One's Fate to a Demon's Own
2. Destiny, Rewritten
3. Idols of Bestial Gods
4. In the Clay Container, Life Reborn
5. Serve
6. Unluck of the Doomsday

by Bartlomiej Gawel

Anointed Skull's Midnight Whispers (1st Level)

After anointing an undamaged skull in droplets of water from the Godsblood, hide it in a place where neither sun nor moon nor starlight will ever touch it. Upon casting this spell, the skull will begin to whisper. Said whispers ooze from you. Anything that is hostile towards you within 1" is terrorized by the whispers until they leave said radius. A creature terrorized can only commit simple acts, such as running, screaming, or untrained attacks. The morning after this spell is cast, the skull is destroyed and the spell ends.

Bare the Slave's Heart (1st Level)

Take the preserved heart of a slave and wrap it in hempen cord when you cast this spell. The next creature who touches this heart barehanded will become a slave to the spell's caster until the heart is destroyed or the magic dispelled. A slave will not do anything to harm itself or any friends it has, but will perform any manner of menial task for its master. An undead creature, or anything that is barbarous, will be immune to this enchantment.

Beget the Nest of Crowns (2nd Level)

Affix upon your brow a crown of twigs and feathers as a part of casting this spell. Birds without number will then cloud the heavens above and descend. All within 60" is considered obscured, ranged missiles will not hit their marks, no one can move more than 1" per round, and all sound is drowned by their chirping. These birds swarm until somehow killed en masse or dispelled. This spell is useless in doors.

Block of Slaughter (4th Level)

Slice your hand open with a ceremonial dagger and take 1d6 damage when you cast this spell. Point your hand towards a creature that can see it. Said creature will exert all of its efforts to kill as many creatures as it can other than you during the next 6 rounds.

Blind the Readers of These Spells (2nd Level)

Upon your spell book, light incense when you cast this spell. When someone attempts to decipher your spell book, or attempts to cast a spell that lets them do so, they will be blinded for 1d6 days time. Even a creature with no training in magick trying to read your spellbook will fall victim to this spell. After 1 creature is cursed in this manner, the spellbook is no longer protected.

Chain One's Fate to a Demon's Own (6th Level)

You must know the true name of a demon to cast this spell. You must also anoint a creature in strange oil as a part of this spell's casting. The anointed creature is possessed with a demon whose true name you announce. The demon will lie sleeping within the anointed creature. Should the creature ever die, the demon shall be released to do battle with all that is hostile towards you until it is slain or banished.

 by Eugene Medvediev

Destiny, Rewritten (6th Level)

As a part of this spell's casting you must know the birth place of a creature within 10". The creature's birth place is changed, and thus its entire life path is changed. The creature's memories are rewritten, as is their personality and alignment, and they disappear, reappearing somewhere else in the world.

Dusk that Settles On Mud (2nd Level)

Sprinkle the dust of a black ore onto clay, mud, soil, brick, limestone, or any other earthen substance. It will turn into constricting, hard, black metal and shrink slowly in size. A 1" x 1" x 1" area of earth can be enchanted in this way. After 1 round, it will have shrunken down to the size of a pebble.

Evil Eye (5th Level)

When you cast this spell, one of your eyes goes blind. A creature that you look upon when you cast this spell is cursed by the evil eye. You can see what it sees through one of its eyes, but only see, not hear, feel, or hear thoughts. At the end of every day, the creature must roll 1d20. On a 1, the die size reduces. When the die size reduces below a 1d4, the creature dies, and sight is returned to your blind eye.

Exorcise the Hated Evil (3rd Level)

Grab the throat of a barbarous or possessed creature and press a polished opal to its forehead. Pull the opal back, and all evil from the creature will exit it in the form of black, ichor-filled vomit. Afterwards, if the creature was barbarous or possessed, it is no more. Likewise, if the creature was cursed, it is cursed no more.

Fashion the Chimera (5th Level)

Take the body of a dead man and lay the corpse of an animal upon it. Only then may you cast this spell. The two bodies fuse in a way of your choosing. The new creature is risen as a chimera that will faithfully serve you. It has as many HD as you do, and has one aspect of the animal that it is fused with, such as an eagle's wings, a lion's claws, or a shark's water breath. If the chimera is ever exorcised, it dies instantly.

Favor (5th Level)

This is one of the words of power. Utter it, and one creature whose hand you hold will be able to cast any 1 spell you have memorized. Once cast, they will be compelled by fate to do you a single favor.

From the Heaven's Eye, See Sin (4th Level)

Stare into the sun when you cast this spell and do not look away until you wish it to end. While staring into the sun, you shall see anything that the sun could see, in any part of the word. You can see it as close as if you were currently 10" above ground. At night, this spell does naught, and it cannot be used in doors.

Gather Forth All the World's Waves (3rd Level)

Lift your hands and sing to all the seas you cannot sea. A 3" radius of space around you is filled with churning, crashing waves of white-crested green water. Creatures in the water begin to drown, and thus can not speak or cast spells. If they fail their save, they are picked up and moved to random locations, taking a number of damage dice equal to your levels at the end of every round. Thus, at 6th level, they will take 6d6 damage, and at 7th, they will take 7d6 damage. After 1 round, the waves dissipate, returning to their distant homes.

Gift Them Their Misfortune (1st Level)

When you are missing hit points, suffer 1 damage as you smear the wound with bewitched ointments of your own make. Then smear the blood-oil produced on another creature. It will lose twice the hit points you have lost.

Idols of Bestial Gods (6th Level)

You must have fashioned from clay an animal the size of a small hut before casting this spell. This spell is cast on this the idol. The idol turns into a flesh-and-blood version of itself, intelligent, sentient, and speaking all languages. It has HD equal to your total levels + 5. It will serve you loyally as a sage or as a warrior. It has 9 thac0 and deals 3d6 damage with its attacks. The animal has all the traits of whatever animal you sculpted it after. When it dies, is dispelled, or is exorcised, it turns into clay and shatters.

by Victoria Dame

In the Clay Container, Life Reborn (6th Level)

You must have access to the corpse of a creature with its head attached before you can cast this spell. As a part of the casting, cover the corpse in clay. The next round, the creature will be reborn, healed of all ailments and wounds. 

Keep Dead the Dead (2nd Level)

Gather the blood of a wounded creature and imbibe it when you cast this spell. The creature cannot ever be brought back from the dead, as its body will turn to sour soil upon death, unfit for the hosting of a soul.

Loosen Soul (3rd Level)

Work a short ceremony that loosens your soul from your body. It remains so for 6 rounds. While your soul is loosened, it can slip out of your body and move up to 2" away, sliding through walls or doors. You see and hear whatever is within the same area or space as your soul.

Mold the Waxen Sacrifice (4th Level)

Present a waxen figure you have made as a part of casting this spell. Affix to the figure via nail a piece of another living creature. Whatever the figure feels so too will the living creature, though it will suffer no other ill effects from the figure's defacing. 10 times may the figure be manipulated before this spell ends.

Move the Warlord's Statue (2nd Level)

A statue of animated stone constructs itself. It stands twice your height and is decorated and painted to mimic that of a famed warlord. It will follow in your footsteps indefinitely, or until you command it to take a single action. If that action is to attack, it will deal 5d6 damage to that which fails its save. If that action is to defend, it will absorb the damage from the next attack launched upon its ward. If is to lift, it will lift one thing weighing 10,000 gold coins or less. After any of these acts, it will turn into mud and disintegrate.

Nail to Them the Nomad's Curse (1st Level)

Write upon papyrus the wrongs a creature has committed and nail them to its home or lair. For every wrong written, the creature will be unable to return to its home and unable to rest anywhere else. At the dawn of every day, one of the wrong's disappears. Creatures who are unable to rest due to this curse take 1d6 damage at the dawn of every day, and they cannot rest to regain hit points.

Paint a Curse Upon the Tomb (4th Level)

As a part of this spell, drench an object in the same paints used to adorn the tombs of god-kings and god-queens. Any creature that takes the object other than you is curs'd. Said creature rolls twice on all die rolls and takes the worse result. If this would result in a failure for any reason, the creature suffers 1d6 damage. This curse persists until somehow dispelled, or if the curs'd object is destroyed by fire.

Passage Through the Underworld (4th Level)

Cover your ears and close your eyes as a part of this spell's casting. Then, walk forward. Your body will descend underground, to a place no living or undead creature may follow. The following round, appear anywhere within 36" of your original location (up or down). You know exactly where you will go. When you emerge, one ghost emerges with you, and will aggressively haunt wherever you appear.

Ruin That which Ruins Me (4th Level)

You can cast this spell only when you die. That which kills you dies for 1 round, resurrecting after that round with hit points equal to its total hit dice.

Rule (5th Level) 

This is one of the words of power. Utter it and a legion of 20 6th level fighting-men (Myrmidons) will gather to you in 1d4 days. They will be loyal to you for one battle, after which they will disperse randomly into the world.

By Ian Barker

Serve (6th Level)

You utter a word of power. This utterance forces the world to serve you. You can use this spell to part water up to 10" deep, or lower the water level of a body of water by 50%. You can create weather of any kind, or raise up great walls 10" tall and 50" wide. Casting this spell allows only one of these feats to be achieved.

Set Loose the Crocodiles (3rd Level)

A moat 2" deep, 1" wide, and with a radius 3" away from you is suddenly carved into the earth and filled with water. If these dimensions cannot be met, then the moat tears through any non-magical obstructions to form itself. Inside of the moat, countless crocodiles. Creatures who attempt to swim or leap across must save or take 1d6 damage as they are pulled in. Creatures in the moat cannot move, and take 3d6 damage every turn until they save and can swim out. 

Spreading of the Repelling Minerals (3rd Level)

Scatter minerals strange and esoteric as a part of this spell's casting. A magical zone is created 10" by 10" by 10" in size. Any and all metal objects are thrown out of it with haste, as are weapons made of stone or bone, over the next 4 rounds.

To This Point, Bring the East! (2nd Level)

Take a stone stele and affix it into a point of your choosing when you cast this spell. The next creature that attacks you within 10" of theis stele will be drawn to destroy it instead. The stele can take 1d6 hits before it is ruined.

Tongue that Dream-Speaks (1st Level)

Split your tongue with a bronze dagger and read aloud a text before you. You need not understand it or know the language, and you have 1 round with which to read. When you are done, sleep. In your dreams you will understand all that you read and wake with a tongue healed. This spell allows you to understand even the ciphered text of other spellbooks. 

Transfigure Dust into Vermin (3rd Level)

Motes of dust are turned into lice, rats, and scorpions around you. Point to a creature. The vermin swarm them, biting and gnawing, dealing damage equal to your levels. At 6th level, this will be 6d6 damage, and at 7th, 7d6, and so on. This damage continues until the target brings fire to the vermin, or the spell is dispelled.

by Marius Bota

Unluck of the Doomsday (6th Level)

Roll 1d20 when you cast this spell, and stare at the creature whom you are cursing. On that day, the creature must succeed on its save or die. If it has less then 20 hit points, it will die no matter what.

Upon Me I Bestow the Strength of the Dead (5th Level)

You may only cast this spell while having the skull of a 4th level fighting-man (Hero) or higher in your inventory. You gain their Strength score and skill at arms, as well as the ability to use a fighting-man's magical and non-magical armors, shields, and weapons, and their thac0 for 6 rounds. 

Walk Again, Those Countless Dead (5th Level)

To cast this spell, you must have a scrap of flesh from a dead man's face. Once cast, you call forth the dead to serve you. For the number of dead animated simply roll one die for every level above the 8th the Magic-User is, thus a "Sorcerer" gets one die or from 1-6 animated dead. Note that the skeletons or dead bodies must be available in order to animate them. The spell lasts until dispelled or the animated dead are done away with.

Ward the Evil Eye (1st Level)

Cover one eye in its entirety when you cast this spell. While covered, no one may target you with a spell, but will instead target the creature nearest to you. Lasts until your eye is uncovered.

by Irina Vizhevskaya

COMMANDMENT: Creating a Character

For making characters in COMMANDMENT. These rules are loosely based off the 3 Little Brown Booklets (OD&D).  I say loosely because they're not really a complete game, but work well enough to build fun stuff out of.

The type of characters
You may end up playing.

You have four stats.

Savvy - This is your mental acuity, cleverness, guile, and skill. This also represents your ability to learn, to notice things, and to mentally adapt to the situation.

Athletics - This represents your physical ability, your coordination, your agility, and your overall constitution. A higher Athletics indicates a higher endurance, as well.

Weird - This represents how deep you are into the realms of the Weird--the occult, strangeness, how well you deal with Powers beyond your own, and all manners of things.

Oblivion - This represents how many times you can be reborn through Iron Circles before your soul peters out and turns into clay.

For the first three stats, roll 2d6 + 6. These are your attributes.

If you want, you can use the classical 6 stats, with Depredation being an added 7th (that is never rolled for). I prefer 4 stats in my games, but it doesn't ultimately matter. Anything that would target Strength/Dexterity/Constitution now targets Athletics. Anything that would target Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma now targets savvy. Anything that targets levels/exp/energy levels now targets Weird.

Damage you take is dealt to your Athletics score. When you advance in one of your classes, roll your hit die. This becomes a second pool of hit points for the purpose of making you a bit more durable. Once your hit points are out, damage goes straight to Athletics. Once Athletics hits 0, you die (and are hopefully reborn at your Iron Circle).

Some people wait at Iron Circles, even build shrines at them.
For requests of the reborn.
Or for reasons more sinister yet.

You have three saving throws.

Vs. Doom - Whenever you encounter something that will likely horrifically hurt you or maim you, save vs Doom. Traps, avalanches, sudden falls, all that stuff.

Vs. Iron - Sometimes, iron will call to you from afar, will sing to you, will sings of bloodlust, of carnage. In order to resist the mind-controlling effects of an enemy's iron, of walking through battlefields, and of exploring ruins, you will need to sometimes save vs Iron.

Vs. Wands - Spells and curses are dangerous. The wand-words of magicians, warlocks, sorcerers, and necromancers will destroy you if you are not prepared for them.

Roll 3d6 + 1 for each saving throw, down the line. In order to succeed on these rolls, a d20 roll above them is required. If the save is particularly hard, the referee will say roll with powerlessness, where you roll 2d20 and take the worse result.

A clear case of Save vs Wands.

Pick your character's class from the options below.

Fighting-Man - As it is in OD&D. One modification: every 3 levels, on a successful attack roll (1d20 vs thac0), you get an additional d6 you can roll for damage. This damage can be against any target that is within range of your current weapon.

Magic-User - As it is in OD&D. One modification: roll for a mancy. You know and can perform this. 

Cleric - As it is in OD&D. One modification: clerics do not Turn Undead but instead Turn the Barbarous. All Sea People and all Gods of Conquest are barbarous.

A COMMANDMENT magic-user.
A hidden identity prevents
the Sea People's curse from afflicting loved ones.

If you have for spells, roll for them and consult the OD&D spell chart. Spellbooks do not exist in commandment, nor do spell scrolls. Reflavor your spellbook as one of the following:

1. Tattoos sprawling over your skin.
2. Sigils and signs woven into your clothing or mask.
3. Hieroglyphics covering your many daggers and implements.
4. Words etched into a slab of lapis lazuli that you carry.
5. Symbols covering an idol, with each symbol being its own spell.
6. Scrimshawed bones that contain your secrets.

Spell scrolls come in small amounts of one of the above. For example, human hide with spiritual tattoos, stone tablets, and so on. Same for treasure maps, really.

This slab of worked bronze
Could easily be a spellbook of some sort.

When you wake up, your head is burning from a pain you can't identify. You have very little with you.

Fighting-Men Have: Two weapons of their choice, a shield, and a set of leather bands for armor (treat as leather w/ shield)

Magic-Users Have: A dagger and a spellbook.

Clerics Have: A weapon of their choice and a set of bronze panoply (treat as chain mail).

In addition, roll 1d12 and consult the table below. Your result is an item you are carrying without remembering how you got it or where it came from.

1. Anointed Skull - A skull anointed in a necromancer's oils. Can be spoken with once, and it will answer one Yes/No question before turning to dust.
2. Iron Weapon - An iron weapon that you can use. +2 to attack rolls. Save vs Wands for Barbarous reasons.
3. Olive Branch - This branch still blossoms with olives and leaves. When waved, a hostile monster of your choice that sees it will seek parley with you. The olive branch then withers and dies.
4. Bronze Menat - This menat, when played, causes Gods of Conquest to temporarily regain their sane, human minds. This will last for 6 rounds before the menat crumbles to dust.
5. Lightning-Rich Opal - This opal, as all opals are, was created when lightning struck a desert. Can be crushed to cast Lightning Bolt. 
6. Iron-Hating Stele - Etched into this stone slab are poems and prayers that remind one of the humanity within them. Once stuck into a ground, produces an invisible 300" x 300" barrier that no creature holding Iron, no one who is barbarous, and no God of Conquest can pass through for 10 rounds. Afterwards, the stele breaks into pieces.
7. Polished Looking Glass - A looking glass of silver, finely polished. Anyone who looks into it has their appearance remembered. The next person who looks into the looking glass looks exactly like the first for 10 rounds. The looking glass then becomes dull and unreflective.
8. Burning Sun Lens - This clear lens absorbs sunlight. After absorbing sunlight for a total of 2 hours, it explodes in a 20" x 20" blast. Treat this blast a fireball and the lens as destroyed in the conflaguration.
9. Poet's Scroll - This papyrus scroll has countless Achaen poems written on it. Subdued monsters, including men, who hear this scroll will roll a 12 on their morale check to become your hirelings. However, after the first creature does this, fame of your scroll transcends you and thus loses its charm.
10. Astrolabe - This bronze astrolabe is perfectly functional. It also is sentient, and will try to lead you to a certain destination. The referee rolls a d%. There is a 40% chance this leads to the place you first died, a 30% chance this leads to treasure, and a 30% chance this leads to an ambush of some sort.
11. Bronzework Bird - A bird of worked bronze. Upon closer inspection, it is a graceful prinia. When you pass a secret door, the bird will come alive and fly through it, revealing its location. Afterwards, it becomes permanently inert.
12. Lapis Lazuli Shardbook - A shard of lapis lazuli with one spell magic-user 1st level spell written on it. Treat as a spell scroll.

My favorite of the revival gifts.

The Dwarf, Elf, and Hobbit race-class variants do not exist. If your referee allows, you can be a sphinx.

Now that your character is made, keep these things in mind:

• You don't know who you are.
• You don't know where you are.
• You don't remember how you get here.
• You have an innate hatred towards the Sea People and all things barbarous.
• You have an innate distrust of iron.
• You have an innate trust of sphinx.

COMMANDMENT games begin in the Godsblood, the mouth of the deific Nile River. All around you are boats with burned out pyres filling them, and black corpses. Venture into the world and find what you have lost.

COMMANDMENT: Making a Point-Crawl & Changing Names

COMMANDMENT is me taking the literal Bronze Age Collapse and fantasizing it using Dark Souls tropes/ideas. I've decided it would best be played as a pointcrawl, meaning: dungeons connected by flux space where cool things happen.

In order to jack up the Fantasy a bit, I've decided to do some renaming of things. Some of these are based off of previous ideas, while others are corruptions of actual names, nicknames, or alternative names found across history.

POINTCRAWL GOALS

The point-crawl map for Slumbering Ursine Dunes.

COMMANDMENT has a few goals as a pointcrawl that I want it to hit. These have to be considered goals for creating a Souls-esque style of game as well.

• Every location should be utterly unique in terms of threats, treasure, lore, aesthetic, and implicit narrative.
• Every location should have no more than 3 ways of exiting it that are "safe," leaving room for outside-the-box dangerous ways to escape. This promotes linking of the points.
• Every location should either have a bossfight or climactic point that needs to be dealt with to really get the GOOD stuff from that location.
• Some locations should require other locations to visit, while a good number of locations should start out varied and open to approach.
• There needs to be a central hub area the players can go too (ala Demon Soul's hub, the Hunter's Dream in Bloodborne, the Firekeeper places in Dark Souls, and the Dilapidated Temple in Sekiro).
• Travel between points should be a mixture of abstract and concrete. Flux Space will make these areas unique. Travel between hubs should cost something somehow as well.

BUILDING COMMANDMENT AS A POINTCRAWL

Pointcrawls are pretty demanding to design, I think. Hexes can be simple and treated as dungeon rooms on a wilderness map, while a full pointcrawl has very stylized, thematic, concentrated dungeons as its points. That being said, I think starting theme first will help us here.

This requires me to begin elaborating more on the world of COMMANDMENT. This is what I have thus far.

• There is a tablet of 10 Commandments. It is utterly unknown in creation, cannot be destroyed, but can be separated.
• These 10 Commandments change the laws of the world to fit the commandments, creating curses for those that break them and miracles for those that follow them.
• Usermaatre Setepenre II, previous ruler of the Evening City, discovered this sacred tablet and used his deific magicks to rewrite it.
• After rewriting the 10 Commandments, they were split into groups of two, each given to some other force to broker piece in the face of prophecized doom.
• Each city is based off of its two commandments, save for the Sunrise City, whose Commandments are lost.
• The Sea Peoples have the lost commandments and have rewritten them, providing the power needed for their invasion to have the success it does now.
• Players will need to collect the Commandments, reassemble the Sacred Slab, and choose what/how to rewrite them in order to change the world's destiny. Or they can destroy them, somehow, or use them to make themselves god-kings, or whatever.
• City names change a lot. Right now, the cities with the commandments have a naming pattern of the Seat of the Commandments of X & Y instead of proper names. Nicknames are given based on old prophecy, relating the city to a time of day, as well as a single word offered by Usermaatre Setepenre II to call the people of that city.

So we have here, from this outline, a minimum of 5 Cities to serve as hubs, plus the Denyen Isles--home of the Sea People. That's 6 points so far.

We're going to need some points for things beyond that. Libya & Syria are destroyed, so the Horn of Africa will be another point. The Great Green--this worlds name for the Mediterranean--needs 1-3 points in it as well, or maybe a generator to create points here. So right now that puts us at a minimum of 8 points and a maximum of 11. The Steppes we won't deal with in COMMANDMENT, nor will we deal with whatever life lies too far north of the Great Green to really impact this.

I want a few more points too, just as open-air what-ifs for right now. I think the Great Green itself could just be a mega-point, but we'll have one more point of interest in it as well, so settling on 2 from there.

Some of these cities I imagine like Anor Londo--cathedral meets ghost town.

So, to recap, a glossary of locations for COMMANDMENT:

• The Godsblood - Grave of Heroes. This is the massive river is the renamed, deific Nile River. This is the player's opening hub--the mouth of the Godsblood, a sacred place where hero corpses end up after being put to river or sea. Allows for travel to 4/5 of the Seats or the Great Green.
• Evening's Marches - The Seats of the Commandments of Authority & Conspiracy - City of the Masyreen. Renamed Pi-Ramses, it is here that the God-Prince Usermaatre Setepenre III fights his endless war against the Sea Peoples.
• Sunset's Cradle - The Seats of the Commandments of Art & Lies - City of the Achaens. Renamed Pylos. Ruled by twin Oracles--one who channels the Sun, the other the Horizon. Divinations are inscribed onto pottery, weapons, fabrics, and skin here, and are used as currency.
• Noon's Empire - The Seats of the Commandments of Ancestry & Trade - City of the Azuhinum. Renamed Asur. Ruled by the Queen of Heaven, a witch-queen from future eons. It is a solid tyranny with an army unmatched that has utterly conquered Sunrise. 
• Morning's Chains - The Seats of the Commandments of Slavery & Truth - City of the Yisra'el. Renamed Israel. Ruled by Shelohmoh, a man who mastered the art of chaining divinity, and thus has created a city of angels, smokeless fire, and demons. Miracles were once worked in the streets; knowledge is gathered here en masse.
• Sunrise's Funeral - The Seats of the Lost Commandments - City of the Bab-ll. Renamed Babylon. The Commandments here have been stolen, and Noon's Empire has replaced their leader with a vicious deific dragon, the Marduk. The people, oppressed, have access to Iron.
• Denyen Isles - The Seats of the Commandments of Conquest & Iron. The dark home of the Sea Peoples. Utterly Barbarous in all ways. To set sail for here is to likely die in the Great Green, as its location is obscured by magick & heretical belief.
• The Great Green - War's Endless Sea. A massive body of water that connects all of these different, spread out lands. From the far west came the Sea Peoples.
• Santorini - Haunt of Gods. Gods of Conquest flock here for reasons unknown. An isle of monsters, ghouls, and other barbarous things and who knows just how many secrets.
• The Pyramids - Ancient pyramids built by god-kings long past. Inside of each are secrets old, and riches true. Consider this like a DLC/expanse area to explore.
• Ri-A - Where All Skies Meet. My thought up "Final location," which is literally the interior of the sun where all horizons lead. Maybe it's here that the Commandments are rewrit.

So now we have 11 nodes. Now for each node, we need the following:

• Simple overview of location.
• Encounter tables.
• Treasure, armor, and weapon  with fluff descriptions.
• NPCs.
• Commandments.
• Level layouts.
• Factions.

Level layouts is the hardest thing on this list. I'm considering pushing flux-space up harder. Every point is a hub of more points (probably between 6-10) connected by Flux Space. Each sub-point is treated like either a miniature dungeon (no more than a few floors) or a strange, complex dungeon room. They will be laid out in a way that you need to do certain things to progress to certain rooms, with hidden connections found between important places.

There's something else that needs to be addressed too: making everything have gone to shit.

Dark Souls Ruin

In every soulsborne game, the would has gone to shit. The decisions of the player(s) determines if the world heals, stays as shit, or something new happens, each with nuance that makes everything a somewhat grey choice.

Monsters, boss fights, and NPCs can be used to show ruin as well. See: High Lord Wolnir from DS3

That being said, we need ruin to come to this world. Luckily, we easily have it in the form of Sea Peoples and Iron.

The glossary of points higher up in this post describes things as they were before the Sea Peoples invasions began in earnest, and before iron-working became more mainstream. Now, with Iron making people Barbarous and the Sea Peoples constant attacks, much of the world is fucked. Some ideas right now are:

• Evening's Marches is mostly barren of life, with literally everyone being turned into a soldier and sent into war. Filled with Barbarous run aways, weird mystics, rebels, and the twisted palace of the God-King.
• Sunset's Cradle has been plagued with apocalyptic divination. Many people have fled, and those that remain are either trying to complete prophecies, prevent prophecies, or are becoming ever more brutal in their rituals to create prophecies.
• Noon's Empire has no friendly souls there. Everyone is oppressed and hateful or oppressed and broken. A rot is spreading across the empire, the cracks this weakness creates are seeing Gods of Conquest and other threats slowly overtaking her.
• Morning's Chains no longer is a place of masters-and-slaves. The deific slaves have finally revolted with the power of Iron behind them. A place caught in a very supernatural, curse-fueld, Hell-on-Earth stylized civil war.
• Sunrise's Funeral is seeing massive amounts of Barbarous rebels and Gods of Conquest pop up. It is the most dangerous place to venture of the 5 Seats because of this.

That covers the "normal" places. The others are pretty self-explanatory, given COMMANDMENT'S backdrop.

So in the end, we have points to create, a format for creating them, and compelling reasons to go there. Now all that's left is creating each one (which will take a long time, I'm sure), and to establish some more concepts, namely:

• What exactly are the 10 Commandments.
• Potential character classes.
• Making a character/running this stuff as an actual game.
• Lots and lots and lots of item descriptions written and rewritten for consistency.

COMMANDMENT: On the Depredations of Iron

Based off of Coins & Scrolls Iron Gates/Dark Souls project and this spin-off blogpost I did here.

Iron is, perhaps, the greatest poison the world has ever known. When mankind, or adamuh, first crawled out of the mud and grasped it, what flooded their minds was the brilliance of warcraft and the baseless joys of pillaging, of conquest, of new fangs chewing up predators of old.

When mankind touched bronze, however, something different flowed forth. Protection from the elements, from evils, from the gods themselves--mankind no longer needed to be slaves but could now be rulers themselves. Those that touched iron were killed, their tools thrown into the Great Green. Or maybe humanity simply left, content to flee the hell they'd created to reconnect with Earth herself.

Regardless of which history is true, iron has returned to the world. The Sea Peoples march across coasts and sail across the Great Green with naught but ruby-sanguine left behind them. They topple just to topple. They kill just to kill. The Depredations of Iron has overtaken them and brutality foams at the lip.

Mercy not Iron knows.

DEPREDATIONS OF IRON: AN EFFECT

First, there are Commandments to Iron, hidden away in the Denyen Isles. These Commandments state thus:

• All Iron is but blood, and thus Iron is reaping, Iron is slaying, Iron is culling.
• Thou whom holds Iron must deny not Bloods Flow, for to deny is invitation to death & everlasting sin.

So long as these Commandments remain writ in stone, so too will Iron persist, seducing those with secrets of its forging. But it is not malicious. These Commandments are naught if not true. Iron is forged by burning the world and reshaping it into a tool for one's gain. Whilst bronze involves no alchemy, iron does, and in the transformation it is ensured that whatever love the dust of Earth has for living creatures is stripped, leaving behind white-hot hatred that must be used. But it is not malicious; no more than the starving wolf's fangs or the mother bear's claws. All things are weapons. Know this too.

A brutal beauty inherit only to iron.

Iron tools provide a +2 bonus to any roll made with them (so attack rolls for weapons, for example). If it's armor, gain a +4 AC bonus. This is hefty, but Iron is rare. The armies of this Bronze World destroy Iron with alchemy and zodiac-born fires to keep it from seducing them. Battlefields can be seen from vast distances, glittering with silver, violet, emerald, and golden flames.

Iron serves as Experience as well. When a creature dies, the Iron in its blood is freed, lending its hatred to the warrior that freed it. For every HD a creature has, gain that x100 in Experience. Iron items are worth x100 their normal GP cost in Experience as well. Experience can either be used as it is traditionally in OSR games, or instead to buy things piecemeal. Look at the Iron Upgrades section near the bottom of this article.

When holding Iron, be it slivers, bars, weapons, armor, or trinkets, save vs Iron. On a failure, you must kill 1 living creature within the next week. When you do so, save vs Iron again. On a failure, you must kill 2 living creatures within 6 days. This cycle continues (increasing in victims and decreasing in days allowed) until a success is rolled, wherein the cycle resets back to 1 week. These cycles are called Depredations. If luck would have it and you fail 7 saving throws in a row, you become Barbarous.

Note that with each failure, physical characteristics can be seen. Consult the table below:

1. Your teeth turn yellow, your hair thin, your skin sallow.
2. Your muscles shrink but become paradoxically more defined.
3. Your canines elongate, as do your pupils.
4. Your skin takes on a grey tint.
5. Your bones creak loudly whenever you move, as if they were metal themselves.
6. Your eyes turn the color of blood, and glow as if they were alive with fire.

To be Barbarous is a fate the Sea Peoples in their entirety have fallen too. You lose that thing that made humanity strong when all they had was bronze and bone: limitation. Iron paves the way forward to things infinitely more complex. Once its secrets become common knowledge, humanity will leap forward, devouring itself again and again in order to reach whatever heavens lie above. This is not wholly bad; it is either ADVANCE BLOODILY or GO EXTINCT. The question thus becomes: is a Barbarous future worth it, or is death the kinder fate?

There are mechanical effects to being Barbarous. When you've reached this state, mark the following changes to your character sheet:

• Your Athletics (Constitution and Strength) scores become 18.
• You gain 3 HD to roll and add to your hit points.
• When you deal damage with an attack roll, you can make an additional attack roll. This happens once, and can happen at the end of other additional attacks you may have (such as from two weapon wielding).
• When not wearing armor, add +3 to your AC.
• For every day that passes where you don't cause harm to another creature, reduce your Savvy (Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) by 1d6. At 0 for any of these ability scores, you forfeit your character who becomes a naked, iron-swinging God of Conquest. See the bottom of this article for more info on that.
• For every day that passes where you did cause harm to another creature, save vs Iron. On a failure, reduce your Savvy (Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) by 1. Same effects as above applies.

A warrior gone Barbarous.

Great power comes with becoming Barbarous, but the price is horrid. But the power is great--an army wielding Iron can decimate any other. But to keep it going, there must be a way of warding off these ill effects. There is.

Bloodletting: Warding Away Barbarousness

Find a battlefield. There are many unattended in the world now. Gather up as many iron weapons that you can, and arrange them in tight, concentric circles around yourself. Then, with a stone or bone edge, slice your wrist. This is the ritual needed to ward away barbarousness.

The first bloodletting ceremony?

Understand this: there is Iron in our bodies. All things are weapons, remember? But this Iron is hateful of its imprisonment and wishes to cut the world. When we wield iron tools, the amount of Iron in our blood increases. Thus, by bloodletting, we free ourselves of the sentence Barbarism and retain our humanity.

When you perform Bloodletting, you reset your Depredations to the original 1 kill per week. Additionally, any points in your Savvy (Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma) scores lost are regained in full. In this way, the ritual is a great boon, allowing many of the Sea Peoples to retain enough sense to keep their Great Invasion going without destroying itself. This is compounded by the fact that you can perform Bloodletting at an Iron Circle as many times as you want. 

But there is another secret too: Iron is the secret of immortality. And this secret carries with it a great curse.

Endless Hordes: Death in COMMANDMENT

After you perform Bloodletting, your life is rooted to that spot. Your own iron, your own blood, surrounded by circles of weapons, has formed a cradle. When you die next, your body will turn to basic compounds and a new you will be born in the center of the Bloodletting circle. An iron weapon you gathered rusts and turns to dust at the same time. Thus, a counter: you can be reborn at one of these Iron Circles a number of times equal to the original number of iron weapons you presented at the time of Bloodletting. No more can be added afterwards; if you die and have added more weapons, you simply die.

The Abyss Watchers from Dark Souls 3 are 100% Barbarous now.

When you are reborn, note the following:

• The Depredation cycle is set to 6 failures, so you must kill 7 living creatures within 24 hours or become Barbarous.
• You have all your equipment worn, and anything carried.
• You cannot perform Bloodletting again for 7 days time.
• You are reborn at the last Iron Circle you performed Bloodletting at. You can "reactivate" an Iron Circle by performing Bloodletting at it again.

These restrictions mean that if you try to abuse the death-and-rebirth powers of Iron, you are dancing closely with Barbarism. When reborn through Iron, you must kill 7 creatures that day or become Barbarous. This makes the Sea Peoples quite terrifying in knowing this secret.

Some mechanical comments: these mechanics make Iron into very, very powerful resources in the world of Commandment (or whatever world you could import this idea into). However, its a resource not to be abused--it can be very easy to go Barbarous and just lose your character within a single session of play if you don't treat Iron as something to be used sparingly as a player. But, for some, abusing Iron for a Hail Mary could be a great scene to get some great treasure, or achieve whatever goal your party is trying to achieve.

Iron Upgrades: Using Iron as Experience

Whenever you kill a creature, gain experience = # of HD * 100.

Whenever you destroy an Iron-forged item in a zodiac-born fire, gain experience = GP cost * 100.

You can use this experience to level up normally, or instead do things piecemeal (as is tradition in Dark Souls). Consult the list below for ways how. In order to spend this experience, you must return to one of the 5 cities and find a Sphinx. The Sphinx consumes from you the gathered freed-iron, and in turn uses it to open your mind to pathways it shares. How is this possible? Why do Sphinxes do this? They answer not, and no god knows.

A Sphinx awaiting you.

Iron Upgrades.

1. Increase attribute: Increase one attribute by +1. Costs experience = new Attribute number * 1000.
2. Increase saves: Increase all saves by -1. Costs experience = 400.
3. Gain HD: Gain +1 HD and add to HP. Costs experience = # Rolled on HD * 300.
4. Gain spell: Gain +1 spell of a level of which you can cast. Costs experience = Spell Level * 500.
5. Class improvement: Improve a class ability (such as casting higher level spells, increasing thief skill chances, as per your system). Costs experience = # of Total Iron Upgrades * 1000.

Note: this speeds up how quickly a character "levels up." Keep this in mind!

Gods of Conquest

A God of Conquest is a creature born from a Barbarous warrior who has utterly lost all sanity. Filling the mind's void now is bloodlust, hatred, and a need to conquer all. There are many, many, many Gods of Conquest within the Sea Peoples' army. They are kept chained and unleashed upon a city or army as shock troops.

Some look almost human. And others...maybe they never were.

Any monstrous statblock, from Medusae to Orcs to Hobgoblins to Dragons can be Gods of Conquest. They come in many different shapes and sizes, and never are two exactly the same. In this way, there may be only one Medusa in the world--a woman warrior of the Sea Peoples who fell to barbarism and became the thing she is now. Thus, all monsters in COMMANDMENT are of two types: DIVINITIES (of which there are many) or IRON GODS OF CONQUEST (of which there are also many). 

Gods of Conquest can be found across the world now. With so many wars being fought, and so much Iron being used, it is only natural that many of these Iron Gods escape their shackles and terrorize the world. The Bronze Age Collapse can thus serve as a violent Age of Heroes if desired; there are many Gods to kill.

Note that the appearance of all creatures should be either vaguley humanoid or somehow involve iron. A Medusa's snakes, for example, might be made of liquid metal and petrifying others turns them into iron statues. Or a Troll is just a big, ugly, half-mutated bastard covered in wounds and porcupine'd with iron blades.