This is a fuller and more formalised version a previous post, with a lot of stuff added. This
one is arranged for eventual inclusion in Veins.
Physical changes can take days or even weeks to
come to fruition, but they begin on the roll.
Still not sure if this should apply to dwarves
and elves or just humans. One idea was that Dwarves become more like Duergar or
Derro and Elves become more Drowish.
In the game I am thinking that PC’s will be
hunted by the Rapture, a kind of animate madness. If they are driven mad by it
and survive, they roll on the table below.
1-5. Paranoia. You know that a fellow PC is hiding
something from you. XP freeze until you
force them to reveal it.
6-10. Rage. You can no longer control your
resentment and suspicion. XP freeze till you physically and directly harm a
team mate. Until you commit this action the DM may force it upon on the failure
of any roll.
11-13.Weight obsession. You must find a way to
reduce your load. Throw something away or drastically alter its form to reduce
its weight.
14-16. You now lie half awake and hallucinate instead of dreaming. Name your most common vision. If rolled twice
you can create this vision in darkness, casting it as an illusion spell by
having a brief conversion with the target. If thrice the vision will appear in
your ‘waking’ hours and call you. If four times, you must obey.
17-18. If you wake up in darkness, you remember
exactly where you went to sleep, the precise dimensions of the enclosing space,
and the exact location of every nearby object. You will not need to fumble for
your sword or search to locate an exit you have seen.
19-20. Any sense of claustrophobia is gone. You
do not fear any enclosed space, no matter how long you are there, in fact you
prefer it. Your memory of the sun is gone. You may not refer to it or describe
it.
21. You can identify blood by taste. The species
and, if you have tasted it before, the individual. Roll twice and you must identify any blood by taste.
22. Your pupils are permanently dilated to their
maximum extent. Add 10ft to the distance you can see. You are easily blinded.
23-25. Each time you roll this, go down to the
next lightest skin pigmentation. The last three are Caucasian, Albino,
Translucent. (Elves respond differently to deep earth radiations, their skin
gets darker not lighter.)
26. Your immune system has collapsed. You have
no save vs disease. You must trade with the Myconids for a symbiotic fungal
replacement.
27-28. Lose the hair from your body, or head.
(Elves do not lose hair, instead it turns white.)
29-30. Hyper-sensitive skin. You no longer like
to wear clothes. With naked skin you can sense the movement of air around you.
50% naked you can sense the size of cave around you. 90% the size of the local
system. 100% and you can sense local movement, the rough size and speed of
things moving in the cave.
31-32. Subconscious sonar. You compulsively
click your tongue to discover the distance of nearby surfaces. You can scan for
solid objects within 50ft. It is hard for you to stop doing this.
33-34. You hunger for silence. The rhythm of
your conversations slows imperceptibly. You breathe out single words. Shouting
becomes intolerable, even in times of danger. You must pass a WIS test to raise
your voice.
35-36. Osteocytes. You begin to develop frills
and ridges of bone upon your skull. These extend through the skin. They may be
horns, ridges, spikes or something else. the more you roll this result the more
elaborate they become.
37-38. Your finger bones lengthen and crook
permanently. This provides a tireless hold while climbing and increases your
ascent speed. You have difficulty doing fine work.
39-41. Your time sense erodes without any
realisation; your wake-sleep cycle extends from 24 hours to 48 if rolled twice,
then to 72. You do not notice this
42-43. Respiration and digestion slow when
still. If doing nothing you can go 30 seconds between breaths. You barely need
food if all you do is wait.
44-45. Your breathing becomes silent. If you
were next to someone, they would feel your breath on their face before hearing
it.
46-47. You no-longer trust paper as it decays
too fast. You start to tattoo your knowledge and maps onto your skin. Your
self-developed code is shorter than writing and means your flayed skin would be
useless as a map for others. A clever trick, you think. You start with your
forearms and thighs then spiral out.
48-49. You can taste lies on someone’s breath as
they speak. You must be within kissing distance.
50-51. You compulsively sharpen your teeth.
52-53. There is a darkness in your belly. When
you scream, deliberately or not, a minor darkness spell is cast, from your
mouth for the duration of the scream.
54-55. You must name any flame that you light.
You must speak to them as if they were people. They take up a retainer spot.
They have a morale. They may keep watch for you. They may also betray you.
56-57. Scent identity is now more real to you
than visual identity. If separated from your friends, you will not fully
recognise them till you smell them all over.
58-59. You no longer recognise own racial
nature. You regard yourself as “other”. You gain no bonuses when communicating
with your own race.
60-63. You must make a WIS test to avoid compulsive
consumption of your fallen foes if they are of animal intelligence, if rolled twice, named beings, if thrice, even
your own species.
64. Your eyelids become translucent, you are
hard to surprise if sleeping but easy to blind.
65-67. Your limbs and torso grow subtly longer
yet retain the same mass. At first gangly (10%), if rolled twice, freakish
(20%), if thrice, trollish (30%) and you go up a size category.
68. Your vision spectrum drops into a deeper
shade of red. You gain infravision but blue is now simply black to you. If you
had infravision, you can now see vague x-ray glows.
69. Mask-hunger. You become obsessed with
protecting your image. Make a mask and wear it continually.
70. When you are not exerting yourself your body
temperature drops to the ambient temperature of the environment. You cannot die
from hypothermia. Neither can you warm others who are suffering. You may seem
dead when you sleep.
71. Shadows are portals from which you can be
watched. You cannot sleep or relax in shadow. You need complete darkness. You
can often spot illusions by watching their shadows.
72. In absolute silence, just on the edge of
hearing, you can hear the darkness speaking with itself. You do not like this.
Learning its language is harder than any human tongue. Its discussions may be
beyond you.
73. Reflections are enemy selves. You will avoid
them if you can and never discuss important business in front of them.
74. Rapid protein conversion. You can gorge on
meat to add 1 STR for HD consumed. So
all of a 1hd creature, half a 2hd creature one 10th of a 10hd
creature, etc. The bonus lasts till sleep.
75. Always hungry -1 CHA unless just eaten. Can
smell food on people if it is hidden.
76-78. Your nails thicken, and extend, they
become d3 weapons. If rolled twice, d4 weapons. If thrice d6 weapons and are
now claws, you will have difficulty with fine work.
79. You must name any rope you own and speak to
them as if they were people. They take up a retainer spot. They have a morale.
You can command them to unknot, they may inform you if they are damaged or not
well secured, the may also betray you.
80. You can and must use Speak with Air as daily power.
81. Bone collector. Every enemy you kill has one
bone waiting for you, take it and wrap it carefully.
82. Riddlemaster. You cannot refuse a riddle
challenge. In appropriate circumstances you may riddle and gain bonuses to
social situations.
83. Flayer Smell. You can and must smell psionic influence. The smell
is as slight as a cup of coffee but you will sense it if you get close enough.
84-86. Magic Sense. Tip your head back, spread
arms, close eyes, roll jaw and moan to detect magic. You will feel it in your
teeth if it is there.
85. You gain a sense for the silent tongue. If
you see dwellers using it you can get a good feel for the general tone and can
spot simple words.
86. Secrets. You horde them. Must pas WIS test
to willingly communicate any secret thing. For instance, the location of a
secret door you just found, a letter you picked up, the last words of a foe.
87. Cloaker Totem. Build one and wear it
continually. You believe this will protect you. It will. Once per level, in
life threatening circumstances, it will act with the powers of a normal cloaker
under your control
88-89. Face blind. You can’t remember faces till
you stroke them.
90-91. Tectonic dreams. Just before you fall
asleep you can hear the murmuring of Earth Elementals, you can gradually learn
that language.
92. Ghost warden. You fear the spirits of those
you have killed. Build, or obtain, an amulet to imprison them. Record them all.
If it breaks or is lost, they may get free. (5% chance true per Ghost)
93. Magnetic sense. Iron in the rock will stop
you reliably sensing North, but it can aid you in navigation nonetheless.
Especially if blinded. Worked metal is like a burning torch to you. It can
blind you if close enough. You don’t like carrying metal weapons.
94-95. Blood change. Your blood becomes an
odourless, tasteless clear gel. It is hard to track you. If your skin is
already translucent then your bones are almost visible through the cloudy
flesh.
96-97. Poison Absorber. Poison still affects you
as normal, but if you survive it, your body will hang on to the dose. You can
transmit it via biting.
98-99. Water Sense. You can taste emissions from
upstream in moving water. Anything pissing or bleeding within half a mile
upstream.
100. You lose all desire to return to the
surface. You belong here now.
I really like these and want to get them in my campaign, especially some of the meta-penalties. I've been looking for some good ideas for negative mutations and madnesses, this fits the bill quite nicely.
ReplyDeleteI don't know know about dwarfs turning into derro/duegar and elves turning into drow. Like, it's too much of an explanation for them, too naturalistic , and it takes away from their weirdness , that it's just what happens to elves and dwarves in the dark.
ReplyDeleteLike I enjoy the fuzzyness of not knowing just how weird the drow/deep dwarves were before they descend.
Also by having it be a result of troglodyical living, it minimizes the effects that their bizarre culture and philosophy and it's results on their essence.
This table is good though
Hmmm, I did like teh idea of Elve finding themsleves turning into 'the other' I might take that part out.
Deletepeople should turn into themselves but worse and better.
Deletealso that way you can just use this table for all the races
DeleteBrilliant, truly brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait for Veins.
I discovered that my girlfriend hates travelling on the Underground today.
We were meant to be meeting my dad and his friends at a stop and as soon as I got to the surface my phone buzzed to tell me they'd changed venue.
Cue the girlfriend looking back into the dark and hyperventilating a bit.
"It's just there's all these people which would be fine except that we're under the ground and there's no way out and if we get stuck there's no windows to climb out of and I just can't handle it again.
It feels like I'm drowning because we'll be 15 storeys underground again and I feel like I'll never escape if we go back down there."
She has sensed the reality beneath things.
Delete