Death Metal

The Debasement of Metal

According to the Metal Heretics, metal was an invention of the Great Spirits of Earth, who had seen far enough into the future to discover the heat death that awaited us there.

Metal would be a perfect, immutable, timeless material.  It would not rust or bend.  It would be the only shield capable of defending against the ravages of entropy (for even liches crumble to dust, after a few millennia).

Allegedly, before the arrival of the Authority the planet was in the process of turning itself into solid metal.

The notion of any immortality other than his own was offensive to the Authority, who stripped this trait away from metals.  Iron was the first to submit, and so it was allowed to retain its strength.  Iron that accepted the element of life (carbon) was allowed to retain even more.  But iron forever bucked the reins, and so diseases and rust were sent to it.

While the Church has never tamed iron's bloodlust, titanium's loyalty and obedience have been unflinching.  It is what the weapons of angels are made of.

The proudest metals resisted the longest.  Shameful was the fate of gallium, but none were brought lower than mercury, which was beaten and shaken until nothing was left of its perfection except its shine.  It is a watery cripple, its hatred for the Authority's creations manifesting as venom.

The only metal that could not be bent was adamantite.  Although the Authority could not humble it, he sent his angels to gather it up and fling it into space.  This is why adamantium is only known to come from meteor strikes.

Precursor Golem by Chippy

Transmetallic Alchemists

The Immortality of metal is what the Transmetallic Alchemists seek.

The Transmetallicum manufactures gold only to fund their research into immortality.  So far, their most successful processes involve the large-scale consumption of mercury.  So while they've successfully created immortal, metal humans before, these alchemists have never retained their sanity.  One by one, they have all been captured and entombed inside cubes of steel.

This is not to say that the Alchemists never free their Immortals, whenever they require an immortal metal man to fuck some shit up--it's just that they're a little hesitant to do so, given the high chance that the cure will be worse than the disease.

(Stats as an ogre.  Capable of forming metal weapons and tools from their body.  Capable of creating fins and 20' spider legs from their limbs.  Can drink water to create steam explosions (3d6 AoE) after a few minutes of heating.  Insane.  Utterly immune to damage.)

Adamantine

No one ever resisted the Authority without allies.

When Adamantine spurned Heaven it alloyed itself with Hell.  It is only through Hell's blessings that the metal has been successful in its defiance thus far.

All of the adamantine swords in Centerra were hell-forged.  Strip away the swordgrip of Saint Handrayda and you will find a hell-sword, bound, purified, and annointed.

A less-commonly known way to forge Adamantine is through the blasphemy-forges of the dwarves, who build blasphemy-wheels to light their furnaces.  (Just as prayer-wheels submit a prayer whenever they revolve, so does a blasphemy-wheel provoke divine wrath.)  Once the blasphemy-wheels are spun up to an appropriate velocity, they use divine lightning to create an arc furnace of incomprehensible power.

All of the builders and blacksmiths go to Hell, of course, but dwarves don't believe in Hell.  And the great blasphemy furnaces have a limited lifespan.  They hang from the roofs of great caverns by adamantine chains, but even those chains and the systems of counterweights are eventually shaken loose by the furious earthquakes that assault the region.

And so adamantine persists in a state of tension.  If Goxlagon (the Elemental Evil of Earth) were ever to falter in his support, it is likely that all of the adamantine in Centerra would have its boiling point set to somewhere about room temperature.

The Throne of Heaven

Inside the sun, the Throne is built from the most loyal servants: titanium, bismuth, and tungsten.

Tar Lath Lien, the Dracolich, the Serpent of the Apocalyse, who holds the key that opens the lock that seals away Armageddon, claims to have visited it and plundered it.

The Seat of the Authority is empty,  he claims, and all the hosts of heaven conspire to hide this fact.

The Gift of Metal

The Authority made metal malleable and finite, and by doing so, made it useful to mankind.  This has always been painted as a charitable deed, and one worthy of praise.

Indeed, nearly every aspect of the world was tuned in order to primp it for the arrival of humanity, the Authority's favored children.  Metal would hardly be an exception in this regard.

This story of metal and heaven is usually told alongside another one. . .

The Gift of Death

The first gift the Authority gave humanity was Life.  The earth would give them food, they would breathe the Authority's sweet air, feel His warmth upon their skin, and they would offer him joyful praise.  Such was the intention.

But there were problems in these earliest gardens.

The first humans were immortal, and knew neither death or age.  Their children were numerous, and soon they crowded the valley and the riversides, and struggled against each other.

Secondly, they would never inherit.  They were subservient to their fathers, who were subservient to their fathers, who were subservient to the Authority.  Without the passing of the elders, they would remain servile, and would never know what it was like to have authority themselves.

Third and most distressingly, was the corruption that the world instilled in its residents.  A child was born innocent, of course, but a decade of struggle and insecurity brought dark thoughts.  The Authority began to see that after several centuries of immortality, there would be no one suitable to join him in Heaven.

And so the second gift of the Authority was Death.

SCRAP PRINCESS PLAYS FOURTH EDITION

When the world finds out what you've done, Scrap, they're going to stop inviting you to the yacht parties that the OSR throws every month.  They're going to cut you off from the Cocaine of the Month Club, too.

READ THESE REVELATIONS AND TREMBLE, O UNTIDY FALSITY

Devil
Heavenly Bureaucrat

So:

Zulin rules the world from his golden Heaven, and yet his clergy do not claim that he is omnipotent.  He is certainly not omniscient.

This is an oversight, and it must be corrected.

Heaven is a vast and unknowable mansion, filled with gardens and apartments where the faithful dead enjoy eternity.  It's also a vast and incomprehensible maze of offices and archives, because long ago Zulin decided two things.

First, all of the world must be observed, cataloged, and judged.  Sins must be observed.  Souls must be tracked.  Prayers must be quantified and tabulated, weighed against the current and prospective sin markets, and then the summary given to the Angels of Judgement.

Second, he had absolutely no desire to do any of this.

Zulin exists in his own part of the labyrinthine mansion, where he is currently engaged in what is best described as an eternal tea party.  He entertains and is entertained.  He is attended by gods and godlings from Centerra, the planet's interior, the moon, and other such ultraterrestrial locales*.  Importantly, he is also accompanied by several of his greatest foes, who are unable to leave due to the chains of etiquette (which bind even gods) and who Zulin is unable to defeat (because he would be overpowered).

Once, perhaps, the Bureaucracy of Heaven was knowable, in the sense that a single mind could see it all, or at least hold a mental schematic of how it all fit together.  But it's outgrown that.  It outgrew that a long time ago.

The Goals and Means of the Bureaucracy

At this point, you can surely see that heaven has a great need for spies, bureaucrats, census-takers, writers of ethical protocols, judges, lawyers, and art critics (to judge the beauty of artworks made to glorify Zulin, and quantify the amount of sin that such an artwork compensates).

Heaven does not know how many grains of sand there are.  It does not know how many hairs are on your head.  It does not know the dreams of every babe nested at its mother's breast.  But they are trying to find these things out.

Angels are absolutely rubbish at counting sand.  That fact hasn't stopped Heaven from trying, though.

For the most part, angels are summoned creatures.  They exist for a day or an hour, performing some task, and then vanishing with a contented sigh.  So while they might count a million grains before their happy death, that only amounts to about a shovelful.  (And a small shovel, at that.)

The true power of Heaven lies in its Law: the ability to dictate the laws of nature, the truth of any terrestrial fact, and their power over men and their souls.  While Zulin is objectively the master of these considerable powers, their actual enforcement goes to the vast and unknowable offices of heaven, which are staffed by living humans, of course.

So after that angel has tabulated a million grains of sand, who do you think it reports to?  She is a woman in a white robe, with a sun-disk wired to a her skull, and a small serpent living her her sinuses that verifies her sums with an approving nod.

The First Bureaucrats

Mathematics was rewritten in order to make calculus possible.  The laws of mathematics were codified, and all the heretic possibilities were imprisoned far from Centerra, in order that 2+2 would always equal 4 (as opposed to all of the regional variations).

The principles of economics were invented.  Then logic.  Last grammar.  These things were delivered to the priests in the form of gold-inscribed mirrors, and the priests were then taught to teach these things to the children.

After a decade had passed, the Heavenly Examinations began to be held in every provincial center.  The minds that shone brightest during these examinations--the inventor, the artist, the mathmatician, the scientist--were taken up to Heaven to become its first bureaucrats.

(Maybe this is why everyone on Centerra is so fucked.)

The Church's examinations have slowed, but never really stopped.  There is still an examination held in Coramont every year, where the quick-adding, powerfully-adept children are taken up to Heaven for blessed employment.  But they are a minority.  A drop in the ocean.  How could they be anything else, when Heaven is a place with no restrictions on population, and a great need for able hands to hold an abacus?

The families there are old and strange and specialized.  While they know a great deal about a particular thing, they know very little about everything else.  For example, while the Department of Tabulation knows the sums of the sand on a great many beaches, many of its bureaucrats are unaware that there is anyone living down there at all.  As far as they know, the vast bureaucracy of heaven exists for the singular purpose of enumerating sand.  And they are entirely satisfied with this view of the world.

(Do not think them mad, dear reader.  They are as sane as you are, and no less perceptive.  Who are you to judge?  You know as much about the purpose of life as they do.  And while you might know a great deal about the evaluation, purchase, and distribution of wine in the UK, I suspect you know very little of the arcane workings of the machine that you are reading this on.  Perhaps the Truth is to be found in there?)

I won't go into any more broad details.  The races of heavenly bureaucrat are too varied for easy classification, and too bizarre for swift elucidation.

Instead, here are a (partial, very partial) list of Scrap Princess' vile misdeeds.  All readers are advised to bring a bucket adjacent, lest her wanton prurience drive you to vomiting all over your no-doubt tastefully decorated home.

Note 1: Nearly all of these guys can summon angels.

Note 2: Additionally, each department has "interns".  Souls serving their sentence in Purgatory.

Note 3: These classifications might seem like each department has a defined, organized domain and hierarchy.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Each task has multiple competing departments assigned to it, and the Gordian knot of authority clauses sometimes means that a department ends up serving its own sub-department (and other such explosions of apparent nonsense).

Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Geryon (Arch Devil), Dispater
Ministers
The higher ranking bureaucrats of heaven are all heads of their respective departments, which is nearly the same thing as saying that they are the heads of their respective families.  They jockey against each other for access to the Office of Natural Law, where they have the swiftest means to dispatch their enemies and recruit more resources for theirselves and their department.

For example, a 10% decrease in the rate of sedimentation would vastly decrease the amount of free sand grains in the world, leading to less need for the Department of Tabulation, leading to more effective petitions by other departments for diversions of human resources.  The pendulum of power swings thus.

Changing the natural laws in order to improve sedimentation constants may also be accompanied by a concomitant rise in kidney stones and renal failure.  This is none of their concern.  Suffering is a normal and expected part of mortality, and if it ever gets out of hand, they can expect the Department of Tribulations to issue an injunction.

This is why we have such things as tornadoes and syphilis, by the way.  A loving god wouldn't create those things.  They're Unforeseen Consequences (one of the smallest and most understaffed departments).

How many more of these do I have to do**?

Barbed (Lesser Devil)
Bureaucrat of Weights and Measures

Looks like a guy in a robe and a pointy shoes with a giant scale strapped to his back.  Accompanied by a cylindrical brass 'golem' that weighs a very specific weight.  His job is to weigh things and record whether they weigh more or less than his brass cylinder.  He must also destroy things that are the improper weight.  Can alter weights, distances.

Bone (Lesser Devil)
Bureaucrat of Tabulation

Looks like a guy who is entirely laminated with counting beads.  Has the powers to shoot beads, which is a little underwhelming.  Also has the power to audit one character sheet per round and investigate the numbers there.  If he finds any mistakes, he can imprison your character for as long as it takes you to find the errors and correct them.  (DM: six seconds of real-world time equals a combat round.)

Enrinyes
Bureaucrat of Maculate Conception

Soft, pink androgynous person, pristine and slick inside their tight robe.  Ensures that the appropriate sperm reaches the egg, and that spontaneous conception occurs according to design.  Also responsible for making sure the womb catches the proper type of soul.  Can pick two people of roughly compatible biologies and summon up their hypothetical offspring to fight them.  Can also stir your flesh like a spoon in a vat of multicolored paint.  Also capable of shrinking down and swimming in you like a frisky salmon, but this option is distasteful.

Horned
Bureaucrat of Continuance

Ensures the smooth passage of time.  Makes that time is uniform within a time zone.  Carries out conversions at the borders of time zones, so that travelers between them never even realize that they are passing through them.  Makes sure that everything doesn't happen at once.  Keepers of the Doomsday Clock.  Sentinels against the dinosaurs gnashing their way up the timelines.  One of the many reasons that PCs shouldn't attempt to time travel.

Like like men and women with bellies full of flashing sand, each grain beating out a different tempo, which together allows the bureaucrat to keep perfect time.  Powers are varied, and powerful.  Their wounds heal quickly, arrows slow in their flights, and many of their opponents die of old age.

One of the largest and most powerful departments.  The Minister of Continuance is Apocalypse, the only Minister that is not human.

Ice
Bureaucrat of Imagination

Their job is to judge the objective value of a piece of artwork.  They use a complex system of reference books to calculate this value, which is measured in Good Deeds.  These measurements are then passed on to the Department of Morality.

They are strange people, with flowing robes that shift colors and abilities every round.  They fight through a system of counter-attack.  Every action brings a reaction.  Learning these reactions is key to defeating them, but by then it might be too late.

Lemure
Bureaucrat of Dreams

Soft men, with soft skin and soft voices.  Vestigial faces cover vestigial minds.  They are dressed very, very well, and they move very, very politely.  This is why they are so easy to kill.

They sit at the bedsides, invisible, intangible.  On their tablet, they listen to the murmurs of your animal soul and record your dreams with their stylus.  These dreams are brought back up to heaven for classification, sorting, and interpretation.

This is a very important job.  Revelations of the future are most often first seen in dreams.  This is how Heaven knows so much about what is going to happen.  These are also the guys sent down to kick over the dreidel when your cleric casts augury.

Pit Fiend
Bureaucrat of Morality

A head full of eyes and a dossier filled with your sins.  Metal-skinned men who can blast down a door with a word, or limit the actions of everyone at the table.

They do not perform the collection or the sentencing of a soul (that's the Department of Death and Eternal Life), but they certainly measure it.  They are responsible for keeping track of you and all of your good deeds and sins***.  They don't have time to watch everyone personally, all the time.  But they use methods of deduction and interrogation to collect the information they need.  They hardly ever make mistakes.

A soul has value.  Knowing where it will end up after it dies is therefore a useful fact, and those who control the dossiers on those particular soul are worthy of a fee per soul.  And so dossiers are traded within the Department of Morality.  Not individually, of course, but most likely bundled into vast portfolios of thousands of mortals of similar moral bent.

-----------------------------------

*Scrap also eats cereal out of a shoe.  Like, the same shoe every time.  I don't even think she washes it.  I don't know where the other shoe is, who is eating out of it, or why we don't know about them, but I wouldn't be surprised if Scrap did something horrible to them to make them disappear.

**Also I met I guy at a gas station once who told me that once Scrap got drunk and made out with a  seagull, was also drunk.  The guy didn't buy anything except one of those heinous nut-covered donutoids though, so his ability to Discern Realities is probably pretty suspect.

***They would shoot vomit out their metal noses if they ever saw Scrap, though.  They were never trained to handle her.  (She would be a Level Nine Depravity Locus in their system of classification, though, if their system didn't stop at Level Eight.)

The Seven Souls of Shadoom

Shadoom was the ur-Sorcerer, the greatest villain that the world has ever faced.

His schemes were limitless, and his inventions beyond categorization.  His traps and manipulations were so subtly woven that we are only now figuring out their depth, 700 years later.

He was the first to capture the spell that went on to become Power Word: Kill.  He built the first wizard tower (intending to eventually ride it to space).  He invented the cackling monologue.

And then he was hunted down (many, many times) and killed.

Ever since the Yellowcoat incident, the Church has been aware that occasionally the dead and the damned do not stay in hell, but instead return to the living world at the head of an ungodly host of demons.  And so it was decided that Shadoom would not be allowed to descend to hell, although he deserved many infinities of suffering, but would instead be kept here, where the fragments of his soul could be contained and monitored.

I: The Mineral Soul

First there is the matter of the mineral soul, what you might think of as chemistry.  This soul stays with the body after death, maintaining the concept form and ensuring adequate nutrition for decomposition.  They are quiet and hardworking engines of natural laws.  It is the ghost-in-the-corpse.

Shadoom's physical soul is not like it's kin in other rotting bodies.  It seems to have a fierce desire for continuation, although very little means to achieve it.  Attempts to communicate with it are met with blasphemy and gibbering.

The corpse is growing.  Although Shadoom was much less than 6' in life, his corpse is now more than 8' tall.  Most of the growth has occurred in the rib cage.

The only type of growth that the mineral soul permits is a fungal.  His skin is buttery with yeast, and what remains of the head is almost entirely obscured by polypores.

It's not a body anymore.  It's a lair for the mineral soul.

There are many who believe that it is not a mineral soul at all.  They claim that it is something much stranger, something invited into the body at the behest of Shadoom (or perhaps inserted as a punishment or means of control).  While attempts to study it have stalled, many are hesitant to burn it,

studies have stalled as the spirit has frustrated their attempts at investigation.  Still, Lady Stravia is hesitant to have the body destroyed, since that may release whatever is holding it together.

II: The Vegetable Soul

Think of the second soul as "the laws of biology" and you won't be far off.

Shadoom's vegetable soul exists in the body of a young man named Tappernick, who is an exact physical clone of Shadoom.

He is the assitant gardener at the Minthic Priory is Kaskala.  He is short and swarthy and tanned from the sun.  His hands are rough with callouses.

He is unaware of his heritage.  All he knows is that the paladins always seem to enjoy dining with him when they pass through.  He doesn't know why, since he doesn't consider himself to be very interesting.  Nor does he understand why the paladins are sometimes tense in his presence, or else amused.  He's just a gardener.

He always tries to send the paladins off with a magnolia blossum.  Sometimes they accept.

The whole thing was Lady Stravia's idea, of course.

III: The Animal Soul

The third soul can be thought of as the instinctual soul.

Shadoom's animal soul is possessed by a incredibly unhappy young girl by the name of Ursiline.  After her second attempt to drown herself, she was entered into the convent of St. Rashene on her 17th birthday.

It is unclear how the girl found out that she possessed one seventh of Shadoom's soul, but she now dwells on it constantly.  She has written letters to Shadoom blaming him for her unhappiness.  She has written letters to Lady Stravia assigning blame for her "imprisonment".

Lady Stravia, for her part, has expressed regret about how the whole thing was handled.  She may end up removing Ursiline from the convent entirely.

Those are the first three souls.  For most people, they are reincarnated.  They are the earthly souls.

The remaining four souls are the heavenly souls.

IV: The Purple Soul Which is Memory

The fourth soul, the purple soul, is composed of memories.

Shadoom's memories were reborn into the child of a farmer.  The boy's name was Roflund, and he was fully aware of his past life since three months before his birth.

Roflund was born on a hot summer night in the second basement of the Lustrine Cathedral in Coramont.  Lady Stravia herself helped deliver the baby.  Her hands touched him before his mother's hands.

Also in attendance were 40 paladins and a priest-wizard.  Such caution ended up being unecessary, but there were many who were convinced that the fetus would be able to work some deviltry in the womb, and were therefore prepared for *anything* to come through that dilated cervix.

The newborn was also panicking.  Nothing in Shadoom's memories had prepared him for the nightmare of being born, that offensive tumult of noise and cold and fluid-filled lungs.

The attending paladins were not put at ease by the newborn's reassurances.  A wizard's vocubulary sounds bizarre enough coming from a wizard.  It sounds even stranger coming from a newborn at his mother's breast.

Roflund spent the first six months of his life being extensively interviewed by the Church.  (Claims of torture are unsubstantiated.)  Roflund proved to be much more helpful during interrogation than his soul's predecessor.  It was through Roflund that we learned of such things as the resurrection engine and the four-chambered mountain.

Unfortunately, Shadoom anticipated his capture and removed many of his memories in the days prior, entrusting them to certain lieutenants.  Some information, such as the location of the third apocalypse maggot or the fate of the princess of air, is still lost to us.

Roflund is now a paladin of the second rank in the service of the Lustrine Bishop.

V: The White Soul Which is Morality

The fifth soul is the white soul.  It embodies goals, values, ambition, and morality.

It belongs to a woman named Jetta of Harwater.  She is awaiting trial and execution after murdering her debtholder.  It is possible that this is not her first murder, but there is scant evidence.

Her trial has been delayed indefinitely, after Lady Stravia suggested it to the magistrate.

VII: The Red Soul Which is Personality

This is the personality of a person.  It contains their mannerisms and their perspective.  It controls (and is controlled by) their moods.  It is their emotions and their intellect.

The red soul is contained in Lady Stravia, the bishopess of the East Temple of the Shackled Flame, one part of the Church in charge of ensuring that old troubles do not rise again.  They have more historians in their ranks than paladins.

The discovery of the identity of Lady Stravia's red soul occurred when she touched Roflund during his birth.  As soon as it occurred, she was imprisoned and interviewed extensively.  She was released nine months later, at the command of the Eastern Pope.

She has since been reassigned to minister the penitent's commune in Guilder.  It is said that their farms have never been so productive.

VII: The Blue Soul Which is Divine

Of Shadoom's blue soul, little is known.  The blue soul is the seat of the spirit, the divine conduit, and the magical tongue by which the mind speaks.

In theory, this is the most perilous of Shadoom's souls, since it contains all of his arcane puissance.  And yet, no recent sign of it has emerged.

It is possible that it has eluded capture by avoiding reincarnation.  If so, it has managed to trickle down the the anonymous chaos of the hells.

Or it is possible that it dwells in a simpleton, who has neither the intellect to comprehend the power the possess, nor the will to wield it.

And it is even possible that Shadoom's blue soul eventually outgrew Shadoom himself.  A man cannot dominate the world with so much power without being dominated by it in turn.  If this is the case, then Shadoom's blue soul lives on without him.  It will be mindless only until it certain arcane furcations occur (and they must occur, or else it will be eaten by the creatures of the upper air) until it becomes its own creature, seven-souled and independent.

And if that is the case, the six new souls will themselves be cast-offs, the flotsam of identity, survivors of some other personal extinction.

Nothing is destroyed, nor anything created, except by the Hand of the Authority.

How To Survive Death

Adventure is infinite in all directions, eternal through all timelines, and utterly inescapable.  There is no room where Adventure cannot find you; no door that can keep it out.  You cannot shrink below its attentions; you cannot grow beyond its reach.

Death is no exception to this philosophy.

So here are rules to fight off Death when he comes for you.

What Happens When A PC Dies

1. They get some last words.  Time to read that death poem your knight wrote.
2. They get a bonus action.  Make it count.
3. They play Psychopomp Roulette to see who comes to collect your soul.  Depending on how this goes down, you may end up dragged to Hell, guided to judgement (where you may earn entrance into Heaven), or even end up as a ghost.

by Josep Segrelles

Psychopomp Roulette

This is a minigame that involves putting cards into a hat and then drawing one out randomly.

EXCEPT WARLOCKS: Warlocks don't get to play this game.  Their afterlife is already decided by the terms of the deep soul-bond they made with their patron.  For most of them, death is just the beginning of their servitude.

Here's how to play:

First, put the following three names into the hat: Weary Penitent, Very Specific Death, Demon.

Second, if they have been member of the Church in good standing (paying their 10% tithe, haven't committed any mortal sins since their last confession), remove the Demon from the hat.  This won't apply to many PCs.

Third, check the list below to see what other psychopomps they qualify for.  Add all qualifying psychopomps to the hat.

Fourth, roll a d10 on this table.
1 = Double booked.  Two psychopomps show up to claim your soul.  Draw twice from the hat (in the next step).
2 = Delay.  You died seconds earlier than predicted, and as a result, there is no psychopomp present at the moment of your death to greet you.  If you flee immediately, you'll probably get away.
3-10 = Nothing special.

Fifth, pick a name from the hat to see which psychopomp shows up, and then follow those instructions.

I'm pretty sure I remember this level from Super Ghouls and Ghosts

by Josep Segrelles

Psychopomps

Weary Penitent
HD 3
Qualification: Default

Some poor soul still serving in purgatory.  Leaden sandals, wings bound with wire.  Lantern and appointment book (contains schedule of deaths).  The light from the lantern makes all other paths impossible to take.

Weary penitents have no power over life and death.  They're just here to show you the way to your Final Judgement.

Very Specific Death
HD 4
Qualification: Default

Skeleton in a black robe with a scythe.  Will grab you and drag you away.  This small Death will be collecting souls of a very particular type.  For example, the Death of Blond Women Crushed by Bronze Gears will show up to collect all of the souls of blond women who were crushed to death by bronze gears.

If you rolled "Double Booked" in step 4 and the first name pulled was a Very Specific Death, assume that there was a collision between categories, and two very specific deaths showed up.  Expect them to play a game of chess to settle the question of who gets to collect your soul.  Expect them to keep a very close eye on you while they do so.

Unlike the other psychopomps, deaths are capable of stopping time for themselves and the people they collect.  They use this time to chat, play games, etc.  You are free to negotiate with them, but under no circumstances will they ever return you to life.

Demon
HD 1d6+2
Qualifiation: Default (unless in good standing with the Church)

It'll probably have at least one or more of the following traits: horns, red skin, barbed tail, bat wings, lion's mane, horrible gargoyle face.  It intends to devour you and carry you off to the Underworld.  Souls are useful things: they cannot be destroyed and they are infinitely transmutable.  Whatever it has in store for you is probably going to be horrible, though.

Devil
HD 1d6+2
Qualification: Harmed the Church in a significant way.

Devils are just demons that have taken the Oaths.  They'll wear symbolic shackles to indicate their status, and they'll explain their actions as they devour you, but they'll devour you just the same.  Expect no judgement from the courts of hell.  If you weren't already pre-judged, they wouldn't have sent a devil to collect you.

If that PC was guilty of a particular sin, this will be represented by the Devil.  For example, a greedy PC might be collected by a golden demon who spews molten gold and chains.

Asmodeus
HD 12
Qualification: Majorly pissed of the Church.

Asmodeus is prime among the Satans, and is a loyal servant of the Church Below.  He/she/it gets tapped for chores like this, sometimes.  Collection is a joy, a breath of fresh air.  Expect him/her/it to relish it.  Probably a much more pleasant experience than being collected by a demon (unless you draw attention to the shackles Asmodeus wears in his/her/its sleeves).  Asmodeus never rushes anything.

If Asmodeus is busy, they'll just send one of the lesser Satans (balors), as the Church Below has several among the ranks of the faithful.

by Josep Segrelles

Dead Family Member
HD 3
Qualification: Helped the church in a significant way.

Grampa is overjoyed to see you again, of course.  He looks forward to showing you to your mansion in the Immortal Mountains (provided that you pass your judgement, of course).  How are your cousins doing?  And the twins?

A Saint
HD 8
Qualification: Helped the church in a major way.

There are a lot of saints.  Expect them to be serene and beatific.  Friendly and unshakable.  They still bear the marks of their martyrdom (all Hesayan saints are martyrs) and are missing the body parts that have gone on to become holy relics.

For example: Saint Dorbaine is a tall, thin man with broad limbs.  Like all saints, his hair has been turned by his transfiguration.  He lacks a tongue (it's a relic now) but can speak with the voice of a tolling bell, which is miraculously understandable to all creatures.

Somewhat Specific Death
HD 8
Qualification: Has escaped death at once before OR character is at least level 5.  Put two of these guys in the hat and remove the Very Specific Death.

These are deaths that are one step higher on the totem pole.  Ten feet tall and bulletproof.  While the Very Specific Deaths are sort of sweaty and perfunctory, the Somewhat Specific Deaths are specialists.  Expect lectures, accusations, and name dropping all the famous people they killed.

Somewhat Specific Deaths have names like The Death of Wizards Trapped In A Maze or Death of Those Driven To Autocannibalism By Sorcery.

Death
HD 12
Qualification: Has escaped death more than once before OR character is at least level 10.  Remove all of the other deaths in the hat and replace them all with Death.

This is it.  The big guy.  If you impress him he'll petition Heaven to let you become one of his Reapers (see below).  He's polite and educated and knows all about you.  He actually has an amazing sense of humor.  Unlike those who serve him, he's quite reasonable.

Reapers (Special Collection Team)
HD: 1d4+2 dead heroes of HD 1d4+4
Qualification: Killed a death OR violated the sanctity of death via necromancy or resurrection.

These are dead heroes that Death keeps on hand to troubleshoot special problems.  Basically another adventuring party, except they are all undead and armed with scythes (part of the uniform, unfortunately).

When they aren't out kicking the spleens out of rebellious souls, they fight on the eternal battlefield of Balora (conveniently located next to the eternal mead hall), which they share with a bunch of other dead heroes (Saint Ferragun's faithful, etc).  They're the goth dudes in the viking bar.

Spirits
HD 1d12
Qualification: Had a significant interaction with the spirit world.  Put as many cards in the hat as appropriate.

This is sort of a catch-all for characters that helped/harmed druids or river spirits.  If you were helpful, expect them to resurrect you as a badass bear or something.  If you were a dick to them, expect them to put you into a snail or something, forever and ever a million lifetimes of snail.

Dead Death God
HD 12
Qualification: Had a significant interaction with Zala Vacha.  Put as many cards in the hat as appropriate.

Zala Vacha is collective of gods who have been killed or displaced by the Hesayan Church, who they are dedicated to destroying.  Have I blogged about them before?  I know I wrote about the Lavei family at one point.

Summary: They're a doomsday cult of anarcho-gods and iconoclasts.  They're evil, they want to sacrifice millions, but they have a valid point to make, too.

Anyway, the Church steamrolled hundreds of religions during its unification of the continent.  Many of those religions had death gods of their own.  Many of those death gods went on to join Zala Vacha.  So it stands to reason that Zala Vacha is glutted with dozens of death gods, war gods, harvest gods, and the like.

Expect a very old-fashioned god.  The gods that were originally just and forthright have been twisted by the long years of culthood and pseudo-oblivion.  A Sumerian death god reimagined by H. R. Giger and Clive Barker.

GHOST TIME!!!
HD Not Applicable
Qualification: Had some unfinished business that you were very dedicated to.  "The king sent me to find the grail" doesn't count unless you are all about finding that grail.  Put as many cards in the hat as appropriate.

You do not reach the afterlife.  Instead you become a ghost, bound to this location.  The list of things you can do as a ghost (disembodied soul) deserves its own post, but you can basically continue to help out your friends at the cost of going insane and becoming an NPC.

by Josep Segrelles

What Happens After You Are Collected?

If you were taken by a Church-affiliated Psychopomp (penitent, saint, a death, Death) then you go on to your Final Judgement.  The path goes along the River of Souls, which exists in both the Material and Ethereal planes (albeit in different forms).

If you were taken by a demon or devil, you're going straight to hell (since you've already been pre-Judged as unclean).

What's The Final Judgement?

Your (ethereal) heart is cut out and weighed against a sparrow's egg containing all the souls that weren't born so that you could be born.  If your heart is heavy with sin, you are found to be too impure for Heaven, and are sent to Hell.

Here's how you do it:

Characters have a base Goodness of 10.

The DM and the players recount all of the morally significant things that the character has done.  +1 Goodness for giving your last ration to the starving child.  -4 Goodness for literally throwing a baby into a manticore's mouth.  +6 Goodness for saving the city of Trystero.  -1 Goodness for each instance of blasphemy.  -1 Goodness for sex outside of wedlock.

Add them all up, and then roll a d20.  If you get at less than your Goodness, you go to Heaven.  Yay.  Here's the address to your new mansion in the sky.  Don't worry about the streets of gold--penitents keep them clean.

If you roll your Goodness exactly on the d20, you are destined for 1d6 * 100 years of Purgatory.  You're going to go to Heaven eventually, but you need to purify yourself more (via honest labor).  Welcome to the life of a penitent.

If you roll above your Goodness, you fry like a pork sausage.

Can I Fight These Psychopomp Assholes?

Hell yes!  That's why they have stats and hit points and things.

Just remember that fighting saints and deaths counts against your Goodness.  It's like resisting arrest.

What Stats And Equipment Do I Have When I'm Dead?

You use the same character sheet, except you can fly.  The Ethereal plane overlaps with the Material plane, and you can't really interact with the Material plane in anyway.  So you're an invisible ghost that can fly through walls (but so is everyone else on the ethereal plane, really).

You own everything that hasn't been claimed by someone else.  You still have your sword as long as no one else has plucked the sword from your cold, dead fingers.

In Centerra, ownership is not just a human-made condition, it's an obdurate state, like mass or conductivity.

When you die, you get to keep all of the things on your body, and all of the things that you were buried with.  This lasts as long as those items stay with your body (nobody plucks the sword from your hands) and no one loots your tomb.

So if your teammate dies, don't be so quick to pry the magic sword out of her hands--she might be fighting Death on the ethereal plane with that sword at the moment.

Slaves do not remain your property after you are dead.  How can the laws of nature judge competing claims and degrees of slavery?

However, servants do continue to serve you after you are dead.  After all, contracts are part of the natural laws of the cosmos, just like ownership.

Most servants are going to have contracts that end each New Year and must then be renewed.  But a few very foolish people might be willing to write contracts that extend into the afterlife, perhaps in perpetuity.

So yes, one of the things you can hire in cities are suicidal mercenaries.  They take your money, do an incredible amount of fabulously expensive drugs for a few days, and then die.  In return, they promise to help you fight off any psychopomp that comes to collect your soul.  (But remember that their soul might be collected before it can help yours out.)

by Josep Segrelles

Paladins of the Blue Kite

There are 77 orthodox orders of paladins in the Hesayan Church.  They include:

• The Sons of Saint Arquette, who use cannibalism to fuel their gigantism.

• The Enduring Order, devotees of Saint Caldi, who each swear to spend 100 years fighting the undead.  Those who die in service are raised as undead to continue their duty.

• The Order of the Red and Blue Rose, who are wrestlers and swordbreakers.

There are at least 3 heretic orders that are in hiding.  They include:

• The Winged Legion, who followed the Simurgh after her divorce from Zulin and subsequent excommunication.

• The Order of the Shepherd's Crook, who seek to bring the kingdom of Hell to earth.  Not literally, but they do want to use enslaved devils to police the world.  (Officially, they are condemned by the paladins of hell and have no affiliation.  They're just fans.)

And although the Celestialist Hesayans of the north do not have paladins, they have schools of swordsmanship that often serve the same function.

Anyway, this post is about one of the orthodox orders.

The Order of the Blue Kite

They're also known (somewhat mockingly) as "those naked paladins".  This is a little misleading.

Zulin's divine divorce caused quite a few shockwaves throughout the Church.  One of the secondary or tertiary effects was the relaxation of quite a few nuptial laws.  These were mostly sensible, good things.  Farmers no longer had to have their horses married before siring a foal, for example.

In this new marital climate, one vocal personage was the North Wind.  He had many lovers, and sought to make his trysts honest and open.  After a long period of debate, this was granted to him, and in less than a year, he had taken his first three wives.

Although the North Wind, the Windwives, and the House of Miraculous Windmills originally set itself up to be a religious power center similar to Concrayda, but it eventually failed at this task.  After being marginalized for half a century, the Blue Kites reinvented themselves as a martial order.

The first set of Windwives (now retiring into old age and death) were soft things, full of poetry and expensive wine.  But in the decades that passed, the North Wind's amorous tastes changed.  His newest brides are all warrior women and lawyers.  The formation of a paladin order was inevitable.

His newest bride is a man: Thornis Oglafar, possessor of a magnificent mustache, dyed a magnificent blue.

There are many members in the Order of the Blue Kite.  The Windwives are merely the ones that tend to occupy most of the high positions (but not all of them).

Can a starting PC play a Windwife?  I don't see why not.  Perhaps a Windwife just starting out, or one who has fallen from favor for some reason.  Have fun DMing the inevitable sex scene when hubby visits.

Crusades of the Blue Kite

There are two:

• To catch the rebellious South Wind and either bring it among Hesaya's faithful, or kill it.

• To protect the sanctity of marriage.  There's a lot of debate about what this actually means, though.  The North Wind has a fairly lax interpretation of marriage, but he isn't in charge of the Blue Feather.  His wives are--and their opinions are as varied as the clouds. 

And so the paladins sometimes work with things like domestic abuse, reconcile estranged spouses, and investigate claims of infidelity.  I mean, they fight dragons, too, but dragons aren't one of the official crusades, so. . .

like this, except with swords instead of brooms
and also they're the good guys and you can play one
by Luis Falero

Class Abilities

Originally, I was going to put them all in a little level progression for you.  But fuck that--there's too many systems, and too many scales of power level.  I'm just going to list them all here, and you can assemble them however you want.

Okay, fine.  I'll type something up, just so people can refer to it if they want to a FLAILSNAILS game I'm running or something.

Level 1 - Wind Squire, Speak with Wind, Gust of Wind (1x per day per level), Armor of Wind
Level 2 - Throw Arrow, Immunity to Wind
Level 3 - Negotiate Windstorm, Lightened Body
Level 4 - Flight, +1 Attack

Wind Squire

You travel with a squire wind.  It mostly hangs on you, messing with your hair and making sure that no one ever smells your farts.

Speak with Wind

Each day brings a new wind.  At a minimum, this functions similar to gathering rumors.  You should also roll a d10 to see what direction the wind is blowing from, since the wind will bring news from that direction as well (and not only the stuff that is visible from the sky).

You can talk to your squire, of course.

Gust of Wind

As the spell, gust of wind.  You'll get a lot of castings of this.

1 - North
2 - East
3 - South
4 - West
5-10 - The predominant wind direction in the area.

<sidebar>I actually have an old map of Centerra with all of the prevailing winds drawn on it.  I used it to figure out which side of the mountain range got all the rain, and which direction the trade winds blew the caravels.  I was much more interested in simulating a realistic world then.  Nowadays, it seems like useless fussing--pointless unless you want to publish a gazetteer.</sidebar>

Armor of Wind

This is the reason why so many of the Blue Kites walk around naked.  Those who have always trusted the wind will be protected by the wind.  This benefit is lost as soon as the trust is betrayed: i.e. the paladin willingly wears conventional armor at any point after they take the oaths.

Make your own level chart, but here's an example:

• Level 1, AC 11, AC 13 vs small projectiles (arrows or smaller)
• Level 2, AC 12, AC 14 vs small projectiles
• Level 3, AC 13, AC 15 vs small projectiles
• Level 4, AC 14, AC 16 vs small projectiles
• Level 5, AC 15, AC 17 vs small projectiles
• Level 6+, AC 16, AC 18 vs small projectiles.

A sacrifice now for a payoff later.  And not all of them are naked.  Many wear simple robes.  And others just wear armor like a normal person.

This ability is useless against really big things.  At a minimum: a boulder hurled by a giant, a dragon's claws.

Throw Arrow

You don't need a bow to fire an arrow.  Your squire accelerates it for you.

At high level, you can use this to fire around corners, as long as your squire can see the target.

Immunity to Wind

Lame now, but useful later on when you can summon a windstorm.

Negotiate Windstorm

You will need to negotiate with a local wind in order to do this.  Probably a wind duke, actually, since most minor winds don't have the ability to call in a windstorm.  (Military actions are regulated among the winds, just as they are among us.)

Windstorms are environmental, usually last for at least an afternoon, and only work outdoors.  Arrows are impossible.  Speech is difficult.  Shoving people is very easy (+4), and everyone gets -4 to attacking and defending (which usually cancels itself out).  Flight is impossible.  Shoddy buildings will be torn apart.  

Expect pissed off treants to show up the next day, cradling broken limbs.  They usually wish to repay one broken arm with another.

Lightened Body

By controlling their breath, a Blue Kite Paladin can make their body much lighter. This lets them walk across water and stand on tree branches that are normally too small to support them.  This doesn't let you jump any further, since the lowered mass also means that you have less momentum.

It also makes you immune to fall damage.  Fun!

"Flight"

It's not quite the same as the fly spell.  It's more like being picked up by a huge wind and carried through the sky in a horrifying vortex of deafening winds.  Expect bruises from your clothing as it flaps around (unless your clothing is tied down tight).  It's like skydiving, while the wind teases you and tries to crack jokes.

You can bring your friends with you, of course.

Not coincidentally, skydiving is a popular past time among the Blue Kites.  

You can fly large distances (miles) but not small ones.  Small hops of less than half a mile are out of the question.  And you will take 1d6 fall damage when you land, unless you can find a decent spot of water to land in.  (By default, 50% chance that your Wind can find one in time.)

Many Blue Kites wear an enormous silk scarf tied up around their waist.  Enormous, as in 30' long.  You might think that it's a swordswoman wrapped up in a weird, bulky burka, but then the wind unfurls it and BAM it's this huge scarf tied around their waist, shaking like the arms of God.  

The giant scarf makes sense: it means that the Wind will pull you through the air by your center of mass (your waist/ass) and not by the part of your body that has the greatest wind cross-section.  This prevents you from spinning uncontrollably as you fly through the air (a common blunder among first-time flyers).

This is their love token.  It's given to them by the North Wind as a sign of his favor.  And it serves a function: it allows you to make an attack for double damage upon landing.

Blue Kite strike teams usually blow in the window, and open up with an attack like that.

This also requires talking to a powerful local wind, and negotiating the cost.  What does the Wind want?  See below.

Other Stuff

Swords of the North Wind

If the love token scarves were a sign of approval, then a sword is a full-fledged admission of love.  If you aren't already a Windwife, you will probably be one soon.

These are +1 swords given out by the North Wind only after some seriously big favor has been earned.  They can be used to attack anything within 50', since they "throw" their slashes through the air.

Every Paladin of the Blue Kite aspires to own one.  The magic of the blade is dwarfed by the immense prestige it confers.

The House of Miraculous Windmills

This is your home base.  It's a cross between a church and a mansion, and it is covered with short towers that are themselves covered with windmills, large and small.

The house uses minor Winds as servants.  But since Winds have a hard time clearing the table after dinner, they mostly just turn the windmills and sing mariner's work songs all the damn day.  Expect a high level of automation within the house.  Crudely automated dishwashers, that sort of thing.

Nabba Sunbeam runs the house.  She's 55, a Windwife, and an inventor.

The most interesting room is the Flight Room, stocked with skydiver's wingsuits and with several ways to take to the sky.

Generating a Wind NPC

Roll up starting attitude and personality normally.  You may want to use this altered goals table, though.

This Wind NPC wants. . . [d6]

1. To punish a particular piece of the earth, which has offended it.  Please roll this impudent boulder into the ocean, explain the Wind's displeasure, and sink it someplace cold and lonely.
2. A wife, like the North Wind.  Not only does this mean finding a willing bride, but it also means convincing the Church to perform the ceremony.
3. Less smoke.  Get these people--those ones over there--to stop burning fires.  I don't care how you do it.
4. To go on an adventure.  Take me with you!  Expect to have a very difficult time lightning a campfire, having a quiet meeting in the library, and having all of your arrows miss.  Remember that Winds can't go underground or in confined spaces.  (Or more accurately, they can, they just risk dying if someone shuts a door and traps them in a space too small for them to circulate.)
5. To kill some noxious creature.  Perhaps a monster that controls wind, a wizard that captures wind, a roc, or a sky whale.
6. A vacation!  You'll have to do the wind's job for it.  Turning the windmill, spreading seeds, drying laundry.  Expect bewildered villagers and hilarious complications.  The Wind will probably bring you a souvenir from wherever the fuck it goes.  Probably something stupid, like 800 pounds of snow.

Sky Executions

Shitty Fiction

They had found his victims tied to stones at the bottom of the pond.  And so, for irony’s sake, they tied him up as tight as they could.  The coarse twine made red valleys of his flesh, crisscrossing his limbs like rings on an aspen, and it was still not tight enough.

The wind was picking up.  Even with all the dried blood weighing it down, the murderer’s hair was a tempest.  It thrashed in the gale as if striving to escape his head.

One by one, the people came up.  Each carried a kite, each string taught in the wind.

While the paladin took the kite and affixed it the condemned, the person recited their condemnation.  Their tears dried in the wind.

By the time they were done, the crucifix was covered in over a hundred kites, straining at their leashes like sled dogs.  The wood groaned; the murderer was silent.  He was watching the sky.

And then the crowd marched down the hill, the paladin following.  The condemned was alone on the hilltop with the priest.

A few words were exchanged.  No one heard them, not with the wind roaring like an angry sea.  No one read their lips, not with their eyes squinting against the stinging dust. 

And then the priest raised his arms.  The wind cracked like thunder.  The trees bowed their heads.  The crowd knelt, or fell.  On top of the hill, they could see the unruffled priest, untouched by the hurricane.

And the crucifix, it was gone.  Like a stone fired from a sling, they watched it arc out over the patchwork of pasture and farm, bleeding torn kites all the way down.  When it landed in the Sinner’s Field, they could see splintered wood tossed out from the dust of the impact.

The paladin wasn’t watching.  He was calming his horse down.  In a couple of minutes, he would ride down to the Sinner’s Field, confirm the execution, and ensure that nothing was buried where the vultures couldn’t find it.

It didn't take long, but by the time the paladin got returned, most of the crowd had drifted away, scattered like clouds in the wind.

If No Priest Is Available

In that case, the condemned is merely thrown off a cliff.  It is considered more respectable to walk off the cliff yourself, and those that request it are allowed to do so.

If no sufficiently high cliff is available, it's a journey to the nearest one.

Weaponizing the Wind

What kind of spells do you think high-level wind clerics have access to?

In the War Against Heaven, Emperor Tamerian's entire army was picked up and hurled, like chess pieces swept off a board.  They found dead soldiers up to four miles away.

Of course, the Nivian elephants and horses were too large to be thrown, so the wind merely rolled and dragged them for about half a mile.  Scavengers reported that their meat was quite tender, being well pulped by all the pounding and abrasion.

Emperor Tamerian's body was found on what is now called the Emperor's Hill, pierced by over a hundred swords that had been stripped from his honor guard and thrown in the tempest.  

While the emperor's corpse was removed, the swords remain.

The Four Winds

Among the Church's greatest servants, you will find golemlords, coatl, and at least one vampire saint.  You will also find the Winds.

The North Wind

It is the warmest and the smallest of the winds.  It is also the most human of the winds.  It is known as the Killing Wind.  It was imprisoned by the storm giants inside an iceberg for a while, but its release was eventually secured at great cost (a truce).

The North Wind was altered by its imprisonment.  Rumor claims that upon its release, the North Wind begged Zulin to be made human, and was refused.

Unique among the Winds, the North Wind takes wives.  (Men and women: all can become windwives.)  One of the paladin orders, The Seraglio of the Blue Feather, is composed entirely of their number.  (I'll do a post on them, eventually.)

The North Wind is martial.  It is often sent on missions of assassination by the Church.  It kills through suffocation.  It is capable of creating a near-perfect vacuum.

The West Wind

The West Wind is the noblest and most attentive of the winds.  It is known as the Castle Wind.  It is responsible for carving out the Holy Castle of Concrayda in the Immortal Mountains.

The hands of the wind are both strong, nimble, and sadly limited.  They are strong enough to hurl trees, dexterous enough to thread a needle while bearing it aloft, and yet they cannot set down an egg without breaking it.  (They must always be moving quickly.)  The hands of the wind are well-suited to sculpture, which it performs by throwing grains of sand.

It took the West Wind over a century to complete its construction.  You can see it atop Mount Crayda, rising from the peak like the flutes of a pipe organ.  It is the Church's most private retreat, where they conduct international business, when the situation demands a neutral ground away from the Holy City of Coramont.

The Castle was originally designed to be only accessible via flight, preferably by the West Wind personally carrying all guests up to the Castle.  This practice was quickly discontinued (partially because of the Wind's aforementioned difficulty in setting things down gently) and a hasty staircase was carved.

Concrayda is partially built for humans, but large portions of its interior are meant to host the West Wind itself, as well as the lesser winds that consort with it.  It lives in the Holy Castle, and can sometimes be heard playing the castle like a musical instrument, which it is.  Intruders are scoured to polished bones by the sand that carpets all of the rooms and hallways.

The East Wind

The East Wind is the smartest and swiftest of the winds.  It is known as the Whispering Wind.

It travels quickly.  It brings news, carries messages.  The recipients only notice a swiftly-building gale, followed by about six seconds of harsh winds, while a sibilant voice whispers swiftly into your ear, clearly audible above the din.

The East Wind is the most popular of the Winds.  Many smaller winds are obedient to it, or at least friendly, and they cooperate in gathering information for the East Wind.  (Because of this, enemies of the Church always speak guardedly when a wind is blowing.)

The East Wind loves to travel.

It blows the Pope's private galleon wherever the Pope travels, and accompanies the Pope on all of his sea voyages.  The Popes private galleon was designed for this: it lacks a keel and a rudder.  In fact, the galleon more closely resembles a wooden tower with a skirt of sails along its midsection and a weighted bottom.  It's a bit like a buoy.  (And yes, buoys rock.  The crew remains near the waterline when the ship is in motion, and the Wind stabilizes it when it is at rest.  It is also stabilized by several enormous anchors arranged radially, like guy lines on a radio tower.)

The South Wind

The South Wind has never been tamed.

It is difficult to capture a Wind by launching a crusade against it, and so this goal has eluded the Church for some time now.

There was a time when the South Wind fought his three siblings, and all three were overcome.  The South Wind is larger and more powerful than his three siblings combined.

Fighting a Wind

Good fucking luck.  Even the smallest wind, the North Wind, is capable of throwing trees at you (although it prefers the intimacy of suffocation).  And the East and West Winds are strong enough to pick you up and throw you a quarter mile.  If they make an attack roll, your horse will land on you, too.

The South Wind isn't any stronger locally, but it is so large that it can just form a circular loop on top of you, and then just keep blasting you with hurricane-force winds.

But that brings me to my next point: the Winds cannot stop moving, and they have a hard time changing macro-direction locally.  Think of them as having the speed and and maneuverability of a Boeing 747 that can control all the wind directly below it.  Once it flies over you, it needs to circle back for another strafing run.

This takes a few minutes, so you have plenty of time to prepare between Wind attacks, also known as "holy fuck where did it find all those fence posts and it just sucked up our donkey" moments.  It's like standing under a tornado for six seconds at a time, every five minutes.

The best way to escape it is just to go underground.  Just jump in the nearest cave and start going down until you hit Centerra's huge and world-spanning Underworld.

You could also jump into a large body of water.  Even a mighty Wind can't do much more than whip the surface into a furious spray.  (Just mind the incipient boulders.)

You can't hit the wind.  That's stupid.  Not even with a magic sword.  Not even with a fireball spell.

The best way to defeat one of the Great Winds is to trap it.  This is why Winds rarely follow you very far into enclosed spaces.  They're afraid of getting trapped like the North Wind was, and they're very weak when they are slow (e.g. turning around in a cramped cave).

The best way to kill a Great Wind is to trap it, and then crush it.  Maybe, like, a steel silo that retracts into the ground.  It'll be like trying to crush a bunch of tigers in a grape press, though, so make sure that you build that thing sturdy.

If a Wind dies, the wind will stop blowing from that direction.  At least for a moment.  Then there will be crazy windstorms for a few weeks as the lesser winds fight amongst themselves to establish dominance.  All ships at sea will probably be sunk.

Some spells are very effective when fighting winds.

Protection from arrows functions a bit like protection from evil, and makes the wind unable to contact you directly.  (It can still throw cows at you, though.)

Winds cannot cross a wall of wind.  (They're awfully good at going around, though.)

Gust of wind injures them as if were a damaging spell of a comparable level.  A reskinned scorching ray, perhaps?

Control winds functions as a charm spell.

Control weather can seal a Wind out of an area, or trap it inside of the area.

If you cast gaseous form on yourself, you have basically jumped into the Wind's lap.  You poor fool.  It'll be like that time Hulk Hogan wrestled that puppy.

A Great Wind is a 10 HD creature that's nearly impossible to damage or kill.  A lesser wind is a 3 HD creature that is very similar.  The lesser winds all have names and goals.  They are all devout Hesayans, and have their own churches in the upper air.

None of them can form tornadoes.  Tornadoes are cheesy.  Tornadoes with faces and hands are even cheesier.  Fuck your anthropic chauvinism.

And tornadoes are the wind equivalent of devils anyway (see also: dust devils).  You'll never see a tornado in any place where the Church has a foothold.

God Throat Paladins

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." - John 1:1

There's a part in the Bible that seems to imply that the Word (the Idea of God) is that same as God.  The immaterial is equivalent to the real, in cases where there was no physical object.  Which makes sense: there is no physical God, therefor the non-physical God is the real God.

But then that means that the idea of God, which you (yes, you) are holding in your mind is God himself.

And the verse makes it explicit that the idea is expressed as the Word (rather the Thought or the Dream), which again makes sense.  Words are how ideas enter the world.  If symbols have a power of their own it is only by acting on a conscious, comprehending mind, and the preferred method of human communication is the friendly chat.  Words are manifestations of the intangible, where God dwells.

You don't have to look far to find reverence for words (those adorable little tumblers of encrypted thought).  Books are spoken to as if they were people.  Holy books that are given funerals, as if they were people.  Or that one time all 22 letters of the alphabet testified against Abraham?

The Many Mouths of God

There are many orders of paladins, but only the God Throat Warriors can claim to speak with the Voice of the Authority.

They are chosen from choir boys that outgrow their usefulness.  Too big and too broad to sing soprano, they are given a sword and asked to find some talent with it.

They take their vows atop the Filtrata, the largest of the arches in the Bounding Canyon.  They receive a tattoo of a blue mouth on their throat: a blue mouth.  And then they learn to speak with the Authority's Voice.

Then they take their vows of silence.  Some of them bind their jaws together with wire (although such ostentatious displays are falling out of vogue as too arrogant).

The God Throat Paladin NPC

HD 2  AC plate+shield  Sword 1d6

*Vow of Silence

*Command 1/day

*Each squad is accompanied by a HD 3 leader who can also cast silence (by commanding air to be still) and sunder (by commanding on object to break).

*They can forgive everything except blasphemy.

The God Throat Paladin Class

Level 1 - +1 MP, No Voice, +4 Save vs Sound and Language
Level 2 - +1 MP, Improved Command
Level 3 - +1 MP
Level 4 - +1 MP, The Shout

Spell List
You are a spellcaster.  You can spells spontaneously, without any preparation in the morning.  By level 4, you can cast four spells per day.  The spells you have available depend on your level.  At level 1, you can use command.  At level 2, you can cast ventriloquism (although your voice has not returned to you, you can make it emerge from any point you can see) and knock (by commanding a door to open).  At level 3, you can cast shatter (by commanding an item to sunder).  And at level 4, you can cast silence (by commanding an object to be silent).

No Voice
Your pledge to give up your voice was accepted.  Your voice is gone.  You cannot speak.

Improved Command
When you use command, you do not speak with your voice, you speak with the Authority's Voice.  You can cast command without any MP limit.  If you know the creature's true name, it gets -4 on its save.  At level 2, you can use command even on things that do not share a language with you.  At level 3, you can use command on all things, even inanimate objects (handle their HD as if they were transformed into animate objects).  You could command a tree to give you its fruit, or a grave to exhume a corpse.

If you have gone at least a full day without using speaking or using command, your target gets -2 to their Save.  A full week, a full month, a full year, a full 3 years, and a full decade each give the target a cumulative -2 to their Save.  If you have gone at least 3 days without speaking or using command, you get a free +1 MP to spend on the command that you are currently casting.

The Shout
When you begin the shout, you begin to exhale.  You may never stop exhaling.  You struggle to get all the air out of your lungs.  Your lips will rip and bleed from the shockwave.  You deal 2d6 sonic damage in a 20' cone in front of you, and take 1d6 damage.  If you wish to end the Shout, you can make a save at the beginning of your turn.  While shouting, you cannot move or be moved (although you can still fall).

Command
Level 1 spell
Target: 1 creature that can hear and understand you.
You shout a single-word command to your target, who must then carry it out if they fail a save.  If the command lasts more than a single round, the target gets a new save at the beginning of each of its rounds.
+1 MP: Affect +2 targets.
+1 MP: You may increase then length of your command by +2 words.
+1 MP: You may increase the duration between checks by +2 rounds.

Discussion
I think it's cool that they give up their voice at level 1, and at level 2 they (sort of) get it back via ventriloquism, except that their prodigal voice doesn't emerge from their throat, just sort of the nearby area, like a stray cat that followed you.  The voice in your lungs is YHWH, and you cannot use it to order a pizza, for fuck's sake.

I like that the god throat paladin can command a stream to part, but it couldn't ask the stream where the river god's pearls were (because that would require too many words, and the paladin probably couldn't understand the stream's words anyway).

I like that it's a class about bossing people around, rather than understanding them or whatever.

I haven't playtested it yet, but I imagine that it could be either strong or weak, depending on the player.  How much mileage you get out of command depends a lot on how creative the player is, and how lenient the DM's rulings are.

Another Post About The Hesayan Church

Here's some more blathering about the Hesayan Church.

Monstrous Religion

Centerra is powerfully monotheistic.  Even the pagans of the sweltering north are not true pagans, and instead worship a heretical version of Hesaya called Celestialism.  Even orcs worship Zulin, Prince of the Upper Air, in their own way.

(Zulin is the king of gods, and only kings are allowed to pray to him, but he is not the creator-god.  Hesaya has no creation myth.  The history of Centerra is too difficult to explain, even with resort to religion's trumps.)

The only people who aren't Hesayans are the Fire Cults, the ash-eaters, who burned their volcano gods rather than allowing them to be captured and assimilated into the Church.  Their rejection of Hesaya is the reason that there are no volcanoes in Centerra (except for Lady Hellfire).

(In my mind, this is the biggest distinction between Warhammer's Church and Centerra's Church.  In Centerra, even the monsters worship the same god; or at least, they quiver in fear when Zulin is mentioned, since they are keenly aware of their own status as unrepentant sinners.)

Double Fire

A secret tool of the Fire Cults, Double Fire is a special type of fire that only burns fire.  (Of course, it generates enough heat to set nearby things on fire anyway, so the point is usually moot.)  It cannot be made de novo, and must be kindled from a pre-existing flame of double fire.  (This is similar to the holy fire of the Church, which is itself a reverse engineered form of double fire.  There is a popular conspiracy theory that claims that Church avoids eradicating the fire cults in order to spy on them, in what can only be described as a religious form of industrial espionage directed towards the assimilation of new miracles and the expansion of Zulin's portfolio.)

By default, assume that a double fire is purest white.  Compared to regular fire, it burns fuels twice as fast, and sheds light twice as far.

The older a double fire is, the hotter it burns and the faster it spreads.  Older fires also blueshift along the blackbody spectrum.

The Fire Cults call it wrathful fire.  In their hidden shrines, they incubate immensely powerful flames, hundreds of years old.  These flame nurseries resemble bonsai gardens a little bit.  Each flame is kept tiny in order to conserve fuel, but they are so powerful that some of them will devour a tree every day.  Fire Cultists will also tell you that the older flames develop more idiosyncrasies, and even personalities.

These ancient flames are sometimes used offensively.  The oldest of them burns ten times as bright, and ten times as fast, as normal fire.  It doesn't take much imagination to see how they could be used to attack the Church.

At the very least, being burned alive by these old fires is blessedly quick: a grown man can be reduced to the finest ashes in less than a minute.

God's Ex

The Simurgh is Zulin's former wife.  (She is not the goddess of birds.  She is all birds, paradoxically.)  She has a complex relationship with her ex-husband, encompassing the entire spectrum from blackest enemy to most treasured friend.

Zulin divorced the Simurgh in order to marry Ianu, his prophetess, after he lifted her bodily into heaven.  This act also set the precedent for a moral divorce.  (It had previously been punishable by death.)

from Aquelarre

Promise Rings

They are given to those who make a promise to the church (see also: geas).  They are made from heavy porphyry.  As you stray from your vow, they grow heavier and heavier.  If you die without fulfilling your promise, or if you lose the ring, it will pull your soul straight down to hell.

If the ring is removed, you can still feel it on your finger, invisible and heavy.  The removed ring becomes non-magical.

(This is similar to the Silent Bell of St. Dormaine, in which the physical object is the "false" or "lesser" object, while the spiritual object is the real one, or at least, more real than the physical one.  Although the Silent Bell lost its tongue decades ago, the faithful can still hear it calling them to prayer each morning.  The bell's soul rings loudly, even if the bell does not.)

The Killing Wind

The four greatest servants of the Church of Hesaya are the Four Winds.  The South Wind is known as the Killing Wind.  It seeks and destroys the Church's enemies.  It answers only to the pope.

It cannot be see, it cannot be fought.  It deals non-lethal damage.  If it would bring a creature down to 0 HP, it instead steals their breath, and makes that person intangible to air.  (This feels similar to being launched into space, without any momentum.  To the affected, the air becomes thinner and thinner until it is gone.  You can no longer touch the air, because it has rejected you.)

The Killing Wind can be trapped in a room.  (And for a while, it was.  For 19 years, Gormazotz, king of the storm giants of Surlund, held the Killing Wind hostage in his dungeon.  No southerly wind blew during this time.)

For this reason, the Killing Wind is loathe to enter any room where it might be trapped.

Depictions of Zulin

According to the doctrine of the Church, it is blasphemous to have any art that is not a depiction of Zulin.

Because of this, all of the illustrations in holy books are of Zulin.  All people are Zulin (their identities indicated through the use of expressive hats).  All trees are Zulin, and if you look closely, you can see that the leaves are small hands, each covered with the delicate blue skin of Zulin.

And among the crags of the background, you can see the geography of Zulin.  The mountains are subtle noses, and the canyons are subtly ridged, as teeth.

As you'd expect, the only colors of ink that are allowed are blue and black.  The exceptions are the unholy things, which are definitively not-Zulin, and so are illustrated in red.  Demons, sinners, and satans.

Illustrations that do not conform to these very reasonable expectations are summarily burnt by the Fourth Lantern.

The 99 Satans

Although since the paladins conquered hell, Satan has been sundered into 99 parts.  The 1st Satan is Asmodeus, the prime devil, who administers Hell on behalf of his paladin masters.  The 63rd Satan is Orcus, who fights the paladin occupation alongside Jubilex (who is not a Satan).

(Satans replace balors in Centerra.)