GloGmas 2025: The Genius Legionis

Everything is alive.  Mountains, winds, the earth itself.  Even cities can dream.

But "city" is an arbitrary concept isn't it?  There is no clear boundary, nor any clear membership criteria.

This is irrelevant.  Everything is alive.  Everything strives.  Every collection of anything that has any sort of a shared identity.  Sentience comes from identity, not structure, and identity is not something that brute material can dictate.  We decide.

What is a human, except a collection of singular cells that dreamed themselves unified?

When the legion was founded, the genius legionis came into existence.  It is the metaphysical consequence of thousands of men uniting their wills under one banner--although it is equally true to say that the unitary will of the legion is the consequence of the genius legionis.

The genius legionis doesn't have an intellect the way that you and I do.  It is pure will.  It doesn't communicate with words, but with instinct and gut feelings.  It doesn't want anything except the shared goals of the group that it champions.  It is strengthened by recognition, honor, success, and sacrifices.

But the legion has passed from memory.  With their passing, the genius legionis has also dissipated.  But its home remains--a bronze eagle atop a tall standard.  The genius legionis wasn't made up of bronze, but it resided there.  And now that the standard has been picked up again by new hands, a new spirit stirs behind the bronze eyes.

Playing as the Genius Legionis

This is a character class.  One of the players at the table can play as the genius legionis.  As a PC, the genius legionis is a little unusual.  They don't have a body, except the bodies of the rest of the party.  They don't have a voice, except the voice of the party.  They cannot die, unless the party dies.

Around the table, this might be a little bit awkward, but I think it might suite some players who like a more background role.

I would also recommend that the player who plays the genius legionis be given a hireling that they can roleplay as.  A standard bearer--who can also be a porter, torchbearer, etc.

The Genius Legionis Class

The genius legionis can help solve puzzles by putting ideas in the heads of party characters.  They can't speak directly, but other characters can speak for them.  And like anyone else, they get one action every round in combat.  (This action is usually performed via the body of a willing player character, although some of them are performed "through" the body of their opponents.)

Starting at level 2, a genius legionis gets access to Stunts.  Most stunts are useful in combat and can only be used when certain conditions are met.  Each Stunt can only be used once per combat.

Template Bonus: Everyone in the party gets +1 Initiative for every Genius Legionis template you have.

A Inspire, Killing Instinct

B Shrine, 2 Random Stunts

C Trophies, 2 Random Stunts

D Battle Flow, 2 Stunts of Your Choice

Inspire

You can't speak, but you can deliver ideas into the brains of anyone else in the party, at any time.

Killing Instinct

As a standard action, pick a party member who hasn't dealt any damage to anyone this turn.  They get a free melee attack.  You roll it.

Shrine

The party can set up the battle standard and make an offering to it (which can be literally anything, as long as it is delivered reverentially).  The site becomes a shrine.  Within the shrine, party members are automatically alerted (via spidey sense) if any enemy enters.  The "site" can be a campsite in a wilderness or a small fort, as long as it is fully owned by the party.

Trophies

In an hour-long ceremony that requires a bard and a lot of mead, the party retells the story of how they killed a powerful enemy.  (You gotta roleplay this at least *a little*).  Then a trophy of that enemy is affixed to the battle standard.  Against a similar foe, once per combat, as a free action, you can grant an automatic success after someone fails their save, or turn a critical miss into a critical hit.

You can affix a maximum of 3 trophies to yourself

Battle Flow

As a standard action, pick an enemy or a group of similar enemies.  Then pick a party member.  The enemies will all attack the chosen party member.  They get an Int save if this would expose them to immediate, obvious hazards.  They get another Int save if they are human-intelligence or smarter.

Alternatively, you can use this ability to make enemies *avoid* attacking a specific party member.

Stunts (d10)

1. Don't You Die on Me

Useable only when a party member is Dying.  For the rest of the turn, all attempts to stabilize the Dying party member get +2.  All attacks against the enemy that last dealt damage to the Dying party member get +4 to hit.

2. Special Delivery

One party member can cast a spell into a melee weapon held by another character.  The weapon glows, gets +4 to damage and to hit, and delivers the spell on the next hit.  If the weapon isn't discharged in one round, the spell dissipates.  If the weapon misses, you can use your standard action to give them an extra roll, as per the Killing Instinct ability.

3. Overconfidence

This ability is only useable after at least 3 attacks have missed this turn.  As a standard action, an enemy becomes overconfident and missteps.  They get -4 Defense for the next round.  Useable 1/combat.  

4. The Cavalry is Here

If one party member is separated from the party, and they are about to die (i.e. in combat and within 1 hit of death, drowning in a pool, etc), you can roll a d6.  On a 4 or higher, the party can arrive on the scene as long as it is feasible within the fiction.

5. Gank

An enemy takes 2d6 damage.  Useable only when three different party members have dealt melee damage to them in a single turn.

6. Suddenly, a Rat

At the end of a turn where an enemy moves somewhere new, a random rat appears and attacks the enemy.  The enemy steps on a rat nest or something similar.  If rats don't exist in this location, a creature of similar menace appears instead. 

7. Irresistible Monologue

A villain capable of monologuing spends a round monologuing, giving the party extra time to move, prep, or heal.  You can use this ability at the start of combat before any hostilities have broken out, or when the enemy seems certain to win.  The monologue ends as soon as anyone takes an action that is overtly hostile.  (E.g. the enemy has a readied action to cast power word kill as soon as you raise your bow--they're not monologuing with their eyes closed.)  Only works on enemies that can talk.  

8. Last Stand

A character at 1 HP takes a full turn of actions, chosen by you (and with the consent of the character's player).  They get +4 attack and damage on their first attack roll. 

9. Swift Punch in the Throat

An ally punches an enemy spellcaster in the throat, dealing 1 damage and giving them a 50% chance of fumbling their spell.  Only useable when an enemy is casting a spell adjacent to an ally.

10. Glorious Charge

When the entire party charges enemies simultaneously, all enemies take 1d10 fear damage.  When most of the party charges enemies simultaneously, all enemies take 1d6 fear damage.  Useless against enemies that are immune to fear or enemies that have no reason to fear you (e.g. ghosts,  elder dragons, werewolves).

Describe how the glorious charge appears in the eyes of the enemies.  For example, you might appear as a flaming hawk above the party.

Merry GLoGmas!

This is a GLoGmas gift for antitime at Temporal Negativity  

I'm sort of riffing of their Five Fighters class.  They also have a functional little dungeon here.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

GLOG Class: Lackey

 Hopping on the bandwagon: this is a single-level class that might be compatible with Cloak-and-Sword.  (See here.)

From what I can tell, it is a single-level class that uses the concept of espirit, which I think is when you meet a new NPC and they feel the opposite of neutrality.

GLOG Class: Lackey

You are a henchman.  You found yourself in this status because you bear a strong and unrequited loyalty to someone who is possibly quite undeserving of it.  

You are not ethical, and you have no higher loyalties than your master.  

You are also not especially motivated, nor talented

Squad

There are three of you.  You can do simple physical labor as fast as two normal people.  (The third person slacks off, complains, or tries to do things in a "better way".

Due to your incompetence, laziness, and surliness, you can't actually do a skilled task any faster than one average adventurer.

Whenever you take damage, one of you "dies".  The dead person revives after combat (they're very durable).  If all 3 of you die, you're dead for good.  Whenever a lackey dies, the remaining lackeys are stunned for the next round (knocked to the floor by the same attack, or something similar).

If the player attempts to gamify this ability (e.g. "I can run across lava because I can only lose 1/3 of my HP per turn" the whole group dies painfully.)  

Discussion: This does make the Lackey Squad very tanky for a level 1 character against very strong opponents.  Which is really as intended, since they are intended to be the meat shields.  However, the stun effect can be frustrating, since they'll often spend 1-2 rounds stunned in every combat.

Red Shirt

Monsters will preferentially attack you.  (This is a narrative effect, not mind-control or anything.)  If you are killed, the monster will (1) kill you in a way that reveals their motivations and/or special powers and especially if they waste the ability (e.g. using their fire breath to kill the lackey instead of targeting the rest of the group), (2) stop to gloat/intimate/feed.  This effectively stuns them for a round.

If all 3 of you are killed in combat, the enemy is "stunned" for 1 round as they stop to dismember/eat/monologue.  

You still need to explain why the monster was so eager to kill you.  Maybe you are very annoying, or maybe you stepped on its tail, or maybe you were very threatening, or maybe you jumped in front of an attack that was meant to be for your master.

You can turn this ability on and off whenever you wish.

Group Identity

Although you are a group of people, you must develop an identity for them.  They have a shared identity and you must still roleplay it like you would any other character.  Although they are a group, they have a reason for adventuring like any other.  

You may serve the group (probably because they hired you), or you may serve one particular PC as their henchman.  If you choose the latter, you are technically supposed to obey their every command, but in practice you can act freely due to your incompetence/forgetfulness/surliness/

Some ideas for why you serve your particular master:

1. They raised you.
2. They alone showed you kindness.  (You have severe emotional damage.)
3. They promised to make you strong.
4. They saved your life.  (Blood Debt)
5. Literal enchantment.  (Something Magical)
6. You believe them to be the world's savior.  (Religious Reasons)

Faceless Goons

You all wear masks, or at least have something that make you semi-anonymous.

None of you have names.  However, you must have a clearly defined identity (e.g. "ninja clan", "alchemical homunculi", "crime family", "goblins".  You get a specific ability based on this background.  Here are three suggestions--feel free to come up with more.

1. Ninja - Get a free attack at the start of any combat, but one of one of your ninjas instantly dies.  Ninjas that die in this way do not stun the group.
2. Homunculi - Can squeeze under doors, etc.  Any space up to 1" wide.
3. Crime Family - Whenever you arrive at a new town, you always know someone who owes you a favor.  Roll a d6 when you arrive.  1 = surly drunkard, 6 = the king.
4. Goblins - Ignore the first time each day when a goblin dies to a trap.

Underclass

You have espirit for all other lackeys, henchmen, goons, lieutenants and they for you.  ("Lackeys" are defined as all servants held in low esteem, and used for illicit and unskilled tasks.)

When possible, the DM should engineer scenes where you meet other lackeys in 1-on-1 encounters, where the espirit roll can be made.  

Most of the time when lackeys hang out with other lackeys, the way to traditionally break the ice is to complain about your bosses.  

Named Character

You can level up normally, by taking templates in other classes.

Alternatively, one of you could suddenly become a named individual by gaining some distinguishing mark, such as (1) your mask is knocked off, (2) you get a critical scar, (3) you do something central to the plot instead just being a background character.  When this happens, a new character "buds off" from the group of lackeys as a level 1 character of the appropriate class.  The player can choose to either (a) play as the named character and relegate the lackeys to hirelings, or (b) vice versa.

GLOG Class: Bioweapon

I got this idea from mad gods on bear blog.

Crab Evo from Kagaku Sentai Dynaman

A thousand soldiers were slain.  Too many to be tragic--this is just a fact.

Their bodies were ground up and mixed together.  Their names were forgotten.  They were boiled in a cauldron heated by the fat of their own bodies, and Hell itself stirred the pot.

You were born knowing nothing but hatred, chained to a thing called obedience.  Your obedience was absolute and unquestioned, in a way that humans will never understand.  There was never any doubt in your head.  Never any delay or hesitation.  What your creator commanded, you obeyed. 

There was only ever one command.

How many have you killed?  What a meaningless question.  You killed them all.

You only ever knew two sensations.  A restlessness punctuated by a blind, grasping eagerness to inflict yourself upon the world.

But now your creator is dead.  A long time dead, even.  Your teeth are beginning to soften in their rests.  Your exoskeleton is growing brittle.  And incredibly, your sense of self is beginning to become unglued, the slave enchantments finally softening and sloughing away.  Your mind is a newborn thing, and for the first time it tastes something new: doubt.

Templates

A    Built for War, Cruelty Horizon

B    Voice, Demon Blood

C    Softness, Bodyguard

D    Skin Contact, Living Blood

E    Extra Template

Built for War

+6 HP, +3 Str, +3 Con.

Each time you gain another template in this class, you soften, losing 1/3 of these bonuses.

Additionally, you have natural armor (as plate),  two natural attacks (1d6/1d6), and cannot speak.

Cruelty Horizon

• You must make a Cha check each time you consider doing something in combat besides attacking.  You are a butcher of thousands, nothing more.
• You must make a Cha check each time you attempt to help another person.  The idea of helping another person has thus far been inconceivable; yet you are beginning to conceive of it.
• Anyone attempting to help you directly must succeed on a Charisma check or else turn away in disgust.  You are revolting; there is no forgetting your atrocities.

Every time you gain a template in this class, you may remove one of the prior 3 restrictions.

Voice

Your rip out your mandibles.  There is still a mouth back there, somewhere.  It hurts, but you learn how to use it.

Demon Blood

You can feed your blood to someone, effectively transferring HP to them.  This process takes 1 minute.

Softness

Your exoskeleton is rotting on your body.  It will kill you in 3 days, unless at least 3 people assist you in removing it.  Afterwards you can wear clothing and armor as normal, but you lose your natural armor.  

Without your exoskeleton, you are cold.  You will always be cold.  The biting wind is cruel and but also innocent in its cruelty.

Bodyguard

1/round, when an ally next to you takes damage from a melee attack, you can choose to intercept the blow.  Roll a d6: 1 - you fail in your attempt, 2-5, you take half of the damage (rounding down), 6 - you take all of the damage.  You can make this choice after the DM announces damage.  

Skin Contact

Your claws are instruments of murder, and nothing else.  You must rip them off.  It is painful--painful, but they will regrow in 2 weeks as hands.  The skin is brittle, and your fingers lack fingernails, but you can now hold weapons and objects.  You lose your natural attack.

The first time you pet a cat you are going to lose your mind.

Living Blood

You regenerate 1 HP every minute.  

If you spend 10 minutes healing someone (doing nothing else), you restore all of their HP and your HP.

Extra Template

Since you've basically lost all advantages from Template A, at this point you get the ability to gain one more template from some other class that you normally have access to.

Pic unrelated.  Scorpia is just adorable.

Backstory Questions

I've started doing this thing.

Characters in my games don't usually start with more than a sentence of backstory, but each time they level up, I invite the players to tell me more about their character.  Your backstory is earned, not given.

Anyway, these are the questions that I would ask this player, as they level up their Bioweapon.  They don't have a backstory, so instead they gotta philosophize.

Level 2 - You still cling to a part of your past.  What part of your mind will never change?  What part of your mind are you beginning to doubt? 

Also: you have a mouth now.  What will your first words be?

Level 3 - Your body is falling apart.  You are weaker every day.  Why are you so quick to abandon your strength?  If not strength, what do you seek?

Also: what do you do you with your exoskeleton?  Do you give it a funeral?  Discard it like trash?  Or something else.

Level 4 - You once never felt pain, and yet now there is pain in your every moment.  Why do you strive?  Why not lie down and die?

Also: you can remember your atrocities.  Butchery performed blindly, like a man drinking water without considering if the water feels pain.  How do you feel about your past, in your eyes?  Can you forgive yourself?  Or are some crimes unforgiveable?  Or is there nothing to forgive, since how can someone be guilty of sin when morality is not a thought that is available to them.

Additionally - Each time you level up, you remember one of your constituent souls--the people that were ground up to make you.  You are not them, but you remember bits and pieces of their life: perhaps 10-20% of their memories.  Distant, like a dream half-remembered.

Work together with your DM to decide their identity.  They may have living relatives.

Discussion

There's a lot of untapped potential in classes.  I've played around in the past with classes that self-destruct when they reach a certain level, classes that get weaker as they level up (doesn't work), classes that have three bad levels and then 1 really good one (vampires).

Anyway, this is my attempt to make a class that loses its identity as it levels up.

When you start, you are a living weapon, full of malice and covered in claws.  Conceptually, it's crystal clear.  By the end of it, you've abandoned it.  Without that clear image, the player will have to work a little harder define who the character is.  What's the thing beneath the carapace?

It's certainly meant to be something of an inversion, as you eventually become something of a healer and a protector, allowing for that natural roleplaying pivot.

Level 1 is really good, level 2-3 are a little weak, but level 4 is a small game-changer, since it allows you to easily heal your party.  (In my games, I almost never give out healing potions, and healing magic is rare, so this is a relatively large pivot.)  It's worth noting, though, that you've gone from being the invincible bruiser to a (probably) weaker version of a paladin.  

That's what the extra template is for.  The player gets some compensation, and the character diagetically gets a start on a new life.

Gamjee and the Kludger

First, I've got a goblin for you.  He lives in the Bospero hexcrawl I'm tinkering with.

Then, I've got a new class.

HEX 0614 - THE SALT MARSH

Gamjee's Redoubt [obvious]

The ship is clearly visible on the fringes of the salt marsh, where the ground is a little bit drier.

The swamp is an ancient galleon with a broken back and a busted belly.  It must have been carried inland by some ancient wave.  It is soggy with green moss, and the bowsprit is lifted into the air like a pleading hand.

For 200' in all directions, the ground is covered with traps, in a hundred sundry variations.

The danger is communicated through crudely painted signs and stacks of dire chameleon skulls.  "DANGER: TRAPS" and "FUCKOFF" and "YOU PROBLY GONNA DIE".  A more astute observer will also notice all the tensioned wires, submerged chains, and carefully assembled foilage.

A person running across the 200' killzone will set off about 1 trap every 20 feet.  A person walking very carefully through the killzone will set off about 1 trap every 40 feet.  A person probing with a pole and heaving rocks around will set off about 1 trap every 10 feet, but will avoid the effects of 90% of those traps.

Traps [d6]
1. Snare -- Hard Dex or be hoisted in the air.
2. Bear Trap -- Hard Dex or take 1d3 dmg + grabbed.  50% of these also pull you 10' underwater.
3. Swinging Log, Swinging Hammer -- Hard Dex or 1d8 damage.
4. Spear, Swinging Stakes -- Hard Dex or 1d8 damage.
5. Poison Dart -- Con or Poison (1d6).
6. Noisemaker -- Gamjee is alerted + roll for random encounter.

The ship has no obvious entrances except on the deck, which is 15' above the ground.  Anyone attempting to use a grappling hook to climb onto the deck will probably be thwarted.  The railings break away when any weight is put on them, and then trigger explosive plates on the side of the ship, dealing 1d6 acid damage to anyone standing nearby.

Gamjee has a crossbow with 20 bolts, and a ballista that can be wheeled out onto the deck in 1 round, should the need ever arise.

In a worst case scenario, Gamjee will retreat to his bathroom/saferoom, lock himself in there, and pull a lever that floods the ship with poisonous gas (poison 1d6).  The door is triple-thick wood.  Anyone trying to chop down the door will be deep enough in the bilge that they are 2 rounds away from fresh air, should the poison be triggered.

Aside from all that, Gamjee is a regular level 0 goblin with 1 HP.  He has a 4-in-6 chance of being naked (except for his machete), and a separate 4-in-6 chance of being drunk (bogshine).

If you drink his bogshine you must make a Con save or go blind for 1d20 hours.  Goblins and dwarves are immune to this effect.

Yoshitaka Amano's original goblin art for Final Fantasy I

Gamjee is a paranoic, but that doesn't mean that the smugglers aren't trying to kill him.  (They are.)  Outside of the paranoia, he is friendly, rational, and enjoys making friends and helping people.

The smugglers have tried many different ways of killing this pain-in-the-ass goblin, but all have failed.  Gamjee is meticulous and his ship is stocked with enough salted fish, boiled scum, and gosca.  He also drinks the water that seeps into his basement, although it gives him diarrhea.  He usually has diarrhea.  ("You get used to it.")

He responds to friendly hails, and is quick to talk, but slow to trust.  Trades are conducted by Gamgee raising a pole on his ship, which pulls a submerged loop of rope out of the water where it was hidden.  Two pulleys on each side allow items to be clipped to the rope and shuttled back and forth.  You can even have two items move past each other, so as to arrive at the same time.  The rope is strong enough to hold one person, but not two.

Gamjee wants:
- Fresh food
- A higher grade of intoxicants
- Something to help with the diarrhea (except real talk: he just needs to stop drinking the bog water)
- The head and the hat of Captain Bogbeard (he swore revenge after Bogbeard skinned his dog alive)

Gamjee has:
- four goblin bombados (light fuse, 3d6, Dex for half)
- two dozen spare traps (see above)
- 10 barrels of bogshine
- 1 vial of mutagen (random, permanent mutation)
- 2 vials of rage gas (fumes of hell)
- 3 fireworks
- a new litter of puppies (free to a good home)

Perhaps more importantly, anyone who befriends Gamjee can start apprenticing under him, allowing them to take ranks in the Kludger class.

Goblin from Final Fantasy 14

The Kludger

First off, go read this post by B44L.  I'm stealing an ability from him.

Now then.

Kludgers are the scrappers and the scroungers of the goblin world.  In goblin society, they are held in high esteem (i.e. passers-by are careful to avoid the windows when they relieve themselves against the side of a kludger's house.)

Note: the other respected professions are the filth wizard, the cleric of Shadoom, and the squirmisher.

They are among the most intelligent goblins, and the most likely to journey far from home. They tend to have short, eventful lives.

Template A - Improvise, Scrounge
Template B - Sabotage, Trapper
Template C - Overclock
Template D - Biohacker

Note: even though most of these abilities only require a "round of work", your DM may require you to spend more time on larger or more complex tools.  You cannot combine any of these abilities with each other.

Improvise

With a round of work, you can fix a broken tool or mechanism.  At the end of each round of use, it has 2-in-6 chance of breaking irrevocably.

Scrounge

Whenever travelling causes the DM to roll for a random encounter (roughly 2x a day for overland travel, or every 3 rooms in a dungeon), you may also roll a d6.  On a 1, you find a random broken item from the starting equipment table.

Sabotage

With a round of work, you can rig a functioning tool or mechanism to break under conditions that you specify.  The conditions must be simple, physical, and feasible.

Trapper

With 10 minutes of work, you can trap a battlefield in a specific place, or trap a battlefield in general.  If a battlefield is trapped in a specific place, the first creature to walk over that area triggers the trap with a 4-in-6 chance.  If a battlefield is trapped in general, every time an enemy moves into a new area, there is a 2-in-6 chance that they trigger the trap.  If you don't have an opportunity to tell your allies where the traps is, they are also susceptible to this chance.  Potential traps are limited to the 6 listed above, but you can probably research more if you bring your DM some Taco Bell.

Overclock

With a round of work, you rig a functioning tool or mechanism to operate at a higher level.  Weapons deal double damage, pulleys require half as much force to use.  At the end of each round of use, it has a 4-in-6 chance of breaking.  Single use items require two consecutive turns: one for overclocking, and another for use.

Biohacker

All of the previous class abilities can now be applied to living tissue, including magical properties of that tissue.  Basilisk eyes can petrify, dragon glands can still breath fire.  Corpse parts must be fresh or at least well-preserved.

If a corpse has been dead for more than 1 minute, you cannot use Improvise on it.  PCs "resurrected" in this way cannot be raised above 0 HP.  If a creature has multiple attacks, only one can be Overclocked at a time.

Monoclass Party Bonus

If there are multiple Scroungers in a party, every time a pair of 2s is rolled, an intact item from the complete Alchemy Items + Adventuring Gear list is found.  If a trio of 3s is ever rolled, you find some major magic item (Stormbringer, a genie's lamp, the Hand of Dominion).

Kobold from Final Fantasy 14!

The Mother of Osk

I'm going to tell you about a place, and then I'm going to tell you about a class.

This is going to be a difficult class to play. 

It is difficult because you are a parasite, and you only infect other player's characters. 

You will be powerful together, but eventually you will consume their body entirely, and they will die.  You will remain, but they will need to roll a new character.  You killed them.

Becoming an Oscadian

In the yellow wastes of Abasinia, there is a plateau called Osk.  Atop the plateau is the is the city of the same name, the city of living rubies, where the black sugar is made and love is only known to slaves.  We will not speak of them.

Beneath the plateau are the caves of Osk.  And in the largest of the caverns is the Mother of Osk, who has grown too large to ever leave.  Her first birth was as a dragon, but her second birth was as an Oscadian, and indeed she is the only mature Oscadian in the world, for Oscadians do not reach sexual maturity unless their first birth is from the embers of a dragon's egg.

The Mother is a gentle creature, who has grown weary of war, and loves the quiet dusk beneath the plateau.  Even those who seek her out in order to kill her, or steal her many treasures, are usually not killed, if she can help it.  They are merely maimed, then nursed back to health.

She consorts with poets, philsophers, and priests.  She is a devout follower of Hesaya.  If you do her some great service, and if you are gentle with her rough children, she may reward you. 

This reward may take the form of wisdom, treasure, or healing.  The poets are wise, the gold is lustrous, and her milk is thick with potency, but the greatest gift she can give is to infest you with one of her children, a rite normally only reserved for dragons.

Total psychic consent is required for this process to be successful.  NPCs are unreliable in this regard--only PCs can carry a parasitic Oscadian, and only PCs can play an Oscadian.  They are too powerful and subtle for anything less.

DM's Note

Oscadians are a full PC class.  Part of the fun of this parasite class is the fact that you essentially become two players inhabiting the same body.  This is unusual and intimate, and is hopefully a unique roleplaying experience, culminating with the death of the host.

But yeah, sure if you want to treat it as a living suit of armor that casts spells, sure, go ahead.  Be boring.

End of DM's Note

Class: Oscadian

Oscadian A: Sharing a Body, Spellcasting
Oscadian B: Living Armor
Oscadian C: Ragged Claw
Oscadian D: Consumption

An individual Oscadian is actually a colony of clonal organisms, like a coral reef.  There are nineteen types of sub-Oscadians that will grow and differentiate inside the host's body, each one technically an independent animal that shares a bloodstream with its siblings.  These sub-Oscadians will eventually replace every organ in the body.

No one really really give a shit about that, though.  When someone sees an Oscadian, they see a human body overgrown with thick, homogenous, grey scales.  Each of these scales is a sub-Oscadian (one morphology out of the nineteen).  Each one has a single red eye that they open when they cast spells.

When the head is replaced, it is will a flat, heavy-browed face that is mostly occupied with a single red eye the size of a fist.  If the calcite eye is ever pried from the skull, it is a gemstone worth 200s.  It will not regrow.  There is only a narrow slit on the bottom of the head.  This is the polite mouth, and it is used only for speech.  It is incapable of eating.

Luckily, at this point the rude mouth has already grown out of the solar plexus, and is capable of assuming this responsibility with a formidable efficacy.

This process is gradual, though. You begin your life as only an arm.

These humanoid Oscadians are sterile.  True Oscadians are generated from a draconic host.

Sharing a Body

Roll your ability scores as normal.  When you fully take over this body, you'll inherit the physical ability scores from them, but until then, use your own physical ability scores. 

You currently control an arm.  Your host loses control of that arm.  You can use your arm normally.  This potentially allows you to each make a melee attack against a target, or you can both coordinate your turns to fire a single arrow at your target.

Generate your HP normally.  You now share an HP pool with your host.  This makes you very hard to kill.  If either of you die, you both die.  You have separate minds, but a singular body.  If a spell or poison affects one of your bodies, it also affects the other one.

Spellcasting

As a wizard, with one MD per level, up to a maximum of 3 MD.  An Oscadian begins knowing only two spells: speak with reptiles and speak with insects.  At Oscadian B they learn acidbolt.  At Oscadian C they learn dominate insect.  They can use scrolls but cannot replace the spells they know.

You require the use of your arm to cast these spells (as normal).  You don't require a mouth (which is good, because you don't have any).  You can produce the speech required for spellcasting by buzzing all of your sub-Oscadians simultaneously.

Living Armor

You grow to cover the entire body except for the face.  You count as a suit of plate, except you do not take up any inventory slots.  (You still sink automatically if you fall in water.)

Similar to how shields are sundered, you can choose to shatter some of your sub-Oscadians as a free reaction.  If you choose to do this, you may reduce the incoming damage by 1d8, and your AC decreases by 2 points.  You can do this twice, but not thrice (since that would kill too many of your sub-Oscadians).

It's also pretty traumatic, since you then have to watch your siblings (pieces of yourself) flex and squeak and bleed to death on the floor, like legless beetles.

Your dermal population will regrow in one week.

Ragged Claw

Your hand is not a normal human hand anymore.  It is a jagged talon the size of a shovel's head.  You can attack with it to deal 1d6 damage, but you cannot do any fine manipulations with it.

You can also perform a horrific haymaker with it.  You get +2 Attack and deal 2d6 damage, but if you miss or fail to kill your target, you lose your next standard action as you recover your poise.

Consumption

You finally grow populous enough to consume your host's head.  You retain many features from your host, but the face is not one of them.  Your face is now dominated by a glassy, cyclopean eye.

You also consume the brain.  You gain access to all of your host's memories, and you retain one class ability from your host.  This is negotiated with your DM, but I recommend retaining their most iconic ability, such as a barbarian's rage or a wizard's spellbook.

You have one regular humanoid arm and one Ragged Claw.

You are now more than just an arm, you are the entire body.  Your host is now dead, and their player will have to roll a new character.

Oscadian Psychology

If an Oscadian were to read this blog post, they would have many objections to the terminology that I've used.

They do not see a parasite, nor do they see a host.  Instead, they see a first child and a second child, who eventually mature together into the Oscadian.

In their minds, an Oscadian is made up of many subunits, each of which is technically an individual animal with it's own heart, lungs, and (linked) mind.  A human, too, is theorized to be made up of tiny individual animals as well.  None of this is an obstacle to the concept of all these disparate parts seeing themselves as a unified whole.  An Oscadian's sense of self is no less fractured than a human's.

The way they see it, an Oscadian has four parents.  A human father and a human mother.  An Oscadian mother (Mother) and an Oscadian father (long dead, except for what remains in Mother's spermathecae).

An Oscadian who visits their human parents would be just as loving and understanding as the host human would have been, and will probably try to gently explain that changes that they have undergone.  They still love their parents.  They still love the Prophetessa (May She Live Again).  And they still love beer, even if they can't taste it anymore.

The Fighting Mountains

 The shadows of old birds

crawl over young stone

while pines huddle together

and knot crowns beneath the earth.

You fled south from the Cold Hills, leaving behind the icy fogs and venturing under the open arms of the sky.  You watched the dirt give way to granite.  You watched the sky grow huge and blue and flat as a plate.

And now your maps are wrong.  Beneath the shrugging pines and laughing choughs, your maps have become completely, utterly useless.

The rivers are running the wrong way.  The mountains are not where they were described.  The shrub-throttled 'road' that you followed so carefully ended at a flat slab of granite, almost as if the road had disappeared into a crack on the mountainside.

And so there you were, sitting on a glacial erratic, eating the last of your horse, when you looked at the mountains for the tenth time and finally saw their faces.  And once you saw their faces, everything snapped into cold focus, the realization filtering through shades of confusion, terror, and finally awe.

You were so shocked you dropped your chunk of horseflesh.

The Fighting Pile

A mountain might gain half a centimeter of elevation every year.  It might also move three centimeters to the north.  By standard geologic standards, this is a very fast mountain.  This is a leaping gazelle.

The mountains of the Fighting Pile move many hundreds of feet every year.  They are able to do this because they are not mountains, not quite.

They move so quickly because they are trying to kill each other.

What It Looks Like

Thick-browed mountains covered in smooth young granite.  Jagged ridges elbowing themselves over each other.  Piled strata on their sides dappled with shrubs.  Crows, chickadees, magpies, hawks.

A trained geologist would burn his books in a haze of tearful doubt.  The average traveler would never notice anything amiss.  (Except perhaps the occasional hillside of C-shaped trees, formed when the east side of a mountain becomes the west side of the mountain within a tree's lifetime.)

But examine the sides of the mountains, and you can see the clenched teeth and straining neck.  You can see ridges like forearms, struck through with veins of hematite, the whole hillside tense with pressure as one mountain attempts to unseat the other.

Stone hands wrapped around an escarpment, crushing it, forcing it back into the earth.  Two mountains restraining another, limestone crushed beneath granite.  A stone face, shattered and wincing, covered with granite boulders where a granite mountain struck it a century ago.

Minor earthquakes occur almost weekly.

The average mountain moves less than two feet per day.  And while many mountains duel alone or in triads, the great bulk of them all surge towards Young Mount Torgedda

The Monks of Young Mountain Torgedda

The monks live atop Young Mountain Torgedda, as they have lived for generations.  They travel across all of the mountains, following obscure routes and schedules.  Every morning, each mountain is drawn from a half-dozen different angles.

They have vaults of these drawings, yellow reams brushing the cobwebbed ceilings.  Cabinets groan with the weight of these papers.  Each of these pictures shows a fighting mountain.

And in the evenings, they study their sketches.  From these sketches, they have taught themselves to fight.  They tattoo Serpinski triangles onto themselves and break their hands so that the bones may grow back thicker.  These are the Fighting Monks.

Their leader is the Fight Master, who is said to be the greatest warrior in all of Centerra.  She was once known as Ziraludra of Worthless Zyro, a former lieutenant of the Pearl Divers Mercenary Company.

She wears the Four-Tower Crown.  Her lieutenants wear Three-Tower Crowns.  The sub-lieutenants below them wear Two-Tower Crowns.  Those below them, the fully inducted members of their cult, wear a white stone tied around their brow with a red string, because there are too many of them to adorn with crowns.

While the higher ranking members rarely engage in lethal pursuits (except to combat the monks of the void, who they despise), the novices are often killed in their practices.  Crushed by boulders while running up a hill, or thrown from precipices while learning The Bull Tosses His Horns.

They despise the void monks because they have a common history and contrary philosophies.  The fight monks believe that Life and Truth live in the heart and the blood and the muscle.  They believe that the meaning of life, if there is one, is to be found in this world, not the next.

The void monks think all of this is laughable.

Young Mountain Torgedda

The monks live atop his crown, a five-towered structure made from the same white limestone as himself.  It is the only intact building within the Fighting Pile.

According to the monks, he is the youngest mountain as well as the strongest.

The Mountain's sword lies discarded nearby.  A dusty, irregular mirror seven hundred feet long.  Its length has mostly been buried by spilled earth, and what bands are exposed to the sky are clouded and warped.  The sword is solid adamantine.  It'd be worth a fortune if anyone could ever find a way to break it into smaller pieces, or melt it, or reshape it.

The monks speak of the scabbard, a vertical shaft that has not been seen in centuries.

Young Mountain Torgedda is not the tallest of the fighting mountains, but it is the straightest and the strongest.  A number of slightly-salty springs cascade down his flanks, proof of his great exertion.  The amount of foreign boulders that lay scattered in his valleys is proof of his prowess.

His long reaching spurs and hard, quartz-rich fists have broken the jaws of many of his challengers.  And of course, there is the fate of Young Mountain Gundregor, of which the monks do not speak.

The Transmetallic Alchemists

They frequent Young Mountain Bora-Dhun.  It is believed that they may have discovered some way of communicating with the mountain, however unlikely that seems.

Or more likely, this is merely a convenient halfway point between the Four-Chambered Mountain to the east and the Hills of the Hollow Men to the west.  In any event, the alchemists will happily buy any stone eggs you find, laid by the shaggy grey orn, a giant bird that seems to be going extinct, since no one in living memory has ever seen them produce a viable egg.

The Miners of the Ridgeways

With the fickle orientations of the earth and the regular tremors, men have been taught very quickly not to erect anything larger than a tent on the Fighting Mountains.  And even a cluster of tents might have to move hastily one day when a miner notices a hillside shifting, in order to swat them with a rockslide.

They are not good miners.  Their excavations are hasty and easily collapsed.  They have a poor working knowledge of geology.  But they are fast, and they are desperate, and geology doesn't work here anyway so fuck it.

They circle the mountain like vultures, just flinty eyes casting their gaze over the next hill, wearing their donkeys' hooves down.  They are sometimes comically under-equipped, just a pair of boots, a pickaxe, and a hole in their belly that can only be filled with rubies.

Because this is where rubies come from.  It's possible that all the rubies came from the Fighting Mountains.

The miners live like vultures.  They watch the struggle like veteran gamblers, arguing about fighting techniques.  Sometimes they ape the positions of the mountains and then try to fight each other, trying to figure out which mountain has the advantage, and which mountain will be speared down.

The miners are looking for weaknesses.  A prone mountain pinned beneath his fellow.  A broken arm, where an outstretched ridge was broken over a knee.  A new wound, not yet scabbed over with landslides.

And then they rush in, with their shovels and pickaxes and buckets.  And they dig their terrible shallow mines, pour their agonized excavations out on the hillside beneath them.  And sometimes in that frantic flotsam, they find rubies.

Among the faithful, rubies are known as earthsblood, or ichorine, and they are seen as symbols of savage power made humble.  The largest ruby ever mined was the Heart of All-Desiring, and it was plucked from the chest of Young Mountain Gundregor.

Young Mountain Gundregor

The corpse of Young Mountain Gundregor lies to the south of Young Mountain Torgedda.  If you stand on Gundregor's shoulder, you can usually see the sun shouting off Torgedda's crown through the hurly-burly of the intervening mountains.

Young Mountain Gundregor was the mountain that came closest to defeating Torgedda.  Gundregor had his foe staggered and was driving his thumbs deep into Torgedda's eyes, when Torgedda threw Gundregor over his shoulders.  In fifteen years--the blink of an eye to a mountain--Gundregor's neck had been snapped.

Or so we assume.  Who can tell when a mountain is truly dead?  In any event, Gundregor has not stirred from where he fell.

You may be wondering what a mountain looks like when it is being thrown.  The monks know, although they do not like to speak of it.  The thing is considered obscene, embarrassing.  It is like seeing your father naked.  Which makes sense, since of course they consider the mountains their fathers.

Mountains draw power from their feet, submerged deep in the magma below.  To throw a mountain involves wrapping your arms around its neck and whipping it over your hips hard enough to wrench it from where it is anchored.  Assuming you are a mountain, of course.

Imagine wrenching out someone's leg from its socket over the course of a decade and you'll have some idea.

Spurts of magma shot up along the fractures as indecent strata were uprooted, pulled up several feet each day, until the roots of Gundregor strained at the clouds, and found no footholds among them.

Mountains are very strong in once direction.  They have great compressive strength.  But hold them sideways, and they will break.  And that is what the great legs of Gundregor did, as they hung in the cruel air, like fingers poised over piano keys.  Leg-lengths fell by the quarter mile, hemorrhaging stone, magma, unnamed ores, and yes rubies as well.

Gundregor groaned and shook, and all the mountains stopped their struggles to watch their brother die sideways in the sky.

When they perform this technique, the monks call it technique The Bull Tosses His Horns.

Rubies are normally mined from the seams of the mountains, when they are revealed in moments of weakness.  But Gundregor, unmoving, was completely hollowed out.  The miners descended on its body like flies.  The largest ruby in the world was produced from this pillaging: the Jewel of All-Desiring, which vanished from history amid a flourish of corpses, and many enormous jewels are wont to do.

The other mountains have sealed Young Mountain Gundregor through small landslides, perhaps the equivalent of kicking some dirt onto a corpse.

Explanations

The wizards claim that the mountains are fighting for the Crown of the Earth.  (It is not the structure on top of Young Mountain Torgeddon, but rather a ring of solid diamond inside him.)  Mountains think on the same time scale as us, but they move much slower.  Because they have so much time to think, their movement are ultra-efficient, with each punch carrying years of careful calculation, like dueling oil tankers piloted by genius machines.

The Church claims that this is the final result of Zulin's extirpation of the powers of Earth.  With the volcanoes dead and the mountains sleeping, the last batch of powerful Earth spirits has been confounded into destroying themselves.

The elves claim that this is normal behavior for mountains.  They are fighting to occupy prestigious positions in a new mountain chain.  There are many similar instances recorded in elven libraries. . . just none in the pamphlets of human history.

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.

Regional Classes - Kaladar

Why not have regional variations of each of the four basic classes?  Regional subclasses.  Like in one part of the world, fighters train in this style, and in another part, they train in this style.  Maybe not all the fighters in that part of the world, but perhaps most of the fighters.  Or perhaps that is the style of fighting that they are most known for, even though few people actual practice it.

It gives a map a different kind of texture that players will care about.

If I wrote a bunch of these, it might just be a book of alternate classes.  You don't need to restrict player choice when it comes to these classes BUT YOU COULD.  There could be two levels two character generation: the first one when the gaming group decides where their adventuring party is from (which determines which classes are available) and a second one when each player decides what class they are from.

It allows a group of players to create a party that is already identified with an organization or a group within a part of the campaign world.  They are born complete with affiliations and motivations.  I like that.  Born with hooks in 'em.

One thing that unites all of Centerra is that they all bow (to varying degrees) to the Reincarnated Prophetess and the Holy City of Coramont.  This support is paid not through money (that was condemned by the Prophetess) but through personnel.  A great deal of talented people assemble in the name of Coramont and then set out to work in the interest of the Church or the free people of the continent.

The Kingdom of Kaladar

When I first started writing Centerra stuff down, I decided that there would one vanilla, generic, white-bread place somewhere on the map where I could stick all the knights and dragons and damsels and people with names like Goldenloin and Lionsbreath.

That place is Kaladar (formerly known as a bunch of other names that all started with K).

It's basically a generic Camelotoid except for:

• It's one of two superpowers in the world, the other one being the colonial, rapidly industrializing nation of Noth.  They're basically opposites of each other.  These are the only two nations (and everyone else is a city-state of some sort).
• Kaladar and Noth are the only two places that aren't Points of Light-styled, because they're well populated.  They're Points-of-Darkness where the society will lean pretty heavily on adventurers, though.
• It's where the Prophetess (who founded Hesaya) and is where the Pilgrimage usually starts.
• It's the only place where dragons are allowed to own property.  Some of them are landed nobility who are allowed to eat peasants without having to justify it, and others are Dunkelzahn-style merchant-kings, the most powerful of whom is Maladryn Masaat.
• I'm probably going to put in a couple of Orientalisms in there to keep me from falling asleep when writing it.  Like, everyone eats a lot of noodles and sits on the floor.  Honorable suicide is expected when you fuck up.
• They are the inventors and primary practitioners of culinary alchemy (see below).

Fighter Variant - Dragon-knight

Oh man, everyone thinks that it's so great to be a dragon knight.  Ride dragons into battle, be a bad-ass.

Well, I got news for you.  It sucks.  Compared to his mount, a dragon-rider is about as badass as a rat riding a wolf.

Because think about it.  Between a man and a ten-thousand pound killing machine, who do you think is going to be in charge?  That's right.  The dragon is the boss.  All the dragon knight does is protect his neck with a shield-lance (the only really vulnerable part of a dragon) and try not to vomit during the acrobatic parts.

If you don't clean Sir's scales perfectly by the time he wakes up, you're fucking fired.  He'll get a new squire faster than you can say 'flambe'.  There are a lot more dragon-knights than there are knight-dragons.

• Lose some defensive abilities of the fighter.
• Gain the ability to defend your allies a little better.
• At higher levels, you can bargain with a knight-dragon for a service.  It requires the king's approval and a lot of money, but you can pay a dragon to join your party for a day.

Some dragon-knights are wizards.  They specialize in divination and communication spells.  They're basically the knight-dragon's radar and comm systems.

Fighter Variant - Knight

Keldon is the Generic Fantasy Kingdom so of course it has Generic Fantasy Knights.  I f igure the fun thing about being a knight is the knightly character, and how the knight fits into the rest of the world, not so much the mechanics themselves.  They're interesting in the same way that a paladin can be interesting.

• Slightly less good at hitting things.
• Code of Honor, paladin-style.
• Huge social benefits.  Can kill peasants and no one gives a shit.  Invitations to parties.  The king has patted you on the back before.
• You get a free horse every level!
• You can throw lances for some reason!
• If you carry a battle standard in one of your hands and yell shit like "King!  Crown!  Honor!  Princesses!" all your allies get +1 to hit and +1 vs fear.

Rogue Variant - Black Rabbit

The Black Rabbits are a family of wererabbits loyal to the king.  They were formally a powerful cabal of thieves until they were captured and threatened with execution.

In time, what started out as a forced relationship (the king held many members of their family hostage in his household to ensure their loyalty) has turned into a convivial one (many of the Black Rabbits have now married into the royal family).

There is a secret place called the Royal Warren.  It is full of rabbits, and the rabbit king lives there.  The black rabbit family has intermarried into this royal family, too.  (And some of the Black Rabbits are married to a rabbit princess and a human princess, neither being aware of each other.  Rogues, right?)

The Black Rabbits aren't common knowledge, but people in Kaladar know not to fuck with rabbits.  Fuck with too many rabbits and you end up buried in five different burrows in five different counties.  They're rabbity ninjas.

The Black Rabbits manipulate a lot of things in Kaladar.  They're the only reason the dragons are still in power, for example.  The dragons are powerful and immensely good at focusing their attention at a single big task (like leveling a kingdom) but they are basically blind when it comes to noticing things that aren't shiny, shouting, or waving a sword in their face.

• Less ability to kill things.
• Can turn into a rabbit and back again, at will.  Bonus powers during full moons.

Cleric Variant - Cleric of Saint Borgaine

There's a part of Kaladar called the Plentymore Plains, named after their fertility.  It's full of big networks of farms built around hub-towns, each one about a day's travel from each other, like what actually existed in the medieval ages.  It's entirely safe to travel through as long as you don't ask questions or open any locked doors.

Saint Borgaine is sort of the anti-druid.  Forests are evil; parks are good.  Forests must be pushed back and tamed until future generations think of forests as someplace peaceful and relaxing (because that is true victory over the wild).

• Instead of turn dead, they get turn nature.
• Possible leric spells: speak with farm animal, multiply food, farm animal growth, make straight the path, control sun, summon harvest angel (it's got a scythe and a pumpkin head), touch of starvation, corpse to cornucopia, summon the mighty ox, everything in its place.

Wizard Variant - Hundred-Year Chef

So there's this space dragon called Forganthus Valore.  Centerra holds nothing that he desires, except perhaps some tasty food.  But not just any food.  He needs a stew cooked to his specific specifications--which are so exotic and precise that it usually takes about a hundred years to assemble and cook them all.

So Forganthus shows up every hundred years or so, eats a huge stew brimming with exotic flavors and impossible alchemy, gives instructions for the next stew which is to be served to him in 1d20+90 years, and then flies back into space.

In exchange for this stew, Forganthus answers questions.  He was alive prior to the Time of Fire and Madness, and knows the truth about the elves.  He doesn't see the future, but he's a hell of a prognosticator (and gives really good stock tips, so to speak).  He has two heads; one eats while the other answers questions.

Example ingredients: Three black goats, each born with a third eye.  The tear of a laughing angel.  The laughter of a man who has destroyed what he loved most.  Ten thousand mermaid hearts.  Basilisk blood boiled with butter for the last three years.  A furball coughed up from a calico cat.

And Forganthus has a delicate tongue.  Delicate enough that he could taste the difference between a hairball from a calico cat and a hairball made from the mixed hair of different colored cats.  That little fuckup cost Kaladar 60,000gp (for the new tower) and a princess (which was kidnapped and never replaced).

The particular little branch of the royal Kaladarian* apparatus that is in charge of overseeing this stew-dragon-prophecy business is the Stewer's Guild.  Except for the dragon families (taken as a whole), they are the most powerful force in Kaladar.

*Ye gods, it sounds even worse as an adjective.  I love it.

They are composed primarily of alchemical chefs, but their numbers also include some bureacrats, mercantile speculators, historians, spies, and seers.

• They're based on the manrider alchemist class (which was itself based on the wizard) except that instead of making lots of small potions that can be stored indefinitely, they produce a few huge meals that must be eaten immediately.
• Examples of feast powers, which will usually affect the whole party: anyone can teleportingly switch places with another party member, inter-party telepathy, anyone can send HP around like Paypal money, the whole party fuses together into a big fucking Voltron made of meat with one hand made of sword fingers and another hand made of wand fingers. 
• They are the only class that can wield a telescope fork, because they comprehend a need.  These magical instruments function as wands, and become more extensible as the thousand-year chef gains in power.

Should I watch Toriko?
It sounds cool, when people describe it to me.

Detaching Advancement From Levels + Secret Monk Techniques

I'm a big fan of detaching character advancement from level progression, for three reasons.

• It makes a character's increase in power more gradual, and less staggered.  It gives them something to look forward to between level-ups.
• It reduces the burden on the XP -> leveling system.  Sort of like taking some of the eggs out of the basket.  This makes things like level drain (slightly) less painful.
• Just as XP -> leveling drives a goal of getting more loot, a different system of advancement can drive a different goal.

There's already an obvious example of this in play: wizards can learn new spells by finding scrolls and adding them to their spellbook.  So a wizard, even if they are at the level cap or whatever, still has a mechanically incentivized reason to play.

And there are a few old-school things that advanced characters without just giving them XP.  Like a fountain that gave +1 Str to whoever drank from it, for example.

You could also argue that magic swords and their ilk are a method of advancement not tied to XP, but we're getting into gear, and that's almost a different thing.

I've been gradually inserting other examples into my homebrew.

• My skill system (which has been revised innumerable times) ties skill advances to how often you use a skill, with a cap based on your level.
• Fighters keep track of how many kills they get with particular weapons.  At certain thresholds, they learn a new ability with that weapon.  Because tracking kills is fun, right?
• Bug Collectors gain badges from collecting all the bugs in an area.  This is basically pokemon, and encourages bug collectors to tell their friends "Wait!  We can't leave the mountain yet!  I still need to find a grimbly fly!" which is basically the buggiest collectoriest thing a bug collector can shout.
• Demon Blades have a couple of abilities that hinge on the highest HD angel (or whatever) that they've ever killed.  This motivates them to go out and kill bigger and weirder angels.

<digression>   I just had this idea about cherubim, and added it to the angels page.

Cherubim are extremely important, for one reason: they are engineering the birth of the messiah.  You think saviors are born just by chance?  It requires hundreds of generations of careful breeding to bring about the right collection of genes and environmental factors to create the next Prophetess, which only happens if the right people fall in love with each other.  And woe to anyone who interferes with the finely wrought clockwork of their fanshipping.  </digression>

So, with that in mind, here's my idea about monks.

When I picture a monk, I'm basically picturing a pastiche of all the martial artists I've ever seen in anime.  This includes Goku.

And how does Goku become more powerful?  Not by winning.  Goku becomes more powerful by losing, and then running away and training for a fucking six episode piece of shit why is King Kai even a thing.  Fuck him forever.

Anyway, here's my first draft of an ability that you learn at level pXX:

Secret Techniques

You learn your first Secret Technique: Stunning Fist.  You learn additional secret techniques whenever you are defeated by a powerful foe and then spend a day training in some dramatic location in order to beat them.  

What constitutes "defeated by a powerful foe" is left up to the DM, but a sincerely-fought combat that ends in player death or retreat should be considered a defeat.  Alternatively, the monk could seek out a Hidden Master and receive training from him.

Secret Techniques

Each secret technique costs 1 HP to use, maybe.

1. Ten Thousand Punches (Keep making punch attacks for as long as you want.  For every two punches you throw, you take 1d6 damage, hit or miss.)
2. Quivering Palm
3. Too Many Shurikens
4. Fire Punch???
5. Flash Step
6. Goku Beam???????? 
7. Focus (Spend a turn declaring to your target how determined you are to win.  Your next hit on the target turns into a crit.)
8. Counterattack
9. Immovable Stance
10. Koan (bonus on a save vs some mental effect, if you save, target must save or be confused)
11. That thing that Dhalsim does
12. Consider the Lotus (lets you pay XP in order to deal more damage because monks are craaaaazy)

my next monk will be a voldo

So Where Is This Hidden Master Anyway?

1. On a mountain top, inside a giant, angry tortoise.
2. He retreated from this illusion into another.  You can meet him if you go into the swamp and smoke a wisp.  You'll have to catch it in this magic pipe, first.
3. He's in hiding because of his stance against the current king, who has ordered the hidden master to be hunted down and killed.  If you cause enough trouble for the king, the hidden master will surely find you.
4. He's out fishing.  Follow this miniature whale through an ocean full of horrible bullshit, where you will find him on a tiny raft made of sake bottles, enjoying his nine-year bender.
5. He's on the moon, you poor fuck.  Go catch the Cat's Tail (the dangling end of a space elevator that passes over the Brimstone Waste every once in a while) and ride the elevator-golem up.
6. He's dead and in hell.  Pack some holy water.

What Bullshit Does the Master Demand Of You?

1. A fucking riddle.
2. Get drunk with him and his extra-special carousing table.
3. Defeat him in single combat.
4. Something truly awful, like get swallowed by a purple worm and then survive.
5. Serve him for a year and a day.  He mostly wants a cook, but also someone to fight off all the annoying assassins that keep arriving.
6. Marry his beautiful but incompetent offspring.

underneath the mask will be the smiling face of the goku

New Class: Demon Blade

One path to immortality lies through undeath.  This is lichdom, and it is frequently sought by spellcasters.

Another path lies through demonhood, and it is usually a warrior's path.

Like the process of a lich's acension, a demon blade's transformation is a closely held secret, shrouded in secrecy and red rumor.  It is known to require a willing demon and a paladin's blade.

Digression: The essence of a demon is corruption.  Demons are not made from evil souls; instead it is the greatest saints who are shaped into the greatest demons.  Because demons do not exist separately (they do not breed nor build) they are forever the our dark mirror.  Their history does not, cannot diverge from our own.

The process creates a cursed blade, imbued with the warrior soul (or more accurately, the warrior's seven souls).  This demonic weapon is the true demon blade.  The figure clad in bone armor, whose blade burns with green fire, who pulls his enemies heart into his hand from across the room--that is just a puppet.

THE DEMON BLADE

Use the cleric as a base template, subtract clerical stuff.  Use the fighter's XP progression.

Level 1 - Demon Blade, Chariot
Level 2 - Harvest Soul
Level 3 - Spellcasting
Level 9 - Minions

Demon Blade
You are a hellish red sword (although I guess you could be a hellish axe or hammer if you really want).  You are a sword +1 that can dominate whoever wields it (as is standard for many cursed weapons).  People who are unwilling to be dominated follow the usual rules for the dominate spell.  Dominated creatures use their own ability scores, but every else (save, attack bonus) is derived from you (the death blade).  Dominated creatures chafe against the reins, and get -2 to all attack rolls for the first week.  The domination effect ends as soon as they stop touching you, so if you are disarmed, they're free to follow their natural inclinations.  You cannot dominate a new person unless you release your old one, and if a target makes their save against your dominate, you cannot try again until tomorrow.

You can see and hear out of the blade, but you cannot speak except through your wielder.  (But really, who is wielding who?)  Regarding damage and breakages, you follow the same rules as any other magic weapon (you can be damaged by things that are at least as magical as you are, like a bad hit against a shield +1 or a demon that can only be hit by +2 weapons or greater.)

Chariot
A person who willingly joins with you (instead of just being dominated by you, and without coercion or threats from you or your allies) becomes your "chariot".  That's the demonic term for a willingly dominated person.  When you are wielding a chariot, you get several advantages:

• Your chariot reduces all fire damage by the HD of the highest HD angel, paladin, or goodly cleric you've ever killed.  (Yes, keep track of this on the back of your character sheet.)
• At any time, you can choose to deal 1d6 damage to your chariot in order to deal an additional +1d6 damage on a hit.  (This is called burning the chariot in demonic parlance.)

Getting someone to willingly be your chariot is not something you can do with coercion or threats.  You need to find a truly, truly desperate NPC to agree to it and then probably perform some service for them.  (Sounds like a quest to me!)

Harvest Soul
You can drain the soul from a recently killed enemy.  This takes a standard action and requires you to impale the corpse with your demon blade within 1 round of the corpse's death.  No effect on targets that lack souls.

This has two effects.  First, your wielder heals 1d6 HP, plus 1 HP for every HD of the target.  Additionally, the target's soul is trapped in the demon blade.  The demon blade can hold up to 3 souls.  Trapped souls can see and hear from inside the demon blade.

At any time, you can chat with souls trapped in the demon blade (and it may be difficult to get them to shut up).  They are generally unhelpful (similar to speak with dead) but can become helpful if you do favors for them (pass messages on), fight against a mutual enemy (orc souls will happily tell you everything they know about elf territory), or entertain them (a soul might appreciate seeing a favorite opera, for example).

Spellcasting
You can cast spells from the demon blade list.  Beginning at level 3, you learn a new spell every level (your choice), and another new random spell every time you kill a dungeon boss.  (If a dungeon has no obvious boss, the boss is the highest level hostile creature in there.)  If you learn the 12 spells listed below, your DM has to come up with some newer, better ones.

Spells are powered by souls trapped in the demon blade.  You can cast as many as you wish, as long as you have sufficient trapped souls.  If you see an 'X' in the spell description, it refers to the HD of the trapped soul.  You use a soul in its entirety--no half-spent souls.  And when you use a soul to power a spell, always try to flavor it as appropriately as possible.  Using reap with a goblin soul should probably sound like a shrieking goblin and leave goblin bite-marks on the target.  Using burning blade with a lich's soul should probably conjure up blue flames that cause numbness rather than immediate pain (that comes later).

Minions
A bunch of demons show up to pledge their loyalty to you.  3d20 lemures, 1d4 bone devils, and 1d4 succubi.  They will expect you to lead a crusade back into hell, to reconquer it from the paladins.

Demon Blade Spells

1. Burning Blade
R: 0   T: self (blade)  D: 10 minutes
The demon blade does an additional +X damage on a hit.

2. Dance of Hell
T: self (blade)  D: X rounds
You function as a dancing weapon.  You still maintain control of your chariot.

3. Deathgrip
R: 50'   T: creature
If a creature fails a save, it is pulled to adjacent to you.  You may make a basic melee attack against it if you wish.

4. Demon Claw
For one round, you can make all the melee attacks of you were the highest HD demon you've ever killed.  (Yes, keep track of the highest HD demon you've ever killed.)

5. Disguise
R: 0  T: self  D: X hr
You appear as someone else of comparable size.  This is only an illusion, but it also changes your voice to match.  (If you are playing with detect evil, I suppose it can fool that, too.)

6. Heartripper
R: 20'   T: creature
If a creature has Xd6 HP or less, it's heart is ripped out of its chest and into your hand.  No save.  This is usually fatal.  No effect on creatures that lack hearts.

7. Hellbolts
R: 50'  T: object  D: 0
You fire X bolts at the target.  Each bolt requires its own ranged attack roll and does 1d8 damage on a hit.

8. Inferno
R: 20'  T: self  D: X turns
Everything takes 1d6 fire damage each turn (Con check for half).  Most shit catches on fire.  You are immune to fire damage for the duration of this spell.

9. Reap
R: 0   T: self (blade)
Free action when the demon blade does melee damage.  Deal +Xd6 damage.

10. Salvage the Chariot
R: 0  T: self (chariot)
Instead of dying, the chariot survives with X HP and is stunned for 1d6-X rounds (min 1).  You still suffer the other effects of the injury (broken limbs, etc).

11. Summon Lemure
R: 20'  T: piece of floor  D: 1 min
You summon an obedient lemure.

12. Teleport
R: 20'  T: self  D: 0
You teleport to a point you designate.  You do not need to have line of sight.  You can bring along X-1 willing creatures.

Discussion

They lack a fighter's HP and attack bonus, but they get a lot of little tricks to compensate.  The first and probably strongest is just that you're a cursed blade.  You're really hard to kill, but then again, even goblins will probably figure out that this blade is fucked, let's pile a million rocks on top of it and be scared of it forever).  And of course, there's always the option to just pass the blade off to an enemy, who you can then dominate.

What a really want to see is a player chuck the demon blade like a spear, impaling the enemy commander, and then dominating him.  I'm okay with this because it has so many ways that it can go wrong.

And since the only thing that you import from the dominated creature is ability scores, even a dominated goblin will have your levels and (a similar) HP.

Some of the spells are quite powerful, but the slow rate of acquisition balances it out somewhat.  The small capacity of the blade (3 souls) and the rarity of the ammunition (you gotta stab people the round after they die) balances it out further.  Plus, it creates an interesting dilemma in combat.  Do I harvest the soul of the guy I just killed, or do I help kill the ogre that's still standing?

There's no class abilities after level 3, but that's because the spells are self-balancing.  As the players kill higher HD creatures, the demon blade character will have higher HD souls to spend on bigger spells, like a +8d6 damage reap.

There's also a bit of character motivation backed into the mechanics, since players benefit from killing high level clerics and demons.  A person playing a demon blade for the first time, who has no idea what to do next can read the character sheet abilities and announce, "guys, I think we should go to the church and kill the cleric".

UPDATE: J.M. Perkins wrote a post about the different types of immortality that different classes enjoy.  A Lich for Every Class.