Be of Good Cheer

The party has a shared resource called Spirit.  This is confidence or good cheer.  A party gains Spirit by (1) resting in safe places, (2) being entertained, (3) eating good food, (4) having NPC friends, (5) taking a bath.  A low-level party might have 5 Spirit when they go into a dungeon.

At any time, any party member can spend Spirit to reduce incoming damage by 1d4 for each Spirit spent this way.  If you get double 4s, you also get a +4 bonus on your first d20 roll next turn.  You can only spend Spirit if you are with the group.  You can spend Spirit to reduce incoming damage that would normally kill you (and in fact, this is probably the best way to spend Spirit).

So, spirit kind of functions like a second, shared HP pool for the whole group.  

As a corollary, clerics are no longer a base class.  (Yes, this is another anti-cleric push.  Sorry.)

Why Clerics Suck

1. It often feels obligatory.  Lots of groups think that they need a healer.
2. Groups often do need a healbot.  Sometimes an unlucky PC takes a big lump of damage and they need a heal.
3. It isn't very fun for most players to be the healbot.
4. Lots of adventures expect you to have a healer/cleric in order to remove curses, etc.

This blog post is mostly a fix for #1 and #2.  The goal is to make healing accessible to the party through a shared resource, not a single PC that someone feels obligated to play.  Clerics shouldn't be a core class like Fighter / Thief / Wizard.

As for #3 ("It isn't fun to be the healbot.") some of you are probably already saying "But I love playing healers" and "It's not boring to be the cleric--it's actually very interesting and fun to manage the party's HP".  I won't disagree with you.  (How can you disagree with an opinion?)  But I will say that I think that most groups don't always have someone like you in them.

I also think healers can be cool!  White mages are cool.  Flesh god healers are cool.  But I almost see those as optional classes.

With regards to #4 ("You need a cleric to remove curses, negative levels, possession, etc"), I disagree a lot.  I don't think it's good adventure design if your adventure needs a specific class feature to progress past an obstacle.

Other Design Goals

. . . besides removing the need for clerics.

#1 Make It Grittier

I almost hate to use the word "gritty" nowadays because it means too many different things to too many different people, but I do think that if you have a magical healer walking behind you who can heal you after you get stabbed in the chest, threats feel a little less threatening.

Because Spirit functions as a second HP pool, we can allow player HP pools to be a little smaller.  I think the game "feels" grittier if you have less HP (relative to monster damage).  It might be less lethal (depending on how much Spirit the party has) but it might "feel" more lethal.

#2 More Visibility of the Resource

Not everyone knows how many heals the cleric has left, so they don't have good knowledge of how much delving they can safely do.  

This is bad!  Dungeoncrawling is closely tied to resource management.  Resources like torches, spells, and HP.  The number of healing spells that your cleric has available is another resource like those--it's just confined to a single person's character sheet (even if the cleric's heals are effectively a resource shared by the whole party).

I recommend putting the party's Spirit up somewhere visible, like the Underclock.  Perhaps a small whiteboard?

#3 Diagetic Character Power Advancement

The party doesn't gain Spirit by leveling up.  They gain Spirit by building bases, making friends, finding a stream to take a bath in.  Engaging with the world.

And this is something that happens naturally, not mechanically.  (Relatively naturally, I mean.  "I take a bath and gain 1 Spirit" is more naturalistic than "I gain 350 XP and level up.")

#4 Encourage the Players to Make NPC Friends and Go to the Coliseum

Mechanical encouragement for roleplaying.  Some people hate it.  I think you just have to do it lightly.

#5 Encourage the Players to Build Bases Outside of Dungeons

Basically necessary, if they want more Spirit.  Note that they'll probably want to build some small fortification outside of every dungeon they intend to delve repeatedly.  It might take more than 1 trip, require some hirelings (guards, cooks).  This is probably worth a few rules of its own, actually.

#6 More Opportunities for Roleplaying

We don't normally have a good yardstick for "How happy is my character today?" but if a player wants to have an idea for how chipper they are feeling that day, they could use the current Spirit as a benchmark.

Also, all that diagetic stuff up above gives the DM more opportunities to world build.  If the party wants to go see a play (in order to be entertained)

The Specifics

The party can get different amounts of Spirit from different things.

Safety - Up to 3 Spirit.  0 for a tent.  1 for a tree-house.  3 in a castle that you own.

Entertainment - Up to 2.  1 if you have your own bard, visit a brothel, go to Church, etc.  2 if the whole party does something new together for the first time (e.g. go see a play).

Food - Up to 2 Spirit.  Good meal -> Amazing meal.

Companionship - Up to 2 Spirit.  If you hang out with 1 or 2 friends*, you get 1 Spirit.  More: 2 Spirit.

Cleanliness - You get 1 Spirit if you've taken a bath since your last dungeoncrawl.

* Friends are NPCs that you hang out with because they're cool and you like them on a personal level, not because they pay you, give you quests, or cure your curses.  

You get Spirit after you eat a healthy dinner and get a good night's sleep.  If you are attacked at night and someone is hurt, you get no Spirit.

Gaining Spirit overlaps (does not stack) with previous Spirit.  If you gain 5 Spirit in town, spend 2 Spirit on the way to the dungeon, and then go to sleep outside the dungeon where you gain 4 Spirit, you will enter the dungeon with 4 Spirit.

Optional Rules

Ghosts and other undead shit can't hurt your HP, but they can lower your Spirit.  (Which is really just attacking a different HP pool.  Yes, this is analogous to ghosts removing healing surges.)

If a fighter gets double 3s on their Spirit roll, they heal for an additional +3.  This can't trigger more than once per turn.

You can probably do some fun interactions here with drugs, like giving everyone high Spirit but with huge downsides (e.g. everyone fails all Initiative checks).

Final Notes

1. It's easier to gain Spirit in town than it is in the wilderness.  Because of this, a party will usually be more chipper on the first day of dungeoncrawling than on subsequent days.  I like this.  It makes dungeoncrawling feel a bit more naturalistic, and gives parties a good reason to go back to town.

2. This caps out at 10 Spirit, for an average of 25 HP.  (Or 40 HP if it is only used by fighters, and only two Spirit at a time.)  This. . . is actually a lot of HP.

10 HP of healing is generally better than an additional 10 HP spread across the whole party's maximum HP, because targeted healing is more useful.  Like, if your 4-person party had to choose between everyone getting +1 HP, or being able to prevent 4 HP of incoming damage, the second choice tends to be much stronger since it can be applied exactly where it is needed.

If and when you implement Spirit in your own system, you should tweak it as needed.  Consider (1) if there are alternate sources of easy clerical healing, or if Spirit is a replacement, (2) how spikey the incoming damage is, or if it tends to be spread across everyone equally, (3) how the size of the spirit pool compares the base class HP.

You might also want to consider scaling the size of the Spirit die for high level characters.  I play GLOG, so all the characters cap out at level 4 with 10-20 HP, but it you are playing higher level games with higher character HP, your players might eventually need more healing than just a few dinky d4s.

The Fire Cults

Although most of the world doesn't differentiate between the various Fire Cults, they are quite different from each other.  Even discussing them under the shared heading of "The Fire Cults" is misleading.

Just the same, the Fire Cults can be defined as the various local religions that existed on the continent of Centerra prior to the ascension of the Church.  They have been utterly extirpated since.

There are exceptions to all of these rules, but generally:

1. Fire Gods weren't especially focused on fire.

This is probably the greatest misconception.

It was the Church that first started calling them fire cults, which served to describe them as primitive and illegitimate.  The label stuck.

The prophecy has become somewhat self-fulfilled however, as the only living branch of the fire cults is the Vincular Cult, which can be considered an arm of Zala Vacha.

2. Fire cults were intensely local.

The forces that fire cults worshiped were usually bound to a particular location (or more rarely, a bloodline).

We might think of gods as having a particular portfolio (e.g. the God of Waterfalls and Assassins) but the Fire Gods were defined according to their location (e.g. the God of Poplonda Swamp).  Within this domain, they were everything.  Outside of it, they were nothing.

The god of a fire cult usually lived in its shrine.  They were as invisible and as intangible as any divine, but their shrine was their literal home.  They occupied a very specific space.

If you were travelling, it would be important to learn the names of the gods whose territory you would be crossing, and how best to placate them.  This was considered to be more important than actually learning the geography.

They usually shared a name with their location.  Many of the names on the map of Centerra are the names of dead gods.

It is sometimes necessary to differentiate between a location and the regional deity.  In this case, the convention is to terminate the deity's name with a capitol letter ('BosperO') while the location's name is written normally ('Bospero').  I won't do this to you (since the context is usually clear) with only one exception.

3. Many fire cults were associated with volcanos.

Volcanoes were common in Centerra at the time.  As their cults fell silent, so too did their volcanos.

The Church teaches that this is because volcanoes formed a conduit to Hell, and the fire gods were all demonic spirits of earth.

4. The gods of fire cults were usually defined around a duality.

We are used to thinking of a God of War who exists in opposition to a God of Peace.  But the fire cults usually had only a single god that they prayed to, and so that god must be an entire pantheon unto itself.

And so there was Gadrium, God of War and Peace.

OmO, God of Wisdom and Foolishness.

Patra, God of Drowning and Birds.

Meltheria, God of Gold and Lead.

by Kalen Chock

The Quendian Cult

The only surviving fire cult with any significant membership is the Quendian Cult.  They are one of the primary reasons why fire cults are known as fire cults.  The Quendian cult is a binary cult--they worship two gods, one better known than the other.

Quen is the God of Flame and Darkness.

Marsaat is the God of Slavery.

It's not quite that simple, though.  Fire cults existed as binaries, so Marsaat is the god of masters, slaves, and free people.  It doesn't endorse any of these positions, though.  Neither slavery nor freedom is preferable to the other.  Marsaat doesn't advocate any particular course of action as much as they inhabit the decision.

They are married, but their genders are never specified (except during certain feast days when the gods are thrust into certain roles.)  Feminine depictions of them are becoming more common, though, probably as a response to the overt masculinity of the Authority.

Aspects of Quen

Fire: Revelation

Just as fire can reveal, so can Quen.  Pushing back the darkness, Quen can banish ignorance and secrets.

Darkness: Privacy

In a world dominated by a hostile Church, privacy is much more valued than revelation.  Because of this, most prayers to Quen are for privacy.

Antipode: Rebirth

A fire burns and leaves an object transformed.  A fire can burn away dead wood and leave room for new growth.  The ability to discard your old life and start anew is part of Quen's portfolio (and Darkness ensures that your secrets are hidden).

Aspects of Marsaat

Mastery: Self-Interest

Yes, this includes slavemasters.  But more broadly, it is also dominance, confidence, and self-interest.  It is widely agreed that most people should be less self-interested.  Too much self-interest is evil, and people are prone to it.

Slavery: Public Interest

This includes any action taken for the benefit of other people, even caring for your family members.  More broadly, Marsaat is the ability to look at the world through the lens of power.

Antipode: Freedom

Of course, neither dominance or submission matter when you are alone.  The absence of relationships is also the absence of power dynamics.  Like everything else, this is neither good nor bad.

Fire Cult Cleric

This is how clerics work.  They all have different rules to follow (strictures), temples, and methods of divination.  These have various pros and cons.  For example, clerics of the Church have churches available to them at every town, no matter how small.  But clerics of Zala Vacha can build their own temporary temples by making bonfires, which is something that clerics of the Church cannot do.

Portfolio

learning, forgetting, sight, fire, privacy, secrets

Strictures

If you agree to keep a secret, then you must keep it.
Allow no one else to carry a torch unless you are also carrying a torch.
Do not betray those who serve you willingly.

Temples

By default, a city will have a temple hidden somewhere.  The faithful can find it by blinding a cat and then following it.  It will always be underground.

By default, a town will not contain a temple of Zala Vacha.

Alternatively, you can construct a temple in the wilderness by building five large bonfires.  The space between the bonfires counts as a temple for as long as the bonfires burn and there is no sun in the sky.  Collecting sufficient wood takes about 36 hours of labor in an average forest.  Logging tools allow a laborer to be twice as efficient.

Divination

You must sit in a perfectly dark room and gaze into the darkness for 1d6 hours.  Images will come.  The perfectly dark room must be underground.

Transfigurations

When clerics roll triples on a casting die, they gain something.

1 or 2 = Eyes turn black.  5' darkvision.
3 or 4 = Any light source you hold turns deep crimson.  Fire resist 6.
5 or 6 = Your skin turns black as soot.  If you hold perfectly still for at least 1 minute, you become shrouded.

Spells

Spells 1-6 are available at level 1.  Spells 1-8 are available at level 2.  Spells 1-10 are available at level 3.  Spells with asterisks are explained below.

1. control fire
2. darkness
3. forget*
4. heal
5. bend light*
6. lock
7. shroud*
8. suggestion
9. freedom*
10. room*

Legendary Spell 

Legendary spells are only obtained by doing some great quest in the service of your faith.

1. disintegrate

Bend Light

R: touch  T: object  D: [dice] rounds

Object appears to be displaced a few feet to the left of where it appears to be.  Attacks against that object have a 50% chance to miss.  Creatures automatically make an Int check after each attack; if they succeed, they figure it out and this spell affects them no longer.

Alternatively, you can use this spell to see around corners.  Once per round, pick a place in your field of view--you can see as if you were standing there.  You can make multiple jumps this way if you are investing multiple dice.

Disintegrate

R: touch  T: object  D: instant

Touched object takes [sum] damage as it falls apart and dissolves.  If this is enough to destroy it, the object is utterly removed from reality.  

• 1 MD is enough to disintegrate a skull or a wooden weapon.
• 2 MD is enough to disintegrate a wooden door.
• 3 MD is enough to disintegrate a metal weapon or bar.

Forget

R: touch  T: creature D: instant

Target forgets the last [dice] rounds.

Freedom

R: 50'  T: creature  D: instant

Creature immediately makes a free attempt to escape whatever bonds are restraining it with a +[sum] bonus.  If an creature would normally have no chance to escape (shackled, etc) it is still allowed an attempt anyway with a -10 penalty.

Room

R: touch  T: wall  D: 10 minutes

You create a door on the wall that leads to a 20' x 20' room.  This is actually a conjured pocket dimension that matches the rest of the dungeon thematically.  The door is just a regular door, and no stronger than wood (although it may appear different).  The room improves the more dice are invested.

• 2 MD = lasts 30 minutes.  (Long enough to eat lunch.)
• 3 MD = lasts 8 hours.  (Long enough to sleep.)
• 4 MD = lasts 24 hours and contains a helpful occupant who matches the dungeon's theme.

Shroud

R: touch  T: object  D: 10 minutes  (splittable)

Target will not be noticed as long as they don't do anything suspicious.  An action is suspicious if it is something that is not regularly done by regular people.  

Walking past a guard is not suspicious because people regularly walk past guards.  Putting a grenado into a guard's pocket is suspicious (unless people regularly slip things into that guard's pocket.)

Sidebar: HD Limits

Remember that spells don't affect a creature if its HD is greater than [sum].