Mystical Pokebeast Integration

For +Richard Grenville

Okay, you probably don't need a pokemon generator (just roll a d719), but I want to write something anyway.  (Actually, you could probably just roll a d719 and then look up whichever episode featured it.)

This generator has two parts:  The first part generates a pokemon, the second part generates poke-plot surrounding a new area.

let's play Name That Pokemon!

Type:
50% chance that it has a second type.  If so, roll 2x.

1. Normal
2. Fire
3. Fighting
4. Flying
5. Poison
6. Ground
7. Rock
8. Bug
9. Ghost
10. Steel
11. Water
12. Grass
13. Electric
14. Psychic
15. Ice 
16. Dragon
17. Dark 
18. Fairy
19. Slime???
20. Water, again

Body Plan:

Either think of something psuedo-appropriate, pull up a random animal combination from here, or roll a d20 on this table.

1. Feline (or small mammal)
2. Canine (or large mammal)
3. Rodent
4. Song bird
5. Bird of prey
6. Snake
7. Human-shape (think Power Rangers)
8. Child-shape (or maybe just a floating head-thing)
9. Abstract Angular (think porygon)
10. Tentacular
11. Leggy
12. Army
13. Dinosaur
14. Abstract Soft (think solosis)
15. Inanimate Object (manmade)
16. Inanimate Object (natural)
17. Mythological Rip-off
18. Arthropod
19. Reptile
20. Bird

mankey + primeape

Other Trait:

1. Fat
2. Skinny
3. Super Big
4. Super Small
5. Intelligent
6. Mischievous or Malicious or Angry
7. Beautiful
8. They all have a specific personality (roll on an NPC trait table).
9. Huge swarms of them
10. Breaks physics
11. Symbiotic with another pokemon
12. Muscular

Lastly: 

Give your pokemon 2-3 abilities (50% chance of each).  Either roll on a random spell table or use this thing to generate some pokemon moves: http://thousandroads.net/asb/metronome.  Might I recommend 1 spell and 1-2 metronome moves?

In game, pokemon can only ever learn 4 moves, so perhaps it is good to leave some room, hmm?

i can only assume this is a graveler + geodudes

first, ROLL THE NUMBER OF POKEMON IN AN AREA

The coolest part of playing a pokemon game is getting to a new area and finding out what kind of pokemon they have there.  Whenever you get to a new area, there will be one type of pokemon that you totally expect, so if you visit a volcano, of course there's going to be a fire pokemon (with a 50% chance that it has a secondary typing as well).  So in addition to the Expected Pokemon, you gotta roll to see how many other pokemon there are in this area.  These Additional Pokemon will be rolled randomly, on the above table.

1. +1 normal pokemon, +1 legendary pokemon with UBER MOVES AND STATS
2. +1 normal pokemon
3. +1 normal pokemon
4. +2 normal pokemon
5. +2 normal pokemon
6. +3 normal pokemon

So when you're finished, the area will have 2-4 normal, catchable pokemon, and a 1/6 chance that there is a hidden, legendary pokemon that is hiding in a well somewhere and will probably TPK you if you glance in its direction.

your mom

DISCOVERING THE POKE-PLOT

The coolest part of the pokemon anime is that there is always a pokemon related plot afoot whenever you get to a new town, or some sort of mystical beast with IQ 300 pulling a plow or some bullshit.

We need to see what the poke-plot is for this fucking village.

First, we need to roll and see which pokemon is part of the pokeplot.

1. Some travelling trainer is using a pokemon.  Roll a new pokemon, then see table ZORP.
2. Some entrenched poke-institution is using a pokemon.  Roll a new pokemon, then see table QUARF.
3. The Expected Pokemon is being used in a generic way.  See table DEGENERES.
4. The Expected Pokemon is being used in a specific way.  See table SPACKLE.
5. The first Additional Pokemon you rolled is being used in a generic way.  DEGENERES.
6. The first Additional Pokemon you rolled is being used in a specific way.  SPACKLE.

Now just roll on whatever table I just told you roll on.  Don't even read this sentence.

manpac

ZORP - Pokemon Trainer

1. Trainer will not let you enter the area unless you can beat him.  50% chance he is being cruel to his pokemon, independent 50% chance that he'll follow you to the next village.
2. Trainer wants to trade.
3. Your rival is here.  If you don't already have a rival, you will meet your rival in this town.  He's just like you, except better.  (This can be the rival to an individual PC, or if you're feeling ambitious, there can be an entire rival adventuring party.)  The rival will show up, verbally abuse you, and then challenge you in a friendly way.  You probably can't kill him because he's a prince or something.  Make something up.
4. Someone is using pokemon to commit crimes in the area!!??? who could it be?  They're probably just stealing pokemon (ripping spirits out of people's heads?) but they might also be committing some stone-cold murder.
5. Trainer has gone into dangerous area and has not returned.  Friend wants you to go in there and retrieve him.  Dangerous areas with precedents: crystal cavern, burned out building, weird tunnel dug by pokemon, freakishly magnetic mountain, sea cave filled with whirlpools, meteorite-impacted mountain, forest filled with mushrooms and spirits.
6. Something weird.  Roll a d6: 1 - trainer is possessed by his ghost pokemon, 2 - trainer is fleeing with a stolen pokemon, 3 - trainer must go to great lengths to save his pokemon's life, 4 - pokepoliceman is pursing a criminal, 4 - trainer from a distant land is wreaking havoc with his cultural ignorance, 5 - trainer has died in suspicious, public circumstances, 6 - trainer is researching something that should not be researched

jigglypuff?  is that you?

QUARF - Pokemon Institution

1. Gym Leader will give you a boon if you overcome the trials inside and then best the leader.  Pokemon gyms have gotten weirder in the last few games, and usually involve some sort of puzzle, and always involve some combat.  Giant spiderwebs, lightless mazes, moving dragon statues, etc.  In a more primitive game, you probably want something more topical.  Tea plantation maze full of plant monsters?  Sunken, waterproof ship accessed via tunnel?  Gym leaders always give you three thing.  (1) enhance some stat of all of your pokemon by some tiny, ultimately trivial amount, (2) give you a badge, so that higher level pokemon will obey you, (3) and give you a TM, so you can teach a new move to one of your pokemon.  Honestly, the only thing worth getting excited about is the TM.  In an OSR game, a TM could be replaced with the gym leader teaching you kung-fu, how to walk through walls, or grow a prehensile tongue.  Alternatively, you could just add an ability to one of your pokemon, but whatever.
2. Museum of pokemon, 50% they have the ability to resurrect pokemon from fossils.  (Depending on the ruleset, you may want to extend this into sort of a pokemon-temple, where pokemon can be resurrected).
3. some sort of non-violent pokemon competition.  dancing contests, beauty contests, eating contests.
4. Pokemon breeding / daycare.  Either way, pokesex.  Can be a literal day care run by two old people who have NO IDEA WHAT SEX IS or some sort of mystical ley-crossroads where chimeras mix their bloodlines.
5. Shopping hub that specializes in pokemon stuff.  50% chance that there is a huge gambling den adjunct.
6. Something weird.  Roll a d6: 1 - villagers are pokemon in disguise, 2 - pokemon training academy with a 50% chance that it's some sort of trap, 3 - secret castle/ship where bourgeois trainer-nobles do battle with gold-encrusted pokemon,  4 - haunted pokemon cemetery, 5 - pokemon storage system that can send and retrieve pokemon from around the world via technology, so I guess he can store extra pokemon for you if you catch more than your limit, and establish some method of switching pokemon around, 6 - insane professor gives pokemon to children and tasks them to travel the world documenting pokemon, no reason why he shouldn't give PCs the same opportunity.

holy shit cofagrigus

DEGENERES - Generic pokemon

1. oh noes a bunch of these pokemon are attacking the town!  Surely there's something that's causing this.  Surely you don't have to kill all of them.
2. oh noes all of these pokemon are interfering with daily living in a humorous way.  what could be causing this?
3. oh noes all of these pokemon have been taken over by their biologies and won't stop mating/migrating/stampeding/burrowing/sporulating
4. the pokemon are weaponizing, or at least forming into a warband around a charismatic leader
5. the pokemon are all dying OR are getting trapped somehow.
6. oh noes all of these pokemon are being killed/captured by a single person/group with ignoble intentions
7. weird pokemon interaction: d3: 1 - pokemon have adopted a human as one of their own, 2 - are returning from myth and upsetting the natural balance, 3 - have been artificially created
8. another weird pokemon interaction: d4: 1 - are invading people's homes with strange intent, 2 - are building/chipping away at a certain structure, 3 - have completely destroyed the natives/invaders and then just-as-suddenly returned to their peaceful ways, 4 - are only present as fossils

SPACKLE - Specific plot

1. pokemon are being exploited en masse as weapons.  This has to do with their Type.
2. pokemon are being exploited en masse as non-violent tools.  This has to do with their Type.
3. pokemon are being exploited en masse as spiritual guidance.  This has to do with their Type.
4. pokemon's Type has greatly impacted a Certain Human Activity in the area for the worse/weirder.
5. people have bonded so closely with their pokemon that they have begun to take on their Type, or at least have started living in imitation of Their Favorite Pokemon.
6. Pokemon is not actually available (possibly gone extinct), but has permanently changed the area, based on their Type

it's zubro!

EXAMPLE

So the PCs walk into a seaside village.  This place obviously has a water pokemon in it (the expected pokemon).  I'll roll on the Number of Pokemon Species in an Area table, and get +2 pokemon, for a total of 3 in the area.

Let's discover the first, water pokemon.  First I roll to see if it is mono-water Type or Water/something type.  (50% chance of each).  It's bi-typed, and the second type is Flying.  Water/Flying then.  I roll on the random animal mixer and get smelt-goose on my second click.  But that's stupid, so I decide to make it a very literal goose barnacle, that clings to side of ships, but turns into an attack goose when it's molested.  Great.

Then I roll for how many moves it's got.  2 moves.

Sleep spell - probably via yawning.

Pluck attack - similar to Peck, except it also eats any food the opponent has

I'll call it it CYGNACLE (water/flying type).

Roll up two more pokemon the same way.

HELICAN - Flying Type

hated pelican-demons that eat away bad children

people that try to stop them will be shat upon, while the bird flies away laughing

Protection from Good spell: this is obviously an evil fucking bird

Cotton Spore attack: it probably shits on you, working as either an web spell or making you automatically lose initiative

Rock Slide attack: probably just barfs rocks on you, or fish bones or children bones

GARGARFU - Dragon Type

look like chinese foo dogs crossed with chameleons

act like foo dogs crossed with chameleons crossed with wolverines

Blend spell - It has chameleon skin, so it can melt into the jungle

Thunder Fang attack - it's a bite that does +1d6 electrical damage, maybe

Psych Up attack - honestly, this is probably just barbarian rage

it's munna!

That wasn't so bad.  Now to roll up a plot.

4  + 6 = The Expected pokemon is not actually present, but it has permanently changed the area based on its type so, this sounds like there isn't a direct plot hook, but maybe something like:

All of the Cygnacles have been killed off as pests.  Vast graveyards of Cygnacle shells litter the bottoms of harbors and decorate tavern walls.  Because of this, the natural enemies of Cygnacles, Helicans, have proliferated, and the town is now covered with Helican shit.  It regularly rains fish bones and Helican bile.  At dusk, the Helicans call to each other as they circle overhead, but it mostly sounds like cruel chuckling.  A paladin has showed up, but has been at a loss for how to combat the birds (which sleep on the waves over the reefs).  A woman has begun trying to breed Cygnacles back into the ecosystem, but faces two obstacles from both (a) certain townspeople which continue to view the Cygnacles as pests (and will continue to do so, until they see an demonstration of how good Cygnacles can be at killing Helicans), and (b) the Helicans themselves, which will attempt to stop the woman from releasing the baby Cygnacles into the surf, because the Helicans are assholes.

i WISH this was a pokemon

Noise Wizards

Bards are sorta lame.  Yet Noise Marines are awesome.  This is perhaps unfair, but it is true.

I propose that bards are not a class on their own, but merely Thieves that have multiclassed with Some Sort of Undiscovered Wizard, which I will now attempt to elucidate, by inferring from the parts of the bard that are awesome.

The Noise Wizard

Noise wizards are pretty much bards with all of the thiefy stuff stripped away.  I've tried to include cool stuff that noise marines do (orgasm noises) along with the minimum of essential bard spells (song of courage) along with a bunch of other sound-based stuff.

Restrictions
Noise wizards can only cast spells if certain conditions are met.  They must have both hands on their instrument, they must be making noise with their instrument, and noise must also be coming out of their mouth.  If lutes and lyres are the default instrument for bards, I propose that accordions and bagpipes are the default instruments for noise wizards.

This doesn't have to be a literal instrument.  You can bang two mammoth tusks together and shriek like a banshee if that's your thing.  Hell, you can be an organ grinder who sings while your monkey familiar dances.  But once you settled on your chosen instrument, it cannot be changed.  And without your instrument in hand, you cannot cast spells.

Special Abilities
Noise wizards have a couple of extra abilities that more general wizards lack.  Firstly, they can countersong any sound-based or communication-based magic, such as a siren's song or even a command spell.  They do this by readying an action beforehand, and then making a lot of noise to actually drown out whatever it is they are countersonging.  This requires a Con check (to test if their lungs are up to snuff).

Second, they have really good senses of hearing.  Among other things, their chances of listening successfully at a door is double what it would be otherwise.  Might I suggest a 4-in-6 chance?

A Couple New Type of Spells and a New Rule
Noises are a type of spell.  They share common features, like a 20' radius centered on the caster.  They also affect everyone in that radius, even allies (which is potentially hilarious if you're casting brown noise).  However, you get +4 on your save if you've heard it before, which will help your team mates out somewhat.

Songs are a type of spell.  They share common features, like affecting 2x the caster's HD (so a 2 HD caster could affect any combination of enemies that adds up to 4 HD) as long as all of the targets remain in range the whole time.  Additionally, the duration is "concentration" so the spell only lasts for as long as the caster keeping singing that song.  Concentration also ends if the caster gets tackled or takes any damage, so although being able to give a couple of allies +4 to hit indefinitely is a powerful ability, if a goblin throws a rock into your teeth for 1 damage, it all comes crashing down.

So you know how some spells are reversible?  Like, if you know how to prepare light, you also know how to prepare darkness?  I also figure that some spells are upgradable into the next spell level.  Like if you know how to cast magic missile as a level 1 spell, you also know how to prepare an improved version of it as a level 2 spell.  I've been playing around with that idea, and you'll see it implemented in the spell list below.

Spell List
I've chosen to focus on low-level spells, because (a) those are the ones that tend to get used the most, and (b) it's usually easy to think of grander versions of low-level spells.  I know it looks like 29 level 1 spells, but half of them can be upgraded into level 2 spells, so there's plenty of milage down there.

If you want a random spell for a 1st level Noise Wizard, roll a d30 (rerolling if you get a 16).  Bold spells are new, and are detailed below.

1. accompaniment
2. alarm
3. brown noise
4. carry voice
5. charm person
6. comprehend speech
7. dancing lights
8. deafen*
9. forgettable moment
10. gaping noise
11. god ear
12. gossip
13. horrible noise
14. identify
15. impossible noise
16. rapturous noise (2nd Level)
17. sawtooth noise
18. song of captivation
19. song of courage 
20. song of death
21. song of life
22. song of magnificence
23. song of scorn
24. song of silence
25. song of sleep
26. song of sobriety
27. stupid mouth
28. square noise
29. suggest
30. unforgettable moment

Accompaniment
Noise Wizard 1
R: 0
T: self
D: 1 hr
There is an invisible orchestra following you everywhere you go.  They play constantly, loudly, and appropriately.  They play ominous music during ominous moments, sexy music during sex, etc.  Additionally, they will accompany you if you play your instrument, making your performance extra awesome and giving listeners a -1 penalty on any saving throws made to resist your magical music.


Brown Noise
Noise Wizard 1
R: 20'
T: All
D: 0
All who hear this discordant arpeggio must save immediately or shit their pants.  This is accompanied by intestinal distress that prevents them from doing anything on their next turn except move.  Obviously, this only works on targets capable of shitting themselves.  Creatures who have heard the brown noise before get +4 on this save.

If this spell is prepared as a 2nd level spell, affected targets will vomit profusely after shitting themselves, extending the effects for an additional turn.  Optionally, this may also be projected as a 50' cone.


Carry Voice
Noise Wizard 1
R: 200'
T: point in space
D: 1 rnd
Your voice teleports out of your mouth and reappears at a point you designate.  Then, this spell allows you to hear whatever noises are present at that location for 1 round.  (This spell is intentionally written loosely, to allow for ventriloquism distractions, carrying messages, or even listening behind walls.)


Comprehend Speech
Noise Wizard 1
R: 0
T: self
D: 1 hour
This allows you to comprehend any language you hear, and respond verbally.  No effect on written language.  This is not real understanding, just a temporary translator-thing.


Deafen*
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: 1 creature
D: permanent or 1 hr
If the target fails a save, it goes deaf.  This is a curse, not a physical affect.  If this spell is reversed, it has three uses.  First, it can be used to cure magical (cursed) deafness.  Secondly, it can be used to temporarily grant hearing to things that cannot normally hear (such as golems), which incidentally makes them susceptible to sound-based magic for 1 hour.  Thirdly, if it is used on a creature than can already hear, noises will loom large and inescapable in their minds, making them better able to enjoy music, as well as giving them a -2 penalty to save against sound-based magic for 1 hour.  No matter how this spell is used, unwilling targets get a save.


Forgettable Moment
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: 1 creature
D: 0
If the target fails its save, it forgets the last 6 seconds and is totally not suspicious at all.  If you prepare this as a 2nd level spell, the target instead forgets the last minute.


Gaping Noise
Noise Wizard 1
R: 20'
T: everything
D: 0
All containers and portals are opened, as long as those things aren't locked or tightly secured (tied shut with rope counts as tightly secured).  This has no effect on things such as belts, but it does affect pockets, luggage, zippers, doors, windows, and portcullises.  This spell cannot open minds.  If this spell is prepared as a 2nd level spell, it also opens locks (including things like shackles), but has no effect on traps.


God Ear
Noise Wizard 1
R: 0
T: self
D: 1 minute
Your sense of hearing expands to godlike proportions.  You can hear muffins being digested in your belly.  You can hear moss growing on the other side of a stone wall.  It's all very disorienting, which is why you're helpless for the duration.

Beginning with near things and then moving outwards, your DM will describe 3d6 interesting sounds, such as a goblin's dice clattering in the next room, followed by the a derro's mad muttering in the room beyond that.  The effect is barely comprehensible to mortal ears, however, and it is always possible that a sound might be missed in the tumult (and also because sometimes your DM will forget that there is a waterwheel in room 36, so be cool).


Gossip
Noise Wizard 1
R: 0
T: self
D: 1 minute
When you cast this spell, you get a random rumor from the nearest random rumor table, ALWAYS. It doesn't matter where you are.  If you cast it in a tavern, a man will walk up to your table, tell you what he thinks “bree-yark” means, and then walk away confused about the whole affair.  If you cast it in an empty alleyway, the very stones themselves will speak to you about the knight who died in the sewers and had a magic sword, probably.  If you cast it while you are floating in the void, your bellybutton will pipe up about how it heard the the gonads discussing your infertility.  You are then expected to share some gossip back, but not required.


Horrible Noise
Noise Wizard 1
R: 20'
T: all creatures
D: 0
Targets who fail their save will flee in fear for 1d6 rounds.  Creatures who have heard the Horrible Noise before get +4 to their saves.  If this spell is prepared as a 2nd level spell, its effects will last 2d6 rounds, and it can optionally be projected as a 50' cone.


Impossible Noise
Noise Wizard 1
R: 20'
T: all creatures
D: 0
Targets who fail their save will be confused for 1d6 rounds.  Creatures who have heard the Impossible Noise before get +4 to their saves.  If this spell is prepared as a 2nd level spell, its effects will last 2d6 rounds, and it can optionally be projected as a 50' cone.


Rapturous Noise
Noise Wizard 2
R: 20'
T: all creatures
D: 0
Everyone who fails a save is overcome by ecstasy for 1d6 rounds.  While suffering from orgasmic pleasure, creatures cannot take any directly harmful actions, such as attacking with a weapon or casting a disabling spell, nor can they speak anything that isn't complimentary or pleasant.  Affected creatures could still pull a lever or run for help, though, since that is not directly harmful.  Creatures who have heard the Rapturous Noise before get +4 to their save.  If this spell is prepared as a 3rd level spell, its effects will last 2d6 rounds, and it can optionally be projected as a 50' cone.


Sawtooth Noise
Noise Wizard 1
R: 20'
T: all creatures
D: 0
Everyone takes 1d8 slashing damage, save for half.  Creatures who have heard the Sawtooth Noise before get +4 to their save.  If this spell is prepared as a 2rd level spell, it does 2d8 damage, and it can optionally be projected as a 50' cone.

Song of Captivation
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
Creatures that you select will turn their undivided attention to you for 1 round.  If they fail a save, their attention will remain on you for as long as you play, and will not take any actions except to listen quietly.  They get +4 to this save if there is combat or clear hostility in the situation.  This spell does not make them any less alert, it just makes them look in your direction and pay attention to you.  Regardless, the spell is broken as soon as something obviously suspicious or important happens. They will not move from their spots.  If you prepare this spell as a level 2 spell, targets will follow you for as long as you continue playing while remaining in their midst (no running off ahead--you must stay surrounded).


Song of Courage
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
Creatures that you select get +2 to attack rolls and saves vs fear.  If you prepare this spell as a level 2 spell, targets get +4 instead.


Song of Death
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
Creatures that you select take 1 damage per turn, no save.  Undead creatures are instead healed by this song.  If you prepare this spell as a level 2 spell, targets will take 2 damage per turn.


Song of Life
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
Creatures that you select heal 1 damage per turn.  However this spell cannot heal pre-existing wounds, so if you were at half HP when the song started, you will not heal above that.  Additionally, anyone listening to this song is protected against death magic and level drain, and gets +4 to save against such things.  If this spell targets undead creatures, they instead take 1 damage per turn, no save.  If you prepare this spell as a level 2 spell, targets will take 2 damage per turn and get +6 to save against death effects and level drain.


Song of Silence
Noise Wizard 1
R: 10'
T: everything
D: concentration
You play anti-music, generating anti-sound.  This cancels out all sounds within range.


Song of Sleep
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
Targets that fail their save fall asleep.  They wake up when you stop playing within range, or if someone kicks them in the ribs.  If you prepare this spell as a 2nd level spell, targets will continue sleeping for 1d20 minutes after you stop playing.


Song of Scorn
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
Creatures that you select get -2 to attack rolls and saves vs fear.  No save.  If you prepare this spell as a level 2 spell, targets get -4 instead.


Song of Sobriety
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
All emotion- and confusion-based effects are suppressed in the targets.  Unwilling targets get a save.  This is suppression, not cancellation, so as soon as you stop playing the berserker goes back to raging and your allies resume running away from the dragon (unless the duration of those effects has elapsed, of course).


Song of Magnificence
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: targeted creatures, up to 2x caster's HD
D: concentration
You basically sing a song about someone/something, making them sound as impressive as fuck.  Targets who fail their save are basically blown away by how well you hyped this person/thing.  If you use this spell to make a single hero look magnificent, target creatures will treat the magnificent hero as if they had 18 Charisma.  This effect diminishes with however many creatures you want to hype, with 1 fewer Charisma every doubling.  2-3 magnificent heroes = 17 Charisma, 4-7 magnificent heroes = 16 Charisma, etc.  Minimum 12 Charisma.  No fair cutting obvious groups in half for munchkin purposes.  And yes, this spell makes you the best wingman ever.


Stupid Mouth
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: 1 creature
D: 1 min
If the target fails a save, it will be unable to speak except in the worst way possible.  Every phrase will be misspoken, every intent subverted.  They will insult the most important person in the room in an offhand way, speak the most embarrassing secrets (others' and their own), and generally be a colossal ass.  They always have the option of shutting up, however, and most people will indeed shut up as soon as they realize something is wrong with their mouth.  Spellcasters suffering from this spell will have a 50% chance of failing their spellcasting (the action fails, but they don't lose the spell—it's not a fumble).

If this spell is prepared as a 2nd level spell, the target will have no choice but to babble nonstop for the spell's duration, and an affected spellcaster will fail all of their spells.


Square Noise
Noise Wizard 1
R: 20'
T: everything
D: 1 min
Normal glass, crystal, and ceramic will shatter.  Creatures made out of those substances take 1d8 damage, no save.  If this spell is prepared as a 2nd level spell, creatures made out those substances will take 2d8 damage, and the effect can optionally be focused in a 50' cone.


Suggest
Noise Wizard 1
R: 20'
T: creature
D: 1 day
If the target fails a save, it will follow your suggestion.  This only works when you suggest things that  are 'things the creature already wants to do'.  If this spell is prepared as a 2nd level spell, the range of what you can suggest is broadened to include 'things that are reasonable'.


Unforgettable Moment
Noise Wizard 1
R: 50'
T: 1 creature
D: 0
You must cast this spell simultaneously with the target attempting an attack or skill.  If you use this to inspire a skill attempt, the creature gets +6 on it.  If you use it to inspire an attack, the target gets +3 to hit and does +3 damage.  Regardless of whether or not the attempt succeeds, it looks epic as fuck and you will have to write a song about it later.  Write the title of this song down on your character sheet.  This is the sort of thing you sing about in taverns.

Almost People

To a certain extent, orcs and goblins were created so that we could have killable humanoids.  The entire species even had an alignment of Chaotic, which meant they were intrinsically antithetical to all that was good and decent in the world.

This is good, since it allows us to stop worrying about morality and instead just focus on the best way to kill those bestial, cruel, dishonorable orcs and take their treasure.  We can use anti-human tactics without actually killing humans.  Orcs are raiders and warlords, rarely adventurers or city-builders.  Many people don't like a lot of morality in their games; they want to be heroes.

But this is also bad, since dealing with trad orcs becomes a one-dimensial exercise.  Orcs are evil, violent, stupid, greedy, and dishonorable.  Their actions become predictable, and they become too shallow to hold much human drama or plots.  It becomes very easy to kill orcs on sight.  Compared this to human bandits, where PCs are much more likely to talk to them first, or to be interested in their relationships and history (+James Young taught me this).

Anyway, you don't have to open very many sourcebooks to find weird, bestial humanoids to kill.  But it's a bit harder to find monstrous races that are human.  I don't mean human in the biological sense, but monstrous races that PCs will be inclined to treat like people.  (Coincidentally, sci fi is filled with monstrous races that get treated like people.)  Anyway, here are my attempts at more human monsters.

The Ethrum

They build honeycomb cities in caves and behind waterfalls.  Their corpses appear exactly like human albinos.  However, their viscera differ, and it is impossible to cut one open and not notice the daisy-chained kidneys nor the pale, gossamer-winged arches of their tubular heart.

The orcs believe that an ethrum's organs, by virtue of their auspicious appearances, are of cosmic significance.  Orcish haruspices will pay huge prices for a live ethrum, since they believe that a haruspex will enjoy vastly superior divinations by using an ethrum.

While alive, they are truly invisible.  No light touches them, and conversely, they are blind.  They sense their environment through echolocation.  Each man or woman, made directly by their epiglottis, and they communicate with the same noises.  Each has a singular, specific, percussive syllable that they use for echolocation (to distinguish their clicks from their peers) that also doubles as their name.

They can learn to understand Common as easily as any other race, but can only speak it in whispers.

If injured, their blood appears after a few seconds, as red and as wet as any humans.  If killed, their body fades into invisibility over the course of a few seconds.  It is said that the veil of invisibility parts for them in their last moments, and they briefly glimps the visible world in the moments before death.

They wear nothing except harnesses, made so that they can be dropped at a moment's notice.  In combat, they discard their harnesses and fight with either their bare fists (many of them are excellent wrestlers) or with stilettos, so thin as to be almost invisible themselves.

Their cities are small, secretive affairs.  Their farms are fruit orchards, fisheries, and thin-stalked rice that they grow in the shallow water.  Their books are tortoise-shells filled with dense and complicated patterns of finely drilled holes.  Their women sing songful epics, beyond the boundary of conscious perception, but within subconsious recognition.  Humans are affected by these songs and are transported by its mood, although they will not realize that they are hearing it.  While traveling, they eat rice balls, usually filled with fish meat, waterfowl, or fruit.

PCs may discover an Ethrum as a (painted) wrestler in a coliseum, as a hostage in an orcish encampment, or as raiders.  Like vikings, many of them have warrior traditions that involve going on long, secret raids against settlements.  A band of ethrum warrirors will sometimes go on a single, vast raid that lasts a season or more.

The Huntresses of Zao (rhymes with "say oh")

These warrior women hail from the lands around Lake Zao, a body of water whose contours are perfectly hemispherical.  Their skin is lime green and smooth in one direction while rough in the other, like a shark's.  Their hair is red or white or ghostly green.  Their hair is huge and voluminous.  They are tall and statuesque.

They are beast riders.  Away from her homelands, you will never encounter a Huntress on foot.  She will be riding a giant gecko, terror bird, or maned serpent.

Their menfolk are never encountered.  It is said that they stay behind in their dome shaped houses, tending the burgundy eggs that their wives lay.

They drink black wine and eat raw eggs.  They sleep in trees, slumped in the branches like exhausted cats.  When one of them dies, they recover the body and feed it to the deceased's mount.  (This is one reason why they prefer carnivorous mounts.)  They paint the animal in her blood, and then turn it loose.  So if you ever see a blood-covered horse staring at you across a meadow, now you know.

They serve the dragon-sorcerer who is called Tar Lath Lien.  He has charmed them, dominated them through their generations.  They love him, adore him.  But at the same time, they know that this love is the product of an enchantment.  They know that their love for him is false, but they the strength of the enchantment is such that they cannot resent him for it.  Why should they love him, when he is aloof, and callous, and sometimes cruel?  How can they feel anything except love for him?  And since they are incapable of resenting neither Tar Lath Lien nor the enchantment, the anger and frustration spills out onto themselves.  They feel guilty, frustrated, and angry for reasons that they can't articulate.  All they know is that they love Tar Lath Lien, and would do anything to make him happy.

For his part, Tar Lath Lien uses the huntresses to guard his borders.  Since very few people are dumb enough to fuck with a sorcerer-dragon-king and his amazons, their defense is often reinforced and rarely tested.  Due to this quietude, Tar Lath Lien will often send his huntresses out into the world to let off some steam.  He knows that his enchantment is a heavy one, and the stress of such a large cognitive dissonance, for so long, for so many cannot be endured.

While wandering the world, the huntresses look to engage in heroic violence as often as possible.  Their code of honor allows them to attack anyone who is carrying a weapon.  However, they can never use a larger or more deadly weapon than their target, nor can they wear armor if their target is wearing none.  According to their rules of combat, the victor of the fight chooses the punishment that the loser will recieve.  This is usually "run them off naked and covered in bruises", but if there has been any rudeness or escalation, they don't mind killing people.

They're just as likely to seek out the bulette that's been menacing town as they are to attack merchants, trounce the guards, and steal all the money (which they will then use to throw a private party in the woods).

Every huntress has a small blue jay that nests inside her.  When she is killed, the blue jay will immediately fly from her mouth and fly back to Lake Zaotan.  The bird will seek the deceased's next of kin and alight on their shoulder.  Then the bird will speak in the voice of the dead woman, telling all of the circumstances of her death, including accurate descriptions of all relevant parties.  After several minutes, when the speech is concluded, the bird will drop dead.

The Ostrogaunts

When they are allowed to medicate themselves, and balance their humors, they resemble blond humans with a single red eye.

When they are denied the treatment that they need, they degenerate.  Their chests become sunken, and eventually completely invert, creating a hole through their chest large enough for you to stick your hand through.  Their red eye enlarges.  They tend to collect fat in a pot belly.

Nearly every Ostrogaunt is degenerate.

They have odd hips, and although they can walk, they cannot run.  Instead, they hop by hyperextending their knees, which makes it look like their legs are bending backwards.  This leads to their nickname of "jumpies", or more frequently, "jumbies".

Most of the superstitions about them involve walking backwards, e.g. "jumbies can't steal you outta your bed if you walk into your bedroom backwards".

They also drink blood.  Not because of a biological compulsion, but a cultural one.  They'll pop a hole in their cow's neck and drink a quick pint when they want refreshment.  If they spot a goat herd during a midnight constitutional, they might open one up with a thumb dagger and drain it dry.

They do not come from our dimension, and in fact there is no record of them beyond a couple hundred years ago.  While there are a few small, scattered colonies of them, evidence suggests that small groups of them are constantly arriving in our dimension through unknown means, an intermittent-but-still-constant flow of accidental immigrants.  They say that they come from a place called Capricavena, where they served and feared creatures that they call Vor-Gulai.  The Church of Hesaya refers to them as "Type IV demons".  But none of that really matters.

Every Ostrogaunt is dying.  Our dimension is toxic to them.  They call it "falling down".  It is a path of madness and mutation that will claim their minds and memories before it claims their bodies.  The first mutation that claims them is the creation of a hole in the center of their chest, large enough to throw a pingpong ball through.  Between the skeletal re-arrangement and pulmonary compression, it is a very painful process.  Ostrogaunts are fond of saying "The void is filled with fire", which is sort of a euphemism for "life sucks; I don't care".

There is a cure for the Fall: human brains.  Or actually, cerebrospinal fluid.  Enough cerebrospinal fluid can halt or even reverse the gradual decay of their bodies and minds.  Animal brains can slow the process, but a long-term solution requires the sacrifice of sentient creatures.

The prefer to extract cerebrospinal fluid into clear elixirs (for health reasons--humans can be unsanitary), but if a ostrogaunt is desperate or in pain (if his void is filled with fire) they're not above smashing your head in with a rock and lapping up the juices, even in the middle of combat.

Primitive or lone ostrogaunts will operate at the fringes of human society: preying on cattle (draining their blood).  Some of them also manage stirge colonies (which may share a background with the naus-garant.)

Larger, established ostrogaunt colonies have even been begun imprisoning humans (or other sentient species) and draining

Ostrogaunts are not unethical creatures.  Their justifications range from the pleading "would you rather my children go insane and die?" to the apologetic "it is only until we figure out a way to go home" to the defensive "only ostrogaunts can judge ostrogaunts".

But many ostrogaunts are uneasy with this method of survival.  There is evidence that they have spent a considerable amount of time researching an alchemical substitute for human CSF.  And in one recorded instance, a young ostrogaunt girl was so overcome with guilt that she helped three human prisoners escape.  When the three humans reached society, they described where they had been held captive by the ostrogaunts, and a small army was dispatched to raze their enclave to the ground and slay every last ostrogaunt.  Because humans will do what they must to survive, too.

Ostrogauntts are masters of alchemy.  Many of their alchemical feats cannot be reproduced by their best human counterparts.  Absolute savants.

They can transform their children into monsters by giving them certain alchemical elixirs.  Since these potions work by shaping and molding the mutation process, they will not work on humans (though they might give you tumors).  Ostrogaunts are still discovering these elixirs, and different colonies will trade recipes between themselves.  In a world without birth control, turning your newborn into a monster is seen as more humane than killing them or subjecting them to a life of constant homicide.  And it has the additional advantage of giving the colony a new protector.

The most well-known of these teratomorphs is called the Ostro-Karkarai, an amphibious creature that resembles a 20' long eel with a toothy horse-head and long, agile legs, like a greyhound's.  It's a stable mutation (i.e. unlikely to suffer secondary mutations, unlike some of their other creations) and it retains enough of its intelligence to acknowledge its name, recognize its family, and join that at the dinner table for important meals.

Ostrogaunts worship (obey?) a god (intelligence?) that they call the Red Voice, the Great Engineer, or the Operator, which claims to have arrived on Centerra only a few decades ago.  It is a real thing, since it can apparently speak to anyone who drinks a certain potion, that they call Yesterday's Wine.  Ostrogaunts use this to coordinate their actions across the continent.

The Red Voice instructs them to build strange structures in the Gray Waste and in the Frothplains.  None of these are completed, but many believe that they will be some sort of portal upon completion.  The Voice also instructs them to build strange weapons, like daggers that shed a metallic "skin" inside their target, which then shatters into hundreds of glassy shards.  Or the lightning guns.  None of these weapons function in the hands of non-Ostrogaunts.

this video contains lightning guns

Very loosely: the Ethrum are based on drow, the Huntresses of Zao are based on orcs, and the Naus-Garants are based on mind-flayers.

Mutant Wasteland Character Generation

This post is inspired by two things.

(a) I want to play in a post-apoc game. (b) People seem to really like it when their character has some unique mini-superpower.  Especially when these are active, rather than passive.  (c) How you roll stats can be rationalized in the fiction of the game.  Like, 3d6-in-order and 4d6-drop-lowest-arrange don't have to be dissociated mechanics.

Characters that hail from the neon slums generate their stats via a point-buy system.  They each choose a cybernetic enhancement, and randomly gain a city sickness.  There is very little randomness here, because the city is uniform and regular.  But at the same time, the city-dweller's average stat is half a point lower than the mutant's average stat, because the city is also toxic and oppressive.

Characters that come from the mystic vaults generate their stats randomly, but in a balanced way.  They each choose a clone phenotype based on their highest stat and a random affectation (pretty much some type of cargo cult delusion or naivete).

Characters that hail from the mutant wasteland generate their stats completely randomly.  They each get 1 beneficial mutation and 1 minor mutation.

Over the course of the game, all characters will have opportunities to accrue cybernetics or mutations.  Cybernetics cost a lot of money, but they don't count against encumbrance.  Beyond character generation, mutations are gained randomly, with equal chances of being positive or negative.

Neon Slum Urbanite

Rotted metal, exhausted concrete, electric love.  People in the crumbling cities tend to be sickly, but they make up for this through specialization.  Not all of the city-dwellers have cybernetic enhancements, but the ones who sign up to be adventurers always do.

1. Your stats are created via a point-buy system.  Set all of your stats to 6.  You have 24 points to spend across them.  At the end of this process, your stats should total up to 60.

2. Pick one of the following items from the list.  Cybernetics never count against encumbrance.

1. Spy Eye.  Your eye can pop out of your head and fly around, and you can continue to see through it all the while.  Immune to psychological illusions, and can take pictures.  However, you get -1 to ranged attacks while one-eyed, and you can't look through both at once.
2. Electrotool. Embedded in your body are a bunch of electronics that can be used as lockpick (against computer locks only), computer interface, electrical power source, and a taser.  You also take half damage from electrical attacks.
3. Dermal Armor.  Gives you +1 to AC.
4. Transponder.  Allows you to communicate with wireless communication devices, including walkie talkies and other transponders.  It's like telepathy for robots.  You can also use it to remotely control machines you set up.
5. Library Matrix. You have a library baked into your skull.  When trying to remember something about the world around you, treat your Int as if it were 18.  Only good for stuff that might be in an encyclopedia.
6. Hardpoint. You can mount any other small weapon or item onto a hard point hidden somewhere in your body. Pistols, wolverine claws, poison injectors are all perfectly concealable, and blend into your skin. Katanas and rifles can also be mounted, but are fully visible. Your “starting weapon” can be any of the ones previously mentioned.
7. Rocket Fists.  You can shoot your hands out up to 30'.  These can be used as grappling hooks with a +2 bonus, and can even reel you in.  In combat, they do 1d4 damage if 1 fist is fired and 2d4 damage if both fists are fired.  After firing, they take a turn to reel in.
8. Satellite Uplink.  Your GPS connection lets you know exactly where you are on the planet's surface.  Twice per day, the satellite can observe any GPS location you specify, take a picture of that area, and send you the image.
9. Lazarus Protocol.  Instead of dying from drowning, freezing, inhaled poisons, etc, your body enters stasis, and automatically exits stasis when the lethal environmental effect is gone.  You can also choose to enter stasis for any length of time.  After coming out of stasis, there is an X% chance of waking up dead, where X is equal to the number of years that you've been in stasis.  You always wake up hungry, dehydrated, and in no condition to fight.
10. 200 neo-shekels (or whatever 20x the average starting money is).  You're rich.

3. Get a random city sickness.  The city is a nasty place.

1. Alcoholic.  Gradually increasing penalties to everything when you are w/o booze.
2. Drug Addict.  Gradually increasing penalties to everything when you are w/o drugs.
3. Claustrophobia.  When in cramped spaces: -4 vs fear, -1 penalty to everything else.
4. Agoraphobia.  When in wide open spaces: -4 vs fear, -1 penalty to everything else.
5. Monophobia. When alone: -4 vs fear, -1 penalty to everything else.
6. Angina.  If you do any long runs or swims (or anything that requires a Con check for endurance or exertion) you need to make a save vs heart attack.  If hexcrawling and walking, you also travel slower.
7. Emphysema.  You get -4 to long runs or swims (or anything that requires a Con check for endurance or exertion).  You can only hold your breath half as long.  If hexcrawling and walking, you also travel slower. You're probably a smoker.
8. Debt.  You owe 400 neo-shekels (or whatever 40x the starting money is).  The interest is powerful nasty.
9. Crippling Debt.  As above, except 800 neo-shekels and the interest ain't that bad.
10. Hunted.  There are people trying to kill you.  Expect 1-2 assassination attempts at the worst possible time.

Mystery Cult Vault Clone

There's a bunch of vaults in the ground.  Little self-contained arcologies where people live like they were on a space station.  The people that dwell in these vaults are invariably clones, either because of inbreeding (genetic pruning can eliminate the mutants and diseased genes, but cannot introduce variety) or because clone companies apparently froze all their assets in the ground before the bombs fell.

You aren't going to roll up a specific clone here; you're going to roll up the whole vault.  They all have identical stats and abilities.  A vault will have 1-100 individuals.  Vault-dwellers also invariably degenerate into strange cargo cults or delusions, probably because they live in a world without perspective.

1. Your stats are created via balanced randomness.  The compliment of a stat is (21 - stat), so the compliment of 18 is 3, and vice versa.  Roll 3d6, assign that to a random stat, and assign the compliment to another random stat.  Do this twice more until all six stats have been assigned.  If you didn't fuck it up, they'll all sum up to 63.

2. Figure out your phenotype by rolling on the following lists, based on what your highest stat is.  Resolve ties randomly.

2.1. Strength

1. Soldier Clone.  You can rage like a berserker, getting +2 to hit and +1 to damage, but cannot calm down, act defensively, or run away until all enemies are dead.
2. Heavy Industry. You can carry twice as much stuff as normal.

2.2. Dexterity

1. Contortionist. Any constriction damage you take is halved.  Your rubbery body can squeeze into ridiculously small areas and take no penalties for fighting in cramped areas.
2. Assassin. You can also change your skin color like a chameleon, which allows you to creep around very slowly, but only very slowly and only if you are mostly naked.  

2.3 Constitution

1. Born to be Eaten.  Your blood functions as an antidote.  If someone drinks a bunch of your blood (1d6 HP worth) they get a new save against an ongoing poison with a +2 bonus.  If you draw blood in a hospital setting, you only take 1 damage.  Blood stays fresh for only a day, unless refrigerated.  You are also delicious.
2. Alchemical.  In addition to your lungs and stomach, you have a third destination down your throat: your alchemy gland!  If you swallow a potion into this gland, you will eventually lactate out another potion 24 hours later, determined randomly.  This is only random the first time, and eventually you'll be able to build a map of which potion you can convert into what.

2.4 Intelligence

1. Calculation.  You can do math as well as a computer.  Once per day, you can apply your powers of calculation to a single attack roll or Dexterity check, and get +20 to the result.
2. Memories.  You can view memories of a willing creature by groping its head.  You can share your memories with a willing creature by groping its head.

2.5 Wisdom

1. Medical Emergency Responder.  You can sense heartbeats from a distance, allowing you to guess at fear and stress states.  You can detect and identify diseases and poisons with a touch (possibly giving you a bonus to treating them).  And your saliva dries into a sticky glue that can be used to stop bleeding and waterproof small objects.
2. Mutant Hunter.  You can sense mutants and psychics within 50'.  By touching a mutant or a psychic, you can nullify their powers for 1d6 rounds if they fail a save.  You also get +4 to save vs psychic attacks.

2.6 Charisma

1. Fetish.  I'm not going to write a table for it, but pick a fetish (furries, forearms, high heels) and figure out a way that your body has been mutated to reinforce it.  You can also release pheromones once per day, which function like the charm spell to all creatures within 5' who are into your particular race/sex/attitude combination.
2. Politician.  If a bad reaction roll would normally make some enemies attack, you can postpone the hostilities by making promises.  Talk to your DM, but this usually involves giving the enemies a bunch of your stuff in order to let you walk away.  So reaction rolls become less of "are they going to attack us" and more of "how big does the bribe have to be", although they will still attack you if you renege.  Also, you can whip up a mob of peasants with a Charisma check, but you cannot get them to act outside their interests (attacking the vampire who preys on them is within their interests, as is rebelling against the king who taxes them too heavily).

3. Roll a random trait, the product of isolation, naivety, inbreeding, and cargo cultism.

1. Terrified of water.  Cannot swim.  Will only panic and drown.
2. Unable to get a good sleep outside of a bed.  -1 to stuff if you woke up on the floor today.
3. Eat a part of whatever you kill (i.e. get the killing blow on).
4. Must yell a lot every morning as part of religious ceremony.
5. Physically incapable of comprehending numbers larger than 4.
6. Physically incapable of comprehending writing, or that writing transmits information.
7. Alcohol is a deadly poison.
8. Terrified of sun.  -2 to hit in bright light.
9. Weak immune system.  -4 vs disease.
10. No comprehension of sex.  Unable to interact with opposite gender.
11. Prohibited from attacking robots, as they are the life-givers.
12. Save vs cannibalistic impulses whenever an opportunity presents itself.

Gnashing Wasteland Mutant

1. Your stats are rolled via the good 'ol 3d6-in-order method.

2. Roll a random mutant power from this table.  Mutant powers aren't linked to any particular ability score.  Each mutant power has a score associated with it, generated the same way as an ability score (by rolling 3d6).  Whenever you use an ability score, try to roll under its mutant score (3-18).  Success indicates that you can continue using the power for the rest of today, while failure means that you can use the power now, but afterwards you'll be unable to use it again until tomorrow.  Whenever you want to see how strong a mutant power is (e.g. figuring out how much your telekinesis can lift), refer to the mutant score in place of the ability score.  So "telekinesis 10" can lift about as much as the average man could by using his arms (who has Str 10).  Et cetera.

1. Doppleganger.  You can change your shape to imitate other humanoids.  If you are able to study your target (by standing in front of them, having their picture, etc) you can do it infallibly.  Otherwise, there's a chance that your transformation is a bit off. This doesn't change your stats or abilities in any way.
2. Flying Squirrel.  Take no fall damage as long as you have room to glide.  Can glide 2x as far horizontally as you fall vertically.
3. Plant.  Don't need to eat, breathe, or sleep.  You can expel a puff of pollen in a 5' cone that puts targets to sleep if their fail their save.
4. Transformer.  You can turn into an animal.  Roll a d4: cat / bird / rat / salmon.  You have the physical stats of that animal, but you can talk to similar animals.
5. Ooze. You can turn your body to liquid and slither around through cracks, under doors, etc.  As an ooze, you can also engulf people and dissolve them.  Anyone you are grappling with (in human form) or in ooze form takes 1d6 acid damage per round.  
6. Size Changer.  By shrinking to half your height, you get -4 Strength and could easily pass as a child.  By growing to double your height, you get +4 Strength (max 19) but will be cramped in most normal-sized buildings (-2 to hit).
7. Aquatic.  You can breathe and swim underwater like a fish.
8. Acid.  Your blood is acid, and any creature biting or scratching you takes half as much damage as it dealt.  You can also spit acid: 30' range, does 1d6 damage each round for 2 rounds.  Can also be used to melt stuff.
9. Tentacles.  You get +4 when grappling stuff and you can climb on walls as easily as a spider, thanks to your suction cups.
10. Snake.  You have the lower body of a snake, so you move slower.  But on the upside, you can't be tripped and your bite is deadly poison.  Biting someone in combat usually requires an attack roll with a -2 bonus.
11. Invisibility.  You can turn invisible.  Whenever you touch, attack, or pick up something, try to roll under your invisibility score (although failure here doesn't mean that you lose invisibility for today--you already made that roll when you entered invisibility).  Failure means that you drop out of invisibility, while success means that you stay in it.
12. Healing.  With a touch, you can heal a target for 1d6+1 HP.  This works on yourself.
13. Illusion.  You can generate illusions within the minds of creatures within 50', although these illusions have no sound, and they are obvious once they are touched or interacted with.
14. Empath.  If a target fails a save, they adopt whatever mood you put them in.  You can enrage normal folks, calm down raging folks, and put anyone into a good mood.  This is probably worth at least a +2 on reaction rolls.  Additionally, you can read emotions, and tell when someone is scared, lying, or trying to hide something.
15. Telekinesis.  You can pick up things with your mind and float them around.  You cannot lift yourself, however, and your range is limited to 50'.  The telekinesis has the "manual" dexterity of a mittened hand.
16. Precognitive.  You can use this power to retroactively avoid being surprised (you only) or get visions of the near future (what will happen when I open this door?)
17. Mind Control.  If your target fails their save, they become your mind puppet.  They must remain in 50' of you, and you are effectively paralyzed while you are controlling their body.  You can't even see through your own eyes, since you are busy piloting their body.
18. Telepathy.  You can send a message to anyone within a mile, and then receive their response.  Messages and responses are limited to what the player can say at the table within a single breath.
19. Teleport.  You move up to 100' away.  You can bring as much stuff with you as you can normally carry.  If this would place you in a solid object, you must save or die.
20. Pyro.  The target bursts into flame. It takes 1d6 fire damage at the start of each of its turns until someone takes the time to extinguish it.

3. Get a random minor mutation.  These are mostly cosmetic.

1. Glowing blood (random color).  Sheds light as candle.
2. Glowing eyes (random color).  Sheds light as candle.
3. Veins are black and highly visible beneath the skin.
4. Vestigial Wings.
5. Fine, iridescent scales.
6. Feathers.
7. Covered in fur.  d4: powerful beard / soft downy fur / spiky punk fur / yeti.
8. Sharp teeth, red tongue.  Strict Carnivore.
9. Pot belly.  Strict herbivore.
10. Long limbs and neck.  2' taller, but sort of giraffe-like.
11. Midget.  2' shorter.
12. One of those neck flare things that dilophosaurus had in Jurassic Park.
13. Cluster of little tentacles over one part of your body.  They move on their own.  You can't control them.  d4: belly / chin / hair / hands.
14. Vertical mouth and eyes.  Asynchronous blinks, too.
15. Eat food by piercing it with your tongue-spike and draining the fluids.
16. Your face changes every day.
17. Brute arm.  d4: mantis arm / lobster claw / bone antler-thing / invisible human arm that electrocutes things  Does 1d6+1 damage.
18. Once per month you spin a cocoon and sleep in it for 3 days.  You come out looking beautiful, but by the end of the month you're starting to look pretty haggard again.
19. Horns.  Can do 1d6+1 damage, but only on charge attacks.
20. Bellybutton is made of impenetrable darkness.  Anyone staring into it is hypnotized if they fail a save.

Usage

You can use this method of generation on top of character classes, but I think it'd be cool to generate a level 0 character via this method and then allow them to pick up a character class in play.  Actually, now that I look at this, it'd also be pretty appropriate for Synthexia.

Boss Mechanics from World of Warcraft

Inspired by the respective posts of +Brendan S and +Gus L.  Boss mechanics are cool, y'know?  Special monsters should have special rules, or special win conditions.

what a sweet hat

So I played World of Warcraft for a while.  A huge chunk of the game revolves around big, scripted boss fights with interesting mechanics.

Nearly all of these boss fights would be pretty shitty if you ported them to to a tabletop RPG.  (Although some of the mobile, grid-based stuff might be fun in 4e.)

However, there are a ton of boss mechanics in the game, and once you cull all the inappropriate ones (safety dance, reflex-based stuff), there are still some that can be useful.  I've tried to articulate them below in a system-neutral way.

One word of caution.  WoW is all about getting a group to pull of a certain strategy perfectly, which is fine because you can attempt a boss fight as many times as you want.  That's not what D&D is good at.  Don't hang the entire encounter on a single hook.  Give players multiple ways to defeat a boss, and leave room for clever strategies and thinking outside the box.  Because that's where D&D really excels.

Running Battle
Zones of AoE prevent you from fighting in the same place for very long.  Combat usually becomes a running battle as the monster chases you around the dungeon (preferably back towards the entrance, but being chased deeper is a hilarious way to fuck up).

The Eater of Hours is a twisted, slug-like abomination that crawls through the black tunnels beneath the Tree of Time, where it gnaws on its roots.  Each turn and in addition to its normal attacks, the Eater regurgitates a pustule of deliquescent filth, which will immediately begin to dissolve into a cloud of acidic vapors.  Beginning the next turn and continuing for 10 turns, the lump of filth does ongoing acid damage to everything in the room.  The party could also conceivably find a way to protect themselves from acid, or find a way to neutralize the lump of acid-filth before it begins releasing gases.

There is a rumor of a dungeon called the Tomb of Sithrak.  There is a powerful curse upon it.  Once a spell has been cast in a room, no further spells may be cast in that room until the next full moon.

is facelessness more menacing than glowy red eys?  yes

Kill the Healers First
The bad guys heal.  Killing the healer first helps the whole fight go smoother. 

Volkenrath the Soul Breaker is an immense demon.  Chained to his body is a retinue of the enslaved cultists who once thought they could control him.  They have been compelled to heal him at the expense of all things.  During combat, Volkenrath will drag the 4 cultists behind him while they feverishly heal his wounds and dispel harmful spells.

Necomancer Mung stands in his chariot, surrounded by his skeletal battalion.  He possesses a magic item that allows him to reassemble all defeated skeletons with a single spell (limitless uses).  Whenever he feels like his losses have been too heavy, he'll raise his all his fallen skeletons.

The high priority target doesn't have to be a healer either.  I ran one game where the PCs learned really quickly to kill the wrinkly dudes first, because they had half as much HP as the other cultists and their laser backpacks could do enough damage to kill an unlucky PC in one hit.

drow barbie

Separate the Twins
Enemies are much more deadly together than when they're apart.

Before the Elf-King's castle fell to ruin, the Two Tarantella Golems led courtly dances while playing lively music from their orchestral innards.  Separated, their music is slow and uncoordinated.  However, when playing together their music joins into a frenzied crescendo, and they fight with much more coordination and strength. As long as the two golems can hear each other playing, they get twice as many attacks per round.  Interposing doors and walls can block the sound, as can the silence spell.

The Blonkrieg Berserkers are a pair of twin brothers, the half-sons of the viking god.  It has been prophecied that they will never fall is battle as long as they fight beside each other.  They stick together at all times, but when the battle-lust overtakes them, they can be lured apart easily.  All damage that a Blonkrieg takes is reduced by 10.  However, that number (10) is reduced by 1 for every 10' between them.  Beyond 100', their power is nullified.

I give up.  It's hard to find good Warcraft art.  Have a godzilla.

Stop the Runners
You need to prevent some creatures from reaching some location, or else something bad will happen.

The party already saw what happened when one goblin jumped into a mutation vat.  Now there are four goblins who are each sprinting for a different mutation vat in a different corner of the room.

Ozrukh the Orb Lord flies above the Pit of MacGuffin.  He's cast a powerful enchantment on the nearby village, and now mind-controlled townsfolk are stumbling toward the Pit like zombies.  Each blank-faced farmer that throws themselves into the pit empowers Ozrukh, healing him and granting him +1 to hit and damage (stacking).  PCs will have to split their actions between (a) stopping villagers from throwing themselves into the pit (and deciding if its worth it to try to keep them alive), (b) trying to barricade the entrances, and (c) Ozrukh himself, who will attempt to knock PCs into the Pit.  Ignoring the villagers and focusing on Ozrukh is totally possible, but riskier.

tell me a story

Bringing Item to Location
When you bring X to Y, good things happen.

Garglegaunt is some sort of ghoul-troll-mindflayer hybrid.  He's pretty fucked up.  If his heart is damaged it will fall out of his rotting chest cavity.  It's not the only way to kill him, but if the heart is then thrown into one of the braziers, his whole body will burst into flame (which also disables his regeneration).  At least, that's what the sage said.  Thieves might also have a chance to steal his heart right out of his chest at an earlier point, when he's still busy monologuing.

When thieves stole books from the Library of Longlai and fled through the sewers, they didn't think that the books were enchanted.  The stories leapt out from the pages of the books and slew the thieves.  The PCs have been given the quest of returning the four missing tomes, which are each located in different parts of the sewers.  The books' guardians wander the sewers, too.  Although it's possible to kill them the traditional way, returning the books to the library will cause the The Paper Tiger, The Heron and the Torchbearer, The Nine Princesses, and The Hungry Giant to lie dormant once again.

Killable Only at a Certain Location or in a Certain Way
What is says on the tin.

The Slouching Beast can be slowed, and even stopped temporarily.  But with its unlimited regeneration and other total bullshit powers, it will pursue the PCs implacably.  It can only be killed where it was born: atop the Yoni Stone on level 2.

Magistrate Vool has been blessed by his patron, the god of hedonism.  He can only be killed in two ways: from the act of eating, or from the act of fucking.  While poisoning the dude is probably easier, PCs could also conjure a succubus and bargain her into this deed.  It's easier than it sounds--the magistrate conjures succubi all the time.  Everything you need is in his subterranean orgy room (pillows on all surfaces), hidden beneath the opium den.

why can't WoW be more like this
I wanna be a naked dude stabbing a sad-face jellybean man with a spear

Mass Chaos
Confuse everyone for a few rounds.  Chaos ensues.

Amun-pan-pulio, high priestess of the Spiraling Chaos, knows a spell called mass chaos.  She is fond of casting it at the beginning of combat.  Everyone in the room (including herself and her boyfriend) who fails a save is overcome as if with confusion for 3 rounds.  Usually this devolves into everyone stabbing each other wildly and at random.  It's not completely moronic, since the greater number of PCs compared to cultists means that they're more likely to be chosen (at random) as targets.  (Still a giant crapshoot, though.  But hey, that's chaos for you.)

PvP-like
Sometimes the best bosses are a group like the PCs.

The "boss" of this dungeon isn't in a keyed room.  It's on the random encounter table.  There's a rival group of drow adventurers and they are the most cunning jerks you'll ever meet.  They lie as easily as they breathe, and backstab more often than they shake hands.

The giant man propped his longbow against the wall and introduced himself and Randoolf.  His companions are "men of the roads and forests", and they have recently come into possession of a map that leads to a dungeon in the middle of the woods.  They'll sell it to the party for a reasonable price and then bid farewell.  When the PCs trek to the dungeon, they may or may not notice the trio of dead adventurers in the nearby ditch, stripped of their goods and full of arrow holes.  As they exit the dungeon, tired and possibly weighed down with loot, Randoolf and his fellow bandits will attack from the trees.  It's the perfect scam.

Fixation
The enemy has a single-minded fixation on killing a certain opponent.

Part of reconsecrating the Temple of Pearls involves baptizing one of the PCs in the baptismal font.  This PC will then perform the reconsecration ceremony.  Immediately after the baptism, the corrupting spirit will manifest as a clawed tar-ghost.  This creature will pursue the baptized PC while utterly ignoring everything else.  This could be run as an environmental challenge, climbing on stuff and closing doors, or it could be run as a chase scene that only ends when the tar-ghost is defeated.

Stheriax the red dragon failed in his attempt to become a draco-lich.  It successfully created a phylactery, but its mind rotted like maggot-eaten meat.  It's barely smart enough to pursue whoever has its phylactery, but it will do that at the expense of all else.  Since the PCs are trapped in an arena with it, they may want to play keep-away with it.  Stheriax will swallow the phylactery if he can.  While in his stomach, the phylactery gives the zombie dragon regeneration, but it can be cut out of the dragon's belly if someone is swallowed, or if someone can get beneath it and slice its guts open.  (Watch out for tapeworms.)

Painful choices
Players sometimes grumble about getting stunned or silenced, since it takes away their choices for several turns.  Well, you can address that issue and introduce more tactical options by replacing stun, immobilize, silence, or pacifism effects with painful choices.  Let players choose between behaving as if they were stunned, etc, or ignoring the effect and taking some harmful effect.

Instead of paralysis, the Curse of the Kuo-Toa Fisherman pierces a creature's body with hundreds of fish-hooks, each anchored to a point in space.  If the creature moves, the hooks will rip out painful gobbets of flesh.  If the creature performs some action while standing in the same place, they take 1d6 damage.  If they run around (or get shoved around) they take 2d6 damage.

Instead of silencing a spellcaster, infect their brains with a spellworm.  Whenever the magic-user casts a spell, the worm devours another one of their memorized spells at random, causing them to lose it as if they had already cast it.

Instead of pacifism (attacking is impossible) let the Alabaster Angel stare at one of the PCs each round.  Whichever PC is the subject of her beauteous gaze is so enthralled, that they feel actual pain from attacking her.  Whenever a PC is the subject of her gaze and deals damage to her, they take damage equal to what they dealt.

Delayed Fireballs
There are a lot of variations of this.  Basically, just take a horrible spell or effect, make it worse, and then give PCs a turn to get out of the way.  A 5d6 fireball becomes a 10d6 fireball that hovers in the air for a turn before exploding.  A sleep spell becomes a paralysis cloud that takes a full turn to coalesce.  This can be used to chase PCs from key locations (secure sniping perch, chokepoint).  This can even be used to make a strong enemy easier to defeat: after the wizard is doused in time slime, all of his spells take an extra turn to "arrive". 

Change the Rules
Nothing mixes it up better than changing the rules in the middle of a combat.  These are all pretty gimmicky and gamist, but they can be fun.

• Damage is healing, and vice versa.
• Cure wounds spells are inflict wounds spells, and vice versa.
• Use Charisma instead of Strength for attack and damage rolls (since you're obviously dreaming).
• In the Dungeon of the Humble, change each (ability score) to (21-ability score.)  18s become 3s, and vice versa.
• In the Dungeon of Wind, every weapon is a ranged weapon (since they can "throw" their attack).
• In the Dungeon of Friendship, the whole party shares abilities.  The wizard can swing a sword as well as the fighter, the cleric can memorize spells as well as the wizard (in addition to his clerical magic), etc.
• All arrows deal double damage in Robin Hood's tomb.
• One PC grows 1' taller and deals double damage while all others deal half and are likewise reduced.  This designation changes randomly, or perhaps it's just based on whoever was the last person to sit atop the Titan Throne.

Change the Combatants
It's more interesting when the tides turn during battle.  The easiest way to do this is with adds, but there are other ways.

• When Jubilex is at half-health, it vomits out 3 black oozes, making the combat harder.
• When Arcturus is at half-health, it catches on fire, making the combat easier.
• The dragon's eggs hatch when you bump them.
• The spider queen lays eggs that will hatch unless you set them on fire immediately.
• Reinforcement zombies pull themselves out of the ground.
• The lieutenant you killed 3 rooms back stumbles into the room, now undead.
• Severed body parts fall off the boss and attack on their own.
• The boss nullifies all spells within 100', but this ability is negated by a punch in the face.
• As the archmage turns into a dragon, 3 of the prince's crossbowmen join you, and ask for orders.
• If you untie the tied up woman and give her a sword, she'll join you.  She's a level 5 fighter.
• The room is flooding with sea water and vampiric seahorses.
• Offering the starving slaves food has a 50% chance of getting them to join you.