GLOGllow Knight: Build-a-Bug

This is a part 2 of my personal attempt to make a TTRPG suitable for the world of Hollow Knight.

In addition to just dry rules text, I will also be providing some designer commentary for specific parts, which will be done in red text like so. I also went back and added commentary to part 1 of the series, so check it out even if you have already read it and especially if you haven't.

In this one, we'll continue exploring character creation and do a deep dive into the Trait system.

Sinsin

HKRPG: Bug Bones Edition

Traits
There are many different species of bugs, all of which have their own unique Traits that define them.

Like I mentioned in part 1, the idea of not using a set list of species came up extremely early in the development of the original Hollow Knight RPG, pretty much before the actual development had even begun. While there are explicitly named species of bugs in Hollow Knight (snails, bees, mantises), the majority of the characters you encounter in the game only have a passing resemblance to real-life insects, and even the ones that are named are heavily anthropomorphized.

Instead of restricting players to select few species, we decided it would be much more appropriate and "OC-friendly" (which we considered to be a big draw of the system) if the theoretical representation of any potential bug species could be made quite literally out of insect parts. Those parts ended up being called Traits.

Unfortunately, the end product ended up being more flawed than I expected. Physical Traits like Mandibles and Pincers, used to represent the actual anatomy, had to battle for attention with mental Traits, like Civilized or Feral (which probably shouldn't have been a Trait in the first place). However, the worst mistake was making Attribute Increases into Traits.

Traits had two limiting factors: the bug's Hunger score (the more Traits you had, the more food you had to eat every day) and the hard limit of 7 Traits max. In most cases, for most characters, Attribute Traits ended up being simply too good not to take, so they started taking up real estate that could've been used for more interesting and flavorful options. Worst of all, PCs of players who didn't take an Attribute Trait ended up being visibly weaker that the PCs of those who did. All in all, taking an attribute Trait was essentially mandatory, and not taking one was a trap option that wasn't always clear to a new player.

Pick 1 to 3 Traits from the following list for your bug. If you pick less than 3, you gain an extra skill rank for every Trait you skipped.

The original Trait system had Traits with different Hunger costs (essentially point-buy). Something as powerful as Flight would cost 4 Hunger, while Luminous, the ability to emit light akin to a firefly's, would only cost 1, and a drawback Trait like Carnivore (which prevented the PC from eating plant matter) would cost -4 Hunger, providing more points to pick pricier Traits with.

In addition, some Traits also had sub-Traits, which modified their parent Traits and could be taken at an extra cost, but didn't count towards the 7 Trait limit. For example, the 1 Hunger Camouflage Trait had a much pricier 3 Hunger sub-Trait called Active Camouflage, allowing the bug to adapt their natural camouflage to the current environment instead of being limited to a single one.

Now, combine this with the fact that we had over 100 Traits to pick from and you can see how this could create confusion and choice paralysis in a new player. A part of it was fun, sure, but ultimately it lead to players treating their characters less like characters and more like (eugh) builds.

So, in order to address my issues with the original system, I decided on the following:

• Traits will be used to represent specific, mostly physical insect qualities of the whole species and not of a particular character (i.e. no more attribute increases or mental Traits).
• The Trait limit will be significantly lowered to avoid players creating total monstrosities, ensuring that any potential combination of Traits could plausibly represent a character in the world of Hollow Knight (less choices, more impactful choices).
• There will be no negative Traits.
• There will be no differently priced Traits, each Trait should be as desirable as any other Trait (very much echoing Arnold's sentiment about incomparables).
• Each Trait should strive to be equally useful to most PCs, no matter their Size, Skills, Path ranks or any other chosen building blocks (again, echoing Arnold). 

(Note: as an artist, I tend to think design-first of potential characters, and believe that drawing a bug first and THEN trying to represent that drawing with Traits is the best approach to making PCs in this game).

Boiling down 100+ Traits to only 36 was very much an iterative process, which you can tell by my Miro board:

Most of the initial list of Traits

 

Second iteration, note some of the more sauceless/niche Traits being put to the side

 

 

 

And here's the final Trait list (or, "final" until I decide that I actually dislike some of them, that is):

• 11. Acid Spit – You can spit globs of boiling acid at your enemies. This is a 1Q light ranged (4″) weapon that ignores all DR.
• 12. Ancient Blood – Lifeblood courses through your veins. As a major action, you may heal another bug by feeding it your blood. Spend HD and restore [sum] Hearts to it, while taking [sum]/2 (rounded up) damage yourself.
• 13. Aquatic – Your body is especially adapted for living underwater. You may breathe water and swim at full Speed.
• 14. Bloodsucker – You may feed on the blood of other bugs. 1 HD worth of fresh blood counts as a ration for you, and your bite is a 1Q light weapon that heals 1 Heart when you deal damage. If your bite is already a weapon, it becomes medium and gains that ability.
• 15. Burrower – You can burrow through loose earth and other soft materials at half Speed. In addition, you also have 6″ of tremorsense to help you navigate.
• 16. Camouflage – Your appearance allows you to blend in in a certain natural environment (pick one at the start), granting Advantage to any stealth rolls as long as you stand still. You may also gain 1 Fatigue to adapt to the natural environment you’re currently in.

Ancient Blood might be the only Trait in the list that is truly Hollow Knight-specific, the rest are much more generic.

• 21. Climbing – You can crawl across walls and ceilings at full Speed, as if you were walking on the ground. If you're interrupted while climbing, you must make a GRACE roll or fall.
• 22. Darkvision – Your eyes pierce the darkness, allowing you to see when there is no light. However, they glow faintly, making you stand out against the shadows.
• 23. Extra Arms – You have an additional pair of arms to hold things with, with all that entails.
• 24. Extra Legs – You have more than one pair of legs, which provide you superior stability. You ignore difficult terrain and cannot be forcibly moved against your will.
• 25. Flight – You can take to the air for up to 10 minutes at the cost of 1 Fatigue. However, if you're disrupted mid-flight, you must make a GRACE roll or fall.
• 26. Fluffy Coat – Your fluff is especially thick and insulating, allowing you to suffer no negative consequences from extreme temperatures. Additionally, you can stash up to 1 Slot of items within your fluff.

My attempt at "balancing" Darkvision was by introducing a drawback in the form of glowing eyes, which also matches nicely with some the character designs in Hollow Knight.

Since I decided to remove Trait prices, one of the challenges was making sure that the Traits are roughly equally interesting and somewhat comparable in perceived power (although I doubt I really achieved that here). Usually game-breaking Flight was thus changed to not only cost Fatigue (I stole that from someone's blogpost that had a birdfolk race that could fly at the cost of a ration, but I can't seem to find which blog it was, so please let me know if you know!), but also to last for the equivalent of a dungeon turn.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, some flavorful, but less exciting Trait options, like Fluffy Coat, were given an extra mechanical benefit to balance things out.  

• 31. Hibernation – At will, you can slow your bodily functions to a near-death state, allowing you to convincingly appear dead. While in this state, you require no sustenance as long as you remain still.
• 32. Horn – You have an imposing horn (or multiple) to charge with. It is a 1Q heavy weapon that attacks with Disadvantage unless used after moving.
• 33. Iron Guts – You can consume rotten food, and venoms and poisons affect you like alcohol – intoxicating but otherwise harmless.
• 34. Leaping – Your powerful legs allow you to jump a distance up to your full Speed.
• 35. Luminous – You can emit a steady glow, illuminating a 4″ radius around you at will.
• 36. Mandibles – Your bite is a 1Q light weapon that inflicts venom (roll MIGHT (2) or move at half Speed for 1 round).

Like with Fluffy Coat, Hibernation needed an extra benefit to justify taking it, so it also became the Play Dead Trait. I'm actually kinda proud of this one!

Iron Guts seems like a more interesting and fun take on poison resistance/immunity, if you ask me.

• 41. Molting – You can painlessly detach your limbs. When you spend HD to heal, you molt, regrowing all missing limbs and leaving a hollow exoskeleton behind.
• 42. Obscuring Cloud – As a major action, for 1 Fatigue you can release a static cloud of dense particles around yourself with a 2″ radius, making it difficult to see through.
• 43. Panoramic Vision – The construction of your eyes grants you 360-degree vision and the ability to see twice as far as most bugs. You are also immune to being ambushed, and may act as usual during a surprise round.
• 44. Pheromones – You release subtle chemical signals that those around you can sense. You gain +1 to reaction rolls and can send simple, wordless messages to nearby bugs.
• 45. Pincers – You have powerful pincers instead of hands. Each pincer is a 1Q medium weapon that ignores 1 point of DR. However, you suffer Disadvantage on rolls requiring fine manipulation.
• 46. Poisonous – You are poisonous. Any creature that makes direct contact with you on a successful attack is afflicted with a poison (roll MIGHT (2) or lose 1 MIGHT for a day). Most wild predators will avoid attacking you if possible.

Note how Panoramic Vision has a pretty generic name instead of being a specific insect part. Naming it something like Compound Eyes would mean that a character that would have compound eyes now MUST take this Trait to be properly represented, which is a pretty big choice considering the amount of Traits you get. A more generic name means that it could represent not only compound eyes, but also something like eyestalks, without requiring separate Traits for each, while characters who don't have the Trait could still have those body parts as flavor.

(This is the same reason why Flight is not called Wings, by the way.) 

As for Obscuring Cloud, I decided that most of the active Traits should cost Fatigue (which takes up an inventory slot) instead being limited to X/day like they usually are in OSR games. This seemed like a more organic approach, and would let more "bestial" characters that don't use bulky armor or weapons to benefit from them more.

• 51. Prehensile Tongue – You have a long, flexible tongue that can extend up to 4 inches to grab objects. In combat, it's a 1Q medium reach weapon.
• 52. Proboscis – Your proboscis is especially sharp. Your bite is a 1Q light weapon that counts as being in your hand for the purposes of dual-wielding.
• 53. Scent – Your sense of smell is exceptionally sharp. After meeting a bug, you can recognize their scent and track where they’ve been, as well as detect their presence on objects or other creatures.
• 54. Scythe Arms – You have sharp blades instead of hands. Each scythe is a 1Q medium weapon that can be used as a shield for Parries, but you suffer Disadvantage on rolls requiring fine manipulation.
• 55. Slime Trail – As a minor action, you can move up to your Speed while secreting a trail of sticky slime (difficult terrain) wherever you step for 1 Fatigue.
• 56. Song – You communicate through high-pitched sounds that carry over long distances. Only bugs who have been taught your song can understand its meaning.

Prehensile Tongue is more "frog" than "bug", but at this point I was running out of new Trait ideas to fill out all 36 of them.

• 61. Spinneret – As a major action, you can produce 6″ of silk rope or cover a 2×2″ area with sticky webs (difficult terrain) for 1 Fatigue.
• 62. Squishy – Your body is soft and flexible, allowing you to squeeze through gaps as small as an average bug’s head.
• 63. Tough Shell – Your shell is especially tough, providing 1 DR. However, this doesn’t stack with armor, and armor you would still choose to wear must be tailored to your shell.
• 64. Venomous Stinger – You have a stinger. It is a 1Q medium weapon that inflicts the target with venom (roll MIGHT (2) or get staggered, only being able to make one action next round).
• 65. Vocal Mimicry – You can perfectly mimic the voices of bugs you’ve heard before, as well as other sounds.
• 66. Water Treading – You can walk across the surface of water at full Speed as easily as walking on solid ground.

Example Bug Species

I potentially might expand this list in the future, but for now the idea was to showcase that you could represent pretty much any insect you want with only two Traits, potentially taking a third one if you wish. 

• Bee: Flight, Venomous Stinger
• Snail: Tough Shell, Slime Trail
• Beetle: Tough Shell, Horn
• Mantis: Scythe Arms, Climbing
• Spider: Spinneret, Climbing
• Moth: Flight, Fluffy Coat
• Flea: Bloodsucker, Leaping
• Crab: Pincers, Aquatic
• Ant: Pheromones, Scent
• Cicada: Burrower, Hibernation

 

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In the next part, I'll show my take on character advancement and explain the supposed gameplay loop of the system.

If I manage to do that before disappearing forever into the Silksong mines, that is.

GLOGllow Knight: Prelude and Core Rules

Considering that Silksong is coming to us in a week or so, I think this would be a good time to talk about a related project of mine.

But first, a little context is needed.

Let's talk about the Unofficial Hollow Knight RPG 

In the distant year of 2018, a thread appeared on 4chan's /tg/ board discussing a potential TTRPG based in the world of Hollow Knight (a Metroidvania set in a dying kingdom of bugs released the year before). Theory was crafted, worlds were built, art was drawn, many aspects of this theoretical game decided seemingly unanimously early on (let's make the players build their bugs out of parts instead of having a set number of playable species, let's have dice pools because they're fun to roll etc.). Seeing the traction the idea has gained, the OP decided to coordinate the efforts further and made a Discord server, which some of the chucklefucks in the thread actually joined.

I was one of those chucklefucks.

In the less distant year of 2021, after some years of productive discussion mixed with less than productive bickering, old people leaving, new people joining, and games that were supposed to be playtests turning out to be sprawling campaigns lasting for actual years, the process of constant unorganized changes to the ruleset came to a halt. Noticing that loss of momentum, one of the project members (and you could certainly call it a project by now) decided to take matters into their own hands and assemble the raw, unedited google doc containing all of the core rules together with some of the original art produced during that time and assemble something resembling a proper rulebook (or a "Pretty PDF", as it has been known internally).

I was thi- eh you get the idea. In the following two weeks, I forced myself to learn the bare minimum of layout that could be applied to a Google Doc and began working on the rulebook. Then I decided to do some basic marketing, made a post on Reddit and set up an itch.io page.

In conclusion, the result was this: The Unofficial Hollow Knight RPG.

Azor of Branchaven, the one PC I actually got to play for non-insignificant amount of time

Why?

Some personal grief that I had at the moment aside, my primary motivation for actually getting the game out was to get as many eyes on it as possible, and make sure none of our efforts were in vain.

Because, honestly, I didn't really like the final product much.

Yes, there were good ideas here and there, and the resulting system I would call at least "okay" in terms of quality and playability, but ultimately, I had too many grievances with it. 

Character creation (aka "Build-a-Bug", aka everyone's favorite part of the system) used what essentially is a point-buy system, except the points spent determined the amount of food the bug required to consume every day, which in practice turned out to be way too GM fiat-dependent. Combat used an Action Point-like Stamina system, which, combined with active defense, made single turns last for way too long, and a basic attack action could require 2-3 rolls to resolve (attack roll - defense roll - soak roll). We also provided virtually no GM support, which meant that NPCs had to function by player rules, which bogged down the flow of combat even further. Absorption, one of the mechanics, used modulo for Christ's sake.

So, as I was working on the layout and making Reddit posts and setting up the public Discord server, I figured that my best chance to eventually fix all the problems that I had was to make the game as visible as possible, in the hopes that someone, sometime in the future will find the system, recognize its issues, and make something better while being inspired by it. I wanted to fling a light into the future, so to speak.

(For context, almost none of my grievances were with the other people who worked on the system. In fact, I consider most of them to be my good friends to this very day, and they were the exact people I watched the Silksong release announcement with a mere week ago.)

Did my idea work out? Not really, there was a hack of the system by a fellow team member (which happened to not align with my personal tastes even further), and some occasional house rules proposed by players to fix some of the more glaring issues, but ultimately, nothing that would really appeal to me.

The idea of "fixing" HKRPG never really left me. Over the years, I tried many times to formulate my own changes, or even make everything from scratch, but I would always stumble upon some problem I didn't have an answer ready.

But I think my last attempt is the furthest I've gotten yet.

A leech witchdoctor, a leechdoctor if you will

GLOGllow Knight

During the development of HKRPG I got really into the OSR and soon was consuming blogposts and reading heartbreakers left and right. I don't remember the exact time I stumbled onto GLOG, but soon I began absorbing that content as well.

This heavily informed all my future game design and TTRPG-related decisions, now that I actually knew what I liked in TTRPGs. Funnily enough, HKRPG had already experienced some form of convergent evolution with GLOG: while GLOG had classes consisting of 4 templates, HKRPG had "paths" with 3 "ranks" each,  the main difference being that the maximum number of path ranks a PC could have was 6, with "multiclassing" being encouraged and expected (which seems to be the reverse expectation for GLOG).

Naturally, my attempts to make a Hollow Knight TTRPG myself over time warped to be more and more OSR-esque and GLOG-like, to the point where I consider the latest one to be essentially a honorary GLOGhack. Still, I try to preserve the elements of HKRPG that I found to be important to the experience, like the d6 dice pools and the "build-a-bug" character creation.

While some of the things are still WiP, here are the core rules.

Edit: After some thinking, I decided that simply posting the rules is not that interesting, so I will also try to accompany them with some designer commentary, which will look like this.

Theo the Mantis, one of the first PCs ever made for HKRPG

HKRPG: Bug Bones Edition

Base Stats 
Pick one of the following stat arrays:
[1, 2, 2, 4]    [1, 2, 3, 3]    [2, 2, 2, 3]

Then, assign each of the numbers to a stat: 

• MIGHT: Toughness, strength, and brawn. Roll MIGHT to break doors, move boulders, resist illness, etcetera. MIGHT applies to Hearts, melee attacks and Inventory Slots. 
• GRACE: Agility, coordination, and reflexes. Roll GRACE to jump, roll, tumble, sneak, pick pockets, and perform other delicate tasks. GRACE applies to ranged and melee attacks. 
• CRAFT: Skill, ingenuity, and expertise. Roll CRAFT to forge, mend, cook, pick locks, and perform skilled labor. CRAFT applies to starting Skills and Inventory Slots. 
• SENSE: Perception, intuition, and knowledge. Roll SENSE to search, identify, recall information, keep your cool, and read emotions. SENSE applies to initiative and ranged attacks.

Original HKRPG had Shell and Insight instead of CRAFT and SENSE. 

Shell was the CON equivalent, and you would roll it whenever you'd take damage to lower the damage by the amount of successes (the infamous "soak" roll). If you think "wow, that's a lot of rolling, surely you could replace it with a flat damage reduction instead", you're totally right! Combine this with the fact that high Shell was way too useful in combat, but virtually useless outside of it, and you can see why it was one of the first features on the chopping block.

Insight had a bit of the opposite problem, being the single mental attribute, which meant that almost every single skill roll was done using Insight. I decided to split it into CRAFT and SENSE instead. 

The final attribute spread was heavily influenced by Anne's post on Ability Scores (MIGHT is physical force, GRACE is physical grace, CRAFT is mental attack, SENSE is mental defense) and Dan's Lighthouse post, which mentions the "Tough / Fast / Booksmart / Emotional Intelligence quartet".

Oh yeah, and OF COURSE each attribute must be exactly 5 letters long. For reasons. 

Other Stats

• Hearts: Represent a bug’s vigor and will to live. Bugs start with 6 + MIGHT Hearts. 
• Heart Dice (HD): Represent a bug’s natural healing capabilities. HD are used to heal Hearts. Bugs start with 1 Heart Die.
• Soul Dice (SD): Represents a bug’s spiritual power. SD are used to power Spells and Weapon Arts. Bugs start with 2 Soul Dice.
• Speed: Measured in inches (1 inch is equivalent to 5 feet in games with human-sized creatures). 
• Bugs start with a Speed of 6″. 
• Inventory Slots: Represent the bug’s carrying capacity. Bugs start with 5 + (highest of MIGHT/CRAFT) Slots.

In HKRPG, like in the original game, Soul was used to heal damage. While this wasn't really an issue back then, I decided to make Weapon Arts cost Soul as well (which originally only required Stamina), and now using Soul for healing had to compete with using Soul for cool shit like Arts and Spells.

The less exciting choice being the more useful one doesn't seem like great design to me. Don't you want the players to actually USE their cool abilities? So, I delegated healing to HD instead, which, as a consequence, also gave me a new resource to play around with.

Now, if you didn't notice, this game uses inches instead of the more traditional feet. There's been a lot of discussion in the Hollow Knight community on whether the bugs in the game are supposed to be bug-sized or human-sized, but personally, I don't really care about it that much. In my opinion, while Hollow Knight is somber and beautiful, it can also be quite silly at times. Those are bugs! They call swords "nails"! I think it's fun to imagine that, if you're using a battle mat, the things are happening in 1:1 scale.

How To Roll 
“Roll” means rolling a pool of d6 dice, the number of which is determined by one of the Base Stats and then modified by things like Weapon Quality or Skill ranks. Each die that rolls a 5 or a 6 is counted as a success.

A pool may never be reduced below 1 die.

Advantage and Disadvantage
Advantage means that rolls of 4, 5 and 6 count as successes.
Disadvantage means that only rolls of 6 count as successes.
Instances of Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out.

It’s up to the GM to decide if Advantage or Disadvantage would apply to any specific roll.

Advantage and Disadvantage were originally introduced in the hack by another team member. I honestly don't know how we missed them the first time, they're such a useful roll modifier in a system where you could only add or subtract dice from a pool.

In my design philosophy, extra dice represent solid, more permanent bonuses and drawbacks, while Advantage/Disadvantage are much more situational.

You could also argue that, while extra dice are more useful when you don't have a lot of them (going from 2 dice to 3 dice is HUGE, but going from 6 to 7 is closer to diminishing returns), Advantage/Disadvantage are more impactful the more dice there are, with both not being entirely useless on the opposite ends. 

Difficulty
Most actions should require only 1 success, but some especially difficult ones might require 2 or even 3. 
In those cases, the amount of successes is specified in brackets, like MIGHT (2).

Unfortunately, there is a disadvantage that comes with dice pools. Unlike a d20, which maps nicely to percentile odds, the odds in dice pools are never as apparent. One could probably figure out that there is at least 1 success on average in a 3d6 roll, but for multiple successes you'd probably need to bring out Excel.

I might include a probability table in here eventually, as a potential player/GM aid. 

Opposed Rolls
In other cases, when two characters try to compete with each other, they both make a roll, which is called an Opposed Roll.

The one who rolls more successes is the one who beats their opponent. 
If both rolled the same number of successes, it’s a draw and nothing happens.

Group Rolls
If a whole group of bugs needs to perform an action together, every bug in the group makes a roll and the total number of successes rolled is counted.

The action counts as successful if the total number of successes is equal to or higher than the number of participants. Like for non-group rolls, more difficult actions might require more successes.

This is an example of how using a dice pool as the main conflict resolution mechanic could lead to exciting new design space. In my playtests, it was fun to come up with rulings when every single roll comes with a built-in number that stays fairly small.

For example, a player wanted to distract the enemies right before the combat starts. While this clearly wasn't the situation for a proper surprise round, I ended up ruling that the enemy initiative would be lowered by the amount of successes rolled for the distraction attempt.

Skills
Skills represent a bug’s abilities in a certain field. Skills are ranked from 1 to 3, with 1 representing apprentice-level abilities and 3 equaling being an expert in the field. Bugs start with (highest of CRAFT/SENSE) - 1 worth of skill ranks to distribute as they see fit.

Whenever a skill can be applied to a roll, add the number of dice equal to its rank to it.

Tiered Skills were born out of necessity, really. I needed a bonus I could provide for both picking an Average-sized bug and skipping on a Trait. Originally Skills were intended to be binary, but the final approach matches nicely with how Paths are also divided into 3 Ranks. 

Size
Bugs come in many different sizes, all of which affect how they interact with the world. 
Pick your bug’s size:

• Large - you are big and burly, being twice the size of an average bug. You have +3 Hearts.
• Average - you share the size with most bugs, which makes it easier to adapt. You have an extra skill rank. 
• Small - you are small and nimble, being half the size of an average bug. You have +2″ Speed.

I had many questions about how size should be implemented. Should being small/big be a Trait? It could be, but that means that small/big bugs couldn't be as freaky Trait-wise, which doesn't seem right. Should the size just be fluff? I considered that, but it didn't feel "real" to me without any hard mechanical significance. Ultimately, I decided that providing small mechanical benefits maintained a good balance. 

Traits
There are many different species of bugs, all of which have their own unique Traits that define them.

Pick 1 to 3 Traits from the following list for your bug. If you pick less than 3, you gain an extra skill rank for every Trait you skipped.

Three might not seem like a lot, especially if you're coming from HKRPG, where 7 was the limit and some Traits also had Sub-Traits that didn't count towards it. But if you actually take a look at Hollow Knight characters, you'll see that they're actually fairly simple design-wise, especially compared to real-life bugs. I think it's an important part of the feel that most characters don't resemble realistic insectoid monstrosities.   

Example Traits:

• Ancient Blood – Lifeblood courses through your veins. As a major action, you may heal another bug by feeding it your blood. Spend HD and restore [sum] Hearts to it, while taking [sum]/2 (rounded up) damage yourself.
• Burrower – You can burrow through loose earth and other soft materials at half Speed. In addition, you also have 6″ of tremorsense to help you navigate.
• Flight – You can take to the air for up to 10 minutes at the cost of 1 Fatigue. However, if you're disrupted mid-flight, you must make a GRACE roll or fall.
• Iron Guts – You can consume rotten food, and venoms and poisons affect you like alcohol – intoxicating but otherwise harmless.
• Molting – You can painlessly detach your limbs. When you spend HD to heal, you molt, regrowing all missing limbs and leaving a hollow exoskeleton behind.
• Spinneret – As a major action, you can produce 6″ of silk rope or cover a 2×2″ area with sticky webs (difficult terrain) for 1 Fatigue.

 

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The full list consists of 36 traits (because the system is d6-only, so it needs to be a d66 table, duh), but this post is getting pretty big already, so they and the rest of the rules will probably require their own posts.

Which means, part 2 coming eventually???

NO TEXT (GLAUGUST)

 

The Sky for Roof, Mountains for Walls (Class: Cossack)

For Cloak-and-Sword, again. This one shares a lot of DNA with Phlox's iconic Barbarian.

Józef Brandt

Class: Volni
Start with: colorful foreign clothes, decorated fur hat, a shashka sabre, a nagaika short whip, a big bottle of chihir (intoxicating to any constitution), an animal companion (see below). 

You are one of the Volni, free semi-nomadic people of the east. You hail from Dikoe Pole (known in Manteu as Le Territoire Indompté, or simply The Wild Steppe), a region of mostly unexplored sprawling steppes located between the Dragoman Empire to the south and the northern Tsardom, where laws imposed by its neighbors seldom take hold.

Twinsoul: At the moment of your birth, the soul that was meant for you split in two, and one half entered an animal that was born at the exact same time. This is a common occurrence for the Volni and an important part of their culture.

You are accompanied by an incredibly loyal and smart 2 HD animal (usually a horse, though wolves and eagles aren't unheard of), with which you share a soul. This has the following implications:

• You can share senses by closing your eyes and concentrating.
• You can feel each other's emotions and pain when close together.
• You can tell the rough direction to one another when far apart.
• Anyone who holds Esprit for one also holds it for the other.
• Your companion's lifespan is extended to match your own.
• For purposes of faith and magic, you are a single soul in two bodies.

Mechanically, you essentially control both the animal companion and the Volni. In combat, the animal companion acts on the same turn as the Volni.

If one of you dies, the other is doomed to perish within a year.

Steel and Saddle: When rolling damage, you add an extra damage die for each of the following and take the highest result:

• You used one of the traditional Volni weapons, like your shashka or nagaika.
• You fight alongside your animal companion.
• You are outnumbered 2-to-1 or more.

Patchwork Tongue: You speak Surjik, in addition to any other languages you might know. Surjik is the native language of the steppes, composed of words and phrases borrowed from every culture your people ever encountered (which is most of them).

When speaking Surjik to someone who doesn't, there is a 1-in-6 chance for them to still understand what you're saying. This also applies to animals. 

Iron Guts: Your tolerance for alcohol is impressive. For you, weak alcohol (like ale or wine) acts like water, and strong alcohol (like vodka) acts like weak alcohol. After downing a full bottle of strong alcohol, you are immune to fear until you become sober again. If relevant, you have +4 to saves vs getting stupidly drunk.

People you spend the whole night drinking with hold Esprit for you, and you for them.

Story-Fated: When rolling for consequences of Carousing, you may roll twice and pick. If you do, you now hold mutual Esprit with one of the people involved and are bound by fate to cross paths again, for better or worse. 

Steppe-Born: You never suffer penalties when camping or sleeping out in the wilderness, no matter the weather or other natural conditions. However, you suffer those penalties when you are forced to sleep under a roof instead of an open sky.

Wind-Guided: When traveling, you never leave foot- or hoofprints, nor scent by which you can be tracked. You can make sure that none of the ones you travel with leave them either, as long as all of you slow down and travel at half speed. 

Barbare: Your rough foreign manners tend to put people off. You have -2 to reactions from nobles and other more civilized city-dwellers, and are forbidden from entering churches without explicit permission.

Moderation in All Things (Class: Humourist)

For Cloak-and-Sword.

Class: Humourist
Start with: Treated skin-covering garb, a scalpel, a doctor's bag, phlebotomy tools, too many jars and vials.

Leech: With an hour of work, you may extract 1 HD's worth of a specific Humour from a willing or unconscious body. A body contains an amount of Humours equal to its HD, and replenishes 1 HD's worth per day if parted. A Humourless body does not die, but instead becomes sluggish and apathetic.

The Humours are:

• Blood: the Humour of joy and affability. Can be found in children, happy lovers, courtesans, dogs, and angels.
• Black Bile: the Humour of sadness and creativity. Can be found in poets, failed actors, noble scions, crows, and ghosts.
• Yellow Bile: the Humour of anger and daring. Can be found in military officers, athletes, revolutionaries, lions, and demons.
• Phlegm: the Humour of patience and contemplation. Can be found in scholars, priests, old people, turtles, and gargoyles.

A body with more than 1 HD may hold more than a single type of Humour, depending on how many categories it falls under at once (elderly actors, scions turned revolutionaries, bears (considered by some to be the link between dogs and lions), sickly young women).

Temperance: With 10 minutes of work, you may inject 1 HD of an extracted Humour into a willing or unconscious body.
If the body is injured, roll 2d6 and restore Elan for the greater of the two results if the chosen Humour matches the body, or the lesser if it doesn't.
If the body is not injured, it gains the following effect based on the chosen Humour until the end of the day or until it suffers damage (which will violently release the excess Humours), whichever comes first:

• Blood: +1 to reactions and +1 to saves vs love. Must save or be a people pleaser if asked to do something.
• Black Bile: +1 to hit and 1-in-6 chance to see invisible things like angels and muses. Must save or inconsolably cry whenever anything bad happens to you or anyone else.
• Yellow Bile: +1 damage and +1 to saves vs fear. Must save or fly into a rage at any perceived slight.
• Phlegm: +1 AC and 1-in-6 chance to already know the relevant factoid in addition to any other lore roll. Must save or refuse to act without lengthy deliberation when presented with a choice.

Multiple injections of the same Humour stack, increasing numerical bonuses by 1, but adding -2 to saves vs the related drawback.

Bedside Manner: Upon being seen, you are immediately recognized as a physician. You never seem out of place at social gatherings and are always welcome at any club you visit. You have a +2 to reactions from ill nobles and commoners, unless there is already another physician present.
A noble is considered to be ill when any ailment is causing them the slightest discomfort.
A commoner is considered to be ill when any ailment actively interferes with their work.

Life Debt: Anyone you save from certain death through medical intervention holds Esprit for you. Those who held Esprit for them and were present at the time will also hold Esprit for you.

Shorthand: You can write exceptionally fast, matching and sometimes exceeding talking speed. Text written this way is unintelligible to anyone except you and those who you teach how to read it. You are literate in Gryce in addition to any other languages you might know.

Mithridatism: You have +2 to saves against diseases and poisons. If you succeed the save against the same disease or poison three times, you become completely immune to it.

Diagnosis: With 10 minutes of uninterrupted examination, you can precisely determine all mundane ailments a body is suffering from, as well as its current Elan and Fertility type. This also reveals familial connections to any others previously diagnosed by you.

Non Nocere: If you ever attack anyone you previously diagnosed and the attack hits, you kill them instantly, no save. If at least one other person was present, you immediately become an outlaw and lose all social standing. Even if you were alone, you still lose all your Humourist abilities.

 

Credit to Grace on the GLOG server for inspiring this class