The Library of Attnam

1 July 2026

Class: Fashion Wizard

No orb-fondling tower-dweller, you are not. Halfway between an artificer and a socialite, you have the correct attire, taste, but most importantly, opinions.

by sundae_jck

You are Chartered and likely from a good family.

Items:

lavish clothes of your own design,
another set of clothes of your own design,
yet another set of clothes of your own design,
needles and thread,
a pre-approved business loan from a local bank, though at a truly draconian interest rate.

Skills: Fashionista and two topics of trivia that you can keep talking for hours about

Perks & Flaws:

While wearing a fancy and expensive clothes, cape or hat, you can destroy it to reduce an incoming attack's damage or spell's [sum] by 2d6.

Moaning and raging about the irreplaceability of the lost piece of apparel is optional, but highly encouraged.

You cannot use magic while dirty or badly clothed.

For example, falling into water will prevent spellcasting until you can dry off, unless you were already wearing a fancy swimming wear.

Cantrips:

Interesting: With concentration, you can prevent others from leaving a conversation with you. There is no save, but remember that concentration can be broken by punching you in the face.
Important: Make your clothes billow dramatically or a faint, pleasant music follow you.
Inspired: Telekinetically control needles and thread within 30 feet, though your control is not forceful enough to cause damage.

Spells:

This spell list draws heavily on the elf wizard, handsome wizard and silk wizard traditions.

1. Flying Needles

R: touch; T: [dice] needles; D: concentration

Enchant [dice] needles, connecting them to your fingertips by invisible, ethereal thread. Enchanted needles can be used as throwing knives and they will attach the thread to anything they strike. Save negates, but only if the target could see the thread. You count as touching anything connected to you by a thread.

The thread can be stretched effectively infinitely and can only be severed by effects that can harm ghosts. At will, you can make the thread visible and tangible, but also only as strong and stretchy as a silken rope. It cannot be changed back and disappears when your concentration is broken.

2. Clean

Up to [highest] touched creatures or objects no larger than a child/man/horse/dragon are instantly cleaned, groomed and perfumed.

One may specify the grooming, e.g. shaving, shaping or trimming of the beard; type of perfume, etc. This does not destroy the filth, merely puts it into a neat pile on the side.

3. Mend

R: touch; T: object or construct

Fix a target with [dice] or less Cracks. This does not affect a target with more than [dice] Cracks at all (no "partial fixes") and cannot replace missing pieces. Alternately, instantly remove up to [dice] malfunctions. Complex objects (clockworks, magic contraptions) might require a skill test to be properly mended.

4. Beautify

Touched creature or object no larger than a child/man/horse/dragon is altered into a more beautiful form of the same type (e.g. humanoid, chair). The new form must be considered more beautiful by either the caster or the target.

This also restores [sum] points of damaged ~~Charisma~~ Presence, or grants +[dice] Presence bonus if it was undamaged. No other characteristics or abilities are affected.

The effect lasts for [sum] hours and can be made permanent at 4 [dice], but is always broken when the target is killed or shattered.

5. Feather Fall

R: 30'; T: [dice] creatures or objects; D: until each touches the ground

Rather than falling, the target slowly (possibly alarmingly so) descends, their clothes beauteously billowing around them. Can be cast as a reaction.

6. Choose one of:

Silk to Steel

D: [sum] minutes

Touched silk object becomes as steel. Silk clothes grant armour as leather/chain/plate/plate and shield, silk thread can serve as wire, silk rope works as a steel rod, etc.

Works on other fabrics as well, but only for [sum] rounds. With 4 [dice], you can make the effect permanent.

Steel to Silk

D: [sum] minutes

Touched steel object becomes as silk. This makes weapons fairly useless, steel bars as silk ropes, armour as clothing, etc.

Works on other metals as well, but only for [sum] rounds. With 4 [dice], you can make the effect permanent.

7. Speak with Fabrics

Talk to clothes and cloth for [sum] minutes, or ask [dice] questions they must answer, save negates. Textiles only know about things that touched them, but they can tell a lot from a simple touch.

8. Powerful Presence

T: self; D: [sum] hours

You project an aura of magnificence and poise. Gain +2×[dice] to saves against charm, domination and fear. Easily impressed creatures (peasants, lesser fairies and petty nobles) must test Morale or fawn and grovel.

9. Silken Servant

R: touch; D: [sum] hours

Enchant a set of clothes or a fabric doll no larger than a child/man/horse/dragon to serve you. It can follow complex instructions, but cannot fight and will collapse after a single blow.

10. Mirror Mirror

D: 10 minutes

Reach into a mirror-like surface and pull out [dice] illusory copies of a creature mirrored on the surface. The mirror must be large enough for them to pass through. The mirror clones behave as you wish. They can walk and talk, but cannot pick anything up and burst like a bubble if struck. You can alter their clothing, grooming and styling at will.

If you mirror yourself with 3+ [dice], you can see through your clones' eyes and hear through their ears, cast your spells through them, and switch places with your mirror twin as a half action.

Shadows of Arezzo Giulia Ferraro
by Bruce Luan

Emblem Spells:

You have access to a powerful crowd control and a single-target save-or-die emblems, but both are tools of art and admiration, not crude and callow murder.

11. I Expect You To Dine

R: 30'; D: concentration

Up to [sum] total HD of creatures find themselves unable to move, no save. If sitting, they will be tied to the chair with ribbons; if standing, their shoes will be sewed to the carpet, etc. As an action, they can attempt to tear themselves free with -[dice] penalty, and any hostile action against a target also breaks the spell.

12. My Lovely Doll

Touched creature of 2×[dice] or less HD is turned into a tiny puppet of themselves, save negates. They are helpless but fully aware. Lasts for a minute/hour/day/eternity, but any damage suffered by the doll reverts the transformation.

by Chelsea Boy

Dooms:

Your eyes turn into buttons for 10 minutes, leaving you blind.
Your skin turns into skin-coloured silk, permanently. Take double fire and slashing damage.
You transform into a tiny, beauteous doll. You are helpless but fully aware, forever.

You can prevent (but not revert) all your Dooms by discarding and forswearing all your worldly possessions. Once you take this vow, you may only own and use simple, mundane clothes and tools; and may not own, use, or even carry money and valuables, properties and deeds, or magical and masterwork items of any kind. On the bright side, as a mendicant ascetic you are no longer bound by your Flaw and may keep your magic no matter your appearance and apparel. On the bleak side, this is considered a fate worse than death by many a fashion wizard.

Should you ever break this vow, you immediately suffer your final Doom. Maybe finding a way to animate your doll-body or transmigrate your soul into a more suitable vessel is the better solution.

Miniature Ranni from Elden Ring

29 June 2026

RadMans

So, deadEarth... Such an incredible marvel of insane game design. Reading this thread, I fell in love with the idea that if you just completely reworked the main resolution mechanic, removed the sexism, reworded most of the rules so that they made a semblance of sense, replaced... Yeah, I started to hack it, because the characters that survive character generation are incredibly amusing and worthy of being played, just not in the deadEarth engine.

I have regained my sanity before getting too far, but I still have this automated character generator with a revised list of skills and no rules to accompany it. If ever a strange mood compels me to refine the nearly two thousand radiation manipulations (i.e. reality-warping mutations) into a format and content I would be happy with, I will let you know. But don't hold your breath.

22 June 2026

The Last Stand: Diceless Pseudo-Wargame

Caput Caprae has reminded me of a game we used to play with my brothers when I was about twelve years old, which could be considered an extremely rudimentary kind of wargame. Maybe. We have built many a fortress from LEGO and wanted to have a nice siege, but knew nothing about wargames. So we made our own. These are the rules reimagined from what I remember, because of course there were no written rules.

You only need LEGO blocks to play this game. I will refer to the block names from here.

Units:

Soldier (1x1 Brick or 1x1 Brick, Round) is the basic unit.
Rider is a soldier on a horse (1×2 Plate). They are better in melee.
Hero is a soldier with a coloured cap (1×1 Plate, Round). They get superpowers.
Catapult (1x2 Brick) allows you to use the Missile action.
Siege tower (2+ stacked 1x2 Bricks) allows soldiers to move over bulwarks.
Dragon (2×2 Brick) is a bit overpowered.

The rest of the blocks should be used to build forts and fortifications.

Setup:
Prepare your terrain. We usually had a carpet as the dry land, with the floor around standing for the sea. Books and boxes and whatever else you have at hand can make for nice cliffs and mountains. And of course, don't forget to prepare your LEGO castle.

Decide how many units of which kind each player will get. There were no unit prices in our game, we made up a scenario and each player would take whatever units seemed appropriate. The Last Stand actually refers to a popular scenario of ours - one player gets the castle, the other player gets a much bigger army besieging it.

On the other hand, the number of caps for heroes and mages should be about the same for all players. If you don't have enough caps for everyone to have the same choice of hero powers, then the player who will go last in turn order picks one cap, then go in reverse turn order until the desired number of caps is chosen.

The players then deploy their units at will. Once again, in a pre-made scenario, this didn't matter that much. Units cannot be attached to the bulwarks they stand on - either cover the walls in smooth tiles or put the units across the pins. We want not-so-stable, free-standing units for the Missile action.

Turns:
Determine who goes first, then players alternate turns. On your turn, take one action chosen from the following types:

Missile
Move & Melee
Magic

Missile

You can only take a Missile action if you have a catapult on the battlefield. You also have limited ammo per turn - we played with 2 or 3 shots, I think.

Put your hand over any of your catapults, then throw a projectile. Any unit, friend or foe, that gets knocked over is killed. If a unit is knocked back but not over, it survived. Note that units that are harder to kill in melee get no such protection against missiles, and fortifications can also be knocked down by missile fire.

Our projectiles were usually 2×2 Brick or 1×3 Brick, but sometimes we also had glass marbles or bearing balls. We never did this, but you could have several kinds of siege engines with different ammo, like making a ballista by shooting a rubber band. Or use dice as missiles.

Move & Melee

Move one group of units across the battlefield. They cannot pass through enemy units, bulwarks or castle walls, or other impassable terrain. Otherwise, you are the judge of what counts as "too far to move in a single turn". Forts and fortifications should have some access point that you can conquer. Or you can move a siege tower next to a wall, then on your next turn move your units inside. Riders and catapults, however, cannot use siege towers.

Castle gates, by the way, can only be destroyed by missile fire (don't attach the gate firmly), a Shatter spell, or by a hero with Might. We didn't use any battering rams.

When (groups of) units end up adjacent, a melee ensues. Sum up the number of kills each side achieves, then remove that many units - the resolution is simultaneous and the sides can achieve mutual wipe out.

Each soldier causes one kill.
Each rider kills two and takes two hits to kill. One hit alone does not cause them lasting harm.
Heroes cause [1 + number of caps] kills and take the same number of simultaneous hits to kill. This can be further modified by their powers.
Dragons are a bit of a special case, see below.
Catapults and siege towers cannot attack in melee, and get "killed" in a single hit.

For example, Alice moved 2 riders and 8 soldiers next to Bob's group of 10 soldiers and a catapult. Alice gets 12 kills, Bob gets 10 kills. Bob's group is completely wiped out, while Alice keeps 1 rider.

The active player decides which units from a group (both their own and enemy) are killed, but should start from the closest units. Especially if a group of soldiers is guarding a hero or a siege tower, you cannot kill the protected unit before removing its guardians.

Magic

You can cast one spell per action by removing one cap from any of your heroes. This may cause them to become a normal soldier.

Berserk: The hero's group deals double damage until the end of your next turn.
Protection: The hero's group cannot be harmed until the start of your next turn. If the units are knocked down by a missile, they must be restored to their original positions.
Curse: Choose a player to curse. If the cursed player wants to use a Missile action on their next turn, they have to do so blind.
Brambles: Choose a player; their units cannot Move & Melee on their next turn.
Fear: Move an enemy group of units.
Construct: Build and place a new structure somewhere near the hero. For example, a ramp to the castle walls.
Shatter: Remove (a part of) a structure.
Summon: Deploy a new group of units. The group is placed around the hero. You may not add more units than you had at the start of the game, so either you have kept some in reserve, or you are summoning the reanimated bodies of your dead soldiers.

Heroes:
Heroes get superpowers (in addition to the Magic action), denoted by the colour or shape of their cap.

Might: Counts as a catapult and may destroy structures by attacking them.
Shield: Cannot be killed by missiles or magic. If the unit is knocked down by a missile, it must be restored to its original position.
Immortal: When killed, remove one of their caps and re-deploy them at the end of your next turn.
Assassin: Can scale walls and terrain, so can Move pretty much anywhere on the table.

By the way, you can put a hero on horseback for that extra bit of power.

You can also make fun hero combination like an immortal assassin - move them behind enemy lines to kill a valuable unit in melee, and though as a lone unit they will be killed, they will just come back for another assassination.

Dragons:
Dragons are like heroes on magical steroids. They can fly (as Assassin) and use fire breath (as Might). They also kill 10 units in melee and have to be hit by 10 units simultaneously to die*. They can also be ridden by a hero.

*) I think. I don't remember the exact number, but it was something like this.

The Square Kingdom of South America prepares for battle...

...with the hundred heroes of the Round Realm...

...who serve the accursed Skull Titan...

...while the immortal Dragon Queen of Africa
watches from afar, ready to pounce on the weakened winner.

15 June 2026

The Orb of Wishing

This might be one of the most fun magic items I have ever given to my players:

A larger crystal orb (1 Slot) that glows with strong inner light.
When you first touch the orb, you are flooded by strange visions that paralyse you until you succeed on a Will save. Once you pass, you gain control of the orb and may channel a sliver of its power - you have three wishes. It is not possible to wish alternatingly; once somebody else gains control of the orb, you lose any of your remaining wishes and may never again control the orb.

Zuran Orb from MtG

So far, the players have wished to:

Destroy the orb's guardian, averting a looming TPK.
Cure 50 years of unnatural ageing.
Regrow both hands of one unlucky companion.
Be cured of all ills. (Said character was severely injured and double-cursed.)
Become rich. (Wish pending completion, wait for the next session.)
Be young forever.
Grant human speech to their dog companion.
Resurrect a long-dead scientist for his lost knowledge.
Cure a fatal anaphylactic shock. (On the same character who had previously lost both of his hands...)

These wishes are in no way a monkey's paw. They follow the spirit of the request and sometimes even go a bit further, when the wording of the wish would needlessly weaken its beneficial effect. And yet my players are already paranoid, carefully planning on what to do with their effectively unlimited wishes. But are they truly unlimited? Who can they trust with the power of the orb, once everyone in the party has had their wishes granted? How can they compel anybody to wish for them? What if a word gets out? The schemes are piling up and up and up.

I must thank Skerples and Archon for the idea of giving the players a campaign-wrecking item early on and letting them loose. It is working gloriously.