Dreams and Fevers: Rules

Showing posts with label Rules. Show all posts

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Ibn Fadlan is Not an Adventurer: XP Rules for Travelers and Diplomats

The world according to Ibn Sahl al Balkhi, 9th century

So, I've been reading Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness again and thinking more about what an adventurer is exactly. Adventurers acquire things, that's how they level up in traditional D&D, but Ibn Fadlan starts with wealth and loses it. The basic pattern of the D&D adventuring life, starting with not much and working your way up, doesn't fit. Though Ibn Fadlan and Abu Hamid's accounts have been held up as great resources for RPGs, I haven't heard of any other attempts to make campaigns based on their journeys. This is probably because they just aren't adventurers. They are diplomats, travelers. They witness and negotiate and educate instead of taking, overcoming, and ruling.

I don't just want to run a game in a setting inspired by the sources in The Land of Darkness. I want players to act like Ibn Fadlan and Abu Hamid, to be driven to see things and meet people. To that end, I've written new xp rules for travelers instead of adventurers. The rules make a lot of assumptions about the party and their loyalties, but I think that goes hand in hand with the subject matter.

The Arrival of Ibn Fadlan in Bulgary, Urmanche Baky, 1973

To level up, the party must collect Marks equal to their current level + 1. When you level up, the party’s Marks are erased and you start again from zero.

You get Marks for 3 activities: finding wonders, uncovering information which is useful to the postal agency/intelligence service, and diplomacy.

Wonders: The world is full of wonders, aja’ib, mirabilia. Indeed, the stars themselves are wondrous, proof of the infinite variability and glory of the Lord’s creation. There is always a great thirst in court and in houses of learning to hear of new wonders from abroad. We live in age of reason, all wonders must be verified by proper methods. Each wonder found and verified is worth one Mark.

Places: Strange locations in the natural world or significant ruins left by antique civilizations. To verify your discovery, you must determine its exact position and relation to other landmarks using astronomical tools.

Examples: An island inhabited entirely by snakes, a huge dome of lead constructed by giants, an enchanted temple which no mortal can enter, a cave where ice turns to crystal, a sea of pure darkness

Creatures: Unusual or rare animals. To verify your find, you must be able to accurately measure the animal (preferably in cubits) and describe its features in detail from a living or dead specimen. Demons, the undead, and other abominations do not count as wonders. People are also not wonders.

Examples: Mundane animals of unusual size, a hypnotic lizard with crystal flesh, a furry rhino with a huge horn, chimeras of all sorts, huge oozes which blend into the water, ravens with iron talons

Phenomenon: Inexplicable and recurring events which dazzle the mind. To verify your discovery, you must witness the phenomenon thrice in full with your own eyes.

Examples: Armies of jinn who fight in the night sky, a river that turns bright blue when the moon is full, stone elephant tusks that grow in the earth, a huge fish that beaches itself to be eaten daily

Spying: These are uncertain times and eyes loyal to the court are always needed in places far from the Commander of the Faithful’s influence. You must gather information, on both the Successorate's subjects and potential allies.

Governors, Shaws, Amirs: Power must be delegated to keep the Successorate running, but those trusted with that power often have their own ends in mind.

The party will gain a Mark for discovering that:

A Governor, Shaw, or Amir practices a heretical religion

A Governor, Shaw, or Amir has committed an act of treason or plans to (e.g. failing to recite the Successor’s name in communal prayers, failing to enforce the Successor’s edicts, or working with her enemies)

A group of rebels operates in the territory of a Governor, Shaw, or Amir

Major Factions: Not every tribe of idolaters is of interest to the Commander of the Faithful. Major factions control trade routes, cities, or have access to important trade goods. Be warned, khagans are not above misrepresenting their influence to win foreign favor.

The party will gain a Mark for discovering that:

A major faction is trading with a rival of the Successorate (Whose goods do they have?)

A major faction has adopted a religion which rivals the Besharan Way (Who advises them, where do they pray?)

Diplomacy: The party represents the Successorate, the Commander of the Faithful, and Besharan Way itself. Adopting the faith and forming an alliance with the Successorate are inextricably linked. Keep in mind that all reasoning creatures, not just people, can follow The Way and may be converted.

The party will receive a Mark for:

Opening formal diplomatic relations with a faction and inviting their conversion to the Besharan Way, they will expect gifts from Beshara

Correcting the practice of converts to the Besharan Way, converts often continue to practice idolatry

The party will receive two Marks for:

Converting a faction's leaders the Besharan Way, they will expect a large gift from the Successor himself, but a lesser religious figurehead can be petitioned to provide the gift

Mark Bounties: Certain objectives have Mark bounties assigned to them, which the party will be made aware of at the start of their journey. Here are some examples:

There is a reliable rumor that a Governor has secretly claimed the title of Successor, finding out who will be rewarded with 3 Marks
Finding the Iron Wall of The Two Horned Shaw is worth 4 Marks

Relevant Setting Information

What is the Successorate and the Besharan Way?

The greatest state under heaven. Ruled by the Successor of the Prophetess' favorite assistant, Idris. Rashida adopted Idris into the Besharan people and named him the Commander of the Faithful before she ascended the sacred mountain. For three centuries Idris dwelt in occultation before reemerging to unite the followers of the Way and restore the faith to its roots, founding the tradition we know as the Besharan Way. All the Successor's have been descendants of Idris. The current dynasty are the Nourids, the family of Idris' middle daughter.

Who opposes the Successorate? (the following list is not exhaustive)

The False Successorate: A rogue faction of Besharan nobility who lay claim to the titles of Idris. They control most of Tamania, but the true Successor maintains rule west of them.

The Way-Universal: A tradition of the Way founded by the Prophetess' favorite companion, Hallaj. There are many streams of the Hallajite tradition, but none is as powerful as the Way-Universal. It is probably headed by the Pontifex Maximus in the Eternal City, or perhaps by the Basilinna in the City of the Constant Emperors. Many kings and rulers follow the Way-Universal and oppose the Besharan Way. Many are interested in the Meager Country.

The Cult of Fire: A left over religion from antiquity. Their practice is not banned but it is heavily discouraged. Lingering loyalty to this old tradition sometimes grips of hearts of non-Besharan Shaws and Governors and its dying influence is still enough to spark troublesome rebellions.

This post is dedicated to Oghuz Khagan

Saturday, September 29, 2018

You Are Five

The Self is a maze. Please take care.
(The Lonely Ones by Edvard Munch, 1899)

You are not you. I know, it’s hard to understand. You are not one person, one thing. You are five. They are all whole, not parts. You are not any of them. You are their tendency to stay together. But they wander, oh they wander so.

First is your Skin. It is the heaviest part of you and the easiest to change. It is your face, it is your shape, it is your limbs. It is one thing your parents give to you. It stays right where you left it when you dream. It is your breath and your life. But take care of your skin, my friend, there are sorcerers who want to take it and wear it themselves. They will do terrible things to your Skin. And if you choose to change your Skin, do not forget what you once were.

Second is your Memory. It is a little bird. A sparrow, a magpie, a dove. Its feathers are all you know. It flies to your side days after you are born and joins your unwhole wholeness. When you sleep, it glides through the dreaming world. But, oh, my dear, take care of your Memory. There is a huge raven called Desires-to-Know and he will dive at your Memory in the dreaming world and pluck out your feathers. This is called forgetting.

Third is your Follower. It is the last to become part of you. When you begin to teeth, you will know that it is with you now. It takes many shapes. A fish, a mammal, a bird, a man, a woman, a shapelessness. It is your personality, your sense of who you are. It keeps you safe. Evil spirits fear it and it can be made mighty in the dreaming and the waking world. But, oh, my sweetness, take care of your Follower. If it is destroyed, your whole self will be undone. If it is estranged from you, you will sicken and die. It goes ahead of you, not behind. So worry for your Follower, your enemies will see it in their dreams before they see you on the road.

Fourth is your Will. It is a bird also. A hunter, it soars in the clouds. It is your mind’s sharpness and the speed of your wit. It stays with you and does not wander in the dream but it may if you know how. In the dreaming world, it is a great protector. It can fly with your Follower, it can fly with your Memory and they will be safer from the hidden forces of the dreaming world. It can find lost spirits and bring broken selves together once again. But, my darling, take care of your Will. It desires things which should not be desired and in the vast expanses of the dreaming world it is easily tempted, it is easily lost. If you lose your Will, your thoughts will unravel and you will sicken and die. Keep your Will close, my dearest.

Last is your Luck. It is your eyes, bright and strong or dull and weak. It is your capacity to succeed. If your parent had a good Luck, hope it passes onto you when they die. It is always with you, your Luck. You cannot part from it no matter how hard you try and nothing can take it from you. Do not worry for it. Love it and carry it like a banner in the sun. When you have nothing left, you will have your Luck and it will draw your whole self together in such a way that nothing can stop you from finding victory.

It’s so hard, my sweetness, to keep yourself together. You have so many parts to lose. But keep trying, one day, soon, you will feel whole.

It is made of lost things
(Source)

Losing Your Self

To see is to be seen, to touch is to be touched. When one thread is pulled the whole tapestry can be unraveled. Your luck and your skin are usually safe, but your memory, follower, and will are often in jeopardy. There are evil spirits who can steal these things from you in the spirit world and in the mortal one. If part of you is taken by such a creature, there is usually a way to reclaim it.

If you are in a trance state or traveling in the dreaming world free of your skin and are unexpectedly brought back to the mortal world you have a 1 in 6 chance of losing your memory, a 1 in 6 chance of losing your follower, and a 1 in 6 chance of losing your will.

Your skin. It is hard to remove, but there are tools to do so. One Eyed Chief has a knife which can. All shape shifting involves mastering, transforming, or replacing this part of your self. Often, you must remove one skin to don another. Then it is vulnerable to those who would love to wear it themselves.
If you are without a skin:
Your speed is 5
You have only one hand
You have disadvantage on all d20 rolls
You will die in 2 days.
A creature without a skin doesn't just look a creature which has been skinned. Skinless, a creature is malformed and strange, no distinct limbs, always leaking, somehow resembling all animals and none.

Your memory. It is not just the contents of your mind. Losing your memory is not just a case of amnesia. It is losing the ability to remember at all. The locus of your connection to so many things is kept in this part of you.
If you lose your memory:
Your proficiency bonus is -2
You lose all armor proficiencies
You forget everything you know and you cannot form new memories. You can only remember things by using objects and mementos to fix information in your unwhole self.
All your acquaintances forget you. All your friends, family, enemies, and allies have a 4 in 6 chance of forgetting you. All your closest friends and any animal companions you have have a 2 in 6 chance of forgetting you. Even if you are remembered by a person, your face seems vague and indistinct.

Your follower. Your follower is your conduit to the dreaming world, it connects you to other spirits. Without it, you seem listless, dull, passionless. Even the naturally melancholic seem to have lost something vital to their personality without a follower.
If you lose your follower:
You automatically fail all saves against magical effects. (making a Dex save to avoid being struck by a fireball spell is not saving against a magical effect, but saving against a charm person spell is)
Any bonuses you gain from pacts made with spirits or boons provided by guardian spirits are lost
You cannot cast spells or make use of magic items which require attunement
You gain a point of exhaustion which cannot be removed in any way every 2 days.

Your will. Without a will you seem like yourself, personality intact, mind whole, but then it becomes clear that your sense of humor is gone, your ability to make conversation is shot, and you can't sing worth a damn. You also can't want anything. You may need food or water or love but never can your self be driven into motion to get those things.
If you lose your will:
You can't make your own decisions, you must follow another person's orders.
You automatically fail all WIS, INT, and CHA ability checks which aren't related to recalling information.
You gain a point of exhaustion which cannot be removed in any way every 2 days.

Your luck. It can be replaced very rarely but it can never be removed from you entirely.

Hunt by Nikolai Triik, 1913.

Putting Your Self Together

Getting your self back is not easy. If you're missing your skin, you must either take it off whoever is wearing it now or get a new one. If a creature or spirit has stolen another part of you, there will usually some specialized way of getting it back.

If your follower, will, or memory is lost in the Dreaming world, it's easiest to hire a shaman to find your missing parts. It will cost 10d20 gp in gifts and one favor, to be rendered at a later date. The Shaman will then enter a trance to find and return the missing piece, which takes 1d6 days.

Speaking with Whole Parts

Each part of you is whole. Each can speak in its own way in the dreaming world. Usually, it's hard to isolate any single part of a self, but when somebody has died recently their parts fly in every direction. A shaman can catch one and bring it with you to speak with in your dreams, usually for a fee of 3d20 GP in gifts or a single lamb.

Skins can speak, they are lethargic and forgetful. They talk about food and adrenaline and love to show you all the dances they once knew.

Memories can speak, they are fast talking and nimble. They will twitter on about people and places and things. There is very little to connect all these recollections of theirs but they enjoy telling you nonetheless.

Followers can speak, they seem like their person but more extreme, flaws and passions made more perfect. They'll like to tell you about grudges and crimes and deeds in a way which would suit their their personality.

Wills can speak, they are subtle and curious. They have such plans, so many things they have yet to do. They will ask you questions, lots of them. They want your secrets, your schemes. They have hated being locked up with these four other idiots who lack their vision but they can't wait to be slotted in again with another four.

Lucks can speak, they are either filled with conviction or weak with failure. They remember the long lineage of selves they have been a part of. Their lineages, which they love to remind you of, are often not perfectly genealogical.

This post is dedicated to St. Thomas the Apostle, who doubted.

Monday, August 20, 2018

Rules for Wizards and a Sorcerer Mutation Table

This post is part of my series about character generation for adventures in the Meager Country. Here are my wound and encumbrance rules, an introduction to the Besharan empire, the peoples of the Bronze city, my rules for practicing Besharan religion , new backgrounds, and finally some small rule adjustments for wizards and sorcerers. This should be my final word about the Bronze City. I'm excited to move on to greener, colder pastures.

So after screwing with how all the other classes cast spells, I thought it would be rude to let wizards and sorcerers off free. But I didn't want to go with the traditional way of portraying magic users for Beshara. Instead of modeling Besharan wizards off of academics, complete with different schools and academies, I've decided to see being a wizard or a sorcerer as a kind of trade. The different Wizard schools are just different specialties. Sure there are plenty of bakeries but if you want those almond pastries you go to Hassan in the Great Market and if you need to know if you'll be killed in battle, you go to Iza in the Foreseer's tent next time you're near the Arcade of the Scribes.

Nubian Prayer Book

The Craft of Magic:
Magic is considered more an art than a science. The skill of casting spells, and more importantly making scrolls, is passed down through families of wizards, just as the craft of blacksmithing is passed down through the generations. Powerful spells are copied down for centuries without ever being cast. Wizards are also responsible for creating magical items though most wizards try to avoid making them. All the most skilled wizard-artificers are in the employ of the Sultan, as slaves or as freemen. Magic is a taxing trade. Master wizards can be identified by their gnarled, arthritic hands and their poor eyesight. They suffer from frequent headaches and chronic back pain from hunching over the desks of the scriptorium. Sorcerers work freelance, they cannot make scrolls and their magic items are famously unstable. They too pass down their skills from generation to generation, trying to keep their bloodlines pure and magically potent. Understandably, they are often inbred. Wizards: -Spellbook takes up 1 inventory slot. It contains all the spells a wizard can know, including ones they cannot cast, painstakingly written in the hand of a parent or guardian. (Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights must carry spell books as well). When you level up and gain spells, you achieve mastery over spells which you once couldn't cast. -Wizards cannot cast the same spell multiple times a day -By using a sheet of fine vellum (4 GP) and a selection of special inks (10 GP/ per 3 scrolls), a wizard can copy a spell they can cast from their book to a scroll. Doing so takes 4 hours of work. As long as this scroll is usable, the wizard cannot cast the copied spell and loses a spell slot of equal level. -Anybody holding a spellbook or scroll who is hit with an attack which deals fire or acid damage must make a concentration save, if they fail a random scroll or spell is destroyed. If soaked with water, they must also save to avoid losing a spell/scroll. Rewriting a spell in the spellbook takes 4 hours.

This is probably what knock looks like

Sorcerer Mutation Table: Magic runs in the blood. Unfortunately, gills, tails, and scales run too. In sorcerer families, both tend not to just run but sprint. Whenever you reach a sorcerer level which is odd (1,3,5,ect), roll a d20 to determine which mutation you gain. 1. Vestigial tail 2. Webbed hands 3. Glowing blood 4. No pupils 5. Body is covered in downy feathers 6. Fingernails tougen into claws if not trimmed 7. Use long blue snake tongue to smell 8. Pot belly which contains a second stomach 9. Fangs 10. Glowing eyes 11. Your flesh is cold to the touch 12. One vestigial wing 13. Afflicted by splitting headaches 5 hours before it rains 14. Vestigial gills 15. Vestigial 3rd eye 16. Voice always echos 17. Gain an itching rash which grows and shrinks with the cycles of the moon 18. You smell like oranges at all times 19. You can hear trees and plants breathing 20. Touching precious metal makes your skin break out in hives

This post is dedicated to Agathon, whose works are no longer recorded

Friday, August 17, 2018

Everyone's a Priest: How to Practice the Besharan Faith by rolling on tables

This post is part of my series about character generation for adventures in the Meager Country. Here are my wound and encumbrance rules, an introduction to the Besharan empire, and the peoples of the Bronze city

So I'm constantly disappointed by how religion is portrayed in RPGs. It's been noted before, clerics don't preach or gather a flock, few religious holidays or festivals make it into games. I find this disappointing, religion is a fascinating category of human activity and experience which has inspired conflicts that are fertile ground for RPGs to explore. I think the way gods are imagined has something to do with this problem, they are concrete and distinct, mythology and history are interchangeable. I want mystery, I want faith, I heresy, I want theological debates carried out by enraged angels in the town square. Here is my attempt to integrate religion better with the classes of 5e.

Icons are good too

Let me tell you about the Besharan faith. Monks, Clerics, Warlocks, Paladins, Bards, Rangers, and Druids all gain their ability to cast spells from God. God is singular and infinite. Warlock patrons are just higher beings in the divine hierarchy: saints, angels, bodhisattvas, prophets. Bards are divinely inspired poets.

There was once a single Besharan faith, our calendar begins on the day our beloved prophetess, Yukfa, was recalled to God's side and ascended into the sky. But now, in the year 681, the faith has diverged into a million warring sects.

Nobody can agree on what God wants or even what she looks like. There is constant debate, a million theologies running in every direction. Thousands of saints, dozens of prophets, countless enlightenments, a million types of incense burning, and so many schisms that it would be reasonable to assume each person had a complete religion unto themselves.

Some sects only disagree partially. They believe a ritual is conducted incorrectly, that a certain figure is a saint and not a demigod. Most sects hold a number of Besharan texts, the 5 Holies, to be sacred. Of course, there are always arguments over which passages are interpolations, which books have been left out of the set. The book Tanfa of has always been controversial.

Each of the major sects have distinct ritual traditions, a code to unlocking the powers of the divine. There is no consensus on why these rituals work. They please God. They draw the attention of the saints. They carry within them mathematical perfections which make a person sinless only for a moment, thus allowing the power of the divine to flow through them from the 7th Heavenly Garden. This is sure though: you usually need to believe in the ritual for it to work

Not all practitioners will be granted power though. Most Ascetics can levitate by mediating, but only 1 of every 8 can cast cure light wounds. Some sects’ priests show no evidence of divine power until their cults have grown in size. Some people are granted power through one sect and not another. Some sects’ practitioners can do things which other sects’ followers cannot. This causes a great deal of consternation.

The sects abandoned public debate long ago, now they compete to perform more spectacular miracles for awed crowds. Today the Faridunists turn a hundred sheets of vellum into 99 doves, each with sacred poetry on its wings. The next day, the Magists shed the blood of lambs on a grove of olive trees, which all begin to bear delicious fruit. Then, the Uudunites cure a man of his blindness, beat him to death, raise him from the dead, and then smash his skull in just to prove a point.

Sect and Practices: Making a Divine Spellcaster

There are 5 major sects and each has several sub-sects. Roll a d6 to determine your sect and choose a class/sub-class from their list of sect practitioners. Roll a d4 to detirmine your sub-sect, or a d8 if you're part of the Unorthodox group.

To cast spells and use divinely given abilities, you need to follow both a regular and irregular practice. To determine which ritual practices you must maintain, roll a d6 or a d4 depending on your sect for your regular practice and repeat the process for the irregular practice.

If you fail to follow any one of your practices, you lose the ability to cast spells. If you fail to maintain both, you lose access to all your supernatural abilities (i.e a Paladin's divine sense or a Monk's chi points). Feel free to multiclass, though that's definitely heretical.

Feel free to just choose your sect and practices too. If you want, you can mix and match practices from different sects to create your own new religion which is superior to the rest. Invent your own doctrines! Excommunicate your own heretics!

An example for the confused:
1. I roll a d6 and get 4, I'm a Magist and I choose to be a Bard
2. I roll a d4, I'm an Intercessor now
3. I look at the practices, rolling a d4 for my regular practice and a d6 for my irregular one
4. I get a 3 and a 2, I need too lash myself with a whip daily and wear a heavy chain
5. Putting that together, I am an Intercessor Bard who gets their powers from self flagellation and weighing myself down
6. I love God, she is a cruel but wonderful mistress. My groans of pain uplift my fellows

1-2. Orthodox sects

Shared beliefs: God is a huge serpent, eating his own tail. God’s teachings were revealed to the prophetess, Yukfa. The 5 Holies record his teachings. God wishes us to grow mentally and spiritually through the reading of his holy word and to devote ourselves to understanding him.

We do not worship God, but his mystery

Practitioners: Arcana or Knowledge Clerics, Oath of Ancients Paladins, Monks

1. The Way of Blue: To know truth is to touch the mind of God

2. The Way of the Shell: To abstain from worldly pleasures is to become closer to God

3 Triarchism: God has 3 aspects: the male serpent, the female heifer, and the hermaphrodite octopus

4. The Yukfa-ites: Yukfa is either part of God or married to God

Regular Practices:

1. Mediate 3 hours a day

2. Sing the psalms of praise at sunrise and sunset

3. Pray 4 times a day

4. Spend 3 hours a day copying and illuminating passages from the 5 Holies

5. Give a sermon to a crowd every 3 days or more

6. Paint your skin with holy scripture every morning, wash it off at night

Irregular Practices:

1. Fast one week of every month

2. Cut out your eyes after memorizing the 5 Holies perfectly

3. Wear bells or jingling metal at all times.

4. Never eat meat

5. Instruct a pupil in the proper reading and reciting of the 5 Holies

6. Wear long, trailing robes covered in holy scripture and never let God’s word be sullied

3. Faridunist sects

Shared beliefs: God appeared to Faridun and taught him 9 Sacred Doctrines. Faridun saw God as a burning wheel, covered with eyes. By performing certain rituals, one can reach paradise. God calls upon us to live in accordance with their doctrines.

The way is open and you must follow

Practitioners: Light or War Clerics, Oath of Devotion Paladins, Fiend Pact Warlocks

1. Orthodox Faridunism: Paradise awaits those who find it within themselves

2. Maanism: The Demiurge created the evil universe which God will save us from

3. The 9 Spoked Wheel: God rewards those who spread its doctrines

4. The Church of the Raised Hand: To exercise power is to reach towards paradise

Regular Practices:

1. Anoint yourself with oil every day before dawn

2. Confess your inferiority to a holy stone everyday and dispose of it

3. Wash yourself in a purifying bath everyday with special soaps and oils

4. Erect a shrine to God or its saints and consecrate it every 3 days

Irregular Practices:

1. Share a sacred meal with at least one other Fardunist every week

2. Present an offering of food or incense at a shrine of God or God’s saints once a week,

3. Drink and eat in excess before purging yourself weekly

4. Never lie

5. Only use weapons which deal piercing damage

6. Wear a colourful prayer windmill to channel the energy of the universe

4. Magist sects

Shared beliefs: God created the universe as an accident and takes pity on it. God is a winged woman wearing a crown of flowers and iron. She revealed herself to the Magi of Tamania by sending them a series of angels whose many questions they could not answer. God united the Magi to spread her message of humility, mercy, and love.

All shall be fed by her hand alone

Practitioners: Life or Tempest Clerics, Bards, Oath of Devotion Paladins

1. Orthodox Magism: God commands us to do as little harm as possible to creation

2. The Angelists: Free will is an illusion, each person has a personal angel who makes them act

3. The Intercessors: God wishes us to provide for others and sacrifice ourselves

4. The Cult of Lilies: God’s mission is to create a utopia without suffering on earth

Regular Practices:

1. Let blood daily over an effigy of God

2. Perform sacred exercises on a carpet depicting God or her angels at sunrise everyday

3. Give yourself 8 lashes from a whip everyday

4. Spend 2 hours creating a beautiful mandala in the ground every morning, then destroy it

Irregular Practices:

1. Perform an act of self sacrifice or mercy which disadvantages you every week

2. Wear a heavy chain at all times

3. Never shout

4. Always show hospitality and grant mercy

5. Always wear a crown of fresh flowers

6. Only use bludgeoning weapons

5. Aesthete Sects

Shared beliefs: God is the ultimate craftsman who created the 3 and 3/5 forms upon which the universe is based. God’s appearance is dependant on they who observers it. To cultivate, create, and understand beauty is to become closer to God. Nobody is sure how the Aesthete sects were founded. They just appeared overnight. They attribute this to God’s providence.

The cosmology is complicated but the life is simple

Practitioners: Nature or Forge Clerics, Bards, Celestial Pact Warlocks, Oath of Vengeance Paladins

1. The Acolytes of the Gilded Crown: Wealth is beauty and to possess it is to know God

2. The Friends of the Pipe: Beauty must be useless or it is just fancy ugliness

3. The Azarites: Beauty is utility and the fulfillment of want

4. The Way of 3 Pillars: Beauty reveals itself through labour and hardship

Regular Practices:

1. Cook a delicious meal every 3 nights

2. Spend 2 hours everyday making something beautiful

3. Conduct some kind of research into the natural world for two hours a day in order to expose creation’s inner beauty

4. Smoke a pipe 6 hours a day

Irregular Practices:

1. Wear gaudy makeup everyday

2. Write a poem every week

3. Always dress in finery

4. Fight only with spells and cantrips so as not to lower yourself to a baser form of combat

6. Unorthodox sects

Shared beliefs: None. All are regularly accused of fire worship or being a dragon cult. They are grouped here for purely bigoted reasons.

1-3. The Uudunites: God is an unimaginable void, the great roiling chaos which sleeps behind our eyes. Fear God and embrace death. No matter how many times their cult is destroyed, the Uudunites always manage to return under a different name.

The Name is Nothing. The Place is Nowhere.

Practitioners: Monks, Great Old One Pact warlocks, Trickery or Grave Clerics

Regular Practices:

1. Spit on the temple of another sect/religious group every 3 days

2. Swallow a mouthful of ash everyday and savor it

3. Insult a stranger every 3 days or more

4. Roll in filth daily

Irregular Practices:

1. Wear a featureless white mask

2. Cut out your own tongue

3. Debase yourself before an audience weekly

4. Make yourself sick, poisoned, or exhausted at least once a week

5. Formulate a plan to commit suicide in public every week

6. Gain a wound and let it fester (God will protect you from disease, that cruel bastard)

4-7. Simurghism: God is the Simurgh, Queen of the Birds. She is the infinite perspective, the fractal mirror. She flies in all directions at once. She appeared to a nameless prophet who was consumed by holy fire and dictated his revelations from the flames until he was only ash.

The Universe rests on her wings

Practitioners: Bards, Archfey Pact warlocks, Trickery or Tempest Clerics

Regular Practice:

1. Eat a bird feather every day with dinner

2. Buy new jewelry or fine goods every 4 days

3. Never pass up an opportunity to overindulge in drink or drugs

4. Turn towards the Garden of Earthly Delights (i.e every direction) and pray nightly

Irregular Practices:

1. Go on a binge for 4 days every month

2. Shatter a mirror every week and throw the shards in the 4 cardinal directions (i.e up, down, left, and right)

3. Eat a songbird whole every week

4. Wear a crown of feathers as long as the sun is up, gather new feathers every week

8. Mahrebism: God is everything, or maybe just a lot of nature spirits. Do whatever feels natural, or is traditional. Mahreb appeared before the Emperor in the year 87 and secured the continuation of the Bauda's practice of their traditional religion, but the provision has been extended since then.

Practitioners: Druids, Rangers

Practices: You only need to maintain 1 practice, if you fail to do so you only lose the ability to cast spells

1. Sacrifice an small animal every week or a large one every month

2. Carry an effigy of “God” on your back and make sure it is always properly dressed and taken care of

3. Keep a sacred animal with you, treat it like royalty

4. Built a bonfire and burn fine clothes and fine food in it every week

5. Destroy 10GP in jewelry or fine goods as a sacrifice every week

6. Perform an elaborate dance or song for a small effigy of God every day

Luckily, we can all agree that some religions are bad and evil.

-Fire worship, the veneration of the extinguished gods, is strictly forbidden.

-Dragon cults must be stamped out. Every so often, some idiot gets their hands on an old dragon bone and the Slave Army has to have a regiment spend months crushing kobolds underfoot.

-Spirit worship is technically banned but continues on in the form of Mahrebism

Commentary:

So I really like this system. I like that it spits out a unique combination of sects and practices, showing

the strange diversity of Besharan religious traditions. I think this system also brings the assumed

magic level of 5e down a bit, which I also like. I use a calendar to keep track of in-game days

and mark the days when ritual practices have to be followed so all the players know when

they have to do their practices

This post is dedicated to Walter Burkert, who taught me about ritual traditions

Pages

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Ibn Fadlan is Not an Adventurer: XP Rules for Travelers and Diplomats

Saturday, September 29, 2018

You Are Five

Monday, August 20, 2018

Rules for Wizards and a Sorcerer Mutation Table

Friday, August 17, 2018

Everyone's a Priest: How to Practice the Besharan Faith by rolling on tables