Traces of the character's history on their bodies
Game Design Log #33
If you have read my previous posts you can see that part of my intention is to write about everything that is linked to “Dead Holy Towns” before talking about the procedures to build these adventuring locations. This is because the tables and methods of construction of these dungeon-like locations (that I created for NPFTH) required defining the type of creatures that inhabit them and other elements of these towns (which I didn't want to do in the same post where I will show you how to build them, both because this means I would put an effort of months in one post and because that would have meant writing a gigantic post).
But there is one more thing I was missing to mention.
In all the previous posts I have always made reference to the Chasm, which I have presented as this energy that emerges from the gap that exists between the cosmologies of the inhabitants of the island and the invaders from the north.
Being “Dead Holy Towns” locations fed by the Chasm, this twisted energy/magic is present there in a much more concentrated way than in other places. So I thought that if the Chasm was able to transform an entire town and its inhabitants, would also, probably, have a permanent effect on anyone stepping into the grounds of a “Dead Holy Town”
From these came the idea of creating “Chasm’s scars”, marks that will be a way to give “aesthetic” variety to the characters, tap into the weirdness by giving them magical consequences, and also hint to others that they have ventured into areas of the Chasm (something that can give rise to more interesting interactions with other that are searching to control or understand these energies).
So this post started like this, just a small entry to show you the “Chasm’s scars” so then I could jump to the final post of the “how” to build “Dead Holy Towns”. But then I realized that there were two other ways —that I had already written on the game—through which the character's history would mark their bodies, and I thought that presenting them all together would make more sense in case you want them to use them in your games.
So here they are, three ways in which the decisions, past, and histories of the characters can mark their bodies, and sometimes, make them look cool
Signs of the skin
You can have them, but they may give information about your life to people that knows how to read them.
Spots, stripes, and other signs on the skin are vestiges of the most ancient tribes of the south and the many different species that once inhabited the island.
It is said that people once carried their destinies on their skin.
Those who knew how to read them recognized in these spots, lines, and curves, every important event of their life, and so they will include the emotions they felt during these crucial moments as a new letter and concept to their language, following the shape of the sign on their skin.
It was believed that when all the signs of a person's skin were lived, they knew that the time had come, and so their lives ended by their will, to became tales and teachings, as their skins were treated to become one of the many scrolls of memory stored in the “library of lives”.
Marks of the fungi nest
These marks give you permanent conditions and powers.
A purple mist always covers the shallow ravine, filled with fungi and mosses.
Here the fungi dominate, extending their mycelium as fingers that spread underground, touching the secrets beneath the earth and reaching to the shallower levels of the Underbelly. Is a labyrinth of thick multi-color life. At its core, the great nest awaits those who want to be part of something larger.
Those who decide to leave the nest are marked for their entire lives by inconspicuous amalgam between flesh, fungi, algae, and mosses, without having aged a single day since they united with the nest.
If you were part of the nest: You were expelled by it or did you decide to leave it? Why?
How has your body changed due to the nest?
When rolling on the table you can change only two rolls by -1.
The outcome, if there is one, of the entries on “something changing” will be determined by the GM.
Scars from the Chasm
These scars are permanent expressions of the Chasm bound to your body and soul, which can grant you chaotic powers that are difficult to channel.
The Chasm is the gap that lies between the world as seen by invaders of the north and the people of Isla Grande. From it something emerges, a kind of energy that mutates living beings, transforms the world around it, and empowers objects with strange magic.
When mortals interact directly with it, in its raw chaotic state, it can leave permanent marks on their flesh and psyche.
Sometimes, these Chsm’s scars make reference to something called “Grief” and/or “Blood”, or others stats,so if you want to use them in your OSR game…
…for something like OSE you can use this:
Grief → XP or Treassure carried by PCs or sum of both (divided by 1000).
Tactic to Stat/Attribute:
Strong → STR,
Agile → DEX
Imposing → CHA
Resilient → CON
Sneaky → DEX
Observant → WIS
Blood → HP
…for something like MÖRK BORG you can use this:
Grief → Omens, or Silver dived by 100, or the sum of both.
Tactic to Stat/Attribute:
Strong → Strenght
Agile → Agility
Imposing → Presence
Resilient → Toughness
Sneaky → Agility
Observant → Presence
…for both you could also add this:
Let the PCs spend “X” HP to increase their roll by “X”.
If anything has just one stat, it can use it for everything.
Roll 1d20 for a Chasm’s scar:
Staring wounds: 1d4 permanent wounds, each one with an eye. There is 1 in 6 chances that these eyes on the wounds replace the eyes on the head. If they replace an eye on the head, the replaced eye becomes black and blind. The black and blind eyes allow creatures to see traces of Chasm attached to objects and creatures.
Ghostly limb: You lose an extremity, roll 1d4 → 1: Left leg, 2: Right Leg, 3: Left Arm, 4: Right Arm. You can summon expending 1 point of white blood a ghostly limb, to replace the one you lost. This limb is made of crackling energy. It is pure Chasm, any creature that takes is strength from the Chasm gets twice as harm from an attack coming from this ghostly limb, any creature that has control over the Chasm can fight for control of the ghostly limb (oppose rolls using Imposing). If you use the ghostly limb to do precise things you do them with disadvantage. The limb is bright like a torch. It buzzed at the touch. If you expend an extra 1d4 of blood, you can make the limb to grow twice as long or thick. This adds to the limb 1d4 if used for strength. If you expend 2d4, you can make the limb to become in-material in some portions and material in others for a few seconds.
Head of eternal fire: Your head gets overtaken by the chasm, and it becomes a purplish flame without features. The head can be as bright as ten torches or get as dim as the light of a small flame, you can control this as will.
You can hear the thoughts of those who have been marked by the Chasm, those who are empowered by it, or those who toy with it often.
For all the creatures empowered by the Chasm you are the brightest of lights.
You can’t be beheaded, and if you get broken (blood=0), you can decide to keep the flame alive by destroying your material body. In this form you will have to find a new live body to inhabit (the living creature has to lose all their blood and then you can inhabit them). Every day in this flame form there is 1 in a 6 chances that you lost the memories of who you were. As a flame you can harm as a torch (1d4), you keep your tactics, and you float as fast as you move in your material body. As flame you can’t be killed but you can be consumed by those empowered by the Chasm (oppose imposing rolls).
Chasm Echo: Your shadows have become an echo of you, a ghostly energy that follows you, every day they are 1d4 shadows framed by a rim of purple light. Everyone who steps on any of them will hear and see your unconscious mind; the strange whirlpools of chaotic thoughts behind your rational mind. Whoever focuses on them may get entranced by the things that reach their minds. If they want to divert their focus from them they have to make a oppose roll of their Resilient against your Imposing. If they desire to learn something from you, after being lost in the images from your unconscious, they may use any tactic to try to do it, you will oppose them with your Resilient or Imposing; if they fail you get to keep a portion of them as their minds fragments and becomes part of you; they lose one point in the tactic they used and you gained one in the tactic you use to oppose them. You also keep one memory of them. If they succeed they can ask you three questions about your memories, feelings, desires and/or knowledge, and you have to answer in honesty.
Possibility wake: You leave a wake of possibility behind you. This wake is fed by the Chasm inside you, and will empower and twist the beliefs of those who cross it. When someone crosses it, they will have visions of their beliefs as material beings hungry to be incarnated. If they desire they can empower this feeling, summoning through your “possibility wake” an incarnation of this belief. This incarnation has your size, as Imposing the Grief of whom summoning it, and as Chasm as many d20 of blood as the person summoning it desires. This point of blood comes from the person summoning it, and if they lose all their blood they become indefinitely the being they summon. At desire you can decide to close your eyes and get overcome by your wake of possibility, by doing this you can do the summoning yourself, with the only difference that their Chasm is as many d4 as you desire. Whatever emerges from the “possibility wake” has its own will.
Oppressive voice: Your voice becomes a dangerous weapon. Whenever you talk you have to make a Resilient test against 8 + your Grief. In a fail you can expend 1d4 points of blood or your voice will become an “Oppressive voice”, and will have an uncontrolled effect on the listener.
When speaking with an “oppressive voice” roll 1d6, you can decrease/increase this roll in X by expending Xd4 points of blood/tactic.
Your voice makes whoever is the target to see in you their worst nightmare, whenever they talk with you in the future it will be difficult for them to shake away this image.
Your voice makes whoever listening it to instinctively act against the shackles of your words, and they will act against anything you say.
Your voice projects a presence so powerful that whoever is the target of it will do what you ask as in a trance, they will feel regret and the weight of your manipulation makes you earn one Grief.
Your voice is like a scream that makes everyone listening to fall to their knees of pain. If they fail a resilient test, they lose 2d4 points of blood.
Your voice makes the target of it to see the why of your message; they will hear you and they will understand what you have been through, they will feel in them the weight of your pain and the passion of your desires. If they are a PC they can ask you one thing and you have to answer truthful. You lose as much Grief as you desire.
Your voice can use the Chasm to change the mind of a person, their memories and feelings about them will change accordingly to conform to your vision and agree with you.
Burning heart: Your heart burns as furnaces of Chasm. It shines through your chest. Your veins glow accordingly with your emotions; those close to you may learn what colors are indicative of what emotions (you define these colors).
Whatever you eat, now becomes Chasm inside you; highlights two colors of your blood, now, when you eat, you always get half and half of these colors (these represent the Chasm in your veins, you can’t empower tactics that use other blood tints).
You can use your blood to create small contraptions and small creatures. If you are able to imagine them, then your blood can create them. To create them, you have to cut yourself and release your blood, you bleed strings of purple energy. When doing this you can expend Xd4 points of blood. If the thing you create needs stats it has X Chasm/blood and they do everything with Imposing +X. These creations obey you.
Toxic Breath: Your lungs transform the oxygen you breathe on Chasm. From your mouth and nose, a vapor emerges that glows slightly purple and green in color. Whoever is close to it will feel your thoughts as their own, as intrusive words piercing their minds. You can control the effects of your breath by rolling Imposing against 8 + your Grief. If you succeed you can decide one of these:
Suppress any effect
Share your mind with them for as long as they stay very close face to face.
Or a random effect, roll 1d4/2
To flood the mind of whoever is an arm's length away. Do an Imposing oppose roll against your target. If you win they get entranced for 1d4 minutes.
Your breath becomes a toxic cloud around you, everyone that is at two arm's length from you will have to make a Resilient test against 10 +“their own Grief”. If they fail they get the intoxicated -1 condition.
The other: Every time that one the next happens, you become a twisted version of yourself:
You act against one of your compulsions and you fail a Resilient check DC 5 + your Grief.
You are left with only black blood (you can do it intentionally).
You are left with one point of blood (you can do it intentionally).
You get unconscious against your will.
The twisted version of yourself names itself “the other”, it speaks in third person, it’s aware of you. The first time that you become “the other” you decide what is their tactic. You roll 1d6, with each number representing one of your tactics. “The other” has 0 in all its tactics but the tactic chosen by the 1d6. In this tactic it has as many points as the sum of all the points of your tactics. “The other” thinks that this tactic is the best way to relate with the world and act upon it, it will try to affect the world with this tactic so the deepest and secret desires on you become real. If “the other” gets harmed, and has to lose blood, they instead make you lose Grief (when bleeding Grief tails of purple energy fall from your body). If when “the other” is awake you get out of Grief, you regain control of your body. You are always aware of what “the other” has done.
Scars on time and history: This scar pierces through time to change your past. Make a list of six important events and/or persons from your past; those that have defined you as a person. If you have less than six in mind, you can repeat those that are more important. Then roll 1d6, the number of the die is who or what changed in your past from the list you made. Then roll 1d4:
Erase its effect and existence from your past.
Erase it from your past, but its effect remains in you, roll 1d6 again and see who or what from your list is now the source of this effect (re-roll it if you get the original source).
Its effect on you was the opposite it had originally.
Repeat it and make it recent, a few moons you have experienced a new event or get to know a new person that mirrors almost in perfection the one on your list.
If you have any item, compulsion, power, or anything related to the thing that changes in your past, then modify/erase this accordingly.
Final day premonition: write a sentence about how you will die. If more than three nouns or verbs in that sentence are present on a random event, then is the day you die and your premonition will become as true as possible. For the rest of that day, until you die, all your tactics are empowered by half the length of words of the sentence you wrote.
Immaterial retreat: When you get this scar your body becomes immaterial for 1d4 minutes, everything that you were wearing or carrying – that wasn't attached to you by piercing your skin (ex: earrings)– does not become immaterial with you and is left behind. In this state you are susceptible to all the actions of any immaterial being, or any creature or artifact empowered by the Chasm, and whenever they are doing to affect you, if they succeed, the effects are double in potency.
After this first time of becoming immaterial you have to choose a tint of your blood and underline it. Each time this tint of your blood is emptied, you become immaterial for 1d4 minutes.
Flaming eyes: Your eyes are two flames, the color is for you to decide. Together they are bight as a torch. Now you can see traces of Chasm in the air, as nearly invisible trails of suspended dust; these trails are left behind by artifacts or creatures empowered by the Chasm and they can endure on the air for days.
When your eyes are the only source of light, you feel everything that those who are illuminated by their light or those who witness this light feel. As long as they are in the presence of the light of your eyes you will be a victim of their compulsions.
Vampiric touch: Your skin acquires a purplish tone. It absorbs light, making your surroundings a little darker. Whenever anyone is a few inches from you they will feel a desire to touch your skin. Whenever someone touches your skin you have to make a Resilient opposed roll against them. You can decide to use your Imposing instead or to hold your breath to fail, you can only fail voluntarily while holding your breath. If you win the roll you absorb 1d4 of their blood, this becomes black blood. After consuming blood in this way you lose control and you can’t willingly fail a roll until you get away from sight from the creature you had fed from. Now you have to make again an oppose roll, this time to your roll you add the amount of blood you previously consumed. If you empty someone out of blood you will become overwhelmed by Grief and fatigue; you gain 2 Grief and the fatigue (-blood_you_ consumed) condition.
Involuntary telekinesis: You gain one new compulsion from one of the creatures that are close to you at the moment of getting this scar. Make a list of all their compulsions, filling a list of eight entries. If between all the compulsions are less than eight repeat the list from bottom to top with the same elements until is totally full. Now roll 1d8, this is your new compulsion.
Every time that you act against any of your compulsions, you have to roll Resilient DC 5 + your Grief, if you fail, your telekinesis is unleashed randomly, roll 1d6, you can decrease/increase this roll in X by expending Xd4 points of blood/tactic.
You crash the most fragile object around against a wall or the floor.
You summon flames on an object that belongs to the person that is closest to you (physically or emotionally, you decide).
You push the person closest to you, they are thrown away as many feet/meters as your Grief, if there is anything in their path they get harmed (1d6).
You blind for 1d4 minutes everyone that you are aware of their proximity to you (you make their eyes opaque, or contract their pupils, or close their eyelids, or any other way you decide to blind them). You also get blinded the same way.
You make everyone that you are aware of their proximity to you levitate for 1d4/2 minutes. They can’t move and they stay in place. There are 1 in 4 chances that you also levitate.
Everything and everyone around you gets pushed away as many feet/meters as your Grief, if there is anything in their path they get harmed (1d6).
Chaotic body: Your body and capacities change when you sleep. Every time that you wake up, for three tactics of your choice roll 1d6.
The result tells you with which other tactic you have to interchange its value.
1 Strong
2 Resilient
3 Imposing
4 Agile
5 Sneaky
6 Observant
If for a tactic you get that you have to interchange its value with its own, then it doesn't change.
The signs of your change can be seen in your body or your behavior, you define these signs.
Hunger of the chasm: In one part of your body, a flat swirl of Chasm appears as big as one of your hands. Your heart stops beating and your skin gets as cold as a corpse. Now your veins are empty, full of red sand, and you can only be fed by resting or by consuming creatures or items empowered by the Chasm through the Chasm’s swirl in your skin.
When consuming something with chasm you earn as much Chasm as they have.
When resting you restore as much chasm as blood points you normally restore.
Cross out all your blood tints, now all your blood is Chasm. Your Chasm can empower any of your tactics.
Creepers of the Chasm: You become the host of six creepers of the Chasm. You can always hear their voices, commenting on what you do and don't do, mocking and tempting you. Each one gets attached to one of your tactics. Every time that you empower with blood one of your tactics, there is 1 in 4 chances that the creeper attached to that tactic will come out of you.
They look like small humanoid creatures made of purplish shadows (you decide the details of their appearance).
They will always try to work in your favor, even if they do it reluctantly and mock you, as you are their home.
When they are out of you, you have 0 in that tactic. They do everything with that tactic. If they should lose blood, for each point of blood they should lose you lose one Grief. Whenever you get out of Grief these creepers return immediately to you.
Animal incarnation: Your chasm makes you incarnate what you eat. Every time that you eat an animal you have to make a Resilient test DC 10 + “points of blood you got from that animal”. In a fail you acquire 1d4 physical features from that animal and one compulsion inspired by their instinctual behavior, you can decide which compulsion you acquire but you can ask others to give you ideas. The compulsion and the animal traits endure until you acquire new ones or until you go to sleep.
Glowing wound: You get one scar, it glows slightly, never totally heals, but does not affect you in any negative way. If you bleed from it, willingly or not, you lose 1d4 point of blood, and the blood, whenever gets to rest, becomes into a small portal tide to your wound. Anything that enters through your wound appears on the portal and the other way around. If you bleed more than once from the same wound the previous portal evaporates and only the last endures.
Any wound that you acquire from this moment on becomes a “glowing wound” that behaves as the first one.
The “glowing wound” is recorded as Power, with a wound die beside it, that starts as 1d10.
Every time that you get a new wound (it always becomes a “glowing wound”) you have to roll the wound die of the last recorded wound. In a 1 or 2 the two wounds are so close that they become one larger wound, and instead of recording the new wound you step down the wound die 1 tier (d10 → d8 → d6 → d4 → dividing wound).
If any wound die steps down to the last die (d4) and you get a 1 or 2 in it, then part of your body gets isolated from the rest of your body by the wound and it evaporates into a mist of Chasm. Erase that wound. Toss a coin, in a head the part of your body that evaporates is your head, and you acquire the Chasm’s scar “Head of eternal fire”. In a tail, you get as a new Chasm’s scar a “Ghostly limb”.
If your head becomes a “Head of eternal fire” and all your limbs are “Ghostly limbs” then you become part of the Chasm and die.