Tag: nusr

• WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

  Upon the instruments of death
  the sunlight brightly gleams

  Epitaph, King Crimson

  Time Knife

  2d4 damage / 1 soap / L4

  Agility or Charisma

  Hyperdimensional: Ignores resistance, looks sick.

  Keen: Score a critical hit on a 19-20 (Critical Range +1).

  Lethal: Deals triple damage on a critical hit (Critical Multiplier +1).

  Terrifying: When you score a critical hit, all creatures nearby must roll vs Morale.

  Pulled from the finger of a hyper-horror, a time knife exists in every possible realm at once. It resembles a small tear in the fabric of space that lets you peek inside just long enough to give you a headache, anxiety, or religious beliefs.

  ---

  Inevitable Rune-Mace

  1d10 damage / 1 stone / L3

  Accurate: Advantage on attack rolls.

  Inevitable: Deal half damage on a miss.

  Reliable: Advantage on damage rolls.

  When an elite death squad needs serious firepower, you better believe each agent is provided one of these bad boys. Sleek metal finish, color-accented runes of maiming, and vome-leather handle. Oh yeah. Crimson Corps approved.

  ---

  Duoflare Gamma Blaster Mk9

  2d6 damage / 2 stone / L2

  Two-handed / Range: Short / Reload 12

  Inertial: You can choose to forgo your Movement to double your attack’s damage dice.

  Melting: When you roll max damage on a die, the target is unable to move for the next round.

  A real sicko devised this death device in a lab somewhere on the badlands northwest of Emerald City. Using a godcore as a power source and the carapace of a mirror scarab as a focusing lens, the first consumer-grade gamma shotgun was born. Built in inertial-capture, cones of pure blue-radiation, and green flames painted on the side. Popular among the wealthy.

  ---

  Egofire

  1d12 damage / 2 stone / L4

  Strength or Aura / Two-handed

  Hungry: When you slay a foe, heal 1d6 Life.

  Lethal 2: Deals quadruple damage on a critical hit (Critical Multiplier +2).

  Unleash – Mindburn [15]: instead deals 3d6* damage & sets their ego on fire, imposing [-] on focusing & saves.

  A daemon from a kalpa beyond is sealed in the vessel attached to this carbon-black greataxe. Few have seen this terrible weapon in action, even fewer survive to tell the tale. When the spirit of the warrior shines, great fires roar out from the psychic realms and scorch the unfortunate victim. If they survive, their mind is set ablaze in agonizing pain.

  ---

  Nano-Hammer

  1d10 / 1 soap / L3

  Fast: +1d6 to Initiative & get a free attack prior to Initiative.

  Ultralight: Reduce weight by 1 stone, can use Agility to hit.

  Unleash – Massive Crush [15]: reassembles into an enormous maul to deal +1d10 damage and knock back or knock prone.

  Onion Corporation engineers from yesteryear devised a solution to protect them from mirror scarab attacks. Installing nano-bot matter reassemblers into their utility hammers, they could quickly mobilize into a proper self-defense force and minimize losses to company property. Thanks to their ingenuity, the board of directors laid off half the security force. Nice!

  ---

  Red-Lead Shredder

  4d4 damage / 3 stone / L3

  Strength / Two-handed / Range: Short / Slow / Reload 15

  Explosive: When you hit a target, all nearby creatures take damage equal to your Strength.

  Frag Rounds: When you slay a foe, they explode for 1d4 damage to all nearby creatures.

  Ultralubricated: Immune to breaking or jamming.

  The Crimson Corps had to improvise when they found themselves without a conflict-zone contract. Putting the Onion Corporation behind them, they now shoot their guns in the name of FREEDOM (and lots of cash). Emerald City has scav-scum to deal with in the badlands nearby and fresh new play-toys to obliterate them with. Delivering democracy 10,000 bullets at a time.

• BORN IN DISSONANCE

  The ancient masters from the Long, Long Ago once wielded pillars of steel that could split mountains and spark a city-eater inferno. While the age of myth feels an eon ago, there are those spread across the Grassland that still manifest a whispering of this once-terrible power: Blades Esoterica. Some say they’re an order of magical swordsmen, others say they’re no more than dangerous mad-men with sharp knives. The truth, in fact, lies somewhere in the middle. So it goes.

  NEW TRAITS FOR THE MYSTIC WARRIOR

  Character Trait: PRAXIS ESOTERICA

  You hold that sliver of terrible power within your practiced hands. Skilled with all blades and blade magicks, calligraphy, strange numerology lore, and the flowing form such as dancing. Subtract 1 from the cost of blade magicks (minimum 1), and you can add your aura score to damage with blades.
  

  Tier 2: Master Esoteric

  Subtract 2 from the cost of blade magicks (minimum 1), and your unleash range is increased by 1.
  

  Tier 3: Sword Saint

  Subtract 3 from the cost of blade magicks (minimum 1), increase your unleash range by 2, and learn a new dance.

  ---

  Character Trait: UNLOCKED POTENTIAL

  You are more capable at summoning out the inner spirit of your weapons. Increase your Unleash and Critical Range by +1.

  TIER 2: OVERCLOCKED WEAPON

  Your Unleash and Critical Range is instead increased by +2.

  TIER 3: TRUE EVOLUTION

  Your Unleash and Critical Range is instead increased by +3.

  ---

  Character Trait: SOULBOUND ARMIGER

  Your Hallmark items become invulnerable to nearly all damage, never rust, and gain +1 to attack rolls or defense.

  ---

  Weapon Trait: Unleash

  When you roll the Unleash value or higher on your die to hit with an Attack roll, you unleash an additional empowered effect. If you have a feature that increases the Unleash Range, it subtracts that value from the roll needed, similar to increased Critical Range.

  Example: Unleash Ghostfire [15]

  When you roll a 15 or higher on the die to Attack, you would add +1d6 to your damage and the foe is engulfed in hexed flames, imposing -1d6 to their rolls until your next turn. If you had the character trait Unlocked Potential from above, you’d instead Unleash on a 14 or higher.
  
  The table below gives some examples and inspiration as a jumping off point.

  ---

  Unleash [X]	Effect
  Ghostfire [15]	Add +1d6 damage and the foe is engulfed in hexed flames. -1d6 to their rolls until your next turn.
  Blood Rain [17]	Add +2d4* damage and if the dice explode, increase them by one die step for the exploding roll.
  Rend Flesh [17]	Add +1d8 damage and the foe screeches in pain as its defense is reduced by the same.
  Crush Soul [18]	Add +1d10 damage and force a Morale test on foes in short range.
  Fractalize Psyche [19]	Add +2d6* damage and the foe Saves with a -1d6 penalty. Fail: Lose their next turn.

  ---

  New Powers for the Mystic Warrior

  Sunder Ideology // Thief of Golden Fate

  P: 2, R: Close, T: A creature, D: A few minutes

  Four steps to the left with a single foot, and the other drives a partition forward across the sand. In that moment, you unsheathe your blade and trace the electro-sigils of the Bearded One in your shadow. Your soul merges with steel as you disembowel the beast before you. Attack and subtract 1d6 from your target’s rolls until you strike again.
  
  Overcharge: instead steal 1d8 from their rolls and add to yours, weaving their golden threads of fate into your meta-cuirass.

  ---

  Deny the Manifold // Shatter the Five-Fold Reality Layer

  P: 3 R/T: Self, D: Instant

  Undo the making of the five-fold reality. Rebuke causality and leap into the kaleidoscope feet first. You appear somewhere else within sight wearing the cloak of the infinite maze, granting you resistance to all damage until your next turn. This uses your movement in lieu of your action, and you cannot cast any other spells this turn.
  
  Overcharge: in addition, you can can choose to appear some when-else in time. If you leap into the future, re-appear within 1d4 rounds at a place of your choosing. If you fall back into the past, undo your most recent harm and zig-zag back into a space-time you inhabited recently.

  ---

  Arterial Liberation // Open the Crimson Gate

  P: 3, R: Close, T: A creature, D: Instant

  Smirk and draw your stance narrow. Silence, breath, then flash of steel. Attack and open their paper shell, crimson gates flowing. On a strike, they bleed. Place 1d8 on the table. At the start of their next turn, roll and inflict it. Then replace it with 1d6. Repeat the following turn and replace it with 1d4. 1d4 dissipates to red mist.
  
  Overcharge: the bleed die explodes. When it does, increase the die size instead of decreasing.

  ---

  Precognitive Retaliation // Blade Before Blade

  P: 2, R: Close, T: An attacking creature, D: Instant

  Your mind dances in the sideways-realm, seeing a multitude of strikes before they happen. Twisting your mystic pommel upward to the heavens, skip through the else-time like a dolphin breaching rainbow waters, driving your sword into the fool who dares to strike at you. Immediately before they strike, make an Attack roll with a grasped blade. If you hit, deal damage as normal and gain resistance to the oncoming damage, should your foe still stand.

  ---

  Eightfold Meditation // Transcend the Reality-Rings

  P: 1, R/T: Self, D: Varies

  You, a saint in all your radiant glory, know the very foundation of your meta-narrative begins in breathing. Through an increasingly complex series of mantras, breath techniques, and mudras, your mind begins to unravel and expand to fill the void inherent in all things. As you come to understand the nature of no-self, your mind is cleared of any mental effects that would frighten you or cloud your judgment and virtues. Anxiety subsides and you can breathe easy. This can be done within mere moments as you have long practiced the doctrine. The cost of this power and it’s Overcharges cannot be reduced.
  
  Overcharge: continue on from the mere moments of self-subsiding, and begin to extend the mind outward into the greater field of energy that the daemons dance in. Realize the no-self of all things, form given and not. Sense living things beyond small walls and barriers, seeing their ego-flow thrashing. This lasts for a few minutes with Focus.
  
  Overcharge Again: smiling, awareness continues to radiate. Witnessing the beautiful kaleidoscope of flowing energy, you surmise that even causality has within itself an emptiness. In that moment, you see it with your higher-eye. You move about slowly, but all harmful effects against you are made with [-][-] and you have resistance to any harm while you Focus for up to a few hours. To others, you seem full of bliss but move at the pace of a sloth.
  
  Eightfold Cost: let the final barrier separating you from the grander cosmos fall away: consciousness. Letting go of that tether, your energy merges with all-totality. Others witness a blinding radiance and then the once-you is gone. Your daemon can then choose to bring changed-you back into the realm of forms and volitions at any point in the session. When that happens, remove a burden and roll a d100. On a roll of 100, permanently increase one of the stats of new-you. Fickle daemon.

• DUNGEON DECK

  A New Year’s Resolution Mechanic

  PrismaticWasteland has thrust his challenge upon the writers’ hall: design a new core resolution mechanic and torment your players with the horror of learning! Jokes on you, bud. This torture is reserved for the Referee.

  I was chatting about aboard the Stratometaship when Luka mentioned he was drawing a card-based dungeon system. Cards depicting beautiful drawings and evocative names, all laid out neatly amongst each other. That got me a’thinkin.

  

  Resolving a Dungeon

  Eschew your heist-ready dungeon blueprints, toss your rulers and protractors, burn your lair floor-plans to be shown to new tenants. Enter: the Dungeon Deck.

  • Environs
  • Treasure
  • Factions
  • Bosses
  • Chaos!

  With these elements, stack them in a Deck and give a good shuffle, like you’re trying to win at a magical Gathering. When first entering the dungeon, draw and lay down three cards. There’s your start. Each time the players explore beyond a known delve, have them draw and lay the card down orthogonally to another card, thus building their own pointcrawl. This puts your party into the driver’s seat and gives them the power to help define the fiction further, taking that strain off you as the Referee. I go into more detail on each card type below.

  Environs.

  You know what these are: exotic locales or dank crypts to be plundered. Jot down one or three (but not two!) details for each, such as inhabitants, prominent sensory details, and foreshadowing. Bonus XP: ask the players to provide a sensory detail or small event that takes place while they explore.

  If you want to take it further, place conditional events in your Environs. If the Crystal Skulls faction card is already in play, then the Crystal Cave stalactites have impaled several poor souls on the ground below. Alternatively, you should consider placing a good Trap within to change the pace of play. The cavern begins to collapse and your heroes need to think quick!

  Perhaps these are even your classic empty rooms that serve to advance the Dungeon Clock while providing theme and tactile sensations for the characters. Sloshing about in a muddied chamber, swimming through a pungent sewer, or crunching through hills of bone.

  Treasure.

  Every adventurer perks up when a bit of gold is thrown at their feet. A swordsman burns for the opportunity to add another blade to his scabbard. An inquisitive techno-wizard sighs relief when she spies an arcano-matrix amplifier…what the hell is that? Anyway! Stack your deck with a few treasure rooms to be found, providing an incentive for staying in the dungeon longer. Be up front with your players. Tell them how many you threw in. The meta-knowledge becomes an additional gameplay lever to pull, affording them the chance to shape further the fiction. Bonus XP for making them conditional. Add a puzzle or riddle to gain entry or place a key in another room in the Deck.

  Factions.

  If you opt for a more living-dungeon experience, create some Faction cards! Name, leader, and some very brief qualities about them should suffice. If you run a lore-deep campaign or include a larger organization, feel free to sub-divide and create smaller units within that grander hierarchy. Give them a special Trait or quality that sets them apart from their other comrades. Alternatively, grant them some lore to dispense to help tie together the world in an immersive way.

  Bosses.

  Everyone loves a good boss fight. Building tension and terror amplifies excitement at the table. Jot down one to three Bosses to be encountered and toss them into the deck. Oftentimes, the objective of the Dungeon will be to conquer a specific Boss. If that’s the case, this provides a pseudo-clock for your players. Eventually, they will come to grips with the foe. It is inevitable if they wish to continue delving. For me, the fascinating part is this: Bosses can ambush the party. It turns the dynamic around! It plays the Alien, and you Ripley.

  If you pull a Boss early, the players have the opportunity to use their table meta-currency (hero dice, inspiration, etc) to cast it back into the Deck and gain knowledge on it to better prepare themselves for the impending clash. This represents them interacting with the creature’s environment to discover more about them, or perhaps stalking the mighty foe to study their behaviors or biomagical traits. Ahh, the dragon breathes ice!

  Bosses can also be innately tied to the Factions in the Deck too! Perhaps once conquered, one of the other factions struggling for control seize the power vacuum. It provides your heroes a visible representation of their effect on the game world as well as a moral conundrum if you play into the dynamics of the roleplay.

  Give your other Rooms hints or tools to use in the fight to come against your Boss! Optionally, you can tie the reveal of Treasure rooms not yet discovered to the resolution of Boss cards.

  Chaos!

  Create connections between two different nodes, discover new entries and exits, have an event completely alter the state of the Dungeon, or have it swap Factions in or out. This is the wildcard!

  If you end up not using some cards, worry not! Roll them into the next dungeoncrawl and save yourself some time later.

  After all is said and done, I hope someone out there gives it a try and finds success with it. My gut tells me it’s great for learning improvisational play, which is the heart and soul of the OSR. I also reckon it will be a neat way to prep for a session and run procedural dungeons without needing to roll dice and consult tables. Can you think of any Card types I missed? Share with me in the comments below!

• DOG DAYS ARE OVER

  Feline Funk is on its ninth life, even in the Violet City. Is it vanity? Gluttony? Either way, few Cat Lords harness their ancestral magicks. While they enthralled the humanoids over generations, their claws grew dull from disuse. Still however, there are still some night clubs that play the classic hits. Here’s a few! 

  Special thanks to LR_Demiurge_WTF & the Stratometaship.

  ---

  Cat Scratch Fever // Infected Laceration

  P: 2, R: Close T: A creature D: a few minutes

  Channel vitriol and hate into your hand-turned-paw, lashing out at your transgressor. Their flesh is mere paper to your venomous talon. Attack & inflict 1d6 damage. Your foe swells and reels in pain, suffering 1d6* damage when they act.

  ---

  Caesar’s Ear-Bleed // Grievous Speaker Feedback

  P: 2, R: Near T: All who hear D: Instant

  Losing an argument? Look no further! Loosen your jaw and produce a sound so jarring, painful, and maddening that anyone who hears has to run away, ears cupped, on their next turn if they wish to hold their sanity.

  ---

  Oliver’s Forced Hairball // Spontaneous Nausea Ray

  P: 2, R: Long, T: A creature, D: Instant

  Heave and arch your back in a rapid pattern before shooting a deathly glare upward at your mark. Clap your paws together and the creature must Save. Should they fail, they vomit a mass of hair and bile and retch in distress during their next turn.

  ---

  Rito’s Danger Sniff // Vigil of the Foxdogcat

  P: 1, R: Touch, T: Self, D: Imbue

  What was that!? Peering out from thy windows of the soul, you expand your awareness to better guard your desmense. You cannot be surprised and during times of ambush, you act alongside your assailant.

  Overcharge: additionally you gain [+] to any tests to sniff out details others would miss.

  Overcharge Twofold: with precognitive grace, your prowess of the senses extends to nearby allies.

  ---

  Stormcat’s Pounce // Rapid Forward Accelerator

  P: 1, R: Touch, T: Self, D: Imbue

  Feed the primal spirit within and leap for the heavens! You safely jump ten times as far. In times of battle, you can move a Short distance and unleash a melee attack, even after already striding through the chaos.

• FIVE URANIUM CLASSICS

  An organic tribute album to the greatest uranium hits. Five classic tracks originally found on Vinyl Press Run-208 of Uranium Butterflies 0.9b (2022), produced by LR_Demiurge_WTF. Emerald City hipsters argue the mythic DJ existed before the Long, Long Ago and with a single bass-drop, collapsed the prior time-cycle on itself and created the Given World anew. But those are hipsters, so take it with a grain of salt. I sure do.

  Please note: Cordy, lead singer for Organic Memory Device, wants to emphasize that this is a cover album played on a dream machine-synth. Special thanks to LR_Demiurge_WTF & the Stratometaship.

  ---

  Repair Loop

  // AGAIN BUT BETTER

  P: 2, R: Touch T: A creature D: Instant

  A friend in need is a friend indeed! Extend your hand through the infinite fractal and pull back threads from a different now-space continuum where a creature avoids suffering, overwriting the local reality. Undo an injury suffered this round, at the expense of the patient’s memory.

  Overcharge: undo damage suffered in the last hour.

  Overcharge Again: in the last week.

  Again?: in the last month.

  Somehow, Again: in the last year.

  ---

  Rot’s Aurora // Bad Time’s Memory

  P: 2, R: Self T: Your hand D: Focus

  Dangerous, always. Daemons from beyond the putrid veil cackle as you foolishly summon their energies to your hand. Enveloped in oil and hatred, your next touch is that of the rotting god, dealing damage equal to 1d8* + your level. Your very presence corrupts.

  Overcharge: from your dark hand, chaos spews forth with sick-fire, affecting all nearby creatures and objects, dealing 1d8 × level damage and corrupting their being.

  Overcharge Again: instead a foul tall-pillar of nihilism manifests a short distance from you, corrupting all nearby and dealing damage equal to 1d8* × level per round while you focus.

  Foolishly Again: the tall-pillar becomes a long-wall of decay stretching from here to over there. Dark unbeings swirl and shriek within, corrupting the nearby damned, dealing 2d8* × level damage per round and driving them mad while you focus & pay 1 life each round. The cursed creatures within your wall suffer twice as much.

  ---

  Wizardstrike // Reality Dart

  P: 1, R: Short T: A creature or object D: Instant

  Channel the negative space of the negative space, buried deep within the hollows of all-reality-truth. Crystallize and launch a lance of creation toward your mark. If you dare, split the lance and divide damage dealt among a number of projectiles equal to your level. The lance deals damage equal to 1d10 + your level.

  Overcharge: Your lance reaches a foe at long range and ignores their armour, piercing their ka-ba dyad.

  Overcharge Again: 2d10 + twice your level.

  Yet Again: 3d10 + thrice your level.

  ---

  Wizardwalk // Between One Step and the Next

  P: 1, R: Touch T: A door D: Imbue

  Others see an obstacle in their way. You see a golden opportunity to expose the grand illusion of the Given World for what it is. Place your hand upon a mundane door, locked or not, and imagine it open. It is so.

  Overcharge: instead a magical obstacle, such as a force field or electrogate.

  Overcharge Again: instead a portal opens through a barrier such as stone, metal, stuckforce, or crystal. Alternatively, link two reflections so that one can step through.

  Overcharge Yet Again: Awaken a dormant gate, learn its destination, and bravely step through.

  ---

  Wizardward // Cloth of Angel’s Guard

  P: 2, R/T: Self D: Item

  Weave the errors in the null-set to make real an arcane buckler. Wielded in one hand, this lesser aegis provides you +3 defense until you decide it is fictional once again.

  Overcharge: lesser aegis to greater, a buckler becomes a two-hand tower. Provides +6 defense & imposes [—] on ranged attacks from a single direction.

  Overcharge Again: greater aegis to grand, a tower becomes an arcane chrome-disc, taking two humans to move and shielding three from raining projectiles. Used as an arena, attacks from beyond suffer [—] to those within.

  Yet Again: grand aegis to supreme, a chrome-disc becomes an unmoving sphere. Grants immunity to mundane damage, attacks from beyond suffer [—][—] to the lucky six.