The Stars Are Wrong: A Cultist Tale
There is a grand confluence once every ten thousand years. For a single second the planets and the tides and the stars align perfectly, and the great barriers between worlds are torn asunder. In this instant it is possible to guide one of the Aor-inab, beings grander and more alien then any god imagined by man, through to our world.
Your cult (The Brotherhood of Forgotten Knowledge) has been laboring for centuries to gather the knowledge and mystic items necessary to bring this about. On the very night of The Ritual your plans were laid to waste. A group of ignorant fools, scared of the new world The Ritual would bring about, rushed in killing all the ranking members of your brotherhood (and almost all of lower ranking members as well), and burning all the lore and artifacts that you had obtained.
Only six of you made it out of the guildhall, and although the great plans of your brotherhood were laid to waste, it is still not the end. The secondary effects of the grand confluence will linger for centuries more, and although the great task is now far beyond your grasp, power is still easily obtainable with the knowledge you possess.
Rolls:
1: Complete failure, very bad things happen
2: Failure, bad things happen
3: Failure, no ill effects at all
4: Success
5: Complete success
6: Overshot, possible ill effects to other
If you are in a safe situation or doing a trivial task (and no negative modifiers or manias take effect) 1-2’s are converted to 3’s, and 3's are converted to 4's.
On the flip side, if you attempt to do feats far outside your skill level/physical abilities or things that are flat impossible, you will autofail.
Injuries
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Light Bleeding: 10 healing points. [-1 HP per turn]
Fracture: Requires medical attention and 20 healing points.
Heavy Bleeding: Requires medical attention and 20 healing points. [-5 HP per turn]
Very Heavy Bleeding: Requires skilled medical attention and 30 healing points. [-20 HP per turn]
Broken Bones: Requires skilled medical attention, then 40 healing points.
Missing Limb: Never heals, obviously.
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You make a healing roll each turn after an injury has been sustained; the amount you roll is added to your healing points, and the wound disappears when you have enough. For major wounds (anything above light bleeding), you can't make healing rolls until you've received the appropriate medical attention. Only doctors can provide skilled medical attention properly, anyone else gets a -2 to first aid rolls. Bleeding injuries drain health, of which each player starts with a maximum of 100. If a player has no bleeding injuries, they regain 4 hitpoints per turn.
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As cultists you aren’t generally the most sane of individuals at the best of times. However, this makes you uniquely placed to be able to survive the rigors of a rapidly degenerating mind without nearly as much trouble as a regular person would have.
Each player has 50 sanity points. Each time you reach 0 sanity, you gain an additional mania, and after one turn of huddling shaking in the corner your sanity is increased by 50 and you are capable of action again.
1: You gain a level 3 mania
2: You increase the level of one of your highest level mania by 1
3: You gain a level 2 mania
4: You gain a level 1 mania
5: You increase the level of an existing mania by 1 (by default increases lower level manias)
6: You regain 20 sanity points and do not gain a mania
You as long as you are not in contact with things that harm your sanity you regenerate sanity at a rate of 1 per turn. At the end of every mission/quest/whatever you regain 15 sanity.
You can remove manias by trips to the insanitarium, talking with a shrink, or talking with a fellow party member (which has a significant chance of giving them your mania as well).
The higher the level of a mania is the more dangerous the effects get. A level 4 mania is life-threatening, while level 1 manias aren’t particularly dangerous, and are even circumstantially beneficial.
Manias act as a buffer for your sanity, defenses that increase the effort required to break your mind. Because of this, each level 1/2 mania reduces non-spell sanity loss by 1, each level 3/4 reduces sanity loss by 2.
Spells utilize knowledge never meant for man to know. Because of this if you do not take proper precautions before casting (eg. Difficult and intense rituals, utilizing rare and expensive spell components) to shield your sanity, you sanity will take a significant battering.
Although spells are hugely costly mentally, they are extremely powerful (within the specific circumstances of their use), but beware of using them wildly, as you will find your character becomes more and more unhinged.
Spells casting has two parts: The first part is actually casting it, which requires a difficulty modifier to see if you succeed. Whether you fail or succeed you still have to pay the sanity cost. The second part is when the spell takes effect.
Many of the unnatural creatures that you fight are exceedingly strong, hard to kill, and sanity sapping. Because of this it is often wiser to avoid fighting altogether when possible.
[Attacker d6] - [Defender d6] = [Damage]
If you are fighting supernatural creatures, you also take a sanity check for every round you are in combat:
[Terror (static depending on enemy)]-[Defender d6]=[Sanity Damage]
If the dodge roll is greater than or equal to the attack roll, the attack is avoided. A dodge roll that is at least two higher than the attack roll prompts a counter attack from the defender, with a new attack and dodge roll. This cycle can continue indefinitely.
If the attack roll is one higher than the dodge roll, the attack is successful and can inflict minor to moderate injury. Each level after one higher signifies a more brutal attack, with more potential for greater injury depending on the combatants' equipment and the environment.
Weapons and armor, unless explicitly given a natural power to affect stats, don't affect combat rolls. Instead, they affect the result of the combat rolls. A clean hit against a player wearing armor vs. one not wearing armor (with the same rolls) will have different results. A solid attack with a sword will have more slicey results than with a fist.
Name:
Starting Manias: Choose two
Item: Pick any single (normal) item (setting is ~1920's technology level, so anything past then is prohibited)
Biography:
Author
Topic: The Stars Are Wrong: Closed (Read 5476 times)