Kuf: Negadungeons, the Maelstrom and Regret

I have decided to put Arcadian Sunset on a bit of a back burner, since I discovered the game Kuf. The reason being that Kuf is to a large part what I set out to create (It is basically a mashup of Kult and Knave) and
1) even if it isn't 100% what I wanted, it is here now and it is tested (to some degree).
2) Honestly I probably should have a bit more experience with playing OSR games before creating one of my own.

Kuf describes itself as an Old School style game of Contemporary Gnostic Horror. This genre is perhaps the most Swedish of all roleplaying genres. Pioneered by Kult, it has as its basic premise that the world we see is an illusion meant to keep humans from reaching their true potential. Behind the illusion is the real world, that undoubtedly is much more horrifying than the illusion. In some sense it is similar to Lovecraftian horror but with the big difference that instead of humans being insignificant, we are in fact the most significant beings of all. I would argue that this makes Kult and its descendant's more fitting for roleplaying. The gnostic horror have a built in process for characters growing in power and breaking free from their chains. But there is one aspect of Kuf that I find bothersome, and that is what I want to write about today.

Regret

There is much talk in the OSR world about player agency, but it seems mostly focus on making the pc's victory feel real. I believe making the failures feel real is just as important.

I think a large aspect of horror is regret. To make a choice, realize that it was the wrong choice, but not being able to take it back, is much more horrific than to have bad stuff forced upon you. To be able to feel regret you have to be able to make a meaningful and unforced choice. To make the choice meaningful you have to give the players some information to go on when making their decisions. For the choice to be unforced, we must make the alternatives socially acceptable.

Also for maximum angst, the regret should come on gradually. It should be a dawning realization that you have done wrong. That you should have known better. That there was a time where you could have fixed your mistake, but that is now long gone. Muhahahah!!

Negadungeons

If you aren't aware, a negadungeon is a dungeon filled bad stuff, but no or very little treasure. In some sense it is just a long extended trap. The primary player skill involved in a negadungeon is to realize that you are in a negadungeon and get out of their. You will realize that it was a mistake to go there. It was another mistake to press on and go further inside. You will regret these decisions and feel horror over what you have done.

But that only works if it was your choice to go to the negadungeon in the first place. If the GM announces one day, that this session we are going to play Negadungueon X, the social contract won't allow the players to have their characters to look at the entrance and say "nah, lets sit this one out". They are going to go inside the negadungeon and suffer horribly. They will press on fully knowing that it is a bad idea, and in the end they will not feel regret over having their character enter into the negadungeon. They will only feel betrayed by the GM.

The Maelstrom

The premises of Kuf is that the player characters have been drawn into a maelstrom of supernatural incidents. They have somehow got some hint about the truth beyond the illusion, and now they can't let it go, or rather the universe won't let them. It drags them into deeper mysteries with even mightier and more dangerous beings.

The game is supposed to be played in a cycle of three steps. Investigation, confrontation and recovery. These in my reading basically correspond to solving investigative horror mysteries, dungeon crawls, and downtime book keeping respectively. In the recovery phase you roll to see how long time you get to recover before you are dragged into the maelstrom again.

This is the part I have a bit of a problem with. On the one hand, it is very fitting for the setting, that you can't resist the maelstrom. You can't just sit and take an infinite number of downtime actions, avoiding all risks. You will be dragged into action.

But on the other hand, if you are dragged into action, if it isn't the players and their characters choice to enter the danger, what is there to regret? And if the pc's can decline the call of the maelstrom, how is it supposed to be threatening.

The example of play included in the book have the pc's find a group conducting a dark ritual, but there isn't really anything other than extradiegetic social pressure, that presses them to intervene in it.

The Fix?

I'm thinking that instead of rolling for the maelstrom during each recovery phase, to just have some kind of long term doom clock that keeps ticking down, and causes problems for the players if they haven't already dealt with them, but I haven't really thought out how that would work.

A subjective history of Swedish roleplaying games or How this blog got its name.

Considering that I'm a Swedish role player writing a blog in English, I realized that is might be an idea to write something about Swedish rpg's in general. I don't remember exactly when I first played a roleplaying game, but it must have been sometime between 1989 and 1992. The game was Drakar och Demoner Expert. A game heavily inspired by Runequest (using a licenced Basic Roleplaying system), and a name that ripped of Dungeons and Dragons. I played with two friends, although we didn't really understand the rules to be honest. But my friends soon tired, and I only got to play sporadically in the coming years. In 1996 I started junior high school (högstadie in Swedish) and finally joined a regular group, and began to broaden my horizons. We strted to play other games than DoD, such as Mutant 89, Neotech and Dungeons and Dragons. I also started larping at this time.

I think this was a pretty common experience for role players of my generation. DoD was a pretty early RPG, released in 1981, and thanks to good connections with toy distributors, RPG's really hit it of in Sweden. Drakar och Demoner became a household name in the same way that Dungeons and Dragons did in America. Äventyrsspel, the company behind DoD had a near monopoly at this time, with probably like 90% of the market. The second game they released was Mutant, a post apocalyptic game with mutated humans and animals. For a long time those two Mutant and DoD was the two big games that EVERYBODY played. Now, my first interaction with Mutant was in the form of Mutant 89, where the post-ap style had started to drift into a Judge Dread inspired cyberpunk thing.

This era came to a sort of end when Äventyrsspel released Kult, a contemporary game of gnostic horror that, well, probably shouldn't have been distributed to toy stores in hindsight. Äventyrsspel lost a fair number of vendors because of this, and a moral hysteria began to rage. But Kult was popular, and was translated into many languages. This prompted Äventyrsspel to consider foreign markets, which makes sense seeing how they would be hard pressed to expand further in Sweden. As a move in this direction they released new editions of DoD and Mutant, (Mutant Chronicles and Drakar och Demoner Chronopia) with new more "edgy" settings inspired in part by Kult, but also by foreign franchisees  like Warhammer 40 000.

It was my impression at least that Chronopia was really disliked by the fans, with most continuing to play in the old setting Ereb Altor. Mutant Chronicles was more popular, perhaps because it was the third setting for Mutant in just 4 years. Äventyrsspel really invested in the setting, with two collectible card games, a miniatures games and a board game. But despite this, Äventyrsspel lost customers and declared bankruptcy, except for the electronic games department, which became Paradox Interactive.

At the same time Äventyrsspels greatest competitor, Neogames, rose in prominence with their fantasy game EON. EON for me reached a peak in the quest for greater realism in games, which had dominated through out the 80's and 90's. In practice these rules was often far to cumbersome to actually use, which pushed people into adopting a more freeform style.

As I said Äventyrsspels games based on Basic Roll Playing dominated in Sweden during the first two decades. This meant that gaining XP for killing monsters or such was a completely foreign concept. In general treating rpg's as a challenge for the players to overcome was not really a thing. I think linguistics may have played a role as well. The Swedish word "spel(a)" means both game(ing) and play(ing), so the literal translation of Roleplaying game would be "Rollspels spel", which sounds redundant, and instead we simply called them "rollspel". But that term in it self only implies that you are playing a role, not anything about challenge, competition or such.


During the nineties larping became popular. It started with tabletop role players acting out fantasy larps out in the woods, and just as with the tabletop games, great focus was on realism. But rather than realizing this through more and more arcane rules, larps developed to have as few rules as possible, with everything being acted out, if at all possible. At the turn of the millennium the state of the art have moved away from fantasy, and larps are being considered as an art form, with lots of experimental settings. Larp was at that point more popular than tabletop games.

Influence from the larp scene comes back to the tabletop scene. Especially at conventions freeform roleplay took of. One off scenarios without any formal rule system, often with more serious themes, become common. The games start to focus more on relationships, specifically between the characters. And all other things are cut away. No npc's. No fantastic settings etc.

Personally I had started university at this time, and left my hometown. I played some games at conventions and was heavily involved in Vampire Larps (these tend to form a rather distinct and isolated subculture of Swedish larps).

In 2005 I moved to Lund, in large part due to all the friends I had gained from here during all those conventions. and I returned to tabletop games with a vengeance. At this point Äventyrsspel was no more, and Neogames made boring games. So we played American games like Fading Suns, and White Wolfs games. This is sort of a dark age for Swedish roleplaying games.

But somehow we rose from the ashes..

Oh yes and the name? Well Drakar och Demoner had ducks as one of its races. I don't think any of us really thought that they made much sense in the world of Ereb Altor. We wanted a serious fantasy experience and the ducks only made us think of Donald Duck. Perhaps it was because we where children. I have discovered that I care much less about appearing child like as an adult than as a teenager or preteen. But somehow anthropomorphic ducks are still a source of annoyance for me, and my regular gaming group seems to love teasing me for it. So when we was to register a team for Gothcon (an RPG convention), my boyfriend asked me what we should name it, and I replied "It should at least be no fucking ducks in the name", and he took my words somewhat literally. So when I started the blog I thought, heck why not, it is a fun name.

Oh, and I should probably apologize for all the errors regarding Swedish gaming history. It is just straight out of memory, with like zero fact checking.

Arcadian Sunset: Aestetics

Today I wanted to talk a bit about the kind of feeling I want to evoke in Arcadian Sunset. In short Arcadian Sunset is a game of mystery, horror, comedy and the bizarre.

One of the principles of OSR is to not have a prepared story, but simply offer up a setting a let the players do what they want of it. When doing a mystery the excellent Three Clue Rule tells us to not make any red herrings, as the players without doubt will create their own. In a similar way D&D as Straight Man tells us that we don't have include jokes in our settings to create humor, it will come on its own.

Horror and comedy is to me closely connected. They are both often results of the contrast between the normal and the abnormal. They rely on imagination and surprise. Which is probably why among bad movies, horror movies are the most popular, as when the horror fails, it often turns into comedy. As such I think there is a great plan to include bizarre absurdities, play them seriously, with horror being the A plan, but comedy a just as good plan B.

But as the LotFP Referee Book points out, for the bizarre to feel weird, it must be contrasted with normality. Viewing the dungeon as mythic underworld, OD&D becomes an expedition from the world of normality into the abnormal, and then an escape back to normality. I think this concept is a key. The Gonzo vs. The Weird talks about this distinction as well, with weird tales being mostly about an intrusion of abnormality into the normal world, while gonzo being about normal characters intruding into an abnormal world.

My plan is to do a bit of both. Weird investigation in the normal world, and gonzo exploration in the abnormal world. Or at least provide the option for both, as there is no telling what the players will do, but I hope having two different modes to alternate between will give a nice pacing to the game.

A game design blog I follow, even though it isn't about rpg's, is Making Magic. It of course helps to have an interest in Magic, but just in general Maro speaks a lot about fundamental rules for designing games, and in particular how mechanics interacts with the fiction of the game. One distinction he makes is between top-down design, and bottom-up. In this context, top-down means going from an element of fiction and creating game mechanics for it, while the bottom-up means starting with a game mechanic and finding a justification in fiction later. Role playing games tend to do the former, which makes sense, but I think it is a good idea to have in mind the later as well.

One example of this in rpg's is showcased in the Aesthetics of Ruin, to great effect. The existence of ruins is bottom-up. They are not there because the fiction demanded it, but because they gives us monsters and treasure, and a chaotic system to interact with for the pc's. But even if the presence of ruins is in the game is for the sake game mechanics, that is no excuse to not integrate the ruins in the setting. Top-down and bottom-up is not a one way street, you need to go back and fourth.

Another way to look at this is in the distinction between fantasy and science fiction. To me science fiction is about making one (or more) unreasonable assumption and see what kind of story it would reasonably lead to, while fantasy is about making a story and fill in whatever unreasonable assumptions that is necessary for getting there. But in practice most works tend to include some of both. If you write a sequel to a fantasy story, you will need to see what kind of story the unreasonable assumptions in the first story would lead to.

So when you introduce ruins to your setting, for the pc's to explore, you need to think about what must have happened to create those ruins, and what other things would reasonably follow from those events. And as it is a game, you need to create game mechanics for these things too.

So there you have it. Arcadian Sunset is a game about normal characters intruding in an abnormal landscape in ruins, intermixed with investigations of bizarre beings that might be either horrifying or hilarious.

Ten million* different ways to do skill checks in RPG.

There are many ways to do skill checks in roleplaying games. So I made this system of tables so that you can generate your own system. Basically start with the Narration table and randomly choose one of the results listed, then replace all bold words with content from the corresponding table. Repeating until you get a description of the method. Some of the tables says something like Randomize( stat ), this means to replace stat in the resulting expression with what ever it was you where randomizing (or computing or rolling etc).

* It is actually a bit more than ten million.

Tables

Narration:

1. The player describes how to do it, and the gm decide if it will work.
2. The player makes a check, then narrate their success/failure
3. The player makes a check, then the gm narrate their success/failure
4. The player makes a check. On success the player then narrate how they do it. On failure the gm narrate what happens.
5. The player makes a check. On success the player describes how to do it, and then the gm decides if it works.
6. The player describes how to do it, and if the gm decide that it could will, the player makes a check.
7. The player describes how to do it, and the gm decide if it will work. If the gm decides that it doesn't work, the player makes a check anyhow.
8. The player describes how to do it, and the gm modifies difficulty based on description, then the player makes a check.

Check:

1. Compute skill then succeed if better than compute difficulty.
2. Compute difficulty, then succeed if better than compute skill, on failure, retry.
3. Randomize constant, then succeed if not better than skill worsened by difficulty.
4. Randomize constant, then succeed if not better than skill worsened by difficulty, on failure, retry.

Better*:

1. higher
2. lower
3. higher or equal
4. lower or equal

Retry:

1. you may spend meta currency to reroll all dice.
2. you may spend meta currency to reroll any number of dice.
3. you may spend meta currency to make a new check.
4. you may spend meta currency equal to difference to succeed anyway.

Compute( stat ):

1. Take stat.
2. Spend meta currency to improve stat.
3. Randomize stat.
4. Spend meta currency to improve stat, then randomize the result.
5. Randomize stat, then spend meta currency to improve the result 
6. Randomize stat, then spend meta currency to improve the result, then randomize the result of that.

Randomize( stat ): 

1. Roll dice pool equal to stat, and pick one.
2. Roll dice pool equal to stat, and add them up.
3. Roll dice pool equal to stat, and get one success for each value better than constant.
4. Roll dice pool equal to stat, and get one success for each value better than better than upper constant, but subtract one for each value worse than lower constant.
5. Roll one die with the number of sides equal to stat.
6. Roll die and improve the result with stat.

Dice Pool:

1. Dice size.
2. Dice size, exploding

Dice Size:

1. d2
2. d6
3. d8
4. d10
5. d20
6. d100

Die:

1. 1d20
2. 2d10
3. 3d6
4. 3d6, exploding
5. 4d100 - 2
6. 3d20, choosing the middle die
7. Three fudge dice
8. 2d10, subtracting the lower from the higher

Exploding:

1. When a die is rolled with max value, you roll an extra die and add its value.
2. When a die is rolled with max value, you roll an extra exploding die and add its value.
3. When a die is rolled with max value, you remove it and rolls two extra dice and add their values.
4. When a die is rolled with max value, you remove it and rolls two extra exploding dice and add their values.
5. When a die is rolled with max value, reroll it using a one step larger die.
6. When a die is rolled with max value, reroll it using a one step larger exploding die.
7. When a die is rolled with max value, you roll an extra die one step larger and add its value.
8. When a die is rolled with max value, you roll an extra exploding die one step larger and add its value.

Constant:

1. Just make up a number that seems to fit the context.

* If lower or lower or equal is better, then improve means decrease, otherwise it means increase. worsen means the opposite of improve. only roll for better once and use the same result for every instance.

Examples

The player describes how to do it, and the gm modifies difficulty based on description, then the player makes a check. Roll one die with the number of sides equal to 10, then succeed if not higher than skill decreased by difficulty, on failure, you may spend meta currency to reroll all dice.

Roll d6 equal to 3, and get one success for each value higher than 4, but subtract one for each value lower than 2, then succeed if not higher than skill decreased by difficulty, on failure, you may spend meta currency equal to difference to succeed anyway. On success the player describes how to do it, and then the gm decides if it works.

The player describes how to do it, and the gm decide if it will work. If the gm decides that it doesn't work, the player makes a check anyhow. Roll d100 equal to difficulty, When a die is rolled with max value, reroll it using a one step larger exploding die, and get one success for each value better than 13, then spend meta currency to decrease the result, then succeed if lower than or equal to roll d100 equal to skill, and pick one, then spend meta currency to  decrease the result, then roll d8 equal to the result of that, and pick one, on failure, you may spend meta currency to reroll any number of dice.

Conclusion

The system as it stands is a bit limited. It can't handle more than two degrees of success. No fumbles or critical hits or partial successes. If expanded with features like that you could likely generate billions of skill check systems!

But no, I don't really recommend you to use this system to generate rule systems. The point is rather to show how much variation there can be in how to do something as simple as skill checks. In particular I want focus on the first table Narration. It is in many ways the least mechanical part of the skill check, and something many rule books skip over, but I think really important. The different alternatives to a large part corresponds to different play styles. Number one of course being freeform. Number two would be Story Now game. Four corresponds to Apocalypse World. Seven has aspects of old school in it. (Saving throws can be seen as being allowed a skill check after having chosen badly.) Six and eight seems to be really common, but makes very little sense to me. For eight, I think that if the gm can make a good estimate of the difficulty, they can just as well estimate the outcome, and no roll should be necessary, while for six, it just results in explainable failures, and random gate-keeping.

The more I think of it I actually really prefer number seven. It allows you to play a character better than yourself, and to use player skill, while avoiding the problems of six.

Arcadian Sunset: Magical Miscasts

Warning, if you intend to play Arcadian Sunset, the following post might be considered a spoiler. 

If you read the magic post, I have expanded the seven schools from Wonder & Wickedness into fourteen by adding three schools from Marvels & Malisons, and also four new ones created by me (But populated in large with spells from Vaginas are Magic and Eldrich Cock). Now M&M don't have miscasts so that was something I had to complement them with, and obviously the new schools would need them as well. In writing these miscasts I have tried to embrace the idea of spells being trapped spirits. In this paradigm miscasts represent the spirits temporarily breaking free and working for its own agenda. I have tried to include some (partly) beneficial effects as well as the negative ones, and at least one with long reaching consequence, beyond even the party. When it comes to Apotropaism (anti-magic) I have opted to make somewhat nicer miscasts, this is because it is a school that is likely to be used in situations where disruptions and therefor miscasts will be common, and if using Apotropaism to defend against hostile magic as rule leads to worse result than not using it, it would be a rather pointless magic school. For the spells from VaM and EC which have their individual miscast tables. Roll a d12 and look at the individual table for values 1-6, for 7-12 reroll on the school table.

So when do miscasts happen? There are a number of situations.

• When casting the spell from your spellbook, without memorization.
• When you becomes disturbed casting the spell, for example by suffering damage.
• When casting while encumbered.

If any of these conditions apply you need to test your will to avoid the miscast table. And if more than one of these conditions apply, you will get one disadvantage for each one beyond the first.

Miscast Tables:

Physiurgy

1. The spell leaves the sorcerer and take up residence in the target.
2. The sorcerer’s hair grows quickly and continually at a rate of 20cm per hour; it is also slightly animated, and grabs at the sorcerers arms and legs if long enough. If not regularly cut, the hair tangles the sorcerer’s arms. if the hair reaches their knees or beyond, reduces their movement to half normal speed. Any hair cut off rots away in moments.
3. Twenty-five years of the sorcerer’s life drop away in an instant, possibly making them a very small child. If the sorcerer is younger than twenty-five then they disappears into cosmic pre-birth.
4. All animals in the vicinity are brought back to life. This includes rations and leather, which will crawl and flap about blindly.
5. The sorcerer loses the ability to perform physiurgy, and the sorcerer can never be healed or cured by physiurgy spells. Except for one more time. The sorcerer is aware of this.
6. The spell will have the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of healing, it will damage, instead of curing disease it will cause a new disease.
7. The sorcerer will start to dream of a far off place free from disease and trouble that they has never been to. The dreams will continue until they go there.
8. Whenever the sorcerer heal someone, the damage/sickness needs to be transferred to some other person nearby.
9. The sorcerer becomes 20 years older.
10. Everything on the same landmass as the sorcerer gains the ability of regeneration. Healing any damage from physical violence, poison etc, but not from starvation.
11. The spell-spirit is let lose. Treat as if the Summon spell (see LotFP Rules & Magic) has been cast, with the creature having Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell originally attempted +1d4. The creature is automatically out of control. It addition to its other powers it can cast it's "spell" at will, but each time it does so it takes 1d6 damage. You are no longer able to cast this spell.
12. An entirely different spell from the physiurgy school has been cast. Roll a d10 on the list for the physiurgy school. (reroll if the intended spell comes up) with a 1d10 effective sorcerer level. If the spell requires a specific target or target area, determine this randomly.

Apotropaism

1. There’s a supernatural voice within the head of the sorcerer that is attempting to guide them towards something. It could be good, or bad, but there is no way to tell for sure until they reach it.
2. Elsewhere across the dimensions, an spirit/undead/demon of HD equal to that of the sorcerer has emblazoned upon its alien mind the name, nature, and history of the sorcerer, who becomes its enemy. It is then transported to the same plane as the sorcerer, 1d20 km distance, and seeks to slay the sorcerer. However, before death, it wishes to embarrass, harass, bedevil, and otherwise cause all manner of harm possible to the sorcerer and their friends and allies.
3. The sorcerer swaps life force and bodies with the nearest living thing.
4. An inanimate object in the sorcerer’s possession gains sentience and a voice.
5. The sorcerer’s hands find a mind of their own and take a severe disliking to the tyranny of the mind. They set about choking the sorcerer to death, only to lapse back into servitude as soon as they passes out.
6. The sorcerer is swept away to safer place. Treat as if the target of All Alone in their Nirvana.
7. The sorcerer cannot sleep until they are reduced to zero hit point. They suffer 1d6 points of damage per day they misses sleep; this cannot be healed naturally or by magic until they finally gets some sleep. If reduced to zero hit points, they then sleeps unceasingly for a length of time equal to all the sleep they missed; nothing, not even further damage by weapon or slapping, wakens them from this sleep. This sleep cures all the damage suffered due to the wakefulness. The sorcerer is forever immune to sleep spells and the like.
8. Electronics, other magic, magnetism and more just don’t work around the sorcerer.
9. The sorcerer is unable to speak without swearing, thus making magic impossible for the duration. Lasts d6 hours.
10. Evil spirits attack the sorcerer, disguised as their dead loved ones, explaining how disappointed they are in the sorcerers life choices.
11. The spell-spirit is let lose. Treat as if the Summon spell (see LotFP Rules & Magic) has been cast, with the creature having Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell originally attempted +1d4. The creature is automatically out of control. It addition to its other powers it can cast it's "spell" at will, but each time it does so it takes 1d6 damage. You are no longer able to cast this spell.
12. An entirely different spell from the apotropaism school has been cast. Roll a d10 on the list for the apotropaism school. (reroll if the intended spell comes up) with a 1d10 effective sorcerer level. If the spell requires a specific target or target area, determine this randomly.

Arachnomorphosis

1. The sorcerer gains the ability to “spin” web. It is strong and valuable and can be used to create armor.
2. Whenever the sorcerer go near plants, spiders burst forth from them. Also the plants find this uncomfortable and become hostile to sorcerer. Whenever the sorcerer comes nearby they become animated and try to make life a bit harder for the sorcerer.
3. The sorcerer shrinks to the size of a tarantula.
4. The sorcerer turns into a human sized spider.
5. There’s something wooden and plantlike growing inside the sorcerer, and it will never stops. But continue to grow, trying to find its way out.
6. The area is covered by web. The sorcerer becomes trapped. Others may save with dexterity.
7. Spiders become attracted to the sorcerer. They are continually swarmed by normal small spiders; whenever they go into a barn, cellar, or dungeon, they are as a veritable cloud around them and upon every surface nearby. Whenever the sorcerer passes within a km of giant spiders, they are compelled to follow the sorcerer at their swiftest speed and attack them.
8. The sorcerer no longer speaks or understands any known tongue, instead favouring a slightly unpleasant language made up of shrieks and mumbles.
9. All weapons of war in the vicinity turn into flowers.
10. The spiders decide that enough is enough, and form a kingdom of their own. They elect a monarch, start building cities, create a regular army and then declare war on mankind.
11. The spell-spirit is let lose. Treat as if the Summon spell (see LotFP Rules & Magic) has been cast, with the creature having Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell originally attempted +1d4. The creature is automatically out of control. It addition to its other powers it can cast it's "spell" at will, but each time it does so it takes 1d6 damage. You are no longer able to cast this spell.
12. An entirely different spell from the arachnomorphosis school has been cast. Roll a d10 on the list for the arachnomorphosis school. (reroll if the intended spell comes up) with a 1d10 effective sorcerer level. If the spell requires a specific target or target area, determine this randomly.

Blood Sorcery

1. A sickness overcomes the sorcerer, causing them to cough up a blood. The blood flows away as though in a hurry to be somewhere, where it forms a doppelganger of the sorcerer. The doppelganger is similar to the sorcerer in most regards, but it is also jealous of the sorcerers life, and will try to gain everything the sorcerer have for themselves.
2. Whenever the sorcerer suffers damage from a slashing or cutting weapon, the blood spilt instantly transforms into a goblin or like creature upon hitting the ground. For each 6 damage taken, one goblin is formed. Each has 5 hit points, with the odd remaining hit points, up to 6, forming the last goblin. These creatures are utterly inimical to the sorcerer, and attack them at every opportunity.
3. The sorcerers blood becomes extra tasteful for vampires and cannibals, and provides twice the nourishment.
4. The sorcerer begins to bleed from their eyes. It does not harm them, but looks hideous. This lasts for the rest of the day, but can come back if the sorcerer becomes emotional.
5. Any time the sorcerer passes within the area of light cast by a light source, be it candle, torch, lantern, bonfire, or even a light, daylight, or continual flame spell, the light source have a one in six chance of going out (if it is a continual flame, the flame returns when the sorcerer leaves its area of light).
6. The sorcerer’s blood becomes thin and slick, as they suffers from hemophilia. Every time the sorcerer is cut they starts to bleed profusely.
7. The sorcerer develops a taste for the flesh of humans. and can only subsist on such flesh; all other foods are regurgitated or simply provide no sustenance. For every day they goes without the flesh they suffers 1d6 points of damage, which cannot heal naturally or be cured by magic until they once again consumed forbidden flesh.
8. The great being of salt has its attention on the soccer. When they bleed, the wounds will not stop through natural means.
9. The sorcerer turns into a vampire.
10. The greatest vampire in the land awakens, and becomes strangely aware of the sorcerer.
11. The spell-spirit is let lose. Treat as if the Summon spell (see LotFP Rules & Magic) has been cast, with the creature having Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell originally attempted +1d4. The creature is automatically out of control. It addition to its other powers it can cast it's "spell" at will, but each time it does so it takes 1d6 damage. You are no longer able to cast this spell.
12. An entirely different spell from the blood sorcery school has been cast. Roll a d10 on the list for the blood sorcery school. (reroll if the intended spell comes up) with a 1d10 effective sorcerer level. If the spell requires a specific target or target area, determine this randomly.

Atrophism

1. Any iron or steal the sorcerer touches or wears rusts and turns to dust, even through a cloth or glove or other garment.
2. All exposed liquid within 12 meters turns to milk. That milk then curdles.
3. All metal within 20 meters becomes incredibly hot for d6 turns. Anyone wearing armor or carrying weapons must take d6 Damage per turn.
4. The sorcerer slowly forget everything about themselves. Every time they try to remember something about themselves there is a one in three chance that they permanently loses that memory.
5. The spell cast is permanently replaced with another spell.
6. All the sorcerer's gold turns to lead.
7. All vegetation within a km withers and dies. Any normal, non-sentient and non-monstrous plants smaller than and within s meter of the sorcerer wither and die if they remains in the area for a minute or more. Sentient plants feel deeply uncomfortable near the sorcerer and is at disadvantage. Larger plants such as saplings and trees grow sickly, but do not die unless the sorcerer remains within range for an hour or more per century of age of the tree.
8. The sorcerer’s teeth all fall out. The sudden loss causes them to be at disadvantage to making magic due to their poor diction. After a nights sleep a fresh set grow in.
9. The spell being cast won’t stop. It goes completely haywire, out of control, firing off madly until the sorcerer is subdued.
10. The sorcerer is afflicted with the Idea of Thorns
11. The spell-spirit is let lose. Treat as if the Summon spell (see LotFP Rules & Magic) has been cast, with the creature having Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell originally attempted +1d4. The creature is automatically out of control. It addition to its other powers it can cast it's "spell" at will, but each time it does so it takes 1d6 damage. You are no longer able to cast this spell.
12. An entirely different spell from the atrophism school has been cast. Roll a d10 on the list for the atrophism school. (reroll if the intended spell comes up) with a 1d10 effective sorcerer level. If the spell requires a specific target or target area, determine this randomly.

Yam-Yub

1. All primary and secondary sex characteristics become exaggerated. For example breasts and dicks grows to gigantic size, on the border of what seems humanly possible.
2. The sorcerer will begin to start feeling the urge to lay an egg, then it happens! Roll on encounter table to see what hatches from the egg.
3. The sorcerer suddenly splits into two separate yet identical versions of themselves, one good, one evil. One female one male. Flip a coin to see which is the evil one. One of these will quickly try and escape. The only way the sorcerer can return to normal is to retrieve the other and merge back into one by touching them.
4. The sorcerer is overcome with amorous intent for the nearest person, this will last until they have sex.
5. Whenever the sorcerer has sex, they and them partner switch physical sexes (if applicable). they cannot switch back by having sex with the same partner.
6. The sorcerer becomes sexless, and lose all sex characteristics. The sorcerer’s genitalia, external and internal, disappear. Urine is now released through the anus. Secondary sex characteristics become androgynous.
7. Every time the sorcerer has sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex, they becomes pregnant (if the sorcerer is male, they impregnates their partner). The pregnancy is startlingly quick, lasting merely nine days, and unfortunately, the child born is a demon, utterly inimical to its “parent”! The demon is of a random level of power, no greater in HD than twice the level of the sorcerer of the curse, and in addition to any other powers, has the ability to take the form, with an appearance that makes the relationship obvious and undeniable. Each such child seeks to slay its accursed “parent,” but first wishes to destroy them and all them friends, allies, accomplishments, and causes, in a manner as painful and degrading as possible.
8. The sorcerer starts to pour sweat from all their sweat glands profusely for 1D6 hours.
9. The sorcerer changes biological sex, but keeps the same gender and sexual preference. They also becomes incredibly sexy.
10. Vagina becomes portal to hell. Or Cock becomes sentient and possessed by demon.
11. The spell-spirit is let lose. Treat as if the Summon spell (see LotFP Rules & Magic) has been cast, with the creature having Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell originally attempted +1d4. The creature is automatically out of control. It addition to its other powers it can cast it's "spell" at will, but each time it does so it takes 1d6 damage. You are no longer able to cast this spell.
12. An entirely different spell from the same yam-yub has been cast. Roll a d10 on the list for the yam-yub school. (reroll if the intended spell comes up) with a 1d10 effective sorcerer level. If the spell requires a specific target or target area, determine this randomly.

The Power Cosmic

1. A portal is opened to a paradigmatic battleground, allowing an angelic or demonic figure to pop through.
2. The misappropriation of magical energy causes time to slide ahead: 1d6 days for every spell level passes instantly. All characters within 5m staying in the same place the entire time. Any environmental effects of the sorcerer being in that spot unmoving for that many days are instantly applied The characters are then affected as if they have not eaten or slept in that entire time.
3. A random spectator’s bones mysteriously disappear. Even more mysteriously they doesn’t seem overly put out by it. they can’t fight or cast magic and can only very slowly shuffle about as a gelatinous blob of flesh, but they are generally unharmed. After d6 hours the bones pop back into place from wherever they went.
4. The sorcerer suffers a coughing fit for d6 turns, after which d8 gremlins tumble out of their mouth and start biting peoples faces.
5. Odd and alien light floods a 25m area, destructive and harmful to physical life, but so strange that biological bodies don’t know the proper response to the harm suffered. Bodies therefore guess at how they are supposed to respond to the malignant force, deciding to “remember” the last damage suffered and recreate that to express the harm caused by the light. Every sorcerer within the area re-suffers the last damage inflicted upon them. If the specific damage suffered cannot be remembered, then surely the foe that caused it can be; assume maximum damage was suffered. If even that cannot be remembered, the sorcerer suffers 1d20 points of damage. If a sorcerer has never before suffered hit point damage and is subject to this effect, it does no damage and instead doubles their maximum (and current) hit point amount.
6. Uncontrolled extradimensional radiation floods an area equal to the intended spell level x 5m radius. Every biological creature of at least one Hit Die (except the sorcerer) suffers 1d6 damage. The sum of the damage done is pooled together, and this pool of damage heals the sorcerer up to maximum hit points, but all remaining damage beyond that is subtracted back from the sorcerer’s hit points.
7. The sorcerer has a second head burst forth from their shoulders. The second head is them opposite in all things; The second head knows everything the sorcerer knew up to the time of its creation. The sorcerer is usually in control of them body, but there is a 1 in 6 chance per hour that the second head has a chance of taking over the body. Roll a d60 for which minute of the hour the second head takes control. This control then lasts for a d8 turns. After that there is a 1 in three chance that the head keeps being in control for an additional d20 turns, and after that there is a 1 in three chance that it remains in control for an additional d4 days. But during these days the sorcerer has a likewise chance of gaining control. The second head has its own goals and plans, invariably at odds with those of the sorcerer. If the second head is chopped off, it simply grows back within moments. Optionally, if a magical sword is used to chop off the head, the head instead grows its own body, exactly like that of the sorcerer, and becomes an individual on its own. If the second head has the sorcerer’s head chopped off, events transpire in the same fashion... and note that though the sorcerer does not know how the second head can gain its own body, it does.
8. All currency in the sorcerer’s possession turns into beautiful butterflies that flap off into the sky.
9. Microscopic organisms floating in the air are engorged with strange energies, growing large enough to be seen and emitting glowing hues. They pass through all matter freely and devour all perishables (food, oil, torches, ammunition, gunpowder, basically any item individually accounted for and expended in a sorcerer’s inventory, money and other such valuables excepted) within a 1m per spell level radius.
10. The Moon gets increasingly closer to the sorcerer. At a speed of 1000 km per day.
11. The spell-spirit is let lose. Treat as if the Summon spell (see LotFP Rules & Magic) has been cast, with the creature having Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell originally attempted +1d4. The creature is automatically out of control. It addition to its other powers it can cast it's "spell" at will, but each time it does so it takes 1d6 damage. You are no longer able to cast this spell.
12. An entirely different spell from a random school has been cast. Roll a d14 on the list for the magic school, and a d10 for the spell from that school. (reroll if the intended spell comes up) with a 1d10 effective sorcerer level. If the spell requires a specific target or target area, determine this randomly.

Arcadian Sunset: Spells

Process

I was rather constrained in creating these spells, but constriction breeds creativity. Raggi introduced this method of using the titles of metal songs as the names of spells. I think this is a great way to inspire yourself to make something original and flavourful, so I followed that although I relaxed it a bit in that there are many other song titles that make good spells. In particular I used a lot of Neofolk songs. But in addition to this I already had a bunch of magic schools I needed to fill out, and some specific effects I wanted in the game. So I really had to get creative.

The Spells

All Alone In Her Nirvana

The target of this spell is transported to a dimension there their every wish seems to be granted, except no other sentient being ever appears. This lasts for one turn per level of the sorcerer. The spell can be broken earlier if the target manages first a wits test to figure out that the fantasy isn’t real, and then a willpower test to break it.

Dark Wood Too Awakes

The heart of any forest is the same. This spell lets the sorcerer show this truth to the world. By entering any completely dark place in a gathering of plants, the sorcerer can emerge from any other, on the same plane of existence.

God's Golden Sperm

Money and sex have long held a connection. This spell allows the sorcerer to eat gold, or other precious metals, or even jewels, and thereby ejaculate enormous amounts. For each 50 GP consumed a bowl can filled with sperm, and if eaten this can serve as proviant for a day. Up to three portions per level can be created this way. Inanimate objects touched by the sperm will become alive if their monetary value is less than what was consumed. Animated object will try their best to please their fathers, but has limited intelligence, and only a lifetime of one hour per level.

Holy Blood, Holy Union

By shedding just a cup of their blood a sorcerer can turn it into several (five per level) liters of weak wine. Beyond extinguishing thirst, everyone that drinks this wine will become mentally linked until they next sleep, allowing thoughts to be transmitted between all that has partaken of the wine. On the other hand none of the drinkers will be able to lie to each other for as long as the wine is in effect.

Into the Menstrual Night I Go

The sorcerer cuts into their vagina which starts to bleed profusely. (If they didn’t have one before, they have to cut a jack which turns into a functioning vagina for the duration of this spell.) This loss of blood does not hurt the sorcerer in any way though.  The spell allows the sorcerer to birth creatures of shadow to serve them.  One creature can be birthed per level, they each take one round. The spell lasts until all creatures have been birthed or the sorcerer goes to sleep, whatever happens first. The creatures will have 1d4 in each attribute (roll once for each creature) and have infra-vision but will dissolve in sunlight. They obey their mothers commands, but can not themselves speak. For each fifth level of the sorcerer, the sorcerer may half the number of shadow creatures to add 1d4 to their attributes. As long as the spell is active the sorcerer have infra-vision and continues to bleed profusely.

Mirror Mirror

The sorcerer creates a body double of themself except it has the opposite sex (but the same gender), and it is mirrored. The same is true for equipment the sorcerer carry. (It will become reflected, and also adapted to the opposite gender norm, ie skirts will become pants.) The double lasts for one turn per level, before it vanishes in a puff of smoke. If the double becomes damaged the sorcerer become likewise damaged as well, and vice versa. the sorcerer and the double shares spell slots and prepared spells. The double will not be under the sorcerers mental command, but will generally be emphatic and reasonable, as long as it is treated well, and not unnecessarily put in harm's way. It can access all the sorcerers memories, and will know how the sorcerer have treated previous doubles.

Nekrotastic Extasy

The orgasm is often called the little death. This spell allows the sorcerer to come into communion with the dead when they reach their climax. One question may be asked per level, and it will be answered truly if the answer is known by any dead with a connection either to the place or the sorcerer.

Once Upon A Time

The sorcerer weaves a tale about their target telling them (truthfully to your knowledge) how they came to be in the situation at hand, and then about the moral the sorcerer wish them to learn, and how to behave in the future. The target will take the lesson to heart and act upon it for at least an hour per level. The moral must be at least superficially reasonable , and their actions follow logically from it. The target can make a willpower save to avoid.

Ode to the Beloved and Impaired

When our cherished possessions wither and break, so that they can no longer fulfill their purpose, it can break your heart as well. This spell allows the sorcerer to turn back time and make the object like when it first came into your possession. For it to work, the object must be yours in some either legal or emotional sense, and the sorcerer must be able to cradle it in your arms. By hugging it close and poring your feelings out, it returns to the way it was when it first became the sorcerers. Alternatively the sorcerer can perform the spell by proxy, touching someone and giving them the ability to save on of their possessions.

Veins of Glass

By turning the veins of their target into glass the sorcerer can render them quite immovable, and in addition any hit might break the glass, causing double damage. It can either affect one target for a number of rounds equal to the level of the sorcerer, or a number of targets equal to half the level of the sorcerer (round down) for a number of rounds equal to half the level of the sorcerer (round up).

Rose Clouds Of Holocaust

By biting into their lip, and then blowing the blood into the air so that the blood becomes aerosoled, the sorcerer can form a opaque cloud covering an area up to 4m in diameter per level. All beings caught within the vapor cannot see beyond half a meter. The cloud lasts two rounds per level, or until a it is blown away.

Sheep for a Lifetime or Lion for a Day

The sorcerer turn people into either sheep (failing each moral test) or lions (passing each moral test). One target can be effected per level, but the sorcerer need to touch the target for the spell to have any effect. The effect last for a day and a night.

Song Of The Flower

If the sorcerer sing to a plant it will listen, and answer back in the same way. Non- sentient plants are generally cooperative and can even bend and likewise move upon command.

The Angels Of Ashes

One third of the Angels remained loyal, one third rebelled and one third stood by doing nothing. This spell lets the sorcerer summon one of these “neutral” angels. The angel is invisible and immaterial but can still apply force to the environment. It can push stuff, lift things etc, if you need attributes for the angel it is the same as the level of the spell. But it will under no circumstance take a side in a conflict between any sentient or even semi-sentient creatures, and it never does a truly good or evil deed. The Angel remains at your service for 3 turns per level.

The Body Speaks In Tongues

By turning off the higher language functions the sorcerer can become fluid in body language, allowing the sorcerer to communicate fluidly with another individual within the range of sight. Both the sorcerer and the individual must be able to move all the limbs of their body, and see each others body.

The Cloud of Unknowing

The sorcerer blows out a cloud black of black smoke covering an area up to 4m in diameter per level. Everyone who inhales the smoke loses all episodic memory. Make a Might test to avoid inhaling.

Under Rotting Sky

For a subject of this spell, the world turns into a decaying nightmare, even the sky seems to be rotting. This causes an uncontrollable vomiting, rendering the subject busy for the duration, which is one round per level. For the spell to work the subject need to have some sense of smell and a digestive system.

13 Years Of Carrion

This spell causes all food within 10 meters to rot. It causes the spontaneous generation of vermin, worms and maggots. Water turns bad. Anything holy becomes unsacred.  If performed on food that already have gone bad, it is instead made eatable by causing the degeneration of bacteria. This does not make the food more appetizing though.

Arcardian Sunset: Magic Schools

The basis for my magic system is Wonder and Wickedness, so I'm going to use all the Magic Schools from that and all the spells. But I also wants to use the spells from Vaginas are Magic and Eldrich Cock, and some of the spells from Marvels and Malaises, not to mention some of my own, so I had to expand. To start with I included four of the schools from MM, I left out Cunning Craft because it felt a bit generic and Rope Tricks because it really doesn't fit the mood I intend for magic. I expanded each of these ten schools from eight to ten spells, and filled them with spells from VM and EC. I had a move some of the spells to make them fit (especially Necromancy become really crowded.)

New School

And finally I created four new schools: Blood Sorcery, Atrophism, The Power Cosmic, Yab-Yum. These where designed based on commonalities of the VM and EC spells.

• Blood Sorcery deals with blood, gore, vampirism, darkness and similar stuff.
• Atrophism is the magic of decay and chaos
• The Power Cosmic is weird shit. This is the realm of meta-magic, world breaking spells and also astronomical phenomena like planets and meteors. 
• Yam-Yub finally is the magic of sex, ie what is between your leg. It involves cock magic and vagina magic, and a fair bit that can be practiced by both of the sexes.

The schools are listed in an approximate order of weirdness. So if you want to randomly chose a school you might want the method to be biased towards those in the beginning. I have been thinking something like:

Roll d20:

1-2 Psychomancy
3-4 Elementalism
5-6 Translocation
7-8 Spiritualism
9-10 Physiurgy
11-12 Apotropaism
13 Vivimancy
14 Diabolism
15 Necromancy
16 Arachnomorphosis
17 Blood Sorcery
18 Atrophism
19 The Power Cosmic
20 Yab-Yum

Spell List

And finally the schools and their spells:

Psychomancy

1. Bewitch^(WW)
2. Comprehension^(WW)
3. Dominate^(WW)
4. Dread Manifestation^(WW)
5. Dust of the Sandman^(WW)
6. Fascinating Gaze^(WW)
7. Obsecration^(WW)
8. Plasmic Manipulation^(WW)
9. Venus Project^(EC)
10. You’re Just a Dream^(EC)

Elementalism

1. Chariot of Air^(WW)
2. Electric Grave^(EC)
3. Pyrokinesis^(WW)
4. Rockspeech^(WW)
5. Seduce Waters^(WW)
6. Spell of Subterranean Gullets^(WW)
7. Stormspeech^(WW)
8. Suicidal Winds^(VM)
9. Trapped Lightning^(WW)
10. Wind Barrier^(WW)

Translocation

1. Anywhere Out of This World^(EC)
2. Evacuation Code Deciphered^(EC)
3. Fold Space^(WW)
4. Living Gate^(WW)
5. Mirror Road^(WW)
6. Portal^(WW)
7. Recall^(WW)
8. Revisitation^(WW)
9. Spatial Coincidence^(WW)
10. Transmit Breath^(WW)

Spiritualism

1. Astral Projection^(WW)
2. Conduit^(WW)
3. Ethereal Boundary^(WW)
4. Plasmic Key^(WW)
5. Poltergeist^{(WW) (moved from Necromancy)}
6. Reality Shift^(WW)
7. Robe of Ectoplasm^(EC)
8. Second Sight^(WW)
9. Shroud^(WW)
10. Triumph of Death^(VM)

Physiurgy

1. Aura of Renewal^(MM)
2. Cure^(MM)
3. Wilson's Orange Draining^(MM)
4. Death Unto Life^(MM)
5. Salvation^(MM)
6. Milk & Honey^(MM)
7. Salvific Apport^(MM)
8. Killing Yourself to Live^(VM)
9. Last Oath^(MM)
10. Life Channel^{(WW) (moved from Necromancy)}

Apotropaism

1. Amulet of the Open Hand^(MM)
2. Deliver from Malison^(MM)
3. Seal of the Wonder Worker King^(MM)
4. Seal of Retribution^(MM)
5. Heka-Mirror^(MM)
6. Scapegoat^(MM)
7. Writ of the Otherworld^(MM)
8. Rite of the Seventh Day^(MM)
9. Hekaphage^{(WW) (moved from Spiritualism)}
10. Once Upon A Time^(AS)

Vivimancy

1. Bloodlust^(MM)
2. Genoplasm^(MM)
3. Indolence^(MM)
4. Quickening^(MM)
5. Ravening^(MM)
6. Serpent's Kiss^(MM)
7. Sheep for a Lifetime or Lion for a Day^(AS)
8. The Body Speaks In Tongues^(AS)
9. Totem^(MM)
10. Vitalize^(MM)

Diabolism

1. Bind^(WW)
2. Circle of Protection^(WW)
3. Conjure^(WW)
4. Covenant^(WW)
5. Demonic Assassin^(WW)
6. Gleam^(WW)
7. Miasma^(WW)
8. Occult Consultation^{(WW) (moved from Necromancy)}
9. Petition^(WW)
10. The Angels Of Ashes^(AS)

Necromancy

1. Baptised by the Black Urine of the Deceased^(EC)
2. Death Ray ^(WW)
3. Deathlike Silence^(VM)
4. Lich-Craft^(WW)
5. Necromantical Screams^(VM)
6. Raise the Dead^(VM)
7. Sepulchral Voice^(VM)
8. Soul Harvest^(WW)
9. Soul Transfer^(WW)
10. Transmigration^(WW)

Arachnomorphosis

1. Arachnid Aspect^(MM)
2. Arachnid Allure^(MM)
3. Call the Cluster^(MM)
4. Dark Wood Too Awakes^(AS)
5. Silky Spinneret^(MM)
6. Song of the Flower^(AS)
7. Spidershape^(MM)
8. Tarantella^(MM)
9. Venomous Fang^(MM)
10. Web^(MM)

Blood Sorcery

1. Blood and Wine^(AS)
2. Curses Scribed in Gore^(EC)
3. Daylight Torn^(EC)
4. Masquerade in Red^(EC)
5. Mistress of the Bleeding Sorrow^(VM)
6. Rose Clouds Of Holocaust^(AS)
7. Storming Through Red Clouds and Holocaust Winds^(VM)
8. Those of the Unlight^(VM)
9. Transylvanian Hunger^(VM)
10. Veins of Glass^(AS)

Atrophism

1. Arguments Against Design^(EC)
2. An Autumn to Cripple Children^(EC)
3. Chaosgoat Law^(VM)
4. Funeral Fog^(VM)
5. Omnipotent Crawling Chaos^(EC)
6. Morbid Metal^(VM)
7. The Cloud of Unknowing^(AS)
8. Transform All Suffering into Plagues^(VM)
9. Under Rotting Sky^(AS)
10. 13 Years Of Carrion^(AS)

The Power Cosmic

1. A Blaze in the Northern Sky^(VM)
2. All Alone In Her Nirvana^(AS)
3. Chewing Through the Membranes of Time and Space^(EC)
4. Graveyard of the Lightless Planets^(EC)
5. I am the Black Wizards^(VM)
6. My Journey to the Stars^(VM)
7. Saturn and Sacrifice^(EC)
8. The Planet that Once Used to Absorb Flesh in Order to Achieve Divinity and Immortality^(EC)
9. The Voyagers Beneath the Mare Imbrium^(EC)
10. Those Who Dwell in Stellar Void^(EC)

Yab-Yum

1. Goat Perversion^{‡ (VM)}
2. God's Golden Sperm^{† (AS)}
3. Into the Crypts of Rays* ^(VM)
4. Into the Menstrual Night I Go ^‡(AS)
5. Lunar Womb^{† (EC)}
6. Mirror Mirror^{‡ (AS)}
7. Nekrotastic Extasy^(AS)
8. Ode to the beloved and impaired^(AS)
9. The Thrash of Naked Limbs^(EC)
10. Volcanic Slut* ^(VM)

* Only performable by people with a vagina.
† Only performable by people with a penis.
‡ Might change your genitalia, allowing you to cast a spell you normally wouldn’t be able to cast.

WW. Wonder and Wickedness
MM. Marvels and Malaises

VM. Vaginas are Magic
EC. Eldritch Cock
AS. Arcadian Sunset

Arcadian Sunset: Magic

One of the things that really turned me on on OSR and LotFP was Vaginas Are Magic. This is an alternative magic system to LotFP.  Its a collection of 20 spells, and descriptions of what can happen when they go wrong. I then discovered that VaM is based on another supplement, Wonder and Wickedness. WoW doesn't have as outrageous spells as VaM, but that might be for the best. Variation and all that.

So it was an easy decision to use a magic system similar to those two.

In particular this means that it is a sort of Vancian system. Similar to that of D&D, but a bit simpler, and a bit more complex. Spells are not divided by level. You can memorize one spell per level. You can't memorize a spell unto multiple spell slots. (I don't want people to use the same spell all the time.) The more complex part is that spells can go wrong, for example if something disturbs the sorcerer during casting. In that case you are allowed to do a will check to force the spell to behave. If that fails, the miscast effect will apply. In VaM each spell have six unique miscasts, and six general, while in WoW, each spell belongs to a magic school and each school has 12 miscast effects specific for that school. I will mostly go with the WoW approach, although the spells taken from VaM (and Eldritch Cock) will of course use their individual miscasts.

Thematically I wan't to go back to more to the sources of vancian magic (which would be Jack Vance Dying Earth). This means that spells are sentient beings. Magic spirits with a will of their own. You don't prepare spells. You memorize them, making them temporarily leave their books and enter your mind. Miscasts then means that the spell is let out and out of your control.

The player characters in Arcadian Sunset are generally going to learn new spells in spell books they find. These spell books are going to be themed in the sense that all spells will belong to the same school. I plan to make a deck of cards with the spells for each school, so that I can randomize their content and never have the same spell show up twice. It will also we be really nice to just be able to hand out the cards to the players to read.

To learn a spell will require a Wits check. This one will be a sort of special check, in that I wouldn't want people to simply repeat the check until they succeeded. So instead what you would do is that every time you fail to learn a spell you write down the name of the spell on your sheet, your result, and how much advantage you had. If you then later raises your Wits to that level, you can learn the spell. Also if you get more advantage on the roll, you can reroll, and replace the written value. So learning spells is a bit complex, but I think it is needed to make it work out.

Things that would give you advantage on the learning roll would include already knowing a spell of the same school. Taking a lot of time (1 week) to study the text.

Likewise you can learn a spell from a person that knows it. But spells are semi-sentient memetic beings, they can only live in one place at a time, so if you teach someone a spell you will also forget it. Likewise if you learn a spell from a spell book it disappears from the book. And if you write it down you will forget it. You can cast spells directly from your spellbook but this will require a will save. It might even be possible to use a spell that you only have a vague memory of, but this would be at a disadvantage. At least.

Arcadian Sunset: Attributes

I think the trigger for designing my own system was reading through Lamentations of the Flame Princess and realizing that the attributes that you roll, actually never are used in the game. Their only purpose is to look up modifiers in a table and after that you simply use the modifiers.

This offended me in two ways. First, there are easier ways to just generate the modifiers such as rolling three fudge dice and add them together. Second, rolling under your attribute is a very clean mechanic, and before reading through the game I assumed you would want to do that.

But beyond how they are used, the attributes in by D&D doesn't make much sense to me. I decided on using four attributes, Physique (which includes strength and constitution), Dexterity, Wits (which includes intelligence, charisma and wisdom) and Willpower.

These forms a sort of a square with the attributes being divided on two axes: Phys and Dex being physical, and Wits and Will being mental, but also by Phys and Will being sort of brute force, pushing through, and Dex and Wits being more of finesse. Sort of like in Chronicles of Darkness, but simpler.

The mechanics for testing character (as opposed to player) skill will then be to roll under one of these four attributes on a d20. This can be used as saves (i.e. a second chance), or for situations where there just isn't any good way to reason it out.

The standard way to implement warring difficulties for this system would be to have various bonuses and/or penalties to your roll or stat. But I don't like that. It seems to get to finicky. To much math. Now some simple addition and subtraction isn't hard, but it is a tax on mental resources that I would prefer to spend elsewhere. Also, a +1 on a d20 roll is just to little to care about. I guess one counter argument is that I don't have to have a scale of 1 to 20, I could reduce it to 1 to 10, and have a +1 bonus mean twice as much.

And that is actually a good argument. I have to say, how to do rolls is a subject I'm not 100% about. It might change. But what I'm currently leaning towards is to use advantage and disadvantage. I hear this mechanic comes from D&D 5, but I haven't actually read those rules so they may or may not be the same as what I'm thinking about. What I mean is that with advantage you roll two dice and choice the best, with disadvantage you roll two dice, and the GM chooses the one that is worst for you. For me I would add that you could have double or even triple (dis)advantage as well. Although after that I think simply having actions auto succeed/fail is better. And of course a disadvantage and an advantage cancels each other out.

I think this system has a number of advantages. The bonuses and penalties are large enough that I don't have to think about how many points of bonus to give. It will practically always be just one. But it still allows for more incremental improvements of the character attributes. Another positive is that it forces me as a GM to tally up all the bonuses and penalties before the roll. (I think I have a tendency to just wing it afterwards, which makes me susceptible to anchoring effects.)

It has some negative points as well. The effect of an advantage becomes bigger the higher attributes you have. And vice versa with disadvantages. If someone reaches 20 in an attribute, they can do anything, no matter the difficulty. And if you have a bunch of effects giving advantage, and a bunch giving disadvantage, there is going to be some counting anyhow. It might also be confusing to have many dices be bad sometimes and good sometimes.

I think I will have to test it out to see how it works.

Another point where I want to question the D&D norm is on the mean value of the attributes. Rolling 3d6 creates values with an average of 10.5, straight on the middle of the range from 1 to 20. This has two effects. First an average character has 50% to succeed at an action of normal difficulty. That might intuitively seem correct, but it is really arbitrary. Also, if you ,like LotFP, never actually roll under the attribute, this point is void. The second effect is that there is just as much space devoted to being worse than average as to being better than average. This sounds really weird for a game about slowly gaining power and working yourself up in society. And in practice you see this. If you look at the rolls actually made in LotFP (saves and skills) you start of with less than 50% chance to succeed.

Actually this is a combination of two issues, both what should the average success chans for a skill roll be for the average citizen of the game world, and how powerful should starting player characters be. I think there is a tendency to view starting player characters as somewhat average for the world, as that is the the kind of beings you see most of the time, even if that is not intended by the game. I don't for example think Arneson imagined that every cleric in Blackmore could cause miracles to happen, it just so happen that player characters who are clerics are some rather exceptional clerics. And likewise, that player characters on average has strength 10.5 shouldn't be read as implying that the average human has strength 10.5. Or at least that isn't necessarily so.

So the average starting values will be less than 10. I'm thinking somewhere around 5-7. So take that value (perhaps 6?) and add a number (4?) of fudge dice, and you get a nice normal distribution of values stretching from 2 to 10. This will leave people plenty of space to raise the attributes without hitting the godlike levels of 20.

Also I will not have separate save or skill values. Four attributes is enough dammit.

Arcadian Sunset: Inspiration

The idea for this campaign came to me during Gothcon 2018 (The biggest rpg convention in Sweden). I was running a Kult scenario at the convention, so I was reading that. I was also at the time starting to get into OSR, and read various LotFP scenarios. Now both Kult and LotFP describe themselves as horror rpgs, but despite this these scenarios couldn't have been more different.

The Kult scenario, like most Swedish convention scenarios included a number of player characters with their dark secrets, as well as a list of scenes to go through and some npcs. The OSR scenarios on the other hand say nothing about the pc's or what scenes can take place. Instead it describes places and npc's. So apart from describing npc's, these scenarios don't even touch each other.

They don't even contradict each other, as they just don't talk about the same things. You could possibly even combine two scenarios, taking the characters from one and the places from the other and populate by npc's from both.

So this is what I intend to do, more or less. I won't combine two existing scenarios, but instead I will write a new one, but with the components you would see in both. Except perhaps the list of scenes.

When asked what characterize OSR one often answer is that it is about exploring environment rather than exploring characters. So in that sense I am investigating a synthesis here in exploring both.

Another inspiration for doing this hybridization was the novel Ringworld, which I also read in past year. It is a story about four people going on an expedition to an ancient ruin, so in that way it is really in the old school style. But exploring the ruin is only half the story, the other half being the exploration of the characters themselves, their secrets and their revelations.

But it should be noted here that its about exploring the characters, rather than expressing the characters.

I'm thinking here about a thing that I have come to dislike about the trad style. That far to often, players make characters by themselves, and then the party consists of a bunch of individuals without any meaningful connection to each other. This often translates to an rpg experience where the different players take turns expressing their character, rather than having a meaningful interaction with the other players.

This can be remedied somewhat by having the players meet up and discuss their characters relations before having them make the characters, but people tend to have a picture of what they want to play before that point anyway. And especially if you as a player is familiar with the system and/or setting, it is hard to not think of potential characters ahead of time.

Both OSR and the convention scenarios do away with problem, but in different ways. In the old school style, your stats are mostly randomized and the actual character is developed during play. Other method is to have the GM create characters. I'm very partial to this, as it allows for some really interesting asymmetric relationships, that aren't initially apparent.

A potential problem in combining character driven story with OSR is the high lethality of the later. In the Kult scenario I run, all of the story was really about the character, and driven by their dark secrets. In particular one of the characters dark secret. If that character had died the scenario would basically have been over.

This isn't an acceptable situation for any old school gaming. The story should be able to go on, potentially even if all pc's die. I have  thought about two ways to combat this. First, simply have redundancy. This means having far more pregenerated characters than you have players, and also don't hinge anything about a specific character. The other way I'm going to use is to allow every character that dies, to somehow convey their dark secret. Either with their dying breath, or perhaps with a not left behind.

OD&D and Tactical Transparency

One of the cornerstones of OSR is tactical transparency, or system agnostic challenge. Or as I like to state it: The players shouldn't need to know the rules to overcome their challenges. This is something that tends to make OSR the opposite of indie storygames, which are neither challenge based nor system agnostic. Storygames tend to use meta techniques to promote good storytelling (Such as bonus dies you can use when you really want to succeed with a roll). This is anathema to tactical transparency as the meta techniques are, well meta, and therefor not something that the character is aware of. So to use them strategically you need an outside perspective rather than looking at it from the perspective of your character. This isn't a problem for a storygame as you simply don't need to apply strategy.

Another thing that is popular in OSR is the original Dungeons and Dragons rules, and the early adaptions of these. But the thing is that they do include some meta techniques, foremost experience points, and secondary hit points.

It is often claimed that the point where D&D jumped the shark and left old school territory was when the primary source of XP became killing monsters rather than finding gold. I don't disagree, but I think we need to realize that XP is a meta currency. Your character is not aware of how XP is handed out in the system, or even that they exist. XP exists in the game as an additional motivation. It promotes a certain kind of story telling. I think one of the reasons XP for gold rather than XP for killing fits better into the OSR style is that gathering gold is a reasonable objective no matter if you get XP for it, while killing monsters, is more debatable. Strategies like "we need to find an additional 5000GP so I can level up enough to cast a resurrection spell", is certainly not system agnostic, but they are a consequence of how XP and leveling works in D&D.

The other part is hit points. These are not as meta as XP but I still think they are worth discussing. Discussions about what hit points actually represents in D&D, seems to be something that crops up periodically, and everybody have their own opinion. Most seem to agree that it is not simply how physically damaged your body is, at least not on higher levels. A level ten barbarian being able to take multiple ax wounds to the face seems to be ridiculous to most, even though it feels like people accept it more and more after having played computer games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy there you literally whittle down on the enemies hit points, getting in hit after hit. So in practice it seems to work like some kind of meta currency that you spend to avoid getting hurt? In any case it doesn't seem to line up very well with how our universe works, and leads to rather system specific solutions, like ignoring certain threats because you know you have hit points to spare.

You can see this in other early rpgs such as BRP that they tried to get away with the more abstract parts of D&D as these didn't facilitate tactical transparency. Unfortunately this tended to result in a lot of bloat, and more complicated systems, rewarding system mastery above system agnostic competence.

I would hope this is something that the OSR community could work on. To hold fast to our principles and question if and how our traditional mechanics support them, or oppose them. To continue the spirit of the early roleplaying games, while still questioning their methods.

The Analects of the Third Garden: The Trinity

I should perhaps mention my other big work. The Analects of the Third Garden is a supplement for Vampire the Masquerade that I published on Storytellers Vault about a year ago. It is supposed to be an in-universe collection of texts from a lost cult of vampires dedicated to Lilith and practicing Abyss Mysticism. It all started with a larp over ten years ago, where I thought about playing an abyss mystic. I thought that there wasn't enough written about it, and while Vampire do have a number in-universe texts such as The Book of Nod or Revelations of the Dark Mother, I never thought that they felt like the old tomes of lore that I envisioned.

So I sat out to write my own. I soon made the discovery that White Wolf never made enough material for Abyss Mysticism to fill a whole book (It is mostly just a collection of powers, and rather lacking in moral outlooks and such). I guess I could have used my own imagination, but I'm lazy and my imagination needs a starting point, so I decided to fill out this lack by mashing in other ideas. Primarily the Bahari cult, and Kabbalah. Now if you don't know, the bahari are vampires (and others) worshiping Lilith as the first vampire, opposing Caine and believing that all true knowledge comes from suffering.

At this point the project came to a halt and lay resting for many years, until I on a whim started it up again and like, started actually writing on it. It quickly expanded and shifted focus. The bahari stuff gradually took over the project. The kabbalah became mostly an influence on the style of the work rather than the content. The abyss stuff is still there, but honestly, if I would do it all over I would probably have replaced it with necromancy, and tied it in with the Lamia bloodline. I might actually do that some day, but don't hold your breath.

So why did I combine these three? well, mostly I just liked them, knew about them and saw that they fit different purposes for the work. The bahari, have a strong ethic, and every cult need that. The abyss mysticism have secret powers, which also is nice for making a cult interesting. The bahari tend to talk a lot about secret knowledge, but there is grave lack of examples of this secret knowledge. And finally kabbalah have the advantage of existing in real life, being hundreds of years old, and thereby existing in copious amounts in the public domain. (Later a fair amount of Wicca and Gnosticism was used for these parts as well.)

But there are also reasons that they fit well together. The abyss mystics is described by white wolf as reclusive scholars sitting in their chambers studying and writing letters to each others, and only reluctantly sharing their wisdom with their communities. It reminded me very much of how kabbalists relate to the wider Jewish community, or at least the stereotype of them. Kabbalah and Bahari goes even better together. Nearly everything about Lilith actually comes from Kabbalah. I have to admit that I wasn't really aware of this when I first started this project.

The meta history of the Bahari, or rather the Path of Lilith in Vampire is actually rather interesting. It started with The Dirty Secrets of The Black Hand, that introduced the True Black Hand, a super secret organization, consisting of various groups of vampires that where more or less inversions of other bigger groups. You had the emotionless True Brujah, that was the opposite of the regular overemotional Brujah. The Old Clan Tzimize who despised the use of Vicissitude. And finally you had the followers of the Path of Lilith, who being the opposite of the Nodists (the followers of the Path of Caine) instead venerated the enemy of Caine, Lilith. (According to the Book of Nod).

This version of the path wasn't that interesting, as it was mostly a copy of the Path of Caine, with Lilith substituted for Caine. The point where the path turned interesting was with The Revelation of the Dark Mother. This was WW's second in universe publication and dealt specifically with Bahari, in fact I believe it was the book that introduced the term. It positioned Lilith as the true creator of not only vampires but possibly werewolf's and mages as well. It created the central tenet of pain leading to wisdom. This has been reflected in every incarnation since then.

What people might not know is that much of the story of Lilith in Revelations is taken from The Alphabet of Ben Sira, a central work of Kabbalah, of course with the inversion of Lilith not being totally evil (But also not exactly good). Not much is needed for this inversion though as our sense of good and evil have evolved a far bit in the 1000 years since the Alphabet was written.

So, eh that is why combining Kabbalah, Bahari and Abyss Mysticism works great. With this clear I started scouring WW books for any information that could be used, as well as public domain works, like the Zohar, but also Abramelin the Mage, Gardner's Book of Shadow, The Poetic Edda, The Gilgamesh Epos. etc. I also used a big deal of influence from the Circle of the Crone in Vampire: The Requiem. They are clearly based on Bahari, but expanded, and honestly a bit more generic. None the less, a great source of ideas for Bahari.

I mixed this all together, and out came the Analects after a lot of work. It was a really interesting journey. In many ways it didn't feel like writing a story, but more like working as a historian, trying to figure out what actually happened. One amazing insight was that there was a pattern to the story. It's a generational story about children rebelling against their parents, and the parent going into exile. This exchange is actually repeated six times, which I certainly hadn't planed when I started.