Non-binary Neutral Cleric Lay On Hands

As a Cleric in DCC, your Lay on Hands effectiveness is dictated in large part by your Alignment vs the Alignment of the recipient. It's one of the few times Alignment is mechanically relevant, and I'm a fan of it. I'm also a big fan of the many-faceted Neutral Alignment, which for the most part misses out on this mechanic. Nobody is opposed to Neutral, meaning Neutral Clerics are at least moderately effective at healing literally anyone. Not only that, but Disapproval does not occur when healing any Alignment, which is the most mechanically significant part of a Cleric's relationship with their God.

This also means that Neutral Cleric is objectively the best choice - objectively better character options being something I've mentioned I am not a fan of before. You can heal anyone and there are only two possible match-ups, the results of which amount to "good" or "great". The "bad" possibility is just gone.

Neutral Clerics still have the ability to Turn Unholy, so there must be beings out there that are opposed to your God. This should be true for any God that stands for literally anything - hell, even if they don't. The truest of Neutral characters will still have enemies.

"What makes a man turn Neutral?"

I'm not really breaking any ground here, but I would suggest that Neutral Clerics still have to treat characters as Opposed Alignment if they are someone their God would consider sinful, or that person's actions are antithetical to their God's goals. A druidic Cleric of nature can, by the book, Turn Unholy against demons; that alone makes a lot of Wizards troublesome to deal with even if the Wizard is Lawful or Neutral. Would your God who turns demons want you to aid someone who bargains with a demon prince?

It's essentially the same philosophy espoused on p. 108 of the core book, where the author suggests discouraging Clerics from attempting to heal spellburn damage.

A Cleric might find their God sending an omen of disapproval after healing a passing traveler with a wound they refuse to talk about. This could be the hint that leads to the discovery that the man was in fact a werecreature, recently out of a run-in with a therianthrope hunter.

Your Cleric and Wizard could find themselves at odds once the Wizard starts delving into necromancy - while there may have been no qualms with the Patron, undeath is too great a sin for your God to simply ignore.

If your Turn Unholy includes animals or monstrous creatures as the rules suggest, this might stretch so far as to include animal-folk or races considered "monstrous" like orcs.

Just try to play up the relationship with their God and the required devotion to their goals. After all, without them a Cleric is nothing, and I think the Cleric-deity dynamic is what makes an interesting Cleric. Disapproval as a mechanic is a strong motivator and a great story engine while not actually being overly punishing most of the time.

Aussie Monsters: The Bunyip

A version of the bunyip for D&D has existed since the Fiend Folio was published in 1981. This is not that bunyip. If you want that bunyip, Daniel J Bishop did a fantastic job of converting it for DCC.

Instead, I went seeking inspiration in fairytales of old and early accounts of bunyips.

As depicted in Andrew Lang's (problematically-titled) The Brown Fairy Book (1904).

In Australian Folklore

Accounts vary wildly, and it seems that the only thing people can agree on is that it's some kind of water-dwelling monster and it'll get you if you're not careful. It's commonly described as seal-like, but it has also been described as like a great starfish, an immense platypus, and many now believe it may have been a diprotodon (prehistoric giant wombats - we have fossils of these!).

I personally believe that the deep, growling mating call of the koala helped inspire these stories of swamp monsters. Go listen to it and tell me that doesn't sound like a lurking beast!

One account I found particularly interesting was this description from an article published in 1845:

The Bunyip, then, is represented as uniting the characteristics of a bird and of an alligator. It has a head resembling an emu, with a long bill, at the extremity of which is a transverse projection on each side, with serrated edges like the bone of the stingray. Its body and legs partake of the nature of the alligator. The hind legs are remarkably thick and strong, and the fore legs are much longer, but still of great strength.

Along with the account of this particular bunyip having killed a woman and the man claiming his scars were from a bunyip, this one kind of sounds like a cassowary... Well, until you count the number of legs, I guess. And indeed, some believe that "bunyip" may have been an ancient word for the cassowary bird, infamous for its powerful kicks and aggressive nature.

We may never know what a bunyip looks like, though every Australian has heard of them. Many of us have even seen Bertha down by the Murray River, but as it happens, she might actually be a mulyewonk.

The mulyewonk might also be a kind of bunyip, but the origins of both are murky as the waters they lurk.

The bunyip from the tale in The Brown Fairy Book sets a curse upon a tribe after their hunters catch its cub while fishing and refuse to return it. The "mother bear" trope is something I previously hadn't ever ascribed to the bunyip, so I found it quite interesting to see here. I decided to lean into that. Everything contained within the stat blocks below is inspired by this particular tale.

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Bunyip

The bunyip is a swamp-dwelling beast resembling a gigantic hairy seal with a wide bill. It walks upon four stout legs but rarely leaves the water, where it is fastest and can hide easily. They are most often found solitary, potentially with 1-3 cubs, but in rare cases have been known to travel in mating pairs. Its cubs are the size of a large dog and can grow as large as a hippopotamus. They are of low intelligence but are able to curse those who threaten their young.

They are ambush predators and wait in the shallows for unsuspecting mammals to come close. They do not usually attack humans, though male bunyips they have been known to target those carrying valuable treasures. It is unclear why they want these treasures, though collected hoards can be found in the underwater den of the mother bunyip.

Bunyip, adult

Initiative: +4
Attack: bite +6 melee (2d6) or kick +4 melee (1d6, knocks prone)
AC: 17; HD: 5d8 (22 HP);
Movement: 20', swim 90'; Action Dice: 2d20;
Special: curse of the bunyip, camouflage, inedible
Alignment: Neutral;
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +2, Will +6;

Curse of the Bunyip: A mother bunyip can issue a curse as an attack action, and will only do so toward those she believes have threatened or harmed her offspring. The target receives a DC 16 Will save to resist the curse. The curse is detailed below.

Camouflage: All bunyips receive +10 to attempts to hide in water or mud.

Inedible: Their meat is too tough to physically eat, and too foul to even try.

Bunyip, cub

Initiative: +0

Attack: bite +0 melee (1d6)

AC: 13; HD: 2d8 (10 HP);

Movement: 20', swim 60'; Action Dice: 1d20;

Special: easily lured, mama bunyip, camouflage, inedible

Alignment: Neutral;

Saves: Fort +4, Ref -1, Will -1;

Easily lured: The bunyip cub is naive and can easily be attracted with a piece of meat. It will not suspect danger. A successful strength contest against a STR of 16 (+2) can reel it in with a fishing line.

Mama bunyip: The cub never strays far from its mother. When encountering a cub, a fully grown bunyip is always nearby and ready to protect her offspring. The cub will, where possible, try to simply hide behind its mother.

Camouflage: All bunyips receive +10 to attempts to hide in water or mud.

Inedible: Their meat is too tough to physically eat, and too foul to even try.

Curse of the Bunyip

The curse of the bunyip is invoked by the harrowing wails of a mother who fears for her child.

This curse carries a -2 Luck penalty and causes black feathers to sprout all over the target's body over the course of a few hours. Their new strange appearance is off-putting to anyone they interact with - either express this through roleplay or apply a -1d penalty if social checks are used. Someone afflicted by this curse finds muddy water seeping up from the soil around them, enough to wet the ground or form small puddles if they stand in a ditch. The water is clearly not safe to drink and prevents getting a good night's sleep while camping.

The curse can be remedied by reuniting a mother and child, or by removing the most beautiful treasure from the bunyip's submerged lair.

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The bunyip and inland seal archive of Australia | ABC Pool

Find something on 19 Sided Die

This post is for keeping things organized and findable. Not all posts will be listed here, but I'll try to keep it up to date with major ones and anything that falls into any of the content categories.

DCC

Classes

Class Discussion

Do We Really Need [more classes in general]?

Do We Really Need [Barbarians, Bards, Rangers]?

Homebrew Classes

The Great Divide - Splitting Race and Class

Ranger

Dragon

Monsters

Bunyip

6 Kinds of Dark

6 more Kinds of Dark

Fleshbones

Primal Servants of Neutrality

Miscellaneous Homebrew Content

Elder Scrolls Flavoured Birth Augurs

d100 Crimes you may have Committed

Houserules

Mighty Deeds for Non-Mighty Folk

The Non-binary Series

Non-binary Skill Training (Dice Chain Competence)
Non-binary Alignment

Non-binary Spell Training

Non-binary Neutral Cleric Lay On Hands

Handy Tables

Bizarre Mishaps for Zero Luck

Extended Ability Score Modifiers

Quest For It - Ability Score Increases

Non-binary Spell Training

Applying the principles of Dice Chain Competence to known spells.

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When a 0-level gongfarmer successfully goes out on his first adventure and decides to level up into a Wizard, he inexplicably learns 4 spells he wasn't able to use during that very same adventure. This raises a few questions.

When my campaign was beginning I was looking for ways to make this more narratively sensible, and at first I landed on having the PC research these spells in the way described in the book - a week spent on the task and an INT roll. This made more sense, but it's a lot of downtime to have after the very first adventure when they have leads to follow up on. They left town only knowing a couple of the spells they're supposed to have at their disposal, and it's several sessions before they have the downtime to research again.

By this point I had already established the Dice Chain Competence system of skill advancement so it only made sense to use it here to smooth the gaps out too. It's also way more fun to have that diegetic mid-session advancement where the players actively practice their spells as part of the adventure rather than just saying they do it while they're in town.

Here's how we do it: Upon gaining your known spells at level 1, mark "d12" next to each of them to signify your skill level. After successfully casting a spell (while under stress), go up a rung on the dice chain for that specific spell. That's it.

The standard way I handle skills involves an INT check to see whether you learn anything from your successful attempt. Spells are an exception to this, for a couple of reasons. You're already checking INT in your casting of the spell. The die used measures not just intellectual skill, but perhaps a bond with an unseen otherworldly entity or a corrupt arcane affinity for the spell's use. They're already something not all people can do anyway, so to be casting them you need to be in the "can cast" category. Spellcasting was already determined to be an exception to the rule, mostly due to Thieves' Cast from Scroll.

I think those reasons all help to justify it but the real truth is that I just felt like forcing an INT check to advance in a spell that the caster probably already had to spellburn to use was a little rough when, as per RAW, they should already have just been given the spell. It makes the process of learning a spell during play a bit more adventure-sized.

We haven't been using this system for Clerics because their spells are granted, not learned. That being said, you could absolutely start a Cleric with a d12 for casting in general (as opposed to specific spells) to smooth out the transition between a 0-level nobody with zero magic and God's Chosen handing out miracles like candy.

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Full mechanical details:

Spells a Wizard "discovers" through level-up begin at a d12 "skill level" and go up the dice chain after they are successfully cast.

Each level, the starting die of new spells goes up +1d. Level 2 Wizards learn spells at d14 and so on. 

Each higher level the spell, -1d to the starting die. Spell levels go up slower than Wizard levels, so high level Wizards still learn spells faster than low level ones.

Here's a matrix for those who prefer tables over formulae:

	Wizard Level
Spell Lvl↓	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	d12	d14	d16	d20	d20	d20	d20	d20	d20	d20
2	-	-	d14	d16	d20	d20	d20	d20	d20	d20
3	-	-	-	-	d16	d20	d20	d20	d20	d20
4	-	-	-	-	-	-	d20	d20	d20	d20
5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	d20	d20

You can still use the standard week of downtime with an INT check to study a spell and make it a d20. Spells learned through means other than level-up generally also just get the full d20.

Playable Dragon Class for DCC

When I first published here at 19 Sided Die, I mentioned on reddit that one of my upcoming posts was something stupid but nobody could stop me doing it anyway. Months later, this is that post.

"There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top, i.e., a player wishing to be a Dragon would have to begin as, let us say, a 'young' one and progress upwards in the usual manner, steps being predetermined by the campaign referee." - Gary Gygax in Men & Magic (1974)

A'ight Gary, bet.

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Design Points

• Minimal balance - not zero balance, because the quote implies they should follow a journey of advancing power as any other character. I do hope for this to be somewhat playable but balance isn't a priority. It's a dragon, it's going to be strong.
• DCC's dragons are really cool so I'll use as much existing material from DCC as possible and make the class feel like it matches the monster. Unfortunately, this necessitates making them relatively complex by loading the class up with a bunch of abilities that they gain as they level. I generally don't like this style of class design for DCC, but that's basically how DCC's dragons work.
• It has to be an actual dragon. Dragonborn are an attempt to appease the player who wants to be a dragon without actually letting them be a dragon. We all know it's just not the same. This also precludes DCC's lowest level dragon, the pseudodragon.

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DRAGON

Art by my good friend, KittyBiscuits.

Dragons are powerful winged reptilian creatures, each unique and rare. Most dragons are covetous, prideful, and solitary. You are not one such dragon, having chosen to accompany a band of adventurers - though likely out of self-interest or necessity. Even as a small dragon, somewhere between the size of a horse and an elephant, it is nigh impossible to do this without attracting significant unwanted attention.

Hit Die: Dragons use a d12 for their Hit Dice.

Movement: 30'. Dragons with wings can fly.

Alignment: A dragon may be of any alignment, and in fact may have an alignment by its very nature instead of by choice.

Weapon Training: A dragon walks into a tavern and quickly notices that the glasses are not ergonomically designed for it to be able to drink from them. What I'm trying to say is, dragons aren't exactly out there using human-designed items. Instead, it has...

Natural Weapons: Using their Action Dice, a dragon can use the following attacks once per round each at the listed Levels:

Level	Weapon	Damage	Note
1+	Claw	1d8
2+	Bite	1d12
4+	2nd claw	1d8	Use claw attacks as two-weapon fighting with 16 AGI (one Action but both claws use -1d).
6+	Tail slap	1d20	If used between two movements (even across two Rounds), movements must be in different directions (at least 90°). Essentially, using this move requires turning.
8+	Wing buffet	2d12	Cannot move and use this attack in the same Round.
10	Crush	3d12	Using this attack forces you prone.

Breath Weapon: Per Table III on p. 407, except damage is d12+2*CL and the Saving Throw is modified by Luck. Using the breath weapon costs an Action Die and can be used a number of times daily equal to the dragon's Level divided by 3 (round up).

Luck: A dragon adds its Luck modifier to the DC of Saving Throws against its breath weapon(s).

Action Dice: A dragon can use its Action Dice for attacking, casting spells, or its breath weapon.

Martial and Unique Powers: At levels 4 and 8, dragons roll on the Martial Powers table and permanently gain the listed power.

At levels 3, 6, and 9, dragons roll on the Unique Powers table and permanently gain the listed power.

Magic: Dragons are able to cast spells as a Wizard, though they do not research them as humans do. Dragons gain only a handful of new spells as they mature rather than discovering them in nature or stealing them from grimoires. In fact, dragons are unable to cast-from-scroll as Wizards, and do not have access to Patron Bond/Invoke Patron. While it is technically possible for a dragon to gain a patron through other means, it would be highly unusual.

Each level up, consult the Dragon Class Table to find the level of the spell learned and determine the spell randomly.

Languages: Dragons can speak Draconic and Common, plus languages randomly determined by their INT modifier (as Wizard).

Lvl	Atk	Crit Die/Table	Action Dice	Spell Learned	Ref	Fort	Will
1	+1	1d4/DR	1d20	none	+0	+0	+0
2	+2	1d5/DR	1d20	Lvl 1	+1	+1	+1
3	+2	1d6/DR	1d20	none	+1	+1	+1
4	+3	1d8/DR	1d20	Lvl 1	+2	+2	+2
5	+4	1d10/DR	1d20+1d14	Lvl 2	+2	+2	+2
6	+5	1d12/DR	1d20+1d16	none	+3	+3	+3
7	+5	1d14/DR	1d20+1d20	Lvl 2	+3	+3	+3
8	+6	1d16/DR	1d20+1d20	Lvl 1	+4	+4	+4
9	+6	1d20/DR	1d20+1d20	none	+4	+4	+4
10	+7	1d24/DR	1d20+1d20+1d14	Lvl 3	+5	+5	+5

Level	Title
1	Whelp
2	Drake
3	Dragonling
4	Wyvern
5	Wyrmling

Fleshbones

Flesh to Stone's reversed counterpart, Stone to Flesh, is well known for being the cure to a Medusa attack. It's a very intelligent spell. It can look at the structures present in stone and infer that it used to be a creature, recreating that creature and all its organs, even preserving the mind and soul. This all seems to be mostly taken for granted but it's very impressive when you think about it.

Of course, any apprentice learning this spell begins to wonder about the effects of casting Stone to Flesh on actual stone - rocks that were never alive to begin with, inanimate objects and castle walls. The results are almost universally unpleasant as the spell attempts to reconstruct tissue, organs, and other functional structures where there were none to begin with. If it manages to create something alive then it won't live long, though there are some notable exceptions such as the Necrolith and Mortimer's Throbbing Castle.

The more material you give the spell to work with, the more it can achieve. On the flip side, the spell can also make good use of high levels of detail. A few talented gastronomancers have carved beautifully marbled steaks out of actual marble. Some particularly foolish mages have attempted to use the spell on carved statues to create an artificial human; the results of that are far worse than "unpleasant".

Bone really muddies the waters (don't get me started on Stone to Mud) when it comes to being made of stone or flesh, which I'm sure you can imagine is very confusing if you are a spell and your goal is to turn one into the other. Bones are made up of stuff you can find in rocks and crystals but they have a cellular structure like living flesh. Sometimes there's even a little bit of residual soul-stuff. And yet, there isn't the macro-structure a spell would usually study to recreate a functioning organism - no sinews, no muscles, no blood vessels, no nerves, no organs.

Flesh to Stone has the expected effect on skeletal remains: it turns them to stone. Stone to Flesh usually fails, but under the right circumstances - when all other organic matter is decomposed or removed and the bones are dry - the spell can mistake bone for stone. If a detectable amount of soul essence lingers, the spell might even take that as a sign that this was once a living organism that turned to stone. And to be fair, it isn't entirely wrong.

The way it tries to "reconstruct" this creature, however, is absolutely wrong.

Not finding any structures from which to reform muscles and organs, the spell can sometimes set to work on creating its own. The spell cannot add any matter, only convert what is there. The end result is a monstrosity that is superficially similar to the common necromantic skeleton found in tombs, in that it walks mindlessly and attacks intruders - yet this skeleton is entirely made of soft flesh, coated with skin and filled with blood as you'd expect from any fleshy creature. It can barely hold up its own weight.

The residual soul essence occupies the new body, so for all intents and purposes this is a true undead like any wight or ghoul.

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AI-generated, I am not an artist.

Fleshbones

Initiative: +0

Attack: punch +0 melee (1d3) or by weapon +0 melee

AC: 8; HD: 2d4 (5 HP);

Movement: 20'; Action Dice: 1d20;

Special: undead, half damage from blunt weapons, horrific, confused biology

Alignment: Chaotic

Saves: Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +0;

Horrific: When injured, the gory reveal of the monster's composition causes psychological trauma to anyone who was not expecting the bones to be fleshy. Bring your own sanity system, here's a good one.

Confused Biology: When killed, there is a 50% chance it is cut/broken where it is hit and the separate parts survive independently due to unusual organ arrangements (treat as two new Fleshbones). Once these parts are killed, they stay dead. All broken parts have 5' speed, except a complete pair of legs which has 30'. d4: (1) decapitated, (2) arm severed, (3) legs separated from torso, (4) leg severed.

Gonzo versus Kitchen Sink

In which I pretend I can define terms that are older than I am, in a niche I haven't been part of for that long.

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The terms "gonzo" and "kitchen sink" are both used to describe fantasy settings with a mishmash of incongruous elements, but the two terms feel very different. DCC is often referred to as gonzo. It's not often referred to as kitchen sink. I feel like there's a reason for that, but it's hard to find much discussion about the distinction between the two. Sometimes, the words even appear to be used interchangeably.

A kitchen sink setting is, fairly obviously, one that includes everything (and the kitchen sink). There's cowboys and there's also aliens.

A gonzo setting is one that includes mismatched genres. There's cowboys and there's also aliens... wait a minute, how is that different?

Some games provide a setting with dozens of races to choose from and large distant regions with different themes and levels of technology. People argue about whether guns belong in D&D all the time but you can totally do it in a way that doesn't even feel slightly out of place. Easily, even. You can have a full tavern of adventurers where every character is a different species. How is that sustainable, anyway? There's not enough people of any one species to even reproduce reliably, let alone maintain a diverse genepool! My point is that the half-fish-half-goat-half-man tap-dancing in the middle of the room might as well just be a regular dude. The kitchen sink allows you to justify almost anything. That's the point.

Contrast this with a setting where 90% of the population is human. Just regular medieval peasants. One day they're all sitting in the tavern with like one dwarf, and this fishmangoat cartwheels through the doorway and starts tapdancing in the middle of the room. That's pretty weird, so the townspeople all pull out their shotguns and start asking who he works for.

That one is getting a little closer to gonzo. In this case, the incongruity is the whole point. It's bizarre but nobody seems to care. It's not a given that the fishmangoat or shotguns exist, but you can't definitively say they don't, so when one rocks up it might as well just be Tuesday.

The kitchen sink appears to be created with the goal of allowing anyone to do anything, to be anyone, to have full customizability. Some games try to give you everything to prove that you can do anything.

Gonzo is a bit harder to pin down, but to me it appears to be about subverting expectations, surprising the players (or audience, depending on medium). The contrast between cowboys and aliens is what makes it interesting when aliens show up in your wild west campaign. This isn't achievable in a kitchen sink, where everyone knows aliens are part of the setting because you can choose to be one during character creation.

Ability Score Increase Questing Table

	d3→	1	2	3
d6↓		Goal	Descriptor	Target
1	Strength	slay	colossal	giant
2	Agility	capture	cunning	fae
3	Stamina	escort	immortal	dragon
4	Personality	convert	tyrannical	royal
5	Intelligence	investigate	extraplanar	wizard
6	Luck	locate	long-lost	construct

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How to use this table

This is essentially a prompt generator for "quest for it".

1. Choose which Ability Score you wish to increase. Roll a d3 on that row to get either a Goal, Descriptor or Target related to the Ability.
2. Roll a d6 on the two remaining columns (Goal, Descriptor and Target) so that you have one of each.
3. Combine the results to find your quest.

The idea here is to have a varied array of combinations but for your result to be guaranteed to have something to do with the Ability Score you seek to increase. Not every character seeking Intelligence will need to "investigate an extraplanar wizard", but they will all need to either "investigate" something, or seek out something that is "extraplanar" or "wizard".

Example

Lord Swordsalot wants to increase his Strength. He seeks a guru in the mountains who gives him a quest. He rolls a d3 on the Strength row and gets a 2, so the Descriptor is "colossal". He doesn't yet have a Goal or Target, so he rolls a d6 for each and gets a 4 and 5, "convert" and "wizard". Thus it is deemed that in order to increase his Strength, Lord Swordsalot must "convert a colossal wizard". From here, the Judge figures out who this colossal wizard is and why the mountain guru wants him converted.

This table could be further expanded by including two possibilities per cell and using d6/d12 instead of d3/d6, but I couldn't come up with enough meaningfully distinct entries. Might be worth a revisit.

6 more Kinds of Dark

Read part 1. The same general rules from Goblin Punch apply: dark must surround a light source before snuffing it and takes at least one Round per light source to do so (more for larger sources like campfires).  Fires aren't extinguished, just darkened. Lights can be "healed" by another light. Being swallowed by the dark deals damage per Round and escalating odds of random table effects occurring.

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Seven

Description: This dark feels like a faint, prickly, stinging sensation on your skin. While you are in it, you can smell blood.

Properties: This dark deals only 1 point of damage per Round, but standing in it attracts nearby carnivores.

Eight

Description: As this dark enters a room, the floors, walls and objects it touches are coated by a thin, black film. The film peels and flakes easily if disturbed. The film persists after the dark is gone.

Properties: You must have a hand free to frequently scrub the thin layer of dark forming over your eyes, nose, and mouth, or you lose sight and the ability to breathe. If you let the film cover your nose and mouth, use drowning rules to determine how long you can hold your breath. The film preserves things it coats as if they are vacuum-sealed.

Nine

Description: The dark extends as a thick black cloud that pools toward the ceiling like smoke in a burning building. It stings the eyes and scratches the throat.

Properties: It deals 1d6 Stamina damage per Round while you are in it. Getting close to the ground makes it take twice as long to snuff your lights, and instead deals only 1d3 Stamina damage.

Ten

Description: This dark appears coarse and powdery, and crunches uncomfortably underneath your feet. It sounds like softly falling sand as it fills the room. Some might recognise the smell of brimstone as it approaches.

Properties: It can be difficult to make a flame touch the dark directly, as darkness has a habit of rushing away from flames. If you light a spark while you are within the dark, however, it will rapidly ignite in a flash. A Reflex save is required to avoid catching fire, but the darkness will burn away almost instantly. An explosive or Fireball will also do the trick.

Eleven

Description: The shadows cast by your compatriots are pitch black - not just on the floor on which the shadow is cast, but the full volume and length of the shadow. Passing an object by the torch casts a pure black wall of shadow which cannot be seen through. Even an upright pole is enough to cast a black curtain across a room. It could be mistaken for an actual black wall.

Properties: Easier to draw than describe.

Because of the shadow cast by the Red Adventurer, the Blue Adventurer cannot see the goblin and vice versa. The Green Adventurer is totally blinded and cannot be seen.

If there are multiple light sources in the room, the shadows are cast based on the brightest light source. If there are multiple contenders for brightest light, the dark gets to choose which light it is cast by and can move once during a Round.

Twelve

Description: The torch in your hand appears small and distant, so far away that it no longer illuminates your body. Your torch-bearing compatriot is now at the other end of the hall. You shout at him to wait for you, but as you jog to catch up you don't seem to get any closer, despite the fact that he is panickedly running toward you too.

Properties: Attempting to move toward a light source causes the world to distort such that, despite moving, you never get closer - like a dream where a hallway stretches out forever in front of you. Closing and covering your eyes is enough to prevent this - if you close your eyes, the light that penetrates your eyelids is enough for the dark to find you. 

d100 Crimes you May Have Committed

This list is intended to replace Occupations in a 0-level DCC funnel involving a prison break, but who knows, it might have other uses too. The "Confiscated Evidence" column replaces trade goods and can be retrieved during the escape. Your trained weapon may also be retrieved.

It is up to you whether your character is guilty, justified, or has simply been framed.

d%	Crime	Trained Weapon	Confiscated Evidence
1	Abandonment of Post	Longsword	Insignia
2	Adulteration of Goods	Rolling pin (as club)	Sack of starch
3	Armed Robbery	Longsword	Balaclava mask
4	Arson	Firewood (as club)	Flint-lighter
5	Assassination	Dagger	Phial of random poison
6	Assault (Armed)	Knife (as dagger)	Coinpurse of 1d12 cp
7	Assault (Magical)	Staff	Black Grimoire
8	Assault (Unarmed)	Drawstring (as garrote)	Sack
9	Attempted Murder	Hatchet	Shovel
10	Banditry	Shortsword	Rope (100')
11	Begging	Stick (as club)	Beggar's bowl
12	Brandishing	Longsword	Buckler
13	Bribery	Blackjack	1d12 sp
14	Blasphemy	Staff	Holy symbol
15	Breaking and Entering	Hammer	Crowbar
16	Burglary	Dagger	Lockpicks
17	Coercion	Blackjack	Quality cloak
18	Counterfeiting	Dagger	1d20 counterfeit gp
19	Cursing (Magical)	Staff	Hex doll
20	Cursing (Obscenity)	Sling	Tablet with offensive carvings
21	Dangerous Use of Magic	Staff	Burnt hair
22	Deception by Magic	Staff	Phial of weird fluid
23	Demonic Bargaining	Dagger	Demonic symbol
24	Desecration of a Holy Site	Stick (as club)	Sack of nightsoil
25	Desertion	Spear	Hide armor
26	Destruction of Crops	Pitchfork (as spear)	Flask of oil
27	Dissidence	Quill pen (as dart)	Parchment and ink
28	Disturbing the Peace	Cudgel (as staff)	Sack of potatoes
29	Drunkenness	Tankard (as club)	Keg of ale (half-empty)
30	Embezzlement	Quill pen (as dart)	Coffer (emptied)
31	Excessive Noise	Club	Horn
32	Extortion	Blackjack	Silver band (10 sp)
33	False Confession	Club	Incriminating note, signed by you
34	Fencing of Stolen Goods	Dagger	Gems worth 2d10 sp
35	Fraud	Quill pen (as dart)	Falsified document
36	Forgery	Quill pen (as dart)	Falsified wax stamp
37	Game Fixing	Blackjack	Loaded dice
38	Gossip	Knife (as dagger)	Slanderous letter
39	Grand Larceny	Shortsword	Wagon of stolen goods
40	Grand Theft Equine	Staff	Bridle
41	Graverobbing	Shovel (as staff)	Trowel
42	Harbouring a Fugitive	Shortsword	1 fugitive (additional 0-level PC)
43	Hoarding	Pitchfork (as spear)	1 month's rations
44	Horseplay	Club	Pigskin ball
45	Imitation	Hammer	Low-quality copper ingots
46	Impersonation (Animal)	Skinner (as dagger)	Horse hide
47	Impersonation (Clergy)	Scepter (as mace)	Cassock
48	Impersonation (Guard)	Longsword	Crested heater shield
49	Impersonation (Nobility)	Dagger	Signet ring
50	Inciting Rebellion	Longsword	Facepaint
51	Inciting Fear	Wood stake (as dagger)	Garlic
52	Inciting Violence	Protest sign (as club)	1d12 rotten tomatoes
53	Insubordination	Spear	Brigandine armor
54	Interfering with Fey	Trowel (as dagger)	Suspicious mushrooms
55	Kidnapping	Blackjack	Sack with drawstring
56	Loitering	none	none
57	Mind-Altering Magicks	Stirrer (as club)	Pouch of magical herbs
58	Mugging	Knife (as dagger)	Fistwraps
59	Murder	Hatchet	Shovel
60	Murder-by-Proxy	Staff	Phial of poison
61	Necromancy	Dagger	1d12 human bones
62	Obstruction of Justice	Shortsword	Mysterious locked chest
63	Perjury	Gavel (as hammer)	Roll again for a different crime
64	Petty Theft	Club	1d4 cp
65	Pickpocketing	Dagger	Coinpurse (1d20 cp)
66	Piracy	Cutlass (as shortsword)	1 pirated RPG book
67	Public Nudity	Club	Fine suit of clothes
68	Poaching	Shortbow	Deerhide
69	Possession	Staff	Crystal ball (10sp)
70	Prison-break	Shiv (as dagger)	Sheets tied together (50')
71	Property Damage	Hammer	Broken cart
72	Racketeering	Blackjack	Shards of a broken window
73	Resisting Arrest	Club	Manacles
74	Reckless Discharge of a Missile	Shortbow	Apple with an arrow in it
75	Riot	Pitchfork (as spear)	Torch
76	Robbery of the Treasury	Dagger	Marked banknotes
77	Rustling	Crook (as staff)	1d3 sheep
78	Slander	Quill pen (as dart)	Roll of newspapers
79	Smuggling	Longsword	Illicit "salts"
80	Soliciting	Dagger	Sexy chainmail (as chainmail)
81	Swindling	Longsword	Snake oil
82	Squatting	Plank (as club)	Bedroll
83	Tax Evasion	Dagger	Golden ingot
84	Theft	Dagger	Loaf of bread
85	Torture	Hammer	Pliers
86	Treason	Longsword	Cake
87	Trespass	Hatchet	Tent
88	Unlawful Patronage	Staff	Goat marked for sacrifice
89	Unlawful Worship	Dagger	Illegal holy symbol
90	Unsanctioned Dueling	Longsword	Expensive gloves (5 gp)
91	Unsanctioned use of Magic	Staff	Pile of ashes
92	Usury	Cudgel (as staff)	Jewelry worth 10gp
93	Vagrancy	Staff	Bindle
94	Witchcraft	Broom (as staff)	Black cat
95	Wrongful Imprisonment	Club	Chain (10')
96	Wrongly Accused of [re-roll]	Take re-roll result	Take re-roll result
97	“Wrongly” Accused of [re-roll]*	Take re-roll result	Take re-roll result
98	[re-roll] and [roll again]	Take both results	Take both results
99	Conspiracy to [re-roll]	Take re-roll result	Take re-roll result
100	Serial [re-roll]	Take re-roll result	2d4 times re-roll result

*this result doesn't make you guilty, but absolutely nobody believes you

Note: Some crimes have been intentionally omitted from this list due to their particularly sensitive nature. Some heinous acts would make it very difficult to play a likeable character. Additionally, some players may feel uncomfortable playing in a game where certain freedoms are considered a crime (even if such a thing might be historically realistic). The judge may adjust the list but is encouraged to know their audience and treat serious topics with due respect.

The Great Divide - Splitting Race and Class

There have been a lot of attempts at converting DCC's race-as-class into race-and-class. Now, I am an enthusiastic proponent of race-as-class. If you're reading this in the first place, it's probably not a hard sell for you. It makes non-human races special and it makes humans special too because they're the ones that can specialize. The hacks and homebrews I have been able to find for DCC fall short of this, instead ending up more like the race-and-class we see in modern RPGs, pejoratively referred to as "humans with masks". This is an attempt at splitting race and class, while maintaining the best part of DCC's races-as-classes.

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Skip to the rules.

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Design Points

1. Avoid synergy yet recognize that by giving players options it can't be entirely eliminated.
2. Encourage races to play differently as classes do by giving tools instead of bonuses.
3. Make race significant, so that a demi-human Warrior (for instance) feels different to a human Warrior.
4. Tie racial abilities to culture, such that it is impossible for a character's species to not affect their characterisation.

Points 1 and 2 are related, and points 2, 3 and 4 are all related.

Identifying the problem

A small bonus here and there is a quick and easy solution if you already like the way That Popular Fantasy Game handles it but - as you may have guessed - I don't. Distributing Ability Score bonuses across races immediately encourages minmaxing, because why wouldn't you pick the race with a bonus to your primary stat if you know what class you're playing? And if you don't yet know what class you're playing, why wouldn't you pick one that suits your race?

But that's only the start of it. "Humans with masks" comes from the fact that none of this encourages you to play - much less roleplay - in particular way based on your race. There's nothing to make an elf feel elfy. You don't end up with an interesting character because of their race in contrast to the rest of the party, you get a Barbarian like any other except "oh I'm a Goliath by the way". Someone encountering your character might not care or literally even notice, because you're travelling alongside a gnome, a kenku, some sort of robot, and a partridge in a pear tree - all of whom are just regular guys like yourself. What does being a Goliath do for your character? It makes him a better Barbarian, that's about it. At least, that's the only part we pay attention to.

Is it crazy to think that your species - quite literally what you are - should have a bigger impact on your life, character, and capabilities than a +2 and darkvision? I happen to think that my pets being a cat and a rabbit notably distinguishes them from the other members of my household, and this would hold true if they spoke Common and wielded a pitchfork (as spear) like the rest of us mortals.

My cat and rabbit are a Neutral Thief and Chaotic Wizard respectively.

Race-as-class

These issues are more or less addressed by race-as-class systems. A Halfling is now totally different from a human, no matter what class the human chooses. They may on the surface be similar to Thieves, but they have different scope, flavour and mechanics. Their abilities inform playstyle, but also character. Elves take a little more work to reach this point (the book doesn’t spell it out but leaning into Patrons and a long lifespan helps) and I wouldn't be the only one to say Dwarves are lacking (I like to add dwarfy rune magicks), but the general approach works. Give them their own entire class, and race is now as important as class.

However, even after having been converted to the old-school ways of race-as-class, I still can't help but feel it's kind of... clunky? Over-gamified? Unintuitive? It's hard to pin down. I still have somewhat of an involuntary visceral reaction to the suggestion of race-as-class, even with it being one of the reasons DCC is my system of choice. Despite my trepidations it seems to produce what we want it to at the table.

It feels, intuitively, like race and class shouldn't be the same category. They aren't the same kind of thing. If you're to think of it in wargaming terms however, each class (or race) is a certain kind of unit that can do certain things. It makes a bit more sense from this perspective, and it helps to explain why races become distinct when they are also a separate class. Perhaps it's the clash between Class as a game mechanic and Race as a character trait (in the narrative sense) that doesn't sit right with me. When answering "Class" with "Halfling" it sounds like a category error. It wouldn't if you asked for a "unit type" instead, but class and race are more than that. They serve roleplaying purposes, not just tactical gaming purposes.

As a final point (though maybe the weakest) having the ability to combine races and classes opens up more variety in player choices. I think this holds true even with demihumans being rare and randomly selected, since now the Elf player has a choice about what kind of Elf. In fact, this might be the simple answer to minmaxing, since Elves are already considered by some to be "Wizards but better" and it isn't generally a problem for DCC. You don't simply get to choose an Elf over a Wizard.

I still want to try to avoid obvious optimizations though, because if all Elves are going to be Wizards this entire exercise is pointless.

How else to do it?

If treating race as class is what makes race equally important to class, how can we achieve that while splitting them?

Multi-classing. Well, not exactly. Half-classes, or something like it. These multi-classing rules already achieve the possibility of combining a race and a class, albeit in a bit of a messy way where the character levels up their race separately from their class and gets a boatload of abilities because DCC's classes are all loaded with stuff. I still think these multi-classing rules are very good, it's just a bit strange for the same nebulous reason race-as-class feels strange.

When splitting race and class, I would make each race essentially the same thing as a class, but now you pick one of each. Races are given abilities much like class abilities; the kinds of things that define gameplay and provide options, not just +2 Strength and sniffing out gold.

If we instead gave each class only their defining abilities, and each race some abilities as a class, the player could now combine both without being too overloaded. For instance, a Halfling Warrior might gain both Mighty Deeds and Good Luck Charm, and both of those level up as the character does. Interestingly, this has the potential for anti-synergy where you don't want to choose a Dwarven Warrior, Elven Wizard, or Halfling Thief because you already have some of the abilities of the class - as such, it'll be necessary to pick and choose which abilities each class and race retains so that there isn't any blatant redundancy.

Hit Dice would be determined by the class but have the potential to be modified by the race. This threatens to become synergistic, so I'd limit it to one step up or down the dice chain. I don't think that can be particularly game-breaking. Alternatively, one could alternate between using the Class Hit Die or the Race Hit Die each level. That actually sounds better.

Action Dice, Crit Tables and Saves will receive similar treatment, probably just coming straight from the Class.

Luck Bonus is an interesting problem - I want to keep it for both races and classes because it can provide some nice flavour. Perhaps the player can pick from either the race's bonus or the class's bonus, although I have said before how odd I find that sort of design.

Then we have the classic problem of humans. What makes them so special? Being able to choose any class is no longer a human trait, but I want to lean into that affinity for specialization. I can think of two options. Each class could have one extra ability that is only granted to a human, making humans the best at each class while demihumans get their own unique niches on the side. 

Come to think of it, Luck Bonus could be a strictly human ability and depend on the class chosen, thus functioning as the human's ability to specialize. This feels dangerously like giving +2 to an ability score of the player's choice but it also makes humans feel like the chosen race of the Gods if you subscribe to that interpretation of Luck. It also lends well to the "new kids on the block" interpretation of humans by showing how they outcompete the other races while still being the normal, plain, generic race.

But having different stats makes sense!

You're right! I agree. I think we can do it while retaining the randomness and without introducing (much) race-class synergy. Instead of having a bonus, races will each get one stat they get to re-roll and take the higher of the two results. This keeps the same possible range and maintains a bell curve but pushes the curve ahead such that there are slightly more 18's and way less 3's, with only a slightly higher average.

Humans, being special of course, get to choose which stat they re-roll at level 1 instead of having it predetermined at level 0. This assists with the specialization motif. Humans don't all excel in one area, but they can excel in anything. They only get one chance at the re-roll though, and don't get to change their Class choice if their stats don't turn out as nicely as they wanted.

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Split Race and Class for DCC

Races

Race is determined randomly at character creation, as per the DCC core rules. Each race gets the listed abilities below, and one Ability Score which they re-roll and take the better result.

Human

Ability Score re-roll: Chosen by player at level 1 after deciding Class.

Humans add their Luck modifier to:

• Their Turn Unholy checks as a Cleric
• A favoured Thief Skill as a Thief (chosen at level 1)
• A favoured Weapon as a Warrior (chosen at level 1)
• Corruption and Mercurial Magic rolls as a Wizard.

Note that by implication other races do not get these Luck modifiers.

Hit Dice: Humans have the Hit Die granted by their chosen Class.

Dwarf

Ability Score re-roll: Stamina

Underground skills, Runetracing Deeds*, Shield Bash, Infravision

*Seen in Goodman Games Yearbook 8 and Gongfarmer's Almanac 2021 Vol. 7 but you can easily make your own. Just let a dwarf character learn rune words and make up magical Deed-ish effects for them. You're already adjudicating regular Mighty Deeds, you can handle this too.

Elf

Ability Score re-roll: Intelligence

Patron Bond and Invoke Patron at level 1 (cast these as Wizard, regardless of class), allergic to iron, access to one set of mithril gear at price of iron, Infravision, Heightened Senses

Halfling

Ability Score re-roll: Luck

Two-weapon Fighting, Good Luck Charm, Infravision

Classes

Class is chosen at level 1, with the only real difference being that all races can choose a class. They get the listed abilities below along with all of their racial abilities.

Cleric

Cleric casting and spells, Lay on Hands, Divine Aid

Thief

Thief Skill bonuses, Luck and Wits

Warrior

Mighty Deeds, Critical Threat Range, +CL to Initiative

Wizard

Wizard casting and spells, Spellburn, Languages

For all Races and Classes

Hit Dice

Odd levels use Class Hit Dice, even levels use Race Hit Dice.

Attack Bonus, Action Dice, Crit Table, Saving Throws

As per table for Class (not Race).

Stacking Abilities

As a general rule, abilities that do the same thing do not stack but you get the better of the two. Halfling Thieves regenerate 1 Luck per level, not 2. If a Deed Die rolls lower than your Attack Bonus, you get your Attack Bonus as the better result. If a Halfling Thief rolls a 1 on a Luck Die, they get 2 as a Halfling instead of 1 as a Thief.

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I don't consider this to be entirely complete or polished - I will definitely have to revisit it at some point - but I think it's playable. I've had less time to sit down and get into the nitty-gritty of this stuff lately (why did nobody tell me having a baby would be time-consuming?). At the very least, I hope this provides a framework for allowing any choice of race/class combination without losing the uniqueness that race-as-class systems provide. Ideally, demihumans should still feel special and unique, and there should still be a reason to be a human too. So let each of those keep what makes them unique.

6 Kinds of Dark

I recently came across this post about a dark entity on Goblin Punch and the post that inspired it on False Machine. I think they're brilliant. The idea of the darkness itself as a living, breathing, existential threat is a compelling one, and the idea that there are different species of it that I can catalogue for myself while my players might not even figure out they are two different things gives me a unique kind of joy.

The False Machine descriptions are evocative and inspiring, but emotion and metaphor doesn't leave much to actually use at the table. Its descriptions of darkness are often vague and amorphous as shadows themselves. I don't know how to present my players an encounter with a "contemptible dark" or one that "appreciates glass".

The Goblin Punch rules are generally quite good for darkness as a monster - dark must surround a light source before snuffing it and takes at least one Round per light source to do so (more for larger sources like campfires).  Fires aren't extinguished, just darkened. Lights can be "healed" by another light. Being swallowed by the dark deals damage per Round and escalating odds of random table effects occurring.

So here's a bunch of darks that look, feel, and smell different. Any of them can be:

• A monster you can't stab
• A puzzle in a room
• Just how the shadows work in this dungeon, nobody knows why
• What exists below the Underearth, the fragile foundation on which The Mundane World rests
• A spell for a particularly edgy caster

Hey...

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One

Description: This dark is thick and oily. It fills the cracks in the floor first as it encroaches on the light. The thinner parts at its edges have a rainbow sheen like slicked water. It is cool (but not cold) to the touch. Once it has surrounded you and your torch, it will submerge you from the bottom up. It makes you feel like you need to hold your breath, as if you just dived into a pool.

Properties: This dark cannot mix with water. Spilling water will slow it down, a misty spray or fog will halt it until the mist dissipates. Holy water will cause it to recede and can be used to create a path through the dark.

Two

Description: A misty black fog that smells like a putrid, deathly miasma. You feel a sense of impending doom in your chest when you breathe it in. It gets thicker, reducing your range of vision until you can no longer see the torch you're holding.

Properties: This dark has a chance of infecting you with a disease, and can be dispelled by magic which cures disease.

Three

Description: Your shadow dances as the torchlight flickers but something is wrong. You almost didn't notice. Instead of stretching outward across the floor and against the walls like your compatriots' shadows, yours reaches toward the torchbearer. You feel as though your own shadow is mocking you. It grasps with a dim hand to smother the flame.

Properties: Though this shadow defies your control, it is still your shadow. It cannot stretch out longer than a few times your own height, so keeping distance from your party's torchbearer will thwart its plans to grasp the torch. You can also crouch or go prone to shorten the shadow. Moving another light source to the opposite side of the light it's attempting to reach will turn it into a regular shadow of that opposing light - the dark can then attempt to possess a different person's or object's shadow.

Four

Description: Dark emanates as if from a black sun, leaving lit un-shadows where people and objects block its path. The source of the un-light is visible as a deep darkness that hurts the eye as your pupils dilate to take it in.

Properties: Standing in direct un-light for too long can cause searing-cold burns to the skin. You can simply block the un-light, but much as throwing a cloth on a fire would cause it to burn, attempting to cover the source with a cloth would freeze it to the point of brittleness.

Five

Description: A dark, flickering flame emits the warmth of a hearth, but does not consume the matter on which it burns. Those lit by the flame will feel no pain - instead they will feel at home and no longer be compelled to move. They will stand comfortably in place until they can stand no longer, slipping into a comfortable sleep. The flame burns until their body rots. The flame is predatory - it burns a person's soul and keeps the soul from passing over until there is no physical body left to hold the flame.

Properties: The black flame spreads across organic (living or dead) matter but does not burn it. Water will not put this flame out, but a regular flame will. Yes, this means setting your friend on fire. Each round the black flame deals damage to a character's Personality (in DCC; in other games, use the nearest thing to "willpower") and when it reaches zero that character loses all will. Instead of a DC 10 Reflex save, a DC 15 Willpower save is required to "stop drop and roll" the flame out.

It doesn't take much imagination to see how this flame might be useful to necromancers and disastrous to forests.

Six

Description: When you light your torch to stave off the shadows, you notice it takes longer than normal. Not to light the torch or feel the heat of the flame. It takes longer for the light. The flame burns for a few seconds before the light hits the walls and floor. Your shadow struggles to catch up to you. Curious, you snuff out your torch. This time it takes a moment for the light to leave. As you attempt to relight your torch, a sense of dread enters you. It's taking much longer this time. Let's not test it further. 

Properties: Any changes in lighting conditions take 1 Round to take effect. Each round, there is a 1-in-6 chance a torch inside this dark goes out and must be relit. For each light that goes out within or near this dark, both the number of Rounds delay and the chance in 6 go up by 1.

The maximum speed you can move through this dark without overtaking your own light is 30' initially and goes down by 5' with each light it consumes.

Note: The math almost certainly doesn't check out on the movement speed and it gets squirrely when considering different radii of light and move speeds. It's just intended to be usable and feel "wrong" - let's not start calculating redshift at the gaming table.

More to come.

Elder Scrolls Flavoured Birth Augurs

The Warrior

Birth augurs are a neat idea. They help give each character a little more uniqueness. In the end they're just a simple numerical modifier but they can really shape a character by shining a spotlight on a particular trait. They have the right flavour for a Luck-based bonus too - we all have little superstitions about people having luck in certain areas of their life but not others. Some characters feel destined for a certain class just because of their birth augur.

What's even better is the player in my campaign who chose to play a Thief with a negative to all Thief skills. I love that. Despite Luck being totally against him, he has chosen his own destiny. That alone has made him a fun character to play with.

The thing that I find lacking with birth augurs, however, is any consistent theme or cohesion. I can't even tell what they're supposed to be. They come across as something like zodiac signs and yet they clearly aren't - one of them is "Lucky Sign" which more explicitly calls out a star sign but another is "survived a spider bite". I'm not the only one who has raised an eyebrow at that. 1 in 30 people have been bitten by a spider and that's the most interesting thing about their luck?

That's not even an augur of one's birth!

I get the feeling that the designers intentionally veered away from being specific here. Defining a bunch of star signs would have implications about the cosmology and the setting, which DCC intentionally leaves blank. Unfortunately the result is a table that has very little flavour and feels uninspired. In much the same way DCC encourages creating custom Mercurial Magic tables to flavour magic to different kinds of Wizards, custom Birth Augur tables can give some flair to your world and its cosmology. At the very least, you can do more with it than the original.

The Inspiration (Morrowind and Oblivion)

The Mage (interestingly the file is named "The Wizard")

Videogames were my main pastime growing up, and if I recall correctly Morrowind was the game that taught me to use the keyboard and a mouse simultaneously. It's no surprise then that the Elder Scrolls series has had a massive influence on my taste in RPGs, both digital and analog. Oblivion I didn't play until much later, but it kept the same system.

During character creation you are asked to choose a star sign from a list. From a mechanical standpoint you're just choosing a perk, but the existence of the star signs has implications for the world and your character is immediately tied to the world. This has deep personal implications for a character, likely influencing their path through life via the grand direction of the cosmos.

That sounds kinda like a Birth Augur.

The Lore (The Firmament)

The Thief

The real reason I'm doing this is because the lore of the constellations in The Elder Scrolls is weird and cool. Things that are weird and cool should be stolen entirely used as inspiration.

There are thirteen starsigns. If you played Skyrim, you'll know them as the Standing Stones, which are just the same thing further gamified.

Three of them are the Warrior, Mage and Thief. These guys clearly come from the big three archetypes in RPGs and that cements this trio as a real concept within the world rather than just a game mechanic. They're known as the Guardians.

Each of them has three constellations as their Charges.

The thirteenth constellation is the Serpent, who wanders the sky unpredictably. The Serpent is usually threatening one of the Charges, and the Guardians' job is to defend them. Those born under the Serpent are "the most blessed and the most cursed".

The very sky itself is alive and in conflict. It has personalities within it, those personalities are meaningful to both the world and the game, and it affects characters both mechanically and in-universe. There is a fair bit more to the cosmology and it's also implied that the phases of the two moons affect these, but the game simply lists these 13 options to choose from and that's more than enough for us to make something cool out of it. 

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The Table

Roll a d12 and d14. The d12 represents the season of your birth, and the d14 represents the Serpent's activity during the season. If you roll doubles, the Serpent was threatening your constellation at the time of your birth and you take the relevant Serpent augur instead.

d12	Birthsign	Standard Augur	Serpent Augur
1	The Warrior	Melee attack rolls	Melee damage rolls
2	The Lady	Wil. saves	Armor Class
3	The Steed	Speed	Initiative
4	The Lord	Fort. saves	Hit Points
5	The Mage	Corruption rolls	Spell damage
6	The Apprentice	Number of languages	Spell checks
7	The Atronach*	Spell checks x2, negative corruption	Spell damage x2, negative corruption
8	The Ritual	Turn unholy checks	Magical healing
9	The Thief	Ref. Saves	Thief skills
10	The Lover	Personality checks with hirelings	Critical hits
11	The Shadow	Sneak and hide checks	Backstabs
12	The Tower	Find secret doors, find traps	Lockpick, disable traps

*The Atronach starsign has double the effect on spell checks (or damage, if Serpent) but a negative effect on corruption rolls. This is to thematically suit the Atronach as it exists in the Elder Scrolls games: great power at a cost.

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All the effects on here were either taken directly from the DCC core book or this awesome extended Birth Augur table, with one obvious exception. There are less results than the original table and it isn't evenly distributed because you need to roll doubles to get the Serpent augurs. The probabilities of this might actually be a problem - you'll get even more doubles, which still happens often with a d30. The Serpent results are designed to feel more significant, as "those born under the serpent are more blessed and more cursed". Whether it's a blessing or curse obviously depends on your Luck modifier.

If we wanted to go crazy with this we could potentially double the number of signs by creating variations depending on the moon phases as Morrowind implies - one for each with the "Prime Aspect of Masser" or "Prime Aspect of Secunda".

The Takeaway

Custom Birth Augur tables can inform what kinds of individuals exist in your world and how they tie in to the cosmos. The Elder Scrolls' magic is vastly different in flavour to DCC's magic, and that shines through when looking at the differences between DCC's Birth Augur table and Elder Scrolls' birthsigns. Notably there isn't a clear Cleric archetype because magical healing is basically a wizarding school, so there were no Cleric-focused signs to port directly over.

This got me thinking about creating custom Birth Augur tables per setting, just the same way someone might create custom Occupation tables to better suit what kinds of people are expected to come out of character generation, or Mercurial tables for certain kinds of Wizards. It's easy and it's fun.

I wonder about taking this a step further down the cosmic route and tying Augurs in with Alignments...

Mighty Deeds for non-Mighty Folk

Mighty Deeds, as per the book, allow a Warrior to blind, disarm, pushback, trip, rally, and make defensive maneuvers and precise shots. Well, they allow a Warrior to basically attempt anything they want as part of an attack action, but these are the ones defined (suggested) by the book.

The question seems to come up often though: what if a non-Warrior wants to trip or pushback an opponent? This isn't something you need special powers to be able to do. You can trip or push someone easily in real life, if you like (this is not legal advice). There are two common answers to this question and I think one of those is the obvious correct answer.

One answer frequently given is that you do not let other characters attempt these actions, because they are the specialty of the Warrior. I think we can all agree Mighty Deeds are what makes Warriors in DCC awesome. They're the reason to pick Warrior over other classes. We don't want to take away what makes them special, or there's no longer a reason to pick Warriors, which in turn means there are no Warriors because nobody wants to be one. The thing is, Mighty Deeds aren't really about pushing or tripping - they encompass everything a Warrior could attempt as part of their attack action! To restrict non-Warriors from attempting these actions means to restrict them from doing anything other than hit or cast. That is obviously silly, I can't imagine saying "you can't trip people over because you're a Thief".

The other frequently suggested option is that PCs are still allowed to use their action dice to perform skill checks, so just do that instead. They could, for instance, attempt a contested Strength check to pushback or a contested Agility check to trip. Some checks may be done trained or untrained. They just can't do it as a Mighty Deed using a Deed Die (which also gives greater odds and varying degrees of success compared to flat skill checks). This is a huge tradeoff when compared directly to a Warrior, who gets to simultaneously attack and basically attempt a whole other action for free. It keeps the game open and means the Judge doesn't have to step in and say no to entirely reasonable actions, while maintaining the awesomeness of Mighty Deeds.

There is no action that can be a Mighty Deed that can't simply be treated as a different kind of action - the Mighty Deed is just a bonus opportunity to do an extra action as part of an attack. The Warrior can hit the demon and shove it back into the portal; the Cleric can shove the demon through the portal, but not while he's busy attacking or casting. The Wizard can swing from the chandelier, but it takes an Agility check, which costs him a chance to cast Fireball.

Codifying this as a rule:

Anything a Warrior could do with a Deed Die result of 3+, any other character can attempt as a DC 15 check. Each point higher the Deed result required, the DC increases by 3. This action is not an attack and thus does not deal damage - attempting something like "Blinding Attack" can achieve the blinding effect but not deal damage.

This requires significant adjudication (especially if players are being creative instead of using listed Deeds), but then so do Mighty Deeds in the first place. Really all this rule is doing is drawing a rough parallel between DC and Deed Die results. DC 15 is "a feat of derring-do" and some of the example Mighty Deed results at 3, 4 and 5 seem like they should be achievable with some luck. Beyond that it becomes very hard or even impossible without moving up the dice chain, making these the domain of true Mighty Deeds by true Warriors.