Simple Folk Magic system

A simple magic system for "cunning folk" type casters. I've used it as a feature of bucolic Halflings and in pseudo-historical settings.

These little spells (rhyming verbal incantations) either replicate a low-level Cleric or Magic-User spell or achieve a small desired effect (Referee’s discretion).

Cleric spells: Bless, Command, Cure Light Wounds, Protection from Evil, Purify Food & Drink, Remove Fear, Sanctuary, Delay Poison, Heroism, Resist Cold
Magic-User spells: Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Light, Mending, Unseen Servant

The maximum number of attempts (successful or failed) each day is equal to the character’s level (or one, in the case of unlevelled NPCs). The chance of success increases as the character progresses in level:

Level Chance of success
0*            1-in-6
1-2           2-in-6
3-4           3-in-6
5-6           4-in-6
7-8           5-in-6
9+    automatic success

Spells can be cast as a group effort. Each member of the group must be of the cunning folk. Add up the levels of all participants (treat level-0 as a "half" for this purpose), and use the total to define the chance of success.

An attempt can also be expanded to gain “advantage” on an attack roll or a saving throw (roll 2d20 and take the higher result). This works automatically, but has to be declared before the roll is made.

"Folk Hero" random advancement table

1d12 random features your folk hero type character can gain when leveling up! Made this for a friend's setting. Inspired by Russian folk-tales.

1. If you wear a simple linen shirt, it counts as chainmail for AC purposes, but remains a non-encumbering item.
2. Your save against Magic with a +2 bonus if you are standing barefoot on ground.
3. People tell stories about your exploits. Commoners and simple folk roll Reaction twice and keep the better result.
4. The longer your hair and beard, the stronger you are! You can gain up to 3 points to Strength over time. However, if you go bald, you lose twice the amount.
5. Slayer of monsters! You gain +2 to hit creatures over HD 6 in melee combat.
6. Wandering hero… You get +1 on all your saves, but if you sleep in one place more than once, you lose this benefit forever.
7. Your Hit die for this level is one higher than your class would provide (d6<d8<d10<d12).
8. Feats of strength! Double your Open Doors/Bend Bars skill.
9. Your fame attracts followers! You gain a henchman, whose Loyalty is rolled on 1d6+6.
10. Brotherhood of heroes: ancient heroes you encounter roll Reaction twice and keep the better result.
11. Human to the core: you gain +2 bonus to resist vampiric charm, hypnosis, and similar effects. You are also always moved to tears by folk music.
12. You learn the location of a fabled magic sword buried underground! To claim the weapon, you must defeat a guardian or pass a test. Roll on the sub-table to see which weapon awaits you:

Magic weapons sub-table (d5):

1. Mech-samosek. The holder of the self-swinging sword always fights as if under the effect of the spell One Man Army.
2. Mech-kladenets. When this sword strikes, sparks fly in all directions, illuminating a 20’ area and revealing invisible creatures for a split second.
3. Luk-samostrel. This bow always has the advantage of targeting (+4 to hit).
4. Aspid-zmey. Once per day, this sword can turn into a giant snake at the command word and fight for the hero (HD 2, AC as leather, Move as unencumbered, 1 attack: 1d3 damage, save against Poison or incapacitated for as many rounds as the damage rolled)
5. Kolchan ognennyj. Arrows stored in this magical quiver become fiery bolts of destruction. They ignore 5 points of armor and do 1d8 damage.

[Magic Item] Whistles!

Whistles are cool. 

Most of these whistles can be used as simple musical instruments or for signaling. However, if they are played in a special way, under special circumstances, they produce interesting and even magical effects.

Non-magic whistles

These whistles don’t count (detect) as magic items, but have special uses.

Bird call whistles

This covers a whole category of small whistles that very closely imitate bird sounds. Most whistles can only reproduce one given call. However, there are more advanced instruments that imitate a range of sounds related to a single bird (e.g. a magpie’s distress call, mating song, etc.). This type is commonly used by hunters to lure their prey.

When sounded, birds of the given type (and also some other animals that might know the given call) in the vicinity react in an appropriate way: gather at the sound’s source, flee, “answer” and so on.

Shriller-triller

Small, simple tin whistle.

The loud, piercing tone of this whistle is unpleasant to most, but downright painful to creatures and people with exceptional hearing (canines, most fey, characters with high Wisdom, creatures with bonus/advantage on Perception checks related to sounds, etc.). Such creatures instantly take 1 [1d3] damage. Additionally, they must save against Paralyzation [DC 12 Wisdom save] or be deafened for 1 minute.

                                                                       

Pipe of a Thousand Shrills

Small metallic whistle, with a single blowhole. But then the pipe is divided into many tubes, twisted, interlocking, with many holes for the air to exit. This strange configuration produces a chaotic mess of simultaneous sounds when blown.

Everybody who hears the whistle for the first time must save against Paralyzation [DC 12 Wisdom save] or be confused for 1d6 rounds, suffering a -2 penalty [disadvantage] on all checks, saves, attack rolls. If somebody has already heard this whistle, it has no effect.

Dream whistle

Medium-length bone whistle with three holes. Adorned with engraved floral patterns.

If the eight possible notes of this whistle are played quietly, in a rising-falling succession, for at least 30 minutes, over a sleeping person, their dreams become exceptionally sweet and soothing. This sleep facilitates natural healing, effectively doubling healing rates. Furthermore, if the sleeper is tortured by recurring nightmares, night terrors, sleep paralyzes or other similar natural or supernatural effects, going to sleep with the Dream whistle playing negates them.

In the right (or rather – wrong) hands, the Dream whistle can have detrimental effects as well. Different rhythmic patterns can be developed through lengthy experimentation. They cause severe nightmares, make the sleeper sensitive to hypnotic suggestion, bar the sleeper from waking up…

Magic whistles

These whistles count (and detect) as magic items.

Hound-master’s whistle

Made from a piece of a deer antler, with a silver mouthpiece. Its single mid-range tone is strong, audible at a long distance.

If sounded during dawn or twilight (20 minutes before/after sunrise/sunset), a blink dog (HD 4, AC 16, 120’, Morale 8, bite +4, 1d6 damage, blink = teleport, range 40’, can attack once before or after teleporting) [MM, p. 319] appears. It serves the sounder of the whistle loyally in combat and hunt. It disappears after 1 hour.

The whistle holds 1d8 charges.

The Three Lovers

A set of three bulbous clay whistles, shaped to resemble nude humanoid figures, with emphasized sex organs marking the place where one has to blow into the whistle.

If three people play the three whistles simultaneously for 10 minutes, they enter into a state of shared consciousness. Roll 1d6 for the effect. Some forms of this connection are hierarchic. In such cases, the person with the highest Charisma score becomes the “Center” of the connection. Resolve draws by comparing Wisdom scores next, then by rolling.

1	A telepathic link is forged between the three participants. The Center can freely send and receive messages. The other two participants can only receive from and send messages to the Center.
2	Two participants are merged with the Center’s body, essentially forming a new character. It retains the Center’s class/race, on the Center’s level + 2. Take the highest Strength, Dexterity and Constitution scores among all participants. Combine all their Hit dice and roll up hit points. Retain the Center’s Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma, spell-casting ability, known spells, special features. One spell and one special ability/feature can be added from each of the other participants.
3	For the duration of the spell, the physical appearance and biological traits of the participants change to resemble each other. They all take on a combined, merged look, which contains elements of all their original features. Body type, sex, voices, pigmentation, etc. all move towards a middle ground between the three of them. They cannot be distinguished without magical means.
4	All participants can use the highest Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma bonuses among them instead of their own while they are connected by the Three Lovers.
5	All participants perceive the world through the Center’s five senses, but lose their own.
6	If the participants fall asleep during the effect of the whistles, they enter a shared dream world. Here they are the Three Lovers, a mythical love triangle.

After 1 hour, the connection is severed, and all effects are reverted. All participants must save against Paralyzation [DC 18 Wisdom save] or take 1d8 [1d12 psychic] damage. Furthermore, if the save fails, there is a 3-in-6 chance that the participants fall in love with each other, forming a complex and deadly love triangle.

* Stats/mechanics for LotFP [and 5e D&D in square brackets]

Plant-growth serum side effects

Recently, I wrote up some ideas foralternative healing potions. One of them is actually a plant fertilizer / growth serum, but used by adventurers as a healing drug. In my original post, its side effect is a rapidly growing plant scab monster sprouting from the treated wound. In this post, I offer more side effects when using a plant-growth serum as a healing potion.

Main stats reference OSR/LotFP rules, [5e mechanics in square brackets].

Plant-growth serum

Effect: Heal 1d12 hit points [heal 2d4 + Constitution modifier hit points]

Side effects: Save against Poison [make a DC 15 Constitution save], or roll 1d8:

1	Cough up seeds for 1d8 - Constitution modifier days (min. 1). The seeds belong to a grain or plant common to regional agriculture, can be eaten or planted.
2-4	Become mildly/strongly/hopelessly addicted to the serum. Each 3/2/1 days without it, add 1/2/3 points to the total Encumbrance rating [add 1/2/3 levels of Exhaustion]. Every time this result is rolled, increase addiction level. If addicted, Save against Poision [make a DC 15 Constitution save] every day/week/month. On success, lower addiction rating (mild addiction goes away for good). Negate daily effect with minor healing spell etc., cure addiction as strong disease.
5	Fertile sweat! All items in prolonged contact with the body during the day of consumption (clothes and armor worn, weapons held, the bed slept in, etc.) become covered in nasty mold.
6	Skin takes on a greenish hue for 1d6 days.
7	Experience strong changes in taste and eating habits (crave a food that was previously hated or something generally not considered edible, covet a food that’s a religious taboo, eat soil).
8	Beautiful, but vile-smelling flowers sprout from the healed wound (or, if there was no open wound, from the orifices of the consumer). If torn or cut, a very bad mood sets in for 1d3 hours.

Healing potion ideas

I'm not a fan of instantaneous magical healing in fantasy RPGs. I want it to be witchcraft, with consequences and weird side-effects. The same goes for healing potions: I find the standard "drink-and-recover-1d8-points" or whatever solutions bland. I tried to come up with some interesting potions to offer to my players. Some of them are connected to a pseudo-historical 17th century setting, but not necessarily.

Relieving dew
This simple folk ointment is applied to the person's wounds before rest, and tied over with bandages.
Ingredients: honey, butter, assorted herbs and plants like yarrow, elderberry, etc., mixed and fermented for a week in a copper vessel.
Price: low. Requires recipe.
Effect: During the resting period, the normal healing rate is doubled. However, the strong sweet smell of the ointment attracts insects. A LOT of them. ALL of them. There is a 1-in-6 chance that it attracts not only the natural fauna of the area, but also some sort of a strange, exotic, or supernatural creepy-crawly as well... The smell lasts 24 hours.

Weapon salve
This is based upon a real practice. According to the theories of sympathetic magic, a connection is formed between the wound and the weapon that caused it. The healing of the wound is accelerated by applying the salve on the weapon, not to the wound.
Ingredients: skull lichen (moss from the skull of a hanged man), urine, gypsum, pine resin. Before application, add the blood of the wounded to the salve.
Price: moderate. Requires special knowledge and recipe to create.
Effect: If this is accomplished, during the next rest period the wounded person recovers as much hit points, as the standard damage of the weapon (roll for it).

Green blessing
Invented during the "Tulip mania", this solution is used by florists to increase the life-span of their beloved bulbs. However, as usual, the pesky adventurers found an alternative use for this serum!! Turns out, when sprinkled on a fresh open wound, it induces the growth of a weird plant scab, which fuses with the person's body, closes and heals the injury.
Ingredients: petals of exotic tulips (at least three different colors), sulfur, various salts, etc.
Price: very high. Requires special knowledge, recipe, laboratory.
Effect: 1d6 rounds after application, the wounded person recovers 1d12 hit points.
Then save against Poison. If failed, the scab continues to grow rapidly. It takes 10 rounds for the plant to completely cover a human adult. Each round it does 1 damage to the person, and gains +1 hit point. To stop the spreading, the plant has to be reduced to 0 or less hit points. Any damage is divided equally between the plant and the infected person.
On the 11th round, if the plant still has at least 1 hit point, the infected person dies.

What kind of healing potions do you use?

Go!

[Swamp '70] George Rodrigue paintings

The paintings of George Rodrigue (1944-2013), depicting life in rural Louisiana have an eerie, haunting quality to them... Definitely inspiring. Check out the site of Wendy Rodrigue (the artist's wife), it has background info on several paintings.

Aioli Dinner (1971)

Doc Moses, Cajun Traiteur (1974)

"A traiteur is a Cajun folk doctor with a special, inherited gift for healing one ailment. In George’s painting, Doc Moses heals earaches. He pours a ring of salt around the patient and touches his ears. Amazingly, only the healer must believe. The patient’s skepticism does not affect the cure." (source)

The Cajun Bride of Oak Alley (1974)

"In 1850, on the occasion of the simultaneous weddings of his two daughters, Durand’s slaves decorated the arboreal alley in a manner befitting his most eccentric nature. Prolific web-spinning spiders were brought in (some say from the nearby Atchafalaya Basin, others say from as far away as China) and were released in the trees to go about their arachnidan business. Then slaves went to their task of coating the dewy, billowing webs with gold and silver dust blown from bellows. And under this splendidly shimmering canopy proceeded the ethereal promenade of the wedding party and its two thousand guests." (source)

[Spell] Two spells, VAM-style [LotFP]

Vaginas are Magic! is now available in pdf format as well, and it's one lovely grimoire!

It inspired me to write up some of my spell ideas. No spell levels defined, Miscast tables provided. Writing Miscast tables is FUN... Most of them make you wanna miscast.
Take a peak, if you are interested:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2c4f45yVNuOaEw3RjFwbVZlRlk

One is a variation on the theme of the poisoned apple, the other one reads like a cantrip (but with dire possible consequences)...

The spells are named after bands / songs / albums I love, so that's in keeping with the trend set in VAM.

 - You've got to pray for it...
 - Pay for it, you mean?

Dark Magic in New Orleans: Death on the Bayou

Long time, no post... But that's how it usually goes.

I'm always on the look-out for swampy RPG stuff, and came across an interesting piece, Dark Magic in New Orleans: Death on the Bayou, by Randy Richards, published in Dungeon (#71). It's an adventure for Mask of the Red Death, the 1890s century Ravenloft / Gothic Earth setting.

The players are thrown into the murky waters of voodoo, alligators, and ritual murders.

Marie Laveau

The usual suspects are present: the adventure's background draws heavily on historical Voodoo practitioners such as Marie Laveau and Doctor John, who also seems to be channeling Dr. Curt Connors / Lizard from Spiderman... albeit he relies on dark magic, not science.

I even found an Actual play of this on youtube, by people who can be familiar from the Fantastic Dimensions roster. Ran using LotFP.

[LotFP] Cunning Folk, WIP

The setting document on "A Field in Lorraine" keeps on growing and growing -- one day I will put up the extended version. I keep adding stuff that I find as I go, so right now it's a bit chaotic, but with some editing it can be turned into a supplement that others can use as well.

I like Clerics in fantasy games, but in a 17th century weird horror fantasy they seem a bit out of place. "Divine spells", as described, are too "clean". The modus operandi, so to speak, of Catholic exorcists, Jewish cabbalists (as I see, they are best described as a mix of Magic-Users and Clerics), Protestant witch hunters are very different.

And then there are the Cunning Folk, the practitioners of all sorts of witchery and popular magic. This term, although it originates from English culture, can be used as an "umbrella term" for the entire phenomenon (see the entry on Cunning folk & the literature listing in Wikipedia for starters).

English	cunning folk, wise men and women		French	devins-guérisseurs, leveurs de sorts
German	Hexenmeister, Kräuthexen		Slavic	vedmak
Dutch	toverdokters, duivelbanners		Danish	kloge folk
Italian	benandanti		Spanish	curanderos
Swedish	klok gumma (“wise old woman”), klok gubbe (“wise old man”)		Portuguese	curandeiros, benzedeiros, mulheres de virtude (“woman of virtue”)

Cunning Folk are definitely something I want to include in my Early Modern Weird Europe. That's why I included in the first version of "A Field in Lorraine" various ideas and folk magic spells. But now I think this can be made into a class.

Instead of working from a set spell list, the Cunning Folk would rely on two types of manipulations:

1. "Folk magic", encompassing everything from folk medicine recipes to love charms and various practices to help out "around the house". These "spells" are part of an extensive and very convoluted oral tradition. Christian prayer and pre-Christian beliefs are intermingled. Although they are considered to be tried and trusted, there is only a limited chance that any given superstition or cantrip really has a magical effect.
   
   I included a list of such spells in the first version of "A Field in Lorraine".
   
   
   A great variety of spells can be culled from "Long Lost Friend" (or "Long-Hidden Friend", "Der Lange Verborgene Freund"), a collection of pow-wow spells compiled in the 1820s by the Pennsylvania Dutch healer John George Hohman (see the text here). These practices are clearly based on tradition brought along from Europe; mixed with Christian prayer. Includes three folk variants of Hold Person, "Immobilize a Thief": "How to cause male or female thieves to stand still, without being able to move backward or forward?"
   A great read.
   
   But there is also...
2. Magic done with the help of a Familiar.
   Now this is a very different can of worms. A Familiar spirit is low-tier supernatural entity, a small demon, which assists the practitioner. 

These two types can overlap, and the assistance of a Familiar greatly increases the chance of a traditional folk spell to take effect.

An image of a witch and her familiar spirits taken from a publication that dealt with the witch trials of Elizabeth Stile, Mother Dutten, Mother Devell and Mother Margaret in Windsor, 1579.

There is an eerie passage (Q. 4) in "The Discovery of Witches" by Matthew Hopkins from 1647, in which the familiars of a witch are described. They materialize in vaguely animal forms:

"1. Holt, who came in like a white kitling. 

2. Jarmara, who came in like a fat Spaniel without any legs at all, she said she kept him fat, for she clapt her hand on her belly and said he suckt good blood from her body. 

3. Vinegar Tom, who was like a long-legg'd Greyhound, with an head like an Oxe, with a long taile and broad eyes, who when this discoverer spoke to, and bade him goe to the place provided for him and his Angels, immediately transformed himselfe into the shape of a child of foure yeeres old without a head, and gave halfe a dozen turnes about the house, and vanished at the doore. 

4. Sack and Sugar, like a black Rabbet.

5. Newes, like a Polcat."

I hope I will be able to find time to turn this into something.

Ideally, there should be a nice random table for Familiars (maybe taking ideas from the LotFP Summon spell?); some rules that govern the "working relationship" of the Cunning Folk and their Familiars; and ideas for the GM about "Familiars gone bad".

[LotFP] A Field in Lorraine

I've put together a short document with my ideas for a weird & nasty & dark fantasy game set in the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War. This is not a scenario or adventure, but rather little atmospheric pieces that help to show the world of 17th century Weird Europe.

I've also included a list of "folk magic" spells. And mushrooms.

Here's the link to the .pdf:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2c4f45yVNuOa3R3X2pkVVg1NVk

"This is not a “historical” game. The Thirty Years’ War and other events are used as a backdrop, but their importance or overarching role is only understood in retrospect. People who are in the middle of it do not know whether the war and wars have ended or not. They do not have up-to-date information from the frontlines. News travel slowly, deception and rumors are abundant.

Lorraine is defined as the general area of events, but it is important for the tone of the game to keep the setting vague, regarding both chronology and location. Maps and timelines are only known to strategists and annalists. Player characters and the everyday people they encounter are utterly, hopelessly lost. Locals know their own village, maybe the road to the next hamlet. Superstition warns against going to certain areas, and for a good reason. Bands of marauders and deserters are menacing the lands. Many villages are completely abandoned; most of them are only inhabited by women, children, and the elderly.

The player characters are soldiers, mercenaries heading back to their villages. They served their time, their battalion was re-organized, or, more likely, destroyed. But they are not in a hurry… For they know that their “home” is not the cozy place it used to be. The player characters fear that the same atrocities they committed in foreign lands were carried out against their own villages by other soldiers."

(c) Simon Marsden

This was all created with Lamentations of the Flame Princess on mind, but can be used with any system. I hope to run this game soon for a couple of friends.