#glog classes

You are a champion of a great god of storm.

Skills (d4): 1. Mystery cultist 2. Meteorologist 3. Gladiator 4. Preacher

Starting items: Divine Weapon, jar of rainwater, telescope, lightning rod, 60ft of copper wire

A: Thunder and Lightning, Divine Weapon

B: +1 Bolt, +1 Boon

C: +1 Bolt, +1 Boon

D: +1 Bolt, +1 Boon, +1 Boon from any god

Δ: Perkwunos

Thunder and Lightning: You have 2 Bolts.

Throw one directly at a creature to deal 1d12 lightning (electric) damage and paralyze it for a round. Throw one at a creature's feet to deal 1d12 thunder (sonic) damage and deafen it unless it saves. Throwing a Bolt is very, very loud.

When a god casts down lightning from the sky, if you're there to catch it, you replenish all your Bolts. You still take all the damage and ill effects of being struck by lightning. Each god has their own safer way of giving you Bolts, too.

Divine Weapon: Choose a god. Your god grants you a Divine Weapon. When you strike with it, you may choose to deal lightning (electric) or thunder (sonic) damage instead the weapon's normal damage type.

Boons: Each god has 4 Boons which you can take in any order.

DODOLA, bringer of fertile storms in the dry summer:

Divine Weapon: Longbow

You regain 1 Bolt each sunrise as long as you remain in Dodola's favor. Dodola wants you to seek out and help farmers in need.

Instead of relying on your throwing arm, you can fire Bolts with any ranged weapon.

When you hear thunder strike, you learn everything about the storm it came from and can see from a bird's-eye view underneath its clouds for the duration of the sound.

You may strike the earth with a Bolt to cleanse it of any poisons or impurities and fill it with nutrients ideal for growing a crop of your choice.

Learn a thunder, lightning, or water themed spell. You may spend your Bolts as d12 magic dice to cast it. On doubles and triples, you're struck by lightning.

SUMMANUS, secret god of nighttime thunder:

Divine Weapon: Axe

You regain 1 Bolt each sunset as long as you haven't told anyone of Summanus's gifts to you. In addition, Summanus may speak to you in your dreams and give you quests - completing one of these restores all your Bolts.

You can pass yourself off as a follower of the much more socially acceptable Jupiter to those who hate and/or fear your god.

If you touch a creature who doesn't see you, you may spend a Bolt to silently inflict its effects upon that creature.

Creeping slowly in pitch blackness, your senses of touch and hearing allow you to tell if anything around you moves.

Did you know people's brains are full of lightning? Touch someone's forehead and spend a Bolt to make them forget the last hour.

RAIJIN, wild warrior born from the underworld:

Divine Weapon: Drum (club + shield)

Regain all your Bolts by eating from the corpse of a creature killed by lightning.

By beating your Divine Weapon in a 30-minute ritual, you can summon a storm.

If you would deal lightning or thunder damage to a creature weak to that damage type, you may immediately strike it with a Bolt.

Spend a Bolt to call up a great gust of wind that pushes any creatures you can see 10 feet in one direction.

When you die, your god's lightning courses through your veins and nervous system, returning you to life. Permanently lose all class features, all your remaining Bolts become d12 hit dice.

THOR, protector of the gods and slayer of giants:

Divine Weapon: Hammer

Regain 1d4 Bolts by accepting a one-on-one combat challenge and winning it. A simple wrestling match with a party member is sufficient, but your opponent has to actually be trying to win - no cheating.

You may spend a Bolt to roll a d12 and add its result to your Strength or Charisma for a turn.

You can grapple a creature of any size as though it was the same size as you.

You can see through any illusion or glamour, and tell if a creature is shapeshifted or polymorphed.

When you score a critical hit with your Divine Weapon, one ally you can see gains a temporary Bolt which they can use in the next hour any way you could.

PERKWUNOS, the first storm-god, he who impregnated the primordial soup

Δ Prerequisites: A, B, C, and D templates, you must have sustained 1,728 lightning damage without dying, you must have killed your god (killing a god is impossible)

Divine Weapon: Spear

You receive 1 Bolt each midnight and have no maximum number of Bolts. (Being struck by lightning gives you 5 Bolts.)

You recieve ALL of Perkwunos's Boons:

Gain all the Boons of your original god, and one Boon from each other storm god.

You are immune to lightning and thunder damage.

Your Bolts instantly kill creatures with fewer HD than you.

At the foot of the World-Tree, the Elf of Year's Turning summons an annual Quorum - one representative from each kind of spirit and creature - to debate and vote on all matters of the world in a lengthy month-long process. Thus human society has ordered itself in turn. The Ordinators form an educated, priestly philosopher-class whose goal is to organize society, church, and state as efficiently as possible. Hindering this is the plurality of competing schools of thought among them. There's a great deal of rivalry among them about which philosophy gets to represent humanity in the Quorum, and a great deal of rioting among them if humanity's representative turns out not to be an Ordinator.

As an Ordinator you are trained in the details of how to conduct for a great variety of ceremonies and services. You can marry people, compose their wills, declare them dead, conduct their funerals, exorcise their revenant corpses. All these procedures are passed to you through oral tradition, committing it to writing is absolutely forbidden. You know 2 modern languages, 2 dead ones, and 2 spoken by spirits or creatures.

backgrounds/skills: 1. bard 2. calendar 3. land surveyor

equipment: 1. brass ritual bell 2. astrolabe 3. abacus

A. While you are conducting any ceremony or ritual, beasts and spirits who are represented in this year's Quorum will not purposefully disturb it. Those that do disturb it take +[templates]d6 extra damage from each attack in the ensuing combat.

B. Once per day, you may forbid anyone or anything in concert with the Quorum from doing one simple thing. For example, if you tell a wolf, "do not bother us!" then wolves will not attack you for the day. If you tell a river spirit, "do not sink this vessel!" then it will not sink due to the conditions of the water, but can still sink from being attacked or by your own stupidity. People have more free will and this will only work for a single person and only for about an hour. If you tell a guard, "do not reveal my presence!" that command only applies to the one guard.

C. Once per month, you can use some gossip of the Year-Turning to know what was happening in your current location exactly one year ago, and what will be happening exactly one year in the future. (None of the events between.)

D. You learn one of these powerful rituals and can conduct it once a week. Each lasts an hour if you are not interrupted.

- Antimagic Zone: Within 50 ft, spells cannot be cast and all ongoing spells are suspended for the duration.

- Sanctify Ground: If this ritual reaches completion, a radius of 100 feet is sanctified for the next year. The dead cannot be raised and all spirits and devils must reveal themselves.

- Zone of Truth: Within 10 feet, lies cannot be told and all illusions are dispelled for the duration.

- Oathbinding: Two parties must willingly swear the same oath to each other. If this ritual reaches completion, it cannot be broken for the next year, under penalty of becoming an enemy of the Quorum.

- Weigh the Soul: Conduct a full ritual over a body (or grave) to determine the moral and spiritual balance of the deceased: their regrets, their deeds, whether they are at peace, and what they still owe.

This is a class which literally occurred to me in a dream just before I woke up. I scrambled to scribble it down and make sense of it.

Choose or generate (a magic words table will do) three single words which represent things your deity favors.

1.

2.

3.

Choose or generate three single words which represent things your deity abhors.

4.

5.

6.

Slap these together, it's a d6 table for your deity's Domain.

Next, randomly construct a table of 6 magic words. These are Gifts your deity has given you.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Once per day, you may perform a one-hour ritual to commune with your deity and swap out one word on the Gift table with a new random one.

You get one Miracle Die (MD) per level with which to perform miracles. (I assume they are expended on a 4-6 like Magic Dice, it didn't come up in the dream. Doubles and triples don't do anything.)

To perform a miracle, choose one entry in either the Domain table or the Gift table, then roll any number of MD on the other table.

These rolled words may be used in any combination or order to create a spell name. Their conjugations or numbers may be changed, their parts of speech may be changed as appropriate. (Fire -> Fiery is permissible, Flame -> Flammable is a little more of a stretch.) You can add simple connective words like "of" or "the" if you wish. Words you choose not to use in this way still count as dice rolled for the purposes of [dice] and [sum].

The chosen word must be used in the spell name. It doesn't contribute to [dice] or [sum] because you didn't roll a dice for it. (Essentially, regardless of how you've constructed the spell name, look at the physical dice you've rolled on the table for determining the effect magnitude.)

Pay attention to which half of the Domain die a word is from! A deity who favors Justice doesn't want you to Destroy Justice. A deity who abhors Undead probably doesn't want you to Command Undead, depending on the command. Misusing your deity's powers will result in each rolled die for the spell incurring its entry on a mishap table (grab one from the most relevant wizard school).

Many people say that the Knights of Knaru are flying, whirling, creatures of death, that because of their terrific violence Earth has forsaken them and no longer recognizes them as Her children, that She no longer wishes to hold them close to Her body. Through carefully regimented meditation, exercise, prayer and philosophy, any creature may have its gravitic polarity inverted so that it falls up instead of down. Each Knight of Knaru wears a heavy piece of armor and wields a long sword, both intricately crafted and balanced, their weights combining to match her own exactly. Thus, she hovers in perfect equilibrium, and when her sword is drawn from the sheath on the front of her torso, the sword-tip will tend to point down towards Earth and her body will tilt towards Sky. With skilled enough gestures of the sword, she can manipulate the position of her sword and body with perfect accuracy. Knights of Knaru are trained in a specialized martial art which takes advantage of the nearly frictionless air to spin rapidly in place and strike with the force of a tornado. Knights of Knaru travel light, because even a small extra weight requires a large hydrogen ballast (which could be crafted by an alchemist through electrolysis of water). Knights of Knaru are regarded as strange and difficult to get along with, they're required to maintain some odd points of view and patterns of thinking to remain inverted. Sometimes they're even feared or loathed, due to the perception of being rejected by Earth.

Skill: 1-2 Ballet 3-4 Manuscript Illumination 5-6 Mechanical Engineering Equipment: Knarune armor and sword (as heavy armor and long sword), lead emblem (eaten), inflatable bladder (fill with hydrogen to offset up to 3 inventory slots of weight, -1 dex per slot)

Use the rules of your favorite Knight, Paladin, Monk or Fighter class. If you weigh yourself down to circumvent the zero-gravity, your martial art (including magic you might get from a Paladin class or etc.) is useless and you lose all class templates until you rebalance.

In addition, here are notable elements of the Knarune regimen that must be maintained:

You may not answer a "yes" or "no" question with an affirmative or negative.

Debts are inverted. Anything owed to you, you must pay. Anything you owe, you must extract payment. (A debt is only a long-term thing. Immediate transactions can be made normally.)

Anyone else who touches your sword must be killed. (Anyone you kill with your sword almost certainly touched your sword in the process of being killed, so you cannot feel guilt for any murders done by its blade. Most people would disagree with this outlook, though.)

You must never remove your armor outside a Knarune Temple, which is furnished equally on the ceiling and floor.

If absolutely necessary, a bonfire burning on the ceiling may be established as a Temple temporarily if it exists opposing an ordinary floor-bonfire. How do you build a bonfire on the ceiling? You figure it out.

It can be assumed that you're doing all of the other bits of exercise and prayer and stuff as part of your long rests.

If you break one of these rules, not only do you lose your templates, but you can't get them back until you return to a Knarune Temple and spend a week training.

Finally,

A small emblem of lead is held in the digestive tract. This prevents your weight from increasing when you consume food or drink, and prevents it from decreasing when you evacuate it. When you shit the emblem out, you must thoroughly sanitize it and then eat it again with your next meal.

Failure to use this emblem causes you to lose 1 template each week (coinflip to drift upward or downward) until you get an entirely new sword and suit of armor forged and balanced for you. This is incredibly expensive and the Temple could just decide you're not worth it and excommunicate you. You can use sandbags or hydrogen ballasts to offset this penalty.

Serlen was a mild-mannered monk of the Tall Abbey. Perhaps it was because he was so mild-mannered that he was chosen. After the autumn of the year 483, the monk Serlen was never seen again.

An hour's walk from Tall Abbey there was a chapel in the woods. Within the chapel's basement there was a narrow hallway which turned a corner just too late, and a room with a closet just too shallow. In the wall at the back of the closet was, if you knew to look closely, a single loose brick.

In the new year of 484, many monks started reporting a sense of uneasiness whenever they had to visit the chapel. Even on a bright morning with the sun shining directly through the stained glass windows the space felt dim and claustrophobic.

The High Priestess of Tall Abbey could often be seen standing in the corner that turned too late, leaning her head back against the wall, murmuring to herself with a look of anguish.

Throughout all of 484, 485, and 486, in the nearby village, the reports of curses, hauntings, and witches fell to nearly zero.

In the spring of 487, the High Priestess abruptly left Tall Abbey to join a different monastery.

The next week, the Abbot was found dead in the room beneath the chapel, suffocated by smoke. The too-shallow closet was wide open, and its back wall was missing a brick. The hole was too narrow to see much through, but it revealed a small, dark chamber.

The day after that, every resident of Tall Abbey was murdered.

Escaped Anchorite

You're telepathically linked with a demon. It's not really a warlock-patron situation - the real pact was made between your monastery and some high-ranking devil in the underworld. The demon is locked in a room in Hell like you were in the real world. They have no loyalty to Hell and in fact hold a pretty big grudge. They have no loyalty to you, either, they only helped you because they hold just as big of a grudge against your monastery.

Swap your Charisma with your lowest attribute - you spent years in isolation.

A: Hell's insight, Cloister, Poltergeist

B: Evil Face, Hit Hard

C: Kindred Spirit

D: PSYCHOpomp

Hell's insight: This is the pact made on your behalf, for which you were bound against your will. If another player asks you a question you don't know the answer to, you can let the GM answer instead, with the worst possible truthful answer they can think of.

Cloister: You can hear voices and communicate clearly through walls. You can always tell people apart by their voice. If you press your ear against a wall you can tell how many people are in the space on the other side.

Poltergeist: Your demon has given you 1 MD with which you can cast Knock. It replenishes with a long rest. This is how you escaped.

Evil Face: You may use the demon's Charisma instead of your own in ways that cause confusion, despair, or anger, or in ways that undermine authority. The demon's Charisma is 1 higher than your highest attribute.

Hit Hard: Your unarmed strikes deal damage like a club. You can't make them nonlethal.

Kindred Spirit: You've come to an understanding with your demon. You allow the demon to turn undead and smite fiends. This will certainly let them escape. (From their cell, not Hell in general, though they're likely to be a menace down there.)

In return, you may spend four hours meditating to swap your Poltergeist ability's spell with another spell from the demon's spell list. In addition to Knock, it probably contains things like Protection from Good, Disguise, Fear, Brimstone Bolt, etc.

So, since I’ve already got sort of an MTG theme going here I figured I could generate post topics by picking two random cards. Here was my first result:

Llanowar Elves

Lifelace

Two green one-drops. One’s probably the most iconic elf in Magic, the other is pretty much “green magic: the card.”

Green is one of the five colors of magic. It’s associated with growth, wild animals, the earth, harmony, and interconnectedness. Elves are Green-aligned through and through. While I believe any character class could be spun to fit any color of magic, the classes I think resonate most with Green are Druids, Rangers, and, of course, Elf-As-Class.

The original Elf was essentially just a combination of the Fighting-[Person] and the Magic-User. Uniquely, they could wear armor and still get the benefit of spellcasting. If you look at our friend Llanowar Elf, they add mana, but they’re also buff as heck.

So, from a GLOG perspective, how can we use this? I want to make it feel unique from fighters and wizards, since you can just take 2 levels in each if you want that. So, let’s discuss...

Wizard Magic vs. Elf Magic

Spells are alive. One of Green’s principles is that living things should exist in their natural state. And what wizards are doing up in their towers... It just isn’t natural. They capture spells and study them, train them and domesticate them, breed them and vivisect them. Warp them to their wills until they can barely be considered alive anymore. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean an Elf won’t harm a spell or use it to their own ends. If you kill something, you get to eat it. That’s simply life. But to act like you’re above it, to walk around in a fancy hat and say you’ve conquered it, that’s arrogance.

Fighter Violence vs. Elf Violence

Elves don’t look at fighters with the same disdain they do wizards. Well, most of the time. A proper fighter has no illusions about their imbalanced relationship to violence, how it consumes every aspect of their being and holds an uncanny power over them. And some people are just made like that. There’s no shame to living true to yourself. But some fighters, well, they get a certain way about it. They start to worship the fight, out of pride, reverence, fear, or obligation. 

An elf knows not to attach violence to any moral positions or supernatural forces. They see it for what it is: A simple fact of the world. It’s as unavoidable as a full moon or a rainy day. Sometimes it just happens, and if you know what’s good for you, you make the best of it.

Class: Elf

I took several templates taken from the base GLOG.

Hit die: d6

Elf 1: Elfkind, Elf Casting, 2 wild spells

Elf 2: Primal Strength, +1 wild spell

Elf 3: Tricky, Lifelace

Elf 4: Spot Weakness, Vigorous Casting

1: Elfkind. Choose which kind of elf you are. A wood elf from the forest, a high elf from the mountains, or a dark elf from the caves beneath the earth. You get the corresponding bonus: 

Wood elf: You have a 50% chance to act on surprise rounds. 

High elf: Your first hit die is a d8 instead of a d6.

Dark elf: You can see in the dark as though sunlight, but you can’t read fine details such as small text or make out color. 

To be a half-elf, you could take some levels in other classes, or you could make up another bonus on this list.

1: Elf Casting. You have killed and eaten two wild spells, absorbing their powers into your very being. Randomly choose two spells from a master list, then roll on a spell mutation table for each one since they’re not the domesticated variety. (I might write one for elves at some point but really you could use anything anyone’s written.) You have the powers of these spells. Unlike a wizard, you don’t have spell dice. Since you’re casting it from your own essence of a separate entity’s, you roll with your hit dice instead. [Dice] and [sum] work the same, and they’re still expended on 4, 5, or 6 (or the upper half of a differently sized die). If a hit die is expended while casting, you can’t use it to heal until it’s replenished.

You don’t have spell slots or prepared spells or anything else like that to worry about. If you’ve killed and eaten a spell, you have its powers. If you haven’t, you don’t.

2: Primal Strength. Once per day as a free action, you have 20 Strength for 1 round. (Example: bending a certain set of metal bars is a Strength -10 check.) Can also be used in combat for bonuses.

3: Tricky. You get +2 to Combat Maneuver rolls. Additionally, whenever you attack and get exactly the number you needed, you may make a Dex check opposed by the target's Str or Dex (whichever is higher). If you win, you successfully execute a free Combat Maneuver.

3: Lifelace. If you find a spell in a scroll, spellbook, or wizard, you can restore it to its natural state by rolling to mutate it, then you can kill and eat it to get its powers. (The only spells you learn directly from elf templates are at levels 1 and 2. This is how you expand your spell list from now on.)

4: Spot Weakness.  As a standard action, you may observe a creature fight and then make an Intelligence check. If you succeed, the next time you deal damage to that creature, you deal +1d12 damage (once).

This ability also has a use outside of combat. If you succeed on an Int check, you can learn an NPC's weakness, secret shame, or greatest fear (DM's choice).

I made these based on random Magic: the Gathering cards, rerolling whenever I felt it was necessary. 

Breakneck Rider // Neck Breaker Starting equipment: Leather armor, a trained steed, a monstrous form When you roll your starting stats, roll each one twice. Your mundane form has the higher of each mental stat and the lower of each physical one, while your monstrous form has the opposite. Your GM chooses when you transform. A: In your mundane form, when riding your steed, you ignore encumbrance when calculating speed. In your monstrous form, your unarmed attacks count as Medium weapons. (They do 1d6+Str damage.) B: When you reduce a creature to 0 HP with a melee attack, you can deal excess damage to another creature within reach. C: You can choose to transform once per day. You can also veto when your GM chooses to transform you. D: In your monstrous form, you can kill and eat your steed to regain all of your HP. (You need to get a new trained steed to use this again.)

Skirk Marauder Starting equipment: A shortsword, a serrated shortsword, a dagger You’re a goblin. A: You can throw medium weapons as though they’re light weapons. B: You can navigate cliffs and crags with ease, and have a climb speed equal to your walking speed on rocky surfaces, or half that on non-rocky surfaces with good handholds (i.e. not ceilings or smooth walls). C: Whenever you get a situational bonus on an attack roll (surprise, elevation, etc) you deal an additional +1d6 Damage. D: You have a giant clay spider shell you can ride around in and burst out from at a moment’s notice. Yes, this is the actual lore for the Morph ability.

Shipwreck Singer Starting equipment: A spyglass, 50′ rope, as much old cargo as you can carry (d6: fish, gunpowder, whiskey, oil, ore, drugs) Until I write custom Mishaps and Dooms, use the Orthodox Wizard ones except if you would lose the ability to cast spells, you instead lose your B, C, and D templates. A: You have a flight speed equal to your walking speed when you’re over the open ocean. B: +1 MD. You can spend magic dice to force a creature that can hear you to attack you the next [dice] rounds if able. C: +1 MD. You can spend magic dice to give every creature that can hear you that made a melee attack last round a -[sum] penalty on all rolls until your next turn. D: +1 MD. You can spend three magic dice to curse a ship that can hear you as it’s setting sail. It will never reach its destination. (A ship can hear you as well as a human with healthy hearing could.)

Boldwyr Intimidator Starting equipment: A battleaxe, a pauldron, an intimidating gaze Unlike the source card, you are not a giant. You get +1 HP for each Intimidator template you possess. A: You have +3 to rolls made against frightened creatures. B: +1 Attack. The benefits of your first ability extend to all creatures of a generally cowardly disposition. C: Whenever you reduce a creature to 0 HP with an attack, you can have another creature you see become frightened of you. D: As an action, you can give the benefits of your first ability to allies who can see you for the next round. You can’t use this again for the next 1d4 rounds.

Thieves’ Guild Enforcer Starting equipment: A dagger, a vial of poison (d6), lockpicks You gain the Disguise and Poisoner skills at Rank 1. They always improve when tested. A: You get +1 to Initiative for each Thief, Assassin, Rogue, and Thieves’ Guild Enforcer template among characters in your party. (Other classes can count, too, as long as your GM agrees it’s reasonable.) B: For every fact that you know about your target, you deal an additional +1 damage during surprise rounds, for a max of +5 damage. These don't have to be major facts, but they cannot be trivial. "Drinks Earl Grey tea" "Commands the fifth cavalry" "Is named Ostruchus Poncelroy" are all good facts. "Is currently inside his tent", "Is a man", "Has two arms" are not. If you could learn it by looking at a snapshot of the current scene, it's trivial. C: You can reveal your knowledge of a fact to a target to give them -5 to all rolls for the next round. Facts revealed this way are no longer useful for any of your abilities. D: If you know ten or more non-trivial facts about your target, damage you deal to that target during surprise rounds brings their HP to zero.

Restoration Specialist Starting equipment: Welding goggles, artificer’s tools You get the Mechanist skill at Rank 1. It always improves when tested. A: You can take an hour to restore a damaged, broken, or sundered piece of simple equipment (a weapon, shield, piece of armor, or a utility item such as a lamp or length of rope with no magical effects) to its original functionality. This costs 1d4/4ths the item’s price in materials. B: When looking at a mechanical device, even if it’s destroyed or broken, you can always tell its intended function. If it’s broken, you know how to fix it (although you don’t automatically have the materials or time required to actually do so). C: You can tell when an object has a magical effect on it, and when one used to have a magical effect but it was removed or faded over time. You can “borrow” magic dice from other players (or yourself if you multiclass) for the purposes of restoring magic effects. Doing so costs three magic dice. If you roll doubles, the effect is inverted, and if you roll triples, the object also becomes sentient and will do everything in its power to bring about your destruction. D: Once per day, you can restore a damaged or destroyed non-natural structure, item, or mechanism to its original functionality. This effect lasts until you use this ability again on something else.