[GLOG] If Our Life Lacks Brimstone... (Class: Barbarian)

A class that eats rules to steal their strength for itself.

Class: Barbarian

"Berserker", art by Dominik Mayer

Starting equipment: Two-handed weapon of your choice, fur loincloth, warpaint in the 1d8th colour of the rainbow (black on an 8).
Starting skill: None (see below).

A: BARBARIAN!, Brute Force, Loincloth of Endurance
B: Rage
C: Eye of the Gods
D: Absolute Violence

A: BARBARIAN!
Erase your lowest ability score. Replace it with a BARBARIAN! score, which starts at 12. Each time you gain a Barbarian template after the first, gain +2 BARBARIAN! and erase your next lowest ability score other than BARBARIAN!.
You automatically fail any check against a stat you don't have.
You can substitute BARBARIAN! for whatever stat you'd normally use for a check if the task at hand is suitably BARBARIAN! - feats of physical strength and agility, mysterious foreign folklore, highly objectionable cooking, etcetera. (This is why you don't have a starting skill.)

A: Brute Force
You don't suffer non-proficiency penalties in melee. If you can hold it, you can kill with it. Any object you wield as a melee weapon deals 1d8 damage if you're wielding it in one hand, or 1d12 if you're two-handing it (so two-hand everything, obviously). Ranged weapons work normally for you, if you absolutely insist.

A: Loincloth of Endurance
As long as you wear no armour, you count as having the maximum possible hit points for each die you'd roll, and heal the maximum possible from lunch and a night's rest. If you don armour, like some kind of simpering continental, instead you have the minimum possible hit points. Shields don't count as armour to you and don't increase your Defence, but they count as weapons just like anything else you're holding.

B: Rage
Whenever you roll initiative or suffer damage, you can fly into a rage. While raging, you don't roll to hit - you just deal your damage automatically, and the target can make one attack back against you with the same rules (if it survives). You must attack every round if possible while raging, and can't exit your rage until the fight is over or an ally spends a whole round slapping some sense into you.

C: Eye of the Gods
Erase your Save value. You Save by flipping a coin. Heads succeeds.

D: Absolute Violence
When you roll initiative, you may also roll a single die of your choice and take that much damage, which can't be reduced by any means. If you survive this damage and your roll matches or beats the total number of HD of enemies in the fight, you black out for ten minutes and wake up drenched in the blood of your slaughtered foes. Ask your allies to tell you what happened, but don't expect coherent answers.

[OSR] Drinker-Folk - Bovar and Gnolls

When the world was young, two tribes sought greatness on the savannah.

The first tribe, the bovar, were born of Father Ox, peaceable yet stout and fell-handed, unmatched by any predator but crowded out by lesser grazers. The second tribe, the gnolls, were born of Mother Hyena, swift and cunning, but mere whelps against Lion and Serpent and Greatworm, the royalty of the plains.

One evening, the hottest of summer, the two tribes descended on the same watering hole. Normally, they would avoid battle, neither tribe thinking itself the other's equal, but their thirst was great and terrible, and all through the night they bit and gored and kicked and clawed one another to a standstill.

But, for all their many differences, the tribes shared the gift of speech and reason, the spark of sapience that eluded their peers. And, so the story goes, Father Ox and Mother Hyena sat down beside the still water, and talked, and found they had much to gain from one another. An accord was found. The bovar would champion the gnolls, protecting them and their kills from the attention of larger predators. And the gnolls would keep the bovar's rivals cowed and pruned, leaving them the best grazing-grounds to themselves.

Of course, ways changed over time, as the twin peoples learned to grow crops and tend livestock, but they never forgot their ancestral alliance. To this day, they are near inseparable. There is no "gnoll society" or "bovar society"; they can only be spoken of as one, as the drinker-folk. For, despite their vastly different diets, drink remains a great unifier, just as it was in the deep fog of prehistory.

Drinker-Folk Society

The drinker-folk settle near water, building sprawling city-states on lakes and across rivers, and surrounding them with rings of farmland and pasture tended by satellite villages. Their cities are airy and colourful, and smell amazing - to mute the scents of their meals, out of respect for their neighbours, the drinker-folk burn scented candles and incense everywhere they can. One notable quirk of drinker-folk architecture is its aversion to stairs, which are difficult to make equitable for both species - most buildings use ramps or hoists, if they have higher floors at all.

Drinker-folk masons work primarily in stone and ceramics. Wood is valuable and never used for construction, only for tools, alongside bone and tempered obsidian. Metal is a rarity, besides silver and copper currency.

Besides houses and places of business, the hub of drinker-folk society is the moot, a covered plaza that acts as a combination forum, marketplace, and taproom. Drinker-folk eat separately, but they drink together, and in great quantities. Besides water, their beer is legendary, and every moot will have its own house brew.

Drinker-folk government is oligarchic. Each city has two co-rulers, a bovar prince and a gnoll matriarch (these genders only vary in extreme circumstances). They do not maintain standing armies, but all adults train regularly as militia, and a handful of permanent officers organise them ad-hoc into patrols, regiments, or legions as necessary.

Gnolls outnumber bovar roughly two to one. Interspecies friendships and business partnerships are extremely common. Interspecies relationships are rare and considered somewhat unusual, though not taboo - there's a culture clash at play, since bovar are usually monogamous and gnolls are very much not.

Drinker-folk do have magical traditions, but their mages occupy themselves with farming, brewing, and crafts. Their attempts at combat magic have never proven any more effective than conventional methods.

Most pay some sort of vague reverence to Father Ox and Mother Hyena, their people's supposed progenitors, but they are not an especially pious people and have no organised priesthood.

As a general rule, drinker-folk are xenophilic, and they have peerless reputations for hospitality. Bovar tend to be sincere and considerate; gnolls aren't above good-natured ribbing and pranks. However, both species respond to any hint of hostility swiftly and decisively, and they're fiercely protective of one another, putting aside personal grudges and disagreements in an instant whenever their kin are threatened.

 

The Crunch

 

Leadership

Stolen from alex on the GLOG Discord.

Each group of bovar or gnolls will be led by a sergeant, usually identifiable by a fancier outfit (a cool hat is mandatory) and nicer weapons. The sergeant has an extra attack per round and gives the whole group +1 Morale. Test Morale when the sergeant dies. The values given in the profiles below do not include this Morale bonus.

Bovar

Bovar: HD 3, AC chain, Mv normal, Mr 7, Atk by weapon +1 die size, or fist 1d6. Brutal Charge.
Patrols of 1d3+1, or bands of 2d6, often paired with a similar gnoll unit.

Brutal Charge: Attacks a bovar makes after a solid, unimpeded run-up roll their damage die twice and take the better result.

***

Arms: Two-handed weapons. Sledgehammers are a particular favourite. Giant crossbows if they have to fight at range.

Look: Oxfolk. 9-10' tall, dark brown hide, cloven hooves. Men are slightly taller and have horns. Loincloths in earth tones, loose tabards for women, huge kite-shield-shaped hide pauldrons and thigh guards bearing pseudo-heraldic designs.

Manner: Deep, rumbling voices. At peace, terse but amiable, with a dry sense of humour. At war, stony and usually silent.

Tactics: Straightforward. Hold defensible positions, or advance slowly and then charge. Somewhat honourable by default, but they sink to the level of their opponents.

Gnolls

Gnoll: HD 1, AC leather, Mv normal, Mr 6, Atk by weapon, or bite 1d6. Harrier.
Packs of 1d6+2, or mobs of 4d6, often paired with a similar bovar unit.

Harrier: A flanking gnoll deals a minimum of 2 damage with attacks that hit, and 1 damage even if they miss.

***

Arms: Light hand weapons, often dual-wielding, or shortbows for ranged combat.

Look: Hyenafolk. 5' tall, mottled orange-brown fur, slightly hunchbacked. Women are more solidly built and have more pronounced fur patterns. Primary-colour piecemeal outfits, lots of straps and bone studs. Dyed patches and clan patterns shaved into exposed fur.

Manner: Sharp, glottal voices. Gregarious, talkative, and often crude, but respectful unless angered. Noisy in battle, alternating between guttural insults and that cackle.

Tactics: Ambushes, skirmishes, and psychological warfare. They outflank, surround, and isolate with brutal efficiency. Quick to retreat, but quick to rally, too.

If you want less threatening gnolls, they might also make a good Goon Squad.

 

1d6 Sights and Sounds in the Moots of the Drinker-Folk

1) A dozen gnoll youths accost and harass patrons at random. They're on a moot crawl, a popular rite of passage, but have run out of money, and promise they'll leave if someone buys them a round.

2) A flock of giant chickens (stats as dog) have escaped from a nearby butcher's shop and taken over the moot. They're confused, but not aggressive, and everyone steps around and over them and carries on as normal while the frantic butcher tries to recapture them.

3) A crowd has gathered around an elderly bovar couple and a pair of gnoll hustlers playing Savannah Morris (2v2, plays like the lovechild of chess and bridge). The bartender has abandoned her post to offer commentary for those at the back.

4) A few patrons have formed an impromptu jug band - a bovar sings a steady bassline while gnolls jam on items commandeered from a nearby ceramics vendor (who's a little miffed but trying not to cause a scene). Some "musical differences" have started to form between two of the drummers; a fight is not far off.

5) A crier recites the day's news, including a harrowing, completely inaccurate account of a border conflict not far from the city. Snorts, growls, warning cackles. Nobody is outright calling for war, but everyone is thinking it.

6) A candlemaker, wreathed in multicoloured vapour, hawks his wares. The smoke of certain candles has narcotic properties, controversial among more conservative drinker-folk; a couple such moralists are trying to argue the toss with the trader, but he's tuning them out.

d66 Oddball Hirelings, Clients, and Classes

This was initially my submission to a community project that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Enjoy.

***

Each entry in the following this comes with the name and description of a (H)ireling, the (A)bility they possess, the (E)quipment they carry, and a (Q)uest they might offer.

As hirelings, they each cost twice as much as a standard 1HD guard or warrior, and bring all their listed equipment with them, plus whatever you give or loan them. They are combat-ready, but subject to morale like everyone else.

As quest clients, their rewards could include:

• Normal quest reward stuff, like money and money-adjacent items.
• The hireling joining you for free for a fixed term (or for a loot share rather than a salary).
• The hireling teaching you their ability.
  

These entries double more generally as modular extra abilities for existing characters. Besides the quest reward option, they could be secret arts learned from lost tomes or bestowed by weird magic, or you could upgrade one into a full playable character by plugging it into the following special one-template GLOG class:

Class: Oddball
There's only one Oddball template. You can take it multiple times, but must make different choices each time.
Σ: Choose or roll a random entry on the Oddball Hirelings table. You gain the listed (A)bility, start with the listed (E)quipment if this is your first template, and gain a skill with the same name as the table entry. Then roll on your favourite random skill table for something you picked up to make ends meet, when your main gig wasn't working. Finally, choose a single ability from a thief-type class (a level 1 ability from one of Lexi's Thief Guilds, for example) for a little extra spice.

Enough preamble. Let's bring on the oddballs.

***

11. Acupressurist
H: Ephraim. Shabby and unkempt except for lacy white gloves. Rarely speaks above a whisper.
A: His touch attack can harmlessly purge a potion or toxin from the subject's body, if used within 1 round of ingestion / exposure.
E: Wooden massage rod (as club), finger strengthener, bottle of scented oil.
Q: He longs for renown. Help him save the life of someone important, as flashily and publicly as possible.

12. Anchoragent
H: Iulia. Eyes heavy with regrets. Tally marks on her sleeve, won't say what they're for.
A: Can lock or unlock a willing or helpless subject's joints individually with a touch.
E: Blackjack, jar of mysterious ointment, deed to a parcel of land on the other side of the world.
Q: Find and kill her old employer, who's living under a new identity somewhere nearby.

13. Ascertainer
H: Adarine. Robes adorned with geometric diagrams. Makes arcane gestures at empty air. Squints.
A: Can measure distances by eye and weights by feel instantly, to the nearest pound or quarter-inch. Counts things at 100x speed.
E: Geometry set including sharpened pair of compasses (as knife), weathered textbook, half a dozen IOU notes from various students.
Q: She was expelled from engineering college on a technicality the day before graduation. Get her the diploma she deserves.

14. Bureaumancer
H: Uhlvard. Lumbering, bespectacled sad sack with a voice you tune out almost reflexively.
A: Very weak telekinesis, only works on paper that's been written on. Detects spelling errors and bureaucratic mistakes with a glance.
E: Dog-shaped novelty paperweight (as club), quill and ink, spinning top, jar of strong coffee.
Q: Get him a date. A real one.

15. Breathmiser
H: Rajesh. Shaved head, huge beard. Wears dozens of talismans with the same fish symbol.
A: Can hold his breath for up to 30 minutes of physical activity or 2 hours of rest. Double these if he has 10 minutes to prepare.
E: Machete, stack of questionable spiritual pamphlets, large empty bucket.
Q: His evil twin Hejsar is stealing people's breath by strangling them, and blaming him. Exonerate Rajesh and stop Hejsar.

16. Censor-Witch
H: Zeg. Broad, balding, walrus moustache. Says "actually" and "technically" a lot.
A: Chooses a word each morning. When someone within a mile says the word, he hears it and sees their face and general surroundings in his mind.
E: Improbably heavy rubber stamp (as club), inkpads in black, blue, and red, bolt of silk (for gags) and tiny scissors.
Q: Get him a copy of The Desolation of Saint Judith, a recently banned heretical text. You know, for auditing purposes.

21. Contra-Chaplain
H: Sadia. Patchwork robe of religious vestments. Never ends a sentence without swearing.
A: When she swills water in her mouth and spits it out, it affects the divine exactly as holy water affects the unholy.
E: Censer (as club), defaced holy book, bottle of absinthe, bottle of water, 25gp in unconvincing fake coins.
Q: Humiliate the church somehow, get arrested by church authorities for it, and escape.

22. Devil's Advocate
H: Xiangye. Tailored suit, tailored smile. One cigar a day. Blames everything on her ex-wife.
A: Can identify the exact terms of any supernatural contract, curse, or similar effect. 2-in-6 chance of finding a useful loophole.
E: Razor-tipped fountain pen (as knife), infernal legal textbook, case of fine cigars.
Q: Her case against a local demigod is running out of steam. Find or fabricate some evidence to revitalise it.

23. Disjecter
H: Queens. Tall. Shiny. All angles and edges. Beautiful in a harsh, inhospitable way.
A: Knows a 1-minute ritual to cut any object up to human size perfectly in half. She must be able to move and handle the object.
E: Sword, thrice-blessed whetstone, protractor, stick of charcoal.
Q: Deeply spiritual and humble, she fears her abilities. Find something - anything - she can't cut.

24. Dread Poet
H: Morgan. Too much eyeshadow. High-collared black trenchcoat, regardless of the season.
A: Recites the absolute worst slam poetry known to mortalkind. Protracted exposure deals damage equivalent to being on fire.
E: Reinforced steel quill (as knife) and ink, poetry notebook, makeup kit, poor-quality charcoal portrait of himself.
Q: Trick, bribe, or intimidate someone into booking him for a live show. He wants an audience of at least a thousand.

25. Faultsman
H: Howell. Hirsute. Talks very slowly. Taps random objects "to make sure they're sound".
A: Can identify when a machine is broken and what's wrong with it, purely by touch. No special acuity in fixing things.
E: Sharpened tuning fork (as knife), spectacles with adjustable lenses, bag of mints.
Q: The mints he carries are truly delicious, but out of production. Find a stash of them to keep him supplied - or, better still, the recipe.

26. Ferrobotanist
H: Tunde. A big, genial fellow in well-loved overalls. Thinks aloud. Mossy.
A: Can heal damaged metal with a 10-minute per inventory slot ritual, patching it with fibrous metallic growths. Up to 6 slots per day.
E: Many-times-repaired sword, gardener's gloves, pouch of high-quality bonemeal.
Q: He feuds bitterly with the smiths' guild. Find a problem they can't solve, but he can. Make one, if necessary.

31. Flingist
H: Jethro Southeast "The Beast" Cransley. Tattoos everywhere but his arms. Only answers to his full name, epithet included.
A: Can throw arrows as weapons - half damage, but +4 to hit. With at least a minute to prepare, hits automatically.
E: Quiver of 20 arrows, spectacles, capelet, collection of impressive but worthless medals.
Q: He suspects his archrival Serafine of doping. Expose her, or get Jethro some stronger drugs.

32. Handler
H: Crowe. Goggles, face mask, heavy boots. Terse but polite. Clean freak, where possible.
A: The skin from her elbows to her fingertips is impervious to contact hazards.
E: Brass knuckles, 3 blocks of lye soap, vial of litmus.
Q: Give her a tactile sensation she's never felt before. (She's pretty jaded. Be creative.)

33. Hound-Blessed
H: Afwen. Jowly, with big, doleful eyes. Patchy red skin rash. Sheds.
A: Acute, discerning sense of smell. Can track scents like a bloodhound.
E: Hand axe, collar and leash, jar of homemade pickling solution.
Q: Treat or cure her allergy to herself. It's the only way to clear up that rash.

34. Jeermonger
H: Rex. Clean and well-dressed. Always nursing a black eye or cauliflower ear.
A: Knows insults and taunts in every language, even those he hasn't encountered yet - he just gets a feel for them.
E: Knife, set of cooking pots, bottle of tequila, makeup kit.
Q: He seeks a challenge. Find him a worthy opponent for the roast-off of the century.

35. Levermaester
H: Mabh. Slight and frail-looking, but stronger than you think. Permanent cryptic smirk.
A: Counts as two people in matters of pushing, pulling, and lifting. Up to three people working with her also have their efforts doubled.
E: 4 crowbars, book of log tables, abacus, enormous black clay pipe.
Q: Deliver this thank-you note to her mentor, who died twenty years ago.

36. Lockstiff
H: Ash. Hunched and gangly, like a marionette. Constantly asks if you're really, absolutely sure.
A: Can render any lock or lock-like object unopenable with a minute's work.
E: Knife, lockpicks (which he can't use), thick leather gloves, tinderbox.
Q: Find a reliable method for undoing his work - currently, he doesn't know of one.

41. Mime-Maker
H: Helena. "Shirt" is just stripes of overapplied black and white grease paint. Hates reptiles.
A: Anything she touches with both palms is completely silent as long as she maintains contact.
E: Knife, 2 pots of grease paint, ball gag, umbrella.
Q: Persuade her crush, a novice bard, to renounce his ways so that they can be together.

42. Moonshiner
H: Egg. Hunched, paunchy, needle-sharp teeth. Possibly an unusually clean, smart goblin.
A: Can turn the fluids from a fresh human-sized corpse into a bottle's worth of high-proof, worryingly tasty moonshine. Takes 1 hour.
E: Broken bottle (as knife), 6 unbroken bottles, jar of pickled bugs, 5' reacher-grabber.
Q: Help him replicate the best batch he's ever made, which came from the corpse of a priest.

43. Multi-Druid
H: Barnabas. Shiftiest guy you've ever seen. Jumpy, sleep-deprived, chews paper like gum.
A: Transforms at will into two raccoons. They act independently but can't be more than 30' apart. If one dies, both do.
E: Shillelagh (as club but fancier), 3 vials of powerful insecticide, preserved dead songbird in paper bag.
Q: Stop the city's vermin cull, by any means necessary.

44. Muscarist
H: Yalic. Cheerful, sweaty. Carries a buzzing, gauze-topped clay jar like a briefcase.
A: Can speak with flies. They can advise on the severity of wounds, the edibility of meat, and other matters of bare flesh.
E: Swatter (as club), jar of flies, jar of honey, jar of vinegar, fishing rod.
Q: His flies are refusing to work, demanding to be taken to their "new king". Find it and pacify, subjugate, or exterminate it.

45. Noise Bard
H: Cantwell. Portly and jolly. Loud, rhythmic breathing. Tuning forks sewn into his clothes.
A: If you can hear him humming, it takes a Save vs. magic, which you can fail on purpose, to hear anything else.
E: Sharpened tuning fork (as knife), harmonica, jar of extremely flammable skin moisturizer.
Q: His noble lover considers him uncouth and won't be seen with him in public. My Fair Lady him to help him win her heart.

46. Pseudowizard
H: Sunny. Blue-tinted skin. Fidgety. Plays obscure card games against herself in her spare time.
A: 1MD. Doesn't know any spells, nor can she learn them. Detects as a 4MD archmage.
E: Fancy staff, pointy hat, dictionary relabelled "SPELBOKE", 5 decks of variant playing cards.
Q: Get her out from under her crushing student loans.

51. Pyrotechnician
H: Giles. Bleached spiky hair, red-tinted spectacles. Leaning a bit too hard into the "mad scientist" act.
A: Can breathe and manipulate gouts of harmless but extremely realistic fire.
E: Poker (as club), tub of hair wax, bag of soot, dry-ice smoke bomb.
Q: Find a way for him to use real pyromancy, despite his magically inert brain and terrible attention span.

52. Refiner
H: Bootblack. Haggard, gnarled, dressed in rags. Laughs at nothing, doesn't laugh at anything else.
A: With constant attention, she can make one outfit at a time look like a conscious, expensive, and dangerous fashion statement.
E: Scissors (as knife), full seamstress kit, 3 silver hand mirrors.
Q: Her current project needs one last ingredient - a single square yard of wizardskin.

53. Serpentine
H: Slide. Absurdly swollen pecs. Top-heavy. Face looks like it's been ironed flat.
A: Can crawl flat on their belly as fast as they can run.
E: Knife, safety goggles, mechanical tinderbox, tub of mysterious grease.
Q: Get them a pet snake. Something small and lethally venomous, please.

54. Shoveller
H: Baldwin. Smells of wood polish. Won't shut up about "the war", but never specifies which war.
A: Can do anything with a shovel three times faster than a normal person. In his hands, a shovel counts as a battleaxe.
E: Weathered shovel, shiny spare shovel, 30' coil of fuse cord, pet mouse in cage.
Q: He buried the last of his war pay in a disused sapper's tunnel somewhere - dig it up and he'll split the loot.

55. Slime Host
H: Leigh. Massive beehive hairdo. Moist. Never more than half awake.
A: A pet slime lives in her hair. Its acid is too slow to be useful in combat, but can dissolve anything that fits inside it over 24 hours.
E: Scissors (as knife), jar of hair wax, bottle of decent wine, 3 acid-stained romance novels.
Q: Her slime is about to mitose, and has grown far more aggressive and acidic. Find a safe place to contain it until it spawns.

56. Stashkeeper
H: Winters. Outfit made entirely of pockets. Usually has at least one cut or bruise he hasn't noticed.
A: If you need multiples of an item and you're one short, there's a 5-in-6 chance he has the last one you need stashed on his person.
E: Claw hammer, thurible, prism, skin-scraper, pad of litmus paper.
Q: Prove your thrift by getting him an extra copy of each of his starting items - without paying for any of them.

61. Steeplejack
H: Jo Gables. Tiny, taut frame. Hands are a mess of scars and calluses. Attracts pigeons.
A: As long as it's physically possible, she never falls, trips, or stumbles unless she means to.
E: Climbing pick, 50' coil of rope, pocket watch, 3 carabiner clips.
Q: Get her ban from church rooftops rescinded by winning over the local gargoyle population.

62. Swallower
H: Odwin. Tall and skinny. Exceptionally straight back. Pained, scratchy voice.
A: Can safely swallow any solid object that fits down his throat, and retrieve it at will with minimal mess.
E: Steak knife, 3 bottles of olive oil, hand drill, hand-cranked circular saw.
Q: He swallowed a live squid which he can't retrieve. It's biting him from the inside. Kill or placate it without hurting him.

63. Thread Whisperer
H: Tall Saul. 102 years old. Speaks a strange, phlegmy dialect. Sleeps standing up.
A: Can hold a piece of rope, string, or cord up to his ear and sense anything it hears, smells, or feels anywhere along its length.
E: Shears (as knife), 50' ball of string, brass ear-trumpet, brick of adhesive putty.
Q: He wants his pension pot, but the bank won't let him have it until he retires, which he refuses to do. Retrieve it.

64. Traplomat
H: Philemon. Thinning hair. Steel jewellery painted gold. Calls everyone "friend".
A: Can parley telepathically with traps. They respond well to promises of maintenance, resupply, or interesting victims.
E: Pliers (as club), collapsible 15' pole, 30' roll of bondage tape (sticks only to itself), bottle of mechanical grease.
Q: Bring him an intact, functional example of an exotic trap he's never seen before. He's lonely.

65. Unarchitect
H: Lexanne. Tiny, grinning ball of anarchy in a piecemeal boilersuit. Hisses like a cat.
A: Can discern the weakest point of any structure and whether any given attack or demolition will be enough to break it.
E: Sledgehammer, 3 steel spikes, thumb-sized vial of thermite.
Q: Get her off the hook for the string of vandalisms she definitely did commit over the past few weeks.

66. Witness
H: False Rebecca. Aquiline features. Stutters. Mismatched eyes - one brown, one grey.
A: Closing or covering one of her eyes stores a perfect photographic memory of whatever it was looking at until she opens it.
E: Knife, sketchbook and pencil, 2 eyepatches, hand bell.
Q: Expose the fraudulent author who's selling her memories as successful fiction. She'd settle for a cut of the profits, though.

Final Fantasy XIV and the Joy of Rigidity

Final Fantasy XIV is new ground for me in several respects - it's my first MMO, my first Final Fantasy game, and the first time I've ever seen a game character use the word "forsooth" and taken it vaguely seriously. At the time of writing, I have almost finished the main story questline of the game's first expansion, Heavensward, and my playtime clocks in around 140 hours.

My main class at the moment is Dark Knight, a heavily armoured tank with a two-handed sword (each class in FFXIV is defined by the type of weapon it uses). As I levelled up, I unlocked a fixed set of abilities in a fixed order - some were gained purely through levelling, others through story quests, but at no point did I choose between sub-paths or assign points to a skill tree. Even my choice of race didn't really affect my abilities; there are minor stat differences between the races of Eorzea, but these differences are small enough that they become irrelevant at higher levels. Steady Night is a hulking, muscular roegadyn, but he could be a diminutive lalafell and nothing would really change about his performance or playstyle.

Now, this isn't as limiting as it might seem. Remember how classes are defined by the weapons they wield? Well, all I have to do is give Steady Night a gun, and he'll switch class to Machinist, a hard-hitting ranged DPS. This easy class-switch ability is one of FFXIV's most touted features, eliminating the need to create multiple "alt" characters to play as multiple classes (and going hand in hand with race choice having almost no effect on class performance). But, as a Machinist, Steady will have the same linear ability progression as any other Machinist. And every other class works the same way.*

Crafting and gathering skills in FFXIV are assigned to their own special noncombat classes. I've also been levelling Steady as a Miner; it's a great downtime activity to keep my hands busy while I listen to an audiobook or hang out on Discord with my partner.

I'm not really building a character - it's more like I'm selecting a prebuilt kit off the shelf, and, if I want something different, I pick a whole different kit rather than modifying this one. This is quite rare in MMOs. It's much more common for classes to have multiple specialisation options, and often there are race-specific abilities, extra skills from particular pieces of equipment, or class-agnostic extras unlocked through some means other than levelling. In theory, there are many different ways to build any given class. There's none of that here.

As an inveterate tinkerer and lifelong fan of "builds" in games, I was expecting to hate this. But I don't. I think I love it, actually.

From a development standpoint, the most obvious advantage of FFXIV's approach is that it makes balancing a lot easier, and my understanding is that the game is generally considered to have pretty good class balance. There is of course a metagame and a rough hierarchy of power, but every video I've watched on the matter, even those aimed at high-end raiding and similar hardcore content, has stressed that no class is completely non-viable. This stands in stark contrast to games like WoW, where certain specs or entire classes often end up being too strong or unuseably weak for a period of time. In extreme cases, the end result can wind up being basically the same as FFXIV's setup, but with the good builds floating in a sea of trap options.

But, as a player, I have also found the lack of choices in character building strangely liberating. I don't need to look up guides on optimal buildcraft, or stress over hunting down specific items with the skills I need. I don't feel like I'm missing out by passing up a cool-looking option in favour of a mathematically correct one. I don't have to worry about being booted from a pick-up group for a suboptimal build; if I keep my gear up to date with my current level on its simple, linear scale, my character is properly equipped and ready to roll. And, in a sense, it keeps me honest. If I die in a dungeon or fail a boss fight, I can't blame it on having a bad build - I have to take responsibility myself. (Or blame the healer, but I've been lucky enough to have pretty good healers most of the time. Except that one White Mage the other day who kept pulling. Not sure what his deal was.)

What I find interesting about FFXIV's approach to class design is that it stands in opposition not only to the wider MMO sphere, but to a trend in games in general. Buildcraft is very much en vogue at the moment, at all levels of game development. At the top end, you have triple-A juggernauts in the mould of Destiny, building themselves around abundant loot and build diversity, to varying degrees of success - the live-service "looter" genre seems to be cursed with terrible launch states, from Anthem to Marvel's Avengers. Indie developers, meanwhile, have seized upon roguelite elements as a kind of secret sauce to brighten up any genre, encouraging players to craft new builds for each run and unlock more options for the next one. And, of course, there's the deckbuilding boom, with collectible card game elements grafted onto everything as developers scramble for a slice of Slay the Spire's pie. Every game seems to ask you to dive into its ocean of options and put together your character, your deck, your arsenal, your experience.

I thought I wanted this. I've always been drawn to the concept of infinite possibilities, of being able to customise my character just so. My previous game obsession, Warframe, snared me with promises of building my frames and weapons in countless fun, overpowered configurations, wrapped in a kitchen-sink space opera setting with a vast iceberg of lore, and... I mean, I did have fun! Warframe's moment-to-moment gameplay loop is really good! But the currents on that ocean of options dragged me in too many different directions, and I found myself losing focus and drifting away. Granted, there were other things about Warframe that frustrated me, chiefly the state of its grind and economy and a frustrating array of disconnected, underdeveloped subsystems, but I do think choice paralysis was a real factor in my losing interest in it.

Final Fantasy XIV's gameplay is much less fluid and dynamic than Warframe's. It's an old-world game in many senses - old-world control scheme, old-world combat system, even an old-world pricing model. The pacing is more sedate, and my character's powers far more restrained. Steady Night's basic 1-2-3 attack combo is never going to break the game's balancing wide open through six carefully selected perks. FFXIV calls its classes "jobs", and that actually feels very apposite: I have a job to do, with a clear job description and the right tools to perform it properly. All I have to do is use them right, and within that goal are so many interesting choices - when to move, where to use abilities, how to deal with a boss's special attacks - that I don't think I need any more of them.

* Technically, there's one class, Blue Mage, with a lot of choices involved. Its gimmick is that it copies abilities from enemies, so it can pick a subset of skills from a gradually growing spellbook. However, Blue Mages are considered separate from the game's "core" classes, and they're not allowed in standard instances, mostly relegated to their own class-specific content. It's best to think of Blue Mage as an elaborate minigame rather than a proper class.

Thoughts about Love, Death & Robots, Season 1

I watched the first season of Love, Death & Robots end to end in a single day recently. Here are some thoughts about it. (I wouldn't call them anything so grandiose as a review.) Spoilers throughout, and, much like the series itself, this is probably NSFW and carries a content warning for sexual violence (discussed but not depicted). For those unfamiliar, I've included capsule summaries of each episodes in italics.

[OSR] Ogres, Four Ways

Between zero and four of the following accounts are true.

"Gruul Spellbreaker", art by Zoltan Boros

[OSR] A Visit from the Goon Squad

Discussion on Discord recently alighted on the topic of low-HD minion types, and, more specifically, campy cinematic goons, inspired by Power Rangers and its endless supply of thematically diverse grunts. I've also been reading through the draft docs for Skerples' Monster Overhaul, and one of the things that's really impressed me about it is how many bits of inspiration it offers for repurposing and reskinning one statblock with minor variations.

Between those two things, I felt like writing up some goons. I'll be borrowing a couple of tricks (read: shamelessly nabbing stuff) from this Goblin Punch post.

(The title is from Jennifer Egan's novel of the same name, which I highly recommend).

"Earwig Squad", art by Warren Mahy