LIGHTNING'S HAND (GLOG class: Unfettered Paladin)
Special thanks to Glass Candles for his excellent item suggestions.
They think they can tell you what to do. They think they know better. They can all go to Hell. The world is your oyster, which you with sword will open. You can be as cruel or as merciful as you like in the pursuit of power; it's your decision. Everything is.
The Red Heretics are those who have rejected warning. They have no single doctrine, as Red Heresy is burnt out wherever it is found. They are united by one insane tenet: that Chaos may be controlled by Man with no need for the g_ds. Such heresy has reemerged many times in history.
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| By The Nothic's Eye |
You may not be able to talk to the angels, but you are the one the priests warned you of.
THE UNFETTERED PALADIN
Starting items: A Red Mask, a light butcher's cleaver, a light scalpel, a clean white apron, and 2 pieces of Forensic Evidence from the table below.
Skills: 1. Butcher. 2. Barber-surgeon. 3. Drug enthusiast.
+1 INIT and +1 Shocking Blasphemy per template.
A Live Wire, +1 MD
B The Renfield Technique
C Insulated, +1 MD
D It's Alive!, gain Scepter of Adamant or Lightning Spear
You can wear light armor, cannot use shields, and are proficient with hatchets, knives, machetes, garrotes, and anything you used to kill someone in cold blood.
You have MD, but these aren't Magic Dice; these are Maniac Dice, your internal reserve of entropy-poisoned vital energy. Maniac Dice differ from Magic Dice in that they are d12s instead of d6s, are lost on rolls of five and higher, and inflict 1 damage on you whenever they are retained. If you roll doubles, take damage equal to the number shared by the dice and save vs. mutation as Chaos wracks your body; when you handle live wires, expect to get shocked. If, G_d forbid, you get a pair of ones or twelves, you suffer one of the Dooms of the Masked Cleric. Chaos reigns.
You can regain your lost MD by sleeping or by drinking 3 HD of fresh, hot blood for each MD regained.
With your Maniac Dice, you can work your Shocking Blasphemies on yourself and others. You could learn more from your fellow Unfettered, or from the ruins the Losians left behind. Of course, the miracles performed by the Rose-Gold Clerics and the shamans of the Builders are very similar to what you do… Maybe you could learn something from them?
Live Wire
Electricity courses through your veins. As long as you have unspent Maniac Dice, anything striking you in melee with a metal or natural weapon (claws, teeth, stingers, etc.) must save or suffer [level] damage as crackling lightning erupts from your wounds.
The Renfield Technique
The key to healing is the accumulation of vital energies. If you spend a week feeding flies to spiders, and then those spiders to birds, and then those birds to a cat (or a similar chain of creatures, because cats do not exist in your world), you can convert the final creature's blood into a healing potion which restores 1d6+[level] HP to whoever drinks it, although anybody who isn't you will probably have to make a HRTS check to keep it down. You can do this on a larger scale with bigger animals, but it ultimately comes out to about a potion for each week invested. They remain effective for about a month after the harvest.
Insulated
You're getting stronger. You're getting stronger and stronger by the second. Your Maniac Dice are now only lost on rolls of seven and higher. You take half damage from energy, such as fire and electricity, although this does not apply to the damage inflicted when MD are retained or when doubles are rolled.
It's Alive!
The mysteries of life and death are revealed to you. By spending two of your Maniac Dice, you can return someone dead for less than an hour to life at half HP, provided they aren't torn to giblets or reduced to a pair of smoking boots on the floor. If they're dead for more than an hour, or if you just feel like doing so, you can raise them as an Unburied instead, which will obey your commands for [sum] hours before turning on you.
With some needle and thread, you can even get creative…
Shocking Blasphemies:
Lightning Speed: You, or a target you touch, can make [dice] additional attacks or moves this round. The speed granted by this spell is a thoughtless, reflexive thing, so you cannot use its extra actions for spellcasting.
Ball Lightning: Conjure an orb of ball lightning for [highest] hours, which you can mentally direct to hover around at a speed of [dice]×30’ per round. It sheds light as a lantern would but hums and crackles constantly, and very slowly gravitates towards people if you aren't paying attention to it. If touched, the ball deals 1d8 damage to whoever disturbed it and promptly dissipates.
Rend Veil: A target you can see must save or be afflicted with nightmarish pareidolia, seeing the faces of the dead mocking and jeering at them in every surface for [sum] rounds and incurring a -[dice]×2 penalty to all actions for the effect's duration.
Bet Your Life: For [sum] rounds, you and one target you can see within 30’ are linked by a humming current of electricity. If one of the two dies during the blasphemy's duration, the survivor gains temporary HP equal to the dead one’s HD×[dice], which last until the recipient loses them all or falls asleep. If you and the target go further than 30’ of each other, the blasphemy fizzles out with no further effect.
Brute Strength: For [sum] rounds, [dice] targets you can touch gain advantage on all checks and saves relating to physical force and resilience, and disadvantage on checks and saves relating to fine manipulation, reflexes, and thought.
Convulsive Bolt: You fire a crackling arc of electricity at one target within 50’, inflicting [highest] damage and forcing them to save or convulse on the ground for [dice] rounds, dropping whatever they were holding.
These next two techniques are the capstone of your art, the purest expressions of your power. Choose wisely, for whichever one you do not choose will be very difficult to acquire otherwise.
Scepter of Adamant: A royal scepter of Adamant steel, its once finely filigreed head melted into a formless lump of slag that produces a foreboding static hum and a faint red glow, appears in your hand for [dice] hours. In its presence, the attacks of those friendly to you inflict [dice] extra damage, while the ACs of those hostile to you are reduced by [dice]. Anyone who tries to attack you for the blasphemy's duration must save or suffer [sum] damage as lightning flashes from the scepter to strike them down. After doing this [dice]×2 times, the scepter vanishes back to wherever it came from.
Lightning Spear: For [sum]+[dice] rounds, conjure a spear of howling red lightning in your hand, light as a feather yet solid as steel. It can be used as a weapon in melee, dealing 1d12+[dice]+2 damage with a +[dice]+2 to-hit, or it can be thrown, inflicting [sum]+[dice] damage to everything in a 100’ line, no save, returning to your hand afterwards. The spear can be thrown up to [dice] times before fizzling out.
Forensic Evidence:
A Red Mask. This traditionally takes the shape of a Strange Animal, but yours could be anything from a red veil to a bloody pillowcase with a bullet hole through it. Don't let anybody know you have this, or your head will be put on a pike. You can't even see angels, so the only thing this is good for is scaring the shit out of people and earning the respect of fellow Reds. Still, it means a lot to you.
Butcher's cleaver. A light weapon that's seen a lot of use. Deals +1 damage, but takes up 1 whole slot.
Scalpel. A light weapon that also happens to be a useful surgical tool. 1/3rd of a slot.
Clean white apron. Not for long. As unarmored, but keeps your front side clean, for what that's worth.
Defaced holy book. Everything Aeshe said is crossed out. Every miracle he performed is underlined. 1 slot.
A clerical mask. Either a black skull, a white infant, a purple elder, a yellow snake, a blue monkey, or a green dog. Mockingly defaced.
Homemade grenades. Three of them, full of nails, tacks, broken glass, and baby teeth. Short-fused and always detonate on the round they're thrown for 2d6 damage within 20’, save negates. 1 slot each.
50’ of rope. Very versatile. 1 slot.
Eyepatch. Looks badass and scary. +1 reaction from people who would like that kind of thing, like children and pirates.
A memento. Maybe it's a stuffed animal. Maybe it's a porcelain doll. Maybe it's a locket with a picture of your parents in it. It's the only weakness you allow yourself and you can't bear to be without it.
A healing potion. Meaty pulp in a glass jar that reeks of copper and ozone. A gift from a fellow Unfettered Paladin, the one who set you on this path. Heals 1d6+2 HP when consumed, but you have to make a HRTS check to keep it down until you’ve unlocked The Renfield Technique. 1/3rd of a slot. 1 dose.
One liter of fine moonshine. This is the good stuff. Burns good when you light it on fire, but burns even better going down. 1/3rd of a slot. 3 doses.
A Rose-Gold Mask. The kind the Fulminate Church wears. It's in the shape of a cat, an animal you've never seen or heard of before. You could pretty easily imitate one of them with this, but they will be pissed if they find out you stole one of their masks.
Blunderbuss. An old-fashioned weapon, capable of being loaded with coins or rocks or baby teeth and sometimes actual lead shot. 3d6 (or 3d4 if loaded with assorted junk) damage at 20’, -1 to-hit for 10’ increments after that, and takes a full minute to reload. “He calls me by the thunder” is scratched on the barrel. 2 slots.
Sledgehammer. A massive weapon, fit for hammering in stakes and smashing skulls in. 4 slots.
A treatise on the five six elements. Explains the fundamental purposes of Hot Metal, Ice, Force, Lightning, and Rot. It speculates briefly on Lizard, the sixth element, to much frustration and very little success.
Longbow (heavy) with a quiver with 20 arrows, carved so that they let out a terrible shriek when loosed. 1 slot each.
Poncho with a cast iron plate hidden inside. Counts as light armor. 2 slots carried, 0 slots worn.
Gravedigger's shovel. Serrated on one end, for when that which is dead does not die. Medium. 1 slot.
A curio! Roll 1d6:
SPEAK NOT UNBIDDEN, a medium ringsword of bronte steel (+1). Once per day, it can seal a door shut and make it as durable as steel for an hour. Eggs you on when you aren't doing anything, gets scared when you are. 1 slot.
A broken wine bottle. Not much more than the neck. When peered through, you can see angels, magic, and other invisible things. 1/3rd of a slot.
A treasure map. Claims to show where the people of Sunken Mave landed after their homeland earned its name, burying their treasures and burning their bodies somewhere off the coast in the far north of the Aeshean Empire.
The Yellow Refutation. A tattered piece of parchment sealed in an envelope, sealed in a small lockbox that is lined with lead and gold. When unfolded, the center of the paper is a 1” diameter door Outside. A scrawled message over the portal reads “HERE IT IS. FOUND IT FOR YOU, FUCKERS.” FOR THE LOVE OF G_D, DO NOT STICK ANY OF YOUR BODY PARTS THROUGH IT.
A ceramic fragment, burnt black. Used to be a White Mask and is haunted by its former wearer, an Aeshean cleric named Meticulous Chu. Not unlike the spirits that accompany Tomb Rangers, she has 2 HD and can identify most angels and many Arts by description of their effects, if not by sight (on account of her eyes being burnt out.) She would love nothing more than to turn you away from your path of heresy, since she may as well make something of her accursed un-life now that she's here.
Goetic phrase book. This thin volume contains several important phrases in the language of Demons, such as “in my language, please” and “take their souls, not mine”, as well as a brief guide to proper behavior. 1/3rd of a slot.
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