Albino Penguin Character Class

The other day I was watching a documentary about extincts giant penguins and I thought that the albino penguins from At The Mountains of Madness could be a playable character class in a old school lovecraftian setting like Realms of Crawling Chaos.

I image them as some kinds of eldritch Skeksis.

They live in the north in the ruins of eldritch cities. They organize in households and have complex social codes and rules for everything, they are craven and are obsessed with scavenging eldritch lore. Their large size let them use any weapons but they are quite clumsy with them. They prefer to live underground away from the bright light of the sun.

Albinos Penguin Class (Realms of Crawling Chaos)
Requirements: none
Prime Requisite: INT
Hit Dice: d6
Maximum Level: 9
Armor: any
Weapon: any
To hit: as Magic-user
Saves: as Magic-user
Magic-user spell progression: as Magic-user
XP: as Sea Blood (3000xp for second level)
Special: half any darkness related penalties. +2 to save against cold.

Albinos Penguin Race (Realms of Crawling Chaos)
INT +1, CON+1, DEX-2
Class Level Limit:
Assassin 7
Cleric 8
Fighter 8
Illusionist 7
Magic-user 9
Special: half any darkness related penalties. +2 to save against cold.

Moon Titans

Playable character race:

Moon Titans
Elven like giants who live on the moon

Attributes modifiers 

+2STR
-2CON

Classes: fighter, illusionist, cleric 

Multi class: fighter-illusionist 

If played as "race as class" use the elf template for XP and fighter-mage abilities.

Special attributes 

Strong but delicate: 
Being large creatures they start with a extra hit dice (only apply CON modifier once) and receive a bonus to STR but being used to the low gravity of the moon they receive a CON penalty and are easily exhausted. They can also receive penalties when their size handicap them.

Night vision: 
They can see perfectly under the night sky (but not underground).
They receive -1 to hit when fighting in sunlight or in a very bright environment.  

Moon metal weapons: 
New characters start with weapons that count as silver weapons. Moon metal weapons give +1 to hit when wield under the moon light. Moon metal slightly glow in the dark when exposed to the night sky. Moon weapons are bigger but lighter, this balance out and their damage die remain the same as normal weapons. When buying weapons and armors from man sized settlements, Moon Titans must pay double the price for their size. Non moon metal weapons and armor count as a extra encumbering item. 

Moon bridge: 
Once every moon phase a titan can sing for 1 turn while standing in the moonlight to open a moon bridge to the moon or to any location they already visited that can be reached by moonlight. The phase of the moon influence the travel:

• Full: being lost (none), random moon creature encounter (4/6) 
• Gibbous: being lost (1/6), random moon creature encounter (3/6) 
• Half: being lost (2/6), random moon creature encounter (2/6) 
• Crescent: being lost (3/6), random moon creature encounter (1/6)  
• New: being lost (4/6), random moon creature encounter (none) 

Duration: a gate remain open for both side for 1d6 + level turns. Travelling through the gate usually take 1d6 rounds.

Being lost: mean that the gate open to different place, roll a d6: 

1. Open into the shadow dimension or a alien sphere or plane.  
2. Open on the moon or the dark side of the moon (if the target was the moon) 
3. Open close to the target location but travelling took 1d6 days (that only felt like turns). 
4. Open 1d6 hours of walk away from the target location. 
5. Open close to the location but in a place that complicate things. 
6. Open close to target location but in a place that give interesting opportunities. 

Random moon creature encounter: mean that the travelers encounter something while traveling through the moon bridge, roll 1d6:

1. Major selenite predator (1) (4 to 8 HD, six legged) 
2. Minor selenite predators (1d6) (2 to 4HD, six legged) 
3. Moon pests or bugs (2d6) (1/2 or 1HD) 
4. Moonbeam or moonstone elemental (1d4) (HD change with the moon phases) 
5. Selenite humanoids (1d6, random alignment and dispositions) 
6. Dreamer (make a reaction test to see if they are generating a dream or a nightmare. To move on the group must kill the dreamer or find a exit from their dream or nightmare) 

Trimorphic nomadic lizard tribe

Females: walk upright, craft tools, use weapons and armors. They are warriors & nurses. They like to smoke marshes herbs in pipes. Some of them leave the tribe to become lonely ronins.

Males: hound like, wear cloth, talk a lot, can smell the ancestral trails to guide the tribe during their migrations. They are good at tracking & charging. Some of them become lonely rangers if they loose their favorite mate.

Great Mothers: when females or males grow old they keep growing up and become bi-gendered great or grand mothers that remember the tribe's ancestors. They mate together and lay rare eggs that are reincarnations of their ancestors.

Re-hatched Ancestors: males or females born from the grand mothers, they remember their past lives and become shamans. They like to wear feathers.

Empty ones: when re-hatched ancestors grow old they forget everything and become mindless giant monster that the tribe must appease or kill. Re-hatched ancestors often leave the tribe or commit ritual suicide when they grow old and start to forget everything.

• Female breed with males to lay eggs.
• Grand Mothers breed with other tribes's grand mothers to lay ancestors eggs. 
• All of them are cannibals, they eat their fallen to eat and preserve their memories. 
• The tribe don't craft their swords, they value trading for them a lot. They have a lot of respect for swords holders and crafters. 

Fighter-Mage and Cataboon companion

Cataboon

a companion character class for B/X and similar D&Dalikes

text by Benjamin Baugh

The world is full of strange creatures, but few stranger than humanity and their comrade peoples of Dwarfish, Elvish, and Halflish extraction.  These peoples all seem as one to you, and from your perspective, the differences they claim to one another are far less significant than the differences between each individual.  They’re such a varied lot of fascinating strangers!  Among your own kind, minds are shared easily, thoughts sliding from one head to another, identities drifting, personalities changed with the fashion of the season.  Who are you?  It’s hard to say, or at least it was until you met your companion, and joined with them.  

You are sometimes called a cat-baboon, a treecat, or a ghost howler.  The human peoples tell stories about your kind, and some think you are spirits, others demons.  But you’re just another kind of thinking animal, only perhaps a bit better at the thinking.  Fascinatingly individual though they are, human people exchange their thoughts imperfectly, and only through the crudest methods - modulated sounds, gestures, and arcane marks made on surfaces.  It sounds bizarre, but rather than trade thoughts directly, a human will take the thoughts out of their mind, turn them into specially coded symbols, mark those symbols on an object, and then leave the object for another human to find, interpret, and - possibly, if the magic was made with skill - take the thoughts into their own head.  It really is terribly terribly inefficient.  

But who are you to judge strangeness?  Are you not yourself one of the oddities of your own people?  Fascinated with the mind-islands of humanity, so fascinated that you’d journey there and live almost alone with them, sharing thoughts almost exclusively with one other being, and not one of your own kind at that.  Rare among the tribe-minds of the skirted plain, you seek out the relative privacy of a human companion, and follow them on their endlessly amusing adventures.  

In appearance, you understand that you resemble something between a panther and a baboon, a long-limbed body, able to slink, climb, and pounce with ease.  Strong and quick, keen of sense.  You have clever paws, but they are not hands.  But what need you of hands, when your companion is so well endowed with manual manipulatory apparatus?  When your speed fails, you can fight with fang and claw, but most often resort to the howl that your kind is famous for - the crooning rolling scream that crawls down the ear canal into the spine, and claws at nerve and wit.  Many threats can be induced to simply run run away.  

The prime requisite for a cataboon is Charisma.  A Cataboon with a Charisma of 13 or greater gets a 10% bonus on earned experience and grants their companion a 5% bonus on earned experience.  

RESTRICTIONS.  Cataboons use 6-sided dice (d6) to determine hit points.  They may advance to a level equal to that of their companion.  Cataboons can not speak humanoid languages, and must rely on their companion to speak for them. They make saving throws and attack as their companion does.  They may not use any weapons and armor, and have poor manual dexterity making most tasks involving tools difficult.  Cataboons can never have ordinary retainers or followers.  Cataboons use the same XP progression table as their companion.  

SPECIAL ABILITIES.   Each cataboon character must be bonded to another player character, with whom it may freely share thoughts and feelings over shouting distances, and each may sense the location of the other over any distance.  Cataboons do not speak, but they do understand the intent of spoken language and so are able to translate any spoken language they can hear for their companion by listening to the thoughts of the speaker.  

Cataboons can make 2 claw attacks for d3 damage each, and if both hit may make a raking attack for d4 additional damage, or they may bite for a d6 damage.  

They have strong senses, and have infravision of 60 feet, and are only surprised on 1 in 6.  

Cataboons can hunt and forage easily, locating enough food for d6 individuals with a turn of hunting in areas with wildlife.  Foraging in more barren regions may require more time.  

Their skin and fur is quite tough, granting them -2 to AC.

Cataboons are quick, and have a movement rating of 40, and can Climb effortlessly at a speed of 10.  

When threatened, once per encounter, a cataboon can unleash a terrible howl that induces terror in most living things.  Enemies and a party’s retainers both must make Morale checks on hearing it.  The howl is so loud, however, that it can he heard for miles - alerting anyone in hearing distance.          

Cataboons gain a further special ability based on the class of their companion.  

• Clerics have Serene cataboons.  They are immune to all forms of fear, and their howl works on the undead which grants their cleric companion a +2 bonus on their turning.  Serene cataboons may also use their life to heal their companion, freely giving them hit points if they are injured, at the expense of the cataboon’s own life.  
• Fighters have Fierce cataboons.  They gain a further -2 to AC and their attacks do +2 damage, and when fighting beside their companion, choosing round to round to grant them -1 to their AC or +1 to hit with coordinated action.  
• Magic Users have Curious cataboons.  They can smell magic, recognizing the presence of magic and magical things freely, and can identify specific things about the magic on 3 in 6.  They help their companion learn magic, and allow an additional spell to be learned each level, though no additional spells may be cast in a day.  
• Thieves have Sneaky cataboons.  They can move silently, and hide in shadows as their companion does, and climb at their normal ground movement rate.  They can make their terrifying howl into a hiss, which has the same effect without alerting everyone in hearing distance.  When one provides a distraction, the other may immediately try and hide - even if in combat.  
• Dwarfs have Burrowing cataboons.  They lose the ability to perform a rake attack, but their claws each do d6 damage and are long and sharp, and able to easily excavate tunnels at the rate of 1 foot of earth per round, 1 foot of rubble or soft stone per turn, and 1 foot of harder materials (though not iron or most metals) per hour.  The howl of a burrowing cataboon grants their companion +1 to hit for the duration of an encounter.  
• Elves have Fabulous cataboons.  These fine creatures are elegant and quick, gaining +10 to speed, and imposing a -1 penalty to the Morale checks of enemies afflicted by their especially ululating howl.  Fabulous cataboons aid in finding hidden passages and secrets, granting a +2 bonus on this, and allow their elvish companion to locate hidden magic, like inactive portals, magical gates, and quiescent magic traps.  
• Halfings have Stout cataboons.  They’re stocky and well-fed, gaining +1 per hit die when hit points are rolled.  They may hide as well as their companion in natural and other surroundings, and their companion can ride upon their back if unencumbered, taking advantage of the cataboon’s greater speed.  

If a cataboon’s companion should die, the cataboon absorbs the essence of their thoughts, their soul perhaps, and keeps this within themselves, still alive and aware.  An opportunity may present itself to re-home this essence, or the companion may decide to slip away into whatever comes next, freeing their cataboon to find another companion.  If a new companion is found, and is of a different class than the first, then this changes the Cataboon’s special ability, saves, and attack bonuses and the cataboon won’t advance in level until their companion has caught up, so they can advance in step.  

Gollums (playable character race)

I was thinking about this post: On monster species.

"So this is core to the idea of Dungeons and Dragons. A world of monsters, inspired by unique creatures in our own mythologies."

But instead of making a monster species I made a playable character race: the gollums.

Warning: gollums can be fun to play but they can slip into PvP. 

(Also this like a first draft, this really need some simplifications)

Gollums

Requirements:  DEX 9, CON 9

Prime Requisite: DEX and CON

Hit Dice: 1d6

Maximum Level: 8

XP, saves and to hit: as halflings

Gollums are innocent but envious people possessed by a greedy entity. They are usually halflings or children who endured too much misery, they snapped and murdered someone to steal their Precious. Full of shame they run away and hide themselves into dark caves. Now they have their Precious, their best friend, they are never going to be alone again... While nurturing them, their Precious twist the gollums into wretched goblins. The Precious is like a hermit crab that inhabit precious and magical objects, it push it's gollum to find new treasures and magical object to inhabit. The Precious always want a new and prettier home. Now it push it's gollum out of the cave, toward a group of adventurers looking for riches. Why adventurers would put up with such a wretched creatures? Because they are good treasure hounds... 

My Precious: gollums start with a random petty & useless magic item that they totally obsess over and venerate. 

Not pretty enough: gollums don't use normal equipment, including weapons and armors, those are not pretty enough. They can use simple non-crafted tools like stone, clubs or torches but their Precious won't let them use anything else. If gollums are forced to use or wear something that their Precious don't approve, they sob and complain and suffer a penalty of 2 on all of their  d20 rolls or tests. "It burn, it bite!"  

Teeth & claws: gollums have needle like teeth and sharp claws that inflict d4 damage. 

Low light vision: gollums see well in the dark, they halve any penalty due to darkness (or have infravision like a dwarf if you use infravision in your game). 

Hide in shadows: gollums have an uncanny ability to disappear in the underdark. In caverns or other dark cover, gollums can hide on a roll of 1-5 on 1d6. They can also hide in the wilderness or behind other forms of cover on a roll of 1-2 on 1d6.

Always fiddling around: gollums are very curious and receive a bonus of 1 to find secret doors. 

Stalkers: gollums are good at surprising their preys. When they are alone and hiding in shadows they inflict a penalty of 1 on their opponent surprise rolls. 

Nasty backstabbers: gollums receive +2 to hit and a damage multiplier of x2 when backstabbing. 

Ugly & pitiful: if they are not acting pitiful, gollums receive 2 points of penalty on reaction tests.

Loosing your Precious: when gollums loose their precious they gain a d4 hate die. 

Their hate die grow by one step each day they rest without their precious. (d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12)

While directly trying to find back or retrieve their Precious, they can can add their hate die to any d20 roll they make or they can switch their hate die with any other die they roll (including damages rolls). 

Each time they use their hate die, it shrink by one step. 

While not actively trying to retrieve their precious, gollums receive a penalty of 2 to any d20 roll and a penalty of 1 to any other dice roll.

While they are not looking for their Precious, gollums will sob and complain all the time. If a player character trick them into believing that they are trying to find their Precious, the gollum will loose their penalties, but his hate die will gain a step if he find out he have been tricked, which can eventually be dangerous...

Hate die maximum step by levels:

• level 1-2: d6 
• level 3-4: d8
• level 5-6: d10
• level 7-8: d12

Finding a new Precious: each time a gollum hold a treasure in his hands that is worth more than is precious in gold pieces, the treasure must make a reaction roll. On a good result, the Precious choose to move into the new treasure. On a bad reaction roll the Precious is jealous and want the item lost, abandoned or destroyed. 

The gollum can also ask his Precious if it desire a new treasure not owned or claimed by a other player character. The gollum must be able to see the treasure to do so (the treasure make a reaction test as above). If the Precious desire the new treasure, the gollum receive +1 to all d20 rolls while trying to acquire it.

But if the gollum have lost his Precious, if anyone else (PC or NPC) find or own a new treasure, this new treasure must also make a reaction test. If the Precious decide to move into the new treasure, the gollum can now use his or her hate die to acquire it...

Treasure hound: the Precious always push the gollum toward new treasures. When entering a new location or area, a gollum have a chance of 1-2 on a d6 of being guided by their Precious toward the neared treasure (or a treasure of the GM choosing). The gollum can ask the the Precious if she is getting closer by playing a game of hot and cold. The Precious (the GM) only answer if the gollum is getting warmer or colder. A gollum can only follow one treasure trail at a time. 

Holding the Precious in hostage: if someone else get hold of a gollum's Precious, he can order him or her around. The gollum will receive a hate die step for each order he choose to follow. But seeing someone else holding his Precious also cripple the gollum. to try to retrieve his or her precious by force the gollum must pass a saving throw vs paralysis (without using his hate die). If the save is failed the gollum's hate die grow by one step. The gollum must rest before mustering again the will to try to retrieve his or her Precious. 

Hoarding gold and treasures: gollums never spend gold or treasures, they accumulate and hoard them into a nice place that become their lair. They often name and talk with the items of their hoard (naturally they usually talk about their Precious... )  

Reaching level 8: when the gollum reach level 8, the Precious will lure him or her toward the lair of a other gollum. The gollum must steal the other gollum's Precious. Gollums can always use their hate die against other gollums.

If the gollum menage to hold both precious, the Precious will try to devour each other. From now on the vanquishing Precious will need a way bigger and better treasure to host it and it will push the gollum toward bigger and more dangerous hoard of treasures (Dragons, Liches, etc...). 

Or... while reaching level 8 the gollum can choose to destroy the Precious to gain redemption, while doing so the Precious can use the hate die against him or her. If the gollum manage to destroy the Precious he or she will be free but will endure nasty withdrawal symptoms. (He or she must change class). 

Dying: if the gollum die, the precious become a cursed item until it manage to tempt someone to murder for it to create a new gollum.