Some Barony Weirdos, currently on their way to Magda's Needle

Ella, Fighter A/Artist A

A headstrong young woman, and a fast-rising star in the Baronial Capital's fashion scene. Has intense ideas about her autonomy. Bartholomew and Kismet are two of the very few people she trusts to give her advice. Magda is one of her sponsors, so she is headed to his residence to find out why he has stopped paying her allowance. 

Wears nice jackets (she makes them herself), and understated jewellery. Short black hair, doesn't like makeup. 

Gear: tailoring kit, medium bludgeoning war-hammer, buckler shield, light slashing belt knife, crossbow with 20 bolts, cheap notebook, a writing kit, 5 doses of sedatives. 

Skills: literature, architecture. 

Artist Companion-Entity: 

• Name: See How Pretty, See How Smart, usually addressed by the virtue name Disenchantment. 
• Image: she looks like a heat shimmer that plays around Ella's body when she is possessed, or her head, hands, or weapons during minor favours. 
• Modifiers: Sociopathic.
• Traits: Specialism in fashion design and tailoring, Specialism in true seeing, Psychic Attack that adds +d6 per turn to Ella's weapon damage.

Bartholomew, Fighter A/Poet A

From the poor areas of the capital; attended the Academies on a literary scholarship but never completed his degree. Known in his neighbourhood as an aspiring novelist, friendly with the local gangs. Hates cops, and hates anyone who associates with them. Travelling with Ella because they have known each other for ten years and he considers her family. 

Short black beard and dark eyes, mean drunk, but also generous and quick to forgive. 

Gear: medium armour, shield, a medium slashing side sword, light slashing belt knife, a pistol with bullets and powder for 20 shots, a cheap notebook, a writing kit, 5 doses of stimulants. 

Skills: intimidation, sleight of hand, moving silently. 

Kismet, Specialist A/Bravo A

A rich young scion of the capital gentry, nearing the end of their time in the gangs, none of whom will now accept them back into the ranks (incapable of working well with others). They have hazy but lofty political ambitions for the next decade. Good friends with Bartholomew, who loves them unreservedly, and once-housemate/lover of Ella's - they infamously once vowed to duel one another to the death over the placement of furniture. The relationship has mellowed significantly since they no longer share living space.

Blonde, sharp features, heavily made-up, exaggerated RP accent. Very good at masking fear, discomfort, and doubt. Always excited for cross-country travel and treasure hunting. 

Gang: currently unaffiliated.

Gear: light armour (unpainted), a death's head Bravo mask (unpainted), a heated medium piercing cross knife, a light piercing misericorde (after the fashion of the White City), a short bow with 20 arrows, a telescope, a posioner's kit. 

Skills: moving silently, Baronial Capital etiquette, poetry, poisoning, the basic grammars of the hunting languages (no specific language), an intimate knowledge of the layout of the capital. 

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NOTES

Honestly not sure how the classes are feeling to write up atm. I suspect that the 'starting with two classes' thing is not as intuitive as I thought it would be, and I may have to rebalance around subclasses going onto the base adventurer chassis instead of coming with an A template in Fighter or Specialist. This will also mean reexamining starter gear. 

On the other hand, the entity stuff seems to work pretty well, and it feels fun to me to stat these up. 

Barony now uses AntiTime's shield rules, for all the reasons listed in their post. Ella fights in fantasy Chanel. 

Some misc. setting notes:

• Bravos use Boy, Girl, and Thou as honourifics, as in Boy-Michael, Girl-Gwen, or Thou-Kismet. They also use Boy-Bravo, Girl-Bravo, and Thou-Bravo to speak with peers who they don't know yet. Other honourifics are mildly insulting (because they consider youth important). 
• Guns are rarer and more expensive than they should be in the Barony, because the Capital authorities regulate their production pretty strictly. It's illegal to work as an unlicensed gunsmith, although the nobles all have them (quietly), and you will also find lone inventors and practitioners out in the wilds who keep their trade secret. Criminals of all sorts also make their own. Illegal guns smithed by the nobility are generally of good quality, but the less-developed blackmarket ones can be shoddy and dangerous.

Chanel Spring/Summer, Haute Couture Collection, 2025

Corpse Eaters, Torturers, Monsters

CW - engraving depicting human cannibalism below. 

In the Barony there are monsters but there are also Monsters.

Monsters have the stats of commoners, because a lot of them are commoners. Some of them have stats as bandits, some of them as men-at-arms, because some of them have experience or training in killing people. 

Monsters are people. Clever, ruthless, frighteningly cruel, and lethally dangerous people.

Corpse Eaters, Ghouls, Cannibal Cults

They congregate around the sites of battle, or graveyards (mass graves in particular), or they run butchers shops, or keep large cellars. They are feared by wounded soldiers more than anything. Many of them like their meat fresh, many aren't fussed. 

Some think that the consumption of humans has spiritual or magical significance, some get addicted to taboos, some like the taste, some have simply lived this way their whole lives. 

Sometimes, when things get bad, they are the whole city, the whole country.

There are many stories - about how their touch can bring necrosis or paralysis, about how they aren't truly alive any more, about their hypnotic eyes and corpse-like breath. The truth, of course, is sadder and stranger.

Theodor de Bry

Torturers, Morlocks, Deros, Cave Dwellers 

They watch you going about your life and first they torture you by driving you mad. They talk to you at night, they move things around, they break your locks, they smash your windows and kill your pets. They take the people you love. Then they take you, and they torture you in other ways. 

They keep cages beneath the earth, and they torture people to death in the blackness. No one knows why they do it. 

If tortured themselves they will say that yes, of course, they are in congress with demons, yes, they are in league with Evil Powers, yes, yes, it's true, they are not human, they are not human. But only under torture, and never convincingly. 

The Descent. Yes I keep using it for images. It's one of the best ever. 

Barony Magic

Gustave Doré, Les Saltimbanques

PLAYING YOUR ACADEMIC/ARTIST

Academics have contact with as many entities as they can speak pattern languages. Artists have a single entity, which comes into the world when they do. 

Part of the fun of playing with entity magic is designing your own entities, with bespoke powers, desires, needs, and goals. The guidelines given below are approximate, and might be used as a baseline. Discuss with your DM. 

When designing an entity, choose a name and an image for them, then choose two traits from the list below. An Artist's entity will always have one specialism derived from the Artist's practice - painting, sculpture, tailoring, literature, jewellery making, etc. 

An image is how the entity perceives itself, what it looks/sounds/smells/thinks like. Traits are what an entity can do. Favours, described beneath, are how often an entity will work with you, and under what conditions. 

TRAITS

1. Psychic Attacks

Choose one of the following: 

• d3 psychic damage each turn to one enemy you can see. 
• +d6 psychic damage each turn to a weapon attack that you make. 
• 2d12 psychic damage once during the combat, to one enemy you can see. 
• 1 psychic damage each turn to every enemy within 10ft. 
• Blindness, deafness, dumbness. Inflict one of these each turn on an enemy you can see.

You may spend multiple traits to buy different types of psychic attack, but an entity may only use one type of attack per turn. Psychic damage manifests as extremely painful and frightening mental destabilisation. Some rare entities may instead conjure flashing arcs of fire or slashing poltergeist energies - change the damage type to fire, slashing, cold, etc. as necessary.

2. Specialisms

Choose a specialism for your entity. This can be something mundane, like medicine, sailing, or engineering; something more abstract like poetry, companionship, generalship, or seduction; or something overtly magical, like smelling lies, reading ancient languages, or dispelling illusions. You may spend multiple traits to select multiple specialisms. These will significantly determine the look and personality of your entity. Entities without any specialisms tend to be impersonal, inhuman, and difficult to understand. 

3. Spells

Choose a spell from your favourite GLOG spell list, in agreement with your DM (it is recommended to disallow healing and direct damage spells, but I don't run your game). You may spend multiple traits to select multiple spells. 

ENTITY MODIFIERS

You may take an additional trait for each of the following descriptors:

• Cruel: wants you to suffer. Will use imaginative logic to subvert the letter of your requests, to the detriment of you and those you love. 
• Sociopathic: does not understand empathy. Alarmingly literal, with no sense of context or implicit intent.
• Fixated: will only perform favours in return for specific tribute, and does not care how you get it. 
• Old: will refuse its first summons of the day 1 time in 6. You waste your daily favour. 
• Ancient (+2 traits): will refuse its first summons of the day 2 times in 6. You waste your daily favour. Ancient entities cast spells with 2MD. 
• Royal (+3 traits): summoning is accompanied by the beating of giant wings. Will only answer summoning if a gift of worth is sacrificed first, and will never give favours for free. Royal entities cast spells with 2MD. Will punish any show of disrespect by taking 1 max hp from the summoner, and may have odd ideas about what constitutes disrespect. 

FAVOURS

You may ask an entity to grant you a favour once per day. If you are in good standing, they will happily do this for you - a single favour is no big deal for a good friend. For each additional favour per day after the first, sacrifices must be made. Entities will make specific requests dependant on their nature; sacrifices of something personally valuable to the summoner (or simply expensive) are common, but some entities have agendas in the physical world that they will want help with. 

An Artist may always sacrifice d3 fatigue, d6 hp, or 1 max hp, to be granted another favour by their companion entity - the two work together to shape the world around them with raw force of will. 

A favour can be one of the following:

• Make a psychic attack. The attack is directed by the summoner, and the details are described in the TRAITS list - unless otherwise noted, the favour allows a psychic attack to be made each round for duration of a single combat. A clawed thing inside the brain, a thief of breath, your internal organs cooking. Most entities love to get their hands dirty like this, even normally compassionate and kindly ones. 
• Use one of the entities specialisms to overcome an obstacle. This always works, unless there is a good reason why supernatural aid would fail. The idea here is that you can overcome a single skill check or have a brief period of magical aid. If it become important to measure time (say, if your entity grants you true seeing or darkvision, or the ability to breathe underwater), these favours last for one minute. If you want permanent true seeing you will have to open your body up to possession. A shimmer in the air, a hardening or blurring in the eyes. Two voices, sounding in tandem. A smile stretching across the face, utterly unlike the one that you know.
• Act as a mage hand for one minute. All entities can do this, Academics call it 'poltergeisting'.
• Injecting a spell into your brain. For the next hour you can cast it with a single MD. You may add 1 MD for each of the following: empower it with your blood/viscera and take d6 damage, or prepare a ritual (usually with chalk, but specific spells may require other regents) lasting one hour. Academics may also (if they know it) speak the true name of the entity that taught them the spell as they cast it, which grants a free +3 MD, but this is a hostile act will sever any friendship that they have, and may provoke aggression. 
• True Magic. A flash of the true power that all entities hold within them, which rewrites the world in accordance with sacred abstraction. Invoking True Magic as a favour always costs the summoner d3 max hp, in addition to any other cost, and an entity cannot provide this favour more than once, ever. It swells like a song, or like a whisper, or like a high voltage wire, or like a scream. The effects are detailed below.

TRUE MAGIC

True Magic is a wish spell. It is not cast with MD, you simply describe how the world changes, and it does so, with the following restrictions:

• You must make your request with three words or less. You may choose to add additional words, but each word over the first three costs you an additional max HP. 
• The effects are limited to what a healthy adult human could reasonably accomplish in a week (or a month for Ancient or Royal entities).
• If your entity has any specialisms, then the hypothetical human labouring for a week also has those specialisms - entities with (for example) mason, smith, assassin, or playwright specialisms can expect quite different results from the use of True Magic.
• An Artist may invoke True Magic more than once, but only in pursuit of true obsession. Each use after the first incurs a cumulative +1 to the d3 max HP lost, a -1 to WIS and INT, a +1 to CHAR, and a creeping sense of unreality.

Design Notes: True Magic is designed to allow a greater than usual freedom to magic users. Magic is less powerful and flexible in Barony than in most systems, and these rules aim to balance that. The intent is that magic users enter into a limited, almost story-game style collaboration with the DM at key points in their character's life. True Magic should always feel impactful, strange, and dangerous. Magic is the imposition of the Will onto the world. The Will has a character that is Divine. Language and Abstraction are the proper vehicles of this Divinity. If it feels too freeform for your campaign you should just ignore it. 

POSSESSION 

Academics sometimes open their body up to possession by entities, and some entities work to possess unwilling humans as well.

While a body is possessed by an entity, it is under the control of the DM and will act in accordance with the desires and personality of the possessing spirit. The entity has 10hp, and takes a maximum of 1 hp damage from physical attacks (the body it is controlling takes the full damage of any physical attack on the entity). Magical and psychic damage affects the entity as normal, and psychic can target it independently of the body it is piloting. 

A possessed body has permanent access to all psychic attacks and specialisms of the entity, and can cast spells freely, at the cost of d4 of the host body's hp per MD invested.

If the host body dies, the entity may continue to puppet the corpse if it wishes. It can no longer cast spells (nothing left to power them), but still has access to its attacks and specialisms. 

An entity can also possess a human approximate form, like a manikin or puppet. The closer the form is to a human body, the more hp (maximum 10) an entity will have. A poorly made mannikin might provide a possessing entity with 5hp, for instance.

If an entity ‘dies’ it loses its coherence, and is no longer summonable.

Artist possession works identically, except that the artist has full control over the possession. While possessed, the Artist has full access to its psychic attacks, specialisms, and spell casting, using hp to cast as normal. The artist’s entity is exposed to damage during possession, and if the entity dies, so does the Artist. 

 

Guns and Music

Quick one on guns, because I have been slapped around by this excellent post and can no longer ignore the fact that you can and should buy a brace of handguns in the Barony.

Quick writeup/rules (almost entirely stolen directly from the linked post which you should read, because it is very good):

• Pistols do 2d6, muskets do 2d8, weirder guns have bespoke stats. Muskets fire with the range profile of a shortbow, pistols at half this.  
• Everything is a matchlock (I like the image and fiddlyness of burning matches).
• Nothing works if you get it wet. Powder is ruined. 
• It take you a couple of minutes to reload, you can't do this in combat.
• Guns are fucking loud, and also represent something about humanity and its hidden destiny of control. If you fire one in the Dungeon and no one has been bloodied yet, your next wandering monster check will always count as: nothing, but further rolls are at +2. If someone IS bloodied in your party when you fire your firearm, you must roll on the wandering monster table immediately. The dungeon can taste fear. 
• Firing a gun makes a lot of smoke, which takes ages to disperse. Unless there is strong air movement, every firearm fired during a combat gives every following attack from everyone relying on vision a -1 to hit, which stacks. 

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Another thing just for fun. I generally write up posts while under the strong influence of specific music. I thought it would be interesting to list the 'soundtracks' for some of the posts on the blog.  Maybe this is boring? Who knows lol.

DRAGONS sound like this THIS

BRAVOS (and the youth culture generally in the Baronial Capital) sound like THIS and THIS and THIS

IMPERIAL ESPATIERS sound like THIS and THIS, without the annoying breaks from the minor mode, and repeating for hours and hours at hideously high volume (this actually needs a proper writeup because the Imperial hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe drones, with rounds layered on top, are culturally important). 

BARONY DUNGEONCRAWLING sounds like THIS and THIS

The Tombs of the Maze-Builders

THE TOMBS OF THE MAZE BUILDERS

Level One

The tombs are built from large black stone blocks, very different from the construction of Magda's prison complex. The ceilings are 10ft high in the alcoves and small rooms, but 50 foot high in the large pillared areas. There is no natural light in the tombs.

On the first floor of the tombs, the PCs must roll on the encounter table for each hour they spend exploring, or if when they make a loud noise. 

Remember that the numbers of Dimensional Vermin and Chaos Eaters are finite, and should be marked off against the dungeon manifest. 

• 1 - 4: The air is close, dead, thick, and silent. 
• 5 - 8: You hear a distant thud, or a soft dragging closer by. Further rolls on this table are at +2.
• 9 - 11: 2 Spine Demons, a bonded hunting pair. 
• 12 - 15: 2d10 Hunter Maggots.
• 16 - 17: d4 Dimensional Vermin. If all Vermin have been killed, replace with 2d10 Hunter Maggots. 
• 18: a Chaos Eater! If all Chaos Eaters have been killed, replace with d6 Cuckoos.
• 19: 2 Chaos Eaters! If all Chaos Eaters have been killed, replace with a single Peacebody Soldier, stalking you through the darkness.
• 20: The Ancient Psychonaut. If it has been killed, nothing. 

Room key:

• 1: Painted Hall. The black stone walls of this enormous room have been richly decorated with thick, blood-red glazes. The designs shift and glow under torch and lantern light. They show complex labyrinths, contained inside abstract geometric patterns. Gigantic crimson figures with obscure faces are painted at either side of every door that leads out from the room. The air is still and dead, and the silence is thick. 
• 2: Exit. This tunnel leads directly out into the open area of the Underground. From inside the Painted Hall it looks like the tunnel ends in solid blackness.
• Starred Rooms: Tombs of the Gods. All starred rooms are identical. Stone doors can be pushed open with difficulty. The walls inside feature three rows of stone shelving, on which are placed clay urns of various sizes. There are 30 or 40 urns to a room. There is also a beaten bronze cauldron in the centre of the floor of each room, filled with ancient ash and many burnt clay effigies depicting fish and krill. Each urn contains a small idol, painted in bright glazes, and they have a hundred different body-types and faces. Smashing an urn has a 1 in 6 chance of destroying the idol inside. Intact idols are worth 200s each to the museum in the capital, or an interested noble. Each urn you smash has a 1 in 10 chance of cursing you with horror hunger - you must immediately eat five rations or lose 1 max HP; corpses count as rations for this purpose. Elf-Friends can attract motes in the Tombs of the Gods as though they were areas of pristine wilderness.
• 3: Empty Tomb. The shelves in this room are empty, but there is a silent and invisible presence that you can feel immediately on entering. It is hostile and murderous, and though it cannot hurt you physically, you cannot fall asleep in this room. If you force yourself to sleep with sedatives you become a sleepwalking, ravenous, cannibalistic murderer under the control of the DM until you can be woken up (a point of damage will do it), at which point you suffer d3 points of horror (as fatigue).
• 4: Sage. Large, naked White Ape sitting amongst the detritus. The room smells strongly of incense. She does not speak common, and will become agitated if you start smashing urns. She will trade for rations (at normal value), or clothing, tools, and weapons (at 5 times their usual value) - she doesn't care about money or treasure. She has 2 black pearls that can be sold for 250s each or used as prosthetic eyes by hammering them into empty sockets (no normal vision but blindsight out to 10ft, you must install both for them to work). She will also sell you incense, small stone carvings, and a handwritten manuscript of her own literary efforts. If you can translate it, you will find that it is a work of political philosophy, extolling the importance of the sage in shaping and guiding the decision-making of the sovereign. It is ruthlessly pragmatic, and places a high value on the suppression of kindness and altruism. If you can convince someone powerful of its worth they might give you up to 800s for it. After one year, the book will have destroyed the reader's capacity for empathy, with potentially serious political consequences.
• 5: Mercury. A deep channel has been carved into the floor of this room, following the base of the walls. It is filled with liquid mercury that shines dully. For every minute you spend in here you must save CON or take d4 damage. The walls are painted with the same strange crimson figures as the Painted Hall, but here they are depicted lying on top of one another in twisted heaps. The broad stone stairwell leads down into the floor.

For Dimensional Vermin and Chaos Eaters, see HERE.

For Spine Demons, Hunter Maggots, Peacebody Soldiers, and Cuckoos, see HERE.

The Ancient Psychonaut: Something with disturbingly human proportions that crawled up from the centre of the earth centuries ago. It is encased head-to-toe in delicate, pale, ceramic armour. A walking psychic apocalypse: anything living that comes within 20ft of it is immobilised, and dealt d8 psychic damage per turn, as they are crushed and maimed by invisible forces. You can check STR to move 5ft closer to the Psychonaut, and all attacks made from within 20ft are made with disadvantage. A vile, high-voltage buzzing is audible at all times. 

HD2, psychic attack as above, armour as plate, speed: slow walk, disposition: lonely, curious, insane.

Exoskeleton: Each attack that hits the Ancient Psychonaut reduces its AC by one. The Psychonaught will also take damage per turn equal to this reduction - if its armour has been reduced by 2, it will take 2 damage per turn, etc. Once its armour is damaged it will attempt to flee. 

The Ancient Psychonaut has a strange, protective relationship with the Sage in room 4. If the Sage is killed, the next roll on the encounter table will always count as a 20.

If you kill it, you can loot the Helm of the Psychonaut, an exquisite pale ceramic helmet with a decorative proboscis. The helm is completely sealed and without eyeholes. While wearing it you generate the psychic attack aura exactly as above, with the following exceptions:

• You also take damage from the attack, but yours is a d3 instead of a d8. You are immobilised like everyone else, but can check STR to move 5ft. 
• You must check STR to remove the helm. 
• While wearing the helm you cannot see or breathe.

Its armour can also be looted, and is completely fire and heat proof. It counts as plate, but degrades the same way that it does while the Psychonaut is wearing it. At -2, the armour halves heat and fire damage instead of providing immunity. At -4 it provides no special protection. 

Level Two

All doors are heavy stone, and shift with effort unless otherwise noted. 

On the second floor of the tombs, the PCs must roll on the encounter table for each hour they spend exploring, or if when make a loud noise. 

• 1 - 12: The air is close, dead, thick, and silent. 
• 13 - 16: A high-pitched buzzing noise, just outside hearing. Further rolls on this table are at +2.
• 17 - 18: 2d10 Hunter Maggots.
• 19: The second Ancient Psychonaut. If it has already been killed, nothing. 
• 20: The second Ancient Psychonaut, accompanied by the Veteran of the Psychic Wars. 

Room Key:

• 1: Entrance Hall. Black stone, echoing silence. Empty.
• 2: Painted Antechamber. This room is painted in a similar fashion to the Painted Hall on the first level - in thick, shining red glaze. The motifs are similar, but also include a complicated labyrinth painted onto the floor. Scuffs and wear on the floor show that it has been traversed often. The maze ends at the centre of the room, with a deep pool of liquid mercury. For every minute you spend in this room you must save CON or take d4 damage.
• 3: The House of the King. The walls are completely clad in mirrored bronze. A very large clay pot in the centre of the room, containing a large and horrible painted clay figurine. The pot is heaped with obsidian and platinum grave goods, mostly spears and jewellery, both too large for a human. There is probably about 10000s worth of grave goods here, but all of it is bulky and heavy. If you remove any of the loot from this room, you must save CHAR or suffer the Curse of the King. Smashing the clay pot will inflict this curse immediately, without a save. Curse of the King: you can no longer eat rations - you can only feed yourself on the flesh of humans of lower rank than yourself. This includes all commoners and criminals by default, but you may be granted official titles etc. that increase your feeding possibilities. 
• 4: The House of the King's Consort. The walls are completely clad in mirrored silver. A very large clay pot in the centre of the room, containing a large and horrible painted clay figurine. In front of the pot is laid a platinum recurve bow, strung with bright wire. It is too big for a human, but might be used with difficulty by a character of STR 16 or more - it will need custom arrows made, has -1 to hit, and deals 2d6 damage. If you remove the bow from this room, you must save CHAR or suffer the Curse of the Consort. Smashing the clay pot will inflict this curse immediately, without a save. Curse of the Consort: you can no longer eat rations - you can only feed yourself on the flesh of humans of higher rank than yourself. This will be everyone if you are ever legally convicted of a crime.
• 5: Tombs of the Warriors. This long room has 8 identical tombs branching off from it, and a pit in its floor that drops away into darkness. The painted murals are in garish yellow and blue glazes, and depict furious battle. A complicated maze is painted onto the floor, scuffed with use. At its conclusion is the bottomless pit. This room also includes a mercury channel at the base of its walls - for every minute you spend here you must save CON or take d4 damage. Each of the radiating tombs contains a nine-foot-tall humanoid mummy frozen in a pose of mourning or weeping. All mummies are dressed in bronze armour and carry bronze swords. 
• 6: Tomb of the Sadist. In the centre of this room is a raised stone dais, on which sits a cross-legged, nine-foot-tall humanoid mummy. In its lap sit bronze chains and a bronze needle. There is no ornamentation, the walls and floor are black stone. Standing in front of the dais, silent and utterly still, is a Maze-Builder Protector Thane. 
• 7: Tombs of the Priests. This room reeks of ammonia. It has 8 identical tombs branching off from it, and a pit in its floor that drops away into darkness. There are dark stains on the surfaces, like drags marks. The painted murals are in white glazes, and depict communion with the sun at the centre of the earth. A complicated maze is painted onto the floor, scuffed with use. At its conclusion is the bottomless pit. This room also includes a mercury channel at the base of its walls - for every minute you spend here you must save CON or take d4 damage. Each of the radial tombs has had its door forced open, and they each contain d3-1 Tomb Slimes. If this roll is a 0, it instead contains a nine-foot-tall humanoid mummy, frozen in a pose of adoration. 
• 8: Tomb of the Mystic. This room reeks of ammonia. In its centre is a raised stone dais, empty. There is no ornamentation, the walls and floor are black stone. Everything is covered in thick, transluscent residue, and a desiccated Protector-Thane lies dead in the centre of the floor. 4d6 Tomb Slimes hibernate here, three of them inside the corpse of the Thane. 
• 9: Tombs of the Domestics. This entire room is crammed with nine-foot-tall mummies, as are the three tomb-corridors at its rear. They are packed in so densely that moving between them is hard - the room counts as difficult terrain. They have not been posed at all and lie where they were thrown. The room has no ornamentation. The two 'secret' doors are sections of wall that have obviously been blocked up with heavy stones after the original construction. It will take two hours of work for a single person to remove them such that the entrances are useable. They reveal rough and unfinished tunnels that were obviously not part of the original design of the tombs. 
• 10: Nest. Rough hewn rooms with furniture, where people obviously once lived. All of the furniture is human scaled, and it look like there are bunks for 15-20 people. There are containers, a large table surface. Everything has rotted to uselessness except two bronze and bone knives in functional condition.  
• 11: Geometry. The walls of this room are thin masonry, which can be knocked through without too much difficulty. It looks as though the room was sealed at some point. Inside, the walls, floor, and ceiling have been scored with twisted mazes of extreme complexity. They are not at all like the mazes in the main tomb complex, they feel paranoid, recursive, insane, and hopeless. There are also various technical drawings that attempt to describe geometries beyond the Euclidean. PCs may check INT to understand that the premise of these experiments is flawed, making the conclusions useless. 
• 12: Bone Pile. Another bricked up room. This one contains human skeletons that have obviously been gnawed on and broken open for marrow. A count will reveal 16 adult and 9 child skeletons. 
• 13: Painting. A wall painting that depicts the sun and the ocean, and another that shows a hollow sphere containing a second sphere. Both have been messily and hastily defaced, but the originals were executed with some skill. The paint is the same white glaze that was used in the Tombs of the Priests. 
• 14: Hideaway. Four human skeletons, two adults, two children. Their bones have not been bitten or otherwise disturbed. They died in each others' arms. The 'secret' door is another pile of heavy rocks. The bronze dagger Nameless is held in the hand of one of the adults.  
• 15: Refuge. This long corridor ends in a dead end, where the wrappings of mummies have been used to make a soft bed. If you have not killed either the Ancient Pyschonaut or the Veteran of the Psychic Wars, they will be found here, curled in an embrace (in full armour). They will be immediately hostile if found this way, and will not flee when they begin taking damage from their exoskeletons. If you attack without hesitation, you will get a surprise round. Their psychic suppression fields will flick on with a cracking whine when they become aware of you (after any surprise round). 

The Second Ancient Psychonaut is identical to the one on the first floor, but without any special love for the Monkey Sage. 

The Tomb Slimes are hd1, attack by engulfing, unarmoured, speed: as a sprinting human, disposition: pack hunters, drawn to heat sources (will go for a torch before a human). Engulf: If the slime hits with its attack, it engulfs you. You cannot breath or see, and you take d6 damage each turn you are engulfed. Any torch you are carrying is immediately extinguished. You take half of any damage inflicted to the slime while engulfed by it. 

The Veteran of the Psychic Wars is identical to the other Ancient Psychonauts, but is HD3, and carries a Heat Lash and a shield. The Heat Lash is a whip +2 that does fire damage. The Veteran can attack normally while its psychic aura is doing damage. Moving while under the effects of two psychic fields requires two STR checks. 

Protector-Thane: HD6, bronze war-axe d10x2, armour as plate and shield, speed: slow walk, disposition: guardian. The Protector-Thane is a nine foot tall humanoid armoured head-to-toe in heavy bronze. The style of the armour is like nothing in the Barony. Its features are covered in mummy wrappings, but this is a ritual affectation, and the creature beneath is alive. It will not be hostile unless attacked, or if you are carrying grave goods or mess with the mummies. If it decides to kill you it will fight to the death. 

Nameless is a bronze and bone dagger with a deeply stained blade. It does 4d6 damage to enemies that are bound or otherwise made helpless. 

Prestige Class: Ogre

With thanks to PRIMEUMATON and Loch for the stimulating ogre chat. 

Gustave Doré's illustrations for Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel

OGRE

Requirements: Fighter AB, Poet AB, CON 14, STR 14, CHAR 14.

To become an Ogre you must spend a night doing Ogreish Things. What these are exactly will be down to your DM, but they will always require a check derived from CON, STR, or CHAR. Most of them will be easier to do when drunk. Ogreish Things will include things like:

• Eating a whole sheep (CON).
• Fucking someone's husband or wife while you keep them occupied elsewhere with a meaningless task (CHAR). 
• Challenging and beating the entire population of the inn at arm wrestling (STR).
• Dancing all night and demanding (with threats of violence) that the minstrels play on (STR or CHAR).
• Beating a tax collector to death with your bare hands and escaping legal consequences (STR).
• Shitting in a place of high honour (the church, a throne room, the bed of the innkeeper) and escaping legal consequence (CHAR).  
• Letting all who wish to punch you as hard as they can in the gut, and laughing as they do so (CON).
• Drinking enough alcohol to reasonably kill an adult human (CON). 
• Etc., etc.

You must do at least 3 Ogreish Things in a single night of debauchery, and not fail any of the checks - once this is accomplished you gain a single point in VITALITY and may upgrade one of your Fighter or Poet templates to its Ogreish version. You choose which to upgrade, they don't have to be taken in order.

Henceforth, every time you do 3 or more Ogreish Things in a single night, you gain another point of VITALITY and may upgrade another template to it's Ogreish version. 

You must also save WIS to avoid doing an Ogreish Thing when you have the clear opportunity - this is adjudicated by the DM. This save is at -1 for each VITALITY you possess, and an additional -1 for each Ogreish Thing you have already done that night. The save is made at disadvantage if you are drunk.

Each point of VITALITY that you possess grants you +d8 HP, and +1 to STR, CON, and CHAR, which can take you past 18.

VITALITY can be lost, but only over a long period of time, and probably only in a monastery. In functional terms you would need to retire your character to lose VITALITY that you have acquired. 

• Ogreish Fighter A - In addition to the normal effects, you also gain to ability to knock humans prone with your attacks (they may save STR to avoid this). Your melee hits against prone targets do damage as criticals.
• Ogreish Fighter B - In addition to the normal effects, you may eat humanoid carcasses to revive yourself. Each corpse that you eat (which take five minutes or so) heals you d6 HP, and after eating three you must either vomit or shit them out before eating more. 
• Ogreish Poet A - In addition to the normal effects, you recitations always heal you d4 HP and cause your next attack to crit. If this is a comic recitation, you instead heal d8, and your crit triples your damage instead of doubling it. You think yourself hilarious. If you perform at an inn you will need to pay them d4x100s in the morning, to mitigate the property and reputational damage to the establishment.  
• Ogreish Poet B - He dances and dances and he says that he will never die. In addition to the normal effects, your reputation now includes you being literally unkillable. People are scared of you the way they might be scared of a demigod or a famous monster. You instinctively know people's fears and weaknesses, as well as their intentions. 

Ogres with 1 VITALITY look like large, brutish humans. Ogres with 2 or more are obviously monstrous: they are much too large, they have sharp, predator teeth, their eyes are insane with bloodlust and mirth, their faces swell purple and distend with laughter or rage, and their bellowing voices are accompanied with hot steam from the throat or ears.  

If you ever gain 4 points of VITALITY you become a savage and extremely dangerous monster dedicated entirely to the pursuit of its own pleasures - you are now under the control of the DM. 

More Doré

The Deep Hot Biosphere - or - What is trying to kill you in Bloom Pools?

Initial movements towards a bestiary for THIS environment.

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Garden of Mouths

Colony organism that lives in holes bored into the iron beneath the surface of the water. Simple, 2ft long wormlike bodies with a keratin claw or tooth at the tip. They shoot out of their burrows en masse and 'chew' their prey by tearing it to pieces in the water. Once it's dead and ripped up they will use their bodies to hold what's left of the corpse against their burrows, and extrude soft mouth parts to consume it.

Each colony is made up of 2d6+6 worms, and a single pool may have many colonies.

They are HD0(1hp), can attack within 10ft, and deal d3 damage. Coming into range will trigger attacks from all living worms. They will prioritise eating a corpse over attacking.

Pattern Jelly

Ambulant slimes and jellies whose bodies strobe with a million different colours and patterns - a stable form that allows them to confuse and even disrupt the simple light sensors of the other things that live in the pools. They engulf their prey and dissolve them into absorbable nutrients with their acidic bodies.

Each jelly is HD1, slow, and attacks by engulfing the target. If you can see a pattern jelly you must make an easy WIS save (-1 for each additional jelly you can see) each turn to act normally. 

Engulf: hits automatically. Each turn spent engulfed does d6 acid damage. If the jelly takes damage while it has prey engulfed, that damage is split between the two targets. 

Thrasher Insect

Euphemistically called 'insects' because they have exoskeletons, many multi-jointed limbs, and a feeding 'head' with attached mandibles. There is no standard body-plan. Their armoured, whip-like appendages lacerate and tear at things that come near them, and they hunt by vibrations. Their jerky and unnatural movements are deceptively quick. 

HD3, thrasher spin d8 x2, armour as leather, speed: very fast. 

Light Beast

A predator-scavenger built around a single incandescent bioluminescent organ at the centre of its body. Within a certain distance the light does damage to biological matter, causing other animals to weaken, blacken, and eventually die. Its typical method of attack is to attach itself to a prey animal that is already too weak to fight back. Looks like a perfectly round glowing ball of light, with various translucent grasping limbs growing from it radially. These creatures, as well a bioluminescent algae, are the reason why many of the creatures that live in the bloom pools have developed light sensors.  

HD1, no natural attacks, unarmoured, speed slow. 

Gives off light like a torch - if you are within this light you take 1hp damage per turn. If you are within 5ft of them, this goes up to d4 damage. 

Aquatic Ape

Rare, intelligent dweller in the pools. They look like white apes with translucent skin (you can see their internals) and no fur. Stat them as H1 White Apes with simple spears, knives, and clubs made from scavenged bone and keratin. They will hunt in packs of 4-8, and are one of the apex predators down here - depopulated pools are a telltale sign of their presence.

Paralytic Bloom

Coral-like animals whose long, barbed, nearly-invisible tendrils barbs deliver paralytic toxins. When prey has been subdued it is reeled back to the central mouth. 

1HD, stinging tentacles (see below), unarmoured, immobile. 

Stinging tentacles: save DEX when trying to move within 10ft (advantage if you are wearing chain or better). If you fail, save CON or become paralysed, with a save every round to end the effect. If you spend a turn paralysed within 10ft, you are moved to its mouth. If you spend a turn paralysed at the mouth, you take d10 damage. 

Armoured Crawler

Aquatic pillbug-like insects with extremely tough armoured carapaces. They are slow but their legs and manipulator limbs are hideously strong, easily capable of tearing a human to pieces. They eat carrion and group together around sources of strong heat.

HD4, mouth d10, armour as plate+1, extremely slow. 

Iron Thing

Long, sharp, splinters of iron that attempt to burrow under the skin of living things. In reality there are tiny wormlike creatures that make use of the superstructure of the iron maze to build their splinter-bodies. Once embedded, they reproduce by metabolising the body of their host into more Iron Things, resulting in many ambulatory iron splinters growing beneath the skin and trying to force their way to the surface.

HD0(1hp), burrow in d4 (-2 against chain or better), unarmoured, speed: as human.

If their 'burrow in' attack hits, the worm is now inside you. You have 3 turns to get it out before it lays its eggs. You can still attack the Iron Thing while it is inside you (you must deal slashing or piercing damage, bludgeoning and unarmed attacks won't do it), but any damage to the worm will be mirrored on the host.

If it manages to lay its eggs, you are infested. For d10 days thereafter d3 Iron Things will emerge messily from your body, doing d6 damage and 1 CON damage each as they do so. They will have new splinter-bodies made from the bone and cartilaginous matter of your body.

The Culture of the Academics

Far above in the darkness of the sky and the storm there are obscure beings whose bodies are composed and ordered by great sets of parallel lines that stretch away into the darkness. There are thousands of them, maybe millions, since they do not seem to be extensive in space, and they recede in series, held between the bars which correspond in some obscure way to the architectural lines and surfaces of the captial. Their bodies are enormous. They fill the sky. Their flesh is the same dark translucent colours of the rain in the nighttime. You cannot see any faces. Each one adopts its posture, dictated by the bars that hold it in position, and each of these is unique. They are composed in reference to contingency, sufficiency, survival; a pure survival even fixed here, unsheltered in the teeth of forces that would crack stone and level buildings. There is no rupture of a scream. Each is a copy of a copy of a copy. If they could be made to remember the pleasures of eating, the smells of cooked meat and of fat popping from the charred bones of the communal spit then perhaps they would come back down among us to feast— a chastisement for pride, for the vanity of our separation. 

Above and around the figures the space of the air is carved into by wind that moves across the sky in enormous sheets. Between the sky and the earth the rain coheres into its programme of vertical bars. There is the verticality of the rain and the horizontal substrate of earth and sky, and these compose her body as surely as they do these others that have been brought forth from nothing, from vapour and obscurity, to illustrate the poverty and the autonomy of saintly beings.

The Reverse Needle

All of these notes continue from the outline in this document.

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The Reverse Needle

The reverse needle is built from five identical iron rooms, which stretch downwards from the superstructure of the Iron Maze, towards the High Energy Material sea.

Each room is 30ft x 30ft with a 20ft high ceiling. Each features a large, open circular drain, and a stairwell that leads to the floor below. The iron features are decorative - think Deco cast-iron fences and railings. Each room is also open on all four walls - nearly the entire space of each wall is taken up with a broad, uncovered space that serves as a window.

This means that the whole structure is open to the incredible noise, light, and heat of the HEM sea. It is a transpierced and interpenetrated 3d volume.

Water flows from the top of the Reverse Needle at all times; it moves across and covers every surface. This cools the iron enough that the structure can be traversed without protective gear. The wet iron surfaces are uniformly black, slicked (extremely slippery), and constantly hissing and steaming. The water moves quickly and with violence, churning around the floor of each room before swirling down its central drain. Each room has a second false-floor of close set iron grillwork installed (like a catwalk - you can see down through it), that sits above the boiling, churning water.

Each level/room is furnished with ornate furniture, made from fireproof materials (mostly iron and white, carved stone). The taste takes accents from the carvings of the White Ape Monastery. 

The roughest diagram ever.

All rolls to hit are made at -1 in the Reverse Needle, due to the slippery surfaces and sheets of boiling steam. 

Notes on individual floors:

First (top) floor

• Almost empty. A single painted and etched steel panel faces the 'door' into the Reverse Needle. It is secured in place in front of the open window with four thin chains that anchor to the corners of the room. The imagery is abstract, but it appears to depict an oddly elongated and elaborately jewelled human torso. The crop of the image cuts away at the head, hips, and limbs, and the figure emerges from sheets of boiling steam or concealing fog. The etched marks layer on top of the original painted surface. The sheet is heavy and unwieldy, but if you could get it to the surface the painting would be worth a lot of money - between 800 and 2500s, depending on the collector's interest in the study of Chaos. 
• There is an inscription stamped into the iron wall below the painting: THESE ARE NIGHTMARES
• Hidden beneath the churning water are four animated cloth manikins. A sharp-eyed character looking beneath the surface will see them, but they will be playing dead/inanimate. They are aware of any trespassers, and will wait until the PCs have moved down to the second floor before climbing up out of the water to shadow them. When they emerge from the water they will be sodden with water and sheeting steam. They carry long silk ropes and scarves that they use to strangle foes. 
• Cloth Manikin. HD2-4, silk rope d2 (d10 if attacking from surprise, or if grappled), unarmoured, speed: unnervingly quick, disposition: patient and methodical stalkers. Unbreakable, and only barely intelligent. Manikins move silently, and will do the Weeping Angel freezing thing to attempt to avoid suspicion. 

Even rougher! The hanging system for the paintings and mirrors.

Second floor

• Low, carved stone table and chairs. On the table is an exquisite, jewelled set of smoking paraphernalia worth 600s; a long, sharp, and beautifully carved dagger made from a single piece of stamped and worked steel; and a protective, decorative stone box containing a book. The book has no listed title, seems to be handwritten, and contains thousands and thousands of curses - they aren't magical, but they are very creative and some of them are chillingly cruel. If it is taken out of the box the heat will cause the fragile paper to combust after ten minutes (true for all books down here). 
• There is also a strange container with an elaborately worked screw top lid. It contains water that is cold and refreshing. It's basically an insulated thermos flask, and will keep hot things hot and cold things cold. Ambiguously magical, worth 1000s easily. 
• Hanging from the ceiling, from a hook attached to a chain, is a vicious-looking, barbed duelling spear, and a heavily scratched and marked steel buckler. The hook is designed so that both can be easily grabbed, ready for use.
• If you leave this room without taking the knife or spear, and the manikins are still following you, two of them will arm themselves when passing through.

Third Floor

• Slumped in a corner is an Imperial War Body. See here for details. 
• A large mirror with a gold-Baroque frame, hung in the same manner as the painting on the first floor.
• A carved-stone pedestal table, and an iron box with many compartments crammed full of extremely expensive cosmetics, all obviously well-used. There are rare and gorgeous perfumes, coloured powders of all sorts, and heavy oil-based face paints, as well as compartments for grooming implements. The contents are worth 300s in the capital. 
• The box also contains also four pillboxes, each containing 50 or so pills; two with grey, one with white, and one with blue. The grey ones protect you from the HP loss that humans normally experience in Chaos - one pill protects you for 24 hours. The white and blue pills are hormonal cosmetics, that respectively feminise and masculinise your features. You have to take them every day, and results take about a week to start showing. Unlabelled, but a chemist will be able to analyse them and discover their properties. 
• A wrought iron stand, a bit like a coat rack, which is hung with jewellery chains of various sizes, weights, and materials - probably 3 inventory slots and 3500s worth of lucre all told. There is a marked preference towards warm gold, set with pearls, white crystal, and diamond. 
• If you make it to this room and the manikins haven't attacked yet, this is where they'll do it. One of them will try to get to the War Body and use it against you. 

Fourth Floor

• This rooms has two paintings hung up in it. They are obviously by the same artist as the paintings on the first floor (and will be worth the same). One depicts a constellation of point lights, whose beams carve up an ambiguous, chaotic, semiliquid environment. The other is of a distorted human face, with a smile and eyes that are stretched open far too wide - the eyes output the same beams as the constellation.
• A stone chest against the wall. Resting on its lid is a messer sword with a rose-pink glass blade (longsword +1, shatters into pieces if all of your attacks crit miss). The blade rings like a bell when struck, and absorbs blood like tissue paper.
• The chest contains many books. If you spend a day studying these you get truthful answers to d3 (Academics get d3+1) questions about the history of God, the dragons, and the wars against Chaos. Worth a lot to the academies. 
• It also contains a handwritten manual of meditation and breathing techniques. Studying these over a week of downtime will triple your capacity to safely hold your breath. 
• Finally, it contains 5 doses of rare hallucinogens. If you ingest these in sight of any of the three paintings in the Reverse Needle (or any of King Magda's completed artworks) you must save INT or suffer -1 to all mental stats, in addition to the listed effects. 

Fifth Floor

• The Sainted Captain and their companion angel Adoration are here. See here for details. 
• A stone bed, a stone sidetable, a stone chest, and a small iron box. 
• The box is locked, the key is with Magda's corpse on the surface. It contains many cheap notebooks and writing implements (the notes and sketches are fragmentary, encoded, and illegible), and a heavily-annotated bound work of fiction titled Dream of Golden Days. 
• The stone chest contains many very beautiful but entirely mundane fitted jackets sewn with semi-precious stones, golden thread, mirrored sequins, etc., and other plain, tailored clothing. The whole collection is bulky, and worth 600s. 
• Another cloth manikin waits below the water. It will only emerge if the PCs open the chest with the jackets. It is non hostile, and will make the PCs understand by soft gestures that they should dress it in one of the jackets. If they do so it will pose for them, turning slowly so that they can get a good look at the way the fabric sits. If the jackets are put away, the manikin will retreat down into the water and become inanimate again.