Peculiarities take one, part 1 of 6

When making a new character, roll up to three times on this table to become more planetouched (spheretouched? eh).

1 - By the Great Black Anti-Suns

11 Eyes

1. Your eyes are dark and shimmer like the bottom of a starlit well. You don’t need external light to see by.
2. Eyestalks. Your eyes extend from your sockets on stalks. Besides being a bit gross it isn’t hugely useful. -1 in grapple test ‘cos people quickly learn to grab you by the eyeballs.
3. Wizard Eyes- You were born with wizard sight. Whether it’s a boon or a curse is rather subjective, but you have it. +6 Second Sight. However, it is better than the usual wizarding stare, seeing not only the magic in this world, but beyond it into other realities and dimensions. It is incredibly confusing. The GM should feel free to make up a peculiar encounter for you to represent these visions, keeping you from being sure what is real or not.
4. Bulging eyes- Your eyes protrude from their sockets. Neither useful nor harmful, but it is quite unsettling.
5. A golden false eye to replace the one you lost (randomly determine which eye is missing).
6. You are afflicted with the Red Eye Curse. While your eyes are open you constantly cast Fire Bolt as though you had 12 skill in it. It will target whatever you are looking at, and you will suffer the effects of the Oops! Table as normal. You can still see while your eyes are closed, from a side effect of the curse. It’s very hard to sleep.

12 Horns

1. Ram horns - Fashionably demonic. Head-butt people for damage as mace
2. Orix horns - Two long, spiraling horns extend from your head. While more sinister and impressive than goat horns, they are not very useful.
3. Rhino horn – A single horn rising from your forehead allows you to charge people and cause damage as knife
4. Antlers – Glorious many pointed antlers, fury in the winter, bloody in the spring. They serve no practical purpose since you lack the physiology to use them as a weapon, but they look marvellous.
5. Tusks – Jutting from your jaw are two great big ivory tusks. They serve no real function.
6. Frills – Instead of the usual pillars, your horns are plates and frills like those of a dinosaur. You always count as having at least 1 armour.
   

13 Unusual legs

1. Crow feet - Your legs pinch off below the knee into huge crow feet. Clawed (as knife) and spindly.
2. Goat legs - A goat's hind legs replace your own. +2 Run
3. Long legs - Your legs are twice as long as they should be. You can step over obstacles easier than others, but your height is often a problem.
4. Short legs - Half the length of normal legs. Half movement.
5. Hover chair – Fabricated by yourself, stolen from the foyer of a god or built by a dwarf and paid for in gold.
6. Metal leg – A single leg has been replaced by a beautiful prosthetic. Functions as good as new, worth d66x1000 silver.

14 Hands

1. Crab hand. One (or both) of your hands is a chitinous claw. -1(-2) to all manual dexterity rolls. However they’re meaty and strong, +1(+2) strength, and count as knives if used to attack someone.
2. Claws. Strong claws grow from your fingers and toes. Shoes may prove a problem. 1 in 6 chance they’re retractable. Damage as knife, +1 Climb
3. Foetid touch. Your hands are slick and sweaty with disease. If anything you touch comes into contact with an open wound or someone’s mouth they must test their luck or contract dysentery.

15 Demonic muscles

Muscles on muscles. 8-pack, square head, so on. Even though you are large you are yet stronger than would seem appropriate. +3 Strength

16  A tail

1. Pig tail - Not prehensile, not very useful. Painful to tuck it in, best to let it hang.
2. Prehensile tail - Whatever form it takes, you can use it like a weak third hand. Using it to attack or other such thing is at -4.
3. Scorpion tail - A huge chitinous tail erupts from the base of your spine, easily 4 metres long. It can lash out for damage as spear, causing a luck test in those taking damage. They must test every turn until they succeed, or take a further d3 damage each turn.
4. Peacock tail – Not literally a peacock tail, maybe, but an impressive and beautiful tail arrangement is yours.
5. Dog-like tail – A medium length, furry tail that wags of its own accord.
6. Horses tail – A short nub of flesh with long flowing hair

21 Tongues

1. Forked tongue. You were born to weave falsehoods. +1 to any rolls related to lying, disguise or other such things. The GM should give you some slack in non-rolling situations. Your tongue is also literally forked
2. Sharp tongue. Pokey, damage as knife.
3. Long Tongue. Your tongue is like that of a chameleon. You can extend it to 3 metres and use it to grab things.
4. Biting Tongue

22 Wings

1. Leathery bat wings
2. Oily vulture wings, tacky to the touch, sometimes stick together and cause you to crash. Must test Fly every 10 minutes or fall.
3. Swan wings
4. Vestigial wings on your back. Their look is up to you, but all they do is flap excitedly.
5. Mechanical contrivance, very loud and quite heavy. Takes up three inventory slots
6. Raw and bloodied bone, non-functional as wings but can be used to whack people or hang ornaments off of. Damage as club.

If you can, you fly at your normal movement speed and gain +1 Fly. They cannot be hidden.

23 Teeth

1. Fangs. Impressive overbite, very obvious. Bite people for damage as knife. Every time you win a grapple get a free bite if you like.

24 Gills

Breathe underwater without trouble. They flap while you talk.

25 Nose

1. Beak. You talk like the bird from The Neverending Story 2. Also feel free to peck people’s eyes out with your enormous beak (damage as sword)
2. Trunk. Instead of a nose, a glorious trunk. Not quite elephant length, rather 6d6 inches long. It can hold things and otherwise twitch about. If it’s at least 12 inches long you can hold a knife with it (-2 to all rolls using the trunk).
3. Pig snout. Oink. Excellent at finding truffles or other stinky ground food. +2 awareness.
4. Long nose. Long and saggy. -1 in grapples ‘cos people tend to grab it.

26 Arms

1. Extra arm
2. Tentacle arms. You arms are somewhat octopoidal. Very useful for grappling (+4) and fitting into tight spaces.

31 Unusual Skin

1. Inside out - OH DEAR GOD LET IT DIE. Functionally uninteresting, but your skin is inside out. You leave sticky patches when you sit down and can fake death really well. Maybe be able to hide things in your internal cavity.
2. Your skin is covered in fine, small thorns that break off when brushed against like a cactus or rose. d2 automatic damage to anyone you touch or grapple. The life of a thorny fellow is a lonely one.
3. Black. It’s hard to distinguish the contours of your body unless you wear clothes. +2 to Sneaking.
4. Radient. Your skin glows faintly. It is alluring. +3 reaction/intimidation rolls. Also casts a dull light, like a candle.
5. You hair and skin is white, your eyes bright pink, your body weak. -4 Stamina, -1 Skill. You are however naturally gifted in magic, and may choose three spells to start the game with 4 ranks in. All magical training takes half the time and cost.
6. Skin like deep summer forests, hair like brambles. +2 to stealth while in a forest setting. You never starve as long as you have at least 6 hours of direct sunlight per day. It does not heal you though.

32 Unusual Vital Fluids

1. Metal - Liquid metal! Silver veins. People wounding (5+) you need to test their luck or take 2d6 damage from molten hot metal
2. Mucous - Thick green-yellow filth. When testing your luck to not die from your wounds, get a free re-roll. Your blood is slow and sticky, very hard to lose.
3. Poisonous - People getting any in their mouth must test their luck or die.
4. Tar - Thick and black. Anyone causing you 5+ damage must test their Strength or their weapon gets stuck in you.
5. Plant - White/green sap blood. You are always fragrant.
6. Wind - A yawning portal to Pandemonium lays at your heart. When wounded (5+) the yowling madness escapes. Everyone except the bleeder must test their luck or be stunned for a turn.

33 Mystical Parasite

You have contracted an other worldly parasite, wrapped around your ego and feeding on your dreams. If you ever fail to raise a skill at the end of an adventure it will devour d6 stamina before the next. However, if you ever die there is a 1 in 6 chance it will drag your spirit part way with it when it returns to the astral plane, causing you to become a ghost. You may continue playing as a ghost.

34 Crown of flesh

You have a series of protruding growths on your head that look distinctly crown-like. Replace the 6th Mien of all demons with “worshipful”.

35 Spines

A crest of spines runs from your forehead, down your back and to the base of your spine. You need to get creative with clothing. -1 to people grappling you, those things hurt.

36 Withered

1. One or both arms are skin and bone, like a salted mummy, and grossly disproportionate to your body. -1 to Strength
2. One or both legs are shrunken and brittle. -1 to Running
3. Your head is shrunken, as though a headhunter’s trophy sat on your shoulders. Your mouth is stuck in a sinister, moronic grin.
4. Your whole body appears as though you were long dead and dry. Oddly no physical effect, but people may mistake you for being an unliving monser.
5. One or both hands are twisted, claw-like, and frail. You suffer no physical effect, but must hold things oddly.
6. You are well past your prime, old verging on frail. You lose 4 Staminal but gain 2 Luck.

41 Corrosive vomit

You may squirt out your guts at will. Ranged attack, deals damage as follows, and half as much to yourself.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
2	2	2	4	4	6	8

42 Detachable limbs

If a limb is severed it still functions normally. However they don’t reattach themselves. Instead you’d need to brace them to yourself somehow. This applies to everything, even your head. Dismemberment still hurts and can kill you, but only through damage, not automatically.

43 Fur

It can be patchy or luxurious, your choice. Resistance to mundane cold, as though wearing appropriate gear at all times.

44 Ears

1. Large ears. Large and saggy like an elephant. Keeps you cool in the summer. +1 Awareness

45 Curious Legs

1. Frog legs. You have long bouncy frog legs. You appear smaller because of how you stand (like a frog) but you’re normal height. You can jump 15 feet straight upwards.

46 Long neck

Long snakelike neck. You can twist it 180 degrees! +1 while grappling.

51 Faces

1. Fish Face. Your face makes you look like your head is stuck in the rear end of a trout. You talk with a strange accent and can breathe under water.
2. Rearranged face. Your mouth might be in your forehead, your eyes up your nostrils, and so on.

52 Bewildering Skin

1. Bark Skin. Your skin is rough and mossy, pleasant smelling. Your skin protects your as chain armour, but does not heal quickly. Resting only restores 1 Stamina, and then only in sunlight.
2. Thick skin. Your basic armour is as leather, due to your thick skin. Does nothing while wearing proper armour.
3. Scales. 50/50 partial/full cover. Either way, gives you added protection (always count as wearing leather) and looks cool.
4. Feathers. Partial or full coverage. Pick a colour for them.
5. Snail Skin. Your skin is covered with the thin delicate shell of a snail. It cracks and oozes easily, offering no protection. All it does is give you the appearance of sappy bark.
6. Chameleonic. Your skin can change colour at will. You don’t have enough control to make complex patterns, but you can imitate most hues. +1 Stealth +1 Disguise

53 Fingers

1. Webbed Fingers. Maybe a discrete extension, or maybe you have big fat frog hands, either way have +3 Swimming.
2. Many jointed fingers. Long and spidery.
3. Three thick fingers on each hand.
4. Asymmetrical clawed hand. Either your left or your right hand is replaced with a claw of some sort. Possibly a bird talon, crab claw, somthing like that. Deals damage as knife.
5. Tentacle fingers. Like the arms only less useful and more disgusting. +1 grapple.

54 Bestial Head

1. Pig
2. Dog
3. Rabbit. Can see the future
4. Lion
5. Pelican
6. Goat

55 Excellent Muscle control

You can exert conscious control over your muscles. You can hold your breath to the point of death, you can stop your own heart, vomit at will, hold onto a ledge until your fingers fall off, and so on. This does not counter magical control. +2 Climb +1 Strength

56 Therianthropy

You can turn yourself into an animal at will and gain the following benefits for doing so. You maintain full mental capacity but drop (or burst out of) your clothes and belongings. All do damage as small monsters, except for dog and pig which are modest. If you die in your animal form you stay in your animal form.

1. Pig. +2 awareness, may eat any vaguely edible matter as a provision. Damage as modest monster
2. Goat. Can talk in a terrifying goat-voice.
3. Small monkey. +6 climb.
4. Dog. +1 awareness, +4 run. Does damage as modest monster.
5. Cat. +4 stealth, +4 second sight.
6. Rat. +4 climb, +2 Stealth, does 1 damage on successful attack.

61 Torso head

Your head is set between your shoulders, right in the middle of your chest. This prevents you from wearing hats and normal armour, but is otherwise quite alright.

62 Voice

Your voice...:

1. Always echoes
2. Lush and booming.
3. Universally understood by everyone. This doesn’t go both ways, unfortunately.
4. Hissy like a snake
5. Slurping, drool covered words
6. Jumbled chaos-speak

63 Mobile Bones

You can dislocate and manipulate your skeletal system in a disconcerting manner. You may fit through any hole bigger than your head, although anything narrower than your shoulders might take a minute or two.

64 Many-Jointed

1. Left arm
2. Right arm
3. Left leg
4. Right leg
5. Fingers
6. Neck

The limb in question isn’t immediately obvious as being too jointed, rather it has an uncanny mystery too it.

65 Iron Flesh

Either due to an accident or because of practical considerations, you are partially mechanical. Choose some portion of your body to be mirror finished metal rather than flesh. Gain +1 natural armour. Now roll d6: on a 1 you are actually a thinking engine which is part flesh, and not the other way around.

66 Semi Insubstantial

You flew too close to an anti-sun, or drank from the White Sea, or a wizard did it. Either way, you are somewhat insubstantial. You are always a little bit translucent, but at will (and at the cost of 1 stamina per second) you can become fulling insubstantial, able to pass through walls and ignore physical considerations.

Retired warriors

The village's local retired adventurer.

1. He
2. She

is...

1. old, almost spent
2. past their prime
3. too young for the burden they carry
4. in what to others would be their prime

and has a reputation as...

1. the local drunk, harmless.
2. a raging drunk, don't make eye contact or you'll see the demons.
3. a broken soul, take pity.
4. a hard worker that never speaks of their past.
5. a recluse with an old sword from their days in the wars.
6. an inveterate story teller, entertaining the adults and terrifying the children.

Their past is...

1. filled with violence committed for others.
2. one of avaricious plunder.
3. warhearted and swordblooded.
4. adventure and wild romance.
5. glorious and sung.
6. a tightly held secret.

Their services can be gained...

1. with a handful of silver.
2. for a worthy cause.
3. for a bottle of the good stuff.
4. with the chance for redemption.
5. with the promise of escape from this life.
6. over their dead body.

If taken on, beware that they will...

1. break into inconsolable hysterics at the sight of a dead child.
2. drink every drop of alcohol while you sleep, if able, and stagger the whole day through.
3. be frozen by the sound of distant howls.
4. be unable to be in the presence of cooking meat.
5. constantly count their equipment. Check and re-check. One, two, three, one, two, three.
6. , if party to the killing of innocents, wander off into the night never to be seen again.

Six Dimensional Weather

This might be self explanatory. It's a weather table. You pick a starting spot and move through it randomly to generate the weather day by day.

In the above example the weather started in the middle, on a clear day. The GM or whoever rolls a D6 to determine how the weather changes. In the above example they started at the black spot and rolled, in order, 1, 1, 6, 4, 3, 3, 4, causing their week to be clear, then rainy, then covered in blossoms, then stormy, then clear, blossoms again, and finally clear. The weather here is tumultuous but, thanks to the table, is still predictable to a certain degree.

If the players stay in a specific location (and experiences its specific weather table) for long enough they will gain an intuitive feel for the weather. They'll feel their way through its topography, possibly be suspicious of a coming pollination if rain follows a blossomfall.

What the weather does isn't important, and should be changed by the region. You could perhaps change it by season, but a large enough weather map could generate the rough feeling of changing seasons as long as you don't mind some randomness to its passing. The players will know that if they're in the middle of a draught that it's going to be a long time to the rainy season and they are unlikely to see a pollination.

A larger table can be more subtle, less changeable. However note that even this small table would take a week to go from rainy to dry season.

As for the edges: when you bump up against an edge you slide along it or stay put, depending on how the table is made. In this case I've marked dead ends with Xs, where if you bump up against them you just stay in that season. Pollination can last for a while, they take as long as they need. If there is no X (or a clear dead end with no angular preference), then slide in the direction indicated as closely as possible.

This means that seasons on the edges have a tendency to "stick".

I've been sketching these in my hex books.

Random generation makes better ideas.

D66 attitudes of those encountered:

11 - Exhausted
12 - Bewildered
13 - Quizzical
14 - Belligerent
15 - Cordial
16 - Mollified
21 - Conceited
22 - Sympathetic
23 - Covetous
24 - Disinterested
25 - Impatient
26 - Servile
31 - Sickly
32 - Immature
33 - Merry
34 - Provocative
35 - Content
36 - Infirm
41 - Insolent
42 - Bitter
43 - Melancholic
44 - Resigned
45 - Irksome
46 - Insufferable
51 - Satiated
52 - Regretful
53 - Relieved
54 - Exacerbated
55 - Genial
56 - Optimistic
61 - Irritated
62 - Wrathful
63 - Mirthful
64 - Joyless
65 - Curmudgeonly
66 - Fearful

Genial ogre, irksome knight, content peasant, and so on. Two things jammed together without your input are better for it.


They traditionally dispose of their dead...

1. ... after 42 days of treating them like they were still alive
2. ... by dumping them in the forest
3. ... by cremating them in their house. Then building another on top.
4. ... throw them in the sea, no matter how far away it is. If they are washed back up it is an omen of a restless spirit and suggests their ghost doesn't want to leave.
5. ... by stacking stones on top of them until they are pulverised. Funeral cairns litter the countryside.
6. ... in great big tubs. Special assistants are set with jugs to collect the juices from special spigots. The juices are burned as the true spirit while the corpse is ground up for animal food.

What are you supposed to be ashamed of?

1. Pointing
2. Bare backs. Capes are essential, but nothing else is.
3. Uncovered ears
4. Revealing the webbing between your fingers. Most erogenous of zones.
5. Boobies (1-2=Just male 3-4=Just female 5-6=Both)
6. All skin. All of it.

Traditional beautification

1. Teeth filed to the gums
2. Ears clipped and jagged
3. Split nostrils, cut at the sides making them look like dainty little wings.
4. Head flattened with cord and boards as a child
5. Gums dyed with lacquer
6. Arms bound to the torso up to the elbow, so the truly beautiful walk around like t-rexs.

The ruling order...

1. ... are ancient in-bred families
2. ... is a foreign culture with its own language and rituals
3. ... is a hereditary priesthood
4. ... grandmothers, ranked by the quantity of grand children
5. ... died out years ago, leaving their silver palaces empty. No one noticed.
6. ... are elected per village every year. They consider it a burden and is often used as a punishment.

6 What's in the box?

1. A smaller box, which contains a still smaller box, which in turn has a smaller box. Make the player think this is a stupid joke but roll a d100. That is the final box, in which is the portal to a pocket dimension containing a dead sorcerers wealth. Any boxes past 20 or so will be extremely hard to open, requiring microscopes and special instruments and hired experts.
2. Your own severed head! Not really, it's just a wizard-joke. If you're unlucky you die of a heart attack. If you survive you find that the power source for the magic head illusion is a ruby the size of your nose. 
3. Skittles.
4. Wax. Inside the wax you can barely make out a dark patch of something. 50/50 chance it's nerve gas (lucky or lose one skill to permanent brain damage) or a magical bar of lead that when rubbed on food makes it taste delicious and nutritious. Turn anything masticable into a ration. The wax tastes like brown bread.
5. A tiny person has made it his tiny house. His will fire a tiny blunderbuss at the adventurers to warn them off while his tiny wife gathers up the valuables and runs out through the back door. 2d6 coins worth of tiny silverware.
6. Skittles, but just the yellow ones.

6 Villains

1. Punctilious Redgrave. Believes the gods' monopoly of ambrosia is tyrannical and must be broken. His agents have infiltrated religious orders and intend to be excellent worshippers so as to get into the afterlife and bring it down from within, or rise in the ranks and gain direct access to the archon.
2. George the Piper. A master multi-instrumentalist who has made it his life's mission to record and perform the music transmitted between the stars across the dark waves of the humpbacked sky. His music is highly technical but mostly unlistenable to an uneducated ear. Its performance and practise also undermines the hypostasis and can initiate spontaneous psychic osmosis in the listener. Most of George's previous band mates are now raving loonies, amorphous beasts, or psychopomps.
3. The Accident Man. When you want someone dead but don't want to make a fuss, you hire the accident man. He's expensive but has never failed, or at least the people he's been paid to kill have never failed to run afoul of a tragic, terminal accident. His involvement is invisible, he's not an arrogant man. Just leave the money and the name with the mistress of the Bunking Barn and everything will be sorted.
4. Crow Father. The city of Bedef has a crow problem. When anything dies within its walls it is left out in the street; when an animal is slaughtered an extra one is killed in the square; when a homeless person can't afford room at the work house and can't stay awake, all given to the crows and their babies. When the crows go hungry the city falls sick, plagues and famines flash through neighbourhoods, the crows will get their meal. It is dangerous to be a stranger in Bedef, but you'll never struggle to find room and board.
5. Miss Kinsey is one of, if not the (though the city does not like to deal in definitives), most famous socialites in Troika. No party is perfect unless her vast unmanageable bulk and sharp eyed, sharp toothed factotums are there. Every host dreams of the day they convince her to eat from their table, but none have done so far. Her tastes run deeper.
6. Organ the Barbarian has taken a stand against cities. Not of any particular people or sort, but as a general principle. Organ considers them to be a yoke around the necks of the poor, one which must be ripped off. But he's not mad, he knows that the universe has an almost unlimited supply of civilisation and so only hopes to encourage social change through example and threat; by ravaging and despoiling to such an extraordinary degree that people reconsider the order of things and address his issues. His recruiters are a common site in town squares and village greens handing out literature to disgruntled unwashed masses.

Get lost to Toika

Reasons you're here and together

1. Got lost in a rainstorm and took cover with these people
2. You hid in an unfamiliar room and the door didn't open the same way twice
3. Followed a familiar road you've walked a thousand times but instead it led you to a crossroad, each from a different one and none leading back the way you came
4. You were all dreaming of this place but the dream never ends
5. Got lost in the fog and groped into one another
6. Your boat was wrecked and here you all are, each a separate castaway

Your motivation is that you have nowhere else to go. You trust these people, you are each your only constant and destination.

Wizard Weaknesses

Thanks to +Andy Bartlett for reminding me of this trope


Some wizards, tower wizards, necro-wizards, lonely wizards, have the time to commit to exceeding the typical human limitations of knowing the unknowable. As you approach the Planck scale of magical minutiae it passes beyond mere education and study, as this level you must cheat.

These cheaty boss-wizards should be freely given outrageous skill and stamina ratings. Huge, gigantic, suicidally dangerous sorcerous chops. The players can go ahead and literally brute force the issue of killing them, or they can be smart and figure out exactly how this bastard is cheating and catch them out.

When these weaknesses are exploited the wizard's skill and (total) stamina is halved. Some might just apply to the individuals exploiting it, or it might cause the wizard to be generally weakened. The exact details will suggest themselves.

D66 Wizard Weaknesses

11 - Having his hat knocked off. Its special lining was keeping the spells inside.
12 - The pet rat he keeps in his cummerbund, a great sorceror in its own right
13 - Seeing a tattoo of a bare bottom. Prude or ancient pact with Slaanesh?
14 - An albino ferret, brandished. The wizard cowers and cringes, obviously disgusted. Whether this effect is magical or psychological is unclear.
15 - The secondary brain they keep in a jar under their bed helps them think.
16 - A deck of cards full of occult symbolism. the wizard has actually invented a revolutionary note-taking system allowing him to offload a lot of the mental strain on to small cue cards. Regardless, destroying them would be quite a set back.
21 - Direct sunlight causes the warlock's crystallised plasmic crown to evaporate. It is otherwise invulnerable and irremovable.
22 - The daemonic parasite which clings to the back of his head. To the ignorant observer it looks like a rather gaudy evil-guy hat, but those viewing it via Second Sight will know differently. They must also test their luck or be blinded by the brilliance of the creatures true form. Daemonic hat - 5/20/4
23 - The true wizard is an old man behind a curtain in the room beyond, controlling this simulacrum with gossamer tendrils of plasma disappearing off into the ether. Requires a good few hours to rouse himself, so is essentially defenceless.
24 - Warlock wands are old fashioned, something a grandpa-wizard would use. A few enthusiasts see past the passe and into the pragmatic, creating extravagant wands of manticore spine and unicorn feather to compliment their abilities. They are tragically easy to break, however. When hitting the wizard successfully you may test your luck to break the wand. If you fail you do no damage to anything.
25 - One thing that never goes out of style are bangles and talismans. One of these doodads is the source of the warlock's power. Test your luck when grabbing at them to nick the right one.
26 - When the wizard says he has more power in his little finger than you have in your whole body, he is being entirely literal. Cut off that finger! Test your luck to hit the finger and deal at least 3 damage to it.
31 - Once a year at a particular juncture of the aeons the wizard goes out amongst the people and, into the ear of one poor fellow, mutters the word that will unravel his power. The person listening doesn't know what the word does, but they do know they will die in a year and a day if they ever reveal it. Anyone else saying it is fine, and greatly upsets the wizard.
32 - Every wizard worth his salt knows that copious consumption of fairy blood grants you elevated magical mind powers. However it also makes you very weak to the touch of cold iron and requires an industrial quantity of tiny faeries. Ecologically unsustainable.
33 - The wizard is careful to surround himself with mirrors at all times. While in the presence of a reflective surface he maintains his elevated state.
34 - Usually kept tucked up in his gums, the wizard chews on the psychoactive mushrooms that grow in dragon turds. Separated from his stash he will soon come down.
35 - The warlcok stole all his power from demons way above his station, but because of his high-heeled ostrich boots covering his tracks he's kept the demons off his tail. He's strapped in quite securely so they'll need cutting off, but when his feet touch the floor the demons will come and claim him. 1 in 6 chance the gate stays open.
36 - Standing in his foyer is what was once a flattering sculpture of the sorcerer but is now partially obscured by blue moss. As the sorceror taps into the false image of the sculpture it is further taken over by the 5th dimensional moss. After a few years of everyday use, or 6 months of intense wizarding, he will commission a fresh one.
41 - In an egg in a duck in a pond in an island in a lake in pocket dimension in a box in a cupboard is the source of (half) his power. The box must be found, entered, and hex-crawled.
42 - The warlock has sacrificed his mirror-self for power. While held in a full body reflective surface his powers are diminished as the astral corpse of his other self retakes its position.
43 - Their claim to knowledge is so great that if they were to be presented a riddle that they could not answer their confidence would be shattered. Will always answer riddles. The group may collectively offer one per round and if the GM can answer it the wizard is assumed to have done so. The GM may also roll the wizard's luck once to solve it instead.
44 - The wizard isn't bad, he's mad; subtle senility has settled over his already power addled mind. Anyone researching and performing an adequate impersonation of his wayward son will rattle him profoundly.
45 - The wizard has replaced all his blood with liquid magic. He needs to put it back inside once in a while, and without it will be terribly weakened.
46 - All of his organs have been put into (2d6) jars and hidden in secret places. Each one foudn and destroyed takes a portion of his power.
51 - The wizard sits in the middle of a miasma of chemical unguents with the distinct tang of body odour. However, he is not just a disgusting human being too wrapped up in the pursuit of power to wash, he is actually cultivating a vast colony of bacteria and other ambulatory filth to offset some of his sorcerous strain. A good amount of soap and water should put an end to his reign of terror.
52 - Light is a terrible trickster, if one could avoid the sloppy interaction of radiation and surfaces and get down the the nitty gritty objective reality of things we would all be wizards. Now imagine if  someone who was already a wizard got that insight. The wizard is blind and manouvres around his manse with a series of seeing stones mounted in ceiling orbs and hidden on bookshelves. Inside his house his is powerful and omniscient. Outside he carries a small bag of variously sized stones for on-the-go observation of the objective world.
53 - Being fully undead has many many problems. Minor injuries become permanent problems, the smell is awful, your joints get all gunked up, and so on. Why not just have an undead heart? While it still beats in his chest he is immensely robust. Somehow he can function without it. I don't know how.
54 - The wizard cannibalised a wily demon and took his hands and tongue. Allergic to religion
55 - Every night the sorceror sleeps in crystal pod which guides his dreams and reverses the rigours of age. Without access to it he will lose its calming powers and become tired, old and cranky.
56 - Bit by bit the warlock has replaced his bits and bobs with mechanical parts. His blood is creamy, plasmically charged goo, his hands weave spells without a thought and he's got sub-dermal weapons under his synthetic skin.
61 - The warlock maintains many many clones of himself. d6 are currently active while the others are in their rest cycles in vats of goo. If you can find and smash the original to bits they will loose their hub and focus.
62 - The wizard doesn't have a weakness, he's just really great. He will however act like he does, begging them not to touch his special deck of cards or say bad words. He finds it funny.
63 - The unimaginative magic worker sold his soul. If you tear up the contract it's void.
64 - In his basement he keeps a fairy/genie/angel or other adorable but magically potent creature rigged up to a transmitter tower and feeds of it abiently.
65 - The wizard has an agreement with a dark(er) lord to boost his powers
66 - The wizard delegates much of the physical toil of magic to his apprentices, who remain mind-linked throughout the apprenticeship. Any stress of hardships befall them instead of the wizard. Most don't last long.


A lot of these seem like the kinds of things that would be incredibly impractical limitations in combat. Remember they are wizards, not soldiers. Their magic is to further their inscrutable ends, not arm wrestle (unless they're endomancers I suppose).


(This is written for Troika, which is freely available)

Family and Friends and Drinking and Dwarves

I assume a situation of strangers in a strange land. What friends or family the PCs have is what they have made there.

Follows on from this.

Spouse & Children:

If PCs want to start with a spouse let them roll for the privilege. 1 in 3 they already have one, with d3-1 children. Each child is 2d6 years old.

If a child is 10 or more years old you can take them on adventures with you, allowing them to learn on the job. If you get the child killed you lose 10d6 social currency with your family. If it goes below 0 your spouse will never forgive you and leaves with your remaining children.

DOWNTIME FUN: As a downtime action the PC can spend quality time with her family. This will fully restore their Luck & Stamina. Gain d6 social currency with them. On a 6 there is a new child on the way. (if appropriate). Recommend hand-waving pregnant PCs. Baby magically appears later between adventures. Don't make it weird.

DOWNTIME FUN: The PC trains one of their kids. That kid gets a skill advancement check in one skill the PC knows but can't be raised higher than the father. Keep track of this stuff. When a PC dies they may take up playing one of their children instead of making a new character as long as it's old enough. Gain 1 social currency.

ON AGEING: Time differences between planes is weird. If you spend a week in Baator a month might pass in Troika. Age your children a year for every 3 planar trips you take.

DOWNTIME NOTSOFUN: Every downtime you do not spend with your family their social currency reduces by 1. If it reaches 0 they will leave.

DOWNTIME FUN: You may give a gift to a family member. It must be something you have, that you got, you can't just wishy-washy declare a state of giftness. Gain 2d6 social currency.

DOWNTIME FUN: You wanna get married but don't know anyone? Go looking. 1 in 6 chance you meet someone to make friends with. Costs 10 social currency to convince a friend to marry you.

Friends:

DOWNTIME FUN: Friends are able to accompany the PC while carousing. Roll 1d6, if it comes up as anything other than 1, chose the order of numbers in your carousing roll. If it comes up as one, the friend has got you in trouble, the GM chooses the order to use. Regardless, +d6 social currency for hanging out with them.

Other PCs are not friends. Spouses can be, but you need to make it clear to the GM.

Every friend will either have a trade or an association. Roll a background for them.

Friends might be convinced to go on adventures with you. Costs 20 social currency minus their highest fighting or magic skill. Lasts for one excursion.

DOWNTIME FUN: If the friend's background causes her to have some influence or power, it costs 5 social currency to lean on it.

DOWNTIME FUN: A friend will teach you something they know for 3 social currency. Gain an advancement tick in any skill they have.

Carousing in Troika

In between games a PC may aimlessly go out on the town rather than do something constructive. Every major city or other interesting location should have its own carousing table, but smaller less lively places will likely have slimmer ones. It's probably a good idea to replace them when they get used up.

Carousing restores either Stamina or Luck (choose ahead of time) and costs 2d6x10p to have a roll, if you spend more than you own you are in debt to either:

1. The Manticore Bank. They charge 10% interest every day and are happy to let that accrue. It takes a downtime activity to get in to see a representative of the bank, and there is only a 1 in 6 chance that you'll get seen before closing time. If the interest gets out of hand they'll send a manticore after you.
2. The Black Bishops. If not paid 9 times in full they will repossess your entire life. All friends and family and homes and treasures belong to the Black Bishopric until bought back. She's their wife now.
3. A petty gangster who will kidnap a friend or family member if they aren't paid back double in a week. Lacking a family, they'll break your legs.
4. Miss Keansy's Social Betterment Scheme. Miss Keansy's loans only come in bundles of 200p and are measured against a percentage of the benefit it affords you by uplifting your social class. She'll take 5% of all income for the next 5 years.
5. A random friend or family member covers it at the cost of -d6 social currency
6. A Gold Man gives you a bag of his weird gold nuggets. He never seems to want anything for it.

Roll d36 for carousing!

1-2

1. Caught the Time Fever from a beggar. Every game you age 2d6 years in a random direction until cured, dead, or unborn.
2. You cross paths with a group of Brawlers out on the town. Test your Strength or lose 1d6 stamina and lose 1d2 teeth. If you pass you beat them up and are invited to join the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks.
3. You get caught up in a Dwarven art project. Before the peacemakers dismantle it and rescue the participants, you are partially enamelled and menaced with spikes of cobalt. You lose 1d6 Luck but count as wearing plate armour until it all chips off. Should take roughly until the end of the next adventure.
4. You wake up in a pile of skyskiff sailors with a new tattoo. 1 in 6 chance you're (and they're) naked and missing everything you were carrying.
5. You attend a public wine tasting at Miss Keansey's estate. Being the uncultured swine that you are, you delight the members by swilling the latest vintage from the kelp orchards of the demon sea. For the next adventure you must test for random encounters with demons at every convenient opportunity. Only you can see them. They might not be aggressive, instead happy to just cause trouble, but they can also straight up devour you in front of your friends. You do gain a skill advancement check in Second Sight for the experience though.
6. A beggar you were mocking turns out to be a Gold Man in disguise, testing the city for moral turpitude. He curses you by turning everything metal you own into clay and pelting you with nuggets of gold (lose 1d3 stamina). You're luckily carried away by the crowd grasping for the gold before he can really lay in to you.

3-4

1. Wake up in the mortuary. The Dustmen demand you repay the corpse fee they wasted on you (d6p). If you can't pay they will insist you go corpse collecting on your next downtime activity to pay it back, or else.
2. You lost sight of your senses at some point and joined one of the newer cults in town. They seem friendly enough. Randomly generate it, you are now a member.
3. You council an orc out of ending his suffering. He has latched on to you. For good or bad, you have a new friend.
4. Inebriation leads you to agree to test a new Ven cerebro-plug. You gain 1d6p and +2 in a random skill (owned or not). If you ever roll a fumble in that skill the plug will burn out, causing 2d6 damage. A Ven bubble will be sent to collect the wreckage data, regardless of location in time or space.
5. You lost hard at a game of Roly Bones. Lose 5d6x10p. If you can't pay it all, the skyskiff sailors you'd been rolling with rough you up and take whatever else you're carrying as payment. Lose d6 stamina.
6. You just so happen to be holding the key to a little known portal while wandering right through it. You find your way home by the next game, but not before ageing 3d6 years and returning with a child of almost equal age. Time is funny.

5-6

1. You get chatting with a beggar, share a drink, kill some time, only to find out he's the king of some distant land. He never found his way back after he fell through some portal or other, no one had ever heard of his home. For your kindness he gives you his last possession: his crown and his kingdom with it. It's very pretty, made of iron and bronze, worth 50s to the right buyer.
2. You meet a tourist with only rudimentary understanding of the language. They seem nice, and keep buying drinks, so you take them around town with you. At the end of the night he turns to give you a tip for your trouble but, finding he's out of native silver and the bureau de change is shut for the night, he gives you one of his native coins with an apologetic smile. It's roughly 6 inches wide and as thick as your finger, intricately cast and made of pure gold. Worth 1000p
3. Make a new friend on your raucous night out. Make them as a character and get d6 social currency with them.
4. Won big in a game of Roly Bones. 5d6x10p
5. Spend an amorous night in the arms of a stranger. Restore Luck and Stamina. 1 in 6 chance a bastard appears in your future.
6. Meet the love of your life. Can count as a spouse and a friend. Roll a background for him.

And finally, Dwarves and their family

That is to say they don't have one. Just passions and projects. They have no genitals, are all "male", if one was forced to judge.

A dwarf, on their downtime, may choose to work on a mysterious project. Even the player won't know until it's done, since the dwarf's compartmentalised mind is so strong. Secrets are secret! Each time the player works on it they gain d6 social currency with themselves. When they have 15 they finally reveal the project for all to see. Roll to find out what it is.

1. A dwarf! A shiny new fully grown dwarf. This is your son, fashioned from iron and stone, and you may tutor him as with children, above.
2. A weapon, encrusted with rare minerals, menaced with spikes, and only beautiful to a dwarfs gaudy eye. The dwarf gets +1 to their weapon skill while using this weapon. Everyone else gets -1 since it's so spiky and weird.
3. A beautiful piece of furniture, you may choose what sort. It is of course very spiky and almost randomly enhanced with minerals and bones. +1 permanent luck for completing such a project.
4. Armour, made of an obscure or unusual material, and yet completely usable. Better than usable in fact, since the wearer always adds +1 to their armour roll while wearing it. The dwarf player can choose the type of armour and the size (dwarf? human? lammasu?).
5. A statue of transcendent beauty. The topic is up for the dwarf to decide, but it is huge, of unusual construction, and probably spiky. If this is gifted to a group or institution it is worth 10d6 social currency with them.
6. A fey mood has struck, the materials are rare and transgressive. The dwarf makes a public exhibition of flesh and bone, against the laws of man and gods. 1 in 6 chance it's alive and rampant, 1 in 6 the dwarf is arrested for this act of wanton art. It is also spiky.