Nuts & Bolts of Interdimensional Language

Let's call every language a skill, and let's also make a universal language called Portal Pidgin. We'll assume it's so incredibly simple that almost anyone can learn to speak it passably after a couple of weeks immersion. PCs are fully fluent, they've been through Troika, or lived there, or just dealt with those ambiguously foreign traders everyone seems to have been visited by.

Portal Pidgin is almost a Unified Theory of Language, the roiling sweaty pile of interdimensional culture at the centre of the universe has solved communication. Knowledge of it grants a deep understanding of language, a unique vantage point from which to approach new ways of speech. People native to it have little trouble picking up the basics of any new language met.

Every time a PC meets a new language they may test their Skill to fumble through it. If they fail, they get no where, if they pass they manage to communicate basic desires and get an advancement tick in that particular language.

However unlike standard skills, advancement is not a matter of rolling higher than your current skill. Instead each language has an in built difficulty. If you don't have one in mind, just roll a d6. That is how difficult that language is to learn, and with each advancement you must roll equal to or greater than that number.



When talking to some foreign sorts, roll against you Skill. If you pass, you can chat to them roughly, if you fail you get lost.

If you roll a critical on your language check you instantly take an advancement test.

If you fumble your test you must roll below:


1-3 Your audience has become tired with your hooting and pointing and refuse to participate any longer. This goes for the whole party.

4 You have offended them somehow. They respond appropriately, be that with indignation or violence.

5 They have got the wrong end of the stick, thinking you are trying to say the exact opposite of what you meant. This could cause issues while protesting innocence or complimenting someone.

6 You have accidentally been obscene, insulting religion or state. Their response will depend on the context, but assume the guards are being called right now.



Once a PC has 6 in a language they are assumed to be completely fluent to all but its most arcane usages.

In a long campaign the PCs will develop cultural scars. They'll look at the list of languages they can stumble through and see the trail they took up to this point.

Mechs

1. legs - leg rockets
2. legs
3. legs
4. legs
5. arms-wrist spikes
6. arms-engine
7. arms
8. arms

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.

Social Currency

By performing services for a faction, group or god you may accrue social currency with them. Track it somewhere, you can spend it later.

This does not replace an organic exchange of favours. Someone can still ask you to do something in exchange for X service as part of an everyday game. This is a list of things your players can rely on being available.

NOTES ON JOINING GROUPS: You may only be a member of one instance of a group type. For instance, the Dustmen are a philosophy and a faction, therefore no other groups that are either of those may be joined. A Dustman could join a church or school of magic without any conflict of interests, though if he worships a god of life then there may be issues.

S = SOCIAL CURRENCY 

P = MONEY

Dustmen

Type: Philosophy, faction

Downtime activities at the Mortuary

• Tuition in the mortician's school (-2s/100p, free if a member), giving a skill advancement check, in: embalming, healing, surgery or disguise
• Join the Dustmen (-5s). Benefit from the Dead Pact, whereby the dead won't bother you if you don't bother them. 
• Forgo the right to resurrection and sign the ownership of your corpse over to the Dustmen. (+5s). Can only be done once.
• Go corpse collecting. +d6s

Services Provided

• Borrow an undead bodyguard for a week. He comes equipped with chain mail and a spear. (-15s). Members only
• Borrow an undead assistant for a week or one significant job or adventure. (-10s). Has 2 Strength and comes with a sturdy backpack. Members only
• Funeral. 1s or 10p, the dustmen will bury anyone with the correct rites.

The Academy of Doors

Type: School of magic

Downtime activities at the Academy of Doors

• Tuition in the School of Entries & Exits (3s/500p, 1s/150p if a member). Skill advancement check in either: Astral Reach, Teleport, Web, or Second Sight.
• Join the Academy of Doors. (3s or 1000p). Members are given their own apprentice's magic door to wear on their forehead.
• Take the test to become a Master of the Academy. Roll 4d6 and score under the amount of social currency you spend. 
• Teach at the academy. Must be a master or have 4 or more in a spell regarding transportation or planar travel. Gain currency equal to 1d6+skill level and 1d6 hundred pence. Skill-less masters do happen, but tenure is tenure.

Services Provided

• Planar travel. For 10s or 1000p per person they will transport you anywhere in the cosmos. Roll 2d6, on a double you are all off course.
• Keys. For 5s you will be permitted to use their library of information on portals and their keys. 1 in 3 chance you find the information.

The Church of Arn

Type: Religion, Faction

Downtime Activities for the Church

• Help in an exorcism procession through Troika, scaring off demons +1d6s
• Become an ordained priest of Arn. 20s. Receive a red robe and exorcism hammer
• Add a demon's name to the Book of Names (base 1 in 6 chance it's not there already). Gain social currency equal to the demon's Skill.

Services from the Red Temple

• Exorcism. 1s/50p. as spell
• 5s, access to the Book of Names. 1 in 6 chance it has something useful on the demon you're researching.

Miracles (only usable by ordained priests)

• Exorcism 1s. As spell
• 2s, see demons and ghosts, penetrate all glamours created by them, see through their lies, and so on.
• 1s talk with demons fluently. Convincing them to leave still counts as an exorcism, more or less.

P!P!Ssshrp, Befouler of Ponds

Type: Religion

Downtime Activities

• Poison wells, ruin river sides, and so on. 1d6s. Roll 2d6, on a double someone catches you doing it.
• Take up the worship of P!P!Ssshrp, 5s
• Chat with frogs. 1 in 6 chance they have something useful to say

Services

• None. There is no church of P!P!Ssshrp, just ponds.

Miracles (only usable by worshippers)

• 1s make any source of water stagnant, up to your body size. Big priests are better.
• 5s purify any source of water. Same as above.
• 2s communicate with frogs and toads. Lasts for one conversation. They are mostly concerned with what's going on in the water and how damp the soil around here is. But they respect your authority as an ardent worshipper of The Befouler of Ponds
• 2s summon gnats, worms, beetles, and other creeping things. They will squirm out of cracks, from under doors, crawl over everything, ruining food and causing a terrible fuss.
• 3s Turn yourself into a mass of leeches. In the water you move very fast, on land not so much. If at least a third of your body weight in leeches survives you can reconstitute yourself from them. You can stay as leeches for as long as you like.

Miss Kinsey’s Diner’s Club

Type: Faction

Downtime activities at the club

• Become a member. 10s/14,000p
• Give Miss Kinsey a fresh, preferably live, rare creature. 1 to 5 d6s depending on rarity. The last of its kind gives you unlimited access to meals for life, including the one made of your donation.

Meals (members only)

• Sunday - Boiled unicorn, whose flesh cures sickness. 1s
• Monday - Braised manticore in ant milk sauce. Offers insight into a single question. 2s
• Tuesday - Live pixie fondue. Gain 1 skill advancement against any skill. The pixies will give up many secrets to avoid the cheese pot. 5s
• Wednesday - Orc brain served in situ. Induces a profound sadness and immunity to all miracles for a week. 1s
• Thursday - Beef. There is always too much, allowing you to take away 2d6 rations.
• Friday - Egg hunt! Search the manor for the hidden egg. 1 in 6 chance to be the one to find it. The rich goodness gives you +1 permanent Stamina and an ever increasing gut. 8s
• Saturday - Brandy and crow's feet. A day for gossip, learn something interesting that's going on. 1s

Thoughts on homes

People's homes are reflections of their beliefs. How they live, how close, how high. It is easy to visualise cottages and town houses, but you shouldn't. Baring new-build homes, one stands a decent chance of identifying the location of any European home when shown from the street. There are distinct features in so close a people, so why should all fantasy folk live in Bree and drink at the Prancing Pony?

Homes

1. Tall cone houses. Stone, windowless. Multiple floors filled with closely related families. Smoke may come out of the tip. A people who fear outsiders, are remote, defensive. The base contains their goods, with living quarters towards the peak. Agriculture spreads out from them like spokes from a hub.
2. High rising. More than 5 floors, multiple homes. Likely made of clay, wattle, daub, other light materials if in a hot environment. They will bulge and loom. Constant repairs, workers seen hanging off the side in cranes repatching them lest they collapse into the street.

Too much stock, too little cash. Also too little stock.

People looking to pick up the Undercroft: The POVO free shipping coupon will be active until the end of the Sunday the 26th. I reprinted the out of stock issues, so they're good to go again.

Also the blood stained issue 7 is almost out of stock. I will not be making more of those 'cos they take way too much time and blood.

Show your friends! Buy one for the neighbours! Tell your FLGS they suck!


http://melsonia.bigcartel.com/

Planar Cultures

All those noble traits you have? Not inherently noble. All those moral or terrible things you do? Not moral or terrible. Take ambition, for instance; plenty of cultures consider it to be undesirable bordering on anti-social. Some people reading that are sneering and thinking arrogant thoughts. Yes, you would probably be that "leader of men" as the Zuni sarcastically put it. Back in the day they'd stone you as a witch, you know?

To make truly alien cultures we need to accept that what we think is inalienable truth is just a coincidence of time and place. Roll it back all the way to monkeys in trousers, assume the fundamentals go no further and just pick the colour.

The following assumes essentially human. More alien people should be weirder. It is important to remind yourself that these are not people who are repressed, who need to be shown the way, be freed or educated. They are right, what they believe is true, you are weird.

Etiquette

1. Weaponry is obscene and must be covered. Soldiers might fight naked, since they are basically sluts anyway. They whip off their burkas when trouble starts. Polearms upholstered in tasteful flowery linen.
2. Energetic greeting. Headbutts, flailing, psychic probe, elaborate hand shakes. Harmless if both parties are good at it. Test etiquette or take damage as club.
3. To refer to yourself is considered rude. Even doing weird robot talk like "this one" is quite tacky. Huge amount of linguistic acrobatics is required to ask for something "what a handsome sandwich that is" = "can i have that sandwich please". The people are considered very attentive to others' needs, but really they're just being pragmatic since no one can ask for anything.
4. Displays of emotion are rude to the point of being non-existent. People smile and function normally, but showing sincere feeling is not done. Private lives might be rife with exuberant vented emotion, or it may bleed over into the bedroom. Possibility of traditional emotion, such as polite clapping, laughing at set intervals.
5. A body part is considered highly sexual. 1-noses 2-ears 3-eyebrows 4-tongues 5-fingers 6-nails 7-elbows 8-backs 9-knees 10-toes 11-heels 12-rolltwice. 50/50 chance they will kept covered and subject to taboo and modesty, or exaggerated. Think prosthetics, makeup, revealing clothes. Thickly drawn on eyebrows, crotch extensions.
6. Wearing shoes is disgusting. Poor people wear shoes for work, but usually just walk about with filthy, calloused feet. Rich people might have teams of servants picking clean the road ahead of them, taking forever to walk anywhere. Regular foot baths. Every house has at least a small muddy foot bath at the door.
7. Noteworthy peculiarity in greeting. Kissing (consider: kissing foreheads, eyes, noses, ears. Asymmetrical, one kisses the nose, one the chin. Hierarchical implications). Exposure (lifting hats, raising/dropping trousers, flapping aside your cape. These actions may have lost the physical object they were associated with, thus lifting your cap is now an odd salute).
8. Dancing/singing/comedy/theatre as routine parlour entertainment. Performed by attendees of meals or parties as matter of course. They may be improvised or may draw from a rich selection of traditional routines.

Dress

1. Homogeneous. Everyone wears very similar outfits, or of similar materials, or a single colour. Maybe all clothes are made of wound rope or they all wear fezs and blue spectacles.
2. Clothes optional. Nudity is casual and met with indifference. This may be limited to a gender or age group. Naked old ladies.
3. Mutilation is common. Piercings, tattoos, fashionable dismemberment. Removal of nose/ear/eye.
4. Everyone covered everything. One random body part is considered acceptable to be shown. Probably eyes or hands. Consider more exciting things than burkas, like ninjas or thickly wrapped togas where the people look like balls of wool with knitting needles in. This may be due to beliefs in modesty or just fashion.
5. Pets. Common to use live animals as fashion accessories. This may be practical, like having a hawk to keep away pigeons, or purely display, like teaching a ferret to drape around your neck.
6. The sexes are very different. Roll them completely separately. Very distinct look and expectations. In this culture cross-dressing will be possible and more common/prominent. Explore that possibility, consider implications.
7. Hair is manipulated heavily. Held firm with animal blood or specific coloured mud. Total hairlessness as a sign of beauty. Kept huge with elaborate metal frames. Covered in dead animals. Replaced with cloth. Hair topiary, matted into shapely "hats".
8. Nudity as social scale. The rich wear nothing while the poor dress in endless filthy layers. Nudity represents the access to warmth? The opposite may be true, where the rich wear clothes 'cos it's valuable, the poor are prevented. Like the the old Imperial Purple. Origins or traditions may be misty. Skin painting a distinct possibility.

Family

1. Families are communal under a patriarch/matriarch/location/street/date of birth. Blood relatives are not considered noteworthy.
2. Marriage does not exist. Unions are like friendships, improvised, sprawling, personal
3. All social engagement is official. Marriage ceremonies, friend ceremonies, enemy ceremonies. Most significant interactions must be played out within the confines of a relationship or else is considered illegal/immoral.
4. Men/Women collect partners as a sign of fertility/wealth/power. Large families, easily enters hundred of grand children. What do the many single people of the dominant sex do? Underclass? Ruling class? Workers? Exiled? Killed? What are the interactions between families?
5. Clans of extended families. Family name carries a lot of weight.
6. Families have historical subservient families. Complicated interrelations and dependencies. Entire subclass of bureaucrats are needed to maintain this.
7. Gender is determined by familial role. Between 3 and hundreds. Consider the multiple partner marriages: as the Xs marry large numbers of Ys the Xs left without the chance to marry become Zs. Circumcisions can change things, dress can be involved, soldiers might be a gender of their own, renouncing traditional gender states in favour of big soldier orgies.
8. Stringent child screening. Babies aren't named until a certain test (physical or spiritual) is passed. Babies are left out for the wolves, the uneaten are taken in. Babies are submerged in chaos matter, causing them to be peculiar like everyone else.
9. Pregnant women are sent to special pregnant towns, where everyone is pregnant. Run by mothers of miscarriages? Priests? Public pregnancy is likely either taboo, or obscene.
10. Everyone is raised by the government. The king/pope/mayor is their father. Blood ties do not exist. Very patriotic.

War

1. Flower wars. Ceremonial warfare is conducted. This will have different rules to all out war, set places, set traditions, set methods and purposes.
2. Champions. Two individuals fight, or small ceremonial "armies" of 5 guys. With this sytem soldiers would be useless. Hero culture, stables of heroes being trained for war. Small handfuls of them. Live like sumo wrestlers. Maybe they sumo wrestle?
3. Hill of the king. Wars end when the leader dies. Battles are mainly attempts to get to them. Kind of like a rugby match with two balls.
4. Auction. Mercenaries long ago replaced standing armies. You won by having the best mercenaries the longest. In time people cut out the middle man and just competed on who could throw away the most money.
5. No soldiers, only mobs. The leader raises a rabble many thousands strong and they rabble on over to their enemy.
6. Coup only. Assassins are sent to infiltrate and kill en masse. Might be people or just politicians. Carries on until surrender, each side assassinating like mad.
7. Monster hunters. The only military is grizzled monster hunters who track down the gnarliest cthonic beasts to unleash on their enemies.
8. Seasonal. Wars are a matter of course. If you don't have an enemy you make one for a few months and go home.

Cherished Attitude

1. Sincerity. As long as what you do is done sincerely it is considered acceptable. If murder is done sincerely people may sincerely prevent you from doing so, but it is not evil.
2. Hospitality is of primary importance. Welcome to homes, many traditions of protection or service.
3. Peace. Anger, ambition, any conflict is considered extremely harmful. Those pushing too hard against the peace are evil. Retaliation to those breaking peace may be very hostile. Executions, trials, banishment.
4. Ambition. Personal success is a priority. If you must harm others in you ascent it is okey as long as you win. Lots of business, war is common, retention of arms and power is desired.
5. Kindness. The integrity of others' feelings is a priority. Politics is slow and gentle, fraught with frustrations.
6. Secrets. Knowledge shared is knowledge halved. People are respected by the amount of knowledge they might have. Demonstrate it by dripping it out to apprentices. Gain apprentices in exchange for favours. Currency of secrets.
7. Violence. Physical dominence is prime. If you can overpower an opponent you are correct. This may be personal power or the ability to accumilate those with it to your side.
8. Piety. Religious sincerity, or just knowledge or trappings, is important. A good person is religious, perfectly observes tradition and so on.
9. Individuality. Strive for uniqueness. Eccentricity loses its meaning among these people. Encourages taste makers, influencing others to imitate for the chance of mirrored originality.
10. Academic. Being able to talk eloquently on a wide array of subjects. Everyone is learned, or at least capable of appearing so. Problems with half-knowledge being passed off. Pseudo-intellectuals.
11. Renaissance men. Ability to perform many tasks is respected. Variety and vitality.
12. Post modern irony. Roll again for the attitude that has been past. That attitude is parroted and mocked, a pale imitation. Some old people might still adhere to it, young people snear.

More Godly Bits

How much of the way we deal with religion in RPGs is dictated by its american protestant origins?  Probably all of it that isn't orientalism. Daddy-god, looking after me, giving me gifts when I do good things. "Good" things, rather than "evil".

Typically the trappings change but the relationship doesn't, and the relationship is the interesting part.

On top of this list of divine miracles we can add a further layer of mad-libs:

Priesthood's relationship with god

1. Antagonistic - The priests prevent the god from awakening, arriving, sleeping, or some other transformation.
2. Daddy god - He watches over you in a paternal capacity, the priests are bigger brothers to the lay members
3. Indifferent - The god just is, no need to milk it
4. Fearful - God is imminent, angry, harmful, barely contained
5. Paternal - God must be cared for, is weak, dying, wounded
6. Seeking - God is lost, hiding, sending them somewhere
7. Businesslike - An exchange of services, exact costs and measures
8. Intimate - Possession, sex, transubstantiation 
9. Open - Many gods, specific circumstances only
10. Casual - Only on Sundays
11. Shifting - Friendly to violent to indifferent to etc.
12. Roll twice

Source of priesthood's magic

1. Taught - Academic traditions, books, teachers, classes
2. Miracles - Meditation, communing with the deity
3. Relic - Possession of a single or many objects that grant gifts
4. Traditions - Ritualistic acts, rote traditions, repetitive work
5. Drugs - Potions, vision quests, hallucinogenic audiences with the divine
6. Direct - The god physically instructs

Priesthood's primary relationship with lay worshippers

1. Non-existant - Priests are cloistered, separate, physically or spiritually distant
2. Paternal - Guiding, protective, punitive
3. Gatekeepers - They communicate with god on their behalf
4. Psychopomps - Ushering worshipper towards an ideal spiritual state, condition, place
5. Authoritative - Distant leaders, control over every day life, dictators, directors
6. Political - Spiritual and temporal power combined
7. Martyrs - Priests suffer, pray, battle demons, on their behalf
8. Roll twice

Lay worshipper relationship with god

1. Direct - through prayer, messages in bottles
2. Indirect - Through priests, designated representatives, animals
3. Present - Talk directly to a physical god, object, possession
4. Distant - Works in mysterious ways
5. Absent - Force of nature, abstract presence, no direct force on single life
6. Practical - the god is a tangible force that is dealt with as a mundane necessity

Lay worshipper relationship with priesthood

1. Fear - Superstition, tradition, taboos, or they are dangerous
2. Love - Admired, worshipped in their own right, sought out
3. Indifference - The priests do not serve a function for them, only god or other
4. Practical - Serve a purpose, officiate
5. Temporal power - Priests occupy a position of actual power over worshipper
6. Symbolic - maintain temples only, ritualistic engagement
7. None - the priests are separate entirely, a different level of engagement with god
8. Community leaders - Practical engagement as advisers, administrators, landowners, businessmen

And now some weird traditions. 

1. Transubstantiation/symbolic cannibalism
2. Mortification of the flesh - Drowning, burning, beating, bleeding, mutilation, flagellation, circumcision, foot/skull binding
3. Burial rites - Post-mortem consumption, burial, sea, worms, magic, alchemical, mummification etc.
4. Worship of the dead - Saints, mummies, relics
5. Eating habits - rocks, only one thing, everything but one thing, nothing with eyes, nothing above the ground etc.
6. Symbolic god - Popes, caliph, festivals, ritual sacrifices
7. Theatre - Religious recreation, hero quests, passion plays
8. Anchorage - remote meditation, starvation, walling yourself up and taking questions through a letter box
9. Holy sites - crusades, pilgrimage
10. Inherent holiness in a state - Women, men, children, eunuchs, mentally damaged, whores, soldiers, etc. etc.
11. Holy object - an animal, type of animal, specific object or category of objects
12. Roll twice