January 27, 2020

Master of Many Minds: Burning

This is an expansion to the 3rd version of psychic rules set out in The Many Minded Beast. Are you ready to burn up your psyche and body to power your psionic abilities? No? Well here we go anyway.

You may burn to create one of a few effects:
1. Exert Control - Auto succeed a Psychic power, use before rolling.

2. By Will Alone - Use a Psychic power you don't have access to, use before rolling.

3. Mental Multi-processing - Make 2 uses of Psychic power(s) that take 1 action, use before rolling. It can be two uses of the same, or two different ones.

4. Mental Thread Construct - Sustain the ability to use a Psychic power (With the same roll) for up to 2d10 hours, use after rolling.

5. Metadimensional Fold - Fold metadimentional space around you, this breaks through metadimensional block, and gives you a +20 to Psychic power use until you move.

6. Eternity Chasm - Take 4d10 damage (In addition to burning) to create an Eternity Chasm at your location. An Eternity Chasm is a rift in space which leads to a weird reality. Maybe it's full of custard, or clones of you, or an endless amount of blood, or maybe there's nothing there.

7. Horror - Each category of Psychic skills has a horror power. Only available if you have a Vast power in that category. To use a Horror power you must burn twice, then take 2d10 damage.
Using a Horror power causes a ripple in Metadimensional space so powerful that anyone, or any Thing, looking for it knows exactly where to find you. Having the ability to harness these abilities is immeasurably invaluable and dangerous.

- Telepathy: Consume Mind - Instantly kill a sentient target, their mind is torn out of their body and consumed with no mark on the body. You reduce stress to 1.

- Telekinesis: Avatar - Create a shell of telekinetic energy that transforms you into an 8ft tall version of yourself with an entire telekinetic armory. While in this form you have +40 to armour saves, and may auto succeed at attacks, which deal 1d100 damage more than they do normally.

- Biokinesis: Autopsy - Instantly kill a biological target and separate their body into component parts, all usable. You may replace anyone else's body parts with these ones instantly, without a test. They work as perfectly as if they where meant to be there.

- Pyrokinesis: Extinction - Engulf the next thing you touch in fiery doom.

- Electrokinesis: Console - Take control of all tech nearby, you have complete control over it.

- Meta-Psionics: Root-Access - You gain root access to the universe. Be careful, you might make gravity purple instead of attracty.

- Teleportation: Warp Gate - Create a permanent link between any two places in space-time.

- Summoning: Rupture - Rupture reality, creating many copies of your reality which you can swap to at will. For the next 2d10 minutes you can choose to reroll any roll (once), made by you or any other character (Including random table rolls, although you must tell the Warden you are swapping reality before they tell you the results).

- Cognition: The Watching - You see everything. Make a sanity save or take 1d10 stress. You may ask 3 questions about what is happening, what has happened, or what might happen to the Warden.



Burning

Finally, onto the good stuff. How do you permanently maim yourself to access these powers?
Well, there are a few ways to burn:
1. Burn Blood - Not actually blood, but more like years of your life. You roll 4d5 and reduce your max health by that much.

2. Burn Body - Your body withers as you use it to fuel your mind. Lose 1d5+3 off your Body save.

3. Burn Mind - You creep ever closer to the oblivion of madness. Lose 1d5+3 off your Sanity save.

4. Burn Stability - Destabilizing your mind is a dangerous idea, paranoia quickly follows. Lose 1d5+3 off your Fear save.

5. Burn Focus - Thinking about a lot at once means you inevitably think about everything that could go wrong. Roll 1d5 and add that to your anxiety (Starts at 0). You may never have stress lower than your anxiety.



Power Categories

Each power has a category. The category is based on where it stems from, for instance. Mind control is a Telepathy power because it stems from Telepathy. The power categories are as follows:
Telepathy - Telepathy
Telekinesis - Telekinesis
Biokinesis - Sustain
Pyrokinesis - Pyrokinesis
Electrokinesis - Electrokinesis
Meta-Psionics - Detect Psi, Psi-Trap
Summoning - Summoning
Cognition - Post-Cognition, Thing-Speak, Pre-action

January 1, 2020

Location, Location, Location

Another post on this blog deals with hacking the ROOT RPG war system to fit into a more open setting (Although leaning towards Sci-Fi). @Kharrak on the Mothership discord server mentioned that it might be nice to port the random tables for names and notable features, buildings, and NPCs. So here's my version of that.

Colony Names

Because there’s no specific setting, here’s a good colony name generator with way more names than I would be able to reasonably create.

Important NPCs




1d66 (Roll 2d6 and take one as the ones, one as the tens)
NPC
11
Mayor
12
Scientist
13
Guard Captain
14
Rebel Leader
15
Enemy Captain
16
Elder
21
Botanist
22
Thief
23
Corporate Regional Manager
24
Academic
25
Tax Collector
26
Mob “Collection Agent”
31
Doctor
32
Arms Shopkeep
33
Salesperson
34
Noble/Wealthy Person
35
Astronomer
36
Banker
41
Mob Boss
42
Pirate
43
Mercenary
44
Food Production Worker
45
Bounty Hunter
46
Historian
51
Faction Recruiter
52
Tailor/Cobbler
53
Jeweler
54
Corporate Military Captain
55
Barber
56
Religious Figure
61
Soldier
62
Construction Overseer
63
Construction Worker
64
Assassin
65
Gambler
66
Judge



Important Buildings






1d66 (Roll 2d6 and take one as the ones, one as the tens)
Building
11
Physics Laboratory
12
Biology Laboratory
13
Chemistry Laboratory
14
R&D Facility
15
Refinery
16
Mine
21
Farm/Hydroponics
22
Commodities Factory
23
Government Center
24
Security Station
25
Fence/Wall
26
“Coffin” Apartments
31
Computer Database
32
Armory
33
Infirmary
34
Brewery
35
3D printer
36
Logistics Station
41
Warehouse
42
Orchard
43
Star-port
44
Market
45
Religious Building
46
Bar
51
Restaurant
52
Almshouse
53
Barracks
54
School Building
55
Bridge
56
Life Support
61
Bank
62
Fountain/Park/Dedicated Recreation Area
63
Prison
64
Graveyard
65
Courthouse
66
Corporate Regional Office



Important Landscape Features




1d66 (Roll 2d6 and take one as the ones, one as the tens)
Feature
1
River
2
Sealed Environment
3
Tall Cliff
4
Alien Ruins
5
Lake
6
Caves
7
Hydrogen Mine
8
Metal Mine
9
Ice Mine
10
Broken Colony Building



Problems





1d66 (Roll 2d6 and take one as the ones, one as the tens)
Problem
11
Predatory Creature Attacks
12
Natural Disaster
13
Pirates
14
Enemy Occupation
15
Famine
16
Sickness
21
Tyranny
22
Hostile Atmosphere
23
Money
24
Inequality
25
Overpopulation
26
Lack of development
31
Corruption
32
Dissent/Rebellion
33
Lack of crucial resource
34
Lack of skilled labor
35
Overtaxation
36
Sabotage
41
Internal Strife
42
Inflexible Traditions
43
Prejudice
44
Brutality
45
Protection Racket
46
Xenophobia
51
Road Damage
52
Obsolescence
53
Cultural Assimilation
54
Coup
55
Poisoned Supplies
56
Dilapidated Machinery
61
Fearmongering
62
Warmongering
63
Smugglers
64
Thieves
65
Censorship
66
Strange Mystery