Monday, 3 January 2022

De Luminare Pessimi Caelestis Hierarchia, or, The Angels in Their Hands

 According to the ancient texts, Angels are the g_ds’ tools of creation


It is important, we believe, to keep track of the Angels which associate with heretics, madmen and fools. 


A shoddy workman blames his tools - but even shoddier is the workman who loses track of them. 



  1. Find Familiar

She wears black goggles, and a huge parka. She carries cages of all sizes under her arms, filled with blood, fur and feathers. She’s totally silent, except to bark out the species of the creatures she summons. 


Find Familiar summons [dice] small animals, which have tarry blood, and appear sick and mangy. The cleric commanding her can, for the next [sum] hours, command these animals and use their senses. After this, the animals go totally feral and escape. Each has 1HP.


For 4MD, Find Familiar can produce a permanently obedient Familiar for the Cleric to use. 



  1. Mark 

She carries a smoking brand, and wears a red cloak and hood. She has a permanent rictus grin. She amuses herself by making puns, the most vile way to use words. 


Mark can place a burning symbol of your choice, visible only to those who can see angels, on anything you desire. It is permanent until dispelled, or wiped off by the hands of an angel. 


For 2 Dice, you may have the mark move in a simple way, such as an arrow turning to point, when beheld. You can set conditions for the activation. 


For 3 Dice, you may also have the mark provide a simple associated sense when beheld - a single sound, taste or scent, for example. You can set conditions for the activation. 


For 4 Dice, Mark instead answers to Explosive Runes. You may choose to have the mark explode when beheld, dealing [sum+dice] damage to those around the mark, and to whatever it’s inscribed on. Save for half. You set the conditions for the explosion going off. 



  1. Ventriloquism

She wears a long black robe, a blank white mask, and a feathered cap. She’s got a strange tin trumpet. She speaks rarely - her voice is not at all pleasant. 


Choose up to [dice] creatures. For the next [sum] hours, you can choose to speak out of their mouths, using their voice or your own. Unwilling creatures may save




  1. Animate Objects 

She has long white hair, carries a staff, and wears a long, ragged robe. She sits in a throne which walks on crab’s legs, and hides her face inside a hood. She loves riddles and nicknames. She’s a cheery sort. 


[highest + dice] objects gain uncanny animation, dividing [sum]HD between them as you choose. Objects so animated are slow-moving but implacable, and return to inanimacy if they lose all of their HP, or if [dice] hours have elapsed. Objects attack with a +[level] bonus, and deal 1d6 Damage, or 1d10 if they have more HD than [highest]


  1. Illiteracy 

She dresses in grey business-casual. She communicates by a stylus and tablet she holds - only in odd, and often crude drawings. She smiles a lot, and makes constant eye contact. She is said to resemble the fearful angel Feeblemind, to the point where it’s hard to tell them apart.


For [sum] hours, [dice] people are completely incapable of comprehending or producing written words - no save. 


For 4MD, the effect can be made permanent-until-dispelled on a single target. This can include yourself.



  1. Chain 

She is tall, bald and hard-featured, and wears nothing but a long black chain which wraps around her body and each limb a hundred times or more. She is cruel, and finds everything funny - especially if everyone else isn’t laughing. 


An adamant chain up to [sum]*2 feet long is summoned - you can have it anchored to any point in sight, or to appear wrapped around a creature you can see - creatures unwilling to be tied in chains may save. You can have up to [dice] anchor points and targeted creatures. 






  1. Sanctuary 

She is tall, with curly black hair and a beatific smile. She wears a flowing robe and golden jewellery. She bears a burnt and melted iron staff, which once bore a symbol at the top. 


The next [dice] times anyone tries to attack, humiliate, or otherwise harm you, or any creature of your choice, they must save, or find themselves unable to bring themselves to do so. Forcing someone to overcome Sanctuary by some means or another results in [sum] days of debilitating religious panic. 


  1. Rust

She wears a filthy white habit, and massive leather gloves which reach up to her elbows. Her boots are caked in muck. She’s got freckles, scars and a powerful sneer. She is, for no real reason, incredibly dismissive and rude. 


Instantly turn up to [dice*sum] inventory slots of metal into a useless, oxidised mess. You must touch some part of the metal to begin the process, but from there it rapidly spreads across connected surfaces. 


Rust’s callous attentions obliterate iron, and corrode or damage other metals, to the point of either losing their appearance or collapsing into total uselessness. She either can’t or won’t damage gold. 


When used with 4MD, she can even damage sacred steels (with the exception of adamant and ossgold). 



  1. Warding Wind

She carries two signalling fans, wears a green robe of heavy fabric, and a light headscarf of gold. She is perhaps one of the kindest creatures to have ever existed. She was even more favoured before the invention of guns.


Warding Wind conjures a highly localised cyclone around your body for [sum] rounds. This flings your clothes about, whips your hair in your eyes, shreds nearby plants, and launches any unsecured papers or similar. 


This prevents anyone who isn’t pretty heavy from stepping into arm’s reach of you, and automatically deflects arrows and other relatively slow-moving projectiles. You also suffer [dice] less damage from falls. 





  1. Bottomless Stomach

She’s jovial and gaunt, with enormous teeth and a big fucking fork. She says shit like “Thank you G_d for this meal” when you kill people, and literally screams at you when you turn down food. She’s an interesting companion. 


Bottomless Stomach allows you to create [sum] inventory slots in your gut, which last for [dice] hours. You can only store things in your new gut-slots which you can swallow. If you have things stored in the gut slots when time runs out, you harmlessly vomit all of them up immediately. 


You can choose to instantly digest food stored in your gut-slots to heal 1d6 per slot of food consumed. 

 

  1. Headbutt

A mythical angel whispered of by the Blue Heretics. A gigantic, broad shouldered figure, wearing jorts and a spiky leather jacket. She’s got a surgical mask, and a military-style helmet with the words HAMMER OF G_D on the side, in red stencil font. She has the haunted look of someone who has seen the fullness of time, and chosen ignorance. 


Headbutt, first and foremost, makes your skull indestructible. At the end of a given round, you can tell the DM you’re about to use Headbutt. 


Headbutt, being faster than anything, happens instantly at the beginning of the next round - the chosen target in melee range takes [sum+dice] damage as you mash your indestructible skull into it at comical speeds. This uses your turn. 


Unsecured targets struck by a headbutt are flung up to [sum] metres away - with 4MD, you can instead choose to fling them [sum] miles, teleporting them with a thunderclap and a cloud of choking smoke. 


Stories of Blue Clerics headbutting things backwards and forwards through time are probably apocryphal. 


  1. Glibness

A tall, handsome angel, who wears a burning chain around her neck. Her tongue is silver. Smoking sigils flicker like embers where they are carved into her face. Her robes are covered in soot. She is aloof, arrogant and bigoted, unless your cleric is a King - upon which she takes on the persona of the snivelling advisor. 


Associated with a group now lost to time. 


For [sum] rounds, everything you say is believable, no matter how ridiculous. If you say something which presents an argument, all listeners except the ones you’re arguing with will take your side. 


Clerics hear your words as glossolalia and pained screaming for the duration.