Seeking Physical Perfection (Glog Class: Rotless)

 For QAL ASHEN, which I haven’t posted anything else for. 

A mesopotamian-esque setting, where the world is consumed by a curse that infuses all living things with Too Much Life, turning them into immortal monsters. The only safe place, where uncursed people remain, is a bleak, theocratic city where the God of Death is worshipped: Qal Ashen. 

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Why is magic only the domain of suspicious witches, and holy arbiters in their tombs? 

Well, it isn’t. 

There’s no difference between a spell and blade trick. A blood-soaked ritual is no less unbelievable than killing five soldiers in five heartbeats. They divine just as well from entrails as from the stars. 

There is no division between the mundane and the eerie. The unreal is all of the real. The blade is just as numinous as the scroll, the bell, the key. Ignorance is no object to knowledge. 

THE ROTLESS

+1 to Hit and +1 HP per Template. 

A - Rotless, +1 Attack per Turn

B - Feats of Strength OR Feats of Agility, +1 Technique

C - Blade Breaking, +1 Technique

D - Scouring Winds OR Raging Flames

Rotless

You live by the sword and seek physical perfection, with the following effects:

• You can speak with all swords.
  Only ancient or notable blades really have much to say.

• If you befriend a sword, you have +1 to Hit while using it.
  If you give a sword the first name it has ever had, you have +1 to Hit while using it.
  If you improve a sword significantly, you have +1 to Hit while using it.
  These effects each trigger only once for the same sword. 

• If you fulfil all three of the conditions above for a given sword, it takes up no Inventory Slots, and is your constant companion. 

• You never miss attacks against archers, the mindless undead, or peasants.

• When you die, your body will never rot or putrefy.

• You can only be permanently killed by a sword, or by old age, which some consider a kind of sword. Anything else just leaves you unable to fight for a season. 

Feats

You can perform Feats of Strength (bending bars, sundering equipment, lifting gates) OR Feats of Agility (acrobatics, sprinting through a crowd, running on beams, mighty leaps), in exchange for gaining Fatigue. 

You choose Strength or Agility when you gain this template. 

The Fatigue gain replaces any roll you might need to do, unless you’re trying to inflict something on another creature, then you need to make a successful attack. 

• Gain 1 to perform any Feat normal human could.

• Gain 2 to perform any Feat a human at their physical peak could.

• Gain 3 to perform any Feat a wild beast could. 

Some feats (such as, for example, bending an iron bar, snapping a femur, or climbing like a monkey up a cliff face) are not instant and require minutes of effort, at the cost of +1 Fatigue.

Fatigue fills inventory slots. If the slot a Fatigue would occupy is full, you take a point of damage. Cast down your tools and crack the bones of your wrists. 

Blade Breaking

You can break a blade to release its potential in a flash. 

You can break when an attack hits, or over the course of a minute outside of combat.

The effect differs between blades, but in general:

• Iron blades deal a d8 of damage, either to the target you’re hitting, or, if you’re breaking the blade outside of combat, to someone you can see.  

• Bronze blades break other mundane weapons when broken, and are easier to repair - you could do it yourself over a campfire. 

• Silver blades end a spell, either on the being you have struck or on yourself. 

• Gold blades convince spirits and divine beings you are someone else until you let go of the blade. 

• Bone blades Turn Undead.

• Ceramic blades unleash a massive dust cloud which catches breath and obscures sight.

Particularly ancient blades, or blades with strange properties, unleash their own bizarre effects when broken. A flaming sword might release a burst of flames, a flying blade might release a windstorm, a blade that represents the peace of the land might unleash war, and so on. 

Broken blades are confused and wandering in their speech, until repaired. Most blades require a smith to repair them. 

Scouring Winds

You can leap, run and jump with exceptional agility. Anything you can balance on holds your weight, and you can run while balancing. You can leap your own height straight upwards with no preparation, balance on weapons held by others, and take no damage from falling.  Feats of Agility now allow you to achieve truly insane leaps, and brief moments of running on air.

Raging Flames

You can spark swords off of other metal things (like swords) or on stone, to catch them aflame. Your blades burn without fuel or obvious source, and your fires spread just as readily as normal flames. Flaming blades deal an extra 1d6 damage on each attack. You may extinguish them, and all fires that spread from them, with a thought. 

Using Feats of Strength to destroy objects now chars and ignites them, should you so desire.

Techniques

You can learn new Techniques from old masters, or old swords, with a Season of study. 

1d10 Example Techniques: 

1. Sword Throwing - You can throw swords. As a bow, with damage appropriate to the sword’s size. 

2. Parry - Subtract your to-hit bonus from the damage of one oncoming attack a round. 

3. Paralysing Punch - Your unarmed attacks stun unaware enemies. 

4. Eagle Eye - You see clearly over long distances, in perfect detail up close, and well in the dark. 

5. Cleave - When you kill a creature, you can transfer any excess damage to any other creature you can see, even if your blade can’t reasonably reach them. 

6. Hammer Fists - Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 damage and crack rocks. You can destroy stone walls with consistent punching. 

7. Arrow Catch - You can catch as many arrows per round as you have free hands. 

8. Scabbard Cut - You can deal 1d6 cutting damage with blunt objects shaped nearly like a sword. 

9. Howl - When you raise your voice, you are audible for up to a mile, should you choose.

10. Corpselike- You can survive without food, water or air for up to a week. 

If you are playing a Rotless, suggesting your own special Techniques is right and valid. 

1d10 Numinous Metals for your Blades

1. Titanium - Sword cannot be affected by magic at all. This means you can’t use it for Techniques or Blade Breaking, as a tradeoff. It also doesn’t talk. 

2. Adamant - Heavy and grey-black. Sword is completely indestructible, which means it cannot be Broken. Adamant swords all know each other, somehow. 

3. Meteor Iron - Sword appears like iron, but rusts and tarnishes violet. ‘Sings’ when moved quickly. If broken, randomly teleports the wielder. 

4. Orichalc - Also known as Brass. Sword is an imitator of gold, but has the opposite effect - when broken, it makes your identity totally certain to spirits and divine beings. This is equally as helpful, in the right circumstance. 

5. Penumbra - Theorised to be sword-shades, ghosts with edges. Sword is dark blue, has an indistinct shape (except on sharp edges) and is slightly translucent. Sword interacts with shades like a blade does with a physical being. If broken, transforms the wielder into a shade for a minute. 

6. Osseum - Sword is red-grey and heavy. It is cold, not like steel, but like a corpse. Breaking an osseum blade animates a dead body within sight. Roll damage for the blade - that many hours of motion. 

7. Galena - Sword is grey and shiny, with veins of fool’s gold. If broken, it transports the wielder right into the Underworld without them having to die first. 

8. Obsidian - Not a metal at all, but sharp black glass. Breaking an obsidian blade makes you invisible to the Gods until you let go of it. 

9. Stygium - Only found in the Underworld. Sword is pitch black, matte, and the sounds it makes are muffled - but it heats up significantly in direct sunlight. If you break a Stygium blade, it violently explodes, possibly catching you in the blast. 

10. Apeiron - Created by the Queen of the Gods to adorn herself. Rarest metal in existence. Sword is a metallic blue that shimmers every colour of the rainbow when light shines on it. If you break an Apeiron blade, time stops for everyone but you and the Queen of the Gods until you let go of the handle. Broken Apeiron cannot be repaired. All Apeiron blades are truly ancient. 

Owes a debt to Occultronics' Sword Saint.