Class: Heartless
When generating statistics for a Heartless, you may exchange as much Wisdom for Intelligence and/or Charisma as you wish.
Begin with neat clothing, a second outfit (extravagant), year-round train tickets to the city of Mariongold, ten books (you select the topics), and an impractical or ostentatious weapon (e.g., cane-sword, whip, derringer, filigreed golden knife, engraved duelling pistol).
Further, begin with two of the following assets:
A loyal secretary, who is aware you are a wizard. They reside in the town nearest to your current habitation, and handle things your reputation precludes.
A Method already selected (see below).
A fine modern motorcar. Goes much faster than a horse, often annoying to those of old-fashioned sensibilities, semi-reliable.
A Familiar already created (see below).
Six loyal minions and/or cultists, who believe you to be the great wizard and supreme monster who shall restore the world or make them immortal, or something, whatever, you don’t particularly care.
An Acquaintance with a powerful Fogling. (see below)
A grimoire written by an Orthodox Wizard.
A fully equipped Sanctum at the ready (see below).
A reliquary created by an Artisan Wizard.
An Apprentice, learning the basics of magic (see below), thus starting with 0 Fog (see below).
Heartlessness: In the armour of your soul there are no weaknesses. You cannot be debilitated by loss. You are ageless, although young at the moment. You are unable to feel love, to cry, or to feel grief. You cannot muster heartache or care. Your passions tend to be intellectual, obsessive, or destructive. Selflessness is difficult for you to undertake.
Your world will leave you behind, someday, if it doesn’t destroy you first.
To the people of Outshire, a wizard is a terrifying myth, a wild animal, a nightmare from newspaper pages - something feared, but assumed to be far distant, in the mountains and the forests.
Transformation: In losing your heart, you have come to be inhabited by a monster. You and your monstrous self are inexactly the same being. You each die if one of you does, and you share the same goals and desires, but your monstrous self is very rarely calmer or gentler than you are. You determine the nature of your other form, usually drawing on myth - legendary creatures make excellent models, for they are usually both wondrous and horrible.
You may transform at will, either partially or fully. Partial transformation is a fairly free-form ability based on what your other form is - if a great bird, you may manifest its wings, its keen eyes, its claws, and so on, to aid you. Partial transformation terrifies people.
When you fully transform, your body vanishes and the monster appears in its entirety. The transformation is always messy, often painful to you, and absolutely fucking terrifying to everyone around you. 3MD is added to today’s pool whenever you fully transform.
While fully transformed, you are a giant monster, with all that entails. You are more or less immune to human portable weaponry, but you will cause significant collateral damage by your mere presence - even moving carefully, wingtips will sweep over fragile objects, ghostly flames will burn away carefully-tended gardens, or a scaled tail’s twitches will break ankles. This is the consequence of monstrousness.
Fog: Your otherworldliness is both curse and currency. You begin at 1 Fog. Whenever you turn back to your human self from a full transformation, save or get a point of Fog.
With 1 or more Fog, dogs are always wary of you, and you may not befriend them.
With 2 or more Fog, if you enter a building uninvited, you cannot read, or understand speech, while inside - until given permission to be there.
With 3 or more Fog, you cannot physically cross lines of salt.
With 5 or more Fog, your reflection in mirrors is that of your transformed self.
With 7 or more Fog, you leave monstrous footprints, and similar unintentional signs of your true nature (e.g., dropped feathers) when agitated.
With 9 or more Fog, iron sickens you, and open flames repel you.
With 11 or more Fog, the line between your selves is constantly blurred, and you are more or less always partially transformed in an ungainly, uneven, and unintentional way.
For each point of Fog you have, increase your Saves vs. Magic by 1, and it takes another hour to transform back to your human self.
With 13 or more Fog, you lose the ability to be human, and are always fully transformed into your monstrous self. This does not make you an NPC.
Second Senses: You know when something or someone is magical, same as you know when something is red, or is hot, or smells a certain way. If a Wizard has 3 or more Fog, you always know what they are, and never mistake them for a human, save for the intervention of a greater power.
Magic: Comes in two forms - Subtle, and Unsubtle. The former can be done whenever you wish, the latter requires you to have MD in today’s pool. There are various ways to get MD in your pool, explained throughout this post, but the most reliable is to fully transform.
You may add 1MD to your pool at any time by gaining 1 Fog, drawing on the Otherworldly Powers. You can do this as much as you like, with the repercussions mentioned above.
Certain items add 1MD or 2MD to your pool each morning, if you are the sole possessor of them. These items are all at least two of: ancient, irreplaceable, highly dangerous, highly cumbersome, or unpleasant. Wizards squabble over them fiercely.
Your pool empties of MD when you sleep, drawn away into dreaming. MD are squirming little things, like worms or birds, that roost in your entrails and stomach. Unexpected vomiting can cause MD loss. There are methods to take MD from your pool and store them such that they aren’t lost when you sleep, but you don’t begin knowing them.
Subtle Magic: Mere cantrips and trickery, but it allows you to remain charming. It requires no MD to use. You know four kinds of Subtle Magic. They are defined in the following categories named in an old nursery rhyme - Will, Mien, Stride, Cunning and Corse - you can have at most two from one category. You have a fifth if you begin with a Method selected, which can be a third from the same category.
These are somewhat free-form abilities, to be negotiated with the DM, and to be squashed and stretched to try and fit your situation. When seeing Subtle Magic, people will not assume they are seeing a wizard.
The Magic of the Will is a way of thinking, an unusual facility of intellect or emotion, or a way of speaking that is compelling or repelling. For example, to read and write at terrific speeds, to adopt a voice that calms and charms, or to always notice a hidden weapon.
The Magic of the Corse is a bizarre facility of the body, a functional difference from humanity - never visible to a glance, of course. For example, an ability to hold burning hot objects without harm, to never drown, or to fit into any space that could hold one’s torso.
The Magic of Mien is a strangeness of appearance, or a countenance one can don. For example, an ability to briefly become towering and sinister, to seem to be someone else, or to always be pristinely clean.
The Magic of Cunning is an exceptional skill or an unusual talent. For example, to produce photographically-accurate images with only a pencil, to work cold iron as if it were hot, or to make unparalleled cups of tea.
The Magic of the Stride is an unusual way of moving, or a way to ignore that which would otherwise impede you. For example, to weave through a crowd without being slowed or followed, to leap and have the air catch you, slowing your falls and extending your jumps, or to find every door you approach conveniently unlocked.
Unsubtle Magic: Much more powerful, but it exposes your monstrous nature. To use Unsubtle Magic, you must at least partially transform - monstrous eyes, monstrous limbs, a burst of feathers, a patch of scales, diaphanous etherealness, etc. You must also have MD in your pool.
If you are fully transformed, your MD explode, i.e, roll again on a 6, adding the result to [sum] and incrementing [dice] by one.
You begin knowing 4 spells, or 5 if you began with a Method already selected. These function as normal GLOG spells, and can be selected from the lists in the original post, or from any other sources of such. It is preferred that the spells relate to your Transformation and/or Method.
New spells are learned from 2d6 months of difficult study, the blessings of Foglings, uncategorisable revelations, strange places, or one of the Methods below.
Acquaintance: You may also manage to persuade a Fogling to make daily contributions of 1MD to your pool, usually in exchange for a large favour. They may retract their favour at any time, if they feel it’s warranted, though the more reliable ones will usually at least set out conditions. If you are Acquainted with a Fogling, they may occasionally demand favours, gifts, or for you to come to one of their parties deep in the Fog, far from what is.
Apprentice: If you begin the process of teaching Magic to another person, you may lower your Fog by 1, give them a Fog stat set at 0. If you continue to tutor them, there will come a time when they are ready. Give them an MD from your pool. If they do not turn back from the path, and pass the trials they will undergo in the Fog, they become Heartless like you. You may lower your Fog by 1 again if you do this, and increase theirs to 1.
Sanctum: If you can convince a Fogling to become the spirit of a building which you own, have built, or occupy without contest, it becomes your Domovoi, and the building becomes your Sanctum. The building is now partially in the Fog, making the creation of magic items and the summoning of Foglings much easier.
When waking in your Sanctum, add 1MD to today's pool.
Find Familiar: Feed an animal one of your MD. It becomes your Familiar, and gains the ability to speak. You can roll an MD to swap senses with an active familiar for [sum] minutes, speak through an active familiar for [sum] sentences, and make an active familiar invisible for [sum] minutes.
Servants: If you have 3 or more Fog, you may summon [sum] 0HD creatures, transforming MD from your day’s pool directly into them. They are plain humanoid forms that are capable of lifting, dragging, pulling and working as a team. They are, technically, Foglings. They attack as a group, dealing 1 Damage per Servant, with a +1 Bonus to hit for every two Servants present. You may reclaim the MD into your pool if you have physical access to your Servants, causing them to dissolve, and the MD to squirm back to your pool. Servants have no definite duration, but are quite fragile.
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Method: Wizardly traditions, in a sense. A wizard can be sans-Method, sometimes referred to as a Hedge-Mage, but those who adopt a Method gain new ways to learn Spells, a philosophical position on the state of Heartlessness, and a few other tricks.
To learn a Method, the simplest way is to encounter a Wizard who follows it out in the world, and then commit to their path. You can also encounter the idea in a book, of course, or have it mentioned to you by a Fogling. Wizards more than half disobey conventional logic - deciding that one is committed to a Method is enough to be so, and to feel a change in one’s life.
Once you have committed to the path, you receive the benefits.
★ Orthodox – A method of rote and research. Some wizards wish to create a society amongst themselves, to understand themselves, and produce a parallel scientia of the false and fog-shrouded, aloof from humanity. These wizards have, occasionally, almost been tolerated by the powers that be, hence the moniker.
Due to this, you may correspond to other Orthodox Wizards who regard you as a peer, and in some cases, kings of the land, members of parliament, wealthy bankers, and so forth, may fearfully write to you, offering compensation for your aid.
They transmit Spells by recording them in grimoires and scrolls, and you can now learn them by study. You may also record your own spells, to be added to libraries or sent by letter.
You have another Subtle Magic of the Will.
When someone pays a price for your aid or knowledge, you may lower your Fog by 1.
★ Witch – A method of practice and caution. Some wizards regret their alienation from society, and desire to remain intermingled with it. They remain among people, often as an open secret, sometimes acting to protect or aid them, like a scary godmother.
Due to this, your reputation is much better than any other Wizard’s - people in the community you inhabit treat you with respect and deference, as opposed to revulsion and terror.
They transmit Spells by mentorship, and you can now travel to other Witches for tutelage, and reasonably expect to get it. You may also transmit spells by mentoring others.
You have another Subtle Magic of the Corse.
When someone confides a secret to you, you may lower your Fog by 1.
★ Enchanter – A method of insight and will. Some wizards understand their singularity, and their isolation - both from the world they were born in, and the Fog, from which emanates their power. Thus, each world must be understood (and controlled) very personally, and the distance to each reduced as much as possible.
You are especially able to use the parallel mind of your Transformation to your advantage, decoupling it from your own. You are conscious even while asleep, can “converse” with yourself (the DM) to externalise thoughts and ideas. If someone tries to mind-control or charm you, you can reverse it on them.
They don’t precisely transmit Spells, but they discover them in the deep and intent study of a human being’s fears, passions and desires. For each person they come to deeply understand, they later gain a Spell in dreams.
You have another Subtle Magic of Mien.
When someone comes to genuinely trust you, or willingly obey you, you may lower your Fog by 1.
★ Artisan – A method of refinement and discipline. Some wizards understand all this as the supreme craft, the discipline of ancient wonder-workers, and the art of heathen demigods. They see this craft as something for an individual wizard to pursue, to master, and then to use. These wizards view both humanity and the Fog as mere tools, to be used when practical.
You may work MD from your pool permanently into items (or art, or food, or other things you make) to make them magical. Most magical items are simply superior versions of their normal selves, but with extensive artisanship, mystic materials and multiple MD, your works can equal the treasures of old.
They transmit Spells by specialised amulets, staves, and similar relics, and you can now examine their works to understand their secrets. You may also craft your own cipher-works, to leave for posterity.
You have another Subtle Magic of Cunning.
When someone pays a price or makes a trade to possess something you created, you may lower your Fog by 1.
★ Gutter – A method of accumulation and inhumanity. Some wizards take the view that everybody else is just deluding themselves into acting one way or another out of regret and hesitation. What is all this about study, protection, insight and craft? What about us is undeniably true? Two things: we are heartless, and we are monsters.
You are completely immune to mind-altering effects, such as fear, charm, alcohol, poison, and the memory-eating effects of the deep Fog. You are especially feared and reviled.
They transmit Spells by taking them, and you can now do the same by subjugating or killing other Wizards or Foglings.
You have another Subtle Magic of the Stride
You can spit Fog into the mouths of ordinary people. This curses them, sometimes very painfully, in a way based on their deep-seated fears and neuroses. Doing so lowers your Fog by 1.
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Whole Again: If you reach 0 Fog and find someone who truly loves you, you may choose to sunder yourself from monstrousness, and become a human who can love once again. You can no longer Transform, perform Unsubtle Magic, or gain Fog, but increase all of your other stats by 3 (even above normal maximums). You are now able to live peacefully.
If you lose your love, you become able to gain Fog again. If you do, you become a monster again, and you gain the following ability:
The Power to Take: You can expend an MD and lose a point of one of your stats to Take something. And I mean anything. Youth? Ambition? Money? Patriotism? That River? Your worst enemies? Your closest friends?
When you Take something, it disappears, replaced by Fog. There are no saves and there is no way to resist. Choose how you store it – as a tessellation on a scroll, in a bottle, inside a lockbox or within a familiar, for example. You can return it at any time, or give it to yourself, or an ally, allowing them to use it. Wizards have been known to steal hearts and move rivers by this power.
The power of Utter Theft is why this world is such a patchwork - heartbroken wizards stealing entire lands from the face of the earth, and hiding them away in their vaults and skulls.
Any wizard who has found true love, of course, knows that the ultimate power requires only a single agonising sacrifice.
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