Thursday, July 21, 2016

Reverse Centaur: Another Dumb Hill Cantons Class

The Revoca Canton party (the junior varsity team of the campaign) have found a solid, if dim-witted group of allies out in the mythic woods in a tribe of Reverse Centaurs. Rescuing the horseheaded humanoids a couple weeks back from the ravages of a two-headed giant (admittedly one that the party themselves released into the world) allowed them in time-honored campaign tradition to “unlock” a new dumb Hill Cantons class. Big thanks to Gus L for co-writing the class. 
On the Making of Horselings
Long ago in the Land of Ostpahr dwelt Kůň and Otokar, brothers two. Fair of head and long in leg the two so loved horses as to eschew the company of their own wives. All morn and to the eve, the brothers mounted and rode their corral of mares. They mounted and rode them in the tall green waves of the steppe grass and mounted and rode them on swelling ridges high. Mounted...why does thou giggle so? In that day they were sedulous and attentive and use to the practice of daily equestrian drill...

One day in the summer high First Pavol, a trader of horseflesh, came to them with a comely named Hrebec. Shining and black the steed stood tall in shoulder and wide in breadth, his eyes were as two flashing rubies and his mane tassels of purest gold. 

Said the humble horse merchant: “Great and mighty lords of the pastures, king of kings Svat the Four-Faced called on me in my slumber and spoke to me saying that I will have his divine favor if I make a free gift of that I hold most dear. This horse I hold most dear, more to me than my own wife, who helpeth me not in the mounting. I give him unto thee.”

The brothers praised Pavol for his piety and each other for their good fortune and made ready to mount Hrebec. But neither could allow the other to be the first to ride the horse. Both Kůň and Otokar drew ire. Hard words came forth from their mouths and the two drew forth their long blades. With mighty twinned swings they were both cleaved in two. 

Their life spilling from them on the rocky soil, great and likable Radhost took pity on the dying brothers and working deftly split Hrebec. With skillful hands the god bound the torso and head of Kůň to the body of the horse and Hrebec's stately head to the body of Otokar and the two were made whole and wholly other.

And so it was that the two ancient races, the centaurs and reverse centaurs, came to live in the world of Zem...

Reverse Centaur
Requirements: STR 13, INT 11 or less
Prime Requisite: STR
Hit Dice: 1d10
Maximum Level: 9

Proudly sporting the heads of horse-kind on their chiseled wide-shouldered otherwise human bodies, stand the proud, strong (though somewhat thick) children of Otokar, the Reverse Centaur.

Reverse Centaurs can carry on their strong backs an abnormally large amount of gear, gaining +3 STR in carrying weight (up to 19) in systems that use STR for encumbrance. Reverse Centaurs move at 120' round unless they are at heavy encumbrances. Reverse centaurs possess an innate “horse sense” allowing them to move vegetation finding trails and hidden paths and will always safely find way home after flight with no memory of escape route.

RCs are sadly also prone to severe panics and must roll 3d6 (or more if circumstance warrant) vs. INT to avoid fleeing if an ally dies, take half hp in damage, or of exposed to lightning to avoid stampeding in sheer terror. They make another check after one turn of flight to return to adventure or will wander to camp/home.

Reverse Centaurs fight and save as fighters of the same level. Their cumbersome tops and proneness to an affliction they call “saddle sore” leads them to only be able to wear leather armor. They can use all weapons other than lassos, a weapon profoundly and irrationally hated by the creatures.

Reverse Centaur Level Progression
Experience
Level
Hit Dice (1d10)
0
1
1
2,300
2
2
4,600
3
3
9,200
4
4
18,400
5
5
36,800
6
6
73,600
7
7
147,200
8
8
294,400
9
9

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

High Summer in the Hill Cantons

And now the News from the Hill Cantons...
Prepare the ebon-black skin dyes and four-cornered hats of mourning dear listeners. For it has come to pass that our dear Overking lies mute and gravely ill in The Great Chamber. Now is the time to put away treasonous borderlands talk that His August Majesty failed to acquire a single level in that arbitrary system of personal power gauging popular in the Cantons and unite to help the Lords Temporal, Spiritual and Arcane in their sacred roles as Electors should Raginmud LVIII be called to the fiery orgasm of the Sun Lord.

High Summer has opened a wave of occurrences large and small in Revoca Canton. Strange lights and whoops have been heard from the great mesa in the southwestern hills. Rogue Vlkodlaks have begun spurning the comforts of the “strategic hamlet” they have been generously provided by cantonal authorities and even taken to raiding outlying farmsteads. Lady Draga "Twitterlight's" recent 18th birthday has dredged up the usual round of greatly begrudged suitors. And visibly shaken reverse centaurs have even been seen at the weekly town fair begging for scraps and mumbling about a “dangerous snake giant ” up in the hills.

Pelgrane trappers in the hills north of Marlinko speak of a bizarre encounter with what appears to be a mutant variation of the sweet-tongued and terrifying deodand. Arrows were fired at a lavender-skinned humanoid in a plain harness who had apparently consumed one of their party members (albeit one not beloved due to his pugilistic and tedious theories about aesthetics). The creature was able to freeze the trappers for a full minute with a cerebral monologue before it made its escape, stating: “I am about a humble creature of thought of the great tribe of Zenodads. Yon arrows that you fired at me. What is the nature of its flight? Surely they failed to strike at me because all objects when they occupy an equal space are at rest. But yet when they are in motion are still occupying such a space at any moment. Therefore those flying arrow are motionless and failed to strike me.”

Mulmak the Unnicknamed, the wildly successful and seemingly unkillable local man-at-arms who has risen to a captaincy in the Feral Shore colony, was in Marlinko last week tersely and briefly speaking at a gala celebrating the opening of his new charity, The Beneficant [sic] Mutual Aid League for the Mild. The new charity house will help aid those afflicted and stigmatized by excessive modesty, a little known yet troublingly tenacious malady in self-aggrandizing Marlinko cultural life.