House Rules

Character Classes

Clerics
A cleric may use any armor and may carry a shield, but may not use edged or pointed weapons, while all others are permitted. This is not necessarily true. Depending upon the cleric’s Immortal patron, certain types of armor may be forbidden, while favored weapons of the Immortal are permitted.

Thieves
Thieves receive bonus percentile points to their thief abilities/skills based off of their dexterity score. These additional percentiles may be distributed amongst the thief skills in any manner that the player chooses. These bonuses do not extend to races/classes with thief abilities/skills.

Dex Score Adj to Thief Skills
    2-3        -30 percentiles
    4-5        -20 percentiles
    6-8        -10 percentiles
    9-12      no modifier
    13-15   +10 percentiles
    16-17   +20 percentiles
    18-19   +30 percentiles

Dualclassing (human classes)
Humans can leave one class and join another, provided they have a prime
requisite of 16+ of the class they wish to join. They retain all the abilities and HD of the previous class, and they gain more HD only when their new class level exceeds the previous one. Armour restrictions when performing functions of a class always apply (e.g. a fighter/magic-user cannot cast spells in armour; a fighter/thief cannot climb walls in armour heavier than leather.)

COMBAT

Unconsciousness & Death

• 0 to -5 HP: The character is unconscious and enemies know it. If they take the character captive, the character wakes up in 1d6 hours with 1d3 HP.
• -6 to -9 HP: Save Vs Death or die. Otherwise, the character is unconscious, but 'bleeding out' for as many rounds as he has Constitution points; until, with the loss of all Constitution, the character is then dead. Should aid or assistance be given to the wounded, the character stops losing Constitution points and wakes up in 2d6 hours with 1 HP.
• -10 or more HP: Dead - no save.
• Monsters and common Mortals die at 0 HP.
  

Healing Wounds
Common wounds can be healed with the passage of time (or the use of magics). On the first day of complete rest no hit points will be regained, but every other day thereafter, one hit point will be regained until the character is completely healed.
 
Certain mundane substances may also bolster hit points under certain circumstances. Wine & spirits may be used to heal 1-3 HP once game session.

MAGIC

Counterspelling
A spellcaster that has a higher initiative than an enemy spellcaster can use the same spell (or reversed form) to annul a casting from an enemy. The spellcaster must be successful on an Intelligence check to identify the spell being cast by the opposition or, if the spell is unknown, simply risk it. Dispel magic spell can always be used to counter an enemy casting.

Spell Casting from a Spell Book 

A desperate magic-user may attempt to cast a spell directly from a spell book as if it were a scroll. If the spell book is not the magic-users own, then he or she must either cast read magic or employ some sort of magical device.

EQUIPMENT

Bandager's Box (10 SP; 3 uses.)
A round waterproofed leather box that contains suturing needles, catgut, bandages, a probe, and a scalpel. Permits the healer a single use +1 to a non-magical healing roll toward a wounded character for 1d3+1 hit point restoration. May be used in coordination with healing skill. Refilling the box for additional usages costs 8 SP.

Demihuman Crafted Weapons
Dwarven crafted weapons grant a non-magical +2 bonus to damage, while Elvish made weapons grant a non-magical +1 bonus to attack. Both cost +300 GP more than a normal version of the same weapon. They are only initially available to their respective character classes.

Masterwork Weapons
These finely crafted weapons grant a non-magical +1 bonus to attack and damage. Masterwork weapons cost at least +500 GP more than normal weapons and are also +10% per 500 GP value to enchant.

Other

 

Ronir's Travels 3 - The Ruined Tower of Atuk-Mar

The twilight sun was masked by thick, rolling clouds that periodically dropped cold showers upon the four travelers from Stonegullet as they made their way through the Wilderlands toward the ruined fortress city. The dampness seeped into them with a subtly not unlike some canny hunter stalking unsuspecting prey in the tall grass. With the passing of each rolling hill, the fabled City of the Dead, dreaded Corpsewatch, loomed ever closer and Ronir could not chase away the haunting thoughts that the Fortress of Graves that stood before them might indeed mark their very own final resting places. Like spirits of the damned escaping their eternal torment, a smattering of burnt-out hovels seeped lazily out of the low lying mists conjured by the intermittent showers.  

Khaz'mir's silent, cat-like footfalls lead the group across a bone littered plaza; once bustling with caravans, merchant tents, and the chaotic haggling of men. Mung-Ke's crudely scrawled map showed their destination; a short tower nestled in and among crumbled and squatting structures that was labeled as 'The Tower of Atuk-Mar.' Passing by distracting and enticing locales, the quartet stole their way into the partially concealed courtyard. The entryway into the former Magic Shop was now clearly evident and nervous beads of sweat beaded upon Ronir's brow.  

Whether produced by the anticipation of adventure or creeping fever, the dripping sweat burned his eyes - prompting him to involuntarily clear his vision.   That is when it struck with the crashing strength and quickness of a thunderbolt. He rolled to his feet as pain screamed  out from his shoulder. Rising from the toppled remains of rooftops and battlements was the embodiment of Ronir's every vile and haunting thought.   

The shadowy hulk - standing twice that of a man - before them was barren of flesh and sinew. From unblinking and hellish points of light where its eyes once rested, it mocked their quickened, fear-drawn breath and prepared to end them all with another clenched bony fist.   

"Use ye the flats of thy blades! The beast has no meat to cleeve!" Mung-Ke quickly commanded to the other three.  

Obediently, the thieves took to task in destroying the monstrosity, turning the edges of their curved blades just before striking it. Ronir took another powerful bludgeoning strike from the giant, and although the effectiveness of their attacks was diminished, they dispatched the unnatural horror with practiced ease.  

Listening intently, catching their labored breath, and peering nearly blind into the mist heavy darkness, the four determined that the sounds of slaying had not carried far enough to rouse the lusts of hidden demons. They creeped forward toward the double wooden doors of the tower.  

After tending to Ronir's wounded shoulder, Mataji gently pushed the doors open; they were not barred from within. Her strange witch-sight spied little but a dusty, stone walled chamber with a stairwell leading to the floor above and another wooden door before them. Torchlight revealed the floor above was partially visible through damaged rafters, and among those exposed timbers stared back startled red glowing eyes that quickly fluttered to life, filling the air with a torrent of leathery wings.  

Fangs, claws, and curved blades encompassed the cramped foyer and blood sprayed freely upon its dusty, stony walls. Before Mung-Ke could cast his first incantation, his fellows lay wounded upon the blood-stained stones before him. Yet his call to the Arcane was answered in the billowing form of an obscuring smoke that prevented their winged attackers from further assaulting them.   

Quickly, but with great effort, the aging Illusionist dragged his companions out of the crumbling tower and into a near by shed that, in better times, might have housed a smithy. Cursing their haste, Mung-Ke knew full well at this terrible moment that they needed more hands and blades to steal away the treasures of The Ruins. There, in the darkness, with nervous and shallow breath, he tended to his wounded fellows as the entirety of Corpsewatch itself seemed to wickedly leer at thier misfortune, foolishness, and woe ...

Ronir's Travels 2 - From the Pan, to the Flames

Our escaped pair, Ronir & Khaz'mir,  arrived at Stonegullet after a rain driven flight from Nithian captivity - only to stumble into a slaver caravan camping within the courtyard of the badlands keep. 

Discretely and nonchalantly slipping into the Black Dog Tavern, they encounter four patrons. A befuddled and disheveled man nearly fought with Ronir upon only being disturbed by the two. A fat Thyatian was looking for bodyguards to aid him in transporting chained slave girls to the south.

Freedom is a luxury only known to those with coins here in these southland ...

Mataji, a slim woman of strangely exotic elfish features, and the elderly Ethengari Illusionist, Mung-Ke, join the pair of weary adventurers with a plan to raid a tower said to contain both riches and magic.

The tower was along the edge of the Ruins of Corpsewatch, yet despite the dangers within the Thrice-damned City, Ronir would take his chance among the ghosts of the haunted ruins to the North, rather than sleep among greedy slavers in Stonegullet ...

Ronir's Travels 1 - Freedom

The pair of escaped Nithian slaves - Khaz'mir, a foreign-born Rakasta and Ronir, a dark-haired Heldanner - wandered the Northern Badlands in driving rains for several days until coming upon (and sucessfully evading) a flock of strange, flightless bird-like creatures with heavy, sharp-looking beaks and to find themselves upon a small fort south of The Ruins of Corpsewatch called Stonegullet.

Stonegullet, as the duo would learn, was built by the Jarl of Ozurfold with financial backing of the Thyatian Empire. The Thyatian Senate installed a foppish lesser noble as governor, but the Jarl ordered a Northern- born and legendary Thane as military commander. However, the territory where the small fort lies is within Nithian claimed territory, and as such, much of the decadence of Nithian culture flows like cheap wine through the markets and taverans of the surrounding village.

The so-called 'Dead Lands' of The Ruins of Corpsewatch are still a very real and grave danger to the Northern Reaches, as wandering groups of ravenous dead still stalk the hills. Thankfully, the aimless hordes are not what they were in years past.