1d20 wizardly afflictions

In the vein of 1d20 spells from a cursed spellbook, here's 

1d20 wizardly afflictions

Art by Perplexing Ruins

1. Localised portent. The patient's viscera rearranges into meaningful forms. Small objects nearby may transform into birds or comets.
2. Mano-a-manomania. An uncontrollable obsession with magical duels. Treatable with high dosage antimagic.
3. Sympathetic polymorph. The patient reflexively takes on the forms they magically impose on others.
4. Partial possession. Intermittently under the control of imps or quasi-elemental spirits. Contagious.
5. Cetaceanthropy. Transmitted by bite (usually a disease of krill). The patient swims amok on the night of the full moon.
6. Antimitosis. Sometimes called 'void disease'. Incurable reverse aging accompanied by disintegration of bodily tissues.
7. Clone narcissism. Obsession with the perfection of one's own form, growing in a vat.
8. St Belthin's Fever. Infection occurs during thunderstorms. Symptoms include glowing eyes, shivers, electrical discharge.
9. Intestinal bookworms. Ubiquitous parasitic reminder about proper hand hygiene while reading mouldering tomes.
10. Persistent featherweight. A lingering spell reduces the patient's mass. Prolonged affliction causes brittle bones and muscle atrophy.
11. Psychic papercut. Stinging pain in the mind brought on by telepathically reading recklessly fast.
12. Orb-gazer's wrist. Strain caused by the weight of an overheavy head resting chin-on-upturned-palm.
13. Oak gall stones. A solstice-time disease, thought to be caused by mishandling of galls during preparation of magical inks.
14. Chronic hubris. Pathological egotism characterised by challenges offered against the gods. However, see also early onset apotheosis for differential diagnosis.
15. Transitive curse. A tomb-hex heritable from mentors, yes-men, and ideological allies.
16. Wand splinter. Burrows deeper to get away from any tweezers not made of meteorite iron.
17. Petridermis. Overuse of protective spells leads to gradual stoneification of the patient's skin. Very bad for the pores.
18. Prophetic bones. Generally benign. Affected bones have a telltale ache on planes where the concept of weather does not exist.
19. Component magnetism. A lingering magnetic attraction to moss, sulfur, dried spiders, guano, and so on. Brought on by reckless overreliance on telekinesis.
20. Early onset apotheosis. A traumatic rupture in the godhead leads to total or partial deification.

I had been thinking about Discworld's magical afflictions (like 'planets'), and that made me wonder what sort of bedevilments the Thirty Wicked Wizards would suffer from.

 

For more build-your-own wizardly fever-dream content, check out my zine, Wiki Articles Are Wizards [citation needed].

Affinity Publisher editable object styles workaround

Unlike e.g. InDesign, Affinity Publisher doesn't have full object styles. You can create 'styles' as, essentially, presets, but you can't update or edit them and have the effect propagated to the contents of your project, in the way that you can with paragraph or character styles.

Suppose you want to apply, say, a coloured stroke to some subset of the objects in your project to make some cut-out art pop or to distinguish frames. You know that you might later need to tweak the colour, or the width, or the opacity, for all those objects.

An Affinity Publisher 'style' doesn't let you do that.

So here are two easy hacks to capture some of the basic functionality of proper object styles.

1. Names-as-styles

When you apply a style to an object, rename the object to the style name. Then when you need to change the look of objects with that style, use Select Same → Name from the right click or the Select menu.

This works for things like repeated placed images and copy-pasted frames: cases where all the instances will have the same name by default, so you don't need to do anything as you go.

2. Tags-as-styles

But suppose your project requires certain naming conventions. Or you're creating elements in such a way that objects in the same style won't have a uniquely shared name. Then you can get the same results but using layer tags.

Assign a specific unique tag to objects which are meant to have the same style, from the bottom of the right click menu. Then you can later use Select Same → Tag Color to adjust the look of all those layers at once.

Just be careful with nested and grouped layers, where tags get inherited by default.

Hyperspecific bugfix notes in transit from the past: Blogger CSS

While trying to increase line spacing to improve accessibility for this blog, I ran into an interesting series of issues. I'm recording the solution here in case I need it again or on the off-chance that it helps someone else.

For things on the Blogger platform (like this blog), you can choose a theme separately for desktop and mobile, or have the desktop page served to mobile. If you have a custom theme like I do, and you want to have a nice responsive mobile version of the site, then Blogger (behind the scenes) apparently takes the custom theme, runs it through some arcane processes, and spits out a mobile version.

So I encounter the following timeline of problems:

1. The theme is partially customisable in Blogger settings but to make real changes (in this case, to the line height) you have to dive into the CSS/HTML. I took a web design course more than a decade ago, so I am rusty. It takes some time just to find out how to get in there.

2. I notice that I can fix the line height in the CSS using (go figure) line-height, but the change doesn't propagate to mobile. It looks like the .mobile tag doesn't do anything. Say I change the line height to an absurd 100×. It looks absurd on desktop. I simulate a mobile device in a desktop browser by popping "?m=1" at the end of the URL, and it looks absurd there. On an actual mobile device, it's unchanged.

3. I deviate from proper CSS and get lost in an endless maze of <b:if cond='data:mobile'> or possibly <b:if cond='data:blog.isMobile'> or <b:if cond='data:blog.isMobileRequest'>, none of which help.

4. I get frustrated and go poke at the custom fonts instead.

5. It turns out the mobile view ignores custom fonts – again, only on an actual mobile device.

6. At first I think it's a caching problem on my phone, but changing font colours and banners and things works fine.

7. A search turns up this helpful article. It's a web safe font problem. My desktop browser recognises the custom title font I chose on a whim in Blogger settings (Molengo), but my phone browser doesn't. But! I just need to make the CSS load the font and add a line wherever it's needed and then it changes for mobile too.

8. ...It turns out that the google font called 'Molengo' looks completely different to the built-in Blogger font called 'Molengo' which I selected, so my nice font choice is broken on both desktop and browser. Not too big a problem; the google font version is okay and now I know how to make it work on mobile, so I leave it as is.

9. Back to trying to increase the line height.

10. It slowly occurs to me that a 'web safe font' problem is explicable but a 'web safe line spacing' problem is not plicable at all. That means there is an unrelated issue.

11. I google for more answers, get none, and start googling ever more tangentially related search keys and scrolling through increasingly unrelated answers. I try "@media only screen and (max-width: 600px)" instead of .mobile, and again certain test changes take effect on my phone and certain others don't. I can change colours and backgrounds and all sorts of things, but not certain font facets.

12. Finally an answer to a question about I don't know pineapples or something reminds me that !important is a thing. I try it, on a whim. The line spaces change.

13. I eventually work out that something, somewhere, is (re?)setting my line spacing (and a few other things, like font size and letter spacing) on mobile. Either those values are being overwritten by the Blogger post-processing step, or possibly I am an idiot and mobile-only elements buried elsewhere in the stylesheet are taking precedence due to CSS specificity values or something like that. The latter would seem more likely prima facie, except that I searched the CSS for a long, long time and could not find any trace of conflicting elements.

14. Whether it's the one reason or the other, I don't have a better solution than using !important. So I copy the formatting I want from throughout the stylesheet, duplicate it, and slap it inside .mobile tags with !important added on each line. Why go out of my way to do it that ugly way? Because !important is slightly scary and if it breaks something in the future (and I forget about this bugfixing session) then the fact that the blog will break on mobile and not on desktop may make tracking down the problem faster.

So, attention future me: If you need to futz around with this again, start by scrolling to line 554 of the CSS.

1d20 spells from a cursed spellbook

 
The magician's curséd tome has protections both obvious and subtle. Here are some infuriating and dangerous spells to include as traps.

1. Abrogate Healing
2. Aura of Increasing Entropy
3. Circle of Protection Against Air
4. Conjure Wasps
5. Detect Traps Mostly
6. Exocoelomic Retreat
7. Fuse Portals
8. Gain Enmity
9. Hear Everything
10. Illusory Respite
11. Infectious Disdain
12. Invisn'tbility
13. Power Word: Disoblige
14. Protection From Gut Flora
15. Quine
16. See Transparency
17. Summon Self
18. Teleport Within Error
19. Transitive Curse
20. True Time Stop

Bonus: 1d8 annoying trap spells that are basically just puns

1. Char Person
2. Enchant Armoire
3. Feather Fill
4. Gourds and Warts
5. Grater Conjuration
6. Levigate Self
7. Stone's Kin
8. Unseen Serpent

Brigands and bandits and corsairs, oh my

Differentiate your criminal malefactors!

You may not know it, but terms like 'bandits', 'outlaws', 'pillagers', 'highwaymen', and so on all mean different things. If your party is going up against violent robbers and criminals in your game, make sure you know the difference, because a freebooter isn't a pirate if they're from your kingdom, and a footpad shouldn't necessarily be treated as if they were an outlaw.

All kinds of criminal malefactors are more likely to be found where there is weak state administration, rough terrain, and recent or nearby war.

BRIGANDS

Brigands are highway robbers - people who steal from travellers on roads, usually by force and/or intimidation. They usually operate as a gang and are commonly deserted soldiers.

Footpads are brigands on foot.

Highwayman are brigands who are usually mounted and - being able to roam widely to find targets and escape consequences - less likely to be part of a gang. Carjackers are modern highwaymen who steal cars.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off brigands in self-defence; round up and capture or kill brigands if approved by the authorities or in weakly governed/lawless areas; otherwise drag them to justice

PIRATES

Pirates are brigands of the seas - people with ships who steal from other people with ships, almost always by force and/or intimidation. Using a ship they can make off with substantially more cargo than a land brigand.

River pirates use, and target, boats rather than ships.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off pirates in self-defence; hunt down and capture or kill pirates if approved by the authorities or on the open seas (depending on setting); otherwise drag them to justice

FREEBOOTERS

Freebooters or 'privateers' are people who pillage, plunder, raid, or capture the ships of other states, using their own ship - often a warship. Freebooters mostly attack merchant ships.

They are not technically pirates - they have been given license to act by their own state, either by blanket order, or by issuing something like a personal 'letter of marque' - an official commission authorising their actions. But another state's freebooters may be considered pirates and/or outlaws.

Corsairs are historically French freebooters.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off freebooters in self-defence, and take their stuff; capturing them and dragging them to justice may be preferred in some settings

OUTLAWS

Outlaws are, literally, people who are officially outside the law. Outlawry is conferred as a criminal sentence or decree. An outlaw does not enjoy any of the legal protections of the law, including against killing. This opens outlaws up to mob justice, extrajudicial killing with impunity, and so on.

An outlaw might turn to brigandry, piracy, or marauding (if they weren't already).

In some contexts it might be not merely lawful but praiseworthy to kill an outlaw.

Outlawry is a form of unpersoning; in some contexts to give an outlaw any kind of support is illegal, akin to 'aiding and abetting'.

A desperado is a particularly bold or dangerous outlaw.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: unlike with brigands or pirates, dealing with outlaws does not require - and usually cannot involve - any legal mechanisms. The unambiguously worst legal status has already been inflicted on them. The authorities are fine with a group of PCs doing anything to outlaws except tying them up and dumping them on the courthouse steps for 'justice'. There is no more justice to be done. This is something that can be hard for us modern people to understand: The law has no more official business with them.

BANDITS

The word 'bandit' is a little ambiguous, usually referring to a brigand but sometimes to an outlaw or a marauder.

MARAUDERS

A marauder is someone, usually an ex-soldier, who roves the countryside looting, plundering, pillaging, and sacking (related words which mean to unlawfully seize and/or destroy property). This is usually accomplished with or accompanied by violence, sometimes extreme forms like torture or terrorism. Marauders usually work in groups to accomplish this.

A marauder might also be called a plunderer or pillager.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off marauders in self-defence; round up and capture or kill marauders if approved by the authorities or in weakly governed/lawless areas; otherwise drag them to justice

RAIDERS

Raiders are those from a culture/society/state in which raiding other cultures/societies/states is permissible, who do so. 'Raiding' here means travelling to a population centre to loot/plunder/pillage/sack as a marauder does. Raiding sometimes also has connotations of enslaving people.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: raiders from other states usually don't enjoy legal protections; typically the expected thing is to kill them (reactively or proactively) in defence of the state and its people

THE MORE YOU KNOW

What does a lawful good paladin do with a brigand or pirate? Capture them to be tried. What does a lawful good paladin do with a raider? Dispense swift death. What does a lawful good paladin do with an outlaw? Well, now they have to decide what's 'good'.

Almanac of the Archaic

Our newest publication, Almanac of the Archaic by Mara Leatonne and Ben Meadows, is now available for sale at DriveThruRPG! Affiliate link here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422278/Almanac-of-the-Archaic?affiliate_id=3594489

It's a miscellany of strange and fascinating pseudo-historical esoterica.

Do you know the difference between an amphisboena and an iaculus? Does your list of "ways to occupy time when becalmed at sea" extend beyond "bemoan ever setting out on the voyage"? Have you heard of unlikely cures for poor health that involve milk baths, suffumigations of herbs, mithridatium, ground mummy, and frying dog hairs?

Almanac of the Archaic takes the bygone beliefs, droll remarks, fanciful factoids, and fragmentary descriptions of selected Late-Medieval and Renaissance European sources, expands them, twists them in strange new ways, and mixes in some complete fabrications. We've then sorted all that content and compiled it into thematic lists which the GM can use as random dice tables, the writer can wander through for inspiration, or the casual reader can pick through with fascination.

Learn insulting names and defamatory epithets, from "gibbet-foot lurker" to "scoffing breechsmear".

Explore town games and pastimes, from "knockpate" to "tip-and-hurl"!

See more rogues than you can shake a stick at - "cursitors", "gallows birds", "glimmerers", "moon cursers", "resurrection men", "priggers of cacklers", and more.

Discover 100 condescending nicknames to give to a familiar cook, including "Cram-gut", "Goodman goosecap", "Loblolly", "Old grizzle", "Slabber-chops", and "Snapgulch".

Up your malison game with imprecations and curses like "March on, ye cannibals, ye blood-thirsty lions!" or "Thou art the devil's own housekeeper!"

Read about feast dishes, from "fresh herrings, full roed" to "soused hogs' feet" and "whole roast flamingos".

Consider some titles of imagined texts...

• The Carnivorous Ape's Paternoster
• The Prophecies of Sophisters, by One Who Looks Far
• Upon the Luminescent Sphere of the Moon: Reflections Upon its Likely Aqueous Nature
• Temple Politics, by a Learned Friar
• The Gallimaufry of the Theologues: A Disdainful Poem in Sixteen Parts

Untangle the hidden meanings of a hundred prophecies...

• "Horned cattle shall protect the flame from death"
• "Plants will be seen left without leaves, and the rivers standing still in their channels"
• "The high walls of great cities will be seen inverted in their ditches"

Get inspired by the contents of abandoned mines, abysses, and deep caverns: black-watered Stygian lakes! Bones of great fishes spilling from the rock walls! Immense heaps of slag glittering with grains of gold! Black dogs which roam incessantly along the cavern ceilings!

And including our personal favourite, twenty unusual kingly deaths, ranging from "bitten by monkey" and "incidental beheading" to "laughed to death" and "trampled by rhinoceros".

Almanac of the Archaic is divided into six sections:

1. Respectable Trades and True Rogues
2. Food, Physick, and Witchcraft
3. Learning and Sagacity
4. All Things Strange and Fantastical
5. Battle, Expedition, and Lordship
6. Farming and the Lives of Peasants

And it's filled with 83 esoteric tables (and a staggering 2500 table entries) in the vein of:

• Contents of a Rogue's Coat Lining and Fob-pockets
• Methods to Reveal Invisible Writings
• Enchanted Items and Objects of Legend
• Serpents and Their Nemeses
• Outlays for Nobly Bedecking a Giant, Per the Exchequer
• Less-Iconic Knights of the Round Table
• Dire Battlefield Injuries

You can get Almanac of the Archaic now at DriveThruRPG by following our affiliate link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422278/Almanac-of-the-Archaic?affiliate_id=3594489