Avatar's & Annihilation: Monstrous Codex Design

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Today I have a long overdue request for how I handle creatures in Avatar's & Annihilation.  Bottom line up front:  As simple and clean as possible.  I designed this system with an eye towards putting together fights fast enough that you can do it during the course of play when your players go off the map or decide to anger the peaceful Space Terrapin tribe.

A&A School of Spells: Lifa

A&A School of Magic: Lifa

The fundamental quintessence, Lifa, is what flows through all living things on this planet.  The blessed and holy among us are a conduit for it.  They can give life, offer redemption, and protect this worlds inhabitants from those who lost their lives and those that feast on the Lifa of others.

Grave of the Fireflies

Origin: Etiquette & Profession

Where you grew up and the life you’ve led determines the types of circles you are comfortable in. People of each elemental origin typically have different customs and a member of the aristocracy from the land of fire may behave quite a bit differently from one from the water capital. Curiously, despite their distance people that share the same elemental origin also tend to share the same cultural quirks. We call this [Etiquette].

[Etiquette] is useful when interacting with people of that etiquette whether you are trying to curry favor or even trying to impersonate a member of that social standing. It also determines your starting [Contact], a person of similar etiquette and culture whom you trust that can supply you with favors or information. Everyone has an etiquette tied to their home turf, which will be divided by element and relative social standing. Different cities have different socioeconomic backgrounds; some have a large strata while others may be more homogeneous. Our social abstraction comes in nine broad categories listed below. 

A&A: Elemental Origin

Choose an Origin

Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind

Now that you have a concept in mind and an idea of what your character is capable of, it’s time to choose their Origin. Your Origin is a bit more than just where you were born and raised, as it also entails the element with which you have forged the strongest bond. In this world, elemental forces are the lifeblood of the planet, ingrained into the very landscape and in some locales dominating the scenery. From the poshest of princes to the dingiest of street urchins, everyone on this far-flung earth has a deep connection with an elemental force.

The early settlers who took up residence near these places of elemental grandeur thrived and began to share an affinity with their patron element.  Over many generations they formed a bond so strong that the element runs through their very veins altering their physiology, their temperament, and their spirits. Taking an Origin of Fire is more than simply declaring your affinity.  You are saying that you grew up in the land of fire where smoke fills the sky, brimstone assails the nose, volcano's rage as new islands form, geysers spew forth magma in the distance and the land underneath is smooth and holed with layers of pumice and ash broken up by streams of obsidian.  You may be a blacksmith who plies his craft beneath the shadow of the molten mountain or perhaps a machinist from the land of cracked plains and smoke-top mountains.  Regardless of where you are from, you and anyone with an Origin of Fire has come from the same geographic location and share much of the same culture, language, traditions, fashion and appearance. This shared heritage is useful, for you are a stranger in a strange land; familiar faces, sights and sounds are always welcome.

Your home is more than just a place. It is also the coupling for your patron and favored element, the fire that burns in your chest, the wind that rustles your hair, your eyes as blue as the ocean and your body as solid as oak. Most are gifted with a quirk related to their patron element, some rarer than others. Someone with an Origin of Fire is always insulated and comfortable in the desert heat and the winter chill and some can start fires with neither flint nor tinder. Those with an Origin of Water can hold their breath underwater for vastly extended periods of time and can always tell if water is pure. Those who lived near windswept peaks are able to fall great distances without injury and those in the lost canyons can have their whispers travel great distances; it is said a network of those gifted with this talent may exist for those with the right connections. Lastly, those with a close bond to the Earth can always tell Magnetic North and are rarely lost. Some can coax vines down from trees while others can absorb nutrients through their feet, much to the chagrin of their foreign companions.

A&A Origin: Home Turf

Origin: Home Turf

The world would be a simple and easily navigable place if each element occupied its own continent. Alas, you are adrift in a sea of islands, some containing a sole elemental force while others have many vying for dominance. Each of the towns, cities and villages that occupy this archipelago are shaped uniquely by their surroundings and their patron element. Below is a list of example areas one could select as a place they were born or grew up in. Most Game Maestros will have populated their world with a bounty of wondrous locations that you can choose from in place of or in addition to the ones presented below.

A&A: Gear & Relics

Gear & Relics

As a final step of outfitting yourself you’ll want to select some gear useful to you in your travels. At Character Creation you may select three of the items presented to you below and you may select the same items more than once. [Adventurers] may choose twice the amount of gear while [Seekers] may choose from the [Relics] below. Regardless of your choices all heroes are adept at creating torches and campsites.

<Designer Notes>
Making character creation a snap has always been an overriding goal of mine.  Numerous misc. items with firm fixed price tags, often inconsequential given one starting allowance of money, bogged down a lot of character creation.  Much akin to choice paralysis in point based character creation systems I wanted to move away from that and towards something that can be selected quickly and without remorse.  With that in mind I present a number of items to be chosen at character creation, organized by their purpose and intended users.  Being unique or offering utility allowed playtesters to grab a few fun or quirky items to complement their characters.  It also gives me a wider array of treasure to be found without magick'ing up the place.
<Designer Notes>

The Skinny on Spell Casting

The Skinny on Spellcasting

Introduction by Dean Wellbrook Accomplished Spelunker, Exorcist and Member of the Local Wizard Watch

Wizards, Sorcerors, Warlocks and Mages all present a clear and present danger to the sensibilities and vitality of the common man. Whether it’s warping reality or summoning terrifying beasts from the nth dimension, there is nothing these slippery spellcasters won’t do to get their fix. Fortunately for us mind-our-own-business common folk, most of these bathrobe luddites manage to expire all by their lonesome. Whether it be a jaunty spell gone mad, a creature they cannot contain, spontaneous implosion or collapsing beneath the weight of their own hubris we can count on their population remaining a stagnant few. You may be thinking, “If they’re just going to take care of themselves then why pay attention?” Excellent inquisition! First off, never pay attention to them or you may be driven mad, and not just by their long-winded erudite diatribes. These Mages are, however, capable of unleashing great and powerful energies with but a few gobbled words provided they have memorized them ahead of time. These Magi recite the spell in the morning and withhold the final incantation until they need it, at which point all hell breaks loose—sometimes literally!

Avatars & Annihilation: Introduction

NASA: Quasar Drawing

Precursors and Avatars

Where are we?

We are in the aether between worlds and ages. The world went dark and everything you know has faded away. Your world was destroyed. You have failed.

Who am I?

You are a Precursor.

What is an Precursor?

You are the spirit of a past age. When the world needed you most you failed. With the Will to Power in hand you could not avert the catastrophe that devoured your world. Time passed and the world has come calling again. It is up to you to prevent that from happening again.

How can I do that?

Find a worthy mortal vessel to be the host for your restless spirit. You will inspire them to new heights, to succeed where many fail. They will be your Avatar and together amidst the strife of ages and the nihilistic populace you will stop this cycle of annihilation.

And if I fail?

Then the cycle repeats itself. Across dimensions the multitude of worlds are heading to a singularity of nothingness. A void across space and time. We are approaching the final cycles.

And who are you?

I am the Grand Maestro, the events are all in place as I have dreamed, I merely set them in motion. One domino at a time. That is my purpose, an impartial referee with the hope that something here will last.

Atma and Mortality

Much of the world is populated by mortals, as you once were. When a Mortal becomes your vessel you become one. No longer are you adrift in the sea of Aether, instead you may perceive the world as you once did. You and your mortal have the power to change things, together, as an Avatar.

Atma is within each mortal, it is the purest expression of self and soul. For a Mortal to become a Precursor’s Avatar one of three things must happen. In the first the Precursor appears to them in a dream; hearing their plight the mortal's heroic soul wishes to avert the cataclysm poised to annihilate their world and so the two join forces. In the second case the mortal ally of an Avatar has died and a Precursor may replace the mortal's Atma with themselves giving new life to a fallen friend and forming a new Avatar, albeit one with a melded personality. Should the unthinkable happen and your Avatar dies you must find a new vessel using the above methods.

The third transformation is most abhorrent; the mortal’s Atma is subverted or worse, destroyed as the Precursor steals their vessel. Only one devoted to nihilism can do this, these Precursors are called Annihilators. For what purpose they act is beyond my breadth of knowledge but know that at one point you will encounter them. Avatar’s know when they have met one another after they have crossed blades, but an Annihilator never reveals their true form until it is too late. The Avatar’s around the table today are to be trusted but be wary of those you meet in your travels. Treachery hides behind false friends.

A&A School of Magic: Witchcraft

Witchcraft

Witches and Witchcraft are a staple of fantasy literature and idioms.  When making a spell list for Witchcraft I took it as an opportunity to consolidate numerous silly and unfortunate spells as well as a few that were extremely detrimental to whoever they were targeting.  Debilitation whether it be physical or social were given high priority.
Future Spells: Hobart's Interminable Hunger, Eyes of the Beholder, Dodon's Complete Lacking Verve

Cantrips

• Hollis’ Redolent Trick
• This trickery makes the target smell of a particular food.  Whether that food is appetizing or not towards the nearest predator is entirely up to the caster.  If it backfires the caster is infused with the aroma for the next week. 
• The Spell of Transient Gills
• Gills spring up on the target's neck allowing them breathe freely underwater.  Frog suit is optional.  Outside of water the target has difficultly breathing air and will begin suffocating.  Fortunately the spell only persists longer than a minute when fully immersed in water.
• Feldoon’s Added Hump
• Eccentricities abound in Feldoon's collection of scrawled scrolls.  This spell gives the caster a camel's hump to store water.  With the added hump even the desert of death can be crossed.  If fortune is on your side that is.

A&A School of Magic: Chronomancy

Chronomancy

Poster Punch: Chrono Trigger by ZeroCartin

Time travel is a fun concept but often a difficult one to wrap your head around.  Still there are many avenues to approach when dealing with the flow of time.  There are several spells that already deal with time, haste, slow, time stop and similar but I wanted to look at different ways of altering time.  Borrowing time, altering one's perception of the flow of time, altering times lines, reversing aging, tearing the space time continuum and creating time paradoxes.  All of that within reason of course.

A&A School of Magic Illusion

Illusion

This impeccable picture fits almost all these spells

Conceptually illusionist are one of my top favorite classes.  When it comes to playing one, or even worse running one, I find them very worrisome.  Illusions have the unchecked power of imagination.  Most standard illusion spells are pretty free form and can do or create almost anything.  The limiting factors are how far the DM is willing to let you go and any constraints (if any) imposed in the spell description.  Rather than add some more freeform "it's your problem DM" spells I decided to keep things in line with the rest of my design ethos.  Spells are for niche areas or very specific effects based on their name.  Below you'll find a number of illusions, glamours, nightmares and phantasms to stoke the imagination without giving your DM a headache.

A&A School of Magic: Conjuration

Atomic Breath by Tankor89

Conjuration didn't so much as change with each new source of inspiration but instead grew and grew until my vision of it changed with it.  I didn't care much for conjuring forth damaging dealing arrows of various elements, in fact you may have noticed that spells in general have shied away from damage dealing.  Spells are as fantastic as they are useful but their use in the art of killing has rarely been pioneered.  They may be defensive but wizards in their ivory towers crafting their arcanum still cling to highbrowed notions such as pacifism and force when necessary.  Some of course are more sinister than others but few deal with outright death rays.  Besides with Conjuration you can call a creature to do that for you.

Conjuration started off with a lot of spells meant for utility.  You would likely keep little on hand if you could conjure forth anything or perhaps you'd conjure something to find what you're looking for.  It's also meant to provide for situations where in ordinary circumstances you would simply not have and item or enough of something.  Further down the line I really took to the idea of summoning forth traps rather my previously held to beliefs that Wizards somehow had enough mechanical aptitude to install their own traps or the lack of foresight to hire someone else to do it.  Another thing I wanted to explore was that in addition to summoning forth creatures a magic-user could summon a spirit into inanimate objects which you'll see in the Marionettes below and a beloved spell Chiseled Champion that didn't make the 5 only Lesser spell cut.  Lastly I needed to address the iconic Magic Missile.  In my system HP is extremely limited, three six sided dice maximum in order to recreate the feel of your favorite Samurai film.  This means that a spell that unerringly deals an automatic d6+1 at a minimum is quite powerful and often lethal spell to someone with only 3d6 for hit points.  So Magic Missile is now a most formidable spell with added decimation ability.  Forgive my long-winded devdiary here are the spells I promised.

A&A School of Magic: Transmutation

Transmutation

Super Science in your School of Magic

When I was devising spell lists I wanted to keep Enchantment and Transmutation very distinct from one another.  I decided that Transmutation would mean physical alterations whereas Enchantment would deal more with stupendous changes often affecting the target's mind while trying to avoid stepping on the toes of PSI.  Canopied Caboose is levitation whereas Whimsied Flight involves a change in density.  The spells below for the most part deal with changing an objects physical parameters, volume, density, viscosity, and in the case of Vaporize and Disintegration we're dealing with localized high speed energy deposition blast waves and atomic fission.  Super Science in your school of magic.

A&A School of Magic: Enchantment

Enchantment

Cantrips

• Miere’s Assuaging Effulgence
• A simple cantrip from one of the first magicians, although many will say she did naught but dabble.  This spell grants a soothing glow when those around are most anxious.  A fail-safe for when sudden winds blow out your torch or when the sun fearing beasts of the Wyld are upon your trail.
  In recent years many an unscrupulous Wizard have adapted what was once a pristine spell into a trifling set of mood lighting.  The old farmer's adage still holds true today, never leave your daughter round any that don a robe and wizard hat.
• Dodon’s Curious Guiding Somnambulism (Concentration)
• This spell allows the caster to take guide the movement of any sleeping, upright target.  If the spell backfires the caster is trapped in the subjects dream until they lead them out of it.
• Dyne’s Canopied Caboose (Concentration)
• While developing his repulsive field Dyne spent a great deal of time on levitation endurance training with a linguistically backwards goblin riding on his back. Able to maintain this levitation for long periods of time he adapted it into carrying his otherwise burdensome belongings behind him and well out of reach of most.

A&A School of Magic: Warding

Spells of Warding

Spells to protect seekers of arcane knowledge and mystical secrets.  They allow one to pass by unhindered through realms both physical and mental.  They confer protection from both spell and steel.  They are traps for the foolish and glyphs that strip the potency of the even the most fearsome foe.  They require preparation and foresight but their benefits are worth the planning.

Arya Burrito by Ybee

Cantrips

• Burrito Bedroll                                                    Save Negates: Guts, Concealed Weapons
• The caster spies the unsuspecting sleeper comfortable in their woolen cocoon when suddenly the bedroll springs to life, rolls over and over until the unfortunate sleeper is trapped in their rolled bedroll. 
• Some Intrepid Casters have managed to activate this spell on an exceptionally long Cape, Mantle or Cloak.
• Clef’s Proven Dreamwalker Dweomer
• The caster or a willing target is able to enter the dream of a nearby sleeper perhaps to acquire sensitive information, implant an idea in their head or rescue them from a nightmarish curse. They must tread carefully for the sleeping mind is a dangerous thing and the sleeper is the god of their own dream, provided they realize it.
• Spell of the Lonesome Road                             
•  So long as the caster or intended recipient sticks to the road they will not be bothered and go unnoticed by most bandits and fell beasts.  This has no effect if the caster is traveling with companions or on a mount.

A&A School of Magic: PSI

Mentok by InsomniaArtist

Psionics are a touchy inclusion for a lot of D&D connoisseurs.  Understandable, most Psionic handbooks published so far don't fit my image of a Psionic.  For me when I think Psionics I think controlling things with your mind so the School of Magic involving Psionics is one part mind push, another part Mentok the Mind Taker.

Lesser spells are narrow in scope, some provide fine control others are sudden surges of force both of which are endemic to the untrained Psionicist.  Formidable spells stretch the limits of what the body and the mind are capable of, allowing for mental domination, superhuman prowess and reality warping.

A&A Spell List Table of Contents

I've been putting off writing and revising for the last month.  Every time I opened that mammoth of a document I got so caught up in fixing minor errors and preserving internal consistency from previous tweaks it happened to suck all the fun out of writing and designing.  Turns out all I need to get my Muse back in action is to take a break from the editor's hat (and god help me Layout) and exert a little creative expression.  I took my exhaustive spell list and narrowed it down to 3 Cantrips, 5 Lesser Spells and 3 Formidable spells per school.  Taking the best and most peculiar available I've arrived at this point.

Naming conventions and design drew heavily from Vance as outlined in this post (fair warning, I was much more eloquent 2 years ago).  The names like many of the effects are often very silly, which I happen to enjoy but is not for everyone so there are great deal of straightforward spells.  

One things I always enjoyed in playtesting was giving the player's the name of the spell rather the mechanics.  I would marvel when a player's internal interpretation of a spell turned out different than mine, and often times much better.  Over the next week I'll be looking through each Spell School and explaining what each of these mysterious and often inscrutable spells do.  Although some have already been touched upon. 

Feel free to provide your own guesses in the meantime.

Excerpt: Initiative

Penny Arcade

Doug Anderson proposed an idea for Initiative a while back that I'm rather keen on.  At the time my slow as molasses Dwarf player wanted to have some way to not go last in Initiative and this worked perfectly.  After plenty of playtesting I'm rather satisfied with the end result in the context of my HP system.  Read more about it here

Doug proposes that when the party encounters another group you allow them to Spend HP to improve their initiative.  When they run head first into a party of goblins they have to decide whether to conserve their resources and let the goblins act first or to spend some of their Luck (HP in his system) and strike first.  It's a quick but important decision that adds a good deal of oomph to combat without over complicating things.  Simple and Clean, my kind of thing.

Excerpt Armor: Descending Armor Class

Fighter by KYONGHWAN KIM

Since I'm getting pretty close to a stable release it is time I start posting more excerpts.  Armor factored pretty decently into the last few posts on proficiencies so let's continue with that.

Here's how I handle Armor.  I use a similar system from the past that has been cut down, renewed, rewritten, retooled until eventually I found myself returning to Descending Armor Class.  Ol' Faithful.  Of course this has a twist.  I still use Armor as a way to reduce damage, now how do we reconcile that with descending Armor Class if lower is better?

Proficiencies in my game: Fighter Archetype

Warrior of Light by BaiHu27

Alright, after two posts examining proficiencies it's time to propose a solution.  A quick recap:

1. Character Creation shouldn't determine the only weapons you wield in your career. 
2. While the Fighter may share proficiencies he is still the best at wielding weapons.
3. Not only can the Fighter wear heavy armor but he is still capable of quick movements

Taking that altogether here is the base Fighter Archetype I use in my games.