GLOG class: Severed Head

I wanted to make a spooky halloween class, so here we go!

Not just for severed heads! You could be any kind of basically-immobile creepy dude

you're the guy in the back

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Starting Skill: History, Literature, Religion, Anathema, Chartered

Abilities
A: Severed Head, Store of Weird Lore, Encouragement
B: Helpful advice, Intuit
C: Commandeer Body, Minion
D: Laughing Flight, Intuit x2


Severed Head: You are a severed head. Perhaps you are a zombie, fae, evil wizard, pumpkin, brain in a jar, or something else. Point is, you have no arms, legs, or body. You can magically still talk even though you don't have lungs, tho. You can't hold things, except very small things in your mouth, which may impede your ability to talk. You take up one inventory slot, but probably insist on being a held item as much as possible 'cuz it's more fun.

Weird Lore: You gain the 'weird lore' skill. This is only useful for stuff about monsters and magic that no-one should really reasonably know- if you encounter a unique slime on subsurface level #8, you get a skill check to see if you know stuff about it. You were a really bizarre scientist when you were alive, or something.
I love mysteries in games, but mysteries are only really fun if someone has a reasonable chance of learning more about them.

Encouragement: Despite being super annoying, your constant instructions and stream of conversations do in fact spur your host to get things done. On your turn, you can essentially take an action for them, with their permission- fighters can attack, wizards can cast a spell, etc. You can't move AND act, but you can use your (their) action to move- this also means characters carrying you can force-march longer and faster than normal (+50% speed). This ability doesn't override 'charm' type effects, but can allow the character to ignore 'confusion' or illusions if the severed head isn't also affected. If the character can't see a target but the severed head can, the head can goad an attack, but the attack still has disadvantage as normal.
Usually the severed head player should roll for the attack or whatever, but a stubborn 'host' player could certainly elect to keep the dice for themselves.

Helpful Advice. Once per session per Severed Head template, you can 'help' a character to allow them to re-roll an ability, skill check, or attack roll, using your Intelligence bonus in place of their own ability score if yours is higher. Alternatively, when not directly in combat with an someone, you can use your advice to undermine an attempt, forcing them to re-roll such a check which would otherwise be successful. If they have reason to distrust you, they get a Wisdom saving throw to resist, and if they are actively hostile towards you or your carrier they are immune to such sabotage.

Intuit: Once per session, you learn some DM-only information about a creature, room, or encounter. This could be AC, Saves, an Ability Score, Challenge Rating, the location of a secret door, how many rounds until the volcano erupts, etc. It has to be something you're interacting with, so you can't intuit stuff about the Overpope of Zenith when they're on the other side of the continent.

you're the pumpkin

Commandeer Body: by removing the head of a humanoid and placing yourself atop the stump, you are able to pilot the body fit your own. This takes a full minute as you prepare the requisite technological/magical interventions, and have yourself bolted securely in place. Obviously you cannot do this yourself, so someone else will have to do it, following your instructions. You use the corpse's Str, Dex & Con. The corpses hp is equal to its constitution score, but once you're out of HP the corpse takes ability score damage instead of simply dying. These borrowed stats degrade by 1d6 per day until the corpse is unusable. HP heals to full on a short rest.

Minion: You get a brainwashed minion to follow you around. They have mediocre stats, 1d10 HP, and the skill 'Minion' which they use to do things like prepare bodies for you to commandeer. They're not proficient in any weapons, but they'll attack anyway if you order them to. They'll probably die a lot, but a new one will show up the next time you take a long rest in a town, encampment, or anywhere there's lots of people you could reasonably coerce. Roll at least once on the 'How I Browbeat or Duped This Poor Idiot Into Working For Me' table

At the GM's option, you may be able to minion-ize a goblin or other weak but intelligent monster to replace a lost minion (these don't show up automatically, you might have to track 'em down.)

Laughing Flight: You can channel your eldritch power to take to the air, traditionally laughing maniacally as you do so. You can fly for a number of rounds per day equal to your Constitution score. Once per day, plus one additional time for each point of Charisma bonus you have, you can also cackle maniacally while you do so, causing every enemy within 60 ft. who can hear you to Save vs Fear or else flee in terror for 1d10 rounds.
        If you use this ability to leave a body you have Commandeered, you may return to it and assume control again immediately (naturally your preparations included a little landing pad and some docking hooks)

Table: How I Browbeat and/or Duped This Poor Idiot Into Working For Me Basically For Free
1- They were extremely poor, and are under the impression that the 1d6 copper pieces you toss to them per day represent a hoard of generous wealth. To be fair, they're probably getting a better deal than anyone else on this table. If you fail to pay this measly stipend they become quickly extremely irate and even violently hostile- if there are many such minions, they'll probably organize a militant union.
2- They're conveniently enchanted. You didn't cast the spell, but you recognized it and hijacked it for your own purposes. They have one active but sometimes useful command that you can't figure out how to turn off, such as 'insists on being the one to open all doors,' 'won't attack humans,' stuff like that
3- They're so in awe of your genius they'll follow you everywhere, as long as you let them 'help' with some of your magical experiments.
4- You've promised them a share of the treasure. They will accept almost any excuse as to why the don't qualify for a share of THIS particular treasure. As long as you keep lying to them, they won't figure out they're being screwed
5- Blackmail! They did something horrible, you know about it, and if they don't do exactly as you say EVERYONE will find out.
6- You broke a curse they were suffering under. They weren't actually cursed, it was all in their head, but now they're indebted to you. Could also have been a curse on a beloved family member.
7- You've convinced them that you or one of your companions are a ranking officer in whatever cult or military the used to be part of. When faced with evidence to the contrary, they will assume whoever revealed the truth must be a traitor or trying to test them, and may respond with violence
8- They were going to be executed, but you convinced the authorities to let them come with you instead, since it's basically a death sentence anyway.
9- You helped them fake their own death to escape authorities/the mob, and they have to stick with you until the whole thing blows over
10- They're a poet, you're their 'patron,' and this whole thing is an 'artistic experience'
11- Technically they don't work for you, they work for some bureaucracy who pays their salary, and what you're doing here is kind of embezzlement
12- They were sent to spy on you, but they're really bad at it, so you keep them around in case they end up being useful
13- Lost a bet, so they also have to do this entire dungeon in their underpants
14- It's a pyramid scheme, you recruited them to be their minion, and they'll recruit other people to be THEIR minions. They will never recruit their own minions, but this won't stop them from trying.
15- They're a magical construct, like a homunculus, and therefore must do whatever you say.
16- You bribed a fortune teller to prophecy that it was their destiny to be your follower.
17- A demon or sorcerer sold you the schmuck's soul for cheap, so if they want to get it back they have to do what you say
18- Just an extremely eager, ambitious, and incompetent apprentice.
19- After all this is over, you've promised to owe them a favour.
20- they are extremely drunk (critical failure on 1-5 instead of just a 1)

Dreaming Death

There are many, many worlds, but there is only one dreamland. Or rather, there are as many dream worlds as there are dreams and dreamers, but they are all connected to each other by the simple act of dreaming.

And so of course, it's very possible to die in your dreams.

Note: CW. take care with this list, I've been saving it for halloween month cuz it got a lot darker and more horror-y than I expected. This is some Last Gasp level dark shit, if I do say so myself. Or maybe they just freak me out 'cuz they're *my* dreams

Wrote this to solve the problem of spells like nightmare where you apparently can die of a dream, but who has time to make up a nightmare on the fly? Well, me usually, but here's some good inspiration

by Bogdan Rezunenko

D10 ways to die in your dreams


1. Giant horned beast hunts you through an e endless maze. Each twist and turn requires you to backtrack, and the beast gets closer. You can smell its rank stench, hear its breathing far away in the corridors. You come to the grey wall of a dead end. Starting up at the wall, you know that the beast is right behind you.
2: you eat and eat, but you never seem to get full. You eat your whole bowl of food, than another, then you are shovelling the contents of the table into your jaws, running to the pantry and pouring flour spices directly into your mouth. You turn on your family, seeing nothing there but food that tries to flee you. It is only lying there, bloated to the point of rupturing your guts, lapping lazily at the blood spilled across your chest, that you start vomiting blood and you finally feel satiated
3. You know your brother is a wolf. Maybe he's been replaced, maybe he always was, but you saw his ears, his yellow eyes, his tail, watching him talking with someone else. He feels you watching, meets your fearful eyes. 'It's alright' he says to you. 'There's nothing you can do to stop it.' No one else hears. No one else believes you. One by one they start turning up dead, or vanishing, until you are alone in the empty house. Except for him, of course. He saved you for last.
4. You are being walked up to the gallows. The jeering crowd. As the noose is placed around your neck, you think, this is mistake! But you look down at your hands (why didn't they tie up your hands?) And they're soaked in blood. You're covered in scratched from where they fought back, but they couldn't beat you. As the bag is placed over your head, and the door opens beneath you, you wish and try to remember why you did it. Why did you kill t
5. It's started raining. You're outside by the ocean. The raindrops fall through you, washing away your realness. You start to fade. The ocean and the beach. You open your mouth to scream but you have no mouth, no body. Just the sound of the wind and the waves and the pebbles bring washed ever more smooth
6. The tower is on fire. Backed up against a window, but it's so far up you can't bear to look out. You know if you look you'll have to jump, to escape the flame, so you force yourself to look straight ahead as the red fingers creep across the floor, begin to caress your skin. As the skin on your face peels, you smile. At least you didn't jump.
7. You have been sneezing for days. There's so much pollen in the air. You have a rash, and as you scratch you find little seeds embedded under your skin. You scratch your skin raw to get them out, the green tendrils of them growing so fast. You can't reach the ones on your back. They're drinking your blood, making you weaker. You stumble your way through the deserted city. Everything is so green, so hot, so many flowers, clustered like people clinging to each other for comfort. You find a cool spot where you can rest. Just for a minute. Just until the mass on your back stops wriggling dry much. Stops digging in.
8. You are lost in the desert. In the distance, an oasis shimmers, and you drag each ffoot as you walk towards it. Your lips split from the heat, but they don't bleed, you dying have enough moisture. You try to lick them, but your tongue is leathery and dry, you can barely move it at all without choking on it. You're so close. The sand burns you as you drag yourself over the crest of the Dube-but the oasis was gone, another mirage. In the distance an oasis shimmers, but you know it is too far away for you to ever make it there. It's probably not real anyway. But you never get to find out.
9. Dawn breaks dull and grey and still. Alongside your best friend, you walk into the clearing, breath fogging in the cold crisp air. Your opponent is waiting there for you, sword drawn. A duel to the death. You circle each other like dogs, then leap together. Swords clash. You parry weave, trying every pattern you know, searching for their weakness. Your opponent matches you stroke for stroke, and then, just when you think you've found an opening, twists and strikes you. You stare at the point impaling your chest, then fall back on the grass as blood spreads out across your white shirt like a drop of ink in water. You stare up at the first blue appearing in the morning sky. It's going to be a beautiful day.
10. The teeth in your head twist and writhe, escaping some whining noise that emanates deep within your skull. With little claw-like legs, their hard bodies twist out of your gums, filling your mouth with blood. Some you spit out, but others burrow upward towards your brain, as the keening sound in your head reaches a fever pitch, masking some but not nearly enough of the pain.