Three Tablets of Law

Long ago, the Wind Dukes of Aaqa codified many elements of the universe, what today would be known as physics or natural law. Some if these were inscribed on the very atoms of existence, or used to calculate the patterns of the celestial spheres and define on plane of existence from the next. Other, lesser laws were encoded into portable items, so they might aid the Vaati in their journeys and undertakings. The greatest weapon of this kind was the Rod of Law, known today as the Rod of Seven Parts, but many other tools were likewise created.

Today, many have been lost, or their use and meaning has been so obscured as to render them useless. But a few continue to carry a shard of their purpose, like a gear that keeps spinning after the machine itself breaks. One such set is a trio of items, called "tablets" for lack of a better understanding of their design. Each on its own is powerful, but working together they can be used to exert considerable influence over the threads of causality.

Tablet of Hours

Wonderous Item, Rare, Requires attunement

This brass disc is inscribed with concentric runes and geometric patterns. Fused mechanisms and gears protrude from the sides, broken off and covered in verdigris and calcified stone growing out of the cracks in the edges and face of the tablet.

The tablet has 4 charges. These charges replenish at dawn every day. The Tablet of Hours can share spell slots with the Tablet of Fate and the Tablet of Reflection, and the three tablets can all use the same attunement slot. You may only use the abilities of the tablet if you are holding it, or if you are carrying the tablet and holding one of the other two tablets.

Untethered Timeline. At the start of your turn you may expend a charge from the tablet and roll a d20 (no action required). On an 11-20, you slow down time, acting as if under the effect of a Haste spell until the beginning of your next turn. On a 1-10, you slow yourself down, acting as if under the effect of a Slow spell until the beginning of your next turn unless you succeed on a DC 13 Charisma saving throw.

Spells. You can use an action to expend 2 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC: immovable object (2 charges), or temporal shunt (5 charges). You may also cast Mending as an action without expending any charges.

Tablet of Fate

Wonderous Item, Rare, Requires attunement

A bulky bronze cylinder with glyphs inscribed in a looping pattern on the drum. The top and bottom of the cylinder and open, and filled with intricately carved wooden circuits and wires, tangled like a broken nest.

The tablet has 4 charges. These charges replenish at dawn every day. The Tablet of Fate can share spell slots with the Tablet of Hours and the Tablet of reflection, and the three tablets can all use the same attunement slot. You may only use the abilities of the tablet if you are holding it, or if you are carrying the tablet and holding one of the other two tablets.

Rewrite Probability. When you roll a d20, you may spend a charge from the tablet to magically alter probability. When you do so, reroll that d20 and take the new result.

Spells. You can use an action to expend 2 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC: augury (2 charges), or Geas (5 charges). You may also cast Guidance as an action without expending any charges.

Tablet of Reflection

Wonderous Item, Rare, Requires attunement

The face of this oblong plaque was once polished black obsidian, but now is scuffed and discoloured by scratches and stains. Rimmed with tarnished and peeling copper hammered into coiling and leaf-like motifs. A shallow half-broken black knob protrudes from the back, where once a ring or handle or other attachment may have been set.

The tablet has 4 charges. These charges replenish at dawn every day. The Tablet of Reflection can share spell slots with the Tablet of Fate and the Tablet of Hours, and the three tablets can all use the same attunement slot. You may only use the abilities of the tablet if you are holding it, or if you are carrying the tablet and holding one of the other two tablets.

Mirrored Destiny. When you succeed at a saving throw against a spell or other magic that affects only you, you may spend a charge from the tablet as a reaction and can choose a new creature within 60 feet to be the target of that magic. 

Spells. You can use an action to expend 2 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC: mirror image (2 charges), or Mislead (5 charges). You may also cast minor illusion as an action without expending any charges.

Poison Is OP

Poisons are OP, aka 'Re-Fanging New-School Poison'

Designed to work with Ten Foot Polemic’s death and dying rules. Poison, however, is mentioned only briefly in those rules, and there is no generic poison ‘death and dying’ table to roll on… which sort of makes sense, given the specificity of most poison. I’ve tried to make each poison feel a little unique, while still keeping them simple to run.

As a place to start, I’ve adapted the classic D&D poisons as they appear in 5e. The damages are calculated for 5e-like games, with their inflated hit points, so you may need to adjust for more OSR-type games.

But 5e poisons, in a 5e context, aren't super dangerous. And worst of all, they don't feel poison-y. This should fix that, where even weak poison is a potential pain in the ass.

Notes on terminology: - The 'poisoned' condition is from 5e. It just means you have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks (this includes skill checks, initiative rolls- basically any d20 roll that isn't an attack roll or a saving throw)

- I refer to 'poison tokens' but Ten Foot Polemic uses the term 'death dice' 'bleed points' and so on interchangeably. They're all the same thing.

- Death Tables: Some poisons have specialized tables. Use these instead of the generic tables. At some point I plan to write a generic poison table, but for now I mostly just use the 'bleeding,' or 'necrotizing' if I'm feeling fancy.


POISON 

Basic Poison

Injury

1d4 poison damage, plus DC 11 save or gain that many poisoned bleed tokens. When you have more than 4 poisoned bleed tokens, you are poisoned.

by Matthew Stewart

Assassin’s Blood

Ingested, no initial save, OR Injury, DC 10 Save

Gain 1d4 generic poison tokens. At the end of each of your turns, as long as you have any poison tokens, make a DC 10 save. Gain 1d4 poison bleed tokens on a failure, or remove one poison token on a success. As long as you have any of these poison tokens, you cannot benefit from magical healing.

Death Table

1-10, vomiting, ‘poisoned’ condition, 1 poisoned pain token

11-15, bleeding sores, coughing blood, 1d4 poisoned trauma dice

16-20, organ failure begins, bleeding from all orifices, incapacitated, all ability scored halved until recovery (min 1d6 days)

21+ organs shut down, death in 1d4 rounds

Burnt Uther Fumes
Inhaled, DC 13 Save
Take 2d6 damage, and also gain that many poisoned bleed tokens and one poisoned pain token. At the start of that creature’s turn, they make another save, reducing those bleed tokens by 1d6 on a success or adding one pain token on a failure.

Crawler Mucus

Contact, DC 13 Save

1d10 poisoned pain tokens, or 1 token on a successful save. Targets may have a maximum of 10 of these tokens. The target is paralyzed if they fail their test against pain, which they must test for whether or not they ‘tempt fate.’ If they fail this test, they are paralyzed for as long as any poisoned pain tokens remain. At the end of each of their turns, they make another save, removing one token on a success.

Drow Poison
Injury
1d4 poison sleep tokens, the target is poisoned for as long as they have these tokens. At the end of each of their turns, roll all their sleep tokens- if the total exceeds their current hit points, they fall unconscious until they have no more poison sleep tokens, or are damaged or shook awake. Remove one sleep token every minute if there are more than 4, or one every 10 minutes if there are less than 4. Note: this poison is specifically designed to work on elves, so it bypasses their normal sleep resistance. It's not actually true sleep at all, being a kind of psychic paralysis, locking the mind of the creature away in horrifying dreams. Creatures that are immune to sleep AND cannot dream may be immune to this poison.

Essence of Ether – works as written

By Konstantin Vavilov

Malice – works as written

Midnight Tears – works as written
Death Table

1-5, uncontrollable weeping, 1 pain token

10-15, 4 poisoned bleed tokens, permanent blindness unless cured by magic

16-20 unconscious, 1d4 trauma tokens

20+ Death

Oil of Taggit – works as written

Pale Tincture – works as written

Purple Worm Venom

Injury, DC 19

9d6 poison damage, and for each 6 rolled gain a poisoned bleed token, for each double rolled gain a poisoned pain token.

Death Table:

1-15, Gain 1 poisoned trauma token

16-20, Gain 1d4 poisoned trauma tokens

21+ Gain 2d4 poisoned trauma tokens

Serpent Venom

Injury, DC 11

2d6 poison damage. Gain that many poisoned bleed tokens on a failed save, or on a successful save gain one for any 6’s rolled for that poison damage.

Death Table:

1-15, Gain 1 poisoned trauma token

16-20 severe cardiac arrest, death in 1d4 rounds

20+ brain shuts down, death

by Carne Griffiths

Torpor

Ingested, no initial save

Gain 2d4 poison tokens, and 1d4 poisoned pain tokens. As long as you have poison, make a DC 15 save every round, removing a token on a success and gaining a pain token on a failure. You must also make a pain test at the end of every round, becoming incapacitated on a failure.

Truth Serum

Ingested, no initial save

Gain 2d4 poison tokens. As long as you have these tokens you are poisoned, and you must make a DC 15 saving throw to knowingly speak a lie. In addition, you have disadvantage on deception checks. Remove on poison token every 10 minutes.

Wyvern Poison
7d6 poison damage, plus DC 15 save or also gain that many poisoned bleed tokens. For each turn you take bleed damage from this poison, gain 1 poisoned pain point.

Training Rules for Downtime

Credits go to goblin punch, ten foot polemic, necropraxis, and many others, for providing the basis for these rules

Players kept asking about training so I had to bang something out really quick so we'd ask have something to reference

Ok so here goes, training rules - draft 1

These all require a ‘Haven Turn.’

Training Score: Sometimes, the training rules will tell you to ‘roll training.’ When you do this, gain one training point, then roll a d20. If you roll equal or under your training score, you succeed! Take the thing. If you roll over, too bad, but you keep the training points.
If you have a trainer, you can add their stat (usually Wisdom or Intelligence) to your training score, before you roll. The trainer bonus isn’t cumulative, and it doesn’t stick around if the trainer isn’t available next time you roll.
Training points are flexible. If you start training at punching goats, but then realize before you’re done that punching ninjas is better, that’s fine. If you switch from training at punching to training at magicking, tho, you’ll have to start over from scratch. Also, you can only have one pool of training points going at a time.

Ability testing: Sometimes, the training rules will tell you to ‘roll dex’ or ‘roll intelligence’ or some other ability score. When you do this, roll a d20, and if the result is equal to or lower than that ability score, you succeed! Take the thing. If not, too bad, you get nothing.


Here are some basic applications of the training action:

Get a Rando ability: For if you just want a cool thing, but you’re not fussed which thing. All the random advancement tables can be found here, there’s a lot of them and you don’t get to read through them first. Roll the primary ability for the class you’re trying to gain an ability for. You can only have one of these per HD that you have. Please keep track of this.

Get a feat: 5e feats are too powerful, but luckily they’re broken up into little pieces, so you can get them one at a time. Roll training. You can still get feats at the regular level increments.

Increase an ability score: Roll training and roll OVER the ability you’re trying to level (the better you get, the harder it is to progress further). I might change this if it seems too strong, or make them temporary boosts, but I’m also planning on including more stat-drain type effects, so it might balance out <3

Gain a skill/tool: Roll training.

Saving throws: For each of these, you have to roll training, plus a specific ability score assigned to each save.

• Death – roll wisdom
• Doom – roll charisma
• Destruction – roll strength
• Poison – roll constitution
• Law – roll wisdom
• Chaos – roll charisma

Weapon Mastery: To do this you need to have a certain number of kills with the weapon. At 10, 30, and 100 kills, you can train to get another special ability. Roll the stat for that weapon. Example special abilities can be found here.

Spellcraft: Creating a new spell requires that you first write out the spell, then roll (your spellcasting ability). Longer, more involved spell creation may actually be a Project.

its only bad if you make it bad (or maybe it's just bad)

Responding to this over at Hack and Slash, but also the things HE links to as responding to...

I run a lot of 'rail-roady' adventures (stacks of old Dungeon Mags, bits a and pieces I find online, etc). It's pretty trivial to break the railroad before you bring it to the table. I use them more as an aid, but if I can't find something in the wall of text, I make it up. It helps that I have a pretty good memory, but it also helps that I've read and re-read a lot of the material, in bits and pieces, over many years. So when it comes time to mash up three or four different half-baked adventures on the fly, it all kinda clicks into place. Or falls apart stupendously.

Example: I ran the first installment to the Age of Worms adventure path, an adventure called 'the Silver Skeleton,' AND another adventure called 'the Devil Box' all at the same time. Individually they're kinda weak in places, but taken all together it's a kind of sandbox. And then I added some stuff with unique traps, and showdowns at high noon, and long cons gone awry, and it was pretty great.

So I don't think it's an either/or thing, in every case. People do use those things for reading, yes, but it's not just idle daydreaming. It's a kinda ADD way of prepping things to run at the table, it's something that's accessible as training wheels for novice DM's to IMAGINE what DMing would be like before they sit down with the players, it's good for experienced DMs who can retain and filter and ad-lib around that information. Is it my favourite format? Definitely not, as I've learned more about what I like and what's most effective for me, I've gravitated to the kinda stuff Bryce Lynch likes in his reviews... but I still sprinkle in old ideas I gleaned from those poorly-designed monstrosities.

 I just don't think it's as clear-cut a design space as we would like to think. Maybe there's room for some kind of 'inspiration module' type of thing to evolve? Or maybe it just has to stay muddy and we muddy through as we find out what we like. Sounds familiar.