Vaults of Zin

Bludgeoning-Piercing-Slashing

Vaults of Zin — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:55:11 GMT

Bludgeoning

Piercing

Slashing

With how often these three words appear in the 5e corpus (it’s a lot) a new player might be forgiven for thinking their choice of maiming instrument is important.

But how significant is old B/P/S really?

Well, there are approximately 1,000 monsters published in core and supplement books between the start of 5e and the publication of the 5.5 Monster Manual. This is not counting reprints, one off NPCs, monsters in adventures, and non-D&D setting books. We could bring this number up depending on how inclusive we’re feeling, and I’m sure everyone who crunches the numbers will come up with a different estimate, but I’m trying to be generous here. I can only find 191 monsters where your choice between bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing actually matters.

And I’m pretty sure two of them are typos.

The Diagram

For the sake of simplicity I’ve bundled together matching vulnerabilities, resistances, and immunities. So monsters like the Ice Mephit, that are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage, go in the same category as the Xorn, which resists piercing and slashing.

Not that my efforts to keep this tidy are worth a damn since this chart is going to be a mess.

Let’s start in the middle.

Resists Bludgeoning Piercing and Slashing

Now this category is outside the point I’m trying to make with this post, since they also treat all damage types the same but my diagram would look weird with a big blank spot in the middle, so let’s get this out of the way.

I’m excluding the massive category that is creatures who are resistant or immune to non-magical B/P/S which is 5e’s way of insisting you go find a magical sword and stop trying to drop anvils on the demon lord’s head. Most powerful magical creatures fall into that category.

Our first true entry in this category are Swarms. The case for swarms is clear, regardless of how big your sword is, you’re only going to hit a few rats with every swing, so you need broad area-of-effect damage to deal with a swarm effectively. This is the only example of a monster type whose damage resistances are applied consistently to every member.

Almost every member that is.

The Swarm of Rot Grubs, resists Piercing and Slashing but not Bludgeoning. I’m fairly sure this is a typo though they did manage to print it wrong in both Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, so maybe these things are just particularly squishable?

The other entry in this list is the Ghost Dragon. Which might make sense if not for the fact that no other ghost (and no other dragon for that matter) is in this category. I was willing to write this off as someone forgetting to add the “from nonmagical attacks” qualifier but the 2025 MM adds Ghosts, Banshees, Wights, Poltergeists and Will-O-Wisps so I guess someone’s decided this is the ghost category at some point.

Now I see the reasoning behind this, ghosts are intangible, so physical damage has less of an effect. But surely if there’s ever a place to add the “from nonmagical attacks” attacks qualifier it’s here. Ghosts should be immune from all non-magical damage, I really feel you shouldn’t be able to kill one by throwing bricks at it.

This isn’t the only strange edition by the 2025 MM, it also added to this category some heavy hitters like the Demilich2, Blob of Annihilation, Tarrasque, Empyreans and their Iotas for no other reason than that they’re strong, I guess? If that was the point then just double their health. These all just feel like they’re missing “from nonmagical attacks” qualifier so just be aware you CAN actually drop an anvil on the heads of these things now.

They’ve also added the Air Elemental, Fire Elemental and Invisible Stalker, a decision I don’t hate, but we’ve really got to sit down someday and decide exactly what it is that these fuzzy elementals are resistant to.

And for no apparent reasons the Couatl, Chain Devil and Clay Golem have also been lumped in here. So as much as I’d like to say the new manual’s improved things I can’t call the 2025 MM’s recodifying anything more than a vague shuffling in no particular direction. So while I’ll mention 5.5e’s changes I have no room on my diagram for all their nonsense.

My suggested replacement for this mess is to give all the ghosts and high magical creatures resistance or immunity from mundane B/P/S and leave this category as the niche of the Swarm.

Now to begin our journey proper, starting at the top and going clockwise we have:

Resists only Bludgeoning

This is a strange group of bedfellows

First we have the Bag Jelly. A species of ooze evolved specifically to live inside of a hill giant’s spoil sack. It’s bludgeoning resistance is an adaptation to it’s environment. It’s not explained exactly what’s different about this ooze that makes it bludgeoning resistant, but we’ll talk about oozes more later. I have a soft spot for ridiculously niche monsters like this one. I hope a piercing resistant jelly exists in the pocket where the giant keeps his keys.

Next we have the Boneless. A great monster with a stupid name; half the creatures on this list are boneless. It’s a living sheet of human skin and it’s bludgeoning resistance seems a natural extension of it’s floppy nature. Fighting it must be like going to war with a bedsheet. A+ example of damage resistance done right.

Finally we have the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o. A giant magical mech suit with immunity to

*deep breath*

Acid, Bludgeoning, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Psychic, Radiant; Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Incapacitated, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Restrained, Stunned, Unconscious

*Gasp*

It also has resistance to Piercing and Slashing in case you thought you were getting off easy. This one’s a real head scratcher and a contender for possible typo status. This is actually the only thing in the D&D multiverse that you can’t bludgeon to death with a magic hammer.

So I’m going to ignore Mighty Servant of Leuk-o as a statistical outlier and make this the category for Flexible monsters, things so soft and bendy that there’s nothing for a warhammer to crack. This includes the Boneless as well as the notably absent Rug of Smothering and any textile-based monsters you decide to cook up.

Resists Bludgeoning and Piercing

This is the only coherent category.

Treant, Awakened Tree, Wood Woad. I don’t even need to describe these guys for it to click. You’re fighting trees so you bring your axe. I’m a little surprised there’s no living puppet or animated dining chair monsters. An artificial wooden monster would be a nice addition to this category.

We can bundle all these together under the label Wooden or Plant.

Which begs the question of why the other plant monsters don’t have a home here. Blights look wooden enough to me and the Shambling Mound and Corpse Flower are just begging for a good slash of the machete. Oddly some seem to have migrated into our next category.

Resists only Piercing

This is where things stop making sense.

First we have the Awakened Shrub. It’s piercing resistance is the most logical of anything in this category; your spear will go right through it. What doesn’t make sense is why it doesn’t also have bludgeoning resistance like it’s woody relatives. In fact I would imagine a bush could bounce back from hammer blows better than wood.

Next we have the Vegepygmy and its variants. They’re also a plant, technically more of a mold, but it seems like their piercing resistance is a result of their alien anatomy. They don’t have a centralised brain or vital organs for a spearman to pierce so pinpoint attacks aren’t as effective.

The Flameskull3 is also in the category for reasons so unfathomable I’m almost certain it’s a typo. Actually quite certain it’s a typo since they corrected this in the 2025 MM.

So for this category we could use the label Porous for something like the awakened shrub where a piercing attack is more likely to go through it rather than into it. I already feel the shrub doesn’t belong here though and I’m struggling to think of another monster this would apply to, maybe some sort of wicker golem?

A better label in my opinion is Decentralised, which gets at what the vegepymies have going on. This is for creatures without a centralised brain or locus of control and movement. If a monster doesn’t have a body it can’t live without then it’s decentralised. I like to think of this category as the niche of fungoids, but this could also be a home for plants, sturdy undead, or animated objects.

I’m not totally happy with the term decentralised, it feels a bit clinical for a fantasy game. Something along the lines of dispersed or amorphous could also work but they risk being confused with swarms or slimes. Since there’s not too much competition for this spot I’ll go ahead and label it Fungal.

Resists Piercing and Slashing

Our biggest category, in fact it’s even bigger than it looks on the chart.

The first group, Skeletons, also includes some of their variants like the Warhorse Skeleton and Minotaur Skeleton. Skeletons have been susceptible to bludgeoning since early editions which also makes for a nice in-game justification for the cleric’s fondness for blunt weapons. I like it.

However most boney enemies aren’t here. Note the absence of the Gnoll Whitherling, Bone Naga, Flameskull, Bone Lord, Boneclaw, Death Tyrant and Demilich.

The second group in this category are elementals made from brittle substances. It’s also a patchy application; Earth Elemental Spirits resist piercing and slashing but Earth Elementals don’t (though they are vulnerable to thunder damage). Ice Mephits are vulnerable to bludgeoning and Xorn4 resist piercing and slashing unless made with magical or adamantine weapons5. But icy Rime Hulks and rocky Pechs don’t interact with damage types at all.

Reflections are technically fey but I’m lumping them in here since I presume their bludgeoning vulnerability is due to them being made of glass. You’re putting in more of an effort then most elementals do reflection! You deserve this!

Speaking of creatures in ill-fitting categories, Stone Cursed are constructs with vulnerability to bludgeoning. From their description they sound more like a kind of semi-petrified undead and I mean did you really “construct” the man you just turned to stone? Unbelievably, Stone Cursed are the only construct on this list. Not a single type of golem, robot or wooden contraption made it onto this chart. What a string of missed opportunities.

Finally we have the aforementioned Swarm of Rot Grubs, whose presence here makes even less sense in light of the monsters they share this space with.

With this one exception excluded, this category is obviously the place of Brittle monsters. Things composed of bone, stone, ice or cream crackers. Regardless of how tough it is, if it snaps instead of bends, it’s a Brittle monster.

Resists only Slashing

Two entries in this category. Both are oozes and both have an interesting relationship with being cut in half.

The Black Pudding or Ochre Jelly are both totally immune to slashing damage and when they are hit with a slashing attack they split into two oozes. This also happens with lightning damage for reasons still unclear to me. It’s also unclear why other oozes don’t have this ability. Or why these two in particular share it in the first place. This took me on a detour into the world of speculative ooze biology that I’m cutting out and making into it’s own post. I’ll add a link here when I write it.

Suffice to say I don’t quite think oozes belong here, slashing off great chunks at a time seems like as good a method of killing an ooze as any other. What we’re looking for to fill this category is something that’s hard to cut but which can be effectively pierced and pummeled.

Armored or Shelled fits the definition well enough. It’s hard to cut through plate and mail so you have to rely on piercing its gaps or the sheer force of a bludgeoning weapon. The issue is that armor is something the system already accounts for and it drags us inexorably to rebalancing the game around armor-based resistances.

Scaly is my preferred concept for this category. A dragon’s scales can’t be sliced across but you can slide the tip of a spear in between them or just break its bones. It feels a bit more natural for a monster and thus has none of the problems armor implies (until someone decides to make armor out of their skin, sigh). My only hangup is that I might need to specify that this is a category for monsters with particularly tough skin and not just, like, iguanas.

Resists Bludgeoning and Slashing

I was worried one section of this diagram would be totally empty but there is in fact one monster in the entire corpus of everything written for fifth edition, including adventures, supplements, and content of dubious officialness, which is vulnerable to piercing damage. Can you guess who it is?

…

It’s Rakshasa!

But only when the weapon it’s being pierced with is magical AND only if it’s being wielded by a good aligned creature. So not only is the Rakshasa the only monster with piercing damage vulnerability, it’s the only one with alignment specific vulnerability too. Believe it or not the 2025 Monster Manual updates this to the EVEN MORE constrained: “Piercing damage from weapons wielded by creatures under the effect of a Bless spell”. So add a fourth weird requirement to the list.

Obviously there’s no real general rule we can draw from this one example. So we’re going to need to come up with something new wholecloth (tempting as it is to leave this category as is).

One option is to invert what’s on the other side of this diagram. If creatures that are resistant to piercing are Decentralised, then creatures that are vulnerable to piercing might be Centralised: based around a locus of control somewhere deep in their body.

I feel this covers either too much or too little. The only monsters I can think of that fit this description are the elementals in Hot Springs Island, who have a core at their center.

So imagine a water elemental whose liquid body reforms after being slashed and bashed but who turns into a puddle once their elemental core is pierced. But then again aren’t most complex organisms “centralised” around a brain or nervous system? It feels like this category could include almost everything. So this one’s a bit of a non-starter.

What I think is that we could make this the category for Fat, Blubbery, Thick Skinned or Giant monsters. Maybe if a creature’s big enough, your swords and hammers just lack the penetration to have any real effect. Maybe you need a nice big pike to get through the meters of skin and fat between you and it’s vitals. In a way this makes for a pleasing symmetry with the decentralised monsters on the opposite side, fat monsters have a centralised weak point that they protect with a cushion of expendable meat.

Now even the chubbiest of monsters have surface features like eyes that would be susceptible enough to hacking and whacking, which threatens to drag us into the dangerous world of locational hits. If the idea of cooking up rules for those makes you as nauseous as it makes me, then just allow players to ignore these resistances on a crit.

Conclusion

And here’s what we’re left with:

I think you’ll agree it’s a much cleaner setup, and lest we forget the actual point of this exercise, something that gives damage types the coherence they need for a player to actually plan around them.

Its a little less then perfect, I’m reducing each category down to one word when I know there’s a few that might fit, so substitute any of the other terms I tossed around or suggest your own:

Happy maiming!

I’m counting all the “swarm of X” monsters as one entry. Appropriately.

Prior to the 2025 MM, the Demilich had a weird feature where it was both immune to non-magical B/P/S, and resistant to B/P/S damage from specifically magic weapons.

Although, it didn’t move the flameskull in line with other skeletons so now there’s a weird incongruity where the Flaming Skeleton is vulnerable to bludgeoning damage but the Flameskull isn’t.

Fun Fact: They fixed this in the 2025 manual but prior to the Xorns were the only earth elemental that weren’t immune to being petrified.

Adamantine weapons overcoming damage resistances is a mechanic some constructs and elementals use to show off their toughness. It sucks since it’s:

1) Boring

2) Even rarer than damage type variations

3) Only relevant for characters who have adamantine but also non-magical weapons.

GM's Glossary Part 7: Every Other Effect

Vaults of Zin — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 21:28:35 GMT

The GM’s Glossary:

Part 7: Every Other Effect ← You are here.

It’s been a long time coming but I’ve finally gotten around to this final entry in my GM’s Glossary. Here we round up the last few miscellaneous status effects into loose mini-categories before finally giving up and giving way to the truly unique.

Bodily

This mini category is for status effects related to bodily needs. Mechanically we’re threading some familiar ground since a lot of these will need to be represented by other status mechanics we’ve already covered. Still these are notable enough that I’m willing to bend my no-repetition rule.

Deprived

Afflicted is deprived of bodily needs.

I’m bundling together, dehydration, asphyxiation, sleep deprivation and exposure to the elements to save you the repetition.
While each condition has it’s particulars, all involve a general weakening of the body and mind.
Mounting penalties to movement, action, and consciousness are the usual way of representing these mechanically.
Characters may also have to fight the urges these conditions apply; the tired sentry has to make a check to avoid falling asleep as does the thirsty sailor to avoid drinking sea water.
As for their lethality the rule of 3 says you will die after:
- 3 Minutes of asphyxiation.
- 3 Hours of exposure.
- 3 Days of dehydration
- 3 Weeks of starvation.
These are all highly circumstantial but make for a decent rule of thumb.

Hungry / Thirsty

Afflicted feels an intense craving for food and/or drink.

Apart from starvation/dehydration are the cravings those conditions induce.
These can be for a specific food or drink like a vampire’s blood cravings.
Temporary or illusory hunger pairs nicely with poisons.
Actually illusory hunger maybe should have been filed somewhere in the mind manipulation section.

Restless

Afflicted suffers from the effects of sleep deprivation.

Intense nightmares is the most flavourful way of implementing this.
Can be a very nasty curse in a rest-dependent game like D&D since it changes up the foundation of a resource economy.

Encumbered

Afflicted is carrying equipment beyond their capacity.

Typically represented with penalties to movement and dexterity.
Bulk effects encumbrance as much as weight, so consider penalties to squeezing through tight spaces.

Maybe that’s enough of this category…

Restrictions

Paralyzed, Stunned, Unconscious, Immobilised, Downed, Crippled.

This subcategory covers the various ways a body can be immobilized. How this comes across mechanically will be up to your system’s level of detail. D&D 5e has a sliding scale from incapacitated (can’t take actions but are otherwise fine) to full unconsciousness. Honestly there’s at least one too many degrees of nuance in between them. (Quick, tell me the difference between the paralysed and the stunned conditions without checking)

If you care to homebrew your own here are some things to consider:

Can the afflicted attack or perform physically demanding actions?
Can they perform simple actions that aren’t physically demanding?
Can they walk?
Can they defend themselves?
Can they stand or do they fall prone?
Can they speak? If so, is their speech faint or slurred?
Can they feel sensations or are they numb?
Are they conscious? If so, are they fully conscious or delirious?

Prone

Target is knocked off their feet

I like the way 5e handles this; being prone makes you vulnerable to melee but hard to hit at range, so you might want to tactically hit the ground at some point.

Limited Paralysis

Target cannot move a part of their body

A lesser form of paralysis limited to a particular limb, body part or muscle.
This may include numbness, the inability to feel from the affected body part.

Leashed

Target cannot move beyond a certain distance from a point.

Uses: Chains, Lassos, Magical Bindings.
This could be an attachment to a point or to a person, in which case it might run both ways. The target might be able to pull as well as be pulled.
If there is a physical binding connecting the target with the point, remember that this may get caught on obstacles in between them.

Grappled

Afflicted is attached to another character via a grab.

Although effectively it’s just a 0-distance leash, grappling can be a subsystem, or even a whole system of it’s own if you’re willing to think too hard about the minutia of where and how a character is being grabbed.

Stuck

Afflicted is attached to another surface

Uses: Spider Webs, Glue, Magnetism.
Usually only affects a particular body part at a time.
Although the afflicted may find that struggling only gets them more stuck.

Encased

Afflicted is covered in a hard material.

Uses: Ice, stone or wood morphing.
Like Stuck, this might only affect one body part at a time.
Unlike Stuck, The afflicted need not be stuck to a surface, they might just have a one limb encased and unusable but still be able to move around.
Encasement might be used for protection as well.

Swallowed

Afflicted is swallowed whole by another creature.

How exactly I’d rule this depends on the size of the swallower. If they’re too small to swallow the target whole this might be more like a grappling bite.
While it’s bad to be swallowed, the swallower might be vulnerable too; it’s very hard to miss an attack when your target completely surrounds you.
There are of course those creatures big enough that being swallowed by them leads to a whole adventure down it’s digestive system.

Illusions

Invisible

Target cannot be seen.

Don’t waste a spell slot on any sort of “reveal invisibility” spells. We already have a spell for that; it’s called bag of flour and it costs 2cp.
Be sure to clarify in your rules the difference between “somewhere in this room” and “invisible but we know which 5ft square he’s in” and save your referees a headache.

Obscured

Target cannot be clearly seen

Usually granted by mundane means such as fog, rain or gloom.
This could also be a weak form of invisibility, like the blur spell The target can be seen but it’s not clear where exactly their body begins and ends.
In addition to accuracy penalties this would also make someone hard to identify.

Camouflaged

Target is hard to distinguish from their surroundings.

The quality of camouflage can vary from the perfect chameleonism to some twigs and mud stuck to your face.
You could rule this as identical to the obscured condition although I’d say camouflage requires it’s wearer to maintain stillness to be effective.

Multiplied

Target develops multiple illusory copies of themselves.

These might all share the same space or be spread out.
These might be phased through or disappear after taking the smallest amount of damage.
These might act independently, be able to be individually controlled or all sync up with the casters movements (which give a hint as to which one’s real)
More elaborate versions of this ability sometimes include the ability to swap places with a clone.

Illuminated

Target glows

The most common use case for this would be as a light source for the party but if the light was bright enough to blind this could also be used offensively.
The opposite of this would be darkened, which I suppose would create a cloud of obscuring darkness around the target.
This is a handy effect to apply to a tool or weapon, which brings us to our next mini-category:

Item Effects

This is a fun little mini-category for status effects that affect what you hold rather than your body.
There’s quite a few we’ve covered previously in this series that can also be applied to equipment: shrink/grow, gain/lose weight, becoming slippery/sticky. And all the magical banes and boons we’ve discussed can also be transmitted via cursed item. So at the risk of repeating myself I’ll stick to describing the new ones.

Affixed

Object is locked in place.

This is generally a nuisance meant to make players choose between keeping the item or spending the time/effort required to free it.
It can also be a tool if used correctly. The immovable rod is a favourite magic item for good reasons.

Frozen

Object is frozen solid.

Generally not a big deal for a club or a crowbar. (Unless you’re in the process of licking it)
But it’s quite a big deal for a torch or kindling.
And it’s a very big deal for potions. Freezing a player’s potions after an ice attack is my favourite nasty GM trick and now it’s yours too.

Heated

Object becomes hot.

The inverse of frozen. Well known for it’s usefulness in making enemies drop their weapon or cooking them alive in their own armor.
It’s a lot more interesting as a permanent effect though. Think of a superhot sword that can melt armor but can’t be held with bare hands. Or the uses a permanently hot plate of armor could have.

Dampened

Object becomes wet.

This is one for the real pedant referees. Player warning: if you think you’re dealing with one of these bastards be sure to shell out extra gold for the waterproofs.
This doesn’t sound so bad until you consider:
- Water adds extra encumbrance weight.
- Books are destroyed when wet.
- Bowstrings don’t work when wet.
- TORCHES DON’T WORK WHEN WET.
Oh an god help you if they combo it with cold.
It’s inverse Dryness could also be an interesting one to play with if water was scarce or potions were improperly sealed.

Fragile

Object is easily broken/ destroyed.

This could be a default status of a delicate item that needs to be transported with care.
Think of a high value vase you’re recovering from a dungeon or a piece of high tech equipment you need to access conduct measurements.
Some GMs are even cruel enough to make potions have a chance of shattering in your bag when you take damage, how evil!

Corroded

Object becomes rusted and/or worn

Uses: neglect, acid, age accelerator, corrosion critter
This could be a damage dealing effect to beings made of metal.
Typically reserved for metal. It’s wooden equivalent is Rot/Decay.
We can do this with other substances too of course. Spellbooks can get bookworms, rations can get rotten.

Flaccidity

Object becomes soft and floppy

Practically speaking this is equivalent to other effects that just render an item unusable but I think you’ll agree this is much funnier.
Rigidity is it’s opposite and is equally funny when applied to a character’s clothes.

Poison

Object becomes poisonous when touched/ingested.

A nasty one to inflict on a set of rations.
Simple poisoning is fine but a colorful disease or parasite is better.
Can also be a player tool for poisoning monsters who aren’t picky or suspicious about their grub.
You might also make a living creature poisonous without actually poisoning them. Good way to kill off whatever’s a step up the food chain.

Sentience

Object becomes conscious

Typically a blessing in the form of a cool magic sword who’s your best friend now.
Could easily be a curse if said sword was evil or annoying enough.

True Miscellanea

Our final non-category for status effects that don’t fit anywhere else.

Aging

Target grows older.

Wrinkles aside, consider penalties to movement, strength, and eyesight.
One of the few times character race life expectancy ever come into play, you need to use this a dozen times before the elf feels anything.
Its inverse, deaging, is better for a time until you have to experience puberty backwards.

Shrink / Grow

Target increases / decreases in size.

A system of doubling size categories is the best means of handling this.
Consider if or how this affects a character’s movement.
Consider whether this affects their damage output.
Consider whether you should insist on a funny squeaky voice.
This might also be a continuous effect, e.g. you shrink down half your size each turn.

Extend / Retract

Target’s body increases / decreases in length.

Similar to Grow/Shrink but the body only stretches without gaining mass.
This might just target a single body part, like extending your arms to get something out of reach or retracting an enemy’s legs so they can’t pursue.

Petrification

Target is turned to stone.

This usually also includes making the afflicted completely immobile and unconscious, but they could be totally aware.
This form might be resistant or immune to certain types of damage (poison, drowning, etc.) so it could have beneficial applications.
Consider other materials instead of stone: crystal, metal, wax, explosives.

Stasis

Target is frozen in time

There’s a few variations on this but usually it’s a combination of being unable to change or be changed.
This might be a time freeze where the target is vulnerable or movable. Or perhaps they are invincible but stasis time provides an opportunity to set up a trap for when they start moving again.
Frozen in a crystal is a common variation, it could be a prison for something that can’t be killed conventionally or as a form of protection from something that can’t be defeated.
The sleeping beauty coma is another variation, immune from aging and disease (and presumably bedsores) but asleep the whole time.

Heaviness / Lightness

Target’s weight is altered.

Can be a fun option with a robust encumbrance system.
Also nice paired with flimsy flooring.
If a target’s weight can be lighter than air or negative, this also functions as a path to flight.

Polymorphed

Target is transformed into another creature or object.

There are, of course, as many variations of this one as your imagination permits.
Consider how much a target’s mind is affected by this. Are they as intelligent as the creature they transformed into? Do they recognize their allies? Do they retain their personality? Does their new frog body also come with a craving for flies?
The conditional polymorph is also worth mentioning, like the werewolf who only transforms under the full moon.
So too is the partial polymorph where only one body part is changed or added.

Sex Change

Target transforms into the opposite sex.

Widely considered a bit of a dated status effect but I’ve noticed it’s making a comeback in my circles (Which could mean nothing).
While mostly an inconvenience for humanoids this could be really interesting for a more sexually dimorphic species who might quadruple in size and start laying eggs.

Conclusion

Well that’s just about every status effect I can wring out of my brain. If yours has more hand them over. I continually update this series with your suggestions to keep it as comprehensive as possible.

I thought I might have a few concluding remarks on status effects in general but upon reaching the end of my list I don’t even feel like I have an accurate way to count every effect I’ve listed. Hopefully this monster of a series can at least serve as inspiration for a more interesting result next time I roll on an injury table.

GM's Glossary Part 6: Everything you can do with your Stats

Vaults of Zin — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 21:25:03 GMT

This is part 6 in a series on system neutral abilities, conditions and status effects. You can read the rest here:

The GM’s Glossary:

Part 3: Movement

Part 4: The Mind

Part 5: The Senses

Part 6: The Stats ← You are here.

A character’s stats are always a good avenue for representing status effects. This will vary from system to system, so I’ll stick with the classic six (more or less).

As with all the other status effects discussed so far in this series, I like to think of the qualitative rather than the quantitative effects of a status effect. Mixing in another status effect with a stat buff or debuff helps to sell it.

Strength

Sorry but this is what the ideal male body looks like.

Strengthened

Alternatively: Bolstered, empowered, muscled.

Uses: steroids, adrenaline bursts, berserker rages.

Weakened

Alternatively: Enfeebled, sapped, drained.
Uses: poisons, encumbrance, high gravity.

I like to imagine strength as being on a spectrum with dexterity so bursts of abnormal strength might also mean you accidentally crush a lot of things with your big stupid hulk hands.
I could even imagine super strength as a curse in the right setting. Maybe a punch from you was so strong it would knock down the building you’re standing in.
Something that always adds a little oomph to a strength buff is the addition of a little knockback with every hit.
Be mean and check if a weakened PC has gone over their encumbrance limit.

Dexterity

Nimbled

Alternatively: Quickened, careful, silent.
Uses: time-slowing, focus-states.

Clumsied

Alternatively: Unbalanced, noisy
Uses: Numbing cold, disorientation, slippery coating.

Dexterity is something of a god-stat in a lot of games, especially 5e, since it encompasses dodging (both in and out of combat), attacks (both ranged and melee), a lot of useful fine motor skills and stealth.
I’d consider distributing some of these across other stats. Knave for example, make ranged damage dependent on wisdom.
Nimbled characters might be unaffected by difficult terrain.
Clumsied characters might have a chance of falling over with every movement.

Constitution

Invigorated

Alternatively: Hale, healthy, toughened.
Uses: Hearty meals, rest, painkillers.

Enfeebled

Alternatively: Sickened, frailty, fragility.
Uses: Exhaustion, wasting diseases, old age.

The stat representing health, endurance and typically determining a character’s hit points.
Conceptually there’s a lot of overlap here with strength. It’s actually hard to picture modifying one without the other.
There’s also quite a lot of overlap with the HP-effects we explored in part one of this series, which was pretty damn thorough so I’ve very little to add.
Although consider adding a roleplay effect where enfeebled characters have to wheeze all their lines.

Intelligence

Sharpened

Alternatively: Educated, focused.
Uses: Education, concentration, reference material at hand.

Stupified

Alternatively: Forgetful, thoughtless.

Uses: Drunkenness, amnesia, distractions.

Intelligence tends to either represent the ability to recall knowledge or the ability to plan quickly and effectively.
If it’s the former then the memory altering sections of part 4 should cover it.
If it’s the latter that’s hard to represent mechanically since that’s a player skill not a character skill. If a player is inclined to play along a diminished intelligence stat might mean they automatically believe lies or fail to recognise basic reasoning errors.

Charisma

Glamoured

Alternatively: Eloquence, glibness,, gift o’ the gab.

Uses: Makeover, divine blessing, correct amount of intoxication.

Uglified

Alternatively: Ineloquence, deformed, tongue tied, slandered, stinky.

Uses: Reputational repercussions, boil outbreaks, tongue tying, shattered ego.

Charisma can either represent beauty or charm and I have issues with both.
Beauty is, if not culturally dependent, then at the very least species dependent.
My petty nerd gripe is when some freakish Star Trek alien starts fawning over a sexy human crewmate (usually Deanna Troi) them not looking remotely like their own species.
This is going to be hard news to some of you but the average orc does not find your flat, tuskless face attractive.
In general I prefer for characters to have a clear description and decide on a case-by-case basis whether that’s a benefit or a hindrance in the moment.
Charm has a similar problem to intelligence, it blurs the line between player skill and character skill.
I prefer to avoid using charisma on social checks where possible. Learning what an NPC wants to hear is much more fun than rolling a high number.

Wisdom

Enlightened

Alternatively: Blessed, guided.

Uses: Witnessing miracles, mortification of the flesh, divine guidance.

Atheistic

Alternatively: Atheistic, cursed, tempted.

Uses: Witnessing horrors, worldly intrusions, devil on your shoulder.

Wisdom I have some big gripes with. It’s trying to be a lot of things, some of which seem totally uncorrelated.
It could mean the sharpness of a character’s senses, their practical intelligence or their connection with the divine depending on who you ask.
Not only do none of these really correlate, they seem to contradict each other.
Picture someone wise, are you picturing someone old? Blind even? The sort of person whose senses probably aren't very sharp.
Likewise, do we call someone wise when they can see really well in the dark?
If wisdom does mean practical knowledge, then it has the same problem as intelligence, coming up with a clever plan is a player skill, that’s not something your character sheet can do for you and it’s certainly nothing your GM should be discouraging you from doing.
If wisdom means the sharpness of the senses then see part 5 for extensive discussion on this.
Divine connection is so specific to setting-theology I can’t even get into it.
If we do take the faith angle, we could stop their prayers from working properly. I’m not sure what I could do with this that isn’t just a power reduction for their divine spells.

Final Fantasy Tactics apparently lets you inflict atheism on your foes, so there’s some precedent for this.

Other Stats

There are a couple of other less common stats I sometimes see. Please suggest and others I might have overlooked.

Willpower

Grit, moxie, determination. The power to do what must be done.
You might want to sort this under the label of another stat such as constitution or wisdom.
Intelligence or charisma could also work for the purposes of resisting mind-control.
If we are going to make it a stat of it’s own then an enhancement might be Willful, Confident or Numb.
It’s diminishment might be Weak-willed, Frightened, or Subsumed.
I don’t feel like there’s too much I can add that hasn’t already been covered in part 4.

Luck

Unlike willpower it’s not clear how this might be bundled in with another main stat, although I’ve seen the argument made for charisma or wisdom as a sort of divine blessing.
Some GMs might be inclined to apply a good or bad luck penalty to every roll.
Personally I find that a bit exhausting.
I think of luck as the stat determining things totally outside a character’s control.
E.g. Games of pure chance, loot rolls, and random encounters.
If your tables are arranged from most to least favourable then a simple numerical bonus or penalty can be applied.
Otherwise roll multiple times and use the result that would be the most fortuitous or inconvenient or lucky or unlucky characters respectively.

Other things we can do with stats

Misc stat changes

Randomised

Bonuses and penalties are randomised.

Not the most mechanically interesting since it just turns everything into dice roll, including the modifications to said dice rolls, but it could result in some interesting wacky chaos.

Inverted

All bonuses become penalties and vice versa.

Uses: Mirror worlds, opposite days.
It’s a fun exercise in making your characters play against type.
Also fun as a tool for players. Imagine finding a potion of stat-inversion then hunting for the dumbest guy in the world to turn him into Einstein.

Swapped

Stats are swapped with one another

This might only apply to one character but it could also swap stats between characters.
Imagine a goblin who swaps his intelligence for yours and runs off.
In some games a character's mental stats replace their physical stats when projecting into astral realms or entering cyberspace.
I’ve yet to see the inverse, a muscle dimension where everyone thinks by flexing really hard.

And that’s just about everything you can do with stats. Unless that is, I’ve neglected something. The GM’s Glossary is a collaborative project so comment anything you think I’ve missed down below.

Next time: the GM’s Glossary concludes with Every other Status Effect.

GM's Glossary Part 5: Everything you can do with your Senses

Vaults of Zin — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 23:32:06 GMT

This is part 5 in a series on system neutral abilities, conditions and status effects. You can read the rest here:

The GM’s Glossary:

Part 3: Movement

Part 4: The Mind

Part 5: The Senses ← You are here.

Part 6: The Stats

A note before we get into the list proper, I like to treat senses as a spectrum between hypersensitive and numb, with each one coming with it’s own benefits and drawbacks. If an abyss-dwelling creature has vision sensitive enough to see well in extreme darkness it’s going to be blinded by strong light. Likewise the old near-deaf wizard is resistant to banshee wails. While this doesn’t strictly apply in all cases I like using it as a balancing mechanism.

On to the list. There are broadly three things we can do with a character’s senses: enhance them, weaken them and fool them.

Sight

Enhanced:
- This usually means Darkvision or Low-Light Vision, but it could also mean being able to see distant or extremely small details.
- We could also sharpen visual processing allowing someone to rapidly pick out small details in a complex scene. A sort of super Where’s Wally solving ability.
Weakened:
- Blindness or Blurriness, far and away the best sense to shut down in a fight.
- Blindness can be used as a defensive measure against monsters that rely on being observed, Medusa being the classic example.
- Uses: Acids, bright light, pocket sand.
Fooled:
- Hallucination, seeing things that aren't there or being unable to see certain types of things or always seeing one type of thing as another. Discussed in the previous post in this series.

Hearing

Enhanced:
- Ability to detect very subtle noises
- Or the ability to pick out particular sounds in a noisy environment, like following a single conversation in a large crowd.
Weakened:
- Deafness could be used to disrupt commands from elite enemies.
- Could theoretically be used against the players to hinder cooperation but I’m not entirely sure how I’d rule this. I feel similarly about Muteness.
- Another way hearing can be weakened is by limiting it’s range. Think of the giants in Three Hearts and Three Lions who can’t hear the protagonists talk when they pitch up their voices.
- Can be an interesting defense in certain scenarios such as fighting sirens, banshees or other sound-based monsters.

Fooled:
- Mimicking the voices of commander’s to give false orders to minions is never not fun.
- As is mimicking the sound of a bigger, more deadly monster.

Touch

Enhanced:
- Hard to think of a good use case for hypersensitive skin unless you’re being put through some Princess and the Pea style ordeal.
Weakened:
- Inducing Numbness could be quite effective if you ruled that the character was stumbling over themselves or slurring their speech.
- It could be used beneficially to relieve pain.
- Characters might also not notice if they’re injured, making a localized version of this a handy assassination tool.
- Uses: Anesthetic, drugs, cold.

Fooled:
- Hallucinatory pain is just as good as the real thing.
- Itching or crawling sensations are also great tools for messing with people.

These are the little saints who govern your sense of touch btw.

Smell

Enhanced:
- Enhanced smell is a great tool for tracking something down like a bloodhound or general detective work.
Weakened:
- Anosmia is probably not all that important in combat, useless maybe there’s a gas leak.
- This is however very useful against creatures that rely heavily on their sense of smell and anyone using said creatures to track you.
- It could maybe make dungeon exploration more hazardous, provided the whole party was under it’s effects.
Fooled:
- This can also throw off trackers by laying a false trail.
- Another use is as a deterrent by creating a nasty smell.

Taste

Yeah I can’t think of a lot of use cases for this either. Included for the sake of completeness.
Enhanced:
- The only use case I can think of is detecting poisons although you have to actually know what poison tastes like to do this.
- Good if you’re ever in a wine tasting contest I guess.
Weakened:
- Ageusia is the term for a loss of taste though if you can figure out a use.
Fooled:
- Again we could hide a poison with this I guess.
- One could also inflict a nasty flavour on someone. Which might be good if someone just tricked them into eating poison and you need to induce vomiting.
- DymeNovelti on discord suggests adding a foul flavour to a person as a defense mechanism to deter bite attacks. I love it! Think like a skunk!

Balance

The lesser known sixth sense. Performed by a little organ in your ears.
Sharpened:
- Cat-like balance or a built in spirit level.
- Dwarves in older editions of D&D actually had something like this, the power to detect subtle slopes in dungeons.

Weakened:
- Vertigo, dizziness, nausea.
- This does a lot of the same things numbness does with the addition of possibly inducing vomiting.
- I might rule this as inducing random stumbling movement.

Fooled:
- Not all too different from the above but you might want someone to be off-balance in a particular direction.

Speech

Target loses the ability to speak. Or possibly the ability to speak coherently.

Not a sense but I feel it belongs here anyway.
Sharpened:
- I suppose this would mean amplification although I could certainly see when that might be more of a burden then a benefit.
- Something like a gift of the gab-style fast talking might also be appropriate here but that’s more of a mental power.
Weakened:
- Muting commanders to shut down lines of communication.
- Completely shuts down magic-users if you’re using an incantation-based system.
Fooled:
- Garbling or distorting speech for a similar effect to muteness.
- It has the additional benefit of making them do a silly voice.
- I like any ability that makes characters say things they don’t intend or the opposite of what they intend.

Extra Senses

On to those senses outside the normal human range. I’m not going to list at length every possible magical sense since one, they’re basically infinite (detect demons, detect elementals, detect hobgoblins…), and two, I much prefer working with senses that have a physical component to them. Smelling fear is more fun in game then detecting fear because there’s more to play with. I can cover up my fear with heavy perfume or rub frightened rats on myself to lure my enemy a false sense of security.

There are plenty of actual extra-senses that we could use but aside from hunger none of these look very gameable.

Tremorsense

Ability to sense subtle vibrations in the ground.

Common among burrowing and cave-dwelling beasties.
Foiled by levitation and muddled by unfamiliar mediums like mud or water.

Echolocation

Ability to sense objects via reflected sound

Gameable as hell, we can shut this down with disruptive noise or with the right refractive surface.

Magnetoreception

Ability to sense magnetic fields.

A lot of animals have this ability naturally and use it to sense the earth's magnetic field.
Useful for navigation since it acts like a built in compass.
Could be distorted by the presence of another magnetic field.

Electroreception

Ability to sense electric fields.

Used by sharks and dolphins to detect prey.
As with magnetoreception, this is also useful in a high-tech environment for detecting machinery.

Proximity Sense

Ability to detect when a certain type of thing is within a particular distance from you.

Eg: An amulet that vibrates whenever a monster is within 30 ft of you.
It’s worth noting that objects as well as people can have senses. Think of a sword that glows when danger is near or a device that bleeps when radiation levels spike.
Variations include the ability to detect how close the sensed things are and the ability to detect precisely where it is within your range.

Blindsight

Ability to perceive one’s surroundings without relying on sight.

Not a fan of this one as defined in 5e since it doesn’t usually include a mechanism for how a creature is using this, thus leaving little room to interact with.
Best ruled as a super refined sense of hearing or smell à la Daredevil.

Infrared / Heat Vision

Ability to detect infrared radiation.

In other words, sense how hot something is from a distance.
This is a fun one to play against. Start fires to mask your heat signature or insulate your body heat to avoid detection.

X-ray Vision

Ability to see through some physical objects.

This doesn’t need to involve literal x-rays. It can just be a “make this thing transparent” ability.
Although, if it does involve literal x-rays, lead shielding can protect you from it.
Just don’t stare at anyone for too long, okay?

Radio Wave Detection

Ability to detect radio waves.

Intended for robots to pick up radio transmission but if you can incorporate this into your fantasy setting more power to you.

Magic Detection

Ability to detect supernatural or metaphysical forces

This covers whatever magic equivalent your setting may have.
This could be divided up into any number of forms particular to your system. A Character might be able to detect demons but not ghosts.
I’m lumping in the ability to sense metaphysical things like good and evil here too.
I like to tie this to another sense to make it more fun to play with. Like the ability to detect alignment but only by taste.
As with other senses this could be fooled or suppressed by the right spell.

Clairvoyance

Ability to detect something remotely from beyond your bodily range.

This might take the form of astral projection or scrying.
Or a smelloscope, naturally.

Sense Sharing

Ability to use another character’s senses.

This could be voluntary or involuntary
This could also extend to technology. Think of a hacker who can infiltrate camera feeds and listening devices.

Precognition

Ability to see into the future.

Like mind control this is a power made interesting by it’s limitations.
It could be limited by accuracy, subject or course GM fiat for dramatic effect.
Its reverse is postcognition, the ability to see into the past.
Other people’s past, that is, seeing into your own past is just remembering shit.

Danger Sense

Ability to detect immediate danger.

This one’s hard to pin down but it’s basically spider senses.
This could be similar to precognition or maybe just a heightened situational awareness and fast reaction times.

Telempathy

Ability to detect emotions.

Like with others, this is more gamable when channeled through a physical sense.
Could be implemented as aura-reading or just being hyper-attuned to behavioral clues.

Lie Detection

Ability to detect lies.

It could come from an ability to smell fear, the careful reading of body language or an actual lie detector machine.
Tricky to write around when employed by players, but that’s a whole post of it’s own.
Personally a fan of the more magical “lie detection but only for literal lies” since it can be maneuvered around with careful wording.

Omnilingualism

Ability to speak/understand any language.

Aka tongues.
Sometimes a feature of language-transcending telepathic communication.
Beyond human languages variants of this include the ability to speak to animals, plants, objects or ghosts.

If you sense I’ve missed a sense please drop a comment below.

And if you want to detect the next post in this series, on character stats, subscribe to Vaults of Zin.

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Next time: Everything you can do with Stats

GM's Glossary Part 4: Everything you can do with a Mind

Vaults of Zin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:56:40 GMT

This is part 4 in a series on system neutral abilities, conditions and status effects. You can read the rest here:

The GM’s Glossary:

Part 3: Movement

Part 4: The Mind ← You are here.

Part 5: The Senses

Part 6: The Stats

It’s been a while since my last post but in fairness this is a big one. Unlike other status effects these all basically fall under the umbrella of “mind control” with every entry being a subcategory thereof. Mental powers are made interesting by their limitations and counter plays.

The Many Flavors of Mind Control

Mind Control

Afflicted is forced to act in accordance with commands.

The most straightforward kind of mindfuckery: you do what I command.
There’s an awful lot of latitude in how you want to implement this. Mind control is one of those god-level powers that’s only made interesting and gameable by it’s limitations.
In addition to the usual limitations of fantastical abilities (resource cost, range, duration, line of sight, concentration, reliability etc.) here’s a few more limited forms of mind control that are more fun to use and play against since they give the afflicted characters something to work against and ways to protect themselves:

Hypnotic Suggestion

Commands must be something the target might reasonably do.

This is like a very weak/subtle form of mind control. Sometimes indistinguishable from confidence scams, fast talking or social engineering.
Yes, basically a Jedi mind trick.
There’s a lot of variation in what might be considered reasonable. At it’s most generous this precludes anything obviously suicidal but should be a given for all but the strongest forms of mind control.
I’d usually ask that the controller provide one compelling reason for the target to obey their commands.
It could only work on the weak willed or simple minded. (Or animals.)

Zombification

Afflicted has limited metal and/or physical abilities while mind-controlled.

Think of a slow moving clumsy zombie.
This means the controller can’t fully utilize the afflicted’s capabilities.
It also makes it obvious the victim is being mind controlled.

Somnambulism

Mind control that only works on sleeping targets.

Could be an extension of dream control (see below).
Could be shocked awake with loud noise or a bucket of water.

Command

Controller’s commands are limited to a single word.

Run, kneel, follow, etc.
One of the rare few mechanics whose strength is determined by the language you’re playing in.
Add the word autodefenestrate to your vocabulary and thank me later.
On the topic, if commands are spoken and not mentally conveyed only target’s who can understand them might be vulnerable to it.

Suggestibility

Afflicted compulsively follows any orders given.

A personal favourite.
Like mind control but it’s open to the floor. If the afflicted is lucky they might have allies who can override the suggestion that they jump off a cliff.

The Many Methods of Mind Control

There’s also a few variations of mind control that demand different levels of involvement from the controller:

Mesmerizing Medium

Effect is dependent on the recipient coming into contact with a medium or sensation.

This could be a physical object like a cursed amulet that stops working once removed.
It could also be a sound, smell, sight or ingested substance.
Think siren songs and hypnotic patterns.
Tying mind control to something tangible rather than abstract magic/telepathy makes it more gameable.

Body Extension

Mind control only functions when touching the target.

Personal favourite of mine.
Very fun, very gamable, bonus points if it involves tendrils and nerve melding.
Extra bonus points if this extends from one victim to another. You can mind control a whole army so long as you all hold hands.

Possession

Controller must physically inhabit the victim’s body.

This works for physical entities like brainworms.
This also works for ghosts and demons which metaphysically(?) inhabit the body.

Puppetry

Controller must physically enact any movement they want the victim to perform.

The most involved variant of mind control.
Suspending yourself in some sort of rope rigging might prevent a lot of wall hitting.

Assimilation

Victim’s mind is melded with that of the controller.

May include sharing all senses and/or knowledge.
Gives the controller complete control without demanding their constant attention.

This might also work backward, if you free your ally they might come away with knowledge about the controller.

The Many Modes of Mind Control

We can also specify which parts of the victim's mind they have control over:

Goal Control

Controller alter’s a victim’s goals but they have latitude in how they accomplish them.

The victim might be commanded to kill one of their allies but decide on their own how to accomplish this.
Having vices, deficiencies, and weaknesses that might trip you up could be beneficial when facing this type of mind control. Send in your least competent henchmen.

Directive Control

Controller gives commands but the victim only needs to follow the letter and not the spirit.

Like a hostile genie, the victim can maliciously comply with the orders if they they can think up a clever loophole.

Body Part Control

Afflicted has a particular part of their body like their right arm controlled by another.

Like a more limited (and more fun imo) version of mind control.
Consider:
- Controlling an arm to make an attack against an ally
- Controlling legs to force them to move into danger.
- Controlling mouths to make them bite themselves or control their speech.
- Controlling eyelids to make them blind.

Memory Modification

Afflicted has their memories altered in some way.

Amnesia is a variant of this where the afflicted forgets certain memories or skills.
Related is the Memory Suppression, which stops the target from thinking about something, although they may still remember it somewhere deep in their mind.
We can of course also implant totally new memories.
Anterograde Amnesia is a related effect in which the target can’t form new memories after being afflicted.
The reverse of this is memory enhancement, which allows characters to revisit memories to recall repressed or forgotten details.

Pain Control

Alters how a target experiences pain.

This could just be for straight up torture or debilitation
It could also induce pain in response to certain actions, thoughts or stimuli to keep the target under control.
Or negate pain entirely to endure trauma.

Autohypnosis

Target and controller are the same individual.

Yes I suppose you do already control your own mind.
But this is useful for when you want to resist someone else's mind control, maintain discipline, access deeper realms of the psyche or protect yourself from infohazards.

Emotion Control

Other forms of mind control deal with emotions and attachments. These are a good tool for creating a more dramatic expression of mind control.

Emotion Heightening

Afflicted feels a particular emotion with unusual intensity.

Make someone keel over laughing or collapse into a sobbing mess or enhance their boredom and put them to sleep.
Covers a wide range of possible use cases.
Emotional numbing is it’s reversal. I see the typical use cases being the elimination of difficult emotions for serious work or calming down someone's emotional outburst.

Fear

Afflicted forced to flee, cower, and/or shit pants.

Fear could be interpreted a number of different ways.
From an apprehension that makes it difficult to fight the object of one’s fear to outright terror that makes the afflicted run away.
So there’s a lot of wiggle room for how you want to implement this one.

Taunt

Afflicted must attack this target and prioritize attacking this target over all others.

Usually brought about by insults but can also represent irrefusable challenges or masterful swordplay.
The soft version of this gives the taunter some benefit, like a free attack, if the afflicted directs their attacks at anyone else.

Enrage

Afflicted must attack the nearest valid target.

Very similar to taunt but the effect is tied to the victim not the caster.
“Valid target” might mean friend or foes depending on how powerful it is.
This might also be paired with a strength boost for a risk buff.

Charm

Afflicted cannot harm this target or must protect them.

In a way it’s the opposite of a taunt, although it’s real opposite would just make them deprioritize the target.
Exists on a spectrum from being unable to harm the target to considering the target to be a close friend.
The friendship angle strikes me as tricky. What do I do if one friend is harming another? Does the charm oblige me to split up the fight or pick a side?
Anything that messes with PC’s ability to think rationally has hard-to-rule consequences like this.

Infatuation

Afflicted character falls madly in love with another.

All time classic but in combat this really just amounts to a variant of charm.

Attraction

Afflicted is compelled to consume, gather, or protect an object.

Shares some territory with charm, though you don’t want the person you’re charming to start chewing you.
Uses: Dragon sickness, cannibal curses, fairy food.

Repulsion

Afflicted cannot bring themselves to consume, touch or look at an object.

Basically the reversal of attraction.
Fun both in combat and as a long term effect.

Miscellaneous Mindfuckery

Identity Distortion

Afflicted people think they’re someone or something they’re not.

Another fun variant of mind control.
This could mean they think they’re another person or it could mean they think they’re an animal or object.
Which is fun since they can still be compelled with the right tricks. (An ally who thinks they’re a sheep can be herded to safety or lured with some fresh grass)

Confusion

Afflicted choose their actions at random.

Hard to rule on the fly unless you already have a random behavior table prepped or the afflicted only has a set number of action types they can take.
I prefer to just rule this as face-blindness:

Face Blindness

Afflicted cannot differentiate allies from enemies.

This is usually resolved by having their attacks target a random character within range.
Bit of an awkward name since this is the name of a real condition that doesn’t typically result in stabbing your friends.
Also a bit awkward to avoid metagaming here.

Sorry for two Dungeon Meshi pages in one post but it’s really the best source for these.

Personality Switch

Afflicted has their values and/or personality altered.

Also known as alignment reversal in D&D speak.
It could be a reversal (The brave barbarian becomes a sniveling coward).
It could also be a realignment (Anyone who touches the shrine of St.Pascal becomes incapable of violent thoughts)

Body Swapping

Swaps the bodies or minds of two different targets.

This could be a magic personality transfer but it could also represent physically transferring one brain to another body Frankenstein style.
This is a fun one to pull on two characters who hate each other.
Remember to think though the logistics of it first though. Do the characters swap their mental stats? Do spellcasters retain their abilities or is their power tied to their old body?

Mind Reading

Afflicted has their thoughts read by another character.

You could make a distinction here between surface thoughts (what they’re thinking about right now) and deeper knowledge.
Perhaps even repressed memories they’ve locked away.
Something I love is weird alien minds that drive their readers mad.

Telepathy

A character can speak with others mentally.

This may let them bypass a language barrier.
Some variations of telepathy only allow communication in emotions or vague images.

Hallucination

Afflicted sees things that are not there

Similar to an illusion but personalized.
The amount of things you can do with illusions is practically endless.
Harder to run than an illusion since if other players can something isn’t there the player can just ignore it.
Of course the obvious thing to do is to just make them hallucinate darkness effectively making them blind. But that’s no fun.

Sleep

Afflicted falls asleep.

Usually awoken by damage, shaking or loud noises.
A handy tool for non-lethal incapacitation.
It’s reversal, wake, can also be good for denying rest or keeping someone awake for sentry duty.

Dream Control

Alters the target's dreams.

There's a couple of way you could go with this:
Nightmares to keep them constantly awake, like a reversed sleep.
Inception style dream messages, like a narrow form of mind control.
Nightmare on Elm Street style dream assassination.
Create a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari sleep assassin. (See somnambulism above)

That’s about every interesting variation I can think of. I could have added a few extra emotions to the list but I think you can infer what they might do. If you have a suggestion please post it below.

I’ll add it to the list officially if it’s something gameable, system neutral, and can’t be achieved with some combination of what I’ve already written.

Next time on the GM’s Glossary: The Senses, their enhancements and their inhibitions. You can sense when that post arrives with the button below:

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D8 Even Emptier Rooms

Vaults of Zin — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 05:30:49 GMT

Chris over at Bastionland made a post on non-empty rooms.

Now, I’m a big advocate of the empty room. It has it’s haters but a dungeon can’t breathe without them. God help everyone else’s players if a fight spills out into other rooms and the GM needs to describe the multiple layers of magical bullshit taking effect. I honestly wonder how a wandering monster is expected to commute across some of the monstrosities you people build.

Anyway I like the idea of non-quite empty rooms being proposed here but I feel we can do better. I’m sorry Chris but a room with a snake pit in it is not empty. Here’s 8d of the emptiest rooms you’ve ever seen in your life.

1. Demolished Room

Contains nothing, as it’s contents have been destroyed, detonated, dissolved or otherwise reduced to ash. Investigating damage may hint at who caused it.

2. Container Room

Contains nothing, despite the name. Full of empty boxes, barrels or wardrobes. Nothing of use to be found but it makes for an excellent hiding spot.

3. Exited Room

Contains nothing, but something went through here. It left tracks, fresh enough that it might be back soon.

4. Emptied Room

Contains nothing, but there clearly WAS something in here that's been looted, repurposed or otherwise moved. There may be clues as to what took it.

5. Unfinished Room

Contains nothing, yet. The kobolds seem to be working on some sort of tile puzzle with a pressurised spider trap. Best avoided on your next visit.

6. Depressurised Room

Contains nothing, not even air. Forcefully sucks in air when opened. Appropriated for a space station but more fun in a dungeon.

7. Abandoning Room.

Contains nothing, refuses to be a container. Objects and people within disappear when unobserved. Dungeon residents utilize it for waste disposal.

8. Emptying Room.

Contains nothing. As in nothing in this room can be contained. Coins fall from purses, equipment explodes out of bags. Constitution save to contain your last meal.

GM's Glossary Part 3: Everything you can do with Movement

Vaults of Zin — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 15:10:34 GMT

The Lord and the Colonel by Alex Ries

This is part 3 in a series on system neutral abilities, conditions and status effects.

The GM’s Glossary:

Part 3: Movement ← You are here.

Part 4: The Mind

Part 5: The Senses

Part 6: The Stats

Now that we’ve fleshed out all the fun stuff we can do with an environment, today we’ll be looking at how characters move, or move others, through it. While this list aims to be exhaustive, I want to limit myself to things that either exist irl or are suitably generic and common enough in fiction to warrant a mention. I’m also aiming for a fiction-first, system neutral approach, so I won’t be discussing system specific abilities that play around with grid squares and hexes. I will however consider it if I’m running a giant magical chess board encounter though.

Locomotion

Walk / Run

Most people have this figured out by the time they’re 12 months old so I don’t really feel the urge to explain it further.

Specifically this refers to how fast a character moves across a normal ground surface.

Climb

The speed at which a character can climb vertical surfaces.

Typically this requires a surface with enough strong handholds to support them but a character might have Insect-Climb; the ability to climb flat surfaces or ceilings.

Swim

How fast a character moves through water.

Or some other liquid medium I guess.
Varying swim and walk speeds is a nice way to represent varying levels of amphibiousness.

Leap

How far a character can jump from one surface to another.

May be different if the leap is vertical or horizontal.
May also depend on how much of a running start they get.

Crawl / Squeeze

How fast a character moves on all fours / through tight spaces

Now given the variety of limb arrangements on offer in the average D&D party these days maybe “all fours” isn’t the best term.
I’ve bundled these together since I can’t think of a good use case for one without the other.
I’ll bundle in contortionism and hiding in small spaces while I’m at it.

Useful to track when you’re in a tight spot.

Root

How easily a character can resist movement.

Uses: heavy characters, nearby grapple points, literal roots in the ground.

Fly

The speed at which a character moves through the air.

There’s few variations to this:
Powered Flight which requires constant activity to stay in the air.
Levitation/Floating which doesn’t require any activity on the flyer’s part.
Gliding which allows the character to move downwards and horizontally but not upwards.
Zero-Gravity in which the character isn’t pulled down by gravity but may be stuck in mid air.

Burrow

The speed at which a character digs through the ground.

Usually restricted to loose earth and not solid stonework.
Consider whether or not the character is leaving behind a tunnel as they move.

Medium Alteration

Moves through one type of medium as though it was another

e.g: waterwalking, airswimming, stone burrowing.

Phase

The ability to pass through solid objects.

This is sometimes limited by not allowing characters to end their turn inside an object, preventing turtling shenanigans.
You could also limit it to single actions, like a short dash that can pass through objects.
We can also vary it by what type of objects you can phase through. E.g: The gnome can move through stone but not wood, ghosts can’t penetrate consecrated protection wards.
This could also make for a nasty curse, forcing a victim to phase through the ground into the centre of the earth.

Teleport

A character's ability to move directly from A to C without going through B.

Unlimited, unconditional teleportation is no fun to play against and overpowered to play with. Consider a few ways to make it more interesting:
Limited to a specific range.
Limited to visible places.
Limited by inexactness. This might mean you only show up near your location or you show up in a similar but distant location.

Exotic Medium Traversal

Ability to move through an unconventional medium.

This is a catch-all category for the ability to move through non-traditional mediums.
E.g: Druid who can walk into one tree and appear out of another, magical ninjas who step into shadows.

Directionality

How fast a character can move in different directions.

Not really relevant on the typical flat combat grid but relevant when we start talking about flight. A flying character might be able to descend rapidly but ascend slowly.

Heading

Which way a character is facing.

More common in vehicular or naval games but for skirmish combat things like damage can depend on this.

Uses: Backstabs, weak spots, raking fire.

Turning

How much a character can change its heading.

Not really a concern for typical player characters but think about something large and cumbersome like a ship or a piece of heavy artillery that can only turn 90 degrees each round.

Momentum

How much speed a character has built up and how that affects their movement.

Not really a big consideration for skirmish games where characters aren’t moving faster than a sprint, but worth considering for representing very large or very fast characters.

Forced Movement

So let's say we want to move a target in a particular direction.

You could do any number of weird things with this but below are a few of the most common variations.

Note that I’m not including anything mind control related, wherein a character is compelled to move using their own movement abilities. Mind control is for my next post.

Push / Pull

Moves the target further / closer respectively.

Uses: Shoves, grabby tendrils, strong winds, magnetism.
The foundation of interesting combat. Infinitely useful when paired with a dynamic 3D combat environment.
Consider effects that pull two characters together.

Lift

Moves the target upwards

This makes a fun one-two lift-and-drop combo, which is extra fun since there's a couple of ways of responding to it (Another character catching you, an improvised parachute, aiming for the bushes.)

This could also be used to strand a target in the air or rip them out from cover.
Especially devious underwater, where it can cause decompression sickness
Uses: antigravity, updrafts, tentacled skyfish.

Sink

Moves the target downwards

This one probably won’t see too much normal use but it could be useful in a more 3D environment, for example drowning targets underwater or grounding flying targets.
Uses: Quicksand, grasping zombie hands, spontaneous hole generation.

Spin

Target is rotated along a circle’s circumference.

Uses: Turntables, tornados, getting swung around on a rope.
This one’s criminally underused despite how simple it is.

Hasten/Slow:

Target’s speed is increased / reduced.

Uses: Debilitation, adrenaline rushes, time warping.
We can break this down by medium for more variety. E.g: Fish armor that hastens you but only while swimming.

Gravity

The direction or intensity of gravity is altered.

This could be an AOE, the personal gravity of a single character or tied to a surface that activates when stepped on.
This could also represent the artificial gravity of a rotating space station.

Bind:
Target can’t move beyond a certain range of something.

Uses: Tethers, grapples, magic wards.
In the case of grappling the range would be 0 and the something in question would be the grappler.
There will be more discussion on the minutiae of grappling and restraints in a future post.

Sync:

One character’s movement also moves another.

Uses: Mounted characters, puppetry curses, control system crosswiring.
Great mechanic for fun movement puzzles.
We could also reverse it and force one character to move in the opposite direction to the other.

And that’s the list. Or is it? I’m sure there’ few interesting movement options I’ve neglected. So if you can think of one please let know and I’ll add it to the pile.

EDIT:

Temporal Negativity suggests time loops as an interesting varient of teleportation.

Time Loop Teleportation:

Character returns to a spot they were in previously.

May require a character to place a “save point” down which they can return to.
I could also see a varient of this where this where a character is physically rewound back where they were either as a utility tool or as a type of forced movement.

Same Is Shark In Japanese suggests swinging. My wife and I turned down the offer but that does remind me of a movement method I neglected.

Swinging

Movement via momentum on ropes, vines, webs, or whips.

Kind of hard to represent 1:1 on the typical RPG map since it involves both arcs and verticality. Some abstraction may be required.
Still the rope and grappling hook is a standard part of every adventuring kit so it’s very much worth considering how you’d rule it.

Some general things about movement to consider:

Movement is only interesting if paired with a suitable environment. We want pits and explosive barrels to throw people into.
Some attacks might deal more damage depending on how much a character has moved. e.g: A mounted warriors charge, a plunging attack.
We can combine forced movement with AOEs for things like shockwaves, wind gusts, or magnetic fields.
Speaking of magnets, that’s an interesting case of only being able to move certain types of objects, we could apply that to other types of matter too.
A couple of the things mentioned in the previous post also apply, we can bounce, arc and ricochet people off wall if we want. I’ve excluded them here at the risk of sounding repetitive.

Next time in the the GM’s glossary: Mind Control, and it’s many variations. Move yourself over to that subscribe button lest you miss it.

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GM's Glossary Part 2: Everything you can do with Space

Vaults of Zin — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 12:01:13 GMT

If the title wasn’t clear enough, this is part 2 of my Game Master’s Glossary series, which was supposed to be a list of system neutral status effects but has expanded out into what I guess is a system-neutral glossary of mechanics, statuses and effects. My heart tells me this will add up to something coherent and it’s only wrong most of the time.

The GM’s Glossary:

Part 2: Terrain and Space ← You are here.

This week we’re talking about space. Previously we’ve been doing everything inside a sort of abstract combat void. Today we’re bringing space into the mix. Some of this might apply to abstract representations of a combat space but I’m trying to simulate a 3D environment starting with:

Terrain

I’m sticking to terrain that exists in some form in real life but any of these could represent whatever weird fantasy nonsense you can conjure. I’m thus excluding any sort of magic terrain effects lest I be here all day. So the beach that makes you old didn’t make the cut.

Covering

Terrain offers protection against damage and blocks lines of sight.

Uses: Trenches, barricades, low walls.
Consider what type of damage it protects against.
E.g your big pavise shield might protect you from arrows but not high caliber bullets.

Damaging

Terrain deals damage to those who move through it.

Uses: Fire, poison clouds, barbed wire.
There’s a few variations on this:
Damage if you enter this terrain on your turn
Damage if you end your turn in this terrain. E.g. You could hold your breath and pass through a poison cloud.
Damage according to how much you move through this terrain. E.g. You receive 1 point of damage for every 5 ft of bramble you walk through.
Damage might occur if you move through this terrain. E.g There’s a trap here somewhere but I’m not sure where.
We could also flip all the numbers around and make it healing terrain, although we’re verging into fantasy territory now.

Slowing

Terrain can only be moved through slowly.

Aka, difficult terrain.
Usually at half normal speed, but you could always make it worse.
Uses: Thick mud, snow, or undergrowth.
Accelerating terrain that characters move through at greater speed is it’s theoretical opposite. I can’t really think of a use case for that, aside from like speed boosters in mario kart?
Don’t let me stop you from going for it though.

Engulfing

Terrain swallows those who move through it.

Uses: Quicksand, deep mud, swamps of sadness.
This could be a slow sinking or a sudden plummet.

Slippery

Terrain is difficult to grip or stand on.

Uses: Oil, ice, those weird frictionless rooms in old D&D dungeons.
If a character approaches quickly they may be unable to change their direction or slow down once they start moving.
They might also have trouble speeding up without something to push off.
Although usually just a slipping hazard, consider how characters might use it to move faster. The fastest ice skater can outpace the fastest sprinter.
Sticky terrain is it’s opposite but I can’t think of any special way to rule that other than slowing terrain or a trapped terrain that stops you dead in your tracks.

Cushioning

Terrain negates or lessons fall damage.

Uses: Water, safety nets, piles of hay.
You may need to clarify how effective these are before a PC does an orbital dive into one.

Bouncy

Terrain pushes characters back up after falling.

Uses: Trampolines, springs, bouncy bogs.

Verticality my beloved.
Consider powered bounces from supernatural materials or powered springs that push a character further than their fall distance.

Unsteady

Terrain is difficult to balance on.

Uses: Swaying bridges, narrow tightropes, ship’s mast in a storm.
Unsecured characters risk losing their footing.
Leads to interesting interactions, like dropping your weapons so you can hold on for dear life.

Fragile

Terrain collapses as it’s moved across.

Uses: Rotten floors, collapsing buildings, thin ice.
In classic platformer fashion you might rule that the platform collapses only after a character steps off, leaving a trail of holes behind them.
It might also only collapse under sufficiently heavy characters. I love a good goblin-only escape route.

Sloped

Terrain gradually slopes up or down

Uses: Stairs, hills, rooftops.
Not very exciting if it’s a shallow slope but steep slopes that characters will roll down as they lose their footing are just the sort of dynamic terrain we’re looking for.
Combine with drops or hazards at the bottom for more excitement.
Also consider how different items, like falling donkey kong barrels, might interact with slopes.
You might want to consider rulings for moving up or down steep slopes.
Wait, I think I’ve found a use case for accelerating terrain.

Stretchy

Terrain bends under the weight of heavy objects.

Uses: Tarps, giant membranes, spider webs.
Essentially creates slopes in the direction of anything with weight.
Super heavy objects might also risk breaking through.

Liquid

Terrain is water or some other liquid.

Can be moved through in a couple of interesting ways: swimming, floating, sinking.
Water’s the obvious use case but consider other liquids that might have different densities or thicknesses.
Usually impedes movement unless the character has a body suited to it, e.g. fish.
Might also impede weak missile fire and non-streamlined weapons.

Climbable

Terrain is only traversable by climbing.

Uses: Forest canopies, ship’s rigging, scaffolding.
I’d usually rule that characters move through these at half speed but that’s just me being human-centric again.
Gibbons can brachiate at 55 km/h, so I’d rule that similarly specialized creatures have a faster climbing speed than walking speed.

Mobile

Terrain moves along with it’s occupants.

Lots of use cases, probably enough to deserve a section of it’s own.
Just a few uses: Elevators, escalators, treadmills, giant wheels, trains, ships, boats and so forth.
Remember that vehicles are a type of mobile terrain.

Obscure

Those with this terrain are difficult to see clearly.

Uses: Fog, darkness, tall grass.
Consider whether or not the terrain is mutually obscure.
E.g If I’m in a thick fog I can’t see anyone and they can’t see me, but if I’m hiding in the bushes I might be able to peep out without being noticed.
Also consider terrain that obscures other senses: e.g Stinking bog that covers your scent, Sound-proof room to hide your footsteps.

Deceptive

Terrain has a misleading appearance.

Uses: Hidden traps, illusions, facades.
Combine with other terrain for a surprise.
Or combine with nothing for a disguised hole to fall into.
Perfect disguises aren’t fun to play against. Always leave a little clue or method of discernment.

Combat with Space

So now that we have all this fun space to play with, we can’t just melee our way through everything. Our attacks, effects, spells and explosives finally have some room to differentiate themselves. Here’s every way you can make them interact with space.

Ranged

Damage from a distance.

So basic I feel it barely needs mentioning but here it is.
Usually limited by ammunition, lower damage or cover compared to melee.
Usually requires a direct line of sight unless the shot is arced or doing some weird portal shit.

Area of Effect (AOE)

Effects all targets within an area.

Typically AOE shapes include the line, sphere, cone, cube, cylinder, and wall but you can get weird with it. Consider combining these for more interesting shapes.
This includes small AOEs like cleaving weapons that hit adjacent targets and arrows that pierce through one foe to hit another.
Consider it’s little known opposite: the Area of Immunity. Everyone not inside this magic circle receives the effect.

Aura

An AOE centered around a specific character or object.

Usually persists across time and can be moved.

Chain

Effects a secondary target within range of the first target, effect can repeat.

AOE adjacent but I feel it deserves a category of it’s own.
Uses: Lightning arcs, chain reactions.
Consider 0 range chains that require targets to be physically touching for fun fleshwarping shenanigans.

Contagious

Effects spread from one target to another over time.

Similar to chain but chain but not all at once.
Physical proximity spread the condition but some other triggers could also work.
Uses: Disease, fire.

Reflect/ Bounce:

Area or line of effect is redirected when it comes into contact with a surface.

Uses: Ricocheting bullets, bouncing bombs.
Could move in predictable arcs or deflect randomly.

Falloff

Effect varies over the length of it’s target area.

Could represent projectiles losing momentum or energy dispersing from a point of impact.
It could also be inverted: Damage increases over distance, like a boulder gaining momentum.
The type of effect could also vary along the length of the area: an AOE might heal the target in the center while damaging everyone outside.
This could also be varied in weird ways, damage might peak halfway through a line’s length or deal double damage every second square, get freaky with it.

Offset

Target area is moved from where the player targets.

This could be a character ability where an enemy interferes with your attacks like a hacker getting control of your targeting systems.
It could also be randomised to represent things like wind interference or inaccurate weaponry.

Now that’s everything I can think of but I’m ever eager to hear your suggestions. If you have something that’s not super-specific or just a combination of what we’ve talked about before, I’ll throw it on the list.

Next time on the GM’s Glossary: Everything you can do with Movement.

GM's Glossary: Part 1 - Everything you can do with a Health Bar

Vaults of Zin — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 04:12:08 GMT

This is part 1 of a multi-part series I'm calling the GM's Glossary.

The GM’s Glossary:

Part 1: Health and Damage ← You are here.

It's going to be a compilation of every status effect and ability you can throw at or on a character to make them a little more interesting. I'm looking to make something that's not exactly system-neutral but that should provide a lot for any OSR designer and should offer something for any other kind of game designer.

The bulk of it's going to be a big list of system neutral status effects but today we're just going to see what we can do by just messing around with health bars. Let’s keep it barebones and assume:

Characters have HP up to their Max HP
Characters die when they hit 0 HP.
HP can be removed with Damage and restored with Healing. I’ll be bundling this together as Effects for convenience.
There’s no range or positioning to consider yet, all combat is taking place in a spaceless void, like a classic RPG encounter:

Here’s just about everything we can do to mess with those:

Buffing / Debuffing

Attacks do more or less damage.

This can also apply to healing.
These could be implemented in two ways, it could modify attacks by a X% or it could give a flat modifier to every instance of damage. In the latter case lots of small attacks would hit differently to one big attack of the same damage.

Resistance / Vulnerability

Character receives more or less damage

This too can apply to healing.
Not all that different from buffing / debuffing the attacker unless we take multiple characters into account. If a party of weak characters are fighting a single strong character, then, all else being equal, it’s better for them to make the strong character vulnerable than it is to buff one of their own.

Critical Hit / Critical Fail

Rare chance of an attack being extra effective or detrimental.

This is a bit system dependent and basically just a variety of buffing/debuffing but it’s common enough that I thought I’d include it for completeness.
This usually means extra damage but it could be any kind of effect.
e.g : A critical hit with a hammer also knocks the target down.

Hit-Chance / Dodge-Chance

Probability of an attack hitting.

Separated into two effects to represent the attacker and defender’s perspective but essentially measuring the same thing.
This is also a bit system dependent, some games like Into the Odd have all attacks hit automatically and skip straight to damage.
While I say ‘dodge’ here this could also represent armor as it does in D&D.

Invulnerability / Incurability

Character can’t be damaged / healed.

Also known as immunity or invincibility.
Invulnerability is usually subject to some condition.
e.g. it only lasts X rounds or it stops when you destroy the dragon’s immortality crystal.
It could also be conditional to certain damage types: ie: the magma worm is invulnerable but only to fire. Damage types are best left for another discussion.

Damage Negation

Completely negates a single instance of damage.

Like a single-use instance of invulnerability.
This can completely shut down a big attack if you can avoid it being wasted on protecting you from a small weak attack.
You could also reverse this to healing negation.

Damage Over Time (DOT)

Deals damage at regular intervals, such as every combat turn.

Commonly used to represent poison, fire, acid, bleeding wounds.
Could contain a stacking effect with repeated use.

Multi-Target

Attack hits multiple targets.

Much to discuss here but I’ll elaborate on this a bit more when we discuss AOE in the next post.

Splittable

Effect can be divided among multiple targets.

Different from multi-target. You’re dividing this damage between targets not hitting all of them with the same damage.
Handy for dealing with multiple low HP enemies.
Magic missiles are the classic example of this.
Consider: an ability that lets you do this to enemy attacks and divide lethal damage among many allies.
Reversal: Mergeable attacks, everyone deals damage at once to overcome armor/resistance/regeneration.

Progressive Modifiers

Damage / Healing increases over time.

Imagine an attack that starts weak but gains in power every time it's used.
This increase could be linear or exponential.
This encourages a character to commit to repeating this action over the course of many turns.
This can be capped or reset if an infinitely scaling attack is game breaking.
This can also be reversed into a strong effect that grows weaker with continual use.

Delay

Effect occurs after a set amount of time.

Usually a price paid for a powerful effect.
If the effect requires continuous effort to charge I’m terming that a windup.
Uses: Slow working venoms, charging superweapons, carefully planned strikes.

Cooldown

After using this ability the character must spend some time recovering.

The reverse of a delay.
Good for lethal but heavily telegraphed moves.
Pretty much like a cooldown but before rather than after an attack.
I’m more fond of using this for enemies since it gives players time to respond.

Sacrifice

Action costs HP to use.

Used for reckless attacks, throwing yourself into danger or good old blood magic.

Drain / Donate

Transfers HP from one target to another.

Draining HP is a great mechanic for Vampires and other life-suckers.
Likewise Donate is a great mechanic for self-sacrificing healers.
Also consider some sort of blood-mage moving HP from target to target.

Healing Reversal:

Character is damaged by healing or healed by damage.

I fucking love when a game implements this mechanic and I can’t explain why.

HAHAHA. I'm in the poison and yet I've never felt more alive

Overheal

Character gains HP beyond their Max HP.

Also known as temporary hit points.
I suppose you could also do a reversal on this and make temporary damage. Like damage that heals itself over time or that will only kill you if it makes you drop below 0 in the next few turns.

HP Limits

Modifies Max HP

This is assuming any Max HP changes are temporary otherwise this is just your new Max HP.
You could also rule this as a decrease in a character’s minimum HP. This is effectively the same thing but it can be thematically fun for a character to keep fighting at -10 HP rather than just having +10 HP.
Another rephrasing of this is as an increase to a character’s Minimum HP. So instead of dying at 0HP they die at 10 HP.
This is a lot like dealing 10 damage only they can’t heal their way out of it.

Carryover

Damage greater than what was needed to bring a character to 0 HP is dealt to another target.

Good for representing weapons that cleave and pierce through their targets.
This might also be redirected at the attacker to represent their overuse of force hurting them.

Retargeting

Changes the target of an attack.

Uses: Grabbing an enemy (or ally) and using them as a shield, the D&D monk’s deflect missile ability, throwing yourself in front of an attack.

Transfer

One character receives an effect directed at another.

Similar to retargeting but this assumes the attack actually hits the original target but the effect is transferred over to the new target.
Uses: Sympathetic spell transferring a wizard’s wounds to a tank. Vulnerable voodoo doll taking damage and directing it at an armored enemy. Regenerating meat-god absorbing healing magic for itself.

Bond

Multiple characters are linked. Effects applied to one are applied to the others also.

Like a transfer but the original target still receives the effect.
Bond two enemies to double damage.
Bond two allies to double healing.
Bond an allied tank to an enemy glass cannon.
Reverse: Character A receives the opposite effect of character B. Heals when they take damage, takes damage when they heal.

Resurrection:

Dead character returns to life.

I should note here that 0 HP doesn’t necessarily have to mean death. It could represent incapacitation or just be the beginning of a countdown to true death.

Triggers

Effect is triggered by something happening to a character’s HP

This is a general category that can combine with other effects for interesting mechanics.
I’m bundling this together with Gating, which is when an ability requires something to happen or be a certain way in order to be used.
You can attach a trigger to any of the mechanics we’ve discussed so far but here are some common examples:

Damage / Healing Trigger

Effect triggers when a character is damaged/healed.

e.g: Alien’s acid blood damages nearby characters.

HP Trigger

Effect triggers when a character reaches a certain level of HP:

e.g: Character who is considered maimed at half HP. Bosses that enter a second phase at half HP. Special ability that can only be used on max HP.

Death Trigger

Effect triggers when a character dies.

e.g: Explosive enemy who blows up on death. Items that auto-resurrect you on death, like a zelda fairy.

Kill Trigger

Effect triggers when a character has killed one or more others.

e.g: Demon blade that grows stronger with every kill.

I think that just about cover’s everything. If you can think of more please comment below as long as your suggestion isn’t:

System-specific:

Trading Mana for HP, Recovering injuries.
I’m only looking for generally applicable mechanics.

A combination of other effects:

e.g: Mass healing doesn’t need it’s own category since it’s just a combination of Healing and Multi-Target.

Overly specific:

e.g: Immune to damage if it’s a multiple of five.
Not that I don’t love weird mechanics like this, I just want to create a list that’s generally applicable.

Circular one-upping:

e.g: This enemy is Super-Resistant and can’t be made Vulnerable. But my character can cast Hyper-Vulnerability which overrides everything except Ultra-Resistance…
Just assume that any effect here can be negated and overridden to your heart’s content.

EDIT:

Grek of Grackle Court suggested a few additions. I’ve copied Grek’s original message into the comments.

Stopping Points

Damage or Healing can’t move HP past certain points.

This usually comes in form of multiple health bars.
So, for example, my big attack might bring an enemy’s first helath bar to zero but excess damage doesn’t carry over to it’s second health bar.
Likewise the enemy loses their first health bar and can’t heal into it, effectivly a max HP reduction.

Health Bar Types

Characters have multiple health bars that behave differently.

These might represent armor, shields, or flesh.

One might regenerate, another might be resistant or vunerable to different damage types another might be impossible to recover, etc.

Next: Part 2: Terrain and Space

The Provisioner’s Playbook

Vaults of Zin — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:39:53 GMT

Dungeony Dragony type games grind to a halt everytime players need to prepare for an expedition. New players in particular get a bad case analysis paralysis.

Procedures tend to go faster when someone is appointed to take the lead. In my games I give players who take on special roles an extra share of treasure. One such role is the provisioner.

As the provisioner you’re in charge of kitting out the party. This doesn’t mean that you have the final say in what everyone packs or that other players aren’t expected to contribute to planning. You’re just the one who takes the lead and crunches the numbers.

Here’s how you get good at it:

There are 5 steps to being a good provisioner:

Prioritise
Adjust
Budget
Distribute
Store

Let's tackle them in order.

Prioritise

Bring what you need.

Start with what’s most necessary and work your way down.

I’ve put together a list of common equipment in order of importance, prioritising things with multifunctional uses to save you as much inventory space as possible.

It broadly goes:

Light > Food > Weapons > Essential Tools > Armor > Helpful Tools > Backup Tools

Light

Torches, lanterns, oil. By far the most important thing to bring. Everything else can be scrounged, improvised or neglected but you’re not going anywhere if you can’t see what’s in front of you. Even if you have some sort of perpetual light or dark-vision, just having the ability to control fire, burn things and spill oil makes this a must have. Always double up on these if possible. Ideally every PC would have a light-source in case they get separated.

While being able to start fires is great, electrical or magical light sources are also great since they're impervious to things that quell fires.
Don’t forget to bring a lighter or flint and steel to get your fire going.

Food and Supplies

The bottom of Maslow's pyramid. Everything you need to to avoid dying of hunger, thirst or exposure. A lot of this is going to depend on your game system and/or DM’s handwavyness regarding survival rules. In addition to food and water this may include tents, sleeping bags and weather-appropriate gear.

At minimum pack enough food to get you to the dungeon and back.
Extra food may be needed if you run into delays or to use as monster bait/distraction.
Food is usually cheap so don't be afraid to double up in case you get lost or delayed.
For longer trips this might include cooking gear.
You can supplement your food supply with foraging, hunting, monster eating or emergency cannibalism.
You can make basic tents out of the tarp, ropes and spikes we’re going to bring along but if you’re facing harsher conditions a more specialised shelter should be considered.

Weapons

Only in third place because, if you really need to cheap out, you can grab some big sticks or rocks then loot real weapons off the first enemies you come across.

How a weapon works varies from system to system but they’re usually balanced with some ups and downs. I’m going to focus only on their practical utility and ignore weird variants and exotic weapons.

Spears can do almost everything a 10-foot pole can do in addition to being a weapon.
Swords, knives and daggers are great for cutting ropes and binds.
Axes are useful for hacking through doors or chests.
Maces and warhammers are handy for bashing things in and hammering things in place.
All other things being equal you’ll want at least one of each in your party. If not for utility then for damage type variety.
You’ll also want a ranged option, ideally for every party member. Don’t forget ammo.
Bows and crossbows are all well and good but consider the humble sling and it’s ability to fling potions and explosives long distances.

Essential Tools

Damn useful in almost every dungeon. Never leave home without them.

Rope
- I don’t really need to explain how useful rope is do I?
- Give everyone a short length and tie them together when you need something longer.
Grappling Hook
- No rope is complete without this must-have accessory.
- You can also attach it to the end of a pole for a long grabber tool.
Tarp
- This isn’t usually found on most equipment lists but reasonable GMs will surely allow it.
- A tarp can be used to make a tent, a bag, a stretcher or a trap covering.
Needle and thread
- Necessary for making the above as well as generally useful for patching things up.
Ball Bearings/ Caltrops
- The simplest and often best tools for covering an escape. They’re both good picks but fill the same role. I’m inclined to prefer ball-bearings for their utility more comedic effects.
Pitons / Iron Spikes
- Helps with any sort of verticality-based challenge.
- Especially useful if you’re in one of those bullshit Gygax dungeons where doors spontaneously stick themselves shut.
Ink and Paper
- Generally handy things to have for making notes, maps and etchings.
Chalk
- Handy for marking where you’ve been, especially if you’re mapping the dungeon by hand.
- Small enough that a reasonable GM isn’t going to demand an inventory slot.

The following three aren’t reliably or cheaply available in every setting or location but are must picks when they are:

Healing
- Be it in the form of potions or medkits, some way to bounce back from injury is always a must.
Explosives
- Useful as both a weapon, trap, and door maker.
- You can also combo it with string or oil to make a fuse.
Poisons
- Poison’s use in combat is pretty obvious, but remember poisoning food and leaving it for the monster is a great way to beat an encounter without risking combat.

Armor

Placed here because tools that help you avoid a fight are always better than tools that help you survive a fight.

A shield is your best choice as it can fill other roles like mirror or acid umbrella.
If your system of choice hands out armor piecemeal then a helmet can also serve as an improvised bucket.
Heavy armor is usually pricey and sometimes penalized, so don’t be afraid to skip it if something more useful is available.
Like weapons, armor can also be easily found on enemy corpses.

Lest you think I’m reaching here, M1 helmets like these were historically used as digging tools, wash basins and cooking pots.

Useful Tools

Handy but nonessential things to consider bringing.

Acid
- Good for selectively melting things like hinges and locks.
- You can also just fling that shit.
Lockpicks/ Thieves Tools:
- Presumably already in the hands of the party rogue but worth considering if not.
- You only really need these if you want to open a lock non-destructively. If you don’t care about leaving a trace then acid or a blunt force does the job just fine.
Lock
- This one’s a clutch pick if dungeon doors can be sealed with padlocks. This can shut down a whole encounter or at least buy you enough time to get away.
Fishing Rod
- Damn versatile, it’s a hunting tool, a prodding tool, a hooking tool and it comes with string.
Flour
- Detects airflows, reveals invisible foes and can be baked into fucking bread!!!
- Upon review I think this should be placed higher.
Compass
- Usefulness depends a lot on how strict your GM is about mapping. If they are, it's well worth it.

Backup Tools

Bring these only if you have a specific need or if you have a wagon or hirlings you can leave them with. Broadly any tool that you have no reason to deploy in a hurry goes here.

Picks, shovels, crowbars, hammers, saws, chisels, etc.
- Most of their functions can be accomplished with repurposed weapons but a more specialised tool might be necessary if you’re expecting to do something for a long stretch of time, like clearing the rubble out of a collapsed section of dungeon.

Chain, Cages, Nets
- Obviously bring these along if you need to capture something alive.
- If you just need to tie up a goblin hostage rope is a perfectly good substitute.
Bells
- Can be used to set up tripwire alarms, which are helpful but a bit niche, the most common use case is when you need to make camp.
Thongs
- The metal kind, not the sexy kind.
- Useful for handling hazardous substances.

Vessels: jugs, bottles, buckets.
- Mostly do everything a waterskin does but there are a few use cases when you come across an interesting liquid.
Disguises
- Really more of a tool for intrigue missions but they can be situationally useful.
- Dressing up in enemy uniforms or as a protected class could save you the trouble of a travel encounter.
Pulley, Winch, Block and/or Tackle
- Favoured by the ambitious sort of player who doesn’t let trivialities like weight get in the way of looting.
- Also good for setting up traps, elevator systems or forcing doors open.
Spyglass
- Useless in a dungeon but good for scouting out overland encounters from a distance.
- Strangely expensive in most equipment lists but all that gold’s gotta go somewhere right?

Anything past this point I would consider niche. Bring it only if you have a specific use case in mind. Equipment lists are multitudinous and ever growing so I can’t cover everything but this should give you an idea of where an unmentioned piece of gear should go. On to step 2.

2. Adjust

Chances are you disagree with some of my takes here. That’s good. You’re thinking like a provisioner now.

Now it’s time to write your own priority list.

Consider the following:

System:

I wrote this guide with no particular game system in mind.

Does your system have special rules that make some items on this list more or less useful?

Does your system provide players with abilities that make any of the suggested equipment obsolete?

Availability:

Is everything on this list available?

If not, can you find a good substitute?

Are there tools not listed here that you can buy?

If so, how highly would you rate them?

Information:

What do you know about where you're going or what challenges you’re facing?

Let's say we’re venturing into the ice princess’s frozen mountain tomb. Some niche equipment like snow shoes, ice picks and cold weather gear becomes top priority. If we know we’re facing permafrost golems and skeletons then we ditch our spears and equip everyone with bludgeoning weapons.

3. Budget

Remember that you have two budgets.

One is gold, the other is carrying capacity. Be careful not to leave yourself short on either front.

Bringing your coin purse with you to the dungeon isn’t as dumb as it sounds. You can bribe or distract greedy monsters with it or trade with the dungeon’s more cooperative inhabitants. You’ll also want enough inventory space to carry things back. If all your space is clogged with things you can’t afford to let go of, it’s time to buy more space, lest you find yourself ditching valuables because your mule went lame.

4. Distribute

There’s two parts to this. The first is to make sure equipment is in the hands of the people who can use it best. You can get away with passing equipment around while exploring but when shit hits the fan it’s important that the grappling hook is in the hand of the nimble rogue and not the short sighted mage.

The second thing to consider is about redundancy. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. We can’t prevent the wizard from falling down the bottomless chasm but we can ensure he wasn’t the one carrying all the torches.

5. Store

A clever provisioner can make use of caches to stretch the number of tools available to them. Assuming you're exploring a big megadungeon and making multiple trips, you can leave behind equipment to save yourself an extra trip or to keep as a backup in case a rust monster digests what you have. Just burying them somewhere nearby works but even better is if you utilise all the little hidden nooks in the dungeon and rearm traps to keep them safe.

Where possible make multiple redundant caches. You’ll inevitably lose some to the kobolds so make backups. The same rules for what you bring into the dungeon apply to what you bring out. Don’t store all your gold in one place. Split it up, bank some, keep some, bury some, invest some, diversify! But alas, financial advice like this is getting outside the scope of this guide.

Happy Shopping

The Elemental Plane of Plastic

Vaults of Zin — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:15:34 GMT

Sculpture by nominative determinism victim Steven Gross

There exists a swath of disputed territory between the outer mud marches and the plains of the oil barons in the gooier part of the elemental plane of earth. The complexities of elemental politics have ensured that no major power lays claim on the region. A full explanation would require centuries worth of contentious elemental histories, but basically it’s been a Bir Tawil-type stalemate where either side’s use of the land would represent a de-facto agreement to an unacceptable peace treaty. As such the region has been sidestepped, ignored and unmapped since records began. But recent reports of this supposed no-man’s land have found it not only inhabited but bustling with heretofore unknown breed of elemental: the plastics.

Newborn plastic elemental still figuring itself out.

The plastics are a unique breed of elemental, their form corresponds to nothing in nature. Some take this as a reason to steer clear of the substance, since the wise makers of the worlds chose not to taint their creation with it. So while an elemental rock is much like it’s earthly counterpart, barring it’s sentience and tendency to walk around, plastics strive to imitate. In the depths of every plastic elemental’s soul they feel hunger to become a disposable water bottle or indeed a Garfield branded landline telephone.

Coming to a beach near you.

There’s some debate as to how this land came to be. Elementalists prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist since it doesn’t fit neatly into their perfect little maps of elemental interaction. If pressed they’ll use the bullshit term “pseudo-elemental plane” and go back to drawing venn diagrams.

Alchemists of the prime material plane suggest that the earthly fabrication of plastic, a recent innovation, has spawned a corresponding area within the elemental planes. Discourse on the matter has veered off into arguments on why pseudo-planes of gunpowder or alcohol don’t exist, or whether they do exist and simply remain undiscovered.

Naturally elementals don’t take any of these theories seriously. Djinnist’s assert that plastic is a rogue substance that arose spontaneously under the absence of governance. They have similar feelings about chalk and amber. Purists blame it on “the rampant miscegenation of degenerate phenol nobility and foreign formaldehydians” but they’re always saying shit like that.

Natives of the plane maintain that it has always existed in some capacity tucked away within the folds of the plane of earth, and their recent rise to prominence is due to the work of their pioneering leader the Plastic Princeps. The chief doctrine of their religion states that all things that in the prime material are but imitations of that which was first molded here on the plane of plastic.

But that would just be stupid.

Nonetheless, the plane of plastic, “pseudo” or otherwise is a growing power and may soon be making inroads into your world. To dispel misinformation about their newfound trade agreement with the Plastic Princeps the wizard council has mandated you play the following educational illuso-film on your orb.

Oh what’s that?
That doesn’t really explain much?
That seems like corporate sponsored propaganda masquerading as educational material?
Alright let's get to the bottom of things and go see the real Kingdom of Plastics.

A Tour of the Plane of Plastic

The Landfills

Approaching by way of the Sinking Swamp, visitors can find their way to the edge of the Plane of Plastic by panning for debris floating in the water that doesn’t match the region’s typical green-brown drabness. Follow these upstream (the swamp does flow ever so slowly despite appearances) until the wildlife starts to die off and the rubbish-heaps become solid enough to walk on.

Once you start seeing lots of these you know you’re close.

Here one finds the natural barrier that surrounds the Plane of Plastic. Great mountains of unrotting trash where the people of the plane bury their waste and their dead. The unsteady ground regularly bloats and collapses beneath careless footsteps and the wildlife makes every step a hazard.

Plastic six-rings will snag at your feet and shopping bags attempt to suffocate you. Their larger garbage-hungry cousins will attempt to swallow you whole while you sleep. This can be mitigated by dressing in native nylons, or, if necessary, repurposing polyethylene pelts into makeshift coveralls.

After the briefest of hikes through the dreg heaps, travellers will soon understand why this plane is so seldom visited, and it will take much more than a brief hike to get past this wasteland.

Can you spot the 12 different plastic predators hidden in this image? They’ve already spotted you.

The Plane Proper

If you manage to make your way through landfill periminters you’ll find the plane of plastic proper. A good deal of the plane is made up of the grand nurdle dunes; great expanses of many colored plastic pellets not unlike the bottom of a cheap fish tank.

Plastic in it’s most primal form.

Here the occasional watering hole will sport flocks of colored flamingos filter-feeding for microplastics. Moving up the food-chain one can find colossal creatures, resembling, in the loosest of ways, the dinosaurs of old, who prowl the land in search of others of their kind to clumsily bash heads with.

Chinasaur
HD: 5 (25 HP)
Disposition: Violent but largely oblivious.
Armour: As chain.
Move: Normal speed. Graceless and inflexible.
Damage: 2d6 Chew
Hard Plastic: The chinasaur is resistant to all physical damage. This effect is mitigated if the previous successful attack against it dealt fire damage.

To reach civilization one must navigate the christmas tree forests, cross the ball-pit lakes and totally circumnavigate the glitter glades (Yes you can shortcut through them but that stuff’s never coming out). Eventually one will reach the nylon road, A fairly safe trading route that takes travellers to the heart of the Plane.

Civilisation

The hovel of a humble polyurethane farmer. Likely the first sign of civilization a traveller sees.

Although hostile to life the Plane of plastic is welcoming to civilisation. A traveller can find no shortage of hospitality provided they’re familiar with local customs. The civilized denizens of the plane are known to be industrious, materialistic, conspicuous consumers and cunning merchants. Plastics take great pride in their possessions and display them openly with little concern for taste or coherence. One can reliably find shelter and company with a plastic provided one makes sure to vigorously compliment their tacky lawn ornaments. Like most elementals they take on a familiar human shape, albeit in a slightly more uncanny fashion:

Life in plastic, it’s fantastic! A nymph of the Princeps’ harem at the Polyvinyl Palace.

The cities of the plastics are great sprawling affairs. If canyons and mountains are the natural expressions of earth then endless rows of prefabricated houses must be the natural expression of plastic. Cities make up a larger portion of the Plane of Plastic than anywhere else on the inner planes. [barring of course the Plane of Concrete].

Although generally safe there are a few dangers prospective travellers should be wary of. The foremost is getting lost. The standardisation of plastic craftsmanship and the trend-chasing nature of the plane’s denizens gives towns a dizzying repetitive quality. In the markets of the great plastic cities one can find cheap replicas of all things imaginable but traders who come for the nylon often find themselves encumbered with all manner of kitschy knick-knacks and gizmos whose function they struggle to explain.

Pair of silicone amoeboids, one of the softer, more squeezable species of plastic. Kept as pets by well to do plastics.

The Inflatians

Where the high plateaus and peaks of the Plane of Plastic intersect with the Plane of Air a hybrid race of elemental has emerged. The inflatians are gaseous beings living in plastic skins.

The balloons are the most common subspecies of inflatables and the most abundant aerial lifeform on the Plane of Plastic. Balloons hunt by dropping or strangling their prey and feeding on their polymers through a string-proboscis. Although trivially bested by hairpins and mild breezes, balloons are quite dangerous in large numbers.

And their flocks can reach very large numbers.

VERY large numbers.

The Floating Lords

Inflatables are a diverse group, and balloons are but one of many species. The great floating lords are a class of powerful demi-genies, operating as mobile commanders and administrators of the Plastic Princeps. Whenever the Princeps calls, a dutiful floating lord will cut their great bouncing castle from it’s moor and set off, full court in tow. They’re quite the sight when on parade:

Shar’ek the mighty, commander of the Princeps’ 3rd aerial legion. A feared general who takes the likeness of an earthly ogre-mage. Pictured here during the battle of Legograd.

Injured but undeterred a wounded Ker’a-met the Illustrious is guided by his troops in a triumphal parade after a successful reconquest of the tire hills.

If you’re willing to grovel sufficiently and pay an exorbitant fee, a floating lord might permit you to ride aboard their balloon flotilla. Although nerve wracking and humiliating, it does beat wading through a mountain range of garbage.

Floating Lord
HD: 10 (45 HP)
Disposition: Proud, haughty, full of hot air. Cares for it’s dignity and status above all else.
Armor: As Leather. Resistant to non-magical damage.
Move: Levitates at normal speed.
Inflatian Nature: Immune to bludgeoning damage. Upon receiving piercing or slashing melee damage the attacker must save or be pushed back 20’ by escaping air.
Attacks:
Bounce: Melee Attack. 1d8 bludgeoning damage and 1d8 X 5’ of knockback.
Static Strike: 100' line, 2d10 lightning damage, save to dodge. Automatically hits creatures in metal armour.
Inflate: Single target, 50’ range. Target’s body doubles in size, but not weight. Dexterous activities become difficult. After this is cast 3 times on the same target, save or pop.

Other minor inflatians include the following:

Large predatory inflatables like these are why one should never venture into the astroturf plains without suitable spiked armor.

Here a raftling ferries some dwarven diplomats across the border marshes. Beings such as these make up the bulk of the Princeps’ fledgling navy.

Not all are so friendly. Here a floating ring-beast carries off it’s victim in it’s inescapable grip.

Here an air dancer performs the wild and graceful dance of her people.

The inflatians have their own species of nymph. Beware her alluring charms.

There are many more species of this elemental, far more than I can list here. (You can learn more by typing inflation into google images though.) But the time has come to discuss more important matters: the governance of the Plastic Plane and the true reason for it’s expansion.

Government

Former Princeps Poly-Ethyl the IV adorned with the least valuable crown in all the elemental planes.

Ostensibly the Plane of Plastic is a kingdom, ruled absolutely by a being of great power known as the Plastic Princeps. This is a misleading oversimplification. The Plane of Plastic has a government system unique even in the elemental planes.

At the behest of a vote of no confidence by a parliament of major power holders (Think of this less as a body of elected representatives and more as a shareholder boardroom), the Plastic Princeps’ government can be dissolved. Not just in the figurative sense. An unsuitable Princeps is ceremonially melted down and reformed into a new mold matching the needs of the state. The Princeps has at various times been a finely-sculpted princess, a fearsome demon-tyrant, and a sagely philosopher king. This is, perhaps, hard to explain to a non-elemental but know that both solids and liquids find this practice utterly repulsive.

This plastocratic system governs every organisation of notable size in the plane. Everything from the glitterer’s guilds to the dollhouse homeowners association has a customised injection-molded CEO built to their exact specifications.

This isn't a trump analogy. Stretch Armstrong just looks like that.

This is the current Plastic Princeps. He looks more human than his predecessors, having been molded with the intent of opening up trade routes with the prime material. He’s also been made considerably more soft and flexible in the hopes of charming his way into a favourable marriage alliance. [Elementals have a loose grasp of how sex works and are completely ignorant of biological reproduction]. His flexibility has also proved very helpful in adapting to the changeable day-to-day politics of the modern age.

This may have been a mistake.

The Princeps is afraid. Which is particularly worrying since he was built to be fearless. While his forbearers could accept their inevitable fate this one can’t bear the thought of remolding. So he works tirelessly to keep his masters happy. He’s made promises. Big promises. Growth, prosperity, conquest, expansion. Plastics will cover the earth, plastics will rule the waves, plastics will fill their blood. Just keep me in office for another term and it’s all yours.

Every day the plane’s reach extends a little further. It’s trinkets are filling store shelves in the Bazaars of the Brass City, it’s glitter has been seen sparkling on the paraplane of dust, great garbage islands have flowed their way into the plane of water and just last week a concert in the perfumed court of Alto the Stratesque was interrupted by a plastic bag striking his lordship’s face. This has all become very worrying.

Most worrying of all is the thought that the Princeps’ actually fulfills his promises. That he might string victory after victory until he succeeds where Cryonax failed and plastic becomes recognised as the fifth element.

Then we’ll never be rid of the stuff.

Demihumans as Gender

Vaults of Zin — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 18:59:47 GMT

Inspired by the Demihumans as Social Constructs post by Throne of Salt and Cavegirl, I thought I’d do a similar sort of thing ~~just in time for~~ not in time for pride month.

The premise is, essentially, taking the standard dungeon-and-dragony demi-human races and reimagining them as socially constructed. In this case, as a kind of gender role/expression.

I’ve seen a couple of people complain when they hear modern gender-terminology in their fantasy and thought I’d make a more setting-appropriate terminology.

I doubt any of this is actually gameable but maybe your table is different from mine.

Elves

Androgynous pseudo-nobility.

Elves are a kind of third-gender with a long list of requirements.

The first and most obvious is meeting an overwhelmingly high beauty standard. Elves are expected to appear ageless, as well as hairless and flawless. Surgical ear-pointing is an extension of this.

The other requirements relate to skill and demeanor. Elves are expected to be courteous but never friendly, wise but never practical, and sensitive but never emotional.

Being neither men nor women, elves aren’t obliged to perform either men’s or women’s work, which is a not-insignificant part of the appeal. Elves aren't expected to go to war, to bear children or take part in any activity that might blemish their perfect skin.

Typical elf-work is artistic and spiritual in nature and includes the accumulation of magic items, of which elves are considered the traditional keepers, as well as the bardic arts, religious ceremony and historical recitation.

Typical taboos on homosexuality are waived in the case of elves. Elves are considered highly desirable partners irrespective of sex. Although they’re also famously difficult to court as partaking in relationships with a non-elf may degrade their elvish mystique.

Half-elves are those on the fringes of elfdom, either transitioning in or out. They are often quietly shunned or demeaned for their failure to perform elfdom. A sufficiently talented elf can make up for their aging appearance, while an untalented elf can acquire a great deal of makeup.

Orcs

Alpha-male militia units

Orcs are men who believe marriage is a devious trap designed to emasculate and subjugate them. They reject not only marriage but the entire society that facilities it and advocate a return to, what they consider to be a more traditional, rape-and-pillage model of gender relations.

Orcs consider the warband, not the family, to be the fundamental unit of society. Naturally, these societies don’t have a long life-expectancy. Brotherly comradery is constantly vying 6 with fierce macho competition

Amazons were a similarly-minded female counterpart to orcs which supposedly menaced the menfolk of eastern plains during the reign of King Gandrin the second.

Dwarves

Hobbyist Masculinist Separatist

A more peaceful approach to masculinist separatism. Dwarves are men who've abandoned marital relationships in favor of pursuing traditional masculine hobbies such as metalworking, ale brewing and hole digging. This arrangement has led to a skill imbalance in dwarven communities which has been somewhat mitigated by substituting plate armor for clothing.

Dwarves are generally thought of as undesirable men who've turned to dwarfdom as a last resort, hence the stereotypical image of the dwarf as short, pudgy and elderly.

Halflings

Rural Mommune Derivatives

Beginning as something like the female equivalent of dwarves. Halflings are communities of female-separatists, most commonly abandoned, widowed or divorced women who come together to raise their children collectively. The term “halfling”, meaning “half” a married couple.

Coming, as they often do, from an impoverished situation, halfling women are commonly stereotyped as small, shoeless, hungry and hole-dwelling.

The halfling label will often stick with a community for generations after. Halfling men born from such communities, are known for being submissive to their wives and mothers. While often used as an insult some men adopt the label of halfling if they forgo traditional masculine trappings in favor of gardening and jam-making.

Dragons

Powerful Polygynous Patriarchs

A dragon is the, typically male, possessor of a “hoard” of courtesans, concubines, and the occasional catamite. A dragon is rich and powerful while being independent of the nobility, whose strict marriage customs he flaunts. Wealthy merchants, rogue princes and cult leaders are all archetypal dragons.

A dragon’s “color”’ indicates his sexual preferences and disposition. Bronze dragons style themselves as the first among equals in a community of freelovers. Red dragons are notorious princess kidnappers.

Kobolds are underlings of a dragon that aren't part of his hoard; servants, flunkies, lingering cuckolds etc. Dragonborn are, as the name implies, offspring of the dragon. Expect a complicated relationship with your parents and a small town's worth of half siblings.

Goblins

Low-status itinerant harlots

Although most commonly used as an insult, a Goblin is a member of a culture of wandering prostitutes, known for advertising their services loudly and shamelessly. Goblins are commonly pictured as short, scrawny from poverty and with skin a sickly green from disease.

Tolerance for Goblins varies from place to place but is never very high. They will often be able to find a camp or slum to call home but are routinely chased out of town before holy days.

The sex of a goblin is considered largely irrelevant, since the shame of being one, or coupling with one, far outweighs any associated with homosexuality. If you told people you fuck goats, no one’s going to care if it they’re male or female.

Hobgoblins are a subset of goblins who follow armies on the march and sometimes turn soldier when the looting is good or the commander is desperate.

Gnoll

Obsessive taboo violators

Gnolls are a bogeyman depiction of sexual degeneracy taken to an extreme.

If some moralisers are to be believed, the hinterlands are teeming with prowling bands of gnolls, covered in animal skins and various bodily fluids, abducting innocents and debasing them before pagan idols.
They’re also supposedly just as likely to gather in the catacombs of certain rival churches or the basement dungeons of the wealthy and powerful. The Marquis de Sade is an exemplary gnoll.

While true gnollism might be effectively non-existent, the vivid descriptions found in supposedly-educational literature on the matter indicates a few interested gnolls may lurk among us.