The Church of Bog

The Church of Bog is a very popular religion that has spread throughout a fairly sizeable chunk of the world. It began in the city-state of Gorod, a center of trade and commerce, and spread primarily through the trade of ideas that occurred at the same time as the trade of goods.

The Prophetess when she was alive.

The Prophetess Prorok
Gorod was primarily a polytheistic city, where the faiths of the many peoples that came and went to and from the metropolis mixed together. Then, the Prophetess Prorok had a vision and began the Church of Bog.

She described a great being, with three naked bodies joined at a gargantuan head. The head has three faces and five eyes, and each body is different. The body to the left pregnant, and has skin the color of the wet earth and has hairs made of the plants of the earth. The body in the center is slender and quick-looking, with no hair and skin like fire or wind. The body to the right is muscled and has skin the color of the void of space. Its hairs are like stars or like comets. Each body, with eyes still closed, speaks its name: "Bosh," says the left head. "Osk," says the center head. "Gytt," says the right head. These three bodies repeat their names until another sound emerges. Prorok hears this new sound, and she sees the heads begin to open their eyes. The last thing she hears before waking from her slumber is a resounding word: "BOG".

The morning after she awoke, she told her friends of this vision. This rumor spread through the city, and most people were confused by the vision. The fortune-tellers have never heard of such a dream. The next night, Prorok sees another vision in her dreams.

Bog is floating in a great expanse of nothing, like they were before. The left head opens its eyes, and bright light flows forth from it. The cosmos is created. Stars blink into existence and planets emerge from the darkness. The left head closes its eyes as the center head opens its eyes. Fire can be seen in the eyes of the center head, and the universe ages as its eyes are open. It is not obvious, but Prorok knows it to be true. The center head closes its eyes as the right head opens its eyes. Its eyes are empty. The cosmos ends as its eyes are open. Stars explode and planets deteriorate, and Prorok begins to drift back to the waking world. But she comes back when the right head closes its eyes. All of the heads open their eyes at once, and the universe is created again. The universe becomes old, but new parts of it are being made. And old parts are being destroyed. Prorok wakes up.

She preaches of her prophetic dream and this spreads even further. The fortune-tellers are freaking out because this is the first time they've been unable to define a weird dream.

The Prophetess continued to have visions every night for the rest of her life, and the Church of Bog grew after a few years, from the teachings told to the Prophetess in her dreams. Even today, you can go to the Great Cathedral of Bog in Gorod and see the mummified corpse of the Prophetess and, for a fee, ask her some questions of the religious sort. A voice will issue from the dry, cracked mouth and she will tell you the answer, fueled by Bog's influence.

The Prophetess today.

The Current Church of Bog
The modern Church of Bog has been formed over the few centuries its been around through the assimilation of other faiths and traditions. It has splintered so many times over its history, and now there are about 25 different denominations, each with their own separate teachings and versions of what the Prophetess Prorok saw in her dreams. Each and every religious institution of the Church of Bog belongs to one of these denominations, with the exception of the Great Cathedral of Bog in Gorod, which is essentially neutral territory.

The Great Cathedral of Bog.

Each denomination preaches acceptance and tolerance, but there are always people who use religion as an excuse to be terrible. Some of the denominations have higher densities of these villains, but mostly they are spread around evenly. There are plenty of priests and clerics that are trying to combat the terrible pastors and priests, so they are (thankfully) a minority in the Church. But they are a very vocal minority.

A Cleric of Bog
The portfolio of a cleric of the Church of Bog varies with which aspect of Bog they hail primarily. If they hail Bosh, the creator, a cleric's portfolio might be mostly healing, light, or fixing items. If they hail Osk, the doer, a cleric's portfolio might be mostly the turning of creatures and the sending of information. If they hail Gytt, the destroyer, a cleric's portfolio might be mostly damaging spells.

The Elf and the New Magic-User

I'm changing how the magic-user and the elf cast spells. Here's how:

The Magic-User

The MU can 'upgrade' their spells by using higher spell slots. They can cast a level one spell as a more powerful version by using a level 2 spell slot. Since how the spells increase in power isn't provided in the LotFP rules, I'll just come up with some general way to upgrade spells, or I'll use the upgrade descriptions from 5e.

The Elf
The elf has points that they spend to cast spells, rather than using spell slots. A level 1 spell costs 1 point, a level 2 spell costs 2 points, etc. They can use double the points to increase the power of the spell, and (occasionally) triple the points to increase the power even more. See above for how I'm increasing spell power.

Both classes still use the same spellcasting matrix that is listed for their class. The elf just adds all of the slots together to find how many points they have, and the MU just uses the same matrix as-is.

Unicorns and Dragons

Unicorns

Unicorns are very, very rare. You are exceedingly lucky to have seen even but one in your entire lifetime. Nobody knows for certain why they are so rare, but different people say different things. The clergy of the Church of Bog say that the unicorn was a perfect creature, taken from the world as punishment for our transgressions. People see the unicorn because they are perfect in the eyes of Bog. The scholars and the wizards say that the unicorn was hunted to extinction because its body parts had magical properties, according to the wizards, and because their body parts were thought to have magical properties, according to the scholars. The conspiracy theorists say that they were taken by otherworldly beings, or that they were hidden by the Church of Bog. The dwarfs say that all things of the flesh will die one day, and the unicorns were some of the first to go. The biomancers and vivimancers don't really care why they are so rare, but they really, really want unicorn parts again. The elves know what happened to the unicorns.

The unicorns hid themselves. They are terrible creatures, with mouths filled with needles of bone and eyes wild with hunger. Instead of hooves, they have human-like hands, fingers tipped with hoof-like nails. Their tails are prehensile, and their mouths, horns, and hands are always caked with blood and viscera. They are bloodthirsty and love to hunt and gorge themselves on meat. They are cunning. They are actually much more common than most people know. They crawl through the forests and the cities, stalking peasants, hunters, adventurers, and tradesmen. They are very adept at being hidden, and the reason they are rare is because they rarely slip up. Most only see them when one tries to eat them. The elves know all of this, because they made the unicorns. They crafted these equine predators, and elves will often be accompanied by hornless unicorns. Be wary around elves, as their horses are just as dangerous as they are. It is true that the unicorn's body parts have magical properties. Most think its just the blood and the horn, but its really every part of the creature. Clothing made from unicorn hair is immune to fire. Elves drink the blood and urine of their unicorns to increase their magical or fighting power. Glue made from unicorn hooves never breaks. Have a fun time getting these parts, though. Unicorns are immortal. Unless they are turned into dust and scattered in the wind, they will keep on kicking. Even just a single unicorn leg will eventually grow into another sadistic horse.

HD: 4+4

AC: 17

Attacks: 2 (+3 claw/+3 horn or +3 claw/+1 bite)

Damage: claw: 1d6+3, bite: 1d10+4, horn: 1d8+4

Movement: as horse (I don't know what that is)

Intellect: 16

Morale: 10

Unicorns will commonly (60%) be found in the company of elves. These elves will occasionally cut the unicorn, dealing 1 point of damage, drink the blood, and gain 1 level of class abilities (not hit dice, but attack bonuses and spellcasting). This lasts for 1d10 rounds. Player character elves can do the same, but fighters and magic-users cannot. The unicorn will heal 2 hit points per round, including after they are 'killed', unless they are utterly destroyed (turned into dust, melted, etc.). If pieces of the unicorn are left, they will each become a healthy unicorn. Unicorns can climb walls at the same speed as they can walk. Unicorns speak their own language and the tongue of elves.

Dragons

Dragons are terrible. Everybody knows that. Big dragons crawl down from their mountain lairs and crush villages under their paws and claws, and more common drakes swim through muddy rivers and poison the land. Some dragons have the faces of men or of dogs or of birds, and bodies like a lizard or scorpion. Their wings have eyes, and their skin spews poisonous clouds. Their mangy skin is cold to the touch, and it is still even though you can hear the monster breathing. Everybody hates dragons, but nobody knows what exactly they are. The Church of Bog says they are demons. The wizards laugh at the church's claims about the dragons, stating that the dragons are some magical accident, or maybe some mutant animal. The scholars are confused by the dragons. The elves hate the dragons and try to kill them on sight. Some soldiers say that the dragons are to beasts what the orcs are to humans. Many people agree with them.

By Rattyarts

HD: 2-11

AC: 15-20

Attacks: 3 (+4 claw/+4 claw/+3 bite)

Damage: claw: 1d8+3, bite: 1d12

Movement: as human+10' per hit die

Intellect: 3-10

Morale: 12

Dragons will have 1d4 of the following abilities (roll 1d12 1d4 times):

1. Flight (has fly speed equal to walk speed)
2. Breath weapon (save vs. breath or take xd6 damage (x=hit dice). Damage type determined by you)
3. Poisonous presence (all creatures around it take xd2 damage per round (x=hit dice). succeed save vs. breath and take half damage)
4. Many legs (double speed, can climb walls)
5. Night vision
6. Religious (can use miracles as a cleric of level equal to their hit dice. Worships Drakonik, the spirit of dragons)
7. Magical (can cast spells as a magic-user of level equal to their hit dice)
8. Thick shell (AC increased by 2 points)
9. No legs (half speed, must crawl like a slug)
10. Elf vision (can only see elves and related creatures)
11. Immune (takes no damage from anything but magic, which it takes half damage from)
12. Amnesiac presence (all creatures around it forget things easily. Characters must make an ability check based on their class or lose a level of experience (strength for fighters, dexterity for thieves, intelligence for magic-users, wisdom for clerics)

They will never be found in the presence of other creatures, and the adventurers feel something off when they are approaching it.

The Core Four Classes

Like I mentioned in my first post about LotFP, I'm going to be augmenting the classes into something that I like more than the defaults in the LotFP core rules. Most of them aren't changed that drastically from what they are like in the normal rules, with the huge exception of the cleric.

From Pathfinder

The Cleric
I really like Goblin Punch's more flexible cleric, which you can find here. Essentially, it makes clerics use a different system for their divine miracles than the magic-user, and allows them to be way more flexible, but also way more unreliable. The maximum number of Faith Points you have is equal to twice your level , plus your wisdom modifier. Your Communion score begins at 8, and increases by 1 every odd-numbered level. Your attack bonus is equal to half your level, rounded up (thus, it also increases every odd-numbered level). Your alignment is based on your deity/religion, and thus, you aren't inherently lawful.

 From Pathfinder

The Fighter
Again, I like what Goblin Punch did for the fighter. He made a system that makes for more diverse fighters through descriptors that both affect your character and statistics. They can be found here. Like he writes in his post, you can either roll for 2 or choose 1 at character creation. The additional attack types that he specifies are also added (the aggressive and defensive attacks). You also gain a second attack at name level. Your attack bonus is equal to your level. Fighters still begin as neutral.

I have no idea where this is from

The Thief
The thief replaces the specialist, because I've made all of the classes able to increase their skills (a skill post is forthcoming). However, the thief is better at increasing their skills, as they gain 2 skill points per level, rather than the 1 point gained by all of the other classes. They have certain burglary skills, which are:

• Sleight of Hand, which begins at a 3 in 10 chance and increases by 1 at every even numbered character level.
• Stealth, which begins at 2 in 10 chance and increases by 1 at every even numbered character level.
• Tinker, which begins at 3 in 10 chance and increases by 1 at every odd numbered character level.
• Hear Noise, which begins at 2 in 10 chance and increases by 1 at every odd numbered character level.
• Climb Walls, which begins at 8 in 10 chance and increases by 1 at level 5 and again at level 10.

These skills increase with their level as indicated above, but the thief can also allocate skill points into increasing them. They also have the ability to backstab, which increases the die by 1 die for every level above 0. Thieves begin as neutral.

From Pathfinder

The Magic-User

Goblin Punch made something great for this class too, in the form of his specialized wizards. There isn't really a single post explaining these, but here's his tag for wizards. Basically, each specialized wizard has their own spell list, some cantrips, a perk, and a drawback. Your alignment is based on your specialization, but most likely you will be chaotic. Not necessarily, but most likely.

Star-Liches and Other Space Creatures

(I'll probably be making a weird fantasy setting for my LotFP stuff, so this'll be the first post 'bout that)

Space is really big and really weird. It is filled with monstrous abominations and aliens, strange stars and strange worlds, and the nothingness around that other stuff. Creatures made of broiling eyes and gases float between soot-black stars, dominated by races of violent metal-men. Skeletal liches fly on their rainbow ziggurats, looking for anything to entertain themselves. The void watches.

Star-Liches

From Adventure Time

HD: 10-20

AC: 19

Attacks: 1

Damage: 1d4+2

Movement: 180'

Intellect: 21+

Morale: 11

Star-liches are those magic-users that have chosen to exile themselves to the vast reaches of space. They are created in a similar manner to the undead wizards of earth, but there are some differences because of the unending void that the lich resides in. Star-liches have the casting ability of a magic-user of a level equal to their hit dice. They are able to force an existential fear in a creature that they wish, making the target make a save vs. existentialism (paralysis). If the target fails such a save, they stop thinking they exist. They cannot move, nor defend themselves. If the target succeeds their saving throw, then they begin to question their own reality, losing 2 points from each of their mental ability scores (INT, WIS, CHA). Star-liches typically carry with them many items of magical natures. Star-liches speak a strange tongue, like the language spells are written in, but mutated and changed.

Space Whales

From Pathfinder

Huge creatures float through the infinite swaths of nothingness that comprise outer space. Some look like creatures from earth, but most look like things much, much stranger. They are called space whales, cosmobeasts, and astral leviathans. They cannot be fought, both because of their size and alien nature, and because they do not wish to fight. They do nothing, suspended in nothing. Sometimes, they fall down to our planet or to others, and interesting things happen when this occurs. Scavengers, both the more mundane and the more unnatural, crawl on the massive cadaver, ripping the gaseous flesh from the magnesium bones, while the alien parasites of the monster hunt them and the people who have arrived to gather esoteric materials from the intergalactic corpse. Sometimes they are still alive, but creatures still take from them. Their metal bones are exposed as their poisonous spirits infect the animals around them.

Spore Cosmonauts

From Fallout: New Vegas

HD: 4-6

AC: 14

Attacks: 3

Damage: 1d6+chance of infection

Movement: 140'

Intellect: 3

Morale: 8

There are fungi that root their mycelia in small planetoids or in the wreckage of spacecraft. They release spores that are blown by solar winds, and eventually meet the flesh of a living being. The fungus grows in the creature, sending fibrous growths throughout the meat of the host. It is extremely painful, but if you are not experienced, you cannot differentiate it from other plagues. It is once mushrooms grow from the host's body that it becomes apparent what the nature of the illness is. After but a few days, the host becomes controlled and covered by the fungus. Although any living creature can fall prey to the fungal growths, those most susceptible are those who adventure in space, or cosmonauts. The air around a spore cosmonaut is thick with infectious spores, and with each attack that the monster makes, the target must make a save vs. infection (poison), or catch the fungal growths themselves. After a few months, all of the meat in the host's body is consumed and the body disintegrates. 

Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Recently I've gotten into the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system, and I'll start transitioning everything over to that system, rather than LL. I did read the rules a while ago, but re-reading them now I've come up with some house rules that I'm gonna enact to make the game more like what I want.
Separating Race from Class
I like race-as-class in some situations, and I definitely like there being classes for specific races, as I think those can enforce the setting more, but for some races I just don't like there being only 1 class option for them. In the LotFP rules, these are the halfling and the dwarf. I will be making classes specifically for them, but I don't like having the entire race be just 1 class. However, I do like it for the elf. I guess its because of how I usually treat them; dwarves and halflings can both fight, they can both steal, both of them will have religion or belong to whatever pseudo-christian church that exists in the setting. Maybe dwarves aren't magical, but they can still do most other things. I treat elves like some sort of monster that has complete disregard for most life, that has an alien mind and is completely magical. They are significantly weirder than either dwarves or halflings, and they don't belong to any human society.
The Specialist
I like the skill system. I don't like it being restricted to the specialist. I think it would work better as something all of the classes have. However, while I will be getting rid of the specialist, I will be replacing it with the thief. I will do other things to classes and the skill system, but I'm gonna write about those below.
The Other Classes
I will be adding a few features to the other (non-specialist) classes. These will still fall under the same theme as their already existing features, but will be separate from their other features (ex: multiple attacks for the fighter).
The Skills
I'm going to increase the number of skills in the skill list. I'm also gonna make it so that sometimes your ability scores affect the outcome, but this won't happen all the time.

My augmented classes, races, and skill system will be coming soon! Have a great day!

The Humanoids!

The Humanoids! is a campaign setting/rules modification for Labyrinth Lord AEC which has you playing the creations of a mad wizard, the jungle savages, or the dungeon denizens. There's lots of changes made from the default LL game.

Alignment
Rather than Law-Chaos and Good-Evil axes on the alignment system, there are Civil-Savage and Happy-Angry axes. Neutral is replace by Normal, because why would dumb goblins and kobolds know fancy words that aren't shouted at them by mean adventurers?

Civil- Civil creatures are creatures that love the pleasures of civilization, such as art, poetry, readily supplied food and water, heat, not being eaten by strange monsters while asleep, etc. Both your average holier-than-thou paladin and your average conniving thief are considered Civil creatures. Civil creatures also include the likes of angels, dragons, and vampires.

Normal- Normal creatures are those that enjoy civilization, but don't really have all of them. Peasants and those that live in dangerous areas are considered Normal, because while they live in civilization, they know what its like to be starved and live in fear of the things that lurk in the darkness. Normal creatures include peasants, lizardfolk, drunk tavern-goers, and some monster hunters.

Savage- Savage creatures definitely do not live in civilization. They are those in extreme poverty that eat the flesh of humankind. They are those that live in caves and set traps for any who dare to enter. They are afraid of things much larger and much scarier than themselves, but love to terrorize those smaller and less scary than them. Savage creatures include your run-of-the-mill goblins, kobolds, halflings, demons, and zombies.

Happy- Happy creatures are currently happy. That's all there is to it.

Normal- Normal creatures are currently experiencing a neutral emotion.

Angry- Angry creatures are currently angry.

The emotional axes are based on what the average monster would see at first glance. A raging knight, come to kill and pillage might actually be very happy, but to the goblins its killing, it is very, very angry. Doing terrible things and being angry are not the same, however. Those same goblins would happily terrorize the local kobolds and peasantry that live just outside the cave, but they are the monsters, and actually know what they are feeling.

Eating
Monsters can eat the corpses of those they kill or find dead to gain temporary bonuses. Each ability score is given a different part of the body, and consuming those parts increases one's ability in that area. The time that the ability is raised by is equal to 1dx hours (x=your level), and the amount each ability is raised by is detailed in your race's description.

1. Strength is raised by eating the muscles
2. Dexterity is raised by eating the bones
3. Constitution is raised by eating the heart
4. Intelligence is raised by eating the brain
5. Wisdom is raised by eating the eyes
6. Charisma is raised by eating the tongue

The Monsters

What could possibly be called a monster by the monsters? Things that want to kill them and things that are weirder then them. While you might be horrified by the goblins swarming your friends fresh cadaver before it even hits the musty floor, the goblins are terrified by the disgusting vampire lord that rules this level of the dungeon, and the vampire lord is terrified of what they've heard about the aboleth 10 levels down. Everything is afraid of something, even the gods, and the monster book for this campaign setting reflects that. You will find goblins and orcs and whatnot in there, but you will also find elves, dwarves, paladins, wizards, and thieves, as well as alien monstrosities that even the aboleth is afraid of.

The next few posts will probably be about this game, but I am continuing my other projects. I hope you have a great day!