Tulpa as Race

OSR Discord Server Race/Race as Class Challenge - "Parasite"

I loathe race as class, so I've opted for just a race.

Tulpa You are an entity created in the mind of your host, acting independently of, and parallel to your host's own consciousness. You are able to think, and have your own free will, emotions, and memories. In short, you are like a sentient person living in your host's head, separate from them. Until today! Today, you are made flesh.

Requirements: A recently deceased PC, or a PC willingly creating a Tulpa and allowing you to take it over as a new character. Host must have an intelligence modifier of +2 or the system equivalent.

Reroll: One stat of your choosing.

 Perk: You may carry over one of your host's class features, languages, skill or tool proficiencies, etc. as long as it is a learned ability that you would be able to pick up without this perk, as opposed to an innate physical or mental ability, like bestial claws or innate spell casting.

Drawback: Re roll a stat of the DMs choosing, taking the worse result. You make reaction checks with a penalty of one - people can sense something about you just isn't quite right. This penalty increases to a penalty of two when interacting with someone who knew or knows your former host well.

Check out other people's take on this challenge:

Micah

Ambnz

Lexi

Type1Ninja

Isaak Hill

wr3cking8a11

Oblidisideryptch

rtf

Wizard

Upgrading a Hamlet/Village/Town/City

Alexander on the discord server was looking for a sort of upgrade/unlock tree for a city and I was procrastinating instead of working on my own stuff, so I did a little bit of work. I started on the Hamlet because his players were starting in one. Future plans for Village, Town, and City and/or Metropolis.

All this business is WIP and meant to be system neutral, I'm sure some of it isn't, but its free. Formatting went wonky, my bad.

Hamlet: A small collection of buildings, probably less than 10. Generally less than 100 community members. This community is too small to have centralized services like a church, market, black smith etc. and thus only produce what they need with no surplus to export. While there may well be farms producing food, and smiths working metal, they'll be reluctant to part with their goods, or to work on non necessities.

Upgrades: To purchase an upgrade for the establishment, the establishment must already exist. The price of each upgrade is ½ the base price of the establishment in your chosen system.

• Church: Hamlet level upgrade. A place of worship, research and healing for the faithful. Unlocks Village upgrades.

1. Initial Creation. Hamlet is upgraded to village, and village level upgrade options are unlocked. Now that your former hamlet isn’t beholden on a nearby village for its worship services, more people will live and do business here
2. Free lodging and meals for the faithful, in exchange for small labor.
3. Clerics/Monks learn and heal at a faster rate within the church.
4. Free and unquestioned mundane healing.
5. Magical healing at a decreased cost.
6. Level 1 Cleric/Healer hirelings.
7. Priest knows 1d4 random divine rights/spells/miracles he can teach you.

• Witch’s Tent: Hamlet level upgrade. A wise man/woman lives a humble life on the edge of town, helping the locals where she can. She may be magical - they certainly think she is, or she may just be mundane and clever. If there isn’t already a wise man/woman in the Hamlet, the initial creation is free, PCs just have to find a would be candidate and help them somehow.

1. Rare herbs: With the delivery of some rare herbs, the witch can now craft the most basic healing potions of your setting and will sell them at a reasonable price.
2. Forgotten Lore: The witch can use this ancient grimoire to unlock the secrets of Detect Magic, Identify, Wizard Vision as the DM and setting allow.
3. Favor for a friend: After completing the witch’s task, the witch can use her art to heal PCs, but at an intangible and possibly terrible price.

• Smithy: Village level upgrade. Creates and repairs metal work.

1. Initial Creation: The Village now has a Smith who can work metal for Villagers. Unlocks Mine and Farm creation.
2. Apprentice hired: Increased production of metal implements unlocks Mine and Farm upgrades #1.
3. Apprentice gains Journeyman Rank: With his increased skill level, the Journeyman Smith can handle all of the Village’s day to day metalwork needs while the Master Smith works on more complicated requests for the Player Characters. Unlocks Farm and Mine upgrades #2
4. Can be brought raw silver ore to forge new silvered weapons against Were Creatures, or to silver coat existing weapons.
5. Can be brought raw iron ore to forge cold iron weapons to use against fey creatures.
6. Can be brought rare ores to forge masterwork weapons and armor.
7. Can teach PCs Apprentice level smithing.
8. Can teach PCs Journeyman level smithing.

• Farms: Village level upgrade, requires Smithy.

1. Initial creation - Smith: Unlocks Market.
2. Increased production - Apprentice: Reduced price basic rations.
3. Increased Production - Smith’s Journeyman: Medium rations available.
4. Increased Production - better farming techniques: Reduced price of Medium rations.
5. Increased Production - PCs magical intervention: Best rations available. Unlocks Trading Post.
6. Increased Production - PCs magical intervention: Reduced price of Best rations.

• Mill: Village Upgrade. A stoneworks building allowing for the processing of crops into grain.

1. Initial Creation. Bread is readily available, increasing the quality of meals.
2. Steam Powered: The mill runs with far less work, just needs someone to load the stove and keep the water tank from emptying.
3. Water Powered: The river now powers the Mill and requires almost zero maintenance.

• Trading Post: Village level upgrade. Larger market, imports and exports goods from farther afield.

1. Initial Creation. Larger size: Increased economic activity unlocks Inn/Tavern
2. Generates cyclical revenue for the town, traders bring goods and are taxed, and then most likely stay in the Inn and drink at the Tavern, if possible. If PCs have vested financial interest in the Trading Post their profits increase by 5% at this level and each level hereafter to a maximum of 20%
3. Greater trade good diversity: Increased access to foreign goods. If PCs are looking for specific goods they have a 1/5/25/75 percent chance to find Legendary/Rare/Uncommon/Common goods at the Trading Post here.
4. Access to foreigners - 1/5/25/75 percent chance they have more information about what the PCs are interested in depending on the rarity of the information.
5. Traveling specialty craftsman such as jewelers, ferriers, leatherworkers, etc. begin to bring their goods, but more importantly their services to this Hamlet previously devoid of such exotics and luxuries.

• Inn/Tavern: Village level upgrade. A place for travelers to eat and to rest increases the importance of the Hamlet in local affairs and trade routes.

1. Initial creation. Unlocks: Stable.
2. Requires Mill. Meals eaten in the tavern function as highest quality rations for the PCs.
3. Generates cyclical revenue for the town, traders bring goods and are taxed, and then most likely stay in the Inn and drink at the Tavern, if possible. If PCs have vested financial interest in the Inn/Tavern their profits increase by 5% at this level and each level hereafter to a maximum of 20%
4. Increased relevance in local affairs, trade and travel in general improves the PCs odds of finding higher quality goods and rumors by 1/2.5/5/10 percent at this level and each level thereafter.
5. Bards! At this level, your Inn/Tavern has a dedicated entertainer who spins tales about the exploits of the PCs. As they travel away from here, the PCs have a 90/80/70… etc. percent chance of locals having heard of them, for better or worse.
6. Requires Stable: The Inn now has luxury rooms and food fit for visiting nobility of regional or less importance.

• Pillory - The stocks, for minor local offenses, and eventually Lashing Post - a singular post or X shaped stand where offenders find their redemption through pain.

1. Initial Creation. Threat of the pillory should decrease crime in the Hamlet by some amount.
2. Additional space for a separate person, further crime reduction.
3. As 2, unlocks Lashing Post.
4. Two additional Lashing Posts, unlocks Village Guard.

• Village Guard: A Small building for the town constabulary, a place for them to eat and sleep,and eventually Jail Cells - temporary holding cells for more violent offenses, and a Gallows - a platform to hang the most heinous offenders on, complete with trap door.

1. Initial Creation. Further reduction in petty crimes, spike in more serious crime, unlocks Jail Cells.
2. Initial Creation of Jail Cells, where prisoners await transport to a larger population center. Unlocks Gallows, for summary execution.
3. One additional cell, initial creation of Gallows.
4. One additional cell, two additional platforms on Gallows.

Drugs

Drugs. I want Veins of the Earth style starvation rules… for drugs! I’ve included links to bloggers whose rules I’m stealing pieces from. I’ve summarized what I intend to take from each of their respective systems to Frankenstein my own.

Goblin Punch Drugs - Arnold’s got four stages: Clean - Habituated - Addicted - Dependent. Those line up well with VotE: Before We Used VotE at the Table - Hungry - Starving - Dying.

Scrap Princess Drugs - Scrap’s got exploding d4s each time you do a drug. Each drug causes addiction at a different die: Non addictive, d6, d8. This works well with how I see drugs in real life. It’s a gamble. I’ve seen a child ( on the internet ) die the first time he tried heroin, but I also know people that have used it regularly and at least aren’t dead. So each time you do the drug, make a check to see if you become a habitual user, an addict, or dependent on the drug. I think each drug should have its own die progression/explosion threshold and its own overdose threshold.

Ten Foot Polemic Drugs - James has what feels like the most complicated rules, but I really, really like them. He’s got Upsides, Downsides, Duration, Drug Miscibility, Tolerance, and Withdrawal. It’s gold. All of these things exist in real life, it’s just more than I want at the table. I’m going to keep the concept of Upsides, Downsides, and Durations. I probably won’t mess with Drug Miscibility too much. If I do, it definitely won’t be in this first iteration. Regarding Tolerance. Each drug has its own die progression. Roll the die, if it explodes, you move up a stage. In VotE one day of rations for one person is 100 SP. When they run out, they need 300 SP, then 600 SP, then 1000SP worth of food to bump back down. So too shall it be with drugs and tolerance. If you move up a stage, you now need 3/6/10 times the amount of drugs to get the same effect. For now; do drugs, bump up a stage, need more drugs. You want to get off the junk? Take less drugs than normal, according to the 3/6/10 progression or no drugs at all if you’re a cold turkey hard ass. To move from Dependent to Addicted, roll the difference between the amount of drugs you need and the amount of drugs you’re taking exploding dice, minimum one. If nothing explodes, you go down a level. If something explodes, withdrawal. This is messy, I’m going to have to make a chart/table, and then clean it up. But “Done, not Perfect”.

Lawful Neutral Drugs - I love the drugs themselves, super unique and evocative. Will most likely port them to my finalized rules in the future.

So here’s mine all laid out:

Drug use has four stages: Clean - Habitual User - Dependent - Addict

Each time you do a drug, roll it’s drug die. If it explodes, you advance to the next stage of addiction. If it doesn’t explode, check the drug to see if you overdosed.

As you move from Clean to Habitual, you need three times as much drugs to achieve the same effects. From Habitual to Dependent takes an additional three doses, six times your original dose. Dependent to Addict takes an additional four doses, ten times your original dose.

To get off the drugs gradually. Do less drugs doses than your stage requires. Take the difference of what you need and what you’re doing, and add that many drug dice to your roll. If you roll with no exploding dice, and no overdose. You bump down to the next lowest stage. If you do explode, you go into withdrawal. You can immediately stop withdrawal by doing the amount of drugs you reduced your need by.

To get off the drugs cold turkey. Don’t do any drugs. Take the difference of the doses you need (3/6/10)  and the doses you’re actually doing (0). Add that many drug dice to your roll. If any dice explode, you’re in full withdrawal. If no dice explode, you’re clean!

Overdosing. Chance of overdosing increases at each level of addiction. If you’re clean, you overdose on a one. If you’re a habitual user, you overdose on a one and two. If you’re dependent, you overdose on a one, two or three. If you’re an addict, you overdose on a one, two, three or four.

Actual drugs to follow.

If you're seen awesome drug rules I missed, I wouldn't mind you dropping a link in the comments. I only included people whose stuff I was directly using, but I only saw two others, Noism and Last Gasp.

Is that a body over there?

You undo your breeches to find