A E S T H E T I C S

Everyone has things in art which they find appealing for both scrutable and inscrutable reason. Today I want to try to scrute some of the things which end up showing up in my games regularly and attempt to give my personal explanation for why I enjoy and use them. Below are some of my ideas about a few of my aesthetics in RPGs. (and D&D-esque games more specifically) I hope you enjoy.

Self Awareness
I enjoy when art makes statements about things. In fact, a thing made to convey a thing would be pretty close to my definition of art. That being said, calling one's own work, and specifically a D&D game, "art" brings with it many pretensions. As a 23 year old unemployed student living with my parents, the thought of making grandiose statements about life through a game I play on Sundays with my friends strikes me as a bit much. That doesn't stop me, but I find remarking on specific small things which I have intimate experience with much more appropriate. By far the thing which I have the most expertise in compared to the average person is games, which means that my games most end up talking about themselves. This ends up working quite well, since I quite enjoy things which talk about themselves in some way or another.

Just like how joking about my ravenously avid deer readers of whom there are many when really I know that there are only two people who read anything I write (hi Jeff and Keith) makes the absurdity and pain of writing long, personal, rambling think pieces about nonsense no one cares about hurt less, placing characters in my games which make fun of me for making games which attempt to say things makes trying to convey meaning through playing pretend feel a little less silly.

In addition, I find that self awareness helps to solve a bit of the tone problem RPGs can have from time to time. Everyone who sits down to the table has their own ideas about what kind of story they want to tell, and all of those ideas colliding at once can end up making things more awkward than good. Specifically self awareness lets everyone at the table know that, yes, you are aware how ridiculous it is that half the table is trying to rescue a princess from the horrors of capitalism while the other half is trying to burn down a bar and steal a gnomish submarine, all while getting pizza stains on a book older than everyone reading it and making anime jokes. Once we are able to acknowledge how absurd this game we are playing is, I actually find it easier to take it seriously for what it is.

An example of a character who makes a statements about the games I play in is Steve the Sloth Shaman and his buddy Sir Gabriel the Demon Slayer in Alex's Kadab Brazam game. Steve is a dorky kid with very low self esteem who really just wants to have friends and help everyone get along. He despises conflict and would probably be regarded as a pacifist, his only "weapon" proficiency being in Hugs. I try for Steve to say a number of things about the way that we play D&D. First, his morals are (probably) closer mine than any other character I play, and therefore he totally and completely fails to fit in. Steve is not an advocate for genocidal racism, the acquisition of wealth and power through use of force, or really much beyond kicking it with his friends and eating sandwiches. This brings him in conflict with the views and desires of most adventurers, and (imo) points out lots of the morally questionable aspects of the fantasies we revel in when we play games.

An example of me using a character in a game I ran to comment on the game itself was Jules from my Colors DCC game. Jules was the "familiar" of Schwaldon the Prismatic, the great wizard who collected the party and whose many "personalities" were the driving force of the plot. Jules only had a few things characterizing him: his emo hair and appearance, his ability to magically serve as the PC's and Schwaldon's mystical butler, his exasperated sighs and rolled eyes whenever serving as the PC's or Schwaldon's mystical butler, his residence in the basement of the party's house, and his membership in a band consisting of the kitchenware he magically animated in the basement. (He played the bass) The game was intended to in many ways be an examination of depression, and Jules was my way of showing everyone involved that I realized how silly that was. He appeared as a kid of a similar age to me (though much more fashionable) and encompassed most of the more ridiculous stereotypes of depression and/or someone who would write a D&D game about depression and play it with his friends. By laughing at myself and also placing a ridiculous version of myself in the world for everyone to also laugh at I was able to feel more comfortable writing the ridiculous narrative which I ended up making.

Cycles
If my desire for self aware games is a defense mechanism against the real world then my desire for cycles is a desire to bring my favorite parts of learning and understanding in the real world to my games. Pattern recognition is something which comes to us easily as human beings, and making things in patterns is similarly easy. Attempting to spontaneously create a large number of things with no limitations is quite difficult, but attempting to match a given set to ideas is a much more approachable task.

If I need to make 7 new characters for a plot, blindly creating personalities can be difficult, but if I instead base each of them around one of the deadly sins then the characters start to write themselves. In addition, if I think up something interesting and compelling for one of the members of a cycle, I can then take that as an opportunity to adjust and reapply that idea to each of the other members, making them all more fleshed out.

Now of course cycles don't always work and aren't always appropriate. When attempting to create and represent something alien and unknowable, organizing it around an understandable pattern defeats the purpose. In addition, sometimes attempting to squeeze the last few elements into the mold created by the first ones is all but impossible. But this is also why I enjoy using the cycles; they give the world some sort of order which can be understood by everyone involved. In addition, for me trying to make the hardest elements fit in the cycle is when I get the most creative and come up with my best work, even if that creativity comes in the form of redefining what the cycles is/means in order to allow it to fit the elements I want it to.

An example of when I used cycles in a way I think worked was also in my Colors DCC game. It has its name because each of the split personalities of Schwaldon the Prismatic corresponded with a different color. I got to have each of the 7 personalities be based on a different hue and some of the philosophies which I felt went along with them. I got to make names which were anagrams of different synonyms for the colors, give them all a design which matched their colors, and color their personalities appropriately. When I came up with the idea of a relationship between two of the colors I then got to apply the same ideas to each other of the personalities, and create a web of understandings between all of the entities. This ended up with what were (imo) my best defined (if very silly) characters for the players to meet with, since I understood how all my reactions and thoughts for the personalties should be organized.

Hell/Devils
In addition to my embarrassment about attempting to create things I'm proud of and my joy at understanding and decoding the universe, I also have angst about the world we live in. Systems of oppression, evil, or just incompetence seem to perpetuate themselves everywhere in terrible ways which get to the root of the problems in our world. Cycles may do a good job of representing the logic of our reality which I comprehend and appreciate, but I also need a way to convey when I feel the logic of our existence doesn't make sense. For me, Devils and Hell are the perfect vessel to represent these ideas. While a Demon's evil is random and doesn't need to have any rhyme or reason, Devil's evil is instead one of twisted logic. Their thoughts makes some amount of sense, but not in the way you think they would.

This where the three ideas collide. Devils are characterized as simultaneously hyper intelligent and completely lacking in any sense what so ever which allows them and the things they do to occupy a unique space in a narrative. If a farmer winks at the camera or makes a meta pun, it seems silly, but when a Devil does it they instead show their knowledge of this ridiculous and terrible world which they live in, and yet only an insane and disturbed entity would continue live in the same way knowing what they know about their reality. Self aware comments no longer take one out of the game, but instead convey the terrible anti-logic required to be a Devil. In addition, ironic punishment is something which is both famous in stories of Hell and requires some meta knowledge of a story and what is happening. The match of self aware commentary and terrible anti-logical evil is one which draws me back to Devil's as villains time after time.

Cycles also have a role to play in the diabolical too. While the demonic focuses on the individual and what they alone are exceptional at and can do by themselves, Devils instead focus on what is created as a whole. This understanding means that many things will occur in patterns, even if these patterns don't make traditional sense or are artificially created. In the real world forcing something to fit a cycle can lead to awkwardness, but for the Devils forcing a round peg into a square hole is what they do. This allows one to convey Devil's need to make everything fit in a specific cycle when it naturally wouldn't while also using a useful tool to help flesh out designs.


By colliding these three aspects, Devils and Hell become much more interesting to me than most other subjects in D&D games. My love for self reference, well organized and comprehensible systems, and edgy darkness all get fulfilled with just one type of bad guy. In addition, including the outer planes gives the games a philosophical undercurrent which I find incredibly interesting and engaging. Hopefully reading this has given you some idea how these three ideas (and many more) have guided me towards making the things I do today.

Something Small

Hey, its been a while. After Kai left I didn't have a lot of desire to write much and so didn't make much progress on putting anything up here. After that I spent about a week going down to SLO to hang with some friends and then drove back up just in time to continue driving North to Olympia, Washington to celebrate my brother's graduation with him. During this time I started writing something about my personal aesthetics in the games I design, but it got swallowed by the internet. I just got back yesterday, so I wanted to put down a couple of things to not loose my streak of writing.

First I've started working and thinking more seriously about the drafting to populate a town game that I mentioned before. Since the basic "mechanic" is choosing cards and then putting them down and constructing a story based off of the meaning which they provide I've been thinking a lot about all the different interesting ways you can put meaning into cards which require almost no objective game information/rules. A game which does something kind of similar well is the picture/other weirder cards in monikers. The second part of the thinking I've done with the game is the idea of letting people change and add to the game as time goes on ala a legacy game. By providing some arts and crafts supplies to people I hope to have everyone who plays the game (literally) leave a mark on the game. This could be done by adding an image/symbol to a card, decorating the box, making a new card, or even destroying an old card. Giving the game a DIY crafty aesthetic will hopefully encourage the players to do this since it doesn't seem like something precious and more something I threw together. In addition, the idea of a game which uniquely evolves and changes with the group who play it is a pretty enticing one, and expanding the changes to not only be the result of design but to also be design I personally find pretty dope.

Second I just wanted to mention some of the cool stuff I've thought about from continuing to listen to Soren Johnson's podcast Designer Notes, specifically his interview with Amy Hennig. (specifically part 2) One thing which she talks about is how when making a cinematic and narrative game many times things are all very wishy washy until the last moment when they end up being nailed down due to the process, and that it is important to accept and work with that chaos instead of fighting against it. Though there are of course many differences, it reminds me greatly of many of the D&D games I enjoyed the most. If you try to exactly plan things out too far in advanced you end up just stifling the creativity and fun of the players. Instead, keeping things flexible in session and between sessions when planning what comes next leaves the most room for everyone to enjoy the experience no matter what happens. Also, she sounds like a really dope person and its cool to hear what she says.

I'm planning on trying to finish up the town drafting thing in the next couple weeks, so I'm probably going to do a post on its design and also showing off if I do some stuff to make WIZARD SQUABBLE look cool. I may also write my post about my aesthetic preferences in the next couple of weeks, but no promises.

Designing a Moment

I've been thinking about what it really means to write a roleplaying game, what it means to play one with friends, and what meaning one should attempt to garner from making and playing one. Part of this was me writing the Making Decisions nonsense I did before, but I'm also trying to think if I can make something which takes into account all of the ideas I've been thinking and rhetoric I've been spouting. The Hell game is taking an eternity, as it always has and always will, but I want to explore something else while this is happening, to have something a little bit less serious which I can share and show off. Because of this I've been thinking about making a set of games, and specifically having one or two to show off at the Yurt trip up to Alex's work.

The goals of each of these games will be three fold:

1. To give enjoyable and interesting experiences to the people playing, which they can take with them.
2. To allow for the creation of interesting stories which people can incorporate into the stories they tell if they see so fit.
3. To provide an alternative interpretation of how to use mechanics and games which people can take or use to further think about games.

There will be a few assumptions for the games which I want to create:

1. I will attempt to use them to convey a scene/emotion/idea. (For instance: looking in the mirror in the morning for the first time in a while and noticing everything about your face, only for the steam from the shower to fog it up and to loose oneself in the steam. Or the sweet sensation of rubbing vanilla ice cream all over your naked body.)
2. Each game will be a one off, with any continuity only existing in how the players construct the narratives and characters. (If Liz wants to only make Guys and make an overarching plot about how they are all running from the Devil Bloperdink, cool, but that will not be inherent in the rules of the game)
3. I will attempt to use a new mechanic/idea from other games to make for interesting decisions and a new mechanic/idea from rpgs to make for narratives which conform to what the players want and think.

Hopefully I will have 1-3 of these done by the end of the summer, and will be able to "publish" them as something between a 1 page RPG and a print and play board game. Here are some of the ideas which I've had so far:


WIZARD SQUABBLE
A group of Wizards realize they didn't get what they wanted after the treasure has been divided up. We tune in to see their WIZARD SQUABBLE after the fact.
Feeling: The person in front of you in line got the last ice cream on a hot summer day. Seeing the person you have a crush on hanging onto the arm of someone you knew in high school.
"New" Game Mechanic: Writing down actions ahead of time and resolving them in order.
"New" RPG Mechanic: Having an explicit group consensus/discussion on how each individual thing will resolve and turn out.

S T O C K  P H O T O S

Shopkeeper
We follow the lives of a number of residents of a town as their lives indirectly effect each other. In the end, the residents all talk at their funeral.
Feeling: Hearing someone else describe how you've changed in the last few years. Looking in the mirror and noticing what looks the same and what looks different.
"New" Game Mechanic: Players will draft components of their character's life and combine them to make who they are.
"New" RPG Mechanic: At the end of the game, everyone else gets to talk about what they say at your funeral and what they though of your character.

I hope to experience these game with you, dearly avid reader, and to share these experiences and what we think about them. Hopefully we can both shape each others understanding of games, and use it to be better players, designers, and people.

Why are you special?

I like to think that I think a lot about how stuff works in my games. In fact, I like to think that I think too much about thinking about how much I think about how stuff works in my games, and yet I had not until recently thought about thinking about an in universe explanation for why our Heroes of Hell have unique mechanics. Unthinkable.

I had thought from time to time about why the PC's would end up going on an awesome quest in Hell and being able to make a big change, but never quite got down to level of why each of them individually were able to do the awesome things. In this post, I hope to explain to you, my avidly dear readers, why each of the characters has their power and acts in the way they do.

The Bard:
The power of the Bard comes from their belief in the power and reality of their own story and truth. The Bard is an artist who believes that what they say is true and worth sharing. For this reason, in Hell their story is true and worth sharing, meaning they have the ability to sculpt their own reality in a way no other character has.

The Crusader:
The power of the Crusader comes from their belief and representation of an idea. Instead of trying to understand many frameworks and thoughts, the Crusader takes one and becomes the master of it, applying its reality to all facets of the world. This single minded determination bends reality to fit into their understanding, and gives the Crusader dominion over their singular interpretation.

The Fake:
The power of the Fake comes from their understanding that the ultimate function of something is more important than how that function comes about. Nine times out of ten, reality deals with black boxes whose content is unimportant. By knowing and understanding this, the Fake has the power to change the outside of a box without bothering with the inner workings, and so has the power to manipulate how they are perceived and function in the shallow world of Hell.

The Genius:
The power of the Genius comes from their belief that given the time, resources, and will, they can do anything they wish to. They are much more engineer than scientist: more Elon than Einstein. This means that the Genius is a master of reality, who can wield the most powerful forces and cause the most impressive effects, as long as they have enough minutes in the day, dollars in the bank, and shits to give.

The Lord:
The power of the Lord comes from their belief that they should be the one to lead. Whether through birthright or earned through practice, the Lord knows that they should be in charge. Though they are not above getting their hands dirty, they know that their place is at the head of the table, giving orders, passing judgment, and planning big plans. This gives them dominion over those looking for someone to give their services too, those looking for someone who is fit to rule.

The Priest:
The power of the Priest comes from their knowledge of the importance of ideas. Not just knowledge of what is, but of the frameworks and understandings which we put together to represent these things. If they were to write a book it would be called Maps of Meaning,  and it would detail how to create an ideology which could change the way that people look at the world around them. They are able to shape these ideas and understand and effect reality in a way that someone who didn't understand this never could.

I actually do think this image is pretty cool, even if I hate Peterson.

The Rebel:
The power of the Rebel comes from their understanding of the power of relationships. Everyone says its not what you know, its who you know, but only the Rebel is able to take these relationships and understand them well enough to turn them into power.

The Thief:
The power of the Thief comes from their understanding that the concept of individual ownership is not as important as we think it is. Of course this is clear when you take physical objects from people, but it is also true of stealing ideas, copying looks or style, and appropriating techniques and approaches. Even if one has a quality, that does not mean that they alone are that quality, or that it can not be taken from them. By understanding that one does not own beauty, the Thief is able to be beautiful like no one else is.

The Villain:
The power of the Villain comes from their belief that they are special; that they are the chosen one who can on their own cause great changes to the world. The Villain believes that they are above others, they are unique amongst sameness, they are a wolf among sheep. This power means that the Villain are able to put themselves above others and do things which the "plebeians" can not.

A big part of why I ended up thinking about and writing about this particular idea is first reading this article and then Alan Moore's Promethea and thinking about their connection to "self-referential reality" and specifically the characters I made to inhabit and represent ideas and ideals in my Hell game. As always, if anyone reads this and has thoughts please bother me with them, as talking about these ideas is probably my favorite thing other than making jokes about smearing vanilla ice-cream all over my naked body.

Wizardy, Sorcery, and Theft

Much has changed since I last posted anything about the my Hell game here. After all it has been literally years. Today I wanted to share with you what I have done of the current classes so far. Much of this won't make sense without the greater context of the game and what all the words mean, but that's ok. If you read this now and are intrigued, then ask me for my current version of the PH/Design Doc/Whatever I'm calling it. If you are reading this far into the future, chances are that time has passed you by and there is a better place to both find these ideas and to find me talking about what it all means.
My next post I suspect will be an exploration/summary of where each of the character's powers come from.

The Genius

The Genius was a respected and distinguished leader in their field, who was working on an awesome and terrible project for their organization. An outside force came and threatened the Genius, forcing them to be their spy and work against the original organization. Eventually, the Genius' betrayal was discovered, and brought about their demise.

The Genius's power is to prepare terrible and powerful spells which they can unleash to great effect. Any number of spells can be prepared or learned, the only limitation is the Genius' time, resources, and desire to do so.

Play the Genius if you want to create plans and manage resources to wield the most powerful magics to overcome the largest obstacles.

With the Genius, you have access to the widest variety of the most potent rituals, and can learn any of them your character wants to. However, your magical abilities rely on the resources available to you, and failure to manage them well could leave you with many problems.

Examples: Walter White, Rhialto the Marvelous

Str: 9
Int: 18
Wis: 14
Dex: 15
Con: 9
Chr: 12

HP: 8

+lvl: Engineering, Math
+lvl/2: Science, Subterfuge

Traits:
Cowardly ● ● ○ ○ ○
The Genius is terrified constantly and excels at taking any and all opportunities to avoid conflict. This character is the sort of person who would know not to engage in any risky behavior with their assets necessary for survival or would go their entire life without stepping foot in water deeper than an inch.
● – Can check to evaluate the danger of any given situation before getting entangled in it.
● ● – Can quickly disengage from dangerous situations without provoking any immediate response from the engaged characters.

Ingenious ● ○ ○ ○ ○
The Genius is not only very smart, but also apt to apply their intelligence in new and novel ways to solve difficult problems. This character is the sort of person who would give MacGyver a run for their money or fix their car's engine with duct tape and glue instead of buying a new one.
● – Can check to attempt to solve problems without the necessary tools or materials and only a work around and a good description of the method used.

Wizardry:
As the Genius your magical powers all come from your ability to understand and exploit the reality of the world around you. This is done by preparing powerful spells ahead of time and then releasing them once ready. There is no limit to the power and number of spells which can be prepared before hand; however, the time and resources required along with the chance of catastrophic failure steadily increase with the ambition of the caster. The Genius' repertoire is also limited to what they can understand themselves doing, meaning some spells will be off limits based on their Traits.
The number and power of the spells which the Genius has easy access to is based on their level, and detailed in the chart below.



Genius Spell Limits

Level	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3	Rank 4	Rank 5
1	1	-	-	-	-
2	2	-	-	-	-
3	2	1	-	-	-
4	3	2	-	-	-
5	4	2	1	-	-
6	4	2	2	-	-
7	4	3	2	1	-
8	4	3	3	2	-
9	4	3	3	2	1

In order to prepare a spell, the Genius must already know the spell, must have access to materials to create physical components to store the magic, and then spend time in relative peace. If the Genius currently has less spells prepared of the Rank than they are allowed, (as can be seen above) then the preparation takes materials which have no cost and only 10 mins per Rank to prepare fully. If the Genius has access to spells of a given Rank, but already has the above amount (or more) prepared, preparing another takes materials costing 10^(Rank) SP and 1 hour per Rank. If the spell you are trying to prepare is of a higher Rank than you currently have access to, it costs 10^(Rank + 1) SP, takes 4 hours per Rank, and has a failure chance of 15% for every Rank it is above your max castable Rank. This can be offset by 1% for every Rank in an applicable Trait your character has. This failure chance is rolled only when the prepared spell is attempted to be cast. If the spell fails by 10% or less it still occurs but goes a long with a side effect. If the spell fails by 11% to 20% it simply fails to happen. A failure of more than 20% causes a magical backlash which is catastrophic for the caster and any nearby.

In order to learn new spells to prepare, the Genius must first make sure that they don't conflict with their Traits. If the Genius wishes to learn a spell whose powers are at odds with one of their Traits, they must first bring the Trait to Rank zero. Whenever the Genius gains a level, they may learn a new spell of their devising which matches one of their Traits. When inspiration strikes, they have no need to spend any money and the process only takes 8 hours, regardless of the spell's Rank. If the Genius already has a copy of the spell in question, they may learn it simply by taking one day per Rank of the spell to decipher its contents. Finally, if the Genius wishes to learn a spell without already having access to a copy of it, they may spend one thousand SP per Rank of the spell and three days of time per Rank of the spell. This process has a failure rate equal to if the Genius tried to cast the spell. (15% per Rank above current possibility - 1% per applicable Trait Rank)

Casting a spell is as simple as releasing the energy stored in the materials used to prepare it. This means that the materials are used up and destroyed when the spell is cast and that only prepared spells can be cast. There may be some ways for the Genius to mitigate the failure rate of preparing or learning powerful spells, but these are rare and powerful in the extreme.

Preparing Spells If...	Material Cost	Time	Failure Chance
Fits within the chart	0 SP	10 min/Rank	0%
Fits within Rank but not #	10^(Rank) SP	1 hour/Rank	0%
Doesn't fit Rank	10^(Rank +1) SP	4 hour/Rank	15*ΔRank - Traits

Learning Spells If...	Material Cost	Time	Failure Chance
Lvl Up + Match Trait	0 SP	8 Hours	0%
Have Copy of Spell	0 SP	1 day/Rank	0%
No Copy of Spell	1000 * Rank SP	3 days/Rank	15*ΔRank - Traits

Failure results

under 10%	Negative Side Effect
11% to 20%	Harmless Fizzle
over 20%	Catastrophic Side Effect

The Villain

The Villain was a scourge on the land, spreading their dark power into all the cracks and crevices of the world. Eventually they got their hands on a captive who even the Villain couldn't bring themselves to kill, and eventually let go free. The release of the prisoner was the Villain's one redeeming act, and it brought about their demise.

The Villain's power is to invoke powerful Sorceries core to their being without relying on any outside objects, ideologies, or relationships.

Play the Villain if you want to wield terrible forces inherent to you, which no one else can have any effect on.

With the Villain, you can create an island with completely customizable powers which rely only on themselves . However, this power relies on managing their carefully constructed personal and public identity.

Examples: Elric of Melniboné, Gul'dan

Str: 10

Int: 16

Wis: 17

Dex: 11

Con: 13

Chr: 8

HP: 12

+lvl   : Intimidation, _____

+lvl/2 : Philosophy, Authority

Traits:

Distant ● ● ○ ○ ○

The Villain is a solitary person who relies solely on themselves whenever possible. This character is the sort of person who would feel comfortable living alone in a cabin in the woods for 5 years or would feel no remorse eating a pet when stuck on a desert island.

● – Can check to avoid a reaction to any circumstance while putting on sun glasses and walking into the sunset.

● ● – Can posit a question and receive an "objective" and "rational" answer which doesn't rely on or include the emotions or "subjective" aspects which may go along with the answer.

Thoughtful ● ○ ○ ○ ○

The Villain is a pensive person, who thinks deeply about ideas which are important to them. This character is the sort of person who would have a complicated and detailed reasoning for their walk to work every day or would spend two hours in the shower thinking about if a burrito is a sandwich.

● – Can check to ask others to contribute to the character's internal monologue when pondering.

Sorcery:

As the Villain, your personal brand of magic comes simply and naturally to you. Wielding these powers is intrinsic to your own personal view of yourself, much as writing is to a writer, drawing to a drawer, or dancing to a dancer. For this reason, your sorcery requires no preparation before hand, no long arduous rituals, and no complicated wheeling and dealing; it can simply be done.

The magical actions available to the Villain are known as Sorceries. These use the individual magic reserve of the Villain, known as Mana. At any given time, the Villain can hold only a number of Mana points equal to lvl x 5, and can only spend up to lvl x 3 on any given Sorcery. Spending Mana equal or less than the Villain's level on a Sorcery is considered "casual" expenditure, which provides some benefits detailed below.

The Sorceries available to the Villain stem from their perception of who they truly are, defined in Hell as their Traits. For each level of each Trait, the Villain gains another Sorcery which they can use, meaning as they gain a clearer image of themselves, they also gain a clearer image of what they can do. The first Sorcery gained from any Trait will always provide a way for the Villain to gain Mana, with the subsequent Sorceries providing impressive effects which can be used to spend it.

Each Sorcery is defined rather simply, with only the mechanical effects below. This is not because the flavor of each of these Sorceries isn't important, but because the exact nature of the Villain's power is intended to be defined and fleshed out by the player instead. Primarily, it is important for the Villain to have some description for how their power operated when they were alive, and now that they are damned in Hell. This could be the destructive psychological manipulation of others using dark and terrible techniques, an inherited family power to breech the walls between worlds and bring in demons to do your bidding, or something else way cooler that you come up with. Each Sorcery should then be adjusted to fit with the overall flavor. The Animate Defeated Sorcery could be the Villain whispering dark threats to the downed creature stupefying it into a mindless zombie who follows orders, it could be tempting ravenous demons with the corpse of the fallen and then cajoling them to stick around, or it could be something way cooler than either of those. This may partially change the nature of how precisely the Sorceries work, and thats fine.

The Villain's Adjectives can also change how their Sorceries manifest over time. On the surface, Sorceries will change their aesthetics to match the Villain's Adjectives. More interestingly, each new rank will bring with it a new way to change each Sorcery. For the first rank of the Adjective, this is always an opportunity to use a Sorcery without spending Mana if the use aligns with the Adjective and the Mana spent is at or below Casual usage. Past this first modifier, a new one is unlocked at each new Adjective rank with the exact modification determined by the Adjective in question.

Starting Powers:

Basic/Universal

Blast – Fire a ranged attack which does 1d10/Mana spent on a hit

Distant ●

Death Absorption – Can desecrate a helpless being at 0 HP to gain 1 Mana per Hit Die of the effected creature. This destroys their form and prevents them from healing under normal circumstances.

Distant ● ●

Animate Defeated – Can spend 1 Mana/HD on a helpless being at 0 HP to create a (mostly) mindless minion of the same HD.

Thoughtful ●

Meditation – May enter a meditative state which allows for reduced outside effects and the recovery of Mana. Can be used to great effect and time outside of combat (~1 Mana/Hour) or for just a round in combat to gain 1 Mana.

Max Mana Pool:                       lvl x 5

Max Mana per Sorcery:            lvl x 3

Max Mana on Casual Sorcery: lvl

The Thief

The Thief stole with from whomever they desired with not a care in the world, spending weeks and going days without rest to take well earned prizes from their victims. This eventually all came crashing down when they acquired knowledge they shouldn't have, and brought about their own demise.

The Thief's power is to steal not only physical objects, but also the have access to take form the Material, Mind, and Mouth of anything/one encountered in Hell.

Play the Thief if you want to have a finger in everything else's things, knowledge, and relationships, and be able to take them for yourself.

With the Thief, you are never at a dead end and can gain something more with just a little risk and clever use of your powers. However, all this requires keeping and organizing what you know about the other members of Hell along with what you have taken from them.

Example: Cugel the Clever, 

Str: 11

Int: 16

Wis: 8

Dex: 17

Con: 10

Chr: 13

HP: 12  

+lvl   : Subterfuge, Finance

+lvl/2 : Combat, Science

Traits:

Obsessed ● ● ○ ○ ○

The Thief is single minded in their approach to tasks and can easily suffer from tunnel vision and chase goals even after it becomes impractical to do so. This character is the sort of person who would pull 2 all nighters to finish their project right before it was due or would stalk a prospective romantic partner over weeks in order to set up "accidentally" bumping into them and using their gained knowledge to convince them on a first date.

● – Can check to ignore "distractions" when working on and continuing an obsession.

● ● – Can freely follow and track one designated "goal" or "target" even as this would normally become all but impossible.

Inquisitive ● ○ ○ ○ ○

The Thief is relentlessly curious about the world and people around them, and explores those ideas vigorously. This character is the sort of person who would actually be interested in your obscure thesis or would ask embarrassingly personal questions about you in public.

● – Can check to get answers from the DM about things that they probably don't know through investigation.

Theft:

As the Thief, you can "steal" anything you know about. This can be from people, places, things, organizations... pretty much any reasonable noun. The most basic version of this involves simply taking objects you can see from the entity in question. If you want something which isn't visible or you don't know about, you can instead perform a "pat down" to try to get knowledge of the objects the target has on them. The same basic principles apply to taking knowledge from the involved party, or understanding their relationships with others. 

The Thief can go deeper than this, not just taking the surface effects of the Material, Mind, and Mouth, but instead stealing aspects core to them. This once again requires knowledge of what is intended to be stolen, which again can be gained through a "pat down" or information gathering check. Once the Thief has an understanding of the physical properties of the target's Material, the Traits of their Mind, or the Adjectives of their Mouth, they can take what those grant the character those properties. This can either occur to take them away from the effected entity for a given time, provide them to the Thief for some duration, or to provide the Thief with a "token" of what has been stolen to put on their character sheet for use at another time. Some examples of what can be taken are taking the spit of a Dragon to allow you to breathe fire like one (Material), telling a guard a confusing story about renovations in the base so they loose their orientation (Mind), or picking the mannerisms of a Pit Fiend in order to emulate his pompousness at a later date (Mouth).

All of this is done with a check on a d20 using Dex/Int/Chr for Material/Mind/Mouth plus lvl if it aligns with a relevant Trait, with a success on a 10 or higher. The level of success determines how long it will take the target to realize they've been swindled, or sometimes just that something suspicious has happened, (chart below) in addition to how long before stolen "abilities" will expire. Every previous theft in the encounter will cause a -1 on the next roll, as your repeated suspicious actions become more and more likely to attract attention. Thefts against especially powerful or aware entities may cause addition penalties, and strategies taking advantage of the flaws or weaknesses of the target, the surroundings and environment, or using previously acquired resources could provide bonuses.

Just like other actions in this campaign, the details of how the theft is approached should be described and spelled out. This can involve describing how pockets are picked, the lines given to convince someone to divulge sensitive information, or how one studies and imitates another's mannerisms and style.

Time Table

10	Immediately
11	1 round
12	1 min
13	5 mins
14	30 mins
15	1 hour
16	4 hours
17	12 hours
18	1 day
19	1 week
20+	1 month