Cardinal Goons

 The Pope is dead, again, and the leader of the capitalist world is proposing the dumbest thing ever, again, and now his mega rich followers have gone to the Vatican to combine the two situations. I needn't tell you how these people's messiah would whip the shit out of them with a whip of his own braiding. They lack self awareness and the critical thinking to realize this, however.

But, now a game of how Cardinals become Popes. Strangely it doesn't involve shedding skin during metamorphosis.

Cardinal Goons

The Gist

Six candidate Cardinals must delve into the catacombs of Vatican City. There, they will face unknown and terrifying challenges; tests to ensure their Devotion, Piety, and Infallibility. They must delve deep and retrieve the triregnum, to return with it and sit upon the Cathedra. 

But be warned: The throne only seats one. 

(You know Tunnel Goons? It's that, but with select cardinals. The majority is rehashed here for convenience.)  

Action Rolls

When the outcome of an action is uncertain, roll 2d6 + ability + 1/relevant item. If the result is equal to or greater than the assigned Difficult Score (DS), then it is a success. If the action is potentially dangerous (ie. attacking a roaming Head of John the Baptist), then the difference in the resulting roll and the DC is the amount of damage done. Basically, if you fail the roll, you take damage equal to the difference. If you succeed, you give the damage. 

Difficulty Score

Easy: 8 | Medium: 10 | Hard: 12

Inventory

The Inventory Score is how many things you can stuff into your adventure sack. Anything over this number causes a -1 to be added to your Pius and Sin rolls. 

Characters come with 3 unique items, but the rest of the pack is yours to fill. Or overfill, even.

Inventory Score starts at 8. 

Heath and Death

Heal starts at 10. When you reach 0, you are dead. 

Regain all Health lost by stopping for a meal of pasta and wine. This takes about 30 minutes.

Advancement

If you’re still playing this for some reason, you advance every 2 game sessions. Raise 1 attribute (below) and choose your Inventory or Health to also increase by 1. 

Attributes

Every character starts off with 0 or more points in the following attributes. 

Pius - Your ability to avoid the devil. Literally dodging away from him.

Devotion - Your dedication to scripture, both the written and spoken word.  

Sin - Your ability to do terrible things. Hitting, stealing, trials of the flesh.

Also, everyone speaks their native language and Latin. 

The Papabili

Cardinal Chook Duggery

_The Tree Hugger_

P 2 | D 1 | S 0

* Habit of Francis of Assisi - Allows for speaking with Animals.

* Corked Galero - Protects against swarms of things. 

* Crozier of Saint Fiarce - Functions as a Staff weapon, but also can cause Grasping Vines to grow (DC 10) 

Cardinal Giuseppe Archette

_The Studious_

P 1 | D 2 | S 0

* Scroll of Saint Floran (DC 10) - Spits a fireball at the target. Consumed on Failure.

* Scroll of Jude Thaddeus (DC 10) - Restores Health. Consumed on Failure.

* Finger Bone of Saint Anthony of Padua - Protects against the Undead as Armor. 1st degree artifact. 

Cardinal Godric Foundling

_The Knight_

P 0 | D 1 | S 2

* Armored Mitre - Dented and bloodied, but it perceivers 

* Sword of Saint Catherine - Yes, that one. 

* Rib Bone of Saint George - Provides divine protection from the knight of knights. 

Cardinal Ignacio Marquez

_The Red_ 

P 1 | D 0 | S 2

* Piano wire reinforced rosary beads

* Dagger (hidden within crucifix) 

* Red silk gloves

Cardinal Jean-Claude Chisanga 

_The Untouchable_

P 2 | D 0 | S 1

* Ankle Bone of Saint Christopher (DC 10) - When set to a trip line, causes an alarm to cry once the line is tripped. 

* Habit of Saint Nicholas Owen (DC 10) - Allows the wearer to appear to be up to five feet from their actual location. Consumed on failure. 

* Sack of Golden Caltrops

Cardinal Lucien De Vos

_The Raven_

P 3 | D 0 | S 0

* Toe Knuckle of Saint Casila - Aids in sneaking. 1st degree artifact.

* Lockpick of Saint Baldomerus - Set of lockpicks used by Baldomerus of Lyons. 2nd degree artifact. 

* Hand of Glory - Unlocks any door. Once. Consumed on use.

Cardinal Seamus O’Brien

_The Lich_ 

P 0 | D 3 | S 0

* Scroll of Saint Rita of Cascia (DC 10) - Raises a servant from a currently unused corpse. Consumed on failure. Fails if a servant currently exists. 

* Blood of Saint Januarius (DC 10) - Allows for the viewing of ghosts. 1st degree artifact. Consumed on failure.

* Thurible (as mace) - Billows sweet smelling smoke as it swings. 

Cardinal Stanislaw Kovacs 

_The Serpent Tongued_

P 0 | D 2 | S 1

* Pickled Tongue of Saint Bartholomew - When placed in the user’s mouth, anything they speak detects as the truth. 

* Scroll of Saint Joseph of Cupertino (DC 10) - Makes the target forget the last few moments. Consumed on failure. 

* Silver snake dagger 

Cardinal Tex Smith

_The American_

P 0 | D 0 | S 3

* Thoughts - Gold plated desert eagle. Twined with Prayers.

* Prayers - Gold plated desert eagle. Twined with Thoughts.

* Plate of Deep Fried Spaghetti (ration)

Doug Nash

_The Lost Tourist_

P 1 | D 1 | S 1

* Cell Phone - No reception

* Sacred Heart of Jesus statue (as Club) - Bought from the gift shop

* Tourist Guide Book - Good for looking things up. 

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[HMtW] Using Divination to Generate a Character

 

In His Majesty the Worm, character creation is simple enough: 5 multi-stepped steps for, if you've a character in mind, quickly getting up and going. 

But, what if you've no specific character in mind? Well, the game uses tarot cards. Just divine a character using said cards. Here's how!

Using Divination to Generate a Character

The idea is fairly straight forward: instead of using your brain meat to come up with a character, layout eleven cards from the players deck in the pattern shown below, then consult the charts. It can be further expanded to include random gear generation, but it'll need some adjusting and additional gear descriptions to make the math work. Basically, it'll take longer than I was looking to on this thing. I'll circle back to it.

The Spread

1. This is your Kith (Human, Fay, Underworld, Orc)
2. This is your Kin, basically for selecting a subtype of Kith. For humans, it doesn't matter, but regions have been provided for role playing purposes. 
3. This is your major attribute. The suit of the card determines which attribute a 4 is placed to.
4. This is your secondary attribute. The suit of the card determines which attribute a 3 is placed to. If the suit of the card is already in use, then look at the value. If even, move to the Right along the chain (Swords-Pentacles-Cups-Wands) until an unused suit is found. If odd, move to the Left.
5. This is your minor attribute. It determines your weakest attribute, in which you'll place a 1. I'm going to leave you guessing as to where to put the 2. Think as hard as you can. You got this.
6. This is your first motif. Card A represents the descriptor, and Card B represents the profession.
7. This is your second motif. Card A represents the descriptor, and Card B represents the profession.

8. This is your third motif. Card A represents the descriptor, and Card B represents the profession.

Kith and Kin

Motifs

Example

In case you can't read off my poorly lit floor: 

1. 3 of Swords              6.A 8 of Cups                       8.A 4 of Wands

2. 6 of Cups                 6.B 6 of Pentacles                8.B 9 of Cups

3. Ace of Cups             7.A Knight of Pentacles

4. 10 of Swords           7.B 10 of Pentacles

5. Ace of Swords         

1. Taking a Kith and Kin of Swords/Cups, we see this is a Human from the East. 

2. With Cups being the Major attribute, it gets assigned a 4 and becomes the adventurer's Path

3. Swords gets assigned a 3. A book nerd with a pension for violence.

4. With Swords already in use, and the card here being odd (Ace = 1), we shift suits to the Left, bringing us to Wands. With a Wands of 1, this person isn't terribly magically inclined. 

5. At first they were a Silent Friar. There's that book learning during quiet contemplation.

6. Then they made their way as a Numb Hunter. Looks like there was trouble at the monastery. 

7. But now wander as a Twisted Raider

Meet Licinius, a human from the eastern lands (Swords 3 | Pentacles 2 | Cups 4 | Wands 1). They were, once, long ago, a Friar bound by a vow of silence, who spent their time learning and reflecting on the creations of Mithras. That was until the Orc raiders came, and sacked the monastery for its idols and shiny bits. Being the only survivor, they attempted to hunt down the twisted Orc raiders for revenge, becoming what they hated in the process. Rumor has it the leader of the Orc raiders has taken the monastery's prized marble Mithras statue as a trophy, deep within the Underworld. Are you a bad enough dude to retrieve the statue?

Make up a House name and words, pick a mastered skill, and grab some gear. Simple. 

The longest part of the process was finding my tarot deck and trying to figure out how to take a decent picture. I failed at both, but the task still got done.  

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1d60 Wasteland NPC names

 
This _should_ be a community prompt post related to elements. I had something picked out too; thought I'd get all clever and put a cyberpunk spin on it. "Elements of the Post-Cybernetic World" or some shit I'd call it. Basically the old elements of fire, air, water, and earth would be replaced with data, misinformation, greed, and hate. 

Had a datamancer in there, using cocaine to communicate with webcrawling AIs; a cargo cult to the twin gods of capitalism the Bull and the Bear; mutants from nuclear reactor safety shortcuts. Hell, was even going to try and jam a radiation golem in there. It was gonna be so nice. So fun. Completely on topic. 

But then, long angry story short, the news happened. No, not my ongoing, twenty plus year feud with the Newsboys, the actual more sinister news. The new elements and the examples I can lined up too close with what's going on. Turns out, warning against dystopia is a lot more draining when you're actually in one, so I'll probably be taking a break from cyberpunk for a bit. Could use a change of pace anyway.

This brings me back on my Wasteland bullshit, for which I've consumed George Miller's Mad Max series as if I was a Republican senator alone in a car park with a bag of cocaine, purchased using money from kickbacks from private prisons.

What this _is_ is a 1d60 list of NPC names for any Wasteland bad guy. 

I ain't the learned sort by any means, but there's an air of Gothic to Miller's work: stories of deeply flawed or disturbed characters often suffering from physical deformities or insanity; decayed and desolate settings; and grotesque situations (Bloom, Harold; 2010). I can only imagine the Babe and Happy Feet series follow the same themes. 

Playing off that logic, one can extrapolate that the more gross a person's name is, the more evil they are - supporting evidence being that people named "the People Eater" are never good people. In turn, the more normal your name is, the more likely you are to be a good person - Max, Jack, Hope, Glory, Jessie, Goose. While Miller's work doesn't hold to this just now made up reasoning, I'm certain that had I a chance to present it to him, he'd pat me on the back, smile softly, and shove me out of the speeding car. 

1d60 Wasteland NPC names

1. Aleister
2. Axe Wound
3. Beefcake, the
4. Bleeter
5. Blister and Wart (one is a parasitic twin)
6. Boilrot
7. Budgie Smuggler
8. Buttpaste
9. Chewie
10. Dak Sniffer, the
11. Dingus, the
12. Dog Eater
13. Dr. Necrotic
14. Dr. Ramcock
15. Dunnyesky
16. Festerwart
17. Flatulence
18. Fleshmouth
19. Fudgie, the Erect
20. Fungal
21. Gang Green
22. Gouge
23. Grizz
24. Horsemeat
25. Maggot Brain
26. Mozzie
27. Mr. Norrell
28. Naughty Nitrean
29. Nippleus
30. One Nut
31. Piss Monger
32. Prismatic Youth, the
33. Puss Mouth
34. Pustulus
35. Ratpuker
36. Sackless
37. Sandsucker
38. Scab
39. Scalpless
40. Scroda
41. Scween, the
42. Skullhumper
43. Sluice
44. Spew
45. Spine Collector
46. Spit, the Dummy
47. Sprockette
48. Stink Beast
49. Stubby
50. Swerve, the
51. Tadpole
52. Temptress
53. Tenderloin
54. Thundercunt
55. Toe Licker
56. Tooth Collector
57. Upchuck
58. Vomitwench
59. Vulture Wife
60. Weevle

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