Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Automatic Character Generator

As part of my continuing series of content for the awesome, OSR-esque, rules-light tabletop RPG Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells, here is an automatic character generator!

If this makes you interested in SS&SS, or you were already interested in SS&SS, I would encourage you to check out my SS&SS Automatic Monster Generator, an automated version of the monster generator available in the Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Addendum (with one additional monster nature of my own design).

You can also check out my Micro-Setting post The Glass Desert, a setting built around10 monsters created using the aforementioned SS&SS automatic monster generator.

I'd also like to thank Angus Warman, whose OSR character generators I used as a point of reference for this character generator.

This cool demon-dragon on the cover of SS&SS gives you a sense of this awesome game!

Generate Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Character
NOTE1: For level > 1, the chosen attribute for the improvement roll is a random attribute less than 18 that is not either of the primary attributes
NOTE2: Coinage (in silver) is multiplied by level
NOTE3: For random archetype, the archetype is chosen based on the highest of the average of the primary attributes, e.g. if the average of physique and agility is higher than the average of agility and intellect or intellect and willpower, the archetype will be assigned to Warrior, since physique and agility are the primary attributes for Warrior. If there is a tie, an archetype is randomly selected from the tied averages.

Choose a level (or leave blank for random) 
-- Level -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Random

Choose an archetype (or leave blank for random)
-- Archetype -- Warrior Specialist Magic User Random

High Level Games: 3 Ways to Modify Any Game

Image Source

I'm breaking my "posting only every other week" rule to share that high level games has posted my next article! In the article, I discuss, in very broad strokes, a handful of system-neutral ways to modify games. I think if you're reading this blog there's a good chance you're already familiar with my suggestions, but even so, my discussion of dice probabilities and how modifiers affect different dice or how dice can affect character progression may be interesting if you have not given that much consideration.

You can read the article here!

Enter the Cancerverse: 1d20 Weird & Wonderful Undead

It's crazy that it's been two weeks since my last post! I've got several posts queued up (look out in two weeks for my SS&SS full character generator!), but I also have legitimately been busier and needing to slow down, so I think this was the right decision, even though it's been tough holding back on posts.

Anyway, it's been a while since I've a "Traditional" Fantasy Table! In the past I've done (in reverse chronological order): Anathema, Vampires, Goblins, and Elves. As with my post of monsters designed using the Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Automatic Monster Generator, which incidentally led to the micro-setting The Glass Desert, I decided to bake a micro-setting into this table as well. This is still first and foremost a table of Weird & Wonderful Undead, and many of these entries hold up on their own, but several of them refer to a micro-setting I'm tentatively calling The Cancerverse. I'm definitely stretching the concept of "undead" here, because that's how I do, but hopefully people can appreciate it for what it is. I've already done Vampires which you can throw in here, and at a certain point I could do skeletons, golems, ghouls, etc., so I was ok with this being a bit more abstract.

I realize that cancer is a major, very serious, and often deadly medical issue and I don't mean to make light of it, or be un-conscientiously macabre about it. That being said, there is this fascinating relationship between the concepts of life and death and cancer and undead, in a very abstract sense. Cancer is a mutation, one of the principle features of organic life and the same mechanism as adaptation and evolution. It's the indefinite, automatic growth of cells. It's the result of degeneration of DNA, a self-propagating error, it is mindless and it spreads like a zombie. So, by extension, a cancerverse is a place of endless, regenerating life, but life that is degenerative. It is both the opposite of undeath, but also not all that unlike it. So I thought that might be an interesting take on the concept, but like I said, I've got plenty of other ideas in there if that doesn't appeal to you.

More Zdzislaw Beksinski! This could be a Genocide Golem...

Scroller / Randomizer

Click through the list of undead:

Go to undead by number (1 through 20):

Pick a random undead

Full Table

Undead	Description
Abyssal Mage	Their name is a misnomer; they are not limited to the abyss, but are highly specialized water mages. Humans and many other lifeforms are composed mostly of water, and abyssal mages specialize in the manipulation of the waters within living things. They can fatally distort or extract the waters from an organism, or transmute them into water elementals that tear the organism from the inside-out or occupy their dried husk. They can freeze the waters inside their prey, and use various necromancies or apoptomancies to cryo-metamorph the organism or preserve their carcass for the highest-grade undeath.
Beast with two backs	When two people love each other very much, and commit themselves to a toxic relationship, sometimes their individual bodies and souls die, and they merge together in undeath. They become like a centaur, where one partner is the upright top, and the lower body is the partner, prone. The top is generally demonic in appearance or covered in black armor, while the bottom is pale or rabid like a zombie, and usually naked or dressed in gimp leather. They move spasmodically, gyrating and undulating, seemingly clumsy and inefficient, yet supernaturally quick. They harness a genuine but twisted form of codependent love, sex, and life magics, not unlike anti-paladins.
Bogling	Boglings are borne from plant matter, or peat. They are dark, smelly, and dry, and come in various shapes and sizes. They are like a significantly lesser form of petroloid, although much more abundant and more likely to develop naturally. In large quantities, boglings can be sacrificed for petrolmancy in a pinch, and can also be sacrificed by necromancers to preserve and mummify bodies for undeath operations.
Death Knight	Our world is not the first cycle of creation and death. Some believe there have been four, others nine, and others still believe there have been countless prior worlds. The death knights are survivors of one (or more) of these worlds. They usually incarnate as one of the dominant intelligent lifeforms, but have a pall of undeath or otherness about them and even in full armor tend to stand out. They have varying knowledge, powers, or artifacts from the prior worlds, and can temporarily take their original form for immense power, at an immense cost. Most of the death knights are singular in their desire to remake or somehow return to their original world. However noble they may have been in life, after countless eons, or as a result of their reanimation, they have mostly all gone mad, making it difficult to acquire any meaningful knowledge from them.
Frost Wyrm	Serpentine, draconic creatures with a large, singular orifice full of rows of teeth like a lamprey or hagfish, hailing from the Cancerverse. Not undead per se, but they emit a cold, dark energy which provides sustenance to undeath, like gods or demi-gods of undeath.
Genocide Golem	A giant, modular, mobile city-structure and any number of smaller modular skeleton golems constructed from the reanimated remains of a genocided people. No regard is paid to the original forms, and bones are carved or snapped or in some other manner warped or treated to support the structure or skeleton golem drones. They emanate a sense of shame, drawing out hate, denigration, and the insecurities of the peoples in their vicinity or peoples who allowed this inhumanity to happen, obfuscating that the golem was always the victim.
Kabuto Asura	They come in many varieties, sometimes humanoid and sometimes monstrous, but always like armored soldiers or weapons of war and reminiscent of horseshoe crabs. They are the karmic demons of soldiers who died unfulfilled. In some cases they are frustrated beings, misled or coerced to fight a futile or unjust war or to commit war crimes. In other cases, they themselves reveled in the carnage and inhumanity of their actions, and remain on this mortal plane only to commit more violence. The former are pitied, and those who hunt them do so to free them of their karmic curse. The latter are considered a shame against their people and feared.
Mutate	Vaguely humanoid creatures from the Cancerverse. It's not clear if they evolved in that environment independently, or if they were migrants from the world of the living, like some kind of afterlife. They are misshapen and covered in cancerous tumors and teratomas. Because they cannot die, their cells mutate and replicate indefinitely. Many mutates degenerate into virtual nothingness, blending into the cancer-mass of the cancerverse itself. A rare few mutate into giant, monstrous, or otherwise unique and powerful beings.
Nepheshim	Due either to a botched soul-transfer, or a random mutation, occasionally a lich will develop a new soul, like a cancer. As the soul metastasizes, the lich's organic body redevelops, although not always as the same gender or even species, let alone same person they once were. If the new soul grows to maturity, they will lose their lich powers, but otherwise retain most of their former knowledge and abilities. Meanwhile, their original soul remains trapped impotently in its phylactory. Their personality will also change, and in some cases they will develop dreamy memories, knowledge, or skills from the new soul. While most liches fear these cancerous mutations and attempt to remove them at all costs, some intentionally contract and incubate souls within themselves, sometimes many at a time. They can provide new perspectives, knowledge, and insights, can be a fun diversion from the ennui of immortality, like a hobby, or can be cultivated and consumed for various powerful soul magics.
Overdead	As the spirits of mortals transmigrate into various spirit realms or are reincarnated, there are other planes, dimensions, or universes full of spiritual life, and sometimes our world is their afterlife. Overdead are often ethereal, mistaken for fey or djinn, nature spirits, or ghosts (or perhaps they are the origins of these entities in this setting). Some take more physical forms, or are incarnated within lifeforms of our world. They do not all come from the same world, nor follow the same rules, nor operate in the same manner. Some seem eldritch, aberrant, or divine, while others are remarkably similar in appearance or psychology to beings of our world.
Petrolmancer	A sub-discipline of necromancy focused on the summoning and binding of the most ancient mass-dead. They bring life to decomposed biofuel, or petroleum. More powerful petrolmancers practice various chronomancies as a means of producing their own stores of petroleum, or use time travel to mine the past or future for its rich stores of death. In order to leverage such powerful but costly magics, they organize genocides across time and space, and create life farms merely for the sake of culling death and decomposition.
Petroloid	The lowest petroloids are simply amorphous petroleum elementals or slimes. The more advanced specimens flow through contraptions of carcass, wood, metal, or whatever materials or technologies were available to the petrolmancer. They are petroleum-powered zombies, skeletons, golems, siege engines, or even bio-magical computers.
Pteraghul	Slightly smaller than humans and disturbingly humanoid in appearance, they are vulture-like pterasaur ghouls with a mottled, hair-like pycnofiber coat. They are carrion-feeders of intelligent lifeforms, but will also consume cancerous or mutated living flesh. They are believed to be the descendants of a species of ghoul that somehow crossed into the cancerverse, and still they can be found migrating between the mortal plane and the cancerverse.
The Black Hive	A remarkably prosperous hive of undead bees (or zombees, if you will). They are white and violet colored, their stripes broken into a skull-like pattern on their backs. Rather than consuming nectar, they violently collect the fermenting juices of fallen fruit, often destroying the seeds in the process. For this reason, in areas where the Black Hive is present, it is considered a taboo to leave fruit to rot. They produce a milky-white, rotten-smelling, putrid honey that provides sustenance to the undead akin to the black energy of the Cancerverse. Additionally, despite its awful smell, the honey makes for a perfect preservative, tastes otherwordly, and provides an exhilarating psychedelic stimulation. However, it provides no sustenance, and long-term consumption leads to self-pickling and undeath.
The Wild Hunt	Depending on the setting, they may be of one species, or a collection of known or unknown species. They are advanced; magically, technologically, biologically, or aberrantly, with resources and abilities beyond the understanding of the predominant mortal civilizations. They are elves or dwarves or fey, neanderthals or dinosaurs, or other species long gone or nearing the end of their era. They are the resistant living, undead, or extra-dimensional refugees; the clingers-on. They hunt for fun or spite, they incite terror, they ravage villages and cities, but they can only bridge to the mortal realm for so long before being auto-magically banished back to their purgatory nether realm.
Unliving	They are almost like the living, but lack a soul. This rarely occurs naturally; more often they are grown from stem cells or miscarried fetuses that are treated by necromancers or apoptomancers. They are generally dull, with little personality or motivation, and with a child-like intelligence. They are often pale or albino, with pigmentless or cataract-like blue eyes. Although more time consuming and costly to create than a typical undead skeleton or zombie, they are generally more capable and longer-lasting, and are the foot soldiers of the most elite lords of metamorphosis or undeath.
Vermilion Karkinos	They were once a mundane species of crab, bottom-feeders of the ocean floor. That is, until they stumbled upon a massive hydrothermal vent of immense magical power; perhaps an abandoned power plant of the deep ones, an artifact of the Elder Things, or the gate to R'lyeh or the Cancerverse (where they are the most predominant lifeform, after the cancer-mass itself). Whatever the case, the karkinos were transformed, no longer living organisms, the energy calcified them into undead fossils, and they became unable to sexually reproduce. Some became immortal kaiju, always hungry, feeding on the mineral energy of the planet core, or travelling to the surface if there is a sufficient concentration of energy. Others became microscopic magical beings, more like viruses than animals, vampires feeding on the blood of organisms and asexually replicating within them like leukemia. They have developed into other sizes and shapes as well, some even humanoid. Their exoskeletons are usually patterned with vermilion and white, or occasionally more aquatic colors, and an aura of heat or even flame surrounds them. Although some are intelligent, even superhuman, most are so obsessed with hunger that it clouds any rational thought.
Zombie Flower	Amorphophallus-like flowers, ranging in size from about a foot to twenty feet tall. They smell of carcass, attracting scavenging animals and pollinators. They do not photosynthesize, but have pale pigments meant to attract animals or fool them into a false sense of normality. Their flesh and nectar induce zombification, and their seeds spread and germinate from the droppings of zombified creatures. It is believed that the Black Hive are the second independent species to have developed from the effects of the zombie flower.
Zymoform	The creations of the zymomancers. Sometimes pickled and preserved, appearing somewhat as they did in life except for some amount of decay, wet and slimy, and with a sour, bitter, or umami scent. Others dissolve and consume the host carcass, becoming amorphous slimes of various hues and properties.
Zymomancer	Not necromancers in the truest sense, they breed colonies of yeast and bacteria suited for the fermentation of carcasses for the purpose of reanimation. The host carcass is still dead, but new life animate or are borne from the carcass.

The Glass Desert: 10 Monsters using the SS&SS automatic monster generator

NOTE: Given by big update, I think I'm going to move to a bi-weekly (every other week, not twice weekly!) schedule. Hopefully this way I can queue up enough posts before the shit hits the fan that things will be seamless, and once things are less hectic for me I can switch to a weekly schedule or semi-weekly schedule, hopefully without any dead spots.

I had originally intended for this to just be a table of monsters generated using the SS&SS Automatic Monster Generator, with Weird & Wonderful flourishes. However, as I was coming up with the monsters, I incidentally started running with a micro-setting through-line for these monsters, the Glass Desert. This is actually the Quenduin Desert of my Phantasmos setting, but I think it could totally work as a standalone setting with post-post-apocalyptic science fantasy and sword and sorcery elements akin to Conan, Barsoom, and Dark Sun, which I think is in-line with the SS&SS aesthetic.

I would also like to thank Kyana for providing some excellent monster writeups as well (with some editing by request), provided as BONUS material at the end!

While not quite how I imagine the Qlippoth Tree or the Glass Desert, Zdzislaw Beksinski's art has had a major impact on me over the years, and is definitely one inspiration for the Glass Desert. He also has a painting that is somewhat evocative of my Phantasmos Mythic Being Mother at the Gate, but that's for another time...

1. Jabbers
Monster's Nature: Beast
Form: Torso of one animal and legs of another.
Animal Parts: Alligator, Cockroach
Elements: Glass
Powers:
Extra Senses: The creature has an additional sense like thermal vision, sonar, E.S.P., aura vision, etc.
Weaknesses:
Aversion to some substance or object

Water-dwelling reptiles, mutated with chitinous exoskeletons over their cockroach-like legs. They lurk in the fetid bodies of water in the Glass Desert, the closest thing to oases in such a hostile terrain. They have the ability to sense any reflections within or just outside the circumference of their body of water; a useful ability in an environment of sun and glass. They are to the Jabberwocky as drakes are to dragons.

2. David
Monster's Nature: Mythological
Characteristic: Like a baroque statue or wearing baroque armor
Elements: Earth
Powers:
Immortal: The creature cannot die naturally and a condition must be met for the creature to be truly killed.
Weaknesses:
Vanity

Like a Greek statue of a perfectly sculpted humanoid in ornate, white and gold armor. It has the ability to summon blocks of stone and marble, and with a single tap sculpt the blocks into supernaturally functional items, objects, and even minions. It cannot be killed under normal circumstances; if its body is destroyed, it will immediately emerge from the closest block of stone or marble large enough for it to be sculpted from. However, it is vein, taking absolute pride in its sculptures. If challenged to a sculpting contest, it will almost always accept, even if it would be disadvantageous or time consuming for it to do so. Usually it plays for high stakes, assuming it cannot lose. If it loses an honest competition, it will honor its bet, but will experience suicidal despair afterwards, and will commit suicide unless its ego is sufficiently stroked.

3. [Varies]
Monster's Nature: Aberration
Form: Pyramid
Characteristic: Hundreds of mouths of different sizes and shapes cover the creature's body and spew a disgusting goo.
Elements: Magma
Powers:
Induce Rage: Targets within nearby range must make a willpower test or be driven into a rage, attacking anyone within close range in the most violent way they can for a number of rounds equal to the creature's HD.
Weaknesses:
Simply knowing its True Name makes it weak

A glowing hot, floating pyramid that spews bio-phlogisten. It's goo is both literally and metaphorically hot, burning and inducing rage in others. It's True Name is an unusual anomaly, being the same as whatever is the most common name in the setting. Although generally beyond mortal comprehension, the two aspects of its psychology shared with mortals are shame, and the impotent rage that comes with overcompensating for ones shame. If it's True Name is spoken, it will immediately apparate to another dimension, plane, or universe.

4. Copper-bugs
Monster's Nature: Technological
Form: Artificial animal form (Protozoa)
Material: Copper
Elements: Sand
Powers:
Regenerate: Regenerates a number of HP per round equal to its HD.
Reproduce Sound: Can imitate any sound heard in the last HD days.
Weaknesses:
Need to feed constantly

Techno-organic copper micro-machines, one of the first species to adapt to the glass desert. They are nearly impossible to kill given how quickly they regenerate, and can integrate the sand and glass dust into their distributed network of activity, barraging and choking invaders. The copper makes them conductive, which they use as an electrical defense, but also to transmit information and organize as a distributed network, and can perfectly digitally encode and reproduce any sound they've recently transduced. The indigenous peoples of the Glass Desert have developed a symbiotic relationship with some species of copper-bug, using them to develop simple electronics and communications networks. However, they require quite a bit of energy, especially for the largely barren Glass Desert, and as a result only the wealthiest and most successful peoples can maintain a copper-bug colony.

5. Qlippoth Tree
Monster's Nature: Magical
Trait: Tree branches grow from the creature's body.
Form: Living energy
Elements: Wood
Powers:
Disease: Causes grave and potentially deadly disease (referee may impose attribute damage, negative dice and loss of HP). Victims can make a willpower test to resist it.
Invoke Ally: Can summon a similar creature of the same amount of HD. A character can make a luck roll to avoid this effect.
Weaknesses:
Powerful enemy

A gigantic tree made of spiritual energy, covered in numerous branches like eldritch tentacles. The tree is an impossible organism drawing sustenance from extra-universal impossible light. It bears perfectly spherical fruit which hatch like eggs when they fall, producing subservient spirit-tree-men. If the fruit grow large enough, eventually they will root and grow into a new qlippoth tree. The fruit provides sustenance and the tree itself ample building materials, but causes terminal illnesses, all of which induce madness or depression, like syphilis. The eldest of the qlippoth trees wages a slow war with the eldest sephiroth tree just outside the glass desert.

* NOTE: The Qlippoth Tree could be seen as a variant of the Fey Wood and Qhuaos Quince from my Phantasmos campaign setting, which were already part of the Quenduin Desert, the Phantasmos-version of the Glass Desert.

6. Steeling Gazers
Monster's Nature: Technological
Form: Millions of nanobots
Material: Steel
Elements: Light, Steam
Powers:
Duplicate Appearance: Can assume the appearance of a touched target for up to HD days.
Turn to Stone: Victims that look into the creature's eyes must make a physique test or be turned to stone.
Weaknesses:
Fears its own reflection

These nanomachines do not feed, but seem to be an artifact of whatever glassed the Glass Desert. They are solar-powered and can harness solar energy offensively, but can also combust coal for steam-power if necessary. They often take the form of drifters. When they meet eye-to-eye with other drifters in the desert, they enter the eye through the optic nerve like light itself, converting the entire organism at the atomic level into inert material like glass or stone, and then take their form. It is unknown why they do this, nor why they only convert intelligent organic life facing them eye-to-eye. It is known that they fear their own reflection, as they seem to be compelled to convert anything they meet eye-to-eye, even if themselves, in their own reflection. For this reason, it is common for travelers to carry at least one shard of looking-glass from the Glass Desert itself. Even if one can avoid their stare, they are as strong as steel, and will become violent if their stare is avoided.

7. Aesthetobites
Monster's Nature: Humanoid
Appearance: Colorful skin (Purple)
Culture: To produce art is the greatest deed an individual can accomplish.
Elements: Rock, Mucus
Powers:
Animate Dead: Can animate up to 2 times its HD of undead minions. They last until killed again.
Psychic Attack: All enemies within nearby range must make a willpower test or suffer a damage die 1 step lower than normal and receive a negative die for all actions for HD rounds.
Weaknesses:
True beauty

Humanoids with skin like obsidian, capable of harnessing elemental magics of the minerals in the Glass Desert. They can produce a mucus-like substance capable of preserving organic tissue in obsidian, and can psychically reanimate these mummies to do their bidding. They believe in art and aesthetics at the expense of all else, and take much care in how they taxidermy and mummify their undead minions, often transforming them into exotic, beautiful, and horrifying chimeras. Although generally hostile to other living beings, seeing them as little more than raw materials, they will honor any individuals they believe have or can produce True Beauty.

8. Bony Chaos Fiends
Monster's Nature: Humanoid
Appearance: protruding bones
Culture: Transformation and constant change are essential to save Chaos from the tyranny of Order.
Elements: Acid, Fire
Powers:
Command animals: Can command a number of animals up to the creature's HD.
Scale Surfaces: Can move over walls, ceilings and other non-horizontal surfaces like a spider.
Weaknesses:
Hubris

Fiery, solar-powered humanoids covered in protruding bones. Much of the bone exoskeleton is relatively soft and spongy, more like the cell walls of plants, and has a greenish or purple hue from photosynthesizing agents. However, the hard protrusions, treated with natural acids that calcify them, are harder than normal bone, able to penetrate even iron armor. They use the solar energy to grow new protrusions over the span of days, and use natural acids to dissolve older protrusions. They believe in absolute chaos, and change their bony appearance regularly as a manifestation of this belief. They are also excellent climbers, using their protrusions as hooks, broken protrusions as picks, and even micro-protrusions as spider-like grips. They believe in their doctrine absolutely, and often to a fault. They see any intelligent lifeforms that do not believe in absolute chaos as profane, and will slaughter them without hesitation. While excellent improvisational tacticians, those who are systematic and can survive their onslaught may exploit their lack of order with good strategy. They also have one other ability; they develop a special acid, stored in broken off protrusions which, when struck into unintelligent animals, hijacks their nervous system and slaves them to the bony chaos fiend. They become quite angry when called out for this act of control over nature, given their chaotic doctrine.

9. Qlippoth Claymore
Monster's Nature: Magical
Trait: Translucent body.
Form: Living weapon
Elements: Poison, Wood
Powers:
Ethereal Form: Can assume an ethereal form, becoming immune to physical attacks and can enter hard to reach places.
Create Barrier: Creates a barrier to hinder or stop movement. Barriers can also inflict damage with thorns or blades. To overcome a barrier, characters will need to make a physique or agility test.
Weaknesses:
Addiction

A powerful translucent claymore sword of qlippoth wood carved from the first branch of the eldest Qlippoth Tree. It cuts as hard and sharp as Damascus steel but is as light as air. Its cut induces disease and madness similar to the Qlippoth Tree itself. The weakest Qlippoth Trees or Qlippoth Fruit in the area will be subservient to the wielder, while the more powerful, or those under direct sway of the eldest Qlippoth Tree, will try to avoid the wielder at all costs. The blade is keyed to the wielder, and will be ethereal and untouchable to anyone else unless the wielder is killed. The blade can also harness the power of impossible light to create damaging hard-light barriers. As a blade of impossible light, it induces an epistemological distortion of self and perception, and it is easy to become addicted to the feeling of power and lack of self-awareness that comes with impossible light.

*BONUS: Qlippoth Claymore stats using the Weapon Hack 2.0

Base Form: Heavy (1d8 damage, two-handed)
Total Cost: 6
0 Cost Qualities:
Plant: Made of or contains elements of plant life or is a living plant (excludes normal Wood).
1 Cost Qualities:
Bonded: Weapon only usable by owner, cannot be removed from person without consent.
Concealable: Can be hidden from view.
Elemental (Wood): Has properties related to wood/plants (e.g. benefits to gardening, nature traversal).
Magical: Has general magical properties.
Poisonous: Can cause poisoning.
Unique Appearance: May be a well known item or associated with a well-known person or faction.

10. Mobius
Monster's Nature: Daemonic
Characteristic: Incredibly filthy
Elements: Magma, Diamond
Powers:
Time Travel: The creature can travel to the past or the future of its location.
Drain Magic: Up to HD targets within nearby range become unable to cast spells if they fail a willpower test. This lasts for HD turns.
Repulsion: Makes it hard for creatures of a certain type (referee's discretion) to approach. Characters can resist with a willpower test.
Weaknesses:
Obsession

A true diamond-in-the-rough. A daemon of molten diamond birthed from the event that glassed the Glass Desert. It is a vaguely humanoid, vaguely bestial chimera, covered in dead copper-bugs and other small dead things and slime molds. Only its glistening diamond eyes and the glowing-hot lines around them belie its unfulfilled beauty. It feeds off the radiation and magical energies of the Glass Desert, and produces an impossible-light radiation field around itself, repelling impossible organisms and impossible substances. It is trapped in a mobius time loop starting from the moment the Glass Desert was glassed, up to some synchronous event in the past, future, or adjacently in multi-dimensional hyper-time. It is obsessed with breaking from the loop, but has yet to meet an organism with sufficient knowledge and domain over hyper-time that is not hostile, and can be communicated with. It is mostly mortal-like in intelligence and cognition, except for its innate understanding of hyper-time, and as a result would make for an excellent ally or font of knowledge to any who can help it with its obsession. However, it has no tolerance for anyone who gets in its way.

* NOTE: Hyper-time as described here is basically the Paraverse in my Phantasmos campaign setting.

Kyana BONUS!

Monster's Nature: Magical
Trait: The creature levitates just above ground, having a supernatural lightness.
Form: Giant eye with bloody veins
Elements: Ashes, Mucus, Steam, Air, Earth
Powers: 

Spread Shadows: An aura of shadows extends up to nearby range, blocking the vision of anyone within this space. 

Weaknesses: Addiction

Giants are bigger than any man and the magic of giants is bigger than any mortal magic. It pumps through their blood, it courses through their hearts, it looks at you from their eyes. When a giant dies some parts of them don't fully die the way the mortals do. An eye tears itself free and soars, its nerves and veins trailing like a macabre peacock tail. The gift of foresight for which so many giants are known for is still here, but death inverts its meaning: in the presence of the eye all kinds of vision becomes obscure, and all knowledge becomes occult. Words erode from the books, eyesight darkens, memory clouds, clairvoyant and prophetic visions perceive at best lacunae about everything that is in vicinity of the eye. Surrounded by darkness, both literal and metaphorical, the eye hunts for arcane blood. Sometimes a bold sorcerer seeks such eye to bind it as a familiar or weapon, but wherever the eye exists the air turns to hot ashen steam, and earth seeps with mucus not unlike the putrid liquid from decomposing corpse which makes such familiar obvious after a while.

It is because the binds of giant magic is stronger than of any mortal sorcery, and the giant is never fully separated from their eye, and just like their magic the giant never truly dies but sleeps instead in death dream to one day reawaken.

Monster's Nature: Daemonic
Characteristic: Morbid obesity
Elements: Mucus, Blood, Glass, Light, Lightning
Powers: 

Turn to Stone: victims that look into the creature's eyes must make a physique test or be turned to stone.
Dominate: can dominate the mind of a number of creatures equal to its HD. Victims can resist with a willpower test.
Weaknesses: Aversion to some substance or object

At first you see something like a huge pigskin sack, packed to the point of bursting with some unseen angular things that push and press against the leather, forming odd bumps. The pigskin sack is disgusting but, like a car crash, there is a certain gravity in its appearance, the one that binds your interest and makes its harder to look away. If you do manage to look away very quickly the danger will never come to be, and the sack remains nothing more than a disturbing image in a mind, as the the creature doesn't come to being unless observed. The blood of sorcerers, the one that obscuring eye so longs for, will protect you, as long it is out of veins and smeared all over your own skin, as the creature will fade from the field of view peacefully and simply wait for another victim.

If you keep staring a couple of seconds later you'll notice the dripping red-foamed slime, full of tiny, hot-white sparks – thin, vein-like rivulets of slime are seeping from wounds left by shards of stained glass that pierce the sack at oddest angles, as if the church window exploded into it. Then tiny lightnings that dance between these shards. Then you notice the maw, full of blunt, crushing and all too big teeth, and then the eyes, and then the you'd see nothing, as brief pain envelops you and you turn to stone.

BIG UPDATE: Good news / Bad news

This is not a content post, just an update. Without giving my whole life story, basically I was just offered a major opportunity that will involve me moving from Colorado to New York and starting a new career, all of which will involve many major lifestyle changes. I need to be in New York for work by mid-January, meaning really I need to be in New York in like a month, and on top of that I will probably be very busy with work stuff for several months afterwards.

It's possible that I've made this enough of a regular part of my life that even amidst all the chaos I will be able to keep up with the blog, but likely I will have to scale back significantly, posting less frequently and less ambitiously, and certainly I will have to be less active in the community.

My hope is that once things settle I'll be able to be more involved again, and again without going into all the minutia, this new career should put me in a position to do things I am not currently able to do, like commission more art or maybe fund a book. So that's exciting!

Anyway, I knew there was a good chance this would happen so I've been trying to restrain myself and slow down my posting, and I've been working on building up a backlog so that the transition will be more seamless. Maybe I'm overestimating how all-consuming these changes will be and there'll be no discernible difference. I just wanted to put this out there so that if, over the winter, it seems like I'm receding or disappear, you all know I'm ok and hopefully not gone forever!

Thank you all so much!

Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Mythological Characteristics

This post includes a table for Mythological Characteristics for my Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Automatic Monster Generator, which is an automated version of the monster generator found in the SS&SS Addendum. It's a fun, rules-light, OSR-style system and I would recommend you check it out!

The generator in the book listed "Mythological" as one of the natures, but it's not actually in the book! This is my attempt to fill that gap by coming up with my own "Mythological Characteristics". This table has also been added to the automatic generator so follow that link if you want to make mythological monsters!

d20	Mythological Characteristics
1	Angelic wings and halo
2	Aura of light
3	Ichor-tinted skin (blue blood)
4	Like a baroque statue or wearing baroque armor
5	Unusual skin (1d4: 1 - Metallic; 2 - Pastel; 3 - Stone or marble; 4 - Iridescent) - skin type may indicate resistance to certain types of damage
6	Wears or is encircled by holy beads or stones
7	Wears, wields, or is made of advanced-looking magi-tech
8	Melodic voice
9	Produce sounds like a masterwork instrument
10	Wears, is encircled by, or is made of holy flowers
11	Has a pack of spirit animals or is a spirit animal
12	Carries many books or tablets of a holy or legal nature
13	Fey-like butterfly wings, pointed ears, large eyes, and sparkles
14	Like an expressionist painting come to life
15	The platonic form of beauty
16	Rides on or is surrounded by clouds
17	Summons and surfs on shooting stars
18	Is a living planet, star, or other celestial body
19	Is a living dimension
20	Is unassuming (roll another nature, appears as that)

High Level Games: 5 Ways to Make Interesting Characters

Picture Reference: https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/10/19/19/08/medieval-1753740_960_720.jpg

Two posts in one day! Whoops! Well, the awesome HLG blog posted my new article today, 5 Ways to Make Interesting Characters. My other posts there, 5 Ways to Make Fantasy Worlds Fantastical Again and 5 Steps to Make Monsters that Matter (A Halloween Special) have been more about worldbuilding, so it was exciting to talk about something slightly different. Please give it a look!