Stellar Resonants and Luminant Beings: an Alternate MU Class for OSE

 

The Stellar Resonant as I have it written is for OSE Advanced for my game set in a fantastical Albania, but it should be adaptable to most systems without difficulty. The polarity system can be ripped out wholesale for any sort of toxic spellcasting dynamic you wish. A good shorthand for making weird, deeply stellar mad Resonants is to roll a sage from Mythic Bastionlands, by Chris McDowall.

“It was just a colour out of space—a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.” 

- Color Out of Space, HP Lovecraft (1927)

Stellar Resonants (Reskinned Wizards)

Damon always enjoyed watching the night sky. There wasn’t much else to do in his pasture. Stargazing was more interesting than watching goats. He’d picked his favorite star - a shiny blue carbuncle, like the necklace of his sister’s dowry. He tracked it on it’s lazy arc, night after night. He liked to imagine it filling him up - a cool fire filling him up from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head. It seemed to shine brighter, when he did.

Some nights he swears he can hear music, from above.

One night, his soul sang back, and for a moment they were in concert, a vibration, matched waveforms in a perfect amplitude. He wasn’t the same afterwards. Touched by the Music of the Sky, the earth suddenly seemed duller. Mutable. His magic came easy, echoes of the frequency of the heaves working ‘pon the firmament.

It wasn’t long after that his Master found him. His pull was overwhelming, his own Star’s music overpowering, dragging Damon deep into the well of his orbit. He showed Damon the rudiments of mage craft. Brought him to others whose music sang in concert with his.

Every spell he cast made that blue star shine a little brighter every night.

Stellar Resonants are mortals who, through some quirk of cosmic chance or happenstance, share a strange esoteric bond with a stellar body high in the Void beyond the Firmament. This resonance grants them vast powers, but the logic of the stars is not the logic of men, and these star-touched people are often strange and terrible. Outsiders, lonely misanthropes, they seek out others like them according to weird rules and a strange gravity only they can sense - sometimes the meetings are benevolent and teaching, other times suddenly violent and destructive. Wizards have been great boons to many kingdoms and lands, but they have been the downfall of just as many. They are as likely to appear in the lands of the Muhim as they are the White Tower, and many come from farther and stranger places.

Their patrons, known to their thralls as ‘Luminant Beings’, project strange invisible light in wavelengths only visible to those attuned to it. This light can be channeled by those who can perceive it, and empower them to do great and strange things. Those so affected claim their Stars are sentient. That they seek to understand the Material world. That they want things.

Given what horrors those afflicted have raised in their strangeness, it is the author’s relief that these strange stars are not closer to us.

Mechanics

REQUIREMENTS: 16 Int

PRIME REQUISITES: Int, Wis

MAX LEVEL: NA, but every level above 5th poses a risk of Celestial Madness

XP: As Wizard

HD: d4+1

ARMOR/WEAPONS: As Wizard

SAVES: As Wizards 

ALIGNMENT: Resonants may begin as any alignment, but over time as Celestial Madness sets in they are likely to drift towards chaotic.

Celestial Pairings and Polarity

Roll 1d4+1 - This is the number of other wizards bound to other stars in your Constellation; One per star. You may be separated from one another by vast distances, but you will know each other on sight as if by instinct, and may interact in dreams.

Roll 1d6 - Your Celestial System is either Stable (1-5) or Volatile Polarity (6);

IN A STABLE SYSTEM, the orbits of the stars are comfortable and serene, and there is little conflict between the wizards of the system. The Resonants are usually peaceable or not inherently hostile with one another, and happy to share and trade information within their spheres of interest.

A VOLATILE SYSTEM indicates an imbalance of power - the member stars are in erratic orbit, and the member wizards are paranoid and hostile, unhelpful to one another, seeking dominion or control over the other members.

Every time the Stellar Resonant gains a level, roll to see if the Polarity changes. If the PC Stellar Resonant is the highest level Resonant in the System, they may choose the Polarity themselves, but must maintain it.

Stable Polarity is the common stellar alignment, harmonious. It lends strength to it’s members - Stellar Resonants in Stable Polarity save as if they were five levels higher.

Volatile Polarity is full of friction. They seek stability through conflagration and conflict. Wizards in Volatile polarity gain increased magical potency in the form of an additional spell slot. Slaying another wizard in your celestial system makes this spell slot increase permanent, and maintains the polarity without requiring a roll.

The highest level Resonant in a constellation may attempt to Charm the other members (who save at -2) but cannot do more than subtly adjust their opinions unless physically in person.

Item Enchanting

Resonants may imbue an item or weapon with a spell they know by casting the spell into it, imbuing it with the strange frequencies of their patron star. Items remain enchanted until the next sunrise. The enchantment can be banished by dispel magic, or a Bardic Countersong.

Stellar Foci

The luminant beings’ interests are eccentric and odd - and their obsessions ring in the bones of their connection. Stars have d4+1 areas of interest, generated as Sages, at random; A Stellar Resonant has a 1 in 6 chance to know a fact in that area of interest at level 1, and finds themselves drawn to works in that area of interest. They must enquire about and seek knowledge or adventure in these fields when possible. Actively turning down such an interest results in a 10% XP Penalty until the fascination is indulged.

Learning New Spells - An alternative to spellbooks

While a Resonant can learn a spell by studying a scroll as a usual arcane practitioner might, they carry no written spellbook. The frequencies of their magic hum in their bones and teeth, a symphony of sympathetic resonance. That means they may attempt to learn spells in other, unconventional ways, by communing with their patron. When a Resonant comes across a Stellar Foci within the area of interest of their Star, they may commune with their patron, allowing the Luminant Being to peer out through their gaze to experience the material more directly. For this, they are rewarded, but it carries grave risks.

Before communing, nominate a spell you can learn from your spell list. Two saves must then be made - first, a save versus paralysis, then a save versus spells. Success on both gets you the spell you requested, as you spend an appropriate amount of time channeling your Star that it might indulge It’s interest.

Failure on both saves reduces you to a single hit-point, with only a 2 in 6 chance you receive the spell in question. A single failure reduces your hit-points by half, and your spell is instead randomly chosen from the spell list instead (or offered at GM discretion.)

Celestial Madness

For every level after Level 5, Roll a d100. You have a 25% chance to catch Celestial Madness - failed rolls increase the chance at next level by 25%. Succumbing to Celestial Madness is more a reflection of your Star than yourself - one of your Stellar Foci is replaced with a new and odd obsession, (Eyes, Blood, Ultimate Cosmic Power, Criminal Acts, Strange Misanthropic Behavior, etc) ideally related to whatever field is being replaced. The roleplay restriction remains. Once a Stellar Resonant has succumbed to Celestial Madness, the chance resets to 0% per level, incrementing as stated above. 

This does not prevent a Resonant from the pull of a Grand Working. Even the nominally sane are tempted to make their mark upon the firmament.

The Grand Working 

At level 15, a Resonant is compelled to build in the name of their star. This could be a tower, or a grand labyrinth, or some other grand and inscrutable construction of impressive scale, tied to their areas of interest. If they lack the means to do so, they must adventure to secure the funding, or repurpose some other ruin, or go to war. The Work must be completed. Other members of your constellation can help - or be compelled into service.

Note for GMs: Make your Stellar Resonant’s spell list weird. Make them different, individual. Determine them randomly. There’s no set options here, every Star should have a weird ass wuxia name and be deeply, deeply strange and sentient.

Comment what Stars fill your strange sky.

And for OSE GMs: Give your Resonants an extra spell at level 1. Personally I think wizards being functionally useless in early level AD&D formats is really unpleasant for every player who’s ever made the attempt at my tables. Let your wizards indulge in their weird wizard powers. Get funky with it. Have fun. Give them strange dreams of stranger stars, and colors only they can name. 

RPG TECH: Arc Menus - A Sandbox Switchboard

Getting a new module is exciting. Digging through a setting gazetteer or dungeon, envisioning all the adventures you might have within it. Some modules are easy to get into - take some notes, get a group together, dive the dungeon. Order Up.

But the products that get the most press - and the modules I like the most, at any rate - aren't often so straightforward. They're big, sweeping sandboxes, epic in scope. Campaign frames like Gumshoe's Dracula Dossier or Mongoose Traveler 2e's Pirates of Drinax. I am a shameless maximalist, and so are all of my favorite RPG products.

And those games are work!

Not just for the GM! The struggles of running a sandbox game are myriad and have been elaborated on by bloggers who've been around longer than I. But as a veteran GM of many a big, showy RPG Bookshelf Setpiece, I can say sometimes the hardest thing is to just get the ball rolling and get players playing. Especially if there's homework involved - sourcebooks to read, lore to parse, dense conspiracies to unravel. Many players don't have the time or energy to put in the effort that a GM, exciting about the Big Shiny Sandbox they just bought, in learning or thinking about all the things they could possibly do.

"What do we want to do now?" is one huge killer of momentum if the party doesn't have an answer ready.

 In the above games, and other sandboxes like Beyond the Wall and Godbound, players working out what to do next is often times a lot of sitting around and talking through possible options, eating up precious time at the table with 'dead air.' This is especially punishing in games that have a high overhead of player investment (see D.Doss) or for tables short on time. By the time the party has a working plan for what's next, an hour has passed and sessions' almost over.

I've tried to solve this problem any number of ways. Extra sessions where the party can plan 'away from the table'. Discord Servers and group chats where players can plan ascynchronously. Sometimes, with the right group, these methods can be effective - my Drinax planning sessions were, but that was mostly due to COVID and the free time the pandemic created.

Usually? They don't work very well, or they work lopsidedly. People only have so much time in their lives, and the fact your friends have pledged 3-4 hours of their week for potentially years is a commitment that should be respected and honored by everyone there. When confronted with the enormous freedom of a sandbox, some players and groups struggle to work out just what direction to go in, and that hurts your ability to prep as a GM.


My solution are Arc Menus

An Arc Menu from a (mostly) very silly game of Godbound. I tag PCs whose deal is likely to come up during play in the tags, too.

…In Only Five Microwave Minutes

Think of an Arc Menu like a 'preview' of each plot hook you've thrown your players way. This is you telegraphing to your players that you, as a GM, have content prepared for this specific eventuality. Adventures loaded and ready for bear. You may not know how they'll resolve, you may not know all the pieces, but these are ideas in the world you are excited about. Loaded, in the chamber, ready to go. The writeup is like an episode blurb on a Netflix preview.

Depending on the adventure in question, some will stick around. Some won't. I as a GM usually telegraph this, to let players know there's a time sensitive factor at play, even if they might not be aware of it in character.

As a group, this takes some of the pressure off of the planning. There's no agonizing about wasted time, you have a hook to get you excited and sometimes the hint of what you might be getting into builds the suspense in a way it otherwise might not. As a GM, this is also very useful because you now know what your players are excited about and why, and you can't present a menu if you're not ready to cook a meal. 

Extra Dips

I've experimented with other bits and pieces of 'Menu Tech' - for more winding adventure paths I sometimes split things between plot critical "Tent-Pole" adventures and 'side' adventures that are less pressing. I've tinkered with a voting majority for arc selection, compared to a rotating hotseat, where each player gets a chance to pick an arc they care about. Tailor things to your group. Talk to your players. The GM doesn't have to do everything alone, and the admin of how you all decide to share your limited free time on this planet is one of those.






The arcs in my Drinax game came with clocks, for example. The clocks are urgency ticks, and we rotated through every arc with one person choosing which arc to tackle next.

Check Please

I'm aware that this sort of thing is probably more in the style of 'Railroad' than a true-blue Sandbox campaign. I'm sure there's nomenclature and game philosophy debate we could have about it, and I welcome that discussion. But my goal with this post isn't to get into a "Sandbox GM vs Railroad GM" nomenclature debate - words are only tools to further our understanding, and the above is a tool to help folks run smoother, better games. I don't use Arc Menus for every game I run. I don't use it in my current games. But when I've got a group I know wants a lot of choices, but absolutely hates planning, I bust out my prep and I start scribbling up a menu. I hope this helps you run your games the way it's helped me run mine.

Something Something Mindkiller: A Dune (2019) Play Report

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“But this being has a human shape, Gurney, and deserves human doubt.” 

                                                                                          - Paul Atreides, DUNE       

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It's Turn 4, and I don't know if I can trust Gurney Hallek. 

It's come down to this last, desperate gamble. The once-great House Atreides, laid low in their seeming moment of ascension, have been attacked by their mortal enemies, the treacherous Harkonnens. The Planet of Arrakis is their battleground, jockeying for that most precious of resource: Spice. Four times has the great sweeping Coriolis storms swept across the planet, and slowly, one by one, Paul Atredies' loyal companions have fallen. 

First, his mother Jessica, who gave her life in a pyrrhic gambit to secure the spice fields just north-east of the Atreides held Stronghold of Arrakeen. A witch's poison did its work, ending the life of the fetid Beat Rabban, but the treachery of the Harkonnens is a sucking, suffocating quagmire. Jessica was loyal, untouched by Harkonnen tendrils of treachery. The spice shipment was lost to the Harkonnen dogs, and even more, valuable tools of war were lost to the depths of the Harkonnen armories. But a pyrrhic victory none-the-less; soon after securing the shipment for the bloated Baron, a great sandworm devoured the survivors; Paul was prescient enough to know that, at least, his mother's killers would not be easily revived. 


By turn 3, I grew careful, wary. I could predict the spice movements, something my opponent could not. But my men could not be trusted (those of my retinue that I remember drawing lay dead in cloning tanks, and I was sketchy on who else I drew. If only I had written it down!), and every turn my enemy's arsenal grew larger. This turn, conflict was avoided; the Harkonen's could not reach my Stronghold or the spice with their range, but I could. Those coffers went to bring more men Calladan. Loyal men I could trust. 

Trust was in short supply.

Then Duncan Idaho, famed swordsman known to Fremen and Atreides alike, was slain by that cowardly Harkonnen lapdog Captain Nefud, artery sliced with a slow-moving slip-tip. The House of Paul gained ground when Tuek's Stiech became a bastion of loyalty, with troops camped just beyond and Atreides Ornithopters beat out the Harkonnen to a valuable, necessary spice trove. I was all set to take the third Stronghold, the western Sietch Tabar, firmly establishing my lead in the game.

Then Thufir, my loyal Mentat, advisor, and strongest surviving general, betrayed me.

The crucial battle to take the third citadel, right next to an oncoming spice-flow that would replenish my coffers, became a total rout. My first aggressive game, the first sweet victory from the Harkonnens that would allow me to build further, fight harder for my planet, turned to ash in my mouth.  

Of the five battalions I had deployed, there were no survivors.

Thufir was denounced a traitor and killed in the panic, and I was left with Gurney Hallek, a capable fighter of uncertain loyalties, and Doctor Washinton Yueh, a man who had betrayed the Atreides line more than once. 

The Harkonnen forces remained untouched. 

My stack of 4, away from my Ornithopter pads, was collecting spice vital to keep my head above water. My opponent had more generals, more treacherous tricks, and at least one traitor in my ranks.
But they had left their own Ornithopter pads, just two territories away, had but two units.

His forces were trapped in by a storm I had manipulated, using my weather control console to keep the storms raging around Sietch Tabar in the southwest and lock the Harkonens out of Spice a mere tantalizing spinward-territory away. The dread Baron's forces were spread thin, holding three cities to my two, and I had two fronts to defend. My Ornithopter pads at Arrakeen only had two battalions, and Tuek's Stiech was defended only by a lonesome two. This game would be won or lost on the next round of troop movements. Almost assuredly, I need to fight two battles in a single turn, and I need to win both to stay in the game.

And I don't know if I can trust Gurney Hallek.

And yet...

Slowly, a plan takes shape. Five battalions of loyal Atreides men at arms camp only a short ornithopter away from the almost assured collapse of Tuek's Sietch. They can respond in the following cycle of movement and retake the Sietch if it falls. I had enough Spice left to pay the Spacing guild for four more battalions to reinforce Arrakis, while I ordered my spice-gathering soldiers to assault the weakened Ornithopter Hangars of House Harkonnen and destroy them. If I could cripple their movement and retake the city, keeping my head above water for one more turn- and stranded so, I could pick them off.

The Harkonnens couldn't afford to lose their Ornithopters. Surely, this would be the moment that the dreaded, feared Scion of House Harkonen Feyd Rutha would swoop in to defend his family in their hour of need. It was only natural the Baron would send his strongest general to the fore, never knowing that I had suborned the youth from the very start. That coup would preserve precious forces, forces that could then escape and make a final assault to drive the Harkonnens out of my home!

Of course, I couldn't let on that this was my plan. Some token resistance had to be offered at Tuek's Sietch, to bait the trap. Accepting a command there was nearly certain death, the Harkonnen's armories swollen by now with poisons, knives, ballistic weapons, and shields, and I with nothing to defend with. 

One of my men is disloyal. That much, I know. Sending the traitor to a losing battle that would soon be won again would both rid me of a possible spy and protect the main force.

But which man? Doctor Yueh is not a fighter. Giving Gurney command of the Ornithopter attack force would almost certainly assure my victory. Unless he were disloyal. That would spell disaster for the whole campaign. And perhaps, should my feint be seen through, Gurney's experience in combat could bolster the talents of the doomed southern defenders. And if Feyd Rutha showed his face at Carthag, then the day would be won without firing a shot, and Yueh's inexperience will not matter in the least. Yes. Yes, this is the way. Our losses taking the Harkonnen's copter facilities will be great, but a Doctor will be going with them. This is the calculus of war. 

Because I couldn't trust Gurney Hallek. 
I gave him his orders and a poisoned nail, to finish the enemy General or himself, should all seem lost. Stoic until the end, he accepted his orders without comment. 


“The test of a Man isn't what you'll think he'll do. It's what he actually does.”

Feyd Rutha never made an appearance at Carthag. Yueh led our forces into an ambush, where the ever-present Captain Nefud was waiting to butcher them like lambs. Apparently, Harkonnen treachery can subvert even the famed Imperial Conditioning. A careless slip early in the war led to Feyd Rutha's corruption being known to old Vladimir, who adapted, as he always did. It was a trap from the start. 


I am led to understand that Gurney Hallek and his battalions held out for nineteen hours in the doomed defense of Tuek's Sietch. The men stationed in Red Chasm listened, two territories away, as Hallek led vicious close-quarters, house-to-house fighting, making the pigs pay for every inch of dusty ground with water and blood. That he never surrendered, even when that twisted, broken creature Vladimir calls a Mentat hauled him up in chains for some playacted trial. Even gave Petr a scratch with the poisoned nail, for all the good it did in the end. Snooper found it easily enough. Petr simply smiled that broken little smile of his and smoothly shot my last, loyal friend in the head. 

“The whole theory of warfare is calculated risk...”                         

 “Hope clouds observation.”

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Dog In The Vineyard Fiction Sample 1 - The Trapped Tree

     Here's a short bit of set-dressing in the wake of my highly enjoyable Weird West campaign of Dogs in the Vineyard, about the adventures of Pseudo-Mormon Exorcists and Gunslingers. Here, Sister Sarah-Lynn Page, convert, survivor, a victim of sorcery, undertakes the final trial of her one-year apprenticeship at the Temple of Life - the first *real* step on her journey. 

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    The tree was backed by a sky bruised purple and green by angry thunderheads. It filled her vision as her teachers dragged her from the wagon and pulled the bag from her head, a gnarled black hand reaching up and out to squeeze her tight in its knotted, burned black fingers. The cottonwood—stripped bare of bark or leaves—sat bent over and swollen, alone at the peak of a hill surrounded by a stark white ring of pure ritual salt.

    Somewhere beyond the horizon line, heat lighting danced out of view. Her teachers waited, Three in their Power, faces sour and impassive while the hopeful got her bearings. The young Pup had been roused from her bare barrack-room by expressionless, broad-shouldered Sisters with hard looks and padded gambesons in case she struggled too much. Even so, she'd gotten a few licks in. Wasn't ever about to let any folk get close enough to touch her unwilling without her sayso, and her elbows had certainly said a lot that night. A few of the Sisters keeping her steady had the bruises and bitter grimaces to prove it. Sarah-Lynn took some small pride in that, at least.

    The center Third of her teachers (a woman; they'd done her that small courtesy at least) was not one she recognized from her intensive month of training. Her face was canyon-cragged with lines, with a long head of hair as white as the salt flats. Her skin was baked nut-brown by years of hard living, it seemed, and the Coat that marked her office looked as hard-used as the woman who wore it, and fit like a glove. Sister Sarah-Lynn checked, saw no ring on her finger or the ghost of a ring removed and felt all the better for it.

    She was a lifer, then. One who finished her Circuit, and went out for another, then another, answering to no one but herself and the King of Life above. She stood at the center of her three teachers, hard-bitten Dogs the lot of them, Three in Their Power and so sure of herself and her power, so solid and grounded she reminded Sarah-Lynn of the great, massive King Oak at the center of Bright Falls Temple. 

    In short, everything Sarah wanted- no, *needed* - to be. 

    The woman caught her glances, kept her face stoic, impassive. Had Sarah-Lynn been looking for sisterly camaraderie, she'd found none waiting. The elder Sister's eyes were sharp and hard as flint, and her expression didn't waver once from its grim and granite countenance. That suited Sarah-Lynn fine. She was sick of pity. The lack of care, that hard look, meant she was just another Pup in the trials, no different than anyone else. Straightened her spine a little, to think on that, on why she was here.

    Over the woman's shoulder, the trapped tree loomed. 

    One of the men spoke first. "It's time for your trial, Sister. The final step, before your inducement, before receiving Coat and Gun and Circuit, before you can leave this place in service to the King of Life," All three genuflected in the way of their faith, and Sarah-Lynn followed in the ways she was taught, palm out and fingers splayed wide like branches, "and shephard His Faithful along his branches. Are you ready?"

    "What must I do, Brother?" A faint breeze kicked up some dust, but the grains of the salt circle remained still, undisturbed as if held in place by some cosmic magnet.

    The other man, the youngest of the Three, took up the mantle next. The old woman simply watched, gaze unflinching. 

    "Within that Tree resides a powerful Demon, Sister."

    She saw now the implements arrayed for her on a side table. Gun and Book and pot of holy river clay. She knew what they meant. A small twinge of acrid doubt curdled in her gut. Sarah-Lynn tamped down on it quickly. It was said the Dogs of her order could smell all sorts of lies and sins and personal failings. While she had never been inducted into those mysteries (if indeed they did exist), her every move was being evaluated, and she didn't dare show weakness. 

    "You will take up your tools, enter the Binding Circle, and drive it from this place," The Dog continued. The Gun was a heavy breech-loader, with hand-rolled powder cartridges that needed to be worked in with a leaver. Clunky. Slow. But powerful, with a heavy ball that could shatter bone and leave a hole in a man the size of a Territorial Authority quarter. The Book was her own, given the day she Converted; filled with scribbles and sketches, poems half-remembered. Some of the hymnals were even underlined. 

    "This is your final test. Should you succeed... you will become one of us, and your true journey will begin."

    Sarah-Lynn met the eyes of the old woman, who nodded, once, and motioned for the acolytes to strap her gunbelt around her waist. There remained no flicker of sympathy. The test that came next was hers and her alone to succeed. The thunderheads bunched dark and angry along the horizon lines, a line of colts on a racing line. With a deep breath, one hand holding up the Book of Life, the young Dog-to-Be put one foot over the salted border.

    With a crack of sulphuric thunder and the rushing howl of the wind bellowing forth a challenge, the tree on the hilltop burst into hungry flame.