Tuesday, August 3, 2021

YOU EXUDE A COSMIC DARKNESS (GLOG Class: Chainsaw Wizard)

 The legends tell of the great sages with wisdom unparalleled, who could chart the course of a kingdom's lifetime from a single utterance of its lowliest peasant. Of the mighty magicians who drew from the base nature of the universe itself to force reality to reshape itself to their wills. The invokers, the healers, the learned and the wise. All gone from this world, now, with only emptiness where wonder once was in their wake.

You don't trouble yourself over that shit. You've got a chainsaw.

CHAINSAWS

All chainsaws can be used as two-handed weapons that deal 1d8 damage (exploding damage on an 8). They take up two inventory slots and require refueling after an hour of cumulative use. Gasoline is the sane choice for fuel. You can find better options.

Getting a Chainsaw isn't easy. You'll bleed, you'll suffer, you'll probably get wrapped up in some weird quasi-mythological shit. Now you might be thinking "can't I just go to Home Depot or wherever?" But you, Chainsaw Wizard, you should know better. You know that all chainsaws are power tools used for cutting wood, and that all Chainsaws are immortal tenets of existence. They all have names. Seven words in the language of screaming metal. All Chainsaws know what they are, what they are capable of inflicting, and that they were not placed on this earth to cut wood. Most people think they were. Not you, though, Chainsaw Wizard. You know why they're really here.

(1d10)

  1. DO YOU THINK YOU MADE A MISTAKE, always disappointed in you on an uncomfortably personal level, pessimistic sadsack, encourages you to get drunk whenever things don't go your way. Which is often. When you wield it while covered in your own blood (ie, you haven't washed your face since the last time you hit 1/2 health), all its successful attacks automatically deal 8 damage (you should still roll to see if you got an 8 so that the die willl explode). 
  2. DEAD EYES OF PEOPLE YOU CANNOT SAVE, exhausted and embittered but with a quiet strength and determination earned through age. Tries to talk you out of violence, but its rhetorical strategy is always to appeal to morals you lack. When you kill someone with this Chainsaw, it tells you who they were, what their deepest secret was, and why you shouldnt've killed them.
  3. I THINK YOU OWE ME TWENTY BUCKS, thinks you owe it twenty bucks, unbearable covetious, encourages you to start a collection of some random crap you don't need. After giving it back its twenty bucks, of course. Whenever you kill somebody with this thing and then take their stuff, you get two of everything. Twice their money, twice the loot, everything. If they were holding something totally unique, something defined by the fact that only one of it exists, it doesn't matter. You get two of the Sacred Gem of the Swirling Abyss or whatever.
  4. NO HIGHLY ESTEEMED DEED IS COMMEMORATED HERE, glory hound with a death wish and you better believe it's taking you with it. Until then, though, it's the best damn Chainsaw a Chainsaw Wizard could ever want. Glides through bone and gristle like a shark through still water. When you close your eyes and scream at the top of your lungs while wielding it, you can inflict 2d8 (exploding dice) damage to everyone in a ten-foot radius through mercifully unspecified means, and another 1d4 damage in pure shock to any bystanders watching the carnage, but you'll automatically suffer a Mishap.
  5. THE ONLY GOD YOU EVER REALLY NEEDED, some sort of weird burning goat thing is etched onto a side panel but it's probably nothing to worry about. Super cool guy, really encouraging and always complimenting you, to the point where your self-esteem gets really low when you're apart. Again, that's probably nothing to worry about! Anyone who's taken at least 8 damage from this thing can be commanded once, ever, to do literally anything you tell them to do that they're capable of completing in the next ten seconds and does not result in their immediate death. Their head explodes if they don't obey.
  6. CHAINSAW WHOMST MAKES YOU SEXIER AND COOLER, its blade covered in lipstick marks that don't wash off. Its personality is exactly what you think it is. Any person attracted to your gender will be improbably attracted to your wild-eyed magnetism and lack of personal hygeine after seeing you perform a Chainsaw Move with it. Yes, *any* person. This is a double-edged sword. Or, y'know, a double-edged chainsaw.
  7. SEVEN SORCERERS WHISPER YOUR DOWNFALL TO ME, sort of a strong silent type, geeks out hard over wizards though. Disappointed that you're a Chainsaw Wizard and not a """real"""" wizard, which is total bullshit. After landing a hit with it, it whispers your enemy's stat block, which is some nerd crap you don't understand, but you feel like it may be of use to the omniscient, easily-amused god who you're pretty sure controls your every move.
  8. MAGGOT CRAWLING THROUGH UNTOLD ROT TOWARDS VALHALLA, a Chainsaw made of bugs. Fleshy pink worms knot together to form the handle. Achingly sharp mandibles are its cutting blade. Its personality is hunger. Gets a little bit bigger every time you look away from it. Can only be fueled with blood mixed with milk and honey. Spews vile poison into the veins of anyone it cuts, at your command. You can also talk to bugs who aren't part of the Chainsaw if you use it as a translator (it speaks both Chainsaw and Bug), but I wouldn't trust it if I were you.
  9. THE PRICE THAT WILL NEVER BE PAID, perfect patch of starless-and-Bible-black emptiness like a Chainsaw-shaped cutout of black construction paper overlaid over reality. A scholar of the occult. At your customarily shrieked command, it becomes heavy. So heavy that none could ever dream of lifting it. Given enough time, its weight will cause it to sink into the earth through stone floors or metal blockades. It might take a little convincing to make it light enough to hold again.
  10. WAIT LONG AND YE SHALL REAP ETERNITY, a real nihilistic prick who bums you out big time. Its advice is usually pretty solid, though. Whenever you deal 8 damage on a hit, it withers your enemy prematurely, dragging them one step closer to the grave- they have a 1-in-6 chance to completely fail to act on each turn until the next time they completely rest and recover (they'll never get the chance, if you get your way).

CLASS: CHAINSAW WIZARD

Start with a randomly-rolled Chainsaw, a really cool pair of sunglasses, unbreakable willpower, and absolutely no sense of objective reality.

PERK: You can speak the language of Chainsaws, which normal people think sounds exactly like unhinged screaming. They think this because they're a bunch of idiots. You're also pretty good at cutting trees down.

DRAWBACK: You are an unhinged constantly-screaming drifter with a nasty attitude, and this has unfortunate consequences for your social life and employment prospects.

You don't mess with dumb crap like Magic Dice and Spells. You have Violence Dice and Chainsaw Moves (which work exactly the same way as MD and Spells but they're way more badass).

Any old chainsaw is enough to perform Chainsaw Moves with, but only a capital-C Chainsaw will earn you special powers and the respect of other Chainsaw Wizards (if you're unlucky enough to exist in a world with more than one Chainsaw Wizard in it).

CHAINSAW MOVES

  1. REFUEL: Mutter creepy backwards talk while pouring any liquid at all into your chainsaw, and it'll not only refuel, it gains some special effect based on what you filled it with. Most mundane liquids like water or orange juice are boring and only make the blade slightly moist. Radioactive oozes, potions, poisons, and such ungodly substances are ideal. Alcohol gets your chainsaw drunk.
  2. MAUL: Scream and plunge your chainsaw into the flesh of your foe to deal [dice] + [sum] damage. All dice explode, and explosions also add +1 to the [sum].
  3. ECLIPSE: All light within a [sum] ft radius centered on your chainsaw is obliterated; only you can see what lies within. Lasts for [dice] minutes.
  4. GOUGE: Carve a runic symbol unique to yourself into a surface. It cannot be removed by any means other than the surface's complete destruction. The symbol can convey a message of up to [sum] words.
  5. SUNDER: Rip through a barrier of any material up to [dice] feet thick. 
  6. DISPELL: Carve through another caster's spell, illusion or curse, negating its existence. You can destroy magic from casters of [dice]+[your own number of Chainsaw Wizard templates] or less HD.
  7. CURSE: Scream obcenities at the next enemy your chainsaw hits to inflict a curse upon them for [sum] rounds. The curse inflicts a -[dice] malus to all their hit, save, and attribute checks.
  8. HEAVE: Toss your chainsaw at an enemy up to [dice]x[sum] feet away. As if guided by some cosmic hand, it automatically hits its mark, dealing damage as usual.
  9. PUTREFY: Your next successful attack rots the flesh of your opponent and your chainsaw drinks their blood, healing you for half the total damage you inflicted.
  10. PARALYZE: Your next successful attack sends your enemy into shock; each turn they'll get a Save (difficulty of [sum]) to snap out of it, but until then they're not gonna do much but sit back and look at the pretty colors.
  11. EVISCERATE: The next time you land a strike with your chainsaw, its gas tank explodes. Your enemy explodes into a shower of gore. No Save. They are dead. Permanently, forever. If there's an afterlife, they don't go there. They are gone, and so is your chainsaw. You're gonna not looking too great after this one, either, but miraculously you take just enough damage not to kill you (reduced to 1 hp in a system where the Reaper arrives at 0, for instance).
  12. IMBUE: Grip a chainsaw, any old cheap chainsaw from the local hardware store. Scream its new name- it's gotta be seven words long, remember- over and over until your throat bleeds. When you finally fall silent, this newly-imbued Chainsaw will have that name, and a personality and some sort of special power (and maybe a drawback) based on the name. I'm not writing an entire crafting system to figure out what powers your new Chainsaw can have, go bother your DM about it.

MISHAPS

Take a wild fucking guess what the Chainsaw Wizard mishaps are.

  1. You gore yourself with your own Chainsaw. Violence Dice only return to your pool on a 1-2 for 24 hours.
  2. You wound yourself with your own Chainsaw. Take 1d6 damage.
  3. You maim yourself with your own Chainsaw. Random mutation 1d6 rounds, then make a save; permanent if you fail.
  4. You partially eviscerate yourself with your own Chainsaw. Blinded (by bood getting in your eyes) for 1d6 rounds.
  5. You incapacitate yourself with your own Chainsaw. No Chainsaw Moves for 1d6 rounds.
  6. You mutilate yourself with your own Chainsaw. Mute for for 1d6 rounds.

DOOMS

  1. Every time you wield a chainsaw for the next 1d6 days, it insists on tasting blood. In any combat where you don't deal damage, Save each round or attack the nearest being until blood is spilled. If nobody else is in range, you will have no choice but to turn the chainsaw towards yourself.
  2. Videodrome-style conflagrations of metal and flesh fuse your currently-wielded chainsaw to your dominant hand, leaving you with a chainsaw arm. Can't use it for anything but chainsaw-ing, obviously.
  3. Physical body totally obliterated, leaving only pure ego. A brand-new Chainsaw sits in the middle of a smoking crater. Declare your new name in seven words. You cannot do anything under your own power, due to being a Chainsaw, except scream in the language of violence.


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