Modernist spell schools of the nine rivers

To construct a school of magic, one requires three elements.

-First, a source of divinity, which is comprised of divine information (which spells are made from, and can be called the "Words of God", though some argue a more accurate metaphor would be "the genetic information contained in the shed skin of God"), and a source of divine energy (in other worlds, mana/MD, the food for spells).
-A resonant base, which is a tendency for things to be a certain way. You can either use the story of a God, as the universe is constructed from their whims, the independent tendencies of the universe you inhabit, or the story of a species and how things have turned out in the past for them. 

-A reliable way to train people to share a mindset and knowledge base that leads to their magic developing in the same way as yours did, and a way to shape their soul to collect mana. 

This one is the easiest in terms of total work needed, as it takes dozens of years instead of thousands to billions, but it is also the hardest, since nobody has gone and done the work for you yet. 

Witchcraft and the traditional form of magic.

Witchcraft, also known as contracted magic relies on receiving the ability to cast magic as a blessing from the divine. Usually this is through a payment of souls or favours, though many strange spirits and demons may choose to give it to you unprompted, unremunerated, and naturally without your consent. 

For the first few centuries of human habitation within the nine rivers, this was the only way to become a mage. 

The details on cultist and noble subcultures are beyond the scope of this post. Hopefully I will get around to making posts on both, since there is little a rpg blog reader desires more than a list of weird noble houses and secret societies. 

 

Monastic traditions. 

As mentioned, the tendencies of divinity are one of the best resonant sources, and often you have access to religious texts on the works of the agents of divinity. The first magical schools therefore came from monasteries, who focused on independently aligning yourself with the works of a god in order to be able to recreate the miracles of their prophet through the use of magic. 

The two schools I have posted in the past, those of Divine commandment and primordial creation stem from this tradition, and their practice is closely associated with the adherents of their associated Gods. 

 

Modernist traditions. 

Modernist magic are artificially created, starting with a use case and working backwards to find the best resonant base to use. Modernist thought has infected nearly every spell school, as many monastic students read the material put out by and implement pragmatist variations into their work. 

The first modernist schools originates in the city of Udin Zaratin, with the precursor to force magic being assembled based on records stolen from the memory bank stolen from the architects. 
Udin Zaratin held a 85 year reign as the capital of the empire before being destroyed during the cataclysm. Despite being caught near directly near the emergence of the 6th sun, it was kept largely intact by the heroic efforts of the mages residing within. 

This is no doubt greatly appreciated by the wyrm host which has since made the city its hive. 

 

Wizard soul anchor morphology.  
Soul anchors, are, by and large, ridiculously convoluted in terms of spiritual morphology.

As artificial anchors, wizard anchors are blessedly simple (at least in their shared elements, once you start bolting more deltas onto them, then its over), being comprised of a series of cavities and channels.

The first is the mana collector, which allows a mage to extend their spiritual surface area such that they absorb as much magic as a creature ten thousand times their size (which is still not all that much). 
The second is a spell hive, which stores spells, and slowly breeds more as you accumulate knowledge from the outside world. These resemble a series of long hexagonal tubes, each storing a single spells. 

If you don't know what a soul anchor is, mechanically its basically a class, and lore wise its an extension of your body into a fourth dimensional pocket dimension (warriors and soul mages literally have additional organs tucked away there). 

Mechanical notes

-These are intended for any GLoG mage class, though I do have my own here. 
-A spell having a * next to it means it takes two combat rounds to cast it. 
-Free actions can be resolved outside your turn, and interrupt other actions.

-Thaums are the same of magic dice, and are the diegetic unit of measurement. You could say "this will use 3 thaums of mana", and it would be grammatically equivalent to "this will use 3 litres of water". 

Force magic

When force magic was created, it was specifically designed such that it would latter spawn more specialized sub schools. Its adherents are myriad and unconstrained by border or creed, but remain concentrated amongst the academic classes. 

Modernist force mages are stereotyped as irreverent, intelligent, and egotistical. If old they are considered archaic, and if young they are considered bohemian. 

This is amongst other mages of course, for most people, if they even have opinions on modernist mage subcultures, it will be concerning on if you are a cultivator or a civil servant. 

The legacy of this illustrious school is both damned and redeemed by the second largest group of force mages, that being the followers of the burning horizon. Old Emperor Zaratin was a solar monarch and a slave to Horizon after all.  

Cantrip - Lock: Spatially lock a small object, that object only moves when you cast this spell again. 

Ability - Light: Whenever you cast a spell, you may choose to change the frequency of the waste heat to visible, producing dim light for [dice] hours. 

Spells

 

Push (3m): Apply [sum] knockback or pull worth of force to an object/creature. This can be used to accelerate or slow down projectiles by that much physical damage instead. 

Force shield (3m): Spatially locks air in a 2x1m plane for 1 hour, shield has [sum]*2hp, automatically moves with the target, and (if cast on a mage) can be rotated around them 1/round as a free action. 

Distortion blast (90m): [sum] force, anti material, ignores all damage resistance or reduction. 

Redirect (free action) (3m): Change the direction of all remaining movement of a [dice]*6 medium slot jumping, falling or forcefully moving creature. 

Shatter (6m): Break a [dice] small slot object, dealing [sum] damage and deafening everyone in a [dice]*3m radius.

Conductivity (touch): [sum] cubic meters of solids become electrically and thermally conductive for [sum] rounds. Any damage which hits it is instead applied evenly to every creature touching it. 

This spell can be used in reverse to convert all lightning damage that hits an area into heat, and all heat into kinetic energy. This does not transmit it to others. 

Haste (touch): Double speed, all mental actions can be spent as physical actions, all weapons gain multiattack. 

After [dice]rounds, the spell ends. Can only affect a medium or smaller creature. 

Energy conversion (free action) (3m): Convert [dice]*50 points of physical or elemental damage into another type of physical or elemental damage. 

Flicker (touch): Physical or elemental hits you deal or take must be saved or get negated, once [dice] hits are negated the spell ends.

In addition you may move through solid surfaces up to [dice]m thick as a movement action, but will instantly drop to negative max hp if you try to phase through a wall thicker than your capacity. 

Local down (3m): Choose a flat surface, all objects within [dice]m cube count that surface as their local gravitational down for [sum] rounds. 

Palisade* (3m): Spatially lock a [sum]m square plane of space, the shield breaks after sum^2 physical damage is dealt to it. 

Phantasm*: On the first turn of casting, a [dice]THD, [dice]m diameter hemisphere of force, wide end away from the caster on the first turn is manifested. 

On the second turn, it rushes forward [sum]m, carrying any targets in its path and dealing [sum]*2 physical damage.

 

If a target is pinned against a wall by this spell and is smaller than the diameter of the cage, it slams around them, automatically preventing all physical movement until it is destroyed. 

At the start of the next turn, everyone within the cage takes [sum]bleeding/physical damage, and it dissipates. 

While the first part of the spell can be used as a shield, it only interacts with kinetic energy/physical damage. 

Quantum superposition (self): You make two copies of yourself, which can move, and perceive the world independently for [dice] rounds. Once one attacks, applies significant force to an object, casts a spell, or takes damage, the other disappears.

War magic

War magic is the prized school of the first legion, a offshoot of force magic, and tool specifically made to remove any and all obstacles or complications an army could face. 

Its first two victims ended up being the adherents of its progenitor. With its inaugural deployment being on six day war and the imperial massacre of its nominally much larger and stronger rival. 

As both concession and form of mockery, Zaratin was made the imperial capital a day before its conquest. 

War mages are stereotyped as career oriented sociopaths, or their often strange children, who are the products of being shoved into a warmind academy at the age of six.

Over the years, a parallel society has formed around these ignoble scions. Spending the first thirty years of your life and making all your formative connections amongst other children of generals certainly has a certain impact.

Benefit: War mages counterspell with twice as much sum.

Drawback: You no longer feel anger, sadness, fear or regret. You have great difficulty determining what other people are thinking. You cannot learn any mind magic or divination spells. 

Cantrip: Reflect projectile (3m): Reflects the next projectile that enters the range and fires it back at the assailant. Can be keyed to only activate on projectiles that fit a certain description (such as damage threshold, direction or damage type). Can only reflect projectiles with [Currently exhausted dice]x10 damage or less. This is based on the kinetic damage components of shells, not their detonations. 

Cantrip: Extract value (touch): A corpse has their equipment removed and sorted by value, laid neatly next to them. Then a medium creature worth of flesh are separated into base components. The humours automatically flow into any nearby containers, the skin unwinds, tans itself and then rolls itself up. The meat cures itself and the undesirables bury themselves. 

Spells

Distortion blast (90m): [sum] force, anti material, ignores all damage resistance or reduction. 

Force shield (3m): Spatially locks air in a 2x1m plane for 1 hour, shield has [sum]*2hp, automatically moves with the target, and (if cast on a mage) can be rotated around them 1/round as a free action.  

Excavate* (6m): Move [sum] cubic meters of earth by [dice]m each. 

Detonate lungs (Touch): Deals [sum]*2 internal force damage and [dice] exhaustion. The target must have lungs. 

Sonar pulse: [sum]x10m sphere, see the presence of medium objects and creatures, and the general shape of larger objects and creatures. Requires earth or water to transmit, rangex10 in water. 

Smoking mirror (3m): Lasts [sum] hours, [dice] targets become shrouded in cloaks of gray fog. They gain +[sum] dr to spiritual damage, and concealment against ranged attacks. In addition, they become blind (all types of sight including omniception), invisible and immune to divination, memetics and mental strain. 

Mages arsenal (3m): 

Levitate [sum] tiny or [dice] small objects/creatures, you may throw one at a point within 120 meters as an action, up to twice per turn. 

You may draw the ordnance from an extradimensional space or physical storage within 3m for free as a part of the action. 

Heat metal (sight): Heat a piece of metal, dealing [sum] fire damage to anything in contact with it every round for a minute.  

Steal detonation (3m): Transfer a detonation of up to [sum]^2 damage into an extremely heavily time dilated dimension. At any point, you may put it back anywhere within 9m by spending 3ap, and set a delay of up to [dice]turns. 

This has a 1/12 chance of automatically happening prematurely whenever you take spiritual damage or fall to 0hp. 

For practical reasons, this is usually used as a held action. This spell does not give any obvious tells it is being prepared. 

Dark age*: [sum]^2 m cone, all explosives detonate, all gunpower becomes inactive for 1 minute. 

Imbue malice* (3m). Choose an aerosolized toxin or toxic gas. For [sum] minutes, it gains sentience with [dice] times human intelligence. It can move at [sum]m per round and has actions as a human.

In addition, whenever it kills something with significant sentience, the duration doubles.

At 3+ dice, it has [dice] mage hands. 

Shaped charge fireball* (120m): [sum]*2 piercing/force/fire, anti-material, [dice]m line. 

Soul magic

Soul magic is the most vaunted and cherished form of magic. Nearly every civic mage who *can* become one, does. This is due to the unbelievable quantities of money one can make operating as a soul surgeon. 

Soul magic is a splinter school from an ancient and widespread monastic school practiced by the followers of the sublimation. A concerted effort by an international coalition of mages has nearly eradicated all mentions of it from official records, save for one: 

All soul mages swear a soul oath to kill any follower of the older form of magic, and to commit suicide should they encounter one but fail to eradicate them. This oath also forbids them from spreading any information 

The followers of Tajkan - Ur still practice a form of soul magic descended from this original form, though they have taken great pains to subtly alter it so that it is not identical. 

As a result, their transfigurations are altered with seams of black tar like material coating all layers. Repeated use causes their skin to yellow and their hair to split and grow into a thin, patchy coat of off white feathers.

If you are curious of the reason for your oath, it is not forbidden to find out, and they do not suffer from the same restriction you do. 

Ability: Pursuit of inner perfection: Whenever you would gain a spell from synthesis, you may instead choose to learn a skill, and vice versa. 

In addition, only soul mages may practice soul magic unless otherwise stated. 

Ability: 1/round, when you cast a soul mage spell, you may use transfiguration as a free action. 

Ability: Your unarmed attacks have a base damage of 5

Cantrips

-Soulsight: See the location of any souled creature within 12m, if you have seen a technique or spell before, you may know that they have it by looking at their soul. You may also ask your DM for a general description of what their soul looks like. 

-Fleshcraft: Make alterations to the appearance and health of body parts. This is an extremely difficult skill and takes hours to perform. Senior soul mages almost exclusively practice this skill, as well as transfiguration, as even centuries of practice is insufficient to reach complete mastery of flesh craft. 

Can heal most injuries given enough time (1hp every minute). One 1 max hp every 12 hours (requires 500s worth of medication. A minimum of an anaesthetic and soul agent such as silver is required). Can also be used for disguising or cosmetic surgery for the most skilled flesh crafters.  

-Filial: At the start of your turn, as a free action you may switch any item made of human souls you are touching into any form they can be made of the same type. For example you could have a soul sword become a soul spear, but not become an extradimensional storage. 

Spells

Transfiguration (Self): Transform yourself to add one of these features, untransform after a rest or at will. You may layer multiple uses of this spell, but not multiple of the same feature. 

-Strength: +[dice] strength 

-Mass expansion: +[dice] strength, step up size, become immobile, gain [sum]+[sum] temp hp. 

-Spines: Any enemies within [dice]m take [sum] piercing with Impale.

On further rounds, if a target ends their turn in close combat with you, they take [sum] piercing damage, and they are unable to separate themselves from you so long as the spines stay embedded.  

-Natural weapon: Gain a [dice] small slot basic melee weapon with soul damage as a free slot integrated weapon.  

-Expand lungs: Gain [sum]x lung capacity, good for swimming, yelling and blowing gusts of wind.  

-Bone armor: Gain defense as plate and [sum] temporary HP.

-Additional sensory organ: You double an existing natural sense, or gain a new one. 

-Additional mobile organ: +6m of one type of speed, or 6 in a new one. 

Soulsmithing: 

Allows the manufacturing of soul items. This uses: 

-1 human soul

-3 thaums. 

-1 downtime action

-5000s of silver thread 

Wave of mutilation: [sum] slashing in a [sum]m cone. 

Medium or smaller targets save vs [dice] dismemberment.

Take [dice] damage as high pressure nails and teeth emerge from your fingertips.

Outflow (touch): Heal [sum]*3. Target must save or take [dice] soul damage. 

Parasitism (touch): Inflict [sum] necrotic damage or [dice] soul damage and heal a target within 3m by that much. 

Transmute blood (touch): Convert [sum]L of blood (must be outside the patient) to acid, gasoline, water or sugar. A bleeding target with their blood transmuted to acid will take damage equal to the necrotic damage they have already taken. 

Tracker (touch): Implant a tracker in a soul. You constantly see the tracker as a small dot in your vision which stays the same size regardless of distance. 

The tracker stores a record of the experiences the host experienced while parasitized, which can be recovered by spending a few minutes extracting it from the soul in a surgical operation. Can be done in d3 turns at the cost of dealing d3 soul and 2d6 necrotic damage. 

Specific analysis from a very high level spellcaster will reveal the presence of the tracker, it is otherwise undetectable. 

If it is detected, even elementary soul magic can remove it. 

Demonsmithing: 

Similar to soulsmithing but much more difficult. It requires: 

-[Item small slots] human souls. 

-1 trapped demon,or one or more kilograms of divine flesh. 

-1 downtime action

-2000s per magnitude of the demon, and 5000s per slot the item occupies in small slots. 

A demonic item counts as a unfused host for the demon, and must follow rules for suitable hosts.

In addition, a mundane human may only wield or carry in any way 1 demonic item. A lich or savant (with member of the court) may wield 2. 

Divine or demonic items:

Choose one of the following forms.

1: A divine organ 

2: A magic weapon/armor/item of the rank [magnitude/2]. For example a magnitude 3 or 4 demon would make a +2 item. Usually these items should be custom. You may replace magnitude with [kg of divine flesh used]. You cannot make a weapon greater than +5, but you can make a +5 upscaled weapon with twice the raw materials. 

3: A soul item with one number doubled. 

Spiritual cavity (Touch): Choose one mind slot inside a souled creature, that mind slot can now contain organs (as in body slots). 

As a free action at the start of your turn, you can swap an organ stored within the mind slot with one stored in a body slot, and vice versa (you can also select empty slots). 

Only soul mages or homunculi can benefit from the effects of these organs while they are stored within the mind slot. 

Only physiological and neurological organs provide benefits and drawbacks in this way. Structural or sensory organs such as bones, muscles, armor, eyes and the such do not. 

Withdrawal (3 MD) (free action): Your body pulls into the fourth dimension. When you cast this spell, decide when you will reappear.

Until then, you effectively do not exist within the third dimension. If you touch an empty soulslot while casting this spell you can occupy it and lend them any organs within your spiritual cavity. In this case, you emerge from their location when the duration ends,

In normal cases, you emerge back at the same point where you came from. You may also choose to emerge at a random unoccupied point within [duration in minutes]miles. Odds are this will be inside the sky.  

Carrion gods, launch post

 

As is tradition, I begin with art. This is by the much beloved Dominik Meyer. 

I would genuinely hire him to do the cover art for the book once we get to that stage, but he is a big MTG artist as as such busy and expensive, and I would prefer to support a less well off artist. If anyone who reads this thinks they have a compatible art style for the setting, send me a PM (obviously the detail and quality does not need to be anywhere near this level, this style of art is only really sensible for covers, not stocking a whole RPG book). 

So I've been working on this game for the better part of the year now, I've done around 40 sessions of playtesting across three campaigns for the current iteration of the system, and the system works as intended. 
You can find it Here 

I originally had a really long document describing my though process on the game, but that seemed like it would distract people from actually reading the text, so here is the short version of it. 
Carrion gods is the system that I started working on when I started this blog a year ago, which was meant to:
1-Adapt the pre-existing Nine rivers setting
2-Make a game which fixes some of my issues with pre-existing games in the trad tactical combat space (such as Pathfinder, 3.5, Lancer) by approaching it from a OSR lens.

Later on, I developed a few design goals and guiding principles, which are as follows. 
-Snappy combat rhythm, more focused on dynamic and interesting combat than on things like grids and tactics (though the combat can be quite cerebral, the nature of it is quite different from "tactical games", and leans more to in character tactics then in gaming the mechanics).
-A naturalistic approach to design 
-Intentional asymmetry, with balance between powers being determined by availability.
-Have the maximum amount of "sauce", since while coolness cannot be reliably produced, sauce-fullness actually can.

 

The world 

The setting is a bloodborne inspired cultivation setting, with a mix of blame style biopunk, and a healthy dose of historical elements (especially from the post-victorian and cold war eras).

It has a bunch of other elements but if you want to see more, you can read that on the blogpost dedicated to the setting (see the big linked post on the sidebar). 

 

The system 

The bare bones of this system are a d12+modifier system, with some use of advantage or disadvantage. I don't play around with dice mechanics for their own sake, but here are some of the features.

-Heavily reaction focused grid less combat, using 3 second rounds, and side based, no rolled initiative. This is combined with martial and esoteric techniques leads to my personal favorite combat system (atleast for duels and fights against intelligent enemies). The system is also sufficiently robust to handle dozens or hundreds of enemies (so long as many of those are duplicates of the same statblock).

-A called shot and grappling system paired with a flexible dragon's dogma/shadow of the colossus style enemy climbing system.  

-A level less, diegetic, slot based system where your character sheet is divided between mind, body and soul slots that can be filled with various abilities such as implants, spells, techniques and skills. 

-Comprehensive rules which are able to support easy home-brewing and an extremely large scope of content without straying into excess complexity and minutia.   

-Symmetrical mech pilot rules that operate in tandem with player characters, just at a larger scale. 

Who do you play as: 

You play as cultivators*, seasoned warriors venturing to distant lands in search of adventure, power, fortune and new insight. Altered in form by soul alchemy, your characters will become progressively more superhuman and inhuman as they progress on their path.  

Who is this for?

This system has pretty broad appeal, as there are a lot of combat fans. If any of the following statements seem familiar, this game might be for you.

-You want a system that does not feel the need to take every cool idea behind the shed.

-You love mecha, but are more interested in gnarly biomecha, and smashing your warmachine through buildings to get at the insects hiding within them, then in sightlines, heat management, and squares moved.

-You wish to drive your enemies before you, hear the lamentations of their women, ect ect.

-You are a pathfinder 1e fan annoyed at 2e for not having derived statistics.

-You want a backloaded, fully diegetic build system where character creation can take as little a 5 minutes, but you really know you're going to spend 6 hours preplanning all the upgrades you're going to get, agonizing over your implants and equipment and techniques and soul architecture.

-Wish a system where the most optimal builds are lich, and nuclear mechadragon. **

-Think that one bloodborne xianxia setting is too few, and need a second one in the world (though this is closer to wuxia).

 

Contrary to the tone of this post, the document itself is written in a very utilitarian style, and I've spent literally hundreds of hours obsessing over the implications of wording, prose, formatting, rules minutiae and the consistency of the setting.

Reviews, since I cannot seriously sing my own praises this much.

"The final form of diegetic advancement, without any levels or XP. The system maximizes epic moments and hype during the game not by extensive metacurrencies or narrative control but purely by the depth of the interactions between elements. The system is for you if you enjoy fast-paced, brutal, gory, exciting, cinematic combat in the context of this crazy ass cultivation biopunk setting with guns and gods and AIs and mecha."

-Antitime, play tester.

"I am more sold then a watermelon at an auction"

-Artof5rings

Note - Here is a permanent Discord link.
Its also linked in the doc.
I run a weekly game in there but for logistical reasons I would recommend joining one of the one shots that will be being run by other GMs in the near future (or past, depending on when you are reading this). 
You can also use it to ask rules and lore questions or yell at me for unintuitive formatting (I appreciate both). 

*Mech pilot is, of course, a type of cultivation path. 

**As mentioned earlier, balance is determined by availability. Becoming a lich or nuclear mechadragon requires an absolute ton of investment, so its more of something you need to do a sidequest for, then something you can obtain by just grinding away at it. 

The needle grass plains

Liang Mark, all the art for this post is from him. 

The needle grass plains cover nearly the entire western edge of the nine rivers, ranging from from the white cliffs of the southern coast, to the iron peaks of the northern mountains. 

Their namesake is the needle grass, a family of grasses grown from iron lattices (as the soil is known to be poor in most other elements). While flexible when walking slowly, breaking them with rapid movements will result in sharp metallic shards splintering off. 

Vehicles and animals not adapted to the conditions will break down within minutes. The native inhabitants fashion thick suits from layered cloth, leather and iron plates, and cover their faces near permanently to prevent splinters blown by the heavy winds which mark the region from piercing their eyes. Domestic animals will have extremely thick fur around their legs and faces (like a Bison or Belgian Draft Horse ) and are adapted to digest the nutrient poor grass.  

The needle grass plains mostly have low population density, with people living a nomadic lifestyle, though many cities in the southern coast have subsisted off fishing and agriculture for centuries. In recent times this has been further exacerbated by the destruction of Karakorum, the only great city* in the needle grass plains. 

Despite their comparatively small population, the needle grass plains is still highly militarily significant as most adults are trained in some way in fighting. 

Officially, it is under the control of the sunken city, though this has never been concretely true. Before the war of the yellow throne it was split between several hundred tribes loosely arranged into a half dozen or so cultural groups.  

This is about to change, the ramp up of the joint dominion military force is not subtle, and many both hope for an end to the war, and fear what complete dominion control of the plains will entail. Several of the more remote western regions have also been sold to the emperor. 

*Great cities are defined by having at least 10 million inhabitants. Karakorum is coastal and subsists off of aquaculture, and had almost an order of magnitude more population then the second largest city. A large segment of its population were deep church pilgrims, which caused significant uproar after they were all transfigured.

Of the ten and a half million inhabitants, one million were consumed, twenty thousand took pacts in exchange for being granted anchors, one million were enslaved by said pact makers, two million escaped by boat or horse or foot, and the rest are presumed turned into ghouls.

The northern forests which blanket the entire northern half of the nine rivers are deterred only lightly by the harsh conditions of the plains. Near the northern regions, the winds abate, and the earth grows rich enough to support forests. These are still not quite as large as their eastern kin. 

Six paths from the needle grass plains

-A couple notes first of all, this is intended to be used with a system that has 2-3 actions, or a class with 2-3 attacks. One attack may be translated into one ap. This class was made to be used with these paths. 

-In addition, one thaum = 1MD. 

-You'll also want to replace any d12s with d6s, otherwise damage will likely be excessive. Carrion gods (the system this was built for) uses d12s for HD rolls, so this should be proportional. 

-Charge deals 1 damage per 3m/10ft moved towards them in a straight line this round. Impale prevents half of all healing until ripped out (this is more useful in the nine rivers than in most settings, since cancer and demons both love healing themselves).

The dark path of the True Dragon Sorkhaghtan: Who wields True death and sleeps on a field of bones.

Ψ Knight of the yellow throne

All those who take this path are hunted, and may only pay back their debt with service. In exchange, if you take this path, you may choose a second path from the cultural paths below. Gain the first two techniques from that path and one from this one, you get this path as a free slot if you complete both. 

Stance - Shar Takhil, Yellow-throne: If you have entered within 6m(20ft) of an enemy this turn, ignore cover, shields, and concealment when attacking that target. In addition your ranged attacks gain charge 1. 

Technique - Morin Alagh, Horse slayer: Add advantage on a ranged attack within 6m(20ft) made at a larger creature. 

Technique - Yalakh, Victory: Turn an attack with advantage into a critical hit. 

Ranged strike - Zeleg, Rust-eater: Reduce the dr of a piece of iron or steel based armour by half for one hour. If the armour is destroyed during this period, it crumbles to dust. 

 Lesson - Yas Zuun, Needle: You may carve the bones of a fresh corpse into 10 arrows or bullets given half an hour. If the projectile already has impaling, it now prevents 100% of healing, instead of half. If it does not have impaling, it instead gains it. 

Ammunition made this way automatically detonates in the hands and maim the fingers of those without this path. 

Ψ Tsagaan Khad: Bleached Cliff 

As the most populous and prosperous of the clans before the war, they were first to be conquered and subjugated. And in time most became known as conquerors themselves. On the day of arrival, when the True Dragon that would become their queen awakened, the sky grew dark, and ten spells were weaved into the clouds and cursed the land below. The combined might of all the armies of the White Cliffs was crushed, and those who survived broke and ran and ran and ran. Casting off their armour and laying their horses to rest in order to flee longer and keep hold of their meagre thread of life..  

-Those who learn this path may not become a knight of the abyss. 

-The techniques must be learned in sequential order from top to bottom.

Stance - Wave crashes against shore: Add the strength of your mount to yours and gain charge 1 when making melee attacks. 

Melee strike - Wave pushes up the valley (1-3ap): [ap]+[movement actions taken this turn]d6 bludgeoning and knockback damage. If your target has less strength, knock them prone. 

Technique - Tide devours cliff: After moving over a prone target deal, [number of medium slots you and your mount occupy together]d6 damage. Write the amount down in advance when you get this technique.   

Technique - Dark swallows father (1+ thaums): A [sum]HD target who you have killed explodes into a fountain of black water. They are whisked away to the ocean within the fourth dimension and will stay there if not rescued. The entrance lasts [dice] rounds, and pours out 1000L of water every round.  

Ψ Altus: 

Style of the northern tribes, who live on the border to the graveyard of stars.

Stance - Rime muse: Your hearing becomes 10x stronger, and you may whistle at 10x volume with perfect pitch and control. In addition, you can hear and whistle ultrasonic and subsonic sounds. You may also listen to ice in order to tell its internal structure and, at short range, detect people stepping on it. The range is up to 1km in complete quiet, and 30m in most cases. 

Stance - Basal slip: You can apply 3m/s/round of acceleration to a cubic meter of ice, up to 20m/round (or three times that much while going downhill). 

For each 10 fold increase in volume this is applied to, your acceleration per cubic meter applied is halved. There is no limit to the amount of volume you can affect, or to the amount of people who can do this on the same volume of ice. 

Technique - Slough: Transfer falling damage to a creature you land on.
Iif you are falling while on a block of ice, you can guide it with basal slip and target any creature impacted by your controlled ice block.

Impaling strike - Heat shock (1ap): Deal 1d12 cold damage, in addition, they may not use stances for 2 rounds. 

Lesson - Gift of the crevices: You may pull out basic melee weapons and arrows from ice. These have no protection against melting. 

Lesson - Skate: You may control the level of friction applied to your feet, from 1/10th to 10x. This extends to your boots. While skating, your max running speed is doubled while in a straight line, and you are doubly affected by forced movement. 

Soul etching - Otzi : Sleep for a week beneath black ice, at least 10 m deep, and transparent enough for moonlight to still reach you. You will not wake naturally if not unearthed by another. 

While you sleep, you do not age.

In addition you gain immunity to cold. 

Ψ White star

The path of the chosen of the stars. Unlike the other clans, they are not tied to a specific location, instead following the trail of meteorites to harvest and protect them. By now, most which resided with the plains have fled to take shelter with the northern or eastern tribes.

Requires a spear or ranged weapon with a kinetic or light based projectile.

Stance - Starlight prism: You may change the trajectory of your attacks up to 3 times mid air. In addition you ignore shields and concealment. You may use the line of sight of allies when attacking. 

Technique - Comet (3ap) (1+ thaums] (300m): Deal 2d12+[sum] force damage in an [dice]m radius, with 10* damage against unprocessed rock, earth or ore. 

You may delay the landing (but not firing) of the attack by 1 in order to arc your shot and multiply range by 10. You may do this multiple times.

Technique - Veer: When you miss an attack, make it again at a different target, drawing line of sight from 1m behind the target. 

Technique - Blink: Save to negate a ranged or spiritual hit. Regardless of the outcome you teleport to a point of your choice within 6m and line of sight after the attack is resolved.

Technique - White light charge(1ap): Forcefully move yourself in a straight line equal to your walk speed, then make a free attack with charge 1. 

Soul etching - Gift of the stars: Burn a tiny slot of meteoric iron and inhale the smoke. Normally this would be impossible, but it can be done easily if you have the completed path. 

-You fall at half speed and gain resistance -2 to force and radiant. In addition, while jumping you land soundlessly, gain weakness x2 to forced movement, and do not take or deal collision damage.

-You are inherently more likely to encounter meteoric iron. 

Ψ Tegegur - Oucast

An exiled people, who returned to stand aside those which had cursed them. 

These must be learned in order. 

If you complete the entire path and etching for Ψ Hermes or Ψ Resilience, gain +1MD. 

Lesson: You gain half fame from all sources. In exchange, you may bond a bird as a familiar, which benefits from your immortality. 

Stance - Birdseye: You may share sight with your familiar. Ignore cover and concealment. If your accuracy is less than 4, then it becomes 4. 

Technique - Whirlwind: Your ranged weapons gain multiattack for a round.  

Ranged metallic strike - Sky snake bite: Reduce speed to 6m or half, whichever is lower. This can be cured with an action and a blade by taking [target HD] bleeding damage. 

Technique - Slip: After being hit by an attack, immediately make a movement action. Can be used on any ally within 6m of you or your familiar. 

Technique - Kindness without honesty (1 thaum): Negate a hit, the hit is inflicted with twice as much force after 1 minute. 

Ψ Val - Resilience 

Custodians of the eastern regions, and of the burning river. The western tribes are one of the few clans which remain unconquered, and have fought fiercely for many years. Currently they are being supported by both the flayed lord, the exile tribes, remnants from the other clans, and all those who would wish for the war to remain far from home. 

Stance - Futility of flame: Exhaustion increases your hit rolls instead of decreasing them. In addition, your attacks can also deal acid or fire damage. 

Technique - Arrow of screaming death (4ap) (1+ thaums) (2 exhaustion): 100m line, 6d12+[sum]+[strength] piercing/force damage. Smoke is cleared and everyone in a 12 meter cone in front of the target and marksman are deafened. 

Unless shot from an indestructible bow, it breaks. 

Technique - Jet: When you take piercing damage from an attack within 6m, push yourself 6m away and deal 6 fire damage to the attacker. 

Technique - Spine serpent(1ap): Deal [self HD]+1d12 force damage to a target in close combat. In addition you may take and deal a point of dismemberment to convert the damage to burning or bleeding. 

Requires an organic skeleton. 

Lesson: You may cure a point of exhaustion as a free action, this deals [HD] damage to yourself. 

Soul etching - Serpent kin: 

-Gain resistancex0.5 to magic. You are immune to domination, memetic agents, charm, and psychic damage. 

-Gain heat vision

-Gain weakness coldx2. 

-If taken by a serpent soul, gain +1MD instead. 

Some regions are too toxic for even the grass to thrive, though bacterial and archean life is always happy to supplant it. This is even more true for the region near the burning river, which has its own separate biosphere. 

The exiled tribes, while despised by most humans, remain a people exceptionally beloved by the gods.