Cooking with Alighnment

This was my entry for Thought Eater. My prompt was "Alignment: Used Poorly And Well."

Wizard Wednesday: Abad-Alwahsh, Gorilla

I mean obviously he's a wizard. It says so right there in the title.

Outcast from both gorilla and man alike, Abad-Alwahsh serves a demonic master. He has traded his soul in exchange for his sorcerous strength. His master has carelessly misplaced this knick-nack, which takes to form of a bottled purple flame. Now Abad-Alwahsh roams tirelessly trying find his soul, so that he may escape his bonds, free to rack ruin upon mankind and all his works.

When among gorillas, Abad-Alwahsh forms petty kingdoms in his service, maintaining order with his gun, a weapon unknown amongst his kin. He assembles war parties to comb the jungle and raid human settlements.

When among men, Abad-Alwahsh acts with more subtlety. He hypnotizes this rich and powerful, using their resources to look for his soul while hiding within their manors. When he has determined his soul is not to be found in this city, he is gripped by fury and bursts from the shadows, smashing these incompetents with spell and fist. After a rampage across the city he departs and tries again.

His soul is a fragile thing. If the bottle was smashed, the flame would go out and Abad-Alwahsh would die. If someone were find it, they would be able to control Abad-Alwahsh by writing instructions and burning them in the flame.

He is an eighth level wizard and a fourth level fighter.

Adventure Hooks:

1. A wealthy friend of the party has started acting oddly. He has been hypnotized by Abad-Alwahsh.
2. Mobs of treasure hunters, petty crooks, and surly sailors are tearing the city apart, asking everyone and searching everywhere for a bottle of purple fire. Several con-men have started to disguise themselves and sell fakes.
3. Abad-Alwahsh has thrown a rampage and then escaped. The king has placed an astronomical price upon his head.
4. While resting in the jungle the party are kidnapped by a war band of gorillas. They bring them before Abad-Alwahsh to be interrogated.
5. A tribal chief begs the party to stop the gorilla raids.
6. The party find the soul of Abad-Alwahsh for sale in a muddy shop. Abad-Alwahsh will not serve willingly.

I think that last one is my favorite. Here, have a dude with more levels then the entire party combined. He hates you. Have fun playing literal genie!

Wizards?

Well look at that. My image folder is filled with wizards.

HAVE A WIZARD YOU ARE WELCOME.

30 Fairy Tale Spells (In A Tiny Spell Book)

Even in White Box Swords and Sorcery, I find magic way too tedious to explain. Players need to choose what spells they know AND what spells they prepare. They need to write all of that down somewhere. Every time they want to do something with magic, I need to hand them my laptop so they can read the really long spell descriptions. And then ask me for rule clarifications. This eats up a lot of table time and I hate it. I love the fluff and feel of Vancian magic, but I want to run a freaking game today!

So here's a completely different spell casting system. To make explanation easier, I wrote all of it down on cards and shoved those into a nifty Zatch Bell spell book. This way if a player wants to play a magician, I just throw the book at them and continue with the rest of the game.

The finished product.

The only illustration turned out way better then I hoped.

Green corners mean illusions, purple are curses, blue are misc.

32 pages, 44 lines. Not bad for brevity.

The Rules Of Magic

• You may cast any spell you know whenever you like.
• Casting is a standard action.
• Unless it says otherwise, assume no material components, no chanting, no gestures, nada.

• You may cast spells upon any visible target.
• A malicious spell can only be cast upon a target once.

• Spells are permanent.
• So if you turn someone into a frog, yes, it lasts forever.

• A spell cannot be recast until it is dispelled.
• You can dispel any of your spells whenever it pleases you.
• When you die, all your spells are dispelled.

The last page has them written down like this. 

• A spell can be cast upon a person once.
• Spells are permanent. To cast it again, you must dispel it.
• Curses must be addressed to the target.

In the spell lists below,  bold text is what I wrote in the book, while anything else will be rules clarifications and random notes. X is equal to your level. The roman numerals are what level a magician should be to cast it, but that's not a hard rule.

Dweomers (Misc)

• I Mend: One object fixes itself. 
• Already, the 'you can't cast it again until you dispel it' clause starts biting you in the ass. You can mend one item, sure, but if you wanna fix something else, you have to let the first one break again! Me, I think that's rather poetic.
• I Contract: A deal you make cannot be broken. 
• By either party, mind.
• II Animate: X inanimate objects obey your command. 
• You can give em instructions too! This right here is an omnispell. It's knock, it's animate rope, it's wizard lock. Especially terrible if you use it on throwing knives: that's a lot of extra attacks each turn.

• II It Fits: Pick a container. The inside is X times larger then usual.
• I have a very loose definition for 'container'. Pockets, hats, chests, closets and houses are all fair game. 
• III Dispel: Target spell breaks, inflicting 1 damage upon it's caster.
• So a magician always knows which spell has been broken, but not by who. Possible to cherry tap people to death with this.
• III Servants: X items transform into loyal, humanoid servants.
• They don't really think for them selves, and aren't worth a damn in combat. Casting it on foxes gets you fox men, casting it on clothes gets you cloth men, casting it on sludge gets you sludge men (as bellow).

• IV Command: X targets obey a 3 word command.
• From their face it's super obvious the target is horrified that they can't control their body. Another multi use spell: it's hold person, it's silence, it's geas all in one. 
• IV Forecast: In 3 words you describe the weather.
• Big stuff takes a few rounds to form, but the small stuff happens instantly.
• V Door: Target door leads to another door you've walked through.
• Hurrah, it's door teleport! 
• V Beast Shape: You turn into a monster w/ 2X HD. Turning back is hard.
• How hard? You need to roll over Y on a 1d20, where Y is the number of hours total you've spent as a monster. Y goes down by 1 every day. So yeah, spend too long as a monster and you aren't turning back. I'd rule that after one week like this, you don't want to turn back anymore.
• Also, you always turn into the same monster. I was gonna call the spell monstrous form, but it didn't fit.

Illusions

• I Light: A floating wisp illuminates as a torch.
• Is this technically an illusion? Since it's really bloody hard to come up with illusions, yes, yes it is.
• I Noise: You throw your voice and mimic any sound.
• It can totally come from outside or around corners or even from both! 
• II Glamour: The target will appear beautiful.
• I initially thought you would casts this on items, but on second thought people are also a legit target. If the players keep selling shopkeepers magical junk, that's fine! I'm sure those same shop keepers will be complaining to the city guard in short order.

• II Disguise: You look and sound like someone else.
• This one counts as a malicious spell, so you can only copy a person once. 
• III Double: You make a speaking, talking copy of you. It turns into smoke if touched.
• You keep it's memories, you see through it's eyes, and you control it. Really it is the wrong pronoun: it's more like there's two of you for a bit. You can pretend to be a twin with this!
• III This is Normal: X targets are considered normal. Strange actions or speech breaks the illusion.
• Discount invisibility, basically. As long as you don't say anything out of normal, everyone assumes you belong here, even if you're a lizard man or wearing 5 swords.

• IV Mirage: You leave an intangible, stationary illusion.
• Unlike Delusion down below, it doesn't move, and it doesn't change. Anyone touching it will just walk right through.
• IV Charm: The target treats you as an old friend.
• Again, you can only have one person charmed at a time, and once you cast it on someone, you can never cast it on them again. Makes up for not having any saves, me thinks.
• V Nightmare: The target's worst fear hunts him. It can't kill him. 3HD, dispelled if killed.
• The spell you cast when you want to make someone's life into a horror movie. The thing chases after them but always leaves an exit. If they're hiding, it will take a while to 'find' them. It's wounds hurt, but don't deal any actual damage.
• V Delusion: You are at the center of a vast illusion. The senses are your canvas.
• Hey, at some level I just give you the all illusions, all the time button.

Curses

Curse have one special rule: the target must know you cursed them. This is usually accomplished by shouting and cussing at them. You can also do it in a letter, which is a nice little range extender. But if the wrong person gets the letter, whoops! Random dude got cursed.

• I Discretion: The target can't communicate about a topic you choose, nor about this curse.
• So no talking, no writing, no pantomime. Drop this on top of another curse to make it extra nasty.
• I Phobia: Target gains a phobia. They scream when they see it and cannot touch it.
• Saying 'Me!' is a pretty dick move.
• II Honesty: Target cannot lie, always speaks their mind now.
• Yes, it's super cheesy. And good for interrogation.

• II Misfortune: Target rolls twice, takes lowest on all rolls. 20's = 1's.
• Distadvavage on everything AND the critical fails instead of critical successes. It's nasty alright.
• III Age: The target turns 9 or 90. STR, DEX, and CON drop to 5.
• It's your choice.
• III Love: Target 1 falls in love with target 2.
• Classical options for target 2 are yourself, a statue, a goat, or their own reflection.

• IV Polymorph:A target w/ HD < X turns into a harmless animal.
• This is a good debuff for any curse you think is too strong: you can't cast it on someone stronger than you.
• IV Violence: X targets take 1d12 damage.
• Change the damage to taste. It should be useful for cussing peasants to death and cherry tapping the villain.
• V Wasting: Target loses 1 max HP every day.
• This one was made to use on stuff stronger than you.
• V Misery: The target can't feel warmth. Food and drink taste like ash. All dreams are nightmares.
• Like that speech Barbossa gives, but without the becoming a skeleton part. Or with, if that's what you're into.

Optional rule: Traditionally, every curse must come with a way to break it, that way being A: probably impossible, and B: if achieved, character growing. Which is waaaaaay more effort than I want to put into cursing someone. If you're into that sort of thing, here's a few quick ideas.

1. Target must gain self confidence and believe in themselves.
2. Target ALSO gets amnesia. If they can learn their name, the curse breaks.
3. Target must perform a genuinely unselfish act.
4. Curse breaks on a week were two Mondays pass.
5. Curse breaks when it is neither day nor night (eclipse).
6. Target must go to the city neither naked nor dressed, neither riding nor by foot.

And since a player can always dispel any curse they cast, they can also set fun conditions like:

1. Apologize for your rudeness.
2. Serve me for a year and a day.
3. Fetch me the scales of a dragon.
4. Give me your first born child.

And of course, true love's kiss breaks anything.

B-B-B-BONUS CURSE: III Loneliness: Everyone forgets the target has ever existed, except for you.