A recent challenge being pinged across the GLOG-y types over on the OSR discord is the Curse Class, where some outside event (a bite from a vampire, a message from a god) happens to you, and starts changing you. Let's do that, I suppose.
For years, Yosef Industrial Augmentation has sold nanoaugs - instead of a dangerous, time-consuming surgery, they use a set of nanites that enter the user and construct the augment out of supplied materials and pieces of the body.
Recently, they've turned these into weapons; canisters of nanites are fired from mortars into crowds, and released, deconstructing enemy forces and rebuilding them as mindless machines.
However, the weapon isn't perfect - sometimes, people exposed to the swarm have their mind left intact and in control.
You gain the first template in the Nanoweapon Poisoned class upon contact with hostile nanoweapons. Once you have one template in this class, you must gain another template in this class whenever you level up. If you have 4 class templates already, Nanoweapon Poisoned templates begin to replace your other templates.
To remove Nanoweapon Poisoned class templates, you must destroy the nanites with EMP weapons - however, this will leave you without the parts of your body they have replaced. This is not lethal until class template D - if you remove the nanites before that, you can be saved by future medicine.
A: Zero Hour
B: Nanoaug Armature
C: Swarmform Process
D: Dissolution
A: Zero Hour
The nanites have begun to consume your respiratory system. Your maximum HP is decreased by 1 (if this would kill you, it instead leaves you at 1 maximum HP), and your movement speed is halved. Once per day, you can cough up a stream of nanites, dealing 1 damage to you and 1d4 to everyone in 40' of you as the nanites attack them. The nanite torrent can also consume one object the size of a small dog.
B: Nanoaug Armature
The nanites spread, beginning to consume your skin. You lose all bonuses from armor as it is stripped from you, and your maximum HP is decreased by 1 (if this would kill you, it instead leaves you at 1 maximum HP).
Whenever you are hit with a ranged attack, the nanites extend a tendril to lash at the attacker, dealing 1d6 damage. When you are hit with a melee attack, the nanites swarm the attacker, dealing 1d8 damage and consuming their weapon.
C: Swarmform Process
The nanites have consumed your musculature. You are a mess of organs and bones held together by the nanites alone. Your maximum HP is reduced by 1d4 (if this would kill you, it instead leaves you at 1 maximum HP).
With the extra material, the nanites are able to project copies of you. You can release 2 copies a day. They have 10 in each stat and 4 HP. They can attack with hair-thin tendrils of nanites, dealing 1d4 damage.
D: Dissolution
The nanites have consumed everything, leaving you a cloud of disassociated neurons in the center of the swarm. You can fit through any space, and release a canister of nanites, dealing 1d10 damage at a range of 50'. In one turn you can consume a car-sized volume of inorganic material.
Bullets and other physical attacks no longer harm you, but you take double damage from extreme temperatures and electricity.
So is there a point where the PC becomes an NPC? A template D could consume a starship from the inside, perhaps melding with it...
ReplyDeleteNope, this class never turns you into an NPC - in fact, by the time you reach template D, you're a lot more powerful than the default classes for Artificial Sky (my cyberpunk GLOG hack).
DeleteHowever, the intense loss of HP and mobility from the first 3 templates makes it difficult to reach template D in the first place.