Now that I'm headed down the road of "running" "a campaign" again, I returned to Gateway, my scheme for a pick-up game to play with the one or two people who are guaranteed to show up when the rest of my players flake.
While poking at it I realized - what's the point of an overly-colorful, largely non-serious Fantasy Setting™ without the opportunity to play as some variety of nonhuman weirdo? I normally lean towards all-human settings, but Gateway is, as much as it's anything, a winking revival of the way I wrote in 2017; powered purely by half-memories of 3.5e homebrew websites.
And thus - freak people.
1. Human
They sure are.
Reroll nothing.
Benefit: keep a 2nd item between sessions.
that's it. i don't know what to tell you. go get a job.
2. Ogre
Some say every ogre is the reincarnation of a saint from ages past.
Reroll STR and take the higher.
Benefit: put a * next to your STR score. Roll checks with it only for superhuman tasks (picking a guy up and hucking him like a catapult, benchpressing a car, crashing through a stone wall).
Drawback: you must fail a STR check to not immediately destroy pathetic human items (doors, levers, tools, pets) when interacting with them. Your soul is immense - you glow like the sun to anyone who can see them.
3. Millisecond Dragon
Each of the 23 hours of the day has a grand dragon for a living avatar - and it continues downward, with dragons of half-hours and minutes and seconds and tenths-of-a-second and so forth becoming more humanoid as their domains shorten.
Reroll DEX and take the higher.
Benefit: once a session, shoot a 3d6 damage cone of either ice (for the pinkish-orange brood of the dragons of the Dawn), fire (for the sky-blue brood of the dragons of Noon) or lightning (for the purple brood of the Dusk). Probably best used to melt through steel, make ice platforms, or do some other OSR puzzle gibberish.
Drawback: save or pick up shiny objects.
4. Cultivator
Bug-men of the prismatic wastelands to the west of Gateway, emerging from their holes to see what all the fuss is about.
Reroll CON and take the higher.
Benefit: burrow through soil as fast as a person walks, climb walls at running speed.
Drawback: bright light provokes a save vs. fear.
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| https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1d9X - yes this is the same picture i used for cultivators in 2018 we already agreed that i get to be lazy with gateway |
5. Elf
Immortal(?), meditative wanderers of the desert of ice.
Reroll INT and take the higher.
Benefit: around your neck is an amulet, holding the soul of a parent, a favored aunt, a friend from the army, or so on. As long as you wear it, you can speak with the dead. If you shatter it, the soul within possesses a target of your choice, then escapes to the afterlife. You could still speak with the dead - but all they would do is howl.
Drawback: dogs and other domesticated animals attack you on sight.
6. Visitor
Honestly, nobody knows what your deal is. Worshipers of living iron stars, they say. 5 feet tall and stick-thin, covered in multicolored scale-petals and ridged patterns.
Reroll WIS and take the higher.
Benefit: once per session, release petal-dust that forces all nearby to Save versus murderous wrath.
Drawback: when startled, save versus doing the aforementioned. (doesn't count towards your limit, at least)
7. Myconid
A statuesque social form of the Motherland, sent to aid that vast fungus's geopolitical ambitions.
Reroll CHA and take the higher.
Benefit: your mycelial form is silent when walking or falling. You never make any sound you did not intend.
Drawback: once, when it is least convenient, your sleeper agent programming will switch on.
