This is an experiment - Lanthanide Horizon has always been classless, so I was interested in what would change if I replaced its backgrounds with more standard GLOG progression. No idea how I feel about it.
Koryonos
A: Warband, +1 to-hit
B: Hunter-Gatherer, +1 skill
C: Houses Like Torches, +1 skill
D: Pack of Wolves, +1 attack per round
A: Warband
You lead half a dozen of the koryos - the youth-band, those not yet ready for the responsibility of full sept membership. Unbound by propriety, you live in the wilderness through the Blue season, then attach yourself to whichever sept deigns to take you in the Black.
Warband members are 4 HP, 10 AC, 1 Discipline, and deal 1d6 damage with hatchets or 1 with thrown rocks. “Stop ransacking the town and stealing silverware and throwing people out windows” is a maneuver requiring a successful Discipline roll.
Your warband has two advantages, and one disadvantage:
Advantages
- Your warband is armed not only with stones and axes, but with Navigator throwing darts (1d6 damage, can be thrown 50’, or further with a -1 to-hit penalty for every 10’ feet).
- Your warband carries shields, raising their AC to 12.
- Your warband is doubled in size - its other segment led by a lieutenant you promote.
- Your warband follows you loyally, increasing their Discipline to 5.
- One member of your warband is betrothed to a sept - as long as they live, this sept is a safe haven.
- Your warband carries a device with it - something halfway between a chariot and a shotgun. 2d8 damage in a 120’ cone, though you move terribly slowly as you pull it.
- Two members of your warband fight for the affections of a third in a way that is certain to eventually blow the whole thing up.
- You are followed by something - the lights of some machine shine on the edge of your firelight.
- A sept considers you in their debt.
- Your band is young and still untested. They have -2 to-hit.
- Your band is impatient, chafing against even successful orders to halt an attack or abandon loot.
- Your band has become known for impiety, beyond that expected of the koryos - outsiders find you offputting, if not a potential magnet for curses.
As long as your warband never spends more than a night in the same place, they collect enough food to survive.
Each night, ask one of the following questions and receive an answer:
- Where is the closest drinkable water?
- How do I avoid the most dangerous creature in the area?
- What is the most fortifiable defensive location around?
- Is something hidden from me here?
- Am I being tracked, followed, or watched?
C: Houses Like Torches
What a beautiful light. With a shout, your unit moves and attacks once again. You can’t do this again until you’ve done one of the following: revel in the ruins, land a critical hit, or slay the leader of an opposing force.
D: Pack of Wolves
Units you lead have +2 HP and +2 damage. Enemies you face have disadvantage on Discipline rolls and rolls on the Failures of Discipline table. When they rout, roll 2d8 instead of 2d6.
Espatier
+1 to-hit per template.
A: 3D Mindset, +1 attack per round
B: Saboteur
C: Turn Against Them All
D: Ulfheðinn
Δ: Lictor
A: 3D Mindset
You move through 0g as if you were flying.
B: Saboteur
The torch is your tool - the axe is just to get people out of the way. With appropriate tools, you can cut a door-sized hole in a wall in a single round, or perform other acts of property damage.
When applicable, your list of combat maneuvers now includes “hack a hole in the wall and see what comes flying out”.
Many stop here, and turn to peaceful arts.
C: Turn Against Them All
Before taking this template, you must seek a hero of the Ulfheðnar, the breakers of men.
You sit in the airlock, breathing. In, out. In, out. The smoke fills your lungs, the moxa burns round scars into your skin. In, out. In, out. Think about what you have done, and what more you could still do.
The airlock opens. Your spit boils on your tongue in the moment before you fall unconscious.
You wake with four points of rage.
D: Ulfheðinn
Before taking this template, you must complete the task given to you by your teacher.
You will be sent out to do something none could. Raid your hated rival alone, and return with five captives. Duel a towering machine and bring it to the earth.
With this complete, your teacher presents you with the demon-face mask and the feather mantle. Nothing separates you.
You know how to make the same moxa that turned you into this - if you are prepared in this way before a fight, when you rage you automatically attack anyone who attacks you in melee, and ignore the effects of wounds and death until your rage ends.
It will not be long until you have a student of your own, hoping to walk the killing path.
Δ: Lictor
Abandon your sept, and pledge yourself wholly to the service of the Imperious.
All doors are open to you, and tyranny shrouds you like a cloak. Human foes must check Morale to begin combat with you.
Gunsmith
A: Someone Else’s Child
B: Calming Voice, Modification
C: Journeyman, Breathe Easy
D: Master
A: Someone Else’s Child
You are immune to the decrees of the Imperious. Let them howl and scream all they like. You are the most prominent member of any group - perfectly still in the midst of them. Navigators must save or be unable to bring themselves to harm you.
You can expect to be hosted in any sept-vessel that harbors the Society. Members of it will approach you, expecting the same - even if they come from your greatest enemy, and your sept hungers for their blood.
These protections are lost if you show greater loyalty to your sept (or to yourself) than to the Society.
B: Calming Voice
You may attempt to calm all listeners with soothing words. Intelligent creatures get a save, though those with fewer HD than you fail automatically. When a creature fails the save their emotions dull to grey outlines, anger drains, joy becomes hollow, battle-lust fades.
After using your Calming Voice you can't use it again until you have done at least two of the following: get a full night's rest, drink a dose of wine, consider the mysteries of the Society for two hours.
C: Journeyman
With an evening’s work you may make modifications to firearms, at the cost of weight and misfire chance, or make 3d4 rounds of specialized ammunition (tungsten-core AP, hypergolic magnesium, et cetera).
C: Breathe Easy
You are meant to use them, sometimes. Each round you spend aiming before firing provides you +1 to-hit and allows you to roll an extra damage die, keeping the highest 2 (or however many your chosen gun happens to roll).
D: Master
Before taking this template, you must build a weapon that fires further and more accurately than any Master’s.
With a week’s work, you may make a rifle.
Lawspeaker
A: Judge of Character
B: Prediction OR Code of Hammurabi
A: Judge of Character
Once per Season, when presented with a social situation, you may ask one of the following questions to the GM directly - they will answer honestly.
Who is really in control here?
What is about to happen?
What trait rules this person?
What here is not what it appears to be?
B: Prediction
If you've spent more than an hour in someone's company or read sufficient biographical information you have a 2-in-6 to predict their reaction to any given event (increases by 1-in-6 for spending a week/month/year in their company).
B: Code of Hammurabi
You have forsworn the common law of the Navigators to spread the commands of Spiral tomes and steles. You learn the language of the Spire, if you did not know it already.
When writing a contract, you have a 2-in-6 chance to slip in clauses the other side misses. If someone breaks an oath sworn in front of you, you know immediately.
Skald
A: Leveling Mechanism
Δ: Jester’s Privilege
A: Leveling Mechanism
If you tell a tall tale, people will believe it and pass it around. Your tales are attributed directly to you. Those you slander will hear of it, and may pay you a visit if thoroughly incensed.
If a tale you’ve told is proven false, save vs. a tarnished reputation. Once tarnished, those who know of you will still pass around your tales, but will not believe a single word without clear proof.
Δ: Jester’s Privilege
Insult the Imperious to their face and get away with it.
You can hold the attention of any crowd as long as you keep talking. Watch them hang on your words. Even if they’re here to kill you, they can’t help but listen.
Katabatist
A: Beneath Notice
B: Follow Me
C: Apotrope
D: Alone, Alone, Alone
A: Beneath Notice
Passive machines (those built for noncombat purposes) don't notice you unless you attack them, and you will always be attacked last by combat machines and Firstborn.
B: Follow Me
There is something wrong with your eyes. Look into someone else’s and they are forced to make a Morale roll. If they fail, they are rooted to the spot until you break eye contact. They may still defend themselves. If they pass, they notice nothing amiss.
C: Apotrope
Machines roll Reaction when meeting a group you are in. On a positive roll, they blink lights at you. They hope you will understand.
D: Alone, Alone, Alone
Those who fail morale rolls caused by Follow Me are knocked unconscious.
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