Ogre Primacy (Old)
Practices in Practice
As Smash studies the books of power available to him in the Dreamland, in addition to knowledge about the phenomenon he is studying, he will learn practices that enhance his abilities. Lacking a supply of primer, he can focus on practices applicable to snotlings.
Smash will accumulate primacy skill points that he can spend to learn practices. A practice costs a number of skill points equal to its rank to learn. When advancing to a particular level within a particular school by learning a practice of that rank, Smash automatically gains the practice of unveiling for that level.
Smash must know:
- At least one first-level practice of a given school before advancing to second-level practices of that school.
- At least three first-or-second level practices before advancing to third-level practices of that school.
The various practices of unveiling do not count towards these requirements.
The practices of unveiling are always active on Smash, representing his expanded knowledge of that school of primacy. Smash may keep one instance of each other practice active in one snotling at a time. However, different practices may be embodied in multiple snotlings or a single snotling as desired.
Embodying a practice in a snotling is a four-step process:
- The practice must be carefully described in writing, with reference to the current time, place, and Smash's state of mind.
- This writing must be burned in a ritual fashion, though the tools required are basic.
- The ashes from this writing must be collected and mixed with water to form a paste.
- This paste must applied to the snotling to be imbued with the practice.
The imbuing preparation must be used within a few hours of Smash preparing the initial document.
A practice is removed from a snotling either through a brief ritual, or through the death or destruction of that snotling. This makes that practice available for embodying in a different snotling.
Snotlings
Smash may be assumed to be traveling with one snotling social situations, three snotlings in adventuring situations, and have access to up to six snotlings without special activity required barring losses (replenishing one per week from Mercato's hive).
On physical costs for snotlings, roll 1d6. On a 5+, there is no effect. On a 1 through 4, the snotling suffers an injury.
| Roll 1d6 for snotling injury: | ||
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Stunned | The snotling needs a moment to collect itself, but is otherwise fine. |
| 3‑5 | KO’d | The snotling is incapacitated for the remainder of the scene. |
| 1‑2 | Casualty | The snotling is destroyed. |
Checks
Infusing with the Staff of Life is generally an easy process, and only requires a check during times of stress (e.g., trying to embed a practice in a snotling while mentally impaired).
Snotlings using their supernatural abilities may require a check to be made to succeed. Without limitation, possible consequences for a snotling failing its check may include:
- The snotling's action backfires
- The snotling succeeds, but causes a bigger problem
- The snotling fails and is exhausted for the rest of the scene
- The snotling succeeds, but suffers a physical cost
Life Practices
The Book of Life
The Shaping Techniques as Chronicled by Simola Green in Her Study with Anssi the Clever at the Anvil of Flesh
Usun seeing his reflection in Lake Iyral, is how the story is told. The possibility of a second of his kind. A mirror with its own will. He swore an oath then, the Beth Iryal, to make it so. And he did, though the cost was dire.
— Anssi the Clever
Anssi dismisses any questions about the methods used in making Iryalbeth, claiming it as pointless for us lesser creations to consider. Whether he inquired about it from Usun and was rebuffed, or truly doesn't have curiosity for any learning without a practical use to him, I can't say.
It does seem, clear, though, that Usun gave up some portion of his strength to make her, which would explain why he didn't, or couldn't, repeat the process. The first generation of ogres was therefore made, not through Usun's manipulation of the well of primer, but through an adaptation into themselves of the same natural process of reproduction they observed in the lesser creatures around them. And from that, us, more than mere animals, even if less than our progenitors.
— Simola Green
Life Initiate °
Self-Perception [Practice of Unveiling] (Learned)
You’re fully aware of the condition of your own body.
Pulse of the Living World [Practice of Knowing]
A snotling is imbued with a sixth sense that directly perceives the living nature of plants and animals: presence, type, health, and other basic information. The snotling can be commanded to act on this perception as reasonable.
Stimulate Base Life [Practice of Compelling] (Learned)
A snotling is imbued with the uncanny ability to manipulate basic living processes. A plant might be encouraged to open its flowers, or a person to feel tired or hungry. The snotling can be commanded to act on this ability as reasonable.
Life Apprentice °°
Self-Control [Practice of Unveiling]
You can exert conscious control of your body’s autonomic functions.
Unseen Rider [Practice of Ruling]
A snotling gains the uncanny ability to redirect the instincts of a non-sentient animal. It can absorb itself through their skin and, for the duration of its occupancy, compel a general mode of natural behavior. A mother bear might be compelled to treat a target like a threat to her cub, or a wolf to treat a specified person as the leader of its pack. It can re-emerge on command when the compelling is finished.
Bonded Homunculus [Practice of Shielding]
A snotling can be imbued as a shield against damage to its master. Any injury, ailment, or impairment that would befall its master is instead suffered by it for as long as it can survive the damage.
Life Disciple °°°
Self-Purging [Practice of Unveiling]
You are immune to poisons and toxins.
Shaping the Form [Practice of Weaving]
A snotling can be woven into a living shape that it maintains for one day, then reverts to its original form. This new form can mimic a natural or fanciful animal of the same mass, or become a temporary body covering (such as a living mask). An attempt to mimic a specific animal or individual may require a successful skill check.
Healing Heart [Practice of Perfecting]
A snotling can be reconstructed into a living bandage. It can be instructed to wrap itself around an injury (equivalent to a badly hurt), taking the injury onto itself. The target is healed, though the snotling dies in the process.
Time Practices
The Book of Time
The Vuorinen Treatise on Precedence and Antecedence, Annotated by Ergholt the Precise
Time Initiate °
Perfect Timing [Practice of Unveiling]
You always know what time it is.
Sense of the Flux [Practice of Knowing]
A snotling is imbued with a feel for the weight of events. It can sense the general impact of an event that is ongoing, that will occur in the next minute, or that occurred in the previous minute. The snotling can be commanded to act on this perception as reasonable.
Shifting the Chain [Practice of Compelling]
A snotling is imbued with the uncanny ability to use precise timing to instigate short-term chains of events. The snotling can be commanded to try to find a way to bring about a plausible result—achievable in no more than a minute—through an impeccably timed action.
Time Apprentice °°
Temporal Awareness [Practice of Unveiling]
You perceive any attempts at temporal manipulation of your present space and time.
Hindsight [Practice of Ruling]
A snotling gains the ability to reveal the past. The snotling can be directed to make a few minutes of time from the past (up to 1d6 minutes) visible and audible within a space of ten feet around it. The difficulty in reaching back into the past depends on the sympathy to the recalled time, as follows:
- 2+) You have a person or artifact showing physical scars of that moment in time
- 3+) You have someone with you who was present at that moment in time
- 4+) You have an object highly relevant to the actions during the moment in time you’re inquiring about
- 5+) You can merely describe the moment in time
- +1 difficulty if the time is more than one day in the past.
- +2 difficulty instead if the time is more than one month in the past.
This practice cannot see more than one year in the past.
Shield of Chronos [Practice of Shielding]
A snotling becomes a temporal shield, quietly observing the flow of time around you. You can make a check to avoid any incoming attack that slight precognition could help you avoid as the snotling gives warning. In addition, you can command the snotling to cloak you and those in your vicinity from temporal observation and manipulation.
Time Disciple °°°
Self-Reflection [Practice of Unveiling]
You have near-perfect recall of your own past.
Shifting Sands [Practice of Weaving]
A snotling gains the uncanny ability to travel into its own past, rewinding time for itself, while carrying whatever knowledge or instructions it may have received in the intervening time (though no physical objects). Its access to the past is as follows:
- 2+) The last five minutes
- 3+) The last fifteen minutes
- 4+) The last hour
- 5+) The last six hours
- 6+) The last day
- +1 difficulty if the intended actions necessitate highly disruptive changes to the timeline
- +1 difficulty if large numbers of people are affected by the changes to the timeline
- +3 difficulty instead if the both the above are true
Divination [Practice of Perfecting]
A snotling gains the ability to glimpse the future. The snotling can be direct to provide a brief, fragmented glimpse of the future, project from its eyes on the environment around it. The difficulty of divining the future depends on the sympathy to the projected time, as follows:
- 3+) You have a person who will be present at that moment in time
- 4+) You have an object highly relevant to the actions during the moment in time you’re inquiring about
- 5+) You can merely describe the moment in time
- +1 difficulty if the time is more than one day in the future
- +2 difficulty instead if the time is more than one month in the future
This practice cannot be used to see more than one year in the future. All visions of the future are provisional.
Combined Practices
Practices embedded in the same snotling may have their functionality combined as reasonable. The below are examples and the mage is encouraged to consider also possible combinations.
Time-Delayed Stimulation [Life Practice of Compelling °] [Time Practice of Compelling °]
The effect of the snotling's stimulation of the life form can be set to occur any any definable point in the future.
Traces of Life [Time Practice of Knowing °] [Life Practice of Knowing °]
The snotlings perception's of life extend to its effects on the world. The snotling can perceive information about life forms based on viewing the physical traces they leave.
Pulse of the Past [Life Practice of Knowing °] [Time Practice of Ruling °°]
The snotling's perceptions of life can be extended into the past. This can be both used to perceive life information from the past and to center the divination.
- -1 difficulty where the connection to the moment in the past is living
Additional Disciple Practices
One of these third-level practices is available to Smash if he selects the Tome of Clear Thought as his prize from the magic maze. Though he may also select a third-level practice from a school to which he otherwise has access, if preferred.
Death Lantern [Practice of Weaving] [Death]
A snotling is transformed into a death lantern. At night, dark light may be induced from its eyes that reveal the twilight world, showing the presence of any ghosts or other incorporeal beings within sixty feet in a 120° arc in front of it.
Quicken Corpse [Practice of Perfecting] [Death]
A snotling is transformed into a necromantic battery. The snotling can be commanded to absorb itself into a corpse to form a zombie under the control of its master. It can emerge on command, returning the corpse to a state of death.
Fortune’s Protection [Practice of Weaving] [Fate]
A snotling is transformed into a living good-luck charm. Once per session, as long as it is with you, you can give yourself advantage on a check you make.
Faith in Destiny [Practice of Perfecting] [Fate]
You can align a snotling to your fate. It will warn you, to the best of its abilities, if an action you are attempting would risk defying this fate.
Weave Fire [Practice of Weaving] [Forces]
A snotling is imbued with the uncanny ability to manipulate fire, able to stoke, suppress, or redirect it at a touch. The snotling can be commanded to act on this ability as reasonable. A single snotling can manipulate up to a single burning room, with more imbued snotlings required for more significant conflagrations.
Explosive Launch [Practice of Perfecting] [Forces]
A snotling can be used to launch its master through the air for travel up to a quarter of a mile and safe landing.
Shape Stone [Practice of Weaving] [Matter]
A snotling gains the uncanny ability to mold stone with a touch.
Repair Kit [Practice of Perfecting] [Matter]
A snotling can sacrifice itself to transform into a proper set of machine repair parts of equal mass, sufficient to repair a specified object if such a set could reasonably exist.
Dream Walk [Practice of Weaving] [Mind]
A snotling can be given the uncanny ability to guide one subject into the Dreamland while asleep.
Awaken [Practice of Perfecting] [Mind]
A snotling can be given basic metahuman-level use of a language known to the spellcaster.
Sympathetic Step [Practice of Weaving] [Space]
A snotling can be given the uncanny ability to teleport itself within a one-mile radius, subject to the laws of sympathy.
Spatial Awareness [Practice of Perfecting] [Space]
A snotling can be given the uncanny perception of all space within sixty feet of itself.
Spirit Bind [Practice of Weaving] [Spirit]
A snotling can be transformed into a spirit bind, used to embody a spirit within a living host. It must remain in contact with the living host, typically wrapped around their neck or torso, until the spirit is released. The binding may be removed at will, and may limit the actions of the spirit within reason.
Soul Bottle [Practice of Perfecting] [Spirit]
A snotling can be used as a host for a ghost, which may speak and act through it. The ghost may be banished from the snotling at will, or its ability to act constrained.