Beyond the Veil Draft Classes Pt VI - The Naturalist

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courtesy of pexels

Naturalist

Dearest Teresa,

This land is half again as remarkable as I hinted in my last correspondence. I have discovered a new reptile, with tufts of fur, of all things, around the ears. I have attached a drawing of it and a scale for your own collection. I aim to make way again towards Port City a fortnight after this letter is signed to resupply and find stout companions to sally forth with once more. I miss you dearly, and long to see you with my own eyes in three years time, when this expedition's funding finishes. Truthfully, I find myself loving the New World more by the day. I also, truthfully, find myself wondering when a new name will find itself attached to this land; I have seen and experienced things that suggest to me it is a tragic misnomer.

Your love eternal,

Henrietta Cominero

Aspect: Determination

Stock: Human

Requirements: Determination >3, Sense >1, Can wear any armor, can use 1H melee weapons and rifles

Starting Gear:

• Old World Rifle (2H, 100yds, Brutal, Firearm 8) with shoulder strap (1T)
• 10 pre-prepared leaden shot (0X)
• Powderhorn, full (1X)
• Well-worn travelling clothes (1ATLF) with belt (0T1S)
• Morion (1He, AV 1)
• Breastplate (2T, AV 2)
• Nearly-full journal (1X)
• Sidesword (1H) with Sheath (1T1S)
• Charcoal Pencil (0X)

Class Ability Tract

Level 0: Adventuring Spirit

You sailed halfway around the world for this opportunity, how exciting! You may spend a round and make an Aspect Check after Camping and when not in a city or town in order to force a beneficial random encounter while travelling that will leave you Spirited afterwards. You may choose to learn one thing about a natural phenomena or animal as part of that encounter (how it was formed, any Statuses it has, its relative strength compared to yours, etc). You cannot get lost while in wilderness with a destination you have been to before in mind.

Level 1: Animal Empathy

You've always had a way with animals, the natural ones at least. So long as you do not act with hostility towards an animal, they will not regard you with hostility. You may attempt to calm angered wildlife with an Aspect Check made at -1.

Level 2: Hardy Constitution

Hardened from your world travels, you have a hardier constitution than most. You make Checks against Poison and Disease at +1 and can go an extra day without food or water. While Spirited, you are capable of stomaching even the foulest of foods and render them safe to eat for others.

Level 3:  Run & Gun

You fought in a war, once, back in the Old World. Some of that experience is still ingrained in you. When you take the Aim Action, you can Move in the same turn and retain the bonus from Aiming so long as it is against the same target.

Level 4: Sterner Stuff

You fancy yourself made of sterner stuff than the soft, posh folks of the Old World, and have the skill and luck to prove it, sometimes. If you would gain a negative Status, you may reduce your Baize size by one card to instead not gain that Status, discarding a card from it if necessary. You regain all lost Baize slots as a special Camping Action.

Level 5: Bull Moose

You may shrug off Injured and Critical with Sterner Stuff in addition to its other effects. If you do, enemies must make an opposed Aspect Check against you or become Stunned until the end of your next turn.

Crack-Shot

You have trained extensively with your rifle, old as it may be. With a steady hand, you can accomplish remarkable feats with it.

Hand	Crack Shot
Pair	Your rifle becomes Firearm 7 - [Level] until the next time you reload it.
2 Pairs	Your next Attack with your rifle gains Armor Breaker.
3 of a Kind	Your next Attack with your rifle Blinds anyone facing you that fails a Sense Check until the end of their next turn.
Flush	Your next Attack with your rifle gains Lethal if it does not damage armor.

Beyond the Veil Draft Classes Pt V - The Ratcatcher

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Cornwall, Ratcatcher of the third order

Ratcatcher

"You're positive she went through here?" a nobleman snivels at Cornwall,
"I am positive, Sire, the smell is unmistakable." the Ratling shakes his head subtly, annoyed to even be here. Pays well enough at least.

"How can you be sure? It's rained several times since the assassination by that vile woman. The hounds searched for hours immediately after to no avail."
"I am sure that is true sire, but your hounds didn't pick up on this scent."
"Ridiculous, they have the finest noses in the New World."
Cornwall's ears twitched in annoyance and summoned all of the charm he could muster before remounting his dire-pigeon, Pixie. "Yes, quite. I believe that is why you hired a native to the Continent, yes? Your hounds are confounded, so you came to me." He holds a lead ball aloft- a dented bullet, pried from a tree. "The assassin mixed her own powder, and handles raw meat frequently. I have the trail." He points into the woods, almost pitying the Human's inability to sense the myriad of sensations happening all around them... including the lie about the amount he was getting paid for this job. Oh well, even nobility gets lost in the woods from time to time.

Aspect: Charisma

Stock: Ratling

Requirements: Charisma > 1, Determination > 0, can use any melee weapon and bolas

Starting Gear:

• 2 Bolas (0X, 10yd, can be carried as a belt)
• Coin Pouch (1T) with 2 Flakes
• Ratcatcher (2H, Pinning)
• Opposable Thumbs (forelimbs)
• Billyclub (1H)

Class Ability Tract

Level 0: Hyperawareness

You automatically pass Checks relates to tracking a particular individual so long as you have a scent to follow and there are no penalties to the Check. Attacks you make from an opponent's flank are made at +1. You know if someone is immediately behind you.

Level 1: Pack Rat

You, being a Ratling, are familiar with the ways of your kith. You have +1 Card on all interactions involving rodents and Ratlings. When determining Spoils for a bounty target, treat their Spoils as one tier higher than normal.

Level 2: Fisher of Men

You may choose to have successful attacks with your Ratcatcher against Human sized or smaller enemies ignore Armor but no longer be lethal. You may move the Pinned target 1 tile in a direction so long as it ends adjacent to you.

Level 3: Rat with Wings

You befriend a dire-pigeon. It is the size of a dachshund and as smart as a pigeon (which is to say surprisingly so.) It eats 1 ration per day and is loyal to you. It serves as a mount and can 6 Size worth of objects (a Ratling counts as 2 Size worth of objects) without being encumbered. It responds to a name of your choosing and can be called to you with a whistle. If it dies, it takes 1 month to find a suitable replacement.

Level 4: Inevitable End

You are notoriously frustrating to engage with in most situations. If a creature you can see passes a Check, you can discard an initiative Card to make them re-attempt it once and take the worst of the two outcomes. Outside of combat, you may attempt a Black Check to do the same.

Level 5: They Always Try to Run

Once ever per target creature, you may make an Aspect Check at -2 Cards. If you succeed, the target willingly turns themselves in as they recognize your name. If you fail, they try and run, but fall prone and unable to move or tale actions until the end of their next turn. As they turned heel, you tossed one of your bolas (or something else) between their feet. 

Keen Senses

Hand	Keen Sense
Two Pairs	You recognize this smell or taste and can identify it with 100% certainty.
3 of a Kind	Until exposed to light as bright as a torch, you see perfectly in darkness, in shades of grey.
Straight	You may ask the GM whether something of your choice that an NPC says aloud in a conversation is the truth or a lie and they will give you a truthful answer.
Flush	You ignore penalties to tracking a target from any source.

Beyond the Veil Draft Classes Pt IV - Old Stogie

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Original via pngwing, edit via Alone in the Labyrinth.

Old Stogie

Everyone knows that smoking isn't good for you. Bad breath, rotting teeth, all that jazz. What others don't know is that once enough noxious chemicals coagulate in one place, a phenomena that the Natural-Industrialists of the Port City refer to as "frankly quite impressive" takes place. Chronic, long term smokers eventually contract various diseases as a result and die. A few unlucky souls, however, have their lungs turned into a sort of alchemical cauldron. The specific requirements for this are unknown, but those afflicted with this condition become reliant on the symbiotic relationship formed with the smoke-imp that takes up residence there to maintain their biological processes. Especially suitable hosts sometimes even develop supernatural abilities, facilitated by the smoke-imp in their lungs.

-Excerpt from Emeric Carlisle's  "A Complete History of Alchemical Experimentation and the Human Body".

Aspect: Health

Stock: Human

Requirements: Health < 0, cannot wear armor, can use any 1H weapon

Starting Gear:

• 1 Firesteel (0X)
• 3 musty cigars (0X)
• 1 set of ratty clothes (1TALF)
• Any 1H weapon and a Belt Sheath (1T1S) for it

Class Ability Tract

Level 0: Bad Habit

You have a bad habit of coughing at the worst time, sometimes to your benefit. When taking damage from any source, you may make an Aspect Check. This check may be made once per turn. If you fail it, you spend your next turn bent over coughing but reduce the damage you take by 1 until the end of your next turn. You cannot choose to fail this check. This does not prevent you from drowning or otherwise asphyxiating.

Level 1: Smoker's Lung

What started as smoke rings can now be taken to a new high. Finish your cigar and cough up an acrid cloud of smoke [level * 5] yards in diameter centered on yourself that Blinds everyone inside it, except yourself.

Level 2: Breakfast of Champions

Tobacco for breakfast keeps you thin and sprightly, or at least that's what you tell yourself. You may smoke a cigar in lieu of consuming food or water at a meal. Smoke two and ignore both food and water for that meal.

Level 3: Drag

After a hard day of getting stabbed, shot, clawed and pricked, you need a smoke break. Finish smoking a cigar as a Camp action and remove any single Status from yourself, negative or positive.

Level 4: Devil in the Details

The smoke-imp inside your lungs is a bastard, but a helpful bastard. In exchange for some energy, it will come out and assist you. As an action take 1 damage and cough up your smoke-imp. Once it is coughed up, it remains within 5 yards of you and knows quite a lot about botany and medicine but cannot interact physically with anything. If you take any damage the smoke-imp instead disappears back to your lungs in a burst of smoke.

Level 5: Crippling Addiction

"I have a great idea, my illustrious host." You are now immune to all Poison and Disease. You may spend an action to cough a cloud of smoke onto an adjacent character's face and inflict them with Lungrot. If someone dies while they have Lungrot, the smoke-imp created finds its way into your lungs. The imps from the effects of Lungrot may be used with Devil in the Details and you may house up to three additional smoke-imps. When these smoke-imps absorb damage, they perish.

Lungrot

Take 1 damage immediately. Every hour, make a Health Check versus taking a point of damage. You have a horrible cough and sweat profusely, unable to eat or drink.

Weird Cough

Choose either the Hack or Toke option each hand. You may change your choices each time you level up. Additionally, when you fail a check, you may add up to all cards discarded to your Baize instead of one.

Hand	Hack	Toke
Flush	Gain AV [Level/2] against an attack.	Make your next check at + or - [Level/2] Cards, your choice.
Full House	You can detect nearby hidden doors or rooms by watching your smoke trails for a round.	Blind an adjacent target for [Level] turns with murky spit.
Four of a Kind	Decrease the result of any Check you can see by [Level] by clouding the senses of the thing making the check with musty smoke.	Extinguish a light source within [Level * 5] yards stealthily.
Straight Flush	Gain immunity to damage from fire for [Level/2] Turns, shrouding yourself in smoke.	Become Invisible for [Level/2] Turns, shrouding yourself in smoke.
Royal Flush	Deal [Level] damage to an adjacent target, spitting coals onto them.	Exhale a strong wind, clearing [Level * 5] yards of space around you of gases or liquids for [Level/2] Turns.