XVI. The Tower (GLOG Class: Wizard)

Via Wikipedia, by Pamela Colman Smith

 

To play this class, you will need either a full physical 78-card tarot deck or a method of imitating one satisfactorily (the Dash Delta dicebot on Discord has a very nice tarot feature that includes reversed cards, an essential element of this class). You are encouraged, but not required, to play your cards with all the panache and theater you can muster and to perform normal readings in the course of the game.

 

Via Wikimedia, by Mikhail Vrubel, located by primeumaton

Class: Fortune-Teller

 

Skills: Bluffing and 1d3: 1. Shoeing Horses, 2. Storytelling, 3. Silversmithing

Starting Equipment: A 78-card tarot deck, an iridescent or otherwise colorful robe, a crystal ball (completely inert), a dagger, and a stout staff. 

A: The Tarot, Hand of Fate, Trusted Voice

B: Destiny, +1 Hand

C: Scry, +1 Hand, +1 Fate

D: Burn, +2 Hand

The Tarot: At midnight, shuffle your deck (adding any cards which were in your hand, played, or discarded back in), draw a number of cards equal to your Hand (3 at A template), and add them to your hand, which you may look at. Cards in your hand must remain in the orientation in which they were drawn (upright or reversed). You may play a card face-up to activate its effect, and you may stack additional cards from your hand face-down beneath it to enhance its power (card descriptions use the notation [stack] to represent the number of cards used, with the initial face-up card counting as 1). If a card is destroyed in-fiction, remove it from your deck and do not add it back in until you acquire a replacement. Card effects may target any contextually appropriate person, creature, or object that you can see within earshot, unless otherwise specified. In combat, playing a card in any way takes your action unless otherwise specified.

Hand of Fate: You have 1 Fate. This may be spent, at will, to discard a card from your hand and replace it with a random card drawn from the deck, or to flip a card from upright to reversed and vice versa. You may temporarily acquire more Fate from cards of the Major Arcana, as detailed below, and there is no limit to how much Fate you may have at any given point, but at midnight, no matter how much Fate remains, it is reset to 1.

Trusted Voice: Your regular readings are treated with respect by all folk, and your predictions are widely held to be trustworthy. You are under no obligation to tell the truth about your divinations, but if you acquire a reputation for dissembling within readings, you lose this ability.

 

Destiny: You may discard any number of cards from your hand to draw and play a random card from your deck sight unseen, with [stack] equaling twice the number of discards.

 

Scry: Before shuffling and dealing your deck at midnight, you may choose to search it and place one card of your choice into your hand. This reduces your Hand by one (and the chosen card still counts towards Hand) until the next time you shuffle your deck and refresh your hand.

 

Burn: Draw randomly or pick from your hand three or more cards, which must remain in the order and orientation they were drawn/picked in (you can mix and match drawing and picking). Create a reading based on this sequence of cards and negotiate an effect for it with the DM, which transpires immediately. The cards you use for this ability instantly burn to ash and may never be used again. Any replacements you acquire for them are inert and powerless, including in regular readings.

 

Suits

 

This is where I reveal I'm a coward and a rube and didn't come up with 156 bespoke effects for 78 cards in upright and reversed orientations. Sorry. Instead, each suit (including Major Arcana) has an upright and a reversed effect, and each card of the Major Arcana also has unique upright and reversed effects. DMs and players are encouraged to come up with unique abilities for each card of the Minor Arcana as they come up, or I may create an additional post with further effects if I feel up to it (no promises).

 

Swords:

• Upright: An unlikely accident befalls the target and deals [stack]d6 damage to it. You may choose whether this coincidence transpires in [stack]d6 rounds or [stack]d6 minutes.
•  Reversed: The next time the target would take damage, an unlikely coincidence intervenes, reducing the damage by [stack]d6. May be played as a reaction.

Wands:

• Upright: Target flame (open or contained) either explodes into a blinding display of fireworks (all who see it must save vs blindness until it's over, lasts [stack] rounds) or into a cloud of choking, obscuring smoke with a radius of [stack]×10 ft.
• Reversed: [stack] targets must save vs confusion, taking -1 to all rolls instead on a success. The effect lasts 1d4+1 rounds.

Cups:

• Upright: Gain an intuitive and perfectly accurate empathetic understanding of the emotions of either 1 target for [stack]d6 minutes or [stack] targets for 1d6 minutes.
• Reversed: A target becomes completely emotionally deadened (immune to fear, pain, joy, lust, etc) for [stack]d6 rounds, or [stack] targets are so affected for 1d6 rounds. 

Pentacles:

• Upright: The target heals [stack]d4 HP. If this would bring them above their max HP, they gain [stack] max HP until the next time this card is shuffled back into the deck.
• Reversed: 1d10×([stack]-1)×10 large, foreign gold coins appear in your hand and disappear a minute later, or 1d10×10 large, foreign gold coins appear in your hand and disappear a minute/hour/day/week/month/year later (increasing per [stack]).

Major Arcana:

• Upright or Reversed: Gain [stack] Fate.

Unique Card Effects

 

0. The Fool:

• Upright: All bonds (physical, mental, social) restraining [stack] targets burst asunder instantly. The targets cannot be bound, slowed, hindered, or otherwise restrained for [stack] hours thereafter.
• Reversed: [stack] targets are seized by chains restricting all their limbs (if any), which disappear after [stack]d4 rounds. Each round, they may use their action to save to escape.

I. The Magician:

• Upright: For the next [stack] minutes, either [stack]+1 human-sized (or smaller) targets or one target no bigger than ([stack]+1)×4 times larger than human-sized float up to no higher than [stack]×10 ft above the ground at your will. Each round, they may use their move to save to escape. You may end the effect at will.
• Reversed: For [stack] rounds, [stack] targets have their weight magnified, slowing them by [stack]×10 ft (or more on particularly soft ground) and causing them to take [stack]d4 damage per round as they're crushed under their own weight. Flying targets immediately plummet to the ground.

II. The High Priestess:

• Upright: For [stack] hours, you can see all magic effects and intuit their basic functions, penetrate all illusions, sense traps on a 5-in-6, and interpret all omens clearly.
• Reversed: [stack] targets are disguised as something with roughly similar shape and size for [stack] hours.

III. The Empress:

• Upright: Target living thing grows—plants, fungi, and the like grow to cover an area no more than [stack]×100 ft to a side permanently, while animals and the like grow to [stack]+1 times their original size for 10 minutes, adding +[stack] to their Strength modifier.
• Reversed: A target withers and desiccates, taking [stack]d4 damage and [stack]d4 Strength damage (save for half). If played on a plant, fungus, or the like, it and all similar living things within a radius of [stack]×50 ft instantly die with no save.
  

IV. The Emperor:

• Upright: You may speak with [stack] of the following categories for [stack] hours: animals, plants, corpses, doors, stones, weapons, clothes, and speakers of any specific language. They have personalities befitting their nature and are not automatically cooperative.
• Reversed: [stack] targets are completely silenced and unable to create noise for [stack]×10 minutes.

V. The Hierophant:

• Upright: [stack] targets must save vs charm. If charmed, they treat you like a trusted (but not boon) friend for [stack]d6 minutes.
• Reversed: Create an illusion deceiving up to [stack] senses, which you can control and move for [stack]d4 minutes, after which it disappears.

VI. The Lovers:

• Upright: Target object no larger than a cube [stack]×5 ft to a side is repaired, even if it was reduced to dust, or target heals [stack]d6 HP.
  
• Reversed: Target object no larger than a cube [stack]×5 ft to a side is shattered into a million pieces.

VII. The Chariot:

• Upright: For [stack] rounds, a target may move at [stack]+1 times their normal speed and may take an additional action every round in combat. After the effect ends, the target is lethargic (cannot move, has no action in combat) for [stack] rounds.
• Reversed: For [stack] minutes, a target must save each round or lose their action and is slowed by [stack]×10 ft.

VIII. Justice:

• Upright: Speak a proper name and pick a condition: until you reach the bearer of that name or until the bearer of that name is dead. Until the condition is fulfilled, do not reshuffle this card unto the deck; it remains in play. You know the exact direction and distance of the target constantly, no matter where it is, and all attacks made against it gain +[stack] to hit, even if you'd wish otherwise.
• Reversed: [stack] targets are concealed from [stack] senses for one hour, or one target or location is concealed from [stack] senses for [stack] hours. 

IX. The Hermit:

• Upright: After 11 minus [stack] minutes of study, you understand the literal meaning of a piece of writing or other object of art.
• Reversed: You can hear a target's thoughts as if they were your own for [stack] minutes. They may save to feel your presence in their mind.

X. The Wheel of Fortune:

• Upright: The next [stack]×2 times you blink, you instantly appear wherever you were looking before you blinked when you open your eyes.
• Reversed: Name a category. For the next [stack] minutes, everything in that category within sight approaches you—anything which can move under its own power slowly wanders towards you as if of its own accord, anything which can't floats at a sedate but inexorable 10 ft per round.

XI. Strength:

• Upright: The next [stack] attacks and harmful effects targeting a target miss or fail as if by coincidence. May be played as a reaction.
• Reversed: [stack] arrows appear from thin air and orbit you for the next hour. You may launch any number of them as an action; they cannot miss or be mitigated in any way and each deal 1d4 damage.

XII. The Hanged Man:

• Upright: For [stack] hours, everyone you meet will treat you like an exotic but important and fascinating foreign dignitary, granting +2 reaction. For this duration, you cannot be ignored and are the most interesting thing in any room you walk into.
• Reversed: For 8 hours, you gain +[stack]+1 AC if you are unarmored, as though objects which approach you suddenly slow to be easily avoided, and you are always the least interesting person in any group or crowd.

XIII. Death:

• Upright: A target rolls [stack] mutations on the DM's favorite table and heals [stack]d4 HP. These mutations last [stack] days, after which the target saves against each of them, losing them on a success.
  
• Reversed: A target becomes immobile, inactive, and completely immune to any change or harm whatsoever for [stack]d6 rounds. May be played as a reaction.
• Upright or Reversed: You may discard your entire hand and redraw back up to the number of cards that were in your hand immediately before you played this card.

XIV. Temperance:

• Upright: Within a cube no more than [stack]×5 ft to a side, all volatile materials and reactions (fire, acid, alcohol, fuel, etc) are turned to neutral salt.
  
• Reversed: Must be played at [stack] = 2 or greater with a card of the Minor Arcana, which is also turned face-up. You may, for a round, telekinetically control a cube no more than [stack]×2 ft to a side of the associated element (Swords = air, Wands = fire, Cups = water, Pentacles = earth). Attacks made thereby do not require an attack roll, but deal [stack]d6 damage to no more than [stack] targets, save for half.

XV. The Devil:

• Upright: A pit [stack]×5 ft in radius and [stack]×10 ft deep appears in the ground or floor. Anyone this pit appears beneath may save to get out of the way before falling. The pit lasts [stack] hours.
• Reversed: A rope [stack]×50' long appears, tied at one end around something or someone you can see at any distance. The rope is unbreakable and lasts [stack]×10 minutes. If tied around a creature, they may save each round to escape if it would be feasible for them to untie the knot.

XVI. The Tower:

• Upright: Curse the target with a negotiated effect that can be described in no more than [stack]×3 words. After [stack] hours, the target may save to end the effect; on a failure, it is permanent until dispelled.
• Reversed: [stack] targets receive +1 on all rolls for [stack]×10 minutes as fate seems to miraculously and inexplicably favor them.

XVII. The Star:

• Upright: An object glows with bright light in a radius of [stack]×10 ft for [stack] hours. If your foes come within the light, they lose 1 Morale permanently as the light gains a mysteriously menacing aspect.
• Reversed: Magical darkness with a radius of [stack]×10 ft appears, lasting [stack] minutes. Those within must save vs anhedonia, which lasts until they exit the darkness.

XVIII. The Moon:

• Upright: [stack] targets become mortally terrified of something or someone you name for [stack]×10 minutes. On noticing the object of their fear, they flee. Targets with HD equal to or greater than [stack] may check Morale to hold their ground, but they have -1 to hit and -1 AC while afraid.
• Reversed: A magical effect with MD less than or equal to [stack] is permanently dispelled. If the target has MD greater than [stack], it is instead suppressed for 1d6 rounds. May be played as a reaction.

XIX. The Sun:

• Upright: All impurities are removed from a specified substance within the volume of a cube no more than [stack]×5 ft to a side and are set neatly in a dried, powdered pile next to it.
• Reversed: A specified solid, liquid, or otherwise fluid substance is, within the volume of a cube no more than [stack]×5 ft to a side, transmuted to a different substance not more than [stack] steps later than it on the following list: stone, wood, water, alcohol, acid, lead, tin, iron, copper, quicksilver, silver, gold. Any substances not on the list may be placed at the same rank as another substance at the DM's discretion. Additionally, the unit used to determine the maximum volume decreases to spans if the final stage of the transmutation is acid or higher, palms at quicksilver or higher, inches at silver or higher, and fifths of an inch at gold or higher. 

XX. Judgement:

• Upright: Summon a being whose name you state. If the name belongs to a spirit, it appears immediately, but if it belongs to a fleshly being, the owner instantly knows that they were summoned and your location at the moment you played the card. The subject of the summoning is not necessarily well-disposed. If you do not state a name, a random spirit of [stack]d4 HD is summoned instead.
  
• Reversed: [stack] spirits within earshot are banished and disappear, or [stack] fleshly beings within earshot may not approach you or attack you. Targets with HD greater than [stack] may save to negate.

XXI. The World:

• Upright: A doorway-sized passage appears though a surface no thicker than [stack]×5 ft. If stack is at least 5, a doorway may instead be created out of thin air leading to a place you've been before within ([stack]-4)×10 miles.
• Reversed: A wall made of the same material as the ground or floor appears, [stack]×10 ft tall, [stack]×5 ft thick, and no more than [stack]×100 ft long; it may include corners but may not form an enclosure. If one of the cards in the stack is from a Minor Arcana, you may turn that card face-up and form the wall from the suit's associated element instead (Swords = wind, Wands = fire, Cups = ice, Pentacles = living stone).