Unaligned Rogues

Those who use unaligned magic for criminalized activities.

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Hottupali

Type: Torturer

Hottupalis know how to extract someone's organs without killing them instantly. Their methods allow a person who has lost an organ - even a heart - live for up to six hours. They like to show their victims the organs as they torture them. Hottupalis are not nice people. They are employed by other criminals, governments, business folk, or unsavory sorts to extract information from or simply bring agony to their enemies. There aren't many who do this , and those who do scare the shit out of everyone who knows what they do. They're also called "the organ-grinders", though this is not an accurate description of what they do.

They use special diet and exercise in order to access their magic. Their special diet is regular consumption of magical grains, spices, and milk mixed into a cereal called nimusti. This may vary by species, however. Often, their employer provides this to them. They eat it along with a heavy diet of bloody meat. The special exercises vary by body and intention, but most hottupalis seek to be strong and intimidating. Normal exercises may get them such a body, but the special exercises, which involve excessive amounts of lifting, punching, and push/pull ups, allow them to eventually control their body magically. Part of the exercises are meditations that allow them to know their body inside and out.

If they can achieve this and keep to their diet, after months of work, they begin to gain full control. They gain a point of body magic skill per six months they keep to their routine and diet for the first eight points (0-8), then it extends to one point per year for the next three (9-11), then one point per three years for the next three (12-14), then one point per five years for the next three (15-17), then one point per seven years for the next three (18-20), then one point per ten years for the next three (21-23), then one point per twelve years for the next three (24-26). It continues to extend in length after that.

There are different ways to wield body magic once it is possessed:

• Via physical strike (slap, punch, kick, tackle) with skin-to-skin contact to affect another person negatively.
• Via sheer will power to affect one's own internal processes.
• Via self-harm if they intend to alter their own form.

In order to practice their grim trade, hottupalis also feed their victims a mixture of magical grain alcohol, spices, and raw meat, called malucarne. This mixture is ground up (which is where the "grinders" pejorative comes from) and forcefed to the victims. Then they use their body magic skills to alter their bodies temporarily, beating them such that their organs come out of their mouths, but their bodies temporarily bypass that function for up to six hours. During this time, the victims are questioned with the promise of getting their organs back. They don't always give them back.

PRO +3 ATH +1 STR +3 AWA / WIL +1 PRS -6 STH -2 ESS -1

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Nemoguce

Type: Thief

A nemoguce is a thief who has stolen something that cannot be stolen, and in doing so, has unblocked impossible magic. Inherent to this magic is that they cannot explain how they stole what they stole.

The classic example is the thief who stole inmortality from the gods, but other stories include the thief who takes the moons from the sky to make new moons or the thief who stole the Queen of All Fairies’ tail (even though she never had a tail). A nemoguce usually has not performed such a grandiose theft, but rather, has stolen something smaller but still impossible. Perhaps they stole Ivan’s hair even though Ivan is bald or Ivana’s memory of her grandmother even though she never knew her grandmother. Or they stole the top of a well, the bottom of a rainbow, or the location of a town. Something abstract or nonexistent. They know they stole it because they have it. They don’t know how they got it nor how to return it. They have it. They can’t get rid of it. And as long as they have it, they can do other impossible things:

• Return to whence you never were: to escape from trouble, they can always go back to that place they never went to in the first place.
• Hide without hiding: if they make no effort to hide whatsoever, those they are stealing from or the authorities will not see them. This is not hiding plain sight or being casual; this is being hidden in a place where there is nothing to hide behind.
• Enter without entering: to break-and-enter, they simply don’t enter. The door may be open, the window broken, the wall crumbled, or the door may be locked, the window sealed, and the wall stout. Either way, they didn’t enter, so they’re now inside.
• Upside-down: they may defy physics and walk upside down at will. Not on their hands. Not on the ceiling. Upside down, their feet touching the air where their head should be as if it were solid.
• Priceless find: if they steal only things with no value whatsoever, they will get rich selling it.

Nemoguces are very rare, and most people don’t believe they exist. Someone who becomes one will always end up coming to an abrupt and inexplicable end. Nemoguces’ rolls are always reversed - if the player rolls a 1, it counts as a 10 and vice versa. The GM’s rolls are normal, but the nemoguce has the choice once per session to reverse this. But only on a roll involving their abilities.

If the player rolls a critical success, they must then roll again. If the roll is another critical success, the nemoguce comes to their inexplicable end.

PRO +1 ATH +1 STR -2 AWA +2 WIL -1 PRS -1 STH +4 ESS +1

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Scelestian

Type: Criminal

These master-of-all-crimes are multitalented criminals who have spent decades or more practicing the arts of the Cant and the Hooded Shadow. These are the most elite criminals.

There is an ancient cant, a variation on language, a secret code and a dialect and a pidgin, a set of rhymes and ciphers, that only those who have been pushed outside the law may wield. The Cant derived from the first people who had to steal from other mortals to survive, and it grew into a complex, panlingual cryptological esoteric puzzle. The Cant cannot be understood by anyone who serves the laws of the state that make people criminals, and it gives those who speak it special powers. To access it, one must have committed a crime in a place one has been, knowingly, and one must have done so without other esoteric power. One must have committed this crime for purposes neither related to upholding the oppressive structures nor overthrowing them. The crime must violate a law existing on the books in the place it was broken, and it must be knowingly committed. If the crime is later decriminalized, it will still empower the scelestian. If the crime is unknowingly committed, but the criminal later discovers it was/is illegal, they have a brief window to take advantage before they lose access to the cant (until they commit a crime again). In that brief window, they will see a shadow, and if they follow that shadow, they will begin to see things they never noticed before. This will lead them to the closest wielder of Cant, who, if they are recognized as someone exposed to the shadow, will recruit them.

From there, they will be trained in the Cant, and eventually tested via a series of criminal activities. If they pass, they will be initiated into the Hooded Shadow, the power of concealment from the law.

The Hooded Shadow empowers them in any criminal activity, and scelestians train in so many criminal activities, they learn to apply it to any or all of them. They can empower flames to be unseen to better engage in arson, ensuring a structure burns. They can hide their manipulations of people to better their skills as a conspirator. They can use the shadow to make themselves more intimdiating as an extortionist, or they can use it to become practically invisible as a spy, thief, or assassin. Any criminal activity, they can empower with it.

The most powerful can steal intangible things like a person's feelings, their abilities, or even parts of their lives. They can wield the Hooded Shadow consume people's souls, turn flame into shadow, or alter their own forms. They are true masters of the Hooded Shadow, able to do anything they need to with it to commit the crimes they choose to commit.

In order to wield it, the scelestian must use the correct canting rhymes. They must maintain the Hooded Shadow by remaining outside the law, never cooperating with the authorities, and never going straight. This does not mean never following any law, but rather, never betraying any criminal group they are with and never surviving off anything but criminal gains. Any violation will destroy the Cant immediately. The more crimes they knowingly commit, the higher the score they have in the shadow, but any use depletes it, meaning they have a limited amount of shadow to use. Furthermore, some crimes only count as one instance even if prolonged - i.e., selling drugs to a dozen people is just "selling drugs", not twelve instances of it. They must be broken up with other crimes in-between. Rape and sexual assault do not generate the Hooded Shadow, as these are infernal acts.

It takes them decades to master all forms of crime, but once they do, they become major players within the criminal underground. Only a handful have ever existed.

Criminal occupations they may have skills from include arsonists, assassins, baiters, bandits, beggars, blackmailers, bodyguards, bookies, bootleggers, brawlers, bribers, consiglieres, conspirators, cookers, counterfeiters, deviants, embezzlers, extortionists, fences, fixers, forgers, gamblers, gangsters, grifters, harborers, harvesters, hijackers, kidnappers, molls, muggers, mutineers, pickpockets, pirates, poachers, poisoners, provocateurs, public nuissances, pushers, quacks, resurrectionists, revolutionaries, robbers, rustlers, saboteurs, scavengers, sex workers, shoplifters, simonists, slavers, smugglers, spies, squatters, stoolies, tax evaders, terrorists, thieves, torturers, traffickers, traitors, urchins, vagrants, vandals, vigilantes, whistleblowers, or witches. Ponzi schemers, election riggrers, hackers, and more modern crimes are not available.

PRO +2 ATH +1 STR +1 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS +2 STH +4 ESS +1

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Uvegkem

Type: Spy

In Idangar, there are those who are trained in using experimental magical glass lenses to see things others cannot. This is an ancient practice kept by a secret sect of spies and information gatherers, investigators of the obscure, and keepers of magical philosophies and sciences. The uvegkemok are a strange order who love to experiment with their magic.

To make experimental lenses for their work, the uvegkemok must adhere to a five-step process:

• Inquiring: the uvegkem must have an idea of what they are looking for, even if it is a question rather than a specific target - i.e., what was that guy holding? What was the king’s middle name? where did Ivan put his horse? It must be a question whose answer is possible to answer, but not necessarily probable.
• Guess: the uvegkem must have a general guess as to the answer to their inquiry - i.e., maybe the guy was holding a bucket, the king’s middle name might have been Johann, and Ivan’s horse could theoretically be in the basement. The guess must be possible - they cannot guess the guy was holding the ocean, the king’s middle name was unspeakable, or Ivan’s horse was in his pocket.
• Testing: the uvegkem must then attempt to make the lens. The uvegkem must have the proper materials - potiri glass or powder, something to heat with, something to shape with, something to cool with, something to smooth the final product with, something to clean with.
• Adjustment: the uvegkem can make and remake the lens up to seven times per dose of materials to get it right, adjusting as per whether it meets their needs.
• Finalize: once they get it right - once it can see what they were looking for, or confirm or deny what they were inquiring about - the lens has up to 10 uses.

They make these lenses in secret labs, surrounded by their books of magical sciences and philosophies. They are medieval mad science spies who use their lenses to make a variety of strange devices:

• Sight-adjustment lens: a lens that can see at distance, through a specific substance, around a corner, behind the user, see things unseen, or otherwise provide magical sight may be added to spectacles or spyglasses.
• Nigh unbreakable glass: the uvegkem can make a very small amount of nigh unbreakable glass, a bead the size of a pea, to be used in a fashion they may come up with.
• Magical refracting lens: a lens that can bend light in unexpected or improbable ways, such as turning light into a specific image, altering it to be unaligned but magical, or causing it to focus and target specific things.
• Experimental solidity: they can make a larger object out of flexible magical glass, such as a whip, an arm, or a pick.
• Sealing glass: they can make a glass container that makes it seem like something else is inside or is nearly impossible to open.

They can make many experimental devices, but there is always the chance it will fail.

PRO +1 ATH +1 STR -1 AWA +3 WIL / PRS -1 STH +3 ESS /

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Zmejskomomche

Type: Urchin

Zmejskomoches are orphans who are born with the power of dragons. This happens when someone is promised to a dragon before they are born.

There are many rumors suggesting these children are born from a dragon seducing a mortal woman, but this is impossible and usually just a cruel lie. Most of the time, the parents of the child promise the child to a dragon to protect the child, knowing they will not survive to care for them. Other times, more unsavory deals have taken place. Regardless, the dragon marks the child before they are born, causing them to take on new features in the womb.

Most are born with a tail. Some are given a special "dragon shirt" as a child, while others are born with wings. Often they are born with a caul or have membranes in their armpits. Some have extra teeth.

The dragon shirt is something spun by twelve village children from cotton, woven into cloth, then made into a shirt. The village children are also zmejskomomche.

Most zmejskomomche are susceptible to disease and mentally traumatized by the loss of their parents and the poverty they are born into, but they have dragon magic within them to keep them alive. Some are lucky enough to find and be taken in by their dragon, but most never know them. Some very few are taken away at birth by their dragon.

The magic they have as children may include the following:

• Draconic bolt: the urchin can summon a bolt of draconic lightning that kills those who would eat children.
• Draconic strength: the urchin can temporarily give themselves enormous strength.
• Voice of majesty: the urchin can temporarily amplify their vocal PRS as if they were a king.
• Unexplained skill: the urchin may randomly roll a d12 to determine a score in a random skill of their choosing once per session, or roll a d8 twice per session, a d6 thrice per session, or a d20 once every three sessions.
• Dragon form: in a last ditch crisis, they may take a dragon form, but they lose their magic if used
• Soulflight: they may release their soul into the form of a winged snake and leave their body behind temporarily.
• Animal form: they may take the form of an aurochs, wolf, or falcon once per week for half an hour

As they age, they weaken in their magic. They are most powerful at birth, able to lift houses and crush trees. By age seven, they are very powerful but more in line with mortal magic. At this time, they can fly. If they live to adulthood, they lose their magic.

PRO +1 ATH +3 STR -2 AWA +2 WIL +1 PRS +1 STH +2 ESS +2