The Talismanic Caveman, Fetishist or Mountain Man* - an OSR class

The Bad Durrenberg Shaman

HD: 1d6
Level as: Cleric
Save as: Fighter
Weapons: Any
Armour: Shields only, see below
Fights as: No progression, see below. 

You are What You Wear: A Talismanic Caveman may possess a number of Talismans equal to their level. Indeed, this Caveman derives all their power from these eponymous Talismans - trinkets, trophies, armour and apparel carved and shaped from their fallen foes. 

Each Talisman grants a special ability, a passive boon, inspired by the beast that the Talisman is made from. For example; a rhino horn amulet might grant +1d4 damage when charging into melee, an oxhide cloak may grant +2 STR (strong as an ox), a dragon scale headdress allows the wearer to take half damage from fire. When ideating abilities - think mythically. There are more example Talismans at the end of this post. 

Each Talisman also grants two of the three following bonuses, the same bonus can be selected twice:

• +1 melee to-hit
• +1 ranged to-hit 
• +1 armour class bonus

- Talismans have no effect when worn by characters of a different class. 

- The oft bloody affair of harvesting and constructing a Talisman happens simultaneously. It takes 10 minutes and requires no specialist tools. 

Sacred Symbols: A Talismanic Caveman cannot carry more Talismans than their current level and swap them out as needs be. That would be sacrilege. A Talisman must be destroyed when it is replaced by another. This happens after the new Talisman has been created and it's powers defined. 

- Likewise, for example, one may not wear two helmets or two masks at the same time.

- A single Talisman takes up one inventory slot.

Kitted Out: The Talismanic Caveman's Talisman AC bonus caps at +6 (not including shields), any AC bonus above this has no effect. 

- Likewise, if a Caveman's to-hit bonus (either melee or ranged) exceeds +10, the excess converts to bonus damage. 

Lucky Charms: A Talismanic Caveman may shatter their Talismans to mitigate 1d4 points of damage of any type. This includes Stat Damage. A shattered Talisman is lost forever. 

Effects that damage armour, such as critical hit results, destroy 1 Talisman of the Caveman's choosing.

- But beware, for without their Talismans, these folk are little more than frightened, superstitious troglodytes.

Beast Lore: The Talismanic Caveman are animal experts but are prone to speak in myth and legend rather than useful, grounded facts. They knows the legends of all the 'natural' beasts and monsters of this land (and can instantly recognise unnatural things such as mutants, aberrations, aliens, Frankensteins and such like). The class can ask a question about any natural beast they can see with a 3-in-6 chance of getting an accurate answer. The DM will roll for this in secret. On sucess they DM will answer tersely yet accurately. If unsuccessful, the DM will give a false, albeit mythical answer. 

For example, a player asks 'what is the weakness of the Flightless Carrion Roc?'. The DM rolls a d6 in secret and is unsuccessful, so replies mythically: "You know the legend of how the Carrion Roc lost his wings, cursed for his arrogance - shame is his greatest weakness!" or "You heard that long ago, Jahooli, King of the Carrion Rocs was once enchanted by the pleasant flute playing of Otongo the Ape!". While false, knowing the nature of this game, sometimes false things can - in play - become true. 

Do I know this beast? Honey, I'm wearing it!: You gain a +1 bonus to your Beast Lore rolls Vs a particular creature for each Talisman of that species you are wearing. If wearing three Talismans of the same type of creature you automatically pass your 'Beast Lore' rolls for that type of beast.

Animal Mimicry: You can imitate the sound of any creature you have a Talisman of. You can only mimic sound and emotion but not true communicable speech. Additionally you can mimic not just a creature's verbalisations but other sounds they make, such as the fluttering of their wings, the sound of their feet padding the floor, the swish of their tail, the spurting of their acidic expulsions, etc.

Spirit Animal Visions: Should the DM feel a Talismanic bonus is too powerful, the spirit of that animal may appear to the caveman in a dream and renegotiate the ability as well as provide them a piece of guidance, advice or information to aid them in their current quest. Conversely, animal spirits may appear to boost the power of their Talismans. 

A level 1 Mountain Man

    

D12 Example Talismans:

1. Monkey Veil: +1 ranged, +1 AC, Fruit eaten heals 1d8 (or one die size higher than consuming a regular ration)
2. Sabretooth Skull Mask: +1 melee, +1 AC, Critical Hit range extends by 1
3. Falcon Wing Crown: +1 melee, +1 ranged, immunity to falling damage
4. Beaver Tooth Charm: +1 melee, +1 AC, Fell even large trees after a single round of chopping
5. Chimp Pelt: +1 melee, +1 AC, +2 to climbing skill
6. Goblin Bone Girdle: +1 melee, +1 AC, +3 to Hide when hiding in caves.
7. Gorgon Hair Skirt: +2 AC, +4 to saves vs paralysis and petrification.
8. Ostrich Feather Gaiters: +1 ranged, +1 AC, wearer can run and jump further and faster than any other party member.
9. Bigfoot Hide Trousers: +1 melee, +1 AC, renders the wearer mostly immune to scrying, appearing as a fuzzy, indiscernible brownness.
10. Hook Horror Vambraces: +2 melee, unarmed attacks do 2d4 damage.
11. Elf Ear Earrings: +2 ranged, detect secret doors as an Elf (or +2 Awareness).
12. Sloth Loin Cloth, +2 AC, the wearer sleeps as peacefully as a sloth and always heals the maximum amount of HP regained by sleeping.

The Talismanic Caveman (or Mountain Man, Fighting-Shaman or Fetishist) is directly inspired by James Young's Inheritor class, which is in turn inspired by Hack and Slash Master's Blue Mage.

*Additional, rejected class names include; the Fighting-Shaman, Scrimshaw Sailor, Mad Taxidermist, Skin-Wearer, Totemic Caveman and Trophy Hunter. I like Mountain Man best. Likewise Talismans can be renamed depending on the class vibe. A Mountain Man may have Trophies, a Fetishist would have Fetishes and so on.

Taken from God of War 'Raider' concept art, pretty good for this class's vibe

O Drc - Toki Pona's Evil Twin

 The word for food is slugs.

by Vergvotre

The following is the collated work of the late Emeritus Master and Polar Explorer Wimm Oxwoe, who through some mysterious method (now, perhaps lost forever) had claimed to have reconstructed the ancient language spoken by the thralls of the Dread Hyperborean civilization. Whatever uncanny technique Oxwoe employed, it's efficacy is undeniable. Now, through the language's use, many of the strange arctic hominids who lurk that malignant land can now be communicated with intelligibly. Perhaps unsettlingly, this lends greater weight to the theory that these creatures are indeed descendants of the human slaves of that dread civilisation. 

And what a cruel language it is. Pity those folk who lived in the brutal world to which O Drc alludes - they who knew no other language.

photography by Kjetil Karlson

A Handsome yet Arrogant Author's Thoughts and Design Notes:

It is the dream of all nerds to make a conlang. I'm no nerd, and what's more, I'm barely literate. So, bish bash bosh, I'll just make an entire conlang in 2 weeks, no problem, it'll be great. I cannot deny this isn't anything other than baby's first conlang. I have certainly learnt a lot during the process. But still, I hope I have achieved something interesting. 

O Drc, is inspired by Toki Pona and shares its interest in the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. Whereas Toki Pona tries to be twee and good spirited, so O Drc will be sinister and cognitively oppressive - like a primordial version of 1984's Newspeak - a small language full of purposeful restrictions, omissions, pointed polysemy and the impoverishment of expression amongst others techniques. Though I do feel I could have pushed this further. 

The phonology of O Drc is deliberately simple and almost overwhelming 'English' and is likewise presented simply. The intention is, while the language may sound alien, I would want it to be easily read by my players. The rules around grammar are a little stranger but still stem from a notion of simplicity. Still, if you are unsure of how to pronounce anything ping me on Discord, I mean it. Furthermore, if you are a real smarty pants conlang or linguistics aficionado (and therefore likely pained by this language) please give me some feedback. 

Generally, using conlangs in roleplaying games is a risky business. Perhaps as a short lived linguistics puzzle you'd be ok, like how I plan to use O Drc - I'm thinking I may include a magic item that automatically transcribes O Drc speech spoken by NPCs to aid in this. If you would like actual, gameable content relating to languages, check the bottom of the post where I have compiled a collection of posts quilled by wiser minds.

A list of just a few of the grammatical terms I did not (and perhaps still do not) know/understand upon creating this conlang:

• Subject
• Object 
• Noun Phrase
• Phonesthemes
• Tropicalisation
• Semantic Domain
• Free translation - and the difference between gloss and transliteration. 
• Basically most types of this stuff: accusative? the subjunctive? Huh?
• How to read IPA
• And much more!

I am the Conlang dunce. But if I can make a 'entire' language, so can you. 

It's me

This post was requested by Metasyn of the mainwave OSR discord server for Christmas (I received the spooky, energumeniacal class; The Guided Hand by Katt Kirsch) They wanted a post on Language, I gave a language. Unfortunately, these are not the same things. So here is some more befitting content: 

d13 GREAT OSR POSTS ABOUT LANGUAGE:

1. Blog of Forlorn Encystment's 'On Language' argues for skill based, gradated language, checks to build a more realistic picture of language acquisition and multilingualism
2. Speaking of multilingualism, Lich Van Winkle's post titled A Reality Check for Language Rules in Your Fantasy Game (and rationalizing alignment languages), argues a character's known languages shouldn't be based solely on their Intelligence score but a host of factors such as social class (and much, much more!)
3. Prismatic Wasteland offers a novel method for slot-based languages in Schrödinger’s Chat 2: Amended & Restated Quantum Language Rules. In my opinion, quantum language is 👌 but the memory system presented in the post sets meaningful limits. Personally speaking, I've had a dwarf PC who ended up speaking a huge 16+ different languages including every type of Dwarven dialect and some wacky ones like Western Lowland Gorilla and Martian.
4. Prismatic Wasteland also looks at the implied setting of D&D through the lens of language. What does the existence of 'Common' actually imply? Read The Languages of D&D Imply a Specific Setting to find out.
5. Troy Press wrote Real-world Language Proficiency for Fantasy Games. It introduces us to F.A.C.T - an actual method for appraising the level of a speaker's language proficiency and how this can be applied to games (in a variety of ways).
6. Murkdice asks What did you say?. They demand one should treat language as an ingredient for gameable scenarios and interesting social/textual obstacles to encounter during adventures. They also suggest ways to handle this kind of play.
7. Additionally, Languages and Frictionless Design by Nate Whittington of the Grinning Rat blog builds upon this. They write about language as a wrinkle in play, a problem, a complication. There's also some very interesting thoughts on tying language to faction play.
8. You must read the Onomasticon Quernorum (I must self promote). And is not onomastics (the study of names) not a kind of language we interact with daily? This Adonic author (of a blog too cool for Google to index) suggests the obvious, names are good for implied world building!
9. Rise Up Comus serves up some sizzlingly gameable subversions on classic dnd languages in Lingua Franca.
10. The Benign Brown Beast follows a similar path in Saying Magic Words where in they link languages to spells. How intriguing, how WHIMSICAL.
11. This Benign Brown Beast can't be stopped! In RPG Linguistics they share their thoughts on shrinking the common naturalist take on language with many dozens of racial/geographic dialects to a narrativist approach. It's very thought provoking.
12. Real value for money with this 2-in-1 post (titled Some Thoughts About Languages in RPGs). First, an overview of some excellent scripts for use as ciphers. Then, a brilliant and detailed array of 'The Languages of Generic Vernacular Fantasyland'. A real cracker of a post from Dan.
13. The inimitable Xaosseed ruminates on how the presence of extraordinarily long-lived beings might effect the evolution of language in Your great-grand-elf's elvish: long lives slowing language change.

If you have any other great posts of Language do share them in the comments! 

A tear-jerking reaction to this post (and me and my blog in general) from Diogenes of Dio's Dungeon:

d20 dungeon critters you can just snatch up and gulp down

Select thy snack

Some proper dungeon bushtucker. Hey, don’t be squeamish, it's free HP.

For when your players are truly beasts. 

While quick to eat they are somewhat bilious, (especially for the inexperienced dungeoneer) - you can only eat a number of these critters (or portions) equal to your level every ten minutes*. Excess consumption causes HP loss instead of gain. The format is name, description, amount healed per portion (usually the whole creature but some can be divvied up, some must be) and number appearing (No app:). They all go bad after a day.

These varmints can tie into something like the ‘dungeon provides’ result of Wondering Monster’s Tweaked Encounter Dice. Eating these critters does not provoke an encounter check (unless otherwise stated). 

*unless cooked into a meal.

D20 dungeon critters you can just snatch up and gulp down

1. Cake Bug
 - The crème de la crème of dungeon critters. A nine-legged, soft-bodied organism the exact same size, shape, texture and taste as a stodgy, praline and caramel cake. 6 HP or up to six servings of 1 HP. No app: 1d2.

2. Pygmy Cave Dodos
- Little squawking featherless oafs that run in circles. You could fit two in the palm of your hand. Bloodless, dry and stringy. 1 HP ea. No app: 1d6.
3. Cracklers/Poppers
- Bright pink termites that crackle in the mouth and their fat wine-red grubs. Cracklers: 1 HP per dozen, Poppers, 2 HP ea. No app: 1d4 dozen Cracklers outside the nest, inside the nest are 2d6 dozen Cracklers and d20 Poppers. Digging them out may take some time.  
4. Bogtart
- A spontaneously generated homunculus. They play dead when spotted. About a mouthful. Tastes like cherry pie, gushes green ooze when bitten. 2 HP. No app: 1.
5. Vecna's Feathers
- Squamous, silvery moths. Rest on tombs and soak up the evil energy. Just grab them out of the air, then twist and pull. Tastes like vinegary porridge. 1 HP ea. No app: 2d6. 
6. Orc Fingers
- Callous green caterpillar-things, roost under rocks and scatter, clumsily, from light sources. 1 HP per 3. No app: 1d4*3.
7. Molasses Slime
- The runt of the dungeon slime genus. Small, slow, about as acidic as an orange - sweet and cloying in the back of the throat. 2 HP ea. No app: 1.
8. Miasmatic Minnows
- Filtering out the tainted dungeon air, these tiny fish float like sparkling teardrops - just inhale sharply and swallow. 1 HP per cloud/shoal. No app: 1d4 shoals. 
9. Waiffles
- Bone white fairies that want to be eaten. They’ll try to force themselves into your mouth, begging “eat me, eat me” in their squeaky little voices. Considered bad luck to eat but this is just an old wives tale. Taste and texture like fresh candy floss. 1 HP each. No app: 1d6.
10. Spitworms
- Like anemones blooming from the wall, they’re tubular, blue tinted polyps with little yawning fishmouths. They spit harmless neon slime territorially. The texture is like pani puri but the taste is pineapple. 1 HP ea. No app: 2d6.
11.  Headless Gecko
- Eponymous appearance, about an arm's length, mossy skin, completely silent, slow, no head, no survival instinct. Actually a kind of motile fungus. Low on nutrition and flavour but very filling. 2 HP or 2 portions of 1 HP. No app: 1.
12.  Danglers/Larval Apes
- Found on the ceiling, an oxblood-coloured, segmented log with a crude face like a smiling emoji and vestigial paws and tail. A solid, organless mass like a chewy sweet - gummy texture, biltong taste. They’re very heavy. 5 portions of 1 HP. No app: 1d4. 
13.  Snoufflé
- Like a cross between a shaggy snufflesome sea-slug and a buttery croissant. About the size of a swiss roll. 3 HP or three portions of 1 HP. No app: 1.
14.  Flavour Cubes
- Near-transparent tumblesome cubes - will grow into gelatinous cubes if not eaten. Jelliful and eye-wateringly sour. 1 HP for small Cubes, 2 HP for big ones - however, one can only eat 1 every ten minutes. No app: 1d10 small, 1d4 big.
15.  Garloids
- Like geoducks, found nestling in damp corners or the underhang of boulders. Make good pets but remember to water them regularly. Each Garloid is 3 portions of 1 HP (only the experienced can eat a whole garloid). No app: 1d4.
16.  Dungeon Cucumbers
- Like a headily coloured choral reef, flowing, wedged, into the cracks of dungeon walls. These molluscs tongue the air for motes of dust and metaphysical dungeon energy. 1 HP ea (3HP if fried). No appearing 2d20. 
17. Flat Rats
- Like a featureless velvet-furred pancake that ripples around the dungeon floor nibbling up detritus. Taste and texture like chicken schnitzel if you ignore the downy fur. 2 HP. No App: 1d12.  
18. Wormhead Toads
- About the size of your palm. Delectable but the toxic ones look indistinguishable from the good ones. 1d4 HP ea but if 4 is rolled, take 4 HP of damage instead. No app: 1d4.
19.  Stirge Husks
- The infamous Stirge, grey, dead and dried out. Packed with protein, it’s not unlike eating a dried (albeit red veined) apple. 2 HP ea. No app: 1d8.
20. Skull or ‘Helmit’ Crab
- With paper thin shells and delicious insides, these translucent crabs house themselves in the skulls of the dead, preferring helmeted heads. 1 HP, or 3 HP if fully broken out of the skull, though this may take time. No app: 1d4.

1d4 critters you really don’t want to snatch up and gulp down

Combine with the previous table, rolling a wacky d24 to add a learning curve to dungeon critter foraging. 

1. Grave Tadpoles

- Little glistening black spots near-futilly wiggling across the hard stone floor. A cabbagey, fishy taste. Heals 0-1 HP but induces a deathlike coma for 10 minutes, one awakens early upon receiving damage. No app: 1d8

2. Witchcap Wasps

- Finger-sized orange and grey wasps with black witch-hat shaped mushrooms growing from their head or thorax. 1 HP ea but one cannot sleep for 24 hours after ingestion. No app: 2d4.

3. Stewing Gnomes

- Grey-purple coneheaded octopi that, perched high up on their tentacles, ambulate like tiny waddling penguins. Strongly emetic when eaten raw. After vomiting one cannot eat anything else that day. Only good for stewing. No app: 1d4.   

4. Bloodsnipper

- These beaky, crimson-scaled fish move and behave just like rats, scurrying about the floor on its membranous fin-legs. They scream loudly when grabbed, provoking an immediate encounter check. 1 HP ea. No App: 1d10.

Optionally: Each character can roll a d20 to determine their favourite flavour of critter. A PC can eat an unlimited number of that particular critter, ignoring the normal level restriction. You can also roll for whatever critter the characters like least though I’m sure they’ll do that naturally.