The Killer Ostrich and their Retainer, a dual character class

Swift-hunter, Man-tamer,
Talon-footed, Axe-beak,

You play as these guys but if they were friends.

Class Concept: This is a two character class. You play as both a sentient, Killer Ostrich and their human Retainer. While most Killer Ostriches hunt the dales and pastures of their kingdom alone, you are a bonded pair out for adventure. Symbiotic, each complements the other - the Ostrich, while deadly, lacks the skills and physiology to navigate complex dungeon environments and the Retainer, though clever, is comparatively weak and scrawny.

A faithful Retainer feeds his Killer Ostrich a hearty meal of iron.

HD: Special, d8 and d4

Attacks: +1 at first level

Saves: As Fighter

Level: as Magic-User

Alignment: Neutral

Armour: Special, 

• Ostrich - special-fitting light armour only (double cost), 

• Retainer - any.

Weapons: Ostrich - none. 

• Retainer - any.

Special: one class, two character sheets.

Nest Mates: Generate character stats 3d6 down the line for both characters as normal. If applicable, reassign the higher physical stats (STR, DEX, CON) to the Ostrich and the higher mental stats (INT, WIS, CHA) to the Retainer. Additionally:

• Roll 1d8 and 1d4 for HP; assign one to each. At first level only, the Ostrich’s CON modifier applies to the Retainer’s HP.

• Ostrich and Retainer share saves and XP total - levelling at the same time as a single character.

Bonded: An Ostrich and their Retainer are bonded from birth and cannot leave the company of the other. As a pair, in combat the Ostrich and Retainer share two actions per round (like a normal character’s move + action/attack). The pair act in the same combat initiative turn. Neither character may move or attack twice in one round. (Kinder DMs would allow 3 actions per round)

Inseparable Comrades: Should the Retainer and Ostrich be separated, the player must choose a primary character to continue playing as (typically the character who remains with the most other party members). The other ‘off-screen’ character becomes an NPC and, regardless of circumstances, will be able to reunite with their partner safely after 1d4 days (or until they are reunited diegetically).

Ostrich Death: Should either Ostrich or Retainer die, the player may elect to continue play but does so at a disadvantage - individually neither is as strong as a core class.

Ratite Physiology: An Ostrich has no arms and cannot achieve anything that would require their use - no ranged attacks, no vertical climbing, uncorking magical potions, writing, turning the pages of a book, any fine motor task, etc. They must rely on their Retainer to support them in navigating these tasks. Both Ostrich and Retainer can speak the common language and Ostrich language. 

But What About My Beak?: An Ostrich may attempt to use their beak as a hand, rolling 1d6 per round, achieving that task on a roll of 1. After three failed attempts, the task is impossible. 

We Run!: Both Ostrich and Retainer cannot individually exceed an  encumbrance score of 2 (if you do not use encumbrance slots, to a Killer Ostrich and their Retainer items weigh double their usual coin weight - (they’re used to running across the heath unburdened). 

We Ride?: Can you ride a Killer Ostrich? No, the noble Ostrich will DIE after 1 round of being ridden.

The Killingest: A Killer Ostrich is a deadly and canny combatant. More than just two powerful kicks and an axe-like beak, the Ostrich is a trained, cunning and tactical combat master. On a successful melee attack roll, the Ostrich rolls 3d4 (one die per leg and beak), delivering damage equal to the highest die. Any result of 4 (or more, potentially, at higher levels) can be exchanged for special moves, the Ostrich may:

▼ Savage: +1 damage to highest damaging die.
▼ Kick: Knock opponent back 10 feet.
▼ Immobilise: The opponent cannot move for 1 round. 
▼ Reposition: Place themselves in any position adjacent to whomever they are striking, including behind or swapping places with them. The opponent continues to face the Ostrich. 

An Ostrich can apply one or two different special moves during a single round, including if a result of 4+ is their highest die. In this case, the next highest die deals the damage.

The Skillingest: The Retainer starts with 1 skill point (or +16% to any Thief skill - which all start at 16%) at first level.

Learn Together: The Killer Ostrich + Retainer class uses random advancement. At first level and each level thereafter roll a d6 and a d12 on the Ostrich/Retainer advancement table. Two dice for two advancements, the Ostrich takes one, the Retainer the other. While Ostriches can be given any advancement (1-12), results of 1-6 must be given to Retainers.

Ostrich/Retainer Random Advancement Table:

1. Gain 1 skill point (or increase any thief skill by 16%)
2. Gain 1 skill point (or increase any thief skill by 16%)
3. Gain 1 skill point (or increase any thief skill by 16%)
4. +2 HP to this character and once per day transfer a number of HP from one character to another equal to your level x3. This transfer can go either way and takes 10 minutes. On reroll, +2 HP and can transfer HP twice per day.  
5. Sprint: Once per combat make a free move at any point in the initiative order - during your turn, before, during or after the enemy turn. On reroll, twice per combat.
6. +1 to Hit
7. +1 to Hit
8. +1 to Hit
9. Flying Kick; +1 damage and to-hit when charging into melee. On reroll, +1 to both again.
10. Increase lowest Ostrich attack roll by one die size (d4→d6→d8 etc).
11. Increase lowest Ostrich attack roll by one die size (d4→d6→d8 etc).
12. Increase lowest Ostrich attack roll by one die size (d4→d6→d8 etc) OR +1 to Hit.

It goes without saying, this class need not be an Ostrich - Cassowary, Terrorbird, Moa, Emu, Axebeak, Clubnek or any other large, long-legged flightless bird (so no penguins) or even certain types of dinosaur can be used instead. The Killer Ostrich’s ‘special moves’ are inspired by the combat system of Mythic Bastionland.

If you enjoyed this class check out The Ape.

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The Ape, race-as-class

 

And lo! From the ancient depths of misty primeval jungles and the murky, antediluvian, ruined worlds beneath our own, there emerged the Ape! Hirsute, thick-thewed and sullen-eyed, to humble mankind as it did in ancient days and shall again - now, to tread the jeweled thrones of the earth under its grasping, prehensile paws.

Aliens.

Aliens. Here are three race-as-classes based on different varieties of supposed alien species. The classic ‘Nordic’ or Pleiadean type, the Men in Black and the infamous Reptilians. These classes are not just suitable for Science-Fiction and Science-Fantasy games and could easily be used in more typical fantasy, weird tales or pulp games. The Pleiadeans become Atlanteans or inner-earth Agarthans, The Men in Black become Bogeymen and the Reptilians become Robert E. Howard's Serpent Men. 

PDF

Pleiadean, Nordic, Agarthan or Atlantean

Tall, blonde and benevolent. Pleiadeans are physically and mentally superior, a perfect race. Vain and unintentionally sinister, the Pleiadeans appear devoted to peace, progress and enlightenment for all sentient life.

HD: d8

Attacks: as Magic-User

Saves: as Elf

Level: as Fighter

Alignment: Lawful

Special: All stats must be 11 or above

Perfected Beings: Pleiadeans are biologically capable of physical and mental perfection. Every level increase a modifier of your choice by 1 to a maximum total of +5. Your actual stat does not increase in size or number.

Telepathy: Pleiadeans are capable of two-way telepathy with beings they can see. They can communicate via known languages or share emotions.

Controlled Biology: Pleiadeans have conquered the mortal condition and suffer no penalties from ageing and receive +2 on saving throws vs disease.  

 

Indrid Cold by 6nillion

Man In Black or Bogeyman

Men in Black or MIB are peculiar beings with uncanny faces. Beings in dated black formalwear. No one knows what they are doing, who they are or what they want, but they have something to do with the lights in sky. They are creatures of unreality and chaos. They may not even exist outside of our minds.

HD: d6

Attacks: as Magic-User                        

Saves: as Thief

Level: as Thief

Alignment: Chaotic

High Strangeness: A number of times per day equal to your level unleash High Strangeness. Each time, roll 2d100 on the High Strangeness table, present the two words to the DM. You and the DM then combine these words to affect the current scene or your character in some wild, strange, dreamlike fashion. These effects last an amount of time depending on their potency. Potent effects last a round per level and less potent changes as long as the MIB is present. The words can be interpreted in any order and some need to be specified by the player, such as colour or emotion. Some results may be cerebral or silly. Always go with your first instincts to ensure pace. Not every effect is useful.

Effects could be strange objects pulled from pockets, things or people summoned from the sky or the shadows. Effects could be mental or physical - real and imaginary. High Strangeness can target the MIB, someone else or sometimes everyone (if in doubt select randomly) or they can change the environment or things within the environment. Theoretically anything is possible.

This High Strangeness ability is also triggered whenever a MIB is critically hit, reduced to 0 HP and on character death.

Grey: At 9^th level your poor human pretences fade away. You are no longer a Man in Black but a Grey. You shed you black clothing revealing a grey spindly body, beneath your hat is a grey bulbous head in which are embedded two wide and cold black eyes. You can change height at will being either lanky and tall or as short as a halfling.

Telepathy: From 9^th level a Grey is able to speak telepathically with any sentient creature within its line of sight but is no longer able to speak verbally.

Pretend Person: Nothing about an MIB is real, their human disguises are poor and knowledge limited. MIB’s do not need to eat, drink or sleep but can attempt to do so if they wish. The result is stilted and unnatural – a bad act.

Unnatural: Men in Black spook animals and suffer -2 to reaction rolls with them. 

Find the High Strangeness table in the PDF linked to above or HERE.

Reptilian or Serpent Man

Hailing from beyond the stars or deep within the Earth, the Reptilians are a primordial race. Ancient, even when men first began to emerge from apedom. A powerful and distant species with a cold and sharp intelligence, the Reptilians are masters of the material and immaterial and using their shape-changing abilities they have infiltrated the highest rungs of human society. Their only weakness; their insatiable dependence on blood.

HD: d4

Attacks: as Magic-User

Saves: as Elf

Level: as Elf

Alignment: Chaotic

Alien Biology: Reptilians start with a +1 modifier bonus to Strength and Intelligence stats.

Shapeshifter: Reptilians start with one alternate human form; this form is unique. On every third level (3rd, 6th, 9th) the Reptilian receives an additional human form. These additional forms must be copies of existing people the reptilian has seen. The Reptilian can shift between these forms at will. 

Claw attack: Whilst in its reptile form, the reptilian can slash with its claws for 2d4 damage.

Hated: When in reptile form, Reptilians suffer -2 to reaction rolls.

Blood Magic: Reptilians start with 1 spell and gain 1 spell per level as a magic-user of the same level and an equal amount of spell slots. These spell slots can be used in two ways. Whenever spell slots become available the Reptilian can bind a known spell (they bind a known spell any number of times). For each spell slot currently bound a Reptilian gains +2 HP and +1 to their attack bonus. When the spell is cast this bonus is lost.

Reptilians do not regain spells like other spellcasters. To regain lost spell slots a Reptilian must drink the blood of sentient creatures. One spell-slot is regained per HD of the creature being drained. You cannot regain more spell slots per day than your current level.  

Haemovore: Reptilians can consume blood instead of rations.

The Dreamlander

The Dreamlander

Fleeing to the material plane from the imperious yoke of the cyclopean fortress-city of Kadath, the surreal beings of the Dreamlands are often found among adventuring parties, who are more permissive of the Dreamlander’s chimerical form and convoluted, remote intelligence.  

Find the PDF here

As a Racial-Class

HD: 8

Saving throws: As Magic-User

Attacks: As Cleric/Thief

Base XP: 1800

Details on progression below.

Generating a Dreamlander

A Dreamlander is formed from the base ichor of the trances, delusion, fears and dreams of the mortal world, they are composed of freakish amalgams of dream imagery threaded together in increasingly bizarre combinations.

The procedure to generate a Dreamlander is such; take 1 die of each type (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d00, d20) in a clenched fist.  Place your fist upright against a flat sheet of paper and release your grip so the dice fall into a small group.  Draw around where each die is positioned on the paper, noting both which die it is (d4, d8 etc) and the number your rolled. Consult against the tables below and record the different parts of Dreamlander, writing them onto your character sheet. Once this is done, you can begin to work out the appearance of the Dreamlander, what is the body shape? What way does the Dreamlander face? When you think you have a good grasp on your character’s appearance it is advised that you sketch them out. You will find some examples of this process in the PDF. When the character is complete think of the many opportunities and talents your new form allows (some examples are listed in the following tables in brackets).  

The Dice and their functions:

Each die governs a particular body part or appendage while others apply effects to the Dreamlander in part or whole. Some die will help define the shape of the body and will be made of whatever substance you rolled on the body table. 

D4: governs size and helps define the shape of the body.

1	Halfling (3 foot)
2	Tall man (6 foot)
3	Man and a half (9 foot)
4	Two men (12 foot)

D6: governs legs

1	Legs of a wild animal
2	Thousands of spindly legs
3	Legs of a strongman (+1 to leaping)
4	Writhing serpentine tail
5	Formless stumps
6	Lithe women’s legs

D8: governs arms

1	Arms of a strongman (+1 to lifting rolls)
2	Shrivelled and saurian
3	Roiling and rippling clods of whatever the body is made out of (1d6 unarmed damage)
4	Smooth, dense tendrils
5	Scrawny with long, grasping fingers
6	Svelte feminine arms
7	Simpering chimp arms
8	Pinstripe tubes that coil and unfurl

D10: governs body type and material, defines shape of the body

1	Mass of damp shaggy fur
2	Alluring feminine litheness
3	Bubbling stew of blood and organs
4	Long tangle of flesh, like bundled rope
5	Pillowy, pliable flesh
6	Rippling muscles (+1 to strength)
7	Shivering, sharp, rigid quills ( does d4 damage)
8	Body of a wild animal
9	Feathered, vibrant fluffy plumage
10	Patterned shell, natural, metal or stone (AC bonus)

D00: The d00 applies an effect to another die it is touching (if it is touching multiple die, you choose which die it effects) and defines shape of the body.   

10	Wreathed in fire
20	Body part can fold inside of itself.
30	This part produces slime
40	This part retains its shape but is functionally liquid and occasionally bubbles
50	Body part is full of tiny animals rather than blood
60	There are deep, black holes in this body part that spew black smoke.
70	Sprouts vivid flowers as a survival mechanism
80	This part can be removed and disassembled.
90	Doubles the body part it touches (doesn't apply to height)
00	Reroll and apply the effect to two die rather than one. If rolled again, apply to a third die and so on.

D12: Governs the head

1	Rotating solar vortex (produces light)
2	Big baby face
3	Brilliant red rose
4	Head of a wild animal or insect
5	Bleached grinning skull
6	Maw of massed teeth (can chew through wood or anything softer)
7	Bulbous grey amphibian with eyes like black saucers
8	2 glowing eyes in a mane of wild fur (grants infravision)
9	Purse-lipped beauty
10	Hirsute, rugged man
11	Face of the observer’s mother or father (you must pick if the Dreamlander has a mother’s face or a father’s face. (effects reaction rolls)
12	Reroll and add a long neck

D20: Governs an appendage or feature

1	Rubbery black wings (enable gliding)
2	Flitting insect wings (enables short bursts of hovering)
3	Large grinning mouth
4	Throbbing, spitting thing (spits a foul/acidic liquid, 10ft range - 1d4 damage)
5	Wild-eyed infant clings to the Dreamlander, it cannot be removed
6	Prehensile furred monkey tail
7	Large colour changing sail or fin.
8	Dangling human arm
9	Dangling human leg
10	A fused cage or a door into the Dreamlander
11	Big mouthing gills (breathe underwater)
12	Many blubbery, aerodynamic fins and flippers (bonus to swim rolls)
13	D4 floating eyes
14	Common inanimate object fused to the body
15	Dark billowing membrane (+1 to hiding at night)
16	Gigantic nose or nostril (eliminates smell in the immediate area)
17	Great sleepy eye
18	A clump of short sensitive feelers
19	Many jointed limb with a blood-sucking proboscis on the end.
20	A featureless patch or flap on which ominous symbols, images, strange planets or writing sometimes appears. It is normally illegible but can display messages or prophecies from some other place.

Drawbacks

As the Dreamlander gains so much at first level they begin with a significant drawback.

All Dreamlanders are out of step with the magic of the material plane. The positive effects of spells are halved for them and the negative effects (including damage) are doubled.

Drawbacks d12

1	At 0 HP the Dreamlander becomes a mindless indestructible, raging storm of two-dimensional fractal ribbons. It will attempt to destroy everything in it’s proximity, animal,
2	Fear of death (roll against the systems appropriate save or become intensely afraid until whatever is causing the fear is removed)
3	Fear of sadness
4	Fear of waking
5	Infatuation of confusion (as fear)
6	Infatuation of disgust
7	Infatuation of anger
8	Allergic to cold-iron, all damage from cold-iron weapons is doubled.
9	Reduce Charisma by 6. The logic of the Dreamlander is so remote and alien, it’s wending inanities verge on repulsiveness.
10	When in the proximity of sleepers having nightmares the Dreamlander is sickened.
11	Take 1 HP of damage per death directly witnessed
12	Haunted by a shadowy figure who attempts to destroy and hinder the Dreamlander

Author comments:

The Dreamlander is meant to be a freakish, swiss-army knife character. I don’t know how playable they are or if they would serve better as an NPC class. I have never made a class before so please let me know if I have excluded anything or if it is all just terribly wrong.    

I am proud of the method of generation, I think I came up with it myself! I also think it has a lot of potential, the system can be used to generate many other monstrosities and could be quite easily hacked into something more comprehensive (you could use multiple d20’s of different colours for instance) although I do have another post in the works using the same system for a different outcome.