Lone Knight

So you want a Dark Sun-esque setting of your own, eh?

At the minimum concept, for an Athas-like sword-and-sorcery post-apocalyptic (how many hyphens are we gonna use here) world, you need:

- a hellblasted desert, courtesy of the apocalypse
- psionics
- using magic is more difficult, destructive, kind of sucks, and gets you In Deep Trouble like as not
- despotic city-states with themes to fight and free the people of
- one Walking Apocalypse kaiju-type monster or entity
- non-metal weapon rules if you insist and you hate yourself


( let's throw some inspirational stuff around to get things started! )

( Seven Swords: a setting for Lindwyrm and other adventure games )

Seven Swords by E. A. Bisson is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Psionics! Some people hate psionics in fantasy rpgs -- and D&Dish stuff in particular -- and claim there’s no psionics in fantasy; and those folks can, putting it politely, go fuck themselves. Possibly with the entire Deryni series with a Valdemar series chaser, just to start.

I digress, though.

This here is a (slightly wordy because not trimmed down to fit tiny pages, ha) set of psionic powers + a class to go with them for Lindwyrm. There’s also two additions/tweaks to existing stuff, and a tiny faq because I do those on some class posts I guess, it’s not the first time.

Onward --



Psychic (Psionicist, etc)
d6 HD. Armour: light. Weapon: 1d6
- Awareness: mindspeech to 100’, 2-in-6 chance to sense psychic energy/effects/active minds
- The Gift: Choose two paths; choose a starting power from them. Gain 1 power/lvl, and 1 path/3 lvls. A psychic can use powers lvl/day freely, then 1 hp/usage.


Basic Psionic Rules

Psychics and other psi-using characters don’t carry spellbook equivalents; they know their powers innately.

It is possible to create a record of a power (an “imprint” or “pattern”), like a spell scroll, and they are used similarly. A psychic can learn a power from an imprint if it belongs to one of their paths; if it doesn’t, they can still use the imprint itself.

* Using a power: A psychic can use 1 power/level freely per day. More usages cost 1 hp each. Healing magic or psionics doesn’t restore psychic energy, only rest does.
-> a psychic can also spend extra hp to boost a power’s level, 2 hp : 1 lvl

* Psionic and magic interaction: Everyone always makes this complicated. It doesn’t have to be bloody complicated.
- a spell or power can only affect the opposite “category” if it says so explicitly (a magical ward against magic won’t stop psionics)
- a general effect can be affected by both psionics and magic because the effect is the significant part. Fire damage is fire damage, whatever the source and whatever the source of fire resistance.


( Sample Paths )


Tweaks To Existing Lindwyrm Stuff: Not much, basically this –

- The esper species in Lockbox instead uses psionics (I mean they’re espers, come on) and choose a path to pick their power from. Maybe two or three paths, if that’s what the group prefers.

- Talent (class modifier): Choose one psionic path. Gain one power and another every 3 lvls, access to a second school at lvl5. Have one power use / 2 lvls free before requiring hp.


( FAQ )

Now in Creative Commons finally as promised, as part of Lindwyrm Liberty --

Lindwyrm Liberty: more additions and fancies by E. A. Bisson is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

I am actually not at all fond of the traditional "traps", by which I mean various mechanical-or-otherwise contrivances placed just to fuck up an unwitting PC's (and sometimes player's) day -- especially when there's so many littered around, or the traps are so all-encompassing, the suspension bridge of my disbelief just snaps in half when I try to fathom how a dungeon's inhabitants function at all.

( nonetheless, rambling and a table under here ~ )

Luma (the Illuminated)

Once human, the ancestors of these folk have been changed by long exposure to the Light. Strangely, the marks of those changes are not always or even usually luminous -- and some wonder what that means.

* child of light: create candlelight (in form unique to individual) for an hour, 1/day per level. -2 to all rolls when in total darkness.
* roll or choose one of the following: 01. [element] dart 1d3 ranged or infuse weapon; 02. base AC 11; 03. heal 1d4, 1+ 1/2lvl daily; 03. sense [element/creature/energy/etc], 2-in-6, 100’; 04. repair/destroy object, lvl/day; 05. decipher any text, 2-in-6; 06; otherspace pocket, carry up to 1’ cu. undetected

Roll 2d6 1d3 times for physical appearance:

02. metal growth (barbs or thorns, scales) on patches of skin
03. claw-like nails
04. large tail
05. fangs or other sharp teeth
06. luminous eyes
07. white/ivory/brassy/golden/grey markings or hair or eyes
08. small/thin tail
09. horns
10. bioluminescent markings
11. floating ‘aureole’, orbiting shape, or other phantom outgrowth
12. translucent, prism-like scales or other growths on patches of skin

So this is a bit different, I suppose, because I'm not writing up a critter or two. Instead, I'm going to toss up the way I (most likely) would describe the various player character species that I added to Lindwyrm in Lindwyrm Lockbox.

Why? Why not? *lol* Space is at a premium in minizines and I didn't want to restrict how folks could apply the info, so I didn't squinch anything in, but I might as well ramble somewhere.

Going in the same order as I squinched them into Lockbox -- but with an important first stop --

( under the cut, kith and kin )

Tales of adventurer's antics get around! Especially if the party -- or some extremely notable bodies in the party -- has done some really spectacular (or gnarly) things!

Which means that given enough spectacular and gnarly things, dear adventurers, you might actually start to be recognized. Which can be good or bad! *lol*


( * a small bit of Lindwyrmy rules for that * )

I like cats; I like cats a lot, like, a lot a lot. (this is surely coming as a surprise to absolutely nobody, lol.) So cats, from tabbies to tigers, have a tendency to crop up in rpg stuff I write if I'm writing it for any real length of time --

But, hilariously, despite cat people being in at least two projects (one, admittedly, the unfinished "spacehack" here on this blog) and a few instances of folks who could have a feline other form here and there as well, there are no actual cat people in Lindwyrm (though there's the wise panther in Lindwyrm Lockbox, and in recent critters there's the clewe and the steelmender at least that I recall).

So what's an option for a cat person, for Lindwyrm or whatever? Hmm ...

How about:

- Felit: See in the dark; +1/lvl to tests involving athletics; 2-in-6 sense ghosts within 40'; unarmed damage half of weapon damage (claws)

What do felit look like? I don't know, you tell me -- I have my preferences (which can change with setting, lol), but it's not like I described the species options in Lockbox.

(maybe I'll do that in some other post some time, just for the giggles)


Can I add a few more other instances of felinity to this post? Let's see --


Pasht: Grey-coated cats the size of hunting hounds, with eyes like twin moons and glinting silver claws. Hunters of the dark.
2 HD, AC 13, +2 bite (1d3) or claws (1d4+1/1d4+1), ML 9, slash: if both claws hit, kick for 1d6 automatically; purify: claws deal double damage to shifters, demons and the dead; spellbreak, 1/4 actions

Tiger-Of-The-Sword: Sometimes an oath -- of binding, of fealty, of promise just that fervent -- calls forth a great burning beast of terrible majesty to witness it and hold it fast.
9 HD, AC 16, +9 bite (2d6) or claws (2d8/2d8), ML 12, mundane immune, 4-in-6 spell resist, ignore confinement, sword blessing: oathmaker receives +4 to an action in service to their oath, 1/month; sword's scourge: instant teleport to oathbreaker's location


And then, reaching ever higher --

* Ssefrrith, Queen Of The Sky
Great goddess, heavenly cat, whose patches are the clouds and whose spots are the stars, toy with the sun and the moon across the vault of the sky. Watch all below and send the rain, cool the land with the winds, rage tempests against those who raise violence against your people.
- Raise yourself up as I have raised myself up. Give hope -- more than empty words -- to those who need; have I not carried you in my own mouth, likewise, until you learned and walked? Defend your home and raise your people into light. -

And here is the last third of this pile o' critters -- I've been carrying around the inspiration for all these for a few years and it's so nice to have finally done something, lol ~


( this way to the critters )

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

My comment about rambling on this subject was haha only serious at the time, but why not? I could probably use some navel-gazing atm (lol) and in a sea of 236453784357456856+ retroclones and bespoke systems, why another one -- and why that one?

( why did I make Lindwyrm anyway? )