Nethermancer Discipline
Stats
Damage Die: d6
Favored Stats: con, wis
Load: 10
HP: 8+Constitution
Look
Gaze: kind, sharp, sad
Appearance: maudlin, jovial, strange
Accoutrement: reverent, flowing, primitive
Body: gaunt, knobby, flabby
Species
☐ Dwarf: When you defy danger by enduring, improve the result by one step.
☐ Elf: You may cast Astral Weapon as a cantrip.
☐ Human: Choose one spell from another discipline’s list. You can cast it as if it was a nethermancy spell.
☐ Obsidimen (+1 armor; only wear living armor): You are one with stone. You may cast a special version of Words of the Unspeaking as a cantrip which only works on stone.
☐ Ork: You may cast Grave Touch as a cantrip.
☐ Troll: When you summon a spirit with a spell, you may spend 3 focus to give it +1 armor.
☐ T’Skrang: When you make a bone circle, make an additional choice.
Flags
Select 2 flags.
Starting Moves
Nethermancy
Through insight, fortitude and a special connection to spirit realm, you can weave threads into spells. You gain access to a number of abilities related to spell casting:
- You may use the astral sight move.
- You have mastered several nethermancy spells and inscribed them in your grimoire. You start out with three first circle nethermancy spells as well as the cantrips. Whenever you gain a circle, you add a new nethermancy spell of your circle or lower to your grimoire.
- You know how to form and stabilize a spell matrix. You may fashion as many spell matrices as you like; however, the combined circles of all spells attuned into them may not exceed twice your own circle.
- You may weave spells with + WIS .
- You may cast spells with + CON .
Rousing Call
When you cast a summoning spell , you may spend focus to make the summoned spirit tougher, adding 1 HP per focus spent.
Reaper
When you take time to respectfully tend to the dead , take +2 forward.
Ritual of Bone
When you spend a couple grueling hours constructing and inscribing a bone circle several feet across, inviting a spirit to live within it, roll+ CON . On a hit , a bone spirit inhabits the circle and will attack anyone who enters, or is already within, the circle, except you. On a 10+ , choose three. On a 7–9 , choose one. You may spend a point of karma to make an additional choice, but not on a miss:
- The spirit is particularly potent: take +1 when weaving a nethermancy spell within the circle.
- The spirit will not attack targets you designate.
- The circle lasts for days instead of hours.
- The circle is particularly hard to spot.
- The circle is completed in less time than usual.
- When in the circle, you may concentrate and observe the world as if standing in another of your active bone circles.
- When you speak within the circle, if you desire, your voice may be heard by any standing near all of your other active bone circles.
Stabbing a Window
Add the following to the hack and slash list:
- You sense something notable about the target’s soul or nature, the GM will tell you what.
Expressions of the Netherworld
When you create art with bone carving or embroidery , take +1. If you give the result in a successful greeting ritual, the recipient may take +1 to the their last breath, if they posses the art.
Talents
You may weave threads into talents, if you meet their requirements:
☐☐☐ Branded
You bear a mark of your connection with the dead. Dead spirits know you as their own, and any that still cling to the mortal plane will speak with you, sharing openly. The living see your mark as an ill omen, and you take −1 ongoing to CHA rolls with those who see your mark. Choose a part of your body that takes on the visible aspects of death while remaining fully functional:
☐ Arm: Any weapon you grasp flows into the other world. It gains +2 piercing against living creatures.
☐ Eye: When you touch a corpse you see what it saw in its last moments. The GM will describe it.
☐ Legs: Your passing leaves no mark or scent.
☐ Tongue: You may lace any oath, prayer, or spell with a link to the forbidden land. Its effects on the dying or dead will be amplified, as described by the GM .
Second or third thread (requires circle 4): Choose another body part to take on the visible aspects of death.
Second or third thread (requires circle 4): Your mark grows such that it may not be concealed. Describe it. The dead will seek you out, giving you what aid they can. The undead will not harm you. The parochial will treat you as a pariah.
☐ Feeling Loss
You first enter a steading, you may ask the GM : “Who here suffers most from death of their loved ones?” Take +1 ongoing acting on the answer.
☐ Imprecation
When you call on the spirits to curse a target you can see, take a random debility (if you already have that debility, you got lucky) and roll+ WIS . If you do this inside a bone circle, improve the result by one step. On a 10+ the target will soon take a noticeable loss in the arena of your choice. On a 12+ so will one of the target’s descendants. On a 7–9 the target is merely unlucky in the chosen arena until the spirit grows tired of tormenting it. On a miss , possibilities include the target discovering what you were attempting, or the spirits become offended and cursing you instead, etc. Curses can affect these arenas: finances/occupation, health/well-being, love/relationships, prospects/hope, status/reputation
☐ Spirit Talk
You can speak with and understand all spirits, not just those who communicate verbally. You can communicate with nearby spirits even when they are solely in astral space and you are not.
☐ Spiritual Protection
When you wear no armor or shield you get + CON armor.
☐☐ The Scales of Life and Death
When someone faces last breath in your presence , they take +2.
Second thread (requires circle 6): When you touch someone taking their last breath, you see what they do beyond the Black Gates and may intercede. Death will forfeit their soul for now in exchange for an appropriate (not necessarily immediate) favor or sacrifice. If you agree, the target comes back to life, and you take -3 ongoing to your own last breath until the debt is paid.
☐ Obstinacy
When you cast a spell you ignore a “−1 to weave spells” or “−1 to cast spells” penalty from one of your ongoing spells.
☐ Repel Undead
When you concentrate on a life-affirming pattern and breathe song into it, roll+ WIS . On a hit , so long as your song continues, no undead may come within reach of you. On a 10+ , you also momentarily daze intelligent undead and cause mindless undead to flee; aggression breaks the effects and they are able to act as normal. Intelligent undead may still find ways to harry you from afar.
☐ Speaker For the Dead
When you spout lore about undead, spirits, burial customs, or other matters of life and death, you use WIS instead of INT . On a 12+ , you also get to ask the GM any one question about the subject.
☐☐ Spirit Tutor
Choose one spell. You may use that spell as if it was one circle lower (this does not change the number of threads needed to cast it).
Second thread (requires circle 6): Choose another spell to use as if it was one circle lower.
☐ Spiritual Intervention
When you attune a spell matrix gain 1 hold, losing prior hold. When you or an ally takes damage, you may spend 1 hold to call on the spirits, who intervene with an appropriate manifestation (a sudden gust of wind, a lucky slip, a burst of light) and negate the damage. You may spend 1 karma to gain +1 hold.
☐ Abate Curse
When you perform an hour long ritual of abatement on a cursed item or person within a bone circle, roll+ WIS . On a hit , you transfer the curse to the circle’s bone spirit. If the spirit previously obeyed your commands, it no longer does. When the bone circle dissipates, so does the curse. On a 7–9 , when the bone circle dissipates, the bone spirit, still cursed, goes free. On a miss , a lot can go wrong.
☐ Call to Task
When you call the name of a dead spirit near the location of its death or while holding an object dear to it, roll+ WIS . If you do this in a bone circle, take +2. On a hit , you may command the ghost to haunt any person or place whose true pattern you know, including yourself. If you choose to have it haunt you, you may have it take damage which was meant for you, then it disappears and must be summoned again. On a 7–9 , the spirit demands a price.
☐ Lifesense
You constantly sense the energy of living beings, even those you cannot see. When you discern realities, you may always ask “what living beings are nearby?”, even on a miss.
☐ Erase Horror Mark
When you perform a day-long ritual on a horror-marked person or object , roll+ CHA . On a 10+ you remove the mark from the subject. On a 7–9 you remove the mark, but only by transferring it to yourself, where it will fade after seven days.
Gear
your grimoire (1 weight)
appropriate artisan tools (1 weight)
dungeon rations (uses: 5, ration, 1 weight)
Choose your defenses:
☐ hide armor (1 armor, worn, 1 weight)
☐ bone decorated robes (worn)
☐ bare skin (0 armor, living)
Choose your armament:
☐ axe (close, 1 weight)
☐ spear (reach, thrown, near, 1 weight)
☐ staff (close, two-handed, 1 weight)
☐ whip (reach, dangerous, entangling, 1 weight)
Choose two:
☐ adventuring gear (uses: 5, 2 weight)
☐ healing potion
☐ simple mount of appropriate size (beast, mount)
☐ 8 coins
Spells
Cantrips
Repel
(ongoing) Choose any creatures you can see (including yourself). For the next day, mundane insects and other minor vermin will stay away from the selected targets.
Unseen Servant
(summoning , ongoing) You conjure a simple invisible construct that can carry items. It has load 3 and carries anything you hand to it. It cannot pick up items on its own and can only carry those you give to it. Items carried by an unseen servant appear to float in the air a few paces behind you. An unseen servant that takes damage or leaves your presence is immediately dispelled, dropping any items it carried. Otherwise the unseen servant serves you until you end the spell.
Wisp
(ongoing) You conjure a simple floating orb which glows dimly, shedding light roughly equal to that of a full moon over a short distance. You may direct this orb in any direction or elevation, and it will obey at no faster than walking pace. Should the orb ever move out of your line of sight, the spell ends.
First Circle Spells
☐ Astral Weapon
(ongoing) While you use astral sight, you are armed with a weapon (+1 damage, close, 0 weight) that may hack and slash astral beings using WIS instead of STR . While ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell.
☐ Bone Dance
(ongoing) Point to a target with a skeleton. While ongoing, the target's bones move of their own accord, moving the target around in random directions. If the target spends time to pull themself together, the spell ends. While ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell.
☐ Bright One
(summoning, ongoing) You summon a tasked spirit to assist you. Gain 1d4 hold. When you take an action, spend 1 hold to have the spirit aid you (giving you +1 to your action). When you run out of hold, the spell ends and the spirit vanishes.
☐ Contact Spirits
(summoning) Name the spirit you wish to contact (or leave it to the GM ). You pull that creature through the planes, just close enough to speak to you. It is bound to answer any one question you ask to the best of its ability. If you weave and cast this spell within a bone circle, you may ask three questions. If you are touching the corpse of the spirit, ask an additional question.
☐ Grave Touch
(summoning, ongoing) You draw on spirits of the dead, channeling their energy through your body into your enemies. Gain 1d6 hold. You may spend 1 karma to gain +1 hold. When you hack and slash, you may spend 1 hold to roll+ CON instead of + STR and, on a hit, you add +1d4 damage. While ongoing, take −1 to casting spells. If you run out of hold the spell ends.
☐ Murder Fog
(summoning) Point to any location you can see. At that spot, a vaguely humanoid fog coalesces and you coax a maleficent spirit to inhabit it. The fog ghost is a monster: solitary , amorphous , spirit , 7 HP , 0 armor, freezing touch (d6, close ), instinct: to indiscriminately kill the nearest living thing. The GM controls this monster, and may use it for moves, with the understanding that it is mindless and attacks solely based on proximity. You have no control over this creature, nor may you dismiss it. The fog ghost dissipates when it is killed.
☐ Shadow’s Whisper
(divination, ongoing) While ongoing, you may hear anything spoken next to any nearby shadows. While ongoing you take −1 to weaving threads.
Third Circle Spells
☐ Animate Dead
(summoning, ongoing) You invoke a hungry spirit to possess a recently-dead body and serve you. This creates a zombie that follows your orders to the best of its limited abilities. Treat the zombie as a follower with no cost and: Quality +1, Loyalty +2, 1 HP , bite (d6, hand ), construct , Instinct: to eat namegiver flesh. The zombie has the move “smell brains” and gains your choice of 1d4 of these traits (you may spend one karma to gain an additional choice):
- It’s talented. Increase Quality to +2.
- It’s durable. It has +2 HP for each nethermancer circle.
- It has a functioning brain and can complete complex tasks. It gains a -wise tag based on its prior life.
- It does not appear obviously dead, at least for a day or two.
The zombie remains until it is destroyed, you dismiss the spell, or its Loyalty reaches −3. While the spell is ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell. This spell must be cast in a bone circle.
☐ Dismissal
You disrupt the pattern of the summoning which called a target spirit creature. Ideally, this banishes the target back from where it came. If not cast perfectly, however, a common complication is the severing of the spell giving the summoner control over the summoned, but not sending the summoned back, leaving an uncontrolled spirit in your midst. If you weave an additional thread, you may target two additional summoned creatures.
☐ Pain
(enchantment, ongoing) You inflict excruciating agony on a visible target. Gain 1d6 hold. Any time the target deals damage or makes a move, you may spend 1 hold to deal 1d4 damage to it. If you run out of hold, the spell ends. If you weave an additional thread, hold an additional 2 and grant +1 ongoing to anyone acting against the target as well. You may not aid another while ongoing.
☐ Resurrection
Tell the GM you would like to resurrect a corpse whose soul has not yet fully departed this world. Resurrection is always possible, but the GM will give you one or more (possibly all) of these conditions:
- It’s going to take days/weeks/months
- You must get help from
- It will require a lot of money
- The target may change in a particular way
- You must sacrificeto do it
- You must cast the spell in a bone circle
- You must cast the spell in some specific location
The GM may, depending on the circumstances, allow you to resurrect the corpse now, with the understanding that the conditions must be met before it’s permanent, or require you to meet the conditions before the corpse is resurrected.
☐ Wandering Eyes
(summoning, ongoing) You summon a tasked spirit which manifests as a floating puffball with two large eyes. While ongoing, you see through these eyes, and may direct them in any direction (including up and down) at running pace. If you weave an additional thread, choose a special ability for the spirit, such as:
- Its eyes can see in the dark
- You can hear through it
- You can speak through it
- It can spit a glowing ink, useful for marking trails.
- It can perform small manipulations, such as opening doors.
This spirit, which has 1 HP , vanishes if killed. While the spell is ongoing, you cannot see through your own eyes and cannot cast spells. When directing the spirit from within a bone circle, take +1 ongoing when discerning realities through the eyes.
☐ Zealot
(summoning, ongoing) A simple ally spirit appears and fanatically follows your orders. Treat it as a follower with no cost and: Quality +1, Loyalty +3, 3 HP , touch (d4, hand ), spiritwise , spirit , and 1d4 other tags of your choice. Instinct: to “help” too much. The ally has the dual natured special quality, but no moves. The spirit remains on this plane until destroyed, you dismiss the spell, or its Loyalty reaches −3. While the spell is ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell.
Fifth Circle Spells
☐ Astral Flare
(evocation) You release a massive flash of energy into astral space. Anyone within far range of you perceiving or present in astral space becomes “blinded”, and most astral natives will flee. No light of this flare reaches the real world, but astral creatures will cast shadows there as if they were present. In astral space, the flare is visible from a long way off.
☐ Contagion
(ongoing) Choose a creature you can see. Until you end this spell, the target suffers from a disease of your choice. While ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell. You may spend one blood to continue the disease after the spell ends.
☐ Dust to Dust
(evocation) You fill the area around you with a glowing affirmation of life. Turn 1d6 undead horde enemies you can see (of the GM ’s choice) to dust. If you weave an additional thread, it affects 2d8 undead hordes instead.
☐ Summon Ally
(summoning, ongoing) An ally spirit appears and aids you as best it can. Treat it as a follower with no cost and: Quality +1, Loyalty +3, 3 HP , claw (d6, close ), spiritwise , spirit , armor 1, and three other tags of your choice. Instinct: to doubt its summoner. The ally has the astral native and materialization special qualities and 1d6 of these traits (you may spend one karma to gain an additional choice):
- Increase Quality to +2
- Replace its instinct with “to obey”
- It does 1d8 damage
- Increase armor to 3
- Its bond to your plane is strong: +1 HP for each circle
- Gains an additional tag or weapon tag
- Gains the move: “frighten them”
- Gains the move: “banish a spirit”
- Gains the move: “curse them”
- Gains the move: “conceal them”
- Gains the move: “confuse them”
- Gains the move: “trace a simple item to its source”
- Gains some other move
The spirit remains until destroyed, you dismiss the spell, or its Loyalty reaches −3. While the spell is ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell. You must cast this spell from within a bone circle.
☐ Trap Soul
You trap the soul of a dying creature within a gem. The trapped creature is aware of its imprisonment but can still be manipulated through spells, parley, and other effects. All moves against the trapped creature are at +1. You can free the soul at any time but it can never be recaptured once freed.
☐ Words of the Unspeaking
(divination) With a touch you speak to the spirits within things. The non-living object you touch answers three questions you pose, as best it can. If you cast this spell within a bone circle, you may ask an additional question.
Seventh Circle Spells
☐ Bone Jump
(ongoing) Two of your active bone circles become connected. While ongoing, anyone (or, if you weave an additional thread, only those you designate) stepping into one circle will be instantly transferred to just outside the other, and you take −1 to weave threads. You must cast this within one of the two circles.
☐ Cloudkill
(summoning, ongoing) A cloud of fog drifts into this realm from beyond, filling the immediate area. Whenever a creature in the area takes damage it takes an additional, separate 1d6 damage which ignores armor. If you weave an additional thread, allies you designate reduce damage they take from the cloud by your CON . This spell persists so long as you can see the affected area, or until you dismiss it.
☐ Mark of Death
Choose a creature whose true name you know. This spell creates permanent runes on a target surface that will kill that creature, should they read them.
☐ Source of Wit
(summoning) You summon a tasked spirit, then tap the head of a target (including yourself) to bind the spirit into the target’s mind. The target gains 3 hold and may spend 1 karma to gain +1 hold. The target may spend 1 hold to reroll a failed test involving INT , WIS or CHA . Unless you weave an additional thread, if the target fails a re-roll, the spirit vanishes, taking any unused hold with it. If the target runs out of hold, the spirit vanishes.
☐ Spirit Bolt
(evocation) Fire a ray of violet energy at any spirit you can see. If you are using astral sight, this spell can target spirits in astral space. Deal 2d6 (or, if you weave an additional thread, 2d10) damage to the target. This damage ignores armor and takes a long time to heal.
☐ Sympathy
(ongoing) You touch one target (including yourself) and gain 1d4 hold. Any time the target takes damage from an attacker, you may spend 1 hold to have the spell deal the same amount of damage to the attacker. This spell may target a group pattern you are part of and, if so, you may spend hold any time any member of the target group takes damage from an attack. If you weave an additional thread to this spell before casting, you gain +2 hold and name an additional target. If you run out of hold, the spell ends. While the spell is ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell.
Ninth Circle Spells
☐ Call Horror
(summoning, ongoing) You call the true name of a horror (which you must discover beforehand), summoning it from astral space. This spell must be cast from directly outside a bone circle prepared especially and solely for this summoning. The horror (or some part of it) manifests within the circle. Choose 1d4 of the following:
- The horror immediately kills the bone spirit in the circle, binding itself to the circle instead.
- The horror will offer you great rewards in return for release into the physical world.
- The horror will accede to one of your demands in return for being returned to astral space.
- The horror will not mark you.
While ongoing you cannot weave threads.
☐ Consume Unlife
The mindless undeaad construct you touch is destroyed utterly and you steal its death energy, gaining 2 hold for each HP the creature had remaining before you destroyed it. Touch someone (including yourself) to heal them for 1 HP for each hold spent.
☐ Plague
(ongoing) Name a steading. As long as this spell is active, that place is beset by a plague appropriate to your Passion’s domains (locusts, death of the first born, etc.), gaining a blight to reflect this. While ongoing you take −1 to cast a spell.
☐ Recycle
The soul who volunteers to be the target of this spell is ripped from its home (body, ghost, gem prison, etc.) and pushed into the cycle of life and death, reincarnating in the nearest convenient unborn namegiver. Its former home is utterly destroyed, preventing the soul from being resurrected, interrogated or summoned.
☐ Talent Shredder
(ongoing) Select a trait, special ability or other known talent of a target monster. While ongoing, the monster may not gain benefits from that ability, nor make a move involving that talent/ability, and you take −1 to weave threads.