The Maimed King - A Class

Use the requirements, XP, and proficiencies of the Moldvay Basic Dwarf. They may advance to level 10, if possible. They can identify the presence and nature of a curse on an individual on a 1/d6.

The Maimed King may not be a literal king but they are someone important, someone with a personal tie to the PCs or with the power to offer them tremendous reward. They have become ruined and ruin flows from them as general misfortune of the company, along with more specific impediments.

• The Maimed King cannot rise and must be borne. Once mighty, there is little of them left, but a combined strength of 20 from those bearing him is required to maintain normal speed and care. While so borne, reduce all random encounter checks (so if a wandering monster shows on 1-2/d6, they now only appear on 1/d6). He also prevents his company and all their enemies from taking advantage of the optional variable weapon damage rule (meaning all weapons do 1d6).
• The Maimed King prevents any normal advantages for rolling an unmodified 20 in combat (damage x2 or double damage, or however you handle it), including automatically hitting, for both their company and its adversaries; this does not impede any class abilities keyed to rolling a 20. 
• The Maimed King prevents recovery of HP by means of restful healing or applied healing, but magical healing grants bonus +1 bonus HP per die of healing.
• The Maimed King prevents all plant growth and fertility of mundane or magical origin within a day's ride of himself.

Whenever a blow is struck against the Maimed King, roll1d6. Creatures striking the Maimed King bleed equal to the last damage they suffered this combat, if any.

1- The sky darkens beyond the dimness of dusk

2- The earth trembles as a young fawn

3- The grass and plants and trees for a hundred paces wither

4- A foul gangrenous reek fills the air for a hundred paces

5- The air is filled with screeching as every bird for half a mile takes flight

6- Everyone in the combat breaks out in a cold, feverish sweat

When the Maimed King dies, XP equal to what is required for them to reach their next level is collectively lost by the company, a loss shared in part by all who survive. Those affected may gain their Hit Die in permanent HP increase. The Maimed King dies at level 10 if they have nor perished before, deeding the remains of their ruined kingdom to the company before they do so.

The Boxes

I set my feet ablaze on the long wide road, concentrating on keeping my teeth from chattering and shattering as the flames hungrily sucked up the long miles of varicose concrete. Piledriver pain from each rubber band footfall snap echoed through bone conduction shockwaves: the inverted nursery rhyme from the chewed and sticky pages of Motherfucker Goose. My clothing slapped and rippled around me, falling apart but clinging on for dear sainted life, straps elastic belt leather flesh-biting muscle-crushing sweat-reeking, dripping with dripplables. A concert from the muderer's nightmare wailed its charcoal hosanna in a pit of acid beneath my heart. My spine danced nearly apart as some lightning-struck chord. I did not stop I could not stop I must not stop. Let my body's music crescendo itself to strands, so long as I am not in it. Send me to surcease, and let me be blackness without color, naught without footprints, none excluding was.

The boxes

The sun sets everywhere once, on miracle and diabolical, Diobolism, neologism, explosism jism mysticism simplisism - the sun. The sun sets on everything at once.

The sun makes it cold

in the box.

A partial working fantasy design glossary

Figuring out what I want to prioritize in making something can require defining terms. This is something to help me with what I'm working on right now. Another project might require not only different definitions but different language altogether. This is more about showing a part of a process than making a declaration of overall ethos or policy.

Threat- To include all enemies, hazards, and conditions such as worsening injury and worsening disease.

Enemies- To include animals, civilized humanoids, and monsters.

Hazards- To include traps, heat and weather, radiation, falls from heights, spreading fire or flood, etc.

Conditions- Highly situational impact, and nearly impossible to form a comprehensive list; ordered into broad categories whose severity varies according to the situation (must be kept somewhat fuzzy necessarily)

Civilized- To include creatures with a spoken, written, empathic, visual, psychic, pictographic, or other common language, even if it's an insular language and communication with other civilized creatures is impossible.

Humanoids- To include all shapes and variations on the same basic skeletal structure as Oprah Winfrey; or, a creature for whom no guesswork is required as to how it would wear blue jeans.

Animals- To include any normal fauna we would classify as such in the real world, including great apes and anything else that could otherwise fit into an above category (unless specifically ruled).

Monster- Any creature (living or dead, material or immaterial) which does not fit neatly into an above category, which can include strange but mundane fauna, those whose composition is influenced by alien or magical factors, and creatures who don't fit fully under the heading of "civilized humanoid."

Traps- Either deliberately created or deliberately exploited (existing cairn on a hill that is levered onto passersby below).

Mechanic- Agreement on a process

Ruling- Decision on a situation

Rule- Agreement on a decision

Action- Choice

Economy- The measure of the exchange of a resource, such as number of choices or degree of success, or currency and favor in-fiction.

Bargain- A declaration of an economic action with the intent to obtain a profit.

Resolution- The interaction of a mechanic, rule, or ruling on an bargain.

Advancement- A reward tied to action outcome and time, i.e. a measure of experience.

Magic- Alternative causality, or literally rules exceptions.