A Pair of Failed Careers

Into the Odd is my one-shot game of choice. It has just enough of everything. Just enough mechanics, just enough character, just enough world. I understand where Electric Bastionland is coming from, but it's always seemed like the "just a little too much" counterpart for my purposes. That said, the Failed Careers are elegant little thought-forms, similar to Troika! backgrounds, and I had some fun putting these two on paper. With some quick wombo.art (I'm a little meh on it, but it works), they're ready to go.

Courier

You took things places.

Sample Names
Major, Fries, Tate, Owney

You Get
Uniform, Letter Opener (d6, concealable)

Cash	What stopped you?
£1	Snow. Take a heavy down coat (Armor 1, Bulky).
£2	Rain. Take rubberized boots.
£3	Heat. Take a light metal water bottle.
£4	Gloom of night. Take a lantern.
£5	Forgery. Take a jeweler's loupe.
£6	Honor. Take one letter, unopened, undeliverable.

HP	What were you good at?
1	First-class mail. Test Wil to turn dogs.
2	Special deliveries. Take one bicycle. You can outrace anyone on a paved street, but cannot stop or notice anything along the way.
3	Packaging. Never break a fragile object.
4	Routing. For any address know the name of someone who has lived there or lives there now.
5	Labelling. Immediately and accurately know the weight of anything held in one hand.
6	Paper routes. Always know this morning's headlines.

If you are the youngest player,
the whole group is 10k in debt to the vagrant's HOA. You technically can't sleep on the streets.

Burnboss

If you don't set small fires, the big ones will rage uncontrollably.

Sample Names
Morgan, Smollex, Danver, Kangg

You Get
Shovel, Hatchet (d6)

Cash	How'd you get out of the game?
£1	Deregulation. Take a directory of your competitors (d6).
£2	Technical arson. Take an expired license.
£3	Backdraft. Take no hair.
£4	Antidrought. It is still raining when the game starts, wherever you were licensed.
£5	Aggressive noncompete. Other crews will not talk to you.
£6	Burncrew mutiny. Take one gilt-edged page from a holy book, a hole burned thru the center.

HP	How did you start fires?
1	Flamethrower. Take one (d6, Blast, Bulky).
2	Ritual duel. Take one flint sword (d8, sparks against steel).
3	Pyrokinesis. Test Wil to ignite any dry material, once/day.
4	Advanced optics. Take one magnifying glass.
5	Alchemy. Take three firebombs (d6 Damage each round until extinguished).
6	The old-fashioned way. Take one fancy lighter. You can do tricks with it.

If you are the youngest player,
the whole group is 10k in debt to Hurly & Sons Insurance Insurance Insurance. Collateral damage incurred is not added to your debt.

Restless Dreamer

A GLOG class for the cursed class challenge.

Now you've done it. Maybe you pricked your finger on a magic spinning wheel. Took a bite of an enchantress' apple. Stole a perfume from the wrong alchemist. Desecrated a fairy ring. Whatever it was, you're gonna be comatose for a while, so you might as well make the best of it.

This is a cursed class. Once you have a template in Restless Dreamer you can't gain templates in anything else until you wake up.

1. Asleep, Beautiful, Well-Rested
2. Somnambulant
3. Sandman's Touch
4. Manifestations

Asleep

You're asleep. You cannot move on your own and must be carried everywhere. You are still aware of your surroundings, but only what they dream themselves to be: you see the ruins on the hill as a glorious stately palace and the mayor's cat as a fearsome panther. The thief in the night is a smooth constellation of shadow and the paladin literally radiates sunlight. You can speak softly and coherently or loudly and incoherently.

Beautiful

Fortunately, you are a graceful sleeper. Whenever you gain a template in Restless Dreamer, add one to your Charisma. You are non-threatening to animals, if obviously vulnerable, and people will do things to help you or your companions when asked that they might not otherwise.

Well-Rested

If the curse is broken, you resume your normal sleep schedule. You can only use your Restless Dreamer templates while sleeping, but while awake, bonuses to Charisma from Beauty become bonuses to Constitution. (Such beauty could only last as an idea of a person, not a real person.)

Somnambulant

With great effort, you can move under your own power and take actions no sleeper could normally undertake—cast spells*, swing swords, sing songs, etc. Each round you are up and about you must make a Charisma save to avoid drifting off to dream again, and take a -1 penalty to this save for each preceding round you've been moving.

Sandman's Touch

Your stillness and calm are contagious. You can cast human and beast into a deep sleep at the touch of your hand whenever you so choose. The only limit to this ability is what you can reach.

Manifestations

You can call creatures of the dreaming to aid you in the waking world. They range from clever doormice to crawling vines to rolling nightmare machines. Each day you can call dream creatures with total HP equal to the total number of templates you have, and they have morale as retainers. They return to the dreams of others when they are needed (usually within the next 24 hours).

Methods of Waking

• True love's kiss.
• Find the little fairy that did this and wring their little fairy neck.
• Dream a world so real it replaces the one you're asleep in.
• Really a lot more ammonium salts than advisable.
• Ride it out—you don't seem to be aging, so you might as well find out what the future is like.
• Get yourself kicked out of the dreaming.
• Bargain away your ability to sleep.
• Have your corporeal form brought to the dreaming to take your place.

Notes

I was told it's easy to write GLOG classes and this did go fast. I haven't played the GLOG proper yet, so please let me know if I missed something obvious.

There are many other entries in this challenge. These are the ones I am currently aware of:

• Curses (Words for Yellow)
• Nanoweapon Poisoned (Archon's Court)
• Skablin (ふかひれスープ)
• The Ogre (Of Slugs and Silver)
• Holding Out for a Hero (A Blasted, Cratered Land)
• The Oath Cursed (Anxious Mimic)
• Mirror-Struck (Princesses & Pioneers)
• The Doppelgänger (Parasites and Paradoxes)
• The Abattoir God (Bugbear Slug)
• Wizzard Bidness (Meandering Banter)
• Curse of the Undying (Nuclear Haruspex)
• The Fading Curse (Whimsical Mountain)

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* How do you rest to regain spells when you're always asleep? Easy: you fall asleep in your dreams. Just be sure you don't only dream you fell asleep in your dreams, and be careful not to learn the spell that your spell dreams it is, which might be something else entirely…^back

Here Are Some Characters

Here are some backgrounds for characters. It's mostly specialists, because that's where I started.

Your specialist . . .

• is a jeweler, seeking gems of great value.
• is an explorer, seeking or returned from exotic lands.
• is an archaeologist, searching for the secrets of lost civilizations.
• is a political exile, waiting to return home.
• is a black priest, charged with keeping the church's secrets secret.
• is a barbarian, skilled in ways that civilization has forgotten.
• is a migrant worker, willing to help out locals for a bed or a meal.
• is a tinker, but will take on other odd jobs.
• is a busker, but with a lost instrument.
• is a common beggar.
• is an organ grinder, whose monkey ran away.
• comes from a nomadic culture.
• is a traveling merchant, freshly cleaned out from a deal gone awry.
• is a fence, but is branching out into "acquisitions".
• is a jester who spoke too much truth to power.
• is an actor, separated from their troupe.
• is an acrobat.
• ran away from a terrible apprenticeship.
• is a sailor on shore leave.
• trained as a domestic servant.
• is a smuggler, on the lookout for new routes.
• is a quack doctor, peddling alcoholic tonics.
• is a professional burglar.
• is a pickpocket street urchin. Singing optional.
• is a con artist, in search of a mark.
• is a con artist, whose parter was recently taken in.
• is a gangster, whose connections have soured recently.
• is a rake, seeking to take his mind off of a doubtless life-threatening liver disorder.
• is a spy, awaiting orders from a foreign nation.
• is a bandit/pirate (depending on feasibility).
• is a poacher.
• is a halfling in search of adventure.
• is a trained assassin.
• was a military scout.
• escaped slavery.

Your fighter . . .

• was a bouncer.
• is a bodyguard.
• is a noble knight on an inscrutable quest.
• is a digraced knight, exiled from the court.
• was an infantryman.
• is a mercenary, between jobs.
• is a bounty hunter.
• is a barbarian, unmatched in the art of combat.
• escaped from a laboratory.
• was a prizefighter, but is getting old.
• apprenticed as a blacksmith.
• was a collier or miner.
• escaped from prison.
• is a lawman.
• is a bandit/pirate (depending on feasibility).
• is a dwarf.
• is from a long line of warriors.
• is a deserter.
• is a berserker.
• is a local hero in their remote hometown.
• was an Olympian athlete.

Your magic user . . .

• is a wild talent with psionic powers.
• made a pact with the devil.
• speaks with elementals.
• is an elf.
• is proud to be self-taught.
• learned Atlantean secrets.
• was abducted by aliens.
• apprenticed with an insane wizard.
• graduated valedictorian at Wizard Academy.
• dropped out of Wizard Academy.
• was taught magic by nature spirits.
• has dragon blood running through their veins.
• has no memory of his life before now.
• happens to have not died in the last century (but is still mortal).
• was an advisor to kings and generals.
• died once. Might even still be dead. Isn't sure.
• is a bard.
• can't return to it's home dimension.

Your cleric . . .

• is an orphan, raised by the church.
• once was blind, but now can see.
• once could see, but now is blind.
• is a pacifist.
• is a reformed death cultist.
• once received a vision.
• is personally an atheist.
• is a millenarian, convinced that the end is nigh.
• is an inquisitor, charged with rooting out heresy.
• acts obsessive about rituals. Practices them like clockwork.
• is a shaman, who calls upon ancestral spirits.
• is a druid, who remembers the old ways.
• is not the child of prophecy, but sees how you could make that mistake.
• was an ascetic monk, living on the fringes of society.
• was recently accused of heretical beliefs.
• is a street preacher, spreading the gospel to all who will listen.
• is a pamphleteer, too shy to preach on the streets.
• almost died once, but was saved by grace alone.