Monday, April 22, 2019

Researcher Topics-of-Study for The Stygian Library

I'm going to run some friends through Emmy Allen's awesome Stygian Library. They'll all be fighters or wizards or explorers/rogues but will also have a topic of study. The setting is an anachronistic mish-mash of things, ruled over by an Overlord, who has made life so staid and regular that the only way to get ahead is to explore the places where reality has broken down and some Other world has intruded. Anyway, here's the list of topics.


  1. Astrophysics
  2. Golden Barge construction theory
  3. Literature
  4. Theology, Confirmed
  5. Approved History
  6. Biology
  7. Necromatic Symbolism
  8. Magic Theory
  9. Metallurgy
  10. Architecture
  11. Poetry
  12. Crank conspiracy theories
  13. Secret anti-Overlord activism
  14. Ley Line tracer
  15. Mutation Theorist
  16. Mechanical Engineering Philosopher
  17. Psi Theorist
  18. Dreams
  19. Divination
  20. Post Structuralist Analysis of Television Shows
  21. Dragonography
  22. Mechanical Dopplegangers
  23. Mirror Universes
  24. String Theory
  25. Dance
  26. Music
  27. Cinema
  28. Chemistry
  29. Library Sciences
  30. Ghost Analytics
System will probably be a lot like In the Light of a Ghost Star and cribbed notes from gg no re's City of the Crepuscular Queen. That system is neat, in that you have a DC of 4 for every roll and you go up and down the dice chain based on your profession and how hard things are. A fighter rolls a d8 to fight, a wizard rolls a d8 to cast. A rogue rolls a d8 to sneak and a d6 to have a stand-up fight; a wizard probably rolls a d4 to melee people. Chases are rolling a d20 over the number of items you're carrying. Telling really bad lies to someone may be a d4 to succeed (at best), whereas doing something for your profession that you have a lot of time to set up might give you a d10 or a d12 to roll.

Most everyone will roll a d8 for their research topic as well, though the idea is that a fighter with Magic Studies as their research isn't a better wizard than the wizard. It would probably be that they could roll a d8 to know things about magic, do research on it, but they don't have much of the knack themselves. Likewise a martial arts-studying wizard is not going to have fun in melee, but they might be able to roll a d8 to detect and call out weaknesses to the fighter and give them an advantage.

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