GLOGtober '22: Challenge 3: Things in Jars

GLOGtober '22

This challenge is courtesy of TheFirstGokun.

Things In Jars

Clink-clink-clink goes Century Egbert's jar as he rolls on down the road. He's a hundred years old they say, and he'll live a hundred more. He rides a two-headed camel that treads around the inside of his jar like a hamster in its ball, the both of them bobbing in its brine. The clotted strands of Egbert's beard obscure his raisin-ish face like a veil. He sucks on them when he's thinking.

(Century Egbert is a level 3 pickle wizard - see below - and is willing to tutour those who show interest in pickles & jars)

Floating in there with them are a number of jars - jars within a jar - he's a merchant and a connoisseur of them you see. He'll part with any of the goods listed below for the price of 100 sp a pop, but if you can provide him with a mooncalf or some similar marvel preserved in a jar of brine, he'll trade that for any one of his stock:

1. Canopic Proxy: Cylindrical clay jars painted with symbols simultaneously veiny and geometric. The jars are warm to the touch. Each canopic proxy contains a living organ, and anyone in contact with the jar can transfer a condition that would affect their own matching organ to the one in the jar. For example, if the jar contains a stomach, you could transfer an ingested poison to it. If the organ inside the jar dies, conditions can no longer be transferred to it.

This canopic proxy contains:

• 1. A heart
  
• 2. A brain
  
• 3. A stomach
  
• 4. A pair of eyes
  
• 5. A set of lungs
  
• 6. A tongue
  

2. Spelljar: Made of glued-together ostracons inscribed with arcane sigils. When smashed, a spelljar acts as a 2 MD scroll for one of the following spells: 1. Desiccate, 2. Control Brine, 3. Delayed Noxious Odour Sphere, 4. Crunchify (see below for all spells).

3. Vegetable Teraph: A glass jar full of pickled vegetables assembled into the shape of a human head. The head is able to talk with food and translate for you, learning details such as who made it, what it was made from, anyone who ate it, and so on in the process. Each time it does this make a reaction roll. On a 5 or less, the head demands its brine be replaced with a fresh solution before it's willing to work again.

4. Pickled Punk Show: A glass jar stuffed with goblins like clowns in a clown car. Each goblin has a different, caricature-esque exaggerated feature - one an enormous nose, another puny pinhole-eyes, and so on. Opening the jar unleashes a mob of 6d6 goblins, who immediately begin engaging in mischief and tomfoolery.

5. Diralac Jar: A glass jar full of diralac.

6. Matryoshka Jar: A glass jar, within a glass jar, within a glass jar, and so on down beyond the limits of human perception. If used up as a component in spell research or magic item creation dealing with shrinking or extra-dimensional spaces, the matryoshka jar halves the monetary cost of the process.

7. Doomsayer Shoat: An albino piglet with a caul over its eyes preserved in a glass jar. The piglet will proclaim a curse over the next person it sees after its caul is pulled off. The curse causes anything the victim creates to turn against them - crops grown will poison them, children will betray them, organizations will toss them out, and so on. The curse can be lifted by destroying the piglet

8. Grenade Jar: A glass jar filled with volatile, blue, glowing gas. When it breaks, the jar explodes in a fireball that deals 2d6 damage to everything within 10', and has a 3-in-6 chance of dealing 1d6 damage to things within 20' from shrapnel.

9. Candy Jar: A 1'-by-1' jar of translucent sugar. Anything placed in the jar is transmuted to candy. Creatures get a save, and if they fail only their parts within the jar are transmuted.

10. Prize-Winning Pickles: A glass jar full of the most delicious pickles you've ever tasted. Acts as a Charm spell cast with 2 MD on whoever you feed them to.

11. Glowing Jar: A glass jar full of lumpy larvae. Shaking the jar vigourously has a 5-in-6 chance of making it glow as a torch for an hour, and a 1-in-6 chance of it catching fire and being destroyed. Animals and magical beasts must make a morale check to enter the jar's area of illumination.

12. Greedy Jar: Made of lead, with a hinged lid and a creepily-grinning face molded in its side. When opened, it drags all gold within a 20' cone coming from its opening with an effective strength of 15. Removing any gold from the jar requires beating this strength in a contested check. Gold left in the jar for more than an hour crumbles into black dust.

GLOG Wizard School: The Pickle Wizard

Our world is built on the practice of pickling. When winter comes - and it always does, every year and every generation, the wise are able to weather it, with preserved food, with preserved knowledge; the foolish perish. We set the bounty of the present in brine to sustain ourselves and our children in the future. If we falter in our pickling, if what's meant to be preserved spoils, then ruin follows.

The pickle wizard understands this truth down to their marrow, and can make a damn fine gherkin to boot.

Starting Equipment: Spellbook, ink & quill, pouch of salt, assorted jars, knife.

Perk:
Fragile objects on your person only break on a 1-in-6 when you take damage that would break them. They don't break at all if the odds are as good as or better than 1-in-6.

Drawback:
Preserved things are sacrosanct. Destroying particularly old relics and killing particularly old people costs you a magic die for the day.

Cantrips:
1. Can tell how long perishable goods will take to expire with a glance.
2. You can smell salt, to a degree of discrimination that lets you tell the salinity percentage of water.
3. Any food you make has just the right amount of salt included - it's especially delicious.

Mishaps:
1. MD only return to your pool on a 1-2 for a day.
2. Become unable to digest un-pickled food for 1d6 days.
3. Sweat tremendously, become dangerously dehydrated.
4. Blinded for 1d6 rounds as you weep out all the fluid in your eyes.
5. Random mutation for 1d6 rounds, then save. Mutation becomes permanent if you fail.
6. You're knocked 1d6x5 feet in a random direction as briny foam jets from your every orifice.

Dooms:
1. Water within 100' becomes unpotably briny. You become pickled and shrivel down to half your size, halving your max HP until you are dunked in fresh water.
2. Water within 500' becomes unpotably briny. You become pickled and shrivel down to a quarter your size, quartering your max HP until you are soaked overnight in fresh water.
3. Water within a mile becomes unpotably briny. You become a pickle, fully conscious yet unable to perceive or interact with your surroundings.

Spells:
1. Desiccate*
2. Control Brine*
3. Delayed Noxious Odour Sphere*
4. Pickled Food Infusion*
5. Breath Brine*
6. Protection from Decay
7. Jarportation
8. Create Picklebeast^
9. Instant Fermentation
10. Jar Trick^
11. Devil in the Bottle^
12. Crunchify

1. Desiccate
R: 30’ T: creature D: 0
Hydrated target within 30' takes 1d6+[dice] damage. Can also be used to turn meat into jerky or concentrate water-based liquids (wine, most acids), up to 2 gallons per [dice]. You can make a cup full of very strong brandy from a bottle of wine.

2. Control Brine
R: 50’ T: example of saltwater D: concentration
Each [dice] you invest increases the effects. One [die] is minor, 4 [dice] is a legendary display of elemental control.
Control a bucket’s worth of saltwater. At one [die]: (a) propel a small boat, (b) carry a small item through the brine, (c) allow someone to swim at 2x speed, (d) force someone to swim at half speed, (e) splash something no more than 5' away, (f) dry something that is soaked.

3. Delayed Noxious Odour Sphere
R: 50' T: point D: [sum] rounds/0
A marble-sized bead of grey-green ooze lands at a point you select. At any time within [sum] rounds, you can cause the sphere to detonate. Any creatures within a 20' of the sphere's detonation must Save vs Constitution or flee the area, as a failed Morale check, to wash. The area is filled with a thick green mist that reeks of sulphur and ammonia, and lasts for [dice] hours. The spell does not affect creatures with no sense of smell, mindless creatures, or creatures who habitually live in filth (goblins, shambling mounds, etc.).

4. Pickled Food Infusion
R: touch T: creature and [dice] rations D: 0
Target creature heals [sum] HP and consumes [dice] pickled rations. If sufficient pickled food is not available, the spell fails. It costs 2 HP to remove 1 negative HP and 4 HP to remove 1 Fatal Wound. This spell cannot restore lost limbs, remove injuries, or cure diseases. The creatures also gains any benefits or penalties from the consumed rations, making Saves as normal.

5. Breathe Brine
R: touch T: [dice] creatures D: 2 hr
Target(s) can breath in saltwater, in addition to their normal modes of respiration. Clearing your lungs before the spell expires is mandatory. Does not grant you protection from brine, just from drowning in it.

6. Protection from Decay
R: touch T: [dice]x[dice] targets, or an object less than [sum] cubic feet in size D: [dice] hours
Anoint your target(s) with brine. For the duration they are protected from decay both natural and unnatural, gaining a bonus on saves against decaying effects like the spell Rot, level drain and so on equal to [sum]/3 (rounding up), or reducing the damage by the same amount if no save is allowed. If cast with 4 or more dice on an object, the effect becomes permanent.

7. Jarportation
R: [sum]x15' T: self D: 0
Teleport between two jars, each of which must contain a part of your body preserved in brine. With 3 [dice] invested you can bring one other person or person-sized object along with you. With 4 or more [dice] invested you can bring [dice] people along.

8. Create Picklebeast
R: 50' T: [dice]x2 rations of pickled food D: [sum] rounds
The targeted pickles roll together into a briny beast with as many HD as rations that went into it. The picklebeast obeys your commands. At the end of the spell's duration the picklebeast collapses into a mound of inedible mush. Stats as follows:

2-4 HD Picklebeast:
AC as leather ATK 1d8 slam ML N/A MV as man

6-8 HD Picklebeast:
AC as chain ATK 1d8/1d8 slams ML N/A MV as bear

9. Instant Fermentation
R: 50' T: fermentable substance D: 0
Instantly ferments target substance, turning cucumbers into pickles, grape juice into wine, and so on. In the process, a globe of foam is produced from the substance with a diameter of [sum]x2 feet. The foam halves movement speed through it, is breathable, and is dense enough to support an unarmoured person's weight if they swim through it. 3 or more [dice] are required to make liquor or stronger products.

10. Jar Trick
R: touch T: brine-filled jar D: [sum] hours
Enchant a brine-filled jar. The interior of the jar expands to an extra-dimensional space [sum] feet in diameter. The jar weighs the same as it originally did regardless of its contents. This expanded interior is still filled with brine, which can't be poured out. Willing people can crawl into the jar regardless of the size of its opening. At the end of the spell's duration, the jar's contents are expelled, breaking the jar if they're all too big to fit in its normal capacity. The spell ends immediately if the jar is broken.

11. Devil in the Jar
R: touch T: creature of [sum]/2 HD D: [dice]x[dice] hours
Touch a creature while holding a glass bottle or jar. If they fail their save, they are shrunken down and stuck in the bottle, the bottle closing behind them. Their voice becomes comically high-pitched while shrunken, and they also can't die of thirst or starvation. If the container breaks or is opened the spell ends. The creature within can push it over and roll it around if unsecured, but cannot cast magic or whatever else through the glass. If cast with 4 [dice], the spell lasts until the container is broken or opened.

12. Crunchify
R: 50' T: [dice] objects or part of a structure no more than [sum] cubic feet in size D: [sum] rounds
Makes a target object or part of a structure more rigid and brittle. Each [dice] invested moves the target(s) down in durability one step on the following chart: metal > stone > wood > pickle. If the target's substance isn't on the chart then improvise based on the closest equivalent. 4 [dice] are required to affect magic items, and they get a save to resist.

* From Skerples - thanks Skerples, great job!

^ These aren't exactly from Skerples, but are similar to his Summon Monster/Rope Trick/Imprisonment spells.