OSR: Skull Wizard, Unlawful Games

The Wizard Quintuplets: Alabaster, Cranius,Trepannius, Ifori, and Wilbur

An Italian pal of mine was checking out some GLOG Wizards and thought up a Skull Wizard. Not a Necromancer per se, just a wizard with a special taste for skulls. They have a special bond with the Skull King and access the realm of Skullspace to power their effects.

School: Skull Wizard

Perk: You are decked out in the most cliche evil wizard gear imaginable. Black robe with a cowl, skulls hanging by ropes, evil looking sigils, wicked looking daggers, the works. Most creatures have a -2 to morale checks when you are present. You also gain a +2 to reaction rolls with equally evil looking creatures.

Drawback: You cannot have more spell slots than you have skulls on hand. 1 Human Skull = 1 Inventory slot

Cantrip:

1. You may enchant one skull to be 10x bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. You may only have one skull affected this way at any one time. Items must be able to fit through the eye sockets. Items left in a skull when it loses this effect have a 90% chance of simply breaking the skull and a 10% chance of being lost in Skullspace.
2. You can identify any skull by name and species after 10 minutes of uninterrupted communing.
3.You may mark a single skull with your personal sigil. You may speak through this skull, regardless of distance, as long as you have another skull to talk at. This communication is only one way.

Keep them eyes pealed!

Skull Wizard spell list

1. Skull Speak
R: 0 T: self D: [dice] minutes
You can talk to skulls and they can talk back. Skulls generally know about anything they could potentially see and a little bit about their original owner’s demise. These skulls are not inhabited with the intelligence of the original being, rather is the inhabited by the left over mineral soul and any interactions with it are limited by that soul’s knowledge.

2. Skull Bomb

R: 200′ T: creature+30′ area D: 0

This spell requires sacrificing a skull to cast. The caster infuses a skull with the unstable spell which explodes into shrapnel when thrown. Target takes [sum] + [dice] damage, no Save. All within 30′ of the target take [dice] damage.

3. Skull Form

R: 0 T: Self D: [dice] hours

You slide your meat parts off and store them in Skullspace, leaving you a mobile skeleton. Your movement is increased by 3 and your Strength is halfed (no muscle bonehead). You also have half damage from non-bludgeoning weapons. If you roll above a 10, you transform into a random variant skeleton. If you roll above a 14, you may pick the type of variant skeleton you become.

4. Skull Read
R: Touch T: 1 Creature D: 10-[sum] Rounds to minimum of 1 round
You spend time interacting with the skull of a living or dead creature. At the end of the duration of the spell, you know the creature’s HD, morale, wants, and general disposition.

5. Skull Flame

R:0 T: 1 Skull D: [sum]+[dice] Hours

You wreath a skull in an evil looking flame that casts light as a lantern for the indicated period. The flames do not burn he caster, however can be bashed against an opponent to deal damage as a light weapon and wreath the target in bright light for [dice] rounds. When used in this way, or when the time is otherwise up, the skull is consumed.

6. Skull Shield
R: Touch T: 1 Creature D: [sum]/2 rounds.
Target creature’s head becomes completely invulnerable. This grants [dice] Defense and renders the target immune to blinding, muting or deafening though the mutilation of the sensory organs. Effects that go through said organs such as poison, a siren’s song, or a medusa’s gaze affect the target as normal.

7. Skull Phantom
R: 30′ T: 1 Skull D: [sum] rounds
You summon the ghostly memory of a whole body that was once attached to a skull. It will be somewhat helpful to you and retain the approximate intelligence of the creature it was in life, but none of the memories. It can attack with its skull as a heavy weapon and can fit through any space that its skull can fit through. Its Defense is equal to plate (the skull is the only actual physical part of its body) but only has [dice] HP.

8. Skull Shape
R: 60′ T: 5x[sum] pounds of bone D: 5 rounds

Over the course of 5 rounds, you can control a mass of bones as though it were clay, melting and crafting it into a desired shape such as a bridge or a tower. For every MD invested into the spell, there must be at least two skulls present. After five rounds have elapsed, the desired shape is achieve and this mass of bones cannot be affected again. The GM may require an adequately drawn sketch of your creation.

9. Skull Meld
R: 30′ T: [sum] HD worth of Creatures D: [sum] rounds or permanent.
When cast, choose a number of effects up to [Dice]: Sight, Sound, Speech/Taste, Smell. The Target’s skull melds seamlessly to hinder one or more of these senses.You may invest more than the creature’s HD worth of [sum] in a single creature, if [sum] invested is twice the target’s HD, the effect is permanent. Targets who have both Smell and Speech hindered begin to suffocate. A creature suffocates in CON/2 rounds if unprepared or CON rounds if prepared. Assume the creatures have 10 CON, unless the GM rules otherwise. Dealing the target’s HD in damage to the mouth or nose area is enough to break the bone and restore breath.

10. Skull Cup
R: Touch T: 1 Skull D: [sum] Rounds or until consumed
On touch, the skull of a recently killed monster fills with the creature’s liquid essence. This essence has an [Dice]+HD-in-10 chance of being a random potion, otherwise it heals the drinker HP equal to the creature’s HD. More intensely magical creatures or incredibly poisonous creatures may have different effects or be more likely to produce a potion.

Emblem Spells

11. Skull Theft
R: 100′ T: 1 Creature or skull of [Sum]/2 HD or less D: 12/[dice] Rounds
By focusing all your will on a single skull, you can call out to it and entice it to come to you. On an unattended skull, it will generally come with no fuss, but on a skull currently being used by something there will be resistance. For every round the focus is kept on the creature, they take 1d6 damage as their skull tries to literally escape from their neck. At the end of the duration of the spell, the creature must save versus death or have their skull sloppily pulled from their body and jettisoned to your hand. Any disruption of your concentration will prematurely end the effect and leave you with a splitting headache, -2 to all mental stats for [dice] hours.

Best Friend!

12. Skull Friends

R: 60′ T: Skull or Group of Skulls D: [dice] Hours
You target either a mass of smaller skulls or a single massive skull depending on invested MD and animate them into Skull Friends.

1-6: 1 human skull, HD 2, 1d6 Damage
7-12: 4 human skulls, 1 Giant Skull HD 4, 2d6 Damage
13-18: 16 human skulls, 1 Dragon Skull HD 6, 3d6 Damage
19+: 64 human skulls, 1 Blue Whale Skull HD 8, 4d6 Damage

Feel free to mix and match within reason and resources. While these skulls are under your control, they grow little limbs and totter after you at your Movement. When animated en masse, they function as a single creature and may do things like stacking themselves up or pull off those bullshit fire ant rafts. Bigger skulls could be potentially ridden in.

Aw hell, mishaps? I didn’t sign up for this shit.

Mishaps:
1. Skull hurts, take 1d6 damage.
2. Teeth fuse together rending you mute for 1d6 rounds.
3. Splitting headache for 1d6 rounds. Literally. Exposed brain lowers Defense by 4.
4. CARTILAGE IS HERESY! You nose and ears fall off, rendering you deaf and anosmic (can’t smell). They grow back in 1d6 rounds.
5. Your skull is too thick! Unable to cast spells for 1d6 rounds as the spells try and fail at escaping your thick head.
6. Random mutation for 1d6 rounds, then make a save. Permanent if you fail. If the mutation rolled affects your head, you automatically fail.

Dooms:
1. Your face melts off, leaving you looking like a Skeletor wannabe. Halve your charisma and never look in a mirror ever again.
2. All your flesh melts off, leaving you as a mobile skeleton. Halve your total HP and STR, and wonder why those Skeletons at level 1 seemed to dangerous without muscles.
3. Your body falls off, leaving you as an immobile skull. You can’t cast spells or take any action, but you can still talk I guess. Welcome to being Bob the Skull.

You can avoid this fate by replacing your head with that of a particularly evil and magical creature, such as the Nega-Pope or a Demilich.

Thoughts

Evil wizards like skulls as decoration. Skull Wizards hate this because they are wasting perfectly good resources. You don’t have to be evil to be a Skull Wizard, but it really helps the aesthetic. Not quite a Necromancer and more a focused Osseomancer, you’d probably find things guys haunting ancient battlefields, the cavernous Veins, or your local cathedral made of bones. Who knows if it is balanced or not, but hopefully the Italian approves.

To hell with this, I’m outtie.

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School: Skull Wizard

Skull Wizard spell list

Thoughts

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