Welcome to Random Encounters, the blog where we take a popular internet meme, animal video, or the like and turn it into a game rule for Pathfinder or Starfinder.
When someone asks if you are a god…
Today we kick off Gods and Magic week by exploring what some of the Know Direction Network members would do with their deific powers if they were gods in Golarion. This follows the Gods and Magic Web Supplement published by Paizo, and can be found right here.
Augunas (Alex)
If one can keep the attention of Augunas long enough they may receive his assistance or his hindrance, and he often grants his favor to those looking to try new things.
Minor Boon: Augunas grants you sudden inspiration when using the Craft skill to create something you’ve never made before. The next time you roll an initial Craft skill to create a new item you may roll twice and take the better result, so long as you’ve never attempted to craft the item before.
Moderate Boon: Augunas shares his familiarity with the vast variety of magic in the world, allowing you to quickly recognize craftsmanship and function. You gain the Quick Identification feat as a bonus feat.
Major Boon: You gain Augunas’s divine insight into how humanoids fight. You may use the Society skill to Recall Knowledge and gain information about the capabilities, special actions, and spell casting abilities of humanoid opponents, identifying their training as one would identify the capabilities of a monstrous creature.
Minor Curse: Overconfidence is your downfall. All your failures to Identify Magic are instead critical failures, and Overcharging a Wand always ends in failure.
Moderate Curse: Your endeavors tend to be uninspired. All your failures to Craft or Earn Income are instead critical failures.
Major Curse: Augunas fractures your creative mind, overloading your waking mind. All your information falls you. Whenever you attempt to Recall Knowledge, treat your result as one step less successful (a critical success is a success, a success is a failure, and a failure is a critical failure). When you critically fail to Recall Knowledge, you fervently believe the false information, even in the face of evidence against it, as your perception skews the evidence to reinforce your beliefs.
Costello (Ryan)
Costello is quick to bestow his benefits on those who ask him for aid, and just as quick to inflict harm on those who would attempt to harm innocents.
Minor Boon: You gain a fraction of Costello’s gregarious nature. The next time you meet an intelligent creature or group of intelligent creatures, their starting attitude is one step more favorable (hostile becomes unfriendly, unfriendly becomes indifferent, etc).
Moderate Boon: Like Costello, you are at your best when helping your allies. When you use the Aid reaction, any success becomes a critical success.
Major Boon: Costello grants you tongues as a constant spell effect. The first time you Make an Impression or Request from an NPC, any success becomes a critical success.
Minor Curse: Your words fumble in your mouth. The next time you roll a verbal Deception, Diplomacy, and Intimidate check you must roll twice and take the worse result.
Moderate Curse: You have trouble working with others, receiving no aid and finding no allies. You cannot use the Aid reaction nor receive any benefit from it. The starting attitude of helpful creatures becomes friendly, friendly creatures become indifferent, and indifferent creatures become unfriendly.
Major Curse: Costello curses you with his destructive hands. When you attempt to use an item it immediately gains the broken condition; reduce its hit points to its Broken Threshold unless its current hit points are lower. When you critically fumble when using a broken item, it is immediately reduced to 0 hit points. You can’t destroy artifacts or items of similar power.
Dustin
Dustin is fickle in doling out his divine assistance or impedance; occasionally bestowing great gifts to those for small gestures of praise or bringing down terrible wrath for an infraction.
Minor Boon: Once, when you would fail at a Recall Knowledge check, you get a critical success instead. Dustin typically grants this boon only when your character is trying to Recall Knowledge of an obscure or rare fact, and never applies to common monster statistics, such as simple attacks, saving throws, weaknesses or immunities that would be shared with other monsters.
Moderate Boon: You are blessed with the divine energy of an unused favor from history’s greatest heroes. At the start of your daily preparations, you receive the benefits of a minor boon from a random deity, a reflection of one of their champions. This boon lasts as long as you have at least one Hero Point or until you make daily preparations again.
Major Boon: You gain a spark of inspiration from a past hero’s soul. You gain a random 1st level Class Feat or archetype dedication feat as a bonus feat. This feat is selected from a class or archetype other than your base class. You may use that feat so long as you have at least one Hero Point.
Minor Curse: You are flooded with so many unique and obscure facts that you forget what most people know. The next time you fail at a Knowledge check, you critically fail instead, mistaking one thing for another. This can cause you to critically fail at a Diplomacy check in the event the check would be altered by forgetting the name or station of the other creature.
Moderate Curse: You become paranoid and insecure, wrought with the overwhelming desire to help others. You are limited to one hero point. Giving up a week of downtime to aid another player with their check suppresses this curse for one week thereafter, but if you fail or critically fail your check to aid that player, you remain limited to a single hero point and cannot attempt this check again for one month.
Major Curse: Dustin sends a vengeful blinkfox after you, appearing only when you are under stress and only behind you. You are always flat-footed and you cannot receive hero points until you atone for your curse.
Randal
The patient Randal grants his boons to those who consistently show him loyalty, and curses those who consistently work against him.
Minor Boon: Randal grants you sudden insight into the mechanical workings of traps. The next time you fail to Disable a Device against a mechanical trap, you succeed instead.
Moderate Boon: Randal lends you some of his preternatural understanding of machines. You gain either the Experienced Professional feat for Engineering Lore, or the Quick Unlock feat as a bonus feat, even if you do not meet the prerequisites. If you are not trained in the skill associated with the feat, you become trained in that skill.
Major Boon: Your ability to plan ahead is uncanny. Once per day when you could have performed a mundane action but didn’t specifically state you were doing so, such as locking a door or picking up an object, you can state that you had done so previously. This must be stated before the immediate results of that action are known.
Minor Curse: Your attempts to plan go awry, the next time you use the Ready action, Randal distracts you in the moment and you cannot use the planned action when the trigger first occurs.
Moderate Curse: Mechanical objects seem to fail you, clockwork falls apart in your hands. Attacks from mechanical hazards and clockwork creatures are always one degree more successful (successes become critical successes, failures becomes successes, and critical failures become failures). Your skill checks rolled to disable mechanical hazards or saving throws to avoid their effects are one degree worse (critical successes become successes, successes become failures, and failures become critical failures.
Major Curse: Randal laughs in the face of your plans, literally raining on your parade and sending wandering monsters across your path. Every time the result of a random roll on a table would effect you, you gain the result least favorable to your current situation.
Vanessa
The uplifted fey queen is generous with her power to those who adore her or appreciate her creative whims, but her wrath is quick and immediate to those who cross her. She often hands out minor boons and curses, but reserves her more potent attention for those who really stir her emotions.
Minor Boon: Vanessa sends a moment of pure beauty across your path, giving you inspiration in your endeavors. You gain the benefits of the guidance spell, but the duration lasts until you use the benefits or until you fall unconscious, whichever happens first.
Moderate Boon: You become fearless in the face of opposition. You gain a +2 status bonus on saving throws against fear. When you gain the frightened condition, reduce the value by 1; if this reduces the value to 0, ignore the condition.
Major Boon: Vanessa inspires you to be true to yourself, and helps spark your creative intuition. Your physical appearance permanently changes to match your idealized self; you may return to this form by using a single action which ends any polymorph effect you choose. Additionally, when using the Craft skill to pursue an artistic endeavor, you use the result one degree of success better than the result you rolled; if you rolled a critical success, you complete your work immediately.
Minor Curse: Vanessa sends a moment of pure beauty across you path… at exactly the wrong moment. You receive a –4 status penalty to Initiative checks.
Moderate Curse: Your ugliness is exposed to the entire world. You can no longer use the Deception skill and must always tell the truth in the most brutally direct way. The initial attitude of NPCs is always unfriendly or worse.
Major Curse: Vanessa has had enough of you; she erases you from existence. A portal immediately opens up beneath your feet, from which Vanessa yeets you into the Dimension of Time, where your existence is promptly forgotten about by everyone, even you.
