Lanbril

Lanbril

Mythos and History

Lanbril was a son of Grandfather Mortal. In Godtime, humans came late among the other gods. While he claimed to be equal to the other gods, they rejected him as inferior because his father was killed by Death, the first sword.

Lanbril was enraged, and the rage warped his soul. If the other gods held him to be inferior, let them so believe. Lanbril studied the ways of deceit, and perfected the techniques of seeming not to be doing what he was indeed doing. When other gods worked with magic and power, he rejected these in favor of physical skill and covert manipulation. He cultivated Disorder, and worked to, attain the illusion that all was right until repair was impossible and he had made his escape. Lanbril did invent a magic of his own, to confound the pursuit of his victims, and to confuse those suspecting his presence.

After a while, Lanbril’s mad influence permeated the world. Some devout cultists go so far as to state that this influence inspired Eurmal to help Orlanth in stealing Death from Humakt. This story is rejected by most theologists. During the Darkness, Lanbril taught mortals to survive by skill and cunning, and by watching out for themselves first. In historical times, thieves and other self-seeking scum plague all communities, following Lanbril’s path.

Lanbril’s gift is to help the guilty to avoid punishment, including death. Death is the final escape; punishment does not follow a Lanbril cultist past the grave, and Lanbril ensures that the soul gets back into circulation, someday.

Nature of the Cult

Lanbril is a cult of the criminal underworld in human societies across the world. Trolls, elves, and dwarfs do not often embrace Lanbril, but the god is not unknown among these races, especially by those who have been tainted by contact with humans. He is the deity to whom thieves and criminals may turn for concealment and improvement of skills.

Lanbril, the patron of sneaks, criminals, and of the human underworld, is the expression of all egotistical and antisocial acts which must be done covertly. Any being, mortal or immortal, who acts in this manner may come under the guidance and protection of Lanbril. The nature of human society is such that Lanbril always finds followers.

This covert cult exists in natural counterpoise to centralizing and ordering forces in society. The stronger the social order, the better the chances for Lanbril thieves. (This creates a natural conflict with Krarsht, who seeks the replacement of Order with Control.) Paradoxically, the Lanbril gangs often regularize the criminal element. Lanbril cultists do not advertise themselves, and are not known to society at large, except as thieves, who provide training in certain skills. The notorious Black Fang of Pavis was a Lanbril cultist during part of his mortal term.

Lanbril supports any established legal and economic order which permits proper conditions for his cult. Therefore most rings do not work as revolutionary agents against an established hierarchy. Most thieves are vocally patriotic, and defend their tribe or town against enemies.

Lanbril likes secrecy, trickery, and treachery to be applied by his followers to established society. Lanbril is not pleased by internecine strife, or violence for its own sake, since many criminal endeavors require precise and trusting co-operation for their success.

	Standard	Cult Specialist
Skills	Climb, Jump, Evaluate, Conceal, Devise, Sleight, Listen, Search, Hide, Sneak,	Fast Talk, Feign Death, Foil restraints, Shadowing, Voice Mimicry
Alchemy Variable	Brew: Acid, Blade Venom, Poison,	Craft: Dust of Death, Sleep Powder
Alchemy Fixed	-	Craft: Thunder Lung Dust, Visibility Dust, Scent-Stop Dust, Stink Dust, Smoke Bombs, Flares
Spirit Magic	Mobility, Befuddle, Glamour, Mind Speach, Glue	Conceal Item, Face of Lanbril, Forget
Divine Magic	Any	Concealment, Divination Block

Lanbril Special Alchemy Skills

Costs to Make and Buy

Skill Make Cultists Others Thunder Lung Dust 20L 40L 200L Visibility Dust 30L 60L 300L Scent-Stop Dust 10L 20L 100L Stink Dust 10L 20L 100L Smoke Bombs (Powder) 20L 40L 200L Smoke Bombs (Globe) 100L 150L 600L Flares 15L 30L 200L

Skill Make / POT Cultists / POT Others / POT Dust of Death 8L 16L 80L Sleep Powder/Venom 20L 40L 100L

Thunder Lung Dust

When a character inhales this substance, he must immediately make a CON x 1 roll or begin to sneeze, choke and undergo general upper respiratory distress, so that he can do nothing but clutch his sides and suffer. The symptoms remain for as long as the character is inside teh cloud; he may move out of the cloud, or wait for it to disperse, which takes five minutes in the open on a calm day. Each round that the character inhales some of the cloud, he must make his CON roll anew.

Once free of the cloud, he may try to foll CON x 3 or less to recover from the symptoms once per melee round. While a victim is busy choking and wheezing, their movement is reduced by half, and no magic or skill use is possible.

Dust of Death

This is a new way to disperse standard CON poisons. The dust is a speareate recipe from the ordinary poisons described in the rules and costs more. the cloud will last for five minutes ina calm environment, and then will disperseat the rate of 1 POT per minute.

Visibility Dust

This anti-magical substance collects on the surface of skin, clothing, etc. and negates the spirit magic spell of invisibility. The dust cloud persisits for five minutes, during which any beings moving through it will become coated with the dust. The surface dust will negate Invisibility until it is cleaned off.

Scent-Stop Dust

This product is sprinkled behind a fleeing party and will block any scent trail which might exist. Dogs and other scenting creatures can follow the trail through this substance only on a critical tracking roll. A single ddose of the compound will cover 10 meters of trail. This dust is often used where trackers can't simply circle and pick up the trail again. The effects of teh dust last for as long as does the scent, effectively blocking the track forever.

Sleep Powder/Sleep Venom

This acts as a systemic poison in the air or on a blade, respectively. Failure to resist with CON vs POT of the chemical results in the victim falling unconscious for 25-CON full turns. If the victim resists the poison, he is still incapacitated fro a single melee round if the poison ad at least a 10% chance of overcoming his CON.This incapacitation takes the form of momentary extreem drowsiness, and the character will not fall down, but nay not attack, and his parry is halved.

Smoke Bombs

These devices work either by burning compressed powders in ceramic jars, or by smashing globes of special liquids which volatilize into opaque vapours. Smokes are opaque and are bright black or white. A single smoke bomb produces enough smoke to completely block an are of 100 x 100 x 10 meters. The smoke is non-toxic, and does not smell strongly. It is non-lethal, though an intense dose may cause characters to cough.

Flares

Flares cause bright flames which last from a melee round up to five minutes or more. Basically, flares consist of powders compressed into paper or ceramic containerizes. They can be made to burn in any flame colour, and can even be designed to propel burning material into the air, like a Roman candle. In the event that a burning flare hits something, it may cause damage as a small fire.

Lanbril Special Skills

Feign Death

Manipulation 10%

This esoteric skill allose the practitioner to conceal himself amid a scene of carnage. Feigning death involves lying absolutely still and maitaining a posture so death-like as to be ignored by enemies. A successful use fo the skill will fool an untrained enemy looking carefully for bodies. A critical roll will even fool a trained healer though not a Detect Life spell or checking pulses etc. A failure will not fool anyone who cared.

Foil Restraints

Manipulation 00%

This is th ability to position onsedelf so that restraining ropes, chains etc. are applied ineffectively. The initial roll must succeed when the bonds are applied. If this initial roll succeeds. the character can try to free himself from the bonds at any future time by again making his Foil Restraints foll successfully. He may try once every five minutes. If the initial roll fails he cannot trry to escape. If he critically succeeded in his initial Foil Restraints roll, he need not roll again to escape, but may release himself at any time.

Shadowing

Stealth 10%

This is the art of secretly following someone around a town or city. It is normally impossible in a rural setting (Hide should be used instead). Success must be rolled every five minutes while the thief shadows the subject. If the shadower fails the skill roll, the subject is allowed a Search roll to notice who is following. If the roll is missed, the subject still knows he is being followed.

Voice Mimicry

Oratory 05%

This ability duplicates the tone of somebody else's voice. Penalties should be assessed against the chances for success if the voice to be mimicked is wildly different from the character doing the mimicking.

Lanbril Spirit Magic

Conceal Item

1 point    Range touch, Focused, Passive, Temporal

This spell acts to conceal a single item smaller than 3 ENC points. An attached satchel of backpack could be concealed with this spell. If the concealed object is a weapon, it will become visible as soon as it is used to attack or parry with. The item is concealed by missdirection, just as a normal invisibility spell conceals a person.

Face of Lanbril

2 points    Range self, Unfocused, Passive, Temporal

This is a general disguise spell, causing the user's face to become exceedingly ordinary and forgettable, so that on wearing this spell is likely to pass unnoticed and forgotten, especially in a crowd. No two uses of this spell give exactly the same face, and the user's clothing also shifts in the direction of ordinariness, though a Search will allow an observer to see that the spell user has either much better of much worse clothing concealed under his 'ordinary clothes'. The spell cannot change sex or race. If f female troll casts it, she will look like a very ordinary female troll, who may still stand out in many places.

Forget

3 points    Ranged, Unfocused, Passive, Temporal

This causes the subject to forget events taking place 10 melee rounds after the casting. The memory loss does not take place immediately, but begins to affect the target about five minutes after the spell is cast. If a guard chases some thieves who successfully hit him with this spell, the guard will not remember the encounter later. This is a good spell to throw on a victim who is already Befuddled.

Lanbril Divine Magic

Divination Block

1 point    Range special, Duration as long as the caster is a living cult member, Non-reuseable, Stackable

Divination Block will block the history of the activities of up to 12 individuals associated with one definable material object for and activity period of up to 12 hours. Alternatively, it may be used to keep the history of one object from being revealed by Divination spells of the Lhankor Mhy Knowledge spell cast by the priests of any god for a period of time in the objects history up to 12 hours in length. The existence of a Divination Block will be revealed to an inquiring priest only on a critical success roll for the Divination. If the spell is stacked, an extra point of spell doubles the period of time covered by the spell. A third point will triple the time etc. Soldier Port

Concealment

2 points    Ranged, Temporal, Eeuseable, Non-stackable

This is a combination of two spirit magic spells, Invisibility and Silence, and has the added bonus of making the Invisibility passive. If the character protected by this spell attacks with missile, melee or magic, he becomes visible for the entire melee round in which he attacks and will disappear again for the start of the next round. In any round the character disengages from melee, he will disappear again at the end of the round of disengagement.

Lanbril Special Devices

Lanbril cultists use a variety of special tools, such as lockpicks, extendable ladders, hooks, knives and saws to enter forbidden places. Som other devices used by thieves are intended to distract - while the guards investigate the device, the thief goes about his business.

Other Lanbril gear include reversible cloaks, reversible hats that can be folded up to be placed in a pocket, spidersilk cloaks that can be folded into a pocket, footholds which atttach to walls without pounding, glass cutters and so forth.

The Magic Chirper

This is a perfect example of a red herring. It consists of a fancy box with a carefully worked grill allowing sound to emanate from the interior, while concealing the insides. The box is well made at a cost of about 100L. Inside the box is a mouse or bird. The design of the box amplifies the normal noises of the poor beast to be loud enough to attract attention. Often the animal is hurt, so that it will whimper, cry, or scream. The cultist will usually cast Farsee on the box, so that it will emanate an aura of magic. This trick may work as often as once a year in a large community. Variations of the trick are obvious - all of them are regularly used.

The Whumper

This is simply a clockwork mechanism in a box which produces percussive noise at a pre-set interval, either rhythmically of in a random pattern. Whumpers are only made in highly civilised areas, such as the interior Lunar Empire of Holy Country; they require complex mechanical skills to produce. Typical Whumpers produce a scraping sound every few seconds. They can also be made to produce a rapping noise every 15-90 seconds, a foot fall every minute or so, or similar sounds, always to distract and lure away guards. Whumpers can cost anywhere from 100 - 1000L, depending on the reliability, flexibility, and quality of the device, how far it has traveled from its maker, and on how well the seller likes the purchaser.

The Thief's Helper

This assists in entering buildings. It looks like an ordinary staff, 1.5 meters long, but it is made of telescoping tube sections with a claw grapple at one end and a chisel spike on the other. Magical ones sometimes include matrices for Glue or Silence. When the thief is ready to enter a building, the Helper is extended by sliding out the sections and fixing them in place with pegs (which also serve as ladder rungs). The ladder may be made as long as 4 meters. The helper is set into the ground, or is hooked onto the end of a protrusion on the building. A Glue spell can make things more stable. The thief then climbs up the ladder to the desired height and draws the Helper up. The spike on the end is strong enough to be used to jimmy open windows, etc.; the collapsed Helper is sturdy enough to be used in combat as a staff.

Weapon	Damage	STR/DEX	ENC	Base%	Armour	SR
Quarterstaff	1d8	9/9	1.5	10	8	1
Helper	1d8	9/9	2.0	10	6	1