21 Grams of Silver (GLOG Warlock)

Another Flash in the Pan class for ya’ll as I put the finishing touches on the first full release of LIGAMENTS. This time it’s a class that’s a jack of all trades, and trades away the soul of jack. The Soul Merchant.

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Soul Merchant

Striding with purpose through the wet mud dappled with hoof-prints and wheel tracks, the man in the black cloak and hat with a shimmering silver cane was searching for something. After a moment, he found it, a small rune engraved within the design of a butcher’s sign.

By the time he left, his bag, which had been laden with strange silver coins, was empty. He had a fresh horse, enough food for a month-long trip, and a well-sharpened knife.

And the butcher had more workers, and meat, on the way.

A: Death’s Toll, Call It
B: Soul Food, Investment Opportunity
C: Black Bag
D: Double or Nothing

Gear: An easily concealed light firearm, a slick black hat, a light folding shovel, a well-worn book of various funeral rites, and 10 silver coins.

A: Death’s Toll

Money makes the world go round, and you deal in a specific kind of currency. The souls of the dead, trapped in sterling silver coins. To capture a soul, you place a coin in the mouth of the deceased and perform their funeral rites, reversed. This traps their soul in the silver coin, which takes on a ghostly shimmer, depicting the soul’s visage on one side, and a symbol depicting their life on the other.

You may spend these souls to manifest soul constructs of weaponry, tools, and even facsimiles of spells or tonics. All it takes is a gambit action, and spending the correct amount of souls. Each soul coin takes up an entire slot of capacity, you may have a number of manifestations active equal to your Soul Merchant templates. You can dismiss manifestations at any time, but they’re gone.

#	Manifestation
1	Gear (Light)
1	Weapon (Melee, Polearm, or Throwing)
1	Minion (costs 1 soul to summon, and 1 every morning)
1	Magic Die (must be spent immediately)
1	Spell (Random, or +1 to pick)
2	Weapon (Splash, Missile, or Firearm)
2	Gear (Heavy)
2	Tonic (rolled randomly or +1 soul to pick)
3	Mount (costs 1 soul every morning)
3	Gear (Unwieldy)
X	Vehicle (capacity is thrice X)

Each soul will be from a person who was once living and breathing. To reflect that, feel free to roll on this table, as well as the career table, to flesh them out. The personality will come up for minions, mounts, and memories, while the style will probably affect the spells and gear you make with their souls.

1d12	Personality	Style
1	Sorrowful	Patchwork
2	Haughty	Lavish
3	Stoic	Minimal
4	Curious	Cosmic
5	Pious	Spiritual
6	Helpful	Soft
7	Prickly	Rotten
8	Childlike	Toyetic
9	Fearless	Riveted
10	Inventive	Clockwork
11	Bestial	Totemic
12	Calculating	Casino

A: Call It

You may flip a soul coin in the air, and say “call it”, meaning pick if it will land on heads or tails. If you or an ally call it right, you get +2 on their next luck test, or knowledge granted by the soul’s career for 1d6 turns. If you call wrong, the soul is spent.

B: Soul Food

For a Soul Merchant, a single soul works just as well as a ration. When you eat a soul coin, flip it. On heads, your mind is altered by the personality of the soul, and their goals become yours for the duration of a manifestation. On tails, you resist their influence but can pull on their memories and career knowledge for the same amount of time.

B: Investment Opportunity

You have the ability to collect souls from willing individuals, who agree to take part in a simple ritual. This ritual involves you placing a silver coin on their tongue and reciting the magic words, thus transferring their soul to the coin.

While their soul is removed, they cannot be frightened, cannot connect with their god, and feel dulled emotions. While you hold their soul, they cannot intentionally harm you, and follow your orders. Spending the souls of the living on manifestations will return those souls to their correct bodies once the manifestations disappear.

To the right buyer, however, a soul coin is worth much more and can be traded for information and services. These buyers are not easily found, but mark their shops with a crest unique to them. They value certain kinds of souls and rely on discretion in their dealings.

C: Black Bag

Given an hour of peace and quiet, you can spend a soul to weave shadows and darkness into a black satchel. It is unassuming, blends in with your clothing, and takes up a single slot, but can hold up to five soul coins. On the back of the bag is your unique crest, which is given to you, not chosen. Manifestations may also be stowed in the black bag instead of dismissing them, though they still count for your maximum number of manifestations.

D: Double or Nothing

If you would fail a roll, you may flip a soul coin, and call it. If you are correct, the roll succeeds, with a distinct extra advantage. If you are wrong, your black bag, and all souls on your person, disappear into nothingness, taken by the brothers.