Domnio: Risus Dungeons

Namsnik's Tome of Clichs

by Berin Kinsman
http://UncleBear.com

The Rule of Clichs

Clichs in the tunnel-ridden, monster-infested world of Domnio work exactly the same way they
do in plain vanilla Risus. We just need to mix something in with the vanilla to give it a little bit of
flavor. Somewhere within a player character's clichs should be included a Race, at least one Class,
and at least one reference to an Attribute. This can be flat-out homage to the world's most popular
fantasy role-playing game and be presented in the format of Human Wizard 4, Intelligence 4,
Charisma 3. Or you can get creative and write the character as Elven Noble of the lineage of
Pelyster, Mnemuil and Golbondyr 4, Wise Cleric of the Goddess Distolfynk 4, Strong Fighter of
the House of Phelgond 4 and get all the associated weight, role-playing opportunities, and other
karmic swag that go along with such a description.

Pick a Race
Only one race per character, please. Well, two, technically, if you're playing a half-elf or half-orc.
The common races are listed below. If you want to play something different, run it by your game
master for approval. Default is human.

Dwarf: see in the dark, at home underground, tough

Elf: low-light vision, immune to sleep and charm
Gnome: low-light vision, good with animals, tinkering
Half-Elf: Low-light vision, immune to sleep and charm
Half-Orc: strong and tough and big
Halfling: small, good at thiefy-stuff

Pick a Class
You can technically have as many classes as you want, if you can work them into your character's
clichs. If you don't want the can to get too silly, the game master should limit players to one class
per clich. This will avoid the inevitable Assassin-Barbarian-Bard-Cleric-Fighter-Paladin-Ranger-
Thief-Wizard 6 and goofy stuff like that. That's the sort of min-maxing that makes other games
kind of annoying and drove us to Risus in the first place, right? Single-class clichs will give you
characters like Human Barbarian from the Simolian Wastes 3, Mercenary Fighter in the Company
of Istulstan the Red 2, Ranger of the Picayune Wilds 2, Thief of the City-State of Zyngarf 3,
reflecting all of the things the character has done in their life up to this moment.
If you insist on having multiple classes within a single clich it should be limited to two, maybe
three if your game master is incredibly lenient, and that should be the only clich with a class in it.
So if you really want Gnome Bard/Assassin 4, the other clichs should expand on other character
traits.

Assassin sneak around, kill people, work with poison

Barbarian see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women
Bard sing songs, cast some spells, act all handsome and dashing, sing more songs
Cleric mediate between gods and men, heal wounds, hit things with blunt objects
Druid cast spells, talk to trees and wolves and stuff, mess around with herbs and stuff
Fighter kill stuff with all kinds of weapons and wear big cool-looking armor
Monk kill stuff with your bare hands and wear no armor
Paladin kill stuff with some god or another on your side, heal people
Ranger track stuff, talk to animals, and shoot stuff with arrows
Thief sneak around, find traps, steal stuff, stab people in the back
Wizard cast spells, cast more spells, talk to your cat, and cast spells

Pick an Attribute
Unlike the classic game of killing things and taking their stuff, you don't have to account for every
Attribute in Domnio, just the one's you're good at. Even then, it's going to be assumed that a
character is good with certain attributes based on Race and Class. Dwarves are assumed to be tough,
and thus having a good Constitution. Paladins have a lot of Charisma, Thieves have better-than-
average Dexterity, and so on. If you put down Strong Fighter or Wise Cleric, it's redundant.
Better to add an Attribute clich that's off the path for the class or race (Strong Halfling) or givie
it a different rating than the class or race (Barbarian 3, Strong 4)

Strength measures your characters muscle and physical power.

Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons.
Wisdom describes a characters willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition.
Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance.
Constitution represents your characters health and stamina.
Charisma measures force of personality, persuasiveness, and physical attractiveness.

About Risus
Risus: The Anything RPG by S. John Ross is free to download and fun to play and you should
check it out sooner rather than later if you haven't already. The same goes for Domnio, which can
be found at UncleBear.com and sundry other places on teh intarweb. The same goes for this
document, as a matter of fact.

The Random Spell Name Generator is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.