On Mildish clothes and arms

 ‘Tis for Wylltin-Milde, my city setting, the border town between Earth and Hell. I wrote classes for it before here.

Art by yours truly - example of clothing across social classes

In an age of firearms, warbeasts and cognitive weapons, walking around wearing armor makes you look like an absolute madman. For every item slot worth of armor which cannot be hidden under clothing, you suffer -1 to reaction rolls. 

Clothing can be worn without taking any inventory slots, unless otherwise stated.

Things to wear instead of armor:

1. Military uniform weighed down by medals. Respectable, regardless of one’s politics.

2. Public Projects Committee sash. You can get into most places just by looking confident and vaguely competent. 

3. Fur hat. Breathes once every 24 hours, moves like a cat, and follows basic commands. Eats 1 ration worth of food per day.

4. Vat-grown leather jacket. Modeled after an animal of choice. Predators will think twice before attacking you.

5. Mass produced button-up. Has stains of your choice [cooking oil; grease; paint; sooth; blood]. While in poorer districts you can disappear in crowds like a drop of water in the ocean.

6. Electrician gloves. New invention to go along with the fresh power grid, powered by thousands of electrogenesis-capable abominations. 

7. Mirrored glasses. Full protection from psychomancers and visual cognitive weapons. 

8. Freakishly tall hat. Mildish folk tend to think you’re well-read and educated. -2 to reaction rolls from people sitting behind you in the theatre.

9. Freakishly wide hat. Kill yourself. Grants you a wide berth in crowds.

10. Horse riding pants. Western cultural import. Insanely tight. Grants +2 to rolls when riding any animal, and -1 to any rolls requiring mobility or flexibility.

11. Hell-diving suit. All the disadvantages of regular armor, but enforces conventional physics on the wearer even in face of demonic influence. Takes up 3 slots.

12. Nothing, to show off your full back tattoo. Pick one, it either looks attractive or tough.

Every character is malproficient with firearms unless otherwise stated, and suffers disadvantage on attack rolls made with them. 

Carrying most weapons in the open is highly illegal, and even if it wasn’t, it earns you weird looks on the street. 

Inconspicuous weapons to use instead:

1. Glass bottle full of local alcohol. Perfectly legal to drink in public, and deals d6 blunt damage. Shatters on a 6, turning into a d6 piercing/slashing damage instead. Shatters on a 6, turning into broken glass in your hand. Ouch.

2. Garrote wire. Used in some districts to kill wild dogs for stew. Advantage on wrestling. Deals d4 damage a turn while the victim is subdued.

3. Mildish knives. Local brands are famous worldwide, and just barely escape the categorization of “weapons” due to general utility, and extensive lobbying campaigns. The 318’s Orbitowski switchblade is a popular choice, but many prefer the 324’s Kantoch butterfly knife for extra style. d6 slashing/piercing either way. The 298 standard issue trench knife deals d8 and extends the damage types by blunt due to its impressive skull cracker, but it takes 2 whole inventory slots, and carrying it openly makes everyone you lock eyes with feel like there is a gun pointed directly at their forehead. 

4. Hammer. After the weapon ban the number of self attested carpenters in the city skyrocketed. Carrying the tools of their trade with pride, they might yet assemble a single chair one day. d8 blunt. Can be thrown with great style.

5. Shovel, hoe, rake. As unstylish as it’s inconspicuous - you’re closer to a street cleaner than a killer. Not a bad pick, if you’re not worried about your image, which is exactly why it’s a bad pick. d8 blunt, long reach, disadvantage in closed spaces.

6. Hat pin. Eastern cultural import. Depending on the social circle, it makes you look weird and foreign, or very fashionable. d6 piercing.

7. Reinforced gloves. Northern cultural import. The gloves, I mean. Embedding metal into them is as Mildish as things get. d6 blunt.

8. Cognitive bomb. In 308 the Mildish government discovered the existence of exactly 28 phrases hard-coded into the human consciousness, the effects of which range from sudden seizures to a temporary ego eradication. Unauthorized possession of one of those phrases is considered a crime punishable by death. Requires earplugs to use with any effectiveness. Damage not measurable in any way that matters. 

9. Demon. Pseudogeographical hyperconstruct, contained within a 3.1 cm diameter lead ball, itself trapped in 20 layers of bubblewrap. Sudden movement awakens the beast within, causing a short but heated debate between it and conventional laws of physics. Unpredictable - d100 damage in an undisclosed radius. Highly illegal, and so extremely rare no one would recognize it at first glance. Causes irreversible damage to reality.

10. Rat poison. They just die if they eat this.

And ways to hide the conspicuous ones:

1. Bone and flesh. Just ask your local street doctor.

2. Second skin. For people who fear actual surgery - a thin layer of fake skin sculpted specifically to conceal small objects. Causes irritation upon removal, and takes 5 minutes to reapply.

3. Leather guitar case. Can’t beat the classic. Patches from all over the world do an honorable job covering holes - earned diligently through years of pub brawls and alleyway scraps - in the fake leather.

4. Embedded in a walking stick. With sarcomancy able to easily replace whole limbs, it's somehow more suspicious than carrying a sword in the open, which makes it a powerful fashion statement. 

5. Embedded in an umbrella.

6. Cigarette pack. Hides small firearms, bullets, or both. Mildish cultural equivalent of putting threads and needles into old cookie boxes.

7. Long poncho. Hides up to 2 item slots of items. As an added bonus, it makes you look very rural.

8. Cognizant Technique. Carried so openly it’d be considered brazen, were it not for the fact no one seems to register its existence. Favorite trick of psychomancers, until some asshat killed the Minister of Public Projects with it, and ruined the fun for everyone. 

General rules on Mildish style are listed below. None of these are absolute. In fact, when thinking of someone’s outfit, aim to break at least 1 of these.

• Loose fabrics, light button-ups, buttonless jackets and cardigans. The oceanic winds can be a bitch, but most days are warm and moist. Pants specifically tend to be loose and baggy, wrapped around and knotted at the waist with a piece of cloth.

• Embroidery is KEY. More tight knit clans may still use patterns created hundreds of years ago, and even when buying the mass produced garbage from textile mills it’s customary to personalize it a bit. Goverment clerks are provided with an uniform, but it's frankly embarassing to not customize it. Mercantile clans regularly hire in-house embroiderers from the countryside.

• Accessories are bone for poorer folk, zinc for most, jade for rich folk. Piercing and buttons are most common. Necklaces and bracelets are gaining in popularity. Rings barely ever show up, unless brought by migrants.

• No modesty culture. Mildish culture originated in matriarchal and matrilineal Destran traditions. Female breasts are not seen as inherently sexual, and nudity is not that much of a taboo.

• Body modyfications. Mildish folk see the body as a canvas, and the gift of sarcomancy lets them tweak the paintings often. Elaborate piercings or face tattoos are commonplace enough as to not draw attention. More extreme body modifications are about as shocking as any of the above in real life. Old people will complain, young will roll their eyes.

• Good hat = tall hat. 

I'm posting the exact same artwork a second time, because I'm damn happy with it. Sue me.