RPG Ability: Disposition of Skulls

As you follow the skeleton through the cemetery, he gambols over the headstones and says conversationally, "I don't see how you living can have conversations without seeing each others' skulls. How can you tell what someone's thinking with all that flesh in the way?" You tell the skeleton that, for the living, facial expressions depend on the flesh of the face. He shakes his head and replies, "No no no, that's all wrong! The flesh can deceive you, but the expression on someone's skull is always true. Here, I'll show you..."



Disposition of Skulls allows characters to see through a person's face and glimpse the expression on that person's skull. When viewed with this ability, skulls are not always grinning, and are in fact better indicators of what a person is truly feeling than the face is.

This ability will always show a single expression to represent the target's overall mood and attitude. In order for a character to use this ability, the character must be able to see through the target's face to its skull. Therefore, it only works on creatures that have skulls, but not on creatures that only have skulls and not faces. Thus, it would not work on a thri-kreen (which has an exoskeleton, not a skull) or a lich whose face is only a skull.

Players have to announce that their character is going to attempt to read the Disposition of an NPC's skull. The DM then reveals the look on the NPC's skull and grants the PC a relevant bonus on the next Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check.