Eclipse d20 – Kartikeya, Level Six Vedic Warrior

Today it’s a sample character that I helped set up for (someone else’s) Eclipse game set in the Forgotten Realms – however it was apparently set around a Nexus of Reality in the High Forest, and so allowed characters to wander in from all kinds of places. In this case, we have a Spearman from the battles of the Rig Veda with a fair number of oddities because – after all – it’s rather expected that anyone running an Eclipse-based game will customize things a bit. I’ve rummaged him out to help with some recent questions about how Presence can be used, since he makes extensive (or near-abusive) use of it. 

Kartikeya

• Level Six Vedic Master Of The Divine Spear.
• Male, Age 17, Black Hair, Green Eyes, Swarthy Skin, 5’9, 115 Lb, Patron Deity: Agni.

Species Template: Homo Sapiens Sapiens: Tribal Endurance Hunter, Projectile Predator (31 CP / +0 ECL):

• Bonus Feat (6 CP): Humans get their usual bonus feat at level zero.
• Fast Learner, Specialized for reduced cost/skills only (3 CP): | Humans get (Level + 3) bonus skill points.
• Tribalism (6 CP): +2 Morale Bonus to Attacks, Damage, Saves, and Checks when defending members of their immediate tribe or family – or such close personal friends as the game master feels qualify. They will qualify for this bonus while hunting down and fighting a monster that’s been attacking their village or kin, but not when simply looting or generally protecting civilization or some such.
• Projectile Predator (3 CP): +1 Racial Bonus to attacks with projectile weapons.
• Heat Tolerance (6 CP): +4 Racial Bonus on saving throws to resist the effects of fatigue, heat exhaustion, and similar difficulties.
• Enduring Traveler (4 CP): +20′ ground movement only for use in calculating long-distance travel ranges.
• Heritage (3 CP plus one Disadvantage): Their choice of a six CP benefit derived from their family background.

Available Character Points: 168 (L6 Base) + 10 (Disadvantages: History, Obligations, Hunted by Asuras (evil spirits)) + 30 (Racial, L1, L2, L4, L6 Bonus Feats) +12 (Duties to his Patron Gods) = 220 CP.

Basic Attributes: Str 14 (+2 Level +4 (First Vedic Yoga – Mantra, hereafter VY) = 20), Dex 14 (+4 VY +6 Enh = 24), Con 14 (+2 Wealth +4 VY +6 Enh = 26) , Int 14 (+4 Enh = 18), Wis 12, Cha 12.

Basic Purchases (132 CP):

• Base Attack Bonus: +6 (36 CP)
• Hit Points: 48 (L1-6d8, 24 CP) ) +16 (4d4, VY / Biotech) +12 (2d6 Immortal Vigor) +156 (12 x (Str Mod + Con Mod)) +1 (Wealth) = 233 HP (DR 3/- due to Armor)
  • Advanced Improved Augmented Bonus: Add (Str Mod) to (Con Mod) for HP calculations. Specialized and Corrupted/only the first six hit dice. (6 CP).
  • Reflex Training with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized in Defensive Actions (such as dodging an attack) (6 CP).
• Saving Throws:
  • Fortitude +3 (Purchased, 9 CP) +8 (Con) +2 (Mor) = +13.
  • Reflex +3 (Purchased, 9 CP) +7 (Dex) +2 (Mor) = +12.
  • Will +3 (Purchased, 9 CP) +1 (Wis) +2 (Mor) = +6.
    • Luck with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized in Saving Throws (6 CP).
• Proficiencies: All Simple Weapons (3 CP), Light Armor with Smooth (6 CP).
• Skill Points: +0 (0 CP) +36 (Fast Learners) +36 (Int) +2 (Wealth) = 74 SP
  • Adept: Half cost for Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, & Martial Arts (6 CP).
  • Adept: Half cost for Background, Stealth, Survival, and Thievery (6 CP).
  • Upgrade Human Fast Learner to Double Effect (3 CP).
  • Fast Learner, Specialized in Skills for Double Effect (+8 SP at L1, +2 SP per Additional Level) (6 CP).
  • Access to Occult Skill: First Vedic Yoga – Mantra (Biotech) at Base Cost (Party Template, 0 CP).
• Armor Class: 10 (Base) +14 (+9 Full Plate +3 Enh +2 Wealth) +4 (Shield) +7 (Dex) +3 (Natural) = 38
• Initiative: +7 (Dex) +5 (Nerveskitter) +3 (VY) = +15
  Movement: 30′ +30 Enh = 60.

Favored Attacks:

• Spear (Melee): +21/+21/+16 (+6 BAB +4 (BAB Comp) +5 (Str), +2 Mor, +2 Enh +2 Wealth), 2d10 +1d6 (electrical) +10 (+5 Str +3 Enh +2 Wealth), Crit 20/x3 +2d10 electrical. Considered Adamant, 25′ Reach, +2 in Special Abilities. 8 Attacks of Opportunity, 2d6 Sneak Attack.
• Spear (Thrown): +23/+23/+18 (+6 BAB +4 (BAB Comp) +7 (Dex), +2 Mor, +1 PP +1 Enh +2 Wealth), 2d10+8 (+5 Str +1 Enh +2 Wealth), 20′ Range Increment, Crit 20/x3. Considered Adamant, +1 in Special Abilities, 2d6 Sneak Attack
• “Unarmed” (Light Mace): +18/+18/+13 (+6 BAB +5 Str +2 Wealth +2 Mor, +2 MA +1 Enh), 1d10+8 (+5 Str +2 Wealth +1 Enh), Crit 20/x2, Ghost Touch, Considered Adamant, Considered Armed, 8 AoO. Can inflict various (slashing, blunt, nonlethal, piercing) damage types at will.

Bloodrune Spear Style: All items in this list are Specialized and Corrupted / only one-fourth (Three) of them can be used at any one time, thus each costs 2 CP. Where relevant save DC’s are (13 + Con Mod) = 21 (24 CP).

Several of these styles are built around Presence, Specialized and Corrupted for Triple Effect (a third level spell effect) / only takes effect once per round, only affects a single opponent who was just hit by one of the user’s melee attacks, only one such effect can apply with any one effect, although the user may choose which one (if any) if more than one is possible (6 CP). This is a bit cheesy – but it will mean that a fighter using these tricks will be as effective as a mid-range spellcaster. That’s probably a good thing.

• Blades Of Blood: Presence/all enemies within 10′ are attacked by Persistent Blades (and so are automatically flanked. As a L1 spell effect, this has no special requirements),
• Bloodstrike: +2d6 Sneak Attack.
• Bloodsong: Awareness. The user cannot be caught flat-footed
  • Bloodsong Symphony: The user cannot be flanked (requires that Bloodsong Awareness be in use).
• Beasts of Blood (Presence, as above): Summons a Dire Wolf to fight for you (As per Summon Nature’s Ally in general, Caster Level = Your Level) when you wound an opponent. If you happen to be fighting an undead creature the wolf will look either starving or skeletal, and if you happen to be fighting a construct it will seem to be made of metal, stone, or whatever, but the difference is only cosmetic. This is a great way to keep crowds back and to flank opponents though.
• Drink The Heartblood (Presence, as above): Vampiric Touch upon the creature struck.
• Baleful Bloods Call (Presence, as above): Attempt to inflict Bestow Curse on the creature struck (most commonly in the form of a disabling wound)
• Blood Poisoning (Presence, as above): Attempt to inflict a Poison spell on the creature struck.
• Blood Infusion Stance (Presence, Specialized and Corrupted (applies to the user only, only while free to move to use martial stances) for Increased Effect / Two unrelated L1 effects that apply to the user only. His Armor is affected by Chitin Mail (Lighter, fewer penalties, no movement penalty. On this blog) and his Weapons do damage as if they were one size category larger.
  • Note that this – thanks to the character having developed both Chitin Mail and a Spear Boosting effect as innate enchantments – is now mostly redundant. He will probably wish to retrain this maneuver at some point.
• Invigoration Of The Blood: Presence (as with Blood Infusion: Two unrelated L1 effects that apply to the user only. Floating Disk (the user may run a few feet above the ground – or above water – and Resurgence (the user gets a second chance on a saving throw once per round).
• Vigorous Flowing Blood: Opportunist / Each time the user makes an attack he or she may take a 5′ Step, Note that this applies to Attacks of Opportunity as well.
• Rage Of Blood (Presence, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect; Applies the L3 Awesome Wrath (The Practical Enchanter) spell to the user: +4 Morale Bonus to Str and Con, +2 Morale Bonus to Will Saves).

This is basically one of the Eclipse methods of building freeform Magical Martial Styles, similar to those found in the Tome Of Battle. If you’re going for reasonably high-end combatants, taking some of these is probably a good idea.

Skills (All +4 Competence,+2 Morale, add +2 Masterwork Tools whenever relevant)

• Acrobatics: +9 (4* SP) +7 (Dex) = +22 (Tumble +25)
• Arcana: +1 (1 SP) +4 (Int) = +11 (+14 on Stances).
• Athletics:+9 (4* SP) +5 (Str) = +20 (Jump +32 from Move).
• Background: +9 (4* SP) +4 (Int) = +19
  
  • Perform (Dance), Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Mason, Teacher
• Deception: +1 (1 SP) +1 (Cha) = +8
• Endurance:+9(9SP) +8 (Con) = +23
• Handle Animal: +1 (1 SP) +1 (Wis) = +8
• Insight : +1 (1 SP) +1 (Wis) +2 (We) = +10
• Linguistics: +1 (1 SP) +4 (Int) = +11
  
  • Chondathan (“Common”), Chessentic, Akalaic, Illuskan, Draconic, Jotun
• MA/Kalarivel (Vedic Spear): +9 (4* SP) +7 (Dex) = +20 (No Morale)
  
  • Strike, Power III, Sneak Attack II, Reach II, Inner Strength. Wrath (Cold).
• MA/Malla-Yuddha (“Unarmed” Combat): +9 (4* SP) +7 (Dex) = +20 (No Morale)
  
  • Attack II, Power II, Versatility, Battlecry (Will DC 18), Breaking, Mind Like Moon, Inner Strength, Ki Block.
• MA/Hatha Yoga (Purifying Meditations): +9 (4* SP) +8 (Con) = +21 (No Morale)
  
  • Strike, Toughness IV, Instant Stand, Mind Like Moon, Inner Strength x2, Healing Hand, and Light Foot.
• Perception: +9 (4* SP) +1 (Wis) = +16 (Spot +19)
• Persuasion: +1 (1 SP) +1 (Cha) +2 (We) = +10
• Religion: +1 (1 SP) +1 (Wis) +8 (+11 Patron Pantheon)
• Scholar: +1 (1 SP) +4 (Int) = +11
• First Vedic Yoga – Mantra +9 (9 SP) +6 (Con, excluding it’s own modifier) (No Morale) = +19
• AKA Occult Skill/Biotech. +4d4 HP (3), +4 Str (3), +4 Con (3), +4 Dex (3), Immunity (Negative Energy, 3), +3 Initiative (3), Extended Lifespan (1).
• Stealth: +9 (4* SP) +7 (Dex) = +22
• Survival: +9 (4* SP) +1 (Wis) = +16
• Thievery: +9 (4* SP) +7 (Dex) = +14
• Use Device: +3 (3 SP) +1 (Cha) = +10

*Adept, Half Cost
+3 Skill Specialties: Stances, Patron Pantheon, Spot, Tumble (4 SP).
Specific Knowledges (0 SP):

This character is using a condensed skill list, and – as such – is a fair skill monkey. I have seen a few characters using an Immunity to use a condensed skill list in games that normally use the basic skill list. That’s worthwhile for any skill monkey if the game master lets you get away with it. 

Innate Enchantments (26 CP):

Innate Enchantment, Specialized for Increased Effect / no eternally-directed effects, requires an hour of meditation and practice each day to operate, runic tattoos give the effects away to knowledgeable observers (Arcana DC 20). Up to 11,500 GP Value (6 CP). In general, Spell Level One x Caster Level One x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x .7 Personal Only (Where applicable).

• Martial Mastery (Spear): +4 Comp. Bonus to BAB for Spears (1400 GP).
• Fast Healing I: Heals 20 points/HD/day at 1 HP/Turn (1400 GP).
• Immortal Vigor I: +2d6 bonus HD (12 HP plus Con bonus x2) (1400 GP).
• Sustenance: 1/4’th need to eat, sleep, drink and breathe (1400 GP).
• Nerveskitter: +5 bonus on Initiative Checks (1400 GP).
• Personal Haste (The Practical Enchanter), +30′ Enhancement Bonus to Movement Modes, +1 attack at highest BAB when making a Full Attack (2000 GP).
• Chitin Mail (This blog): User’s armor is treated as being one category lighter. The maximum dexterity bonus increases by two, the armor check penalty is reduced by two, arcane spell failure goes down by 15% (to a minimum of 5%), and the speed penalty is eliminated (2000 GP).
  
  • Due to Wealth and Chitin Mail all Armor -2 weight categories (to Light).
  • Due to Smooth Modifier Light Armor has no penalties.
• The Blessing Of The Wanderer (97 GP worth of mundane “equipment” as natural abilities).
  
  • Cold and Hot Weather Outfits with Poncho and Boots (17 GP). Wanderers are very tolerant of bad weather and never need shoes.
  • Cooking Kit (3 CP): Wanderers can cook anywhere as if they had suitable tools.
  • Cot and Nice Bedroll (2 GP): Wanderers can sleep comfortably almost anywhere.
  • Folding Chair and Table (5 CP): Wanderers always seem to be able to find a comfortable place to sit and a good place to set a plate and glass.
  • Gauntlets/Brass Knuckles/Light Maces (15 GP): Any pair of gloves a Wanderer wears acts as if they were weapons of any of the types listed. That still isn’t much in the way of a weapon, but a wanderer is never helpless. These will work with unarmed martial arts styles though.
  • General Artisans Tools (15 GP). Wanderers can perform basic craftswork with nothing but a handful of twigs and stones.
  • Leather Armor (10 GP): +2 Armor Bonus. Should a wanderer choose to use this ability, their tough and weathered hide counts as Leather Armor.
  • Sling (-). Wanderers can throw rocks as if using a sling.
  • Thieves Tools (30 GP); Wanderers are incredibly resourceful, and can improvise the tools they need. .
• Leaves 403 GP unallocated.

Double Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / Points are only usable for Innate Enchantments (+6 Floating CP/12,000 GP, 6 CP)

• • Master’s Touch: Grants proficiency in any armor worn (x.5 modifier on base price, 1000 GP).
  • Force Shield I: +4 Shield Bonus, immune to Magic Missiles (1400 GP).
  • Personal Heroism: (+2 Morale Bonus to Attacks, Saves, and Checks (SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated = 2000 GP).
  • Remove Fear (SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.7 Personal Only = 1400 GP).
  • Benign Transposition (See Below), (SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.7 Personal Only = 1400 GP).
    
    • Summon Monster 0 with one level of Increased Range, Coupled with Benign Transposition, Creature only exists to provide an exchange point within medium range for Benign Transposition (SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.5 restrictions as noted = 1000 GP).
  • Lesser Restoration, 1/Day/Level, x.5 only to restore Martial Arts Inner Strength (1d4/Level/Day) (1000 GP).
  • Feather Fall: you are immune to falling damage (1400 GP).
• Immunity to XP cost for L0 and L1 innate enchantments (1 CP).
• Immunity to dispelling and antimagic for innate enchantments (9 CP).
• Reflex Training with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to use Benign Transposition.7/Day when needed, if at a maximum of once per round (4 CP).

Mantles and Other Abilities (38 CP):

“Mantles” are Presence effects, generally Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / has no social effects, applies to the user only, shows obvious signs of their effects to the mystically aware (Arcana or Spellcraft DC 20 to get a good idea of what the powers are). This generally means one L3 effect, a pair of L2 effects, or up to three L1 effects. They cost 6 CP Each.

And yes, this is cheese. If it wasn’t for the fact that the character was in a group with a grossly over-optimized mage, an ubercharger using a Minotaur Greathammer, and a dragon, the game master would have been well advised to ask some pointed questions. On the other hand, in a group like that… allowing the spearman a nice big slice of cheese to become a Vedic Warrior seemed pretty reasonable. Moreover, most of these are “I fight good!” – much less disruptive than, say, flight and invisibility. 

• Of the Chaturanga:
  • Greater Invocation of Eldritch Weapon. This makes any Spear the user wields either +1 with a +1 special ability, +2, or – if already magic – adds a +2 special ability (6 CP).
• Of the Gaulmika:
  • Blood of the Ferret (Bite of the Wererat): +6 Dex, +2 Con, +3 Natural Armor, all Enhancement. No physical changes.
  • Spear Mastery: The user’s spears act as if one size category larger and gain +5′ Natural Reach.
• Of the Gajadhyaksha:
  • Enhance Attribute / +6 Enhancement Bonus to Con. (6 CP)
• Of the Digvijaya:
  • Enhance Attribute: +4 Enhancement to Int
  • Skill Mastery (General): +4 Competence Bonus to All Skills (6 CP)

Other Abilities:

• Lunge (6 CP). Specialized in Shortspears for Double Effect (+10′ Reach).
• Reflex Training (Combat Reflexes Variant, 8 AoO) (6 CP).
• Rite of Chi, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore Martial Arts Inner Strength (2 CP)

Magical Items:

This stuff is a bit pricey for level six – but apparently it was loot. It’s probably not really worth it – the same amount of cash could buy a lot of useful stuff (such as the ever-popular Healing Belt) and, as an Eclipse character, Kartikeya has plenty of tricks already – but the player apparently wanted to keep it.

• Armor Of The Brazen Tower: +3 Adamant (DR 4/-) Full Plate.
• Spear of the Ancients: +2 Shocking Burst Spear (1d8 base, +1d6 Electrical, Critical: 20/x3 plus 2d10 electrical damage on a critical hit. Five charges/day:
  
  • 2 Charges – Part of the Attack Action – Add 3d6 Electrical Damage for 1 round
  • 3 Charges – Part of the Attack Action – 10′ burst of 3d6 Electrical Damage
  • 5 Charges – Standard Action – Lightning Bolt 6d6 damage, save DC 16

Charms:

• Astrolable: +5 on relevant checks.
• Amulet of the Stallion: Enhances male potency.
• Bracers of Force: Minor fields that keep off the rain and such
• Dust of Illusion: Creates very minor illusions.
• Elfin Rope: 150′ of very good rope.
• Resounding Horn: Can be heard at great distances.
• Shadow Vellum: Allows instant forgery.

Talismans:

• Tulthara (Shortspear): Whenever the user needs one, a shortspear will appear in his or her hand. These are considered magic and will vanish shortly after being released. The given combat statistics are assuming that he throws these, not the Spear of the Ancients.
• Helm Of War: 7 Charges, regain 1/Week. Spend one (not an action) to prevent extra damage from a critical hit, sneak attack, or similar event.
• Rune Weapon (Gloves). +1 Ghost Touch.

Party Template: Guardians of The Nexus Of Reality

Party Disadvantages:

• Hunted: The forces of Nidhogg the Devourer, the Beast which brings Oblivion. In its quest to destroy the cosmos, Nidhogg finds the various Guardians of the equally-various Nexi of Reality, a dreadful pain – and so it tends to try and send trouble (whether it’s own horrifically twisted creatures or easily-manipulated groups such as the Zerg) against them.
• Obligations: While the Guardians may be entangled in cosmic affairs, they remain people – and as such are bound to the common folk of the nexus as well as to the defense of the Nexus of Realities.
• Accursed: Like it or not, the great powers often meddle with the Guardians. They get shifted through time, charged with dealing with ancient curses, visited by gods, and otherwise harassed – rather like the classical heroes of greek mythology.

Template Effects:

• The Guardians are deeply bonded with the Nexus Of Reality. No matter how lost they may become amidst the myriad planes of reality – or even the planes of the afterlife – should they wish it, they will always find their way back to the nexus eventually. (Returning, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / may take months or years at the option of the game master, 2 CP).
• The Guardians are the allies of the Fey of the High Forest, and enjoy the right of Free Passage through it’s depths. Within the forest they will not be randomly attacked by wild beasts, be delayed by faerie rings and similar distortions of time and space, and will always find food, water, and pleasant places to camp. This does not, however (at least as yet) extend to being allowed to freely transverse the Straight Ways of the Fey – although they may be led upon them on occasion (Minor Privilege / Hospitality of the High Forest, Corrupted for Reduced Cost / Does not include access to the fey paths 2 CP).
• The Guardians stand at the balance-point of Aebir-Toril and its myriad timelines. As such, they may shift the balance of the world and open the hidden ways (1d6 Mana with Reality Editing / Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / Only for Reality Editing, Users have no conscious control of the process, only to affect what worlds currently connect through the High Forest and what emerges from them. Thus, if the Heroes gossip and speculate about – say – entering a mystical tournament, or encountering the Tomb of the Sleeping King, or going hunting for Pokemon… such a thing is quite likely to happen. (Thus giving the GM an excuse for indulging player speculation a bit. 2 CP).
• All the myriad lines of time pass through the nexus of reality as well, and so the Guardians are constants, braced against changes in those timelines. Thus, if they visit the distant past, and save hundreds from the ancient Fall of Netheril – they will remain unchanged, as will those near the nexus, although Aebir-Toril beyond the High Forest may well show some subtle changes, historical notes, and a slightly revised history. Similarly, their origins may lie in either the possible pasts or futures of Aebir-Toril without difficulty (Infusion / Temporal Energies, Specialized and Corrupted / only to gain immunity to Paradoxical Effects and Historical Revisions (2 CP).
• The Guardians are attuned to the High Forest, and to the whispering voices of the Fey that shape it. They thus gain a Specific Knowledge (The Hidden Places and Wonders of the High Forest, 1 CP).
• The Guardians stand at the Nexus of Reality, and so can draw on the exotic talents of distant realms – each finding their own unique secret of the cosmos. They gain access to any one GM-allowed Occult Skill (3 CP) at normal cost (+3 CP).

Wealth Bonuses:

The Wealth Templates from The Practical Enchanter apparently wouldn’t normally apply to this game – but the optimized mage apparently purchased access to one, then boosted it up to near the maximum, and used the ability to support others at a slightly lesser wealth level to hand out wealth bonuses all around. This is another bit of cheese, but since it was another characters cheese…

• Armor and Shields are treated as one category lighter for movement and special ability purposes, have their armor check penalties reduced by two (zero minimum), and gain +2 bonuses.
  
  • In combination with the Chitin Mail effect and buying the “Smooth” modifier for light armor, this means that even heavy armor is treated as light armor and causes no penalties whatsoever.
• The use of seven Charms and three Talismans (The minor items from The Practical Enchanter)
• Mounts, pets, and familiars gain special bonuses if and when you get some. (I think this was a big part of what the mage was after; giving several companion creatures massive boosts apparently gave him a lot of guardians to hide behind).
• +2 to Persuasion and Insight.
• Is considered to be using masterwork tools and references wherever this is relevant.
• Get +2 SP and +1 HP at this level and per each succeeding level while this wealth template applies. (This is permanent even if he loses the other benefits since it’s considered to be a training effect).
• Get +2 to any single attribute of their choice.
• Weapons get a +2 bonus and may be considered Adamant, Silver, or of other non-planar special materials.
• Need not worry about minor expenses and basic supplies.

If it matters, these are “Wealth” bonuses, and will stack with pretty much everything.

Heritage – Feybrew

In an attempt to keep his Grandfather’s drinking under control Kartikeya learned to brew supernaturally powerful drinks from strange and marvelous components, for when his Grandfather demanded distilled visions of the outer planes, or hallucinogenic soma, or something similar.

• Create Artifact: Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only to create various sorts of potions, inks, and lotions. albeit usually in multi-dose flasks, always produces (2d6) doses at random (2 CP). Note that this is not limited to spell-potions. If you want to brew an “Elixir of Frost” to stop fires, create walls of ice, and so on, you are free to do so.
• Immunity/Any need for a potions lab to brew his exotic formulas (Uncommon, Minor, Trivial, 1 CP).
• Specific Knowledge: Exotic “Potion” formulas (1 CP)
• Major Privilege, Specialized and Corrupted / Unless actively prevented the user will always be able to find enough ingredients to keep (Int Mod) moderately-potent concoctions ready to go, but the GM gets the final say as to what you have the ingredients to keep ready each month. It is presumed that concoctions derived from this privilege get used up during downtime if not used up during the month.
• The Associated Drawback is Obligations (Every so often the Fey, who taught you this art, will ask that you locate a few ingredients and brew something for them – although there is rarely any rush).

This is essentially first edition potion-making – back when you might need giant octopus ink, basilisk ichor, rare herbs, and the quill of a cockatrice to scribe a scroll of Protection from Petrification or a sliver from a Unicorn’s shed horn to brew healing potions. It does not, however, cost experience points or require spells. The exotic ingredients and a little time is all that the user requires.

Kartikeya is a quasi-divine hero of the mythic age – a wielder of several supernatural martial arts, enduring enough to fight for days on end, and capable of holding off a small army of normal soldiers. He probably carries some divine blood (hence his being hunted by evil spirits), will be sent on quests by the gods, and should be able to keep up with most other reasonably well-optimized characters – which isn’t easy for a fighter type.

Occult Skills of Modun – Eclipse d20

And for today it’s a selection of Occult Skills from Modun – where such things are almost as common as actual spellcasting. As usual, characters can use the “Occult Skill” ability to take them elsewhere, but may find those that rely on local conditions aren’t a lot of use. It’s all very well to know about the marvelous things that can be done with Stygium – or, for that matter, “Element Zero” – but if there isn’t any to be found in the local setting that knowledge probably won’t do you much good. As for Modun itself…

No one knows the true form of the Puppeteers. Given that – even in the first age, when the greater magics were available and gods still answered – no one ever found and passed on that secret it may well be one of those things that damages mortal minds or is inherently unknowable, or cannot be understood in three dimensions, or draws the attention of eldritch horrors, or some such thing.

Their Marionettes or “Dolls” – spirit-possessed articulated ceramic constructs (suspected to incorporate the ground bones of intelligent beings) with psionic abilities – are much better known. They aren’t necessarily humanoid, but they are almost always small or medium sized, often possess built-in weapons, and – in the case of infiltrators and spies – often disguise themselves with psychoactive skins.

There aren’t many records from before the first Doll Invasion, but what there is tells of an primarily or entirely elven civilization, spread across Modun. There were disturbances of course – monsters, disasters, things from outside, quarreling gods, and possibly even colonies of other races – but for the most part it was a peaceful time.

The first Doll Invasion wrought havoc across the world. It was repelled in the end, but whatever was used to do it did catastrophic damage to the structure of the planes around Modun and to the laws of both Magic and Psionics. Whatever that was, even the folks who lived through it cannot remember it clearly.

• The Gods are said to send dreams and messages on occasion, but they no longer empower their worshipers. Divine Magic – and most high-end healing – no longer exists. Undead, as well as positive and negative channeling (albeit with some limits) do, and – sadly – are harder to stop without high-end divine magic about.
• Effects of levels 1-3 work well enough. Those of levels 4-6 must be supported by both skill and mana – one point for each level beyond three – to “fill in the cracks” in their magical structure, and cannot be augmented further by mana or other effects. Effects of level 7 and up are simply beyond salvage, regardless of the would-be users skill and power.
• The maze of fractured dimensions around Modun blocks magic meant to access other dimensions. Temporary constructs based on local patterns or built of elemental energy may be “summoned” (and occasional beings from outside reach Modun through the maze), but you can’t actually summon monsters, readily jump to other planes, resurrect long departed spirits, or teleport even if the effect you’re using can be gotten to work in the first place.
• Modun became something of a trap. While occasional planar travelers arrived, few could find ways to depart – and so occasional powerful entities were dumped on it, various groups found themselves becoming involuntary colonists, and a variety of dangerously invasive creatures had to be dealt with instead of being banished. Many races may have arrived during this period, although some may have simply been less prominent earlier. The records are too fragmentary for anyone to know.
• The elves and several other magic-sensitive races – exposed to various regions distinctive wild magic – split into numerous subraces.
• It is not uncommon for the spirits of the dead to hang around until someone shows them how to get out through the dimensional labyrinth that surrounds Modun. Most cities and towns have a ritual celebration set up for that purpose every three to six months, although it is not uncommon for spirits to hang around for a few years or decades to say goodbye or to do what little they can to look after their families or to pass on knowledge that they value and fear will be forgotten.

The Second Doll Invasion mostly used humans – from a variety of realms – as proxy troops. Evidently whatever route they found to get in wasn’t large or stable enough to get large numbers of troops out again. The people of Modun managed to break the humans free of Doll control and – in company with their new allies – ran the Dolls off again, although it is likely that some hid if they could not find a way out.

Today, humans are becoming the most populous species, if not necessarily the most dominant – and while it still isn’t clear what the Puppeteers WANT, it is pretty commonly accepted that – sooner or later – Modun will face a third Doll Invasion.

Magic, however, always finds a way to express itself. The scattered shards of it’s structure have birthed a remarkable number of exotic skills that tap into it – allowing many of Modun’s folk fairly easy access to what would be Occult Skills elsewhere. Of course, none of them can be used unskilled and many might be weaker elsewhere, where less random magic is about.

Nevertheless, a great deal of Modun’s magic / psionics is derived from exotic skills, rather than from active spellcasting or the use of powers. They aren’t terribly consistent either; just as some types of magic are more useful, versatile, and powerful than others, so are some of the skills.

Akhasic Correspondent (Cha): This bizarre skill makes the user a wandering reporter for the Akhasic Halls, wherein are stored the lore of the minds of the world. What makes this different from any other broad-based “bardic lore” skill is that it also allows the user to “publish” to the world at large, causing his or her tales to become known to all and sundry, although this is limited by the level of the skill (making a tale known to the entire world has an extremely high DC). Finally the user may go on “deep dives”, seeking out ancient formula, and secrets, and more – although this risks disturbing or attracting the attention of ancient spirits and entities linked to that lore. Searching out the True Name of some terrible entity is not a safe activity… Unfortunately, the price of this power is being the voice of exposition, a deliverer of unwelcome news or prophecies to the powerful, and receiving occasional “assignments” to report on something obscure.

Astrology (Wis) is akin to divination or crystal-gazing rather than mathematics. It allows the user to sense the currents of destiny flowing from the future into the past, to “ride” and “channel” them to some extent, and to garner hints of major future events. This is reasonably common across Modun.

• Active fate manipulation allows the user to slightly twist his or her personal fate. The user gains a number of “Fate Points” equal to his or her skill bonus after spending a day studying the currents of fate and may spend them as per Action Hero (Heroism Option). Of course, as he or she tweaks fate in this way, the future will eventually become too blurred to read and will have to be studied again.
• Looking at an individuals fate requires several hours and allows the user to try and garner information about a creature from afar with a base DC of 5 (Known name, time, and place of birth), 10 (short one item), 20 (short two), and 40 (short all three) – gaining one useful piece of information on a success and one more for every five points by which he or she exceeds the DC.
• Catching glimpses of future events requires some hours of work. The DC depends on the scale of the event, how likely it is to come to pass, how far in the future it is, and how much interference is being run by other powers. Each five points by which the user exceeds the DC will provide one more bit of useful information.
• Anyone with even a single rank in Astrology will always know when the sun will rise and set, as well as planetary motions, and similar – a consequence of the short (by planetary standards) timescale and effective inevitability of such events – as well as the lack of interference. It is generally assumed that it is this effect which provided the name.

Briar Prince Of A Thousand Enemies (Cha): The story has been told a thousand times; there are factions, intrigues, and complex plots lying in wait, mysteries to decipher, innocents to rescue, and groups to aid. There is wealth, status, and influence to be had… and the player characters roll into town, buy a few items, and set the place on fire on the way out. A character with the Briar Prince skill may be a member of some widespread secret organization, be easily recognized by city spirits, or may have passed through before – but they have connections, are owed favors, and have local contacts. They also have local enemies, are the topic of various rumors and stories, and may have obligations or owe favors. Upon arrival in a settlement the user may, in consultation with the game master, “spend” a number of CP equal to his or her Briar Prince bonus on Contacts, Favors, Guises, Privileges, Reputation, Specific Knowledges, and even Favored Foe/Enemy abilities relevant to the locality – but every six points worth of benefits will come with a locally-relevant Disadvantage determined by the game master. The skill can be rolled when specific local details are needed to make a particular role work.

Clockwork Engineering (Int): This occult art allows it’s practitioners to construct “Steampunk” devices, receiving a number of points equal to their skill total to invest in various devices – making things that really shouldn’t work practical Unfortunately, the chaotic nature of Modun’s fractured magic makes things a bit unpredictable at times – and the more points invested in a device, the more materials it will require and the larger it will turn out to be. This is most common amongst the Gnomes.

• Sample Devices: Steam Wheel Bicycle (fast but prone to crashes, 4 Pts), Steam Pistol (3-5 Pts, Light / Heavy), Piston Staff (2-3, Str 20/24), Sleeve Grapnel Launcher/Rewinder (50′ Range, 3 Pts), Steam Launcher (As per Launch Bolt, 12 shots, 2 Pts), Jetpack (8 Pts), Explosive Launch Boots (2 Pts, very hazardous), Zeppelin (24), Optics Helmet (Magnification/Telescopic, +4, 2 Pts), Blowtorch (1 Pt), Pocket Watch (1 Pt), Astrolabe (2 Pts), Orrery (3 Pts), Helm of Underwater Action (6 Pts), Steam Cart (4 Pts).
• It can also be rolled in an opposed skill check to try and figure out what someone else’s Clockwork Device is supposed to do (or to sabotage a Clockwork Device), to try and repair damaged Clockwork Devices, and – for some reason – to tune musical instruments and work on mundane clocks.
• Building a characters personal supply of Clockwork Devices generally requires a day of work in a reasonable workspace, with tools, and sufficient raw materials. Note that these are personal; they will stop working once the character invests their Clockwork Engineering “points” in something else – and sometimes if the user isn’t around to tend to them for too long.
• Clockwork Engineers can work in groups of three or seven to undertake major projects – whether that is three minor engineers who are cooperating on an engine for a riverboat or seven high-level geniuses throwing hundreds of points into building a starfaring clockwork battleship to fight off a spelljammer invasion.

Cool (Cha): Some folk just don’t get flustered. They always look good, they are confident, they pay little attention to anyone else’s opinions or expectations, they always have a laconic or ironic comment ready, they are invited everywhere, they live the good life, and they have various hangers-on. They have style on the level of a supernatural attribute. They have one of the most coveted attributes known to the teenagers of the multiverse. They are COOL.

• Style: Roll to make sure that – no matter if you are covered in mud, or recently tarred and feathered – you make it look good on you, although the DC goes up as that gets more absurd. Looking like a rugged and handsome fellow who’s clothing was obviously meant to look that way after a days adventuring is about DC 15. Are you gravely wounded and covered in slime? DC 25. Tarred and Feathered? Could be up to DC 35.
• Props: You may always have a cigarette or sunglasses to take off (DC 5), a sharply-tailored suit on (DC 10), a sidearm up your sleeve (DC 15), have a bottle of good wine and a nice dinner (DC 20), or be riding a handsome horse / fancy motorcycle (DC 25). Where does this stuff come from and where does it go when you’re done? When you are this cool the universe just goes along with it.
• Lifestyle: Between invitations, guest rooms, dinner parties, and hangers-on, you can live a fine lifestyle in any settlement at no cost. Roll if you wish to gain invitations to specific parties, get services (or sex) from your hangers-on, get treated as an equal by important people, or wish to avoid minor legal consequences or social problems.
• Charms and Talismans: When the universe likes you, some of your stuff performs way above what is normally possible. For every three points of Cool you can use one Charm (The Practical Enchanter). For every seven points of Cool you can use one Talisman.
• Too Cool: Up to (Cha Mod + 1, 1 Minimum) times per day you can roll Cool instead of a Will save. If you succeed even secondary effects are negated.

Dance Of A Thousand Forms (Con): The character has learned to use biofeedback to manipulate their internal magic, allowing (initially) subtle shapeshifting: The powers available, of course, depend on the user’s base skill level (Skill Points + Attribute Modifier + Permanent Personal Skill Boosting Feats) but not other skill enhancements.

• 01) Sense internal changes, such as the actions of parasites, drugs, and toxins.
• 02) Fool technological “lie detectors”, shift your blood pressure, +2 to Bluff.
• 03) Alter minor details, such as fingerprints, retinal prints, and scent. This does not yet allow duplication. Control your own fertility, +2 to Intimidate.
• 04) Alter facial features, a few inches of height, and slightly alter apparent weight and your voice. +2 to Disguise. Gain the equivalent of Endure Elements.
• 05) Physical shifts equivalent to Disguise Self, copy finger- or retinal-prints, alter scents or skin color within your species range, +5 to Disguise.
• 06) Copy other voices, freely change your scent and skin color.
• 07) Gain free use of a specific Aspect Of The (Beast) (The Practical Enchanter) effect (One of the L2 versions that includes Attribute Modifiers).
• 08) Gain free use of a second L2 Aspect Of The (Beast) effect.
• 09) Gain free use of a third L2 Aspect Of The (Beast) effect.
• 10) Gain free use of a fourth L2 Aspect Of The (Beast) effect.
• 11) Gain free use of a fifth L2 Aspect Of The (Beast) effect.
• 12) Gain free use of any L2 Aspect Of The (Beast) effect.
• 13) May freely take on the form of a specific mammalian or reptilian animal of the same basic size.
• 14) May freely take on the form of a second mammalian or reptilian animal of the same basic size.
• 15) May freely take on the form of a specific avian, mammalian, or reptilian animal of the same basic size.
• 16) May freely take on the form of a second specific avian, mammalian, or reptilian animal of the same basic size.
• 17) May freely take on the forms of animals of similar size.
• 18) Add Resistance 5 to one form of energy to all shifts.
• 19) May freely take on the forms of animals of one size class smaller.
• 20) Add Resistance 5 to one additional form of energy to all shifts.
• 21) Add Resistance 5 to one additional form of energy to all shifts.
• 22) Add Resistance 5 to one additional form of energy to all shifts.
• 23) Add Resistance 5 to one additional form of energy to all shifts.
• 24) May freely take on the forms of animals of one size class larger.
• 25) Gain immunity to Lycanthropy.
• 26) May take an action to revert to normal if Polymorphed or similar.
• 27) Upgrade all energy resistances to Resistance 10.
• 28) May breathe underwater regardless of current form.
• 29) Automatically succeeds on the second and subsequent checks against poisons or diseases.
• 30) Automatically reverts to normal if Petrified or Polymorphed after 1d4 rounds.

Dance Of A Thousand Forms is fairly powerful – but it’s in the “bunch of modest bonuses” sense. Gain some minor skill bonuses, pick up some options for animal powers (generally some physical attribute bonuses, natural armor, and minor natural weapons), a bit of energy resistance… all that’s USEFUL, but at the levels it comes online they’re mostly moderate boosts for martial types and skill monkeys.

Earthheart Infusion (Str): The hearts of worlds are not earth, or even stone, but great masses of metal, churning in the darkness. From those hearts flow radiation, the decay products of heavy nuclei, magnetism, gravity, heat – and in the more interesting universes, magic. Even high above the surface, the fields flowing from the worlds cores cradle everything in their invisible embrace. But for those few who know the art… those fields can be channeled into the things you touch, imbuing them with some of the properties of the world’s core. This imbuement can be shifted around, but it will require at least an hour of meditation to do so. This is fairly common among Halflings.

• Continental Drift: Increase the user’s effective size for purposes of bull rush, grappling, and breaking through doors and walls. +1/2/3 sizes for 3/7/12 points.
• Avalanche Strike: Increase the effective size of a weapon. +1/2/3 sizes for 3/7/12 points.
• Imbue an Item (Weapon, Armor, Etc) with the useful properties of an exotic prime material plane metal. Most commonly Iron (2), Mithril (4), or Adamant (5). This makes hide armor as effective as platemail, or quickly-carved sticks as effective as swords.
• Granite Stance: Imbue your clothing or armor with extra mass to gain DR 2/3/5 for 3/7/12 points.
• Rock Throwing: (Base reliant on user’s size: Small 1d4, Medium 1d6, Large 1d8, in all cases +1 1/2 x Str Mod. +1/2/3 extra base dice for 2/4/8 points.
• Iron Fortress. Give the walls and doors of a hut, house, or cave the toughness of iron and the resistance of lead to magical passage (4), seal them against incorporeal intrusion (+2).
• It is also possible to – for example – make a lump of rock very hot, or very magnetic, or extremely heavy – but that tends to be a special-purpose technique.

The Embryonic Pearl (Also known as Opening The Ajna Chakra, The Udjat Eye, and Awakening the Inward Angel) (Wis): This meditative breathing technique focuses the energy of the body on the sixth chakra, the inner eye – eventually awakening it – first to enhanced senses and later on to a quasi-independent assisting consciousness. The abilities available depend on the user’s Base Skill Bonus (Skill Points + Attribute Modifier + Permanent Personal Skill Boosting Abilities).

• 1-2: The user becomes aware of the flow of mystical energies within his or her body, and may roll to detect the effects of magical or otherwise aspected environments.
• 3: The user’s Third Eye feeds small amounts of magical power back into his or her system. If a spellcaster the user may recover an expended first level spell once daily.
• 4: The user may heal 2d8 damage – or inflict that much on undead via a touch as a standard action – 3/Day. He or she also gains a +2 Synergy Bonus on Heal checks.
• 5: +2 Synergy to Spot and Listen. From this point on the Embryonic Pearl gets it’s own actions and can activate it’s own abilities accordingly. It’s also important to note that it does not sleep.
• 6: The user gains 60′ Darkvision. The Embryonic Pearl can communicate through images that only the user can see.
• 7: The user can read all languages.
• 8: The user now has 120′ Darkvision.
• 9: Magic Missile at CL 19 3/Day.
• 10: +2 Competence Bonus to Spot. See Invisible for 10 minutes 1/Day, True Seeing for one minute 1/Day.
• 11: Force Lance (as per Scorching Ray but force damage, 1/Day at CL 19). Use the user’s BAB and other bonuses.
• 12: Force Lance is now 2/Day.
• 13: If you take a moment to contemplate it, you will always know if a given item or short-term action will negatively affect your alignment.
• 14: +2 Competence Bonus to LIsten, See Invisible and True Seeing are now each 2/Day.
• 15:: Allows a second chance at a failed Saving Throw 3/Day.
• 16: Gain a +1 Deflection Bonus to AC, all of the user’s melee attacks now count as Ghost Touch.
• 17: Gain Endure Elements. You are immune to the Alignment and Positive/Negative traits of planes.
• 18) 1/day negates confused, dazed, fascinated, or stunned condition for the user.
• 19: +5 (Unnamed) Bonus to Spot, Immune to being Blinded or Dazzled.
• 20: Gain continuous Protection From (Alignment of your choice).
• 21: 3/Day send a Dream or Nightmare to a sleeping creature.
• 22: Also acts as an Orb Of Mental Renewal.
• 23: Also acts as a Rod Of Bodily Restoration.
• 24: Also acts as Dimension Stride Boots.
• 25: +2 Synergy to Concentration, Retain up to three levels of spells per day.
• 26: Also functions as a Ring of the Forcewall,
• 27: Gain Mind Shielding, as the Ring.
• 28: User need neither eat nor drink and only needs only two hours of sleep per night.
• 29: Can instantly awaken all allies within 60′. All those affected are immune to fatigue, exhaustion, and sleep effects for ten minutes after being so awoken.
• 30: Those within 20 feet are unaffected by Fear, Confusion, and Stunning effects.

Firespinning (Dex): This exotic skill allows the user to draw fire into thread, twine, clothlike sheets or nets, and even ropes, suitable for sewing, making self-igniting candle wicks and fuses, embroidery, making warm and waterproof cloaks, climbing, making nets, and more. Spun Fire comes in all the brilliant colors of fire and can be activated to call forth more of fires properties but, sadly, unless it is fairly regularly handled by someone with the Firespinning skill or cleaned/renewed in a fire for a bit, spun fire will gradually fade to the colors of embers and – after a year and a day – dissolve into nothing more than a wisp of warm air. Equally unfortunately, activating the latent energies of spun fire is something of an effort – and so such uses of Firespinning are limited by Skill Fatigue (a temporary reduction in the effective skill total until the user rests). Firespun clothing effectively provides an Endure Elements effect – remaining warm in winter, absorbing heat in summer, and repelling water – is impossible to stain, provides protection from small burns (such as touching a hot pot) through it, and cannot itself be burned – although being underwater or long-term exposure to arctic conditions will eventually start to damage it. While wearing or carrying firespun gear, the following options are open to a skilled firespinner:

• Unleash Flames, effectively duplicating the effect of a fire-based spell of level 0/1/2/3 at a cost of .1/1/3/7 skill fatigue.
• Counter an incoming effect with the Fire or Cold descriptor at a cost of one point of skill fatigue per level of the effect.
• Flame Release returns spun fire to what it once was, in whole or part. This can cause nets of fire-rope to burst into flames (in whole or part), be used to sacrifice a foot or so from the far end of a rope to “untie” it, or be used to reform your firespun wardrobe – although it is advisable to set up some fire resistance first if you are going to do that. Releasing a bit of flame to untie a rope or some such only counts as a Cantrip, but greater uses will count as a first level effect.

Greater Alchemy (Int): This occult knack greatly resembles Clockwork Engineering – granting the user a number of “alchemy points” equal to his or her skill bonus to invest in alchemical items – although doing so requires the use of an alchemical lab and a days work. This is reasonably common across Modun.

• Potions/Oils/Dusts/Pellets. 1/2/4 points for spell levels 1/2/3.+1 for 3 Doses, +2 for Seven Doses
• Constructs: CR +2 Points, creator must have more hit dice than any construct so created. Thus, while you can build a Flesh Golem or “Frankenstein”, you’d need to be at least tenth level to do so.
• Transmutation is possible, but laborious. An alchemist can garner a number of gold pieces per month equal to the number of Alchemy Points invested in the project (on a monthly basis) squared – representing time that cannot be spent on other alchemical works.
• Elixir of Life: You can brew a combination of the Threefold Aspect and Greater Age Resistance effects that is good for a week at a cost of 12.
• It may be rolled like a normal skill if the user wants identify the nature of someone else’s alchemical item or to try to determine the ingredients in something.
• It is worth nothing that – as with Clockwork Engineering – unused items will lose their potency as soon as the user invests their Greater Alchemy points in something else and – at the option of the GM – may lose effect if they are away from the user for too long. They are thus only salable if they are needed for immediate use.

Labyrinth Walker (Wis): The shattering of magic has thrown the transitional planes around Modun into chaos, turning their normal smooth continuity into a maze of fissures in reality, cross-connections, and shifting geometry. Navigating through that tangle of dimensional rifts is difficult – but some develop a knack for that sort of thing, building on a knack for navigating more physical entanglements. A rare talent, mostly only found among those who spend time at the great library.

• Sense a nearby dimensional transition and get an idea of where it goes: DC 10
• Navigate Physical Maze or similar environment: DC 5-15
• Navigate Magical Maze or similar environment: DC 10+Equivalent Effect Level.
• Swift Travel: You can reduce effective travel time for up to (Cha-1) companions by 5% per point over DC 15 to a maximum of 95%.
• Locate Desired Transitive or Inner Plane: DC 20
• Locate Desired Outer or Alternate Plane: DC 25
• Blaze a Dimensional Trail: +10 over the “Locate” difficulty.
• Shift into a transitive plane for a few moments, becoming incorporeal for up to (Wis Mod) rounds. DC 40.
• Effective teleportation via following dimensional faults. Personal DC 100, with a small group DC 125, with a moderate group DC 150, with an army DC 200. While this is very fast, encounters are still possible.

Oathbinding (Wis): Oaths have power. Even at their most basic… they are foci of pride and determination, of honor and will. When they are witnessed by an Oathbinder they become even more than that – establishing an occult link between the party or parties swearing and those entities who are called onto witness said oath. That link can transmit power, whether to help uphold such oaths or to punish those who violate them.

• Sanctify an agreement. Note that both parties must understand the agreement reasonably well and it must be relatively fair. Word-twisting will rebound against the one playing lawyer. DC (5 x the level of curse – using the Malediction spell template in The Practical Enchanter) that the first to violate the deal suffers (note that trying to force or trick someone else into being first is “playing lawyer”).
• Swear a Great Oath. This is DC 30 if it’s about a local goal of no great importance, DC 20 if it affects an entire city of small region, and DC 10 if it is a matter of some great destiny. It isn’t easy to get the great powers to pay attention to trivia – but they normally pay attention to the important stuff.
• For every full +12 in the user’s base skill total (SP Spent plus Wis Mod plus bonuses from relevant permanent personal abilities) the user may make one Pact with various supernatural forces. Similar to Witchcraft Pacts each pact provides a 6 CP bonus as long as the user fulfills his or her side of the bargain. It is possible to fulfill, disregard, or discard such a pact, but the bonus goes with it – and replacing it will usually require months.
• The GM should give the user access to (Base Skill Total / 2) CP worth of “Favors” at the start of each adventure – things that will likely become important later. Sadly, these cannot be renewed directly – although the GM may drop in chances to acquire additional favors along the way, such as by finding out about an ancient unfulfilled oath that can be called in.

Reality Mining (Con): Wild magic collects in pockets and veins, trees and shrubs, beasts and winds. in a thousand subtle forms – most of them imperceptible, unknown, and unusable. However, with this skill, strange resources can be gathered, sifted from the fabric of reality. Unfortunately, learning to gather a particular resource requires “investing” some portion of the characters skill bonus in that resource (the greater the resource, the more points from the bonus) – and will always follow some sort of theme, specific to each user of this skill.

• A gatherer of Elemental Dusts might invest in gathering Fire and Wind dust.
• A Herbalist might find Healing Herbs, Bax’t Spice that disrupts the undead, and Delphic Moss that – when burned – grants prophecies or Legend Lore.
• A gatherer of mystical metals might find Mithrl, or Radium, or Element Zero.
• Another might manage to gather occasional Obols, or elemental gems used in Enchantments and Spellcasting.
• This will obviously require some discussion with the game master, but the user will always be able to obtain enough exotic supplies to carry a variety of small wonders. If the GM allows it the user may opt to simply add “points” from this talent to those available from a talent using such materials, such as Clockwork Engineering or Greater Alchemy.

Stygium Forging (Int): Some say It’s presence portends the next trans-dimensional Invasion, others that it embodies the dark powers of the underworld that are leaking into the mortal realm, others that it is a symptom of the oncoming end of time, a few that it is the accumulated crystalized sins of mortals, and still others say that it is the fragmented remains of a dark and alien world. Almost everyone agrees that it is a curse upon the world. Still, in the hidden depths, in ancient crypts, and in the hearts of terrible beasts, more and more often there are found masses of crystal, black as pitch – darkness, evil, and negative energy made solid. This is Stygium it’s “raw” form.

Powdered Stygium is a vicious toxin to creatures of good, a moderate one to those inclined towards neutrality between good and evil, and merely mildly toxic and warping to those of evil alignment. Scattered across an area it poisons the land itself, twisting it towards evil and the powers of darkness and causing undead to rise. Administered to beasts and other unintelligent creatures it kills most of them, but twists the remainder into Occult Monsters. It’s usually measured in “doses” – about a palm-full of the raw crystal, a vial-full once it is refined.

Refined, alloyed with metal (usually copper), and worked into items it can empower a wide variety of dark devices – albeit only within it’s own themes. The weakest such devices can absorb enough ambient dark power to sustain themselves, more powerful ones will require periodic fueling with more Stygium. Possible devices range from the minor (a cloak woven with tiny crystals to generate minor shadows and enhance stealth) on through things like staves (or other weapons) which fire Cones of Cold, Rays of Enervation, and Disintegration Rays. Unfortunately, using such devices is inherently toxic and destructive of the user. Every such device has a “tolerance” rating (although this can be reduced with more sophisticated designs). While simply touching an item or handing it to someone means little, if the user allows the total tolerance rating of his or her equipment to exceed his or her Constitution for more than a few hours there WILL be effects. At…

• (Constitution – 4) he or she will begin to show symptoms – crimson eyes, emotional instability, psychotic tendencies, minor illnesses, and accelerated aging (if the user makes a habit of staying at this level or higher, he or she will die upon reaching Venerable age, rather than somewhat later as usual. Anyone who dies while at this level will soon rise as an undead – albeit usually a near-mindless horror.
• (Con+1 to Con+3): -2 to a random attribute. Roll on the Stygian Damage Table whenever a character hits this level and once per month while they remain there. The victim will be obviously ill and corrupt and will often develop chronic problems – a nasty cough, abruptly-greying hair, aching joints.
• (Con+4 to Con+10): -2 to two random attributes. Roll on the Stygium damage table whenever the victims total hits this level and once per week thereafter while it remains at this level. The victim is obviously terribly ill and their voice will be quite disturbing.
• (Con+11 to Con+18): -4 to two random attributes. Roll on the Stygium damage table whenever the victims total hits this level and once per day thereafter while it remains at this level. The victim looks to be dying, will be palid, and cannot heal one point of damage per level.
• (Con+19 or more): -6 to three random attributes. Roll on the Stygium damage table whenever the victims total hits this level and once per hour thereafter while it remains at this level. The victim will be visibly decaying, sloughing off flesh, and mutating as observers watch, and obviously OUGHT to be dead.He or she will not be able to heal two points of damage per level.

Unfortunately, removing an item does not instantly remove it’s lingering effects on the user’s tolerance; the contamination only fades at a rate of one point per day,. Powerful healing magic or removing all other Stygium items will upgrade this rate by 1d4 points for either or 2d4 points for both.

It is also possible to suffer semi-permanent Stygium ‘contamination, Working with the stuff, being poisoned by it, spending time in a heavily contaminate environment, and other forms of exposure can allow raw Stigium to accumulate in someone – leaving the victim with less room for error when using Stygium. While this can be purged, it requires one or more of an Atonement spell (purging 1d3 points), time spent meditating in an area full of life (1d3/Week), or a special diet of purifying herbs and daily draughts of holy water (1d3/Week.

Stygian Elixirs: bestow a modest pool of dark magic. Each variant formula provides a small selection of Feats, Abilities, or Spell-Like Abilities that the user may spend that power on. Unfortunately, while such reserves of power remain until used – they all have both a Tolerance Rating (which remains until they are entirely expended) and cause Corruption (as per The Practical Enchanter, Arcanum Minimus) when a dose is taken.

As a general rule, each point of Stygium Forging bonus provides access to one formula – whether for an item or an elixir. Additional points may be spent on a particular formula to improve or expand its effects, to reduce it’s tolerance rating, to reduce the rate at which it expends Stygium, or (for Elixirs) to reduce the amount of Stygium required to make it. While Stygium does interact with the user’s spirit to some extent – you can’t just use someone else’s formulas – you can learn more formulas from other Stygium Forgers as Specific Knowledges (Rituals).

Stygian Damage Table (roll 1d20):

1) Blindness. This can be cured normally.
2) Deafness. This can be cured normally.
3-6) Develop a random disease. Magical cures will offer a new chance to resist, but cannot instantly cure it.
7) Develop a random insanity. This can be countered with a Heal spell.
8-11) Two points of drain to a random attribute. These can be restored via appropriate spells and abilities.
12-13) Reduce maximum hit points by three. This can be restored as per drained attributes.
14) Develop an immunity to supernatural healing for the next month.
15-16) Age one year.
17) Develop noxious growths. This has no immediate penalty other than social, but the victim will die sometime between the Old and Venerable age brackets unless a limited wish, wish, or miracle is used to repair the damage.
18) Take +2 damage from all physical wounds for the next month. This can be countered with a Heal spell.
19) Made a DC 18 Fortitude save or die. This is considered a death by natural causes.
20) Become pallid, lose hair, and obviously ill. No direct game effect however, lucky you.

Stygium Forging is fundamentally a technological skill. Certainly there are some mystical aspects – but It allows the production of a fairly limited range of effects principally limited by the amount of Stygium available, by the user’s personal library of ways to use it, and by the dangers of working with the stuff. It doesn’t involve all that much in the way of mystical talent, arcane restrictions, occult symbolism, or eldritch sponsors.

Obviously enough, how effective Stygium Forging is depends greatly on how much of the stuff is available, how the game master rates proposed devices and elixirs, and whether there are applicable local limits – like Modun or Atheria’s limitations on higher-level magic – which reduce it’s effectiveness. On the other hand, with a little caution and conservative use of elixir-granted powers, players can use the stuff effectively. Villains, of course, can use it even more effectively – passing out elixirs to their troops to give them unexpected powers, granting occult powers to their favorite beasts, and granting themselves a variety of minor items or special powers to hold in reserve.

Watertechnics (Con): Lets the user make things work as if they were in air while underwater. At low levels you can drink potions or eat soup. At higher levels, fire guns or bows normally. At very high levels, light up a forge and do smelting and blacksmithing. Obviously most common among the water-based races.

• 4+ Liquids no longer mix. You can make and eat soup in an open pot, uncork and drink a potion or bottle of booze, or spit tobacco juice without it turning into a cloud.
• 9+ You can breathe normally underwater, use lanterns and candles, .strike matches, and smoke cigars.
• 15+ You can light a stove or build a campfire, fry food, or use small fire magics, such as Flame Shuriken.
• 22+ You can use moderate fire magic, such as Scorching Ray or Flaming Sphere effectively, operate a forge and work metal, or avoid having objects less dense than water float away.
• 30+ You can use area effect fire magic, such as Fireballs and Walls of Fire, fly modest air vehicles underwater, and extend your influence over a modest group of people to let them function underwater as well.
• 39+ You can set underwater houses on fire and let them burn.
• 49+ You can set entire underwater villages on fire.

A common problem with Occult Skills is that – unless they’re simply dealing with off-realm technology or something – they need to be fairly weird. After all, Eclipse includes a LOT of ways to do things. Want to be a medium? A touch of Witchcraft – and perhaps Leadership (Spirits only) does that very nicely. Build artifacts with weird components and rituals? Create Artifact will fit your needs. And while a Feat or two is a stiff price in some ways, the cost of raising a skill will eventually be greater. On the other hand, Skills – even Occult skills – are generally more accessible than a line of Feat-equivalents. Learn to use limited astral projection and visit dreams? That’s in Witchcraft again. Ritual Magic? Take “Ritual Magic”. If you want, specialize it in the particular type of ritual you’re interested in. Read tarot cards? Witchcraft again (Witchcraft was pretty much designed to cover all that minor occult stuff).

Finally, here’s an example of an occult skill that simply didn’t work:

Psirogue (Cha) (Varies): The twelve “Basic Witch Abilities” are basically a series of specialized psychic skills that are (normally) backed with enough raw Power to manage without rolling or detailed study. A Psirogue has focused on a particular basic ability to the point where they do not have to have any Power at all; their personal metabolic energies suffice – although they may have to roll for more complicated or (normally) power-intensive applications. Their effective Caster Level is (Total Skill Bonus / 3) and repeated boosting effects (such as healing) lose effectiveness after 7 uses/Day on any individual patient, but otherwise they are free to use their abilities indefinitely.

This one is kind of dubious. Unlike most of the other things on this list… if this set of skills is fairly widely available it drastically changes the world. It may not have that much of an effect on a part of adventurers, but a village with a Psirogue Healer need never worry about plagues, or infected wounds, or pretty much any injury short of death. A Psirogue using Hand of Shadows could casually do the work of hundreds of men – harvesting, mending, and more in moments and with no risk. Basic witchcraft effects are considered equivalent to third-level spells, albeit spells that focus on versatility within a theme rather than raw power. That’s all right when their usage is limited by the user’s supply of Power – but making that kind of magic available constantly, through a skill that (at least on Modun) anyone can take? Of course, you could limit it by skill fatigue or some such – but if you’re going to limit it enough to be meaningful, would-be users might as well just take Witchcraft in the first place; it is fairly cheap after all. I’ll leave this skill on the list to illustrate the point that sometimes you just have to discard ideas even if they are interesting and give you twelve skill writeups for the price of one.

Eldritch Staves

Staves, as written, are pretty unpopular. The classic style simply costs too much – and the more effects you put in them, the faster their charges run out. Worse, you can buy an item which casts the same spell once per day via spell trigger more cheaply than you can make the staff. Sure, the staff uses your caster level and attributes for Save DC’s – but that’s what your own spell slots are for. They’re too expensive for utility stuff – leaving their only role as emergency combat backup (unless, of course, you can power them yourself without using charges – in which case a high-powered staff with only a charge or two left is a cheap way to break the game).

The Pathfinder version is at least rechargeable, but only holds ten charges – making it not too useful in emergencies – and can only be recharged very slowly. Still too expensive for what you get. Sure, people who find one as treasure will usually use it – half value when sold greatly encourages that – but how many people want to buy one? I haven’t seen very many.

Runestaves – from the Magic Item Compendium – are basically spell conversion items, allowing the user to produce effects that they do not have ready at the cost of giving up a spell or slot of at least equal level. They’re covered below. (Of course, the idea of a “Spell Channeling Item” that converts a prepared spell into some other spell goes back to Dragon Magazine 111, from July 1986. D&D has a long history of very imaginative people playing with it; it is VERY hard to come up with something that’s entirely original).

But the tradition of magical staves goes back a long ways. right back to old wise men using walking sticks, to symbols of authority, to the story of Moses, to norse traditions (a magical rune-covered staff was a “Gand” – arguably making “Gandalf” a “Magic Staff Spirit”), and to many other sources. Secondarily, when things get up close and personal, staves are pretty good defensive weapons. It would be kind of nice if a personal magic staff was something more wizards actually wanted.

So lets try something different, leaning more on the rules for wondrous items.

Physical Base: Metal-Chased and Shod Hardwood Staff. With Runic Inscription: 6 Lb, Hardness 10, HP 30, 15 GP base +10 GP Runic Inscription (Alternate form of a Spell Component Pouch) +2 Wand/Rod Chambers (200 GP) = 225 GP. Additional options include:

• Resilient: +5 HP, +100 GP.
• Folded Metal: +4 Hardness, +200 GP.
• Fortifying Stone: +5 Hardness, +20 HP, +1000 GP.
• Adamant Chasing: +10 Hardness, +10 HP, +1500 GP.
• Masterwork: +300 GP. (No, I am not classifying a basic staff as a double weapon. It is hard enough to see how one spends 300 GP making a well-balanced stick anyway)
• Weapon Enhancement: Requires Masterwork and Type Two for a +1, Type Four for a +2, Type Five for a +3, Type Seven for +4, and Type Eight or Nine for a +5. Special Weapon Functions require a minimum type to match their minimum caster level. Note that each +1 also provides +2 Hardness and +10 HP.

Any yes, all of that will stack. The weapon enchantment is a bit dubious past the first +1 or +2, but once your staff starts costing tens of thousands of GP, throwing in an extra 5100 GP to make It into a +1 weapon with Hardness 31 and 75 HP may be well worthwhile.

The basic structure of a “Staff of (some group of spells)” is based on a couple of different spells:

Channel The Gift (Pathfinder) is a third level spell that lets the next spell the target casts of level three or below be cast without expending the spell or spell slot provided that the recipient starts casting it quickly and it takes no more than a full round to cast. Presumably there is nothing unreasonable about higher and lower level versions.

At least in my games, the obvious game-wrecking potential of – say – a ring that simply casts this thing on the wearer every round is mostly defused by the rule from The Practical Enchanter that this sort of effect cannot more than double the target’s casting capacity. I strongly recommend enforcing that rule.

So the basic magical structure of a Staff is going to be…

• Channel The Gift (Spell Level X) x (Caster Level 2X-1) x 1800 GP (Unlimited Use Command Word Activated) x .6 (Only usable for a specific descriptor or narrow sub-category of magic, such as “Ice” or “Healing”) x Subdividable Charge Modifier (Number of Uses/Day +1) / 5.

Subdividable Charges (The Practical Enchanter) do not have to be used all at once. Ergo this will provide a modest pool of spell levels rather than a simple “one spell of up to this level” effect.

Such a staff provides a certain number of spell levels per day which can be used to cast spells of a particular type (and only that type) without actually expending the spell or spell slot – although the level of the spell used cannot exceed the limits of the Channel The Gift spell used. It also means that any given spellcaster can only really use one staff at a time.

• Type 1) Max L1 (CL01): 01 / 02 / 03 spell levels/Day 432 / 648 / 864 GP
• Type 2) Max L2 (CL03): 02 / 04 / 06 spell levels/Day 2592 / 3,888 / 5,184 GP
• Type 3) Max L3 (CL05): 03 / 06 / 09 spell levels/Day 6480 / 9,720 GP / 12,960 GP
• Type 4) Max L4 (CL07): 04 / 08 / 12 spell levels/Day 12,096 / 18,144 / 24,192 GP
• Type 5) Max L5 (CL09): 05 / 10 / 15 spell levels/Day 19,440 / 29,160 / 38,880 GP
• Type 6) Max L6 (CL11): 06 / 12 / 18 spell levels/Day 28,512 / 42,768 / 57,024 GP
• Type 7) Max L7 (CL13): 07 / 14 / 21 spell levels/Day 39,312 / 58,968 / 78,624 GP
• Type 8) Max L8 (CL15): 08 / 16 / 24 spell levels/Day 51,840 / 77,760 / 103,680 GP
• Type 9) Max L9 (CL17): 09 / 18 / 27 spell levels/Day 66,096 / 99,144 / 132,192 GP

Secondarily, we want an effective caster level booster for that particular type of magic. That’s Amplification (Type) from The Practical Enchanter: SL1 x CL as above (since all the caster levels in an item must be the same) x 1800 GP (Unlimited-Use Command Word Activated). Unfortunately, this is limited to a maximum of +5 and the cost keeps going up for more powerful staves without further benefits.

• Type 1) +1 Caster Level for spells of the relevant type, +1800 GP.
• Type 2) +2 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +5400 GP
• Type 3) +3 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +9000 GP
• Type 4) +4 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +12,600 GP
• Type 5) +5 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +16,200 GP
• Type 6) +5 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +19,800 GP
• Type 7) +5 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +23,400 GP
• Type 8) +5 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +27,000 GP
• Type 9) +5 Caster Levels for spells of the relevant type, +30,600 GP

To put some spell formula in the staff itself – so that you don’t need to have them available – the cost is (Spell Level Squared x 200 GP) for the highest level one and (Spell Level Squared x 100 GP) for any additional spells up to a maximum of seven spells, each usable up to three times per day. Since this is based on the cost of a Runestaff, you automatically get the “use your own casting level and save DC’s” part of using a staff, as well as various other special modifiers. Unfortunately, this means that to cast a spell from a staff it has to be one that you could currently cast if you’d chosen it and you have to supply any special components. You can still put a formula in even if it’s above the level that the staff can power, but that will require that you always power it with your own spell slots.

Finally, of course, we can add Metamagic. While they are specialty items, metamagical rods that only work with a specific type of magic have a x.6 cost – while going from three uses per day to unlimited uses per day would increase the cost by 5/3’rds. Ergo you can either put in a rod that provides a metamagical boost to all the appropriate spells you cast at normal prices or get the usual 3/Day at reduced cost.

Sadly, you can usually only use one metamagical rod at a time, so unless the GM is feeling kindly – and the second rod can handle the spell level as modified by the first one – you can’t double up on metamagic this way.

Still, if you want your Type Five (C) Staff of Force (38,880 GP) to easily pierce Spell Resistance, you can add +5 Caster Levels for +16,200 GP and a Piercing Matamagic Rod (at normal cost and so unlimited use for force effects only) for +24,500 GP – and all of your Force Spells will be cast at +5 Caster Levels and with a +5 bonus to overcome spell resistance on top of that. While you’re at it, go ahead an put in the formulas for a few Force Spells – say Magic Missile, Wings of Cover, Melf’s Unicorn Arrow, Emergency Force Sphere, and Wall of Force? That’s only +8000 GP. You might as well throw the basics in too (you wouldn’t want something this pricey to get broken), for a grand total of 92,680 GP.

That’s a fairly powerful and useful tool for someone who likes Force spells. It won’t be much like a Staff of Imagery (Resilient Folded Metal, Fortifying Stone, 1525 GP (Hardness 19, HP 55), Type IIIc (CL 5, 9 Spell Levels/Day, Max L3, 12,980 GP), Spells: Major Image, Invisibility Sphere, Minor Image, Hypnotic Pattern, Color Spray, and Silent Image (3700 GP) = 18,200 GP) though. That’s a tool for stealthy tricksters.

Alternatively, of course, you could simply upgrade standard staves.

For example,

• “Staves automatically regain one charge per month” would suffice to eliminate the market for cheap staves with only a few charges left. There might be slight price break for buying one that was mostly discharged. But it wouldn’t be much since all you’d have to do to recharge it is to wait. Couple that with a price reduction and staves might become fairly popular.
• Go to Pathfinder-style staves with ten Charges but rule that “A stave automatically regains User’s Con Mod or three (whichever is higher) charges per day. If the user has more than one stave, the recharging must be split between them”.

Pretty much anything that regularly recharges them a bit makes staves a LOT more attractive.

Of course, you can also make Relic-style staves. For an example, take the Runes from a couple of weeks back. At 18 CP per Rune you can get one with a 3 CP Relic – or even reduce it to 2 CP if you attach a disadvantage to the thing. Since the Runes scale with level, are fairly tightly themed, and the use of Relics is normally limited – meaning that most mages will only be able to use on runic stave at a time – this will be fairly minimally disruptive. Your first level character can start off with:

• Create Relic (Specialized and Corrupted, only to create a limited selection of runestaves, 2 CP) and Enthusiast (Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / only to provide the points needed to construct and maintain a personal Runestaff relic, 3 CP) and have a small selection of themed spells to work with – and will get more at higher levels.

Another potentially useful form of staff simply uses Greater Invocation effects (The Practical Enchanter) – spells that produce any effect within a particular theme (say; Fire Spells) which is of the same general class (Arcane or Divine) as the caster and has an effective level at least two levels below that of the Greater Invocation used.

Thus, for example a Classical Staff of Fire using a Sixth Level Greater Invocation of Fire has a sales price of 750 GP x SL 6 x CL 11 = 49.500 GP. Add Channel The Gift VI to allow it to function twice per day at a net cost of (SL 6 x CL 11 x 1500 GP Unlimited-Use Spell Trigger Activation) x .6 (three uses per day) x.5 (Only to power the single spell in the staff) = 29,700 GP. That will let it function three times per day without expending a charge. Give it a minor tweak – you can’t spend the last charge – and it will always be worth at least 30,000 GP. Fit it with a Rod of Elemental Substitution and you will have quite a lot of flexibility.

Of course, if you are willing to sacrifice the “in a real emergency you can spend some charges” aspect, you can just make it with three uses per day of the Greater Invocation directly. That’s 59,400 GP. Expensive, but the “any fire spell you can come up with of fourth level or lower” aspect can be very handy. Need to open a corridor through a burning building to get people out? Fill a balloon with heated air? Such the heat out of a tornado to weaken or stop it? Reforge a broken magical sword? You’re golden.

If you are going this route with making staves, you may want to apply some built-in metamagic from Arcanum Minimus (The Practical Enchanter). Does your Staff Of Divine Fire cause you 3d6 damage per use and require that you remain pure of purpose, mind, and spirit? That’s -2 spell levels (for casting purposes) of the sixth level effect, reducing the cost of the Staff Of Divine Fire to (SL 4 x CL 8 x 750 GP) = 24,000 GP – and if you want to throw in the free uses per day that will only be (SL 4 x CL 8 x 1500 GP (Unlimited Use Spell Trigger Activation) x .6 (3/Day) x .5 (Only to power the single spell in the staff) = 14,400 GP.

That’s a bit more expensive than a standard Staff of Fire (28,500 GP) but it offers vastly more flexibility, is a permanent item with three uses per day even after the charges are used up, and the saves are always versus a sixth level effect. Even better, you will not be stuck with multiple functions – such as “Burning Hands” – that are not worth spending a charge on; you’d simply be using a similar fourth level effect – or (thanks to The Practical Enchanters rules on spells with built-in metamagic) a first level effect with the equivalent of five levels of metamagic on it (or a second level with three, or a third level with one). You will always get a decent value for that charge.

The version that’s simply three uses per day would be (SL 4 x CL 8 x 1500 GP (Unlimited Use Spell Trigger Activation) x .6 (3/Day) = 28,800 GP. – almost exactly the same as a standard Staff Of Fire, albeit with a role-playing cost as well as a monetary one.

For a fourth option, use Create Artifact (Specialized and Corrupted / only to allow the creation of a small list of (Int Mod +1, 1 Minimum) items unique to each character, no one else can use such items without learning about them and performing some relevant deed to get them to accept him or her (2 CP, possibly free as a world law). The trick here is that Artifacts – however minor – don’t have costs as such. They are created using recipes, filled with components and tasks – and the more complex the recipe, the more powerful the resulting item. If your recipe for a (first edition style) Wand of Fire (1d20+80 charges, CL 7, Burning Hands, Pyrotechnics, or Fireball 1 Charge, Wall of Fire 2 Charges, Rechargeable) calls for wood from a fire oak from the elemental plane of fire, runes scribed by a red dragon’s fang, a fire ruby for the tip, and several other weird ingredients (including a meaningful name)… once you put them together you will have your wand, but there’s not much to be done until then.

Staves and Wands created this way are always rechargeable, since Artifacts are always permanent items.

This method has many advantages. It makes each such item a unique item, it builds in character goals, it means that the character’s equipment will reflect his or her adventures, and it bypasses the “Magic Mart” syndrome and wealth-by-level problems. On the downside, it requires a lot of work up front, including careful balancing of the various quests between characters and against the power levels of the various items. It also probably eliminates most Item Creation feats (Save for Potions and Scrolls) and may mean that many characters will never get their items finished.

For some classical examples, here’s a first edition clerical staff and a wand:

Staff Of Curing: This device can cure disease, cure blindness, cure wounds (6-21 hit points – 3d6 + 3), or cure insanity. Each function drains 1 charge. The device can be used but once per day on any person (dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc included), and no function may be employed more than twice per day, i.e. the staff can only function 8 times during a 24 hour period. It can be recharged

And a wand:

Wand of Illumination: This wand has 4 separate functions, 3 of which approximate magic-user spells, and 1 of which is singular:
1. Dancing lights: In 1 segment the wand will produce this effect at a cost of 1 charge.
2. Light: The illumination wand sends forth light in 2 segments time at an expenditure of 1 charge.
3. Continual light: This function requires only 2 segments to perform, but the cost is2 charges.
4. Sunburst: When this effect is called forth the wand delivers a sudden flash of brilliant greenish-white light, with blazing golden rays. The range of this sunburst i s 12″ maximum, and its duration i s but 1/10 of a second. Its area of effect is a globe of 4″ diameter. Any undead within this globe take 6-36 hit points of damage, with no saving throw. Creatures within or facing the burst must save versus a wand or be blinded for 2-12 segments and unable to do anything during that period. (Of course, the creatures in question must have ocular organs sensitive to the visible light spectrum). The function requires 3 segments and expends 3 charges. The wand can be recharged.

What, you still want your low-level character to have a magical staff but don’t want to use a relic? You could just make it a focus for Innate Enchantment or some some other personal ability, but you can also simply apply the axiom that description doesn’t matter; only the game statistics do. Simply decide that your rune-engraved staff functions as various mundane items and pay for those. There’s already an example of that here: using a staff inscribed with runes as a substitute for a Spell Component Pouch. If you want to buy stuff that gets used up, paying for 50 uses will provide up to 3/Day, paying for 100 provides unlimited use. If something has noticeable weight (at fifty or a hundred most things will), you can double the cost to eliminate that (after all, things like Handy Haversacks are cheap enough). So here’s a list of some basic stuff you can put in with the prices set to avoid adding weight:

Arcane Basics:

• Thundering Strike: Can dramatically “knock on doors”, smack tables, smash items on the ground, etc, as if the user was using a sledgehammer: This really is not useful as a weapon, but can be very dramatic. 2 GP
• Leave a Seal where it touches: Sealing Wax 50 GP and Personal Seal 5 GP.
• Acts as a Spell Component Pouch: 10 GP.
• Can absorb and store the magic from up to eight Scrolls: Scroll Bandolier, a free action to get one out (still used normally) 12 GP.
• Can be upgraded to an Infinite Scrollcase (5600 GP) capable of “holding “ 50 scrolls later on, but this requires actual enchantment.
• Can absorb and store the magic from up to ten Potions (accessed as a free action, administered by touch, Potions Belt, 12 GP).
• Scribes on surfaces, as if using Chalk. 1 GP (+7 GP for various colors, +2 GP for tossing “handfulls” of powdered chalk about).
• Bearer can (usually) detect which way is North: Compass, 20 GP.
• Bearer adds 10 feet to the range increment of thrown splash weapons: Bombchucker, 24 GP.
• Casts a particular Cantrip at Caster Level One 3/Day: 600 GP. This technically makes the staff a Wondrous Item, however minor – but I consider this within the reach of a properly-carved Runestaff.
• Lets the user stir up things over a campfire as if he or she was using an Alchemist’s Lab: 1000 GP.
• Conjurer’s Tricks: Handy Haversack, 4000 GP. For +80 GP add a generous selection of stage magic and fortuneteller props.

Fire and Light:

• Shed Candlelight as needed: Candle(s), 2 GP.
• Shed Sparks to light things although this isn’t fast: Flint and Steel, 2 GP.
• Can magically fuel a hearth- or camp- fire for a day 3/Day: Firewood, 2 GP
• Shed Lantern Light as needed: Hooded Lantern, 14 GP (Requires Oil).
• Needs no Oil. Can create oil slicks or throw “flasks of oil”.Any excess oik disappears in a few minutes if someone tries to recover it. 20 GP.
• Project a Cone of Light as needed: Bullseye Lantern, 24 GP (Requires Oil).
• Smoking: Censor, 10 GP, and unlimited Incense, 70 GP.
• Produce a small flame as needed: Tindertwig, 100 GP
• Radiant: Acts as a Sunrod when needed:Sunrod, 3/Day 200 GP, Unlimited 400 GP.
• Fireblasts as per throwing Alchemists Fire: Alchemists Fire, 4000 GP. Probably not worth paying for unless you’re a pyromaniac (get a Staff of Entwined Serpents instead).

Sensory Abilities:

• Bearer can easily determine his altitude or depth. Altimeter, 20 GP.
• User may “see” through the tip of the staff: Periscope, 40 GP.
• User may see very fine details: Magnifying Glass, 100 GP
• User always knows the time: Pocket Watch, 500 GP.
• Falcon’s Sight. User may see distant objects: x10 Telescope: 4000 GP.

Weaponry:

• Strikes like a Heavy Mace: 24 GP. This isn’t generally a very useful option, but it’s also extremely cheap.
• Fires bolts of Mystic Force as per a Longbow (150 GP) with Unlimited Arrows (10 GP). Note that non-proficiency penalties will apply. Note that, if you pay for Masterwork, weapon enhancements can apply. So can Weapon Crystals.
• Fires Bolts of “Mystic Force” as per a Light Crossbow (70 GP) with Unlimited Bolts (100 GP). Again, enchantments and weapon crystals work fine.
• Spray a 10′ cone with an available substance (Water Mist 2 GP, Chalk Dust 2 GP, Oil 20 GP, Holy Water 5000 GP. Everything in the affected areas is covered the stuff, adjacent areas are splashed. Generally “reloads” between encounters. Jetcaster, 160 GP. (Multiple purchases may be made to have multiple shots or load-outs ready).
• Make the ground sprout spikes as if you had scattered Caltrops 3/Day; 200 GP, Unlimited 400 GP.
• Acid Splash: As per Acid Flask, 3/Day 1000 GP, unlimited use 2000 GP.
• Holy (Chaotic, Lawful, Unholy) Blast: As per a thrown vial of Holy Water Holy Water, 5000 GP. Probably not worthwhile by the time it’s affordable.
• Alchemical Items in General: x100 on their base price for 3/Day, x 200 if unlimited. For an example, Holy Weapon Balm (6000 GP).

Miscellany:

• Blessed: Works as a (Wooden) Holy Symbol: 1 GP. A must for Clerics.
• Bearer can cause people to be shaved and/or well-groomed with a touch and an few moments of chanting: Grooming Kit, 2 GP.
• Birthing Rune: Invoking this rune provides a +4 bonus on Heal checks related to childbirth: Midwife’s Kit, 20 GP.
• Bearer may render am unresisting male sterile for 1d3 days with a touch 3/Day. Bachelor Snuff, 50 GP.
• Staff sounds an alarm if approached or disturbed: Guard Dog with Food 60 GP.
• A touch and muttered incantation acts as Thieves Tools: 60 GP
• User can brew Nourishing Stone Soup from water and rocks without need for tricking any villagers: Common Meal,100 GP
• User may thoroughly clean things given a few minutes: Soap 100 GP and Bathtub 20 GP.
• Lets the user travel as if he or she was riding a light riding horse with a saddle (and a perpetual supply of food for the horse) (180 GP).
• A touch and muttered incantation acts as Masterwork Thieves Tools: 200 GP.
• The user may produce hempen rope as needed, although it is obviously used, unsalable, and will decay away in a few weeks: Hemp Rope, 200 GP.
• Vermin Repelling: The party is protected by Vermin Repellant whenever the user so desires. 1000 GP.
• Antitoxin Aura: All members of the party get a +5 Alchemical Bonus on Fortotude Saves against Poison: Antitoxin, 10,000 GP.

Even a first level character will be able to afford a magic runestave that bangs on things very loudly (Thundering Strike), sheds candlelight on command, acts as a spell component pouch, can create a campfire 3/Day, scribes on surfaces in many colors (Chalk), and can store the magic of seven scrolls (each potentially inscribed with multiple spells), for a mere 36 GP. Admittedly, those aren’t particularly impressive acts of magic, but they can be handy.

A second or third level character can afford a staff with a fairly impressive set of (semi-mundane) functions.

Of course, a character point or two in Innate Enchantment, Specialized so as to require a focus can accomplish much the same thing – but this sort of “magical staff” works very well in low-magic or low-level games.

The real problem with Staves is that they’ve lost their role.

Once magic user’s were very limited. Spells were prepared individually, and it took so long to prepare them that you could only afford to use a few each day. Worse, if they were interrupted in any way, they were uselessly lost. Casting a spell in a fight called for careful planning and for the rest of the party to run interference for you.

But that nifty rechargeable wand could hold eighty or ninety charges and had three or four useful functions, It’s effects usually weren’t enormously powerful – but you could use your wand several times in a fight. A magic-user was often as reliant on his or her magic wand as an archer was on his or her magic bow. A wand might become as much of a signature item as the Lone Ranger’s silver bullets. After all, the Lone Ranger had a Wand of Gun, with a lot of shots – and could make reasonably damaging attacks, perform various trick shots / telekinetic bursts, and cause fear, restocking on bullets/charges between adventures.

Third edition made spells much more abundant and much easier to cast. Magic-Users turned into Wizards and Sorcerers who didn’t really NEED a wand to fight.

Wands got a new lease on life though even if they weren’t rechargeable any more. They effectively turned into cheap utility items, with the most ubiquitous being Cure Light Wounds or Lesser Vigor. That started to slip a bit with the later introduction of Healing Belts, Talismans of the Disc, Eternal Wands, and similar items, but wands still hung on.

Staves however… the big point of staves was that they offered a wide variety of effects at a reasonable power level that could be effectively used in battle, that didn’t drain the user’s very limited (15 minutes per spell level – thus forty-five minutes for a single fireball) daily spell preparation allotment, and that couldn’t be readily interrupted.

First Edition included exactly seven Staves. Three (Serpent (C), Striking (C, M), and Withering(C)) were basically melee weapons. One (Curing, (C)) let clerics heal semi-effectively in melee without risking spell disruption. The Staff of Command (C, M) offered basic Suggestion/Charm effects – and the Staff of the Magi and Staff of Power were for Mages. Four staves for mages. At high levels a Wizard needed one of the better staves (Magi or Power) to function just as much as the fighters needed their weapons.

But Wizards and Sorcerers got that stuff automatically in third and later editions. Worse, with staves no longer being rechargeable, going to great expense to add extra functions to a stave became entirely counterproductive. A powerful staff with many functions was no longer the mark of a mighty (or at least lucky) wizard; it was the mark of one with more money than sense. Even if someone found one… they were likely to sell it in favor of getting something that was actually useful.

To make things even worse, it’s hard to find a replacement niche. When you come right down to it, high level spellcasters do not really need a boost any longer. They don’t need a wand or stave to function in combat either. Everybody else tends to prefer weapons. So… what are staves FOR these days?

If anyone has a good suggestion there, let me know, and I will consider writing it up to go with these four variants.

Eclipse d20 – Runebearers

The idea that words and symbols have power is pretty fundamental to magic. Ergo, symbols on the skin should also offer power. Comics have Possession or various forms of magic, Naruto has Seals, Rifts has Tattooed Men (Underpowered? Overpowered? Who knows? It’s RIFTS), Legend of the Five Rings (and it’s d20 version) have Tattooed Monks (Not too horrible in the original Legend of the Five Rings game, pretty poor in d20), and D20 had it’s Dragonmarks.

The d20 versions in particular were somewhat underwhelming. Sure, there were – as usual – a couple of exploits, and there were uses in a few fairly specific builds, but for the most part being a Tattooed Monk or Dragonmarked character was a waste of precious resources. It mostly got you stuff that actual spellcasters could laugh at in fairly short order. So lets rebuild things:

The Primal Runes are expressions of primordial principles, aspects of the divine powers of creation, or archetypes extending across many realities – but regardless of their exact origin, their expressions always follow the same pattern – one reason why they are always considered Specialized and Corrupted.

• Attuned: Each Rune is attuned to a particular principle – a manifestation of one of the foundations of the cosmos. While Runebearers may choose between a modest list of sub-affects, they are always within the nature of the Rune, always have the same limitations, and are always set up by the game master. The GM should preset the list of runes available in a setting.
• Blatant: The runes mark their bearers, usually with stylized sigils, which are fairly readily recognized. Since the markings expand and become more intricate as the user masters higher level effects, a knowledgeable observer can often figure out the user’s precise abilities – often at range with effects as simple as “Detect Magic”.
• Destiny: Runes are foci of destiny, nexi of probability, and manifestations of prophecy. Bearers of well-developed runes will invariably be drawn into quests, feuds, and disputes that will often divert them from their own business. Strange things will happen, unlikely setbacks will occur, and various narrative tropes will keep turning up.
• Hereditary: Runebearing tends to run in families – although mixing such bloodlines is, for some reason, likely to result in a child or two bearing the Destruction or Shadow Rune. Very few wielders can safely use two or more Runes, but very little is truly impossible.
• Influential: The runes influence their bearers. The bearer of a Storm Rune likely smells of ozone, is a bit flighty and impulsive, tends to prefer a sudden unplanned onrush to other tactics, likes to go out in the rain, and so on. Bearers who do not fully live up to such influences may have to make Will checks to avoid acting on such impulses at the whim of the GM up to three times per session.
• Signs: Runebearers show minor physical tell-tales. Those with the rune of Fire tend to have red hair and reddish skin, often feel hot to the touch, and may occasionally accidentally set things on fire.
• Social Expectations: Runebearers form a natural aristocracy. Coupled with the tendency for runes to run in families, this means that any Runebearer will be claimed as a member of a particular clan, be subjected to social expectations and duties, and will be watched and tracked. The Destruction and Shadow runes are often exceptions, carrying  massive social stigmas and suspicion instead.
• Well-Known: Almost everyone understands the nature of the primal runes and the capabilities of their wielders.
• Willful: The runes are difficult for mortals to control. Despite their effects reduction in effective level via Mana and the Compact Metamagic, users of levels beneath (2x the base level of the effect they are using -1) can have difficulties as set by the GM.

The Runebearer Package (18 CP, optionally -6 CP for the Disadvantages given above, for a total of 12 CP):

• Shaping, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect: Produces a maximum of fifteen first-level spell effects related to a particular theme, each usable once per day (three times a day for any Cantrips taken). All spells must be chosen from the lists given for each allowed theme, although individual spells may be chosen more than once. The user may select four options from the Cantrips and Level One spell options, two of each higher level through level six, and one seventh level effect (6 CP). Sadly, effects which require expensive material components or which have XP costs still have those costs.
  • Level Two effects are reduced to Level One through the expenditure of One Mana. Safe to use at level 3+.
  • Level Three effects are reduced to Level One through the expenditure of Two Mana. Safe to use at level 5+.
  • Level Four effects are reduced to Level One through the expenditure of Three Mana. Safe to use at level 7+.
  • Level Five effects are reduced to Level One through the expenditure of Three Mana and the use of an Expensive Material Focus. Safe to use at level 9+.
  • Level Six effects are reduced to Level One through the expenditure of Three Mana, the use of an expensive material focus (unique to each spell, usually 500-5000 GP, depending on GM whim), and owing a favor to the enabling powers. Safe to use at level 11+.
  • Level Seven effects are reduced to Level One through the expenditure of Three Mana, the use of an expensive material focus, and owing a favor to the enabling powers, and suffering 4d6 damage and becoming Fatigued in the casting (GM’s may permit extremely evil users to damage the creatures, plants, ecosystem, and environment in a fair radius. Such damage, while subtle, can take many years to heal). Sadly, this is the limit in possible reductions. Safe to use at level 13+.
• 2d6 (8) Mana with Spell Enhancement, Specialized and Corrupted for reduced cost / only for Spell Enhancement, only for boosting the shaping effects above (4 CP).
• Rite of Chi with +8 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted for reduced cost / only to recharge the pool above (6 CP).
• Innate Enchantment, Specialized and Corrupted for reduced cost / only gets one of the following six options. (The 56 XP cost can be ignored) (2 CP).
  • Skill Mastery (Skill Group) (SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP x .7 Personal Only, 1400 GP). A +3 Competence Bonus to four skills set by the Rune’s Theme.
  • Immortal Vigor I (+12 + 2 x Con Mod HP, 1400 GP as above).
  • Enhance Attribute: +2 Enhancement Bonus to an Attribute set by the Rune (1400 GP as above).
  • Magic Armor: The user’s armor and/or shield is treated as +2 if not already +2 or better (1400 GP as above).
  • Magic Weapon: The user’s weapons are treated as +1 weapons (1400 GP as above).
  • Aura of Light (or Darkness). Gain a +1 Sacred (Profane for some runes) bonus to Saves (1400 GP as above).

Naturally enough, the basic package can be expanded:

• Rune Mastery (6 CP): Either add a second (or third or fourth) set of spells from those associated with your existing rune or – with game master permission – add an additional rune to your repertoire with it’s own set of spells (this may require an Immunity to the usual restrictions). In either case you will want…
• Runic Empowerment (6 CP): Add +2d6 Mana and +4 Bonus Uses of Rite of Chi to your existing pools.
• Runic Infusion (6 CP): Select four more Innate Enchantments from the list above. While these do not directly stack, characters with more than one Rune may select Skill Mastery or Enhance Attribute for differing Skills or Attributes.
• Runic House (6 CP): Major Privilege. A full member of an established Runic House is an up-and-coming member of a major organization with both political and economic power. They will receive subsidized equipment, medical treatment, legal assistance, and other backing – especially when they are on house business. While this is far less important at high level, it can be a major advantage – or absolutely vital – at lower ones. Of course, they are also expected to undertake various tasks and missions for the house – but since the house wants them to come back successful, such missions tend to be within the characters limits and are often fairly profitable.

Obviously enough, a Rune could be improved in hundreds of other ways or be used to power (and thus render cheaper via Specialization or Corruption) a variety of other abilities – but these are the most obvious and common ways to build on them.

So here are some sample runes:

For the notes on the runes. It’s assumed that Runebearers are reasonably common in the setting, that getting to level three to five is not too uncommon for NPC’s with special abilities, and that the game master isn’t too restrictive about characters pushing things a bit on occasion (not strictly necessary, but useful) – and so there will be social effects. After all, if the runes are just another source of power available to occasional adventurers, that won’t have much of an effect – and there’s not a lot of point in bothering with runes if you aren’t going to make them an important part of your setting.

Creation Runes:

Creation / Crafting:
Skills: Craft (All). This includes Spellcraft.
Attribute: Wisdom
L1) Crafter’s Fortune, Mending (3/Day), Repair Light Damage, Psionic Minor Creation, Golem Strike, True Skill (The Practical Enchanter).
L2) Make Whole, Produce Kit (Hedge Wizardry), Force Ladder, Quick Potion
L3) Channel The Gift, Eldritch Armor III (The Practical Enchanter), Greater Laborer’s Word (1 Day of Work), Repair Serious Damage.
L4) Master’s Song (1 Week of Work), Metal Melt, Eldritch Weapon III (The Practical Enchanter), Treasure Stitching
L5) Equivalent Exchange (Sell or Purchase Items), Fabricate, Major Creation, Renovation
L6) Animate Object, Hammer of Mending, Wall of Gears, Wall of Stone.
L7) Create Demiplane (Lesser), Simulacrum.

Presumably the first Rune, and the primordial font of all other runes. The gift of the Creation Rune is – appropriately enough – civilization. The ability to easily create and maintain the tools and structures that form the basis of towns and villages. Certainly, the higher level powers are near-miraculous, but even the lower-level ones allow the easy creation of masterworks, swift maintenance for walls, wagons, weapons, and aqueducts, and the easing of a myriad tasks. If one wishes to build in the dangerous wilds of a d20 universe… your best hope of success is to find a high-level character to act as a patron – or to find even a low-level wielder of the more practical aspects of the Creation and Earth Runes. Where many are gathered together, there is industry – a font of practical supplies. Wealth and political influence tends to follow.

Destruction / Malignance:
Skills: Bluff, Perform, any one Knowledge, and Use Magic Device.
Attribute: Strength.
L1) Barbed Chains, Cause Fear, Curse Water, Death Knell, Doom, Murderous Command.
L2) Agonizing Rebuke, Blindness/Deafness, Commnd Undead, Whip Of Spiders.
L3) Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, Gloomblind Bolts, Possession.
L4) Caustic Blood, Create Soul Gems (two target version), Enervation, Phantasmal Killer.
L5) Bestow Threefold Curse (lay three curses at once), Feast On Fear, Mass Repair Undead, Unholy Sword (Weapon).
L6) Create Undead, Greater Curse Terrain, Planar Ally, Swarm Skin.
L7) Disintegrate, Plague Storm.

While the power of the Destruction Rune can be turned to the defense of civilization, it’s constant call is to tear things down – to reduce the lands to a howling wilderness, to make the wilderness a decaying haunt of the undead, and to ultimately return all things to nothingness. While, to some extent, the old must pass to make way for the new… by it’s nature the Destruction Rune does not discriminate. Most cultures will see the Destruction Rune as evil, a power to be feared and ostracized. Given that the runes have psychological effects on their wielders… that belief is not without justification.

Preservation / Guardian:
Skills: Concentration, Sense Motive, Intimidate, and Listen.
Attribute: Constitution.
L1) Endure Elements, Keep Watch, Lionheart, Mage Armor, Shield Of Faith, Warning Shout
L2) Force Shield II (The Practical Enchanter), Protection From Arrows, Shield Other, Lesser Spell Immunity
L3) Magic Circle (any one), Protection From Energy, Mass Resurgence, Eldritch Weapon III (The Practical Enchanter)
L4) Lesser Globe Of Invulnerability, Emergency Force Sphere, Delay Death, Battlemind Link
L5) Aura Of Evasion, Psionic Mind Blank, Village Veil, Wall of Stone
L6) Banishment, Forceful Hand, Globe of Invulnerability, Perceive Betrayal.
L7) Age Resistance (Greater), Spell Turning.

In the Preservation Rune lies safety. In civilization it is the sign of guardians who place themselves between the common folk and what would harm them. Travelers rely on it’s wielders for protection. Settlers rely on them to stand guard while their homes and defenses are built. Wealthy nobles rely on guards wielding the Preservation Rune. Justified or not , Preservation Runebearers are commonly seen as the quintessential heroes – but it is not uncommon for them to have a more quixotic bent or a more mercenary mindset.

Transformation / Primordialism:
Skills: Disguise, Profession (any one “primitive” profession), Survival (Includes Use Rope), and Tumble.
Attribute: Strength.
L1) Aspect Of The Wolf, Claws of the Bear, Embrace The Wild, Lions Charge, Speak With Animals, Sufefooted Stride,
L2) Bite of the Wererat, Animalistic Power, Personal Vigor, Create Treasure Map,
L3) Alpha Instinct, Bite of the Werewolf, Greater Magic Fang, Jaws of the Wolf.
L4) Battlemind Link, Bite of the Wereboar, Freedom Of Movement, Summon Stampede
L5) Bite of the Weretiger, Commune with Nature, Release The Hounds, Replay Tracks
L6) Bite of the Werebear, Leader Of The Pack (as per Danse Du Pack, The Practical Enchanter, but only 10 minutes/level), Primal Regression, Summon Flight Of Eagles.
L7) Changestaff, Greater Polymorph.

Unlike the other three Primordial Runes, the Transformation Rune has few cultural implications, and is seen more as a thing of the wilderness – wielded by explorers and rangers, but equally by wildmen and primitives. As is perhaps befitting, the Rune of Change is seen as fundamental to both advancement and regression, a thing of both invention and shapeshifters. Great warriors often wield the Transformation Rune – whether for good or for ill. To the content, they bring danger and disorder. To the oppressed, liberation and the hope of change. As such… they are never entirely welcome to those in power, who see no reason for change.

Elemental Runes:

Air / Storms:
Skills: Balance, Diplomacy, Listen, and Perform (any sound-focused form).
Attribute: Dexterity.
L1) Air Bubble, Endure Elements, Feather Fall, Fog Cloud, Shocking Grasp, Updraft.
L2) Binding Winds, Eagle Eye, Gust Of Wind, Wind Wall.
L3) Call Lightning, Downdraft, Sleet Storm, Wind’s Favor.
L4) Air Walk, Blast Of Wind, Greater Aggressive Thundercloud, Ice Storm.
L5) Call Lightning Storm, Control Winds, Fickle Winds, Storm Touch.
L6) Blazing Rainbow, Dispel Magic (Greater), Path Of The Winds, Plague Storm.
L7) Control Weather, Storm Tower.

While there are a few benign uses for the Air Rune, most of those are the province of truly powerful wielders, simply because they usually call for massive areas of effect. Such powerful wielders are immensely valuable in ship-based trading, in agriculture, and in many other areas. Control of the Weather aids in growth and harvest, ends droughts, and breaks storms. It may not still earthquakes, calm volcanoes, or stop tidal waves – but such things are rare, while destructive storms, dangerous blizzards, and shortages of rain are all too common. Families with strong links to the Air Rune tend to focus on training more than most, teaching their members to access those powerful – and oh, so profitable – effects. They are often trained as ship crewmen, in anticipation of them developing their greater powers.

Earth / Plant:
Skills: Appraise, Climb, Move Silently, and Survival (Includes Use Rope),
Attribute: Strength
L1) Enhance Herb (Paths of Power II), Entangle, Goodberry, Expeditious Construction, Hail Of Stone, Pass Without Trace,
L2) Bull’s Strength, Forest Friend, Full Pouch, Heat/Chill Metal,
L3) Chameleon Stride (Greater), Feather Step (Mass), Plant Growth, Stone Shape
L4) Commune With Nature, Jungle Mind, Land Womb, Sturdy Tree Fort
L5) Hungry Earth, Transport Via Plants, Wall of Stone, Wall Of Thorns.
L6) Binding Earth (Mass), Dust Form, Move Earth, Transmute Rock to Mud (Reversible).
L7) Master Earth, Animate Plants.

The Earth Rune is the rune of foundations, of agriculture and growth. With it even a relatively minor wielder may cause the fields to yield more, can feed and heal the folk of a settlement on simple herbs and berries, and may plow and dig wells, canals, and channels. With a bit more experience, they can discover all the riches of the earth and erect sturdy outposts from which folk may gather that wealth.

Fire / Plasma:
Skills: Craft (Alchemy or any fire-related), Disable Device, Heal, and Sleight Of Hand.
Attribute: Intelligence.
L1) Blades of Fire, Burning Hands, Campfire Veil, Kelgore’s Firebolt, Resist Energy (Fire Only), Wall of Smoke.
L2) Hearthfire (Hedge Wizardry), Pyrotechnics, Scorching Ray, Balor Nimbus.
L3) Fireball, Fire Spiders, Fire Wings, Flashburst.
L4) Firestride Exhalation, Fire Shield, Firestride, Wall Of Fire.
L5) Cone of Cold (Fire), Daltim’s Fiery Tentacles, Firebrand, Greater Fireburst.
L6) Fire Spiders, Fires of Purity, Scalding Mud, Summon Elementals (1d3 Huge Fire).
L7) Prismatic Spray, Sunburst.

Fire is one of the foundations of civilization. Yet the Fire Rune is primarily a sigil of war – for should you wish to cook, to scare animals away from your camp, to provide light, to smelt ore or forge metal, to brew potions, to drive a steam engine, or simply to provide warmth… a Hearthfire spell (and perhaps Resist Fire) will do. Certainly, you might want to use an explosion (Fireball) to help mine, or to extinguish a fire with Pyrotechnics – but even a minor Runebearer can accomplish such tasks. The greater spells of fire are almost always weapons of one sort or another. Still, a fire specialist is a welcome aide in battle.

Life / Renewal:
Skills: Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Heal, and Speak Language.
Attribute: Charisma.
L1) Cure Light Wounds, Lesser Restoration, Lesser Vigor, Remove Sickness, Polypurpose Panacea, Youthful Appearance
L2) Calm Emotions, Close Wounds, Delay Poison, Stabalize.
L3) Cure Serious Wounds, Neutralize Poison, Remove Disease, Vigor.
L4) Cure Critical Wounds, Panacea, Remove Curse, Restoration.
L5) Breath Of Life, Heal, Monstrous Regeneration, Raise Dead.
L6) Dual Heal (two targets), Greater Good Hope (double effects), Heroes Feast, Inspiring Recovery.
L7) Resurrection, Restoration (Greater).

The Life Rune is usually the template for any healer’s emblem in a setting. Whatever form it tends to take – whether Rod of Asclepius, Eye of Horus, Healing Hand, Renewing Serpent, Medicine Bear, Antahkarana, Om, Yin-Yang, Medicine Wheel, Lotus, Tree of Life, Hamsa/Hand of Miriam, Dharma Wheel, Flower of Life, Reiki Symbols, or Spiral Sun – will become emblematic. Runebearers of Life, as powerful physicians and healers, are welcome almost everywhere, their services are coveted by the wealth and sought by charities. Even the most generous will generally be well supported by donations and grateful patients. While it can obviously be used in support of evil, It is rare that any wielder of the Life Rune will be regarded with anything save great respect – unless their personal habits are utterly odious.

Shadow / Darkness / Oblivion:
Skills: Bluff (includes Forgery), Gather Information, Hide, and Move Silently.
Attribute: Intelligence.
L1) Disguise Self, Insightful Feint, Minor Image, Net Of Shadows, Shadow Anchor, Shadowfade.
L2) Blindsight, Darkness, Dark Whispers, Searching Shadows.
L3) Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Gloomblind Bolts, Scrying, Shadow Enchantment.
L4) Bestow Curse, Greater Invisibility, Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Form.
L5) Cloak of Shadows, Mislead, Prying Eyes, Shadow Walk.
L6) Greater False Vision, Greater Scrying, Shadow Evocation, Shadow Memory.
L7) Project Image, Shadow Conjuration (Greater).

Popularly – if somewhat unfairly – seen as the Rune of Thieves, Assassins, Spies, and Rogues, the Shadow Rune has always been as much about what might lie within the shadows as of the darkness itself. Still, given that fundamental uncertainty about its nature, it is not surprising that the Shadow Rune bestows powers that are far more flexible than those of any other rune. Of course, that same flexibility – and it’s inclusion of mental effects – only adds to the reasons why others find the Shadow Rune and its wielders so suspicious. Sadly, given that the influence of the rune on their minds, all too many Shadow Runebearers fully justify that prejudice.

Water / Swamp:
Skills: Disguise, Escape Artist, Survival (includes Use Rope), and Swim.
Attribute: Wisdom.
L1) Align (Bless, Curse, Etc) Water, Corrosive Touch (as per Shocking Grasp, but Acid), Detect Poison, Fogsight, Hidden Spring, Obscuring Mist.
L2) Chill Metal, Cure Moderate Wounds, Fog Cloud, Warp Wood.
L3) Poison, Neutralize Poison, Quench, Water Breathing.
L4) Control Water, Holy (or Unholy, etc) Storm, Raise From The Deep, Rusting Grasp.
L5) Airy Water, Control Currents (1 Hour / Level), Insect Plague, Summon Nature’s Ally VI (Water Elemental Only).
L6) Blazing Rainbow, Drown, Summon Elementals (1d3 Huge Water). Tidal Surge.
L7) Submerge Ship, Vortex.

The Water Rune is surprisingly subtle and versatile, if only because it is one of the few runes that offers even limited healing powers in addition to both utility powers and combat functions – if no particular defenses. Still, basic offense, concealment, minor healing, the ability to explore the depths, and raise or hinder ships, makes a bearer of the Water Rune welcome aboard any vessel or in any coastal settlement.

Archetypical Runes:

Communication / Writing / Runecraft:
Skills: Autohypnosis, Any one Knowledge, Decipher Script, and Speak Language.
Attribute: Dexterity.
L1) Amanuensis 3/Day, Ancient Knowledge, Arcane Mark 3/Day, Comprehend Languages, Incendiary Runes, Instant Portrait.
L2) Activate Item (Wand, scroll, staff, whatever), Lesser Arcane Seal, Speaking Stones, Whispering Wind.
L3) Illusory Script, Secret Page, Sepia Snake Sigil, Tongues.
L4) Amnesia, Bit of Luck, Contingent Scroll, Sending.
L5) Commune with Texts, Greater Dispel Magic, Greater Harrowing, Mage’s Decree.
L6) Chains of Light (Runes), Demanding Message (Mass), Greater Seal (The Practical Enchanter), Planar Ally.
L7) Banishment, Limited Wish.

In all language – in speech, in gestures, and in writing – there is an echo of the Primal Runes. A strength that can bind and shape the deep energies of creation, bringing order from chaos. The Communication Rune is the bridge over which that echo passes, the language which helps define what the world IS instead of simply reflecting thoughts about it. It is tied deeply into the foundations of what it means to be intelligent and capable of passing on lessons to younger members of your species – to have a culture. Wielders of the Communication Rune are found as messengers, clerks, judges, grand viziers, and commanders – anywhere where there is a premium on the ability to communicate, to support the official niceties that maintain society, and to understand large amounts of information. At their peak, a wielder of the Communication Rune can speak reality into being, although – as mere mortals – there are severe limits to this ability.

Defense / Traps / Wards:
Skills: Balance, Craft (Traps, etc), Disable Device, and Search.
Attribute: Dexterity.
L1) Alarm, Dispel Ward, Hidden Ward, Mage Armor, Resist Energy, Sanctuary.
L2) Arcane Lock, Fire Trap, Misdirection, Rope Trick.
L3) Dispel Magic, Explosive Runes, Glyph of Warding, Nondetection.
L4) Emergency Force Sphere, Magic Circle (Select), Reverse Arrows, Ruin Delver’s Fortune.
L5) Chromal Barrier (as per Prismatic Wall, but only one color), Mages Private Sanctum, Scry Trap, Zone Of Respite.
L6) Greater Glyph Of Warding, Guards and Wards, Sign of Sealing, Hide The Path.
L7 Refuge, Teleport Trap.

The Defense Rune is, of course, most valued by those with places and items that need to be protected or secured. While relatively few of it’s powers are particularly mobile, it offers a wide variety of protections – especially if someone learns to imbue areas with personal protections. A structure – whether shop, moneychangers, or fortress – protected by a skilled wielder of the Defense Rune can be difficult to even locate, much less damage or penetrate.

Investigation / Curiosity / Search:
Skills: Decipher Script, Gather Information, Open Lock, and Search.
Attribute: Wisdom.
L1) Bloodhound, Detect Secret Doors, Heightened Awareness, Instant Search, Lay Of The Land, Residual Tracking.
L2) Blood Biography, Circle Dance, Locate Object, Share Husk.
L3) Allied Cloak, Aura Sight, Helping Hand, Seek Thoughts.
L4) Dungeonsight, Implacable Pursuer, Legend Lore, Locate Creature.
L5) Contact Other Plane, Geas/Quest, Mages Private Sanctum, Mind Probe.
L6) Find the Path, Mass Fleeting Memory, Psychic Asylum, Unerring Tracker.
L7) Retrocognition, Vision.

The questions have rung out across the centuries: “What happened?” “Why did this happen?” “Who did this?”. Those who wield the Revelation Rune can usually find out. While there tends to be communication and cooperation between it’s wielders, they rarely gather in one place, for their curiosity – and the questions of their patrons – tend to lead them in many directions. Still, while “truth” is widely sought, this is also the rune of blackmailers and spies. Others are bounty hunters, rangers, and hunters of wild beasts – searching out their prey as the “more sophisticated” bearers search out truth.

Revelation / Divination / Senses:
Skills: Appraise, Listen, Sense Motive, and Spot.
L1) Detect Magic 3/Day, Detect Poison 3/Day, Ebon Eyes, Embrace The Wild, Investigative Mind, Ancient Knowledge.
L2) See Invisibility, Discern Shapechanger, Know Vulnerabilities, Eagle Eye.
L3) Akhasic Communion, Arcane Sight, Identify (Pathfinder Version), Oracular Vision (Any divination effect of level two or less).
L4) Detect Scrying, Divination, Echolocation, Legend Lore.
L5) Dragonsight, Dream, True Seeing, Zone of Revelation.
L6) Analyze Dweomer, Immediate Truth (Use one “True” (strike, skill, etc, see The Practical Enchanter) spell as an immediate action), Prophetic Lore, Telepathy.
L7) Arcane Sight (Greater), Scrying (Greater).

The Revelation Rune reveals much, if rarely all – but those looking for forgeries, or counterfeit money, or poisoned food, or infiltrators, or are seeking justice, or who wish to learn about some ancient relic… would do well to find a bearer of the Revelation Rune.

Symbiosis / Beastmaster / Animal Husbandry:
Skills: Handle Animal, Heal, Intimidate, Ride.
Attribute: Charisma.
L1) Calm Animals, Charm Animal, Commune with Birds, Speak with Animals, Enrage Animal, Invisibility to Animals.
L2) Bestow Curse (Domestication, Desexing, or similar veterinary “work” only), Hold Animal, Summon Swarm, Nature’s Favor.
L3) Dominate Animal, Greater Magic Fang, Cure Critial Wounds (Animals Only), Master Animal (Permanent Train Animal)
L4) Animal Growth, Summon Nature’s Ally V (Animals Only variant, -1 level). Breeders Blessing (improves results, especially over generations).Winged Mount.
L5) Awaken, Heal (Animals only), Release The Hounds, Summon Nature’s Ally VI (Animals Only variant, -1 level).
L6) Dragonblood Beast, Share Skin, Summon Nature’s Ally VII (Animals only variant, -1 level), Summon Stampede.
L7) Animal Shapes, Atavism (Mass).

The gift of the Symbiosis Rune is prosperity. For even at it’s lower levels it offers dominion over the beasts of the fields and the ability to produce improved strains of them. Strong and docile plowhorses and packhorses, fierce warhorses, improved mastiffs for defense, training the great cats and elephants for war, more productive cows, healthier and better-laying chickens… the second half of the agricultural revolution, and all the wealth it brings, lies in the province of the Symbiosis Rune. Moreover, they can obtain results that would take other breeders a thousand years or more within a few decades.

Travel / Movement:
Skills: Climbing, Jump, Survival (includes Use Rope), and Tumble.
Attribute: Constitution.
L1) Abjuring Step, Benign Transposition, Expeditious Retreat, Jump, Mount, Updraft.
L2) Dimension Leap, Dark Way, Baleful Transposition, Swift Fly.
L3) Conjure Carriage, Fly, Mass Feather Step, Phantom Steed.
L4) Dimension Door, Flight of the Dragon, Planar Adaption, Wind At Back.
L5) Ether Step, Overland Flight, Plane Shift, Teleport.
L6) Find The Path, Mass Planar Adaption, Wind Walk, Word of Recall.
L7) Teleport (Greater), Walk Through Space.

The Travel Rune does not greatly change the world at lower levels, where it’s basic effects are mostly short ranged and personal, however useful such tricks are to an adventurer. Still, masters are greatly valued as emissaries, couriers, and traders in relatively small amounts of high-value goods. If you want to move a thousand tons of rice, you send it by ship. If you want to move five tons of artwork, send it by airship. If you want to move a briefcase full of precious stones quickly and securely… call in a master of the Travel Rune.

Wanderer / Pilgrim / Explorer:
Skills: Diplomacy, Knowledge (Local or Geography), Speak Language, Survival (includes Use Rope).
Attribute: Intelligence.
L1) Mage’s Comfort, Purify Food and Drink (3/Day) Prestidigitation (3/Day), Unseen Servant, Dawn 3/Day, Second Wind.
L2) Clothier’s Closet, Hearthfire (Hedge Magic), Hide Campsite, Peacemaker’s Parley.
L3) Bit of Luck, Create Food and Water, Hedge Mastery (cast two levels worth of Hedge Magic spells within the next hour), Servant Horde.
L4) Bountiful Banquet, Good Hope (10 Minutes/Level), Grove of Respite, Secure Shelter.
L5) Greater Age Resistance, Greater Hut, Hidden Lodge, Life Bubble.
L6) Heroes Feast, Superior Resistance, Transport Via Plants, Word Of Recall.
L7) Bestow Planar Infusion III, Mages Magnificent Mansion.

The Wanderer Rune is a force of rest and comfort – useful to wanderers whether they possess it themselves or whether they are merely staying with someone who does possess it. In either case, the promise of rest and sanctuary can be a precious thing – while even a relatively low-level wielder can easily set up a small inn or traveler’s rest and make a comfortable living wherever people pass. While the Wanderer Rune is notably inoffensive compared to many others, solving logistic issues is no small contribution to travel, exploration, and military expeditions can be invaluable – enough so that many treat anyplace run by a bearer of the Wanderer Rune as neutral territory.

Mages Comfort (Bard I, Sorcerer/Wizard I, Illusion (Shadow), Casting Time 1 Minute, Components V, S, Area: Special, Duration Two Hours Per Level, Saving Throw None (Harmless), Spell Resistance No).

Mages Comfort makes an area (campsite, apartment, extradimensional space, etc) pleasant to stay in with blankets, cushions, comfortable chairs, endtables, beds with nice mattresses, and other “real enough” furnishings. Anything removed from the area will, however, vanish instantly and none of the items can be effectively used as weapons, restraints, or for purposes other than comfort.

Greater Hut (Bard 5, Sorcerer/Wizard 5). An upgraded version of Tiny Hut, with a radius of up to thirty feet – sufficient to shelter an entire expedition. The outside blends into the local environment. Anyone attempting to get in without permission must save (Will, one try) or be unable to enter. The shelter will collapse if the caster leaves for more than ten minutes and Disintegration destroys it.

There are other ways to use runes of course. For example, you could set up a world where all magic depended on the Runes, and thus was inherently limited. Allow each spellcaster access to – say – three runes, perhaps forbidding some combinations. (For example, Destruction would likely be incompatible with the Creation, Life, and Defense runes). That would still limit spellcasters a great deal – eliminating most problematic spells and greatly reducing the complexity inherent in a vast spell list – while simultaneously allowing hundreds of unique magical combinations.

If even that is not enough… it should not be difficult to add additional runes. A few – such as Enchantment and Conjuration – are problematic for obvious reasons, Illusion would be entertaining, if ultimately a bit limiting. But Radiance, Metal, Insects (or Spiders), Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, a set of Martial Maneuvers, Shamanism? Mystic Archery? Infernal or Celestial Magic? All those little fields that are a bit too narrow and specific to build a character class around can easily become Runes. What will that red dragon do when the fighter suddenly activates his Ice Magic Rune and takes the stance of the Unrelenting Glacial Advance style?

Planar Wizardry

For today, it’s a look at some old-fashioned spells. There are several tradeoffs in spell design, but in this case it’s the distinction between spells that do something specific and spells which give the caster a tool to work with – something that’s often seen as a distinction between “simulationism” and “gameism”.

Today most games run towards “spells that do something specific”. For a very familiar example, look at Fireball. In early editions it basically created an explosion that filled a certain amount of volume if it could. Thus, for example, it could go a long ways down a network of narrow tunnels. You could start fires with it, blow doors off their hinges, use it as a mining tool, and so on. If you set it off in a very confined place it might even do extra damage. Of course, it had all the downsides of explosive use; if you threw it at something behind a transparent barrier, or at a mirror that was reflecting a scene, or just seriously misjudged the amount of space available… it might go off in your face. It could create dangerous choking smoke, collapse roofs, and so on. Using it well demanded cleverness – and adjudicating the results could require a good deal of input from the game master.

Nowadays, it’s a specific radius on the map, starting fires is barely mentioned and almost never considered, barriers simply block it, and it’s quick and easy to use requiring very little caution or adjudication. Just don’t set if off at your own feet.

Personally, I rather like versatile effects – and to consider how things might have developed. Classically, back in first editon, Arcane Spells involved pulling power from other dimensions and carefully storing it in quasi-stable mental constructs – a complex and difficult process – although the number you could keep ready to go expanded with practice. (Divine Spellcasters, of course, cheated by getting their god to do the hard part. Still, that limited them to what their god chose to give them – meaning that they had to keep serving and pleasing their deities to get more magic).

So first up it’s some fundamental effects.

Momentary Breach: Sorcerer/Wizard 3, Components S, MF, Casting Time: Standard Action, Range: Touch, Effect: See Text (usually a short range cone, but the actual area affected is unreliable), Duration: 1 Round, Saving Throw: None, Spell Resistance: None.

This spell is related to Precipitate Breach, but is far smaller and more immediate – allowing the energies of another plane to pour forth in front of the caster for a few moments with the momentary portal (thankfully) facing away from the caster. The problem is that such effects are not magical (and thus ignore antimagic), and are controlled only by their own nature. If you tap into the quasi-elemental Plane of Lightning, you will get some lightning – but it will be electrical arcs that will ground themselves into something nearby and handy, without the intensity, directionality, and controllable area of effect of a proper Lightning Bolt spell. Less damage, a smaller area of effect, and possibly not hitting what you want to at all. Positive energy? Some healing is likely, but so is uncontrolled plant growth, fungi, and temporary animations that will not be under your control. Negative Energy might block an incoming energy attack, but it might also spawn some hostile minor undead. Chaos usually has effects similar to a Wand of Wonder. In no case can the caster target a specific area or creature. The GM may rule that some creature comes through, but that is entirely up to him or her. The focus is a rod or staff bearing a rune representing the plane being tapped, although a given staff or rod may bear many such runes. The possible planes to tap are:
● Elemental Planes: Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Life (Positive Energy), and Death (Negative Energy).
● Paraelemental Planes: Smoke, Ice, Ooze and Magma
● Quasi-Elemental Planes: Ash, Dust, Salt, Vacuum, Lightning, Mineral, Radiance, and Steam
● Outer Planes: Good, Evil, Law, Chaos
● The energies of the Transitive Planes (Astral, Ethereal, Shadow, and Temporal) are stable on their own, and so do not come through.
● Demiplanes are too small to target.
● Campaigns which incorporate the realms of the Fey or other specialized planes of existence (such as the Far Realms, Dream Realms, and others) may allow more knowledgeable mages to draw on those as well – but that tends to get quite weird, and is best left to rather high-level casters.

Experience does mean something of course; any required caster rolls resulting from the spell recieve a circumstance bonus of (Level – 5, +15 maximum). So if the game master has you roll 4d6 for elemental damage, or wants a dexterity check to keep the magma flow pointed away from your friend, or wants a reflex save because sucking the air out an area brought down the roof, the caster gets the bonus on such checks.

Game Masters who feel a need to limit things more precisely might, perhaps, only allow users to know how to draw on one plane per level of Knowledge/The Planes that they possess. For those who wish to increase the effects a bit – or just to offer some compensation from limiting the number of planes available – you might allow casters to use the spell to Call very minor creatures from the relevant planes, such as Mephits, allowing one such option per plane. While this wouldn’t offer any control over such creatures diplomacy and bargaining may produce some results.

Players who want an character with a dangerous untrained mystical talent or some such may want to take Inherent Spell (Momentary Breach) with Bonus Uses – thus creating a character who can spontaneously tap into a wide variety of extradimensional forces without much control or necessarily having any idea of what they’re doing or how to control it. For a mere 12 CP you can be a gifted but utterly untrained magus! (For a few more CP you can throw in some uses of Rope Trick, for secure camping, or perhaps Conjurer’s Tricks (from The Practical Enchanter) for minor tricks).

Planar Cascade: Sorcerer/Wizard 6, Components S, MF, Casting Time: Standard Action, Range: Medium, Effect: See Text (usually about a thirty foot radius but the actual area affected is unreliable), Duration: 1 Round, Saving Throw: None, Spell Resistance: None.

Planar Cascade operates much like Momentary Breach but affects an area at range and usually takes longer for the effects to dissipate (if they ever do) thanks to sheer scale. Dumping magma all over a sizeable area may take hours or days to cool (and will leave rock), filling an area with Chaos often has effects as per a Bag of Beans, and land covered in Salt may not be fertile again for generations. Vacuum, on the other hand, might just suck a lot of stuff up. On the other hand, Water or Air will usually dissipate quickly while Good will likely mere Consecrate the area for a time and damage evil creatures. As with Momentary Breach it is possible that something will come through the briefly-opened door – but the caster has no control over that, although it is remotely possible that praying to something (preferably using it’s true name) will cause it to take notice that there’s a path open for a bit. Of course, even if something comes through… this spell provides no way to so much as influence it, and is likely to overload and destroy any containement effects that might be used.

As with Momentary Breach, the caster gains a circumstance bonus on any spell-related rolls the GM calls for of (Caster Level – 11, 10 maximum).

Obviously enough, the simplest way to restrict this effect is to limit user’s to their list of planes from Momentary Breach. To enhance it… allow learned user’s to slightly twist the result to produce effects equivalent to a few lower (fifth) level effects – Plane Shift (to known planes only), Dismissal (if they can correctly identify a creatures plane of origin and know of it), and Precipitate Breach (may only breach to known planes) – allowing Plane Shift at Knowledge/The Planes 7+. Plane Shift or Dismissal at 14+, and all three at 21+.

This, of course, is serious magic. Dabblers rarely get this far – but it’s hardly impossible; For a mere 48 CP in total you can get five uses/day each of Momentary Breach, Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation, and Planar Cascade – enough to make you a fairly effective “Wizard” or “Sorcerer”. Sure, there will be a lot of things you can’t do – but that’s a lot of versatility for a mere four spells.

Planar Infusion: Sorcerer/Wizard 9, Components S, M (10,000 GP in Gems), Casting Time: Standard Action, Range: Touch, Effect: See Text, Duration: Instantaneous / special, see text, Saving Throw: None, Spell Resistance: None.

Planar Infusion resembles Momentary Breach and Planar Cascade, but it infuses the summoned energies into some item, creature, or structure on a semi-permanent basis. An infusion of Negative Energy might create a powerful undead (albeit while offering no control over what you get or what it does), infusing a machine with Law might make it run for many centuries without requiring fuel or maintenance, infusing a Hospital with Positive Energy might ensure that the great majority of their patients would make full recoveries – or it might lead to it becoming a haunt of bizarre mutant monsters. Infusing a deck of cards with Chaos might result in something like a Deck Of Many Things (although cards would be used up when drawn) or perhaps a Deck Of Conjurations, Fire would likely result in a deck of fire magic – or a deck of natural disasters. Infusing a Staff with Fire might create or recharge a Staff of Fire – or a +1 (or higher) Flaming Staff, or any of many other things. This is versatile and fast, not reliable. As with Momentary Breach, the caster gains a circumstance bonus on any spell-related rolls the GM calls for of (Caster Level – 15, 5 maximum).

By the time anyone can cast this thing their Knowledge / The Planes really ought to be high enough that it isn’t going to be a limiting factor. You could limit it by Knowledge / Arcana on the theory that you need to know how to channel the power into various kinds of items – but by the time you can cast ninth level spells skills aren’t all that much of a barrier either. This one pretty much comes as-is.

Dabblers rarely get this far, simply because getting this far requires some serious dedication. Still, if someone really wants to…

• Spend 18 CP on a L7 Effect – Etheric Creation (as per Major Creation, but Standard Action casting time and five cubic feet per caster level) five times per day.
• Spend 18 CP on a L8 Effect – The Astral Forge (as per Limited Wish, but requires a rune-inscribed, inlaid staff worth 3500 GP as a focus instead of a base cost. On the upside, the staff can be used to cast Prestidigitation and Dancing Lights at will, if only at caster level one. More expensive models have Wand Compartments suitable for a wand or rod for +100 GP. Technically a Wondrous Item rather than a staff if that should ever matter).
• Spend 18 CP on getting Planar Infusion 1/Day. You’d still have to pay the 10,000 GP in gems each time you use it though, so you might want to cut the cost by limiting this to once a week or something.

OK, that’s 102 CP, plus your investment in Skills – but it’s slightly cheaper than buying Adept spellcasting and extremely versatile, even if you do only have seven actual spells.

The Planar Spells are very versatile – but their effects tend to be somewhat random and are far less controlled and focused than a specific spell. Covering an area in nonmagical flames may do some damage and bypass antimagic, but it isn’t going to match the kind of intensity that you get with Fireball, much less with Delayed Blast Fireball or Meteor Swarm. On the other hand, they let a character with only a few spells do a creditable impression of a versatile wizard – just like Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration would.

Lesser Planar Staff (12,500 GP, 10 Charges, recharges 1/Day automatically, but cannot be recharged otherwise).
● Momentary Breach (SL 3 x CL 8 x 400 GP) = 9600 GP
● Momentary Breach (SL 3 x CL 5 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use Activated x .2 1/Day x .5 only to recharge the staff = 3000 GP.

Planar Staff: (36,000 GP, 10 Charges, recharges 1/Day automatically, but cannot be recharged otherwise).
● Planar Cascade: SL 6 x CL 11 x 400 GP / 2 (uses two charges) = 13,200 GP
● Momentary Breach: SL 3 x CL 11 x 300 GP (uses one charge) = 9900 GP.
● Planar Cascade (Sl 6 x CL 11 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use Activated x .2 1/Day x .5 only to recharge the staff = 13,200 GP.

Grand Planar Staff: (100,000 GP, 10 Charges, recharges 1/Day but cannot be recharged otherwise).
● As per a Planar Staff, but add Planar Infusion (Sl 9 x CL 17 x 1500 GP Unlimited Use Spell Trigger Plus 10,000 GP Material Component x 50 Restricted Usage = 729,500 GP x .1 (Usable 1/Week) = 72,950 GP

Creating Planar Staves normally will require both Create Wondrous Item and Create Staff. These are constructed using the Pathfinder rules for making staves, simply because they seem more interesting that way. They’re self-recharging because – otherwise – both 3.5 and Pathfinder 1’st staves don’t really seem to attract many users. 

For the next step past the Planar Dabbler we have the Planar Adept.

A Planar Adept is, in many ways, an ancestral form of Arcane Caster, The basic talent – opening portals to other planes to draw magical power from – is pretty much the same. However, instead of carefully forging that power into prepared spells like a Wizard or pouring it through preset channels like a Sorcerer, the Planar Adept pretty much just turns it loose, focusing on developing the raw talent to blow holes in the universe. All that study, sophistication, spellcrafting, and arcane lore is left to later generations.

Given the number of planes available to tap into this is a surprisingly versatile effect – but control is quite another matter. Planar Adepts will quite often find things going somewhat, or even seriously, wrong until they’re using very high order effects indeed. There isn’t much subtlety either; you won’t find clever mental manipulations, or transformations, or subtle illusions among their repertoire. They get the eighteen spells given below, and that’s it. Still, thanks to that specialization, they are capable of accessing those specific spells earlier than a Wizard or Sorcerer could, which is something.

Planar Adept Package (26 CP to start, +4 CP per additional level, additional purchases – Knowledge / The Planes, more Rite of Chi, or more Mana – may be wanted:

• Opener Of The Ways: Wilder, Corrupted for Reduced Cost (Likely Cha or Int-based, 4 CP/Level) / Does not provide any Abilities, only usable with the Planar Portals and Planar Rifts Paths.
• Access to the Planar Portal and Planar Rifts Paths (12 CP).
• Keys Of Creation: 2d6 Mana with Spell Enhancement, Specialized and Corrupted / only for Spell Enhancement, only to access higher-order effects with the Planar Portals and Planar Rifts Paths (4 CP).
• Breath Of The World: Rite of Chi, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore the Pools given above, requires several minutes of downtime to use (2 CP).
  • +4 Bonus Uses of Rite of Chi, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore the Wilder Power pool above (2 CP).
  • +4 Bonus Uses of Rite of Chi, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore the Mana pool given above (2 CP).

Planar Portals Path:

1. Bestow Planar Infusion. Note that this may be cast at Level Four to provide the Improved Infusion or at Level Seven to provide the Greater Infusion.
2. Conjurer’s Tricks. From The Practical Enchanter. Basically upgraded Prestidigitation.
3. Momentary Breach,
4. Open The Underworld. Greater Invocation of Create Pit, normally creating two instances of Create Pit or a single Spiked Pit. Cast at L5 it can create an Acid Pit or two Spiked Pits, at L6 a Hungry Pit or two Acid Pits, at L7 a Roaming Pit or two Hungry Pits, and at L8 two Hungry Pits. (Honestly, at higher levels you usually have much better things to do than to create pits, but as ascalable invocation those spells might see SOME use).
5. Teleport.
6. Planar Cascade.
7. Planar Seal. Creates any dimensional sealing effect of level six or less. Likely examples include Dimensional Anchor, Scramble Portal, Forbiddance, Seal Portal, and Seal Planar Breach.
8. Pocket Realm, Produces any Spacewarp template spell (See The Practical Enchanter) of level seven or less.
9. Planar Infusion (The ninth level version above).

Planar Rifts Path:

1. Gatekeeper. For ten minutes per caster level the user may detect planar disturbances at long range and may use Open Locks and Disable Device on portals, gates, and similar phenomena.
2. Dimension Step. As per Dimension Door, but only Medium Range,
3. Blink.
4. Shadowform.
5. Greater Blink.
6. Etherealness.
7. Immediate Temporal Acceleration.
8. Portal Mastery: Can produce any one of the following lesser effects – Greater Plane Shift, Greater Teleport, or Shadow Walk.
9. Reality Maelstrom. Note that if you decide to simply drop all control, this is equivalent to the spell Precipitate Complete Breach. This is NOT advised.

Obviously enough you’ll probably want more levels of Wilder, some Knowledge/The Planes, and – of course – hit dice and such. Still, while the initial cost is similar to that of a Wizard, even throwing in some more bonus uses on Rite of Chi and a few more dice in the Mana reserve, the per-level cost is going to be far below that of an actual Wizard or Sorcerer. The flexibility will be too, but it’s not at all a bad package for a “primitive” arcanist – or it could serve as a template for various other specialists. There are plenty of other domains and paths out there.

Dungeon Keepers and Cores for Eclipse d20

“Dungeon Keeper” or “Dungeon Core” is a fairly specialized genre. Nevertheless, I’ve been asked how to build one.

Brompton Cemetery by Thomas Nugent is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0build one.

So… how do you build a personal dungeon full of monsters, traps, rooms and chambers with chasms, furnishings, and puddles of fire, and various (relatively minor) treasures and keep building it up?

Like any other form of base, the starting point is the Sanctum ability / feat. This also helps avoid the primary trap of this kind of setup; it’s passive nature. A dungeon keeper or core may run the dungeon – but generally must wait for people to come into the dungeon and has little to do if they decide to leave again. If the game involves other players (as most do) much of the time a pure dungeon keeper or dungeon core character would have nothing to do – and even when adventurers visit a dungeon, they’re the active ones.

Ergo, being a Dungeon Keeper needs to be cheap enough – at least in terms of character-building resources – that your Keeper can go out and adventure, or intrigue, or whatever, with the rest of the group without being at a massive disadvantage. Ergo, Sanctum, which provides 24 CP to build with for a mere six CP with the proviso that those resources are fixed, and only operate in a particular location.

Dungeons, of course, are places of magic. They spawn and respawn monsters and treasures, they create huge, and insufficiently supported, underground areas, they have breathable air in long-sealed vaults, they fail to fill with water even when built under bodies of it, the connections between their levels often make no sense at all, and you never see a vast pile of dug-out earth and stone next to them. Fairly often they have local laws of nature that don’t seem to apply elsewhere or ignore rules that should apply. Dungeons are set a bit apart from reality. That’s a major clue; they’re extra-dimensional spaces.

The Dungeon Core / Keeper Sanctum Build:

• Action Hero (Crafting), Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect (+50% points for a total of (3 + [level x 1.5] action (“Dungeon”) points per level, rounded up – so 5 at level one), covers both time and costs) / only to create dungeon facilities – the Dungeon Generator, Dungeon Populator, Raid Generator, and other optional items listed below (6 CP).
  • At first level a Dungeon Keeper or Core will have a mere 5 Dungeon Points to spend; just enough for a simple one-level goblin cave, or a crypt with a few skeletons, or some such. That might not be too elaborate, but it will do for a start.
• Create Item (Wondrous Items), Specialized for Increased Effect (the prerequisites are irrelevant) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only to allow the creation of the “items” given above under Action Hero via Action Hero (4 CP).
• Privilege: Dungeon facilities – and their functions – may be purchased in discrete and functional steps. For example, the Dungeon Generator – the “item” that creates basic dungeon levels – costs 15 Action (Dungeon) Points and can make four normal levels and three expanded levels. Ergo: 2 DP for L1, +1 DP per additional level, +2 DP for each of the three possible level expansions. That’s still a total of 15 DP, but this means that a starter dungeon can purchase a first level – perhaps a warren of kobold tunnels – for a mere 2 DP (3 CP).
• Leadership (Contractors and Evolutions), Specialized for Increased Effect (applies to each floor) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost (4 CP) / can only be applied to Dungeon Creatures – although this may include one outside creature per level that has taken up residence in the dungeon – ceases to work outside the dungeon, only to give creatures of the dungeon both levels and special “evolutions” (templates) and to grant similar minor boosts (almost always including greatly extended lifespans and Returning) to the Contractors.
  • Leadership, of course, does not really work below level four – but this allows higher-level dungeon keepers and cores to go ahead and give their basic monsters a variety of unique upgrades and to lure in assistants. Unfortunately, while Contractors can leave the dungeon, the benefits of their contract will be in abeyance until they come back.
• Returning, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only to restore Dungeon facilities created through Action Hero (2 CP). It may take some time to re-establish a dungeon, but unless the Keeper or Core is destroyed, the digging always starts again – and soon enough the dungeon will be back.
• Privilege: The dungeon Keeper or Core receives a little bit of Experience – and the occasional extra “Dungeon Point” – when adventurers spend time visiting, exploring, or adventuring in their dungeon. This is, however, Specialized / said adventurer’s presence must be voluntary and their level must at least equal the level of the dungeon that they are visiting for this to be of any actual benefit to the Core / Keeper (1 CP).
• Occult Sense (Dungeon Awareness): The Core or Keeper is always aware of what is going on in his or her dungeon. Corrupted / the user is only fully aware of what is going on in one level at a time. The Keeper or Core only gets a vague idea of what is going on on the other levels (4 CP).

A Keeper who makes a habit of wandering off may want to purchase Mystic Link, so that they can maintain this awareness – and give orders – when outside the dungeon.

Basic Facilities:

The two Basic Facilities – the Dungeon Generator and the Dungeon Populator – are pretty much required for any dungeon.

• Dungeon Generator: Spacewarp (L2 Base) with Barriers (+1 Level, doors (including the entryway), obstacles, and passages may have various rules/challenges/etc), Furnished (+1 level to add bridges, murder holes, minor wildlife, guard posts, bodies of water, fountains, chasms, lava pools, groves of trees, mushrooms, quicksand, bridges, secret doors, tapestries, chests, and other dungeon furnishings. This stuff tends to quickly decay away if removed from the dungeon), Hidden (+1 level, even transdimenional divinations about the place and it’s contents generally fail), Increased Size (+1 level for 30,000 cubic feet per caster level available per floor), Stable (+1 Level, other extradimensional spaces may be created or used inside without difficulty), and Renewable (+1 Level). Spell Level 8 x Caster Level 17 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.4 only ten instances of the spell may be maintained at a time and they may be arranged in no more than seven floors, x,8 Layout may only be changed somewhat when the spell gets it’s daily renewal, x.8 changes may only be made while the floor is unoccupied by outsiders, x.8 floors cannot be simply sealed off, a route through must always be available (even if it can be extremely hard to manage) x.5 Immobile = 28,000 GP. Purchasing with DP: 2 for L1, 1 per additional level, 2 for each of the three possible level expansions.
• Dungeon Populator: Summon Monster VII (Custom List Option; Four Monsters and Four Traps for each level) with the Renewable option (+1 Level), Base Duration of 1 Minute/Caster Level (+1 Level), Includes minor special equipment for “evolved” followers / trap concealment (+1 Level), Three Levels of Built-In Metamagic (-1 Level): Spell Level 9 x Caster Level 17 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use Activated x .4 Effective level of the summoning spell is equal to that of the floor the creatures are being summoned to, x.7, Renewal effects only maintain the monsters and traps existence until no outsiders are on a floor and they can reset .7, Each Floor may only be given 4d4 Minor Creatures Or 2d4 of two types), 1d4+1 Average Creatures, and 1 Major Creature, as well as 4 Minor (two types available), 2 Intermediate (must be of the same type), and 1 Major Trap, x.7 Monsters may not leave their floors (or go outside) more than very briefly x.9 Monsters are generally obliging to the Dungeon Keeper or Core, but aren’t necessarily very bright about it and do have instincts, x.5 Immobile = 19,000 GP. It should be noted that each level usually has a theme; a fiery level will have fire monsters, a goblin fort level will have goblins and humanoids, and so on. Purchasing with DP: 3 for L1, +2 per additional level.
  • So each floor gets up to 510,000 Cubic Feet. with three extra blocks of that much space to add to particular floors if you want a forest or something. Each floor will be inhabited by 4d4 Minor, 2d4+2 Average, and 1 Major monster – and will have 2 Minor, 2 Average, and 1 Major trap as well as assorted minor obstacles and challenges. To define “Minor”, “Average”, and “Major”.
    • Level One (Summon II Base): Minor is CR 1/3 or less, Average is CR 1/2 or less, and Major is CR 1 or less.
    • Level Two (Summon III Base): Minor is CR 1/2 or less, Average is CR 1 or less, and Major is CR 2 or less.
    • Level Three (Summon IV Base): Minor is CR 1 or less, Average is CR 2 or less, and Major is CR 3 or less.
    • Level Four (Summon V Base): Minor is CR 2 or less, Average is CR 3 or less, and Major is CR 5 or less.
    • Level Five (Summon VI Base): Minor is CR 3 or less, Average is CR 5 or less, and Major is CR 6 or less.
    • Level Six (Summon VI Base): Minor is CR 5 or less, Average is CR 6 or less, and Major is CR 8 or less.
    • Level Seven (Summon VII Base): Minor is CR 6 or less, Average is CR 8 or less, and Major is CR 9 or less.

Thus, for 5 DP, a first level Keeper or Core can have a first floor and some basic creatures and traps to put on it. They won’t be able to afford anything fancy until later on however.

It’s important to note that things like basic pits, slippery floors, and similar terrain hazards can be added for free. Things can also be added through normal means; if a Dungeon Keeper wants to go out and buy some bear traps (2 GP each) and hide them under a scattering of straw, they may do so. They’ll just have to maintain and reset them manually, while traps created ny a Dungeon Population maintain and reset themselves.

Optional Facilities:

Engines Of The Deeps: This facility generates Unseen Servants with an Extended Range (anywhere in the Dungeon, SL 3 x CL 5 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x .5 Immobile) – and can thus maintain about 3000 of them at a time, delivering about 250 Horsepower. That’s more than enough to straighten the place up, to support moving bridges of floating cobblestones, to run elevators, to power and reset mechanical devices and traps, to hold up floating platforms, to pump water, to move items and prisoners about, to hold covers over pits, and to collect any stray goodies that adventurers leave laying about, among other things. With a net cost of 6 DP there isn’t a lot of point in breaking this one up – but if you want to any individual set of specialized effects is 1 DP until you hit a total of 6 and go unrestricted.

Yes, this covers things like sliding blocks and walls, floating bridges that assemble themselves when triggered, stairs that turn into slides, hanging nets, returning the sand to the shaft that dumps it on top of people, and so on. Anything particularly elaborate will still have to be purchased somehow – whether by a Dungeon Populator or actual cash – but this will suffice to harass people endlessly.

Throne Of War: Greater Invocation of Eldritch Weapon VII, Renewable (+1 Spell Level) for SL 9 x CL 17 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.5 Immobile x.5 (weapons may not be given a higher bonus than the level they are found on, no more than a few will be found on any given floor, and only occasional weapons will retain “their” magic after their user is defeated. = 76,500 GP. Installing a spark of the local War God in the depths will allow a dungeon to place a few magical weapons around the place – usually being used by various monsters. Most such will disappear when the monster is defeated, but every so often one will remain as a reward or “loot drop”. Such weapons can have any combination of enhancement bonuses and special functions up to their total bonus limit. There’s an upper limit of 1700 enhanced weapons (or bundles of enhanced ammunition at a time, but this should pretty much never be a worry – so dungeon keepers or cores can have personal weapons and can hand out weapons to friends and allies. As an epic item this costs 21 DP – but can be purchased in installments of +1 maximum per +3 DP.

Aegis Of The Guardian: The companion to a Throne Of War, this uses an Eldritch Armor effect – although since that spell is one level lower than the corresponding weapon enhancement this item can be purchased for +2 DP for levels 1-6, with level 7 costing 3 DP.

The Throne Of War and Aegis Of The Guardian will allow a well-developed dungeon to keep an associated party well-stocked with magical weapons and armor. Of course, a well-developed dungeon requires rather a lot of design work, regular maintenance and adjustment, and dealing with the attention and adventurers it will attract.

Secondary Core: This modification gives the Dungeon an intelligence of it’s own, albeit one that is responsive, rather than communicative. It, in turn can imbue the dungeon with a wide variety of effects. This is a Ward Major effect, as found in The Practical Enchanter, and has a cost of 3 DP for Rank-1, 2 DP per additional level to a maximum of level seven.

In theory it wouldn’t be that expensive in terms of DP to install an Epic Ward – but at that point the dungeon would almost certainly be smarter, wiser, more charismatic, and more willful than any reasonable Core or Keeper – and would probably just take over it’s own enchantments and go it’s own way. That’s how you get megadungeons.

Reality Fixator: Limited Wish L7 x L13 x 2000 GP + (50 x 1500 GP) = 257,000 GP x .4 (One subdividable charge per day) x .4 (only usable to produce goods with a maximum total value of 750 GP – 50% of the cost of the spells 1500 GP material component) x.5 Immobile = 20,560 GP. A Reality Fixator gradually makes a dungeons furnishings real – allowing adventurers to steal those fancy tapestries, for those bottles of fine wine in the storeroom to get taken into town, for ropes and other basic goods to persist outside the dungeon. Given time, a Reality Fixator will begin to stock the dungeon with minor treasures – bits of coinage, small gems, minor potions and scrolls, and so on – although the dungeon monsters can use those too. You may even see common livestock, simple mounts, and occasional cheap wands and wondrous items and such, a process which will speed up as more DP are invested. 1 DP per 75 GP/Day.

A dungeon can generate rather a lot of wealth. Of course, a lot of it will be in difficult-to-manage forms and most of it is used internally – but no sensible dungeon keeper is going to be short of basic supplies.

Raid Generator: Summon Monster VI (custom summons list, generally two choices each of minor mounts, minor hunting beasts, average minions, major boss), +4 levels of Persistent (24 Hour Duration), -2 levels / requires an elaborate dedicated staging area to launch the raid from, -1 Level / it requires up to ten minutes to ready a raiding party, +1 level raiding parties come with suitable gear. Spell Level 8 x Caster Level 15 x 1800 GP Unlimited Use Command Word Activated x .3 (Three Uses per Week) x .8 (All three uses are automatically expended at the same time to get a set of 5 Minor Mounts / Hunting Beasts, 4 Average Raiders, and one Major Raid Boss (Minor/Average/Major as defined above), x.7 (Creatures summoned are appropriate to the second-“deepest” level the dungeon has achieved – so a two-level dungeon summons a L1 raiding party, while a seven level dungeon can summon a sixth level raiding party. First level dungeons cannot summon raiding parties even if they somehow have a Raid Generator)x.5 Immobile = 18,144 GP. A Raid Generator allows a dungeon to summon up a raiding party – either to pursue fleeing adventurers, to conduct raids / resource grabs against some nearby target, to provide support for some operation, or to generally roam the countryside and make a statement. It costs 5 DP to install a Raid Generator capable of producing a first level raiding party, +1 DP per additional level to a maximum of a level six raiding party.

A Raid Generator will quickly attract attention. A dungeon without one is a mere attractive nuisance; it may lure in the occasional fool or little group of would-be adventurers, but simply staying away from the place is pretty much complete protection. Once it starts sending out raiding parties, however, that will quickly change.

Benison Generator: Create Magic Tattoo (L2), Renewable (+1 Level), Double Effect (+4 Levels), Nondispellable (+2 Levels), One Minute Casting Time (+1 Level), No Check Required (+1 Level), 9 levels of built-in Metamagic (-3 levels) = Spell Level 8 x Caster Level 15 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.5 Immobile x.7 Rank four benisons may only be awarded on level seven, rank three on level five and up, rank two on levels three and up, and rank one on any floor = 84,000 GP. Another fairly obviously epic-level toy, it costs 21 DP – or 7 DP per rank – to get a Benison Generator.. Possible Benisons include…

• (Rank) Resistance Bonus to Saves.
• (Rank) Competence Bonus to Attacks.
• (Rank) Enhancement Bonus to an Attribute.
• Recall (Rank) levels of cast spells daily, as if using a Pearl Of Power. Sadly, even with multiple
• Benisons, the maximum level of spell recalled is four.
• (Rank x 6) Spell Resistance.
• (Rank / 2) Luck Bonus to Attacks
• (Rank / 2) Deflection Bonus to AC
• (Rank / 2) Bonus to Effective Caster Level

Dungeons are notorious for having magical pools which grant benefits, monsters having magical trinkets, and so on. While unique items have to be purchased or crafted normally, a Benison Generator allows a dungeon to dispense a bunch of generic stuff – although no single recipient can have more than three such Benisons at a time. Note that creatures of the dungeon can also receive Benisons (whether as Marks, Draughts, Talismans, Etc), although no more than one each. A Benison Generator can only support 1440 Benisons in total, but this is not normally a noticeable limitation. Defeated monsters may leave Benisons as “Loot Drops”, but this is only at the option of the dungeon

Benisons are about as classic as it gets and have always been one of the major reasons that characters go into dungeons; they want that “Phat Loot!”.

Star Of Destiny: Wish Spell Level 9 x Caster Level 17 x 1800 GP Unlimited Use Command Word Activated + (50 x 25,000 GP) = 1,525,400 GP. X.05 once per month x 5 Immobile x.8 can only be added to the seventh level x .7 only for “Dungeon Business” – moving the entrance to a new location, allowing characters in a lower-level game to find a magic pool that can resurrect their lost companion, granting some special reward such as a companion creature or major change in a character (these are usually handled as bonus feats, see “Inherent Bonuses” in The Practical Enchanter) x.9 maximum of three uses to provide inherent bonuses per target = 19,220 GP. A dungeon equipped with a Star Of Destiny can grant rewards that are normally unavailable – allowing a character who was seeking a draconic steed to rescue and hatch a dragon egg (Grant Feat: Draconic Companion), or let someone learn secret techniques from some ancient spirit, or reveal a lost gate to some secret location, or letting a young paladiness bond with a unicorn, or any of hundreds of other things. And if no one is being rewarded this month the dungeon might add another entrance, or a special linke between the floors, or hide a sublevel minigame within a painting that allows entrance to a secret crypt, or some such. Installing a Star Of Destiny costs 15 DP. Upgrading it to 1/Week costs another 6. Unfortunately, there’s no good way to subdivide this; until the full price is paid the Star Of Destiny will not manifest.

A Star Of Destiny makes a dungeon a place of mysterious powers, where wonderful things can happen. Personally, I’d advise any dungeon with seven floors to install one as soon as possible.

Spectral Forge: Spectral Hand (L2) +1 Level (Anywhere in the Dungeon), +1 Level (No HP Cost). Spell Level 4 x Caster Level 7 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x .5 Immobile = 28,000 GP. A Spectral Forge allows a Core or Keeper to manifest their spells and similar abilities anywhere in the dungeon – although accurate targeting will require that the user be focusing on that level at the time. 15 DP and – once again – there really is no good way to subdivide this cost.

The Glorious Egress: Planar Drop (L2) Spell Level 2 x Caster Level Three x 1800 GP Unlimited-Use Command Word Activated x.5 Immobile = 5400 GP. Planar Drop is a relative of Dispel Magic (albeit with Touch or Short range) that simply ejects its target from a relatively limited extra-dimensional space at the point where they entered it if they fail to save. While rather narrowly specialized, this is occasionally used to eject ill-mannered guests from Mage’s Magnificent Mansion or to escape from spells like Create Pit or Maze. Unfortunately, demiplanes and such are too large to allow it to function – but it will allow a Dungeon Keeper or Core to either provide a shortcut to the surface for those who reach a designated exit and wish to leave or to try and throw people out – although the low save DC means that it will probably take several tries to get this to work. It’s usually installed in the final chamber, but the effect can be manifested anywhere in the dungeon with a Spectral Forge. 6 DP, and, once again, there is no good way to subdivide this cost. Still, it’s small enough that there generally is no need to bother.

While other facilities are possible (in fact, almost required at high levels since there will be plenty of DP left over at that point), those twelve cover most of the things a dungeon needs to function. It should be noted that there is nothing preventing a dungeon from buying such items more than once. Although there is no point with some of them, monster-heavy dungeons often double up on their Dungeon Populators and Raid Generators.

Dungeons are very powerful, and very cheap – although they take a lot of design time on the part of the player and a lot of time leveling up to build up that power. This, of course, makes developed dungeons into coveted targets. Many an individual and organization will want to claim and control a powerful dungeon – putting any player character who wants that power either up against the dungeon’s current master or very much on the defensive. Of course, that’s arguably just the way that it’s supposed to be.

With any luck things here will now be coming off hiatus and I can start posting semi-regularly again.

Eclipse D20 – Playing Possessed Items

And here we have another question…

The idea of possessed weapons is pretty old. Seriously, you can find that sort of thing in a bunch of ancient myths. The tales of the Gān Jiàng and Mò Yé swords or some weapons from the Vedas are some of the oldest examples I’m aware of, but the idea almost certainly predates the historical record. I can practically guarantee that, at some point, at least one stone age tribesman decided that their favorite weapon was haunted by someone’s spirit and was somehow lucky. Rather a lot of people have lived since the species evolved so somebody is sure to have come up with a basic bit of magical thinking like that.

More modern takes vary a lot, but ideas like “an old or crippled mentor imbues a weapon with his skills and passes it on to a student” or “a spirit is bound to a weapon until it is used to avenge its murder” turn up in a wide variety of books and films. So occasional players want to play such a weapon – or some other enchanted object. This… is awkward. To start with:

• RPG’s are social events. A character who has limited – or potentially no – communications is problematic.
• RPG’s stress player agency. A character who can’t move and act on their own is problematic.
• RPG’s stress keeping everyone involved. If you have a character who can’t reasonably participate in things like going to a bar, meeting the king, having a meal, and being social – and lets face it; the blood-dripping cursed axe of doom is not going to be welcome everywhere – the GM must choose between abandoning many of the elements that make it a RPG or leaving the enchanted object player out of much of the game. It’s problematic either way.
• RPG’s normally try for some sort of character equity. This will be awkward. Either the character will simply lose out on the physical abilities their character will normally have or – in resource-allocation / ability purchase systems will be able to dump all of the resources that would normally go into making an effective character into some overwhelming advantage – often relying on it’s bearer for all of that stuff. This is problematic.
• RPG’s tend to make NPC’s at least somewhat independent and the PC’s very independent. If the item character gets to override the bearers decisions it’s unsuitable for a PC, and turns a NPC into property as a puppet – an advantage that cannot be taken away without leaving the player out of the action. If the enchanted object can’t control the bearer, then much of the time the player will wind up having their decisions ignored or not getting to act. In either case, this is problematic.
• RPG’s tend to count on characters having needs, weaknesses, and social connections. Most need oxygen, food, and drink. They have metabolisms to be affected by poisons and diseases. They need sleep. They can be affected by (or gather information from) scent, and taste, and touch. They have families, and are usually interested in things like sex, fine food, comfortable living conditions and so on. Items, however, tend to be immune to a lot of things like that. This is problematic again since it – once again – cuts off a bunch of in-game options for motivating and challenging the characters.

So there are a lot of problems with this notion even before picking a game system. It’s not like playing a robot or a vehicle that can drive itself or even – as a few players have done in various games – playing a Shellborg or an Artificial Intelligence in cyberpunk-themed games. Those characters can either direct their own bodies or direct drones or just serve as the group hacker. There are still some problems, but it’s not too bad since such settings are set up to accommodate such characters and the people playing such characters had a good deal of fun with them.

Still, the game I mostly cover here is Eclipse d20 – and it can be used to build pretty much anything. So how to build such a character in Eclipse in a typical high-fantasy setting?

For the actual racial template:

Sentient Item Racial Template: Note that this is generally applied to a medium-sized item. Anything smaller than that has a hard time holding enough magic to support a spirit, anything larger is just too unwieldy. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible; just that it’s generally a lot more trouble.

First up… judging by the stories I’ve seen that involve such items they’re normally supposed to be being used by bumbling students, or untrained young heirs, or something similar. After all, characters who have their own skills and abilities to rely on don’t need to be led around by the nose by a possessed item. Ergo the abilities of the item – including abilities that it cannot personally use – supplant the abilities of the user. The only exception is going to be a selection of background skills and the most minor racial items. The Staff that contains the soul of Archmage Vilsamos almost certainly is better than some farmer’s kid or craftsman’s apprentice at everything related to adventuring, but Vilsamos very likely knows nothing about farming or woodcarving or potting or whatever the kid did before picking up the Staff – and is going to be somewhat limited on how much power he can push through a kid. This doesn’t necessarily have to have a cost since it’s a voluntary agreement on both sides – but it will be simplest to represent it as a Specialized and Corrupted version of Blessing (only works on someone touching or using the item, suppresses the target’s natural abilities greatly, must be voluntarily accepted, only works as an ability package, damage to granted attributes and abilities directly affects the user) though, which would make it cost (2 CP).

No Constitution score. This includes immunity to ability damage [including all poisons], ability drain, energy drain, and effects requiring fortitude saves unless they work on objects or are harmless. Items do not breathe, eat, or sleep, cannot tire and can move, work, or remain alert indefinitely. Items cannot be Raised or Reincarnated and are instantly destroyed at 0 HP (0 CP), Note that the original constitution score should be recorded (and not be mined for points to build up other attributes), since it will still limit the user and will modify the base HP being passed on to them. Why would such an item possibly weaken the user this way? Well, it has to draw energy from SOMEWHERE – and allowing an item to dump its physical attributes with no consequences unbalances things.

Leadership, Specialized and Corrupted / only covers a single wielder at a time, only to level them up so that – when they part company with the item – they will have learned a good deal from the experience, can only grant abilities very similar to those that the item or other characters in the party possess (2 CP). With this a youngster or non-adventurer will come out of the time spent with the item as a powerful and capable individual – reward enough for letting the item steer you through some adventuring.

Occult Sense (Low-Light Vision, 6 CP). This is one of the usual features of Constructs in d20, so I’m throwing it in – but it is a bit dubious. Of course, the general assumption that everything is roughly equivalent to a normal human unless noted otherwise that d20 is built around is odd anyway; how does the item see with no eyes?

Occult Sense (Darkvision, 6 CP). Another standard feature of d20 Constructs, and another item that really isn’t strictly required.

Immunity to things which affect biological processes (Very Common/Major/Legendary, Specialized: cannot heal naturally; they must be repaired or use other special abilities, does not apply to the “user” (unlike almost everything else), This includes paralysis, stunning damage, nonlethal damage, diseases, death effects, critical hits, and necromancy effects (22 CP).

Returning, Specialized / only when another willing wielder takes up or reconstructs the item in question (3 CP).

Efficient Siddhisyoga, Specialized / the money saved by the “Efficient” upgrade (generally a sixth of the total) goes to the user, to be spent on personal expenses, sent to their family, or be put into standard personal items (6 CP). Items don’t generally use more items, but they upgrade themselves given the resources – and their user’s will want SOMETHING for themselves.

Imbuement (6 CP). Note that variants are allowable. Armor can provide armor bonuses, tools can be enhanced (and likely to greater values than the base for weapons, since such bonuses are of less game importance), and so on. While this only affects the item it is not considered Corrupted or Specialized, since – if the item is not in use – this ability will not be functioning in any case.

Innate Enchantment: (6 CP, up to 5500 GP effective value)

• Healing Belt, x.8 (Only works on the items user-avatar, 600 GP). While every item character has at least a modest ability to heal it”s user-avatar, if they were really that good at self-healing, what are they doing stuck in an item?
• Repairman’s Belt (Variant Healing Belt that repairs damaged items instead, x/8 only works on the item, 600 GP). Every item character has at least a modest ability to repair itself. It’s fairly basic though.
• Unseen Servant (SL1 x CL1 x.6 (3/Day) x2000 GP (Unlimited-Use Use-Activated = 1200 GP). Item characters have at least a limited capacity to drag themselves around and to affect the immediate environment a bit. It’s not very GOOD, but at least it lets them try to get themselves found if they get stranded somewhere.
• Fortifying Stone, x.8 (affects the item only and is not transferable, 800 GP). Item characters item forms get +5 Hardness and +20 HP. As an innate enchantment, this is a permanent modification.
• Immortal Vigor I (SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated, x.7 (only affects the bearer-avatar form = 1400 GP). +12 +2 x (Con Mod) HP is always useful.
• That leaves 900 GP available for personalization or just allowing the item to function as various mundane items. Does the Gauntlet of Zaros allow you to do things as if the wearer had appropriate tools? Add a Travelers Any-Tool function. Make it Masterwork and add a minor Weapon Crystal. Add a secondary form; perhaps the staff comes apart into a three-sectional staff?

Immunity / The XP cost of Innate Enchantments, Specialized and Corrupted / only applies to innate enchantments in this template, this limitation cannot be bought off (Uncommon, Minor, Trivial, 1 CP).

Double Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect (Provides 6 CP) (6 CP): Only to provide points for Innate Enchantment, can only be changed when a new user is selected, only to represent the user’s prior personal abilities that the item’s abilities do not supersede – most commonly things like boosts to a set of skills such as Farming, Carpentry, Perform (Folk Music), cooking, racial ability boosts, and so on. In effect, this represents the carryover from the bearer-avatar since the item’s abilities otherwise override theirs right down to their racial template. (This also means that the item does not get “free” powers by picking a bearer-avatar of some powerful race). This pays for 6000 GP worth of Innate Enchantment,commonly including Skill Mastery (Group) (SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.7 Personal Only = 1400 GP) granting a +3 Competence Bonus to a group of “civilian” skills – perhaps Fishing, Sailing, Swimming, and Cooking (as in Food Preservation for salting, pickling, drying, and otherwise preserving various seafood products) for a fisherman’s kid. If the host is a dwarven smith you might want Enchant Tools (Smithing), +2 Con, and something else relevant. If it’s an Aquatic Elf, you’ll likely want a +1 Leather (for Scales) (1020 GP) and a Greater Crystal Of Aquatic Action (3000 GP), Maybe some built in swim-fins and such too.

Accursed: If the item wants the user to do something which is flatly insane, suicidal, or grossly offensive to the user said user may refuse or even abandon the item. Similarly, the user will tend to insist on “having a life” – going out drinking, trying out foods, and so on. Outside of that, it can usually be assumed that the item has an agreeably leadable user, and is essentially in control (-3 CP).

Accursed: Since such characters can gain levels, they can lose them too. That means that they CAN be affected by negative-energy based ability damage, ability drain, and energy drain, as well as by death and necromancy effects which target the soul, since they do have.one. Fortitude saves versus such effects are, however, replaced by Will saves.

That results in a net cost of 60 Points. The entire template is, however, Specialized: The bearer must intentionally allow the items abilities to supplant his or her own to let it function, the item on it’s own is effectively inanimate – lacking arms, legs, and senses of scent, taste (although they often have a limited sense of touch), independent mobility, and often even the ability to speak when not working through a host. That results in a net cost of 30 CP – a +0 ECL Template.

And there we have it; a sentient / possessed item template that – while it offers a few advantages – loses out on most basic racial advantages and remains compatible with other characters. While such items can specialize – like any other character – they can’t simply disregard their “physical” attributes because their users/hosts/avatars will still need them. If someone wants to play such a character… simply apply the racial template to whatever character build they come up with.

The Powers Of Poppins

And for today, it’s another question:

I’m trying to come up with a sort of “magical housewife” NPC, i.e. a character who manages a fairly large estate while the head of the household is out adventuring, using magic to safeguard the peace and prosperity of the place.

Leaving aside the use of Sanctum or Leadership (since they’re a caretaker, rather than the person in charge of the estate), I’m curious what sort of supernatural/spellcasting abilities would be appropriate. So far I’ve come up with Rune Magic/hearthcrafting (which I believe includes hedge magic), certain skills (mostly various Profession skills, along with some Knowledge, Perform, and Craft) that use either Stunts or Immunities to go beyond what’s typically possible, and a selection of buff/healing/defensive spells (including things like heroes’ feast, craft magic tattoo, restoration, etc.).

What would you add to that list, or otherwise look to expand upon for such a character?

-Alzrius

Well, there are a number of possibilities there. I’m going to assume that the caretaker is relatively low level, rather than being at the point where they simply – for example – relocate the household into a pocket dimension of their own design. Some of these possibilities will involve things like Sanctum or Leadership, but only in rather limited ways. You’ve already mentioned Rune Magic (Hearthcrafting), so here’s some of the more exotic stuff:

The Neutral Zone (2 CP).

• Melding, Specialized and Corrupted / only to provide culturally-appropriate greetings, food, and lodgings for visitors to your household and to avoid social errors when hosting such visitors (2 CP)
• Touchy foreigners, prohibitions against certain foods, being unwilling to eat with members of the opposite sex, being mortally offended unless all rooms are appropriate color-coded, will start a war if their hosts don’t always adhere to using their (lengthy) proper titles? That sort of thing is not a problem for a host or hostess with this ability. Admittedly you’ll mostly want this sort of ability if you host a lot of diplomatic events, so most people can get along without it.

Warden Of The Innocent (3 CP):

• Occult Sense/Children: The user is automatically aware of the current activities, location, and condition of all children and teenagers who need watching in a considerable radius. Specialized / only applies to those youngsters on or nearby the house, estate, school, or manor (3 CP).
• This is pretty powerful for an Occult Sense – capable of keeping track of dozens or hundreds of targets over a considerable area – but in d20 terms it isn’t a terribly useful field of information. Even if you’re running Hogwarts or an enormous harem or something… kids may be troublesome, but it generally isn’t adventurer-level troublesome. It’s nanny-level troublesome. Ergo this is relatively cheap. On the other hand, it’s probably something that pretty much every parent in the world has wished that they had at some point.

Wisdom Of The Ancestors (6 CP).

• Lore (Household). You know the recipes, the spices, the herbal remedies, how to nourish the soil, how to farm, how to mend roofs, how to build stoves, houses, and greenhouses, how to crossbreed plants, how to deliver babies, and a thousand other things. Specialized for Increased Effect / only applies to household activities, but can be rolled even when an appropriate Craft, Heal, or Profession check would otherwise be required (6 CP).
• This is useful simply because it’s universal. You need to preserve meat, graft fruit trees, make bricks, fix plumbing, deliver babies, counsel upset children, treat a broken leg, build a house, make clothes, or any of a thousand other things? Well, you know what to do, generally with a fair degree of competence.

Rites Of The Fey (3 CP):

• Leadership with Exotic Followers, Specialized and Corrupted / only to have the services of a swarm of classical household spirit/small animals/minor fey, who do laundry, mend various things, harvest fruit, and otherwise handle minor manorial tasks (3 CP). Leadership normally calls for the user to be fourth level before they can start getting followers, but these “followers” have no measurable CR or real game effect at all, so you can reasonably rule that CR limitations do not apply.
• From fey-related blessings to Disney Princesses, a house full of friendly animals, or brownies, or various other minor spirits that perform tasks, is a pretty classic way of glossing over all the hard, dirty, and almost endlessly repetitive work that goes into maintaining a household or manor without modern technology or a swarm of servants.
• You could also take this as a privilege, or in any of several other ways at a similar cost. It’s not like it actually matters much.

Seignior (8-14 CP):

• Innate Enchantment: Specialized and Corrupted / only works in and around place where the user has resided for some time, requires a selection of minor foci – one per function – set up around the place. 18,500 GP effective value (19 CP base, Net 6 CP).
• Action Hero/Crafting, Specialized and Corrupted / only to pay the costs of Innate Enchantment (2 CP).
• Obviously you could use this to get a lot of things – and you can still put in another 6 CP worth of Innate Enchantment, thus getting things up to 36,500 GP in total. Personally, I would probably start off with Ward Major III (Manor-Sized, Cheap, 11,375 GP value, three minor powers).This alone would be invaluable – and it still leaves 7125 to 25,125 GP for a selection of city-type magics. Those are mostly priced in the Industrial Wrights and Magic articles, starting HERE .
• These 8-14 CP can provide some serious, if fairly subtle, power. Even the minor abilities of a Ward Major can be exceptionally convenient – Industry? Longevity? Military Skills? Daily crops? Excluding undead? Supernatural health? Good weather despite some horrible location? Being forgotten by all outsiders? Sign me up now please! Throw some stationary city magic from the Industrial Wights And Magic series (Starts HERE) such as City Stores (Free supplies every day, 8225 GP), a Perpetual Fountain (Endless water, 250 GP), a Composting Chute (Waste disposal or sanitation, 250 GP), a Cleansing Fountain (Cleaning and minor mending, 62.5 GP), and Endless Skein (Endless supplies of fiber, 250 GP), an Eternal Flame Brazier (Free safe lighting, 3000 GP), a Bone Vault (Law enforcement, 6500 GP), and Dark Rampart (Prevents undead spawning, 6500 GP) and you have a well-protected core for an affluent settlement. Perhaps there is a good reason for that dragon, dark lord, or noxious witch to abduct the beautiful princess and keep her imprisoned in their lair, stronghold, or tower.
• Alternatively, if you’re looking for Adventurer support… A Marvelous Tattoo Parlor (Again, from the Industrial Wights And Magic series) costs 24,000 GP. That’s a lot – but if the game master lets you either work with someone else with this talent or lets you be REALLY cheesy and use the Investment rules like Granny does, and equip part of your household… you can grant some important benefits.
• A high level manager may just go in for Granny’s Money Management perk or Occult Skill (Dream Binding) (3 CP + Skill Points) – allowing them to simply dream needed equipment into being for a while. It can be awfully convenient to be able to simply dream up some plow-beasts and plows when you need them and have them disappear again before the tax assessor comes around.

Priestess Of Húsvættir (8 CP):

• Shaping (Specialized and Corrupted / only for Hedge Magic (2 CP).
• 1d6 (4) Mana with Spell Enhancement, Specialized and Corrupted / only for spell enhancement, only with Shaped Hedge Magic (2 CP)
• Rite of Chi with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore the Spell Enhancement pool above, user must whistle or sing and bustle around doing household chores, caring for children, cooking, and so on to make it work (4 CP).
• This 8 CP package is good for a good deal of Hedge Magic every day, although it lacks the item-crafting function of taking that ability directly. Still, for problems ranging from broken teeth to hungry kids this is an instant solution – as well as being extremely flexible since few or no household tasks call for high level spells. It’s not so overpowered as Lady Holder, but that’s often a good thing. Being worth close to 40,000 GP can make you quite a target.

Heir Of Privilege (3 CP):

• Privilege (Grant of Land, 3 CP): Thanks to an ancestral bequest or some such, the user need not pay taxes on their home (up to a modest manor) and enjoys a sufficient income in goods and services for a family to live comfortably.
• This one is pretty obvious. Taxes, rents, and basic income usually aren’t a big thing in d20 anyway though, so it would probably be fair to count this as Specialized (Has no significant game effect) and only charge 1 CP for it. When was the last time that a character in your game worried about property taxes on their house?

A variation on Amulet Crafter or Favor Of Prometheus would work quite nicely (See: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2021/05/28/character-defining-feats/ ). Either of these abilities is only 6 CP. While the Amulet Crafter is basically another form of relatively minor primitive magic, it works well for roaming tribes and tribal settings where having a shamanistic family member is very convenient. Favor Of Prometheus would need some minor tweaks to apply to a particular household rather than a campsite, but that’s mostly in the special effects and the wording of the limitations. They would work best for a higher-level character though.

Mystic Architecture (4-12 CP).

• While this is a potentially very powerful discipline for fixed locations – see Castle Hieronymus and Caercrwydryn – it’s also mostly for higher level characters since you’ll need a decently high skill total to make it work effectively. I’d leave this one for later.

Favored Of Hestia (8 CP):

• Enormous Favors (Local Household God or Goddess), Specialized for Increased Effect (Need not be repaid) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only for things related to the household, only in and about the household (8 CP).
• This is pretty limited with respect to the world at large – but putting direct divine intervention on tap is about as big a household trump card as you can get. Need a kid resurrected, or the estate saved from a citywide fire, or a tidal wave blocked, or an army to bypass you? Why not? After all, Odysseus wound up with Athena perching in the rafters of his house and personally sniping his enemies. Getting a minor miracle that keeps your house from burning down is pretty small next to that.

Kitchen Ritualist (6 CP):

• Ritual Magic, Specialized and Corrupted / Fairly minor Household and Protective Rituals only (2 CP)
• Skill Specialty (Performing Ritual Magic with whatever skill is relevant, 1 CP).
• Skill Emphasis (Skill used for Ritual Magic), Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect (only for performing fairly minor household and protective rituals) (+6 Total, 3 CP).
• With a total base bonus of +(9 + Relevant Attribute Modifier) for minor household rituals, a Kitchen Ritualist can be expected to keep pests away, ensure good harvests, fix leaky roofs, keep wild animals under control and greatly reduce monster attacks, ensure easy childbirth, fix infertility and birth defects, ensure that the farm animals do well, cure common diseases, and a thousand other things. After all, a kitchen ritualist isn’t doing the kind of rituals that call for dragon fangs, a demonic chorus, and rare incense. Their rituals tend to call for a chicken leg, a snoozing puppy, and a cup of soup. And the puppy can have the soup afterwards.

Witchcraft (Varies).

• Really, this is full of possibilities for low-powered household magic. Minor healing, instantly getting work done, persuading awkward guests to go away, brewing antitoxins, improving the weather, chasing away ghosts, blessing the area with prosperity, divining where the lost sheep have wandered off to… there is pretty much no end of applications. Witchcraft, after all, is not really a primary power base. It’s a way to supplement a non-spellcasters abilities in a hundred useful ways. It is no surprise that it can augment a homesteaders abilities just as effectively – or even more effectively given the low level of mundane abilities it will be boosting.

The Lesser Paths (Varies)

• Almost everything on this list would work – Skill Magic, Lay Priest, Wood Witch, use of Charms and Talismans, Spirit Allies, and more are all only 6 CP each. Admittedly, none of those are very powerful by the standards of adventurers, but villagers don’t generally need adventurer-level powers. If they want to go up to 12 CP… Houngan Conjurer or Basic Shamanism (via buying a Companion with the Spirit Fetch template from Eclipse II or here) are both good. Obol Maker or Mastery is probably the most versatile package in this range, but only works if the game master allows Obols in the first place. (Obols present a drastic price break on versatile one-shot magic, almost on the level of “purchasing” spells using a Supply Pouch. This is mostly because – as the rules stand – making or buying potions (the standard one-shot usable by anyone item) is far too expensive for what you get unless you go in for a bunch of specialized boosters to make them worthwhile. Thus, even if you find some you’re generally better off just selling them to help pay for something worthwhile. Ergo, Obols. Whether or not they work in any particular game is up to the game master though).
• I probably wouldn’t be using Skill Stunts, although they’re certainly a possible route. They tend to call for very high skill levels. Those are common enough among adventurers, but are rare among lower-level types.

Martha Stewart Living (10 CP):

• Executive, Specialized and Corrupted / only for directing manorial workers (2 CP).
• Assistance, Specialized and Corrupted / only for manorial tasks (2 CP).
• Immunity to the time normally required to accomplish skill-based tasks (Common, Minor, Major, Specialized and Corrupted / only for manorial tasks, 2 CP). This doesn’t actually negate the time required for performing household tasks, but does vastly reduce it, allowing the user to work on multiple projects at a time or to extend Assistance to many workers. As a natural law immunity this requires special permission from the game master, but I can’t see any real reason not to allow this one…
• Luck, Specialized in Skills (Roll twice and take the best result), Corrupted / only for manorial tasks (4 CP).
• This package is more or less mundane, but still turns the user into one of those horrifying people who somehow take charge, seem to be good at everything, are unnaturally efficient, and make everyone that they’re assisting – often several people at once – seem like fumbling idiots. Wherever they are WILL be terrifyingly well-run however. It also combines ridiculously well with Wisdom Of The Ancestors (above) and Serenity (below).

The Gossip Network (4 CP):

• Deep Sleep with Cosmic Awareness, Specialized and Corrupted / only to become aware of things that may affect the household.
• With this ability – whether it represents prophetic dreams or simply associating with the local gossips and informers – the user will always be aware of things that might affect their household. They will know when the tax assessors are coming, when to have the boys be too sick to be taken for the army, when to have the prettier girls out gathering berries in the woods, when a raiding party will be showing up, when a great storm is coming… Forewarned is forearmed, and few things are more useful for normal people than having time to prepare. This goes very well with Kitchen Ritualist.

Pedant (3 CP).

• Leadership, Specialized for Reduced Cost / may only recruit youngsters of level one or below, it requires at least three months (and usually longer) per level to promote them, any promoted to level three or above will automatically graduate and leave class, these are students, not minions (3 CP).
• D20 has a general problem with generational succession. In reality, people pass on their skills, their knowledge, and their techniques through teaching younger people. When one engineer, or ruler, or painter passes on… their students and apprentices can usually carry on quite creditably. In d20, however, those things are tied to level. The next generation needs to get some levels SOMEWHERE or things are going to fall apart. With this ability – possibly further upgraded to allow it to operate at lower levels – you can at least train the kids up to a reasonably acceptable standard. Admittedly, this is another application of Leadership, and the user will want to be level six (or, say, level three and be paying the extra 3 CP to specialize it for double effect) to take full advantage of it – but it isn’t one that will tend to dominate events in a campaign.

Beacon Of Life (6 CP):

• Returning with Improved (Group) Blessing, Specialized and Corrupted / only applies within the household and only against natural perils (6 CP). No one in your care ever suffers a serious accident, major illness, or similar problem. They may chop down trees, live in the midst of a plague-stricken area, and be spared from natural disasters without peril.
• This is stretching the rules more than a bit – but, of course, it is another fix for problems that generally don’t appear in d20 games save as the backdrop for a specific adventure. In life, accidents happen. In d20… rolling that Profession (Lumberjack) check doesn’t generally involve any peril at all, even if it does in real life. D20 runs more towards “Died fighting a dragon” than “A tree he was cutting down fell on him”.

A Knack With Animals (3 CP):

• Inherent Spell (Bestow Curse) with +2 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to “curse” animals with domestication, animal must be reasonably restrained for at least ten minutes (3 CP). This is pulling Bestow Curse from a specialized spell list to get it at level three, but with those limits that is a fairly minor bit of cheese.
• Another incredibly convenient power for someone on a farm or manor but generally unimportant in d20 terms. Of course, it can be applied to normally wild animals almost as readily – so if you want to domesticate a tiger, or a hippopotamus, or an alligator, or anything else that isn’t normally trainable… then this is the power for you. A Corrupted, rather than Specialized version could also be used to curse people to think of themselves as property, and to tend to obey orders, and so on, making the user an unusually effective slaver – but that’s generally not a household task.

Graceful Aging (1 CP):

• Timeless Body, Specialized / requires a regular regimen of baths, beauty treatments, exercise, and herbal treatments (1 CP).
• This one actually has some basis in reality. While, even with modern medicine, wealth and influence doesn’t do all that much to extend life – quite a few rich celebrities die young regardless – back in the preindustrial era unrelenting work, poor food, lack of rest, pregnancies, lack of effective medical care, and injuries often made commoners wear down a lot faster than aristocrats did. In d20, of course, PC’s practically never die of old age unless the player was taking “venerable” to get attribute bonuses while somehow evading the usual penalties.

Serenity (3 CP):

• Presence (Aura of Serenity), Specialized for Reduced Cost and Corrupted for Increased Effect (covers the entire house or manor – wherever the user has left his or her mark on the place – but only works where the user has been in charge for some time and has ordered the area to their liking, 3 CP). As the usual first-level side effect all members of the household or manorial staff gain a +2 Morale bonus to household-related rolls.
• Again, this isn’t a major power – but a calm, happy, and smoothly-operating household where the kids are polite and cooperative, the servants aren’t having a private war behind the scenes, where no one is spitting in your soup, and it’s a pleasure to live there is something that much of the world can only dream of.

Feng Shui (3 CP):

• Mystic Artist / Housekeeping, Specialized for Reduced Cost / takes a long time to set up, so the effect is fixed until the user undertakes another round of household organization or prepares for a feast or undertakes some spring cleaning or some such (3 CP).
• OK, this is basically a form of immobile, if fundamentally temporary, art – so it remains in effect until the user opts to spend time changing it or the housekeeping is seriously upset. Unfortunately, this still relies on having a decently high skill level to accomplish much, so it’s really only useful to fairly accomplished users.

Sanctum (Perhaps via a temporary relic creation ability like Houngan Conjurer, above) is entirely appropriate really – a caretaker who commands special powers within the area that he or she is attuned to (whether or not it actually belongs to them) is very classic – and there’s nothing preventing two or more people from claiming the same area as a sanctum. Still, the request was to avoid that, so I’ll simply note the possibility.

Papers And Paychecks (0 CP).

• If your caretaker happens to help run the bureaucracy of a kingdom or some such they may find Craft (Policy) useful. Honestly it’s completely irrelevant to most games, but sinking a few skill points into it might be useful sometime.

Finally we have…

The Devotions Of Celestial Mercy (18 CP):

• The Devotions: 6d6 (21) Mana with Reality Editing, Specialized and Corrupted/can only be used for a set of specific reality edits, below (12 CP). The greater the level of the edit used, the larger the area and/or the more dramatically supernatural the effect:
  • Blessing: A blessed child is effectively under the care of a skill 15 Healer at all times until adulthood. If less than one year of age, the child may reroll it’s lowest attribute, although this will never result in lowering it. More powerful blessings may either apply to greater groups or result in low-grade magical assistance (User’s Cha Mod) times before adulthood – a but of direct healing, or protection from a house fire, or some such.
  • Escape: Threatened women, children, and other noncombatants can be offered a chance to take refuge in ways ranging from a passing driver being willing to give them a ride on through room being found on an evacuation train – and up to a giant turtle-island coming by to offer a them a lift.
  • Guardian: The Devotions can allow a willing individual to place himself or herself between an area – whether that is a humble temple where the villagers are hiding on the low end or a city-state on the high end – and an attacking force. While he or she bars the way and withstands the onslaught, no member of the attacking force may reach the guarded area or harm it’s people.
    Nativity: The celestial powers can grant children to those who wish for them – in ways ranging from simply granting easy conception and pregnancy to a couple who have been having trouble through opportunities for adoptions and on to outright supernatural events, such as a child (and likely future hero) emerging from a peach.
  • Panacea: A Healing spell gains the capacity to remove one or more additional conditions, such as Crippled (lost limbs, damaged organs, birth defects, and similar), Negative Levels, Attribute Drain and Damage, Petrification, Mind Control, and similar problems (see: Break Enchantment). In general, expanding a Heal spell to do a couple of those is a minor edit, expanding a Cure Light Wounds spell to remove a bunch of conditions is more Grandiose.
    • Yes, Regeneration is in the SRD as an independent level seven spell. – making it harder to restore a limb than to raise someone who’s been dead for a week. It’s a legacy spell anyway of course, given that d20 normally hasn’t GOT any rules for long-term crippling injuries. Worse, you can just take Monstrous Regeneration from Magic of Faerun – a spell which turns everything but fire and acid damage to nonlethal damage, heals nonlethal damage at 4/round, and allows the user to regrow limbs (even if the short base duration hinders this) – at level five. Evidently Regeneration is not so big a trick after all, which is why it’s relatively easy to add.
  • Serenity: The Celestial Hand can calm the turbulent powers of nature in ways ranging from calming a flooding stream on up through ending droughts, stopping avalanches, calming a mighty storm, or stilling an erupting volcano. Secondary problems – fires, collapsed buildings, injuries, and so on – will remain, and must be dealt with normally.
  • Sustenance: For the next seven days the common folk and creatures of an area will be able to find – with effort – enough to eat and drink, and sufficient shelter and warmth to survive, despite any famine or food shortage, water shortage, sweltering heat, or arctic cold.
• Rite of Chi with +8 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted/only usable to restore Mana for The Devotions Of Celestial Mercy, above. (6 CP).
• Exactly how powerful are The Devotions Of Celestial Mercy? Well… this is Reality Editing, and so it depends on how well any particular edit fits into the setting and the storyline. Secondarily, of course, d20 is generally a game of heroic fantasy; the characters are usually expected to fix whatever problem they’re presented with. In those terms… why did the oncoming horde choose a route full of chokepoints where a small group could hold them back for lengthy periods anyway? Especially knowing that bands of high-level adventurers are notorious for stunts like that?
• The Devotions Of Celestial Mercy allows the game master to present the characters with some overwhelming problem – whereupon the players can invoke a Devotion to cut it down to something they can deal with. So you have stilled the volcanic eruption? There are still injuries, fires, people lost down the crevices that opened up, avalanche victims to be rescued, and the bunch of bad guys who will move in to loot the place. But those are problems that a small group can deal with. They generally can’t deal with thirty square miles of territory being blasted by a pyroclastic cloud short of trying for a major miracle.
• The Devotions appeared once before, but they seemed worth adding here.

And I hope that helps!

Eclipse – Building Spell Progressions

And for today it’s a question…

I just discovered your Eclipse d20 RPG the other day – clearly I am very late to the party – I was just wondering – how would one go about generating a new Spellcasting slot table – such as the one the Duskblade uses?

-Darkholme

Interestingly, while I recall a lot of requests for specific conversions, I don’t remember a prior request for how to build spell progressions in general – although it’s been touched on a few times for specific builds. In fact, there is an article discussing how to build an Eclipse clone of the Duskblade up over here. It uses Specialization and Corruption to tweak an existing progression to fit. Of course, this being Eclipse there are a LOT of other ways to build spellcasters and fighters with magical boosts to their combat styles. There’s a sub-index of some of the ways to do that (and how to build various types of martial characters in Eclipse) over here, with the articles in the series indexed at the start and related materials indexed at the end. Still other builds – such as the Bokor, the Gleaner and the Nymic Mage – have used entirely different methods.

If you want to build a new spell progression from scratch, instead of simply using Specialization and Corruption to tweak an old one, the basic building block is generally Mana as 2d4 Generic Spell Levels (averaging 5 generic spell levels per purchase. If you’re buying a lot, simply take it as 5)

• So the Duskblade gets a total of (6 x 1/2) + (10 x L1) + (10 x L2) + (10 x L3) + (8 x L4) :+ (6 x L5) = 125 Spell Levels. So that’s 25 purchases of Mana as Generic Spell Levels. Of course, that purchase should be considered Specialized, since it is divided up into a specified progression with a maximum spell level of five. So 75 CP.
• They get Twenty Base Caster Levels specialized in Duskblade Magic. That’s 60 CP.
• They get to know 21 Spells as Spontaneous Casters. That’s 42 CP. You could buy cantrips this way as well, but it’s cheaper to purchase Occult Talent, Specialized for Increased Effect (8 Cantrip Slots, but no first-level spell slots, runs off the Duskblade Magic Pool rather than providing it’s own slots, slots are acquired gradually based on level and intelligence, 6 CP).
• They get to trade around a few spell slots as they level up, but that’s just a Specialized version of Rewrite (normally found under Returning), Specialized / only works to allow changing out 2 CP worth of spells when leveling (3 CP).
• They get bonus spell slots for having a high attribute: that’s Magician (found under Rune Magic, 6 CP).

That gives us a Duskblade-style spell progression at a base total of 192 CP. Of course, we’re going to be working with a very limited spell list – a Corruption that cuts it down to 128 CP.

That is 8 CP more than simply adjusting an existing spell list as the original build did – but if you spread the cost evenly over twenty levels and round down as usual, you get the same thing. Existing spell lists normally get a slight price break simply for being standardized in any case.

And that is both how to build new spell progressions and an illustration of the major problem in actually doing so. Theme and focus are generally as important as how many spells of what levels you get. After all, a Sorcerer who was limited to Divination Spells will have some useful effects – but we could hardly say that they were as effective as one who was limited to Illusions and Divination or even just Illusion. And neither will be nearly as useful to the party as a full-access Sorcerer played with a reasonable level of competence (and yes, a “reasonable level of competence” includes not making really, REALLY, poor spell selections).

In Eclipse, such things are represented with the magic level limitations from page eleven and by Specialization and Corruption. That Diviner would almost certainly count as Specialized and Corrupted (6 CP / Level). Illusions and Divination… well, there are a fair number of useful spells in those groups, but it’s still going to be at least Specialized (9 CP/Level). If the list has a good variety of spells available to suit a particular purpose, but a fairly limited number overall… it’s Corrupted. For a fairly recent example we have the Piscin, and their extremely limited spell list.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy mechanical way to decide just how restrictive and limiting a given spell list is. Since the actual and perceived effectiveness of any given list will vary between settings and game masters that’s always a judgement call. Even worse… it will vary enormously depending on the secondary abilities any given user develops. That’s what makes the Classical Illusionist build work.

And for a few more references…

• For general information on building spellcasters, there’s an article over here.
• Making Skill-Based Partial Casters is addressed more extensively in a pair of articles over HERE and HERE.
• Martial Disciplines like you find in the Book Of Nine Swords can be built this way:
  Stances (which are usually more versatile in Eclipse than in the Book of Nine Swords are covered over HERE.
• Building all-out Martial Maneuvers is covered in this article. Watch out for this one; these maneuvers are designed to compete with Wizards and such.
• Entreaty Magic is for (classical) Dr. Strange style spellcasters – calling on various entities and owing them favors.

And hopefully that helps!

Eclipse d20 and Memento Mori

For today, it’s a requested conversion – a PL10 Mutants and Masterminds character – May Midori, A.K.A “Memento Mori” – a heavily cyborged super-agent inhabitant of a cyberpunk world.

Into fantasy / d20 modern /d20 future terms. This will get a bit weird.

For some basics… well, she’s apparently from a cyberpunk world, ala Shadowrun or Cyberpunk or a dozen other settings. I’m going to assume a vaguely “Shadowrun” style, so both magic and technology fits in and it’s possible to be a very violent businesswoman without setting off endless metal detectors. That makes her a…

Dystopian Survivor Human (30 CP / +0 ECL). These have the racial traits of:

• Highly Adaptable: Gain one Bonus Feat / 6 Bonus CP (6 CP).
• Birthright: Choice of +2 to an Attribute or another 12 CP ability package derived from your background.
• Quick to Learn: Fast Learner, Specialized in Skills for +2 SP/Level (Level x 2 + 6 total, 6 CP).
• Tested Immunity: After the global pandemics and pollution crises everyone who didn’t inherit this is dead. Immunity to toxins, pollutants, and disease (Common, Major, Trivial, for a +2 bonus on relevant rolls, 3 CP).
• Projectile Predator: +1 BAB, Specialized in Ranged Attacks (3 CP).

Attributes first:

Mutants and Masterminds: Strength 4 [8p], Stamina 7 [14p], Agility 8 [16p], Dexterity 0, Fighting 5 [10p], Intellect 4 [8p], Awareness 4 [8p], and Presence 0.

Most of those translate to d20 attribute modifiers – so net Str 18, Constitution 24, Dexterity 18 (Agility + Dexterity / 2 since M&M subdivides the functions of Dexterity), Intelligence 18, Wisdom 18, Charisma 10, and BAB +5. Of course in M&M that is after enhancements are applied. Obviously this character is going to need a lot of bonuses.

Secondarily, the character is described as being incredibly beautiful – apparently due to having “attractive” as a fairly minor advantage – although even the original description could be read as putting the character squarely in the uncanny valley and that advantage simply provides a +2 circumstance bonus on Deception and Persuasion checks “to deceive, seduce, or change the attitude of anyone who finds the characters looks appealing”. Well, almost all semi- superhero characters look good. It’s only the actual game impact that matters. Given that a fantasy world involves a lot of nonhumans with very different ideas of what is attractive… I’ll translate this to some simple skill bonuses in the skills section.

So: d20 Attributes:

• Strength 18 10 Base +4 Eq +4 Armor
• Dexterity 18 14 Base +4 Eq
• Constitution 24 14 Base +4 Eq +2 Race +1 Level +1 Purchased (12 CP), +2 Enh
• Intelligence 18 14 Base +4 Eq
• Wisdom 18 14 Base +4 Eq
• Charisma 10 10 Base

That’s Pathfinder 20 point high fantasy point buy attributes. The 2×10 and 4×14 pattern is generally good for a generalist.

For Skills the M&M version had… Acrobatics 8 (Agi 8), Athletics 6 (4 Str + 2 ranks, 1p), Close Combat: unarmed 15 (5 Fgt + 10 ranks, 5p), Close Combat: everything else 5 (5 Fgt), Deception 12 (12 ranks, 6p), Expertise (Business) 8 (4 Int + 4 ranks, 2p), Expertise everything else 4 (4 Int), Expertise (not specified?) 6 (4 Int +2 ranks, 1 Sp), Insight 4 (4 Awe), Investigation 6 (4 Int + 2 ranks, 1p), Perception 8 (4 Awe + 4 ranks, 2p), Stealth 12 (8 Agi + 4 ranks, 2p), Technology 10 (4 Int + 6 ranks. 3p), and Treatment 4 (4 Int).

That’s… pretty poor. 46 skill ranks in total, and nothing higher than +12 in total? For a super-secret agent? Even given that M&M combines a few skills, that’s kind of weak. At least it gives us a level estimate… I’m going to call it six.

Converting to d20…

Available Skill Points: 8 (8 CP) + 36 (Int Mod x 9) +18 (Racial Fast Learner) + 18 (Bonus Feat Fast Learner) = 80 SP.

• There are a lot of different d20 skill lists out there. So I’m going to throw in Immunity (The normal skill list; gets to use THIS condensed skill list regardless of the list in use in the current game. (Common, Minor, Great, 12 CP). I’ll also buy her two instances of Adept (Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, and Stealth, are all half cost, 6 CP, Engineering, Persuasion, Stealth, and Thievery are all Half Cost, 6 CP) and a +2 Skill Emphasis on Deception and Persuasion (6 CP) to cover her bonuses from being “attractive”,

General Skills:

• Acrobatics +15 (4* SP +4 Dex +2 Mor +2 MW). May take 3d4 damage to pull off a nigh-impossible stunt.
• Athletics +15 (4* SP +4 Str +2 Mor +2 MW). May take 3d4 damage to pull off a nigh-impossible stunt.
• Deception +13 (9 SP +0 Cha +2 SE +2 Mor)
• Engineering +15 (4* SP +4 Int +2 Mor). +2 when Travelers Anytool applies. May specify three quasi-magical special gadgets to routinely carry.
• Heal +12 (4 SP +4 Wis +2 Mor +2 Belt).
• Linguistics +9 (3 SP +4 Int +2 Mor). Speaks seven languages plus the “common tongue”. That ought to do even for international business.
• Perception +15 (4* SP +4 Wis +2 Mor). +1 Synergy Bonus on Reflex Saves.
• Persuasion +13 (4* SP +0 Cha +2 SE +2 MW).
• Profession (Business) +17 (9 SP +4 Wis +2 Mor +2 MW).
• Profession (General) +6 (+4 Wis +2 Mor).
• Socialize +17 (9 SP +4 Wis +2 Mor +2 MW). Provides four useful Contacts. In her case, likely corporate.
• Stealth +17 (4* SP +4 Dex +2 Mor +2 MW). Grants the equivalent of a built-in Handy Haversack.
• Thievery +17 (4* SP +4 Dex +2 Mor +2 MW). May be used as a free action up to four times per day.

*Half cost due to Adept. MW: Masterwork Tool. Mor: Morale. SE: Skill Emphasis.

Martial Arts Skills:

• Iron Hand Style: +18 (9 SP +7 Con +2 Mor)
  • Attack 4, Power 2, Breaking, Combat Reflexes, and Expertise (Attack Bonus to Damage Bonus).
• Gun Kata Style: +15 (9 SP +4 Dex +2 Mor)
  • Attack 3, Defenses 2, Expertise (Attack Bonus to Damage Bonus), Quick Draw, and Rapid Shot.

Now that is MUCH better. It also covers a bunch of things that the original character wanted to improve. It is a bit cheesy – although the level of cheese depends on the skill list in use in whatever game she wanders into. Condensing the skill list makes each skill – and thus skill enhancing abilities – substantially more powerful. That’s well worth those 12 CP.

In M&M this characters major powers included a variety of melee-attack based “poisons” and bunch of cyberware – presumably what gets her attributes so high. This, of course, is a fairly normal thing in d20 future, but not otherwise. It’s exotic even in most superhero settings. To get it, we will want an Immunity to the settings normal technology levels and – to pay for it – some Innate Enchantment. Due to the fact that d20 future prices are a lot lower than d20 fantasy prices, and thanks to a 20-to-1 Credits-to-GP conversion ratio this is a bit of an exploit, and might well qualify this character for a +1 ECL adjustment.

• Advanced Tech Access: Innate Enchantment can normally be used to buy the equivalent of mundane equipment – but it’s rarely worth bothering with in fantasy based games. With that 1-to-20 GP-to-Credits conversion ratio and both d20 Modern and Future in play however… mundane equipment is suddenly a LOT more attractive. Still, even superheroes don’t automatically have access to super-technology, so I’m going to treat having access to the d20 Future lists to “buy” stuff from as a an Immunity / normal limits on equipment availability (Very Common, Major, Great (for +4 Tech Levels over the usual PL4 base), Specialized / only for Innate Enchantment purposes, 15 CP)
• Immunity / the XP or other special costs of Innate Enchantment: Uncommon, Major, Major, 6 CP).
• Immunity / the usual side effects of cybrenetics: Uncommon, Major Major, 6 CP).

Innate Enchantment (Cybrenetics) (Up to 11,500 GP Value, 12 CP).

• Multi-Optics Goggles (Low-Light, 80′ Darksight, Microscopic, Tesescopic, HUD, Flash Protection, 200 GP)
• SmartPhone (5 GP)
• Neural Recorder (25 GP): Can record sensory information and thoughts so others can experience them.
• Soundbox (175 GP): May mimic voices, play music, shout as loud as sixteen men, etc.
• Gas Mask (10 GP):
• Universal Communicator (2 GP): Send and receive audio, visual, and digital information.
• Chemical Air Analyzer (250 GP). Gain Scent, may make a DC 15 Wisdom check to identify common chemicals and organic compounds. A DC 20 Wisdom check allows the user to distinguish the exact chemical makeup of anything he or she smells.
• Artificial Muscle Fiber II: +4 Eq bonus to Str (600 GP)
• Twitchwire II: +4 Eq bonus to Dex (600 GP)
• Redundant Organs II: II: +4 Eq bonus to Con (325 GP)
• Neuron Boosters II: II: +4 Eq bonus to Int (450 GP)
• Proverb Chip II: +4 Eq bonus to Wis (1000 GP)
• Boost Armor with Gravlight (Max Dex +1, Armor Check -2), Improved Defense III (+3 Armor), and Increased Range of Motion I (+1 Max Dex), Rigid (+1 Armor Check Penalty). Total +7 (+3 Improved Defense = 10) Armor, +4 Max Dex (+1 IRoM, +1 Nimbleness = +6), Armor Penalty 3 (+1 Rigid -2 Gravlight -2 Nimbleness = 0), Speed +10, +4 Str, +2 Reflex Saves. (1000 GP).
• +2 Masterwork Karatends (Combat Guantlets, used as Unarmed, 1d8 Bludgeoning, Crit 19-20, DC 18 Fortitude Save or Stunned (electrical effect, so relevant resistences or immunities reduce the effect), (425 GP)
• Poison Touch: Rattlesnake Venom (Unlimited Use Glands, 1d6/1d6 Con, Fort DC 17, 1000 GP). May combine with karatends, kisses, or other “unarmed” attacks.

That’s 6067 GP

Innate Enchantment (Magic for where there are no technical equivalents listed, still tech though)

• Face Dancer (Transmutation): SL 1/2 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use Activated x.7 Personal Only x.5 (Ambient Magic, one minute to use) = 350 GP. Allows you to change your features to look like someone else of your race or a slight variant thereof. While this does allow you to duplicate finger and retinal prints, you need to know the prints you want to copy to do so. Provides a +10 bonus to Disguises (under Stealth).
• Traveler’s Any-Tool (250 GP) Acts as masterwork tools for Craft and most Profession skills.
• Relieve Poison: SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.7 Personal Only = 1400 GP. A spell from the Hedge Wizard list on this blog that greatly reduces the effects of poison.
• Enhance Con +2: SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.7 Personal Only = 1400 GP
• Personal Heroism: SL 1 x CL 1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated = 2000 GP
• Hot and Cold Weather Outfits (16 GP).

That’s 5416 GP

Total: 11,483 GP

The big benefit here lies in 1) getting a +4 on five different stats (normally costing some 80,000 GP) and a good AC (+10) which normally requires either pretty good armor or something like a force armor / force shield combo. Most of the rest is fairly readily available to anyone. That is pretty good – but is it worth the 21 CP it costs to gain access? Or the possible +1 ECL adjustment on top of that? And hitting the usual limit on Innate Enchantment? Honestly, it’s debatable. This character isn’t very reliant on most of those attributes, and could easily make up for them being lower with a few general bonuses to skills and such – But nice high attributes are just so shiny.

Miscellaneous Stuff:

• +6 BAB (36 CP) (One more than the base build, but we want iterative attacks).
  • Ranged Attack (Gun): +6 BAB +1 Projectile Predator +4 Dex +2 Mor +2 Masterwork +3 Martial Art, +1 Laser Sight, -2 Rapid Fire = +17/+17/+12, +2 Masterwork Silenced Beretta 92F Semiautomatic Pistol (2d6+1 (Enhancement)), Crit 20/x2, 40′ Range Increment, 15 Shot Magazine, 3 Lb, Small Size, with Laser Sight, 225 GP. 50 Bullets, 1 GP).
  • Melee Attack (“Unarmed”): +6 BAB +4 Str +2 Mor +4 Martial Art +2 Masterwork = +18/+13, Damage 1d12+6 (+4 Str + Masterwork), Crit 20/x2, plus Poison (Fort Save DC 17 or 1d6/1d6 Con Damage) plus Fort DC 18 or Stunned.
• Saves: Originally Fortitude +10 (3 Ranks +7 Sta), Dodge (Reflex) +11 (3 Ranks +8 Agi), and Will +10 (6 Ranks +4 Awe). Now Fortitude +13 (+3 (9 CP) +7 (Con) +2 (Mor) +1 (Res)), Reflex +13 (+3 (9 CP) +4 (Dex) +2 (Mor) +2 (Armor) +1 (Res) +1 (Sy)), and Will +11 (+4 (12 CP) +4 (Wis) +2 (Mor) +1 (Res))
• Hit Points: Toughness 9 translates into about 81 HP. So… Advanced Improved Augmented Bonus (Adds Dex Mod to Con Mod for HP Purposes, Specialized and Corrupted / only for the first six hit dice, 6 CP). Call it six six-sided hit dice for 26 (6d6, maximum on first die, 12 CP) +66 (6 Hit Dice x [Con Mod + Dex Mod) = 92 HP.
• Armor Class: M&M uses Defense Class, which is terrible, meaning that most attacks hit and you need to resist their effects. In d20, Armor Class lets you avoid the attacks instead. So… Armor Class 10 (Base) +10 (Cyberarmor, see below) +4 (Dex) +1 (Deflection, see Equipment) = 25. 27 when in ranged combat. Much better.
• Move: 30′ (Base) +10 (Armor) = 40′
• Proficiencies: Small Arms (6 CP)
• Initiative: +4 (Dex)
• The original character had “Jack Of All Trades” in M&M, allowing the use of all skills unskilled. Given the greatly improved skills above, this is meaningless save for Profession; she HAS all the other skills that can’t be used unskilled. All right then: Immunity/not being able to use Profession skills unskilled (Common, Minor, Trivial, 2 CP). This makes her a reasonably competent lawyer, fisherman, blacksmith, and web page designer.
• Tracking (M&M Sense Unspecified). Since this doesn’t really say how she tracks people, I shall call it Financial (allowing her to track people through banks, credit card use, and similar) and to find hidden financial details) and by Scent. (3 CP each. 6 CP in total).
• Trick – Toxic Strike (Save DC Fort 20, Induces Fatigue, then Exhaustion, then Sleep – but this requires a kiss to use (it’s specialized circumstance). This is rarely practical in combat and the relatively simple circumstances corresponds nicely with the limited effect (6 CP).
• Doubled Damage (Rattlesnake Venom, when delivered with a kiss, 6 CP).
• Grant of Aid with +2 Bonus Uses (9 CP). This isn’t a part of the base build, but super-types – which she undoubtedly is – tend to recover fast.

To look back at the original sheet, it had…

Advantages [7p]: Attractive 2 (Now general skill bonuses), Equipment 1/Smartphone (Now cyberware), Improved Power Attack (In her martial arts), Improvised Tools (covered by Traveler’s Anytool), Jack-of-All-Trades (Covered by use of all Profession skills unskilled), and Tracking (covered by Tracking).

Designer Daughter (cybernetic) [19p]

• Cosmetic Biosculpt. Continuous Standard-Action Morph 2: similarly-built humans. [8p] (Covered by Face Dancer).
• Detox Gland. Immunity 1: poison. [1p] (Covered by Relieve Poison).
• Expanded Optics. Senses 4: infra-, ultra-, low-light and microscopic visual. [4p+2a] (Covered by Multi-Optics Goggles)
• Alt: Auditory Augmentation. Limited 1 Senses 5: accurate(close only) analytical danger-sense extended auditory. [4p] (Covered by enhanced Perception)
• Alt: Chemical Analysis. Senses 4: acute analytical olfactory-type. [4p] (Covered by Scent and the analytical package).
  Miscellanea. Features 4: embedded radio, fingerprint falsifier, sensory recorder, voice reproducer. [4p]
• Subcutaneous Armor. Protection 2. [2p] (Covered – and vastly improved – by Cyberware Boost Armor).
• Poisonous Personality [20p]
  • Kiss Goodnight. Distracting Grab-Based Progressive Subtle Triggered(variable) Affliction 15: fatigued/exhausted/asleep. [18p+2a] (Covered by Trick)
  • Alt: Kiss of Death. Distracting Grab-Based Progressive Subtle Triggered(variable) Weaken 15: stamina. [18p] (Covered by Doubled Damage on Rattlesnake Poison)
  • Alt: Poison Spur. Improved-Critical Subtle Damage 1; Linked to Improved-Critical Progressive Subtle Weaken 5: stamina. [18p] (Covered by Rattlesnake Poison)

Defense [18p]

• Dodge 11 (8 agi + 3 ranks). [3p] Reflex Save, now +13. Also improved, see “Armor Class”.
• Parry 11 (5 fgt + 6 ranks). [6p]> Vastly improved; AC 25, 27 in Ranged Combat.
• Toughness 9 (7 sta + 2 protection). Equates to roughly 81 HP, now 92 and far less likely to be hit.
• Fortitude 10. (7 sta + 3 rank). [3p] Fortitude Save, now +13
• Will 10 (4 awe + 6 ranks). [6p] Will Save, now +11. About the same, but nothing about the build says “resistant to mental effects” – and the discription doesn’t exactly say “independent and willful”. According to the Complications, she’s kind of impulse driven.

Well, that’s all covered.

So how is this all adding up?

• Race: 0 CP.
• Attributes: 12 CP.
• Skills: 8 CP Direct Purchase, 6 CP Fast Learner, 12 CP Immunity to the Normal Skill List, 12 CP Double Adept, 6 CP double Skill Emphasis = 44 CP.
• Cybrenetics: Advanced Tech Access (15 CP), Immunity XP Cost (6 CP), Immunity Side Effects (6 CP), Innate Enchantment (12 CP) = 39 CP.
• Miscellany: 113 CP

That’s 208 Character Points.

So how many do we have available?

Available Character Points: 168 (L6 Base) + 10 (Disadvantages: Compulsive (Killer), Accursed (Hackable Systems), and Insane (Transhumanist, thinks everyone needs cyborging, it is a universal panacea)) +12 (Duties to Mother Her Corporation) +18 (L1, 3, 6 Bonus Feats) = 208 CP.

OK, I added the Grant Of Aid to make things come out right, but it was quite close anyway.

That leaves us with equipment: Level six grants a 16,000 GP (or roughly 320,000 Dollar or “Credit”) equipment allowance, which can reasonably be expended as follows:

Healing Belt/Advanced First Aid Kit (750 GP), Cloak/Light Protective Clothing Of Resistance +1 (1000 GP), Ring Of Protection/Microshield Generator +1 (2000 GP), Chronocharm of the Laughing Stranger (500 GP, 1/Day reroll a Deception or Persuasion check), Chronocharm of the Fateweaver (1/day reroll one Acrobatics or Athletics check, 500 GP), Chronocharm of the Celestial Wanderer (1/day reroll one Perception check, 500 GP), Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (1/Day take a half move as a swift action, 500 GP), BMW M3 Sports Coupe (1750 GP), Masterwork Tools (Power Suit; +2 to Profession/Business and Persuasion, Fine Shoes; +2 to Acrobatics and Athletics, Chameleon Coat; +2 to Stealth, Jewelry;+2 to Socialize, Gripper Gloves; +2 to Thievery, total MW items 350 GP), Demolitions Kit with Charges (50 GP), Search and Rescue Kit (10 GP), 1000 Bullets (20 GP), Tactical Flashlight (10 GP), Camping Gear (50 GP), Trail Rations (120 meals, 30 GP), Concealed Carry Holster (2 GP), Gun (225 GP, +2000 GP to be +1), Permanent “Upscale Hotel” lifestyle (2750 GP), Grappler Gun (3 GP), Expense Account (30 GP / 600 Dollars/Day unquestioned, 3000 GP). Most of this stuff (well, except the car) can easily fit in her personal Handy Haversack effect.

She also gets those three Gadgets from Engineering, but I don’t know what she’d want. Maybe a “Cyberdeck” for hacking (perhaps +3 to Engineering for the purpose), an expanded magazine so she can keep shooting, and a set of Blackout/Teargas bombs for escape?

Cut Features & Advancement Plans

• 1. Improve Skills. For a super spy a 10 is pathetic! Done. She is far more skilled now.
• 2. Mobilize. A good way to get out of danger will take us far! I can’t find Mobilize or Mobility in second or third edition, or a reference online. Might be Mobility (the d20 feat), Uncanny Dodge (which is at least related), Reflex Training (in Eclipse) or just wanting faster movement. For the moment, she has a Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (1/Day take a half move as a swift action) – which should help out. Perhaps a teleportation item later on?
• 3. Sensible Senses. They’re not expensive and always useful! Another item I cannot find although I’d assume that it just means more special senses. Still, it is easy enough to get more senses in Eclipse. This character already has a fair array of senses anyway.
• 4. Git Gud at Guns. If nothing else, it’ll save on dry-cleaning bills! Done. She has much better skill with guns now. And, for that matter, has a gun.

Equipment

• 1. Suppressed Light Pistol. Subtle Diminished-Ranged Damage 3. [6ep]. Done. You can just buy guns in d20 and this version has an appropriate martial art and a pistol with a sound suppressor (“Silencer”).

Designer Daughter (cybernetic)

• 1. Cognitive Coprocessor. Limited (mental) Quickness 2 [1p] This gets mental tasks done more quickly. You could buy this – or just take advantage of the higher skills and raise the DC to get done faster.
• 2. Healing Stimulator. Regeneration 1 [1p]. Done. That’s what the Grant Of Aid ability is all about.
• 3. Omniglot Implant. Limited Comprehend 3: read/speak/understand common business languages. [3p]. Well, this character already speaks eight languages (counting “common”), so this is probably covered.

Overall… this character is a decent to good skill monkey and a reasonably effective fighter. She doesn’t do all that much damage, but forcing a save against poison and a save against being stunned at decent DC’s every time she hits a target is actually quite potent – at least until she’s fighting a construct, or an undead, or a swarm, or an ooze that is resistant to poison and electricity, or someone in a mecha, or quite a few other things – against which she is fairly useless. A warrior-type of similar level dedicated to damage is a lot more generally effective. A serious skill monkey will have more skill bonuses and – almost certainly – more skill boosters and things like “luck” so they can always succeed if they feel that they must. She won’t be able to match them either. So a competent generalist, best suited for semi-stealthy missions against other relatively normal beings. That… seems reasonable enough really.

Dreambinding And Minions II – The Nitty Gritty

The recent article on acquiring minions through Dreambinding produced some fairly long responses, which called for a fairly long answer – far too long for a comment. So here it is!

I actually had this same thought a while back, and spent way more time on it than I should have. There are some pretty cheap constructs out there, (effigies in particular), although I don’t know whether they’d be allowed under Eclipse rules, but once you start getting reasonably expensive a summoning item becomes much cheaper.

In terms of non-construct creatures, in theory you could summon a creature with Gate and order it to not resist when you cast Mindrape on it, and give a specific description of where it was when you summoned it. Then when the creature returns to its home plane you Plane Shift to that plane, Greater Teleport to the creature, and then Plane Shift back with it. In theory, that would let you price any creature based on its HD (the CL of Gate would need to be at least the creature’s HD in order to control it).

Of course, purchasing a casting of Gate would cost a minimum of 6,530 gp, and that’s above the 3,000 gp threshold for what’s generally available. To get around that you’d need to make do with Planar Binding and just keep on casting Mindrape until the creature fails its save, and it was at this point I decided not to work out the cost based on the creature’s SR and Will save and whatnot, particularly if you factor in spells like Assay Spell Resistance. But in theory that’s how much it would cost to hire someone to enslave any given creature.

-Kalkra

If I was in the party with someone who did the gate->mindrape trick and seemingly got it to work, I would be getting the hell out of there. Most anything you can call through a gate is going to be reporting to someone else in the planes that is even more powerful and isn’t likely to take very kindly to this sort of thing happening to one of their subordinates. At a minimum anyone else who gates something in from the same “region” and makes a bargain for a service is going to be tasked with either finding out more about you, be asked to make your life a living hell, or be tasked to bring in something even bigger through to make a point in exchange for a big boon.

This doesn’t even need to be large scale stuff. Think of Needful Things level of interfering with your life where someone is asked to impersonate you while murdering someone in front of the guards, make it seem like other party members are stealing your things, having a shop owner sabotage scrolls and potions sold to you, and a variety of other things that are going to be rather difficult to track back to a single source. And this sort of thing is likely to continue and spread as word spreads amongst the mage community that demons/devils/celestials/elementals are offering substantial boons in exchange for small favors against someone who is clearly asking for it. And it will keep happening until the one who did it was dead or brought to the appropriate plane to be “punished”.

And that isn’t even getting into the mess if you catch the attention of whatever deity happens to be relevant.

Regardless of alignment, I imagine most characters wouldn’t want to be anywhere near someone who was willing to poke that hornets nest.

-Spellweaver

Slavery is (almost) always a bit of a risky proposition. I certainly wasn’t thinking of this as something a player might want to do. I was just proposing this as a method of determining the market value of any particular slave, or at least the highest possible price such a slave would have.

That being said, there are certainly safer ways to go about it if you did want to do it yourself. Mind Blank does a lot if you’re trying to hide what you’re doing, but you could also get creative with faking the creature’s death (with its help), seeking refuge with the enemies of whatever creatures you’re enslaving, or generally doing anything you would do if you had to kill such a creature for whatever reason.

Alternately, you could just summoning things which won’t be missed. If you’re just focusing on combat, you could summon some extraplanar animals or whatnot. Low-level elementals in particular are usually a pretty safe bet, as the elemental lords don’t care about them.

That being said, there are much easier ways to get loyal minions. You would only need to be Gating things in if you wanted something specific, rather than just anything to perform some task.

-Kalkra

Well, there are several topics there!

The basic problem with Effigies is that it is specifically noted to be an Acquired Template. From the SRD…

Acquired Templates:

This kind of template is added to a creature well after its birth or creation.

Some templates, like the lich, are the results of a creature’s choice and desire to transform. Others, like the ghost template, are the result of an external force acting upon a creature (for example, when a tormented person dies and becomes a ghost). Yet in both cases, the template changed a creature well after its birth or creation—these types are called “acquired templates,” and can be added to a creature at any time during its existence.

So you take a living creature – a corporeal aberration, animal, dragon, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, or vermin – and rebuild it into a construct, rather than it gaining the Augmented subtype. As written, you have to start with the creature you want to rebuild.

That, of course, is “rules as written”, and might not be as intended – but there was no correction in the errata after publication that I can find (there’s only one page of it) and we’re not likely to get any further answers now. So, having to start with the creature you’re building an effigy of, rebuilding it into an automaton powered by an elemental spirit, and animating it with an elemental spirit, is more than a bit dark. Hopefully the original creature gets to die along the way, since being trapped in a body being run by something else at the command of your killer sounds sort of hellish.

Still, reading it as written WOULD explain why powerful effigies have low construction prices (they really can’t be truly sold, since the creator can always take them over again if he or she comes near them). Sure, building the Dragon Effigy is fairly cheap. The hard part is catching and restraining the dragon you need to start with.

As for the call-and-bind magical route, there are a number of problems.

Planar Binding allows a will save not to come at all and is limited to twelve hit dice. It allows escape via Spell Resistance, by Dimensional Travel, or with a successful Charisma check, each once per day. Dimensional Anchor and a Magic Circle are STRONGLY advised. Even then… the spell only binds a particular individual, if the creature thinks your demands are unreasonable it can bever be forced to agree, and since it breaks free if you roll a “1″ you never know when your chances at obtaining an agreement will run out. The spell doesn’t say what happens if you attack the creature; but I’d say that resorting to violence – such a casting that Mindrape spell on it – counts as rolling a “1″ on your charisma check, allowing it to automatically break free.

• The Gate spell is, of course, more powerful. Still, it cannot compel any deity or other unique being to answer and it offers no control if they do. You can, however, call and control up to (caster level) hit dice worth of entities or call a single creature with any number of hit dice but have no control if that total is above (Caster Level x 2). In any case, this costs 1000 XP,
• A controlled being can be commanded to perform an immediate task taking no longer than one round per caster level. You may bargain with the creature for longer services, but this requires a “fair trade” as defined by the GM, which will be enforced by greater powers.

So far, so good – although most beings that grant free Wishes and such note that they cannot be compelled to grant them and/or this may (will) result in them twisting the Wish in various ways. This isn’t a good way around the costs of Wishes.

It’s also worth nothing that both Planar Binding and Gate are calling effects. Per the SRD…

Calling:

A calling spell transports a creature from another plane to the plane you are on. The spell grants the creature the one-time ability to return to its plane of origin, although the spell may limit the circumstances under which this is possible. Creatures who are called actually die when they are killed; they do not disappear and reform, as do those brought by a summoning spell (see below). The duration of a calling spell is instantaneous, which means that the called creature can’t be dispelled.

Gate says nothing about restraining creatures other than asking for an immediate service. So anything you call in with Gate or Planar Binding has the option to leave at any time unless you ask for an immediate service before it gets to take an action or use Dimensional Anchor.

An inward-facing magic circle is quite helpful – although the creature can immediately test it upon arrival with it’s Spell Resistance (if any) and can throw ranged effects out of it. Note that Assay Spell Resistance will not help here – it must be cast before you cast the spells it applies to, and the targeted opponent must be present when it is case. It won’t work in advance. Still, one can use a Diagram to prevent the use of Spell Resistance and to ensure that none of the creatures abilities or attacks can cross the diagram. Of course, this version only affects a single, specified, creature.

But all this assumes that these ancient and highly experienced creatures, when called in their real bodies and with access to their equipment and (in the case of Gate) with an open gate that any minions of theirs can come through with them, have taken no precautions. Perhaps, the creature brings a big gust of wind with it when it comes through the gate (automatically destroying the circle/trap), or has an item that provides Spell Immunity to relevant Magic Circles, or wears a Ring of Freedom Of Movement (or can cast or otherwise access that spell) since it protects against magic meant to restrain it’s movement, or has a Spellblade weapon (6000 GP for immunity to any one spell), or bought the ability to make saves against effects that normally do not offer one, or has an item that triggers a dispelling, antimagic, or destructive effect when the user is entrapped in such a circle (the creature is not taking the action to disrupt the circle, the item is). or has an Anklet Of Translocation (Magic Item Compendium, 1400 GP and – as with any item – bypasses restrictions on the user’s personal abilities) and so on and so on. The circle blocks the creatures abilities – not those of any items that it may be carrying or of any creatures that IT summons since the circle affects a specific CALLED creature – not summoned ones. The creature cannot order such minions to break the circle, but it can call them and let them do whatever they do or send them to attack the pests who did the summoning. For that matter… an intelligent item. construct, or servant creature will not be trapped, and can take actions to destroy the circle. An item with basic intelligence and the ability to cast Unseen Servant (and perhaps Magic Missle just to be a pest) is pretty cheap (Use a Pearl Of Power or cheap Relic for that handy caster level 19-20!). So are Imps. So you bound that pit fiend. The three Imps it has in it’s pouch are NOT bound, and may act to wreck your diagram.

A preset Dimensional Anchor can be applied to keep creatures capable of things like Plane Shift or Teleport (most of the more useful ones have at least some such ability if only the default one that comes with being Called – and may have a limited use item on them, as noted above). But most of the countermeasures noted above apply here too.

Now Mindrape is only useful if the GM is allowing 3.0 spells from the Book Of Vile Darkness – but unless you’re playing Pathfinder, you can probably get away with it. There’s no need to travel to the plane the creature lives on though since the creature is really present. I’d probably want to be cautious about “learning everything the creature knows” in the case of ancient demons and such – but it is a high level spell, so it probably filters things somehow. It probably also pisses off the creatures divine patron, but that’s a GM’s decision thing.

Of course, in Eclipse… NPC’s and Monsters usually get Quick Conversions, as listed on page 194. That gets them 6 CP per Hit Die to spend. So a Pit Field gets (18 HD x 6 CP) = 108 CP to spend. Being called and ambushed or commanded to do things is a fairly major problem for such creatures – as are save-or-die/suck effects and several other things. So…

• Luck with +8 (Or, with GM permission, twice an attribute modifier that seems relevant) Bonus Uses, Specialized in Saving Throws (9 CP)
• Witchcraft II, with The Adamant Will (and a few other powers) (12 CP).
• Immunity/Mystic Circles or Dimensional Anchor (Uncommon, Major, Major = 3 CP).

Sure, that’s 24 CP – almost a quarter of their supply – but both Luck for Saves and Witchcraft can be consistently useful in an enormous number of situations. The Adamant Will ability will easily block a Mindrape spell or any other form of mind control at a cost of 2 Power. And most creatures will have enough power even if they only have the base that comes with Witchcraft to resist being Mindraped a dozen times in a row. Trading one of your ninth level spell slots, and an action, for 2 power (and no actions) from an enemy is a losing proposition.

Classical demonology that summoned demons into the world focused on 1) researching the demon you wanted to summon, including it’s name, sigil, what it could do, and the bargains it was willing to accept to do those things, 2) preparing your ritual, invoking the authority of God, whom such creatures were already bound to obey by his divine edict, to hold them and make them listen. 3) performing the summoning via God’s authority, 4) making an immediate offering, and 5) offering a contract the demon was known to accept or asking for some simple and immediate service.

Pretty much all demons were willing to consider contracts and minor services, and many could not be otherwise compelled. But that’s why the d20 version of such protective bindings only affects specific creatures.

But why do demons and such answer? They COULD use various ways of getting out of it.

It was because any long term service paid well. Sure, the summoner could want something quick that didn’t really pay – but it was worth putting up with dozens of two-minute jobs – basically advertising your services – to get paid for a single long-term one. In Eclipse, of course, the NPC’s learn, and can buy special powers of their own – so Demonology is mostly classical. You do some research, you pick out a demon that does what you want, you summon it, and you either ask it for a quick service or bargain for a long-term one.

But the demons are going along with it more or less willingly because it PAYS. If you want to Call and attack them, or try to Mindrape them… they are very likely to call in allies, or use some method to escape, or simply rely on their equipment, immunities, the Adamant Will, and luck for saves to tell you to shove it – before either making a good effort to kill you or leaving to tell the rest of their kind to put you and anyone who helped you on the “screw over if at all possible” list.

In Eclipse, intelligent NPC’s and monsters get options of their own and get to plan intelligently. And many of them will be older and more experienced than any given mortal or once-mortal character. Any of them who were easy to take advantage of will long ago HAVE been taken advantage of – and reprogrammed into unique creatures who can no longer be summoned or gated in. Is that fair? Yes, it is entirely fair. It’s simply treating the setting and it’s creatures as if they were real, rather than treating them as pinatas for players to whack until loot falls out.

So yes. There are MUCH easier ways to get loyal minions. Trying to use Magic Circle, Dimensional Anchor, Planar Binding or Gate. and Mindrape calls for enormous amounts of magic and has a fabulous number of ways that it can go wrong as compared to simply taking Leadership, or the Minions skill, or even the Dreambinding Summoning stuff, and doing it the normal way.

Now, for trying to calculate costs for Dreambinding… that’s kind of hard. Sure, you can price the spellcasting, but how much would it cost to pay some poor archmage to put up with all the dangers and side effects of trying such a thing? And to keep trying until it works? I see no way to calculate it.

Finally, as far as Slaves are concerned… I will admit that several of my characters (Most notably “Dark Lord Kevin” who was “very, VERY, evil! Watch me be evil!” – Causing most Archons and such to facepalm as he made evil excuses for being nice) like to try and shock people by keeping “youthful slaves” (indentured servants) who are actually minions acquired by various methods (Leadership, et al) – who are kept safe, prevented from aging or dying, granted various powers, and given training and equipment, all in service of maintaining a decadent lifestyle and having an occasionally useful entourage that really annoys straitlaced and self-righteous people. This also allows them to recruit people for “slavery” and proclaim – truthfully – that they only keep voluntary slaves.

OK, that’s more of a quirk than anything else, but it certainly sounded evil.

And I hope that helps!

Dreambinding And Creatures

And here we have a question that’s too complicated for a comment…

It occurs to me that, presuming the GM allows it, there’s little reason why dream-binding can’t bring forth creatures as well as items. Costs for mounts such as horses and riding dogs are in the Core Rules, other sourcebooks have prices for slaves (even if d20pfsrd.com removed them; they’re still on Archives of Nethys, though), and Pathfinder’s Ultimate Campaign has prices for “teams” of low-level characters. And of course, various sourcebooks have prices for certain monsters, such as the burrowing creatures in the equipment section of Races of Stone.

For that matter, you can use the “spellcasting services” price in the Core Rules to price out a single casting of animate dead/create undead/create greater undead and bring forth such creatures that way. The same goes for outsiders brought forth via the “cost” of a casting of one of the planar binding spells (and appropriate cost of cutting a deal with that outsider), though I suspect most GMs would disallow the much cheaper planar ally spells. And constructs have their prices listed in their monster entries.

All of which is to say that, if the GM signs off on the above, there’s a bit of a gap when it comes to creatures for which no easy pricing can be determined, such as dragons, magical beasts, fey, etc. Not withstanding making an item that uses a summoning spell (since summoning spells last only for a few rounds), what metric(s) would you suggest for determining the “price” of bringing forth some other creature type via dream-binding?

-Alzrius

For reference…

Dream-Binding (Occult Skill, Charisma) allows the user to draw objects from dreams into reality. To do so, the user must get a full nights rest and forfeit the natural healing and attribute recovery that would normally result, whereupon he or she will awaken with his or her allotment of items. The total value of such items may not exceed (Bonus x Bonus x 100 GP) and no more than one third of that total may be allotted to any single item. Dream-binding cannot create items with charges (although uses-per-day limitations are fine), or skill-boosting items. Consumable goods will vanish once the skill points are re-allotted, so the creation of food and water is ill-advised. Finally, of course, the game master must approve of the list of items to be created.

The original version got you a lot less gear because you had to divide up the skill points rather than portion out the total value – so at Skill 9 you could have three items worth (3 x 3 x 100 = 900 GP) each. This could be useful – but it was very limited and turned out to be far too much trouble to work with, particularly when reaching – say – +30 got you a maximum of 30,000 GP worth of gear, and likely less. Fortunately, Occult Skill allows for multiple versions of a skill if the GM finds it acceptable, so this version would wind up at 8100 GP at skill 9 and 90,000 GP at Skill 30. That makes Dream-Binding a powerful and very useful skill at lower levels, but of less and less use at higher ones where wealth by level starts greatly exceeding what it gets you and the primary utility moves towards equipping yourself with special-purpose gear suited for particular missions. That still handy of course, but it relies heavily on foresight, scouting, and planning to be really useful.

As far as the actual question goes… personally I’d be pretty reluctant to make anything made of dreams sapient; I’d expect rather erratic behavior at the least. Even disregarding the eccentricities of dreams, temporary, thrown-together, minds are not likely to be stable.

On the other hand, of course, most of what you’d want an unintelligent creature – like a horse, dog, a construct, or most dinosaurs – to do is pretty straightforward. even in terms of dreams – and you could reasonably argue that such creatures aren’t too likely to spend a lot of time on introspection and start cracking up.So Constructs and things with animal intelligence could be a “go” even with the basic version of the skill.

Still, if you or the GM is worried about the instability of minds woven from dreams, all you need to do is to take a variant (“Spirit Minions” or “Dimensional Wraiths” or something) and say that it summons aspects of existing creatures from elsewhere in the multiverse to your aid.

Which gives us some justification, but still no good way of pricing things – and there really isn’t one since all we’ve really got to go on with monsters is their challenge rating, which is a really poor measure of how helpful something will be to an adventurer. That’s why Pathfinder took Unicorns off the Summon Nature’s Ally IV list; they easily beat out Cure Critical Wounds (heal 4d8+Caster Level, Max 20) – being able to heal 5d8+20 damage and offering access to Neutralize Poison and a Circle Of Protection From Evil (as well as direct combat utility) on top. If you used the level five version of Summon Nature’s Ally – where Cure Critical Wounds resided for Druids – you got 1d3 Unicorns. That single summons could make a druid into a fairly powerful healer.

Challenge Rating 3 didn’t really cover it properly.

For Undead, I’d be reluctant to use the Creation price, since that doesn’t include the expense of controlling the thing, which is the hard part given that they sometimes spontaneously pop up on their own.

Teams would be kind of cheap, if of relatively little use at higher levels – but the team prices are predicated on being settled, sleeping at home, and having time off rather than going on adventures. And while there are rules for Hirelings, there really aren’t rules for purchasing them – just for paying them on a day-to-day basis. I know that I used team prices for Innate Enchantment (Portable Settlement) – but that’s more or less a persistent thing, not something that can be traded out daily. Its also something that appears and disappears as needed – while having forty or fifty people trailing along on your adventures will probably be more trouble than it’s worth.

There are, as you note, fairly extensive price lists for animals in Pathfinder – https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/goods-and-services/animals-animal-gear/ – but that has it’s problems too; rats are a mere 1 CP – if you invest, say, 20,000 GP of your “virtual gold” in rats, you get two million of them. Enough for something like 5000 Rat Swarms. Certainly enough to devastate a sizeable settlement. Walled town besieged by Orcs? for a mere 7200 GP you could send out a dozen Deinonychus each day. Or perhaps 10550 GP for ten Dire Tigers? Or the same for 105 Leopards? Having them disappear in the morning while you get new ones is an even bigger benefit. At (Bonus x Bonus x 100 GP, no more than one-third on any single creature) you could achieve most of those totals fairly readily. The problem is that not having to transport, care for, and control such beasts is an enormous advantage. No low-level party is likely to be able to afford and manage a trio of combat-trained woolly mammoths (13,500 GP in total) – but that amount is readily achievable with a +12 skill total. Take +4 at L1, +4 Attribute, +2 Skill Emphasis, and +3 Skill Focus for a +13. This makes it easily possible to simply “rent some for the day”. A trio of CR 10 Battle-Trained Woolly Mammoth mounts can be a pretty big help when you’re attacking a goblin camp or something.

That certainly doesn’t work very well.

Using the costs of hiring a spellcaster to cast “planar binding” is inappropriate too. Those are the prices for a spell cast in town at the spellcasters leisure after you journey to a large city and find someone to do it. For adventurous casting… you’d need to pay to bring them along. And your “payment” would mean nothing either since it would shortly vanish – not a good thing if you are accessing creatures that actually exist rather than just making dreams solid.

That still doesn’t get us very far in search of a general rule. The vast majority of the ways for “pricing” monsters include a variety of assumptions that don’t fit in with the “daily summoning” model.

So “Daily Summoning” it is. At least that takes care of being able to command them and food and care and such.

That’s (Generalized Summoning +5 Levels of Persistent (Lasts all day)) -2 Levels (Price break for built-in Metamagic) -1 Level (specific creature type) -2 Levels (lengthy casting procedure – a full night sleeping, giving up nightly healing, using ambient magic). So the spell level used is equivalent to the base Summoning effect for the creature of the CR you want. That gives us a set of spells for undead, psychic constructs, or whatever. It also puts unicorns back on the table, because why not? There are lots of other options for healing people.

Ergo, it’s (Spell Level x Caster Level x 1800 GP (Command Word) x.2 (Once Per Day). So that comes out to…

• CR 1/3: 180 GP (Skill 3, CL 1). Well, if your bard wants an entourage of songbirds, or you want some squirrels to fuss over the baby or a small dog or something, here you go. To be somewhat more practical, your aspiring necromancer can have a few human skeletons, your starting-out warlord could command a few basic goblins, and anyone could have a small monkey that can bring them the key to their cell or ferrets to gnaw on the ropes they are tied with.
• CR 1/2: 360 GP (Skill 4, CL 1). Here we get basic servants, pageboys, baboons, eagles, common ponies, and untrained orcs. For the most part, basic utility creatures.
• CR 1: 2160 GP (Skill 8, CL 3). Ghouls, heavy horses, lemures, riding dogs, pseudodragons, small elementals or animated objects, wolves… There is significant utility at this point, as well as enough combat power to terrorize normal people.
• CR 2: 5400 GP (Skill 13, CL 5). At this point Tarzan can have his apes, bears, boars, and cheetahs are available, you can ride a dire bat, or be accompanied by a lantern archon, quasit, or imp, or snuggle with your pet wolverine.
• CR 3: 10,800 GP (Skill 18, CL 7). Infant dragons, small dinosaurs, dire wolves, mephits, hell hounds, giant eagles, pegasi, unicorns, medium elementals… Sure, unless you’ve made skills your characters focus you are probably not particularly impressed by such creatures, but the spread of options available is probably more important than your creatures relatively minor combat utility.
• CR 4-5: 16,200 GP (Skill 22, CL 9). A barghest to make sure your enemies stay dead, a gargoyle to guard your camp, a hound archon to provide advice, a tiger to look impressive, a basilisk to threaten your captives with, a djinni or bearded devil to show your power, trolls, winter wolves, wraiths… Certainly Skill 22 is getting up there – but an impressive supernatural entourage is still useful and definitely makes an impression.
• CR 6: 23,760 GP (Skill 27, CL 11). At this point it’s generally not combat power. It’s intelligent minions who can do things while you’re busy or elsewhere, impressive flying mounts, advanced megaraptor skeletons for intimidation, and so on. If you just want a wall of meat, go with giant vermin
• CR 7-8: 32,760 GP (Skill 32, CL 13). Huge elementals, giant construction crews, the ever-popular succubus “aide”, ogre magi, dire tigers, shield guardians, and tyrannosaurs all come into play here – but by the time most characters have +32 in a skill these sorts of creatures will be handy to have around, but fairly unimportant except for where they let you break the action economy.
• CR 9: 43,200 GP (Skill 36, CL 15). The Androsphinx, bone devil, greater elemental, triceratops, and vrock all come into play here – but while that’s cool, a +36 skill bonus is getting well up there. If your interest is in combat, any decent summoner has had creatures of this level on tap for some time. Your advantage lies in having the creatures around all day, and being able to send them off on long-term independent errands, rather than using them up for the day getting in an extra round or two worth of semi-effectual attacks.
• CR 10-11: 55,080 GP (Skill 41, CL 17). Barbed devils, elder elementals, some kinds of young adult dragons, stone golems, and twelve-headed hydras can all be at your command – but against most opponents suitable for characters with skill bonuses of 41+ they probably aren’t going to be all that effective. At this point you’re probably much better off bringing in supporting staff rather than monsters to go adventuring with.

—Epic (Level 10+) Spell Threshold—

At this point we’re looking for exotic special abilities that would be useful to have access to, some major support powers, or sheer coolness (riding a dragon makes ANYONE look good!). By the time a character can summon creatures like this, they just won’t mean much in direct combat – and that isn’t going to change much, so there’s no need for further descriptions.

• CR 12-13: 68,400 GP (Skill 46, CL 19)
• CR 14-15: 83,160 GP (Skill 50, CL 21)
• CR 16: 99,360 GP (Skill 55, CL 23)
• CR 17-18: 117,000 GP (Skill 60, CL 25)
• CR 19: 136,000 GP (Skill 64, CL 27)
• CR 20-21: 156,000 GP (Skill 65, CL 29)
• CR 22: 178,000 GP (Skill 73, CL 31)

CR 23+ is – under the standard rules – not possible; the base cost of the “item” required exceeds the 200,000 GP limit. Even going by the standard Epic Magic Item Rules that puts the cost at a little over two million GP – and the skill requirement at +247. Even as it is… the table above likely far exceeds the limits of most games.

Now, since the effective value of Dream-Binding is (Bonus x Bonus x 100 GP), but no more than one third of the total may be spent on any given item, those skill totals suffice for three monsters of that level – or, as usual, you can go down a level to get 2 monsters, or down two levels to get four. So at Skill 27 you could have a daily entourage of four CR 3 Unicorns, four CR 3 Deinonychus, and ride a CR 6 Ankylosaurus. Or you could specialize in something – perhaps Demonology – and have some imps and things even at fairly low levels.

You’d probably get more powerful creatures, and more raw power, with Leadership – especially after the investment needed to boost a skill to 27 at relatively low levels – but this method has the advantage that your creatures simply appear on the days you need them, don’t require transport or attention, always obey orders, and are completely disposable, since – if “killed” – they are just dispelled and can be summoned back in the morning. That can be pretty useful.

Now the really powerful creatures – with challenge ratings of 12+ – are summoned with spells of level 10+, and their availability will depend on how your game master feels about such spells. On the other hand… by the time you can reasonably have a skill of 60+, having a few high-level creatures about won’t make a lot of difference.

As usual in Eclipse, there’s a tradeoff here; lower level characters will find this a substantial boost, a mid-level one will find it useful, but just another tool in their toolbox, and high-level characters will find it mildly useful. Of course, that is more or less the expected pattern for skills; they never really lose all utility, but they are certainly far more useful at relatively low levels.

And I hope that helps!

Skills Of The Eclipse – Namegiving, Sealing, and Superlatives (Variants: Backstory and Flashbacks).

And for today it’s a few more Occult Skills – skills from odd corners of the multiverse that are not normally available in most settings, but which can be accessed (presuming the game master is agreeable) by taking the Occult Skill ability and paying a few extra skill points.

In most cases, of course, Occult Skills could be built in other ways – but doing that can get quite complicated, and is often far more trouble than it’s worth. Secondarily, a number of recent Party Templates have included granting access to an Occult Skill – so here are a few more to play with.

Occult Skill (Namegiving, Cha)

To give a True Name is to set something apart, to give it an identity and a destiny all it’s own. No longer is that mountain the “Tall one over there”, it is Mount Myrlun, Gateway between the Worlds, perhaps home of a secretive order of mystics, and one of the places that will withstand the armies of the abyss at the passing of the age.

Or maybe not. That’s a big name, and it will take a very powerful namegiver indeed to bestow it. On the other hand, naming a sword “Bloodthirst” is considerably simpler, and will probably result in a moderate enhancement of some sort. Naming a newly forged sword Caliburn, the Sword of Rulership is harder, but still within the capacity of mortals.

• Naming an infant (a small ceremony, skill fatigue 1) allows it to reroll it’s lowest attribute (this cannot result in lowering it further) and grants it an appropriate bonus feat. Most parents would LOVE to have a Namegiver naming their children.
• Naming an item (a dramatic moment, skill fatigue 2) effectively transforms it into a type of Relic. Sadly, these variants are powered by their users charisma modifier plus any disadvantages they carry; if your (Cha Mod) is +3 and the item in question carries one disadvantage worth (3 CP), it will grant a total of (6 CP) worth of powers. Worse, that’s an upper limit on the use of such items; those points from your Charisma may only empower one such relic at a time (although if you happen to have a fabulously high Charisma modifier you may split the points up between multiple relics of this type).
• Naming a Tale (by naming and reciting it, skill fatigue 1) will preserve it – often as an epic poem – across the centuries. This has a minimum level of four to pull off AND the GM must feel that the tale is of interest. Even with a Name, the tale of “how little Timmy pulled his sisters hair” is unlikely to be recalled outside of family reunions or Dr Seuss style books for children.
• Granting a creature a Title – basically an extra name – grants it the equivalent of an Office (See: Dominion, Skill Fatigue 2). This has a minimum level of eight to pull off – but at level fourteen it becomes possible to add a Title to a Relic, as above (skill fatigue 3) – which is where things like “Caliburn” (the basic name) “The Sword Of Rulership” (it’s title) come from. At epic levels it becomes possible to give titles to places (skill fatigue 4), although – if it currently has one – that title must be destroyed first.
• Naming a place (skill fatigue 1-4 depending on the scale of the place plus 1-4 depending on it’s level of significance) will cause it to function as a generic Sanctum, granting 6, 12, 18, or even 24 CP – but the GM tends to set up the details and determine the total. Sadly, this has a minimum level equal to the number of CP that the sanctum grants to pull off. It becomes even more difficult if the place already has a popular name (Constantinople did not become Istanbul easily) and is impossible – short of destroying the place entirely and remaking it into something different – if a Namegiver has already named it.

Namegiving is limited by a form of Skill Fatigue; the skill total is restored each week (divided up between the days of the week), but is depleted by the stress of granting names. Namegiving (minus any skill fatigue penalties) may be actively rolled to identify the meaning of a name or to determine the name of an inanimate object that happens to have one.

Namegiving tends to add lore to a setting, because if it’s a common skill, or even uncommon but available… anyplace important is likely to grant modifiers to the people there. Powerful items will tend to have unique names and powers. Particular personal names (which usually mean something in their original language) may be associated with one or another kind of bonus feat – and the game master should keep a notepad handy, since, while it is easy to make up such details on the spot, keeping track of them is likely to involve some note-taking.

Occult Skill (Sealing, Dex):

This is the art of entrapping things in dimensional pockets, anchoring said pockets in some focus – which varies from user to user, with known examples including pots, paintings, poke balls, cell phone aps, knots, tattoos, and gems. Unfortunately, keeping something bound requires that the user devote points from the skill to it – and the more powerful or important the thing sealed, the more points (as determined by the game master) it will require. Worse, entrapping something requires an opposed will check. You want to seal up a tub complete with hot water, sponges, soap, and a rubber duck? It’s probably only a few points (although the larger and heavier the item(s), the harder it becomes). Hiding a hold-out weapon in a tattoo? Easy. You want to trap a major demon, a tornado, a pyroclastic flow, or one of Naruto’s Tailed Beasts? That’s going to be EXPENSIVE.

• Sealing away really powerful things tends to “leak”. Seal an archdemon into something? You probably have a powerful cursed item that keeps trying to take over it’s user’s minds.
• An unsuccessful attempt at sealing something depletes the points that would have been invested in that seal for twenty-four hours. Success, of course, depletes those points until the seal is released.
• Anything in a seal experiences only the beneficial aspects of time; it will heal normally, but not get hungry, can sleep and recover from being tired, but will not again become tired while so confined, and so on. Inanimate targets do not experience time at all.
• Users may spend extra points to tweak the nature of the dimensional pocket (see the Spacewarp spell template in The Practical Enchanter for some possible modifications), to set various release conditions, and (for +3 points) to be able to demand a short-term service from a released creature (but not an inanimate object).
• User’s may spend 1/2 extra points to use a slightly/notably different anchor. If you normally use clay pots, but wish to use a rice cooker, canteen, or plastic jug instead, that will cost an extra point. Using a clay statuette or a galvanized garbage can will cost two extra points.
• If the user dies, his or her seals will remain until opened.
• Creatures that have been defeated, are unconscious, are paralyzed, of suffer from similar disadvantages are easier to seal away. Willing creatures rarely cost more than one point to seal.
  Optionally, making sacrifices to create a seal will make it cost fewer points to create and maintain.
• If you seal things in expensive gems which shatter when the seal is broken, your seals will be cheaper. Human sacrifices – whether as the container or as a component – can make things a lot cheaper, but dying to create a seal is rarely worthwhile.
• It is possible to pass seals on to others. They will still count against the user’s total sealing ability unless the recipient has Sealing as well, and takes over maintaining the effect.

Variations are, of course, possible. After all, the multiverse contains many versions of this, and every other, occult skill. Specializations and Corruptions are also possible: if you really MUST be a pokemon trainer, Specialize it for increased effect (only works on loyal monsters, but monsters are automatically recalled into the seal when a killing blow is struck against them rather than actually taking the lethal damage) and there you are. Presuming you can befriend some pocket monsters, you can carry a batch of them around to help you out on the cheap.

Sealing quietly turns a lot of assumptions upside down if it’s commonly available. After all, even a first level novice could easily seal away – say – their money, their valuable tools, and a quantity of expensive raw materials. Sailors can carry along a private stash of trade goods and supplies, banditry and burglary becomes much less practical, a trusted friend can smuggle someone out of danger with relative ease, perishable foods can be easily stored for later use. Gravely wounded comrades will heal, but never get worse. If Sealing is common in a society, it will be changed in innumerable ways – so unless the GM feels like dealing with that challenge, it’s probably better left as an occult skill.

Occult Skill (Superlatives, Cha) (Variant, Backstory or Flashbacks, Wis):

Each permanent level of this skill allows a character to adopt a descriptive trait – “Fast”, “Clever”, “Noble”, “Sneaky”, “Valiant”, “Determined”, or whatever. Observant NPC’s can easily pick up on those traits, even if they get sarcastic about them because the character is well-known for the opposite trat. Thus “Brave Sir Robin” is still known as “Brave Sir Robin”, even if accuracy would suggest quite another appellation and the sarcasm gets pretty heavy…

Traits can also be tapped once each per day, with characters of levels 1-5/6-12/13+ able to expend 1/2/3 Traits on any given relevant action, gaining…

• 1 Trait) +4 on a roll or an effect equivalent to a first level spell or a minor reality edit.
• 2 Traits) +8 on a roll or an effect equivalent to a second level spell or a notable reality edit
• 3 Traits) +12 on a roll or an effect equivalent to a third level spell or a major reality edit

Traits may also be noted without being tapped. For example, “I am wise enough to know that this is a terrible idea!” The character may be noted for his or her wisdom – but there’s no roll here and nothing is actually being done. Ergo, the Descriptive Trait (“Wise”) is not tapped. Now, if the character is trying to use Diplomacy to persuade an NPC that what they’re doing is terminally stupid, then the Wise trait could be tapped for that extra +4 (or to get what they’re saying across a language barrier, or to invoke the equivalent of some persuasive effect or ventriloquism or some such).

• “I am gentle enough to catch the falling child without harm!” – likely equating to a Feather Fall effect.
• “I am clever and knowledgeable enough to crack this code!”. This could be a simple skill boost, but it could also indicate that the user is getting the effect of some sort of translation effect.
• “I am strong, determined, and mighty enough to break these pillars and pull down the temple!” is not really likely to produce a magical effect unless there’s a demolitions spell in play – but a simple boost to the strength check or some reality editing would likely suffice for this stunt.

Any use of a trait must, of course, be in line with the nature of that trait. You may be able to outargue a lawyer with your cleverness, but you will find it of little use in lifting a huge block of stone.

The most common variant form of this ability is “Backstory” or “Flashbacks” (Wis) – allowing characters to get some benefit out of all those incredible incidents and skills that were mentioned in their backstory, but were never actually implemented in their character. With this variant, each permanent level of the skill allows the user to note one element of their backstory – making it a part of their personal tale, having it mentioned by minstrels and storytellers, and being allowed to tap it for extra power. Have you empowered the backstory elements that you were Apprenticed to a Master Alchemist, are a Demolitions Expert, and are Wanted For Pyromania in Twelve Cities? Then you can – if you are level 13+ – combine those to generate an impressive Fireball, or some similar stunt.

Common availability of this one has surprisingly little effect, simply because most non-adventurers have better uses for their skill points than picking up a particularly high level of Superlatives. They may dabble – it’s worth a skill point or two to get “Master (Profession)” or “Master Craftsman (Craft Skill) since that +4 translates directly into a higher weekly income – but it’s not like most games pay much attention to how prosperous the common NPC’s are and PC’s have many ways to get dice bonuses.

Alewelian Orcs

Orcs are the last of the major races, and are widely (if not entirely justly) considered the least of them. Tribal, primitive, and uninterested in civilization, Orcs tend to exist on the fringes of the Empire, usually acting as “barbarian auxiliaries” for more organized imperial forces. They didn’t group up with anyone else during the last cataclysm either, instead isolating themselves in hidden tribal encampments – rather like hornets. Harmless enough if left alone, but if you find and disturb an orc colony, the swarm will come boiling out to attack – but unlike most primitives, they come pouring out driving a wide variety of heavily armed vehicles.

Orcish vehicles are death traps. They offer little to no protection to the driver, they have to be steered, they tend to flip over and/or explode, and their range is relatively short even if they are pretty fast. They tend to be covered in spikes, and skulls, and bolted-on weapons. Oh so many spikes and weapons. They aren’t really for serious TRAVEL. They’re for riding into battle and pursuing fleeing enemies, for launching attacks from, for making quick escapes, and for fighting duels on top of (no matter HOW insane that is).

Orcs tend to treat their vehicles as creatures rather than as mechanisms – and that’s because that is exactly what they ARE. They’re usually elemental spirits taking temporary forms to go roaring around the landscape having a bit of excitement. That’s why Orcs don’t need complicated maintenance, or to spend a lot of time on repairs and finding fuel, or even a large garage to keep them in. Instead they just come boiling out of their camps and caves riding a variety of absurd-looking contraptions that certainly should not work – but which nevertheless roar around firing huge rocks and spears and alchemical flame and such. Think Mad Max: Fury Road. That’s what fighting Alewelian Orcs is like.

So some orcs survived. They rapidly rebuilt their population by simply breeding faster than everyone else – a consequence of being fully adult at 12, and considered venerable at 40. Their conception of the world seems to be almost entirely animistic, which (in their view) basically allows them to arm-wrestle the spirits of the world to make them do what they want.

Annoyingly to most scholars, this seems to work to some extent, which allows orcs to obtain a variety of services and favors from various spirits – whereby even orcish children can usually claim the occasional favor from minor elemental spirits. While some of them try to extend this notion to things like City Wards (in hopes that defeating the city spirit will make them king of the city) this has never been known to work. The fact that some of them keep on trying tends to make their reputations even worse.

Orc Racial Template:

• Witchcraft III: Provides (Str + Dex + Con)/3 Power, Save DC’s (13 + Cha Mod) where relevant (18 CP). Seven basic abilities as follows:
  • Glamour, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost: Orcs gain a +6 bonus to Intimidate, a +3 bonus on the Save DC’s against their Warcries, and – when shouting orders – can always be clearly understood if they’re using an appropriate language; battle-noise does not interfere. While these effects have no cost, orcs cannot use Glamour in other ways.
  • Hand Of Shadows: Specialized and Corrupted / only for crafting and labor, Orcs are a stone age people. That does not stop them; d20 does not call for any specific tools or materials for Craft and Profession skills – and for an Orc, that loophole is wide open. Do you want ceramic-composite lamellar armor, an adamntine vibro katana, and a lasgun? As long as those are allowed in the setting, an orc can turn them out, starting with a pile of rocks for tools, raw materials, and workspace and accomplishing a weeks worth of work without penalty each day at no cost.
  • Healing: Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect (Double Effect, auto-triggered when the user suffers incapacitating injuries or sleeps, only works on the user, only usable when auto-triggered. Orcs are nigh-impossible to put down save by truly major attacks, fighting on despite massive injuries and swiftly recovering from poisons and such.
  • Hyloka: Specialized and Corrupted / only to use a personal version of Awesome Wrath (The Practical Enchanter, Morale Bonuses of +4 Str, +4 Con, and +2 to Will Saves, but the same basic limitations as a Barbarian’s Rage), lasting up to one minute per level for 1 Power.
  • Infliction Specialized and Corrupted for Triple Effect / requires specialized weapons to use, each with specific infliction effects, user’s can only carry (Str Mod +1, 2 minimum) types of infliction-based weapons at a time, weapons are prone to “running our ammo” on a “1″ or jamming (becoming unusable until a full-round action is spent fixing the weapon) on a “2″. Thus an individual Orc capable of carrying three types of infliction weapons might thus be carrying a “firegun” that projects single-target bolts of flame, a quiver full of exploding (small radius effect) sonic javelins, and a set of lightning gauntlets (touch, only with a metal weapon attack or touch) to boost melee attacks. These may either allow saves or require attack checks.
    • Since Infliction allows a free choice of damage types, Orcs can select weapons (usually nets) that inflict “subjugation” damage; if a creature would be reduced to (-HP) via subjugation, it will become docile for a few days, and then start responding according to how it was treated while subjugated.
    • They are quite free to carry normal weapons as well.
  • The Inner Eye, Specialized and Corrupted / only to read the spirits of armor, weapons, and vehicles. The user may learn the provenance and history of such items automatically and reduces the level of proficiency needed to use such items by one level, two levels if they were crafted by an orc. This effect has no cost.
  • Witchsight: Specialized and Corrupted / only to provide Darkvision, either at 60′ at no cost or 120′ for one power for ten minutes.
• Witchcraft Pacts:
  • Gateway: Orcs are living anchors for Spirits, and their mere presence will allow spirits to occasionally manifest themselves into the physical world (-6 CP).
  • Spirit: The spirits of deceased orcs tend to wander off and join one spiritual faction or another, making them quite hard to Raise, Reincarnate, or Resurrect (-6 CP).
• Advanced Witchcraft:
  • Summoning, Specialized for Reduced Cost and Corrupted for Increased Effect / only to quickly and easily invoke spirit favors, but there is no cost for “placing the call” (3 CP).
  • Spirits Of The Deep: Specialized for Increased Effect (half power cost) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only works on spirits who are doing the user a favor, only to apply a “vehicle template” (at a cost of 3 Power), this always results in “orcish vehicles” (4 CP). Note that “destroyed” vehicles simply return to spirit form, rather than actually being “injured”.
  • Mana (2d6) as +6d6 Power, Specialized and Corrupted / only to power Infliction and Hyloka effects (4 CP).
  • Mana (1d6) as +3d6 Power, Specialized and Corrupted / Only to power Healing and Witchsight Effects (2 CP).
  • Mana (1d6) as +3d6 Power, Specialized and Corrupted / only to power Spirits Of The Deep and Infliction Effects (2 CP).
• Fast Learner, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect (+3 CP/ Level)/ only for Favors and Connections, only from/with Spirits, user must always have more favors of each lower level than of any higher level (6 CP). Orcs often dream of the spirit realm, and there encounter various spirits, drink with them, wrestle with them, and attempt to defeat them in contests. While this suffices to gain minor favors, gaining major or great favors tends to require ritual spirit questing, performing some deed to gain the favor of the spirits, making offerings, or going out and confronting spirits – which is why many Orc tribes “trade” with others to gain the favor of spirits that are less common wherever they live. After all, spirit favors and
• Immunity, needing to pay Spirit Favors back at full value. (Common, Minor, Major, 6 CP). Orcs can get minor favors in exchange for nothing much – and while they must repay larger favors, they do so at one rank less. Thus Minor Favors need not be repaid, Major Favors are repaid as Minor Favors, and Enormous Favors are repaid as Major Favors.

Orcs are actually surprisingly versatile and powerful shamans; even their children – however feral they may be – have fairly formidable weapons and minor spirit favors to call upon. Unfortunately, their short lifespans tend to leave them with little time to learn, extremely immature attitudes, and rather crude social skills. They are noisy, impatient, and all too inclined to summon spirits and get violent whenever frustrated. Unsurprisingly, this makes them unwelcome in most settlements – further limiting their social relationships.

Innate Enchantment (Up to 6500 GP / 7 CP).

• • Psychic Focus (Infliction): Reduces the cost of using a specific psychic ability by 1 power (to a minimum of 1 power) once per round up to three times within the next minute. Characters may only employ one Psychic Focus effect at a time and can never learn to boost more than (Wis Mod +1, 1 Minimum) specific abilities in this fashion. SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 1120 GP.
  • Immortal Vigor (+12 + 2 x Con Mod HP): SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 1120 GP.
  • Enhance Attribute (+2 Enhancement Bonus to Strength): SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 1120 GP.
  • Enhance Attribute (+2 Enhancement Bonus to Constitution): SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 1120 GP.
  • Resistance (+1 on each save, SL1/2 x CL1 x2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 560 GP.
  • Inspiring Word (+1 Morale Bonus to Attacks, Saves, Checks, and Weapon Damage). : SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only x.8 requires war-cries and loud announcements of their intentions to inspire friendly spirits to help them out. Such spirits sometimes throw in dramatic heavy metal background music as well to boost the drama, no matter how hard this is on stealth = 896 GP.
  • Bony Hide: Masterwork Studded Leather Armor (150 GP): +3 Armor (treat as Natural Armor due to immunity to stacking limits), Max Dex Bonus +5, Spell Failure 15% (An Orc may spend 1 CP to apply the “Smooth” modifier / Specialized in Bony Hide only) to negate both of these problems).
  • Armor Augment Crystal – Least Restful Crystal (x.8 Abundant Magic = 400 GP). Orcs do not suffer penalties for sleeping in their “armor”.
• The Inward Fire: Immunity / Stacking limits when combining racial innate enchantment effects with external effects (Common, Minor, Trivial (only covers L0 and L1 effects), 2 CP).
• Immunity/Dispelling and Antimagic (Common, Minor, Great, Specialized and Corrupted/only protects innate enchantments that provide personal augmentations, only protects the basic racial abilities, 4 CP).
• Immunity/the normal XP cost of Innate Enchantments (Uncommon, Minor, Trivial [only covers first level effects at caster level one], Specialized/only to cover initial racial abilities, 1 CP).
• -2 Intelligence (-6 CP). Sadly, thanks to their early maturation, orcs tend to miss out on a good deal of the childhood learning, and development of advanced reasoning, that most other intelligent races get.
• Disadvantages (-10 CP):
• Accursed: Rapid Aging. Orcs are fully mature at ten, and elderly at forty.
• Incompetent (Diplomacy). Like it or not, Orcs never really get past the “playground taunts” level.
• Uncivilized: Orcs tend to act like impulsive kids, glorify battle, and solve their problems with physical force. They don’t fit into cities well.

Orcs are not the best when it comes to magic, or organized armies – but when it comes to individual beat downs, they are really very good at it. Sure, an elf may be better with a blade, a dwarf will have more items, and so on – but when it comes to smacking things, bring an orc.

As usual with Alewelian races, Orcs are really quite powerful. They may be on the low end of the social scale when it comes to the major races, but it’s really only the lack or organization that holds them back. Sadly, they don’t to as well in the Imperial Military as might be expected; they don’t do adapt easily to such a structured environment.

Orcish Cultural Package Deals include:

Stoneheart Orc (Earth Spirit Affinity):

• War Paint: Double Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect / only to buy additions to their Racial Innate Enchantment, only to buy enhancements to their Bony Hide (Armor Enhancements, Armor Templates, Armor Crystals, and Armor Upgrades) (6 CP). While this is only 6000 GP worth of extra benefits, item slots are not a worry – so they can use as many “armor crystals” as they like.
• Immunity / The distinction between improvements made on their Bony Hide and racial abilities: Uncommon, Minor, Minor (Covers up to 12,000 GP worth of boosts, 2 CP).
• Proficiency with all Simple Weapons, Corrupted / only those primarily made of metal or stone (2 CP). Note that, in conjunction with their Inner Eye effect, this allows them to use all Martial Weapons made of Metal or Stone proficiently, as well as allowing them to use all Exotic Weapons made of metal or stone that were crafted by orcs proficiently.
• Proficiency with Light Armor, Corrupted / only armors primarily made of metal or stone (2 CP). As with Weapons, this allows them to use all Medium Armors made of metal or stone proficiently and allows them to use all Heavy Armors made of metal or stone by orcs proficiently.

Blood Tide Orc (Sea Spirit Affinity)

• Presence, Specialized for Increased Effect (level two effect: Death Knell) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only affects targets whom the user has just reduced to 0 HP or less via melee combat (4 CP).
• Witchcraft / Wrath Of The Sea (6 CP).
• Access to Occult Skill / Vehicles, Corrupted for Reduced Cost (2 CP) / only to grant upgrades to seagoing vessels they command.

Fireheart Orc (Fire Spirit Affinity)

• Witchcraft / Leaping Fire (6 CP).
• +3d6 Mana as 9d6 Power, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only for use with the Leaping Fire ability (6 CP).

Warcrier Orc (Sky Spirit Affinity):

• Mystic Artist (Voice) (6 CP): Orcs shout warcries, and the names of their attacks, and such things all the time – and some few have learned to add some magic to that.
• Witchcraft / Windforge (as per Witchcraft / Nightforge, but solidified air instead of darkness) (6 CP).

Finally, we have the possibly-mythical Wyldborn Orc package deal. Note that this option makes Orcs insanely dangerous.

Wyldborn Orc (Chaos Spirit Affinity)

• Witchcraft / Ridden By The Loa, Specialized for Increased Effect (the user generally remains in control) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost (4 CP) / only to take on a specific “super soldier” or “power armor” template, the user becomes fanatical on some topics.
• Witchcraft / Mouth Of The Earth (6 CP). Boosting their “Infliction” weapons to use d8’s or to cause other horrible effects makes a Wyldborn Orc extremely dangerous.
• 1d6 Mana as +3d6 Power, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only to be used with the two disciplines given above (2 CP).

Unusually, it is not uncommon for Orcs to learn additional package deals if and when they have the extra character points available; all of them are pretty good.

Unlike most of the other races, Orcs apparently handled cataclysms the same way that they handle things like dragon attacks: some go roaring out to fight, some fill their lair with traps and obstacles, and some go zooming off at high speed in their ridiculous vehicles (either to start a new tribe in another location or to hook up with another force) – and while those are most often ground vehicles, air vehicles construction equipment, and tunneling machines do turn up. This makes it almost impossible to catch them all, even if their lair is almost entirely surrounded by a far superior force – and the rate at which they breed makes it certain that for every colony you smash, there will be a dozen more in just a few years time (although once they start feeling crowded they do tend to fight each other). It’s not the most dignified of strategies, and it doesn’t do much to preserve civilization – but almost any other fighting force on the disc can use a bunch of no maintenance required high speed self-propelled armored personnel carriers full of formidable fighters. If there’s a war on, and a bunch of Orcs turn up and want to join your forces… any sensible commander says “ORCS! BE WELCOME! THERE WILL BE GOOD FIGHTING!” loudly and joyfully!

Eclipse / League Of Legends: Jinx

The request here is for an Eclipse version of Jinx from League Of Legends and/or “Arcane”.

The first problem here is that I don”t happen to play League Of Legends and I haven’t seen “Arcane” – so I’m going to have to go by the Wikis. So going by those…

Powder / Jinx

• Was a criminal, and presumably has a variety of rogue-style skills. I don’t know if these ever actually come up in LOL (it doesn’t look like it), but they do come up in RPG’s fairly often. so I’m going to include them. Fortunately, that’s not a big problem since a mere “+4” in a skill is a solid professional level in d20.
• Was enhanced by “Shimmer” while being treated for injuries, (possibly) increasing her Strength and “Durability” (Constitution in d20), maybe with a bit of Damage Reduction or Self-Healing to represent a bit of carryover from the genre conventions (as noted below).
• Is good at inventing and building weapons, and is presumably fairly bright. Of course, she probably isn’t allowed to invent new weapons in the actual game, so this is more of a background detail there. In an RPG it will actually mean something.
• Wields a variety of powerful ranged weapons with limited battlefield control options (I’d guess that they are considered “hextech” in-game). These include:
  • A powerful, area-effect, missile launcher.
  • What seems like a small minigun or machine pistol (her basic attack).
  • An electrical beam weapon which stuns and reveals it’s targets.
  • Grenades with cover a wide area with flame and what seems like some sort of short-term “entangle” effect – her area control option.
  • In a RPG she’ll probably have a melee option, even if she’s not very good at it.
    • She also has an even bigger missile which builds up damage as it travels, but the descriptions across the wikis are a bit contradictory; I’d guess that it’s either very expensive to use, has changed somewhat with patches, or is only available under certain conditions. In an RPG, where an awful lot of combat takes place in close quarters, this will probably simply wind up as extra damage.
    • Our primary problem is where she gets all those high-powered weapons at relatively low level. D20 just isn’t much for that kind of thing. She is also listed as having an armor value, although her depiction does not seem to be wearing such a thing. That may be normal for League Of Legends (I haven’t looked at enough pictures to be sure), but I will presume some discrete armor, because – for a relatively mundane combatant in a no-holds barred deathmatch – going entirely without is rather foolish.
• Her history mentions demolitions, but that also apparently isn’t mentioned in actual play. Probably a background skill and perhaps an item (a demolition kit and/or charges).
• Gets a short-term speed boost (movement and attack rate) whenever she takes down a major target. In d20 that’s probably a basic Haste effect.
• Her racial template is a bit of a mystery. The obvious assumption is “Human” – but there are lots of local variants on humans, as well magical girl, elf, cat-girl, and other versions. Of course, they’re mostly just skins, and don’t seem to make all that much difference (there might be small modifiers, I don’t know), so one or another version of “human” is probably the way to go. But then there’s the chemical or alchemical augmentations – which are probably a minor acquired template in addition to the racial template. As usual in Eclipse, any ECL adjustment will be based on the total value of the Racial Package plus Templates.
• Her basic social background is “criminal underworld” – but the various variants given for her imply that any given version might come from a magical society, from a technological interstellar civilization, and from pretty much everything in between. Her background details are pretty much up for grabs, so there’s not much point in addressing them in any detail.

Now there are a few League conventions – such as having a healing rate measured in seconds, using Mana (which also comes back fast) to fuel certain weapons rather than (say) ammunition, and getting to “come back” for the next battle even if killed (or possibly in the same battle? The Wiki’s seemed to assume that you knew most of the basics already) – but those are pretty much world laws, since they generally apply to every League Of Legends Champion. I will include something along those lines, but it’s not going to be so quick and unlimited.

As a “Champion”, she generally takes multiple hits to kill – but that is a standard feature of both combat video games and RPG’s, since otherwise you’d have to keep changing characters all the time. Still, she’s likely past first level in her appearances and has a decent number of hit points – but she’s still described outright as being the epitome of a glass cannon. LOL items and levels do not carry over from session to session however, and RPG character developments definitely do. So unless you’re using a “Summon Jinx” spell, this version will be using d20 advancement. Summoned versions are, of course, the same each time. Thus, while LOL does seem to have some sort of skill advancement, it only seems to apply to attacks and goes away between games. In Eclipse that’s going to be learning a Martial Art – but she apparently doesn’t start with any, so that’s going to be a design-your-own situation for later advancement.

Considering her attributes…

• Strength: She is strong enough to carry multiple weapons, but (judging from the pictures) doesn’t apparently use armor and doesn’t seem to have much in the way of melee options. There was that mention of improved strength though, so let us be generous and call it Str 14
• Dexterity: It’s important with ranged weapons, and for people who don’t wear armor, but – again – there’s no mention of it being really unusual or of her having acrobatic skills or anything. So it is probably good, but not particularly overwhelming. Dex 14
• Constitution: Well, you want this for hit points, and to keep running around in combat, but the Wiki’s don’t imply her being exceptionally durable. So this is probably (once again) good but not particularly amazing. Con 14.
• Intelligence: Important for skills and somewhat related to weapons-making. There isn’t much ground for it otherwise since the characters in combat games rarely solve puzzles (although there are some for the players sometimes) or show off their knowledge much – so Int 14.
• Wisdom: She’s a bit of a loony and has no listed hyper-alertness, boosted perception, or mental defenses (presuming that’s a thing in LOL, which it probably isn’t other than, perhaps, as a bit of description) and her Will save is likely low. Wis 10
• Charisma: She’s apparently supposed to have standard female video game character good looks – but she’s no great leader or socialite (the insanity and tendency to blow things up is hard on your social skills), which is Charisma’s real function. Cha 10.

That’s 28 Points in 3.5 (slightly over the standard 25 point allotment) or 20 points in Pathfinder – the standard “High Fantasy” allotment. Fair enough. It would be quite reasonable to assume that this already includes the effects of her chemical boosts since those numbers are way above “ordinary person” stats already – but I may include another small boost because why not?

Basic Attributes: Str 14 (+4 Eq = 18), Dex 14 (+2 Template +2 Eq = 18), Con 14, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 10.

Racial Template: Runeterra Human (12 CP):

• Homo Sapiens: Fast Learner, Specialized in Skills for Double Effect (+2 SP/Level, 6 CP)
• Highly Adaptable: +1 Bonus Feat (6 CP).
  • That’s a tiny bit better than a baseline 3.5 d20 human – the natives of Runeterra are supposed to be a little special apparently – but only by 3 CP. That’s worthwhile, but not terribly important.

Acquired Template – Alchemically Augmented (18 CP).

• Innate Enchantment, up to 9500 GP net value (10 CP).
  • Adrenalin Rush: Personal Haste, Specialized for half cost (+30′ Move, +1 Attacks at full BAB with a full attack/only lasts three rounds, only triggers after taking down a major target (1000 GP).
  • Immortal Vigor I (+12 + 2 x Con Mod HP), Personal-Only (x.7) = 1400 GP.
  • Attribute Boost (Enhance Dexterity +2, x.7 Personal-Only = 1400 GP): +2 Dex
  • Resistance (+1 Resistance Bonus to Saving Throws, x.7 Personal-Only = 700 GP).
  • Force Shield I (+4 Shield Bonus to AC) (Personal-Only, x.7 = 1400 GP).
  • Weapon Mastery (Machine Pistol, +4 BAB with Machine Pistol, does add to iterative attacks) I (Personal-Only x.7 = 1400 GP).
  • Skill Mastery (+3 Competence Bonus to Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently, and Spot) (Personal Only x.7 = 1400 GP).
  • Restorative Touch – Cure Light Wounds, Lesser Restoration, Polypurpose Panacea, and Relieve Poison (Hedge Wizardry) 1/Day each (800 GP).
• Immunity/Stacking limits when combining innate enchantment effects with external effects (Common, Minor, Trivial – only covers L0 and L1 effects, Corrupted / only covers effects in this template, 1 CP).
• Immunity/Dispelling and Antimagic (Common, Major, Great, Specialized and Corrupted/only protects innate enchantments that provide personal augmentations, 6 CP).
• Immunity/the normal XP cost of Innate Enchantments (Uncommon, Minor, Trivial [only covers first level effects at caster level one], Specialized/only to cover initial racial abilities, 1 CP).
  • That’s three natural-law immunities, which would be a major “caution!” flag, but in this case they’re not particularly wide-ranging and shouldn’t be too big a problem.

At a total of 30 CP, this is a +0 ECL combination.

Package Deal: League Of Legends Champion (0 CP)

• Grant Of Aid with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized in Hit Points (6 CP).
• Returning, Specialized / must be mystically summoned to join a battle, is obligated to fight in that battle for the summoner (3 CP).
• DR 2/-, Specialized in Physical Damage for Double Effect (4/-) (3 CP).
• Disadvantages: Accursed / Summonable (A Champion of the League can expect to be summoned into combat regularly, no matter how inconvenient this may be for them), Inept (Diplomacy), and Insane / Combative (A Champion tends to see violence as the first resort, rather than the last).

Available Character Points: 120 (L4 Base) + 10 (Disadvantages: Insane/Reckless, Hunted, Obligations to gang) +18 (Racial, L1, L3 Bonus Feats) = 148 CP.

Basic Abilities (68 CP):

• Hit Points: 12 (L1d12, 8 CP) +9 (L2-4d4, 0 CP) +12 (Im. Vigor) +36 ([Con Mod + Dex Mod]x 6) = 69 HP.
  • Evasive Combat: Advanced Improved Augmented Bonus, Adds (Dex Mod) to (Con Mod) when calculating hit points, Specialized and Corrupted / only applies to hit dice gained through L6 (6 CP).
  • Jinx starts with 630 Health in LOL, and it looks like Hit Points should roughly equate to Health/10. So a slight upgrade here.
• Skill Points: 6 (Purchased, 6 CP) +14 (Int Mod x 7) +28 (Fast Learnera) = 48 SP
  • Fast Learner, Specialized in Skills for Double Effect (Racial Bonus Feat, 6 CP).
  • Adept (Buys Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently, and Spot at half price, 6 CP).
  • This, of course, is pure guesswork. As a fighting game LOL generally doesn’t do much with non-combat skills although it does have a system for leveling up the characters special abilities during a fight (that resets afterwards) – but in an RPG setting they give Jinx something to do when no one is fighting.
• BAB: +3 (18 CP)
  • This is hard to sort out; in LOL the player generally controls the targeting and hits if they connect with a figure, with armor providing DR rather than reducing the chance of being hit effectively. Still, Jinx’s history involves crimes and laying traps rather than massive combat, and she is a rogue-type. So 3/4 BAB seems reasonable enough. Most of her accuracy as a starting Champion comes from her Dexterity and Augmentations. She can always buy more as she gains levels.
• Saves:
  • Fortitude: +1 (Purchased, 3 CP) +2 (Con) +1 (Race) +1 (Res) = +5
  • Reflex: +4 (Purchased, 12 CP) +4 (Dex) +1 (Race) +1 (Res) = +10
  • Will: +1 (Purchased, 3 CP) +0 (Wis) +1 (Race) +1 (Res) = +3
  • Jinx’s LOL Magic Resistance (which, as far as I can tell, reduces magic damage) isn’t all that high. D20, of course, has saves for that job. LOL also doesn’t have long-term mind control (and most of what it does have a fairly simple) because you can’t mind-control the player who’s providing the control inputs even if you can override or block them for a bit. I doubt that there’s a way to actually seize full control of someone else’s units since that comes far too close to an “I Win!” button for a competitive game. So the Will save bonus is more than a bit arbitrary. Given Jinx’s insanity… there’s no reason to make it high.

Combat Information (21 CP):

• Proficiencies: Proficient with all Simple Weapons and her Personal Gadgets (9 CP).
• Initiative: 1d20+4 (Dex) +8 (Improved Initiative II) = 1d20+12
  • Improved Initiative II (12 CP).
• Move: 40′ (70′ when Adrenalin Rush applies).
• Armor Class: 10 (Base) +4 (Dex Mod) +4 (Armor) +4 (Shield) = 22
• Usual Weapons: See Gadgets, Below. In general:
  • Ranged Attack: +3 (BAB)+4 (Dex) +4 (Smartlink) = +11 (+15/+10 with Machine Pistol)
  • Melee Attack: +3 (BAB) +4 (Str) +3 (Quality) = +10
    • All of these get another attack at her full BAB when Adrenalin Rush is active and she is making a full attack.

Special Abilities (59 CP):

• Buy off Specialization and add +4 Bonus Uses to her Package Deal Grant of Aid (12 CP).
• 6d6 (21) Mana with Reality Editing, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only for reality editing, only for “I reloaded!” (2 Mana, reloads a weapon), “This gadget isn’t really damaged” (4 Mana), and “Here comes my SPECIAL missile!” (8 Mana, boosts a missile to a 30′ radius, adds +2 worth of weapon enhancements (does not require a base enhancement bonus) or any one of Blown Away, Dazed (1 round), Dazzled, Deafened, Fatigued, Knocked Down, or Sickened (Save DC = 14+Cha Mod), and doubles the base damage) (12 CP).
• Rite of Chi with +12 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore the Reality Editing pool above, requires at least one minute and a break in combat to use (8 CP).
• Occult Skill Access (Federation-Apocalypse Gadgetry, Tinker Version, 3 CP).
  • Skill Emphasis (+2, 3 CP)
  • Skill Focus (+3, 6 CP).
    • In most d20 games this is heavy-duty cheese; giving a fantasy character reliable access to gadgetry from an advanced interstellar civilization is kind of absurd. On Runeterra, where the standard is “Hextech”, this is far more reasonable – if still a bit much.
• Reflex Training, Specialized / only to allow her to change weapons as a free action (6 CP).
• Favors, Minor (The Criminal Underworld, 3 CP).
• Action Hero (Stunts) (6 CP). Probably why she is still alive.

Skills:

• Climb +2 (2 SP) +4 (Str) +4 (SC) = +10
• Disable Device +7 (3* SP) +2 (Int) +3 (Tem) +2 (Tools) = +14
• Disguise +6 (6 SP) +0 (Cha) +4 (SC) = +10
• Gadgetry (FA version, Tinker variant); +7 (7 SP +3 SP Surcharge) +4 (Dex) +2 (Skill Emphasis) +3 (Skill Focus) +2 (Synergy/A&E) = +18
• Heal +0 (0 SP) +0 (Wis) +2 (Belt) = +2
• Hide +7 (3* SP) +4 (Dex) +3 (Tem) +4 (SC) = +18
• Knowledge/Architecture and Engineering: +7 (7 SP) +2 (Int) = +9 (+14 for Demolitions checks)
• Listen +6 (6 SP) +0 (Wis) +4 (SC) = +10
• Move Silently +7 (3* SP) +4 (Dex) +3 (Tem) +4 (SC) = +18
• Open Locks +1 (1 SP) +4 (Dex) +2 (Tools) = +7
• Perform/Dance +2 (2 SP) +0 (Cha) = +2
  • I’d probably let her get away with using Dex instead, but it doesn’t really matter.
• Spot +7 (3* SP) +0 (Wis) +3 (Tem) +4 (SC) = +14
• Swim +0 (0 SP) +4 (Str) +4 (SC) = +8
• Use Magic Device +1 (1 SP) +0 (Cha) = +1
  • She’s not good at this, but she IS crazy enough to try anyway sometimes.

Skill Specialties: Architecture and Engineering/Demolitions (+3, 1 SP).

Equipment:

Smartclothes (Gadget-5 In Total):

• Military-Grade Protective Functions (Gadget-2): +4 Armor, DR 4/-, Energy Resistance 4,+4 to Climb, Disguise, Listen, Spot, Hide, Move Silently, and Swim, +2 to Unarmed Damage, +4 on stabilizing while dying, +4 on saves versus chemical exposure, twelve-hour life support (air, comfortable from arctic to tropical desert temperatures, allows space survival until the air runs out).
• Computer Functions (Gadget-1): Encrypted radio communications, personal-computer and HUD functions, +4 to hit with Smartlinked weapons.
• Sensory Enhancements (Gadget-1): IR, UV, Low-Light, Magnification, and Flash Suppression for Vision, personal and environmental monitoring, +4 on Saves vrs sensory overloads.
• Exoskeletal Functions (Gadget-1): +4 Strength, +2 Dexterity, and +10′ Movement
  • There is little or no justification for this, but if you’re going to be using Federation-Apocalypse gadgets, Smartclothes are THE obvious gadget to take.

Miscellaneous (Gadget-4):

• Smartlink Adapter: Allows all her gadget-based weapons to be considered Smartlinked (+4 bonus to Attack rolls) (Gadget-2).
• Demolitions Kit (Gadget-2). Contains assorted supplies and tools for blowing things up or disarming bombs. Provides a +2 to any required checks.

Weapons (Gadget 9):

• Machine Pistol (Gadget-1): One-Handed Small Arm, Enlarged Magazine II, Selective Fire. 3.2 lb, 100 shots, 2d6 piercing damage, Crit 20/x2, 40′ range increment, selective fire (1).
  • +4 Magazines (1).
  • Selective Fire, by the way, can do double damage or affect a small group or grant a +4 bonus to the attack. Simple abundance of ammunition makes this Jinx’s most commonly used attack.
• Heavy Missile Launcher (Gadget-1): Heavy Gyroc Small Arm, Reduced Magazine, No Criticals, Increased Damage I, Explosive III, Special I (Sparks illuminate the area as per Daylight for 2d4 rounds and may start small fires). 24 lb, 5 Shots, 5d12 force damage in a 10′ Radius, 120′ Range Increment (1).
  • +4 Missile Packs (Gadget-1).
  • 325 LOL damage is more than this is supposed to do, plus you can get more than one attack per round with it. Of course – with Mana – it also stands in for the Super Mega Death Rocket, which works fine.
• Bolter (Lightning Rifle) (Gadget-1): Two-Handed Small Arm, Explosive I, Special II (Stunning 1 Round, Faerie Fire 1 Minute, DC 20 Fort to resist being stunned), 8 Lb, 25 Shots, 3d8 electrical damage, Range Increment 80′,
  • +4 Battery Packs (Gadget-1).
• Phosphorous Web Grenades (Gadget-1): Mini-Grenade Launcher: One-Handed Slugthrower Small Arm, Decreased Magazine (5 Shots), Cannot Critical, Explosive III, Special I (Victims are caught in the net and on fire until they escape or it burns away in 3 rounds): 2.5 lb, 5 Shots, 4d6 fire damage in a 10′ radius, 40′ range increment (1).
  • +4 Grenade Packs (Gadget-1).
  • This doesn’t throw out five grenades at once. On the other hand, it entangles everyone in an area rather than a single person who steps on them, affects what looks like a wider radius (judging from a quick look at the animation, so I could be wrong), you can get multiple shots per turn, and they do twice as much damage.
• Forceblade (Longsword) (Gadget-1), 2d8+7 (+3 Quality, +4 Strength) (Force, Slashing), Crit 19-20/x2, +3 Quality Bonus to Attacks.
  • There’s no canon justification whatsoever for her having a melee weapon, but an RPG character needs to be ready for a much wider variety of fights than LOL offers.

d20 Equipment and Magic Items:

• Cloak of Resistance +1 (1000 GP). An obvious choice.
• Handy Haversack (2000 GP). For someone carrying this many weapons, a near-necessity.
• First Aid Kid (Healing Belt, 750 GP). Not including this would be stupid, particularly when you’re expecting near-constant combat.
• Boots Of The Cat (1000 GP). Jump off a cliff – or from a plane – and take little damage? Priceless.
• I’m going to assume Masterwork Thieves Tools (100 GP), Rope, a Grapnel, and a wide variety of other basic gear – probably about 250 GP in total.
• That leaves 1000 GP to customize or prepare for missions with.
  • LOL characters can be equipped with various special items. D20 characters are fully expected to be equipped with a wide variety of magical items. There’s no need for anything special here.

As is more or less expected for an advanced technology user, Jinx has a substantial edge at lower levels – but has far fewer options for upgrades and occult tricks as she goes up in level as her weapons are already as advanced as they’re going to get. Enchanting them is possible, but will cost her quite a lot since she uses so many different ones. Dedicated combatants will outdo her later on, spellcasters will become far more versatile, and social manipulators will do their own thing – but there is something to be said for simply blasting the area.

For further advancement, something along the lines of the Pulp Hero template would be an effective advancement path for her, but the basics she will want – BAB, HP, AC, Saves, some Martial Arts, and bigger skill bonuses all around – should be quite familiar.

Alewelian Gollins:

Nobody trusts the gollins. In fact, no one is quite sure that the gollins are entirely REAL. After all… they were wiped out at least once – but then re-emerged, apparently from the Wyld. Sure, they can get through anti-wyld wards, but there is still some grounds for doubt. Even powerful divinations and Commune effects have failed to resolve the matter – and if the gollins know themselves, they are not telling.

On the other hand, they tend to come back as undead if killed – and can create quasi-real partial copies of themselves, which can act a lot like normal people (and possess people, although they rarely admit that). Some of the more paranoid scholars wonder whether undead gollins (or undead halflings with suitable abilities*) simply generated partial – quasi-living – copies of themselves and bred a new race of gollins with themselves as the forefathers. It would explain a great deal.

*Note that mentioning this theory to a halfling OR a gollin is usually taken as a mortal insult.

Gollin Racial Template (31 CP / +0 ECL):

• Create Item, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / only as a prerequisite (2 CP)
  • Harvest of Artifice, Specialized for Reduced Cost / XP can only be used in conjunction with Shadow Casting (3 CP).
• Negative Energy Channeling, Specialized / Only as a Prerequisite (1 CP).
  • Dark Awakening, Specialized for Reduced Cost / only to come back as an undead if killed (3 CP).
  • Shadow Casting, Specialized for Increased Effect (x15 EXP Multiplier, no HP cost) / no more than (Con / 3) shadows may exist at any one time (6 CP)
• +2d0 Hit Dice, Specialized for Reduced Cost / Only to increase the user’s hit dice for Shapeshifting purposes (4 CP).
• Cloaking, Specialized /. Gollins are ominous mysteries as far as any form of divination goes, but are obviously Gollins, evil, and attuned to negative energy. Undead often ignore them (3 CP).
• Occult Sense (Darkvision, 6 CP).
• Innate Enchantment (Up to 7500 GP Value, 8 CP). :
  • Sustenance: SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only x.5 Only to get along on minimal food = 560 GP.
  • Immortal Vigor I (+12 + 2 x Con Mod HP): SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 1120 GP.
  • Reduce Person; Size Small. +2 size bonus to Dex, a -2 size penalty to Str, +4 to Hide, +1 to attack and AC. SL1 x CL1 x2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 1120 GP.
  • Mindlink (Psionic), Variant – only between Shadows and their Creator, but continuous while they are on the same plane. SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only (weird, but in this case… it applies) = 1120 GP.
  • Skill Mastery x2: +3 each to two (permanent) groups of three skills. SL1 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only x.5 GM selects skill groups x2 taken twice = 1120 GP. Note that each Shadow-Self gets random groups.
  • Negative Energy Mastery (Produces cantrip-level negative energy effects, such as Bleed, Brand, Daze, Disrupting Touch (1d4 damage), Grave Words, Intimidate (+3 Bonus), Lullaby, Pain (causes a sharp pain), Penumbra, Putrefy Food And Drink, Ray Of Frost, Snuff (puts out small fires, cools objects a bit, makes a target feel chilly), Sotto Voice, Touch Of Fatigue, Vice (Undead gains 1 temporary HP). SL1 x CL1 x 1800 GP Unlimited-Use Command Word Activated (must whisper disturbing chants) x.8 Abundant Magic = 1440 GP.
  • Resistance (+1 to Saves): SL1/2 x CL1 x 2000 GP Unlimited-Use Use-Activated x.8 Abundant Magic x.7 Personal Only = 560 GP
  • Masterwork Gear: +2 to Move Silently (55 GP), +2 to Hide (55 GP), +2 to Ride (55 GP), Haramaki (+1 Armor, 3 GP), Unholy Symbol (1 GP), Hot and Cold Weather Gear (15 GP), 10x Air Bladders (1 GP), Compass (10 GP), Light Mace (5 CP). Total:= 200 GP.
• Flame Of Udun: Immunity / Stacking limits when combining racial innate enchantment effects with external effects (Common, Minor, Trivial (only covers L0 and L1 effects, 2 CP). As with the other Alewelian races, this is a natural-law immunity – and, like most such, has an impact on the game far beyond it’s point cost. As usual, this should stay a “GM only” sort of thing, even if it is kind of required to make them competitive with those “build your own tailored race” humans.
• The Dark Is Rising: Immunity/Dispelling and Antimagic (Common, Minor, Great, Specialized and Corrupted/only protects racial innate enchantments that provide personal augmentations, 4 CP).
• Black Blood: Immunity/the normal XP cost of Innate Enchantments (Uncommon, Minor, Trivial [only covers cantrips and first level effects at caster level one], Specialized/only to cover initial racial abilities, 1 CP).
• Shapeshift, Specialized in Canine Forms (3 CP).
• Speak Language +1 (Grave Argot) (1 CP).
• Attribute Penalty: -2 Charisma (-6 CP).
• Racial Disadvantages (-10 CP):
  • Untrustworthy. People don’t trust gollins. Usually for good reason.
  • Blocked: Gollins cannot be good, or even neutral. They must be evil.
  • Broke: Gollins always start off poor. After all… they’re shopping for a group.
  • Accursed: Gollin “shadows” always get the Wolfrunner package deal, regardless of their creators intentions.

Wolfrunner Gollin Cultural Package Deal:

• Upgrade Shapeshift with Growth to allow Medium and Large Forms, still Specialized in canine forms only (1 CP).
• Upgrade Shapeshift with Hybrid Form, Specialized in canine forms only (3 CP).
• Upgrade 2d0 Hit Dice for shapechanging only to 3d0 Hit Dice for all purposes (8 CP). This allows even a first level Wolfrunner to take Worg form.

Black Shaman Gollin Cultural Package Deal:

• 1d6 (3) Mana with Spell Enhancement, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / Only for Spell Enhancement, only for Innate Enchantments, only for Immortal Vigor (Spend 1/2/3 Mana to gain +12/24/36 temporary hit points for ten minutes), Resistance (Spend 1/2/3 Mana to raise save bonuses to +2+/3/+4 for one minute), Skill Mastery (Spend 1/2/3 Mana to raise the bonuses to +7/+8/+10 for a single skill group for ten minutes), and Negative Energy Mastery (Spend 1/2/3 Mana to produce an effect of spell level 1/2/3).
• Rite of Chi with +2 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to refill the spell enhancement mana pool above, requires at least ten minutes to use (3 CP).
  Uncorrupt Dark Awakening, so that it can be used to create undead (3 CP).
• May purchase the Occult Skill (Minions) at Normal Cost, Specialized for Half Cost / only for undead minions (3 CP).

Gollins cast shadows – a group of secondary gollins who are basically aspects of the first one. They can supply their creations with an effective total of 1500 XP per month, although the levels of their creations cannot exceed their own level. Destroyed shadows can be slowly recreated, or old ones upgraded, as time passes. Still, while a gollin and his or her shadows can be very effective at low levels, at higher levels the shadows are usually most useful as spies and agents, rather than direct combatants. The ill-informed often think that there are lesser and greater gollins simply because there is an entirely reasonable tendency for gollin Shadows to be far weaker than the original and because they tend to be rather cheaply equipped. After all, why waste money equipping disposable copies with fancy gear?

Gollins are generally pretty unwelcome in the Empire. Sure, they’re a major race, and quite numerous – but it’s a bit like dealing with the Ferengi or the Romulans in Star Trek. They’re greedy, obnoxious, inclined towards backstabbing (and gossip), and have few if any scruples. If you want some thugs, or someone to lay a few curses, or some such… any passing Gollin can probably hook you up. If you’d rather not have your new puppy snatched up and eaten, you don’t want any Gollins moving into YOUR neighborhood.

While they don’t like to talk about it very much, Gollins are actually fairly prominent in the imperial military. There they serve as communications specialists (sending a gollin shadow along with a patrol, or detachment, or assigning one to an outpost, provides an instant communications link or a small network thereof), scouts, spies, and assassins (being able to possess small animals, and become noncorporeal, and sneak well, is very useful), as torturers, interrogators, and executioners (having no scruples at all is handy when you want your minions to follow reprehensible orders), and in a variety of other roles.

Gollin Shadows also serve as deniable operatives – especially since, once one dissipates, their cloaking ability makes it virtually impossible to trace down the original. Of course, that means that a few gollins on the take can create a criminal cabal that – if captured or killed – will simply fade away, to be replaced in a few months. In fact, a perfectly respectable military gollin who can create one or two more shadows than his or her superiors know about can work for the military while at the same time being part of a gang of criminals that the military is trying to catch – and usually get away with it.

Scholars are not entirely sure that having gollins in the Empire is a net benefit, but they are pretty sure that pushing them out of it would be a great deal worse to have to deal with.

Finally, unlike many of the other major races, the Gollins do not have tales of how they, and they alone, were responsible for preserving civilization through the cataclysms. They do have lots of tales of how their Shadows led various enemies in circles, of individual heroes, of bringing back vital intelligence, of assassinating enemy commanders and mages, and of bizarre escapes – but every group of gollins tends to have their own tales, none of which seem to present any solid statements about their origins, how they ultimately survived (or returned), or much of anything else. This has led some scholars to speculate that there are several different species with their own histories being lumped together as “gollins” – but the fact that they all possess a very similar package of racial abilities has led most scholars to believe that they are simply inveterate liars who like to tell tall tales.

Eclipse d20 – The Paths Of Blood

Blood Magic tends to get treated as a fast, immediate, thing in most games. After all, they usually rely on combat for excitement – and so blood is used to draw runes on things and empower them, to control, enhance, or heal others, turned into weaponry, or even used as something akin to venom or to white phosphorous or napalm – things that are useful in combat time.

Classical blood magic, however, tended to be a lot more subtle – mostly, of course, because real-world magic doesn’t actually work, and so the reputed “effects” had to be things that couldn’t really be tested. Did Elizabeth Bathory actually become younger or more beautiful by bathing in the blood of young women or was it just that she ate well, wasn’t overloaded by constant labor, and had a maid who was good with cosmetics? Did eating a lion’s heart actually grant you courage? Did burying a child in a bridges foundations help it stay up? Would the gods help your army if you sacrificed a few victims to them before a battle?

It wasn’t like there was any easy way to tell whether or not that sort of thing worked beyond the placebo effect. Who could prove that the bridge would have stayed up just as long if you hadn’t sacrificed a kid in building it? After all, you’d given up something of value – a human life and soul! – to make it last longer. It would only be FAIR for the universe to give something back!

Of course, these days most people no longer really think that the universe is particularly fair. In fact, thermodynamics outright tells us that it is inherently unfair and that there’s no way around that.

Obviously, of course, this kind of magic also calls for being seriously despicable. Sure, luring in a starving street kid to sacrifice with a promise of bread and butter is easy and practical (after all, the kid isn’t one of YOURS, and so this is a bit less of a betrayal, and is likely going to die soon anyway since street kids die a lot anyway) – but it is pretty noxious behavior by current standards.

So here we have some classical ritual spells of blood magic – stuff that isn’t generally useful in combat simply because it takes far too long and demands that you be in control of your victims so that you can use them as spell components. As such… a lot of the usual entries in a spell description (School; Ritual, Casting Time: Ritual. Components: Ritual Chest (basically a greatly upgraded spell component pouch) and one or more restrained victims, Target: Victim or Victims, see description, Duration: Special, Saving Throw: Special, and Spell Resistance: No) are pretty much irrelevant. When someone sees you chaining down a few sobbing sacrifices in the center of a ritual space, polishing the knife or implements of torture, setting up the candles, and laying out sanity-blasting symbols in freshly drawn blood… combat may shortly break out, but you generally won’t be performing your ritual as a full-round action or less. Should someone happen to want them… all ten spells on this list are available as a single Domain or Path. In fact, given their general restrictions, it usually counts as being Specialized for Half Cost (3 CP). For classical games, that opens up the Blood Mage feat.

Blood Mage Feat:

• Path Of Blood Magic: Gain the ten ritual spells described below (3 CP).
• Metamagical Theorem / Compact, Specialized and Corrupted / only for partially powering your spells with blood sacrifices. A decent-sized animal sacrifice is generally worth -1 spell level. An intelligent creature is usually worth -2 spell levels. This is not, however, cumulative with the effects of other expensive material or XP components – although it can be used to replace up to 2000 GP / 400 XP worth or them (multiple sacrifices stack up to 10,000 GP / 2000 XP) and you can always include extra sacrifices to reduce the effective spell level of the spells on this path).
• Specific Knowledge / Blood Magic. The user has a detailed knowledge of blood magic rituals and principles, gaining a +15 bonus on any relevant knowledge skill checks and a +5 bonus on actually performing blood magic rituals (1 CP).
• General Knowledge / Black Magic Charms and Talismans. Anyone using this path will also be familiar with Black Magic Charms and Talismans (from The Practical Enchanter) in worlds which permit such items (not always relevant, and no great secret either, so no cost).

As for the actual spells…

Sacrificial Revival (L0): You can use the life energy from a young and healthy sacrificial victim to heal someone else. It takes one victim to power the equivalent of Cure Moderate Wounds or Lesser Restoration, two to get the effects of Cure Critical Wounds or Greater Restoration, and three to revive the dying (generally a plot device in d20, where death tends to be immediate or not at all) or very recently dead (within 2d6 hours). In the case of raising the dead it may require the resurrected individual up to three days to complete their recovery and they may remember strange or terrifying glimpses of the realms of the dead and/or hear the whispers of the dead for the rest of their days.

Blood Tempering (L1): You imbue an item or structure with the life-energy of your sacrifice. Weapons are classically tempered by impaling the victim with them as they come out of the forge and cooling them in the body, bridges and structures by entombing the victim in the foundations, bells and cannons by tossing the victim into the molten metal before you it is poured, or – for jewelry and other items – putting the item into a vat and filling it with their blood and still (briefly) living internal organs. The exact details really don’t matter that much of course. The targeted item or structure…

• Gains +10 HP and will slowly heal over time – enough to negate all normal wear and tear and to recover one point of damage per day if it is damaged.
• May more easily be made into an intelligent item, but tends to gain undesirable quirks – although these will only affect the “intelligent” functions. Apply the modifier for making a cursed item to the intelligence cost.
• Is easier to use Animate Object on, making it effectively two size categories smaller for the purpose (if, once again, somewhat prone to undesirable behaviors).

Using Blood Tempering on living beings requires the ability to enchant living creatures.

• Living beings are strengthened, gaining a +4 unholy bonus to Str and Con (Cha for creatures with no Con score) for seven full days.
• Supernatural beings, such as demons and the undead, will find their unnatural hungers sated for seven full days.

Messenger To The Gods (L2): Gods want offerings – and the most sincere offering for a tribal species is always the same. a loved and valued member of their group. Whether that is the wise grandmother or leader, a warrior-protector, a beautiful maiden, or even a child full of potential… The gift is a life, either taken into the service of a god or gods – given over to them become a priest, shrine maiden, or monk – or offered directly, to be taken up into the halls of the gods. Despite the Book Of Vile Darkness, sacrifices to the gods rarely result in personal gifts. As the gift is offered from the people as a while, so is the blessing returned. The drought passes. The fields and beasts are fertile. The floods recede. The plague passes. A path of escape is found. The winds blow fair, that the fleet may set sail. From the gods comes life, and to them is life returned.

If you happen to have the proper version of Leadership, or wish to learn the Path Of Spirits as well, you can also sacrifice people to yourself and enslave their spirits. This is usually unwise – they tend to be uncooperative and to creatively “misinterpret” orders and such – but you can. It’s usually best to just take an Uncorrupted version that lets you recruit existing spirits who won’t be upset about you murdering them.

Scapegoat (L3): Bury someone or seal them up in tomb while they are still alive. Determine the remaining natural lifespan of your sacrifice in years. That is the number of people affected by some specific affliction – a terrible disease/infected by some type of horrible parasites/slowly being dissolved by all-devouring slime/afflicted by some horrible curse/whatever (no matter how virulent or resistant to normal cures their affliction is) who will recover and become immune if they come near the sepulcher containing your sacrifice. Unfortunately, the effect is transferred to the sacrifice, if the sepulcher is ever breached, that is also the number of people in the area who will promptly become infected with whatever it was. Technically the victim remains partially alive, their spirit trapped in their rotting (or preserved) flesh, until they are released. Such victims often rise as powerful undead if their sepulcher is ever opened – and the longer they are so entrapped, the more powerful they become if and when they are set free.

As a free bonus, this offers a vicious dilemma for “good” parties. Open the crypt and release the unjustly tormented soul within? Likely that of a child to boot? But then you have to deal with both the curse/plague/whatever it was containing and some viciously powerful undead – and the longer that soul has already been suffering, the worse the monstrosity that releasing it will unleash upon the world.

Nightmare Steed (L4): Temporarily freezing your sacrifices body between life and death lets you fill their spirit with the powers of darkness and command the resulting monstrosity – although the effect will end when the victim dies and their soul is dragged down to the lower places. Such monstrosities are equivalent to Evil Outsiders of up to CR 5 (most often a Nightmare, allowing the caster to use them as steeds to visit the darker realms of the dead and the near-dead, but this is sometimes used to call forth an unholy creature as an assassin or thief or to serve some other purpose) and will serve reliably for up to three days. If someone can find the victim and heal the wounds inflicted (always by torturous means, such as slow impalement, pouring molten lead down their throats, being dipped repeatedly into boiling water, flensing, or similar) the spell will be broken and the monstrosity will attack the caster for one round per day or part thereof remaining before dissipating. The victim will finish dying anyway regardless of curatives short of Raise Dead since their spirit has already departed – but at least they will not automatically be dragged into the lower planes.

Those with skills in enchanting objects (any form of Create Item will do) may choose to instead bind their choice of up to (their Knowledge / Arcana total) of the victims remaining spells, spell-like, or supernatural abilities into a talisman (usually a portion of the victims corpse) for later use – although this, of course, expends that ability. Personal, constant, abilities, such as auras last for one minute once invoked. Such items normally turn to dust in three days, although using Blood Tempering on the item will extend this interval indefinitely.

Forfending Offering (L5). Sacrifice can temporarily forestall disaster – turning aside a tornado, warding off the might of a hurricane or a volcanic eruption or terrible earthquake. Unfortunately, the number of sacrifices required increases with the scale of the catastrophe being warded off; offering a maiden to a modest island volcano once a year may suffice to forestall any major eruption (although minor ones are likely to continue), but warding off a tidal wave will require more. Turning aside hurricanes or placating some god of destruction for a year might require a hundred lives, while forestalling the sinking of Atlantis (or California) might require a yearly offering of thousands. Extending the life of a star or forestalling the onrushing death of a mortally injured god might well require a thousand sacrifices a month. It is possible to use this effect to forestall injuries to yourself, transferring physical and attribute damage, energy drain, and mental effects to the victim. Unfortunately, being dead, the victim cannot be healed – and once it’s limits are reached, it is released. Equally unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – the caster may be linked with only one such spirit at a time

Read The Entrails (L6). If the body is a microcosm of the world… then close examination of the body should let you perceive parts of the world far beyond your reach or shielded against conventional divination. Yet for some reason people keep saying it’s unethical to pull someone’s internal organs out and vivisect them before they can finish dying (after they die, the sympathetic connection will no longer apply, so you need to work fast) to take advantage of that. For those who are willing to take such measures, Read The Entrails provides the equivalent of 1000 GP worth of research and up to two relevant checks – each made with a +20 bonus and capable of revealing information that should not normally be available. If you need to come up with a spell formula, or the secret name of a demon, or uncover a forgotten prophecy, or find a secret location, or to discover the location of some lost treasure, or to learn the stories of an ancient cycle of legends, this will do it for you.

Enchanted Spirit Binding (L7). You can bind the spirit of your sacrifice into the land itself, channeling otherworldly energies into the area and binding then to your will. The caster may set up to five Challenges or Boons of CR 8 or less within a radius of seven miles for visitors to encounter. If you want to add a ghoul-haunted old graveyard, a collapsing bridge, a prosperous farm, or a unicorns grove, so be it! While permanent until removed, such things can, however, be dealt with – or fail – normally. When the last one does… the spirit will be free to depart. Characters who know how to enchant living creatures can instead open a path for otherworldly energies to imbue a group of people – a particular family, or the inhabitants of a village, or some such – with some sort of curse or blessing. In game terms, they gain three Disadvantages as set by the caster and a compensatory 10 CP worth of abilities as set by the caster. Want to curse them with a basic form of Lycanthropy? Improve their crop yields and results as long as they make secret offerings to some secretive godling? This will do it for you.

Blood Enchantment (L8): You tortuously kill up to three people as a part of crafting an enchantment. This provides it with 3000 GP worth of powers per level of the victim(s) but invariably results in some sort of curse upon it – or possibly more than one if they are fairly minor. It may carry compulsions, cause those around it to become infected with hideous plagues, spread blights and wither plants nearby, only work if you cannibalize children, cause you to be accused of various crimes, hamper your attempts at gathering information, or any of a thousand other bits of nastiness – none of them easily countered, easy to live with, or pleasant.

Vital Transfusion (L9). You torture your victim to death over several days to slowly transfer a portion of some attribute of theirs to a willing target with a relative lack of that attribute. You may, for example, slaughter a youngster to reduce an older recipients effective age by up to three years (never, however, dropping below young adult), a strong, clever, wise (etc) person to grant a +1 inherent bonus to that attribute (recipients attribute plus existing inherent bonuses must be below that of the donor – although using four suitable victims in succession at least one week apart may grant an inherent bonus of up to +4 to any one attribute with a maximum total of +12 for any one recipient), a member of some group with a Package Deal may be sacrificed to grant their Package Deal to someone who does not have one already, and skillful individuals may be slain to grant +2 points in a skill to someone of lesser skill up to a maximum of +6 in any one skill and three enhanced skills in total). The price, however, is an accursed life. Perhaps everything the recipient tries to drink turns to blood and all food tastes like dust and ashes. Perhaps minor misfortunes follow them everywhere. Their secrets mysteriously leak. You are haunted by terrible nightmares and will often find it impossible to rest – and such problems (with the sole exception of those caused by stealing years of life, which will fade after those years pass) will accumulate or multiply as a target acquires additional stolen abilities.

It is also possible to use this ritual to absorb the residual persona of a recently-slain victim of the same type as the user – gaining the ability to take on their appearance, mannerisms, and many of their personal memories. This grants a +20 bonus to attempts to disguise the recipient as the deceased individual. The user may also accept up to three disadvantages related to the deceased individual to take on some of their abilities. Unfortunately, it is extremely unwise to try to do this more than once, since this allows the stolen memories to occasionally usurp control of the user’s body.

Now, presuming that you actually want to make use of these rituals… you will be wanting a way to keep your raw materials handy. For that, we have a somewhat more conventional spell and item.

Ironclad Ark

• School: Transmutation, Level 3
• Casting Time: One Standard Action
• Components: V, S, M (A pinch of iron dust)
• Target: Conscious but unresisting creature touched.
• Duration: Permanent (see text)
• Saving Throw: Automatic if attempted.
• Spell Resistance: Yes (Irrelevant).

Touching an intelligent creature who is willing to submit to this spell, you transform them into a bead of indeterminate metal, small enough to be easily strung on a necklace or used as an ornament. Any items that the creature wears or carries less than a light load are transformed along with the creature. A careful examination of the bead will allow a skilled appraiser (DC 20) to determine the general nature of the being.

While so transformed, the creature is effectively petrified – almost completely inert and only showing the faintest traces of life and (deeply dreaming) thought even under magical examination. Creatures may be returned to normal by touching the bead and commanding their release. Otherwise the creature remains a bead unless the spell is broken, such as by dispel magic. If the bead is broken or damaged, the creature (if returned to its original state) has similar damage or deformities.(Q.V. Carry Companion, Shrink Item).

While this is a convenient way to carry individuals in need of rescue or later treatment, it sees much more use by slave-traders and such, since acceptance due to despair or to avoid punishment is just as valid as acceptance for any other reason. If you are particularly evil, beads can be fed to monsters, sacrificed, maimed, used as components for horrible spells that require draining others, and so on, without bothering to return them to their normal forms.

Soul (or Slaver’s) Wampum:

This elaborate loop of patterned beads may be worn as a belt, sash, headband, or similar adornment, but offers wielders the ability to efficiently carry along, and possibly slave-train, large numbers of people.

To do so, the user must draw a sigil of mastery upon an accepting target, a process requiring one minute, at which point the target transforms into a bead, which appears upon the Wampum, to remain there in safety until the user opts to release the target. If the user seeks merely to transport people, targets will simply dream slow and pleasant dreams as they sleep in stasis. If, however, the user is transporting slaves, they will be slave-trained in their dreams and occasionally (at least if there are enough of them) be called on to provide minor assistance for their owner – being rewarded for obedience and good service and punished for disobedience and bad service in their dreams as the Wampum’s guiding intelligence feels they need.

• Ironclad Ark at will: SL2 (Reduced via an Ambient Magic limitation resulting in a one-minute casting time,) x CL3 x 1800 GP (Unlimited Use Command Word Activated) x .8 (Targets must be restrained and marked) x1.2 (large numbers of bead-slaves may offer very minor assistance to the user) = . 10.368 GP
• Wizards Pocket: SL 1 x CL3 x 2000 GP (Unlimited-Use Use-Activated) x.5 (Only one “pocket” at a time, for a maximum storage of 100 Lb. Releasing or withdrawing a “bead” is a move-equivalent action) x.4 (Only stores beads from the Ironclad Arc spell) = 1200 GP. This effect manifests as a decorative belt of small beads forming intricate patterns. The belt never exceeds five pounds in weight, and the storage is still considered extradimensional (and thus is protected from Dispel Magic and similar effects), but can store a total of 5000 beads.
• Distilled Joy (SL2 (Reduced via requiring a week instead of a day) x CL3 x 1800 GP (Unlimited-Use Use-Activated) x .1 (one use per week) x .4 (user must have at least two hundred slaves to draw from) = 432 GP.
• Intelligent: (500 GP), Int, Wis, and Chr 10 (0 GP), Understands Common, Empathic (0 GP), Senses (Internal, 0 GP), Cantrip – Dreamweaving at Will (1000 GP), +5 Ranks in Profession (Slave Trainer) (2500 GP). Net Ego: 6. It’s purpose is to train slaves of course, but it doesn’t really have much of an alignment; if it’s user just wants to transport people without making them slaves, that’s fine. A bit of a waste perhaps, but fine. It also has no real interest in anything going on outside itself that isn’t a clear and direct threat. User’s may never even notice that it is intelligent.
• Overall Cost Multiplier x2 (Does not take up an item slot). This does not, however, affect the price of it’s intelligence.

Total Cost: 28,000 GP.

Slave Services:

The slaves in a belt of Soul Wampum do provide some benefits for the owner

• • 25 Slaves: The user gains lucid dreams of a life of pleasure and luxury, served and pampered by his slaves. This has no game effect, but is quite enjoyable.
  • 50 Slaves: The user will find minor real-world tasks – cleaning clothing, setting up camp, making breakfast, setting and clearing tables, washing dishes, and so on – handled for him or her without effort.
  • 100 Slaves: The user gains a +2 Assistance Bonus on his or her skill checks.
  • 200 Slaves: The user gains one dose of Ambrosia / Distilled Joy per week. (Personally I tend to value this at a good deal less than the 200 GP listed. After all, it’s worth 2 XP for item creation (which is pretty paltry, with a value of only 10 GP), can be used as a component to boost the caster level of “good” spells (there aren’t really a lot of those) by +2 (not cumulative with other boosts), and as a “happy pill” that cures 1 point of damage – and so is worth a couple of cantrips. I’d call it about 20-25 GP per dose).
  • 400 Slaves: The user gains the use of Charms (7) and Talismans (3).
  • 800 Slaves: The user gains a +4 Assistance Bonus on his or her skill checks.
  • 1600 Slaves: The user gains a Wealthy lifestyle.
  • 3200 (or more) Slaves. The user gains an Extravagant lifestyle.

Getting stuffed in Soul Wampum is a fairly common form of punishment for those minor offenses that are unworthy of death; petty criminals can be safely stored away at no particular expense and – in a few decades, when they are thoroughly slave-trained and no one cares about them any longer – can then simply be auctioned off.

Evil spellcasters, of course, can also use them to make it easy to use people as material spell components using the Compact Metamagic. As noted earlier, a decent-sized animal sacrifice is generally worth -1 spell level. An intelligent creature is usually worth -2 spell levels. This is not, however, cumulative with the effects of other expensive material or XP components – although it can be used to replace up to 2000 GP / 400 XP worth or them (multiple sacrifices stack up to 10,000 GP / 2000 XP).

The Divine Lawful Republic Of Laurelin Part VI – First Impressions and Fireball Apprenticeships

Ailwellian Cities – Visitors First Impressions

The Cities tend to be a study in contrasts – the teeming and densely packed block-apartments of the Underclass sprawling around the edges (constructed and maintained by Construction Wagons) and pressed against the limits of the Wards, the fortifications of the military / administration (including the Skyship Docks and major facilities), the professional districts of the minor nobility, and the well-spread estates and parklands of the (relatively few) villas and mansions of the greater nobility at the center. The great Insula tend to almost be domains of their own, masses of spell-reinforced stone and timber towering a dozen or more stories, housing thousands, and – what with magical supplies and waste disposal – almost independent of the outside world. What need for transport when there is almost nowhere to go?

That is one of the things that leads to the low – and not entirely formalized – “age of majority”: a kid is old enough to live on their own whenever they can persuade some Insula manager that they should have a (free) apartment – whereupon they can simply live off the dole. Competent orphans have been known to get along just fine on their own very young indeed, even if they are very vulnerable to social predators.

By current standards, the Empire is fairly decadent. Why not? Work requirements are minimal to nonexistent, all the basics are essentially free, disease and basic medical care are not issues, and minor magic includes reliable contraception and easy abortion or childbirth. Drugs are common, there’s no such thing as a “drinking age”, and there are no really puritanical faiths (Well, OK – a few demon cults are against all pleasure simply because they want everyone miserable, but who pays attention to THEM?). Given magic, slaves, and huge personal power and wealth differentials. it’s not too surprising that the Greater Nobles do as they please and the rest of the world tends to follow along as best they may.

There are urban legends of Monstrous Insula – structures where creatures of the Wyld have gotten in and established hidden colonies, preying on the folk moving in and maintaining a facade of normality even while sealed-off foundation levels are devoted to colonies of horrors – but if such a thing was ever found… surely the military would let everyone know about it promptly!

Cities do tend to be very large; the teeming, and generally uncounted, Underclasses may number in the hundreds of thousands or even millions – but the functional near-independence of the great Insula (lower floor business / upper floors apartment buildings) means that most of them pass unremarked and that there is little need for in-city transportation of either people or raw materials. Still, there is a reason why most new Sparks rise from the Underclasses; they simply outnumber everyone else fabulously.

Sadly, truly long-range transportation is almost entirely by Skyship. While an active caster can compensate for it, the shifting energies of the Wyld and the inherent instability of the disc itself render long-range teleportation gates and magical transport artifacts unreliable at best – sharply limiting their range and scale. That’s why Ring Gates are about the most powerful available teleportation systems, and even they are quite limited. Roadway networks exist, but rarely go anywhere near the frontier, usually being strictly limited to the interior of the disc.

Developing Sparks, “Fireball Syndrome”, and “Fireball Apprenticeships”.

Why do Adventurers – or “Sparks” on Ailwellia – find it so easy to locate followers, henchmen, and similar hangers-on? Sure, there’s their incredible wealth, and tendency to pay high – but still, working for an adventurer is pretty much just asking for it. So why are people apparently so eager to do it? Well, here we have one possible reason.

Lawful Sparks like Order, Stability, and Security. They tend to join the Imperial military, which is well aware of how to husband it’s resources. While that means that most of them live, their power-growth tends to be rather slow, and commonly peaks out at relatively low level – although there are always a few top talents who go on to be high-level war wizards or imperial generals or spymasters or some such.

Neutral (at least with respect to order and chaos) Sparks tend to do a little light adventuring (especially when young), but usually stick to the semi-civilized areas, leaving the deep wilds for for the crazy folk who want to take insane risks. They die young more often than military Sparks, but usually retire to more dependable (and conventionally profitable) jobs fairly early on. They average slightly higher level – if less efficiently trained – than the military types and are often found as local magical specialists, merchants, caravan guards, and leaders of various civilian groups.

Chaotic Sparks tend to gravitate to the wyld zones on the fringes of the imperial border, and to be far more willing to gamble in pursuit of fast wealth and power. An awful lot of them die young – but the survivors tend to expand their power explosively. There aren’t ever that many of them, but they tend to make up the empires “Major Nobility” – the people with huge amounts of personal power.

Thus the Empire remains tolerably well balanced – it’s far more numerous defenders, and their much more organized and cooperative attitudes, tend to be quite sufficient to channel much of the energy of the chaotically-inclined sparks (who are almost always working at cross-purposes anyway) into more acceptable directions, such as dealing with disturbances on the fringe of the Empire – in many ways a chaotic sparks natural home anyway.

Which brings us to what the Military calls “Fireball Syndrome”. While few in the Empire know the name… quite a lot of them have heard enough stories to get the general idea.

• Lawful sparks tend to hoard their hard-earned power. They expend it on carefully-optimized growth, on abilities known, reliable, and broadly useful.
• Neutral Sparks may indulge in a few whimsies as youngsters, but are usually fairly sober by the time they’re adults and are using their powers in society. They tend to specialize more, but still tend towards the more profitable abilities.
• Chaotic Sparks however… particularly the ones who undertake insane adventures in the wilderness and grow explosively – are often profligate with their power. After all… it didn’t take long to acquire, and they tend to feel like it won’t take long to get more! They’re the ones who are willing to spend their power buying weird abilities, to invest it in pets and companions, and to use it in insane ways. After all, just drawing on all that wild power tends to make them a bit crazy.

Just as importantly, that same explosive growth tends to have effects on them. They don’t have time to adjust their perspective as slower growing sparks do, and thus still tend to measure all things against themselves. Fireball Sparks unconsciously compare normal people and creatures to their current abilities… and so they adopt tigers, and grizzly bears, and giant kraken as cuddly pets, empower them even further, and let them roam around their houses. They treat alien entities of vast power as benign relatives – and they fairly often tend to treat normal folk and normal youngsters like they were dogs and puppies. After all… the gap between a kid and his pet dog is far, FAR, smaller than the gap between a Spark who’s undergone (or is still undergoing) explosive growth and a normal person. It’s rarely really a conscious thing, but – given that the Empire includes plenty of indentured servants / slaves – a Fireball Spark is fairly likely to acquire a bunch of them (whether legally or just de facto) and treat them as domestic animals; useful for small chores and errands, company around the place, and general housekeeping. Young males often tend to treat them as harems as well, but that’s always been a fairly common thing for any powerful young male to do and usually isn’t terribly unpleasant. Any Fireball Spark that wants a harem usually applies enough enhancement magic to the project to ensure that everyone involved is willing and eager.

Regardless of the details, Fireball Sparks rarely lack for volunteers for their service. After all… Fireball Sparks often imbue their servants with rather a LOT of their power. As they pour power into their servants to make them more useful, the gap in power tends to narrow and their servants acquire various useful abilities. Even more importantly, as they speak and interact with – and play with – those servants… they almost inevitably start to see them as people again, gaining some prospective. Eventually… the servants terms of service will be up, or the Spark will grow bored with them (often a fairly quick process for a Chaotic Spark), and they will get turned loose in favor of picking up (and empowering) new playthings.

But power bestowal is generally permanent. When a Fireball Spark turns his or her servants loose they will quite commonly come out if it with more personal power than a normal human being could ever expect to gain – quite enough to attain a decent social rank (usually placing among the “Minor Nobility”) pretty much immediately, Sure, it’s a bit of a gamble – serving a Fireball Spark is rarely entirely safe – but the odds are actually quite good. Far better than the odds of a normal person attaining a decent social position in any other way.

And that is why “Fireball Apprenticeships”, no matter what the details, (unless they’re utterly grotesque of course) are generally highly valued, are often competed for, and are subject to a certain amount of military supervision. They’re just too tempting for most normal youngsters to turn down.

Eclipse D20, Institutions And The March Wardens

In reality, power flows from institutions. No writ, or constitution, or declaration means anything without people who are, as a group, willing to pay attention to it. The genius of a general and tactician, or the wisest of monarchs, or the most brilliant inventor, means nothing without organizations willing to fight at their command, or carry out their instructions, or to build, deploy, and maintain their creations. Even religious leaders who claim to be backed by the will of supernatural forces seem pretty dependent on having followers to act on their beliefs and decrees.

One person, by themselves, can sometimes accomplish something great – whether building a road, or turning barren land into a lush forest, or some such – but such things are the labors of many years or even a lifetime devoted to creating such a legacy.

In d20, and in most science fiction and fantasy featuring individual mighty heroes… the opposite is true. Organizations mean little. The strengths of common men – even en mass – pale before the power of individual entities. The power of a Church means little if the God Emperor Of Mankind should descend from his Golden Throne or the Titans of Greek Mythology war once more for control of the universe. When Dr Strange puts forth his hand, and changes the memories of the entire world and even those of near-cosmic beings, creates videotapes of his own funeral, and ensures that no one in the world will recognize him unless he removes his spell from them – what can the IRS or CIA do about it?

Message threads with the general theme “First level army versus eighteenth level wizard, who wins?” became noted for their tendency to devolve into a long list of “The wizard does this. Problem solved” “Well, what if that spell/item/creature/tactic is not available?” “Then the wizard does this. Problem solved”, and so on until everyone got bored.

In d20 real power comes from mighty individuals. A kingdom may endure beyond the lifespans of it’s founders – but it will do so by virtue of being ignored, by being handed over to a new set of mighty individuals, or by being ruled by some mighty entity that endures across the years. Power in d20 simply isn’t something that you can pass on effectively. Even if you use something like Leadership to pass on a portion of your power… the effects will fade away a few generations on – and even before then some adventurers might blow in and casually take over.

While most worlds tend to gloss over this kind of thing in favor of simply assuming a vaguely fantasy novel and movie-style “middle ages” milieu of kings, queens, and castles, Ailewellia explores this dynamic a bit.

Still, organizations do have some value even in d20 universes – so here is a one that the player characters have decided to create, more or less by waving their mighty powers at the universe and announcing that it should exist.

They’re high level. They can pretty much DO that.

On the disc, the Wyld Regions constantly shift and change, throwing up a wide variety of domains, creatures, and themes. For the most part, the Empire tracks these changes with mapping magic – responding to threats, cultivating useful aspects, and looking to expand itself.

Unfortunately, the Wyld invariably throws up occasional regions that confuse things – blocking or distorting divination, or simply showing something else entirely to such probes. Given the nature of the Wyld… eventually a serious threat WILL arise AND will pass unnoticed long enough to become a existential menace to civilization.

After the cataclysm people will rebuild of course – but always with the risk of another race being lost or that – this time – the fall will be complete and permanent.

Such a catastrophe is inevitably eventually of course – chance and entropy always win in the end – but the intervals can be greatly extended by better monitoring of the Wyld areas.

Ergo, here is an institution designed to provide additional warning, thus hopefully extending the time between major threats sneaking up on everyone. To make it readily available the basic package is set up for first level characters.

March Warden (24 CP Package)

• Mystic Link with Communications and Power Link, Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / links you to a specific, relatively small, location, does not interact with any further mystic links you may buy rather than stacking as Mystic Link upgrades usually do, communications only occurs in GM-specified visions and vague feelings, user must train extensively in and regularly visit the linked location, user is obligated to defend the location (3 CP).
• Privilege: March Wardens are supported by the Empire, and have a comfortable lifestyle, free access to basic equipment, and easy access to the place they’re linked to (3 CP).
• 1d6+2 (6) Mana with Spell Enhancement, Specialized and Corrupted/only to enhance ranger spells, must be tied into prepared spells from the ranger spell list (3 CP). In effect, this lets them squeeze a spell of up to level three into a “cantrip” slot and a spell of up to level four into a first level spell slot as long as they have enough mana.
• Rite of Chi with +2 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to refill the pool above (3 CP).
• Three Levels of the Ranger Spellcasting Progression (normally Wisdom based) (6 CP).
• One Caster Level, Specialized in Ranger Spellcasting (3 CP).
• Travel (The Wyld) (3 CP).

With that package… you get continuous access to the powers provided by some magical location, you get to use a few fairly impressive ranger-style spells each day, and you get to travel the Wyld fairly readily. You even get basic gear, supplies, and healing for your injuries. Yes, it costs between a half and a third of your first level character points and a lot of the benefits depend on the point you’re linked to – but there are much worse combinations.

Advanced March Warden (+12 CP on basic 24 CP Package).

This may, if the Game Master is feeling especially generous in a given setting, be available as a Package Deal at no cost. Sadly, this won’t apply on Ailewellia, where package deals are generally only available as racial features.

• Luck with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized in Saving Throws for Half Cost (6 CP). This is something that most characters should have anyway. Automatically making a saving throw when you really need to will usually save a characters life several times over during the course of their careers.
• Shapeshift (6 CP). Stealth, ways to explore exotic environments, emergency escape… there are few more useful abilities to have when exploring a constantly-changing environment even if you never develop any of the advanced forms. In combination with Luck… being able to say “I made the save, and am turning into an eagle/otter/badger to fly/swim/burrow away!” may not let you fight that greater demon, but it increases your odds of surviving some overpowering encounter many times over.

Now the real kicker is going to be that Nexus, Entity, or Point of Power that the March Warden is linked to. That’s what is is going to provide the extra power needed to make this function. In this case…

The Citadel of the March Wardens was founded to keep an eye on the borders of the Empire and the Wyld Reaches beyond. It stands atop a crag, founded on a minor nexus too small and far too isolated to support a city – but sufficient to the purpose.

Rank V Ward Major (Small Castle Sized, 28,800 GP – a pretty trivial investment for a party of sixteenth level characters even if they weren’t well above their expected wealth by level. See The Practical Enchanter). This offers its residents – and those linked to it – four Minor benefits and one Major benefit:

• Minor Benefits:
  • Messaging: Everyone can keep in touch via tiny sendings.
  • Warcraft: Everyone gains +2 BAB, +1d10 (and Con Mod) HP, and proficiency with Shields, Light and Medium Armor, and Simple and Martial Weapons. These are typeless bonuses.
  • Grant Of Aid: Everyone gains the Grant of Aid ability. If they already have it, they gain +4 Bonus Uses. (Grant of Aid: User is healed 1/Day per three levels or part thereof of 1d8+5 Damage, or 1d3 attribute damage, or one negative level. This does not require an action, the player simply decides when his character receives aid).
  • +6 Ranks in Knowledge/Geography and Knowledge/Nature (The Wyld).
• Major Benefit:
  • Unbinding: Residents are continuously protected by Freedom Of Movement.

That’s communications, essential martial skills, and much more, all wrapped up together. It’s not the incredible power of a high-level adventurer – but it’s competence for an entire group, all more or less free from their point of view as a gift from a Ward Major. This could be upgraded fairly readily (albeit with a lot more money), but Wards Major in the Ailewelia setting have to be set on a powerful magical nexus – and most of the ones suitable for anything beyond this point already have something on them.

Of course, here it is again. The March Wardens are (like most d20 characters) inhumanely effective on their own for normal human beings – but it is a powerful patron that actually makes them mean something in a d20 universe. Do you want the March Wardens to become a serious power? You won’t get there by instituting a training program or by spending any reasonable amount on new equipment. But you could get there quite quickly indeed by having high level individual take “Leadership” (in Eclipse, likely specialized in being Patron of the March Wardens and Corrupted in that their loyalty is mostly to the Empire and Civilization rather than specifically to their patron, for a net cost of 2 CP) so as to bestow some levels on the March Wardens.

And since a Ward Major is fairly immortal… the March Wardens can continue to be a reasonably effective, if not an especially major, d20 power for many centuries to come.

Of course, the entire organization is basically founded on a high level characters spare pocket change and 2 CP (the equivalent of 2 SP or a third of a feat out of the (likely) nearly 500 CP available to a sixteenth level character) invested on a whim.

That sort of thing is why national armies can be represented as a few high-level characters and why Dark Lord Kevin versus a Star Wars Battle Fleet was more or less a curb-stomp of better than half of the battle fleet. The real battle – and the fate of several worlds – was decided in a personal confrontation between the high-level characters on each side.

Exotic Martial Arts – Lightning Strike, Feathered Serpent, Pacifist Fist, Shadowed Gaze, Care Bear Stare, Pipes Of Doom, Hajimari Mo Shori, Torchfighter, and Robber Baron

And for today it’s a nine exotic martial arts. As is to be expected, none of them are particularly reasonable. Some of them aren’t even particularly sane. Nevertheless, here they are.

• Lightning Strike: The Eclipse version of Iajitsu.
• Feathered Serpent: For when you want to use your bow in close combat.
• Pacifist Fist: The art of last-minute negotiation.
• Shadowed Gaze: Attacking with Photon Manipulation.
• Care Bear Stare: Yes. Go ahead. Combine it with Pacifist Fist.
• Pipes Of Doom: For inflicing mayhem with your music.
• Hajimari Mo Shori: When the staredown decides the battle.
• Torchfighter: Who needs a real weapon? Beat them up with a torch.
• Robber Baron: An economic warfare style.
• As a bonus, there’s a discussion on using Witchcraft was a weapon, an example of a player being awkward, and the War Torch, an unusual simple weapon.

Lightning Strike Style (Dexterity):

While great beasts, armored juggernauts, and men of valor may withstand many blows, many a lesser foe may be dispatched with a single swift strike – all the more thoroughly if they are yet unready. Ignore an opponents arms. What use are they if they do not get to wield them? Be prepared to strike instantly and with true killing intent. Victory may not be yours, but your foes shall feel your wrath.

• Requires: BAB +4 or more, Dex 16+, having fought at least one duel. Employs a chosen one-handed weapon.
• Basic Techniques: Attack 2, Power 4 (+4 Damage), Defenses 2, Synergy (Initiative/Specialized in Formal Duels for Double Effect (+4)).
• Advanced and Master Techniques: Double Damage versus Flat-Footed Opponents, +3d6 Sneak Attack.
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength x2, Vanishing Technique, Ki Focus (+4 Initiative).

This, of course, is the Eclipse version of Iajitsu Focus or Pathfinder Iajitsu Strike. Unlike those, it maxes out at +(6d6+8) instead of (9d6) – but it also doubles the user’s base damage. Also unlike those styles, it simply requires a flat-footed opponent – not that the weapon have just been drawn, so if you really want to build a character around it you don’t have to sheathing and unsheathing your weapon. You just need to keep your opponent flat-footed or at least fulfill the conditions for sneak attacks.

Feathered Serpent Style (Dexterity):

The bow is a power that lets an ordinary men reach out and strike down beasts that move at speeds no man can match, that plucks birds from the air, that brings death to the predators that would devour their families, that makes any high place into a defended fortress. It struck without the risk of closing to charging ranges that bedeviled spears and stones. It pierced deep – and, unlike the magic that few could master, it made tribes, rather than individual heroes, strong. Mastery of the Bow is bred into blood and bone and calls forth the valor of men – although few now walk that ancient path.

• Requires: BAB +4, Dex 16+, use of a particular type of bow.
• Basic Techniques: Attack 2, Defenses 2, Power 2, and Strike.
• Advanced And Master Techniques: Mighty Blow, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, and Ki Arrow*
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength II, Touch Strike, and Focused Blow.

*) Ki Arrow: Presence, Specialized for Double Effect/Only affects the user, two first level spell effects, Gravity Bow and Arrow Mind.

Yes, it’s yet another bow style. This time around, it’s set up to allow the use of the bow as a primary weapon in close combat. That’s not especially reasonable (which is why it’s in a collection of exotic martial arts), but this is d20.”Reasonable” went out the window when the word “Magic” came up.

Pacifist Fist Style (Charisma):

The Art Of War is often said to be Diplomacy continued by other means. Practitioners of the Pacifist Fist Style see war as a failure; the only righteous use of force is in defense – and so they have developed the art of giving peace another chance, even when most folk would say that battle has already begun.

• Requires: Diplomacy total of +8 or more.
• Basic Abilities: Defenses 3 (Adds to Will Saves), Strike (Voice, causes self-realization damage versus Charisma), Synergy (Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Intimidation, and Gather Information)
• Advanced and Master Techniques:
  • Katsujinken: This ability allows it’s user’s to negotiate even at the very last moment, giving them a last-ditch opportunity to avert death and disaster. Even as swords and bows are being drawn, or guns are brought to bear, the user may draw forth the time for a brief conversation from the tides of war. Reflex Training with +1 Bonus Uses (four/day total), Corrupted for Increased Effect (allows lots of free actions) and Specialized for Reduced Cost (4 CP) / Only to allow conversations and negotiations with opponents or potential opponents, plus Blessing, Specialized and Corrupted / only to share the Reflex Training ability to have conversations with an opponent (2 CP).
  • Opportunist: The user may switch to another martial arts style if negotiations fall through.
  • Immunity to Those Who Completely Refuse to Negotiate (Very Common, Major, Trivial, grants the user DR 5/- against all attacks (including energy and attribute damage) by such opponents, +2 to all Saves against them, and a +2 to their AC against them.
  • Mindspeech, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect (ignores language barriers and works on anything down to animals that can communicate normally, even if not in words) / only to attempt negotiations during Katsujinken.
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength x2, Healing Hand, and Ki Focus (+4 Sacred Bonus to Charisma)

All right. The odds of talking your way out of most fights in d20 is about zero, Nevertheless, if it is in character to try here’s a way to do so without just conceding the initiative to your opponent.

Shadowed Gaze Style (Dexterity):

Whether surrounded by glittering motes, afterimages, or a simple blur, the rare individual who masters the use of Shadowweave in combat gains a wide variety of useful options, even if the raw power available is less than overwhelming.

• Requires: Witchcraft (Shadowweave)
• Basic Abilities: Defenses 4 (Corrupted for Increased Effect / not effective against True Sight or non-visual targeting senses), Power 4, and Strike.
• Advanced And Master Techniques: Whirlwind Attack, 3d6 Sneak Attack.
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength x2, Light Foot, and Vanishing

A few – mostly online – players have tried desperately to turn various abilities into instant-win buttons – usually by trying to claim that (generally misapplied) real-world scientific rules somehow make those abilities incredibly lethal or powerful. (The ones who are really focused on this approach rarely play for long; they tend to get frustrated). One of the most recent was trying to use Witchcraft.

The first attempt was made assuming that – since the “hard science” default for the Shadowweave power manipulates photons – Shadowweave can instantly generate lethal beams of radiation and / or cook things with microwaves throughout its ten minute default duration.

The answer there, of course, is that Witchcraft uses personal energy. While it is entirely possible for a skilled Witch (presumably with a technical background of some sort) to upgrade ambient photons into gamma rays or microwave radiation, the power output is still only the usable fraction of that of the physical body and it’s applied indirectly. Thus such attempts are about as effective in doing damage as a decently skilled punch or kick – about 1d4 to 1d6 damage (almost always “Fire” damage in d20 although Electrical is possible).

Now that is highly efficient in terms of power to damage – it only costs 1 Power for ten minutes of activity, in which time you could do a hundred dice of damage – but 1d6 a round? That really isn’t much more effective than using a club or torch – and might be far less effective if you have a good strength bonus or get more than one physical attack. Time matters too. Still, this is going to be a ranged touch attack, so there’s that.

The second attempt was using ambient energy sources – wanting to create a Solar Lens and hurl beams of superheated radiant death around.

Now that IS somewhat more promising; after all, solar furnaces exist, and using Shadowweave to redirect light is still nice and cheap. Moreover, the first reported use of a solar furnace in combat was ascribed to Archimedes during the Second Punic War (218-202 BC) so the concept is almost certainly available in most fantasy settings – even though testing has shown that the mechanisms described were probably unworkable, and the report was likely referencing a theoretical idea rather than a working system. In this case, however, we’re dealing with a set of psychic abilities – so it really is the thought that counts.

The actual temperature achievable is necessarily limited to the apparent temperature of the local sun measured from the planetary surface (which automatically accounts for absorption, and so is a more reliable guide than the Solar Constant would be)

Since that information is not available in most settings, but the worlds are often quite earthlike, the simplest approach is to look at the temperatures achievable by existing solar furnaces. The Odeillo solar furnace is the world’s largest, at 177 ft high and 157 ft wide. While that is not a continuous reflective area, it is still more than twenty times the area a witchcraft-based lens can be expected to cover. Odeillo can reach temperatures of up to 6330 F.

House fires vary, but the average temperature is reported to be a bit over a thousand degrees F. Looking at the rules on environmental hazards… that’s 1d6/Round. Being hit by a blob of Lava at about 2000 F is 2d6, likely in part because it will stick and continue to cause damage, which is simply rolled into the 2d6,

The d20 damage rules are not linear however, which is why a direct hit with a one megaton fusion weapon only does 16d8 damage and why a hit with a colossal mace (12 x 12 x 12 times the mass, traveling 12x the distance in the same time, and thus able to transfer 12 to the fifth power (248,832 to be precise) times as much damaging kinetic energy to the target) does not inflict thousands of times the damage of a hit with a normal mace.

So… the “solar beam” will affect a relatively small area and (unlike lava) will not stick, will create an ionization layer where it hits which will dissipate part of the available energy, and is only three times as hot. Being generous and ignoring the ionization problems while applying d20’s logarithmic damage multipliers (the math can be found on the site), that gives us 1.6 times the damage of lava an average of 11.1 points. So to get that average… 3d6+1. Presuming, of course, that you have a nice clear day, the sun is high in the sky, and you can concentrate on maintaining the effect. Since it will start to spread out at range, you’ll probably lose a d6 or so over some increment – probably over 40 to 80 feet since the collimation will be affected by the radius of your initial lens effect. For simplicity the GM might just give it medium range. Its going to be a ranged touch attack again though, which is something.

So this approach works, but it isn’t really a beam of ultimate burning death in d20 terms. It is comparable to other modern-style energy weapons from d20 future however, which is probably quite appropriate. Still a very useful tool though!

At this point the player blew up, announced that no one else understood anything at all, that he was being malignantly cheated of his powers, and that everyone should concede to his brilliance. When this did not work, he rage-quit.

That’s too bad since he didn’t get to the idea of using fine control – which must be there to make images – to inflict damage directly to vital organs or (possibly!) to interfere with the electrical impulses of the nervous system. That doesn’t really work in d20 because d20 doesn’t actually pay any attention to biology at all (there are some articles on that around), but you certainly CAN buy precision damage to use with Witchcraft, and actually accomplish something useful with your incredibly cheap, if very small, fire or electrical attack. Even better, since you can effectively flank people with Witchcraft with great ease, your sneak attack will work much of the time. And it will still be a ranged touch attack.

Witchcraft really isn’t very good at inflicting massive damage, but versatility has a power of it’s own – and, like anything else, if you invest in enough upgrades, you can build a reasonably effective character around it.

Care Bear Stare Style (Charisma):

Love and compassion have a power of their own. While few indeed are those with the spirit to make such things a focus of their abilities, there are always those few.

• Requires: Witchcraft (Glamour and Healing)
• Basics: Power 4 (Increases the DC of saves versus Glamour-induced Charming, Calming, and similar effects, increases amount healed by direct healing), Toughness 4, and Synergy (Diplomacy and Heal).
• Advanced and Master Techniques; Improved Disarm, Sneak Attack II (Boosts Healing rather than damage), Advanced Witchcraft (Dismissal).
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength II, Iron Skin, and Ki Block.

OK, this is silly. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being silly. This also seriously stretches the whole idea of a “martial art”, and some of the rules for them – but Eclipse explicitly allows weird variations and it this variation is hardly likely to break the game.

Pipes Of Doom (Charisma):

A skilled instrumentalist can play beautifully- or can produce a cacophony that seems capable of driving a sonic spike straight through their victims bleeding ears into their brains. A very few can do both at the same time, turning music into a deadly weapon of it’s own. Despite the name, any kind of instrument can be used with this style, although user’s are limited to a particular category of instruments unless they learn another type.

• Requires: Perform (Instrument Type) 8+
• Basic Abilities: Strike (Sonic, 1d4 base, range 30′ touch attack, no save), Power III, Synergy (Perform Subskill), Synergy (Perform Vocal), Defenses II (Sonic Deflection Shield).
• Advanced And Master Techniques: Whirlwind (allows an attack on a 20′ radius), Opportunist (can maintain a musical Mystic Artist effect while making musical attacks), Weapon Kata (Voice), Change Of Key (Metamagic/Elemental Manipulation (Specialized and Corrupted/only to alter the elemental effect of the musical attack from Sonic to Force, Fire, Electrical, Cold, or Acid, 2 CP), plus Metamagic/Amplify (Specialized and Corrupted / Only to add (Cha Mod) to the base damage, 2 CP), plus Streamline (Specialized and Corrupted / only to let the Amplify effect be added for free, 2 CP)).
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength x2, Paralysis, and Wall Of Sound (Ki Block).

Pipes Of Doom won’t make a performer into a particularly powerful combatant, at least not without some major enhancements – although, since this style makes a musical instrument into an effective weapon, it can be enchanted or enhanced as such – but it can give them something to do while they (presumably) enhance the rest of the group.

Hajimari Mo Shori (Wisdom)

Two warriors stand, motionless, yet already joined in battle. By the time that blades are drawn, the victor has already been decided. Such is that art of Hajimari Mo Shori – Victory at the Onset. This is a weapon form, but the user may opt to learn the art for use with any single type of weapon.

This art is Specialized for Double Effect: may only be focused on a single opponent at a time, user must spend an action making an opposed Will check against said opponent, with the art only becoming effective if he or she wins.

• Requires: Will Save Bonus of +4 or more, commitment to some form of warriors code, Weapon Focus on the chosen weapon or point-buy equivalent.
• Basic Techniques: Attack 4, Defenses 4, Toughness 2
• Advanced and Master Techniques: Mighty Blow (Double Effect provides a +4 bonus on the roll to confirm a critical), Dodge, Improved Disarm (Double Effect prevents the return disarm attempt if you fail to disarm an opponent), and Expertise (AC and Damage, Corrupted for Triple Effect, one way only; -1 to -5 AC for triple that amount of bonus damage).
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength x2, Light Foot and Resist Pain.

A powerful style for duelists, Hajimari Mo Shori can – if you win the contest of wills – grant an enormous edge on your opponent. Even if they are using a martial art of their own, doubling the effect of your own is a powerful advantage. Of course, if you lose, you’ve wasted time and will have to wait until the next round to switch to a more useful style. A skilled opponent will doubtless make good use of that time.

Torchfighter Style (Strength):

The Torchfighter has one basic strategy; you are holding what is basically a burning club; hit things with it and set them on fire. If they are just out of reach, lunge with fire. If they are further away than that, threaten to set them on fire.

It isn’t pretty and it isn’t fancy, but people have been waving burning sticks at dangerous things to hit them, set them on fire, and hold them back, for quite some time. The reflexes needed are pretty well instinctive by now.

• Requires: Str and Dex 14+
• Basic Abilities: Attack 2, Defenses 2, Power 4, and Synergy (Intimidation).
• Advanced And Master Techniques: Blinding Strike, Improved Bull Rush, Mighty Blow, and Reach.
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength x2, Serpent Strike (force opponent to breathe flame, Con only but only costs 1 Con Point to use), and Wrath (All damage becomes fire damage, fire resistance 12 for 3d6 rounds, 2 Con Points to use).

Building A Better Torch:

The base rules are that a medium-sized Torch, when used as a weapon, does 1d3 damage +1 Fire Damage and normally counts as an improvised weapon (-4 to Attack Checks, throwing range of 10′). Of course, torches are normally relatively short, light, lengths of wood with an end wrapped in oiled, pitch-soaked, or waxed rags and set alight. Anyone actually intending to use a torch as a weapon will want a heavier piece of wood and more fuel (thus eliminating the “improvised” part). If they want to get really elaborate, a metal end (so that you can reuse your torch), with short stud/spikes on it to help hold the rags and fuel (a “War Torch”) is in order.

• Torch: 1 CP, 1 Lb, 1d3 (+1 Fire) damage if used as a weapon, Critical 20/x2, burns for one hour. -4 to hit. May set a creature on fire on a critical hit.
• Heavy Torch / Flaming Club: 3 CP, 1 Lb, 1d4 (+2 Fire) damage if used as a weapon, Critical 20/x2, burns for two hours, may set a creature on fire on a critical hit.
• War Torch: Really, this is basically a light mace with studs that serve as anchorage for wrapping it in strips of cloth that happen to be on fire. Using Pathfinders weapon design rules this is a One-Handed Simple Weapon (6 DP), Hammer Weapon Group, Improved Damage (1d4 Bashing, 1 DP), Secondary Damage (1d4 Fire, 2 DP), Improved Critical Range (19-20, 3 DP), Tool (It’s a torch. Thanks to being heavier it will normally burn for two hours before more pitch must be applied, although it will need a fresh dip after each combat in which it is used as a weapon). 5 Lb, 6 GP.
  • Net: War Torch: 1d4 Bludgeoning + 1d4 Fire, Crit 19-20/x2, 5 Lb, each successful hit requires a DC 15 Reflex save from the victim to avoid catching on fire.

That’s actually pretty effective in the early game, where catching on fire for 1d6/round is something to worry about, but will lose it’s menace later on. Of course, the Torchfighters occult techniques may be relatively easy to resist, but 2d4 Constitution Damage is a fairly deadly threat even late in the game.

Robber Baron Style (Intelligence):

Business can be just as cutthroat and vicious as any battle with blades or spells, as the Robber Baron well knows. With ruthless tactics a practitioner of the Robber Baron style can often drive those with less business acumen into quick bankruptcy.

• Requires: Economic Warfare Proficiency, Control of a business.
• Basic Abilities: Strike (Yes, literally inducing an opposing businesses employees to leave), Power 3 (increasing the number of lost employees), Toughness 4 (the “Company Town” effect; keeping your employees in debt to you makes it very hard for them to leave), and Synergy (the user’s primary business skill).
• Advanced and Master Techniques: Mighty Blow (On a critical Strike the opposing business must spend a turn reorganizing and reopening stores rather than acting), Whirlwind Attack (You may strike at up to seven opposing businesses or storefronts at once), Improved Bull Rush (you may attempt to place opponents in an unfavorable business position, driving their operations out of the most profitable areas), and Deflect Arrows (you may attempt to avoid a legal entanglement, summons, order, or similar difficulty).
• Occult Techniques: Inner Strength II (Only adventurers normally become skilled enough to use Occult Business Techniques, and they normally have resources from adventuring beyond the reach of normal businessmen), Healing Hand (bringing those hidden resources into play), and Paralysis (Through legal action you may render an opponent temporarily unable to do anything to stop you).

All right, economic warfare rarely comes up in my games, and I’d be willing to bet that it almost never comes up in most games – but if somebody wants to invest some skill points in it, why not? A clever player can always find somewhere to put it to use.