Primal Control Spells

Here are a few more spells! One, Resurrect, was one I hadn’t completely figured out by the time I posted the rest of Klara Zenithdown’s spells, and the others are some staples for Adepts in the Countless Worlds Campaign.

Do not be surprised if some of these change, especially Earth and Death Magic. I may also add a function to the Arcane Control spell, but we’ll see. For now, these’re how I’ve envisioned them. They should stand up to play-testing, but we’ll see.

Due to the length and complication of some of these spells, I’ve labeled each of the spell titles in blue, to make the demarcation between spell and effect more visible.

Minor Change

This WordPress theme doesn’t show it, but I’m changing author accounts (for reasons I’ll bring up later).  I just want to benchmark this in case anyone ever digs through the archives after I’ve switched to a WordPress theme that does show the author.

Friday Feats: Stalwart

Welcome to the third Friday Feats! Today’s feature follows a chain of feats built on the Stalwart feat.

Stalwart [General]
Benefit: You gain a +1 Bonus to Toughness when you are Wounded.

Bloodied Attack [General]
Prerequisites: Expert or Warrior class, Stalwart
Benefit: You gain a +1 Bonus to your attack when you are Wounded.

Bloodied Warrior [Warrior]
Prerequisites: Warrior class, Stalwart
Benefit: You gain a +1 Bonus to Damage with melee weapons when you are Wounded.

Indomitable Stance [Warrior]
Prerequisites: Warrior class, Stalwart
Benefit: The first time you are Wounded in an encounter, you gain +2 to all defenses until the start of your next turn.

Intrepid Adept [Adept]
Prerequisites: Adept class, Stalwart, Concentration 4 Ranks
Benefit: When you are Wounded, you gain a +2 Bonus to the power rank of all spells you can cast.

Intrepid Hero [Expert]
Prerequisites: Expert class, Stalwart, Wisdom 13+
Benefit: While Wounded, you get a +3 to all checks based on Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma, including Skill checks.

Resurgent Adventurer [General]
Prerequisites: Stalwart, one of the following: Great Fortitude, Iron Will, or Lightning Reflexes.
Benefit: You gain a +1 Bonus on all saving throws when you are Wounded (this stacks with the penalty from being Wounded, but the penalty to Skill and Ability checks remains -2). You may take this feat twice, to completely cancel out the Wounded save penalty.

The Cornerstone Faith

The Cornerstone Faith is one of the great faiths of the Countless Worlds. Billions of followers on hundreds of worlds, the Cornerstone Faith is a polytheistic faith centered in the Cornerstone Empire. Worship of the eight Gods of the Cornerstone Faith is usually centered on one patron God, with certain events, festivals and wishes calling for rites in the name of another God.

The Faith is served by the the monolithic High Architectural Church of Cornerstone, the spartan Orthodox Church of the Cornerstone Faith, and the reformation Seperatist Church of the Santos.

The All-Father Robert and his host live in the Eternal Palace, an afterlife of luxury and relaxation and craftsmanship. Those who lived a good life in the eyes of the Cornerstone Faith spend their afterlives in peace and contentment in the fields of his Divine World. Those who were evil are banished to Midnight Chasm, the home of Vincent. This is a hell of darkness and fire, where they are punished for all eternity. Those whose lives were meaningless, or whose effects on the universe were too selfish to gain admittance to the Eternal Palace, but who are not beyond redemption, or simply those whose souls are lost, are sent to the Wasting Winter, where Wanda rules over an unending field of snow from her Fortress of Stillness. Children can often be sent to the Wasting Winter, and when there mothers pass on they frequently travel their in the cohort of angelos to find their lost child. Many return, many do not. Wanda tries to find and collect these children to return to their mothers, though she frequently keeps some of them, raising them into her cohort.

Clarification: The Three Racial Archetypes

It occurred to me that a little clarification might be needed regarding the three racial categories, and so while I’m at it, I’ll also throw in the vaguest of racial histories.

In the beginning there were the Primal Gods. These forces of creation set out to populate the Countless Worlds they had created, and decided to make Man.  They set forth, creating Man throughout the universe.  But the Gods erred, and each of the Primal Gods made Man a little differently.  Where one world had enormous plains to be filled with enormous Men, the Gods created the True Giants. Where the jungles and forest required a smaller Man, the Shortlings were made.  And in other worlds, Humans were made.  All three races are the same, save for size and scale.  These three races are the eldest of the universe, and are known as the Ancestral Descendant, or the Races of Man.

Eventually, the Primal Gods went to war, and they created warriors and craftsmen in their own image.  From these creations were bred the Elemental Descendant.  The three races of Men, each infused with the power of the Elements. Mystans with their command over the forces Arcane, Forest Giants with their command over Nature Magic, Sparklings with their fire infused temperaments, and all the other elements and races.  The Elemental Descendants also exist throughout the Countless Worlds, and even Descendants of warring elements (like Fire and Water) know they have more in common with each other than they do with the incomprehending Ancestral Descendant.

Lastly came the Beast Descendant. These were the descendant of a war between forces of the Arcane and Nature wars that took place long before any time any can remember.  Whereas the forces of the Arcane taught mortals to make Golems, the forces of Nature invested animals with the intelligence and opposable thumbs of mortal kind.  While no race of the Beast Descendant is particularly common, the whole of the Beast Descendant are at least as common as either the Ancestral or Elemental Descendant.

Heroic Path: Wizard

The Wizard is a Heroic Path.

Prerequisite: Adept class.

While some Adepts may focus on perfecting their art and their mastery over their preferred Primal Element, you instead choose to dabble in many elements – breadth of choices has saved your life more times than the power of your choices.

True Mastery (Core Ability) – When you use the Adept’s ability to spend an Action Point to get access to an unpurchased spell, you may also choose from any Primal Elements adjacent to the ones you can choose.

Breadth of Power – You gain a Bonus to Fortitude and Will saving throws against spells equal to half the number of Primal Touch feats you have, rounded up.

Shazzam! Spells Page!

Look up!

And here’s the spells I have so far, culled from Klara Zenithdown.

This page will serve as a repository for all spells listed in this blog. It will be updated regularly, but will not be completely concurrent with the main blog.

Calm
Emotion, Spirit
Maintenance, Mental Contact
Standard Action
Effect: You drain intense and violent emotions from your target. If they fail their Will saving throw against Calm, they no longer feel extreme emotions. They are unable to take violent action, “intense” action, or do anything destructive. They may defend themselves, and any violent or destructive act against them or their property ends the effect. This power suppresses many Emotion keyworded spells. Calm is a maintenance spell, but it continues for 1 round per rank after maintenance stops.

Cure Blindness and Deafness
Healing, Nature
Fatiguing, Implement
Full Round Action
Range: Touch
Effect: You cure your target’s blindness or deafness. This is a DC 15 task. If a target is both deaf and blind, it is two separate tasks.
Retry: After a failure, you may retry after you have gained a rank in this spell.

Character: Hugh Holloway, Draftsman of the Order of Sacred Comfort

Class: Expert         Paths: Scholar

Race: Equerian (Carthu)   Level: 4

Combat Bonus: +2  Toughness: +0

Str: 10 (+0)  Dex: 11 (+0)    Con: 14 (+2)

Int: 15 (+2)   Wis: 15 (+2)   Cha: 11 (+0)

Fort: +3 Will: +9 Reflex: +1

Feats: Endurance, Improved Speed, Carthu, Skill Focus (Knowledge: Genealogy), Buried Lore, Common Knowledge, Your Reputation Precedes You, Fascinate, Well-Informed, Eidetic Memory, Talented (+2 Knowledge: Current Events, Knowledge: Politics)

Skills: Perform (Oratory) +3, Bluff +2, Diplomacy +2, Knowledge (Cornerstone Faith) +2, Knowledge (Current Events) +2 (+4), Knowledge (Genealogy) +2 (+5), Knowledge (Politics) +2 (+4), Notice +2, Sense Motive +2, Memory Mirrors +1, Search +1, Language (Architectural Cant), Language (Beyetajik), Language (Doutoun)

Standard Equipment: None.

Nature: Determined, Arrogant

Friday Feats: Sneak Attack, and a Design Note

Welcome to my second Friday Feats! Before I delve into the feats themselves, I want to take a moment to talk about the nature of feat construction in the Countless Worlds campaign.

While pretty much any D20/Feats system will have chained feats (Cleave, Rage, Favored Enemy, Sneak Attack), I want to take it a step further.  Rather than just view the chain as a progression towards a more powerful ability, I want to view the chains (or better yet, trees) as a progression towards a character concept.  As such, I want to take advantage of interlinked feat progressions.  For example, below, Vengeful Strike is a feat which is only available to those with both the Sneak Attack feat and the Favored Enemy feat.  One, this makes for a fun combination of abilities.  Two, I might make a seperate chain for those “backstabbing rangers.”

This also brings to the fore the idea of feats that require another class.  Both Sneak Attack and Vengeful Strike are Expert feats, but Favored Enemy is a Warrior feat.  This necessitates multi-classing.  I intend to explore this more fully – Expert Feats built on Warrior abilities, Warrior attacks built on Expert tricks, and both Warrior and Expert feats requiring certain spells from the Adept class.

And now… the first Sneak Attack chain!

Astral Ships

An astral ship is a vehicle designed to travel the great distances of the Astral Plane. While some have the ability to travel throughout the skies of the Mortal Worlds, their primary function is for conveyance across the distances of the Countless Worlds.

When designed to travel in the skies of Mortal Worlds, aesthetics and aerodynamics have to be taken into account, but when an astral ship travels exclusively in the Astral Plane, function is the primary design consideration. Astral ships can be manufactured out of any material, often many. They can be made from wood (either grown or constructed), steel, stone (grown or constructed), or sorcerite. Less common manufacturing substances include bone, living flesh and clay. Many ships incorporate multiple substances – for example, the ships of the Winged Chariots tend to favor main hulls of mortared stone and gondolas of wood.