Traveler's Homebrew

Friday, April 23, 2021

Villainous Cookbook: The Eternal Host

Howdy! I've been looking forward to writing this article a lot. My ideas started to take form back in September of 2019, and since then I've been teasing it outside of the blog every now and then. While I don't plan to make a write-up of each tier, this time I'm making an exception—instead of one villain, I'm going to give you multiple. Well, there's technically plenty of each of these, so they're less of a villain, and more of a nation. I'll also include some of the lore derived from the game mechanics used, so that should be fun.

Before I begin the article itself, I should make a warning. This might be broken. Like, very broken. But then again, I like to see where the limits of a villain are, so that's why I'm doing this. There will be people who will dislike this, and say that there's no chance that a group of players could defeat these. I'll say that such person underestimates the players' ingenuity and that this isn't a villain they're meant to take down over the course of one game session, or five. I won't sugarcoat this for you by giving you suggestions on how the players could defeat them. If you want to make up an applied phlebotinum that makes this nation go extinct, go right ahead. Anyway, my point is: Use this villainous group at your own risk.

Another warning—keep in mind that these are supposed to be villains. I don't condone of their practices, they're literally supposed to be the baddies for players and others to fight against.

The Eternal Host

Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,
Etins and elves and evil-spirits
— Beowulf (modern English translation), translated by Frances B. Grummere

"We are not here to end the world. We are here to end your world, and to begin a new era."
Elven Army, by JasonTN

The Eternal Host is an elven nation that's aggressively taking over the world with great numbers, expertise in fighting, and ability to never truly perish. Let's start it all with some theory regarding elven biology, and metabiology.

According to the Player's Handbook, the elves are considered mature when they reach the age of 100 years. Though, let's see what it actually says:

Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience.

In other words, the elves don't need to be 100 to be considered mature. They are very capable of reproducing at the age of 20.

So here's another question: How many babies could a pair of elves make during their lifetime? This will be hard to judge because there are at least two unknown variables. How long does an elven pregnancy last, and what's the age when an elf is unable to bear children. Since the answers for the first question that I find online are rather unsurprisingly inconsistent, I'll choose a rounded, generous duration of five years to be a default gap between two children being born. As for the age, at which the elves are unable to bear children, I will say that there is no such age for them. Assuming that their physiology is similar to the human one depending on their age, we can use the page 39 quote from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes for the reference:

Even the oldest elves look similar in age to a human of perhaps 30 years.

Assuming that each elven woman would live up to the ripe old age of 750 years, and start having children every 5 years starting at the age of 20, this means that they'd be able to have about 147 children. And that... is per single elven couple. While the number does ignore twins, triplets, and so on, it also ignores miscarriages, so I'll call that even and move on. What's more, this number can be boosted further by introducing a biological anomaly. If we toy with the ratio of men to women in this elven nation, we could multiply this number enormously. Let's say that for every man in this nation, there are 20 women. Needless to say, they're too numerous.

There's a canonical reply I've received a couple of times to this. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes says supposedly that there is a limited number of elven souls. First of all, I am not doing this for DMs who will try to argue with me that this shouldn't be possible. A nice saying I've heard for this is, that "If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse." But still, I'll fancy the idea, because I figured there could be players who bring this up. Time for the metabiology! Let's begin by addressing the parts this claim is made up of:

The elf requires an elven soul. (This fact is not explicit, it's implied.)
There's a limited amount of elven souls.
The elven soul is distinct from a regular mortal soul.

The biggest flaw within this line of thoughts lies in the spell reincarnate. Suppose that a non-elf is reincarnated into an elven body. Question is: Do they now have an elven soul? There's a couple of possibilities:

Their soul is unchanged. Which means that the part number 1 is contradicted, their elven body doesn't require a non-elven soul.
Their soul is transformed into an elven one. This means that elven souls can be created (and possibly destroyed if an elf reincarnating into a non-elven body would have their soul transformed too). And thus, there could be theoretically unlimited number of elven souls created, contradicting the 2nd part.
Or maybe... there is no such thing as an "elven soul". A contradiction to the third part states that everyone's soul is just the same, and that's what I would personally choose to believe.

Finally, before we get to the subraces, maybe we could figure out what subraces to use. Honestly, it doesn't matter too much, all of them are pretty cool. I would personally go with the wood elves, but anything can work, maybe with exception of the drow because Sunlight Sensitivity would likely suck for a nation that tries to take over the world. Understandably, you could also mix-and-match them as you see fit.

Alright! Now that that's sorted out, let's check out some social roles! Once more, this time I'll just give them to you at level 20 each described briefly, because otherwise this article would take me years to write. And I would prefer to publish this before the 6th edition could be announced. I should also add that these are not a complete list, you can come up with roles of your own as you see fitting.

Resolute Gunner

Barbarian 14: Path of the Cannoneer (Caim's homebrew)
Fighter 3: Champion (Player's Handbook)
Warlock 1: Gray Portrait (Genuine Fantasy Press)

Starting with Fighter, we get Action Surge, letting the Gunner take two actions in one turn once per short rest. We also get Second Wind, an ability that lets us heal a little, and Improved Critical chance of 10% instead of 5%.

Path of the Cannoneer grants us a weapon that can shoot projectiles which deal 4d8 damage, 4d12 if we modify the cannon (which we will, and for free), though you don't add your ability score modifier to either of these. While we can only shoot this cannon once regardless of how many attacks we can make as part of any action, bonus action, or reaction, we also get the unique ability to use it as a weapon for clobbering enemies. In melee range, it's a heavy two-handed weapon that deals 1d12 damage. I would recommend picking up the Sharpshooter feat for a range of 600 feet with no disadvantage on attacks, ignoring half and three quarters covers, and then some stuff.

Finally, the Gray Portrait warlock gives us a painting that can be used to resurrect our fallen soldier for free. Think of this as a way to back them up. Awesome!

But what weapon will they wield? Well...

Eldritch Minigun

Warlock 2: Banished Gunsmith (Genuine Fantasy Press)
Sorcerer 18: Seer Bloodline (Caim's homebrew)

Through the Banished Gunsmith, our warlock is transformed into a weapon that can be wielded by others. While they lose plenty of stuff, they also gain some benefits from it. I should note that as part of the sorcerer levels, you should probably pick the Eldritch Adept invocation, and we'll bend a rule here by picking up the Bloody Bayonet invocation, without fulfilling its prerequisites. While we could do well without it, I wanted to merge the Eldritch Minigun build with the Resolute Gunner. If you wish to though, you could in theory also have the Eldritch Minigun serve someone else. The other invocations we should choose are Agonizing Blast, and Eldritch Spear for extra damage and massive range.

The Bloody Bayonet invocation lets us transform the weapon that this warlock is into any other melee weapon. Well... time to bend another rule. How about a ranged weapon that could be used as a melee weapon? Like say, … a cannon? Now it sounds fun.

Sidenote: The Banished Gunsmith is capable of controlling the body of its wielder even after it's reduced to 0 hit points. Which is just awesome. But it only lasts as long as the wielder keeps failing Wisdom saves against the warlock's spell save DC. The wielder's Wisdom score could probably be dumped to allow this, but it doesn't have to be this way.

We invest 18 levels into sorcerer for three big reasons. One: With the metamagics, we can double the range, so we could burn many sorcery points in order to achieve that. Two: Feats. Besides Eldritch Adept, we should get Spell Sniper, which lets us double the range passively to whopping 1200 feet (assuming we're using the Distant Spell metamagic too). Three: The capstone of the Seer Bloodline. While I could describe it with words, I'll just paste it here for you all to see, it's something lovely.

Change the Future
Starting at 18th level, you can grasp the future you wish for, even if you suffer for it. Whenever you finish a long rest, note the location. If you die, your corpse and any memory of you since that long rest vanish as if you were never there. Any illogical outcomes of your actions since that long rest are rationalized. For example, if you damaged a creature before you died, the creature rationalizes that another creature damaged it instead. You then appear at the location where you finished your last long rest, alive and in the state you were when you finished the rest.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again for 7 days.

This is a psychological warfare on a whole another level. Sure the miniguns will be useless for several days afterwards, but hey it's a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Bonus points if you give each of these Illusionist's Bracers, letting them cast the same cantrip they did with action as a bonus action, doubling the number of blasts they can make.

Alright, you might be thinking that we got the shooters in the back sorted out. What about the front-liners though? I'm glad you've asked!

The Bjornsworn

Barbarian 18: Totem Warrior (Player's Handbook)
Warlock 2: Gray Portrait (Genuine Fantasy Press)

I couldn't resist calling it this, and judging by the name you probably already know what's coming. Bear totem at level 3 of the barbarian gives the Bjornsworn resistance to all damage types, with the exception of psychic. It also makes for a pretty good front-liner generally. The only improvement I could come up with for it is giving it some levels of Gray Portrait warlock for yet another soldier unit that's backed up after death as a painting, and also some invocations that you can go hog-wild with. I feel like you could go even deeper into the warlock, but this felt like a good balance to me.

While a lot more boring description-wise, similar role could be accomplished by a 20th level Atavist who chooses the Bloodied Aspect. Their preservation could be achieved by cutting off their pinky finger, keeping it in a jar somewhere, and casting gentle repose on it once every 10 days. Even if the rest of their body would be destroyed, they could regenerate from this pinky finger since it's their body part. The reason I'm making this a side-note instead of its own build is because it doesn't really need any changes. One thing I should point out besides the pinky finger trick is the fact, that this one gets to automatically kill humanoids who have 25 hit points or less, provided you've rended to its damage. Which is just hardcore if you ask me.

Primal Cleanser

Druid 20: Circle of the Land (Player's Handbook)

While this unit is less of a battlefield soldier, it's a simple enough build to include here if you wish to make the elven army more threatening. A level 20 druid can cast spells even while wildshaped, requiring no components save for the costly ones. In order to make it work though, we'll need to do another little cheat. Here's a custom table of Circle of the Land spells for a new environment, the "eternia". Basically, it's a biome heavily influenced by magic to last forever. Think Hallownest from Hollow Knight. I should maybe write an article on that in the future, sounds like a fun topic.

Druid Level	Circle Spells
2nd	continual flame, Nystul's magic aura
3rd	glyph of warding, major image
4th	fabricate, Mordenkainen's private sanctum
5th	hallow, teleportation circle

Key component for us here being Mordenkainen's private sanctum. This spell can be cast over the course of 10 minutes with no costly components over and over, becoming permanent after being cast in the same place for a year., though it must be cast with the same effects. What effects are possible? Well...

Sound can't pass through the barrier at the edge of the warded area.
The barrier of the warded area appears dark and foggy, preventing vision (including darkvision) through it.
Sensors created by divination spells can't appear inside the protected area or pass through the barrier at its perimeter.
Creatures in the area can't be targeted by divination spells.
Nothing can teleport into or out of the warded area.
Planar travel is blocked within the warded area.

So what does this mean? It means that you could have a plague of wild shaped druids, looking like normal animals just chilling in a place or flying around a spot for 10 minutes at a time, turning the world slowly but surely into a massive private sanctum of sorts. Disabling teleportation, disabling planar travel, possibly divination spells too. Others could be used at your own discretion.

How much land can a single one of these druids cover in a day? A level 20 druid has three 4th level, three 5th level, two 6th level, two 7th level, one 8th level, and one 9th level spell slots for a day. Add to this their ability to recharge two 5th level spell slots, and we have... a lot of spell slots. When cast at 4th level, Mordenkainen's private sanctum encompasses a 100 ft. cube. This cube's side increases by 100 feet with every spell slot level above 4th, which is wild if you ask me, but also fine by me. Instead of figuring out how could one honeycomb a space indefinitely using cubes of these sizes, I'll just abstract it into a big rectangle. This rectangle would be 600 ft. high (since that's the highest of these cubes), and at a base roughly 970 by 970 feet. This is how much area could a single druid sanctum-ify in a year by going over it every day and casting the spell over and over. This process would take them 2 hours and 20 minutes, plus 1 extra hour for a short rest to recharge the 5th level spell slots. For the context, this area is roughly 1.6 times bigger than the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

And that's a single druid. Even if any elf who isn't a Cleanser themselves would have just one sibling who is, there would be 21.6 thousand of them three generations in. This many of them would cover more than half of the area of Rhode Island in a year. Let's also not forget the fact that they age 10 times slower, so assuming they'd reach level 18 at 100 years, they could still live on for 6500 more years. Which also means they'd have more children, but I really don't feel like redoing all the calculations by this point, so I'll leave the implications up to your imagination. And that's just a tip of the iceberg that shows what's possible with them.

Elven Caretaker

Cleric 18: Arcana domain (Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide)
Warlock 2: Currency Conspiracy (Genuine Fantasy Press)

With the Arcana domain, the clerics get the best of both worlds—supportive spells for helping out their buddies, but also some super strong wizard spells. Like clone that lets them preserve themselves. Or wish that lets them cast any spell for free once. Or the one we'll focus a bit of our attention on: Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion. Heavens bless Mordenkainen for all his wonderful gifts to the elfkind, as well as the rest of the humanity.

With a single cast of this spell, you can create an extradimensional space that contains, and I have to quote this,

[…] sufficient food to serve a nine course banquet for up to 100 people. […]

Assuming that an average human could survive on three courses a day, this means one mansion could in theory feed 300 people. Even if every average elven couple had only one Caretaker child out of their whole family of 147 (not including parents), this would be more than enough to feed them. Hey, even if one out of 50 elves would be a Caretaker, if you're a pedant thinking that the spell's intent is to feed only 100 people and never more.

With the clone spell, you could have the cleric make a backup of themselves in case of troubles. After they die, assuming the clone had enough time to develop, they come back to life without any issues.

And with the wish, you could cast literally any spell you want as long as it's of 8th level or lower for free! You want simulacrum? How about yet another Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion? Or maybe you want to help one of those few unfortunate ones who don't get to revive for free with a resurrection spell? Or you could possibly make a demiplane in which the time flies twice as fast as outside, letting the elves train there faster. Any of that and so much more is all possible.

You might be skeptical now. You only get one wish a day, and yet here I am talking about spells with costly components. How do we deal with that? Do the Caretakers go to the battlefield and murder tons of people? As you might have guessed if you know me, Currency Conspiracy comes to help us. They use gilt for their expensive spells. If you think that they'll need to breed a ton of rats to murder every day in order to make 1000 gold pieces required for an average resurrection though, you might be missing a more important point of the feature. Let me highlight it for you:

Also, whenever you reduce a Small or larger creature to 0 hit points using a cantrip or a spell cast using a warlock spell slot or when a creature swears a binding oath of loyalty to you, you can choose to capture a fraction of their soul, granting you an amount of Gilt equal to the creature’s hit point maximum.

Guess what do we have here on our hands? Millions of trained warriors, with plenty of hit points, who are free to swear loyalty to the Caretakers. They would literally have more money than they could spend in their lives. Nothing about the oath says that a creature can swear it only to one creature at a time either. If you want to juice even more money out of it, give them the Tough feat for extra hit points to their maximum, and thus extra money.

Why do we have two levels of warlock? For invocations. Invocations are fun, so once again you are free to customize the Caretakers as you see fit.

Queen of Shadows

Sorcerer 19+: Imperial Birthright (CaelReader homebrew)
Warlock 1: Currency Conspiracy (Genuine Fantasy Press)
The allmage spell (MeowMagic)

Yes, this build is so frightening that I will break my own naming conventions for it.

Currency Conspiracy is for the same reason as with the Caretakers, infinite potential money. The 19 levels of sorcerer are there to provide you with metamagic, and plenty of features flavorfully fitting a ruler of the people.

There are two more details though. One of these is usage of the sequester spell to preserve these queens eternally, for the time of dire need. The other one is the spell allmage that's cast upon her. The spell is cast upon an elected Queen by three Caretakers, who could possibly be accompanied by paladins and/or artificers who will assist them in preventing permanent loss of their spell slots. Let's face it though—even if they lost the spell slots, another Caretaker could possibly help them get their spell slots back.

After the ritual, the Queen possesses the ability to cast all spells, ability to cast unlimited amount of spells of 3rd level or lower, and gains an additional spell slot of every level above 5th. Such power however comes at a cost. This ritual creates a dead magic zone within a 1 mile radius.

"Beneath the Eternal Host's own land
Myriad of shadowed queens still stand
Time passes not for them, they await their calls
Their time shall come once the Eternal Host falls."

As far as I can track, the art was made by a former DeviantArt user named Exellero. While their account seems to be removed, I found one named that on ArtStation that seems somewhat similar.

The Society of Host

There are two major castes within the society: Warriors who go out into the wilderness to take over more territories and gather resources, and Guardians who stay in the kingdom in order to take care of the young, train those who haven't reached age of 100, and to defend the homeland. All of the men and the Queen are considered to be Guardians by default, and other roles are all determined on an individual basis, with large majority of the population consisting of Warriors.

When an elf is born, they spend first year of their life being taken care of by their parents, as well as the Guardians. After the first year, they continue to be raised by the Guardians, with the parents possibly visiting them every 5 years if they're Warriors. Once a child reaches the age of 20 and the coming of age ceremony comes, they begin their training as one of the above-listed social roles, or another unmentioned role (at your own discretion). Since a human could in theory achieve the maximum level within their lifetime, it's reasonable to assume that the elves with proper training, which is passed down the generations, would be capable of achieving the same. Understandably, this training would also come with an unhealthy dose of brainwashing, in order to keep the cycle intact.

Once they reach the age of 100, they start to fulfill their social role. The Warrior leaves their homeland in order to conquer the new lands, the Guardian raises the next generations and keeps everyone fed, the Cleanser begins to alter the world, and the Queen determines what should be conquered next. A Warrior is required to come back to the Homeland once every 5 years in order to give birth to and raise another child, safe from their conquering duties for one year.

One of the major buildings within the lands of the Eternal Host is the resurrectionist gallery. Thousands of paintings are stored within these, as the Caretakers look after them, checking regularly to see which soldiers have died so that they could bring them back to life using their Gray Portrait. What means exactly do they use to tell whether an owner of a Gray Portrait is dead is unknown to all but the Caretakers and the Queen, in order to keep it a secret from those that would wish to endanger the Host.

Every 10 years, one newborn girl is chosen to be raised as a Queen of Shadows. The crowning ceremony is performed when such woman reaches the age of 100. As part of this ceremony, the previous Queen of Shadows has her solar and pit fiend hand cut off, only to be regenerated by a Caretaker. She is afterwards sequestered, awakened only when the Queen that's being crowned falls, or when the kingdom of Eternal Host is invaded by an outside force. After being sequestered, the spell allmage is cast upon the next Queen, using the former Queen's hands and weapons as spell components and continuing the cycle. It is said that the kingdom hides thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Queens of Shadow, sequestered in some safe hidden place.

While a niche thing that doesn't have to apply to everyone, if I did something akin to this, I would create a new plane of existence for them that they could conquer over time in order to avoid running out of space too quickly. A personal favorite would be a fourth layer of Arcadia. Since the third layer of Arcadia is gone by now, it would add further mystery to these elves, giving them their very own corner of the multiverse that they have conquered, and work on conquering at all times.

Be thankful that the elves are usually peaceful and keep to their forests. And if they don't… fear them.
Elves, by Veli Nyström

And there we have it! After what felt like forever, my article is finished. I would like to thank Genuine Believer for inspiring me with his works, parts of which were present in almost all installments of the Villainous Cookbook, as well as to all other homebrewers and readers who supported me while working on this project. It was an honor. I really hope you've all enjoyed it, and I wish you all a wonderful day!

Monday, April 12, 2021

Runehack: New Prista

After several weeks of chipping away inbetween my daily job, I think it's finally ready for publishing. I'm glad that it's now finally ready to be shown. In this series, I wish to show off the various cities of Runehack. I want to write about strange cities that are within this world, mainly because most of the cities all feel kind of same. However, it's hard to describe what's outside of the norm without describing the norm every now and then, which is why I'm starting with the first city I developed within this world: New Prista. While this city is exceptional in some ways, it's close enough to be a good start to ease you into this world before I get to my stranger city ideas. It's the setting of the story I wrote back in November (and haven't rewritten yet), so it could also help out by introducing the potential readers to the city generally, as well as help me out in solidifying it for the purposes of the story. I'll make the next city weirder.

This is likely not the final version of the article. I have yet to settle on naming schemes for my in-world characters, which is why there are so few named characters in the article. After my first attempt at rewriting the initial story, I'll likely find out what parts of this article need updates.

New Prista

After the discovery of a new continent, some of the Old World's people wished for a fresh start. A group of settlers has set sail from their old home in Prista Vista and started their new lives on the coast of the unknown world. To honor their old home beyond the horizon, they've named this place New Prista Vista, which eventually evolved into just New Prista.

Geography

New Prista is a large coastal city surrounded by deciduous forests and a sea, partially built on a hill littered with caverns. Some of it is built on a peninsula, with a gateway that used to protect the inner port from the outside invaders before the seaborne districts were built. Like any city, New Prista expands at all times. Unlike other cities, however, it expanded itself out into the sea as well as the land.

Beyond the standard production of vegetables and tending to chicken and sheeplets, New Prista is known for its fishing industry, retrieval, and production of seaweed and pearls, and production of fruit and wood, both through the expansion of the city, but also with multiple districts that farm trees. A large system of interconnected mines created underneath the city's hill provides materials used for some of the construction of its walls and buildings, some amber for the drawing of runes, and silver for lining the newly made walls.

History

Although the city has been founded 180 years before the era of monsters began, evidence of archeological research suggests that there was a small tribe of elves populating its general vicinity almost two thousand years before its discovery. By the time the settlers from Prista Vista arrived, the ruins have long been buried deep underground, only found well over a century later.

After the discovery of the vast amber, volerite, and silver sources underground, the trend of runemancy began, and people have become obsessed with experimentation using the runes. Multiple companies have started at this time, and branched into other cities too, including New Prista.

When the runic revolution came about, the city has developed a way of creating new walls through an elaborate system, which is even to this day used in expanding the city. Years after Nexuspace acquired New Prista and built the first two new districts, the first groups of Loyalists started to emerge, challenging the corporate rulers of the city due to their mistrust about the way they create the new laws. After an unsuccessful attempt at overthrowing them, many of the original Loyalists have left the city on stolen hovertrains, traveling away to an unknown independent kingdom.

The Acumen have emerged within the city once the Mistweb was developed and commonly used by people all over the world. Unknown to the public, they've found some of the ancient elven ruins buried underneath the city, and use them as a private space for organizing their operations.

Structure

New Prista is divided into 11 main districts, 3 of which are built completely on top of the sea. While districts are traditionally divided by the walls that were former borders of the city-state before expansion, these walls are actively removed in order to be reused for the new expansion.

Fort district is the oldest district, where the old fortress from the era before the monsters was built. This castle-like building surrounds the houses of the Nexuspace's president, ministers, and their families reside. It borders the Miner, North, Portside, Central, and Upper West districts.

Central district used to be the city built outside of the fortress, but within the old city walls along with the Upper West district. It's where the majority of the businesses are located in the present, along with some residential areas. Its neighbors are Fort, Portside, Groven, Red Street, and the Upper West district.

North district was another district that used to be part of the original city before it expanded, though its purpose was more aimed at farming rather than as a residential area. Nowadays, plenty of vertical farms, as well as some ranches, are found here. It borders the Miner, Fort, and Portside districts.

Upper West district is one of the two districts that have access to the mines, and thus also houses many craftsmen, factories, and businesses. Due to being built on the hill, most of its streets are sloped, earning the district half of its name. Its neighbor, Miner district, is relatively flat in comparison and holds the highest population of goblins out of the whole city, but it's very similar otherwise. Both of the districts border the Fort and Central districts, but while Miner district is located next to the North district, Upper West is connected to the Red Street district.

Portside district is the longest district of the city, connecting the waterborne districts to the landlocked parts of the city. The entirety of the inner port, as well as the outer shore of the city, are considered parts of this district, despite some of it historically belonging to the Fort district. The bordering districts are Groven, Central, Fort, North, Fisher, and Backsalt district.

Fisher district, Backsalt district, and Deep Blue district are interconnected districts that float entirely on top of the water, built on underwater pillars. Most of it is dedicated to residential areas and small businesses of people, who specialize in fishing and gathering resources from the sea below. Portside is the only district that borders these, with the exception of the Deep Blue district.

Red Street district is named after the fact, that it used to be a shantytown outside of the city walls when the era of monsters began. Since not everyone made it within the walled-off city when the era started, the many casualties of the terrible times are forever remembered by those who call it their home nowadays. A commonly shared stereotype within New Prista about these people is that they're either dwarves, orcs, or prone to violence. The rumor is based on the fact, that plenty of butchers, hunters, and soldiers of the New Prista are likely to have their roots in this region. Its neighboring districts are Upper West, Central, and Groven district.

Groven district is the newest district within the city that used to be a forest, but nowadays it's a district where many of the plant farms are, as well as a few of the residences. Curiously, it contains within it the closest place to a "fairytown" that the New Prista has, along with a fairly high population of elves. It neighbors the Red Street, Central, and Portside districts.

Culture

The majority of the population in New Prista is composed of humans and elves, and the least represented race within the city is goblins. New Prista's level of technology is on the same level as most of the known cities connected to the Mistweb. Most of the population within the city doesn't practice any religions, and out of the rest majority practices the Žofaism (ž pronounced as zh), with about 5% of people actively scorning the Pantheon of Misfortune.

When it comes to the common political beliefs within the New Prista, it's considered to be a globalist nation that supports the ideals of progress, security, and equality of opportunity. Besides the Nexuspace, the city is also populated with a small branch of Acumen and a significant amount of Loyalists. The Acumen is a secretive but known group attempting to expose the truth about Nexuspace and Lifestock. While their manners of operating range from morally dubious to outright illegal, their goal is a genuine desire for transparency. The Loyalists wish to return the New Prista, as well as all other city-states, back to the monarchies they once were by getting rid of the influence of corporations. Their biggest ideal is returning back from progress and security to traditions and freedom that the citizens of kingdoms once had, at least in comparison to the present day.

The city has sister locations for several of the companies owned by Nexuspace. Nexuspace itself actually began with the production of VR headrings, which have grown in popularity enough to give them enough capital for acquiring other companies that nowadays belong to them. Tomorrowkind is a prominent company that was actually based in New Prista. It was initially focused on the runebots and eventually pivoted to drones. OWR (Old World Reports) is a news station that's also owned by Nexuspace and has one of its branches in New Prista. Nexuspace hoped to create a branch of Volemotors within New Prista, a company specializing in the production of vehicles, but this plan was fruitless due to wrong timing in relation to the events that were occurring within the city back then. The city also has sister locations of TAI (Therefore A.I.) and Otherworld, both of which are at the current time owned by Lifestock, yet they helped companies owned by Nexuspace in growing. TAI is a company that at first focused on the development of machine learning, which eventually evolved into the creation of the many kinds of commercially used artificial intelligence. Otherworld is a company that is responsible for augmented reality, and the Mistweb of things—an elaborate system for controlling common runetech appliances through the Mistweb using apps installed on the runecards. Despite their location being within the territory of their competitors, Otherworld and TAI are both allowed to continue their activity within New Prista due to their past contributions to its success. Beyond these, smaller companies are located in New Prista too, though those are not worth mentioning.

The two most unique customs of New Prista are the Winter Solstice Hymn and The Pearlhunt. After midnight of the longest night of the year, regardless of whether it did or didn't snow this year, the people gather on the largest squares in New Prista to celebrate the past year and expect the first signs of a new one. They usually feast on mutton served in various easy-to-hold forms, and drink hot fruit tea, while catching up with people they meet after a long time on the square by chance. Roughly thirty minutes before the first sunrise after the winter solstice, the people begin to sign the hymns that supposedly encouraged the Sun to grace the city for a longer time with its light. While these days nobody believes in this myth, the overall experience is considered to be worth doing just for its own sake.

Celebration of The Pearlhunt starts precisely three weeks after the summer solstice, and it lasts for one week. For every day of this week, people are encouraged to come to the Fisher and Backsalt districts wearing their swimwear and possibly some extra clothes, in order to participate in the yearly pearlhunt. The goal is to swim deep underneath the waters within the walls and to find as many pearls as possible before running out of breath. Ever since the unfortunate incident 21 years ago, runebots are prohibited from participating in the competition due to the fact that they do not breathe. Every day ends by announcing the winner—a person that found the highest number of pearls while not passing out—and as a prize, the first four places get to keep one pearl of their choice. Any participant gets a symbolic monetary sum for every pearl they found, which is doubled if they managed to get back to the surface without passing out. The celebration started as a showcase of one's determination, but also awareness of their limits.

Subculture Showcase: Corporate Lifestyle

Note: This section is not meant to imply that the presented subculture is in any way unique to or most represented within this city. It is just a subculture I chose to present because it felt most thematically fitting and it wasn't introduced yet.

Examples of regular formalwear worn mainly by the staff of the corporations, but also anyone who wishes to appear official. Variations do exist.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

Art Curiosities: Due to baldness, the depicted man decided to brandish an illusory hairstyle. The screen in front of the woman is how the interface of runecards and most other runetech appears. Those who wish to draw attention or just appear exotic wear illusory glasses that are actually just an image anyone but them can see.

Those who live a Corporate Lifestyle work for the megacorporations that rule most of the cities in the world. One of the stereotypical views on them is that they're mindless drones who serve as the cogs for world-spanning machines, but the truth is that their productivity is the reason for them earning and keeping their job. Perseverance, adaptability, and reliability are the characteristics held above all others by the corporate staff. Spending large amounts of time working, sometimes even working overtime, earns these employees enough money to live a much higher class life in their free time.

The corporate ladder within the Nexuspace and Lifestock is identical, with the only difference being some of the title names in the language commonly used in Runehack. However, their meaning is synonymous enough to not require a different name in English.

Chairman is the owner of the entire megacorporation. The Vice-Chairman is the substitute of the Chairman in case of need but otherwise doesn't hold executive powers, following their orders.
President is the ruler of the megacorporation on the scale of an individual city and follows the orders given by the Chairman. The Vice-President is the substitute of the President in case of need but otherwise doesn't hold executive powers, following their orders.
Minister manages a certain ministry within a city and follows the orders given by the President. The Vice-Minister is the substitute of the Minister in case of need but otherwise doesn't hold executive powers, following their orders.
District Manager oversees a specific city district and follows the orders given by the Minister as well as President.
Teams Manager oversees a group of Team Leaders and follows the orders given by the District manager.
Team Leader oversees a group of Team Members and follows the orders given by the Teams Manager.
Team Member follows the orders given by the Team Leader.

Some of the phrases and traditions practiced by those who live a Corporate Lifestyle include:

"Work early, home early." A saying that means that those who begin their work earlier get to end the work and partake in activities of their choice earlier.
"Persevere, and you'll make the step." This saying refers to the determination required in order to ascend the corporate ladder.
Paper War Welcome is a spontaneous event, which is meant to greet a Teams Manager, Team Leader, or Team Member who has returned from taking some time off work by pelleting them with paper balls shot from paper-fed railguns upon their arrival to the office. If the colleagues are close, they can pretend that it's a form of punishment for "slacking off" in a friendly humorous way.
If someone gets a promotion, it's expected of them to enjoy that night through a party, whether private or with those who matter to them, and to take the next day off. If they're still a Teams Manager or someone lower on the corporate ladder, this day off is followed by a Paper War Welcome.

Relations

As one could expect, New Prista has largely positive relationships with almost all other cities owned by the Nexuspace, generally neutral to negative relations with the cities owned by Lifestock, and neutral relations to the kingdoms.

Due to the lack of development of these other cities, I will skip the rest of this section for now. I would much rather update it later.

Curiosities

There are multiple points of interest within the walls of New Prista. Among the most interesting tourist attractions are:

Pristine Fort, found in the eponymous Fort district, is one of the oldest structures within the city. The royal family used to live here for generations before Nexuspace bought the city. Within 10 years of Nexuspace buying the city, the royal family went through a mysterious string of deaths due to accidental circumstances. In the present day, no members of the royal family are known to be alive.
Hymn Square is the largest square of New Prista located in the Central district. It's named after the celebration of Winter Solstice Hymn that supposedly began here. It's littered with advertisements and became iconic to New Prista.
Twintall Tower is a building found on the border of the Backsalt and Deep Blue district, and it's infamous for being a "skyscraper that scrapes both ways". The building has 103 stories above sea level, as well as 103 stories below sea level. Many of the floors are owned by various smaller companies, owned for the most part by Nexuspace, but the most floors owned above sea level belong to Tomorrowkind. Underwater floors, on the other hand, are where the TAI has started to move in.
Grandfoot Monument is a statue of the last dwarven king of New Prista. It was raised by the Nexuspace once it has acquired the ownership of this city, to commemorate the times of the old monarchy. It's found on the hill of Upper West district where it's visible from multiple places within the city.
Auditorium of Agony is a religious building within the Red Street district used for the scorn of the Pantheon of the Misfortune. This round dome is by design submerged halfway underground, with a podium in the middle for the speeches. While people like to joke that the speakers there only scream for hours at a time, the truth is that their lectures are meant to improve people's lives and teach them how to treat the pain in their lives.

The Faceless

The greatest curiosity, and the focal point of my planned story, is the Blood Season. It's named that due to its severely increased number of murders with an unknown motive. Those who were familiar with the motivation that drove it would more likely call it an Assassin Game.

A great unknowable being from beyond this world has contacted hundreds of people through strange incomprehensible means, offering them with Absolution, a power to go beyond the laws of nature in some way. In this case, it was the Absolution from Form—a power to change one's appearance. At first, it comes with limitations, but every Absolution can be enhanced further by appeasing the being to grant these powers. Those who possess the Absolution from Form refer to themselves with several terms, most commonly as the "faceless", but sometimes also as "ashwalkers" due to the curious fact, that whenever they use this power, they leave behind a visible amount of ashes and soot.

As it goes for any supernatural power, however, it comes at a cost. The unknowable being has started the greatest Assassin Game, wishing only for the survival of the fittest. Each of the participating faceless receives an item that points at one target that they must eliminate. When the target dies, their hunter inherits their target. The being that grants these powers is willing to enhance each participant's powers the more of their opponents they eliminate. Due to the fact that all of the participants are shapechangers, the greatest cost to these powers is psychological trauma caused by the contest, in which someone who can look any way they want could at any moment pursue you in an attempt to kill you. Even if one were to avoid this contest and not murder anyone, sooner or later they would be targeted, and possibly eliminated, by a different faceless. There is also another cost to this power, but that's something I would consider a spoiler, so it should remain hidden for now.

Important People

A few examples of the important people from New Prista:

Zaxon Skybank, elf, male; the current President of New Prista.
Sallice Redleaf, fairy, female; internationally popular singer, actress.
Quincenza Freecraft, human, female; inventor, Teams Manager for TAI.
Keven Steelhammer, dwarf, male; the current leader of the Loyalists, international Mistwebber.
Stepharia Crownsong, elf, female; architect, visual arts producer.

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Intimidating Revenants

My first D&D character was named Wilson. He was a gnome monk, who got shipwrecked when he was sailing once with his great-great-great-grandpa. What? I looked at the lifespan of the gnomes and drew conclusions. Either way, 20 people survived together on an island, and Wilson built a raft for him and his triple-G grandpa to go home on. Unfortunately, by the time he was done, his triple-G grandpa was murdered. Wilson left the island on his own, swearing vengeance for his relative. Yes, the backstory is silly, but then again it was my first character, and one for an Adventurer's League. During his short life, he managed to find exactly zero other survivors from that island, so his desire for revenge was unfulfilled. He died in a TPK to a group of wandering ghouls while our party was trying to rest in a dungeon.

Revenge! It's one of the easiest character motivations to make. It's a bit of a fake motivation though, because what will they want after the revenge? I never got to figure that part out for Wilson due to his early death. My headcanon is that after his death, he has turned into a revenant. Unfortunately, it's been years since Wilson's death, so nothing can be done now to save him.

Revenants

Where I'm going with this is this: Revenants are cool. They're undead reanimated corpses seeking the revenge that their soul demands. Their hit points regenerate, they're immune to being turned, they never get exhausted, charmed, or frightened, and of course—they're always on the move. Approaching. Tracking. At all times. There's also another detail that most people miss at a glance—it has no negative modifiers. Pretty cool, right?

There are downsides too, of course. Revenant's CR is 5. This means that once the players become high enough level, that revenant who's still tracking them becomes nothing more than a nuisance. Their +7 to hit and average 25 damage against their main target could come off as a bit underwhelming. And since the revenant is assumed to be on the move without any company, it's either gonna be a super easy encounter, or an extra that the players will not find interesting. And that's not even mentioning stuff like planar travel!

In other words, I feel like a revenant could get... boring. Let's try to change that today, now that the long intro is out of the way!

Why though?

Before we give this creature its boost, we need to answer an important question: why are we doing this to our players? Well, there could be a couple of answers. A backstory from a player, a challenging enemy they make, ... or something far more sinister.

There's a type of player that plenty of Dungeon Masters (and possibly even other players) doesn't like, and it's understandable why. The "murderhobo", for the purposes of this article, is a player who kills creatures that are innocent. For the sake of simplicity, an innocent creature is one that the DM did not expect players to fight because there is no real reason to fight it. I've spent some time with such players in my party, and it can break the immersion. Thus, it could be reasoned that a DM could use the revenant as a sort of justice for the murder of innocent creatures.

Warning: the revenant is a nasty creature already, and what I list below is completely untested. I have actually got no clue as to how one could make a revenant interesting, I've run a revenant only twice in my games ever. I just wanted to write up some cool things for DMs who want to add some extra spice to their revenant to make them a bit more effective. But as it goes with any spice, do not overdo it! A meal with too many spices in it is gonna be a mess. Choose which of these you want to do, and leave the rest be.

Number 1 way of making a revenant scarier: give it a gun.
Seriously though, a ranged attack of some sort would be a really good thing to have.
Revenant, by Zak Foreman

Inevitable

The revenant has got one year to get its revenge. So let's find some way of making them better!

Every time the revenant dies, its CR increases by 1. We don't really need to be precise with the system—each point of CR increase increases its hit points maximum by 17 (2d8+8), and both its regular damage and the extra damage against sworn targets by 1d6 each. For every 3 points of CR, its AC, attack bonus, and DC increase by 1. These numbers are not perfect, but they are good enough to make it scary.
Every time the revenant dies, it gains one level in a class of your choice. Don't bother with hit points, just add 9 for every level up. Don't bother writing down their proficiencies with toolsets, weapons, armors, or whatever—just say that they have this or that, ignore unnecessary clutter! Focus on combat stuff. If you want them to do magic, give them warlock spell slot progression with doubled spell slots (but still single Mystic Arcanum uses) to make DMing them easier.

Survivor

Alright, we got the aspect of it being defeated nailed down. How about making it remaining alive scarier?

For every day the revenant remains alive, its speed increases by 5 ft. When it dies, its speed resets to default.
For every week the revenant remains alive, one of its scores increases by 1 permanently. The maximum is 30.

Escapist

The revenant is cool and all, but what if it gets... stuck? Like, what if it has no way of getting to its sworn targets?

If there are no sworn creatures of revenant's revenge on the same plane of existence as the revenant for 24 hours, the revenant teleports within one day of travel of the creature it's tracking. At the same time, if it gets trapped someplace like a coffin buried twenty feet under, for example, it will always find a way out within 24 hours. If it doesn't, fate itself will help him out. Literally deus ex machina.

Economist

Action economy, am I right? Players will sooner or later have too big of an advantage when fighting a lone traveling revenant. So let's fix that!

The easiest solution is to give it 3 legendary actions every round. Making one Fist attack is a good start, as well as moving up to its movement speed. The third could be the Vengeful Glare or anything else cool you could come up with. If it's too good, make it cost 2 actions.
Now this is a nasty trick that could get rid of your murderhobo problem if you have one, but I have to warn you—this is a force to be reckoned with. Every time your players kill an innocent creature (as defined above), it doesn't turn into a revenant. Instead, it's going to inevitably join the revenant, as an eternal companion. Its shadow. With each shadow, the revenant's actual shadow gets darker and darker, until it's just inky blackness. When the revenant finds the targets they seek revenge against, all of the shadows emerge and assist them in the fight. This is more than lethal, and could result not only in a TPK, but also at the end of the world due to the way shadows work, so... apply at your own caution.

Terrifying

"But Proph," I hear you say, "all this stuff is nice and all, but... it's just mechanics. It doesn't really make them scarier." Well then, let me introduce you to a renewed revenant description. Consider this something to describe.

Whenever the target of its vengeance looks in the direction in which the revenant is, they see the revenant's glowing eyes. These eyes can be seen regardless of distance, as long as the two are on the same plane of existence and the revenant is in the direction in which the target is looking. They are visible regardless of any obstacles in the way—trees, buildings, creatures, even your own eyelids.

Furthermore, whenever you would normally dream, you instead get a first-person view from the revenant's perspective. Whatever it's doing, you see it as if you were doing it. It's always on the move, and you are aware of it the more time you spend sleeping. For every 6 hours you sleep, the revenant comes roughly 40 miles closer (assuming we didn't use the speeding up rule above). Do you really need that long rest? Does your party even want you around if you keep getting attacked by this thing? How many days has it been? How many days until its one-year lifespan ends?

(Both of these I stole from the worldbuilding subreddit. I don't remember who wrote them or what discussion was the comment posted on, but if you are out there, please contact me now and I'll link your profile in this article!)

"Thirteenth day of Icemelt. Ever since I successfully assassinated my target and got attacked by that ugly thing, I've been on the run. Whenever I look back, I see the yellow glow, the same glow that its eyes radiated. I tried so many things, but no heroes want to help me. So I got rid of them. What's more, I don't have enough money or time to research a solution for this. I've started to sleep only every other night because of this thing. My paranoid mind dreams of its movement increasing in speed, as its inky black shadow follows it everywhere. Yesterday, I saw another yellow light on the horizon. They're next to each other, moving in unison. I did not kill anyone else though! Is it... its other eye? If you find this diary, know that this monster has murdered me!"

Thank you for reading, I hope I have provided you with some new inspiration, and I wish you all a nice day!

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Villainous Mookbook: The Necrodancer

Howdy! I'm feeling kind of emotional as I write this. The final installment of my Villainous Cookbook. I'm kind of afraid, truth to be told. Can I ever start writing these articles again? Will they ever be of such high quality? What if my well of creativity has run dry completely?

Well, while I'll search for these answers, it's time to do this. While I was working out this one, I've come to realize that it's... actually resembling a boss fight from a videogame I really enjoy, Crypt of the Necrodancer. In order to honor this game, I decided to name this villain after its boss, the Necrodancer. The series has gone full circle, beginning just the way it ended... with a necromancer.

Preface

My goal is to make an interesting villain using the player options found in the official and homebrew rules of D&D 5th edition.
The goal is not to make a villain who deals the highest amount of damage. This is not the right place for that discussion.
I will leave some details out to let the DMs adjust the villain to their preferences. Ability scores are one of them.
To emulate character development, I will only make character builds at levels 4, 10, 16, and 20. Players should be at best equal to the villain's tier, optimally at a lower tier.
Limitations breed creativity. But I will bend the rules if it makes the villain more interesting.
If it seems overpowered, it could be because of rulebending (see the point above), or because I'm mixing homebrews that were not balanced with each other in mind.

The Necrodancer

"My pulse is beating like a drum, but my blood is running cold. I came here with a question and I'm going to find the answer."

― Cadence, Crypt of the Necrodancer

"You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger who's a friend."

― Truman Capote

Ingredients List

Magnis race (Travelers' Homebrew Original)
Bard 15: College of Whispers (Xanathar's Guide to Everything)
Cleric 1: Civilization Domain (CaelReader Homebrew)
Sorcerer 1: Imperial Birthright (CaelReader Homebrew)
Warlock 3: Perfect Chord (CoFS:A)

Race

Since I haven't had the time to write out lore for this race in order to publish it properly, I'll write out the racial traits as part of this article. Consider it a sneak-peek into one of my possible future projects. The concept for this race is that it's an Alfallen race one could become during their life, based on idolizing another person for a long time. You are now an echo of what you used to be. When it comes to the original race, you can choose to go with anything. My personal bias says elf because then this could be a possible elvish impersonator.

Magnis Traits

Each magnis is unique, but they generally share these traits.

Ability Score Increase. Choose either Dexterity or Charisma. That ability score increases by two, while the other score increases by one.

Age. Magnis can live as long as others of their origin race.

Size. Your size is determined by your origin race.

Speed. Your speed is determined by your origin race.

Languages. Magnis are fluent in Common and in the language of their racial origin.

Booming Voice. You have a great amount of control over your voice. You can choose to make your voice up to three times as loud as normal requiring no action. Additionally, you can use your action or bonus action to throw your voice, making it seem like it originates from a point of your choice within 30 feet of you that you can see.

Thunder Adapted. You are immune to the deafened condition, and you gain resistance to thunder damage. If you would also gain this resistance from a class feature, your inner power awakens, granting you the ability to cast the thunderclap cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this cantrip.

Yestermuse. You can use your bonus action to create an illusion of yourself. This illusion moves and produces the same sounds as you did last turn. Doing this will also recreate all of the illusions of yourself you've created using this feature in your previous turn.

Tier 1

First, we need to make them loud and annoying fast. We begin by investing three levels into warlock, and one level into the cleric. The warlock might seem fitting, considering it's a perfect chord, the most musically-themed warlock I know of, but you might wonder why do we need the civilization cleric. Let me resolve that first.

Bonus Proficiencies
(1st-level Civilization Domain feature)
At 1st level, you gain proficiency with martial weapons, as well as two tools of your choice. You also gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: History, Investigation, or Persuasion.

Divine Consul
(1st-level Civilization Domain feature)
Starting at 1st level, you are able to sense the presence of civilization itself. By spending 1 minute in meditation, you can discern the direction, distance, and name of the nearest settlement within 100 miles. You also learn the name and title of the ruler of that settlement, as well as the name and title of their liege, if they have one. Additionally, you learn the majority race and culture, as well as the general size and description of the settlement, such as "port city" or "farming town".

Now, martial weapons are just a neat thing to have, and the tool proficiencies could be used for literally anything that's not a musical instrument. Extra skill is a nice thing that we could use, but the most important part is Divine Consul. If our Necrodancer ever gets lost in the wilderness, they can focus for one minute to find where the biggest nearby cities are. That means audience, and audience means potential undead servants.

Now then, from the warlock we'll want multiple things, so let's have a look at those. We're assuming Pact of the Tome here, by the way, but I won't talk much about spell choices in this article since I believe you guys can figure them out yourselves. For now, what we need a lot is thaumaturgy.

Seeker of the Sound
(1st-level Perfect Chord feature)
At 1st level, your heartbeat is tuned to the Perfect Chord. You gain proficiency in the Performance skill and with all musical instruments. You can use a musical instrument as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells, and can play it in place of using a verbal spellcasting component.
When you cast a spell that has only a verbal and somatic component, you can choose to cast it as though it only had a verbal component.
When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher that only has a verbal component, including those modified by this feature, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier that last for one minute.

Composition of the Masters
Prerequisites: Perfect Chord patron, Pact of the Tome feature
You can ignore the effects of the silence spell and of magical effects that would produce a similar area of magical silence, enabling you to speak and cast spells normally. You also become immune to the deafened condition.

Barred Mind
Whenever you make a Wisdom saving throw and succeed, your mind locks shut. If the same creature or effect forces you to make another Wisdom saving throw before the end of your next turn, that saving throw is made with advantage.

So what does this mean? We have an outspoken musician who can sing really loudly and play any instrument too. I think we could have them sing and play instruments instead of just playing an instrument, but whatever floats your boats. Onto the next Tier!

Tier 2

Six levels of bard. I mean, we did want them to be a necromancer too, right? May as well start getting to that. Now you might be thinking "what, are we gonna add animate dead to the bardic spell list? Of course not, silly! Bards get magical secrets. At... level 10. Well, be patient. We'll get there when the time is right. In the meantime, check out this neat feature!

Mantle of Whispers
(6th-level College of Whispers feature)
At 6th level, you gain the ability to adopt a humanoid's persona. When a humanoid dies within 30 feet of you, you can magically capture its shadow using your reaction. You retain this shadow until you use it or you finish a long rest.
You can use the shadow as an action. When you do so, it vanishes, magically transforming into a disguise that appears on you. You now look like the dead person, but healthy and alive. This disguise lasts for 1 hour or until you end it as a bonus action.
While you're in the disguise, you gain access to all information that the humanoid would freely share with a casual acquaintance. Such information includes general details on its background and personal life, but doesn't include secrets. The information is enough that you can pass yourself off as the person by drawing on its memories.
Another creature can see through this disguise by succeeding on a Wisdom (Insight) check contested by your Charisma (Deception) check. You gain a +5 bonus to your check.
Once you capture a shadow with this feature, you can't capture another one with it until you finish a short or long rest..

With this, our Necrodancer will be capable of impersonating people they get rid of, which is just absolutely lovely to have for infiltrating big cities and collecting bodies secretly. Let's get to Tier 3 right away!

Tier 3

Five levels of bard will get us the animate dead that we've wanted for so long. I'm pretty sure you've by now noticed what's been going on here. We get them expertise with Performance, which you should have picked up by now, they get proficiency in all musical instruments, they can make themselves three times as loud using thaumaturgy, and three times more thanks to Booming Voice from the Magnis race. We're making someone who's annoyingly loud. Who can always find themselves a place to perform. And who keeps gathering bodies while pretending to be this extraordinarily charming redheaded musician. Or was the hair brown? Who can tell.

Anyways, with that out of the way, let's add some juice to this with one level of sorcerer for this cool ability.

Commanding Voice
(1st-level Imperial Birthright feature)
Your bloodline has granted you a voice fit for a ruler, one that makes your enemies tremble and puts fire into the hearts of your allies. At 1st level, you gain proficiency in your choice of Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion.

Additionally you learn the command spell, which counts as a sorcerer spell for you, and does not count against your number of spells known. You can cast command without expending a spell slot. Once you cast the spell in this way, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest, though you can still cast it normally using an available spell slot.

Also, whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher that has verbal components, you can grant temporary hitpoints equal to your Charisma modifier to a friendly creature within 30 feet of you, which last for 1 minute.

... what's that? Feats? Look, you can put there whatever you want, okay? Yes, I am taking this seriously, stop asking me silly questions and let me get to Tier 4 without looking like I'm rushing to some imaginary punchline.

Tier 4

Four levels of bard. Yep, it's that simple.

Shadow Lore
(17th-level Soulknife feature)

At 14th level, you gain the ability to weave dark magic into your words and tap into a creature's deepest fears.

As an action, you magically whisper a phrase that only one creature of your choice within 30 feet of you can hear. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. It automatically succeeds if it doesn't share a language with you or if it can't hear you. On a successful saving throw, your whisper sounds like unintelligible mumbling and has no effect.

On a failed saving throw, the target is charmed by you for the next 8 hours or until you or your allies attack it, damage it, or force it to make a saving throw. It interprets the whispers as a description of its most mortifying secret. You gain no knowledge of this secret, but the target is convinced you know it.

The charmed creature obeys your commands for fear that you will reveal its secret. It won't risk its life for you or fight for you, unless it was already inclined to do so. It grants you favors and gifts it would offer to a close friend.

When the effect ends, the creature has no understanding of why it held you in such fear.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Oh wow, would you look at that! Now the bard can, uh... go into a city. And manipulate a person. To get them to lead people to the bard so that he could kill them secretly to convert them for his necromantic army or something.

Sigh.

Alright, no way to evade it anymore. It's time for... the Truth.

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Divtech, Faith-Powered Technology

The other day, I've had a casual chat on the discord with Klaustrix and multiple other people about a magic system. He was looking for inspiration regarding divine magical technology, so we worked something out. I thought you might enjoy reading it, so here is my version of that.

This isn't related to Runehack, I could see it maybe growing into a world of its own though. I'll just have to feel inspired enough to develop this further.

The look of the future. LI's ABSTRACT - Cube Tiles, by Laticis Imagery

Divtech

If you have some surface-level knowledge about quantum theory, you might have heard of superpositions, true randomness, and possibly some stuff to do with light. I don't know what exactly all of that is about, since I'm not a quantum physicist, but I can surely borrow some of it as a source of inspiration.

Constructing the most basic component of divtech is fairly common knowledge. It's a specific scheme of mirrors made out of a special material, that fairly randomly determines whether it reflects light, or lets it pass through it. All of this is enclosed within a cube, half of its neighboring sides is painted black (for the receivers), and the other half white (for the emitters), with the receivers/emitters in the center of each side. These components are called "faith cubes", and they are the most basic component of the divtech. How big are the faith cubes depends on how far the technology has developed - originally each cube could maybe be held in the palm of a hand on its own, but maybe as the divtech develops better and better methods of making smaller faith cubes, they could go below the size of 1 inch. I'm thinking they'd have magnets at their corners so that they could stick to one another, and so that you could only attach a receiver to an emitter instead of receiver/receiver or emitter/emitter.

You see, what people don't know is that the mirrors are not completely random. They work based on faith. Visualize it as each faith cube containing every possible arrangement of logical gates, that could be based on the three inputs output any possible combination of outputs determined by which mirrors do/don't let the light through. They could serve as simple carriers of signals, negating gates, AND gates, OR gates, and anything else, depending on what's needed.

In order to filter the device from outputting random noise, there are "focus filter" cubes between the faith cubes and output components. These function basically as an AND gate, giving output only when they're receiving an input from one direction, and at the same time when someone is focusing on the device.

How is such a device used and constructed? Well, you just stack as many of these cubes together as you can, and then focus on the device, thinking of the problem you wish to resolve, and you'll receive an answer if you believe you will get the answer. These devices are usually constructed by either studying the problem you're trying to solve a lot and meticulously putting together cubes in a perfect arrangement, testing it until you get the right answer, or by putting as many of these cubes together as possible and removing them bit by bit until you're left with only the necessary cubes for getting an answer. Once the proper structure is figured out, maybe one could make a more permanent version of the device by removing the sides of cubes that are attached to each other and welding the overall structure together instead of relying on magnets.

When it comes to the output devices, there could be literally anything. Rotors, light emitters, hard light 3D printers, and quite possibly more. Maybe you could even put the device into a chassis of sorts and have it move around on its own, however, you will it to move.

How the faith cube could in theory look on the inside. Just imagine the red lights to be centered on each side. Panopticum, by Michail Mavronas

Why Cubes?

No, it's not because of Minecraft. Long story short, it's the only way to perfectly "tile" a 3D space using one regular 3D. For more information on that, check out this article.

If you don't want to use cubes, truncated octahedrons can be used to tile the 3D space too, and each of them has 14 faces, which means it could receive 7 possible inputs and emit 7 possible outputs for each shape. I just made it cubes in this article, because it was the original shape, and it's the easiest one to imagine.

Divtech Art

Of course, there's some skill to constructing the divtech, so there's definitely some art based on it. Something that's not practical but a show of art or skill is flat divtech devices, with cubes arranged into a 2D shape. Another possibility is making screens that display anything one believes they should display using layers of faith cubes, filters, and display cubes.

Weaknesses

One important condition for the faith cubes to work is to keep them closed. If you know all of the facts, you can't have faith. Thus, each of the faith cubes is a closed system that can't be reverse-engineered when used in practice. That's what the biggest weakness of the divtech is - you will get your answer, but you must know how to formulate your question, and you can never use it to tell you how it gave you this answer. Kinda like asking your nerdy classmate for the homework solution without asking them for the process.

The next major factor is that these devices are rather inflexible. In our world, we use electricity that can be run through a flexible wire. But these cubes are not flexible. They must stick to each other in order to work. At least, until someone would create something that could bend the light. Maybe optic wires? Either way, the components themselves would be inflexible.

Of course, there's the factor of how much "special material" is there for the creation of faith cubes' mirrors. But material requirements are a part of all technology.

The greatest downside I can think of is the user's own bias. If you use a divtech calculator to, for example, "calculate 2+2 because I think it's 5", the device will find a way to calculate 2+2 in a way that results in 5. In order to use the divtech properly, one must clear their mind of any preconceptions of the possible answers. Afterall, these devices are black boxes, that will give you the answer you want.

Anyway, that's about it for today. Just a little neat idea I had that I wanted to share. I could maybe try to develop it further in the future, but for now I think it's cool enough to share.

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Villainous Cookbook: The Psycho Killer

Howdy! I'm afraid this is one of my last articles when it comes to the villainous cookbook series. I can't make promises of more than one article in the future, but if I'll ever get more good ideas, I'm going to make sure to write it out here.

As for some other plans, my work on the foundations of Runehack's worldbuilding is nearly done, and I'm working out some interesting cities to describe. I've also been working on my own RPG for one of the Runehack's cities, and on getting back into DMing (yes, I'm still burned out). Honestly, depending on how much time and energy I'll have these next few weeks and what I'll feel like writing, the next article could be anything: my final planned villain, first of the Runehack's cities, a more finalized first version of the Runehack's RPG, possibly a theoretical article on non-violent RPGs, or an article on something completely unexpected.

But until that's going to happen, I really hope you will enjoy this next villain. Their focus is more towards efficient murder, but their aim is to do so with little to no trace.