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Sunday, March 3, 2019

Warlock Patron: the Baleful Star

There is an eye in the heavens. It fears and it hates and it plans. It fears the future and it fears the past and it fears its creators and it fears the mortals who scurry across the surface of the world like so many upjumped rats.

The Star needs mortals to enact its will, as while its power is vast it cannot manifest beneath the sky. You are its useful fool, its starry-eyed dreamer, promised so much that will never be delivered. Go forth in the name of the Star, and cleanse.

The Baleful Star
Goals
The Baleful Star wishes for a world wiped clean and made pristine. If it cannot have a blank featureless canvas, it will first settle for perfect order, so nothing can threaten it. Societies cowed beneath the heel of mindless overlords, the beasts of the earth and sea and sky catalogued and chained, a place for everything and everything in its place. You have been promised power in this utopia, if only you bring it about.

Starting Equipment
a brass telescope with tripod, a pocket spyglass, sheaf of astronomical charts covered in your own raving scribbles, a dose of laudanum, a warm coat

Boon
You know the direction to the Baleful Star no matter where you are, as you feel its hate and fear. You cannot get lost. Your eyes have no irises and thousands of small pupils, like the night sky inverted.

Favors
You can project pinpoint dots of light from your eyes and fingertips, with unlimited range.
You can smell fear. It smells like the frigid sucking cold of a windless, moonless night.
You can levitate (Warlock level) fist-size or smaller objects at once as if you were manipulating them with your hands.

Obligations (d8)
1. Cause Debt mortals to fall into despair.
2. Restore at least Debt*50gp worth of items to pristine condition.
3. Ensure Debt criminals can never commit crimes again.
4. Discover secrets of Debt mortals that would ruin them and speak them to the Baleful Star.
5. Erase a creature from the memories of Debt*Debt of those who know it, or taint those memories to the point where they would rather not remember.
6. Utterly destroy a work of art worth at least Debt*100gp.
7. Kill Debt HD of mortals cleanly and painlessly.
8. Find someone else who knows the truth about the Star and kill them brutally, as a message to others who might threaten it.

Patron's Gift
A new body is built for you, perfect in every detail, your idealized self-image. It does not (and cannot) breathe, eat, drink, or sleep, only needing nightly exposure to starlight. When you next die, your mind is transported to this body, which awakens naked in the nearest town. Its perfection lands it squarely in the uncanny valley; it moves only when you tell it to, and cannot emote.

Spells
1: Reverse Gravity
range 50*dice ft; target area; duration sum minutes
The gravity in a sum*5 foot radius sphere within range now points in a direction of your choice, with strength up to dice times normal gravity. At 3+ dice, you can alter the direction of gravity as you choose, and move the radius of effect at walking pace.

2: Command Construct
range within earshot; target construct; duration dice*sum hours
Your voice automatically forces constructs like golems and clockworks to obey your orders. You can command Warlock level HD*dice worth of constructs at once. Sapient constructs get a save every time you order them.

3: Locate
range anywhere; target one creature or object you can specifically name or describe; duration instant
You learn dice facts about the location of the target; the higher the dice, the more detailed the fact (1 die: "In a city", 2 dice: "In a city in the mountains", 3 dice: "In the noble district in a city in the mountains"; 4 dice "In a private collection in the noble district in a city in the mountains"). Recasting this only changes the information you learn if the target changes location or you cast it at higher dice.

4: Telepathy Web
range 100ft; target sum creatures and self; duration sum minutes
All targets gain a telepathic link and can communicate and read each others' surface thoughts, including detecting lies. At 2+ dice, targets can voluntarily allow other targets to control their bodies. At 3+ dice, you may make Intelligence tests to telepathically override others' actions, or puppet their bodies without their permission.

5: Baleful Augury
range n/a; target n/a; duration instant
Beneath the watchful eye of the Baleful Star, you can ask dice yes or no questions regarding something both you and it can see. It will answer truthfully, though its answers may be incomplete, and are focused on how to neutralize perceived threats.

6: Erase Memory
range touch; target one creature; duration permanent
Erase the last sum (minutes/hours/days/weeks, 1/2/3/4 dice) from the target's memory.

7: Baleful Gaze
range sight; target creatures in vision; duration instant
You glare, and your eyes glow with frigid white light. Creatures you see with sum or fewer HD must save vs. fear. Creatures with dice or fewer HD automatically fail the save vs. fear, and must save vs. sum cold damage.

8: Lightstar
range dice*50ft; target n/a; duration sum minutes
Summon a manifestation of the Baleful Star in the form of a gleaming sphere of pure radiance. It sheds false starlight within a sum*10ft radius. You can move it within range. Anything it touches takes d6 fire damage; if you direct it to hit something that can move, it gets a save.

9: Mending
range touch; target broken object or wounded creature; duration instant
Repair broken mundane item smaller than your arm/a person/a wagon/a house (1/2/3/4 dice), or heal wound of sum or less (consumes 1 of target's hit dice as a rest).

10: Cleanse
range sum*10ft; target area; duration instant
Restore the area within range to pristine condition. Dust clears, mold shrivels away, cracks repair themselves, spills evaporate, and fallen items return to their original positions. At 2 dice, this also lets you remove clutter from existence. At 3 dice, this also lets you improve the quality of items in the space. At 4 dice, you can define pretty much anything you want as clutter, but it gets a save.

11: Summon Secret
range sight; target anything with a secret; duration sum hours
You summon a random fact that has been deliberately concealed about the target. It manifests as a cloud of words hanging in midair. It cannot manipulate things, but it can insert itself into text or minds or speech as if it was originally part of them. At 2+ dice you can specify what kind of secret you want to know, at 3+ dice the secret will be able to ruin the target if revealed.

12: Starlance
range sight of both you and the Baleful Star; target dice*5ft radius; duration instant
A flash of starlight immolates the target. It takes sum+dice fire and cold damage (save for half). Anything that this destroys is reduced to dust, and its essence is recorded by the Star. If you dare ask the Star about what was destroyed, with Baleful Augury or Summon Secret, it can answer with total accuracy.

2 comments:

  1. what's the Debt mechanic? where does that come from?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Check the link to Oblidisideryptch's base Warlock class I put right above the image - that explains the class' Credit and Debt spellcasting feature.

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