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<blockquote data-quote="ElectricDragon" data-source="post: 7885181" data-attributes="member: 10778"><p><strong><span style="font-size: 26px">Personified Divine Power</span></strong></p><p><em>Nethrancor has a tripod of intelligent artifacts he has created that he uses to help create new or more powerful allies. One is detailed elsewhere [Lich’s Crown]. The other two are described below. It is thought that Nethrancor invested a divine rank in each of these devices.</em></p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 22px">Tome of Darkness</span></strong></p><p><em>It wasn't a shadow; it was the shadow of a book. How could that be possible? It had no substance and it was not a trick of the light: even if the light moved, the book-shadow did not. I moved closer to examine it and then the multitude of voices stunned me. Inside my mind, many voices, all calling out to me with vile plans and methods of acquiring the book for myself. The easiest idea revolved around killing my companions and using their moneys to buy a spell that would enable me to travel to the plane of shadows. Without a second thought, I turned and stabbed the priest...</em></p><p></p><p>A dark book seeped in evil and dedicated to shadow by the twin shadowy assassins, Twilight and Dusk. On the material plane this tome appears as nothing more than a slightly darker than normal shadow even in bright light. Extremely close inspection (within 10 feet) allows the curious to see that it is indeed a book lying open and there is an even darker writing in the book. But the book has no substance, it is literally a shadow.</p><p></p><p>Owning the book requires either the use of the <em>ghost touch gloves</em> the recipe of which is found on the page to which the book is always open when found; or the ability to manipulate shadows (like a shadowy assassin) or incorporeal objects.</p><p></p><p>Once ownership is acquired, the spells and rituals become known to the owner without need to reference anything.</p><p><strong>Spell-like abilities:</strong> Standard action to activate any Spell 1/day each, save DCs = 10 + owner’s Charisma modifier + spell level. Possession and the ability to move the book is required to gain the ability to cast the following spells as spell-like abilities. Also each of these spells becomes a known spell without taking up any known spell slots. There is no need to reference any book in order to memorize or cast these spells.</p><p></p><p><em>armor of darkness, blacklight</em>,<em> create bone mage, create greater undead, darkness, dark prayer, deeper darkness, greater shadow conjuration</em>, <em>greater shadow evocation, shades</em>,<em> shadow conjuration</em>,<em> shadow evocation</em>,<em> shadow walk</em>,<em> summon monster V </em>(shadows only).</p><p></p><p>The tome also contains several of Nethrancor’s rituals as listed below.</p><p><strong>Undead Creation Rituals:</strong> <em>Sanctum Wraith, Sealed Shadow</em>, <em>Shadow Spy, </em></p><p></p><p><strong>Magic Item Recipes/Rituals:</strong> <em>ghost table, ghost touch gloves</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Other Ritual: </strong><em>The Hollow Night</em></p><p><strong><u> </u></strong></p><p><strong><u></u></strong></p><p><strong><u></u></strong></p><p><strong><u><span style="font-size: 18px">Tome of Darkness</span></u></strong></p><p><strong>Type:</strong> Small Object</p><p><strong>Wt.:</strong> 0 lbs.</p><p><strong>Hardness:</strong> 23</p><p><strong>Hit Points:</strong> 750</p><p></p><p>As an intelligent item, the <em>Tome of Darkness</em> has the following abilities:</p><p><strong>Alignment: </strong>CE</p><p><strong>Int </strong>10, <strong>Wis</strong> 18, <strong>Cha</strong> 18, <strong>Ego</strong> 32</p><p><strong>Communication:</strong> Telepathy (10-foot range)</p><p><strong>Senses:</strong> Hearing: Listen +14 (10 ranks)</p><p><strong>Skills:</strong> Bluff +14 (10 ranks), Intimidate +14 (10 ranks), Sense Motive +14 (10 ranks)</p><p><strong>Saves:</strong> Fort +12, Ref +12, Will +7</p><p><strong>Object:</strong> The tome is immune to acid, cold, and sonic energy. It takes half damage from fire and lightning. It is not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, energy drain, fatigue, and exhaustion effects. It has immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects. It is immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects). It is incorporeal and gains all the abilities associated with being intangible. It has a magical hardness of 23 that is subtracted from any damage dealt to it. It is totally immune to physical attacks, the only physical item that can affect it is <em>ghost touch gloves </em>described in the book. The tome happily imparts the recipe for making this magic item to anyone that gets within 10 feet of it. The other recipes and the spells only become available when the book is owned.</p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>History:</strong> Under the direct tutelage of Nethrancor, Twilight and Dusk, twin humans, created this tome by first preparing it on the material plane. Starting with the finest illuminated vellum, they used fresh blood from their always full dungeons as ink and penned every shadow-theme spell they knew into the book, as well as the description of every undead creation ritual they knew. Finally, they added several magic item recipes to finish physical preparation of the book. Next, they summoned, bound, and imprisoned 13 shadow demons into the book; each demon successfully imprisoned bringing the book closer to the shadows, until with the 13th shadow demon, the book ceased to be a physical object. Finally, they performed the ritual of the <em>Hollow Night</em> and bound the book to themselves and the shadows by making it into their Shadow Blade, the container for their life forces, through a special <em>Sealed Shadow</em> ritual taught to them by Nethrancor personally.</p><p>A bronze dragon, appropriately named Dawn, killed and ate the twins, destroying them and somehow consuming the tome/Shadow Blade. The tome survived but the life forces it contained did not, so as a shadowy Shadow Blade it did not work properly, unless that was Nethrancor’s plan. Although it has been 10 or so centuries since Twilight and Dusk last plagued our world; it is believed that if the twins ever do come back, it will be through the machinations of this book somehow. Jergoth, a minor sage from the east, claims that Nethrancor misinformed the twins as to what they were actually building and secretly added his deific power to create this dark artifact which prevented it from working as they had hoped.</p><p><strong>Personality: </strong>The intelligence of the book is demonic with all that implies. The book's goals are no less than a direct manifestation of the imprisoned shadow demons: free the shadow demons, thus destroying the book. The gibbering voices of the imprisoned demons fill the minds of anyone in range with multiple methods of "owning" the book, usually centering on killing, maiming, and torture rather than any direct method.</p><p><strong>Powers: </strong>In order to gain the powers bestowed by this book, it is necessary to own it (<em>i.e.</em> have it in your physical possession). There are two obvious ways to do this. Be on the plane of shadows and grab the book or wear a pair of <em>ghost touch gauntlets</em> and grab it. Other ways are also possible. The demons in the book suggest convoluted methods that always involve evil acts, usually murder and theft.</p><p>To the owner, this book telepathically imparts a lot of information: all the rituals and all the magic item recipes become instinctively known without need of reference to anything as long as the book is owned. Loss of ownership of the book removes this information from memory.</p><p>Any spell in the book is considered a known spell for the owner. These spells do not count toward the maximum number of spells known. In addition, the owner can use each spell in the book 1/day as a spell-like ability with a caster level of 15, save DCs 13 + spell level.</p><p><strong>Curse:</strong> 13 days. Each day the owner loses a bit of his substance, becoming dimmer and dimmer until he is literally a shadow of himself and after the 13th day of ownership, the owner dies, has no substance, and is forevermore a lemur bound inside the book (see <em>ghost of the tome </em>below). <em>Wish </em>spells have been known to cure the dimness but only before the fifth day. After that, only the gods can help. Ownership has to change to another person or the curse continues from the cleansing point as if starting over. The imprisoned demons need to collect 1,300 lemurs in order to free themselves. Only the shadow demons themselves know how many more lemurs are needed.</p><p><strong> <u>Suggested Means of Destruction</u></strong></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Free the shadow demons.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">During the Great Conjunction, sacrifice 5 intelligent humanoids with an obsidian knife on a basalt altar when the moon is dark. Using the sacred texts in the book, summon Twilight and Dusk into the body of a sacrificial dragon. The book will then burn to shadowy ashes and flow into the dead dragon as it becomes the embodiment of <em>The Death Father.</em></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Throw it into the sun.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Using a pair of <em>ghost touch gauntlets</em>, carry the tome to the positive material plane. Wander that plane until lost, then discard the book.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Summon a shadow demon and give the book to it.</li> </ul><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Ghost of the Tome</strong></p><p>Those creatures unfortunate enough to own the book for 13 days become lemurs trapped in the book. Once 1300 lemurs are entrapped in the book the shadow demons are released and the book destroyed*. Once 500 are trapped inside the shadowy book, the ghost of the tome can manifest.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Each time there is a personality conflict between the book and its owner, there is a 10% chance the ghost of the tome will manifest as the still silent voice of reason amidst all the clatter of yammering shadow demon voices. The owner will, instead of normal artifact required actions, take one of the steps below in order.</p><p>1. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast <em>blasphemy</em> on the book.</p><p>2. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast <em>chaos hammer</em> on the book.</p><p>3. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast <em>cloak of chaos</em> on the book.</p><p>4. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast <em>word of chaos</em> on the book.</p><p>5. Hire a wizard/sorcerer or a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast <em>wish/miracle</em> on the book mimicking an 8th level darkness spell.</p><p>Once a step has been performed; that action is removed from the list for the owner and all future owners of the book.</p><p>If an owner finishes the fifth step, the <em>Tome of Shadows</em> explodes in a wave of darkness that washes over the world releasing the world from light (only Nethrancor really knows what this means).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ElectricDragon, post: 7885181, member: 10778"] [B][SIZE=7]Personified Divine Power[/SIZE][/B] [I]Nethrancor has a tripod of intelligent artifacts he has created that he uses to help create new or more powerful allies. One is detailed elsewhere [Lich’s Crown]. The other two are described below. It is thought that Nethrancor invested a divine rank in each of these devices.[/I] [B][SIZE=6]Tome of Darkness[/SIZE][/B] [I]It wasn't a shadow; it was the shadow of a book. How could that be possible? It had no substance and it was not a trick of the light: even if the light moved, the book-shadow did not. I moved closer to examine it and then the multitude of voices stunned me. Inside my mind, many voices, all calling out to me with vile plans and methods of acquiring the book for myself. The easiest idea revolved around killing my companions and using their moneys to buy a spell that would enable me to travel to the plane of shadows. Without a second thought, I turned and stabbed the priest...[/I] A dark book seeped in evil and dedicated to shadow by the twin shadowy assassins, Twilight and Dusk. On the material plane this tome appears as nothing more than a slightly darker than normal shadow even in bright light. Extremely close inspection (within 10 feet) allows the curious to see that it is indeed a book lying open and there is an even darker writing in the book. But the book has no substance, it is literally a shadow. Owning the book requires either the use of the [I]ghost touch gloves[/I] the recipe of which is found on the page to which the book is always open when found; or the ability to manipulate shadows (like a shadowy assassin) or incorporeal objects. Once ownership is acquired, the spells and rituals become known to the owner without need to reference anything. [B]Spell-like abilities:[/B] Standard action to activate any Spell 1/day each, save DCs = 10 + owner’s Charisma modifier + spell level. Possession and the ability to move the book is required to gain the ability to cast the following spells as spell-like abilities. Also each of these spells becomes a known spell without taking up any known spell slots. There is no need to reference any book in order to memorize or cast these spells. [I]armor of darkness, blacklight[/I],[I] create bone mage, create greater undead, darkness, dark prayer, deeper darkness, greater shadow conjuration[/I], [I]greater shadow evocation, shades[/I],[I] shadow conjuration[/I],[I] shadow evocation[/I],[I] shadow walk[/I],[I] summon monster V [/I](shadows only). The tome also contains several of Nethrancor’s rituals as listed below. [B]Undead Creation Rituals:[/B] [I]Sanctum Wraith, Sealed Shadow[/I], [I]Shadow Spy, [/I] [B]Magic Item Recipes/Rituals:[/B] [I]ghost table, ghost touch gloves[/I] [B]Other Ritual: [/B][I]The Hollow Night[/I] [B][U] [SIZE=5]Tome of Darkness[/SIZE][/U] Type:[/B] Small Object [B]Wt.:[/B] 0 lbs. [B]Hardness:[/B] 23 [B]Hit Points:[/B] 750 As an intelligent item, the [I]Tome of Darkness[/I] has the following abilities: [B]Alignment: [/B]CE [B]Int [/B]10, [B]Wis[/B] 18, [B]Cha[/B] 18, [B]Ego[/B] 32 [B]Communication:[/B] Telepathy (10-foot range) [B]Senses:[/B] Hearing: Listen +14 (10 ranks) [B]Skills:[/B] Bluff +14 (10 ranks), Intimidate +14 (10 ranks), Sense Motive +14 (10 ranks) [B]Saves:[/B] Fort +12, Ref +12, Will +7 [B]Object:[/B] The tome is immune to acid, cold, and sonic energy. It takes half damage from fire and lightning. It is not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, energy drain, fatigue, and exhaustion effects. It has immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects. It is immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects). It is incorporeal and gains all the abilities associated with being intangible. It has a magical hardness of 23 that is subtracted from any damage dealt to it. It is totally immune to physical attacks, the only physical item that can affect it is [I]ghost touch gloves [/I]described in the book. The tome happily imparts the recipe for making this magic item to anyone that gets within 10 feet of it. The other recipes and the spells only become available when the book is owned. [B]History:[/B] Under the direct tutelage of Nethrancor, Twilight and Dusk, twin humans, created this tome by first preparing it on the material plane. Starting with the finest illuminated vellum, they used fresh blood from their always full dungeons as ink and penned every shadow-theme spell they knew into the book, as well as the description of every undead creation ritual they knew. Finally, they added several magic item recipes to finish physical preparation of the book. Next, they summoned, bound, and imprisoned 13 shadow demons into the book; each demon successfully imprisoned bringing the book closer to the shadows, until with the 13th shadow demon, the book ceased to be a physical object. Finally, they performed the ritual of the [I]Hollow Night[/I] and bound the book to themselves and the shadows by making it into their Shadow Blade, the container for their life forces, through a special [I]Sealed Shadow[/I] ritual taught to them by Nethrancor personally. A bronze dragon, appropriately named Dawn, killed and ate the twins, destroying them and somehow consuming the tome/Shadow Blade. The tome survived but the life forces it contained did not, so as a shadowy Shadow Blade it did not work properly, unless that was Nethrancor’s plan. Although it has been 10 or so centuries since Twilight and Dusk last plagued our world; it is believed that if the twins ever do come back, it will be through the machinations of this book somehow. Jergoth, a minor sage from the east, claims that Nethrancor misinformed the twins as to what they were actually building and secretly added his deific power to create this dark artifact which prevented it from working as they had hoped. [B]Personality: [/B]The intelligence of the book is demonic with all that implies. The book's goals are no less than a direct manifestation of the imprisoned shadow demons: free the shadow demons, thus destroying the book. The gibbering voices of the imprisoned demons fill the minds of anyone in range with multiple methods of "owning" the book, usually centering on killing, maiming, and torture rather than any direct method. [B]Powers: [/B]In order to gain the powers bestowed by this book, it is necessary to own it ([I]i.e.[/I] have it in your physical possession). There are two obvious ways to do this. Be on the plane of shadows and grab the book or wear a pair of [I]ghost touch gauntlets[/I] and grab it. Other ways are also possible. The demons in the book suggest convoluted methods that always involve evil acts, usually murder and theft. To the owner, this book telepathically imparts a lot of information: all the rituals and all the magic item recipes become instinctively known without need of reference to anything as long as the book is owned. Loss of ownership of the book removes this information from memory. Any spell in the book is considered a known spell for the owner. These spells do not count toward the maximum number of spells known. In addition, the owner can use each spell in the book 1/day as a spell-like ability with a caster level of 15, save DCs 13 + spell level. [B]Curse:[/B] 13 days. Each day the owner loses a bit of his substance, becoming dimmer and dimmer until he is literally a shadow of himself and after the 13th day of ownership, the owner dies, has no substance, and is forevermore a lemur bound inside the book (see [I]ghost of the tome [/I]below). [I]Wish [/I]spells have been known to cure the dimness but only before the fifth day. After that, only the gods can help. Ownership has to change to another person or the curse continues from the cleansing point as if starting over. The imprisoned demons need to collect 1,300 lemurs in order to free themselves. Only the shadow demons themselves know how many more lemurs are needed. [B] [U]Suggested Means of Destruction[/U][/B] [LIST] [*]Free the shadow demons. [*]During the Great Conjunction, sacrifice 5 intelligent humanoids with an obsidian knife on a basalt altar when the moon is dark. Using the sacred texts in the book, summon Twilight and Dusk into the body of a sacrificial dragon. The book will then burn to shadowy ashes and flow into the dead dragon as it becomes the embodiment of [I]The Death Father.[/I] [*]Throw it into the sun. [*]Using a pair of [I]ghost touch gauntlets[/I], carry the tome to the positive material plane. Wander that plane until lost, then discard the book. [*]Summon a shadow demon and give the book to it. [/LIST] [B] Ghost of the Tome[/B] Those creatures unfortunate enough to own the book for 13 days become lemurs trapped in the book. Once 1300 lemurs are entrapped in the book the shadow demons are released and the book destroyed*. Once 500 are trapped inside the shadowy book, the ghost of the tome can manifest. Each time there is a personality conflict between the book and its owner, there is a 10% chance the ghost of the tome will manifest as the still silent voice of reason amidst all the clatter of yammering shadow demon voices. The owner will, instead of normal artifact required actions, take one of the steps below in order. 1. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast [I]blasphemy[/I] on the book. 2. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast [I]chaos hammer[/I] on the book. 3. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast [I]cloak of chaos[/I] on the book. 4. Hire a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast [I]word of chaos[/I] on the book. 5. Hire a wizard/sorcerer or a cleric (or do it yourself) to cast [I]wish/miracle[/I] on the book mimicking an 8th level darkness spell. Once a step has been performed; that action is removed from the list for the owner and all future owners of the book. If an owner finishes the fifth step, the [I]Tome of Shadows[/I] explodes in a wave of darkness that washes over the world releasing the world from light (only Nethrancor really knows what this means). [/QUOTE]
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