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<blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 5223132" data-attributes="member: 29746"><p><strong>The Fated Emissary</strong></p><p></p><p>The last First One to provide the PCs with a Seed- as with Entropy and Matter, in fact a full Shard- was Fate. The PCs traveled to her cosmos, arriving in the 4th Edition "section" when their spell disgorged them, a fact they swiftly corrected by tearing open a planar hole into the Shadowfell and heading for friendlier (read: 3.5 edition) territory. Eventually they arrived in a cosmos that looked reasonably familiar, and there began the quest to find Fate.</p><p></p><p>In this version of the cosmos, I decided that the "flip side" of the Outlands would be called Fantastica, and the manifestation of Fate ruled it- and from it the rest of the multiverse (and in fact the entire cosmos) as the Childlike Empress. Yes, I used <em>The Neverending Story</em> to inform my game here- and eventually the PCs did their part by finding Fate and giving her what the story required of them. After they did this, they had a long and frank conversation with the First One, and she revealed to them several things they hadn't previously considered- for example, why the Demiurge was so nasty, what it was missing, how things could have gone differently for them on this long quest of theirs to gather Seeds of the First Ones- things like that. And in the end, the Goddess of Diplomacy- the last un-Seeded PC in the party- asked Fate for a piece of herself similar to that which had been given to Moiranna and the Goddess of Catastrophe.</p><p></p><p>Fate answered by giving her new Seed-carrier the amulet of wishes, the AURYN, and told her to make three wishes using it. The idea here was that I would use the PC's Wishes to influence the template that she eventually got- you'll get an idea of what I had in mind when I give the full details. But in the end, she wished for: (1) "good luck on all of the beings in this realm that helped me along in my story;" (2) "for [the PCs' homeworld]'s safety should the Demiurge awaken;" and (3) "for the safety of [the homeworld]'s inhabitants, should the Demiurge awaken." The PCs ended up in empty Astral space, with the AURYN gone from about the character's neck, but still she could feel it somehow with- perhaps within- herself.</p><p></p><p>And so we come to the Fated Emissary- the one template of this type that I didn't give an appearance change to- because I honestly couldn't think of one that fit. Her new power was internal, only visible when she wanted it to be- subtle and working in the background much like the First One herself (and not incidentally, the character who got the template as well; she had many levels in Void Incarnate by the time she arrived in Fate's cosmos).</p><p></p><p><strong>Creating a Fated Emissary</strong></p><p></p><p>"Fated Emissary" is an acquired template that can be applied to any deity with at least 100 hit dice and 4 Divine Ranks, and which has a CHA score of at least 70. It uses all of the deity's abilities and statistics, except as noted below.</p><p></p><p><strong>Hit Dice:</strong> The deity does not gain any extra HD, but its hit dice change to d100s for all current and future hit dice. The deity continues to gain maximum hit points per hit die, as standard for its Divine Rank.</p><p><strong>Speed:</strong> The deity's speed values do not change further.</p><p><strong>AC:</strong> The Fated Emissary continues to have a deflection bonus to AC equal to its CHA bonus (minimum +1), and natural armor equal to ¼ its total hit dice, but also gains a luck bonus to AC equal to its CHA bonus.</p><p><strong>Attack:</strong> The Fated Emissary gains a +24 luck bonus on all attack rolls.</p><p><strong>Damage:</strong> All attacks made by the Fated Emissary, whether natural attacks or by weapon, gain a +24 luck bonus to damage. This even applies to spells which deal hit point damage, and the bonus applies to each target of any such spell the deity uses (for example, a <em>Magic Missile</em> spell would deal an extra 24 points of damage to each target, whether or not any target was hit with more than one missile, while a <em>Fireball</em> would simply deal an extra 24 points of damage to creatures in its area before Reflex saves are rolled). Finally, all of the Fated Emissary's natural attack forms (if it has any) are treated as Epic for the purposes of overcoming Damage Reduction. [side note: in campaigns which feature a "Balance" weapon property that acts like Anarchic/Axiomatic/Holy/Unholy but for Neutral alignment, the Fated Emissary should also count as Balanced.]</p><p><strong>Special Attacks:</strong> A Fated Emissary retains all special attacks it had before, and gains the following:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Lucky Spellstrike (Ex):</u></em> The Fated Emissary gains a +24 luck bonus on all checks against Spell Resistance.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Spell-Like Ability:</u></em> At will- <em>Quickened Limited Wish</em>. Since this is a spell-like ability, the deity does not have to pay XP to use it under normal circumstances, though some special situations (such as healing Permanent damage) still require paying the XP cost. The character is even able to wish for greater effects than a basic <em>Limited Wish</em> can produce, unlike the standard spell allows, but doing so is dangerous: it allows the intent and wording to be perverted just as a full <em>Wish</em> can be when the caster goes beyond the standard bounds.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Vexing Wrath (Su):</u></em> The deity's gaze can curse his or her enemies, bestowing a luck penalty on all such creatures within Close range (25 feet + 5 feet per 2 HD of the deity). Each round this ability is active, all potential targets of this Wrath make Will saves (DC 44 + the deity's CHA bonus + the deity's Divine Rank) to avoid the bad luck for that round, but once one save fails, the others will tend to fail also, thanks to the penalty. The Fated Emissary can activate this ability with a full-round action, but it can be deactivated with a free action. [Side note: This template was always going to have Vexing as its [Effect]'s "damage type," but I used the player's wishes to inform which [Effect] <strong>type</strong> was granted. In this case, because she wished for the safety of the world and its inhabitants, I decided that she meant to "watch out" for them- and therefore used the Gaze. Lame pun, but true story.]</li> </ul><p><strong>Special Qualities:</strong> A Fated Emissary retains all special qualities it had before, and gains the following:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Damage Reduction (Ex):</u></em> The Fated Emissary gains Damage Reduction 50/Epic and Cursed. A weapon must be both Epic and Cursed (that is, the weapon must have a "bonus" of -6 or lower) to penetrate the Fated Emissary's DR. If the deity already had existing DR of the "/Epic and Cursed" type, then that DR is increased by 50 instead. [Side note: This DR type was already used for the Entropic Shard, but given that Fate is supposed to be Luck, this DR type just fit too well to be ignored here.]</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Divine Presence (Heavenly Soul) (Ex):</u></em> The Fated Emissary grants the Heavenly Soul Divine Ability to all allies within his or her Divine Aura. This grants them a luck bonus on all saving throws equal to their CHA modifier, or the Fated Emissary's CHA modifier, whichever is greater. [Side note: the real ability in Ascension doesn't allow substitution of the greater modifier like this, but I decided that since this was a Cosmic Ability and was supposed to be granting luck to all the deity's allies, it made sense to allow it in this case. This ability was the result of the wish to grant luck to all those who had helped her- it immediately and obviously pointed to Divine Presence granting some luck-helping ability.]</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Fateful Senses (Ex):</u></em> All of the deity's senses expand to 10 times their base range.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Inner Eye (Ex):</u></em> The Fated Emissary always uses the best die roll in any given situation, rather than rolling the dice normally. However, when using this ability, the character no longer benefits from natural 20s as automatic successes- if a 20 plus the character's modifier does not succeed, then the "roll" still fails. [Side note: this was obviously the "chase ability," and furthermore one I intended to grant this template regardless of what the wishes made using AURYN might be. It was far too obvious not to add.]</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Sonic Absorption (Ex):</u></em> The Fated Emissary gains Sonic Absorption 500. The first 500 points of Sonic damage that hit the deity in a given round heal it instead of hurting it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em><u>Spell Reflection (Ex):</u></em> The Fated Emissary gains SR equal to 34 + its hit dice. Furthermore, all spells used against the deity and which fail this check are reflected back at the caster, if the Fated Emissary was the only target. If the Fated Emissary was only one of several targets, then only the portion of the effect which targeted the Fated Emissary is reflected back on the caster. In either case, the Fated Emissary is unaffected by the reflected spell, just as with normal Spell Resistance.</li> </ul><p><strong>Saves:</strong> The Fated Emissary gains a +24 luck bonus to all saves.</p><p><strong>Abilities:</strong> Change as follows: STR +36, DEX +72, CON +36, INT +36, WIS +36, CHA +72.</p><p><strong>Skills:</strong> The Fated Emissary gains both Maven and Omnicompetent, if it did not already have them; all skills are raised to their maximum possible ranks by hit dice. Furthermore, the deity gains a +24 luck bonus on all skills.</p><p></p><p><strong>Challenge Rating:</strong> Same as the deity +53.</p><p><strong>Level Adjustment:</strong> Same as the deity's Level Adjustment +80.</p><p><strong>Alignment:</strong> The Fated Emissary's alignment acquires a Neutral component, if it did not previously have one. The decision of whether the Law/Chaos axis balances, or the Good/Evil one, is up to the DM, but usually the Law/Chaos axis shifts in such cases. A deity whose alignment already included a Neutral component does not change alignment from acquiring this template.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That alignment change was something I threw in later, after the game was over in fact, just because it seemed appropriate- the character who got this template was Neutral Good, so it wouldn't have hit her anyway, and of course the game was over by then so it's not like it was going to affect anything.</p><p></p><p>The Spell-Like Ability granted by the template was also a change from the rest, in that the others all have enhanced 9th-level spells, but this one is only 7th: this is because (A) the only spells which fit the theme of Fate were all <em>Wish</em>-type effects with XP costs, and (B) granting the 9th-level version- effectively granting infinite <em>Wishes</em>- has a special name in Ascension, that being Alter reality. And since this template was already getting Inner Eye, it was <strong>not about</strong> to get Alter Reality too! Besides those two reasons, the fact that the template was really supposed to be (in some sense) carrying the AURYN inside the character's inner being, even without having the amulet itself, granting some sort of <em>Wish</em> SLA was highly appropriate. So, <em>Limited Wish</em> it had to be.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="paradox42, post: 5223132, member: 29746"] [b]The Fated Emissary[/b] The last First One to provide the PCs with a Seed- as with Entropy and Matter, in fact a full Shard- was Fate. The PCs traveled to her cosmos, arriving in the 4th Edition "section" when their spell disgorged them, a fact they swiftly corrected by tearing open a planar hole into the Shadowfell and heading for friendlier (read: 3.5 edition) territory. Eventually they arrived in a cosmos that looked reasonably familiar, and there began the quest to find Fate. In this version of the cosmos, I decided that the "flip side" of the Outlands would be called Fantastica, and the manifestation of Fate ruled it- and from it the rest of the multiverse (and in fact the entire cosmos) as the Childlike Empress. Yes, I used [I]The Neverending Story[/I] to inform my game here- and eventually the PCs did their part by finding Fate and giving her what the story required of them. After they did this, they had a long and frank conversation with the First One, and she revealed to them several things they hadn't previously considered- for example, why the Demiurge was so nasty, what it was missing, how things could have gone differently for them on this long quest of theirs to gather Seeds of the First Ones- things like that. And in the end, the Goddess of Diplomacy- the last un-Seeded PC in the party- asked Fate for a piece of herself similar to that which had been given to Moiranna and the Goddess of Catastrophe. Fate answered by giving her new Seed-carrier the amulet of wishes, the AURYN, and told her to make three wishes using it. The idea here was that I would use the PC's Wishes to influence the template that she eventually got- you'll get an idea of what I had in mind when I give the full details. But in the end, she wished for: (1) "good luck on all of the beings in this realm that helped me along in my story;" (2) "for [the PCs' homeworld]'s safety should the Demiurge awaken;" and (3) "for the safety of [the homeworld]'s inhabitants, should the Demiurge awaken." The PCs ended up in empty Astral space, with the AURYN gone from about the character's neck, but still she could feel it somehow with- perhaps within- herself. And so we come to the Fated Emissary- the one template of this type that I didn't give an appearance change to- because I honestly couldn't think of one that fit. Her new power was internal, only visible when she wanted it to be- subtle and working in the background much like the First One herself (and not incidentally, the character who got the template as well; she had many levels in Void Incarnate by the time she arrived in Fate's cosmos). [B]Creating a Fated Emissary[/B] "Fated Emissary" is an acquired template that can be applied to any deity with at least 100 hit dice and 4 Divine Ranks, and which has a CHA score of at least 70. It uses all of the deity's abilities and statistics, except as noted below. [B]Hit Dice:[/B] The deity does not gain any extra HD, but its hit dice change to d100s for all current and future hit dice. The deity continues to gain maximum hit points per hit die, as standard for its Divine Rank. [B]Speed:[/B] The deity's speed values do not change further. [B]AC:[/B] The Fated Emissary continues to have a deflection bonus to AC equal to its CHA bonus (minimum +1), and natural armor equal to ¼ its total hit dice, but also gains a luck bonus to AC equal to its CHA bonus. [B]Attack:[/B] The Fated Emissary gains a +24 luck bonus on all attack rolls. [B]Damage:[/B] All attacks made by the Fated Emissary, whether natural attacks or by weapon, gain a +24 luck bonus to damage. This even applies to spells which deal hit point damage, and the bonus applies to each target of any such spell the deity uses (for example, a [I]Magic Missile[/I] spell would deal an extra 24 points of damage to each target, whether or not any target was hit with more than one missile, while a [I]Fireball[/I] would simply deal an extra 24 points of damage to creatures in its area before Reflex saves are rolled). Finally, all of the Fated Emissary's natural attack forms (if it has any) are treated as Epic for the purposes of overcoming Damage Reduction. [side note: in campaigns which feature a "Balance" weapon property that acts like Anarchic/Axiomatic/Holy/Unholy but for Neutral alignment, the Fated Emissary should also count as Balanced.] [B]Special Attacks:[/B] A Fated Emissary retains all special attacks it had before, and gains the following: [LIST] [*][I][U]Lucky Spellstrike (Ex):[/U][/I] The Fated Emissary gains a +24 luck bonus on all checks against Spell Resistance. [*][I][U]Spell-Like Ability:[/U][/I] At will- [I]Quickened Limited Wish[/I]. Since this is a spell-like ability, the deity does not have to pay XP to use it under normal circumstances, though some special situations (such as healing Permanent damage) still require paying the XP cost. The character is even able to wish for greater effects than a basic [I]Limited Wish[/I] can produce, unlike the standard spell allows, but doing so is dangerous: it allows the intent and wording to be perverted just as a full [I]Wish[/I] can be when the caster goes beyond the standard bounds. [*][I][U]Vexing Wrath (Su):[/U][/I] The deity's gaze can curse his or her enemies, bestowing a luck penalty on all such creatures within Close range (25 feet + 5 feet per 2 HD of the deity). Each round this ability is active, all potential targets of this Wrath make Will saves (DC 44 + the deity's CHA bonus + the deity's Divine Rank) to avoid the bad luck for that round, but once one save fails, the others will tend to fail also, thanks to the penalty. The Fated Emissary can activate this ability with a full-round action, but it can be deactivated with a free action. [Side note: This template was always going to have Vexing as its [Effect]'s "damage type," but I used the player's wishes to inform which [Effect] [B]type[/B] was granted. In this case, because she wished for the safety of the world and its inhabitants, I decided that she meant to "watch out" for them- and therefore used the Gaze. Lame pun, but true story.] [/LIST] [B]Special Qualities:[/B] A Fated Emissary retains all special qualities it had before, and gains the following: [LIST] [*][I][U]Damage Reduction (Ex):[/U][/I] The Fated Emissary gains Damage Reduction 50/Epic and Cursed. A weapon must be both Epic and Cursed (that is, the weapon must have a "bonus" of -6 or lower) to penetrate the Fated Emissary's DR. If the deity already had existing DR of the "/Epic and Cursed" type, then that DR is increased by 50 instead. [Side note: This DR type was already used for the Entropic Shard, but given that Fate is supposed to be Luck, this DR type just fit too well to be ignored here.] [*][I][U]Divine Presence (Heavenly Soul) (Ex):[/U][/I] The Fated Emissary grants the Heavenly Soul Divine Ability to all allies within his or her Divine Aura. This grants them a luck bonus on all saving throws equal to their CHA modifier, or the Fated Emissary's CHA modifier, whichever is greater. [Side note: the real ability in Ascension doesn't allow substitution of the greater modifier like this, but I decided that since this was a Cosmic Ability and was supposed to be granting luck to all the deity's allies, it made sense to allow it in this case. This ability was the result of the wish to grant luck to all those who had helped her- it immediately and obviously pointed to Divine Presence granting some luck-helping ability.] [*][I][U]Fateful Senses (Ex):[/U][/I] All of the deity's senses expand to 10 times their base range. [*][I][U]Inner Eye (Ex):[/U][/I] The Fated Emissary always uses the best die roll in any given situation, rather than rolling the dice normally. However, when using this ability, the character no longer benefits from natural 20s as automatic successes- if a 20 plus the character's modifier does not succeed, then the "roll" still fails. [Side note: this was obviously the "chase ability," and furthermore one I intended to grant this template regardless of what the wishes made using AURYN might be. It was far too obvious not to add.] [*][I][U]Sonic Absorption (Ex):[/U][/I] The Fated Emissary gains Sonic Absorption 500. The first 500 points of Sonic damage that hit the deity in a given round heal it instead of hurting it. [*][I][U]Spell Reflection (Ex):[/U][/I] The Fated Emissary gains SR equal to 34 + its hit dice. Furthermore, all spells used against the deity and which fail this check are reflected back at the caster, if the Fated Emissary was the only target. If the Fated Emissary was only one of several targets, then only the portion of the effect which targeted the Fated Emissary is reflected back on the caster. In either case, the Fated Emissary is unaffected by the reflected spell, just as with normal Spell Resistance. [/LIST] [B]Saves:[/B] The Fated Emissary gains a +24 luck bonus to all saves. [B]Abilities:[/B] Change as follows: STR +36, DEX +72, CON +36, INT +36, WIS +36, CHA +72. [B]Skills:[/B] The Fated Emissary gains both Maven and Omnicompetent, if it did not already have them; all skills are raised to their maximum possible ranks by hit dice. Furthermore, the deity gains a +24 luck bonus on all skills. [B]Challenge Rating:[/B] Same as the deity +53. [B]Level Adjustment:[/B] Same as the deity's Level Adjustment +80. [B]Alignment:[/B] The Fated Emissary's alignment acquires a Neutral component, if it did not previously have one. The decision of whether the Law/Chaos axis balances, or the Good/Evil one, is up to the DM, but usually the Law/Chaos axis shifts in such cases. A deity whose alignment already included a Neutral component does not change alignment from acquiring this template. That alignment change was something I threw in later, after the game was over in fact, just because it seemed appropriate- the character who got this template was Neutral Good, so it wouldn't have hit her anyway, and of course the game was over by then so it's not like it was going to affect anything. The Spell-Like Ability granted by the template was also a change from the rest, in that the others all have enhanced 9th-level spells, but this one is only 7th: this is because (A) the only spells which fit the theme of Fate were all [I]Wish[/I]-type effects with XP costs, and (B) granting the 9th-level version- effectively granting infinite [I]Wishes[/I]- has a special name in Ascension, that being Alter reality. And since this template was already getting Inner Eye, it was [B]not about[/B] to get Alter Reality too! Besides those two reasons, the fact that the template was really supposed to be (in some sense) carrying the AURYN inside the character's inner being, even without having the amulet itself, granting some sort of [I]Wish[/I] SLA was highly appropriate. So, [I]Limited Wish[/I] it had to be. [/QUOTE]
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