Author Topic: Arcane Fortes  (Read 940 times)

Offline Stratovarius

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Arcane Fortes
« on: April 24, 2018, 01:26:20 PM »
    Arcane Fortes
    Each area of Arhosa specializes in certain forms or techniques of magic, techniques that they are more than willing to share with the properly skilled individual. Through study and skill, the Arcanist has learned how to adapt those teachings and techniques to their own needs and style of seedcasting. In order to select a particular forte, he must know the seed or seeds listed under prerequisites.

    • Repeating Magic: The people of the Biyan region are a specialized culture. Each boy, at a young age, is tested and slotted into an appropriate discipline, and thence trained for a decade and a half before he is allowed to perform and become an adult. This applies equally to the study of magic, where those few who show magical apptitude are further subdivided, each studying a single small area of the totality of magic. The apprentices practice that one area until they have perfected the art, and there are vicious duels between various factions, each supporting their own area of magic as the perfect expression.
      • Prerequisites: None
      • Effect 1: Whenever the arcanist targets a creature (or creatures) with the same spell seed twice in a row, he increases the DC by +1 for the second casting. For every additional spell cast from the same seed in a row on the same creature the DC increases by a further +1 (+1 for the first, +2 for the second, and so on).  As soon as the arcanist uses a different spell seed or targets different creatures, the chain is broken and resets to zero.
      • Effect 2: Once per day, the arcanist may use the same seed a second time in the same round as a swift action. This still counts as a use of the seed, and may be used to trigger Effect 1.
    • Distant and Imperfect: Far from the madding crowd and pathetic, squirming civilizations that profess to master magic, the Enayinbo remained quiet and still. Travelling hither and yon amidst their peoples through teleporation that came to them as easily as breathing, they remained free and imperturbable, for as they had mastered teleportation, so had they mastered the arts of magical combat. That mastery they expended in duels amongst themselves, looking inward until they all but collapsed under their own weight.
      • Prerequisites: Magic Rent Asunder
      • Effect 1: Whenever the arcanist succeeds at a dispel check, he may move away from the target of his dispel as a free action up to a maximum distance of 40'.
      • Effect 2: Exquisite mastery of magical combat has given those who have studied the arts of the Enayinbo an edge in combat against their peers. They receive a +2 bonus to dispel checks, and increase the DC for others to dispel their spells by the same amount.
    • The Thorns that Bleed: The Ferthyr long believed that to know, the person wishing to know must suffer for their art. Be it in the form of flagellation, self-denial, or even outside loss, suffering became a core to their society, such that they incorporated it into all of their magical artefacts and casting.
      • Prerequisites: Any Damage seed
      • Effect 1: While suffering for their art was long a stated goal of their society, it was a suffering of the wounded's choosing, and they warded themselves against those who would have intruded upon them. Whenever the a damage seed is used to create a spell with retributive targeting, reduce the spell point cost by 2. This cannot reduce it below 1.
      • Effect 2: It is in the licking flames of perdition that the Ferthyr found their greatest comfort, and so it is now with the arcanist, too. Whenever struck in combat, the arcanist is affected by a damage seed of his choice with retributive targeting until the end of the round, with a total number of spell points equal to one third the damage dealt or his caster level, whichever is lower.
    • That Which Comes Between Us: Brilliant yet eccentric, the Liara used their magical talents to create tools that would ease their daily tasks. Lawns were watered, silent servants kept the housing spotless, and magical beasts patrolled the land and town, keeping all those within the bounds unharmed. Freed of responsibility, the Liara danced and partied, their lives bathed in an endless ether of pleasure. Yet at the end of all things, they are gone, for even the mages who maintained the spells were swept up and away, and the defenses crumbled. The Liara sang as their civilization burned.
      • Prerequisites: Any summoning seed
      • Effect 1: A master of magical servants and magical combatants, the Liara bequeath that knowledge to you. Treat all creatures the arcanist summons as if he had the Augment Summoning feat.
      • Effect 2: Late in their decadence, it was seen as poor form to even walk about the city. Whenever a arcanist uses a summoning seed to summon a mount (i.e., any creature of a size to allow the arcanist as a rider), he may choose to have the mount lose all natural attacks, and special qualities that deal damage or have otherwise offensive effects. If he does so, it lasts for one hour per spell point expended instead of its normal duration, and the arcanist gains a +20 bonus to Ride checks made to ride the mount.
    • Swirling Grotesques: History has long taken those things that cannot be seen, and twisted and warped them until they became a source of fright and of fear for those whose imaginations ran rampant. There are few things more terrifying than seeing what was feared step out of the mists of the dreamworld and stand bold and clear, the light of day stripping away the pretenses and shadows surrounding the non-existence.
      • Prerequisites: Phantasmagoria, Terror's Face
      • Effect 1: Imbued with an aura of fright, the vision before steps forth and the children scatter, adults soon to follow. Whenever Terror's Face is combined with Phantasmagoria, the save DC against the fear effect from Terror's Face is increased by 1.
      • Effect 2: The mind cannot comprehend all things, and that is a weakness easily exploited. Whenever Phantasmagoria is used, if the targeted creature dies, the arcanist can cast a spell using Terror's Face upon a single target as a free action.
    • The Wide But Shallow Sea: Each element is held in high regard by the Hegwyd, and it is to all of them that they pray, and from those precious elements that they draw their life and energies. Now, though, they lay at the bottom of a great sea, their land swept under as the shores burst and the water rose.
      • Prerequisites: Shocking Sting or Rolling Thunder, Rolling Mists
      • Effect 1: Oceanic weather sweeps away the defenses of those caught within. Enemies struck by a spell from Rolling Mists and and Shocking Sting or Rolling Thunder take extra one point of damage per spell point expended on the spell.
      • Effect 2: The Hegwyd knew and loved the elements of the sea. Whenever the arcanist uses Shocking Sting or Rolling Thunder, rather than roll for damage, he may choose to do two points each of electricity and sonic damage for each d6 of damage he would normally do.
    • Shadowed Brilliance: Darkness follows light, as easily as as death follows life. They are equal and yet separate, sections of the same whole. Magic has long sought to combine the two into a single, solid, whole.
      • Prerequisites: Blackest Pit, Solar Glare
      • Effect 1: The Cysgodi were one such race, born with their women averse to the sun, and their men to the dark. Meeting only at the middle, there were a few brief moments of joy each day. If the arcanist blinds a creature using Solar Glare, he may cast a spell of equal or lesser spell point cost from Blackest Pit as a swift action, once per encounter.
      • Effect 2: The warmth of the sun makes the darkness of the shadow that much sharper, that much more clear to those who know how to look. Any spell the arcanist casts using Blackest Pit is unaffected by Light spells, including his own Solar Glare spells.
    • Gifts of Alteration: Few things offer a wizard more delight than to twist the designs of one spell into that of another. The Tro Ar Fyd have long studied the essence of magic, and what divides the conjuration of ice from the invocation of fire. They did, perhaps, discover the root of magic, but as their civilzation was lost within years of finding that result, it was quickly assumed that those who hunted for it hunted in vain.
      • Prerequisites: Mirrors and Chimeras, Ascending Sovereignty
      • Effect 1: To be acknowleged a full adult amongst the Tro Ar Fyd, one had to show the ability to perform two separate acts with the same spell at the same time. If the arcanist shapes a spell using at least two targeting or meta-targeting options, the spell point cost is reduced by one for each option chosen.
      • Effect 2: The Tro Ar Fyd expressed themselves in the artful creation of strange and magical sculptures, held together not by wood or stone, but by ethereal bonds and astral strings. All spells using Mirrors and Chimeras have one additional figment.
    • Earth and Sky: The Hanian civilization was one of the first to discover the magic needed to make lands flow and form, lifting the mountain tops from the hoary peaks and turning them into the first flying landmasses. Each was enmeshed in the gale that kept it airborne and stable, but one by one, these failed as the patterns of the world changed, and the great stones fell from the sky, leaving behind little but forgotten hills and tiny islands as markers of what once was.
      • Prerequisites: Winged Feet, Abode Instantaneous
      • Effect 1: A mastery of flight is the mark of the a properly trained Hanian mage. Whenever the arcanist casts a spell that uses only Winged Feet, double the duration of the spell.
      • Effect 2: Investing the talents of the Hanians into the landscape, the arcanist can create his own small flying structure, the equivalent of a two-story tower, by spending 9 spell points as a standard action. It flies at a speed of 30ft. per round with poor maneuverability, and requires the expenditure of 9 spell points every hour to maintain and move it. The arcanist can direct its movement mentally as a free action.
    • Forms of Fantastical Eye: To change. To become other than one's self. That was the goal of the Cyfnewid, a people of such subtle and shifting form that no two ever looked alike. Each took to himself his own, unique, identity, as separate from one another as a bird in the sky is from a bush in a swamp. Eventually, each began to change and differ so much, that the race was not able to create enough children, and it ceased to exist.
      • Prerequisites: Any one metamorphosis seed
      • Effect 1: Seen by many, only rumours of their existence penetrated the knowledge of the utmost of scholars, for the forms of the Cyfnewid kept them well hidden, yet strong. By making a Knowledge (Arcana) check equal to 10 + two times the HD of a target creature while casting a spell from the appropriate metamorphosis seed, the arcanist gains the feats of the copied creature.
      • Effect 2: Able to change their form on a whim, the Cyfnewid never stayed in one form for too long. As an immediate action, the arcanist can cast any metamorphosis seed on himself and only himself.
    « Last Edit: April 24, 2018, 11:50:14 PM by Stratovarius »