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Oa, E-Po, and The Artificer Priests

December 21, 2019 /

Non-fever Dreaming Miércoles

I woke up Wednesday morning dreaming about the Eye of the Needle, an airship based setting I sketched out some time ago. I'm positive that this happened because I was reading the Unearthed Arcana named Ships and the Sea. I had been thinking in my little bit of spare time about reverse engineering the ships to create a process for building custom ships.

Before talking about the Artificer Priests, it's important to read the post linked above. If you don't have time, the key piece of information is that the airships can travel through the needle back and forth for several days in a row with plenty of reserve engine power. Unfortunately, they can only travel 20 miles, a hard limit, from the needle once they exit. Any attempt to surpass that limit fails with the ship gently coming to rest exactly 20 miles from the nearest edge of the needle.

The Artificers

The engines that power the ships traveling through the needle seem semi-intelligent with an ability to avoid collision with other similar ships. Both the ships will drop into a much slower speed until the threat of collision is gone. The engines themselves have a similar barrel shape with no obvious means to propel the ship. There are no visible controls on the engine, yet turning, pulling, and pushing the ships' wheel directs the ship effortlessly.

The folx that make these engines have a religious devotion to the creation of the engines. They are happy to share how the engines are created, but no one has been able to push through the dense religious tomes and iconography to understand the process. The information about how they came to the knowledge of engine creation is provided below. The source comes from their own writings.

Oa Worship

In the side of hill a day's journey away from the city, lies the Temple of Oa, the Creator, the Originator of Breath, and source of the divine language. The Artifice Priests have journeyed daily to this temple to perform sacred rituals and take holy sacraments since the needle was discovered and the city built around it. At that time, however, they did not call it The Needle, instead calling it the Endless Chasm.

Oa was discovered by the first pilgrims, but she spoke in an unknown tongue. As pilgrims and priests listened, she revealed wonders and miracles in visions and later written books. All in a language neither recognized nor understood.

The thousands of E-Po were discovered soon after. Each egg shaped object lay motionless and spoke the language as Oa when approached. Inside the eggs were more tomes and treasurers, all beyond understanding. Oa was vast, but the E-Po were small by comparison, about the size of three people.

The First High Priest

The woman that became the first High Priest listened for years. She listened to the pilgrims' ignored questions and to the comforting, but alien voice of Oa.

She decided one day to tell Oa the history of her people before they moved to the Endless Chasm. She told the old stories and described the basics of how people survived. She talked about her culture and the lands of others that lived far away. She wasn't sure why she made this decision, but she continued for weeks and months. Every day, for a couple of hours, she told Oa about her life, her people, and her understanding of the world around her.

One day, Oa asked her a question in the young woman's language. Oa's questions became discernable and her answers to questions were pieced together. Oa taught the pilgrims her language and the written language in all the books.

The First Artificer

As Oa and her followers began to understand each other, a pilgrim asked about the the Endless Chasm was. Oa answered that it was a trade route to a city that lay on the other end. She described it as a tunnel, but it was she that named it The Needle. She described a large, egg-shaped rock in the middle that she called The Eye.

An older pilgrim asked how she could travel to that city.

She created the first airship to travel the Needle. She learned from Oa the secret of using one of the thousands of E-Po to create a magic engine to push the ship through the Needle before coming out the other side to that city.

The Master Artificer

When the Master Artificer was a young student, he asked The Question. E-Po were becoming harder to find and some of the engines made from them did not work. Oa answered with a message that described error and corruption. But then she asked her own question of the young acolyte.

"Did you wish to repair this error?"

After a pause, he stammered a yes and offered obseqious praises.

Then Oa revealed the secret to making engines without sacrificing an E-Po, master creation of Oa. She taught him how to create a vast well. Although the surface appeared as water, it was pure, divine energy. Free to make engines from more the common materials was wood, iron, and semi-precious stones, it became possible for more and more travellers to journey between the two cities. The engines could be made in any size, large or small. Cargo ships could be constructed.

Cities on both sides of the Needle grew, however the Second Question arose when it was discovered that the new engines could travel no further than 20 miles from the Needle's edge.

When the Master Artificer asked the Second Question, Oa spoke again of corruption and error. She asked again if he wished to repair the error only to reply that he could not do so at this time. From that time forward, there was a prophecy of a Great Artificer that would come and answer the Second Question. The Great Artificer would be worthy to dispel the corruption and error that enshrouded this knowledge.

Life of the Artificer Priests

Artificers that worship Oa are called priests by each other. They speak and read the language of Oa as well as Common. They make many kinds of objects to provide for their welfare, the most profitable of those, the airship engines. They will not, however, make weapons of any kind.

They make harvesting golems and mechanical clocks. They repair older machines and wonders as well as farming implements used in nearby fields. They are generous and thoughtful, rarely raising their voice in anger, eager to help others through their creations.

The Other Temples in Town

Many students have created shrines and temples near the Needle. Recently, one shrine, the Children of E-Po, boasts that their members can walk the Needle in a day without fear of pirate attacks. They claim to understand the runes engraved on the sides of the Needle.

They offer their services as couriers between the two cities.

Summoning with the Words of Power

December 19, 2019 /

Having effects words of Servitor I - IX seem to be redundant. Every effect word is the ability to summon a single creature. As the Spell Level goes up, so do the CR of the creatures that can be summoned.

Moreover, have a separate table for druids and rangers is just annoying to me.

Here is one table to handle all Servitor effect words:

Spell Level CR
1 <1
2 1
3 2-3
4 4-5
5 6-7
6 8-9
7 10-11
8 12-13
9 14-16

This reduced nine effect words into one.

Combinations and Boosts

Any other effect words combines with this effect word will only affect the summoned creature. One boost can be used to summon 1d4 creatures instead of just 1.

Epilogue

This entry was very short. I'll have more on my next Words of Power post.

More About the Words of Power

December 14, 2019 /

This is the third post in a series about adapting the Words of Power system.

  • The first post that introduces the system as I understand it is here.
  • The second post that covered types of effect words is here.

In the previous post, twenty-five effect words were reduced down to eight. This includes one I created for temporary magic weapons. For the Change effects, I added a house rule that you can only gain the form or abilities of creatures you have encountered and taken a sample of. Instead of listing possible form or function modifications, the list is generated by the creatures the spellcaster has encountered.

Since damage is damage, I condensed all the energy types down to their damage effects. There were fire and cold effect words that did the same amount of damage. so now regardless of energy source, there are three types of damage that can be done. The spellcaster is free to use whatever energy type they want as it makes no difference in terms of damage. (It also allows more than the standard five energy types.)

Body Effect Words

That said, what separated the energy types was that a given effect word did damage and placed a condition of the target(s). That is meaningful, so I have separated the condition effects out and placed them with the Body effects words. This will add back another fourteen effect words if I borrow the fifth edition conditions, but it is worth it. These Body effect words would be separate from Energy words. Adding the conditions gives you paralysis, petrification, charm, invisibility, and so much more. They are powerful words on their own.

That said, these Body words combined with Energy words allow you to duplicate the WoP words, but also invent some fanciful and scary options. What if an acid cloud didn't blind you, but grappled you instead? As a player, a creepy green acidic fog that damaged me, stopped me in place, and nullified speed abilities would terrify me. What if a Flame Dart also stunned me? A sonic wave that also knocked me prone? A gust of wind that charmed me? These are the kinds of spells that interest me because it's more than just whitling down an opponent's hit points.

The Rest of the Body Effect Words

There are a few more Body effect words that are more than conditions. Two of the words, Energy Resistance and Energy Immunity would be moved to the Energy effect words. They were already energy type agnostic, so the specific type is determined at the time of casting the spell.

The Enhance and Perfect Form effect words are identical to those in the Modify effect words from the previous post. Boosting ability scores is handled by those effect words. Yes, this means that a spell caster has to gain a sample to boost a target's ability scores. The Enhance Ability spell ties each of the ability scores to an animal, so it fits with this system pretty well.

That leaves Fortify, which I will simplify to simply add temporary hit points equal to the target's Hit Dice or level.

Like the Energy Immunity and Energy Resistance effect words, it's important to add the Physical Resistance and Physical Immunity effect words. Resistance offers a +4 bonus or rolling advantage to Saving Throws against a specific Body Effect word. Immunity would simply make the target immune to a specific Body Effect word. (It makes me think of a spell that makes the target immune to the effects of being knocked prone like the  Instant Stand ability I've read about somewhere.)

The Fear, Wounding, and Healing Effect Words

There are two Fear effect words that aren't needed anymore now that Frightened is a part of the Body effect words. Fear is simply placing the Frightened effect on a creature.

All but one of the Wounding effect words basically deal damage like energy effect words with the side effect that undead creatures gain hit points. I'll make these reversed healing spells instead.

This brings us to Bleeding Wounds, an effect word that does 1 point of ongoing damage per round. I'll leave that effect word as is.

Healing spells restore hit points, but remove hit points from Undead creatures. Healing spells also remove one or more conditions a target is suffering. Why not have them place the condition on Undead targets as well? It may not make sense in a narrative way and some of the conditions will have no effect, but why not? Stunning Zombies have a meaningful effect, especially if the Cleric is out of commission or otherwise occupied.

This adds two Healing Effect words, Heal (1d6 hit points per caster level) and Cure (remove one Body effect from the target). Healing effect words have the side effect of Harming undead creatures by reducing hit points or placing a Body effect on them.

Adding one more effect word, Harm, is essentially the reverse of Heal.

Progress So Far

In all my posts so far, I've covered 42 effect words from the Pathfinder Words of Power system. So far, I've reduced that down to 23 Words of Power and added what I think is some wild effects.

This post and the previous one should have covered everything that can be done to a target's physical form. In the next post, I'll cover effects that cover the mind before moving on to other effects.

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