IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 16D: ZAVERE’S NEED

January 19th, 2008
The 6th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

RIDDLES AND REST

Another day of delving had left them exhausted, bloody, and battered. But, thanks to Dominic’s faith and the power of the gods, not dead.

They were, however, in desperate need of rest. So they headed back to the surface, looking forward eagerly to the clean sheets and warm beds of the Ghostly Minstrel.

When they arrived, most of them staggered straight up to bed. But Tellith called Tee over to the front desk – she had received a letter. Cracking open the seal of purple wax, Tee saw that it came from Lord Zavere: He had heard from Mand Scheben and was concerned. He would like to meet with all of them in the morning, if it would be possible.

As she finished reading, Tee looked up into the common room and spotted Iltumar Shon nursing a drink. She was clearly the worse for wear, but she had been hoping to run into the young blacksmith’s apprentice for a couple of days now.

With a smile she came up behind him: “It’s an anchor.”

Iltumar jumped in his seat and twisted around to look at her. “Mistress Tee?! Wha–?”

“The answer to your riddle. It’s an anchor.” Tee caught Zade’s eye from across the room and signaled for a drink. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down.

Iltumar’s face split into a wide grin. “It is an anchor!”

“Now I’ve got one for you:

Of all my siblings, which I have many,
I am the number, wise old twenty,
I always wear my long thin hat,
And stand on one leg; I’ve never sat.
I’m last of the last, and last of the first,
I’m last of the best, and last of the worst.
Who am I?

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Go to the Dreaming Arts

The Lords of the Dreaming are powerful and fey. Those skilled enough in the Dreaming Arts can turn their own souls into conduits through which the Spirit Lords can be made manifest in the natural world. But following such a path requires supreme self-control, for the Lords of the Dreaming are capable of re-shaping your very soul.

SERVANT OF THE DREAMING LORDS

Hit Die: d8
Starting Gold: 5d4 x 10 (125 gp)
Starting Age: Per cleric.

Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level, x4 at 1^st level): Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Diplomacy, Dreaming Arts, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (religion), Profession, Sense Motive

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Servant of the Dreaming Lords gains proficiency with all simple weapons and light armor, but not with shields.

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will save	Special	Maximum Spirit Circle
1st	+0	+2	+0	+2	Dream Pact (1 pact)	1st
2nd	+1	+3	+0	+3	Lesser Pact (1 ability)	1st
3rd	+2	+3	+1	+3		2nd
4th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Pact Ability	2nd
5th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Lesser Pact (2 abilities)	3rd
6th	+4	+5	+2	+5	Pact Ability	3rd
7th	+5	+5	+2	+5		4th
8th	+6/+1	+6	+2	+6	Dream Pact (2 pacts)	4th
9th	+6/+1	+6	+3	+6	Pact Ability	4th
10th	+7/+2	+7	+3	+7	Lesser Pact (3 abilities)	5th
11th	+8/+3	+7	+3	+7	Pact Ability	5th
12th	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8		6th
13th	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	Pact Ability	6th
14th	+10/+5	+9	+4	+9	Dream Pact (3 pacts)	6th
15th	+11/+6/+1	+9	+5	+9		7th
16th	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Lesser Pact (4 abilities)	7th
17th	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10		8th
18th	+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11	Pact Ability	8th
19th	+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11	Pact Ability	8th
20th	+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12	Dream Pact (4 pacts), Lesser Pact (5 abilities)	8th

Dream Pacts (Su): Your affinity for the Dreaming allows you to contact a Spirit Lord and form a mystical pact with them, shaping yourself into a conduit through which the Spirit Lord can become manifest within the natural world. At 1^st level you can make a pact with one Spirit Lord at a time. At higher levels, you can form and maintain pacts with multiple Spirit Lords simultaneously (as shown on the class abilities table), although you must complete the pact ritual for each Spirit Lord separately.

To contact a Spirit Lord you must enter a dreaming trance by making a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 10 + the lord’s spirit circle). You remain within the trance for at least 1 minute, during which time you are effectively unconscious. You can exit a trance at any time as a free action, but if you do so the contact automatically fails.

During the dreaming trance, if you succeed on your Dreaming Arts check, you travel through the Dreaming until you reach the Spirit Lord you are contacting. (This journey may either by physical, metaphorical, or even psychological – such is the nature of the Dreaming.)

Now that you are in contact with the Spirit Lord, you may make a pact check (1d20 + your class level + your Charisma modifier). This process normally takes 1 minute of time in the natural world, although you can choose to attempt a rushed pact check as a full-round action at a -10 penalty. The DC for this check is listed in the description of each Spirit Lord (see below).

If you choose not to attempt the pact check, the conduit between the Dreaming and the natural world is not formed and you automatically awaken from your dreaming trance. If you attempt the pact check, however, you gain the powers granted by the Spirit Lord for 24 hours, whether you succeed on the check or not. You have no ability to cancel the conduit which you have formed. (However, the conduit can be suppressed in the presence of an antimagic field or similar effect.)

If you succeed on the pact check, you have formed a good pact: The Spirit Lord has no influence over your actions or personality.

If you fail the pact check, you are deemed to have made a poor pact: The Spirit Lord’s presence influences your personality and it can even force you to perform or refrain form certain actions. If you are conscious and free-willed, and you encounter a situation in which you cannot or will not refrain from a prohibited action or perform a required one, you suffer a cumulative -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and checks until the Spirit Lord leaves you.

As long as a Spirit Lord is manifesting itself through you, you display a specific physical sign of its presence (as described in its entry). This sign is real, not an illusory or shapechanging effect. You can hide a sign through mundane means, magical means, or through the use of the suppress sign ability (see below).

The Difficulty Class for any saving throw made against a supernatural power granted by a Spirit Lord is 10 + ½ your class level + your Charisma modifier.

Lesser Pacts (Su): There are also many lesser spirits which are born of the Dreaming. These spirits, known as rivera, flit between the Dreaming and the natural world. Some believe that these spirits – inhabiting the rocks and trees and houses and cobblestones – are, at a fundamental level, what binds the Dreaming and the natural world together.

Whatever the truth may be, your connection to the Spirit Lords grants you some dominion over the rivera. Beginning at 2^nd level, as long as you have formed a pact with at least one Spirit Lord, you can choose one ability from the following list as a manifestation of your control over the spirit world:

• +5 hit points
• energy resistance 5 (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic)
• +1 insight bonus on saving throws
• damage reduction 1/–
• +1 insight bonus to Armor Class
• +1 insight bonus on attack rolls
• +1 insight bonus on damage rolls
• +2 insight bonus on initiative checks
• +2 insight bonus to skill checks (choose one skill)

As you gain higher levels, you can form multiple lesser pacts. You can choose each ability more than once. The effects stack.

Pact Ability: At 4^th, 6^th, 9^th, 11^th, 13^th, 18^th, and 19^th level you can select a pact ability from the list below. You can also select the Delay Supernatural Ability, Empower Supernatural Ability, Enlarge Supernatural Ability, Extend Supernatural Ability, Maximize Supernatural Ability, and Widen Supernatural Ability feats as pact abilities.

Break Conduit: Once per day you can attempt to break the conduit of a single Spirit Lord to which you are bound. To do so, you must once again enter a dreaming trance and repeat the entire ritual of contact. If you succeed on the new pact check, the conduit has been broken and the Spirit Lord is forced to leave you before it normally would. Regardless of the success or failure of the attempt, you take a -10 penalty on your next pact check with any Spirit Lord and also apply the same penalty on the next pact check you make with the Spirit Lord you broke faith with. This pact ability can be selected more than once, allowing you to make the attempt one additional time each day each time you select it.

Empowered Conduit: Your effective class level is 2 higher than normal for the purpose of determining the maximum circle of Spirit Lords you can contact and form pacts with. (This does not increase your effective class level for any other reason.)

Favored Lord: You have formed a deep and intimate connection with one of the Spirit Lords you have made a pact with. Your effective class level increases by 1 when you use the powers granted by your favored lord. (You can select this pact ability more than once. Each time you select it, it applies to a different Spirit Lord.)

Favored Lord, Greater: The DC of each supernatural ability granted by your favored lord increases by 1. (You can select this pact ability once for each favored lord you possess.)

Favored Lord, Power of the: You can activate the abilities granted by your favored lord once every 4 rounds instead of once every 5 rounds. (You can select this pact ability once for each favored lord you possess.)

Rapid Contact: Your greater affinity for the Dreaming allows you to contact Spirit Lords very quickly. Once per day, you can contact a Spirit Lord as a full-round action (instead of the normal 1 minute).

Skilled Pact Making: You gain +4 bonus on pact checks.

Suppress Sign (Ex): At 2^nd level and higher, you can choose to reveal or suppress the physical sign of a Spirit Lord bound to you by a good pact as a swift action. This ability cannot be used to suppress the physical sign of a Spirit Lord with whom you have formed a poor pact.

DREAM PACT FEATS

These feats allow characters to form limited pacts with Lords of the Dreaming without fully committing to the Servant of the Dreaming Lords class.

DREAMING PACT

You are able to contact Spirit Lords and form pacts with them.

Prerequisites: Dreaming Arts 1 rank

Benefits: You can form pacts with Spirit Lords as if you were a 1^st-level Servant of the Dreaming Lords. Thus, only Spirit Lords of the 1^st Circle are available to you, and you can only bind one Spirit Lord at a time. Furthermore, unlike a true Servant of the Dreaming Lords, you gain only one of the powers granted by the Spirit Lord (determine randomly).

Special: You can select pact abilities as feats.

 

DREAMING PACT, IMPROVED

You are able to contact and form pacts with more powerful Spirit Lords.

Prerequisites: Dreaming Arts 5 ranks, Dreaming Pact

Benefits: When you form a pact with a Spirit Lord using the Dreaming Pact feat, you do so as if you were a 5^th-level Servant of the Dreaming Lords. Thus, you have access to Spirit Lords of the 3^rd Circle or lower. However, you can still only bind one Spirit Lord at a time and gain only one power from it.

 

DREAMING PACT, SKILLED

When you contact and form a pact with a Spirit Lord, you are able to form a more perfect conduit for their manifestation.

Prerequisites: Dreaming Arts 2 ranks, Dreaming Pact

Benefit: When you form a pact with a Spirit Lord using the Dreaming Pact, you gain two of the powers granted by the Spirit Lord instead of one. (The powers are still determined randomly.)

NEW FEATS

These are non-core feats which some of the Spirit Lords grant to those who form pacts with them.

SUPERNATURAL ENHANCEMENT FEATS: Delay Supernatural Ability, Empower Supernatural Ability, Enlarge Supernatural Ability, Extend Supernatural Ability, Maximize Supernatural Ability, and Widen Supernatural Ability feats.

• These feats operate like the metamagic feats of the same name, but affect the user’s supernatural abilities instead of spells.
• Each feat can be used once per day to modify any supernatural ability possessed by the user.
• Each feat can be taken multiple times, with each additional instance of the feat allowing an additional use per day.

 

DANCE OF DEATH

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, base attack bonus +8

Benefit: As a full attack action you move up to your speed and make a single melee attack against each creature you pass by (in other words, any creature you can reach with a melee attack at any point during your movement). This movement provokes attacks of opportunity normally. During the dance of death you cannot take any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats or abilities, and you cannot attack a single creature more than once.

Special: A fighter may select Dance of Death as one of his fighter bonus feats.

 

SUPERIOR LOW-LIGHT VISION

Your eyes are even more sensitive than normal, granting your improved vision.

Prerequisites: Low-light vision

Benefit: Your eyes have become so sensitive to light that you can see four times as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of low illumination. This replaces your normal low-light vision.

Special: You can take this feat more than once. The effects stack, increasing your low-light vision by the same margin each time. (Thus, if you took this feat twice, you would be able to see six times further than a normal human.)

 

TWIN SHOT

Prerequisites: Precise Shot, Rapid Reload

Benefit: As a standard action, you can make a single ranged attack against two adjacent targets. Make a single attack roll and apply the result against both targets.

Special: A fighter may select Twin Shot as one of his fighter bonus feats.

 

Go to Dream Pacts – Part 2: Spirit Lords

SPOILER WARNING!

If you click the image above, you will see the entire scenario structure for the Severn Valley scenario I designed for the Alexandrian Remix of the Eternal Lies campaign. If you do not wish to be spoiled on this scenario, DO NOT CLICK THE IMAGE. Its specific content is not essential for understanding the rest of this essay, and this essay contains no other spoilers for the Severn Valley scenario or the Eternal Lies campaign.

But I did want to show an example of an actual scenario structure that’s been used in actual play, and not just some deliberately over-the-top example.

What this image is specifically showing is a visual representation of the node structure of the Severn Valley scenario. If you’ve read Node-Based Scenario Design, you may recall that the essay features a number of explanatory diagrams that look like this:

This has, for better or worse, created the misapprehension that I design scenarios using this visual motif. This is, almost without exception, not the case. (I do occasionally, during the outline stage for certain scenarios, sketch out a high-level organization to clarify the location of funnels.) And the primary reason I don’t bother with visual node diagramming is, in fact, overloaded diagrams like the one at the top of this post: That’s the structure of what I would consider a medium-complexity scenario, and the visual diagram for it is just noise… I can’t really process any meaningful data out of it and I’m the one who wrote it.

So how do I organize these scenarios?

Text-based revelation lists.

I discuss revelation lists in the Three Clue Rule: For each conclusion that you want the PCs to make, list the clues you’re including in the scenario for it. This functions as a checklist which allows you to track their progress and (importantly!) a diagnostic tool during actual play to make sure they’re on track.

In my scenarios, they look like this:

SCENE 1: ELVEN CORPSES

– The Duke’s Map (Scenario Hook)
– Encountering Mutilated Corpses (Adventure 3:The Old Forest)
– Reports of Mutilated Corpses (Adventure 2 – Scene 4)

SCENE 2: THE BLACK TREE

– Tracking Drow Scouts (Proactive 1: Drow Scouts / Scene 1)
– Map to the Black Tree (Scene 3: The Drow Camp)
– Elven Retaliation Scrolls (Proactive 2: Elven Retaliation Squad)

SCENE 3: THE DROW CAMP

– Tracking Drow Scouts (Proactive 1: Drow Scouts)
– Elven Retaliation Scrolls (Proactive 2: Elven Retaliation Squad)
– Map of the Old Forest (Scene 4: Drow Citadel)
– Questioning Prisoners (Scene 2: The Black Tree)

SCENE 4: DROW CITADEL

– Questioning Prisoners (Scene 2: The Black Tree)
– Subverting the Crystal Ball (Scene 3: The Drow Camp)
– Following the Slave Train (Scene 3: The Drow Camp)

CLUE LIST vs. REVELATION LIST

There’s basically two ways to organize lists like this: You can list all the clues a node contains or you can list all the clues that point to the node. For the sake of clearer discussion, I’m going to refer to the latter as a revelation list (like the sample above) and to the former as a clue list.

I’ll often use a clue list when outlining or developing a scenario. After coming up with the “big concept” for a scenario, my design process generally consists of writing down cool ideas for various nodes. Then I’ll think about what kind of information a node might naturally contain to point at the other nodes. For example, I might jot down:

SCENE 2: THE BLACK TREE

– Questioning Prisoners (to the Drow Citadel)
– Questioning Prisoners (to the Drow Camp)
– Drow Scouts might show up here (track to Scene 1 or Scene 3)

Once I’ve done that for all the nodes, I’ll do a quick audit for each node to make sure I’ve included three clues. If I haven’t, I’ll get proactive figuring out how I can creatively include more clues. As I actually write up the full version of each node, however, I’ll assemble the revelation list: Each clue I include in the full write-up gets listed in the revelation list under the node it’s pointing to (with a cross-reference back to where it’s found).

This allows me to double-check my design process to make sure I’ve got all the clues I need. But it’s also important because, when it comes time to actually run the scenario, it’s the revelation list that’s essential. (I’ll have long since thrown out the clue list.)

(1) I generally don’t care if the PCs have missed the clues in their current location, but I do care intensely about whether or not they’ve missed all the clues that would enable them to find a particular node. That’s what I need to track during actual game play, and it’s also the information that’s more difficult to glean on-the-fly without a properly organized list because…

(2) The information about which clues exist in a given node is already encoded in the text. The clues are listed in the description of the node, right? Because that’s where they are.

In terms of grokking how a particular scenario “works”, though, the revelation list can feel confusing if you’re not familiar with it. For some people, it’s simply more intuitive to look at the list of clues a node contains and then follow where they lead. (This is, after all, how the PCs will conceptually work their way through the scenario.) This is one reason why, when developing the design standard for Infinity scenarios of this type, I included the requirement for both a Revelation List and an Operational Summary (which would explain the sort of “guiding principle” of how the scenario was supposed to function in play).

You don’t necessarily need the Operational Summary, though. You can get the same basic effect from a revelation list: You just need to work backwards.

Look at a node and ask, “How would the PCs get there?” In other words, follow one of the clues on the revelation list back to its source node. Then repeat the process there.

For example, how would the PCs get to the Drow Citadel in the scenario above? Well, let’s pick a random clue: Following the Slave Train from Scene 3: The Drow Camp. So we look at Scene 3 and pick a random node there: Tracking Drow Scouts from their proactive scene. Since that’s a proactive scene, it’s essentially a scenario origin point. It’s the trail head, so to speak, and from the trail we’ve followed we can see that “tracking bad guys through the Old Forest” is one approach to the scenario.

Do it again: You can also get to the Drow Citadel by questioning prisoners from Scene 2: The Black Tree. You can get to the Black Tree by talking to (or stealing intelligence from) the Elven retaliation squads operating in the area. So here we have a path that follows a trail of demihuman misery.

Do this two or three times (or more for more complex scenarios) and you’ll get a pretty good feel for the contours of the scenario structure.