#planar adventures

[madcat-world]

Planar Adventures (2 of 3) - Kez Laczin

[dailycharacteroption]

Fun with Feats 14: Archon Style

(art by arunairdraws on DeviantArt)

If there is anything that the armies of Heaven can be praised for, it is for their willingness to risk their own safety to protect others. That may be innocents, or it may be their direct allies in the conflict, forming a cohesive unit that watches the backs of each other.

That dedication to duty is appealing to many would-be guardians, be they monks, paladins, or otherwise. And so it gave rise to the Archon Style of martial arts.

As the name suggests, the style is meant to emulate the defensive fighting forms used by the servants of law and good, and can be done with both unarmed combat and with a one-handed weapon, the other hand left open not to guard themselves, but to guard others. Indeed, this style is unusual in that the wielder is meant to draw attacks towards themselves rather than deflect them away, the better to protect those they fight alongside.

That does, however, make the style ineffective when fighting alone, but no warrior banks on one move, so it is often supplemented with other fighting techniques and styles to suit the situation.

The base form of the Style allows the warrior to designate a foe within their reach, which they proceed to hinder with blocking motions to give allies a measure of protection at the cost of opening up their own defenses.

With mastery, they learn a Diversion maneuver as the gaps created by the base forms close. With this technique, they can redirect their designated foe’s attack against their own defenses rather than allies, grabbing weapon hafts and sword arms and whatnot. In doing so, regardless of whether the attack succeeds against them, they pull their foe so far out of alignment that this opens up the attacked ally to make a strike of their own.

Finally, with true mastery, their protective maneuvers no longer leave a gap in their defenses and letting them set up the technique faster. Additionally, when they themselves are successfully by any foe, not just a designated one, they can use the Justice technique to grab and hold the weapon that struck them for an extended period, opening up their foe for all nearby allies to punish.

Clearly, Archon Style is very useful for any sort of tanky build, and as a style usable with or without weapons, it is quite viable for any martial class, not just monk. I recommend it if your party’s composition has a lot of melee in it to capitalize on both the Archon Diversion and Archon Justice abilities. Just make sure you have the hp and AC to back it up.

[soylent-crocodile]

Blade Beast, Ordon

(Ordon by Anonymous)

(This is first and foremost a high-level planar counterpart to the mortisan, but it's interesting how blade beast ecology tends to be player-side, in contrast to the majority of monsters in the D&D oeuvre. There are a number of Interplanar Big Game Hunters, but this one specifically doesn't bother with material planers, and that makes an interesting contrast.)

CR9 TN Medium Monstrous Humanoid (Blade Beast, Shapechanger)

Ordon are the hunters of the outer spheres, paranoid survivalists who are obsessed with one specific type of outsider, such as Angels or Daemons. This obsession, however it starts, is always warped by paranoia and a blade beast's lust for violence into a need to kill such creatures. To this end, ordon find whatever means they can to travel to whatever plane their target is most common in, where they will set up a home to observe, survive, and eventually, to kill. This nest is always well-hidden, and scrolls of warding and illusion are incredibly valued by ordon, as well as anything else that lets them survive in whatever environment they are drawn towards. Many ordon also keep grisly trophies, and such a lair is often laden with skulls, clothing, and stolen weapons and magical items, the latter of which an ordon is happy to trade for in return for the aforementioned protective gear or spellcaster's aid- although an ordon's most valuable resource may be the intimate knowledge they have of their surroundings.

Ordon seek out other planar travelers and stalk them, hidden until they can find out their goals; travelers who seem to be on good terms with an ordon's favored enemy are ignored, but those who are hostile are approached as potential allies; an ordon knows it can kill far more in a team, and that its own blade can be of great use to a planar traveler. These are alliances of convenience, however, and the ordon will rarely leave its chosen hunting grounds with departing allies. When working in groups, ordon much prefer to be wielded rather than fight as a humanoid, and will only do so under dire circumstances.

Each ordon usually specializes in hunting a single type of outsider. Such a variant ordon may exchange some total of their weapon enhancement for an additional enhancement that helps target their specialized prey, such as becoming a +1 Anarchic Planar bardiche to hunt the particularly lawful axiomites, or a +2 Courageous Planar bardiche to counter the fear effects of Sahkil.

This metallic humanoid is wearing loose military regalia. Where its head should be, there is only a ball of shifting light atop metal shoulders. The tip of its wrist is attached to the handle of a bardiche.

Misc- CR9 TN Medium Monstrous Humanoid (Blade Beast, Shapechanger) HD11 Init:+5 Senses: Perception: +11, Blindsight 90ft Stats- Str:18(+4) Dex:20(+5) Con:20(+5) Int:16(+3) Wis:14(+2) Cha:17(+3) BAB:+11/+6/+1 Space:5ft Reach:10ft Defense- HP:112(11d10+55) AC:24(+5 Dexterity, +3 Deflection, +5 Natural Armor, +1 Dodge) Fort:+10 Ref:+12 Will:+9 CMD:30 Resist: Immunity: Weakness: Special Defenses:  Offense- +3 Planar Bardiche +18/+13/+8(1d10+10/x3) CMB:+15 Speed:30ft, Climb 30ft  Feats- Power Attack(-3/+6), Great Fortitude, Vital Strike, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack Skills- Acrobatics +13, Escape Artist +13, Heal +13, Knowledge (Planes) +14, Perception +11, Stealth +19, Survival +16, Use Magic Device +9 Spell-like Abilities-  Nondetection /constant Dimensional Anchor 3/day Special Qualities- Blade Form, Guided Blade, No Breath, Planar Acclimation Ecology- Environment- Planar (Outer Sphere) Languages- Celestial, Abyssal, Infernal, Abbadoni, Aklo, Sylvan Organization- Solitary Treasure- Standard Special Abilities- Blade Form (Su)- As a standard action, a blade beast can shift between beast form and the form of an enchanted weapon. An ordon’s weapon form is a +3 Planar Bardiche with empathy, speech, telepathy 100ft, and the ability to cast Dimensional Anchor 1/day. Guided Blade (Ex)- A creature wielding an ordon’s weapon form benefits from feats and abilities that benefit it using specific weapons or weapon groups (such as the Weapon Focus feat or the fighter’s Weapon Training) as though it had selected a bardiche as its weapon, gaining the highest bonus it has. This only works for abilities that have the option of choosing a bardiche, or a weapon group the bardiche belongs to. This does not grant proficiency with bardiches. Planar Acclimation (Ex)- An ordon is never considered to be extraplanar and always considered to be a native on the plane it is on.

[quarkmaster]

Pathfinder RPG - Planar Adventures

All images © 2018 Paizo Inc.

Jay Epperson

[dailycharacteroption]

Progenitor (Druid Archetype)

(art by SmudgeDragon on DeviantArt)

A bit of a quirk of setting metaphysics, druids are sometimes associated with the raw nature of The First World, the realm of the fey. However, the First World is technically a separate plane of existence, and as such isn’t part of the “natural” world at all.

We get around this by noting that the elemental planes also have association with the forces normally wielded by the class, as well as the fact that when it comes down to it, The First World truly is part of the universe, albeit under it, covered up by the final draft of creation.

It should not be surprising then, to learn that there are druids with especially strong ties to the realm of the fey and it’s wonders, particularly as a font for endless generation of new life, being a closed system where death only leads to new life eventually, either through direct reincarnation or the endless genesis of infinite concepts that the First World contains.

And this is where progenitors come in. A somewhat deceptive name, as their unique abilities have less to do with founding bloodlines and more with drawing upon the infinite energies of the fey realms for their own purposes, leading to surges of wondrous concepts before they vanish back into the fey realms from which they came.

So let’s take a look, shall we?

These mystics form a bond not with a beast or an aspect of nature, but with the First World itself, which can take one of two forms. If they choose magic, they gain the ability to try and channel the power of the First World to try and fuel a cast spell rather than drawing upon their own magical ability. However, this take skill to do, and if they fail, they instead trigger a wild magic event. (Using the wild magic table from Planar Adventures).

If they choose nature, however, they can invoke the power of the First World to instead cause an area of ever-shifting of natural growth around them that also moves with them, plants growing wildly and then shrinking down as the druid moves away. Over time the size of the area they affect grows, and the foliage can either take the form of large sturdy plants for cover, or thick undergrowth to hinder the movements of foes.

Additionally, these druids cannot use wild shape to take the form of elementals, instead adding various fey forms to their arsenal.

This is an interesting archetype that can be built and used in different ways. The magic bond basically grants you a few extra spell slots per day at the cost of potentially getting a random effect instead. Meanwhile, the nature option offers mobile cover or difficult terrain, making it useful for when you want to hang back with ranged allies or get in close and inhibit your foes up close. Either way, the fey form options for wild shape offers some unique and hard to account for abilities. I recommend a mixed back-line spellcaster and melee combatant druid, favoring spells that control the battlefield and inhibit foes.

We’ve seen before with other archetypes for ranger, hunter, and druid that there are those that believe that the realms of the fey are something of an intrusion into the natural order rather than existing alongside it. While other naturalist classes may be more middle of the road with this sort of thing, today we’ve found one of the opposing philosophy. However, even with this contention, the fact that these druids are more likely to serve fey interests may make other druids wary of them since the fey do not necessarily have the balance of nature in mind.

Though he is human, Viloc has been accepted into the high court of the erlking Summer’s Passing, where he has learned a great deal and offered insight into the mortal perspective. However, there are some among the court that view him as little more than a novel pet, and would happily remind him of his place should the fey lord’s protection ever be rescinded.

Desperate to stop the predation on their people, the villagers of Sakkun call upon a wandering druid to rid them of a terrifying spider-like fey. However, the druid recognizes the monster as not a fey, but a jorogumo. Sadly, his diplomatic connections with the fey will be of no use, so he recruits the party to aid him in destroying her.

While traveling, the party suddenly finds that the road has seemingly vanished, or more accurately, has been overgrown. When they try to navigate through, they are beset by something small that they can’t make out clearly due to how the plant life rolls up and around it like a wave wherever it moves. It become clear that the creature, a leshy druid, has declared that the forest is to be reclaimed of all civilized influences, and primal nature restored.

[dailycharacteroption]

Portal Seeker (Investigator Archetype)

(art by SilentPianist on DeviantArt)

We’ve talked about how not every investigator being a detective before, but usually the assumption is that they’re putting their brainpower to work in an entirely different career. However, the core of the investigator has always been about smarts and observation, which can be used for all sorts of, well, investigating. This extends beyond criminal cases, which leads to archetypes like today’s subject.

Whether they are rare or disturbingly common, portals and rifts to other planes of existence can be a serious concern for the locals given what might be lurking on the other side. Whether it be natural portals to the First World forming in a mushroom ring or a deliberately-created portal to the Abyss opened by a cult, even the most benign visitors could be majorly disruptive.

Enter the Portal Seeker, paranormal investigators that seek out such distortions in spacetime, and learn a bit about such secrets of planar metaphysics themselves, though they themselves are no conjurers.

Of course, not every such investigator is only out to close portals or protect others from extraplanar visitors. Others seek to study the portals to better understand the underpinnings of the cosmos, and potentially step through to see what lies on the other side.

Either way, portals and gates are a serious business, and these brilliant minds have the skill and knowledge to deal with them semi-safely.

While many portals and extradimensional spaces are blatant affairs, not all are so easy to notice. There’s a reason that people literally stumble into the First World and the like. However, these investigators learn to pick up on the subtle cues that reveal that such dimensional distortions are or were nearby, and they can even pinpoint their exact location. Interestingly, this also extends to extradimensional spaces created by certain spells like rope trick or even mage’s magnificent mansion, making portal seekers one of the rare few beings able to notice such hideaways without spells of their own.

Being forcibly teleported against one’s will can be a serious problem, but while a somewhat niche problem outside of certain monsters and traps, these planar physicists are well equipped to see such tricks coming and better resist them. This even extends to powerful imprisonment magic, keeping high-level casters from taking you out of the fight and/or the entire campaign.

Their knowledge of portals makes them quite effective at discerning the destination of such extraplanar passages, as well as any key words or other quirks required to open them.

As they master the secrets of portals, these investigators learn to create their own, albeit short-lived affairs that last only long enough to step through and can only take them a short distance.

Later on, though, the range improves, and they can create them long enough to let others through, allowing for tactical movement with the whole party.

This archetype’s biggest draw for general use is being able to create portals, greatly expanding their movement range as long as they have energy left in their reserves to do so. Losing out on studied strikes does weaken their overall damage output, but they still get studied combat, so it’s not all bad. Losing out on the more generally useful poison resistance/immunity is a bit annoying, but in the right campaign their knowledge and resistances can come in handy. As always, work with your GM. (also, consider that this archetype can detect extradimensional hiding spot spells, which you rarely ever see villains use, but could be a good reason to stump your characters until they remember they can do this.)

Depending on how thin the walls of your cosmos are, these scientists might be extremely rare or extremely common. Either way, they’re likely serious but excited about their work, though likely for different reasons. In a world where such portals are rare, they might be eager to study them, but also recognize they might be too dangerous to allow to stay open, while those in more common worlds might view them mostly for the danger they represent.

Theorizing that the earliest tengu came to the world from another plane, Professor Kosara has been pushing to get funding for an expedition to the mountains where his ancestors have lived for generations, looking for clues of that ancient planar gate that supposedly brought them there, as well as archaeological clues as to why.

Bloodless disappearances in the old Walkigan Estate has led some to suspect otherworldly activity, and they’re right, for a rift has opened up in the basement, the same one that teens often dare each other to go down into. However, when the party and their patron arrive to examine it, Something comes through: a chernobue qlippoth, painting a horrifying mental picture of what happened to those that stumbled through the portal never to return.

Something of a legend, the Transplanar Express is a wonder of technology and magic, a magical passenger train that crosses the entirety of the cosmos, providing safe transport to any plane you like if you can find a station and have a ticket, and virtually impossible to hijack or attack from outside, or so it was believed, until a group of portal-hopping bandits broke in, led by their brilliant commander, and set about taking hostages and heading for the vault car.

[dailycharacteroption]

Pact Witch (Witch Archetype)

(art by HollyBell on DeviantArt)

The nature of witch magic is that the witch is granted their power through a pact with a patron of some kind, offering magical knowledge that taps into the oldest arcane secrets that were made known to mortals. Sometimes these patrons are fey, sometimes they are powerful magical entities, and sometimes they are even the servants of the various outer planes.

While they may still have a specific entity that acts as their patron, there are some witches that bind themselves not just to the patron but to an entire plane of existence, tapping into the energies of which to empower themselves and to gain the aid of its denizens.

In this way, the witch essentially swears an oath to the ideals that reflect that plane, from the righteousness of heaven to the selfish whims of the Abyss. Moreover, since they also get to pick their improved familiar later on, their specific oath may vary slightly. An abyssal pact witch with a quasit familiar has very different goals to one with a cynthigot.

Some may seek this pact merely for the power that aligns with their purposes, but others may see it as a higher calling to devote oneself to a cause. Either way, we’ll see what that looks like momentarily!

Getting right into it, the witch must choose one of the outer planes to bond with, and must maintain a similar moral compass to keep on the good side of their patron and keep their patron spells and their upgraded familiar (which, depending on how you interpret that, might either revert their familiar to their original form or outright deprive the witch of their familiar and therefore ability to prepare spells until atonement is offered).

Speaking of which, the patron does not offer the typical spells of a patron, instead offering a specific set tied to this archetype. These include protection against an opposing alignment, distortions in time, imbuing oneself with planar energies, conjuring aligned outsider allies for long-term services, as well as planar travel, banishing foes, and even opening up entire gates for a short while.

Additionally, the witch gains cosmetic features that reflect the plane they have bonded with, marking them as otherworldly even though the specifics vary even between witches of the same plane.

Finally, their bond also infuses their familiar, causing them to transform into an appropriate minor outsider familiar native to the plane, retaining all memory and intelligence, but in a different form. The options are not just vanilla celestials/monitors/fiends either. You can get a cassisian angel, a tripurasura asura, cynthigot qlippoth, or doru div if those suit your philosophy better.

This archetype gives up the customization of your patron spells, but gets you a free improved familiar, so that’s nice. As it stands, your exact hex and spell list will vary based on what plane you are bonding with, but the nature of the planar patron spells means you can benefit a lot from calling upon extra planar firepower ahead of time, as long as you’re willing to put up with the cost of doing so. If that appeals to you, give it a shot!

Being a pact witch feels a bit different than an ordinary witch since your patron’s goals are very expressly known. In this way it almost feels like an arcane flavor of cleric, the witch being a devotee of the appropriate philosophy. Now that I think about it, this archetype might have subtly helped confirm the development of the witch as a variable tradition caster in Second Edition.

The Silken Sanctuary is a rarity in the Darkness Below, a place of respite and comfort, though with it’s majority drider population surfacers may not immediately realize it. It was founded when it’s leader, a drider witch named Cynvali accepted a pact with The Kind Hand, goddess of benevolence and redemption.

To the worry of many, the a feud has erupted between the birelu (a spirit of both nature and humanity) and a local witch guardian named Grisela. The spirit is upset that Grisela has made a pact with the realm of the Free Wilds rather than a patron of “pure” nature, but Grisela argues that her pact will do just as well serving to protect the area she has sworn to protect.

Infernal runes and circles at each murder scene point investigators to some sort of occult activity in the latest spree of murders, but they are barking up the wrong tree by assuming that the killer worships a power of diabolic nature. In truth, they are just making use of it for their own ends, and it’s not even devils they are bargaining with, but rather, a rare pact with the plane of shadow and the pain-obsessed velstracs.

[dailycharacteroption]

Planar Scout (Ranger Archetype)

(art by thenSir on DeviantArt)

When one thinks of rangers and the planes beyond the material, one doesn’t typically make the leap in logic to combine them. After all, rangers live among nature, most typically the nature of the material universe. I mean, sure, technically you can pick a plane as your favored terrain, but it’s rarely anyone’s first choice unless the campaign is set on that plane and/or you’re speedrunning taking the Horizon Walker prestige class.

However, there are those that do in fact specialize in planar terrain, and more relevantly to today’s entry, those that draw power directly from their understanding of those planes.

Some may live in exotic communities on such planes, or may have become stranded there and forced to learn how to survive in such a strange environment that they were literally never adapted to biologically.

Regardless of the origins, these planar scouts become as intimately familiar with the nuances of surviving such locales as any ranger back on the material plane. (Which does beg the question of how or why the ranger doesn’t have to learn the tricks to survive in every single exotic biome the plane offers, as even supposed mono-environ planes like the elemental or energy planes have some variance in terrain if you go far enough, but that’s firmly in the realm of “Let’s not drag down the game with too much focus on the details.” Needless to say, the archetype does advise in a sidebar that you should break the incredibly vague “planes” favored terrain into multiple types based either on the individual planes or perhaps common threads and terrain types, such as crystalline caverns for certain parts of the elemental plane of earth plus some of the more rich spots in the underground of other planes.

So let’s take a look at what makes these scouts special.

Given their familiarity is not with mortal animals but those of the greater cosmos, it is unsurprising that these rangers express their empathy with extraplanar animals (and to a lesser extent true outsiders) in the same way that other rangers work with normal animals and magical beasts.

Naturally, these rangers only get to select different planar terrain types as they grow in power.

However, doing so doesn’t just provide the flat bonuses, for these rangers bond with a specific plane (most likely their earlier terrain choice) and gains a boon from doing so. This also infuses the ranger with the essence of the plane as well, meaning they also take on physical traits associated with the plane as well.

These boons take on many forms. Those that bond with a morally aligned plane would gain a blessing of guidance in combat against outsiders morally opposed to the plane, while those bonded to the astral get a short-ranged teleport. Those tied to the ether find their weapons can strike the incorporeal even if totally mundane, while those with links to the First World gain a limited healing factor. Those linked to the elemental planes gain anything from flight to the durability of rock to a flaming aura to becoming amphibious. Meanwhile, those tied to the shadow gain excellent nightvision and superior stealth. Naturally, this list isn’t perfectly comprehensive, but it does give a baseline for providing similar boons for the few planes that were not listed as well as any number of demiplanes.

Finally, these rangers also naturally have planar adaptation to their bonded plane and can even extend it to others, though they’ll still need magical assistance when it comes to other planes.

My biggest and only gripe with this archetype is that the planar bond boons don’t really scale with level for the most part, but this is a fun way to play up an expert on the practical survivalist side of actually living on a plane that doesn’t follow the same laws of physics and matter as what we see on earth or even the rest of the universe. If that appeals to you, I’d recommend using this archetype with pretty much any build that doesn’t center around either working with your allies or a pet, since you don’t get the normal hunter’s bond.

An interesting quirk of having a bond with anything is the assumption that the two have a mutual understanding, which is interesting to think about in the context of a ranger with this archetype. Other rangers may share a strong bond with companions, a beloved beast, or even nature itself with certain archetypes, but if this holds true to planar scouts, then that implies that the ranger has a connection to the living will of their absolute favorite plane. This isn’t as strange as it sounds, as at the very least the outer planes are literally made up of soulstuff with a specific morality and philosophy, which in turn assumes that the plane feels something analogous to sapient emotion and belief, albeit in an alien and vague way nearly incomprehensible to mortals. Could be worth exploring, whether it be kinship or just an understanding that the ranger absolutely refuses to let the hostility of the plane kill them.

A casino in Hell seems like one of the worst places to ever go by anyone with a reasonable understanding of probability even before factoring in that the house definitely cheats, and yet that is where the party must go to meet their contact. However, even getting there is an issue, for the gambling hall lies in a remote region of the Pit and only VIPs get fancy teleportation tokens to. As such, they’ll need a guide, someone who isn’t naturally inclined to betray them like a devil, but knows the terrain of the Pit like the back of their hand.

The Darkness is a plane where unseen things lurk in a realm without light or sight. Navigating it requires a proper guide, not just due to the hazards of the plane itself, but also the creatures that dwell within, including cabals of mystics that came to the plane to hone their craft, raising juju zombie servants to protect them.

Just as territorial as the rest of his people, the sahuagin Verkus is nonetheless not a vicious being, in part because he lives in a part of the Plane of Water that serves as a rich bounty and breadbasket. For a nominal fee, he can even show others the plane, though his company is not always pleasant.