(adapted from Superiors 3: Hope and Prophecy)
Awi
The Namer, The Gray Man, Our Shepherd
“The world has its own destiny. Accept it, embrace it, and help things along when possible.”
NG male yaim angel archangel of Destiny
CULT
Holy Symbol: A scroll from which the wings of a laughing dove spring
Temples: Libraries; booksellers; musea; places where events of great destiny occurred; anywhere that calls people to worship, contemplation, or inspiration
Devotees: Archivists, community leaders, debaters, fortune-tellers, researchers, scribes, town criers
Common Classes: Bard, expert, inquisitor, investigator, wizard
Servitor Words: Conception, Glossaries, Wisdom, Epiphanies, Inspiration, Forgiveness, Writers, Gossips, Holy Scriptures, Storytellers, Sages, Divine Mysteries, Divine Truths, Prophets, Secret Languages
Minions: balisse (NG; Bestiary 6), manasupatras of all sorts (LG; Bestiary 5), olethros (N; Bestiary 6), raelis (CG; Bestiary 6)
Obedience: Spend an hour engaged in deep philosophical conversation with at least one other person. Every 20 minutes or so, use some random element such as cards or dice to change the topic, line of argument, or style of reasoning to understand randomness and how it impacts destiny. Gain a +4 sacred bonus on Sense Motive checks to discern the greatest thing a person can achieve and the weaknesses that might seal their fate.
BOONS
1: Remembering the Forgotten (Sp): sow thought 3/day, anonymous interaction 2/day, or akashic communion 1/day
2: Divine Logic (Ex): The devotee can make practically anyone concede practically any argument ~ as long as they believe it themself. In two minutes (20 rounds), with a successful Intelligence roll (DC 10 + the target’s Will save), they will prove to their target by simple logic that a + b = c, therefore they are right and any other possibility must be absurd. Obviously, don’t try proving to a demon prince that good is better than evil. Somehow, it never works.
3: A Friend to All That is Written (Su): A devotee with this boon cannot be kept from recorded knowledge. Whether they want to walk into the private stacks of a scholar-noble’s library or to see an enforcer’s list of secrets, all mundane security measures effectively cease to exist for the devotee. Guards will cheerfully wave them toward the suddenly unlocked door, the door-servant will recognize whatever password they elect to try, and so on.
Awi, the very first soul created, spends most of his days in serene meditation in the Heavenly Library, wherein he gifts his kokabajhon with his knowledge of the universe from its most primal state and a miraculous ability to predict Creation’s future from that knowledge.
Awi is depicted as an elderly man, radiating calm good cheer and spiritual strength, with skin the color of fresh ink, gray hair, and deep blue eyes. In some descriptions, he’s a soft-spoken grandfather in monkish robes, and in others a regal and aging head of state, wearing the dashiki of a philosopher or oracle. Awi is the very definition of a gentleman scholar: his emotions are always in check and if he has nothing nice to say, he says nothing at all. Even when he has something to say, Awi is reserved and prefers to let others reach their own conclusions. To this end, he’ll subtly drop hints, even nudge the person in the right direction, but he’ll never force his opinions on others.
Awi and his angels are the givers of names, the guardians of knowledge. He is not omniscient, but he knows the names of all things, everything that has ever been written down, and ~ as raskokabajho of Destiny ~ all the best and brightest possibilities for the world. Awi teaches that without Destiny (or its hope) and Fate (and the fear of it) there can be no Creation. Without these two things, reality, the “Cosmic All,” even the Almighty would exist in lifeless stasis, frozen in potentiality for all of existence.
Destiny exists in everyone and everything. Each aspect of Creation has its part to play and it is Awi’s duty to ensure that this potential is actualized. Destiny is an all encompassing Word; it is not a thing like Stone, a place like the Spirit World, or an idea like Judgment, but all these and more. More concretely, Awi’s Word concerns itself with guiding Creation and ensuring that Light prevails over the Darkness. Unlike other raskokabajhon who preoccupy themselves with abstract concepts and often overlook the individual actions of mortals, Awi knows these actions are what define Destiny.
Destiny is a fragile and delicate thing that cannot be forced or manipulated. It is a culmination of individual choices, the important word being “choice”. Angels with the best of intentions have turned people from their destinies to their fates by interfering with their free will. Like a tender flower, Destiny needs to blossom on its own. It can be sheltered, eve protected, but it must grow by its own power. Everyone must decide what path to take. The choice is theirs and theirs alone.
However, destiny is more than just letting “what is meant to be” happen. Choices can’t be forced, but they can be educated. Without awareness of all the possibilities, there can be no Destiny. This is why Awi is the Giver of Names, and why his kokabajhon are chroniclers and scholars. It’s not enough to walk the less-traveled path; Awi’s followers must know where both paths lead and why. More important than knowledge and understanding, however, is faith. Without faith, one cannot have the confidence to let events unfold as they should.
Showing posts with label of Destiny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label of Destiny. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2018
Friday, July 20, 2018
Finishing off Boanerges (Fantasy Friday #5)
Time to choose Boanerges’s two feats. We’ve already chosen one, of course: Celestial Obedience (Awi) at 3rd level. The question is his first-level feat. Feats are often the most time-intensive aspect of D&D3.x/PF character creation, of course. I start by spending some time to see if can find an appropriate feat to counteract Boanerges’s Wisdom deficiency, but after looking through www.d20pfsrd.com and every book I could think of covering magic and religion, all I was able to find was a Rogue Genius Games 3rd-party feat that would allow me to just change his spellcasting attribute. The powergamer in me would want to shift it over to Charisma, but that (once again) seems to diminish the discomfort theme in Boanerges’s character. Intelligence makes more sense considering Awi’s associations with knowledge and books, but is still rather unsatisfying, to be honest. Furthermore, I seem to have grown a little bit more conservative as I age ~ the fact that it’s 3rd-party is, in itself, an argument against using it. Sadly, none of the books I looked through offered anything much terribly exciting even beyond that idea. The most interesting were various ways of improving Boanerges’s ability to make nonlethal attacks and one that improves his ability to redeem evil creatures, which is definitely a frontrunner possibility.
The idea of perhaps giving him Amateur Swashbuckler has been in the back of my mind from the beginning, as that’s how I imagine the army that gave rise to Boanerges, as composed of barbarians with the Amateur Swashbuckler feat, barbarian/swashbucklers, hooded champion rangers, devoted muses (from a variety of base classes), dancing blade fighters, wildstrider swashbucklers, and the like, all pumped up with teamwork and panache feats to make them even more frightening. By itself, however, the feat seems rather ho-hum and, more damning, not adding terribly much to Boanerges that he doesn’t already get from vigilante.
I get bored poring through the list of feats on the SRD, and the teamwork feats don’t provide anything overly attractive. Same story for the Improved Unarmed Strike tree and style feats. The afore-mentioned redeemer feat seems to be the best and most obvious choice, so let’s go with that. Except it’s a trait, not a feat >.< Well, I’ll definitely take that in the next step!
Realizing that I’ve mentioned Awi’s association with knowledge a few times but haven’t built that into Boanerges yet, I start looking for appropriate feats to do so. Searching “Knowledge” in the SRD and restricting it to Feats turns up nothing more interesting than Scholar, which feels kind of blah for Boanerges. But I later find Cosmopolitan, which weirdly feels more exciting as a marker of Awi’s blessing (and, in some ways, more powerful than Scholar, too, as it could be seen as the equivalent of 8 skill ranks at lower levels, as opposed to Scholar’s four). Yeah, let’s take Cosmopolitan, giving Boanerges access to two more languages (one of which, for sure, is Celestial) and two Knowledge skills ~ I’m gonna go with planes and arcana ~ as class skills.
That done (finally), we turn our eyes to character traits. As stated, Redeemer from Champions of Purity is a definite go, leaving only one more trait to be chosen. The other one involves a lot of scrolling through the Traits database on the SRD page. Enough that I started to despair of finding something good, until way down near the end, I come upon a list of traits from the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play (sidenote: that abbreviates to P.S.O.P., which makes me think of the brandy qualification system and its V.S.O.P. Does the Pathfinder Society produce brandy to finance its operations? That could be the seed of a rad adventure/campaign idea). The rather-despicable-to-my-anarchist-mind Sovereign Court has a trait associated with it called Impressive Presence that does pretty much exactly what I want it to do. Much like most all of the ifrits in Boanerges’s horde have access to panache through Amateur Swashbuckler, archetypes, or the swashbuckler class itself, most all of them also have the Impressive Presence trait. It is the basis for their entire tactical understanding.
The last step with Boanerges is to equip him. A third-level character is supposed to get 3000 gp of equipment (that’s wealth equivalent to about $600,000 to $1,500,000 in modern money). It’s usually a good rule of thumb to spend no more than half of one’s wealth on an individual ite, but a prophetic paraphenalia from Faiths & Philosophies seems just a little bit perfect for something Awi might have given him ~ it’s very much in line with Awi’s style, and is 2000 gp (500 more than I should spend on an individual item). I usually despise limited-use magic items, a hatred borne of an over-extended critique of industrialized late capitalism’s disposable, planned-obsolescence, addiction-economy obsession. Ultimate Equipment offers four other possibilities for magic items: belt of tumbling, armbands of the brawler, seer's tea, and war paint of the terrible visage. I know I said I was wary of third-party content, but I also happen to own Nyambe, for the express reason of helping me add more African elements to my world, borrowing from someone who (hopefully) has better knowledge about it than I do.
Neither Nyambe nor Eberron’s Secrets of Xen’drik adds any droolworthy magic items to our list, but Nyambe can help us decide what mundane equipment we want Boanerges to buy, which can determine our budget. Let’s start with a large darkwood shield, which would cost 257 gp ~ a masterwork small would be 153, if we need more room in the budget. Nyambe lists a wooden plate armor; if we make that darkwood, it would cost 450 gp, which might be a bit much (especially with the -2 armor check penalty). So let’s go with masterwork studded leather (which I just learned is actually brigandine ~ the “studs” are rivets holding the plates beneath the leather) for 175 gp. So, armor as a whole costs 432 or 328 gp. For a weapon, we’ll call the whacking stick the official weapons of these swashbuckling ifrit barbarians. A masterwork version would be 303 gp.
We’re left with 2265 gp, or 2369 gp if we want the space. If we leave the prophetic paraphenalia behind, then the magic items I’ve chosen come out to 1950 gp, leaving 315/419 gp. He gets a traveler’s outfit for free, and we buy a woven backpack (2 gp), light blanket (3 sp), bottle calabash (5 sp), 2 wooden boxes (used instead of leather belt pouches; 2 sp), wooden headrest (2 sp), wooden game board (5 gp), 3 doses healing salve (30 gp), 4 doses marsh water (20 gp), iron fishhook (1 sp), iron pot (5 sp), iron sewing needle (5 sp), tent (10 gp), disguise kit (50 gp), and a silver holy symbol of Awi (25 gp). That comes out to . . . 144 gp 3 sp spent. We have at least 170 gp 7 sp left to spend. A light warhorse is 150 gp, but we wouldn’t be able to afford any barding for it. A labor elephant costs the same, and a pack animal is better suited to my visual image of Boanerges, anyway. A Huge pack saddle swallows up 10 gp, and 3 days of feed another 6 gp. We finally buy 8 days of trail rations for Boanerges himself, and are left with 3 gp walking money. Oh, let’s not forget a second traveller’s outfit for the Unseen Heart of the Flame’s costume. That’s a gold piece out of the walking money.
The idea of perhaps giving him Amateur Swashbuckler has been in the back of my mind from the beginning, as that’s how I imagine the army that gave rise to Boanerges, as composed of barbarians with the Amateur Swashbuckler feat, barbarian/swashbucklers, hooded champion rangers, devoted muses (from a variety of base classes), dancing blade fighters, wildstrider swashbucklers, and the like, all pumped up with teamwork and panache feats to make them even more frightening. By itself, however, the feat seems rather ho-hum and, more damning, not adding terribly much to Boanerges that he doesn’t already get from vigilante.
I get bored poring through the list of feats on the SRD, and the teamwork feats don’t provide anything overly attractive. Same story for the Improved Unarmed Strike tree and style feats. The afore-mentioned redeemer feat seems to be the best and most obvious choice, so let’s go with that. Except it’s a trait, not a feat >.< Well, I’ll definitely take that in the next step!
Realizing that I’ve mentioned Awi’s association with knowledge a few times but haven’t built that into Boanerges yet, I start looking for appropriate feats to do so. Searching “Knowledge” in the SRD and restricting it to Feats turns up nothing more interesting than Scholar, which feels kind of blah for Boanerges. But I later find Cosmopolitan, which weirdly feels more exciting as a marker of Awi’s blessing (and, in some ways, more powerful than Scholar, too, as it could be seen as the equivalent of 8 skill ranks at lower levels, as opposed to Scholar’s four). Yeah, let’s take Cosmopolitan, giving Boanerges access to two more languages (one of which, for sure, is Celestial) and two Knowledge skills ~ I’m gonna go with planes and arcana ~ as class skills.
That done (finally), we turn our eyes to character traits. As stated, Redeemer from Champions of Purity is a definite go, leaving only one more trait to be chosen. The other one involves a lot of scrolling through the Traits database on the SRD page. Enough that I started to despair of finding something good, until way down near the end, I come upon a list of traits from the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play (sidenote: that abbreviates to P.S.O.P., which makes me think of the brandy qualification system and its V.S.O.P. Does the Pathfinder Society produce brandy to finance its operations? That could be the seed of a rad adventure/campaign idea). The rather-despicable-to-my-anarchist-mind Sovereign Court has a trait associated with it called Impressive Presence that does pretty much exactly what I want it to do. Much like most all of the ifrits in Boanerges’s horde have access to panache through Amateur Swashbuckler, archetypes, or the swashbuckler class itself, most all of them also have the Impressive Presence trait. It is the basis for their entire tactical understanding.
The last step with Boanerges is to equip him. A third-level character is supposed to get 3000 gp of equipment (that’s wealth equivalent to about $600,000 to $1,500,000 in modern money). It’s usually a good rule of thumb to spend no more than half of one’s wealth on an individual ite, but a prophetic paraphenalia from Faiths & Philosophies seems just a little bit perfect for something Awi might have given him ~ it’s very much in line with Awi’s style, and is 2000 gp (500 more than I should spend on an individual item). I usually despise limited-use magic items, a hatred borne of an over-extended critique of industrialized late capitalism’s disposable, planned-obsolescence, addiction-economy obsession. Ultimate Equipment offers four other possibilities for magic items: belt of tumbling, armbands of the brawler, seer's tea, and war paint of the terrible visage. I know I said I was wary of third-party content, but I also happen to own Nyambe, for the express reason of helping me add more African elements to my world, borrowing from someone who (hopefully) has better knowledge about it than I do.
Neither Nyambe nor Eberron’s Secrets of Xen’drik adds any droolworthy magic items to our list, but Nyambe can help us decide what mundane equipment we want Boanerges to buy, which can determine our budget. Let’s start with a large darkwood shield, which would cost 257 gp ~ a masterwork small would be 153, if we need more room in the budget. Nyambe lists a wooden plate armor; if we make that darkwood, it would cost 450 gp, which might be a bit much (especially with the -2 armor check penalty). So let’s go with masterwork studded leather (which I just learned is actually brigandine ~ the “studs” are rivets holding the plates beneath the leather) for 175 gp. So, armor as a whole costs 432 or 328 gp. For a weapon, we’ll call the whacking stick the official weapons of these swashbuckling ifrit barbarians. A masterwork version would be 303 gp.
We’re left with 2265 gp, or 2369 gp if we want the space. If we leave the prophetic paraphenalia behind, then the magic items I’ve chosen come out to 1950 gp, leaving 315/419 gp. He gets a traveler’s outfit for free, and we buy a woven backpack (2 gp), light blanket (3 sp), bottle calabash (5 sp), 2 wooden boxes (used instead of leather belt pouches; 2 sp), wooden headrest (2 sp), wooden game board (5 gp), 3 doses healing salve (30 gp), 4 doses marsh water (20 gp), iron fishhook (1 sp), iron pot (5 sp), iron sewing needle (5 sp), tent (10 gp), disguise kit (50 gp), and a silver holy symbol of Awi (25 gp). That comes out to . . . 144 gp 3 sp spent. We have at least 170 gp 7 sp left to spend. A light warhorse is 150 gp, but we wouldn’t be able to afford any barding for it. A labor elephant costs the same, and a pack animal is better suited to my visual image of Boanerges, anyway. A Huge pack saddle swallows up 10 gp, and 3 days of feed another 6 gp. We finally buy 8 days of trail rations for Boanerges himself, and are left with 3 gp walking money. Oh, let’s not forget a second traveller’s outfit for the Unseen Heart of the Flame’s costume. That’s a gold piece out of the walking money.
Friday, July 13, 2018
Religion and Boanerges (Fantasy Friday #4)
When we get to determining the proficiencies Boanerges gets as a splintersoul zealot vigilante, the time comes to finally determine his patron. Alignment matters here, too ~ vigilantes can have two alignments next to each other, zealots have alignment restrictions like clerics, and splintersouls qualify for class features and things if only one (not both) alignments does. I’m fairly strongly attached to him as CG/CN in a predominantly CE society, which (I realize now) changes who I’ve been thinking his archangel is.
Presterjho’s pantheon, as it were, is modeled on that of one of my favorite not-quite-obscure RPGs, In Nomine, Steve Jackson Game’s complete redesign of a French angels-and-demons game. So far, as I’ve been digging into the details of Boanerges, I’ve been assuming that he would follow Telakh, the hola archangel of Faith (equivalent to Khalid in In Nomine). But Telakh is staunchly lawful! Back to the drawing board . . . Gebhuri, naifo archangel of Fire (Gabriel) is something of a chaotic counterpart to Telakh, the burning ecstasy of faith as opposed to the rigid discipline thereof. But I’m feeling like Boanerges’s patron should be more neutral good. For one, this gives the splintersoul splintered identity some oomph, but on another, it reinforces the “sneaky redeemer” aspect of Boanerges, which I fear is getting lost. Let’s see, the list of neutral good archangels is:
Dhanebsonhi, kruv archangel of Dreams
Khashamsorof, kruv archangel of Children
Nanahoy, hola archangel of Lightning
Yorethil, faras archangel of Revelation
Themnoth, yaim archangel of the Voice
Newosli, kruv archangel of Flowers
Sennao, wekyosthet archangel of the Ocean
Awi, yaim archangel of Destiny
Razal, rogigyos archangel of Death
That’s 9 out of the 22 most popular archangels in Presterjho, easily the most common alignment thereamong.
Let’s see . . . I want a focus on redemption and converting folk to the cause of good, yeah? So we can immediately rule out Nanahoy, Yorethil, Themnoth, Sennao, and Razal, as they’re all more concerned with other things. That leaves Dhanebsohni, Khashamsorof, Newosli, and Awi. As much as I really enjoy making unusual servitors of Children in In Nomine, I think I’ll have Boanerges serve the very mysterious Awi, whose focus is entirely on ensuring that the world turns out for the better. It also makes Boanerges quite cosmopolitan, as he comes from Not-CentralAfrica and follows a religion from neighboring Presterjho shaded by the atheistic Jedi-like worship of Time centered in Scarhas (Destiny and Fate replace the Light and Dark Sides in that religion).
Awi believes that the use of weapons leads to rash actions, and that rash actions tend to fulfill Fate far more often than Destiny. Accordingly, his favored weapon is the unarmed strike, and Boanerges gets Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat.
Social talents available to Boanerges at 1st level are somewhat disappointing, actually. I think you’re expected to take renown, but that would dilute the theme of his discomfort at having to stuff his normally huge and flamboyant personality into a small and subtle secret identity, of intimidating bluster struggling towards compassionate persuasion. I consider gossip collector for a hot second, but it feels kinda tacked-on, not hitting any particular element of his character or background. I decide to go with social grace finally. We’ll choose Intimidate, to further the contrast (and cuz it’s Boanerges’s highest mental skill).
Zealot replaces vigilante specialization with an inquisitor’s inquisition, the choice of which is ridiculously easy: Boanerges benefits from the Redemption inquisition. Awi chose him as their agent specifically to seed goodness within an evil horde. The vigilante talent at 2nd level isn’t so easy. I consider the channel energy zealot talent, but that still seems like an “overwhelming presence” thing. Harsh judgment? It does allow the judgment of purity, which is awfully tempting when surrounded by inherently magical beings like ifrits. Magical familiarity, on the other hand, is within Awi’s purview, as he is the most arcane of the archangels, and also the most associated with time. I wonder if there are any good time-related cantrips to give Boanerges? Shadow’s speed and shadow’s sight seem like good, solid, boring workhorse talents, while steely resolve makes some sense for a servant of Awi, I suppose. Team player, on the other hand, seems appropriate enough to join harsh judgment (purity) and magical familiarity as the front-runners. A quick glance at the list of cantrips reveals nothing I want for Boanerges. Let’s go with harsh judgment (purity). And splintersoul requires us to take an early quick change talent at 3rd level (the earliness costs us unshakable, too).
When in his vigilante identity ~ which I realize I really should name . . . . how about, like, the Unseen Heart of the Flame? ~ Boanerges possesses a moderate aura of good. He can also cast spells like an inquisitor as the Unseen Heart. Or would, if his wisdom was higher >.< 5 points is a lot to ask for, but I wonder if we can’t make up for it with a magical item? The answer, sadly, is hell no ~ even the smallest boost of a +2 costs 4000 gp, and at 3rd level, Boanerges only has 3000.
I know a lot of players out there would say that I’ve made catastrophically suboptimal choices when building Boanerges, but I like to think that Awi had this exact process in mind by choosing him. Boanerges is meant to seed goodness within his horde, and the process of doing so is meant to build within him the wisdom that Awi so prizes. The plans of an archangel, let alone a yaim archangel (the yaim are not like other angels ~ they are direct emanations of the divine), are fractal, complicated, and multifaceted. In terms of planning for the future, Boanerges should be all caught up in terms of spellcasting by 7th level (with his 4th-level ability increase going to Wisdom, and a headband of inspired wisdom +4 costing 16,000 gp).
Presterjho’s pantheon, as it were, is modeled on that of one of my favorite not-quite-obscure RPGs, In Nomine, Steve Jackson Game’s complete redesign of a French angels-and-demons game. So far, as I’ve been digging into the details of Boanerges, I’ve been assuming that he would follow Telakh, the hola archangel of Faith (equivalent to Khalid in In Nomine). But Telakh is staunchly lawful! Back to the drawing board . . . Gebhuri, naifo archangel of Fire (Gabriel) is something of a chaotic counterpart to Telakh, the burning ecstasy of faith as opposed to the rigid discipline thereof. But I’m feeling like Boanerges’s patron should be more neutral good. For one, this gives the splintersoul splintered identity some oomph, but on another, it reinforces the “sneaky redeemer” aspect of Boanerges, which I fear is getting lost. Let’s see, the list of neutral good archangels is:
Dhanebsonhi, kruv archangel of Dreams
Khashamsorof, kruv archangel of Children
Nanahoy, hola archangel of Lightning
Yorethil, faras archangel of Revelation
Themnoth, yaim archangel of the Voice
Newosli, kruv archangel of Flowers
Sennao, wekyosthet archangel of the Ocean
Awi, yaim archangel of Destiny
Razal, rogigyos archangel of Death
That’s 9 out of the 22 most popular archangels in Presterjho, easily the most common alignment thereamong.
Let’s see . . . I want a focus on redemption and converting folk to the cause of good, yeah? So we can immediately rule out Nanahoy, Yorethil, Themnoth, Sennao, and Razal, as they’re all more concerned with other things. That leaves Dhanebsohni, Khashamsorof, Newosli, and Awi. As much as I really enjoy making unusual servitors of Children in In Nomine, I think I’ll have Boanerges serve the very mysterious Awi, whose focus is entirely on ensuring that the world turns out for the better. It also makes Boanerges quite cosmopolitan, as he comes from Not-CentralAfrica and follows a religion from neighboring Presterjho shaded by the atheistic Jedi-like worship of Time centered in Scarhas (Destiny and Fate replace the Light and Dark Sides in that religion).
Awi believes that the use of weapons leads to rash actions, and that rash actions tend to fulfill Fate far more often than Destiny. Accordingly, his favored weapon is the unarmed strike, and Boanerges gets Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat.
Social talents available to Boanerges at 1st level are somewhat disappointing, actually. I think you’re expected to take renown, but that would dilute the theme of his discomfort at having to stuff his normally huge and flamboyant personality into a small and subtle secret identity, of intimidating bluster struggling towards compassionate persuasion. I consider gossip collector for a hot second, but it feels kinda tacked-on, not hitting any particular element of his character or background. I decide to go with social grace finally. We’ll choose Intimidate, to further the contrast (and cuz it’s Boanerges’s highest mental skill).
Zealot replaces vigilante specialization with an inquisitor’s inquisition, the choice of which is ridiculously easy: Boanerges benefits from the Redemption inquisition. Awi chose him as their agent specifically to seed goodness within an evil horde. The vigilante talent at 2nd level isn’t so easy. I consider the channel energy zealot talent, but that still seems like an “overwhelming presence” thing. Harsh judgment? It does allow the judgment of purity, which is awfully tempting when surrounded by inherently magical beings like ifrits. Magical familiarity, on the other hand, is within Awi’s purview, as he is the most arcane of the archangels, and also the most associated with time. I wonder if there are any good time-related cantrips to give Boanerges? Shadow’s speed and shadow’s sight seem like good, solid, boring workhorse talents, while steely resolve makes some sense for a servant of Awi, I suppose. Team player, on the other hand, seems appropriate enough to join harsh judgment (purity) and magical familiarity as the front-runners. A quick glance at the list of cantrips reveals nothing I want for Boanerges. Let’s go with harsh judgment (purity). And splintersoul requires us to take an early quick change talent at 3rd level (the earliness costs us unshakable, too).
When in his vigilante identity ~ which I realize I really should name . . . . how about, like, the Unseen Heart of the Flame? ~ Boanerges possesses a moderate aura of good. He can also cast spells like an inquisitor as the Unseen Heart. Or would, if his wisdom was higher >.< 5 points is a lot to ask for, but I wonder if we can’t make up for it with a magical item? The answer, sadly, is hell no ~ even the smallest boost of a +2 costs 4000 gp, and at 3rd level, Boanerges only has 3000.
I know a lot of players out there would say that I’ve made catastrophically suboptimal choices when building Boanerges, but I like to think that Awi had this exact process in mind by choosing him. Boanerges is meant to seed goodness within his horde, and the process of doing so is meant to build within him the wisdom that Awi so prizes. The plans of an archangel, let alone a yaim archangel (the yaim are not like other angels ~ they are direct emanations of the divine), are fractal, complicated, and multifaceted. In terms of planning for the future, Boanerges should be all caught up in terms of spellcasting by 7th level (with his 4th-level ability increase going to Wisdom, and a headband of inspired wisdom +4 costing 16,000 gp).
Friday, April 1, 2016
Sub-Creations
In the archangel Iwa's library, there is a cuneiform tablet, documenting the ravings of an ancient human prophet. As is usual for prophecies, the text rambles vaguely and with great melodrama. Roughly translated, it begins, "And at the coming of the one who will be the third avatar, a great house will be divided," goes on with a list of events (in prophet-ese) and ends with, "And the third avatar shall choose."
Most humans, these days, would look upon the prophecy as unmitigated drivel, and clichéd, too. However, when Repha'el stumbled across it in the Library, prophecy was still something interesting. She read it, decided that several of the predictions had already been fulfilled (the Fall, various other events), and happened to mention it to her servitor Y'hohanan, the angel of Lightning.
The pair of elohim -- the archangel of Knowledge and the angel whose Word encompassed inspiration -- spent a pleasant lazy summer dissecting the prophecy. They arrived at the conclusion that the Symphony might indeed spawn off self-aware aspects. These aspects, they decided, would have to have been created directly from the Symphony. They would probably be indestructible, with Forces interwoven with the Symphony such that to destroy the avatar would necessitate destroying that part of the Symphony itself. After a lengthy debate (as to whether Eru YHVH Iluvatar was an avatar Itself, a part of the Symphony that was self-aware without being separate, or an entity whose Word was, effectively, "the Symphony"), Y'hohanan wondered aloud if Iwa might be the first avatar.
Repha'el said, "Very interesting question. I'll ask him."
And when she did, Iwa said, "Yes."
Repha'el quickly came to the conclusion that the logical second avatar might be Sker, Iwa's opposite number. To that, Iwa replied, "Almost," and would say no more. Repha'el then went off and wrote a treatise on the nature of the Symphony, avatars, and free will entitled "Avatars, the Symphony, and God", with two little discourses thrown in, one on the nature of Leukibher (whom she had determined must have been the second avatar) and one on prophecy.
"Those who know the future are doomed to repeat it," is the title of Repha'el's chapter on prophecy. Most of her musings with Y'hohanan are included, either as support for the theory or as speculations on the logical conclusions of the avatar premise. One of these is speculations on whether the third avatar should be used as a Symphonic tie-breaker between Fate and Destiny, or whether that avatar should form the nucleus of a third side in the War. (Elohim like tough questions like that.) In this discussion, she hints that, if you play with that "the Third Avatar shall choose" line, you may come to the conclusion that this doesn't necessarily mean "choose between the first and second avatars'" but simply "CHOOSE." Which might well imply that while Iwa is a manifestation of the Symphony's Bright Destiny, and Leukibher of its Dark Fate (though see below), the hypothetical Third Avatar would be Free Will manifest.
Concerning Leukibher, she wrote in a section entitled "On Sub-Creation": "Imagine Leukibher before the Fall as a prism, with the shining white light of Truth taken into him and refracted so as to wring greater beauty from it. This was how Leukibher was intended to be. As a seraph and an archangel, Leukibher explored the possibilities of the Symphony and showed his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren,, and neithren new ways of looking at God's creation. This ability to reveal to his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren, and neithren all of the colors and refractions of the Truth, unique to Leukibher, was at first a source of pride.
"Leukibher's pride was not Truth, and the dissonance of that pride drove him to madness and rebellion. When Mikha-el cast Leukibher down, I am asserting that the prism that was Leukibher shattered, and Forces which had been part of Leukibher flew free from the metaphysical impact, creating a number of distinct 'shards'. Leukibher, maddened and glutted with new power, would have maintained his new nature by compartmentalizing those parts of his psyche that did not mesh with the being that he became in the moment of his Fall. These fragments, perhaps, then broke free as shards, each with a number of Forces attached -- sort of a spontaneous creation of new celestials. As ages passed, some of those frgaments of his personality would have gained more and more Forces -- the children of his thought, the (often distorted) pieces of his Truth. Each shard would thus hold a fragment of the Truth that was Leukibher, or a fragment of his nascent madness. The Leukibher that God created (henceforth referred to as "Leukibher Prime") is likely no more. The largest shard, a balseraph, would have convinced himself that he was Leukibher, and with the amount of power that had flowed into Leukibher Prime during the rebellion, none of the new demons had the will or temerity to challenge. Besides, the rest of the rebels arrived in Hell somewhat later than Leukibher, who could create any story he wished and, as a balseraph, would believe it.
"Further research has shown the following to be reasonable possibilities for at least some of the more major shards. One shard, which embodied the insubordination of Leukibher, became Azal, the balseraph demon of Insubordination. Another shard, embodying the reverence of Leukibher for God over all, even in spite of God's favor for humanity, became Iblis the djinn, who by Islamic tradition was damned when he refused to bow before the first humans. Yet another shard, embodying the impulse which led Leukibher to test Hawwah with temptation during the Edinnu Experiment, became Samael of Hebrew tradition, a habbalah, still testing the worthiness of humanity for Heaven and firmly convinced that he works in God's service. The shard embodying the need of Leukibher to uncover and reveal the Truth eventually fledged into Litheroy, now the seraph archangel of Revelation. Seeing as no one knows his origins, it seems quite probable that Leukibher's status as the original chooser of Fate over Destiny might have grown into Sker, the prince of Fate. Perhaps one shard, holding fragments of outrage upswelling from Leukibher Prime's consciousness, nursed its rage through the eons until eventually fledging as a malak, and so on . . . . The wildest theories -- that some of Leukibher's shards might have left the Symphony entirely and taken root in Ein Soph Aur to form separate Symphonies, subject to wild variations on the Divine Will -- still find themselves without effective counterargument. Should they prove true, it is likely that the most reliable way to access these Sub-Creations would be to somehow travel through or by means of another Leukibher-shard.
"Only those shards that originally possessed (or later gained) Forces from all three realms (corporeal, ethereal, and celestial) could be considered viable celestials. Other proto-shards, possessing Forces in only one or two realms, might still exist somewhere but would most likely have dissolved into the Symphony. Still, there might be shadows in the Marches, each with a bit of disjointed wisdom, which never gained corporeal or celestial Forces, and Remnants of Leukibher Prime may lurk somewhere on Earth.
"Shards would be independent beings, with unique motivations and distinct personalities. Though they share a common origin, they almost certainly would not conveniently fit back together like some celestial jigsaw puzzle, and most would likely heartily resist any efforts to do so. They would not merge into celestial amalgam beings when they come into contact with one another. Some ancient celestials who were around before the Fall might see a faint resemblance between a shard and their memory of Leukibher Prime, but it's been a long time. I didn't."
In the last section of the manuscript, Repha'el mentions that she believes she can determine the identity of the Third Avatar.
Any search for the sequel to "Avatars, the Symphony, and God" turns up an extensive tactical summary of the battle with Leg -- troop movements, tactics, and a list of the dead. The "Third Avatar" paper died, unwritten, with Repha'el. Y'hohanan forgot all about such "youthful diversions" as he shouldered many of Repha'el's responsibilities. The tablet and her first treatise were buried in the Library, and have not come to light for centuries.
Questions to Answer, Plot Points for the Future, and Musings:
Most humans, these days, would look upon the prophecy as unmitigated drivel, and clichéd, too. However, when Repha'el stumbled across it in the Library, prophecy was still something interesting. She read it, decided that several of the predictions had already been fulfilled (the Fall, various other events), and happened to mention it to her servitor Y'hohanan, the angel of Lightning.
The pair of elohim -- the archangel of Knowledge and the angel whose Word encompassed inspiration -- spent a pleasant lazy summer dissecting the prophecy. They arrived at the conclusion that the Symphony might indeed spawn off self-aware aspects. These aspects, they decided, would have to have been created directly from the Symphony. They would probably be indestructible, with Forces interwoven with the Symphony such that to destroy the avatar would necessitate destroying that part of the Symphony itself. After a lengthy debate (as to whether Eru YHVH Iluvatar was an avatar Itself, a part of the Symphony that was self-aware without being separate, or an entity whose Word was, effectively, "the Symphony"), Y'hohanan wondered aloud if Iwa might be the first avatar.
Repha'el said, "Very interesting question. I'll ask him."
And when she did, Iwa said, "Yes."
Repha'el quickly came to the conclusion that the logical second avatar might be Sker, Iwa's opposite number. To that, Iwa replied, "Almost," and would say no more. Repha'el then went off and wrote a treatise on the nature of the Symphony, avatars, and free will entitled "Avatars, the Symphony, and God", with two little discourses thrown in, one on the nature of Leukibher (whom she had determined must have been the second avatar) and one on prophecy.
"Those who know the future are doomed to repeat it," is the title of Repha'el's chapter on prophecy. Most of her musings with Y'hohanan are included, either as support for the theory or as speculations on the logical conclusions of the avatar premise. One of these is speculations on whether the third avatar should be used as a Symphonic tie-breaker between Fate and Destiny, or whether that avatar should form the nucleus of a third side in the War. (Elohim like tough questions like that.) In this discussion, she hints that, if you play with that "the Third Avatar shall choose" line, you may come to the conclusion that this doesn't necessarily mean "choose between the first and second avatars'" but simply "CHOOSE." Which might well imply that while Iwa is a manifestation of the Symphony's Bright Destiny, and Leukibher of its Dark Fate (though see below), the hypothetical Third Avatar would be Free Will manifest.
Concerning Leukibher, she wrote in a section entitled "On Sub-Creation": "Imagine Leukibher before the Fall as a prism, with the shining white light of Truth taken into him and refracted so as to wring greater beauty from it. This was how Leukibher was intended to be. As a seraph and an archangel, Leukibher explored the possibilities of the Symphony and showed his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren,, and neithren new ways of looking at God's creation. This ability to reveal to his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren, and neithren all of the colors and refractions of the Truth, unique to Leukibher, was at first a source of pride.
"Leukibher's pride was not Truth, and the dissonance of that pride drove him to madness and rebellion. When Mikha-el cast Leukibher down, I am asserting that the prism that was Leukibher shattered, and Forces which had been part of Leukibher flew free from the metaphysical impact, creating a number of distinct 'shards'. Leukibher, maddened and glutted with new power, would have maintained his new nature by compartmentalizing those parts of his psyche that did not mesh with the being that he became in the moment of his Fall. These fragments, perhaps, then broke free as shards, each with a number of Forces attached -- sort of a spontaneous creation of new celestials. As ages passed, some of those frgaments of his personality would have gained more and more Forces -- the children of his thought, the (often distorted) pieces of his Truth. Each shard would thus hold a fragment of the Truth that was Leukibher, or a fragment of his nascent madness. The Leukibher that God created (henceforth referred to as "Leukibher Prime") is likely no more. The largest shard, a balseraph, would have convinced himself that he was Leukibher, and with the amount of power that had flowed into Leukibher Prime during the rebellion, none of the new demons had the will or temerity to challenge. Besides, the rest of the rebels arrived in Hell somewhat later than Leukibher, who could create any story he wished and, as a balseraph, would believe it.
"Further research has shown the following to be reasonable possibilities for at least some of the more major shards. One shard, which embodied the insubordination of Leukibher, became Azal, the balseraph demon of Insubordination. Another shard, embodying the reverence of Leukibher for God over all, even in spite of God's favor for humanity, became Iblis the djinn, who by Islamic tradition was damned when he refused to bow before the first humans. Yet another shard, embodying the impulse which led Leukibher to test Hawwah with temptation during the Edinnu Experiment, became Samael of Hebrew tradition, a habbalah, still testing the worthiness of humanity for Heaven and firmly convinced that he works in God's service. The shard embodying the need of Leukibher to uncover and reveal the Truth eventually fledged into Litheroy, now the seraph archangel of Revelation. Seeing as no one knows his origins, it seems quite probable that Leukibher's status as the original chooser of Fate over Destiny might have grown into Sker, the prince of Fate. Perhaps one shard, holding fragments of outrage upswelling from Leukibher Prime's consciousness, nursed its rage through the eons until eventually fledging as a malak, and so on . . . . The wildest theories -- that some of Leukibher's shards might have left the Symphony entirely and taken root in Ein Soph Aur to form separate Symphonies, subject to wild variations on the Divine Will -- still find themselves without effective counterargument. Should they prove true, it is likely that the most reliable way to access these Sub-Creations would be to somehow travel through or by means of another Leukibher-shard.
"Only those shards that originally possessed (or later gained) Forces from all three realms (corporeal, ethereal, and celestial) could be considered viable celestials. Other proto-shards, possessing Forces in only one or two realms, might still exist somewhere but would most likely have dissolved into the Symphony. Still, there might be shadows in the Marches, each with a bit of disjointed wisdom, which never gained corporeal or celestial Forces, and Remnants of Leukibher Prime may lurk somewhere on Earth.
"Shards would be independent beings, with unique motivations and distinct personalities. Though they share a common origin, they almost certainly would not conveniently fit back together like some celestial jigsaw puzzle, and most would likely heartily resist any efforts to do so. They would not merge into celestial amalgam beings when they come into contact with one another. Some ancient celestials who were around before the Fall might see a faint resemblance between a shard and their memory of Leukibher Prime, but it's been a long time. I didn't."
In the last section of the manuscript, Repha'el mentions that she believes she can determine the identity of the Third Avatar.
Any search for the sequel to "Avatars, the Symphony, and God" turns up an extensive tactical summary of the battle with Leg -- troop movements, tactics, and a list of the dead. The "Third Avatar" paper died, unwritten, with Repha'el. Y'hohanan forgot all about such "youthful diversions" as he shouldered many of Repha'el's responsibilities. The tablet and her first treatise were buried in the Library, and have not come to light for centuries.
Questions to Answer, Plot Points for the Future, and Musings:
- Who is the ancient human prophet?
- What are the events he lists?
- Three different translations, in various languages, of "Avatars, the Symphony, and God"? What's each's story? How do they come to the PCs?
- There is one Symphony-created individual who seems to embody Free Will, if not entirely in a good way: the princess of Freedom, Lilitu.
- If you assume that the Grigori were created to sire children, and that their mortal descendants the Nefilim are known to naturally have 6 Forces, and add in the concept of Lilitu as an Avatar herself . . . maybe Eru YHVH Iluvatar wanted humanity to be the deciding factor in the War, and not just the prize.
- The Angel of Hip-Hop, influenced by postmodern realities and remix/sampler culture, sees the Sub-Creations as ways to forge a new kind of existence, a novel ontology
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