Showing posts with label Soul Crafting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soul Crafting. Show all posts

Soul Crafting Part 3: Soul Binding

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , , , , ,



Every fibre of its being tingled with darts pleasure and pain as it swirled within the ritual circle, the red mist that comprised its body slowly starting to coalesce once more into its true form.
“I.. I am.. Isolde.. I am Isolde.” the mist twisted and writhed as the personality within took hold trying to avoid the oblivion it risked with each passing moment, the thing of mist now Isolde examined its surroundings through its scattered senses, unable yet to see or hear she forced her raw senses to the magic of ritual circle that encased her. It thrummed with a low steady pulse that gave rise to an aura of chilling static devoid of emotion that reeked of ancient power. A sense of familiarity twinged at her memory but she could gather no agenda or allegiance of the caster from the mana that fuelled the circle or its adjoining sister spells, only that her summoner was no mere dabbler in the arts. A large wave of energy sending a shock through her disjointed thoughts and body signalled that the ritual now nearing completion, intending to keep at least some advantage she now forced the swirling mists that comprised her to gather and begin to mould and solidify into a body of her choosing.
Opening her scarlet eyes she blinked as they adjusted to the world finally taking shape around her, realising she was laying naked upon a stone tile floor she could feel goosebumps rising in her new flesh feeling the chill of the cold stone as the magic aura that throbbed from the sapphire runic circle encrusted within it. Attempting to rise she stumbled like a newborn calf once more to the floor, her legs still not ready she shuffled into a kneeling position as instead she rose her head searching for her summoner. The low magic glow of the ritual encircling her provided the light for most of the enclosed room which much to her surprised was bare of the usual magical paraphernalia giving nothing of the owner or location of her prison, her eyes turned to focus their gaze towards the only other source of light in the room a glowing crystal upon a twisting black oak staff bright enough to prevent her gazing past it to the one holding it who was presumably her summoner.

The final method soul crafting I will be covering in this series comes from the Infernum setting created by Mongoose Publishing, this setting focuses on the war and machinations between mortals, demons and the souls of the dammed in the realm of Infernum.

Due to several differences between Infernum and regular D20 regarding magic I’ve made some minor changes to following ruleset to make it compatible for general use though I will also be highlighting Mongoose Publishing’s own D20 later.

Soulshaping and Soul Binding

Soulshaping and Soul Binding are the most powerful soul manipulation techniques available though they come with their own set of challenges and dangers and rarely available beyond gods, demons and devils.
Soulshaping lets the user alter the very fabric of a soul changing its shape into whatever the crafter desires, however even in its new form the soul is perceptive of everything around it leading devils and demons to make horrific artworks that serve to both torture the soul and entertain themselves.
To be able to Soulshape the crafter must first be on a plane where the soul has a physical form which can be interacted with, in many settings this would be the Celestial realms, the Ethereal plane or the Nine Hells and Abyss.

Craft: (SoulShaping) (Int)


Skill DC
Desired Shape
5
Just a Mess
10
Simple geometric shape
12 or DC of item to craft.
Specific Shape e.g. Building block.
15+
Artwork
12
Adding Bite or Claw attack to the Soul
4 per point of natural armour.
Adding Natural Armour to the Soul
Level of the Soul + 10
Soul Binding to a weapon or armour


The result of this check also determines the Will Save the Soul must pass to reshape itself to its original form or the Craft DC another character using Soulshaping has to pass to undo the change.
When creating items make soulshaping treat them as Cold Iron but they regeneration 10 hit points a round and have resistant 15 to all elements including Force and Sonic, regarding items such as walls and floors the book Dungeonscape by Wizards of the Coast has rules for specifically for these.   

Unlike Soulshaping Soul Binding does not require the user to be on any particular plane, the crafter must however have the soul available outside of a physical body through methods of Trap the Soul or Soul Bind.

Soul Binding can only be applied to a masterwork item, the ability score modifiers of the creature been bound alter the item in the following ways.

Ability Score modifier
Melee/Ranged Weapon
Armour
Str
Add to Base Damage
Reduce Weight by 10% per point of Strength bonus
Dex
Add ½ modifier as bonus to hit.
Add to max dex modifier
Con
Add to Hardness score
Add to Armour bonus
Char
Critical Threat Range (Min 20)
Reduce Armour Check penalty by Charisma modifier.

Intelligence and Wisdom both grant an additional +1 modifier to the weapon per three points, for example using the soul of a creature with +3 modifier to intelligence and a +6 modifier to wisdom with give the crafter the option of adding a +3 enchantment modifier, a +2 enchantment modifier with a +1 Shocking enhancement or a +1 enchantment modifier with a +2 Shocking Burst enhancement.
Negative modifiers also apply when Soul Binding so for example if a soul been bound to armour had a dex modifier of -1 then the armour would lose 1 point of max dex modifier.

The soul bound within the item is still conscious and can (and often will) try to possess its wielder, whenever the item is drawn/donned or the wielder is disabled the wielder must make a Will save against the DC of 5 + the bound souls intelligence modifier + the bound souls wisdom modifier.
If the saving throw is failed the bound soul may possess the wielder (until the weapon is sheathed or armour removed.) or attempt a Will save to break its binding to the item.
A bound soul in possession has access to all its class skills and abilities that do not rely on its physical body, unless the soul is particular insane or outright states its freedom (which happens surprisingly often) possession is not immediately obvious.  

Epic Level SoulBinding

As mentioned at the start of the article Mongoose Publishing have created a D20 conversion of the Soul Binding rules listed in their book D20 Expert Player’s Guide Volume 3 Epic Monsters (MGP 9022), these are quite different from the ruling above and are more powerful but even less accessible requiring a epic level feat and a more complex process as stated before.

Feat: Craft Soulbound Item [Item Creation]
Prerequisite: Craft Magic Arms and Armour, Caster Level 20th.
Benefit: You can create magical arms and armour with more than one array of powers with a constant enchantment bonus.
Special: Members of House Zethu may take this feat at 10th level


Creating Soulbound items

To create Soulbound items you must have the Craft Soulbound Item feat as well as the Craft Magic Arms and Armour feat.
To create a Soulbound item, you must possess one gem into which the soul of a creature of at least 3 Hit Dice or experience levels per point of bonus modifier has been bound by the means of a Trap the Soul spell, with a minimum of 8 Hit Dice or levels per gem. Remember that for a gem to be viable for Trap the Soul the gem must have a value of at least 1,000 gold pieces per level or Hit Dice of the creature whose soul it is going to contain.
Consult the magic item creation table in the Dungeon Masters Guide to find out the total bonus modifier for the special abilities you want. For example if you wish a gem to include a an array of Unholy, Flaming Burst and Ghost Touch the modifier would be +5 so the gem would require to contain the soul of a 15 or more Hit Dice Creature. Note only weapons and armour can be soulbound items.

When creating the item item you must specify its base enchantment bonus first, this remains constant whichever array of powers is active. A Soulbound item cannot have any special abilities that are not part of a given gems array though the item can already have an enchantment modifier for example a +2 longsword would be viable but a +1 Flaming longsword would not.   
No one array can have special abilities when added to the base enchantment of the item exceed +10, again for example if the base enchantment was +2 you could only have special ability arrays to s total of +8. In addition any one item may only include five gems in total.
Activating any gem array is a free action though the wielder must know the proper command phrase and be wielding the weapon or wearing the armour. The greatest advantage of soulbound items is that they allow a user to change powers to whatever is required at the time.

Destroying Soulbound items

Although they are extremely powerful and versatile soulbound items are no harder to destroy than regular magic items, they are not considered artifacts and thus do not have specific requirements to destroy them.
Most good aligned creature would destroy such item rather than ever use them to release the trapped souls as per rules of Trap the Soul. However incorporating one of these gems into an soulbound item transforms the whole item into a vessel for containing the soul, these means the whole item has to be destroyed for the soul(s) to be released, in addition it is impossible to destroy an item without releasing all souls within. Knowing this many crafters bind the souls of powerful demon and devils into the items as well as good aligned creatures, this way any heroes attempting to free the soul of the good creature within would find themselves confronted by powerful demons they would also release. 

Bringing a petite hand to her eyes to reduce the glare of the crystal she shuffled slightly feinting confusion and disorientation, knowing that it watched her each movement chosen to display her body to her captor the ritual glow below her highlighting every curve with a play of shadows and light.
She had chosen an form that she favoured for unknown situations which was of a young woman budding into adulthood which when combined with a masquerade of innocence was deadly effective and had lead to some of her more interesting seductions. Hiding an inward smirk she let out a gasp mocking realisation her hand dropping to cover herself as her batlike wings curled around her like a cloak hiding her nubile body a mask of embarrassment, outrage and confusion slipping across her features. “Who.. Who are you? How did I get here?” her throat still new caused her soft music voice to crack slightly adding only more authenticity to her performance.

Her question hung in the silence air for a moment the figure behind the light stood unflinching and soundless as if calculating its thoughts before it replied “Put aside such petty deception for I 'know' my casting to be true Isolde Seducer of the twin kings, Consort of Pelacus the Fool, Defiler of the high priestess of the city of Blacksand, Whore of the Golden Senate.. to continue would be inefficient I have only two uses for you and neither involve your body.”
The man's emotionless cold voice reminding her of a golum each title spoken caused a strange unusual sensation to spread throughout her that seemed to slowly make her bones feel hollow, unfolding her wings with an angry flare she tried to drive away the feeling as she now glared at her summoner letting her mask drop away her reply an acidic snarl “Well then your delay wastes both our times, speak mortal and be done with it.”

A strange barking noise came from behind the light and it took a moment for Isolde to realise that it was an attempt to laugh like it was an alien action to its originator. “I have not been mortal for a long time but I shall speak. Succubus Isolde by the weave of the cosmos and turning of the planes I evoke thy true name 'Palladoxius The Soulsticher' obey my commands and be true.” Her very being shuddering as the words seemed to penetrate her very essence Isolde had a sudden realisation of the sensation that troubled her moments before, it was something she had not felt in centuries Fear.


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Soul Crafting Part 2: Soul Burning

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , ,

Fingertips dancing across her bare porcelain skin a relaxed sigh escaped the demoness lips as reclined across her throne holding the crystal to her breast, its crimson glow throbbing like a still beating heart each pulse signified yet another fragment of a mortals soul dedicated to her.
The throbbing quicken as did the demoness matching its pace until a surge of pure energy brought the moment to its climax, the final beat no mere fragment but the entire soul of one who had pledged themselves to the succubus.

Isolde slowly slipped to her feet cradling the crystal gingerly, a finger slowly caressing the rune that otherwise marred its smooth surface as she now strode towards her private chambers. she could have been enraged by the loss of the cult drawing the souls forth to inflict extricating torments upon them like her sire had done in the past but in honesty to herself she found the process to be wasteful at best and tedious at worst. The mayor had been loyal and reasonably successful to a point, while her colleagues would of shunned the animal sacrifices and most likely even the soul fragments of her worshippers as worthless they lacked her foresight and ingenuity.

Even now each fragment gave her a link to the souls as they entered their planes of afterlife, a dozen unwitting spies a number that would only grow with her collection and the animal fragments while not as valuable gave her the material to experiment. A self satisfied smile crossed her lips as she remember her first creation, an amalgamation of fragments the ghostly cockerel had acted and appeared not unlike its mortal counterpart a seeming whole creature to a casual onlooker who could not see the pure chaos and conflict as the fragments fought for control. It had been an exciting experiment to see just what made up the very essence of a creature and a step towards creating a new kind of creature whose creation would blaspheme towards the celestials and gods themselves.
This second method of soul crafting focuses on the use of an already captured soul that has come into the possession of the spell caster, the most common occurrence of how this could happen would be a casting of Trap the Soul or Soul Bind though rare materials such as Thinuan from Complete Warrior may also contain souls. In regards to the last article the Soul Gem created by Ritual Sacrifice is not suitable for the Soul Burning technique below as it only captures part of a soul.

Below is a formula I’ve used in some of my past games regarding the worth of a soul in crafting through a method I’ve called soul burning, the aim was to create a simple and balanced ruleset and so far it has worked well in play.

Soul Burning

Soul Burning is the method of transmuting the very soul into raw magic, due to the methods necromantic nature any item infused in this manner gains a necromantic aura of caster level equal to the creature whose soul is been used hit dice. On items with an existing necromantic aura this stacks with the magic aura in place.
As stated in the first article obtaining knowledge of this method should be difficult (DC30 Knowledge Arcane to discover through conventional means) and using this is an inherently evil act, it does hold the advantage that it can be used on items like a Lich phylactery with a contested Will save between the caster and Lich.

Determining the experience points value of a soul:
Base value: 100xp.
Level Adjustment:+10xp to base value per point of level adjustment.
Unique Bloodline: + 10xp to base value.
Arcane spellcaster: +30xp to base value.
Divine spellcaster: + 40xp to base value.
Final value: Base value X character level.

A unique bloodline bonus is applied to creatures with bloodline feats such as sorcerers or are descended from creatures such as outsiders or dragons, however this does not stack with the bonus for level adjustment. For example a tiefling would be considered to have a unique bloodline but already receives a bonus due to its level adjustment.   

So for an example:

For a gem contains the soul of a Level 10 Half Dragon Sorcerer the value of crafting experience would be:
100 + 30 (Level adjustment) + 30 (Arcane spellcaster) = Base value 160xp
160 x 10 (character level) for a final total of 1600 crafting experience.

To use this crafting experience to create items that do not normally require xp cost, the traditional exchange is 5GP per 1XP meaning that in the above example the Half Dragon Sorcerer soul would be worth 8000 gold pieces.
It goes without saying if the experience points are spent as crafting experience points the soul is destroyed and cannot be restored short of a wish or miracle spell. This particular rule set is still expanding so if anyone has any further ideas for determining the value of a soul feel free to leave comments.

Reluctantly releasing her grip upon the crystal she slotted it into the special grove she had prepared, a centrepiece to the small collection she already possessed she intended to fill many more over the next century. As her fingertips ran across its runic surface one last time she briefly lamented the loss of the Mayor of Pryham as a pawn, a strange sympathy for he would not be the first or last of her lovers to be failed by the incompetence of those who followed him. However it would be only a mere decade or two before another would call her either for a pact or her more physical properties giving her another foothold on the material plane. Or perhaps sooner it seemed as she felt a familiar pull upon her essence her, a sly smile crossing her lips as she recognised the ritual. It seemed the Mayor had passed his secrets onto another who was even now drawing her away from her sanctum towards the material plane, her surroundings fading she allowed herself one further moment of self satisfaction before nothing but hot ash remained where she once stood.


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Soul Crafting Part 1: Sacrifice Rituals

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , , ,



Creeping slowly back into consciousness a thudding pain centred in her temple it felt as though her head would split, a feeling only made worse by the sensation of cold stone below her. With reluctance she attempted to rise only to find herself pinned her hands bound above her, now with sudden urgency as the memory of her earlier encounter returned to her groggy mind Tiasel forced her eyes open squinting at the flickering light that greeted her sight,  
Twisting her body she tried to work her hands free from their heavy iron bindings as she took note of her surroundings her senses sharpening once more, she lay upon a raised stone altar in a dimly lit stone room around which cloaked figures shuffled tending to blood red candles and arcane symbols that made her eyes blur and unfocus which covered the floor however her observation were cut short as her movements attracted unwanted attention.

“Awake already? Well this is unexpected I must remember in future to make the dose stronger or perhaps you are of unusual stamina in any case at least you can now see what use I will make of those gems you brought me or did you think angering the stone giants was my only objective.”
The speakers voice was all too familiar though there was no doubt to the owner as he stepped closer into the flickering light, a wickedly hooked knife in his grip the mayors fingers toyed with the Jet pommel a dark grin upon his lips.

Often touched upon in fantasy novels and various campaign settings, a soul is the thing that set mortals apart from the gods, the currency of angels devils and demons for those desperate to bargain and often found trapped within ancient artifacts of both good and evil. Very few D20 systems however give any game mechanics regarding the use of souls even when they provide methods to obtain them so here are my suggestions for potential methods of soul crafting.

It should be mentioned that gaining the knowledge of any of these methods in character should be difficult requiring actions such as demonic pacts to obtain and using them is unarguably an evil act.

The Ritual Sacrifice

A firm favourite amongst evil cults and budding necromancers this is the traditional fantasy scene of the altar and ritual circle, this method is the easiest but least powerful of soul gathering methods however it has the advantage that it can be used on multiple victims and when given time can be used anywhere.
The traditional ritual sacrifice requires four items, a ritual magic circle in which the sacrifice needs to be made, a sacrificial knife, a gemstone in which the soul is captured and of course a sacrificial victim.

 Creating a Sacrifice Ritual Circle requires the character to be able to cast 3rd level spells of either Arcane or Divine and a material component of ground obsidian or bloodstone mixed with sand soaked in unholy water worth 10 Gold Pieces (GP).
Drawing the Ritual Circle by hand takes 10 minutes and requires a DC 20 Spellcraft check including any additional modifiers that a DM may wish to apply for difficult due to terrain, during this time the material components are spread in a 3-foot diameter circle on the floor (or ground) around the creature to be sacrifice or the altar where the creature will be sacrificed. The circle can be made larger however requires an additional 10 minutes and 10GP of materials per 3-foot to the diameter.

Like a traditional magic circle you can take 10 when drawing the diagram if you are under no particular time pressure to complete the task. If time is no factor at all, and you devote 3 hours and 20 minutes to the task, you can take 20. However they also suffer the same downside as normal magic circles in that if the circle diagram is disturbed or damage the circles effect is destroyed until it is redrawn.
Some temples of evil gods have been known to mix the material components into the mortar of their flooring or patterned surface of their altars to create permanent Magic Ritual Circles which cannot be easily disrupted.

The actual sacrifice process itself traditionally involves a masterwork dagger in which further runes are etched or painted in Infernal or Abyssal requiring a DC25 Knowledge Religion or Arcane and a days work to do so. The second item require (often slotted into the hilt of the dagger or worn as a necklace on the victim) is a gemstone which the victims soul is transferred into, this gemstone does not have to be of a particular type and may hold as much experience points as the value of the gem.
Using this prepared dagger ensures the victim's soul does not escape from the circle during the ritual and sends a fraction of the soul to the entity whose name is inscribed on the dagger, using any other item to slay the victim gives a 25% that the soul will escape the circle and not absorbed into the gem.

To be a valid sacrifice the creature must be alive this means undead creatures cannot be sacrificed; this also includes Liches because the link to their phylactery is far too powerful for the ritual to break. Intelligent humanoids or magical animals are preferable as these provide the strongest souls, mundane animals can be used as a sacrifice however they provide very little power.
Each victim sacrificed in this manner transfers 10 experience points into the gemstone, mundane non magical animals sacrificed in this manner only give 2 experience points. Special bloodlines, outsiders or rare magical animals such as unicorns or dragons may add up to an additional 15 experience points to the sacrifice on top of the initial 10.

For Pathfinder players remember the conversion cost is traditionally 5GP per 1XP so this would convert easily into 50GP for a intelligent humanoids and magical creatures, 10GP for mundane animals and 125GP for creatures of special blood lines.

Anyones soul who is captured in this way cannot be raised or communicated with by spells such as speak with dead, if the gemstone is destroy any souls it contains are released, however the entity who received a fraction of the soul will still possess it which can lead to side effects should a victim be raised from the dead examples of common issues are partial memory loss possibly resulting in level drain or personality alterations, horrific nightmares or visions that are caused by occasional sensations sent to them through the soul fragment. The only way to retrieve these fragments is either by a wish or miracle spell or to retrieve them directly from the devil or demon either by force or bargain.
If the experience points in the gem are spent as crafting experience points the souls are destroyed (in the order of storage) and cannot be restored short of a wish or miracle spell, the process also blackens the gemstone from whatever its original colour and the gem can no longer be used to store further souls eventually shattering into worthless shards when the last of the experience points within are removed.  

As previously stated while the effectiveness of this style of soul gathering is extremely limited it does have the advantage that multiple gems can be gathered over time and it requires little resources other than knowledge and some basic spell casting.
It is mainly used as part of existing worshiping rituals for cults of evil gods rather than as an end to a means, this said however there is nothing stopping an ambitious spellcaster (apart from the extreme difficulty of preventing the circle from been disrupted, mapping it upon uneven ground and obtaining a suitable gem of worth) from encircling an entire village before slaying those within.

Quick Link: Part 2 Part 3

“In the name of the Dark Ones how hard is it to subdue one bound girl?” The words snapping from him in frustration the lord mayor of Pryham lashed out at the nearest figure knocking back its hood revealing the scared baker beneath who mumbled pitifully in reply. “I’m sorry sir we didn’t think to bind her legs with her hands locked and all, at least Brian's nose has stopped bleeding though it might be broken.”

Turning on the smaller man with a snarl, embarrassment fuelled raged glinted in his eyes “His nose will be the last thing he will be worried about if he bleeds on the magic circle again, I WILL NOT be embarrassed before our patron by your collective ineptness at our first proper sacrifice to..”
A sudden pained cry echoed throughout the hall interrupting their exchange as the hooded figure known as Brian slumped to the floor an arrow sticking from his chest, gazing at its source revealed the adventuring party that had entered town only days before including the dwarf who smiled grimly hefting his axe.

A moment of silence dominated the room as the two groups stared each other down, gazing amongst his fellows with weary sigh the mayor gestured towards the rooms new arrivals “WHAT ARE  YOU WAITING FOR? GET THEM!...” shaking his head slowly as his followers charged the intruders he couldn’t help but darkly mutter “Someone will be sacrificed tonight one way or another.” the Jet jewel of his knife pommel now glowing evilly as the souls of the dying were trapped within.


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