Magic, Madness, & Sadness Part V - Power Overwhelming

 

“We sit together,

the mountain and I,

until only the mountain remains.”

– Li Po, Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain

      No one wants to die. Magicians have come up with numerous ways to extend their lives, and to achieve immortality. Some become body hoppers, some remove themselves from the loom of fate, others others twist themselves into monsters, while others still retreat into a fantasy of their own making. Evokers, also known as Channelers or Elementalists, seem an unlikely candidate for immortality. Seen by many to be the most direct and violent of Mages, they generally lead lives of ceaseless dueling, battles and near-misses. Bodies criss-crossed with scars and burns from elemental spells, the typical Channeler is seen more akin to a warrior than a spell-caster.

     Commanding the forces of the physical world and raw arcane energies, they are able to level buildings or murder dozens with a snap of their fingers. Evokers dominate the field of magical dueling as adeptly as the battlefield, feared by other mages for their destructive spells. As devastating as they can be to their foes, most Evokers are valued members of non-magical communities or organizations. Unlike those who practice the dark arts, an Evoker’s powers, while brutal, are easily understood by non-mages. Most everyone has seen a wildfire, lightning strike, or blizzard. Even when they attack their enemies using raw magic, such as with Magic Missile, the results are direct and instantaneous. Most Channelers tend to find the grim peace of a veteran later in their lives, but for some the pursuit of power outstrips everything. Facing down their mortality, they begin a desperate search to extend their lives. Drawing from the same wells of power they always have, they link themselves permanently to one of them. These living dynamos are called Conduits or Gateways.

“Who was the one with the impudence to come begging me for help, at every step of the way? You understand now, don’t you? Without me, you couldn’t do anything at all.” - Kurama, Naruto

     There are no shortages of Evoker-like creatures and threats within D&D—most notably Dragons themselves. This ground is well-trod, and as crowded as it is, I feel I cannot feasibly pick out a certain creature to feature in this article. We are going to talk about Naruto.

      I’ll spare my readers an overview of such a famous anime, and instead launch right into what I want to use as inspiration from it. The power source for most ninja abilities in Naturo is known in-universe as Chakra. Similar to Mana or Chi in other settings, Chakra is derived in living beings through inborn talent, training, surgery, and special regimens. By molding chakra through will, hand seals and written scrolls, the ninja of Naruto are able to perform a dizzying number of techniques from exhaling gouts of flame and making shadow clones of themselves, to stealing the hearts of others to extend their lives. Ninja have not only a finite amount of chakra reserves, but a natural maximum as well. Dipping below a certain amount of internal chakra, or absorbing more than one’s maximum results in the death of the unfortunate ninja.

      The eponymous Naruto, as well as a few similarly bonded individuals, are not subject to many of these normally unbreakable rules of chakra cultivation. As a child, Naruto was bonded to a being named Kurama, or The Nine-Tailed Fox, one of the kind of creatures known as Chakra Monsters or Tailed Beasts. The result of this joining of souls is known as a Junchuriki, and they exhibit extraordinary powers due to their essentially limitless reserves of chakra.

      The particular manifestations of their powers differ depending on which tailed beast the human has had sealed within them. In the case of Gaara, bonded with Shukaku, this allows him to control and animate sand in a myriad of offensive and defensive ways. For Naruto, his bond with Kurama gives him access to not only the massive reservoirs of chakra needed to summon massed shadow clones (an impossible feat for most), but also to heal near-instantaneously from most attacks. All of these wondrous powers come at a cost; the beasts hate humanity (at least at first) and attempt to wrest control away from their bonded humans, going on nearly unstoppable rampages in the process. This tendency for Junchuriki to go berserk often leaves them isolated, or otherwise held at arms length by their fellows. As powerful as they are, they lead lives of sorrow and loneliness. Their potency and value as defenders of their villages comes at the cost of their own happiness.

     It is easy to see where this is leading, at least with regards to our purposes. D&D is rife with places seething with arcane power. Sites of primal energies such as volcanoes or ancient megaliths, never-ending storms or forests so dense light never touches the ground—all could be potential sources for the apotheosis the Conduits seek to achieve. No matter its origin, this fount of power must be endless, or near enough to it. By making themselves one with it, they make themselves endless as well.

“We Burn.” - Archon, StarCraft

     Mortals were not meant to hold magic within themselves in an unrefined form. Magic-Users must contain the energies they shape with their spells through rote memorization of certain motions and spoken words. By using these means to direct these powerful forces, mages protect themselves from being exposed to the consequences of their own spells. More than any other school of magic, evokers need this protection from their own magic to survive. While Abjurers are the masters of securing themselves against the effects of others, evokers must learn to compel arcane forces to a finer degree than any other sort of mage.

     A prospective Gateway extends this necessary capability of their school to its logical conclusion, and begin to connect themselves to the very places they are directing these energies from. Seeking out a place with the proper resonance to their soul, known as a Demense, they forge a bond with it in a ritual known as Swallowing the Sun. The exact process can take myriad forms; spilling one’s own hearts blood on the ground and tracing a personal sigil; tracking down and murdering the spirit of the land; bargaining away a portion of their memories to a primeval beast.

     No matter how Conduits accomplish it, the process is never perfect. Though they are undoubtedly master evokers if they survive, their bodies and souls still warp and crack like over fired vessels. The bond forged goes both ways. As the Gateway is empowered, so in turn is their demense. If their place of power is marred, they falter in potency as well. This synchronization causes them to regard their demense as more than simply a place to serve as an unending font of power, but as a piece of their own souls. The rewards are well worth the effort spent seeking them. Immortality, the ability to regenerate from all but the most grievous of wounds, immunity to their chosen element, and a reservoir of arcane energy which allows to almost effortlessly cast even the most destructive spells.

     It would be tempting to think of Conduits as the most benign of all the seekers of immortality. They usually do not harm anyone in attainment their abilities, nor do they need to do so to continue their own existence. Once they are linked to their demense, they rarely stray far from it. Able to subsist forever by simply sitting near their land, they have little reason to leave other than companionship or boredom. Gateways often begin to see themselves as literal extensions of their land, and as the living mind of the place. Growing distant from the mortal concerns which once defined their existence, they lose connection with what drove them to seek immortality in the first place.

     This isolation, coupled with the steady decay of their still very mortal friends and families, eventually leaves them alone for years at a time. Nearby communities typically treat the Conduit similarly to lesser Channelers, but keep them at arm’s length. Many locals come to see them as guardians or wise but dangerous saints. The awe they are held in only serves to accelerate their identification with their demense. Some find madness or solace, while most lose themselves to the rhythms of the place they’ve bonded themselves to, becoming ragged hermits living in the middle of nowhere. Interlopers foolish enough to threaten their demense are dealt with mercilessly, as their guardian grows ever more entitled to and dependent on it. Forays into the world of mortals are marked with over-eager interest, mixed with occasional threats and explosive confrontations. Having lost touch with the concerns of others Conduits must fake their way through many interactions.

     For their part, other evokers sometimes visit them, hoping to find the keys to swallowing the sun. These seekers are inevitably disappointed when they are told every instance of the ritual is unique. They must seek their own demense.

Game Information

     Conduits are of course immortal. Further, they have resistance against all spells of the evocation school, and immunity to a specific element the referee feels is appropriate to their demense.

     Far from being a singular path to immortality, Swallowing the Sun is the apex of the art of evocation, which few are able or willing to reach. To see what this path looked like for an individual Conduit, roll 3d8 on the table below.

d8	What sort of place is it?	What was their ritual like?	What did it do to them?
1	A massive, miles long and deep canyon.	Immersing themselves in the environment until they die of exposure.	Made them the enemies of elementals opposing their demense’s elemental aspects.
2	An isolated, storm-wracked mountaintop.	Stabbing themselves in the heart, tracing their true name on the grounds before death.	They visibly, though harmlessly, age as they grow further from their demense.
3	The only island in the middle of a huge lake.	Tracking them over days, the Conduit identified the Spirit of the Land and slew it.	Their eyes and mouth glow with pure arcane energies. It is difficult to look at them.
4	The center of an active volcano.	Meditating upon the site for forty days and forty nights, the demense becomes theirs.	Large sections of their bodies have become replaced by or enriched with their demense’s element
5	A lonely oak in a seemingly endless, windswept plain.	Trading the memory of their old lives away to something lurking in the place.	They cannot allow someone to come into their demense uninvited. If they do so, they must punish them.
6	A ferocious, never-ending sandstorm.	Giving up something indelible such as their voice, sight, or ability to hate.	They are harmed if their land is harmed, the damage reflecting on their own body instantaneously.
7	The heart of a forest, untouched by sunlight.	The complete destruction of all their previous possessions, including any magical ones.	Everything they touch is affected by the element of their demnse; leaving patches of frost, trails of flame, etc.
8	A glacier, carved with ancient symbols of power and littered with mammoth bones.	Lowering their protections against their own spells, they obliterate themselves in the heart of the demense.	They must immerse themselves in their bonded element at least once per week, or grow steadily weaker.

     Gateways gain access to an alternate source of spellcasting known as Mana. Only usable for evocation spells, Mana courses through Conduits and allows them to cast without memorizing spells cast with it or consuming spell slots. Conduits have a pool of Mana equal to their HD x 12. The cost in Mana for spells is provided below.

Spell Level	Mana Cost
1	1
2	3
3	5
4	7
5	9
6	11
7	13
8	15
9	17

     The Conduit’s proximity to their demense governs the speed at which they recover hit points as well as Mana. For obvious reasons most Gateways stay close to their demenses.

Distance from Demense	Mana Recovered per Hour	HP Recovered per Round
A few steps	100	5
Day’s walk	50	3
A few days travel	25	2
Weeks of travel	12	1
A different continent	6	N/A
A different plane of existence	3	N/A

Magic, Madness, & Sadness Part IV - A Sense of Enchantment

 

“Symbols are the key to telepathy. The mind wraps its secrets in symbols; when we discover the symbols that shape our enemy’s thoughts, we can penetrate the vault of his mind.” - Lady Deirdre Skye, Alpha Centauri

    No one wants to die. Spellcasters have come up with various means to avoid this fate. While the most well-known path to immortality is through Necromancy, there are other means towards that end, such as becoming a Beholder, Dreamer or Fateless. As the foremost experts in affecting the thoughts of others, students of Enchantment face a far stranger path than their fellows. Hated and often hunted, most fall along the way. But some Enchanters persist to the apex of their school. These hidden masters of the art are known as Body Thieves or Doll Makers.

    Enchantment, along with both Conjuration and Necromancy, make up what are collectively known as the Dark Arts. These manifestations of magic are not necessarily seen as evil, but rather open to such abuse their use is discouraged, sometimes through lethal means. When compared to Necromancy or Conjuration, Enchantment is seen as the pursuit of cowards, perverts, and tyrants. Many societies require Enchanters to announce their skills in some way. Humiliating tattoos, gags secured with locks, deafened minders trained to slaughter them on command, those wise in the subtle way are used to being discriminated against. All of these slings and arrows pale in comparison to the narcotic of dominating the emotions or will of another being. Enchanters tend to confirm the worst stereotypes of spellcasters. Casually using others as toys and pawns, they advance their agendas without ever having to lift a finger. Commonfolk often respond by burning the offender at the stake, or setting upon them with clubs and pitchforks—but this does little to dissuade would-be mind-benders.

    As they age, most Enchanters begin to grow suspicious to the point of paranoia. Having dwelt within the minds of so many others, the deceit and hypocrisy they so often witness poisons their personalities. Lines between individuals begin to blur, easing their guilt over manipulating the desires of others. This all leads to a disturbing crescendo. At a certain level of potency, mind-benders become capable of one of the most dire sins possible: the utter destruction of another personality.

    

     Even among the cynical ranks of the Enchanters this is not done lightly. The technique is kept a secret, lest they be held in even more suspicion than they already are. Most stop here, unwilling to countenance the next step. The desperate and the dying sometimes step over the final precipice and not only destroy the mind of another, but replace it with their own. They become Body Thieves.

“My mind's being eaten away...Kaji, it's unraveling my mind...What will I do?” - Asuka Sohryu, Neon Genesis Evangelion

    Mind-control is extremely common, even normalized within D&D. Illithids, Cranium Rats, Aboleth, Neogi, Nymphs, the list of psychically dominating creatures is long, and their abilities and origins are varied. Instead of focusing on any particular creature within the game, I wanted to talk about Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and how creatures with mind-control abilities would be seen.

    The first Invasion of the Body Snatchers came out in 1956. Based on a novel titled Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, the first film was a fairly large success. It was then remade in 1978 (the most famous version), as well as in 1993 as Body Snatchers, and then yet again in 2007 as The Invasion. Beyond those films with that specific title, it also arguably inspired the 2005 ABC series Invasion!, as well as the 1998 film The Faculty. While the 1956 film could be either seen as an indictment of McCarthyism or Communism depending on one’s political leanings, the enduring nature of the underlying themes has seen it remade roughly every generation. Reticence towards joining trends or fads, the madness of the mob, and the risks with subsuming oneself into the desires of another—all of these are explored within the four films.

    At it’s core, the tale involves the intrusion of a race of creatures from outer space, who begin to subtly infiltrate society through means of body duplicates who hunt down and replace those who they are patterned after. The aliens reproduce by means of pods, kidnapping and presumably murdering the humans who they have cloned beforehand. The protagonists generally find themselves on the run from the aliens for most of the flick, though only the ‘78 version ends on a truly down note. The characters are mistrusted by the subverted authorities, and must work without support from society to attempt to fight off the invasion.

    How does this apply to D&D? Frankly, many psychic creatures are underutilized. While some of that goes along with the nature of the game and medium and the difficulty in crafting mysteries; it does not explain why Enchantment, and mind-controlling creatures as a whole, are not seen as some of the most dire threats within a setting. Necromancy gets a dark reputation, but by comparison, Enchantment is far more violating. One’s mind can be experienced every moment of existence, while arguably the shell it occupies is of little concern once it is vacated. While Enchantment has a positive spin with bolstering emotions, the school is so easily bent to malicious ends it is hard to envision a mind-bender who isn’t a narcissist. The same could be said of mind-controlling creatures. If possible, these beings would be aggressively hunted down and exterminated whenever they presented themselves. There’s no reason people would be any more tolerant of Enchanters, other than perhaps a shared kinship of species.

Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality...and fall. - Edric, Dune Messiah

    Doll Makers have crossed the threshold into damnation by (often repeatedly) employing the ritual known as Snuffing the Torch. By using their most potent spells on a subject, they obliterate the opposing ego. In the second step, their mastery of Enchantment allows them to bind their own mind into the now empty body, referred to as a Doll or Vessel. The Body Thief may sometimes leave their old form, or exist within multiple bodies simultaneously. The process of ego destruction is not perfect. Memories, habits and other remnants of the original personality often remain, and can overwhelm the Doll Maker if they’re not wise in their choice or number of victims. By means of this ritual the Puppeteer not only achieves ever-lasting life, but the ability to exist within multiple places at once. A whole world of new shapes opens to them, and they often exist within upwards of a dozen bodies at once.

    The atomization of their personalities across so many bodies, not to mention the residual personality elements left behind by Snuffing the Torch, stretches the mental coherence of Doll Makers to the limit. Various strange habits, obsessive madness and odd preferences abound within their ranks as a result. Some prefer Vessels with green eyes, another may choose only to inhabit women, while another may tattoo a specific sigil upon all of their bodies. This, coupled with the fact that they live simultaneously within their bodies, sometimes undercuts their attempts to blend in with society. These idiosyncrasies only grow as the immortal persists in their divided state, the underlying issues unable to be resolved by reuniting into one mind and body. Elder Doll Makers typically retain the remaining pieces of their personality through a combination of narcissism and obsessive desires.

    The presence of a Doll Maker within an area generally manifests in one of two ways, with a certain amount of fluidity between them. Trusted friends begin to act strangely. Bizarre bouts of sudden violence turn formerly placid people into killers. There is a raft of mysterious disappearances follow by the person simply reappearing 'unharmed' one day. Odd ‘cults’ may begin to overtake the community. After the main players in the area are either subverted or made into Dolls, the Body Thief will shift into the second-gear. Any resistance is put down, with those trying to flee or warn others of the true nature of the threat murdered, turned into Vessels, or bewitched into forgetting what they’ve witnessed. With their control over the community complete, the Doll Maker begins to enact whatever agenda they’re currently focused upon. Discovery will shift them back into the first mode of behavior, or send them fleeing from the area. They will eventually return in order to seek vengeance. They have forever to wait.

Game Information

    Doll Makers can exist in multiple bodies at once by dint of using Snuffing the Torch on a Vessel. This ritual takes the form of 12 hours of uninterrupted psychic torture in which the Enchanter murders their target’s ego. If the Doll Maker has access to an ego-less body, such as through simulacrum or other effects, they may enter it with a truncated ritual which takes only 1 hour. Body Thieves may also choose to leave their old body instead, rendering it an empty shell and moving their ego into the new form. 

     Body Thieves experience the last week of their target’s memories as a rush of understanding once they enter the Doll. The exact effects of this are left to the Referee, but they are suggested to be debilitating in some way, and it may take the Body Thief some time to recover. If a Vessel inhabited by a Doll Maker is killed, the rest of their Vessels suffer from paralysis for 1d3 rounds. Each new Vessel a Body Thief inhabits has a 10% cumulative chance per past Vessel of leaving them with a quirk of some sort. Below are some examples of potential quirks:

1d10	Quirk
1	A fixation with inhabiting a certain kind of vessel, such as only Bugbears, only women, or only beings with brown hair.
2	An overriding paranoia which makes trust effectively impossible without verification.
3	Obsession with a certain goal, to the point of continuing to pursue it even if it is harmful.
4	A shift in taste when it comes to food, drink, or vices commiserate to those of the Vessel's former tastes.
5	A disconcerting tendency to refer to themselves using the Royal We, or speaking of themselves as if they were in the third person.
6	The remains of an accent or a certain turn of phrase by the newly acquired Vessel.
7	An unhealthy adoration or fondness for the friends and family of the former Doll.
8	The development of a new hobby or interest based upon the Vessel’s old likes and dislikes.
9	An ancestor of the Doll’s family takes an interest, and refuses to leave the Body Thief alone until they vacate it.
10	Nonsensical or otherwise contradictory loyalties based upon those of the former Vessel’s.

    Doll Makers can inhabit a number of bodies at once equal to the sum of their Charisma and Intelligence bonuses. The ego inhabiting the Vessels experiences everything they do simultaneously, though they are able to turn dolls ‘off’ by pulling their ego from them and leaving them a shell. It is extremely difficult to sneak up on, or otherwise surprise a Doll Maker when they have multiple Vessels within an area—this gives them Advantage on any checks involving perception, avoiding ambushes, or noting small details in an area. Doll Makers may also be in multiple places at once, able to coordinate with unsettling precision. 

    In addition to their perceptive abilities, Body Thieves can effectively go without sleep by having one or more of their vessel rest while the others stay awake. In spite of possessing multiple forms, Doll Makers cannot cast multiple spells per turn, but any Vessel not casting a spell can still take additional non-magic actions as normal. Due to the overpowering nature of their multiple egos, any being targeted by a Body Thief’s Enchantment effects suffers Disadvantage on their saves.

Well, we're at the halfway point in our series about magical immortality. Next up are Evokers! As always, all art is property of it's respective owner, and will be taken down at their discretion. Thank you for reading, and I'd really appreciate a follow or comment!