player's guide to wizards, bards and sorcerers.pdf

I NTRODUCTION

C REDITS

A UTHORS

Michael Gill (Chapters 1 & 2), Kevin Kulp (Chapters 3

& 4), Ethan Skemp (Chapters 5 & 6)

D EDICATION

To my friends and loved ones at Rookhaven House. Thanks

for helping me build our haven; here’s to many years to come.

To Burton Jackson, Jenna Lovelady, Deird’Re Brooks and

Josh Hein , for Ashes and Wormwood . I have enjoyed our

adventures together, and look forward to plenty more of the

same (only with more treasure and XPs, I promise).

And finally…

To Sean Rufus an Dru. Words don’t begin to describe.

A DDITIONAL M ATERIAL

Deird’Re Brooks, Joseph D. Carriker, Jr., John Geiger

D EVELOPER

Joseph D. Carriker Jr.

E DITOR

Anita Hager

S PECIAL T HANKS

To Monte Cook and Malhavoc Press , for permission to

reference in Appendix 2 the prestige classes from Book of

Eldritch Might and Book of Eldritch Might II .

To Conrad Hubbard , for your contribution of the Curse of

Mesos to Relics & Rituals 2: Lost Lore . Sorry about the

oversight, man — we couldn’t have done it without ya.

M ANAGING E DITOR

Andrew Bates

A RT D IRECTOR

Rich Thomas

G RAPHIC D ESIGNER

Mike Chaney

C OVER A RTIST

Michael Phillippi

I NTERIOR A RTISTS

John Bridges, Nate Pride, Mark Smylie, Tim Truman

Check out upcoming Sword and Sorcery Studio

products online at: http://www.swordsorcery.com

Distributed for Sword and Sorcery Studio by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.

This printing of Player’s Guide to Wizards, Bards and Sorcerers is published in accordance with the Open Game License.

See the Open Game License Appendix of this book for more information.

Player’s Guide to Wizards, Bards and Sorcerers, Scarred Lands, the Scarred Lands logo, Sword and Sorcery, Sword and

Sorcery Studio, the Sword and Sorcery logo, Creature Collection, Creature Collection 2: Dark Menagerie, Relics & Rituals,

The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright

concerned.

“d20 System” and the “d20 System” logo are Trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast and are used according to the

terms of the d20 System License version 1.0. A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com.

Dungeons & Dragons® and Wizards of the Coast® are Registered Trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, and are used

with Permission.

PRINTED IN CANADA.

PLAYER , S GUIDE TO WIZARDS , BARDS AND SORCERERS

P REFACE

I NTRODUCTION

B OOK O NE : W IZARDS

C HAPTER O NE : S EEKERS OF M YSTERY

C HAPTER T WO : P OWER OF THE S IGIL

B OOK T WO : B ARD S

C HAPTER T HREE : K EEPERS OF C ULTURE

C HAPTER F OUR : A N OTE IN THE S ILENCE

B OOK T HREE : S ORCERERS

C HAPTER F IVE : B LOOD OF THE T ITANS

C HAPTER S IX : W EIRDING F OLK

A PPENDICES

A PPENDIX O NE : T HE W AYS OF L ORE

A PPENDIX T WO : T HE M ASTERS OF L ORE

110

A PPENDIX T HREE : T HE T OOLS OF L ORE

146

L EGAL A PPENDIX

159

I NTRODUCTION

Welcome to the first in the Player’s Guide series.

Our intent with this series is simple: We want to

examine the ways in which players can become a stronger

part of the setting in which their characters exist. By

providing ways in which characters may derive a

background from and have a role in the setting’s

development, they become closely tied to the setting. In

turn, players adopt a more vested interest in both their

characters and in the setting as a whole. The more richly

a setting is developed, the more characters can “come to

life,” creating memorable role-playing and exciting

adventures.

Thus, our goal is to help your characters become a

living, breathing part of the game world.

More than that, though, we want to see how these

classes might shape and inspire a campaign setting. The

player characters — and characters like them, past and

present — are the movers and shakers in the game world.

Not every character in the setting has levels in the so-

called “PC classes.” In fact, those who do are in the

minority. But from these relatively few individuals come

the events, both heroic and monstrous, that forever

shape their world.

Therefore, this series uses the setting of the Scarred

Lands to help show you how diverse classes weave their

influence into every aspect of the tapestry of a game

world. As with the rest of the book, you can refer to it for

your own Scarred Lands game, or use it as inspiration in

any other campaign.

The Player’s Guide to Wizards, Bards and Sorcer-

ers is more than suggestions and rules on how to play a

certain type of character. This is a book about determining

where your characters, and those like them, have affected

the world. To this end, we look at the evolution of

wizardly magic and the traditions that have come out of

that evolution. We analyze how bards have had an

impact on the cultures that spawned them and how they

themselves have helped to shape that culture. We discuss

sorcerers and examine the sources of their magics, and

how it is acquired.

Within these pages are the workers of potent and

sublime magics. And while the wrath of an arcanist is

terrible to behold, having the favor of one can be quite

the blessing.

So, welcome to a book filled with legacy and lore, a

book on enchantments, demons, magic in the blood and

the songs of a people.

Welcome to the Player’s Guide to Wizards, Bards

and Sorcerers .

J OSEPH D

C ARRIKER ,

J R .

S CARRED L ANDS D EVELOPER

S WORD

S ORCERY S TUDIO

While the Player’s Guide to Wizards, Bards and

Sorcerers is designed for use in any d20 campaign, you’ll

find that it is undeniably focused on the Scarred Lands.

Throughout this book, you will read many references to

that setting, its history and its inhabitants.

Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that this book’s

utility is limited to the Scarred Lands. As explained in the

Preface, the purpose of the Player’s Guide series is show

how the various character classes shape and inspire a

campaign setting. The Scarred Lands is used as a single

example of this process rather than the only one. Any

references to it are meant to inspire your own ideas regard-

less of the campaign setting in which they occur.

Adapting material in this book to other settings may

require some work. This introduction should make that

easier, since it offers a comprehensive overview and plenty

of suggestions. Armed with its advice, players and Game

Masters should have little difficulty tailoring the rest of the

book’s content to campaigns set in other worlds, or even to

other conceptions of the Scarred Lands setting than the

standard one presented in Sword & Sorcery products.

As always, the key is for GMs to remember the oft-

quoted — though oft-forgotten — truism: you are the final

arbiter of what is and is not the case for your campaign,

wherever it is set. This book offers a multitude of options,

variants and alternate takes on many aspects of the core

classes of wizards, bards and sorcerers (not to mention an

exhaustive discussion of their place in the Scarred Lands

setting). If anything here runs counter to your conception

of things or would do violence to the established truths of

your campaign, feel free to ignore them! That’s as true for

campaigns in the Scarred Lands as in any other setting. Use

only what appeals to you and is genuinely useful, and

discard the rest.

So long as you bear that in mind, this book is as

valuable to players and GMs alike, regardless of whether

the campaign is set in the Scarred Lands or in a game world

of their own creation.

types of games depending on the interests of the GM and

the players. The following sections provide some insight

into the benefits and drawbacks of each type. They also

make it easier for those not playing in the Scarred Lands to

categorize their own campaign by its type, so as to take

fuller advantage of the material presented in later chapters.

Simply read through the following to see where your

campaign best fits, and you’ll also find assistance of how to

adjust the rest of this book’s contents accordingly.

H IGH F ANTASY

High fantasy is, in many ways, the default type of

fantasy roleplaying setting. Its name derives from the fact

that its fantastical elements — magic, monsters, heroism

— are at the high end of the scale. High fantasy games are

in no way “realistic.” They pay little heed to notions of

plausibility. Instead, they rely on over the top plotlines,

outlandish locales and larger than life characters to tell epic

stories set in a mythical locale. Most high fantasy games

also have a strong component of black and white morality

to them. The forces of good are virtuous and praiseworthy,

while the forces of evil are vicious and blameworthy.

High fantasy need not be simplistic, however. In fact,

many high fantasy tales contain very sophisticated exami-

nations of the nature of evil and the very real temptation

to choose it over good as a means to achieving an other-

wise just end.

The Scarred Lands setting is largely a high fantasy

setting, so the majority of information in this book is well

suited to use in other high fantasy campaigns. The discus-

sions of bardic, sorcerous and wizardly history probably

cannot be used specifically as written outside the Scarred

Lands, but they can certainly serve as inspiration. A clever

GM can see how these three very different examples of

arcane magic might fit together in a single setting. Like-

wise, the sample groups for each class are described only in

very brief terms, making it easy to convert them for any

setting with a minimum of effort.

The material in this book works especially well for

high fantasy in the game mechanics. The appendices offer

a variety of new feats, spells and other new rules, almost all

of which could fit into a high fantasy game. Scion feats, for

example, open up the possibility of using sorcerous blood-

lines that convey particular arcane affinities. Likewise,

tradition feats provide ways to differentiate one bard from

another, by suggesting there are many different traditions

within the class. Wyrm-blooded sorcery is very rare in the

Scarred Lands, but it might be more common in other

settings. It’s a good example of how a GM might use

T YPES OF G AMES

Fantasy roleplaying games come in many flavors, not

all of which operate under the same “rules.” That is, each

type has its own distinct mood, feel and tone, all of which

influence how the game is played and the types of stories

that are told within it. These in turn affect how the

characters relate to the setting and the kind of impact that

they can have on it.

It’s important to note that some campaign settings are

broadly enough drawn that they can allow for multiple

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