I posted the following guide on the old forums at 2016-05-19T23:00:00Z. Since the old forums are being shut down, I am reposting it here.
Reading Wild Adventure I was thrilled to finally see official rules for shifting stones and ley line travel . After all, not all blackclads of the Circle summon vortexes and throw force bolts. With the new material available I brewed up some career options for Blackclads to better represent the diversity among them!
The options available to Blackclad characters are described below. A player can choose to use as many career options as he wishes during character creation and can take some or all of the options his character meets the requirements for.
Only a character who begins the game with the Blackclad career can be a Blackclad Stone Keeper.
A character taking this option:
Begins the game with the Stone Keeper and Stone Shadow abilities but not with the Aegis and Long-Lived abilities.
Begins the game with the Craft (stoneworking) 1 occupational skill but not with Negotiation 1.
Begins the game with the Stone Form (Unleashed Core Rules p. 252) and Rock Down spells but not with Force Bolt and Summon Vortex.
Begins the game with custom battle armor, a druid voulge, the cloak and robes of a blackclad, and a group of three shifting stones (Wild Adventure p. 58).
The character gains one extra quick action each turn that can be used only to make a shifting stone action.
Stone Shadow
Prerequisites: Stone Keeper
During his turn, shifting stones completely within this character’s control area gain the Stone Shadow action. (Stone Shadow – Shifting stones completely within the Blackclad Stone Keeper’s control area gain stealth.)
New Spells
Cost
RNG
AOE
POW
UP
OFF
Rock Down
2
10
–
12
No
Yes
On a critical hit, the character hit is knocked down.
Only a character who begins the game with the Gun Mage career can be a Blackclad Stone Mage.
A character taking this option:
Begins the game with the Craft Rune Stone Shot ability but not with the Craft Rune Shot ability.
Begins the game with the Thrown Weapon 1 military skill but not with the Pistol 1 or Rifle 1 skills.
Begins the game with the Lore (Orboros) 1 occupational skill but not with the Intimidation 1 skill.
Begins the game with the Rune Stone Shot: Accuracy, Rune Stone Shot: Brutal, and Rune Stone Shot: Thunderbolt spells (see note on blackclad stone mage spells) but not with the Rune Shot: Accuracy, Rune Shot: Brutal, and Rune Shot: Thunderbolt spells.
A character with this ability and a rune inscription kit can cast his own rune stone shots. The character must inscribe the stone by hand. A character can craft up to five rune stone shots in an hour. In order to cast a razor sharp rune stone shot, the character also needs Craft (stoneworking) 1 or higher.
Rules
Blackclad Stone Mage spells
Blackclad Stone Mages use the Gun Mage Spell list (Core Rules, p. 235) with the following modifications:
Rename all “Rune Shot” spells to “Rune Stone Shot” spells.
Replace all mentions of “rune shot ranged attacks” (and similar phrases) with “rune stone shot ranged attacks”.
Replace all mentions of “Steam 'Jack” with “Warbeast” (e.g. in the Fire Group, Guided Fire, and Rune Shot: Iron Rot spells).
Replace all mentions of “the POW of the ranged weapon” with “the POW of the ranged weapon + STR” (e.g. in the Rune Shot: Trick Shot spell).
Blackclad Stone Mages and Rune Stone Shot spells
Blackclad stone mages are arcanists who channel their magic through special cast rune stone shots. Stone Mage is not a tradition, and a stone mage can be either a will weaver or a harnesser (if he also has a Warlock career). A stone mage uses his magic to toss magically imbued rune stone shots using the Thrown Weapon military skill. In order to ready a rune stone shot for throwing, the stone mage has to draw it with one hand. He then uses his other hand to charge it with rune stone shot spells. After accelerating the rune stone shot with his magic, in order to make another shot, the stone mage has to spend a full action to pull a new rune stone shot. If he has a rune stone shot bandolier equipped, he can choose to spend a quick action instead.
Rune Stone Shot spells
Rune stone shots are specially inscribed stones designed to harness the arcane energies of a stone mage. Many stone mage spells are defined as rune stone shots. These spells are cast onto the readied rune stone shot before the stone mage fires it, thus charging the shot with arcane energy.
Rune stone shot spells must be cast the turn they take effect and affect only the character’s next rune stone shot. If the character casts a rune stone shot spell and does not make an attack, the spell expires at the end of the turn. Unlike other spells, casting a rune stone shot spell does not require a quick action and any number of rune stone shot spells can be cast on a single rune stone shot. Although the stone mage can empower a single rune stone shot with multiple spells, he can empower each rune stone shot with the same spell only once and can empower each rune stone shot only with a single rune stone shot spell that has an AOE. A target directly hit by a rune stone shot attack suffers the effects of the ranged attack along with any spell effects the rune stone shot was empowered with.
Rune Stone Shots
A selection of the available rune stone shots is given in the gear section (see below). A stone mage can craft his own rune stone shots with the Craft Rune Stone Shot ability (see below).
New Gear
Bandolier, Rune Stones
Cost: 10gc
Description: This simple leather cross-belt features ten to twelve leather slots suitable for holding rune stones, thereby enabling easy access to the ammunition. These bandoliers are especially favored by Blackclad stone mages.
Special Rules: A character with a rune stones bandolier can draw and align a rune stone shot as part of the same quick action.
Razor Sharp Rune Stone Shot
Cost
Ammo
Effective Range
Extreme Range
Skill
Attack Modifier
POW
AOE
5gc
–
8"
–
Thrown
0
6
–
Description: A razor sharp rune stone is a sharpened light stone that can be thrown by a Blackclad Stone Mage’s magic.
Special Rules: Add the thrower’s STR to the POW of the damage roll.
Rune Inscription Kit
Cost: 50gc
Description: This portable kit contains all the tools needed to inscribe magic runes (Wild Adventure p. 49). The kit can be used to work with steel (Craft (metalworking)), stone (Craft (stoneworking)), bone or wood (Craft (woodworking)).
Rune Stone Shot
Cost: 0gc
Ammo
Effective Range
Extreme Range
Skill
Attack Modifier
POW
AOE
–
8"
–
Thrown
0
4
–
Description: A rune stone is a light stone that can be thrown by a Blackclad Stone Mage’s magic.
Special Rules: Add the thrower’s STR to the POW of the damage roll.
Begins the game with the Careful Practitioneer (Wild Adventure p. 72), Artificer (Unleashed Core Rules p. 155), and Stone Scavager (Unleashed Core Rules p. 167) abilities but not with the Aegis and Long-Lived abilities.
Begins the game with the Craft (stoneworking) 1 and Craft (wold) 1 occupational skills but not with Negotiation 1 and Survival 1.
Begins the game with the Earth’s Cradle (Unleashed Core Rules p. 245) and Rock Wall (Unleashed Core Rules p. 251) spells but not with Force Bolt and Summon Vortex.
Begins the game with custom battle armor, a druid voulge, the cloak and robes of a blackclad, and a rune inscription kit. Additionally, he gains a magical item with 3 rune points, which uses the custom battle armor, the druid voulge, or two talismans as its vessel. The character does not add +1 for this item in case of a failure roll.
Add Rock Down to the possible Spells list and Runemaster to the list of possible abilities.
When failing an attempt to inscribe a magical item and if the character has previously made at least one magical item that still exists, add +1 to the roll for every two existing magical items, instead of for each item.
New Spells
Cost
RNG
AOE
POW
UP
OFF
Rock Down
2
10
–
12
No
Yes
On a critical hit, the character hit is knocked down.
New Gear
Rune Inscription Kit
Cost: 50gc
Description: This portable kit contains all the tools needed to inscribe magic runes (Wild Adventure p. 49). The kit can be used to work with steel (Craft (metalworking)), stone (Craft (stoneworking)), bone or wood (Craft (woodworking)).
During his turn, woldwasps completely within this character’s control area gain the Aimed Strike action. (Aimed Strike – All Arcane Strikes gain a +2 attack bonus this turn. The woldwasp cannot use the Advance action in a turn he uses the Aimed Strike action.)
During his turn, woldwasps completely within this character’s control area gain the Concentrated Fire action. (Concentrated Fire – Make an Arcane Strike. The woldwasp gains a +1 cumulative bonus to the arcane strike damage roll for each other woldwasp in the character’s control area that hit an enemy character with an arcane strike attack this turn while in the spellcaster’s control area.)
During his turn, woldwasps completely within this character’s control area gain the Zephyr action. (Zephyr – Move the woldwasp up to 3" from its current position.)
The character can spend a quick action to use the same woldwasp action simultaneously on a group of woldwasps. The group may consist of up to 3 woldwasps at hero level, 4 at veteran level, and 5 at epic level.
The character gains one extra quick action each turn that can be used only to make a woldwasp action.
New Dedicated Magical Items
Woldwasp
Cost: 200 gc
Description: Woldwasps are similar in appearence to woldstalkers, the blackclad’s simplest and most numerous wolds. This similarity does not seem to be by chance, and some say, woldwasps were an early version of woldstalkers and are a link between dedicated magical items and woldcraft. Whether this is accurate has long been buried in the Circle’s ancient history. What really matters are the differences between woldwasps and woldstalkers:
In contrast to woldstalkers, who are real wolds that form bonds to warlocks and possess enough intelligence to follow simple instructions, woldwasps are inanimate constructs unable to form bonds or to act on their own. They are rune inscribed hulls that can be controlled by blackclads with ritual magic. In this regard, they are more similar to shifting and sentry stones than to wolds.
Over millennia, blackclads of the Circle Orboros have developed and refined the highly complex pattern of runes inscribed in a woldwasps. This long process of trial and error has resulted in a design that facilitates a woldwasp’s most common actions: To advance, strike, and run. Every blackclad knows how to trigger these actions. But hidden in the complex labyrinth of runes lay more powerful runic patterns, some unintentionally concealed by their complexity, others deliberately disguised by their creators. The knowledge about these secret patterns and the powerful actions they trigger is sparse and only few suspect their existence, let alone know how to activate them. The knowledge of these hidden actions is preserved and guarded by a secretive group of blackclads called woldwardens, whose members wield groups of woldwasps with a skill only equalled by warlocks.
Woldwasps are fragile constructs made for combat and it is inevitable that they eventually get damaged or even destroyed in battle. When a woldwasp is destroyed, parts of it may still be reused to build a new woldwasp. Roll a d6. On a roll of 1, 2, or 3, the orb breaks as a result of the destruction of the woldwasp. On a roll of 4, 5, or 6, the crystal does not break and can be salvaged. The body is almost always destroyed and cannot be reused.
Rune Points: 3
Special Rules: A woldwasp is a dedicated magical item with ARM 15 and a damage capacity of 10. It is represented by a small base, though larger woldwasps with higher damage capacities and larger base sizes also exist. It floats upright just above the ground and is in a constant motion to balance its weight which makes it hard to hit with DEF 12 and grants it the Pathfinder ability.
A blackclad with a woldwasp completely within his control area can spend a quick action and make an ARC + Lore (Orboros) skill roll against a target number of 12 to perform one of the following actions during his activation. A woldwasp can perform each type of action only once per turn. Due to his familiarity with its rune patterns, a woldwasp’s creator automatically succeeds any Lore (Orboros) skill rolls for actions on his woldwasp:
Advance:
Move the woldwasp up to 6" from its current position.
Arcane Strike:
The woldwasp attacks a target with an arcane strike.
RAT
RNG
AOE
POW
Arcane Strike
6
10
–
10
Run:
Move the woldwasp up to 12" from its current position. This action can only be used in turns where no other actions are used.
Fabrication: The material cost of a woldwasp is 50 gc. It consists of two parts: A wooden body worth 25 gc and a crystal orb worth 25 gc. Creating its body takes one day and requires a successful Craft (woodworking) roll against a target number of 12. Shaping a crystal orb takes another day and requires a successful Craft (wold) roll against a target number of 12. Assembling body and orb takes one day and requires a successful Rope Use skill roll against a target number of 10.
Attunement takes two days and requires a successful ARC attribute roll against a target number of 15. Inscribing the runes takes two days and requires a successful ARC + Lore (Orboros) skill roll against a target number of 15.
New Gear
Rune Inscription Kit
Cost: 50gc
Description: This portable kit contains all the tools needed to inscribe magic runes (Wild Adventure p. 49). The kit can be used to work with steel (Craft (metalworking)), stone (Craft (stoneworking)), bone or wood (Craft (woodworking)).
Only a character who begins the game with the Blackclad career can be a Blackclad Wayfarer.
A character taking this option:
Begins the game with the Wayfarer (Wild Adventure p. 72) and Phase Jump abilities but not with the Aegis and Long-Lived abilities.
Begins the game with Lore (Orboros) 1, Navigation 1, and Oratory 1, but not with Negotiation 1 and Survival 1.
Begins the game with the Battering Ram and Stone Sight spells but not with Force Bolt and Summon Vortex.
Begins the game with custom battle armor, a druid voulge, the cloak and robes of a blackclad, and one shifting stone (Wild Adventure p. 58).
Add Hunters Mark to the possible spells list and Stone Keeper to the possible abilities list.
New Abilities
Phase Jump
Prerequisites: Wayfarer (Wild Adventure p. 72)
During his turn, shifting stones completely within this character’s control area gain the Phase Jump action. (Phase Jump – If the Blackclad Wayfarer is within 2" of the shifting stone, he is placed anywhere completely within his control area. Otherwise he is placed anywhere within 2" of the shifting stone. He cannot move after being placed.)
The character gains one extra quick action each turn that can be used only to make a shifting stone action.
New Spells
Cost
RNG
AOE
POW
UP
OFF
Stone Sight
2
SELF
–
–
Yes
No
Due to his deep understanding of the ley line network, the spellcaster’s spirit can travel through the network and sense the surroundings at connected ley line conjunctions. The spellcaster can channel spells through any shifting stone completely in his control area.
Shouldn’t woldwasps be wolds and follow the wold creation rules instead? This would also place much less strain on the character, as wolds are not animated by pieces of their creators’ souls.
I think the Stoneshaper are an interesting idea, but I don’t think a proliferation of magical items feels right for the IK (to wild folk in particular, a magical object should be a real, precious, legendary treasure; even if they can make on themselves, it should be very important to them. Mass production is the vibe of mechanika, not magic).
That being said, I think there could be scope for magical items built along the principles of wold creation (i.e. they are infused by the power of Orboros rather than their maker’s soul). At the same time, I’d still feel this would cheapen magic items too much to maintain balance of the setting (but maybe wold items, being too small, cannot connect as well to Orboros as wolds can, and need to be periodically be “recharged” at ley line conjunctions, with potentially not every site having the right properties for this, and recharging needing to be managed in order not to damage the site or interfere with its other uses).
All these things considered, I think that while the idea of the Stoneshaper offers some interesting possibilities, the implications of such a career would create vast changes to the setting, with potentially negative consequences for continuity and history (e.g. how could the blackclads have been pushed to the fringes by the Orgoth and later the Iron Kingdoms if they had access to such power?).
Shouldn’t woldwasps be wolds and follow the wold creation rules instead? This would also place much less strain on the character, as wolds are not animated by pieces of their creators’ souls.
Hmm, to be honest it has been some time since I revisited the dedicated magical item rules. But you have a point, putting a woldwasp in the same category as a magical amulet feels weird.
If I recall correctly, I thought it did not feel right, that only warlocks can control wold stalkers. So I set out to build an alternate career, that would represent stone wards differently, and since all other wolds were exclusive to blackclads, I decided to go for dedicated magical items. Probably it would have been easier to have an ability that would allow you to control wold stalkers even if you were not a warlock.
I think the Stoneshaper are an interesting idea, but I don’t think a proliferation of magical items feels right for the IK (to wild folk in particular, a magical object should be a real, precious, legendary treasure; even if they can make on themselves, it should be very important to them. Mass production is the vibe of mechanika, not magic).
It was not my intention to “mass produce” magical items. I very much agree with you in that magical objects should be a precious. I do see however, how the proposed career may lead to this. The intention was to have a “nerd” blackclad that was into stones the same way a scholar was into books.
Then again, there are some magical items in the wild (e.g. many Circle warlords carry them) and somebody will have to have created them. However, very much in the spirit of the IK, at potentially dire personal cost. I have made some changes to the career to make it more dangerous and demanding again to create magical items. This should make it harder to “mass produce” those items and as a consequence would make them more rare again.
the implications of such a career would create vast changes to the setting, with potentially negative consequences for continuity and history
I don’t feel so strong about it. After all, the magical item rules in Wild Adventure already bring about the same implications you are mentioning. Although, it can be debated, whether rules for creating magical items should be included in the IK setting in general. If we were discussing the latter, I would be more inclined to agree :). If I had a group to play the game these days, I would probably leave those parts of the rules out of the game, because they make the world “less magical”.
The Unleashed core book, p. 256, says wolds can understand simple commands, and woldstalkers cannot generate or deal with fury points anyway, so I think they can be commanded by any blackclad along simples lines like “attack what I attack, attack any who attack me.” I’d still feel there should be limits placed on how many woldstalkers could work well together this way, but perhaps this could simply be determined by the fact that they will not move out of the blackclad’s way unless ordered to do so, probably requiring a quick action, and if too many are hovering around one blackclad their master will simply have to struggle moving through the gaggle of woldstalkers when he needs to go anywhere.
Sounds good actually. Then an alternative stone ward ability could simply be “character gets an additional quick action that may only be used to give a wold a command” or something along the lines to represent their special aptitude or routine to do this.
Maybe include a list of options for those commands, akin to the list of Drives a 'Jack Marshal can do (e.g. “Charge,” “Run,” “Boost Attack,” “Boost Damage”)? Also, I’d assume lesser warbeasts are probably the equivalent of cupernum-grade cortices, and can only receive one command per round.
. After all, not all blackclads of the Circle summon vortexes and throw force bolts. With the new material available I brewed up some career options for Blackclads to better represent the diversity among them!
