Career Option: Blackclad Stoneward (Blackclad)
Prerequisites: Human, Gifted, Member of the Circle Orboros, Starting Career
Only a character who begins the game with the Blackclad career can be a Blackclad Stoneward.
A character taking this option:
- Begins the game with the Stoneward and Rune Pattern: Zephyr abilities but not with the Aegis and Long-Lived abilities.
- Begins the game with the Craft (woodworking) 1, and Craft (wold) occupational skills but not with Negotiation 1 and Survival 1.
- Begins the game with the Influence and Inhospitable Ground 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, a rune inscription kit, and three woldwasps.
- Add Wasp Shephert, Rune Pattern: Concentrated Fire, and Rune Pattern: Aimed Strike to the possible abilities list.
New Abilities
Rune Pattern: Aimed Strike
Prerequisites: Stoneward, Lore (Orboros) 2
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.)
Rune Pattern: Concentrated Fire
Prerequisites: Stoneward, Lore (Orboros) 3
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.)
Rune Pattern: Zephyr
Prerequisites: Stoneward
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.)
Stoneward
Prerequisites: Lore (Orboros) 1, Connections (Circle Orboros)
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.
Wasp Shepherd
Prerequisites: Stoneward, Lore (Orboros) 2
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:
| RAT | RNG | AOE | POW | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arcane Strike | 6 | 10 | – | 10 |
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)).