Guest Egghead: Eric Finley
So, I’m just starting up a D&D 4th ed. game, basically as a nostalgia jag (I’m one of those snooty indie gamers from the Forge crowd – grin). And I ran across your Witch Doctor when looking for something else, and offered it to my players. One of them really likes the idea, but the whole primal-animist thing doesn’t really mesh with her background, so we’re re-skinning it. And I figured I’d share.
See full background below. (Hakeem is another PC, a cleric.) Basically, what we’ve got is an empire built around ancestor-reverence and longing for the days of power to return. And the upper tiers of what is essentially a priesthood-slash-secret-service are tiefling witch doctors … renamed for this use to Ancestor Channelers, tapping into the heavy-duty magic of the ancient days without actually having magical talent themselves.
The witch doctor’s mask re-skins to a veil, a very important part of their identity. Don’t touch the veil, trust me – can you say involuntary Infernal Wrath and Chains of Spirit? Veil of the Ancestors is of course the most common (and is our PC’s choice). The staff is more of a wizard(esque) staff, rather than a medicine stick or the like. Most of the rest of it carries across very nicely indeed.
(The player hates earthquakes but likes the Close Wall powers a lot, so I’ve also given her Twisting Fire as a fire-keyword skin over Tremor Strike. I figure the fire keyword cancels out, between possible ways to improve it and the relatively high likelihood of encountering resistant enemies, and certainly I can tweak it so that’s true.)
So far, so good. Chargen was last night, and the Ancestor Channeler’s player is very jazzed about her character. I’ll let you know how it goes, especially if the WD-specific elements end up prominent at any point.
Oh, and here’s an item I added to the adventure’s treasure (actually the best item in the set, this being a level 1 party’s first adventure). Basically it makes Evil Eye “sticky” for one instance of an effect. In theory it’s not WD-specific … but in practice it’s certainly intended to complement that class. If you’d like to use it either direct or as inspiration when fleshing out the Witch Doctor in his final incarnation, I grant you full rights to do so without compensation, as a thank-you for making this interesting class available.
[Awesome campaign background behind the cut....]
The Morav Resurgence
Far from here, where the bronze grass blows in the hot wind, there is enlightenment and deep history. These are the lands of the Morav Resurgence.
Once, the empire of Bael Turath ruled over continents. But the tiefling dukes were thrown down in the chaos of war, as were the dragonborn princes, the rivals who doomed them both to die. Some say Bael Turath was a capital of learning, of art, of truth and power.
Some, such as the matriarchs of the Morav Resurgence. Named for a province of the ancient empire, the Resurgence lays claim to the power and glory of old. It asserts its rights as heir to that devil-riddled rule. The fell queens built a civilization out of ashes and scattered tribes, seemingly out of nothing but sheer force of will, and today it is a power to be reckoned with indeed. The local lords hereabouts do not know how lucky they are that two seas, a desert, and many great peaks lie between here and there.
The Resurgence is profoundly misandrist, sexist to an extreme. The highest rank to which any male can aspire translates simply as worth living, or worthies; most males are slaves, they cannot own property, speak in law, or dream of rising higher. Those who might say that the interpretation that the fell queens have taken from their histories is, perhaps, biased – skims over certain evidence and grants great weight to others – do not say so very loudly, or very long. For Morav has at least two things right.
First, its readings of history may not have produced an exact copy of the social and political structure of Bael Turath, but whatever they have created, it has endured – centuries now – and shows no signs of decay. Their philosophers point to the three-angled structure of their society, where alliances or enmities along axes of clan, of caste, and of precedence (formalized status) provide for multiple motives in every interaction, with no pure enmities leading to chaos, nor pure alliances leading to centralization. Each axis has its own rulership structure – the rosetta of each circle of precedence, for example, could be likened to a continuous stitch&bitch circle with the power of life and wealth, or poverty and death, over thousands. They point, too, to the breeding protocols which have produced “high tieflings” – none of the ragtag common breed so often seen in other lands, more kin to the ancient tapestries and (of course) more beautiful.
Second, it has found… something… in its efforts to reflect back to an age of glory. The topmost castes give rise to the faced ones, veiled executors (always female, of course, always tiefling) whose connection to the ancestral glories is more than just politics and boasts; the old power runs hot and cold in their veins, and their arm is long. Many are those who have been visited by even the lowest of these, the ‘searching faces’, who have never disobeyed even the spirit of the law again in their lives – or who have simply disappeared with neither apology nor redress.
Materi (mother) Vanglashi is a powerful human princess of the Red Tree clan (a reference to ancient myth, and a biome which has been extinct for ages). But she wants more. Having positioned her clan at the top of the ladder of clans, she has turned to the paths of precedence. Precedence has its own rules, but of all the three axes, it is the most meritocratic, in the long run; it is achieved by deeds done and accomplishments shown. Many such games are in play, chess sets upon go stones upon coins… but there are some achievements which are seldom accomplished, and one such is to have sired a worthy. Hakeem (not of the Red Tree – males have no clan, of course) is a direct descendant of Materi Vanglashi by way of a favored daughter, now dead. Having been conditioned into the service of Sherayem, the goddess of war (who the ignorant foreigners sometimes, appallingly, call Kord, a male), Hakeem is potentially positioned to earn the title of worthy, a deed which would speak to the preferment of the Red Tree and Vanglashi herself.
To qualify, he must return on the Feast of Those Who Must Return, near the end of the wet season, before a goat born on the day he left bears her third young … having accomplished all of the list of tasks set to one of his position. To heal a thousand sufferers; to smite a hundred foes; to fight in ten great battles; and to slay a mighty demon (ancient enemies of the devils who made Bael Turath great). If he returns successful, his bronze slave-collar, held here in keeping while he strives, will be melted down and cast instead into a mask, to hide his maleness and reflect back an echo of the womanhood he has come near. And he will be the closest thing to free his life can promise.
He’s running late.
The goat’s belly is tight with seed. At most three months remain, and there has been no word.
One of the Searching Faces has been summoned to the tower….
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