Xenotheurgy: Far Realms magic system

[Cedrass]

That is a lot of text!!

Still reading but I need to understand: What do you mean when you say a Murmur's level decreases each week? I'm not sure I get it, and what benefit it gives...

[Zeta Kai]

Wow. This is too much for me to read through all at once, but everything I've read so far is awesome. I may have more productive comments when I finish going through this.

Seconded, & QFT. I get the distinct impression that this is utter awesomesauce. I shall confirm this over the next few days of slogging through all the crazy coolness on display here. In the meantime kudos, & I'm glad/proud that I could inspire such an immense work. Kudos, & you shall be missed, RoC.

[peacenlove]

IMPRESSIVE WORK!
Might i use it in my future campaign? (starts at october so no rush absorbing this material)
Gonna offer my critisism when i print this stuff and read it at my leisure .

[Violet Octopus]

Wow.

A fluff question: how do xenotheurgists (true or otherwise) interact with blasphemous preachers? Is it something like the difference between the cleric hierarchy and favored souls? Is this meant to replace them?

[Realms of Chaos]

What murmur levels do:

• they play a roll in save DCs (both the ones that you roll and the ones that your enemy rolls).
• Your murmur's level must be equal or greater than the level of any breach that you want to use.
• You gain static benefits and drawbacks based on the murmur's level (1st level grants neither and 7th level drives you bonkers).
• You can only switch out a 1st level active murmur with an inactive murmur.

Therefore, reducing your murmur's level increases the time before it gets to 7th level, reduces the penalties given to you wby the murmur (along with the benefits), decreases the DC of saving throws that breaches force you to make, and helps you switch them out.

As for interraction with blasphemous preachers, alot of it has to do with alignment. Good-aligned xenotheurgists (the ones striving to control their own power) hate all blasphemous preachers (who have "accepted" the end of the world without a fight). Evil-aligned xenotheurgists (those who embrace the apocalypse) get along well with evil and neutral blasphemous preachers but are utterly bamboozles by good-aligned ones.

yeah, anyone who wants to use my work is free too.

Thanks for the compliments, everybody.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Very nice to see another cool and well-thought-out alternate magic system, particularly since I haven't seen a Far Realms-themed one before. I'm still reading through it, but I'll give some feedback when I finish.

[DragoonWraith]

I love it. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

[Violet Octopus]

Now that I've gotten to read some of the mechanics, I love it even more. It wonderfully fills that niche of "magic that's dangerous to the user" that D&D lacks. I especially love how xenotheurgists stand on more and more of a knife edge the higher in character level they get, if they want to remain effective in combat. The flavour is great, especially the Codex Vesania quotes.

Under Breaches, it says "(multiple uses of the same [u]murmur[/i] don't count)". Going by the True Xenotheurgist writeup, I guess you mean breach?

I only have one problem: when a xenotheurgist uses breaches, their Will saving throw gets affected by how many breaches from the same murmur they've used, half their breach bonus, as well as the breach bonus directly affecting will saves.
Is there any way to simplify this? Incidentally the 13 step guide (thanks for making that) doesn't mention breach bonuses in the Murmur Escalation Save.

[Matar]

Is it me, or is the thread... stretched? If it's not just me, could you fix it please? It makes reading your posts a real pain.

[Realms of Chaos]

Matar- The thread has been unstretched (it just needed one more spoilered image)

Violet Octopus- I fixed the two main problems that were mentioned in your post.
One thing that may help matters is that the bonus to save DCs from your breach bonus is only meant to apply to the enemy saving throws. I suppose that I didn't make that quite clear so I'll edit that now.
In short, the DC you roll against is as follows:

12 + breach level + murmur level + the number of checked off breaches
you take a penalty to Will saves equal to your Breach bonus.

[drakir_nosslin]

Great work! I really like this and if I get permission from the DM I think that I'll use this in a epic campaign, it will be very interesting to see if it is possible to use 6th level breaches daily without falling over into madness... I've read most of the text now, with the exception of breaches, I'll print it asap and go through them as well.

Overall this is very well written, with a few errors here and there, but I expect such things in a work as large as this, however, could you fix the Quick Alteration class feature? Right now I can't figure out how it works

Once again, great job and I look forward to see the rest of the breaches!

[Realms of Chaos]

Unfortunately, quick alteration is in its simplified form. It just so happens that you need to really understand the mechanics in order to know what's going on.

Allow me to explain in a far larger amount of words than I would want to use in the main post for aesthetic reasons:

• Without special feats, true xenotheurgists can only have 3 active murmurs.
  
• However, they gain access to more murmurs than that as they level up. The extra murmurs are inactive murmurs.
  
• Normally, only 1st-level active murmurs can be exchanged with other inactive murmurs (one reason to want your murmur level low).
  
• The fact that only 1st-level murmurs can become inactive, coupled with the fact that there is no way for inactive murmurs to increase in level, means that all inactive murmurs are 1st level.
  
• Quick alteration does 2 things and two things only.
  
• First, it allows murmurs above 1st level to be exchanged with inactive murmurs.
  
• Secondly, so you don't have to worry about the levels of inactive murmurs (who would want that extra book-keeping), the levels of the two murmurs are switched.
  
• In short, the active murmur becoming inactive becomes 1st level. Meanwhile, the inactive murmur becoming active inherits the previous level of the first murmur.

Don't worry about going bonkers in an epic campaign. Even if you go nuts, a 7th level spell and a 200 xp cost will get you up and running, both of which are childsplay in an epic campaign.

[drakir_nosslin]

Aha, thanks a lot for the explanation! I missed that about murmurs only being exchangeable on 1st lvl (I'm too tired to think straight, even less read straight, right now!).

[Primal Fury]

Huh. Now this is an interesting little class, isn't it? A very large improvement on an already good idea. I do have one question though: Why is there no logical extention from mumur to incursion? I don't see how pairing... Broken Tethers with Endless Evolution makes a whole lot of sense. But then again, this is the Far Realm we are talking about, and sense really has nothing to do with it, so make of that statement what you will. My favorite murmur is Distant Presence, even though you haven't written out the breaches yet. Though... it sort of makes the Master of the Unseen Hand any given Xenothurge might be standing next to seem kind of... useless by comparison. I look forward to seeing the rest.

[pyrefiend]

I lot of people have said it all ready, but I still feel the need to say that this is really impressive. You obviously put a lot of work into this, and the result is very flavorful and seemingly mechanically sound (although its hard to tell without playtesting). I've read almost all of it, and hopefully I'll have something constructive to say by the time I'm done. Until then, kudos.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

RoC, have my madspawn man-baby.

[NorseItalian]

This is beyond awesomesauce. This... is epicsause...
In my pants.
Truly.

I applaud you sir. You win. You win the whole internet. This in undeniably shaping up to be one of the single greatest things I have ever seen on a home brew forum ever in the history of time. Please write everything else. Ever. I am in such complete awe of your incredible achievement here that I seem to be losing the ability to form a coherent sentence.

Write is good more please now.

[Ashtagon]

Are there any plans to make this into a pdf? If not, mind if I have a bash at it?

[Forevernade]

This is totally and utterly, soundlessly flabbergasting. Intricate, and flavorful!

[Realms of Chaos]

Primal Fury- Well, I'm kind of surprised that there wasn't already a whole series of telekinetic spells already in existance to put the MotUH out of the job. Of course, MotUHs do their job without going bonkers so that's always a plus.
As for why incursions aren't linked to murmurs, I have an explanation in my head but it might be pretty hard to explain. Murmurs are channels for aberrant energy breaches are themed with their murmurs because only similar breaches are capable of using these channels. Regardless of the incursion assigned to the breach, its energy can only manifest itself according to these channels. When you use an incursion, you ignore the channels altogether and let the energy flow through your entire being.
In short, incursions are the power source for your breaches, murmurs are the channels for your breaches that recieve a constant (but weak) flow of energy, and breaches are the effects of channeling energy (regardless of the power source) through the channels.
Pyrefiend- Thank you.
Krimm_Blackleaf- having foreseen this situation, you have already received the implantation in your sleep.
NorseItalian- I thank you for your compliments but was unaware that awesome homebrew could give someone diarrhea.
Ashtagon- I don't know how to make a PDF and don't nearly have the time to learn so go right ahead. At my current rate, everything will be done by Friday. Just be nice and share it with the others, okay?
Forevernade- Thank you very much.

I just put up the breaches for the Called From Nothing, Soothing Insanity, and Blasphemous Avenger murmurs. They are up with the rest in alphabetical order so I recommend using good old "ctrl + f" to find them. Those of you who want to heal with madness, call energies from beyond, or make fighters cry at night (more than they already do) rejoice.
I will try to get everything up by about Thursday or Friday as I'm taking a camping trip directly afterwards and I'm off to Japan pretty much right after that. In the meantime, I'm counting on you guys to be my strict editors, looking for anything I should clear up so that Ashtagon won't have much work when he creates the PDF.

See ya soon.

[Primal Fury]

Allow me to pose to you an... inquery Realms of Chaos. I would like to say in advance that this is in no way meant to be confrontational, it is simply a series of questions: What makes you class so "special"? What makes your class so very unique that I must play a character with levels in it? What is to stop me from picking one murmur that I like out of all of these (minus the incursion) and plunking it onto a character of a different class? What is to stop a sufficiently insane wizard from using his arcane knowledge to gain just as much, if not more, power as the xenothurge has simply by discovering the right rituals and making the right bargains with the right otherworldly entities? It's worth noting that this last point would most likely consume a lot of time and resources.

[Realms of Chaos]

Hmm, what makes my class "special", eh? That is a bit of a tough problem as I don't know whether you refer to the fluff or the crunch. That said, allow me to address these items one at a time.

Unique Fluff: What makes the True Xenotheurgist unique and special "fluff-wise" is that they have managed to take this contradictory, maddening magic and actually impose some control over it. Any NPC (including commoners) could potentially become an afflicted/blessed xenotheurgist but the True Xenotheurgist actually controls their power (or embraces it so fully that it rarely comes into conflict with their current goals). You could have a wizard with a murmur or two but the flavor there would be different. As you said, it would be more like the wizard making deals with dark patrons. This difference in fluff is about the same as the difference between a wizard and a wu jen or a sorcerer.
As with most classes dedicated to a new magic system, however, this is only as flavorful as the magic system it is dedicated to. I have hopefully managed to catch the entire flavor of the far realms trying to fight its way free without breaking the system in some way.

Crunch: there are a few mechanical reasons to play as a True Xenotheurgist as well. Unlike afflicted/blessed xenotheurgists, you gain an additional chance to reduce the level of a murmur each day that it has increased in level. Also, you gain more active murmurs and access to more murmurs without need to spend feats getting them. Perhaps most importantly, you gain subverted insanity, a representation of how you can control your power (not to mention the only safe way to cast 6th-level breaches).
Also, keep in mind that afflicted/blessed xenotheurgists only gain their condition at the whims of the DM. You can read however many forbidden tomes you wish without success if the DM thinks you'll abuse xenotheurgy.

Is it worth playing 20 levels?: Hard question. Playing through this class 20 levels will get you alot of benefits. If you use your Never the Same and Mark of the Harbinger abilities in certain ways, You can become a skill monkey who can use magic items like a wizard, gets a +5 bonus to one ability score, can fly, and can use subverted insanity 9/day (with 20+ weekly uses). That plus bonus feats definitely makes this class playable all of the way through.
However, as your xenotheurgy level will often equal your character level, the allure of multiclassing exists, as it was intended to. Take note that the multiclassing restrictions at the end of the true xenotheurgist post applies to all xenotheurgists, even afflicted/blessed ones. Therefore, multiclassing into something with a good Will save doesn't give you any special bonus and multiclassing into something with a poor Will save actually puts you behind the curb.
In the end, though, it all comes down ot a matter of risk assessment. Each player must ask themselves if they would rather increase their skills at using at-will supernatural powers that rival a wizard's spells or if they want a secondary skillset for when these powers become too risky.
In short, it is definitely playable through all twenty levels but unlike my blasphemous preacher, I didn't want to shoehorn players into doing so. Multiclassing or even becoming an afflicted/blessed xenotheurgist are all viable options and what happens largely depends on the player.

Edit: And by the way, afflicted/blessed xenotheurgists still gain an incursion. Note that if a true xenotheurgist fails their saving throw. They will have 3 different murmurs to increase in level and therefore could theoretically fail 25 consecutive saves before going nuts (taking into account the weekly decreases). An afflicted/blessed xenotheurge, however, would have one active murmur and would go nuts after 6 consecutive failures.

[Primal Fury]

Well those certainly are some good reasons. There wasn't any real point to asking, I just felt like playing the devils advocate for a bit. I'm still confused about some stuff though. When a murmur reaches it's 7th level, how long does that state of inactivity last?

[Realms of Chaos]

Well, it logically lasts until the murmur's level decreases below seven.

This can happen via limited wish/wish/miracle, making the Will save 24 hours after the level increases to 7 (if you are a true xenotheurgist), or waiting out the rest of the week.

[Primal Fury]

Well, it logically lasts until the murmur's level decreases below seven.

Well that's horribly inconvienient! What's the gestalt potential for this thing anyway? Would having a second class along side this one allow said character to function normally most of the time, while having these abilities to use as a sort of "OH SH!T" button when things get real dicey?

Oh. And I'd like to make a suggestion to anyone who might try to turn this into a pdf. I stole this pic from Djinn In Tonic's Eerie Traveller (sorry!) thinking it might be a better fit for the Xenothurge than the others.

Spoiler

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[IMG][/IMG]

EDIT: And while I'm thinking about it, what sort of crafting potential do they have? Magic wise I mean. Properly empowered they can make gooey flesh... things, but what else?

[Realms of Chaos]

Yes, it is pretty much supposed to be inconveniant. Think of it like Zeta Kai's Bio-Mage except that it's easier to push it over the limit and doing so doesn't actually kill you.

Also take note that Subverted Insanity is really, really important for this reason.

I was thinking of stealing the Eerie Traveler picture but didn't for some strange reason.

As for gesalt, I think that you have it quite backwards. Remember, xenotheurgy only becomes a big risk when all three (or four if you take sanity forsaken) of your murmurs have increased to 6th level. I imagine that the ordinary gesalt character would go nuts with their breaches (pun unintended) before then as there is no reason not to, fall back upon their second class when things become dicey, and then use their breaches again in a life-or-death situation.

Ironically, the best gesalt choice for a true xenotheurgist is a paladin. No joke. You get full BAB, good hit points, and a good Fort save from one while getting good skills, Will save, and breaches from the other. The paladin's Divine Grace seals the deal, helping you make those Will saves.
Of course, any build including the fortune's friend (or the Saggitarius class posted up not long ago) works quite well as only a reroll can help you if you roll a natural 1.

As for item crafting, the true xenotheurgist was intended to craft items about as well as a binder does (without the Astaroth vestige from the Cityscape web enhancement). Although it is conceivable that some items might affect or alter xenotheurgy and require access to a murmur (to understand the energies) to create, these items would also require traditional item creation feats and spells.
I do have a few reasons for this, however. First of all, although the concepts of alien artifacts and tools appear in many of our borderline-lovecraftian sci-fi/horror stories, it is very rare that a sane humanoid is creating them and is doing so purposefully.
It is quite possible that some people can create small alien devices while suffering from some of the less hindering 7th-level murmurs or that a tome printed by a xenotheurgy may become a forbidden tome (listed under the items that I created).
However, despite the fact that true-xenotheurgists have relatively more control over the far realms, they are still incapable of shoving it into a box (metaphorically speaking). If you wish it for the sake of flavor, certain long-time xenotheurgists who have gone irriversibly insane may be able to create a few odd, alien, or even dangerous trinkets. Some may even be able to bind a disturbance to an area or object.
However, it should be beyond the ability of mortals (even crazy ones) to purposefully create any object that can imitate breaches, incursions, or murmurs. After all, I think that a portal from which alien apparati appear every one hundred years or a previously undiscovered mine filled with horrid creatures and warped gemstones are a bit more flavorful than a xenotheurgist who emerges from his attic now and then with a crate of strange bobbles.
If my arguement so far seems a bit hollow, I admit that there are a few mechanical reasons for this limitation as well.
1. First of all, as I have said multiple times, breaches typically equal or exceed the power of a wizard's spells and are supernatural (meaning no spell resistance).
On the one hand, it would only be worthwhile for a xenotheurgist to make items if they didn't have to put up with more Will saves for doing so. However, giving such items to allies would only be balanced if they were somehow forced to put up with the Will saves and murmurs. This inconsistency would lead to an excess in wordiness. Even if that were okay, however, I would be terrified that someone would find a way to break it.
If you want to make the mind stones that I put up in the item section extremely common in your world, that is a good alternative that I fully support. That way, at least you still possess some control over the party's access to it.
2. Secondly, if I did let xenotheurgists create items that imitated breaches, it is only logical that the breach included be used at some point (much as spells are being cast while making a magic item). Of course, this would risk increasing your murmur level (better now than when you actually need the item). The thing is, that isn't what xenotheurgists use their downtime for. Spellcasters use their downtime to create magic items. Xenotheurgists use their downtime to rest so that their murmur levels decrease and they are more ready for the next adventure. For this reason, item creation seems counterproductive.
3. For items that would simply imitate murmurs, things would simply be unbalanced. Murmurs are balanced in large part due to a) being hard to exchange for others and b) for the risk of going crazy. If I take away either of these aspects from the magic item (such as letting a creature freely remove the item, setting a static level for the murmur, or capping the murmur's level at 6), I get an overpowered item. If I take none of this away, however, I get a cursed item that some people may find a use for, hardly something worthy of mass production.
4. Although I give access to them at 1st level, I'm not afraid to say that incursions have the average strength of a minor artifact. I'm not talking about their great power of course but rather the huge area that they take up. Any army would simply grab items containing all 20 and carry them into wars and sieges.
5. If you just bought any of that item crafting=bad balogne, I have a bridge in the Bermuda that I'd love to sell you.

Seriously, though, a big part of this magic system is putting more of the control into the hands of the DM, making it hard to abuse this power by any means. Allowing craftable items works against this somewhat. I like the flavor of magic that you can't capture in a box (or at least not on purpose) but I respect that there are others with differing opinions. Here are a couple item items that seriously would work.

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Xenocrafter
You can create items utilizing xenotheurgy.
Prerequisites: Access to at least one murmur, xenotheurgy level 3rd
Benefits: You can create incursion spheres and breach receptacles, as detailed below. Creating either requires 8 hours of work, materials worth half the market price of the item to be created, and an XP cost equal to 1/25 of the item's market price. Unlilke magic items, xenocraft items cannot be crafted at anything less than your full xenotheurgy level.
Special: No more than one xenocraft item can be created each day by a single xenotheurgist.

Incursion Sphere
Incursion spheres are small concentrations of volatile energy that release small and temporary incursions when thrown onto the ground. An incursion sphere can only be used once.
Physical Description: Incursion are small spheres of varying appearance. They can range in size from the size of a marble to that of a large melon and aren't always perfect spheres. They can appear with any color or combination of colors and all have some degree of electrical discharge that occurs deep within it at all times, barely visible to the naked eye. The creator has no control over the appearance of an incursion sphere they create. Regardless of size, incursion spheres always weigh 5 lbs.
Identifying Incursion Spheres: Any creature who sees an incursion sphere may make a DC 25 Knowledge (the planes) check to reveal what it is. Any creature who has seen another incursion sphere knows that there is a relation between the two objects, even if they did not know what the previous incursion sphere was.
Activation: Incursion spheres are usually used as grenade-like weapons. They are thrown as a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity. When thrown, they create the effects of an incursion's marrow (including the periphery effects) as if used by the original creator. The area of this emanation is up to 10 feet per xenotheurgy level of the creator, as chosen by them at the time of creation. This marrow area lasts for 1 hour, after which time it fades away.
The use of an incursion sphere involves it leaving its owner's possession and hitting another surface. As such, it can be rolled against a wall, thown against a creature, or be activated in other such ways in addition to using it as a grenade-like weapon.
The actual sphere is destroyed after it hits the new surface.
Creation/Cost: During the creation proccess, the xenotheurgist must have the desired incursion as an active incursion and must decide the area of the incursion's emanantion.
The market cost of an incursion sphere equals the creator's xenotheurgy level squared x 50 gp.

Breach Receptables
some xenotheurgists learn how to seal a bit of their power within an object, allowing them to call upon it later without further risk to themselves. A breach receptacle only functions once but a single object can function as a breach receptacle multiple times.
Physical Description: A breach receptacle looks like any other masterwork item, seemingly unchanged by the addition of chaotic energies. However, an item weighs an additional 1d4 lbs. after beign turned into a breach receptacle. Although a breach receptacle only needs a volume of half a cubic foot, a larger object may not be turned into multiple breach receptacles (though multiple smaller ones can be connected like bricks in a building or charms on a necklace).
Identifying Breach Receptacles: Any creature capable of using the breach held within the breach receptacle is aware of its power and of how to use it the moment they come into contact with it. Otherwise, nothing other than their greater weight indicates their true nature.
Activation: Only xenotheurgists with a xenotheurgy level high enough to use breaches of the contained breach's level may utilize the receptacle. A receptacle is used as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. They may do so even if they don't have an active murmur of a high enough level to use a breach of that level. The xenotheurgist uses their own xenotheurgist level and makes all decisions for the use of the breach.
Any save DCs allowed equal 10 + the breach's level + the highest level among active murmurs you possess. The user does not need to make any Will saves when using the breach receptacle. the user benefits from empowerment if they possess it.
After using a breach receptacle, it loses all power but remains a masterwork item and can later become a breach receptacle once more.
Creation/Cost: The creation process requires a masterwork item of at least 1/2 cubic feet in volume that is not already a breach receptacle or a permanently enchanted magic item. Similarly, a breach receptacle cannot be permanently enchanted via magic.
The breach to be stored in the breach receptacle must be granted by one of the creator's active murmurs and they must be capable of using it. During the creation proccess, the creator uses the breach once with no effect, requiring a Will save as normal to prevent their murmur from increasing in level.
The market price for a breach receptacle equals the breach's level squared x 125 gp.

[Primal Fury]

Well... I'm not talking about that sort of crafting. An item imitating stuff you can already do is a little boring. I was thinking more along the lines of some... weird stuff. Like... a ritual that summons monsters from the Far Realm to serve you for a certain about of time (not just elementals, or psuedo things, I mean the really really freaky things). Or a... thing that turns a still living creature into a psuedo thing. Sort of like the way the Blasphemous Preacher crafted things, the far realm alchemy thing. But you argument about about downtime makes sense, though it's hard to think of many options for a xenothurge who wanted to build an empire. OH! And an artifact that turns an area into a cerebrotic blot. I like that one.

[aje8]

Awesome work and very flavorful, but also quite confusing.

Let me see if I get these mechanics straight as they're quite complicated despite their relative awesomeness:

A True Xenotheurgist has 3 active murmurs at a time. Each murmur has it's indpendly tracked level and the classes "spells" (breaches) can only be used if their level is lower or equal to the current level of it's corresponding murmur. Each murmur has it's own mechanical effects at any level other than 1 or 7. At 1 there are only flavor effects and at 7 the character is incapacitated in some fashion. The main limiting factor on the use of breaches is the will saves which may increase the murmur level that occur after each use.

Each murmur also has Distubances which are fluff only casue bad things to happen to you if supress them.

Then, in addition to all that, there are Incursions which are Aura type affects which last 24 hours and there can only be 1 active at a time.

Finally, at various times, breach bonus increases or decreases. A higher breach bonus increases your chance of failing will saves accosiated with staying sane but also increases save dcs. Breach penalties do the oppisite.

I forget anything major? Because these are complicated mechanics.

[Realms of Chaos]

No, you seemed to understand everything just fine.

3 notes to make, though

1. breach bonus/penaly applies to all will saves, not just those involved in staying sane.

2. not using incursions drive up your murmur levels and incursions can spring up (all at once instead of 1 at a time) against your will when crazy, incapacitated by a murmur, or approaching death.

3. At low health, your breaches become more powerful and you gain a +4 breach bonus (empowerment).

[lsfreak]

Damn. My players are facing off against someone with connections to the Far Realm in two days but I don't think I have the time to absorb all the awesome that seems to be here. And I just spent three hours building the boss

Like your Shadowcaster alteration, this is absolutely overwhelming amounts of information. I applaud you.

*sits down for a few hours of reading*

EDIT: One suggestion for the moment is to stick an extra space between paragraphs, that'll do wonders to help reading.
EDIT2: And a quick index in the first post, once you have more important stuff done, would be nice.