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Elementalism

2021-06-06T23:13:01Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:B167:B5C8:A976:D28D: /* Elementalism in D&D */

'''Elementalism''' is a somewhat old-fashioned term from various fantasy games and settings used to refer to a form of magic that focuses on the manipulation of the [[element]]s. Exactly what defines an "element" depends on the setting -- in addition to more iconic forms like fire, earth, air and water, some settings also cover more abstract forms, such as lightning, ice, metal, or wood. Some settings even go so far as to add in "esoteric/conceptual" elements -- things like Spirit, Death, Life, Gravity, Sun, Moon, etc.

This form of magic is most associated with videogame RPGs, as it readily translates into a handy array of attacking, buffing and debuffing spells, but it has made appearances in traditional /tg/ media as well.

Although elementalism refers to the practice of elemental magic as a whole, elementalists usually only practice one specific kind of elemental magic -- for example, a caster who uses nothing but fire -- or else a small group of "related" magics, such as a "wood elementalist" who uses plant-manipulating spells (the literal interpretation of wood), air-manipulating spells (because of wind's association with the wood element in the Wu Xing) and lightning spells (because of lightning's connection to air).

Elementalism usually involves a form of [[Rock-paper-scissors]], which furthers the tendency for elementalists to only use a specific kind of elemental magic.

==Elementalism in D&D==
In [[Dungeons & Dragons]], Elementalism has never really caught on, perhaps because there is already such a split between arcane and divine magic. As a result, there have been both priestly and arcane "forms" of elementalism throughout D&D's history.

It all started in [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]. The first arcane elementalism practitioner was, of course, the [[Elementalist]] specialist [[wizard]], as well as the [[Wu Jen]]; an attempt at an "Oriental Elementalist" spell-caster that is supposed to draw its powers from the Wu Xing elemental setup of Earth, Fire, Water, Wood and Metal. Priestly elementalism was handled via the [[Cleric Domain|Spheres]] system, and elementalist [[cleric]]s were the default priestly casters in the [[Dark Sun]] setting.

In 3rd edition, only priestly elementalism remained via the new [[Cleric Domain]] system; [[wizard]]s and [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|sorcerers]] were restricted to artificially theming themselves via spell selection and a handful of [[Prestige Classes]].

In 4th edition, the [[Sorcerer]] received some elemental traits in the form of both a magical origin (the Storm Sorcerer, in Arcane Power) and the Essentials "Elementalist" [[Variant Class]]. The [[Warlock]] similarly possesses an Elemental Pact. [[Dragon Magazine]] also created a Pyromancy school for the [[Mage]], which was a classic mono-element fire caster. The [[druid]] took over from the [[cleric]] as the "elementalism priest" class in this edition.o

5e continues this by having no fewer than four elementalism-themed sorcerer subclasses; the Storm Sorcerer (originally featured in the Waterborne Adventurers Unearthed Arcana, then Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide & Xanathar's Guide), and the Phoenix, Sea and Stone Sorcerers (all in the same Unearthed Arcana). Ironically, the best elementalist in 5e to date is the "Order of the Wu Jen" [[Mystic]], who uses [[psionics]] rather than arcane magic. Surprisingly, none of the elemental [[Clerical Domain]]s have resurfaced in 5e so far, and the closest thing to an official elemental priest is the Circle of Wildfire [[druid]].

==Elementalism in Pathfinder==
Needless to say, with its Archetype system, Pathfinder has readily embraced the use of Elementalism for the [[Wizard]]. There are no fewer than '''eight''' Elementalist archetypes, with another four representing "focused" elementalists. The "classic" quartet (Earth, Air, Water & Fire) appeared in the ''Advanced Player's Guide'', whilst the "oriental" elements of Wood & Metal appeared in ''Ultimate Magic'', with Void appearing in the ''Dragon Empires'' Primer. Finally, the Aether element and the focused elements of Ice, Smoke, Mud & Magma appeared in the ''Elemental Master's Handbook''. Elemental schools were updated to include newer spells in ''Planes of Power''.

Of course, this is all overlooking the [[Kineticist]] class from ''Occult Adventures'', a class that literally channels various elements into missiles and various other miscellaneous effects.

==Elementalism in Warhammer==
In [[Warhammer Fantasy]], the conventional schools of magic are based in elementalism, though of the "esoteric" approach -- for example, there's a school of Fire Magic, but there's also a school of Life Magic (manipulation of earth, water and plants, plus healing), a school of Heavens Magic (manipulation of stars, wind and lightning, plus divination and blessing/cursing), and so on.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Pathfinder]]

Reborn

2021-06-06T22:39:47Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:B167:B5C8:A976:D28D: Creating this page, used Hexblood page as a template. Feel free to alter this page to make it more distinct!

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'''Reborn''' are a playable race for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] introduced in [[Van Richten's Guide]] to [[Ravenloft]], the 5e revamp version of the [[Demiplane of Dread]], although they predated in the [[Unearthed Arcana]] article "Gothic Lineages".

To put it bluntly, you died. Fortunately, you stopped being dead and are now basically undead and/or a flesh golem.

==PC Stats==
As a "Lineage" race, reborn don't come with a preset ability score modifier like traditional races, and instead get to take either +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to whatever stats they like. They can also choose if they are Medium or Small sized.

In the Unearthed Arcana version, they had these racial traits:
::Type: Humanoid AND either Construct or Undead
::Darkvision 60 feet
::Deathless Nature: You have advantage against poison, disease, and death saving throws, and you don't need to eat, drink, ''breathe'', or sleep. You also can trance like elves.
::Knowledge from a Past Life: You get to add a d6 to a skill check a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus.

The race was reprinted in ''Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft'' with some slight modifications. Most notably, the Lineage only has one creature type, so that was probably just some weird one-off experiment that was immediately abandoned.

::Type: Humanoid
::Ancestral Legacy: If you replace a race with this lineage, you can choose to keep proficiencies and/or movement speeds granted by that race. If you don't, you get two free proficiencies.
::Darkvision 60 feet
::Deathless Nature and Knowledge from a Past Life are both unchanged from the original UA.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons Races]]
[[Category: Ravenloft]]

Van Richten's Guide

2021-06-06T21:58:36Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:B167:B5C8:A976:D28D: /* Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft */

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'''The Van Richten's Guides''' are a series of monster-related sourcebooks written for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and connected to the setting of [[Ravenloft]].

From an in-universe perspective, the Guides are, as their title says, treatises on monster-hunting written by the esteemed Dr. [[Van Richten]], the most prolific and well-educated monster hunter in all of the [[Demiplane of Dread]]. At some point, Van Richten disappeared, after which his legacy was taken up by the [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]. In addition to completing and publishing his own unfinished notes - the Guides to the Fiend, Vistani and Witch - they went on to create their own guides, which they published under the same name for legacy purposes and to ensure they would reach their target audience.

On the meta-level, each Guidebook examines a single creature type and expands upon it to make it both a better fit for Ravenloft's purported "Gothic Horror" goal (even if, in practice, it leans closer to [[Castlevania]] amongst most people who actually play it), providing an exhaustive examination of tactics that can be used to run that monster or fight that monster, variant "salient abilities", unique weaknesses, lore, and other aspects that flesh them out.

Van Richten wrote and published on his own the following books for the [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] system:
* Guide to [[Vampire]]s
* Guide to [[Lich]]es
* Guide to [[Ghost]]s
* Guide to [[Therianthrope|Werebeasts]]
* Guide to [[Fiend]]s
* Guide to the [[Mummy|Ancient Dead]]
* Guide to the [[Golem|Created]]
* Guide to the [[Vistani]]

These books were later reprinted in "collected editions" by the Weathermay Twins, known as the Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendiums. The third and last of these volumes also included the otherwise unprinted "Van Richten's Guide to [[Witch]]es", which, as the name suggests, examines [[Witch]]es, [[Warlock]]s and [[Hag]]s.

The Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins wrote two guides completely of their own for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3rd edition which saw print; one for the [[Walking Dead]] and a second for the [[Shadow Fey]]. A third guidebook, dedicated to "The Mists", which focused on anomalous and eerie entities born from the reality-binding vapors that wreathe the land, in addition to covering Outlanders (humanoids from other worlds brought amongst the ignorant natives of the [[Demiplane of Dread]]) and anomalous reality-zones that one might encounter whilst enveloped by the Mists, was completely written up... but, [[White Wolf]] lost the license before they could officially print and sell it. The PDF was set free onto the internet, and is now hosted on, amongst other things, the [[Fraternity of Shadows]] website.

Looking into adapting content found in these guides to later editions? Note that not everything written by White Wolf & Sword&Sorcery for 3-3.5e was converted entirely everything from the 2nd Edition, and- more intriguingly, the powers Liches are privy to in Guide to the Lich are still, 3.5 canon, such as the salient abilities Liches gain are in Monsters of Faerun, though only a small excerpt. Please note, that these make both liches and vampires essentially epic-level threats, whom are more dangerous depending on their personal holdings and age- a vampire patriarch for example, is essentially a demigod immune to sunlight, and probably only beatable if they gained additional weaknesses over their long-term existence, they can even fully heal themselves once per day through the use of their alternate form ability, which has an additional form of their choosing- essentially their second Castlevania Dracula Form- limited to no CR or cap or anything. They can even cheat themselves into becoming this strong. If you've ever heard of the epic-questline, the Quicksilver Hourglass in 3.5, a quest where you have to stop members of the Union of Eclipses using a deific artifact to age the world to death and rule the remainder, then failure would result in vampires like this popping up all over the material plane. Bullet dodged.

==Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft==
A book titled "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft" released on 18th May 2021, serving as the complete [[Ravenloft]] setting book for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]].

For players, this book offers mechanics for [[Dhampir]], [[Hexblood]] and [[Reborn]] "races", new "horror-themed" Trinkets, tips on altering backgrounds to a more horror motif, the new (or possibly reprinted from [[Curse of Strahd]]) Haunted One and Investigator backgrounds, the [[Occultist|College of Spirits]] subclass for [[bard]]s and the [[Undead]] patron for [[warlock]]s. A new mechanic in the form of "Dark Gifts" is also offered, replacing the [[Powers Checks]] of old.

Most of the book is dedicated to DMs, however. The second chapter is devoted to the topic of ''Creating Domains of Dread'', and provides advice on building darklords and their domains, and discusses the major genres of horror useful to a Ravenloft 5e game, which it breaks down as ''Body Horror'', ''Cosmic Horror'', ''Dark Fantasy'', ''Folk Horror'', ''Ghost Story'', ''Gothic Horror'' and ''Other''.

Chapter 3 is devoted to providing details on '''Domains of Ravenloft'''. Most of this is devoted to domains; seventeen of which are about four pages long, with most of that being [[Darklord]] related, and another dozen or so that are only a single paragraph long.

Still in chapter 3, it then provides major Ravenloft organizations (with the emphasis on the [[keepers of the Feather]] and the [[Vistani]] and prominent NPCs native to the Demiplane of Dread:
* [[Alanik Ray]] & Arthur Sedgwick (the Ravenloftian Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson)
* The Caller (obviously the [[Incubus]] known as the [[Gentleman Caller]])
* Erasmus van Richten (Dr. van Richten's previously dead [[vampire]] son)
* [[Ez d'Avenir]]
* [[Firan Zal'honan]]
* [[Jander Sunstar]] (heroic [[elf]] [[vampire]])
* [[Larissa Snowmane]]
* Dr. Rudolph [[van Richten]] (the iconic van Helsing expy)
* The [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]

Chapter 4 is short again, and is full of basic DM tricks, hence its title of '''Horror Adventures'''. Most of interest are new mechanics for curses, fear, stress, haunted traps, and survivors. There's also a short adventure set in the infamous House of Lament.

Finally, chapter 5 is all about the '''Monsters of Ravenloft'''. Whilst there are some new critters, most of these are actually returning beasties from old! A major detail, however, is that [[FAIL|none of the entries bother to list the creature's alignments]], so for all we know, that [[Berserker|Relentless Killer]] [[Trap|could just be a Neutral Good softie]]!
* [[Doppelganger Plant|Bodytaker Plant]] (originally called the Doppelganger Plant, an expy of the pods from Invasion of the body Snatchers)
* [[Boneless]]
* [[Brain in a Jar]]
* [[Carrion Stalker]]
* [[Carrionette]]
* [[Death's Head]]
* [[Dullahan]]
* [[Gallows Speaker]]
* [[Gremishka]]
* [[Jiangshi]]
* [[Loup-garou|Loup Garou]]
* [[Necrichor]]
* [[Nosferatu]]
* Priests of [[Osybus]]
* [[Relentless Killer]]
* [[Star Spawn]] Emissary
* [[Strigoi]]
* Swarms (Maggots, Scarabs)
* Ulmist Inquisitors
* [[Unspeakable Horror]]s
* [[Vampire|Vampiric]] [[Mind Flayer]]
* [[Wereraven]]
* [[Zombie]]s (swarm of zombie limbs, zombie clot, zombie plague spreader)

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Ravenloft]] [[Category: Game Books]]

Alhoon

2021-06-06T21:15:18Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:B167:B5C8:A976:D28D:

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[[File:Alhoon 5e.png|right|300px]]
[[File:Lich Alhoon MoF.jpg|left|300px|thumb|An Alhoon and <s>his JoJo stand "Rob Zombie"</s> a human lich from ''Monsters of Faerun''.]]
'''Alhoons''' are undead [[illithid]]s in the realms of [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. Sometimes presented with the alternative name of '''Illithiliches''', which other sources claim are an entirely different thing, alhoons are mind flayers outcast from their society due to their study of the forbidden arts of [[magic]] over [[psionics]]. As this denies them their culturally-promised immortality through joining the Elder Brain upon death, alhoons instead seek their own immortality through undeath, becoming [[lich]]-like monsters that often prey on their living kin.

5th edition makes alhoons and illithiliches separate things, with the former being the result of illithid spellcasters taking a shortcut, and attaining a lesser form of lichdom that's easier to achieve, and the latter being the real deal holyfield, losing none of their mind flayer abilities (alhoons can't eat brains anymore) and gaining only advantage from their undead state. In 5e, alhoons achieve their immortality by sacrificing victims to a communal periapt that they share with at least two other alhoons. This sacrifice basically allows the alhoon to live as long as the victim did, so the older the victim, the better. Something that makes alhoons inferior to true illithiliches is that they don't reform their bodies when they are destroyed, instead their mind gets transferred to the periapt where it hangs out with other destroyed alhoons and sacrificed souls.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Monsters]] [[Category: Undead]]