The Quintessential Chaos Mage

Author	Patrick Younts
Publisher	Mongoose Publishing
Publish date	2003
OGL Section 15	qcmg

Note: Material in this section may be "mature" in nature.
The material below is designated as Open Game Content

Maker

Chaos is ultimate, endless potential. Its energy can be forged, harnessed, directed and channelled to create magnificent works of art, swords and armour, plowshares, soaring palaces and ramshackle hovels, and even semi-sentient constructs in the shape of clockwork beasts or pure, liquid uncertainty.

The maker is a chaos mage who has a natural affinity for using chaos magic to create objects and illusions; Materialisation effects in other words. This affinity provides him with a measure of protection from the negative effects of a chaos backlash, cushions him from the brutal consequences of a failed caster check and makes it easier for him to cast Materialisationbased chaos spell effects.

Roleplaying: The maker is a thinker and a dreamer, the Renaissance Man of chaos mages. The maker pursues knowledge for its own sake; he is an enthusiastic creator of both art and craft, an architect of dream, of idea, of form and of function.

The typical maker would vastly prefer to spend his day creating fine works of art with his powers, or forging
pure chaos energy to create tools and weapons. Makers know that their creations are temporary and fragile, and this makes them both melancholy, because they know better than anyone that nothing is permanent, and pragmatic, because they do not put much store in possessions. This combination can easily make them fatalistic, and some are, but most chaos makers accept the transitory nature of creation as the truest part of the natural order.

Why Play a Maker?: Makers are terrific in supporting roles, meaning they are ideal characters for those players who like to take the role of defender and protector. Their powers are also thematically ideal for characters who hope to create great works, or which prefer to build, rather than destroy, in general. Makers are also good choices for those players who prefer intellectual challenges – since it is more difficult for them to simply damage enemies, they must come up with alternative means of overcoming challenges.

Adventuring: Makers favour adventures which allow them to create grand works, whether those works be illusory or real. They know that no matter how powerful and experienced they become, the objects and images created are doomed to be only temporary in nature, fading away in just minutes or hours. Still, makers know that even a sword which exists just for a moment can change the course of history.

Makers enjoy studying the subtle interactions of components, and how those interactions contribute to and create the universe, so they enthusiastically pursue rumours which may lead them to discovering secrets of the creation of reality. For much the same reason, makers are fond of puzzles and other intellectual conundrums, becoming enthusiastic students of science and machinery, so adventures which test their intellect will always pique their interest.

In an adventuring party, the maker will take a supporting role, creating illusions to distract enemies, forging armour and weapons of pure chaos to strengthen his companion’s or crafting walls to thwart pursuers. Makers are also often the chief thinkers and planners of their band, creating strategies and directing actions in and out of combat.

Compared to other chaos mages, the maker is a bit of a strange bird, with a tendency to prefer the company
of those who appreciate and practice mastery of skill. This means that they get on well with those rogues who specialise in crafting and disabling traps and locks, and with fighters who prefer precision to brawn. They even tolerate the company of wizards and monks, at least more than their fellow chaos mages do, since they have an appreciation of (and fondness for) the complexities of arcane formula or martial arts techniques.

Benefits: Makers know better than anyone how to take the weird elements of chaos energy and change them on a fundamental level, creating objects and illusions with effortless ease. This provides them with several bonuses.

First, they gain a +2 bonus to all final casting DC checks when casting a spell which is solely a Materialisation-based effect, or which has Materialisation as its primary effect element (see the Chaos Sorcery chapter for full details).

Second, should the maker fail a final casting DC check when attempting to cast a spell which is solely a Materialisation-based effect, or which has Materialisation as its primary effect, he suffers nonlethal, rather than lethal damage. The exception to this is when a ‘1’ is rolled, in which case backlash and lethal damage occur normally.

Penalties: Chaos mage makers use chaos energy to construct, to create, to build. Theirs is not the magic of destruction. As such, they find it difficult, but by no means impossible, to unleash chaos as pure destructive energy.

A chaos maker suffers a -2 penalty to all final casting DC checks when casting a spell which is solely a Direct Damage effect, or which has Direct Damage as its primary effect. Further, they suffer lethal, rather than nonlethal, damage when casting Direct Damage effects, even with a successful caster check.

In the case of spells which combine Materialisation and Direct Damage effects, the bonuses and penalties to caster checks cancel one another, meaning the maker has no bonus or penalty when casting such spells. Damage is applied normally, namely nonlethal for successful caster checks and lethal for failures.