The Quintessential Chaos Mage
The Quintessential Chaos Mage front cover
| Author | Patrick Younts |
| Series | Quintessential Series |
| Publisher | Mongoose Publishing |
| Publish date | 2003 |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | 1-904577-54-7 |
| OGL Section 15 | qcmg |
Note: Material in this section may be "mature" in nature.
The material below is designated as Open Game Content
The Master
Chaos is choice, it is endless possibility. Within the unbounded sea of chaos rests every possible option, every possible thought, every possible action which could be made for any and every decision, from now until the end of time.
But choice can be turned against itself, can be made to serve selfish ends. No matter how many possibilities a choice offers, eventually one must be chosen. Chaos magic, though, can be used to force choice, to determine possibility against the will of those it affects, or to confuse choice, to offer so many possibilities that the mortal mind can never sift through them all – the result, confusion, paralysation, or worse.
The master is a chaos mage with an innate command of Domination effects. His abilities allow him to control minds, to influence emotions and to direct the course of mortal events. A low level chaos mage with the master concept can chance the fate of a city; a high level one the fate of a world.
Roleplaying: Some masters are arrogant and self serving, seeing no harm in dominating the minds of others for any reason. Little better than slavers, these masters would quite willingly destroy a child’s psyche just to stop it from crying. Enthusiastic users and gluttons, these same chaos mages would think nothing of paralysing a victim’s mind, if it meant they could take their carnal pleasure with its immobile flesh.
Other masters tap their power only when forced to, or only in defense of those who do not share their gift, or at least only towards what they consider noble purposes. Such mages will influence peace negotiations, watch over social gatherings to ensure the enjoyment of all, or pacify the minds of those who wish to commit violence. It is not uncommon for especially heroic masters to patrol the city streets at night, preventing murder, rape and theft by subtly altering the intentions of would be criminals.
Most masters fall somewhere between these two extremes. They walk the fine line between selfish and responsible uses of their powers. Of all the various types of chaos mages, the master faces the hardest road from a moral standpoint – when the paths of the mind are laid bare, one must be ever vigilant to avoid giving in to temptation.
Why Play a Master?: The master is the best choice for those players who like to take the role of the manipulator, the power behind the throne, or even the master sleuth. His powers are well suited to those who prefer subtlety in their game play and enjoy the idea of fooling or simply outsmarting their enemies. From a mechanical standpoint, the master can be a truly dangerous character, capable of ending a fight, or even an adventure, almost before it has begun. While they do not have access to divination (see the Chaos Sorcery chapter for a discussion of the limits of chaos magic), the master’s ability to seize control or change the thought patterns of enemy minds is formidable. If that thought appeals, then the master is the right concept
for you.
Adventuring: The master might adventure for any number of reasons, the acquisition of earthly power chief among them. Most chaos mages with the master concept enjoy the notion of exerting their will upon the less capable, even if they restrict themselves solely to using their abilities on the evil and the misguided.
Masters prefer adventures which involve heavy amounts of intrigue, as their powers are well suited to subtle use. This means that many masters prefer not to adventure in the traditional sense at all and would rather remain safe within the confines of civilisation, using magic to build a power base of ensorcelled allies.
Adventures for such masters should involve them attempting to accumulate even more civic power, or fending off the efforts of those who would take their wealth from them. Masters of this sort work well with socially oriented classes, particularly bards and rogues who focus on Charisma-based skills. They will work with fighters and other warriors, but consider all but the most socially gifted of them to be oafs, suitable only for stopping arrows and serving as bully-boys.
Other masters, however, enjoy the challenge of turning their magic against the unknown dangers to be found in dungeons and at the far corners of the world. These characters will enthusiastically pit their spells against brigands, rogue adventurers, mad godkings, demons and dragons, simply to see if their will is the stronger. In an adventuring party, such masters take the role of behind the scenes manipulators, standing at a distance, behind the cover of their more ‘confrontational’ allies, using magic to either paralyse enemies or turn their minds against their fellows.
Masters of all sorts are ideally suited for social interactions and adventuring, as their powers can lay bare the intentions of others, twist their words and have staunch friends and lovers at each other’s throats, all in the space of a single day.
Benefits: The master has an innate understanding of those magical effects which influence, dominate and destroy mortal minds. As such they have a natural affinity to spells which involve Domination effect elements.
First, they gain a +2 bonus to all final casting DC checks when casting a spell which is solely a Domination-based effect, or which has Domination as its primary effect (see the Chaos Sorcery chapter for full details).
Second, should the master fail a final casting DC check when attempting to cast a spell which is solely a Domination-based effect, or which has Domination 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: The magic of the master is the magic of confinement, of capture, of forced capitulation. It holds no truck with freedom and has no understanding of the notions of personal choice. As such, the master finds it difficult to work those magics which encourage freedom in any way, shape or form.
The master suffers a -2 penalty to all final casting DC checks when casting a spell which is solely a Movement-based effect, or which has Movement as its primary effect. Further, they suffer lethal, rather than nonlethal, damage when casting Movement effects, even with a successful caster check.
In the case of spells which combine Movement and Domination effects, the bonuses and penalties to caster checks cancel one another, meaning the master makes caster checks with no bonus and no penalty.
Damage is applied normally, namely nonlethal for successful caster checks and lethal for failures.
