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 Wildling
What is the nature of chaos? Does it know desire? Who created chaos, or is chaos the creator of all else? If the power of chaos is unleashed too frequently, will it corrupt static reality? Philosophically inclined chaos mages wrestle eternally with these important questions; if the wildling ever gave them a moment’s thought, none would be more surprised than he. The wildling is a sort of magical savant, a mortal gifted, seemingly randomly, with the ability to wield raw chaos energy as he so chooses. The strange energy which courses through him is as much a part of him as his hands are, and he uses it with no more concern.
Roleplaying: The wildling is a character who wields the raw power of chaos with the same ease with which he draws breath and with no more thought to the consequences. To the wildling, chaos is a tool, and tools are meant to be used, especially when said tool can do almost anything you put your mind to. For the wildling, a rumbling stomach is reason enough to use chaos magic; desire for a shiny bauble is reason enough; tired feet is reason enough; and the threat of pain is certainly reason enough. This is not to imply that wildlings do not understand the potential consequences of heavy magic use, they do, they simply consider them an acceptable risk.
Why Play a Wildling?: Wildlings are good fits for those players who enjoy playing characters who are born different, whose innate abilities separate them from other mortals and ensure that their lives, one way or another, will not be ordinary. Characters of this type are currently very popular in fantasy fiction and the wildling is a good vehicle for acting out adventures similar to those undertaken by the protagonists of these popular works.
Adventuring: Most wildlings adventure because they feel they were born to pursue that particular vocation – and perhaps they are right. With their unique blend of innate power and blissful unconcern for the danger inherent in that power, wildlings have a powerful advantage over other adventurers, even other spellcasters.
Wildlings work well in adventuring parties, particularly if they are the sole, or primary, arcane spellcaster. They share the flexibility of all chaos mages and couple that with an innate resistance to its negative effects. Like their spellcasting brethren, wizards and sorcerers, wildling chaos mages are relatively fragile in melee combat, meaning they have strong incentive to work with fighters and other melee-focused characters. That said, they share all the chaos mage’s distaste for ‘stuffy’ types, so they are likely to seek out the company of rangers, fighters and barbarians, rather than paladins or monks. The average wildling gets on famously with rogues and since his powers can so easily bolster and supplement the rogue’s skills, they make an excellent team.
There is no particular type of adventure that defines the wildling character, as they have nothing more in common with one another than the accident of their birth. From a thematic standpoint, wildling characters are well suited to campaigns of personal exploration or fulfilment of ‘destinies’ – are the wildling’s gifts truly an accident of birth, or is there some greater purpose he must fulfil, a wrong to be righted, a great evil to be slain, a world-wide spiritual awakening to be sparked?
Benefits: The wildling has been exposed to chaos energy from birth, and as such, he is more resistant to its effects than most. A wildling character does not suffer as much damage when casting spells as other chaos mages; he takes 1 point of damage for every 6 points in each spell’s final casting DC, rather than1 for every 5 (see the Chaos Sorcery chapter for full details). Further, the damage a chaos mage suffers during a failed casting check is only half lethal and half nonlethal, rather than fully lethal damage. The exception to this is when a ‘1’ is rolled, in which case backlash and lethal damage occur normally.
Penalties: Chaos is a part of a wildling, and they cannot ever fully divest themselves with it. A wildling character begins play with a single step on the Path of Chaos of his choice. From that point on, the wildling gains and loses steps upon the path as normal, with two exceptions – firstly, he cannot divest himself of the first step on his Path of Chaos, ever. It will remain with him for the remainder of his life. Secondly, if he gains a locked step on his Path of Chaos, he may never purge that step.
