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

Twisted King

In ancient days, chaos mages were few in number and scattered far and wide across the cosmos. Unable to share stories or techniques, and learning how to use their abilities only through hard, hazardous practice, they were paragons of will and force of personality.

The most powerful, most wilful, and most arrogant of them came to believe they should rule over those who were their lessers, meaning anyone who did not wield chaos.

And so they did.

The chaos kings, as they were known, did not sit easy on their thrones, for all that they desired to have them. They resented the responsibilities which are the price of a king’s power and lashed out at their subjects. They consorted with demons, elementals, airy courtesans, the dark creatures of the world, the beasts who know the freedom that comes with giving oneself to chaos.

In time, when the chaos king’s depravity grew too great, heroes rose up and the mage kings were thrown down. As is the way of things. But the legacy of the chaos kings was not so easily destroyed. Chaos remembered and what chaos remembers can never truly die. From time to time, a chaos mage who relies heavily on Domination effects will be infused with a tiny portion of chaos’ memory of the chaos kings and gain absolute dominion over mortal minds. In return for this gift, chaos takes from him all memory of kindness, charity, and ultimately humanity. These mages are the twisted kings.

Hit Die: d4

Requirements

In order to qualify to become a twisted king, the character must fulfil all the following requirements.
Feats: Casting Focus, Twisted Insight
Skills: Bluff 9 ranks, Concentration 9 ranks
Spells: The ability to cast chaos magic spells

Class Skills

The twisted king’s class skills, and the relevant ability for each skill, are: Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (alchemy) (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana, history, nobility) (Int), Sense Motive (Wis) and Spellcraft (Int).

Skill Points Per Level: 4 + Int modifier

Class Features

All the following are class features of the twisted king prestige class.

Spellcasting: The character continues to improve in spellcasting, gaining a new chaos caster level at every level except 3rd, 6th and 9th. These level increases are not taken into account for the purposes of determining access to Chaos Countermagic, increases to the number of Multiple Effects or increasing the ability scores of familiars.

Weapon and Armour Proficiency: Twisted kings gain no new proficiencies in any weapons or armour.

Kindred Spirit (Ex): The twisted king is kindred to all those creatures whose fundamental natures are suffused with chaos. All creatures whose alignment is innately chaotic (demons, for example) are automatically considered friendly to the twisted king and will not attack him unless forced or provoked.

Forced Focus (Su): The twisted king’s magic is wholly unsuited to destruction, at least of the obvious sort. Nor does the spark of chaos memory which fuels him allow him to travel under its power; the memory of the chaos kings is grasping and jealous and cannot conceive of abandoning that which it controls. Twisted kings cannot add Direct Damage or Movement effects to their chaos spells and any attempt to do so results in an automatic failure and backlash.

Specialised Focus (Su): At 3rd level, the twisted king gains the Specialised Focus feat for free, though he must apply it to Domination effects.

Improved Duration (Su): The twisted king’s words and commands are not easily shaken. Beginning at 5th level, the default duration of spells which are solely Domination effects is raised to by round. This means that the twisted king does not increase the DC of his spells when he chooses a By Round effect. As a consequence of this, the DC cost of selecting other Duration of Effect elements is lowered as shown below:

Instantaneous (DC -5)
One Round (DC -2)
By Round ( Default)
By Minute (DC + 5)
By Hour (DC + 10)

At 8th level, the default duration of spells which are either solely Domination effects, or which have Domination effects as their primary effect element, is increased to By Round. This means that the twisted king can combine Domination effects with either Materialisation or Transformation effects and still receive the improved duration bonus.

Shifting Tongue (Ex): Chaos guides the words and actions of the twisted king, gifting him with instinctual knowledge of the right words and actions for any social situation. He adds one half his Wisdom bonus when making checks with the following skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information and Intimidate. In addition, he adds one half his Wisdom bonus to all non-player character reaction checks.

Crown Of Glory (Su): When the twisted king achieves this level of power, he is truly a worthy inheritor of the mantle of the chaos kings, with power enough to command even the strongest minds. He is granted several benefits.

First, he can add the entirety of his Wisdom bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Intimidate skill checks, and to non-player character reaction checks.

Second, he gains a +1 per 2 caster levels bonus to all casting checks to cast spells which are solely Domination effects, to a maximum bonus of +5.

Finally, the twisted king’s aura of authority is so unshakeable that his will cannot be denied, nor may it be overcome. The twisted king gains a +4 bonus to all Will saves versus mind affecting spells and spell like effects, and can use his own spells with the Domination effect to affect those beings which are normally immune to mind-affecting spells, as long as they have less than his character level in Hit Dice or levels. His abilities still cannot be used to affect nonintelligent beings, however.

Twisted King

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spellcasting
1	+0	+2	+0	+2	Kindred Spirit, Forced Focus	+1 caster level
2	+1	+3	+0	+3		+1 caster level
3	+1	+3	+1	+3	Specialised Focus
4	+2	+4	+1	+4		+1 caster level
5	+2	+4	+1	+4	Improved Duration	+1 caster level
6	+3	+5	+2	+5
7	+3	+5	+2	+5	Shifting Tongue	+1 caster level
8	+4	+6	+2	+6		+1 caster level
9	+4	+6	+3	+6
10	+5	+7	+3	+7	Crown Of Glory	+1 caster level