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Kodiak_Claw 05-30-06, 01:51 AM

These are taint rule modifications from those presented in Heroes of Horror. And largely intended for a non horror game. All of this should be in compliance with the Open Gaming Liscense, so i'd prefer if nobody complained about this maybe or maybe not being copyright infringement unless they're a mod or a lawyer. Taint is what occurs when too much magic accumulates in the same place. Taint can easily drive a man mad or break his body, but it is no more a product of evil than radioactive waste (and the two are indeed comparable). Changes: Taint is harder to block, instead of protecting against taint with a simple jade rod or silk sash, these items are instead used to indicate when the taint absorbed is too much.for the body and mind to handle. Because different people can deal with different amounts, this tends to be inexact. Whatever the item is, it crumbles into dust after absorbing ten points of taint. The amount if the item is not relevant, just one will crumble after being exposed to ten points of taint, as will ten. Cost 10 GP It is however still possible to do, a suit can be made of a properly treated alchemical material. This reduces the effective power of the taint a player is exposed to by one category (from mild to none, from moderate to mild, from major to moderate). These suits tend to be heavy and cumbersome, they weigh 30 pounds, have an armor check penalty of -2 and an arcane spell failure of 10%. Cost 500 gp Absorbing Taint Mild Moderate Major Time to absorb the first point 10 minutes 1 minute 1 round Time to absorb additional points 1 day 1 hour 10 minutes In addition, you can never absorb more taint in a given period for seperate expoures for the same strength of taint. For example, if Donovan is exposed to mild taint, he must aquire a full 24 hours of exposure to mild taint before another point manages to accumulate. This could be all at once, or from short exposures to different mildly tainted sites over a period of weeks or months. You can absorb some taint without suffering ill effects, the mild taint category no longer has any ill effects (though no bonus feat either). Players do not, as a rule, get to choose bonus feats gained through taint. Instead the Dm should choose something appropriate. This is not meant as a way for the DM to screw players out of a feat, but rather to ensure that the feat is appropriate. Abberrative and Vile feats make particularly good candidates for corruption. (Ignore the alignment restrictions on vile feats, since the character did not take them willingly) Removing Taint. Lesser restoration will remove any taint aquired in the last 24 hours. Restoration will reduce taint as far as it will go for the category the character is in. But it cannot undo damage caused by taint unless it occured in the previous 24 hours. Greater Resoration can reduce the effects of taint by one category (from severe to moderate, or from moderate to none) Deadly levels of taint. While the Tainted Minion and Tainted Raver are common enough results of excessive taint, the DM should also consider turning a character into other undead, abberations, fey, shapeshifters (uncontrolled lycanthropy can be fun, especially if the players don't realize that the character has reaches deadly taint levels.) or monstrous humanoids. In addition things like petrification or feeblemind might occur. Once a character has reached this stage, only a wish or miracle can bring them back. For animals exposed to taint, consider magical beasts or feindish templates (and if you have access to it, the farspawn template). Taint cannot be caused by nonmagical things such as horrible murders and the like, though it is a common misconception that it can, as it has a tendancy to cause horrible things. Tainted areas can result in bodies coming back from the dead, and people who died while tainted (though not of it), have a similar tendancy. The consecrate/desecrate spells can supress taint by one category within their area. Hallow and Unhallow reduce it by two. This stacks with taint resistant suits, though they do not stack with each other. The Tainted World: If magic has nasty side effects, then the world has to adapt to these. Mage acadamies might be mobile desert camps, burning the tents and moving to a new site every semester, and hospitals that rely heavily on magic might b forced to demolish and rebuild so frequently that they start construction on the new building before the current one is even settled. Magical dumping grounds can acheive the same status we attribute to a nuclear waste site, and former battlefeilds might continue ancient wars with shambling corpses. In addition, the attitude torwards magic may not be so good, even if the dangers can be safely accounted for, paranoia runs deep, and mages and clerics alike may be chased out of towns that fear to become the next site of an undead uprising or new abberation. Adventuring Hooks: Tainted Lands A great war fueled by magic has left countries broken and battered. The adventurors might be part of a larger orginization trying to reclaim the land from the taint, or they might be treasure hunters, taking advantage of the sparse population and magic item littered battlefeilds these lands have to make their fortune. Alternatively, the war might have ended only recently, with the after effects only now becoming apparent (Ebberon would be good for this).