from the Prism Pentad series, we know that so much as a scratch in the vicinity of the tower can mutate you and that the tower perpectually issues forth new races, often made up of only one specimen. Does anyone think that this could be handled with refluffed spell-scarred or even dragon-marks? I always thought that the tower was definately one of the coolest locations and hope they give it a little space in one of the books. Would this be a good mechanical option for doing so?
It would be cool to be able to play a "changed" version of a character due to the Pristine Tower's influence. I'm not sure if using a multi-class only type of mechanic is best suited to this (although it might be). Maybe it could be done like the bloodline feats.
I would say yes and no.
The random mutations caused by the Pristine Tower seem to be purely biological in nature, not magical. Hence, if you got scratched by the Tower, you'd mutate but not gain powers like spellscars or dragonmarks.
However... The Steeple of Crystals at the top of the tower, which was used to create the Champions and make Sadira a sun wizard, could possibly do so. Either strike a bargain with the shadow giants to have them apply the effect (endebting yourself to them and by extension Rajaat) or fight through the giants and fiddle with the Steeple yourself.
I would say yes and no.
The random mutations caused by the Pristine Tower seem to be purely biological in nature, not magical. Hence, if you got scratched by the Tower, you'd mutate but not gain powers like spellscars or dragonmarks.
However... The Steeple of Crystals at the top of the tower, which was used to create the Champions and make Sadira a sun wizard, could possibly do so. Either strike a bargain with the shadow giants to have them apply the effect (endebting yourself to them and by extension Rajaat) or fight through the giants and fiddle with the Steeple yourself.
I thought the guy above had unbreakable skin...sounds like a magic type gain...
As for the steeple, sounds like a viable paragon path, probably out of Dragon mag.
Go for epic, cause the beings protecting the Tower - the shadow giants - are pretty powerful. The servants of the sorcerer-kings, and powerful undead like wraiths (the Athasian variety), fear them. There's also a good unwritten reason why the sorcerer-kings never went to the Steeple to get further or different powers, or even get their powers stripped away. (Yes, a few of them - like Hamanu - would have done the latter). I guess that reason is that there's a veritable village's worth of shadow giants living in the Black in the vicinity of the Tower. Try and wade though that, alone, even if you're epic. Good luck.
What's that? A sorcerer-king cooperating with another one, so they can defeat the shadow giants? They cooperated only twice: to kill Rajaat, and to kill Dregoth.
But Sadira her self was far from Epic was she not?
Paragon if you play in Rajaat's agenda - wittingly or not - like Sadira did. She was unknowingly lured, without knowing the process' true prupose, into gaining her powers by the shadow giants, who commune with Rajaat within the Black, where the Hollow intersects with it. She is given power that could oppose the Dragon, or help accelerate his downfall, for if the Dragon dies there is no one left to protect and renew the sorcery that Rajaat's physical prison requires, and Rajaat would eventually break free and for all instances and purposes remake the world, i.e. destroy the current one.
Epic if you "storm" your way into the Tower and wrestle the use of the Steeple from the shadow giants. A night-impossible feat, or others would have done so in the past, the sorcerer-kings first.
The only time the Tower was intentionnaly used to confer specific powers to someone, besides Rajaat's use of it to make his Champions millenia ago, was when Gallard (Nibenay) sent his son Dhojakt to it, and the latter came back a half-man, half-cilops being of great strength and resiliance. The speculation on this is that Gallard applied powerful sorceries on his son before sending him away, and because of it the Tower's random mutations were guided to create a specifc New Race with preselected new traits. All Dhojakt had to do to accomplish this was walk into the Tower's lifeshaping influence - a mile or so from it - and draw blood from his own body, instead of intering the Tower and attempting to gain access to the Steeple.