Hello all,
So I've been back to DMing 3.5/Pathfinder Eberron for a while now, and I've been creating some new content for the campaign that I just thought I'd share. Namely, I went through every published vestige (and then some) for the Binder class and Eberron-ized their legends. Some, like Savnok, needed significant changes, while others, like Otiax, not so much. But there is a bit of Eberron flavor in all of them. In addition, I created a brand new Vestige: Forge, the Becoming God. I won't post any mechanics except Forge's, but I'll let you know where I found them so you can check them out yourselves.
I did make these for a Pathfinder game, so some of the skill-based Special Requirements were changed, namely from going from 5 ranks to 2.
1st-Level Vestiges
First up is Amon. His legend incorporates some of my own personal additions to the Eberron lore that I made during 4e, and kept when I returned to 3.5. Namely, that I used Primordials as the titan kings of Xen'drik, making them beings about as powerful as Demonic Overlords, but less destructive (at least, until they broke Dal Quor, which sent the dragons of Argonessen on the attack to nip a new Age of Demons in the bud). So, if you don't like that, the vestiges having to do with "Primordial Apotheosis" might not appeal to you. Amon can be found in Tome of Magic.
Amon, the Void of Compassion
Once considered a kind and compassionate king of his people, Amon's long existence as a vestige has twisted him into a monster consumed by wrath. He grants those who summon him his sight, his fiery breath, and his powerful charge.
Legend: During the Age of Giants, elves suffered as slaves under the rule of their masters. But not all masters were cruel. Amon, one of the strongest of giant kings, ruled a vast nation with his philosophy of peace, compassion, and enlightenment. He had reached Primordial apotheosis and had become a titanic beast embodying the light and strength of elemental fire not by the blood sacrifice of thousands of elves, but his own personal journey of self-improvement. Elves, though still slaves, enjoyed many freedoms and liberties under Amon's kind and just rule, even after his transformation.
Then the Giant-Quori War and the subsequent rebellion of opportunistic, ungrateful elves destroyed his kingdom. Finally, while trying to protect his remaining people during the Sundering of Xen'drik, Amon stood alone against flight after flight of dragon, his titanic horns smashing them out of the sky, until he finally disappeared under a powerful dragonfire ritual. After his defeat, none of his few remaining vassals could reach him with any form of divination or resurrection magic. His destruction seemed total, until binders solved the riddle of his seal and summoning ritual, finding him a twisted and outraged shadow of his former self.
Special Requirement: Amon particularly despises four other vestiges: Chupoclops, Eurynome, Karsus, and Leraje. If you have hosted one of these spirits within the last 24 hours, Amon refuses to answer your call. Similarly, these spirits will not answer your call if you are already bound to Amon. The reason for Amon’s displeasure with these vestiges is unclear, but the enmity is as old as anyone can remember. Binder scholars theorize that it might stem from the time when Amon was a Primordial and the other four were normal mortal or immortal beings (although Karsus is known to have lived as a mortal well after Amon's transformation into a vestige).
Manifestation: Amon manifests in a burst of black smoke, howling fowl curses at his summoner. He possesses a form not unlike that of his Primordial Titan body, though orders of magnitude smaller: The body of a coal black wolf, with a ram's head and a serpent for a tail. His mouth is filled with sharp teeth, and fire escapes when he speaks.
Sign: You grow a ram's curling horns.
Influence: Amon’s influence makes you surly and irritable. In addition, Amon inexplicably despises Aureon, Dol Arah, Onatar, and any other deity or religion devoted to fire, sun, or law, and he forces you to resist even beneficial spells cast by those faithful to such powers (including priests devoted to the pantheon of the Sovereign Host as a whole). You must make a saving throw to resist such a spell if one is allowed; failure allows you to gain the benefit.
2nd-Level Vestiges
Dahlver-Nar's legend from Tome of Magic was vague enough to be used almost completely as is. I just added a minor reference to The Mockery, perhaps hinting that the dark god is responsible for the vestige's hideous, skin-less appearance.
Dahlver-Nar, the Tortured One
Once a human binder, Dahlver-Nar now grants powers just as other vestiges do. He gives his summoners tough skin, a frightening moan, protections against madness, and the ability to share injuries with allies.
Legend: Bards tell two stories of Dahlver-Nar, both linked to the magic items that carry his name—the teeth of Dalver-Nar. Some say that because Dahlver-Nar was antiquity’s most powerful cleric, his followers treated his teeth as holy relics after his death and they somehow gained magical powers through this veneration. Others insist that Dahlver-Nar was a cleric of little consequence who discovered some magic dragon teeth in the ruins of a dragon’s lair. In this version of the story, the teeth were named after Dahlver-Nar because he became a terror in the region where he acquired them.
Binder scholars know a different story—that Dahlver-Nar was a powerful cleric of The Mockery who forsook his deity to pursue the power of pact magic. The fabled teeth of Dalver-Nar, to which all the legends attribute miraculous powers, were neither his own nor those of the dragon he encountered. They were the teeth of beings that became vestiges after death, and they could grant abilities similar to those that the vestiges themselves imparted. Pact magic treatises relate that Dahlver-Nar pulled out his own teeth and replaced them with those of the vestiges, but that using them all drove him mad. What happened thereafter is a matter of debate, but the texts maintain that Dahlver-Nar eventually died, and the teeth were lost, divided up among the squabbling followers he had managed to gain and then spread across the world. Today Dahlver-Nar exists as a vestige in his own right—perhaps brought to that state through his close association with so many others.
Manifestation: Dahlver-Nar’s frightful apparition floats in the air above his seal, with arms and legs hanging limply. Teeth and fangs of all kinds stud his entire body, replacing even his eyes. What skin is visible between the
teeth appears to be the moist, pink flesh of gums. Dahlver-Nar’s mouth is a bloody ruin that clearly lacks teeth, and when he opens it to speak, only a moan issues forth. Some binders believe that his vestige form is a punishment inflicted by The Mockery for betraying his faith for teeth, but others insist that he appears as he does because of his everlasting obsession with the magic items that bear his name.
Sign: Several teeth grow from your scalp. Though they are small enough to be hidden by a large quantity of hair or a hat, a touch reveals them immediately.
Influence: You shift quickly from distraction to extreme focus and back again. Sometimes you stare blankly off into space, and at other times you gaze intently at the person or task at hand. Since Dahlver-Nar dislikes any task that requires more than 1 round of concentration (such as some spellcasting, concentration on an effect, or any action that requires a concentration check), he requires that you undertake no such activities while under his influence.
3rd-Level Vestiges
Ahazu is originally found in Dungeon Magazie #148, and is an important figure during the Savage Tide adventure path. The legend I wrote for him tries to capture much of his essence while changing all the details. Instead of being a Demon Prince, he's upgraded to a Demonic Overlord of the Age of Demons. His legend involves an active deity which is strange for Eberron, but I figure the Age of Demons was so long ago any story told about it is shrouded in myth and metaphor. His opponent in the legend might have been the mortal dragon that eventually became Dol Arah, in which case she probably wasn't wielding a halberd. The idea of Eberron's earliest era not having a sun until Dol Arah literally made one is a concept I've used in previous campaigns.
Ahazu, the Lord of Shattered Night
Once and unholy terror during the Age of Demons, Ahazu now grants those that make pacts with him some of his mastery over darkness and loss.
Legend: The Age of Demons is a time shrouded in myth, at the dawn of creation. Ancient lore tells that the dragons, children of Eberron and Siberys, fought the demons, spawn of Khyber, for control of the world. The demons were lead by Overlords. No mundane fiends, these unthinkable entities were stronger than the most powerful demon prince or diabolic lord, with the power to rival the gods. It would take armies of dragons to fell just one of these beings, who would inevitably rise up anew as if they had never been struck down at all.
Ahazu, the Lord of Shattered Night, was one of these godlike demonic Overlords, encompassing the fear of darkness and abduction. In the earliest time of the world, myth says that there was no sun to light the day, and Ahazu reigned supreme. Mortals would live through the eternal darkness, only to fear the coming of sleep, frightened of being taken by Ahazu in their slumber, only to wake up to even deeper darkness in a realm without time, the Darkest Night.
The dragons, with their couatl and shulassakar allies, knew this could not continue. Aeons before the igniting of the Silver Flame, they knew they must find a way to permanently rid themselves of Ahazu. In their need, Dol Arah, Sovereign of Sun and Sacrifice, answered their call. The mighty goddess rose up to do battle with Ahazu, shining like a streak of holy fire through the endless darkness. In their pitched battle, Ahazu seized upon the Sovereign and flung her into the Darkest Night. But Dol Arah was not merely a gentle goddess of compassion, but a warrior fueled with righteous fury as hot as the sun. As she fell into Darkest Night, she thrust her holy halberd through the demon Ahazu and pulled him in after her.
Demon and mortal witness alike stood stunned, as their respective champions both disappeared. As time passed on, the outcome of the battle seemed uncertain, until the endless darkness broke. A great white radiance burst from the black horizon, the sun itself rising and bringing the light the first dawn to Eberron. And even when the sun set, and the demons assumed that Ahazu had gotten the upper hand after an initial defeat, they saw the truth. Night had been shattered by the light of stars, so that even in darkness, mortals could find their way. Ahazu never rose again, and to this day it is speculated his realm, now known as the Shattered Night, is his prison.
Modern planar scholars disagree on the nature of this legendary realm where Ahazu and his abductees are trapped. Some argue that this is an alternate name for Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead, and legends speaking of Ahazu's "abduction" are allegories for murders. Others argue that Mabar, the Endless Night, is the most likely candidate. But binders disagree with both, stating that vestiges are not found within the cosmos, and therefore Ahazu's Shattered Night must be some void beyond the planes, akin to the fabled realm of the Sovereign Host beyond Dolurrh.
There is also a further legend, spoken of only amongst binders, warning that Ahazu is more active than normal for a vestige. Rumors persist that binders who repeatedly fail to make good pacts with Ahazu mysteriously disappear, unable to be located or contacted even with divination magic. Whether this is true or not has yet to be proven.
Special Requirement: You must draw Ahazu's seal in utter darkness (the shadows created by a darkness spell are not sufficient, but deeper darkness is).
Manifestation: Ahazu’s manifestation begins as a sphere of darkness that slowly expands in radius. In the depths of that sphere, Ahazu’s form slowly takes shape, revealing a dark skinned, naked humanoid shape with bat-like wings, and elongated head, and arms akin to that of a bodak. His legs trail away into nothingness and his skin is smooth and devoid of obvious features. Ahazu’s mouth, which is filled with hundreds of needle-sharp fangs, yawns under a pair of sunken eyes which have partially withdrawn into his skull.
Sign: Your skin becomes cold to the touch and the inside of your mouth is cloaked in absolute darkness and periodically expels clouds of black smoke.
Influence: Ahazu compels you to steal small, precious objects whenever the opportunity presents itself, if you feel you can do so without getting caught. The covetousness extends to the lives of your enemies as well. If possible, you must try to imprison your enemies alive (preferably in a dark cell), rather than kill them or let them escape.
4th-Level Vestiges
Agares changed a bit from Tome of Magic. Where he used to be a leader in an elemental army on the Plane of Earth, I took the opportunity to expand on dwarven history in Frostfell. I kept the nature of his enemy vague on purpose. It could have been the prakhutu of an Overlord, the influence of an escaping Overlord itself, or maybe the warlord of a huge Derro nation. Who knows why the dwarves left their ancestral homeland? Binders sure don't.
Agares, Truth Betrayed
Agares died at the hands of his allies for a wrong he did not commit. As a vestige, not only does he give binders the ability to weaken foes and knock them prone, but he also makes his summoner fearless and able to speak any tongue.
Legend: Ancient dwarven texts refer to a mass dwarven exodus from a frostbitten homeland. Not much is known about this original dwarven culture, but one of the few myths to have survived is the legend of Agares. As the tales go, Agares was an ancient stonelord, commanding vast armies of dwarves against some foe lost to time. He was the most powerful general the mountainfolk had ever seen, able to call upon the very stones of the mountains to aid him in combat, and second in authority only to the dwarven emperor. Even though Agares was unalterably loyal, he nevertheless gave his emperor reason to fear betrayal. Agares became obsessed with the enemy commander of whatever foe the dwarves were said to have been warring against, who had twarted every advance Agares attempted into the heart of their territory. His desire to meet this favored foe on the field of battle blinded him to other tactical options and deafened him to rumors that his esteem for his enemy had deepened into love. When at last Agares entrapped his rival's forces, he girded himself for personal combat and set out to answer a challenge to duel his adversary. The summons was a trap laid by Agares’s lieutenants, however; his allies slew him within sight of his greatest enemy.
The tales say that because of this betrayal, the dwarven forces had no hope to combat their enemy, and were forced to flee to Khorvaire. Whether because of his pure outrage at the betrayal, or utter grief for his people's loss, Agares could not continue on to his rest in Dolurrh, and became a vestige.
Special Requirement: You must draw Agares’s seal upon either the earth or an expanse of unworked stone.
Manifestation: The ground trembles briefly as the head of a great brown crocodile bursts from beneath Agares’s seal. The crocodile’s maw opens upward, unleashing a hooded black hawk that spreads its wings, forcing the jaws farther apart with the mere brush of its feathers. Two large, catlike eyes gleam on the hawk’s breast. When Agares speaks, the hawk’s beak moves, but the sound comes from the crocodile’s rumbling throat.
Sign: You gain a wracking cough that spews dust and small stones from your mouth. This coughing prevents you from casting any spells that have verbal components. While bound to Agares, you can resist the urge to cough for a number of rounds equal your Constitution score. Thereafter, you cough for a round and then can try to resist the urge again.
Influence: Agares’s loyalty in life and his anger at the betrayal perpetrated by his lieutenants has become a hatred of falsehood. When influenced by Agares, you speak forthrightly and with confidence. You cannot use the Bluff skill, and when asked a direct question, you must answer truthfully and directly.
5th-Level Vestiges
I pretty much kept Acererak's lore from Tome of Magic as-is, merely changing any reference to the Negative Energy Plane to Mabar, the Endless Night, added a bit about supplanting The Keeper, like canon eberron lore says the founder of the Lirbary of Korranberg tried to supplant Aureon. I did also decide to change his title, since being called The Devourer would indicate some tie to that dark god, which doesn't make as much sense as the Keeper connection. And I thought his legend was perfectly fine as it was without adding the elements to it that would make the Devourer connection make more sense. I thought about naming the location of Skull City and the Tomb of Horrors, but decided I'd leave that up for conjecture.
Acererak, the Arch-Linch
Acererak, a half-human lich, grasped at godlike power only to lose his grip on reality. As a vestige, he grants abilities that are similar to a lich’s powers.
Legend: Only bards and a few scholars remember Acererak’s name, but many know the legend of his supposed final resting place, the Tomb of Horrors. As rumors of the wealth and magic hidden in this fabled location spread, the tomb became a burial ground for more and more explorers and tomb robbers. In truth, however, the Tomb of Horrors was not Acererak’s sepulcher at all. It was merely part of his plan to gain eternal unlife and command of all undead.
Acererak left behind a diary, and the information it contains combined with the actions of a stalwart few have at last brought the full tale of Acererak to light. In his diary, Acererak wrote that he was born of a union between a human woman and a fiend. Despite his hideous deformities, his mother kept him and cared for him until, when he was ten years of age, some superstitious villagers burned down their house. Acererak survived the conflagration because of his fiendish heritage, but his mother did not. In his diary Acererak recalls that incident as the event that propelled him on the path toward necromancy and revenge against humanity.
Acererak became a powerful wizard. As he grew older and saw the specter of death looming, he sought out and completed the ritual for becoming a lich. After he assumed his undead form, his power continued to grow for centuries more. The diary relates, however, that Acererak eventually felt the forces animating his undead body begin to wane. Knowing that final oblivion was near, he decided to build himself a secret tomb. “Only those of keenest luck and greatest skill will win through to me,” the diary read. “There, they shall receive a magnificent reward for their persistence.”
The diary, the Tomb of Horrors, and the supposed reward were all parts of an elaborate ruse designed to bring powerful adventurers into the portion of the tomb that Acererak—by then a powerful demilich—called his Fortress of Conclusion. In truth, Acererak had devised a ritual that he hoped would merge his consciousness with Mabar, the Endless Night, through the sacrifice of potent spirits. Had he actually accomplished this goal, he could have assumed control of any undead on any plane and risen as the new Sovereign of Death and Decay, replacing The Keeper. But the infamy of the Tomb of Horrors drew more than wealth-hungry thrill-seekers intent on gaining the reward promised in Acererak’s diary. Supplicants also came. Necromancers questing for knowledge, seekers of eternal life, and lost souls in search of purpose traveled to the tomb to learn what they could of the dark arts. In time, the supplicants became worshipers, forming a Death Cult, and they stayed to dwell near the object of their devotion. Eventually, a settlement called Skull City sprang up around the entrance to Acererak’s Tomb of Horrors.
Some of the heroes Acererak lured to his tomb proved even more powerful and ingenious than he had anticipated. After fighting their way through Skull City and the Tomb of Horrors, they made their way to the demilich’s Fortress of Conclusion. At the last possible moment, they surmised Acererak’s plan and destroyed the artifact that was crucial to his apotheosis. They struck down Acererak and shattered his phylactery.
Normally, such an action would have sent Acererak’s soul straight to Dolurrh, but the worship of his Death Cult lent him some semblance of extraordinary power even in death; his desire to merge with Mabar proved stronger than the pull of Dolurrh. Unfortunately for Acererak, souls do not travel to the Mabar upon death. Since his spirit had no clear destination, it went nowhere, becoming a vestige divorced from all planes.
Special Requirement: You must place a gem about the size of a human tooth or eye in the center of Acererak’s seal. This gem is not used up in the summoning process, nor does it move from where you placed it, despite the manner in which Acererak manifests (see Manifestation, below).
Manifestation: The gem you placed within the seal appears to float up into the air to the height of your head. Dust swirls in from the surrounding air and up from the ground to coalesce about the gem, forming a yellowed human skull with the jewel as a tooth or an eye. A moment later, other gems wink into being, so that each eye socket and the space of every tooth is occupied by a shining diamond, ruby, emerald, or sapphire. The jewels glow briefly with an inner light, and then Acererak speaks, his dry voice filled with contempt.
Sign: A gem replaces one of your teeth. If removed (dealing 1 point of damage), the gem reverts to a normal tooth, and a new gem appears in its place.
Influence: As a vestige, Acererak possesses the immortality he desired but none of the power that should accompany it. If you fall under his influence, you evince a strong hunger for influence and primacy. If you are presented with an opportunity to fill a void in power over a group of creatures, Acererak requires that you attempt to seize that power. You might impersonate a missing city official, take command of a leaderless unit of soldiers, or even grab the reins of runaway horses to establish your supremacy.
6th-Level Vestiges
Chupoclops from Tome of Magic stayed mostly the same. The biggest change I made was that he was originally from Dal Quor, though not a Quori, and was banished to the Ethereal Plane, using a line about him "not following the rules of the cosmos" to say that he used to be this huge terror of Dal Quor that wouldn't die even when the Age turned. Also, I couldn't remember if souls in Eberron travel first through the Ethereal Plane before going to Dolurrh, but I decided it wasn't that big a deal if they didn't and I added that little tidbit, so I left it in. I debated changing his title like I did a few other vestiges, because I removed his apocalyptic beast aspects, but I figured it was vague and metaphorical enough to stick.
Chupoclops, Harbinger of Forever
A great monster believed to be a harbinger of the apocalypse, Chupoclops became a vestige when slain by mortals. Chupoclops grants its summoner a bite attack and unnatural senses, plus the ability to pounce on foes, to exist ethereally, and to make enemies despair.
Legend: In ages past, Chupoclops would stalk the dreamscapes of Dal Quor, a living engine of destruction and the end of existence, giving birth to the first mortal nightmares by devouring hope. No matter how many times the age of Dal Quor had turned, reincarnating the plane and its inhabitants each time, Chupoclops remained. A titanic, spider-like creature, Chupoclops was not a Quori, but a creature of raw terror that could not be sated. The Quori of the Age of Giants, before the Giant-Quori War, finally determined a way to rid Dal Quor of the blight of Chupoclops before it could find what they believed to be the central wellspring of hope at the center of Dal Quor, banishing and binding the beast to the Ethereal Plane. There, unable to devour the hope of the living, it began to prey upon the hope of the dead, devouring ghosts and souls before they could reach the plane of Dolurrh and whatever lies beyond.
Because Chupoclops was a terror to both the living and the dead, several powerful individuals eventually joined forces to fight it. Three were great heroes, and four were powerful villains. Four of these seven—one of the heroes and three of the villains—where ghosts; the rest were living. This group set out to murder Chupoclops and thus accomplish what the Quori could not. The furious battle lasted for seven days, and each day ended with the utter annihilation of one member of the group that had come to kill the great monster. On the last day, the last hero struck down Chupoclops with her dying blow.
Chupoclops, never a creature defined by the normal rules of the universe, became a vestige after its death. Binder scholars claim that adventurers still encounter its enormous corpse in the misty Ethereal Plane. Now that the monster can no longer destroy hope, some say it will exist forever, and thus, so will the world.
Special Requirement: You must draw Chupoclops’s seal with a handful of soil from a grave or tomb. Alternatively, you can place the dead body of a sentient creature (one with Int 3 or higher) over its seal before the summoning begins. In addition, Chupoclops hates Amon for some unknown reason and will not answer your call if you are already bound to him.
Manifestation: Chupoclops appears over its seal in the form of a Colossal phase spider. However, only the part of its body directly over its seal is visible at any given time. In most cases, Chupoclops first appears as a massive spider leg striking out of nowhere into the center of the seal. Then it shifts its body, slowly bringing its face into view and down to the level of its summoner. Glaring over its oddly tusked arachnid visage from eight all-too-human eyes, Chupoclops rumbles an ominous growl to begin the process of pact making.
Sign: Your lower jaw increases in size, and two long, sharply pointed tusks grow upward from it.
Influence: While under the influence of Chupoclops, you can’t help but be pessimistic. At best, you are quietly resigned to your own failure, and at worst, you spread your doubts to others, trying to convince them of the hopelessness of their goals. In addition, Chupoclops requires that you voluntarily fail all saving throws against fear effects or any effect that imposes a morale penalty.
7th-Level Vestiges
The last of the trio of vestiges from Dragon Magazine #357, Ansitif had some pretty cool lore! I latched onto his rage against divine beings, and kept that aspect of him by making him a sorta prakhutu for the entire Demonic Overlord "pantheon". I thought he'd be a great way to discover more lore about the Overlords, with his ability to swap domains for a demon lord's (of course, using an Overlord's domains rather than an Archduke or Demon Prince's). I also wanted to give him a more special death to justify his status as a vestige, instead of merely reforming like outsiders do in Eberron.
Ansitif, the Befouler
Ansitif the Befouler loathes all evidence of religious faith, granting resistance to divine magic, the power to call on the demon overlords of the Age of Demons, to blaspheme in the face of the gods, and to resist the cleansing power of fire.
Legend: A powerful rakshasa from the Age of Demons, Ansitif worshiped all the demonic Overlords as his gods. In the birthing pains of the cosmos, mortals had not yet discovered worship of the Sovereign Host and Dark Six, so Ansitif's dark religion of demonic reverence was all there was.
But as powerful as the Overlords were, as much personal might and influence over reality they wielded, they were not true gods. When worship of the true gods of the Sovereign Host reached Ansitif's ears, he was enraged by the very existence of divine beings. Unable to challenge the Sovereigns directly, the Befouler vented his fury through the corruption of religious sites and relics dedicated to true gods. At the height of his power Ansitif's demesne was littered with the shattered relics of countless faiths and the ruins of desecrated temples drawn into Khyber.
Legends say that the very first paladins of the Sovereign Host and anti-paladins of the Dark Six were responsible for Ansitif's final destruction, the combined power of simultaneous, righteous and vengeful smites banishing Ansitif from reality itself, never to return except as a vestige.
Special Requirement: Ansitif requires that his seal be drawn using the broken remains of a true deity’s holy symbol.
Manifestation: The symbol before you erupts in flames, and a swarm of sparks leaps outward to scorch relics, holy symbols, and other signs of worship in the immediate vicinity. Gradually, the flames coalesce around the alter and begin to give forth a dark cloying smoke. In the center of the smoke, flying sparks form a disembodied mouth that begins to speak.
Sign: Your hair and skin become blackened and scorched, as if briefly touched by fire.
Influence: Under Ansitif’s influence, you become enraged by the presence of relics dedicated to true gods. The Befouler requires that you attempt to destroy or steal any relic dedicated to a true god that you discover.
8th-Level Vestiges
Another Faerun-specific vestige, Abysm was the last vestige detailed in the Mind's Eye web article series. I kept the basics of Abysm the same, but swaped it's Myth Dranor history for a more Eberron-specific one, placing the city's construction in Adar, only a century or two after the Kalashtar arived there. I didn't spell it out, but I kind of see the killing of the entire line of Taratai being caused by the catastrophe of Abysm, and the cause of the disaster being a Dreaming Dark plot. Also removed the references to maenads so the lore isn't dilluted with unnecessary plot hooks.
Abysm, the Schismed
Abysm, the Schismed, is a living vestige of an entire psychic community. As a vestige, Abysm gives its host access to several psionic effects.
Legend: Little is known about the origin of the vestige that is Abysm, except that it arose as a vestige some few generations after the Kalashtar arrived on Eberron.
Stories tell that some kalashtar sought to emulate the pure psionic community of Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams, and founded a great crystal city in a forgotten valley hidden amongst the mountains of Adar. Imagine a city of psions, all interconnected by their psicrystals in an impossibly huge metanetwork of psionic energy. Now imagine all of them dying overnight. No one knows what disaster visited the city, but it killed every living thing. Some believe that due to the inhabitants' direct connection every other citizen by way of their psicrystals, their souls did not depart as they should have. Instead they got caught in the metanetwork weave, and the resulting combination of energies was simply too much for the crystals to hold—all psicrystals shattered at once and gave birth to the vestige that is Abysm.
Some researchers and lore-seekers say that Abysm has only recently became sane enough to maintain a safe binding for more than a few seconds. Many old tales relate how binders found themselves being nearly driven insane just by contacting it, but now it does respond and answer the call of those who seek it.
Manifestation: Crystals grow from the seal into a prismatic tree that suddenly cracks and shatters into dust. The dust swirls into a shimmering, rainbow-laden cyclone that forms an indistinct face. A discordant voice speaks to the binder, saying, "We, Abysm."
Sign: Your fingernails and toenails become crystal, and you "sweat" crystal dust.
Influence: Your speech pattern becomes disconnected, as if many voices are trying to speak through you. Your mannerisms also change from moment to moment: masculine to feminine, regal to shy, and confident to passive. Abysm requires that the binder not use a psicrystal for the duration of the binding.
This. Is. Fantastic! I'm a fan of Binders, myself, and have a player in my campaign that's playing one so this is an excellent resource for fitting Binders into Eberron better.
EnderXenocide0 wrote:
Just a little tidbit, but I photoshoped up an original seal for Forge
Fantastic work!
There's almost certainly an exploit available to Forge pacts, but that's a problem with the artificer abilities he's referencing, not the vestige itself. Although you could probably alter it a bit by making him higher level - 2nd level vestiges can be picked up at level 1 with Improved Binding (both as binders and those with the Bind Vestige feat - which, incidentally, means picking two abilities from that list to grant to people who bind with the feat. I'd suggest Forge's Knowledge for the basic feat, with Infusions for the Improved Bind Vestige ability). In terms of lore, though, I love it - I never really liked the Becoming God as a literal deity, but attaching it to a vestige lore and then working in an apprpriate time paradox just feels right.
I'm using pact magic in our Eberron as well, and have a few ideas as an alternative - or supplement - to these that I'd like to offer. Rather than at the legend level, for now, I'm going to look at the tradition level, and try to find a place for pact magic (not just binders, but pact magic as a whole) in Eberron. I'll concentrate on Khorvaire for now, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also exist elsewhere.
A recurring theme in your vestiges happens to be the one major assertion that I challenged when coming up with fluff for the vestiges in our Eberron - specifically, the connection to deities or transcendance. I don't use the more recent lore that literally made the Sovereigns ancient dragons or the like, as I prefer to leave the question about the nature of the deities as a Great Unknowable. As such, personifying deities in the legends of the vestiges seems a bit weird - and in some cases, completely alien to the way Eberron works. For example, considering how the afterlife is understood in Eberron - both in an observational sense relating to Dollurh, and a theological sense in most of Eberron's faiths - it's unlikely that anyone would assume their souls would wind up in the personal domains of their patron gods after they died (a trait found in Faerun and Greyhawk), so a story like Andromalius' doesn't seem like it would ever be written by an Eberron native, even one who believes the gods actually do intervene.
Instead, I prefer to view the vestiges as places where the cosmic order got fouled up and divided by zero - it's not certain what they are, or even if they ever existed as entities, and attempts to answer that question are about as fruitful as trying to get concrete answers about the Tao or somesuch. The fact that the vestiges are not reliable sources of information about themselves, and that some vestiges are fluid in appearance (i.e. Naberius), certainly doesn't help. I've taken the curious step of showing this unnaturalness by suggesting that the vestiges (and their pacts) are completely absent from readings of the Prophecy. This isn't like how Sarlona is "missing" - I liken that to having a book that lists Sarlona in the table of contents as beginning on page 2,096, but the book skips right from 2,095 to 3422. Instead, it's more like the vestiges themselves are completely outside the reach of the prophecy. A prophecy about a binder will never reference their pact abilities in any way, and can, in fact, be screwed up through the use of such binds. (The prophecy will adjust around this and correct itself because that's what it does, but it is possible for a pact to temporarily throw a spanner in the works of a particular prophetic condition. Groups interested in the Prophecy but unaware of pact magic will probably interpret these misses simply as them not having all the information - i.e. "Oh, maybe it meant the next midsummer when Fernia is coterminous" or the like.) Just like how divination magic will fail if it targets a fictional entity, nothing that gives extra information will provide any evidence that the vestiges actually exist - and yet, if you're trained, draw the seal, and call out their name, they appear.
(Vestiges themselves have no ability to act on the world and may not even be aware of the passage of time, so they're not a threat to anyone who depends on the prophecy - but binders might be. For this reason, I generally have the Chamber in particular be opposed to pact magic, but just as you can't extinguish a widespread idea, they recognize you can't end pact magic with decisive action. As such, they monitor binders in much the same way security agencies (i.e. the Blackened Book, House Medani, and so on) monitor powerful spellcasters, and try to steer them to places where they'll have little impact. The Chamber is powerful but, by dragon standards, adaptable; they view pact magic as an uncontrolled variable that can't be removed, and seek to minimize its impact on their long-term plans.)
For assorted reasons, I don't think pact magic is prominent enough for hererodoxy to be common: the organizational fluff in the Tome of Magic, and the recurring references to debates between "binder scholars", don't translate well. Rather than have those debates be standard lore, they're something that's going on now, if the practitioners from different traditions are aware of each other.. This means that there are different traditions of pact magic that arose independently. There are concrete regularities between the different traditions - i.e. each vestige has a level, special requirements are constant, and the like; this is similar to how independent traditions of magic (draconic, goblin, Sarlonan, etc.) all hit on the same eight schools - but beyond that, they disagree radically. Each comes up with its own set of legends to explain the regularities and fill the unexplainable bits - but, curiously, each traditions' legends are suspiciously similar to each other. Balam's legend, for instance, always involves a powerful entity undertaking an impossible task, but whether that entity was a solar, a couatl, a mighty mortal knight-errant, or a powerful fiend varies from tradition to tradition.
The traditions I've come up with are the following, which doesn't pretend to be an exhaustive list (but can serve as one - too many traditions makes it hard to keep the practice from getting widespread), and should also showcase that I am terrible at coming up with names:
The closest to the standard binder lore would be a priestly sect in the Blood of Vol, who I've tentatively named the Custodians of Forever. These binders view the vestiges as what remains of beings that have attempted to transcend mortality. They succeeded, to a point - giving up not just their mortal divinity but also their existence. What remains is a literal vestige of what they once were, barely able to reach anything and having no initiative of their own. Unlike intelligent undead, they're not revered - they're pitied, for even though they have attained great power over time, they have no agency (or, indeed, self) to use it. The Custodians of Forever offer portions of their divine spark to the vestiges through the rituals of binding, allowing these entities to taste what they've lost - and, in return, gaining a fragment of the power the vestiges hold, using the vestige as a channel for some of the true power lurking within their own blood. (In effect, the binders are serving a role to the vestiges that is analogous to the way BoV undead serve to their mortal congregations, except in a more fleeting fashion). Like the standard "heretic" flavor of the ToM binders, the Blood of Vol binders keep their practices secret from those outside their priesthood, for entirely practical reasons: becoming a vestige is not a particularly fulfilling way to escape mortality (nor a well-understood one), so they're usually left out of sermons, even though the priests themselves consider them an interesting theological position. Additionally, the BoV sects are already on precarious ground when dealing with the more powerful - and possibly trigger-happy - Church of the Silver Flame, which has its own attitudes on the practice (see below), so by keeping this tradition hidden, they're also protecting their followers from a potential inquisition. (I liked the fluff of a persecuted binder, since it resonates with medieval images of pacts with devils; the Church of the Silver Flame is a passable stand-in for the Catholic Church in this scenario, even though its own relationship with pact magic is more complex than that.)
A tradition I've jokingly referred to as the Cults of the Dragon Above exists as an offshoot of followers of the Sovereign Host and the Dark Six; despite the name it's not intended to be sinister and may in fact be a scholastic order. This is not a unified tradition in that there's no centralized authority or the like - it's organized very much like the Cults of the Dragon Below, with small cells that happen to have a few things in common. Here, the main commonality is that they subscribe to a theological view similar to the Host and the Six, though there's little in common between cells beyond that. The vestiges here are believed to be what remains of Sovereigns if a new being ascends to that office - ascension is already a fringe position religiously, and this is a fringe within a fringe, which explains its secrecy. Ascension displaces the original deity, who then transcends to an even higher place - but something still remains behind, a husk of their previous identity (not unlike what the Host preaches about Dollurh), not connected to the new Sovereign (they're their own being) nor the old (who no longer exists in any sense of the term). The followers of the Host generally do not know about this; while those that do (probably) disagree theologically, they don't see it as particularly threatening, as the Cults of the Dragon Above generally keeps to themselves. This tradition does not see the vestiges as unreliable, and usually seek pact information to try to learn more about the former Sovereigns from their vestiges; as such it has the most sophisticated take on vestige legends, but also the greatest number of internal inconsistencies and ad-hoc justifications to smooth over the rough bits in their stories. It also is the most "heterodox" in that it would view conflicting information - say, pact texts written by different traditions - in the same syncretistic fashion as the Host is typically seen: a different tradition is just a different aspect of the same truth. Expect different cells, if they communicate, to have fierce arguments about canon.
If you buy into the linking of the Sovereigns as literal dragons, or are prepared to come up with draconic manifestations for the vestiges, then the largest Cult of the Dragon Above is found among the Seren barbarians, where the vestiges are seen as a form of totem and don't truly differentiate it from their existing religion. It's less common, since you're emulating a "metaphorical" dragon instead of the literal dragons the tribes worship, but it's not seen as any different than any other shamanistic tradition and holds no stigma at all in their culture (as a practice, that is; individual binders have a propensity to be eccentric by Seren standards, but that's a stereotype of the binder, not of pact magic.). For an inexplicable reason, the cosmetic details of Seren pacts are different - for instance, a pact with Amon gives the binder the horns of a black dragon instead of the horns of a ram, and Chupoclops causes the binder to grow dragon fangs rather than tusks - and null binders (see below) have no explanation as to why this happens, as there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for it in their pact practices nor anything particular to Seren heritage to cause this. Whether the Seren tradition is a corruption of the Cults of the Dragon Above belief, or vice versa, or whether both are descendants of a common ancestor is a question that defies all attempts to answer. (A bigger question here that I'm leaving open is how the Argonessen dragons - not just the Chamber, but all of the dragons - react to this, as if the Seren were to start binding, eventually the dragons would learn about the vestiges. Stories of something beyond the Prophecy is something that would spread like wildfire through Argonessen (c.f. dragonmarks), and I'm not sure how the dragons would react.
In a less religiously-motivated direction, have you noticed the number of vestiges out there? The Tome lists 32, or "approximately thirty" - a number you've heard before. Perhaps the most dangerous tradition was developed by pawns of the Lords of Dust, who began by viewing the vestiges initially as literally the imprisoned Overlords. This is, of course, false - the Overlords are quite prominent in the Prophecy, they are certainly active agents, and their binding prisons are too strong to be breached by a mere chalk symbol and a few words of reverence. However, over time, this tradition learned - both through their own research (including the discovery of slightly more than "approximately thirty" vestiges) and through guidance by their fiendish masters - and evolved. They now hold that each vestige is associated with an Overlord, though the exact nature of this association is unknown (a common one suggests that vestiges are what remain of earlier incarnations of these overlords' prakutu - though the prakutu are strong enough to draw upon their earlier incarnations' memories and personalities, something is lost or changed with each rebirth, and the accumulated residual personality lingers as a vestige. The only evidence to suggest this is true is circumstantial (a few fiends occasionally recognize a vestige exhibiting a quirk belonging to a previous incarnation of a fiend they knew), but the fiends allow their pawns to believe it as long as it furthers their goals). An example pairing links Amon to Bel Shalor: both are associated with fire and darkness, and at a meta-game level, both are the "iconic" examples of their kind as presented to players. There are also different cells of this tradition, isolated geographically (the largest being among the Demon Wastes barbarians, but simple cells can take the place of the Cults of the Dragon Below if you need a stereotypical demon cult somewhere or want to give Lords of Dust pawns obvious signs of diabolic influence); while these different cells differ on the nature of the association, they are remarkably consistent as to which overlords are associated with which vestige. The fiends that guide this tradition know that the vestiges are missing from the Prophecy, and as such are wild cards: they usually guide their mortal followers to places where their activities will disrupt undesirable prophetic outcomes - usually to prevent opposition to their own goals, but sometimes to disrupt other Lords of Dust, because, well, politics. Curiously, this tradition is the only one that has an explanation for why vestige titles are immutable, even if the name changes (Naberius again gives an example of name-changing; I'd hold that all of his forms use the title The Grinning Guide); just as "The Gatekeeper" and "Katashka" are synonymous for the Overlord associated with undeath, so too is "The Devourer" synonymous with "Acererak", Katashka's associated vestige. Similarly, this is also the simplest reason for pact magic to be confined to the material plane - the vestiges themselves clearly relate to native outsiders, so they'd be easiest to reach on the material plane instead of some unknown divine realm - and it also explains why some vestiges hate each other and won't answer calls if a rival vestige is bound (again, untold aeons of conflict and strife between fiends, or simply politics on a timescale beyond that of mortal ken).
The Lords of Dust tradition can also be inverted, creating a tradition I'm tentatively calling the Ashen Pyre (this is the name I am least satisfied with), which views the vestiges as linked to the couatl: specifically, if a given couatl allows a mortal to channel it, and the mortal dies, something of the mortal lingers on in the surviving couatl, if only for an instant. In extremely rare circumstances, the couatl is itself killed at the same time as the mortal channelling it. The couatl, of course, reincarnates (as all outsiders do), and that mortal remnant is lost - but can be found again through the pact rituals, performed to honor the mortal's noble sacrifice. (Even this tradition's followers hold this to be a monumentally rare event, explaining why there's only ~32 vestiges to have appeared since the end of the Age of Demons.). For some reason, pacts formed in this tradition often manifest different signs, or no sign at all (in most cases this has no mechanical effect, but vestige powers that only function if you show their sign are still unavailable if the sign is missing), making them simultaneously less disturbing and significantly harder to identify. This tradition was all but lost in Khorvaire during the Last War, living on in only two places on that continent: the shulassakar of Krezent, and a few small groups in the Church of the Silver Flame. The Church had been aware of binding in the past, and had theologically concluded it to be a corruption of the practitioner's soul. (This is "corruption" in the alchemical sense, which means that something is interwoven with something else - the church is aware that "corrupted" has a different rhetorical meaning, and considers that difference useful in guiding the Purified.) Finding out about the Ashen Pyre tradition (and finding out that their mastery of exorcism had no effect on binders - that is, they learned that pact magic was not actually possession) put them in a quandary - one that they solved by forcing the Ashen Pyre into secrecy and doubling down on their persecution of any other pact magic tradition. This attitude, combined with their history of violent inquisition, is what scares several other binder traditions, notably the Custodians of Forever, into maintaining their secrecy - even if outside traditions have no clue that the Ashen Pyre exists, the Silver Flame's theological stance on pact magic as a whole is public knowledge (though admittedly not as widely known as their other doctrines; it's probably buried in some public but obscure document similar to certain types of real-world papal bulls - the average follower of any given faith may not be aware of the details, but you can bet that occult practitioners went over these like a Daanvi lawyer. Compare to the Chamber, above - that can't be used to threaten pact magic into secrecy because they, themselves, are kept secret!) I like how the Silver Flame is far more complex than its stereotype suggests, but at the same time its stereotype is a useful narrative trope to keep other pact traditions secretive - so I made the Church of two minds about the practice. They actually do know that this practice isn't actually harmful to its practitioners, at least in the Ashen Pyre tradition, but at the same time it vastly complicates quite a bit of church theology, so in the interests of protecting their people - or, if it's the demon in the Flame talking, in the interests of preventing couatl influence from spreading - they act in the stereotyped fashion in public.
(For a real challenge, try pairing those two traditions in the same world. Naberius manifests differently for the two traditions, but has the same effects - and may actually be the same entity.)
Finally, there's a "null binder" tradition that's essentially functionalist. This doesn't have any centralized dogma or the like, and I hestitate to call it a "tradition". Instead, some practitioners of pact magic consider the vestiges to merely be a type of sentient, semi-self-sustaining magical effect, having acquired some "personality quirks" from being cast through countless souls over the aeons, with any commonalities between pacts or across traditions being akin to schools of magic and the like. Null binders might view vestige legends simply as products of mortals "filling in the gaps" that they don't understand - similar to how we invented gods to explain the weather before we understood atmospheric physics. The pact itself is a special type of spellcasting that uses the binder's soul as a focus; in effect, the vestiges are not "greedy for a taste of reality" as the ToM implies, but rather it's simply in their nature to want to be "cast". (This approach explains, in part, why a binder can never absolutely fail to make a pact - they can make good pacts and poor pacts, and can fail to meet a special requirement (which is similar to casting a spell without the proper components), but they can never call upon, say, Malphas and have him say "No." The vestiges have no agency - a wizard who says the right magic words will always throw a magic missile, and a binder that goes through the proper pact process will always grow horns.) "Null" practitioners are usually people who have left another pact magic tradition or are self-taught (and as such have no authority figures to steer their thinking), and their binding rituals often involve leaving seemingly-important bits out. (For instance, while a classical binder might say "I call upon Amon, the Void Before the Altar. Render unto me your sight and your breath, for I stand before your seal and possess your talisman." or somesuch, a "null" binder might instead just say the vestige's name and title - the barest minimum needed to get it to appear, and without any special reverence (but also without disrespect - null binders don't see respect entering the equation at all)). The fact that their pacts still succeed suggests that the null binders might actually be right, and that there's nothing more to the vestiges than the rituals of magic. The facts that they have absolutely no suggestions as to the origin of these spell effects, and no explanation as to why different traditions always seem to zero in on the same legends, are inconvenient, and usually ignored or dismissed depending on the individual.
Then, there's also the "default" legends, which do not belong to any specific tradition. These are the ones as presented in the Tome - or this thread - that would emerge if there were any true heterodoxy and consensus positions emerging. In a few cases these might reflect real-world events - for instance, I think that Taratai herself would work perfectly as a vestige (indeed, she'd make a perfect alternative fluff for Abysm, with Taratai herself replacing the mythal/metanetwork and with her sacrifice for the Shroud being the destructive event, with the fragmented voices and powers being representative of her myriad kalashtar. Other kalashtar lineage extinctions wouldn't produce such a vestige - perhaps the persistence of the Shroud or the psychic disturbance of a single moment of mass sacrifice or some external factor was needed to create a vestige of Taratai) - but in other cases, the only things they have in common are things that appear to be fictional or unknowable.
I'll try tossing up some more later if this is well-recieved; perhaps a few choice vestige legends as told by these traditions would be in order.
That was extremely interesting! Thanks for your thoughts!
For what it's worth, I did attempt to come up with some internal consistency for the legends. I chose to believe that most legends are on average something like 90% true. I feel like there are verifiable methods to date the birth of a vestige: no binder in recorded history had ever bound to an entity calling itself Amon before the Titan King of the same name, in historical record, was vanquished during the Shattering of Xen'drik (this is an event that is certainly within elven history). Vestiges dating back to the Age of Demons, I allowed myself more leway with the truth, they are perhaps 60% true: the showdown between Dol Arah and Ahazu or Dol Dorn and Asmodeus might have been entirely metaphorical: Ahazu may have been defeated when the dragons prayed the Sun into existance, or perhaps was even just defeated by a couatl champion during a particularly bright noonday sun. Or maybe he was defeated by a female great wyrm red dragon with 40 class levels of paladin, who later went on to become, or merely inspire stories of, the Sovereign of Sun and Sacrifice. The legend as presented is mostly for entertainments sake; a fable.
As for vestiges concerning the afterlife, like Andromalius and Marchosias, there is a canon notion that there is a realm after Dolurrh that cannot be reachable by mortal magic. I thought that such a realm beared a certain resemblance to the of the generic ToM lore about a "plane of the vestiges", like from Ipox's legend. Therefore, I decided to accept that among binders, there is a pretty common acceptance of this notion, and that they are more likely to propagate myths and legends taking place "after Dolurrh" than most.
As or the repeated reference to "binder scholars", I personally considered the notion to be divorced of any kind of "tradition" or "society". Rather, in my head, "binder scholars" are binders that have written down their experiences, beliefs, and notions gleaned from their own historical research and explorations. These writtings then outlive them, and are encountered in other "binder scholars" research, perpetuating an ever-growing knowledge base about the lore of pact magic. So, there may never even have been some debate between two living binders, let alone a society of them, but rather texts written by one binder, with annotations in it written years, decades, centuries, or maybe even millennia later.
However, I do really like your different sects. I'm a little hesitant to include some elements (like the alternate manifestations for Seren barbarians) in my game because they clash with my personal vision of "the truth" behind vestiges, but I do like all of them as potential backgrounds for binder PC or NPCs in my campaign (even the null binders, as just because I feel like I have a "truth" behind vestiges, I do like including things that present ambiguity... so long as I feel that they don't provide so much contrary evidence as to be more indicative of a different truth than the one I set). I also very much like the notion that vestiges are absent from the Prophecy. It very much carries forward the theme of "otherness" into the Eberron setting in a uniquely Eberronian way.
(Also, I consider Abysm to be a more direct connection to Taratai: she created the Shroud, and in doing so, sacrificed herself, creating the vestige)
AvonRekaes wrote:
While I really like the idea of different traditions of binders, I would still cleave to the "90% true" mark for each legend. Amon was verifiably a Titan king. Halaphax is still considered a gnomish genius of architecture by those unaware he is even a vestige (or that pact magic exists). These are facts for the history of Eberron as I present them, so no matter the tradition of binder, they would agree on these things.
The difference, however, can come from interpretation as to their origins as a vestige, or even their origins as a whole for the more mysterious vestiges like Naberius, Orthos, and Otiax. I'll go through your sects and give how I'd use them in my game:
The Custodians of Forever, are probably my favorite of your sects. They work well with most legends, and would only disagree with the parts that take place in the afterlife, and are the main source (along with null binders) of the alternate explainations where given. For instance, look at this exerpt from my writeup of Aym:
Binder scholars are not sure how Aym became a vestige, as her death was the result of mundane circumstance. The popular theory is that not even year after year of fading away in Dolurrh could abate her greed, and that when she passed on to the realm of the Sovereigns, she looked upon Kol Korran's wealth and Onatar's works of art with avarice instead of awe. The Sovereigns caught her scheming to take their treasures for her own, and cast her out of reality with disgust. Others insist that her greed was great enough to anchor her ghost to the Ethereal plane, where she wandered endlessly looking for any material wealth that desolate plane could offer, until her search brought her so far away from Eberron she could never return.