Legendary Creatures
Most of the time, characters start out as plucky underqualified adventurers, and slowly build their way up to earth-shattering power. But a select few – demigods, titans, and influential leaders, for instance – can possess a few abilities that make them stand above their peers in some respect. These are Legendary characters, whose actions shake the foundations of the world. This is an optional section, and the abilities inside are meant to make things substantially more powerful than regular creatures. It’s up to GMs to decide if and how Legendary can be acquired in the game.
What is Legendary?
The [Legendary] subtype is a mechanism for depicting characters who are truly larger than life. These characters have more in common with Achilles, John Carter, or even Elric than they do with Odysseus, Sherlock Holmes, or the Musketeers. Fights against [Legendary] foes are enough to merit ballads in their own right, and often enter into the greater mythology of the world.
In general, [Legendary] characters can be considered two levels higher for the purposes of calculating encounters, but this is not a perfect analogy. Simply put, [Legendary] characters are not suitable for use as common monsters or mewling recruits; they require a little bit more planning and thought. [Legendary] is also a mechanic for defining player characters, but it is critical that if one player’s character is [Legendary], all the player characters should be.
There are four tiers, and at each tier you acquire a single ability. There are no dependencies between choices, so feel free to mix and match to build the larger-than-life megalomaniac you’ve always wanted.
- Champion: 1st level and up
- Fated: 5th level and up
- Immortal: 10th level and up
- Legend: 15th level and up
Champion
This is the first step towards a more profound destiny, the first display of greatness through some particularly adroit skill or powerful trait. For many characters, the ability granted at this tier is their most defining mechanical aspect.
Chameleon
You always have the right tool for the job, demonstrating either a preternatural degree of preparedness or a distressing ability to fake it. Once per [Scene], you may use one of the following abilities:
- As an immediate action when you hit with an attack, you may cause that hit to become a critical hit.
- As a free action, you may gain any one feat you qualify for, for three [Rounds].
- As a free action, you count as trained in an additional skill for three [Rounds].
Child of the Forge
You gain early access to a Greater item, and may use it in addition to the normal Greater Items you are entitled to.
Collateral Damage
The length of any wedge and line area effect you create is doubled. The radius of any spread area effect you activate is doubled. Whenever you would create any other area effect which covers squares a certain distance or number of squares away from a target square, that distance or number of squares is doubled.
Indestructible
You halve physical damage you would take, after [Damage reduction], [Resistance] and other effects that would reduce damage.
Magic Bullet
Once per [Encounter], the next time you make a ranged attack, before you choose targets, you may gain line of sight to all creatures within range of that attack until the end of that attack. The attack ignores line of effect, [Covered], and [Miss chance].
Mr. Atlas
You get a +10 bonus to Acrobatics and Athletics.
Origin Story
You must take the Full Buy-In option to qualify for this ability. Once per [Scene] at the start of an [Encounter] or between [Encounters], you may reveal the current version of your origin story. When you do so, you may pick a different track for your Full Buy-In track.
Suave
You are as cool as a cucumber, though somewhat more deadly. You enter each social encounter with a free token on one opposing party.
Woldhewn
You halve energy damage and magic damage you would take, after [Resistance] and other effects that would reduce damage.
Fated
Your name is whispered by the firelight far from civilization. Tales of your deeds are sung in taverns the world over. Your footsteps shake the earth and leave nothing unscathed in your wake. Knowledge checks made to identify you are made with a +5 bonus.
Awesome Presence
Bystanders are awestruck by your charisma or reputation. You enter each social encounter with a free token on everyone else.
Bigger
The length of any wedge and line area effect you create is doubled. The radius of any spread area effect you activate is doubled. Whenever you would create any other area effect which covers squares a certain distance or number of squares away from a target square, that distance or number of squares is doubled.
Full Sanction
Once per [Quest], you may use this ability by initiating combat during a social encounter. Doing so immediately ends the social encounter, but you suffer no social repercussions from any party other than the one you attacked.
Iron Monger
You gain early access to a Relic, and may use it in addition to the normal Relics you are entitled to due to your level.
Phantom
Once per [Quest], you can call in favors or exercise your considerable acumen to hush up just about anything, from a robbery to a political gaffe, all the way up to a brutal gunfight.
Servant of Twelve Labors
You can move stunning amounts of material. With a [Scene]’s physical or mental labor, you can dig a small canal, dig a trench with built-in earth fortifications, or erect a solid fence around a military camp.
Summoner
By expending all your actions for a [Round], you may create a Minion anywhere within your [Melee] range. The Minions you create this way are always one level lower than you. These Minions die when you die, and collapse completely into dust, bones, or clay at the end of the [Encounter].
The World Twists
You begin each [Encounter] affected by Illusionary Terrain, as the consumable.
Wayfarer
Once per [Scene], with the work of twenty [Rounds], you can form a short-lived bridge between a point within [Close] range and any point within a hundred miles. For three [Rounds], the entry and exit points of your bridge are treated in all ways as though they were adjacent squares. This allows line of sight and line of effect to be drawn. As the bridge is being formed, a tell-tale hum and an actinic glow are present at both the origin and the destination; a DC 15 History or Arcana check can identify the effect.
Windblessed
Ranged attacks made against you from [Medium] or longer range simply fail, unless the source is [Legendary]. These attacks still count as having been made for the purpose of any resource cost, and if an action was spent to make one or more of these attacks, that action counts as having been used.
Immortal
Your ascension has begun in earnest, a sharp arc plotted against the terrible power you now wield. When people say your name, it is no longer a casual mention for most. Knowledge checks made to identify you are made with a +10 bonus, unless you took the Puppetmaster ability.
No! Bigger!
The length of any wedge and line area effect you create is doubled. The radius of any spread area effect you activate is doubled. Whenever you would create any other area effect which covers squares a certain distance or number of squares away from a target square, that distance or number of squares is doubled.
Plot Armor
Any evidence of your demise is a red herring. When you "die", you come back to life at the end of the [Scene]. If your body has been reduced to chunky salsa or finer (hit points reduced to less than -20 times your level), however, your death will stick this time.
Inhume
Once per [Quest], you can arrange for one non-[Legendary] NPC to suffer a horrible and nearly-untraceable accident, one that is extremely fatal. This NPC cannot be more than one level higher than you. Be careful, though, as resurrection may be possible.
Puppetmaster
Knowledge checks made to learn anything about you automatically fail. Accounts of your exploits inevitably leave you out. Your role in events is quickly forgotten, though the events themselves often grace the pages of the history books. You’ve become nothing more than a bogeyman, a whispered myth.
Minions
You have a squad of five disposable minions who blindly obey your orders. Each of these minions is a character five levels lower than you. When one of these minions dies, you may replace it at the end of the [Scene]. Minions do not get consumables, are to be built as creatures using Full Buy-In, do not come with magic items, and cannot have [Iconic] feats.
Debts Reckoned
Some debts are bigger than men, nations, or gods. You are owed a debt by Fate itself, and you intend to collect. Three times per [Quest], as an immediate action, you may dictate the outcome of any one roll or bid, or the placement of any area of effect. Placements must still be legal and a single action may be affected only once. This ability may not be not suitable for all campaigns, and should only be taken with the GM’s express permission.
Awesome Lair
You have a supremely cool lair. Perhaps it is a flying ship, or a burrowing castle. Perhaps a citadel complete with artillery, or a black tower that cannot be destroyed. Maybe you built it, or inherited it, or stole it. In addition to the single significant perk that this lair must possess compared to a normal lair, once per [Quest], you may opt to take the fight home or possibly take your home to the fight. If you do, you may design the terrain for a single [Encounter]. As a result, most [Legendary] lairs are distinguished by the fact that they are mobile.
Lionhearted
Some few were meant especially to lead, but many legends are about the led as much as the leaders. While within [Long] range of you, allies gain a single Champion-tier [Legendary] ability of your choice other than Suave. This choice, made when this ability is acquired, is permanent.
Singer of Earth and Tide
You are a master of creation and engineering. As long as you have something to build on, you can create a bridge, solid wall, or large dome. This may require anywhere from an hour’s effort for a structure the size of a small house or a bridge across a gap of only a few yards to a week’s effort for a castle or other fortification large enough to hold a small army or a bridge up to five miles long. It is possible to call forth an even larger structure, but such a feat is almost always a group effort. Once per [Quest], you may render a structure you’ve created indestructible for the rest of the [Quest].
Scourge
With a gesture and a breath, you can annihilate most mundane objects. As a move action, you may fire a 45 ft wedge originating from you that destroys most mundane objects and materials. This allows you to sear a path into the earth, blow away bridges, level hillocks, and decimate city streets like Godzilla on cocaine. Characters caught in this blast are dealt energy damage with the [Fire] descriptor equal to your character level and begin [Burning].
Emplaced
With a week of effort, you can blend into the scenery, in a literal sense. By rendering yourself completely immobile for at least a week from the time you finish digging in, you gain an extra standard action every turn while you remain immobile.
Colossus
You’re so big you’re part of the terrain. You gain Ruinous Charge as a bonus feat. In addition, if you are not already [Huge], you become [Huge], and you occupy a 20 ft-by-20 ft square space, or with group approval after very careful scrutiny, any other space with 16 contiguous squares. (Some shapes work outside the scope of our rules. Caution is advised.) Only creatures who occupy one of your squares can attack you. If you are not [Flying], [Swimming], [Burrowing], or [Soaring], a non-[lying] adjacent creature may make an Acrobatics, Athletics, or Ride check (DC 10 + 1/2 your level + your KDM) as part of a move action. Success in this check means they enter an adjacent square you occupy of their choice and lose the [Burrowing], [Soaring], and [Swimming] conditions if they possessed any of them; failure means they are not able to enter a square you occupy, but the partial move action is still used up. A [Flying] creature may enter a square you occupy as if moving into an unoccupied square if you are not [Flying], [Swimming], [Burrowing], or [Soaring]. If you are [Flying], [Swimming], [Burrowing], or [Soaring], an adjacent creature that also possesses the same condition may make an Acrobatics, Athletics, or Ride check (DC 10 + 1/2 your level + your KDM) as part of a move action. Success in this check means they enter an adjacent square you occupy of their choice; failure means they are not able to enter a square you occupy, but the partial move action is still used up. Moving out of your occupied squares costs other creatures twice as much movement as normal. If a creature occupies one of the same squares as you when you move, then they are moved in the direction and distance you are moved to. If you gain [Flying], [Soaring], [Swimming], or [Burrowing] and a creature occupying one of your squares also has the related movement mode they also gain that condition. If a creature that occupies one of your squares does not have the movement related to the condition you are about to gain then they are moved to the nearest unoccupied space of your choice before you gain that condition.
Legend
For many of your acquaintances, you are the closest thing to a god that they will ever encounter. If you have one of these abilities, Knowledge checks to identify you are made with a bonus of +20 unless you have the Puppetmaster ability, in which case the checks still fail.
A Bit of Gravitas
All opponents within [Long] range lose [Flying] and the Fly movement mode. Each creature which did not possess the Fly movement mode suffers a penalty equal to half its movement speed to its movement speed as long as it remains within range. This ability has no effect on opponents that also possess the A Bit of Gravitas ability.
Maniacal Laughter
The size of any area of effect you generate is multiplied by 4 in all dimensions. This stacks with any similar [Legendary] abilities.
Practicing Nihilist
You are become death, destroyer of worlds. You ignore [Immunity], and treat all [Resistance] and [Damage reduction] as though it were halved. You can choose for any [Negative] effect that originates from you to damage [Undead] creatures instead of healing them, and opponents with the Woldhewn or Indestructible [Legendary] abilities gain no benefit from those abilities against damage you deal.
Arrangements
Your shadowy assets and the agendas aligned with you have seen fit to remove obstacles from your path. Once per [Quest], if you can tell a great story about how your complex and convoluted plan has come to fruition, you may outright win a single [Encounter]. If the other side also has this ability, you trade off complex counter-plots until one side tells a definitively cooler story. This power is not suitable for all campaigns and should only be taken with the GM’s express permission.
Seeker
You find things... things lost, things gone, things alive, things dead, things that have never been, things that are yet to be. You have [Blindsight] and [Tremorsense] out to [Extreme] range, ignore all [Miss chance], and have [Immunity] to [Figments]. You can use discern location, as the spell, at will.
Protean
You have gone back to your roots. Way back, to the primordial roots. At the beginning of each [Quest], you may select two sets of tracks from class or race tracks, as though you were replacing the tracks you currently have. You may switch between these sets of tracks at the beginning of a {{Bracket|Scene} and completely alter your physical appearance with the exception of a single distinguishing and constant trait selected when you gain this ability. This power is not suitable for all players and campaigns, as it entails a considerable amount of book-keeping.
Technologist
Breakthroughs have become your stock in trade. Twice per [Encounter], you can cast any spell of 6th circle of lower that has an instantaneous duration, a duration of [Encounter], or a duration measured in [Rounds]. Twice per [Scene], you can cast any any spell of 6th circle of lower that has a duration of [Scene], but for each spell with a duration of [Scene] you cast this way, you decrease the number of spells you can cast with Technologist per [Encounter] by one until the end of the [Scene].
A Place to Stand
You can shift the very planets, altering forever the geography of a world. Once per [Encounter], as a standard action, you can rearrange the positions of all squares within [Extreme] range, transporting all creatures, effects and terrain features on those squares with them. If a creature occupies more than one square, you must move the squares it occupies as a single unit. In addition, you can target [Burrowing] creatures even if you are not [Burrowing] or lack line of effect to them.
Titan
You have [Immunity] to physical damage if you also have the Indestructible ability. Otherwise, you halve physical damage you would take, after [Damage reduction], [Resistance] and other effects that would reduce damage. You cannot take the Titan ability if you have the Puppetmaster ability.
Tap Leyline
It turns out that old arts die hard. You may lay a spell you can cast into the very spirit of a place, be it a city, ancient glade, or mage’s tower. The anchoring of the spell gives it permanency, and it cannot be dispelled or disrupted without completely destroying the enchanted location. You may choose to dismiss the effect from its present location, and anchor a spell at a new location at the beginning of each [Scene].
Old Hero
You’ve stayed alive by learning valuable lessons the extremely hard way. You have [Immunity] to energy damage and magic damage if you also have the Woldhewn ability. Otherwise, you halve energy damage and magic damage you would take, after [Resistance] and other effects that reduce damage. You cannot take the Old Hero [Legendary] ability if you have the Puppetmaster [Legendary] ability.
Old Mage
Only the wisest mages reach old age. You are permanently affected by a single spell you can cast. If your chosen spell’s effects are exhausted (as may be possible for spells like spell turning or stoneskin) or ended by a [Dispelling] effect, its resumes at full power at the end of the [Encounter]. You may change this spell at the beginning of each [Quest].
Hero Rising
Heroism has a certain kind of inertia, a sense of the unstoppable. At the end of your turn, you gain a +1 bonus to all d20 rolls until the end of the [Encounter]. If you already have a bonus to d20 rolls from this ability, it increases by +1 instead, to a maximum of 1/2 of your level. You gain a bonus to your movement speed equal to +10 ft per +1 to d20 rolls gained through this ability.