Wisdom of Adod

Origin: Kananite
Calling: Mastermind, Messenger, Sorcerer, Arbiter
Starting ability: ✪Magical Secrets

Language: Shinarian
Literacy: Oxhouse
Starting items: Wisdom of Adod text

The Wisdom of Adod is a long, coded text written entirely with a remarkably small set of Glyph symbols. Shinarian and Oxhouse. On its surface, the Wisdom appears to be a simple, incredibly repetitive song of praise to Lord Adod’s wondrous intellect. On closer inspection, the Glyph markings encode sounds in the Shinarian language—in other words, its actual writing system is Oxhouse, not Glyphs. These sounds, when strung together, form words and sentences of a sprawling magical treatise. What the Wisdom says. The decoded text quickly reveals that the title is sarcastic—that the anonymous authors have little regard for Adod or his priesthood. Instead, the treatise describes the magic present in Adod’s cyclone as a natural phenomenon to be studied and harnessed. The Wisdom maintains that Adod’s sentience, such as it is, emerges from the Rephaim's interaction with the material substance and motion of the storm. This lore reveals to you that Adod’s physical essence is not ancient, not invulnerable—and may be destroyed.Broad magical knowledge. The Wisdom offers a cerebral alignment to the Messenger calling. The text also contains extensive commentaries on the foreign magical traditions of Mazr (the Scrolls of the Sorcerer) and Shinar (the Code of the Clay King). The Wisdom thus aligns to the Sorcerer and Arbiter callings as well.

The Wisdom Text

If you start the game with this lore, you have a copy of the Wisdom text in the form of a chunky papyrus scroll, safely packed. Another hero can learn the Wisdom lore by studying the text and gaining revelations from it, though they must be literate in Oxhouse to do so.

Ask the Guide:

What's the philosophical explanation for this phenomenon?
What magic spells can Messengers, Sorcerers, and Arbiters cast?
What's a straightforward translation for this complex idea?

Starting Ability

✪ Magical Secrets

Starting ability

You gain 3 revelations distributed as you like among the following lore, but not more than 2 for any single lore. Code of the Clay King, Lord Adod, Path of Air, Scrolls of the SorcererThe text contains the full translations of the Code of the Clay King and the Scrolls of the Sorcerer, as well as detailed insights into fluid mechanics and the nature of Tel-Kanan’s cyclone. If you know this ability, you can study the Wisdom as an endeavor to gain additional revelations into any of these four types of lore, potentially learning them in full. If you learn the Code lore or the Scrolls lore, you can also gain revelations from their list of references when you study the Wisdom. The references for the Code and the Scrolls are detailed in their respective lore entries.Secrets of Seven Spells. When you study the Wisdom as an endeavor, or when you engage in an endeavor from one of the four lore types listed above (such as ✪Meditation for Path of Air), you practice naming spells from the varied magical traditions translated in the text, memorizing their incantations and gestures. At the end of your rest, you can take -1 awareness to gain 2 name-focus. You can spend more awareness to gain more name-focus, 1-for-2. Spend name-focus to cast any of the following spells: ❍Appear (1+ focus, requires 2 hands)𐎺Command (4 focus, requires line of sight)༄Hear Language (1 focus)❍Illuminate (1 focus, requires 2 hands)༄Name of Adod (1 focus)⧨Rise (1+ focus, requires 2 hands, can’t cast on foes)༄Windwave (2 focus)However, keeping these names in your head is distracting: you can’t regain awareness while you have any name-focus.

❍ Appear     • 1+ name-focusRequires 2 hands. You weave an illusory object of bent light into being. As part of casting this spell, Deceive with Compel advantage to determine how convincing the object is to onlookers. The object. You must have seen the object before. The focus cost is twice the object’s Weight in imperial talents (1 talent roughly equals 50 pounds or 25 kilograms)—so a very small object costs 1 focus, while a hot-air balloon costs 20 focus. The Guide tells you an object’s Weight. The illusion. The object can appear anywhere you can see, and you can make it move in simple rotations or translations. You must expend 1 focus at the start of each subsequent turn (no action required) to maintain the illusion. But the illusion dispels instantly if you take any other action besides Gather Light or Deceive, or if someone touches it.Living illusion. If you take -1 spirit along with the spell’s focus cost, you can create an illusory person or creature you’ve seen before. Making a typical person appear, for example, would cost 6 focus (2 × 3 Weight), and -1 spirit. The illusion can’t talk, but can move and gesture in a lifelike way.
𐎺 Command     • 4 name-focusCompel the character you can see and speak a single sentence in the form of “You shall . . .” or “You shall not . . .” You can’t command the character to inflict self-harm. If you beat the character’s spirit, they follow your command on their next turn.The Guide can inflict a -2 penalty if your command flagrantly conflicts with their ideals—for example, commanding someone with Fellowship to harm their friend.Succeed or fail, the character likely becomes hostile to you if they have no prior inclination to obey you, at the Guide’s discretion.
༄ Hear Language     • 1 name-focusYou can understand and speak a language you don’t ordinarily understand or know how to speak for about an hour.
❍ Illuminate     • 1 name-focusRequires 2 hands. You conjure a light source that emanates from your hand or head. It can take the form of a halolike aura, a narrow beam, or a diffuse glow, bright enough to comfortably light a large room. The light lasts for a day and a night or until you dismiss it.

༄ Name of Adod • 1 name-focusSpeak a sentence to Adod, who answers with a sentence of his own, booming in archaic Shinarian. How you cast this spell depends on your conception of what Adod is. The Wisdom of Adod holds that Adod is an enormous cyclone, whose patterns and complexities grant its Rephaim a kind of nebulous collective sentience. Followers of Lord Adod believe this sentience is a god, who responds to and perhaps is even shaped by the beliefs and prayers of his subjects.
⧨ Rise • 1+ name-focusSpend focus equal to your weight, or the weight of a willing character or object, and Maneuver yourself. Gain rise-focus equal to your result. This focus is specific to the target of your spell. The target becomes weightless and drifts on high, hovering there in mid-air until the start of your next turn. A hovering character can’t Evade, Outflank, or Stand Fast, and can only drift awkwardly through the air, as if they’re in free-fall. Duration. You must spend 1 rise-focus on each subsequent turn to maintain the target’s buoyancy. If you don’t, the target drifts harmlessly back down to the ground.

You can’t regain awareness while you have rise-focus.
If your grace drops to zero, you lose all rise-focus.

༄ Windwave • 2 name-focusYou create a wide surge of wind, brief but strong enough to knock someone off their feet. You can shape the wind to flow in one direction or spiral out in all directions. Shove (Brace) with Compel advantage all characters in the wind’s path who aren’t behind cover. You can also use this spell to cause other practical effects, such as briefly propelling a balloon or skyship forward, extinguishing (or spreading) flames, or deflecting storm winds. Work with the Guide to resolve such effects.

Abilities to Learn

✪ Name of Spell

Mark of AWARENESS

Spend about 10 minutes inscribing the name of a ༄Messenger spell you know onto an object of your choice. The object could be a scroll, a tablet, an arrowshaft or stone or wall you carve into or scrawl ink or blood upon—but it must be able to hold a sentence of Oxhouse writing. The ༄spell must require breath, flame, name, or storm-focus to cast.

Spend the spell’s focus cost as if casting it—but don’t roll any dice yet.
Spend an equal amount of name-focus to inscribe the spell.

The chosen spell flows into your inscription’s Oxhouse glyphs. Track each object you inscribe on your hero sheet. Trigger. Take -1 awareness and speak the name of your spell inscription. You then cast the spell—rolling dice, but without spending its focus cost. The spell emanates from the inscribed object as if the inscription were your own mouth.You can trigger a spell at any time, no action required—choosing a moment when a foe is nearby, perhaps—but only once per round. Also, a spell only triggers if the sound of your voice physically reaches the inscribed object, and only your voice can trigger the blast. (A Shinarian Voice Box facsimile of your voice can also trigger it.) After you cast the spell, the area of your inscription crumbles to dust (or explodes, in the case of a spell like ༄Exhalation), which destroys small inscribed objects and damages large ones. Spell Attack. If an inscribed spell calls for you to Attack a foe as part of casting it, roll your Compel Die instead of your Move Die.Multiple objects. If you inscribe multiple objects with the same spell, you can trigger them simultaneously. If simultaneously-triggered spells overlap, use only the most damaging or effective version’s result and ignore others. You can also choose to inscribe each object with a slightly different incantation of the same spell, so you can trigger them one at a time.

✪ Wizard's Charisma

Mark of SPIRIT

Add 1 to the calculation that determines the size of your Compel Die.

← Trade ✧ Wrestling →

Google Sites

Report abuse