The Wizards Cabal - DriveThruRPG.com · 2018. 4. 28. · as the Wizard’s Cabal. It is, in many ways, a government unto itself, a power that operates in conjunction with King Uther

A Zeitgeist Games, Inc. Production

CreditsExecutive Producer: Dustin ClingmanLine Developer: Christopher ReedEditing: Dustin Clingman, Christopher Reed Writing and Design Team: Dave Arneson, Dustin Clingman, Ari Marmell, Christopher Reed, Jeff Quinn, Harley StrohCover Artwork: Allan AlegadoCover Design: Steve VanZandtInterior Artwork: Allan Alegado, Billy Wardlaw, Brad Parnell, Brent Chumley, Erik Roman, Fufu Frauenwahl, Gary Dupuis, Gill Pearce, Jeff Ward, Jesus & Javier Carmona Esteban, Ken Collins, Patrick McEvoy, Roxell Karr Graphic Designer: Dustin ClingmanProofreaders: Dustin Clingman, Christopher Reed Playtesters: Cristina Abuchaibe, Dustin Clingman, Ramon Guillen, Andrew Hubbard, Rick Rausch, Christopher Reed, Javier Rovirosa, and Philip “Official Crazy Man” SlamaSpecial Thanks to: Christina Clingman, Marcus and Logan, Dawn Coakley, Jade, Julia, Amber, The Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor: The MMRPG Campaign Staff (Tim Barth, Joe Cirillo, Dawn Coakley, Sean Griffiths, Richard Iorio, Tad

Kilgore, Stewart Larsen) and the fans that help keep Blackmoor alive today.

Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor: The Wizards’ Cabal is ©2005 Zeitgeist Games, Inc. Zeitgeist Games is a trademark of Zeitgeist Games, Inc.Based on the original Blackmoor setting, associated characters and places owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Used with per-mission, all rights reserved ©1975 Wizards

Dedication: This book is dedicated to David C. Sutherland III (1949-2005). Rest In Peace.

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Table of ContentsChapter 1: What Came Before 3

The Thonian Colonization 4The Mage Wars (815–900) 6End of the Wars 8Allies and Operatives 10An Imperial Offer 12The Law of the Cabal 12Skelfer’s Last Battle 13Imperial Relations 15The Fall of Ten, and Northern Independence 19

Chapter 2: Organization and Administration of the Present Day Wizards’ Cabal 22

Administration 22Laws of the Wizards’ Cabal 25Authority of the Arcane Warriors in Blackmoor 27The Stronghold of Ardenn 28Ard’s School of Wizardry 32The Primary School of Wizardry 33Chapter 3: Cabalist Characters 34Cabal Magister 34Inquisition Hunter 35Inquisition Spy 38Profector 40Researcher 42War Wizard 46

Chapter 4: Skills & Feats 49

New Skills 49Feats 53

Chapter 5: Building a Better Cabal 57

Casting Spells 58Overcasting 62Ritual Magic 63Conducting Cooperative Magic 67Crafting an Arcane Spell Focus 68Spell Resonance 70Spell Shards 71Arcane Warrior Spells 73Bard Spells 73Ranger Spells 73Paladin Spells 73Sorcerer/Wizard Spells 73

Spell Descriptions 74Specific Weapons 78Specific Armor and Shields 78Wondrous Items 79

Losing Focus: A Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor Adventure 81

Adventure Background 81Adventure Synopsis 82Introduction 82Conclusion 101

A Night in Maus 102

Game Specific Information 117

Table ListingsTable 4-1: The Cabal Magister 35Table 4-2: The Inquisition Hunter 36Table 4-3: The Inquisition Spy 38Table 4-4: The Profector 40Table 4-5: The Researcher 43Table 4-6: Research Benefits 44Table 4-7: Familiar Improvement 45Table 4-8: Undead Creation Restrictions 45Table 4-9: Academic Specialization 46Table 4-10: The War Wizard 47Table 4-1: New Skill Designation 50Table 4-2: New Feats 52Table 5-1: Base Spell Points for Arcane Spellcasters 58Table 5-2: Bonus Spell Points for High Ability Scores 59Table 5-3: Spell Point Costs/Spellcraft DCs by Spell Foci 60Table 5-4: Metamagic Feat Modifiers 60Table 5-5: Cabalist Spell Foci Modifiers 61Table 5-6: Overcasting Effectiveness 62Table 5-7: Overcasting Strain 63Table 5-8: Cooperative Magic Number Effects 67Table 5-9: Spell Foci, Spellcaster Level, and 68Table 5-10: Spell Foci Material Qualities 69Table 5-11: Foci Quality Modifiers 69Table 5-12: Determining Shard Type 71Table 5-13: Determining Shard Type 71Table 5-14: Number of Spells in a Spell Shard 71Table 5-15: Shard Spell Levels and Values 72Table LF-1 The Thaumaturgy 89Table LF -2 The Belly Wash Tavern 90Table LF-3: Spellbinding Scripts 92Table LF-4: Skinny’s Wares 96

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Being an account of the events, the luminaries and traitors, the victories and defeats, and the external forces that brought the Wizard’s Cabal into being, and shaped it into what it is today. Few organizations or institutions are as vital to the functioning, the history, even the very identity of the North as the Wizard’s Cabal. It is, in many ways, a government unto itself, a power that operates in conjunction with King Uther and local communities, rather than being subject to them. It has not always been thus, however, and to truly understand the Cabal and its place in society, one must understand how it obtained that place.

Early Magic in the North (pre-815 on the Blackmoorian Calendar)Mystical energies inundate the entire region of the North. Arcane magic permeates the land, the air, even many of the creatures that live here. While some modern wizards might not care to acknowledge the fact, the use of that magic

was prevalent in the North long before the arrival of the first “civilized” casters. Even before the formation of the Thonian Empire, let alone the colonization of Blackmoor’s surroundings, primitive nations of people dwelt in the region. Similar in some ways to the Peshwah or even the Afridhi, they were a tribal culture, worshipping strange spirits rather than familiar gods. Due to the region’s mystical emanations, a relatively large proportion of these tribesmen developed the power to wield magic naturally. Sorcerers lived in every family, and tribal elders watched for signs that a child was gifted with “the spirits’ touch,” as they called it. When a sorcerer first manifests his abilities in the North, it is accompanied by a great explosion of power, and the tribes knew to send a child into the wild for a brief time as the signs dictated. Some did not survive the hazards of the wilderness, but those who returned were welcomed as emissaries from the spirits themselves. The tribes boasted wokan as well, the strange arcane casters who seem to share a bond with nature itself, and these they considered shamans and witch doctors.

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The Thonian ColonizationThese tribes would not be left alone forever. Almost immediately after the founding of the Thonian Empire, colonists and military forces moved into the North to create a bastion of the Empire and the port city of Blackmoor. There was surprisingly little military conflict between the newcomers and the native tribes. The size and strength of the Thonian forces was unmistakable, and in the major-ity of cases, the tribes — nomadic or semi-nomadic as they were — simply moved farther out, in some cases setting sail across the Black Sea for lands unknown. Many of those who remained behind grew fascinated by Thonian villages, and eventually assimilated into the culture. Where conflict did arise, however, was between local sorcerers and wokan, and the newcomers. The purported emissaries of the spirits did not take kindly to being forced from their lands, and several Thonian villages and mili-tary patrols were laid waste by spells cast from afar, or summoned creatures clearly not native to these lands. The Thonians, of course, did what they had to do: They sent word back home, offering incentives such as land, riches, and political influence to powerful wizards who would travel north and assist in the colonization efforts. Some wizards had already arrived, with the initial col-onists, but after the Emperor’s call went out, arcanists

arrived in Blackmoor by the boatload. A brief war, perhaps an omen of the greater struggle to come, erupted on the outskirts of the new communities. On one side were the native sorcerers and wokan, who were woefully outmatched. On the other were Thonian wizards, as well as some sorcerers and wokan who had already begun assimilating to the new culture and wished to prove their loyalty. The struggle ended in a matter of months, with the native casters either slain, departing with their retreating countrymen, or fully assimilated. Some of the wizards took their reward in monies and goods and returned home, but many remained in the newly settled north. And slowly, as their lives calmed down, a few began to look into the nature of the land itself.

Perhaps the wisest of these mages was Kargas Dolunt, distantly related to the Thonian Imperial Family. Kargas was a peaceful man, who engaged in the war against the native sorcerers only as a means of acquiring money and land for his researches, and who preferred to fight with non-lethal spells wherever possible. He came because he was interested in the land itself. He spent all his free time between engagements in contem-plation, and when other wizards were only starting their studies into the nature of the North, Kargas was m a n y months ahead of them. It was Kargas, history records, who dis-covered that the land itself was rife with magic, that spellcasters could obtain great power in the North, and that the region itself was responsible for the pleth-ora of sorcerers among the natives. (Many scholars scoffed at his claims that the Tho-nians would begin birthing sorcer-ers within a single

Use of Gemstones amongst the TribesWhile the wizard Skelfer is credited with first creating the “spell focus” through manipulation of the region’s gemstones and the mystical energies imbued within them evidence suggests that the early tribes were not wholly unaware of these gems’ properties. They had no compre-hension of how to use them as foci but they knew that the addition of powdered gemstones to spells and magic items increased their power. In terms of game-mechanics these benefits can be obtained by crushing a gem of the appropriate type for the spell being cast (see Table 3–3: Magically Conductive Materials on page 73 of Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor); the gem must have been mined in the North to have these properties. Including the powder as an additional material component while casting a spell of the appropriate school raises the spell’s effective caster level and the DC to save against it by 1. Similarly including this powder in the cre-ation of single use items — such as potions or the ink of a scroll — provides the same benefits. Of course doing so destroys the gem and no modern wizard would sacrifice a potential focus for a bonus to a single casting but this was the means by which the primi-tive tribes accessed the innate power of the North.

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generation, but an explosion of magical power that devastated a small fishing village called Gryssburgh proved him right.) Kargas dubbed this power the Wild Magic, a name that would linger for many genera-tions, and he developed techniques for drawing magic directly from the land itself to empower his spells. Kargas delightedly shared his breakthrough with his colleagues of the time, other wizards who shared his fascination with the nature of the North. Alas, wise as he was, Kargas did not foresee the results of his revelations. Almost immediately, news of the discovery spread from wizard to wizard (and to local sorcerers and wokan as well). Some were fascinated, sensing a new avenue for the study and exploration of magic. Some were disinterested, having their own goals and interests. But many grew covet-ous, realizing that if they did not act swiftly, others would stake claim to the land, and they would be prevented from harnessing its power. In the guise of study, claiming that they required privacy and materials from which to work, wizards began declaring portions of the North as their own. It was only a few at first, and they claimed tracts of land on which no one lived. Their numbers grew swiftly, however, and the size of the land each wizard wanted grew as well. More wizards came out of seclusion, seeing what was happen-ing and determined not to be left behind. Word of Kargas’ discovery reached the Thonian Empire, and more wizards traveled north. Some claimed land on their own, while others — weaker or more prudent — banded together in small factions, willing to share knowledge and power if it meant also sharing the burden of defense. Unpopulated land became sparse, as wizards and sorcer-ers claimed every last foot of territory. Soon casters began claiming populated areas as well. They did not demand the right to rule, nor attempt to eliminate local governments, at least not yet. Rather, they claimed jurisdiction purely over mystical matters, offering to serve as “protector” of the region against other, hostile wizards. Communities that welcomed

these arcane defenders prospered. Those local leaders who refused to share power were threatened, charmed, or even in a few rare cases simply disappeared entirely. These ter-ritories, initially only meant to be areas of research, swiftly became personal domains, and for one wizard or sorcerer to enter the domain of another uninvited led to reprisals. At first, this retaliation took political and economic form. One wizard would convince the leader of his community to cease trading with the lands of an offending colleague, while another might summon inclement weather to ravage the crops of another’s territory. (Even wizards engaged in study must eat.) As transgressions grew more and more fre-quent, due to the loss of available land and the fact that every mage’s territory now abutted several others, the retribution grew ever more vicious as well. Finally, that retribution turned violent. Mages engaged in spell-duels, tossing globes of fire and bolts of light-ning while swooping through the air over populated areas. Further, these duels were so quick and vicious, when the militia finally arrived to put an end to the carnage, they found nothing but burned-out husks of villages, with no signs of those who had destroyed them. It was a half-elven (Cumasti) wizard named Raddan Goss who provided the spark that would ignite this conflict into a true war. Stymied in his quest to expand his territo-ry, he wrested completed control of his lands from the local government, proclaiming himself Wizard King of what had been a semi-autonomous barony. Leading their armies into the field, he assaulted the territory of a neighboring wizard, becoming the first mage to use overt violence in this struggle for eldritch territory. Striking with surprise and overwhelm-ing mystical force, he slew the small cadre of wizards who had claimed the neighboring lands and claimed them as his own. One of those who fell to his assault, however, was a dear friend of Surrinya Vadaley, a sorceress who governed her own territory many leagues away. When news of her com-panion’s death reached her, Surrinya flew into a rage. Fol-lowing Raddan’s example, she too claimed full governmen-tal control of the territory that, to that point, she had simply used as a studying ground and protected from other mages. Unable to march her army across half the North to strike at Raddan directly, she instead invaded the territory of a wizard she knew to be a friend of Raddan’s, annexing the land and putting the wizard to the sword. Other wizards, seeing what had happened, were deter-mined not to be left defenseless. Each attempted to become true ruler of his territory. Some failed, unable to shake the grip of a strong baron, governor, or mayor; others succeeded handily, becoming Wizard Kings like Raddan himself. Now with armies at their beck and call, territory moved against territory, repaying old slights, making preemptive attacks, or simply seeking to expand their domains.

The Mage Wars had begun.

Kargas’ TechniquesUnfortunately (or perhaps not depending on one’s point of view) the methods Kargas developed for drawing power from the land were lost over the course of the Mage Wars. Legend tells that he was able to enhance his spells without increasing their difficulty — or in game terms to use the magic of the land to apply metamagic feats without in-creasing the spell slot required for casting.

Even today some wizards study every scrap of infor-mation about Kargas and the other wizards of the time hoping to learn to duplicate his discoveries. None has suc-ceeded but some believe that it was following in Kargas’ footsteps that Skelfer created the spell focus.

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The Mage Wars (815–900)Once ignited, the flame could not be put out. Wizard turned against wizard, territory against territory, in a conflict that soon covered the entire face of the North. Nor were wizards the only combatants, though they were certainly central to the war. Those few territories not yet ruled by spellcasters fought desper-ately to maintain their auton-omy, often banding togeth-er with one another, or even aiding weaker wizards against stronger ones in exchange for treaties of nonaggression. Many of the beleaguered set-tlers sent pleas for aid to the Thonian Empire, but at least in the early years of the war, such missives were always in-tercepted and destroyed; not even the most stealthy courier could avoid the divination spells of the Wizard Kings, who had a vested interest in keeping Thonia uninvolved for as long as possible. From its beginnings as a free-for-all between scores of individual territories, the war evolved over the course of its first few years. The weakest factions were swiftly obliterat-ed, banded together, or swore

fealty to stronger forces. Territories annexed other territo-ries, expanding nearly to the size of small nations. By the fifth year of the war, everyone involved knew that it was truly a struggle between four separate and distinct factions; other groups existed, including the scattered com-munities still ruled by non-spellcasters, but their involve-ment was peripheral, their influence minimal. One of those factions was led by Surrinya Vadaley. It consisted mostly of sorcerers, rather than wizards, and was particularly brutal in their methods. Lacking the discipline of trained wizards, they reveled in their power, and often resorted to force far in excess of what they required to obtain a particular objective. The other three consisted largely if not solely of wizards, and the largest of these was the Arcane Dominion of Raddai, named

for the half-elven Wizard King Raddan who ruled it with an iron fist. The Mage Wars never reached the point where a single winner could be declared, but should a researcher turn to any random year during the struggle, the odds are good he would find Raddai nearer to victory than any of the others. Raddan was by far the most vicious of the Wizard Kings. He viewed enemy mages as nothing more than sources of power he had not yet claimed, and commoners as nothing more than beasts of burden he might expend like any other resource. It is a sad yet telling observation that even in those years when Raddan’s forces were clearly victorious, his populace suffered losses as great or greater than the other

three factions, so careless was he of the lives of his subjects.

The Bystanders, and Skelfer the White MageAn informal fifth faction of wizards existed during this time, defined not by their allegiances but rather by their lack of in-volvement. Just as a few select casters refused to engage in the squabbling over territory that preceded the Mage Wars, so too did an even small number of them refuse to engage in the conflict itself. Fighting only to defend themselves, claiming no terri-tory for their own, these Bystanders (as others called them)

And What of Kargas?

Kargas Dolunt was hor-rified at the results of his efforts. He was a man of learning a man of study and — when possible — a man of peace. He was shattered in body and soul when the greatest discovery of his life led to nothing but violence misery and war. Witnesses claim that in the days fol-lowing Surrinya’s retalia-tion against Raddan Kargas simply put down his books one day walked out of his home and was never seen again. Legend says however that Kargas never found rest. Wracked by guilt over what he had caused Kargas wanders the North still as a ghost mourning for the lives lost. Supposedly he appears now and again always to aid common folk menaced by a sorcerer wizard or other spellcaster as though he still seeks to make up for the suffering of the Mage Wars.

The Brethren of RaddanWhile Raddan did not survive the Mage Wars his horrid legacy unfortunately did. Throughout the years since some wizards have maintained the belief that their power affords them the right to rule that no non-wizard should hold power and that common men and women are little more than animals to be used as their betters see fit. Some of these wizards are loners or belong to other factions or organizations but many of them band together. Calling themselves the Brethren of Raddan in honor of he from whom they draw inspiration they work constantly to overthrow King Uther and other rightful leaders — including on occasion even the Thonian Emperor — and to place them-selves on the thrones of all the known world. Thankfully their numbers are few at any given time and the Wizard’s Cabal makes every effort to hunt them down. Yet never are they fully de-stroyed for some of their number yet reside within the Cabal itself.

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