The Haze
by Bruce HeardAs we worked on the Savage Coast redesign, a few questions came up. First, a better name for the area bordering the cursed regions. It seems that right now the editor prefers "haze" rather than "shadow". Along the same lines, we were looking for a better name to give "Negative Panache Points". For now, we're using "Gauche Points", or "Points of Misfortune". If you have better ideas, feel free to post them here.
Note: we came up with the idea for adding a "neutral zone" (The Haze) around the cursed region which would allow cursed characters to travel outside the curse and meet outsiders with no ill effect to either sides. Now another idea came up -- the possibility that the edge of The Haze could fluctuate according to moon cycles, stars, and other celestial or immortal influences. It would be conceivable that a high-level clerical spell could manipulate the edges of The Haze to temporarily extend or retract it too.
Picture this: a ruler decides to capture some powerful artifact in a city that's hundreds of miles outside The Haze. His temple comes to the rescue and invokes their Immortal patron to create a long corridor extending The Haze all the way to the city. This way, the proud ruler could sail his ships to that faraway place, complete the deed, and return safely with his army of cursed heroes.
At a high level, the spell could last weeks if not months, at its lowest level, it would allow someone to teleport in for a few days perhaps, and teleport back before the The Haze returns to its original position. Of course, The Haze and the curse are both totally invisible, so there is no way (other than using more new spells) of finding where their limits lie.