a long time ago, we played the old ad&d forest maker and one of my players obtained the skull of dorag thel. later we converted to 3e and the skull got forgotten. Now the time needed to atune to the skull has passed and the player wanted to use the preserver metharmorphosis spell from the skull.
he is just a normal wizard, without psionic abilities. What happens if he uses the power of the skull?
thanks for your opinions
Here is what I would do - there is nothing staying that the spell seeds cannot be stored as far as I know. So, if a character had said item, the skull could have the spell seeds needed or knowledge of them - and also have substantial knowledge of the process of constructing the PM I spell, so it could be used as an additional mitigating factor to maybe reduce the creation of the preserver metamorphosis I spell by like 10 or 20.
As for getting around the psionic requirement of the spell - well the item, being an artifact, could do something like a rebuild on the character - swapping out straight wizard levels for some psion levels and levels as a cerebremancer - flooding his mind with the required knowledge I which would not be out of the realm of possibility for an artifact. It would use the most efficiant path and build to get the character ready with as little fuss as possible IMO - so a 21st level perserver wizard could be rebuilt as a preserver 10/psion 3/cebremancer 8 (meeting the requirements of being able to cast 9th level spells and manifest 6th level powers) and be ready to cast the metamorphosis spell after he crafted it (because his skills and feats would have also been shifted to meet the requirements too) - with the skulls aid and insight. It would be a pretty drastic change, but if the palyer is set on going down the path of the avangion, then I am sure they will not object too much - heck it would almost be like playing a new character - which is always fun.
I would even go as far as saying that the skull would also shift their skills and feats in order to allow them to qualify for the Avangion PrC too.
Hope this helps.
Well - that could be a problem, seeing as the PM spell is an epic spell, and according to the rules, you cannot have an item that stores epic spells - in fact even having one written out is a very expensive process and requires some serious preperation.
Major artifacts can have epic spells as powers if I remember right, so the skull would have to be a major artifact for it to have the PM spell.
As for getting around the psionic requirement of the spell - well the item, being an artifact, could do something like a rebuild on the character - swapping out straight wizard levels for some psion levels and levels as a cerebremancer - flooding his mind with the required knowledge I which would not be out of the realm of possibility for an artifact. It would use the most efficiant path and build to get the character ready with as little fuss as possible IMO - so a 21st level perserver wizard could be rebuilt as a preserver 10/psion 3/cebremancer 8 (meeting the requirements of being able to cast 9th level spells and manifest 6th level powers) and be ready to cast the metamorphosis spell after he crafted it (because his skills and feats would have also been shifted to meet the requirements too) - with the skulls aid and insight. It would be a pretty drastic change, but if the palyer is set on going down the path of the avangion, then I am sure they will not object too much - heck it would almost be like playing a new character - which is always fun.
You can use the players handbook II for the rules on the above...
[INDENT]Any owner of the Annulus who is good-aligned and without the taint of defilement can at any time initiate the casting of the avangion metamorphosis I spell. The spell is inscribed within the Annulus, and as such knowledge of the spell is not imparted on the owner, nor can it be learned or copied to another medium. In all ways the character using the Annulus is considered the caster, and as such needs to have the Epic Spellcasting feat, a free epic spell slot, and succeed at his Spellcraft check. All costs of casting the spell are incured by the character. [/INDENT]
How long have these artifacts been floating around and why did it take Oronis so long to develop the spell if it was there before?
as for the skull, not sure. will have to look.
A spell can be copied and cause the death of many more potential "Nerads", while with this item Oronis ensures that all future avangions are limited to those who obtain the Annulus. I imagine that Korgunard first became an avangion this way. After hearing of Nerad's tale, he found and petitionned Oronis to become an avangion...and here I prospose that Oronis never gave the spell to Korgunard, rather he inscribed an item with it and ensured it could never be copied from it. Instead of 10 copies of the spell circulating around, there's only one and its in the Annulus. (Of course, this postdates Nerad, which may himself have dsitributed the spell on his own, way before Korgunard was even born.)
This artifact is a human skull, browned with age. The
teeth are chips of obsidian, and each eye socket contains a
500 gp emerald. A living vine snakes its way through the
skull. The entire object is indestructible.
The skull is all that remains of Dorag Thel, an ancient
druid of Athas from the days before the world became a
wasteland. Dorag warned about the adverse effects of
defiler magic, but to no avail.
After Dorag’s death, preservers venerated him as a
visionary, and he became, in death, a sort of patron to the
early Veiled Alliance members.[...]
Here is the text for the story behind the artifact. It doesn't help very much. From the text you can say that the skull might have been from before Bory's became the Dragon of Tyr since in his 100 year rampage transformed the land into much of it's current state. But the Veiled Alliance does not date back to before Bory's transformation so it might be more resent creation.
184th King's Age (-462)
-King's Fury Oronis gives the preserver metamorphosis spell to a preserver/psionicist named Nerad, who becomes Athas's second avangion.
-Wind's Fury After revealing himself to the Veiled Alliance of Tyr, Nerad is discovered by King Kalak-who in turn contacts the Dragon. Borys later kills Nerad south of Tyr. In his grief, Oronis hides all copies of the preserver metamorphosis spell.
It might be simpler to say that following Nerad's death Oronis inscribed the preserver metamorphsis I spell into both the Annulus and the Skull of Dorag Thel.
It might be simpler to say that following Nerad's death Oronis inscribed the preserver metamorphsis I spell into both the Annulus and the Skull of Dorag Thel.
Cool scenario.
"Annulus" is an artifact from the Psionics Handbook. You, Pennarin, mention an obviously different artifact with the same name. I am not aware of an artifact named "Annulus" in Dark Sun material, but might easily be wrong about that.
I just want to know where you got the name from, and if you got it from the Psionics Handbook, why you decided to create a different artifact with the same name (which I would find very confusing).
The Athasian Annulus was crafted by Korgunard, and I think it was in a Dragon Magazine.
This is correct, and the full name is Korgunard's Annulus - just to clear up any misunderstanding.
It's a shame that I only now get to know about an athasian Annulus. I love the PsiHB one (great illustration) and it plays a major role in my campaign.--after all, sometimes rules get inbetween you and fun, and that's not right NB