Glaugust 4 is "A lost spellbook, its contents, and the factions/individuals that vie for it!" I had a few ideas for this one, but as always a random joke from my nesting partner became the most fruitful of them all. Thanks Lilly <3
Izin the Lost was a wizard of great renown in Cushad, the island nation to the north. Over misty croppings of stone and across pale plains of grass Izin commanded a group of highly efficient assassin-wizards, who made the wealthy and powerful of Cushad quake with fear. Of course, in those days the regulations placed upon murders in Cushad were still new, and standard practices had yet to be developed. Many people offered mercenary services and some even included clandestine work, but it was far from the sprawling bureaucracy of licenses and blessings it is today. Izin charged significantly less than the competition, and outdid them all in quality. He soon had an almost monopoly on the assassination game! No trace, no failures, and no traditional announcements of targets or reasoning plastered on the wall of the local temple. Izin did not find this old practice to be necessary, and much preferred the secrecy it afforded his group.
They were known as The Mourners, for it was said the assassin would attend the funerary service of the target, shedding genuine tears for their victim. Izin's philosophy regarding assassination was strange, because he didn't believe in the right of all men to take the lives of their rivals in honorable proxy-combat, nor did he believe a man should make money in whatever he is most skilled at (even should it be killing.) No, Izin believed that life was not sacred, and he feared death. His greatest worry was that one day he too would die meaninglessly and leave no great legacy on the earth. So, he decided the merciful thing to do would be to dispense death in a gentle and loving way. Anyone could afford the Mourners' services, and Izin would gladly end any life should someone deem it necessary. Izin believed it was his duty to make their passing as easy as possible.
Izin's acolytes were trained in the Tragic Blow style, which rumors said allowed them to simply grasp and still the heart of a sleeping person from through their bedroom door. This is true, of course, but the strength needed to stop a heart from that distance was rare, and the few who possessed it soon abandoned the Mourners for more selfish pursuits. Izin documented his forms and spells in a scroll titled Walking through the Mists, which he taught from himself to initiate new members. Izin's memory was famously bad, and he kept the scroll on him at all times. Perhaps this was paranoia that someone would steal his hard earned spells, or perhaps he would've forgotten them all had he not kept them so close.
Izin was dubbed "the Lost" late in life, when a disease of the brain took him. His state deteriorated rapidly, and he disbanded the Mourners in order to secret away their techniques, lest someone less understanding than him use them to deal out death that was unjust. Only Izin could truly know what was just, in his mind. A bronze statue that was supposed filled with Izin's vital organs was erected at Darasar, Cushad's capital city. His will stated that this would ward off the ill-tempered from performing extralegal or inexcusable murders, and Darasar was happy to make a site of honor for someone they deemed to be a saintly practitioner of magic.
Walking through the Mists is a thick aqua-colored paper scroll around a slate rod, with messy scribbled handwriting. It is written in an archaic dialect of Cushadi.
1. This section is a series of inked diagrams meant to instruct someone in a martial arts form; The Tragic Blow Style.
Δ Tragic Blow Style
Spend one month practicing the forms depicted in the scroll for one watch every day.
You deal 1d6 damage while unarmed, and these attacks reach 3x as far by sending energy through the air. You can also strike through solid objects and creatures. You may use this ability to grapple and move the insides of targets, but your Strength score is halved while attempting such a fine maneuver.
2. Poetry about the beauty of youth and the importance of cooperation, somehow in a melancholic tone. Rambles for a while, but leaves a lingering sense of worry behind, and a motivation to do more with your group.
3. Mist Clone - Summon [Sum] clones that copy your actions and can move as you will them to. Clones have 0 HP and are destroyed when harmed or in windy weather. They last [Dice] combat rounds before dissipating. Margins contain doodles of various Tragic Blow poses, multiplied many times.
4. Watercolor painting depicting a foggy shore surrounded by 3 trees that have figures crouched within, arms outstretched towards the edge of the horizon. The center of the horizon line holds a scroll that resembles this one. Above, it reads "Where hands combine, mists gather." All sections following appear blank until 6 hands touch the scroll's surface while performing a Tragic Blow.
5. Call Rain - Summon a gentle rainstorm for [Sum] hours. Extends in a radius [Dice] hexes around you.
6. Leap - Jump up to [Sum x5] ft. forward or up for [Dice] minutes.
7. Several scribbled out attempts at writing a recipe. The margins contain the necessary information. Scribbled out names include "Annihilation Draught" and "Numbness." Bloodstream poison that removes all sense of pain.
8. Sense Pulse - You can feel the pulse of all creatures out to a distance of [sum] x [dice] ft.
9. Gray Flesh - Heals a still target for [Sum +] HP, but reduces their Maximum HP by [Dice]. HP is restored at a rate of 1 per day of bed rest. Spell is barely legible as it is written beneath a quick watercolor of a shore.
10. Mist Cloak - A cloud of obscuring mist [Dice] x10 ft. wide follows your movement. From outside the cloud, nothing can be seen. From within, everything is silhouettes. Lasts [Sum] minutes.
11. Misty Stroll - [Dice] targets disappear into a mist or fog bank. They may move instantly between any point in the cloud and may exit at their will. Remain in the cloud for [Sum] minutes. Surrounding the spell are notes on the exact speed of travel.
12. Cleanly written recipe for a delicious egg tart. Anyone who reads the entire recipe is psychically assaulted by the Oven Devil bound within the text. They believe they are burning slowly, roasting alive while the demon looks on. It can be reasoned with, and may be willing to strike a bargain. Wants the recipe that binds it to be broken by cooking the egg tart and feeding it to a new body for the devil. It will accept any body but prefers one crafted from cookery, steel and filled with firewood.
Oven Devil
HD: 5 (35 HP) Armor: Chain, immune to fire
Wants: To eat sinners in sumptuous feasts
Morality: Gleeful adherence to the letter of the law
Morale: 8
Intelligence: Gifted chef, single-minded
Move: As normal
Damage: 1d8 heatwave / 1d8 fork
Each round, may use the following ability once.
Bake
Converts the room it is in into an oven, dealing 1d6 fire damage each round to all things inside. Will gradually catch flammable objects. Increases to 1d8 damage after 3 rounds, then 1d10 after 6. Can only have 3 rooms heated at a time.
13. Watercolor depiction of a grave, its obelisk cutting through the center of the field. The sky is a beautiful purple wave. The sun is a beautiful crushed-ice-cut-ruby worth 500gp.
14. This section is absolutely stuffed full of overlapping notes on the properties of water, musings on mortality, and drawings of blood vessels.
15. Eye Pact - Up to [Dice] creatures share a blood pact, and can thereafter see through each other's eyes at will.
16. Diagrams and formulae describing how to dry out a rare seafaring worm, for use as poison. If stored in a glass vessel and then blown into a creatures face, will cause brain death in minutes. Margins detail the many deaths caused while teaching the proper usage.
17. Entomb - Captures the soul of a creature whose organs are sealed in a vessel roughly the shape of their body, allowing them to sense through the vessel's eyes, ears and other extremities for [Sum] years. Requires [Dice] years off the life of the caster.
18. Hastily scribbled notes on combining the poisons described in earlier sections. When combined into a topical salve, destroy the body part applied to. Limbs turn gray, eyes melt out, extremities fall off. None of this is felt. There is a comically large X over the notes, and a splattering of blood.
19. Ramblings of Izin while in the throes of psychosis. Non-sequiturs, detached from reality. Harrowing to read. Hidden inside the text are the means necessary to cast
Reveal Traitor - You can read the next [Dice] thoughts of one target.
20. This section was removed, and the edge of the scroll is tattered and worn.
(1d6) Who is looking for this scroll?
1. Former Mourner Tova, long aged out of the assassin game. Wants to pass it on to her children.
2. Thrognaren the Cook, who heard a rumor that a great chef's spirit is trapped inside the scroll.
3. The Black Nail Clan, who were rivals of the Mourners that dealt in cruelty and humiliating death. Want to destroy the scroll publicly.
4. Wakai, a young white dragon who wants to become the merciful ruler of the world.
5. Her Empire's National Library Trust, in an attempt to bolster their spellbook display.
6. The warband of Krzak the Blade Devil, looking for their camp cook.
