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Secret Texts
This is yet another orphaned module idea. The source is Holly Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy (Diplomacy of Wolves, Vengeance of Dragons, Courage of Falcons) and the prequel Vincalis the Agitator.
A thousand years ago the advanced, if evil, civilization of the mighty wizards called Dragons was destroyed in an apocalyptic war. Great swathes of land were polluted by the magical fallout from the terrible spells that eradicated cities and humans and animals turned to Scarred mutants shunned by the ones who retained their original form. Now civilization is finally rising again, while the Scarred dream of a savior to lead them into war. And the Dragons are coming back.
Mage Subclasses
Falcons are the masters of defensive magic. Various shields and healing spells are their specialty. The Falcon magic cannot produce directly offensive effects, except in cases where the offense is not really an offense, such as putting the undeads to rest. Many Falcon spells have also a hitpoint cost. All Falcons worship Vodor Imrish, but characters from other classes can learn Falcon magic without converting.
Wolves specialize in offensive magic but can do other types too. They need sacrifices to fuel their magic and act as a buffer for the backlash damage. This is usually done by using monsters they have made helpless (= corpses) but they can learn to use nearby living monsters too. The Wolves become quickly Scarred (Z-style mutations) from the chaotic backlash from their offensive spells, which happens if they are unlucky and particularly when the sacrifice is not quite enough for the spell. They can follow any god but Vodor Imrish if they choose to.
Dragons are the strongest magic users of all. They can do anything but the niftiest Falcon shields and are best in spectacular spells of destruction. They are atheists or even consider themselves gods. They can channel power for their spells from all the monsters in the dungeon, enemies and pets alike, killing the weakest ones from the drain alone and awakening the rest. Dragons are good with magic devices (they made them) but useless with a sword. They also don't tend to have too many hitpoints since they are used to luxury. Due to their skill, the Dragons are rarely afflicted with the magical backlash from their evil spells, but if they are, they have high-level spells to cure that.
Roadwalkers have excellent detection and identifying spells. At higher levels they learn spells of increased stealth, invisibility, and even teleporting. They have no spells for direct combat.
Races
Human is the base race, as usual.
Karnee is a Scarred shapeshifter that can turn into a powerful beast. They are strong and have a good charisma in human form, and are fast and even stronger in the Karnee beast form. They cannot use weapons or magic devices as a beast and their appetite is greatly increased. They need to spend time both in human and beast forms. Let's say there is a counter somewhere that decreases with time in human form and increases in Karnee form. If the counter is high the character becomes human and cannot shift back. If the counter is very negative the character will turn into Karnee. The limits for these increase with level, and a level 50 or so a character can choose to never become a beast if they don't want to. (The counter just stops at its minimum.) Shapeshifted Karnee acquire free action at level 10, waterbreathing at level 30, and flight at level 45 of Karnee form fighting. Their infravision gets gradually better too.
- (Kargans and various other Scarred go here too. They can be bizarre.)
Gods
Vodor Imrish can provide spectacular but non-violent help to his followers, such as teleporting nearby monsters far away or even out of the map entirely (mass genocide) or teleport the character to a different dungeon level. He demands a price, though, which consists of both piety and hitpoints. Vodor Imrish likes it if you do Falcon magic and hates it if you do Wolf or Dragon magic.
- (various gods)
Plot
The plot is from the books, basically, but doesn't have to be that linear. I'm being vague to avoid spoiling the plot totally.
Phase one: Find the Mirror of Souls.
Phase two: Defeat Dafril and Luercas.