Maharis, The Witch in the Tower [3.x]

Whether it was something in her blood, or the circumstances of her power awakening, Maharis was bound to Death ever since she climbed out of the plague burial pit. 

As her arcane powers grew, her lifeforce waned, replaced by an unnatural vitality. Yet, she remained alive. Seeing an inevitable doom approaching, when all of her lifeforce would be gone, she desperately sought ancient lore to combat the grip of unlife. Whichever realm of death had made a claim for her, she had no desire to enter.

Her doom couldnt' be stopped. Seeking knowledge, she became more powerful, and more able to see uses for the unnatural energy within her. 

For a time, she despaired. 

She widened her search, learning everything and anything of her condition. If she could not remain alive, at the very least, she could anchor herself to the world, forever escaping wherever the fell force was trying to drag her.

Eventually, she found a way to cling to a semblance of life by fashioning a locket, which she made nigh-indestructible, layering magics upon magics unto it. Within, she hid her soul. 

Eventually, what little life remained in her body was lost. Yet, she didn't stop. Her soul safely hidden within a phylactery, within a locket, the reaper did not come for her. 

Her arcane might ever growing, she now resides in a tomb of her own making - a spire of black stone; A cyclopean needle within the city of Necropolis. 

Maharis
Female Lich Dread Necromancer 20/Mage of the Arcane Order 7 (CR 27)
LE Medium Undead (human)
Init 9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., See Invisibility, Detect Magic, Arcane Sight ;
Listen
Languages whatevr
AC 41, touch 24, flat-footed 34
(+7 Dex, +7 Armor, +10 natural, +5 deflection, +2 Foresight)
hp 290 (27 HD); DR 15/Bludgeoning and Magic Half Damage(shielded)
Immune poison, cold, electricity, sonic, polymorph, mind, sleep, stun, paralysis, critical hits, disease, death, nonlethal, ability drain, energy drain, breathe, eat, sleep
Resist fire 30; Foresight
Fort 10, Ref 24, Will 18 (+1 from luckstone)
Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee Touch +13, 1d8+5 + Paralysis(DC 32)
Ranged +21 for spells
Space 5ft., Reach 5 ft.
Base Atk 13, Grapple 13
Atk Options Charnel Touch, Scabrous Touch, Enervating Touch(swift, Fear Aura vs. panic. Will for shaken, Metamagic(empower, quicken)
Special Actions: Contingency, Draw from Spellpool, Multispell X2
Combat Gear: Belt of Battle, Bracers of Arcane Freedom
Dread Necromancer Spells Known (CL 28th):

Base DC: 22, 23 Necromancy
9th(5/day)—Energy Drain, Imprison Soul, Mass Harm, Plague of Undead, Wail of the Banshee
8th(7/day)—Create greater undead, Horrid wilting, Mass inflict critical wounds, Symbol of death, Blackfire
7th(8/day)—Avasculate, Control Undead, Destruction, Finger of Death, Greater harm, Mass inflict serious wounds, Song of discord, Vile Death
6th(6/day)—Acid fog, circle of death, create undead, eyebite, geas/quest, Harm, mass inflict moderate wounds, planar binding, waves of exhaustion, Aura of terror
5th(7/day)—Blight, Cloudkill, Fire in the Blood, Greater dispel magic, Insect plague, Lesser planar binding, Magic jar, Mass inflict light wounds, Nightmare, Oath of blood, Slay living, Summon undead V, Undeath to death, Unhallow, Waves of fatigue,
4th(8/day)—Consumptive Field, Animate dead, bestow curse, contagion, death ward, dispel magic, enervation, Evard's black tentacles, fear, giant vermin, inflict critical wounds, phantasmal killer, poison, summon undead IV
3th(8/day)—Crushing despair, death ward, halt undead, inflict serious wounds, ray of exhaustion, speak with dead, summon undead III, Vampiric touch
2th(9/day)—Blindness/deafness, command undead, darkness, death knell, false life, gentle repose, ghoul touch, inflict moderate wounds, scare, spectral hand, summon swarm, summon undead II
1th(9/day)—bane, bestow wound, cause fear, chill touch, detect magic, detect undead, doom, hide from undead, inflict light wounds, ray of enfeeblement, summon undead I, undetectable alignment, chill of the grave

Abilities Str 10, Dex 24, Con -, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 34
Special Qualities undead traits, , familiar, scry on familiar,
share spells
Feats 2x Multispell, Corpsecrafter(+4 str, +2HP/HD undead), Rapid Metamagic, Empower, Quicken, Cooperative, SF:Necromancy, Undead Leadership, Eschew Materials, Ignore Material Components, Destruction Retribution(undead explode 1d6/1d6per2HD 10ft burst, Ref 15 half)
Skills (roughly 53/390 points) Concentration +42, knowledge(arcana) +33,
knowledge(religion) +33, spellcraft +33, Hide +45
Possessions Combat Gear plus +5 tome, +5 manual (read), Haversack, Luckstone, Ioun Stone, Orange Prism, +5 Anchoring Leather Armor of easy travel, improved agility, masking and fire resistance, greater, Belt of Battle, Bracers of Arcane Freedom, +5 Ring of Protection, Amulet of nat. armor +5, Broom of flying roughly 70K GP
Advancement by class levels; Favored Class Dread Necromancer
Death Throes: 28d8 burst, 30ft,
Spellcasting Short Range 165 ft. Medium Range 380 ft. Long Range 1520 ft.
Daily Spells Death Throes, Energy Immunity(Sonic, Acid), Foresight, Death Ward on Imp
Contingency If HP drops below 100, Ghostform

Permanency Arcane Sight, Detect Magic, See Invisibility, Tongues, Read Magic

Belt of Battle: +2 init, 3 charges renewed at dawn

Activation: Swift

1 charge = 1 Move action

2 charges = 1 Standard Action

3 charges = 1 Full-round action

Bracers of Arcane Freedom Activation: Swift. 2/day automatic still spell

Tactics: Hang back, nuke. Blackfire on self and undead allies. Avasculate, Exhaustion, Acid Fog.Phylactery: Hidden within the Amulet of Natural Armor. A kernel of Hardened Adamantite, with permanent Nondetection and a fake Magic Aura on it.


Cohort: Shield Other:
Human Vampire Cleric 5/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 7

Hair Today. Also, Eyes.

Elder Venus, Incognita and, uh, some random character.

My post titles are annoyingly apropos.
I'm getting some of my skill back, but I've found that I want to learn some specific techniques, when it comes to depicting materials, textures and such. I may do some studies next, perhaps.

One interesting thing I've noticed - especially with pencil - is to use somewhat cartoony level of realism, but to draw details such as reflections and texures very realistically, albeit with rough enough style that you can see the pencil strokes.

So, on my drawing craft queue:

• Fan arts
• Animating a bit
• Learning new techniques.

I'm also looking for a RPG gaming group locally. It's been a year since the last time I had a chance to play, more or less.

I'm, uh, also trying my hand at writing fiction. I'm not completely awful, but I am pretty bad. It's another thing I just kind of want to take a stab at, at this point. There are strong parallels between designing roleplaying adventurers and writing - the storytelling is very similar, but writing has the actual writecraft aspect to it, as well as the fact that in roleplaying games, other peoples are playing the part of characters, while the GM just has to prepare the setting, play the supporting characters, design plots.... Come to think of it, that's already quite a lot of work. Still, it's essentially similar to the prep-work one might do for a longer story - making notes of appearing characters, preparing locations, making sure things are kept consistent. That sort of a thing.

Hmm. Parallel between Elder Gods and Elder Senshi.... 

Draw! Draw like the WIND!

Okay, so... It's a bit past midnight here, but I still wanted to do something for yesterday. I spent the last hours of yesterday trying to play QWOP. You can Google it, if you're interested.

So... folds suck. Still, practice good.

My initial gesture of the face was good, but I ruined it, A left-side distortion too, but there's some stuff that I very nearly like. No idea who the character is. Maybe she'll grow into someone.

I read some Empowered today. Adam Warren's pencil skills are completely mindblowing. The story is also kind of interesting, although it progresses at a nice, very very slow pace.

I want to draw Skitter, I have an idea, even if I'm not entirely sure how I'll pull it off, yet.

I thought up a fantasy race today.

Basically, imagine a hirsute, rugged race who are curious and inquisitive, who build very rough yet perfectly functional items and buildings.
This race grows to full adulthood in two years, and an individual rarely lives older than twelve. They're a bit clumsy, but strong. Typical birth is twins or triplets.

Basically, I began imagining a race, that would be to humans as humans typically compare to elves. They breed terrifyingly fast, and they don't really build to last, from a human's perspective - after all, something that lasts 5-6 years is half of an individual's lifetime.

I just wanted to get that out of my brain, so there you have it.

Galactic Destroyer Beast Landing Sequence Continued

 I'm especially liking the first two frames here

and...

I couldn't leave it entirely unfinished, now could I?

I had some scanner issues, the last image should use the correct settings, now. I think I drew this out to satisfy my animation bug - I do relapse every now and then. It might a sequence I might actually have some success in animating. I've done walk cycles, attacks, idle animations and such, but not much in the way of successful sequences. If I do, I'll probably go for Graphire + Plastic Animation Paper 4, which is free these days.

Also, Onepunch-Man's  - specifically the version drawn by Murata Yuusuke - decompressed sequences are somewhere in my head, too. So there.

There's another sequence in the image used in this post, although it's not quite as decompressed, in addition to being almost indecipherable.

On the Subject of the Galactic Destroyer Beast.

First, drawing is HARD. especially when one hasn't done it in a while. 

Second, while it's almost never true that I don't have time to draw, it is often true that I don't have the time to ENJOY drawing. There's a difference. 

I've never gotten all the way through to explaining my concept of the Beast. visually it draws heavily on a lot of memetic things, but did  you know, for an example, that all of the head spikes can move independently? Or that the teeth can retract? 

Basically, the Beast form is a mobile transorbital assault platform. In the above picture, the eyespikes flare out and teeth retract as the body configures itself into firing mode - I would presume that majority of the energy gathers within the chest cavity before being released.

The secondary arms - Wings, if you like - have multiple configurations - they can spread a huge shadowy 'parachute' effect - which can also act as a solar sail, or they can fold out of the way to a minimal configuration - they also do duty as energy gathering/manipulation apparatus when they start glowing. 

The claws are primarily a weapon - not that useful for grasping, except for stabilizing the creature for firing. Same with the feet, which are also built for executing powerful leaps. I would presume escaping the gravity well requires energy manipulation form - wings, even with infinite energy are of limited use, especially when there's no guarantee the assaulted planetoid has an atmosphere. 

Mechanically, the back of the beast is somewhat vulnerable. It is, however, covered with potentially mobile spikes, not to mention that  the wings bend towards the back, and can probably emit enough energy to fry any potential assault. So it's more of a trap, as much as anything. 

As for size - it's kind of hard to estimate, but I would suspect that it's current combat form is only about half the size of an Evangelion unit, tops. Even this form has quite a few, what are essentially artificial limitations. During it's nine billion year long assault against the universe, the GD began enjoying combat, and even without Queen Serenity, was turning from a true omnicidal maniac into more of a blood knight. 

Of course, the GD also enjoys fireworks, so it probably would eventually blow up  the solar system it's attacking, but it might very well take several millenia of fighting before getting that far, especially if there's decent opposition to go around. Something of a best-case scenario, admittedly. 

The above is a decompressed GD landing sequence, in thumbnails. It probably doesn't make that much sense without my brain to interpret it, but there you go, anyway.

Question: Can someone explain to me the weird title capitalization syntax used in English language?

I usually keep my rpg stuff away from here....

But I'm sleepy and I have a TRULY SCIENTIFIC fluff/crunch magic system I thought of,
and I don't want to forget it.

Basically it began with thinking, 'how would an abductee from our world to a fantasy one be
able to use local magic?'

Midichlorians were thought of at one point.

Now, of course, this might also work as a magic system for a story of some sort. It also combines nicely with Scifi elements, as 'magic' of this type might only exist on a single planet.

PREMISE:
Okay, basically, in our scientific fantasy world, there is a thing called magic.
It's physical representation are floating glowy things, called 'motes', 'mana' or 'spirits'
Wizards draw magic to themselves, craft spells, and do things like blasting, farseeing, levitation, and so forth.

Through practice, wizards can turn a certain amount of magic into spells. they can cast these very fast, and they can be taught.

Magic can even be passed forward in family.
Basically, a very standard world with magic.

Technobabble:
What is going on is this:

The glowy things are creatures, of sort. They can do pretty advanced things with electromagnetism and Van  Der Waals forces.
They live and breed in trees, as a rule, but may inhabit a living human, too. (this can be somewhat harmful, and thus we can get 'frail' magicians )

Most 'magic' things are done by commanding these creatures. The typical list of commands taught are:
Draw, repel, emit, observe, move, mimic, grab.

Each mote can learn one thing, but multiple motes can form composite creatures.
standard, 'light' magic: motes vary from translucent to bright glowy light, emit a small amount of light and heat typically.
'dark' magic : variant creatures, who absorb light much more efficiently. absorbing  IR light absorbtion makes the areas colder, and they default from lightly dark to black, typically. even when they emit, it's typically shades of red or purple.

Motes can naturally grab each other, but they can be taught to grab other things.
Spells are formed by, say, connecting a mote taught to move to a mote taught to emit an EM radiation burst.

A typical use of magic would be to draw in magic, teach the magic one to three commands and using a combination of these commands to create effect. a combination of observer, mover and grabber, can observe hand signals from the mage, move quickly, and grab onto objects.

Flocks of these creatures would naturally form larger symbiotic entities analogous to 'faeries' and other mythic creatures.

Magic-users use props as hosts for these creatures - it's necessary to form some sort of symbiosis with Magic to be able to control it, but you don't want a bunch of EM emitting creatures livin inside you, as a rule. However, a nice chunk of wood might well contain an entire colony of domesticated motes.

A skilled mage might be able to replace a removed limb with a magic copy (probably using some sort of crafted part as a base), but chances are, it would slowly corrode and replace the host body from the contact surface upwards.

Magnets might interact in a rather interesting fashion in such a setting.

Cory Doctorow

Is a published writer. He also puts his books online, under the Creative Commons license.

The books are mostly 20 minutes into the future Scifi.

I started reading the full-length novels, from "DOWN and OUT in the Magic Kingdom" onwards, and, well, basically, the first book I liked thus far, was 'Little Brother'.

All the books present some ideas integrated throughout a story, and sometimes things work, oftentimes not.

The ideas are always quite neat, but the viewpoint characters are often a touch too unlikeable, in my opinion.
I'm currently reading 'For the Win', which has thus far jumped from a viewport to the next, which seems to have stalled my enthusiasm. 'Makers' was basically okay, but there was a longer chunk following a single viewpoint in the start, so when it changed, I was already deep into the story.