Article looking for Help: The Breakers of Fate

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sciborg2's picture
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Article looking for Help: The Breakers of Fate

Zimrazim and I have been working on this, it is a sect/faction that attempts to defy the threads of fate.

This is based on ideas Zizarim and I were discussing for a similar faction here, but that one is for parallel realities. We've further developed them to better fit into the standard Wheel.

Sect Philosophy: Fate Breakers are opposed to the idea of that there is a destiny that one cannot escape. They don't care if the end result is meant to be the fall of a Dark Lord or a mass fratricide that ends a dynasty. What matters to them is the odd coincidences, the twists of Fate, that ensure something comes to pass no matter what precautions one takes or what events would, under other circumstances, prevent this event from occurring.

Victims of prophetic curses, subjects of unasked for destinies, even seers who are disturbed by accuracy of their seemingly unavoidable visions have come to this faction as clients and as members. The hope that Fate can be cheated drives many toward the Fate Breakers' ranks.

Primary Plane of Influence: The faction places a great deal of its strength in Aborea, in castles and arcane towers along Trithereon's Forking Road. The god of Freedom is a greater patron to this burgeoning faction than he is to the Indeps, for he too believes that destiny is a noose to be despised as it goes against his ideal that of self-determination for all beings.

Fate Breakers also find shelter in Ysgard, from those servants of the Asgardian Pantheon who seek, sometimes discreetly, a means of cheating their foretold deaths at Ragnarok.

Pandemonium, interestingly enough, is where many evil and chaotic Fate Breakers make their kip. Why? Because it holds so many caverns, supposedly herding one to a destination, but then Chaos shifts the tunnels into new unexpected locations.

Allies and Enemies: Indeps and Anarchists like the ideal goal of this faction, but both of these groups feel the focus of the Fate Breakers on an intangible enemy too narrow minded. As Fate is usually a tool of the gods, the Athar find some common ground with this faction, excepting the Lost who believe destiny is how the Greater Unknown works Its will in the Multiverse. That the faction has a patron deity and enjoys the blessings of many gods of freedom unnerves many of the Athar as well.

The factions of Law are somewhat wary of the Fate Breakers, but perhaps their most surprising enemy are certain subsections of the Doomguard. These Sinkers worry that undoing Fate might also provide a means of undoing Entropy - the chronomancers drawn to the Breakers of Destiny is also a point of contention between the two factions, as temporal magics are a direct threat to the triumph of Entropy.

Of course the Sinkers unity breaks down over the treatment of the Fate Breakers. Another, larger group within the Doomguard that believes that any sort of predestination is anti-entropic to begin with, and that they need to ensure any and all knots of Fate are undone lest the Multiverse reverse its decay. These rival sub-factions might argue with each other, but as of yet it hasn't come to intra-faction war.

Eligibility: Membership is open to every race or class. There is an open invitation for any elemental of Time willing to join, but so far none have stepped forward to accept.

Activities of the sect: Fate Breakers work to ensure prophecies don't come to pass. Burning bridges, aiding in the siege of cities, calling upon the gods of freedom, all this and more they will do to break the tide of Destiny. More extreme Fate Breakers might kidnap or even kill someone to ensure a prophecy fails. Some Fate Breakers believe that one of surest ways that a future vision is fulfilled is when people work against them - if nobody believed in a prophecy it would easier for the Fate Breakers to break its hold over events. These Fate Breakers seed areas rife with the infection of future visions, hiring or playing the part of false prophets, fortune tellers, and seers. Or deliberately seeding an area with false prophets, in order to make most people in the area disbelieve in the power of prophecy.

Curses and blessings are enemies of the faction as well, as they often herd a person toward certain events but can also limit or enhance those affected directly. It is important to note that Fate Breakers only care if the magic used relies on Fate. They will aid in the fight against a family curse that kills all boys before the age of fifteen or undo magic that inexplicably makes every member of a house master archers, but don't care if elves draw on their mythal to strengthen their newborn heirs.

Benefits: Fate Breakers become, over time, immune to practically any kind of curse spell, including 'bestow greater curse'. The strongest members of this faction, the greatest of the Free, are immune to even powerful dying curses.

Spells that divine the future do not work with any accuracy when trying to peer into events that will involve experienced Fate Breakers. Seeking to determine the future of the greatest members of the Faction can lead to false prophecies, the shattering of scrying glasses, or even madness.

Fate breakers are immune to spells that affect them by altering probability.

Restrictions (maybe none?): Fate breakers are immune to spells that enhance their luck.

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sciborg2's picture
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Re: Article looking for Help: The Breakers of Fate

Zimrazim's notes:

Another issue -- curses. If you have the BoVD, there's a section in there on nonstandard, really nasty curses, Dying Curses and curses that affect entire family lines. Fate Breakers would probably want to go out of their way to break these. (Breaking the most powerful curses usually involves major quests.)

Benefits: The remove curse ability might be a good one. They might themselves be immune to practically any kind of curse spell, including 'bestow greater curse' and even powerful dying curses.

Another possibility might be the ability to counter or suppress specific spells and effects that alter probability (for example, luck spells, or spells that inflict bad luck on enemies).

A Fate Breaker might also be immune to divinatory spells/effects that involve him/her while attempting to tell the future (examples: a priest's augury or divination spells, a psion's precognition ability). These spells may actually give wrong answers purely due to their inability to 'detect' the Fate Breaker's presence. If the Fate Breaker is particularly powerful, the spell/ability may actually fail catastrophically! (Imagine scrying glasses shattering, etc.)

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Zimrazim's picture
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Re: Article looking for Help: The Breakers of Fate

Maybe faction abilities for Fate Breakers should be handled as optional feats. (With the power level of each being comparable to faction-specific feats in the PSCS.)

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