Psionic Power

September 14th, 2010
by fjamison

A psionic character wields the power of the mind, whether honed by rigorous training or inspired by wild and uncontrollable impulse. Disciplined monk and psion, unhindered ardent and battlemind – psionic characters defend the world against dark threats with the most potent of all arms, the weapon within.

Psionic characters unlock the unexpected power of their consciousness, bringing it to bear in the fighting techniques they master or the magical effects they create. Characters who study the psionics traditions passed down through generations can transcend the body’s limits, eventually apprehending the whole of creation with a single thought.

Like Primal Power, Divine Power, and Arcane Power before it, Psionic Power focuses on and is organized around the four psionic classes – the subtle ardent, the forthright battlemind, the focused monk, and the dedicated psion. Each chapter introduces a new class feature, new powers, and new paragon paths, and also provides a rich amount of backdrop to enhance the experience of roleplaying a psionic character. Chapter 5, “Psionic Options,” contains more than 100 new feats, information on psionics philosophies and orders, details about psionic backgrounds and bloodlines, six new epic destinies, and new magic items particularly suited to psionic characters.

Psionic Power can be used in several ways. You might want to create a brand·new character using the builds and powers presented in this book, putting a different spin on the standard psionic classes. You might use new powers to customize an existing character, taking advantage of the retraining rules in the Player’s Handbook. The new feats presented here are equally useful for characters using builds from Player’s Handbook 3 or the new builds presented in the class chapters in this book. New paragon paths and psionic bloodlines can provide unique insights into your character’s development, and new epic destinies can set the tone and goals of your character’s entire adventuring career.

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Marauders of the Dune Sea

August 18th, 2010
by fjamison

Nightmares of desert horrors trouble the dreams of the innocent while raiders grow ever bolder beyond the walls of the great city-state of Tyr. Children cry of midnight portents, and mercantile houses fear the disruption of their trade. Bandits and merchants chase rumors of a temple hidden in the desert, an ancient shrine to the primordial Ul-Athra said to safeguard a fragment of the artifact known as the Crown of Dust. Can the heroes recover a caravan lost in the wastes, repel the threat of vicious raiders, and win the relic from the perilous temple?

During the Green Age of Athas, civilization reached its zenith, and great structures were built above and below the surface of the earth. Today, lost ruins of that period lie across the Tablelands and beyond. Most of these crumbling structures are empty and worthless, but others have endured the ages, still guarding the secrets of ancient days.

Recently, gith nomads discovered the Face in the Stone, an old temple northeast of Tyr. Within the shrine, the gith found doors that bore runes referring to the relic of Ul-Athra, an entity also known as the Dust Kraken or the Mouths of Thirst. While trying to open the doors, the gith were attacked by creatures in the temple. The surviving nomads fled and made for the base of the raider lord Yarnath the Skull, hoping that he would reward their discovery. However, before the gith could reach Slither, Yarnath’s crawling citadel, a sandstorm caught them unprotected in the desert and slew them.

Later, Yarnath’s raiders found fragments of a journal among the nomads’ remains and pieced together what the gith had found, but the bandits did not know the location of the ruin. In addition, they found hints that the sandstorm that killed the gith was unnatural.

Intrigued, Yarnath became determined to find the Face in the Stone and its mysterious relic. He turned his attention to merchant caravans that passed through the area, hoping to force caravaneers to give up the location of the ruin. Unfortunately for the raider lord, so far everyone has been ignorant of the old temple.

Marauders of the Dune Sea is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for five 2nd-level player characters. It can be played as a follow-up to the short adventure in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting. The characters should approach or reach 4th level by the end of the adventure.

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Dark Sun Creature Catalog

August 18th, 2010
by fjamison

Life in Athas is a harrowing experience. The land abounds with perilous hazards and deadly monsters. In spartan gladitorial arenas, contenders battle armored braxats and hardened muls that are intent on eviscerating them for the crowd’s pleasure. In the merciless wastes, belgoi draw adventurers to their doom with the alluring jingle of bells, or savage humanoid tribes of gith or halflings hunt travelers for pleasure, loot, and even food. And, in the Sea of Silt, giants guard their borders against any trespassers who manage to survive the constricting tentacles of the silt horrors.

The Dark Sun Creature Catalog contains nearly 200 monsters and hazards. It is your guide to building adventures and encounters in the Dark Sun setting. With this book, you can alter existing monsters using themes, add fantastic terrain to spice up an encounter area, or introduce nonplayer characters that can be either allies or enemies of the player characters. This book is meant to be used in conjunction with the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, which describes Athas in greater detail and discusses how to create characters and how to run a game in the setting.

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Dark Sun Campaign Setting

August 15th, 2010
by fjamison

Sand, rock, sun, burning heat – these are the only properties that Athas possesses in abundance. Every living creature in the world works constantly to obtain food and safeguard water. Hunters might go days without finding suitable prey, and herders must drive their flocks from place to place to find good grazing. Water is scarce in the known regions of Athas, and those who control life-giving wells or springs jealously guard access to such riches.

City dwellers enjoy more security than do nomads or villagers living in the deserts, but it takes legions of workers – most of them slaves – toiling in the fields to support a city’s population. Great and terrible sorcerer-kings rule the city-states, each a long-lived tyrant who crushes dissent. Rapacious nobles, corrupt templars, ruthless merchants, and legions of brutal soldiers profit from or support the sorcerer-kings’ reigns, while the common folk groan under unjust laws and harsh taxation. Slaves survive only as long as they can earn one more day’s worth of food and water with their backbreaking toil. For most people, life is a choice between struggling to survive in the wasted wilderness or trading freedom for the relative safety of the oppressive city-states.

This is Athas, a world of cruelty and tyranny. Yet it is also a place of savage beauty and barbaric splendor – a world of heroes.

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Demonomicon

August 3rd, 2010
by fjamison

Demons are the manifestation of malign chaos – the embodiment of vile perversion and elemental ruin. Even the weakest of these creatures are hideous to behold, their features the stuff of nightmares. The most powerful fiends are anathema to mortal sensibilities, their mere presence enough to drive other creatures to madness. As living engines of annihilation, demons have an innate desire to consume and destroy while causing as much pain as possible. Fear and mercy are unknown to their kind.

Peel away the veneer of virtue, civility, and charity, and each mortal race reveals a writhing core of corruption and rage. It is said that the progenitors of demonkind were not unlike the mortal races once, but their darkness grew within them until it warped them in body and soul. Now, a demon’s every thought is tainted by hatred and malice.

This book provides new insights into the history, life, and horror of these iconic monsters, bringing to life the information presented in one of the game’s most legendary works – the Demonomicon of Iggwilv. Be warned, however – the lore contained in these pages is perilous indeed.

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