Airship
The PCs' guild will be given an airship in the first session. This will give them relatively free reign to travel to the (few) civilized areas of Asherah, and to fly to different drop points in Mourclesis in order to carry out their missions. The airship given to them by the Goddess Tower is initially named the Cloudchaser, but it can be given a new name if the party desires.
The airship will level up three times as the PCs themselves do, detailed by a chart in the Guild section. The benefits referenced there are described here:
- Tier II: The airship's speed increases by 50% from 150 to 225 miles per hour. The airship has 400 HP and its defenses are 34/36/33/33.
- Tier III: The airship can now survive in the Black Maelstrom at the center of Mourclesis. The airship has 600 HP and its defenses are 37/39/36/36.
- Tier IV: The airship's speed increases by 100%, from 225 ro 450 miles per hour. The airship has 800 HP and its defenses are 40/42/40/40.
Character Creation
All PCs start at level 4, built with the standard 22 point buy, with magic items of levels 5, 4, and 3, as well as 680gp. Future characters will be introduced at the party's current level, and all party members will always have the same XP value (see Multiple Characters, below).
Only General backgrounds and a set of Chronicle of the Black Sword specific backgrounds may be used. These special campaign backgrounds will be described at a later date.
Death and Dying
The Raise Dead ritual is allowed, but it has been moved to level 16. Until that point, it is impossible to bring characters who have died back to life: their bodies, or some portion thereof, must be returned to Ascelia to be cloned by the Guardians, for double the price of Raise Dead as listed in the PHB. This is a double penalty: not only is ressurection more expensive until 16th level, it also cannot be done mid-adventure. A player whose PC dies in the middle of a dungeon is essentially out of the game until the party manages to finish the adventure or escape back to their airship.
In addition, the Death Penalty is increased to -2 for each ability it affects.
Errata
All official errata as of the July update is in use, with the exception to the free action rules noted below. In general, any additional errata that is released during the campaign will also be put into use; however, if some aspect of the errata invalidates or otherwise excessively punishes a PC's established build, I will consider ignoring it on a case-by-case basis.
Free Actions
I feel that the July free action errata is overly punitive to a few specific classes (such as Barbarians, in particular) and feat arrays. However, since Asherah's Labyrinth will get well into epic levels, the general purpose of the errata may be valid. So until further notice, free actions are limited to one per turn per source. Note that this is per turn and not per round; if a character's Rending weapon happens to trigger again on an attack granted by Commander's Strike, go nuts.
Luck Roll
Every mission, each PC may reroll a single d20 and use the second roll, even if it's lower. Note that this ability is specifically per mission, not session, so if an adventure spans an entire month, everyone will have only a single luck roll in that entire segment. Use it wisely.
Magic Item Use
With certain obvious exceptions (e.g. for potions) only one instance of a specific magic item may utilized by a PC per day. This includes Salves of Power, Mage's Daggers, every single Orb, and other such tricks.
Memory Grid
The PCs receive this ability at level 11. Every member of the party gains the Memory Grid ability, which functions just like the Wizard's Spellbook class feature, giving them more versatility when choosing their dailies.
Multiple Characters
Every player may have up to three PCs in the guild at a time. However, unless a storyline situation calls for it, only one PC may be sent on a given mission or adventure. This rule is mostly for fun and I will “look unfavorably” upon any attempt to use it to gain a mechanical advantage. It's not necessary to have more than a single character unless you wish to make use of your slots, and even if you decide you'd like three, I recommend choosing one “main character,” since individual loot allotments will not increase based on how many PCs one has.
New PCs may be introduced or retired at any time.
In general, in an RP situation in which all of one's characters would be present, I don't mind an energetic-feeling player roleplaying as all three of them at once. I reserve the right to call for things to be chilled out if someone is being obnoxious or otherwise hogging a scene, however.
Power Sources
Arcane and Divine characters have extra mechanics to worry about thanks to the nature of the campaign setting. In addition to these, note that all Guardians (Divine PCs) must be male outside of the Untouchable background.
- Arcane Corruption: For each Arcane power is used while within Mourclesis, there is a cumulative 5% chance that an additional encounter-appropriate monster will spawn based on the condition of the Dread Sea at the PCs' location. This roll will be conducted in secret. Furthermore, the current level of Arcane Corruption can only be determined by sacrificing an extra healing surge during a short rest. An extended rest resets Arcane Corruption back to zero.
- Touch of the Goddess: All Divine characters have the following uncurable disease for the entire life of their PC:
| Level 30 Disease | Touch of the Goddess |
| Maintain Only: Endurance DC 35 | |
| Initial Effect | +2 to saving throws versus domination, stun, and immobilization. |
| Worsened | Occurs automatically (no Endurance check) if a month is spent without intercourse with a Hand of the Goddess. Lose two healing surges. Touch of the Goddess does not progress to the final state until all healing surges have been lost in this way. Successful Endurance checks prevent further surges from being lost, but only temple visitation can restore the lost surges. Contact with a hierodule is also the only way to return to the Initial Effect. |
| Final State | Death, and the character can only be ressurected at the Goddess Tower, for triple the standard rate. The character is revived with all Daily attack powers expended, and may only recover a single Daily attack power per extended rest until they have spent two entire weeks in the Goddess Tower. |
Recall
The PCs receive this ability at level one. Any member of the party with the Ritual Caster feat can teleport themselves and up to nine others from any location to their airship. Recall has a casting time of 1 hour. At 21st level, the Epic Recall guild feature reduces this time to 15 minutes. Recall is technically not a Ritual, and its casting time cannot be altered by any other means.
Skill Use
This one is only a friendly warning: I will almost never call for a knowledge check or for a combat insight check. If you wish to use these skills in a given situation, be proactive!
