The House of the Blue Lantern
Cauldron is home to several wizards and sorcerers of varying power and fame, as well as shops that deal in magical goods and items such as potions and alchemical items, but only one shop deals in the business of providing spell research and copies of existing spells: The House of the Blue Lantern.
The House also serves as the headquarters for a neutral order of wizards and sorcerers that use the shared resources of the House for personal research and as a headquarters in the often dangerous streets of Cauldron.
History:
Built a dozen years after the creation of an organized government in Cauldron, the House has long stood as a quiet, but steady supporter of the adventuring community. The House’s profits on the sale of spells and the occasional curative or cosmetic spellcasting has often been spent hiring adventuring parties to retrieve magical items or explore recently discovered ruins.
As a neutral organization, the House has avoided the power struggles of the city by staunchly avoiding interference with the workings or politics of the city, going so far as to avoid sending its members to prevent invasions or monster attacks on the city. The only interaction the House has with the rest of the city is its mercantile enterprises, and its support for a tradition of aiding the merchants of Cauldron by preventing magically-made goods from being passed off to merchants. Often, a gem or precious metals dealer will call upon the House to identify a large horde brought into the city by an adventurer, noble, or wealthy merchant.
Location:
The House is located near Skie’s Treasury, as Skie located her shop near the House to facilitate a mutual business arrangement with the House where she sends customers dealing in spellbooks to the House, and the House identifies powerful magic items for Skie.
The House itself is a well kept, two story building that features two prominent lanterns with blue glass that spill out their low baleful light across the street at night(treat the light level as candlelight). What is not commonly known is that the majority of the house is actually within the confines of a permanent Widened Mordenkainin’s Magnificent Mansion sustained by a Energy Transformation spell, and concealed with Non-detection and illusion spells. Consider all effects to be at caster level 20. Should the Mansion effect ever be dispelled, the entire location will explode from the pent up magical energies and experimental equipment contained inside (consider it a Widened and Empowered Meteor Swarm centered on the House’s physical location. The interior of the house is also under the effects of a permanent Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum.
The interior layout of the House fills 78 10’ cubes, for a total of a small front office, 40 small bedrooms, three master’s bedrooms, several workrooms, laboratories, libraries, and casting/summoning rooms. A Limited Wish tied into the Energy Transformation spell allows for extra-dimensional “stacking,” allowing other extra-dimensional items and effects to function normally within the House.
Cosmetically, the interior is everything one would expect for a location that has been home to hundreds of powerfully skilled and tragically or comically unskilled Wizards and Sorcerers. Expect permanent illusions, constructs, magical architecture, and several baffling and occult magical phenomena, as well as comfortable furniture and trappings, museum pieces from ancient civilizations, and differing styles and design philosophies.
Prominent NPCs:
The House of the Blue Lantern is home to 12 Wizards and Sorcerers of levels 1-8 who are aspiring students and teachers to the apprentices that come and go in Cauldron. At any time, there are 15-20 Commoners, Experts, or Aristocrats training at the house in the hopes of one day mastering magical powers. Assume that any Commoners training at the House are “scholarship students” who show exceptional potential for magic(casting stat of 16 or higher).
The House is nominally run by Delyth Ranthar, a 6th level Sorcerer/4nd level House of Blue Lantern Mage who is known for his scholarship of Cauldron’s occult past. He seldom speaks to anyone other than his fellow members of the House, but has been known to tutor particularly gifted Sorcerer students. He wears dark robes made from the finest fabrics, and is an intense man with white hair that appears to be in his forties. Should the PCs begin selling spells to the House that are not in the PHB, or begin selling around town Spellweaver, Kopru, Yuan-ti or other strange artifacts, Delyth will often ask the party for a personal audience. He might pay them to reveal details of unique magical locations or places with an occult past, possibly even going so far as to contract them to return to those locations to bring back samples or detailed maps.
Business:
The House sells common spells up to 7th level, but makes a practice of not selling Divination spells past level 3, Necromancy spells that deal with the creation of undead, Binding spells, or spells that have the potential to destroy or alter large sections of Cauldron (like Fireball or Control Weather).
The House will also pay full price or higher for copies of any spell not in the PHB, assuming that they don’t already have a copy of that spell, and half the scribing cost for any other spell. They will also pay for a demonstration of a rare or unusual metamagic feat or class ability (assume that they have seen the class abilities in the DMG). Spells and feats from “Secrets of Soul Pillars” would be one example of spells and feat that would interest them.
Hooks:
--After a particularly interesting haul of treasure, the House commissions the group to return to location to provide drawings, maps, and other archeological evidence. Other groups might also return, like Cagewrights looking to retake or conceal these locations (like the Soul Pillar, or the Starry Mirror), or Last Laugh goons looking to make a quick buck off of adventurers.
--A powerful former member of the House has been turned by a vampire, and now the House’s apprentices are being attacked in the streets. Defeat the master vampire, and possibly return the wayward Wizard to his humanity.
--A Succubus Illusionist has been accidentally summoned into the House and let free. Enter the house through the “back door,” and defeat the succubus without hurting the Charmed House mages.
--A team of House mage’s have been given the reins of command over several powerful monsters, and now they are secretly competing with the PCs to reach a magical prize.
--The Mayor of Cauldron hires the PCs to infiltrate the House and determine if the mages have any plans to break their legendary neutrality in the face of Cauldron’s recent woes.
--One of the PCs have been petrified or otherwise cursed, but they can’t pay the fees to cure their companion. The House sends them on a quest to retrieve components or capture a particular unintelligent monster.
PrCs and feats:
Disciple of the House of Blue Lantern (Regional Feat: Cauldron)
Requirements: Must study in the House of Blue Lantern for three months, must be able to cast 0th level spells.
Benefit: You are particularly adept at identifying magical forgeries. By casting Detect Magic, you can add +5 to rolls to Spellcraft rolls to determine that a material was created magically. Sorcerers add the spells Detect Magic, Identify, and Misdirection to their list of Spells Known. Wizards use these spells as if they had chosen them for a Spell Mastery feat.
House of the Blue Lantern Magic
Requirement: Must study in the House of the Blue Lantern for three months, Disciple of the House of the Blue Lantern feat, must be able to cast 1st level arcane spells.
Benefit: The caster gains one bonus spell slot up to the caster’s max spell level available that may be used as a Wizard slot(learn and prepare spells from a spellbook) or Sorcerer slot (cast spell spontaneously from spells known). Wizards casting spells as a Sorcerer(and visa versa) may cast any spell they have learned with a Spellcraft roll. Sorcerers using this ability are considered to be using a separate spell list, and they cannot mix these spells known with their normal Spells Known. The spell slot, once chosen at a particular level, cannot be later changed to a higher or lower level.
House of the Blue Lantern Mage
Due to House’s focus on blending the two forms of magic, they have found intersections between the two types of arcane magic.
HD: 1d4
Requirements:
Feats: Disciple of the House of the Blue Lantern, house of the Blue Lantern Magic
Skills: Knowledge(arcane) 9 ranks
Must cast be able to cast arcane spells of 3rd level or higher.
Skill list: Same as the Wizard list, plus Bluff. 4 per level.
BAB: as Wizard.
Saves: as wizard.
Caster progression and level: +1 per level of House of Blue Lantern Mage
Every two levels of House of Blue Lantern Mage allows the caster one bonus spell slot up to the caster’s max spell level available that may be used as a Wizard slot(learn and prepare spells from a spellbook) or Sorcerer slot (cast spell spontaneously from spells known). Wizards casting spells as a Sorcerer(and visa versa) may cast any spell they have learned with a Spellcraft roll. Sorcerers using this ability are considered to be using a separate spell list, and they cannot mix these spells known with their normal Spells Known.
This represents about 90 minutes of concepting and writing/editing.
If anyone wants more on this location/group, drop a note here.
Otherwise, I'll be doing another "mini-locale" in a few days.
Great Job
I'm looking at my Cauldron map right now to place it.
ah there it is the L-shaped building directly south an across the street from Skie's on the corner.
Keep it coming K. Good stuff.
hey K,
I've been adapting your idea to fit into my Cauldron. When I'm done I'll post it here to see if you like it.
I'm still waiting on your next "mini-locale"
peace
Here's another feat for you:
House of the Blue Lantern SCRIBE SCROLL (Regional Feat: Cauldron)
You are able to utilize the extraordinary laboratories at The House of the Blue Lanterns to streamline your scribing scroll skills.
Prerequisite: Must be a House of the Blue Lantern Mage prestige class, Caster level 7th, Scribe Scroll, 7 ranks in Spellcraft.
Benefit: When scribing a scroll utilizing the House of the Blue Lanterns laboratories, the expenses are reduced to 1/50 of this base price in XP and raw materials costing one-quarter of this base price.
Normal: To scribe a scroll, you must spend 1/25 of this base price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of this base price.
K, I like this idea a lot. My party just got into the Malachite Fortress so I really want to start fleshing out Cauldron now they are close to finishing Life's Bazaar. Plus, I have a new player joining today who'll be playing a wizard so I definitely want to add in your location.
Have you developed any new info? Instead of a new PrC, I think I might use the Mage of the Arcane Order PrC instead (or Guild Wizard from FR).
Great stuff!