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I am currently GMing a group that is paying Alkenstar a visit. I tried to find material and info on this area, but it seems that it is a rather undocumented territory.
So I thought I'd share the things I came up with for the area.
Maybe some of you would like to share your descriptions of the Manawastes and Alkenstar as well :)
Of course you are equally welcome to give feedback on my stuff ^^
After googling for images of the Manawaste I could use, I stumbled upon this image: Mana Wastes
And even though it is actually from a computer game I liked the look with the crystals and such so I used that as my base.
Then I remembered an old article about blight burn here on the Paizo, which is basically a radioactive material that prevents teleporting (and is usually found in the Underdark). And guess what, it is also green an glowing.
It was a perfect fit. If it prevented teleport spells it could surely also disturb other magic. In the Underdark it is only sprinkled around in smaller amounts, but here in the Manawastes its everywhere. Huge pillars of blight burn litter the area and destroy the fabric of magic.
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So in my setting Alkenstar, in the center of the Manawastes, is not only magic dead, it is deadly to magic. Items brought to the city lose their power over time till they become non-magical items. Spellcasters staying a long time in the city lose their ability to cast even after leaving. They have to regenerate their magic abilities over the course of days, weeks or even months (depending how long they stayed there).
The mountains the city is built into contain huge amounts of those crystals which is why the city is absolutely cut off from magic.
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The area between Alkenstar and the outer rim is magic suppressing. The closer you get to Alkenstar the lower your casterlevel gets (and the more crystals litter the area). So you can cast, but you are much weaker. I did this so the spellcasters in our group could still use their abilities and do not feel totally useless. The reduction in casterlevel does not prevent you from casting high level spells however. This means it is possible to shoot a 1d6 fireball if you get reduced to caster level 1. The magic is simply absorbed/destroyed as soon as you manifest it. The most dangerous thing here is the Sandkraken.
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The outer rim of the Manawastes is a Wild Magic Zone and inhabited by aberrations, elementals and mutated versions of the animals living here before Geb and Nex hit it with their magic fallout. Most creatures with magic abilities avoid the weak magic zone as it suppresses their supernatural abilities as much as it suppresses spellcasting. Instead they inhabit the zones that are to their liking. Due to the Wild Magic some areas enhance fire magic for example, which means fire elementals gather there. Same goes for other creatures.
In Alkenstar there are of course a lot of guns. They hold the monopoly on the black powder technology and ask horrendous prices for weapons and ammunition that is sold outside. Every person that wants to make their own black powder needs a license to do so. You can get licenses for a single gun, a canon, a whole ship or even a whole city. Alkenstar employs a large network of assassins that kills everyone trying to make black powder on their own without a license or that breaks his non-disclosure agreement. As such they have managed to keep the guns in the world under control so far. Only few people use handguns. Canons (especially for ships) are more common.
Also found in Alkenstar are the Automatons (non-magical Golems basically). They are not as intelligent as their magical cousins and can do only the simplest of jobs. They use blight burn crystals as energy source (or fire/steam).
All this has to have some effects on the world and most emerged automatically as I was thinking about the setting.
Vaults for magic items: Since visitors surely don’t want to risk getting their precious magic items destroyed, crafty merchants built vaults near the main travel routes where they can store those items. For a lot of money of course.
Taking the train: To make it easier for Alkenstar to trade with the outside world, they built train tracks and a huge armored train. Of course riding the train is expensive and attacks are common, but it is still the safest way to get to Alkenstar. The tracks are currently built through Nex towards Katapesh to make trade even easier and faster.
The Pathfinder Society: The PFS has discovered the magic destroying effects of Alkenstar for themselves. They use the caves beneath the city to store dangerous artifacts that could not be destroyed otherwise. Centuries of highly concentrated blight burn radiation can crack the magic on even the toughest magic relics.
The Gnolls: From what I read about Katapesh there are many clans of Gnolls there that claim this area for themselves. I gathered I’d let them be active in this area too. And they are the only ones that work with blight burn as a magic catalyst (meaning the magic items the create contain blight burn crystals as focus). The main effects they can create are spell turning, spell reflecting and spell immunity enchantments.
Katapesh: I made Katapesh the main distributor of wares from Alkenstar. Thus the gun ratio there is higher than in the rest of the world, since they sit directly at the source.
Not bad. Though, one thing you might remember... at least the way I understand it... SOMETIMES magic DOES work in the Mana Wastes... there are storms of raw primal (wild) magic that ravage the land. I actually once asked on the Ask James Jacobs thread what he thought of making a primalist archetyped wizard from the Mana Wastes, and he thought it was a cool idea.
Overall though, I like your write-up, I'm a big fan of the mana wastes myself, and I can't wait until we get more information!
Thanks you ^^
I like the idea with the storms :3
From time to time a storm could enter deeper into the manawastes, emerging from the outer wild magic rim ^^
The Inner Sea World Guide has some info, as does Inner Sea Magic and Inner Sea Bestiary. AGZ is right about magic canonically working sometimes though!
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Remember that blightburn, in addition to disrupting certain spells, is also very radioactive and can cause radiation poisoning (also usually called blightburn) to those in proximity.
If you want to play that up, it'd easily explain all the terrible mutations in the Wastes. But it'd also make Alkenstar potentially quite unpleasant.
Anything that broke the crystals could release a wave of raw energy, with the passage of sand krakens or rockslides kicking up storms like that.
I think reducing the caster level is a good compromise to prevent people from feeling too useless. Alternately, you could have them make a Will save (DC based on the number of crystals nearby) to control the spell.
Otherwise it carries the blightburn's energy, jumping to a nearby target at random (even if the range would normally be personal). Anyone who fails their save against the effect (including not saving against a "harmless" effect) is exposed to radiation and may develop blightburn (the disease).
For Will saves failed by large amounts (rolling a 1 or 20 under the DC), the blightburn's energy also infuses the spell with effects as a metamagic feat (often Widen Spell, when appropriate). This also exposes the caster to blightburn.
Certain casters in the Mana Wastes intentionally fail these saves, particularly gnoll shamans of Lamashtu. Rumors speak of stranger creatures that feed on the blightburn's energy while using it to power their spells.
Cheers!
Landon
The Inner Sea World Guide has some info, as does Inner Sea Magic and Inner Sea Bestiary. AGZ is right about magic canonically working sometimes though!
I only have the core books (what you can find in the PRD). No adventure paths or guides. Are these available for free?
Remember that blightburn, in addition to disrupting certain spells, is also very radioactive and can cause radiation poisoning (also usually called blightburn) to those in proximity.
I know. That is why no one but the Gnolls experiment with it. They are not that picky about early deaths than the civilized people.
And the caves beneath Alkenstar have been sealed so that not too much radiation leaks out. They use Automatons to bring the relics in and out of the caves. Also an interesting idea with the crystals breaking being the source of the manastorms.
We already have a system in place for spellfailure. We use the critical failure cards (they have options for spells fizzling too ^^).
And I have established that blight burn is dangerous and people don't go near it, so I don't see how you could infect yourself with a failed spell (unless you mean it is in the air as dust).
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We already have a system in place for spellfailure. We use the critical failure cards (they have options for spells fizzling too ^^).
I'm not familiar with them, but you could probably integrate them. "Let the spell fizzle or draw a card" or just "draw a card" depending on how bad they are.
And I have established that blight burn is dangerous and people don't go near it, so I don't see how you could infect yourself with a failed spell (unless you mean it is in the air as dust).
It depends how you think of magic and how blightburn is interacting with it, I suppose. I see the first step of most spells as drawing in power from the outside, whether it's from the environment (arcane) or an outside source (divine).
The thought is that you're getting a bunch of radiation along with the energy you're pulling in, like taking a deep breath if it were powdered in the air. It makes a lot of sense to me, but it depends on a lot of assumptions about magical "physics" that aren't explicitly described anywhere.
Cheers!
Landon
We already have a system in place for spellfailure. We use the critical failure cards (they have options for spells fizzling too ^^).I'm not familiar with them, but you could probably integrate them. "Let the spell fizzle or draw a card" or just "draw a card" depending on how bad they are.
The cards can have pretty bad effects, but on occasion even good ones.
It depends how you think of magic and how blightburn is interacting with it, I suppose.
The way I was handling it is that the radiation destroys the magical grid all casters use to cast their spells.
So in a way, it is like the overhead grid of bumper cars. ^^
Cool I like the idea of Alkenstar having random chaotic magic. Some places boosting magic while others are wild and or potentially lethal to people casting spells.
You could see magic using creatures/NPCs wanting to fortify or hold areas that boost magic.
To combat that I would make the majority of magic boosting/wild/dead areas move with the storms.
As well as the magic leaching crystals, alchemicaly polluted environments, "unexploded" magic weapons of mass destruction, and forgotten terrors of war..... You could do a haunted first world war trench system.
Actually in my story there are a bunch of wizard that use the wild magic zone to create magic items. When they go by train through the different zones they wait till they are in the right zone and then quickly create whatever it is they are working on.
And yes. The zones are constantly changing. Even the landscape changes in these areas requiring the tracks to be repaired/straightened out weekly.
And I don't think any of my players frequents these boards but just to be sure I put the following part in spoilers tags.
This Friday is an event I have been planning for over half a year. They will enter one of Nex' flesh forges which the big bad's underling uses to make one gigantic monster (Basically a 20HD Eidolon with 30 Evolution points), too strong to fight themselves.
If everything goes as planned (which it won't :P) they will be able to create a 2nd monster to fight the first one. And then there is a duel to the death... Gozilla Stlye!
I sure hope they figure this out and don't try to fight it themselves... they are all level 7 and below <.<
Hey Karuth!
Been reading up as much as I could find on Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes (How little there is), and so far of the ideas, yours seems to be the most interesting. That and another post I read about a campaign idea of the Wastes growing..
Anyways, while the Blightburn idea is interesting, I also do believe it is a bit.. harsh, considering that even a single vein of Blightburn counts as a CR 7 hazard. While it could be relatively commonplace outside of Alkenstar without being much of an issue, having it anywhere near the city in any quantity would be extremely dangerous to the point of it being nearly impossible to see how they could've settled there, let alone survive.
Therefore I don't think it could work well as a power source.. even if sealed, it would make radiation burn far far too common in the city. Without a way to really heal that sort of radiation sickness, they wouldn't be able to really survive like that.
Plus, what info we do have states that the mountains where they're at is rich in resources - if its rich in Blightburn as well, it would make mining extremely dangerous. Even dwarves can't survive that very well.
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The reason I'm adding my own comments is because I'm hoping to start a campaign in this setting in the future, once I finish up Dming a Skull and Shackles campaign. My players will start here, likely as recruits to the Alkenstar Militia (A training offshoot of the Shieldmarshals).
I really like the idea of magic items slowly losing power while they're here - If the players leave the Mana Wastes and return with magic items, they'll find that their efforts will have been wasted, as each passing day the item has a chance to lose a portion of its power permanently, until its nothing but a masterwork weapon (or item).
As for spellcasters.. I have a different idea than them losing their power. Instead, all spellcasters (Divine included), have a certain spell failure chance, to be decided later. I'm thinking roughly around 40%. This stacks with other spell-failure chances from other sources. In addition, every time they cast a spell - whether or not it succeeds - they must make a will save or be affected by a Spellblight, either Minor or Major, depending on the level of spell cast. This means that spellcasters would retain their full caster level - but would suffer harsh penalties for attempting to brave the chaotic magic of the Wastes. I may also have them be affected by some sort of Wild Magic too.. not sure yet.
Supernatural abilities, however, work fine - as Spellblights don't affect those using those kinds of abilities. Therefore, one class will become somewhat vital in replacing spellcasters - The Alchemist. They describe Alkenstar as considering Alchemy (As well as engineering and metallurgy) important, so this works out perfectly, allowing the alchemist to act as the group's spellcaster where others would fail. Potions would likely be an exception to the above rule of magic items slowly losing their power - At least, potions made by an Alchemist.
Other (Su) abilities would work too, such as Channel Energy, Most Bardic Performances, etc, but due to the almost guaranteed uselessness of spellcasting from those classes, those classes would be a bit gimped in favor of alchemists and martial classes.
Now, about firearms. I would say these would be a large role in the campaign, as they are the dominant weapon of the people of Alkenstar. While I wouldn't go as far as saying they're simple weapons, I do believe they should be downgraded to Martial Weapons for natives of Alkenstar, as well as having the associated 75% discount according to the Ultimate Combat Book. Advanced firearms would be for sale, but for the full price, and would essentially take the place of magic weapons.
What do you think?
Plus, what info we do have states that the mountains where they're at is rich in resources - if its rich in Blightburn as well, it would make mining extremely dangerous. Even dwarves can't survive that very well.
The description of Dogun's Hold in The Inner Sea Guide says that that area is rich in resources. Several types of metal (including Gold) and lots of gemstones (mostly semi-precious, like quartz).
Aye, I did remember reading that. I just think that having a ton of Blightburn there would make it much more difficult to mine..
Thanks for you reply Crustypeanut :)
Just as Gold and other Minerals are found in veins, Blightburn also comes in veins. So you need to use constructs in the area's with blight burn and can you work normally in areas without.
And the constructs have lead shielding to block radiation (Lead is used to shield from magic too, so I would think that it is the first thing they'd try when encountering that substance).
Also, I think the CR7 stems from the fact that you usually do not know about the danger and run into it blindly. I made them fairly obvious and easily avoidable (Only 3 saves were rolled and only 1 was failed, during the whole campaign in and around Alkenstar).
Also in the underdark you usually move in tunnels and thus often can't avoid it. Here you are in open area and just go around any blight burn you run into.
Additionally, all the blight burn near or in the city has long been harvested/removed. The only veins left are deeper into the mountain.
And I like the idea that Alchemy is more prominent (and in fact) possible in Alkenstar.
Also I forgot. The event happened and I am glad to announce they got my hints. They even thought of using the Maw of Rovagug to shoot the beast (although it worked without that).
However they did surprise me in their choice of creature. I had a Rhino type creature without ranged attacks. I was sure they'd go for a ranged attacking flyer. Instead they went for unicorn charger. Basically a one hit pony. Once the charge was successful the horn breaks off and triggers a self destruct.
So yeah. We had a colossal rhinoceros and a colossal unicorn, both specialized on running head first into things, do a head on collision with an explosion afterward (I'd love to see that in a movie XD)
Went rather smoothly. One Gunslinger even rode the unicorn horn while it was charging (someone had to control it) then jumped over the rhino using the body as a shield from the explosion. I awarded 2 grit points for that ;3
Glad to say it was a nice evening. They also went crazy with my "loot". A mutation chamber, a magic weapon chamber and a magic forge.
We have 2 winged characters now, One 4 armed human (he attached two golem arms) who can now go from Two Weapon Fighting to Multiweapon Fighting, one Familiar (caterpillar) was turned into a fire-breathing mount and the monk found the transformative Amulet of Mighty fists mighty useful (this idea stems from a thread on this messageboard I found totally awesome XD).