Words of Power powered classes!
Introduction
Echoes of Magic, What is Spoken’s companion volume, Those Who Listen, presents us with the complementary info for the better use of the Words of Power 2.0 system. Anything interesting? Read on!
NOTE: You will need this book’s companion volume to get the most of it.
What’s inside?: 50 pages of content (not counting covers, legal info etc.) which include:
-13 Class Options: The amanuensis is an alternate, akashic version of the protean scribe, and it focuses on writing magical runes, to the point that their veils are made of them, and get a unique, umami weakness to the erase spell! They can shape veils from a small selection of title, brand and shatter-able veils. A very unique, intriguing class! Archymist is an akashic/spheres of might archetype for the alchemist, and it changes A LOT of the class, gaining limited veilweaving and essence plus adept spheres, focusing obviously on the alchemy sphere but enhancing it with akashic power. Interesting if extensive hack of the original, retaining basically just the discoveries.
Binary is a zodiac orbit that lets you chose you 3 (later more, up to 6) constellations from any cosmology, also using the dedicated champion alternate rules and the Dual Hemisphere feat, letting them focus on one champion only. They also get very limited veilweaving, having access to all veils with the title and shatter descriptors. They also get access to akashic treasures, and get the unique ability to adorn their manifestations with them. An interesting orbit for starcallers! Innominandum is a new, twisted philosophy for gurus, and is nasty: sickening casters midcasting, make targets of your stunning fist mad (not angry, as they lose wisdom or sanity if you use that class), corrupting essence, using your presence to increase Concentration DC and making enemies pay when they fail, dispelling boof spells or veils, infecting opponents with minor and major spellblights… A “fun” enemy that players will love to hate (probably).
Magian is a wizard archetype specializing in the Word of Power system. They dabble in veilweaving, getting access to very few veils with the shatter descriptor, but not gaining essence; instead, they use their spell slots to temporary treat a veil as invested, and they can basically specialize in different schools each day! (wait, they don’t get all abilities but do get some plus a title veil), they even get an akashic, kind of evolving familiar. All in all a great way to experience the reworked WoP system! Miserere are WoP “paladins” that lose some combat ability and devote their life to one of the opposite 4 alignments, gaining some veilweaving in the process and MANY unique class features. Another almost-variant hack of a class. Mystic Dilettante is an veilshaping occultist archetype, one that uses the spell weaver engine for casting, meaning you break your veils to cast your spells.
Outer Deist are veilweaving summoners that exchange their casting for promethean-veil list veilweaving, Summon Horror spells for their normal Summon Monster ones, and get some nasty abilities that transform them from normal summoners to Lovecraftian ones. COOL! Prydyn are bloodragers that exchange A LOT (including spellcasting and bloodrage) to be able to veilshape a little from the daevic veil list, plus brand and shatter veils, AND some WoP stuff. A runic monster of a class with some impressive visual cues!
Runeblades are WoP magus (vanilla or legendary) and like other archetypes herein, get some minor essenceless veilweaving empowered by spell slots. This archetype is also supported by new magus arcana and for the legendary version, a couple of new tomes. Solfege is an archetype for the bard that grants them WoP + veilweaving, choosing their own veil list limited to voice, brand, emotion title and shatter veils. They don’t get spell slots though, requiring the shattering of their veils to cast their words of power! A nice deviation of the spellweaver’s engine!
Tenebrosum are another class that plays with the toys of the promethean, changing some class features for eldritch abilities. A smaller hack than oter archetypes but one that packs a lot of flavor. Venator is another WoP/veilweaving, veilshattering caster, in exchange for most of the normal class features. These guys feel again like a variant class than a simple archetype.
-2 Prestige Classes: Ardents mix veilweaving with bardic inspiration/skald ragesong. Since they focus on emotions, they decide each day which emotion to focus on, gaining the Daevic Aspect veil and adding all the passion’s veils temporarily to their veil list. Their unique schtick is sharing that Daevic Aspect via their bardic inspiration! A very interesting, emotion-focused PrC! Unbound are veilweaver that leave some of their veils unshaped, giving them unrivalled flexibility with the already flexible veilweaving!
-5 races: While not really new ones, we find alternate racial features for 4. We find the Akashic changeling Cailleach who get a brand veil, the akashic Mycoi Gathlain who gains some variant abilities and can shape a veil from the Mycomancer’s Cluster veil set, the Sigilium who is an akasha-empowered arcane human, and the Rune Giant Scion who is a half giant with a penchant for shatter veils. Finally, the new Vira-Lorr race are three-eyed planetouched with ties to the astral plane and whose third eye functions as a fleshwarp version of the Eye of the Oracle veil (or a few other “eyes” one). A very somber race that remind me of those cyclops that gave their eye in exchange for glimpses of the future!
-8 Feats: All of these have the akashic subtype, being directed at akashic characters, and all but one are heritage ones, meaning that they are exclusive to specific akashic races; for example, Eyes of the Seer lets the new astral guys to treat thei eye veil as bound. Runic Arsenal is the odd one out, giving you a limited ability to enhance shatter-able veils.
Of Note: The amount of player options is staggering, with many unusual, novel hacks of many tried and true classes. I particularly enjoyed the new guru philosophy and the eldritch summoner.
Anything wrong?: Sometimes less is more. The fact is that most archetypes change so much of the base class that they feel like a new class completely, which may alienate some more traditional players, while barring many archetype combos that would work great.
What I want: I would like to see a martial arts class (monk or similar) with sutra empowered WoP special techniques!
What cool things did this inspire?: NPCs! With toys like these, people who enjoy character building will have a field day with this book.
Do I recommend it?: Well, I recommend this book fully to players with access to the companion volume, since this book uses WoP a lot! That said, the complexity of the class hacks may scare away some players. So, this book gets 4 akashic stars from me, with a 1 star going up or down depending on your disposition to use variant rules.
You can find this book HERE