Wednesday, July 11, 2018

[Magic Item/Book] Tome of Higher Constellations

The Tome of Higher Constellations was created by an anonymous scholar in Prague, for the library of Rudolf II. The first half of the book consists of astronomical tables: meticulously compiled and corrected, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, the second half introduces more charts, graphs, from a wide range of sciences natural and occult. Through complex calculations these are cross-referenced with the heavenly constellations. Uncanny patterns, otherwise hidden, emerge… making it possible to trace and predict the finest shifts of the celestial spheres that command the fate of the whole universe. The final result is a single date in the future, when all factors align, and major, cosmic changes are possible. Actions undertaken on that day will bear major consequences: warlords bent on world domination crave to know this date, alchemists and magicians seek it as the date of their opus magnum or most complex ritual…

The catch: this prognosis is not descriptive. It’s prescriptive. Once a date is divined using the Tome of Higher Constellations, something world-changing is bound to happen. But the exact details are malleable. Anybody who knows the time can attempt some insane endeavor.

To peruse the Tome, one must have a strong academic or arcane background, and then spend 2d4 weeks working on the calculations in a library or laboratory.

After the period of study, a date in the future is predicted.


Dice type
Time unit
1
1d4
days
2
1d6
3
1d8
months
4
1d10
5
1d12
6
1d20
years

Roll two d6’s and consult the chart. The first d6 gives a dice type. The second d6 gives a time unit. A roll with the given type of dice defines the amount of time units.
Example: roll #1 is 3 = 1d8. Roll #2 is 5 = months. The 1d8 roll comes up as 6. This is combined as 6 months.
Repeat this process two more times, then sum up all the results to learn how far into the future will the grand constellation take place, counted from the FINAL day of work with the Tome.
Example: #1 = 6 months; #2 = 8 days; #3 = 12 years. The constellation will take place 12 years, 6 months and 8 days into the future.
If one time unit comes up more than once, just add them up as usual.
Example: #1 = 6 months; #2 = 13 months; #3 = 2 days. The constellation will take place 19 months and 2 days into the future.




Yeah... This is how I envision "epic level" games in LotFP, mwhahah...

No comments:

Post a Comment