Headcannon: Placing Eberron in My Universe

Headcannon: Placing Eberron In My Universe

Eberron has been my favorite setting for a long, long time, ever since I fell in love with Xendrik playing Dungeons and Dragons Online many years ago.  The more I looked into the lore of the place, the more I liked how it was put together.  Lately, though, I’ve been playing the more science fiction Starfinder. I’ve wanted to place Eberron somewhere in the universe I am playing in for the players to stumble across.

For the longest time, I wasn’t sure how to go about it, but after Keith Baker’s blog post on reaching the stars from Eberron, the ideas started forming. My ideas approach it from the outside-in rather than the inside-out.  Seeing as I have not-a-single-thing to do with Wizards, all of this is just my headcanon for how Eberron fits in a larger universe.  With that said, I am going to try to present it all without contradicting the established lore.

So, the first question:

Where is Eberron?

It’s already established that Eberron is a material plane of just that one solar system, with one planet, one sun, and 12 moons. If I am going to both keep that intact and also add it to another universe that has its own already established material plane with tons of planets and solar systems, then they have to be separated somehow. My solution for this is to take a page from the Oathbound setting.

Oathbound is another realm separated from the rest of the universe because it was specifically designed to trap and hold a deity.

The Eberron system is removed from the normal material universe because it’s progenitors were building a separate material universe for themselves. We all know what went down between them, but after that, what had been a joint project between 3 gods became a prison for the “survivors” despite that not being the place’s original intention. As the Realm of the Forge in Oathbound, the Eberron material plane is a god-trap.

So, basically, it’s nowhere.

How do you reach Eberron?

It is impossible to reach Eberron from the normal material plane. Reaching it requires using a starship’s plane-shifting engine during a coterminous event at a location that has a star pattern matching at least one of Eberron’s constellations. The reason this works is that the “Drift” engines in Starfinder pull a bit of the universe into the “drift,” Starfinder’s Hyperspace. A coterminous event is already pulling part of the universe into another, though.   So using the engine during one reverses the process, pulling something into the material universe, at least for the duration of the coterminous event.

By doing that at an alignment of stars that match the pattern of Eberron’s boundary stars, it pulls one of those boundary markers from Eberron into the normal material universe. The starship performing this maneuver can then board the boundary marker and be pulled into Ebberon’s space when the event ends and the boundary star returns.

Note that the “Boundary Stars” of Eberron aren’t suns like stars in the normal material universe are. They are unknown objects that mark the limits of Eberron’s material universe. The ritual I made up and detailed above simply uses one of them as a sort of ferry.

What are the Boundary Stars?

The Frontier from the movie
The Last Starfighter

Each Boundary Star exists both in its spot in the Eberron universe and also in a place outside/between all universes. It draws power from The-Place-Between. Together they delineate the boundaries of the material universe of Eberron inside that place between universes. Each is basically an automated space station though, a techno-arcane marvel made by the hands of 3 gods, the ones whose bodies now liter this material realm. If someone could access them from the Eberron side, they could use them to transfer out of the Eberron realm into the normal material universe nearly at will. Each is massive and could house numerous starships docked internally. They are covered in draconic runes that change and shift as the remains of the three progenitor dragons tumble around the space. Since no one has ever been to see them, no one knows what they say.

The stations not only act as boundary markers but as mentioned before, they draw power from the place between universes. Not just to power themselves, but they act like lenses, focusing that power into the center of the plane. The power itself comes from the energy released when a universe collapses and returns to the between state. 

Arrah, the Sun

The point where each Star-station focuses that power is Arrah, Eberron’s sun. Each station is programmed to reduce the output of its power transmission when anything lies between it and its focal point, the sun. That prevents any of the star stations from burning Eberron’s surface to ash and is why the stars are dim on the night side. Meanwhile, on the dayside, the focal point is so bright, you cannot make out the star stations themselves, only the focal point, the Sun.

Arrah is formed by the focal point of all the stars in Eberron’s sky, focusing together on its location. They focus power transmitted from the place between universes, which comes from the energy released from collapsing universes. It is essentially the burning ashes of dead universes. Fire is fire though, and can provide warmth or destruction regardless of its source. That process results in an extremely stable sun that can nevertheless dim and brighten depending on the number of things intervening between it and the star stations creating it.

The Planes

Since Eberron’s entire cosmology was formed artificially by the progenitor dragons but was essentially unfinished, it evolved from its original state to where it is now. The planes surrounding Eberron’s material plane form a framework out of tension and counter-tension between planar forces, which help prevent it from collapsing on its own. The planes each pull certain dominant forces into themselves and collect them together. That not only determines what they are made up of, but it creates a vacuum that leaves certain other planes devoid of those things. Irian and Mabar are classic examples of this. One formed from the light of Arrah, the other from the vacuum of its absence.

Of course, the Astral, Ethereal, and Shadow planes have a different nature entirely. They are essentially the framework that holds the cosmology both together and apart. However, even the Ethereal and Shadow planes exhibit the same opposing tension between them.

Now each plane was also constructed by one of the progenitor dragons and reflects that origin. However, they originally never were meant to be any more than the paints used to create the material universe. Each filled with its own colors. The progenitors fell to their fates before that could ever be realized. Instead, each has evolved in the ages since the progenitors fell into what it is today.

The Moons

That brings us to the nature of the moons. Like everything else in the Eberron system, they are not normal moons. Have you ever played with colored lights? Shining them onto the same space changes the colors you see. The moons of Eberron have a relationship to the planes like the lenses projecting the colored lights. Only the place they project them is onto Eberron. This combination of projected forces is why Eberron’s dominant planar influences are constantly shifting. Why conterminous events occur. It might take centuries of study to understand how they work fully, but they are responsible for why Eberron sustains life despite otherwise just being a dead husk.

The Sybaris Ring

The rings formed from Sybaris’ body are not merely the source of magic in 

Eberron. If the moons are lenses projecting planar energies from the planes, the rings act sort of like a graphics engine combining the projected images smoothly into the orderly pattern familiar to the mortals of Eberron. That prevents harsh projections from the moons from causing drastic and unpredictable changes to the world as they orbit. That is the vestiges of Sybaris’s will and care for the Eberron system it was making with its fellows. The magic produced by the ring is a byproduct of this process.

The residents of the rings are sentient living spells that have formed entire civilizations. If there are other residents, they are either very well hidden or long dead. That strange civilization is a post for another time, though.

What is Eberron like now?

Eberron itself and Khyber beneath it will have changed in the centuries between the last war and any scifi setting it became part of. Here in my headcanon, to make life easier for me, all the major political powers are still in place. What has changed, is that after the space race Keith described in his blog, the residents of this small system began learning more about their home. 

Eventually, through a journey of innumerable conflicts, and the guidance of the Gatekeeper druidic circle, most of the planes of Eberron are part of a shaky multidimensional alliance trying to figure out a way to escape the confines of the prison the progenitors made. This coalition is lead by a strange alliance between the Pit Fiends of Shavrath and House Deneith. Their primary competitors for power is a tense partnership between The Twelve, Houses Cannith and Orien, and the Quori of Dal Quor. Droaam is working directly with the Gatekeepers and Houses Kundarak and Ghallanda to help secure the whole of the planet against the forces that refused to join this alliance. 

Belashyrra, The Delkyr Lord of Eyes

The opposition has four major components.  The forces of Mabar whose hatred for life seeks to consume everything. The Delkyr of Xoriat have never relinquished their goal to remake the world in their image. Khyber and its Overlords who still seek to dominate everything and are unwilling to let any of Eberron’s residents slip through their grasp. Surprisingly the fourth is Daanvi who believes escaping the delineated boundaries of Eberron’s universe would constitute a violation of the whole of the natural order. 

That’s what I have for now. I still have a lot of holes to fill in and questions to answer. If you were considering using this, what questions would you want me to answer next?

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The Modular Design of Starfinder's Summon Creature Spell

The Modular Design of Starfinder's Summon Creature Spell

Summoning pets is one of my favorite things, whether as a GM or as a player. As a player, you get a chance to play with all kinds of toys from the monster manual that would normally never be on your side of a conflict. As a GM, it gives me a reason to have monsters appear from unexpected places to alter the dynamic on the battlefield. In both cases, they can act as force multipliers that enhance the effects of many abilities.

Note: when I say "summoner" I mean any character focused on summoning, not any specific class or build.

I've played a lot of RPGs, and, in my opinion, the two best versions of summoning spells are 5th edition's and Starfinder's, for very different reasons. Like everything in the 5th edition, their summon spells are easy to use and straightforward. You pick one of the options from the book, look it up and use it as is, no templates needed.

Starfinder's is more elegant, in my opinion, but overall more complex. You take the base elemental stat blocks and apply the appropriate summon "graft" (template by another name) to that stat block, which turns it into the monster you want to summon. The base stat block for each level of the summon spell is the same; the only thing that changes is which summon graft you apply to the stat block.

The thing I love about that design is that Starfinder reuses the concept in several other places. Rather than trying to design thousands of new animals for every world you might visit, they came up with a set of "herd animal" stat blocks, and a set of "Predator animal" stat blocks. You merely need to apply an "environment" graft to the stat block, and suddenly, you have a brand new animal for that new world you just discovered. Give it a description unique to itself, and you are ready to rock out with a new animal.

What does that have to do with the summon creature spell? Well, the intrepid homebrewer has the opportunity to re-flavor a summoner by switching out the elemental stat blocks they were using for their summon spells, and replace them with the herd or predator animal stat blocks. The CR of each level of the spell is relatively close, but not exact, but it still works out pretty well, especially if you are more interested in new flavors than you are in more power.

Let's compare the CR levels between each set of blocks: 

Summon Creature Spell Level	Elemental CRs (size)	Herd Animal CRs (size)	Predator Animal CRs (size)
1	1/3 (tiny)	1/3 (small)	1/3 (small)
2	1 (small)	1/2 (medium)	1 (medium)
3	3 (medium)	2 (large)	2 swarm
4	5 (large)	4 (Huge)	4 (large)
5	7 (huge)	6 (Gargantuan)	7 (huge)
6	11 (huge)	8 (Colossal	10 (gargantuan)

As you can see, the herd and predator animals may get larger sizes faster, or in once case, even get swarms, but they are universally at lower CRs. To help make up for this, you would still add the environmental graft, then also add the summoning graft for the type of monster you want to those stat blocks. And possibly, add a simple alignment graft on top of that.

Why would you do this? It creates the opportunity to make summoners flavored to summon creatures from their homeworlds. Imagine a summoner summoning a "large inevitable wildebeest" with an arc cannon on it's back! Or another summoner is pulling out the glowing shadow jaguar that haunts the jungles of his home. Or simply to flavor a summoner in a way that fits them just right, like a Dromada "Herd" summoner who only summoned herd animals. 

It adds a ton of flavor you as the GM, or your players can use to flesh out their summoners. And the best part is, the last component of Starfinder's summon creature spell is that you pick four creatures from each spell level to summon, so you don't need to worry about option overload in your summoner's at the table, in-game. The player makes these choices before you get to the game!

If you really want to mix things up, you could go so far as to let a player use the CR appropriate stat-line of the NPC maker, and have them apply a whole different set of grafts to them as their summons. You could help a player build an Eoxian necromancer, by letting them use appropriate undead grafts in place of normal summons. You could let a player summon dragons by letting them apply the various dragon grafts to the appropriate stat block instead of a summon graft. Or Mephits, or…  well, I think you get the picture.

All of that leads me to the next interesting thing you can do: use specific summoning combinations as rewards. If you have a summoner in your party, you can have them find the journal of a long-dead conjurer, who discovered a method to summon the "strange beasts of the plains of the world of  Egilothorian." If they read it, they could add the specific combination of stat block and graft(s) that you have put together to their list of known summons. For the summoning enthusiast, this could be just the thing to excite them. (As a side note, you can also use this idea with Polymorph forms as rewards)

Now, some links before I move on, to help you all look into this yourselves and decide if you want it in your universe:

• Summon Creature 
• Elemental Stat Blocks 
• Herd Beast Stat Blocks
• Predator Animal Stat Blocks
• Summon, Environment, Simple Grafts, and Other types
• Elemental Grafts if you summon the actual elementals

Some Further Advice on Summoners

So that's all fine and dandy, but I feel like I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't include some advice for avoiding the bog-down that summoners can bring to a game. It's one of the most common complaints against summoners and has gotten them banned from many a game. Since it's one of my favorite things to play with, I'd like to offer some advice to help players avoid the pitfalls. I've come up with a series of rules that, if followed, should keep your table happy with you!

1        Use lots of dice, and color code them to different purposes.

This one comes from my experience in large scale tabletop wargaming. When you have 100 models on the table that you need to move and fight with, you find ways to optimize the process to take as little time as possible. One of the most important things you can do is roll as many of the dice as possible at the same time. Until you go through it, you may not believe how much time this can save you.

Have one dice set for yourself, and have another dice set for every monster you have on the field. Roll the d20s to attack and other dice for damage, for yourself, and all your summons at the same time. Since they are different sets for different creatures, you already know which damage dice applies to which d20 roll.

Fortunately, as a gamer, you were already working on a dice addiction, now you have the justification you need to indulge it!

2        During everyone else's turn, prepare for your next one. Never spend any time during your own turn trying to decide what to do.

Seriously, you have 5+ monsters on the field; you need to find and pick up all the dice you are going to roll for them and decide what each of their targets are. As people take their turns and the battlefield adjusts, adjust your plans. Know which enemy is each of your monster's target, or which ally each will support. The more you plan during their turns, the less time your own will take.

3        Your summoned creatures are disposable. Treat them like they are.

Seriously, if they die, you can just summon more until you run out of spells, summon grenades, spell gems, and spell chips. Your creatures can eat up enemy attacks of opportunities freeing your companions to out-maneuver the enemy safely. They can move into dangerous flanking positions helping your allies land blows without putting themselves in excessive danger. They can tank overwatch attacks since you don't need to heal them. They can scout possibly trapped areas. Think of them as independent pools of HP that can soak up the enemy's attempts to hurt you and your friends' pools of HP.

4        Be able to communicate with anything you can summon.

If you don't know it's language, all your summon can do is attack the closest enemy. If you do know it's language, it can do pretty much anything you tell it to do. That makes even your first level summons useful well into the later levels. After all, you can summon a low-level robot to reload your allies' weapons or inject their serums into them, so they don't have to spend actions doing it themselves.

5        Use your summons to support your party, not to flood the battlefield with bodies.

Have you ever watched a trained tactical squad moving through a warzone taking out their enemy? Your summons should be part of that tactical squad, not competing with it. I'll mention again eating enemy attacks of opportunity, and moving into dangerous flanking positions. Those are both things you can do to support your party while still being committed to an all-out attack. You don't even need to choose between both support and offense. Do both. 

If you DO ever have to choose, choose support every time. The reason is, the summons you can get will always be inferior, offensively, to any of your party members. So if you choose offense over support, you are deciding to try for an inferior attack, at the expense of a superior one. But if you do things to boost the likelihood of your companions succeeding in their attack, you are maximizing the damage output of the party. I can't stress this enough.

The other thing it does is alleviate a lot of the annoyance that may build up over the longer turns you have due to the extra creatures under your control. No one ever hates support. Your party will know that their turn will be more successful because of the extra time you took and that always feels good. It's a form of passive diplomacy. Still, try to minimize the time you spend on your turn.

6        Prioritize speed over perfection. Your turns don't have to be perfect. You have more bodies to throw at the problem, so your margin of error is larger.

You want to play with your friends. To do that, they have to feel like everything is fair. For everything to be fair, you can't have most of the time spend centered on you. Do you best to make sure you don't take up more time than you have to, because it is easy to fall into the trap of taking up ALL the time, and that will kill your game.

If you can follow these rules, you should be able to play a summoner without tripping into any of the pitfalls. If you can't, consider carefully if playing a summoner is really the right fit for you. Especially you perfectionists who take a long time to decide what to do on your turns.

That's it for now. I hope it's useful and entertaining for all of you.

By the way, if you want to read more random things on the subject of summoning, check out these other authors: 

Owen KC Stephen's take on summoning in the GammaFinder and FreedomFinder settings for Starfinder.

One of Owen's homebrew relics, focused on summoning in Pathfinder 1st Edition.

An adventure idea of Owen's where the PCs are the summoned creatures.

Take a glimpse into the imagination of Clinton Boomer as he presents a summoning feat for the dark and dangerous world of Bloodlines and Black Magic for Pathfinder 1st Edition..

Neil Litherland discusses the strategic use of Summon Monster in Pathfinder.

and more that will be added later. 

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Character Conversions: A Whole Party for the Really Wild West

Character Conversions: A Whole Party for the Really Wild West

Today I am not doing just one character conversion, but a whole party of them! Inspired by Owen KC Stephens’ Really Wild West setting for Starfinder, I pulled characters from tall tales, myths, and even historical legends. These four characters represent my favorites, the ones I would want to play in that kind of setting. In some of these cases, I added my own spin to their myths. I like looking for connections and putting them together. In these cases, I’ve added bits here and there to bring them together into a single story. I hope that doesn’t offend everyone, that’s not my intention, and I apologize if I cross a line I didn’t see. If I do, please, point it out to me! I’m always willing to learn and correct my missteps.

Coyote

Coyote's Gift by EchoGreens on DeviantArt

Starting off my list is Coyote, of native American myth and legend. And ancient trickster spirit and teacher... usually both roles at the same time. Coyote varies between malicious and benevolent in almost equal proportions. Interestingly enough, as a shapeshifter, Coyote even changed sex. Stories of the shapeshifter’s exploits range across North and Central America. Even the Aztecs knew of him.

One of the most notable things about Coyote is that in most of the stories, he approaches most mortals as relative equals. Coyote will entreat, bargain, cajole, seduce, convince, or curse them not as some god watching over them, but among them as if both parties had a right to be there and make their own decisions in every interaction between them. Coyote was NEVER a ruler over humans. They could even kill him... though, unlike mortals, being killed was somewhat less permanent for Coyote.

It’s that part that made me comfortable deciding to use the shapeshifter as one of the characters in this party; that this is just one more of the stories of Coyote’s exploits.

So what class and race to start? Since this is already going to be long due to including four characters, I won’t go over every option; I’ll be a bit more direct. Coyote was an extremely persuasive individual, with enough skill and knowledge in enough areas to be a successful and believable trickster nearly anywhere. In many stories, the trickster clearly used magic. So after examining the options, I decided to make him an Envoy, with the Magical Exploit alternate class feature from the Character Operations Manual. Owen made a race for his setting that fit’s perfect: the Fenrun. Coyote is an Arbeiter breed.

So far, Coyote will have one spell per spell level (max spell level 4), with the option to trade expertise talents for additional spells known. It also says Coyote will be able to use any variable level spells they know with any spell level it could normally be cast at. I don’t think I will need to pick up too many spells to represent this creature’s capabilities, so I pick up the Convincing Liar, Expert Advice, Gregarious Mien, Slick Customer, and Saving Expertise. If you ever feel like Coyote needs more spells at a level, you can always trade one or more of those for an additional spell slot at one level. He’ll select Token Spell, Polymorph, Mystic Cure, Bestow Curse, and Planar Binding. Polymorph will cover all the shapes change shape doesn’t. The rest of these spells represent powers displayed at various times in the stories, including trapping his fellow spirits.

For improvisations, I would pick Clever Feint, Frustrating Target, Not in the face, Spell Gem Understanding, Infuriating Target, Clever Improvisation, Hidden Agenda, Situational Awareness, Dispiriting Taunt, Quick Dispiriting Taunt, and Universal Expression. Coyote isn’t the greatest team player ever, but this set of improvisations wouldn’t necessarily depend on a team. Instead, it focuses more on disrupting the enemy than it does on enabling your team—just the sort of thing you could expect from a trickster.

Now, for ability scores, I am going to start Coyote off at 12 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 8 Constitution, 13 Intelligence, 13 Wisdom, and 14 Charisma. At 5th level, the boosts would go into Con, Int, Wis, and Cha. At 10, 15, and 20, the boosts would go into str, dex, con, and cha. The reason for this spread is to enable certain feats early on. Likely you would invest in personal augmentations to boost your primary combat stat and HP as early as possible to mitigate the low con and to-hit scores.

For feats, I’m giving the old shapeshifter Toughness to help mitigate the low HP they are will have at the beginning. Improved Feint, Improved Demoralize, Sense Assumptions, and Intuit Relationships to help solidify their ability to manipulate and persuade. Might as well add in Spell Feint, later on, to help Bestow Curse land unexpectedly. And Polymorph Adept is only appropriate for one of the mythology’s most notorious shapeshifters. But most importantly, as soon as they become available, I am giving Coyote Connection Inkling, Technomantic Dabbler, Reality Glimmer. That gives six at-will cantrips and three extra 1st level spells, with up to 6 castings each per day, depending on your level. I would choose Charming Veneer, Hazard, Mending, Transfer Charge, Ghost Sounds, and Detect Magic for the Cantrips. The other three spells would be Build Trust, Comprehend Languages, and Holographic Projection.

That adds up into a package that can rely on wits and charm in and out of combat to disrupt, destabilize, and manipulate opponents. As someone who wanders around teaching people lessons, they’ve got everything they need.

Pecos Bill

 

An illustration by Laurie A. Conley

That brings us to the next character on the list: Pecos Bill, abandoned as a child and raised by coyotes... wait, coyotes? Coincidence? Nope! In my version of this character, he wasn’t just raised by coyotes, Coyote himself raised him. Reading through his exploits, I can only imagine Coyote laughing his mythological bum off as he watches the cowboy he raised go at the world. Only someone raised by Coyote would use a snake as a lasso, try (successfully I might add) to ride tornadoes, or try to profess his love to someone by shooting all the stars out of the sky. Did I mention he was also a Texan? Sounds completely crazy, but the more I thought about this nutjob, the more I realized I wanted to make this character. I mean, I could attribute almost everything in his story to something I have seen some RPG character try at some point.

To get started though: his race is pretty easy, he’s just another human. His class is a little harder to pin down exactly, because everyone uses guns, and can even ride animals. My initial thought was that we could rule out any intelligence-based character. Still, the more I thought about it, the more I realized despite his activities seeming like they were complete insanity, a mechanic or technomancer might be able to pull every one of them off. The more I considered it, the more I leaned towards technomancer. That meant he wasn’t really insane, just brilliant in a way that leads others to believe he was insane in a way only a Texan could be.

Now, before I get into building the rest of the details, I am going to point out two of his feats from tall tales and focus on them: He wrangled tornadoes and rode them, and he shot all the stars out of the sky to impress someone. Rather than just saying “he lied about those,” I realized there was a way he really could have. A figment spell could pretty easily accomplish shooting the stars out of the sky. And what if he wasn’t lassoing tornadoes, but instead he was lassoing air elementals in whirlwind form?

But riding the whirlwind form air elemental? What would be the effect? Damage every turn, off-target, flat-footed, and grappled. That’s a whole pile of penalties and restrictions, but I looked carefully, especially at the grappled condition. You can still do two things at the very least: shoot a small arm and throw a grenade. That is important because it is shaping up that Pecos Bill was an illusionist and summoner, and check out the list of grenades available: hologrenades, and summoning grenades. That tells me this little nutjob was a grenade specialist. Even with the pile of penalties one might get from hanging-out inside a whirlwind, it is pretty easy to put grenades where you want them. And if your illusions and summons are still coming despite being in the funnel, it’d be pretty impressive, especially if they can’t tell you are cheating with grenades. And if the whirlwind you are riding was there because it was your summoned elemental, it’s going to be cooperating with you just fine. You’ll still be taking damage from it, but we’ll see if we can find a way to mitigate that too. And the best thing: it can always turn back into air elemental form and let you ride it around that way as well.

So with all that in mind, let’s look at the class features and magic hacks available. Right off the bat, I’m going to say he has a Holographic Artist’s Cache Hack (an alternate feature from Character Operations Manual), as it provides some at-will holograms and permanent summons. Any summon monster two or higher is good enough for an air elemental that can produce a whirlwind big enough for a medium-sized creature to ride, so it all fits my image of this tall tale.

Technomancers come with a surprising number of magic hacks that would work well with a gunslinger/grenadier-esque sort of build. To start, though, I’ll give him Subtle Spells, as his tall tales tell me he’s got some sleight of hand going if no one picked up on the fact that he was casting spells the whole time. Shadow Grenade will reduce the cost of your grenade lobbing lifestyle a great deal as it lets your trade spell slots for free grenades. Fabricate Explosive can do the same, with fewer restrictions, and even help you get around some of Shadow Grenade’s restrictions. Spellshot gives you some interesting options for casting your spells by shooting them at people and having the point of impact be the spells point of origin. Enhance Weapon lets you trade spell slots to boost a weapon’s damage. Eternal spell lets you use Supercharged Weapon at will, without the limitations you would have using it from your spell cache. Seeking Shot lets you hit targets from inside your whirlwind even after it’s picked up enough debris that you have a hard time seeing. Lastly, rain of fire lets you just shoot everyone, all at once, like the crazy pistol-slinging Texan you are.

That leaves us some feats to pick. There are four feats I’d consider must-haves for anyone intending to use grenades heavily: Grenade Proficiency, Cook Grenade, Grenade Mastery, and Ricochet Grenade. Enhanced Resistance will seriously help mitigate the damage dealt to you inside any whirlwind you ride. It stands to reason that regularly riding air elementals would have you use to that kind of weather, so Environmental Adaptation (rain and snow, winds) seems appropriate. And if you are going to be casting from in there, you’ll need Combat Casting and Focused Spellcaster. And your remaining feats can go towards Weapon Focus Small Arms, Double Tap, Deadly Aim.

Alternatively, if you pay attention to the stories about him, he had several dangerous, wild animals at his beck and call, from the rope and lasso snakes, to his horse Widowmaker, and at one point he was even riding a cougar. So switching out some of these feats for any of the creature companion feats from Alien Archive 3 would also be appropriate.

Ability score-wise, Pecos is focused on Intelligence, Constitution, and Dexterity, covering his spells, HP, gunslinging, and sleight of hand. Skill-wise he’d invest in Mysticism, Engineering (to craft his own grenades when needed, and general explosive knowledge), Survival, Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, and Sleight of Hand.

And that only leaves his spell list. At every level, he’s going to take the highest level of Summon Creature and Holographic Image available. Supercharge weapon, and Create Ammunition are must-haves for any aspiring gunslinger. Anyone riding an air elemental better take at least the first level Flight spell, and consider the higher levels as well. Patch Tech will help with your fixation on explosives. The Biotic Taclash spells would be a good substitute for the snakes Pecos used as lassos and ropes. Make Whole and Mend to keep your gear at it’s best. Mirror Image and Displacement are vital spells in any illusionist’s arsenal. The Resistant Armor spells may or may not help mitigate damage from riding your whirlwinds, depending on how quickly you pick up Enhanced Resistance. Arcing Surge, Chain Surge, Explosive Blast, and Heat Leech will be great when you get Spellshot. Planar Binding and Planar Barrier will let you summon some longer-lasting Air Elementals if you can bargain with them for service.

John Henry

That rounds out my favorite American tall-tale and gets us ready to move on to the next member of this party. Now that we have the father-son duo of a trickster spirit and an insane Texan, we need some more reasonable party members to reign them in a bit and bring some sanity to their adventures. Now, there is one American tall-tale that we have records of not only having lived but of having done exactly what made him famous. That man is John Henry, an African American steel driver who competed with a machine... and won. Other legendary figures in American folklore never managed that last part. Paul Bunyan, for example, lost his contest. Who better to reign in the crazier party members than someone who can take on impossible odds and win?

Now, you might point out that John Henry won, but then his heart gave out immediately after, and he died. That’s where I add my own spin to his tale. I say the wording is critical. His “heart gave out” and “he died.” What if those were two entirely separate events, but some deceptive individual says them together on purpose, knowing the listener would assume the worst, that he died because his heart gave out... but that’s not what the tale says. He beat the machine when the company he worked for was testing it to see if they could start replacing skilled workers with a machine they wouldn’t have to pay. He won, but what if the company decided the difference still made the machine the better choice? “Your heart gave out” can also mean you lost faith. So maybe John Henry simply lost faith in the company he had worked so hard for, only to be betrayed by that same company. And the “he died” part, that’s merely an acknowledgment that he’s mortal. They never said when he died. In the story I’m weaving here, he certainly didn’t die immediately. He simply left. He traveled west, looking for a new life. One day he met the strangest pair while fending off a Martian Tripod. After helping them topple it and free its prisoners, the African American steel-driving titan has been with them ever since. Sometimes he wonders about the father, though. That man reminds him of the spider Anansi an awful lot, of whom his grandmother used to tell him stories.

One of the interesting things Owen has done with his Really Wild West setting is that when he added races, he didn’t replace existing cultures with them, he added them. That means all human cultures are still present. Because of this, I see no reason to spend any time considering a race for John Henry, he’s human, through and through.

Now, what I never understood when I was a child, is that as a “steel-driving man” what Henry was doing was making the holes for dynamite to create passes and tunnels for the railroad. That means he had to understand not only how to break a thing, but how to break it exactly how you want it broken. You could almost say he worked very closely with entropy. John Henry is a Vanguard, straight out of Character Operations Manual.

As someone whose job it was to put steel rods through rock and stone with little more than muscle power, John’s first vanguard aspect is going to be Exergy, and his second will be Cascade. This form of mastery over entropic forces is why he beat the machines other tall tales failed to. John Henry’s disciplines are Antagonize and Swift Antagonize, Dampen, Energize, Friendly Fire, Flatten Bullets,

Blindsense, Blindsight, Accelerate, and Living Effigy. His skills are focused on Profession Mining, Athletics, Intimidate, Engineering, Physical Science, and Perception. His ability scores should focus on strength and constitution entirely to start, and when you level up high enough to get increases, add dexterity and wisdom.

The feats I select for him are going to focus on how quickly, accurately, and powerfully he can deliver blows. Improved Initiative and Constant Alert represent that he’s fast off the block. Deadly Aim, Lunge, and Penetrating Attack cover his powerful strikes. Weapon Focus, Cleave, and Great Cleave show that he can move from one target to another swift and smoothly. That leaves a couple of feats to customize how you want. I recommend versatile specialization, so you can apply weapon specialization to the excavation lasers his skill in mining makes him proficient with. Toughness could be another great choice to round out his build.

And there you have him, John Henry, a man who can drive steel through stone faster than a machine. He’s left the railroad and found new friends in the deep west. Friends who respect and value his prowess and value him as a person. Our party just needs one more person to be complete.

Bessie Coleman

Have you ever heard of Bessie Coleman? She was born in Texas but dreamed of flying. With no opportunities in the United States for any such dream, she saved up, went to Europe, and returned not only with a handful of firsts and an international sport aviator license, including being the first African-American female aviator, but also the first Native American one too. She performed dangerous and dazzling aerial stunts for shows, and even test flew planes. Till one day, test-flying a new aircraft, she died when it crashed.

Like John Henry, that’s where I come in. She was thrown from the plane and died on impact. It was found that a wrench used to service the plane had jammed the controls. Now, in reality, her body was recovered. That’s what I am changing. She survived the fall, knowing her plane was sabotaged; that someone tried to kill her. It would be a while before she hit the ground because she fell into the grasp of an air elemental being stalked by Pecos Bill. When he saw it had trapped someone in its funnel, the hunt ended, and a chase began. He chased it down the coast, through Mississippi, then Alabama, and finally into Texas. It continued until it all came to a head when a Martian Tripod killed the elemental with its deathray. That’s where Bessie finally finished falling to the ground. Though she was injured, she joined the people fighting off the tripod, finishing it off before collapsing from her injuries.

During her recovery, she bonded with the strange group, and from that time on, she regarded the other three as brothers-in-arms. She joined in their adventures. She salvages what she can from the martian machines, always trying to build a new airplane for herself. She believes the martian nanotech is the key to making an un-sabotage-able plane, and she intends to show the people who tried to kill her a thing or two when she eventually returns.

Bessie Coleman is a human drone mechanic. The plane she is trying to build is her drone, which has incorporated portions of the martian tripod’s AI, patched together with code of her own. Her custom Rig takes the form of a utility belt. Her mechanic tricks are Repair Drone, Portable Charging Station, Overclocking, Hyperclocking, Overcharge, Improved Overcharge, Superior Overcharge x4. Her stats would focus on intelligence and constitution first, then dexterity and charisma. Her feats are Three Point Stance, Sky Jockey, Toughness, Diehard, Environmental Adaptation (cold dangers, thin atmosphere, smoke effects, winds), Double Tap, Amplified Glitch, Enhanced Resistance (kinetic), Mobility, Shot on the Run

  

Bessie's Drone resembles these robots from the movie "Skycaptian and the World of Tomorrow."

Her Combat Drone will take mods that will help it act as a flying machine. Riding Saddle, Flight System x2, Enhanced Armor, Medical Subroutine, Skill Unit (Medicine), Speed x4. The drone’s feats will be Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Mobility, Shot on the Run, Deadly Aim, Penetrating Attack, Far Shot, Extra Resolve.

I think she perfectly rounds out this party. She can join Pecos’s Skyborne insanity with a bit more of a rational (and safer) approach. She complements John Henry’s technical expertise. And with her Native American roots, she has a chance to get to know a figure from her ancestor’s mythology.

I’ll conclude this post with a question: if you were going to bring a Tall Tale to life in Owen’s Really Wild West, who would you pick?

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