Black Star Techniques
1373 Words
# BLACK STAR TECHNIQUES
Black Star Techniques are the magnificent magical abilities wielded by Black Star Sorcerers throughout the realms of Vearth. These extraordinary techniques focus on enhancement, refinement, and the acquisition of profound knowledge, representing the "left hand" approach to cosmic power—less common but no less potent than the harmonizing ways of White Star sorcery.
## LEARNING TECHNIQUES
Black Star Sorcerers begin their arcane journey already knowing all Level 1 Basic Techniques—a gift of shadow insight granted upon their initiation. Additional, more powerful techniques are learned through:
- Intensive study of ancient, forbidden texts and artifacts of power
- Bold experimentation and personal discovery through trial and shadow
- Acquiring precious knowledge from other Black Star Sorcerers, often through complex exchanges
- Developing deep, profound connection with their magnificent Void Tiger companions
## USING TECHNIQUES
To harness a Black Star Technique, a sorcerer must perform this precise ritual:
1. Speak the technique's resonant invocation with perfect enunciation
2. Perform the appropriate, precise gestures that shape shadow energy
3. Mindfully expend the required Shadow Points (ShP) from their inner wellspring
4. Maintain unwavering concentration if the technique requires sustained focus
These powerful techniques are notably less effective when performed in areas of extreme light or overwhelming divine presence, where the shadow energies find less purchase in reality.
## BASIC TECHNIQUES (LEVEL 1)
### SHADOW VISION
- **ShP Cost**: 1
- **Range**: Self
- **Duration**: 1 hour
- **Effect**: Grants the extraordinary ability to see perfectly in darkness up to 60 feet, penetrating even magical darkness, and perceive invisible creatures and objects as hauntingly beautiful shadowy outlines.
### PERSONAL ENHANCEMENT
- **ShP Cost**: 2
- **Range**: Self
- **Duration**: 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Magnificently enhances one physical attribute (Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution), granting a +2 bonus to all checks using that attribute as the body temporarily evolves beyond its natural limitations.
### KNOWLEDGE EXTRACTION
- **ShP Cost**: 1
- **Range**: Touch
- **Duration**: Instantaneous
- **Effect**: Extract essential information from a touched object with remarkable precision, learning its basic properties and one significant fact about its history as shadows briefly connect the object to the vast void of universal memory.
### SHADOW STEP
- **ShP Cost**: 2
- **Range**: 30 feet
- **Duration**: Instantaneous
- **Effect**: Teleport gracefully from one shadow to another within range, momentarily becoming one with the darkness before reappearing instantaneously, leaving only a whisper of displaced air.
### VOID SHIELD
- **ShP Cost**: 2
- **Range**: Self
- **Duration**: 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Creates a shimmering barrier of shadow energy that eagerly absorbs incoming damage, reducing all harm taken by 2 points as attacks are partially drawn into the void between realities.
## INTERMEDIATE TECHNIQUES (LEVEL 3)
### SHADOW MANIPULATION
- **ShP Cost**: 3
- **Range**: 50 feet
- **Duration**: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Control shadows in the area with spectacular precision, creating shapes, barriers, or simple constructs that can perform basic tasks. The shadows move with fluid grace, appearing almost alive as they respond to the sorcerer's will.
### VOID TIGER ENHANCEMENT
- **ShP Cost**: 4
- **Range**: Touch (Void Tiger companion)
- **Duration**: 1 hour
- **Effect**: Temporarily enhances the magnificent Void Tiger's abilities with profound shadow energy, granting +2 to all its attributes and enabling one spectacular ability from the next Bond Rating tier, strengthening the mystical connection between sorcerer and mount.
### MIND PROBE
- **ShP Cost**: 4
- **Range**: Touch
- **Duration**: Concentration, up to 1 minute
- **Effect**: Access the surface thoughts of a touched creature with extraordinary clarity, experiencing their memories and knowledge as if they were your own. The target may make a Wisdom saving throw to resist this mental intrusion.
### ESSENCE DRAIN
- **ShP Cost**: 3
- **Range**: 30 feet
- **Duration**: Instantaneous
- **Effect**: Drain vital life energy from a target with a gesture, dealing 3d6 necrotic damage as tendrils of shadow connect your essence to theirs, and regaining ShP equal to half the damage dealt as you absorb their vitality.
### SHADOW WEAPON
- **ShP Cost**: 3
- **Range**: Self
- **Duration**: 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Create a weapon of pure shadow energy that forms from darkness itself, functioning as a +1 weapon that ignores non-magical armor bonuses and can shift its form between attacks to adapt to any combat situation.
## ADVANCED TECHNIQUES (LEVEL 6)
### VOID WALK
- **ShP Cost**: 5
- **Range**: Self and willing companions
- **Duration**: Up to 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Step dramatically into the shadow realm with a flourish, becoming partially incorporeal and able to pass through solid objects while moving at normal speed. Your form becomes misty and dark, visible in the material world but untouchable by it.
### KNOWLEDGE DOMINATION
- **ShP Cost**: 6
- **Range**: Touch
- **Duration**: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Gain spectacular access to a target's complete memories and knowledge, experiencing their entire life in moments of compressed time. The target may make a Wisdom saving throw to resist this profound mental invasion.
### SHADOW FORM
- **ShP Cost**: 5
- **Range**: Self
- **Duration**: 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Transform gloriously into living shadow with a dramatic gesture, gaining resistance to non-magical damage, the ability to squeeze through tiny spaces like flowing darkness, and immunity to most physical conditions as your material form surrenders to shadow essence.
### VOID PRISON
- **ShP Cost**: 7
- **Range**: 30 feet
- **Duration**: Concentration, up to 1 hour
- **Effect**: Trap a target in a magnificent prison of void energy that isolates them from the material world. The shadowy cube appears as a dark distortion in reality, and the target may make a Strength saving throw each round to attempt escape.
### SHADOW GATE
- **ShP Cost**: 6
- **Range**: 500 miles
- **Duration**: Instantaneous
- **Effect**: Create a spectacular temporary portal between two shadows the caster has personally experienced, allowing instantaneous travel for the caster and up to 5 companions. The gate appears as a swirling vortex of darkness rimmed with purple energy.
## MASTER TECHNIQUES (LEVEL 9)
### VOID CONSUMPTION
- **ShP Cost**: 10
- **Range**: Touch
- **Duration**: Instantaneous
- **Effect**: Consume an object or incapacitated creature in a breathtaking display of shadow power, absorbing its essence and knowledge completely into yourself. This permanently enhances one of the caster's abilities or techniques as the consumed essence integrates with your own.
### SHADOW LEGION
- **ShP Cost**: 12
- **Range**: 100 feet
- **Duration**: 1 hour
- **Effect**: Create 3d6 magnificent shadow warriors that rise from your shadow, each formed of semi-solid darkness and glowing with void energy. Each warrior has stats equivalent to a 5th-level fighter with shadow abilities and moves with perfect, unsettling synchronization.
### MIND DOMINION
- **ShP Cost**: 15
- **Range**: Line of sight
- **Duration**: Concentration, up to 24 hours
- **Effect**: Completely dominate a target's mind with overwhelming shadow power, controlling their actions with perfect precision while they remain conscious but helpless. The target may make a Wisdom saving throw every hour to break free from your mental grasp.
### VOID MASTERY
- **ShP Cost**: 10
- **Range**: 100-foot radius centered on caster
- **Duration**: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
- **Effect**: Manipulate reality itself within the affected area with godlike power, altering gravitational direction, elemental properties, and magical effects according to the caster's will. The area visibly distorts as the fundamental laws of nature bend to your command.
### SHADOW ASCENSION
- **ShP Cost**: 20
- **Range**: Self
- **Duration**: 5 minutes
- **Effect**: Temporarily ascend to a magnificent shadow lord state, transcending mortal limitations as darkness envelops your form. Gain +4 to all attributes, the ability to move through solid objects like darkness itself, immunity to most damage types, and the power to use lower-level techniques without expending ShP.
When a Black Star Sorcerer reaches the pinnacle of their powers and masters these techniques, they become living embodiments of shadow's perfecting influence—not creatures of evil, but beings who understand that knowledge and power must sometimes be pursued through paths that others fear to tread. In their hands, the darkness becomes not a corruption but a tool of magnificent refinement, revealing truths that light alone could never illuminate.
- Writer
