Opening the Wellspring

NPC used an ability that can’t be explained as a manifestation of his (new) incarnum-based abilities, this shouldn’t upset the verisimilitude of your game. And if everyone at the table is comfortable with a little revision of past events, you can take some liberties with that as well. If you’re not comfortable with this kind of revisionist history in your campaign, consider introducing incarnum through the events of the campaign. The rest of this section presents three suggestions for ways to expose your players and their characters to incarnum gradually, over the course of several adventures with a sweeping, epic scope.

CAMPAIGN ARC: OPENING THE WELLSPRING

Maybe your players haven’t encountered other incarnumusing characters before because the PCs themselves are among the fi rst in the world to tap into the energy of souls. This could be because your world is young, and meldshaping simply represents a magical “technology” that has not yet been discovered. You might decide that some signifi cant event needs to occur before meldshaping becomes possible—that before anyone can make use of incarnum, the mysterious Wellspring must fi rst be opened. You could build a short campaign arc around the opening of the Wellspring. Ideally, you want the Wellspring open so that characters can begin using the incarnum rules quickly, but you still want the quest to feel signifi cant and the players to have a sense of accomplishment once they achieve that goal. The Wellspring, an enormous cobalt blue monolith, stands in the middle of a barren wasteland in an out-of-the way part of your campaign world. It might be in the middle of Raurin, the Dust Desert, in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. In the EBERRON setting, it could lie somewhere in Xen’drik, or in the Frostfell—or perhaps it is guarded by dragons somewhere near the coast of Argonnessen. In the core DUNGEONS & DRAGONS world, it might be hidden in the Dry Steppes or the Sea of Dust, or it might stand somewhere in the vast dungeons under Castle Greyhawk. Whatever location you choose, getting there should be an adventure in itself, but not an insurmountable obstacle. The Wellspring is formed of a solid slab of incarnum. It is a portal through which souls enter the Material Plane to be born in mortal bodies, and through which souls leave when their mortal bodies perish, from there to make their way to the Outer Planes. While the Wellspring stands intact, incarnum cannot be used for meldshaping because all soul energy must pass through the portal, and its design prohibits the use of stray incarnum. The existence of the Wellspring suggests that meldshaping is not new to the world, but actually very ancient and simply forgotten. Perhaps the abuse of incarnum led to the downfall of an ancient civilization—the Imaskari or the ancient giants of Xen’drik, for example—and the survivors of that civilization or even the deities themselves erected the Wellspring to prevent such abuse from happening again. Or the Wellspring simply might be the means the gods created for souls to enter and leave the world, and meldshaping through incarnum remains an untapped possibility. In any case, “opening” the Wellspring by shattering it does not prevent its primary function of allowing souls to enter and leave the Material Plane, but it does make meldshaping and all other uses of incarnum possible. What makes the PCs go looking for the Wellspring? An ancient scrap of prophecy comes to light, scrawled in a crumbling tome of magical lore the PCs discover on their latest adventure, uttered by a blind oracle they seek out for wisdom, or received in answer to a legend lore spell: Behold the Wellspring’s hallowed gate Through which all souls in birth and death Must pass for good or ill. The fate Of all who now draw breath, Who once have lived, who yet will be, Is bound in cobalt mystery. You can alter this fragment so it at least tangentially addresses the information the PCs were seeking from the oracle or spell that provides it, but they should still have to search out other sources to learn more about the Wellspring. Unless one of the PCs can make a DC 30 Knowledge (arcana) check, learning more about the Wellspring requires visiting huge libraries or seeking out the wisest sages. In that process, they can piece together the history of the Wellspring as you’ve established it for your world. They might eventually discover that the scrap of prophecy they heard is only part of a longer epic poem describing the establishment of the Wellspring as well as its destruction. The information they gather about the Wellspring should also suggest to the PCs that they should seek it out. Perhaps the solution to an otherwise unrelated problem they face also lies in the Wellspring—or in the hands of its guardian (an ancient dragon, a powerful demon or angel, or an apparently ordinary human who is destined to live forever). Only when the PCs reach the Wellspring do they begin to suspect that destroying it might be a good idea. While the Wellspring prohibits the free fl ow of incarnum around the world, some seepage occurs in its immediate vicinity, so the PCs can get a taste of what incarnum might make possible. Perhaps the Wellspring’s guardian is a meldshaper or incarnum creature, the PCs discover incarnum items that only function near the monolith, or they fi nd incarnum spells scrawled on the surface of the Wellspring, in many different hands. Perhaps the guardian himself is inappropriately named: He might be one who has sworn to open the Wellspring and cannot pass from the world until his oath is fulfi lled. Opening the Wellspring presents something of a paradox: It can be shattered only by dealing 50 points of damage to it with an incarnate weapon. Figuring out how to shape this soulmeld becomes the next stage of the PCs’ quest, and because of the limiting function of the Wellspring, one that can be completed only in close proximity to the great monolith. Once a PC learns how to shape an incarnate weapon (presumably, by taking a level in the incarnate class) and uses it to shatter the Wellspring, incarnum is liberated into the world. Naturally, this has some negative side effects—almost certainly, a sudden proliferation of the lost—but it also makes meldshaping possible. One of the PCs becomes the fi rst meldshaper in historical memory, and others might soon follow by taking levels in the soulborn or totemist class or one of the prestige classes presented in Chapter 6. Azurins begin to be born in the world, too late to be player characters, but you might decide to allow an existing human PC to be