Holidays

Messenger of Io is more willing than many other deities to indulge the spellscale’s changeable nature.

MAGIC WORSHIP

Many spellscales don’t worship a specific deity. They hold a much broader approach that worships magic as a whole. This worldview holds that arcane magic inhabits everything. Magic can be found in every rock, tree, animal, and creature. Each of these objects and creatures contains a soul or sacred consciousness formed of magic. Practitioners of this belief system hold that arcane magic binds the universe together. Deities and demigods are very strong nexuses of this arcane might. Whether a deity is or was a mortal being or is merely a personifi cation of an ideal means little to a spellscale. Humans believe that it’s possible to ascend to godhood, as St. Cuthbert did. Spellscale magic worshipers also believe that if one is able to harness suffi cient arcane energy, one can become a god.

LAW AND CHAOS, GOOD AND EVIL

“For every individual, one true morality exists, but for everyone it is different. It differs both by the person and by the day. That makes it no less true.”

—Spellscale aphorism

Spellscales are great experimenters. They feel that change is a natural outcome of experience. As part of their lives and personal growth, they often try out different worldviews, philosophies, and alignments. Spellscales are also tolerant of other worldviews. While each makes determinations about what is good or right for him or her as an individual, spellscales don’t usually seek to apply this philosophy outwardly. For a spellscale, right and wrong is a personal matter.

HOLIDAYS

Spellscales host celebrations and holidays at irregular intervals compared to other races. They make merry when it suits them, involving family, friends, and the community as they please. It’s common for a celebration to start small and grow large. One household might throw a party to celebrate a daughter’s return from war. If the neighbors hear of the festivities, they might come to welcome the daughter home. News spreads, and soon it’s a communitywide event, complete with banners and a parade.

Election Day

The most important and the only regularly celebrated spellscale holiday is Election Day. The date of this celebration is variable. It’s always held no more than a year after the current spellscale leader took power, but because an election is also held to replace a leader who dies, it’s not always on the same date. Election Day is a wonderful time in a spellscale community. All the businesses close down for the day, and a party atmosphere ensues. The day is fi lled with glorious potential. Any spellscale might become the community’s next ruler. Candidates for leadership spend the day telling

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SUBSTITUTING SPELLSCALE RACIAL TRAITS

The technical details of giving up your previous race and taking on the aspects of the spellscale race are different from those for a character who assumes a creature template. The Rite of Spellscale Assumption does not add a template to your previous racial characteristics—it replaces most of your original racial traits.

Racial Ability Score Adjustments: Remove your previous racial ability score adjustments, replacing them with the spellscale’s racial ability score adjustments. Recalculate hit points, attack modifiers, saving throw modifiers, spells per day, and other characteristics to reflect your new ability scores. If your Intelligence changes, do not change your allocation of skill points; simply use your new Intelligence score to determine skill points gained for future class levels or Hit Dice.

Racial Hit Dice: You lose any racial Hit Dice from your previous race, as well as all benefits gained therefrom (base attack and save bonuses, skill points, hit points, and so on).

Languages: You retain any languages you already know. You gain Draconic as an automatic language.

Favored Class: You retain your original favored classes and gain sorcerer as an additional favored class. Level Adjustment: You lose any level adjustment from your previous race.

Other Racial Traits: You lose all other racial traits from your original race, including size, speed, sensory abilities, bonus feats, skill bonuses, attack bonuses, save bonuses, spell-like abilities, and so forth. Two specific instances benefit from clarification. • If your original race granted you a nonspecific bonus feat (such as the one gained by a human at 1st level), any feat can be lost, so long as it is not a prerequisite for another feat you have. • If your original race granted bonus skill points, you should deduct an appropriate amount of skill points from your current skill ranks. The specific skills affected are up to you, but the

DM’s input might be required to adjudicate tricky situations (such as multiclass characters who might have purchased ranks of various skills as both class skills and cross-class skills).

The loss of racial traits might mean you no longer meet the prerequisites for a prestige class, feat, or some other feature. In general, you lose any special ability for which you no longer qualify, and nothing is gained in its place. A couple of exceptions exist.

• If you no longer qualify for a feat due to undergoing the rite, you lose the feat and immediately select a new feat for which you qualify in its place. You must also replace any feat for which the lost feat was a prerequisite. • If you no longer qualify for a prestige class, you lose the benefit of any class features or other special abilities granted by the class. You retain Hit Dice gained from advancing in the class, as well as any improvements to base attack bonus and base save bonuses that the class provided. If you later meet all the prerequisites for the class, you regain the benefits.

After removing your old racial traits and altering other attributes based on those traits, apply the spellscale racial traits as described in this chapter.