Dark Apprentice Compendium Class
When you swear to serve an evil sorcerer and sign your name in blood, set your bond die with the sorcerer to d4 and gain the following move:
When you receive an order from your master, roll +bond. On a 10+, choose three. On a 7-9, choose one.
– You don’t take your bond die in damage if you disobey.
– Your bond die doesn’t increase one step (i.e., from d4 to d6 to d8 to d10 to d12, its maximum value) if you obey.
– You gain a new bond with your master, or you increase or decrease an existing bond by 1.
Additionally, whenever you level up, you may take one of the following in place of one of your normal advanced moves.
▢ Empowered Servitude. When you call upon the power of your master, roll +bond. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold one. On a miss, take your bond die in damage for your insolence. Spend hold one-for-one for the following effects:
– Use your bond die instead of your normal damage die when you attack.
– When you make a standard move, replace a d6 with your bond die.
– Gain 1 pt of armor per level of bond die (i.e., 1d4, = +1 armor, 1d6 = +2 armor, 1d8 = +3 armor, etc.) that defends against attacks. Each point of damage the armor absorbs reduces its value by one.
▢ Endowment of Magic. Your master grants you the ability to cast a spell from either the cleric or wizard spell list as if you had prepared it. You cast the spell as a wizard spell at a penalty or bonus equal to the difference between your level and the level of the spell.
▢ Servitor’s Blast. When you channel your rage and humiliation at your servitude into a blast of magical force, roll +bond. On a hit, do your bond die in penetrating damage to the target of your choice. On a 7-9, do your bond die in damage to the target of your choice and choose two from the list below. On a miss, choose one.
– The wild release of magical energy doesn’t affect everyone nearby.
– Your bond isn’t reduced to zero.
– Your bond die isn’t reduced to d4.
#mylifewithmaster
well, I have a new way to model dark jedi, that’s for sure.
Ooh…! This is absolutely perfect for my human Unseelie Fey Knight! Is it possible to start a campaign with this compendium class?
I’m not sure I understand the third option, though. What does ‘gain a new bond with your master’ mean, exactly? And the ‘increase or decrease an existing bond’ bit. Can this be explained?
Eric Sheldahl Sure. It means write a bond with your master, just as you would at end-of-session, and give a strength of 1. Alternately, if you already have a bond with your master, you can increase or decrease its strength, so that when you’re rolling to see how you take your master’s orders, you increase or decrease your bonus. I should say “to a minimum of 1 or maximum of 4,” though. I’m not sure why you’d want to decrease your bond, though I could imagine as GM zapping a player with a penalty equal to his or her bond. Also, you can write more than one bond, just because you can. I started using this in play today, and it works pretty well. The comparison to MLWM is apt.
But, what would having multiple bonds with your Master mean? Like, developing multiple debts, and the bond die that applies is the one which concerns the appropriate debt? (which can be accrued through use of the Endowment of Magic move?)
Multiple bonds would be in-game color, helping the player characterize the way his or her character felt about the master. Game mechanically, you only need one, but I suppose that you might want to have a second bond with your master so you could resolve one and take xp for it.
Ah, so multiple bonds would still have the same die.
Right; your bond die is different from your bond; maybe call it your servitude die to avoid the confusion. I did have to clear it up for one player today, so it’s going to happen.
So, you can have multiple bonds with your master indicating the breadth of your connection, but one Servitude die that indicates the overall strength of your connection?
When I first read it I thought it said “When you sear to swerve an evil sorcerer…”