Theo Dudek, Ultimate Game Master

I seem to be cleaning out my closets of 3.x stuff lately, so here’s another character that I played in a friend’s campaign back in the day: an Indian/Tibetan style sorceress who summons tentacled monsters. ^^ She was the sister of another character of mine, Raj Shiva, who died a few characters before I made this one.

This is the kind of character that you cannot make in D&D 4.0 — a pure summoner! ^^ After providing almost zero summoning support in the first PHB, the designers of 4.0 eventually provided somewhat better options in PHB2, Arcane Power and Primal Power, but conjurer/summoner characters are still a lot weaker than they used to be. The supposed reason for this is that summoners took up too much time compared to other characters, because while one person was doing a single move & attack, a summoner might be controlling 3 or 4 monsters and having them each do some crazy complicated thing like running to the store and buying the fixings for a peanut butter sandwich. I’m not a wizard-exclusive player like some people, but personally, I think that weakening summoners for this reason is a poor design philosophy– just as some people IRL are valets and some are surgeons, it’s simply realistic if some classes are more complicated and time-consuming than others. If it gets too out of control, the DM can easily quash the time-wasting characters, after all. Anyway, sadly, Raj Sanjeevani did not like very long, dying in a solo infiltration-and-investigation mission in which she relied too much on her summoned monsters. -_-;; She never got a chance to shine…

*********************

Raj Sanjeevani

Raj Sanjeevani, the youngest sister of the wizard Raj Shiva, did not initially show any magical promise. Being a youngest child, she was notably spoiled by the family and “parented” by all her elder siblings. As a young girl, she was not particularly pious or studious, and spent most of her time playing, or hiding in the green reeds by the water’s edge watching insects and fish in the river. Although Arjunian society is sexually segregated, she often fought with the boys her age, and otherwise behaved in an independent and brash manner, although physically she was very lightly built and somewhat clumsy.

As she neared adolescence, she sometimes saw hallucinatory visions, which were explained away as possible visitations from friendly spirits. When she was not quite a teenager a passing group of mendicants of the Yungdrung faith asked the castellan of Rajni Muthu’s estate (Rajni Muthu was away on a journey) to stay in the estate to escape a fierce monsoon. When one of the mendicants saw Raj Sanjeevani, he announced that he had seen her in an augury and that she had a powerful spirit inside her. The mendicants gave Sanjeevani a gift—a “Third Eye” jewel which she thereafter wore on her forehead, not dissimilar from others worn by Arjunians. But the local priest detected that it was magical. The local priest suggested that the Third Eye should be confiscated from Raj Sanjeevani, but since it was a minor and beneficial magic, and since the village priest was then in argument with the Shiva family over another issue, Raj Sanjeevani’s mother allowed her to keep the gift.

After this encounter, Raj Sanjeevani became much more focused, and began studying mystical and arcane texts. She would often command her personal servants to accompany her to the libraries in the larger neighbouring cities. Although she did not tell anyone but some close friends, the hallucinations had also increased in number. When she was 14 years old, she announced that instead of marrying, she was going to take a vow of chastity and join the Yungdrung temple. Since there was no priest in the family, she was allowed to do so, after some hand-wringing. Raj Shiva himself gave her his encouragement, although the then-young heroic wizard was not very close to his sister, being almost ten years older.

Although the particular mendicant who had discovered Raj Sanjeevani had died, or rather vanished, the Yungdrung priests recognized her by her Third Eye and welcomed her in. They soon discovered that she was the reincarnation of the Tsungpo Lama of the Black Egg, a master wizard and seer of the lore of Yungdrung (although not the very highest figure in their history). To simplify a very complicated pantheon, the Yungdrung followers believe that the world, the planes, and the gods were hatched from successive eggs which appeared in a black sea. (Or the sea may have been blue, or red, or there may have been successive levels of the void-sea corresponding to the negative and prime material planes.) However, there were other beings which existed already in the sea (possibly beings which hatched from a kind of frog- or fish-like eggs, as opposed to bird-like eggs, at an even more remote time), and it is these beings who the Yungdrung priests worship. The reflection of the images of the newly created beings on the waters of the eternal sea caused the beings of the original creation to, in some cases, mirror themselves after the appearance of the newly created beings whom we know as humanoids, beasts, plants and monsters. But (the deeper theology goes) the originally created beings of the lightless sea are superior to all the beings that came after. They exist in a state of natural enlightenment; their name, Sag Lhu, literally means “enlightened ones.” Of course,this state of enlightenment is almost impossible for human beings to achieve except through the teachings of Yungdrung. In short, the Yungdrung followers believe—although they do not go around shouting it—that theirs is the superior religion and that the gods and demons worshipped by most mortals are the the inferior reflections of the beings from the Black Egg. The Yungdrung priests/wizards perform a good deal of charitable work and the details of their beliefs are not well known outside the cult.

In a few short years, Raj Sanjeevani became one of the five or ten most powerful sorcerers of the Yungdrung faith, and since she is the reincarnation of one of their former leaders (and her faith is unquestionable, despite her great ego), she is given a great deal of freedom. She also did some adventuring, performing divinations and fighting evil spirits and local threats for common people who came to the temple. Occasionally she was asked to meet with the other city priests (although of course, she isn’t a “priest” in the literal sense) to decide on some issue facing the entire city. Infrequently she accompanied other members of the cult on expeditions to faraway mountainous plateaus or other lonely places where together they dug up ancient cult lore and fought off scavenging monsters. At one point a group who ran a bookstore in Brindenford stole some ancient scrolls from one of the Yungdrung temples, and Raj Sanjeevani went alone to investigate the theft. She found the bookstore already ruined by the time she arrived, but certain clues led her to a lengthy mission away from the cult during which she made temporary allies with some other adventurers.

At one point in her journeys Raj Sanjeevani had a terrifying vision of herself being consumed by Garuda, the bird-headed god of justice and destroyer of evil. She knows herself not to be evil, but the vision shocked her greatly, and ever since then she has been repulsed by birds (things with feathers and beaks, basically). Strangely, she was also afraid of baby birds when she was very young, although for a period she overcame it — a premonition of the future?

Raj Sanjeevani
Human Female
Sorcerer 8/Alienist 5
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 86,171 inherited
Phobia: Birds

CHA 22 (15, +1 4th, +1 8th, +1 12th, +4 Cloak)
STR 9
DEX 9
CON 18 (14, +4 Amulet)
INT 14
WIS 10 (12, -1 Alien Blessing)
Saving Throws:
+8 Ref (+3 base, -1 Dex, +5 vest, +1 Alien Blessing/insight)
+13 Fort (+3 base, +4 Con, +5 vest, +1 Alien Blessing/insight)
+16 Will (+10 base, +5 vest, +1 Alien Blessing/insight)

AC: 9 (10, -1 Dex)
HP: undetermined (include +3 from alienist-class toughness)

FEATS:
Alertness
Augment Summoning
Improved Familiar (Pseudodragon)
Past Life (Knowledge (The Planes))
Extend Spell
Persistent Spell
Extra Spell (level 4)
Extra Spell (level 4)

SKILLS:
Knowledge (The Planes) 16
Knowledge (Arcana) 8
Concentration 16 (+10 from magic item)
Knowledge (Religion) 2 (cross-class)
Listen 4
Spot 4
Spellcraft 4

LANGUAGES (3 free):
Serishan, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Abyssal, Celestial, Aquan

EQUIPMENT:
Reagents: small bags and candles, bat fur, granite dust, bird’s feather, hemispherical piece of clear crystal, hemispherical piece of gum arabic, 250 gp diamond dust (x20)
Vest of Resistance +5 (25,000)
Cloak of Charisma +4 (16,000)
Amulet of Health +4 (16,000)
Ring of Wizardry I (20,000) (doubles # of first-level spells, except bonus spells)
Ioun Stone – Vibrant Purple (12,000) (stores 6 spell levels)
Third Eye of Concentration (2,000)
Wand of Haste (50 charges, 5th-level caster) (11,250)
Royal Outfit (200)
Third Eye of Awareness (4,000) (worn by Pseudodragon)
TOTAL: 109,650 out of 110,000

FAMILIAR:
Pseudonatural Pseudodragon
Tiny Dragon; HD 7; Init +0; Spd. 15/fly 60; AC 29 (touch 12, flat-footed 29, including +7 natural armor from familiar); Atk +5 sting (1d3+poison DC 12), +0 bite (1)
STR 11, DEX 11, CON 13, INT 10, WIS 12, CHA 10
HP: 1/2 of Sanjeevani’s
SKILLS: Hide +16/+24 in forests, Intuit Direction +3, Listen +5, Search +12 (see below), Spot +15 (see below), Alertness
FAMILIAR ABILITIES: Improved Evasion, Share Spells, Empathic Link, Touch, Speak with Animals of Its Type, Master may Scry on Familiar once per day
PSEUDODRAGON ABILITIES: Immune to sleep and paralysis; See invisibility 60’ (continuous); Telepathy with beings that speak Common or Sylvan 60’
PSEUDONATURAL ABILITIES: Electricity, Acid Resistance 10; Damage Reduction 5/+1; Alternate Form: -1 morale penalty on opponents’ attacks; True Strike 1x/day
Third Eye of Awareness (4,000) (+10 on Spot, Search rolls)

SPELLS/DAY:
0/?, 1/13, 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, 6/5 (6 with Purple Ioun Stone)

SPELLS KNOWN:
LEVEL 1: Unseen Servant, Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Silent Image, Shield
LEVEL 2: Detect Thoughts, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Silence, Summon Monster 2
LEVEL 3: Magic Circle vs. Evil, Major Image, Protection from Elements, Fly
LEVEL 4: Summon Monster 4, Arcane Eye, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, Stoneskin, Polmorph Self (Extra Spell), Attune Form (Extra Spell)
LEVEL 5: Summon Monster 5, Teleport, Telekinesis
LEVEL 6: Summon Monster 6, Shades