Aetherian

Under every wall, blade and breath of air runs a web of shining threads. Most people never see it. The aetherian sees nothing else. With a twist of the fingers, they unhook a thread here and tie it there, and stone erupts from the ground, steel runs like water, and the light in a room bends around them until they're gone.

Adventures. Aetherians adventure for knowledge, artifacts and the freedom to practice. Most nations restrict aetheric manipulation, and Usmon forbids it outside the Council of Arcanum, so an aetherian with no patron often finds the road safer than the city. Artifacts draw them like lodestones, and every ruin from before the Sunder holds patterns no living aetherian has seen.

Characteristics. Aetherians are Eldriloch's arcane casters, taking the place of the wizard and the sorcerer. They work the aether web directly, with no fibrolite and no flux. Each day they draw on a pool of spell points, and they spend points to cast whichever patterns they know or have attuned. The aether shapes matter, energy, light, sound and space. It cannot touch living flesh, minds or life force, so aetherians can't heal, charm or curse. They can do almost everything else.

Traditions. Every aetherian belongs to one of two traditions. Scholars learn the web by study. They keep a pattern book, attune patterns each morning and use Intelligence. Most runekar aetherians, and every member of the Arcanum Order, are scholars. Naturals were born seeing the web and work it by instinct. They know fewer patterns but cast them more often, using Charisma. Many malumtene, and the rare humans who see the web unaided, are naturals.

Outlook. Scholars tend to serve the institutions that license them: a university, the Arcanum Order, a Sovereigni patron. Naturals tend to distrust authority, often because the law already wants them for practicing without permission.

Religion. The Covenant blames aetheric manipulation for the Dark Sunder and discourages it, so aetherians work in its lands without its blessing and under its Wardens' eyes. Few aetherians are devout. The web is real, visible and answerable to skill, and that tends to make gods seem less necessary.

Background. Scholars train at Adryae's universities, the Arcanum Order's academy in Peltragow, or as a single master's apprentice. Naturals usually discover their gift by accident, often a frightening one, and learn the rest from whoever will teach them.

Races. Runekar are the most common aetherians by far, since nearly every runekar can see the web. Malumtene are almost as common and favor the natural tradition and destructive patterns. Humans who see the web are rare, prized and watched. The exspiratis in an ashen fight the precise focus aetheric work demands, so ashen aetherians are rare. A few souldriven, the expensive weaver design, are built to work the web.

Other Classes. Aetherians respect engineers, who store the aether in fibrolite, and look down on them a little for needing it. They distrust flux users, and the feeling is mutual, especially with the Wardens. Fighters and runners learn quickly that an aetherian who can raise a wall is worth protecting.

Role. The aetherian is the party's primary arcane caster: battlefield control, ranged damage, defense and utility. Without healing or enchantment, they rely more on walls, terrain, light and raw force than a 3.5 wizard does.

Abilities. A scholar needs Intelligence and a natural needs Charisma. That score sets the most powerful pattern they can cast, their bonus spell points and their save DCs. Dexterity and Constitution help a fragile caster survive.

Hit Die: d4.

Starting Wealth: 3d4 × 10 gl (75 gl).

Class Skills

The aetherian's class skills (and the key ability for each) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis) and Spellcraft (Int). Naturals also have Bluff (Cha) as a class skill.

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) × 4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

All of the following are class features of the aetherian.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Aetherians are proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow and quarterstaff, but not with any armor or shield. Armor interferes with the hand movements that pull the web's threads, so aetherians suffer arcane spell failure as wizards and sorcerers do.

Tradition: At 1st level, an aetherian chooses the scholar or natural tradition. The choice is permanent. It sets the aetherian's casting ability (Intelligence for scholars, Charisma for naturals), spell points, how patterns are learned, and the tradition features gained at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level.

Patterns: Aetherians cast arcane spells, called patterns, drawn from the aetherian spell list below. To learn or cast a pattern, an aetherian must have a casting ability score of at least 10 + the pattern's level. The save DC for a pattern is 10 + the pattern's level + the aetherian's casting ability modifier. Patterns are aetheric arcane spells in every respect: they use verbal and somatic components and arcane spell failure, and they are subject to spell resistance and dispel magic. They never draw on flux or fibrolite. Every aetherian pattern by level, with a link to each description, is in Spells by Class.

Spell Points: An aetherian casts from a daily pool of spell points, given on Table: The Aetherian for each tradition. They gain bonus spell points equal to their casting ability modifier × their class level ÷ 2 (round down). The pool refills after 8 hours of rest and 15 minutes of concentration on the web. Casting a pattern costs spell points by its level, as shown on Table: Pattern Costs. An aetherian can cast any pattern they have available, in any combination, as long as they have the points.

Damage Cap: When a pattern's damage depends on caster level (such as fireball or lightning bolt), the aetherian's caster level for that damage equals the minimum caster level for a pattern of its level, shown on the table. The aetherian can spend 1 additional spell point per extra caster level, up to their actual caster level. A 10th-level aetherian casting fireball pays 5 points for 5d6, or 10 points for the full 10d6. Range, duration and every other effect use the aetherian's full caster level.

Metamagic: A pattern with a metamagic feat costs as a pattern of its adjusted level, and can't exceed the highest level the aetherian can cast. Naturals take a full-round action to cast a metamagic pattern, as sorcerers do.

Thread Tricks: 0-level patterns cost no spell points. An aetherian can cast any 0-level pattern they have available as often as they like. Thread tricks don't benefit from metamagic feats.

Aether Sight (Su): An aetherian can see the aether web, gaining the effects of detect magic as a standard action whenever they concentrate. Runekar and malumtene aetherians already have this ability. They instead gain a +2 bonus on Spellcraft checks to identify patterns as they are cast.

Familiar: An aetherian can obtain a familiar, as a wizard or sorcerer does. Runekar aetherians with the Engineered Familiar feat may build theirs.

Pattern Book: A scholar keeps a pattern book of patterns they know. At 1st level, it holds all 0-level patterns on the aetherian list plus three 1st-level patterns, plus one more 1st-level pattern per point of Intelligence bonus. At each new level, a scholar adds two patterns of any level they can cast. They can also copy patterns from scrolls and other pattern books, as a wizard copies spells.

Attunement: Each morning, after rest, a scholar spends 1 hour with their pattern book attuning patterns. The number of patterns of each level they can hold attuned is shown on Table: Scholar Patterns Attuned. Scholars get no bonus attuned patterns for high Intelligence. That bonus comes as spell points instead. A scholar can cast any attuned pattern as many times as their spell points allow. Attuning a pattern into an empty slot later in the day takes 15 minutes.

Scribe Scroll: At 1st level, a scholar gains Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat.

Bonus Feats (5th, 10th, 15th, 20th): At each of these levels, a scholar gains a bonus feat: a metamagic feat, an item creation feat or Spell Mastery.

Specialization: A scholar may specialize in one school, as a wizard does. A specialist gains one additional attuned slot per pattern level (for patterns of the chosen school), chooses two prohibited schools from those left after the aetherian list's restrictions, and gains a +2 bonus on Spellcraft checks for the chosen school.

Patterns Known: A natural knows a fixed number of patterns, shown on Table: Natural Patterns Known, and needs no book or attunement. A natural can cast any pattern they know at any time, as long as they have the spell points. At 4th level and every even level after, a natural can swap one known pattern for another of the same level, as a sorcerer does.

Instinctive Weaving (1st): A natural pulls threads by instinct, even with a blade at their throat, and gains Combat Casting as a bonus feat.

Surge (5th, 10th, 15th, 20th): At each of these levels, a natural chooses one: learn one additional pattern of any level they can cast, or gain a metamagic feat as a bonus feat.

Raw Power: A natural's larger spell point pool, more patterns per day and freedom from attunement are paid for with fewer patterns known and a slower climb to new pattern levels, as for a sorcerer.

Aetherians use the sorcerer/wizard spell list from the Player's Handbook, with one rule: the aether can't touch living flesh, minds or life force. It can move, shape, burn, freeze, light, hide and shield, and it can act on a creature from outside: forces that push it, energy that burns it, light that blinds it, walls that hold it. It can never reach inside. Spells that work only by changing what's inside a living creature are not on the aetherian list.

Removed from the list:

• All enchantment spells, such as charm person, sleep, hold person, suggestion, dominate person.
• All necromancy spells, such as ray of enfeeblement, false life, vampiric touch, finger of death. Life force belongs to flux.
• Transmutations that change a living creature's body, such as enlarge person, reduce person, alter self, iron strength and the other ability-enhancing spells, haste, slow, polymorph, baleful polymorph, flesh to stone, shapechange.
• Divinations that read minds, such as detect thoughts.
• Phantasms that act inside the mind, such as phantasmal killer and weird. Figments and glamers, which bend real light and sound, are fine.

Kept on the list: all abjurations, conjurations, evocations, figments and glamers, divinations that sense the world, and transmutations that act on objects, terrain and the space around a creature: aether plating, shield, magic missile, oil slick, invisibility, levitate, fly, fireball, raised bulwark, telekinesis, disintegrate, wall of force and many more. The Game Master decides cases at the edge.

Aether-themed casting: Describe patterns as threads being pulled and re-tied. A fireball is the web around a point vibrating until the air ignites. Invisibility is light bent around the body. Fly is a cushion of tightened threads under the feet.

Spend Wisely. Spell points let you cast your best pattern three times if that's what the day needs. But the damage cap means a cheap fireball is a weak one. Decide early in a fight whether you're paying for control or for damage.

Control Beats Damage. Without enchantment, an aetherian wins fights with terrain: oil, walls, steam, darkness and force. A well-placed raised bulwark does more than most fireballs.

Mind the Law. Working the web openly is illegal in Usmon and restricted almost everywhere else. Decide who licensed you, who taught you, or who you're hiding from.