Tome of Storms: Storms and Powers 1 (Patreon)

This article is the first of two articles containing new storm powers and storm veils.

New Storm Powers

Bubble of Air (Su)

Prerequisites: Stormbound 5th

Benefits: Your mastery over primordial weather has allowed you to generate fresh and clean air to protect your allies. You, and creatures under the effects of your weatherproofing, gain the benefits of the air bubble spell as a constant effect.

Clarified Sight (Su)

Benefits: Your essence allows you to clarify your sight, granting you a limited ability to see through storms both natural and magical. When this storm power is invested with at least 1 point of essence, you gain the ability to ignore impairments to your vision from magical weather, nonmagical weather, fog, mist, smoke, and ash within 5 feet of you. This allows you to ignore concealment or total concealment granted by those effects, penalties to sight-based Perception caused by those effects within that range. If such an effect would reduce your visibility range, you add 5 feet to your visibility range after applying the reduction (to a maximum of your normal visibility). For every point of essence invested in this veil beyond the first, the range of this storm power’s effects increase by 5 feet.

Cloud of Storms (Su)

Prerequisites: Stormbound 7th

Benefits: The powers of storm churn within your blood, by giving in to their siren call you can become one with your storm temporarily. You can use gaseous form on yourself as an at-will spell-like ability that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. While in this form, you cannot use any abilities of your non-Storm veils that cost actions.

Unlike the normal effects of gaseous form, you only gain DR 5/magic. For every point of essence invested in this storm power, this DR increases by 2. When 3 or more points of essence are invested, this DR improves to DR/magic and silver. When 7 or more points of essence are invested, it improves to DR/—.

Special: You may select this storm power a second time at stormbound level 11 or higher; doing so allows you to treat this ability as cloud shape instead of gaseous form whenever you use it. This alternate spell follows the other restrictions of this storm power as well.

Mote of the Storm (Su)

Prerequisites: Stormbound 3rd

Benefits: As a move action, you can create a mote of storm within 30 feet of you. Upon its creation, choose any number of Storm veils you have shaped (minimum 1). Those Storm veils become centered on the mote of the storm, rather than on you. This mote of storm has a fly speed of 30 feet with perfect maneuverability, shares your size, ignores movement impairment caused by weather (magical or natural), and is treated as a veil you shaped for the purpose of destroying is (it must be sundered, it uses your CMD, and must take damage as a veil to be destroyed). Motes of storm are only partially physical, allowing them to share spaces with other creatures without penalty and allowing them to squeeze into spaces as small as 1/4  their size.

Any time you spend a move action to move, you may move the mote up to its speed. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity. Motes of storm cannot take any other actions, and cannot make Stealth checks as part of movement. If they are forced to make a Fly check, they are treated as having Fly as a class skill, a number of ranks in the skill equal to your class level, a +8 bonus due to their perfect maneuverability, and a Dexterity of 10. They also receive benefits or penalties based on your size, since they share your size (Fine +8, Diminutive +6, Tiny +4, Small +2, Medium +0, Large -2, Huge -4, Gargantuan -6, Colossal -8). They ignore any penalties to the Fly skill caused by weather, and cannot be checked or blown away by wind.

The mote of storm has an appearance reminiscent of the Storm veils chosen to be centered on it, but has a physical form that is easily identifiable as a magical construct at the storm’s center. Unlike your veils, the mote is fully visible even if the Storm veils centered on it are invested with no essence. Identifying the mote and its purpose requires the same check as identifying the effects of one of your Storm veils. If the mote of storm is destroyed, any Storm veils centered on the mote are suppressed for 1d4 rounds, after which they become recentered on you. Storm veils centered on the mote are still otherwise treated as Storm veils you have shaped for all purposes. As a move action, you can choose to destroy your mote of storm and recenter your Storm veils on yourself without suppressing them.

You may only have a single mote of storm active at a time, and the mote must always stay within Medium range (100 feet + 10 feet per level) of you. If you create a second mote, or the mote leaves this range, it is immediately destroyed (suppressing the Storm veils centered on it). You do not need to maintain line of sight or effect with your motes.

Special: You may select this storm power a second time after 11th level, and a third time after 19th level. When selected a second time, your mote may persist within Long range (400 feet + 40 feet per level) of you without being destroyed. When selected a third time, the mote of storm’s range becomes limitless as long as it is on the same plane as you. If you or the mote stop sharing the same plane, it is immediately destroyed.

Motesight (Su)

Prerequisites: Mote of the Storm

Benefits: While you have an active mote of the storm, you can begin meditating as a standard action to perceive reality as if you were in your mote’s space. You use your sight, hearing, and any other special senses when perceiving from your mote’s space, leaving your body blind, deaf and unable to benefit from any of your special senses when using this ability. This ability persists as long as you spend a standard action each round to maintain it, though you can always choose to end the effect early at no action cost, even outside of your turn.

One with the Storm (Su)

Prerequisites: Stormbound 15th, Cloud of Storms

Benefits: Your ability to merge with your storm has grown even more potent, allowing you to effortlessly drive your storm across the land. Your Cloud of Storms power now functions as wind walk. You still determine your damage reduction granted by this spell based on the essence invested in that storm power.

Shroud of Atmosphere (Su)

Prerequisites: Stormbound 13th, Bubble of Air

Benefits: Your mastery has further improved, completely enshrouding yourself and your allies in a bubble of safe atmosphere. You, and creatures under the effects of your weatherproofing, gain the benefits of the life bubble spell as a constant effect.

Stormblade (Su)

Benefits: As a swift action, you can condense the energies of one of your active Storm veils into a blade which appears in one of your free hands. This blade can take the form of any melee weapon in which you are proficient, and it persists until it leaves your hand. If thrown, it returns to your hand immediately after the attack resolves instead of disappearing. The stormblade’s appearance resembles the Storm veil which you choose to draw from to create it. You may only have a single stormblade created at a time. If the Storm veil you choose to use to create the blade is suppressed or unshaped, the stormblade dissipates as well.

If you have a Storm veil with one of the following descriptors shaped, you can choose one of those descriptors to instead have the blade deal damage of that descriptor instead of its normal physical damage: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire.

This storm power can be enhanced as if it were a veil with the [Enhanced (weapon)] descriptor, and counts as a veil of that descriptor for the purposes of your class features (such as the Fury of the Storm storm power). It can only be enhanced with special properties that can be applied to all melee weapons.

For each point of essence invested in this storm power, your stormblade deals an additional 1d4 points of damage. This damage is of the same type as the weapon and is not multiplied on a critical hit.

Uplifting Gale (Su)

Prerequisites: Stormbound 13th, Uprearing Zephyr

Benefits: You can utilize your mastery over wind to bolster your allies and lift them into the air. Each of your allies benefiting from your weatherproofing gain a fly speed, as per your Uprearing Zephyr storm power.

New Storm Veils

The Desecration

Descriptors: Death, Evil

Class: Stormbound

Slot: Storm

Save: None

A vile energy surrounds you, leaching into the ground and causing it to bubble with a foul dark ichor.

When you have at least 1 point of essence invested in this veil the area of your Storm begins to radiate a vile energy that empowers undead creatures and desecrates the terrain with necromantic power. The DC to resist channeled negative energy within the storm gains a +1 profane bonus. Any undead creature who enters the storm gains a +1 profane bonus on all attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, and saving throws. Any undead created or summoned within the area of the storm gains +1 hit point per HD. These bonuses do not stack with those granted by the desecrate spell.

Your storm also begins to seep into the ground, allowing you to call flesh and bone of long-dead beings to strike at your foes. As a standard action, you can cause an undead hand to reach from the ground and strike a single creature within 5 feet of the ground within your storm. Treat this attack as a claw attack that deals 1d8 points of damage, using your veilweaving modifier in place of your Strength for attack and damage rolls. You benefit from the profane bonuses granted by this veil as if you were an undead creature when making this attack. You may apply any abilities you have that modifies your natural attacks or weapon attacks to this claw attack as well, as if it were your own natural claw attack (such as Power Attack, Weapon Focus, etc).

Essence: For each point of essence invested in this veil beyond the first, the profane bonus to damage rolls granted by the veil increases by +1. For every even point of essence, the bonus to attack rolls increases by +1. For every 3 points invested, the bonus to the DC of channeled negative energy increases by +1, the number of hit points undead created or summoned within the storm gain increases by +1, and the damage dice of claw attacks made using this storm increase by 1 step on the following track: 1d8 -> 2d6 -> 2d8 -> 3d6 -> 4d8.

Chakra Bind (Storm): Binding this veil to your Storm chakra causes the vile powers of the storm to further leech into the ground, drawing forth all manner of undead monstrosity to assault your foes. At the beginning of each of your turns, choose a number of unoccupied spaces along the ground within the storm equal to half your veilweaving modifier (minimum 1, rounded down). A mass of bone and flesh held together with vile energy emerges from that space until the beginning of your next turn. If the mass leaves the area of the storm it immediately dissipates. These masses do not block movement, and can share spaces with other creatures.

You may make claw attacks (as the base effects of this veil) originating from these masses of flesh and bone in place of any melee weapon attack you make, suffering any penalties to those attacks as normal. The masses of flesh and bone have a reach of 5 feet when making these attacks. Additionally, these masses threaten attacks of opportunity out to a range of 5 feet. If they provoke an attack of opportunity, you may spend one of your own attacks of opportunity to make a claw attack using the mass against the creature that provoked the attack of opportunity. You and all of your masses count as a single creature when threatening opportunity attacks; if a creature provokes an opportunity attack while you and one or more masses are in range, or if they move within the threatened area of you and multiple masses, they only provoke a single attack.

The Starfall

Descriptors: Force

Class: Stormbound

Slot: Storm

Save: None

Despite the weather or time of day, the sky above you shows an eerie scene of a night sky that seems to stretch upwards to infinity filled with an untold number of shooting stars which shine brightly upon the field below.

Shaping this veil fills the sky above your storm with a constant stream of falling stars that raises the light level within the storm’s area by 1 step (to a maximum of bright light).

As a standard action, you can cause a star to fall from the sky and strike a single creature within the storm’s area, dealing 1d4+1 points of force damage. This star requires no attack roll to strike its target, and affords no saving throw to reduce its effects. However; the stars are still affected by concealment and effects such as mirror image, are negated by the shield spell, and require you to be able to see your target or pinpoint their space. These stars deal full damage to incorporeal creatures, but deal no damage to objects.

Essence: For each point of essence invested in this veil, you cause an additional star to fall when using this veil’s ability. A single creature may only be targeted with one star per activation of this ability. For every even point of essence invested, an individual creature may be targeted by up to 1 additional star.

For example; with four essence invested you may cause up to five total stars to fall, with a maximum of three targeting a specific creature.

Chakra Bind (Storm): Binding this veil to your Storm chakra allows you to, as full-round action, call down a star shower which blankets the field in fallen stars. Choose any number of creatures you can see or pinpoint the spaces of within the area of the storm; each is targeted by a falling star. For every 2 points of essence invested in this veil, they are targeted by an additional falling star.

The Ingress

Descriptors: Evil, Summoning

Class: Stormbound

Slot: Storm

Save: None

Reality itself shimmers and rends as numerous hair-wide portals begin to open in the air around you, an otherworldly void filled with horrors visible beyond their boundaries.

Shaping this veil allows you to call upon an otherworldly storm known as an ingress; where horrors from beyond space and time gain brief access to the mortal plane. As standard action, you can cause a tear in reality in a space within your storm, allowing a massive otherworldly limb to reach out and attempt to grapple a creature adjacent to the tear. This grapple attempt does not provoke an attack of opportunity, and this otherworldly limb’s CMB is equal to your veilweaving level + 5. If the limb successfully grapples a creature, that creature takes 1d6+4 points of bludgeoning damage in addition to becoming grappled by it. These limbs can grapple creatures of any size. Each round at the start of your turn, a limb grappling a creature attempts to maintain the grapple. If it succeeds, it deals damage to the target again. The CMD of these limbs is equal to their CMB + 10. If the creature manages to escape or reverse the grapple, the limb retracts and the tear in reality closes.

These limbs can be sundered as if they were one of your veils; however they do not have hardness. If destroyed, the grapple ends but this veil is not suppressed.

Essence: For each point of essence invested in this veil, the otherworldly limbs created by this veil gain a +1 insight bonus to their grapple checks, and the damage they deal increases by +1.

Chakra Bind (Storm): Binding this veil to your Storm chakra allows you to tear an even greater ingress into reality, allowing more limbs to pour forth to grapple your foes. As a full-round action you can create a 15-foot radius ingress within the area of your storm, allowing a mass of limbs to pour outwards and attempt to grapple every creature within 15 feet of it, as the base effect of this veil. These limbs gain an additional +7 bonus to their CMB, and their damage increases to 2d6+8. Unlike the normal tears in reality created by this veil, maintaining this one requires great effort on your part. You must spend a standard action on your turn to allow the limbs to maintain their grapples, and if you choose not to, the tear closes and the limbs retract at the end of your turn, automatically ending all grapples it was maintaining. These limbs only retract if all creatures grappled by it escape the grapple. When using your standard action on this ability, only creatures currently grappled have an additional grapple attempt made against them. Creatures who escaped the grapple are not affected.

This mass of limbs is much harder to sunder than a normal limb; it gains hardness equal to your veilweaving level, but if it is destroyed all grapples it is performing immediately end.

The Void

Descriptors: Darkness

Class: Stormbound

Slot: Storm

Save: Reflex

Your storm is nothingness, a void that seeks to consume and destroy all that approaches. Even light is pulled within, carried up to the pure blackness that crowns it.

Shaping this veil fills the sky above your storm with a disc of pure blackness which consumes the light within the storm, causing it to arc around it in large accretion discs. When you have at least 1 point of essence invested in this veil, this causes the light levels within the area of the storm to drop by 1 step (to a minimum of darkness). This is considered a magical darkness effect with a spell level equal to the number of points of essence invested in this veil.

As a standard action, you can attempt to pull a creature into the overwhelming infinity of the void above. That creature must make a Reflex saving throw; if they fail, they are pulled 5 feet upwards towards the top of the storm and are held in the air. Movement caused by this veil does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Flying creatures who fail this saving throw can fly upwards or sideways, but must spend 2 spaces of movement to move to any space lower than their current elevation. Creatures who find themselves adjacent to a solid surface can attempt to climb upon it, but must spend 2 spaces of movement to climb any space lower than their current elevation.

As long as the affected creature remains within the area of the storm, the air surrounding them becomes thin and the pull of the void crushes them under its weight. They suffer 1d6 points of damage at the beginning of each of their turns, and are fatigued. This damage is untyped physical damage; bypassing all forms of damage reduction besides DR/—. At the end of each of their turns, they may make a Reflex saving throw to attempt to fight the pull of the void. If they succeed, they break the pull of the void and immediately fall. Flying creatures can choose to remain in the air. If they fail, they are pulled another 5 feet upwards towards the height of the storm. If such a creature leaves the area of the storm, the effect ends as well. If a creature teleports within the storm, or if they otherwise find themselves in a space adjacent to the ground, they are treated as being held at their current elevation and must make Climb checks to crawl along the ground. After teleporting, their minimum elevation is set to their new elevation.

If a creature reaches the top of the storm while affected by this ability their movement stops, and they are suspended until they pass a saving throw to break the pull of the void.

Essence: For each odd point of essence invested in this veil, creatures affected by the veil are pulled another 5 feet upwards each time they fail a saving throw against the veil’s effects. For every even point of essence invested, affected creatures suffer an additional 1d6 points of damage at the beginning of each turn. For every 3 points of essence invested, you may cause light levels within the storm to drop by 1 additional step (to a minimum of darkness), chosen when you invest or reinvest your essence.

Chakra Bind (Storm): Binding this veil to your Storm chakra empowers the crushing forces of the void and threatens to pull the air from an entrapped creature's lungs. Damage affected creatures suffer from this veil is increased from 1d6 to 1d10 (this applies to damage dice from essence invested as well), and they cannot breathe, speak, hear, or cast spells with verbal components while entrapped by the void. Affected creatures can hold their breath when they fail a saving throw against this veil, but each time they take damage from the veil they are treated as if they had held their breath an additional round.

Additionally; the storm may drop light down to a minimum of deeper darkness. This is treated as a light level below darkness, but even creatures with darkvision cannot see within it. You may choose whether to activate or deactivate this ability when you invest or reinvest your essence.