Forbidden Knowledge: 5th Edition Supplement
Forbidden Knowledge for 5th Edition
Wizards stand apart from other magic-users in how they acquire arcane knowledge. Rather than drawing on inborn talent or making some fell bargain with an otherworldly power, wizards discover magic through research and study. They delve into ancient tomes and riffle through crumbling scrolls, committing to memory all that they have learned. Their methods reward them with incredible versatility but also tempt them to peer into dark places, to learn and master the most secret arts, for there lies true and lasting power, even if its knowledge damns their souls.
Forbidden Knowledge adds seven new arcane traditions to the wizard class. Each tradition reflects a sinister avenue of study and research, offering ways to gain unique and terrible magic in exchange for madness, corruption, or worse. Using the options in this supplement, player characters can conjure up demons, bestow wicked curses, and reach beyond the bounds of reality to commune with the insane powers that screech and thrash in the primordial void. If you seek advantage against rivals and eldritch weapons to destroy enemies, that knowledge awaits you!
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Balgrendia offers mystery and terror to all who find themselves there, infested as it is with wicked faeries, horrific demons loosed from the Void, and other twisted monstrosities that defy description. The noisome swamps making up its coastlines, along with the dense, foreboding forests covering almost all the region, present natural obstacles few armies have been able to overcome. Thus, Balgrendia remains almost as it has since its first settlement: mostly wild and unsettled, free from outside influence, and subject to the crumbling Empire in name only.
Some of the greatest and most feared figures in the history of the multiverse earned their reputations or positions by mastering the secrets of magic. From the crazed wizard who built three high towers and sealed demon lords in the dungeons below them, to the accursed mage who descended into the Abyss to confront the Queen of Dragons, to the chosen mage of the Goddess of Magic, whose influence has helped shape entire realms, these figures all command power unmatched by other mortals. Magic makes of them gods when compared to the mundane peoples. And although many such beings have earned esteem for their good works and heroic exploits, others have surrendered to their base desires and used their superhuman magical abilities for selfish ends.
The Cabal of the Black Sun stands as one of the more recent examples of a concerted effort to forestall death. A society made up of deranged wizards and other users of magic, they plunged headlong into darkness after recovering the fabled Black Sun Manuscript, an ancient tome brimming with evil. Using the writings as the basis for their study, they conducted unspeakable experiments, spawning horrors beyond imagining as they sought to find the key to immortality.
Nessus: City of Decay
It usually begins with random dissections of farm animals, such as pigs, cattle, and even horses. After that, the children go missing—the foolish or the unwanted, the strays and orphans who won’t be quickly missed. Soon, though, they’re found in the same condition as the mutilated livestock, precisely divided into so many oddly shaped parts, spread out and arranged in mysterious patterns, the cuts and slices impossibly neat, well beyond the skill of the finest chirurgeon in Rûl.
You hear the roar of the crowd before you can see any but the tallest towers. Closer, you see the city’s new outer walls, still half-built and swarming with workers sweating in the swampy humidity. Humans, dwarfs, orcs, and others besides, slaves and free, clamber over scaffolding as the black stone walls rise. Another cacophonous roar splits the air as you pass through the gate, its basalt exterior decorated with reliefs and statues of men and women, gladiators, spilling each other’s blood. The city is near deserted, its buildings of gloomy basalt and brilliantly painted wood and plaster facades empty except for patrolling guards and nervous would-be thieves. Everyone else, human and nonhuman, men, women, and children, are gone, gathered at the giant arena of the Crucible for the grand carnival of violence.
All gold flows from Kem, thus giving it the name “City of Gold.” No other city—no province or even kingdom, for that matter—can claim a level of wealth comparable to that possessed by Kem, and the infamous financial power known as the Vault based there. Kem’s influence reaches everywhere, from the Crusader States bounding the Desolation in the north to the holdfasts of Blötland in the far south. The City of Gold has lifted many nations up to the heights of power, and cast down into ruins any who crossed them. And so Kem moves on the world stage with unchecked might, an economic force without rival, whose financial influence translates easily into political and even military power.
Along the southernmost reach of the Crescent Bay, a jumbled city covers a narrow, jagged peninsula, like a scab that just won’t heal right. The city of Pruul was once a shining jewel with great wealth, power, and influence that equaled or even exceeded the other cities of the Confederacy of the Nine, of which it is a member. But the city’s relentless greed and avarice caused it to tear itself apart, as a tiny minority of rich got richer, and the massive majority of the poor got poorer. In the aftermath of bloody riots that brought down the city’s ruling elite, criminals and other unsavory elements filled the power vacuum as the only form of stability and order. Although a hollow shell of its former glory, Pruul, now known as the City of Thieves, serves as a hub for rogues, pirates, brigands, escaped slaves, debtors fleeing their debts, and a variety of other misfits and miscreants.
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