Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we find something other than peace at the Cathedral of War.
Cathedral of War
The Cathedral of War seems to be present on all worlds at once, somehow connecting the various gods and goddesses of war across the planes of existence. But the building is very much real, as it is created from the blades and weapons of all those who met their end on the battlefield and whose weapons were never recovered and buried with them. It is a place of discord and unrest, with angles deliberately set so that they protrude and are in the way, and generally annoy anyone who moves through here, giving them a combative mood. It has served the proving ground of many forgotten heroes and madmen – for war cares not whether you were heroic or treacherous, only that the bodies you slew piled high around you. And that is indeed its purpose. For heroes and villains to find their way here, to hone their bloody craft, and then to be unleashed upon the world once more. And nothing is more ironic to the deities of war than seeing a hero who is trying to eradicate war by using violence. For they know that such an endeavor is futile.
Lay of the Land
The Cathedral of War sits in a featureless void, but it is so large that it can encompass any type of battlefield that mortals or immortals could imagine and a fair few beyond that. Its halls are seemingly empty, even when multiple people are present, for they are unable to perceive each other, living completely separate lives, as the gods wish it. Only those destined to clash have a chance of meeting each other, and even then, it is extremely rare.
Within the halls of the cathedral, the heroes train. Both against standard targets and training dummies, but also again incorporeal and ghostly versions of previous heroes and villains, all in the hopes of the “Chosen One” benefiting from the experiences of those that came before. Spectral trainers and ghostly apparitions tutor the hero in all the skills required for their destiny to be fulfilled. And the Chosen are tested incessantly, even though time sometimes seems to stand still here at the whim of the gods of war.
Dangers
Only one creature, beyond the heroes and the ghostly apparitions, inhabits the Cathedral of War. Known as the Angel of Blades, it is a roughly 20 feet tall humanoid figure, which seems to be entirely crafted from steel. A helmet covers its face, though a female visage is engraved upon it, one that frowns upon those who meet the Angel. Its wings are metal blades, swords that constantly drip blood, and which make a horrible screech when moving as if partially rusted, though this seems to have no effect upon its mobility.
Only rarely does the Angel speak, and when it does, it is always to berate the Chosen One for some perceived slight. Those who have heard it report that the Angel of Blades doesn’t speak, but simply that their own voice speaks to them inside their head whenever the Angel gazes upon them. Apparently, the creature has alluded to the coming of the “Perfect One” — supposedly a creature that will bring war to ALL of the multiverses at once, and finally enable the Angel of Blades to descend upon the battlefields of the worlds.
And that concludes the Cathedral of War. See you next week? 😊
Kim Frandsen
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