Hello everyone, and welcome to another in a series of articles focusing on the Cleric Domains in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The goal for each of these is to provide you with a quick overview of your domain powers, spells, and introduce you to a god or goddess from real-Earth mythology who could be a deity using this particular domain.
All that said, welcome to this week’s article on the domain of: Ruins.
The Ruins domain is described as “You sense nature’s creeping reclamation of what once belonged to the civilized world and understand how to ensure ruins that hold power or significance will persist..” – So your deity is one or both the things that were, lingering power, and the inevitable decay of civilizations past, current or future. In the view of your god, everything comes to an end eventually.
The first power you get is “Ruin Touch” which allows you to manipulate (either raise or lower) the hardness of objects, making them either easier to destroy or harder. This can also be on constructs which can come in very handy for dungeon-crawling PCs.
The second power you get is “Remembrance,” which allows you to cast divination or commune with nature when you’re within ruins, as this allows you to reach out and gain information about the natural world, as well as those areas that are no longer claimed by civilization.
Finally, with Ruins, you get a third power called “sure-footed” as well, where you are no longer affected by difficult terrain, allowing you to master the battlefield, unless magic is involved (in which case it works normally).
Spells:
The spells you get with the Ruins domain are as follows:
Magic Stone
Magic stone allows you to launch 3 pebbles, the size of sling bullets, and enabling you to do tremendous damage with them. You can use them as if they were a normal ranged attack (either thrown or slung – when slung their range is greater), and they each do 1d6+1 points of damage, plus your Strength modifier. Makes for a fairly effective spell, when you don’t have a ranged weapon, even more so if it’s against the undead (where it does double damage, i.e. 2d6+2).
Stone Call
Stone call starts out being a low-area damaging spell (doing 2d6 points of damage to anyone caught in the area), but its primary use is as an area control spell as it turns the area into difficult terrain, which of course can be ignored by certain characters like druids and the characters with the Ruins domain (provided they’re at least 8th level where they get sure-footed). Even for characters that can’t ignore difficult terrain, this can be handy, as they can deny an escape route to an enemy, or simply slow down any pursuit.
Meld into Stone
With this spell, you pretty much become Kitty Pryde from the X-men, as it allows you to become one with stone, hiding within it, until a safe moment. Unfortunately you cannot pass THROUGH the stone, as you’ll reemerge into the same spot where you originally merged, but it is a handy spell to use to hide from opponents, You’re still able to cast spells on yourself while merged (but not on anyone outside), but you cannot SEE what’s happening outside, though you can still hear what’s going on. Just remember that the stone must actually be big enough to accommodate your body for you to use meld into stone.
Rusting Grasp
This spell turns you into one of the most dreaded monsters within Dungeons & Dragons, especially for melee classes. The rust monster! With this spell, you cause metallic objects to rust away in seconds. Things like armor and weapons are fair game, though it cannot affect magical items. It is also effective against things like iron golems and other ferrous creatures. It is also a good way to get a dragon extremely angry if you cause their treasure pile to corrode away.
Commune with Nature
This allows you to obtain general knowledge about the nearby natural surroundings (the nearest 1 mile per level). The information you gain is very generic, things like population, what wildlife is in the area or things like the presence of powerful unnatural creatures (things like the undead for example). It is very generic, but it can give a smart spellcaster a general idea of what to expect in the area.
Stone Tell
This is a fairly useful spell, in that it allows you to communicate with the very stones themselves. For example, you could use it on a stone stairway to hear if someone has passed up and down them. It is worth bearing in mind though, that stones only have a certain perspective on things such as time and the presence of creatures. For example, there’s an excellent short story that shows off this spell perfectly, called “Grandfather’s Toys” written by Jean Rabe, which can be found in an old Forgotten Realms anthology called Realms of Valor.
Statue
Having a similar effect to flesh to stone, this turns a creature into a stone statue, though it allows them to use their senses normally, making for an excellent spy (which is not normally the case for anyone being turned to stone). My personal favorite use that I’ve seen of it so far, was for one of the PCs to be dressed up as a classic statue, complete with pose, and then presented to the villain as a gift. Then when the spell expired, he snuck out and opened the door to the rest of the party, now knowing a bit more of what was going on.
Earthquake
A localized earthquake that does damage depending on your location (you don’t want to be underground with this), it presents a lot of ways for a cleric to make things go bad, like creating quicksand, or trapping someone in a destroyed building. (Note that the damage given to a building is a flat 100, not the 8d6 that creatures take; buildings can’t dodge).
Clashing Rocks
This is a fairly simple spell in effect, but boy is it devastating. This summons up 2 Colossal clots of stone and earth 60 feet apart (one on each side of the target, 30 feet away) and strikes them together, with a single target in the middle. A creature struck by the clashing rocks takes 20d6 points of bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. If the target fails a Reflex Saving Throw, it is also buried under the resulting rubble as if by a cave-in. if the target is NOT hit by the spell (which is a ranged touch attack) they take 10d6 points of damage and with a Reflex Saving Throw to avoid being knocked prone. Anyone caught in the path of the rocks takes damage and so on, as if they were the target, but where it missed.
New Deity
Cronus
Lord of the Titans, the Usurper, the End and Beginning of All. Father-Slayer
Alignment CE (formerly LE)
Worshipers those interested in taking power, those who have been banished, those who wish the world to end, doomsayers
Cleric Alignments CN, NE, CE
Domains: Chaos, Destruction, Evil, Madness, Ruins, War
Sub-domains: Blood, Corruption, Entropy, Hatred, Insanity, Torture
Favored Weapon: battleaxe
Symbol: a broken crown on a red field
Cronus was once a king among gods. He’d risen up from suppression by his father, and slew him at his mother’s behest, taking his throne. He was then later usurped by his own son and imprisoned in the Carceri, the Great Cage. There his power wanes slowly as the eons pass away, but he is still more than powerful enough to contend with the gods, and should he escape, the world will come to an end.
His time in Carceri has driven him irrevocably insane, and he is now completely focused on his own imprisonment. Where before he was a very harsh taskmaster, but one that held to his own rules, he is now a whirlwind of chaos, issuing dictates seemingly at a whim, and expecting anyone weaker than himself to instantly obey or be destroyed.
Cronus has few worshippers among mortals, but a surprisingly high number of them are his clergy. These are often madmen or revolutionaries, wishing to see the current state of affairs overthrown, and something new built in its place, something where they are in control.
The clergy does not follow any set of rules at all, operating from what they see as “Cronus’ Great Vision,” a series of maddening dreams and nightmares that seem unique to each priest. As such they rarely work together, unless one of them is significantly more powerful, in which case the subordinate often spends most of his time plotting the overthrow of the senior priest.
The only consistency seems to be in their clothes. They wear robes that appear as tattered mockeries of the latest fashions among the aristocracy, often going so far as to obtain or steal the fashions that have just gone out of style among the nobility, as a subtle sign that “the more things change for new, the old will always be there to haunt them.”
Join us next time as we look at the Rune domain.
Kim Frandsen
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