The Masterwork
Celestial · Crown of Beauty
T5d12Sovereign
The most beautiful creature on the Meridian. Its form shifts between every archetype of beauty-dancer, constellation, wave, flame. Made of pearl-light and starfire and the memory of every sunset that made someone stop and stare. Its face is the person you loved most, rendered in luminous perfection.
Tier 5 · Role Sovereign · Pool Vigor 11 / Vitality 30 · AC 14 · ATK +7 · Save DC 19 · Dmg d12
| Stat | Score | Mod | Die |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body | 8 | -1 | -d3 |
| Mind | 18 | +4 | d8 |
| Sense | 20 | +5 | d10 |
| Heart | 22 | +6 | d12 |
| Cunning | 18 | +4 | d8 |
| Fate | 20 | +5 | d10 |
Passives
Living Art
Cannot be perceived as ugly, and attacks against it take -2: striking it feels like defacing a masterpiece. Immune to despair, hopelessness, and any effect that argues life has no meaning.
Regeneration
Regains 1 Vigor at the start of its turn. Deliberate destruction of art or beauty in its sight stops this until the end of its next turn.
Maneuvers
Sublime Presence
It intensifies its beauty in a 30 ft radius: allies gain +1 to all rolls until the start of its next turn, and creatures of Despair make a Heart save or are dazed for 1 round.
Declarations
Declared in the enemy tactical window and resolved at the start of its next turn. Any Vitality it loses first forces the disruption roll: on a 1 the telegraph is lost.
Sublime Manifestation
It unfolds a 300 ft radius into a place of perfect beauty, real and permanent: a sunlit garden, a moonlit cathedral, first snow in a clearing. Each enemy within makes a Heart save; a servant of Despair takes 5 damage on a failure and weeps, stunned for 1 round, while any other enemy takes 1 Vigor damage. Allies are freed of all despair effects.
Reactions
Beauty's Retort
When a creature hits the Masterwork, that creature makes a Heart save or takes 1 Vigor damage from the anguish of defacing something perfect.
Tactics
GM tactics
Opens with Sublime Manifestation to transform the battlefield into sacred beauty, incapacitating Despair-aligned enemies. Uses Sublime Presence against destroyers of beauty, steadying creators in the process. Relies on Living Art and Beauty's Retort to make attacking it psychologically costly. The Masterwork is the Throne of Beauty's answer to the Obsidian Mirror-proof that meaning exists.
Running it
Rules
- Shield of Tier + Heart mod over a Vitality pool of 10 + 4 x Tier. Full Vigor at combat start; at the start of its turn it rolls 5 exploding d4s and regains 1 Vigor per 4. Dead at 0 Vigor and 0 Vitality.
- A hit rolls d12. A crit rolls two: 2d12.
- Crits on a natural 16+ (Cunning 18).
- Two or three attacks in a normal turn: multiattack is the threat scaler, and one swing a round makes it a mook.
- Sovereign: 2 Sovereign Actions a round, spent after other combatants' turns, on top of its attacks.
- Any Vitality lost while a telegraph is pending forces its disruption roll; on a 1 the telegraph is lost.
- Never checks morale: it fights to 0 Vitality or to the exit written into its lowest phase.
- NPCs never take wounds.