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 2 for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we seek refuge under the boughs of Boseiju.
Boseiju
Most planar travelers know of Yggdrasil, the tree of life, whose branches reach across the multiverse and allows those knowledgeable to travel in relative safety between the planes. A few know of its seed, Boseiju, the tree of knowledge. Those who do, often seek it out for its great wisdom but have to be patient as learning the answer to a single question might take a lifetime.
Lay of the Land
Boseiju is enormous, easily 2 miles in diameter, and resembles a large oak tree. It’s immune to fire, but all other types of damage work normally against it. However, Boseiju is intelligent. (An intelligence score of 25), and can cast spells. It is only able to cast 1 spell per day, but it can be any arcane spell of any level. Anyone who spends a week under the shade cast by Boseiju may make a DC 20 Intelligence check. If the check is successful, they gain the benefits of the commune spell. Whether they check is successful or fails, a creature cannot use the commune benefit again, until after a year has passed. Boseiju has access to all the information in the multiverse and can answer questions of any sort. It will never lie, but will always attempt to tell the truth.
If a creature is successful in using the commune spell and spends the next year underneath the boughs of Boseiju (without leaving), it may make another DC 20 Intelligence check. If successful, Boseiju grants a boon in the form of foresight. This boon is latent until the creature decides to use it (as Boseiju has predicted a certain point in the future), and they gain the benefits of the spell for 1 hour, after which it is lost.
Those who spend 10 years underneath the boughs of Boseiju gain a deeper insight into the workings of their trade, able to access knowledge from those that came before, and greatly increasing their skill. As a result, they gain a +10 circumstance bonus to a single skill of their choice. This is permanent while under the shade of Boseiju but lasts for a year after they leave. Anyone who leaves and comes back, starts the procedure all over again, no matter how long they left for.
Dangers
Boseiju itself is not normally dangerous unless a creature poses a direct threat to the tree or starts to attack it, at which point it will retaliate with the most powerful and potent spell it can think of. As it has access to all information in the multiverse, it will know the greatest weakness of any living creature and will use whatever method is most potent against it. (GMs should feel encouraged to meta-game here.)
Other creatures underneath the tree vary greatly in terms of threat, but those who have been there more than a year tend to be passive in nature, and leave others alone, knowing that they too are searching for knowledge or wisdom. Those just arriving act in whatever manner they normally would.
Kim Frandsen
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