Saturday, August 29, 2015

Artifacts from the Cult of Freet

From the wizard-journal of Alphonse the Absurd, traveling sorcerer.  Alphonse's journal is magic-bound to another journal, kept safely in a vault in River-Town; whatever he writes in his leatherbound journal appears in the second copy within several hours.  It is from this secondary copy that we spy upon his meanderings.


It is with no small serving of joy that I am pleased to report that I have uncovered a buried cache of treasure, at the cost of only three henchmen and my green-and-gold waistcoat.  If this expedition to the pine barrens had not borne fruit, I would have certainly been most inconvenienced by the collection-daggers of Reverend Tater's debt-hunters, but now that eventuality has been dispelled.

Beneath an enruned outcropping marking the boundary between two pathetic Freeholder farms, I have located what is surely a noteworthy treasure of the north.  A child-sized golden coffin contained several priestly spell-scrolls, a goodly amount of northern-style jewelry and coin, and not one, but two enchanted items of old which I shall now detail, my investigations being complete.  The coffin also contained human remains, but I have yet to find a good way to monetize these.  All of the other contents seem related to the moribund cult of a godling called Freet, the Lord of the Burning-Deeps, once respected by the ancestors of the Freeholders, according to their own Smultringa Saga.


FREET, Lord of the Burning-Deeps
Presumably counted among the Vicelords, Freet appears to be a minor pleasure-daemon of gluttony and excess, truly a thing that should not be.  Painting himself as a welcoming father-figure, he encourages his followers to consume blatantly unhealthy yet delicious food as a means of worship.  Freet is portrayed in artwork as a relatively formless, lumpen brown mass, sweating oil.  Clerics who swear fealty to Papa Freet are taught all three of the spells below, plus a clerical version of the wizard spell grease; a priest who merely spends a weekend in the debauchery of proper over-the-top Freet-worship may learn one of the spells as a gift.

Ingesting the Abomination
first-level spell
While intoning the chants to Papa Freet that make up this spell, the priest breads or batters a nonliving item of any shape weighing less than ten pounds, then deep-fries the object (obviously a large enough fryer is required).  Once deep fried, the object may be safely eaten, no matter its size or composition.  The object is gently nestled within folded-space in the consumer's stomach, and can be disgorged (process takes 1d4 rounds) anytime within the following four hours.  At the end of the four hours, the gurgitator makes a CON save; if passed, the object is digested as nutritious food of equivalent mass (note that this can still be distressing if the object is large enough).  If the CON save is failed, the object pops out of folded-space and exists inside the consumer's body; this is probably really, really bad, and the GM will adjudicate the results accordingly.

Commanding Rejuvenation of Papa Freet
second level spell
The priest consumes a cup of hot oil (taking 1hp damage in the process).  For the next eight hours, his or her turning ability works against creatures of sucromancy or sweetness in addition to their normal targets.  Whether it's a cupcake golem, a sugarplum fairy, or a peppermint shrike, all sweets are "improved" by the touch of the Lord of the Burning-Deeps.

Freedom Fries
second level spell
The cleric performs a series of ritual cuts on a normal potato, inserts four coins into the potato (because freedom isn't free), then speaks the mystic words of the spell (reported in the Smultringa saga to be "Ia Ia Murka").  All nonmagical locks within ten feet of the potato immediately open.  The coins are consumed in the casting, but the carved potato remains.


ITEMS familiar to the FREET-CULT

The Onion Ring
A golden-brown ring worn on the pinky, this ensorcelled treat allows the wearer to change his or her appearance once per day, as an alter self spell, by slowly peeling off layers of their own skin and revealing the new form beneath (the process takes 1 turn and is pretty disgusting).  The transformation does not wear off; the wearer must re-peel back to their normal form the next day, if that be their goal.  A good proper dispel will return the onion ring's wearer to their normal form.

Aspergillum of St. Poutine
Although it appears to be - and functions as - a flail +1, this item is primarily designed to be filled with blessed gravy.  Ideographs along the length of the weapon can guide any cleric or chef to assemble the proper ingredients to cook up basic gravy sacred to Papa Freet, the Aspergillum of St. Poutine has a further secret.  If the holy gravy is made to contain the bones of a particular kind of creature - a wolf, a manticore, a man - then that batch of gravy, when placed in the Aspergillum, will make the weapon act as +3 versus that sort of creature.  This bonus enchantment lasts only until the gravy congeals within the Aspergillum (1d3 hours).

Druids who pay proper homage to Freet learn this variant of Goodberry.