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Phoenix

Not born but made. Somewhere, an alchemist's Great Work succeeded — a rooster stuffed with a human brain and heart, cooked in an athanor — and out of the vessel came a thing that speaks, remembers, and does not stay dead. It wears the body of a bird the size of a pelican. Whose work it was, and whether the debt on it is paid, is a question best not asked in front of a Witch Hunter.

Level Experience Wounds Stamina Gifts
1 0 1d4 (min 3) 1d4 +1
2 3000 — +1d4 +1
3 6000 +1 +1d4 +1
4 12000 — +1d4 +1
5 24000 — +1d4 +1
6 48000 +1 +1d4 +1

Saving Throws

Level Paralyze Poison Breath Device Magic
1 12 15 11 16 14
2 12 15 11 16 14
3 12 15 11 16 14
4 10 13 9 14 12
5 10 13 9 14 12
6 10 13 9 14 12

Special Rules

The Phoenix is a bird the size of a pelican. It speaks all languages it knew in the vessel, and its voice carries strangely, like words remembered rather than heard.

  • Flight. Flies at three times the usual speed; walks and hops at half a man's pace.
  • Talons and beak. Manipulation as a clever corvid: it can carry one small object, tug a lever, worry at a simple knot or latch — given time and, for fine work, an Agility check. It cannot wield weapons, wear armor, load a firearm, or carry more than a tenth of what a man carries.
  • Small and quick. +2 to melee AC and, while flying, +2 to ranged AC. It has no armor and never will.
  • Encumbrance is limited to 2 points if a bag or sack is carried. Otherwise a Phoenix can carry three items, or a single encumbering one.

Phoenix Traits

  • Glow. Phoenix always sheds light as a lantern. This costs nothing and never runs out.
  • Spark. A melee attack dealing 1d4 damage.
  • Ward. The Phoenix saves against fire at +4 or takes half damage if there is no save.
  • Miscats The Phoenix is not a scholar with a grimoire; it is the fire wearing feathers. Whenever it uses a Gift (not the traits above), roll 1d6 alongside. On a 1, the power slips the leash — roll on the Surge table. Gifts marked (surge) are worse: they slip on a 1–2. The initial Gift still takes effect.

Surge (1d6)

d6 The element slips
1 Backlash. The Phoenix takes its own Spark damage.
2 Stray arc. The nearest creature, friend or foe, takes the Spark.
3 Blaze. The glow flares beyond control for a full turn — no stealth, visible and audible for miles by night.
4 Foul mechanisms. Delicate works within 20' misbehave: matchlocks fire or die, locks fuse, clockwork stops.
5 Guttered. The Gift used is lost until the next dawn.
6 Wildfire. Roll twice on this table.

Gifts

At each level past the first, roll 1d20 on the list below. Rolling a Gift already held deepens it instead (greater range, effect, or one step less surge risk — GM's choice per Gift).

d20 Gift
1 Elemental Sense. Feel open flame and embers within 60', through walls.
2 Herald. Small omens announce you always — candles gutter, hair rises, compasses wander. Involuntary. +1 reaction from witches and the learned; −1 from the pious.
3 Quickened Tongue. Speak with the creatures of your domain such as salamanders and things of ash
4 Arc. Your Spark leaps to a second target within 10' of the first. Deepened: a third target, or +1 damage die size.
5 Discharge (surge). Hurl a bolt at Ballistic Skill, range 30', for 1d8 element damage. Deepened: 1d10, range 60'.
6 Mantle (surge). For one turn your body is sheathed in fire; anyone striking you in melee takes your Spark.
7 Passage (surge). Travel an instant between two fires or through flammable material for up to 120'. Carried objects stay behind.
8 Galvanism (surge). The small mercy: restart a heart stopped within the last turn, or quicken a fresh corpse to answer one question. One attempt per body, ever.
9 Weatherwise. Over an hour of display and cry, call or quiet fire in the sky and land around: feed or starve a blaze, turn water into steam.
10 Second Wind. Burn the body to feed the wing: once a day, take 1 Wound to gain an extra action or double movement for one round.
11 Brand. Mark a creature or object with your sigil. You always know its direction. One brand at a time; a new one burns out the old dealing the Spark damage.
12 Unclouded Eye. You see clearly through smoke, fires and any darkness your own glow touches. Deepened: see the current in living bodies — hidden creatures within 30' are not hidden.
13 Nest-bond. You feel your nest at any distance — its safety, its tampering, roughly its direction. Deepened: once a day, send one word to whoever tends it.
14 Feather of Ransom. Pluck a living feather (take 1 Wound; it does not regrow until your next rebirth). The feather holds one use of your Spark and anyone may spend it. It can be given, sold, or stolen.
15 Awe. Unfurl and blaze: hostile beasts check Morale; men save versus Magic or hesitate one round. Once per encounter — and it also triggers involuntarily the first time you take a Wound in a fight.
16 The Element's Due. Your Ward becomes full immunity to fire. Deepened: allies within 10' gain your original Ward.
17 Lodestone. Heat and tallow answers you: at 20' put out or burn a torch, make some flammable object catch fire, or heat and jam some clockwork. Deepened (surge): damage a metal item. Weapons gain -1 to attack, armor gets -1 AC, complex mechanisms require full maintenance.
18 Moult of Ash. (surge) Burst into ash and reform 10' away, escaping any bond, grasp, or snare. Anything carried stays behind.
19 Long Memory. Touch what your fire has marked — the scorch, the extinguished fire, the bullet hole — and glimpse the moment it happened.
20 Unruly Gift. Roll twice more and keep both — but every use of either invites surge one step easier.

Death and the Nest

A Phoenix does not die like a man. It detonates.

The Detonation

The moment the Phoenix is slain, the body bursts into flames. Effect by the level held at death; a save versus Breath halves damage.

Level Detonation
1 1d6 damage to all within 10'. All within 10' save or are deafened and dazzled one round.
2 2d6 damage to all within 20'. Everyone still dazzled.
3 3d6 damage to all within 30'. Small fires start; bare metal scorches.
4 4d6 damage to all within 40'. Loose powder and primed matchlocks in range ignite.
5 5d6 damage to all within 50'. Powder stores detonate; timber catches; the sky answers overhead.
6 6d6 damage to all within 60', and the region itself surges — every magician and enchanted thing within a mile rolls once on the Surge table.

What remains is ash — and somewhere far away, in the nest, something begins to grow.

The Nest

The nest is a vessel: an athanor, a lead-lined bath of horrible but valuable substances, prepared and kept charged in advance. The vessel itself costs 500sp to commission; the liquors that charge it are sold openly but dearly by apothecaries and, inevitably, by witches, priced by the stature of the creature to be rebuilt:

Level restored Charge
1 600sp
2 1200sp
3 2400sp
4 4800sp
5 9600sp
6 19200sp

The nest is stationary, physical, and vulnerable. It can be robbed, desecrated, or held hostage. The Phoenix would do well to keep its address a secret.

Rebirth

If the nest is charged when the Phoenix dies:

  1. One week of incubation passes before it wakes.
  2. It wakes one level lower than it died, but level 1 at least.
  3. It loses 1 point of Toughness, permanently, and bears a visible mark of the death.
  4. 1d4 years burn off its span (below).
  5. The charge is consumed. An empty nest saves no one. If the nest is not charged, the Phoenix is dead. Truly.

Tip: the Rooster Clause: at the GM's whim, an uncharged nest yields not death but a mere mundane rooster, witless and flightless, until someone brews the bath and cooks it again — paying the double charge and all costs of rebirth.

The Span

The made body lasts d10 years from its cooking. When the span runs out, the Phoenix must enter the nest and be reborn — paying every cost above, willingly or not. Each rebirth begins a new few years, less the years already burned.

Careers

The Phoenix has no careers. It is not a trade a man takes up; it is a thing that happened in a vessel once, and is still happening.