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le of Contents
Introduction 3Where This Belongs in Your Campaign .. .3How to Use This Book 3
Chapter 1: Chronomancers 4A Note About the Demi-Plane of Time .. .4Requirements and Restrictions 4Experience and Advancement 6Benefits and Penalties 7Attitude and Lifestyle 7Chronomancer Kits 8
Chapter 2: The Big Picture 17Beyond Time 17The Building Blocks 17
Linear Existence 17Physical Traces 18
Temporal Prime 19End of the Line 19Inside the Timestream 20
Chapter 3: The Road To Adventure 21Slipping into the Scene 21
At the Starting Gate 22More on Timestream Formations 23Which Way Is Up? 23
Getting About 25Mapping the Realm 26
Traveling an Objective Mile 27Temporal Shortcuts 27
Changing History 30Hazardous Duty 32
Creatures 32Combat 33Natural Hazards 33Off the Beaten Path 37
Encounters 38
Chapter 4: Chronomancy 39Nonweapon Proficiencies 39Spells 41Outfitting the Chronomancer 55
Equipment 55Items and Artifacts 56
Chapter 5: Protectors of the Realm 59Who They Are 59What They Do 59How They Do It 59The Birth of Chronomancy 60Action and Organization 60A Word of Caution 62
Chapter 6: A New Source of Magic 64Where It Comes From 64The School of Chronomancy 64Spell Descriptions 64Items and Artifacts 66Normal Magic on Temporal Prime 67
Guideline #1 67Guideline #2 68Guideline #3 71
The Working of Magical Items 73Magic Resistance of
Temporal Creatures 74
Chapter 7: Fantasy Futures 75Building a Future 75Future Fantasy 77
Made To Order 82Distant Past 82Present 83Future 84Far Future 85
Appendix: Official AD&D® Worlds 87MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM® Appendix 90
2 • Table of Contents
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Moving delicately along the fringes of themagical worlds are the members of an eliteand secretive school. These mysterious fig-ures guard the basis of their abilities withparanoid fervor, especially from other wiz-ards. What little is known of them is learnedmainly in rumors and legends hinting at astartling truth: Theirs is the mastery of time.Past, present, and future are all merely differ-ent lands within their realm. They call them-selves chronomancers.
In a magical world, few things are entirelyimpossible. Still, only a small core of intel-lectuals puts great stock in these legends. Intheir opinion, not only do chronomancersexist, but these eerie mages are privy to a lifeunlike any known before. Much evidence hasbeen gathered and weighed, but most peoplesimply cannot (or will not) conceive of a wiz-ard with power over the natural order ofevents.
Few areas can match the potential for rawpower associated with time travel: the chanceto experience the far future, the ability toinfluence the past. Even in a fantastic setting,there would be those infatuated with holdingsway over time.
Enter the chronomancers, elite wizardswith the ability to influence temporal forces.Practicing and developing their unorthodoxart, these wizards have turned their backs ontraditional destiny to forge new lives forthemselves and countless others. Chrono-mancers can wind back the clock or send itspinning ahead, expanding the horizons ofyour game world and blazing a path to adven-tures never before imagined.
Where This BelongsIn Your Campaign
Temporal Prime (the dimension of time)and chronomancers can fit into an existingAD&D® game world at whatever level theDungeon Master chooses. This information
can be used as background for minor adven-tures that might involve time travel, or theDM can embrace these concepts and turn thecharacters loose on an unwary (well, maybe alittle wary) time-space continuum.
Besides expanding an existing world byallowing access to its past and future, the dis-covery of Temporal Prime makes an unex-plored realm available, complete with newcreatures and new puzzles to investigate. Theexistence of this dimension also gives rise tonew character types, a new school of magic,and exciting new magical items for the char-acters to discover and enjoy.
How to Use This BookThis book is broken up into two large sec-
tions. The first section consists of ChaptersOne through Four. These detail everythingabout chronomancers and their spells that achronomancer player should know.
The rest of the book contains material forthe Dungeon Master's eyes only. No playersshould read this part of the book, as it fea-tures all sorts of material that is best discov-ered in the course of play.
Players who are not planning to play achronomancer should not read this book atall. The world at large knows little aboutthese wizards, and it is easier for the playersto realistically portray their characters if theplayers are as much in the dark about chrono-mancy as their characters.
As the Dungeon Master, read through thisbook carefully before considering what sort ofa role you want chronomancers to play inyour campaign. If you feel that chronomancerplayer characters would unbalance your cam-paign, then disallow them in play. You canstill use the material presented herein as abackground for your campaign, but thatdoesn't mean that the heroes have to knowanything that you don't choose to reveal tothem in play
Introduction
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I cannot prove the existence of this demiplaneyet, this dimension of Time, merely the possibilityof its existence. I have gathered information con-cerning the known planes and their relationshipwith each other, and nothing contradicts this con-cept. In fact, many of the laws and theories con-cerning the elemental planes help to directlysupport the possibility of a temporal plane thatexists farther in than the elementals, a dimen-sional plane that acts as a cornerstone of reality aswe know it.
And what exists may be exploited. If power canbe drawn from the elements, what kind of magiccould be made possible by tapping a dimension? Ifthe raw essence of time could be manipulatedaccording to the will of a mortal humanoid, whatlimits would there be? The potential for rewardstacks highly against an equal potential for devas-tation. Practitioners would have to be kept to aminority, a dedicated few who could work thistemporal force for the betterment of all life. Whatkind of person could accept such responsibilitywithout turning toward selfish interests? Couldthe overall morality of a group of such humanoidsbe enough of a driving force to set them to policingtheir own kind? Perhaps it's best such argumentsremain in the venue of theory.
—Excerpt from Kandalon's Theories on Time
Chronomancers draw power for their mys-tical ability directly from the energy createdby the momentum of time. The lifeline ofevery living thing forms a current in time-space, and the intertwining currents createthe timestream. The flow of one timestreamcovers a reality, and in vortices (a mild formof time turbulences) several timestreams canflow closely and allow passage from one real-ity to another. Vortices range in size and haz-ards depending upon how many timestreamsflow through them. Temporal Prime is the di-mension in which timestreams can be viewed.A chronomancer can slip between reality andTemporal Prime through the use of spells,items, or permanent portals.
A Note About the"Demiplane of Time"
Few previously published AD&D® gamematerials have dealt with the issue of timetravel to any extent. Those that have done sorefer to a place called the "demiplane oftime." While it is understandable that an out-sider might conceive of the dimension ofTemporal Prime as some kind of demiplane, itis in fact nothing of the sort.
The phrase "demiplane of time" is simply amisnomer for something that is difficult forany but a chronomancer to fully comprehend.It's understandable that outsiders, trying tofit Temporal Prime into their own necessarilylimited theories of how the universe is con-structed, would make this mistake. Here,however, it is corrected.
For this reason, creatures like the "timedemielemental" have been given more ap-propriate names, as has the dimension thatspawned them. All of this becomes clearerwith further study of chronomancy.
Requirements and RestrictionsAs a wizard from an elite school, the chro-
nomancer has some unusual requirementsand restrictions. Any of them can be modifiedwith Dungeon Master discretion, of course,but it is strongly recommended that this bedone only under special circumstances.
Ability Scores. Two ability scores governthe chronomancer: Intelligence and Wisdom.A chronomancer must have a minimum Intel-ligence of 17 to understand the abstract theo-ries on which his mystical art is based. Aminimum Wisdom of 16 is required as well, toensure the wizard has the foresight for under-standing the implications of using chrono-mancy, and the discipline to use it responsibly.It is unlikely that a character without theseminimums would ever find an apprenticeshipwith a chronomancer.
4 • Chapter One
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Racial Restrictions. The school of chrono-mancy is beyond most demihumans, limitingthe allowed races to humans, elves, and half-elves. The innate magic resistance of dwarves,gnomes, and halflings prevents them fromchanneling the mystical energies properly.There may be other races that could build adecent case for learning chronomancy, butchronomancers are secretive enough amongtheir own kind and are not about to extendtrust to such races. Chronomancer families ofhumans, elves, and half-elves are known.
Weapons and Armor. Like most wizards,the chronomancer may use the dagger, staff,dart, blowgun, knife, or sling. Dual-classingallows for the learning of different weapons,but this is the exception, not the rule.
Chronomancers are not allowed to weararmor of any type unless it is elven chain mailand the chronomancer is an elf or half-elf.
Dual-classing cannot change this fact, andDungeon Masters are cautioned against al-lowing a kit that permits otherwise.
Racial Level Limits. The standard raciallevel limits for wizards apply to chrono-mancers. Dwarves, gnomes, and halflingscannot be chronomancers. Elves are limited to15th level, half-elves are limited to 12th level,and humans have no level limits.
Alignment. Secrecy and paranoia areinfused into the chronomancer at early stagesto ensure the secrets of this school are kept asquiet as possible. For this reason, a chaoticalignment is not allowed. A chronomancer oflawful or neutral alignment would not be ableto trust a chaotic apprentice, and so wouldnot take on such a student. A chronomancerwho has turned chaotic over time may beginto allow some secrets to slip, but paranoia hasan even tighter hold on that wizard, for other
Chronomancers • 5
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chronomancers often attempt to "correct" anysuch indiscretions that may come to theirattention. As such, a chronomancer is unlikelyto trust an apprentice of any alignment, muchless a chaotic one.
Chronomancers who shift to a chaotic align-ment do not suffer for it directly. Their actionsare watched more closely by others, though,and what little help they could have expectedfrom other chronomancers would be long incoming.
Dual- and Multiclasses. Humans canbecome dual-classed chronomancers. If chro-nomancy is their second course of study, theminimum ability scores are raised to an Intel-ligence of 18 and a Wisdom of 17.
Regular multiclassing is not possible, sincechronomancy automatically requires special-ization. Two subclasses of the chronomancer,however, are available to human, elf, andhalf-elf characters. These are detailed onpages 13-16.
Experience and AdvancementHow a chronomancer advances in his cho-
sen field is nearly identical to any other wiz-ard specialist. The mechanics remain thesame, but the rates at which experience andlevels are earned differ a bit.
Individual Experience Awards
As noted on Table 1, chronomancers earntheir experience in a slightly different waythan other wizards. Due to the relative com-plexity of chronomancy spells, more experi-ence is earned for casting them, yet onlygroup experience is earned for casting non-chronomancy spells. Note that, due to the rig-ors of their studies, chronomancers neverreceive a 10% bonus on experience for havinghigh ability scores in their prime requisites.
Table 1: Chronomancer Experience
ActionChronomancy spell cast
to overcome foe orproblems
Chronomancy spell suc-cessfully researched
Making a potion or scrollCreating a permanent
magical item
Award
60 XP/spell level
600 XP/spell levelXP value
XP value
level ArivAnrement
Chronomancers advance at a slightly slowerpace than normal wizards (see Table 2). Thisis due to the complicated relationship be-tween Temporal Prime and reality that chro-nomancers must apply to their studies.
