The Manufactured Sorcerer

They'd told her there would be fire. They'd told her it would test her as surely as any battlefield. That she would have to endure, or it would consume her. And she had saluted, and repeated the oath she had given to her nation. Her life was the Emperor's to use as he saw fit.

They'd brought her down into the Crucible. They'd strapped her to a chirurgeon's table. A cold, steel spike slid into her veins, and it was followed by hot blood. The pain had come slowly, but with every beat of her heart the burning liquid circulated through her body. She told herself she wouldn't scream, but she did. Over, and over, and over again, until she was hoarse. But in the end, she still drew breath. She mastered the fire, and it banked in her belly. She couldn't wield it yet, not fully, but that would be the next stage of the process.

In time, she took the field once again. Not as a foot soldier, but as a commander. As someone who could destroy those who would stand against the empire, and whose paltry battlements would fall before the flames of her inferno.

Many burned to ashes in the Crucible... but those who arose again, like Cenedra De'Varis, bore the blood of the Phoenix Guard.

When Sorcerers Aren't Born... But Made

When we hear the word "bloodline" we tend to think of sorcerers as being people who are born with a unique power inside of them. Magic is handed down from parents to children in this way, often implying some kind of unnatural or aberrant element in one's birth. However, as I pointed out back in The Mutant Sorcerer, sometimes people can encounter bizarre instances, cursed lands, or just end up exposed to arcane energies that transform them into sorcerers, granting them a bloodline.

But what if a process was discovered, however flawed, that allowed one to gain a sorcerous bloodline? Even if there was great risk involved, how many people would undergo the process in the hopes that they would be granted even a modicum of magical power? When that happens, what you end up with is a variant of this other concept, which I have dubbed the Manufactured Sorcerer.

There are two, important elements that make up the Manufacturer Sorcerer... what is the process used to make one, and why were they being made in the first place?

As illustrated above, perhaps these sorcerers are being manufactured by a military force as elite troops, and they use transfusions of blood from more powerful sorcerers to try to catch that fire onto a new person. Alternatively, a cult dedicated to fiends or alien gods may want to create powerful bridges between themselves and their patrons, so they have rituals for how to modify an individual's body, implanting bizarre organs inside them that grant strange, magical powers. There may even be ancient recipes of herbal concoctions that, if properly prepared and drunk, were used to create protectors for tribes who wished to harness the powers of the land itself.

A key aspect of this concept, however, is that the ritual involved must be rare, the individuals it will work on must be rare, or some combination of the two.

For instance, did a team of alchemists unlock the secrets of how to bestow a bloodline onto a volunteer, but they were assassinated before the project could be enacted en masse (for a bit of inspiration taken from Captain America)? Is the ritual safeguarded and kept secret by the Storm Lords, as they only want to bestow this kind of power onto those who will be loyal to them? Or does the ritual in question have a mortality rate so high that at least half of those who attempt it die, while most of those who survive are crippled, with no power to show for their efforts? Or does the ritual call for someone who meets exacting qualifications, all of which are supposed to be signs of someone's compatibility with the process (whether it be those with a certain eye color, those capable of enduring difficult physical feats, or those who bear mixed ancestry)?

The ritual being difficult to survive, hard to discover, or both does two things. First, it marks this character out as unique for having survived a harrowing trial, whether or not they participated in it willingly. Secondly, it explains why there aren't hordes of sorcerers all over the place, making it one of the most common classes in the setting.

Lastly, to add a bit more flavor, ask if this ritual instills a specific bloodline into the Manufactured Sorcerer, or if the process is vague enough that it seems to be something of a crap shoot for what one gets. For an extra challenge as a player, consider rolling on a table and seeing what bloodline the process grants!

Further Reading

For more reading on the topic, check out my article 5 Tips For Playing Better Sorcerers, as well as 50 Origins For A Sorcerer's Bloodline.

Lastly, I had a question for folks who've read this far. Would you like to see a Manufactured Sorcerer archetype, or something similar to it, in a future release relating to Archbliss, The Floating City of The Sorcerers (available for Pathfinder as well as DND 5E)? And if so, what are some things you'd like to see it do?

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That's all for this week's Unusual Character Concepts post!

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