Tel'Ontar

Tel’Ontar are obsessive experimenters, combining a keen creative intellect with a short attention span. The original mandate of the Ontar guild was to provide solutions for public works projects (sewers, roadways, irrigation, etc), but their increasingly far-fetched experiments satisfy only their insatiable curiosity. Sometimes their experiments yield useful technological advancements; other times they produce unintended explosions, mana geyers, spatial rifts - all of which can be useful in their own way.

The'Ontar's most grandiose experiments typically concern public works projects and elemental experimentation. These efforts use a methodology that relies on unexpected outcomes: all results are informative, even if they completely defy expectations. For example, an experiment that begins as the creation of a "hypermana focusing lens" might be renamed a "scram-range teleportal" once the researchers discover more properties of what they have fashioned. Then, after a few goblin volunteers vanish inside it, the apparatus gains the designation of "universal refuse disintegrator"- until the goblin volunteers are discovered alive, having been teleported far from the Laboratory. This sort of adjustment is par for the course in Tel'Ontar experiments: the "fiddle and find out'' method is favored over any process of systematic scientific research.

Tel'Ontar is one of the few guilds whose founder, Nevarth, remains its guildmaster, just as the guild continues to fulfill its original mission (even as its experiments go far beyond the guild's original mandate).

## **Inside Tel’Ontar**

Nevarth, the original and current guildmaster of Tel'Ontar, is a XXXXX-year-old, vain temperamental, super-intelligent XXXXX. As he directs experiments throughout the guild, he values results over success, accepting and even anticipating that Tel'Ontar experiments will end in gloriously unpredictable ways.However, he rarely concerns himself with the day-to-day running of the guild, preferring to craft long range plans and let underlings implement the details.

### **Ontcundo**

Overseeing the daily operations of the guild is the purview of the Ontcundo, a board of directors that assembles teams from among the rank and file of Tel'Ontar to carry out research according to Nevarth's directions.

### **Ontgwaid**

The Ontgwaid is a smaller board with five to seven members (some members' identities remain secret) who serve as Nevarth's closest advisers.

### **The Laboratories**

Tel'Ontar is organized into units designated as that specialize in certain fields of research. Though they all operate under the general guidance of the **Ontcundo**, each laboratory is typically left alone to conduct its research. New fields of study emerge all the time, but the more established Laboratories-each populated by hundreds of mages and their attendants-include the following:

The **Laboratory Pyrology** has a prominent facility in the guildhall, **Ontenda**. Its emphasis is on heat, fire, and explosion.

The **Laboratory of Storms** and Electricity focuses on controlling the weather as well as containing and conducting electrical energy. Its headquarters is in a spire atop **Ontenda**, known as the Lightning Rod.

Research into smelting and forging, most often using the magical metal known as XXXXXX, is conducted at the **Laboratory of Metallurgy**, which has a small outpost in the Tenth District's Smelting Precinct.

The magical science of transmuting one substance to another is the study of the **Laboratory of Alchemy**.

The **Laboratory of Orientation**, concerned with teleportation and spatial recombination, has multiple work hops that seem to appear and disappear at random.

The **Laboratory of Mimeography** studies means of duplication.

The **Laboratory of Continuism** emphasizes the study of temporal manipulation.

Research into counter-magic and redirection takes place in the **Laboratory of Arcane Geometry**, which has a small presence in Ontar University in the Tenth District.

Tel'Ontar laboratories function in a constant state of high energy that propels researchers from one experiment to the next. Some grand-scale experiments draw on the resources of an entire laboratory, while others are a lone visionary's labor of love.

## **Goals of Tel’Ontar**

Tel'Ontar thirsts for knowledge, cherishes intellect, and speculates about the secrets of the multiverse. It brings to its scientific pursuits a flaming passion that turns its search for knowledge into an insatiable hunger, makes its cold intellect brilliantly fruitful, and widens its speculation into a search for connections between wildly disparate objects or concepts. It is manic in its expressions of creative energy, shifting from careful analysis to intuitive leap seemingly for no reason, always thinking outside the proverbial box. As Tel'Ontar see it, unpredictable action, far from being antithetical to methodical research, has experimental value. In the words of one researcher, "The only action worth taking is one with an unknown outcome."

As the war against Tel'Runya'edhel descends into increasing turmoil, Tel'Ontar have further intensified their frenetic research, though now their efforts are mainly directed toward one outcome: the development of stronger weapons.

For most of the guild members, the search for bigger and better weapons is mainly an opportunity to engage in all sorts of wild research while abandoning all outward pretense of safety or reason. Much of the guild's laboratory space has been converted into testing grounds that are capable of withstanding great discharges of magical energy.

## **Rank 1: Paltar (Researcher)**

*Prerequisites: Renown 3 or higher with this guild, Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature.*

When you have advanced the guild's interests and survived a few magical experiments, you graduate into a position where you can conduct experiments yourself. Only a spell caster can craft and operate the laboratory equipm ent involved in Tel'Ontar experiments.

As a Paltar, you can request equipment for use in your experiments and during adventures. You can secure the aid of 1d4 barely competent attendants to assist you. Your attendants use the commoner stat block.

When you achieve this rank, you can help create your own XXXXXX apparatus (described later in this page). To do so, you must spend 10 days of downtime in an Tel'Ontar workshop, assisting a more experienced researc her in the construction of the device. The apparatus is given to you at the end of this time. If your apparatus is lost or destroyed, you can create a replacement by spending 50 gp and another 10 days of downtime.

Your salary at this rank is 10 gp per tenday, which will be enough to maintain a Modest lifestyle.

### **Special Role: Sanga'tular (Scorchbringer)**

*Prerequisites: Renown 3 or higher with this guild.*

Scorchbringers are soldiers assigned to protect Tel'Ontar laboratories. As a scorchbringer, you are given a pyroconverger (described later in this page) and are expected to use it in the defense of Tel'Ontar property. If your pyroconverger is lost or destroyed, you can get a replacement for 50 gp.

## **Rank 2: Cendar (Supervisor)**

*Prerequisites: Rank 1 and renown 10 or higher with this guild.*

Whether you're an accomplished researcher, a committed soldier, or even a dedicated (and skilled) attendant, you are eligible for promotion to a supervisor position. As a supervisor, you oversee your former peers. Your role is primarily to translate the instructions of the director above you into concrete tasks that the people who report to you can accomplish.

If your director sends you on a mission outside the laboratory, you receive an Tel'Ontar charm (described later in this page) at the start of that mission.

Your salary at this rank is 20 gp per tenday, which will be enough to maintain a Comfortable lifestyle.

### **Special Role: Erda Platar (Independent Researcher)**

*Prerequisites:* Rank 1 and renown 10 *or higher with this guild, Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature.*

Not every researcher chooses to advance through the ranks of management to become a supervisor. As an independent researcher, you can use the resources of your laboratory to conduct any kind of experiment. Assisting you in your research are 2d6 competent attendants (use the commoner stat block, and give them proficiency in the Arcana skill).

In addition, you can create your own Tel'Ontar charm (described later in this page), given 5 days of work and access to your laboratory. When you do so, any other charms you have created vanish.

## **Rank 3: Tentar (Director)**

*Prerequisites: Rank 2 and renown 25 or higher with this guild.*

You oversee a laboratory and all its personnel. In addition, as a director, you are eligible to join the Ontcundo, Tel'Ontar's board of directors, as a representative of your laboratory. You must have the approval of Nevarth, and a position on this board usually becomes available only if a vacancy opens up. If you assemble your own laboratory, you can be added to the board as an additional member.

It's up to the Ontcundo to assemble the correct team to carry out the guildmaster's directives. The Ontcundo decides which laboratory should have primary responsibility for any given project, and the director of that laboratory is responsible for assigning people to the team.

Within the bounds of Nevarth's directives, you have wide latitude in directing the activities of your laboratory. That means you can steer the researchers of your laboratory toward the creation of particular items or effects.

Your salary at this rank is 40 gp per tenday, which will be enough to maintain a Wealthy lifestyle.

## **Rank 4: Saymar (Adviser)**

*Prerequisites: Rank 3 and renown 50 or higher with this guild.*

As one of the most famous members of the guild, you are eligible to join the ranks of the Ontgwaid. The decision to include you on this board is solely Nevarth's. The number of members on the board isn't fixed, so you don't need to wait for a vacancy.

As a member of the Ontgwaid, you have the ear of the dragon guild master. You can never be fully aware of the scope of his plans, but you know more about them than anyone aside from the other members of the board. The guildmaster listens to your opinion, even though you're not an ancient XXXXX with thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom. Ultimately, Nevarth tells you what to do- and you (along with your peers) tell the rest of the guild how to do it.

Your salary at this rank is 100 gp per tenday, which will be enough to maintain a Aristocratic lifestyle.

## **Tel'Ontar Charm**

When you activate this charm, you can cast the dispel magic or lightning bolt spell. Alternatively. as an action, you can regain one expended spell slot of 3rd level or lower. The charm vanishes after you activate it.

## **Tel'Ontar Items**

Tel'Ontar is the most prolific creator of magic items in Tal En'Estela. Its inventions can be unpredictable and downright dangerous, but they can also be useful tools, weapons, and implements of magical manipulation. Tel'Ontar researchers are prone to giving their magic items special names, so what one person might call a *staff of thunder and lightning* might be an *electrosonic field manipulator* to its Tel'Ontar wielder.

**Tel'Ontar Items**

### **XXXXXX Apparatus**

Innovation is a dangerous pursuit, at least the way the mages of Tel'Ontar engage in it. As protection against the risk of an experiment going awry, they have developed a device to help channel and control their magic. This apparatus is a collection of leather straps, flexible tubing, glass cylinders, and plates, bracers, and fittings made from a magic-infused metal alloy called XXXXXX, all assembled into a harness. The item weighs 8 pounds.

While you are wearing the *XXXXXX apparatus*, you can use it as an arcane focus. In addition, you can attempt to cast a spell that you do not know or have prepared. The spell you choose must be on your class's spell list and of a level for which you have a spell slot, and you must provide the spell's components.

You expend a spell slot to cast the spell as normal, but before resolving it you must make an Intelligence (Arcana) check. The DC is 10 + twice the level of the spell slot you expend to cast the spell.

On a successful check, you cast the spell as normal, using your spell save DC and spellcasting ability modifier. On a failed check, you cast a different spell from the one you intended. Randomly determine the spell you cast by rolling on the table for the level of the spell slot you expended. If the slot is 6th level or higher, roll on the table for 5th-level spells.

If you try to cast a cantrip you don't know, the DC for the Intelligence (Arcana) check is 10, and on a failed check, there is no effect.