It’s been right on a year since the last time I touched this series and covered Yugoloth patrons. I feel like I’m right at the edge of having enough material to do gehreleths/demodands, but… today I’m doing the considerably more popular Great Old Ones, and specifically the malevolent stars. For this series I’m dividing the Great Old Ones into two groups, the stars and the chthonics.

Summer Court | Gloaming Court | Devils/Baatezu | Demons/Tanar’ri | Daemons/Yugoloths | Malevolent Stars

Malevolent Stars: Positive Relationship

“Positive” needs a lot of massaging to mean anything for any Great Old One – it’s inherent to the concepts of cosmic horror that mortals are irrelevant in the face of this machinery of the universe, and their malevolence is toward existence, material reality, or the like. In a different, even more abstract way than the Abyss, that is. So let’s get weird and conceptual.

Sidereal Favor

(I am so happy that this post gives me a reason to use the word “sidereal.”)

How did you enter into your pact with one of the malevolent stars? (Acamar, Caiphon, Delban, Gibbeth, Hadar, Khirad, Nihal, and Zhudun)

d6           Circumstance
1             On the night of the meteor shower, you were near the strange old standing stone on Dead Man’s Hill. As each shooting star lit the night, the carvings on the stone became a little clearer to read.
2             You inherited a medallion made from green-tinged star iron from your father. For him, it was a curiosity. For you, a key to a door that can never be locked again.
3             A wizard captured you, experimented on you. Replaced parts of you, enhanced others. When you woke on the operating table, you erupted in dire radiance that consumed your captor.
4             On the night of your birth, three of the stars were in momentary alignment, an ill omen not seen in ten centuries. Every child born that night is… like you. Soul-bound.
5             Left to bleed on a battlefield, you saw the ragged, faceless things that came to pick over the bodies. They chose you, and you chose to live.
6             Exploring a ruin, you found a ship, built to sail the vastness of the Outer Dark. Its control panel awakened to your touch and made you what you needed to be to pilot it.

Sidereal Devotion

As you develop an understanding of the malevolent stars, consider replacing or adding one of the following to your ideals.

d6           Ideal
1             Knowledge. I expose the truth that your concepts of time and causality are inverted from the true structure of reality.
2             Secrecy. I draw others into the unwitting service of the malevolent stars.
3             Unraveling. I dismantle the lie that planes of existence are separate from the Material Plane. Beneath our understanding, the Far Realm squirms through fleshly being.
4             Ambition. I annihilate and subsume the other warlocks of the malevolent stars, so that I can surpass the chains of this absurd flesh.
5             Conquest. I introduce the transforming power of the Far Realm into abstract concepts.
6             Escape. I want to pierce the veil of the Far Realm and pass through to the true reality beyond it.

Earning and Losing Piety (Resonance)

You increase your Piety score with the malevolent stars (which don’t express favor, but resonate more or less strongly) when you destroy cosmic bindings and touchstones of reality, or carve indelible marks of Far Realm transformation into relics of great power.

• Destroying a protective glyph that keeps the Far Realm out
• Slaying an Inevitable or a powerful elemental
• Introducing aberrant logic into academic, theological, or magical works
• Revealing arcane truths that the listeners are not ready to hear and will use destructively
• Opening stable portals to the Far Realm
• Translocating a building or region of the Material Plane into the Far Realm
• Spreading psychic distress and dread

Your Piety score decreases if you value the achievements and comforts of material reality. Accumulating wealth and power are temporary distractions or a means to an end at most.

• Creating a protective seal against an entity of the Far Realm
• Encouraging strict and rational logic to prevail
• Destroying transformed objects that support co-location between the Material Plane and the Far Realm

Sidereal Novice
Piety 3+ Stars

You learn the spell guiding bolt, which doesn’t count against your Spells Known. You can cast it once without expending a spell slot, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. You can also cast it using your Pact Magic slots.

Sidereal Scholar
Piety 10+ Stars

When you deal damage to a creature, you can place the Eye of Hadar upon it, a mark that glows brightly on the target’s brow or torso. The Eye of Hadar remains for 24 hours, until the target receives a remove curse spell, or you use this feature on another creature. You ignore half cover and three-quarters cover when targeting the marked creature, and the creature has disadvantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws from your spells.

Sidereal Sage
Piety 25+ Stars

You gain an additional Eldritch Invocation or supernatural gift that is appropriate to your Patron.

Sidereal Mysteriarch
Piety 50+ Stars

You can increase your Intelligence or Charisma score by 2, and also increase your maximum for that score by 2.

Sidereal Iconoclast

Stealing power from the malevolent stars and countering their influence is a clear heroic stance. In some campaigns, the cosmic indifference of the malevolent stars may be such that rejecting their power is still inviting it into the world, and thus indistinguishable in net result.

Tier 1, 1^st to 4^th level

Quest Goal:

• Investigate a location that is in contact with the Far Realm and end the Far Realm’s influence
• Empower a warding seal against the Far Realm
• Eliminate a minor warlock of the malevolent stars

Reward: You can cast protection from evil and good without expending a spell slot. You can use this feature once, and regain the use of it when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Tier 2, 5^th to 10^th level

Quest Goal:

• Destroy a text of prophecy derived from the malevolent stars
• Defeat and disperse a cult dedicated to the malevolent stars
• Dispel the mark of the Far Realm on the standing stones at Dead Man’s Hill, while leaving the rest of the ancient druidic magic intact
• Defeat a powerful star spawn

Reward: You can cast glyph of warding once without expending a spell slot, and for half the usual cost in material components. You can use this feature once, and regain the use of it when you finish a long rest. Aberrations have disadvantage on saving throws against a glyph of warding that you cast. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Tier 3, 11^th to 16^th level

Quest Goal:

• Permanently close a portal between the Material Plane and the Far Realm
• Reclaim a region or demiplane that has been transformed by the Far Realm
• Stop a ritual of summoning during a conjunction of the stars

Reward: You can cast contact other plane once without expending a spell slot, and you can roll a Charisma saving throw in place of an Intelligence saving throw when you cast this spell. You can use this feature once, and regain the use of it in 1d4+1 long rests. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Tier 4, 17^th to 20^th level

Quest Goal:

• Slay, banish, or consume a manifestation of your Patron
• Prevent the timeline in which your Patron brings about the doom of material reality

Reward: You can increase your Intelligence or Charisma score by 2, and also increase your maximum for that score by 2.

I think that suggests a few solid adventure ideas and story beats for stories about malevolent stars, even if that’s just one character’s personal plot in a ongoing campaign. Next time in this series, I’ll cover chthonic Great Old Ones (mostly various kinds of Elder Evils that are more… buried or submerged). In another future post, I’m going to create more detailed adventure hooks for stories about the malevolent stars.

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