So what in the abyss is a Volur?

Introduction The Volur is the first in a new series of Akashic Classes by Legendary Games, which is an amazing company that maintains a high production value and quality. Can they maintain the quality in this realm of Akashic Magic? Read on!

What’s inside? 23 pages of content (not counting covers, ads etc.) for 7 bucks, which include:

-The Volur class: Before I get into the class, I got intrigued by the name and found some interesting things. Apparently, Volür are ancient Norse female seers, an Indian lake where two rivers confluence, and a Canadian metal band. I liked the connections with seers, and the confluence of the rivers has some ties with the abilities of the class… and I like metal LOL

Anyway, Volur is a veilweaving class, with a wizard-like chassis (low BAB/d6 HD, good Will save, simple weapons and light armor proficiencies, plus bucklers), but more skilled (4 skill points for 21 skills, including physical, social and scholarly options) that has 3 main abilities.

Veilweaving: Volur have modest charisma-based veilweaving abilities, going from 1 to 6 veils shaped during their progression and having 7 binds (feet, head, shoulders, headband, neck, belt and body), but their veil list includes veils for all 10 slots; their maximum essence capacity also increases thrice, another common aspect of akashic classes. To empower these 6 veils, the Volur gets 1 point of essence per level, like most Akashic classes out there. It is worth noting that their veilweaving is their only class feature that depends on essence, since most akashic classes have other ways to invest it, so feel free to invest it in your favorite veils.

Brandweaving: This book includes 16 new veils with the Brand descriptor, which mark them as special debuffing veils (more info below). HOWEVER, the Volur gets to shape them in a different, unique way. By brandweaving a veil, it doesn’t occupy a slot, is treated as if invested with max essence, and determines its DC using the formula of special attacks (10 + ½ Volur level + Cha mod). Volur go from 1 brand at 1st level to 5 at 18th. Starting at 3rd level, they can treat some of their brandweaved veils as bound without requiring a chakra slot, regardless of the chakra, ending with all brands bound at 20th. This could be problematic since the level at which you get chakra binds is an important balance caveat. As masters of brand veils, Volur can later place more than one at a time AND can place and maintain them at longer ranges. A funny design glitch is that they get to mass brand faster that they get extra brands, even finishing with the ability to apply 6 brands at 20th level when they only get access to 5 brands. There is the possibility that, if you shape a brand using your normal veil slots, you COULD benefit from this ability, but I would’t do that since you wouldn’t get all the special benefits of brandweaving, but the possibility is there if you want.

Akashic Spirit: Each Volur start with the company of an AS, which regenerates fully when shaping veils if damaged. The spirit can manifest physically or can merge with the Volur’s essence and basically ceases to exist. While I wouldn’t call the Volur a pet class, the AS works more like a familiar, a tiny outsider companion born from the knowledge stored in the Akashic Records that has a slime-like appearance, can’t hold things or wear armor, but CAN wear other magical items. Like other familiars/animal companions, this AS has its own progression table, which includes common things like evasion, shared senses, telepathic link, spell resistance and ability score increases, and can deliver akashic touch or touch attack effects. The AS starts with 10 in all ability scores but Dexterity, which gets a 16 (10 in strength for tiny? wow).

Each AS can take many forms, 16 in fact, depending on the aspectual circle they are tied to. Each of the 4 Aspectual Circles include 4 aspect options, and the Volur starts with access to 1 circle and get access to another at 7th and 16th levels, never getting access to all 4 circles. Each aspect dictates the appearance of the AS, gives it a new form of movement, and gives the Volur a passive supernatural ability. At 6th level, the Volur can embody the AS’ aspect, changing his appearance and getting a new ability. The 4 circles are:

-The Circle of the Cycle includes the aspects of Decay, Growth, Life and Death. Their themed abilities include temporary hit points, the decay of detrimental effects that decreases its duration, changing the positive/negative energy “polarity”, and all of their embodied abilities manifest as powerful auras. The most powerful aspect in my opinion and one I would allow only at a higher level.

-The Circle of the Elements is weirdly not tied to the 4 basic elements, but their energies (acid, electricity, fire and ice). All of them change your AS’s slam damage to the appropriate energy, give you a stacking resistance to said energy, and the embodiment of acid and ice give you a defensive ability, while the ones for electricity and fire give you an offensive one.

-The Circle of the Wilds’ 4 aspects are Avians, Mammalians, Piscines and Verminia. Each gives you a modest situational skill bonus and if embodied lets you transform into a small, medium or large-sized animal or magical beast.

-The Circle of the World does includes the aspects of the 3 remaining classical elements, Air, Earth and Water, plus Plants. Their abilities are a bit more powerful/useful than the last Circle’s, and if embodied the World’s aspects change you into an elemental-like creature.

Finally, the Volur includes 2 general Favored Class Bonuses for any character, 4 Circle-improving FCB for the 4 non-human blooded core races, and one for humans that can increase the DC of a specific brand veil. Remember that both half-elves and half-orcs can access their parents’ racial FCB.

-5 feats: 4 of these let you dabble in Volur-ness, letting you maintain brands at longer ranges or branding two opponents at the same time, and letting familiar summoners call an Akashic Spirit (bound to a specific aspect), an even embody it at higher levels with another feat. The only feat useful for a Volur is Painful Severance, which damages a branded creature that gets its brand destroyed with a special “akashic pulse of power” that ignores damage reduction and energy resistance. This “akashic pulse” should be elaborated on, especially since it appears in the newer Akashic Classes book.

-3 magic items: The Veilbreaking +1-equivalent weapon ability works like Bane, but only for veils, and also ignore veil’s hardness. I would have loved a more powerful version that worked also on akashic classes and creatures, or that suppressed the veil for longer, but nice nonetheless. The Amulet of the Unbranded gives you resistance to saves, but doubles the bonus against brands. Finally, Totem of Brand Prevention is a slotless magical item that is destroyed if you fail a save against a brand, and even then it suppresses the brand for a couple of rounds.

-Veilweaving Section: This includes a more polished presentation of the section we have read in other Akashic magic books, and even mentions to “break the rules” like shaping two veils in the same chakra under the Chakra Slots section, or the ability to bind veils without having levels in an Akashic class. All in all an improved section that has only one fault: it doesn’t include the ability to suppress your own veils, which doesn’t appear in Akashic Mysteries but does appear in each of the author’s books after that. For some reason, it was decided that this was the place for the Volur’s veil list. This section also has the new Brand descriptor for veils and everything you need to know to use them.

-16 Brand veils: These veils include which classes have access to them, including all 3 “core” plus the ones in Akashic Trinity, AND the Stormbound. No Brand includes the Helmsman, another class published in a Legendary Games book, nor the Lunar Zodiac, and I don’t know if it is an omission or a design decision. Also, the “highest chakra” these veils can be bound to is the Belt chakra, which normally should be accessed at 16th level. I mention this because of the special Brandweaving abilities of the Volur. I-m not going to cover all of them, but I will describe some of them:

Blight of the Elements reduces resistance to one of the 4 basic types of energy damage, treating immune creatures as having a base of 50 before reduction. Essence further reduces this and when bound, if the resistance is reduced to 0, the target becomes vulnerable, receiving 50% more damage! Bloodvine Embrace has some cool imagery, damages the target as a poison effect (so creatures immune to poison receive no damage), and heals the “brander” if it has at least half of its HDs. If bound, the veil sprouts “bloodberries” that can heal others. Cloak of the Leper creates a kind of contagious mark that deals nonlethal damage to the branded and those “foes” near him, and if successfully saves against this veil the brander can pass it on a creature that failed, and if bound ACTUALLY makes copies of itself on surrounding creatures AND can deal lethal damage! Really cool! Dancer’s Curse penalizes the branded if they don’t move a certain distance, and even damages them if bound. Nice enough, but a Volus can combo it with Grasping Chains, damaging the creature if it moves AND making it more difficult to do it! Mageblight causes supernatural abilities that take actions to use, spells cast, and even spell-like abilities to fail a small percentage of the time, increasable with essence, and if bound the effect CAN happen but affects the branded! There are other cool ones, like putting a mask of stone on foes, making them suspicious of their allies, charm them, and other nifty effects. There is even one called Sword of Damocles for Damocles’ sake!

Of Note: The brand veils look suspiciously familiar to an idea I gave the author of Akashic Mysteries for its unrealized sequel book LOL. But I’m happy someone got the same idea and ran with it. The Volus might seem a bit all over the place (modest veilweaver, powerful debuffer, druid wannabe), but has an interesting variant of veilweaving. I think it is an interesting idea AND everyone is invited to the party, since all of the 16 veils can be used by other Akashic classes (but the Lunar, sorry mah guy).

Anything wrong?: The favored class bonus could include at least orcs, if not many other thematically-fitting races. Finally, while I’m still not sure about the difference in power of Circles, and auto chakra-bound brand veils of the Volus, I enjoyed the book, even if it needs a bit of polish here and there (like in the mass branding ability or the veilshaping section).

What I want: A Daevic that merges with an Akashic spirit instead of a daeva would be interesting, as would be a hippie Guru philosophy or a Vizier mystic attunement that deals with the Circles. The spirit itself would make for an interesting variant of elementals, or even work as aspectual templates! Also, at least one class feature that benefited from investing essence, since right now they are the only class, apart from Viziers, that don’t have any class features that benefits from essence-investment.

What cool things did this inspire?: A Suli with a spirit attuned to the Circle of the Cycle would be cool as a non-focused elementalist. Also, with some of the veils out there that deal with disease and decay, I will device a nasty opponent for my players.

Do I recommend it?: Yes! Even if the class itself didn’t excite me as much as, say, the Zodiac, it still is a cool Akashic debuffer. AND the Brands themselves are really cool additions to other Akashic classes’ arsenals. Taking into account the small details, I will give it 4.5 stars, rounded down. Nice work!