“I am a physician with my finger on the pulse of the earth.”—Hintak’anai, a lord of tides

Survival in the waste depends on the ability to locate drinkable water, and many desert dwellers have this innate sense. The abilities of the lord of tides go beyond this basic need. You are in touch with the power of Kikanuti; as you grow in experience and power, you gain control over the lifeblood of the world. You can sense the movement of magma, summon beings of elemental might, and even open portals to the Elemental Planes.

BECOMING A LORD OF TIDES

The ranger or druid class is the most likely to produce a lord of tides; Knowledge (nature) and Survival are class skills for you. Clerics also enter this class, particularly those who specialize in magic dealing with water, although they must usually take ranks in Survival as a cross-class skill. Wisdom is the most important ability for the class, both for Survival-related checks and spellcasting). Charisma is also important, since this class entails leadership responsibilities.

PLAYING A LORD OF TIDES

As a lord of tides, you are the spiritual center of your people. They depend on you to find precious water and defend that resource from hostile beings. You also hold the power of life and death—the wrath of elemental beings is at your command, and you do not brook disrespect or disobedience. You are not capricious or cruel, though. Life in the waste is harsh, and your followers must understand that.

Among the bhuka, a lord of tides usually heads up the group of shamans responsible for weather magic and paying proper honor to Kikanuti and her children. You lead the seasonal ceremonies and initiate new members, and you have an honored seat at the council of elders. Nevertheless, you answer to the community’s Grandmother, who is generally the highestlevel druid in the community.

Some bhuka shamans who grow too proud rebel against the Grandmother’s authority, only to find that their elemental magic cannot hold against that of one blessed by Kikanuti. They are cast out into the wilderness, becoming bitter wanderers who long to take vengeance on any isolated bhuka they might find. Sometimes an outcast lord of tides sells her services to others, especially enemies of the bhuka, or attempts to start her own cult.

On rare occasions, bhuka shamans train particularly gifted members of other races to become lords of tides. This selection is a singular honor, and a particular community usually only confers this honor on one outsider in its history.

Combat

A lord of tides is not a front-line combatant. Your strength lies in supporting your companions by directing them to important resources and summoning powerful elemental creatures to assist them in battle. Existing combat and spellcasting abilities from your original class are still valuable, especially if you have magical healing.

You can use your burrowing ability to set up ambushes or to move stealthily beneath opponents, then surface to set up flanking opportunities. Alternatively, you can hang back behind the front lines, bringing elemental allies into combat to harry and flank enemies.

Your elemental jaunt ability is a great last-ditch escape if things go badly for the party. If you are fighting on your home turf, it pays to have set up an elemental portal. Since it is keyed to you, enemies will not be able to follow easily—and if they do, you and your party can return, using summoned creatures to hold off enemies so that they are stranded on the elemental plane.

Advancement

Among the bhuka, a character aspiring to a career as a lord of tides always begins as a lesser druid (shaman) serving the tribe. The current leader of the shamans directs your tasks, which usually support the community’s water needs. You and the tribe’s other druids perform ritual magic to help crops and moderate the weather. As you become more experienced, you begin to lead some of the lesser rituals and participate in decision-making at the shamans’ circle. Most shamans continue along this ceremonial path and grow in spellcasting ability in the usual fashion. A given community only has one lord of tides. When it is time to choose a new lord of tides, usually because the present one has set out to found a new settlement or is dying of old age, any candidate undertakes a special quest. You must go into the desert with no food, water, or other supplies aside from basic protection from the sun, and you must survive there unaided for a month. You also must commune with Kikanuti’s children and return with proof of this in the form of a sacred object. In practice, this quest entails summoning or otherwise contacting an elemental and asking for a portion of its substance to craft a fetish (a sort of talisman) in the form of your phratry’s Emergence relic (see the bhuka description, page 39). When you return to the community, you present this fetish to the Grandmother, who acknowledges your achievement. You wear the fetish constantly from that point on. If you advance far enough to craft an elemental portal, the fetish becomes the key that allows you to open it. A key is passed down through generations after the death of a portal’s creator.

Nonbhuka lords of tides are expected to return to a bhuka community from time to time to relate their exploits to the gathered listeners.

Resources

As a member of the shamans’ circle, you have access to the shared knowledge of the community’s ancestral shamans. You also have the ear of the elders and particularly the community’s Grandmother. If you need something, your influence is likely to work in your favor. Sometimes you will have to go out adventuring to deal with a threat to the community or to establish a new community by locating untapped resources, or perhaps to set up an elemental portal around which a settlement can be built. In such cases, you are accompanied by other shamans, who are mid- to high-level druids themselves, as well as rangers and other warriors—a formidable force to challenge.

Nonbhukas that do not dwell full-time in a community have access to these resources only when they return to the community where they gained their training.

LORDS OF TIDES IN THE WORLD

In the waste, water is more precious than gold. A desertdwelling community needs a lord of tides to establish itself if it lacks access to a river or a year-round supply of water. Wandering lords of tides sell their services dearly to those who need them. If adventurers who are not native to this harsh realm want to find a lord of tides, they usually need to negotiate with the followers of a “freelance” member of the class. A bhuka community does not hire out the services of its resident lord of tides.

If the DM runs a planes-hopping setting, the presence of a lord of tides allows for the creation of a waste environment peppered with elemental portals. Since each portal is keyed to its creator, using them is a challenge that probably involves dealing with the lord of tides who controls the portal—or seizing the key by force from hostile cultists. An adventuring party that includes a lord of tides can found its own base of operations, serving as a source of adventure seeds and challenges from hostile creatures that wish to seize the portal.

Organization

As a lord of tides in a bhuka community, your unique status ensures that you are an important member of any bhuka gathering, next to only the Grandmother in power even if not a member of the bhuka race. Many lords of tides delegate their responsibilities to others while they are absent from the community.

In the community, it is your responsibility to set the schedule for ceremonies in observation of the Emergence. These times correspond roughly to midsummer but do not always fall on the same day each year. Your sensitivity to the movement of the deep earth allows you to determine the optimum moment for harmony with Kikanuti. You are the caretaker of the ritual pit or sacred cave, and you lead any rites that take place there (see the bhuka description, page 39). If the community contains an elemental portal (whether created by you or by a previous lord of tides), you control access to it by always wearing the portal key. You might also embark on missions to locate needed resources or learn about threats that face the community.

You begin each day leading ritual salutations to Kikanuti and call upon her children to live peaceably among your people. The entire village participates in this observance, which takes place in the central plaza and culminates with the passing of a communal bowl of fresh spring water. During the day, you check on the community’s water supply, ensuring that it remains clean and abundant, and sensing whether changes in the underground environment could pose a threat. You consult with the shamans and the Grandmother on matters of ritual and social importance. If the community has grown too large, you plan a migration to found a new one, which includes locating a suitable supply of water and ensuring it is free of threats.

If you are an outcast lord of tides, you have usually severed your connection to Kikanuti, instead attempting to spread your influence by means of power over the elements, especially water. You might find service as a priest of a cruel desert deity, such as Azul or Set, claiming the deity’s favor and demanding sacrifices on his behalf. Primitive tribes of the waste are likely to fall under your influence because of your status as an outcast lord of tides.

NPC Reactions

Bhuka communities are deeply respectful of a lord of tides. The populace has a generally friendly attitude, and its shamans are usually helpful. Whenever you travel to another village, you will be greeted with feasting and an invitation to lead a welcoming ceremony. If you lead a migration to found a new settlement, you are conferred the highest honor by any bhuka group you encounter.

On the other hand, an outcast lord of tides is seen as an object of fear and is shunned by all bhuka. The shamans and the Grandmother of any bhuka settlement are automatically hostile. Even wandering bhuka who are not part of communities distrust a shunned lord of tides and are generally unfriendly—even these wanderers retain a sense of connection to Kikanuti and despise those who have obviously rejected her.

Enemies of the bhuka people, or those who compete with them for scarce resources, know that a lord of tides is the key to a community’s viability. Crude waste-dwellers, especially scabland orcs, resent a lord of tides’s power and often try to capture one for their own benefit, or else try to kill her to deprive their enemies of her strength.

LORD OF TIDES LORE

Characters with Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (geography) can research the lords of tides to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including the information from lower DCs when a higher result is rolled.

DC 10: The bhuka people have powerful leaders called lords of tides, who have the power to find and control water.

DC 15: A lord of tides can summon elementals and even travel to the elemental planes.

DC 20: A lord of tides can open portals to elemental planes and controls all access to these portals.

DC 30: Characters who achieve this level of success can learn important details about a specific lord of tides in a bhuka community, or learn about an outcast lord of tides who has set up a cult in the waste.

LORDS OF TIDES IN THE GAME

An NPC lord of tides can provide a great adventure hook if she is leading a migration to a new community. The bhuka are not a warlike people, so they might need to hire combat experts to protect the expedition as it crosses hostile territory. If a threat emerges from the elemental planes, an NPC lord of tides might seek adventurers to enter a portal and deal with the threat. A fanatical cult in the train of an outcast lord of tides makes a great ongoing adversary for a party.

As a lord of tides, a player character might be a gobetween for the adventurers and a bhuka community, which could serve as an important waypoint or outpost for several adventures set in and around the waste. Alternatively, she might be an exile seeking to regain her status by doing great deeds in the world. Another possibility is a lord of tides who has lost her community for some reason, which might be the case if warring neighbors destroy a community. The search to find a new community and return life to the blasted waste can be the ongoing motivation for a member of the prestige class.

Adaptation

The lord of tides prestige class can be adapted to different sorts of environments if the campaign is not set primarily in the waste. The ability to locate water is less important in the jungle or the frostfell, but being able to tell if water is good to drink still matters, and the ability to summon and control elementals can be adapted to any setting