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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

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The Deck of Destiny

The Deck of Destiny

 Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 75
When all 54 cards of the Deck of Destiny are gathered together, the deck gains additional powers and features. At the beginning of Stolen Fate, the cards have all been scattered. Details on the complete artifact's powers as a whole can be found in the third volume of Stolen Fate, Pathfinder Adventure Path #192: The Worst of All Worlds. Each individual card from the Deck of Destiny is itself an artifact, and as the PCs gather them together, they'll collect a growing number of resources that allow them to build their own “hand” of additional powers to aid them in their quest.

Each card from the Deck of Destiny is a 20th-level artifact that grants a passive boon and an activated ability. There's no need to Identify Magic once a character holds one of these cards in their hand—the function of the card is imparted automatically to a character as soon as a card is touched (although its epitome effect can only be discovered by being in the Harrow Court while the card is invested). Once invested, a card need only be carried on the PC's person to function or to grant them its activated ability, whether they hold the card in hand, carry it in a pouch, or tuck it into a boot, belt, or hatband.

A PC can have up to five cards from the Deck of Destiny at any one time, but regardless of how many cards they invest, the cards collectively count only as a single item. In effect, one to five cards comprise a single invested “hand” that grants numerous effects. In this way, as the PCs discover more and more cards, they can customize their hand as needed, swapping cards out each time they Invest an Item.

As detailed earlier in this adventure, the cards of the Deck of Destiny have an additional ability, one that only manifests once a card from each suit come into the party's possession—the creation of the Harrow Court. This demiplane is detailed further in “The Harrow Court” article that begins on page 68 of this volume.

Deck Of Destiny Cards

The following 18 cards from the Deck of Destiny are present in this adventure. This includes the cards the characters have in their possession at the start of the campaign, as described in the Stolen Fate Player's Guide and the sidebar on page 7. Note that while each harrow card has an associated ability score and alignment, these qualities do not directly impact who can use the card.

Beyond its passive and active uses, each card has an epitome effect that describes what happens when that card is epitomized in the Harrow Court (page 73).

The individual cards of the Deck of Destiny cannot be destroyed, but a method for potentially destroying the entire deck is detailed in the third volume of Stolen Fate. Once the PCs discover individual cards, they'll find that lost or stolen cards inexplicably return to their possession within an hour. Cards that a PC gives away willingly do not return—at your discretion, the PCs can rediscover these cards in the possessions of other NPCs during the Stolen Fate Adventure Path. At the very least, they should rejoin the other cards at this campaign's climax, most likely in the possession of the PCs' final foes.

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