1. Characters

Aldred Enduru

Impure Prince
NPC (Adventurer)

Aldred Enduru the impure prince can serve the characters as a guide, guard, chance acquaintance, or possibly as an enemy if the PCs keep the company of a daelkyr half-blood, or if they are unknowingly doing the bidding of a mastermind that is secretly an aberration.

Impure Princes

The threat represented by aberrations and their masters is one that has assailed the world from time out of mind. But some individuals have always singled out aberrations as special enemies. As the wise instruct, those most effective in fighting against an enemy must come to know the ways, tools, and philosophies of that enemy in an intimate fashion. Of those who make it their special mission to rid the world of illithids, beholders, dolgaunts, dolgrim, and dolghasts (a new monster found on page 143), only impure princes can claim the distinction of using daelkyr-inspired corruptions and symbionts as their most effective tool in aberration cleansing. Impure princes travel across and under Eberron, certain in their task and unswayed by the methods to which they resort. Their decision to accept the imprimatur of a symbiont and the pain that accompanies that symbiotic relationship merely fuels their resolve in their campaign of suppression.

Playing an IMpure Prince

If the will is strong enough, great burdens can be borne if a greater good is accomplished. Such is the choice you made when you learned the lore necessary to lure a daelkyr-bred symbiont to yourself. With it, you have unparalleled insight into the workings of the crazed minds of aberrations. It is a constant balancing act—you must pull back from full immersion in their philosophies and spastic manner of thinking, lest you cross that fine line and become one of them. As a result, you might seem frenzied and energized at times, and at other times dour and contemplative to your companions, if any.

These mood shifts are only your outward visage reflecting the status of your constant internal struggle. This struggle is one that you can never forget, because it is embodied in the symbiont you host. Hated, yet needed, you have a relationship with your symbiont that the term ambivalence hardly manages to begin describing. Without it, your ability to fight that which you hate most is circumscribed. But with it, you carry that which you hate most. It is a matter of rationalization, you convince yourself. Sometimes lesser evils are necessary in the eradication of the greater. If impurity is something you must take into your soul, then you are allowing the chance for far greater purity to be claimed by the rest of those who live on Eberron.

To accomplish your lifelong quest, you must seek your enemy in the wild lands and below the earth. Because there is strength in numbers, you are not averse to teaming with others, and because aberrations are often behind the evils in the world, you can force yourself to remain patient enough to follow seemingly unrelated adventures through to their conclusion, hoping all the while that underlying factors, once discovered, point to daelkyr influence.

Sometimes you will encounter those who, seeing your demeanor and methods, and especially your symbiont, will assume that you are one of the dark creatures you hunt. Though you might attempt to disabuse them of their fallacious views at first, in the end it sometimes proves easier to merely expunge them, lest they interfere with your true mission. These meddlers get what they deserve in delaying your ongoing quest.

Combat

Already a skilled warrior, you can reinforce your martial ability with your spells and class abilities. Depending on the symbiont that you lure and host, your options on offense and defense are myriad. For instance, you might find a shadow sibling the perfect protector, or instead opt for a spellwurm, especially one that harbors a particularly potent spell.

You first can use your abilities to hunt and track aberrations, then finish the job with either martial skill at arms or an application of your spells and other worldly surge. Many of the spells to which you have access serve to either protect, disguise, or lift deleterious conditions that aberrations are capable of inflicting.

While you will certainly have cause to curse the lack of specificity that causes your otherworldly surge to slop over and effect nonaberrations, sometimes you will find that this ability is an effective surprise against enemies that, while not spawned by daelkyr, are just as interested in tearing out your vitals.

Advancement

As you continue to gain levels in the impure prince class, your ability to wield your primary weapon should not be set aside. To this end, continue to take feats that enhance your fighting ability, perhaps even starting (or continuing) down the TwoWeapon Fighting feat tree.

Because of the foes you face, it isn’t a bad idea to bolster your ability to shrug off mental effects. Consider taking Iron Will despite your otherwise good Will save.

Resources

It is not unknown for two impure princes to trade symbionts for short periods, if one knows that a special ability of a comrade’s symbiont might come in handy during an upcoming mission. Sometimes trades are permanent.

Impure Princes in the World

“I wouldn’t trust them. They’re too much like the creatures they should be hunting.”

—Ickthelos, Sharn Magistrate

Impure princes can rise from nearly any locale, but they are thickest in and around areas bordering on the Shadow Marches or other areas of aberration incursion.

While on the hunt, the life of an impure prince involves travel, camping, weathering the elements, and braving unrelated dangers along the way. Most impure princes find it reasonable to hide their symbionts when at all possible. They’re more likely to be accepted in small communities they pass through while hunting aberrations.

Organization

No organization directly sponsors and trains impure princes. Each potential impure prince is responsible for his own training, studying the aberrations and the atrocities they commit. When two impure princes meet, they usually freely share any new strategies or news about aberration threats they have encountered. However, other organizations in Eberron share at least the same goals as impure princes.

The most prominent organized society devoted to stamping out daelkyr influence is the Gatekeepers. The Gatekeepers, a druid sect dedicated to policing nature from outside incursions, are specifically interested in threats posed by daelkyr-bred monstrosities.

The Gatekeepers can be found in small affiliated groups in the Eldeen Reaches, but their real bastion of strength is represented in the region most contested on the surface: the Shadow Marches. While most areas of Gatekeeper strength are merely gathering places used by member druids and rangers, in the Shadow Marches the Gatekeepers actually maintain several physical bases. One bastion, in particular, is housed within a spire of natural stone called the Green Spire, for the rock is home to many lichens.

In the Green Spire, impure princes are tolerated, if not welcomed—other Gatekeepers are a little too suspicious of the symbionts carried by those who profess to hate aberrations. But the Green Spire has the advantage of being the base of a Gatekeeper druid named Melman whose betrothed is an impure prince named Thalasia. Thalasia has used her influence to make the Green Spire a place where those carrying symbionts can come openly, exchange news, and even plan excursions against various evil cults also found in the Shadow Marches or the depths of Khyber. The Green Spire also guardedly welcomes daelkyr half-bloods who have proven, through action, a renunciation of their heritage. This attitude is indicative of the open-mindedness of these Gatekeepers (as opposed to the narrow view of others in different locales).

NPC Reactions

Few people who spy the serpentine, organic shape of a symbiont writhing in the folds of another’s clothing react well. Thus, most impure princes try to keep their obvious differences hidden as much as possible, lest they incite fear, or worse, violence against themselves.

However, among the more learned, impure princes are sometimes sought by those who know of specific aberration plots. An impure prince has never turned away from a mission to hunt down and slay a known aberration. This reputation is beneficial to the impure princes, allowing them to find aid in places where aberrations are a continual threat.

Impure Princes in the Game

Questing impure princes go anywhere in and under Eberron, though they are few and far between.

This prestige class is for those who do not quail at the thought of taking on what are widely regarded as implacable enemies. While the luring and hosting of a symbiont is repellent to many, the power brought by such an arrangement can’t be dismissed. However, it is prudent to keep on the good side of an impure prince, lest he feels that you are hindering his work.