Avangion

Defilers who climb high enough can transform themselves into dragons through destruction and agony. Preservers have a matching path, though in all the known history of the region none has ever walked it to the end. Their metamorphosis into an avangion is gentle and calm, built on light, water and the life still clinging to the dying desert world. Only a human who is a dual-classed 20th-level preserver and psionicist may begin it, and its levels from 21st through 30th are gained as an avangion. It is slow and hard, but the reward is immense.

Early on, the preserver looks almost wholly human. Nearer the end, the skin turns a radiant silver and broad, graceful gossamer wings unfold, while the limbs grow weaker until the legs cannot carry the body and the arms can only handle fine, delicate tasks. Time no longer touches its body; like a dragon, it will effectively never die of age. It permanently benefits from ESP, detect lies, tongues and know alignment.

Avangions are frail and dislike fighting hand to hand, relying instead on mighty spells and psionics. One of their strongest tools is psionic enchantment; a chart lists the magic available at each stage, and it also wields every power a psionicist of equal level would have. Whatever its level, it saves as a wizard of 21st level or higher.

As it advances, a shining aura of light grows around its body. When the aura first appears at 28th level (90-foot radius) it works as protection from evil and dispels magical darkness within its radius. At 29th (150 feet) evil creatures inside it are affected as by ray of enfeeblement. At 30th (200 feet) it becomes a powerful globe of invulnerability.

The progression runs from 10+11 to 10+20 Hit Dice, rolled on four-sided dice, while Armor Class improves from 9 to -6, THAC0 from 10 to 5, and magic resistance from 10% to 80%. From 25th level only +1 or better weapons can strike it, and from 28th only +2 or better. It gains flight at 25th (24, class A), improving to 36 at 26th, 48 at 28th and 60 at 30th. From 27th level it can neither walk, so it must always hover or fly, nor use weapons or make any physical attack.

Unlike a dragon, an avangion never passes through a bestial stage that clouds its mind. Instead its intellect sharpens with each step, gaining +1 Wisdom at 27th, 28th and 29th levels and +2 at 30th. These beings care about adventures of epic scope and have the power to pursue them. No such being has yet appeared in recorded history; the first will be a force for good and perhaps the mightiest good creatures in the world.

For all their strength, a large enough crowd of lesser foes can still bring one down. Dragons often fall because they cannot cooperate; an avangion gathers followers naturally in a campaign, though it must leave them for long periods during its transformation.

Dragons and avangions are archenemies and seek each other out to fight. These clashes cause terrible collateral damage and often end in stalemate, the dragon attacking relentlessly while the avangion relies on subtle, defensive strategy.

At each new level the preserver must cast the preserver metamorphosis spell, covering about a tenth of the distance from human to full avangion each time. Components and times vary by stage.

Low (21st-23rd): an inner calling drives the preserver into isolation, where it must collect remains of life's enemies, usually high-level defilers: their bodies, destructive possessions or artifacts, ash from their spells and so on, as proof of devotion to the land. The spell is cast at night under the light of both of the world's moons; others may be present, but any interruption ruins it.

Middle (24th-26th): another call to isolation. The components are gifts left by at least three powerful good beings, who stay away knowing what contact would cost, and who leave them only once the preserver accomplishes vital or very dangerous deeds. A tree or bush the preserver personally rescued from defiler magic serves as a component that is not consumed. Casting takes 12 hours in dense forest or vegetation, with living plants untouched by defiler ash or evil creatures for at least a mile in every direction.

High (27th-29th): no isolation this time. The preserver must gather at least eight companions, all of good alignment and each of 10 or more levels or Hit Dice, and spend the preparation time with them. Each gives one gift as a component, and one must help throughout the ceremony. A helper who is anything less than absolutely good dooms the casting, and the backlash of wasted magic slays that helper. New companions are needed at each of these three levels.

Final (30th): the preserver must create lush growth, crops, scrub grass, forest or any mix, at least five miles across, free of evil creatures when the spell is cast. The preserver needs a big tomb of stone, an airtight glass case built around both the tomb and the caster, and a diamond of 10,000 gp or more to trap the living power of sunlight. Casting takes one round, after which preserver, diamond and tomb vanish to unknown planes. Months later, perhaps up to two years, the fully transformed avangion returns inside the case. Should anything crack or break the glass before then, the avangion never comes back.