The Conduit

A halfling sighs as he puts down his lute, tossing it into the soft snow besides him. He's aware that the bandits in the branches ahead would assume he was an easy target. After all, a small halfling with no weapons, save a dinky dagger, is prime to have a few coins lifted from his corpse. But as the snow around him slowly begins to melt and the lute begins to catch fire he smiles, knowing that while he himself may not pose much of a threat, the power Garthack the Destroyer posses will be more than enough to wipe out a measly team of pathetic mortals.

A tiefling woman downs her twelfth cup of mead and wipes her chin with a grin knowing she’s not even a little bit tipsy, watching as the ten much larger men who had challenged her to this drinking competition lie groaning on the table before her. While she collects her promised gold, she internally sighs just a bit, rolling her eyes as she realizes the verbal beratement Gabriel the Divine will give her for using her celestial abilities for personal gain.

A dwarf wakes from a pile of bodies with a start, his breath heavy and visible in the cold night air as he drags his body from the pile of corpses that were once his brethren. Climbing to his feet and steeling himself, he puts his hands on his knees and expels bile. As he attempts to catch his breath, his eyes widen as he hears a voice in the back of his head…

While a Warlock devotes their life to a powerful force in exchange for power and a Sorcerer is born with great gifts, a Conduit is born under normal circumstances most of the time, but at some point in their life comes to have an immensely powerful being sealed in side of them in some way. While a Warlock may serve their patron, a Conduit’s relationship with their entity is much more odd, as oftentimes a Conduit’s being or power cannot exist without them, meaning that in many ways the relationship is mutually beneficial, a pact of survival between the two with its own drawbacks and benefits for both people on both ends. Living as a Conduit requires great patience and compromise between both parties, as neither can ever truly overcome the other and both must learn to work together to accomplish whatever goals they seek to overcome, with the Conduit getting stronger in body to handle more and more of their sealed Creature’s power until one day they can both harness the full capabilities of therm form together.

Co-Dependence A Conduit is often born due to a powerful being’s need to find some way of regaining lost power. Sometimes after particularly harsh battles or after ancient evils are locked away ‘forever’ these creatures find a way back into our material plane to slowly rebuild themselves to the heights of power they once found themselves having, this often takes shape in the form of a Conduit. These relationships are rarely if ever ones that are initially ones based in consent from both parties, with either the humanoid creature that becomes a Conduit being used as some sort of mortal tether or the being being shackled to a mortal being doing so in order to be punished in some way. Regardless of why Conduit’s come to exist, whenever one does appear (which is rare) the sealed creature and the Conduit itself must at some point learn to co-exist to some extent, as Conduit’s are more often that not destined to live dangerous lives that will require the unique ability of both parties to be properly used and channeled in order for them both to end the relationship the two of them find each other bound in together. After all a sealed creature without a living host is just a spirit doomed to eternal prison in a rotting corpse while a Conduit without a sealed creature is often just a regular person who’s woefully unprepared for the vast amounts of danger, fear and excitement that accompanies their existence.