The vast majority of divine magic comes from the gods. This is both well-documented and easily verified: just go anger a god. Similarly, the majority of arcane magic comes from study or pedigree. Spend three decades learning the source code of the universe, and you too can manipulate it, or just have a great-grandparent who got it on with a dragon. That works, too. The magic of the bard is something else entirely. It seems to come from the self, some say from the heart, and while it doesn’t rival the earthshaking power of the gods or hundreds of generations of wizardly cabals, the fact that it exists at all is nothing short of amazing.
While nobody can truly be certain from where bardic magic comes, cartomancers are convinced that its source is similar to their own. Cartomancy is magic that exists at the intersection between fate and storytelling. Bards themselves are master storytellers, though they tend to relate stories long past, where fate is sealed, or stories of the here and now, where fate is the most malleable. In this manner, cartomancy appears to be the bardic magic of the immediate future just as bardic magic appears to be the cartomancy of both past and present. Following this ideological path, some cartomancers began to express abilities similar to that of part of the bard’s skillset. These individuals identify themselves as taleweavers.
Taleweavers have the following class features:
Portentous Magic (Sp): Starting at 2nd level, a taleweaver begins to see hints of further meaning behind the cards, primal magic shaped by the act of storytelling that can be leveraged at any time and in any manner that she has the skill to relate. As a full-round action, the taleweaver may discard one or more portents and pay a number of fate points to cast a spell chosen from the lists below with a caster level equal to her taleweaver level and Charisma as her key ability score. She must supply its material components, if any, as normal.
Reminder: Discarded portents are not played!
At 2nd level, the taleweaver may discard a least portent and expend 1 fate point to cast a spell from the following list: burning hands, cause fear, charm person, command, cure light wounds, earpiercing scream, enlarge person, identify, ill omen, obscuring mist, ray of enfeeblement, reduce person, sleep, true strike, and unseen servant.
At 6th level, the taleweaver may discard a lesser portent and expend 2 fate points to cast a spell from the following list: augury, burning gaze, cure moderate wounds, death knell, delay poison, false life, gentle repose, glitterdust, hold person, levitate, see invisibility, status, summon swarm, touch of idiocy, web, and zone of truth.
At 10th level, the taleweaver may discard a greater portent OR two lesser portents and expend 3 fate points to cast a spell from the following list: arcane sight, bestow curse, clairaudience/clairvoyance, deep slumber, fireball, fly, harrowing, healing thief, ray of exhaustion, remove blindness/deafness, remove curse, remove disease, suggestion, and vampiric touch.
At 14th level, the taleweaver may discard a greater portent and expend 4 fate points to cast a spell from the following list: analyze dweomer, eyebite, flesh to stone, guards and wards, legend lore, mass cure moderate wounds, raise dead, slay living, and true seeing.
This ability replaces seals.