Unicorn
Contents
Description:
Unicorns resemble great white horses with a golden horn springing from their heads. They are kindhearted and will help those in need. They often shy away from violence.
Garb:
White hooded cloak and golden horn. White fur leggings. Suggested: as horselike as possible
Summoned By:
- Druid (6), Reincarnate
- Wizard (6), Transform
Type:
Q/M Ratio:
2/1
Armor:
none
Weapons:
Single short sword (Natural, Magical)
Immunities:
Control (save for Bardic Charm)
Natural Lives:
3
Abilities & Traits:
- Home Tree
- Many-Legged
- Strong
- Magic-Like Ability: Heal (Unlimited)
- Magic-Like Ability: Teleport (unlimited) Self Only. Requires the unicorn put its hood over its head in addition to the incantation.
Levels:
- 1st- As above
- 2nd- Gains Innate Magic-Like Ability: Resurrect (1/life). Requires bringing the dead to the unicorn's home tree and having target and unicorn touch the tree while casting the spell.
- 3rd- Resurrect becomes (2/life)
- 4th- Gains Innate Magic-Like Ability: Lost (1/life)
- 5th- Resurrect becomes (3/life)
- 6th- Lost becomes (3/life)
Player Notes
In the past, the theory that the Unicorn was a broken-tier character was fomented by a combination of a historical difference in the rules, and perhaps a downright ignorance or nonapplication of them. This occurred due to some players with competitive streaks evidently considering the older-edition wording of the Unicorn's hood mechanic for Teleport to be a toggle-switch-like mechanism, meaning that the player could flip the hood up to be instantly Teleporting, and flip it down to instantly arrive, without incantation--thereby allowing the player to essentially have invulnerability that could be flipped on and off at will. Though it is perhaps possible that past editions of the Dor allowed this (and indeed the wording was ambiguous even as late as the seventh edition), the current edition clearly states (as can be seen above) that the hood, in fact, must be flipped up not instead of, but rather in addition to the normal incantation. Also, the effect listing of Teleport itself states that the user must go straight to a specific location; as apparently applied in the past, Unicorn players sometimes simply used it to dart in and out of battle at opportune moments as a form of protection from assault, rather than using it according to its proper intent as a method of point-to-point transportation. Curiously, the current rules no longer state that the hood must be flipped back down again; whether this means that the Unicorn may simply play with the hood up all the time and Teleport freely with the normal incantation, or whether this was an accidental omission on the part of the Dor committee, is not currently known.
Additionally, in the past, Unicorn-playing participants have been known to Mend broken Home Trees or find creative ways to avoid disclosing their Home Tree locations, thus effectively creating a situation of infinite lives; current rules stipulations state that Monsters with Home Trees must come alive again at these trees rather than dying and going to a base. This effectively makes it rather simple to identify a Unicorn's (or other monster's) Home Tree: simply watch for where it comes alive, and hey presto, there's the tree. Whether or not these trees can be Mended, Resurrected, or otherwise restored after being destroyed is not stated in the Dor, making it uncertain whether such actions are considered acceptable.
