Updating the Quarut

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Whenever my players run afoul of an Inevitable, I have a NPC steal the iconic The Terminator (1984) quote:

That Terminator Invevitable is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!

- Ryle Keese

Left to right: a Zelekhut, a Kolyarut, and a Marut.

Left to right: hunt down those who escaped justice; uphold broken contracts; and those who wish to cheat death.

Agent Orange, Reporting for Duty

Inevitables were introduced in Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition Monster Manual. Each of them having dominion over a particular Law of the universe. If a mortal decided to cross that boundary, an Inevitable would be dispatched to correct the issue. Sometimes it would be through a Geas, but most of the time the perpatrator would be too far gone. This required Inevitables to be judge, jury and executioner in addition to being a bounty hunter. The original three had Greek motifs in their clothes and manner of which the clockwork Constructs appeared.

Inevitables are created and disatched to deal with a cosmic injustice. For example, the Zelekhut is the centaur with wings and it hunts down those who have escaped justice. Its first target probably got away from a deity’s edict which is why the Zelekhut was dispatched. An Inevitable’s first priority upon coming to its target is to Geas the fugitive into compliance. Failing that, they serve justice in the fashion of might makes right.

Upon completing their task, instead of standing derelict or returning to be deconstructed, the Inevitables can be convinced to fulfill their roles for much pettier reasons. They wish to fulfill their purpose but no longer have a target; that is, until someone manages to convince these obstinate Constructs to hunt someone down. Since their new directives come from mortals, they can be given false or incomplete information. Let’s look at what function the Quarut served.

Dumb Joke for the Millennials

The Quarut is dispatched whenever a person starts messing with time. Considering how often Wizards are casting Time Stop and never see hide nor hair of this enforcer, it must be someone who is really messing with the timey-wimey. The sort of thing that Haggard Clint’s The Chronomancer’s Guide to the Future covers. Or the TVA now that Marvel has opened that can of worms. Though if they sent the Quarut to finish the job, perhaps that organization would be effective instead of a plot coupon that props up other superheroes. At least an Inevitable will make an attempt to dissuade the individual before deciding to purge them; though I doubt that the person would take up the Inevitable’s offer. If you got powerful enough to mess with time to the point that the Plane that embodies Cosmic Law noticed, you are full of conviction and a little conversation isn’t going to make you stop. That is where the Quarut would use Geas but sometimes the crime is too large to contain or maintain, so death becomes the chosen option.

I compacted its abilities to make it more readable, which involved moving some of its abilities to Traits and making Temporal Statis an Action. The Quarut’s first and only appearance is in 3rd Edition’s Fiend Folio. It was in an awkward spot as the Fiend Folio was printed under the 3.0 instead of the vastly more popular 3.5 Edition. It’s porfolio of stopping those who mess with time in a game where that isn’t a mechanic makes sense for why it it never got more love.

I’ve added a Legendary Resistance and Temporal Mastery. If the Quarut is a literal time cop, it would make sense that it should be able to shrug off the Save or Suck effects that exist in the game. Another advantage of being a time cop is being immune to Time Stop by other mages; they would tag along with the Wizard’s Time Stop and turn that into a solo duel. If someone were to make a time trap, the Quarut could waltz right through; in fact, it might be there because it is a time trap.

Another change from 3rd to later editions is that in 3rd the Inevitables were classified as Outsiders due to existing outside of the natural realm. It would only be later editions where they would be considered a Construct.

Sandboxes can play with time

Time travel ruins Narrative games because it obliterates stakes; just go back and do it over again. In the Sandbox, there might be a host of reasons why your players did a timey-whimey violation. You could have a Hex Feature that messes with time. The characters find themselves in the past after walking out of the Feywild and they cause a Paradox. Or if you allow multiple PCs, a player uses a character they normally could not. Let me explain.

I let my players have up to three characters. This was introduced as a way to combat wild Average Party Level disparity; such as a Level 7 character with two Level 3 characters. The Level 7 would never be challenged and the 3s would tend to die. I didn’t want people to go willy-nilly with it, so I capped characters at three. This allowed for me to do some Fey shenanigans, as one time the party went into a Summer Court demense for a day but when they left, 53 days had passed. I rolled a d100 and the party saw how many days because I don’t run a Screen in a West Marches game.

I told the players that their characters were 53 days in the future, rather than pushing the calendar up 53 days. A week or three goes by in real life and I had forgotten which characters were in a time out. I assume that the player did as well and brought along one of the timed out characters. When it was pointed out to me, I knew the answer as to how did a character exist twice in the same timeline: time travel. With a time crime committed, I immediately knew who would be right for the job.

Terminal Point

But what if the player’s character have the life expectency of a fruit fly? Sometimes players will surprise you, including what you thought was a safe action resulting in termination. The paradox of preparation allowing for improvisation is what will save you here. You can always re-use something when it does not get used but using something that isn’t prepared is far trickier. In this case, I packaged the Quarut under ‘Bounty Hunters’ for Social Encounters and when the party meets them, they could be in the process of deleting that character in the past. Here, you give the party a choice to grab a past version of a dead temporal ally or just let the Quarut continue obliterating their former ally.

Where’s that on the Stat Block? Nowhere, but with the advent of Rituals with 5th Edition, they have codified the ability to grant creatures capabilities outside of their Stat Blocks. Of course, the Director always had this potential but 4th Edition and especially 3rd Editions of Dungeons and Dragons didn’t allow for explicitly story-based abilities. This means that the time cop can be used for story reasons, whether that is coming to mortals for some help due to a connumdrum it is in or to delete a paradoxical person every six seconds.

I’ll leave you with that, otherwise I’d need to start how to run a time travel game which is it’s own can of worms. If that sounds interesting, there’s the 5th Edition compatiable Clint Haggard’s Chronomancer’s Guide to the Future. If you’re looking to run a game exclusively made for time travel games, I don’t think the game is all that sexy but the setting is incredible with Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet.