Patreon Drop: Enigmatic Options

Hey there patrons! No new monthly release this month, since I wanted to give Ultimate Veilweaving Sphere some extra time in the oven, but I have another large Patreon Drop for you today: Enigmatic Options!

Class Features and Archetypes

Corpsebloom Spores (Promethean Forbidden Knowledge)

Ancient rites for turning corpses into shambling fungal monsters have been burned into your flesh, allowing you to produce spores that inoculate and animate the dead. 

As part of shaping your veils for the day, or by meditating for one hour once per day if you do not shape veils, you may bind essence to this piece of forbidden knowledge, or unbind any amount of essence already bound to it. 

For each point you bind, you produce a single corpsebloom spore. You, or another creature you give the spore to, can place it into a corpse as a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity to cause it to rise from the dead as a corpsebloom zombie under your control after 1 minute. Corpsebloom zombies function as per zombies, save that they are plants instead of undead creatures. Only corpses that could be animated as zombies can be animated using a corpsebloom spore, and they do not affect creatures with a number of Hit Dice equal to or greater than 1.5x your promethean level. You and your corpsebloom zombies can sense the distance and direction to each other at all times, and an uncommanded corpsebloom zombie seeks you out after it is raised.

You may actively command a number of Hit Dice of corpsebloom zombies at once equal to 2x your promethean level. If you have more corpsebloom zombies under your control than this, you only have limited control over those beyond your limit. Those within this limit can take actions as you direct, and those outside your limit can only take move actions or the total defense action, do not threaten attacks of opportunity, and they do not block enemy movement through their space. At the beginning of your turn, you can change which corpsebloom zombies you have full and limited control over as a free action (if you gave commands to a corpsebloom zombie that takes longer than 1 round and you switch to having limited control over it, it stops following that command and attempts to use its move actions to return to you). 

Each spore, and thus the corpsebloom zombie it animated, is assigned to a point of essence bound to this forbidden knowledge; if the assigned point of essence is burned, the corpsebloom zombie animated by that spore is stunned and unable to take actions until the point of essence is restored. Essence burned is automatically reinvested into this forbidden knowledge when it is restored. If that point of essence is unbound from this forbidden knowledge, the fungus animating the corpsebloom zombie is destroyed, returning it to an inanimate corpse. It can later be reanimated using animate dead or another corpsebloom spore, but the created creature retains any damage it suffered before the fungus animating it was destroyed. If a corpsebloom zombie is otherwise destroyed, the point of essence used to create the spore that animated it is burned and unbound from this receptacle. 

For each point of essence invested in this piece of forbidden knowledge, your corpsebloom zombies gain a +1 insight bonus to attack and damage rolls, a +1 insight bonus to their AC and Reflex saves, a +5-foot increase to their movement speeds, and 5 temporary hit points. If lost, these temporary hit points recover at a rate of 1 per round at the beginning of the corpsebloom zombie’s turn.

Soul of the Corrupt (Soulforged Expanded Forged Soul)

Associated Skills: Intimidate, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Religion), Stealth

Associated Veils: Abductor’s Shadow, Blighted Vigor, Despoiling Presence, Mantle of Corrupted Power, Pooling Black, Soul of the Unliving, Soulhaunt Scream, Tainted Bulwark

Corrupted Soul (Su): At 1st level, the soul of the corrupt infuses your very soul with the corrupt energies of the powers you wield. You cannot invest essence invested in this forged soul; instead, every soul veil you shape using this soul gains the Corrupt descriptor. You gain the benefits of the Resist Corruption and Suppress Corruption feats, but neither feat grants you 1 point of essence when gained in this way. You treat corruption feats as if they are combat feats for the purposes of your soulforge bonus feats and your reforge feat ability and you may use your Wisdom score in place of your Constitution for the purposes of meeting their prerequisites; if you stop forging this soul, you lose the benefits of any corruption feats that you could have only gained by treating them as combat feats using this ability until you forge this soul again, and those that use the feats granted by this ability as prerequisites (those feats can still be retrained using your regorge feat ability as if they are combat feats, even when this soul isn’t forged, but they can only be retrained into normal combat feats while this soul isn’t forged).

Corrupted Vitality (Su): At 1st level, whenever you roll initiative you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your soulforge level times the number of veils with the Corrupt descriptor you have shaped. These temporary hit points persist until you leave combat, and then for one minute thereafter.

Amplified Corruption (Su): At 1st level, whenever you successfully hit a creature with corrupted essence with a weapon attack, you deal additional damage equal to the amount of corrupted essence they possess. This damage is considered to be dealt by corrupted essence for all purposes and is multiplied on a critical hit.

Corrupted Capacity: At 3rd level, and again at 9th and 15th level, the essence capacity of your veils with the Corrupt descriptor increases by 1. This does not stack with the improved essence capacity class feature or your forge capacity class feature.

Spreading Corruption (Su): At 5th level, once per round when you successfully hit a creature with a weapon attack you can spread the corruption of your soul to them. If that creature has un-corrupted essence, one point of their essence is corrupted (non-temporary essence is corrupted before temporary essence). A successful Fortitude save, DC 10 + 1/2 your soulforge level + your Wisdom modifier, negates the corruption of their essence. If they fail, every 24 hours they may make a new saving throw to remove the corruption from their essence; if multiple points of essence have been corrupted by you, they make a single save for all of their corrupted essence. If the creature has no essence, or all of their essence is already corrupted, on a failed save they instead gain one point of temporary corrupted essence for 1 minute. Unlike normal corrupted essence, the essence corrupted by this ability does not impose a Strength penalty.

At 9th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, you may use this ability one additional time each round. 

Harvest Corruption (Su): At 9th level, once per round as a move action you can make a melee touch attack against a creature who has corrupted essence. On a successful hit, you harvest their corruption, burning an amount of corrupted essence up to 1 + 1 per 3 soulforge levels, and healing yourself for 2 hit points per point of corrupted essence burned. You may use this ability on yourself as a swift action; if you use this ability on yourself, you do not suffer damage from having your corrupted essence burned by it and it is not considered an attack. This attack is considered a weapon attack for the purposes of your amplified corruption ability, and this additional damage is dealt before the corrupted essence is burned.

At 13th level, you can harvest corruption as a melee touch attack, or as a ranged touch attack out to Close range (25 feet + 5 feet per two soulforge levels).

At 17th level, you may use this ability as a move or swift action, but still only once per round, and you can harvest corruption as a ranged touch attack out to Medium range (100 feet + 10 feet per soulforge level).

Pervasive Corruption (Su): At 13th level, your spreading corruption corrupts two points of essence on a failed save, and one point on a successful save. If they have no essence, or all of their essence is already corrupted, on a failed save they instead gain two points of temporary corrupted essence for 1 minute, and one point on a successful save (if a creature has only one point of uncorrupted essence, their one point is corrupted for 24 hours and they gain one point of temporary corrupted essence for 1 minute on a failed save, and their one point is corrupted on a successful save). 

Expanded Forged Souls

A soulforge normally only has access to the souls associated with pathfinder’s eleven core classes. At 1st level, they can choose to replace their access to any number of their souls with an equal number of expanded forged souls. Once made, this choice cannot be changed. 

Soul’s Voice (Volur Archetype)

Rather than drawing their power from a spirit of the natural world, these volur has learned to tap into the souls of the Akashic Record to empower themself and to channel their strange and enigmatic abilities.

Embodied Soul: At 1st level, when the soul’s voice shapes their veils for the day they choose and draw the powers of a single soul from the akashic record and tie it to their own, embodying the soul’s memories and skills. When the soul’s voice gains this ability, they gain access to a selection of forged souls to utilize with this ability as per a soulforge; by default this is the eleven souls associated with pathfinder’s core classes, but they can choose to exchange any number of these souls for expanded or obscure souls at 1st level much like a soulforge can. This ability otherwise counts as being able to forge a soul for all purposes.

When the soul’s voice embodies their chosen soul, they gain 1 temporary skill rank per level which are assigned to the soul’s associated skills, and they gain unique abilities based on their soul. When determining the abilities of their soul, they use their Charisma in place of their Wisdom and their volur level in place of their soulforged level. If they cannot gain more ranks in any of their soul’s associated skills, they may spend any excess temporary skill ranks on class skills of their choice.

The soul’s voice can only have a single soul embodied at a time; each time they shape their veils for the day they can change their emobided soul. When the soul’s voice changes their embodied soul, they lose all the abilities and skill ranks granted by the replaced soul. 

At 1st level, the soul’s voice gains a special soul veil slot which they can use to shape their embodied soul’s associated veils. They gain one additional soul veil slot at 4th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. Rather than being invested with essence, the soul veils they shape in these slots are treated as always being invested with their maximum essence capacity. Unlike their normal veils, these soul veils can be shaped in the same chakra slots as non-soul veils (for example, they could shape both a normal veil and soul veil in the Feet chakra slot simultaneously). They cannot bind their soul veils to their chakra slots through normal means; they can only do so using their soulbinding ability. If they are not a veilweaving, they use their Charisma as their veilweaving modifier and their volur level as their veilweaving level for these veils.

This replaces the volur’s akashic spirit, brandweaving, brandbinding, brand reach, mass branding, spiritual embodiment, spiritual alignment, brandsense, brandbinding, and one with the spirit class features.

Soulbinding: At 3rd level, as part of shaping their veils each day the soul’s voice can bind one of their shaped soul veils to its chakra slot. The maximum bind level they can bind is based on their class level, as per the following: 

• 3rd Level: Hands and Feet binds

• 6th Level: Head and Wrists binds

• 9th Level: Shoulders and Headband binds

• 12th Level: Neck bind

• 15th Level: Belt bind

• 18th Level: Chest and Body binds

The bind levels they unlock by increasing in level are cumulative. At 6th level, and every 3 levels thereafter, they may bind one additional soul veil using this ability each day. For example; a 9th level soul’s voice can bind three soul veils each day, but can only bind soul veils shaped to their Hands, Feet, Head, Wrists, Shoulders, or Headband slots.

Twinsoul: At 10th level, the soul’s voice embodies a second soul each day as part of shaping their veils. This second soul only gives them 1 temporary skill rank per class level to spend on the second soul’s associated skills, they add that soul’s associated veils to those they can shape using their soul veil slots, and they treat their level as 9 levels lower when determining the abilities granted by this second soul.

Soul Paragon (Su): At 20th level, the soul’s voice gains immunity to negative levels and death effects. If the souls’ voice is killed, their body and their equipment dissipates into the akashic record, only for the soul’s voice to be returned to life with their equipment one week later at a location on the same plane (or planet, if they died on the material plane) of their choice. Their new body is returned to life as a young adult, with any of their physical ailments or disabilities cured. If the souls’ voice dies again within 7 days of being returned to life, their body and equipment does not dissipate, and they are not returned to life. 

Fully Entwined Souls

At 1st level, a soul’s voice can choose to fully entwine their chosen soul, rather than being able to change it each day. If they do, this choice cannot be changed. If they choose to do so, they cannot change their entwined soul each day as part of shaping their veils, and they gain 1 additional skill rank at each level to spend on the associated skills of their entwined soul.

A soul’s voice who chooses to fully entwine their soul gains their twinsoul ability at 7th level, rather than 10th, and once their second soul is chosen it cannot be changed when they shape their veils. They only treat their volur level as 6 levels lower when determining the abilities of their second entwined soul. At 10th level, they treat their class level as only 4 levels lower when determining the effects of their second soul. At 13th level, this penalty is reduced to 2 levels lower, and at 16th level they no longer suffer a penalty.

Sphereforge (Soulforge Archetype)

The akashic record holds more than just knowledge of veils and heroes. Within its halls lie knowledge of all forms of magic and martial disciplines, and the sphereforge has learned to forge this raw knowledge upon their soul, mind, and body.

Sphereforge's Training: A sphereforge's Hit Dice is reduced from a d10 to a d8. In addition, the sphereforge's base attack bonus is equal to three-quarters their soulforge level (much like a rogue's base attack bonus is calculated), rather than the usual soulforge base attack bonus.

This modifies the soulforge's hit dice and base attack bonus.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A sphereforge is proficient with all simple weapons, light armor, and bucklers. In addition, if this is this character's first level in any class, they may select a martial tradition of their choice.

This modifies the soulforge's weapon and armor proficiencies.

Casting: A sphereforge may combine spheres and talents to create magical effects. A sphereforge is considered a Mid-Caster. (Note: All casters gain 2 bonus talents and a casting tradition the first time they gain the casting class feature.)

This replaces the soulforge's veilweaving, chakra binds, essence pool, soulforged armaments, forge capacity, soul enhancement, twinveil forge, rapid enhancement, and immortal soul forging class features.

Soulpower: A sphereforge uses their casting ability modifier in place of their Wisdom for their soulforge class features and as their practitioner modifier. Any time a soulforge class feature references shaping their veils for the day, it instead triggers when the sphereforge rests and recovers their spell points.

Sphere Souls: Forging a soul does not grant the sphereforge the ability to shape soul veils and their forged souls do not act as essence receptacles. Instead, their forged souls have associated spheres and moldable talents from those spheres. Each of their forged souls has two associated spheres, and these associated spheres for all of their forged souls are chosen at 1st level when they gain this class feature. The types of spheres that can be chosen as associated spheres for a forged soul are based on the base attack bonus of the class the forged soul is based off of (if a soul is not associated with a specific class, it is considered to have Medium base attack bonus):

• Low base attack bonus: Any two magic spheres.

• Medium base attack bonus: Any one combat sphere and any one magic sphere.

• High base attack bonus: Any two combat spheres.

When the sphereforge forges a soul, they gain their forged soul’s associated spheres as bonus talents for as long as the soul is forged (or a bonus talent of that sphere, if they already have the sphere). If they selected a magic sphere, they gain a +1 bonus to their caster level with that sphere (to a maximum of their character level), and if they selected a combat sphere they treat their base attack bonus as 1 higher when determining the effects of that sphere and making attacks modified or granted by that sphere (to a maximum of their character level). At 5th level, and again at 9th, 13th, and 17th level, these bonuses increase by an additional +1.

At 3rd level, and every 2 levels thereafter, they gain a bonus talent belonging to one of their selected spheres. The spheres and talents granted by this ability are considered temporary talents.

Bonus talents gained using this ability can be changed each time the sphereforge rests to recover their spell points. If one of these bonus talents are used to meet a prerequisite and are changed, the ability it is used as a prerequisite for cannot be used until the talent is regained. The sphereforged cannot use their normal talents to take talents in a temporary sphere granted by their forged soul unless they already possess that sphere using their normal talents.

This modifies the soulforge's soul forging class feature.

Blended Training: The sphereforge gains a combat or magic talent of their choice at 2nd level, and every 2 levels thereafter. 

Twin Sphere Soul: At 10th level, when the sphereforge forges their second soul using their twin soul class feature, they only gain the benefits of one of its associated spheres, chosen when it is forged. They gain that sphere as a bonus talent (or a bonus talent of that sphere, if they already have the sphere), and can use their talents granted by their sphere souls class feature to choose talents from that sphere. If they gain the same associated sphere with both their first and second forged souls, the bonuses to their caster level or base attack bonus from their soul do not stack.

This replaces the soulforge’s twin soul class feature.

Trueforged Soul (Soulforge Archetype)

These warriors strongly align themself with the soul of a notable figure drawn from the Akashic Record, fusing the aspects of that soul with their own to further empower themself, but giving up much of their flexibility in the process.

Trueforged Soul: At 1st level, the trueforged soul selects a single forged soul using their soul forging ability. This is their trueforged soul; the temporary skill ranks grants by it are instead permanent skill ranks, and they cannot change their forged soul when they shape their veils for the day. At 1st level, the trueforged soul gains the ability to shape 1 additional soul veil each day.

This modifies the soulforge’s forged soul class feature.

Bonus Combat Feats: Instead of at their normal levels, the trueforged soul gains a bonus combat feat at 1st level, 3rd level, and every 3 levels thereafter.

This modifies the soulforge’s bonus combat feats class feature and replaces their reforged feats class feature.

Expanded Trueforged Soul: At 7th level, the trueforged soul unlocks further depth and greater expertise with their forged soul. They choose and gain the benefits of a second forged soul, as per their trueforged soul class feature. For the purposes of this soul, their class level is treated as 6 levels lower when determining the abilities that soul grants them, and they gain only 1 skill point per class level to assign to the second forged soul's associated skills. Since this is an expanded aspect of their trueforged soul, this second soul is not considered its own essence receptacle; it shares the essence receptacle with your trueforged soul. If an ability of either soul would affect that soul’s essence receptacle, such as the corrupted soul ability of the Soul of the Corrupt, it applies to the shared receptacle and all the soul veils you have shaped.

At 10th level, the trueforged soul treats their class level as only 4 levels lower when determining the effects of their second soul. At 13th level, this penalty is reduced to 2 levels lower, and at 16th level they no longer suffer a penalty.

This replaces the soulforge’s body and soul and twin soul class features. 

Sphere Trueforged Soul

When a character selects both the Trueforged Soul and Sphere Soulforge archetypes, the Trueforged Soul is modified as per the following:

Adorned in Veils: At 1st level, the sphere trueforged soul increases their number of veil slots and their maximum number of veil slots they can shape veils to using the Veilweaving sphere by 1. This additional veil slot is always considered a soul veil slot, and does not count towards their maximum number of soul veil slots.

This replaces the additional soul veil granted at 1st level by the trueforged soul class feature.

True Mightforged Soul 

A character can select both the Mightforge and Trueforged Soul archetypes at the same time, despite those archetypes modifying the same class features. When doing so, those archetypes are modified as per the following:

Combat Training: A true mightforged soul may combine combat spheres and talents to create powerful martial techniques. True mightforged souls are considered Adept combatants and use the higher of their Wisdom as their practitioner modifier.

This replaces the mightforge’s combat training and forged talents, replaces the trueforged soul’s bonus combat feats, and replaces the soulforge’s bonus combat feats and reforge feat class features.

Bonus Combat Talent: At 1st level, the true mightforged soul gains a bonus combat talent.

True Sphereforged Soul

A character can select both the Sphereforge and Trueforged Soul archetypes at the same time, despite those archetypes modifying the same class features. When doing so, those archetypes are modified as per the following:

Trueforged Spheresoul: The true sphereforged soul gains 1 additional talent from one of their soul’s associated spheres at 1st level, and the bonus spheres and talents granted by their forged soul are not considered temporary talents. They can be used to meet prerequisites, and cannot be changed when the true sphereforged soul rests to recover their spell points.

This modifies the spheresoul’s sphere souls class feature, and replaces the additional veil shaped at 1st level granted by the trueforged soul class feature.

Expanded Trueforged Spheresoul: At 7th level, the trueforged spheresoul chooses and gain the benefits of a second forged soul, as per their sphere souls and trueforged soul class features. For the purposes of this soul, their class level is treated as 6 levels lower when determining the abilities that soul grants them, and they gain only 1 skill point per class level to assign to the second forged soul's associated skills, and only gain the benefits of one of their second forged soul’s associated talents, chosen when they gain this class feature. They gain that sphere as a bonus talent (or a bonus talent of that sphere, if they already have the sphere), and can use their talents granted by their sphere souls class feature to choose talents from that sphere. If they gain the same associated sphere with both their first and second forged souls, the bonuses to their caster level or base attack bonus from their soul do not stack.

At 10th level, the trueforged spheresoul treats their class level as only 4 levels lower when determining the effects of their second soul. At 13th level, this penalty is reduced to 2 levels lower, and at 16th level they no longer suffer a penalty.

This modifies the expanded trueforge soul class feature and replaces the twin sphere soul class feature. 

Feats

Expanded Soul Veils

Study and practice has allowed you to access additional skills and memories of the souls you forge.

Prerequisites: Ability to forge a soul, forged souls grant you associated veils

Benefits: For each of your forged souls, choose a veil. That veil is added to that forged soul’s list of associated veils. The chosen veil must be able to be shaped in at least one of the following chakra slots: Hands, Feet, Head, Wrists, Shoulders, Headband, Neck, Belt, Chest, or Body.

If one of your forged souls allowed you to choose its associated veils as part of first gaining the ability to forge it, the veil you select for it using this feat must be one that would have been initially able to be selected when you gained the soul (such as with the Soul of the Branded or Soul of the Ruler).

Special: This feat can be selected an additional time starting at 9th and 17th level.

Improved Soul Access

Your knowledge of souls has expanded, allowing you access to a new forged soul.

Prerequisites: Ability to forge a soul, Skill Focus (see below)

Benefits: Select one forged soul available to the soulforge or from the expanded or obscure forged souls list. You must have Skill Focus with at least one of the chosen soul’s associated skills, and you must otherwise meet the souls prerequisites (for obscure souls). You add that forged soul to the list of souls you can forge.

If you are an adept soul forger or only have the ability to forge a single soul, by getting 8 hours of rest you choose which of your forged souls available to you that you wish to forge by meditating for 1 hour (or as part of meditating to shape your veils, if you are a veilweaver). Changing your soul in this way functions as if you have retrained it; your skill ranks granted by the soul are retrained, as are any feats, talents, or other abilities granted by the soul. If you used any of those retrained skill ranks or abilities to meet prerequisites, you lose the benefits of anything with such a prerequisite until you meet the prerequisites again; abilities with prerequisites met using your replaced soul are not automatically retrained (unless they were granted by the soul itself).

Special: This feat can be selected multiple times, selecting a different forged soul each time it is selected.

Soul Forged Veils

You have learned to better utilize the veils of your forged souls.

Prerequisites: Ability to forge a soul, Wisdom 13

Benefits: If you have the ability to shape veils, you may shape your forged soul’s associated veils using any of your veil slots rather than only your soul veil slots. If for some reason your forged soul does not grant you associated veils, usually due to an archetype, it now grants its associated veils as well (but not additional soul veil slots). An associated veil shaped in your non-soul slots is an essence receptacle, as normal; it does not share the essence invested in your forged soul. If you have the ability to change your forged souls and it would cause you to lose the ability to shape a veil you have shaped using this feat, that veil is unshaped and a veil associated with your newly forged soul is shaped in its place. If you have the ability to bind the newly shaped veil, you may do so as part of this process.

If you do not have the ability to shape veils, you additionally gain the ability to shape 1 veil each day. You use your character level as your veilweaving level, and your Wisdom as your veilweaving modifier. The saving throw DC of your veils is equal to 10 + number of points of essence invested in the veil + your veilweaving modifier. 

Special: The soulforge’s forge capacity class feature applies to their forged soul’s associated veils, even if they aren’t shaped in a soul slot.

Prestige Classes

Black Templar [Retold]

Black templars are blights upon the living. Training in dark techniques that allow them to steal the life-force of others and transform it into akashic energy they can turn to their own purposes, black templars are reviled as vampires and necromancers by the unenlightened. The fear they inspire in those who know of their true nature is even more terrible, as those who practice the akashic arts are particularly vulnerable to a templar’s powers; when a black templar’s wrath is turned against such a target, they can deplete not only their life, but their essence, draining them until nothing is left but an unliving husk under the templar’s control.

Black templars can come from any origin, but usually their ranks are filled with veilweavers and others whose knowledge of akashic energy leads them down a darkened path.

Role: Black templars must touch their victims in order to exercise their powers, and as a result are often found at the forefront of battle, relying on their akashic abilities to protect them while they decimate the opposition.

Alignment: Black templars are never of good alignment, as the first act in awakening their powers is to drain a sentient being to death, using that dark act to create a hungering hollowness in their own being that acts as a source of power.

Hit Die: d8.

Requirements: To qualify to become a black templar, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

• Skills: Knowledge (Arcana) 5 ranks

• Veilweaving: Must have an Essence Pool of at least 3 and the ability to have at least 2 veils shaped.

• Special: The character must participate in the ritual sacrifice of a sentient creature, using the harvested energy and damage to their soul as a gateway to their abilities.

Class Skills: The black templar’s class skills are Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), and Spellcraft (Int).

Skill Ranks Per Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Class Features

Proficiencies: Black templars gain proficiency with medium armor and bucklers.

Veilweaving: At 1st level, the black templar gains new veils shaped, essence, improved essence capacity, and binds as though they had gained a level in any one veilweaving class they belonged to before they gained this prestige class. They do not, however, gain other benefits a character of that class would have gained. If a character had more than one veilweaving class before they became a black templar, they must decide to which class they add each level of black templar for the purpose of determining their veils shaped and binds known.

Drain Essence (Su): At 1st level, the black templar learns how to drain the life and essence out of their opponents, empowering themself with this stolen energy. As a melee touch attack that can be taken in place of any melee attack, the black templar may inflict an amount of akashic damage equal to 1d8 per class level plus their Constitution modifier to an opponent, gaining an equivalent number of temporary hit points and adding 1 point of temporary essence to their essence pool. The temporary essence gained increases by 1 for each class level the black templar gains after the first. If the targeted opponent is a veilweaver or other character with an essence pool of at least 1, the black templar doubles the temporary essence gained and this ability also inflicts 1 point of essence burn per class level to the target. Corrupted essence cannot be burned using this ability. With this ability, the black templar cannot have more temporary essence in their essence pool at any given time from this ability than twice their class level. The temporary hit points and temporary essence last for a number of minutes equal to the templar’s class level plus their Constitution modifier.

Black Defilement (Su): At 2nd level, if the black templar has a temporary pool of hit points from their drain essence ability, they can expend 5 or more of those temporary hit points as a swift action to create an aura of that emanates from themself with a radius equal to the number of temporary hit points expended (rounded down to the nearest 5-foot increment). All living creatures inside this aura, other than the black templar, suffer a penalty to attack rolls and saving throws equal to the templar’s class level for as long as they remain within it. This aura persists for a number of rounds equal to the black templar’s Constitution modifier.

Create Husk (Su): At 3rd level, the black templar can transform their victims into shambling husks under their control. Whenever a black templar reduces an opponent to 0 or fewer hit points with their drain essence ability, they can take 1 point of essence burn to kill the creature and transform it into a zombie under their control. The zombie has a number of hit dice equal to the killed creature, rather than a normal zombie produced from that creature’s corpse. The zombie may act immediately after the black templar’s turn when created during combat (it rolls initiative as normal in future combats) and follows the black templar’s orders to the best of its ability. The darkened energy empowering the zombie fades quickly however, and after a number of hours equal to the templar’s class level plus their Constitution modifier the zombie becomes an inanimate corpse. The black templar can control a maximum Hit Dice worth of zombies using this ability equal to twice their veilweaving level, and they cannot create a zombie if it would have more Hit Dice than 1.5x their veilweaving level. If they would create a zombie that would cause them to control more than this maximum, zombies under their control are destroyed to make room, starting from the oldest created zombie.

Corrupt Essence (Su): At 4th level, whenever a creature would suffer essence burn from the black templar’s drain essence ability, the black templar can choose to corrupt that essence instead. 

Blackened Soul (Su): At 5th level, the black templar’s corrupting influence reaches new levels of depravity. Once a day when they would activate their create husk ability, they can instead create a more powerful and permanent undead; instead of the normal effects of create husk, the templar may instead treat the target as though they were a corpse targeted by a create undead spell with a caster level equal to their veilweaving level or 11, whichever is higher. This undead follows the black templar’s instructions to the best of its ability, but the templar can only maintain one such undead at a time; unless it’s destroyed the undead remains active and under the templar’s control until they uses blackened soul to create a new undead, at which point any undead previously animated by this ability immediately reverts to an inanimate corpse. This more powerful undead still counts towards the maximum Hit Dice of undead they can control using create husk, and the maximum Hit Dice it can possess are still limited to 1.5x the black templar’s veilweaving level. If they would create an undead that would bring them above the Hit Dice limit while they have a powerful undead under their control, they may choose to destroy their normal undead first (even if the powerful undead was their oldest undead creature).

OGL

15. COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Open Game License v 1.0 © 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

System Reference Document. © 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors: Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Patreon Drop: Enigmatic Options © 2025 Studio M—, Authors Hal Kennette.

Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, © 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn, based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.