#augnagar

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Ghoul (Pathfinder Second Edition Archetype)

(art by Cloister on DeviantArt)

Another one of the undead archetypes again already? Ah, the joys of ghost and ghoul being so close together in the alphabet (though as far as I know, their etymology is unrelated).

Well, in any case, I suppose we should talk a bit about what a ghoul is before heading into the archetype.

Originally referring to spirits or creatures of the night that haunted graveyards in Arabic folklore, the exact nature of ghouls, or ghuls, varies by telling, ranging from a subtype of jinn to being cursed devils or even jinn burned and transformed in punishment for daring to enter the heavenly spheres after being forbidden from doing so. Regardless, the fact that they feed on corpses remains the same, and it is possible, though dangerous to treat with them if you are polite.

The modern ghoul in popular fiction is a form of walking corpse, usually depicted as a tier higher than a mere zombie, but similar.

The ghouls of D&D/Pathfinder specifically, are intelligent but hunger-wracked things associated with corpse-eating, cannibalism, and disease, the original zombie virus of fantasy gaming what with the infectious nature of ghoul fever (though interestingly, the supernatural illness can pop up spontaneously in those that just practice cannibalism. Perhaps it’s some sort of otherworldly prion disease?). Also notable is their ability to paralyze those they strike, though the elven immunity to this power varies between being treated as a strange quirk of the magic and a hint that the first ghouls might have been elves, leading to a curious fluke in that power.

Additionally, ghouls in Pathfinder draw upon a bit of Lovecraftian lore in that there are also the very powerful Leng Ghouls, which may have been spawned from a nightmare about ghouls, or perhaps a strange fluke of how the disease reacts to the strange energies of that nightmare realm.

In any case, today’s archetype represents an individual having been turned into a ghoul, whether it be before the game started as part of their backstory, or happened during play and the GM allowing them to continue to play using this archetype. (the latter is somewhat unlikely, but not impossible, because the victim needs to succumb to ghoul fever without any access to medical care or healing magic.

It’s also worth noting that this archetype received a small update in the Blood Lords AP, so it has a few more feats than other archetypes.

The dedication for this archetype means the character become a ghoul, gaining the undead benefits and the jaws and claws of that transformation. Additionally, they gain the “satiated” mechanic. A ghoul can devour a corpse to become satiated, but certain feats grant abilities that require them to expend that satiated status as they push themselves, causing them to hunger once again for dead flesh.

Many victims of this ghoulish transformation can find vitality and healing in consuming a corpse. Whether it be that they digest the flesh and incorporate it into their own to close wounds, or perhaps the unnatural negative energy that sustains them rewards feeding their beast with twisted regeneration.

Ghouls are known for sometimes being unnaturally agile, and there is truth to this, some becoming quite agile leapers. They can even expend their satiation to leap even further and higher.

While not true ghoul fever, some are able to empower their strikes with negatively charge enzymes which weaken attempts to heal them for a short while, longer if they expend their satiation.

Naturally, as they grow in power, these undead can tap into greater benefits of undeath, often also becoming swifter as well.

Slinkers and skulkers by nature, many of these undead know how best to move while avoiding attacks when retreating, and often look quite unnerving while doing so.

Similarly, they can reflexively pursue those nearby, lurching after them.

Eventually, most learn to empower their necrotic enzymes to inflict paralysis upon foes, though naturally elves are immune.

While they still cannot infect others, they can cause a minor fever in their victims with a particularly grievous bite (or any bite if they spend their satiation to empower the strike).

Some ghouls that tap into the truly unnatural and monstrous arts of their undead state can transform their tongue into a bone-studded flailing weapon, distending their jaw to do so.

Later on, many learn how to feed more to become more satiated, allowing them to briefly be able to use multiple satiation-related abilities before needing to feed again.

While monks run on walls with sheer agility and maybe a little help from their ki, ghouls that do so are more of the horrifying scrabbling sort, digging their claws into every nook and otherwise defying gravity’s pull for a brief moment.

Becoming fully satiated also regenerates some ghouls more so than just becoming satiated.

Emulating the more bestial variant of ghouls known as ghasts, some begin to exude a foul stench that can overwhelm unprepared mortals.

Some ghouls that belong to the cult of Kabriri, demon lord of ghouls learn to glean secrets form the corpses they consume through a strange symbiosis with supernatural maggots living in their undead flesh.

Some ghouls have a knack for burrowing, granting them surprising speed underground and the ability to construct tunnels and warrens with their bare hands and hardened claws.

Going back to the cult of Kabriri and those supernatural vermin, powerful ghouls in his cult can actually assumed the living seeming form of someone they have devoured, allowing them to infiltrate. However, they gain no memories or knowledge from this process beyond what those otherworldly maggots tell them.

Some of these cultists can use graves as waypoints for a form of teleportation, traveling great distances in an instant while seeming to disappear into holes in the ground.

Foul magic allows some of the more powerful devotees to exhale a cloud of consuming foulness which withers and consumes flesh, allowing the ghoul to potentially inhale the gas afterwards to instantly satiate themselves on the vaporized flesh.

Bursting forth from their body, the maggots of Kabriri can unleash psychic visions of the first ghouls transformation or of being consumed alive, attempting to slay their host’s enemies outright with raw psychic malefice. Only the more powerful ghouls can learn this technique though.

The ghoul archetype ends up being a fun and flavorful undead archetype with a neat mechanic all about storing away power for later use in a thematic way, as well as self-healing, debuffing, and so on, with some cooler, nastier high-level feats added on from the Blood Lords AP, which all technically don’t require you to worship a demon lord to use! This archetype works best with classes that make use of your physical agility and melee combat, but feel free to try it with other classes too.

Being any sort of undead is a struggle. You have dark urges that demand to be fulfilled, and many of them are monstrous in nature. In particular, being a ghoul means craving the flesh of the dead, making them cannibals and grave defilers by nature. Many may struggle against this, but others allow themselves to be consumed. With that in mind, how your character deals with this can be interesting to explore. Additionally, many of the rarer abilities of this archetype are associated with a demon lord. However, worshipping Kabriri is not required to use them. Perhaps they might be a dark, unwanted gift meant to tempt the ghoul into becoming a true monster?

Trapped after wandering through a random rift, the augnagar qlippoth Ashglutton has wandered the catacombs of Luax for untold years. The ghouls that dwell there have taken to worshipping the fiend, seeing it as a reflection of their own appetites. Ashglutton does not reciprocate this devotion, of course, and devours undead just as readily as mortals, loose objects, and the occasional bit of masonry it gnaws off of the scenery.

The reclusive shisk people, as strange as they seem to outsiders, typically subsist on very little, but even they need to eat. During the Age of Ash, a desperate cabal of them turned to dark powers to sate not only their empty bellies, but also their thirst for knowledge, becoming ghouls able to learn how to extract and hoard secrets from the flesh of those they consume.

For a week, the party has been hunting a serial killer, one that devours the bodies of victims when they can be found at all. However, they are shocked to find the culprit coming to them, and for help of all things! The poor man is a newly turned ghoul, who only killed out of desperate hunger. He wants a way to control himself, or barring that, a peaceful end.

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Class Feature Friday: Divination School (Pathfinder Second Edition Wizard School)

(art by Alifka Hammam Nugroho on Artstation)

 We’re back with another Second Edition wizard school, this time focusing on diviners!

Like their First Edition counterparts, diviners in 2E don’t command the flashiest spells, but they do boast some of the most useful and utilitarian forms of magic. After all, when is the magic of gathering information, be it by contacting otherworldly planes, gaining new senses, being blessed by foresight, or plucking information from the ether ever NOT useful?

Of course, like all schools of magic, divination has changed a bit between editions. For example, misfortune spells have been partially moved to enchantment, which I suppose makes sense as those spells are just as much about the dread of your foes believing in the incoming failure as it is about you seeing it and sharing it with them.

Additionally, certain powerful divination spells, particularly those that let you view things remotely such as with scrying or mobile magical sensors, have been made higher level in this edition, locking out those powers till later.

That being said, divination, while not a visually impressive school most of the time, remains highly useful and highly sought after, even in a setting like the core Lost Omens setting, where prophecy is shrouded in uncertainty.

 So what does this version of the school do for wizards? While obviously it has the basic things like an extra spell slot for your divination spells, and it gives you a divination spell for free, all things you’ve come to expect from wizard schools so far.

From there, it changes a bit. The early focus spell diverges heavily from the 1E version, rather than granting passive buffs, it instead lets you roll a d20 and place that result off to the side, which is almost the same as the first-level ability of the Foresight focused school from First Edition, except you can also use it to reveal the result of a secret roll as well.

Meanwhile, the advanced power of this school also draws upon the subschools of the past edition, namely the Scryer focused school to grant the user the ability to create a magical sensor at range similar to clairvoyance, but limited to a direct line of sight with you when first created.

 There are no wizard feats directly tied to the divination school, but the following prove useful to diviners nevertheless: Counterspell, Spellbook Prodigy, Linked Focus, Scroll Savant, Diviner Sense, Magic Sense, Archwizard’s Might, Reclaim Spell, or Spell Mastery. Obviously, other feats will also be useful depending on what other spells you learn as well.

Divination is one of those schools that is useful for any build, and so focusing on it can be a fun way to always have a good idea of what is coming, which may frustrate the GM if they don’t plan around you knowing at least something about what is coming. With that in mind, I recommend a build with a lot of versatile options so that your diviner always has some kind of option once they’ve learned what is coming, and especially when they don’t.

 The way this version of the diviner has a little bit of everything from different variations of the idea as it appeared in the previous edition is fun, dipping a little bit into every aspect of the school in a way that the original didn’t really. If we want to pretend there is some consistent development of magical knowledge or perhaps fashion between the two editions, we can argue that these powers may have been adopted as the others fell out of favor or usefulness, which I suppose makes sense in a setting where prophecy, something deeply rooted in the divination school, is not reliable anymore.

  In her visions, the half-orc diviner Kazanda keeps seeing the same landmark, a ruined statue of two swordsmen. Though she does not understand why, she knows she must go there, and she is willing to pay for an escort to take her there. Once there, the heroes will find a fateful encounter.

 Deep below the sands of Unirak, a secret order of diviners watch over the source of their prognostication: the writhing, half-living body of an augnagar qlippoth that was impaled on a stalagmite of Borderstone, an extradimensional mineral that prevents planar travel. Unable to free itself, the so-called Writhing Writer squirms and thrashes, attacking those that get too close. The diviners believe they can discern secrets of the multiverse from it’s convolutions, but all of their prognostication points towards nihilism and malignant animosity.

 Discovering a strange new ruin, the party is shocked to discover that the ruins are filled with images that are unmistakably them, detailing the visions that the previous occupants had of them. Exactly what this culture of prophets hoped to tell the party, whether it was a warning or a promise, is yet to be seen, but it seems they are fated to face the thing that brought low their civilization.