Oathkeeper (Inquisitor Archetype)
(art by Samuel Grey on Artstation)
To many orderly cultures, people, and religions, one’s word is one’s bond. Moreover, to them, such bonds exist conceptually beyond their initial swearing, existing in the same space that laws and social mores do in the otherwise thoroughly imaginary machinery that makes civilization run, lesser contracts in the great social contract that is living in a society instead of living alone as a feral beast.
However, while some truly do use such structure to formulate their very lives, nearly all struggle with it in some regard one way or another, which is why laws exist regarding when a binding oath is broken and what is to be done about it.
Many of these laws are mundane, but to the followers of the faiths of lawful gods, they can be so much more, which is why oathkeeper inquisitors exist.
Not quite as focused on monster hunting or fighting the enemies of the faith as their contemporaries, oathkeepers instead put their skills to use in order to create binding contracts in the eyes of their deity between other parties, and if necessary, hunt down those who dare to break said bonds. (Of course, don’t imagine for a second that they can’t go toe to toe with such foes, only that their focus is on those that become enemies by their lack of honor)
What they do when they find said oathbreakers varies between the inquisitor, their religion, and the nature of the contract, but needless to say that they likely aren’t happy with the perpetrator, and we’ll soon see the powers that strike fear into the hearts of their quarry.
As part of their duties as servants of law, these holy warriors can facilitate binding divine contracts between other parties with themselves as mediator and witness. These pacts are coercion-proof, visibly failing if magical or physical coercion is used. Furthermore, if one party breaks the vow willingly, they are marked with the special symbol of the inquisitor and said inquisitor is immediately aware of their location for weeks afterwards, leaving them nowhere to hide. However, a pact broken unwillingly, say by accident or magical or physical coercion, no such curse triggers, instead dissipating harmlessly and rendering said oaths manipulation-proof as well.
Even if it is not one of the oaths they officiated, they prove especially capable when hunting down oathbreakers as long as they are presented with physical evidence of the wrongdoing and a request to hunt them down. Divine providence helps guide them to their quarry, and the power of their judgement is strengthened against such foes. However, the inquisitor must take care to verify these claims, for using the hostile advantages of this power against the innocent will see them robbed of it until the next moon or divine atonement.
This is a simple archetype, and one that replaces a few passive abilities with more active ones, so this archetype mostly offers a more specialized form of tracking and a flavorful ability that either sets up for that later tracking or just serves the sort of narrative that the archetype lends itself to. Which isn’t a bad thing, and the fact that the archetype is so unintrusive means that you can build them however you like.
With their role in the church being what it is, I can imagine that depending on the nature of their religion, some of these inquisitors may be hired out to mediate and seal all manner of disputes. Others, however, may only offer their services to truly important cases where magical binding is actually necessary, so as not to beleaguer the inquisitors with hundreds of petty infractions.
The pact was sealed with a marriage, with a holy warrior of justice presiding, and with that, the war between the Crocodile clan and the Ibis clan was on the path to lasting peace. However, Not everyone agreed with the marriage between the two chief’s children. Not content to just break them up, someone in the two clans has begun praying to a bone idol, forging the gristly statue into a monster set to murder the couple and implicate the other tribe, but who?
The owner of a local mine is desperate to get out of a binding deal with the union that has cut into his previously exploitative profits, but he knows that the inquisitor that mediated the deal with come for him if he goes against it. So, he has hatched a scheme to pay off third parties to act on his orders and use a memory spell to erase his memories of doing so, all in the hopes that without “premeditated” intent, the contract will simply fade when it is breached instead of marking him.
A drow the party is hired to guard has come under suspicion of breaking an oath to his house, and so an inquisitor has been dispatched with the broken sword “evidence” ready to take him in. The young man professes innocence, and is desperate to prove it before the overzealous oathkeeper slays him before he’s even had a chance to do so.
