#festrog

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Staff Acrobat (Pathfinder Second Edition Archetype)

(art by @5hi0_art on Twitter)

I love acrobatics. The sheer skill and bodily awareness required is truly inspiring as these athletes perfect their bodies in the name of performance.

Now, running, jumping, and flipping are all well and good, but some of the most impressive feats that fall under the purview of acrobatics occur when you give the performer a prop. Whether it be a pole to spin on, some sashes hanging from the ceiling, or even a particularly long and supple stick.

And that last example is where today’s archetype comes into play, as these performers leverage their mastery of both their bodies and their chosen implement not just for performance, but also in combat as well, becoming elegant dancers with their weapon both on stage and in combat.

As you might have guessed, this archetype is heavily associated with the Extinction Curse Adventure Path on account of it having a circus as the unifying factor and motivation for the party, but such acrobatics need not be confined to the big top. Anywhere that people enjoy a good performance could be a great way to implement this archetype.

The base dedication of the archetype lets the acrobat use the staff (be it an actual staff of some kind or a spear or polearm) to balance and vault, improving their mobility, as well as using it to trip and push foes.

In the latter case, some learn to use the leverage of their staff to push around even much larger foes.

They can even use sweeping motions to do so against multiple foes at once.

That leverage also comes in handy when actually attacking, often leaving foes off balance and more easily toppled.

Many also learn a stance that spins the weapon about often, making them masters of parrying incoming attacks.

Finally, many learn to vault and strike with their staff in one fluid motion, dealing greater damage and knocking the foe about just the same.

Monks, rogues, fighters, and even magi can have a lot of fun with this archetype, granting them much more mobility and making them better able to control a fight with their weapon. You might have them pair this up with the regular acrobat archetype for even more agility, or go without, depending on what you’re looking for.

I may not be able to relate, but it’s clear that these athletes have a love for physical activity that they carry with them, and no matter what their personalities are, they carry themselves with incredible grace and poise.

Appearing again and again, the hungerseed samsaran Ilvai has a lot of memories, both good and bad. Their favorites, however were their times when they danced with a spear, demonstrating their balance and agility for all to see.

The Red Carnival troupe has come to town, demonstrating their feats of acrobatics with all manner of implements. However, their performance is interrupted when a pack of festrogs emerges and attacks. In the aftermath, more conservative community members are quick to blame the performers for bringing such terror upon the community, and it is up to the party to investigate and find the true source of the undead invasion.

During a magical experiment, a great rift is opened up to what appears to be a marvelous performance in some far-off plane, and while that is the case, those that venture in will find the dancers and the denizens of that realm far more dangerous than anticipated.

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Seal-Breaker (Antipaladin Archetype)

It’s a classic tale, the ancient evil sleeps trapped within a magical seal, awaiting the time when it breaks and is free again. And what would any sealed evil be if they didn’t have lesser evil minions on the outside trying to find a way to break them out?

Enter the Seal-Breaker antipaladins, who seek to bring forth the return of a powerful undead evil, and gain thematic abilities for their devotion!

The undead evil they revere in the Golarion setting is of course Tar-Baphon, a powerful mythic lich whose deeds shaped the face of the Inner Sea Region of Golarion, and was sealed magically in the catacombs beneath his capital necropolis for his crimes, since those who defeated him had no way of finding his phylactery to finish him for good.

A few of the seals that trap the Whispering Tyrant have already failed, and it is the goal of his cult, the Whispering Way, to finish the job and unleash him, ushering in an era of eternal perfection through undeath.

In its default form, this archetype can similarly be used for any undead-themed antipaladin character, though the code of conduct, which is flexible enough to allow the seal breaker to perform any action they believe will further their goal, may have to be adjusted.

 Surrounded by necrotic energies, mindless undead ignore these antipaladins unless ordered to attack by another, allowing them to walk among the dead.

Like other antipaladins, these warriors can bond with a weapon to bless it with dark power. However, those that don’t do not instead summon fiendish beings to aid them. Instead, they can turn nearby corpses that are big enough to serve as a mount into undead mounts that resemble such animals. (Note that the corpse does NOT need to be of the same species, leading to situations where the body is horrifically mangled and reshaped into a form more appropriate as a mount.

As they grow in power, their aura bolsters the defenses of nearby undead, improving their survivability.

Channeling the unquiet spirits of violent murderers, these unholy warriors can expend smiting energy to channel such a malevolent spirit into the body one someone they just killed nearby, causing them to briefly rise as a mohrg, before eventually collapsing and departing the corpse.

Unlike a lot of undeath-themed archetypes, this one is more focused on buffing nearby undead than acutally controlling them, So in order to control undead themselves, they’ll have to take the control undead channeling feat. However, for more powerful, intelligent undead it may instead serve their interest to secure the loyalty of the undead by way of roleplayed camaraderie instead. Of course, GMs using this archetype for NPC baddies don’t have to worry about that.

 This archetype is villainous enough on its own, but what if your buried evil isn’t undead in nature? I can easily see this archetype as being a starting ground for other versions focused on other great and terrible evils.

  Called by some the “Houndmaster of Death”, Mekorig is notorious for his many festrog minions, the halfling charging into battle with them astride an elf skeleton warped into a parody of a ghoulish warhound. Together this gristly band serves as the border patrol for the dread necropolis of Haak.

 Not every shabti so easily escapes the fate they are made for. Onek-Sha spent centuries enduring the torments of fiends before being freed, and the golden-skinned outsider has no intention of ever suffering the judgment of distant gods and judges ever again. So he became a herald of the Great Unwraveller, hoping to one day unleash the creature and throw the cycle of life, death, and rebirth off its axis, consuming all worlds in endless deserts and brackish oceans. Until that time, he rides and pillages for his dark master.

 Wielding flaming weaponry, the Riders of the Chained Flame burn and pillage the land in the stead of their master, the imprisoned god of corrupted flame. Some are even capable of animating burning wood into animate shapes of flame capable of being ridden into battle, their flames touching only their foes.

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Class Feature Friday: Sulesh the Great (Medium Legendary Archmage Spirit)

Famous for inventing many different elemental seals used by the genie binders of Kelesh, as well as the artifact known as the bottle of the bound, said to contain 666 fiends within, including their master, the daemonic harbinger Zelishkar. (Though it should be noted that the Sulesh had no hand in binding the daemons to the bottle, rather its original prisoner, a particularly mighty and ancient efreeti, aided The Pharaoh of Forgotten Plagues, in filling the now-empty bottle with the fiendish army).

The point being that is that Sulesh was easily one of the most famous (or infamous if you happen to be a genie or other powerful outsider) conjurers in Golarion’s history, who believed that mortals could and should bind the power of other planes to their will, regardless of consent from the otherworldly beings involved.

Naturally, after his death, the genie binders who followed in his footsteps studied his work heavily, hoping to someday replicate and even surpass his most powerful binding seals. This led to the practice of calling upon his spirit directly in hopes of gleaning more information, and so the practice of mediums channeling him began, ironically putting at least some aspect of the great conjurer in the same sort of position as the genies he once bound, though unlike the genies, Sulesh is still afforded the freedoms to reject and vacate a host, like any spirit.

In order to establish a pact with Sulesh, one must travel to Kelesh or any establish conclave of genie binders, and prove one’s knowledge of genies, taking an oath to never release a genie from its bonds, even those the swearer had no hand in binding.

Of course, in your setting, this spirit may simply be a famous conjurer of a different sort, and have different backstory and requirements to call upon.

 Valuing the superiority that comes with controlling summoned beings, a common taboo that Sulesh demands of those who channel him is to not suffer foes to use that same power, targeting summoned opponents exclusively before moving on to their summoners.

Rather than allow the medium a choice in what magics they learn from their spirit, Sulesh instead grants them access to a whole slew of basic summoning spells.

Sulesh does offer some unique abilities, though, namely, being able to help speed up the casting of said summons a few times a day, and, if the medium is willing to grant him further control, cast a summoning spell a little bit more powerful than what the medium is normally capable of.

Looking to make a sometimes-summoner out of your medium? Pursuing this spirit might be the way to go. Admittedly, the Golarion-canon requirements involve being party to binding outsiders against their will, but regardless, there is potential to be had there, character-wise. It’s even possible to learn to actually use planar binding spells using this spirit, but it requires the medium to be high enough level to be able to cast any spell on the sorcerer/wizard list through the unchanged archmage powers. I recommend a support build if you plan to primarily use this spirit, buffing allies and summons while staying back.

 The standards of morality in Kelesh and that part of the Golarion setting being what they are, and Sulesh being who he was, I feel that those mediums that pursue this spirit cannot be 100 percent good without changing the backstory of the spirit. Such an alteration would likely associate the spirit with a different conjurer, one that believed in making consensual bonds with outsiders, rather than enslaving them.

  Curzira the Caller was one of the greatest wyvaran magic-users to ever live. Some say she was even able to summon dragons to do her bidding. While none alive have matched this feat, Curzira lives on in wyvaran tradition, and as a spirit, answering the call of mediums who prove their skill and trust in their summoned allies.

 Mediums who channel Vorkul, Chainer of Spirits have reported that the domineering conjurer’s spirit no longer answers their summons. An investigation of his grave site reveals that the complex has become infested by festrogs and even more terrible undead, disrupting the spirit’s connection with their defiling presence.

 Known now only as the Soul Trapper, this spirit is the only legacy left behind by a mage whose name has been expunged from history and time by mortal and outsider alike. Only the conjuration-focused magic it grants provides a clue as to what sort of being they were, and perhaps what their crime was.