Soul Warden (Spiritualist Archetype)
Though they are bonded to a living being, the fact remains that the vast majority of phantoms are souls or fragments of souls that need to move on, and some eventually do within their spiritualist’s lifetime. When this occurs, the mystic could go back to a normal life, or continue to use their psychic potential, either taking on a new phantom, becoming some manner of phantom-less spiritualist, or potentially becoming a soul warden.
Soul wardens, as their name suggests, guard the natural cycle of the soul, protecting the living and guiding the dead on their way to judgment. They work directly with psychopomps to ensure the success of this goal.
While they lack a phantom ally, they are not alone, and their spiritual powers are just as potent as ever.
Replacing their phantom, these spiritualists are gifted a nosoi psychopomp familiar, initially appearing as a mere raven, but making more of its powers known over time, eventually going beyond those with blessings against life-draining effects.
The bond between the two shares some of the benefits associated with spiritualists and their phantoms, letting them see through the psychopomp or call it to their side.
The departure of the phantom leaves behind a space in the warden’s mind, a safe haven where a disembodied soul or even incorporeal undead can reside safely, able to communicate with the mystic without influencing them. This protects the soul from being snatched up by otherworldly predators, or can keep such an undead from lapsing back into violence while the means to help them pass on are discovered.
Like the birds they resemble, the nosoi bonded to the spiritualist learns to sing, resonating with a single emotion to generate the effects of the aura of a phantom of that type for as long as the song lasts. Later on, the nosoi can blend two such emotions, but doing so costs much more energy.
The most powerful of these spiritualists can have their familiar call upon multitudes of others of their own kind, merging into an algea, a composite psychopomp specializing in the protection (or capture) of wayward souls. This form is brief, but powerful.
Like other spiritualist archetypes which replace the phantom, it really does alter the dynamic of the class. The nosoi may not be a direct combatant, but it can help out with the buffs and debuffs from the auras it can project and it’s haunting melody. Sadly some of it’s level-up powers are based on a previous version of the archetype where the nosoi was automatically also of the emissary familiar archetype, so the touch the spirit world ability can probably be ignored.
In any case, the nosoi itself can usually protect itself with its ability to go invisible, but you should probably favor a melee caster build for the warden themselves, as they don’t have the luxury of a big strong phantom to take care of all the fighting for them while they support. Of course, avoid any spells and feats that focus on unlocking new abilities based on phantom type, since they don’t have one. Also don’t forget the calm spirit spell, as it functions really well with your ability to put ghosts inside you head.
This is absolutely one of those archetypes that I’d recommend allowing the use of the retraining rules even if the rest of the campaign doesn’t allow for it, since it’s less a change in what has been learned, and more an issue of a major change in their metaphysical self. Such a change no doubt affects them greatly, and such spiritualists might have a melancholic demeanor, guiding the dead to their final rest, but also final goodbyes.
They say the loneliest place to die is in the void, lost between the stars. However, there are those who look out for these lost souls, such as Amar Ahi, a soul warden, travels the far reaches of space on the back of her vortex dragon ally with her nosoi familiar, guided by visions to shipwrecks in space.
Though associated with brutality and cannibalism, some ogre tribes in remote places harbor a greater respect for life and death, and there are long lines of priests that train their successors to better put them to rest when they succumb to the dementia so common to elderly ogres. Those that do so quickly often become soul wardens, guiding others to rest.
Among soul wardens, the greatest blasphemy is to store an undead soul inside oneself and unleashing it on innocents. Such a heinous crime is about to occur at the annual Festival of Masks tonight, and the party must either stop it with the help of the perpetrators’s former nosoi companion, or else deal with the ever-growing plague of spectral dead.