Divine Champion (Warpriest Archetype)
(art by dashinvaine on DeviantArt)
Becoming a full-fledged, divine priest of any faith means believing in your deity’s message strongly enough to be granted divine power to see their will done on the material plane, though most faiths have enough leeway to allow worshippers to differ a bit on their dogma as long as they don’t drastically depart from it.
Some, however, are so devoted to their deity that they cleave hard to their doctrine, and are rewarded for it with greater power.
Essentially, this archetype is tied to granting the Deific Obedience feat at early levels, and is one of two to do so, the other being the divine paragon for clerics, which we will be covering later this week.
The divine champion differs from their paragon cousins, however, by being warpriests, and therefore, more heavily focused on the militant arm of the faith, and the powers granted by the sentinel path of deific obedience (i.e., the one most heavily focused on strength of arms)
As we will soon see, these divine champions are pillars of the ideals of their faith, and fervent enemies of those that oppose them.
As suggested earlier, these faithful must be of the same alignment of their deity, the blessings offered them allowing for few, if any differences in doctrine.
Those that do, however, gain access to the sentinel path of the Deific Obedience feat. The exact powers that this feat grants vary from deity to deity, but in general the sentinel path grants access to abilities useful for a martial character.
Additionally, these champions are warriors against the enemies of the faith. As they grow in power, they study the followers and servants of deities that are in direct, or indirect opposition to the ways of their own deity, gaining bonuses in recognizing, interacting with, and fighting against them, similar to the favored enemy ability of rangers.
Finally, these warpriests are able to use their reserve of fervor to fuel the magical spell boons that are granted as part of their obedience, giving them potentially more uses of those spells.
The exact nature of your build with this archetype will vary a lot based on the deity you pick, as the abilities of the sentinel Obedience boons can vary quite a lot despite being all geared towards melee-based users. Regardless, they remain warpriests, so buffing and protection spells, as well as healing and smiting spells are all very good choices, with utility spells taking a backseat. If getting Deific Obedience nice and early and the later boons when you hit mid to late level appeal to you, by all means look into this archetype. Remember that this archetype eliminates over half your bonus feats, so you might want to check with your GM to make sure faiths that are enemies of yours show up a decent amount of the time.
With an ability like fervor, one can generally assume that most warpriests have a decent amount of zeal for their faith. However, these divine champions, cleaving tightly to their deity’s ways and beliefs, have the potential to be much more fervent than most. This can lead to interesting character interaction, or it can be disruptive and annoying if played incorrectly. Keep that in mind when designing and playing these characters.
For the first time in a century, the hobgoblins of Kulkira have began to muster together into a conquering army. This time, they are headed by a General-Emperor by the name of Pikal, who is a fervent champion of The Conquerer, his many divine gifts a clear sign that he truly has his deity’s favor.
In the lands of Ves, the bee-like thriae live alongside other races, and allow them to join in worship of their deific mother goddess figure, the First Queen. Every year, a new champion of this goddess is picked by the head seer. However, for the first time ever, they have chosen a non-thriae to be the next champion, something that has the entire city… well… abuzz.
They say every thousand years, the Bound One empowers a champion to raise a new flock of faithful in their name. However, no matter whether there are stories of anyone stops them, the dark deity never seems to be freed, and the cult vanishes as if it had never been there at all. Perhaps heroic adventurers have stopped it each and every time… or perhaps the Bound One is less interested in being freed, and more on being fed…
