Prestige Class Spotlight 15: Dawnflower Dissident
(art by JuliaNemo on DeviantArt)
Now, I’m an atheist, but I have to imagine that schisms within one’s faith have to suck a lot. Holy wars, inquisitions, and so on. It’s not an unfair observation to say that certain chapters of human history in some parts of the world can be boiled down to at least two people having different opinions about some minutiae of their shared faith and deciding to get stabby about it.
I’m playing it for laughs right now, but religious conflict is a pretty rough topic, especially in this day and age, so it should be handled with care.
For those that want to explore that conflict though, the biggest example in the Lost Omens setting is the Cult of the Dawnflower, a subsect of Sarenrae’s faith that eschews the mercy and benevolence aspects of the religion in favor of a constant war against the faith’s enemies with nary a drop of mercy or redemption offered.
Needless to say, this group of extremists are not looked on favorably by the core faith in most places, with opinions ranging from them being misguided to being full-on heretics, with similar sentiments on the side of the cult.
Now, in a fantasy setting like Pathfinder, the enemies of the faith are much more clearly the monstrous evils of the darkness and their followers than the sort of xenophobic things spoken of by extremists in real-world faiths, so there is a vested interest by many Sarenites to not have a full-on schism, which is where today’s subject comes into play.
Dawnflower Dissidents (terrible name, by the way) are secret agents within the faith that seek to keep the faith of Sarenrae together in secret, either by reconciling the two disparate beliefs, or by undermining one side until there is one unified mainline belief in the other. They achieve this by going undercover, so that not even other members of the faith know that they are indeed fellow priests of the faith, working to shape things from behind the scenes, and on occasion, ferret out and destroy outside enemy influences that would delight in the collapse of the faith, such as the cult of Rovagug.
Such a duty is not without risk, since it can mean having to fight against those that should be considered compatriots, but to keep things whole, one must sometimes do unsavory things.
Of course, if your game takes place later in the time period, these dissidents are probably much rarer, since the Cult of the Dawnflower dissolved entirely when Sarenrae retracted her divine blessing from them, robbing them of any divine legitimacy. However, these watchful guardians likely still remain in a limited capacity watchful for any further threat of schism from without or within.
These agents must be worshippers of Sarenrae, trained in dervish combat as well as subtle skills, and be able to cast daylight as a divine spell, which does mean that pretty much any divine class can become one, though not necessarily at the same level.
They also receive full training in spellcasting as they progress, and add a selection of spells to their list, focused primarily on providing discretion by warding the user or area from undue notice or by creating extradimensional spaces for them and allies to have true privacy within. These spells even have added duration when used for the benefit of Sarenites such as themselves.
They also gain a special version of eschew materials that lets them cast without a divine focus, which is important because they also receive training to conceal their own spellcasting, hiding when they have cast spells, though obviously the more blatant the spell being used the harder it is to hide it.
Whether they are bolstering the minds of allies or trying to influence fellow faithful or overwhelm the minds of their foes, these secret mystics find their mental spells particularly potent when used on Sarenites or the cult of Rovagug. This also includes the judgement of inquisitors that tap into this power.
In their hands, the scimitar, sacred weapon of their faith, can be infused with channel energy, judgment, or bane energies to instead burst into flame as a deadly weapon against their foes, or alternatively, as a nonlethal weapon of pacification against fellow Sarenites.
With clever ventriloquism and vocal mimicry, many of these agents have a knack for tricking foes and the wayward alike that someone else is the culprit in actions that would normally earn a reflexive strike, such as spellcasting at close range. The plausibility of this is a little suspect to me, but it can be effective at turning foes against each other and sowing dissent.
By expending a bit of divine energy tied to their class (channel energy or judgement), they can heal with a seemingly mundane litany, removing harmful conditions and spell effects.
The most powerful of these agents are granted a rare blessing. When slain, their soul manifests in a blazing phoenix-like form in an explosion of holy fire. This lets them keep fighting for a short time afterwards, and when they vanish, they are granted a fiery rebirth elsewhere allowing them to continue their work, albeit likely needing a new identity. They have to be careful, if their phoenix form is slain before it vanishes, they suffer a true death.
This prestige class is interesting, offering a more discrete way to play a goodly cleric or other divine caster with utility spells and alternate uses for various class resources. Of course, some class combinations will suffer a bit here. Druids basically have no way to utilize the abilities that require expending judgement or channel energy, for example. Beyond that, your build may vary a lot, but the tool kit provided here leans you towards deception, stealth, and swift resolutions to conflict.
Exactly how you play this class will determine the mileage you get out of it. Some characters might wish to reconcile both sides of the schism, while others might believe one side must be stopped, though how is another story. If you’re using this game in a version of the setting where the cult of the Dawnflower is no longer a thing, they might be less active and more watchful.
Also, consider how to homebrew and modify this prestige class to fit other religions that might develop similar differences of opinion.
The party has made it all the way to the chamber of the dark lord, when one of their companions suddenly reveals a holy symbol tattooed on their chest, proclaiming themselves a priest of the Sun, a shocking reveal indeed as they brandish holy smiting power previously written off as coincidence.
Draconic Philosophy is a long-standing faith of drawing upon the lessons of true dragonkind to further oneself. However, in the recent half-century, some mortals, particularly nobles, have begun to take the wrong lessons from the belief system, using it as an excuse to justify greed and tyranny. In response, some faithful have gone underground, hoping to correct this difference subtly, one such priest being the wyvaran scholar-priest Obvorda.
Eager to break up a heretical sect’s cell in the city, the party’s priest ally dons the robes of a pauper and gains entry, posing as someone in need of divine guidance. Once inside, he helps the party gain entry, but clearing out the cell is no easy task, for it has many magical guardians, including warden jack swarms and the like.