Darth Stabber
2012-11-28, 02:42 AM
The followers and worshipers of the abyss have long sought to gain demonic power during their earthly existance. This rite is how one demonologist created a means to do, and by that act created the first Sword Demons. Outsiders tied to mortal flesh, these foul warriors skip the need for death and spiritual torment normally needed to create tanar'ri, while keeping some of the benefits of their mortality.
Note: the lore surrounding this template is based on the existance of the bladeborn, a "homebrew" I use in my own campaign setting. The bladeborn are simply gestalted soulknife and soulborn with wild talent replaced by hidden talent and the soulknife's weapon enhancements and weapon abilities combined into one pool. This class isn't really needed to make the template function, though it does take away the most direct route for qualification. The lore needs very little modification to remove the custom class's connection, and indeed the most powerful wearer of this template in my own setting is a sorcerer who simply qualified using a number of scrolls and a powerstone.
Lore:Heartened by the success of ashalardon's replacement of his heart with a demon, and the continued efficacy of the rites of the acolytes of the skin, a group of demonologists found a new and profoundly powerful way of corrupting the mortal form. Demons are created from souls of the dead and damned transformed into manes, then promoted into higher forms from there. But what happens if a soul is promoted while still tied to it's mortal coil?
As is turns out the very nature of mortal flesh prohibits this effect. The soul needs to be somehow made distinct from the physical form, either whole or in part. The various orders of the bladeborn have the ability through spiritual meditation, and psionic manipulation, to call forth a portion of their soul and form it into a weapon of great potency. Their ability to channel incarnum gives them the ability to reinforce the connection of their soul to their mortal bodies, thus reducing the risk of accidental severance during the promotion ceremony.
The favor of a balor or higher ranking demon was needed to enact the rite, how this favor is achieved it a thought best not dwelled upon. The subject presents his mindblade, incarnum folded in, to the ritemaster. Profane prayers and dark invocations ply the demonic patron with tales of the subjects wickedness and dedication to the corruption and destruction of all mortal life. Upon the patron's foul blessing, the subject transforms, his soul now thoroughly debased and truely demonic. Each creature created in this way is unique in many ways. Instead of becoming one of the regular breeds of demons (which happens in the case of a failed rite), they retain some portion their mortality, though their form is twisted by the corruption now inherent in their souls. Their powers are derived from their skills in life, and since they all have at least started out with some skill in psionics and incarnum, often these are enhanced. Given that demons (like all outsiders) are made of a unified spiritual and physical form, the mortal corpus of the sword demon is fortified by their soul. However this ritual causes the soul and body to have a rather odd connection. Upon the death of a sword demon's mortal form, their soul (now a pure demon) appears in the abyss, it's fiendish features no longer muted by their mortal flesh, and their physical bodies on earth appear as fairly normal looking human corpses, unmarred by the diabolical features their partially physical spiritus imbued them with. However the connection between the two is very hard to sever, meaning that a sword demon is unable to refuse resurrection magic, but that resurrection magic avoids the normal costs associated with that process. The remaining mortal corpus also refuses to decay, unless forced to by magical means, and is unable to be formed into an undead creature. This corpus acts much like a lich's phylactery, a demon slayed in the abyss would normally be almost irrevocably destroyed, but a sword demon not incarnated in his mortal flesh who is destroyed while that mortal flesh still exists returns to the abyss in demonic form just as any demon slain outside of the abyss would.
The bladeborn are the most direct means of acquiring the skillset needed to undergo this ritual, as the ability to create create a mindblade is somewhat reproducable by means of the psionic power call weaponry, and there are other paths to gaining the requisite skills in incarnum manipulation
Sword Demon Template
Sword demon is an aquired template that may be added to any humanoid, monsterous humanoid, or human-like abberation (elans, synads, ect).
additional requirements: able to manifest the psionic power call weaponry, or mindblade class feature, and able to bind a soulmeld to a chakra.
Size: unchanged
Type: changes to outsider, gains the chaotic, evil, tanar'ri, native, and augmented(original type) subtypes.
HP/hit dice: any hitdice less than d10 become d10, reroll hp
Speed:: base land speed increases by 10', all other movement modes are unaffected.
abilities:as base creature, bit gains +2str, +4con, +6cha
special abilities:
Outburst of damnation(su):
Once every 4 rounds, as a standard action, a sword demon releases a terrifying scream. This attack fills a 30' cone and deals 1/2hd d4 of sonic damage and 1d6 of fire damage, reflex for half, DC=10+1/2hd+con modifier. Those in the area must also make a will save, dc = 10+1/2hd+cha modifier, or become shaken.
dark mindblade: the creature gains any of the following soulknife class features they did not possess as it were a soulknife of a level equal to it's hitdice: mindblade, throw mindblade, shape mindblade, freedraw, and mindblade enhancement. The mindblade also deals an additional d4 of sonic damage. This weapon is considered chaotic and evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction
In addition, since the mindblade is partially crafted of the user's soul, and the users soul is literally a demon, and a demon's soul and body are the same, the mindblade appears to be a weapon crafted of muscle, bone, and sinew as opposed to energy.
SLAs: all sword demons have the following slas (caster level = hd): 2/day: truestrike, true seeing, entropic shield. @will: detect magic, detect good, tongues
Summon Tanar'ri (Sp) all sword demons of 6 or more hd may attempt to summon another tanar'ri with a 50% chance of success, 1/day as a standard action.
6-10hd - babau
11-18hd - vrock
19-22hd - maralith
23+hd - balor
Special qualities
Natural armor: the creature gains +3 natural armor, if it already has a natural armor bonus it uses whichever is greater.
Demonic Quickness (Su): A sword demon may add its charisma modifier as a Dodge bonus to its Armor Class. It loses this bonus when denied its dexterity bonus to AC. In addition, it gains a +3 profane bonus to initiative rolls.
resistances: a sword demon gains dr10/good or cold iron, and resist 10 fire, lightning and cold, and has immunity to sonic damage
LA: +3
CR: +2
I am unsure of my LA and CR here, but I was making a homebrew monster, when I thought "may as well make a reusable and interesting template, so I can easily make similar critters in the future. Also I feel like the wording is off I several places but i'm not 100% sure how I want to phrase things.
Let me know what you think.
Note: the lore surrounding this template is based on the existance of the bladeborn, a "homebrew" I use in my own campaign setting. The bladeborn are simply gestalted soulknife and soulborn with wild talent replaced by hidden talent and the soulknife's weapon enhancements and weapon abilities combined into one pool. This class isn't really needed to make the template function, though it does take away the most direct route for qualification. The lore needs very little modification to remove the custom class's connection, and indeed the most powerful wearer of this template in my own setting is a sorcerer who simply qualified using a number of scrolls and a powerstone.
Lore:Heartened by the success of ashalardon's replacement of his heart with a demon, and the continued efficacy of the rites of the acolytes of the skin, a group of demonologists found a new and profoundly powerful way of corrupting the mortal form. Demons are created from souls of the dead and damned transformed into manes, then promoted into higher forms from there. But what happens if a soul is promoted while still tied to it's mortal coil?
As is turns out the very nature of mortal flesh prohibits this effect. The soul needs to be somehow made distinct from the physical form, either whole or in part. The various orders of the bladeborn have the ability through spiritual meditation, and psionic manipulation, to call forth a portion of their soul and form it into a weapon of great potency. Their ability to channel incarnum gives them the ability to reinforce the connection of their soul to their mortal bodies, thus reducing the risk of accidental severance during the promotion ceremony.
The favor of a balor or higher ranking demon was needed to enact the rite, how this favor is achieved it a thought best not dwelled upon. The subject presents his mindblade, incarnum folded in, to the ritemaster. Profane prayers and dark invocations ply the demonic patron with tales of the subjects wickedness and dedication to the corruption and destruction of all mortal life. Upon the patron's foul blessing, the subject transforms, his soul now thoroughly debased and truely demonic. Each creature created in this way is unique in many ways. Instead of becoming one of the regular breeds of demons (which happens in the case of a failed rite), they retain some portion their mortality, though their form is twisted by the corruption now inherent in their souls. Their powers are derived from their skills in life, and since they all have at least started out with some skill in psionics and incarnum, often these are enhanced. Given that demons (like all outsiders) are made of a unified spiritual and physical form, the mortal corpus of the sword demon is fortified by their soul. However this ritual causes the soul and body to have a rather odd connection. Upon the death of a sword demon's mortal form, their soul (now a pure demon) appears in the abyss, it's fiendish features no longer muted by their mortal flesh, and their physical bodies on earth appear as fairly normal looking human corpses, unmarred by the diabolical features their partially physical spiritus imbued them with. However the connection between the two is very hard to sever, meaning that a sword demon is unable to refuse resurrection magic, but that resurrection magic avoids the normal costs associated with that process. The remaining mortal corpus also refuses to decay, unless forced to by magical means, and is unable to be formed into an undead creature. This corpus acts much like a lich's phylactery, a demon slayed in the abyss would normally be almost irrevocably destroyed, but a sword demon not incarnated in his mortal flesh who is destroyed while that mortal flesh still exists returns to the abyss in demonic form just as any demon slain outside of the abyss would.
The bladeborn are the most direct means of acquiring the skillset needed to undergo this ritual, as the ability to create create a mindblade is somewhat reproducable by means of the psionic power call weaponry, and there are other paths to gaining the requisite skills in incarnum manipulation
Sword Demon Template
Sword demon is an aquired template that may be added to any humanoid, monsterous humanoid, or human-like abberation (elans, synads, ect).
additional requirements: able to manifest the psionic power call weaponry, or mindblade class feature, and able to bind a soulmeld to a chakra.
Size: unchanged
Type: changes to outsider, gains the chaotic, evil, tanar'ri, native, and augmented(original type) subtypes.
HP/hit dice: any hitdice less than d10 become d10, reroll hp
Speed:: base land speed increases by 10', all other movement modes are unaffected.
abilities:as base creature, bit gains +2str, +4con, +6cha
special abilities:
Outburst of damnation(su):
Once every 4 rounds, as a standard action, a sword demon releases a terrifying scream. This attack fills a 30' cone and deals 1/2hd d4 of sonic damage and 1d6 of fire damage, reflex for half, DC=10+1/2hd+con modifier. Those in the area must also make a will save, dc = 10+1/2hd+cha modifier, or become shaken.
dark mindblade: the creature gains any of the following soulknife class features they did not possess as it were a soulknife of a level equal to it's hitdice: mindblade, throw mindblade, shape mindblade, freedraw, and mindblade enhancement. The mindblade also deals an additional d4 of sonic damage. This weapon is considered chaotic and evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction
In addition, since the mindblade is partially crafted of the user's soul, and the users soul is literally a demon, and a demon's soul and body are the same, the mindblade appears to be a weapon crafted of muscle, bone, and sinew as opposed to energy.
SLAs: all sword demons have the following slas (caster level = hd): 2/day: truestrike, true seeing, entropic shield. @will: detect magic, detect good, tongues
Summon Tanar'ri (Sp) all sword demons of 6 or more hd may attempt to summon another tanar'ri with a 50% chance of success, 1/day as a standard action.
6-10hd - babau
11-18hd - vrock
19-22hd - maralith
23+hd - balor
Special qualities
Natural armor: the creature gains +3 natural armor, if it already has a natural armor bonus it uses whichever is greater.
Demonic Quickness (Su): A sword demon may add its charisma modifier as a Dodge bonus to its Armor Class. It loses this bonus when denied its dexterity bonus to AC. In addition, it gains a +3 profane bonus to initiative rolls.
resistances: a sword demon gains dr10/good or cold iron, and resist 10 fire, lightning and cold, and has immunity to sonic damage
LA: +3
CR: +2
I am unsure of my LA and CR here, but I was making a homebrew monster, when I thought "may as well make a reusable and interesting template, so I can easily make similar critters in the future. Also I feel like the wording is off I several places but i'm not 100% sure how I want to phrase things.
Let me know what you think.