Penric from the world of the five gods

[Particle_Man]

For those familiar with the stories of Penric from the world of the five gods (by author Lois McMaster Bujold), how would you stat him up in 3.5? I think the trick is both being able to duplicate what Penric does (while not adding extra powers that Penric does not have) and also capture (even if by reflavouring) the theme of having a creature inside you (called a demon, though not really evil (definitely chaotic though)) that has the memories (and personalities) of 10 previous human hosts to draw on.

Any ideas? Or is 3.5 not a good fit for the concept?

[Lapak]

For those familiar with the stories of Penric from the world of the five gods (by author Lois McMaster Bujold), how would you stat him up in 3.5? I think the trick is both being able to duplicate what Penric does (while not adding extra powers that Penric does not have) and also capture (even if by reflavouring) the theme of having a creature inside you (called a demon, though not really evil (definitely chaotic though)) that has the memories (and personalities) of 10 previous human hosts to draw on.

Any ideas? Or is 3.5 not a good fit for the concept?3.5 is a tough fit for the concept. If I was going to try, my first instinct would be to treat Desdemona as an odd spin on a Warlock patron. He doesn't technically do divine spellcasting, but given the constraints I'd say Warlock, dip Favored Soul for his relationship with the Bastard, go from there into Eldritch Disciple from Complete Mage, where you can pick up Fiendish Resistance. Maybe Healing Blast, but I think limited casting from FS would be a better fit given how much they have to struggle with uphill magic.

EDIT: Favored Soul and Eldritch Disciple both get Heal as a class skill, so that would help. Definitely stick more to Disciple than FS to advance the divine relationship ASAP; most of the other FS soul has the wrong flavor whereas making the deity explicitly your pseudo-Patron very much does fit.

[Particle_Man]

Cool thanks! Is there a relatively easy non-cleric way to meet the turn undead prerequisite of that prestige class?

[Lapak]

Cool thanks! Is there a relatively easy non-cleric way to meet the turn undead prerequisite of that prestige class?
Honestly forgot that was a requirement. There's no reason you couldn't go Cleric (or probably Cloistered Cleric) given that he is literally a man of education, I just thought FS was a better fit for Five Gods type divine casting.

Edit: it would lose you power overall, but you could dip 1 level of CC then go FS and advance that spellcasting with Eldritch Disciple to keep the divine casting less of a focus. I don't know any easy ways off the top of my head to get Turn Undead on a Favored Soul or Warlock chassis.

[Lapak]

Wait, wait, I forget: you can't use Factotum's pseudo-casting and pseudo-Turn Undead to qualify for prestige classes, can you? The inspiration and etc. would be an excellent way to simulate the various past-life components AND it would definitely defocus the spellcasting.

[Anthrowhale]

If you want spontaneous casting with turn undead then perhaps the spontaneous cleric?

[Thurbane]

Not familiar with the source material, but sounds like some combo of factotum & Chameleon might work to emulate this?

Or possibly Revenant Blade (although that has it's own very distinct flavour).

Maybe throw in a Fiend of Possession as a cohort or similar (by RAW, these have to be evil, but maybe the DM could play it as more CN)?

[Lapak]

Not familiar with the source material, but sounds like some combo of factotum & Chameleon might work to emulate this?

Or possibly Revenant Blade (although that has it's own very distinct flavour).

Maybe throw in a Fiend of Possession as a cohort or similar (by RAW, these have to be evil, but maybe the DM could play it as more CN)?Chameleon's a good thing I hadn't thought of, for certain. Kinda the key mechanical elements are:
- can emulate the skills of the demon's 10 prior human hosts (and theoretically its animal ones, but that doesn't really come up)
- Spirit Vision (some way of seeing the world without vision that reveals magical effects and living creatures
- has a lot of facility for destructive/entropic magic - decay, destruction, deconstruction. For theological reasons, he can't use it to kill intelligent beings directly, but he's got enough medical knowledge that after a while he learns to mess up people's nerves and incapacitate them. But animals are fair game, as are objects - rot bowstrings away or rust metal to disarm people, sabotage riding gear or vehicles, etc.
- eventually learns to use destruction for healing by disintegrating cancers, diseases and infected tissues, but doing so is much more difficult than wrecking things

Outside mechanically, he's a devout follower of the Bastard (the setting's god of lost causes, people who fall outside the normal social hierarchy for whatever reason, and chaos in general. He also oversees the demons, which in the setting are mindless elementals of chaos that gradually gain personalities by absorbing them from hosts they possess.) He's got some medical training and knowledge of languages in his own right, substantially enhanced by the former host's knowledge. And he's definitely falls on the good side of the scale, with his association with the Bastard and Desdemona swinging him firmly to Chaotic.

[Thurbane]

I was recently looking into the options for Floating Skills (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632485), so maybe some of that might be helpful here? With a Chameleon's floating feat, you could grab Open Minded, or Jack of all Trades, or similar feats to represent drawing on skills.

Isn't there some kind of incorporeal symbiont in one of the Eberron books? Looked it up, Shadow Sibling. Would that be a better fit for "demons"? Or maybe a Trilloch or Glimmerskin, although these feel a little OP and have more direct interaction with the world.

Spirit Vision should be a little easier: 2 level dip in Warlock gets Detect Magic at will, or a one level dip in DFA for the Magic Insight invocation.

For the other part of it, closest I can think of is Deathwatch spell, Lifesense feat (LM) {this requires having no Con score, so problematic}, or to a lesser extent, Sprit Sense Feat (HoH).

Warlock's Baleful Utterance invocation might somewhat represent the ability to deteriorate non-living objects?

Chameleon with the access to all arcane and divine spells of under 6th level would also allow for healing, and spells such as Wood Rot, Rusting Grasp, Disintegrate etc.

Ooh, that reminds me, the Fiendish Familiar symbiont imparts spell knowledge to it's host, which kind of fits the theme. RAW, it only teaches spells to Wizards, but since Chameleons use a spellbook for their Arcane Focus, might be reasonable for it to work for a Chameleon?

[thorr-kan]

For those familiar with the stories of Penric from the world of the five gods (by author Lois McMaster Bujold), how would you stat him up in 3.5? I think the trick is both being able to duplicate what Penric does (while not adding extra powers that Penric does not have) and also capture (even if by reflavouring) the theme of having a creature inside you (called a demon, though not really evil (definitely chaotic though)) that has the memories (and personalities) of 10 previous human hosts to draw on.

Any ideas? Or is 3.5 not a good fit for the concept?
First: your source of inspiration is to be considered top-notch. Lois McMaster Bujold is perhaps the greatest author of our time. The World of the Five Gods is just brilliance steeped on brilliance.

Second: I don't think d20 is going to be a real good fit, but it might be possible with enough homebrew. I don't think most of the suggestions so far will give you the results you're looking for.

[Thurbane]

Another couple of random thoughts, would a Sha'ir with their Jinn be at all a good fit? Or a Spirit Shaman re-fluffing their spirits as a "demon"? I'm guessing not, but worth asking.


First: your source of inspiration is to be considered top-notch. Lois McMaster Bujold is perhaps the greatest author of our time. The World of the Five Gods is just brilliance steeped on brilliance.

Going to add that on to my "to read" list. :smallsmile:


Second: I don't think d20 is going to be a real good fit, but it might be possible with enough homebrew. I don't think most of the suggestions so far will give you the results you're looking for.

True. If I was more familiar with the source material (and had any spare time IRL), I'd have a try at making up a PrC or base class to suit.

[thorr-kan]

Another couple of random thoughts, would a Sha'ir with their Jinn be at all a good fit? Or a Spirit Shaman re-fluffing their spirits as a "demon"? I'm guessing not, but worth asking.

Going to add that on to my "to read" list. :smallsmile:
I sincerely hope you will not be sorry.

Wot5G is late-ish medieval-ish kinda informed by the Spanish Reconquista. Fantasy. Very well thought out metaphysics.

Wide Green World (WGW) is kinda post-apocalyptic-ish Ohio River Valley-ish American Frontier-ish. Fantasy; no relation to the above. Different very well thought out metaphysics.

The Vorkosigan Series is usually billed as military SF. It is SF. There is a lot of military action. But it's so much width and depth to it. Stranger in a new land, young adult, coming of age, mystery, comedy of manners...there's a reason Ms. Bujold has won that many Hugos.

Spirit Shaman is an inspired idea. It would work for a quick refluff of the idea without an in depth conversion of the metaphysics.

Sha'ir is less workable. A sorcerer's demon is bound to their body; they share the same metaphysical space.