Additional Vestiges

[ManicOppressive]

Hiya! I'm making some new vestiges based on additional demons in the Ars Goetia or just throughout D&D lore for a Binder in my setting who's playing Pokemon with them in an attempt to prove every moral guardian from the 1990s right about both D&D and Pokemon being devil worship. Anyway, I thought it might be helpful to post them here as I make them in case anyone else wants some new toys for Binders to play with.

Kerzit the Guardian

Vestige Level: 4th

Binding DC: 22

Special Requirement: Yes

Kerzit, guardian of the Tome of Black Heart, offers both knowledge and the protection of secrets to those willing to pay his prices.

Legend: One of the easiest ways to find a soul to ride through the void is to look to demons already bound to objects such as books, and Kerzit was a veritable paved road for Orcus to force a crossing between worlds. Unlike many of the others, Kerzit was fairly indifferent to and unaffected by the crossing, as his own demiplane within the Tome of Black Heart combined with his mastery of the magic of the void shielded him.
Kerzit demanded the sacrifice of sentient beings to read his Tome after it was loosed, but some were willing to pay a different kind of price in blood as Arcanists killed his physical form and a binder bound him as a vestige.

Special Requirement: You must sacrifice a mammal or bird upon Kerzit’s seal.

Manifestation: Kerzit appears in a blast of putrescent wind and black smoke, a beastly form with strange saw-like arms. He speaks in a gravelly, gruff voice and has little patience once summoned.

Sign: The back of your arms are perpetually damp to the elbow with blood.

Influence: You feel an insatiable urge to end the lives of the weak. If a sentient creature within 30 ft is in negative hit points and helpless as a result, you must finish them off.

Granted Abilities: Kerzit grants the ability to hoard and protect knowledge, as well as deep entropic abilities from the void.

Maddening Script: Written words within 60 ft of you cannot be read, instead appearing as shifting illusory scripts. Allies to whom you’ve given explicit permission are immune to this effect. You can turn this ability off or back on as a swift action.

Entropic Reach: At will as a standard action, you may exert an entropic reach that kills all creatures within 30 ft who are in negative hit points without a save. For each creature killed this way, you gain a cumulative +2 bonus to strength, +1 to CL (Maximum +4) and 1d8 temporary hit points for 1 round/binder level.

Abyssal Wounds: Creatures damaged by your attacks are wounded, taking 4 damage each round until a Heal check (DC 15 + EBL) is made. This wound and the damage it causes cannot be healed by magical means.

Purge Invisibility: As a standard action, you may negate all invisibility effects within 5 feet per binder level. Once you have used this ability, you cannot use it again for 5 rounds.

Spell Immunity: You are immune to 0th and 1st level spells unless they are Harmless.

[ManicOppressive]

Stolas the Owl Prince

Vestige Level: 7th

Binding DC: 30

Special Requirement: Yes

Legend: It is said that Stolas the Owl Prince found his way to the stars simply by looking. Unparalleled in knowledge of astronomy, herbology, and minerology, he managed to break the bounds of his world and into the void and see the upper planes for what they were. Having achieved such knowledge, he became cynical toward the wars and plights of the gods and vowed to remain amongst the material cosmos forever—and so amongst one cosmos or another his eyes have remained ever vigilant beneath starlight.

Special Requirement: Stolas’s seal can only be drawn under starlight.

Manifestation: The stars above seem to shift in the sky, winking out or moving great distances to form a complex constellation of an owl with many legs and a crown upon its head. Gnarled blackthorn roots surround your circle as an orichalcum base appears and the constellation descends, manifesting into the great Prince with three eyes reflecting the cosmos.

Sign: The entirety of your eyes reflect a starry night sky.

Influence: You can’t resist the opportunity to examine a precious stone, rare herb, or astronomical phenomenon. You also cannot refuse a request to identify a stone, herb, or celestial object, although any given creature need only be answered once every hour.

Granted Abilities:

Night Sights: You have darkvision 60 ft as well as low-light vision. You can see through magical darkness provided you are outdoors.

Starsign Scrying: You can scry, as the spell Greater Scrying or Scry Location, as often as you wish, and as though you had at least secondhand knowledge of any subject. (You still must have some sort of a connection to a creature you have no knowledge of.) If you scry beneath an open sky at night, subjects receive no bonus to their saving throw for being on a different plane, and even if the scrying is blocked you still learn the plane on which they are located. Subjects who are also outdoors when you scry them receive no save at all, regardless of what plane they’re on.

Owl Prince’s Wisdom: You and all allies with whom you can communicate gain a circumstance bonus equal to your highest mental ability modifier to your Appraise, Heal, Craft: Alchemy, Craft: Stoneworking, Craft: Gems, and Knowledge: Nature, The Planes, and Astronomy.

Precious Stone: You may replicate the effect of the Flesh to Stone or Stone to Flesh spells as a supernatural standard action. Once you have done so, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. If you use Stone to Flesh on a precious stone, it turns into a bird that has the maximum starting disposition toward you. (The type of bird depends on the stone.) This bird will obey one command without question.

Poison Mastery: You have no chance of harming yourself when applying poisons, and any poison, potion, extract, mutagen, or mundane alchemical solution that is both applied and activated while Stolas is bound has its effects maximized.

[ManicOppressive]

Definitely do plan to get to some lower-level vestiges, just... not these.

Marbas the Clockwork Lion

Vestige Level: 6th

Binding DC: 26

Special Requirement: No

Legend: Marbas was a sorcerer who sought to change the fundamental nature of the world. Believing that all existence—past, present, and future—was defined by the physical state of the world from moment to moment, Marbas sought to achieve through artifice and transmutation what few had ever dreamt—to end the cycle of life and death entirely and bring about an immortal and immutable utopia. Instead, their experimentation led to the destruction of their own form again and again; each time they rebuilt themselves of metal and wheels, recast themselves in clay, or reincarnated themselves in new flesh. After decades or, perhaps, centuries, their physical form no longer held stable at all and their soul was too tainted in the eyes of the gods to take. They became, in a sense, what they wanted—an immortal and, in an ironic way, immutable being of endless change.

Manifestation: Marbas appears from a twisting shadow with the sound of grating metal and ticking clocks. Mechanical devices near their manifestation begin activating and animating of their own accord, and time itself seems to briefly slow. Their form is that of a great pale lion, though as soon as they appear this form begins shifting to that of a silver-skinned human of androgynous presentation. When their form shifts, clockwork is briefly visible beneath their skin.

Sign: Your form isn’t quite stable, with your features (such as eye color, hair color, height, nose shape, etc) occasionally changing randomly.

Influence: You cannot maintain the same form for more than an hour, needing to change creature type entirely at least so often.

Granted Abilities:

Change Shape: You have the Change Shape ability, as a changeling. True Sight can identify that you are using a shapeshifting ability, but not your original form. If you already have this ability, you gain +4 Strength, +4 Constitution, the ability to generate functional wings (40 ft/rd/average) and gills, and a climb and swim speed equal to your land speed.

Wild Shape: You gain Wild Shape as a Druid of equal level to your Effective Binder level.

Share Shape: You can forgo your ability to Change Shape, or your ability to Wild Shape (but not both at the same time) in order to grant the ability to an ally. Continue to use your effective binder level to determine the Wild Shape’s effectiveness. If at any point you are not binding Marbas, your ally loses the ability.

Conjurer of Disease Control: You may replicate the effects of the Remove Disease or Contagion spell as a standard action at will. Once you have done so, you cannot activate either for 5 rounds.

Mind of Metal: You gain a bonus equal to half your effective binder level on all Craft checks as well as on Knowledge: Architecture checks.


Bael, the Hoarse King

Vestige Level: 7th

Binding DC: 33

Special Requirement: No

Legend: Bael was a scholar-king from some long-forgotten land or world. It’s said that he taught so many wizards under his rule that his voice began to fail from the centuries of exhaustion—some others say he survived a poisoning by an ambitious student, that he was assaulted by a spell, or that he simply smoked too much. Regardless, he became known as the Hoarse King long before the stories reliably reach. In the process of extending his life more and more, his form became more and more monstrous. He manifested aspects of insects, arachnids, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and every beast be could find—anything to stretch a few more years onto his existence. By the time he had escaped the reach of time in this piecemeal way, he found his appearance so intolerable that he feared no student would ever learn from him again. They might have been so willing in spite of his visage except that, without his charisma and charm, he could not hide his predilections; Bael was caught exploiting a very young student, and with evidence that he had committed such foul acts many times before. His own kingdom, now aware of the monster at its head, cast him out in a great battle.
With nowhere to go due to his unmistakable personage, Bael began to focus his mastery of magic into removing himself from view. This, along with his mastery of enchantment, let him live on the fringes of his world for centuries more. But as time wore on, his very existence in the material world began to slip away with the last memories of his teachings. With even the gods unable to see through his invisibility and compulsion ensuring none remembered his presence, Bael became a horror story, then a children’s story, then a forgotten tale entirely. And finally, Bael’s patchwork efforts to preserve his own life failed him, and he slipped away into the void, unseen and known only through vague hatred.

Manifestation: At first, nothing, then the invisibility starts to slip away. A strange and warped human head pressed inside a frog’s head and merged with a cat’s, all attached to the form of a spider emerges from the ether with maddening whispers in a long dead tongue.

Sign: You have a cat’s nose and a frog’s tongue. This does not interfere with speech or normal activity, nor does it allow you to grab enemies with your tongue.

Influence: You must attempt to take on any child you find who shows promise in magic as a student, regardless of whethert they or their guardians consent to this.
Granted Abilities:

Greater Invisibility: As a standard action, you can make yourself or another creature touched invisible as the Greater Invisibility spell for a number of minutes equal to your binder level. Creatures besides yourself can only benefit from this ability once per day. Once you have done so, you cannot use this ability for 5 rounds.

Insidious Trust: Creatures tend to assume you mean well, treating you as though your intent is education. Other sentient beings have a disposition level one higher toward you, even if they knew you already, and you gain a bonus to Bluff equal to your Effective Binder Level. You are immune to magical truth-telling methods, such as Zone of Truth or Discern Lies.

Pedagogue’s Knowledge: You gain a +10 bonus to Knowledge: Arcana, Nature, and Architecture, and you can take ten on checks.

[RandomPeasant]

Kerzit the Guardian

This guy seems almost hilariously underpowered. It is nominally an ability suite for 7th level characters (and at that point it is your whole ability suite, as you don't gain a second vestige slot until 8th level). But the only offensive ability you get is an extremely minor bleed, and you get that on a chassis that does not get any particular ability to stack extra attacks in a way that might serve as a multiplier to its effectiveness. Maddening Script is an ability so minor that it could just as easily be the sign of the Vestige as a granted ability. Spell Immunity is potentially powerful, but it doesn't scale and it's not even set at a high enough level to be exciting when you get it. This guy needs to be redesigned from the ground up around a shtick that you could use as a 7th level character. I would suggest some kind of "evil Wizard in a box" plan, like the psionic web vestige.


Night Sights: You have darkvision 60 ft as well as low-light vision. You can see through magical darkness provided you are outdoors.

Does this, an ability for a 15th level character, really need to only work outdoors? This could just be flat true seeing + (greater) arcane sight and that would be totally okay at the level when a Binder gets it.


Owl Prince’s Wisdom: You and all allies with whom you can communicate gain a circumstance bonus equal to your highest mental ability modifier to your Appraise, Heal, Craft: Alchemy, Craft: Stoneworking, Craft: Gems, and Knowledge: Nature, The Planes, and Astronomy.

This should not grant a bonus that is a different size from the one granted by Marbas's Mind of Metal (also, the bonus from Mind of Metal needs a type).


Precious Stone: You may replicate the effect of the Flesh to Stone or Stone to Flesh spells as a supernatural standard action. Once you have done so, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. If you use Stone to Flesh on a precious stone, it turns into a bird that has the maximum starting disposition toward you. (The type of bird depends on the stone.) This bird will obey one command without question.

Whether this ability (and, therefore, the Vestige as a whole) is good enough depends on what kind of bird you are getting out of the stones. Which does not seem to be specified at all.


Wild Shape: You gain Wild Shape as a Druid of equal level to your Effective Binder level.

I think from a thematic perspective, this should turn you into an Effigy version of the creature, because that seems to fit with Marbas's legend.


Bael, the Hoarse King

This is an ability suite for a 15th level character that grants as its only combat-relevant ability a modestly good 4th level defensive spell. That's not okay. This needs to grant some kind of magical power that you can use to kill fools, because that is the bulk of what D&D characters are called upon to do.


Greater Invisibility: As a standard action, you can make yourself or another creature touched invisible as the Greater Invisibility spell for a number of minutes equal to your binder level. Creatures besides yourself can only benefit from this ability once per day. Once you have done so, you cannot use this ability for 5 rounds.

This should just make you invisible permanently, with a five-round recharge if it is dispelled. That's basically what it does already, but with less manual tracking of how long ago you refreshed your invisibility when a fight starts. I would make the invisibility for other creatures a swift or immediate action that lasts one round, but can be used any number of times per day on the five-round recharge. What you have isn't broken or anything, I'm just philosophically opposed to the tendency to pollute classes with a bunch of extra resource management systems.


Insidious Trust: Creatures tend to assume you mean well, treating you as though your intent is education. Other sentient beings have a disposition level one higher toward you, even if they knew you already, and you gain a bonus to Bluff equal to your Effective Binder Level. You are immune to magical truth-telling methods, such as Zone of Truth or Discern Lies.

Why is this also different size of bonus from the other three abilities that grant skill bonuses? I do not want to have to keep looking up whether the bonus I am getting is half my level or my level or a mental stat or a fixed number.