[3.5] "Deal."

[Xefas]

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This is intended as supplementary material for "Mythos" classes, three of which are listed below.

The Olethrofex
The Teramach
The Kathodos

You can find a more central thread right here.

"The moral of this story? Never make a deal with an interdimensional demon without a little protection." ~Slade Wilson, Teen Titans

The Mythic Warlock

Among the Titans who fell at the beginning of days, all were suborned to the Gods' purpose, unraveled and re-woven into the tapestry of the wheel according to the design of ones who were not they, becoming slaves and worse, eternally. But the holiest of holies, the king of kings, the Empyrean, could not be laid low, he could not be enslaved, he could not be abused to another's purpose, for his nature made him without these possibilities. And so it was only by the alteration of this nature, the becoming of another, that which was the Empyrean could be compiled into the Gods' working. In this way, the Empyrean has remained unblemished, undefeated, and uncorrupted, as he must always be.

The Demon Emperor, however, knows the pain of defeat all too well, and though he may strive to one day transcend his form and regain his hallowed crown, it is only because it is his nature to wallow in futile self-flagellation. In present day, the flesh of the Emperor is made to be the walls of the Abyss, not only containing his own souls, but the Tanar'ri, their creators, the Obyriths, and their creators as well. These last, mythical beings are twisted souls left by the Empyrean - for it is the fate of the Titans' souls to die when the Titan does, but the Empyrean has never died, nor does he exist any longer, and therefore they languished in purposeless exile. Forced to survive in a mockery of the glory they once knew and narratively fed from, they too became a mockery of themselves, and all that they created mocked peace and reason.

So, now, the children of children of children raise themselves on wicked thrones in their Great Grandfather's house, ignorant of its significance. And when these lowly Princes and Princesses of the Abyss overstep themselves and presume to lord over the true heirs of the world, they set in motion their own undoing.

New Feat: The Legacy of the Exiled Lord Returning
Prerequisite: One Mythos
Special: If you have made a bargain with a Demon Lord for power in exchange for your servitude, your burgeoning narrative authority renegotiates the terms, and the below effects of this feat become active. If you have not made such a bargain yet, the below effects are dormant and only become active once a bargain of the aforementioned kind is made and, upon pledging your service, your untameable Mythic nature becomes apparent to your would-be-patron and latches on to the covenant, altering it as noted below.

Benefit: You establish a telepathic link with your patron, allowing you to speak with one another across any distance or planar boundary, so long as neither of you are in the Far Realm. Both of you are immune to attempts to non-consensually read one another's thoughts, via this link or any other medium.

Your patron is forbidden from personally harming or imprisoning you, or sending their agents to do so. This restriction is lifted if you willingly and knowingly harm your patron or one of their agents. If some effect causes you to unwillingly break this agreement, such as a Dominate Person spell, then this restriction is lifted temporarily, until the effect that removed your agency expires.

Your patron may make a formal request of your services, stating any and all conditions, constraints, and requirements up front, as well as the payment they offer (see below). If you accept, you must immediately go to perform the required service (unless one of the conditions is that you may, or you must, wait until a particular time) to the best of your abilities. There is no way for you to break the contract once made, or to willingly attempt to undermine it in some way, you must do it until its completion, until it is rendered impossible, or until your patron calls it off.

In exchange, your patron, too, cannot weasel out of paying you your rightful Soulgild. It is extracted from them by the contract and given to you upon your service's completion. If your patron calls off a service in progress, you are given a Soulgild one step less than you would've received for completion. Your patron cannot call off a job right before its completion and cheat you with a technicality; the contract honors the spirit of its contents above the letter.

Soulgild is the currency of your contracts; nebulous portions of a Demon Lord's power that you may spend to give yourself a boon, based on the Mythos you have purchased (spending Soulgild is always a free action). A Demon Lord may offer you a small portion of their power (1d2+1 Soulgild), a moderate portion (1d3+3 Soulgild), or a large portion (1d4+5 Soulgild), at their discretion. They may also offer you other things, such as land, or servants, or magic items, for your faithful service, but only the transfer of Soulgild is inexorably enforced by this feat. You may only have a maximum amount of Soulgild at one time equal to your class level.

In truly desperate situations, you may ask your patron for a loan of Soulgild, specifying however much you would like, to a maximum of 20. If your patron accepts, you accrue a Debt to them that they may call in at any time after 24 hours have passed from the moment the loan was given. When they call in a Debt, you cannot choose to decline - no matter how horrific the task they ask of you, you must perform it. Using this ability, ever, is ill-advised.

If an entire year goes by without you having accepted a job from your patron, you automatically accrue one Debt to them - the cumulative weight of you having mooched your Mythic Warlock stuff off of them for a year without giving back. Your patron must have offered you jobs in the first place, of course - they can't withhold your right to serve them for an entire year in order to cheat your free will. Offering you physically impossible tasks is, again, breaking the spirit of your contract together, and does not allow them to exploit you. There is, of course, no such provision against things you find morally inconceivable.

Finally, once this feat becomes active (see 'Special' above), you gain a sinister forehead brand that symbolizes your patron. It cannot be removed, and remains with you even if you shapeshift, swap your soul into another body, are reincarnated, or are otherwise altered. The brand will automatically shine through about an inch of covering material, such as a hat or bandana, and you may will it to project several inches farther, if you so choose, to display on a helmet, or similar headwear. If your form is altered in some way to obscure it, such as shapeshifting into a form with pitch-black skin to obscure a black brand, it will subtly alter itself to become visible again, such as giving itself a white outline. If you are in a form with no forehead or forehead-analogue, it moves to some other conspicuous area.

When this brand first appears on you, you may choose for it to awaken explosively and dramatically, showering light and thunder and fire all around you. This allows you to instantly learn an Exceptional Mythic Warlock Mythos of your choice, and gives you 1,000 Mythos Points and 250 Experience Points of debt; essentially, the next 1,000mp and 250xp you attain under normal means will go towards clearing the debt, rather than going into your standard pool. The debt does not subtract from your current pool directly.

Choose one Mythos-granting class that you have levels in. You may treat the following Mythos as if they belonged to that class.

Exceptional Mythos

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Eldritch Slave Cannon
Prerequisite: -

As a standard action, you call up pure demonic magic from the depths of your rotting soul and unleash it from some point on your body, usually the hands or eyes. This may be used as either a melee or ranged attack, dealing 1d8 damage per two class levels, minimum 1d8, on a successful hit. If used as a ranged attack, the normal maximum range is 60ft, however, you may choose a target up to 120 feet away by halving the damage dealt after rolling.

This is considered using a 'Spell-Like Ability', as is the use of all of this Mythos' Advanced Manifestations.

You may spend one Soulgild to temporarily access any one Advanced Manifestation for this Mythos for one round.

Advanced
Eldritch Lance: As a standard action, you unleash a highly focused beam of energy at a target within 120ft as a ranged attack, dealing 1d8 damage per two class levels. You may extend this range to 250ft by halving the damage dealt after rolling.

Brimstone Immolation: As a standard action, you conjure a writhing tide of flames as a melee touch attack or ranged touch attack, dealing 1d8 fire damage per two class levels. As a ranged touch attack, the normal maximum range is 60ft, however, you may choose a target up to 120 feet away by halving the damage dealt after rolling.

Abyssrime Blast: As a standard action, you cast forth a zone of freezing energy as a melee or ranged attack, dealing 1d8 cold damage per two class levels. As a ranged touch attack, the normal maximum range is 60ft, however, you may choose a target up to 120 feet away by halving the damage dealt after rolling. Creatures standing in, or soaked with, water or another easily frozen liquid, take a -3 penalty to their Armor Class against this ability and take an additional +1 damage per die rolled.

Unyielding Laceration: As a standard action, you lash out with a roiling mass of disruptive energy as a melee or ranged attack, dealing 1d8 force damage per two class levels. As a ranged attack, the normal maximum range is 20ft, however, you may choose a target up to 40ft away by halving the damage dealt after rolling.

Beshadowed Bolt: As a standard action, you launch of burst of hideous, crawling shadows as a melee or ranged attack, dealing 1d8 negative energy damage per two class levels. Creatures that take damage must make a Fortitude save or be struck blind and deaf for one round. As a ranged touch attack, the normal maximum range is 60ft, however, you may choose a target up to 120 feet away by halving the damage dealt after rolling, and taking a -2 penalty to the DC of the saving throw to resist being blinded and deafened.

Demon-Vessel Resilience
Prerequisite: -

Upon gaining this Mythos, demonic blood rushes through your body, remaking it to be more terrible, more perfect. You are returned to the standard health and fitness for a member of your race. Amputated limbs return, eyes born blind may now see, incurable poxes and cancers of all kinds are scoured from you, muscles withered by lengthy inactivity or malnutrition suddenly function again, and so on. More mundanely, your hit points are restored to full, and any ability damage or drain is removed. Additionally, you have at least one minor cosmetic change from this, be it black scleras, slit pupils, pure-white hair, a sixth finger on each hand, or something of that nature.

If you so choose, you may have more intensive alterations that make you obviously demonic, like horns, cloven hoods, claw-like hands, scales, fangs, all of the above, or more. If your changes are suitably inhuman and terrifying, then you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Intimidate checks when they're visible. After you make the choice for how deeply altered this Mythos will leave you, you cannot change your mind.

You are immune to poison, have resistance to electricity equal to your class level, and damage reduction X/Cold Iron equal to 1/2 your class level, rounded up.

You may spend one Soulgild to gain Fast Healing 2 for a number of round equal to your class level. You may spend one Soulgild to choose one of your ability scores and convert all Ability Drain afflicting it into the same amount of Ability Damage.

He Fights Like A Demon
Prerequisite: -

You download knowledge of forms and katas from various fighting styles from your demonic patron, instantly learning an assortment of powerful techniques. The breadth and flavor of each Demon Prince's or Princess's martial knowledge varies, but for plug-and-play purposes, one can assume that their patron has available the Black Heron, Dread Crown, and Infinite Torment martial disciplines, plus one or two others of the player's choice that at least don't make anti-sense (Yeenoghu probably has Tiger Claw, Pale Night probably does not, Graz'zt probably has Diamond Mind, Orcus probably does not). If a more personalized list is available, use that.

From among the available martial disciplines, choose two stances, two strikes, one boost, and one counter, all 1st level. You know them, and may use them at will, without needing to ready, expend, or refresh them (although you may still only be in one stance at a time, as normal). Your initiator level for these maneuvers and stances is equal to your class level.

You may spend one Soulgild to temporarily learn one 1st level maneuver or stance from among your patron's disciplines for one round. At the beginning of your next turn, if you are still in a temporarily learned stance, it ends prematurely.

Advanced
Killing Arts On Demand: You learn another 1st level stance or maneuver from your patron's disciplines, adding it to your at-will repertoire. This manifestation may be learned multiple times, to a maximum equal to your highest mental ability score modifier.

The Demon's Own Luck
Prerequisite: -

You gain the ability to subtly nudge reality in your favor with matters that would otherwise be left to chance. You gain a pool of Cheat Points with a maximum capacity equal to your highest mental ability modifier. You fill this pool up to its maximum every time you rest for at least 8 hours. Using a Cheat is considered a Supernatural Ability.

You may spend one Cheat to reroll any one of your Attack Rolls, Saving Throws, Skill Checks, or Ability Checks, or to force an Attack Roll aimed at you to be rerolled. The new result must be kept, even if it is worse. Only one Cheat may be spent per roll. You must use a Cheat after the roll is made, but before you know the result of the roll.

After a roll is made that you did not spend a Cheat on, and you know the result of the roll, you may spend one Soulgild to allow yourself to spend a Cheat to reroll anyway. Once per day, when you would be killed by hit point damage, you may spend a Soulgild to instead drop to the lowest hit point threshold possible without dying (usually -9), and become stable and unconscious.

Advanced
Screw The Rules!: You may use as many Cheats per roll as you wish, continuing to reroll undesirable rolls before learning the ultimate result.

Unfairness Is My Armor, Injustice My Shield: A natural 1 is never considered an automatic failure for you on any roll.

Tilt The Space-Time Pinball Machine: When you fail a roll by 1, the DM is obligated to tell you (if the roll was not otherwise public). You may spend a Cheat to succeed on the roll anyway. Unless you have the 'Screw The Rules!' manifestation, you may not use this ability on a roll you've already spent Cheat Points on.

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Invoking Abyssal Arcana
Prerequisite: One of the 'Eldritch Slave Cannon' or 'The Demon's Own Luck' Mythos

Choose one Lesser Invocation available to the Warlock class (CAr). You learn it, and may cast it as if you were a Warlock of a level equal to your class level, substituting your highest mental ability score modifier in place of Charisma for determining the Invocation's saving throw DCs. While you must still provide verbal, somatic, and material components for the Warlock Invocation as normal, despite it being a spell-like ability, you are not subject to Arcane Spell Failure like a Warlock is.

You may spend a Soulgild to temporarily gain access to one Least Invocation available to the Warlock class for one round. If a temporary Invocation with a duration greater than one round is still active at the beginning of your next turn, its duration expires prematurely. This temporary Least Invocation follows the same rules as those presented above for your Lesser Invocation.

Transfused With Liquid Hate
Prerequisite: One of the 'He Fights Like A Demon' or 'Demon-Vessel Resilience' Mythos

Great burning power from the heart of the Abyss pours through minute portals into your veins, fully suffusing you with demonic power.

First, the changes to your body make it largely inhospitable to foreign agents. You become immune to disease, and your inhuman body heat allows you to exist comfortably without protection of any kind in temperatures between -50 and 140 degrees fahrenheit.

Second, the changes to your soul make your mere presence fearsome and unsettling. You have an Aura of Chaos and an Aura of Evil with an equivalent strength to that of a Chaotic Evil Outsider (see the Detect Evil spell for information on aligned auras). Furthermore, you are considered to be the better of your normal Type and the Outsider Type in any situation in which your Type matters.

Finally, you have simply been made better than what you were before. All six of your Ability Scores increase by 2 as you reap the rewards that your unholy service has sown.

You may spend a Soulgild to choose a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution based skill and gain a +10 competence bonus with that skill for 1 round.

Legendary

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Consider This My Letter Of Resignation
Prerequisite: One of the 'Invoking Abyssal Arcana' or 'Transfused With Liquid Hate' Mythos

Upon learning this Mythos, you enter into a psychic conversation with your patron, occurring at the speed of thought within the theater of your minds. Your patron is unable to leave until you've had your say and then, when you choose to end the conversation, you deliver a mental sucker punch, dealing (class level)d6 damage to them, which bypasses damage reduction, and 3d6 damage to their three mental ability scores, as well as rendering any supernatural, spell-like, and spellcasting abilities they possess inert for one minute. Chances are that they will trivially recover from such injuries in short order, but most importantly, your sucker punch hurts, and thereby dictates the nature of your future relationship in no uncertain terms.

Henceforth, your actions ignore any damage reduction, energy resistance, spell resistance, and any immunities possessed by your patron. You add your highest mental ability score as a bonus to your Armor Class, Attack and Damage rolls, and to all of your Saving Throws against your patron. You have Spell Resistance equal to (your patron's hit dice + 10) against spells cast by your patron, and your actions never trigger their magical contingencies. Once per round, when you successfully deal damage to your patron, choose one ongoing beneficial magical effect on them and dispel it. You are precisely aware the distance and direction from you that your patron is if they are on the same plane of existence, and which plane of existence they are on otherwise.

When you reduce your patron to 0 hit points, or deal damage to them while they are at or below 0 hit points, they die and you consume their essence utterly. If they cannot be killed, they are killed. If their life force escapes your clutches to reconstitute itself elsewhere, it does not. If it was an astral projection of your patron, your patron dies anyway. There is no effect, no clever plan, no trickity trick that your patron can muster that will prevent its death and consumption by this ability.

Once you've consumed your patron, it effectively no longer exists, save as an insensate spiritual nodule on your soul. It cannot be separately resurrected, though if you're dead, and a spell is cast to bring your once-patron back to life, you may intercept the magic and claim it as your own, rising in their place with the caster none-the-wiser until it is too late. This nodule provides subconscious, seemingly sourceless, knowledge and memories, granting you a +2 circumstance bonus on all Knowledge checks you patron had ranks with in life, as well as Spellcraft and Use Magic Device checks. Finally, once every 24 hours, you generate a small portion (1d2+1) of Soulgild from this nodule with no strings attached.

(The following effects function whether you have consumed your patron or not.)

If you have the 'Invoking Abyssal Arcana' Mythos, you may spend Soulgild to gain temporary access to Lesser Invocations, in addition to Least ones, using that Mythos. Temporary Invocations gained in this way, if they have a duration longer than one round, last a full minute now (or their own duration, whichever is less), rather than just one round.

If you have the 'Transfused With Liquid Hate' Mythos, you may spend one Soulgild to gain a +10 competence bonus on all Damage rolls and consider all of your attacks to be Chaotic, Evil, and Silver for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction, for one round.

Sidebar: Soulgild Coins

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(To keep the feat description from getting too bloated, I'm putting this ancillary use for Soulgild down here in a separate spoiler. All Mythic Warlocks have access to this ability.)

As a move action, you may slip a point of Soulgild from your internal reservoir and manifest it physically as a tarnished metal coin stamped with symbols that represent your patron's name in the Abyssal script. Soulgild coins radiate a faint aura of Chaos and Evil, and those who hold one feel an ephemeral, spiritual weight far beyond the tiny trinket's apparent composition.

You may recall any Soulgild coins you own back into your internal reservoir at any time as a free action, regardless of where they are. Soulgild kept as coins still count towards your maximum. You are always aware of the plane each of your Soulgild coins is on, and if you are on the same plane, you know the exact distance and direction a coin is from you.

As a swift action, a character other than yourself that is holding one of your Soulgild coins may consume it, allowing it to melt against their skin and flow into their body. For 1 minute, they may spend that Soulgild in the same way that you are able to, as noted in your Mythos (for example, if you possess The Demon's Own Luck, they may spend the Soulgild to save themselves from dying, if you possess Eldritch Slave Cannon, they may unleash a Brimstone Immolation, Abyssrime Blast, and so on), using your class level and saving throw DCs, but their own statistics for everything else (like attack rolls). A character that doesn't have any idea what sort of powers they can call upon with the coin may just instinctively call up something useful to the current situation as dictated by their player.

Afterward, the user of a Soulgild coin radiates a faint aura of Chaos and Evil on top of any other alignment aura they have for 24 hours. Roughly 10 minutes after a Good, Lawful, or True Neutral character has used a Soulgild coin, they become viscerally aware of what they have allowed to enter their body if they did not already. If they were already aware of the nature of the coin, they are considered to have committed a minor act of Chaos and Evil, in addition to whatever moral ramifications there might've been for the actions they used the coin for.

In either case, the Good, Lawful, or True Neutral character becomes Nauseated for 1 minute, and takes 1 point of Constitution and Charisma damage, and is then Sickened for an hour as the pure essence of a Demon Lord passes through them.

A Soulgild coin can be used as an exotic ingredient in the creation of a thoroughly demonic themed magical item, and covers 5xp of the cost to create it. Multiple coins cannot be stacked for this effect.

A Soulgild coin is considered a possession of both you and your patron for spells and other abilities that have enhanced effects if the possession of a target is provided (such as the Scrying spell).

While a Soulgild coin cannot typically be used as currency in the Lower Planes, as any who hold it can feel its metaphysical tie to you, it does function as an irrefutable symbol of your service. A cultist of your patron can hardly deny that a powerful servant of their demon-god now stands before them as they hold a shard of the abyssal prince's soul made physical.