Iron Chef Optimization Challenge in the Playground CXXX

[Inevitability]

I got my entry in: I had to compromise on a couple points, and had to rework a pretty big trick right before submitting, but I'm overall still quite happy with how it turned out. It's always nice when a build makes you feel like you're exploring uncharted terrain.

[quetzalcoatl5]

Almost done with mine!

[Battlechaser]

Build is submitted.

[Rebel7284]

The mechanical parts are pretty much done.
Backstory part to go!
Hopefully I will be able to combine the various background things I have floating in my head into an engaging narrative.

[WhamBamSam]

Build is in. Dunno how it'll end up doing, but I'm really happy with it.

Had another abandoned idea that I'll talk about after the reveal.

[Paragon]

Meh I built something in a jiff just for fun. If this competition has taught me anything it's probably that it'll score better than my first

[Paragon]

For future references, does Savage Tide player's guide count as first party ?
Does Diablo II : Diablerie ?

[The Viscount]

For future references, does Savage Tide player's guide count as first party ?
Does Diablo II : Diablerie ?

The savage tide player's guide I found is published by Paizo, so no.

Diablo II Diablerie is first party. It was made for 3.0, so update appropriately. I remember someone making a build pulling from it in a previous competition, but I couldn't find it when I looked.

[The Viscount]

By request, the deadline has been extended by a week to 13:59 GMT January 7th, 2024. The OP is updated to reflect this.

[loky1109]

My entry was killed by wrong LA. If nothing will happen I'll judge.

[H_H_F_F]

Reveal coming soon! I gave up on my second entry idea, I'll share it after the reveal.

How's everybody else doing? Loky, did you come up with anything, or will we be blessed with your judgment?

[FactualArcher]

I’m not going to get an entry in. The next two and a half weeks are going to be super busy for me, but I’m happy to judge if no one else has judged by the time I’m more free.

[loky1109]

Reveal coming soon! I gave up on my second entry idea, I'll share it after the reveal.

How's everybody else doing? Loky, did you come up with anything, or will we be blessed with your judgment?

The second option.

[Tohron]

I'm curious to see how the judges will evaluate my entry.

[Rebel7284]

Happy that someone requested an extension. My entry is almost done!

[Rebel7284]

Should be submitted in a couple of hours

[Rebel7284]

Apologies for the triple submission, the server is extremely unstable and kept timing out on me (but apparently the messages went through anyway?)

(Please use the latest version anyway, minor spelling fixes)

[quetzalcoatl5]

My entry is in!

[Paragon]

Rolling drums

[The Viscount]

Apologies for the triple submission, the server is extremely unstable and kept timing out on me (but apparently the messages went through anyway?)

(Please use the latest version anyway, minor spelling fixes)

No worries, they made it through. Sometimes the server gets a little twitchy.
When it does it always makes me worried it's going to be a repeat of Swiftblade when the board went down entirely for like 2 months.

Per request, the deadline is extended by 1 more week.

[Paragon]

Drums getting tired of rolling continuously for a week

[The Viscount]

Wait no longer! It's time for the reveal! (Please hold of on posting until the all clear.)

[The Viscount]

The wildest thing since Mae West.

Jae Wes, forging order from chaos, dominating everything including death itself.

Spoiler: Preview

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Alignment : LN
Race : Aasimar, Lesser
Level 1 : Mother Cyst
Level 3 : Undying Fate
Level 6 : Corpsecrafter
Level 9 : Nimble Bones
Level 12 : Practiced Spellcaster (Cleric)
Level 15 : Divine Spellpower
Level 18 : Martial Stance (Aura of Perfect Order)

Point Buy at level 1
STR 14
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 16 +2 Aasimar, Lesser
CHA 14 +2 Aasimar, Lesser

Level 4 to 20 in Wis

Spoiler: The Story

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Born into a humble family in the ancient city of Serenya, Jae came to understand the delicate harmony that exists between the boundaries of existence early in her life. Fascinated by the potency and complexity of necromancy, she found herself intrigued by Wee Jas, the goddess who embodied the balance and control over life and death through the realms of law.
Jae's parents, recognizing her innate talents and her unwavering devotion to the matters of life and death, arranged for her to undergo formal training Under the guidance of experienced priests and priestesses. She honed her skills in enchantment and necromancy, studying ancient tomes and participating in rituals that bridged the realms of the living and the dead. Jae voraciously sought knowledge about the connection between souls and the influence they held over the mortal realms.
Upon completing her training, Jae embarked on a pilgrimage to visit the holy sites sanctified by Wee Jas. She travelled through treacherous lands, encountering numerous trials that tested not only her physical prowess but also her unwavering faith and resolve. This journey allowed her to witness the manifestations of life and death in various forms: in nature's ferocity, the suffering of people, and the beauty hidden in the darkest corners of the world.
One fateful evening, exhausted and injured, Jae stumbled upon an ancient tomb deep within an eerie forest. Inside, she found a sacred relic, an ancient dagger imbued with the essence of Wee Jas herself. Recognizing the profound significance of this discovery, Jae swore an oath to utilise this weapon and her divine powers to ensure the balance and control between life and death.
Guided by her newfound connection to the deity, Jae dedicated her life to actively maintaining harmony within the world. She sought out necromantic forces threatening to disrupt the balance of life and death, taking decisive actions to counteract their influence. Additionally, she worked diligently to make sure the Law of Balance was respected and, just to be sure it would be, enforced Wee Jas’ agenda through different means of domination whether over the living or the dead.
Over time, Jae gained renown as a devout cleric, fiercely loyal to Wee Jas and revered for her unwavering commitment to the divine balance. Her presence in the realms grew, expanding her reach and influence, enabling her to influence the political landscape through her prestigious connections and extensive knowledge.
Jae's story continues to unravel, as she navigates the complexities of the realms beyond the material plane, unravelling deeper secrets and orchestrating events to ensure the dominance of her deity's agenda. With her dagger in hand and her unwavering faith, she remains ever vigilant, standing as a guardian of the delicate scales of life and death, ensuring that the forces that shape existence continue to maintain perfect balance.

Spoiler: The Build

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Cleric 1	0	2	0	2	Hide (+4 CC) 2; Know (Arcana) (+1) 1; Know (Religion) (+3) 3;	Mother Cyst, Spell Focus (Enchantment) (Domain Bonus)	Death and Domination Domains, Rebuking
2nd	Cleric 2	1	3	0	3	Hide (+1 CC) 2.5; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) (+1) 4;		Undead Intuition (web)
3rd	Cleric 3	2	3	1	3	Hide (+1 CC) 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) (+1) 5;	Undying Fate
4th	Cleric 4	3	4	1	4	Hide (+1 CC) 3.5; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) (+1) 6;
5th	Crusader 1	4	6	1	4	Hide 3.5; Intimidate (+3) 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) (+1) 7;		Furious Counterstrike, Steely Resolve 5
6th	Divine Agent 1	4	6	1	6	Concentration (+2) 2; Hide (+1 CC) 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) (+1) 8;	Corpsecrafter	Granted Domain (Magic)
7th	Divine Agent 2	5	6	1	7	Concentration (+4) 6; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8;		Contact
8th	Divine Agent 3	6	7	2	7	Concentration (+4) 10; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8;		Menacing Aura, Godly Gift
9th	Divine Agent 4	7	7	2	8	Concentration (+2) 12; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+2) 2;	Nimble Bones	Altered Appearance
10th	Divine Agent 5	7	7	2	8	Concentration (+1) 13; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+3) 5;		Commune, Plane Shift to deity's plane
11th	Divine Agent 6	8	8	3	9	Concentration (+1) 14; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+3) 8;		Godly Gift
12th	Divine Agent 7	9	8	3	9	Concentration (+1) 15; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+3) 11;	Practiced Spellcaster (Cleric)	Plane Shift to any plane
13th	Divine Agent 8	10	8	3	10	Concentration (+1) 16; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+3) 14;		Audience, Alignement Shift
14th	Divine Agent 9	10	9	4	10	Concentration (+1) 17; Hide 4; Intimidate 3; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+3) 17;		Mystic Union, Godly Gift
15th	Divine Agent 10	11	9	4	11	Concentration (+1) 18; Hide 4; Intimidate (+2) 5; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 18;	Divine Spell Power	Gate
16th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 1	12	9	4	13	Concentration (+1) 19; Hide 4; Intimidate (+2) 7; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 19;		-
17th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 2	13	9	4	14	Concentration 19; Hide 4; Intimidate (+3) 10; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 20;		Divine Recovery
18th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 3	14	10	5	14	Concentration 19; Hide 4; Intimidate (+3) 13; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 21;	Martial Stance (Aura of Perfect Order)	-
19th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 4	15	10	5	15	Concentration 19; Hide 4; Intimidate (+3) 16; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 22;		-
20th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 5	16	10	5	15	Concentration 19; Hide 4; Intimidate (+3) 19; Know (Arcana) 1; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 23;		Armored Stealth

Spoiler: Spell & Maneuvers progression

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Level	Class	0th	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th
1st	Cleric 1	3	1+1
2nd	Cleric 2	4	2+1
3rd	Cleric 3	4	2+1	1+1
4th	Cleric 4	5	3+1	2+1
5th
6th
7th	Cleric 5	5	3+1	2+1	1+1
8th
9th	Cleric 6	5	3+1	3+1	2+1
10th
11th	Cleric 7	6	4+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
12th
13th	Cleric 8	6	4+1	3+1	3+1	2+1
14th
15th	Cleric 9	6	4+1	4+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
16th
17th	Cleric 10	6	4+1	4+1	3+1	3+1	2+1
18th	Cleric 11	6	5+1	4+1	4+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
19th	Cleric 12	6	5+1	4+1	4+1	3+1	3+1	2+1
20th	Cleric 13	6	5+1	5+1	4+1	4+1	3+1	2+1	1+1

Level	Class	Initiator Level	Maneuvers Known	Maneuvers Readied	Stances Known
1st		0.5
2nd		1
3rd		1.5
4th		2
5th	Crusader 1	3	"Crusader's Strike (DS) Vanguard Strike (DS) Shield Block (DS) Mountain Hammer (SD) Tactical Strike (WR)"	2	Leading the Charge (WR)
6th		3.5
7th		4
8th		4.5
9th		5
10th		5.5
11th		6
12th		6.5
13th		7
14th		7.5
15th		8
16th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 1	9			Press the Advantage (WR)
17th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 2	10	Flanking Maneuver
18th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 3	11		3	Aura of Perfect Order (DS)
19th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 4	12	Order forged from Chaos
20th	Ruby Knight Vindicator 5	13

Spoiler: Level Breakdown

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Level 1 – 5
First 4 levels of Cleric netting +3 BAB and Crusader bringing the final +1 while both classes have Know (Religion).
Jae picks the Death and Domination domains from Wee Jas’s portefolio asserting this build’s overbearingness. The Mother Cyst and its line of spell completely matches the chosen path for Jae.
The Undead Intuition (Dead Level article, see Sources) fits perfectly with our flavour and the Undying Fate feat will just give us Deathwatch as an ex ability as well as some useful spells.
Crusader flying in at 5th level is a known trick to boost BAB as well as getting 2nd level manoeuvres such as Mountain Hammer or Shield Block.
Fun finding, Crusader’s Strike can actually heal undead and living creatures alike !
Overall d8s and 1d10 with 14 Con/Str and heavy armor and shield proficiency and those maneuvers mean we can hold our own in melee while our casting is still Tier 1.

Level 5 – 15
We enter the SI for the next 10 levels.
As a Granted Domain we chose Magic which opens up great stuff like free Identify, Anti Magic Field two levels early and Spell Turning. Our domain granted power is pretty strong thanks to Divine Agent’s mention of stacking Cleric & DA levels for the purpose of the granted power. This means we’ll end up having a wizard effective level of 7 for spell completion and trigger items.
Contact is completely passive and the later version Commune/Audience have the good taste of being XP free when cast opposed to the spells of the same name.
Menacing Aura mostly works on targets that fumble and even then, only until they damage us which we might be able to delay a bit with our crusader pool.
Godly Gift (our first really optimizable feature) is very good once applied to Animate Undead at 3rd and Create Undead at 6th; casting time reduced to 1 std and no cost for casting them is a sweet deal that makes them usable during combat.
Our last Godly Gift we use on Monstrous Thrall from the Domination Domain that lets us get any creature as a permanent minion.
Altered Appearance (passive again) is probably granting us a silver skin tone since Wee Jas is neutral and goddess of Death.
The Plane Shifts abilities are funny. The first one lets you get to Acheron (an Outer Plane) without needing any attuned metal rod. Before we get the second ability, Jae needs to bear in mind that it can only cast this once per day meaning she might need to spend some time on a very very unwelcoming plane.
Once you have the ability to Plane Shift to any plane you can use it to get anywhere and then the first ability to get back “to the divine agent's native plane”. At ECL 14, Mystic Union changes our very essence meaning the divine agent’s native plane is now considered to be the deity’s plane, which can leave you stranded if you’re not careful.
After ECL 15, Jae can actually cast Plane Shift so no more problems on that front.
As said before, Mystic Union changes our type to outsider, getting us our ancestry back. This and the Magic domain means the Transmutation Staff casting Polymorph opens up 13HD forms (Astral Deva, Leonal) for us.
Practiced Spellcaster is there to have this build try and keep up with CL loss and Divine Spell Power can bridge the rest of the gap (even 35% chance of getting CL21 while only 5% chance of underperforming ; nothing a circlet of persuasion can’t solve).
Finally, Gate. We can call up to a 30HD creature at first and 40HD eventually meaning we can call Wee Jas herself (even though she can deny our call). More realistically, calling stuff like a Horned Devil and using Monstrous Thrall on it is a much better use of our ability.

Level 15 – 20
So far Jae has an Animate/Create Undead pool that she can easily keep full (always done in desecrated grounds, of course). A small number of undeads under our command with the rebuke attempts and/or the ability to cast Command Undead from a wiz wand.
As for other thralls, Dominate Person (Domination 4), Necrotic Tumor (Clr7) and Monstrous Thrall (Godly Gift 9th) we can have a decent minionmancy thing going on.
Our last 5 levels, we dedicate to Wee Jas, again. Ruby Knight Vindicator is a 4/5 spellcasting PrC for us, full BAB meaning we reach the +16 sweetspot and we still learn useful maneuvers namely Flanking Maneuver and Order forged from Chaos. Those two put together are perfect for the minionmancer we have become. Our undeads/dominated thralls can move into tactical position (the former benefiting from Nimble Bones), they can then attack when you hit the target just afterwards.
Stance-wise, Press the Advantage doubles our 5ft step ability (even on difficult terrain) but our prized jewel granted by Martial Stance, is Aura of Perfect Order. It is useful for all kinds of things like :
to power through Spell Resistance (automatically bypassing SR 38 by ECL 20)
or to cast wizard spells from scrolls : succeeding on any 9th level spell, automatically. (DC = minimum CL +1 = 18 for a 9th level. AoPO nets a roll of 11 +7 from our effective wizard level = 18).
or when we really need to save against a debilitating effect…
Divine Recovery is really nice too ; spending a rebuke attempt as a swift action to get back the maneuver you want is a good deal.
Our capstone ability is mostly there for the joke but we do reach Cleric 13th on the casting side opening up 7th level spells and that is pretty good (Necrotic Tumor is a good one for the minionmancy thing we got going on).

Spoiler: Spells we use

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The Summon Undead line of spells benefits from Corpsecrafter/Nimble Bones which is pretty nice.
The Necrotic X line of spells, Necrotic Cyst into Domination/Tumor is a nasty combination.

Going into melee we can cast the usual Righteous Might and Divine Power. Access to AntiMagic Field can also be a game changer later game

Spoiler: Equipment

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Wis boosting items.
Circlet of Persuasion and overall Cha boosting items for turning checks

Reliquary Holy Symbol (MIC)
+1 Rebuke Attempt from 5 ranks in Know (Religion), +1 from 1 Divine feat.
Nightsticks of course (LM)

The Ruby Blade relic from Wee Jas (MIC), a Phylactery of Undead Turning (SRD) and a Scepter of Netherworld (LM) can get us up to effective Cleric 15 for commanding more/better undeads.

Spell trigger items with stuff from the wizard spell list.
Transmutation Staff is a must have because of Polymorph (and our Outsider type).
Spell completion like scrolls can be very useful in a pinch too ; A Time Stop scroll can do wonders.

Spoiler: Notes & Discussions

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Initiate of Wee Jas would have been an awesome feat to take for this build but it’s from Dr#342 so automatically banned. It’s sad really.

Monstrous Thrall.
This spell is among the worst spells ever written. I swear CD has it as Instantaneous, Draconomicon as Permanent and SC litteraly says it is permanent and yet gives it a duration… wtf WotC ?!!
If, like me, you believe text takes precedence, the spell effectively grants you permanent thrall which in turn can grant us access to SLA over 8th level which we will never get otherwise. If your DM feels it’s just an expensive dominate monster, just take Mage’s Disjunction from the Magic Domain instead since Necrotic Tumor gives us permanent minions (even though the pool is more limited).

Spoiler: Sources

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RoD - Unyielding Fate
LM - Corpsecrafter, Nimble Bones, Mother Cyst (+spells), Nightsticks, Scepter of Netherworld
Spell Compendium - Domains
SRD - Cleric
ToB - Crusader, Ruby Knight Vindicator, Maneuvers
MotP - Divine Agent, Acheron, Wee Jas
Web - Undead Intuition

[The Viscount]

I respect the formatting. (first of two parts)

Prologue

Fade in. Present-day south-west Faerun, approximately 400,000 years ago.

The faerie's oasis was dying. Summer by Summer, the pond in its midst shrank. Winter by winter, the trees died, desiccated and cold.

She tried calling for help. She was a life giver, and could not witness this death. She called upon the winds, to sent forth her words. She called upon the ground, to echo her pain. She called upon the birds and the vermin and the tiny specks of life in the sand. She breathed life into messengers, and felt their pain as they died one by one, draining her connection to the world around her, until she could call them no more.

As she laid on the sand, dying, she felt more than sorrow. She was too diminished to feel anger, but she did feel turmoil. Uncertainty. How could it have come to this? How could nature, life, give in so easily to death and dust?

Incredibly deep within her, or unfathomably far without, something answered.

One and the same.

And with that, surrender.

And blessed dark.

Fade out.





Echo

TN->NE female Spellscale Blighter 4 / Warblade 1 / Divine Agent of Velsharoon 10 / Nature's Warrior 5.

Abilities	Echo	8th	12th	14th (inherent bonuses)	16th	20th
STR	15	15	15	20	20	20
DEX	15	15	15	20	20	20
CON	8	8	8	13	13	14
INT	10	10	11	16	16	16
WIS	19	20	20	25	26	26
CHA	10	10	10	15	15	15

Spoiler: Tables

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
5th	Blighter 4 / Warblade 1	4	6	1	4	Knowledge: Religion (7), Survival (5).	Track, Natural Spell	Deforestation, Blightfire, Sustenance, Undead wildshape 2/day, Speak With Dead Animals, Battle Clarity, Weapon Aptitude.
6th	Divine Agent 1	4	6	1	6	+2 Conentration (2), +1 Knowledge: Nature (through Seeker of Unseen Words) (1), Knowledge: Religion (7), +1 Knowlede: The Planes (1), Survival (5).	Knowledge Devotion (Planes)	Granted Domain (Undeath)
7th	Divine Agent 2	5	6	1	7	+4 Conentration (6), Knowledge: Nature (1), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowlede: The Planes (1), Survival (5).	-	Contact
8th	Divine Agent 3	6	7	2	7	+2 Concentration (8), +2(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (1), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowlede: The Planes (1), Survival (5).	-	Menacing Aura, Godly Gift (Animate Dead)
9th	Divine Agent 4	7	7	2	8	Concentration 8, +2(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), +2 Knowledge: Nature (3), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (1), Survival (5).	Frozen Wild Shape	Altered Appearence
10th	Divine Agent 5	7	7	2	8	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), +4 Knowledge: Nature (7), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (1), Survival (5).	-	Commune, Plane Shift (Dweomerheart)
11th	Divine Agent 6	8	8	3	9	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), +4 Knowledge: Nature (11), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (1), Survival (5).	-	Godly Gift (Create Undead)
12th	Divine Agent 7	9	8	3	9	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), +4 Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (1), Survival (5).	Heretic of the Faith (Envy)	Plane Shift to Any Plane
13th	Divine Agent 8	10	8	3	10	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (1), +4(cc) Survival (7).	-	Audience, Alignment Shift (NE)
14th	Divine Agent 9	10	9	4	10	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (1), +4 Spellcraft (4), Survival (7).	-	Mystic Union, Godly Gift (Wish)
15th	Divine Agent 10	11	9	4	11	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), +1 Knowledge: The Planes (2), +4 Spellcraft (8), +2(cc) Survival (8).	Dragon Wild Shape	Gate
16th	Nature's Warrior 1	12	11	4	11	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), +3 Knowledge: The Planes (5), Spellcraft (8), +2 Survival (10).	-	Wildling, Wings of the Hurricane
17th	Nature's Warrior 2	13	12	4	11	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), +3 Knowledge: The Planes (8), Spellcraft (8), +2 Survival (12).	-	-
18th	Nature's Warrior 3	14	12	5	12	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), +3 Knowledge: The Planes (11), Spellcraft (8), +2 Survival (14).	Astral Tracking	Serpent's Coils
19th	Nature's Warrior 4	15	13	5	12	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), +1 Knowledge: The Planes (12), Spellcraft (8), +4 Survival (18).	-	-
20th	Nature's Warrior 5	16	13	5	12	Concentration 8, Knowledge: Arcana (1), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (1), Knowledge: Nature (15), Knowledge: Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (12), Spellcraft (8), +5 Survival (23).	-	Armor of the Crocodile

Spells/day:

Level	Orisons	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
5th	6	3	2	1	0	-	-	-	-	-
7th	6	3	3	2	1	0	-	-	-	-
9th	6	3	3	3	2	1	0	-	-	-
11th	6	4	3	3	3	2	1	0	-	-
13th	6	4	4	3	3	3	2	1	0	-
15th	6	5	4	4	4	4	3	2	1	0
17th	6	5	5	4	4	4	4	3	2	1

Echo's Journey

The room was quiet, the last resonances of dark incantations slowly dying out, replaced, again, by the silence of dead stone.

Echo looked down at her hands. Long fingers, covered by hundreds of delicate scales in every shade of green. Anyone looking from afar would simply see them as green skin.

Life, it seems, is always more complicated up close than it appeared from a bird's eye view.

She felt… Not much. There was certainly a part of her that expected more, but there was also a part of her that expected much worse. No anguish. No pain, no burning fire. That was certainly better than the alternative.

She raised her eyes again, studying the creature before her. Pits of black ash instead of eyes, tortured protruding bones. Clearly female, somehow, despite it all. Was she a fiend, an undead, or something else entirely? Echo would've probably known, if she hadn't given up so much. How much has she lost forever, when she made her choice?

She regretted nothing.

"You could've betrayed me, easily. Turned me undead, used me as nothing more than a tool, lacking any will of its own."

The clerics – spellscales, like her – shifted awkwardly, but the terrible creature in front of her did not flinch. Her voice, truly ancient, creaking like primordial restless stone, betrayed no discomfort. "We are not as dark as you think us to be, young spellscale. Undeath is an opportunity – the greatest of all – that we offer to those who seek it. Nothing more."

'Young sepllscale'? amusing, though she knew not the timeframe this thing was operating on. In a sense, of course, she was right – but still.

Echo looked back at her hands. No wounds, no hidden flaws. No sign of betrayal.

"I could leave, if I wanted to?"

"you could." the creature affirmed. "We wish you no harm. It is easy for mortals to lose sight of that which guides us: life, death – in essence, they are one and the same."

Echo looked into those ageless eyes.

"Then, I accept."

The creature smiled.

Spoiler: Level 5: A new Adventure Begins

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Echo, TN female spellscale Blighter 4 / Warblade 1

A new adventure begins! Echo has accepted a divinely mandated task from an emissary of Velsharoon. Upon the task's completion, she could join the ranks of the divine agents. At this stage, though, she is a divine gish of sorts. She has maxed Wisdom for her spells (and for tracking, which she's decent at), but also very nice Strength and Dex. Her toolkit isn't the most versatile, perhaps, and she obviously has less skill points than many of her peers, but she can still offer some versatility through her spells (up to level 4 by this point, slightly ahead of most casters), which are discussed in a spoiler tag below.

Combat-wise, besides her spells (detailed below) she has access to a few signature moves. Blightfire is a 5d6 area of effect around her as a standard action, at will. It'll taper off with time, but at this ECL it's great. It is usable while she's wild shaped – a choice she'll often make, since Natural Spell is already online, allowing her to cast to her heart's content while being in the form of a skeleton animal (weird!)

Combat is amplified by her warblade maneuvers and stance. Grappling is an attractive option due to Echo's Crushing weight of the mountain stance, Mountain Hammer does its goodness, and Mithral Tornado allows Echo to apply her singular strong bite (from many of her forms, especially with Fangs of the Vampire King mentioned in her spells below) to multiple enemies at once – an option that'll stay incredibly important throughout her entire career. Iron Heart Surge is awesome, and requires no introduction.

A note on alignment: my reading of Echo is that she's True Neutral – but with extremely high usage of Corrupt spells, some DMs might force her to change to NE. That's fine – TN has no mechanical significance here over NE, it's simply what I personally would rule Echo's alignment to be.

Spoiler: Typical spells

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This isn't a complete list of spells prepared, as that'll change. Rather, it is a discussion of her favorite spells to use. However, it should be noted that the blighter spell list is very short, and can be simply read on page 25 in Complete Divine, and all corrupt spells can be found in Book of Vile Darkness and Heroes of Horror.

Spoiler: 1st level spells

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Seething Eyebane! This spell is absolutely fantastic. It's touch range, which is just fine for Echo, and it's a pretty unfixable form of blindness. Absolutely bonkers return on investment for a first level spell. It'll often be prepared 2 or 3 times a day. The reason most casters would be more hesitant is the Constitution damage involved, but Echo is immune to that when she's in wild shape, and therefore undead.

Some other spells: Decomposition is great to prepare an instance of at this level, if you have reason to assume you'll run into large-scale battles. It's a low-investment opportunity to have a lot of impact on any large-scale encounter – it causes extra damage to enemies damaged, and with a 50 ft radius it can be effectively used when other AoE options are less effective. Ray of Enfeeblement is a classic, and will always remain a useful option to prepare. Once she starts hanging out with undead, Inflict light wounds can also be helpful – same goes for the [i[inflict spell at every level. The rest of the Blighter spell list for this level is either not great or highly situational.

Spoiler: 2nd level spells

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Another corrupt spell takes the top spot this round: fangs of the vampire king, which again has a corruption cost Echo doesn't take when wild shaped, and gives a bite attack that does constitution damage and has the equivalent of BaB 10. That obviously combos extremely well with her offensive maneuvers. The spell will remain a staple for many levels to come.

The humble Resist Elements goes ignored too often in a competition environment, and I'm shouting it out here. One of the best 2nd level spells in the game, in my opinion. Chill/Heat Metal is an encounter ender in the right circumstances. Chill Touch is sick, and usually limited to more vulnerable wizards/sorcerers. Echo goes into melee range anyway, so it's a great spell for her. As a character with a lot of standard-action options, flaming sphere might also prove occasionally useful during early levels.

Spoiler: 3rd level spells

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Dispel Magic will wear off in time as enemy CL rises, but it's fantastic early on. Poison is one of my favorites, and again a spell that's highly potent at these early stages. Desecrate is great for undead, which she can both be and raise on occasion. Vampiric Touch might get readied quite often at these levels.

As for Corrupt spells of this level: there are some weird spells this level. Rotting Curse of Urfestra is nasty, but more situational on a PC than on a villain, as it deals constitution damage every *hour*. Even nastier is Touch of Jubilex, which turns the target into goo in 4 rounds. Both can be used without repercussion in wild shape.

Spoiler: 4th level spells

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No big ticket items from the corrupt skills on this level. Before items, Echo can only prepare one 4th level spell at this level per day, which'll often be either Animate Dead or Unhallow. This level is full of gems, though: Langour is buffed up slow, Wall of Fire is great battlefield control, and Deathward and Transmute Rock/Mud to Mud/Rock are great spells.

Echo looked down at the mangled corpse beneath her. Her vision was different in bone than it was in flesh, but she saw it clearly. Beautiful, gentle, graceful, elegant. More than any mortal could be.

Everything she wasn't.

She roared, and tore into the body, again and again and again.

Taken from me!

Nothing left but blood.

"Echo! We're on the move! What in the hells are you doing!"

She growled, and moved away, skeletal toes tapping on the floor. Shame filled her. Control yourself. Accept what is.

She had a mission to do.

But within her, something ugly burned.

Spoiler: Level 10: Mortal Emissary

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Echo, TN female spellscale Blighter 4 / Warblade 1 / Divine Agent of Velsharoon 5

Into the SI! Echo has been serving Velsharoon since level 5, and became his Divine Agent immediately upon leveling up. The divinations (including contact) and plane shift (to Dweomerheart, a friendly plane that's very fun for casters) are an extremely welcomed addition to the narrow list of spells available to a blighter, granting her options she simply wouldn't be able to access otherwise. Her bonus domain, undeath, isn’t very helpful as far as spell selection, offering her Mass Inflict Light Wounds as the only spell not already on her list. It does, however, offer her extremely strong minionmancy through Godly Gift – animate dead once per day, at CL = HD, without having to pay the material components. Menacing aura is hard to optimize, but being a melee-type is helpful for it. Altered Appearance is… here.

Knowledge devotion isn't super optimized here, granted – but it is still helpful against most enemy types, and helps Echo keep up her martial prowess despite stagnating BaB. Access to iteratives is made useful even in wild shape forms due to Crushing Weight of the Mountain. Frozen Wild Shape comes along a bit late, but it's still very useful, and significantly expands the wild shape forms accessible to her. Its language means, in my opinion, that normal transformation is subsumed by the frozen shape – which would mean no undead type, which is less useful for corrupt spells but greatly expands Echo's versatility.

You might have concerns about Echo's qualification for the feat, but I believe the language of Undead Wild Shape is conclusive. Undead Wild Shape isn't "like" wild shape, and it doesn't "work as wild shape"; rather, it is wild shape.

At 3rd level, the blighter gains a version of the wild shape ability.

It's a type of wild shape. It doesn't need to "count as" wild shape for feats, because it just is.

Divine agent also advances her spellcasting. By level 7, she gains access to 5th level spells. Those include a couple of great consequence-free Corrupt spells. [i[Claws of the Bebilith[/i] to grant claws for undead shapes that lack them (the spell doesn't require arms or hands), and Power Leech lets Echo steal attribute bonuses from her enemies. Call Forth the Beast is far more situational, and probably should be avoided until Echo's alignment changes due to her class; it's not just corrupt, it truly endangers innocents. Forbidden Speech is super fun, but unfortunately sort of broken; it has a permanent duration, which corrupt spells aren't allowed to have.

This level also offers some true bangers from the blighter list: the excellent Antilife Shell (normally accessible only 4 levels ahead of her, by full casters), Create Undead (very useful, but will be replaed by an SLA from her next Godly Gift at 11), Forbiddance, and the situationally excellent Waves of Fatigue. Harm shows up here, but unfortunately the errata clarifies that it should be removed, and that the instance of it in the 6th level list is the correct one.

She does get access to Harm at level 9 though, along with the corrupt Consume likeness which is fantastic to have the benefits of the undead type while wearing a non-animal form, but unfortunately again sort of broken due to its duration. I really think they meant these to be instantaneous, otherwise they would've included a list of spells that break forbidden speech. Whatever.

Alongside Harm, the 6th level blighter list includes the always excellent Acid Fog and the incredibly underleveled Antipathy. Probably a print error, but who knows – no reference in the errata. With slots being somewhat limited, preparing Acid Fog will usually be the best bet.

Spoiler: Come on.

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Huh?

Spoiler: Don't you "Huh" me, you bastard! For the love of God, COME ON ALREADY.

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I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're so riled up about. Is it about Acid Fog?

Spoiler: Oh really? REALLY? You thought this was about Acid ****ING Fog?

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Scout's honor, that was my best guess – that's the last thing I talked about before you interrupted. What is it, then?

Spoiler: You're just going to keep playing coy? Are you really going to force me to say it?

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Say what?

Spoiler: We're half way through the build already, and you haven't explained jack.

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I thought my breakdown was very useful, actually. Is something about the tactics unclear? Or did you perhaps forget that undead are immune to ability drain and physical ability damage, which explains how Echo uses corrupt spells so casually?

Spoiler: You know what this is about.

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*Sigh*

Spoiler: Out with it, then. Come on.

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Some people's past is too painful to talk about. Can't we just let it go?

Spoiler: No, we can't. You can't pick maneuvers that require 1 or 2 Iron Heart maneuvers without first having those Iron Heart maneuvers. You can't pick a 4th level maneuver at IL 3. And most of all-

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I can't begin play as a blighter.

Spoiler: Indeed.

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Listen, I know. But they're not my secrets to share.

Spoiler: This is an optimization competition. You can't keep secrets. If you're gonna do that, just withdraw.

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I just might.

Spoiler: But that would be a shame, wouldn't it?

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It would, yeah.

Spoiler: So…

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I'll ask Echo if I can share her secrets. But please be respectful. There's a lot of anguish there.

Spoiler: I'm waiting.

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…

Spoiler: …

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…Okay. She said Okay.

Spoiler: …Show me.

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Fade in. The jungles of Chult, 1360 DR.

She awoke with a scream, the blessed dark of mindlessness ripped away like the warmth of the sands around her oasis in nightfall. Time, space, thought, reason, and memory rushed back. Dulled. Slow. Painful. Painful like this body – her own body, yet fundamentally not. Same proportions, but graceless. Same features, but crude. Same flesh, but aching and itching and burning.

And her soul ached, for she had lost something much larger. Her connection to everything that lived and breathed… was severed. More than severed, gone. As if it never was. The ground underneath her curled form did not hug her. It rejected her, pushed her away.

She wailed, her voice harsh.

The air felt wrong. Humid. Darkness enveloped her, and her eyes didn't adjust. Above her, the night sky was filled with stars, blinking faintly. So dark, so pale, that she didn't realize they were in the wrong location.

But she didn't need to realize. Every drop of her essence told her that it was not just her body that was wrong, but the world itself. She did. Not. Belong here. Her stomach riled, and she vomited strands of black ash on the ground.

She cried again, a shout of pure anguish.

Only then did she realize there were voices around her, speaking a language she didn't yet understand.

"…The poor thing is suffering, Comulus! We shouldn't have done this. Reverse it!"

"Wouldn't even if I could, Nimbus. She's alive now. Reversing the process would be murder."

Echo gasped and vomited again. Black acid and sand splashed on the ground, clinging to her body. Unclean. Vile.

"Would that really be worse than what we have done? Look at it!"

"Look at her, Nimbus! She's alive, and she carries knowledge the assembly could only dream of before!"

"We don’t know that! It could've wondered here from any desert. It's unlikely, sure, but less unlikely than whatever it is you're proposing. Besides, It doesn't even look like it can think, Comulus, let alone remember. Its mind must be fractured beyond repair."

"But something remains, Nimbus. These aren't the eyes of an animal. She can think. Something must remain. Memories from when this was a desert – before any time we can recall! Before the Ages of Thunder, before the time of Ice. Knowledge that not even the Gods hold! Will you give that chance up, however slim it may be, just to spare one being some suffering? Why did you join the Assembly, Nimbus, if not for this?"

Silence.

She heard a new sound, then, a whisper accompanied by a wave of power. She could feel it tugging at her – a memory of what was lost. Something that was once simple, everywhere, was now… weaved.

A creature leaned towards her, unlike anything she's ever seen before. A pale imitation of her form, but… animal. No innate nature, no true intent in its form. Like I am now.

"Fear not, we mean you no harm. I am Comulus of the Paragnostic Assembly, and it is my honor and joy to have returned you to consciousness. What is your name?"

Somehow, she understood his words. Carried to her by the essence of the world, in a way that was not once possible. Weave. She understood the words, yes, but her mind could not fully grasp the meaning of the last one. A request of her very being. An Identity, surmised in a word.

But how could she have an identity? She was no longer herself, no longer anything resembling herself. She wasn't even a shadow, something that reveals an entity that remains. She was just the reverberation of something already gone. She was...

Echo

TN female Nymph Druid 1, Dustform, Incarnate Construct, Blighter 4 / Warblade 1.

Abilities	32 PB	Nymph	"8th"	Dustform	Incarnate	"12th"	Spellscale Assumption
STR	15	15	15	19	19	19	15
DEX	15	21	22	20	20	20	15
CON	8	10	10	-	10	10	8
INT	8	14	14	-	10	10	10
WIS	18	24	24	24	24	25	19
CHA	8	16	16	16	16	16	10

Spoiler: Table

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HD	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Fey 1	0	0	2	2	+4 Concentration 4, +4(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (2), +4(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (2), +4(cc) Knowledge: Geography (2), +4(cc) Knowledge: Local (2), +4 Knowledge: Nature (4), +4(cc) Knowledge: The Planes (2), +4 Sruvival (4).	Apprentice (Woodswoman)	Fey type
2nd	Fey 2	1	0	3	3	+1 Concentration 5, +1(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (2.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (2.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Geography (2.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Local (2.5), +1 Knowledge: Nature (5), +1(cc) Knowledge: The Planes (2.5), +1 Sruvival (5).	-	Blinding beauty, spells, spell-like abilities, stunning glance, damage reduction 10/cold iron, low-light vision, unearthly grace, wild empathy.
3rd	Fey 3	1	1	3	3	Concentration 5, +1(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (3), +1(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (3), +1(cc) Knowledge: Geography (3), +1(cc) Knowledge: Local (3), +1 Knowledge: Nature (6), +1 Knowledge; Religion (1), +1(cc) Knowledge: The Planes (3), +1 Sruvival (6).	Knowledge Devotion (Religion)	-
4th	Fey 4	2	1	4	4	Concentration 5, +1(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (3.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (3.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Geography (3.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Local (3.5), +1 Knowledge: Nature (7), +1 Knowledge; Religion (2), +1(cc) Knowledge: The Planes (3.5), +1 Sruvival (7).	-	-
5th	Fey 5	2	1	4	4	Concentration 5, +1(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (4), +1(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (4), +1(cc) Knowledge: Geography (4), +1(cc) Knowledge: Local (4), +1 Knowledge: Nature (8), +1 Knowledge; Religion (3), +1(cc) Knowledge: The Planes (4), +1 Sruvival (8).	-	-
6th	Fey 6	3	2	5	5	Concentration 5, +1(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (4.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (4.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Geography (4.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: History (0.5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Local (4.5), +1 Knowledge: Nature (9), +1 Knowledge; Religion (4), +1(cc) Knowledge: The Planes (4.5), Sruvival (8).	Martial Study: Wall of Blades	LA +7
7th	Fey 7	3	2	5	5	Concentration 5, +1(cc) Knowledge: Arcana (5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), +1(cc) Knowledge: Geography (5), +1(cc) Knowledge: History (1), +1(cc) Knowledge: Local (5), +1 Knowledge: Nature (10), +1 Knowledge; Religion (5), +1(cc) Knowledge: The Planes (5), Sruvival (8).	-	Advance HD
8th	Fey 8	4	2	6	6	Concentration 5, Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), +8(cc) Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), Knowledge; Religion (5), Knowledge: The Planes (5), Sruvival (8).	-	Advance HD
9th	Druid 1	4	4	6	8	+6 Concentration (11), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), Knowledge; Religion (5), Knowledge: The Planes (5), Sruvival (8).	Craft Wonderous Item	Urban Companion, nature sense
8th	Druid 1	4	2	6	6	-6 Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), Knowledge; Religion (5), Knowledge: The Planes (5), Sruvival (8).	Craft Wonderous Item	Urban Companion, nature sense
8th	Dustform	4	2	6	6	Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), Knowledge; Religion (5), Knowledge: The Planes (5), Sruvival (8).		Gain: Construct type, LA +2 (9), Natural Armor +5, Slam Attack, Breath Weapon, Blindsight, Hide Bonus. Lose: Fey Type, Int Score, Con Score, blinding beauty, spells, spell-like abilities, stunning glance
8th	Incarnate Construct	4	6	2	2	Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), Knowledge; Religion (5), Knowledge: The Planes (5), Sruvival (8).	-	Humanoid Type (recalculate saves), LA -2 (7), Int 10, Con 10, speed 30. NA reduced to 2, lose all special qualities and attacks.
9th	Blighter 1	4	8	2	4	Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), Knowledge; Religion (5), Knowledge: The Planes (5), +2 Sruvival (10).	Track	Deforestation, join the paragnostic assembly
10th	Blighter 2	5	9	2	5	Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), +1 Knowledge; Religion (6), Knowledge: The Planes (5), +1 Sruvival (11).	-	Blightfire, Sustenance
11th	Blighter 3	6	9	3	5	Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), +1 Knowledge; Religion (7), Knowledge: The Planes (5), +1 Sruvival (12).	-	Undead Wild Shape
12th	Blighter 4	7	10	3	6	Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), +1 Knowledge; Religion (8), Knowledge: The Planes (5), +1 Sruvival (13).	Natural Spell	Speak with Dead Animal
13th	Warblade 1	8	12	3	6	Concentration (5), Knowledge: Arcana (5), Knowledge: Dungeoneering (5), Knowledge: Geography (5), Knowledge: History (5), Knowledge: Local (5), Knowledge: Nature (10), +4 Knowledge; Religion (12), Knowledge: The Planes (5), Sruvival (13).	-	Battle Clarity, Weapon Aptitude
5th	Ritual of spellscale assumption	4	6	1	4	-Everything but the points added in the last 5 levels: Knowledge: religion 7, Survival 5.	Apprentice, Knowledge Devotion, Martial Study	Lose all HD, La, racial traits, replace with spellscale

Spoiler: Nymph

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Echo was once a nymph, powerful and proud. She advanced by 2 HD, and then took a level of druid with the Urban Companion ACF, granting her a familiar. In the prologue, she de-leveled from creating and losing familiar after familiar – but mechanically, if she was to need more than the loss of XP from a single dismissed familiar to go back a level, she could just craft a wonderous item – either normally for use, or even a cheap one while replacing gp with xp. While crafting cannot make you lose a level, losing/dismissing a familiar certainly can – but it's also an extremely efficient way to lose a level, being both under your complete control and making sure that you lose a minimal amount of XP, going back to being right on the cusp of leveling back up. Much better than anything else that'd lose you a level.

This lost level, of course, makes her an ex-druid. "Ex-druid", isn't a keyword, a class; One can plainly see that by the fact that the example blighter in Complete Divine is still signified as a druid. It is a case of natural language – someone who was once a druid, and is no longer. If it helps, you can imagine it as her breaking her vows once she's within the XP range for the level – losing her features would mean her familiar would walk out on her, causing the level loss.

Soon after deleveling, Echo adds the Dustform acquired template – and after that (400,000 years in the story, but mechanically might as well be immediately) she becomes an incarnate construct. The Viscount instructed me that incarnate construct sets her non-abilities to 10. Other than that, the only issue is the line claiming that an incarnate construct "has no feats" upon becoming humanoid.

In my opinion, that is clearly a strictly descriptive piece of text, not prescriptive. An incarnate construct does not "lose" feats, he simply gains none for the construct hd he had (which usually would not have feats) just like the skills paragraph.

Upon becoming an incarnate construct, Echo loses all of her previous features – including her natural druid spellcasting. She is now an ex-druid previously capable of casting 3rd level druid. With a +4 BaB from her HD, she now fully qualifies to become a blighter.

She wailed in frustration, as the weave slipped away from her grasp again. She gathered all knowledge she could about this world, delving deeper and deeper into the archives of the Assembly, trying to adapt her understandings to a world that was eons removed from her own, in the hope that with better understanding, she could again grasp what she once had.

Her body still hurt. She learned to function, but it tortured her clouded mind. The creatures – humans – around her kept insisting that she was fine, that her mind was just as sharp as theirs. Their dull, dull minds.

She headed outside, to the garden. It calmed her still, even though it mocked her in its distance, emptiness. She reached out to it, could almost feel it, but… nothing. Should she go back to her books? Distraction. That's all she had. Better than death, probably. Maybe.

Maybe not.

And suddenly, she remembered. Her last moments. Pain, desiccation, fear. Life giving way to death.

And a fundamental truth.

One and the same.

She inhaled, sharply. All around her, things died. Plants, vermin, the tiny specks of life in the ground. And within her, something bloomed.

After years of emptiness, sweet magic coursed through her veins again.

She screamed in joy, tears bursting from her small red eyes.

One and the same.

Spoiler: Blighter

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After years as an acolyte in the assembly, Echo has made the breakthrough. She takes four levels as a blighter and one as a warblade, utilizing the knowledge devotion (religion) feat from her fey HD to take it as a class skill in these levels. Upon becoming a warblade, her IL is 7 – enough to qualify for all her maneuvers. Her familiarity with Wall of Blades from her martial study qualifies her for Iron Heart surge, which qualifies her for Mithral Tornado. Once she has both, she'd self-qualify even without Wall of Blades. That free maneuver allows her to pick Mountain Hammer, which allows her to take Crushing Weight of the Mountain – which as you remember, is a very useful stance for a wild-shape user.

During these levels, with high HD, many years of experience, and plenty of knowledge skills, it's trivial for Echo to reach affiliation score 16 and above within the assembly, and she takes knowledge (nature) as her permanent class skill.

That final warblade level brings her BaB to +8. It's time.

If she was human, her mouth would grow dry as she stepped deeper into the monastery. It was always dry, though, her tongue laying like a burning strip of sandpaper between coarse lips. The disciples walking her down the dark corridor radiated hostility, and a chill ran down her spine as she felt unseen eyes watching her every move. She came this far. She will not falter.

She stepped into the main hall. An altar, priests. A throne of bones, and upon it, a strange being of ash and protruding bone.

"What brings you here?" The voice creaked.

How could she answer succinctly? Years of research. Pain, sorrow, loneliness. A yearning for change, for knowledge, for… redemption. And a dogma that echoed words spoken half a million years ago. "The disciples of Velsharoon believe life and death are the twin faces of eternal existence".

"I have heard that you offer undeath, to those who wish to remain. That you do not fear change and monstrosity. My body is a blight upon my soul. Every moment is pain.

"I seek not undeath yet, though I know it well.

"I seek salvation."

The creature on the throne leaned forward. "And what, ancient one, would you be willing to give in return?"

Her body ached. Her mind was clouded. Her connection severed.

"Anything."

Spoiler: Assumption

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The moment she gets her warblade level, Echo is ready to go through the ritual of spellscale assumption. The prerequisite is "any willing humanoid" – and as a medium sized incarnate construct, she's a humanoid.

The mechanics of assumption lose all of her racial traits. They also remove all LA, HD and associated skill ranks and feats – which is why she didn't pick feats based on usefulness, but based on what they offered her for the levels she did keep (maneuver qualifications and class skills).

At the end of the rite, Echo is a spellscale blighter 4 / warblade 1. She still qualifies for blighter, as an ex-druid previously capable of casting druid spells. She doesn't have as many skill points as many characters, since she lost all skill points associated with her fey HD, and nowhere do the rules give her back the extra skill points of level 1. She keeps only the skill points she actually took in those levels (7 in K. religion, 5 in survival), and the feats she selected during these levels (Track and Natural spell).

This is the version of Echo you were presented with at the beginning of the build.

Please note: this isn't some "my allip was X when it was alive" stuff. This isn't just backstory. No one died. No mechanical breakpoints. There's a single character here, playable throughout, using completely legal and constantly playable templates and a rite, to slowly turn from a nymph druid 1 to a spellscale blighter 4/ warblade 1. It's one character, which could theoritecally be played throughout in one playthrough.

And away we go. A new adventure begins!

The room was quiet, the last resonances of dark incantations slowly dying out, replaced, again, by the silence of dead stone.

Echo looked down at her hands. Long fingers, covered by hundreds of delicate scales in every shade of green. Anyone looking from afar would simply see them as green skin.

Life, it seems, is always more complicated up close than it appeared from a bird's eye view.

[The Viscount]

The second of two parts, or, if you will [ducks sudden volley of tomatoes].

Echo stared at the mirror. The face that stared back did not feel like it belonged to her. It was familiar, by now, but not yet hers. Gentle scales became gentler, the greenish tint more prominent. Horns dominated her features, curling above her hairline.

Shaksa stood behind her, observing. She was a beautiful specimen of a human. Perfectly smooth black skin, large, brown eyes, hair in perfect dense curls. She was funny, clever, and beautiful – and Echo's friend. "What's on your mind, Echo?" she asked.

She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was cool, measured. "I've struggled for a long time, Shaksa, to come to terms with the life that's been given to me. To appreciate the gifts I've been given, to seek a better way forward, to not be held back by memories of the past. To seek knowledge of life and death, as our young God guides us."

Shaksa layed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "And you're finding it harder."

"No. It's always been hard. Always been impossible."

"What changed, then?"

Echo turned around, a smile of true relief on her face. "I've given up". She struck.

A moment later, a skeletal feline creature was hunched on top of the dead body, eating its flesh as corrupt magic flowed through the room. Its form shifted is it rose, and Echo stood there, looking in the mirror. Perfect, smooth, black skin. White teeth, large eyes. Echo raised a hand, slowly caressing her tight curles. She whispered one word.

"Mine."

Spoiler: Level 15: Envy.

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Echo, NE female spellscale Blighter 4 / Warblade 1 / Divine Agent of Velsharoon 10.

Back to business! Levels 11-15 are the second half of the SI, and they fly by fast and furious. We'll go through them one by one. As mentioned earlier, the second iteration of Godly Gift brings forth free Create Undead. That spell really cares about your CL, so it's great that the ability links that to Echo's HD. This level also opens up 7th level spells. Death by Thorns is one of the biggest "go to hell" spells in the game, killing up to 3 creatures immediately if they fail a save, and still incapacitating them for 1d4 rounds if they succeed. As usual, she casts it when in an undead form. From the blighter list, Control Undead slaps for someone who creates so many of them, in desecrated, unhallowed grounds. Rest are more blasty, and not as impressive, so Echo usually prepares one oggthe two above.

At level 12, plane shift to any plane is obviously great, a crucial spell that's not at all accessible to normal blighters. This level also replaces Undeath domain with Envy through the Heretic of the Faith feat. You can read the fluff to gather where Echo is coming from, but this is an incredibly easy justification either way; Envy was added as a domain in Dragon Magazine, and that article (the only source for Gods with the Envy domain) has Velsharoon as one of the gods offering it. RAW, echo still needs Heretic of the Faith for the competition, but fluff-wise, Velsharoon is a perfect fit – which is why her heresy is not presented as too radical.

Undeath was awesome for Echo as it granted her tremendously useful Godly Gifts, but it had the downside of being largely redundant for her normal casting, and it granted her a dead bonus feat. Envy, however, grants her access to many excellent spells, radically broadening her arsenal: Disguise Self, Magic Jar and Limited Wish are all excellent spells.

Level 13. Listen, Audience is just commune. Being longer is nice, but it's 26 times rarer. It's not going to be much different. Alignment finally shifting to NE, if it hasn't already, means Echo's cruel streak took full control. She's envious of everything she no longer has, and is ready and willing to punish the world for it. Spellwise, evil weather and Plauge of Nightmares are very evocative but situational at best. The rest of the spells she gets this level – Mind Blank, Waves of Exhaustion, and Horrid wilting – are all bangers, especially Shambler. It's a crazy good 9th level druid spell, and accessing it at level 13 sure is nice. Envy offers Simulacrum another one of the top spells of 3.5.

Level 14, however, is when Echo breaks the game.

The newly NE Echo gets Mystic Union and the third instance of Godly Gift. Admittedly, Mystic Union doesn't get utilized that much. Having DR is nice (and having an NE god means it's harder to beat than a more extreme alignment), and losing humanoid with its vulnerabilities is a net benefit, but nothing more is abused. Godly Gift, however, gets Wish.

Now, unless this is one of the first entries in the line-up, I find it difficult to believe that you haven't yet encountered the concept of free wishes – and so, if you feel like you have a good grasp on how that works and what it can achieve, you can skip this part, in which I'll explain the utility and power of a free wish. I'd recommend staying though.

Wish is obviously the best spell/power/anything really in the game. It usually has an xp cost. Spell-like-abilities have no xp or material costs, and so, free wish. Once per day.

You may think that's great, but no more than that. Allow me to contest that view. See, you may think SLA wish is about as good as Ring of Three Wishes, except it's daily.

It's much better than that.

A Scroll of Wish, or a Ring of Three Wishes, has a pre-paid XP cost. That means there's a strong argument to be made that you can't use it for anything that costs more XP than 5,000, since that was not the version of the spell cast by the creator.

SLA doesn't have that issue. You can cast wish to create any epic +20 armor you'd like (with a wildling clasp, of course), any +20 melee weapon you'd like, any +20 ranged weapon you'd like, any +20 shield (Animated, obviously), a +10 amulet of natural attacks (I think there's no official epic version, I could be wrong) and any and all crazy expensive magic items. WBL can break the game, and Echo has access to any and every non-artifact item in the game. Not sure what to create? Well, Echo can always go for the aforementioned Ring of Three Wishes! She won't be creating any new equipment through those, but she will be using them for any other wish-activity. She creates a couple of those in two days, and can cast wishes repeatedly to give herself a +5 inherent bonus to an ability – and still have a wish remaining! That's way faster than doing it with tomes, though if you have the time do that and save up more wishes. Once she's done all of those, and decked herself out in items, she just casts it for a new ring every day, giving herself and her friends a ton of available wishes when those are needed.

I could go for pages and pages detailing the power of magic items. Assume standard caster and martial stuff, epic versions if those exist – except a lot of immunities are already covers through one of Echo's types. A couple of specifically useful items are Gloves of Man (gives hands in wild shape), Wild Shape Amulet (ups the effective level for wild shape by four), and Epic scrolls of Echo's top spells with every metamagic option in the world stuck on top.

Speaking of top spells, I know everything else seems less impressive once Echo reaches godhood, but she does keep advancing. At level 15, on top of gate (which is great for calling allies without paying the xp cost, as well as traveling the planes) she gets a few nice spells. Antipathy shows up again – but unlike Harm, it was not addressed in the errata, so she's had It for a while. Implosion is probably the nicest of the list, but Foresight can be useful for paranoids.

Apocalypse from the Sky is the most powerful corrupt spell there is, and she's totally immune to its costs when she's undead. It takes a day to cast – but a wish can make a scroll of it with maximized, empowers, fell drain, fell animate, etc. Corrupt and Enervate to feel less of the consequences, and she might as well heighten it a couple dozen times for extra oomph while she's at it. You get the idea.

With a standard action, Echo could destroy anything within miles and miles and miles.

Now, Echo is not some CE psycho. She's obviously not going to destroy entire civilizations.

Not as long as they're nice to her, that is.

Echo sat upon a throne. Before her, masses were bowing down. Bards, to her sides, praised her, telling of her magnificent deeds. It was good. But then –

"…Our magnificent ruler, still a humble servant of Velsharoon, struck down that threat! She was…"

The bard's words were cut short is she rose, killing him with a gesture. People panicked, screamed and ran as her power raged, and they died in droves. Underneath the likeness, she was skeletal, but she could still sense the bitter taste of envy in her mouth. Humble Servant? Her magic raged, and death surrounded her.

Finally, as the screams of the dying made way for perfect silence, she made her decision. She didn't need to move a finger. Behind the throne, a gate gaped open. Behind it a dark stairwell, descending to the deepest parts of the Dweomerheart. She stepped in.

Why be a queen, when you can be a god?

The End

Spoiler: Level 20: The Journey after The Journey

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Echo, NE female spellscale Blighter 4 / Warblade 1 / Divine Agent of Velsharoon 10 / Nature's Warrior 5

In Chult culture, where Echo assimilated, there's a saying very commonly used by abnoxious teenage girls for their friends' birthdays: "What could you possibly wish for a girl that has it all?"

Well, there's still more to be done! I didn't mention it last section, since it didn't fit the flow, but at level 15 Echo also got Dragon Wild Shape, further expanding her options. From there, she goes to Nature's Warrior, which advances her wild shape (bringing it to level 9's huge forms by the end, the peak of Blighter's advancement), Makes her fly faster as a dragon, gives her more damage when using Crushing Weight of the Mountain, increases her Natural Armor for all forms by 5, and finishes out her spell progression. She also tops up her survival and gets astral tracking – backing up her class-granted transportation abilities, and meaning that any foe that manages to avoid her divinations is much easier prey.

Divine agent gave Echo free undead summons, expanded the versatility of her limited spell list with SLAs that would never be possible for her to get otherwisee, let her get full casting including simulacrum and limited wish, and gave her unlimited power – and did that with enough resources still open to let her fully deck out her wild shape.

Spoiler: Sources outside the SRD

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Baseline	Sources
Spellscale	Races of the Dragon 23
Blighter	Complete Divine 23
Warblade	Tome of Battle 20
Nature's Warrior	Complete Warrior 63

Features	Sources
Knowledge Devotion	Complete Champion 60
Frozen Wild Shape	Frostburn 48
Heretic of the Faith	Power of Faerun 46
Dragon Wild Shape	Draconomicon 105
Astral Tracking	Dragon Compendium 92
Apprentice	Dungeon Master Guide's II 175
Martial Study	Tome of Battle 31
Mithral Tornado	Tome of Battle 69
Wall of Blades	Tome of Battle 70
Iron Heart Surge	Tome of Battle 68
Mountain Hammer	Tome of Battle 84
Crushing Weight of the Mountain	Tome of Battle 82

Misc	Sources
Call Forth the Beast	Heroes of Horror 127
Rest of Corrupt Spells	Book of Vile darkness
Epic Magic Items	Epic Level Handbook 125 / SRD
Dustform	Sandstorm 161
Incarnate Construct	Savage Species 120
Wildling Clasp	Magic Item Compendium 190
Gloves of Man	Savage Species 57
Velsharoon	Faiths & Pantheons 110
Dweomerheart	Player's Guide to Faerun 151
Wild Shape Amulet	Magic of Faerun 167
Domains	Spell Compendium
Paragnostic Assembly	Complete Champion 72

[The Viscount]

Always a fun time when we get to break out Mahasarpa

Navtej, Devav Asura



CE -> NG Abyssal Skulker Brahmin 3 / Fiend of Possession 1 / Divine Agent 3 / Fiend of Blasphemy 2 / Divine Agent +7

Spoiler: Backstory

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Wretched, we were! Wretchedly we crawled through Naraka, fleeing those Asura stronger than ourselves, tormenting what sinners we could. But where the sinners were here temporarily, part of the cycle of Samsara and chained to eventual rebirth, our life was a timeless, ageless one, and we had never known a place other than this.

What drove us to leave Naraka? A sinner's prayer, uttered in the moments of respite her tortures afforded her. The sinner passed in time - but her words lingered. It intrigued us - that a mortal so wicked, so immersed in agony, so beyond help or salvation, would still think it useful to beg to some power. Did that not imply that the name she invoked was powerful enough to reach her here? More powerful, then, than even the greatest Asura? And if so, would it not be both prudent and rewarding to find that power, and offer our own allegiance?

Naraka is bound on all sides by tall trees, so close and old that they are like a tall wooden wall. The branches are tangled like a woven mat, and the roots likewise, and so no escape is possible for the sinners trapped within. But we are small and crafty, and learned much of this place in our eternal existence, and so we knew of a narrow passage, too small for mortal-kind but big enough for us, and forced our way through.

Through there, we entered the spirit world, whose denizens we too feared and avoided, for who would care about the life of the merest Asura? I wandered its tallest peaks and deepest valleys, its steppes and swamps and forests. We lurked about its cursed places and gazed upon wondrous palaces, but to what end? We refused to admit we were ignorant, and did not know the nature of the being we sought, and if we did, would have no way to gain audience.

But oh! Blessed is the universe, so rich with chance and fortune! We were found by a mortal - a mortal, of all things! A strange man, a holy man, who had not yet died but walked among the spirits. He showed neither fear nor anger at our sight, but merely said he knew of us, and had been sent to meet with us, so we could offer our servitude to the one we sought. He said there would be tests of resolve, and lessons to be learned. And he said that there was a world beyond this world - a world of time and change, the home of mortals and the place they were reborn into, and it was there that we would be tested. And having said this, he grasped our claw, and bodily took us into the mortal world.

Of our wanderings on that world, we will not speak. We learned, yes, but our nature was a cruel and selfish one, and even when we did good with one hand, we would often do evil with another. Even when our hidden master showed itself - herself -, when her voice came to us bright and clear, we still struggled, still acted against her will, still failed and sought redemption and failed again. And so we struggled, aimlessly, like a near-sighted man grasping for his glasses.

And then, like that man, once we had succeeded, the search itself seemed pitifully simple.

Clarity! Understanding! Enlightenment! Our inborn evil undone, meaningless in the end. A rebirth-without-death, our mind opened, the nature of virtue plain before us. The myth of singularity, dissolved: like all things are one, and one thing is many, so we are many! We are the turning wheel and the flow within it!

We are Navtej, born in darkness, risen to the light, Asura-become-Deva, and eternal servant of the primordial lady.

Spoiler: "The world of spirits is a reflection of our own." "What is reflecting it?"

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This is a build for the Mahasarpa setting, a web enhancement to Oriental Adventures that gives an example of an Indian/Indonesian-flavored setting compared to the default Japanese-flavored one. The mechanical content of this enhancement includes a few new magic items, a few monsters, a slight tweak to OA's human clans, a pair of domains for the setting's Brahmins (shamans), and a strong contender for the Most Restricted Spell in the Game, available only to an obscure variant of an unupdated 3.0 class.

But enough about the enhancement: our ingredient is from MotP, so let's talk about planes.

Oriental Adventures settings (of which Mahasarpa is simply an atypical example), do not have the usual gamut of planes. Instead (OA page 206), the cosmology includes four realms: the material, the ethereal, the plane of shadow, and the spirit world (which stands in for the astral with regards to spells that interact with those).

The Spirit World is a single plane that contains within itself 'great palaces of [powerful spirits], as well as unique heavens and hells'. It is coexistent with the material and ethereal, just like how the ethereal and material are coexistent with each other (that is, they 'overlap' with a one-to-one correspondence in location). All divine spells cast in the spirit world are automatically Extended and Empowered, and a creature on the ethereal can additionally shift over to the spirit world with mental focus alone.

Mahasarpa does not modify these general rules in any way.

Spoiler: "For all things, there is a god." "Even gods?"

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Clerics operate in a pseudo-polytheistic cosmology. They choose a single deity to worship, who restricts their alignment and domain choices, and are not considered to venetrate any other gods.

Shamans operate in an animistic cosmology and draw their power from the spirits that inhabit every place or object. Their alignment is unrestricted, and their domains represent 'individual spirits with which you have a special relationship'. If viewed as an implicitly OA-only class (the way the mystic is implicitly dragonlance-only and the artificer is implicitly eberron-only), they do not co-exist with an cosmology featuring patron deities. If imported to other settings,

Brahmins are kind of in-between, as the Mahasarpa setting itself explains. They are animistic "as described in Oriental Adventures", but at the same time "they offer special devotion to certain devas, which are spirits who definitely qualify as deities in the D&D sense of the term". The setting mentions Brahmins 'of' particular devas, and mentions one such deva 'granting access' to a particular domain. However, this specifically is not an exclusive worship: "no character (even a Brahmin) chooses a single deity as a patron and mostly ignores the others".

Squaring this circle: Brahmins do have a patron deity in the D&D sense of the term, which does have the traits associated with such a deity (domains, favored weapon, alignment). At the same time, their Brahmin domains can be drawn from individual spirits as much as their patron. PCs are by nature exceptional, so this matters less for them (a PC who wants the Hero and Ancestor domains can just declare they have a special relationship with some spirits granting those), but NPCs presumably draw from their deity's pool more often.

No detailed rules are given for any specific deities in the Mahasarpa setting. However, given the number of divinities that are implied by lore (consistent with the variety contained within real-life Hinduism), I think that it is reasonable to assume there exists a god for any combination of domains and alignments that does not inherently contradict itself. And truth be told, we won't even have to go that far.

Spoiler: "The absolute merely appears to possess attributes." "Isn't that an attribute?"

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We need a deity with the following traits at minimum:
-Trickery domain
-One domain out of Domination, Inquisition, Fate, Nobility, Tyranny, or Charm

And ideally, one of those as well:
-Good alignment
-One domain out of Community, Family, or Mind

Given these factors and the implied multitude of gods, I do not think these requirements should be hard to fulfill. One particularly likely candidate would be based on Lakshmi, goddess of Maya (magic, phantasm, illusion) as well as nobility, wealth, prosperity, good fortune, motherhood, beauty, knowledge, and power. The light festival of Diwali, which you might've heard of, is connected to her as well.

Spoiler: Build

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Pointbuy: 8 STR/12 DEX/12 CON/12 INT/16 WIS/16 CHA
Racial: +4 dex, +2 con, +2 int, +4 wis, -2 cha
ASIs: 2 in wisdom, then 2 in charisma.
Final: 8 STR/16 DEX/14 CON/14 INT/22 WIS/16 CHA

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
4th	Abyssal Skulker (2 RHD, 2 LA)	+2	+3	+3	+3	Bluff +5 (5), Disguise +4cc (2), Diplomacy +5 (5), Hide +5 (5), Knowledge (Religion) +4cc (2), Knowledge (Arcana) +4cc (2), Listen +5 (5), Move Silently +5 (5), Spot +2 (2), Survival +5 (5), Use Magic Device +4cc (2), Listen to This	Darkstalker	Outsider traits, Tanar'ri traits
5th	Brahmin 1	+2	+5	+3	+5	Bluff 5, Disguise 2, Diplomacy +1 (6), Hide +2cc (6), Knowledge (Arcana) +3 (5), Knowledge (Religion) 2, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 2, LTT	Mindsight, Improved Unarmed StrikeB	Animal Companion, Domains (Divination, Envy), Unarmed Strike
6th	Brahmin 2	+3	+6	+3	+6	Bluff 5, Disguise 2, Diplomacy +1 (7), Hide 6, Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (6), Knowledge (Religion) +4 (6), Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 2, LTT	-	Spirit Sight
7th	Brahmin 3	+4	+6	+4	+6	Bluff 5, Disguise 2, Diplomacy +1 (8), Hide 6, Knowledge (Arcana) +2 (8), Knowledge (Religion) +2 (8), Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft +1 (1), Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 2, LTT	-	Turn or Rebuke Undead
8th	Fiend of Possession 1	+4	+8	+6	+8	Bluff +2 (7), Disguise 2, Diplomacy +1 (9), Hide +3 (9), Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 8, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 1, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 2, LTT	Goad	Etherealness, Hide Presence, Possess Object
9th	Divine Agent 1	+4	+8	+6	+10	Bluff +3 (10), Disguise 2, Diplomacy +1 (10), Hide 9, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) +2 (10), Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 1, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 2, LTT	-	Domain (Trickery)
10th	Divine Agent 2	+5	+8	+6	+6	Bluff +1 (11), Disguise 2, Diplomacy +1 (11), Hide +2 (11), Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 1, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +2 (4), LTT	-	Contact
11th	Divine Agent 3	+6	+9	+7	+11	Bluff +1 (12), Disguise +1 (3), Diplomacy +1 (12), Hide +1 (12), Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 1, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +2 (6), LTT	(Leadership)	Godly Gift (Divination)
12th	Fiend of Blasphemy 1	+6	+11	+9	+13	Bluff +1 (13), Disguise 3, Diplomacy +1 (13), Hide 12, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft +2 (3), Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 6, LTT	-	Blood Oath, Locate Cultist, Undetectable Alignment, Domains (Community, Nobility)
13th	Fiend of Blasphemy 2	+7	+12	+10	+14	Bluff +1 (14), Disguise +1 (4), Diplomacy +1 (14), Hide 12, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft +1 (4), Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 6, LTT	-	Transfer Spell-Like Ability
14th	Divine Agent 4	+8	+12	+10	+15	Bluff +1 (15), Disguise +2 (6), Diplomacy +1 (15), Hide 12, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 4, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +2 (8), LTT	Practiced Spellcaster (Fiend of Blasphemy)	Altered Appearance
15th	Divine Agent 5	+8	+12	+10	+15	Bluff +1 (16), Disguise 6, Diplomacy +1 (16), Hide +4 (16), Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 4, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device 8, LTT	-	Commune, Plane Shift (Spirit World)
16th	Divine Agent 6	+9	+13	+11	+16	Bluff 16, Disguise +2 (8), Diplomacy +1 (17), Hide 16, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 4, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +3 (11), LTT	Trickery DevotionB	Godly Gift (Geas), give up Trickery Domain
17th	Divine Agent 7	+10	+13	+11	+16	Bluff 16, Disguise +2 (10), Diplomacy +1 (18), Hide 16, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) 10, Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 4, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +3 (14), LTT	Boost Spell-Like Ability	Plane Shift (any)
18th	Divine Agent 8	+11	+13	+11	+17	Bluff 16, Disguise 10, Diplomacy +1 (19), Hide 16, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) +2 (12), Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 4, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +3 (17), LTT	-	Audience, Alignment Shift
19th	Divine Agent 9	+11	+14	+12	+17	Bluff 16, Disguise 10, Diplomacy +1 (20), Hide 16, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) +2 (14), Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 4, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +3 (20), LTT	-	Mystic Union, Godly Gift (Wish)
20th	Divine Agent 10	+12	+14	+12	+18	Bluff 16, Disguise 10, Diplomacy +1 (21), Hide 16, Knowledge (Arcana) 8, Knowledge (Religion) +4 (18), Listen 5, Move Silently 5, Spellcraft 4, Spot 2, Survival 5, Use Magic Device +1 (21), LTT	Exalted Companion	Gate

Spoiler: Spells

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Brahmin Spells per Day

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd
5th	3	3+1	-	-
6th	4	4+1	-	-
7th	4	4+1	2+1	-
10th	5	5+1	4+1	-
14th	5	5+1	4+1	2+1

Sample prepared spells:
0: CMW, CMW, Detect Magic, Detect Magic, Read Magic
1: Speak With Animals, Summon Nature's Ally I, Trance, Weapon Bless, Weapon Bless (Disguise Self)
2: Lesser Restoration, Protection from Spirits, Remove Paralysis, Warning (Ray of Enfeeblement)
3: That Art Thou, Tongues (Touch of Idiocy)

Fiend of Blasphemy Spells per Day:

Level	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
12th	2+1	-	-	-	-
13th	3+1	2+1	-	-	-
16th	3+1	3+1	1+1	-	-
18th	3+1	3+1	2+1	1+1	-
20th	4+1	3+1	2+1	2+1	1+1

Sample prepared spells:
1: Command, Command, Detect Evil, Protection from Evil (Bless)
2: Hold Person, Silence, Silence (Shield Other)
3: Deeper Darkness, Magic Circle Against Evil (Prayer)
4: Death Ward, Sending (Discern Lies)
5: True Seeing (Telepathic Bond)


Just to confirm what the above tables imply: we increase our brahmin caster level at divine agent 2 and 4, and increase our Fiend of Blasphemy level at divine agent 6, 8, and 10.

Spoiler: Spotlights

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ECL 5:
I'll be honest: we're not a capable combatant at this level; 3 HD and +2 BAB will see to that. We are, however, a perfect scout, with high wisdom and dexterity, small size, Darkstalker, and Mindsight. Divinations from our Brahmin side (cast at CL 3) further help us out - be sure to check out the really weird Trance! Also, we at least bring a wolf to combat, which is really losing steam by level 5 but still relevant (note you can ride the same wolf to up your natural 40 speed to 50).

Note that we're taking the Envy domain from the spell compendium, which per page 4 of that book is open to OA shamans (and thus brahmins) to take.

ECL 10
With Fiend of Possession, we're now capable of using Etherealness at-will, taking ourselves and our allies into the ethereal plane - and from there into the spirit world if need be, per OA's unique cosmology. The ability's scouting potential cannot be overstated either, and note that Spirit Sight lets us check whether the ethereal is clear before we leap there! Also: anything we cast in the Spirit World will be Extended and Empowered: just putting that out there.

Possessing objects is nice but not the main reason we entered the class, though there's good synergy with our Hide and Hide Presence.

Goad is yet another way of trying to create -some- kind of combat niche for ourselves. Baiting a foe into swinging at you (triggering Aura of Menace) and then turning ethereal as a readied action is actually kind of funny, and can easily waste most of two turns for an enemy. Also make sure to ask your DM whether telepathically goading someone 'requires no physical action', because in that case you can do it while possessing the cleric's adamantine belt buckle. Even if you don't turn ethereal, small size, good dexterity, and heavy armor should make you pretty hard to hit, especially once you get Deeper Darkness and walk around with permanent concealment, so Aura of Menace will pretty commonly stick around.

Divine Agent gives us the Trickery domain, expanding its own list with Bluff and Hide. We then continue investing in the knowledge (religion) needed to get in, as that prerequisite will be doing double-duty. Contact is... well, it's contact, it's not meant to be useful. The class also gives us heavy armor, which we have no reason not to wear, so that's nice! Also note that the class innately offers Use Magic Device and Disguise - the latter will be quite useful when we get Disguise Self as a spell and will also help us if we ever decide to create some Simulacra.

ECL 15
A little magic tax structuring: Divine Agent 3 gives us 'a spell of 3rd level or lower' from one of our domains as a SLA. We pick Divination, which is a 3rd-level spell for the Divination domain. However, when determining SLA level equivalency for non-sorc/wiz spells, "use cleric, druid, bard, paladin, and ranger, in that order". So our Divination SLA is equivalent to a 4th-level spell, which is a requirement we need to meet!

(Having Divination as a SLA is pretty neat in itself: it gets around the material component or the 10-minute casting time, making it a lot more practical to use in a pinch, and pegging CL to HD gets its reliability up by a solid chunk)

Requirement for what? Fiend of Blasphemy, which gives us some fast-track casting, the ability to induce other PCs into our cult and locate them, and immunity to magical alignment detection. It's also one of the few divine casting classes that gives you two domains, which is going to help us in a bit.

But back to Divine Agent. Altered Appearance at level 4 is another ribbon, but I'd like to note that as a demon, a lot of people are going to want to kill us on sight, and bearing a clear sign of the favor of our (good-aligned) deity might give some people pause - this is useful before and after our alignment shift all the same, the only question is whether we'll be following up with Bluff or Diplomacy checks.

Anyway, let's talk about Transfer SLA. The intended use is pretty obvious: you give up uses of your SLAs and bestow them on your cultists, who can then use them 'for' you. But the exact wording is:

The cultist can use the ability once per day

This is regardless of how often you can use the SLA: the text goes on to make clear that this is all the same for at-will and 1/day and 3/day and 10/day abilities.

...and thus presumably, for 1/week ones. That's right! Our awkward 1/week Commune is a SLA, and can be transferred to a cultist (say, another PC), who can then use it every day. Once we get the 2/year double-strength Commune, same story - by the time we hit ECL 20, we're getting 54 commune questions a day compared to the average of 3 that a normal character would have. Note the low-level shaman spell Weapon Bless, which requires a lot of intel but has a pretty good payoff, and might play nice with this strategy!

The only part of the ability that might not play nice with this is the part that explains what happens to you. You see, if your ability had X uses per day, then transferring an use leaves you with (X-1) uses per day, and if your ability was at-will it leaves you with 4. By strict RAW, it doesn't say anything about uses per week, so arguably your own use is left unchanged, but let's assume we lose it just to be on the safe side.

You can also transfer your domain-derived Calm Emotions and inspiration ability, or your Divine Agent-granted Divination and Plane Shift, which is helpful in situations where we need to transfer multiple creatures along the planes but don't want to tag along ourselves. Plane Shift is also notable for being a teleportation effect for us: say we're in the Spirit World and want to travel 5000 miles. We can Plane Shift to our target position on the material plane, use etherealness to cross back over to the spirit world, and have only 1d500 miles left to go. Once we get the ability to Plane Shift to any plane, we can similarly use this to travel the material by going ethereal and then casting Plane Shift.

ECL 20
A number of very powerful tricks hit in quick succession. I could go over them normally, but let's instead brew up some anime-poisoned special move names to structure this wall of text some. I won't apologize for this btw.

Divine Art: Shackles of Dharma
Geas as an SLA, courtesy of our second Godly Gift. We bypass the casting time to get a standard action no-save compulsion that we can transfer to another PC for ease of action economy. With Gate, a cultist buddy, and a readied action, we can call in any creature from anywhere in the spirit world and immediately put them under our command.

It's worth noting that with our deity's plane so diverse, we get a lot more options to pick from: in theory nearly every fiend, celestial, nature spirit, or elemental should dwell somewhere in the spirit world, and even if you exclude the evil ones we retain a lot of freedom of choice here.

Divine Art: Celestial Vahana Servitude
At ECL 18, we get our alignment forcibly changed. For most PCs, this won't really matter: if you want to be your deity's alignment, why not shift there naturally? However, we're (Chaotic, Evil) and presumably a bit more fixed in our moral outlook than most, so having a mechanical way to change alignment is helpful. This in turn lets us become Exalted Good and obtain a celestial animal companion, turning that stray class feature into something actually useful.

A celestial animal is intelligent enough to use SLAs with our instructions, in addition to being yet another strong visual indicator that hey, maybe we aren't your typical CE demon.

Divine Art: Maya-Made Phantasmagoria
Trickery Devotion is obtained by giving up the Trickery Domain. In addition to being pretty good on its own terms, it gives us yet another way to be attacked (triggering Aura of Menace) without actually being at risk of getting hit. Moreover, Brahmin gives us 6 Turn/Rebuke uses that can be turned into two more uses of Trickery Devotion, and as a Devotion feat it's a SLA (CChamp, page 53) that can thus be transferred to our allies. The party wizard might enjoy having a projected image to cast his spells from, and the rogue should appreciate being able to disable traps without having to stand near them.

Divine Art: Transcension-Within-Transcension
Mystic Union might seem useless to us, outside from the welcome DR playing nice with Goad. However, it also makes it so that we can now be raised or resurrected, which was not previously the case, and does so without turning us into a native outsider (which would cause all sorts of issues by introducing a dependency on food and drink).

Supreme Divine Art: Wheel of SLA-msara
Wish as a SLA. Game over.

In all seriousness, let's do something cool with it.

First, clone yourself: the easiest way is to Wish for a Mirror of Opposition and Geas the duplicate the moment it comes out ('refrain from attacking your original' should be fine). Have the clone join your cult, then create a clone of its own in the same manner and have that clone join its cult, and so on. After a sufficiently large number of clones, close the loop by joining the final clone's cult.

Everyone readies a single standard action that goes "After I receive SLAs, I transfer all of them, plus all of my own, to my cultist".

Transfer a single SLA (say, Calm Emotions) to the first link. One round later, every readied action has triggered and everyone's SLAs, every Wish, every Gate, every standard action Geas, every Trickery Devotion use, is now in your hands. Actually, you've got Imbue With Spell-Like Ability on your list, so you can even turn some of your own low-level Abjurations and Divinations to SLAs to transfer and accumulate as well.

But it needn't stay there! You and your clones can go their separate ways while still passing most of the SLAs between them. Whenever one thinks they will need some in the future, they simply keep those while passing the rest along, and once the danger has passed any remaining SLAs can be returned to the flow. You're not just accumulating arbitrary amounts of power in a single place (as TO can often do), you're accumulating it in many places. Spells like Telepathic Bond (Extended if you cast it in the Spirit World) can help facilitate communication, though you can also encode messages in SLAs sent. And note that thanks to Boost Spell-Like Ability, all of these SLAs get their DC increased!

And once the 'main' cycle is big enough for your tastes, you can just bud off smaller ones. Nothing stops you from putting ten clones in a cycle of their own that's wholly independent from yours, after all!

Spoiler: Surprises

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Turns out Divine Agent is actually completely busted! Who'd have thought?

I don't think this is the only entry that will use Godly Gift to get Wish as a SLA. I might not even be the only Brahmin/Shaman, though I think Heretic of the Faith clerics will be a more common way of grabbing the Envy domain.

But I do think I'll be the only Fiend of Blasphemy, and here I'll be making the argument why that is such a big deal.

Wish as a SLA gives virtually limitless power, including the ability to get more wishes trivially. Pun-Pun only needed a single Wish to get the ball rolling and bootstrap all the way to godhood. But suppose we limit our power to whatever arbitrary level still plays well with the table. It should be obvious then that Fiend of Blasphemy lets us grow horizontally where we're limited vertically.

With the various tricks permitted by Fiend of Blasphemy, we can acquire superior intel to other builds, and thus employ our (limited but still very high) power more effectively. Fifty-four Commune questions and a Divination makes for a lot of daily information. Similarly, if a DM rules that dominated clones get a share of the XP, or vetos PCs clogging up the initiative order with multiple characters, we can use our ability to drain SLAs from our clones to get more powerful without putting extra bodies on the field. We can also use our SLA-msara trick to move our power around more easily, requiring only a single round to transfer arbitrarily many uses of Wish to arbitrary locations without having to change our personal position.

Even if Wish as a SLA is banned entirely, we are still more powerful thanks to FoB, as it lets us execute the Geas+Gate combo without having to wait for a round and can thus dominate outsiders with immensely increased reliability, not to mention the general utility of giving allies and companion creatures uses of your own SLAs.

Talking about possible nerfs is of course an inexact science, but it should be clear that we have backup options to exercise our tremendous power that other builds will not necessarily have.

Spoiler: Sources

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Abyssal Skulker - MM2, 3.5 update booklet

Shaman, Divination Domain - Oriental Adventures
Community Domain, Envy Domain, Nobility Domain - SpC

Brahmin, That Art Thou - Mahasarpa web enhancement

Fiend of Blasphemy, Fiend of Possession - Fiend Folio

Darkstalker, Mindsight - Lords of Madness
Goad - RoS
Trickery Devotion - CChamp
Boost SLA - BoVD
Exalted Companion - BoED

[The Viscount]

The build is in every place simultaneously at the moment.

Spoiler: Story

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Strutting around the darkened alleys of his home city Schnapps thoroughly enjoyed his life. He had tried a short tint of walking on two paws, but it came with definite drawbacks. People- and cats- tended to regard a catwere in upright form with mistrust and loathing. As his Paw used to say. “It didn’t get you cookie nor nookie.”And Maw had hissed multiple times [B*“You’re just your Paw, that good for nothing…”[/B]
Schnapps had never heard the last words. Either his mother had chosen to swallow her words or he must have been distracted by a butterfly flying over his head. Somehow it always went like that. Somebody tried to explain something and all those big words ended up as ‘Blah Blah Blah’.
Right, back to the here and now. Our protagonist was on his way to ‘serenade’ a new Queen in town when he was unceremoniously joinked into a sack and rushed to the other side of town only to be locked into a box. Outside somebody droned on about particles and simultaneous and Schrödinger and Schnapps just zoned out.
Pangs in his stomach woke him up to “…the cat is dead and alive at the same time.” The Tibbit felt bloated and started to shift around to find a better position only to stop halfway as his eyes met those of
a thin, translucent man-thing. ‘What the hell are you?”Schnapps asked forgetting that everybody else would just hear unintelligible meowing. The creature regarded him blankly.
Outside somebody laughed and said. ‘It would seem this cat is very much alive.’ The box was opened and long-fingered hands reached in and gently picked Schnapps up. The cat looked up at a middle-aged, thin man. His spectacles could not hide the intense intelligence burning in his eyes. ‘Or not?’ With a knowing smile the man brought the feline outside. ‘Do you know the answer, little one? If you do, come back and tell me.’

The feline tried to pick up his normal routine of eating, carousing and wanton flirtation, but it is hard to focus when you are being stared at by some creature that probably existed only in his imagination. Still, he had given up on trying to get lucky and changed back to a form more equipped to handle bottles. ‘What are you looking at?’ Schnapps demanded his voice slurred after a few too many namesakes. He didn’t expect an answer since the creature hadn’t uttered a sound since its appearance.

‘A slacker.’ For such a tiny creature it had an very deep voice with an eerie echo. ‘The Master gave you another assignment. Chop chop!’ Schnapps’s eyebrows rose to unknown heights. How did this …this…thing dare to treat him like that? The Tibbit felt the urge to use the little man as his scratching pole and started to hiss. ‘Aaa. Pike down!’ It commanded. ‘I’m here to assist you.’

‘With what?’ Even non-inebriated Schnapps would have had difficulty following the conversation. It seemed surreal.

The gen sighed – his annoyance clearly audible- ‘ With the recreation and improvement of the experiment that resulted in you.’ One could hear the unuttered ‘duh!’ It started walking towards the exit and said over its shoulder. ‘You can call me Quark. You comin’?’

And so the live of a simple Tibbit was thoroughly upended. No more carefree running over roofs, serenading queens*and the alcohol… Well, that remained. It helped to take the edge of the more disturbing parts of the experiment. A tiny bit, at least.

It started out fairly easy: put a mouse in a box and wait for a set amount of time. Open the box and see if the mouse is dead and alive. That experiment was a total bust because the mice that were still alive at the end of the experiment tended to disappear before they could be dissected. Quark was more pissed than usual and Schnapps had gained a few pounds before they switched to beetles, dogs and rabbits. The Tibbit had no compunction about extending the observation time on the canines – despicable creatures. Still, it was dirty work and it felt like his paws would never be clean no matter how much he washed or licked them.

But to no avail. The only ‘constant’ that they could observe was that after a certain amount of time the percentage of dead test subjects increased significantly. The variation in time passed seem to correspond to the species tested. So they resorted to putting visual sensors in the boxes so they could monitor the volunteers constantly.

It seemed mortality interfered greatly with their hypothesis. And their solutions – if you could call them that- sorta backfired. The dog skeleton continued to yip and growl the entire time. They had to enlist a rent-a-priest to get rid of that thing permanently. And the tiny construct was still taking up one of the testboxes.

One night, Schnapps and Quark were trying to find ideas at the bottom of their cups. The cat had paced his drinking as to not upset his stomach any further. The gen sighed. ‘We need to think outside the box.’ The pun was very much intended, but failed to hit its target.

A dim light dawned in the recesses of Schnapps’s mind. ‘Say that again.’

‘What? Outside the box?’

‘That’s it!’ The Tibbit exclaimed as he jumped up and started rifling through his notes. ‘Where is it?’ More rifling followed. ‘Ah. Here.’ He held up a book titled ‘Practical applications of calling outsiders’ by Professor Treantmonk, MD, PhD. ‘They don ’t die by natural causes.’

Quark’s unibrow lifted. ‘So they are the perfect test subjects.’

Things could only get better.



Yeah right.

The first imp Schnapps summoned refused to be housebroken and shat upon the carpet. And it took weeks to remove every trace of the dretch’s Stink – yeah it definitely earned the capital S. The buggers refused to listen and that irked the Tibbit much that when the quasit didn’t budge, Schnapps broke every safety rule by entering the magic circle meaning to slap the mother….er from here to eternity. When his fist hit the demon’s jaw, black light crackled and the Tibbit felt malevolent energy burst out of him and seep deep into the outsider’s body nestling around the creature’s heart. Both demon and tibbit knew something had changed in their respective positions. The quasit recovered first from the initial shock and lept at his captor, who calmly said ‘No, you don’t.’ and clenched his left fist. Immediately the demon doubled over and fell to the floor as an internal mass of necrotic tissue expanded around its heart, squashing it in the process.

Off course, this was only revealed at the post-mortem. The stench of the decayed tissue was too much for Quark who once again laid eyes upon his breakfast. It did not have any effect on Schnapps though, who instinctively knew that this was his doing. Somehow the God’s gift could be spread. ‘And be used to kill.’ He muttered. On the other hand it could be used as an extra incentive for the test subject to comply. Schnapps smiled. He liked where this was going.

‘Good.’ A voice resounded in his mind. ‘Refine the technique and proceed.’

Schnapps had taken to the habit of licking his paws to remove some invisible spatter of blood while he was thinking. Naturally, the spots did not disappear but the hair on his hands did and strangely enough so did the hair on his pate. His posture became more upright and the lab coat andspectacles he had taken to wearing most certainly reinforced his intelligent appearance. At least that was what he thought.

His familiar relentlessly shot verbal needles to deflate Schnapps’s ballooning ego. ‘Why the jacket, Boss? Is it too cold on those lonely heights? Or do you need to hide more bald patches, you scurvy asslicker?’ Yeah, Quark could be volatile. The Tibbit tried to ignore the barbs, he knew he needed the little piece of hairball to further his research, but still sometimes it ached.

Experiments continued en masse now with the influx of new lab assistants. They even had to hire an otyuugh waste disposal firm to keep up with the detritus. But to no avail. Schnapps could not recreate the experiment that resulted in him. This made him believe that he was so me kind of fluke, a glitch as it was. Visits to the God’s Alma Mater became more frequent, be it to follow a seminar given by the Man himself, a whisky and a cigar in the Staff Lounge or regular long distance meetings which often left Schnapps with more questions than he had before the meeting.

All these assistants needed housing and feeding and that cut deep into the research budget. Luckily for our little Tibbit his request for additional funding had been granted which even allowed for the addition of several testing rooms where his most trusted assistants set up their own variants of the Grand Experiment, as they had taken to calling it.


*: A queen is a female cat

Spoiler: Stub

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TN male Tibbit Sha’ir 6-Malconvoker 4- Divine agent 10
Deity: Schrödinger

Spoiler: Table

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Sha'ir 1	0	0	0	2	Bluff 2, conc 2, dipl 4, know planes 2, know religion 2, SC 2	Mother Cyst	summon gen familiar
2nd	Sha'ir 2	1	0	0	3	Bluff 2, conc 3, dipl 5, know planes 3, know religion 2, SC 3
3rd	Sha'ir 3	1	1	1	3	Bluff 2, conc 4, dipl 6, know planes 4, know religion 2, SC 4	Spell focus conjuration	recognize genie works
4th	Sha'ir 4	2	1	1	4	Bluff 3, conc 5, dipl 6, know planes 4, know religion 2, SC 5
5th	Sha'ir 5	2	2	2	4	Bluff 4, conc 6, dipl 7, know planes 5, know religion 2, SC 6		elemental protection
6th	Sha'ir 6	3	2	2	5	Bluff 4, conc 7, dipl 8, know planes 6, know religion 2, SC 7	Augment summoning
7th	Malconvoker 1	3	2	2	7	Bluff 4, conc 7, dipl 8, know planes 6, know religion 6, SC 7		deceptive summons, unrestrictive conjuration
8th	Malconvoker 2	4	2	2	8	bluff 4, conc 8, dipl 9, know planes 6, know religion 7, SC 8		Planar Binding
9th	Divine agent 1	4	2	2	10	Bluff 4, conc 9, diplo 10, know planes 6, know religion 7, Sense motive 1, SC 9, UMD 1	Lunatic insight	Granted domain cat
10th	Divine agent 2	5	2	2	11	Bluff 4, conc 10, diplo 11, know planes 7, know religion 7, sense motive 3, SC 10, UMD 1		Contact
11th	Divine agent 3	6/1	3	3	11	bluff 4, conc 11, dipl 12, K. arcana 1, K. planes 7, Know religion 7, sense motive 5, SC 11, UMD 1		Menacing aura, godly gift: allergic reaction
12th	Divine agent 4	7/2	3	3	12	bluff 4, conc 12, dipl 13, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 8, k. religion 7, sense motive 5, SC 12, UMD 1	Landlord	Altered appereance
13th	Divine agent 5	7/2	3	3	12	bluff 4, conc 13, dipl 14, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 9, k. religion 7, sense motive 7, SC 13, UMD 1		Commune, plane shift to deity's plane
14th	Divine agent 6	8/3	4	4	13	bluff 4, conc 14, dipl 15, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 10, k. religion 7, sense motive 9, SC 14, UMD 1		Godly gift: Cat's gravity
15th	Divine Agent 7	9/4	4	4	13	bluff 4, conc 15, dipl 16, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 11, k. religion 7, sense motive 10, SC 16, UMD 1	Practiced spellcaster Sha'ir	Plane shift to any plane
16th	Divine Agent 8	10/5	5	5	14	bluff 4, conc 16, dipl 17, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 13, k. religion 7, sense motive 11, SC 17, UMD 1		Audience, alignment shift
17th	Divine Agent 9	10/5	5	5	14	bluff 4, conc 17, dipl 18, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 15, k. religion 7, sense motive 12, SC 18, UMD 1		Mystic union, godly gift foresight
18th	Divine Agent 10	11/6/1	5	5	15	bluff 4, conc 18, dipl 19, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 17, k. religion 7, sense motive 13, SC 19, UMD 1	Infernal bargainer	Gate
19th	Malconvoker 3	11/6/1	6	6	15	bluff 4, conc 19, dipl 20, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 18, k. religion 7, sense motive 13, SC 20, UMD 1	Skill focus bluff	Skill focus bluff
20th	Malconvoker 4	12/7/2	6	6	16	bluff 4, conc 20, dipl 21, k. arcana 1, k. dungeoneering 1, k. nature 1, know planes 19, k. religion 7, sense motive 13, SC 21, UMD 1		Deceptive summons (fury)

Spoiler: Spells per Day/Spells Known

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Spells per Day

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	4	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	5	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	5	3	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	5	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	5	4	3	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-
8th	5	5	4	3	1	-	-	-	-	-
9th	5	5	4	3	1	-	-	-	-	-
10th	5	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-
11th	5	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-
12th	5	5	5	4	3	1	-	-	-	-
13th	5	5	5	4	3	1	-	-	-	-
14th	5	5	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-
15th	5	5	5	4	4	3	-	-	-	-
16th	5	5	5	5	4	3	1	-	-	-
17th	5	5	5	5	4	3	1	-	-	-
18th	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	-	-	-
19th	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	1	-	-
20th	5	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	-	-

Spells known:
Lvl 0 (9): detect magic, read magic, mage hand, prestidigitation, acid splash, arcane mark, open/close, disrupt undead, light
Lvl 1 (9): protection from evil, protection from good, mage armor, comprehend languages, magic missile, true casting, scholar's touch, lesser shivering touch, ray of enfeeblement + necrotic awareness
Lvl 2 (7): glitterdust, whirling blade, mesmerizing glare, darkbolt, insight of good fortune, touch of idiocy + necrotic cyst, necrotic scrying
Lvl 3 (6): summon monster III, magic circle against evil, magic circle against good, tongues, alter fortune, dispel magic + necrotic bloat
Lvl 4 (5): lesser geas, dimensional anchor, arcane eye, black tentacles, unluck + necrotic domination
Lvl 5 (4): telepathic block, dismissal, greater blink, feeblemind + lesser planar binding + necrotic burst
Lvl 6 (3): globe of invulnerablility, geas, disintregrate + necrotic eruption + planar binding
Lvl 7 (2): banishment, arcane spellsurge + necrotic tumor

Spoiler: Write up

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Level 1-5

So this is Schnapps during his first five levels. He has gone from a carefree tomcat to a sha’ir research assistent, helped along by his gen familiar Quark. The elemental natures kinda fits the subatomic particle theory. And Mother Cyst helps with being dead and alive at the same time, his first task for the magnificent God Schrödinger (and off course due to extra spells known also later in the build). For those of you who are convinced he is no RAW God, I point you to the Fabulous Cats-article and more exactly to the Cat domain. Spellcraft is kept high to identify spells Schnapps sees being cast as this lowers the diplomacy DC to retrieve them. The other feats are prerequisites for malconvoker, but we are going to focus on the binding spells. You can never have enough lab rats. The combination of the mother cyst and the repeated death/killing/dissecting is starting to wear on Schnapps’s mind.

Level 6-10


We still need one more level of Sha’ir to get augment summoning as a prerequisite for malconvoker. This class will be used mostly to add the planar binding spells to the spells known list and also the ability to summon good and evil outsiders without shifting his alignment.
Then at level 9 we finally enter the SI. Schnapps gains the power of Schrödinger’s only known domain: Cat. And at the SI’s second level the deity or his agents can contact or little tibbit to give him flashes of insight. The mother cyst feat gives access to necrotic bloat and domination at this level. Domination is useless against outsiders, but bloat isn’t.
The mild depravity (compulsive licking and cleaning of hands) gives access to lunatic insight, which let’s all knowledge skills be treated as trained. My interpretation means that they are class skills for every class thereafter. But I could be wrong.

Level 11-15

We progress the SI, getting a menacing aura which helps should another outsider decide to attack him. The godly gifts granted are Allergic reaction, which can incapacitate an assailant thus making them vulnerable to cyst implantation and Cat gravity, which sounds very cool and catty. The altered appearance causes Schnapps to look more sciency with lab coat, spectacles and receding hairline. Commune and plane shift to deity’s plane and to any plane allow him to regularly report his results to his thesis promotor and even follow a few seminars on quantum physics.
Spellcasting progresses to allow planar binding so hello there efreeti with your three wishes per day. This is one of several outsiders that can be drafted as lab assistants. Necrotic burst and eruption are more tools to enforce obedience. But we’re not quite there yet.

Level 16-20

We finish the SI. So now we got audience (drinking whiskey and smoking big cigars in a gentleman’s bar). Schnapps is now an outsider which means that infernal bargainer is up for grabs, increasing the HD of evil creatures cast by 2. And Gate comes online as an SLA. Hello 40 HD outsiders. Or just 2 balors whose immediate task is to accept necrotic cysts. See, that trick has evolved a bit to allow necrotic tumor so there will be no disloyalty. Ever.
The two malconvoker levels add a bit of support to summoning, but they are chosen because if epic progression would be allowed finishing the malconvoker seems the most logical choice. Improved calling increases the HD for the binding spells by another 2. One could follow with cosmic descryer afterwards.
By now Schnapps can cast level 7 spells as a level 18 caster, which is not to shabby. His lack in caster levels is made up by a number of very loyal assistants.
As for the latest godly gift, I chose Foresight. Being immune to surprise fits with the feline feel. Have you ever seen a cat’s look after being chased by a dog? You know, the cool superior look that conveys a very important message: ‘Did you really think that was going to work? You miscreant.’

So, this is my first attempt at cooking. It was interesting. I hope you enjoyed the story.

Spoiler: Sources

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Fabulous cats: Cat domain
Dragon compendium: Sha’ir
Manual of the planes: SI
Heroes of horror: Lunatic insight
Libris Mortis: mother cyst
Complete scoundrel : malconvoker
Stronghold builder’s guidebook : Landlord
Races of Faerun: infernal bargainer

[The Viscount]

No, I don't know why more than one build pulled from Fabulous Cats. It is very funny, though.

Larry, Chief Mouser of the Cat Overlord

Spoiler: Preview

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Alignment : TN
Race : Tibbit
Level 1 : Don't Mind Me, Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist (Monk Bonus)
Level 2 : Deflect Arrows (Monk Bonus)
Level 3 : Surrogate Spellcasting
Level 6 : Combat Casting, Falling Star Strike (Shaman Bonus)
Level 9 : Shadow Blade
Level 12 : Craven
Level 15 : Practiced Spellcaster (Shaman)
Level 18 : Domain Spontaneity (Hero)

Point Buy at level 1
STR 8 -2
DEX 16+2
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 16
CHA 12

Level 4 to 20 in Wis

Spoiler: The Story

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“Purr Purr”
A cat was resting peacefully by the hearth of a wooden house.

“How about you earn your keep and chase some rodents once in a while” snarked the hut owner from the couch.
Unphased, as his pedigree dictates he always remains, Larry gave him a look, lazily got up and stretched before telling him to Perform.

“Alright you rascal” said the man while fetching a string and starting to drag it around.
Larry jumped, quick as an arrow leaving the bow and played for a little bit before ordering hooman to Feed him Gourmet which the latter did.

As hooman was preparing a fine dish, Larry smelled something and watched out the window. Right there, a massive irritating dog was wagging its tail and started to bark at Larry.
The cat graciously walked outside through the trap hooman made for him in the door and started casting a spell.
The dog barked once more then cower yelping in fright because before his eyes the cat had become as enormous as the house itself. With one paw, Larry smacked the dog who, more scared than actually hurt, ran off and swore to himself to never come back to the cat demon’s home.

As soon as Larry regained his spot near the fireplace, he was struck by a dream.
An all graceful being burst in his subconscious and began to congratulate him for having re-established the natural order of things.

Larry slept merrily until a light ringing sound was made : dinner was served.

Spoiler: The Build

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Monk 1	0	2	2	2	Concentration (+4) 4; Handle Humanoid (+4) 4; Know (Religion) (+4) 4; Tumble (+4) 4;	Don't Mind Me, Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist (Monk Bonus)	Bonus Feat, Flurry of Blow, Unarmed Strike
2nd	Monk 2	1	3	3	3	Concentration (+1) 5; Handle Humanoid (+1) 5; Know (Religion) (+1) 5; Tumble (+1) 5;	Deflect Arrows (Monk Bonus)	Invisible Fist ACF
3rd	Shaman 1	1	5	3	5	Concentration (+1) 6; Diplomacy (+1) 1; Handle Humanoid (+1) 6; Know (Religion) (+1) 6; Tumble 5;	Surrogate Spellcasting	Fortune & Travel, Unarmed Strike, Animal Companion
4th	Shaman 2	2	6	3	6	Concentration (+1) 7; Diplomacy (+1) 2; Handle Humanoid (+1) 7; Know (Religion) (+1) 7; Tumble 5;		Spirit Sight
5th	Shaman 3	3	6	4	6	Concentration (+1) 8; Diplomacy (+1) 3; Handle Humanoid (+1) 8; Know (Religion) (+1) 8; Tumble 5;		Turn Undead
6th	Shaman 4	4	7	4	7	Concentration (+1) 9; Diplomacy (+2) 5; Handle Humanoid (+1) 9; Know (Religion) 8; Tumble 5;	Combat Casting, Falling Star Strike (Shaman Bonus)	Bonus Feat
7th	Sacred Fist 1	4	9	6	7	Concentration (+1) 10; Diplomacy 5; Handle Humanoid (+1) 10; Know (Religion) 8; Tumble (+2) 7;		Unarmed Damage
8th	Sacred Fist 2	5	10	7	7	Concentration (+1) 11; Diplomacy 5; Handle Humanoid (+1) 11; Know (Religion) 8; Tumble (+2) 9;		-
9th	Swordsage 1	5	10	9	9	Concentration (+1) 12; Diplomacy 5; Handle Humanoid 11; Know (Religion) 8; Tumble (+3) 12; Acrobatic Backstab;	Shadow Blade	Discipline Focus (Weapon Focus), Quick to Act +1
10th	Sacred Fist 3	6	10	9	9	Concentration (+1) 13; Diplomacy 5; Handle Humanoid (+2) 13; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 1; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		-
11th	Divine Agent 1	6	10	9	11	Concentration (+1) 14; Diplomacy (+1) 6; Handle Humanoid (+1) 14; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 2; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		Cat Domain
12th	Divine Agent 2	7	10	9	12	Concentration (+1) 15; Diplomacy (+1) 7; Handle Humanoid (+1) 15; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 3; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;	Craven	Contact
13th	Divine Agent 3	8	11	10	12	Concentration (+1) 16; Diplomacy (+1) 8; Handle Humanoid (+1) 16; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft (+1) 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		Menacing Aura, Godly Gift
14th	Divine Agent 4	9	11	10	13	Concentration (+1) 17; Diplomacy (+2) 10; Handle Humanoid (+1) 17; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		Altered Appearance
15th	Divine Agent 5	9	11	10	13	Concentration (+1) 18; Diplomacy (+2) 12; Handle Humanoid (+1) 18; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;	Practiced Spellcaster (Shaman)	Commune, Plane Shift to Deity's Plane
16th	Divine Agent 6	10	12	11	14	Concentration (+1) 19; Diplomacy (+2) 14; Handle Humanoid (+1) 19; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		Godly Gift
17th	Divine Agent 7	11	12	11	14	Concentration (+1) 20; Diplomacy (+2) 16; Handle Humanoid (+1) 20; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		Plane Shift to any Plane
18th	Divine Agent 8	12	12	11	15	Concentration (+1) 21; Diplomacy (+2) 18; Handle Humanoid (+1) 21; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;	Domain Spontaneity (Hero)	Audience, Aligment Shift
19th	Divine Agent 9	12	13	12	15	Concentration 21; Diplomacy (+3) 21; Handle Humanoid (+1) 22; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		Mystic Union, Godly Gift
20th	Divine Agent 10	13	13	12	16	Concentration 21; Diplomacy (+2) 23; Handle Humanoid (+1) 23; Know (Religion) 8; Spellcraft 4; Tumble 12; Acrobatic Backstab;		Gate

Spoiler: Spell & Maneuvers progression

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Level	Class	0th	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
1st
2nd
3rd	Shaman 1	3	1+1
4th	Shaman 2	4	2+1
5th	Shaman 3	4	2+1	1+1
6th	Shaman 4	5	3+1	2+1
7th	Shaman 5	5	3+1	2+1	1+1
8th	Shaman 6	5	3+1	3+1	2+1
9th
10th	Shaman 7	6	4+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
11th
12th	Shaman 8	6	4+1	4+1	3+1	2+1
13th
14th	Shaman 9	6	4+1	4+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
15th
16th	Shaman 10	6	4+1	4+1	3+1	3+1	2+1
17th
18th	Shaman 11	6	5+1	4+1	3+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
19th
20th	Shaman 12	6	5+1	5+1	4+1	3+1	3+1	2+1

Level	Class	Initiator Level	Maneuvers Known	Maneuvers Readied	Stances Known
9th	Swordsage 1	5	Sapphire Nightmare Blade (DM) Cloak of Deception (SH) Shadow Jump (SH) Rabid Wolf Strike (TC) Sudden Leap (TC) Mountain Hammer (SD)	4	Assassin's Stance (SH)

Spoiler: Level Breakdown

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Level 1 – 5
You’re a Tibbit Monk for 2 levels.
Good saves, unarmed strikes and Stunning (tiny) Fist are your go to in a fight.
Furry of Blows is a possibility, albeit a bad one.
Adding Wis to AC is pretty nice when in cat form.
At second level we get Deflect Arrow because we’re not going to have many AoO with a reach of 0ft and the Invisible Fist ACF which grants a Greater Invisibility benefit every 3 rounds as an immediate action. The Don’t Mind Me feat allows us to actually attack in cat form without eating an AoO. The full attack is Unarmed Strike/Claw/Claw/Bite and Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat helps to land them even though you have little reason to try except maybe for your Stunning Fists.
The ability to turn into a cat is really strong for being the scout of the party.
Hide is +8 from size +4 from cat (+8 in tall grass/heavy undergrowth) +2 Dex = +14 (19)
Jump is +8 from cat +2 Dex = +10
The Handle Humanoid skill is pretty useful to have a guardian. You can teach them the Defend trick to always have protection when you need to take a nap.
Next up are 3 levels of Shaman that come with goodies of their own.
Shaman differs from Cleric in the sense that each domain they take represents a spirit with which they have a special relation with. We’re going for animal spirits named Schrodinger for the Fortune domain and Garfield for the Hero domain (because let’s face it, he is).
Goodie #2 is the animal companion. We pick the eagle because with its 10 Str and small size, it can carry up to 16 lbs on a light load meaning it can carry us around in cat form easily.
Surrogate Spellcasting makes sure we can cast spells making us a flying turret.
Spirit Sight allows us to see ethereal beings as well as spirits which validates yet another popular belief on cats.
And a turn undead pool we can’t really use for now but that will come in handy later.

Level 5 – 10
A last level of Shaman whose bonus feat benefits from the Monk’s Stunning Fist ability. Falling Star Strike allows us to blind humanoid opponents for a few rounds which will come in handy later as well.
Combat Casting as the last prereq for Sacred Fist (but will also help for casting the SLA we’ll get later defensively) which is full BAB and full casting for the 3 levels we want. Good saves, dice increase in unarmed damage +1 AC and +10ft movement.
A dip in Swordsage brings us Assassin’s Stance and Shadow Blade both of which finally justify our attack routine. The Weapon Focus on Unarmed Strikes and the bonus to Initiative are icing on the cake. The Invisible Fist ACF, the Cloak of Shadow and Sapphire Nightmare Blade and the Acrobatic Backstab skill trick are all ways to land our newly acquired Sneak Attack. Also at this level we have around 4 Stunning Fist/Falling Star Strike attempts, both of which are also great ways to set up sneak attacks.
We also get maneuvers from the Tiger Claw discipline (ofc) and Sudden Leap combined with our Jump bonuses lets us get into position much more easily (move between 10 and 30ft as a swift). Mountain Hammer, as always, is there to get through walls and annoying DRs.
After all of this, we’re finally ready to make peaceful contact with agents of the Cat Lord to become its Divine Agent.

Level 11 - 20
The Dragon Compendium mentions the Cat Lord only grants the Chaos, Travel and Trickery domain. I feel, since we’re building on a Shaman base, the Cat domain should be fair game. It basically gives us another use of our Fortune domain granted power ; an ability to reroll any roll you just failed is always welcomed.
It opens up some very thematic spells : Cat’s Grace at 1st level, Allergic Reaction or Cat Gravity that has a good effect.
Contact, Commune and Audience are yet another proof that cats can contact other planes of existence. Menacing Aura is a good example of yowling cats.
Altered Appearance won’t have much impact since we don’t know the alignment of the Lord of Cats but I believe it to be TN which means a change of skin tone that will be masked by the fur and Alignment Shift won’t either.
Now this is where the abilities start to get fun. The Plane Touch abilities are both touch spells meaning you can theoretically hold the charge. Then when you perform your attack routine (6 attacks by ECL 17) you have a lot of chances to deliver the spell offensively and send your target to the Cat Lord’s plane, whatever that is (I’m picturing an infinite cat tree with catnip growing everywhere).
The Mystic Union sadly gives us the worst DR15/magic which will probably never be useful but the Outsider subtype finally recognizes cats are from an outer dimension.
Finally, the Godly Gifts are great boons for us.
At 3rd level, Substitution (Fortune domain) is a good way to dismiss the cost of the focus you need and well, it doubles your HP pool which is really nice.
At 6th level, we get Stoneskin (Hero domain) for free giving us actually decent DR.
At 9th level we get Miracle (Fortune) for free. It gets no better than this. This basically asks the Cat Lord to intervene for matters you want 1/d without paying the XP cost. Among the “any other spells of 7th level” you can duplicate, our favourite is Giant Size which,
with a +3 CL boost item, can make our tiny house cat form Colossal.
Finally Gate is a good way to meet the Cat Lord and who wouldn’t want that ?
On the feat side, Craven is a nice boost of damage, Practiced Spellcaster gets us 4 CL out of the 6 we’ve lost so far and Domain Spontaneity (Hero) is a good way to get multiple use of Divine Power per day for instance (I told you our Turn Undead attempts would come in handy).

Spoiler: Spells we should be able to use

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This little excerpt from SpC gives us potentially a lot of versatility :

Shamans have a spell list that is a blend of druid and cleric, but they should not get all the spells clerics and druids do. Examine the spell lists of both those classes for good choices.

Here is a selection I feel would totally make sense :
Produce Flame : Able to actually do some damage when you attack
Enrage Animal : Is fun if you share it with your Eagle at early levels.
Bite of the X (SpC) : Is a pretty good buff for you (and possibly your AnComp)
Magic Fang (Greater) : Lets you be useful combat
Freedom of Movement : I mean, it’s the essence of being a cat.
Animal Growth : Because it makes sense
Control Winds : Very Shamanesque
Death Ward : Shielding from spirits of the dead makes sense
Moon Bolt (SpC) : Would be really nice to have as well.
Awaken : Awakening yourself when you’re a cat is pretty fun. 3d6 Int is statistically better than 10 Int. +1d4 Cha is always welcome and being a magical beast maybe turns your HD into d10, full bab and darkvision 60ft ? Even if it doesn’t, it's still funny. (The +2 HD might be annoying in a build though)

Spoiler: Equipment

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A Monk’s Belt and/or a Monk’s Tattoo (MoF) can help with the AC bonus, the Unarmed Damage and the movement bonus.

CL boosters are welcomed to compensate from the last 4 levels we miss.

Wis and Dex enhancing items are mandatory

Maybe some feycrafted (DMGII) shortswords since the Tibbit humanoid form doesn’t actually have Weapon Finesse.

Spoiler: Notes & Discussions

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Shaman and Monk unarmed damage should stack in some way.

Spoiler: Sources

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DC - Tibbit, Cat Overlord
OA - Shaman, Hero and Fortune Domains, Fallen Star Strike
Savage Species - Surrogate Spellcasting
CS - Acrobatic Backstab skill trick
SRD - Monk
CoR - Craven
Exemplar of Evil - Invisible Fist ACF
MotP - Divine Agent
CD - Sacred Fist, Domain Spontaneity
CA - Practiced Spellcaster
ToB - Swordsage, Shadow Blade, Maneuvers
Web - Don’t Mind Me, Handle Humanoid skill, Cat Domain

[The Viscount]

In the build's defense, it was in season with the original deadline.

Iago, the Unholy Green Giant
CE Major Silver Dragon Bloodline Primordial Half-Giant Duskblade 1/Warblade 1/Death Delver 3/Divine Agent of Beshaba 10/Contemplative 1

Iago anointing his Riding Dog with the antler symbol of Beshaba



It’s not strange in Faerun to be born a mutt.
But sometimes the mixture gets a little too hot.
Gilgameshed together by strings of bad luck,
Was a most unruly Beshaban buck.
With blood of grim ancient giant and imperious wyrm,
That Wormluck just wanted to watch the world burn.

He envied every power that his green eyes could see,
From the gods’ miracles to mortal wizardry.
His mighty ancestors and adventurer peers,
Whose tales he hated even to hear.
Even his own faithful hound in his ignorant bliss,
Could draw from his lungs an envious hiss.
He envied the living their vigor and the dead their respite,
Until he got close to the latter one night.

Mortally wounded by some kobold’s spear,
The Maid of Misfortune whispered in his ear,
A heretical, wonderful, awful idea.

The powers he coveted, why they could be his!
He could have every thing that he wished.
The luck of the draw, he’ll redraw that too,
By bringing misfortune to every one of you

Spoiler: You’re a Mean One

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Ability Scores32 Point Buy: 12 Str, 12 Dex, 15 Con, 14 Int, 14 Wis, 12 Cha
After Adjustments for Primordial Half-Giant: 10 Str, 10 Dex, 15 Con, 18 Int, 14 Wis, 16 Cha
Major Silver Dragon Bloodline increases Str at 3 HD, Con at 9 HD, and Cha at 15 HD
All Stat increases from levels go to Cha.

Build Table

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Duskblade 1	1	2	0	2	24: {+4} Concentration: 4; {+4 CC} Heal: 2; {+4} Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+4} Knowledge (Local): 4; {+4} Sense Motive: 4; {+4} Spellcraft: 4;	Wild Cohort	Arcane Attunement, Armored Mage (Light), Invisibility At Will, Magical Knack, Knowledge (The Planes) as Class Skill, Powerful Build, Fire Acclimated, Naturally Psionic, Stomp 1/day
2nd	Bloodline 1	1	2	0	2	0: Concentration: 4; Heal: 2; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Knowledge (Local): 4; Sense Motive: 4; Spellcraft: 4;	-	-
3rd	Bloodline 2	1	2	0	2	0: Concentration: 4; Heal: 2; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Knowledge (Local): 4; Sense Motive: 4; Spellcraft: 4;	-	-
4th	Bloodline 3	1	2	0	2	0: Concentration: 4; Heal: 2; Knowledge (Religion): 4; Knowledge (Local): 4; Sense Motive: 4; Spellcraft: 4;	-	Sense Motive +2
5th	Warblade 1	2	3	0	2	8: {+4} Concentration: 8; Heal: 2; Knowledge (Religion): 4; {+4} Knowledge (Local): 8; Sense Motive: 4; Spellcraft: 4;	AlertnessB	Battle Clarity (Reflex Saves), Weapon Aptitude
6th	Death Delver 1	2	5	0	4	6: {+1} Concentration: 9; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (Religion): 6; Knowledge (Local): 8; Sense Motive: 4; {+3} Spellcraft: 7;	Heretic of the Faith (Envy)	Deathsense, Rebuke Undead
7th	Death Delver 2	3	6	0	5	6: {+1} Concentration: 10; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (Religion): 8; Knowledge (Local): 8; Sense Motive: 4; {+3} Spellcraft: 10;	-	Deadened Soul, Spontaneous Casting, Resistance to Cold 5
8th	Death Delver 3	4	6	1	5	6: {+1} Concentration: 11; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (Religion): 10; Knowledge (Local): 8; Sense Motive: 4; {+1} Spellcraft: 11; {+2} Collector of Stories;	-	Death Ward 1/day, Silver Dragon Affinity +2
9th	Divine Agent 1	4	6	1	7	8: {+1} Concentration: 12; Heal: 2; Knowledge (Religion): 10; Knowledge (Local): 8; Sense Motive: 4; {+1} Spellcraft: 12; {+6} Use Magic Device: 6; Collector of Stories;	Elder Giant Magic	Granted Domain (Envy), +1 Natural Armor
10th	Divine Agent 2	5	6	1	8	8: {+1} Concentration: 13; Heal: 2; Knowledge (Religion): 10; Knowledge (Local): 8; Sense Motive: 4; {+1} Spellcraft: 13; {+6} Use Magic Device: 12; Collector of Stories;	-	Contact, +2 Perform
11th	Divine Agent 3	6	7	2	8	8: {+1} Concentration: 14; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (Religion): 12; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+2} Sense Motive: 6; {+1} Spellcraft: 14; {+2} Use Magic Device: 14; Collector of Stories;	-	Menacing Aura, Godly Gift (Magic Jar), Resistance to Cold 10
12th	Divine Agent 4	7	7	2	9	8: {+1} Concentration: 15; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (Religion): 14; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+3} Sense Motive: 9; {+1} Spellcraft: 15; {+1} Use Magic Device: 15; Collector of Stories;	Practiced Spellcaster	Altered Appearance (Turn Green)
13th	Divine Agent 5	7	7	2	9	8: {+1} Concentration: 16; Heal: 2; {+2} Knowledge (Religion): 16; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+3} Sense Motive: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 16; {+1} Use Magic Device: 16; Collector of Stories;	-	Commune, Plane Shift to Deity's Plane, Alter Self 1/day
14th	Divine Agent 6	8	8	3	10	8: {+1} Concentration: 17; Heal: 2; {+1} Knowledge (Religion): 17; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+4} Sense Motive: 16; {+1} Spellcraft: 17; {+1} Use Magic Device: 17; Collector of Stories;	-	Godly Gift (Wish), Silver Dragon Affinity +4
15th	Divine Agent 7	9	8	3	10	8: {+1} Concentration: 18; Heal: 2; {+1} Knowledge (Religion): 18; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+2} Sense Motive: 18; {+1} Spellcraft: 18; {+1} Use Magic Device: 18; {+2} Swift Concentration, Collector of Stories;	Metamorphic Transfer	Plane Shift to Any Plane, +1 Natural Armor
16th	Divine Agent 8	10	8	3	11	8: {+1} Concentration: 19; Heal: 2; {+1} Knowledge (Religion): 19; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 19; {+3} Spot: 3; {+1} Spellcraft: 19; {+1} Use Magic Device: 19; Swift Concentration, Collector of Stories;	-	Audience, Alignment Shift, +2 Bluff
17th	Contemplative 1	10	8	3	13	6: {+1} Concentration: 20; Heal: 2; {+1} Knowledge (Religion): 20; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 20; {+2} Spot: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 20; Use Magic Device: 19; Swift Concentration, Collector of Stories;	Power AttackB	Bonus Domain (Luck), Divine Health, Breath Weapon
18th	Divine Agent 9	10	9	4	13	8: {+1} Concentration: 21; Heal: 2; {+1} Knowledge (Religion): 21; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 21; {+2} Spot: 7; {+1} Spellcraft: 21; {+2} Use Magic Device: 21; Swift Concentration, Collector of Stories;	Martial Study (Shadow Blink)	Mystic Union, Godly Gift (Miracle)
19th	Divine Agent 10	11	9	4	14	8: {+1} Concentration: 22; Heal: 2; {+1} Knowledge (Religion): 22; Knowledge (Local): 8; {+1} Sense Motive: 22; {+3} Spot: 10; {+1} Spellcraft: 22; {+1} Use Magic Device: 22; Swift Concentration, Collector of Stories;	-	Gate, Breath Weapon

Death Delver Casting

ECL	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
7th	0	-	-	-
8th	1	-	-	-
9th	1	0	-	-
11th	1	1	-	-
13th	1	1	0	-
15th	1	1	1	-
17th	2	1	1	0
18th	2	1	1	1
20th	2	2	1	1

*Does not include bonus spells for a high Wis score.

Maneuvers

ECL	Initiator Level	Maneuvers Known	Maneuvers Readied	Stances Known
6	6	White Raven Tactics,Action Before Thought, Insightful Strike	3	Leading the Charge
6	14	White Raven Tactics, Action Before Thought, Insightful Strike, Shadow Blink	3	-

Spoiler: You’re as Cuddly as a Cactus

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Spoiler: ECL 6

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Iago spends the early game struggling through Bloodline levels. They’ll pull their weight later on, but for the moment being they’re distinct from LA only in that they count toward the skill cap, allowing him to meet the Concentration prerequisite to get into Death Delver, and the effective level increase in each class allowing him to bootstrap initiator level enough to have a few Warblade 3rds more or less on time. He’ll mostly be leaning on a Riding Dog Wild Cohort and buffing the dog and other allies with White Raven Tactics and Leading the Charge while counting on Primordial Giant’s at-will Invisibility (alongside Action Before Thought and a Bloodline-boosted Battle Clarity to shore up his Reflex save) to protect his fragile person (though it will still be easier than he’d like to stumble into a near-death experience for Death Delver purposes), but Insightful Strike does offer a 1/encounter option to deliver a pretty good hit once per encounter, and one that can be delivered against touch AC by using a Poison Ring and in encounters where it’s safe to be visible a large heavy crossbow can help muddle through.

Spoiler: ECL 10

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A near death experience has led to Iago meeting his deity, and she’s like, way different than y’all have been saying, which is to say that he’s taken Heretic of the Faith. The heresy in question need be no more extreme than that Dragon 323 is a legal Iron Chef source, but unlike other sin domains, there does not appear to be a first party source for any deity offering the Envy domain. Death Delver’s spellcasting and medium BAB gets Iago into the SI through the Bloodline levels.

Spoiler: ECL 15

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These are the levels where things get more exciting. The increase in effective class level from Iago’s Bloodline means that he has an effective Divine Agent level of 6 when he takes the third level, and an effective level of 9 when he takes the sixth, meaning that he can get 6th and 9th level spells respectively as Godly Gifts. Envy offers some bangers in Magic Jar and Wish. Magic Jar more or less solves the fragility problem from the Bloodline levels, since it’s now someone else’s body soaking up the damage, while also improving his offensive capacity. But of course, a 1/day SLA Wish is the real prize, offering all the unlimited cosmic power with none of the drawbacks. As a creature of the Giant type, Iago can use Elder Giant Magic to improve the CL of SLAs as well as spells, making these abilities, as well as other SLAs from the SI and level-dependent Death Delver spells like Animate Dead, even more potent.

Spoiler: ECL 20

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Iago takes a quick dip into Contemplative to snag the Luck domain from Beshaba’s regular list before acquiring his final Godly Gift, allowing him to take Miracle to go alongside Wish. Metamorphic Transfer (qualified for by way of Half-Giant’s racial Stomp PLA) allows him to grab (Su) abilities when using the Alter Self from his Silver Dragon bloodline, and Mystic Union gives him access to Outsider forms when doing so. With the CL boosts to SLAs from Primordial Giant and Elder Giant Magic, Iago can manage a CL of 20 on his Gate SLA despite only having a character level of 16, allowing him to call the likes of Balors and Pit Fiends (which seem like they should both exist on Beshaba’s home plane of Banehold based on the sorts of deities that live there and their servants, though Faerunian cosmology can be a headache in this regard). Shadow Stride is always a pretty good thing to throw a feat at in late levels, and Bloodline IL bootstrapping allows Iago to take the further upgraded Shadow Blink.

Spoiler: You’re as Charming as an Eel

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Complete Divine: Contemplative, Practiced Spellcaster
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting: Beshaba
Manual of the Planes: Divine Agent
Power of Faerun: Heretic of the Faith
Secrets of Xen’drik: Primordial Giant, Elder Giant Magic
Spell Compendium: Envy Domain
Tome of Battle: Warblade, Martial Study, Maneuvers
Everything else should be SRD.

[The Viscount]

Presented here without the chorus of orcs chanting

Ghrond Ironhand


CE Human Paladin of Slaughter 4/Divine Agent(Erythnul) 10/Warblade 6

Life in a borderlands tribe is typically violent and short, with little thought given beyond where one will find their next meal. But for Ghrond Ironhand, this was never enough. Not that far from him, he knew, there was this thing called “civilization”, where people had tools and knowledge that they used to live in luxury, while people like him had to make due with scraps.

Anger over that which he was denied burned within him from a young age, and in time, the god Erythnul appeared in a dream, offering an answer. The course would be hard and exacting. He would have to endure through many hardships, seeking strength through strength, while forgoing opportunities in the present in order to obtain the means of vengeance in the future. He would have to be strong, be cruel, and turn the envy against those who were given everything into the weapon he would use to lay them low. For Ghrond Ironhand, living amidst poverty and privation, it was no choice at all.

Spoiler: Build:

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Stats:

Abilities	Initial	Final
STR	14	19
DEX	10	15
CON	14	19
INT	10	15
WIS	14	19
CHA	16	26

Progression:

Level	Class	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1	Paladin of Slaughter	+1	+4	+0	+2	Ride 4, Knowledge(religion) 4	Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack	Aura of evil, Detect good, Smite good 1/day
2	Paladin of Slaughter	+2	+8	+3	+5	Ride 5, Knowledge(religion) 5		Divine grace, deadly touch
3	Paladin of Slaughter	+3	+8	+4	+6	Ride 6, Knowledge(religion) 6	Mad Faith	Debilitating aura, divine health
4	Paladin of Slaughter	+4	+9	+4	+6	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 7		Rebuke undead
5	Divine Agent	+4	+9	+4	+8	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 8, Spot 3		Granted domain (Envy)
6	Divine Agent	+5	+9	+4	+9	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 9, Spot 6	Spirited Charge	Contact
7	Divine Agent	+6	+10	+5	+9	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 9		Menacing Aura, Godly gift(Touch of Idiocy)
8	Divine Agent	+7	+11	+6	+11	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 11, UMD 2		Altered appearance
9	Divine Agent	+7	+11	+6	+11	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 12, UMD 5	Power Attack	Commune, plane shift to deity’s plane
10	Divine Agent	+8	+12	+7	+12	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 13, UMD 8		Godly gift(Vampiric touch)
11	Divine Agent	+9	+12	+7	+12	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 14, UMD 11		Plane shift to any plane
12	Divine Agent	+10	+13	+8	+13	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 15, UMD 14	Divine Might	Audience, Alignment shift
13	Divine Agent	+10	+18	+13	+18	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 16, UMD 16, Sense Motive 1		Mystic union, Godly gift(Wish)
14	Divine Agent	+11	+18	+13	+19	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 17, UMD 17, Sense Motive 1, Concentration 1, Spellcraft 2, Search 1		Gate
15	Warblade	+12	+20	+13	+19	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 17, UMD 17, Sense Motive 1, Concentration 1, Spellcraft 2, Search 1, Balance 1, Climb 1, Jump 1, Intimidate 1, Swim 1, Tumble 1	Martial Study(Moment of Perfect Mind)	Battle clarity, Weapon aptitude
16	Warblade	+13	+21	+13	+19	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 19, UMD 19, Sense Motive 3, Concentration 1, Spellcraft 2, Search 1, Balance 1, Climb 1, Jump		Uncanny dodge
17	Warblade	+14	+21	+14	+20	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 20, UMD 20, Sense Motive 7, Concentration 1, Spellcraft 2, Search 1, Balance 1, Climb 1, Jump 1, Intimidate 1, Swim 1, Tumble 1		Battle ardor
18	Warblade	+15	+22	+14	+20	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 21, UMD 21, Sense Motive 11, Concentration 1, Spellcraft 2, Search 1, Balance 1, Climb 1, Jump 1, Intimidate 1, Swim 1, Tumble 1	Mage Slayer
19	Warblade	+16	+22	+14	+20	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 22, UMD 22, Sense Motive 15, Concentration 1, Spellcraft 2, Search 1, Balance 1, Climb 1, Jump 1, Intimidate 1, Swim 1, Tumble 1	Quick Draw	Bonus feat
20	Warblade	+17	+24	+15	+22	Ride 7, Knowledge(religion) 10, Spot 23, UMD 23, Sense Motive 19 Concentration 1, Spellcraft 2, Search 1, Balance 1, Climb 1, Jump 1, Intimidate 1, Swim 1, Tumble 1		Improved uncanny dodge

Spoiler: Spells/Day

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Level	1st	2nd
1	-	-
2	-	-
3	1	-
4	2	1
5	2+1	1
6	2+1	1
7	2+1	1
8	3+1	1
9	3+1	1
10	3+1	1
11	3+1	1
12	3+1	2+1
13	3+1	2+1
14	3+1	2+1

Spoiler: Maneuvers:

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15: Steel Wind, Iron Heart Surge, Mind over Body, Moment of Perfect Mind
16: Action Before Thought (added)
17: Mithral Tornado (added)
18: Same
19: Moment of Alacrity (added)
20: Avalanche of Blades (Replaces Steel Wind)

Spoiler: Snapshots:

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Level 1-4:
To grasp the power that was his birthright, Ghrond’s path demanded unceasing commitment to destruction. With the need to reach a Moderate depravity score before level 5, he needed to pursue rampant destruction with singleminded dedication tied to his god. Many isolated temples were defiled in his pursuit of a mad faith.

Level 5-12:
Thanks to his dedication, Ghrond qualified as a Divine Agent as early as possible. His path was now straight, but the difficulty only grew. As a mounted combatant on a path giving minimal bonuses to direct combat, his ability to deal and sustain damage would fall further and further behind his peers. He would even need to engage in hated trading to obtain the gear he needed to progress. But through it all, the goal would draw ever nearer…

Level 13-20:
Finally, the reward for his dedication was his! Through the purity of his envy, every day he could twist the cosmos himself to grant him that which he most desired! And of course, the first thing he sought was an item to grant him this immense power without limit!
Armed with a vast assortment of gear, along with safeguards to prevent theft or disruption, Ghrond embarked on a training expedition throughout the outer planes, in preparation for the coming crusade. Amidst the depths of the Abyss, and the battlefields of Acheron, he honed his skill, and mastered the many tools at his disposal. And then, finally, he returned, to show all the civilized lands the fragility of their order…

Spoiler: Wish-Conjured Items Overview

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Since Ghrond has Wish as a 1/day SLA, he can ignore the XP costs of using Wish. Since XP cost is the only limit on the cost of items that Wish can create, this means Ghrond can create one arbitrarily expensive magic item every day. Naturally, the first item he creates is a ring of at-will Wish with an XP cost limit of one googolplex.

All items Ghrond creates have an extremely high CL, so will only be destroyed by Disjunction if they get a natural 1 on their save. They are also protected by an auto-refreshing Contingent Wings of Flurry targeting anyone other than Ghrond or his mount that touches them (with the arbitrarily high CL, that should kill anyone not immune to direct damage).

With all this at his disposal, he can get +5 inherent bonuses to all stats, and arbitrarily high enhancement bonuses to all stats, translating into arbitrarily high saves, skill bonuses, HP, and initiative. He also gives +STR, DEX, CON, WIS, and CHA items to his mount. Other items can boost move speed, add options like teleporting, or provide constant Foresight bonuses.

The main concerns are item theft, which he guards against by physically attaching everything to his or his mount’s armor, sundering, which is countered by the items’ arbitrarily-high enhancement bonuses giving them massive HP totals, antimagic fields, which he protects against with Foresight and a variety of item-based countermeasures, and Disjunction, which is limited by redundant items and high item CL.

Spoiler: Sources:

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Divine Agent: Manual of the Planes
Mad Faith: Heroes of Horror
Divine Might: Complete Warrior
Mage Slayer: Complete Arcane
Warblade, Martial Study, various maneuvers: Tome of Battle
Erythnul: Deities and Demigods