Subpage ListingEnter a world where nothing is as it seems—where the battlefield might be within your mind, and the prize might be your immortal soul. Through the esoteric secrets of the occult, bold seekers of knowledge can bring a candle to light the darkness of the unknown, and begin to unravel that strangest of all riddles: the truth. Within this hidden world, you'll find strange and wondrous new powers, vast and unknowable enemies, and unlikely allies who request strange favors in return for the esoteric lore they hoard. You'll voyage into the mind, out of your body, and onto other planes of existence. If you keep your wits about you, you may return alive—but even then, few survive such an experience unchanged. To achieve your goals, what will you lose of yourself? What will you be willing to sacrifice? Who will you become? Practitioners of occult lore often refer to the hidden magical traditions of the occult as psychic magic. Casting a psychic spell relies entirely on the thoughts and emotions surging through your mind and spirit, rather than on incantations or gestures. In this way, occult practitioners can hide in plain sight amongst other spellcasters. Your village's local sorcerer might be a kindly psychic searching for the solution to a karmic riddle, or a cunning mesmerist slowly building a cult of mind-controlled followers. Yet in the world of the occult, mysteries contain layers upon layers, and the solution to the psychic's karmic riddle might release a horror trapped on the Astral Plane, while the mesmerist's mindcontrolled cult may be there to protect the villagers from a great evil sealed deep beneath the town. Protecting innocents from dangers they can't see or even comprehend requires a unique breed of heroes, those initiated in esoteric lore and willing to take risks with not just their bodies, but their minds and souls as well. Occult power comes at a price, and even if you're willing to pay it, you may find the responsibilities it brings largely thankless. When a paladin uses her holy might to stop an army of undead from rampaging through the king's lands, she might gain a knighthood or noble title, not to mention the adulation of the kingdom. But when an occultist uses his object lore to prevent a mad architect from changing the geometry of city districts until it blends and merges with that of a malevolent sentient metropolis from an alien dimension, he and the architect may be the only ones who truly understand the threat. And if the architect is beloved by citizens and authorities alike for his philanthropic works and grand civic monuments, the occultist who saved the city may well need to flee before he finds himself in a prison cell. And even then, will he avoid the wrath of other members of the architect's secret society and their monstrous interdimensional patrons? Such are the lives of those who labor at the edge of mortal understanding, and who know that each action, however well intentioned, has unintended consequences, like ripples in a pond. What Are Occult Adventures?Any adventure could incorporate occult elements, from mystery cults to creatures that attack the psyche, so in a world where wizards and clerics ply their spells in the open and magic is accepted and understood, what separates an occult adventure from any other adventure? The core concept that drives an occult adventure is that raw power isn't everything. In a typical campaign, adventurers strive to improve their might so they can take on bigger and bigger challenges. But a student of the occult knows that power can corrupt, that some battles can never be won by brawn, and that there are beings capable of ignoring the normal rules of the multiverse, walking among even the greatest and most powerful like a wolf among sheep. One of the hallmarks of an occult campaign is a focus on the mind over direct combat and confrontation. Most occult classes possess more mental abilities than physical, and they have the tools to peer into thoughts, ask for aid from the beyond, and unravel mysteries. Rather than exploring only physical ruins, occult adventurers uncover the psychic history of places and objects. When magical weapons can't defend against vengeful spirits, a treatise on the manifestation of extraplanar beings may hold the key. Subverting the doctrines of a cult proves a more certain method of ending its threat than killing its leader would. An occult adventure is a study in complications and paradoxes, in which uncovering a mystery reveals an even greater mystery. Knowledge is the only way to deal with an occult problem, but learning more invites even greater danger. Exploration of a strange plane or dreamscape might show that the place is even more complex than initially thought. A crusade to defeat a dark and unknowable force can lead to a climactic encounter in which the adventurers discover their quarry doesn't fear its own destruction or banishment. Likewise, occult creatures and forces can find adventurers just as mystifying and contradictory as the adventurers find the denizens of the occult. Suggestions for running occult adventures, as well as common elements that appear within them, are detailed in Running an Occult Game. Psychic MagicOccult spellcasters draw on the vast reserves of their own minds to access magical abilities. Psychic magic is an entirely new type of spellcasting that follows different principles than arcane and divine magic. A psychic spellcaster doesn't have to obey the same restrictions as an arcane or divine caster, and forgoes the physical components of spells entirely. She doesn't need to wave her arms, speak words laden with magical portent, or burn up symbolic physical matter in the process of casting. Instead, she need only keep her mind aligned properly, providing a detailed mental image or bringing up a particular emotion to cast her psychic spell. Even someone bound or paralyzed can cast a psychic spell, as long as her intellectual and emotional states aren't compromised. Self-doubt, lack of concentration, and fear are the enemies of a psychic caster, not the depredations of the physical world. For all their differences, psychic spells are still spells, and psychic spellcasters are still spellcasters. Most of the spells a psychic character can cast resemble those of her arcane and divine allies, albeit accessed in an alternative way. Consequently, the spell lists for psychic spellcasters largely consist of existing spells, and nonpsychic casters can also choose many of the spells in Occult Adventures. Occult ClassesWhere are the heroes who can save the world from the unknowable threats of the occult? Right here in this chapter, which includes six new occult classes! Not only are these classes a perfect fit for a game steeped in the occult themes found throughout this book, they also contain the same variety of themes, concepts, and play styles that you've come to expect from base classes, allowing them to flourish in nearly any campaign, from a game of somber horror to a lighthearted dungeon romp. The following is a quick overview of some of the most interesting and iconic features of each class. Archetypes: Bring the power of the occult to all your favorite classes or customize the new occult classes with dozens of archetypes. In addition, you'll find new alchemist discoveries, cavalier orders, sorcerer bloodlines, and witch patrons. Will you play a psychic detective or a battle host? A ghost rider or a tome eater? No matter what kind of character you like to play, this section has plenty of fun new options for you to explore. Feats: This section contains dozens of feats some supporting the new classes, others available to any character looking to dip her toes into the occult, and still others that tie into the new occult rules. From a teamwork feat allowing you to combine two elemental blasts into a composite one to a feat allowing you to open your mind to other people's emotions at the cost of weakening your mental defenses, these feats allow you to build all sorts of occult characters. Psychic Magic: This section introduces psychic magic, a completely new type of magic that's neither arcane nor divine, and that uses thought and emotion components instead of verbal and somatic ones. Of the panoply of new spells in this section, several are spells that can be undercast with this new type of tiered spells, spellcasters who know them are also able to cast all the weaker versions. Whether you use akashic form to keep a copy of yourself that you can employ to escape death, or create an enormous vessel to sail the Dimension of Dreams with dream voyage, you'll never be the same again (especially if you cast major mind swap to switch bodies forever)! Occult Rules: This section contains a variety of exciting new subsystems that are part and parcel of an occult game but also fit easily into any game, either on their own or taken all together. Skill Unlocks: Occult skill unlocks build on the idea of skill unlocks for the rogue, adding new and wondrous applications to your favorite skills that are open to occult characters and psychic sensitives alike. Use Linguistics for automatic writing to foretell the future, Appraise for psychometry to learn more about an object's past, Heal to perform startling acts of faith healing, and much more. Auras: Those attuned to the occult can learn much about a creature, object, or place from its aura. While magic and alignment auras have been in the game since the start, this section details aura types such as emotion and health, and adds new depth to the metaphysical meaning of auras. Chakras: By studying the esoteric lore of chakras, you can learn a deeper application of ki and use kundalini serpent-fire energy to awaken the chakras within you. By successively opening your chakras, you become increasingly powerful as battle continues so long as you can survive the strain! Psychic Duels: Enter an inner dueling ground where the only limits to what you can do are your own imagination. When your foe calls forth a thought-form cobra, counter it with a thought-form hydra. When she threatens you with psychic vines, unleash a storm of inner fire. Such battling is exhausting, and never undertaken lightly for despite the unreality of the mindscape in which you fight, the stakes of such a duel are life and death. Psychic Possession: Possession and body-swapping spells can be crucial to occult adventures, and this short section provides you with everything you need to know to play a body-snatching character with ease. Occult Rituals: Some of the deepest and darkest secrets of the occult, these esoteric rituals are vanishingly rare and challenging to perform, but provide fantastic power to any character who can complete them even those not normally able to cast spells. A GM can choose from the variety of sample rituals or design her own, but one thing's for sure—with occult rituals, you'll never look at spellcasting quite the same way. Running an Occult Game: This section is your official advisor on how to infuse your game with mystery, secrets, and menace, and is full of useful tips and lore on the esoteric mindset. Elements, themes, and Adventure Seeds: This section is a perfect guide to running occult games for dabblers and adepts alike. It begins with definitions of occult elements—the building blocks of a successful occult game—interweaves those elements into themes, and finally draws from those themes to create a variety of occult adventure seeds ready for your next occult adventure. Occult Locations: Occult locations often have mysterious elements that can grant those who explore them information or power—at a cost. The new options in this section enhance the narrative aspect of a haunt's mechanics. Conversely, the new loci spirits represent a benevolent option for lingering spiritual energy. Ley lines crisscross the multiverse and lend power to any spellcaster who finds the rare spots where she can tap them. Mindscapes are mental landscapes that open the door to fantastic and exciting adventures in a creature's mind, or psychically created worlds where the normal rules no longer apply. Esoteric Planes: This section explores the esoteric view of the multiverse held by occult scholars. The occult view of the multiverse is full of mysteries, secrets, and unusual parallelisms. Learn more about some of the odd realms that are paramount in the esoteric view, from the Dimension of Dreams to the Akashic Record and beyond. Occult Rewards: The only way to fight against some of the harshest and most alien occult threats is armed with objects of occult power. From simple mundane gear that can amplify occult skill unlocks to the mightiest artifacts, occult rewards are strange and exceptional. In this section, you'll find items and esoterica from a variety of occult traditions, from a lucky four-leaf clover to the mighty stannum crown. You'll discover ways to travel to realms beyond imagining, such as the bizarre flying skiff or the enigmatic portal network. Will you tempt fate by reaping the benefits of a cursed monkey's paw or maniac hand, knowing they may turn against you and those you love? As with all things in the world of the occult, what seems too good to be true probably is, and may come at a price you can only begin to comprehend. Running an Occult GameRunning an Occult Game the word —occult— refers to that which is hidden or occluded, and it encompasses a wide range of strange disciplines known to only a few. Ancient though they may be, the mysteries of the occult remain obscure, protected by hermetic orders or locked within esoteric repositories of knowledge. In an occult adventure, the characters uncover clues as they search for the meaning behind perplexing events and supernatural phenomena. The tone is usually ominous and laden with secrecy and veiled threats as the characters untangle each portentous thread of occult mystery. Ordinary folk seldom recognize the patterns beneath events; only the truly initiated, undaunted by the risks to mind, body, and soul, dare plumb the depths of the occult in order to protect their world from unseen dangers. Incorporating The OccultIncorporating occult themes into games where magic is commonplace requires careful consideration. Think of the occult like layers of an onion. By peeling back these layers one at a time, PCs can be at first perplexed by, then increasingly familiar with, the strange rules that govern this parallel world. But once PCs become comfortable with one occult reality, they discover a new deeper, darker layer. In occult adventures, each new piece of the puzzle opens up more questions than it answers, and the mysteries of the story and plot are carefully nested like so many matryoshka dolls. In such games, haunts do not hesitate to reveal the causes for their spiritual contamination, and ritually marked corpses are far more than atmospheric window dressing. The very locations adventurers investigate may themselves be intrinsically linked by mysterious ley lines to other locations with similarly disturbing histories. Occult ElementsAs characters in an occult campaign start to discover the hidden strands that connect seemingly unrelated events, they begin to interact with the bizarre, esoteric trappings of occult stories, including the following elements. Mysteries within MysteriesStandard adventures present a problem, obstacles in the form of monsters and traps, and a resolution. By comparison, occult adventures are subtler. The key to the adventurers' success often lies in investigating the unknown and the inexplicable, or following a trail of clues to its source. Strange phenomena, bizarre murders, and eerie occurrences are regular hooks in occult adventures, and the characters must peel away layer after layer to find the truth. The Mysteries and Investigations rules provide advice for structuring a mystery adventure; occult adventures use a similar structure, intermingled with the atmospheric clues and story trappings of the occult elements detailed in this section. This is not to say that an occult adventure can't also include heroic battles, dungeon exploration, or swashbuckling. It's a good idea to vary the tone and pacing of the campaign from time to time, and sometimes seemingly ominous portents can turn out to be red herrings, which have their own value in occult adventures. The occult elements in your story might also fade in and out of a campaign with an altogether different main theme, recurring every few adventures as side treks that at first have little to do with one another—or so it would seem. The further the PCs progress in the campaign story, the more clearly they begin to distinguish the patterns underlying all of their adventures. For example, the PCs might discover that all of the unearthed graves they encountered throughout several adventures were the resting places of an order of scribes who penned a tome foretelling the apocalypse. When it's time to reintroduce the occult storyline, the GM need only present a fresh clue that ties back to earlier adventures to draw the characters once again into the world of the occult. Piecemeal Mysteries: Mystery adventures can be tricky to write, as the GM cannot always foresee when clues are too obvious or too obscure, and either case may be frustrating for the players. Bringing the occult into the campaign one small piece at a time creates the illusion of unseen forces moving in secret, even if neither the GM nor the players know the nature of the mystery at the beginning of the campaign. As the campaign progresses and more pieces fall into place, the mystery reveals itself and takes a definite shape. Clues Only for the Initiated: Game Masters often try to conceal vital information in games to preserve mysteries for fateful, well-timed reveals. And all too often, canny PCs find a way to acquire the information early, disrupting the GM's carefully planned adventure and spoiling its momentum through overreliance on a few choice clues. While such reticence may sometimes be necessary to preserve intrigue and guide PCs, occult games dole out information more readily and more frequently, but in a slightly different manner. Because the most significant clues in an occult mystery may be hard to even recognize as clues, such methods can not only more easily screen the key bits of information that do propel the plot forward, but also create a more mysterious atmosphere. Red Herrings That Aren't: Red herrings should not always be dead ends. Instead, they may serve to set up further adventures for the PCs, leaving them with the uneasy sense that strange events driven by bizarre, eldritch motivations are hidden in the world all around them. For example, while the PCs are on the trail of a murderous demon cult, misinformation might lead them to a secret society involved in unusual initiation rites. While the lead may be a dead end in terms of their original investigation, perhaps the PCs discover the group's seemingly innocuous initiations actually involve dangerous necromancy. Building PC Involvement: Sometimes the best way to involve the PCs in a campaign is to ask them what they want. At the beginning of your occult campaign, ask each player to come up with a personal mystery for his or her character, such as having witnessed an unusual phenomenon or having experienced an inexplicable event as a teenager. A PC may have brief flashbacks to her childhood of visits by men in blood-red robes and disturbing animal masks, for example. The character's search to discover the meaning of this memory may lead her down dark paths, particularly when she spots a street preacher wearing the tattered remains of one of the robes in a nearby city, and discovers from him that as a child, the PC was a candidate for an apocalyptic cult. Other hooks might include the unknown fate of a friend or relative, or the significance of a city monument's unconventional design. It may center on a certain location, like a place seen in recurring dreams or the ghost-haunted gardens of some overgrown manor. It could have to do with a mysterious object, such as a locket that throbs painfully in the hands of a psychometrist or an ancient tome containing twisting, backwards writing in which a new word is scribbled each day. Some hooks may play major roles in the campaign, While others turn out to be minor anecdotes. Regardless, an adventure hook based on a character's curiosity, need, or longing is an invaluable tool for building player investment in the story. Unseen RealmsWhen running an occult game, consider replacing some of the NPCs who broker information with spirits, daemons, otherworldly entities, and mortals who traffic in the occult, such as a medium who channels spirits from a ramshackle wooden hut at the edge of a misty bog. Occult adventures emphasize the search for obscure, hidden knowledge beyond the ken of mortal minds. Such information is the province of spirits and lost souls who wander those rarely trod paths. Some buildings may have mysterious symbols hidden in their architecture, or were designed to attract or channel occult power. For instance, adventurers who disturb the cairn of a powerful sorcerer might soon discover that the occult nature of the structure itself kept his soul in check. And, of course, GMs should design interconnected webs of intrigue that subtly display these patterns, daring PCs to pull the loose threads of reality and unravel all that they know, exposing the terrible secrets that lie beneath. In a campaign steeped in occult lore and practice, spirits and demons might be the major questgivers, regular allies, foils, or adversaries, and their machinations pull the PCs in multiple directions. They might all seem virtuous, or may all seem reprehensible, but they all want something, and they are willing to use the PCs as pawns to achieve it. An uncooperative angel may give the characters information only grudgingly, Whereas a devil who wants something might be more forthcoming. The Power and Price of Knowledge
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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Occult Adventures © 2015, Paizo Inc.; Authors: John Bennett, Logan Bonner, Robert Brookes, Jason Bulmahn, Ross Byers, John Compton, Adam Daigle, Jim Groves, Thurston Hillman, Eric Hindley, Brandon Hodge, Ben McFarland, Erik Mona, Jason Nelson, Tom Phillips, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Thomas M. Reid, Alex Riggs, Robert Schwalb, Mark Seifter, Russ Taylor, and Steve Townshend.
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