Exorcist

Strange occult travelers and wardens of the material plane, exorcists expertly wield advanced knowledge of the null sciences to safeguard the remnants of mortal life from unwanted malign spiritual intervention.

Journeys Between Realms

Long before the twilight world was laid to ruin, it was known as the world of gates, because the pathways to adjacent realms were abundant, and so strange and otherworldly things wove richly into history until they were familiar and commonplace.

Surrounding each gate, spirits would proliferate and insinuate themselves into the local ecosystems, making them either incredible, or dreadful, or some blend of both. The spirits themselves were similar: some were benign or simply uninterested in the material world. Others, however, were very malign and so grew to pose an existential threat to the twilight world and the people near the gate.

So it was that a profession began to emerge and coalesce in response to these emergent spiritual ecosystems. Often this was a journeying monk or nomad of some kind, moving from gate to gate. These travelers would arrive to a gate, investigate it for spiritual ecologies, and either move on or (if the ecology seemed dangerous) take action to secure the safety of those around the gate.

These were the early exorcists, an order of people smitten by the strange phenomena of these ecologies surrounding the gateways between realms. Early in their development, the nomadic students of the rifts between eternities quickly learned the arts of protection: banishing, warding, and exorcising.

Negative Space

Their observation of the gates showed the early exorcists something interesting: these rifts between worlds were often not constructs or artifices. In fact, the opposite seemed to be true: a gateway to the beyond was typically a kind of absence. A nothingness.

The initiation of the early exorcists was therefore an exploration of this phenomena of nothingness. So often, they realized, eternity was defined more by what Is Not, rather than what Is. A material thing is a silhouette of many kinds of boundaries: temporal, spatial, spiritual. Physical and metaphysical.

The way of the modern exorcist has evolved outward from these early insights into the root cause of the gates of the twilight world. Today, exorcists have refined these insights past a more primitive root, and designed it into a thoroughly explored science. This science is one which is clandestine not by virtue of any effort of the exorcists to keep it occult, but instead because it is simply difficult to explain fully to anyone not ready for a long process of lessons.

Engaging in this apprenticeship is an arduous task and seems to take forever without really going anywhere: it's full of journeys with a seasoned master, often peppered with absurd, seemingly worthless observations of the natural paradoxes of the monstrous world. And then, it happens: a sudden realization grips the initiate, and in a moment they awaken completely and realize the truth that informs an exorcist's supernatural intuition. In a strange, inaccurate reflection of the material world, the exorcist witnesses the truth of Oblivion itself in an empty and unbroken reality.

That Which Never Was

Witnessing this unbroken mirror of reality is the culminating event that changes an apprentice initiate into a fully realized exorcist. Suddenly in this strange non-world, the exorcist is surrounded by something they'd not seen before: an alternate, paradoxical eternity where the spirits never pierced through to reality. An old world, quiet and serene, where the gods never warred, titans never strode, and the monstrous gods never woke.

To some degree, all exorcists bear a permanent connection to this [[Never Was]], and this becomes the root of their strength. Once you witness how things should be, it becomes possible to see where they've gone wrong and sometimes how to fix those problems: generally it is simply enough to, for a moment, superimpose the Never Was on the actual world. This can be a subtle working, difficult to detect, just as it can be a devastating moment, blatant and traumatic, reshaping the world in an instant through a shattering force.

One of the reasons behind the mystique of the exorcists is that the comprehension of the Never Was, and how to spot nothingness itself, is simply difficult to do without a considerable amount of learning. Another reason, though, is this: the art of leveraging Oblivion through the null sciences rewrites eternity to an extent. What is done with such an act edits eternity in all directions: what is suddenly true, suddenly was always true, and most don't remember the edit occurring. With striking regularity, when an exorcist performs a successful warding and strengthening of eternity in this way, those they've worked to preserve simply understand one thing: the exorcist came, and dealt with the spiritual danger mysteriously, and no one knows how.

Creating an Exorcist

When creating an exorcist, think about your initiation into the null sciences. Almost all exorcists come from mortal stock who felt, but could not quantify, a sensation of profound wrongness with the monstrous world. Deep within your soul, you knew that the cosmos had been broken and the true way of things was lost: what brought you to that point? How did you seek your initiation? Who first showed you the empty world and the stretches between what is and what never was?

Quick Build

You can make an exorcist quickly by following these suggestions. First, put your highest ability score in Wisdom, followed by Dexterity or Constitution. Second, choose the empty world aspirant background.

Multiclassing Notes

If your group uses the optional rule on multi classing in the Player’s Handbook, here’s what you need to know if you choose magus as one of your classes.

• Ability Score Minimum. As a multi class character, you must have at least an Intelligence score of 13 to take a level in this class, or to take a level of another class if you are already a magus.
• Proficiencies Gained. If magus isn’t your initial class, here are the proficiencies you gain when you take your first level as a magus: light armor, simple weapons, tinker’s tools, artisan’s tools of your choice.

Class Features

As an exorcist, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points

• Hit Dice: 1d8 per exorcist level
• Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
• Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per exorcist level after 1st

Proficiencies

• Armor: Light armor, shields
• Weapons: Simple weapons, short swords
• Tools: Choose one type of artisan’s tools or one musical instrument
• Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity
• Skills: Choose two from Arcana, Acrobatics, Athletics, History, Insight, Religion, and Stealth

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a shortsword or (b) any simple weapon
• (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
• 10 darts

Unlock Ability (Oblivion)

At 1st level, tyour connection with the empty world of the Never Was has unlocked a new ability for you: Oblivion (OBL).

Through extensive training and discipline, you have witnessed the great emptiness that pervades everything, including yourself. This nothingness is paradox defined: nothing cannot exist, yet nevertheless you have gazed deeply into it. Now, you carry it with you wherever you go, and with it you may carve apart eternity in the name of restoring that which never was.

Starting Oblivion

Your oblivion score starts at starts at 10 (+0).

Increasing Oblivion

Your Oblivion score grows as you gain exorcist levels, increasing by 1 point at 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 18th, and finally at 20th (culminating in an Oblivion score of 20 at 20th level). Any time you would increase an ability score, you may choose to increase Oblivion, up to a maximum value of 20.

Oblivion Saving Throws

Your connection grants you an unnatural resilience. Whenever you would need to make a saving throw, if your ability score modifier is less than your Oblivion modifier, you may instead use your Oblivion modifier.

Exorcist Feature Ability

Oblivion is your ability score for all exorcist features. You use your Oblivion whenever a feature requires an Oblivion attack or saving throw DC for an exorcist feature.

• Oblivion save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Oblivion modifier
• Oblivion attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Oblivion modifier

Oblivion Skill Proficiencies

You also unlock three potential skill proficiencies based around Oblivion: banish, eradicate, and ward. You also gain access to a number of actions based on those skill proficiencies. You do not start with proficiency in these skills, and cannot gain proficiency in them through normal means: you may only gain and advance proficiency in Oblivion skills through advancement in the exorcist class.

Oblivion (Banish)

The art of banishment is the root of the exorcist's reputation. Most possessions are tenuous at best, involving a considerable amount of effort for the spirit, and a banishment severs those connections immediately. Banishment, in effect, pulls a moment of suspended eternity from the Never Was, imposing it on the mortal world for a brief moment.

Suspend

As a touch attack, you may inflict suspension on your target. If they fail a Constitution saving throw, they are incapacitated and invulnerable until the start of your next turn.

Oblivion (Eradicate)

Eradication is the art of fracturing the membrane between the Never Was and the broken world in a single, sudden moment. Exorcists use this proficiency to edit and break eternity surgically, sometimes

Shatter

You break part of eternity with your touch. After a successful attack, you may use your reaction to shatter reality with a sudden flood of nothingness. Your target makes a Constitution saving throw, or else is knocked prone, taking 1d8 + your Oblivion modifier in damage.

Oblivion (Ward)

The most intricate of the three Oblivion skill proficiencies, warding is the art of delicately etching runnels of absence through eternity in order to create something called a null circuit. These circuits act as reinforcements or barriers for things of a spiritual nature, and are typically used to safeguard settlements or bolster everyday things against the supernatural.

Scour

As a reaction, you may hollow out the area in a 5ft radius around you with a null circuit. Any target you choose takes 1d10 + your Oblivion modifier if they walk through, end, or begin their turn within that range. Your scouring vanishes at the start of your next turn.

Way of the Empty World

At 1st level, you learn how to flicker between this eternity and the lost eternity of the empty world. This is a strange vacant world that bears none of the scars of the radiant or monstrous gods. In this strange realm, your strength expands considerably. Alongside the twisting kaleidoscopic landscapes and its surreal fractal geometry, your awareness of the eternities around you unfold. You may use your Oblivion (banish) proficiency for all attack rolls, and whenever you take the Dodge action, you increase your AC by an amount equal to your Oblivion modifier (or 2, whichever is higher) until the start of your next turn.

Auto-intervention

Starting at 2nd level, your mind begins to harden to the spirit world. You gain advantage on all Oblivion saving throws.

Initiation

At 3rd level, you openly ally with an initiation, seeking to progress your bond with the empty world. Choose one initiation detailed at the end of the class description or one from another source. Your initiation grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 11th, and 15th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Inevitable End

At 5th level, you may take one extra action, move action, bonus action, or reaction every turn, provided that you use it for an Oblivion action.

No Self

Starting at 9th level, you truly become an empty void to spirits. You become immune to charm, fear, and possession.

Nihil

At 13th level, any attack you make where you would get your Oblivion modifier, if you choose to use Oblivion, you may add 1d10 damage. This attack counts as magical for the purposes of determining resistance or immunity.

Oubliette

At 17th level, whenever you succeed in an attack, you may cast “banish” on your target.