Thursday 1 August 2019

GLOG Class: The Oath Cursed and Oath Rot

Part of the GLOG Cursed Challenge

Pdf link of this post

Oath Rot
 
Listen. Do you hear it? Radiant flesh sings to us, words and promises made whole and given
sword. Oaths once broken come back whole and invulnerable. The rot of light spreads. Honour
is a sickness granted by angels.

 
Oath Rot is when divine forces conspire to make someone into a paladin, whether they like it or
not. The Oath Cursed are those afflicted by it. Being a Paladin is a curse, and it slowly rots away at your sense of self.

4 Ways to Catch Oath Rot
  1. Take up the magic sword of a paladin.
  2. Become cursed by an angel.
  3. Replace a part of your body with a holy relic.
  4. Have your entire body remade through divine magic.

Advancing the Curse

You gain a level in the Oath-Cursed class whenever you do a great service for the Church, help
defeat a powerful force for evil, or complete a great quest for the greater good. It’s a seductive
curse, because, unlike most, it doesn’t force you to be evil. It makes you good. Morals make
more sense now, and you can uphold them. You could make the world a better place, if everyone
would just do exactly as you say.

Oath-Cursed levels replace your levels in whatever previous class you had. If you have the curse,
you can take Oath-Cursed levels whenever you level up.

Having 4 Oath-Cursed Templates

You’re eventually going to break. If you are under the influence of judgement, you’re going to
try and kill someone who has barely done anything wrong, and actual paladins are going to put
you down like a dog. If you are under the influence of mercy, something is going to attack you,
and you’ll sit there frowning as you get ripped to shreds. It might even be your own friends who
end up having to put you out of your misery.

The Cure

Willingly drive yourself mad by committing your sins until you go crazy. For every permanent
madness you get, you can remove 1 Oath-Cursed template. Remove the last template by
sacrificing your honour in the temple to an archdevil, or by killing an angel and desecrating the
corpse.

Oath-Cursed

For each template of Oath-Cursed you have, your HP and Wisdom go up by 1, but your Charisma
goes down by 1.

A: honour-bound, healing touch
B: armaments of heaven, penitent
C: seeker of evil, +1 attack stat
D: judgement or mercy, eternal champion

Honour-Bound

Choose 2 of the following as your sins: thievery, lying, hersey, pride, indulgence. You may never
commit those sins, and if you are ever forced to, gain a point of trauma. Every time you gain a
template in this class, choose another sin.

At template C, those committing your sins are deserving of punishment, up to but not including
death, depending on the severity of their crimes (work with the GM to figure out appropriate
punishments). You will enforce these punishments yourself if need be, and gain a point of
trauma unless you at least try to bring them to justice.

Healing Touch
 
When a creature is close to death (0 hp), you can put your hands on them to heal them for 1 hp.
You cannot do this if they have recently committed one of your sins. You can do this a number
of times each day equal to your Oath-Cursed templates +1.

Armaments of Heaven
 
You wake up one morning wearing plate armour and wielding a glowing sword. You can never
take the armour off, although it provides no penalties for sleeping in it. You can never sell or
give away the sword. The sword glows as a torch, deals +1 damage, and deals double damage to
demons and undead. If someone takes it from you, they become infected with Oath-Rot.

Penitent
 
The curse of the angels is the only one that will ever have a hold on you. Whenever you stop for
lunch or rest, you can spend an hour communing with the angels to remove 1 curse, disease, or
affliction affecting you. This ability has no effect if your affliction, curse, or disease of of divine
origin.

Seeker of Evil
 
Determine up to 3 requirements that categorize someone as ‘evil’ in your eyes. A number of
times each day equal to your oath-cursed templates, you can determine who within 60’ of you is
evil according to your requirements, and which requirements they’ve fulfilled.

Example requirements
  1. Has ever made a deal with a demon or raised the undead. 
  2. Has harmed or killed an innocent. 
  3. Has actively worked against the Church.

Judgement
 
You have finally seen the truth. There is no redeeming those who sin. Your only wish is that you
had known sooner. If you ever witness someone committing one of your sins, or they admit to it,
you must Save or attempt to slay or imprison them at the next opportunity. In extreme
circumstances (to save the world), you can hold your judgment until the sinner has served their
purpose to the greater good, but you must punish them eventually. Your sword also deals double
damage to sinners.

If you ever wrongfully executed an innocent, switch this feature to Mercy.

Mercy
 
Murder is the ultimate sin, and you will have no part in it. Hurting anything becomes one of your
sins. Get +1 save.

If you ever must kill in the defence of the innocent, switch this feature to Judgement.

Eternal Champion
 
You no longer need to sleep, eat, or drink, and in fact cannot. Praying for the amount of time it
would normally take to rest provides these benefits. You no longer age.

2 comments:

  1. There is a faint parallel here to the Space Marine, who don't go insane like many others, only more fanatical...

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