Living VesselLegacy Content
Source Dark Archive pg. 140With the dawning of a new era comes the need for a new seat of power, and what better way to show your coming master your devotion than by sacrificing your entire being for their use? You presented yourself before their altar and they answered your call, flooding your body with their power and granting you the gift of their original form. Or maybe you were abducted in the dark, on a night that the moon refused to shine, when you were taken to a profane location where a mysterious cult bound you to their master against your will. Now you have powers you didn't before and you have new features that scare (and maybe, in a small dark part of your heart, thrill) you.
You might have even become a living vessel through a strange bargain. For instance, perhaps at the brink of death, you received an offer from an entity to spare your life in exchange for inhabiting you. Or you might have offered yourself to the entity in exchange for saving a loved one, for riches, or to fulfill a lifelong dream.
Beings of any alignment can inhabit a living vessel. Evil-aligned beings, especially
demons, are most likely to be interested in such an arrangement, especially if it involves forcefully taking over and changing the body and mind of a sapient being. Part of being a living vessel is learning more about your entity and finding what assuages them best and what their ultimate plans might be for your body and the world. Few vessels can fully dictate the terms of the arrangement, but the fact that you give the entity a corporeal form does give you some amount of leverage. Use it wisely.
Additional Feats: Your GM might determine that you can take a pact feat from the
pactbinder archetype as an additional feat, as long as the pact is made to the entity within you. For instance, if you're hosting a
fey, you could make a pact involving fey. These pact feats are at the same level as for a pactbinder.
Legacy Content
Rare Archetype Dedication Source Dark Archive pg. 140Archetype Living Vessel
Whether willingly or not, you've become a vessel for a being of unimaginable power. You and your GM should work together to determine the being's nature and decide how much you know and how much remains a mystery to you for now. Some decisions might influence your options later. You might need to decide whether the entity is a
demon, for instance, to know if you qualify for later feats.
You need to spend at least an hour each day assuaging the entity within you or you take a –1 penalty to Will saves for 24 hours. The process of assuaging the entity is determined together between you and the GM. It might be as simple as meditating with the entity to learn more about them, but it might be as extreme as committing gruesome, unspeakable sacrifices to keep their unknowable blessings. After a full week of failing to assuage your entity, you become
doomed 1, and you can't remove or ameliorate the condition until you allow your entity to take full possession of your body for 24 hours, during which time it pursues its own agenda.
You also gain the Entity's Resurgence reaction, allowing you to unleash your entity in lieu of falling
unconscious, though at the risk of letting it enact its will.
Entity's Resurgence [reaction] Trigger You would be reduced to 0 Hit Points but not immediately killed;
Effect Instead of letting you fall unconscious, your entity takes control. You remain at 1 Hit Point and gain temporary Hit Points equal to your level + your key ability modifier that last for 1 minute. However, the entity is in control for 1 minute or until you fall unconscious, whichever comes first.
While the entity is in control, you gain a +1 status bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls, and the GM usually controls your character, roleplaying the entity. The GM might decide to have you roleplay the entity instead, but they retain final say over any decisions you make. No matter the entity's nature, the entity is sure to wreak vengeance upon the foe who jeopardized the life of their vessel—even an evil entity won't change allegiances or ignore danger except in the most extreme circumstances.
Special You can't select another dedication feat until you've gained two other feats from the living vessel archetype.
Legacy Content
Archetype Source Dark Archive pg. 140Archetype Living VesselPrerequisites Living Vessel Dedication
The more you try to force your body to stay yours, the more it warps to channel the energy flowing through you. Whether you grow horns to match the wild hunt fey within you, develop a claw like that of the treachery demon sharing your soul, or feel a tentacle rip out of you from the outer being that imprinted itself on your psyche, the entity within you refuses to be contained. You gain an
unarmed attack of your choice with its type determined by your entity. It deals 1d6 damage of a damage type appropriate for the unarmed attack (such as bludgeoning for the tentacle). This unarmed attack is in the
brawling weapon group and has the
agile,
finesse, and
magical traits.
Legacy Content
Archetype Concentrate Healing Necromancy Positive Source Dark Archive pg. 140Archetype Living VesselFrequency once per hour
Prerequisites Living Vessel Dedication
You tap into the entity's life force to heal your wounds, though at the cost of the entity's personality bleeding into your own. You recover a number of Hit Points equal to four times your level. Each time you use Tap Vitality, you begin to bleed more and more of the entity's personality and instincts into your own until the next time you spend an hour or more assuaging the entity, bringing your mind back under your own control.
Special This action has the tradition trait appropriate to your entity, typically
divine for a
demon,
occult for an
aberration or outer entity, or
primal for a
feyLegacy Content
Archetype Manipulate Poison Source Dark Archive pg. 141Archetype Living VesselPrerequisites Living Vessel Dedication; your entity is a
demon
Most of the changes from the demon within you have harmed you so far, but you've found a way to expel some of the corruption within you to poison others. Until the beginning of your next turn, you and your weapons are covered in toxic sludge or another similar manifestation of the demonic corruption; your melee Strikes deal an additional 1d6 poison damage, and each time a creature hits you with a melee
unarmed attack or otherwise touches you, it takes 1d6 poison damage.
At 14th level, the poison damage increases to 2d6, and at 20th level, the poison damage increases to 3d6.
Legacy Content
Archetype Illusion Primal Visual Source Dark Archive pg. 141Archetype Living VesselFrequency once per hour
Prerequisites Living Vessel Dedication; your entity is a
fey
You connect with the fey trickster within yourself to create whimsical illusory duplicates that distract your foes. This has the effects of
mirror image.
Legacy Content
Archetype Source Dark Archive pg. 141Archetype Living VesselPrerequisites Living Vessel Dedication; your entity is an
aberration or outer entity
Requirements You have a foe
grabbed or
restrained.
The entity inhabiting your body is an aberrant being with unfathomable motivations, and when you hold a foe close, tendrils and tentacles unfurl from your body to crush your foe and pollute it with alien wrongness. Your grabbed or restrained foe takes bludgeoning damage equal to your level and mental damage equal to your highest mental ability modifier. The creature attempts a
basic Will save that applies to both types of damage and uses the higher of your class DC or spell DC.
Legacy Content
Archetype Concentrate Polymorph Transmutation Source Dark Archive pg. 141Archetype Living VesselFrequency once per day
Prerequisites Living Vessel Dedication
You symbiotically combine your form with that of the entity within you, taking a powerful hybrid form to temporarily boost your abilities in combat while maintaining control. For 1 minute, you gain the following effects.
- If you were Medium or smaller, you become Large, and your reach increases to 10 feet.
- You gain a +2 status bonus to attack and damage rolls and a +1 status bonus on saving throws against spells. If you use Entity's Resurgence, the status bonuses to attack and damage rolls increase to +3 during the time that the two effects overlap.
- If you have the Entity's Strike feat, the unarmed attack you gained from that feat increases its damage die from 1d6 to 1d8.
- You gain 40 temporary Hit Points.
- You gain a fly Speed equal to your Speed.
Special This action has the tradition trait appropriate to your entity, typically
divine for a
demon,
occult for an
aberration or outer entity, or
primal for a
fey