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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Secrets of Magic / Book of Unlimited Magic

Soulforged Armaments

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 230 1.1
Unrelenting commitment to a single purpose. Zealous compulsion to right a wrong. The inability to leave an important deed undone. These qualities have long served as primordial and potent components of magic. No starlet dropping, strand of spider's web, or poorly pronounced draconic sonnet can rival the power of belief. Tales of soulforged weapons, shields, and armor—equipment created from the tenacity of a combatant's spirit alone— have circulated throughout Golarion for centuries.

Rarity: Uncommon

Soulforged armaments can be summoned only in the service of a higher purpose or calling, such as a blade called forth to avenge a wrongful death or a shield conjured to protect one's homeland from invasion. Weaponry, shields, or armor created in this way often visually resemble the purpose they were summoned to fulfill. For example, a dagger forged from a soulbond to assassinate the high council of a tyrannical nation might bear the names or likenesses of the targets—only to see them crossed out or fade from view as each is eliminated.

Soulforged Champions

The most exalted wielders of soulforged weapons have been champions, and they're much more common than other wielders. If you're a champion, you can tie your soul path to your cause. Being a champion sets a steady soul path before you; you can choose for your soul path to be the same as the tenets you follow. Corruption still comes about the same way, as it's much easier to corrupt your connection to your soulforged armament than to stray far enough from your alignment or code that you must atone.

You can also have your blade ally or shield ally be your soulforged armament. You can choose particulars that fit your own story, but doing so usually means the ally is more a reflection of your conscience than a specific spiritual being sent by your deity.

Finally, if you commit actions that both cause you to lose your champion abilities and corrupt your soulforged armament, undergoing the atone ritual also gives you the effects of the purify soul path ritual with the same degree of success you rolled for atone.

Characters other than champions can also choose a champion cause to tie to their soul path, and devout characters sometimes tie their soul path to their deity's tenets and anathema.

Binding an Armament

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 232 1.1
You bind an armament—a weapon, shield, or suit of armor—to your soul when you select the Soulforger Dedication feat. This represents performing a special ritual to do so. You can choose an item you own to make soulforged or spontaneously manifest an item with a form drawn from your spiritual essence. In the latter case, you choose the form, selecting a mundane weapon, shield, or armor of level 1 or lower, either common or one to which you have access. An existing armament is deconstructed and then recreated with the substance of your soul binding it together, which changes the appearance to match the state of your soul. It might have a perfect surface and gleam in the faintest light if you have a noble soul or have a twisting, chaotic shape if your soul is wracked with turmoil. This appearance can change based on your actions. Most soulforgers also choose a unique name for their armament.

Traits: A soulforged armament is always magical. If it doesn't otherwise have any traits that make it magical, it gains the magical and evocation traits if it's a weapon or the magical and abjuration traits if it's a shield or armor.

Extradimensional Storage: The armament is stored in an extradimensional space when not in use, and you can Manifest it to summon it into your hands or onto your body. A soulforged armament can be Dropped, Disarmed, or otherwise removed from you, but its soulforged abilities don't function for anyone else, and you can Dismiss the manifestation to return the items to the extradimensional space no matter where the items are. If you die or choose to pass ownership of a soulforged armament to a successor, it loses any soulforged abilities; violating the spirit of the soulforged bond by selling the item tends to have disastrous results. There might be special techniques or rituals by which a determined foe can break your bond with a soulforged item, but otherwise, your ability to Dismiss and Manifest it essentially means it can't be stolen.

Essence Power: Choose one essence power for your soulforged armament. You can bring the essence power forth once per day by tapping into the armament's essence form deep in your soul; essence powers can be found here. You also choose a soulbond—a cause true to your soul that links you and your armament. Going against this cause can give your armament a soulbond corruption that hinders you even while the armament isn't manifested.

Special Armament Types

Specific Items

You can turn a specific item into your armament, such as a flame tongue or sturdy shield, though some unusual or special items can't be bonded, such as cursed items, artifacts, and intelligent items, in addition to other story-specific items at the GM's discretion. Bonding a specific item follows the standard procedure for upgrading or reshaping your armament.

Ammunition

If a soulforged weapon requires ammunition, that ammunition appears with the weapon when you Manifest it. You can choose the way it appears, such as in a magical quiver that appears on your body, or simply floating in the air where you can pluck it to load or shoot your weapon. The form doesn't change how many or what type of actions reloading takes or any other functions of the ammunition. If you want anything other than basic ammunition for your weapon (such as a sleep arrow), you must attain and carry that ammunition separately.

Dual Weapons

You can choose two one-handed weapons you want to wield simultaneously as your soulforged weapons. When you Manifest Soulforged Armament, both weapons appear. Because they're a pair, you must Manifest them together, having two hands free to do so, and Dismiss them simultaneously as well. The essence power applies to both weapons, so they share benefits like the new damage type and status bonus to damage from planar pain. However, you get any effects the bond grants you only once, as the dual weapons function as a single armament. For instance, if your essence power is healing grace, you can cast one heal spell when you manifest the essence form of your dual weapons, not two.

Attached Weapons

An attached weapon (such as a shield boss or shield spikes) brings the item it's attached to with it when manifested or Dismissed. Manifest Soulforged Armament uses the item the weapon is attached to for its Requirements, so a shield boss would require you to have a hand free to hold the shield. If you have Soul Arsenal, you could have a soulforged weapon attached to a soulforged shield. These items work normally for Soul Arsenal, except that you can neither Manifest nor Dismiss one without the other.

Soul Path

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 232 1.1
When you take Soulforger Dedication, you must choose a soul path—a motivation, cause, or goal that compels you to act, prompts you to undertake substantial risk, and drives you to face significant danger. Such a motivation can be limited or grand in scope but must be actionable enough to be easily linked to gameplay. For example, if your village was destroyed by the greed of wealthy nobles, you might select a soul path to protect the poor by undermining the rich, which might drive you to protect an innocent from the blade of a wealthy noble or break into a bank vault containing coins stolen from destitute villagers. Other sample soulbonds might include liberating the oppressed from the tyranny of slavery, punishing those who threaten nature or hunting and killing malevolent undead. Work with the GM to choose a soul path that fits in well with the themes of your campaign and group dynamic so that you can pursue your soul path in an interesting fashion.

Corruption

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 234 1.1
Though the supernatural link with a specific armament created by a soulbond is powerful, the sensitive nature of will—with its potential for dramatic ebb and flow— poses a threat to those who harness this power. Once you're bound to a soulforged armament, you begin to test your true devotion to your soul path.

If you behave or act in a way that directly opposes or hinders the motivation, goal, or cause declared in your soul path (regardless of whether the act involves your soulforged armaments), your spirit begins to tarnish. It's anathema for you to commit acts opposed to your soul path or to even go a long time without taking action to pursue the path. You and your GM determine when you've performed an anathematic act. In the example of protecting the poor by undermining the rich, working for a wealthy noble or directly in their interest could be anathema, as could spending a month on a distant plane far from the struggles of the oppressed. In both examples, you could find an approach to remain true and avoid the anathema. In the first case, you might use your leverage to force the noble to anonymously divest a substantial amount of their funds to feed and house the poor—or do so yourself. In the second, you might seek a similar dynamic of wealth and want among the cultures of the distant plane and work against it.

Anathematic acts trigger a curse known as soulforged corruption that degrades and perverts the energies within your soulforged armament. This curse brings out a flaw inextricably tied to the armament's true essence. The corruption flaw applies to you even when your armament isn't manifested. The rules for the flaw appear in the essence power. As normal for a curse, this affliction can be removed only by effects that specifically target curses, including the methods listed in the Removing Corruption section below.

Soulforged Corruption (curse, divine, enchantment) A successful remove curse spell, rather than ending this curse, reduces its stage by 1 (to a minimum of stage 1). Level your level; Saving Throw Will save against a very hard DC of the curse's level; Stage 1 You suffer the effects of your armament's corruption flaw. If you try to manifest the armament's essence form, you must attempt a DC 5 flat check. If you fail, only the normal form manifests, and you can't try to manifest that armament's essence form again that day (1 day); Stage 2 You suffer the effects of your armament's corruption flaw, and any attempt to activate the armament's essence form fails (1 day); Stage 3 You permanently destroy your soulforged armament. You can't have a new soulforged armament until you remove the curse entirely with the purify soul path ritual (1 day).

Removing Corruption

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 234 1.1
The effects of soulforged corruption can be staved off with the Cleanse Soul Path exploration activity or cured with the purify soul path ritual.

Upgrading, Reshaping, Restoring

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 234 1.1
You might want to alter your soulbound armament by adding new runes, replacing its form with a new one, or creating a new armament after yours was destroyed. You decide whether you consider this new armament as the same armament of the same lineage or a brand-new creation with a totally different appearance and name.

Upgrading your armament works like etching or transferring runes or upgrading a permanent item from a lower-level version of the same item, whichever is appropriate to what you're doing. You or someone else can do the work, but you must leave the item manifested for the entire process. You can transfer runes off your armament as well, typically in anticipation of establishing your bond with a different item.

Reshaping your armament allows you to change the base weapon, armor, or shield into another of the same type, turning half plate armor into full plate, changing a warhammer into a longbow, and so on. If all you do is change the form while keeping the same runes and other magical properties, you can do so by spending a day in meditation. This doesn't cost any gp or extra time unless the new form is higher than level 1, or unless the difference is so vast that the GM determines it might take additional time and cost. For example, turning explorer's clothing into full plate requires the same time, expense, and Crafting check you'd need to Craft full plate since full plate is a level 2 item. Specific items can't be reshaped in this way unless the GM expressly allows it. You can't turn a flame tongue into a spiked chain, a breastplate of command into hide armor, or a sturdy shield into a darkwood shield. You can also use this day in meditation to rebind your soul to a different item in your possession. Typically, you keep the old item, its power removed, as a special keepsake or gift to a worthy successor, though attempting to disrespect the spirit of the bond by selling the item can have dire consequences. Since the essence power you chose represents the effects of the connection to your soul, the essence power typically doesn't change when you bind a new armament, though if your character's personality and connections change dramatically through the story, you and the GM might decide together to shift to a different essence power the next time you bind a new armament. If you rebind your soul to an armament that can't accommodate your current essence power, you will also need to change to a different essence power.

You can recreate a destroyed soulforged armament, or bond to a new armament if your previous one was destroyed. (If it was destroyed by soulforged corruption, you must first successfully use purify soul path.) Recreating costs the same amount of time and money as creating the item from scratch. If you already have an item with which to form a new bond, it takes 1 day in meditation, as with reshaping an armament.

Essence Powers

Source Secrets of Magic pg. 236 1.1
Your soulforged armament has an essence power you choose when you first bind it. It gains the power temporarily when you manifest its essence form. Each power has a corruption flaw that affects you if you have soulforged corruption. Essence powers that only apply to some types of armament indicate which.

A list of available essence powers can be found here.