Archetypes: E
4 archetypes, from Eldritch Archer to Exorcist.
Eldritch Archer · Eldritch Researcher · Elementalist · Exorcist
Eldritch Archer
ARCHETYPE
While many archers see their craft as an art form as much as a means of battle, a small number of archers seek to perfect their skills through magic, and you are among their number. Bolstering your athletic and martial abilities with mystical talents, you achieve rare heights with the bow or crossbow—transforming arrows or bolts into eldritch ammunition, sending arrows zig-zagging nearly unerringly to their target, and manifesting arrows that can deliver spells or even instant death.
While having some spellcasting ability increases your potential flexibility and power as an eldritch archer, you might learn the secrets of these arts without being independently skilled in spellcasting, instead learning the magic of the bow for its own sake.
The ability to infuse eldritch energy into bow shots is often seen as a kind of elven magic. While it may be true that elves first developed eldritch archery as a martial art, and many eldritch archers are elves and half-elves, other peoples have learned and developed their own forms of eldritch archery.
Some whisper that remote regions to the south have their own dedications that rely on elemental archery, while the strange and shadowy hunters of the Uskwood use a form that relies on tenebrous shadow magic. Disturbing rumors circulate claiming that devils have developed a diabolical form of magical archery that can trap the soul and bind it to Hell, albeit for a short time. Like any form of magic, the discipline of eldritch archery will continue to develop among its practitioners across the multiverse.
Advanced Player’s Guide, page 172.
Eldritch Researcher
ARCHETYPE
An eager student of occult lore, you enjoy reading rare or forgotten tomes with ancient rituals and hidden secrets. You connect disparate facts to unlock deeper mysteries and uncover the truths of the universe, and you zealously hoard the knowledge your painstaking research produces. Aberrations fascinate you for many reasons, not the least of which is because their anatomy is wholly alien and yet, to the insightful, eminently sensible.
You've been particularly enlightened by the accumulated lore in Thresholds of Truth, and you know Zarmavdian was a kindred soul in occult research. With this book in hand, you feel like you stand at the doorway to unprecedented occult discoveries.
You scoff at those fools who claim you meddle in things mortals aren't meant to know—for isn't it the duty of the enlightened to gather the universe's deepest truths?
Elementalist
ARCHETYPE
You revere the four elements—air, earth, fire, and water—as the building blocks of creation and the source of all life. You believe that by balancing, mixing, and rearranging these four elements, magic is made. This belief has led you to eschew traditional magical theories and divisions, and you instead focus on harnessing, manipulating, and shaping the four elements. You cast spells drawn from multiple traditions and can use the four elements to alter and empower your spells, making them manifest and mixing them in unique ways. Most elementalists embrace the four elements equally as a mystical quaternity, and they strengthen their connection to one of these elements each day to protect themselves from harm. Others, notably sorcerer and wizard elementalists, feel a stronger connection to a singular element that they hone to great heights, utilizing the other three elements to support and augment their favored element.
Elemental Magic1st
You're a spellcaster that's specialized in harnessing the four elements. Though you might feel a stronger kinship for one element over the others, you're capable of shaping all of them. Due to your specialization in elemental magic, you have a smaller, more focused spell list than other spellcasters, though your magic is drawn from multiple traditions. If you choose this class archetype, you must select the Elementalist Dedication as your 2nd-level class feat.
Prerequisites: You must have a spellcasting class feature that chooses spells from the arcane or primal spell list.
Elementalist Adjustments: Replace your spell list with the elemental spell list. Your actual magical tradition is unchanged, but you choose your spells from the elemental list instead.
If you're a sorcerer with the elemental bloodline, you can replace your initial bloodline spell with an initial elemental focus spell, and your advanced bloodline spell with an advanced elemental focus spell. The initial and advanced elemental focus spells you select must have the same trait as your elemental bloodline.
Druid Elementalist Adjustments: If you're a druid of the storm order, you can choose to replace your starting order spell, tempest surge, with updraft.
Wizard Elementalist Adjustments: If you're a wizard with an arcane school, instead of specializing in a school of magic, you specialize in one of the four elements: air, earth, fire, or water. Any benefits your arcane school would grant you that are associated with a selected spell school, you instead apply to your selected element. For example, if you select air as your element, you can prepare only spells that have the air trait in your extra arcane school slots, you can prepare an extra air cantrip, and you add an extra air spell from the elemental spell list to your spellbook. Additionally, in place of your arcane school spell, you learn the initial elemental focus spell of your selected element. In all other ways, your arcane school functions as written in the Core Rulebook. If you later select the Advanced School Spell wizard feat, instead of gaining the listed school spell, you gain the advanced elemental focus spell of your selected element.
Secrets of Magic, page 206.
Exorcist
ARCHETYPE
You pacify restless spirits, ghosts, and haunts, capturing fragments of them and using their vengeful energies to fuel your own powers while purifying the spirit. You store these ghosts within a magical vessel called a spirit dwelling. This spirit dwelling might be a treasured family heirloom, an item you crafted expressly to help with exorcisms, or even just an odd trinket you found that happens to do the job.
While the motivations of exorcists run the gamut, most are compassionate individuals who believe that every ghost, haunt, and spirit is simply a lost soul in need of rest. They collect spirits expressly for the purposes of offering them comfort, guidance, and absolution. After an exorcist's ministrations, these spirits are freed of their burdens, emotion, and regrets and are reabsorbed into the River of Souls. Although exorcists rarely gather in one place, many different religions employ them to deal with spiritual threats.
Exorcists are most commonly found among the faithful of Braegraezaeth the True Spark (the empyreal lord of dancers), but among the major deities of the Graikitain Sea region, Bedrud, Grobreil, and even Baimoraimou count a fair number of exorcists among their faithful. Exorcists can come from any walk of life, but many are redeemer champions, clerics, or monks. Apart from the role of the spirit dwelling, exorcism practices can vary. For example, a bard or rogue might attract spirits with trickery, charm, or empty promises. In contrast, a cleric of Grobreil could take a more severe route, demanding the spirits return to the natural order of things.
Book of the Dead, page 22.