Sheikh

A sheik adds Arms Lore to his list of class skills.

A sheik’s focus on martial arts distracts him from developing his akashic magic to its greatest potential. The sheik gains additional veils more slowly than the typical vizier, as shown on Table: The Sheik.

In addition, his akashic flow is somewhat restricted, meaning that he gains less essence. A sheik gains essence as shown on the table.

As a sheik, you gain access to one martial tradition of your choice. You begin play with knowledge of 4 martial maneuvers chosen from the martial disciplines offered by your chosen tradition. Once you know a maneuver, you must ready it before you can use it (see below).

You learn additional maneuvers at higher levels, as indicated on Table: The Sheik. You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisites, if any, to learn it.

Upon reaching initiator level 4th, and at every even numbered initiator level thereafter (6th, 8th, 10th, and so on), you can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one you already know. In effect, you lose the old maneuver in exchange for the new one. You can choose a new maneuver of any level you like, as long as you observe the restriction on the highest-level maneuvers you know; you need not replace the old maneuver with a maneuver of the same level. You can swap only a single maneuver at any given level.

Your initiator level is equal to your class level, and your initiation modifier for your sheik maneuvers is the same as your veilweaving modifier.

Maneuvers Readied

At 1st level, you can ready two of your four maneuvers known by meditating for ten minutes. The maneuvers you choose remain readied until you decide to meditate again and change them. You need not Rest to ready maneuvers; any time you can meditate, you can change your readied maneuvers. You must always ready your maximum number of maneuvers readied.

You begin each encounter with all your readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times you might have already used them since you readied them. When you initiate a maneuver, you expend it for the current encounter, so each of your readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter, unless you recover it, as described below.

As you advance in level and learn more maneuvers, you are able to ready more but must still choose which maneuvers to ready.

Recovering Maneuvers

In order to recover maneuvers, you must tap into your akashic flow by reallocating essence; you recover a single expended maneuver whenever you spend a swift action to move at least one point of essence from one akashic receptacle to another, such as moving essence between veils, binding it into an akashic feat, or moving it into some other akashic receptacle.

You cannot recover a maneuver in the same round that you expend it, nor may you initiate a recovered maneuver in the same round you recover it.

Alternately, you may concentrate on your akashic flow and recover a single maneuver as a standard action.

You begin your career with knowledge of one stance from any discipline offered by your martial traditions. At 2nd, 5th, 9th, 11th, 15th, and 18th levels, you can select an additional stance to learn. Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended and you do not have to ready them. All the stances you know are available to you at all times, and you can change the stance you are currently maintaining as a swift action. A stance is an extraordinary ability unless otherwise stated in the stance or discipline description.

Unlike with maneuvers, you cannot learn a new stance at higher levels in place of one you already know.

Although not a traditional spellcaster, a vizier’s intense study of magic results in a unique insight into the flow of akasha energy many spellcasters unknowingly use to cast spells. Your levels in vizier count as arcane spellcaster levels for the purposes of qualifying for feats and abilities and for other caster level based abilities, such as determining your caster level when using a stave.

You may not, however, invest essence into charged magic items in the way of the typical vizier. Specific mystic attunements and other class features that rely on this ability do not function.