Black templars—often called Defilers—are a blight to the living. They drain the life essence of living creatures to power their magics, twisting it to serve a dark purpose. The more life a black templar drains, the better able he is to drain life from around him, even raising the dead to further their ability to consume life.
Becoming a Black Templar
Almost all black templars are incarnate practitioners of chthonic akasha who see others as either tools to be used or merely convenient resources. They seek ways to quickly empower themselves, caring nothing for those they have to destroy to get there.
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
To qualify to become a Black Templar, a character must fulfill the following criteria.
Alignment: Any nongood.
Skills: Arcane Lore 5 ranks.
Veilweaving: Ability to weave 2 veils.
Essence Pool: 3.
Special: You must ritually sacrifice a sapient creature, allowing you to consume its dying essence.
| Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special | Veilweaving | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | +0 | +1 | +0 | +0 | Drain essence, stolen essence | +1 level of existing class |
| 2nd | +1 | +1 | +0 | +0 | Black defilement | +1 level of existing class |
| 3rd | +2 | +2 | +1 | +1 | Create husk | +1 level of existing class |
| 4th | +3 | +2 | +1 | +1 | Poison essence | +1 level of existing class |
| 5th | +3 | +3 | +1 | +1 | Blackened soul | +1 level of existing class |
Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A Black Templar gains no proficiency with any type of weapon, armor, or shield.
Veilweaving
At each black templar level, you progress a veilweaving class you already possess. If you possess more than one veilweaving class, you must decide to which class you add each new level of progression.
Stolen Essence
When draining life essence from the living, a black templar captures fragments of that creature’s soul. You gain the ability to use stolen essence and a stolen essence pool.
Drain Essence
As a melee touch attack, you can drain the life essence of a living creature. At 1st level, this ability deals 1d6 points of damage to living creatures you touch.
You may invest essence into this ability as if it were a chthonic veil. This attack deals an additional 1d6 damage for every point of essence invested in it.
In addition, when you successfully damage a living creature with this ability, you gain 1 point of stolen essence. If you have invested essence in this ability, you gain 1 additional point of stolen essence for every 2 points of invested essence.
Black Defilement
Starting at 2nd level, a black templar can create a zone of defilement in an area around himself which drains the life essence of all living things nearby, causing even the plants to wilt and die.
As a standard action, you may create a zone of defilement centered on you by willingly dealing 1 or more damage to your stolen essence pool, which cannot be reduced or prevented. The zone extends from you in a radius of 10 feet for every point of stolen essence you sacrifice when using this ability (10 feet for 1 essence, 20 feet for 2 essence, 30 feet for 3, and so forth). The zone lasts for a number of rounds equal to your class level plus one round per point of sacrificed essence.
All living creatures within this zone, other than yourself, take a profane penalty to attack rolls and saving throws equal to your class level. This penalty disappears as soon as a creature leaves the zone.
Any living creature that ends its turn within your zone of defilement also takes damage equal to your class level. You immediately gain a number of temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. These temporary hit points stack with themselves up to a maximum equal to 5 × your class level.
Create Husk
At 3rd level, anytime you kill a living creature within your zone of defilement, you may immediately deal 1 damage to your stolen essence pool, which cannot be reduced or prevented, to reanimate that creature as a chthonic zombie under your control. This requires a swift action.
The chthonic zombie persists for a number of hours equal to your class level before it reverts to an inert corpse. However, if you have the Dark Lord’s Ring of Essence-Binding veil woven, you may declare that the zombie is controlled with the veil, in which case the zombie follows all the rules of that veil.
In either case, the chthonic zombie acts immediately on your turn and moves and attacks as you direct, so long as you maintain line of effect. If line of effect is broken, the zombie acts on its own to follow your last command to the best of its ability. You immediately reestablish control as soon as you regain line of effect.
Poison Essence
At 4th level, you may grant a creature temporary essence; however this essence is tainted and corrupted by your powers, poisoning the creature’s soul. As a standard action, you make a melee touch attack and, on a successful hit, willingly deal 1 or more damage to your stolen essence pool, which cannot be reduced or prevented.
The touched creature gains a number of points of temporary essence equal to the stolen essence you sacrificed. This poisoned essence comes with several drawbacks. The affected creature suffers a profane penalty to armor class and Strength equal to the amount of poisoned essence it possesses and takes damage at the start of its turn each round equal to twice the amount of poisoned essence it possesses.
A creature can resist gaining the temporary essence and its negative effects with a successful Will save (DC 10 + your Wisdom modifier + your class level + the amount of stolen essence sacrificed), but a successful save does not negate the damage dealt to your stolen essence pool.
The poisoned temporary essence lasts for 5 rounds, after which the creature’s current poisoned essence is reduced by 1 point per round, which also reduces the penalties and damage.
For example, if you were to sacrifice 3 points of stolen essence, the afflicted creature would gain 3 points of temporary essence, suffer a -3 penalty to AC and Strength, and take 6 damage per round for 5 rounds. At the end of the 5th round, the temporary essence would be reduced to 2, which reduces the penalty to AC and Strength to -2 and the damage the creature will take at the start of its next round to 4. At the end of the 6th round, the temporary essence is reduced to 1, and then it disappears entirely at the end of the 7th round.
An undead creature affected by this ability gains the temporary essence but does not suffer any of the negative penalties; however, the duration is greatly reduced. The temporary essence begins to dissipate at the end of the first round rather than fifth, as described above.
Blackened Soul
When you reach 5th level, your soul has become so blackened with chthonic energy that you take on many aspects of the undead. Your flesh desiccates, drying out, your skin becoming tough and leathery as your muscles appear to atrophy, leaving you looking sickly at best or dead at worst.
You gain immunity to disease, poison, paralysis, stunning, sleep effects, and death effects. You are no longer subject to critical hits, fatigue, exhaustion, or death from massive damage.
Unlike the undead, you retain your Constitution score and are still subject to nonlethal damage, ability damage and drain, and mind-affecting effects, and you can heal normally. You still eat, breathe, and sleep.
In addition, you gain damage reduction 5/magic and slashing. You can invest essence into this ability as if it were a veil, increasing the damage reduction by 2 for every point of essence invested.