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Exorcist

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.

Additional Feats: 8th Spiritual Sense; 10th Blind-Fight; 14th Sense Evil; 16th Sense the Unseen

Exorcist Dedication Feat 4

Archetype Dedication

Prerequisites trained in Occultism or Religion

You’ve learned to attract, quell, and purify spirits, housing them in a special receptacle called a spirit dwelling until they’re ready to move on. Through the power of prayers or ritual incantations, one mundane object in your possession becomes a spirit dwelling. Your spirit dwelling functions as a lure for lost spirits weakened by their time on the Material Plane. Each day during your daily preparations, your spirit dwelling attracts a spirit wisp who comes to dwell inside. If your spirit dwelling contains no wisps, you can spend 10 minutes in a minor ritual to cast your spirit dwelling around an area and attract another wisp. You can also capture stronger spirit remnants from vanquished undead spirits, as explained in the sidebar on page 23. As long as your spirit dwelling contains any spirits, it glows faintly, casting dim light in a 10-foot radius.

As an exorcist, you do more than just collect spirits: you also help rid them of their burdens and lingering resentments, aiding their transition from the Material Plane.

Spirit’s Mercy [reaction] (necromancy) Trigger You take positive or negative damage, or you take any type of damage caused by a haunt, ghost, or other incorporeal undead; Cost 1 spirit wisp or remnant; Effect You purify a spirit by having it perform a final act of mercy to lessen the damage caused by another spirit. This grants you resistance to positive and negative damage (or resistance to all damage if caused by a haunt or incorporeal undead) against the triggering effect. If you expend a spirit wisp, the resistance is equal to twice your level. If you expend a spirit remnant, the resistance is equal to three times the level of the incorporeal undead or haunt from which you gained the remnant.

Special You can’t select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the exorcist archetype.

Cast Out [two-actions] Feat 6

Abjuration Archetype Concentrate Manipulate

Prerequisites Exorcist Dedication

You attempt to cast a malevolent entity out of the creature or object it’s possessing. Roll a counteract check against the possession effect; you must be within 30 feet of the possessed creature or object to do so. Your counteract level is half your level rounded up, and your counteract modifier is your Occultism modifier, Religion modifier, or spell DC – 10, whichever is highest. If you succeed, the entity is driven out and can’t attempt to possess that creature or object for 1 week. If you fail, the possessing creature is immune to your Cast Out for a year and a day.

Spirit’s Absolution [one-action] Feat 6

Archetype Healing Necromancy Positive

Prerequisites Exorcist Dedication

Cost 1 spirit wisp or spirit remnant from your spirit dwelling

Requirements You are holding your spirit dwelling.

You purify a spirit by absolving it of its sins and regrets.

This cathartic experience restores your Hit Points or those of an adjacent ally. If you expend a spirit wisp, the target recovers 1d4 Hit Points per level you have. If you expend a spirit remnant, the target recovers 1d6 Hit Points per level of the incorporeal undead or haunt from which you gained the remnant.

Spirit’s Anguish [two-actions] Feat 8

Archetype Evocation Sonic

Prerequisites Exorcist Dedication

Cost 1 spirit wisp or spirit remnant from your spirit dwelling

Requirements You are holding your spirit dwelling.

You purify a spirit by coaxing it to release its anguish in a final cathartic howl. This deals sonic damage to all creatures in a 30-foot cone, with a basic Will save against your class DC or spell DC, whichever is higher. If you expend a spirit wisp, this deals 1d4 sonic damage per level you have. If you expend a spirit remnant, this deals 1d6 sonic damage per level of the incorporeal undead or haunt from which you gained the remnant.

Enticing Dwelling Feat 12

Archetype

Prerequisites Exorcist Dedication

Your spirit dwelling is particularly inviting to spirit wisps.

During your daily preparations, and whenever you spend 10 minutes to find more wisps, you entice two wisps into your spirit dwelling instead of one.

Spirit Dwellings and Remnants

A spirit dwelling can be any object, from an everyday item like a mirror, hand bell, or gemstone, to a custom clockwork device, so long as it can be held in one hand, is light Bulk, and doesn’t serve another function (such as a weapon, shield, consumable, or magic item). Your spirit dwelling has the trait of the magical tradition used to take Exorcist Dedication and the necromancy trait. Your spirit dwelling is attuned to you, so only you can use it. If your spirit dwelling is lost or stolen, you can turn another object into a new spirit dwelling with a 1-hour ritual; this causes your previous spirit dwelling to revert to a mundane object and any spirits within to harmlessly disperse.

Your spirit dwelling can house not just wisps but greater remnants of spiritual energy left behind by defeated ghosts and haunts. You can use the Collect Spirit Remnant activity.

Collect Spirit Remnant [three-actions] (concentrate, manipulate)

Requirements You’re holding your spirit dwelling; Effect You brandish your spirit dwelling at the location where a haunt, ghost, or other incorporeal undead was destroyed within the last minute and pray or recite ritual incantations. You coax the spirit remnant into your spirit dwelling.

Rejuvenating Spirits: Though all spirit wisps and most remnants can pass on immediately when purified, if a spirit remnant came from a creature with the rejuvenation special ability (such as most ghosts), a recurring haunt, or another entity who ordinarily doesn’t pass on when destroyed, its ties to this world are too strong for it to easily pass on. When a spirit remnant from such an entity is released as part of your daily preparations, instead of joining the River of Souls, it begins re-forming itself in the time and location noted in its rejuvenation ability. However, you learn a clue about the spirit’s unfinished business, which may help you put it to rest permanently.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pathfinder Book of the Dead © 2022, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Brian Bauman, Tineke Bolleman. Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Jessica Catalan, John Compton, Chris Eng, Logan Harper, Michelle Jones, Jason Keeley, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Liane Merciel, Patchen Mortimer, Quinn Murphy, Jessica Redekop, Mikhail Rekun, Solomon St. John, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Sen.H.H.S., Kendra Leigh Speedling, Jason Tondro, Andrew White.

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