Hallowed Necromancer

It’s quite common for mages of all sorts to study necromancy—the surprisingly diverse school holds the secrets of positive and negative energy, as well as life and death. Many tap into these powers with no consideration of the morality of their use. For these unscrupulous magic users, it’s simply another avenue in their never-ending pursuit of power, and the abilities learned are turned to the caster’s personal ends, whatever they may be.

Others choose a different path. Through spiritual study and introspection, they have come to recognize the evil intrinsic in the existence of undead, the fundamental wrongness of using the universal energy of death to create an appearance of life. To combat this evil, these casters learn to conduct positive energy and direct it to great effect against the undead they encounter. They may also engage in ongoing study to learn of the nature of life, death, and undeath, and the precise relationship between each state. These scholars and mages are commonly known as hallowed necromancers—a slightly misrepresentative name, as many of them don’t use religious methods, but a frequently used shorthand regardless.

The exact origin of hallowed necromancers’ abilities may vary from one to the next.

Though the majority of hallowed necromancers have similar goals and are willing to work together, they tend not to form their own organizations.

Hallowed Necromancer Dedication Feat 2

Uncommon Archetype Dedication

Prerequisites good alignment, able to cast spells using spell slots, able to cast at least one necromancy spell, expert in Religion

You’ve studied techniques allowing you to blend so-called hallowed necromancy into your own spellcasting to bolster the living and destroy the undead. You gain the hallowed ground focus spell. It costs 1 Focus Point to cast a focus spell. This feat grants a focus pool of 1 Focus Point that you can recover using the Refocus activity. You can Refocus by meditating or praying to connect yourself to conduits of positive energy. Focus spells from the hallowed necromancer archetype have the same tradition as your spell slots.

Casting spells that create, heal, or otherwise aid or promote undead is anathema to you, as is cooperation with undead. Using negative energy isn’t anathema, as it serves a natural purpose, but twisting that negative energy for creation is blasphemous to you. If you perform acts that are anathema to your principles, you lose access to all feats from this archetype.

These abilities can be regained only with an atone ritual.

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

Hallowed Initiate Feat 4

Archetype

Prerequisites Hallowed Necromancer Dedication

You’ve expanded your focus spellcasting to techniques used by clerics and wizards. You gain an additional focus spell, either the necromancer school spell call of the grave or the initial domain spell of the death domain, death’s call.

Increase the number of Focus Points in your focus pool by 1.

Special You can select this feat a second time, choosing the other initial focus spell.

Sacred Spells Feat 4

Archetype

Prerequisites Hallowed Necromancer Dedication

Add chill touch, death ward, disrupt undead, disrupting weapons, holy cascade, magic stone, and sunburst to your spell list. These are all necromancy spells for you, even if they normally have a different spell school. You can either prepare these spells or add them to your repertoire just like the spells normally on your tradition’s spell list. When you gain this feat, you can retrain existing spells to replace them with ones on this list.

In addition, your knowledge of the conduits to the Positive Energy Plane allows you more flexibility with these spells.

Choose one of these two benefits.

• If you’re a prepared spellcaster, you can spend 10 minutes to replace one of the spells you’ve prepared with a spell of the same level from the list of sacred spells. You can do this while Refocusing.
• If you’re a spontaneous spellcaster with the signature spells class feature, add two of the spells from the list of sacred spells to your repertoire. They are signature spells for you, in addition to your normal signature spells.

When you gain the ability to cast a new level of spells, you can choose to switch the spells from this feat to any other spells from the list.

Death Warden Feat 6

Archetype Positive

Prerequisites Hallowed Necromancer Dedication

With your intimate familiarity with the duality of positive and negative energy, you’re able to stand as a bulwark against death and undeath alike. You gain resistance to negative damage equal to half your level and a +1 status bonus to saving throws against effects with the negative trait.

Advanced Hallowed Spell Feat 8

Archetype

Prerequisites Hallowed Necromancer Dedication, necromancer initial school spell or death initial domain spell

You dig deeper into the magical tools found in wizard schools and divine domains. You gain an advanced focus spell, either the necromancer advanced school spell life siphon or the advanced domain spell of the death domain, eradicate undeath. Increase the number of Focus Points in your focus pool by 1. If you choose life siphon, it triggers when you expend spell slots from your class even if they aren’t wizard spell slots.

Special You can select this feat a second time, choosing the other advanced focus spell.

Positive Luminance Feat 8

Archetype

Prerequisites Hallowed Necromancer Dedication

You learn how to create a luminous reservoir of positive energy that you can use to punish undead who dare attack you. You gain the domain spell positive luminance. It costs 1 Focus Point to cast a focus spell. This feat grants a focus pool of 1 Focus Point that you can recover using the Refocus activity.

Consecrated Aura Feat 14

Abjuration Archetype Aura Positive

Prerequisites Hallowed Necromancer Dedication

Your body radiates positive energy, making your very presence disorienting to undead and encouraging them to move away from you. The effect plays upon the instincts flowing through their bodies from negative energy and can thus affect even mindless creatures. You gain an aura of positive energy in a 20-foot emanation. Each undead creature that ends its turn in your aura must succeed at a Will save against your spell DC or become frightened 1 (frightened 2 on a critical failure). A creature that succeeds at its save is temporarily immune for 1 minute.

Special Your aura gains the trait of the magical tradition for the spells you used to qualify for Hallowed Necromancer Dedication.

New Hallowed Necromancer Focus Spell

Hallowed Ground Focus 1

Uncommon Good Necromancy Positive

Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal

Range 60 feet; Area 10-foot burst

Duration 1 minute

One small space becomes inhospitable to undead as you fill it with life-infused benevolent magic. Each undead creature in the area takes 1d6 positive damage and 1d4 good damage when you Cast the Spell, with a basic Fortitude save. After that, undead creatures have weakness 1 to positive damage and your necromancy spells while in the area.

This spell also automatically attempts to counteract any attempt to raise undead in the area (if either the undead would appear in the area or the effect’s caster or creator is in it).

If you Cast this Spell again, any previous hallowed ground you had cast ends.

Heightened (+2) The positive damage increases by 1d6, good damage increases by 1d4, and weakness increases by 1.