Duskwalker (Uncommon Heritage)

Thanks to an ancient bargain, your soul has been reborn as a duskwalker, a planar scion with a connection to psychopomps.

You gain the duskwalker trait in addition to the traits from your ancestry. You also gain low-light vision, or you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has low-light vision. Neither your body nor your spirit can ever become undead. You can choose from duskwalker feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat.

The first duskwalkers manifested as the result of a bargain between two powerful psychopomps, the immortal guardians and guides of souls after death. One believed that certain souls who helped preserve the cycle of life and death but had their own lives cut short deserved reincarnation, while the other felt this would too greatly violate that same cycle. In the end, the duskwalkers rose from a concession between the two that allowed such rebirths to occur but limited their frequency—only a finite number of duskwalkers ever exist at any one point in time.

When they were first created by psychopomps, duskwalkers were expected to perform roles that would serve the goddess of death. But now duskwalkers have found themselves with more freedom of choice and after a century, have only now come to terms with the fact that their destinies are their own to choose. As they are created, not born, most duskwalkers either struggle to integrate with society or seek out communities and organizations to serve as a surrogate family.

Duskwalkers have an inherent understanding of the cycle of life and death. In most cases this manifests as a deep respect for that cycle and pushes the duskwalker toward occupations that help them to protect it, such as hunters of the undead, midwives, morticians, and priests.

If you want a character who has a mysterious background, seeks a society or organization to join, or looks to fight against undead, you should play a duskwalker.

You might…

• Seek out opportunities to form strong friendships with a diverse array of companions.
• Become focused on preventing the spread of undeath.
• Be intrigued at finding your identity in a previous life.

Others Probably…

• Assume you’re a necromancer or have some other strange interest in death or the dead.
• Want to know if you remember your past life or ask you about the secrets of death or the afterlife.

Physical Description

As a reincarnated soul, a duskwalker retains many of the physical traits they possessed in their previous life and is a member of that ancestry, though as a duskwalker they have distinctive ash-gray or dark blue skin. However, sometimes a duskwalker forms from an unusual creature, like a dragon. These duskwalkers appear to be of a humanoid ancestry, but have features like draconic scales or horns.

When a duskwalker perishes and faces final judgment, a new one incarnates within a year from a deserving soul, typically somewhere far from the previous duskwalker’s birthplace. Duskwalkers manifest in locations with a sanctified connection to death, such as graveyards or temples, and begin their lives at adolescence. No duskwalker is capable of bearing or siring biological children, but this doesn’t prevent them from establishing families, typically through adoption.

Society

It’s not uncommon for a duskwalker to go their entire life without encountering another of their kind. Despite their overall rarity, duskwalkers are likely to become adventurers, both due to the strange conditions of their creation and common feelings of social isolation.

Alignment and Religion

Most duskwalkers are neutral or have a neutral component to their alignment. While the typical duskwalker worships or at least respects powerful psychopomp ushers, any deity associated with death, society, or the occult might attract a duskwalker’s attention.

Duskwalker Feats

1st Level

Duskwalker Lore Feat 1

Duskwalker

You either found another duskwalker who taught you the secrets of your kind, or you managed to research your unusual heritage. You gain the trained proficiency rank in Medicine and Religion. If you would automatically become trained in one of those skills (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. You also become trained in Boneyard Lore.

Ghost Hunter Feat 1

Duskwalker

Your connection to the Boneyard ensures that your blows strike true against spectral beings. Your weapon and unarmed attack Strikes against incorporeal creatures become magical.

If they are already magical, they instead gain the effects of a ghost touch property rune.

Gravesight Feat 1

Duskwalker

Prerequisite(s) low-light vision

You can see in the darkness as easily as a psychopomp. You gain darkvision.

Special You can select this feat only at 1st level, and you can’t retrain into or out of this feat.

5th Level

Lifesense Feat 5

Divination Divine Duskwalker

You have a limited ability to sense life force, like your psychopomp forebears. You gain lifesense as an imprecise sense with a range of 10 feet. This allows you to sense the life force within living creatures and its counterforce that animates the undead, though you can’t distinguish between the two.

Spirit Soother Feat 5

Duskwalker

You are attuned to the minute sounds and sensations of restless spirits. Even if you aren’t Searching, you can attempt a check to find haunts that normally require you to be Searching. You still need to meet any other requirements to find the haunt.

Ward Against Corruption Feat 5

Duskwalker

Your soul is warded against the power of undeath and plague, as well as that of the evil former psychopomps known as sahkils. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws against death effects, disease, and all effects from undead or sahkils. This bonus increases to +2 against an undead or sahkil’s death effect or disease.

9th Level

Duskwalker Magic Feat 9

Duskwalker

Your connection to psychopomps gives you the power to glimpse the near future and protect corpses from the ravages of undeath. You can cast augury and gentle repose each once per day as 2nd-level divine innate spells.

Spirit Strikes Feat 9

Duskwalker

Your connection to the Boneyard empowers you to bring death to all forms of life and unlife, exploiting their weaknesses. All your weapon and unarmed Strikes are magical and deal 1 additional negative damage to living creatures and 1 additional positive damage to undead.

13th Level

Resist Ruin Feat 13

Duskwalker

Your duskwalker heritage allows you to extend protection against negative energy to yourself or an ally in need. You gain resistance 5 to negative energy, and once per day, you can cast death ward as a divine innate spell.

17th Level

Grave’s Call Feat 17

Duskwalker

You gain plane shift as a divine innate spell. You can cast it twice per week. This can be used only to travel to the Boneyard or from the Boneyard to the Material Plane. Due to your unique connection to the Boneyard, your body serves as the focus, and you don’t require a tuning fork.