Graveborn
Overview
The Graveborn are a lineage of undead sorcerers, originally remnants of House Magia's once-mighty Bloodline of Thanat, though the rituals that created them are sometimes still harnessed today to birth more of their kind beyond House Magia's influence. Unlike common undead, each Graveborn possesses a soul infused with a vestigial spark of life. They are endowed not only with consciousness and emotions, but also yearning remnants of vitality that grants them constitution at the cost of an insatiable craving unique to their condition.
Details
Appearance
Graveborn might pass as morose scholars or eccentric recluses from various races, or even as children, but a closer inspection reveals their true nature. Their skin is ashen and cool to the touch, and it often bears signs of their undeath such as faint blackened veins, eerie coloration or the slow decay of their flesh. Although their forms mimic the living in shape and movement, bloodless lips, eyes that gleam with an eldritch inner light, gaunt frames, and an aura of deathly chill makes their nature both unsettling and hard to conceal. Some Graveborn prefer to blend in with garments that are unremarkable and practical for their scholarly pursuits, while others design ostentatious outfits for themselves, extravagant and colorful, in an attempt to conceal their more frightening attributes beneath a dash of whimsy.
Society
Most Graveborn exist within the shadows of House Magia's sprawling influence, the Bloodline of Thanat welcoming undead sorcerers from any bloodline as members of their own and forming an enclave of intelligent undead within the bustling city of Cruxis. They are scholars, loremasters, and necromancers, spending their endless days and nights in pursuit of arcane knowledge and perfecting their necromantic arts. Thanat's society is structured around a hierarchy of knowledge and mastery over death magic, with the most powerful necromancers guiding—often outright controling—the others in service of House Magia.
Many Graveborn see their unlife as a new opportunity to achieve what they could not in life. They undertake monumental, monomaniacal projects that would weary even the most diligent of living scholars: chronicling the entirety of a bloodline's genealogy, compiling an exhaustive catalog on the flora of a particular region, attempting to understand and cure a mortal disease through medicine and alchemy alone, planning the waterworks to turn an entire span of wilderness into settled farmland over generations. Through these works, they seek to honor the memory of Thanat and build legacies that might outlast even the stones of Cruxis.
Their obsessive pursuits are also a means of distraction, helping to keep their undead urges in check. Each Graveborn is afflicted by craving: a constant thirst for blood or hunger for flesh, laced with a predatory desire to snuff any life they encounter. Graveborn seek to balance their craving with their nobler achievements, indulging it when they must and defying it when they can.
Adventurers
Fueled by necromancy and cursed with undead cravings, Graveborn adventurers still possess a dark sense of humor about their condition, making light of the perils they face with stoicism. Unlike their living counterparts, the Graveborn do not fear the end; instead, they embrace their macabre eternity not for power or gold, but to build an ever expanding legacy, until it is the tale of their unyielding spirit, not their condition, that transcends death itself.Craving
Every Graveborn is afflicted by craving, haunted by a thirst for fresh blood or hunger for humanoid flesh. Graveborn experience mental strain from their craving, unlike the physical starvation of the living. Without indulging their urges, they grow more bestial or irrational, especially near potential means to sate their compulsion. To satisfy their craving, a Graveborn must consume fresh blood or flesh from a humanoid creature.
Graveborn can go a number of days equal to their Hit Dice without giving into their craving before its effects begin. After this period, they must make a daily Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 their Hit Dice + 1 for each day past the grace period). Failure triggers withdrawal, imposing stacking penalties of -1 per failure to Will saves, Strength and Charisma scores, and Disguise attempts. Graveborn in withdrawal appear increasingly haggard or feral. Disguise attempts to conceal their undead nature are penalized. While in whitdrawal, if near a helpless potential means of satisfying their craving, they must save again or be compelled to feed immediately, ignoring all actions other than enabling or indulging their craving. They suffer a –2 penalty to AC during this frenzy. At any point, successfully sating their urge ends withdrawal and its penalties and resets the number of days the Graveborn can go before feeling the craving again. If penalties ever equal the Graveborn's Strength or Charisma score, they become inert and helpless until fed by another.
Creating Graveborn
While players can create new Graveborn characters like any other race, there also exists a jealously guarded occult ritual that allows for the transformation of deceased humanoid creatures into Graveborn, granting its recipients a second chance at an existence steeped in necromancy and terrible obsessions.Grave Rebirth (Occult Ritual)
School: Necromancy [evil]; Level: 6Casting Time: 6 hours
Components: V, S, M (a black onyx gem worth at least 1,000 gp), SC (up to 4)
Skill Checks: Knowledge (arcana) DC 25, 2 successes; Knowledge (local) DC 25, 2 successes; Knowledge (religion) DC 25, 2 successes
Range: Touch
Target: Dead Humanoid creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates; Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Backlash: The primary caster and all secondary casters suffer 6d6 points of negative energy damage as the ritual draws upon their life force to empower the new Graveborn.
Failure: All casters take 1 permanent negative level, and the targeted corpse explodes into a violent wraith, attacking the casters.
Effect
Unlike traditional necromancy, which often results in malevolent monsters or mindless husks, this occult ritual intricately weaves the essence of undeath with the remnants of the deceased's soul. Fueling their rebirth as a Graveborn, the ritual imbues them with constitution and emotions, their faint vitality sustained by strange fixations and a craving for flesh and blood.
The ritual must be performed in a place of significant death or loss, such as ancient battlegrounds or ancestral graveyards, during the night of a new moon to align with the energies of rebirth and darkness, and no more than one year following the target's death. The site must be prepared with relics and former possessions of the deceased, amidst which their corpse is laid for the duration of the ritual. To initiate the ritual, as dusk falls, the primary caster must place the black onyx gem upon the tongue of the target's corpse. During the six-hour ritual, each caster must then touch the corpse, as they take turns recounting the life story, personality and achievements of the target, intertwining arcane incantations to wrench the called soul back from oblivion with unholy supplications to beckon and guide the spirit into its new undead vessel. Upon successful completion, the corpse is reborn as a Graveborn, rising with memories of their past life and endowed with the strength and chill of undeath.
The new Graveborn retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks they formerly possessed. Their class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. They lose all previous racial traits, instead gaining those of the Graveborn race. Ability scores depend partly on their new Graveborn race. First, eliminate old racial adjustments (since they no longer belong to their previous race) and then apply the Graveborn racial adjustments instead.
The subject’s soul must be free to return, though it does not have to be willing. The subject is allowed a Will save to resist the effect of the ritual (DC 16 + the primary caster’s Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma bonus, whichever is highest). The subject of the ritual gains two permanent negative levels when it is reanimated. If the subject is 1st level, it takes 2 points of Constitution drain instead. If this would reduce its Constitution score 0 or less, it can’t be reanimated at all.
"The Orc we traveled with, Koru, he was enraged, he was holding the line until... until he wasn't. An axe blade got him from behind above the shoulder, and he went down like a bag of rocks. That's when I saw a side of Nekara none of us knew existed. The blood, it... it's like something inside her cracked. I swear, she turned towards Koru laying there dying on the ground so fast I think I heard her spine snap. For a second, she was transfixed, head tilted, bent all wrong, seeing things I couldn't. Her eyes, you know, those yellow eyes they have... No soul at all in there. Just hunger. She pounced on him like a gods damned ghoul. Then... gods... she just tore into his neck. The blood... it was everywhere, staining her, and even as she begged for forgiveness through mouthfuls of her friend's flesh, I knew she couldn't stop herself. Witnessing it, hearing her cries mingled with the sound of her desperation... It still wakes me up at night."
Racial Traits
- Ability Score Modifiers: Graveborn are driven and weild a commanding presence, and they are endowed with unnatural strength. However, their undead bodies lack the fluidity and quickness of the living. Graveborn gain a +2 bonus to Charisma and Strength, but suffer a –2 penalty to Dexterity.
- Type: Graveborn are humanoids with the Graveborn subtype.
- Size: Graveborn are Medium creatures, and they have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
- Base Speed: Graveborn have a base speed of 30 feet.
- Languages: Graveborn begin play speaking Common and Necril. Graveborn with high Intelligence can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
- Darkvision: Graveborn see perfectly in the dark up to 60 feet.
- Negative Energy Affinity: Graveborn react to positive and negative energy as undead do—positive energy harms them, while negative energy heals them.
- Monomaniac: Graveborn receive Skill Focus in an Artistry, Craft, Knowledge, Lore or Profession skill of their choice as a bonus feat at 1st level. On any day that they spend at least 8 hours immersed in pursuits related to that skill, they can attempt a skill check (DC 10 + 1/2 their Hit Dice + 1 for each day past the grace period) with that same skill instead of a Will save against their craving to stave off withdrawal for the day.
- Predatory: Graveborn gain a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks against living creatures.
- Ravenous: A Graveborn can attempt to bite a grappled opponent to suck blood or consume flesh as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple, dealing 1d3 points of damage as if using a natural bite attack. As a standard action, a Graveborn can also bite a creature that is bound, helpless, paralyzed, or similarly unable to defend itself. Drinking blood or consuming flesh through a successful bite attack sates the Graveborn's craving for the day.
- Ageless: Graveborn do not breathe, eat, sleep or age. They do not suffer penalties to physical ability scores or gain benefits to mental ability scores from age.
- Undying: For the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as a ranger’s favored enemy, turn undead or bane weapons), Graveborn count as both humanoid and undead. Graveborn gain a +2 racial bonus on all saving throws against mind-affecting effects, death effects, paralysis, poison, and stunning, are not subject to fatigue or exhaustion, and are immune to disease and sleep effects.
