#gray gardener

(art by GrishaYungen on DeviantArt)

We’re taking a break from liberty and justice for now with a prestige class that spits in the face of both of those things. I speak of course of the Gray Gardeners!

Ah, the nation of Galt, Pathfinder’s expy for France… or rather, a version of France where the Red Revolution… didn’t stop for 50 years.

From the shadows as the decadent nobility were ousted came a group calling themselves the Gray Gardeners, who took control of the enraged mobs and exacted their own justice in the form of the Final Blades, magical guillotines that trapped the souls of those executed with them, preventing any loyalists from resurrecting them later. That was the stated purpose anyway.

And if they had stopped there, it would have been a bloody and grim chapter in the nation’s history, but life would have eventually moved on with a presumably more responsible governing body in place.

…But they did not stop. The Gray Gardeners remained and while they ostensibly served the new Revolutionary Council, they had a nasty tendency to “discover” that the new council were secretly loyalists, or otherwise traitors to the new burgeoning government, and executing them. Usually when the Council tried to rein them in or demand transparency from the organization.

It is worth noting that recent events and updates to the setting have officially dissolved the Gray Gardeners, though some members definitely still exist in hiding, so keep that in mind if you want to play a 1e game that takes place in the 2e part of the timeline.

[Spoiliers for the Night of Gray Death event]

So it turns out that the Gray Gardeners were actually the pawns of a powerful conqueror worm called Xoanthurund who had been manipulating events from behind the scenes to keep the Revolution going for so long, and had been planning to unleash the souls trapped in the final blades as apocalyptic undead horrors, utterly destroying the nation.

Thankfully with it’s discovery and defeat, the Gray Gardeners are now a broken power and the nation can finally start to heal.

[End Spoilers]

While they existed though, the Gray Gardeners were a force of terror in their nation, hunting the exiled nobility and anyone loyal to them, or at least, anyone the Gardeners claimed was loyal, and packed a little divine power to boot!

The requirements for this prestige class are a little weird, requiring minor skill ranks in all but one skill and second-tier divine casting. Furthermore, the prospective gardener must have executed a tried and sentenced sapient being. Guilt or innocence being irrelevant.

They do continue to gain magic with their class though, albeit at a reduced rate.

As anonymous executioners, gray gardeners have a vested interest in concealing their identities, and are quite skilled at it.

They also train a bit in the art of targeting the vitals of foes to slay or knock them unconscious quickly.

Even if they weren’t inquisitors before, these executioners use their divine power to pronounce judgement on foes, though they are limited to more hostile options. Later on they can pronounce two judgements at once.

Also borrowing from inquisitors is there stern and discerning gaze.

They also gain the ability to empower their weapons with bane like an inquisitor, and even improve this later on with an additional mid-point between as well.

Fearsome and threatening, these arbitrators of “justice” are very good at influencing even onlookers during their interrogations.

They also gain bonus feats focused on overwhelming force and dealing deadly final blows.

Their terror tactics also prove useful in gathering information as well.

Powerful gardeners can infuse their attacks with slaying might, to deliver final justice to those that try to evade them.

The most powerful also make it very difficult to bring those they slay back to life, especially when they use secret rituals to use the killing weapon as a temporary vessel, trapping their soul to deliver it to a final blade.

This prestige class feels a little bit odd. It feels like it should be meant mostly for inquisitors, but the fact that only some of their abilities stack and are redundant seems to instead suggest cleric instead, maybe druid or ranger. I can’t imagine a paladin taking this archetype no matter what their version of the oath is. It’s decent for an NPC villain though, and if you can make it work, go for it.

This is definitely mostly a villain option, but the potential for character development and turning away from such a ruthless life is there. I imagine that those that gain their divine powers from a god definitely lean towards either lawful neutral or lawful evil (or chaotic evil if we consider mob rule)

As the Vensuga Martial Arts Tournament draws close, many are questioning the emperor’s decision to hire on the judicators, a notorious mercenary company known for brutally executing prisoners and priority targets for their employers, and wonder if something similar is about to happen with the competition as pretense.

The Silent Executioners are the primary assassin’s guild in Tobesh, and border on cult-like in behavior. Deepening this mystery is their sudden interest in capturing a munavri envoy from the Below despite nobody posting a contract for her.