#scrollmaster

(art by Onpyr on DeviantArt)

Understanding the past is the key to guiding the future. It may not be their motto, but certainly the Pathfinder Society lives by that credo.

While the Society has many branches and specializations, few embody the desire to learn as much as possible to improve modern society than those belonging to the Scrolls branch, who are scholars of all manner of historical and esoteric knowledge, and seek to learn more.

While bookworms, one cannot simply write them off as pencil-pushers. Many members of the Scrolls are right there with their companions, eager to rediscover all that has been left behind by past civilizations.

Today’s archetype, the scrollmaster, represents someone deep in that philosophy and training, and is one of those archetypes that can be taken freely alongside another “core” archetype, in this case being the Pathfinder Field Agent.

So let’s take a deeper look and see what makes these nerds tick, shall we?

The base dedication of this archetype reflects the training to better retain and recall knowledge, allowing them to recall details about past events with greater detail. Additionally, it synergizes with training that improves the ability to recall monster abilities and capabilities.

Though some may be loath to do so, many scrollmasters see the value in giving scrolls to other party members, putting the power of magic in their hands. When they do so, they tend to give thorough instructions on how to activate the magic, improving their ability to do so… as long as they remember them.

Many monsters have innate magic they can bring to bear, and some of these explorers tend to prioritize learning about those so they can get a leg up on counteracting and avoiding them.

While not as necessarily mystically-focused as their compatriots in the school of Spells, many scrollmasters understand the usefulness of spells, particularly when it comes to finding the truth. As such, they often learn basic divination spells to translate languages, see past invisibility, or restore the senses.

Others learn magic to sense auras and magical energies to pinpoint any hidden magical items around them. Additionally, they have a knack for seeing past magical deceptions that hide an item’s true nature.

With magic that can bend minds and dangers that can end lives being so rife in forgotten corners of the world, it pays to be able to create accurate account of what went on. As such, some scrollmasters learn a special spell that turns the events as the caster experienced them into a magical scroll which can be used to re-experience that moment later.

Deciphering text can be hard, but many understand that it only takes time, which they can manage quite well.

With the broad variety of monsters and strange beasts out there, some scrollmasters learn to diversify their monster lore, making it easier to identify them even if they don’t have greater knowledge of the general field that normally covers monsters of that type.

Many ancient civilizations protected their secrets with traps, so many of these scholars learn magic to help counteract them, dispelling wards, bypassing locks, and providing protection.

The depth of a scrollmaster’s knowledge can be quite surprising, and they always seem to know a lot more than others about any particular topic.

Should these scholars need to lie, they can use their vast knowledge to fool others into believing they know more than they do, or something entirely untrue. However, such a trick requires a baseline assumption that they are authorities in the field, and once that trust is lost, they can’t be so easily fooled again.

Those that master their magic further can cast various useful divinations repeatedly, and even improve their effects.

As knowledgeable as they are, scrollmasters often train to defend their minds, suppressing mental effects that would subvert them.

With so many feats that are useful for gathering information, this archetype is a great fit for anyone wishing to play a knowledge skill monkey. Even if you don’t also take the Pathfinder Field Agent archetype, any class and character with a keen mind can benefit by getting answers that the party would be in the dark about. That being said, if your base class is a caster you can probably skip the feat that grant innate spells unless they’re not on your spell list or you want to focus your actual spells in other areas.

If you ever needed an excuse to read the lore of the setting you’re playing in, be it the Lost Omens setting or otherwise, archetypes like this are the perfect inroad, as having this information can make it easier for the GM as you provide details about the setting as you go. HOWEVER, this is a very gray area, and you should work with your GM to determine what the divide between what you as a player have absorbed like a sponge and what is actually available knowledge to your character.

The Mists of Verbera obscure the contents of the marsh not just from sight, but from actual discovery, guiding travellers away in subtle ways. If one were to find away around the magical defenses, they could make some truly grand discoveries of the past, including the remains of a terrible battle, and a nightmarish undead warsworn of bone and strange metal armor that rules over it.

Scholars have long desired to fully study the Grinding Tower, a mechanical edifice that constantly rotates thanks to concealed gears throughout it’s monolithic structure. A young scholar believes she has predicted when a path deeper inside will open thanks to her mathematical calculations, but she needs an escort to protect her from any mechanical guardians within.

Turns out there are plenty of archetypes with the word scroll in their name, so we’ll call this Scroll Week. Today’s archetype is the… erm… Scrollmaster.

Let me level with you. This is one of those archetypes that I really didn’t get when I first read it. A melee wizard that can get a bit of extra oomph out of scrolls by using them as weapons or shields? Interesting, but aside from being a way to base a character off the protagonist of Read Or Die, is it really worth it?

Well, its interesting to note that the abilities granted by the class do play into the metaphysics of how more permanent magic items function, which could lead to some interesting worldbuilding.

  These wizards forgo a normal arcane bond, instead using that magical potential to reach into the magic imbued in scrolls to harden the flexible material, be it animal hide, paper, or papyrus, into a form that retains an edge. The more powerful the magic on the scroll, the more powerful the blade and the longer it can last. However, using up all of the strikes that such a scroll is capable of destroys it, the magic being spent. Additionally, these wizards can use their own spell knowledge to convert some of the power of the blade into various weapon enchantments that said spells act as a prerequisite for, such as knowing keen edge allowing you to create a keen scrollblade. The lowest-level scrolls, however, do not gain any magical properties when made into a weapon.

Conversely, they can instead apply the same rules to defense, hardening a scroll into a shield. Such as shield has many of the same limitiations and strengths of the scrollblades, including their destruction when overused, as well as the ability to allocate some bonus towards specific shield enchantments. Note that both blades and shields can only be made from flexible scrolls, meaning scrolls inscribed on hard, inflexible medium such as stone, clay, or metal do not function with these abilities.

Finally, their master of scrolls makes these mages adept at getting the most out of them, using their own mastery of magic to determine the power of the scrolls similar to how staves function.

So how do you use this archetype? For me, this screams a mix of item creation and melee wizard. Pick your wizard school and spells for buffs, debuffs, and blasting, as well as as many spells linked to weapon and shield enchants as possible, and spend your off days cranking out scrolls. Cast your buffs and draw out scrolls for your weapon and shield, using them until you have one use left in their weapon/shield state, then cast the scroll and draw a new one. It’s a pretty novel build, good for at least one character. Would I recommend it for repeat use, though? Probably not, if I’m honest.

  Like I said earlier, the ability to enchant your scrolls with enchantments that you have the prerequisite spells for does play into the rules of magical items and how they are created. Perhaps scrollmastery was how many magical enchantments were originally formulated?

    Your typical magical scroll are merely a way for novice wizards to pay for their studies into the arcane arts, useful for adventurers, but too weak to be considered useful by the wider magical community. Defying that expectation is Reiga, a half-orc novice-turned master whom has worked her way up to the top despite a hostile teaching environment and a poor upbringing, industriously creating scroll after scroll to pay the exorbitantly high tuition costs and then some. Now, at full mastery of the arcane arts, Reiga honors how these humble scraps of parchment paved the way to her success through her scrollmaster technique, turning even the weakest scroll into a deadly weapon, not to mention a powerful full spell beyond its original potency.

  The Vishkanya of Requei are known for their strange and mysterious arts, that blend magic and performance. Of note is their so-called “ribbon-whips”. Magically inscribed with powerful spells, these ribbons of silk act as both lashing blade and hardened barrier, until the mage unleashes their fury in a flurry of light and limbs. Only a fool would assume these dancers are merely entertainers.

Well there are a couple ways I would think about going about this. The first would be lining up various ‘Normal’ careers and comparing them to the Dark Heresy ones. A police officer is a less well trained Arbitrator. An Acrobat is an Assassin without so much weapons training. If you work at it you could even have some weird people who start it up, say a Psyker who would make a living by pretending to tell the future as a fortuneteller (the fun part is he can actually occasionally tell the future).

Here is my attempt (Under the cut) to break it down and give some connections based on some of the skills each class can learn.