#slithering tracker

 Back in the days of past editions of The World’s Oldest Roleplaying Game, the opposite of a paladin was not an antipaladin, but rather a blackguard, servants of lawful evil that occur when an evil god picks up the slack of the power residing within a fallen paladin, taking them under their sinister wings. Where once a warrior of justice and the people once stood, now only an agent of tyranny stands.

Today’s archetype is not a blackguard, but a demonstration of how a lawful evil unholy warrior would work by tweaking the baseline assumption of the antipaladin, creating a counterpart of a different alignment. Who knows? Perhaps in the near future the PF2 Champion will receive an update for antipaladins, tyrants, and a neutral evil counterpart?

In any case, while the classic antipaladin is self-serving with no interest in law or structure (and often a keen interest in destroying such things), the tyrant has more interest in control, whether it be the tyranny and insidious contracts of hell, cruel and organized manipulation and espionage, or something else, a tyrant wants control in a way that even the most demanding antipaladin does not, ruling or throwing around power in ways other than physical or mystical might. (which isn’t to say that antipaladins can’t be manipulators, far from it, but there is nuance there).

Of course, just like both paladins, antipaladins, and other champions of different moral compasses, there is plenty of nuance and the like to explore in the interpretation of their edicts and other behavior. It’s a complex little dance, but that’s a discussion for another time, possibly a previous time if you’d like to look up my previous talks about alignment.

 This archetype is fairly simple, in addition to the changes to their required aligment and code, tyrants are better diplomats than they are riders.

They also gain different choices with their fiendish servant, able to pick lawful evil outsiders or fiendish animals, rather than chaotic evil.

Additionally, while it does not say so in the archetype proper, errata suggests that chaotic aligned-spells and abilities, such as various anti-law defensive and offensive spells, as well as the temporary ability to make a weapon anarchic, should be replaced with their lawful counterparts. Arrow of law and order’s wrath instead of shard of chaos/chaos hammer, protection from chaos, shield of law, and the axiomatic weapon enchant, and other such things.

Wanna play an evil paladin type, but dislike chaotic evil? This archetype might be exactly what you’re looking for. You definitely have options here, so the variety of builds is pretty much the same as any antipaladin, with perhaps a slightly larger emphasis on diplomacy, and the option of infernal patrons.

 You know, working backwards with this archetype and its associated errata, one could in theory recreate the liberator and redeemer P2E Champion causes as paladin archetypes, a neutral evil antipaladin archetype, and with a theoretical neutral alternate class, archetypes for that as well, covering all 9 alignments with relative ease all by extrapolating this one, with only a few changes here and there. Useful for someone that prefers Pathfinder to P2E.

  Finding perfect order in the predictable nature of oozes, Lord Malgrik keeps several types in his dungeons as combination executioner and torture implements, and employs slithering trackers as spies and assassins, whenever he doesn’t decide to take care of his enemies personally with his acid-dripping unholy mace, blessed by his diabolic patron.

 Rumors abound about the true nature of General Undriad. Some say he is a fext, or a graveknight, or some other lethal terror. What cannot be denied however is his unholy magics and the totality with which he dominates his enemies.

On the left, the Slithering Tracker! In 5e this is a person so motivated by revenge that they turn thier all the moisture in thier body into an ooze! It can grapple you, suffocate you in its mass, disguise itself as a puddle, and track people down by licking the floor! Would it surprise you that it's primarily hags who know how to make these?

 In the real world, a sha’ir is a descriptor used to refer to a pre-Islamic arab poet who was believed to have magical powers and to be able to commune with djinn and other spirits. The origin of the term is not known, but they were able to inspire their allies during wartime, and were considered a great boon as wise men.

Today’s archetype is actually not the first time that “sha’ir” has been used in tabletop roleplaying, with the Al Qadim campaign setting for The World’s Oldest Roleplaying Game using the term for one of the character classes unique to the setting.

However, today we’re looking at the pathfinder interpretation of the concept, which plays up the “communes with genies” side of things.

These occultists form a bond with a rare, insubstantial form of genie that are associated with each element, physically identical to weak elementals, but possessing occult knowledge in spades, granting their magic to the occultist, and the occultist granting some of their own power in kind in a mutually beneficial relationship.

 Rather than learn how to channel implement schools normally through objects, they instead summon and make pacts with the so-called jin, bonding with a total of three during their careers. Individually, these beings are weaker even than small elementals. However, they grant not only the spells and focus powers of an implement school, but also the spells of one of the four western elementalist schools of magic for wizards, appropriate to their element. In other words, each jin grants twice as many spells as a single implement school choice, just drawn from two different lists, but requiring the jin to remain close and alive to be able to cast with no problems. Thankfully, they can be easy enough to replace with a ritual.

At first, these jin can’t do much on their own, but by expending energy stored in them, the sha’ir can briefly augment them. At first this just includes granting the basic abilities of an elemental of the jin’s type. However, later, they can increase their size and might to resemble larger elementals. As they grow in level, smaller elemental sizes become easier, and the maximum power grows higher, until finally they can even turn jin into powerful elder elementals for a few brief moments.

With mastery, they can also keep one of their jin constantly as a small elemental without expending power, and even shift which one is so manifested by focusing.

Additionally, rather than call upon other outsiders to gather information and perform minor tasks for them, these occultists instead command one of their jin to do the same. However, doing so means that obviously that jin will be far away and unavailable to grant its power to the occultist during that time.

This archetype is a fun take on the occultist, granting them tiny minions that can turn into big minions. However, their biggest weakness is the definitely the vulnerability of the little guys, so definitely invest in protections for them, lest one errant fireball rob you of most of your magical abilities. A good strategy might be to invest plenty of mental focus into one jin to buff up into a powerful tank, while keeping the others close to provide their spellcasting. Or, you might decide to spread it around more evenly, perhaps taking extra mental focus feats to dial up how much you have to work with. Also look at the spells on the elementalist spell lists, and how various combinations of school spells and elemental spells can be combined.

 Fans of Golden Sun’s magic system of having pet elemental beings around providing spells may not get the elemental combined summons like that series, but they’ll definitely delight in deriving their magic from cute otherworldly beings.

Moving on from that, one can imagine that depending on their personal philosophy, these mystics may have different relationships with their jin partners, ranging from slave-driving masters to those that live in harmonious partnership with them.

  He doesn’t know how, but Mashinn is sure he is being watched. However, neither he nor his jin partners can pinpoint the source of this surveillance, which takes the form of a nearly invisible slithering tracker, the puddle-like ooze having been sent by one of his rivals.

 Eagerly seeking to defy the fate her heritage has meted out for her, Vilmei made a pact with the element of fire, seeking to find a way to turn away from the water, and her eventual transformation as a deep one hybrid. Until then, she pays her way with her mastery of magics of protection and as a seer.