Spiritualist Witch Introduction: The grim young man held the ancient, cracked skull close to his face as he softly chanted words he barely understood himself. The incantation grew faster and louder as he grew more desperate. Suddenly, the skull began to glow with an unearthly green aura. The young man set the skull gently on the ground and scooted back, his dark eyes open wide with anticipation. From the skull's eye sockets and nose-hole flowed a milky white smoke, which rose into the air, and began to take the discernible shape of a man. "Are you ready to learn new secrets?" whispered the ghostly form. Its voice sounded muffled, as if spoken through the dirt of a grave. "Yes, grandfather," stuttered the dark-eyed young man. He couldn't tell if the pit in his stomach was longing or fear. "Teach me your arts." The spirit nodded slowly. "Then let us begin." Description: The Spiritualist Witch has contact with the world of the dead, and has found a mentor who has agreed to teach him the arts of magic. Role: The Spiritualist is generally a quiet, reclusive wizard, who has great reverence for the dead, especially his mentor. He seeks out lost knowledge, hints of past glory, and the wisdom that only time can bring. The Spiritualist then uses this information for good or for ill. Requirements: The Spiritualist needs a good understanding of human nature in order to deal with the spirits of the dead. He therefore needs a Wisdom of at least 12. Otherwise, he must have the normal requirements of any mage or specialist. Alignment: The Spiritualist may be good or evil, lawful or chaotic, but must have at least one Neutral aspect to his alignment. The Spiritualist cannot afford to get caught up in too many moral conflicts. Preferred Schools: Spiritualists generally are interested in either controlling the undead, or in learning lost secrets. Necromancy and Divination, therefore, are the preferred schools of the Spiritualist. Barred Schools: Invocation/Evocation and Illusion are both barred to the Spiritualist, even if he could normally cast from those schools. Weapon Proficiencies: The Spiritualist gains and uses weapon proficiencies normally. Non-Weapon Proficiencies: Bonus: Spirit Sense (see below). Required: Ancient Language or Modern Language, depending upon the origins of the Spiritualist's mentor. Recommended: Ancient History, Religion, Spellcraft. Equipment: The Spiritualist does not need a spellbook of any sort. He does need to gather and use material components like any other wizard. He also must possess something that belonged to his spiritual mentor in life (a weapon, a bone, etc.) in order to make contact and learn his spells. Special Benefits: 1) Spiritual Mentor. The Spiritualist learns spells by contacting the spirit of his mentor each day. This mentor could be a long-dead wizard of any race, the tortured soul of a destroyed lich, or even a deceased spell-casting monster like a rakshasa, mind flayer or dragon. The spiritual mentor teaches the Spiritualist what he needs to know in order to cast a spell. The Spiritualist memorizes the wise words of his mentor, and uses this knowledge just as a normal wizard would use the words of a spellbook. The numbers and levels of spells that the Spiritualist can learn are determined just as for any other wizard. The Spiritualist faces the same restrictions to learning spells (based on Intelligence score), and must spend the same amount of time memorizing, as any other wizard. The mentor itself is not an undead creature in the standard sense. Instead, it is a spirit, trapped in the spirit world, but able to manifest itself in some physical way on the Prime Material Plane. It could take the form of smoke, mist, a reflection in a mirror, an image in a crystal, a moving painting or drawing. This physical manifestation is completely incapable of causing physical harm. And while the mentor knows certain spells, it is incapable of ever casting them. Part of any mentor's motivation in taking on a Spiritualist student is the chance to have influence in the world of the living through the actions of its student, since it cannot act on its own. Changing mentors is possible, but extremely dangerous. A Spiritualist may find a new spirit willing to teach him new powers. The former mentor will invariably become enraged and do everything it can to destroy the Spiritualist. While it could never attack the Spiritualist directly, it could use its knowledge to pursuade other creatures -- notably the undead -- to hunt him down and slay him. 2) Access to Necromantic or Divination Priest Spells. If the Spiritualist is a specialist in Necromancy or Divination, the spiritual mentor may be able to grant certain spells normally reserved for priests. This is determined by the spell repertoire of the mentor (see Restrictions, below). If the mentor has access to priest spells, it can pass some of them on to the Spiritualist. A Spiritualist Necromancer can be taught any 1st, 2nd or 3rd-level spell from the priest sphere of Necromancy. A Spiritualist Diviner can be taught any 1st, 2nd or 3rd-level Divination priest spell. There are some restrictions to the casting of priest spells by the Spiritualist. First, the Spiritualist can never know more than one priest spell at a time. Second, there is a 5% chance per spell level that the spell fails when cast, and a Power becomes offended. If this happens, the Spiritualist will be unable to reach his mentor for d4+4 days. 3) Limited Control of the Undead. Any Spiritualist (Necromancer or not) gains some limited control over the "animated dead" -- that is, skeletons, zombies and their variants. The Spiritualist gains this power at 3rd level. He can command these types of undead as if he were a priest of 2 levels lower than his current level. Necromancer Spiritualists can do this three times per day; other Spiritualists can only do it once per day. No free-willed undead can be controlled. 4) Spirit Sense Proficiency. If the Spiritualist makes a successful Wisdom check after concentrating for one round, he can sense the presence of non-corporeal undead, including haunts, banshees, poltergeists, ghosts, spectres, and wraiths, within a 30' radius. The Spiritualist does not learn what type of spirit is present, or where specifically it is, but he can detect its alignment with respect to good or evil. This power is tiring, and can only be used 3 times each day. Special Restrictions: 1) Mentor's Spell Repertoire. The DM must decide at the outset what spells the mentor knows and can teach to its Spiritualist student. Most mentors are limited to the spells it had memorized when it died, but over its years of death, it seeks out and often finds new spells to teach. At the start of the Spiritualist's career, the mentor typically has access to the spells of a 12th-15th level wizard. At each new experience level gained by the Spiritualist, the mentor also learns d4+1 new spells of levels appropriate to the Spiritualist's capabilities. There is a 15% chance that one of these spells is a priest spell, as described above. The more unusual the mentor was in life, the more likely it is that the mentor has strange, unique spells at his disposal. The mentor may, however, try to keep these spells away from the Spiritualist, or use them as a reward for loyalty later on in the Spiritualist's career. 2) Bad Reputation. Anyone who learns of the source of the Spiritualist's powers will think him evil and corrupt. The Spiritualist suffers a -4 reaction penalty when dealing with any NPC who knows or suspects his contacts with the spirit world. 3) Limits on Magical Items. The Spiritualist cannot use scroll spells because he was never trained to read or understand the special language of wizards. 4) Limits on Schools. As noted above, the Spiritualist cannot learn any spells from the schools of Invocation/Evocation and Illusion. Wealth Options: The Spiritualist starts with the typical (d4+1) x 10 gp. Races: Humans and half-elves may become Spiritualists, but elves find contact with the spirit world to be vile and repugnant. Notes: It is crucial that the spiritual mentor be fully developed as an NPC, complete with personality, desires, motivations, weaknesses, history, etc. The DM must know who the mentor was in life, what sorts of things it accomplished, what its motivation is for taking on a student, how it reacts to being summoned, and (as noted) what spells it is capable of teaching. Without this key information, the mentor just becomes a talking spellbook. Adventure Ideas: Spiritualist as NPC: A Spiritualist can be a formidable opponent, with undead guardians, strange spells, and a wise mentor to back him up. The Spiritualist may be able to convince the mentor to reveal a secret (about a hidden way into an ancient temple, lost magical items, etc.) in exchange for service of some sort. The Spiritualist may be a pawn in the mentor's game, a way for the mentor to get revenge or make amends for things that happened during its life. Spiritualist as PC: The Spiritualist's mentor may have many instructions for its student that could lead to adventure: find this magical item, kill that undead monster, enter a certain lost tomb. The mentor, in fact, may have a hidden agenda for the Spiritualist.