Secret Puppeteers

Pathoturges are careful about keeping their powers and identities secret from the public. Their social standing is often their greatest source of influence next to their abilities, and the last thing any of them want is for doubt to be cast on their public personas. Still, they have a knack for finding and recognizing one another. They often form secret societies, where they coordinate alliances, resolve conflicts, and exchange aura techniques they have learned or discovered. While pathoturges may be bitter rivals in the outside world, there is a code of honor they follow while meeting in these societies. Revealing the identity of a fellow pathoturge, no matter how much you despise them, is grounds for death.

A single pathoturge is a manipulative force to be reckoned with, but a whole secret society of them has the power to dethrone kings and topple empires. Secret societies of pathoturges often rule over the politics of whatever area they are in. Even so, not every pathoturge is drawn to these societies. Some stay loyal to a public figure, organization or kingdom, using their power to support those they care about. Others are independent and have little interest in politics. Pathoturges who can't stand secrecy are especially drawn to adventuring, and are often more open about their powers.

Creating a Pathoturge

When making a pathoturge, consider how your aura caused people to treat you growing up. Did the attention you drew give you unusual opportunities, like prestigious job offers or powerful figures seeking your hand in marriage? Did people trust you implicitly, allowing you to lie your way through life? Did you mostly evoke positive emotions like happiness and hope, making you a well-liked member of your community, or were you shunned for bringing negative emotions like sadness and fear everywhere you went?

Quick Build

You can make a pathoturge quickly by following these suggestions. Charisma should be your highest ability score, followed by Dexterity.

Class Features

As a pathoturge, you gains the following class features.

Soulshaking Effects

    Amazement. The creature is charmed by you for 1 minute. If you or your allies have dealt damage to them in the past hour, they have advantage on their save against this. If any creature attacks them, they are no longer charmed.

Disorientation. The creature subtracts 1d4 from all attack rolls and ability checks until the end of your next turn.

Insecurity. All creatures have advantage on Charisma ability checks against the target creature for 10 minutes.

Lethargy. The creature's movement speed is reduced to 0 until the end of your next turn.

Pity. All damage, excluding area-of-effect damage, that the creature deals until the end of your next turn is halved.

Terror. The creature is frightened by you for 1 minute. At the beginning of each of their turns, they can make a Wisdom saving throw against your aura save DC. If they succeed, they are no longer frightened.

Arcane Presence

As pathoturges grow more experienced, they begin to specialize in targeting a specific type of emotion. At third level, choose an Arcane Presence: Alluring, Beguiling, Frightening, or Uplifting. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. Alternatively, you can choose a feat (see Chapter 6 for a list of feats).

Agony Strike

Beginning at 5th level, your weapon strikes feel unreasonably painful, wearing out your opponent. When you hit a creature within your aura radius with a weapon attack, it deals an additional 1d8 psychic damage. This effect’s damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 11th level (2d8), and 17th level (3d8).

In addition, all of your weapon attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Strength of Mind

Starting at 6th level, you are too familiar with pathoturgy to fall for the tricks you use on others. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened, and against enchantment spells, pathoturge soulshaking, and pathoturge glamours.

Beginning at 14th level, you are immune to being charmed and frightened.

Phantom Pains

Starting at 7th level, you can trigger debilitating pain in your enemies without even touching them. As an action, you may make a ranged aura attack against a creature within your aura radius. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 psychic damage. This damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 11th level (3d8) and 17th level (4d8).

Enduring Aura

Starting at 9th level, on a short rest, you may regain uses of soulshaking equal to your Charisma modifier. You may not use this ability again until you finish a long rest.

Awakened Hearts

Starting at 11th level, your empathic powers can pierce the most shielded hearts, and your mere presence seems to imbue any cold, soulless creature near you with warmth and feeling. This allows your emotional manipulation to work on creatures who would otherwise be immune. You gain the following benefits.

• Creatures who are immune to being charmed can be charmed by you, and can be affected by any of your abilities that their immunity would automatically save them from. They roll to save against being charmed and against these abilities with advantage.
• Creatures who are immune to being frightened can be frightened by you, and they roll to save against it with advantage.
• If a creature has an ability that gives them a natural advantage against being charmed or frightened (such as and elf's Fey Ancestry trait or a halfling's Brave trait), or an advantage against magical effects in general, they do not get advantage when you attempt to charm, frighten, use a glamour, or use Soulshaking on them.

Deepened Soulshaking

Beginning at 13th level, your ability to damage hearts and minds increases. Your soulshaking abilities change to the following.

Deepened Amazement. The creature is charmed by you for 10 minutes. If you or your allies have dealt damage to them in the past hour, they have advantage on their save against this. If any creature attacks them, they are no longer charmed.

Deepened Disorientation. The creature has disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks until the end of your next turn.

Deepened Insecurity. All creatures have advantage on Charisma ability checks against the creature for 1 hour.

Deepened Lethargy. The creature is stunned until the end of your next turn, and their speed is halved for 1 minute.

Deepened Pity. All damage, excluding area-of-effect damage, that the creature deals is halved for 1 minute.

Deepened Terror. The creature is frightened by you and three other creatures of your choice for 1 minute. At the beginning of each of their turns while they're frightened, they can make a Wisdom saving throw against your aura save DC with disadvantage. If they succeed, they are no longer frightened.

 

Mass Enchant

Starting at 14th level, you are able to sway whole crowds of people with your abilities. Attempting to sway a crowd takes 1 minute of speaking to them. All creatures within your aura radius must make a Charisma saving throw against your aura save DC. You may chose to exclude certain individuals from the effect. All creatures who fail the save suffer from one of the following effects of your choosing:

• They are frightened by you for 1 minute.
• They are charmed by you for 10 minutes.
• They will follow a reasonable suggestion that you make to them for the next 24 hours. See the mass suggestion spell for the rules and limitations on how this suggestion works.

You cannot use this ability again until you finish a long rest.

Aura Bound Servant

At 17th level, you can use your aura to hijack the souls of other people and turn them into loyal servants. You can use your action to touch an incapacitated humanoid. That creature is then charmed by you until a remove curse spell is cast on it or the charmed condition is removed from it. The creature will feel compelled to stay loyal to you and follow reasonable commands, although they will still have free will. You may choose whether their obedience is because they like you, because they are afraid of you, or for some other emotional reason.

When a creature is under your influence, their mind is like putty in your hands. You may cast command, suggestion and hold person on this creature at will, and the creature has disadvantage on saving throws against this. If they succeed against either of these spells, they will be immune to that spell from you for 1 hour. In addition, you may cast dominate person on them once per day at up to 7th level. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

You can have up to 3 aura bound servants at a time. If you gain more than 3, the creature who has been an aura bound servant the longest will be released.

Infinite Aura

At 20th level, your aura constantly has a hold of those around you. You may use soulshaking as an action instead of a bonus action. When you do this, it does not cost a use of soulshaking.

Arcane Presence

Every pathoturge has a specific set of emotions they prefer to manipulate, which influences their style of pathoturgy.

Alluring

Oozing with magical charisma and charm, alluring pathoturges are able to smile, sweet-talk and seduce their way into anyone's heart by manipulating attention, attraction, and amity. They are almost impossible not to be enraptured by—and if anyone resists them, they'll be sure to reach their arcane fingers into their mind and fix that. While they are capable in combat, they feel most in control when using their wits and wiles to talk down enemies, so they may opt for pacifistic solutions.

Soulshaking Options

At 3rd level, you gain the Obsession option for your soulshaking feature. At 13th level, you gain the Deepened Obsession option.

Distraction. Attacks against the target creature have advantage until the end of your next turn.

Deepened Distraction. Attacks against the target creature have advantage for 1 minute.

Magical Charm

At 3rd level, you excel at making creatures like you through supernatural means. You know the friends cantrip. Also, you can cast the charm person spell once per day. When the spell ends, the creature does not realize it was charmed by you. Your spellcasting ability for these spells is Charisma.

The number of times you can use this ability per day increases to 2 times at 6th level, 3 times at 10th level, and 4 times as 14th level.

All Eyes on Me

Starting at 3rd level, as a bonus action, you can make yourself impossible to ignore. The effect lasts for one minute, but you can end it early as a bonus action. For the duration, any allies within 60 feet of you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks, and you automatically fail all Dexterity (Stealth) checks. You cannot use this ability again until you finish a long rest.

Shield of Influence

Your aura feeds on the attention that others give you, making you stronger. Starting at 7th level, whenever you successfully charm a creature, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + your pathoturge level, a minimum of 1. Your DM may also choose to reward you with these temporary hit points if you perform exceptionally well during a social encounter. After gaining these temporary hit points, you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

 

Scathing Disapproval

Starting at 10th level, those around you find themselves caring deeply about what you think, making them vulnerable to your magic. As an action, you can target a creature with a scathing, personal insult laced with your aura's magic. They must make a Wisdom saving throw against your aura save DC. Creatures who are charmed by you or who otherwise think highly of you roll with disadvantage. If they fail, they take 5d10 psychic damage and are stunned until the end of your next turn. If they succeed, they take half damage. You cannot use this ability again until you finish a long rest.

Charm by Association

Starting at 15th level, you can imbue your allies with some of your enchanting powers. You may use your reaction to give any creature within your aura radius advantage on a Charisma (Persuasion) check. Once you use this on a creature, they cannot benefit from this ability again until you finish a long rest.

Seed of Conviction

Starting at 7th level, you can trick people into believing things in a way that makes them think they came up with it themselves. In a ritual where you hold a creature's attention by speaking to them in a language they understand for one minute and touch them at least once, you will be able to plant an idea in their mind. The idea must be worded in a way that makes the belief sound reasonable. Trying to directly make the creature believe that it needs to to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act will cause them to discard the belief.

The target must make a Wisdom saving throw against your aura save DC. If they fail, the seed of conviction is planted in their mind, and they will not remember anything you said to them relating to the idea you put in them. If they succeed, they will be aware that you tried to manipulate their mind and the effect will fail.

Choose when you want the belief to activate, any time between 8 hours and 7 days from the moment it was planted. From the end of the ritual until it activates, the target will notice "evidence" that the belief is true, although it will mostly be confirmation bias and misinterpretations of events. By the time the seed of conviction activates, they will believe it fully.

The target will stop believing what they were told if they are presented with undeniable evidence of the contrary, or if the seed of conviction is removed with a spell such as remove curse or greater restoration.

You can only have one seed of conviction planted in someone at a time. If you use this feature on another creature, anyone currently under its effects will be freed. When you use this ability, you may not use it again until you finish a long rest.

Voice of Unreason

Starting at 10th level, your magical suggestions are so powerful that you may be able to force a creature to act against their best interest. When you cast suggestion, you may choose to suggest something that is unreasonable and might cause the creature immediate harm. The spell works as if the suggestion had been reasonable, but the target makes their saving throw with advantage. You may not use this ability again until you finish a long rest.

Cult of Personality

Starting at 15th level, you are able to draw followers to you easily. During downtime, you may choose to spend 5 days gathering followers. Roll a d20 and add you Charisma modifier to determine what followers you gather.

Lower class followers are common folk, like farmers and laborers. Middle class followers include merchants, craftsmen, spellcasters, and others who are relatively well-off. Upper-class includes nobility, politicians, and others in a position of power. Your DM will decide the exact professions of these followers.

Followers will be willing to do favors for you, such as housing you and giving you discounts on products or services. They will not be willing to do things for you that will put them in economic or physical danger, nor will they travel long distances with you. Followers have disadvantage on saving throws against your pathoturge class abilities.

Once you use this ability in a village, town, city, or other settlement, you cannot use it in that settlement again for another 30 days.

Life Imitates Fiction

Beginning at 18th level, your aura is powerful enough to cause a lie you tell to become truth. Telling a lie with this ability requires you to use your action. Roll percentile dice. If you roll a number equal to or lower than your pathoturge level, the lie becomes true. The lie must be achievable, such as something that can be done with any spell short of a wish. The DM decides how the lie will be implemented. If the lie becomes true, you can't use this feature again for 14 days. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a long rest.

Frightening

Frightening pathoturges have auras which latch onto the terrors hidden away in the minds of others. While many frightening pathoturges are physically unintimidating on their own, their aura warps the perceptions of others to make them appear frightful—for the most elite pathoturges, the aura may even warp the flesh, turning them into the very monsters that stalk the nightmarish visions of their foes. They thrive off the horror of battle and often have more martial experience than other pathoturges.

Intimidating Visage

Additionally at 3rd level, your aura can make you appear much more terrifying than you really are. As a bonus action, you can activate a magical illusion that makes you appear intimidating.

You decide what your intimidating visage will look like when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, from the options below. While your intimidating visage is active, you have advantage on Charisma (Intimidation) checks, as well as one additional benefit based on the intimidating visage you choose.

Brawny. Your muscles swell, your veins pop, and you look like you could crush a man's skull with your bare hands. Because you look so tough, humanoid creatures will not attempt to grapple you.

Demonic. Your eyes glow a sickly color, you sprout illusionary claws and fangs, and your skin seems to radiate the heat of hell itself. Other creatures who do not know you will assume that you are a fiend or someone connected to demonic energies.

Divine. Your whole body radiates divine light and your weapon strikes fear into the hearts of evildoers. Other creatures who do not know you will assume that you are a paladin or cleric.

Eldritch. Your body warps with strange, horrific shapes that onlookers cannot adequately describe. You can only speak in gibberish, but you may send telepathic messages to any creature who can hear your gibberish and understands a language you know.

Shrouded. Your form is hidden by black shadows or smoke. No one will be able to identify you by your facial features. Your voice and clothing are not obscured.

Your intimidating visage lasts 10 minutes, or until you choose to end it. Once you have used this ability, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Battle Cry

Starting at 7th level, as a bonus action, you can let out a ferocious battle cry backed up by your aura. All creatures within 15 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw against your aura save DC. Surprised creatures roll with disadvantage. If they fail, they are frightened by you for 1 minute.

At the start of each of their turns, a creature frightened by this ability can make a Wisdom saving throw against your aura save DC again. On a success, they are no longer frightened. You cannot use this ability again until you finish a short or long rest.

Expose Weakness

Starting at 10th level, you can take advantage of the predictable behavior of terrified enemies when aiming your strikes. Your have advantage on weapon attacks against creatures that are frightened by you.

Improved Intimidating Visage

Starting at 15th level, your Intimidating Visage ability has no time limit, and can be used an unlimited number of times.

Nightmare Shape

Starting at 18th level, your aura can morph you into horrifying forms. As an action, you may shapeshift into a creature with a CR of 5 or lower. The type of creature depends on the Intimidating Visage option you chose.

Intimidating Visage	Monster Type
Brawny	Giants
Demonic	Fiends
Divine	Celestials
Eldritch	Abberations
Shrouded	Undead

You can stay this form for a number of hours equal to half your pathoturge level (rounded down). You can revert to your normal form earlier by using a bonus action on your turn. You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die. Your morphed form follows the same rules as a Druid's wild shape feature. Once you use this feature, you may not use it again until you finish a long rest.

Pathoturge Glamours

Pathoturge Items

Although pathoturges are secretive, many of them are wealthy and influential, and are able to fund the invention of many useful tools to help strengthen pathoturges.

These items are not available in ordinary stores. To get them, players must network with a pathoturge secret society and connect with the specialized artisans they sponsor—or, loot the home or body of a pathoturge, if they are willing to get their hands dirty.

Pendant of Glamour

Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)

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This beautiful pendant holds a piece of a pathoturge's power in the form of a glamour. While the creature is attuned to it, they gain the benefit of the pathoturge glamour associated with the pendant.

A pathoturge is able to change the glamour in the pendant by wearing it for 3 days. During the process, the pathoturge must be attuned to the pendant, and the old glamour cannot be used. They can only change it to a glamour that they know.