Sin and Sacrifice — Advancement Package

Advancement: Atonement

The price of the next level

Whenever you make a notable sacrifice that irrevocably alters your potential or path, you earn one count of [Atonement]. [Atonement] is an additional level-up requirement: your GM sets how many counts each level demands alongside its normal requirements. Voluntary dismemberment, burning a skill you've mastered, accepting a curse, swearing a binding oath, walling off a piece of your own future. A sacrifice that costs you nothing real earns no count. Default: one count per level. A GM who wants a harsher arc may demand two at levels 1 through 5 and one thereafter. Do not exceed one count per level past level 5. (Rename the tag to fit your table; [Atonement] is the default.)

You begin play with the Sin Pool and two Marked Abilities: Unleashed Strength and Abyssal Insight.

The Sin Pool

The meter is always running

The entity's influence is a meter, and the meter is always running. Your maximum Sin Pool equals 10 + your character level + your Charisma modifier.

0 Clear Nothing shows. Nothing is owed yet.

One-quarter Moderate +2 profane on attacks, damage and Marked DCs; -4 Diplomacy and Charisma checks.

Three-quarters Heavy +4 profane; -8 social, extended to Bluff. Penance costs 2d6 damage a day.

Maximum You lose control 1 round per character level, then a Catastrophic Consequence.

You accumulate Sin from:

Using a Marked Ability: varies by ability.
Failing a saving throw against the entity's influence: 3 Sin.
Compromising your path to redemption: 1 Sin per instance.
Moments of extreme doubt or emotional turmoil: varies, GM's call.

Moderate Sin. While your Sin Pool is at one-quarter of its maximum or more, the entity's power marks you visibly. What that looks like is between you and your GM: blackened veins, a wrong shadow, eyes that reflect light they shouldn't. While at Moderate Sin you gain a +2 profane bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and the save DCs of Marked Abilities, and a -4 penalty on Diplomacy and on Charisma checks against anyone who can see you.

Heavy Sin. While your Sin Pool is at three-quarters of its maximum or more, the profane bonus increases to +4 and the social penalty increases to -8 and extends to Bluff.

Maximum Sin. When your Sin Pool reaches its maximum, you lose control.

You may spend a full day in penance to clear 3 Sin, plus 1 per point of your Charisma modifier (minimum 1 Sin cleared). You may perform penance at any Sin level, but while at Heavy Sin each day of penance deals 2d6 damage to you, and that damage cannot be healed by any means until you drop below Heavy Sin.

III

Losing Control

What the entity does with the body you left

The entity takes your body and mind. The possession lasts 1 round per character level. It prioritizes chaos, destruction, and domination, and it targets allies, enemies, and innocents without regard for anything you’d want.

When the possession ends you regain control, clear Sin according to your sacrifice count (see Sacrificial Atonement), and suffer a Catastrophic Consequence.

Catastrophic Consequence

The GM chooses one consequence from the tier matching your Sin at the moment control broke, picking whichever entry best fits what the entity actually did. Your total Sin sets the tier, and overflow counts: your maximum grows with level, and if you were at 19 of 20 when a gain of 6 hit, you broke at 25.

Grave(Sin 22 or less).

An ally or bystander is seriously hurt by your hand, and they know it was you.
2 points of ability drain to a score the entity favored during the rampage.
Something you carried or cherished is destroyed.
A visible mark of the entity becomes permanent: a scar, a stain, a brand.

Dire(Sin 23 to 33).

Someone dies, chosen because you cared about them.
1 permanent negative level.
A place that mattered, a home, a shrine, a safehouse, is ruined and word spreads of who did it.
A curse takes root (GM's choice, bestow curse tier or worse).

Ruinous(Sin 34 or more).

The rampage is a massacre, and every survivor knows your face.
1d4 points of ability drain to two different scores.
2 permanent negative levels.
The entity claims a piece of you: a memory, a sense, the ability to feel one specific emotion. Write it out of the character.

Consequences are permanent. Restoration magic, wish, miracle, none of it touches them. The only road back is atonement: you may dedicate a sacrifice (see below) to a single Consequence, erasing it. A dedicated sacrifice grants no boon and satisfies no [Atonement] requirement. It still counts as a sacrifice for how much Sin you clear when a possession ends.

It Will Not Let You Go

The entity does not permit its vessel to die on someone else's terms. When you would die for any reason short of divine intervention, you instead drop to 1 hit point, your Sin Pool immediately fills to its maximum, and you lose control at the start of your next turn. The possession lasts twice as long as normal, and the Consequence is drawn one tier above what your Sin would indicate (Ruinous if it already reads Ruinous). You may not refuse this. Once this saves you, it will not save you again until you make a sacrifice.

Sacrificial Atonement

What is bought, and what it is bought with

Resisting the entity is bought with permanent, personal cost. A sacrifice must meaningfully change your character's mechanics or story:

Physical loss: severing a limb, blinding yourself, accepting a curse.
Weakened potential: lowering an ability score, losing a class feature, reducing your maximum hit points.
Oaths: as the Spheres of Power Oath system (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/oaths). An Oath counts as a sacrifice only if you have taken at least as many sacrifices of the other two kinds.

Each sacrifice grants one boon from the list below. Each boon may be selected once unless it says otherwise.

Seal the Entity's Strength.

Permanently reduce the Sin generated by all Marked Abilities by 1 (minimum 1).

Hardened Resolve.

Gain a +2 Resistance bonus on Will saves.

Warded Spirit.

Ignore 1 Sin per day from any source. You may select this boon more than once.

Aura of Penance.

Allies within 60 feet gain a +2 morale bonus on saving throws while you retain control. When you lose control, each ally within 60 feet gains DR 5/— against your attacks and a +4 bonus on saves against your Marked Abilities for the duration of the possession. Once during that possession, on a round of your choosing, you may take a single standard action before the entity reasserts itself.

Bought Silence.

Once per day, when you would gain Sin from a source other than a Marked Ability, ignore it entirely.

The Leash.

When you lose control, you may act normally on your first round of the possession before the entity takes over.

Weight of Penance.

Your Marked Abilities' save DCs increase by 2, and their durations increase by 1 minute.

Named Wound.

Choose one Catastrophic Consequence you carry that imposes no ongoing mechanical penalty — a permanent mark, a destroyed keepsake, a ruined place, a face every survivor knows. It remains, and you gain a +4 bonus on one skill or save family of your choice, chosen when you take this boon. Consequences that drain a score, impose a negative level, lay a curse, or take a piece of you cannot be named this way.

Your sacrifices also determine how much Sin you clear when a possession ends:

The reckoning after a possession
Sacrifices	Sin cleared after possession
0	2
1–3	3
4–6	6
7+	Half your maximum Sin Pool (minimum 9)

The first possession you ever suffer clears your Sin Pool entirely and its Consequence is drawn from the Grave tier regardless of how far you overflowed.

Marked Abilities

The entity grants power — every use feeds the meter

The entity grants power, and every use feeds the meter. More Marked Abilities can be earned by indulging the entity and mastering it. Tide of Destruction is the third, and it is offered at character level 10, or the first time you suffer a Dire or Ruinous Consequence, whichever comes first. Beyond that, the GM offers a new Marked Ability each time you complete a full sacrifice tier (at 4 sacrifices and again at 7), built to roughly the power of those printed here. Accepting one is free. Refusing one costs 3 Sin, immediately.

Unleashed Strength Ex

Sin charged1d6

As a swift action, you call on the entity's power and gain the following for 1 minute:

+8 Morale bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.
+6 Morale bonus on attack and damage rolls.
+15 ft. Morale bonus to all movement speeds.
The effects of freedom of movement.

Using this ability adds 1d6 Sin to your Sin Pool. You may activate Unleashed Strength without adding Sin once per day, plus one additional time per day at 8th, 14th, and 20th level.

These are fury bonuses. Per the Bonus Typing Standard's named exception, they stack with a class rage (barbarian rage, raging song, bloodrage, or any class feature that is a rage under another name), but never with a second Ancient-Power fury — including Bound Symbiosis.

Abyssal Insight Su

Sin charged1d6+1

The entity whispers what it shouldn't know. As a free action on your turn, or as an immediate action when it is not your turn, choose one:

Automatically succeed at a skill check or saving throw.
Gain the effects of true seeing and discern lies for 1 hour, and for that hour you automatically detect any creature within 60 feet that is invisible, disguised, shapechanged, possessed, or under a compulsion.
Ask the entity one question about a creature, place, or object you can name. It answers truthfully, and it answers only about what it has witnessed or been told — it knows the mortal world and the places its kind have walked, and nothing sealed against it, nothing of the future, and nothing inside a mind it has not touched. Where it does not know, it says so, and the use is spent. Once per day. You gain a +4 insight bonus on all attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks against or involving that subject for 1 hour.

Using this ability adds 1d6+1 Sin to your Sin Pool. Once per day you may use Abyssal Insight without adding Sin.

Tide of Destruction Ex

Sin charged2d6–1

As a standard action, you release a wave of devastation in a close-range radius:

Damage: 15d8 + your level. Reflex save (DC 15 + half your level + your Charisma modifier) for half.
Knockback: creatures failing the save are pushed 20 ft. away and knocked prone.
Terrain: the area permanently becomes difficult terrain, and fragile objects in it are destroyed. You and your allies ignore this difficult terrain.

Using this ability adds 2d6–1 Sin to your Sin Pool and deals 1d8 damage to you per odd character level.

Wounded Soul Feats

Power on credit, and the interest is Sin

Power on credit, and the interest is Sin.

Unleashed Power

Choose one upgrade for Unleashed Strength:

The ability bonuses increase by +2.
The attack and damage bonus increases by +1.
The movement speed bonuses increase by +5 ft.
The duration increases by 1 minute.
The freedom of movement effect extends to one adjacent ally you designate when you activate it.

Using Unleashed Strength now adds 1 additional Sin. Regardless of how many times you take this feat, the total surcharge is 1 Sin.

Special: You may take this feat multiple times.

+1 Sin

Unveiled Insight

Abyssal Insight gains new options:

Reroll any failed attack roll or saving throw and take the new result.
Gain a +5 Insight bonus on Perception and Sense Motive checks for 1 hour.

Using Abyssal Insight now adds 1 additional Sin.

+1 Sin

Wanton Destruction

Prerequisites: level 10, Tide of Destruction.

Tide of Destruction improves:

The radius doubles, and the damage increases to 20d8 + your level ×2.
Creatures failing their save are stunned for 1 round in addition to the knockback.

Using Tide of Destruction now adds 1 additional Sin.

+1 Sin

Total Destruction

Prerequisites: level 15, Wanton Destruction.

The radius increases to medium range, and the damage increases to 25d8 + your level ×3. Choose one effect each time you use the ability:

Lingering Destruction: the area persists as a damaging zone for 1 minute, dealing 5d8 damage per round to any creature entering or remaining in it.
Focused Destruction: double the damage against a single creature in the radius.

Using Tide of Destruction now adds 2 additional Sin.

+2 Sin

Dark Resilience

Prerequisites: level 8.

Gain DR 5/epic and immunity to one energy type (fire, cold, acid, or electricity). When you lose control to the entity, incoming damage to you is halved for the duration.

Special: At level 12, you may take this feat again to increase the DR to 10/epic and gain immunity to a second energy type.

Marked Overload

Prerequisites: character level 10, at least 3 other Wounded Soul feats.

Once per day, you may push your Marked Abilities to their full potential. For 1 minute, Marked Abilities add no Sin to your Sin Pool, and each gains a bonus while active:

Unleashed Strength: fast healing 5.
Abyssal Insight: roll twice and take the higher result on all attack rolls.
Tide of Destruction: enemies failing their save take 1d4 Constitution bleed. The bleed stops only from a restoration-like effect, a single heal of 25+ hp, or a DC 40 Heal check.

Penalty: when the minute ends, make a Will save (DC 15 + half the Sin you would have accrued during the minute). On a success, half that Sin lands in your pool and you do not lose control this round even if it reaches your maximum. On a failure, all of it lands and you lose control immediately. Either way, note the total before it resolves: if the overload pushed you past your maximum, the Consequence tier is read from that total.

Sealed Mastery

Prerequisites: character level 12, 4+ sacrifices.

When you reach maximum Sin, you no longer automatically lose control. Instead, once per round for a number of rounds equal to half your maximum Sin Pool, you may attempt a Will save (DC 5 + your current Sin). Success keeps you in control that round, and costs 1 damage per point of Sin above half your maximum pool. When the rounds run out, you lose control as normal.

Penalty: failing one of these saves drops you into a possession of normal duration, and the Consequence tier is read one step higher than your Sin would indicate.

Bound Symbiosis

Prerequisites: character level 16, Sealed Mastery.

You've bargained your way to a truce. While your Sin Pool is at half its maximum or higher, you may take the following benefits:

+4 Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.
Fast healing 5 (stacks with other sources).
Your attacks bypass resistances and all DR except DR/—.

Penalty: each day you use this state, add 1 Sin to your Sin Pool. If you hit maximum Sin while these benefits are active, you lose control immediately — Sealed Mastery's save does not apply — and the possession lasts 3 minutes.