Apotheosis: Egregore — The Power of the Collective

The Chorus

what pooled under the world

The wager

I art thou, thou art I

Ethos is the Power of Self-Actualization — one soul becoming one Ideal. Egregore is its mirror: the Power of the Collective. An Egregore character draws nothing from their own conviction. They reach into the pooled belief of everyone else.

The Bubble is sealed. Nothing gets out — not people, not light, and not belief. Every story told inside the Bubble since the sealing, every prayer, every campfire legend, every nightmare shared by a thousand sleepers, has had nowhere to go. It pooled. That pool is the Chorus: a shared dream-layer pressed up against the underside of the waking world, thick with egregores — thought-forms given shape by collective belief. The Hero with a thousand faces. The Beast at the treeline. The Mage in the tower. They are not gods and not spirits, though they wear both costumes. They are what everyone, together, has always known is out there.

Most people touch the Chorus only in dreams. An Egregore character has learned to reach into it while awake — to read it, wear it, and eventually add to it. Their mantra, spoken at first communion and every summoning after: “I art thou, thou art I.” The archetype and the summoner are facets of the same collective consciousness. To summon from the Chorus is to reach into yourself and pull out something that belongs to everyone.

System Overview — what this system uses

Pact Magic

Egregore runs on the same source Spirit Binding already uses: Radiance House Pact Magic. Full hosted references — the Library’s own index (https://metzo.miraheze.org/wiki/Pact_Magic_(system)), the Spheres wiki’s Grimoire of Lost Souls hosting with every spirit by level plus the pactmaking glossary (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/pact-magic), and the d20pfsrd compilation Spirit Binding already links. Spirits are organized into fourteen constellations, plus Starless spirits whose ideologies match no constellation. In this system those spirits are egregores — entries in the Chorus. Where Spirit Binding seals a spirit inside a body for a day, Egregore calls one out into the world as a separate combatant, or wears one over your face.

A spirit’s level measures how hard it is to call, not how strong it is — the Pact Magic rules are explicit about this. Manifested egregores scale with you.

The fuel

Resonance

The system’s fuel. Your Resonance pool equals your character level + your highest mental ability modifier. You recover all Resonance after 8 hours of rest, plus 1 per hour spent among a crowd of 25 or more souls. Once per day, when a stranger unprompted recounts your deeds, regain 2 Resonance on the spot.

Attainments. Egregore abilities come as five Attainments, bought in order with Experience and gated by Tier. There is no debt mechanic and no Aura requirement.

DM dial

to drop the second pool, activations convert at 1 Resonance = 2 Stamina and the crowd-recovery rules are cut.

Integration

It sits on top of everything else

Egregore is an overlay, like Ethos and the Paths. You keep all class features, feats, and other systems. Bonuses granted by this system are typed as listed.

Egregore and Ethos together. Legal. You may not manifest or wear an egregore whose influence directly contradicts your Motivation (GM adjudicates); you learn whether a given egregore is closed to you before spending anything on the call. A Freedom Ethos will never get the Noble constellation’s crowns to sit right; a Protection Ethos will find the Skull constellation does not answer.

Egregore and Spheres. A manifested egregore counts as a companion (as the Conjuration sphere) for talents, feats, and effects that improve companions, and you may apply any Conjuration (form) or (type) talents you know to it when you manifest it. Egregore is not itself spherecasting and does not grant a caster level.

Gaining Egregore

First Communion

You cannot begin play with Egregore. To take the First Attainment you must meet all of the following:

Tier 1 or higher
Level 5 or higher
Complete your First Communion.

You must touch the Chorus while awake, once, without the system’s help — and it has to cost you something. Sleeping in the middle of a crowd of at least a hundred souls after a day of shared purpose with them. Enduring intense magical phenomena and staying conscious inside it (the same class of event Tier 2 recognizes). Dying, briefly. The GM decides what qualifies; the table should be able to point at the scene afterward and agree that was it.

The First Communion is where you speak the mantra for the first time.

The Five Attainments

bought in order · paid up front

The ladder

Each one requires the last

Each Attainment requires all previous Attainments, the listed Tier, and the listed Experience cost, paid up front like Ancient Powers.

Rung	Attainment	Requires	Cost
First	Read the Manifold	Tier 1, level 5, First Communion	2,000 Experience
Second	The Crowd’s Aegis	Tier 2, First Attainment	4,000 Experience
Third	Summon the Archetype	Tier 3, Second Attainment	8,000 Experience
Fourth	Wear the Mask	Tier 4, Third Attainment	15,000 Experience
Fifth	Break the Cycle	Tier 5, Fourth Attainment	25,000 Experience

I2,000Experience

First Attainment

Read the Manifold

Requires: Tier 1, level 5, First Communion. Cost: 2,000 Experience.

The Chorus never stops narrating. You have learned to listen.

You are permanently under the effects of detect magic and see invisibility, and you perceive saturation — how thickly collective belief pools in a place, and in broad strokes what the Chorus has seen there. These are continuous supernatural senses, not spells; they cannot be dispelled.

Read the mask: once per turn as a free action, read a creature you can perceive. You learn its strongest current desire, its greatest current fear, and which constellation sits closest to its nature, and you gain a +2 insight bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, opposed checks, and skill checks against that creature. This bonus increases by +1 per Tier you possess and lasts until you read a different creature. If you speak the read aloud (a free action — you name the mask), every ally who can hear you gains half your insight bonus, rounded down (minimum +2), against that creature for as long as you retain it. Mindless creatures wear no mask; reading them tells you that.

The Chorus remembers: you may attempt any Knowledge check untrained with an insight bonus equal to double your Tier, and you gain an insight bonus on initiative checks equal to your Tier. You may also ask the Chorus what it has seen: spend 1 Resonance as a free action to learn the answer as legend lore, delivered at once and with no material component, about any person, place, or thing that at least a hundred people have ever talked about. Spend 3 Resonance instead and it answers about something only a handful ever knew, so long as one of them said it aloud.

Second Attainment

The Crowd’s Aegis

Requires: Tier 2, First Attainment. Cost: 4,000 Experience.

The collective will stands between you and harm: a shimmer of overlapping phantom faces crowding every angle of attack.

The Aegis is a stance. Raising or dropping it is a free action on your turn; it persists until dropped or until you fall unconscious, and costs nothing to maintain. While it is up:

You gain a deflection bonus to AC equal to 1 + your Tier and a resistance bonus on all saving throws equal to 1 + your Tier. Allies adjacent to you gain a deflection bonus to AC equal to half yours.
The mask takes it: a number of times per round equal to your Tier, when an attack hits you or you fail a saving throw against a targeted effect, you may spend Stamina or Resonance in any mix to have the blow land on a phantom face instead: 1 point to negate a hit, 2 points to negate a failed save against a targeted effect, or 3 points to shrug off an area effect or an effect that allows neither an attack roll nor a save. The attack or effect is entirely negated and counts as a miss. Spending costs no action, and you may spend when it is not your turn.
Nobody in particular: while the Aegis is up you are treated as if under nondetection (caster level equal to your character level), and creatures reading you with divination or mask-reading effects perceive a shifting crowd, not you.

The Aegis is not a Barrier and does not stack with an Ethos Barrier; where both would negate the same attack, use one.

Third Attainment

Summon the Archetype

Requires: Tier 3, Second Attainment. Cost: 8,000 Experience.

You call an egregore out of the Chorus and give it flesh, and the Bubble — which measures all things by legend — mistakes it for part of yours.

Constellations Known: when you take this Attainment, choose three constellations. You may call spirits of your known constellations with a spirit level up to 1/2 your Hit Dice. You learn one additional constellation at character level 9 and every three levels after. Starless spirits belong to no constellation and answer no ordinary call: calling one — to manifest it or to don it as a Mask — requires a binding check (as Good pact) against the spirit’s binding DC, made as part of the action, and your spirit level cap applies. On a failure the Resonance is spent and the spirit does not answer.

Manifesting: as a standard action, spend 2 Resonance. Choose a qualifying spirit; its egregore appears in an open space within 30 feet and acts immediately on your initiative. It persists for 1 hour per character level or until destroyed or dismissed (free action). You may manifest any number of times per day — Resonance is the only cost — but may sustain one egregore at a time.

Manifested egregore statistics: the full statistics of an unchained summoner’s eidolon of your character level — base form and evolution pool included, evolutions chosen to fit the archetype when you first call it. On top of the chassis:

It possesses its spirit’s granted abilities: minor granted abilities as written (at will or limited uses per day), each major granted ability expending for 5 rounds after use, per Pact Magic. Abilities referencing “the binder” reference the egregore. Save DCs for granted abilities in this system are 10 + 1/2 your character level + your highest mental ability modifier. If a spirit’s granted abilities include a vestigial companion, the egregore does not project a second creature; fold the companion’s benefits into the egregore itself, as evolutions of equivalent value settled with the GM the first time you call that spirit.
Your Tier is imposed on it. The egregore gains every flat bonus your Tiers grant you — base attack bonus, caster level and spell DCs, hit points, movement, natural armor and untyped AC, and class-skill bonus, per Tier you possess.
Good pact: when you manifest, you may make a binding check (1d20 + 1/2 your character level + your highest mental ability modifier) against the spirit’s binding DC. Meet or beat it and you may name one request the egregore will honor even against its personality influence; beat it by 10 or more and it manifests with its capstone empowerment active as well. This roll is free and optional; there is no penalty for declining or failing.

The pact leaks both ways: while your egregore is manifested, you gain its minor granted abilities as well. (Its major granted ability stays with it.)

Behavior: the egregore acts on your initiative and is favorably disposed, but it follows requests, not orders. It acts in the manner of its archetype. A request that runs against its personality influence (as written in its Pact Magic entry) ends the manifestation immediately. You suffer no influence penalty yourself.

If an egregore is destroyed, the Chorus can reprint it: calling that specific spirit again the same day costs double Resonance (4), doubling again each subsequent time that day (8, 16, …). The rest of the Chorus is always open at normal cost.

IV15,000Experience

Fourth Attainment

Wear the Mask

Requires: Tier 4, Third Attainment. Cost: 15,000 Experience.

You stop calling the archetype out and start putting it on. The Chorus pours through the mask, and for a while the Bubble cannot tell the difference between you and the legend.

As a standard action, spend 3 Resonance to don an egregore you could manifest. The Mask persists until you remove it (free action) or fall unconscious. While it is on:

You gain the spirit’s granted abilities (minors as written; majors on the normal 5-round expend), using your character level as binder level, with its capstone empowerment active — the Mask is always a good pact.
You gain a Chorus bonus to all six ability scores equal to 2 × your Tier, and your effective level for class features other than spellcasting increases by 5. Chorus is this system’s own bonus type under §1.8: it stacks with itself and with every other type, and the Mask’s effective-level increase stacks with Ethos Amplify’s.
You visibly wear the spirit’s physical sign, and you are subject to its personality influence, exactly as in the Pact Magic rules — including the Will save and the −1 penalty for acting against it. Unlike a binder’s pact, the sign and influence cannot be suppressed by any means.
Divination effects and mask-reading perceive the archetype, not you, as the Aegis’s nondetection; while a Mask is worn this supersedes the Second Attainment’s version.

Swap: while a Mask is on, exchange it for any other qualifying egregore as a move action at no Resonance cost.

Both at once: you may wear a Mask while sustaining a manifested egregore. Sustaining both costs 1 Resonance at the start of each of your turns; sustain costs accrue only during an encounter.

Fifth Attainment

Break the Cycle

Requires: Tier 5, Fourth Attainment. Cost: 25,000 Experience.

The Chorus knows you now as one of its own. Five things become true.

A living legend. While you have any Mask worn or egregore manifested, you count as a god for effects that reference divinity (as Super Serval Blue), and you regain Resonance equal to your Tier at the start of each of your turns. Swapping Masks becomes a free action once per round.

The Wild Card. You know all fourteen constellations and every Starless spirit, and your spirit level cap rises to your Hit Dice. (An Ethos character with this Attainment still cannot wear masks that contradict their Motivation.)

The Chorus walks. You may sustain a number of manifested egregores equal to your Tier simultaneously. The first is sustained free, as normal; each additional egregore costs 1 Resonance at the start of each of your turns, and a worn Mask counts as one additional egregore for this cost — a Mask plus five egregores costs 5 Resonance at the start of each of your turns. Egregores whose influences oppose each other will not coexist.

Death is a rumor. You have become a story the Bubble tells itself. If you die while at least a hundred souls believe in you, your body dissolves into the Chorus and re-forms at the end of the encounter, in an open space within 100 feet of where you fell if any ally still holds that ground, and otherwise after an hour at the nearest place saturated with belief in you (as true resurrection, no material component, no negative levels). Each time this occurs, the belief that reknit you is spent — the hundred souls must come to believe again before the effect can trigger anew: 24 hours if a hundred or more souls witnessed the death, otherwise a week of your legend actively circulating. An effect that traps your soul suspends the re-forming; you re-form 24 hours after the trapping effect ends. An effect that destroys your soul stops it cold.

Author the Archetype. Over a week of work, you compose a new spirit — a new entry in the Chorus. Design it with the GM using the Pact Magic spirit format: constellation (or Starless, if what you made fits no family — most authored egregores start Starless; or an entirely new fifteenth constellation, if the GM allows one), level, granted abilities, personality influence, physical sign, binding DC. It is permanent, and it does not belong to you — anyone in the Bubble with Spirit Binding or Egregore can call it, and it may develop its own agenda, though it begins favorably disposed toward its author. Open the Chorus comes with authorship. Over an hour you may sponsor a willing creature’s First Communion, once per week. In play, spend 5 Resonance as a standard action to lend an ally a Mask you could wear for 1 minute per Tier (your Resonance, your character level), or spend 2 Resonance as a free action to grant Read the Manifold until the end of the encounter to every ally who can hear you name a mask.

The masks were never yours. This Attainment is where you prove you always knew that.

Feats that modify Egregore

cuttings

Deep Resonance

Increase your maximum Resonance by 4 + your Tier, and increase the Resonance you regain from an hour among a crowd of 25 or more by 1. You may take this multiple times; its effects stack.

Expanded Chorus

Learn one additional constellation. You may take this multiple times.

Deep Read

Requires: Read the Manifold

Reading a creature’s mask also tells you its total Hit Dice, its lowest saving throw, and one vulnerability or weakness (GM’s choice if it has several).

Chorus of Understudies

Requires: Summon the Archetype

Your manifested egregore gains the advanced creature template and a bonus to its evolution pool equal to your Tier. Every egregore you sustain gains both.

Swift Calling

Requires: Summon the Archetype, character level 9

Manifest an egregore, or wear or swap a Mask, as a swift action. Once per encounter you may instead do it with no action, even when it is not your turn.

Beyond Your Station

Requires: Summon the Archetype, a mental ability score of 16 or higher

You may call a spirit above your level cap. Make a binding check against its binding DC: on a success it manifests normally, and beating the DC by 10 or more brings it in with capstone empowerment. On a failure the Resonance is spent and you cannot manifest again for 1 minute. Once per day you may ignore that lockout and call again at once, with a +5 bonus on the second check. While your spirit level cap equals your Hit Dice, this feat instead grants a +5 insight bonus on binding checks.

Chorus of Two

Requires: Summon the Archetype, character level 11

You may sustain two manifested egregores at once (the second costs 1 Resonance at the start of each of your turns). At the Fifth Attainment this feat instead raises your Chorus-walks limit by 1. Opposed influences will not coexist.

Method Actor

Requires: Wear the Mask

When you don a Mask, name the archetype’s domain in a phrase — a Hero’s charge, a Thief’s disarm, a Seer’s divination. Once per round you may reroll a d20 roll that falls inside that phrase and take the second result. Once per encounter you may do it for any roll at all.

Sphere-Touched Mask

Requires: Wear the Mask, ability to use sphere talents

Choose two talents from one sphere fitting the archetype each time you don a Mask; you gain them while the Mask is worn, using your character level as your caster level for them.

A Thousand Faces

Requires: Wear the Mask, character level 13

Your Mask’s Chorus bonus to ability scores increases by +2 (to 2 × Tier + 2). At character level 19, it increases by a further +2.

Appendix — Ancient Power version

the severable cut

Appendix

[Egregore Legacy]

Cost: 8,000 Experience

Drop-in entry for the Ancient Powers document, replacing the full system above.

You have touched the Chorus — the pooled belief of everyone sealed in the Bubble — and its archetypes answer you. Choose three Constellations from “Pact Magic” (same links as Spirit Binding; full spirit lists at metzo.miraheze.org/wiki/Pact_Magic_(system) and spheresofpower.wikidot.com/pact-magic).

3/day, plus an additional use at 6th level and every 6 after, as a standard action you may manifest an egregore: a spirit from your constellations, spirit level up to 1/2 your Hit Dice, given physical form for 1 hour per level. It has the full statistics of an unchained summoner’s eidolon of your character level (evolutions chosen to fit the archetype), plus its spirit’s granted abilities (majors expend for 5 rounds after use, per Pact Magic), plus every flat bonus your Tiers grant you. While it is manifested, you gain its minor granted abilities as well. It acts on your initiative and follows requests, not orders — a request against its personality influence ends the manifestation. One egregore at a time.

Instead of manifesting, you may wear the egregore as a mask until you remove it: you gain its granted abilities, a Chorus bonus to all ability scores equal to +4 (+6 at 12th level, +8 at 18th), its physical sign, and its personality influence. Swapping the mask for another costs a move action, not a use.

These Feats modify Egregore Legacy

Expanded Chorus

Learn one additional constellation. You may take this multiple times.

Extra Manifestation

Gain two additional uses per day. You may take this multiple times.

Swift Calling

Requires: Character level 9

Manifest or don as a swift action.

Beyond Your Station

Requires: A mental ability score of 16 or higher

1/day, call a spirit of any level with a binding check (1d20 + 1/2 level + your highest mental ability modifier) against its binding DC. Beat it by 10 or more: capstone empowerment. Fail: the use is spent and you cannot manifest for 1 minute.

Chorus of Two

Requires: Character level 11

Two egregores active at once. Opposed influences will not coexist.

Author the Archetype

Requires: Character level 17

Over a week of work, compose a new spirit with the GM in the Pact Magic format. It permanently joins the Chorus; anyone who can bind or manifest spirits can call it. It does not belong to you.

Apotheosis: Egregore · Bubble 2.6 · the Power of the Collective I art thou, thou art I