Every will has a seam: the place where a creature was joined together, and can be unjoined. Most things live and die without ever finding it. A few survive something that should have unmade them, and come away knowing where the join sits in everything they meet afterward. What they take, they keep. What they keep, they wear.
You understand a will to its seam. When you take this power, choose Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. That is your seam ability, and your seam DC is 10 + 1/2 your character level + your seam ability modifier. The choice is permanent.
Also choose one creature you killed and consumed in your past, whose CR is no lower than your character level −4 and no higher than your character level. Select one of its abilities as though you had used Devour on it. You begin play with that ability and the ingestion points it granted, and it costs you no souls. That selection counts as a use of Devour for Your Own Seam, and the place you killed and consumed that creature is your rejoin site until you use Devour again in play.
What is eaten is kept. Twice per day, as a full-round action, you may consume the corpse of a creature slain by you or an ally within the last hour, spending souls equal to twice its CR plus your karmic debt (defined under The Price). The corpse's CR must be no lower than your character level −4 and no higher than your character level +4.
Choose one of the creature's extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities; spellcasting can never be chosen. You gain that ability permanently. Where the ability's effects depend on the creature's Hit Dice or ability scores, use your own instead, and where it sets a save DC, use your seam DC. A devoured ability keeps its own uses per day. An ability the creature could use at will, you may use three times per day; at character level 11, you may use it at will. A devoured ability that can kill, petrify, or permanently paralyze a creature on a single failed save never becomes at-will; it remains usable three times per day at every character level. If such an ability is continuous or functions as a gaze, you must activate it as a swift action, it functions until the end of your next turn, and each activation counts as one of those three uses.
You may hold a number of devoured abilities equal to 1 + half your character level. To devour beyond that limit, release an ability you hold, which is lost.
Each use of Devour also leaves you one of the creature's memories. The GM chooses which, from among those the creature held that would be of use to you. You may speak and understand any language the creature knew for 24 hours.
A soul has to be taken. When you land the killing blow on a creature whose CR is at least your character level −4, you take its soul and gain souls equal to its CR, to a maximum of your character level. A creature that dies within 30 feet of you and that you damaged during that encounter gives you souls equal to half its CR (minimum 1) even if another hand landed the blow; you gain no more than your character level from any one creature, and no more than your character level from all such creatures in a single encounter. A creature below that CR and any construct give you nothing.
A soul from a creature that was helpless, was not hostile to you, or trusted you when it died is foul. Track foul souls separately: each counts as two souls toward everything souls do, and each foul soul you spend adds 1 karmic debt.
Souls do not keep: at the end of each day in which you did not use Devour, you lose souls equal to half your character level.
Souls equal to three times your character level are a glut. While you hold a glut, you gain a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls, on weapon damage rolls, and on the save DCs of abilities granted by this power; this bonus increases to +2 while you hold souls equal to five times your character level, and to +3 at seven times.
Every meal stays. Each use of Devour grants 1 ingestion point per 5 Hit Dice of the consumed creature (minimum 1). Ingestion points are permanent, and each point is either loose or invested.
Loose points give you a circumstance bonus on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks equal to half your loose points, to a maximum of +1 per two character levels.
Invested points power Marks, below, up to each Mark's maximum. You may have no more points invested across all Marks than 2 + half your character level. Moving points between loose and invested takes one hour of rest.
What you eat builds itself into you. Invest ingestion points among the following Marks, up to each Mark's listed maximum. Digested Reflex and Wrong Anatomy are extraordinary abilities; the rest are supernatural.
You did not always have these. You gain a bite: a primary natural attack dealing bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage as a bite of your size on Table: Natural Attacks by Size (1d6 at Medium). It remains a primary natural attack in rounds in which you also attack with a manufactured weapon.
Your effective bite size equals your size. Where an ability increases it, the increase applies only to your bite's damage, your bite's reach, and abilities that key off your bite.
You have eaten worse than poison. You are immune to poison and to disease. When a hostile creature attacks you with a poison or a disease, or a trap or hazard exposes you to one, you gain, for 1 minute, temporary hit points equal to the effect's save DC or your character level, whichever is higher, and a +2 profane bonus on attack rolls and weapon damage rolls; your immunity does not prevent this. A poison or disease applied by you or by an ally never triggers it, and no single source triggers it more than once per minute.
Whatever taught you to eat taught you the quiet parts first. You begin with the following:
What survives of this art clings to the drow families of the underdark, and it has been lifetimes since one person held more than fragments of it. You begin knowing both stances and one of the two maneuvers, chosen when you gain this power. The rest of the style — its entries above 1st level — is lost, and returns only as the GM seeds its fragments in play; the 1st-level maneuver you did not choose may be learned normally with your maneuvers known, as any maneuver from a discipline on your list.
Ascension. A Way of the Reaper strike or boost may be readied in place of a maneuver of any higher level you could ready, and grows for each level above 1st it is readied at.
Once per week, over an hour of work, you may unjoin and swallow one of the following. Each lists its karmic debt; the GM prices an enormous target higher. Karmic debt gained from The Wider Seam counts toward the Bubble's reckoning, but not toward the soul cost of Devour.
Something tried to unmake you once and did not finish the work. When you die, your body comes apart at that seam rather than remaining a corpse, and twenty-four hours later you rejoin at the site of your most recent use of Devour, alive and whole, as true resurrection, with no material component spent. Your equipment does not come with you; it falls where you died. No other effect can raise or resurrect you during those twenty-four hours. You do not return if you have never used Devour, or if your soul is not free and willing to return, and in either case you die as anyone else does.
Every soul you were holding is spent to do it, and nothing recovers them.
Each return leaves you owing Level Debt — the same Debt the leveling rules create when an option would drop you below the level floor, and the same consequence: while you owe any, you cannot raise your Tier. Your Nth death imposes N Level Debt, to a maximum of 5 from any one death, counted across your whole life whether or not earlier Debt was paid — your first death costs 1, your second 2, your fifth and every death after it 5. Debt from your own seam cannot be paid with Experience; it is paid only as Paying the Debt describes. It cannot be resisted, reduced, or removed by anything that protects against level loss or energy drain.
If, at the instant you die, you hold fewer than one glut per point of Level Debt you owed before that death, your seam does not reopen and you are dead for good.
You may clear 1 Level Debt by using Devour on a creature whose CR is at least equal to your character level and taking nothing from it: that meal grants no ability, no ingestion points, and no memories, and it does not satisfy your hunger. A meal that takes nothing costs souls equal to twice the creature's CR and no karmic surcharge. It still expends your use of Devour and still adds 1 karmic debt.
You may also clear 1 Level Debt by spending two gluts, or clear half the Level Debt you owe, rounded up, by completing a trial the GM sets for the purpose.
If a spirit of dream is bound to you as its anchor, a meal it cooks and serves you satisfies The Price's hunger when eaten. The meal grants no ability, no ingestion points, no memories, and no souls, and it still adds 1 karmic debt.
Nothing eaten is free, and the price rises. Karmic debt is the Bubble's reckoning of what you owe for what you have taken. You begin at 0. Each use of Devour adds 1; each return through your own seam adds 5; The Wider Seam lists its own prices per swallow.
Every use of Devour costs souls equal to twice the corpse's CR plus your karmic debt. The Bubble collects on it in play, in the manner and at the time the GM chooses. The Bubble takes in proportion to the debt: at debt 10 or less, a complication; at 11 to 25, a scene you must survive or answer for; above 25, a standing antagonist. It collects no more than once between one level and the next. It never kills you outright and never removes a level or a Tier. Level Debt's bar on raising your Tier is separate; see Your Own Seam.
Karmic debt falls only through atonement: an act of repair, of paying back, or of restraint the GM sets and prices on the scale of what is owed. It never falls below the number of times you have returned through your seam.
Each use of Devour also leaves a permanent, visible mark on your body; the marks cannot be hidden or disguised by nonmagical means, and a creature familiar with what you have eaten can identify it from them.
If a week passes in which nothing has satisfied your hunger, you take a −2 penalty on all d20 rolls, worsening by a further −2 at the end of each further week, to a maximum of −6. Feeding ends the penalty. A meal taken only to end this penalty satisfies your hunger, ignores Devour's minimum CR, and grants no ability, no ingestion points, and no memories. A meal that takes nothing costs souls equal to twice the creature's CR and no karmic surcharge. It still expends your use of Devour and still adds 1 karmic debt.
At −6, at the start of each encounter, attempt a Will save against your own seam DC. On a failure, until something is fed to you or the encounter ends, you must move toward and attack the nearest creature whose soul you could take, including your allies.
You may devour the corpse of a creature slain by anyone, and the corpse may be up to 24 hours old.
Gain one additional use of Devour per day. You may take this feat multiple times.
You may hold one additional devoured ability. You may take this feat multiple times, but not more than once per two character levels.
Over an hour, you may lend one devoured ability you hold to a willing ally, who uses it as you would for 24 hours. While it is lent, you cannot use it. You may lend to one ally at a time, and you may take the ability back from any distance as a swift action.
What owes this much does not get to die quietly. While your karmic debt exceeds your character level, you gain a +2 profane bonus on saving throws against death effects, and the negative hit point total at which you die deepens by an amount equal to your karmic debt.
You may use Devour as a standard action. In addition, you may devour creatures whose CR is as low as your character level −8; doing so grants half the normal ingestion points (minimum 1) and no memories.
You may use The Wider Seam twice per week rather than once.
Choose an oath you hold through The Wider Seam. As a full-round action, you may impose it again on its original parties, wherever they are; each attempts a Will save against your seam DC, and if any party saves, the oath is spent and nothing binds. Imposing it consumes the held oath.
Once per month, The Wider Seam may swallow a standing magical law of a place — a regional enchantment, a domain's rule, a demiplane's trait. Costs 5 karmic debt. The law ends throughout the place, you hold it, and a place you rule or a demiplane you own may be fed the law instead, gaining it as its own.
A life goes down whole if you chew it. When you use Devour, ask the GM three questions the creature could have answered, in place of the memory it would otherwise leave you. You may spend one of those questions to instead relive an hour of the creature's life that you name, seeing and hearing it as it did. Any language the creature knew becomes permanently yours.
A bite can take more than flesh. Once per round, when you hit a creature with a melee attack, you may spend 1 loose ingestion point (no action) to curse it. The target attempts a Will save against your seam DC. On a success, the point is lost and the creature is immune to your Consuming Curse for 24 hours.
On a failure, the GM names two of the universal monster abilities the creature has; you choose one of them, the creature loses it, and you gain it, using your own Hit Dice and ability scores to set its parameters. If the creature has only one eligible ability, you gain that one. You regain the point you spent, and gain 1 further ingestion point if the creature's CR is at least your character level −4. If the creature has no universal monster ability, the curse fails and the point is lost. An ability held this way does not count against your devoured-ability limit.
While the curse holds, you gain a +4 bonus on saving throws against the cursed creature's remaining abilities, and evasion against those that allow a Reflex save for half damage.
You may keep one creature cursed at a time. The curse ends when the cursed creature dies, when you curse another creature, when you dismiss it as a free action, or after 24 hours, whichever comes first. Remove curse or break enchantment ends it against a DC of 11 + your character level. A creature whose curse ends recovers what it lost.
You may keep two creatures cursed at once, and your Consuming Curse's save DC increases by 2. You may take this feat multiple times; each time, you may keep one additional creature cursed.
Choose one ability you currently hold through Consuming Curse. It becomes permanently yours and does not count against your devoured-ability limit. You may take this feat multiple times.
You may activate a devoured extraordinary or supernatural ability whose normal activation time is a standard action as a swift action instead.
Name one site where you have used Devour. You rejoin there rather than at the site of your most recent use of Devour. You may name a different such site after an hour's rest at it.
You rejoin one hour after death rather than twenty-four.
Once per day, as an immediate action, you may take 1 Level Debt to gain temporary souls equal to four times your character level. Temporary souls do everything souls do, including satisfying the threshold in Your Own Seam, and vanish after 1 minute.
When you devour a creature that could cast spells or manifest powers, you may select one spell or power it knew, of a level no higher than half your character level and no higher than 9th, and gain it as a spell-like ability usable once per day, in place of selecting one of the creature's abilities. Your caster or manifester level for it is your character level, and its save DC is 10 + the spell's or power's level + your seam ability modifier. You may hold a number of abilities gained this way equal to your seam ability modifier (minimum one); they do not count against your devoured-ability limit.
As a standard action, you may take the form of a creature you have devoured, as the second-level version of whichever polymorph spell governs that creature's type — beast shape II, monstrous physique II, undead anatomy II, elemental body II, and so on. At character level 13, use the third-level version of that spell, or form of the dragon I or giant form I where no third-level version exists. At character level 17, this functions as shapechange, limited to forms you have devoured. In any such form you also gain the creature's natural attacks, movement modes, and senses.
Choose Grafted Might, Scaled Hide, Ember Gut, Hollow Frame, or Borrowed Breath. That Mark's maximum benefit increases by one step — +1 for Grafted Might or Scaled Hide, fast healing 1 for Ember Gut, 1 point of investment for Hollow Frame, or 10 points of resistance to one energy type for Borrowed Breath — and its maximum investment increases as far as needed to reach it. In addition, your investment cap increases by 1, and that point may be invested only in the chosen Mark. You may take this feat multiple times, choosing a different Mark each time.
When you devour an outsider, aberration, dragon, or undead creature, you may permanently take on one of its subtypes in addition to your normal selection. You gain the energy immunities, energy resistances, damage reduction, senses, and telepathy that subtype grants creatures of its kind, and nothing else it grants. You may hold a number of subtypes equal to 1 + 1 per four character levels, and you cannot hold subtypes with opposed alignment descriptors unless an effect exempts you from alignment restrictions. You cannot take the incorporeal, swarm, or mythic subtype with this feat.
As a swift action, study one creature within 60 feet. You learn its creature type, its Hit Dice, its highest and lowest saving throws, and which of its abilities are eligible for Devour. For 1 minute, your seam DC increases by 2 against that creature.
When a melee attack you make kills a creature, you may devour its corpse as part of that attack's action. If the creature's CR is at least equal to your character level, this does not expend your use of Devour; it costs souls either way. You may do this once per round.
Your jaw keeps growing after the rest of you stops. Your effective bite size increases by one Size Rank, and your reach with your bite alone increases by 5 feet. Your bite damage advances along the standard Damage Dice Progression — two steps per Size Rank, or one step while the damage is still 1d6 or less. A Medium bite runs 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 6d6, 8d6, 12d6, 16d6, 24d6, and onward, doubling every two ranks.
You may take this feat once for every four character levels you have — 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, 17th, and onward into Epic levels, with no upper limit.
Your actual size never changes, so you take none of a larger creature's penalties to AC, attack rolls, Fly or Stealth.
The mouth opens and the room leans toward it. As a standard action, you may spend 1 loose ingestion point: every creature in a 30-foot cone whose size is no larger than your effective bite size must succeed at a Reflex save against your seam DC or be dragged 20 feet directly toward you, stopping short of any solid obstacle or occupied square. Unattended objects of that size or smaller are dragged the same distance. You regain the point if at least one creature is dragged. You may then make one bite attack as a free action against a single creature this drags into a square you threaten.
Your bite gains the grab universal monster ability. You may use it against creatures of a size no larger than your effective bite size.
Your bite gains the swallow whole universal monster ability, and you may swallow creatures up to one size category smaller than your effective bite size regardless of your own size. A creature swallowed by you takes your bite damage plus 1d6 points of acid damage per two character levels each round. A swallowed creature occupies no space and imposes no load. If you are killed, every creature inside you is expelled into the nearest unoccupied squares.
The acid damage a swallowed creature takes increases to 1d6 per character level, and cutting free requires damage equal to one-fifth your total hit points rather than the normal one-tenth. Once per day, when a creature dies inside you, you may use Devour on it without expending your daily use; you still pay its cost in souls. Select the ability you gain when the encounter ends.
You know your own seam, and a seam can be opened from either side. Once per day, over 1 minute, you may spend 5 loose ingestion points to create or expand a demiplane inside your own body, as create demiplane, except that it is supernatural, requires no components, and persists as long as you live. Its starting size is 10 ten-foot cubes per two character levels, and each further use adds that much again. Each use also adds one trait chosen from those create demiplane and greater create demiplane offer; you can never select Portal, Magic, or Time.
You may enter or leave the demiplane as a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity, and you cannot do so while grappled, pinned, or helpless. Others enter only by being swallowed, and none may leave until you allow it. In place of swallowing a grabbed creature normally, you may place it there, where it takes no acid damage and cannot cut its way out. While you are dead, the demiplane is sealed.
When you Devour a creature capable of granting or carrying an acquired template, such as those in the Advanced Bestiary, you may take that template permanently with the GM’s approval. Doing so invests ingestion points equal to twice its CR modifier, minimum 2; those points never become loose again. You gain karmic debt equal to that CR modifier. The combined CR modifiers of the templates you hold may not exceed your Tier, and you cannot hold templates with opposed alignment descriptors unless an effect exempts you from alignment restrictions.
A creature inside your demiplane cannot leave it by any means; planar travel, teleportation, ethereal and astral movement, summoning, banishment, and dismissal fail. An outsider, elemental, or undead creature that dies there does not re-form, and you may Devour its remains at any time without expending a daily use, paying its cost in souls. Once per week you may question a living prisoner as Eat the Life without killing it. Each prisoner costs 1 point of karmic debt per week.