Just out of curiosity has anyone tried/thought of making an Abhorsen class, based off of the Sabriel series by Garth Nix? What are your thoughts, opinions, speculations about how it would fair or perhaps what it should entail.
I think that would be a great idea. Those books have inspired many a thought sessions on how one might play that in a d&d or Pathfinder setting. It would most likely bring an aspect into the game that really hasn't been covered before. It has the feel of a Bardic class, or a Necromancer class, or even a class that binds extraplanar creatures to bells to be used for a specific purpose. I feel that it would be an interesting way to tie in an idea given in a book setting into the role-play setting.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, to the point of poring through the books to compile a spell list, and creating spells designed to counter certain necromancy spells. Then in Heroes of Horror I found a prestige class called the Death Delver. Now the flavor of this class is nothing like an Abhorsen, but the spell list and class abilities fit almost perfectly.
It's an interesting mix of bardic and wizard skills; the bells would seem to take the place of material components for many spells (like speak for dead for example). And I just like the idea of an arcane caster who can oppose undead...
I'd probably make it a prestige class with prerequisites of some amount of spellcasting levels, spellcraft ranks, perform music ranks... Its abilities to banish or bind undead would increase with level, though the most powerful would always be immune to a point. I'd say a high-level lich, even if faced with Astarael, would be only temporarily inconvenienced - perhaps its body would discorporate, and its spirit banished to the negative plane for a day or two. But this would give the Abhorsen's companions time to locate and destroy its phylactery.
Such a class would work really well in a campaign with heavy undead usage - Age of Worms, Carrion Crown or some such.