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Curse of Madness
Your mind has touched the fringes of distant, alien realms and it has changed you. You have great difficulty discerning between what is reality and fiction. However, this derangement hardens your mind against magical control and may even afflict momentary insanity upon those seeking your thoughts.
You suffer a -4 penalty on saves against illusion spells or spell-like abilities and on sense motive rolls. You also gain a +2 bonus on will saves against non-illusion mind-affecting effects. At 5th level this bonus increases to +4 and at 10th level it increases to +6. At 15th level, if a creature uses detect thoughts to read your surface thoughts or a similar mind-reading ability on you, it must make a will save against a DC of 10 + 1/2 your oracle level + your Charisma modifier. If it fails, it is confused for 2d4 rounds. This is a mind-affecting effect.
Alien Mystery
Deities: Azathoth, Horrorterrors of the Furthest Ring, etc.
Class Skills: An oracle with the alien mystery adds Bluff, Intimidate, Knowledge (arcana) and Stealth to her list of class skills.
Bonus Spells: ill omen* (2nd), darkness (4th), bestow curse (6th), confusion (8th), contact other plane (10th), veil (12th), insanity (14th), maze (16th), power word kill (18th).
Revelations: An oracle with the alien mystery can choose from any of the following revelations.
Alien Geometries (Su): You can step through the folds of space unhindered by the mundane dimensions. As a full-round action you may move to any space within a distance of you equal to your speed, following any path that does not fall outside this radius. At 5th level this movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity from creatures threatening you at the beginning of your movement. At 10th level this movement ignores does not provoke attacks of opportunity. At 15th level you can use this ability as a move action.
Blinding Horror (Su): If a creature under the effects of analyse dweomer or true seeing looks at you, it must make a Will save or become blind for 1 round per oracle level. A creature that makes its save is immune to this effect for 24 hours. You must be at least 11th level to select this revelation.
Compelling Unreality (Su): If a creature interacts with an illusion spell you cast and would automatically disbelieve, it instead makes a save against the spell's DC and if it fails it does not disbelieve the illusion.
Dweller in Darkness (Sp): As the heavens mystery revelation.
Go Mad from the Revelation (Su): Whenever a creature targets you with a divination spell, it must make a Will save or become confused for a number of rounds equal to the spell's level. This is a mind-affecting effect. You may suppress or resume this ability as a free action. You must be at least 7th level to select this revelation.
Plumb the Depths of Madness (Su): As a standard action, if any creatures within 30 feet are confused or suffering from a mental disorder, you may attempt to read their surface thoughts as if you had been concentrating on them for three rounds with detect thoughts. You can use this ability once per day, plus one additional time per day at 5th level and every five levels thereafter. Additionally, you can detect the presence and of thinking minds within 30 feet as if you had been concentrating on the area with detect thoughts for two rounds. You cannot be stunned by this effect.
Touch of Terror (Su): Your touch grants minute glimpses into the unfathomable nightmares at the edge of reality. As a standard action you can make a melee touch attack that causes a creature touched to be shaken for 1 round per two oracle levels, to a minimum of 1 round. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.
Writhing Tentacles (Ex): You grow a pair of tentacles that lash out targets around you, at -5 to hit and doing 1d4 damage plus half your strength modifier. You cannot control them in combat and if you make an attack with a tentacle, it chooses from valid targets randomly. At 7th level you gain Improved Grapple as a bonus feat. At 11th level you gain Greater Grapple as a bonus feat.
Final Revelation: Upon reaching 20th level, you have lost yourself to the incomprehensible secrets of the universe and thrive on insanity. You are immune to Wisdom drain or damage. If any effect would make you confused, instead you gain a +4 morale bonus to attack rolls and saves for as long as the effect would last to a maximum of 20 rounds. Additionally, any creature that saves against a spell you cast that would cause confusion is still affected for 1 round if the spell has a duration greater than 1 round.
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The curse and mystery are similarly themed but do not necessarily have to go together.
I still need to think up two more revelations, and balance out what's there. As this is a first draft, more thought has been put into the theme of the thing than its balance. Please give your thoughts on the curse and mystery, the revelations and what can be done to improve them. I would appreciate suggestions for two more revelations as well.
Comments are welcomed!
I like your basic ideas, altough the balance seems a bit weird sometimes.
The curse is a little bit weak, and the bonuses you gain are also quite weak. It's more along the line as the tongues curse than deaf curse.
You could (but would not have to) make both good and bad sides more clear.
I really like the idea of "detection spells gone wrong", that seems to be the most clear flavour of this Mystery and curse.
The Alien Geometries should be clearer, what is meant by "path". If I see this right, you go, but as if you were ethereal, you cannot pass trough walls or similar. I don't see the difference between the 5th lvl beneift and 10th lvl. If this functions as teleport, so you can "climb" your speed, this ability is perhaps a bit overpowered, espacially at 15th lvl. But not by much. Perhaps you just need to make clearer restrictions.
The other abilities are fine, altough I would keep them more in one line, like "detect alignement causes nonlethal damage" and "detect magic makes you dazed". This would go with the flavor of Cthulu who can't be easily defined or understood.
The 20th lvl revelation is partially underwhelming, it's 20th lvl, most people won't reach it, perhaps the oracle can become aberrations or something like that. Also "confused" as in game term sense, is too rare, and in the general sense it means that thinking of a clown riding a dog doing a headstand and playing flute would get you a bonus on attack rolls... (sorry, couldn't think of anything truly confusing)
Even tough I made some suggestions, your mystery and curse are pretty fine as written, at least not really unbalanced in my eyes.
I do need to be clearer about things, yeah.
The alien geometries power lets you move in a completely ordinary fashion, along the ground, an unlimited distance so long as none of this movement goes further away from your starting point than your move speed. It doesn't let you go through walls or creatures. If you are stuck in a room or surrounded, it won't help you get out. The difference between 5th and 10th is that the 5th only avoids attacks of opportunity from creatures threatening you at the start of your movement. 10th avoids all attacks of opportunity, even if they weren't threatening you when you started moving.
As for the 20th level ability, the oracle can target self with confusion (gained as a mystery spell at 8th level) to gain the bonuses. Oracle revelations tend to be on the weaker side of capstones.
I would like to think of something that adds an extra effect to one category of your spells, like the fire mystery's burning thing. But I can't think of what would fit the theme and be good.
so, if I understand correctly, with alien geometry, you have a 30ft (20 ft if small) radius, in which you can move as much as you want, but you can't leave that radius. That actually sounds good, ... do you study mathematics? It kind of reminds me of hyperbolic geometry, which causes mass confusion ^^
the 5th and 10th abilities make a lot more sense now, I thought it was more like a teleport.
yes, the 20th level ability still is underwhelming, I mean the lore can cast wish once per day! another gains charisma bonus on all saves. I understand where you are coming from, but that bonus only comes in a very specific situation, and only a few spells can cause it.
Perhaps you could make it more about tentacles (if you don't care that it looks a lot like Cthulu). Perhaps all your illusions could have a "real" tentacle that can spontaniously appear once per spell, and try to grab a person "inspecting" it, if it fails or looses the grapple later, it disappears. Black tentacles would make a good spell in your list.
Another possibility is summons, in the complete arcana 3.5 book, there was an alienist prestige class that could summon "weird" monsters. He was a bit insane and hat that wisdom damage- insanity flavour.
also, the power word kill is kind of weird, it's a bad spell (I think) and doesn't really fit the profile. Okay, seeing your choices, there isn't much, but as you have taken a wizard spell, why not wail of the banshee, it kind of reminds me of madness.
They don't all have to be good spells, and yes, wail of the banshee might be a lot better.
The point of power word kill was to represent the idea of terrible things from beyond causing people to fall dead merely by them hearing its name... which suits wail of the banshee as well.
I may add a revelation that just lets you cast black tentacles as an 'extra' when you cast an illusion spell, hidden in the illusion. It would be a 1/day thing, maybe up to 3/day at 17th or so.
And... I've also noticed that the cleric spell list is quite short on illusions. I may add a revelation that swaps out your free cure spells known for a series of illusion spells from 1 to 8th.
This is getting confusing!
Did you get any further with this project?
I used the Search function to find threads on new Oracle curses in the Homebrew section of the forums, and (to my surprise) only got two real hits.
I haven't done anything more with it.
Dot.
The Go Mad revelation and the Blinding Horror are a bit to similar to be two different revelation, I think. Blinding Horror is basically a more powerful version of the same effect that triggers off of fewer spells.