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Here's the scenario. My players have gotten into Daggermark, headquarters of the Poisoners' Guild and general assassins' paradise.
I'm planning a good bit of campy fun with the assassins being out in the open about their services, but one of the troubles is that there is a paladin in the party and of course there are paladins out there in the world as well and one of the big problems and quandaries for assassins is that while killing people for profit is evil, to be truly successful at it and gain access to most places one should be neutral or at least detect as same.
There are a couple ways around this. One is to balance evil deeds with good, in whatever ratio actually balances the scales. I don't want to get into a big theological argument where saving fifty orphans doesn't forgive one murder. I'm simply noting that given the profession of the Poisoners Guild, there would be a lot of orphans, and as not all assassins are utterly heartless, there would be a lot of kids dropped off at the local Cayden Cailean house along with a good chunk of change in the orphanage's poor box. Heck, I'd suspect that some of the assassins would pick up other kids orphaned by things other than assassination and take them to the orphanage. Not only is it a public good, but it's a great recruiting ground for future assassins. You'd help your godfather out with a little job, right?
The other way to get around that pesky evil aura is magic. That said, Amulets of Nondetection don't grow on trees, Misdirection spells aren't foolproof, and if anywhere has enough evil folk around to warrant a volume discount, it would be Daggermark. Consequently, I was thinking that the Church of Urgathoa would be the right sort of place to revive the old Irish custom of sin-eating.
In a nutshell, the sins to be forgiven are removed and put into food which is then given to the sin-eater to eat, usually some poor hopeless type who thinks this is better than starving.
Now, magic-wise, I was thinking that this would be a combination of Misdirection, Heroes Feast and I'm not sure what all else, and also sounds like just the thing for the Church of Urgathoa to offer for Crystalhue, especially since if the sin-eater dies with all the transferred sins, they'll rise up as some variety of undead. I'm not certain whether it would be a ghoul or a wraith or just whatever tickles Urgathoa's fancy, but it would certainly make for an interesting moral quandary for a paladin, as a lot of these sins have been passed around for years and the custom is that the old sin-eater has his sins eaten before he's about to die so they go to the new sin-eater.
I'm also thinking that the Church of Urgathoa might sell Indulgences as well, not so much as forgiveness for sins as sin-eating in advance in the form of scrolls based on Atonement which would be useful for assassins in the field who have already scrubbed their aura to neutrality but have to worry about the murder and mayhem committed while doing a job.
Thoughts?
I'm thinking the sin-eaters have to know, and the sin-filled food has to be laid out rather obviously on Urgathoa's feast table, so you don't get to take a take-out box of sin with you to eat later.
If willing acceptance of the spell weren't part of the process, all that would be necessary would be a scapegoat, which is of course another legend and another magic, but if it's possible, it would certainly be a higher level spell.
I was thinking of this as a sort of magic for the budget-conscious junior assassins. The high level ones probably can afford for the priests of Urgathoa to find them a scapegoat, but that costs more.
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I like the idea of the sin eating but I would agree I think the process needs to be voluntary. As well perhaps there is a chosen sin-eater of the village or city. As far as what sort of undead ... based on what they are doing I think a ghoul or ghast is a must for the almost cannibalistic nature of what is being done. Eating away someone else's sins.
I think it would not need to be a high level spell like Hero's feast because it is a ritual that takes time in order to transfer the said "evil" from one person to another.
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This idea is twelve kinds of fascinating!
It would make a certain amount of sense that the sin-eater can't already be evil, or else they might not be suitable for this to work.
The spell is cast upon the person needing their aura 'cleaned' and the wickedness within them pulled forth and congealed into food, which then must be eaten within the hour by someone who is pure enough to absorb the sins.
For X amount of time afterwards, the consumer is sickened by the sins consumed, while the cleansed individual is under the effects of a calm emotions type effect, being unnaturally calm (and not detecting as evil) for a certain amount of time. The longer the pure person contains the sins consumed, the more they are affected as if by a disease effect, and if they contain the sins too long, they can actually die from it (rising as ghouls, if that happens), which ends the spell on the recipient as well, prompting them to move quickly to complete the mission, as they can't be sure how many days their sin-eater will survive...
Combined with the whole orphanage angle, above, the Daggermark assassins might keep a supply of 'pure souls' around, raised in a closed environment that is designed to keep them wide-eyed and innocent. Once used for the spell, even if they survive, these unsuspecting sin-eaters are not suitable for future use, and might even make for decent recruits to the assassin organizations, having 'tasted' the life vicariously.
Hmm, I like the disease aspect. I think Ghoul Fever would be the best choice, but there should be a saving throw both upon eating the food and later on as well. The fever dreams should also include fragmented visions of the sins they came from.
I think the sin transferal, however, should be permanent, until/unless the sin-eater dies and the resulting ghoul also destroyed. After that, Pharasma gets the updated paperwork, but if the person with their sins eaten has died in that time and already been processed, well then, it's up to the gods whether they want to extradite the soul.
There should also be a metaphysical thing where sins eaten are also forgotten, at least after death, since what we're basically talking about here is a corrupt version of Atonement. The assassins really aren't repenting their deeds but are wanting to get rid of the sin so they can do their job better. And I'd think the Cult of Urgathoa would be only too happy to screw with Pharasma's paperwork because that's what Urgathoa does.
As for how pure someone needs to be, that's relatively easy. Up until 5th level, everyone except paladins and some clerics detects as neutral. The slightly higher level assassins are the ones who need it, and would be able to find takers among the various orphans especially if they'd treated them well.
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I think the sin transferal, however, should be permanent, until/unless the sin-eater dies and the resulting ghoul also destroyed.
For an effect that's easier than just crafting a ring of non-detection (or a, presumably cheaper, ring of misdirection), I think a temporary effect is better.
For alignment to have any real meaning in the game, a character shouldn't be able to push their evil alignment off onto someone, and then kill them, and not immediately turn evil again, IMO. All those wrongs shouldn't be making a right, they should just allow someone to hide it, for a time.
There should also be a metaphysical thing where sins eaten are also forgotten, at least after death, since what we're basically talking about here is a corrupt version of Atonement.
Yeah, we're on totally different pages here. I don't like alignment at all, coming from a long line of RPGs that didn't use it, but as long as it's in D&D/PF, I think it shouldn't be that easy or mechanical as casting animate dead and getting 3 evil points, and then casting 3 protection from evils to cancel it out with 3 good points.
And I'd think the Cult of Urgathoa would be only too happy to screw with Pharasma's paperwork because that's what Urgathoa does.
That might fit with Pharasma's opinion of Urgathoa, but in her write up, Urgathoa herself has zero interest in dicking around with Pharasma, wishing the psycho playa-hata would stop with all the hating and just lead a dead girl do her thing.
As for how pure someone needs to be, that's relatively easy. Up until 5th level, everyone except paladins and some clerics detects as neutral. The slightly higher level assassins are the ones who need it, and would be able to find takers among the various orphans especially if they'd treated them well.
I see the people used for sin-eaters as being kind of like those kids who got selected to be the sacrifice to the sun god in central american cultures. Party, party, fun, fun, for a whole year, then that sucky part at the end where they rip your heart out...
The kids being groomed to be sin-eaters would likely have the best childhoods of anyone in Daggermark, with genuinely caring custodians, as it is vital that they retain a sense of innocence.
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Another option, either instead of or in addition to, perhaps there is a specific Outsider, of Imp-like strength, that could be summoned, that performs the role of Sin-Eater. (It literally might be called a Sin-Eater.) It shows up when called, and feasts upon the sins of a single petitioner, draining their blood to do so (causing ability damage to Con), and leaves the recipient temporarily purged of it's evil aura, giving it a non-evil misdirection effect for a certain number of days (equal to the amount of Con damage inflicted, allowing a person to choose to allow the Imp to feed for varying amounts of time, depending on how many days of non-evil-aura-ness one needs to accomplish a mission). The assassin can promptly have his ability damage to Con healed with Lesser Restoration, with no effect on the evil aura, which will still take the appropriate number of days to return to detectable strength.
Heck, depending on the local faith, you could have several options;
Urgathoa - standard sin-eater, above, turns evil into a feast and feeds it to another.
Asmodeus - summon an imp, which drains the evil from you for a time.
Zon-Kuthon - cleric scourges and excruciates the evil from you with ever-more-spectacular tortures (the evil-er you are, the more time you spend hanging from hooks, dripping the evil out).
Norgorber - evil is drawn from your lips during a special confession with a priest, where you must tell him something that you've never told anyone else before, and the secrets coming from your lips congeals into a black fluid that can be used as a poison that only affects good targets. Once you use the poison (or after a certain number of days, when the poison fades away), your evil returns.
Lamashtu - your evil is drawn into an animal, which makes a Fort save and either dies (and the spell fails) or contains the evil and becomes tainted with the fiendish template. You have a number of days equal to the HD or CR of the animal before your aura returns. (The animal remains fiendish afterwards, but bears you no special affection.)
Rovagug - don't hide your evil, you sissy. The only 'eating of sins' going on is when Rovagug gets out, and eats you last.
Well, I should point out that sin-eating, even on a permanent basis, is less effective than having the rings of non-detection and misdirection. Those function even if you continue to sin, whereas sin-eating simply artificially bleaches the soul but doesn't make it stain-proof.
The other effects from other gods make sense for their rites and rituals, but I think also would start to get into overmuch product confusion. And the Norgorber one would lead to rampant assassin twinking with the assassin going out, committing mass murder, having the sinfulness leeched out into poison (maybe with magic leeches) and the poison then used for more assassinations. Where's the downside? Much less trouble than treating orphans well.
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And the Norgorber one would lead to rampant assassin twinking with the assassin going out, committing mass murder, having the sinfulness leeched out into poison (maybe with magic leeches) and the poison then used for more assassinations. Where's the downside?
Yeah, there's a seed of a cool idea there, extracting the evil from oneself and using it to poison someone (or just drive them temporarily evil / raging / confused), but it would be crazy as a free bonus side-effect of a process designed to defeat alignment detection.
What auto-reject rule was that? The one where the drawback was actually a benefit in disguise?
I was just trying to think of something thematically appropriate for each of the big evil gods, and the notion got away from me. :)
I don't know which auto-reject rule it is, but it's an old standard of gaming. I first saw it phrased in Champions something like twenty years ago as "A disadvantage that is not a disadvantage is not a disadvantage." More recently it was listed in TvTropes as "Cursed with Awesome."
And in any case, the avoidance of alignment detection is a side benefit of sin eating, since it's based on the Christian metaphysics that sins are something that can be washed away and forgiven by divine powers. Admittedly, these are the same divine powers that are concerned about the sins, but one you add the concept of original sin to the equation, the concept of sin eating is not far behind.
In other words, if you can be born with a karmic debt or a positive karmic balance through no fault or virtue of your own, it makes just as much sense if not more that that debt or balance can be passed to others, especially with their consent.
The Atonement spell has the stipulation that the alignment change has to be sincere, but with Sin-Eating all I'm postulating is that both parties need to be Willing. After all, if a good person can sell their soul to Hell, thus bypassing Pharasma's Judgment, actual karmic balance, and actual alignment, then it's perfectly reasonable to have them tarnish their soul by accepting someone else's karmic debt.
It also makes a certain amount of sense. If you love a sociopath and don't want them to go to Hell, and they don't want to go to Hell either but due to a large flaw in their character are unable to feel remorse, the Atonement spell is made of fail. Meanwhile, bipolar types can be forgiven till the cows come home, because it doesn't matter how many goats are raped or virgin skulls cleft in twain so long as the person in front of the priest is weeping and having a nervous breakdown, since sincerity is judged "at the moment of the spell" as opposed to "on average."
I will note that this is a serious problem even with real world theology and move on.
With Sin-Eating, the concept of Sincerity is out of the equation and all that you're looking at is Willingness, same as selling a soul.
Admittedly this is an extra level of complication but if you're going to look at alignment, you have to look at complications anyway.