Long story short, I liked Zaiobe, and so did my players, especially one PC who came out of character creation mostly mute, himself; still able to talk, but usually not more than one or two scratchy words. After protecting Zaiobe following a critical hit while fighting Kikonu, the two became pretty much inseparable.
Now it's 4 adventures and months and levels later, and the party's just starting Part 5, and I'm advancing up all the NPCs up to close to the party's level, including Zaiobe, bringing her up to 7th level Oracle. Unfortunately, since the Mute Oracle curse doesn't actually exist outside of this one-off NPC, there's no rules for advancing it. Any suggestions for what the 5th and 10th level powers should be for the curse? I'm thinking 30' telepathy, for the 5th level bonus, but I'm not sure what's fair for both of those abilities.
A few ideas.
- Able to maintain an additional telepathic bond at 5th and 10th level and can decide which one she speaks to (can be more than one at once)
- Detect Thoughts against someone she touches at 5th. Maybe limited to 1/day or 3/day. Maybe upgrade to at will at 10th
- Add Magic Mouth to the spell list. It's pretty limited but that way she can "talk" a little bit.
- Your telepathy 30 ft... I don't know, that seems to pretty much counter the curse completely, as she can telepathically talk to as many people as are in range. I wouldn't give that before level 15.
Maybe a limited version at level 5 or 10 that requires eye contact and has a range of 5 ft (so has to be adjacent, but doesn't need to touch).