So, Bind Soul is thematically a pretty cool spell. You yank away some dying sucker's spirit, stick it in a pretty gem, and your victim gets to spend the afterlife as a necklace.
It seems to me though that all these polished-up black sapphires would make pretty great magical reagents, either for the crafting of items (e.g. variant staffs), or in rituals for the creation of sapient undead.
We don't exactly have item creation rules yet, but I feel like we can maybe make some educated guesses as to approximate level and price, and I'm kind of curious to see what people manage to cook up.
So, with that in mind, me first with a ghost in a bottle.
Item 12, Uncommon
Traits Magical, Necromancy
Price 1900 GP
Bulk L
Activate 3 actions (command, interact); Frequency Once per hour; Effect The bottle casts unseen servant to your specifications. Twice a day when you activate the bottle, you may instead order the bottle to summon a ghost with the statistics of a ghost commoner, as if the bottle had cast a 5th-level summon spell. While the unseen servant or ghost is summoned, you control it for as long as you spend an action each round to Sustain the Activation. If you do not Sustain the Activation, the effect ends, causing the spirit to return to the bottle.
Craft Requirements Supply a black sapphire worth 200 GP or more, containing the soul of a 2nd-level or higher creature.
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I once wrote something for Outland Entertainment a few years ago, Secrets of Soul Magic -
It introduced a variant of the Necromancer who travels the world laying restless souls to rest. He would communicate with the deceased and gain powers from their souls by use of a soul gem. Whilst the soul was held in the soul gem, he could freely communicate with the soul, identify the reason for their unrest and work towards resolving those problems.
I was lucky enough to have Sean K Reynolds cast his critical eye over it and he commented it had a very "Dresden" feel to it, and quite liked it, so I must have gotten something right.
Although it was for Pathfinder 1, I could look at converting it to 2e - if there is any interest.
I've tried finding it on the usual stores and here at Paizo, and via Google, but it seems to have disappeared down the internet ether, so I am willing to share my original text if anyone would like it? Just PM me here on Paizo and I'll pop it up on a Google Docs share and send the link.
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... introduced a variant of the Necromancer who travels the world laying restless souls to rest.
Although it was for Pathfinder 1, I could look at converting it to 2e - if there is any interest.
Yes, please. I always has a soft spot for Parl Dro from Kill the Dead. And Dresden-esque makes it all the better.
Righto, it will be a couple of weeks as I need to finish reading the core rules in designer mind set rather than gm mind set. I'll post here as I progress to give peeps a chance to feedback.
Here's a soul related creature for PF 1.0 I wrote as a free web enhancement to Arcane Focus - Soul Magic. It should give you the general taste of that soul related supplement and a taste of things to come with my PF 2.0 reworking. I hope you like it.
Screaming distorted faces cry out from beneath this featureless humanoid’s rippling skin.
Mirror Soul CR 7
XP 3,200
LE Medium undead (incorporeal)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +17
----- Defense -----
AC 16, touch 16, flat-footed 12 (+2 deflection, +4 Dex)
hp 65 (10d8+20); hidden healing 5
Fort +5, Ref +7, Will +10
Defensive Abilities incorporeal; Immune undead traits
----- Offense -----
Speed 30 ft.
Melee incorporeal touch +12 (1d8 plus 1d4 Cha drain)
Special Attacks absorb identity, mirror ambush
----- Statistics -----
Str —, Dex 18, Con —, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 15
Base Atk +7; CMB +11; CMD 22
Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Skill Focus (Perception), Weapon Focus (touch)
Skills Bluff +13, Disguise +13, Escape Artist +11, Perception +17, Sense Motive +13, Stealth +15, Survival +11
Languages Common
SQ mirrored life
----- Ecology -----
Environment any
Organization solitary, pair, or hall (3–6)
----- Special Abilities -----
Ability Drain (Su) The touch from a mirror soul drains 1d4 points of Charisma per touch. Each drain is negated by a DC 17 Fortitude save. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Absorb Identity (Su) The soul of any humanoid reduced to zero Charisma by a mirror soul is drawn out of its mortal form to the nearest mirror entrapping it there. This soul becomes a mirror soul after 1d4 days. The mirror soul then claims the body as its own as a full round action that provokes. The round after this, the body is returned to life with half its health and fully possessed by the mirror soul. At this time, the mirror soul gains the traits, memories, and abilities of the soul replaced, including any unspent spells or abilities for that day.
If this corporeal form is killed, the mirror soul is permanently destroyed allowing a raise dead or similar spell cast upon the corpse to return the original soul to life provided it has not become a mirror soul itself. While the body is inhabited by a mirror soul, all spells that would grant life to the original soul automatically fail.
Hidden Healing (Ex) Works as fast healing but only while the soul reflection is residing within a mirror.
Mirrored Life (Su) – A mirror soul is bound to existence within 100 feet of its death. It can move from mirror to mirror as a swift action provided it starts the movement inside a mirror. It may move between all mirrors in the area of its existence as if they were adjacent.
Removing or destroying all mirrors in its area of existence while the mirror soul is within a mirror traps it in a limbo state so it is unable to return to the mortal world until at least one mirror is introduced back into its area of existence.
If it is in the mortal world when all mirrors are broken, the mirror soul loses its incorporeal state reducing its armor class to 14.
A mirror soul in possession of a new body is able to leave its area of existence and begin a new life for itself, attempting to become the humanoid it has replaced.
Mirror Ambush (Ex) If a soul reflection begins combat by emerging from a mirror, it can act as if it had a full round to act rather than just one standard action.
When a humanoid suffers a horrific death in their own home, their souls, traumatized beyond imagining will sometimes flee into a nearby mirror where it believes it can look out in safety and return to its mortal form when the danger is past. Unfortunately, the soul finds itself trapped within the mirror and observes the removal of its mortal form, resulting in such eternal anguish and despair and anger that it transforms into a mirror soul.
A mirror soul studies creatures it can observe from the safety of its mirrors. It will try to determine the weakest, most preferable prey, choosing the one it believe it will find the easiest to replace and be unnoticed. It will lie in wait, watching and judging, waiting for that moment that its chosen prey is alone and in a room containing a mirror from which it can emerge in ambush.
A mirror soul born of a female soul will prefer to replace a living female, and one that was male prefers to replace a living male because it is far easier to mimic the same sex it once held in life. Should it replace a creature of a different sex, it suffers a -4 penalty on any bluff checks to emulate the behavior and attitudes of the creature it has replaced.
A mirror soul counts as a restless soul for the purposes of a Soul Soother laying the soul to rest, or, trapping the soul, as described in the supplement Arcane Focus – Soul Magic. If the mirror soul is transferred from the area of its existence into a soul orb, it may aid the Soul Soother in resolving its death and laying it to rest and so may be carried from its restricted area of existence.
I'm glad to see that others aside from me see the potential in utilizing Soul Gems in their necromancy, I have put a bit of time into the concept myself back in 1e, and something I came up with was essentially to use the inherent value that a Soul Gem provided as the material cost to raise the very same body that it used to occupy in life for a new variety of undead, sort of like a combination of zombies and golems with the original individual's memories and abilities intact, but with the caveat that the gem was from then on stuck inside the individual like Iron Man's Arc Reactor, so if that was ever removed the body would immediately die again.