So in my home brew world I’m making a worldwide gladiator federation based off of the world wrestling entertainment (WWE) mixed with gladiator fights like in Spartacus. The actual gladiators would fight in a mercy field unless the Lanista shuts it off for traditional death matches. For the Lanista I wanted to make him a mixture of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus from Spartacus and Vince McMahon from WWE. I have the race down but I’m torn on a class needing a master manipulator.
One of the things I have in place is long term prisoners can sell their time to this Lanista, as there is no surface slave market in this world sans one isolated kingdom on another continent, by agreeing to be a gladiator and pay off their debt to society early by making enough money. Only Lanista has all his fighters convinced they want to be there effectively shackless slaves hence the manipulation.
So far he has ever let one “slave” leave because his power was killing his other gladiators even in a mercy field and was thus losing money. So his reward after slaying 100 men was his pardon. It was more wise to release and give the sense of hope of freedom to tie into his manipulations if this now free celebrity gladiator is seen out doing heroic stuff.
Class wise I’m torn on a cult leader mesmerist, a celebrity bard, or something different entirely.
I do love me a good Cult Master Mesmerist... and by "good" I, of course, mean Evil. Anyways, since Cult Master Mesmerists get Leadership for "free", I highly advise grabbing the Wicked Leader social trait, a Ring of the Ecclesiarch, and the Suzerain Scepter... if you do go with a Cult Master Mesmerist for your Vince "Lanista" McMahon, that is.
I like the Demagogue Bard for this better than the Celebrity Bard. I managed to stack Demagogue-Hatharat Agent-Speaker of the Palatine Eye all on the same Bard. Lol. That's involvement in two separate clandestine organizations... at the same time as being famous. Probably not what you are looking for, but Demagogue gets Gather Crowd/Incite Violence, and Hatharat Agent gets Master of Manipulation...
So I went Cult Master, Elf with the half celestial template. All four damnation feats to come across as the redeemer of the fallen. I also gave him Dark Speech from 3.5. However due to his damnation; he detects with overwhelming goodness (the half celestial feeds into that lie). Made him an atheist, not because he doesn’t believe in gods, but he is his own highest power.
Later this weeks, I’m creating Shane and Stephanie as Aasimaar (that look like elves.) Their classes pending but Shane is either gonna be a brawler, a monk or a type of bard while Stephanie will be a who knows lol