Dread Sayona - Rite Publishing Mess

[Perpetr8r]

So I was looking at a cool concept for a high level gestalt undead character. I liked the concept of the Sayona, so when I saw the Dread Sayona I thought cool I can use this template to make a Sayona.

Except that the template is a mess.
Its seems to be incomplete.
Accursed Gaze (Su): blood curse (see below), 30 feet, Will DC 10 +1/2 the dread sayona’s HD + her Cha modifier negates. This is a necromantic curse effect.

Except there is no Blood Curse mentioned in the template. The only Blood Curse I can find is a Lvl 8 Sorcerer spell made by one of the writers that doesn't seem to fit very well and as a gaze would make no damn sense and its from Super Genius Games from like 7 years previous.
Base Sayona has a staggering gaze.

Its spawn ability just doesn't mention any control the Dread Sayona would have over its spawn (it does have a separate ability to control Ghouls within 30 ft of it, but that seems like an oddity) when the official Sayona has a spawn ability that straight up says its a slave to its master

It has a Paralysis ability that says any melee or touch attack invokes a Fort save of leaves the victim paralyzed but doesn't give a duration. The base official Sayona has a 1d4 duration.

Looking at other Dread undead templates this one seems like a real mess like it was incomplete and published. Any ideas on if there was an errata or any official word on this? Owen K.C. Stephens was I the author mentioned earlier.

[Pizza Lord]

Perpetr8r wrote:

Except there is no Blood Curse mentioned in the template. The only Blood Curse I can find is a Lvl 8 Sorcerer spell

I don't know that Owen K.C. Stephens had anything to do with the dread sayona. I know he's battling cancer currently and there's a megabundle sale to help with his treatment at D20PFSRD.com. The author of the bestiary with dread sayona, Steven D Russell passed in a car accident shortly before the product came out I believe. I don't know who would know the answer unless blood curse is described in the product itself for another creature or ability elsewhere (assuming you are using Archives of Nethys or D20PFSRD to find dread sayona). Purchasing or finding someone with the product may have mention of a blood curse somewhere in it.

Otherwise, you will just have to make something reasonable up, like bleeding wounds require a DC 20 to heal or a DC 15 or 20 caster level check for a healing magic to work on them. Or affected creatures bleed for an additional 1 hit point or more when they do bleed.

I looked around as much as I could and couldn't find anything.

Perpetr8r wrote:

Its spawn ability just doesn't mention any control the Dread Sayona would have over its spawn

I believe the default is that created spawn are under their master/creator's control unless it says otherwise (or the base creature or creature it's modeled on has a specific method).

Perpetr8r wrote:

It has a Paralysis ability that says any melee or touch attack invokes a Fort save of leaves the victim paralyzed but doesn't give a duration. The base official Sayona has a 1d4 duration.

While a dread sayona is more powerful than a sayona in a lot of ways, I would probably use the sayona's duration. I don't believe it's intended to be permanent like a lich.

[Crai]

Regarding the Accursed Gaze, it's hard to say what the original intent of the ability is. I would proxy the spell effect from Accursed Glare (necromantic spell from Blood of the Moon), as the gaze effect. It's not blood-themed, but it is about the right power level for a substitute and it does have curse-thematics to it.

I think Pizza Lord's responses on spawn and paralysis are reasonable takes on how you should adjudicate the rest of the template's issues.

[Perpetr8r]

I agree with the spawn and paralysis abilities.
I was wondering if maybe it meant Blood Bane which is a curse ability that does have to do with bleed dmg which fits the template. A gaze that imposes a curse and it being counted as necromancy would let people boost saves against it.

“ Whenever the sufferer takes piercing or slashing damage, she also takes 1d3 points of bleed damage. Furthermore, the cursed individual is especially susceptible to poisons delivered via injury, taking a –2 penalty on Fortitude saving throws against them.”