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As the title says. I am working on a class called "The Reaper" thats a caster who is all about messing with spirits and undead, and lore-wise they get their magic in an extremely unique way. Rather than just being a traditional "necromancer" kind of class, their unique form of magic was extrapolated from the undead creation process itself. Basically, the magic that flows through a world like Golarion, Reapers found, functions something like a soul for that world, and as a result, just as one can use void energy to rip a soul from the afterlife and use it to animate an undead, Reapers are those who through the raw, force of personality/will channeling of void energy, can rip spells from the "soul" of the world...aka the magic flowing through it, corrupting the land in same way a soul is corrupted by the undead animation process when they do so.
Essentially, in short, they "harvest" their spells from the "soul" of the world/planet with void energy. Hence the title of "Reaper."
My only issue is, I have no clue what tradition of spells such a spellcasting method would logically produce. My gut instinct says Primal, as while void energy is used, your not actually drawing your spells from the void, or by consuming/destroying actual souls. Your spells are coming from whatever planet you find yourself on (so Golarion 90% of the time if your not in a homebrew setting), and spells drawn from the magic running through a prime material planet like Golarion I feel would most likely be Primal, even if harvested with void energy.
That being said, I can see an argument for Divine as well, I.E. Golarion is a creation of the Gods, and therefore its "soul" is divine in nature as it is a sacred space/divine creation. By the same token, I can also see an argument for occult, again, because if the magic flowing through the world is a "soul" and spirits are occult, than magic drawn from it would be occult because its technically still a spirit your ripping from, just the "spirit" of a planet and not a creature. Hell, I could even see an argument for them being a "choose your tradition" class like Sorcerer or Witch, because the Prime material plane and its planets technically have a little bit of all four traditions in their metaphysical makeup, so perhaps such a spell acquisition method would allow one to take from whatever tradition of spells they focus themselves towards working with.
So help me please! What tradition do you think fits the lore most here?
What you're describing sounds like vital and spiritual essence, which is divine. That said, you could basically come up with a reason why any tradition works if you really wanted. Primal would be my dead last choice though.
For reasons not fully enumerated, the Primal tradition has almost nothing to do with void, despite void being an equal part of the 'vital essence' that makes up Primal.
My first instinct is to say that everything about this description except the part about the magic coming from the planet made me think of the Divine tradition. Since the technique is extrapolated from creating undead and void energy, and undead are associated with Divine magic most especially, Divine tradition makes a lot of sense...
...But when you talk about drawing spells out of this world-soul phenomenon, it reminds me of theories on Arcane magic--how some arcanists believe that Arcane magic is made of the tools the gods used to build the universe, while others believe they're ways of breaking the rules, and still others believe that arcane magic is created by making an imprint with the will on the underpinnings of reality... I guess as Captain Morgan says, it looks like you could come up with an argument for almost any tradition based on this.
Meanwhile, I don't know if pick-a-list would be the best, since so far pick-a-list casters have all been tied to one of a variety of magical beings in some way that colours their connection to magic, where Reapers all share the same 'being'/worldsoul.
Going back to the idea of the magic flowing through the planet being akin to a soul, that happens to share something with Golarion lore that does flow through the world. The River of Souls pours in from the First World and distributes souls into new life and then flows back out as those beings die. It wouldn't be any more of a stretch to say that there's enough magical essence that just flows alongside the tide of souls that a reaper can reach into it and take some of it for their magic.
I do have to say, to me logically it would seem this class's default activities would quickly get them branded as evil, or even unholy, regardless of tradition, due to their corrupting the world-soul.
If your class is about life and souls, divine is definitely the tradition for you. Primal unfortunately sits in this awkward spot where despite drawing from vital essence, which should include void energy as well as vitality, anything void-related has been explicitly precluded from the tradition's spell list, I suspect because the sole benchmark for a primal spell is whether it would fit your typical druid. Primal doesn't cover souls either, so while both primal and divine could technically both accommodate a necromancer class focused on vital essence, your class sounds like it fits neatly along divine magic specifically.
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Yeah, I honestly think either making it divine or "choose your tradition" makes the most sense, now. By pure logic, "choose your tradition" fits the best lore-wise I think, because of the fact that magic energy does, in fact, flow through all aspects of reality, according to secrets of magic, and in the areas with the highest concentration of it, Leylines exist...and leylines can be any tradition of magic, implying that this magic flowing through all things is basically all traditions at the same time/traditionless/not bound to any one tradition.
As a result, if using void energy to draw from that "traditionless/all traditions at the same time" magic, the ways I can see it shaking out are...
A) The tradition of magic could in theory be any of the four, and which tradition you use depends on some variable, such as maybe how you came into your ability to directly channel void energy without the use of a spell or ritual, or maybe instead the class has to draw their power from a specific leyline they've "infected/wounded" with void energy, and that wound/infection lets them draw magic from that specific leyline regardless of how far away they are from it. Since leylines can be tuned to a specific magic tradition, what tradition you use would be determined by what Leyline you've wounded/infected and are now leeching off of.
or
B) Despite the magic you draw from being traditonless/every tradition at the same time, it always becomes divine because while it has the potential to be any tradition, it being filtered through a process that uses void energy, which is tied with the essences used by the divine tradition, make it always come out as divine.
So yeah, which of these options is more lore friendly? Or are they both equally lore friendly?
I think that in terms of canon, you can massage your class into fitting with it almost regardless of tradition, as there are many ways of accessing magic as you say. Worth pointing out, however, is that the divine tradition is consistently allowed to poach spells from other traditions, so going for it would still allow you to have a very flexible spellcasting chassis.
Given that your class is all about undead, spirits, and void energy, I think their magic is fundamentally divine at its core. As you say, however, being able to “infect” ley lines and other power sources to use their magic is a good reason to then let them access spells beyond the divine list. Depending on how you implement it, this would not only allow you to have arcane, occult, and primal-flavoured subclasses, but potentially even multiple of each.