How would you build a sort of Outer Rifts missionary?


Advice


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber

Usually when we see someone trying to turn others to the worship of the outer rifts it's in the form of a follower of a specific demon lord.

But how would you build a sort of broad Outer Rifts anti-miracle man? Someone who roams around planting the seeds of any demon lord worship depending on what the area called for. Meek peasants being bullied by the local lords knights? What you want is to seek the blessing of Angazhan. Being overshadowed by all the other rich and well-connected students at magic academy? Abraxas is the path to all magic knowledge. The infinite nature of the Outer Rifts seems like it could offer a genie-twist solution to all problems, plant and water oriented demon lords willing to flow their unholy blessing in exchange for sacrifices or worship or both.

Just to keep in mind this guy wouldn't be overtly proselytizing evil but more corrupting offerings of solutions to people with real problems. He'd know who he was promoting, but would be preying on people who didn't and who were desperate.

I know there's groups like the Godclaw but considering the selfish nature of the Outer Rift lords they don't seem like they'd jibe with a unified catch-all. The closest thing I could think of was the Outer Rifts mystery Oracle, but oracles don't really seem like the wandering helper (even a malevolent twist) type either. Am I wrong there? I always had a hard time grasping them thematically.


IMO, Witch seems to be the clandestine cloak-and-dagger counterpart to Cleric.

A Cleric goes around doing the bidding of a deity while shouting the name of that deity as loudly as possible and putting an image of their holy symbol on any surface that will hold ink.

A Witch, however, is who a deity calls on when they want to have something done, but also have plausible deniability about being involved.

So maybe set the Witch up as an Unseen Broker patron or perhaps Starless Shadow or some other thematically appropriate patron theme choice. Then the character acts somewhat as a free agent among any of the outer rifts Demon Lords as circumstances require.

Mechanically, the details of the actual Patron is not relevant. Only the Patron Theme has mechanical impact. The Patron can be a particular powerful entity such as a deity or Demon lord, it could be a pantheon or other collective, or it could even be entirely unknown. Or in this case, it could be a changeable entity from a set of options.

Cognates

Making a pantheon for the outer rifts generally would probably help a bit but that's just flavour.

In terms of class, I'd also avoid cleric. Vindicator could work perhaps, alongside witch as it's also a more subtle class archetype.

This isn't to say cleric wouldn't work, but they are a bit more show-y.

WRT to oracles, they can do whatever they want basically. I can see this concept working with a on oracle who either thinks they were "blessed" by the outer rifts, or actually was, and then spreads that philosophy.


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Any time somebody needs to call on a bunch of different things, I would consider a reflavoring of Animist.

Going off the Pathfinder wiki, you've got fourteen commonly known demon lords and seventeen lesser-known demon lords. Animist currently has fourteen apparition to work with, and will be getting more later in the year, so if you take the time to map the demon lords to the best-fitting apparition, you can have your character calling on different Outer Rifts patrons each day depending on what the situation needs. If you have any apparitions left at the end which are unassigned, just go look back and see if they fit some particular aspect of a demon lord.

As a "knows the whole list" prepared caster, it's very easy to swap things out after a day to perform just the miracles you need. This seems like a character who fits the idea of having a few patrons for the road, and when they arrive at some new city, spends the rest of the day figuring out who to call on the next day. Unlike Cleric, you actually have the number one feat for being a caster up to no good, Conceal spell. Sadly, you don't have quite enough familiar feats in-class to get an imp, but so long as you don't lock down an apparition choice with Medium/Relinquish Control, you're good.

As for how to build them... well, I'd make sure to get Additional Lore (Outer Rifts), ask the GM to count worship of the Outer Rifts as a specific unholy deity for skill feats, and generally focus on Religion, Deception, and Diplomacy. And most importantly, I would make sure to never take both Lamashtu and Pazuzu as patrons on the same day.

(Just as a note, though, PF2 doesn't have a specific Outer Rifts mystery for Oracle, at least not that I saw?)


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber

The Witch does seem to fit more in the theme I was going for.

I hadn't read much about the Animist but they might do well. I didn't want to confine things to the more canon demon lords but if they're getting more apparitions maybe it would work.

Yeah the Outer Rifts mystery was a 1e one. Looks like it was introduced in 2011.
https://aonprd.com/MysteryDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Outer%20Rifts

Thanks!


QuidEst wrote:
Any time somebody needs to call on a bunch of different things, I would consider a reflavoring of Animist.

Yeah, that is another really good choice for this concept.

The drawback with Witch is that while you can narratively describe getting your power from a different Demon Lord, the power that you get from any of them will mechanically always be the same.

Animist has baked into the mechanics a lot more of that feel of switching what power you are drawing from and getting different abilities as a result. The downside with Animist as the base is that the narrative flavor would need more rework than Witch does in order to make it make sense.

Liberty's Edge

An Animist who is in tune with the corruptive essences of the Outer Rifts that eternally try to get a foothold in the Universe and who offers them a way to act on the material world feels quite aligned to the concept of the class IMO.

Their Apparitions being the aforementioned corruptive essences.

This actually sounds like a great character to roleplay.


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A pantheon for the Outer Rifts which is accessed by an animist chassis does seem to be the best route for this type of character. The idea sounds fun when played in the correct campaign and with the right group. It might even work in non-evil campaigns such as the Hellfire Crisis if played properly.

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