Dark Temptress

Requirements

Race: Any

Stats: CHA 16

Feats: Spell Focus (Enchantment)

Spellcasting: Ability to cast 3rd level spells. Must be able to cast at least three compulsion-designator spells and two necromantic spells, including Vampiric Touch.

Skills: Bluff (5 ranks), Diplomacy (5 ranks), Gather Information (5 ranks), Sense Motive (5 ranks)

Summary

The lure of enchantment magic is a strong one. By themselves, the spells of the enchantment school seem very tempting but, for some the attraction becomes something darker, more sinister.

Powerful forces in the lower planes of existence have a connection to anything that causes torment, confusion, pain and fear. Enchantment spells are the perfect medium for dark powers to ensnare new followers. By the time such fresh recruits realize the evil they have been led to do, it is often too late.

The road to damnation takes many forms. The one that leads an enchanter to become a dark temptress is certainly the most attractive, but those who reach its end are no less damned than any other who falls prey to the clutches of evil.

In many ways, a dark temptress (or dark tempter, since men can serve as ably as women) may be even more of a fiend in the end. How much more evil than those lost in darkness is the one who led them there.

Role: Spell Utility

Characteristics: Enchantment focused casters that eventually pledge themselves to demons and become like one themselves

Source: Encyclopedia Arcane: Enchantment

Game Rule Information

The Dark Temptress has the following game statistics.

Abilities: Charisma is sort of self-evident as you need a Charisma of 16 to even be eligible to taking this class. Furthermore you need wisdom as Sense Motive is big as it's needed for sniffing out whether or not your enchantment magic had worked

Alignment: Varies (See below)

Hit Die: d4

Starting Gold: N/A

Class Skills

The Dark Temptress's class skills are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (All skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis)

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) × 4

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Dark Temptress.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Dark Temptress is proficient with whatever they were already proficient with prior to taking levels in this class.

Spells per Day: A dark temptress continues training in magic while she practices the art of sensing and shaping emotions. Thus, when a dark temptress gains a new level in the prestige class (except for 3rd, 6th, and 9th), she gains new spells per day as if a level in a spellcasting class they belonged to before had also been gained.

If the character belongs to more than one spellcasting class, she must choose which one is improved by this ability.

Pleasing Shape: When a dark temptress begins her progression through this prestige class, the most striking ability is gained first. The temptress becomes incredibly attractive. This is a permanent physical change.

Once the Pleasing Shape has occurred, the temptress gains a +1 attraction bonus when making any Charisma-based skill check with beings that would recognize and respond to her beauty.

If the being in question is an acknowledged friend or intimate acquaintance of the temptress, this bonus doubles to +2. For this to be the case, both parties must feel some sort of relationship exists between them.

If the temptress takes a being as a lover, this bonus rises to +3. This level of bonus comes with a set of complications, however. If a lover becomes aware of anyone else sharing this same status with the temptress, jealousy can quickly develop and turn the bonus into a -3 penalty instead. If it utterly outside the being's nature to be jealous, the bonus instead drops to +1.

Jealousy springing from this ability can get quickly out of hand, leading to hurt emotions, angry reactions, and even physical violence. The Games Master has the final say in how far Non-Player Characters are pushed by the rejection that can come from an indiscrete temptress.

Sense Souls Ex: As a first reaction to the changes occurring within her, the temptress becomes extremely sensitive to spiritual energy. This manifests as a form of Detect Thoughts, usable as a standard action in any given round.

This detect thoughts does not allow the temptress to actually read minds but it works exactly as that spell in every other respect. A temptress using this ability can always determine during the third round of continuous detection on a specific being what alignment it is and what condition it is in as per the spell Status (subject to Nondetection, which bars the power).

In addition, no incorporeal creature can remain hidden from a temptress without some form of nondetection magic (which works automatically against this power). As such, incorporeal undead do not gain special bonuses to attack a temptress in melee combat.

Power of the Night: The night holds a special allure for Temptresses. It is the time of abandoned morals, debauchery and shadowy things done in the dark. The night grants some small power to them as well, reflected in a bonus to the DCs of any charm-designator spells they cast during sunless hours.

Between sunset and sunrise each night, the temptress gains this bonus regardless of weather conditions or location. Even deep underground or an overcast and storming night, the bonus is granted fully: +1 at 2nd through 4th level, +2 from 5th through 8th, and +3 from 9th on.

The bonus applies only to spells cast directly by a temptress, not effects generated by magical items or spell-like abilities.

First Pact (Passion): Until 3rd level in this prestige class, a dark temptress may be ignorant of the source of her powers. Reaching this level requires her to make a willing deal with a fiendish power. The details of this power are best left to the individual DM, but it will always be one dedicated to seduction and betrayal.

Once the pact is sworn, the dark temptress becomes a willing servant of darkness, her alignment slips one step closer to chaotic evil, with the good-evil axis slipping before the lawful-chaotic one if possible. This and further pacts do not apply the penalty for shifting alignments that normally would apply. Some small sign of her new allegiance becomes visible, be it mark on her skin or the faint smell of some forbidden spice. In any case the sign is always concealable with a little effort.

The Pact of Passion also grants the temptress the first taste of her eventual power. She gains Charm Person, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance and Suggestion three times each per day as spell-like abilities. These are all cast at the caster level of the temptress.

Touch Souls Ex: The spirit world becomes tangible to a dark temptress at this level of ability. If a temptress can detect an incorporeal entity through her Sense Souls power (i.e., the being is not protected from divinations), she can affect it as if her body and/or any weapons she used possessed the ghost touch special property.

This is a constant ability and cannot be dispelled or negated, even by the temptress herself. Because of it, she can also be affected physically by incorporeal creatures as if she herself were incorporeal. Among other things this means a blinking opponent never has to roll a miss chance for its attacks.

Second Pact (Power): The dark powers that lend a temptress her abilities also exact their toll from her. For a temptress to attain the 6th level of this prestige class (and thus gain the benefits below or ever progress as a temptress again), she must pay them what they ask.

This price is never the same from temptress to temptress but is usually something precious to her. The GM should determine the exact nature of this fee, but if the temptress has a loved one, ritual sacrifice of that individual would not be an unheard-of demand. Great power is never free, and evil is never gentle.

Regardless of the price, the temptress slips one more step towards chaotic evil once she pays it. Again, the good evil axis should change before the lawful-chaotic one if possible. At best the 6th level temptress can have an alignment of lawful evil at this point.

The Pact of Power grants the dark temptress the powers of Darkness, Doom, and Ethereal Jaunt (self plus 50 pounds of objects only) 3 times a day as spell-like abilities at her own caster level. Also her previous Charm Person ability now becomes Charm Monster. She also gains a +5 natural armor bonus.

Bind Souls Sp: The dark temptress is being groomed as a special servant of her fiendish master or mistress. One of the things she will someday be expected to dois provide her patron with a harvest of souls.

First she gained the power to sense incorporeal beings. Then she developed the power to touch and interact with them. Her soul powers have now grown to allow her to literally bind the souls of mortals through the force of her will.

To do this a dark temptress must be within 50 feet of a living being when it dies. Then as a free action that can be taken instead of her next available action (which is spent to perform this ability), she can cast Soul Bind as per the 9th level arcane spell.

This power does not require a focus, though the dark temptress can hold souls of only as many hit dice total as she has character levels. To bind a soul once this limit has been reached, she must first select one or more bound souls to release.

While a soul is bound within a dark temptress, she can interrogate it as will using a Speak With Dead power as a full round action.

If she chooses to, any time after a dark temptress has bound a soul, she can send it to her master as tribute. The soul cannot be rejoined to its body by any means short of Wish or Miracle after this is done. Resurrection, even True Resurrection, cannot bring sacrificed back from this fate.

Third Pact (Pride): At 9th level, the dark temptress must be once more renew her vows to the fiendish patron that supports her. This means swearing the Third Pact and paying for her continued existence with the souls of others.

The first cost of the pact is fairly easy to pay. The temptress must use Bind Souls to capture a number of hit dice equal to three times her character level. This must take place over the course of one three-night span during the dark of the moon. These souls can be as many or as few needed to make up the hit dice total and must all be paid to her patron as tribute. Failure to finish this task once it is started will result in a permanent negative level that sets the temptress back to the beginning of 8th level.

Harvesting souls like this is innately corruptive and shifts the alignment of the temptress one step closer to chaotic evil. This shift occurs as did the others for the previous two pacts.

When the souls are paid, the dark temptress gains her last set of mortal abilities. She can now cast Desecrate, Detect Good, Detect Thoughts, and Teleport Without Error (self +50 pounds of objects only), 3 times per day as innate spell like abilities. She also gains the innate supernatural ability to use Tongues at will and can communicate telepathically with demons within 100 feet.

This third investiture also marks the beginning of her final trial. The dark powers choose many pawns but only select few ever remain onboard long enough to become queens.

Once a dark temptress reaches 9th level she has exactly one year from midnight on the day she attained that level to advance to 10th. Failure results in her being dragged into the lower planes to become a succubus, losing all of her former class abilities as well as punishment for her failure.

The Epiphany of Ecstasy: If a dark temptress can reach 10th level within the prescribed year, she undergoes a powerful transformation as a reward for the evil in her heart.

All of the spell-like abilities gained through this prestige class can be used up to ten times per day at will. She gains the power of Unholy Blight, usable once per day at her own caster level. She also recieves Energy Drain, Alternate Form, Summon Tanar'ri (succubus/incubus), Fly speed 50 ft (average), Spell Resistance 12, Damage Reduction 20/+2, Immunity to electricity and poison, resistance to acid 10, cold 10, and fire 10, Telepathy, +9 Natural armor bonus (which supersedes the +5 gained earlier), and +8 racial bonus to spot and Listen checks.

She immediately becomes an outsider with all the changes and conditions that apply to that type of creature. She must also choose a truename, which is instantly learned by her fiendish patron. Knowledge of this truename allows a spellcaster to any conjuration spell without the benefit of spell resistance or a saving throw.

Table 1-1: Dark Temptress Progression

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spells per Day
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2	Pleasing shape, sense souls	+1 level of existing class
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+3	Power of night +1	+1 level of existing class
3rd	+1	+1	+1	+3	First pact (passion)	—
4th	+2	+1	+1	+4	Touch souls	+1 level of existing class
5th	+2	+1	+1	+4	Power of night +2	+1 level of existing class
6th	+3	+2	+2	+5	Second pact (power)	—
7th	+3	+2	+2	+5	Bind souls	+1 level of existing class
8th	+4	+2	+2	+6	Power of night +3	+1 level of existing class
9th	+4	+3	+3	+6	Third pact (pride)	—
10th	+5	+3	+3	+7	The epiphany of ecstasy	+1 level of existing class