From Compendium of Worldly Lore
Summary
Some places and items are so evil that exposure to them marks, or taints, a character in a very real and difficult-to-cleanse way. Taint is evil. It is a corruption so deep it warps the very plane of reality. A weapon used to slaughter thousands of innocents, a forest grown on land soaked in the blood of an evil deity, a book bound in the flesh of an archfiend for his own horrible purposes, and the presence of an evil deity are all sources of taint.
Taint and Alignment
One way of using this variant system is to replace alignment with taint. As a way of describing characters, taint works somewhat differently, since the standard alignment system uses sets of opposites (law vs. chaos, good vs. evil) and taint has no opposite. You’re either tainted, or you’re not.
In such a system, tainted characters are “evil,” considered a threat to common people and, in sufficient numbers, to entire nations. Characters without taint may act altruistically or selfishly, kindly or cruelly, generously or miserly, as their personalities dictate. An evil monster has a taint score equal to one-half its Charisma score, with evil undead getting a +1 modifier and evil outsiders a +2 modifier.
Alternatively, taint can be used in addition to alignment. While characters with a minor amount of taint aren’t necessarily evil, they probably are. The more taint they acquire, the more evil they become. The GM should monitor taint carefully and provide a warning when a character disregards its effect, just as he would when a character acts outside his alignment.
If you include taint in your campaign, you can add a detect taint spell to the cleric’s spell list. If you are not using alignment, change the paladin’s detect evil ability to detect taint.
The detect taint spell or spell-like ability is identical to detect evil, except that it detects the presence of taint within a creature or object. When determining the power of a tainted aura, refer to the table in the detect evil spell description. Find the creature or object’s taint score on the row for “Cleric of an evil deity”; the aura’s power corresponds to the column in which the taint score is contained.
Becoming Tainted
Initial exposure to a tainted place or tainted object gives a character 1d3 points of taint.
For every 24 hours spent in a tainted place, or spent carrying a tainted object, a character must make a Fortitude saving throw. The base DC is 10, +5 for every consecutive 24 hours of exposure. Multiple simultaneous exposures (such as carrying a tainted weapon in a tainted place) increase the DC by +5 per source of exposure every 24 hours. If the character fails his saving throw, his taint score increases by 1.
Because of their good Fortitude saves, most barbarians, fighters, monks, paladins, and rangers resist taint better than members of other classes. Bards, rogues, sorcerers, and wizards are much more susceptible to taint.
Taint Absorbing Items
Some natural substances absorb taint and thus protect those who are exposed to carry them. Examples include a pure jade rod the size of a human finger, a sheet of vellum prepared from a year-old lamb, an intricately carved piece of lightning-struck oak, or a silk sash. The GM can create other examples appropriate to the campaign as well. Regardless of the shape or substance of the item, taint-absorbing items cost 100 gp each.
As an item absorbs taint, it darkens, softens, and gradually rots away over seven days. During that time, it absorbs all taint to which the carrier is exposed. Possessing multiple taint-absorbing items at the same time can protect a character for longer than seven days, but the benefit does not accumulate indefinitely, as shown on Table 1-1: Taint-Absorbing Items.
| Items Possessed | Days of
Protection |
|---|---|
| 1 | 7 |
| 2 | 12 |
| 3 | 15 |
| 4 | 16 |
| 5 | 15 |
| 6 | 12 |
| 7 or more | 1 |
Evil and Taint
Simply having an evil alignment is no defense against taint—it is too profound an effect for personal beliefs or moral codes to ward it off. Only undead and creatures with the evil subtype can ignore taint.
Of course, you may choose for evil creatures to become tainted by good. You can create sacred places and objects in your campaign that taint evil characters as well. You could say that creatures with the good subtype are immune to the effects of taint in such sacred places, but those sacred places would rot away creatures of the evil subtype.
Alternatively, you could inflict taint according to the conflict between law and chaos, along with or instead of taint associated with the good-vs.-evil conflict.
Alternative Saving Throws
Often, fantasy literature portrays characters who delve into ancient, lost, or forbidden knowledge as becoming warped by their exposure to such knowledge. In campaigns with the same conceit, the Fortitude saving throw makes sense. However, you could easily use a Will saving throw instead to determine whether a character picks up taint. This would mean that bards, clerics, sorcerers, and wizards develop a resistance to taint as they go up in levels (because of their good Will saves), but other classes would have a much harder time resisting.
Whether a Fortitude save or a Will save is used, clerics, druids, and monks are equally resistant to taint, which supports the genre conceit of horrible secrets hidden in inaccessible temples and monasteries. Rogues are vulnerable either way, explaining how thieves often appear in the genre as unwittingly releasing horror on the world when they steal something that was better left lost and protected.
Tainted Places
When a character casts an evil spell in a tainted area, treat the caster as +1 caster level for spell effects that depend on caster level. When a character casts a good spell in a tainted area, treat the caster as -1 caster level for spell effects that depend on caster level. These changes in caster level have no effect on spells known, spells per day, or highest level of spell available.
If you are using Manual of the Planes, entire planes may inflict taint. Mildly aligned planes inflict taint as outlined in Becoming Tainted (see above). On strongly aligned planes, the saving throw DC increases by +5 every 12 hours instead of every 24 hours.
Effects of Taint
A character’s taint score applies as a penalty to his Constitution and Wisdom scores. Thus a character with a 16 Constitution and a 14 Wisdom who acquires a taint score of 4 has an effective Constitution of 12 and an effective Wisdom of 10. These penalties reflect the taint’s impact on the character’s physical and mental health.
Characters who embrace taint (see below) and make use of it can ignore some of these penalties. Though it reduces ability scores, the effect of taint is not treated as ability damage, ability drain, or any other penalty to an ability score that can be removed by magic.
A tainted character experiences the Constitution and Wisdom penalties in a variety of ways, from mild nausea, joint pain, or disorientation to rotting flesh, severe skeletal warping, and irresistible murderous urges. Table 1-3: Taint Effects is categorized according to whether a character is mildly, moderately, or severely tainted. The effects on Table 1-3: Taint Effects are primarily meant as role-playing features, though the GM can apply minor game-related modifiers to represent some of these effects if he so chooses (See Sidebar: Mechanical Corruption and Depravity Effects).
This taint can manifest physically, in which case it is called corruption, or mentally, in which case it is called depravity. Both corruption and depravity are measured in points. Typically, characters acquire 1 to 3 points of corruption or depravity from exposure to evil. Prolonged exposure generally has the potential to bestow an additional 1 point of corruption or depravity for every 24 hours of exposure. In most cases, a character can attempt a saving throw to resist the effects of taint. Corruption allows a Fortitude save, while depravity allows a Will save. Any time a character acquires more points of corruption at one time than her current Constitution modifier, she must attempt another Fortitude save (DC 15 + points of corruption acquired). If this save is successful, she is sickened for 1d4 rounds; if she fails, she is nauseated for 1d4 rounds. Similarly, any time a character acquires more points of depravity at one time than his current Wisdom modifier, he must attempt another Will save (DC 15 + points of depravity acquired). If this save is successful, he is dazed for 1d4 rounds; if he fails, he is stunned for 1d4 rounds. Creatures with the Evil subtype and undead creatures are immune to any negative effects from taint. They automatically have effective corruption and depravity scores equal to one-half their Charisma score, +1 for undead or +2 for outsiders. They take no penalties due to these taint scores, but they can use them to qualify for feats or prestige classes. Both corruption and depravity manifest in mild, moderate, and severe symptoms. The relationship between a character’s taint scores and her Constitution and Wisdom scores determines the severity of the physical and mental manifestations of her taint. A character with a high Constitution can acquire more corruption before displaying physical symptoms, while a character with a low Wisdom quickly manifests mental symptoms of her depravity. To determine the severity of a character’s taint symptoms, first find his Constitution score in the leftmost column of Table 1–2: Taint Thresholds and read across until you find the column to the right that includes his current physical corruption score. The top of that column indicates the severity of his physical taint symptoms. Then repeat the process with his Wisdom score and her depravity score to determine the severity of her mental taint symptoms.
| Con or Wis
Score |
No
Taint |
Mild
Taint |
Moderate
Taint |
Severe
Taint |
Dead/
Insane |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-4 | 0 | 1 | 2-5 | 6-13 | 14+ |
| 5-8 | 0 | 1-3 | 4-11 | 12-27 | 28+ |
| 9-12 | 0 | 1-5 | 6-17 | 18-41 | 42+ |
| 13-16 | 0 | 1-7 | 8-23 | 24-55 | 56+ |
| 17-20 | 0 | 1-9 | 10-29 | 30-69 | 70+ |
| 21-24 | 0 | 1-11 | 12-35 | 36-83 | 84+ |
| 25-28 | 0 | 1-13 | 14-41 | 42-97 | 98+ |
| 29-32 | 0 | 1-15 | 16-47 | 48-111 | 112+ |
| 33-36 | 0 | 1-17 | 18-53 | 54-125 | 126+ |
No Taint: A character with no taint manifests no symptoms.
Mild Taint: A character who gains her first point of taint crosses the threshold into mild taint and must receive a restoration, heal, or greater restoration spell and have her taint reduced to 0 within 24 hours or be permanently afflicted with mild taint. If a character retains mild taint after 24 hours, she manifests one minor physical or mental symptom from the descriptions below. A character with mild depravity and mild corruption manifests one physical symptom and one mental symptom. Once a character manifests a minor symptom, only a miracle or wish spell can remove the symptom and return the character’s taint to 0.
Moderate Taint: A character who gains enough taint to cross the threshold into moderate taint must receive a heal or greater restoration spell and have his taint reduced to mild taint level within 24 hours or be permanently afflicted with moderate taint. If a character retains moderate taint after 24 hours, he manifests one moderate physical or mental symptom from the descriptions below. A character with moderate depravity and moderate corruption manifests one physical symptom and one mental symptom. Once a character manifests a moderate symptom, only a miracle or wish spell can remove the symptom and return the character’s taint to mild. A character with moderate taint keeps the symptoms he gained from mild taint in addition to the new ones gained from moderate taint.
Severe Taint: A character who gains enough taint to cross the threshold into severe taint must receive a greater restoration spell and have her taint reduced to moderate taint level within 24 hours or be permanently afflicted with severe taint. A character with severe depravity and severe corruption manifests one physical symptom and one mental symptom. Once a character manifests a severe symptom, only a miracle or wish spell can remove the symptom and return the character’s taint to moderate.
| Mild | Moderate | Severe |
|---|---|---|
| Occasional nausea or vomiting | Bones begin to warp and thicken | Flesh of nose rots away, leaving skull-like openings |
| Pain in joints | Black, lichenlike growth across skin itches incessantly | Mutated, deformed fingers, toes, leg, arm, head, ear, eye,
or teeth begin to grow on inappropriate parts of the body, then shrivel, rot, and eventually fall off |
| Hair goes white | Reddened, burnlike sores and scars | Spine twists, back hunches |
| Mild paranoia | Eye clouds or blood vessels break, obscuring vision | Severe warping of skeleton; skull enlarges and deforms |
| Disorientation | Lips shrink back from gums | Great swollen growths on the body |
| Increased aggressiveness | Gums swell, bleed, and rot | Lungs eaten away from inside—wet, labored, and painful breathing |
| Mild hallucinations | Bleeding from eyes, nose, mouth, ears, or lips | Eye falls out, leaving gaping socket that glows with eerie green light |
| Phlegmy, wracking cough | Hair falls out | Skin peels off in papery sloughs at the slightest touch, leaving raw,
red flesh beneath |
| Eyelid swells, obscuring vision | Uncontrollable seizures that wrack the body with spasms | Fingers or toes begin to web and fuse |
| Pale, grayish, dead complexion | Eruption of painful sores | Irresistible murderous urges |
| Sunken eyes, cracked lips | Sores ooze blood, pus, foul-smelling ooze, spiders or insects,
thick pasty substance, maggots, or acidic green slime |
Reduced to primitive behavior |
| Skin seeps greasy, yellowish “sweat” | Hears voices of evil spirits | Eats inedible or still-living things |
| Skin thickens, cracks, and turns leathery | Severe paranoia | |
| Fits of uncontrollable, disturbing laughter | ||
| Disregard for hygiene and cultural mores |
If a character’s Constitution score reaches 0 from the effects of taint, he dies—and 1d6 hours later he rises as a hideous, evil creature under the control of the GM. What sort of creature he becomes depends on his character level before dying. As terrible as the effects of taint are upon the living, they are even worse upon the dead. Any creature that dies while exposed to taint animates in 1d4 hours as an undead creature, usually a zombie of the appropriate size. Burning a corpse protects it from this effect.
| Character Level
Before Death |
Creature
Transformed Into |
|---|---|
| 2nd or lower | Ghoul |
| 3rd-5th | Ghast |
| 6th-8th | Wraith |
| 9th or higher | Bodak* |
| *Advance the bodak until its HD equals the character’s level before death. | |
Sidebar: Mechanical Corruption and Depravity Effects
Disclaimer
These effects do not reflect the view of the composers of this wiki. Obviously medical conditions like cerebral palsy or arthritis are NOT signs of physical corruption and can be present in games without tied to anything like this and players can have characters with health conditions or disabilities should they so choose. This is simply an optional set of suggestions for these effects that GMs can choose to apply at their table should they wish.
Mild Corruption Effects
Dead Eye: Your eyes begin to cloud over, obscuring your vision. In combat, every time you attack an opponent that has concealment, roll your miss chance twice. If either or both results indicate that you miss, your attack fails. Ear Scabs: Your ears fill up with a crusty, scabrous substance. You take a –2 penalty on Listen checks.
Feet Curl: Your feet warp and curl inward. Your speed is reduced by 10 feet.
Gums Swell: Your gums swell, bleed, and rot. You have difficulty pronouncing words clearly. Whenever you cast a spell with a verbal component, you must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check or the spell fails to activate. Lumps: Burning hot lumps rise up all over your body. You have a constant fever. Every time you try to run or charge you must make a DC 20 Fortitude Save or become fatigued.
Odor of Decay: You give off an unhealthy odor of decay. Animals find your smell repellent. You take a –2 penalty on Handle Animal, Ride, and wild empathy checks.
Palsy: Your muscles are prone to tics and quivering shakes. You take a –2 penalty on ranged attack rolls.
Skin Seeps: Your skin seeps greasy, yellow ichor. You add a +2 circumstance bonus on Escape Artist checks and on grapple checks made to resist or escape a grapple or to escape a pin. You take –2 on your Climb and Sleight of Hand checks. Opponents add +2 to their attack roll when attempting to disarm you.
Skin Sloughs: The skin on your face peels off in long, papery strips, leaving unsightly red patches. You take a –2 penalty on Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Perform checks. Winded: You are constantly short of breath and feel like you can’t get enough air. You are staggered during the third round and any subsequent rounds of any combat.
Winded: You are constantly short of breath and feel like you can’t get enough air. You are staggered during the third round and any subsequent rounds of any combat
Moderate Corruption Effects
Blood Eruption: In moments of intense activity, blood gushes from your nostrils and ears. At the beginning of any combat encounter, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or be sickened for 4 rounds.
Bones Thicken: Your skeleton warps and thickens. Raise your Strength score by 2, and reduce your Dexterity score by 4.
Chronic Illness: You are plagued with a phlegm-laden, wracking cough. You also suffer occasional bouts of vomiting, often at specific times of day. You take a –3 penalty on Fortitude saves.
Eruption of Sores: Open, painful sores, some leaking blood or pus, erupt on your body. You take a –1 penalty on Strength- and Charisma based ability checks and skill checks.
Fingers and Toes Fuse: Your fingers and toes web and fuse. You take a –2 penalty on your attack rolls. Whenever you cast a spell with a somatic component, you must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check or the spell fails to activate.
Joint Pain: Your joints, particularly your knees and elbows, sometimes flare up in sharp pain. You take a –3 penalty on Reflex saves.
Lips Shrink: Your lips pull back into a frozen rictus, exposing your teeth and gums at all times. You take a –2 penalty on Charisma-based ability checks and skill checks.
Paralyzed Face: Your facial muscles grow so feeble that you can no longer smile, frown, or show any emotion. Food dribbles from the corners of your mouth when you eat. Gain a +1 bonus on Bluff checks and take a –1 penalty on other Charisma-based ability checks or skill checks.
Skin Thickens: Your skin thickens, cracking and turning leathery. You gain +1 natural armor, and take a –2 penalty on Dexterity-based ability checks and skill checks.
Uncontrollable Seizures: You suffer from uncontrollable seizures that wrack your body with spasms. You take a –4 penalty on initiative rolls.
Severe Corruption Effects
Great Swollen Growths: Great swollen growths appear on your body. You take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class.
Internal Corruption: Though your corruption is not visible to others, the inside of your body is a festering cesspool of corruption. Bloody pus pools in your body cavities, strange growths develop on your organs, or tiny limbs or heads bud beneath your skin. Reduce your Constitution score by 2. Some prestige classes allow a character to take this symptom in place of any other one. This symptom allows you to hide your corruption because it is all internal. This symptom can even be taken to replace a mild or moderate symptom if desired. No extra bonus feat is granted if this symptom is taken to replace a mild symptom.
Lich Eyes: Your eyes rot away, leaving eerie green flames in their empty sockets. You gain darkvision out to 60 feet, or add 30 feet to the range of your existing darkvision. You also gain light blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light (such as sunlight or a daylight spell) blinds you for 1 round. On subsequent rounds, you are dazzled as long as you remain in the affected area.
Lungs Eaten Away: Your lungs are eaten away from the inside, resulting in wet, labored, painful breathing. Your physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution) are each reduced by 1.
Nose Rots: The flesh of your nose rots away, leaving skulllike openings. Reduce your Charisma score by 2.
Shriveled Flesh: Your flesh shrivels and clings to your bones, making you unnaturally gaunt. When you manifest this symptom, subtract your Hit Dice from your hit point total. Thereafter, subtract 1 from the number of hit points you gain at each level. This effect can reduce the number of hit points you gain to 0 (but not below).
Skin Lichen: A black, lichenous growth spreads across your skin, causing a constant itching that interferes with any physical activity. You take a –2 penalty on Strength-, Dexterity-, and Constitution-based ability checks and skill checks.
Skull Deformed: Your skull becomes enlarged, distorted, and deformed. Reduce both your Intelligence and Wisdom scores by 2. You also take a –3 penalty on Will saves.
Spine Twists: Your spine twists and your back hunches. Reduce your Dexterity score by 2.
Wrigglers: Parasitic worms protrude from your sores, sapping your strength. Reduce your Strength score by 2. You gain a +2 bonus to Intimidate checks and take a –4 penalty on other Charisma-based checks.
Mild Depravity Effects
Aggressive: You are easily angered and cannot hide your feelings. In combat, you try so hard to hurt your enemies that you neglect your own defense, and you take a –1 penalty to Armor Class.
Bestial: You take on a ferocious, wild demeanor. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Handle Animal, Ride, and wild empathy checks. You take a –1 penalty on other Charisma based ability checks and skill checks.
Compulsive: Pick a compulsive ritual to adopt. For example, you and your equipment are never clean enough. You can only break out of the compulsive pattern by eating bugs, which sometimes disagree with you. Once each day, make a DC 10 Fortitude save; if you fail, take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage.
Crazed: You can no longer easily cope with sudden changes in circumstance. If you are surprised at the outset of an encounter, for your first action you have an equal chance of charging the foe or running away.
Disoriented: You lose track of events. If you are surprised at the outset of an encounter, you are dazed for 1 round.
Mildly Phobic: You gain a mild phobia, which requires you to succeed on a Will save or become shaken whenever you encounter the object of your phobia. The DC of the save equals 12 + the CR of the challenge that is the object of the phobia. (Treat CRs of less than 1 as 0.) See page 61 for more about phobias.
Neglectful: You disregard hygiene and cultural mores. You take a –2 penalty on Charisma-based ability checks and skill checks.
Opinionated: You are so wrapped up in commenting on everything you hear that you are often caught off-guard. You are always flat-footed in the first round of combat.
Prophetic: Your dark dreams torment you with strange visions of things that might occur in the future. You zealously proclaim a different prophecy each week, making sure everyone you meet knows what is about to transpire. Your DM determines what prophetic insight you envision each week (10% are actually accurate!). In addition, you take all the usual ill effects of continual nightmares.
Sycophantic: You fill the air with a torrent of unctuous flattery of your companions, opponents, or imaginary friends. You take a –2 penalty on Listen checks and Spot checks. Enemies gain a +2 bonus on Listen checks to hear you.
Moderate Depravity Effects
Delusional: You’re convinced that the world is an illusion and that you and your companions are being controlled by inhabitants of a distant, alien realm. You take a –2 penalty on Wisdom-based ability checks and skill checks. Deranged: Your grasp upon reality becomes tenuous. You take a –2 penalty on Intelligence-based ability checks and skill checks.
Distracted: You pay more attention to the whispers in your mind than to your surroundings. You take a –2 penalty on skill checks. Hallucinating: You see things that aren’t there, and often have trouble sorting reality from your imagination. You take a –6 penalty on initiative checks.
Hysterical: Everything you meet is hilarious. It takes a short time to perceive the humor; then a laughing jag overwhelms you. During the second round of a combat encounter, you can take only a single move action or standard action.
Jittery: You are easily startled and spooked. If you are hit while flat-footed, you become panicked.
Moderately Phobic: You gain a moderate phobia, which requires you to succeed on a Will save (DC 14 + the CR of the challenge) or become frightened whenever you encounter the object of your phobia. This symptom replaces your previous symptom of mild phobia.
Solipsistic: You believe that you are the only thing that matters in the universe. As a result, whenever you are struck in combat, you have to make a DC 20 Will save. If you fail the save, you take an additional 1 point of damage per die of damage received.
Treacherous: Any time the chance to make an attack of opportunity presents itself, whether against an opponent or an ally, make a DC 20 Will save. If you fail the save, you must make the attack of opportunity, even if the target is your closest ally. If presented with multiple targets, determine randomly which you attack.
Weak-Willed: The constant presence of demonic voices whispering in your ears has sapped your will. You take a –3 penalty on Will saves.
Severe Depravity Effects
Apathetic: You withdraw into yourself, losing contact with the world. Reduce both your Charisma and Wisdom scores by 2.
Craven: You become a lily-livered coward. When casting, you must always cast defensively. When attacking, you must always fight defensively.
Enthralled: You are drawn to and fascinated by evil. You no longer have the will to strike it down. Whenever you fight an evil opponent, you always attack at –4 and any damage you do counts only as nonlethal damage. Fatalistic: You become oppressed by negative, defeatist thinking and are convinced there’s little you can do to save yourself from a horrible fate. Take a –3 penalty on your saving throws.
Hubristic: You regard yourself as superior to all things, even the gods. Divine healing has no effect on you.
Murderous: You experience irresistible murderous urges. If an opportunity to deliver a coup de grace is available, you must take this action. You cannot distinguish between an ally and an opponent—if anyone is helpless, you must deliver the coup de grace.
Paranoid: You grow overly suspicious, even of your closest companions. In combat, you cannot avoid watching for signs of treachery. Whenever one of your allies engaged in combat makes an attack and fails to hit, you become suspicious that the ally is secretly a traitor to your party. You take a –1 penalty to any rolls you make during that turn, since some of your attention is focused on monitoring the suspected traitor’s activities. If more than one ally fails to hit, the penalty is cumulative.
Severely Phobic: You gain a severe phobia, which requires you to succeed on a Will save (DC 16 + the CR of the challenge) or become panicked whenever you encounter the object of your phobia. This symptom replaces your previous symptom of moderate phobia.
Unbalanced: Your unstable mind makes you unpredictable, particularly in combat. You are automatically confused on your first turn in any combat and every other turn thereafter.
Unresponsive: Your senses are dulled and you lose the ability to discern the truth of the world around you. Reduce your Wisdom score by 2.
Embracing Taint
Once a character’s taint score reaches 10 (assuming he is still alive), he may seek out forces of great evil and pledge himself to their cause. Often evil cults, temples of evil deities, and the militaries of evil warlords eagerly accept such pledges, giving the character access to new sources of power.
Cleansing Taint
It is possible to remove taint from characters in several ways, including through the use of spells, the performance of good deeds, and cleansing in a sacred spring. Taint cannot be removed unless the tainted character wants to be cleansed.
Spells
The following spells can reduce taint scores when cast outside tainted areas. No character can have his taint score reduced by any particular spell more than once per day (though different spells can reduce taint if cast on the same character in the same day).
Atonement
This spell can remove taint, but with limits. First, it always requires a quest. Second, the caster decides how much taint to remove when casting atonement, up to a maximum equal to the caster’s level. This use of atonement costs the caster 500 XP. Atonement can reduce a taint score to 0.
Heal
This spell reduces a character’s taint score by 1 point per three caster levels, but it cannot reduce a taint score below 1.
Miracle, wish
These spells cannot remove taint except by duplicating the effects of other spells mentioned here.
Remove curse, remove disease
These spells reduce a character’s taint score by 1 point, but they cannot reduce a taint score below 1.
Restoration
This spell reduces a character’s taint score by 1 point per four caster levels, but it cannot reduce a taint score below 1.
Greater restoration
This spell reduces a character’s taint score by a number of points equal to the caster level of the cleric casting greater restoration. Greater restoration can reduce a taint score to 0.
Good Deeds
Simple good deeds are not enough to remove taint. A character wishing to reduce his taint score through good deeds must undertake a particular ritual under the guidance of one of his deity’s clerics. The ritual prepares the character to undertake the deed.
Each deity’s faith has a list of ritual good deeds that the faithful may perform to prove their dedication to their deity. For example, church followers may choose to put on garments sacred to their faith (and which identify their faith to anyone who sees them) and patrol a particular part of their home as part of the militia or city guard. Adventuring is never part of a good deed, and a character who undertakes an adventure prior to completing his good deed must begin again with the ritual.
Deeds must be repeated every day for a week. Upon completion, the character’s taint score is reduced by 1 point. The character may continue the deed for another week to continue losing taint or may return to the temple to undertake the ritual again and begin a different deed.
Alternatively, deeds may be quests undertaken on behalf of the deity. After the quest ends, the character’s taint score is reduced by 1 point per week required to complete the quest.
Good deeds may reduce a character’s taint score to 0.
Sacred Springs
Springs sacred to a particular deity or cause are located in remote regions, requiring long and dangerous travel to reach. For each day a character spends resting and cleansing himself at a sacred spring, his taint score is reduced by 1 point. A characters using this method to reduce his taint score can undertake no activities other than resting, eating, sleeping, and normal conversation.
Cleansing at a sacred spring may reduce a character’s taint score to 0.
Cleansing Places and Objects
Clerics may use hallow to remove taint from an area, but it takes time. The spell must remain intact for a year and a day to remove the taint from the area. If, during that time, an opposing character casts unhallow on some or all of the area, the effort is lost and must be reinstated by another casting of hallow. (The hallow spell only affects a 40-foot-radius area, so large areas may require many clerics working simultaneously to completely guard them.)
Unintelligent items left in a hallowed area for a year and a day lose their taint. Items that have an Intelligence score (and are thus treated as constructs for this purpose) can only be cleansed by using the spells mentioned above.