4.15.3 Roleplaying a Carnifex
Aptly named, Carnifex are executioners, indiscriminate and brutal. They are warriors of destruction, culling weakness in a demonstration of primal strength.
[0;1;33mWhat are souls?[0m
While mortals will never truly understand the nature of a soul, a few things are known for certain. They are what house sentience and memory within them, and is what is preserved through the Mirror upon death. New souls are small and weak, while those that gain experience through their adventures become stronger. It is this strength that determines if they are suitable to be used as a vessel for a God. In the Underhalls, souls are purged of their memory so they can be reborn into the world to continue to grow in strength, tempering them as a smith might fold steel. Souls and their vessels are linked by an inexplicable pull, which is why even while Deathlore may sap it of its strength, the grasp is fleeting as it draws back to its mortal creche.
[0;1;33mWhat is a soulstone?[0m
A soulstone is a magical device that captures souls skimmed from the space between the Prime Material Plane and Dhar's realm, before they can pass through the Mirror and be judged or reborn. They become a repository of power. Power is sapped from souls to inflict pain on others, which are then discarded back into the natural flow (unsetting their progress in growth and potentially damaging them, as well as holding them hostage and diminishing the population regrowth during their captivity).
The master soulstone housed within the Carnifex hall is a central point of fel power, created through a ritual, coordinated blood sacrifice and genocide. Roan Seluno sacrificed the tutor of the Infernals to act as host for the crystal, then in one coordinated instant, snuffed out all life within the village of Jaru. The maddened spirits that drifted back to the ruined memory of their former lives took over a decade of active prayer and spellcraft for Enorian to lay to rest.
New soulstones are retrieved from the master, a piece of the bearer given in exchange for the power the stone gives. These stones are bound, eternally, to the Carnifex, and cannot be lost or broken save by giving up the art completely.
[0;1;33mHow your skills generally work:[0m
- Deathlore is fueled by the energy sapped from captive souls, and that
which is leeched from enemies.
- Warhounds are loyal, living weapons within combat, honed through
intense, if brutal training and varying by lineage.
- Savagery represents the raw, brutal strength the Carnifex exhibits,
executed through the use of halberds, bardiches, and mauls.
Carnifex are warriors that wield both physical dominance and arcane destruction through their application of deathlore, savagery, and the training of their war beasts.
[0;1;33mVisual style of the class:[0m
Brutal and domineering, while other warriors may rely on finesse and speed, Carnifex lean on strength and momentum. They do not neatly slash or strike a tender nerve, they pulverize and feast upon the destruction they create with blade, bludgeon, claw, and magic. This lends to heavy, forceful movements and the satisfactory cracking of bone and gutting of organs, as well as the disorienting and invasive weakening of an opponent's soul.
[0;1;33mSide effects of the class skills:[0m
Practitioners of deathlore run the risk of madness from the saturation of death and the residual memory of the souls they reap and sap -- nothing distinct, but powerful emotion that rises in those moments.
The impact upon Sapience runs in several directions. Every captive soul cannot be reborn, diminishing the new generation until the soul has returned to the Halls to complete the Cycle. Once released, these souls will have diminished experience, depending on the intensity of how they were used, lessening the effect of the Tempering gained for that Cycle.
[0;1;33mRoleplaying the class:[0m
Given the brutality of the class, becoming a Carnifex is not for the squeamish, sensitive, or weak-willed. Whether or not the practitioner acknowledges the risks they undertake -- for themselves and for the world -- they must have the fortitude to withstand the strain of physical exertion and malice of the souls they abuse to fuel their craft.
