In combat the Osti play a purely support role, using their Unnerving Gaze to sicken foes, Major Image to confound them, smothering portions of the battlefield in their at-will Darkness and using their preaching more offensively. Not especially useful in combat, but quite useful when convincing audience members to test their limits and show them the beauty in suffering. To those who need some convincing of the pleasure that can be found in pain, the touch of an Osti opens up bleeding wounds on anyone they strike, dealing a meager 1 damage but causing 1d6 bleed each round until the victim is close to passing out, at which the Velstrac typically uses its +14 in Heal to stabilize them to try again tomorrow. It’d be an awful blemish on their reputation if an unwilling victim managed to escape and speak of the terrors of the Shadow Plane, so Osti tend to stick with those who consent to being tortured and flesh-warped for centuries.
#Patfinder ostiarius free#
They can still be dragged there via Shadow Walk, of course, but a victim breaking free of the Osti’s grip can cast themselves back into the Material Plane quite easily, where the Osti will be unlikely to ever find them again. In fact, if they actually want to take a victim back with them via Plane Shift, that victim must be Lawful Evil, meaning the Osti must have successfully evangelized them through diplomacy and performance alone and convinced them to change their alignment. True to how Velstrac (are supposed to) operate, Osti don’t use magic to mystically coerce their victims, only to gain and hold their attention so it can preach to them and convince them. Enthrall, especially, allows them to gather audiences of nigh-unlimited size, able to affect every creature within 170ft of them and sowing the seeds of shadow in their minds. The Osti are excellent ambassadors as all things go, using an at-will Calm Emotions to sooth an audience wary of their appearance, at-will Major Image to provide illustrations and diagrams, and Enthrall to preach the long-term benefits of allowing the denizens of the Shadow Plane to gruesomely reshape their bodies (dressed up in more fanciful and neutral language, of course).
This fate is visited upon all who travel with the Osti, though they may have you believe different, speaking of the virtues of escaping the constraints of your mortal form or weaving tales of boundless pleasures that can be visited upon your very soul if only you trust them… And, in some sense, they are telling the truth (meaning Sense Motive is no good against their evangelism), but the Vesltrac ideals of ‘escaping constraints’ and ‘boundless pleasures’ aren’t the same ideals most mortals share. The insidious emissaries of the Velstrac race, the Ostiarius (which I’ll be calling Osti from now on) make frequent trips to and from the Shadow Plane to the Material via their 1/day Plane Shift and 3/day Shadow Walk, often with hapless mortals in tow for their brethren to pounce upon the moment they arrive. (art from Pathfinder Second Edition Bestiary 2, pg.
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