E.10 Incarnation

An incarnation is a physical embodiment of an element or form of energy, like an elemental. Unlike elementals, incarnations are alive and have souls. Most incarnations are created on the plane associated with their element or energy and never leave that plane. However, in rare circumstances involving powerful magic, incarnations can sometimes be created in other planes.

Creature Type: Unlike most other playable species, incarnations are planeforged instead of humanoids.

Size: Medium.

Attributes: One attribute gains a +1 bonus and another takes a -1 penalty, depending on the chosen element or energy.

Special Abilities:

• Essence Infusion ✨: Each incarnation chooses one of the following tags as its essence infusion: Acid, Air, Auditory, Cold, Compulsion, Earth, Emotion, Electricity, Fire, Visual, or Water. All of the incarnation’s strikes gain that tag, and it is impervious (+4 defenses) to attacks with that tag.
• Essence Vulnerability ✨: Each incarnation chooses a tag to be vulnerable (-4 defenses) to. It can choose any of the valid tags for an essence infusion, including the tag it chose as its essence infusion.
• Glowing: If appropriate to an incarnation’s essence, it may naturally shed light as a torch. An incarnation cannot willingly disable this light, though the light can be covered by thick clothing.
• Incarnation Archetype: Incarnations only gain two class archetypes instead of three. Instead, they treat the Incarnation archetype as one of their archetypes, and they gain ranks in it just like they gain ranks in class archetypes.
• Poison Resistance: An incarnation is impervious (+4 defenses) to Poison attacks.
• Unusual Body: An incarnation’s body can be unusually light or heavy compared to an ordinary creature’s body. It can be lightweight or heavyweight, depending on its essence.

Automatic Languages: Common.

Incarnations can come in two forms: tethered or untethered. Tethered incarnations are bipedal, with two legs and two arms. They have the same basic body shape and functionality as a human, though they may have unusual proportions.

Untethered incarnations have no arms or legs. They may appear as a perfect sphere, as intricate shifting arcane glyphs, or any other appearance depending on their nature. The appearance of any individual untethered incarnation is consistent. They are not shapeshifters or masters of disguise, simply unbound by ordinary conceptions of a “normal” body shape. An untethered incarnation has the following special abilities:

• Esoteric Body: The incarnation has no arms, legs, or free hands. This means it is unable to use manufactured weapons or somatic components. It can wear armor, but the armor is treated as barding instead of normal armor, reducing its effectiveness (see Barding). It has no land speed. Since it has no legs, it is immune to being prone (half speed, -2 Armor and Ref), but it also cannot jump.
• Flight ✨: The incarnation’s only movement mode is a fly speed equal to its base speed, with a 5 foot height limit (see Aerial Movement). Since it is native to the air, flying does not penalize its Armor or Reflex defenses. It is also floating, so it does not need to fly every phase to avoid falling.
• Ram: The incarnation gains a ram natural weapon. It deals 1d6 damage and has the Resonating weapon tag (see Weapon Tags).
• Uniform Composition: The incarnation is immune to critical hits from strikes.

E.10.1 Incarnation Archetype

Rank 1 – Essence Spike

Rank 2 – Essence Flare

Whenever you use the total defense or recover abilities, you briefly become impervious (+4 defenses) to damaging attacks. This effect has the Swift tag, so it affects attacks against you during the current phase.

Rank 3 – Deep Tether

You gain a special ability depending on whether you are tethered or untethered.

• Tethered: You gain a +1 bonus to your fatigue tolerance. In addition, whenever you use the sprint ability, you leave a damaging wall in the path you traveled. Whenever a creature or object passes through the wall, you make an attack against its Reflex defense. You can only attack a given target with this ability once per phase. On a hit, the target takes damage as if you hit it with your essence pulse ability. On a miss, the target takes half damage.
• Untethered: The height limit of your fly speed increases to 15 feet. In addition, whenever you use the sprint ability, you can become intangible during that phase. This ability has the Swift tag, so it affects attacks against you during the current phase.

Rank 4 – Essence Exemplar

The bonus to an attribute that you gain from being an incarnate increases to +2.

Rank 5 – Essence Infusion+

You become immune instead of impervious to attacks with the tag from your essence infusion ability. In addition, you gain a +1 accuracy bonus with all abilities which have that tag.

Rank 6 – Deep Tether+

You gain a special ability depending on whether you are tethered or untethered.

• Tethered: The fatigue tolerance bonus increases to +2. In addition, when you use the desperate exertion ability to affect an attack with your essential infusion tag, you can use this ability. If you do, you only increase your fatigue level by one instead of by two. After using this ability, you briefly cannot use it again.
• Untethered: You gain a +10 foot bonus to your fly speed.

Rank 7 – Essence Incarnate

E.10.2 Base Class Effects

If you choose incarnation as your base class, you gain the following benefits.

Attributes

If you are tethered, you gain a +1 bonus to your Constitution, and a +1 bonus to either your Strength or Dexterity. If you are untethered, you gain a +1 bonus to your Willpower, and a +1 bonus to either your Intelligence or Perception.

Hit Points

You have 8 hit points + twice your Constitution, plus 2 hit points per level beyond 1. This increases as your level increases, as indicated below.

• Level 7: 20 hit points + three times your Constitution, plus 3 hit points per level beyond 7.
• Level 13: 40 hit points + six times your Constitution, plus 6 hit points per level beyond 13.
• Level 19: 80 hit points + twelve times your Constitution, plus 12 hit points per level beyond 19.

Resources

You learn three trained skills from among your class skills (see Skills). You also gain two additional attunement points.

Weapon Proficiencies

You are proficient with simple weapons.

Armor Proficiencies

You are proficient with light armor. If you are untethered, you need barding instead of regular armor (see Barding).

Skills

If you are tethered, you have the following class skills:

• Strength: Climb, Jump.

• Dexterity: Balance, Flexibility.

• Constitution: Endurance.

• Intelligence: Craft, Knowledge (arcana, nature, planes).

• Perception: Awareness.

• Other: Intimidate.

If you are untethered, you have the following class skills:

• Dexterity: Flexibility.

• Constitution: Endurance.

• Intelligence: Deduction, Knowledge (arcana, nature, planes).

• Perception: Awareness, Deception, Persuasion, Social Insight.

• Other: Intimidate.