Occultist
Description:
A person learned in the nature of the unseen. Dedicating a lifetime to learning things most people would rather not admit exist, an occultist has a vast amount of knowledge concearn the world of vampires, their servants, and even darker things.
A kind of person who's never unprepared, is the occultist, but not without drawbacks. Facing the darkness pries at one's sanity and as time passes the dark things seen by an occultist will effect his/her views of reality. Those who can not harden themselves to the madness eventually sink into raving lunacy.
Abillities:
Holy weapons: An occultist is never seen without his tools of the trade. Holy weapons are special weapons, mostly designed for throwing, which are blessed with powerful holy magic. To normal individuals, these weapons are just weapons or even just useless objects. It takes a man learned in the ways of the occult to unlock this magic and turn it into a weapon.
Cross: The cross is mostly defensive. Blessed with holy magic it can repel vampires and other dark creatures with its sight alone.
Knife: An occultist carries ten throwing knives that can be quickly whipped at an enemy. They are light but fast, making them useful for an immediate long range attack. Blessed with holy magic, these knives do much more damage to beings of black alignment.
Axe: A blessed Francisca, alight axe that is ideal for throwing. An occultist carries two of these. They have more weight than a knife and do great damage when thrown.
Holy Water: This versetile vial carries a pint of holy water. It can be splashed on monsters, or spread on the ground defensively, or even used in exorcisms against stubborn demons. When it touches any vampire or black aligned monster it bursts into holy flames. It can also be used to dispel curses if drank, or poured on a wound.
Garlic Laurel: Actually it's hardly a weapon but rather one more defensive measure. This wreath of garlic bulbs strung together emits a strong odor that burns the nostrils of vampires and lycanthropes.
Wooden Mallet and Stake: Both made of blessed oak these tools are used to finish off a vampire by pounding the stake through the ribcage and taking out the heart of a vampire. It's slow and unwieldy but is extremely powerful.
The Good Book: Usually a bible, though a prayer book or other holy text will suffice. When read aloud its verses are intollerable to vampires, demons, and other such monsters alligned with the darkness. It is ideal for driving off evil spirits.
Silver Stakes: A relatively new developement in the war against evil. These are long, slender, and extremely sharp stakes, made of steel and plated in silver, and dipped in blessed murcury. They're longer and sharper than the wooden stake, so they can be thrust with a hand. Since they're not made of wood, they aren't as good a conductor of spiritual energy as wooden stakes and thus less powerful, but their silver and murcury coating make them useful against not only vampires, but also werewolves, zombies, and all manner of unholy things. An occultist carries three at a time.
Analysis: This ability is similar to the appraise ability of a merchant. An object of mystery can be looked at and analyzed to learn more about its true nature, and the secrets it holds. Though unlike appraise it tends to deal more with the mystical, rather than the material worth of an item. When used analysis requries to QM to list the name of an artifact analysis was used on along with its uses and properties, as well as parts of its history as exists in any recordings, or anything similar to it.
Forbidden languages: An occultist can read many of the ancient and blasphemous languages of dark beings, secret cults, demons, and vampires. Since Vampires are fond of writing in latin, that language too is part of an occultist's training.
Exorcism/purification: Once an area is cleared of actual monsters it can be purged of evil spirits, auras, and wards by using an excorcism envoking a higher power. Though not as strong as one that could be used by a preist an exorcism will last until a physical evil can move into the area. It can also be used to cast posessing spirits or demons out of a human.
Hypnotism: It's a trick of the mind used by occultists to place a willing or very weak minded subject into a trance. Its primary use is to gather information, help restore sanity, and an added side effect that those whom are under a curse or infected by vampirism can't transform while in a trance.
Autopsy: Occultists can surgicly disect monsters and other creatures. This rather grusome dismemberment serves to gather information, on the creature's anatomy and can offer information on where that creature has been and how it died. A host of information can be gathered from autopsies. Remember to keep a record of autopsies in yoru sig. An autopsy is particularly useful on new monsters. If a new monster is autopsied a QM will reveal its name, weaknesses, abilities, and history effectively adding it to the monster list. The guild will also bay a fee of 10G if an occultist returns with this information regardless of quest outcome.
Monster Identification: Similar to Autopsy and Monster Knowledge. An occultist can identify any existing monster in the monster list on sight. Masking its identity is useless for a monster when an occultist is in the team. Unknown monsters however only reveal their name until autopsied. A monster identified by an occultist if not autopsied still returns a 1G fee from the guild for information regarding monsters.
Negotiation: When you encoutner a sentient monster, particularly demons, it's time to call for an occultist. Sometimes Diplomacy will work even if a monster has plans on eating your flesh and picking its teeth with your bones, it can be out talked by the clever occultist. As a general rule, all demons will at least speak to an occultist, and during these official negotiations the two act as representatives of their race, and must behave as such, regardless of their personal standing in their race. This also means that both sides are forbidden absolutely from lying during a negotiation. Riddles, half truths, and glossed over details are a different matter entirely. Negotiations are useful for the clever occultist. On occasion a monster can actually be convinced to leave in peace even if they don't want to, simply because they've been cornered verbally or caught in an outright lie. But even the densest occultist knows that you can use negotiation to stall for time while the rest of the party sets up their attack. Negotiations go on until either side attacks, then negotiations are over and battle has begun.
Qualities: Extra planar sense: occultists have developed a sense for the unseen. Although they cannot directly see the invisible world they can detect things that are going on about them including, ghosts, a possessed, or evil character, or magic at work. "I can smell them you see."
Wardwalk: An occultist can easily barge through weaker wards of any alignment.
Monster Knowledge: Occultists have studied well the nature of evil and know well in advance the abillities, make up and, weaknesses of known monsters (those on the monster list). That means when an occultist encounters an enemy the QM will list that monster's name so long as it is an already recorded monster in the list.
Sanity: Occultists are far more aware of the horrors that most people are fortunate enough to be ignorant of. While the terrible nature of truth will pry at the mind of the occultist over time they have learned to harden themselves against such and as a result are less prone to insanity than others under the same factors.
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