If you procreate while corrupted, your children’s natural Intelligence and Charisma take the same penalties or reductions you had from your corruption when you sired them. This effect cannot be lifted by magic. Progeny you sire while corrupted also possess physical traits that were more common among earlier evolutionary forms of their parent species (such as elongated foreheads in humans).
Corruption Stage 1: The first time your sentience reaches 0, your alignment shifts one step towards neutral. Your Intelligence and Charisma scores are reduced by 4 (minimum 2). If you are capable of casting spells or spell-like abilities, each time you cast a spell there is a 25% chance that the spell will fail, as if you had failed a concentration check to cast the spell defensively.
Corruption Stage 2: The second time your sentience reaches 0, your alignment shifts to neutral. Your Intelligence and Charisma scores are reduced by an additional 4 (minimum 2), and you cannot read or speak without difficulty—reading and speaking are move actions for you instead of free actions. In addition, the chance for any spell or spell-like ability that you cast to fail is increased to 50%, and casting spells that require verbal components is a full-round action for you (if the spell takes 1 or more rounds to cast, increase the number of rounds needed to cast the spell by 1 instead).
Corruption Stage 3: The third time your sentience reaches 0, and you become an NPC under the GM’s control. Your Intelligence and Charisma scores are reduced to 2, your type changes to animal, you lose all spellcasting and abilities that require intelligence (including the ability to understand language or communicate coherently), you can’t wield manufactured weapons, and you can’t use skills other than Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Fly, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth, Survival, and Swim.
If you're looking for particularly twisted things, then look no further than the Voidspawn Corruption! Representing a corruptive taint from an interdimensional entity beyond time and space, players of a particularly popular plane-hopping card game will probably enjoy what terrible fate is just waiting to befall them after they succumb to voidspawn corruption.
Beckon Alien
Your presence is a beacon to alien monstrosities.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 5th.
Gift: Once per day, you can summon a single otherworldly horror as a standard action. This functions as the summon universal monster rule (see the universal monster rules in the appendix of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary), with a spell level equal to your manifestation level and a chance to summon a voidspawn drone (see page 23) equal to 10% per manifestation level you possess. At manifestation level 7th, you may instead summon 1d3 voidpawn drones. At manifestation level 9th, all voidspawn drones that you summon have the advanced simple template (Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary). You can use this ability twice per day at manifestation level 7th, and three times per day at manifestation level 9th.
Stain: Whenever your summon ability fails, there is a 10% chance per manifestation level you possess that one or more cosmic horrors hijack your spell and uses you to enter your world. This functions as greater planar binding, except the creature cannot be trapped, does not perform any services for you, and can remain in your world for as long as it wishes and return from whence it came whenever it pleases. The creature called can be any listed by a contact entityHA spell of your summon ability’s spell level or lower, though voidspawn drones are the most common creatures to hijack such summons.
In addition to these teasers, you'll find four complete corruptions, two pages of new magic items, four new simple corruption templates, a new monster (the voidspawn drone), and new feats that allow you to give into your corruption or attempt to save yourself from its clutches. If the Corruption Codex is popular, we're looking into creating an entire line of Corruption-themed products, including templates that allow you to modify how a corruption works, corruptions that transform you into a particularly famous Symbiote anti-hero, new feats and spells, and so much more!
If this seems exciting to you, consider picking up the Corruption Compendium—available at DriveThru RPG, the Open Gaming Store, and Paizo in October!
Alex Augunas
Everyman Gaming LLC
