Duskwalker

From PathfinderWiki
Duskwalker
(Creature)

Duskwalkers are a planar scion1 race connected to the Boneyard, reincarnated from the souls given a second life by psychopomps.2

Appearance

Duskwalkers' physical features bear resemblance to the race they used to be in their previous life, except for their ashen-grey skin. Most look like humans or human-sized humanoids: bigger and smaller duskwalkers are uncommon.2

Personality

Most duskwalkers have an innate respect for the cycle of birth and death, and tend to gravitate to jobs related to its protection like undead hunters, midwives, morticians, and priests. Duskwalkers appreciate that their death allows new lives to begin and struggle to understand other races' fear of death, and even cheerful duskwalkers tend toward morbid humour.2

Despite anti-duskwalker prejudice, they are typically companionable, open-minded, and accepting. They seek friendships and romances with others of various races. Many build families consisting of adopted children, preferably those that other prospective parents might look over.2

Adventurers

Duskwalkers become adventurers usually from some sense of misplaced destiny. While duskwalkers have free will, they also feel the pressure to make good use of their reincarnation. Many duskwalkers choose to study magic and become wizards or bards. Duskwalkers are also more concerned than most with matters of the soul, commonly becoming clerics, champions, and monks.3

History

The first duskwalkers appeared as the result of a bargain between an olethros mother and a yamaraj. Prior to Aroden's death, only souls destined to perform roles that would serve the Boneyard's interests would be reincarnated as duskwalkers. As the Age of Lost Omens began and prophecy failed, duskwalkers began to shape their own fates.2

Ecology

Duskwalkers are reincarnated from the souls who helped preserve the cycle of souls but died before fate had decreed for them to. A strict limit of duskwalkers can exist at one time: if the limit is reached, dead duskwalkers cannot be resurrected. Some duskwalkers request that their funerals also celebrate the birth of a new duskwalker, which usually takes place the year after the previous duskwalker's death.2

A newborn duskwalker appears spontaneously in a sanctified place with a connection to death near a settlement as a roughly eight-year-old human child, cloaked in simple white robes, with a small satchel of food and water by their sides. Duskwalker children do not experience infancy and mature at a variable rate: those that are taken care of mature like humans and develop a healthy balance between appreciation for life and interest in death, while those that are forced to fend for themselves rapidly mature but tend to lack social skills. All duskwalkers are sterile, and most are asexual as well.2

Some duskwalkers receive occasional visitations or messages from psychopomps, but they are under no obligation to do the tasks the psychopomps guided them to.2

In a duskwalker's hands, any weapon can strike true against spectral beings. Their ward against corruption protects them from negative energy and the supernatural abilities of undead and sahkils, and prevents them from becoming undead. Evil duskwalkers that reject their inborn nature and associate with sahkils lose these abilities and gain powers suited to inflicting fear. Their altered ward against corruption allows them to become undead and guarantees them some unusual form of undead, like ghosts unbound to their place of death.2

Habitat and society

Duskwalkers are very rare and many go their entire lives without meeting another duskwalker. The few duskwalker communities are small and unite individuals by a common goal, like bands of undead hunters; most duskwalkers live among the communities near where they manifested. Some humans look askance at their ashen appearance and the manner of their creation, or are unsettled by how duskwalkers relate to death. Other communities value duskwalkers for their wisdom, skill at medicine, and proficiency at fighting undead. They get along well with empyreans, cambions, aphorites, and ganzi, but instinctually distrust dhampirs.2

Most duskwalkers are neither good nor evil; good duskwalkers are less uncommon than evil ones.2

Religion

Pharasma is the most popular deity among duskwalkers, followed by Sarenrae and Ashava.2

Language

Duskwalkers speak either Chthonian, Diabolic, Empyrean,2 or Necril.1 Duskwalkers name themselves soon after they manifest. Those with good relationships with the surrounding community take a name according to community traditions, while ostracised ones make up their own names.2

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.

  1. 1.0 1.1 Logan Bonner, et al. “Monsters A-Z” in Bestiary, 262–263. Paizo Inc., 2019
  2. 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 Robert Brookes, et al. “Chapter 4: Bestiary” in Planar Adventures, 230–231. Paizo Inc., 2018
  3. Mikhail Rekun. Duskwalker” in Ancestry Guide, 30. Paizo Inc., 2021