The Ayuscientist
"Why do you say that I am alone?
My body is with me wherever I am,
telling me endless stories
of hunger and satisfaction,
weariness and sleep,
eating and drinking and breathing and life.
With such company
who could ever be alone?
And even when my body wears away
and leaves only some tiny spark
I will not be alone
for the gods will see my small light
tracing the dance of woodgrain on the floor
and they will know me,
they will say my name
and I will rise."From
The God Whispers of Han Qing-Jao
Image credit ~Vanisla of deviantart.com What is a soul? It has either great value or none at all. Most living beings will never notice their soul, never give more than a few minutes thought about it. And yet, gods and demons covet such things, and construct elaborate schemes to gain possession a soul after its original owner has passed on. You have learned to shape the raw soul energy permeating the Universe, known as incarnum, using gramaric techniques. You have also learned how to use your body's own internal foci to increase the effectiveness of your gramaric principles.
Requirements: To become an ayuscientist you must meet all of the following requirements.
Gramarie: Any four principles from different disciplines
Skills: Knowledge (arcana or planes) 10 ranks
Meldshaping: Ability to shape soulmelds, ability to bind a soulmeld to a chakra
Hit Die: d6
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Int modifer
Class Skills: An ayuscientist's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Autohypnosis (Wis), Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (architecture and engineering) (Int), Knowledge (dungeoneering) (Int), Knowledge (local) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Knowledge (the Planes) (Int), Knowledge (psionics) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Open Lock (Dex), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis) and Use Magic Device (Cha).
The Ayuscientist
Level | Base
Attack
Bonus |
Fort
Save |
Ref
Save |
Will
Save |
Special |
Principles
|
Meldshaping |
| 1st | +0 | +2 | +0 | +2 | Chakra bind (least), essential knowledge (HEUR) | +1 | – |
| 2nd | +1 | +3 | +0 | +3 | Essential knowledge (ALCH), thesis animae | +1 | +1 level of existing meldshaping class |
| 3rd | +1 | +3 | +1 | +3 | Essential knowledge (IMCH), magisterial principles | +2 | +1 level of existing meldshaping class |
| 4th | +2 | +4 | +1 | +4 | Essential knowledge (BIOY), thesis animae | +2 | +1 level of existing meldshaping class |
| 5th | +2 | +4 | +1 | +4 | Chakra bind (lesser), essential knowledge (GEOC) | +3 | – |
| 6th | +3 | +5 | +2 | +5 | Essential knowledge (YGGD), thesis animae | +3 | +1 level of existing meldshaping class |
| 7th | +3 | +5 | +2 | +5 | Doctorate principles, essential knowledge (ELDK) | +4 | +1 level of existing meldshaping class |
| 8th | +4 | +6 | +2 | +6 | Essential knowledge (KALD), thesis animae | +4 | +1 level of existing meldshaping class |
| 9th | +4 | +6 | +3 | +6 | Chakra bind (greater), essential knowledge (ARCD) | +5 | – |
| 10th | +5 | +7 | +3 | +7 | Essential knowledge (transcendance), thesis animae | +5 | +1 level of existing meldshaping class |
All of the following are class features of the ayuscientist.
Weapon and Armour Proficiencies: As an ayuscientist, you gain no additional weapon or armour proficiencies.
Meldshaping: At each ayuscientist level indicated on the table above, you increase your meldshaper level, the number of soulmelds you can shape, the number of chakra binds you can create, and your essentia pool as if you had gained a level in a meldshaping class to which you belonged prior to gaining the ayuscientist level. You do not, however, gain any other abilities of that class, such as new tiers of chakra binds. If you had more than one meldshaping class before becoming an ayuscientist, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining your essentia pool, meldshaper level, and number of soulmelds and chakra binds available.
Chakra binds: As you attain higher levels, you can bind your soulmelds and magic items to your chakras, gaining new powers based on the combination chosen. At 1st level, you can bind your soulmelds or magic items to your least chakras (crown, feet, and hands), in addition to any other chakras you have available. When you attain 5th level, your lesser chakras (arms, brow, and shoulders) become available for chakra binds. Upon reaching 9th level, you can bind soulmelds or magic items to your greater chakras (throat and waist).
Principles of Gramarie: You continue to advance your study of gramarie. At 1st level, and every odd level after, you learn a new principle of gramarie that you qualify for. Beginning at 3rd level, you may select Magisterial-level principles; at 7th level you gain access to Doctorate-level principles, and can refer to yourself as a doctor of any discipline you attain that level of knowledge in. At all times, your choice of specialty dictates which individual principles are available for you to learn.
Essential Knowledge (Su): Through your training, you develop a bond between gramarie and incarnum, using the themes and ideals of the gramaric disciplines to gain new functionality with your soulmelds.
- At 1st level, you draw upon your knowledge of Heuristicism to join disparate elements into mystical circuits. When you shape soulmelds for the day, you may choose two soulmelds. As long as you have both of those soulmelds shaped, you can transfer essentia between them as a free action, even when it isn't your turn. Redistributing essentia between either of those soulmelds and any other essentia receptacles you have requires a swift action, as normal.
- At 2nd level, the techniques of Alchemetry teach you how to alter the fundamental properties of your soulmelds. When you shape soulmelds for the day, you may choose to bind one of your soulmelds to a chakra with which it is not normally associated, but still gaining the normal benefit from the soulmeld's chakra bind. Both the original chakra and the new one must be chakras to which you can bind soulmelds. For example, if you wanted to bind both Diadem of Purelight and Enigma Helm, you could bind the latter to your Hands chakra and still gain the benefit of the Crown bind, as long as you had the ability to bind soulmelds to both your Crown and Hands chakras.
- At 3rd level, you learn how to alter the visual aspects of your soulmelds using the axioms of Imachination. You may suppress or resume the visual manifestation of any of your soulmelds as a free action; a soulmeld whose visuals are suppressed still grants you its normal benefits.
- At 4th level, your facility with Biollurgy teaches you how to tap into your physical essence when you bind soulmelds. When you shape soulmelds for the day, you may choose one soulmeld which you have bound to a chakra. You gain a primary natural attack based on the chakra to which that soulmeld is bound, as shown in the table below. If the soulmeld already grants you a natural attack mode, this ability instead increases the damage of that natural attack mode by one size category. The base damage given in the table is for a Medium-sized creature; if you are larger or smaller than Medium, adjust the damage amount accordingly.
| Chakra | Natural Attack Mode | Damage |
| Crown | Gore | 1d6 piercing |
| Feet | Hoof | 1d6 bludgeoning |
| Hands | 2 claws | 1d4 piercing |
| Arms | Slam | 1d6 bludgeoning |
| Brow | Gore | 1d8 piercing |
| Shoulders | 2 pincers | 1d6 slashing |
| Throat | Bite | 1d8 bludgeoning and piercing |
| Waist | Tail | 1d8 bludgeoning |
| Heart | 2 wing | 1d8 bludgeoning |
| Soul | 4 tentacles | 1d4 slashing |
- At 5th level, your studies of Geoccultism grant you the ability to tap into the subtle, potent energy of ley lines to aid your soulmelds. When you shape soulmelds for the day, you may choose one soulmeld and one type of terrain (arctic, desert, forest, grasslands, ocean, swamp, underground, or wetland). Whenever you are within the chosen terrain, if you have the chosen soulmeld shaped, its essentia capacity increases by 1, and you gain 1 temporary essentia which can only be invested in that soulmeld.
- At 6th level, you learn to apply your knowledge of Yggdratechture to store soulmelds in extra dimensions. You may shape one additional soulmeld per day; however, you store the additional soulmeld in an ectradimensional space, where it grants you no benefit. As a standard action, you may exchange a stored soulmeld with any other soulmeld you have shaped which is not bound to a chakra. You may reallocate your essentia as part of the same action.
- At 7th level, the tenets of Eldrikinetics show you how to transfer essentia rapidly from one place to another. As a full-round action, you may transfer any amount of essentia up to your class level from your essentia pool to that of another creature you touch. That creature may invest the essentia in its receptacles and soulmelds as part of the same action. The transferred essentia remains in the other creature's pool for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution modifier before returning to your pool.
- At 8th level, you draw upon your knowledge of Kaleidomantics to gain prismatic defenses from your soulmelds. When you shape soulmelds for the day, you may choose one color from the table below for each soulmeld you shape. For each soulmeld altered this way, you gain a bonus on saves against the associated effect equal to the twice amount of essentia invested in that soulmeld. Applying a color this way similarly colors the visual manifestation of a given soulmeld (if any).
| Color | Associated Effect |
| Black | Mind-affecting |
| Blue | Electricity |
| Green | Poison and disease |
| Indigo | Acid |
| Orange | Sonic |
| Red | Cold and Fire |
| Violet | Positive or Negative Energy |
| Yellow | Force |
- At 9th level, you learn to apply your experience with Arcanodynamics to convert energy into essentia. You gain Spell Resistance 10 + your meldshaper level, which you can raise or lower as a free action. Whenever a spell fails to penetrate your resistance, you convert that spell energy into incarnum, gaining 1 temporary essentia for every two levels of the defeated spell (minimum 1 essentia). You may invest the temporary essentia in your soulmelds immediately, and it lasts for 1 round per 2 caster levels of the defeated spell (minimum 1 round). Your spell resistance does not apply to your own eldritch blast.
- At 10th level, your knowledge of gramaric principles teaches you how to embed your soulmelds more completely in reality. Your soulmelds become (Ex) abilities, and no longer can be dispelled, nor can they be suppressed in an antimagic field.
Thesis Animae (Ex): At 2nd level, and every two levels thereafter, you discover a secret of incarnum-gramarie, gaining the ability to bind principles you have prepared from one of the gramaric disciplines to one of your chakras. Principles bound this way count against your daily number of chakra binds, and must be bound when you shape your soulmelds each day, as normal; however, you are not limited by which tier of chakras you can bind soulmelds to. These abilities do not count as being able to bind soulmelds to a particular chakra. If the particular principle (or material it affected) is destroyed for any reason, you lose the benefit of the ability until you can bind a new principle to your chakra. Effects which increase the essentia capacity of your feats or soulmelds have no effect on this ability.
- Circuitous Crown: If you bind a HEUR circuit to your Crown chakra, you can make logical decisions in the circuit as a swift action instead of a standard action.
- Climatic Heart: While a GEOC pole is bound to your Heart chakra, the geoccult field is centered on your body instead of the pole itself, and moves where you move.
- Convergent Soul: You can bind a principle from any discipline to your Soul chakra. Whenever a principle is so bound, you can prepare that principle again in 75% of the normal time.
- Enlightened Brow: An IMCH principle bound to your Brow chakra grant you enhanced awareness within any sense output types associated with the principle. An Auditory output grants you a +5 bonus on Listen checks; a Gustatory output allows you to taste light and sound, as per the synesthete power; a Mental output grants you the benefit of the Mindsight feat; an Olfactory output grants you the Scent special ability; a Tactile output grants you the benefit of the touchsight power; a Vibratory output grants you tremorsense to a radius of 30 feet; and a Visual output grants you a +5 bonus to Spot checks. Thermal and Vestibular outputs do not grant you extra awareness.
- Fortified Shoulders: By binding an ALCH principle to your Shoulders chakra, you gain damage reduction 15, which is bypassed by a type determined by which planetary metal it involves, as shown on the table below. This damage reduction does not stack with other sources of DR.
| Metal | DR Bypassed By |
| Copper | Slashing |
| Gold | Cold Iron |
| Lead | Silver |
| Mercury | Piercing |
| Iron | Adamantine |
| Silver | Magic |
| Tin | Bludgeoning |
- Locomotive Feet: When you bind an ELDK engine to your Feet chakra, you gain an enhancement bonus to all your movement modes equal to the Push of the engine divided by 20 (rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5 feet).
- Metamorphic Throat: If you bind an ARCD output transformer to your throat chakra, you can convert essentia to ebbs of output via that transformer. As part of redistributing essentia, you can allocate essentia to the bound transformer just like any other essentia receptacle (subject to the normal limitations on how much essentia you can invest in any given receptacle). Each point of essentia you invest in the transformer generates one ebb; at the end of the round, the essentia returns to your pool and can be invested as normal.
- Polychromatic Waist: Binding a KALD filter to your Waist chakra allows you and your belongings to pass unhindered through filters of that color, no matter what that color of filter would normally block.
- Transdimensional Arms: While a YGGD semi-space is bound to your Arms chakra, you can reach into that semi-space from anywhere by spending a standard action, no matter where the normal access point is and even if the semi-space is closed. However, you can only use this ability to access that semi-space, even if it is connected to other semi-spaces or demiplanes.
- Xenotic Hands: You can bind a BIOY chassis to your Hands chakra and invest essentia into it (just like a normal essentia receptacle, subject to the normal limitations on how much essentia you can invest in any given receptacle). If you do so, you gain the benefit of one graft that the chassis has (chosen when you invest essentia), of a level up to the amount of essentia invested in the chassis. Once the amount of essentia invested is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours.
