Living the Legend

Living the Legend (Ex): At 1st level, a paramythia gains the ability to channel concepts through himself—sometimes echoes of souls from ages past, sometimes tales that have taken on lives of their own—and use them as a “template” for his psionic power. Each day, a paramythia can meditate to accept these tales by undergoing a ritual called a seance, preparing his body and soul to take on the role of a character or archetype. A seance takes 1 hour to perform, and requires the living legend concentrate fully on his preparations; reading and recalling, meditating on a trinket or relic, or even going through combat drills or motions from more active tales. At the end of a seance, the living legend takes on roles given to him by his knowledge and power, inviting a role to take form within his mind. He may choose up to two of the seven legendary roles described on page X to inhabit him for the day. Although each role has a favored location or tale to be drawn out of, the living legend can find his roles wherever he looks if he can conceive of possible conceptual ties between them. His roles remain within him for 24 hours or until he expels them as a full-round action. A living legend can only hold up to two roles in a given day; once he has completed a seance, he cannot start another one until the next day.

At any given time, the paramythia has a tool role (for his weapon) and a costume role (for his armor). The paramythia falls under the influence of both roles and is beholden to one of each role’s taboos (chosen when he completes his seance). If he chooses the same legendary role for both his tool and costume role, he need not select a second taboo. In addition, he gains the powers of both his tool and costume roles. He gains access to a role’s lesser power at 1st level, its intermediate power at 4th level, its greater power at 10th level, and its supreme power at 16th level.

The paramythia is not magically prevented from breaking his taboos, but if he breaks a taboo for any reason, he takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, ability checks, skill checks, and saving throws for 1 hour. This penalty is not cumulative; if the paramythia violates the taboo again while taking the penalty, the duration of the penalty extends to one hour from the most recent violation. If he breaks a given role’s taboo three times while it inhabits him, it leaves him and he loses the ability to invite that role for one week.