Soul Salvager (3.5e Prestige Class)

Author: Luigifan18 (talk) Date Created: November 18, 2015 Status: In progress (working on vestige restoration) Editing: Clarity edits only please

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An agent of religion who seeks to destroy pact magic by restoring the vestiges binders draw their power from to reality. Ironically, he has to be a binder himself in order to achieve his goal, and his actions are motivated just as much by a desire to help the vestiges themselves as a desire to eliminate the heretical practice of soul binding. 10 6 Moderate Good Poor Good

Divine Spellcasting,

"Pact Magic" is not in the list (Prepared Arcane Spellcasting, Spontaneous Arcane Spellcasting, Prepared Divine Spellcasting, Spontaneous Divine Spellcasting, Arcane Spellcasting, Divine Spellcasting, Prepared Spellcasting, Spontaneous Spellcasting, Alternate Magic, Psionics, ...) of allowed values for the "Class Ability" property.

Full

Soul Salvager

“	<-Some quote from a character of this class->	”
—<-NPC name->, <-race-> <-class->

As a general rule, organized religions hate pact magic, and want to see it eradicated forever. After all, vestiges are beings that don't really exist, and are beyond the reach of the gods. Drawing upon their power is completely insane, and risks making reality more or less devour itself. (That, and it undermines the influence of the gods, which makes their clerics furious... outraged... sick with anger!!!)

But do the vestiges really deserve the hate and scorn they get? They were once perfectly ordinary beings who met an end so horrific, it catapulted them right out of existence. Now, all they want is a taste of reality, which they can only get by attaching themselves to the souls of others and essentially hitching a ride. This is the basis of pact magic, and it's not really the vestiges' fault that they are they way they are. If anything, they're the real victims of pact magic; they're essentially being exploited by godless heathens. Perhaps something can be done to restore them to reality, rebuilding their shattered souls. And, of course, making sure those goddamned binders can't use them anymore.

That is the mission of the soul salvager — to obliterate pact magic at its source by rescuing the vestiges they rely on from nonexistence. In fact, rescuing the vestiges is both a means and an end. The only problem is, he's going to have to employ pact magic himself in order to do it. Can he stay in the good graces of his church, even as he dabbles in the power forbidden by the gods?

Becoming a Soul Salvager

The soul salvager is something of an oxymoronic, paradoxical pariah. He studies pact magic with the ultimate goal of sabotaging it by rescuing the vestiges from its grip. This makes him very unpopular both among binders (he's trying to destroy pact magic itself) and among clerics (he's using pact magic). But until he has the power he needs to pull a vestige into reality, he has to make do with borrowing their power, like any other binder, and utilizing pact magic in tandem with his divine magic to fend off his enemies.

Because he represents a fine line between divine and pact magic, the soul salvager needs the exact same ability scores that divine magic users and binders do — primarily Wisdom and Charisma.

Entry Requirements

Alignment:	Any nonevil.
Skills:	Concentration or Pactcraft 6 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 6 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 6 ranks.
Feats:	<-feat requirements->.
Spellcasting:	Ability to cast 2nd-level divine spells.
Patron:	Must have a patron deity.
Special:	Ability to bind 2nd-level vestiges.

Table: The Soul Salvager

Hit Die: d8

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Saving Throws			Special	Spellcasting
		Fort	Ref	Will
1st	+1	+2	+0	+2	Acclimate Vestige +1, Soul Binding +1	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
2nd	+2	+3	+0	+3	Greater Suppress Sign, Soul Binding +2	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+3	Acclimate Vestige +2, Soul Binding +3	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
4th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Soul Binding +4	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
5th	+4	+4	+1	+4	Soul Binding +5	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
6th	+5	+5	+2	+5	Unbind Vestige, Acclimate Vestige +3, Soul Binding +6	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
7th	+6/+1	+5	+2	+5	Resist Vestige, Soul Binding +7	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
8th	+6/+1	+6	+2	+6	Greater Unbind Vestige, Soul Binding +8	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
9th	+7/+2	+6	+3	+6	Acclimate Vestige +4, Soul Binding +9	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
10th	+8/+3	+7	+3	+7	Advanced Unbind Vestige, Soul Binding +10	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level.) Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Knowledge (Int), Listen (Wis), Pactcraft (), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Speak Language (None), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis).

Table: The Epic Soul Salvager

Level	Special	Spellcasting
11th	Soul Binding +11	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
12th	Acclimate Vestige +5, Soul Binding +12	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
13th	Soul Binding +13, Bonus Feat	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
14th	Reactive Resist Vestige, Soul Binding +14	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
15th	Acclimate Vestige +6, Soul Binding +15	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
16th	Soul Binding +16, Bonus Feat	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
17th	Soul Binding +17	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
18th	Acclimate Vestige +7, Soul Binding +18	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
19th	Soul Binding +19, Bonus Feat	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
20th	Restore Vestige, Soul Binding +20	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the soul salvager.

Soul Binding Bonus: At each soul salvager level, your soul binding ability improves as though you had also gained a level in the binder class. Your soul salvager and binder levels stack to determine your bonus on binding checks, the effectiveness of your vestige-granted abilities, your ability to bind higher-level vestiges, and the number of vestiges you can bind. You do not, however, gain any other benefits that a binder would have gained.

Spellcasting: At each level, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in a divine spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the soul salvager class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one divine spellcasting class before becoming a soul salvager, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known. Unlike many prestige classes, this choice is made strictly at the 1st level of soul salvager, and cannot be changed later; it is crucial to a few class features.

Acclimate Vestige (Su): As part of their mission to restore vestiges to reality, soul salvagers seek to give the vestiges they host a stronger taste of reality than those filthy heathens who would heartlessly attach other beings to their souls for the sake of cheap power. Ironically, the vestiges tend to reward this gesture of goodwill with more power. A soul salvager who makes a good pact with a vestige is placed under the vestige's influence anyways, but in exchange, he gets a +1 bonus to attack rolls, saving throws, and checks until the vestige leaves him. These bonuses are increased by +1 at 3rd level and again for every 3 soul salvager levels after 3rd (+3 at 6th, +4 at 9th, etc.). However, if the soul salvager acts in a manner contrary to the vestige's influence, his bonuses are reduced by +1 per violation, to a minimum of +0 (i.e. no bonus at all); a soul salvager who has made a good pact with a vestige cannot suffer penalties for violating the vestige's influence, only lose his bonuses. These bonuses stack for multiple vestiges (at the cost of the soul salvager having several influences to deal with).
Note that this applies only for good pacts. A soul salvager who makes a bad pact must abide by the vestige's influence or else suffer a −1 penalty to attack rolls, saving throws, and checks, and suffers cumulative penalties for each violation, just like any other binder.

Greater Suppress Sign (Su): Soul salvagers are part of a religious community, and if other clerics learned that the soul salvager was dabbling in pact magic and consorting with vestiges, they probably wouldn't take it well. Which is actually putting it mildly; they would in all likelihood rather lynch him on the spot than listen to his claims that he's working just as hard towards the eradication of pact magic as any other cleric. As such, the soul salvager quickly learns to make sure that his peers don't find out that he's working with vestiges. A 2nd-level soul salvager can suppress the signs of vestiges he makes pacts with, even when he makes a bad pact. Of course, the nature of a bad pact is that the vestige gets to be partially one and the same entity as the binder, and so vestiges don't like it much when their signs are suppressed. When the soul salvager uses this ability to suppress the sign of a vestige which he's made a bad pact with, he takes a −1 penalty to his effective binder level for the purpose of using that vestige's abilities until he stops suppressing that vestige's sign.
(Of course, this only applies to a bad pact; there is no penalty for suppressing the sign of a good pact.)

Unbind Vestige (Su): Opposing other binders is a core facet of the soul salvager's mission. After all, binders attach vestiges to their souls for petty gain. As the soul salvager's relationship with the vestiges grows, he can use it to attempt to coax a vestige to leave another binder, using his own divine magic to supply the energy needed to sunder the pact.

To attempt to unbind a vestige, the soul salvager must first identify the vestige in question. Once the soul salvager knows what vestige an enemy binder has bound, he can attempt to unbind it. In order to do so, he must be bound to that vestige himself, as he must be able to communicate with the vestige and request for it to leave the enemy binder. Since vestiges can't leave a binder of their own volition until the pact naturally ends, the soul salvager has to supply some sort of energy to break the pact. Thankfully, the soul salvager's patron deity can help him to generate that energy.

As a full-round action, the soul salvager can designate a vestige he has identified on an enemy binder, which he himself must also have bound, and expend some of his divine energy — either a divine spell slot, a daily use of turn undead or wild shape, or 10 points of healing energy. This acts as a catalyst for the chosen vestige to leave an enemy binder before its pact has expired, causing the soul salvager and enemy binder to make opposed binder level checks as the pact tries to withstand the assault. The soul salvager gets a bonus on his check equal to twice the level of the divine spell slot he sacrificed to use this ability (if he used a usage of turn undead or wild shape or 10 points from his lay on hands pool instead, he instead takes a −4 penalty). (Note that this cares about the actual level of the sacrificed spell, not the level of the spell slot it was prepared in or cast with, and metamagic other than Heighten Spell does not cause a spell to be treated as having a higher spell level for this purpose.) The enemy binder gets a bonus on his check equal to the vestige's level, plus ¼ of its binding DC (rounded down); if he belongs to a prestige class which is devoted to the vestige (such as knight of the sacred seal (with the chosen vestige selected as the patron vestige), scion of Dantalion (Dantalion), or tenebrous apostate (Tenebrous)), he gets an additional +4 bonus.

If the soul salvager wins, the enemy binder's pact with the chosen vestige is broken, as if by the Expel Vestige feat. The enemy binder takes the full penalties of expelling a vestige with Expel Vestige (even if he has Improved Expel Vestige), and does not use up a usage of Expel Vestige if he actually has it.

If the enemy binder wins, the soul salvager's pact with the chosen vestige is strained. If he had made a good pact with the vestige, it becomes a poor pact, instantly costing him whatever Acclimate Vestige bonuses he had. If his pact with the vestige is poor (either by being a poor pact in the first place or having already failed to unbind the vestige from a foe), he is treated as having violated the vestige's influence, suffering a −1 penalty to attack rolls, saving throws, and checks until his pact with that vestige ends. As normal for influence violations, this penalty can stack with itself.

This opposed binder level check is treated like a binder level check to bind the vestige in the first place. Any bonuses or penalties to binder level that specifically apply to binding checks (such as having the Skilled Pact Making feat) apply to the opposed check for this ability, and if both the soul salvager and enemy binder fail to beat the vestige's binding DC, both of them lose the opposed check and suffer the consequences, regardless of which one of them rolled the higher result. If both the soul salvager and the enemy binder beat the vestige's binding DC result, and their check results are tied, both of them win the opposed check, and nothing happens except for the soul salvager having wasted a full-round action and divine spell slot, turn undead attempt, wild shape use, or healing energy. (This is an exception to the usual rules for tied opposed checks.)

• Greater Unbind Vestige (Su): At 8th level, the soul salvager requires less energy to break the pacts of heathens. He only takes a −2 penalty to his opposed binder level check if he uses a use of turn undead or wild shape or 10 points of healing energy instead of a divine spell slot to attempt to unbind a vestige.

• Advanced Unbind Vestige (Su): At 10th level, the soul salvager has built up quite a reputation among the vestiges; they know that he's a person who is firmly on their side. Because the vestiges themselves have faith in him, the soul salvager can unbind a vestige on an enemy binder that he doesn't currently have bound himself. However, because of the difficulty in communicating with a vestige in the absence of a pact, he suffers a −4 penalty for doing so. Furthermore, in the absence of a pact with the vestige to be unbound, the soul salvager suffers different (and harsher) consequences for failure. If the soul salvager loses the opposed check for a vestige he doesn't have bound, he loses one divine spell slot of the same level as the vestige (for instance, if he fails to unbind a 6th-level vestige, he loses a 6th-level spell slot). If he prepares divine spells, he chooses which spell is lost. If he doesn't have a divine spell slot of that level available to lose, he instead takes Xd6 backlash damage, where X is the level of the vestige (for example, a 6th-level vestige would inflict 6d6 backlash damage). Backlash damage cannot be resisted by any means, and a character killed by it loses an extra level if and when he is brought back to life.

Resist Vestige (Ex): A 7th-level soul salvager has grown popular enough among the vestiges that they don't particularly want to hurt him. A binder who attempts to use a vestige-granted ability against the soul salvager must succeed on a binder level check against a DC of (10 + soul salvager's class level + soul salvager's Wisdom modifier), or else that use of the ability fails to have any effect against the soul salvager. (Essentially, he gets a sort of spell resistance that applies to vestige-based attacks.) Note that this only applies to vestige-granted abilities, not supernatural special attacks in general (for instance, it provides no protection from a shadowcaster's mysteries).

• Reactive Resist Vestige (Ex): A 14th-level soul salvager can draw upon his god's power to enhance his resistance to vestige-based attacks. As an immediate action, the soul salvager can sacrifice a divine spell slot to increase his vestige resistance by the level of the sacrificed spell (not the sacrificed spell slot) for 1 round. Like most immediate actions, this ability cannot be used if the soul salvager is flat-footed.

Restore Vestige (Sp): A 20th-level soul salvager is at the cusp of fulfilling his mission. He can now restore a vestige to reality. Doing so requires a ritual which lasts for 1 week, at the end of which the soul salvager makes a binding check against the selected vestige's binding DC + its restoration value (usually 30, but it may be different depending on the vestige's history). If he succeeds, the selected vestige is called back to reality, and loses its status as a vestige; instead, it becomes an NPC, effectively having been revived by true resurrection (though not necessarily restored to life, per se; depending on the vestige, it may be restored to undeath, mechanical animation, divinity, or some other state that is neither alive nor dead). No binder, including the soul salvager himself, can ever summon that vestige again for the remainder of the current campaign (unless it somehow becomes a vestige again, which, depending on the vestige, could happen more easily than you'd think). Instead, the former vestige is now an NPC or monster (albeit in all likelihood a very high-leveled one), who has all the abilities it possessed as a vestige (unless otherwise noted) in addition to whatever other abilities it would have by virtue of being an NPC of its class and level, and who owes a great deal of gratitude to the soul salvager who restored it and will (probably) be a steadfast ally. (However, the former vestige will (probably) also be extremely friendly to binders who venerated it while it was a vestige, especially knights of the sacred seal and members of other prestige classes who were devoted to it. This could prove to be extremely awkward if these binders happen to be enemies of the soul salvager.) Restore Vestige functions as an epic-level spell (though it does not require a Spellcraft check to use). Therefore, if the ritual is interrupted, the DC of the Concentration check to avoid spoiling the ritual is 20 plus any modifiers (such as damage taken or distracting motion modifiers). Restore Vestige can be used once per 6 months and costs (2,000 × level of vestige to be restored) XP to use.

However, it should be noted that restoring a vestige is nowhere near as easy to do as the above paragraph would imply. First of all, it requires material components and focuses, all of which are going to be things that are important to that vestige. Second, it requires that the soul salvager create or otherwise procure a body that is extremely similar to the body the vestige possessed in life (or undeath, or mechanical animation, or divinity, or whatever); the replica body must be accurate to the degree of precision required by the clone spell. (The vestige's manifestation can provide a clue, but is often not a good indicator of what the vestige looked like while it was a conventional being). Third, the above two requirements make it necessary for the soul salvager to know the vestige's history in excruciating detail; the story described under the "Legend" entry may or may not be a good starting point, but it is almost never sufficient, as gathering information about vestiges tends to be extremely difficult. (And, no, questioning the vestige probably won't help much, not even when done by a soul salvager seeking to restore them; it is impossible to compel a vestige to tell the truth or to tell whether or not it's lying, and many vestiges' memories are so muddled and fragmented that they might not be able to tell the truth, even if they wanted to.) The necessary research and gathering of components will likely take several months, and it cannot be glossed over; the process of discovering the vestige's true story and gathering the necessary materials for the restoration ritual will involve going on adventures. The process of conducting research and gathering materials will also inevitably attract the attention of many powerful binders, and it's likely that they'll find out what the soul salvager is up to sooner or later — and when they do, they are extremely likely to try to stop him by any means necessary, considering that he is trying to make a vestige completely inaccessible to all binders. (Note, however, that preparations for performing the Restore Vestige ritual can be performed at any point in the soul salvager's career, though some aspects of the preparations will likely require him to be a high-leveled character to successfully perform. The only part of the process that cannot be done until soul salvager level 20 is the Restore Vestige ritual itself.) Fourth, the vestige itself might have some issues that would prevent it from being revived; for instance, it might not even be sentient (such as Phos), it might be a conglomeration of numerous beings (such as Dantalion), or it might have become a vestige due to a divine curse (such as Andromalius, Aym, Dantalion, or Leraje). These issues will usually cause additional requirements to restore the vestige. Finally, the DM has the final say on whether or not restoring a vestige is even possible. If the DM decides that removing a vestige from play would be too damaging for the campaign he or she is running, then the campaign world itself will conspire to ensure that the soul salvager cannot succeed, using whatever methods are necessary to thwart him (up to and including an enormous rock falling directly on top of the soul salvager from out of absolutely nowhere, with absolutely no possibility of avoiding it and killing him instantly, with no possibility of him being revived afterwards).

Furthermore, just because you can restore a vestige to reality doesn't mean that you should, or that they're going to stay restored. Some vestiges are the way they are because they were cursed by one or more gods, and restoring that vestige will probably piss off the god who made it that way. (For instance, Corellon Larethian might not mind if Leraje was restored, since she has been humbled by the circumstances of her becoming a vestige. Thrym, on the other hand, would be very, very unhappy if Shax was restored, since she would inevitably start bothering the frost giants again.) Some vestiges are the way they are due to some sort of horrible trauma, and might not want to be restored; therefore, they will inevitably become vestiges once more unless their troubles are addressed, or they might need extensive convincing to return to reality. (For instance, if Halphax were to be restored, and somehow regained his memories of his life, he would almost certainly be driven to commit suicide, and promptly return to being a vestige again. Haagenti, on the other hand, feels an incredible sense of guilt over the repercussions her actions during her life had on frost giant society.) Some vestiges are gods who withered away due to a lack of worship; unless faith in them were to be restored, they would promptly fade away and become vestiges again. (Amon is the classic example of a "former god" vestige, though others "exist"). Some vestiges were never sentient or even entities to begin with; they would require some sort of sentient identity in order to exist. (For instance, Phos is a spark of light that was sent outside of existence as part of a magical experiment, and Tenebrous is simply an alter-ego of Orcus.) Finally, there are the vestiges who were incredibly dangerous threats to the status of the universe (or at least the status quo) while they were properly existing beings, and would in all likelihood spark some sort of catastrophe if restored, disregarding their debt to the soul salvager in order to pursue their own agendas. (For instance, Acererak would reestablish the Tomb of Horrors and resume his efforts to ascend to godhood as soon as possible, taking countless lives in the process; Chupoclops would resume devouring hope and ghosts, giving mortals nightmares, and quite possibly bring about the apocalypse; Shax would return to rule over the storm giants with an iron fist and drive them to conquer the lands of the other giant tribes, causing the conundrum she caused in the giants' pantheon to begin all over again.) Overall, each vestige is a unique entity (or, rather, pseudo-entity), and therefore, they all have their own unique requirements and complications in the process of restoring them. As with all matters of gameplay and story progression, the details of how to restore a vestige should be left up to the DM, but I'll write up guidelines for each vestige to form a basis.

Bonus Feats: <- any bonus feats gained in pre-epic levels->.

The epic soul salvager gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic soul salvager feats) every 3 levels after 10th.

Epic Soul Salvager Bonus Feat List: <-list of bonus epic feats->

Vestige Restoration Guides

• Restoring Acererak
• Restoring Agares
• Restoring Amon
• Restoring Andras
• Restoring Andromalius
• Restoring Aym
• Restoring Balam
• Restoring Biblos
• Restoring Buer
• Restoring Chupoclops
• Restoring Dahlver-Nar
• Restoring Dantalion
• Restoring Eligor
• Restoring Eurynome
• Restoring Focalor
• Restoring Geryon
• Restoring Haagenti
• Restoring Halphax
• Restoring Haures
• Restoring Ipos
• Restoring Karsus
• Restoring Leraje
• Restoring Malphas
• Restoring Marchosias
• Restoring Naberius
• Restoring Orthos
• Restoring Otiax
• Restoring Paimon
• Restoring Ronove
• Restoring Savnok
• Restoring Shax
• Restoring Tenebrous
• Restoring Zagan

Ex-Soul Salvagers

Being a soul salvager requires one to strike an extremely fine balance between one's devotion to pact magic and divine magic. Delve too deep into pact magic, and you're little more than one of the many ex-clerics (or druids, or paladins, or rangers, or whatever) who got a bit too intrigued by pact magic and fell to the temptation. Focus too much on your religion, and you're basically just another of those ultra-religious types who has a major bone to pick with anyone who uses pact magic, except you're a hypocrite because you use pact magic yourself. (Sure, soul salvagers consider pact magic to be heretical, just like most other clerics, but what sets the soul salvager apart is that he doesn't think the vestiges themselves deserve the bad rap they get; he considers the vestiges to be unfortunate victims, and other binders to be power-hungry fools who take advantage of the vestiges' plight for their own petty gain.) As such, if your levels in binder exceed your levels in the divine spellcasting class your soul salvager levels are applied to by more than 3 (or your levels in your divine spellcasting class exceed your levels in binder by the same amount), you lose the balance of viewpoints that is required in order to pursue the mission of the soul salvager, and as a consequence, you lose the soul salvager's unique class features and cannot advance in soul salvager (though you still get to apply your soul salvager level to both your binder level and divine caster level). Prestige classes that advance your binder level or divine spellcasting class count as levels in binder or your divine spellcasting class, respectively, for the purpose of determining whether or not you are out of balance. You regain your soul salvager features as soon as your binder levels and divine spellcasting levels return to being within 3 of each other. (If you have levels in multiple divine spellcasting classes, only your levels in the class you apply your soul salvager levels to are considered when determining whether your devotion to pact and divine magic is imbalanced.)

Campaign Information

Soul Salvager Lore

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (the planes) or Knowledge (religion) can research soul salvagers to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.

Knowledge (the planes or religion)

DC	Result
11	Soul salvagers are divine spellcasters who also utilize pact magic.
16	Because most major religions oppose pact magic, soul salvagers are inherently heretical. Yet they remain just as devoted to their churches as any other cleric (though they do not want their churches to find out what they're up to, for obvious reasons).
21	Soul salvagers are hated by other binders, and the hatred is mutual. Soul salvagers hunt other binders with a zeal unmatched by any other cleric, for reasons that only they seem to understand; in turn, the binders are desperate to exterminate the soul salvagers, considering them to be a grave threat to their way of life.
26	The ultimate goal of a soul salvager is to rescue the vestiges from the realm of nonexistence they are trapped in, and cause the vestiges to become the beings that they once were. If the soul salvagers succeed in this endeavor, those vestiges will no longer be vestiges, and binders will be rendered unable to call upon their power — an absolute catastrophe for users of pact magic, including the soul salvagers themselves, but a wondrous miracle for highly religious folk, including the soul salvagers themselves.
31	Few soul salvagers want to consider this, but there are some vestiges that it would be a very bad idea to rescue from their nigh-nonexistent state. Seriously, could you imagine if Acererak returned and got the Tomb of Horrors up and running again, or Shax resumed bullying the storm giants and driving them to conquer everything in sight? The results could be unspeakably horrific! And the gods would not be happy about the resulting multiverse-spanning mess...

Soul Salvagers in the Game

Soul salvagers are essentially divine spellcasters who have delved into pact magic without abandoning their faith. Quite the opposite, actually; they seek to use pact magic to advance the goals of their faith — which, considering that we're talking about organized religion here, probably includes the eradication of pact magic. Soul salvagers play a very similar role in the world as witch slayers, hunting other binders and destroying them, while also trying to avoid being outed as being binders themselves.

Adaptation: While Restore Vestige is not available until character level 30 at the absolute earliest, it can still have devastating repercussions for your campaign, and you should think long and hard about whether you want to give in-universe PCs and NPCs the ability to erase vestiges from a binder's list of options, potentially permanently. If the idea of actually allowing religious organizations to succeed in permanently weakening pact magic is too much for your campaign (and you shouldn't be ashamed if it is; as a DM, you should aim to make your game as fun as possible), consider changing it to simply summon a temporary avatar of a vestige, without actually calling that vestige out of the plane of vestiges (and off of a binder's list of options). Such a temporary avatar would not be a permanent NPC, but more like a summoned monster; as such, the minimum level should be reduced to somewhere around soul salvager 15, the casting time should be reduced to something that could be feasibly performed in a combat situation (such as a 1-round action), and the XP cost, material components, and research requirements should be removed entirely (you don't pay XP to cost summon nature's ally, after all).

If you rework Restore Vestige to be temporary rather than permanent, you should also rework the fluff of the soul salvager to get rid of the goal of outright sabotaging pact magic itself. Instead, focus more on the "vestiges' rights" aspect and the portions that are oriented towards sabotaging other binders themselves.

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