Content Warning: The Child Taker class is an objectively horrible person doing unbelievably cruel things and is not appropriate for most tables, please clear this class with your table before running it including potentially altering or eliminating content that is not appropriate for the setting. This class makes reference to the exploitation of children and abuse.
Child Taker
Professionally edited by Fiona Maeve Geist
You are a pitiful, revolting creature scorned by all you cross. Highborn despise your ability to act above your station, peasants hate and fear you for your work, but everyone agrees you're a disgusting thing and should have been cast into the pit at birth. Your affliction manifests spiritually; a profound wrongness hangs about you like a dark cloud marking you as "other"—the world knows you're a monster inside and out.
Few recognize your use, a profession as old as time. Utilized by Nobles seeking rare magical bloodlines, slavers who need fresh flesh, Priests of all faiths searching endlessly for their various "Chosen One"s, and, most frequently, poor peasant families who can't feed and clothe their children. A Child Taker, the unspeakable and necessary job.
Child Taker
Starting Equipment: Mule, cart, cage, willow switch, crossbow, 12 bolts, 3 children
A: An Eye for Talent, Taken Children, Unconventional Currency
B: Fair Market Price, Shield and Sword
C: Reluctant Privilege, Cycle of Abuse
D: Prince Who Was Promised, Apprentice, Thrice Sanctioned
An Eye for Talent
An eye for children that are potentially valuable to your employers. Start with an eye for Peculiarity and choose one other talent, gaining another with each accumulated Child Taker template.
Arcane Potential: One (d4) spell die and knows one random spell.
Born Fighter: Uses a d8 when attacking as part of the Shield and Sword feature.
Fertility/Virile: Add one to your “Type of Child” roll for each fertile child you possess or two for each virile child.
Gourmand: Cumulative +1 bonus for each gourmand child when preparing a meal, eating food to heal, and saving against food,
Healing Hands: Uses a d8 when defending as part of the Shield and Sword feature.
Obedience: Their roll isn't counted for rolling duplicates.
Peculiarity: An applicable candidate for a Child Taker Apprentice.
Piety: Can cast a Divine Rebuke on undead or fiends, with ad6 spell die. If [sum] exceeds the target’s HD, they are held at bay [sum]x10’ from the child for [sum] rounds.
Taken Children
Start with three children—plus one additional child for each template beyond the first. Children are commodities but prove useful in varied ways. After attaining your second template, they can fight for and defend you. When seeking new children, the DM rolls 1d20 in secret for each child present—1-18 the child is mundane, on a 19 or 20 roll on the table below. The Child Taker immediately recognizes a child with a Talent you have an eye for, the rest are a gamble and reveal themselves after purchase.
Fair Market Price
If something/someone is for sale, provided you offer a fair market price, you cannot be denied. If it is not for sale, but you offer a fair market price, you are never denied outright and may negotiate. Make rolls to convince someone to sell with advantage—+1 bonus to this roll each time you double your offer. Additionally, children act as currency and you may demand debts be paid in children and cannot be denied. You can also pay purchases or debts in children and cannot be denied as long as the child is a fair market price for the item. FMP for an item will be decided by the DM.
Shield and Sword
Thanks to your manipulations, your victims feel a perverse sense of loyalty and unhesitatingly take up arms fighting alongside you or intercepting a blow meant for you. Each child may attack with you or negate damage for you, equal to 1d6, using as many of your children as you wish but rolling duplicates is disastrous.
Cycle of Abuse
This isn't your first time manipulating a child, with extensive practice you know just what to say, to do, to gift to win a child over or to make amends for a beating. You also have an uncanny knack for how best to hurt a child; physically or emotionally. Child Taker templates per day, you may adjust one child's d6 up or down to prevent duplicates, provided the total sum of the dice stays the same. When one child is berated, another must be praised.
The Prince Who Was Promised
Once in the lifetime of your character, you may declare one of your children to be THE child—the Chosen One or an equally shockingly large revelation hiding in plain sight, known only to you.
Apprentice
Every so often, a Child Taker comes across a child just wrong enough to pass their mantle to. This child acts as an awkward intermediary between you and your victims; too old to be a child, too young to be an adult. Your Apprentice acts as a child for Shield and Sword, but may temporarily increase the effect of one child’s Talent—increasing the die size or static bonus by one size (d6 to d8) or +1.
Thrice Sanctioned
As a Child Taker, you duty is thrice sanctioned: by the Royal Court, the Church, and by the very dirt beneath your feet. If, in the course of your duties, you run into trouble, you’re able to call upon the aid of Court, Church or Land, rolling up to 1d6 for each child you own and consulting the charts below. Additionally, your Child Taker status gives you greater access and information than most peasants could ever hope for. Provided you aren’t acting suspicious, you're reluctantly admitted to just about any place and can engage people in conversation about things that don't concern you instead of being stonewalled, under the pretense of looking for children.
Special thank you to Oblidisideryptch for helping to refine my ideas.
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