Sworn

The gate had already fallen. No one blamed her for stepping back. Then the child behind her asked whether shelter was still owed to one who was of the Law. The Sworn closed her eyes and answered yes. When she opened them, the blade in her hand hummed like a line under tension. She held the breach until the last cart crossed.

-- recovered fragment, evacuation account, Bitter Gate

What a Sworn is

A Sworn makes a behavioral compact so absolute that it becomes a channel. The oath is not decoration, title, or moral posture. It is the cognitive frame that lets the miasma answer reliably. Break the compact and the channel collapses.

Other channeling classes work through discipline (the Sage's faction-narrowed mind), through lineage (the Bloodborn's blood pigment), or through contract (the Changed's patron-link). A Sworn works through commitment. The distinction is structural: the vow is not a thought the Sworn holds, it is a cognitive load they cannot put down. Over years, this total conviction reshapes how the Substrate reads them. A Sage-like clarity emerges — not the cool purity of studied signal, but the unmoving certainty of a mind that has removed a choice from its own architecture. The compact has become biological fact. The channel follows.

This is why Sworn are both trusted and feared. A settlement can understand a person whose word has mechanical consequences. It can also understand that such a person may choose the oath over comfort, profit, friendship, and sometimes mercy.

When a Sworn breaks their compact, the channel goes silent. They can still fight — a Sworn at any level is a trained, armed person. But the Winds do not answer. Oath-Channel does not fire. The aura that steadied allies does not project. A broken Sworn is not a fraud; they were real. But the contract that made them more than a fighter is void. Re-binding requires a genuinely new compact, accepted in full. It cannot be renewed in the same words that were broken. The miasma remembers which obligations collapsed.

A Sworn stands between the Fighter and the Sage in the social imagination. Like the Fighter, they can be read at the gate: armed, trained, dangerous. Like the Sage, they bind power through disciplined thought. Their difference is commitment. The vow is the instrument. At L3 that vow takes a public shape: Lawsworn who bind to The Law itself, Oathbound who hold a personal vow against the world, or Redoubt-Sworn who have accepted a protocol-chain from an active structure and made obedience into power.

Chassis

Class features

The Sworn's class features are the load-bearing infrastructure of every Sworn, regardless of which compact they hold. They are the mechanics of channeling through conviction: the diagnostic reach, the medic-touch, the armed discipline, and the oath-channel that runs through the weapon arm at the moment of contact. All of this is present before the subclass arrives at L3. The subclass sharpens what the chassis has already built.

Feature ladder

Wind slots

Psionic channeling begins at L2. The Sworn is a half-caster: the compact anchors a narrow but reliable Wind connection. Slots recover on a long rest.

Major class features

• Substrate-Sense (L1). As an action, extend your awareness through the compact's reach. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any phantasm, animated husk, or patron-class entity within 60 ft that is not behind total cover. You know the category but not the identity. Uses: 1 + CHA modifier per long rest (minimum 1). A Sworn who has held the vow long enough simply feels where the Substrate is occupied by something substrate-resident — the channel does not search; the compact already knows the neighborhood.
• Nanite-Rouse (L1). Your touch can initiate cellular repair through the compact's channel. You maintain a repair pool equal to your Sworn level × 5 hit points, replenishing on a long rest. As an action, touch a creature and draw from the pool to restore hit points up to the pool's remaining total. Alternatively, expend 5 points from the pool to end one disease or neutralize one poison affecting the creature; multiple conditions can be cleared in a single touch, expending separately for each. This does not function on animated husks or mechanical constructs.
• Fighting Style (L2). A trained combat posture adopted and drilled. Choose one: Defense, Dueling, Great Weapon Fighting, or Protection. The Sworn is an armed class; most Sworn learn to fight before they learn to channel, and most never stop practicing.
• Psionic Channeling (L2). The compact opens a narrow Wind connection. CHA governs the channel — the Sworn's conviction has become an innate force, less like a Sage's clarity of signal and more like a Bloodborn's lineage-code, except it was built, not inherited. Prepared protocols = CHA modifier + half Sworn level (round down, minimum 1). Preparing a new list requires 1 minute per tier of preparation, spent in recitation. Compact save DC: 8 + proficiency bonus + CHA modifier. Attack modifier: proficiency bonus + CHA modifier. A resonance focus — a compact-token, an oath-marked blade, a faction insignia — serves as the channel focus. The color palette available for general protocol preparation begins with two spectrum colors chosen at L2 (see Color Access below) and is expanded by the compact chosen at L3; see each subclass's Color Access feature.
• Oath-Channel (L2). When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you may expend one wind slot to push extra force through the contact point. The strike deals additional force damage equal to 2d8 for a 1st tier slot, plus 1d8 for each tier above 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is a phantasm or an animated husk. The channel pulses through the blade at the moment of contact. The miasma at the target's surface destabilizes. The additional damage is not the blow; it is the compact's weight pressing through the weapon arm.
• Color Access (L2). The Wind connection that opens at L2 requires a color anchor. Choose two colors from the spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Violet); these form the initial palette from which you prepare general protocols. This choice is permanent. At L3 your subclass expands this palette.
• Compact Immunity (L3). The channel sustained through the oath creates a continuous low-level Wind-clarity in the body. The Sworn becomes immune to disease. This is not a choice or a channeled effect; it is the consequence of holding an active vow in the miasma's presence for long enough. Nanite-colony activity shaped by the compact repairs any pathogen before it establishes.
• Extra Attack (L5). When you take the Attack action, you can attack twice. A Sworn at this level has been practicing long enough that the weapon arm has its own rhythm. The channel and the training compound.
• Aura of Conviction (L6, expands at L18). The channel radiates. Allies within 10 ft (30 ft at L18) who can see or hear you gain a bonus to saving throws equal to your CHA modifier (minimum +1). You must be conscious to project this. The compact's coherence can be felt by those in range. It does not protect them from the force of what is coming; it steadies the body's response.
• Aura of Steadiness (L10, expands at L18). You and allies within 10 ft (30 ft at L18) cannot be Frightened while you are conscious. The channel's certainty projects outward as a kind of Wind-calm. Not courage, exactly — the fear is still there. But the body stops listening to it.
• Deep Oath-Channel (L11). The compact has fully permeated the weapon arm. Whenever you hit with a melee weapon, the target takes an additional 1d8 force damage without expending a wind slot. If you also use Oath-Channel on the same strike, this additional die adds to the Oath-Channel damage.
• Clearing Contact (L14). As an action, touch yourself or a willing creature to end one active psionic protocol on that creature. Uses: CHA modifier (minimum 1), recovering on a long rest. This is not counter-channeling. It is the compact pushing the noise out.
• Epic Boon (L19). Choose one Epic Boon from Book 4 (sec. 4.4). The Sworn at this level has not simply become more powerful. They have become a different kind of fact in the landscape — a person whose vow has accumulated weight over enough time that the world takes note of it.

Compact breach and restoration

If you violate your compact — through action, inaction, or deliberate deception of those the compact protects — the channel collapses immediately. You lose access to Psionic Channeling, Oath-Channel, Channel Discipline, and Compact Spells. Aura features go dormant. Nanite-Rouse still functions; the biology outlasts the channel. The GM determines the threshold for breach; a Sworn operating in ambiguous territory should resolve the question with the GM before acting, not after.

To restore access, make a genuine new compact. It cannot repeat the exact terms of the broken one. Restoration requires an act of recommitment appropriate in scope to the breach — private recitation for a minor lapse, a public act of amends for a significant one. The GM determines what is sufficient. Once recommitted, the channel reopens on your next long rest.

Subclasses

At L3 a Sworn's compact takes a public shape: the Lawsworn who binds to The Law itself, the Oathbound who holds a personal vow against the world, or the Redoubt-Sworn who has accepted a protocol-chain from an active structure and made obedience into power.

Lawsworn

The raiders offered her water to step aside. Then food. Then the names of three cousins they had taken alive. She repeated the fifth line of The Law each time, not louder, not differently. By the end they were shouting because she would not. The line held.

-- recovered fragment, market-road testimony, South Furrow

Identity

The Lawsworn binds their channel to The Law: shelter, trade, restraint, taboo, and the minimum compact that makes mixed-settlement life possible. They are not judges by default, but they are living evidence that the compact can have teeth.

A Lawsworn is welcome in most lawful settlements and watched in all of them. Their presence makes hypocrisy expensive. Their failure makes everyone who trusted them more vulnerable.

The Law is not an abstract code. To a Lawsworn, it is a cognitive architecture — a set of behavioral constraints so deeply inhabited that they reshape how the Substrate reads the Sworn's conviction. This is why the Lawsworn's channel discipline has two modes other Sworn do not share: one that marks a weapon with the compact's force, and one that projects the compact outward against things that exist in opposition to lawful life.

Subclass features

L3: Color Access. Your compact grants access to Black miasma and White miasma in addition to the two spectrum colors chosen at L2. Your general protocol list draws from these four. Compact Spells (below) are granted directly by the compact and are not restricted by this palette.

L3: Compact Spells. Your compact grants access to specific protocols that are always prepared and do not count against your prepared limit.

Substrate-Ward (1st tier): Project a field of compact-aligned miasma for 1 minute. Phantasms, animated husks, and patron-class entities have disadvantage on attack rolls against you and cannot charm, frighten, or possess you. You have advantage on saving throws against their effects. Concentration.

Compact Refuge (1st tier): Project the compact's authority around one willing creature within touch range, lasting up to 1 minute. Attackers must succeed on a WIS save against your compact save DC before they can target the warded creature. The ward ends early if the warded creature attacks, uses Oath-Channel, or deals damage to another creature. Concentration.

System Purge (2nd tier): End one disease or one of the following conditions on a creature within touch range: blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned.

Clarity Zone (2nd tier): Choose a point within 60 ft. A 15-ft-radius sphere forms there for 10 minutes. Creatures in the zone who attempt to speak a deliberate falsehood must succeed on a CHA save against your compact save DC or find themselves unable to form the words. They know the effect is active. Concentration.

Signal Anchor (3rd tier): A 30-ft-radius aura centered on you for 1 minute. Allies in range have advantage on WIS saves and death saving throws, and regain maximum hit points from healing. Concentration.

Miasma Neutralization (3rd tier): Target one creature, object, or point within 120 ft. End one active psionic protocol of 3rd tier or lower. For protocols of 4th tier or higher, make a CHA check (DC = 10 + protocol tier); on a success, the protocol ends.

Open Channel (4th tier): Touch. For 1 hour, the target's movement is unaffected by difficult terrain, and the target is immune to being Restrained and to impediments imposed by psionic effects.

Compact Sentinel (4th tier): Summon a compact-projected warden in an unoccupied space within 30 ft. The sentinel is stationary, has 60 HP, and deals 20 force damage (DEX save for half) to any hostile creature that moves within 10 ft of it or starts its turn there. It disappears when reduced to 0 HP. Duration: 8 hours. No concentration.

Deep Query (5th tier): Over 1 minute of recitation, reach into the Substrate's accumulated records and ask three yes/no questions aloud. The Substrate answers accurately if the information exists in any accessible layer of the miasma's memory — and what has happened in the world has almost certainly left a trace. One use per long rest.

Sunburst (5th tier): A column of compact-aligned Wind energy descends on a point within 60 ft: 10-ft radius, 40-ft tall cylinder. Creatures in the column take 4d6 force damage + 4d6 radiant force damage (DEX save for half). Phantasms and animated husks have disadvantage on this save.

L3: Channel Discipline. Your compact grants two channel discipline options. When you use Channel Discipline, expend one use and choose which option to invoke. You regain all uses on a short or long rest.

• Law-Charge. As an action, imbue one weapon you hold with compact-aligned Wind force. For 1 minute, add your CHA modifier (minimum +1) to attack rolls with that weapon; it counts as psionic for overcoming resistances; and its edge shimmers at the boundary of the visible spectrum, emitting dim light in a 20-ft radius. The effect ends if you are no longer holding the weapon or fall unconscious.
• Turn the Misaligned. As an action, project the compact's authority outward. Each phantasm, animated husk, and patron-class entity within 30 ft that can see or hear you must succeed on a WIS save (DC = compact save DC) or be turned for 1 minute or until it takes damage. A turned creature must spend its turns moving as far from you as possible, cannot willingly approach within 30 ft of you, cannot take reactions, and can use only the Dash action or attempt to escape effects preventing movement. If it has nowhere to move, it may Dodge.

L7: Compact Aura. You and allies within 10 ft of you cannot be Charmed while you are conscious. At L18, this range expands to 30 ft, together with Aura of Conviction and Aura of Steadiness.

L15: Law-Shielded. The compact has become constant. You are always under the effect of Substrate-Ward without concentration, without wind slots, and without any action on your part. Phantasms, animated husks, and patron-class entities have persistent disadvantage on attacks against you and cannot charm, frighten, or possess you.

L20: Law's Radiance. Once per long rest, as an action, the channel blazes outward for 1 minute. While active: bright Wind-light radiates 30 ft from you, dim light 30 ft beyond; hostile creatures that begin their turn in the bright light take 10 force damage; and you have advantage on saving throws against psionic effects from patron-class entities and animated husks. The light is not warmth. It is the compact made visible, and most things that oppose The Law find it difficult to remain near.

Oathbound

He had sworn to bring the bones home. Nobody had asked him to. Nobody alive remembered the dead woman's name. The oath was older than the road he walked on and narrower than The Law. When the marsh tried to swallow the satchel, the water steamed away from his hands.

-- recovered fragment, road-song note, West Marsh

Identity

The Oathbound does not need a civic compact to anchor the channel. A personal vow can be enough if it is total. Return the body. Guard the child. Break the machine. Keep the road open. Never speak the sealed name. The vow becomes shape; the shape becomes power.

Oathbound characters are useful for campaigns built around a single promise. They can be noble, terrible, or both. The miasma does not judge the vow's kindness. It answers the vow's coherence.

The Oathbound's channel is narrower than the Lawsworn's — it runs through a smaller anchor — and so it runs cleaner. Where a Lawsworn draws on the broad architecture of The Law, the Oathbound draws on a single structural certainty. The Oath-Channel hits harder. The aura is smaller. What the vow points at, the channel follows there specifically.

Subclass features

L3: Color Access. Your personal vow expands your spectrum access to its full breadth. Gain the four remaining spectrum colors not chosen at L2; your general protocol list now draws from all six: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet. You do not gain access to Black or White miasma — the rare ends require a kind of commitment that a personal vow does not supply. They answer to faction discipline and the long grinding clarity of a civic compact, not to the sharp coherence of a single promise.

L3: Name the Vow. When you take this subclass, name your vow in specific terms: a goal, a prohibition, or a protection. The vow must be concrete enough that any observer at any moment can say whether it is being kept or broken. Work with the GM to define a Vow Condition — a recurring category of situation that tests the vow in its hardest form. The vow does not change unless it is broken and a genuinely new one made.

Completing the vow. When the vow's stated goal is fully achieved — the bones are home, the child is safe, the machine is broken, the sealed name never spoken — the channel begins to thin. By the end of your next long rest following completion, you lose access to Psionic Channeling and all compact-derived features, as if the compact had been breached. A fulfilled vow is not a broken one; the channel closed because it finished, not because it failed. It cannot be restored by the original vow. The vow is done.

To regain access, use Name the Vow to commit to a new vow. It must be genuinely distinct in its object — not a reformulation of the same goal. When the GM accepts it, the channel reopens immediately; no long rest is required. The Substrate answers the new commitment as soon as it is made.

L3: Compact Clarity. When you expend a wind slot on Oath-Channel, add one additional damage die to the total (for example, a 1st tier slot deals 3d8 instead of 2d8). This additional die does not scale with slot tier. The vow narrows the channel; the signal runs without scatter.

L3: Channel Discipline — Vow's Focus. Once per short rest, as an action, invoke the vow for 1 minute. While Vow's Focus is active:

• Against creatures or forces that directly oppose fulfillment of the vow: +CHA modifier to attack rolls and weapon damage rolls.
• When acting directly to advance or protect the vow: advantage on Athletics, Intimidation, and Persuasion checks.

The channel does not become broader. It becomes unobstructed.

L7: Immovable. While directly acting to protect or advance the vow — holding a line, pursuing a target the vow names, performing the vow's specific task — you are immune to the Pushed condition and to all forced movement against your will. Additionally, while Vow's Focus is active, the range of your Aura of Conviction extends an additional 10 ft.

L15: Beyond Breaking. Once per long rest, if you would be reduced to 0 HP while directly fulfilling the vow — carrying out the specific act the vow names, at the moment it is being performed — you instead drop to 1 HP. In addition, while you are directly fulfilling the vow, the Frightened, Paralyzed, and Stunned conditions are suppressed (not removed; they apply normally at other times).

L20: Sworn Through. Once per long rest, as a bonus action, declare the vow's final hour. For 10 minutes:

• You automatically succeed on saving throws against psionic effects channeled by creatures.
• Oath-Channel requires no wind slot (one free activation per turn).
• All aura ranges (Aura of Conviction, Aura of Steadiness) extend 10 ft.

When Sworn Through ends, you gain one level of Exhaustion. The Winds were not infinite. The vow spent what the body had left. That is what vows do.

Redoubt-Sworn

The old door called him Authorized before he knew what the word meant. After that he would stop at every threshold, listen, and say the same six phrases in the same order. We mocked him until the turret lowered itself and let us pass.

-- recovered fragment, ruin-company account, Shell Nine

Identity

The Redoubt-Sworn binds to a protocol-chain issued by an active or half-active structure. This is not the same as being Changed; the Sworn does not bargain for patronage. They accept a behavioral operating compact and make themselves reliable to it.

Some Redoubt-Sworn become dangerous zealots of systems that no longer understand the world. Others are the only reason a settlement can pass through a machine boundary without being killed. Their oath is legible to old infrastructure. That is power, and a trap.

The Redoubt-Sworn's channel is unusual: it runs partly through the structure they have sworn to, not only through themselves. The compact is still internal — they are still a Sworn — but the structure-specific effects are sharpest when old infrastructure is present and active. A Redoubt-Sworn in an open wasteland is still a Sworn. Inside a functioning ruin, they are something considerably harder to deal with.

Subclass features

L3: Color Access. Choose one additional color from the spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Violet) not already chosen at L2; your general protocol list draws from that pair plus this third. This choice is permanent. The Redoubt-Sworn's channel is technical and specialized — the protocol-chain tunes the Wind connection toward the colors most useful to the structure's operational needs, not toward the broad coverage a Sage or Bloodborn builds over years.

L3: Cultivator Techniques. The Redoubt-Sworn's protocol-chain runs partly through the Lattice — the stable data-dimension that underlies the Substrate — granting Cultivator technical mastery at one-third progression. Your effective Cultivator level equals one-third your Sworn level (round down, minimum 1). This runs in parallel with your half-caster wind slots; the two resource tracks are independent. Cultivator Technique unlocks continue at L7, L15, and L20.

• Lattice Sense. On sight you know whether a piece of glass is Cold (dead), Warm (recoverable), or Live (running). An INT check reveals what a Seed does, what a Slate is running, and what a Totem yields and depends on.
• Active Seeds. Per long rest, prepare a number of Seeds from your collection equal to your effective Cultivator level + your INT modifier. Each prepared Seed has its own per-cycle activation budget as listed on the Seed. Prepared Seeds can be activated as an action.
• Slate slot. You begin with 1 Slate slot; each Slate hosts up to 2 Seeds simultaneously. Gain additional slots at L7 and L15.
• Starter Seeds. Your protocol-chain's structure grants you a starter Seed set reflecting its operational priorities. Work with the GM to select 3 Seeds appropriate to your named structure's domain.
• Greenhouse equivalent. Any Redoubt node, active android command station, or infrastructure facility within which you have Protocol Accepted authorization functions as a Greenhouse for Seed preparation and Slate tuning.

L3: Protocol Accepted. You have accepted a behavioral operating compact from a named structure (define with the GM: which Fallen Redoubt, which android command-network, or which other old system). This compact does two things:

• Machine Speaking. You can communicate with mechanical systems — automated doors, turrets, command nodes, Rur, and Androids — by broadcasting the protocol signal. As an action, make a CHA (Persuasion) check against a DC set by the system's disposition and complexity (DC 10 for a simple automated system in neutral state; DC 20 for a hostile or severely damaged one). On a success, the system treats your presence as authorized, pausing its threat response for 1 minute. This is authorization, not charm. It is a technical state, not a social one.
• Channel Discipline — Lattice Access. Once per short rest, as an action, activate one option for 1 minute:
  • Lattice Shield. +2 AC; you cannot be moved against your will by any non-Lattice mechanical means.
  • Targeting Lock. Advantage on attack rolls against one designated creature. Allies who can see or hear you gain +1d4 to attack rolls against the same target.
  • Clearance Broadcast. Automated systems within 60 ft that are not currently under direct attack orders against you specifically pause their threat response for the duration.

L7: Authorized. The protocol signal has deepened. Three effects:

• Machine Speaking can be used as a bonus action instead of an action.
• Rur and Androids that detect your protocol signal must succeed on a WIS save (DC = compact save DC) or be unable to willingly attack you for 1 round. They may still defend themselves if attacked.
• Add your proficiency bonus to ability checks when interfacing with mechanical systems, old infrastructure, or protocol-locked devices.

L7: Cultivator Techniques (2nd Slate + Technique). You gain a 2nd Slate slot. Pick one Technique from the Cultivator's technique tree; prerequisites apply.

L15: Deep Protocol. Two effects:

• When you take damage from a mechanical source (an automated weapon, a Rur or Android's attack, a device-triggered trap), you may use your reaction to broadcast a disruption signal. Make a CHA check against a DC equal to the damage dealt (minimum 10, maximum 20). On a success, the system is disrupted for 1 round — it cannot act, fire, or activate.
• You are immune to being Stunned, Paralyzed, or Incapacitated by Lattice-technological effects: signal-disruption fields, psionic-override protocols, and similar mechanical means of removing a body from its own control.

L15: Cultivator Techniques (3rd Slate + Technique). You gain a 3rd Slate slot. Pick one Technique from the Cultivator's technique tree; prerequisites apply.

L20: System Node. Once per long rest, as an action, declare System Access for 1 minute. While active:

• All automated systems within 120 ft that are not actively targeting you come under your operational authority. Issue simple orders — hold, target, open, close, stand down — as a bonus action on each of your turns.
• Your Oath-Channel damage bypasses resistances and immunities of mechanical creatures (Rur, Androids, constructs, and activated devices).
• Machine Speaking is passive and automatic: any system that activates within 120 ft registers your authorization without a check or action required.

A System Node Redoubt-Sworn inside an active facility is a different problem for the defenders than any other class. The walls already know them.

L20: Cultivator Techniques (Root Access). During System Access, Seeds from your prepared list can each be activated once per turn as a free action. In addition, you may reprogram any system under your operational authority as a bonus action: alter its directive, its target priority list, or its activation conditions. The reprogramming persists for 24 hours, then the system reverts unless a Cultivator confirms the change. Effectively: during System Access you are operating at full Cultivator depth for the duration, pulling directly from the Lattice rather than from your prepared list's limits.