Oath of the Ein-herjar − Psionic Paladin archetype

Oath of the Ein-herjar
A psionic archetype of the Paladin class




The Ein-herjar are the ideal warriors among your sacred ancestors. You strive to become an ‘army of one’ like each of them, who rush to fight single-handedly to save others. Some other cultures call you a Valor Paladin, a Blue Knight relating to the sky, or a Mind Warrior. You train for a powerful mind and a muscular body. Yours is the way of the warrior. To attack someone from a safe distance feels cowardly to you. You pursue the challenge face to face. Against impossible odds, your daring saves loved ones from dangers.

Psionics is the sacred ancestral heritage of your aboriginal nation. Your animistic culture advances while safeguarding a prehistoric magic of mindforces that preexists the separation between psionic, arcane, and divine. This psionics enjoys the wonder and the holiness of this material world, and of the minds within it that move it. Your clan raises you to sense the minds of human beings and of other nature beings, including the minds of places and objects.

To strengthen friendships with other minds is sacred, especially your clan, neighboring clans, guests, and nature beings all around. You give good gifts to other beings, and they give good gifts to you. This is a holiness among equals. Certain nature beings in the sky originate the psionic magic of the warrior. Your own fight helps the sky to protect this world from certain deadly nature beings in the wilderness.

Your psionic powers protect, defend, discern, empower, and heal yourself and your friends. You learn your techniques in combat − and in peace with horns of ale when your warrior buddies get together to study.

Tenants of the Ein-herjar
The tenants of the Ein-herjar elevate heroism, the honor of your clan, and the sanctity of your psionic customs.

Bonds: Those who you love are part of who you are, your friends who fight alongside you, your clan, the regional parliament of clans, and friendly minds in nature. Your psionics is your sacred ancestral way of life.

Ideals: Courage is the highest good. You use your courage to save the lives of your loved ones. You admire warriors who master mind and body to face any challenge. You find the inner resolve to push forward.

Flaws: You are proud of your courage. You hate attacking from a safe distance. Remote magical attacks are taboo for you. An archery duel if both opponents are out in the open, is brave enough. But you love melee. If your enemy challenges you to a duel to the death, you have few reasons to say, no.

Quirks: The minds of your loved ones are part of your self-identity. When people talk with you, you often mention what your parent might say and what your sibling might say, and what your cousin or other friend might say, about the topic at hand. If you happen to become friends with a mind of sunlight, you might mention what the sunlight might say.



Paladin Class Features

You can make your Oath of the Ein-herjar at level 1. Your clan raised you since birth to revere courage. At levels 1 and 2, or later when leveling, you can modify your Paladin class features as follows.

Psionics
At level 1, you demonstrate aptitude in the animistic psionics of your culture.

Animistic psionics. The aboriginal traditions to manifest mindforces are holy. They revere this material world and its minds that move it. All magical features of the Paladin class gain the psionic tag. This tag replaces the divine tag, but you share a sense of the holiness of the Material Plane.

Psionic voice. Shamanic voicing helps focus your intention. You chant spontaneous music involving an impromptu phrase to drive your mindforces to shape marvels. You can cast any Paladin spell by a verbal component only, even eschewing a costly material component. It is possible to cast any spell without any component, but then every spell requires concentration.

Skills. Add Survival and Nature to the Paladin skills that you can choose from. You can use Nature for lore about the mind of any nature being, such as thunderstorm, sunshine, eclipse, a cliff, mountain stream, ocean, suggestive rock formation, glacial ice formation, and so on. You must choose Persuasion as one of your two Paladin skills. You can extend your mindforces to probe other minds. You can use Charisma (Persuasion) instead when you make a Wisdom (Insight) check.

Equipment
You can instead start with the following equipment, or later whenever leveling. Several members of your clan have contributed to grant you this gift of high quality items. Your accomplishments honor the clan.

• shield (roundshield: +2 AC, special martial weapon, 1d4 bludgeoning, light)
• martial weapon (vikingsword: 1d8 slashing or piercing, finesse)
• simple weapons (spear or handaxe, plus dagger as a knife with a one-edge blade)
• explorers pack
• fine clothing (bold solid colors possibly with embroidered trim, linen tunic or dress, wool outer-tunic or outer-dress, linen or wool pants and socks, leather or wool belt, leather shoes or boots, wool cloak)

Cannot Bite
At level 1, you add Cannot Bite to your Paladin class features.
What you refuse to feel cannot touch your body. The form of your body that is in your minds eye, radiates force. While you are conscious and wearing no armor, your base AC is 10 + your Dexterity bonus + your Charisma bonus. You can add a bonus of a shield, including a roundshield.

Twine
At level 1, Twine replaces the Paladin class feature, Divine Sense.
You extend your mindforces to engage the minds around you. As an action and for 1 minute, you detect the presence of minds within 30 feet of you, including sentient objects, extraplanar creatures, even remote diviners via their sensors. A being with any mental ability score of 1 or higher is a mind. Your detection penetrates any objects, but not barriers of force, such as Wall of Force or Tiny Hut. At the choice of the DM, magical barriers that block extraplanar creatures such as Protection of Evil or Good might also block your mental detection. Whether seen or unseen, if minds are in your lines of sight, you know their precise locations and feel their attitudes (whether friendly, indifferent, or hostile). Reciprocally, they locate you and feel your attitude toward them.

Once at any time during Twine, choose one mind in a line of sight. You descry a momentary psychic vision about that mind. The DM describes a brief dreamlike vignette that hints at who this mind is and what it is there for. At the DMs discretion, the vignette can convey a true form if the mind is hidden or deceptive. The experience is mainly a visual clue, such as symbol, imagery, or action, but can also be a sound such as a word, brief phrase, or background sounds, or a feeling such as a salient desire, an emotional state, a surface intention, or a deeper concern. The vision can seem as if a brief time passes, but is instantaneous and harmless.

You cant use the Twine feature again until you finish a long rest.

Fighting Style
At level 2, if you choose the Dueling Fighting Style, your mainhand melee weapon benefits from it even if your offhand attacks with a shield, including a roundshield, or punches, pushes or grapples.

Telekinetic Smite
At level 2, whenever you inflict damage to a target within 10 feet, you can instead deal it as the force damage type. The force itself is invisible. But you can accompany it with a harmless sensory effect of your choice, to enhance your appearance or that of the weapon or the hit or the failed save of the target.

Oath of the Ein-herjar




Oath Spells
You gain additional spells from the Oath of the Ein-herjar at the listed Paladin levels. They are always prepared.

Paladin Level • Spells
3 • Shield, Guidance cantrip
5 • Calm Emotions, Enhance Ability
9 • Counter Spell, Protection from Energy
13 • Freedom of Movement
17 • Wall of Force, Greater Restoration

Channel Divinity
At level 3, you gain two Channel Divinity options, Cannot Fall and Form Travel. Features at higher levels modify Form Travel. Psionics is your sacred ancestral way of life, and the tenants of your Oath of the Ein-herjar are holy. You channel psionic energy to use either Channel Divinity option. You must finish a short or long rest to use Channel Divinity again.

Cannot Fall: Your mindforces push regenerative growth. As a reaction, while the hit points of an ally is 0 or when your hit points become 0, the hit points are instead 1 hit point + your Charisma bonus.

Form Travel: During a short rest, you can project your mind outofbody. Your mind shapes your mindforces into the ‘form’ of a virtual body. See Outofbody Form below. The point of view of your mind − the you − is now from the perspective of your form. You are peripherally aware of your body and its surroundings, but it remains Incapacitated until you reverts back to your body instantaneously when the Form Travel ends. Moving and observing while outofbody counts as light activity to benefit from the short rest. Form Travel ends at the conclusion of the short rest, or if you dispel it as an action. Your outofbody form stays within 120 feet of your solid body. Both your outofbody form and your body share the same hit points, and damage to the one shows up psychosomatically in the other.

Outofbody Form
An outofbody form is Incorporeal, able to move thru solid objects and creatures as difficult terrain, but cannot willingly end its turn inside an object. It moves at the speeds of a body, including running, climbing, and swimming. The form lacks a need to breathe, eat, and sleep, but can do so harmlessly. It is immune to poison and disease, and is resistant to nonmagical weapon damage (bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing). An outofbody form includes the forms of the clothing and equipment on the body. The form can use its actions to attack, spellcast, interact with solid objects, carry it incorporeally, and so on. One Incorporeal form interacts with an other Incorporeal form as if mutually solid, such as grappling or blocking movement. Force effects can affect a form, such as Wall of Force as a barrier. At the discretion of the DM, magic that affects extraplanar creatures might affect a form, such as, Magic Circle might be a barrier, and failing to save against Banishment might return the form to its body thus ending a Form Travel.

Extrasensory
At level 7, you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible.

Form Leap
At level 7, while you Form Travel, you can teleport your solid body as a move from where you left it to merge with your outofbody form becoming solid at your current location. Form Travel ends.

Travel Companions
At level 7, when you Form Travel, you can bring willing companions from bodies within 10 feet. Each can choose to end their participation in the Form Travel, as an action, reverting back to their bodies instantaneously. If you Form Leap or Move at Speed of Thought, your companions come with you, arriving within 10 feet of you.

Sky Feast
At level 13, you can manifest a Sky Feast. You can invite as guests a number of willing allies equal to your level within 120 feet. They translate mind and body to an extradimensional location in the sky above. You and each guest immediately benefit from a long rest. The feast itself is the spell Heroes Feast, taking place inside a Magnificent Mansion, typically in the form of a longhouse. The Magnificent Mansion endures for the 1 hour of the Heroes Feast. The food is sumptuous, with unlimited ale and mead, plus exotic wines and liquors. When the Sky Feast ends, the minds and bodies of all feasters return to their previous locations where they started before the Sky Feast. You cant manifest a Sky Feast again until after nine days.

At level 20, you can make the location of the Sky Feast permanent, for as long as your mind persists. Determine the location of the entrance to this extradimensional space. This entrance is accessible from anywhere in the sky during a certain atmospheric or astronomical event that you choose, such as any sky where there is a rainbow, dawn, clear sky, aurora borealis, warm sun shower of rain, or full moon. The longhouse hovers midair, possibly drifting on a cloud. True Seeing can see the longhouse somewhere in the sky, but it cannot be seen while the chosen skyey event is absent. Only with your permission, can one enter the door of your longhouse. When you manifest a Sky Feast, your number of guests can be friends who are anywhere in the same plane of existence as you, and they are mentally aware of your invitation. After the 1-hour Heroes Feast ends, you and your guests can choose to remain in the Magnificent Mansion.

World Tree
At level 15, you intuit the mindful interconnectivities that branch and root thru the material world. While you Form Travel, the duration can extend indefinitely and your outofbody form can travel any distance away from your body and to any location if you have the means to do so.

Move at Speed of Thought
At level 15, while you Form Travel, you can move at the speed of a thought. As a move, you can contact any mind you choose who is in the same plane of existence as you. This initial mental contact is minimal and instantaneous. You and the mind know each others attitudes (whether friendly, indifferent, or hostile), and the true reason why you want to arrive and the true reason why the mind desires to welcome or refuse your arrival. After contact, an unwilling mind gains a Charisma save. If you have not met this mind in person, its save gains advantage. If you are familiar with the mind, such as a foe in an ongoing feud, it suffers a disadvantage to its save. If the mind is successful, your Form Travel ends and you are unable to contact it again for nine days. Otherwise, you and any Travel Companions arrive outofbody within 10 feet of the location of this mind. You cant Move at Speed of Thought again until the next time you Form Travel.

Taking
At level 20, you can as an action make solid creatures and objects within 10 feet permanently Incorporeal, becoming pure mindforces as an outofbody form without a body. The shift is instantaneous. Oppositely, you can make any Incorporeal creatures and objects permanently solid, gaining a material body. Unwilling creatures gain a Charisma save. You cant use Taking again until after a long rest.

Song of Help
At level 20, when need is great, the mindforces of your courage shape the salvation of you and your loved ones. You cast Wish. You cant use this feature again until after nine days.

[sblock="Mythological accuracy"]
Note, this Paladin class archetype strives for mythological accuracy concerning the worldview of Norse aborigines, according to Old Norse texts and archeological assessments of the Viking Period during during 800 to 1100.

The resulting D&D class option seeks to be useful for both Norse and Nonnorse regional settings. To translate these concepts into the art and mechanics of D&D necessarily incurs some distortions. Perhaps the main one here is how the Oath of the Ein-herjar conflates together several Norse concepts into a single identity.

The magical features of this Ein-herjar class archetype mainly derive from the Ljóða-tal, a list of song effects that mindforces chanting can achieve. This kind of magic is called galdr ‘chanting’. Warriors do it for protective effects. Also texts elsewhere relate to some of the effects in this list. It is proper to call someone who knows this singing magic that the Ljóða-tal describes, a galdra-mannr, literally a ‘human of chantings’. But I reserve this name for a full caster psionic archetype for the Bard class. Note, the list of effects in the Ljóða-tal correlate somewhat to the D&D core Paladin with the Oath of Devotion.

The name Ein-herjar is chosen somewhat improperly to emphasize the warrior aspects of galdr magic. Strictly, the Norse term ein-herjar only refers to the (dead) sacred ancestral warriors. Even after death, their minds persist and commingle in the sky with the nature beings there, namely alfar and æsir. These humans spend their days with the val-kyrjur, who are apparently alfar women. The alfar personify good fates, and these women themselves decreed the fate of a good death. Val-kyrja means ‘a chooser of the killed one’. It is a nickname for a specific kind of nornir who relates to a fateful death in combat. These alfar women are themselves warriors, and master the sacred ancestral magics of mindforces like humans do. Alfar generally master many kinds of magical traditions. The val-kyrjur host a daily feast for the fallen human warriors to eat as guests in a longhouse above in the sky among clouds. These humans are in some sense immigrants, who become æsir, being adopted into the clan of the æsir. Some of these val-kyrjur ally with the æsir jarl Óðinn, whose longhouse is called Val-hǫll, the ‘hall of the killed ones’. Other val-kyrjur ally with the vanir Freyja, who is herself an immigrant to the æsir.

Rarely, the term ein-herjar means something else. For example, in Loka-senna, the thunder being Þórr is sarcastically called an ‘ein-heri’, the singular form of ein-herjar. In this context, the literal meaning of ein-herjar, ‘army of one’, applies to anyone who is courageous enough to fight single-handedly against an opponent or against an army.

A fundamental concept in the Norse worldview is, all nature beings, including humans, learn and achieve the same kinds of magic in the same ways. An effect that one being does, an other being can learn to do.

Form travel (ham-far) outofbody in a virtual ‘form’ (hamr) made out of mindforces (hugar) is a common concept in many Old Norse texts. The Ljóðatal alludes to it. Relating to galdr magic, warriors project outofbody in human forms to visit the æsir in a longhouse in the sky, to study galdr there. Relating to seiðr magic, the ‘mindforces’ of shamans ‘ride’ in the forms of animals. In Sturlunga Saga, an ominous sighting two suns in the sky accompanied by alfar riding on the land, assumes the alfar sunlight beings are projecting their mindforces to become either human-like riders or horse-like transports. In Vǫlundar-kviða, Vǫlundr is an alfar together friends who are alfar men and alfar women called val-kyrjur. All of them can shift their form into a white swan. The æsir Óðinn can project his mindforces in the forms of two ravens, whose names are ‘the thought’ and ‘the memory’. Many jǫtnar normally appear in the form of an animal. Some dvergar do too, such as Fafnir and Ótr.

Norse warriors strive to emulate their sacred ancestors, including their magic, especially the galdr that protects during combat. These human warriors share a deep affinity with the alfar and the æsir, and the ein-herjar, all of them nature beings, the minds of the sky.

[/sblock]

The upcoming anonymous quote puts the finger on what Norse aboriginal animism is all about.

The holiness is the love.

This sacredness is more about alliance and more about friendship, and less about power and less about domination.

Love is holy. This love expands to nature.



"Norwegian’s, for the most part feel close to land and I have always had a great sense of place. As far back as I can remember I would wander alone deep in the hills around my small home town in southern Norway. I would never feel alone or lost, but rather I would feel inspired and energized, because nature was my teacher and closest companion."



In the Old Norse texts, the holiest title that a human can ever gain, is for nature to call this human a ‘friend’ (vinr).

Norse animists seek goodwill with the beings of nature all around.

That other cultures seem so desperate to worship things, to become slaves of nature, is alien to the Norse worldview.

Nobody is worshiping anything.

What these animists revere is the love that can exist between friends who are equals.