Or even merely debatable material. Most people seem to like it, so not a lot of arguing going on, so people run out of stuff to talk about it.
I personally liked all the subclasses revealed so far.
Exactamundo. Nothing to complain about or even debate with this entry, just a good solid example of
Unearthed Arcana. I wish more of them were this "boringly" good.
I am already planning out a new order of mystical knights, comprised of Horizon Walker Rangers, Paladins of the Oath of the Watcher, and Eldritch Knight Fighters, who guard my setting of
Alterra against extraplanar incursions, working alongside my existing psionic
Psychopomp Order which guides the souls of the followers of a Socratic-inspired atheistic/philosophical psychic belief system, leading them to a mortally-crafted afterlife they have carved for themselves in the domains of the spirit and pure imagination and belief (the Outer Planes) which lie beyond the domain of the mind and thought and reason (the Astral Plane.) This mortal Human-crafted afterlife lies metaphysically close to the domain of the Elven afterlife, where the set number of immortal Elven spirits (as opposed to the infinite number of mortal Human souls) dwell for a time before being reborn as their own descendants. There is a good amount of cross-traffic between the Human souls and the Elven spirits as they visit each other.
The
Psychopomp Order is made up of extremely high level individuals who have achieved immortality through psionic disciplines (I use that fantastic Mystic class from the
Unearthed Arcana article for them) and over the millennia they have managed to forge for themselves their own afterlife amongst the realms of the gods. A place for the souls of mortals who did not sublimate their souls to the worship of a deity and therefore go on to an ultimate reward of Heavenly bliss (or Hellish damnation) for a few millennia until they are ultimately absorbed into the divine essence of their deity, to exist as fragments of the god's mind, and act as fuel its continued divinity (the souls of the worshipers of the few Good gods in my world are basically consumed/absorbed/"become one with" their deity after a few thousand years of bliss, becoming pleasant "thoughts" in the mind of the deity, while the souls of Demon and Devil worshipers, or those who let themselves become ensnared in diabolical contracts or demonic trickery, are damned and directly devoured by Demon Lords and Archdevils after a few millennia of torture, or become currency to be traded by Night Hags, sold as fuel to empower metaphysical fiendish machines, and sold to Liches to be consumed to further their undead existence and prevent their "ascension" to Demiliches. The souls of worshiper of Outer Gods and Great Old Ones are left straggling on the Prime Material Plane to become undead spirits, ghosts, wraiths, and spectres, or to be scavenged as they are lost on the Astral Plane by whatever fiendish entity cares to go after them, since the various Eldritch Abominations simply don't care enough about mortal souls to bother collecting them since they are simply beneath their notice or concern, if they even notice their worshipers in the first place. All except for Nyarlathotep, who delights in collecting and tormenting mortal souls and using them for various schemes of Chaos.)
Instead, the philosophical believers dedicated themselves in life to learning the truths of existence and reaching divinity on their own terms, so as to maintain the continued individuality (and, ultimately, existence) of their souls after death through intense philosophical reflection, psychic study, and psionic discipline, and this special afterlife is maintained by the
Psychopomps; it is mostly a place for the peaceful contemplation by the souls of the followers of the psychic philosophy; members of the Mystic class, certain orders of Monks, a large number of Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks who follow the way of philosophy, and the relatively few common people who follow the way, are all taught mental techniques and disciplines that prepare their souls so that they can be easily identified and found on the Astral Plane by members of the
Psychopomp Order soon after their deaths, since they will not be met and claimed in the Astral by the angels of any deity to guide them to a god's realm, and the
Psychopomps then act in the role of angel and guide the souls of the philosophers to the afterlife.
On occasion certain deserving living mortals who are not members of the
Order of the Psychopomp are even allowed to enter this special afterlife realm in order to receive special advanced training in unique skills developed by ancient and legendary masters who have devoted their afterlives to perfecting their arcane magical skills and martial arts (think Dragon Ball Z, and the idea from the DMG of PCs receiving a bonus Feat as an extraordinary reward of advanced training.) The leaders of the
Psychopomp Order are the most skilled, legendary members of the psychic philosophy belief, with some having maintained their continued mortal existence for over 20,000 years through advanced psionic disciplines, which is really the ultimate goal of the Psionic Masters, as well as certain orders of Monks, and many arcane magic-users; to transcend the boundaries of life and death and become equally habituated to both the mortal realm and the realms of the afterlife (at 20th level members of the Mystic class become infused with psychic energy and cease aging, becoming biologically immortal, and can only die through violence... and even if they do die violently they still have a 55% chance to simply discorporate on the spot until their minds and bodies reform 1-3 days later like Dr. Manhattan, somewhere else on the same plane of existence, as if they had merely been sleeping for that time. I had already been working with a similar idea for these supremely powerful psionicists of my world for about 20 years and figured I would just treat it as a special psionic power that could be learned by 20th level psionicists (like how advanced Force-Users could learn to become Force Ghosts) but I never had a defined game mechanic for how it all functioned; the Mystic class provided all the mechanics I needed built right into the class. It was as if the designers had been reading my mind and built the class to provide me with everything I had been wanting in a psionic class, including its ultimate capstone abilities of transcendent psionic immortality.)
This order of Horizon Walkers, Watchers, and Eldritch Knights have a Citadel of Sublimation (think Diablo II) on the metaphysical borders where the Prime Material Plane, Ethereal Plane, and Astral Plane all come closest to being coterminous (the Astral and Ethereal do not normally touch each other, with the Prime Material being required as a conduit between the two, but this Citadel extends into all three Planes of Existence simultaneously and thus acts as a bottleneck for cross-planar traffic, so any sub-deific level entity attempting to cross into the Prime Material has to pass through its metaphysical airspace.
These are all extremely powerful, "Epic-Level" groups, and none of this is anything that the normal people of Alterra have any idea of, a level of multi-planar politics far above even the concerns of Kings; it is strictly the domain of Archmages, Most-High Priests, Hierophant Druids, Psionic Masters, and ancient Elves and Dwarves. In other words, the stuff that only 20+ level PCs will ever learn about and get involved with, although they may begin to get hints about it once they get into the upper teens. It's the idea-space where Magic, Religion, Philosophy, Mad Science all start to blend together
Whoo-boy, that turned into a book! Sorry, I didn't intend that (I haven't slept in two days and I'm a bit loopy) but I'm just going to leave it as is, I had too much fun writing it to get rid of it. Take it or leave it as you like.
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