Saturday, May 8, 2021

Oath of Tomorrow | Paladin Sacred Oath


"God created man in his own image," the prophet said. "In god's image, you say?" an inventor replied.

It's another paladin! The original Oath of Tomorrow was actually one of my earliest homebrews—the fifth paladin I ever made, I believe—though it's current version is somewhat revised from the original. It's one I have strangely mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I think its narrative, tenets, mechanics, and aesthetic come together extraordinarily well! On the other hand, the oath itself expresses a somewhat destructive approach to the humanities that I am not personally fond of. But as homebrew goes, I think it turned out nicely, and it seems to capture the imaginations of readers.

Although some of my later paladins have pushed the borders of the chassis further, the Oath of Tomorrow was an early example of playing with ideas of what it meant to be an oathbound sacred knight. Something I like about the oath is the way it goes beyond technological devices and into transformation as an embodiment of the tenets of change and limitlessness. Spells like polymorph and reincarnate make it onto the list, and features like Electric Feedback and Avant Guardian (which remains one of my favorite feature names that I've ever written) suggest a paladin becoming more machine than mortal over time. The effects of Avant Guardian, while somewhat more potent than I usually like to do for a paladin captone, all mirror the traits of golems in Fifth Edition.

Those are a few of my thoughts on the Oath of Tomorrow. Do enjoy!

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