CHARON
THE BOATMAN
NE male Horseman of death
CULT
Domains Death, Evil, Knowledge, Water
Subdomains Daemon, Ice, Memory, Undead
Unholy Symbol grinning skull, its eyes covered by gold coins
Favored Weapon quarterstaff
Temples graveyards, rivers, ruins, catacombs
Worshipers ferrymen, grave robbers, undead, undertakers,
urdefhans B2 , would-be immortals
Minions astradaemons B2 , grim reapers B5 , hydrodaemons B2 ,
night hags, river monsters, thanadaemons B2 , undead
Obedience Meditate upon your infirmities and the slow,
inevitable progression of physical and mental decay inherent
to the ravages of time. Mimic this progression by immersing
yourself or a victim in icy water until nearly unconscious, or
by consuming alcohol or drugs that dull memory and mental
faculties. Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws against
necromancy and negative energy effects.
EVANGELIST BOONS
1: Death’s Blessing (Sp) memory lapse APG 3/day, catatonia OA
2/day, or create soul gem (see page 184) 1/day
2: Soul Crush (Su) As a standard action, you can crush a
soul gem (such as one you create via create soul gem or
one created by a cacodaemon B2 ) to gain fast healing 15
for a number of rounds equal to your Hit Dice. This action
condemns the crushed soul to Abaddon; resurrecting this
victim requires a successful DC 28 caster level check.
3: Death’s Clutches (Sp) You can use soul bind as a
spell-like ability once per day.
EXALTED BOONS
1: Death’s Grace (Sp) ray of enfeeblement 3/day,
death knell 2/day, or sands of time UM 1/day
2: Hunger of the Styx (Su) By channeling
the memory-sapping ability of the River Styx, you
can stun foes with a sudden but temporary loss of
all memory. You can use this ability three times
per day, activating it as a swift action when you
strike a foe in combat with a melee weapon. The
creature struck is stunned for 1 round and then
staggered for an additional 1d4+1 rounds if
it fails a Will save (DC = 10 + half your Hit
Dice + your Charisma modifier). On a
successful save, the creature is instead
staggered for 1 round. This is a mind-
affecting effect.
3: Grasp of the Styx (Sp) Once per day
as a standard action, you can call upon the
waters of the Styx to bubble up and manifest as
an immense, skeletal talon of mud and black
water. This effect duplicates the effects of
grasping hand, except any creature
that is grappled by the hand must also
succeed at a Fortitude save against
the spell or gain 1 negative level.
SENTINEL BOONS
1: Death’s Crusader (Sp) mount
3/day, wartrain mount UM 2/day, or phantom
steed 1/day
2: On a Pale Horse (Su) You gain the ability to invoke the
power of the Pale Horse. As a swift action, you cause a
flickering image of the Pale Horse to appear in a 10-foot
square adjacent to you. It then moves up to 120 feet as you
mentally direct its movement (doing so is a move action
that requires concentration). The image of the Pale Horse
ignores difficult terrain and can walk over water or other
surfaces that would normally not bear a creature’s weight,
but it cannot fly. Any creature whose space the image of the
Pale Horse passes through must succeed at a Fortitude save
or take a –6 penalty to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution,
as if it had suddenly aged to become venerable. Creatures
(like dragons) that normally gain benefits from aging do not
gain any benefits, and they instead take the ability score
penalties described above. These penalties do not stack with
themselves or with existing penalties from aging. A creature
can resist the effects of the Pale Horse with a successful
Fortitude save (DC = 10 + half your Hit Dice + your Charisma
modifier). A creature can be affected by the Pale Horse only
once per round, regardless of how many times the Pale Horse
moves through its space. This is an aging curse effect.
3: Death’s Call (Sp) Once per day, you can call upon Charon’s
power to wither your enemies into dust. This ability functions
as wail of the banshee, except it lacks a sonic component.
Charon, the Horseman of Death and Boatman of the Styx, is
ancient even in comparison to the other Horsemen. Mortals
whisper that, of all the Four, he alone is one of the original
Horsemen: the first—and only—Lord of Death. Yet Charon’s
title obfuscates his true focus. Charon holds dominion not
simply over death as a whole, which is the purview of all
daemons, but specifically over death by old age. Even the
heartiest mortals eventually succumb to that looming specter,
and so it’s not surprising that many consider the Boatman the
most powerful of the Four. The legendary force of Charon’s
patience echoes the certainty of mortality’s inevitable end,
and he is more willing than any other Horseman to sacrifice
immediate gains for a guaranteed eventual victory. Charon
is also the most secretive of his kind, holding knowledge of
many things forgotten before his kindred were even living
mortals. Despite his age, Charon has not been challenged
since he rose to power in Abaddon’s earliest days—or if he
has, no one speaks of it.
Daemons in Charon’s service rove far and wide across
Abaddon, often riding the Styx to other reaches of the
cosmos, hunting souls in his name. Unlike servitors of the
other Horsemen, his own often act in understated and subtle
ways, yet they harvest just as many souls. It is said Charon
operates alongside his servitors, fishing for souls in the
exact same way, and that any daemon looking upon one of
the thanadaemons might in fact be looking into the face of
Charon himself. True or not, the rumor hangs over other
daemons’ every interaction with Charon’s chosen.
Not all souls claimed in Charon’s name are consumed.
Many daemons capture or only partially devour their
cargo, then vomit the screaming souls into the Styx. The
souls’ effluvium boils and churns, slowly transforming
into the shapes of the victims as they appeared in life;
the bodies drift, brutalized, struggling to find purchase in
the fouled waters, before being fished from the current by
Charon’s thanadaemons.
When approached independently by a soul or other
traveler of the River Styx, Charon and his servitors
sometimes simply carry the guest off to be consumed.
At other times, however, they make deals, their bargains
working toward ends hundreds or thousands of years in
the future. In the beginning, such a deal might benefit the
bargainer, with Charon’s forces rescuing a soul from its
rightful afterlife in an unpleasant plane, transporting an
adventuring party to the place it needs to go, or safeguarding
an entire Material Plane nation or world from disaster. But
inevitably, the terms of the deal take their toll; Charon’s
coffers are always flooded with souls foolishly bargained
away by their owners.
Such dealings are not only with mere mortals. Charon has
bargained with dozens of dying and desperate archdevils,
divinities, and even entire worlds, offering them aid in
return for payments of souls, knowing all the while that the
bargainers were beyond saving before they came to him.
When they die, he claims them as well, and his domain hosts
daemonic feasts of untold scale. Charon’s dealings benefit
him in all things, and even his fellows among the Four often
acquiesce to his authority.
As the oldest and the only surviving original member
of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Charon alone
knows the true history of Abaddon, accounts of which are
brutally revised and scoured to suit the purposes of each
new Horseman upon the death of his or her predecessor.
Charon does not necessarily share these secrets with the
new Horsemen, whom he considers junior colleagues rather
than peers or siblings. The only exception in his regard is
the recently deposed Lyutheria, the original Horseman of
Famine, whom he saw as something akin to a sister.
Charon actively seeks to keep any friction or
disagreement between members of the Four a secret
among them, ensuring that they present a godlike, perfectly
unified, and unassailable front to their subjects. This is
ostensibly because he does not wish to tempt any of these
minions with the chance to depose one of their number,
though many suspect that Charon has precipitated just
such a revolt against one or another of his kindred in the
past. At present, Charon is most occupied with the erratic
spontaneity of the youngest of the Four. Increasingly faced
with Trelmarixian’s obsession with his own origins, Charon
has subtly stymied Famine’s search, perhaps worried about
what the mad demigod could discover.
