Dark Tempest

Secretive to the extreme, the Dark Tempests
are so called for their ancient warrior techniques,
melding mastery over the inner self with the physical
manifestation of the mind blade. Their techniques
revolve around the fusion of their weapon and their
mind into a deadly force capable of crushing an enemy’s
body and mind. Each of the tempests must find his own
path through the darkness, to arrive on the other side
filled with their personal discoveries. Legends claim
that the tempests force a prospective candidate to
meditate alone in utter darkness for a week, with but a
bowl of water and a piece of bread. Those that survive
the ordeal are welcomed, but only those that prepare for
years manage it.

**Alignment:** Any.

**Hit Die:** d10

* **Skills:** Knowledge (psionics) 6 ranks.
* **Psionics:** Ability to manifest 1st level powers, form mind blade class feature, and either enhanced mind blade +2 class feature or Mind Blade Knight feat.

**Class Skills:** The dark tempest’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Autohypnosis (Wis), Bluff (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Perception (Wis), Perform (dance) (Cha), and Sense Motive (Wis).

**Skill Ranks at Each Level:** 2 + Int modifier

### **CLASS FEATURES**

All the following are class features of the dark tempest
prestige class.

### **Manifesting**

At every level, the character gains
additional power points per day and access to new
powers as if he had also gained a level in any one
manifesting class he belonged to previously. He does not,
however, gain any other benefit a character of either
class would have gained (bonus metapsionic, or item
creation feats, and so on). This essentially means that he
adds the level of dark tempest to the level of whatever
other manifesting class the character has, and then
determines power points per day, powers known, and
manifester level accordingly. If a character had more
than one manifesting class before he became a dark
tempest, he must decide to which class he adds each
level of dark tempest for purpose of determining power
points per day, powers known, and manifester level.

### **Mind Blade**

At every level, the dark tempest increases
his soulknife level for the purposes of his enhanced mind
bade class feature. This does not grant the dark tempest
increased soulknife level for any other purposes (such as gaining bonus feats or blade skills).

### **Diverse Training**

A dark tempest adds his level to
any levels of soulknife he might have for the purpose
of meeting the prerequisites and benefits of feats and
blade skills (such as Mind Blade Knight). He may also
use any blade skills with a weapon he has summoned
using *call weaponry* as if it were a mind blade. He also
adds his level to any levels in a manifesting class for the
purpose of meeting the prerequisites for feats.

### **Psychic Strike (Su)**

A dark tempest gains the ability
to charge his mind blade, or a weapon he has summoned
with *call weaponry*, with a psychic strike, as per the
soulknife ability. This starts at 1d8 damage at 1st level
and increases by +1d8 every three levels thereafter (2d8
at 4th level, etc.). If the dark tempest already possesses
the ability to charge a psychic strike, he may add those
dice to these when determining the damage dealt.

### **Expanded Power List**

At 2nd level, the dark tempest
adds the following powers to his class power list, if they
are not already on his class power list. If the power is
already on his class power list, the dark tempest can
choose either level when selecting that power. If the
dark tempest possesses more than one manifesting class,
he must choose one class power list to add these powers
to.

**1st level powers** — *deceleration, déjà vu, energy ray, entangling ectoplasm, feat leech, mind thrust, slumber, stomp*

**2nd level powers** — *cloud mind, ectoplasmic grapnel, ego whip, energy push, id insinuation, psionic lion’s charge, recall agony, swarm of crystals*

**3rd level powers** — *crisis of breath, dispatch, Lanis’s energy bolt, eradicate invisibility, expose weakness, hostile empathic transfer, psionic blast, telekinetic force*

**4th level powers** — *barrage, mindwipe, personality parasite, psychokinetic charge, schism, shatter mind blank, telekinetic maneuver, vanishing strike*

**5th level powers** — *adapt body, baleful teleport, catapsi, energy current, mind probe, psychic crush, shrapnel burst, summoning strike*

**6th level powers** — *breath of the black dragon, brutalize wounds, co-op concentration, decerebrate, defer fatality, disintegration, retrieve, temporal acceleration*

### **Power Strike (Su)**

At 3rd level, when the dark
tempest expends his psychic strike upon confirming a
successful hit, he may choose to forgo the usual psychic
strike damage and instead use the energy to fuel one
of his psionic powers. The power manifested must be
a power he knows from the above Expanded Power
List, and must be able to target areas or creatures other
than the manifester. This is a swift action which counts
as a Quickened power and does not provoke attacks of
opportunity. The power is manifest as if the dark tempest
had spent 2 pp per die of psychic strike damage, up to a
limit of his manifester level, and automatically hits the
struck target (Saves and power resistance may apply as
normal). If the power would normally affect an area or
multiple targets, it instead affects only the struck target
and any other targets the dark tempest subsequently
hits with a mind blade or called weapon that round
(for example, manifesting *energy ray* would only affect
a single target, but manifesting *stomp* would affect all
targets hit during a full attack or bladewind attack). Any
given target can only be affected by this ability once per
round, even if the dark tempest strikes him multiple
times or has multiple psychic strikes charged.

At 3rd level, the dark tempest may only use this ability
to manifest 1st-level powers. This improves to include
2nd-level powers at level 6 and 3rd-level powers at level

### **Blade Skill**

At 5th and 8th level, the dark tempest
gains a bonus blade skill from the following list:
Absorbing blade, bladewind, deceptive blade, dual imbue,
exploding critical, furious charge, improved furious
charge, knife to the soul, mental power, powerful strikes,
reaper’s blade, reflective blade. The dark tempest must
still meet all prerequisites for the selected blade skills.

### **Power Critical (Su)**

At 10th level, any time a dark
tempest successfully confirms a critical hit, he can
manifest a power as a swift action. The power must
include the target of the attack as one of its targets or
in its area of effect. Manifesting this power does not
provoke an attack of opportunity. Alternately, he may
instead expend his psychic strike and use power strike
to manifest any power he knows from the expanded
power list of a level up to the total number of psychic
strike dice (for example, if he has a 5d8 psychic strike,
he may manifest a 5th level power he knows from the
list as if he had spent 10 pp, affecting struck targets as
per power strike).