Pharika

**Pharika** is worshipped as the goddess of affliction and aging. It's believed she has left mythical secrets like miraculous medicines and devilish diseases and poisons across Theros.

## Myth

Pharika is an old god and one of Theros' original deities, It's thought she created poisonous creatures, diseases, and aging. Many mortals believe all the realm is to Pharika is a grand experiment.

## Influence

Pharika represents the duality of life and death distilled into a single draught that can serve as tonic or toxin, depending on the dosage. She is most associated with affliction, whether that phenomenon takes the form of a disease, a venom, a drug, or the passage of years. Her cures are reliable but come at a cost. In some cases, that cost is pain as the medicine courses through the imbiber’s body. In other cases, she demands years of life, either from the patient’s lifetime or the researcher’s labor.

## Worship

In her oversight of life and death, Pharika acts as a patron of alchemists. Pharmacists offer prayers to her while crafting potions, as do the ill or infirm before imbibing a supposed remedy. Likewise, a body’s slow transformation is sacred to her, whether it be the inevitable effects of aging or the petrification of her medusa children’s victims.

## Piety

#### **Earning and Losing Piety**

You increase your piety score to Pharika when you expand the god’s influence in the world in a concrete way through acts such as these:

* Creating poisons and cures
* Killing powerful enemies with poison
* Respecting and protecting serpentine creatures
* Spreading and curing diseases

Your piety score to Pharika decreases if you diminish Erebos ’s influence in the world in a concrete way through acts such as these:

* Destroying alchemical, medical, pathological, or similar research
* Performing a notable act of healing without exacting a significant price
* Slaying a medusa or serpent

**Pharika' Devotee**

*Piety 3+ Pharika trait*

As a devotee of Pharika, you have drawn the notice of the goddess of affliction with your skill. You can cast ray of sickness with this trait, requiring no material components, a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

**Pharika' Votary**

*Piety 10+ Pharika trait*

Pharika rewards your faith and service. You are resistant to poison damage and are immune to diseases.

**Pharika' Disciple**

*Piety 25+ Pharika trait*

Pharika blesses you with Pharika’s Balm, an effect that can cure or enfeeble. As an action, you can touch a creature and choose one of the following:

* The target regains hit points equal to 1d8 + your Wisdom modifier, and you can cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it.
* The target must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, or for 1 minute, the target deals only half damage with weapon attacks. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success.

You can use this action a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

**Champion of the Dead**

*Piety 50+ Pharika trait*

You can increase your Wisdom or Constitution score by 2 and also increase your maximum for that score by 2.