Buy me a coffeeDoll Soulbound
This small ball-joint doll wears a bright white dress and stands, posed, without the aid of a doll stand. Its glass eyes stare straight ahead, vacant and seemingly sightless, before it blinks suddenly and shifts its stance.
Crafted from a fragment of a creature’s soul, these small dolls are animated with sentient will. For the most part, the binding process strips almost all of the individuality and personal conviction from the soul fragment, making a brand new soulbound doll a blank slate onto which the creator can ascribe what values he desires. Despite this process, however, fragments of the orginal creature’s will remains.
Soulbound dolls act as conversation companions, surrogate children, servants, guards, sentries, and warriors. In short, they perform nearly any function desired by their creators. Those created by city-dwellers tend to act civilized and polite, while those crafted in or near the wilderness possess traits appropriate for survival in their savage environment.
When a soul fragment is stripped from its soul, it retains just enough of its personality to influence the new personality born within the soulbound doll. As such, the creators of soulbound dolls are typically very careful to cull soul fragments from people who possess personality traits the crafters wishes to see in their dolls.
| Doll, Soulbound |
| Soulbound CR 2 N (any) Tiny construct Init +6; Senses Darkvision 60 ft., Low-Light Vision; Listen +0, Spot +3 |
| DEFENSE |
| AC 14, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dexterity, +2 size) hp 19 (3d10+3) Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +1 DR 2/magic; Immune construct traits |
| Offense |
| Speed 20 ft. Melee dagger +2 (1d2-2/19-20) Ranged dagger +6 (1d2-2/19-20) Space 2-1/2 ft., Reach 0 ft. Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd) 3/day – light, mage hand, open/close, prestidigitation 1/day – levitate, one additional ability dependent on alignment |
| Statistics |
| Strength 7, Dexterity 14, Constitution , Intelligence 11, Wisdom 10, Charisma 9 Base Atk +2; Grapple -8 Feats Improved Initiative, Toughness Skills Hide +16, Move Silently +5, Spot +3 Languages Common SQ alignment variations, soul focus |
| ECOLOGY |
| Environment any Organization solitary, pair, or family (3-12) Treasure no coins, 50% magic items Advancement by character class; Favored Class rogue Level Adjustment +4 |
| SPECIAL ABILITIES |
| Alignment Variations (Sp) All soulbound dolls are at least partially neutral in alignment, although they can also be chaotic, evil, good, or lawful depending upon the nature of their soul focus. All soulbound dolls have an additional spell-like ability usable once per day dependent on their alignment as listed below. Lawful Neutral: suggestion (DC 12) Neutral Good: heroism Neutral: deep slumber (DC 12) Neutral Evil: inflict serious wounds (DC 12) Chaotic Neutral: rage Enchantment Weakness (Ex) The weakened conviction of the soulbound doll’s soul makes it susceptible to mind-affecting effects, despite its construct traits. Soul Focus (Su) The soul bound to the doll lives within a focus integrated into the doll or its apparel, typically one of the doll’s eyes or a gem embedded into the neck or chest of the doll. As long as this soul focus remains intact, it can be built into another doll for the soul to animate, using the same cost as creating a new construct. Once bound into the soul focus, the soul continues to learn, and so if later put into a new doll body the soul retains its personality and memories from its previous body or bodies. Regardless of its construction, a soul focus has hardness 8, 12 hit points, and a break DC of 20. |
Construction
A soulbound doll’s body is made from whatever materials the creator wishes (common choices include wood, stone, and porcelain), as well as one exquisite item worth at least 2,000 gp to serve as the soul focus. This item is typically a single tiny gemstone, but it may also be a finely-crafted miniature dress or a Tiny masterwork weapon. Assembling the body requires a DC 20 Craft (sculpting) or Craft (dollmaking) check.
Creation also requires a soul fragment from a living or recently deceased creature (died within 1 hour of the start of the binding ritual). The binding process strips most of a soul fragment’s personal conviction and personality, but not necessarily all. If the source soul has a non-neutral component to its alignment, one of those components (selected randomly if the creature has two) influences the soulbound doll’s final alignment. If the soul used to infuse the doll is from that of a still-living creature, the creature can resist the procedure with a DC 20 Will save. If the saving throw is failed, the creature takes 1d4 points of Wisdom damage and 1 point of Charisma drain. Stripping a soul fragment from someone who is already dead does not deal damage or drain to the corpse, nor does it inflict any lasting damage on the soul itself, which is free to proceed on to the afterlife once the dolls fragment is secured. The soul fragment retains no memories from its former life.
CL 9th; Craft Construct, lesser geas, levitate, light, mage hand, magic jar, open/close, prestidigitation, soul of a living creature; Price 10,000 gp; Cost 6,000 gp + 320 XP.