As a champion, you are a warrior in the name of a deity you revere above all others. Choose one deity.

Skill

You become trained in the divine skill listed for your deity. As normal, if you're already trained in that skill, you become trained in a different skill of your choice.

Anathema

Champions care deeply about the edicts and anathema they take from their deity, sanctification, and cause. As with any implementation of edicts and anathema in the rules, these are a tool for roleplaying between you, the GM, and the other players at the table—you're still playing a nuanced character, not strictly following a script.

Acts fundamentally opposed to your deity's ideals are anathema to your faith. Learning or casting spells, committing acts, and using items that are anathema to your deity remove you from your deity's good graces.

Similarly, using items, spells, or actions that are anathema to the tenets or goals of your faith could interfere with your connection to your deity. For example, assisting with a ritual that raises undead would be anathema to Pharasma, the goddess of death. Many actions that are anathema don't appear in any deity's formal list. For borderline cases, you and your GM determine which acts are anathema.

If you perform enough acts that are anathema to your deity, you lose the magical abilities that come from your connection to your deity. The class features that you lose are determined by the GM, but they likely include your holy or unholy trait, your focus pool, and your blessing of the devoted. These abilities can be regained only if you repent by conducting an atone ritual. If your deity doesn't require the specific sanctification you had, your GM might let you retrain your sanctification and cause while still following the same deity.

Sanctification

Depending on your deity, their sanctification can make you holy or unholy. This commits you to one side of a struggle over souls. Whether you become holy, unholy, or neither will limit your choice of causes, devotion spells, and feats.

If you "can be" holy or unholy according to your deity's sanctification entry, you make that choice, and if you "must be" holy or unholy, you gain the trait automatically. If the deity lists "none," you can choose only options that don't require the holy or unholy trait. If you are holy or unholy and gain the opposing trait in some way, you lose the previous trait until you atone.

Unholy sanctification for a champion can be extremely disruptive to a typical game and should be a player character option only in appropriate adventures or campaigns where the group collectively decides to embrace them. Unholy sanctification and causes are uncommon options.

Holy: You gain the holy trait and add that trait to any Strikes you make. You gain the edict, "Do not knowingly harm innocents or fail to prevent harm to an innocent if your direct intervention could save them" and the anathema "Commit murder." Even if your game includes behavior outside the Pathfinder baseline, the acts listed there are anathema to you.

Unholy: You gain the unholy trait and add that trait to any Strikes you make. You gain the edict, "Do not put another's needs before your own or those of your deity" and the anathema "Commit an entirely altruistic act, such as giving something away in charity" and "Put anyone's needs before those of your deity." None of these prevents you from performing acts others might consider helpful, but these acts must be done with the expectation that they ultimately further your own goals or those of your deity

You zealously bear your deity's favored weapon. If it's an unarmed attack with a d4 damage die or a simple weapon, increase the damage die by one step (d4 to d6, d6 to d8, d8 to d10, d10 to d12). If the weapon is uncommon, you gain access to it, and if it's an advanced weapon, you treat it as a martial weapon for the purposes of proficiency

You're surrounded by an aura in a 15-foot emanation. It has the aura and divine traits. Any follower of your deity within the aura immediately knows you're a champion of your deity. This aura is used as the range for your champion's reaction and for various other effects. You can suppress or resume the aura as a single action, which has the concentrate trait, and it ends if you fall Unconscious.

You devote yourself to a specific cause in your deity's name. Some are limited to sanctification, as noted in parentheses. Your cause adds to your edicts and anathema and grants you a special reaction called your champion's reaction, which appears after the divider, along with its upgrades if you gain the relentless reaction and exalted reaction class features at higher levels.

Desecration (Unholy): You selfishly corrupt and destroy.

Grandeur (Holy): You exemplify the glory and splendor of the celestial realms.

Iniquity (Unholy): You destroy, take advantage, and act with dishonor.

Justice: You follow laws and mete out just punishment.

Liberation: You oppose tyranny and fight for freedom.

Obedience: You enforce hierarchies and order.

Redemption (Holy): You try to redeem those who commit wicked deeds.

Your deity's power grants you special divine spells called devotion spells, which are a type of focus spell. Choose either Shields Of The Spirit or a spell based on your deity's divine font (Lay On Hands if your deity allows heal, Touch Of The Void if your deity allows harm).

It costs 1 Focus Point to cast a focus spell. When you gain your first devotion spell, you also gain a focus pool of 1 Focus Point. You refill your focus pool during your daily preparations, and you regain 1 Focus Point by spending 10 minutes using the Refocus activity to pray to your deity or do service toward their causes.

Your devotion spells are divine spells. Your spellcasting attribute is Charisma.

Focus spells are automatically heightened to half your level rounded up. Certain feats give you more focus spells. The maximum Focus Points your focus pool can hold is equal to the number of focus spells you have, but can never be more than 3 points.

Your deity blesses your service with a boon. This might come in the form of a spirit that visits you and inhabits your items or body, a mysterious divine tattoo upon your body, or the like. Choose one of the following blessings, or any other to which you have access.

Blessed Armament: Select one weapon or handwraps of mighty blows. You gain that armament's critical specialization effect, and you grant the armament a property rune of your choice from the following list: Fearsome, Ghost Touch, Returning, Shifting, or Vitalizing. During your daily preparations, you can change the spirit to inhabit a different armament, grant a different rune, or both.

Blessed Shield: In your hands, a shield gains the minor Reinforcing rune. As you go up in level, the shield gains the reinforcing rune of your level (lesser at 7th level, moderate at 10th level, greater at 13th level, major at 16th level, and supreme at 19th level). If your shield already has the appropriate reinforcing rune for your level, or if it's a Sturdy Shield of the same level as the appropriate reinforcing rune, the shield's Hardness instead increases by 1.

Blessed Swiftness: You gain a +5-foot status bonus to Speed. If you're mounted, your mount gains the bonus instead. In addition, when the movement of one of your allies triggers an enemy's reaction while the ally is in your champion's aura, the ally gains a +2 status bonus to all defenses against that reaction.

You have spent so much time in armor that you know how to make the most of its protection. Your proficiency ranks for light, medium, and heavy armor, as well as for unarmored defense, increase to expert. You gain the armor specialization effects of medium and heavy armor.

You've learned how to inflict greater injuries with the weapons you know best. You deal an additional 2 damage with weapons and unarmed attacks in which you are an expert. This damage increases to 3 if you're a master, and 4 if you're legendary.

Prayers strengthen your divine power. Your proficiency ranks for your champion class DC and divine spell attack rolls and DCs increase to expert.

You've developed a knack for dodging danger. Your proficiency rank for Reflex saves increases to expert.

Guardian Even in the heaviest of armors, you can brace yourself against widespread effects. Your proficiency rank for Reflex saves increases to expert.

Your champion's reaction improves, typically to punish the attacker with spiritual backlash. It gains the relentless reaction benefit listed in your cause below your champion's reaction.

The power of your deity keeps your body safe from harm, as true an edifice of the faith as a great temple. Your proficiency rank for Fortitude saves increases to master. When you roll a success on a Fortitude save, you get a critical success instead.

Your faith grants mastery of your will. Your proficiency rank for Will saves increases to master. When you roll a success on a Will save, you get a critical success instead.

Your champion's reaction exalts nearby allies, allowing them to benefit as well. When you use your champion's reaction, you also get the effect listed for its exalted reaction.

You remain alert to threats around you. Your proficiency rank for Perception increases to expert.

You fully understand your weapons. Your proficiency ranks for simple weapons, martial weapons, and unarmed attacks increase to master.

Your damage from weapon specialization increases to 4 with weapons and unarmed attacks in which you're an expert, 6 if you're a master, and 8 if you're legendary.

You've mastered your arsenal of champion techniques and divine spells. Your proficiency ranks for your champion class DC and for divine spell attack rolls and spell DCs increase to master.

You shield yourself with steel as easily as with faith. Your proficiency ranks for light, medium, and heavy armor, as well as for unarmored defense, increase to legendary.

You can defy fate and continue fighting as long as you have divine energy. You gain the Hero's Defiance devotion spell.