College of the Necrodancer

Necromancy is a school of magic that is rarely used by Bards. Usually it's only Wizards, Sorcerers or Warlocks that use the dead for their evil goals, but there is a secretive school of bards who have found in necromancy a new way of expressing their feelings and create art as well as an innovative way of gaining knowledge that would otherwise be lost long ago. The college of the Necrodancer does not imply literally dancing with undead, but the name references how the bards who follow this discipline are able to dance between the worlds of Life and Death, getting the best from both of them and adding it in their performances to create an unusual spectacle that people won't forget, wether that is a good or bad thing.

Bonus Proficiencies

When you join the College of the Necrodancer at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with the Arcana, History and Religion if you weren't already proficient with them.

When you try to recall knowledge about a dead person or lost civilization with the help of any Necromancy or Divination spell you double your proficiency bonus for this check.

Lorehunter's Magic

Also at 3rd level, you learn how to use your magic to gain further knowledge about magic items. You learn the spell Identify if you didn't know it before. Once you gain this feature you can cast Identify as a ritual, requiring no material components and you don't need to have the spell prepared.

Once you reach the 7th level on this class you also learn how to cast Speak with Dead requiring no material components. To cast this spell you don´t need to have it prepared.

Necrodancer's Performance

At 6th level, you learn how to call the spirits of the dead to enhance your performance.

When you use your Bardic Inspiration feature and there is at least 1 corpse within 30 feet of you, you can attempt to bind the spirit under your service. You must pass a DC 15 Persuasion (If the corpse belongs to a creature that was friendly or neutral towards you) or Intimidation (If the corpse belongs to a creature that was hostile or neutral towards you) check. If you succeed, the creature's spirit is bound to help you with your performance, and the creature that receives the dice from your Bardic Inspiration gets a bonus to their roll equal to your proficiency bonus.

Once you have used this feature, you cannot use it again until you have finished a short or long rest.

Grim Performance

Starting at 14th level, you learn how to use the Dead for a grim but spectacular purpose.

As an action you can start playing any musical instrument you are proficient with. When you do so, threads of necromantic energy start spreading from you, bringing the Dead back to life. Choose up to 5 corpses within 30 feet of you. Each corpse immediately stands up and becomes undead. You decide whether it is a zombie or a skeleton (the statistics for zombies and skeletons are in the Monster Manual), and it gains a bonus to its attack rolls and ability and tool checks equal to your spellcasting ability modifier. Additionally, each corpse gains proficiency in one weapon of your choice that you are proficient with and one musical instrument of your choice that you are proficient with. The undead you create in this way last until they are reduced to 0 hit points or until an hour has passed.

You can use a bonus action on your subsequent turns to give a mental command. The command can be given to all of them or one single command in particular to each one of them. The undead follow your commands to the best of their ability. If no command is given, the corpses will defend themselves.

Finally, you can give a general command to make the corpses help you perform a macabre song. The performance lasts for 5 minutes, and at the end of it each creature that heard it must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Bard Spell DC. A creature can choose to fail this saving throw. This performance may have a positive and inspiring effect on those who listen to it or a negative and horrendous effect, choose which one you want to cause at the beginning of the performance. If you want to change the effect before the performance ends you can do so by spending an extra minute performing, which represents the time you spend trying to change the tone of your song. At the end of the performance, a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus that were listening to your performance are subjected to the Inspire of Frighten effect depending on the final result you choose for your performance.

• Inspire: Those who heard your performance gain temporary hit points equal to your Bard level + your Charisma modifier and gain one dice of the same type as the one from yourBardic Inspiration feature. They can spend this dice like a normal Bardic Inspiration, but it lasts until they finish a short or long rest, instead of an hour.
• Frighten: A creature that hears this performance is frightened of you and your Undead servants. Additionally, when that creature hits you or any friendly creature with an attack and that creature is within 60 feet of you, you can use your reaction to roll a dice equal to your Bardic Inspiration feature dice. Once you roll it you substract the dice from the total of their roll, potentially causing that attack to miss. This feature can only be used once per creature.

A creature affected by either of these effects can repeat the Wisdom saving throw at the end of each of their turns, potentially ending the effect on a success. This effect lasts for an hour or until a creature succeeds on their saving throw, and you cannot use this feature again until you finish a long rest, though you can still use your undead servants until the hour has passed since you reanimated and they can help you in battle or in other less impressive performances.