Base Class: Cleric
In the realm of Avinera, the elves of the Midnight Dominion idolize the night and undeath. They also believe that their long lifespans are a result of a blessed bloodline bestowed upon them by the Pallid Mother herself. This concept is known as Cal'ual Ky-nes in the elven tongue, meaning "holy blood".
The priesthood of Azareth, the Bloodborn and the First Vampire, have taken this belief to new heights, having learned to weave the arcane energies that suffuse not only elven blood, but also the blood of non-elves, into their divine magic. These clerics are exemplary of the will and hunger of the Lord of Blood, and many of the highest-ranking blood domain clerics are also members of the Ki'inar'el - the Crimson Order.
Non-Elven Blood Domain Clerics
Despite the blood domain being tightly connected to the church of Azareth, a few other faiths are also able to forge a bond of blood with their divines. Examples of this include the lizardfolk venerating the Eternal Hunger, as well as the few clerics of the Mother of Pestilence, one of the many Old Gods that once held sway over the humans of Avinera.
In other worlds, the blood domain could be used by clerics beholden to Bane, Loviatar, or Cyric in Faerûn, those who adhere to the teachings of Erythnul or Iuz in Greyhawk, and by followers of The Mockery or the Blood of Vol in Eberron. In short, any evil deity tied to war, pain, suffering, and sickness could be candidates for patrons of the blood domain.
Bloodborn Weapon
Starting when you choose this domain at 1st level, you gain the ability to enhance your attacks by sacrificing your own life force. When you hit with an attack, you can use your reaction to expend one or more of your hit dice, allowing you to add a roll of the expended hit dice to your damage roll. The damage type if the extra damage is necrotic.
Once you reach 6th level, you can use any hit dice gained from the Draw Life Channel Divinity feature to enhance this feature.
Blood Magic
Starting at 2nd level, you learn to empower your divine magic by drawing on the innate arcane energy of your own blood. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, you can use your reaction to expend one or more of your hit dice. Doing so grants you one of the following benefits:
- You can give yourself advantage on the spell attack roll.
- You impose disadvantage on saving throws made to avoid the effects of your spell.
Additonally, if the spell deals damage, you can add a roll of the hit dice you expended in the casting of the spell to deal addtitional necrotic damage equal to your roll. If the spell instead heals, you can add the roll to the healing.
Channel Divinity: Draw Life
At 6th level, you can use your Channel Divinity to draw the life force from other creatures. As an action, you target a creature within 60 feet of you, forcing it to make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. A creature that fails its save has a number of hit dice equal to half your cleric level (rounded down) drained from them, you then add these hit dice to a dice pool that you can use instead of your own when using Bloodborn Weapon or Blood Magic. The normal rules for those features still apply.
A creature targeted by Draw Life that is Large or larger gains a +2 bonus to its saving throw for each size class above Medium (to a maximum of +6). A creature can willingly fail its saving throw to resist this effect.
A creature with fewer hit dice than what you can draw from them loses all their hit dice and takes necrotic damage equal to a roll of its lost hit dice.
The hit dice in your dice pool cannot be used for any other purpose than for your Bloodborn Weapon or Blood Magic, meaning you cannot use them to regain healt during a short rest, and if they aren't used before you finish a long rest, you lose access to them.
This feature has no effect on Constructs or Undead.
Divine Strike
Starting at 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon attacks with divine energy. Once on each turn when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.
Empowered Blood Magic
At 17th level, you unlock further secrets regarding Blood Magic. When you cast a spell using a higher-level spell slot, you can expend two or more of your hit dice. In addition to the normal benefits of Blood Magic, expending hit dice in this way allows you to cast the spell without expending higher level spell slots, while still benefitting from the effects of casting the spell at a higher level. For each two hit dice you expend as part of the casting of the spell, you can reduce the expended spell slot by 1.
You cannot reduce the spell slot level by more than its original level, and you cannot cast a spell using a spell slot above your current maximum spell slot level.
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