College of Contracts

"I am obligated to pay 25% of all my earnings back to the College, bi-monthly. There's more to the contract than that, but I won't bore you with the fine details. Suffice to say: I should have stayed in art school."

-Oryon the Obligated

The best performance of all is the art of the deal and law.

A Bard that studies at the College of Contracts puts down the lute in favor of the quill. They are arbitrators and scholars, their "entertainment" displayed through careful study, as well as service to various parties in creating magically binding contracts.
They travel the realm offering their services to Kings, officials, and lay folk that just want their neighbor to keep to their side of the field.

They are often highly regarded due to their inability to tell lies and their vast knowledge of history and law, not to mention the practical uses of their magics.

At the College of Contracts, courses include instruction from devils, fey, celestials and eldritch abominations.
You will learn all mortal and mundane law currently in use in your realm, past law from fallen empires, as well as law theory created by philosophers and scholars.

Upon graduation, you will be intimately familiar with infernal and divine doctrine as it pertains to oaths and pacts, as well as several of the fey's High Court systems. You will also learn some of the seemingly arbitrary, and often contrary, rules that sometimes (but usually not) govern unknowable eldritch entities.

The College of Contracts works closely with and employs Paladins of Crown and Devotion to act as a security force within the college. They often act as bodyguards for traveling Contract Bards. When a Bard creates a Greater Contract, these Paladins are responsible for its protection at the College Archives.

When you choose this College, you may use a quill or tome as your spellcasting focus instead of an instrument. 

Conviction of Truth

Your power is derived from a conviction you make with yourself: you know that law is truth, truth is power, and thus your power is truth and law. Both are subjective and agreed upon.

Your spoken and written words gain tangible power that affect the tapestry of fate and the power of the Weave.

Starting when you join the College of Contracts at 3rd level, as a consequence of your convictions, if you knowingly speak, write or indicate a direct lie, you lose the ability to create new Sworn Contracts, Greater Contracts, or use Arcane Audit for 1d4 hours.
If you knowingly tell a direct lie during this time, you add another 1d4 hours to your current number of hours without these powers.

If you are unwillingly under a magical compulsion, charm, or other similar effect, no powers are lost for any lies you are forced to tell.

For each day you go without breaking the conviction detailed above, gain a number of Pure Potential points equal to half your deception skill bonus, rounded down. 

Sworn Contract

At 3rd level, you learn to emulate the binding abilities of Fey, Fiends, Celestials and the unspeakable horrors that loom in the cosmos.
Through this power, you can manipulate fate to create a Sworn Contract, collecting a creature's raw potential in the process.

A Sworn Contract is a verbal agreement between yourself and another creature, or between at least two creatures with your power acting as intermediary. All creatures must be within 60 feet of you.
To create a Sworn Contract, at least two willing creatures (as detailed above) must agree to abide by terms you verbally detail. They must communicate their willing intent through verbal communication or through some other clear action, like a head nod.
The terms must include a phrase detailing an action the creatures must do, or not do. The action can be as complicated as studying an ancient tome in great detail and sharing the findings with every scholar the creature knowingly comes across, or as simple as not attacking a specified individual(s).

After the terms are declared and all participating creatures assent, you may spend one point of Bardic Inspiration and as a bonus action or reaction speak a word or mime a gesture to create the Sworn Contract. A scroll, book, tome, piece of parchment, or any other equivalent item you choose manifests from thin air next to you detailing the terms, then disappears the next instant. The way in which it manifests and the language written on the contract is up to you, but it must be a language you can speak.

Breaking a Sworn Contract causes backlash in the form of reducing one ability score by a single point. You choose which ability score a creature has reduced, and you immediately know when a Sworn Contract is broken, and which specific contract. This backlash can only be removed by a Remove Curse, Greater Restoration, or Wish spell, and the creature suffers from one level of exhaustion when it is removed. Only a single ability score reduction can be removed at a time, and each removal causes a new level of exhaustion. The Sworn Contract is then erased from existence.
A creature that breaks a Sworn Contract only suffers from the negative effects of the same contract once.

If a creature breaks a Sworn Contract, you receive one point of Pure Potential as compensation as you limit their possibilities and collect that potentiality for yourself. You can only collect a single point from the same creature. Collecting more from that creature requires additional Sworn Contracts.

Creatures under a magical compulsion, charm, or other similar effect cannot agree to a Sworn Contract.

If you die, any active Sworn Contracts become null and lose all effect.

Fine Print

Also at 3rd level, you may choose to store one of your spells into the backlash effect of your Sworn Contracts.

You must expend a spell slot as if you cast the spell when you create a Sworn Contract, and spend a number of Pure Potential points equal to the spell's level. The spell must target at least one creature. A creature that breaks the contract becomes the sole target of the spell, and the spell automatically hits or affects the creature. Once used, the spell fades from the Sworn Contract.

Spells do not require concentration when cast in this way, and the casting time becomes instant. If the spell has instructions or chosen effects, you may specify them when you create the contract. If the spell allows the creature to make saving throws past the initial throw, the creature automatically fails these throws.

The maximum spell level that can be attached to a Sworn Contract is 1st level. This changes to 2nd level when you reach level 6, and again changes to 3rd level when you reach level 14.

Greater Contract

Starting at 6th level, you learn to create a written contract that has greater power over fate and potential.

You spend 1 minute, regardless of length, magically writing down terms on a piece of parchment.
Every creature required to abide by the terms of the contract must sign it with their blood, or equivalent bodily fluid that holds the same symbology as blood. If no such fluid exists, the magic in the parchment allows the creature to create essence that has similar properties from thin air.

The terms can detail anything, but any actions a creature is required to take must be something the creature is actually capable of doing. Consequences for breaking the Greater Contract must be detailed, and the actions must similarly be possible for the creature to do. A creature with no magical powers cannot be made to manifest a fireball and kill a loved one, for example. Upon breaking the terms in the contract, a creature is magically compelled to enact the detailed consequences. This compulsion cannot be broken, as they already willingly signed their fate into the contract.

You must spend a number of Pure Potential points equal to the combined level or CR of all creatures that have signed the contract, rounding up. As an action, you then say a word or mime a gesture to create the Greater Contract.

A Greater Contract is considered a Tiny Construct. It has 50 hit points, an AC of 10, 0 movement, 0 to all stats, and cannot be targeted by spell effects like charm that require a thinking, cognizant creature. It automatically fails any physical saving throws, however. It regains 10 hit points every minute.

If a Greater Contract is destroyed, it cannot be revived and all effects of the contract immediately end.

Creatures under a magical compulsion, charm, or other similar effect cannot sign a Greater Contract.

Greater Contracts persist even after you die.

Arcane Audit

At 14th level, you hone your magical understanding of arcanic binding to the limit. This understanding of cause and effect allows you to use potential to manipulate agreements in various ways. As an action, you may use one of the following options before requiring a long rest to do so again:

Bond Scry

You read fate to fully know a contract, bargain, pact, agreement, oath, or similar arrangement, magical or mundane in nature.

You must have knowledge that such an arrangement exists, and must have a personal item belonging to one of the parties involved in the arrangement to use as a focus. This can be anything from a strand of hair, a favored weapon, or even a personal momento.

Spend 10 Pure Potential points and the written terms, words spoken, or specific ideas of the arrangement become telepathically known to you. The information appears to you in your own handwriting or voice. This does not reveal any parties involved in the arrangement, unless they are specifically mentioned in it.

Reconditic Amendment

You expend potential to nudge fate in subtle ways, altering a few words within a magical contract, bargain, pact, agreement, oath, or similar arrangement. You must touch one creature, entity, or object from the arrangement to do so, and you must know the specific wording of said arrangement.

Spend 5 Pure Potential points, then swap a word within a magical arrangement with a synonym of that word. For each 6 seconds you replace the word, spend one Pure Potential point. Each word replaced requires a single point. You may replace a number of words equal to your proficiency bonus, and must spend an additional 5 points for each word.

During the duration, you must remain in physical contact with the creature, entity, or object. If not, the effect immediately ends.

Void Agreement

You can void a single magical contract, bargain, pact, agreement, oath, or similar arrangement.
You must spend a number of Pure Potential points equal to the creature that enforces the agreement's level or CR, or if not applicable, a number decided by the DM. At least one of the creatures, entities, or objects that are subject to the agreement must be within 30 feet of you to use this ability.

Doing so makes the agreement null. Any effects from the agreement immediately end as if the agreement doesn't exist.
You then receive one level of exhaustion.