College of the Artist

While most Bards focus on the magic of story and song, a few take inspiration in other art forms. Those who study under the College of the Artist learn how to create magical inks that can bring paintings to life, as well as harness their artistic abilities to create powerful portraits to aid them in battle.

Skills of the Artist

At 3rd level, when you choose this subclass, you gain proficiency with Painter's Supplies. Additionally, you can use Painter's Supplies as a spellcasting focus for your Bard spells.

Lifelike Portrait

At 3rd level, you learn to harness your artistic expertise to create such lifelike portraits that they can step off your canvas to aid your endeavors. During a long rest, you can create magical ink to bring your drawings to life. The amount of ink you can make equals your Charisma modifier. You can create a portrait of any creature you have seen with a CR equal to or less than half of your bard level (round down) using your Painters Supplies. Painting a creature requires a canvas of equal size that you are within 5ft of during the entire time required to paint the creature. The canvas can be any flat surface such as a wall or floor. Once you have finished the painting it immediately steps out from the canvas into a space it can fit in within 5ft of the canvas you used to paint it on (if there is no available space the creature cannot form). The creature loses any spellcasting or multiattack abilities that it may have and cannot take Legendary Actions. It acts on your turn and follows your orders (no action required). The creature is clearly a painting and cannot be mistaken for a real creature. The creature lasts for 1 minute before disappearing. If the creature is reduced to 0 Hit Points it disappears. You cannot create a creature bigger than Large. If the time required is more than one action each successive action must be used to complete the painting, otherwise the painting fails. Moving 5ft or more away from where you started the painting causes it to fail. If the painting fails, you expend half the amount of ink that would be required (round up) and no creature is created. Consult the following table for the time required and ink cost relative to the size of the creature you create. 

Creature Size	Time required	Ink Cost
Tiny	1 action	1
Small	2 actions	2
Medium	2 actions	2
Large	1 minute	3

Artistic Inspiration

At 6th level, you gain the ability to use your Bardic Inspiration to alter and amplify your Lifelike Portraits. When you create one of your portraits, you can expend a use of Bardic Inspiration to gain one of the following effects:

• The time required to create a Small or Medium portrait is reduced to 1 action.
• The duration the portrait is active for is increased to 10 minutes.
• The portrait is even more lifelike. A creature must use its action to make an Investigation check against your spell save DC to determine that the portrait is not a real creature.

Masterpiece

By 14th level, you have fought against the most fearsome of foes and have learned to recreate their powerful image. You can expend additional ink uses whenever you use your Lifelike Portrait ability. If you do, you can increase the CR of the creature you create by 1 for each additional ink use you expend.