College of Inkslinging

As an Inkslinger, your excel in creating magical artwork, most often this takes the form of various permanent and temporary tattoos on either yourself or your companions bodies. These can be created with henna, ink, paint, stain, or any one of several other mediums, though often the inks must be specially prepared well ahead of time and are treated as if potions with a number of doses created from a single recipe. Most of the inks are simple to make (materials readily available). The materials for them can be purchased for gold at a cost of 5 gold multiplied by the level of the tattoo. However, special inks will often require special ingredients that may have to be sought out and sometimes are not particularly easy to acquire.

The Inkslinger creates what are called "Works". These are magical creations which can be either complex or simple in nature consisting of anything from a single runic symbol painted in haste to a complex fresco painted across the walls of a city. Their works can inspire, bolster, ensnare, and even come to life and fight.

Occupied Relaxation

The Inkslinger spends short and long rests working on tattoos, artworks, drawings, and other magical preparations, but for them this is the most relaxing and restful thing. Treat each hour that an Inkslinger spends working during any rest as if they were unoccupied and sleeping.

Practiced Scribe

While particularly artistic, the Inkslinger's ability to create readable and fine reproductions of magical writing are legendary. All Inkslinger's gain expertise in the Arcana skill and reduce the cost of any spell scroll which they have the correct level of ink to scribe to zero (beyond the cost of the ink itself) and the time required is halved.

Permanent Tattoos

The Inkslinger's cantrip level tattoos, when applied to themselves, are permanent and can be activated over and over like any other cantrip. Cantrip tattoos applied to others still disappear after a use or two (unless otherwise specified by the spell tattoos description). 

Living Skin

At 3rd level when the Bard joins the college of Inkslinging they can choose 2 tattoos to place on their skin. The tattoos can take any form that the Inkslinger wants but will fill one of the following roles.
     - An Unkindness of Ravens - Scout, Flying -
     - Nine Tailed Fox Kit - Scout, Inconspicuous -
     - Bone Spider - Combat, Support -
     - Three Eyed Tiger - Combat Aggressive -
     - Red Dragon - Combat, Defensive -
     - Quickling - Non-Combat, Rogue -

Using of your bardic inspirations you can conjure one of your tattoos into a physical form. The tattoo will remain until dismissed, killed, or until the Inkslinger next sleeps. The Inkslinger can never have more than one tattoo active at one time.

An Unkindness of Ravens

Using one of your bardic inspirations you bring to life the tattoo of a flock of dire black birds to spy upon and distract your enemies.

Bone Spider

Using one of your bardic inspirations, you summon forth a bone spider to harry and disturb your enemies. Its almost as cute as the Nine Tailed Fox Kit.

Nine Tailed Fox Kit

Using one of your bardic inspirations, you summon forth the form of a nine tailed fox kit to serve you as a spy, or maybe a thief, or maybe just cause its so darn cute.

Quickling Tattoo

Using one of your bardic inspirations you conjure a Quickling from your tattoo to assist you in opening a door, or a pocket, or probably something else that didn't belong to you, kudos.

Red Dragon

Using one of your bardic inspirations you conjure the powerful Red Dragon Tattoo.

Three Eyed Tiger

Using one of your bardic inspirations you can call forth the physical manifestation of your Three Eyed Tiger Tattoo.

Tattoo Spells

You can trade 1 normal spell slot for 2 tattoo spell slots of the same level. Only tattoo spells can be used with tattoo spell slots. You will have to keep up with this information manually as I have found no mechanic to add or change spell slots for a character.

Creating Tattoo Spells as Rituals
While most ritual spells must be cast at their initial level, the same is not true for creating ritual tattoos. This is because each different spell level used has its own requirements for any spell, each using different inks and requiring increased amounts of time. Rituals require one additional hour per level of the spell being turned into a ritual (this is in addition to the normal time required to produce the spell tattoo. So since cantrip tattoo spells usually take 30 minutes the ritual version would require 1 hour and 30 minutes to produce. (The Practiced Scribe class ability does not affect ritual tattoo time requirements).

Why create a ritual tattoo at all?
Ritual tattoos, like ritual spells, do not require a ritual tattoo spell slot to maintain. So each member of your party (given enough time and materials) can all have an Angelic Spirit Tattoo waiting to be used for emergencies and can activate them without the assistance of the Inkslinger. This is not true for the normal spell tattoos, which can only be activated by the Inkslinger. The second reason is that a ritual tattoo can have charges rather than being usable once and then disappearing. Adding a charge to a ritual tattoo requires materials one spell level higher than the original tattoo (except 9th level tattoos which cannot have charges added), and the normal ritual time required is doubled.

Inkslinger Cover-Up

By using one of your bardic inspirations you can transform your physical body into liquid ink and reform your appearance into any shape you like, as if a living tattoo. You cannot significantly change your mass, though you can appear up to a foot taller or shorter than your real height. This form does not have to be humanoid, though the mass limitations remain the same even if you change into a horse. It will simply be a horse that weighs exactly as much as you do and is roughly the same size as you are. This transformation lasts for up to one hour or until dismissed as a bonus action. You may spend additional bardic inspirations to increase the duration on this effect but gain only 30 additional minutes for the first, 15 additional minutes for the second, and 5 for the third. Once the effect ends you cannot use Inkslinger Cover-Up again until you finish a long or short rest. 

If used to imitate someone you gain no memories or personal knowledge of that person that you did not already have. While attempting to impersonate the person around anyone familiar with them you will suffer from disadvantage on any deception skill tests related to convincing them of your identity. A DC (16) Insight test is required to see through the deception but does not reveal your true identity.

Ink in the Blood

You may now conjure and switch your living skin tattoos without using a bardic inspiration. If the physical manifestation of one of your tattoos is killed or otherwise destroyed it will have only one health when recalled until the Inkslinger has taken a long rest. After a long rest all Living Skin Tattoos physical forms are renewed.

Inkslinger's Charms

You can transform physical items into tattoos and apply them to your body for later retrieval. The items size does not change, so you must have a large enough area of skin to place it. Retrieving an item requires two full actions, as does placing an item on your skin. Once placed as a tattoo items have no weight. Items containing other items can be placed but the two action retrieval rule still applies.

Retrieving an item is a silent process using an act of will. The only evidence of the process is a small waft of colored mist (the color of the item) moving from the tattoo to the hand of the Inkslinger that last roughly 8 - 10 seconds depending on the items size. Slight of hand can be used to help mask this but even without that it requires a DC 14 perception check for someone to notice the mist.