Silent Mage

The Weave touches all, to some degree or another. Some individuals may have a natural talent for learning magic, save for a particular biological handicap. Being unable to speak, whether due to muteness or deafness, can be particularly crippling for one hoping to become a mage. Magic is powerful, and can restore someone’s vocal cords or ears to functioning capacity with little effort from a high-level cleric. But what if they were never there to begin with? You cannot restore what never existed.

However, some wizards have taken it upon themselves to teach these individuals despite the natural limitations set upon them. The fruits of these labors are known as Silent Mages. Silent Mages cannot invoke spells through their voices, and thus focus on what they can do, even finding work-arounds to spells that normally require the spoken word.

Students of other colleges typically guffaw at the idea of Silent Mages. “You can’t even cast Prestidigitation? What kind of mage are you?” That is, until they say this to the wrong mage, and they’re suddenly looking down the wrong end of an ancient black dragon’s snout.

Sign Language

Silent Mages have produced a way of communicating with each other. Using magic, you can weave the thoughts you wish to convey through your hand gestures, and another Silent Mage will always interpret them accurately. Another wizard of a different archetype must pass a DC 12 Arcana check to discern your meaning. A non-wizard must pass a DC 15 Insight check to understand you. If either fails by 10 or more, they horribly misinterpret your meaning, at the DM’s discretion.

Specialized Savant

Being unable to communicate verbally means your primary learning method is the written word. When copying spells from another spell book or scroll to yours, you expend half the time and money you normally would.

Because of your efficiency, you also have additional spell slots at your disposal. You have an additional slot for every level of spells that you can cast, up to and including 8th level. You cannot use these slots in conjunction with Silent Speech nor Practice Makes Perfect.

Silent Speech

Starting at 6th level, you have learned a way to cast spells that require a verbal component in other ways. If a spell requires a verbal component but does not require a material one, or requires a material one without a cost and that is not consumed, you may use (10 * the spell’s level) gp in place of the verbal component. If the spell does require a material component with a gold cost, and/or the material component is consumed, you may double the material cost and cast the spell. You can use this feature once before finishing a long rest. At 12th level, you can use it twice between rests. At 18th, you can use it three times.

Practice Makes Perfect

Due to the limited repertoire of spells at your disposal, you find yourself casting the same spells often. You’ve learned to make these spells more powerful without expending any additional effort. Starting at 10th level, whenever you cast a spell that does not normally require a verbal component, the spell is upcast by one level while expending the normal spell slot. For instance, casting Counterspell at 4th level expends a 3rd level slot. You must be able to cast spells at the higher level to use this feature. Spells cast at will, such as through Signature Spells, do not benefit from this feature, and neither do spells cast using a magic item.

Psychic Communication

At 14th level, you have learned to use magic to communicate with others telepathically. You gain Telepathy to 60 ft.; if you are already able to speak telepathically, your range is expanded to 60 ft; if your range is already greater than 30 ft. before applying this feature, it expands by 30 ft.

You can also use this telepathy to assault the minds of others. Using a bonus action on your turn, you can reach into the mind of an unwilling creature and choose one of the following:

• The target must make Wisdom Save equal to your Spell Save DC or be frightened of up to 5 creatures of your choice for 1 minute. They may repeat the save at the end of each of their turns. You may use your bonus action on subsequent turns to impose disadvantage on the next save they make to attempt to break free of this fear. If they succeed at any point, they are immune to being frightened by you and any creature you designated for 24 hours.
• The target must make an Intelligence Save equal to your Spell Save DC or take 2d4 psychic damage. If they succeed, they are immune to this for 24 hours.
• The target must make a Constitution save equal to your Spell Save DC or spend their next turn puking. If they are unable to puke, they mime the action. If they succeed, they are immune to for 24 hours.