Loan Shark Patron

When you fell on hard times, you struck a deal to make ends meet with an unsavory type - who also happens to wield immense power.

Your patron is a Loan Shark - someone who preys on the desperate by promising money, or in this case, the power to earn your own money - but you owe the loan shark a sum that will be challenging to pay off. Your contract is likely rife with hidden fees, unrealistic timelines, exponential interest, and cancellation clauses that could result in your ...termination.

Recommended gold piece value that must be paid back to your patron (economy depending, consult GM): 10,000gp. You will likely have to make weekly payments (ex; 100gp/week) or risk supernaturally strong enforcers being sent to collect any missed payments.

Your Patron's tenants are:

1. Greed is the fastest way to power
2. No loot left behind
3. A signature is a signature - context doesn't matter
4. Reading contracts is for nerds
5. Don't cross the family

Level 3: Unnatural Speed

When you gain the Loan Shark Patron subclass, you receive the following:

• Your DEX attribute becomes 19, and can't be increased or decreased.
• You can now take two bonus actions per turn.
• Your movement speed increases by 5ft.

Desperate Thievery

You gain advantage on sleight of hand checks made to steal items or pick pockets, and your mage hand cantrip receives the following modifications:

• It is invisible (only visible to you) and can be cast without verbal or somatic components.
• The range and the carry weight capacity of mage hand are doubled.
• You can make your sleight of hand checks through the mage hand.

Modified Bag of Devouring

You gain a modified Bag of Devouring that you can neither destroy or get rid of. 

Gold pieces placed into this bag vanish and are sent directly to your Patron for the purpose of making payments on your loan.

Items may also appear in the bag if they are sent to you by your Patron.

Level 6: Decoy

At level 6: As an action, you can create an illusory copy of yourself that can immediately move up to your speed, or obey another telepathic command as a part of the same action. Your Decoy shares your initiative but takes its turn right after yours. You can issue psychic commands to your decoy as a bonus action on subsequent turns. If you do not, it only takes the dodge action. It may both move up to your speed and take one action that you command.

You also gain the invisible condition at the same moment that your Decoy appears.

Your Decoy is semi-physical, it can both interact with objects or others as well as be interacted with physically, and has the following stats:

• AC equal to your own
• HP equal to your level
• Unarmed attack: Spellcasting modifier + proficiency to hit, 1d4 Temporary psychic damage.

Temporary damage dealt by your decoy is restored when the illusion is shattered; either by reaching 0hp, through your free-action dismissal, or if dispelled. 

Level 10: Duplicitous Decoy

At level 10: You gain the ability to swap positions with your decoy as a bonus action, and when you do so you grant it 2d6 temporary hit points.

Level 14: Part of the Family

Requires good standing with your Patron.

At level 14: You join your Patron's crime family, and gain the ability to make loan contracts in exchange for a limited selection of power. You can only bestow one power per contract, and one contract per person. 

Consult the table below for powers that you can bestow on behalf of your patron, and their recommended loan cost (variable based on world economy):

• Unnatural Speed - 5000gp
• Decoy - 5000gp
• Desperate Thievery - 2500gp
• Patsy Spells (always prepared) - 2500gp

Additionally, you can sell contracts that you secure to your Patron to reduce your own loan by an amount equal to the contracted amount. If you do, you also receive 20% of the contracted amount as a lump sum which appears in your Modified Bag of Devouring. To sell contracts, simply place a signed contract into your Modified Bag of Devouring. 

When you sell a contract to your Patron, the contract signer becomes indebted to your Patron as well. They gain a Modified Bag of Devouring and must start making regular payments, enforceable by your Patron.