Base Class: Cleric
Long Subclass Description and Lustria Lore
In Lustria, the Stonegaze Domain is not spoken of as a common faith. It is whispered about in ruined temples, scratched into the underside of prison bunks, painted in venom-green ink on the walls of forgotten shrines, and carved into statues that no living mason admits to making.
These clerics are known by many names across the continent: Stonegaze Priests, Gorgon Saints, Serpent-Oracles, The Unblinking, and, in the darker corners of Hidune, the Mercy That Hardens.
They are clerics touched by the divine curse of the medusa. Not all of them are born monstrous. Some begin as beautiful priests, temple guardians, cursed prophets, betrayed saints, or children marked by serpent-shaped birthmarks. Others are chosen after surviving something that should have broken them: betrayal by a lover, execution by a tyrant, abandonment in the desert, imprisonment beneath the Stitch, or an encounter with an ancient idol whose eyes still held power.
A Stonegaze cleric does not simply worship beauty, vengeance, or punishment. They worship the moment when truth becomes impossible to ignore.
They believe every soul has a shape. The coward bends. The liar coils. The cruel stand tall until judgment finds them. When the gods finally look upon the guilty, the Stonegaze cleric believes the body should reveal what the spirit already is.
Stone is not death to them.
Stone is evidence.
Stone is memory.
Stone is judgment that cannot be bribed, burned, buried, or rewritten.
The Origin of the Stonegaze Faith in Lustria
The oldest known stories of the Stonegaze Domain come from the southern jungle ruins, long before Hidune rose from the sands and before the East Lustria Trading Company began putting prices on relics that still had gods breathing inside them.
In those days, there was said to be a temple called Veyrassa’s Mirror, hidden deep beneath a canopy of black-leafed trees. It had no roof, no doors, and no altar. Instead, the temple was built around a circular courtyard filled with statues.
Hundreds of them.
Warriors. Kings. Priests. Thieves. Children. Beasts. Beggars. Lovers.
Every statue faced inward toward a single cracked stone throne.
No one knows who sat there first.
Some say it was Veyrassa, a mortal priestess cursed by a jealous god after refusing to kneel to a conquering king. Others say she was never mortal at all, but one of the first divine punishments given form: a woman crowned in serpents, with eyes made of polished amber and a voice that could make murderers confess before they understood why they were speaking.
The priests of Veyrassa did not preach in public squares. They did not bless harvests or heal noble sons after duels. They wandered into places where justice had failed.
A corrupt magistrate found standing as a statue at his own desk.
A warlord discovered frozen in stone with his hand around a child’s throat.
A merchant prince petrified in his treasure room, his lips still shaped around a lie.
These were the first signs of the Stonegaze Domain.
Not sermons.
Warnings.
The Doctrine of the Unblinking Eye
Stonegaze clerics believe the gods do not punish because they are cruel. They punish because mortals forget consequences.
The central teaching of the domain is called The Unblinking Eye. It is simple:
All things are seen. All things are weighed. All things become what they truly are.
To a Stonegaze cleric, mercy is not softness. Mercy is the chance to confess before judgment hardens. They often offer enemies one final choice before battle begins: kneel, speak truth, and be spared, or stand in defiance and be remembered as stone.
Many outsiders misunderstand them as murderers, curse-priests, or monsters. Some are. The domain attracts the wounded, the betrayed, and the furious. But the true Stonegaze faithful are not mindless avengers. They are terrifying because they are patient.
A firebrand cleric may call down wrath in seconds.
A Stonegaze cleric may watch a guilty king for twenty years.
Then, when the final lie is spoken, they look up.
And the room goes silent.
How Lustria Views Them
The people of Lustria do not agree on what Stonegaze clerics are.
In Hidune, especially in the lower slums beneath the Stitch, some people treat them as saints of last resort. When the Guild will not help, when the guards are bought, when a crime lord owns every witness, people leave offerings at cracked serpent statues: copper coins, shed snake skins, black candles, or written confessions sealed in clay.
In the shining towers above, nobles call Stonegaze clerics dangerous zealots. They fear them for the same reason guilty people fear ledgers, witnesses, and locked doors.
The East Lustria Trading Company officially classifies known Stonegaze clerics as “high-risk magical extremists,” especially after several Company officers were found petrified in a coastal warehouse, each one posed kneeling before crates of stolen temple relics.
Among sailors and merchants, there is an old saying:
“Never cheat a widow, never mock a storm, and never lie where a serpent statue can see you.”
In the jungles, some tribes still honor the Gorgon Saints as sacred punishers. They do not build prisons for the worst offenders. They build gardens.
Stone gardens.
Every statue has a name.
Every name has a story.
The Stonegaze Cleric’s Appearance
A Stonegaze cleric may look entirely mortal at first, but the domain always marks them eventually.
Their eyes often become strange: golden, green, black, white, or reflective like polished marble. Their pupils may narrow into slits. Their hair may move slightly even without wind. Some grow thin scales along the neck, spine, shoulders, or wrists. Others develop dark veins that resemble cracks in stone.
The most powerful among them may develop living serpents woven through their hair, though these serpents are not always physical creatures. Some are divine manifestations, visible only in candlelight or when the cleric is angry.
Their holy symbols are often unsettling. A cracked mirror. A serpent biting its own tail. A stone eye. A petrified hand. A small idol with no mouth. Some wear masks to protect others from their gaze, while others blindfold themselves until judgment is required.
A Stonegaze cleric entering battle is not loud.
They do not need to roar.
They simply remove the veil from their eyes.
Common Sayings of the Stonegaze Faith
“Mercy is asking once.”
“Stone does not lie.”
“The guilty always blink first.”
“Do not mistake stillness for peace.”
“A statue is just a confession that learned to hold its pose.”
“I do not curse the innocent. I reveal the condemned.”
“Look at me, if you believe yourself clean.”
Famous Stonegaze Clerics of Lustria
Saint Veyrassa, the First Unblinking
The oldest and most disputed figure of the faith. Some records call her a medusa. Others call her a priestess. Others say she was a mortal woman cursed by a god of beauty after refusing to become a king’s prize.
The most famous tale says Veyrassa was dragged before a conquering emperor who demanded she bless his war. Instead, she looked upon his army and wept. Every soldier who had slaughtered the innocent became stone where they stood.
The emperor survived because he closed his eyes.
Veyrassa told him:
“You may keep your life, little king. But you will spend it wondering why your soldiers deserved judgment and you did not.”
He never opened his eyes again.
Mother Ssalith of the Lower Flowers
Mother Ssalith is a half-mythic figure tied to the mysterious group known as the Lower Flowers. In Hidune, many believe she protected children in the deepest slums beneath the Stitch.
She wore a veil of black silk and carried a staff made from the petrified spine of a tyrant. She never accepted payment. Instead, she asked every person she saved to remember the name of someone who had been forgotten.
One story claims a gang lord once laughed at her and said:
“Old woman, you cannot scare men who already live in the dark.”
She answered:
“Good. Then you will not mind when I remove the last light.”
By morning, his entire court was found as stone, seated around a banquet table, their cups raised in eternal celebration of their own cruelty.
Ilyra Coil-Eyed, the Prison Saint
Ilyra was once a cleric imprisoned in one of Lustria’s hanging ice prisons, accused of cursing a noble house. The truth, according to forbidden records, is that she revealed the noble house had been sacrificing debtors to preserve their bloodline.
In prison, Ilyra became a protector of the weak. She never escaped. She never needed to.
The guards learned not to enter her cell without knocking.
Prisoners began carving serpents into the walls near her cell door. If someone was marked for death by the prison gangs, they could sleep outside Ilyra’s cell and be safe for one night.
When a warden ordered her execution, she looked at him through a crack in her blindfold.
The official report states he “suffered sudden mineralization of the heart.”
The prisoners tell it differently.
“She did not kill him. She made his heart honest.”
Thamen of the Still Tide
Thamen was a sailor-priest who traveled the eastern coast during the early rise of the East Lustria Trading Company. He began as a healer on merchant ships but turned toward the Stonegaze Domain after discovering that Company-backed captains were throwing sick crew members overboard to preserve cargo space.
Thamen’s sermons were calm, almost gentle.
“The sea takes all things eventually. But I see no reason she should have to swallow your crimes for you.”
He became infamous after a Company ship called The Bright Ledger returned to harbor with every officer petrified on deck. The crew survived. The cargo was untouched. The captain’s statue had both hands clamped over his own mouth.
No one knows what confession he was trying to keep in.
Relationship With Other Powers in Lustria
The Guild
The Guild treats Stonegaze clerics with caution. They are useful, powerful, and extremely difficult to intimidate. Some Guild branches secretly hire them to investigate betrayals, murders, and oathbreaking. Other branches ban them entirely because no criminal organization enjoys the presence of a priest who can turn secrets into statues.
A Guild saying goes:
“A fire cleric burns the evidence. A Stonegaze cleric becomes the evidence.”
The East Lustria Trading Company
The ELTC despises them.
The Stonegaze faith has repeatedly interfered with Company relic operations, prisoner transport, debt enforcement, and illegal temple excavations. Company documents often avoid calling them clerics and instead use terms like curse-host, serpent hazard, or petrification-capable religious asset.
The Stonegaze faithful consider this hilarious.
One carved message found in an abandoned ELTC warehouse read:
“Asset recovered. It was your conscience.”
The Right Flank
The Right Flank respects them, but not comfortably. The Baroness is said to keep at least one veiled Stonegaze oracle near her court, though whether as advisor, prisoner, weapon, or honored guest depends on who tells the story.
Some soldiers of the Right Flank paint tiny stone eyes on the inside of their shields. They believe it protects them from cowardice.
Their officers say it is superstition.
Their veterans say officers are often wrong.
The Temples of Ra’Amein
Followers of Ra’Amein, the Sky Mother, have a complicated relationship with Stonegaze clerics. Ra’Amein’s wrath is storm, protection, and vengeance for children. The Stonegaze Domain is slower, colder, and more final.
But when children are harmed, the two faiths have been known to stand side by side.
There is an old prayer shared between them:
“Let the storm find the wicked who run. Let the stone hold the wicked who remain.”
What It Feels Like to Become a Stonegaze Cleric
The calling is rarely gentle.
Many Stonegaze clerics describe the first sign as a sensation of being watched by something ancient and patient. They begin noticing lies before they are spoken. Mirrors crack when they pray. Snakes do not bite them. Statues seem to turn slightly when they pass.
Some wake from dreams with dust in their mouth.
Some find their tears hardening into tiny beads of stone.
Some hear a voice whisper:
“Look.”
One initiate wrote in her journal:
“I thought the curse was in my eyes. I was wrong. The curse is that I can no longer look away.”
Another said:
“The first time I froze a man, I screamed. The second time, I prayed. The third time, I asked him to confess first.”
A veteran Stonegaze priest gave this warning to a new acolyte:
“Your power will feel like justice. Be careful. Justice is sacred. Satisfaction is not.”
How They Act in a Party
A Stonegaze cleric can be a powerful ally, but they are rarely casual about morality. They may be kind, protective, and deeply loyal, especially to the helpless, the betrayed, and the falsely accused. However, they do not tolerate cruelty hidden behind law, wealth, or rank.
They are excellent in campaigns involving prisons, corrupt nobles, ancient ruins, cursed bloodlines, Company plots, divine judgment, or moral horror.
In a party, they may serve as:
A grim healer who believes pain should teach something.
A cursed priest trying not to become a monster.
A former temple guardian searching for stolen relics.
A prison saint protecting those no one else will defend.
A divine executioner hunting someone who escaped mortal justice.
A beautiful oracle whose face is hidden because her blessing is also a weapon.
They do not have to be evil. In fact, the best Stonegaze clerics are terrifying because they are not evil. They are controlled. They are principled. They are merciful until mercy is exhausted.
Then they are stone.
Level 3: Serpent-Tongued Priest
Your divine power carries the hiss of ancient serpents and the cold authority of a cursed oracle.
You gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Intimidation or Deception.
You also learn the poison spray cantrip. It counts as a cleric cantrip for you, but it does not count against your number of cantrips known.
In addition, you can speak, read, and write Draconic or Primordial, your choice.
Level 3: Eyes of the Cursed Idol Snippet
Your gaze carries a sliver of divine punishment. When your eyes meet another creature’s, their limbs begin to stiffen as though invisible stone is creeping through their bones.
As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your cleric spell save DC.
On a failed save, the creature is marked by your cursed gaze for 1 minute. While marked, its speed is reduced by 10 feet, and the first time it hits you with an attack on each of its turns, it takes psychic damage equal to your Wisdom modifier.
The cursed creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Level 3: Petrifying Glare
You present your holy symbol, and your eyes flash with the terrible beauty of a divine curse. Those who meet your gaze feel their flesh harden, their breath catch, and their bones grind like stone under pressure.
As an action, you use your Channel Divinity and choose a number of creatures up to your Wisdom modifier within 30 feet of you that can see you.
Each target must make a Constitution saving throw against your cleric spell save DC.
On a failed save, a creature is partially petrified until the end of your next turn. While partially petrified, the creature suffers the following effects:
- Its speed becomes 0.
- It cannot take reactions.
- The next attack roll made against it has advantage.
On a successful save, the creature’s speed is reduced by 10 feet until the end of your next turn instead.
A creature that is blind or cannot see you automatically succeeds on this saving throw.
Level 6: Serpent-Saints’ Protection
The divine serpents that coil around your soul strike back at those foolish enough to harm you.
When a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by 1d8 + your Wisdom modifier.
The attacker must then make a Constitution saving throw against your cleric spell save DC. On a failed save, the attacker takes poison damage equal to your cleric level and is poisoned until the end of its next turn.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Level 8: Divine Strike
Your weapon carries the venom of sacred serpents and the curse of petrified gods.
Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 poison or psychic damage, your choice.
When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.
Level 17: Avatar of the Gorgon Saint
You become a living idol of divine punishment. Your eyes burn like golden curses, your hair becomes a crown of holy serpents, and your skin takes on the smooth, cold sheen of carved marble.
As an action, you transform for 1 minute. For the duration, you gain the following benefits:
- You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
- You gain immunity to the poisoned condition.
- Your walking speed cannot be reduced by magical effects.
- Your Petrifying Glare becomes more powerful.
While transformed, whenever a hostile creature starts its turn within 30 feet of you and can see you, it must make a Constitution saving throw against your cleric spell save DC.
On a failed save, the creature is restrained until the start of its next turn as stone begins to crawl across its body.
If the creature is already restrained by this feature and fails the saving throw again, it becomes petrified until the end of your next turn.
A creature that succeeds on the saving throw is immune to this feature until the start of your next turn.
Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
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