College of the departed

Bards of the College of the Departed celebrate the occurrence of death and what comes with it. Stories told by bards of this college portray death as something to be embraced. To them, death is not simply the end of something, but also a new beginning. The death of a person leaves behind it a legacy to be cultivated and memories that people can look back on fondly.

Their connections to death also give bards of this college the ability to raise the recently departed, in what most would consider a perverse act of celebration to the very process they claim to revere. However, these bards will simply say that undeath is one of the many new beginnings that can happen after death.

Spirits from the Grave

The spirits of the afterlife constantly linger over you. You learn the spare the dying cantrip if you haven’t already, which counts as a bard cantrip for you but doesn’t count against the number of bard cantrips you know.

Additionally, when you give a Bardic Inspiration die to a creature, you can choose a number of targets within 5 feet of the creature up to your Charisma modifier. You then roll the die, and the target takes necrotic damage equal to the roll (this roll doesn’t expend the creature’s use of the Bardic Inspiration die).

 

Celebration of Death

Your outlook on death allows you to bring back the recently departed in order to serve you. Starting at 3rd level, as a bonus action, you can choose the corpse of a humanoid that you can see within 30 feet of you and expend a use of Bardic Inspiration to raise it back from the dead as a ghoul. You can also use this feature as a reaction to seeing a humanoid die.

The undead is under your control for a number of hours equal to your bard level, after which it stops obeying any command you have given it.

In combat, the undead shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but the only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take another action (if you control multiple undead with this feature, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). That action can be one in its stat block or some other action. If you are incapacitated, the undead can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge.

At additional levels, you can animate more corpses with this feature, provided the additional corpse is within 30 feet of the first one. At 5th level, you can use this feature to animate two ghouls or a ghast (your choice); at 10th level you can animate three ghouls, two specters, or a mummy or wight (your choice); at 15th level you can animate four ghouls, two ghasts, or a ghost or a banshee (your choice).

Souls of the Departed

At 6th level you gain the ability to capture the souls of the departed. When an undead perishes, you can use your reaction to catch a sliver of its remaining life essence that takes on a physical form: a Tiny trinket that appears in your free hand. The DM determines the trinket's form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player's Handbook to generate it. You can have a maximum number of soul trinkets equal to half your Charisma modifier (rounded up) and you can't create one while at your maximum.

You can use the soul trinket in the following ways:

• While you are holding a soul trinket, you gain resistance to necrotic damage and have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
• If you give the soul trinket to a creature, it can use the trinket as a Bardic Inspiration die, rolling a d6 and adding the number rolled to an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw it makes. A creature can only hold one soul trinket, and it cannot use this trinket and a Bardic Inspiration die on the same turn.
• As an action, you can destroy one of your soul trinkets. When you do so, you can ask the spirit associated with the trinket one question. The spirit appears to you and answers in a language it knew in life. It's under no obligation to be truthful, and it answers as concisely as possible, eager to be free. The spirit knows only what it knew in life, as determined by the DM.

Precipice of Death

At 14th level your stories celebrating the occurrence of death have allowed you to bestow others the ability to walk the path of death briefly. If a creature that reaches 0 hit points has your Bardic Inspiration die or a soul trinket created with your Souls of the Departed feature, it doesn’t fall unconscious. The Bardic Inspiration die or soul trinket is then immediately expended (the creature chooses which item is expended). While the creature has 0 hit points, taking damage causes death saving throw failures as normal, and three death saving throw failures can still kill it. If the creature still has 0 hit points at the end of its next turn, it falls unconscious. A creature can only be affected in this way once, and can't be affected again until the end of your next long rest.