Order of the Malefic Veil

The Order of the Malefic Veil is dedicated to the extermination of beings whose existence corrodes mortal reality: aberrations spawned by the Old Ones, predatory fey that twist memory and oath, fiends that bargain in souls, and undead that deny the proper finality of death. Its hunters are neither conventional priests nor ordinary arcanists. They are disciplined executioners who force sanctified and forbidden magic through the living conduit of their own blood.

Where many blood hunters rely primarily upon alchemical alteration, martial drills, or inherited curses, a Veil hunter studies the points where the planes scrape against one another. They learn the names by which alien beings may be compelled, the geometries that disrupt teleportation, and the rites that turn pain into a weapon against supernatural resilience. Their spellcraft is deliberately narrow, practical, and lethal.

Members of the order are feared even by those they protect. Their methods resemble the powers they oppose: they silence spellcasters with curses, bind spirits in blood-lit chains, and tear through magical defenses by sacrificing their own vitality. The order teaches that resemblance is not surrender. Power becomes corruption only when purpose, restraint, and accountability fail.

In an adventuring company, a hunter of the Malefic Veil is a mobile striker and supernatural controller. They mark priority enemies, suppress hostile magic, defend allies from possession and fear, and punish creatures that attempt to flee across planar boundaries.

Origins in Aetheris

The first formal cells of the Order arose after repeated expeditions into the Lowerdark uncovered evidence that aberrant cults were preparing vessels for the imprisoned Old Ones. Surviving blood hunters gathered confiscated grimoires, broken witch-seals, fiendish contracts, and the field liturgies of militant clergy. From those incompatible traditions they forged a single doctrine: no one source of power was sufficient against every enemy beyond the Veil.

The order has never possessed a unified homeland. Its strongest lodges are hidden in the Helbrann League, the March of Draeven, the Concord of Veltrion, and the fortified settlements nearest known Underdark breaches. Smaller chapters operate from the Last Refuge, the Freeholds of Rhonadral, and the borderlands of the Evershade Sovereignty, where fey bargains and planar crossings require specialists willing to confront magic on its own terms.

Most lodges remain independent from temples and governments. They accept intelligence, safehouses, and legal authority from trusted allies, but refuse permanent subordination. This distance protects the order from political capture—and permits its hunters to pursue threats that powerful institutions would rather conceal.

Philosophy and Doctrine

The order’s doctrine is summarized by three precepts: know the nature of the thing you hunt, deny it the advantage of its nature, and end the threat so completely that it cannot return through another name, body, or bargain. Members are expected to distinguish the dangerous from the merely unfamiliar. A peaceful fey emissary is not quarry simply because it is fey; a mortal cultist may be more monstrous than the creature they serve.

The central moral tension of the order is the use of corruptive knowledge without becoming corrupt. Hunters record one another’s rites, review questionable executions, and preserve sealed testimony of every pact, possession, and planar contamination they survive. Solitary members often struggle most, for certainty becomes easier when no companion remains to challenge it.

Visual Identity

Veil hunters favor dark layered coats, reinforced leathers, half-cloaks, and armor marked with narrow lines of silver, bone-white enamel, or dried crimson lacquer. Their weapons bear compact warding scripts rather than ostentatious ornament. When their powers awaken, blood rises from wounds in fine luminous threads, forming halos, chains, sigils, or translucent veils around the hunter and their prey. Radiant manifestations appear as cold white or violet light; necrotic manifestations resemble black-red smoke edged in silver.

Role in Aetheris

The order serves as an occult countermeasure force. Its members investigate possessions, break hostile enchantments, pursue planar fugitives, destroy aberrant nests, and advise commanders facing enemies whose defenses invalidate ordinary tactics. Socially, they are treated as necessary but unsettling specialists. Politically, they are most valuable where governments recognize that secrecy and denial allow supernatural threats to mature unchecked.

Subclass Integration

Major polities. The Concord of Veltrion and March of Draeven may issue limited warrants to proven hunters. The Helbrann League values their Underdark expertise but watches their eldritch methods carefully. The Evershade Sovereignty alternately employs and resents them, especially when the order interferes with fey compacts.

Organizations and orders. Veil hunters cooperate with witch hunters, Deep Ruin Arcanists, the Black Watch, the Lanternwake Covenant, and independent Claret lodges. They exchange information with archives that track soul trafficking, planar contamination, and Old One activity.

Religious and philosophical movements. Clergy devoted to guardianship, truth, death’s proper passage, or resistance to corruption often become allies. The order does not claim divine sanction and rejects the idea that blood magic is automatically holy merely because it harms evil.

Rivals and enemies. Aberrant cults, fiendish contract houses, predatory fey courts, necromantic cabals, the Dominion of Xathrin’s soul traffickers, and agents of the Obsidian Hegemony are recurring enemies. Some orthodox inquisitors also condemn the order as an unacceptable compromise with forbidden power.

Subclass Features

Blood Hunter Level	Feature
3rd	Veil Spellcasting, Malefic Brand
7th	Warding Veil
11th	Baneful Channeling
15th	Malefic Transcendence
18th	Sovereign of the Final Veil

 

Optional Subclass Techniques

At the Game Master’s discretion, the following Malefic Maledicts may be selected whenever you learn a Blood Maledict.

They are available only to members of the Order of the Malefic Veil and use your normal Blood Maledict rules, save DC, amplification, and usage limits.

Maledict of Eldritch Silence

When a creature you can see within 60 feet casts a spell or begins concentrating on one, you may use your Reaction to curse it until the end of your next turn. The creature has Disadvantage on Constitution saving throws made to maintain Concentration.

Amplify. The creature must also succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be unable to provide verbal components until the end of your next turn.

Maledict of Shattered Will

As a Bonus Action, curse one creature you can see within 60 feet. Until the end of your next turn, the target subtracts one roll of your Hemocraft Die from the next Wisdom saving throw it makes.

Amplify. If it fails that saving throw, it is Frightened of you until the end of its next turn.

Maledict of the Warden’s Chains

When a creature you can see within 30 feet moves willingly or attempts to teleport, use your Reaction to force it to make a Strength saving throw.

On a failure, its Speed becomes 0 for the rest of the turn and the teleportation fails.

Amplify. On a failure, the creature is also Restrained until the end of your next turn.

Maledict of the Unmasked Shape

As a Bonus Action, curse a creature you can see within 60 feet. Until the end of your next turn, illusions disguising it flicker, it cannot willingly change shape, and it gains no benefit from being Invisible against you.

Amplify. The target must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failure, any magical transformation or disguise affecting it is suppressed until the end of your next turn.

Maledict of the Severed Gate

When a creature you can see within 60 feet creates or enters a portal, planar passage, or extradimensional opening, use your Reaction to curse the passage.

The creature must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or the movement fails.

Amplify. On a failure, the creature also takes Force damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft Die, and the opening cannot be used again until the start of your next turn.

Playing This Subclass

The Order of the Malefic Veil is a striker-controller built around identifying one or more priority targets and denying their supernatural advantages.

Open difficult encounters by applying Malefic Brand to the creature most likely to teleport, dominate allies, resist ordinary damage, or sustain a dangerous spell. Your Crimson Rite remains your primary source of reliable damage, while Veil Spellcasting supplies defensive reactions, mobility, and targeted control.

Strengths: Anti-caster disruption, resistance bypass, protection from fear and possession, pursuit of planar enemies, and strong single-target pressure.

Weaknesses: Significant Bonus Action and Reaction competition, limited spell slots, dependence on Intelligence and hemocraft resources, and reduced impact against numerous mundane enemies.

Tactical identity: Mark the most dangerous supernatural enemy, remain close enough to protect allies with Warding Veil, and spend Baneful Channeling only when a decisive spell must land.

Roleplaying This Subclass

A Veil hunter may be a severe inquisitor, a pragmatic scholar, a scarred survivor, a patient guardian, or a former cultist who understands the enemy too well.

The defining question is not whether the hunter uses forbidden knowledge, but what limits they place upon themselves.

Who reviews their judgments? Which creature types do they distrust unfairly? What evidence would make them spare a being their order was founded to destroy?

Faction and Organization Connections

Claret lodges and independent blood hunter circles: Training, safehouses, and disciplinary review.

Black Watch and Deep Ruin Arcanists: Shared operations against Lowerdark cults and aberrant infestations.

Lanternwake Covenant: Cooperation against slavers, possessed crews, soul trafficking, and occult piracy.

Witch hunters and sanctioned inquisitors: Uneasy alliances, often strained by disagreements over method and authority.

Primary enemies: Old One cults, fiendish brokers, predatory fey courts, vampire houses, liches, soul merchants, and planar infiltrators.

Adventure Hooks

• A branded aberration survives its apparent death, and the mark begins moving beneath the skin of an innocent child.
• A Helbranni lodge vanishes overnight, leaving only perfectly folded uniforms and a door that opens into moonlit woodland.
• A fiend offers the order proof that a celebrated inquisitor has been manufacturing possessions to justify executions.
• An ancient Lowerdark seal is failing, but repairing it requires the true name of a fey sovereign who refuses all mortal contact.
• Every corpse in a border fortress rises at sunset—not as undead, but as living copies that remember dying.
• A senior Veil hunter has begun branding political opponents who show no sign of supernatural corruption.

Notable NPCs

Magistra Elske Dornveil

A Helbranni lodge-master who lost half her company beneath the Greypeaks. She is meticulous, emotionally controlled, and relentless about written review of every execution.

Sareth Vaun, the Kindly Chain

A Draymari field hunter known for negotiating with non-hostile fey and destroying those who exploit hospitality. His mercy has earned him as many enemies inside the order as outside it.

Ilyra Pennant-Ash

An Aurimundan investigator attached to Lanternwake operations. She specializes in fiendish contracts, soul-ledgers, and identifying when a “voluntary” bargain was engineered through coercion.

Balance Notes

Intended Role: Striker and controller with secondary defensive support.

Damage Profile: Malefic Brand adds focused damage comparable to other martial subclass riders but requires a Bonus Action, limited uses, and sustained target access.

Survivability: Psychic and Necrotic resistance arrive gradually. Broad damage resistance is confined to the 18th-level transformation and applies only against branded creatures.

Utility: Strong against charm, fear, possession, teleportation, concealment, and supernatural resilience; deliberately less influential in purely mundane encounters.

Resource Economy: The subclass competes for Bonus Actions, Reactions, Blood Maledicts, spell slots, and self-inflicted hemocraft damage. This prevents all features from being used at maximum output simultaneously.

Comparison: The subclass occupies a space between an occult martial caster and an anti-supernatural warden. Its spell progression is intentionally limited rather than using full half-caster progression, preserving the Blood Hunter’s martial identity and avoiding excessive spell-slot scaling.

Summary

The Order of the Malefic Veil transforms the Blood Hunter into a disciplined occult countermeasure specialist. Its members combine Crimson Rites, targeted spellcasting, supernatural wards, and blood-forged curses to hunt aberrations, fey, fiends, and undead without becoming helpless against other foes.

In Aetheris, they stand at the most dangerous thresholds—where the Lowerdark, the planes, and mortal ambition threaten to tear reality open.

“Your lies, your magic, your escape—all end here, in the chains of my blood.”

Spellcasting

Action Type	Uses	Duration	Scaling
Passive	At-will	Permanent	Spell slots and spells known scale by Blood Hunter level

You have learned to force fragments of divine and eldritch magic through the discipline of hemocraft. See the Veil Spellcasting table for your spell slots and spells known.

Cantrips

You learn two cantrips of your choice from the Warlock spell list. At 10th level, you learn one additional Warlock cantrip of your choice.

Spell Slots

The Veil Spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your 1st-level and higher spells. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a Long Rest.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know three 1st-level spells of your choice, two of which must be chosen from the abjuration, divination, or necromancy spells on the Warlock spell list. The Spells Known column shows when you learn additional spells. Each spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

Whenever you gain a Blood Hunter level, you may replace one spell you know with another eligible spell from the Warlock spell list.

Order Spells

The spells in the Order of the Malefic Veil Spells table are always known by you and do not count against your number of spells known. They count as Blood Hunter spells for you.

Spellcasting Ability

Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells, reflecting your study of planar law, occult anatomy, and hostile magic.

Spell Save DC = 8 + your Proficiency Bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spell Attack Modifier = your Proficiency Bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spellcasting Focus

You may use a weapon bearing your active Crimson Rite, a blood hunter’s focus, or a component pouch as a spellcasting focus for your Blood Hunter spells.

Veil Spellcasting

Blood Hunter Level	Cantrips	Spells Known	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
3rd	2	3	2	—	—	—
4th	2	4	3	—	—	—
5th	2	4	3	—	—	—
6th	2	4	3	—	—	—
7th	2	5	4	2	—	—
8th	2	6	4	2	—	—
9th	2	6	4	2	—	—
10th	3	7	4	3	—	—
11th	3	8	4	3	—	—
12th	3	8	4	3	—	—
13th	3	9	4	3	2	—
14th	3	10	4	3	2	—
15th	3	10	4	3	2	—
16th	3	11	4	3	3	—
17th	3	11	4	3	3	—
18th	3	11	4	3	3	—
19th	3	12	4	3	3	1
20th	3	13	4	3	3	1

Order of the Malefic Veil Spells

Blood Hunter Level	Spells
3rd	Hex, Shield of Faith
7th	Branding Smite, Misty Step
13th	Counterspell, Spirit Shroud
19th	Banishment, Phantasmal Killer

Malefic Brand

Action Type	Uses	Duration	Scaling
Bonus Action	Proficiency Bonus per Long Rest	1 minute	Damage increases at 11th and 18th level

As a Bonus Action, choose one creature you can see within 60 feet. The target is branded for 1 minute, until you are Incapacitated, or until you brand another creature. You immediately learn whether the target is an Aberration, Fey, Fiend, or Undead.

While the creature is branded, you gain the following benefits:

• Once on each of your turns when you hit the branded creature with a weapon bearing your Crimson Rite, you deal extra Radiant or Necrotic damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft Die. You choose the damage type when you deal the damage.
• Your Crimson Rite damage and Blood Maledicts ignore resistance possessed by the branded creature.
• The branded creature cannot become hidden from you by magical means while it remains within 120 feet of you, and you know its direction while it is on the same plane of existence.
• If the branded creature is an Aberration, Fey, Fiend, or Undead, it has Disadvantage on ability checks made to escape your grapple or to conceal its nature from your Hunter’s Bane.

The extra damage increases to two rolls of your Hemocraft Die at 11th level and three rolls at 18th level.

You regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Warding Veil

Action Type	Uses	Duration	Scaling
Passive and Reaction	Reaction: Proficiency Bonus per Long Rest	Until the start of your next turn	Protective range increases at 15th level

Your blood carries a ward against intrusion from beyond the mortal mind. You gain Resistance to Psychic damage and Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed, Frightened, or Possessed.

In addition, when you or a creature you can see within 10 feet of you fails a saving throw against being Charmed, Frightened, Possessed, or forcibly teleported, you may use your Reaction to raise the Warding Veil. The creature rerolls the saving throw and must use the new roll.

If the reroll succeeds, the source of the effect takes Force damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft Die + your Intelligence modifier, provided it is within 60 feet of you.

At 15th level, the range at which you can protect another creature increases to 30 feet.

You can use this Reaction a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Baneful Channeling

Action Type	Uses	Duration	Scaling
Part of casting a spell	Proficiency Bonus per Long Rest	For that spell	Improves against your Malefic Brand

You can lace a spell with your own vitality to tear through supernatural defenses. When you cast a Blood Hunter spell of 1st level or higher, you may take Necrotic damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft Die. This damage cannot be reduced or prevented.

Choose one creature affected by the spell. Against that creature, the spell gains the following benefits:

• The spell ignores resistance to Radiant, Necrotic, Psychic, or Force damage.
• If the spell requires a saving throw, the chosen creature has Disadvantage on its first saving throw against the spell.
• If the spell requires a spell attack roll, you gain Advantage on the first spell attack roll you make against the chosen creature as part of the spell.
• If the creature is currently affected by your Malefic Brand and it succeeds on the first saving throw against the spell, it still takes half damage if the spell would normally deal no damage on a successful save.

You may use Baneful Channeling a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest. You may use it only once per spell.

Malefic Transcendence

Action Type	Uses	Duration	Scaling
Passive and Triggered	At-will; Harvest benefit once per turn	Permanent or until Temporary Hit Points are lost	Enhances rites, brand, and defenses

Your body has become a stable threshold between blood, spell, and judgment. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain Resistance to Necrotic damage. If you already have Resistance to Necrotic damage from another source, you instead gain Advantage on saving throws against effects that would reduce your Hit Point maximum.
• When you deal Crimson Rite damage, you may choose for that damage to be Radiant or Necrotic instead of the rite’s normal damage type.
• Your weapon attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks.

Harvest the Banished

When a creature affected by your Malefic Brand is reduced to 0 Hit Points within 60 feet of you, choose one of the following Harvest benefits:

• You gain Temporary Hit Points equal to your Blood Hunter level + your Intelligence modifier.
• You regain one expended use of your Blood Maledict.
• You regain one expended use of Warding Veil.

You can gain only one Harvest benefit per turn.

Final Severance

When you reduce an Aberration, Fey, Fiend, or Undead affected by your Malefic Brand to 0 Hit Points, you may sever its tie to the Veil.

Until the end of your next turn, its remains cannot be transformed, animated, possessed, teleported, or used as the origin of a magical effect.

If the creature would normally return to life or reform automatically, that return is delayed for 7 days. A Wish spell or direct divine intervention can end this delay early.

Sovereign of the Final Veil

Action Type	Uses	Duration	Scaling
Bonus Action	Once per Long Rest	1 minute	Capstone transformation

As a Bonus Action, you become a living breach-seal for 1 minute. A mantle of blood-lit sigils and silent chains surrounds you in a 30-foot Emanation. The state ends early if you are Incapacitated.

While it lasts, you gain the following benefits:

• You may apply Malefic Brand to one creature you can see at the start of each of your turns without expending a use or requiring an action. You may maintain brands on a number of creatures equal to your Intelligence modifier, with a minimum of two creatures.
• You have Resistance to all damage dealt by creatures affected by your Malefic Brand.
• Creatures affected by your Malefic Brand cannot teleport, become Ethereal, travel to another plane, or benefit from Invisibility while within your Emanation. A creature may attempt a Charisma saving throw against your Hemocraft save DC at the start of each of its turns, suppressing this restriction until the start of its next turn on a success.
• Once on each of your turns, when you deal damage to a branded creature, you deal additional Radiant or Necrotic damage equal to three rolls of your Hemocraft Die. This replaces, rather than adds to, the extra damage normally granted by Malefic Brand.
• When you use Warding Veil, you do not expend a use of that feature.
• When a branded creature within your Emanation is reduced to 0 Hit Points, you may immediately move up to half your Speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks and make one weapon attack or cast one cantrip with a casting time of one Action.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a Long Rest.