The Wandbound

Wizards of the Wandbound believe that magic scattered is magic diluted. They swear a singular oath: every spell they will ever cast flows through one implement - a single wand, staff, rod, orb, or crystal, bound to them by ritual and held the way other wizards hold their convictions. They are craftsmen of devotion in an age of generalists. Where others spread their power across many tools, the Wandbound fills one hand - and never lets go.

A Wandbound wizard's implement is unmistakable: worn smooth by a single grip, warm to the touch, humming faintly when its master is angry. Disarm them and their own spells fall silent - a wise Wandbound keeps a scroll or two for exactly that hour. Fail to disarm them, and everything they cast arrives sharper, heavier, and more certain than it has any right to be. All eggs, one basket - and the basket is a cannon.

Bound Implement

One implement. Every spell of your own.

The Binding. Over the course of 1 hour of ritual handling, you can bind an arcane focus to yourself, making it your bound implement. Your bound implement counts as a magical object while the bond holds, and the bond itself is a magical effect that can't be dispelled - inside an antimagic field, you cannot summon, project, or recall the implement, though you can still hold it (casting remains impossible inside the field, as for any caster). The bond lasts until you willingly bind a different implement, or until you die. A focus already bound to another creature can't be bound - the ritual fails at the outset, and you sense the resistance immediately. Compulsion doesn't count as willingness: a binding performed under magical compulsion fails to take hold, leaving any existing bond undisturbed. Binding a new implement while your current one still exists takes 8 hours of ritual handling, which can't be combined with a long rest; replacing a destroyed implement takes the normal 1 hour. You can transfer the bond to a magic arcane focus - a wand, staff, rod, orb, or crystal with magical properties - by spending a short rest handling it (transferring is not binding anew, so the short rest governs, not the 8-hour rule). You can't transfer the bond to a focus already bound to another creature. It retains all of its magical properties, and your bond rides alongside them. Transferring the bond doesn't replace attunement: if the item requires attunement, you must still attune to it normally.

The Price. Magic flows through the bond or not at all: you must be holding your bound implement to cast a wizard spell - even a spell with no material component, and including cantrips. (A spell you readied on your turn was cast then; losing the implement before you release it doesn't stop it. If you aren't holding the implement when a spell with a casting time longer than 1 action completes, the spell fails and the slot isn't expended.) Spells you cast from other sources - racial traits, feats, or other classes' spellcasting - are unaffected by the bond. A wizard spell remains your wizard spell when cast with a spell slot gained from multiclassing - the Price and Focused Channel still apply. In all other respects your implement functions as a normal arcane focus; it substitutes only for material components with no gold piece cost.

Borrowed Magic. A spell you cast from a magic item - a scroll, staff, wand, or ring of spell storing - is the item's casting, not yours. It never requires your bound implement, and it never benefits from Focused Channel. Scrolls and staves work for you exactly as they do for any wizard.

Never Parted. As a bonus action, you can teleport your bound implement to your hand from anywhere on the same plane of existence. Extradimensional spaces - a bag of holding, for instance - block this summon. If another creature is holding it - in hand, in telekinetic grasp, or otherwise - this effect fails. If you have no free hand, it appears on the ground in your space instead - or falls at your feet if there is no ground beneath you. When an effect would cause you to drop your bound implement, or would otherwise move it out of your possession involuntarily, you can use your reaction to teleport it to the ground in your space instead - a disarm answered is still a disarm suffered, and picking it up will cost you. Magic that reshapes you - your polymorph or another's - doesn't trigger this recall; the implement melds with you and the bond waits. (If you're incapacitated, you can't use this reaction - that window stays open.)

Reforging. If your bound implement is destroyed, you can reconstitute it by spending a short rest in meditation over its remnants - or over its ashes, or the memory of it, if no remnants remain. Alternatively, as an action, you can expend one spell slot of 1st level or higher to re-manifest it in your hand instantly, feeding the bond with raw magic (if the implement still exists somewhere, this fails and the slot is not expended). Reforging remakes the implement rather than fetching it, so it works across planes. The re-manifested implement returns with the charges and expendable properties it had when destroyed - charges expended in the act of destroying it (such as a retributive strike) are gone for good. Reforging restores the object, not its spent power.

One Hand, Every Gesture. Because every wizard spell you cast is channeled through your bound implement, you can perform the somatic components of your wizard spells with the hand holding it - even for spells with no material component. When you cast a spell with a range of touch, you can deliver the touch with your bound implement instead of your hand.

Focused Channel. Every spell bent through a single point emerges sharper. While you are holding your bound implement, you gain a +1 bonus to spell attack rolls and saving throw DCs of your wizard spells you cast using your Spellcasting feature. This bonus doesn't stack with any other bonus to spell attack rolls or saving throw DCs, regardless of source - including indirect bonuses such as an increased proficiency bonus; if more than one would apply, use only the highest.

Warding Implement

The implement drinks the blow meant for its master.

When you would take damage while you are holding your bound implement, you can use your reaction to gain resistance to the triggering damage type (choose one if the triggering damage has multiple types). The resistance applies against the triggering damage and lasts until the start of your next turn. Damage you deal to yourself can't trigger this feature. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest. The resistance granted by this feature is a magical effect.

Projected Implement

The bond outgrows the hand.

As a bonus action, you can send your bound implement to hover in an unoccupied space you can see within 60 feet of you. While projected, you count as holding it for all of your features and for casting your wizard spells, and when you cast a wizard spell you can choose to originate its areas and effects from the implement's space, measuring the spell's range from the implement. Spells that require you to see the target still require your sight - the implement grants a clear path, not vision. A touch spell delivered through the projected implement uses your spell attack modifier and has a range of 5 feet from the implement. The projection ends if you recall the implement, if it moves more than 60 feet from you, or if you become incapacitated; when it ends, the implement falls gently to the ground in its space. While projected, the implement is a Tiny object with an AC of 12 + your proficiency bonus and hit points equal to five times your wizard level.

Unbroken Bond

What the mind holds, the world cannot take.

Unbroken. While you are conscious, no creature can take your bound implement from you against your will, and it can't be destroyed or moved against your will by any means - spells, effects, or mundane handling alike. Any such attempt fails, and the implement reappears in your hand, across planes if need be. You can still release it voluntarily. Compulsion doesn't count as willingness: a release performed under magical compulsion fails, and the implement stays in your hand. Nor can the implement be broken to trigger its own destructive properties: a staff of the magi's retributive strike can't be initiated while it is your bound implement, and charges absorbed beyond its maximum fizzle instead of detonating it. If the staff is at its maximum charges, it can't absorb spells at all. The bond no longer asks your permission - and no longer makes you stoop: the recall is automatic and absolute, and always returns the implement to your hand. (As noted under The Binding, this recall is suppressed inside an antimagic field.) (This protection lapses while you sleep or are otherwise unconscious: the chain is only as strong as the mind that holds it.)

Piercing Channel. When you cast a wizard spell through your bound implement using your Spellcasting feature, the spell ignores resistance to the damage it deals.

The Deep Reserve. Once per long rest, when you cast a prepared wizard spell of 5th level or lower, you can cast it at its lowest level without expending a spell slot.

Known Vulnerabilities. The bond has edges. They are load-bearing. An enemy who takes up your implement and keeps hold of it leaves your own spellcasting silenced until you break their grip or transfer the bond to another focus - the summon fails while another creature holds it, and no reaction triggers. A bag of holding is a perfect prison for it, both carried and elsewhere. Capture scenes, confiscation, planar stranding with the implement intact, and the hours you spend unconscious are real defeats for a Wandbound, and should be played as such. These are the intended hard counters to an otherwise total defense - the one thing the tradition cannot engineer away. (They bite hardest before 14th level.)