College of The Heartless

The College of The Heartless is home to bards who have mastered both dark artistry and dark magic. Taught by the various evil beings that haunt the lower planes of existence and the shadowfell, The Heartless bard will never yield in the expression of their blasphemous arts.

The Heartless have no inclination towards good, most of them are either neutral bordering on evil or outright evil, but their prefered form of art is societal mockery, dark undertones and edgy music which when executed correctly creates great positive strides in society. In medieval settings, this bard can be a jester who mocks their lord or king. In modern settings, this bard could be someone who uses the art of edgy memes to evoke negative feelings within and towards society. Good examples of Heartless bards are the musician Lil Uzi Vert and the band Black Sabbath. Both use evil and dark tones for completely separate reasons, Uzi uses his evil undertones to amplify his relatively normal music while Black Sabbath used themes of the occult and suicide to uncover the horrors within western society and the wars it waged.

Most people do not like these bards, The Heartless make people, rather force people, to look inside themselves and see the darkness that lurks in their soul. Most bards do and don’t envy them, The Heartless are almost always bad people with few gleaming exceptions, but they accomplish what every artist desires the most, to make their art move people.

 

Brutal Mockery

At 3rd level when you join this college, your mockery is infused with dark powers. You learn the Vicious Mockery cantrip if you do not already know it. This cantrip does not count against your cantrips known and if you already know Vicious Mockery you may learn any Bard cantrip instead. 

Your Vicious Mockery is altered in the following ways;

• During the rest of the round until the start of your next turn, you may make any attack roll, saving throw, ability check or damage roll the target of Vicious Mockery makes suffer a penalty equal to the amount rolled on the d4s at the cost of your reaction, you may do this an amount of times equal to your half your proficiency bonus per long rest. 
• When a target of your Vicious Mockery fails their save, they take additional Psychic damage equal to your Charisma modifier.
• On a successful saving throw, the target suffers half of the damage rolled on the d4s, does not suffer additional damage from this class feature and does not impose all other effects Vicious Mockery does.

Anti-Inspiration

Also at 3rd level, your Bardic Inspiration can be toxic to those who are weak willed, but those who pass through it are rewarded with the fullest extent of your dark power. When a creature that holds your Bardic Inspiration dice makes an attack roll, they may choose (before the roll) to suffer a penalty to the roll equal to a roll of your dice. If the attack still hits, the attack deals additional damage equal to double the penalty incurred by the roll. On a critical hit, the additional damage is triple the penalty. When you roll the penalty dice, the inspiration goes away.
For example, if a Fighter has your inspiration dice and they want to use the inspiration dice as Anti-Inspiration, they must declare the Anti-Inspiration before making the attack roll. The fighter must roll the inspiration dice, if they got a 3 they must incur a -3 penalty to the attack. If the attack still hits the attack deals 6 extra damage (amount rolled times 2), if the fighter had scored a critical hit, it would have been an extra 9 damage (amount rolled times 3)

Depressive Augmentation

At 6th level, your toxic inspiration becomes more effective. The damage dealt when an attack with Anti-Inspiration hits deals extra damage equal to your Charisma modifier. On a critical hit, the extra damage equals your Charisma modifier times 2.

Haunting of the Heartless

At 14th level, your brutal inspiration lingers on, even after it has been evoked. When a creature uses your Anti-Inspiration and hits their attack, they may use their reaction to take psychic damage equal to the maximum roll of your Bardic Inspiration dice + your charisma modifier. When this damage is taken, they may apply half of the damage they just took to one of their attacks per turn for 1 minute. On a critical hit, the additional damage is tripled.
For example, if a fighter used an inspiration dice for anti-inspiration and hit, and the dice was a d10 with a Cha mod of +5, the fighter can use their reaction to suffer 15 points of psychic damage. When they do so, for the next minute, one attack on their turn deals extra damage equal to half of 15 rounded down (7).