Base Class: Rogue
Many rogues walk a fine line between life and
death, risking their own lives and taking the lives of
others. While adventuring on that line, some rogues
discover a mystical connection to death itself. These
rogues take knowledge from the dead and become
immersed in negative energy, eventually becoming
like ghosts. Thieves' guilds value them as highly effective
information gatherers and spies.
Many shadar-kai of the Shadowfell are masters
of these macabre techniques, and some are willing
to teach this path. In places like Thay in the Forgotten
Realms and Karrnath in Eberron, where many
necromancers practice their craft, a Phantom can
become a wizard's confidant and right hand. In temples
of gods of death, the Phantom might work as
an agent to track down those who try to cheat death
and to recover knowledge that might otherwise be
lost to the grave.
How did you discover this grim power? Did
you sleep in a graveyard and awaken to your new
abilities? Or did you cultivate them in a temple or
thieves' guild dedicated to a deity of death?
Whispers of the dead
Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you can choose
one skill or tool proficiency that you lack and gain
it, as a ghostly presence shares its knowledge with
you. You lose this proficiency when you use this feature
to choose a different proficiency that you lack.
Wails of the dead
Immediately after you deal your Sneak
Attack damage to a creature on your turn, you can
target a second creature that you can see within
30 feet of the first creature. Roll half the number of
Sneak Attack dice for your level (round up), and the
second creature takes necrotic damage equal to the
roll's total, as wails of the dead sound around them
for a moment.
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.
Tokens of the departed
When a life ends in your presence, you're able to
snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of
its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction
when a creature you can see dies within 30
feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause
a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. 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 your proficiency bonus, and you can't create
one while at your maximum.
You can use soul trinkets in the following ways:
• While a soul trinket is on your person, you have
advantage on death saving throws and Constitution
saving throws, for your vitality is enhanced by
the life essence within the object.
• When you deal Sneak Attack damage on your
turn, you can destroy one of your soul trinkets
that's on your person and then immediately use
Wails from the Grave, without expending a use of
that feature.
• As an action, you can destroy one of your soul
trinkets, no matter where it's located. 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.
Ghost walk
As a bonus action, you assume
a spectral form. While in this form, you have
a flying speed of 10 feet, you can hover, and attack
rolls have disadvantage against you. You can also
move through creatures and objects as if they were
difficult terrain, but you take ldlO force damage if
you end your turn inside a creature or an object.
You stay in this form for 10 minutes or until you
end it as a bonus action. To use this feature again,
you must finish a long rest or destroy one of your
soul trinkets as part of the bonus action you use to
activate Ghost Walk.
Death's friend
Your association with death has become so close
that you gain the following benefits:
• When you use your Wails from the Grave, you can
deal the necrotic damage to both the first and the
second creature.
• At the end of a long rest, a soul trinket appears in
your hand if you don't have any soul trinkets, as
the spirits of the dead are drawn to you.