Path of Tortured Souls

Barbarians take shape from all manners of sources. For these warriors, they become powerful survivors that harness the negative energies of the spirit realm and use it to decimate their foes. Unfortunately, to attune to the woods in such a way it requires a ritual of bloody allegiance in order to properly harness it. The barbarian not only saps what tortured souls lay in the afterlife without a fitting end, they also obliterate them from existence. There is no peace for them anymore.

Barbarians who harness the power of the dread lands use it to instill horror of unimaginable proportions into their enemies while protecting their allies. It is a morally questionable route that many frowns upon yet cannot deny its value as a means to last one more day. A barbarian’s life is sacrifice; whether or not the barbarian uses it to protect themselves or their charge is yet to be seen.

Spirit-Lines

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, dark energies begin to swirl around you when you enter your rage and your weapon swings whine with tortured screams. While you’re raging, anything struck by you has to make a wisdom saving throw or be frightened for the duration of your rage. The saving throw DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus + Constitution modifier.

If the creature is damaged while frightened, the effect ends and cannot be frightened again by this feature for another 24 hours. This effect on any targets ends if your rage ends.

The number of targets affected by this ability is equivalent to the Rage Damage on the barbarian table.

Ringing Screams

Beginning at 6th level, your weapon blows begin to have a mentally torturous impact against your enemy. Whenever you hit a creature during a rage, the creature takes an extra 1d6 psychic damage.

Additionally, you can use a bonus action on your turn to deal 1d6 psychic damage to any creature currently frightened by your Spirit Lines feature.

When you reach certain levels in this class, the damage dice increases: 1d8 at 10th level and 1d10 at 14th level.

Disturbed Rest

At 10th level, you gain the ability to speak with the long-since-dead. You can cast the Speak with Dead spell, but only as a ritual without the need for material components. Constitution is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Soul Rending

At 14th level, your ability to torture the minds and bodies of others reaches greater heights with a lingering effect on the others around you.

When a creature takes damage due to Spirit Lines, half of that damage (rounded down) affects hostile creatures 5 feet from them.