Circle of Blight

When a druid turns away from the land, the land turns away from her. Some druids make peace with this change; others seek to restore the bond. A few, however, actually embrace their disconnection from nature and become forces of destruction. These few, called Circle of Blight, bring desolation wherever they tread.

Members of this circle harness their spellcasting ability by stripping the earth of life. A swath of deforested land always marks their path through the wilderness. Members of this circle are nomadic loners constantly in search of green lands to destroy. Some are grim, others laugh at the destruction they wreak. Almost all, however, are friendless and mad. What puts them over the edge is the knowledge that nature gets the last laugh: to gain their spells, they must seek out the richest forests of the land, even if it’s only to destroy them. Thus, even though they’ve turned away from nature, they must constantly return to it.

A druid must be evil and at least 3rd level to become join the Circle of Blight. The druid replaces the features specific to his or her Druid Circle with Circle of Blight features.

Blighted Recovery

2nd-level Circle of Blight feature

You can regain some of your magical energy by draining the vitality from nearby plant life. When you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your druid level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. When you do so, nonmagical plants within 30 feet of you that aren’t creatures, such as trees and shrubs, wither and die instantly. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Circle Spells

2nd-level Circle of Blight feature

Your link to death and decay grants you access to certain spells. At 2nd level, you learn the sapping sting cantrip.

When you reach certain levels in this class, you gain access to the spells listed for that level in the Circle of Blight Spells table. Once you gain access to one of these spells, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.

Circle of Blight Spells

Blighted Wild Shape

6th-level Circle of Blight feature

Your Wild Shape reflects your devotion to death and decay. While in your beast form, your type is undead and you have the following traits:

• You gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet.
• You are immune to cold and poison damage, and cannot be poisoned.
• You don’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.

Touch of Decay

10th-level Circle of Blight feature

When you reduce a creature within 30 feet of you to 0 hit points, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Wisdom modifier + your druid level (minimum of 1 temporary hit point).

Plaguebearer

14th-level Circle of Blight feature

Your vile magical experiments have made you an accommodating host for all manner of infectious diseases. You are immune to disease.

Additionally, as an action, you can unleash a virulent disease that blights the area in a 30-foot radius around you for 1 minute. All normal plants in the area wither and die, and the number of hit points restored by a spell to a creature in that area is halved.

Furthermore, when a creature enters the blighted area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, the creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is poisoned for 1 minute and must make another Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. If it fails its saves three times, it contracts one disease of your choice to which you have been exposed (see “Diseases” in chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide). If it successfully saves against this effect three times, the poisoned condition ends, and the creature is immune to this effect for 24 hours.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.