School of Witchcraft

A wizard learns through dusty old tomes and rigorous study. A witch learns through secret whispers and strict mentorship. A wizard witch melds these two ways of teaching into the School of Witchcraft, a method that takes both the strict studying practices of wizardry and the looser oral traditions of witchery to make a school that seeks and sees knowledge in places that ordinary wizards and witches can’t possibly imagine.

Wizard witches are characterized by their thirst for knowledge, but also for their unorthodox ways to obtain it. To a wizard witch, a skill or a spell can be learned by the words written in a book, the words of their mentor, or the words spoken by the spirits from the beyond, including those spirits that they just slain.

 

Witchmark

The witchmarks of wizard witches are as varied as their sources of learning. The most common witchmark is that of glowing stars scattered through the body of the witch, one new star added for every spirit that has taught the wizard witch a new ability or skill. Other wizard witches have eyes as witchmarks on their foreheads or palms, representing their search for knowledge and the unorthodox ways in which they go about it.

 

Teachers from the Beyond

You confer with spirits of gifted spellcasters, like famed sorcerers, and pious clerics, so they can teach you their magical secrets. After a long rest, you can take 10 minutes to learn a cantrip of the sorcerer, warlock, druid, cleric, bard, or wizard spell list. It takes 10 minutes for you to learn this cantrip. This cantrip does not count towards the number of cantrips you know and is not written on your spellbook, but you can cast it as many times as you want. You can use this cantrip until you finish a long rest.

 

Oral Tradition

The ways of witchcraft are taught through conversation and training between a pupil and a mentor, and you are able to translate their teachings to the realm of wizardly arcane scholastic tradition. When finding a spell scroll to copy into your spellbook, you may choose to commit it to memory instead of transcribing it. Spells that can be learned through oral tradition of witchcraft are under the same limitations of spells you can copy in your spellbook. In order to commit it to memory, you must spend 3 hours per spell level practicing the spell.

Once you’ve spent the appropriate time to commit the spell to memory, you can prepare it just like your other spells. You can’t commit to memory cantrips obtained by the use of the Teachers from the Beyond ability.

Spectral Learning

At sixth level, you summon the spirits of slain foes to learn new abilities through them. When you bring a creature to 0 hit points, roll a d20 and add your proficiency bonus. Your roll must be higher than the creature’s CR. On a success, you are able to coax the spirit of the slain foe and use its power. One of their abilities, determined by the GM, is now your ability. If the ability in question is a particular spell, or otherwise consumes a resource, you must consume that resource when using the ability. If the ability relies on the creature’s morphology, like a prehensile tail or a claw, you summon a spectral manifestation of that body part when you use it. The stat used when enacting these abilities is Intelligence, even if the ability in question is a melee attack. After a long rest the spirit is set free, and you lose the ability attached to it. If the ability you acquire is a spell you do not know, you can add it to your list of spells through your Oral Tradition ability by learning it from the spirit, but you must do so before a long rest passes since you acquired this spell, otherwise it’s lost forever. Once you’ve used this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

 

Spiritual Savant

At 10th level, you have mastered the art of learning through spirits. When you bring a creature to 0 hit points and learn one of their abilities through your Spectral Learning ability, you can choose to commit that ability to memory as if it was a spell. You can only commit one ability that isn’t a spell to memory using this feature. It takes the CR of the creature x 10 minutes to commit the new ability to memory, and you must do so before you finish a long rest. You can use this learned ability a number of times equal to half of your proficiency bonus rounding down (minimum of 1). After a long rest, you regain all uses of this ability.

You can still hold a different ability through Spectral Learning along with the one you have committed to memory: at the end of a long rest the ability acquired through Spectral Learning will disappear, and the one committed to memory through Spiritual Savant will still be available to you. If you wish to replace the learned ability with a new one, the old one fades from your memory as the connection with the spirit is severed.

 

Prodigy of the Arcane

Your prodigious mind can summon the spirits of those that have completely mastered the arcane arts to teach you their secrets. After a long rest, you can prepare one spell of your choice from any class’ spell list. It takes 10 minutes per spell level to prepare it. The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots and you follow the normal rules for casting it, including expending a spell slot. If the spell isn’t a wizard spell, it counts as a wizard spell when you cast it. After you finish a long rest, you’re no longer able to cast this spell unless you prepare it again using this feature. You can’t commit this spell to memory using your Oral Tradition ability.