Circle of Rebirth

Death is part of the cycle of life.  But it doesn't have to be the end.  Dead animals have their usefulness in nature; scavengers, bacteria, and plants eat from the rotting flesh.  And from the leftovers, their bones can be used as weapons or tools.  The Circle of Rebirth Druid uses the animal's body for both.  Just like the druids of the Circle of Spores, Circle of Rebirth finds beauty in decay.  They are known to even keep a component pouch full of animal bones.

Circle of Rebirth druids have all the same beliefs as Circle of Spores druids:

• They believe that life and death are two parts of a grand cycle, with one leading to the other and then back again. Death isn’t the end of life, but instead a change of state that sees life shift into a new form.
• They have a complex relationship with the undead. Unlike most other druids, they see nothing inherently wrong with undeath, which they consider to be a companion to life and death. But these druids believe that the natural cycle is healthiest when each segment of it is vibrant and changing. Undead that seek to replace all life with undeath, or that try to avoid passing to a final rest, violate the cycle and must be thwarted.

Circle Spells

2nd-level Circle of Rebirth feature

Your ability to tap into the cycle of life and death grants you access to all necromancy spells not already available to a druid. At 2nd level, you can prepare necromancy spells of your choice within your spell level.  Additionally, spells used to bring back someone from death can be used on creatures.

Reaping What You Sow

2nd-level Circle of Rebirth feature
You gain the ability to channel magic into the dead around you creating a swarm of undead. As an action, you can expend a use of your Wild Shape feature to awaken the dead within 10 feet of you, rather than transforming into a beast form. While this feature is active, you gain the following benefits:

• You can raise a non-humanoid creature within range that has the same CR of your Wild Shape feature or lower.
• The creature is raised with 1 hit point and either the zombie stat block if the body wasn't decomposed or with the skeleton stat block if just bones.
• In combat, their turn comes immediately after yours. They obey your verbal commands. The only action they can take is the Attack action, making only one melee attack as they did when alive.
• Their attack and movement speed are the only stats they retain as the creature they used to be (eg: pounce, fly, bite, claw, etc.)  The only exception is that skeletal creatures can't fly.
• You are able to raise multiple creatures in range as long as the sum of their CR levels adds up to the level of your Wild Shape or lower (eg: when you are able to transform to a CR of 1, you can raise: a CR 1 or two CR 1/2s or four CR 1/4s, etc.)
• They must stay within 15 feet of you.
• Any undead raised with this feature disintegrates when this feature is used again, when it dies, when the creature is over 15 feet away at the end of your turn, or after an hour and their remains can't be used again.

As a Bonus Action, you may reach into your component pouch, retrieve a handful of stored animal bones, and drop them at your feet.  Just like with known animals seen for Wild Shape, you must track the bones in your pouch as the animals you have harvested.

Swarm Defense

2nd-level Circle of Rebirth feature

When you are surrounded by your undead swarm, you can unleash them on a creature nearby. When a creature you can see moves into a space within 10 feet of you or starts its turn there, you can use your reaction to have one in your swarm make a melee attack to that creature. The amount of individual creatures in your swarm that can make an attack increases to two at 6th level, three at 10th level, four at 14th level, and the entire swarm at 20th level.

Add to the Swarm

6th-level Circle of Rebirth feature

Your swarm can gain an additional corpse. If a beast or a humanoid that is Medium or smaller dies within 10 feet of you, you can use your reaction to animate it, causing it to stand up immediately with 1 hit point. The creature uses the zombie stat block. It remains animate for 1 hour, after which time it collapses and dies.  If you already have a swarm of undead, it is added to their number even if the sum is higher than your current Wild Shape CR.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

Death Blow

10th-level Circle of Rebirth feature

You gain the ability to send an undead creature to attack. As a bonus action while your swarm surrounds you, you can send one undead from your swarm up to 30 feet away, where they will make a melee attack on a creature that you can see. The undead creature will then explode and disintegrate, removing it from your swarm. When your undead creature explodes, each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d10 necrotic damage.  The damage increases to 2d10 at 15th level and 3d10 at 20th level.

Death's Body

14th-level Circle of Rebirth feature

Your familiarity with death alters you to where you can’t be frightened or poisoned, you are resistant to necrotic damage and poison damage, and any critical hits against you counts as a normal hit instead, unless you’re incapacitated.

Level 3 Placeholder

DnDBeyond requires a Level 3 Druid Feature, however, they do not get a feature at Level 3.  This shouldn't appear when building the character or on the character sheet.