College of Mysteries

Bards rarely choose the College of Mysteries, they are often chosen. Accidental or not, coming into contact with an entity whose nature is utterly anathema to the fabric of reality has forever warped your music and your magic. Your music begins to tear away at the sanity of those who hear it, as it ripples with notes from the Discordance of Madness.

Note of Madness

At 3rd level, you learn how to use the Discordance of Madness to distract, confuse, and mislead others. When a creature that you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and subtracting the number rolled from the creature's roll. You can choose to use this feature after the creature makes its roll, but before the DM determines whether the attack roll, ability check, or saving throw succeeds or fails. The creature is immune if it can't hear you or if it's immune to being charmed.

Eldritch Tongue

At 3rd level, your eldritch mind gives you the ability to understand the words of creatures around you. You gain the ability to understand any spoken language you hear. Moreover, when you speak, any creature that knows at least one language and can hear you understands what you say.

Eldritch Resilience

At 6th level, you gain resistance to psychic damage, and you have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened. Your thoughts also can't be read by telepathy or other means unless you allow it. 

Sound of Madness

At 14th level, you learn to unleash a chord from the Song of Madness. As an action, every creature within 30 ft of you must make a wisdom saving throw. It automatically succeeds if it doesn’t know a language or can’t hear you. On a failed save, a creature takes 4D6 psychic damage, as well as 4D6 necrotic damage, and is afflicted by madness. Roll on the madness table to determine the effect, which lasts for 1 minute. On a successful save, the creature takes half damage, but suffers no other effect.

You may use this feature once per long rest.

Madness Table

d10	Effect
1	The creature retreats into their mind and becomes Paralyzed. The effect ends if the creature takes any damage.
2	The creature becomes Incapacitated and spends the duration screaming, laughing, or weeping.
3	The creature becomes Frightened and must use it’s action and movement each round to flee from the source of the fear.
4	The creature begins babbling and is incapable of normal speech or spellcasting.
5	The creature must use it’s action each round to attack the nearest creature.
6	The creature experiences vivid hallucinations and has disadvantage on ability checks.
7	The creature does whatever anyone tells it to do that isn’t obviously self-­destructive.
8	The creature experiences an overpowering urge to eat something strange such as dirt, slime, or offal.
9	The creature is stunned.
10	The creature falls unconscious.