Bards of the Red Lotus practice the mesmerizing and dangerous art of fire dancing. Whether wielding a fire dart, dragonstaff, burning swords, or juggling torches, these bards tend to be passionate thrill-seekers who live life on the edge. Many of its members worship fire in some form, showing respect towards its destructive beauty. The art of manipulating fire requires deep concentration and presence in the moment, and some practitioners view it as a spiritual experience.

Mechanically, the College of the Red Lotus is an aggressive subclass that both gives you access to high-damage fire spells, and empowers the attacks of you and your companions. With short-range attacks and a lack of defensive features, its playstyle is explosive, risky and precise.

Level 3: Pyromancy

You always have the control flames, burning hands, and pyrotechnics spells prepared.

In addition, the following spells are considered bard spells for you: create bonfire, green-flame blade, produce flame, absorb elements, flame blade, fireball, wall of fire, and flame strike. When you adopt this subclass, you can replace one of your known Bard cantrips by a cantrip from this list.

Level 3: Burning Inspiration

Whenever a creature adds your Bardic Inspiration die to their attack roll and hits, the attack deals additional fire damage equal to the result of the Bardic Inspiration die.

Level 3: Fire Dancing

You learn to use fire dancing instruments in your performances. Fire dancing instruments are quarterstaffs, scimitars, whips, and torches. You gain proficiency with these weapons if you don't have it, and can use them as your spellcasting focus for bard spells. In addition, you can treat torches as simple weapons that deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage on a hit and have the finesse, light, and thrown properties, with a range of 20/60.

When you draw a fire dancing instrument, you can light it on fire for as long as you are wielding it. While on fire, the weapon sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. Once on each of your turns when you attack with the fire dancing instrument and hit, you can deal additional fire damage equal to a roll of your Bardic Inspiration die. You also have Advantage on Charisma (Performance) checks involving the use of these instruments while they are on fire.

Level 6: Extra Attack

You can attack twice instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. In addition, you can cast one of your cantrips that has a casting time of an action in place of one of those attacks.

Level 14: Flowzone

While wielding a fire dancing instrument, you can expend a use of your Bardic Inspiration as a Bonus Action to enter a flow state for 1 minute. It ends early if you are Incapacitated, if you don medium or heavy armor or a shield, or if you stop wielding your fire dancing instrument. While in this state, you gain the following benefits:

• Improved Fire Dancing. You can deal the additional fire damage from your Fire Dancing feature on all attacks you make with fire dancing instruments, rather than only one attack on each of your turns.
• Precise Weave. When you cast an Evocation spell that would deal fire damage and allows for a Dexterity saving throw to take half damage, you can choose any number of creatures affected by the spell. A chosen creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw against that spell, and takes no fire damage from it.
• Fire Flow. A stream of fire flows around you. When a creature moves within 10 ft. of you for the first time on a turn or ends their turn there, you can use your Reaction to deal fire damage to it equal to a roll of your Bardic Inspiration die.
• Redirect Flames. When a creature you can see within 30 ft. of you would take fire damage, you expend a Bardic Inspiration die as a Reaction to reduce the damage by a roll of your Bardic Inspiration die + your bard level. You can then make a spell attack against a creature within 60 ft. On a hit, you deal fire damage equal to the amount prevented.