Deathshadow

Death, across all of Faerun, is embodied by a number of deities. From masters of necromancy to embodiments of murder, they all hold sway over various aspects of the world thereafter. Sometimes however, being a god has its limitations, for the divine cannot move as subtly as mortals can. Enemies of these deathly deities learned to take advantage of this fact, hiding themselves away when the gods searched for them. As it always is, necessity was the mother of invention, and the gods decided to recruit beings with lesser presences to avoid detection.

This is where the first Deathshadow rangers came from, mortal hunters chosen by the gods to hunt down rogue spirits or necromancers getting dangerosly far on the path to lichdom. Since then the conclave formed, with mortal champions of the gods passing down their knowledge to other aspiring hunters. While there are certainly some Deathshadow rangers charged with divine purpose in the modern age, most are simply armed with lessons of the past to better fight of the scourge of the undead.

Eternal Companion

At 3rd level, you gain a connection to a spirit of death which aids you in your eternal hunt. 

As an action, you can magically summon an ethereal beast, which draws strength from death itself. The beast is friendly to you and your companions and obeys your commands, and it also uses your Proficiency Bonus (PB) in several places. You determine the animal's appearance and characteristics. Whatever kind you choose, the beast is semi-ethereal and ghostly, confirming to all that it is not of this world.

In combat, the beast acts during your turn. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but the only action it takes is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take another action. That action can be one in its stat block or some other action. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to command the beast to take the Attack action. If you are incapacitated, the beast can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge.

When the beast dies, it's body disappears. If the Spectral Companion died within the last hour, you can expel a spell slot of 1st level or higher, causing the beast returns to life after 1 minute with all its hit points restored. When you finish a long rest, you can summon your Spectral Companion without expending a spell slot. The new beast appears in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of you, and you can change its appearance if you wish. If you already have a beast from this feature, it vanishes when the new beast appears. The beast also vanishes if you die.

Spectral Companion
Medium Undead
Armor Class: 13 + PB (natural armor)
Hit Points: 5 + five times your ranger level (the beast has a number of Hit Dice [d8s] equal to your ranger level)
Speed: 40 ft., climb 40ft.
STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
14 (+2)	14 (+2)	15 (+2)	8 (−1)	14 (+2)	11 (+0)
Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages: understands the languages you speak
Challenge: —
Proficiency Bonus (PB): equals your bonus
Ethereal Presence: The Spectral Companion can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. The beast takes 5 force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
Ethereal Bond: You can add your proficiency bonus to any ability check or saving throw that the beast makes.
Actions
Maul. Melee Weapon Attack: your spell attack modifier to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1d8 + 2 + PB slashing damage.

 

At 7th level, your Spectral Companion gains the Hunter's Leap action.

• HUNTER'S LEAP: As an action, the hound can teleport itself from one area of dim light or darkness to another area of dim light or darkness that it knows about within 30ft.

At 11th level, the range of your Spectral Companion's Hunter's Leap action expands to 60ft.

Interplay of Shadow

At 7th level, you gain the ability to draw the realm of death into the material world, creating a zone in which you alone thrive. As an action on your turn, you can create a Zone of Inbetween around you in a 30ft circle filled with ghostly terrain that represents some form of underworld or afterlife. The terrain in this zone is illusory and has no physical substance and the zone itself lasts for 10 minutes. The Zone of Inbetween has the following properties.

• Any area within the zone that was considered to be brighter than dim light is now considered to be in dim light.
• Allies have half cover while inside the zone.
• Your movement and the movement of your Spectral Companion does not trigger opportunity attacks as long as both the you or the companion and the creature you are moving past are both inside the zone.
• You can use the dash action as a bonus action so long as you start your movement within the zone.

You can only have one Zone of Inbetween active at a time and you can only summon a zone once per long rest.

At 11th level, the size of your Zone of Inbetween expands to 60ft and you can summon your Zone of Inbetween once per short rest instead of once per long rest.
At 15th level, you gain an extra attack at the start of your turn if you started your turn within your Zone of Inbetween.

Two as One

At 11th level, you and your Spectral Companion become so in-sync, that you are able to act as if you were one being. You take full control of your spectral companion during your turn, meaning that you no longer have to use an action to command it or sacrifice one of your own attacks to have your Spectral Companion attack. Your Spectral Companion also benefits from any spell or ability based bonuses that you do and is treated as you for effects that only you can trigger such as the bonus damage of hunter's mark.

Forstalled Fate

At 15th level, your strong ties to death give you the ability to prevent it, if even for a moment. When a creature within your Zone of Inbetween falls to 0 hitpoints, you can use your reaction to cause that creature to drop to one hitpoint instead. Alternatively, if a creature dies within your Zone of Inbetween, you can use your reaction to cast revivify on that creature without any material components. You can only use this feature once per day.