The Order of the Bleeding Veil Class for Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5e)

Base Class: Blood Hunter

Role in Aetheris

The Order of the Bleeding Veil operates where ordinary Claret methods would fail. They are used when the enemy must be observed before being struck, when open violence would cause civil collapse, or when no one knows which face belongs to the monster.

They are often dispatched to:

Infiltrate eldritch cults, vampire courts, infernal salons, and noble conspiracies.

Expose shapechangers, false priests, enthralled officials, and magically disguised predators.

Sabotage occult supply lines, ritual networks, and corrupted guilds.

Protect witnesses, defectors, and informants.

Hunt illusionists, enchanters, spies, assassins, and monsters who wield deception as armor.

Recover secrets before they become wars.

Erase evidence of Claret operations when the truth would endanger the innocent.

To other Blood Hunters, the Bleeding Veil is useful, unsettling, and difficult to trust. To the rest of Aetheris, they are a rumor wearing perfume and a knife.

Order of the Bleeding Veil Features

Blood Hunter Level	Feature
3rd	Veil Training, Rite of the Crimson Mirage, Bloodmask
7th	Sanguine Misstep
11th	Unmask the Hidden Wound
15th	Veil of Red Silence
18th	Avatar of the Thousand-Cut Masque

3rd Level: Veil Training

When you join the Order of the Bleeding Veil at 3rd level, you are trained in infiltration, coded speech, false identities, and the careful study of how people lie when they believe themselves safe.

You gain proficiency in Deception or Stealth. If you already have proficiency in the chosen skill, you gain expertise in it instead.

You also gain proficiency with one of the following:

Proficiency Option
Disguise Kit
Forgery Kit
Thieves’ Tools
Poisoner’s Kit
One gaming set used in noble courts or gambling dens

You also learn one language of your choice, typically one useful for espionage, courtly infiltration, criminal dealings, or cultic investigation.

Hunter of False Faces

You have advantage on Intelligence checks made to recall information about illusion magic, enchantment magic, disguises, forged identities, espionage networks, spycraft, secret societies, assassins, cult infiltration, and shapechangers.

In addition, you gain advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks made to determine whether a creature is concealing its identity, speaking under magical influence, or intentionally withholding vital information.

3rd Level: Rite of the Crimson Mirage

You learn to lace your Crimson Rite with illusion-warped hemocraft, causing your weapon to strike not only flesh, but certainty.

When you activate your Crimson Rite, you may choose for the rite’s damage type to become psychic or necrotic instead of its normal damage type. While this rite is active, your weapon leaves red afterimages, false angles, and flickering duplicate cuts that vanish a heartbeat after impact.

Once per turn when you hit a creature with a weapon attack empowered by this rite, you can invoke the Crimson Mirage.

The target takes additional psychic or necrotic damage, your choice, equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die.

If the target is disguised, invisible, hidden from you, shapechanged, concentrating on an illusion or enchantment spell, or benefiting from illusion magic, the additional damage increases by your Intelligence modifier, minimum of 1.

You can invoke Crimson Mirage a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Blood-Trace Mark

When you damage a creature with Crimson Mirage, you can mark it with a faint hemocraft trace until the start of your next turn.

While marked:

Blood-Trace Effect	Result
No Perfect Disguise	The creature cannot gain advantage on Charisma (Deception) checks against you.
Red Afterimage	If the creature becomes invisible, you still know its location until the start of your next turn, unless it is behind total cover.
Fractured Glamour	The creature has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes to maintain or benefit from an illusion or enchantment effect before the start of your next turn.

3rd Level: Bloodmask

You learn to bleed into a false identity, shaping your own vitae into a living disguise.

As a bonus action, you may take necrotic damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. You then create a Bloodmask, which lasts for 1 hour, until you dismiss it, or until you are incapacitated.

While your Bloodmask is active, you gain the following benefits:

Bloodmask Benefit	Effect
Veiled Features	You can alter your apparent facial features, hair, eye color, voice, scars, and minor physical details. This does not change your body type, species, number of limbs, or equipment.
False Bearing	You gain a bonus to Charisma (Deception) and Dexterity (Stealth) checks equal to half your proficiency bonus, rounded up.
Softened Presence	Creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to recognize you from a prior encounter, provided they are relying on sight or voice.
Blood-Signed Identity	You can create small illusory details such as a signet ring, badge, tattoo, minor scar, holy symbol, or courtly ornament. These details fail physical inspection.

A creature can use its action to inspect your disguise, making an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your Hemocraft DC. On a success, it recognizes that something about your appearance is magically altered, though it does not necessarily learn your true identity.

You can use Bloodmask a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of once, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

7th Level: Sanguine Misstep

By 7th level, you can turn a wound into a lie and a lie into an escape route.

You gain resistance to psychic damage.

In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against illusion and enchantment spells.

False Cut

When a creature you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to blur into a blood-red afterimage. Roll one Hemocraft die and reduce the triggering damage by the amount rolled + your Intelligence modifier.

You may then move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks. This movement can pass through dim light, shadows, crowds, smoke, fog, or visual clutter without revealing your exact path.

If the attacking creature is marked by your Blood-Trace Mark, you may instead move up to 15 feet.

You can use False Cut a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Whisper Behind the Curtain

While your Bloodmask is active, you can throw your voice or create a brief illusory whisper from a point you can see within 30 feet. This whisper can contain up to ten words and can be heard only by one creature of your choice within 10 feet of the point.

You may use this feature to communicate covertly, distract guards, seed paranoia, or lure a target into position. A suspicious creature may make an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your Hemocraft DC to recognize the sound as illusory.

11th Level: Unmask the Hidden Wound

At 11th level, your hemocraft can cut through lies, glamours, false flesh, and enchanted loyalty.

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack empowered by your Crimson Rite, you can invoke Unmask the Hidden Wound. The target takes additional psychic or necrotic damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft die, your choice.

Then choose one of the following effects:

Unmasking Effect	Result
Shatter Glamour	The target must make an Intelligence saving throw against your Hemocraft DC. On a failure, one illusion effect affecting or created by the target ends if it is of a level equal to or lower than half your proficiency bonus, rounded up. More powerful effects are suppressed until the end of your next turn instead.
Expose the False Flesh	If the target is shapechanged, disguised by magic, or transformed, it must succeed on a Charisma saving throw against your Hemocraft DC or its true form flickers visibly until the end of your next turn. During this time, attack rolls against it have advantage if the attacker can see it.
Break the Whisper	If the target is charmed, magically compelled, or affected by an enchantment effect, it may immediately repeat one saving throw against that effect, adding your Intelligence modifier to the roll.
Red Thread Pursuit	Until the end of your next turn, the target cannot benefit from being invisible or hidden from you, and it cannot take the Disengage action unless it succeeds on a Wisdom saving throw against your Hemocraft DC.

You can use Unmask the Hidden Wound a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

If the target is a shapechanger, spy, assassin, illusionist, enchanter, or creature currently hidden by magic, you may roll one of the Hemocraft dice twice and use the higher result.

15th Level: Veil of Red Silence

At 15th level, you can draw a battlefield behind the curtain, smothering sound, sight, memory, and certainty in a blood-woven field.

As an action, you take necrotic damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft die. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. You then create a Veil of Red Silence centered on yourself. The veil has a 20-foot radius and lasts for 1 minute, until you are incapacitated, or until you dismiss it, no action required.

The veil appears as a thin crimson shimmer, falling red silk, drifting droplets suspended in air, a ring of false shadows, or a pulse of silent masks turning toward your enemies.

While the veil is active:

Veil Effect	Benefit
Quieted Step	You and friendly creatures of your choice within the veil have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
Hidden Intent	You and friendly creatures of your choice within the veil have advantage on saving throws against divination, enchantment, and illusion effects.
No Clean Sightline	Hostile creatures inside the veil cannot make opportunity attacks unless they succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your Hemocraft DC at the start of their turn.
Redacted Witness	Hostile creatures outside the veil have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to perceive creatures inside the veil.
Bleeding Doubt	Once per turn, when you or a friendly creature damages a hostile creature inside the veil, that hostile creature takes psychic damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die if it is concentrating on a spell or magical effect.

Once you use Veil of Red Silence, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest unless you expend two uses of Blood Maledict to use it again.

18th Level: Avatar of the Thousand-Cut Masque

At 18th level, you become an impossible infiltrator, a living masquerade of blood, reflection, and killing intent. Your body flickers between identities. Every wound you make seems to have been delivered by someone else. Every enemy sees the wrong truth a moment too late.

As a bonus action, you enter the Avatar of the Thousand-Cut Masque state for 1 minute.

For the duration, you gain the following benefits:

Avatar Benefit	Effect
Masque-Flesh	You gain resistance to psychic, necrotic, poison, and force damage.
Unwritten Mind	You cannot be charmed, frightened, magically detected by divination below 6th level, or have your thoughts read unless you allow it.
Many-Faced Killer	Once per turn when you hit a creature with a weapon attack empowered by your Crimson Rite, you deal additional psychic or necrotic damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft die.
Perfect Redirection	When a creature misses you with an attack, you can move up to 15 feet without provoking opportunity attacks. If you end this movement within reach or normal range of the attacker, you may make one weapon attack against it as part of the same reaction.
No Lie Survives Blood	Hostile creatures within 30 feet of you cannot benefit from invisibility, magical disguise, or illusion-based concealment against you unless they succeed on an Intelligence saving throw against your Hemocraft DC at the start of their turn.

In addition, while your Veil of Red Silence is active during this transformation, its radius increases to 30 feet, and friendly creatures of your choice inside it cannot be targeted by opportunity attacks.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.

Playing an Order of the Bleeding Veil Blood Hunter

A Bleeding Veil hunter should feel like a spy-priest, assassin-scholar, and occult counterintelligence agent wrapped in a red-lined cloak. They are not loud. They are not obvious. They do not always strike the monster first. Sometimes they become the monster’s favorite servant, trusted confidant, or doomed lover before the blade appears.

They are ideal for intrigue-heavy campaigns, urban horror, noble conspiracies, cult infiltration, criminal networks, vampire courts, infernal embassies, and political thrillers with sharp teeth.

Suggested Order Mannerisms

d8	Mannerism
1	You never give the same name twice in the same city.
2	You study reflections to see who watches you when they think your eyes are elsewhere.
3	You keep a collection of signet molds, false letters, and half-burned invitations.
4	You touch your own pulse before lying, measuring how much blood the falsehood costs.
5	You prefer masks because honest faces are too easy to weaponize.
6	You memorize exits before introductions.
7	You speak softly enough that listeners must lean closer than they should.
8	You write secrets in your own blood, then make the page forget them.

Suggested Characteristics

Personality Traits

d6	Trait
1	I answer simple questions with useful lies and dangerous questions with silence.
2	I watch hands before faces. Faces rehearse. Hands confess.
3	I trust patterns more than people.
4	I can become charming, forgettable, terrifying, or harmless as needed.
5	I dislike killing in public. It makes witnesses, and witnesses make weather.
6	I keep my true opinions locked behind three false ones.

Ideals

d6	Ideal
1	Truth. The truth must be found, even if it cannot be shared.
2	Secrecy. Some knowledge becomes a monster when released.
3	Precision. One exposed lie can prevent a war.
4	Freedom. No tyrant, cult, or patron has the right to own another mind.
5	Duty. I become what the mission requires.
6	Justice. Let the guilty fear every mask in the room.

Bonds

d6	Bond
1	I infiltrated a cult so deeply that part of me still misses the lie.
2	A former identity of mine is wanted for murder, treason, and prophecy.
3	My mentor vanished after discovering a conspiracy inside the Claret Concordium.
4	I protect a witness whose memory contains a secret too dangerous to write down.
5	A noble house believes I am one of their dead relatives returned under a false name.
6	I carry a mask that belonged to the first person I failed to save.

Flaws

d6	Flaw
1	I sometimes forget which parts of me were real before the mission.
2	I assume everyone is lying, especially when they are not.
3	I cannot resist opening sealed letters, locked drawers, or forbidden doors.
4	I manipulate allies when honesty would work better.
5	I keep secrets long after they stop being useful.
6	I fear being truly known more than I fear death.

Order Equipment and Aesthetics

Equipment	Description
Bloodmask	A ritual disguise formed through hemocraft, often appearing as a thin red shimmer over the face.
Veil-Blade	A dagger, rapier, shortsword, pistol, or garrote etched with illusion-breaking sigils.
Red Glass Lens	A monocle or mask lens used to detect glamours, invisible markings, and forged magical seals.
False-Signet Kit	A collection of wax, rings, insignia, and paper charms used to forge temporary identities.
Whisper Thread	A red cord used to carry tiny hemocraft messages between agents.
Memory Needle	A ritual bloodletting tool used to anchor cover identities and resist magical interrogation.

Adventure Hooks

d8	Hook
1	A king’s entire privy council has been replaced, but each replacement believes they are the original.
2	A vampire court invites the party to a masquerade where every mask is alive.
3	A Bleeding Veil agent has gone rogue and is selling false identities to fiends, cultists, and assassins.
4	A city’s most trusted inquisitor is secretly an illusion maintained by six terrified apprentices.
5	A noble family hires the party to expose a spy, but the “spy” is the only person telling the truth.
6	A cult communicates through bloodstains that rearrange themselves after midnight.
7	A dead informant appears at three different parties in three different cities on the same night.
8	The Claret Concordium orders the character to erase a scandal that may actually reveal corruption inside the Orders.

Subclass Summary

The Order of the Bleeding Veil is a Blood Hunter subclass built for espionage, infiltration, illusion-breaking, deception, anti-shapechanger tactics, and precision ambush play. Mechanically, it excels in stealth, disguise, counter-illusion work, psychic pressure, repositioning, and exposing hidden enemies.

Its rhythm is slippery and elegant: wear the face, find the lie, mark the wound, break the glamour, vanish sideways, and let the enemy realize too late that the harmless guest was the hunter all along.

"A blade can kill a monster. A secret can kill the kingdom that fed it."

Veil Training