School of Cartomancy

As a Cartomancer, your mastery over the arcane comes from a mystical deck of cards, each inscribed with potent symbols and runes. These cards are more than mere tools; they are the foundation of your magical prowess, the medium through which you channel your spells, conjuring beings, crafting wondrous objects, and warping the very fabric of space itself. In your hands, a simple card draw becomes an elaborate display of spellcasting finesse.

Cartomancer Flavor and Mechanics

• Casting Spells (Playing Cards): When you cast a spell, describe how you flourish and play one of your arcane cards, which glows and disappears as its magic takes effect. The deck is never depleted, as the cards are mystically linked to your spellbook and reappear within it when their magic is expended.
• Spellbook (Deck of Arcana): Your spellbook is a deck of ornate, enchanted cards. You might carry it in a special case or pouch, shuffling it as part of your daily preparations to set your "hand" of prepared spells.
• Spell Components: For spells requiring material components, you have special foiled or holographic cards within your Deck of Arcana imbued with the exact substances needed to act as the focus for your spells.
• Cantrips (Quick-Draw): Your most frequently used spells are bound to cards tucked into your sleeves for quick access, allowing you to cast them at will with a deft flick of the wrist.
• Higher-Level Spellcasting: For your more powerful conjuration spells, you throw down a card that momentarily grows to a massive size before shattering into the spell's effect.

Adding Flavor to Spells:

Here are examples of how to flavor classic Wizard conjuration spells as "trading cards" being played onto the battlefield:

1. Arcane Apprentice (Mage Hand) Cantrip: You summon an ethereal, translucent hand that emerges from the face of the card to manipulate objects or open doors at a distance.
2. Summon Familiar (Find Familiar) 1st-level: You bring forth a familiar spirit that leaps from a card—perhaps taking the form of a sleek grey-and-white cat or a mischievous little rascal.
3. Ethereal Escape (Misty Step) 2nd-level: You throw this trap card toward your destination. As it travels, your body dissolves into countless tiny motes of light, reappearing where the card lands.
4. Steed of the Arcana (Phantom Steed) 3rd-level: A high-value monster card that, when played, unfolds into a majestic, quasi-real mount composed of living arcane energy.
5. Portal Pass (Dimension Door) 4th-level: This spell card creates an ornate, glowing doorway that springs up on the battlefield, connecting two points in space.
6. Elemental Swarm ([Tooltip Not Found]) 4th-level: Upon casting this card, a flurry of elemental illustrations leaps off the face of the card, transforming into living creatures of fire, earth, air, or water.
7. Blades of Destiny (Steel-Wind Strike) 5th-level: Casting this card sends out several razor-sharp card replicas spinning through the air towards your enemies, each strike predestined by the fate inscribed in the arcana.
8. Grand Arcanum (Teleport) 7th-level: This powerful field card bends space around you, transporting you and your companions across vast distances with the flick of a wrist.
9. Arcanum of the Sovereign (Wish) 9th-level: This card is the pinnacle of the Cartomancer's deck. Divided into five mystical fragments, it is only unleashed when the sigils align. When played in unison, they call forth a being of pure magic whose might shapes reality to the caster's design.

Master Duelist

Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy a conjuration spell into your spellbook is halved. This is due to your specialized deck—your Deck of Arcana—which allows for rapid inscription and recall of conjuration spells.

Deck's Dominion

Starting at 2nd level, you gain the ability to weave your will through the cards of your Deck of Arcana, turning thought into form. As an action, you can draw a card and channel your magic to conjure an inanimate, nonmagical object that appears in your hand or on the ground in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of you. The object can be no larger than 3 feet on a side and weigh no more than 10 pounds, and you must have seen this type of object before.

The conjured object bears the aesthetic of your arcane deck, shimmering with energy and radiating a faint glow that provides dim light within a 5-foot radius. This object disappears after 1 hour, when you use this feature again, or if it takes or deals any damage.

Card Swap

Starting at 6th level, you have mastered the art of card transposition, a signature move of Cartomancers. As an action, you can play two cards simultaneously from your Deck of Arcana. These cards create a network of arcane energy, causing the entities or objects they represent to switch places.

You can choose to either teleport yourself up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see or you can choose a space within range that is occupied by a willing Small or Medium creature. If that creature is willing, the cards weave your fates together momentarily and cause you both to switch places in a spectacular shuffle of energy.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest or you cast a conjuration spell of 1st level or higher.

Poker Face

Starting at 10th level, your discipline in the arcane arts and your familiarity with high-stakes play allows you to adopt an impenetrable mental state. When you concentrate on a conjuration spell, you draw an invisible card from your Deck of Arcana and hold it in your mind, creating a perfect, serene mental "Poker Face."

This metaphysical card shields your concentration, cloaking your mind in an aura of calm detachment. No matter the tumult or threats that beset you, your spellcasting remains undisturbed, maintaining your spells with unwavering focus. Your Poker Face ensures that your concentration cannot be broken as a result of taking damage.

Stacked Deck

At 14th level, your mastery over conjuration allows you to stack the deck in favor of your summoned creatures and conjured objects. You infuse them with the resilience of the most powerful arcana, which wraps around them like an unseen armor.

Creatures and objects you conjure with your spells carry the mark of a chosen champion, depicted as an ephemeral card overlay that is nearly imperceptible except when caught by the light of magic. This spectral card grants them 30 temporary hit points, symbolizing the fortified nature of their existence and the enhanced endurance granted by your stacked deck.