College of Scorned Vitriol

The College of Scorned Vitriol teaches that words are more than instruments of inspiration, persuasion, or entertainment. Properly chosen and delivered with sufficient force, they are weapons capable of inflicting wounds no blade could ever reach.

Bards of this college study language, behavior, emotion, memory, and vulnerability with obsessive precision. They learn to recognize the smallest cracks in another creature's confidence and exploit them through supernatural ridicule, scathing observations, and devastating verbal assaults.

Their victims rarely suffer from a single insult alone. Each cutting remark can leave behind an Ego Crack, gradually weakening a creature's ability to withstand further ridicule while allowing subsequent attacks to become increasingly destructive. As a victim's confidence collapses, the bard's words become progressively more difficult—and more painful—to resist.

With greater mastery, these bards can direct their contempt toward several creatures simultaneously and even manifest spectral echoes of figures from a victim's past, forcing the unfortunate target to endure a relentless chorus of deeply personal criticism.

The greatest practitioners of Scorned Vitriol can transform an insult into a sustained masterpiece of psychological destruction. Their words continue to torment a victim even after the bard has fallen silent, lost consciousness, or died, culminating in a final devastating condemnation capable of shattering what remains of the victim's ego.

The College of Scorned Vitriol draws upon an unusual combination of Charisma, Intelligence, and Constitution. Charisma gives the bard's words supernatural authority, Intelligence provides the precision necessary to discover exactly where those words will hurt most, and Constitution supplies the relentless endurance required to continue the assault when any reasonable person would have stopped talking long ago.

Level 3: Vitriolic Mockery

When you join the College of Scorned Vitriol, you learn to transform even the simplest insult into a devastating supernatural weapon. You learn the Vicious Mockery cantrip, and it doesn't count against the number of Bard cantrips you know.

You can cast Vicious Mockery as a Bonus Action instead of an Action.

When you cast Vicious Mockery using this feature, its damage die becomes a d8, and you add your Intelligence modifier to the psychic damage it deals.

The spell's damage increases as you gain levels:

3rd Level: 1d8
5th Level: 2d8
11th Level: 4d8
17th Level: 8d8

Vicious Mockery otherwise retains its normal effects, including imposing disadvantage on the next attack roll the target makes before the end of its next turn after it fails its saving throw.

Level 3: Ego Fracture

Your words don't merely wound—they linger, gradually dismantling a creature's confidence and leaving its mind increasingly vulnerable to your contempt.

Whenever a creature fails its saving throw against your Vicious Mockery, it gains 1 Ego Crack for 1 minute.

A creature can have a maximum number of Ego Cracks equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1).

For each Ego Crack it has, the creature suffers a −1 penalty to saving throws against your Vicious Mockery.

Whenever you successfully affect the creature with Vicious Mockery, the duration of all Ego Cracks on that creature resets to 1 minute.

If 1 minute passes without you successfully affecting the creature with Vicious Mockery, all of its Ego Cracks disappear.

If another feature you possess allows you to inflict Ego Cracks, the features use the same pool of Ego Cracks, and you use the highest maximum allowed by any of those features.

Level 3: Spellbreaker's Scorn

Practitioners of Scorned Vitriol take particular pleasure in dismantling those who believe magical power places them beyond ridicule. You have learned to recognize the subtle signs of spellcasting and exploit the smallest lapse in a caster's concentration.

You gain the Mage Slayer feat.

If you already have the Mage Slayer feat when you gain this feature, you instead gain another feat for which you qualify.

Level 3: Unrelenting Vitriol

Conflict only sharpens your tongue. Every successful barb fuels your resolve, allowing you to endure punishment while relentlessly tearing apart your enemies.

Whenever a creature takes psychic damage from your Vicious Mockery, you regain hit points equal to your Constitution modifier.

You can regain hit points from this feature once per casting of Vicious Mockery, regardless of how many creatures are damaged by the spell.

Level 6: Cruel Chorus

Your mastery of scorn has grown beyond dismantling a single mind at a time. With effortless precision, you can spread your supernatural contempt among several creatures without diminishing the venom behind your words.

Beginning at 6th level, whenever you cast Vicious Mockery, you can target up to two additional creatures within the spell's range, for a maximum of three targets with a single casting.

Each target makes its own Wisdom saving throw and suffers the spell's effects independently.

Your Vitriolic Mockery, Ego Fracture, and other features that trigger from Vicious Mockery apply to each eligible target normally. Features that can trigger only once per casting retain that limitation.

Level 6: Shattered Confidence

Your relentless ridicule turns wounded pride into a weakness you can exploit. The more thoroughly you dismantle a creature's confidence, the deeper each subsequent insult cuts.

Beginning at 6th level, when you deal psychic damage to a creature with Vicious Mockery, the creature takes additional psychic damage equal to your Charisma modifier for each Ego Crack it has.

The Ego Cracks aren't consumed by this damage.

For example, if your Charisma modifier is +5:

1 Ego Crack → +5 psychic
2 Ego Cracks → +10 psychic
3 Ego Cracks → +15 psychic
4 Ego Cracks → +20 psychic
5 Ego Cracks → +25 psychic

Level 6: Haunting Reproach

Beginning at 6th level, you can manifest spectral echoes of figures from a creature's past. These spirits surround the target, relentlessly confronting it with old failures, humiliations, regrets, and painfully precise observations.

Choose one creature you can see within 60 feet. Spectral figures from its past manifest around it and relentlessly torment it for 1 minute.

At the start of each of the target's turns, it must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Bard spell save DC. On a failed save, it takes 3d8 psychic damage + your Charisma modifier + your Intelligence modifier + your Constitution modifier. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage.

This effect requires no Concentration. Once manifested, the spirits persist independently of you for the full duration. They don't disappear if you become unconscious or die, or if you use Haunting Reproach against another creature.

The spirits follow their target wherever it moves and remain until the 1-minute duration ends, the target dies, or the target leaves the plane of existence.

You can use Haunting Reproach a number of times equal to twice your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Level 14: Magnum Opus of Contempt

At 14th level, you achieve the pinnacle of Scorned Vitriol: a sustained masterpiece of ridicule so precise, relentless, and devastating that it systematically tears apart a creature's confidence, memories, and sense of self.

As an Action, choose one creature you can see within 60 feet and begin your Magnum Opus of Contempt, which lasts for 1 minute.

Once begun, the Magnum Opus continues automatically. It requires no Concentration, doesn't require you to spend additional actions, and doesn't end if you become incapacitated, unconscious, or die, or if you attack or target another creature. It ends only when its duration expires, the target dies, or the target leaves the plane of existence.

The Master Insult. At the start of each of the target's turns, it must make an Intelligence saving throw against your Bard spell save DC. On a failed save, the target takes 8d8 psychic damage + your Charisma modifier + your Intelligence modifier + your Constitution modifier. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage.

Each time the target fails this saving throw, it also gains 1 Ego Crack. These Ego Cracks interact normally with your Ego Fracture and Shattered Confidence features, but they can't expire or be removed by the normal duration of Ego Fracture until Magnum Opus of Contempt ends.

The Chorus of the Condemned. When you begin Magnum Opus of Contempt, Haunting Reproach also manifests against the target without expending a use of that feature. Its spectral torment occurs independently and deals its normal damage in addition to the damage caused by Magnum Opus of Contempt.

Cruel Audience. Whenever the primary target fails its Intelligence saving throw against Magnum Opus of Contempt, you can choose up to two other creatures within 60 feet of you. Each chosen creature takes psychic damage equal to half the psychic damage dealt to the primary target by that instance of Magnum Opus of Contempt.

The Final Word. At the end of the 1-minute duration, if the target is still alive and remains on the same plane of existence, it immediately takes psychic damage equal to the maximum possible damage of your Vitriolic Mockery multiplied by the number of Ego Cracks it currently has. No attack roll or saving throw is made against this damage. The target's Ego Cracks are then removed.

You can use Magnum Opus of Contempt a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.