Circle of Decay

When a druid turns away from the land, the land abandons them in return. Most former druids make their peace with this change; others seek to restore the bond. A few, however, embrace their disconnection from nature and become forces of destruction. These few individuals know the value of nature, but feel only contempt and hatred towards it. Where normal druids gain their powers through bonding with the spirits of nature, druids from the Circle of Decay siphon their power from the spirits themselves.

The more upset the spirits of the earth grow, the druid grows more and more powerful. A swath of deforested land always marks their path through the wilderness. The vast majority of these sort of druids are nomadic loners constantly in search of green lands to destroy. Some are grim; others laugh at the destruction they wreak. Few might be smart enough to cultivate the forests for years, decades even, to attain greater strength when they siphon the life force of the spirits of the forest. What puts them over the edge is the knowledge that nature gets the last laugh: to gain their spells, they must seek out the richest forests of the land, even if it’s only to destroy them. Thus, even though they’ve turned away from nature, they must constantly return to it.

Some druids however, manage to find a sort of symbiosis with nature. For where there is life, there is also death. These druids work as harvesters of life in these forests, putting down dying or sick flora and fauna, hastening the natural order of things without upsetting the circle of life.

Decaying Spells

When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you learn the cantrips Chill Touch and Acid Splash.

These are druid cantrips for you and don't count towards your maximum amount of cantrips.

Circle of Decay Spells

Your link to death and decay grants you access to certain spells. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you gain access to the spells listed for that level in the Circle of Decay Spells table.

Once you gain access to one of these spells, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.

Circle of Decay Spells

Corrupted Wildshape

Starting at 6th level, your powers twist and corrupt the energy you siphon from nature, transforming your wildshape forms into other creatures.

You can only wildshape into plants or undead creatures which have a Challenge Rating one third of your level (rounded down). Other restrictions for wildshape still apply.

Hollow Soul

At 10th level your very being begins to grow hollow as your corruptive powers start to decay bits and pieces of your soul. Your creature type turns undead and you count as such for the purpose of different spells and magical effects, such as Turn Undead.

That means you no longer grow older, not even by magical effects. You no longer need to eat, drink or sleep and can spend 8 hours during a long rest doing light activities to gain the benefits of a long rest.

You also gain immunity to necrotic damage and effects which reduce your hitpoint maximum.

 

Death and Decay

At 14th level, you learn to unleash a surge of necrotic energy from your cold, unfeeling soul.

Originating from you, you unleash a wave of energy that goes to a distance of 60 feet. You can designate any number of creatures you can see to be unaffected by this effect. All creatures affected by this must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 6d8 necrotic damage. On a successful save they take half damage. You heal yourself for half of the damage you deal.

In addition, the area covered by this feature is covered in necrotic energy and creatures that enter the area for the first time on their turn or start their turn in it take 2d6 necrotic damage.

You have one use of this feature and regain it at the end of a long rest.