College of Companions

Companions are taught that intimacy is one of civilization's most powerful forces.

Trust can reveal secrets armies cannot uncover.

Affection can reconcile enemies.

Desire can overturn kingdoms.

A quiet conversation may accomplish what a hundred soldiers cannot.

For this reason, Companion training places extraordinary emphasis on discipline.

Students learn that attracting another person's interest is relatively easy. Maintaining trust is considerably harder.

The College therefore teaches several fundamental principles:

Discretion.
What is entrusted to a Companion remains entrusted.

Observation.
People reveal far more through posture, hesitation, expression, breathing, and silence than through words.

Consent.
A Companion distinguishes between desire freely expressed and behavior created through fear, coercion, obligation, or magical influence.

Presence.
Attention given completely is one of the rarest gifts one person can offer another.

Adaptability.
Every individual requires something different: conversation, laughter, reassurance, challenge, affection, silence, entertainment, companionship, or intimacy.

Self-Mastery.
A Companion who cannot govern their own emotions will eventually become the prisoner of someone else's.

College of Companions Features

Bard Level	Feature
3rd	Companion Training, Intimate Understanding, Companion Magic
6th	Perfect Confidence, Read the Heart
14th	Peerless Companion

 

 

Companion Training

Your education has included subjects rarely taught in traditional bardic colleges.

You gain proficiency in Insight and one of the following skills of your choice:

• Medicine
• Performance
• Persuasion

If you already have proficiency in the chosen skill, you instead gain Expertise in that skill.

You also gain proficiency with one of the following:

• Calligrapher's Supplies
• Disguise Kit
• Herbalism Kit
• Navigator's Tools
• Painter's Supplies
• Weaver's Tools

You additionally learn two languages of your choice.

Cultivated Education

Your Companion training encompasses etiquette, interpersonal behavior, emotional health, physical wellness, fashion, conversation, courtly customs, personal grooming, massage, dance, romantic customs, and traditions surrounding courtship and intimacy.

Whenever you make an Intelligence check to recall information concerning these subjects, you can add your Charisma modifier to the roll.

Intimate Understanding

You possess an exceptional ability to read another creature through tiny changes in expression, movement, voice, posture, and breathing.

As a Bonus Action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of yourself.

You study that creature until the start of your next Long Rest or until you use this feature on another creature.

That creature becomes your Focus.

While interacting with your Focus, you gain the following benefits.

Read the Moment

You have Advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks involving your Focus.

Additionally, whenever you make an Insight check concerning your Focus, you can treat a d20 roll of 7 or lower as an 8.

Emotional Awareness

After observing or interacting with your Focus for at least 1 minute, you can determine its current dominant emotional state.

Examples include:

• affection,
• attraction,
• anger,
• anxiety,
• embarrassment,
• fear,
• grief,
• jealousy,
• loneliness,
• suspicion,
• confidence,
• or contentment.

You also recognize whether the creature is noticeably uncomfortable with the current interaction.

This doesn't reveal hidden thoughts or automatically detect lies.

Willing or Coerced

You have Advantage on checks made to determine whether your Focus is:

• being threatened,
• acting under coercion,
• magically Charmed,
• concealing fear,
• or participating unwillingly in a social interaction.

Your Companion training makes distinguishing genuine enthusiasm from compelled behavior particularly important.

Personal Connection

When you spend at least 10 uninterrupted minutes conversing or otherwise peacefully interacting with your Focus, you can expend one use of Bardic Inspiration without giving the creature your Bardic Inspiration die.

Instead, choose one of the following benefits.

Reassure

Your Focus gains Temporary Hit Points equal to:

two rolls of your Bardic Inspiration die + your Charisma modifier.

Encourage

Your Focus can immediately end either the Charmed or Frightened condition on itself.

Confide

For 1 hour, your Focus has Advantage on Wisdom saving throws and Charisma saving throws.

Inspire

Your Focus gains one Bardic Inspiration die without requiring your Bonus Action.

A creature can receive only one benefit from Personal Connection at a time.

Companion Magic

The College teaches its own collection of specialized magic.

You always have certain spells prepared after you reach particular Bard levels.

These spells count as Bard spells for you, but they don't count against the number of Bard spells you prepare.

Bard Level	Companion Spells
3rd	Knowing Glance, Companion's Touch, Private Confidence, Disarming Manner, Read the Room, Borrowed Confidence
5th	Shared Understanding, Velvet Rebuke
7th	Sanctuary of Confidence, Captivating Presence
9th	Unbreakable Confidence, Bonds Made Manifest
11th	Court of Candor, Perfect Companion
13th	Communion of Hearts, Sovereign of the Salon

Companion's Touch — Expanded Expression

When you cast Companion's Touch, its Somatic component can consist of any brief consensual physical gesture appropriate to the relationship between you and the target, including a handclasp, embrace, dance movement, reassuring touch, massage, or kiss.

The mechanical effects remain unchanged.

erfect Confidence

Your training has given you remarkable control over your behavior, emotions, and presentation.

You gain the following benefits.

Composed

You have Advantage on saving throws against the Charmed and Frightened conditions.

Unreadable

Creatures have Disadvantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks made to determine whether you are lying or concealing your emotional state.

You can choose to allow a creature to read you normally.

Grace Under Scrutiny

Whenever you make a Charisma ability check and roll a 9 or lower on the d20, you can treat the roll as a 10.

This benefit doesn't apply if you have Disadvantage on the check.

Professional Discretion

Magic that attempts to read your thoughts encounters carefully practiced mental discipline.

You have Advantage on saving throws against effects that:

• read your thoughts,
• compel you to reveal information,
• magically determine whether you are lying,
• or extract memories from you.

Whenever such an effect fails against you, you know that an attempt was made.

Read the Heart

Your understanding of another person can become almost preternatural.

After interacting peacefully with a creature for at least 1 minute, you can use a Bonus Action to attempt to understand what currently matters most to it.

The creature makes a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC.

A creature can willingly fail this save.

On a failed save, choose one of the following questions.

You receive an emotional impression that truthfully answers it.

Desire

What does this creature presently want most from this interaction?

Fear

What outcome is this creature presently most afraid of?

Trust

What would make this creature more inclined to trust me?

Attachment

Which person present matters most emotionally to this creature?

Hidden Wound

What emotion is this creature most strongly trying to conceal?

Intent

Does this creature presently intend to harm, deceive, exploit, betray, protect, assist, or avoid me?

The answer reflects the creature's current emotional state and intentions rather than prophecy or absolute truth.

For example, a creature may sincerely intend to keep a promise and later change its mind.

Limited Use

You can use Read the Heart a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum once).

You regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Peerless Companion

You have become a master of interpersonal connection.

Few people can spend significant time in your company without feeling that, somehow, you understand them.

You gain the following benefits.

Perfect Attention

You can maintain Intimate Understanding on a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifier instead of only one creature.

All such creatures count as your Focus.

Know What They Need

When one of your Focus creatures within 60 feet fails an ability check or saving throw, you can use your Reaction and expend one Bardic Inspiration die.

Roll the die and add the result to the creature's roll, potentially turning the failure into a success.

You can do so after seeing the roll but before its outcome is resolved.

Emotional Anchor

Whenever one of your Focus creatures begins its turn within 30 feet of you while Charmed or Frightened, that creature can immediately repeat its saving throw against the effect.

On a success, the effect ends.

Moment of Perfect Understanding

Once per Long Rest, you can create a moment of extraordinary emotional synchronization with another creature.

As an Action, choose one willing creature within 30 feet.

For 10 minutes, you and that creature gain the following benefits while within 60 feet of each other:

• You can communicate telepathically.
• Each of you knows the other's emotional state.
• Neither of you can be Charmed or Frightened.
• Both of you gain Advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws.
• Both of you gain Advantage on Insight, Medicine, Performance, and Persuasion checks.
• Whenever one of you receives Bardic Inspiration from the other, the Bardic Inspiration die is rolled twice and the higher result is used.
• Either creature can use its Reaction when the other takes damage to grant that creature Resistance to the triggering damage.

Additionally, once during the effect, when either creature fails a saving throw, the other creature can cause it to succeed instead.

Using this ability immediately ends Moment of Perfect Understanding.