Mimic Phantom

Many rogues walk a fine line between life and death, risking their own lives and taking the lives of others. While adventuring on that line, some rogues discover a mystical connection to death itself. These rogues take knowledge from the dead and become immersed in negative energy, eventually becoming like ghosts. Thieves' guilds value them as highly effective information gatherers and spies.

Many shadar-kai of the Shadowfell are masters of these macabre techniques, and some are willing to teach this path. In places like Thay in the Forgotten Realms and Karrnath in Eberron, where many necromancers practice their craft, a Phantom can become a wizard's confidant and right hand. In temples of gods of death, the Phantom might work as an agent to track down those who try to cheat death and to recover knowledge that might otherwise be lost to the grave.

How did you discover this grim power? Did you sleep in a graveyard and awaken to your new abilities? Or did you cultivate them in a temple or thieves' guild dedicated to a deity of death?

Level 3: Whispers of the Dead

Upon selecting this archetype at 3rd level, remnants of departed souls linger around you. Following a short or long rest, you can acquire one skill or tool proficiency of your preference, as spectral entities impart their knowledge to you. However, you forfeit this proficiency once you utilize this feature to select a different proficiency that you currently lack.

Choose Skill or Tool Proficiency

When you finish a short or long rest, choose one skill or tool proficiency that you lack. You gain that proficiency until you see this feature to choose a different proficiency.

Level 3: Wails from the Grave

At 3rd level, as you usher someone closer to the grave, you can harness the power of death to harm another. Immediately following the infliction of your Sneak Attack damage to a creature during your turn, you can designate a second creature within 30 feet of the initial target. Roll half the number of Sneak Attack dice for your level (rounded up), and the second creature suffers necrotic damage equal to the total rolled, as echoes of the deceased resonate around them briefly.

You can employ this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses upon completing a long rest.

Level 9: Token of the Departed

At 9th level, when a life fades in your presence, you possess the ability to seize a token from the departing soul—a sliver of its essence that manifests physically. As a reaction to a creature you can see dying within 30 feet of you, you can extend your hand and conjure forth a Tiny trinket, a soul trinket. The form of the trinket is determined by the DM or generated by rolling on the Trinkets table in the Player's Handbook.

You can maintain a maximum number of soul trinkets equal to your proficiency bonus, and you cannot create one if you have reached this limit.

You can employ soul trinkets in the following manners:

1. While a soul trinket remains in your possession, you gain advantage on death saving throws and Constitution saving throws, as your vitality is bolstered by the life essence infused within the object.

2. Upon dealing Sneak Attack damage during your turn, you can destroy one of your soul trinkets that you carry and promptly utilize Wails from the Grave without expending a use of that ability.

3. As an action, you can obliterate one of your soul trinkets, regardless of its location. Upon doing so, you can pose one question to the spirit associated with the trinket. The spirit materializes before you and responds in a language it knew in life. It is not bound to speak truthfully and answers as succinctly as possible, eager for release. The spirit possesses only the knowledge it held in life, as determined by the DM.

Level 13: Ghost Walk

At 13th level, you attain the ability to partially phase into the realm of the deceased, assuming the characteristics of a ghost. As a bonus action, you transition into a spectral form. In this state, you possess a flying speed of 10 feet, can hover, and are more elusive, causing attack rolls against you to suffer disadvantage. Moreover, you can pass through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, although you endure 1d10 force damage if you conclude your turn within a creature or an object.

You maintain this spectral state for 10 minutes or until you terminate it using a bonus action. To utilize this ability once more, you must complete a long rest or expend one of your soul trinkets as part of the bonus action needed to activate Ghost Walk.

Level 17: Death's Friend

At 17th level, your connection to death has deepened to such an extent that you acquire the following advantages:

When you employ your Wails from the Grave feature, you can now inflict the necrotic damage on both the initial and the secondary targets.

Following a long rest, a soul trinket materializes in your hand if you possess none, as the spirits of the departed are drawn to you.