College of Reckoning

The College of Reckoning began with singers who survived calamities that official chronicles called accidents, wars that the victors renamed pacifications, and bargains whose victims were never permitted to speak. Its bards collect names and accounts, then carry them into places where a hidden master, a predatory court, or an immortal monster has made silence part of its defense. Their magic answers violence with witness, protection, and pursuit. It is most effective when an enemy must be exposed, prevented from escaping, and brought down alongside the people it tried to isolate.

A Reckoning bard might be a village mourner, a former court performer, a liberated captive, an investigator who learned that evidence alone could be buried, or a veteran whose company was sacrificed by its commander. Some pursue one particular enemy for years; others maintain rolls of the missing and choose their next journey from a survivor's account. Many are capable of mercy, and some are terrible at accepting it. The college teaches that an accusation must be anchored in evidence, because vengeance against the wrong person merely creates another testimony for someone else to carry.

Origins in Aetheris

The college has no single founding hall. Its verses spread through refugee routes, funeral houses, inquiry circles, and camps left behind by the great conflicts of Aetheris. Aurimundus offers a strong home for the tradition: survivors, exiles, and returning families there have reason to preserve records that distant powers would prefer erased. Reckoning bards also work in the Concord of Veltrion where Shadowfell influence corrupts trusted offices, along routes menaced by slavers, and near places where Old God cults hide behind respectability. These are potential centers of practice rather than a claim that every bard of the college belongs to one nation or guild.

A Reckoning bard may cooperate with the Dark Hunters of Aurimundus when a threat must be identified and brought down, with an inquiry house when testimony needs corroboration, or with an abolitionist network when captives need safe passage. Their songs are not rites of a separate pantheon; members who practice a faith do so within the Celestial Harmony as understood in their communities. The college opposes domination and predation but does not classify an entire species, nation, or faith as irredeemable by default.

Philosophy and Doctrine

Reckoning begins with a witness and ends with responsibility. Members are taught to distinguish an injury from a rumor, to ask what survivors need before promising revenge in their names, and to keep records that remain useful after the singer has gone. Their doctrine permits lethal force against an ongoing threat, yet insists that exposing a system of coercion can matter more than killing its most visible agent. This tension gives the college its difficult stories: a bard may know exactly who deserves punishment and still have to choose rescue, evidence, or restraint first.

A bard who ceases to care whether an accusation is true can retain every spell and feature described here. The college has no supernatural morality test. Other members may refuse that bard their trust, challenge the evidence behind the accusation, or become their most determined pursuers. Those consequences belong in the story rather than in a hidden loss of class abilities.

Visual Identity and Role

A Reckoning bard often carries a compact book of names, a bell, a charcoal rubbing, or a strip of cloth bearing a survivor's words. Dress varies by culture and assignment. In a court, the bard may look like a restrained advocate; on a hunt, like a traveler whose instrument can survive rain and rough handling. The same refrain may be whispered at a bedside, delivered as testimony before a magistrate, and finally sung across a battlefield.

In an adventuring party, this bard identifies the central threat and helps allies act against it. Their spells protect victims, locate a fugitive, interrupt charm and fear, punish violence, and contest regeneration or teleportation at higher levels. The subclass is strongest when a party coordinates around a dangerous target and weakest when it spends all its resources chasing a foe while neglecting simultaneous threats and objectives.

Optional Subclass Techniques

These are narrative techniques and examples of performance, not additional mechanical features. A Roll of the Missing recites names before a journey so survivors know whom the bard seeks. A Counterverse lets another singer repeat testimony in a different language without changing its meaning. A Quiet Bell is sounded only after captives are safe, denying an enemy the chance to use their rescue as bait. A Broken Crown Song turns a tyrant's own slogan into a warning that travels farther than the bard can.

Playing and Roleplaying the College

A Reckoning bard begins a difficult encounter by deciding who is most dangerous and whether the party can afford to focus on that creature. Verse of Accusation gives one ally a brief damage and movement opening; Answer the Wound can protect someone targeted by a retaliation and immediately establish the next opening. The spell repertoire lets the bard choose between investigation and pursuit, protection and reprisal, or a concentrated defense against charms and supernatural escape. Its reactions, Bonus Actions, Bardic Inspiration, and spell slots all compete for use, so the subclass does not gain its full output without spending resources and coordinating with allies.

A member can be compassionate, sardonic, patient, bitter, devout, or politically radical. The useful question is what they think justice requires when the person who suffered most asks for something other than revenge. A party may also discover that a supposed monster was made into a scapegoat, that the guilty person has changed, or that killing one official would leave a predatory institution intact. The subclass works best when those choices matter and when testimony can alter a campaign as much as a battle can.

Faction and Organization Connections

The Dark Hunters in Aurimundus are a natural adventuring partner for an individual bard, especially when a hunt needs witnesses, survivor care, and a public account afterward. The Arcanii or an inquiry house might value a Reckoning bard's disciplined records while disliking the attention their songs attract. The Black Laurel could move a witness out of reach, though its motives may differ from the bard's. Slaving networks, coercive cults, vampire courts, Shadowfell agents, and corrupt houses offer recurring enemies; the bard still needs to establish the wrongdoing of specific people before calling for judgment.

Adventure Hooks

1. A song naming seven vanished workers reaches Aurimundus before any official missing-person report. The seventh name belongs to someone still alive, and the bard must learn why the singer expects them to disappear.
2. A vampire lord willingly attends a public hearing, confident that every living witness has been Charmed. Saving the witnesses matters more than winning the first fight.
3. A Dark Hunters pursuit ends with an apparent fiend unmasked as a captive under a binding spell. The true patron is traveling with the hunters' supply caravan.
4. A magistrate requests a Reckoning bard to expose a cult, then suppresses the testimony that implicates her own family. The party must decide how to preserve evidence without abandoning those still imprisoned.
5. A survivor asks the bard to stop singing a loved one's name because the song has become a beacon to the entity that took them. Ending the threat requires learning what the refrain accidentally reveals.

Notable NPCs

Mara Vell, an Aurimundan human Bard, keeps three versions of every account: the witness's own words, a corroborated record, and a public verse. She hunts the broker who destroyed her first refuge but refuses to publish a name she cannot prove. Teren of the Low Bell, a former funeral singer in the Concord, recognizes changes in testimony around a corrupted official and is gathering witnesses before confronting the office. Ilyra Sable, once celebrated for bringing down a slaver captain, now accuses people faster than she investigates them; she can become a troubled ally or the college's warning made flesh.

Balance Notes

Role and damage: The subclass supplies one extra Bardic Inspiration die of damage per expenditure at level 3, attached to an attack that must hit within a short window. Its level 14 feature adds one die of damage once between the starts of successive Bard turns for a minute, once per Long Rest, with conditional retaliation if the quarry heals or teleports. Neither feature adds damage to every ally's attack or every attack in a large party.

Survivability and utility: Answer the Wound reduces one instance of damage with a Reaction and is limited by Proficiency Bonus per Long Rest. Keeper of Testimony improves investigation without granting automatic truth detection. The spell repertoire offers a broad theme, but only one of each leveled pair is additionally prepared at a time; changing that choice requires a Long Rest.

Resource economy and comparisons: The subclass spends Bardic Inspiration for its ordinary mark, competes for Bonus Actions and Reactions, and retains the Bard's normal spell slots and concentration limits. Compared with a support-focused college, it moves some of its benefit toward a single marked foe while retaining a modest defensive reaction. The largest table risk is stacking a prepared area spell such as Last Bell of Judgment with The Last Refrain during a long boss fight; the former requires concentration and a 7th-level slot, while the latter remains once per Long Rest.

Summary

The College of Reckoning is a Bard tradition of testimony, survivor protection, and pursuit. It can work beside Aurimundus's Dark Hunters without becoming their exclusive subclass, and it offers a clear reason to travel wherever dark powers rely on silence. Its spell choices and brief accusation windows reward preparation and teamwork, while its doctrine asks the character to decide when a justified desire for revenge has begun to endanger the truth.

“I will remember what you did. The living will decide what comes after.”

Reckoning Spell Repertoire

You learn Ashen Refrain and Witness Flame. They are Bard cantrips for you and do not count against the number of Bard cantrips you know. The fourteen leveled spells in the accompanying Vengeance Bard Spell Compendium are added to the Bard spell list for you. You can prepare them normally under your Bard Spellcasting feature, whether or not you choose them for the special preparation described below.

You also have one Reckoning spell prepared from each pair on the table for which you meet the Bard level prerequisite. These spells do not count against the number of spells you can prepare as a Bard. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can change any number of your Reckoning spells to the other spell in their respective pairs. You must still expend a spell slot to cast a leveled Reckoning spell. If you replace a Reckoning spell, it remains on your Bard spell list and can still be prepared normally.

Bard level	Spell level	Choose one Reckoning spell from this pair
3	1	Accuser’s Note or Shield of Grievance
3	2	Pursuer’s Cadence or Break the Leash
5	3	Name the Tyrant or Graveside Chorus
7	4	Writ of No Escape or Mirror of Consequence
9	5	Litany of the Unbroken or Undo the Pact
11	6	Final Testimony or Sever the Black Crown
13	7	Reckoning of Names or Last Bell of Judgment

This progression makes all sixteen spells available to the subclass as options while limiting the always prepared benefit to seven leveled spells at Bard level 13. It never grants a spell before the Bard normally gains a slot of that level.

Verse of Accusation

Action Type: Bonus Action. Uses: One use of Bardic Inspiration. Range: 60 feet. Duration: Until the start of your next turn.

As a Bonus Action, expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration and choose a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself. A brief audible refrain marks it until the start of your next turn. The first time you or an ally hits the marked creature with an attack during that time, the attacker can roll your Bardic Inspiration die and add the result as Psychic damage to that attack. The attacker can then move up to 10 feet without provoking Opportunity Attacks from the marked creature. The mark ends immediately after this benefit is used. The attacker must be able to hear the refrain when the attack hits to gain these benefits.

Only one creature can bear your Verse of Accusation at a time. Marking another creature ends your earlier mark. A creature does not need to have harmed you for you to mark it; the verse is an accusation and a tactical signal, not proof of guilt. This feature creates no concentration requirement and grants no advantage on an attack roll.

Keeper of Testimony

Action Type: Passive. Uses: At will. Duration: Permanent.

You gain proficiency in Insight and Investigation. If you already have proficiency in both, gain proficiency in another Bard skill of your choice. You also gain proficiency with Calligrapher’s Supplies. When you use those supplies to make a contemporaneous record of an interview, a scene, or an inscription, you can reproduce your own observations and the words you personally heard with unusual precision. This feature does not establish that a witness told the truth, identify a disguised speaker, or recreate details you did not perceive.

Answer the Wound

Action Type: Reaction. Uses: Proficiency Bonus per Long Rest. Range: 60 feet. Duration: Instantaneous.

When a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself damages you or an ally you can see within that range, you can use your Reaction to answer the injury. Reduce the triggering damage to one damaged creature by a roll of your Bardic Inspiration die plus your Charisma modifier (minimum reduction of 1). If the attacker is also within 60 feet of you and you can see it, you can immediately mark it with Verse of Accusation without expending a use of Bardic Inspiration or taking a Bonus Action. This mark ends at the start of your next turn as normal, and it ends any previous Verse of Accusation mark. You must be able to speak or make an audible musical sound to use this feature.

The damage reduction applies before determining whether the damaged creature drops to 0 Hit Points. If one effect damages several creatures, choose only one to receive the reduction. You regain all uses of Answer the Wound when you finish a Long Rest.

The Last Refrain

Action Type: Bonus Action to begin; no action for the ongoing benefit. Uses: Once per Long Rest. Range: 60 feet. Duration: 1 minute.

As a Bonus Action, you begin a final refrain and choose one creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself. It bears your Verse of Accusation for the duration without costing Bardic Inspiration. Unlike an ordinary verse, this mark does not end when its benefit is used. Once between the start of one of your turns and the start of your next turn, when you or an ally hits the marked creature with an attack, the attacker can roll your Bardic Inspiration die and add the result as Radiant or Psychic damage (your choice when the damage is dealt). The attacker can then move up to 10 feet without provoking Opportunity Attacks from the marked creature. This benefit can occur only once in that interval, regardless of how many creatures attack the target, and the attacker must be able to hear your refrain. The Last Refrain ends early if you are Incapacitated or die.

At the end of each of the marked creature's turns, it makes a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC if it regained Hit Points or teleported since the end of its previous turn. On a failed save, it takes Radiant damage equal to two rolls of your Bardic Inspiration die. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage. This consequence does not prevent healing or teleportation and does not affect an event that occurred before you began the refrain. If the marked creature drops to 0 Hit Points, you can use a Bonus Action on a later turn before the feature ends to mark a different creature you can see within 60 feet; the original mark ends.

While The Last Refrain is active, you cannot start another Verse of Accusation. You regain the ability to begin The Last Refrain when you finish a Long Rest.