School of Shadow Magic

The School of Shadow Magic is not taught in any reputable tower. Its treatises are bound in unmarked leather, copied by candle-starved hands, and burned whenever the wrong eyes find them. Adherents of this tradition do not treat darkness as the mere absence of light. They treat it as a substance—an older, hungrier medium through which the Weave can be rewritten. Where an evoker hurls fire, a shadow mage smothers the world until only the outline of the victim remains.

Those who walk this path invite the Plane of Shadow into their sight and their spells. Light becomes a defect to be corrected. Mercy becomes a waste of motion. The tradition has no use for wizards who still pretend the dark is only a tool.

Restriction: Evil Alignment Only

Only a character of evil alignment can choose this arcane tradition. If you select this school and later become non-evil, you lose the features of this tradition until your alignment is evil once more. A wizard who is not evil cannot select this school.

Umbral Grasp

2nd-level School of Shadow Magic feature

You bind your senses and your spellcraft to the dark. You gain all of the following benefits.

Umbral Sight. You gain darkvision out to a range of 300 feet. If you already have darkvision, its range becomes 300 feet if it was shorter. You can see through darkness of every kind—including magical darkness and any other form of darkness—out to the full range of this darkvision, and you cannot be blinded by darkness of any kind.

You have advantage on Investigation and Perception checks that rely on sight while you are seeing through dim light or darkness.

Umbral Strike. You have advantage on spell attack rolls against a creature that is in dim light or darkness, provided the spell you are casting does not produce light.

Shadowed Spell. When you cast a spell that produces light or has a visual effect, you can choose for the spell to produce magical darkness instead of light. Any visual effect the spell produces is formed of magical darkness.

When you cast a spell that deals damage, you can change that spell’s damage type to cold, necrotic, or psychic. If you do, any light the spell would produce is replaced with magical darkness, and any visual effect of the spell is formed of magical darkness.

Unseen in the Dark. You are invisible to any creature that can see you only by virtue of darkvision. While you are in an area of magical darkness, you are invisible.

Shadowstep. You gain proficiency in the Stealth skill if you don’t already have it, and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses Stealth. You have advantage on Stealth checks while within dim light or darkness.

You can take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. You don’t provoke opportunity attacks while you are in dim light or darkness.

Heart of Night

6th-level School of Shadow Magic feature

You can cast darkness without expending a spell slot. You can cast it in this way at will. When you cast darkness using this feature, you can cast it as a bonus action, and the spell doesn’t require concentration.

While you are in an area of magical darkness, you gain the following benefits:

• You are immune to cold, necrotic, and psychic damage.
• You gain a bonus to your Armor Class equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).
• You gain a bonus to Stealth checks equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).

In addition, you gain a bonus to your spell attack rolls equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1) against targets that are in magical darkness, and the save DC of your spells increases by an amount equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1) for targets that are in magical darkness.

Sovereign Eclipse

10th-level School of Shadow Magic feature

Darkness you create answers only to you. You gain the following benefits.

Creatures of your choice are blinded while they are in an area of magical darkness created by you. A creature blinded in this way cannot benefit from blindsight, tremorsense, truesight, or any other special sense, and it cannot benefit from immunity to being blinded.

Creatures cannot see into or through magical darkness created by you unless you allow them to.

While you are in an area of magical darkness, you gain a bonus to saving throws equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).

Night Eternal

14th-level School of Shadow Magic feature

Your darkness is no longer a competing spell effect. It is a law the Weave observes.

Your spells that have visual effects formed of magical darkness, and any magical darkness you produce, cannot be dispelled or suppressed by light of any kind, including the daylight spell and similar magic.

Spells and other magical effects that produce light cannot penetrate or leave an area of magical darkness created by you.

Spells and magical effects that deal radiant damage fail to affect any creature, object, or area inside magical darkness created by you.

While you are in an area of magical darkness, you have advantage on all saving throws, you are resistant to all damage, and you are immune to radiant damage. When you make a death saving throw while you are in an area of magical darkness, treat the d20 result as a 20.