Oath of the Drowned Lord

Only a handful of those who swear the Oath of the Drowned Lord actively sought out the Drowned Lord.  Most of those were chosen by the Drowned Lord itself to serve as its champions.  The Drowned Lord gives these individuals power and then demands obedience by threatening to take it away, a highly effective tactic.  The Drowned Lord's champions focus all their might on freeing their many-eyed master from his divine prison.  If the Drowned Lord has been released, they move onto the next stage: drowning the world so that their master can truly rule over all.

Tenets of The Drowned Lord

The tenets of the Oath of the Drowned Lord are cryptic, and followers of the Drowned Lord clash over their meaning.

Learn. Learn what?  Some Drowned Lord acolytes try to gather all types of lore, while some obsess over a single topic. Still others simply attempt to kill as many kinds of creatures as they can, claiming such slaying is a sort of learning.

Grow. The Drowned Lord's followers concur that it wants them to become stronger, but disagree about the best methods.  Many seek to travel far and wide, surveying all the lands their master thirsts to cover beneath the waves.

Provoke. Most worshipers of the Drowned Lord interpret this tenet as a sign that spreading chaos will help usher in the dominion of their scaled lord.  The weakest content themselves with starting bar fights, while stronger followers provoke mutinies and instigate gang wars, and the mightiest seek to bring strife to entire kingdoms.

Consume. This tenet provokes the most debate. There is general agreement that the Drowned Lord not interested in simple gluttony, but no accord beyond that.  A few worshipers have decided to ritually devour their fallen enemies.  Others search for hidden lore and then destroy it, “consuming” such knowledge. 

Oath of the Drowned Lord Spells
Paladin Level	Spells
3rd	Create or Destroy Water, Dissonant Whispers
5th	Locate Object, Serpent’s Coils (acts as Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp)
9th	Tidal Wave, Wall of Water
13th	Control Water, Watery Sphere
17th	Dream, Maelstrom

  

Channel Divinity

When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.

Crushing Coils.  When you use the Attack action, you can squeeze a creature you are grappling with tremendous force as a substitute for one attack.  It takes 2d10 + your paladin level bludgeoning damage.  You may use Divine Smite to increase this damage.

Thousand-Eyed Glare.  You can use your Channel Divinity to daze one of your foes.  As an action, you make countless eyes erupt from your body and fixate on a creature you choose within 30 feet of you.  It must succeed on a Constitution or Wisdom saving throw (your choice) or be stunned until the start of your next turn.

Servant of the Depths

When you swear the Oath of the Drowned Lord, you lose the ability to channel divine light, as your god loathes it.  The spell Daylight is no longer on your paladin spell list, but Darkness is.

You gain the ability to blast your foes with the crushing pressure and freezing depths of the Drowned Lord's prison.  Each time you deal damage with a paladin feature or spell that would normally deal fire or radiant damage, you may deal either bludgeoning or cold damage or a mixture of bludgeoning and cold damage instead.

When you deal fire or radiant damage with a paladin spell or feature, you deal -1 damage per die roll.  When you deal bludgeoning or cold damage with a paladin feature or spell and roll a 1 on a damage die, treat it as a 2 instead.

Leviathan's Aura

Starting at 7th level, you constantly emanate one of two auras that emulate the power of your dark deity.  You and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you gain one of the following abilities:

Blessing of the Deep. You gain the ability to breathe water.  Being underwater imposes no penalties on your movement or attacks.  You also gain darkvision with a range of 120 feet and resistance to cold damage.

Coiling Might.  You have advantage on all ability checks to grapple other creatures, avoid being grappled, and escape from grapples.  You also have advantage on Strength saving throws against spells and effects that restrain you.

Switching between the auras requires a bonus action. 

At 18th level, the range of the auras increases to 30 feet.

One Master Only

The Drowned Lord is a jealous god and ensures that you always obey it and only it.  Starting at 15th level, you become immune to being charmed and to similar spells and effects such as Command  (DM's discretion). Whenever a creature targets you with a charm effect or spell or something similar, the Drowned Lord lashes out at it, inflicting 1d12 + your paladin level psychic damage.  This feature ignores resistance and immunity to psychic damage.

Benthic Wrath

At 20th level, you can channel the Drowned Lord's rage at being long-imprisoned.  As an action, you become a vessel of divine wrath.  For 1 minute, you have advantage on all attack rolls and your weapon attacks and spells deal additional damage equal to your Charisma modifier.  Additionally, you have a +10 bonus on Charisma (Intimidation) checks.

If the Drowned Lord has been freed from its prison, you may instead cast Tsunami.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.