Bard- College of Sorrow

Bards of this College understand better than others that grief takes many forms. While their personal music evokes feelings of despair and sadness the bards themselves prefer to brighten the lives of those they see suffering internally. Their music also incorporates a degree of necromancy, calling to the spirits of the fallen to return to the living world.

Sorrowful Spells

Your solemn songs can invoke the powers of certain spells. At 3rd level, you learn the toll the dead and spare the dying cantrips and they don't count against your known cantrips. When you cast spare the dying it has a range of 30 feet. You gain access to the spells listed below based on spell level in the Sorrowful Spells table.

Once you gain access to one of these spells, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you know. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the bard spell list, the spell is nonetheless a bard spell for you.

Sorrowful Spells 

SPELL Level	Spells
1st	dissonant whispers, false life
2nd	gentle repose, phantasmal force
3rd	fear, revivify
4th	blight, death ward
5th	hallow, modify memory

 

Mournful Awareness

At 3rd level when you join this College you gain proficiency with Wisdom(Insight) checks if you dont already have it. Whenever you make an Insight check, if it is to determine the emotional state of a creature, you have advantage on the roll and you can add your Charisma modifier to the roll.

Swan Song

At 3rd level when you join this College, your songs can call forth the spirit of a bird to aid your allies or impede your enemies. As a Bonus Action, you can expend a use of your Bardic Inspiration to create a Small spectral bird, you can then command the bird to circle a creature you can see within 60 feet of you (no action required by you.) 

• While the bird circles an ally, whenever they make a saving throw against a damaging spell effect they can roll a die equal to your Inspiration die and add the roll to their save. Additionally, should they drop to 0 hit points, the bird will fly into them causing them to drop to 1hp and gain a Bardic Inspiration die one size smaller than your current Inspiration die.
• While the bird circles an enemy, whenever they make a saving throw against a damaging spell effect you roll a die one size smaller than your current Inspiration die and subtract the roll from their save. Additionally, should they be reduced to 0 hit points, the bird flies through the creature before it hits the ground stealing the vestiges of its vitality. As your reaction when the creature dies, you can command the bird to fly into yourself or an ally within 60 feet of you, healing the creature it enters for hit points equal to a roll of your Bardic Inspiration (this roll does not expend a use). If the bird enters you, you regain 1 use of your Bardic Inspiration, if it enters a creature making death saves it heals for the maximum amount.

Whenever the bird enters you or an ally creature it is destroyed after its effects are applied. You can only have one Swan Song active on an enemy at a time but can have as many as you can give out on allies.

One Last Gasp

At 6th level should you drop to 0 hit points, are not outright killed and you have at least one use of your Bardic Inspiration, you can expend 1 use to affect yourself with your Swan Song feature, setting you to 1hp instead of 0; however you do not gain the Inspiration. Once you use this feature, you cannot do so until you finish a long rest and the Bardic Inspiration spent for this feature is not restored until you take a long rest.

Dirge of Souls

At 6th level you can sing a mournful dirge that summons the souls of those that have passed. You can cast speak with dead as a ritual, as part of the ritual you must sing for the entire duration so you must select another willing creature to be the one to ask the questions of the spirit.

Deadly Keening

At 14th level you can channel your sorrow into a bone-chilling scream. As an action, you emit a terrible wail forcing each creature of your choice within 30 feet that can hear you to make a Constitution saving throw versus your spell save DC. Creatures that fail this save take 8d8 psychic damage and if they would drop to 30 hit points or less they instead drop to 0. On a success they instead take half damage and are stunned until the start of their next turn. Constructs and undead are immune to this feature.

Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest or if you expend a spell slot of 5th level or higher.