College of Whispers (ALT)

Most folk are happy to welcome a bard into their midst. Bards of the College of Whispers use this to their advantage. They appear to be like any other bard, sharing news, singing songs, and telling tales to the audiences they gather. In truth, the College of Whispers teaches its students that they are wolves among sheep. These bards use their knowledge and magic to uncover secrets and turn them against others through extortion and threats.

Many other bards hate the College of Whispers, viewing it as a parasite that uses the bards’ reputation to acquire wealth and power. For this reason, these bards rarely reveal their true nature unless they must. They typically claim to follow some other college, or keep their true nature secret in order to better infiltrate and exploit royal courts and other settings of power.

Uncanny Charisma

At 3rd level, you become enchantingly likable, and hard to resist. You learn the Friends cantrip if you don't already know it. The cantrip doesn't count against your number of cantrips known. When you cast Friends the target of the spell doesn't know it was influenced by magic after the effect ends. Additionally, casting Friends doesn't require you to maintain concentration.

Shadow Cloak

When you join the College of Whispers at 3rd level, you gain the ability to shroud creatures with shadows, making them imperceivable.

As a bonus action, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration and choose a number of creatures within 30 feet of you equal to your Charisma modifier. The chosen creatures are under the benefit of the invisibility spell for 1 minute. This casting of the spell doesn't require you to maintain concentration. You can end the effect early as a bonus action.

Mantle of Whispers

At 6th level, you gain the ability to adopt a humanoid's persona. You can cast Alter Self at will without expending a spell slot. You can only choose the Change Appearance option when you cast the spell with this feature.

Additionally, when you cast Alter Self using this feature, you can choose one humanoid within 30 feet of you that you can see. You adopt their appearance as the part of the spell and you gain access to all information that the humanoid would freely share with a casual acquaintance. Such information includes general details on its background and personal life but doesn't include secrets. The information is enough that you can pass yourself off as the person by drawing on its memories. The spell ends early if the person you've taken the information from sees you directly.

Another creature can see through this disguise by succeeding on a Wisdom (Insight) check contested by your Charisma (Deception) check. You gain a +5 bonus to your check. This only includes the information you got from the chosen person, not their likeness, which holds up to physical inspection as per normal.

Shadow Lore

At 14th level, you gain the ability to weave dark magic into your words and tap into a creature’s deepest fears.

As an action, you magically whisper a phrase that only one creature of your choice within 30 feet of you can hear. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. It automatically succeeds if it doesn’t share a language with you or if it can’t hear you. On a successful saving throw, your whisper sounds like unintelligible mumbling and has no effect.

If the target fails its saving throw, it is charmed by you for the next 8 hours or until you or your allies attack or damage it. It interprets the whispers as a description of its most mortifying secret.

While you gain no knowledge of this secret, the target is convinced you know it. While charmed in this way, the creature obeys your commands for fear that you will reveal its secret. It won’t risk its life for you or fight for you, unless it was already inclined to do so. It grants you favors and gifts it would offer to a close friend.

When the effect ends, the creature has no understanding of why it held you in such fear.

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