Temporal Lending

The study of Temporal Lending differs from other scholars of time. Typical chronomancers focus on traveling through time or slowing or accelerating the passage of time. Those who study Temporal Lending realized who the best possible ally is: yourself. Temporal Lenders manipulate the flow of time to borrow power from the future and to give power back to their past. Temporal Lenders carry a certain confidence knowing that every future version of themselves will defend them, as they defend their past selves. A mutual understanding between versions of themselves is key to the abilities of a Lender. They all understand that to take from the future, they must give to the past.

For Temporal Lenders to borrow from themselves, the control the timestream to do it. This introduces the most important third-actor in the Lender's world: time itself. To influence Lenders of past and future, distortions in spacetime must be created. These distortions are where Temporal Lenders get their title. Not only do they lend between themselves, but they also lend between time itself. Every time a Lender takes power from the future, the cosmic scale becomes unbalanced. The universe's constant pull towards the laws of physics, gravity, and order require the Lender to give power back to the past. This balances the cosmic scales, and "pays off" the debt. The more debt a Lender has accumulated, the stronger the universe's pull towards order, the harsher the consequences for failing to pay the debt. 

(Writer's note: the whole concept of this class is that I can do cool stuff and pay for it later. However, this means that it would be pretty easy to self-destruct a character early on. For example at 6th level, you could Anomaly spell a 9th level meteor swarm and take 9 debt levels. But to pay the debt off, you'd have to wait until you have access to 9th level spell slots. So your low-level character could break your campaign early on, but is punished for it later. Players, talk with your DM and make sure they understand the inherent risk of this class. DMs, make sure your player is responsible not to wreck your campaign early on.)

Flashforward

You've spent so much time studying the timestream, you tend to mistake the past for the future, or vice versa.

You gain proficiency in History checks. Additionally, you can make history checks to gain information about future events as well as previous events.

Repeated Circumstances

With the ability to pluck the strings of time itself, you constantly experience feelings of deja vu. These feelings are especially useful in battle.

Add your Intelligence modifier to your initiative rolls and you can’t be surprised while you are conscious.

Localized Dilation

 When you really need to move somewhere, you seem to teleport rather than move traditionally. When your adrenaline spikes, the passage of time in your immediate vicinity slows to a crawl. You don't speed up, everyone else slows down.

When you take the Dash action, you gain 10 additional feet of movement speed and no longer provoke opportunity attacks.

Temporal Debt

Your studies of the past and present have finally paid off. You can now borrow power from your future self by creating distortions in spacetime. However, these distortions can have deadly consequences. The more power you borrow, the higher your debt stacks up, the more the universe wants you to pay up. Even using deadly measures to enforce the payment of the debt. To counteract these distortions, you must "pay back" the power you borrowed previously. By paying off your Temporal Debt, the timestream returns to normalcy, allowing you to warp it yet again. This manipulation of time is the core power of the Temporal Lender. All you have is yourself, but at least you have who you were and who you'll become to back you up.

Your Temporal Lending abilities give you levels of Temporal Debt. These levels are additive and do stack. At Temporal Debt level 4, you suffer from the level 4 effects as well as the effects of all lower levels.

 

---

Temporal Debt Level Table:
The Temporal Debt Table shows the consequences of borrowing against time itself. Your Temporal Lending abilities give you levels of Temporal Debt. These levels are additive and do stack. You suffer from the consequence associated with your debt level as well as every level below it.

Temporal Debt Level:	Consequence:	Effect:
2	A blemish on your time record severs your subconscious connection to the flow of time.	Disabled Flashforward, Repeated Circumstances, and Temporal Dilation
4	Your temporal deficit impedes your focus on the arcane arts.	Nullified INT mod on spell attacks and DC
6	You find it hard to concentrate on your actions when they aren’t directly connected to fixing the timestream and repaying the debt.	Halved skill proficiency bonus (rounded down)
8	Your temporal debt creates interference with your connection to the Weave, throttling your arcane recharge rate.	Halved spell slot recovery on a long rest (half of each level rounded down to a minimum of 1)
10	The flow of time itself is actively reminding you to repay your debt by augmenting your magic to create localized fixations in time.	Take force damage equal to half your debt level every time you cast a spell. This damage cannot reduce you to less than 1 hit point.
12	Your temporal debt constricts your focus even further.	Negative INT mod on spell attacks and DC
14	Your temporal deficit imbalances your attacks.	Disadvantage on spell attacks
16	The weight of temporal debt diminishes your ability to relate to others, as your focus shifts to repaying the debt.	Charisma score set to 8
18	Your attention is always fixed on the timestream causing any other focus to be distracted and agitated.	Disadvantage on all skill checks
20	The temporal debt surrounding your person is so heavy, the flow of time begins to flow around you, excluding you from existence.	Death

 

Automatic Payment Checks

The universe strongly dislikes being manipulated and bent out of the laws of order. When you push the spring back to gain power, it pushes back and wants to return to normal. Typically you can control when to pay off your Temporal Debt. But sometimes, the universe seems to remind you who's in charge and forces you to pay off the debt immediately.

Whenever a Temporal Lending tells you to make an Automatic Payment check, make an unmodified ability check. The DC for success is equal to your level of Temporal Debt.

Extreme Debt Cancellation

There are harsh consequences for failing to repay your debt to the universe. If you die while carrying temporal debt, you explode in an eruption of primal, elemental entropy, dealing 1d10 force damage per debt level in a 30-foot radius to a max of 19d10. If you die due to the 20 debt level consequence, the damage and range doubles to 40d10 in a 60-foot radius.

Stable Anomalies

You can siphon magic energy from your future self to cast spells at no cost to your present self. When you call in a spell from the future, a tiny, temporal wormhole opens for an imperceptible moment. You, at some point in the future, spend the resources and deliver the spell to exactly where and when you need it. The arcane effects fly into the present reality while the fabric of spacetime contorts to your will. However, these contortions don't exist without consequences...

As a bonus action, you can cause any spell at any level to arrive from your future self. This Anomaly Spell requires no verbal, somatic, material components, or spell slots, only a bonus action. You are considered the caster of this spell for the purposes of stats and concentration. You can cause the effect to originate from any point you can see within 120 feet.
When you cast a spell in this way, you accrue Temporal Debt, penalizing you for imbalancing the cosmic scale of time.
After the spell takes its effect, (or its first effect in the case of longer spells), gain Temporal Debt levels equal to the level of the spell + the number of spells you’ve already cast and haven’t repaid. (Cantrips act as first-level spells)
Eg. you cast fireball from the future. You gain 3 debt levels (3rd level spell + 0 unrepaid spells) The next turn, you cast fireball from the future again. You gain 4 more debt levels. (3rd level spell + 1 unrepaid spell) The next turn, you cast Cone of Cold. You gain 7 more debt levels. (5th level spell + 2 unrepaid spells) You are now at 14 Temporal Debt levels.

---

Anomaly Spells: Paying the Debt

To repay the costs created by casting spells in this way, you must cast the spells normally but send the effects back to the past. There are two ways to this: Intentionally and Unintentionally.
Intentional Payment:
To pay for an Anomaly Spell intentionally, simply expend materials and a spell slot equal to the cost of the Anomaly Spell. Now, this spell has been paid for and no longer counts against you. Recalculate your Temporal Debt for any other spells you have unrepaid as their debt value decreases as you pay for more spells.
Eg. : You have 2 unrepaid Fireball spells and a Cone of Cold spell costing you a total of 14 debt levels. 3, 4, and 7. You repay a Fireball spell and now have 9 debt levels. A fireball worth 3 (3rd level spell + 0) and a Cone of Cold worth 6 (5th level spell + 1 unrepaid spell)
Unintentional Payment:
Whenever you cast a spell normally that you have already cast as an unrepaid Anomaly Spell, make an Automatic Payment check. On a fail, the spell is used to repay the Anomaly Spell as discussed in Intentional Payment. Otherwise, the spell is cast as normal.
Eg. You have 2 unrepaid Fireball spells and a Cone of Cold spell costing you a total of 14 debt levels. You try to cast Fireball as a normal spell. You roll a 9 on your d20 roll. Instead of the Fireball taking effect, the spell goes to pay for one of your debted fireballs. You now have a debt level of 9.

Divergent Outcomes

Not only can you borrow magic energy from the future, but you can also gain other forms of help from your future self as well. A tiny gravity well appears momentarily, changing the trajectory of a misguided arrow to find its foe with painful precision. However, be sure to return the favor for your other selves...

Whenever you gain this ability, roll 2 d20s and record their results. These are your Divergence Dice Whenever you make an attack, you can replace your roll with one of your Divergence Dice rolls. The original roll replaces the Divergence Dice as well. If the replacement roll is an improvement to the original roll, take 2 Temporal Debt levels. If the replacement roll is not an improvement to the original roll, remove 2 Temporal Debt levels. You can’t have negative debt levels, and you can’t use this ability to remove debt accrued from any other ability.

Bootstrap Duplication

Your final breakthrough is a new type of temporal borrowing. Rather than borrowing magic or rolls, you borrow yourself. You allow your future self to step into your reality and influence the present, that is, his past. But remember, anything that happens to the duplicate, will eventually happen to you when you find yourself as the "future" self. Time is complicated. Failure to perpetuate the bootstrap paradox, such as dying before you can help your past self, would result in a break in the flow of time. Consequently, the universe would likely cease existing.  Maybe. This is a new science after all...

Your access to the timestream allows you to not only borrow spells and attacks from the future but to temporarily borrow yourself from the future. As a bonus action, a future version of yourself appears to aid you. You control this future duplicate and they act on your Initiative count - 10. They can cast spells, make attacks and move as normal. Your duplicate disappears once it chooses to leave (it thinks like you) or you dismiss them. If the duplicate tries to tell you of the future or speak of anything other than the present, it's current health is halved and it disappears. Your duplicate has the same amount of hit points as you, however, if they are reduced to 0 hit points, they are stabilized and disappear, returning to the future. If it takes enough damage to kill you outright, your duplicate dies but returns to the future.
Any damage taken or spell slots lost or Temporal debt gained by your duplicate is recorded for later repayment. Once your duplicate disappears, take a level of exhaustion and gain 4 Temporal Debt levels for each time you summon it without repaying your previous duplicates.
Eg. You summon a duplicate to aid you. Once he leaves, you take 1 level of exhaustion and 4 debt levels. You summon another duplicate. Once he leaves, you take another level of exhaustion and gain 8 more debt levels. The next duplicate would bring you to 3rd level of exhaustion and 24 debt levels (4+8+12) (20th level debt would kill you, however, it wouldn't kill you until after your duplicates disappear.)

Intentional Payment:
To repay the debt, you perform a 1-minute ritual, after which you disappear for 1 minute. While you are gone, typical location-finding spells can't find you. When you return 1 minute later, you take damage, lose spell slots and gain Temporal Debt based on the actions your duplicate took previously. If you are reduced to 0 hit points in this way, you are automatically stabilized but still unconscious. If your duplicate was killed outright while helping you, you return dead. If you didn't have enough spell slots to perform every action your duplicate performed, treat each spell you couldn't cast as an Anomaly Spell. When you return, the debt for the duplicate is repaid.
Unintentional Payment:
While you have an unpaid temporal duplicate, when you finish a long rest make an Automatic Payment check. On a success, nothing happens. On a fail, you disappear for 1 minute and suffer the same effects outlined in the intentional payment.