College of Expression

Bards who follow the creation of art, over the creation of music or the study of blades. They use the ink and brush where others would use their words to control the battlefield, and inspire the world around them.

The Art of Inspiration

When you join the College of Expression at 3rd level, you have mastered the arts of ink and brush, able to transform blank pages or canvases into vivid scenes and moving prose. You gain proficiency with either Painter’s Supplies, or Calligrapher’s tools.
Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability checks you make with this tool, and you are able to use them as a spellcasting focus instead of an instrument.
Additionally, you have learned how to translate the purest essence of a moment onto a blank page. You may spend 1 minute and 10gp worth of specialised inks or paints to create an inspiring message or image. A creature who reads this message gains the benefits of your Bardic Inspiration for the next ten minutes, or until it is expended. You may create a number of inspiring messages equal to your Charisma Modifier (minimum of 1), re-gaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest. The inspiring messages retain their magic for 24 hours after being created, or until they are read.

Artistic License

Starting at 3rd level you are able to use your skills to put scenes to ink and paper so evocatively they almost come alive. If you spend 1 minute studying a creature or area no larger than a 20 foot cube, you are able to recreate it as an illusion. If the illusion is of a creature, you are able to place it over another willing creature as a disguise. You may use an action to cause the illusion to replicate a sound, such as heavy footsteps or a roar. If the illusion is of an area, it is static unless you spend a bonus action to cause a specific sensory effect to occur, such as the movement of flames or the scent of flowers.
If a creature uses its action to examine the image, the creature can determine that it is an Illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the Illusion for what it is, the Illusion becomes faint to the creature.
The area you can recreate increases to a 30 foot cube at 6th level, a 40 foot cube at 10th level, and a 50 foot cube at 14th level. Once you use this ability, you must complete a short rest before using it again.

Re-Drafting

Beginning at 6th level, your ability to capture a scene as it occurs has grown to the point where purposeful tweaks to your descriptions or imagery can ripple out into reality. Once per short rest you may spend your reaction to reroll an ability check, attack roll or saving throw made by a creature you can see. You may then choose which roll is used. You can use this ability after the original roll, but before the outcome is revealed.

Magnum Opus

At 14th level, your artistic talents have begun to allow you to impose your own perceptions onto the world. You may expend one use of your bardic inspiration to write a single word or draw a concept expressible in a single word into the air.
The word or concept is then translated into your surroundings. For instance, if you wrote the word ‘door’, a dead-end corridor may suddenly gain an escape route, or if you drew a ‘tree’, a harsh desert may gain some merciful shade.
The DM determines how this concept expresses itself on your surroundings. Effects created through this feature last for 1 minute.