Spirits
Spirit Bards seek tales with inherent power — be they legends, histories, or fictions — and bring their subjects to life. Using occult trappings, these bards conjure spiritual embodiments of powerful forces to change the world once more. Such spirits are capricious, though, and what a bard summons isn’t always entirely under their control.
Branch Feature
Spiritual Focus
You employ tools that aid you in channeling spirits, be they historical figures or fictional archetypes. If you have spellcasting talents, you can use the following objects as a spellcasting focus for your spells: a candle, crystal ball, skull, spirit board, or tarokka deck.
Talents
| Talent | CP | Prerequisites |
|---|---|---|
| Tales From Beyond | 5 | Bardic Performance |
| Spirit Session | 20 | Tales From Beyond and 20 CP of Bard Talents |
| Mystical Connection | 50 | Spirit Session and 70 CP of Bard Talents |
Tales From Beyond
Bardic Performance
Cost: 5 Character PointsPrerequisite: Bardic Performance
*You can reach out to spirits who tell their tales through you, guiding you and others.
You learn the guidance cantrip, which doesn’t count against the number of cantrips that you know. Its range becomes 60 feet when you cast it.
While performing and holding your spiritual focus, you can roll on the table below, using your martial feat die to determine the tale that the spirits direct you to tell. You retain the tale in mind until you bestow the tale’s effect or you finish a short or long rest.
As an action, choose one creature that you can see within 30 feet of you (this can be you) to be the target of the tale’s effect. Once you do so, you can’t bestow the tale’s effect again until you roll it again.
You can retain only one of these tales in mind at a time. Rolling on the table immediately ends the effect of the previous tale. If the tale requires an attack roll, make a Performance check.
| Martial Feat Die | Tale Told Through You |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tale of the Clever Animal. For the next 10 minutes, the target has +1d on Intelligence-, Wisdom- and Charisma-based checks. |
| 2 | Tale of the Renowned Duelist. You make a performance check and treat the result as a melee attack vs the target. On a hit, the target takes energy damage equal to 2dM + your Charisma modifier. |
| 3 | Tale of the Beloved Friends. The target and another creature of your choice the you can see within 5 feet of the first target gain temporary stamina equal to 1dR + your Charisma modifier. |
| 4 | Tale of the Runaway. The target can teleport itself to an unoccupied space within 30 feet that it can see. When the target teleports, it can choose a number of creatures that it can see within 30 feet of it, up to your Charisma modifier, within 30 feet of it to simultaneously teleport in the same manner. |
| 5 | Tale of the Avenger. For 1 minute, any creature that hits the target with a melee attack takes force damage equal to a roll of your martial feat die. |
| 6 | Tale of the Traveler. The target gains temporary stamina equal to 1dR + your Charisma modifier. While it has this temporary stamina, the target’s walking speed increases by 10 feet and it gains +1d to its defenses vs melee and ranged attacks. |
| 7 | Tale of the Beguiler. Make a performance check vs the target’s Wisdom defense. On a hit, it takes psychic damage equal to 2dM and is incapacitated until the end of its next turn. |
| 8 | Tale of the Phantom. The target becomes invisible until the end of its next turn or until it hits a creature with an attack. If the target hits a creature with an attack during this invisibility, the creature that it hit takes profane damage equal to a roll of your martial feat die and is frightened of the target until the end of the frightened creature’s next turn. |
| 9 | Tale of the Brute. Make a performance check vs Strength defense of each creature of the target’s choice that it can see within 30 feet. On a hit, a creature takes 3dM sonic damage and is knocked prone. On a miss, a creature takes half as much damage and isn’t knocked Prone. |
| 10 | Tale of the Dragon. The target spews fire from the mouth in a 30-foot cone. Make a performance check vs the Dexterity defense of each creature within the cone, inflicting 4dM fire damage on a hit, or half as much damage on a miss. |
| 11 | Tale of the Angel. The target regains stamina equal to 2dR + your Charisma modifier and you end one of the following conditions affecting the target: blinded, deafened, paralyzed, petrified, or poisoned. |
| 12 | Tale of the Mind-Bender. You evoke an incomprehensible fable from an otherworldly being. Make a performance check vs the target’s Intelligence defense. On a hit, it takes 3dM psychic damage and is stunned until the end of its next turn. |
Spirit Session
Cost: 20 Character Points
Prerequisite: Tales From Beyond and 20 CP of Bard Talents
Spirits provide you with supernatural insights. You can conduct an hour-long ritual channeling spirits (which can be done during a short or long rest) using your spiritual focus. You can conduct the ritual with a number of willing creatures equal to your Charisma modifier (including yourself). At the end of the ritual, you temporarily learn one spell of your choice from any spell list.
The spell that you choose must be of a level equal to the number of creatures that conducted the ritual or less and it must be in the school of divination or necromancy.
Once you perform the ritual, you can’t do so again until you start a long rest. You know the chosen spell until you start a long rest.
Additionally, when you cast a spell through your spiritual focus that deals damage or restores stamina, roll 1dM and add the result to the spell’s effect.
Mystical Connection
Cost: 50 Character Points
Prerequisite: Spirit Session and 70 CP of Bard Talents
You now have the ability to nudge the spirits of Tales from Beyond toward certain tales. Whenever you roll on the Spirit Tales table, you can roll the die twice and choose which of the two effects to bestow. If you roll the same number on both dice, you can ignore the number and choose any effect on the table.