The Undead
You’ve made a pact with a deathless being, a creature that defies the cycle and life and death, forsaking its mortal shell so it might eternally pursue its unfathomable ambitions. For such beings, time and morality are fleeting things, the concerns of those for whom grains of sand still rush through life’s hourglass. Having once been mortal themselves, these ancient undead know firsthand the paths of ambition and the routes past the doors of death. They eagerly share this profane knowledge, along with other secrets, with those who work their will among the living.
Branch Features
Bonus Spells
You learn the Eldritch Blast cantrip. It does not count against the number of arcane cantrips that you know. When you learn this spell, choose the type of damage it will do: decay or profane.
You gain the following bonus spells once you can cast spells of that level. Once you gain a bonus spell, you always know it and it doesn’t count against the number of spells that you know.
If you have a bonus spell that doesn’t appear on the arcane spell list, that spell is nevertheless an arcane spell for you.
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | Bane, False Life |
| 2nd | Blindness/Deafness, Phantasmal Force |
| 3rd | Phantom Steed, Speak with Dead |
| 4th | Death Ward, Greater Invisibility |
| 5th | Antilife Shell, Cloudkill |
Talents
| Talent | CP | Prerequisites |
|---|---|---|
| Form of Dread | 5 | - |
| Grave Touched | 10 | 3rd Level Spells and Form of Dread |
| Necrotic Husk | 35 | 5th Level Spells and Grave Touched |
| Spirit Projection | 50 | 7th Level Spells and Necrotic Husk |
Form of Dread
Cost: 5 Character Points
Actions: 1
You manifest an aspect of your patron’s dreadful power.
You transform into this eerie form for 1 minute. You gain the following benefits while transformed:
- You gain temporary stamina equal to 1d10 + twice your maximum spell level.
- Once during each of your turns, when you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can compare the result to the target’s Wisdom defense. If the attack roll hits the target’s Wisdom defence, the target is Frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
- You are immune to the Frightened condition.
You can transform a number of times equal to your spellcasting attribute modifier and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
The appearance of your Form of Dread reflects some aspect of your patron. For example, your form could be a shroud of shadows forming the crown and robes of your lich patron, or your body might glow with glyphs from ancient funerary rites and be surrounded by desert winds, suggesting your mummy patron.
Grave Touched
Cost: 10 Character Points
Prerequisite: 3rd Level Spells and Form of Dread
Your patron’s powers have a profound effect on your body and magic.
You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
In addition, once during each of your turns, when you hit a creature with an attack roll and roll damage against the creature, you can replace the damage type with profane damage. While you are using your Form of Dread, you can roll one additional damage die when determining the profane damage that the target takes.
Necrotic Husk
Cost: 35 Character Points
Prerequisite: 5th Level Spells and Grave Touched
Actions: Free
Trigger: You are reduced to 0 stamina.
Your connection to undeath now saturates your body.
You have resistance to profane damage. If you are transformed using your Form of Dread, you instead become immune to profane damage.
In addition, when you would be reduced to 0 Stamina, you can instead choose to drop to 1 Stamina instead and cause your body to erupt with deathly energy. Each creature of your choice that is within 30 feet of you takes profane damage equal to 2d10 + twice your maximum spell level. You then gain 1 level of Exhaustion.
This ability automatically triggers once per round the first time that you drop to 0 Stamina, with the following exceptions: on your turn, or when you roll initiative, you may declare that your Necrotic Husk talent will only be triggered by a specific creature, or not to use it at all.
Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish 1d4 long rests.
Spirit Projection
Cost: 50 Character Points
Prerequisite: 7th Level Spells and Necrotic Husk
Actions: 1
Your spirit can become untethered from your physical form.
You can project your spirit from your body. The body that you leave behind is unconscious and in a state of suspended animation.
Your spirit resembles your mortal form in almost every way, replicating your game statistics, but not your possessions. Any damage, or other effect, that applies to your spirit or physical body, affects the other. Your spirit can remain outside of your body for up to 1 hour, or until your concentration is broken (as if concentrating on a spell). When your projection ends, your spirit returns to your body, or your body magically teleports to your spirit’s space (your choice).
While projecting your spirit, you gain the following benefits:
- Your spirit and body gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
- When you cast a spell of the Conjuration or Necromancy school, that spell doesn’t require verbal or somatic components, or material components that lack a gold cost.
- You have a flying speed equal to your movement speed and can hover. You can move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but you take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or an object.
- While you are using your Form of Dread, once during each of your turns when you deal profane damage to a creature, you regain Stamina equal to half the amount of profane damage dealt.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.