College of Whispers
A Bard College of spies whose Bardic Inspiration deals psychic damage and who can wear the identity of the recently dead.
Identity
The College of Whispers is the Bard College every other College disavows in writing and harbors in practice. Whisper Bards trade in secrets and false identities. The Aurelion court keeps them as confessors and as poisoners, syndicates keep them as fixers, and corporations call them public relations consultants.
Features
- L3 Psychic Blades
When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one use of Bardic Inspiration to roll your Bardic Inspiration die and deal additional psychic damage equal to the die roll plus your Charisma modifier. You declare the use of Psychic Blades after the attack hits but before damage is rolled. The target does not gain the die. The target also hears a single sentence of its own deepest insecurity or shame, whispered in its own voice. This has no mechanical effect. Psychic Blades draws on the same pool of uses as Bardic Inspiration, and the damage die is your current Bardic Inspiration die.
- L7 Mantle of Whispers
When a humanoid dies within 30 feet of you, you can use your reaction to capture a Mantle of Whispers, an impression of the deceased's surface identity: voice, mannerisms, memories of the last hour and the cadence of their speech. You can hold one Mantle at a time, and capturing a new one releases the previous. As an action, you can don your Mantle to assume the captured individual's identity. While wearing the Mantle, you appear, sound and broadly act like the captured individual to any observer. You can respond to surface questions about their last hour with full accuracy, and other questions plausibly enough to deceive casual scrutiny. You can drop the Mantle as a free action at any time. The Mantle lasts up to 1 hour of worn time per capture, cumulative across multiple donnings. The Mantle fails against close family or intimate associates of the captured individual who inspect you carefully (Insight check at DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier, with advantage if they have known the individual for a year or more), magical truth-detection of caster level 5 or higher, biometric scanners that read subdermal or genetic markers, and true sight. It succeeds against voice-print analysis and video matching at standard confidence levels, casual to moderate verbal interrogation, and most security systems below Tier IV.
- L11 Shadow Lore
As an action, choose one creature within 30 feet that can hear and understand you. Whisper to it (in any language you share, or through any communication spell you can confirm) a piece of dark knowledge, true or fabricated, that pertains specifically to the target. The target makes a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failure, it is Frightened of you for 1 hour and treats you as a Charmed friend for as long as it stays Frightened. It will not attack you and will reluctantly cooperate with your social requests, within the limits the Charmed condition places on direct harm to the target or close associates. The whisper must be plausible to the target, and a fabrication must be close to a real fear or guilt the target holds. The GM decides plausibility. If the whisper is not plausible, the target has advantage on its save. The target does not remember the specific whispered content after the effect ends, but knows it heard a whisper it found terrifying. The effect ends if you attack the target, if the target is harmed by you or an ally, or after 1 hour. You can use Shadow Lore a number of times per long rest equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).
- L15 Eye-Spies
You have a network of small informants: gossip-traders in tavern kitchens, news-aggregator hobbyists on Echelon nets, low-level Halcyion vergers who owe you a song, and a dozen others. The network keeps running between adventures and asks for courtesies instead of money: a song, a favor, the occasional protection. While in any settlement of 5,000 inhabitants or more, or with access to any open communications network, you can invoke Eye-Spies once per long rest. State a single question: one specific person's recent whereabouts within the last week, the current location of a known object, whether a specific rumor about a public figure is true, or a piece of regionally circulating gossip about an ongoing event. After 1d6 hours, the network returns a reply that is accurate, partially accurate, or 'not known yet', as the GM rules. The Eye-Spies cannot find what is genuinely unknown to mortal informants, cannot respond to questions requiring magical divination, and cannot reliably penetrate Tier IV+ security or active counter-intelligence cover. The GM can also tell you, between sessions or at the start of one, that an Eye-Spy contact has brought you a relevant lead.
- L18 Whisper-Queen Coronet Capstone
Choose one of the following options when you gain this feature, and the choice is permanent: The Coronet of Names. You can don any Mantle of Whispers you have ever captured (you must have captured it yourself), not only the most recent. You retain up to ten Mantles in memory, and older Mantles fade. While you wear a Mantle, the duration limit does not apply. The Coronet of Silence. Once per long rest, as an action, you can speak a single sentence at a creature within 60 feet. If the sentence is a true and pointed accusation about the target, the target makes a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC with disadvantage. On a failure, its voice fails for 24 hours: it cannot speak above a whisper, vocalize spells, give commands or summon aid by voice. A successful Greater Restoration, Remove Curse or equivalent effect ends it early. The Coronet of Confession. Once per long rest, you can force a creature within 30 feet that can hear and understand you to make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failure, the target speaks aloud, truthfully, one secret of moderate consequence that it has been keeping from those within earshot. The target is aware afterward that it spoke and cannot prevent it once the save has failed. This feature does not extract battle-critical or system-protected information from the unwilling, such as Tier IV+ secrets, classified state intelligence or magically warded oaths. It reliably extracts personal secrets that cause shame.
