In this series, I’ll be slowly tackling a rework of one of our favorite classes, the Binder. The class was originally a straight update of the class of the same name from D&D 3.5’s Tome of Magic, including most of the original vestiges, but as we revisit this class, we’d like to examine its mechanics and its concepts with fresh eyes, improve upon them, and write a whole new list of vestiges.
Very Big Pair of Scissors
Vas Miragic, The Living Dream
7th-level vestige
An amalgamation of a thousand minds, the Living Dream offers to fold its binders into its great unity and bestow upon them immense psionic power.
Legend. Maps around the world mark an enigmatic city, sometimes at the peak of a faraway mountain, sometimes amidst a inhospitable desert, and sometimes on a remote island, beyond the reach of even the most daring explorers. Those who stumble upon this city, named Vas Miragic, find a forgotten utopia of staggering vistas and evident prosperity. Even more astonishing are its citizens, who command wondrous psionic magic that they use for everyday tasks, eliminating the need for labor. In Vas Miragic, the people are welcoming, the food delectable, the music entrancing, but alas, those who remain in Vas Miragic overnight fall into a deep slumber, and are enveloped by the Living Dream.
In the Dream, all are one, thinking with one mind and speaking with one voice. It is through this singular consciousness that Vas Miragic projects itself into the world, appearing to lone travelers and tempting them into remaining. The city is a tangible illusion, conjured by the sleeping thousands within its walls. Psions know this to be a kind of psionic power, albeit one which can only be summoned up by a populus hivemind.
Vas Miragic has been lost for centuries, for it never really existed. Today it is remembered as a psionic paradise, to which anyone can visit, but no one can leave. Its vestige, accordingly, is a singular entity, composed of the dreaming thousands, speaking and thinking in unison as an endless wall of faces. It invites its binders to share in its psionic power and asks they they participate in the Living Dream, if only for a night.
Personality Trait. While bound to this vestige, you gain the following personality trait: “I refer to myself only using collective pronouns, such as ‘we’ and ‘us’”
Telepathy
You have telepathy, the magical ability to communicate mentally with another creature within 60 feet. The contacted creature doesn’t need to share a language with you to communicate telepathically, but it must be able to understand at least one language. A creature without telepathy can receive and respond to telepathic messages but can’t initiate or terminate a telepathic conversation.
You don’t need to see a contacted creature, but you need to be aware of the creature to contact it. You can end the telepathic contact at any time. The contact is broken as soon as you and the contacted creature are no longer within range of each other or if you contact a different creature within range. You can initiate or terminate a telepathic conversation without using an action, but while incapacitated, you can’t initiate telepathic contact, and any current contact is terminated.
Daydreaming
Whenever you would fall unconscious, you instead remain conscious in a dreamlike state. You have disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks you make. Furthermore, if you were concentrating on a spell, you lose concentration. If you fall unconscious as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, you still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points.
Psionics of the Dream
While bound to Vas Miragic, you can cast the following spells without using spell slots or spell components: sleep at will, telekinesis three times, and dream or mirage arcane once. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Trait: The Many
While bound to Vas Miragic, you join the chorus of the Living Dream, which manifests as an illusory crowd of people standing within 10 feet of you. The individuals in the crowd are only an intangible image following you, but will move convincingly to avoid obstacles and each other. You decide the crowd’s general appearance, but can’t specify specific of any individual in the crowd. Furthermore, you can use your action to mentally command the crowd to appear to be engaged in a general task, such as socializing, searching for something, or sleeping.
The crowd will not acknowledge other people or make any noise. Any physical interaction will reveal them to be an illusion, because objects will pass through them. If a creature uses its action to examine the crowd, the creature can determine that it is an illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your vestige save DC. If a creature discerns the Illusion for what it is, the Illusion becomes faint to the creature.
You can summon or dismiss the crowd as an action, and decide how many people will make up the crowd, up to a maximum of 50.
Notes
The Living Dream is an odd duck, and certainly not the Wall-Maker I anticipated including. Instead, I decided that a Psion would be a more interesting inclusion to the class’s vestige lineup. It was tough figuring out which type of legend fit such a vestige, but on a few recommendations, I went with a hive-mind of sorts. The traditional psionic hive minds of D&D are closed to me — no Elder Brains in the OGL, of course — so I decided to lean into the idea of forgotten cities, being that they feel appropriately like a conventional mythology angle. (It was either this or Lovecraftian Horror, which I still might pivot to, if this doesn’t strike peoples’ fancies.
The biggest issue with this vestige is probably its length, being that the 1st feature is the Monster Manual definition of telepathy, and the Trait includes a hefty chunk of major image. Its second issue might be focus, if the features don’t come across as coherent. Its third issue might be that the Trait could come across as ineffectual and overly complicated.
In conclusion, I went into this vestige with the best of intentions, but have no idea how I came out on the other side. Please let me know if I’m going in the wrong direction here on any of these points.
Erebus, The Shadow Interminable
9th-level vestige
Binders alone remember the esoteric legend of Erebus, the wellspring of all vestiges, the one being all gods fear.
Legend. Before the primeval gods laid the universe’s foundations, a groundwork upon which they could sculpt the antediluvian Chaos, they devised a failsafe to ensure their success. Before all else, they beckoned Erebus, a being of unmaking from beyond the veil of Chaos, to unravel and destroy their creations. For the gods, in their wisdom, realized that not even they could forge a perfect world on the first try — indeed, countless universes were created and discarded before the gods settled for the current one, with its particular compromises and imperfections. Erebus was the tool for erasure, made to consume flawed universes and return them to the Chaos so that the gods might try again.
Eventually, it seems the primeval gods grew weary of fruitless creation, for then they committed the First Sin: suffering our universe to live through its painful gestation. Cataclysmic disasters swept the world in its early years, but, perhaps by chance, it persisted and settled into what it is now: petty, brutish, and broken. Our universe’s denizens are all sentenced to die from the moment of their births, magic is fleeting and volatile, and the fabric of the universe itself is surely unraveling, imperceptibly and steadily to a pathetic end.
To safeguard their flawed creation, the gods bound Erebus with the Stygian Seal and scatted the Words of Creation. Most speculate that Erebus lies deep within the Void, but history tells a more complex story: in ancient languages, the word Erebus simply means Darkness, and is used both as the name of the entity, and the name for the Void itself. This implies either the ancients saw no reason to distinguish between the two, or simply believed they were one and the same. Fittingly, Erebus does not speak to this; her vestige is merely a howling abyss, upon which all of creation is perched, and from which nothing escapes.
Flaw. While bound to this vestige, you gain the following flaw: “I do not speak.”
Obliviate
At your touch, you unmake. As an action, you can touch an object or creature, which must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failure, the target takes 10d10 + 50 necrotic damage, or half as much on a successful save. If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, it is totally unmade. An unmade creature and everything it is wearing or carrying, except for magic items, is completely annihilated, leaving behind nothing, not even dust. The creature can be restored to life only by means of a true resurrection or a wish spell. You can use this ability once, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.
Trait: Vestigial
While bound to Erebus, you are divorced from reality, much like vestiges themselves, causing you to appear hazy and indistinct, as your form is stretched between the Material Plane and the Void. You have resistance to all damage. Additionally, you can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. You take 4d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or object, as you are ejected into the nearest unoccupied space.
Here she is: shorter than expected, but still awfully powerful. Erebus is something of a critical figure in the new binder lorescape we’ve written here, so it was important we kept to her theme, in that she’s literally the Void incarnate. The result was nuking something with a touch and generally having resistance.
But the question is: Is this boring? Does this fit the Erebus that all subclass and other vestiges hint at, and if not, how can she be done better?
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As always, feedback is appreciated! Now, more than ever, we should turn a critical eye to the class, as we prepare to start the last big pass of fixes and cuts using the Very Big Pair of Scissors. Please leave some comments!
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Changelog: 3/29/19: Erebus: Obliviate: Damage buffed to 10d10 + 50
Vas Miagic: Daydreaming: No longer imposes disadvantage on saves
