Binder (5e Class)

This is a conversion of the Binder class from 3.5, with a slew of additional changes. Hope you enjoy it!

Binder

Between morality and godhood, beyond life and undeath, souls exist in a place both forgotten and inaccessible. Mortals too strong-willed to pass into the afterlife, dead outsiders too powerful to be absorbed into their planes, the dreams of slain deities put to rest eons before the current age-these are the beings called vestiges. A seal forms the door between these beings and reality, and knowledge is the key to opening it.

Only the binder possesses that key, because only he knows the vestiges' special seals and the rituals by which they can be called from the void beyond reality. By drawing their seals and speaking words of power, he summons these strange entities, bargains with them, and binds them to his service.

Creating a Binder

The binder can redefine his role in an adventuring party on a daily basis, if desired. His potent abilities are always useful in combat, but what those abilities are and what strategies he employs when using them depends on the vestige that he binds.

Because binders associate with spirits beyond the control of the gods, the practice of pact magic is forbidden by some religions. Because single deities dominate the cultures of both elves and dwarves, members of these races tend to be more aware of-and more opposed to-binders than other races. Many halfling traveling communities remain largely unaware of binders, but settlements often gain knowledge of them-and learn to fear them-from the clergy of other races in neighboring areas. Gnomes who know of binders claim that Garl Glittergold appreciates the cosmic joke of mortal souls that grow so powerful that they can neither be saved nor damned. Humans choose the path of the binder more frequently than members of other races do-given their ambition and their penchant for a cosmopolitan lifestyle-but binders are no more welcome in human society than in any other. Half-elves, changelings, and other races accustomed to existing on the fringe of society and suffering persecution, will often sympathize with the plight of binders.

Although vestiges were once beings of light and darkness, like all creatures of the planes, their long existence in a strange state beyond normal reality has twisted them into enigmatic and amoral entities. However, their nature does not dictate the alignments of those who bind to them. A fearsome and violent vestige can lend its powers to a good binder, who uses them to make peace with enemies. Conversely, a sweet-faced and kind vestige might grant an evil binder the power to wreak havoc. In some cases, the same vestige might make separate but simultaneous pacts with two binders that oppose one another.

Vestiges are not easily described as good, evil, lawful, or chaotic, but their unfathomable mindsets and strange appearance often disturb lawful and good creatures. Thus, most binders tend to be neutral, chaotic neutral, neutral evil, or chaotic evil.

Quick Build

You can make a Binder quickly by following these suggestions. First, Charisma should be your highest ability score, followed by Dexterity, and then Constitution. Then, select the Faceless or Sage background. Next, choose Half-Elf, Tiefling, or Changeling (UA) for your race. Now, for your starting equipment, choose two daggers, and a light crossbow and 20 bolts.

Class Features

As a Binder you gain the following class features.

Hit Points

Hit Dice: 1d8 per Binder level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + Constitution modifier per Binder level after 1st

Proficiencies

Armor: Light armor
Weapons: Simple weapons
Tools: Painter's Supplies
Saving Throws: Charisma, Constitution
Skills: Choose three from Arcana, Deception, History, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Persuasion, Religion, Sleight of Hand

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) two daggers or (b) any simple weapon
• (a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts or (b) a shortbow and 20 arrows
• (a) a diplomat's pack or (b) a scholar's pack
• leather armor, and painter's supplies

Table: The Binder

Level	Proficiency Bonus	Features	Vestige Level	Bound Vestiges
1st	+2	Soul Binding (1 vestige), Soul Guardian	1st	1
2nd	+2	Pact Augmentation (1 ability), Suppress Sign	1st	1
3rd	+2	Binder's Sect	2nd	1
4th	+2	Ability Score Improvement	2nd	1
5th	+3	Pact Augmentation (2 abilities), Enhanced Pact Making	3rd	1
6th	+3	Binder's Sect Feature	3rd	1
7th	+3	Soul Binding (2 vestiges), Soul Guardian (Slippery Mind)	4th	2
8th	+3	Ability Score Improvement	4th	2
9th	+4	Pact Augmentation (3 abilities)	5th	2
10th	+4	Binder's Sect Feature	5th	2
11th	+4	Vestigial Mastery	6th	2
12th	+4	Ability Score Improvement	6th	2
13th	+5	Soul Binding (3 vestiges), Soul Guardian (Vestigial Awareness)	6th	3
14th	+5	Pact Augmentation (4 abilities)	7th	3
15th	+5	Binder's Sect Feature	7th	3
16th	+5	Ability Score Improvement	7th	3
17th	+6	Boundless Binding	8th	3
18th	+6	Pact augmentation (5 abilities)	8th	3
19th	+6	Ability Score Improvement	8th	3
20th	+6	Soul Binding (4 vestiges), Soul Guardian (Mind Blank)	8th	4

Soul Binding

Through special methods known only to binders, you can contact a vestige and make a pact with it. Starting at 1st level, you can make a pact with one 1st level vestige, choosing from the "Vestiges" section at the end of this class description. At higher levels, you can form and maintain pacts with multiple vestiges simultaneously, as shown in the Bound Vestiges column of the Binder Table, although you must complete the summoning and binding process with each separately. Vestiges are bound to your soul by the pact. They cannot be targeted or expelled by any means, nor can they be suppressed except by an antimagic field or similar effect.

To contact a vestige, you must draw its unique seal visibly on a surface, making the image at least 5 feet across. Drawing a seal requires the ability to mark a surface and 1 minute of concentration (as if concentrating on a spell). A vestige might also have other requirements for contact, included in its entry. Once the seal is drawn, you must perform a ritual requiring your action to summon the corresponding vestige. During this time, you must touch the seal and call out to the vestige using both its name and its title. An illusory image of the vestige appears in the seal's space when you finish the ritual. The summoned image ignores everyone but you. If you fail to address it before the end of your next turn, it disappears. The vestige speaks in whatever language you used to call it.

To make a pact with the summoned vestige, you must make a binding check (1d20 + your binder level + your Charisma modifier). This process requires 1 minute, but you can choose to make a rushed binding check as an action at disadvantage. The DC for this check determined by the level of the vestige you are attempting to bind, as shown in the "Vestiges" section at the end of this class description. Whether the binding check succeeds or fails, you gain the features granted by the vestige until you finish a long rest. If you gain a feature of the same name from binding multiple vestiges, the features don't add together. You gain the benefits of whichever feature is more potent. During that time, you cannot rid yourself of the vestige.

If you fail the binding check, the vestige influences your personality and your actions, changing your general demeanor, and it can force you to perform or refrain from certain actions. If your binding check is successful, the vestige has no control over your actions and does not influence your personality. If you are influenced by more than one vestige, you must act according to all their influences. While under the influence of a vestige, you must adhere to its requirements to the best of your ability. If you cannot or will not refrain from a prohibited action or fail to perform a required one, you receive a -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks until that vestige leaves you. If you fail to fulfill the requirements of more than one vestige, the penalties stack.

As long as you are bound to a vestige, you manifest a specific physical sign of its presence, as given in its entry. This sign is real, not an illusory or shapechanging effect, and someone using true seeing perceives it just as it is. You can hide a sign by mundane or magical means without penalty, or you can prevent it from appearing at all with the suppress sign class feature. If you are bound to more than one vestige, you bear the physical sign of binding for each one.

If a feature granted by a vestige calls for a saving throw or spell attack roll, you use your Charisma modifier for determining the Difficulty Class and spell attack modifier of that feature.

Saving Throw DC = 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Spell Attack Modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Soul Guardian

When you start at 1st level, your mind is steeled by the experience of the vestiges you bind. As long as you are bound to at least one vestige, you are immune to fear effects.

As you gain levels in this class, the vestige guards its time with you even more jealously, granting you protection from additional effects that would harm your soul and life energy for as long as the pact lasts.

Suppress Sign

Starting at 2nd level, you can choose not to exhibit the physical sign that normally accompanies a pact with a vestige when you make a good pact. You can suppress or reveal the sign as a bonus action. While under the influence of a vestige, you cannot suppress its sign. You show it for the duration of the pact.

Pact Augmentation

When you reach 2nd level, you can draw additional power from the vestiges you bind. As long as you are bound to at least one vestige, you can choose one ability from the following list. Each time you bind a vestige, you may also reselect your pact augmentation ability.

As you attain higher levels, you can make additional selections from the list. You gain one additional ability at 5th, 9th, 14th and 18th level (to a maximum of five selections at 18th level). You can choose a single ability multiple times, and their effects stack.

Pact Augmentation Abilities

• +5 foot increase to base movement speed
• +5 current and maximum hit points
• +1 bonus to ability checks
• +1 bonus to saving throws
• +1 bonus to attack rolls
• +1 bonus to damage rolls

Binder's Sect

Upon reaching 3rd level, you gain entry into one of a number of secretive, secluded Sects of binders. Choose from the Anima Magi, the Knights of the Sacred Seal, the Scions of Dantalion, and the Tenebrous Apostates. You gain features from your choice at 3rd level, and you gain additional Binder's Sect features at 6th, 10th, and 15th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Enhanced Seals

At 5th level, you have become a practiced artisan of drawing seals and making pacts. You gain the ability to draw the seal of a vestige on your body, a process which takes one hour and can be completed as part of a short or long rest. While bearing this seal, you can summon the chosen vestige without drawing its seal on another surface. You can draw a number of seals in this way equal to your proficiency bonus. If you have drawn the maximum number of seals and attempt to draw another, the oldest seal vanishes.

A vestige you choose must be of a level you can summon, as indicated on the Vestige Level column for your level. If a vestige has any special requirements, you must still meet them in order to summon that vestige.

Additionally, you may now summon any vestige as a bonus action, rather than as an action, and you are no longer subject to disadvantage when making a rushed binding check.

Soul Guardian (Slippery Mind)

At 7th level, you gain the slippery mind ability, which allows you to wriggle free from magical effects that would otherwise control or compel you. While you are bound to at least one vestige, you have advantage on saving throws against enchantment spells and effects.

Vestigial Mastery

Upon reaching 11th level, you have discovered how to allow vestiges to come and go as you please. You can use your action to expel a vestige to which you are bound, making a binding check against the chosen vestige's binding DC. If you succeed on the binding check, you expel the vestige before it would normally leave you. Once you have expelled a vestige, you must finish a short or long rest before expelling another.

Additionally, when you finish a long rest, you may choose a number of vestiges equal to your proficiency bonus. The vestiges you choose must be of a level you can summon, as indicated on the Vestige Level column for your level. You may summon and bind the chosen vestiges without meeting their special requirements. When you ignore the special requirements of a vestige, you have disadvantage on your binding check to bind them.

Soul Guardian (Vestigial Awareness)

Starting at 13th level, your vestiges enhance your perception. While you are bound to at least one vestige, you have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight, and you cannot be surprised.

Boundless Binding

When you reach 17th level, you learn how to give a vestige some semblance of control, enabling you to tap into more of their power. You can utter the name and title of a vestige (no action required), instantly summoning the vestige and binding it to you. Once you have used this feature, you must finish a long rest before using it again. During that time, you can't expel the chosen vestige, and you must abide by its influence to the best of your ability.

While bound to the chosen vestige, you may use any of its features every 4 rounds instead of 5. Additionally, you gain a +1 bonus to all attack and damage rolls while bound to the chosen vestige, and the save DC of the chosen vestige's features increases by 1.

Soul Guardian (Mind Blank)

When you attain 20th level, your bound vestiges completely protect your mind. While you are bound to at least one vestige, you can choose to automatically succeed on Intelligence and Wisdom saving throws against spells.

Binder Sects

There are a handful of secretive sects of binders that guard their mysterious techniques and ancient rituals. It's within this small, enigmatic sects that the true power of binding may be unlocked.

Anima Magi

Anima Magi see vestiges as mere tools, no different from spell component pouches or a wand of fireball. The magi store guarded secrets at various locations, bizarre and twisted methods to bend a vestige to their will. By siphoning off some of the latent arcane energy residing within a vestige, the magi are able to alter how a spell behaves, and seemingly will the effects of a spell into existence. Ostracized by the other sects of binders, and reviled by the vestiges they bind, the magi rely only on themselves. Despite their methods, they are no more likely to be evil than good, seeing their actions as a means to an end. What that end is, however, is a secret known only to an Anima Magi.

Table: The Anima Magi

Binder Level	Cantrips Known	Spells Known	Spell Slots per Spell Level
			1st	2nd	3rd	4th
3rd	2	2	2	—	—	—
4th	2	3	3	—	—	—
5th	2	3	3	—	—	—
6th	2	4	4	2	—	—
7th	2	4	4	2	—	—
8th	2	5	4	2	—	—
9th	2	5	4	3	—	—
10th	3	6	4	3	—	—
11th	3	6	4	3	—	—
12th	3	7	4	3	—	—
13th	3	7	4	3	2	—
14th	3	8	4	3	2	—
15th	3	8	4	3	2	—
16th	3	9	4	3	3	—
17th	3	9	4	3	3	—
18th	3	10	4	3	3	—
19th	3	10	4	3	3	1
20th	3	11	4	3	3	1

Spellcasting

Upon joining this sect at 3rd level, by tapping into the magical power of your vestiges, you gain the ability to cast sorcerer spells.

Cantrips

You learn two cantrips of your choice from the sorcerer spell list. You learn an additional sorcerer cantrip of your choice at 10th level.

Spell Slots

The Anima Magi table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know two 1st-level sorcerer spells of your choice, one of which you must choose from the illusion and transmutation spells on the sorcerer spell list. The Spells Known column of the Anima Magi table shows when you learn more sorcerer spells of 1st level or higher. Each of these spells must be an illusion or transmutation spell of your choice, and must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

The spells you learn at 8th, 14th, and 20th level can come from any school of magic.

Versatile Casting

When you complete a long rest, you can choose one of the sorcerer spells you know and replace it with another spell from the sorcerer spell list. The new spell must must be of a level for which you have spell slots, and it must be an illusion or transmutation spell, unless you're replacing the spell you gained at 3rd, 8th, 14th, or 20th level from any school of magic.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus for your sorcerer spells.

Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your sorcerer spells. You use your Charisma whenever a sorcerer spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a sorcerer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + Charisma modifie

Font of Magic

Starting at 3rd level, you can persuade a bound vestige into letting you tap into a wellspring of magic within them. This wellspring is represented by sorcery points, which allow you to create a variety of magical effects.

Sorcery Points

You have 1 sorcery point, and you gain one additional point for every three binder levels you possess, to a maximum of 6 at 18th level. You regain all spent sorcery points when you finish a long rest.

Metamagic

At 3rd Level, you gain the ability to twist your spells to suit your needs. You gain one of the following metamagic options of your choice. You gain another one at 10th level.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the metamagic options you know and replace it with another metamagic option from this list.

You can use only one metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless otherwise noted.

Careful Spell

When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make a saving throw, you can protect some of those creatures from the spell’s full force. To do so, you spend 1 sorcery point and choose a number of those creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one creature). A chosen creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw against the spell.

Distant Spell

When you cast a spell that has a range of 5 feet or greater, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double the range of the spell.

When you cast a spell that has a range of touch, you can spend 1 sorcery point to make the range of the spell 30 feet.

Extended Spell

When you cast a spell that has a duration of 1 minute or longer, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double its duration, to a maximum duration of 24 hours.

Heightened Spell

When you cast a spell that forces a creature to make a saving throw to resist its effects, you can spend 3 sorcery points to give one target of the spell disadvantage on its first saving throw made against the spell.

Quickened Spell

When you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action, you can spend 2 sorcery points to change the casting time to 1 bonus action for this casting.

Subtle Spell

When you cast a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to cast it without any somatic or verbal components.

Exploit Vestige

When you reach 6th level, you learn how to use a bound vestige to boost your spellcasting. When you form a pact with a vestige, you can siphon a small amount of latent arcane energy within them, granting you one additional spell slot of any level, up to the highest you can cast. In doing so, you lose access to one feature of your choice granted by the chosen vestige.

You can forego only one ability per day in this manner, even if you bind multiple vestiges. However, vestiges react poorly to your use of this ability; the next time you summon the chosen vestige, you suffer disadvantage on your binding check to bind them.

Vestige Metamagic

At 10th level, you can augment your spells by sapping your vestige's power. As a reaction when you cast a spell, you can choose one of the vestiges that you are bound to, and you apply the effects of one metamagic option to the spell you cast without expending sorcery points. The metamagic option chosen need not be one that you know.

You lose access to all of the features granted by the chosen vestige when you use this feature, and do not regain them for 5 rounds. If you are bound to multiple vestiges, you only lose access to the features of the chosen vestige. After you use this feature, you must finish a long rest before using it again.

Vestige Casting

At 15th level, you can tap into the font of magic within a vestige to cast a spell outside the normal limits of time. On your turn, you can cast one spell without expending a spell slot (no action required), and you cast the spell as if it were modified by the Subtle Spell metamagic option. You regain use of this feature when you finish a long rest.

Knights of the Sacred Seal

A knight of the sacred seal is never alone because they have formed a true partnership with a single vestige. Their oath requires them to champion and protect their patron vestige, take its seal as their symbol, and to advance its goals in the world. As their relationship with their patron vestige deepens, a knight of the sacred seal taps a well of abilities unavailable to other binders, becoming more than they once were. Though they can bind other vestiges, they choose not to because the connection they share with their companion offers strange new powers.

Patron Vestige

When you become a knight of the sacred seal at 3rd level, you must select one vestige that you can bind as your patron. You develop a stronger than normal relationship with this vestige that grants you several benefits. Whenever you summon your patron vestige, you automatically succeed on your binding check to bind them.

While you are not bound to the chosen vestige, you lose access to all class features gained from this subclass until you bind that vestige again. You can bind other vestiges in the interim, but you gain no additional benefits from those pacts.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can select a vestige to replace your chosen patron.

Knight's Seal

At 3rd level, you acquire the training necessary to effectively arm yourself for battle. You gain proficiency with medium armor, heavy armor, shields, and martial weapons.

You have learned of an ancient seal passed down for millennia, which allows you to channel your will through weapons inscribed with it. You can draw an intricate seal resembling no known vestige on a weapon, a process which takes 1 hour and can be completed as part of a short or long rest. During that time, the weapon must be within reach at all times. You may draw up to two seals using this feature. If you attempt to draw a third seal, the first seal immediately vanishes. As long as a weapon bears this seal, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls.

Vestige's Protection

Starting at 6th level, your relationship with your patron vestige deepens, prompting it to take steps to ensure your protection. As a bonus action, you and any creatures of your choice within 5 feet of you gain a bonus to their Armor Class and Dexterity saving throws equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). Both of these benefits last for until the start of your next turn. Once you use this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Vestige's Power

Starting at 6th level, you can make two attacks, instead of one, whenever you take the attack action on your turn.

Additionally, you may use a bonus action to grant you a +10 foot bonus to your movement speed, advantage on Wisdom saving throws, and a number of temporary hit points equal to your binder level. You retain all of these benefits until the start of your next turn.

Apotheosis

At 10th level, you gain resistance to non-magical damage. You also gain darkvision for up to 60 feet. If you already have darkvision, this increases its range by 60 additional feet.

Vestige's Surge

At 15th level, when you use one of your patron vestige's features, or your vestige's protection or vestige's power class feature, you can choose to activate that feature again immediately rather than waiting the usual 5 rounds. You must finish a short or long rest before using this feature again.

Scions of Dantalion

Scions of Dantalion trace their lineage to an ancient, long-forgotten human empire - a civilization in which justice, love, and art reigned supreme. They maintain that the rulers of this realm led their people to such a height of beauty and righteousness that they rivaled the stars of the heavens in the awe they could inspire. The gods saw their accomplishments and grew envious. In their jealous rage, they destroyed the empire and cursed its nobility, decreeing that no one from that line could ever join them in the afterlife.

Scions of Dantalion believe themselves to be part of this line cursed by the gods but blessed by association with Dantalion, the vestige that is the conglomeration of all their ancestors' souls. The scions believe that their destiny is to one day take up the crown, bear the scepter of rulership, and rebuild the empire that could rival the stars.

Scholarship of Dantalion

When you enter this sect at 3rd level, you become an acolyte of Dantalion. You can summon and bind Dantalion without meeting the level requirement to summon him, and you need never worry about succumbing to Dantalion's influence because you automatically succeed on the binding check when making a pact with him.

Additionally, your connection to Dantalion gives you occasional flashes of insight into a variety of topics. You have advantage on history checks.

Swift Awe of Dantalion

Beginning at 3rd level, you can activate your Awe of Dantalion feature by will alone (no action required), rather than as a bonus action. Additionally, you may use your Awe of Dantalion feature every 4 rounds, instead of 5.

Overwhelming Thoughts

Upon reaching 6th level, you can choose to overwhelm the thoughts of any creature you target with the read thoughts ability granted by Dantalion. As an action, you send your thoughts out to a single creature whose thoughts you are reading, forcing it to succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be dazed for 1d4 rounds.

Improved Thought Travel

Beginning at 6th level, you can use the thought travel ability granted by Dantalion as a bonus action.

Dantalion's Glare

From 10th level on, you can use an action to intensify Dantalion's sign and glare through its eyes. The starry voids in the eyes of Dantalion's sign blaze forth with the brightness of an exploding star, affecting all creatures in a 30-foot cone. Every creature within this area must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw (DC = 8 + your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus) or be blinded for 1d4 rounds. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

You must be showing at least one face of Dantalion's sign to use this ability. If the face is hidden beneath clothing, you can reveal it (no action required), so long as you have a hand free. If the face is hidden beneath armor, you must have a free hand and use a bonus action to reveal the sign.

Read Multiple Thoughts

When you attain 15th level, the increased strength of your connection with Dantalion allows you to simultaneously target a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 2) with the read thoughts feature granted by Dantalion. Each of the targets must be within range (5 feet per binder level). You can use this ability in combination with your overwhelming thoughts feature, forcing each creature of your choice to make a saving throw.

Tenebrous Apostates

The remnant of divinity once possessed by Orcus, Tenebrous is perhaps the only vestige still worshiped in some places as a god. Some followers, however, believe that Tenebrous is a separate deity, so these Tenebrous Apostates revere him as such. Dedicated to his will, all apostates are permanently bound to Tenebrous, carrying out his desires on the mortal plane.

Table: The Tenebrous Apostates

Binder Level	Cantrips Known	Prepared Spells	Spell Slots per Spell Level
			1st	2nd	3rd	4th
3rd	2	2	2	—	—	—
4th	2	3	3	—	—	—
5th	2	3	3	—	—	—
6th	2	4	4	2	—	—
7th	2	4	4	2	—	—
8th	2	5	4	2	—	—
9th	2	5	4	3	—	—
10th	3	6	4	3	—	—
11th	3	6	4	3	—	—
12th	3	7	4	3	—	—
13th	3	7	4	3	2	—
14th	3	8	4	3	2	—
15th	3	8	4	3	2	—
16th	3	9	4	3	3	—
17th	3	9	4	3	3	—
18th	3	10	4	3	3	—
19th	3	10	4	3	3	1
20th	3	11	4	3	3	1

Spellcasting

Upon joining this sect at 3rd level, with Tenebrous as your conduit for divine power, you gain the ability to cast cleric spells.

Cantrips

You learn two cantrips of your choice from the cleric spell list. You learn an additional cleric cantrip of your choice at 10th level.

Spell Slots

The Tenebrous Apostates table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

Preparing and Casting Spells

You can prepare two 1st-level cleric spells of your choice, one of which you must choose from the necromancy and evocation spells on the cleric spell list. The Prepared Spells column of the Tenebrous Apostates table shows when you can prepare more cleric spells of 1st level or higher. Each of these spells must be a necromancy or evocation spell of your choice, and must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

You can prepare one additional spell from any school of magic at 8th, 14th, and 20th level.

You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of cleric spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use a holy symbol as a spellcasting focus for your cleric spells.

Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your cleric spells. You use your Charisma whenever a cleric spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a cleric spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your Proficiency Bonus + your Charisma modifier

Spell Attack modifier = your Proficiency Bonus + Charisma modifier

Eternal Bondage

Starting at 3rd level, you are bound to Tenebrous constantly, even without meeting the level requirement to summon him. You cannot choose to bind a different vestige in his place. However, you can still attempt a binding check each day to negate his influence.

Tenebrous's Rebuke

Starting at 6th level, when you use the turn undead ability granted by Tenebrous, your connection to your dark master allows you to channel the energy in a unique way. You can expend a use of turn undead to deal 1d6 force damage per binder level to every undead creature within 30 feet. Alternatively, you can expend two uses of turn undead attempts as a single action, dealing 2d6 force damage per binder level to every undead within 30 feet with an Intelligence of 3 or lower. In either case, each creature within range must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus), taking half damage on a success.

Visage of the Dead

Upon reaching 6th level, your body begins to resemble that of an undead creature. Your skin darkens, appearing dusky and shadowy in dim illumination and corpse-gray in bright light, and you lose roughly half your body weight. Because of these changes, you gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class and a +1 bonus on Sleight of Hand and Intimidate checks. Furthermore, mindless undead believe you to be one of them and do not attack you except in self-defense, or when ordered to do so by their creator.

Umbral Body

Beginning at 10th level, you can transform yourself into pure darkness once per day. This ability functions like the etherealness spell, although creatures can still perceive your shadowy form. You can remain in this form for a number of rounds equal to half your binder level or return to your normal form early as a bonus action. Once you return to physical form, you cannot use this feature again for 5 rounds.

Blast of the Void

When you attain 15th level, you can expend a use of turn undead to deal 1d8 points of damage per binder level to every living creature within a 30-foot cone. You must complete a long rest before using this feature again.

Vestiges

The maximum level of vestige you can bind increases as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Vestige Level column of the Binder Table. If the vestige you are trying to contact is of a higher level than your indicated maximum, you cannot summon it.

1st Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 16

Amon, The Void Before The Altar

Although Amon once ruled as a deity of light and justice, his long existence as a vestige has twisted him into a monster consumed by wrath. He grants those who summon him his sight, his fiery breath, and his powerful charge.

Legend: Scholars claim that Amon is what remains of the personality of a god who died of neglect millennia ago. Once worshiped by thousands, Amon eventually lost his faithful to more responsive deities. His will was strong enough, though, to resist eternal sleep on the Astral Plane. Since his demise, his half-existence as a vestige seems to have dramatically changed his appearance and personality. Once a calm and wise protector, a god of light and law, Amon is now a foul tempered and hateful spirit.

Special Requirement: Amon particularly despises four other vestiges: Chupoclops, Eurynome, Karsus, and Leraje. If you have hosted one of these spirits within the last 24 hours, Amon refuses to answer your call. Similarly, these spirits will not answer your call if you are already bound to Amon.

Manifestation: Amon manifests in a burst of black smoke, howling foul curses at his summoner. He possesses a black wolf’s body with a ram’s head and a serpent for a tail. His mouth is filled with sharp teeth, and fire escapes it when he speaks.

Sign: You grow a ram’s curling horns.

Influence: Amon’s influence makes you surly and irritable. In addition, since Amon despises living deities of fire, sun, and law, he forces you to resist even beneficial spells cast by those devoted to such powers. You must make a saving throw to resist such a spell if one is allowed; failure allows you to gain the benefit.

Granted Features: Amon grants you his sight and his breath, as well as the deadly use of his horns.

Darkvision: You gain darkvision out to 60 feet.

Fire Breath: You can use your action to breathe fire. Each creature in a line that extends 10 feet per binder level (maximum 100 feet) must make a Dexterity saving throw. Creatures take 1d6 fire damage per two binder levels (minimum of 1d6 at 1st level, maximum of 10d6 at 20th level) on a failed save, and half as much on a successful one. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Ram's Horns: While showing Amon's sign, you can use the ram’s horns as a melee weapon that deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage. You are proficienct with your ram's horns, and you use your Strength for its attack and damage rolls.

Additionally, if you spend half of your movement traveling in a straight line towards an enemy and make an attack with your ram's horns, you deal an extra 1d8 points of damage on a successful hit.

Aym, Queen Avarice

Once a monarch of dwarves, Aym allowed her greed to bring an end to her empire. As a vestige, she gives her host the ability to wear armor without impedance, to set objects and creatures alight with a touch, to resist the effects of fire, and to shatter objects with heavy blows.

Legend: Dwarven legends depict Aym as the greediest dwarf queen who ever lived. Modern-day dwarves still spit at the mention of her name. Not long after Moradin first forged the dwarves, Aym arose as a great leader among them. Greed brought her to power, and greed consumed her while she ruled. Dwarves mined furiously in response to Aym’s constant demand for more gems and precious metals, and her people became virtual slaves to their work. As onerous as Aym’s rule was, however, all this mining greatly expanded the dwarves’ territory, and many dwarven clans grew quite wealthy. Jealous of the dwarves’ wealth and smarting from their conquests, a great horde of orcs, giants, and goblinoids banded into an army to assault Aym’s kingdom. The dwarves fought bravely, but because their forces were stretched so thin across Aym’s empire, they could not respond quickly enough to the horde’s concentrated assault on their capital. Legend has it that when the fires of the burning city reached her, Aym stood among a hundred wagons laden with gold that her servants had loaded in preparation for her flight. But so engrossed was she in counting the coins to make certain she didn’t lose a copper that she didn’t notice the danger until the fires began to melt the coins in her grasp. Rather than repenting her greed at the point of her death, Aym cursed Moradin for not protecting her, and in return, Moradin cursed her.

Manifestation: Aym arises from a coiled heap within the seal. She has two great worms for legs and three heads—one a lion’s, one a female dwarf’s, and one a bull’s. Her powerfully muscled torso strains beneath the finery of an empress, and her fingers glitter with more than a dozen jeweled rings. In one hand she holds a red-hot, star-shaped branding iron, and with the other, she holds shut the lion head’s mouth. Aym speaks through her dwarf head, since both animal heads are incapable of speech. She prefers to keep the lion muzzled because if she doesn’t, it roars and causes the bull’s head to low in terror, making it impossible for her to hear.

Sign: While you host Aym, you bear a star shaped brand on the palm of your left hand or on your forehead, which you choose at the time you make the pact.

Influence: Under Aym’s influence, you become stingy and greedy, begrudging every coin or item of value that you or your group must give to another. At the same time, she requires that you give a coin (copper, silver, gold, or platinum, your choice) to every dwarf you meet within 1 minute of learning his name.

Granted Features: Aym grants you powers that reflect her dwarven heritage and the ruin she brought to her kingdom.

Dwarven Step: You can move at normal speed (without the usual reduction) while wearing armor that you do not meet the Strength requirements of.

Medium Armor Proficiency: You gain proficiency with medium armor.

Fire Resistance: You gain fire resistance.

Sundering Strike: You gain a +5 bonus to hit when you target an object with an attack.

Ruinous Attack: Your melee attacks deal double damage to objects. If your binder level is at least 10th, your melee attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Halo of Fire: At will, you can shroud yourself in a wreath of flame. If a hostile creature within 5 feet of you that hits you with a melee attack, they take 1d6 points of fire damage.

Additionally, once per turn, you can deal 1d6 points of fire damage on one melee attack you make. Your own flame does not harm you, nor does it harm objects unless you will it to do so.

Leraje, The Green Herald

Once a favored servant of the primary deity of the elves, Leraje allowed her pride to become her downfall. Leraje gives her summoners the ability to bring a bow to hand at will, to fire it with accuracy, and to damage a foe’s sense of self with it. In addition, she gives her hosts keen vision in darkness and skill at hiding.

Legend: Tales of Leraje’s prowess with a bow exist to this day, although her feats are now ascribed to deities and other great heroes, and most elves think her legend is heresy. Pact magic treatises maintain that Corellon Larethian called upon Leraje to be his first herald among mortals. She taught the elves how to make and use bows, though none could ever come close to matching her prowess. Legend holds that she killed Thessala, goddess of hydras, by shooting a single arrow through all one thousand of her heads, thereby causing her children, the hydras, to be dull and crude throughout eternity. One day, Leraje helped Corellon save Lolth, who had not yet fallen from grace, from an ambush set by Gruumsh.

Lolth praised Leraje for her skills, claiming that not even Corellon could fire an arrow as fast or as accurately as his herald. Leraje beamed under the compliment, and a bemused Corellon challenged her to an archery duel to settle the matter. When Leraje agreed, Corellon declared their target: her heart. Corellon expected his servant to realize the error of her pride and yield the contest, but Leraje instead brought up her bow, aimed an arrow at Corellon, and pulled back the string. Surprised, he raised his own bow and fired at her. Leraje released her bowstring at that same moment, aiming not at the god but at the arrow that sped toward her heart. Leraje’s arrow met that of her deity in midair and ricocheted back, piercing her heart before Corellon’s arrowhead even touched her chest. As punishment for wasting her life for the sake of her stubborn pride, Corellon cast Leraje’s soul from heaven and earth.

Special Requirement: To summon Leraje, you must break an arrow crafted by an elf while calling out Leraje’s name and title. In addition, Leraje hates Amon for some unknown reason and will not answer your call if you are already bound to him.

Manifestation: Leraje appears before her summoner as though she had always been there, but camouflaged so well that she could not be seen. First her dull eyes open, then her yellowed teeth come into view out of seeming nothingness, revealed in a sly smile. As Leraje moves, her body takes shape against the background, and her clothes and skin change color to reveal her as an elf archer dressed in beautifully decorated green leather armor. Although she was clearly beautiful at some point, the ravages of some toxin or disease have made her hair limp, yellowed her eyes and teeth, and made her skin pockmarked and sallow.

Sign: You look sickly and diseased, and your skin becomes sallow and pockmarked.

Influence: While influenced by Leraje, you become quiet and unassuming. Leraje still feels considerable guilt about the actions that led her to become a vestige, so she requires that you not attack any elf or creature of elven blood, including half-elves and members of the various elf subraces, such as drow.

Granted Features: You gain supernatural powers related to Leraje’s skills in life, as well as the ability to fire arrows that strike multiple foes.

Stealth Bonus: You gain a +4 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks.

Darkvision: You gain darkvision out to 60 feet.

Precise Shot: You are not subject to disadvantage when making a ranged attack at long range.

Ricochet: As an action, you can make a single ranged attack against two adjacent targets. Make a single attack roll and apply that result to the Armor Class of both targets. Any hit you score deals damage to the target normally. Extra damage from features such as sneak attack or smite apply to only one target, which you must designate prior to making the attack roll.

Weapon Proficiency: While bound to Leraje, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with longbows and shortbows.

Naberius, The Grinning Hound

A cunning and mysterious vestige, Naberius can make his summoners adept with all manner of arts and sciences, disguise them, and make them cogent speakers.

Legend: Though Naberius’s origin remains mysterious, binder scholars know that his name and form have changed many times over the centuries. Ancient pact magic texts refer to a spirit matching Naberius’s powers as Naberus, Kaberon, Cerbere, and Serberius. One of these spirits appeared as a noble, bird-headed man, another as a dog with a crane’s head, another as a wolf with fifty heads and a tail of three entwined snakes, and the fourth as a heap of bodies surrounded by a cloud of flies.

A few fiendish sages have suggested that Naberius might be an aspect of the three-headed, doglike creature that guards the gates to the Underworld on the third layer of Hades, but that creature is thought to be simpleminded and has never been known to speak. Naberius never admits to having had older forms or names, and questions about his origin get only a sly smile in reply.

Special Requirement: Naberius values knowledge, industry, and the willingness to deceive. He manifests only for a summoner with at least 4 ranks in Bluff or in any Knowledge or Profession skill.

Manifestation: Naberius’s manifestation begins with a great squawking and fl utter of feathers. Moments later, a black crane flies in an agitated fashion over the seal, then crashes down atop it, apparently dead. Naberius then stalks forward out of invisibility as a three-headed hound to feast upon the crane. He speaks hoarsely from whichever dog head isn’t eating at the moment. Despite his terrible appearance and raucous voice, Naberius somehow manages to seem amiable and eloquent.

Sign: Your voice deepens and acquires a gravelly, growling tone.

Influence: While you are influenced by Naberius, you love the sound of your own voice and are constantly pleased by your cleverness. Whenever you are presented with a pulpit, a stage, a talking stick, or any other place or object designed to give a speaker the floor, Naberius requires that you immediately seize the opportunity to speak. Any topic will do, but since Naberius resents others taking control of the discourse, he requires that you either shout them down or mock them. Your speech must last a number of rounds equal to your effective binder level to satisfy Naberius.

Granted Features: Naberius grants you the power to wear any face, swiftly recover from exhaustion, use skills of which you have no knowledge, and talk your way through danger.

Disguise Self: You can alter the appearance of your form as an action. This feature functions like the disguise self spell.

Faster Healing: Finishing a long rest reduces your Exhaustion level by 2, instead of 1. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against diseases.

Naberius’s Skills: At the time you make your pact, you can choose a number of skills equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). Your choices must be skills that you lack proficiency with. For the duration of the binding, you can add your proficiency bonus to ability checks with your chosen skills.

Persuasive Words: You can use your action to direct a verbal command at a single living target within 30 feet as if using the command spell. A successful Wisdom saving throw negates the effect. If your binder level is at least 14th, your words become even more persuasive and this feature functions like the suggestion spell. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Silver Tongue: You gain a +4 bonus to Charisma (Deception) and Charisma (Persuasion) checks.

Ronove, The Iron Maiden

Ronove remained a mystery for ages, but binder scholars now believe her to have been a human ascetic who lived more than two thousand years ago. As a vestige, she grants her summoners the power to move objects at a distance, to strike with the skill of a monk, to fall as lightly as a feather, and to run like the wind.

Legend: Many binder scholars credit Ronove with laying the foundation for orders of monks, and indeed, her philosophies and abilities bear a strong resemblance to the training that monks now receive. In life, Ronove was a charismatic guru who taught that enlightenment comes from denial—first of the needs of the flesh, then of the perceived limits of reality, and lastly of the rules of reality. Her frequent demonstrations of power served to illustrate the validity of her ideas to others. She leapt from cliffs without harm, lifted boulders with her thoughts, and lived for months without eating or drinking. Although Ronove gathered many followers, not one of her disciples could manage her great feats. Some began to question her methods.

To prove the veracity of her teachings, Ronove secluded herself in an iron coffin, telling her students to bury her and dig her up only when they received a sign from her. Years passed, and no sign came. One by one, her followers lost faith and deserted her. At last only one remained. Disillusioned, he dug up the rusted sarcophagus, only to find it empty. He tracked down his fellow disciples to tell them of the miracle, but none believed him. Ronove and her nameless disciple would have been lost to obscurity, but her lone faithful follower inscribed his story on the walls of a cavern. The recent discovery of this inscription explains the strange powers and appearance of Ronove.

Special Requirement: Ronove’s seal must be drawn in the soil under the sky.

Manifestation: When Ronove manifests, the ground quakes, and a rusted iron sarcophagus erupts from the earth within her seal, shedding dirt and flakes of rust as it grates upward. The metal visage of a human woman is discernible on the lid. The metal bindings holding the lid closed burst in clouds of corroded metal, and the sarcophagus creaks open, releasing a tumble of human bones and noisome black liquid. Ronove does not speak to her summoner, but the visage on the lid smiles or frowns during the pact-making process.

Sign: The flesh of your face settles into a frown or a smile (a frown if you succeeded on your binding check, or a smile if you did not) and retains that general expression regardless of your actual feelings. This alteration to your visage does not affect your Charisma, Charisma-based skill checks, or others’ ability to make Insight checks against you.

Influence: Ronove’s influence makes you think that others doubt your abilities and competence. Despite what anyone says, you feel the constant need to prove your worth. In addition, Ronove requires that you consume neither food nor beverages including potions) for the entire time you remain bound to her.

Granted Features: Ronove gives you the power to fall any distance without harm, lift objects without touching them, and run like the wind.

Magic Attacks: Your melee attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Far Hand: As a bonus action, you can lift and move an unattended object to which you have line of effect, as long as it is within 10 feet per binder level you possess. The force manipulating the object is considered Medium in size, and it has a Strength score equal to your binder level. During the bonus action, you can move the object up to 5 feet per binder level. The force cannot lift the object more than 5 feet off the ground. In any round during which you do not use a bonus action to manipulate the object, you lose control of it. You can never move an object outside the range of this feature, and you lose control of the object if you move too far away from it or if a creature touches it. You can move only one object at a time in this fashion.

Alternatively, you can use the telekinetic force to push a creature as an action. The force deals 1d6 points of force damage to the target and initiates a shove, using the force’s Strength modifier for the Strength (Athletics) check, and adding your proficiency bonus, even if you lack proficiency with that skill. If the shove is successful, the target moves in the direction you indicate, or falls prone. Once you have used your far hand in this way, it dissipates, and you cannot use it again for 5 rounds.

Feather Fall: You fall as though you were under the influence of a feather fall spell. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action, or as a reaction if you start to fall.

Ronove’s Fists: Your unarmed strikes deal damage as those of a monk of a level equal to your binder level. This feature does not grant you any other features of a monk, such as flurry of blows.

Sprint: You gain a +10-foot bonus to your base land speed.

2nd Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 18

Acererak, the Devourer

Acererak, a half-human lich, grasped at godlike power only to lose his grip on reality. As a vestige, he grants abilities that are similar to a lich’s powers.

Legend: Only bards and a few scholars remember Acererak’s name, but many know the legend of his supposed final resting place, the Tomb of Horrors. As rumors of the wealth and magic hidden in this fabled location spread, the tomb became a burial ground for more and more explorers and tomb robbers. In truth, however, the Tomb of Horrors was not Acererak’s sepulcher at all. It was merely part of his plan to gain eternal unlife and command of all undead. Acererak left behind a diary, and the information it contains combined with the actions of a stalwart few have at last brought the full tale of Acererak to light. In his diary, Acererak wrote that he was born of a union between a human woman and a demon. Despite his hideous deformities, his mother kept him and cared for him until, when he was ten years of age, some superstitious villagers burned down their house. Acererak survived the confl agration because of his demonic heritage, but his mother did not. In his diary Acererak recalls that incident as the event that propelled him on the path toward necromancy and revenge against humanity.

Acererak became a powerful wizard. As he grew older and saw the specter of death looming, he sought out and completed the ritual for becoming a lich. After he assumed his undead form, his power continued to grow for centuries more. The diary relates, however, that Acererak eventually felt the forces animating his undead body begin to wane. Knowing that final oblivion was near, he decided to build himself a secret tomb. “Only those of keenest luck and greatest skill will win through to me,” the diary read. “There, they shall receive a magnificent reward for their persistence.” The diary, the Tomb of Horrors, and the supposed reward were all parts of an elaborate ruse designed to bring powerful adventurers into the portion of the tomb that Acererak—by then a powerful demilich—called his Fortress of Conclusion In truth, Acererak had devised a ritual that he hoped would merge his consciousness with the Negative Energy Plane through the sacrifice of potent spirits. Had he actually accomplished this goal, he could have assumed control of any undead on any plane and gained godlike powers as well as immortality.

But the infamy of the Tomb of Horrors drew more than wealth-hungry thrill-seekers intent on gaining the reward promised in Acererak’s diary. Supplicants also came. Necromancers questing for knowledge, seekers of eternal life, and lost souls in search of purpose traveled to the tomb to learn what they could of the dark arts. In time, the supplicants became worshipers, and they stayed to dwell near the object of their devotion. Eventually, a settlement called Skull City sprang up around the entrance to Acererak’s Tomb of Horrors.

Some of the heroes Acererak lured to his tomb proved even more powerful and ingenious than he had anticipated. After fighting their way through Skull City and the Tomb of Horrors, they made their way to the demilich’s Fortress of Conclusion. At the last possible moment, they surmised Acererak’s plan and destroyed the artifact that was crucial to his apotheosis. They struck down Acererak and shattered his phylactery. Normally, such an action would have sent Acererak’s spirit to Abyss, but the worship of the Skull City residents lent him a semblance of divinity; his desire to merge with the Negative Energy Plane proved stronger than the pull of the Abyss. Unfortunately for Acererak, souls do not travel to the Negative Energy Plane upon death. Since his spirit had no clear destination, it went nowhere, becoming a vestige divorced from all planes.

Special Requirement: You must place a gem about the size of a human tooth or eye in the center of Acererak’s seal. This gem is not used up in the summoning process, nor does it move from where you placed it, despite the manner in which Acererak manifests.

Manifestation: The gem you placed within the seal appears to float up into the air to the height of your head. Dust swirls in from the surrounding air and up from the ground to coalesce about the gem, forming a yellowed human skull with the jewel as a tooth or an eye. A moment later, other gems wink into being, so that each eye socket and the space of every tooth is occupied by a shining diamond, ruby, emerald, or sapphire. The jewels glow briefl y with an inner light, and then Acererak speaks, his dry voice filled with contempt.

Sign: A gem replaces one of your teeth. If removed, the gem reverts to a normal tooth, and a new gem appears in its place.

Influence: As a vestige, Acererak possesses the immortality he desired but none of the power that should accompany it. If you fall under his influence, you evince a strong hunger for influence and primacy. If you are presented with an opportunity to fill a void in power over a group of creatures, Acererak requires that you attempt to seize that power. You might impersonate a missing city official, take command of a leaderless unit of soldiers, or even grab the reins of runaway horses to establish your supremacy.

Granted Abilities: While bound to Acererak, you gain powers that the great lich held in his legendary unlife.

Detect Undead: You can use your action to detect undead. This feature functions like the detect evil and good spell, except you can only detect undead, and you don't need to maintain concentration on this feature.

Paralyzing Touch: You can touch a living creature within 5 feet of you to paralyze them. The touched creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be paralyzed for a number of rounds equal to one-half your binder level. Each round on its turn, the paralyzed creature can attempt a new saving throw as an action, with success ending the effect immediately. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Hide from Undead: You become undetectable to undead. You are effectively invisible, as the spell, to any undead with an Intelligence score of 4 or lower. If an undead creature with an Intelligence score of 5 or higher becomes aware of your presence, the creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw, or you become invisible to that creature. Undead become aware of your presence if you target them with a spell or feature, touch them, or make an attack roll against them.

Lich’s Energy Immunities: You gain immunity to cold and lightning damage.

Speak with Dead: You can use your action to question the dead as though using the speak with dead spell.

Undead Healing: Necrotic damage heals you rather than damaging you.

Dahlver-Nar, The Tortured One

Once a human binder, Dahlver-Nar now grants powers just as other vestiges do. He gives his summoners tough skin, a frightening moan, protections against madness, and the ability to share injuries with allies.

Legend: Bards tell two stories of Dahlver-Nar, both linked to the magic items that carry his name—the teeth of Dahlver-Nar. Some say that because Dahlver-Nar was antiquity’s most powerful cleric, his followers treated his teeth as holy relics after his death and they somehow gained magical powers through this veneration. Others insist that Dahlver-Nar was a cleric of little consequence who discovered some magic dragon teeth in the ruins of a red dragon’s lair. In this version of the story, the teeth were named after Dahlver-Nar because he became a terror in the region where he acquired them. Binder scholars know a different story—that Dahlver-Nar was a powerful cleric who forsook his deity to pursue the power of pact magic. The fabled teeth of Dahlver-Nar, to which all the legends attribute miraculous powers, were neither his own nor those of the dragon he battled. They were the teeth of beings that became vestiges after death, and they could grant abilities similar to those that the vestiges themselves imparted. Pact magic treatises relate that Dahlver-Nar pulled out his own teeth and replaced them with those of the vestiges, but that using them all drove him mad. What happened thereafter is a matter of debate, but the texts maintain that Dahlver-Nar eventually died, and the teeth were lost, divided up among the squabbling followers he had managed to gain and then spread across the world. Today, Dahlver-Nar exists as a vestige in his own right—perhaps brought to that state through his close association with so many others.

Manifestation: Dahlver-Nar’s frightful apparition floats in the air above his seal, with arms and legs hanging limply. Teeth and fangs of all kinds stud his entire body, replacing even his eyes. What skin is visible between the teeth appears to be the moist, pink flesh of gums. Dahlver-Nar’s mouth is a bloody ruin that clearly lacks teeth, and when he opens it to speak, only a moan issues forth. Some binders believe that his vestige form is a punishment inflicted by the other vestiges, but others insist that he appears as he does because of his everlasting obsession with the teeth that bear his name.

Sign: Several teeth grow from your scalp. Though they are small enough to be hidden by a large quantity of hair or a hat, a touch reveals them immediately.

Influence: You shift quickly from distraction to extreme focus and back again. Sometimes you stare blankly off into space, and at other times you gaze intently at the person or task at hand. Since Dahlver-Nar dislikes any task that requires more than 1 round of concentration (such as some spellcasting, concentration on an effect, or any action that requires a Concentration check), he requires that you undertake no such activities while under his influence.

Granted Features: Dahlver-Nar armors you and blends his madness with your sanity, lending you some of his selfish powers.

Mad Soul: Binding to Dahlver-Nar grants you advantage on Wisdom saving throws to resist magical effects.

Maddening Moan: You can emit a frightful moan as an action. Every creature within 30 feet of you that can hear you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be incapacitated for 1 round. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Natural Defense: You gain an alternative way of calculating your armor class. While you are wearing no armor and not wielding a shield, your AC equals 10 + your Constitution modifier + your Charisma modifier.

Shield Self: At will as an action, you can designate one creature within 10 feet per effective binder level to share the damage you take. As long as the target creature remains within range, you take only half damage from all effects that deal damage, and it takes the rest. The effect ends immediately if you designate another creature or if either you or the subject dies. Any damage dealt to you after the effect ends is no longer split between you and the subject, but damage already split is not reassigned to you. You can affect one creature at a time with this feature. An unwilling target of this feature can make a Wisdom saving throw to negate this effect at the start of each of its turns. Once you have used this feature on an unwilling target, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Haagenti, Mother of Minotaurs

Haagenti tricked the god of frost giants and paid a terrible price for that deed. She girds her summoners for battle and gives them the power to confuse foes.

Legend: The tale of how minotaurs originated changes according to the culture and race of the teller, but frost giants blame Haagenti. Thrym, their primary deity, had tried to force a goddess of the humans to marry him and failed when her brother disguised himself as Thrym’s bride and disrupted the ceremony. The angry and humiliated god consoled himself with dalliances among his giant worshipers. Haagenti, a hill giant sorceress, learned of his liaisons and used a spell to transform herself into a beautiful frost giant so that she might bear Thrym’s powerful half-god children. Her ploy succeeded, and a year later she gave birth to twin sons. Once the children of his dalliances had grown old enough, Thrym set out to visit and test them all. He fought each child to see who was the strongest and bravest, intending to invite the most fit to join him in Jotunheim. When he sought out Haagenti, he found her herding cattle in the warm lowlands and became enraged when he saw her true form. But when he raised his axe to fell her, two horribly ugly giants leapt to her defense.

Thrym realized to his disgust that they were his sons. Thrym would have destroyed them at that moment, but he suddenly realized that Haagenti had taught him a valuable lesson. His failed attempt at marriage had been fouled by a beautiful form created through trickery, and now he had fallen victim to the same ruse again. Rather than kill Haagenti and her children, Thrym cursed them to resemble the cattle with which they wallowed, turning them into minotaurs. Then he left, vowing to teach his frost giant worshipers to distrust all beauty. How Haagenti became a vestige is unclear, but binder lore holds that her guilt at ruining beauty for the frost giants was so great that she could not bear to exist in any place that held beauty of any kind. Since every place in the planes seems beautiful to some being, she could find no eternal home anywhere. Haagenti refuses to speak on the subject and becomes angry when questioned about her past.

Special Requirement: To summon Haagenti, you must be either Large or able to speak Giant.

Manifestation: When Haagenti is summoned, a huge icicle thrusts up from the ground within the confines of her seal. Haagenti’s blurry white form can be seen moving within the ice for a moment, then she spreads her arms and shatters her icy prison. Although she appears with her back to her summoner, her form is clearly that of a winged minotaur. Haagenti waves her ice shield and battleaxe to disperse the cold mist around her, then turns to face her summoner, revealing her bull-like face and icicle beard. Her frost-rimed fur is pure white, and her horns appear to be made of ice. Her powerfully muscled form doesn’t appear female, but her smooth voice sounds quite feminine. Sign: You possess the same features as you always did, but they somehow make you more ugly than before. Others easily recognize you, but small differences make you less appealing to look upon. In addition, your bulk expands until you weigh half again as much as you did before.

Influence: You feel ashamed and occasionally bashful in the presence of beautiful creatures. In addition, Haagenti requires that you give deference to any creature you perceive as more attractive or charismatic than yourself. This deference might take the form of a bow, a salute, opening a door for the creature in question, not speaking until spoken to, or any other gesture that acknowledges the creature as superior to you. In any case, you must constantly treat any such creature with respect or suffer the penalty for defying Haagenti’s influence.

Granted Features: Haagenti grants you some of Thrym’s skill with arms and armor, plus her own aversion to transformation and the ability to inflict a state of confusion upon others.

Confusing Touch: You can confuse by touch. The target of your touch must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become confused (as if through the confusion spell) for 1 round per three binder levels (minimum 1). If your binder level is at least 19th, this feature functions as a maze spell. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Immunity to Transformation: No mortal magic can permanently affect your form while you are bound to Haagenti. Effects such as polymorph or petrification might force you into a new shape, but you can immediately resume your normal form as a reaction. You remain affected by such effects only when you choose to do so.

Shield Proficiency: You gain proficiency with shields.

Weapon Proficiency: You gain proficiency with battleaxes, greataxes, and handaxes.

Malphas, The Turnfeather

Malphas allows his summoners to see without being seen, to pass through surroundings without leaving any sign, to vanish from sight, and to poison their enemies.

Legend: Only elves who know their history well are familiar with the story of Malphas, a lesser scion of an ancient elven kingdom’s ruling family. Malphas joined a druidic order under pressure from his elders, who hoped that enforced dedication to nature would teach him greater respect for their traditions and the elven way of life. After a contentious start, the plan seemed to work. Malphas, always the black sheep of the family, soon became a model member of the elven nobility. His trademark, a white dove’s feather, could be found at sites where good deeds had been done, although no one ever saw him perform them. This impression was all part of Malphas’s act.

While studying the druidic traditions, he met another elf druid—a female who won his heart with guile and promises of power. Together they hatched a plan to make Malphas heir to the throne. While his white feathers turned up wherever good events were occurring, black feathers began to appear on the murdered corpses of royalty. Elf diviners soon discovered that Malphas was at the root of their troubles, and the traitorous elf was forced to flee. Malphas flew to his lover’s hideaway among the trees, intending to warn her and flee with her. But when she heard his story, she flew into a rage, mocking him for his stupidity and his overtures of affection. To wound him even more deeply, she revealed her true form—that of a drow. When the elf authorities found Malphas, he lay on the ground, dead not from magic or physical harm, but from the breaking of his heart and the loss of his soul.

Manifestation: Malphas begins his manifestation with a furious fluttering of white doves. The creatures explode out of thin air, then fly away from each other and fade from view, revealing a handsome male elf clad in black. Malphas has pale skin, black eyes, and black feathers for hair. His smile reveals black teeth, and when he speaks, his black tongue licks the air like a snake’s. Malphas wears a noble’s fi nery in funerary black, and a cloak made of raven heads and feathers hangs from his shoulders. The heads start up a raucous cry whenever he moves too much, so he remains largely still, making only small gestures with his black-gloved hands. Malphas’s hoarse voice croaks and cracks when he speaks, a quality that annoys him greatly.

Sign: Your teeth and tongue turn black.

Influence: While influenced by Malphas, you fall in love too easily. A kind word or a friendly gesture can cause you to devote yourself entirely to another person. Should that person reject your affection, your broken heart mends the moment another attractive person shows you some kindness. In addition, if you have access to poison, Malphas requires that you employ it against your foes at every opportunity.

Granted Features: Malphas grants you the ability to spy without detection, to disappear, to ward off poison, and to strike vicious blows against vulnerable foes.

Bird’s Eye Viewing: At will, you can use a bonus action to summon a bird to aid your powers of observation. (You determine its appearance, but you use the statistics for a raven regardless of the creature’s form.) The bird appears perched on your shoulder. You have complete control over its actions, and you can see what it sees and hear what it hears as long as it is on the same plane. Use the bird’s skill checks to determine the results of its actions and observations (for example, Perception, Stealth, Performance), but use your skill bonuses to derive information from its observations (for example, Arcana, Insight, or History). You can have only one bird summoned at a time. It disappears when its hit points drop to 0, you summon another dove or raven, you dismiss it (a bonus action), or you end your pact with Malphas.

Invisibility: As an action, you can make yourself invisible (as with the invisibility spell). Making an attack ends the invisibility (as normal), but otherwise, the effect lasts a number of rounds equal to your binder level. You can invoke this feature as a bonus action at 11th level. Once you return to visibility, you cannot use this feature again for 5 rounds.

Sudden Strike: Once per turn when you hit with an attack roll, you deal an extra 1d6 points of damage plus 1d6 points per four binder levels if you had advantage on the attack. You don't need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the attack roll. The extra damage from sudden strike stacks with that from sneak attack whenever both would apply to the same target.

Poison Resistance: You gain poison resistance.

Savnok, The Instigator

Once a servant of gods, Savnok now grants his summoners the ability to wear heavy armor, to draw arrows from thin air, to take the place of allies in combat, and to cause wounds that do not heal.

Legend: Savnok lived before recorded history. His story contains about as much myth as it does fact, since the barrier between truth and fiction eroded long before the current age. According to the legend, Savnok served Hextor and Heironeous before the two half-brothers came to blows. The gods were charged with guarding their mother’s arms and armor while she met with her lovers. Both Hextor and Heironeous were awed and tempted by their mother’s implements of war, but neither son dared disobey his mother. Seeing their desires written clearly upon their faces, however, Savnok devised a means to steal the items or his masters. Relying on their trust in him, Savnok tricked Hextor and Heironeous into letting him guard their mother’s armory. But once his gaze fell on the goddess’s armor, Savnok could not resist donning it. Just touching the metal made him drunk with power. After putting it on, he knew he could never take it off, so he fl ed the godly realms with the divine armor.

Hextor and Heironeous soon noticed that their servant and the armor were missing. When they looked for Savnok, they found him at war on the Material Plane. Since no energy or mortal weapon could pierce the goddess’s armor, Savnok had decided to set about carving out a kingdom for himself. Shocked at his betrayal and horrified by their own failure to perform their duties, Hextor and Heironeous appeared before Savnok and ordered him to relinquish their mother’s armor. Their former servant responded by attacking, and although he could not harm them, neither could they harm him. Heironeous flew into the sky and tore thunderbolts from the clouds to hurl at Savnok, but Hextor, realizing that they needed deific weapons to defeat the armor, fled back to his mother’s armory. There, he found a bow and grabbed a handful of arrows, then returned to find Heironeous still hurling lightning with little effect. Hextor barely had the strength to draw his mother’s bow, but draw it he did. With each arrow he fired, a dozen missiles streaked down to strike Savnok.

Though the arrows had little power behind them, they did pierce the armor, and as Savnok raged at the injustice the two gods had done him, he slowly bled to death from dozens of small wounds. When at last Savnok lay dead, Hextor and Heironeous removed the armor and debated what to do next. Not only had they failed to guard their mother’s armory, but Hextor had also stolen her bow and arrows. It was Hextor who suggested that they hide Savnok and replace the items, leaving their mother none the wiser. Heironeous didn’t like the plan, but he wanted to protect his half-brother. After all, Hextor’s theft had solved a problem for which Heironeous was partly responsible and prevented Savnok from wreaking still more havoc in the mortal lands. Together, the two gods hid Savnok’s essence in a place even they could not reach. Heironeous has regretted this decision ever since.

Special Requirement: To summon Savnok, you must have stolen something and made neither reparations nor apology for that act.

Manifestation: The first sign of Savnok’s manifestation is an arrow streaking out of thin air to strike something unseen above his seal. Then a dozen more arrows whistle into the seal, each one landing with a metallic ping. Trickles of blood spout into the air where the arrows hang, and as more strike home, the blood gradually outlines a heavily armored form that seems too broad and powerfully built to be human. Savnok’s features are obscured by his plate armor and helm, as well as the rivulets of blood and the many arrows that pepper his body. When Savnok speaks, he spits out bitter words with a gravelly voice that seems heavy with resentment.

Sign: A piece of an arrow appears under your skin somewhere on your body. It looks as though your skin has healed over a broken-off arrow that had previously wounded you. The arrow deals no damage, but at times it causes you some discomfort. If removed, it disintegrates immediately, and another appears somewhere else on your body.

Influence: Savnok’s influence makes you headstrong and recalcitrant. Once you make up your mind about a particular issue, very little can change your thoughts on the matter. In addition, whenever you don armor, employ a shield, or wear any other item that improves your AC, Savnok requires that you not remove that protection for any reason.

Granted Features: Savnok grants you abilities associated with his death and the command of allies’ positions.

Call Armor: You can summon a suit of half plate armor as an action, which appears about your body. The armor fails to appear if you are already wearing armor. The quality of the armor increases to full plate at 5th level, +1 full plate at 9th level, +2 full plate at 13th level, and +3 full plate at 17th level.

You can dismiss the armor with another action. The armor disappears when your pact with Savnok ends.

Heavy Armor Proficiency: You gain proficiency with heavy armor.

Move Ally: You can use your action to instantly swap positions with any visible willing ally within 5 feet per two binder levels of your position. Objects carried by you or your ally go along, but creatures do not. Using this feature is an action at first, though at 7th level you can use it as a bonus action, and at 13th level you can use it as a reaction when an ally is targeted by an attack or spell. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Savnok’s Armor: While wearing your called armor, you can ignore some of the damage from attacks by nonpiercing weapons. You gain resistance to bludgeoning and slashing damage.

3rd Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 20

Andromalius the Repentant Rogue

Once the favorite of the god Olidammara, Andromalius now exists as a vestige. His granted abilities help his summoners beat rogues and ne’er-do-wells at their own game.

Legend: Once the herald of Olidammara, Andromalius forswore theft and mischief on his deathbed, repenting all the actions he had taken on behalf of his god during his life. By this means, he hoped to steal his soul from his deity, thus accomplishing his greatest theft and prank in history, and proving himself the most worthy of his god’s favor. At first angered by Andromalius’s betrayal, Olidammara quickly realized the irony of the moment and burst into laughter. Yet the god’s good humor was short-lived, because he realized that to accept Andromalius’s soul would be to prevent the theft and ruin the joke. Since Olidammara was loath to let such a clever servant to go to the realm of some other god, he repaid his servant’s honor a hundredfold—he stole Andromalius’s soul from the cosmos, making it a vestige. Whether Andromalius deemed this result an honor or not remains unclear.

Special Requirement: You must obtain two different nonmagical items similar to those that Andromalius holds in his hands when he manifests and place them within the confines of his seal when you summon him. These items vanish as soon as Andromalius appears.

Manifestation: Andromalius appears as a middle-aged but lithe human male in the garb of a jester. Each of his arms splits at the elbow into a dozen forearms, and he holds a small object in each of his twenty-four hands. Though his costume and overall appearance change from one manifestation to another, the specific collection of objects never does—a fact that has sparked a long-standing debate among binder scholars. The items are: a belt purse, a silver key, a gold ring, a pair of dice, a copper coin, a dagger, an apple, an arm bone, a scroll, a comb, a whistle, a fish hook, a mirror, an egg, a potion, a dead spider, an oak leaf, a human skull, a lock, a closed black book, a bell, a dove, a set of lock picks, and a mouse. When Andromalius returns whence he came, he juggles these illusory items and then tosses one to his summoner. Some scholars claim that the item thrown indicates a future event, but that the specific meaning depends on which other objects are held in the hands of that same arm.

Sign: You gain an extra digit on each limb. This appendage prevents you from wearing normal gloves or gauntlets, but magic gloves and gauntlets reshape to fit you.

Influence: When influenced by Andromalius, you become a devious mischief-maker who delights in causing small calamities—especially misunderstandings between friends and incidents of mistaken identity. However, Andromalius cannot now abide acts of theft, so he forbids you to steal from a creature, take an item from a dead body, or remove someone else’s possession from a location without permission so long as you are under the jurisdiction of an authority whose laws expressly forbid such activities. By the same logic, you cannot take possession of any object that you know to be stolen.

Granted Features: The abilities that Andromalius grants help you catch thieves and return stolen goods, discover wickedness and underhanded dealings, and punish wrongdoers.

Jester’s Mirth: As an action, you can cause an opponent to break into uncontrollable laughter. This feature functions like a Tasha’s hideous laughter spell. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Locate Item: At will, you can sense the direction of any well known or clearly visualized object that lies within 100 feet per binder level of your location. If you wish to find a specific object, this feature works only if you have seen the object firsthand and can accurately visualize its peculiarities. Otherwise, the direction of the nearest object of the same type is revealed. You can sense the direction of only one item each round. This feature does not reveal the direction to a disguised object such as a secret door unless you can clearly visualize its disguised form, nor does it tell you the distance to the object.

See the Unseen: At will, you can use see invisibility as the spell. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Sense Trickery: You gain a +2 bonus on Wisdom (Insight) checks, on Wisdom (Perception) checks, and on Intelligence (Investigation) checks made to discern a disguise. In addition, you automatically notice when a creature uses sleight of hand to take something from you.

Sneak Attack: Once per turn, you can deal an extra 2d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon. You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll. For every five binder levels you possess beyond 5th, your sneak attack damage increases by an additional 1d6 points. For example, a 15th-level binder deals an extra 4d6 points of damage with his sneak attack. If you get a sneak attack bonus from another source, the bonuses to damage stack.

Arete, the First Elan

Arete, a powerful psion who sought immortality, created a new race but doomed himself to never-ending rebirths. His granted abilities provide binders with access to several qualities that toughen the body and mind.

Legend: After a memorable battle with a powerful lich, Arete, a powerful psion, took the time to explore the path of lichdom. He pondered that if immortality can be achieved through "undeath," could it not also be achieved through "unlife" too? After decades of research, he had his answer, but unknown to him, he had made a small oversight. Life begins with birth and unlife would require rebirth.

He awoke from his ritual immortal and rejuvenated, but soon discovered he had lost a lifetime of knowledge and power. His own journals told him what he had once possessed and it became his obsession to regain that power. Unfortunately, every time he did the ritual again to get back what he had lost, he was reborn anew.

No one knows how many times he was reborn, but somewhere along the way, he became a vestige and some believe that every time his vestige is summoned, he is reborn yet again.

Special Requirement: Arete does not like to be reminded that the elan are considered abominations by some, and he does not answer your summons if you are already bound to Chupoclops or Eurynome.

Manifestation: A mirror rises from his seal, reflecting the binder who makes the summons. The summoner's reflection fades to be replaced by that of a young, male Elan with hair too red, eyes too blue, and skin too bronze. While he speaks, his physical moves mirror the summoner's every action.

Sign: Your body's colors alter to become slightly off. Blonde hair becomes too golden, green eyes become too emerald green, and your skin becomes faultless and has no pores.

Influence: You do not get hungry or tired while bound to Arete, but you do suffer negative effects if you do not eat or sleep for the duration that the vestige is bound. If faced with a need to do research, Arete insists that you seek out lore regarding him and his research into immortality as well, which can often double or even triple the time you spend seeking information (DM's discretion; finding out where the local rowdies ran off to after a tavern fight might not give Arete grounds to require research into his own past, for example).

Granted Features: While bound to Arete, you gain powers that Arete had at some point in his search for immortality.

Psionic Boon: You gain 5 power points when you bind to Arete. If you gain power points from more than one source, you add them together. You can cast spells using power points, expending one point per level of the spell you cast. If you know any spells from another class, or from the Anima Magi or Tenebrous Apostates sects, you cannot cast those spells by expending power points. You regain all expended power points when you finish a long rest.

Additionally, when you cast a spell in this way, you cast the spell psionically. The spell doesn’t require verbal, somatic, or material components that lack a gold cost.

Repletion: You gain access to the spells cure wounds, goodberry, and lesser restoration for the duration of the binding. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You can cast these spells by expending power points, but you cannot cast these spells by expending a spell slot.

Resistance: Your gain a +2 bonus to one saving throw of your choice. You may change this to another saving throw as a bonus action.

Damage Reduction: Your body becomes unnaturally tough. Bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage you take from non-magical weapons is reduced by 2.

Focalor, Prince of Tears

Focalor has power over storms and seas. He gives those who bind him the power to drown souls in sadness and sink ships in an ocean of tears.

Legend: Accounts of Focalor’s origins vary widely. Some claim he was once a demon, and others say he was an angel— likely a planetar. The constantly crying spirit has never uttered a coherent word, so binder scholars must look elsewhere to solve the mystery of how he came to be a vestige. All agree, however, that Focalor was an immortal creature that died of grief, and his immense anguish kept him from being absorbed into his home plane. The cause of his sadness, however, is as unclear as his origin.

Special Requirement: Focalor’s seal must be drawn with a liquid medium.

Manifestation: Focalor manifests slowly, appearing first as a single tear that drops from thin air to strike the ground. Next his weeping eyes appear, and gradually his whole body becomes visible. Focalor looks like a handsome human male whose face is twisted by grief. He wears no clothes, but he cloaks his body in the griffon wings that grow from his back and shudder with each of his wracking sobs.

Sign: While you serve as host to Focalor, your eyes constantly weep, regardless of your mood or thoughts.

Influence: While influenced by Focalor, you feel some of his inestimable grief and act morose, rarely smiling or finding cause to laugh. Whenever you kill a creature, Focalor demands that as soon as you have a peaceful moment, you take a round to say a few words of sorrow and regret for the life cut short by your actions.

Granted Features: Focalor gives you the ability to breathe water, strike foes down with lightning, blind enemies with a puff of your breath, and cause creatures to be stricken with grief in your presence.

Aura of Sadness: You emit an aura of depression and anguish that overtakes even the strongest-willed creatures. Every creature within 5 feet of you is overcome with grief, which manifests as a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks for as long as it remains within range of you. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Focalor’s Breath: As a bonus action, you can exhale toward a single living target within 30 feet. That target is blinded until the start of your next turn unless it succeeds on a Constitution saving throw. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Lightning Strike: Once per round as an action, you can call down a bolt of lightning that strikes any target you designate, as long as it is within 10 feet per binder level you possess. The lightning bolt deals 3d6 points of lightning damage, plus an additional 1d6 points of lightning damage for every three binder levels you possess above 5th. A successful Dexterity saving throw halves this damage. This feature functions outdoors, indoors, underground, and even underwater.

Water Breathing: You can breathe both water and air easily.

Karsus, Hubris in the Blood

Karsus lived and died by magic, so he grants binders power over that force.

Legend: Binders know Karsus as a potent mortal spellcaster who attempted to steal the powers of a deity that had jurisdiction over magic. He succeeded, but realized too late that his mortal frame and soul could not contain the power. He died, and his soul remained tied to the Material Plane for ages, never becoming a petitioner. Some claim that part of it somehow still lingers there. With no planar home and no deity who would claim him, Karsus became a vestige.

Special Requirement: Karsus refuses to answer the call of a binder who attempts to summon him within the area of an active spell. In addition, he appears only to a summoner who has proficiency with Arcana. He also hates Amon for some unknown reason and will not answer your call if you are already bound to that vestige.

Manifestation: Karsus appears silently and suddenly in the form of a great red boulder. Blood burbles up from the top of the stone and flows in a rivulet down the side facing his summoner, then pools at the base. When Karsus speaks, the blood fountains upward, its height varying based on the volume of his voice.

Sign: You bleed more than normal from wounds. Even a small scratch releases a sanguine flood. This effect does not deal extra damage.

Influence: You take on some of the arrogance for which Karsus was famous in his mortal life. He requires that you make Bluff or Intimidate checks rather than Diplomacy checks to influence others.

Granted Features: In life, Karsus was obsessed with magic, and his obsession continues unabated in his current state. He grants you the ability to see magic, destroy it with a touch, and use any magic item with ease. He even provides increased spellcasting power.

Heavy Magic: The saving throw DC for each effect of every magic item you use increases by 2.

Karsus’s Senses: You can sense magic auras as easily as others can detect odors, and concentrating on them reveals them to your sight. When you concentrate (as an action), you automatically detect the number of different magical auras within 30 feet of you. If you sense magic in this way, you can use a bonus action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any. You cannot use this feature if you are blinded, but otherwise it functions as detect magic for the purposes of concealment and the materials pierced.

Karsus’s Touch: You can produce a dispel magic effect with a touch. To do so, you must touch a creature or an object within 5 feet of you as an action. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. You make a dispel check (1d20 + your Charisma modifier) against each ongoing spell of 4th level or higher currently in effect on the object or creature. The DC for this check is 10 + the spell’s level. If you succeed on a particular check, that spell ends; if you fail, it remains in effect. If you target an object or creature that is the effect of an ongoing spell (such as a summoned monster or a conjured object), you must touch the target and make a dispel check to end the spell that brought it into being. You can use Karsus’s touch a number of times per day equal to your binder level. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Targeting a spell effect that is not an object or creature (such as the flames of a wall of fire) has no effect. If the touched object is a magic item, you must make a dispel check (DC 15). If you succeed, all the item’s magical properties are suppressed for 1d4 rounds, after which the item recovers on its own. An interdimensional interface (such as a bag of holding) is temporarily closed by this effect. A suppressed item becomes nonmagical for the duration, but its physical properties are unchanged.

Karsus’s Will: When you cast a spell from a magic item, scroll, or wand, you gain a +1 bonus to the attack and damage rolls, and the saving throw DC of the spell is increased by 1.

Paimon, The Dancer

Paimon whirls into reality with grace and style. He gives his summoners the ability to see combat as a dance and makes them masters of its steps and hidden meter.

Legend: Most binders know the Dancer’s tragic story, although none can be certain of its origin. An infamous Lothario, Paimon delighted in seducing noblewomen with his dancing and besting their suitors with his swordplay. He eventually crossed paths and swords with a particularly jealous and cruel fellow, sometimes identified as a human and other times as an elf. After Paimon had humiliated this nobleman in front of his peers on several occasions, the fellow enlisted some other aggrieved suitors to capture Paimon and cut off his sword hand. Paimon was not so easily defeated. When he recovered, he returned to court wearing a bejeweled golden hand that he could replace with a rapier blade. Exhibiting tremendous aplomb, Paimon again set his rivals on their heels, and he even fought and defeated the man who had wronged him. Paimon spared his adversary’s life only because he was interrupted by a request to dance by the object of both their affections. In response to this further humiliation, Paimon’s foe again had him captured, but this time the man’s thirst for revenge was insatiable. He and his cohorts cut off all of Paimon’s limbs and replaced them with sword blades, jeering at him all the while and daring him to return to court again. Then they left Paimon to die while they celebrated their victory.

At the next royal ball, Paimon’s foe and his coconspirators smirked at every mention of their enemy’s name and winked at one another when others wondered aloud where the charming rake might be. Then a dark figure appeared among the dancers. Impossibly tall and shrouded head to foot in dark, diaphanous cloth, the wraith like figure began to spin. Disturbed by its appearance, the other dancers moved away. When one of them spotted naked steel beneath the whirling cloth, the nobles began to flee the hall. Enraged that his party had been interrupted, Paimon’s enemy went up to the figure and tore away the cloth. For a moment, the tortured figure of Paimon stood before them with bloody blades for legs and arms. Someone screamed at the sight, and Paimon faded to nothing. Thinking they had seen the ghost of Paimon, the men immediately went to find their foe’s body and give it a proper burial, but it was gone. Instead, they found a trail of blood and the marks of sword thrusts in the ground. Apparently Paimon was alive but gone—banished by the scream of a woman.

Manifestation: Paimon appears in a whirl, his form spinning like a top on an arm that ends in a metal blade instead of a forearm and hand. He turns counterclockwise so rapidly that his summoner can make little sense of what he sees. Paimon quickly switches the arm on which he spins with a hop, and then he switches to a leg, which also ends in a blade rather than an ankle and foot. With each switch, Paimon slows, until at last he stands on one leg before his summoner, balancing within the seal on its dagger like point. Paimon’s almost featureless gray body has a dancer’s physique. His face is stretched to disfigurement around the right side of his head, and no ears are visible. Paimon speaks in a garbled voice from his twisted mouth while hopping from appendage to appendage, making small turns as though he is impatient to be whirling again.

Sign: One side of your mouth becomes wider than the other, as though it were being stretched or pulled. That side of your mouth has a tendency to remain slightly open, causing you to drool.

Influence: Paimon’s influence makes you lascivious and bold. In addition, Paimon requires that you dance (moving at half speed) whenever you hear music.

Granted Features: Paimon gives you the ability to dance in and out of combat, and to make whirling attacks against multiple foes.

Dance of Death: You can use your action and you can move up to your speed and make one melee weapon attack against any creature you move past, provoking opportunity attacks normally. Make a separate attack roll for each target. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Whirlwind Attack: You can use your action and make one melee weapon attack against each creature of your choice within 5 feet of you. Make a separate attack roll for each target.

Uncanny Dodge: When an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you.

Paimon’s Blades: You gain proficiency with rapiers, scimitars, and shortswords. Additionally, you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with those weapons.

Paimon’s Dexterity: Your Dexterity score increases by 4, to a maximum of 20.

Paimon’s Skills: You gain proficiency with the Dexterity (Acrobatics) skill. In addition, you gain a +4 bonus to Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks and Charisma (Performance) checks.

4th Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 22

Agares, Truth Betrayed

Agares died at the hands of his allies for a wrong he did not commit. As a vestige, not only does he give binders the ability to weaken foes and knock them prone, but he also makes his summoner fearless and able to speak any tongue.

Legend: In life, Agares ruled over vast armies on the Elemental Plane of Earth. He was the most powerful general the plane had yet seen and second in authority only to his genie emperor, a dao of great influence. Even though Agares was unalterably loyal, he nevertheless gave his emperor reason to fear betrayal. Agares became obsessed with a djinni commander who had thwarted his conquests on several occasions. His desire to meet this favored foe on the field of battle blinded him to other tactical options and deafened him to rumors that his esteem for his enemy had deepened into love. When at last Agares entrapped the djinni’s forces, he girded himself for personal combat and set out to answer a challenge to duel his adversary. The summons was a trap laid by Agares’s lieutenants, however; his allies slew him within sight of his greatest enemy.

Special Requirement: You must draw Agares’s seal upon either the earth or an expanse of unworked stone.

Manifestation: The ground trembles briefly as the head of a great brown crocodile bursts from beneath Agares’s seal. The crocodile’s maw opens upward, unleashing a hooded black hawk that spreads its wings, forcing the jaws farther apart with the mere brush of its feathers. Two large, catlike eyes gleam on the hawk’s breast. When Agares speaks, the hawk’s beak moves, but the sound comes from the crocodile’s rumbling throat.

Sign: You gain a wracking cough that spews dust and small stones from your mouth. This coughing prevents you from casting any spells that have verbal components. While bound to Agares, you can resist the urge to cough for a number of rounds equal your Constitution score. Thereafter, you cough for a round and then can try to resist the urge again.

Influence: Agares’s loyalty in life and his anger at the betrayal perpetrated by his lieutenants has become a hatred of falsehood. When influenced by Agares, you speak forthrightly and with confidence. You cannot use the Deception skill, and when asked a direct question, you must answer truthfully and directly.

Granted Features: Agares gives you the power to exalt yourself and your allies, to make the earth tremble beneath your feet, to render foes weak, and to speak the truth to all peoples.

Elemental Companion: You can use your action to summon an earth elemental to accompany you and fight for you. The elemental disappears when it drops to 0 hit points, or if the elemental is more than 30 feet away from you at the end of your turn. If you lose your elemental to dissolution or destruction, you cannot summon it again for 1 hour.

The elemental is friendly to you and your companions for the duration. Roll initiative for the elemental, which has its own turns. It obeys any verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any commands to the elemental, it defends itself from hostile creatures but otherwise takes no actions. Use the game statistics of the earth elemental in the SRD, except where noted here.

• The earth elemental has a number of hit points equal to 5 times your binder level.
• The earth elemental rolls a 1d8 in place of the normal damage die of its slam attack, increasing to 2d8 at 15th level.

Earthshaking Step: As an action, you can stomp on the ground, causing every creature within 10 feet of you that is either standing or climbing on a surface connected with the ground succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. You and your summoned earth elemental are never knocked prone by the use of this feature.

Earth and Air Mastery: You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls if both you and your foe are touching the ground. Any airborne foe receives a –1 penalty to attack and damage rolls against you.

Fear Immunity: You have immunity to fear effects.

True Speech: You can speak, understand, read, and write all languages spoken by creatures within 30 feet of you. To use an unfamiliar language, you must hear it spoken and see the speaker. Once you have used it, you can continue to do so for as long as your pact with Agares lasts. When speaking or writing in a language with which you are not familiar, you cannot lie.

Andras the Gray Knight

A great warrior in life, Andras is an enigma as a vestige. He gives binders prowess in combat and skill in the saddle.

Legend: Andras was once an elf paladin famed for his prowess in battle and his implacable dedication to doing what was right and good for all. A series of misjudgments and misfortunes broke Andras’s faith in both himself and his deity, however, and he became a blackguard. During his subsequent service to the dark gods, his infamy rapidly outgrew his fame, and his name was whispered in fear. After nearly three hundred years of almost constant battle on behalf of both good and evil, Andras grew tired of both causes. In the midst of a duel in the key battle of a great war, he simply dropped his weapon and left, never to be seen alive again. Sages speculate that after his betrayal of both causes, he was no longer welcome in any god’s realm, and thus his soul was condemned to become a vestige.

Manifestation: Andras rides up out of nothingness on the back of a great black wolf. The vestige’s head is that of an owl covered in gray feathers, and his gray-skinned body resembles that of a lanky but muscular male elf. Wearing only a loincloth, Andras slouches in his saddle, holding the reins of his mount in one hand and a greatsword, which he lazily rests on his shoulder, in the other. At first glance, Andras looks as though he might be asleep, but a closer inspection reveals a pair of huge golden eyes that glower from his bowed head. Andras speaks in deep tones laden with menace.

Sign: You sprout two useless, gray-feathered wings from your back. The wings are small enough to be hidden beneath a shirt or cloak, but doing so makes you appear hunchbacked.

Influence: Andras’s influence causes you to become listless and emotionally remote. Because Andras wearies of combat quickly, you must drop any items in hand and withdraw from melee after only 10 rounds of battle. You may not take any offensive action for 1d4 rounds thereafter.

Granted Features: Andras lends you some of the skills he had in life, making you a strong combatant with or without a mount.

Summon Steed: As an action, you can summon a heavy warhorse. This feature functions like the find steed spell, except where noted here. The steed appears bearing a saddle and lance, and serves you for up to 1 hour per binder level until it is killed, you use your action to dismiss it, or your pact with Andras ends. You must complete a long rest before using this feature again.

Smite: You can use your action to smite a creature, making a weapon attack as part of this action. You add your Charisma modifier (if any) to the attack roll, and the attack deals an additional 1 radiant damage per binder level. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Sow Discord: Andras grants you the ability to sow discord among your enemies. As an action, you can force an enemy to attack a randomly determined ally within reach on his next action, and he must do so as his next attack. The target must be within 5 feet per two binder levels you possess, and a successful Wisdom saving throw negates the effect. The affected foe must strike for lethal damage with a primary attack and use whatever melee weapon is in hand (or an unarmed strike or natural attack if no weapon is at the ready). If no ally is within the foe’s reach, this feature has no effect. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Sure Blows: You score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20. If you would already score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20, then you score a critical hit on a roll of 18, 19, or 20 on the d20 instead.

Saddle Sure: You can't be knocked off your mount, even if you fall unconscious or are otherwise incapacitated.

Weapon Proficiency: You gain proficiency with greatswords, lances, longswords, and rapiers.

Astaroth, Unjustly Fallen

Legend: Scholars know little of Astaroth before his fall, save that he favored constant interference and assistance when it came to mortals, rather than leaving them to develop on their own. Some tales claim that he was responsible for teaching humanoids such techniques as metalworking and even alchemy.

According to ancient writings, Astaroth himself maintains that this was why he fell, cast from Heaven for the "crime" of aiding the mortal races in their development of civilization. Most theologians, however, remain convinced that the angel was exiled for greater crimes. Legends range from an attempt to usurp the position of some heavenly god, to an effort to raise an entire mortal race to celestial status, to an attempt to turn all mortals away from worship of the gods so that he might be free to influence them as he saw fit. Astaroth admitted to no such defiance, however, and swore to the day of his disappearance that his fall was unjust.

For centuries Astaroth roamed many worlds, mortal and spiritual alike. To the celestials, he was an outcast — another prideful fallen angel who could not even admit to his errors, let alone atone for them. Yet because he refused to embrace damnation, he found no allies among the fiends either. Eventually he settled among mortals. He watched over them as a guardian and mentor to start, but slowly his obsession with "protecting" the mortals grew uncontrollable. Astaroth became a dictator, restricting even the day-to-day behavior of his subjects to keep them "safe." The fallen angel was finally slain by an uprising within the populace, but none of the Outer Planes would grant his soul any respite. Eventually, with no afterlife to call his own, stripped even of his physical existence, Astaroth simply went — elsewhere.

Manifestation: Accompanied by the sound of flapping wings and cawing crows, Astaroth manifests as a hideously ugly angel. His limp wings are filthy gray, his features drawn and gaunt, and his eyes yellowed. He carries a viper in his right hand and wears a tarnished crown upon his brow. A horrific stench accompanies him, almost but not quite enough to sicken everyone nearby.

Sign: Your skin yellows, and you emit a foul, unwashed odor. While this odor is not strong enough to impede or distract an opponent, it does attract attention.

Influence: Astaroth's influence renders you incapable of taking responsibility for your own actions. You cannot admit any fault, acknowledge any mistake, or make reparations or apologies for any wrong, no matter the consequences or the evidence against you.

Granted Features: Astaroth guided mortals, and he still grants abilities based in knowledge and education. As a fallen angel, and then a vestige, his magics have grown ever grimmer and more distasteful; he also grants powers based on directly controlling and offending others.

Astaroth's Breath: You can exhale a 60-foot cone of foul-smelling gas. Creatures within the cone must make a Constitution saving throw or be incapacitated for 1d4 rounds. Creatures immune to poison or disease are immune to this effect. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Word of Astaroth: You can use your action to make a suggestion, as the spell, except you need not maintain concentration. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. At any given time, you may affect a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifier with this feature.

Angelic Lore: Astaroth constantly whispers the secrets of reality in the back of your mind, allowing you to draw on his own nigh-infinite knowledge. You may make a special knowledge check with a bonus equal to your binder level to see if you know some relevant information about local notable people, legendary items, or noteworthy places. A successful knowledge check will not reveal the powers of a magic item but may give a hint as to its general function.

Master Craftsman: While bound to Astaroth, it takes you a quarter of the normal time, and costs half the usual gold to craft an item.

Honeyed Tongue: You gain a +4 bonus on Charisma (Persuasion), Charisma (Deception), and Charisma (Intimidate) checks.

Buer, The Grandmother Huntress

Buer grants binders superior healing as well as powers against poisons and diseases.

Legend: Buer tells many different stories about how she came to be a vestige, so her true origins remain obscure. In various popular versions of the tales, she is a beautiful elf maiden who fell to evil satyrs, a virtuous human ranger killed by a chimera, or a green hag slain by a lammasu. It’s likely that Buer herself cannot remember who she was in life or what brought her to her current state, and the stories she tells are cobbled together from the shreds of her memory that remain. Regardless of what her true form once was, most binders believe that she possessed great skill as a hunter and healer in life.

Special Requirement: Buer requires that her seal be drawn outdoors.

Manifestation: Buer’s form is that of a five-branched star, or wheel, composed of satyr legs. She has two faces, one positioned on each side of her wheel-shaped body at the center point where the five legs meet. One face is that of a green hag, and the other is a raging, leonine visage with an unruly mane and beard. Buer constantly moves within her seal, rolling from foot to foot as she traverses its circumference. She always keeps her raging face outward, but she speaks from her green hag face in a friendly manner with a gentle voice. When her body rolls in such a way that her hag face cannot see her summoner, Buer grows frustrated and begins yelling curses at her body.

Sign: Your feet turn into satyr’s hooves, giving you a curious tip-toeing gait. These hooves prevent you from wearing normal boots or shoes, but magic footwear reshapes to fit you.

Influence: Under Buer’s influence, you are plagued by momentary memory lapses. For an instant, you might forget even a piece of information as familiar as the name of a friend or family member. Furthermore, since Buer abhors the needless death of living creatures other than animals and vermin, the first melee attack you make against such a foe must be for nonlethal damage. In addition, Buer requires that you not make any coup de grace attacks.

Granted Features: Buer grants you healing powers, the ability to ignore toxins and ailments, and skills that help you navigate the natural world.

Healing Gift: At will as a bonus action, you can cure 1 point of damage to yourself or another creature. As an action, you can cure 1d8 points of damage +1 point per binder level (maximum 1d8+10 points). Either version requires that you touch the creature to be cured. If you use your action to cure yourself or an ally, you cannot use your healing gift again for 5 rounds.

Delay Diseases and Poisons: Each ally within 30 feet of you gains temporary immunity to poison and disease. Allies within the area make saving throws against disease and poison effects normally, but they do not incur the effects of failure as long as they stay within 30 feet of you. An ally that leaves the area immediately suffers all the effects for any failed saves.

Fast Healing: You regain 1 hit point at the start of your turn, and the rate of healing increases with your effective binder level. You regain 2 hit points at 10th level, 3 hit points at 13th level, 4 hit points at 16th level, and 5 hit points at 19th level.

Buer’s Knowledge: You gain a +4 bonus on Wisdom (Medicine), Wisdom (Nature), and Wisdom (Survival) checks.

Buer’s Purity: You have immunity to disease and poison, and making a pact with Buer removes any existing disease and neutralizes any poison that afflicts you.

Track: You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks made to track creatures.

Eurynome, Mother of the Material

Eurynome grants lordship over the water and the beasts of land, seas, and air. She also gives those with whom she binds some of the might of titans.

Legend: Stories say that before recorded time, the gods and titans battled on the Outer Planes. Tired of the struggle, the titan Eurynome fl ed to the roiling chaos that made up the Material Plane. She divided the world into sky and sea, and then she danced alone upon the waves. Incensed by her impertinence in meddling with a world as yet unformed, the gods struck Eurynome down. Angered by her abandonment of their fight, her fellow titans refused to come to her aid. Eurynome’s body became the first island, her blood became the first river, and her soul became a vestige.

Special Requirement: Eurynome hates Amon for some unknown reason and will not answer your call if you are already bound to him.

Manifestation: If Eurynome’s myth is true, she has fallen far since battling gods and shaping the deeps and the firmament. Eurynome manifests as a horrid conglomeration of humanoid, avian, and piscine forms. Her arms are octopus tentacles, her legs are those of a hawk, and her mouth is an owl’s beak. Wings shaped like great fish fins extend from her back, and she has no eyes—only lamprey like mouths where her visual orbs should be.

Sign: Your skin becomes clammy, and you leave moist prints on any object your body touches, even if clothing blocks direct contact. These marks evaporate after about 1 minute.

Influence: Eurynome’s influence makes you paranoid and ungrateful; you see secret motives and possible betrayals behind every action. Eurynome requires that you not attack a foe unless an ally has already done so. If no allies are present, she makes no such requirement.

Granted Features: Eurynome grants you the ability to befriend animals, walk on water, and wield a massive hammer. In addition, she turns your blood into poison and gives you resistance to weapon blows.

Eurynome’s Maul: As a bonus action, you can summon a magic warhammer that rolls 2d6 in place of its normal damage. You are proficient with this weapon. You summon a +1 warhammer, increasing to a +2 warhammer at 11th level, and to a +3 warhammer at 17th level. The warhammer disappears (until you summon it again) if it leaves your grasp for more than 1 round.

Poison Blood: While you are bound to Eurynome, your blood becomes poisonous. Any creature that ingests it (by either making a bite attack against you or swallowing you whole) must immediately make a successful Constitution saving throw or take 1d6 poison damage. After 1 minute, the creature must make another Constitution saving throw, taking another 1d6 poison damage per three binder levels you possess (maximum 5d6). Each bite attack (or each round that you remain in the creature’s gullet) poisons the creature anew, forcing a new round of saving throws. Your poison blood becomes inert 1 minute after leaving your body.

Water Dancing: At will, you can move on liquid as if it were firm ground. This feature functions like the water walk spell, except that it affects only you. You can suppress or activate this feature at will (no action required).

Damage Reduction: Bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage you take from non-magical weapons is reduced by 3.

Animal Friend: All animals automatically have an initial attitude of friendly toward you.

5th Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 24

Balam, The Bitter Angel

Once a being of extreme goodness, Balam became a wrathful vestige after taking on an impossible task that ended in failure. She grants her summoners the ability to foresee future difficulties and the intellect to interpret what they see, as well as skill with light arms and a stare that chills flesh.

Legend: Binder scholars claim that Balam is all that remains of the soul of a powerful solar. Exactly how she came to exist in her current state remains a mystery, but sources of planar lore state that several good gods tasked her with eliminating the practice of sacrifi cing sentient beings in the worship of deities. Since such sacrifi ces are part and parcel of evil rituals, the task amounted to wiping out the worship of evil gods altogether—a task well beyond what even the good deities could manage. Needless to say, Balam failed in her assignment, and some believe that her foes actually sacrificed her in praise of a dark god.

Special Requirement: Balam requires a sacrifice of her summoner. In the process of calling her, you must deal 1 point of slashing damage to yourself or another sentient creature (one with Int 3 or higher) and place a drop of blood from the wound within Balam’s completed seal.

Manifestation: Balam is a horror to behold. Her body is that of a great purple serpent, and her head consists of the top halves of three horned humanoid heads arranged evenly around a shared gaping maw. This mouth is a tooth-studded chute that extends deep into her body, and her six horns point forward around it. Balam speaks in a grinding moan, exhaling hot, stinking breath with each word. The fangs in her chute-mouth move in waves with the shuddering of her throat, and the eyes of her three heads glow blue when she becomes excited or angry.

Sign: Your voice gains a peculiar quality, becoming both hollow and guttural.

Influence: Balam’s influence causes you to distrust clerics, paladins, and other devotees of deities. Whenever you enter a temple or some other holy or unholy site, Balam requires that you spit on the floor and utter an invective about the place.

Granted Features: Balam grants you the power to predict future events. She also teaches cunning and finesse, and gives you the ability to freeze foes with a glance.

Icy Glare: At the start of your turn, each opponent within 30 feet of you that can see you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 2d6 points of cold damage. Opponents can avert or close their eyes to protect themselves. You can use your action to focus your gaze on a target creature, forcing them to make a Wisdom saving throw. You can choose not to affect specific creatures within range of the gaze attack, such as your allies, if desired.

Balam’s Cunning: You can reroll one attack, saving throw, or ability check you have just made (no action required). You must accept the result of the reroll, even if it is worse than the original. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Prescience: You get a glimpse of the future a moment before it happens. This knowledge manifests as a +2 bonus on initiative checks and Dexterity saving throws, and your Armor Class.

Weapon Finesse: You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with weapons that have the Finesse property.

Dantalion, The Star Emperor

Dantalion, called the Star Emperor for his legend and appearance, is a composite of many souls. He grants binders the ability to teleport short distances, read thoughts, and stop foes.

Legend: Binders know little of how Dantalion came to be. The most common legend of his origin presents him not as one spirit, but as a conglomeration of the souls of a royal line whose members were cursed not to join their deities in the afterlife. This ancient imperial line is not now connected to any living leaders. Supposedly, however, descendants of this family still live, ignorant of both their heritage and their curse. Some binders profess to be scions of Dantalion—the true heirs of the royal line—but these claims are likely just the fancies of romantic minds.

Manifestation: Dantalion appears in a fl ash of red light as a 10-foot-tall humanoid, resplendent in crimson and gold robes. His head is a massive conglomeration of dozens of human faces—male and female, young and old. A gold crown as big around as a barrel rests on the brow of his enormous cranium. Dantalion carries a great tome under one arm and speaks with the voices of his many faces, always in cryptic passages that he reads from his book. Sometimes just one face reads from his tome, but the speaking face changes often and usually in mid-sentence. Those who glance at the book’s pages see a dark sky filled with stars that change with each flip of a page.

Sign: One of Dantalion’s faces appears on your torso, as though it were a vestigial conjoined twin. It seems lifeless most of the time, but when you activate an ability granted by Dantalion, it opens its eyes and mouth, revealing a starry void within.

Influence: Dantalion’s influence causes you to be aloof and use stately gestures. Dantalion can’t help but be curious about the leaders of the day, so anytime you are within 100 feet of someone who clearly is (or professes to be) a leader of others, Dantalion requires that you try to read that person’s thoughts. Once you have made the attempt, regardless of success or failure, you need not try to read that person’s thoughts again.

Granted Features: Pact magic grimoires attest to Dantalion’s profound wisdom and his extensive knowledge about all subjects. Because he knows all thoughts, he can grant you a portion of that power, as well as the ability to travel just by thinking. You also gain a portion of his commanding presence, which many binders ascribe to his royal origins.

Awe of Dantalion: As a bonus action, any creature that sees you is unable to attack you or target you with a hostile spell until the start of your next turn. If you attempt any hostile action, such as making an attack roll or casting an offensive spell against the affected creature or its allies, the effect ends. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Read Thoughts: You can use your action to attempt to read the surface thoughts of any creature you can see, as long as it is within 5 feet per binder level you possess. If the target makes a successful Wisdom saving throw, you cannot read its thoughts for 1 minute. Creatures with Intelligence 3 or less have simple, instinctual thoughts that you can pick up. If you attempt to read the thoughts of a creature with an Intelligence score 10 points higher than your own, you automatically fail and are stunned until the start of your next turn. You can read a creature’s thoughts for as long as you concentrate.

Thought Travel: As an action, you can instantly transport yourself and any objects you carry (up to a heavy load) to any location you can see that is within 5 feet per binder level you possess. The desired location cannot be within an object or beyond a barrier unless you have some means of seeing the exact space you desire to occupy. If you cannot occupy the designated space because it contains a solid body inside which you cannot exist (for example, if an invisible creature is in the square, or some magic in that location prevents dimensional travel, or the like), the attempt to travel fails and you are stunned for 1 round. Otherwise, you always arrive at the exact location desired. You cannot use this feature while blinded. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. You can use this feature a number of times per day equal to your binder level. You regain all expended uses when you complete a long rest.

Dantalion Knows: While bound to Dantalion, you have a +4 bonus on Intelligence (Arcana, History, Nature, Religion) checks made to recall lore.

Geryon, The Deposed Lord

Once a devil of great power, Geryon now exists only as a vestige. He gives binders powers associated with his eyes, as well as the ability to fly at a moment’s notice.

Legend: Most scholars of the dark arts know of Geryon. As one of the legendary Lords of the Nine, he ruled Stygia, the frozen fi fth layer of Hell. During a great upheaval known as the Reckoning, Geryon secretly supported the greatest of the arch devils, Asmodeus, against his rivals. When the armies of the opposing lords met to decide who would take Asmodeus’s power, Geryon blew his horn. At his signal, the armies turned against their leaders, the usurpers were thrown down, and Asmodeus reestablished his right to rule all Baator. Knowing he had taught the usurpers a lesson they would not soon forget, Asmodeus returned them to power. Rather than reward Geryon, however, he inexplicably gave his lone supporter’s power and position to another. Geryon’s fate after losing his position is unclear, but some binder scholars maintain that Asmodeus held one more betrayal in store for him. The story goes that Geryon, bewildered and stunned, lost all hope for the future. He began to question the purpose of his actions and, in a moment of weakness, even the point of his own existence. It was then that Asmodeus struck. The ruler of the Nine Hells had always hungered for the souls of those who had lost their faith, and Geryon’s powerful soul made a fine meal.

Special Requirement: Geryon answers the calls of only those summoners who show an understanding of the relationship between souls and the planes. Thus, you must have at least 5 ranks in either Knowledge (religion) or Knowledge (the planes) to summon him.

Manifestation: Geryon arrives in a flash of sickly green light. A strange conglomeration of forms, his body resembles three ogre mages standing with their backs to each other and melded into one being. He has three legs, each with two feet, and three arms, each with two hands. Three brutish faces gaze out from equidistant points on a single head, which sits upon a neck jutting upward from three shoulders. One face has a furrowed brow and looks angry, another appears agitated, with wildly rolling eyes, and the third seems thoughtful, often staring into the distance as though thinking of something else.

Geryon speaks from only one of his three faces at any given time, and each of the three has a different personality and voice—a deep voice for the angry face, a babbling, hysterical voice for the agitated one, and a quiet voice for the thoughtful one. All three, however, are Geryon. Whenever his mood changes, Geryon turns his body so that he can speak to his summoner with the face that best represents his feelings at the time.

Sign: Two extra pairs of devilish eyes with green lids and yellow, catlike irises open on your head. Located at the level of your own eyes and equidistant from them, these bloodshot orbs grant you the ability to see all around yourself. Your own eyes take on the same appearance as the new ones.

Influence: While influenced by Geryon, you become overly trusting of and loyal to those you see as allies, even in the face of outright treachery. Because he values trust, if you make an Insight check or use any ability to read thoughts or detect lies, you rebel against Geryon’s influence and incur the normal penalties.

Granted Features: Geryon gives you his eyes and his baleful gaze, as well as the ability to fly.

Acidic Gaze: The gaze of your devilish eyes can cause foes to erupt with acid. At the start of your turn, each opponent within 30 feet of you that can see you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 2d6 points of acid damage. Opponents can avert or close their eyes to protect themselves. You can use your action to focus your gaze on a target creature, forcing them to make a Wisdom saving throw. You can choose not to affect specific creatures within range of the gaze attack, such as your allies, if desired. You cannot use this feature if you do not show Geryon’s sign.

Swift Flight: You can use a bonus action to gain a fly speed of 60 feet for 1 round. Once you have used swift flight, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

All-Around Vision: Your extra eyes allow you to look in any direction, granting you a +4 bonus on Perception and Investigation checks. When confronted by a creature with a gaze attack, however, you cannot avert your eyes, though you can still close them. You cannot use this feature if you do not show Geryon’s sign.

See in Darkness: You can see perfectly in mundane and magical darkness to a distance of 120 feet. You cannot use this feature if you do not show Geryon’s sign.

Otiax, The Key to the Gate

The alien Otiax gives its summoners the power to open what is closed, to walk among the clouds, and to strike foes with fog that lands like a hammer.

Legend: Otiax is a bit of a conundrum because it seems to have originated outside the known cosmology of the planes. A few sources of pact magic lore refer to some plane or place called the Far Realm, but most offer no explanation of Otiax’s past. Some even posit that Otiax is somehow the key to reaching the Far Realm, but that supposition has more to do with Otiax’s appearance than with any real evidence of its nature. Because Otiax never speaks, it can shed no light on the issue. Binding with it is more a matter of instinct and will than of deliberation.

Manifestation: When Otiax manifests, a locked golden gate appears within its seal. Blue fog curls out in wispy tendrils from between the bars, obscuring what lies beyond. After a moment of silence, some unseen force crashes against the barrier. Then the gate shakes and rattles loudly, as though some creature is desperate to open it. Ragged breathing becomes audible, and the fog swirls around some indistinct yet terrible form. At last the raging stops, and the azure vapor passes through the gate. The sound of the tumblers turning in the lock becomes audible, then the gate creaks open. Sign: While bound to Otiax, you are surrounded by thin wisps of light blue fog even in the strongest wind.

Sign: While bound to Otiax, you are surrounded by thin wisps of light blue fog even in the strongest wind.

Influence: Otiax’s motives remain a mystery, but its influence is clear. When confronted with unopened doors or gates, you become agitated and nervous. This emotional state lasts until the door or gate is opened, or until you can no longer see it. Furthermore, Otiax cannot abide a lock remaining secured. Thus, whenever you see a key, Otiax requires that you use it to open the corresponding lock.

Granted Features: Otiax opens doors for you, lets you batter opponents with wind, and cloaks you in a protective fog that can actually lash out at foes.

Unlock: As an action, you can unlock a single lock that you can touch, provided that its DC is less than or equal to twice your binder level. For example, a 10th-level binder can use this feature to open any lock with a DC of 20 or lower, and a 15th-level binder could open a lock with a DC of 30 or lower. This feature grants you no protection from any traps that might be associated with the lock. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Open Portal: At will as a bonus action, you can open (but not close) a door, chest, box, window, bag, pouch, bottle, barrel, or other container as though using the knock spell. This feature has a range of 10 feet per binder level you possess.

Combat Reflexes: Once per round, you can make an opportunity attack when a creature moves out of your range (no action required). You may still make an opportunity attack using your reaction if another creature moves out of your range, but you cannot make two opportunity attacks against the same creature.

Air Blast: You can focus the air around you into a concentrated blast that batters opponents. You can use your air blast as a melee spell attack against a creature up to 10 feet away. This attack deals 2d6 points of bludgeoning damage. If you can make more than one attack in a turn, such as through the Extra Attack class feature, you can replace any number of those attacks with an air blast. You can also make opportunity attacks with your air blast. You cannot use this feature if you do not show Otiax’s sign.

Concealing Mist: You can whip the mist that constantly surrounds you into a concealing screen that grants you half cover. You cannot use this cover to hide. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action. A severe wind (either natural or magical, such as a gust of wind spell) suppresses your concealing mist. You cannot use this feature if you do not show Otiax’s sign.

Tenebrous, The Shadow That Was

Tenebrous, once a powerful demon prince, offers dominion over darkness and death.

Legend: The great demon lord Orcus has long sought divinity. Some years ago, for a brief period, he actually attained it. Slain and resurrected by a surge of negative energy, the corpulent demon arose as the gaunt Tenebrous, a god of darkness and undeath. For a time he traveled the planes in this form, slaying other gods in his quest to gain more power. His ultimate goal was to reincarnate himself yet again because he wished to be a god as Orcus, not Tenebrous. Some say he was thwarted by a band of mortal heroes, but whatever the cause, his grand plan failed. Orcus did indeed rise again, but as the demon prince he once was, not as a god. True divinity can never fade completely. The tatters of godly power that Orcus shed remained intact. Less than a god but still divine, this bit of essence drifted in the void between planes until it once more coalesced into a bitter sentience. Thus, Tenebrous yet exists as a pale reflection of what he once was, a shadow of a shadow.

Special Requirement: You must draw Tenebrous’s seal at night or in an area of deep shadow with little or no daylight exposure.

Manifestation: Upon completion of the rite to summon Tenebrous, the summoner’s shadow shifts to fall across the seal. Even if the rite occurs in complete darkness, the shadow is visible as a darker spot in the blackness. Once the shadow crosses into the seal, an inky humanoid form—impossibly gaunt, holding its limbs at disjointed angles—rises from it. The voice of Tenebrous is a whisper in the wind, almost impossible to hear, yet laden with unmistakable meaning.

Sign: You seem to be standing in shadow even on the brightest day. Furthermore, your own shadow never extends more than a few feet from your body, even if the ambient light suggests that it should be much longer. This effect does not grant you concealment.

Influence: While influenced by Tenebrous, you are filled with a sense of detachment and an aching feeling of loss and abandonment. Tenebrous requires that you never be the first to act in combat. If your initiative check result is the highest, you must delay until someone else takes a turn.

Granted Features: Tenebrous grants you power over undead and shadows. He gives you the ability to chill your foes.

Turn Undead: You can turn undead as a cleric of your binder level. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds. You can use this feature a number of times equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier (minimum 4). You regain all expended uses when you complete a long rest.

Touch of the Void: As a bonus action, you can charge a melee attack or melee weapon attack with cold energy. Your next melee attack deals an extra 1d8 points of cold damage, plus 1d8 points of cold damage for every four binder levels beyond 7th that you possess. When you attain a binder level of 11th, you can charge your weapon for an entire round. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Deeper Darkness: You can cloak an area in shadows as though using the darkness spell, with the following exceptions. The effect is always centered on you, it casts shadowy illumination in a 20-foot radius, it has an unlimited duration, and you can shift the range of the emanation (within the normal range) up or down 10 feet as a bonus action. The radius of the sphere increases to 40 feet at 11th level, and to 60 feet at 17th level. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Vessel of Emptiness: You can become a vessel of emptiness (no action required), allowing you to use a bonus action to teleport to an unoccupied space within 5 feet per two binder levels you possess on each of your turns. Alternatively, when you are targeted by an attack, you can use your reaction to teleport, expending a use of this feature. If you use your reaction to teleport, roll any die; on an odd result, the triggering attack proceeds as normal, and on any even result, the attack automatically misses.

This feature lasts for a number of rounds equal to your binder level. If you use a bonus action to teleport, you are unable to use your reaction to teleport until the start of your next turn.

You can use this feature once per day, increasing to two uses of this feature at 13th level, and three uses of this feature at 19th level.

See in Darkness: You can see perfectly in mundane and magical darkness to a distance of 120 feet.

6th Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 26

Desharis, the Sprawling Soul

Legend: According to ancient myths, the earliest true community was a human village called Desh, or "shelter" in the old tongue. Here the people dwelt together for protection against predators, and they first constructed structures rather than use existing shelters for protection against the elements. (For more on the legend of Desh, see Races of Destiny.)

This legend itself is neither uncommon nor unknown today. What few realize, however, is how swiftly the natural and magical worlds adapt to changes within. Desh was not merely the first community, but it also birthed the first urban fey, a distant ancestor of what would become the mighty zeitgeist.

Desharis knew nothing of his own origins. He knew only that of his two conflicting urges — one to protect the sanctity of the natural world, the other to defend Desh and the people therein — the latter was by far the stronger. Invisibly, he worked to stave off attacks from predators; to keep the village free of plague; and to aid its inhabitants when other humanoids attempted to raid Desh for its supplies. While the people of Desh thanked the gods and spirits for their fortune, however, they never knew of Desharis himself. The other fey of the world, horrified at the notion of a spreading society that might supplant the natural order, counted Desharis a traitor. They worked to thwart his efforts and even destroy him. Though he was, in effect, the very embodiment of community, Desharis was ever alone.

Desharis grew bitter at the disdain of the other fey, and some suggest that he inspired the spread of civilization as vengeance against them. Whatever the case, Desharis spread as the notion of community did, growing ever more diffuse, ever larger. Though he gained in size and influence, he gained nothing in the way of power; smaller villages added nothing to his abilities, and larger communities frequently birthed their own urban fey. Eventually, the spirit of community was too diffuse and spread out to exist as a being at all — and yet, as the embodiment of civilization, now a permanent part of the world, he could not entirely fade away.

Special Requirement: If you have gone more than a day without binding Desharis, you may only draw his seal in a village or larger city. Attempts to do so elsewhere fail outright. You can, however, "carry" Desharis into the wild; this is why you may continue to summon him, even outside the urban environment, if you have not allowed more than a day to lapse since you last did so.

Manifestation: Desharis appears with the sound of a hundred distant voices talking and shouting, though specific words remain completely unintelligible. A veritable mob of individuals appears as from a great distance, as though the air above his seal had become a window to some other place. As the mob approaches, these bare silhouettes meld together even as they take on greater details, eventually combining to form a single humanoid shape standing 10 feet in height. Though the silhouettes look human, Desharis himself appears made of equal amounts of stone, wood, metal, and glass.

Sign: While hosting Desharis, your eyes turn to glass. Anyone meeting your gaze sees the movement of multiple silhouettes behind them, as though looking through a window at a busy street.

Influence: Under Desharis's influence, you cannot stand to be alone, and the more people you have around you, the better. You never voluntarily accept any task that requires you to be alone, and you argue vigorously against options that would split the party. If you have the opportunity to socialize with large groups of people (such as entering a boisterous tavern), you must take it unless doing so is overtly harmful, or you have reason to suspect the individuals are hostile to you.

Granted Features: Desharis grants abilities that reflect his desire to protect the civilized peoples of the world, plus provides a few that show his anger at the fey and other creatures of nature.

Spirits of the City: You can use your action to animate objects, as the spell. Once you have used this feature, you must wait 5 rounds after the effect has expired, or all the objects have been destroyed, before you may do so again.

Infinite Doors: Once per day, you can pass through an exterior doorway (one that leads from inside a building to outside), and appear through another exterior doorway within 3,000 yards. The two doors must both be set in buildings made of similar materials; for instance, you could pass from a wooden building to another wooden building, or a stone building to another stone building. You can either select a specific door with which you are familiar as the destination, or simply declare that you are appearing through the closest appropriate door to a given distance. (If no appropriate portal exists within range or in the direction you wish to travel, the effect does not function.)

Smite Natural Soul: You may attempt to smite a beast, elemental, or fey with a single melee attack. You add your Charisma modifier to the attack roll and deal 1 extra point of damage per binder level. If you accidentally smite a creature that is not one of the above types, the attack gains no additional benefits from this feature. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

City-Dweller: While hosting Desharis, you move at your normal rate when moving through a creature's space. In addition, you gain a +4 bonus to Wisdom (Insight) and Intelligence (History) checks.

Language of the City: You can understand and speak with any humanoid.

Ipos, Prince of Fools

Binders call Ipos the Prince of Fools because of the crown he wears and the sad legend of his transformation into a vestige. He grants his summoners cold iron claws with which to rend foes, the power to see creatures and objects as they are, and a fraction of his charisma.

Legend: As a mortal scholar of deities and the planes, Ipos discovered vestiges and the process of binding long before their rediscovery in the current age. Although binder lore gives confl icting accounts of Ipos’s race and nation of origin, the legends agree that he was a mighty spellcaster with the power to travel the planes in his pursuit of knowledge. Although he was interested in all subjects, Ipos had a particular passion for discovering the nature of the planes, magic, and the gods. Through his study of these topics, Ipos sought to discover the planar order—the set of fundamental laws within which the multiverse operated. Ipos did a magnifi cent job with his research, and his discoveries have been passed down through the generations. Yet he left such an incomplete vision of reality that later scholars and explorers had to expand upon his body of work. In the midst of his investigations, Ipos stumbled across vestiges and drowned in the depth of this knowledge. He could not conceive of beings that did not exist in some place, or that could not be reached via the planes or by deities. He became obsessed with fi nding the plane upon which the vestiges resided. He dropped the study of all other topics and threw himself into the task of fi nding a way to the realm of the vestiges. No one knows what happened after he made this mission his focus, but the fact that he now exists as a vestige lends credence to the idea that he discovered what he sought.

Special Requirement: Ipos refuses to answer the call of any summoner who, in his judgment, has not taken a serious enough interest in occult studies. Anyone wishing to bind Ipos must have proficiency with Arcana or Religion.

Manifestation: Ipos steps forward onto his seal as though reappearing from invisibility. Some pact magic texts say that he has the head of a vulture or a goose, but those writers must have been unfamiliar with the bald ibis. Ipos clearly has that bird’s long, downward-curving beak and mottled, featherless head. Atop his warty scalp, he wears a crown of black iron, and a many-layered gray cloak hides most of his form. Ipos’s overly long arms end in gray-furred and clawed members that are more like the paws of a lion than the hands of a man. In one paw, he holds a gnarled iron cane that he uses more often to strike the ground in emphasis than as an aid in walking. He keeps his other paw hidden in one of the long sleeves of his robes, but from time to time, an observer can see him extending its long, black claws. Despite his rusting crown and tattered cloak, Ipos presents an imposing figure, and his hissing voice and baleful glare add considerably to his menace

Sign: You grow long, black, clawlike nails.

Influence: You think highly of your intellect and show contempt toward those who question your assumptions or conclusions. If you encounter a creature that shows interest in a topic about which you have knowledge, Ipos requires that you truthfully edify that individual.

Granted Features: Ipos grants you his discerning sight and commanding presence, as well as claws of cold iron with which to rend the veil of ignorance.

Flash of Insight: As a bonus action, you gain a true seeing effect (as the spell) for 1 round. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Cold Iron Claws: Your fingernails harden into cold iron, granting you one claw attack per hand that deals 1d8 slashing damage. You are proficient with your claws. You use your Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls. Your claw attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage, and they are considered light weapons for the purpose of two-weapon fighting. You cannot use this feature if you do not show Ipos’s sign.

Rend: When you hit one creature with two claw attacks in one turn, the target takes an additional 3d8 slashing damage.

Ipos’s Influence: Your affiliation with Ipos allows you to draw more power from the vestiges to which you are bound. The saving throw DC (if any) of each feature granted by your vestiges increases by 1. Treat your binder level as one higher than normal for the purpose of determining the effects of vestige special features.

Planar Attenuation: You gain protection from the natural effects of a specific plane. These effects include extremes in temperature, lack of air, poisonous fumes, emanations of positive or negative energy, or other attributes of the plane itself. You can change the plane to which you are attuned as an action.

Shax, Sea Sister

Another giant among the vestiges, Shax gives her summoners the ability to swim like fish, to laugh off lightning, to wriggle free of any bonds, and to strike foes like a thunderbolt.

Legend: Shax once ruled over storm giants as a goddess of the sea. She was born to Annam, the greatest of all giant gods, without his knowledge. Because he was prone to blind spots in his omniscience, Annam could not hear the giants’ prayers when they mentioned Shax, nor could he see her many cruelties to them. He realized that some problem might exist only when the storm giants started battling the other giant kinds, claiming their caves, clouds, hills, frosty mountains, and volcanic peaks as storm giant territory. When Annam asked them why they had attacked their fellow giants, the storm giants pointed to the sea. Annam’s blind spot still prevented him from perceiving Shax, so he sent his son Thrym to take care of the problem.

Thrym, god of the frost giants, was eager to stop storm giant incursions into his followers’ lands, so he picked up his axe and leapt into the sea. There he met his sister Shax for the first time. Thrym found her both beautiful and terrible. He offered to wed her if she would call the storm giants to return to the sea. Shax would have none of it, though, so the two fought. In the end Thrym won, beheading Shax with a clean blow of his axe, but not before she had scratched off some pieces of his flesh with her nails. The strength of Shax’s spirit gave her the power to resist the pull of the Astral Plane, that graveyard of the gods, so she became a vestige. As for Thrym, he yet lives, but the pieces of his cold body that his sister removed have become icebergs that float in the sea as constant reminders of the storm giants’ debt to him.

Special Requirement: You must draw Shax’s seal within sight of a pond, stream, or larger body of water.

Manifestation: Shax first appears as a semitransparent female storm giant standing 20 feet tall. Her drenched, violet-skinned body is clad in a gold breastplate and black tunic, both of which drip seawater on the ground. After she manifests, Shax smiles, and her head inclines as though acknowledging her summoner, but it continues to dip until it tumbles off her neck. The body vanishes even as the falling head becomes more solid. It strikes the ground upside down with a wet thump, its face turned away from her summoner. For a moment the head just sits there, but then the wet black hair coalesces into thick cords hat press against the earth, lifting it up. Walking on her hair tentacles in a spiderlike manner, Shax turns around to face Her summoner, glaring balefully with her yellow eyes. In a shrill voice, Shax demands to know who has summoned her.

Sign: A scar appears around the circumference of your neck, as though your head had been lopped off and then returned to your body to heal.

Influence: While under Shax’s influence, you become possessive and stingy, particularly about territory—be it actual land or simply a room in an inn. In addition, her influence requires you to demand compensation for any service rendered and to tax any use of your territory. However, you can accept nearly any item of value—be it material goods or a service—as payment.

Granted Features: Shax grants you the swimming skill of a fish and the ability to strike foes with sonic force and electricity. She also gives you immunity to electricity and allows you to move freely despite restraints.

Freedom of Movement: As a bonus action, you can give yourself the ability to ignore restraints. This feature functions like the freedom of movement spell, except that it only lasts 1 round. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Storm Strike: As a bonus action, you can charge a melee attack with electricity and sonic power. Your next melee attack deals an extra 1d6 points of lightning damage and 1d6 points of thunder damage.

Swim Speed: You gain a swim speed equal to your land speed. You can move through water at your swim speed without making Athletics checks, and you gain a +4 bonus on Strength (Athletics) checks made to perform special actions or avoid hazards while swimming.

Immunity to Electricity: You gain immunity to lightning damage.

Vanus, The Reviled One

Hated out of proportion for his sins, the smiling Vanus remains an enigma to binders. Vanus provides binders with the ability to frighten and punish weaker foes, hear evil afoot with uncanny perception, and free allies from constraints.

Legend: Legend remembers Vanus by many epithets: the Betrayer, the Craven One, the Foul Prince, the Maggot, the Fearmonger, and even the Hellbringer. Binders simply call him the Reviled One. The hatred traditionally heaped upon Vanus seems out of proportion to his faults, a mystery that binders have yet to unravel.

The story of Vanus begins in a grand kingdom, a peaceful empire that existed long before the current age. Human legend ascribes the kingdom to dwarves, while the dwarven story of Vanus claims elves to be that realm’s rulers. Elven mythology lays no claim to Vanus, relating instead that the kingdom belonged to a still more ancient race now largely gone from the world, similar to titans. Despite this difference and other variations, the basics of the tale remain the same.

The ancient kingdom prospered in peace for years because of the evil it kept trapped at it heart. Before the kingdom existed, the founders of that great nation fought a terrible battle against a powerful fiend (such as a balor or pit fiend). Although they could not kill their enemy, they did manage to trap it beneath the earth. To be certain they could keep their foe in check, they built a castle upon that unholy ground. That castle became the capitol of their kingdom.

While goodness flowed from that fortress, evil lingered there, ever watchful, always waiting. The leaders of the country posted a continual guard on the dungeon the fiend remained trapped within, wary of any attempt to escape. For centuries it remained thus, until the fateful night Vanus took over as guardian.

Vanus was a vain prince of the realm, selfish and obsessed with frivolity. To punish the prince for an embarrassment his petulance caused, the king commanded Vanus to serve with the guards of the dungeon during the party to celebrate the monarch’s birthday. Deep in the dark and clammy halls, Vanus determined to ignore the chatter of the guards and strained to hear the noise of the celebration above. He could hear little, just the distant tones of music punctuated by laughter. As he listened, the sound of one voice became clearer. A deep and commanding speaker was saying something Vanus could not quite discern. As Vanus neared the door to the fiend’s prison, the voice became even clearer, and Vanus thus moved past the guards and closed the distance to the ancient portal.

When Vanus put his ear to the door, he heard a voice unlike any other, and what it told him terrified him. Vanus ran from the dungeon screaming that the fiend was escaping. The guards, knowing they were not like the heroes of old, and seeing the prince of the realm in panic, also fled. The prince ran through the party, ranting about their coming doom, and soon the whole castle was being evacuated.

Panic spread across the countryside, and the people fought with one another in their haste to escape. Battles erupted between families and towns, and the citizen of that ancient kingdom left their lands a war-torn ruin. In the conflicts that followed, the people forgot their original cause for leaving and focused on their new enmity. The kingdom dissolved, the castle fell into ruin, and the fiend laughed in its prison.

Some legends say that the fiend then freed itself, and the gods cursed Vanus for his gullibility and cowardice. Others say that Vanus returned and freed the fiend, and the gods cursed him for this evil. Still other legends claim that Vanus became the fomenter of wars and breeder of terror, assuming the fiend’s place in the cosmos, becoming imprisoned by his fears even as the fiend’s evil spread beyond the walls of the dungeon.

Special Requirement: Vanus will not appear before a binder if his seal is drawn within sight of a doorway or window of any kind. If such apertures can be hidden from view, Vanus submits to being summoned, but the moment Vanus sees a door or window, he shrieks and vanishes in a gout of blue flame. Should the binding attempt be aborted in this manner, Vanus will not appear before the binder for three days.

Manifestation: Vanus appears in his seal as though stepping down from a carriage not visible to the binder. He always takes the form of a handsome male member of the binder’s race, dressed in fine clothing as a person of wealth and privilege. Vanus smiles and bows low to his summoner, but when he rises, his visage will have changed. Vanus then appears demonic, with six black horns growing from his face, and his skin covered in dark boils that swim with maggots. Blood wells up in his eyes like tears and pours down his smiling face to where he licks his lips. In this form, Vanus again bows. When he rises once more, he retains his demonic body and awaits his summoner’s pleasure.

Sign: When a binder makes a pact with the Reviled One, a boil appears on his body. Within the ruddy fluid in this boil swims a maggot. Should the boil be broken, the maggot slides swiftly across the binder’s body, eluding any attempt to catch it, and digs again beneath the skin. Before the original boil can scab over, another grows and the maggot appears within. Only by ending the pact with Vanus can the binder be rid of the foul insect and the disgusting homes it makes for itself.

Influence: Under the influence of Vanus, you take every opportunity to revel. Even small victories seem like cause for grand celebrations, and if you’re happy, you want everyone around to share your joy. If you see others in the act of celebration, you must join in. If you achieve victory in combat, you must immediately spend an action crowing about your triumph.

Granted Features: Vanus grants you tremendous hearing, the ability to foment fear by your presence alone, skill at fighting foes weaker than yourself, and the power to free allies from imprisonment.

Free Ally: You may use a bonus action to designate any ally within 5 feet per binder level to gain the benefits of the freedom of movement spell or the gaseous form spell. The ally may also use their reaction to move up to their speed. The benefits the ally gains apply only during your turn. Thus, at the end of your turn, the ally reverts to its natural form. You cannot use this feature on yourself. Once you have used this feature you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

You can instead use this feature to free a creature from an imprisonment spell or Halphax’s imprison feature if you witnessed its imprisonment.

Fear Aura: Enemies who come within 10 feet must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw. Those who fail are frightened of you. Foes remain frightened for a number of rounds equal to one-half your binder level. Creatures that fail the save must roll again if they again come within 10 feet after the duration expires, but not before. A creature that succeeds on a saving throw against this feature need not make another save for 24 hours.

Noble Disdain: When attacking a foe of fewer hit dice than yourself with a weapon attack, you deal an additional 1d6 damage.

Vanus’s Ears: Being bound to Vanus grants you advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks involving sound.

Zagan, The Duke of Disappointment

On the cusp of deification, Zagan lost all he had worked for. As a vestige, he offers his summoners a snake’s sense of smell, the power to cause an enemy flee his presence, the ability to immobilize an opponent, and more effective combat abilities against snakes and their ilk.

Legend: When dwarves had yet to tunnel into their mountains and elves first walked beneath the boughs of trees, Zagan ruled over thousands. A lord in a great yuan-ti empire, he had power over hundreds of his own kind, who in turn controlled the lives of thousands of humanoid slaves. Zagan built himself up as a god to these slaves, using the yuan-ti as his emissaries to communicate with the uneducated masses over which he held sway. Over time, Zagan’s power became so great that he actually aspired to become a god. He sought and finally discovered the means to his goal: a grand ceremony wherein he and his yuan-ti would gather together all his worshipers and slay them.

At the appointed hour on the appointed night, Zagan collected all his people for a celebration of his glory. He could feel their worship empowering him, and with each passing minute he gained strength and felt his awareness widening. Then Zagan rang the gong that signaled the attack, and he and his yuan-ti servants fell upon the slaves, slaying them with wild abandon. At first Zagan thought it glorious, but then he felt his new powers begin to wane. With each life he crushed, he felt a bit more mortal. Zagan attempted to call off the ceremony, but in the chaos of the slaughter, the other yuan-ti could not hear him. Suddenly, a sword pierced Zagan’s chest from behind. As he looked down at the bloody blade, a sibilant voice whispered in his ear, “The World Serpent wishes you well.” A cleric among his own people had tricked Zagan into ruining his chances at godhood on the very eve of his apotheosis. At a point somewhere between godhood and mortality, Zagan passed on into the void.

Special Requirement: You must kowtow before Zagan’s seal, prostrating yourself and addressing him as a deity.

Manifestation: When Zagan begins to manifest, several snakes appear in a heap in his seal. The snakes then slither apart and rise upright along the lines of the seal. Then the crown of a head appears, with baleful eyes glowering. An ogre like head slowly reveals itself, and after another moment, shoulders and arms appear, to which the snakes are attached. Zagan then uses his powerful arms to pull the rest of his body from the ground, revealing a long, serpentine form instead of legs. He reaches toward his summoner hungrily, his mouth gaping open in a feral grin, but the snakes on his body turn toward him and hiss, causing him to flinch backward. The brooding Zagan then addresses his summoner while calming the snakes. Binder scholars say that the snakes on his body are his most loyal lieutenants, who were killed on the night of Zagan’s murder and dragged with his soul into a vestige’s existence.

Sign: You gain a lisp and can’t help but speak in a sibilant manner.

Influence: While influenced by Zagan, you become domineering and aggressive. Zagan requires that you slay any snake or snakelike being you meet, and deface any representations of snakes or snakelike beings other than Zagan that you find.

Granted Features: Zagan grants you a snake’s ability to detect creatures by scent, the ability to grapple and constrict as a snake, increased combat ability against snakes and their cousins, and the power to cause your foes to avoid your mere presence.

Aversion: As an action, you can create a compulsion effect targeting any creature within 30 feet. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or gain an aversion to you, snakes, and yuan-ti for 5 rounds. An affected creature must stay at least 20 feet away from you or any snake or yuan-ti, alive or dead; if already within 20 feet, the target moves away. Any subject unable to move away or attacked by you, a snake, or a yuan-ti is overcome with revulsion. This revulsion reduces the creature’s Dexterity score by 4 points until the effect wears off or the creature is no longer within 20 feet of you. When you use this power, a ghostly image of Zagan manifests around your body and speaks your command with you before vanishing. After using this feature, you must wait 5 rounds before using it again.

Constrict: You gain a giant constrictor’s ability to crush the life from its prey. You deal damage equal to 1d8 + your Strength modifier with a successful grapple check.

Snake Bane: Zagan’s hatred for snakes, yuan-ti, and all snakelike creatures gives you improved combat prowess against their kind. You gain a +2 bonus on melee attacks against snakes, snakelike creatures (such as nagas or yuan-ti), or creatures with a poison attack, and you deal an extra 2d6 points of damage against such foes when making melee attacks. This damage also applies when you make a grapple check to deal damage against a snake or snakelike enemy, in addition to dealing your constrict damage.

Improved Grapple: You gain a +4 bonus to Strength (Athletics) checks made to grapple a foe. In addition, you are considered to be of Large size for the purpose of making grapple checks.

Scent: You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks involving smell.

7th Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 28

Chupoclops, Harbinger of Forever

A great monster believed to be a harbinger of the apocalypse, Chupoclops became a vestige when slain by mortals. Chupoclops grants its summoner a poisoned bite and unnatural senses, plus the ability to pounce on foes, to exist ethereally, and to make enemies despair.

Legend: Chupoclops once stood tall in the company of Fenris, Dendar the Night Serpent, and other supposed harbingers of the end of existence. A titanic spider like creature, Chupoclops stalked the Ethereal Plane, devouring ghosts and giving birth to mortals’ nightmares. Legend has it that the gods trapped the monstrous Chupoclops in the realm of ghosts to prevent it from devouring hope, but it was destined to escape and sate its hunger during the end times. Because Chupoclops was a terror to both the living and the undead, several powerful individuals eventually joined forces to fight it. Three were great heroes, and four were powerful villains. Four of these seven-one of the heroes and three of the villains— were ghosts; the rest were living. This group set out to murder Chupoclops and thus accomplish what deities could not. The furious battle lasted for seven days, and each day ended with the death of one member of the group that had come to kill the great monster. On the last day, the last hero struck down Chupoclops with her dying blow. Chupoclops, never a creature defined by the normal rules of the universe, became a vestige after its death. Binder scholars claim that adventurers still encounter its enormous corpse in the misty Ethereal Plane. Now that the monster can no longer destroy hope, some say it will exist forever, and thus, so will the world.

Special Requirement: You must draw Chupoclops’s seal with a handful of soil from a grave or tomb. Alternatively, you can place the dead body of a sentient creature (one with Int 3 or higher) over its seal before the summoning begins. In addition, Chupoclops hates Amon for some unknown reason and will not answer your call if you are already bound to him.

Manifestation: Chupoclops appears over its seal in the form of a Colossal phase spider. However, only the part of its body directly over its seal is visible at any given time. In most cases, Chupoclops first appears as a massive spider leg striking out of nowhere into the center of the seal. Then it shifts its body, slowly bringing its face into view and down to the level of its summoner. Glaring over its oddly tusked arachnid visage from eight all-too-human eyes, Chupoclops rumbles an ominous growl to begin the process of pact making.

Sign: Your lower jaw increases in size, and two long, sharply pointed tusks grow upward from it.

Influence: While under the influence of Chupoclops, you can’t help but be pessimistic. At best, you are quietly resigned to your own failure, and at worst, you spread your doubts to others, trying to convince them of the hopelessness of their goals. In addition, Chupoclops requires that you voluntarily fail all saving throws against fear effects or any effect that imposes a morale penalty.

Granted Features: Chupoclops gives you the power to linger on the Ethereal Plane, sense the living and undead, demoralize foes, and poison enemies.

Poison Bite: You gain a bite attack that deals 1d8 poison damage. You are proficient with your bite. You use your Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls. You cannot use this feature if you do not show Chupoclops’s sign.

Pounce: You can use a bonus action to make an attack with your poison bite on each of your turns.

Aura of Despair: Every creature within 10 feet of you takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and weapon damage rolls. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Ethereal Watcher: At will as a bonus action, you can become ethereal (as if using the etherealness spell; caster level equals your effective binder level). You can remain on the Ethereal Plane indefinitely if you take no actions, but you return to the Material Plane immediately after taking any action, or moving. Once you have returned to the Material Plane, you cannot use this feature again for 5 rounds.

Soulsense: You notice and locate living creatures within 10 feet as if you possessed blindsight. You also sense the strength and type of their life forces automatically, determining if they are undamaged, dying, or wounded. This feature is continuously active while you are bound to Chupoclops.

Ghost Touch: Your weapons count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage against incorporeal creatures.

Eligor, Dragon's Slayer

A champion both against and for evil dragons, Eligor grants martial prowess both in and out of the saddle, as well as supernatural strength.

Legend: Supposedly, Eligor was a great half-elf dragonslayer before he was condemned to a vestige’s existence by the actions of Tiamat. Believers of this legend claim that after Eligor’s death, Tiamat sent her draconic minions against the followers of both the human and the elven deities, demanding that they release his soul to her. Despite Eligor’s great service to both races, the deities gave up his soul to stave off the dragon attacks against their living followers. Only one deity argued against this profound injustice. The race and gender of this lone voice of reason differ with the teller, and not even binder scholars agree on whether the deity was human or elf, or even male or female. Whoever it was, this god set off alone to face Tiamat and wrest Eligor’s soul from her grasp. Upon arrival, however, the deity found Eligor in the service of Tiamat rather than in bondage. Unbeknownst to the other gods, Tiamat had raised him from death to be her champion and enforcer, using his abandonment by the other gods to win his loyalty. Eligor and the nameless deity fought, and Eligor lost his life yet again. This time, no deity laid claim to his soul, since doing so had already caused enough trouble.

Manifestation: Eligor clatters out of nothingness on a winged, half-horse/half-dragon monstrosity. Both rider and mount are heavily armored, and in fact Eligor’s form is entirely obscured by ornate, shining plate armor and a grand helm. He carries a lance in one hand and holds a banner in the other. With each manifestation, Eligor’s banner and mount change color, cycling through the five different colors of chromatic dragons. Although Eligor rides what might well be an evil creature, he always greets his summoner warmly and treats him with respect.

Sign: One of your hands becomes thickly scaled. The color of the scales matches the color of Eligor’s mount at the time of his summoning.

Influence: You feel pity for all outcasts, particularly half-elves and half-orcs, and you make every effort to befriend any such beings you meet. Because Eligor desires revenge on the deities who abandoned him, he requires that you attack a human, elf, or dragon foe in preference to all others whenever you enter combat.

Granted Features: In his first life, Eligor was a skilled horseman, and in his second, he served the primary deity of Chromatic dragons. Thus, the powers he grants tend to reflect those associations.

Eligor’s Skill in the Saddle: While mounted, your mount can use a bonus action to take the Dash action on each of its turns. If your mount spends at least half of its movement travelling in a straight line before you make a melee attack, that attack deals double damage.

Chromatic Strike: Your attacks are charged with acid, cold, electricity, or fire. Your melee attacks deal an extra 1d6 points of damage of the chosen energy type. You choose which damage type each time you hit with a melee attack.

Eligor’s Strength: Your Strength score increases by 4, to a maximum of 20.

Eligor's Resilience: You gain a +1 bonus to your Armor Class.

Heavy Armor Proficiency: You gain proficiency with heavy armor.

Haures, The Dreaming Duke

Haures grants his summoners the power to create illusions, protect their thoughts, and move through objects like a ghost.

Legend: Human history associates the name Haures with a powerful lord who terrorized his people. From the time he took the throne until his death, he kept his subjects at work building his castle, adding constantly to its grandeur and might. Workers at the castle would return with strange tales of building a room and then rebuilding it the next day because no sign remained of their previous day’s work. Then those who told such stories began to vanish in the castle, never to be heard from again. Although the castle grew with the additions made to it for the first few years, the constant construction seemed to have no effect on its size in later years.

When at last Haures died, his subjects rejoiced and attacked the castle, hoping to loot and set fire to the palatial structure. The mob of peasants found the castle empty, devoid even of its furnishings. Confused and frightened, they left, and the castle and the surrounding lands soon gained a reputation for being haunted. Binder scholars believe they know the answer to the mystery of Haures’s disappearance and the strange construction of the castle. According to their legends, Haures was not a human at all, but a powerful rakshasa sorcerer in disguise. Much of the construction he demanded took place on the Ethereal Plane because Haures planned to continue his existence there as a ghost. He wanted his afterlife to be as much like his mortal life as possible, so he had his subjects build a nearly exact duplicate of his castle on the Ethereal Plane and cloaked their work sites in illusions to hide the truth.

In the last months of his life, Haures brought many living and undead servants to his foggy realm, as well as all the comforts to which he had become accustomed. For some time after his demise, Haures spent time on both the Material and Ethereal Planes. As a ghost, he would cloak the decaying castle on the Material Plane in bright illusions so that he could throw lavish parties for the travelers attracted to its warm glow. Then he would end the party suddenly, leaving his guests alone in the chilly ruins of his castle and delighting in their terror. As the years passed, fewer folk dared enter his home, and Haures began to throw illusory parties for himself to alleviate his boredom. As his sanity deteriorated, he became unable to distinguish between the Material and the Ethereal Planes, and even between his illusions and his own imagined experiences. At some point, Haures lost all sense of the difference between reality and dreams, illusion and imagination, and even life and undeath. This complete dissolution of these barriers propelled him into existence as a vestige.

Manifestation: Haures initially manifests as a ghostly tiger stalking out of thin air, but his appearance rapidly changes to that of a handsome and well-dressed middle-aged man who appears alive and healthy. A moment later, that form decays before his summoner’s eyes, rotting into a zombielike state, then fading into ghostly incorporeality and changing again, this time into a skeletal tiger wearing a shining crown and purple robe. This tiger form soon loses its crown and robe but gains ghostly flesh, becoming a ghostly tiger to begin the cycle of change all over again. Haures seems cognizant of his summoner only while he is in living human form, and he speaks only in those brief moments.

Sign: While you are bound to Haures, your palms are where the backs of your hands should be, just as they are on a rakshasa. If you flip over your hands so that the backs are up, your thumbs end up on the wrong sides of your hands. This rearrangement has no effect on your Dexterity, spellcasting, ability to wield objects, or use of skills.

Influence: When influenced by Haures, you become an eccentric, often speaking to yourself and to imaginary friends. In addition, Haures requires that if you encounter and disbelieve an illusion not of your own making, you must not voluntarily enter its area.

Granted Features: Haures shields your mind with his madness, allows you to move like a ghost, gives you the power to fool the senses, and grants you the ability to kill others with their deepest fears.

Major Image: You can use your action to create an illusion at will, as though you had cast major image. A creature can attempt a Wisdom saving throw to realize the illusion is false. You can never create more than one major image at a time, and you can dismiss or renew the effect as an action. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Phantasmal Killer: You can use your action to conjure an image of a creature's worst fears. This feature functions like the phantasmal killer spell except for the range, and you do not need to concentrate on its effect. You can target a single creature within 10 feet per binder level you possess. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Incorporeal Movement: When moving, you become nearly incorporeal and can ignore the effects of difficult terrain. You can even move through an enemy’s space, but not through walls or other solid barriers. Furthermore, any opportunity attacks directed at you while you move are made at disadvantage. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Inaccessible Mind: You are protected from any effort to detect, influence, or read your emotions or thoughts, and you have immunity to any mind-affecting spells and abilities. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Marchosias, King of Killers

A legendary assassin in life, Marchosias now grants his summoners his supernatural charm, plus the ability to kill or paralyze with one startling attack and to disappear in a puff of smoke.

Legend: Marchosias seems to have appeared as a vestige quite recently—in fact, only a short time before Dahlver-Nar did. In life, Marchosias was a human who brought death to others. His favorite targets were other assassins and murderers, but this choice of foes had nothing to do with morals. Despicably evil, Marchosias was obsessed with improving his skill as a killer, and ending the lives of other professional slayers seemed the best challenge he could undertake. When at last Marchosias met his death, his soul traveled to the Nine Hells. The devils gleefully accepted his powerful spirit, but others there took note of his arrival and were not pleased.

The spirits of hundreds of thugs, slaughterers, executioners, and assassins banded together and rebelled against their devilish captors— intending not to escape or take control, but to attack Marchosias. Although the devils were loath to allow such lawlessness, they let the souls of the damned fight it out, thinking to step in and punish all the spirits when the battle was over. Marchosias fought well, but he could not prevail against so many foes at once, and he fell under the onslaught. When the devils pulled back the attackers, nothing was left—Marchosias’s soul had been torn to pieces.

Special Requirement: To summon Marchosias, you must at some point in your life have committed an evil act for which you have not apologized, atoned, or made reparations. Lying or breaking a confidence doesn’t count, but other small acts of evil—such as theft, infidelity, or vandalism— do fulfill the requirement.

Manifestation: Marchosias appears with a bloodcurdling scream in an explosion of fire and black smoke. Though much of the smoke curls away, some remains and slowly coalesces to form a human figure. Marchosias appears as a king with body and raiment composed of swirling smoke and cinders. He wears a crown of fire, beneath which gleam two glowing, hot coals where his eyes should be. Marchosias wields a scepter of flames, and a sword of hot ash is belted to his hip. For a moment, he seems exhausted by the rigors of his arrival, standing with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. After a moment, he raises his gaze to his summoner and stands straight and tall, adopting an imperious posture.

Sign: While you are bound to Marchosias, the pupils of your eyes glow with a red-orange light. Anyone looking at your face can make a DC 12 Perception check each round to notice this effect. This light is not strong enough to illuminate the area, and it does not make you any easier to see in the dark, but it can be disturbing to look upon.

Influence: Marchosias’s influence makes you debonair and sly, as though you have some trick up your sleeve and the knowledge of it makes you confident. In addition, Marchosias requires that you use the death attack he grants you against any foe you catch unawares.

Granted Features: Marchosias gives you an assassin’s skill at killing, plus the ability to assume gaseous form and the power to charm foes.

Smoke Form: You can assume the form of a smoke cloud at will. This feature functions like the gaseous form spell, except that you can remain gaseous for as long as you wish. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action. Once you have returned to your normal form from smoke form, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Death Attack: If you study a target for 3 rounds and then make an attack with a melee weapon that successfully deals damage, the attack either paralyzes or kills the target (your choice) in addition to dealing normal sneak attack damage. While studying the victim, you can undertake other actions so long as you concentrate on the target (as if concentrating on a spell). If the victim of such an attack fails on a Constitution saving throw against the kill effect, they instantly die. If they fail on the paralysis effect, they are rendered incapacitated and unable to act for a number of rounds equal to half your binder level. If the victim’s saving throw succeeds, the attack is just a normal sneak attack. Once you have completed the 3 rounds of study, you must make the death attack within the next 3 rounds. If you attempt a death attack and fail (the victim succeeds on the save), or if you do not launch the attack within 3 rounds of completing the study, 3 new rounds of study are required before you can attempt another death attack.

Fiery Retribution: You deal an extra 3d6 points of fire damage when you strike a creature that can deal extra damage through sneak attack, sudden strike, or similar feature.

Silent and Sure: You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) and Dexterity (Slight of Hand) checks.

The Triad

The Triad is a gestalt of three forgotten gods of a lost civilization of mystics. They give binders access to both martial abilities and lore-seeking traits.

Legend: Once long ago, a civilization of psionic mystics may have been the genesis of much of the known psionic knowledge. Their legacy spanned multiple worlds and planes due to their "glittering portals" that allowed instantaneous travel from city to city and plane to plane. Unfortunately, the very gates that allowed them to rise to greatness also doomed them to darkness. The gates functioned by passing through the Plane of Shadow and, over time, the shadows leaked into the gate and then into the travelers. Eventually, darkness consumed the mystics' cities one by one, and many of the mystics themselves became shades. Even the gods of the mystics started to be consumed by shadow.

Gorn, the god of knowledge; Rujsha, the goddess of justice; and Mintar, the god of battle, were the last three gods of the mystics, and they found themselves losing all their worshipers to shadows. When the shadows started pulling at them, they decided they had only one way to save themselves. They combined their essence into one being, and while it saved them from the shadows, it condemned them to existence as a vestige.

Special Requirement: The Triad will not bind with someone with any connection to the Plane of Shadow, whether that's by feat, class abilities, or any other association.

Manifestation: A glowing purple jade statue rises from the seal. As it rotates, it changes form from a young man with spectacles reading a book (Gorn), to a motherly woman with her eyes covered by bandages (Rujsha), to a man in armor holding his sword in a salute (Mintar).

They continue each other's sentences, but the style of their speech does change with who is speaking (see Influence).

Sign: Your facial features alter slightly each hour you are bound to the Triad; they shift from a young man's inquisitive face to a woman's concerned features to a bearded masculine face and back again.

Influence: Your mental aspect shifts to match the face that is currently your sign. As Gorn, you are inquisitive and use many words — some would say too many. As Rujsha, you are caring and motherly, speaking to others as if they were children. As Mintar, you are honor-bound and slightly combative in manner. When your path crosses that of one influenced by shadow, the gestalt insists that you either face that being first when in combat or avoid that being (and any effects or assistance the being may wish to provide) outside of combat.

Granted Features: While bound to the Triad, you gain a range of abilities that represents the essence of their former separate beings.

Psionic Boon: You gain 15 power points when you bind to the Triad. If you gain power points from more than one source, you add them together. You can cast spells using power points, expending one point per level of the spell you cast. If you can cast any spells from another class, or from the Anima Magi or Tenebrous Apostates sects, you cannot cast those spells by expending power points. You regain all expended power points when you finish a long rest.

Additionally, when you cast a spell in this way, you cast the spell psionically. The spell doesn’t require verbal, somatic, or material components that lack a gold cost.

Gorn's Knowledge: You gain access to the guidance, detect thoughts, and detect good and evil spells while you are bound to the Triad. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You can cast these spells by expending power points, but you cannot cast these spells by expending a spell slot.

Additionally, you do not need to expend power points to cast guidance.

Mintar's Honor: You gain proficiency with the Intelligence (Arcana), Wisdom (Sense Motive), and Charisma (Diplomacy) skills. In addition, you gain a +4 bonus to those skills.

Rujsha's Justice: Three times per day, you can attempt to smite a creature with a single melee attack. You add your Charisma bonus (if any) to the attack roll and deal 1 extra point of damage per binder level. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Bardic Knowledge: You gain a +4 bonus on Intelligence (History) checks. In addition, you can use your action to make a History check to see if you know some relevant information about local notable people, legendary items, or noteworthy places. (DC 10 for common knowledge, DC 15 for uncommon knowledge, DC 20 for obscure knowledge, DC 25 for extremely obscure knowledge)

Once you have used this feature to determine what knowledge you possess about a particular creature, object, or location, you may never make another check related to that particular subject again.

Weapon Proficiency: You gain proficiency with martial weapons.

8th Level Vestiges

Binding DC: 30

Abysm, the Schismed

Abysm, the Schismed, is a living vestige of a psionic mythal. As a vestige, Abysm gives its host access to several psionic effects.

Legend: Little is known about the origin of the vestige that is Abysm, but some have learned that a strange group of psionic users once visited the great city of Myth Drannor on Faerûn. These visitors wished to learn more about mythals and spent much time in research while in the great elven city. Scholars theorize that they then created a psionic mythal around a secret city of psychics and called it Abysm.

Imagine a city of psions, all interconnected by their psicrystals and a great mythal of psionic energy. Now imagine all of them dying overnight. No one knows what disaster visited the city, but it killed every living thing. Some believe that due to the inhabitants' direct connection to the mythal by way of their psicrystals, their souls did not depart as they should have. Instead they got caught in the weave of psionic energies, and the resulting combination of energies was simply too much for the crystals to hold - all psicrystals shattered at once and gave birth to the vestige that is Abysm.

Some researchers and lore-seekers say that Abysm has only recently became sane enough to maintain a safe binding for more than a few seconds. Many old tales relate how binders found themselves being nearly driven insane just by contacting it, but now it does respond and answer the call of those who seek it.

Manifestation: Crystals grow from the seal into a prismatic tree that suddenly cracks and shatters into dust. The dust swirls into a shimmering, rainbow-laden cyclone that forms an indistinct face. A discordant voice speaks to the binder, saying, "We, Abysm."

Sign: Your fingernails and toenails become crystal, and you "sweat" gem dust like a maenad does.

Influence: Your speech pattern becomes disconnected, as if many voices are trying to speak through you. Your mannerisms also change from moment to moment: masculine to feminine, regal to shy, and confident to passive.

Granted Abilities: While bound to Abysm, you gain powers that various city inhabitants had at some point in their lifetimes.

Psionic Boon: You gain 21 power points when you bind to Arete. If you gain power points from more than one source, you add them together. You can cast spells using power points, expending one point per level of the spell you cast. If you can cast any spells from another class, or from the Anima Magi or Tenebrous Apostates sects, you cannot cast those spells by expending power points. You regain all expended power points when you finish a long rest.

Additionally, when you cast a spell in this way, you cast the spell psionically. The spell doesn’t require verbal, somatic, or material components that lack a gold cost.

Overpower You gain access to the spells animal friendship, chromatic orb, detect thoughts, levitate, scrying, and summon construct for the duration of the binding. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You can cast these spells by expending power points, but you cannot cast these spells by expending a spell slot.

Ashardalon, Pyre of the Three

A seeker of pure power and wealth, the fiendish red dragon Ashardalon was among the toughest creatures of his era. Having escaped death more than once, he grants binders some of his powers as a dragon and fiend, as well as a portion of his great resilience.

Legend: At the dawn of time, the three progenitor dragons created the universe during the Age of Dragons. This age came to and end with the murder of Siberys, the Dragon Above, at the claws and fangs of Khyber, the Dragon Below. Moving to contain Khyber, Eberron, the Dragon Between, folded the wicked dragon in her coils, and became the world we know today. But Khyber stirred in her bonds, and spawned the terrible demons and their Overlords, heralding the Age of Demons.

Dragons tell the legend that at the kindling of this terrible age, they were created by the blood of slain Siberys falling upon the soil of Eberron, creating their kind from two of the mighty Progenitor Wyrms. But for Ashardalon, this was not enough. With the Draconic Prophecy rediscovered, the dragons had begun to fight back against their demonic oppressors and rise from their primitive state. Ashardalon posed as one of the dragon's greatest heroes, crusading against fiend and Overlord and manipulating the Prophecy to dragonkind's advantage. But it was all a ruse, subtly shifting fortunes and selecting courses of events to bring him to one certain moment in time.

An Overlord, it's identity now unknown, was bowed and broken before him, outmaneuvered by two millennia of Ashardalon's plotting of Prophetic events. Instead of slaying the fiend or binding it, Ashardalon tore his own draconic heart out of his chest with a claw and enacted a dark ritual, drawing the Overlord into the void where his heart was just moments before. But this was no merger of beings, as with Kyuss and Katashka eons later. Rather, the great red wyrm assumed all of the Overlord's strength and power, without losing his self. Finally, Ashardalon was complete, a being made up of all three Progenitor Wyrms.

Proclaiming himself the new god of dragonkind, Ashardalon cut a swath of destruction across the face of Eberron, hoarding and rampaging with an unholy fervor. Even Dol Dorn, Sovereign of Strength and Steel, could not whether Ashardalon's wrath. Finally, it is said that the remote, distant gods of the dragons were forced to act and seal Ashardalon away for eternity. Others say that once his initial madness abated, Ashardalon left the cosmos of his own accord to create a new universe in his image, using the power of the Three.

Manifestation: Ashardalon tears open the ground with his long black talons and hauls his massive body up from a flaming pit. The red dragon is wreathed in flames and has a burning hole where his heart should be. He bellows in anger before turning to the binder and demanding to know why he has been disturbed.

Sign: A patch of skin over your heart is marked by a deep-hued crimson sigil of a curled red dragon.

Influence: You greatly hunger for vengeance against those who harm or slight you. Ashardalon requires you to accept any opportunity to strike a foe who damages or insults you in preference over any other target.

Granted Features: Ashardalon grants you some of the vast power he collected during his life as a dragon and a fiendish creature.

Fiend’s Heart: You share some of the defensive benefits of the fiend once bound to Ashardalon’s body. This effect reduces the damage you take from all sources by 5 (minimum 1), and grants you immunity to fire damage.

Ashardalon’s Presence: You can use your action to strike fear into the hearts of your foes. This feature functions like the fear spell. Once you have used this feature, you cannot use it again for 5 rounds. When you use this feature, the vestige’s sign shows through any armor or clothing you wear for 1 round, burning like a fiery brand (though it doesn’t actually deal damage or start a fire). You cannot use this feature if you do not show Ashardalon's sign.

Ashardalon’s Greed: You have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) and Wisdom (Perception) checks to find items. You can also use a bonus action to locate objects near you, as the locate object spell.

Ashardalon's Insight: You can identify the properties and command words of a magic item, as the identify spell, requiring 1 minute of study.

Ashardalon’s Vigor: Ashardalon grants you some of the vast resilience he enjoyed in life. When you form a pact with Ashardalon, you gain temporary hit points equal to twice your binder level.

Halphax, The Angel in the Angle

Gnomes rarely earn a reputation for their military might, but Halphax is one of the few exceptions to that rule. He grants his summoners the ability to raise a fortress and imprison foes, as well as the hardness of stone.

Legend: An engineer of inestimable excellence, Halphax made great advances in architecture of all kinds. His influence can be seen in the solid architecture of the dwarves, the beauty of elven buildings, the comfort of gnome dwellings, and the practicality of halfling homes. His greatest passion, however, was the architecture of military fortifications and the art of defense. Halphax’s walls still encircle towns, and most of the castles he designed are still standing today, even though more than a thousand years have passed since he last sketched a floor plan. Unfortunately for him, the great architect’s professionalism became his downfall. In Halphax’s time, gnomes were as populous as humans. They lived in grand cities that rivaled those of the elves, and they welcomed all civilized races into these metropolises to live and trade. The hobgoblins were the first of the goblinoids to rise out of tribalism and find welcome in the gnome city states.

They quickly took to gnome society, learning as much as they could and using their strong backs and hale bodies to earn places for themselves in the military and manual labor trades. Then, in an act known to gnomes as the Great Betrayal, the hobgoblins turned against their benefactors in a series of well-coordinated attacks. The victorious goblinoids turned each gnome city into a prison, using the fortifications meant to keep enemies out to trap the gnomes within. To ensure that they overlooked no means of escape, they captured and enslaved the gnomes who had designed them. Through a combination of threats and rewards, they forced the gnomes to make these prisons even more effective. Many gnome architects chose to die rather than help the hobgoblins, and others secretly used their positions to help their kinfolk escape the city. But when the hobgoblins threatened the life of Halphax’s wife, the great architect put all his effort into creating the most impregnable prison possible. Legend holds that no gnome ever escaped Halphax’s city, and it was the last goblinoid holding to fall in the war that followed the Great Betrayal.

When at last the goblinoids were defeated, the prison city that Halphax had built was found empty of all gnomes but him. The hobgoblins had killed them all except Halphax and his wife. She could not bear to be the cause of so much tragedy, however, and took her own life. When the gnomes attempted to apprehend Halphax and hold him responsible for his deeds, the architect vanished into his city. The allied armies tore the city down to its foundations in their attempts to find him, but he was never seen again.

Special Requirement: Halphax’s sign must be drawn inside a building, in a corner of the structure.

Manifestation: When Halphax manifests, the corner in which he was summoned appears to warp, growing deeper and extending to what appears to be an infinite distance beyond the limits of the structure. In that distance, a figure appears, and suddenly the distance closes, bringing Halphax into his seal. Halphax always takes the form of a gnome wearing leather breeches and a vest, both of which are covered in pockets and loops for holding tools and items. The tools of an engineer hang from his belt, and he usually appears in a posture of boredom, hands in his pockets. Halphax’s most striking feature is that he seems to have no flesh and bone beneath his clothes—only broken bits of stone and masonry. The shattered features of bas-reliefs and gargoyles make up his face.

Sign: Your body takes on the appearance of cracked stone.

Influence: In his time as a vestige, Halphax seems to have lost all memory of his life as well as any feeling of guilt or shame for his actions. Thus, when you are under his influence, you lose any normal sense of shame or embarrassment. However, if someone threatens a hostage you care about—be it a creature or an item—Halphax requires that you accede to the hostage taker’s demands.

Granted Features: Halphax grants you great knowledge of mechanical arts as well as the power to imprison foes, build towers, and gird your body with the hardness of stone.

Imprison: You can imprison a foe deep in the earth with only a touch. As an action, a creature you touch must make a Constitution saving throw or be imprisoned. This feature functions like the imprisonment spell, except that the imprisonment lasts for a number of rounds equal to your binder level. If a target succeeds on the saving throw, you must wait 1d4 rounds before using it again. You cannot imprison a creature while you already have another imprisoned from the use of this feature.

Iron Wall: As an action, you can cause a flat, vertical iron wall to spring into being. It functions as a wall of stone spell, except that it is made of iron, rather than stone, it disappears after 1 minute, and you don't need to maintain concentration on this feature. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Secure Shelter: As an action, you can bring a sturdy stone building into being at any point on the ground within 60 feet of you, as long as the space can accommodate its dimensions. You cannot summon this tower if you already have one standing. You can dismiss the structure as an action, but you cannot summon it again for 5 rounds after dismissing it.

You conjure a two-story tower with a 20 foot diameter made entirely of stone. The floor is level, clean, and dry. In all respects the tower resembles a normal tower, with a sturdy door, two shuttered windows, a small fireplace, and arrow slits on the upper floor. The tower contains crude furnishings - eight bunks, a trestle table, eight stools, and a writing desk.

It is impervious to normal projectiles (but not the sort cast by siege engines or giants). The door, shutters, and even chimney are secure against intrusion, the former two being arcane locked and the latter secured by an iron grate at the top and a narrow flue. In addition, these three areas are protected by an alarm spell. Finally, an unseen servant is conjured to provide service to you for the duration of the tower.

Halphax’s Knowledge: You have advantage on Intelligence checks relating to siege weapons and mechanical devices.

Damage Reduction: Bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage you take from non-magical weapons is reduced by 5.

Orthos, Sovereign of the Howling Dark

Ancient and unknowable, Orthos gives its summoners the power to sense what they cannot see, to fool the sight of others, and to turn their breath into wind that can speak or scour flesh from bones.

Legend: Orthos might well be the original vestige—the first being to break the boundaries and see past the window of reality to the nothingness beyond. Pact magic texts always mention this entity, and persistent explorers can find its seal represented in art or architecture on most planes, as well as in the ruins of many ancient civilizations. Binder scholars have a thousand theories about Orthos’s origins, but none is more than mere supposition. All agree that Orthos is inestimably old, and it has long since shed whatever form and persona it might once have had, becoming an alien and distant being. In deference to its great age and the hallmark of its appearance, binder scholars have dubbed Orthos the Sovereign of the Howling Dark.

Special Requirement: You must summon Orthos within an area of bright illumination.

Manifestation: When Orthos begins to manifest, a breeze seems to pass over the summoner, but it ruffles nothing except the summoner’s hair and clothes. The breeze intensifies, becoming a cold wind, and a low whistle emanates from the vicinity of Orthos’s seal. Directly over it appears a black speck—a mote of shadow like a blind spot in the observer’s vision. The whistle becomes a moan that slowly rises in pitch and volume, eventually transforming into a howl as the darkness spirals outward, opening like the pupil of some great cat’s eye with an explosive rush of wind. The howling grows so loud that it pains the ear while the seemingly nonexistent wind buffets the summoner. Then it stops. In the sudden silence, an unseen, unheard, yet palpable presence slides out of the black aperture and hovers heavily over the seal. Though not detectable by any sense, Orthos is eerily extant, and its presence can be felt by even the dumbest of beasts. The vestige says nothing; its summoner can only plead her case and hope that Orthos does not impose its influence.

Sign: You always seem to be buffeted by a breeze that no one else can feel, even when you’re indoors. The eerie wind makes no noise, but it tousles your hair and belongings, frequently changing direction.

Influence: While influenced by Orthos, you are averse to darkened areas and loud noises. Although you can endure such conditions, they give you a sense of panic and make you short of breath. Orthos requires that you always carry an active light source with a brightness at least equal to that of a candle, and that you not cover it or allow it to be darkened for more than 1 round. Additionally, Orthos requires that you speak only in a whisper.

Granted Features: Orthos gives you blindsight, displacement, and a breath weapon that you can use either as a weapon or to deliver messages.

Displacement: At will, you can surround yourself with a light-bending glamer that makes it difficult for others to surmise your true location. You gain all of the benefits of having three-quarters cover unless the attacker can locate you by some means other than sight. A true seeing effect allows the user to determine your position, but see invisibility has no effect. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Whirlwind Breath: As an action, you can exhale a scouring blast of wind in a 60-foot cone. Your whirlwind breath deals 1d6 points of force damage per binder level. Every creature in the area must make a Dexterity saving throw to halve the damage, or be knocked prone and moved 1d4×10 feet away from you (or just outside the cone, whichever is a shorter distance) on a failed save. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Whispering Wind: At will as an action, you can send a message on the wind as though using the message spell, except where noted here. You only need to know the approximate location of the target, and the range is 1 mile per binder level.

Blindsight: You gain blindsight out to 30 feet.

Zceryll, The Star Spawn

Zceryll was a mortal sorceress who communed with alien powers from the far realm. She became obsessed with immortality, seeking out the alien beings in the hopes of learning their eternal secrets. When she died, she became a hideously twisted vestige, forever seeking to re-enter the Realms via numerous artifacts she dispersed across the world. Zceryll grants you the ability to transform your body and mind into an alien form, granting you telepathy, resistance to effects related to insanity, the ability to summon alien creatures, and the power to unleash bolts of pure madness.

Legend: Thousands of years ago, an alienist sorceress known as Zceryll learned bizarre powers in a fight to defend herself against oppression. She was promised untold power by strange, alien beings known as star-spawn from beyond the world. All she had to do was to create portals to summon them.

Zceryll created the portals and summoned the star spawn to her aid. She fought back against her oppressors, finding a newfound purpose in her life. She traveled the world, creating many portals for her masters and items of her own devising.

Zceryll was unaware of the slow corruptive effect the star spawn had on her. By the time she realized something was wrong, it was too late to change. Eventually, her body became so suffused with alien power that she became one of them. When her life came to an end, she was a twisted and bitter old hag. She felt she had accomplished nothing and became obsessed with youth. When her time was up, her soul vanished into the far realms, and she became a vestige.

As a vestige, Zceryll, now a phantom twisted alien entity, seeks to exert as much influence over the Realms as possible. She has whispered clues to those who bind her in an effort to guide them to the location of artifacts and items she created, such as the bone scepter of Zceryll (in the Well of Dragons), the star-spawn scepter, the aberrant spheres, the black blood kaleidoscope, and the rod of Taupanga.

Manifestation: The area in and around the seal fills with thousands of tiny circular mirrors. A beautiful human woman is reflected in all of the mirrors, yet something is off about her features. After a few seconds, a scream is carried on the air and the image of the woman changes into a hideous mass of writhing tentacles. The mirrors then shatter, covering the floor with beautiful but alien patterns of glass that hurt the mind and cause the nose, mouth, eyes, and orifices to bleed black blood.

Sign: Your eyes appear as circular mirrors. In your peripheral vision, all other living creatures appear twisted, covered in tentacles, extra eyes, and vestigial organs.

Influence: Never admit that you need help or that you are weaker than anyone else. Treat those that are weaker than you with scorn and contempt, especially young women and arcane spellcasters.

Granted Features: While bound to Zceryll, your body and mind become alien, allowing you to channel the power of the star spawn in a variety of ways.

Bolts of Madness: You can use your action to fire a ray that incapacitates an opponent for 1d4 rounds. You must succeed on a ranged spell attack with a range of 100 feet + 10 feet per binder level. Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Conjure Monsters: You can use your action to summon monstrous beasts. This feature functions as though the conjure animals spell is being cast with a 9th level spell slot, except where noted here. Each beast is also considered a Monstrosity instead of Fey, you don't need to maintain concentration when you use this feature, and the creatures disappear after a number of rounds equal to your binder level. Creatures you summon with this feature gain all of the benefits of your Alien Form feature (see below). Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Alien form: While bound to Zceryll, you gain the following features from your alien form.

• True Strike: Once per day, you can use a bonus action to gain advantage on your next attack roll.
• Resistance: You have resistance to acid and lightning damage.
• Damage Reduction: Bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage you take from non-magical weapons is reduced by 4.
• Spell Resistance: You have advantage against the effects of spells, and foes suffer disadvantage to hit you with spell attack rolls.
• Alternate Form: As an action, a you can take the form of a grotesque, tentacled mass (or another appropriately gruesome form, as determined by the DM). Despite your alien appearance, your game statistics remain unchanged. Other creatures receive a -1 penalty on their attack rolls against a you while you are in this alternate form.

Telepathy: You gain telepathy with a range of 100 feet. You can communicate telepathically with other creatures within range that can speak at least one language, although you need not share a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

You can detect and pinpoint beings with an Intelligence score of 1 or higher within range of your telepathy. This works much like blindsight--you know the exact location that each creature is in, but you do not see the creature, and the creature still has total cover unless the you can see it by some other means. You also perceive several observable characteristics about each creature detected, including the being's type and Intelligence score (no action required).

Alien Mind: Your mind is alien and does not work like that of a normal mortal. You are immune to mind-altering effects.

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