Coven of the Written Word

For Halloween, Kainenchen put together an awesome good-witch costume. Not in, you know, the Oz sense, though she’s also just finished rereading The Wizard of Oz and picked up the next book. Anyway, this subclass hasn’t seen any review from the Worlds Beyond Number team, but it was commissioned by a higher authority (Kainenchen asked nicely). This class goes with the Worlds Beyond Number Witch class, available right now from the WBN Patreon store.

There are two essential purposes in writing: to preserve for memory and to exclude from memory. Damnatio memoriae, the sanction against memory, is a curse upon a whole legacy. Witches of this coven decide what is to be remembered and treasured and what is to be forgotten, cut out. The words they put to the page can be a blessing, a malediction, or a binding contract. Because of their need for parchment or paper, ink, and bookbinding, witches of this coven are more likely than others to live in or near larger towns or cities. Their sanctums have much in common with scriptoria and monasteries.

Level 3: Coven of the Written Word Spells

When you reach a Witch level specified in the Coven of the Written Word Spells table, you thereafter always have the listed spells prepared.

Level – Spells

3: Dissonant Whispers, Illusory Script, Message, Mind Sliver, Silence, Suggestion
5: Glyph of Warding, Nondetection
7: Banishment, Sending
9: Mislead, Modify Memory

Level 3: Inscription of Blessing

You have a commonplace book that describes what you learn in witchcraft. You can inscribe a number of names in this book equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you treat those creatures as if they held a token you created.

As a Bonus Action, you can choose one creature that holds a token you created and write one of the following blessings for it.

Come Safe Home. When the target takes damage, reduce the damage it takes by 1d6 + your Wisdom modifier (minimum +1). You can reduce damage this way once, and regain the ability to do so at the start of your turn.
Joy Lightens Your Step. The target’s Speed increases by 10 feet and its Speed isn’t reduced by encumbrance or Difficult Terrain.
Endure Thy Trials. When the target rolls a saving throw, roll 1d6 and add it to the result. You can add 1d6 this way once, and regain the ability to do so at the start of your turn.

The blessing lasts for 1 minute, and ends early if you inscribe a different blessing for the same creature or you die. You can inscribe blessings twice, and regain expended uses when you finish a Short or Long Rest.

Level 3: Learned Among Witches

When you roll Intelligence (Arcana, Knowledge, Nature, or Religion) checks, you gain a bonus equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum +1).

Level 6: Riddling Curse

As a Bonus Action, you curse a creature you can see within 60 feet, compelling them to answer your questions for 1 minute. As part of the Bonus Action of placing this curse and as a Bonus Action on each of your turns, you can ask the target a riddle or a question of fact.

Riddle. The target rolls an Intelligence saving throw against your spellcasting DC. On a failure, the target takes 2d6 + your Wisdom modifier Psychic damage and can’t make Opportunity Attacks until the end of your next turn. If the target can’t understand the words, it automatically succeeds its saving throw.
Question of Fact. The target can answer you truthfully or make a Charisma saving throw against your spellcasting DC. On a failure, the target takes 2d6 + your Wisdom modifier Psychic damage and must choose to either answer your question truthfully or gain the Incapacitated condition until the start of your next turn.

You can use this feature twice. You regain one expended use when you finish a Short Rest, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Level 10: Book Binding

When a creature affected by your Retributive Curse fails its initial saving throw against a Banishment spell that you cast, its name temporarily appears in your commonplace book. If the creature has no name, a brief description appears in your book instead. While you hold the book open to that page, you can target the creature with spells that target a single creature you can see and your Riddling Curse feature.

You can cast Banishment once without expending a spell slot. You regain the ability to cast the spell this way when you finish a long rest.

Level 10: Improved Blessings

The blessings you grant with your Inscription of Blessing feature improve.

Come Safe Home. Reduce the damage the target takes by 3d6 + your Wisdom modifier.
Joy Lightens Thy Step. Once during the duration of the blessing, the target can teleport to a space it can see within 30 feet as a Bonus Action. The target’s jumping distances are tripled.
Endure Thy Trials. When the target rolls a saving throw, roll 1d10 instead of 1d6.

Level 14: Great Benediction

When you use your Inscription of Blessing feature, you can inscribe blessings three times rather than twice, and they last for 10 minutes. You can also grant the following blessings.

Be Thou Vigilant and True. The target gains Truesight to a range of 30 feet and gains a +10 bonus to Wisdom (Insight) checks to discern lies spoken in its hearing.
Death May Never Claim Thee. You can sense whether the target is missing any of its Hit Points and whether it is stable, Bloodied, dying, or dead. The target adds your Wisdom modifier to its Death saving throws. When it fails its third Death saving throw, it immediately rolls one additional Death saving throw; on a success, it receives a Revivify spell if you expend a level 3 spell slot.
Forswear Me Not. The target has Advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the Charmed and Frightened conditions. You can end the Charmed or Frightened condition on it as a Bonus Action while you can see it.

Credits for the Witch Class:

Concept Design: Erika Ishii, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Brandes Stoddard, Mazey Veselak
Design: Dan Dillon, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Hannah Rose, Brandes Stoddard, Mazey Veselak
Playtester in Chief: Erika Ishii

Design Notes

I have been away from subclass design for a surprisingly long time. The past few months, I have been in the trenches of monster design for projects I mostly can’t talk about. Knocking the rust off feels good.

This is an extremely support-focused coven, with a meaningful sideline in control. A lot of what’s language- and writing-focused in spellcasting is utility rather than combat, which is why the Coven of the Written Word Spells list doesn’t really paint a clear playstyle. Also, the Witch already has access to almost everything in that family of spells, because we gave them a lot of the tricky utility spells! I do think it’s fair to ask whether these features are interesting enough in action scenes, but I think the whole subclass really sings in investigation and interaction scenes.

The idea of centering blessings rather than curses came to mind for me because of the Naming wizard that showed up in a UA ages ago. I really liked it but it didn’t do well enough in the polling to move forward.

There’s also a meaningful overloading of the Bonus Action. To be honest I don’t have a solution there. If this were going in front of the WBN High Council of Design, I know they’d have good ideas for solving it, but fixing my own designs is a particular weakness of mine.

Brandes Stoddard

Harbinger of Doom

Harbinger of Doom

Coven of the Written Word