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    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jan 2007

    Default 5e Mythos - The Adversary

    Notes


    The Adversary

    A thief steals things of value. The Adversary steals value from things. A scoundrel preys on the weak. The Adversary preys on strength until it is weakness. A deceiver tells lies to others. The Adversary makes others lie to themselves. A rogue hides in darkness. The Adversary becomes darkness itself.

    To be a candidate for inheritance of the All-Shadow's Mythos, one must be a miserable, wretched reprobate. The moment of ignition is spite, cruelty, and ruin. That which is damned is all things.

    A burglar pulls off the score of a lifetime and can live comfortable on the loot in a new town with a new name. In time, she grows bored with a life of plenty and returns to stalking the streets at night, mugging passersby of their day's wages. But there's no thrill when the money means nothing. She kills a man whose money she already holds, and in that rush she realizes that a dog does not chase a wagon so that he might catch it. She drops the coins to the earth and burns her plush new house to the ground.

    A priest of Pelor notices that there are fewer and fewer among the flock with each holy day. A parishioner tells him that an herbalist has set up shop in town and their medicines are working wonders. The elderly have vigor again, the sick are becoming well, and parents no longer fear for the survival of their newborns. Without prayers of salvation from fear and suffering, fewer villagers feel beholden to the church. And so the priest does what he must, and sneaks into the herbalist's shop at night, mixing poisons and cursed things with the sundry ingredients he finds. As the herbalist's customers are stricken with crippling illness and death in the coming weeks, the church's walls are packed with desperate pleas for aid from the divine.

    A high elf falls in love with a human, not for their beauty, or their intelligence, their confidence, their humor, or their prowess. But for the intrigue of watching the totality of a mortal life peak, fade, gutter, and die while the elf remains young.



    Class Features
    As an Adversary, you gain the following class features.

    Hit Points
    Hit Dice: 1d8 per Adversary level, +10d8
    Hit Points at First Level: 60 + [(your Constitution modifier) x 11)]
    Hit Points at Higher Levels: [5 + (your Constitution modifier)] per Adversary level after 1st

    Proficiencies
    Armor: Light Armor
    Weapons: Simple Weapons, Martial Weapons
    Tools: Thieves Tools, and One Artisan Tool, Kit, Gaming Set, or Musical Instrument of your choice

    Saving Throws: Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma
    Skills: Deception and Stealth, plus any three of your choice

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

    • (a) a melee finesse weapon of your choice or (b) two light melee finesse weapons of your choice
    • (a) a set of light armor of your choice and some ragged clothes, or (b) a set of travelers clothes and a set of fine clothes
    • (a) a ranged weapon of your choice with 20 units of ammunition or (b) a brace of five light thrown weapons
    • (a) most of a map leading to your next big score, (b) parchment with the mostly accurate layout of an important building, (c) a piece of evidence that incriminates someone dangerous in a serious crime, or (d) 20gp
    • (a)Thieves Tools and an equipment pack of your choice




    Level Proficiency Bonus Features
    1st +4 Shadow Resonance, A Blade Called Treachery, Night Knows Itself, Coiled Snake Preparation, Renaissance Serpent, Extra Attack
    2nd +4 Darkness Walking In Day, Ability Score Improvement
    3rd +5 Aside The Light Of Truth
    4th +5 The Illusion Of Ownership
    5th +5 Dusk Swallows The Sun
    6th +5 Extra Attack (2), Ability Score Improvement
    7th +6 Flickering Shadow Withdrawal
    8th +6 Imagine No Possessions
    9th +6 Legless Lizard Feint, Ability Score Improvement
    10th +6 Omnipresent Master Of Shadows




    Saving Throws
    Unless otherwise noted, when one of an Adversary's abilities requires a saving throw, the DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier.

    Shadow Resonance
    At the end of a Long Rest, if you feel as if you have done one of the following since your last Long Rest, ask your fellows players and GM if they agree. If the majority do, gain one Inspiration. You may only gain one Inspiration in this way per Long Rest.

    • You turned a bad situation to the party's advantage through deceit.
    • You helped a party member complete or progress a personal goal using means they would not approve of.
    • You said something so cynical or nihilistic that it gave everyone pause.
    • You punished someone who crossed you highly disproportionately to their offense.
    • You were grievously harmed (physically or otherwise) for completely morally justified reasons.


    When using your World-Shaping Demiurge Authority, you have dominion over crime, corruption, darkness, the methods of criminals, criminal organizations, and the petty, spiteful feelings that people keep hidden.

    A Blade Called Treachery

    Spoiler
    Show
    Once, a shadow had been making mischief, and in its foolishness it crossed paths with the strongest man in the world. The strongest man was gravely offended by the shadow's antics, and made to kill it. "Wait!" said the shadow, "I am but a weak thing. Surely it would do you dishonor to fight so pathetic an opponent. Give me one month to train myself, and meet me here again. Word will spread, and when we have our duel, many spectators will come to watch you kill me. I am not well liked." The strongest man knew that the shadow would not fight fair, but being the strongest man in the world, he was unafraid, and so he accepted the challenge.

    Over the next month, the shadow developed a fighting style that would allow it to strike only an opponent's weakest points, dismantling even the most powerful foe with carefully applied pressure. With one blow, it found and killed the strongest man's spouse, and with the second, it killed his children. With a deceptive kata, it assumed the man's shape and committed great blasphemy, excommunicating him from his church. With a flurry of jabs to his reputation, it shattered the man's fame and turned him an enemy to his people. With its final strike, it burned all the man's fields and his assets and stole his coinage, turning him to a pauper.

    Left with nothing, the strongest man in the world still appeared in one month to the site of the duel, for the strongest man's heart was powerful, and so the shadow's style was not made to touch it. The man waited and waited, days past, but the shadow did not appear, for the shadow was nowhere nearby. It had taken the man's money and left on a trip, far away.

    "Why fight? I'm just here to have fun." said the shadow.


    Endowed with the cowardice and opportunism of the All-Shadow, you must attack foes while you have Advantage, or while you are lightly or heavily obscured from them; otherwise, you have Disadvantage on the roll.

    However, when you attack an opponent with Advantage, or an opponent that one of your allies is currently adjacent to (provided your ally is threatening or distracting them in some manner), you deal an additional 10 damage. This is referred to in other abilities as your Treachery Bonus.

    Finally, choose a Feat from the following list that you meet the prerequisites for: Actor, Mobile, or Tavern Brawler. You gain this Feat, which represents what lessons that mythic enlightenment has taught you. Depending on which Feat you chose, you also gain an addition benefit.

    Spoiler
    Show

    Actor
    In place of an attack, you may attempt to unsettle a foe that can hear and understand you, throwing them off their game. They must make a Charisma saving throw (the DC is based on your Charisma modifier), and if they believe that you have personally been responsible for any of their past miseries, they have Disadvantage on the save. If they fail the saving throw, then all attacks made against them have Advantage until the beginning of your next turn.

    Mobile
    As a bonus action, you may Dash, Disengage, or Hide.

    Tavern Brawler
    When you qualify for a Treachery Bonus with an unarmed attack, you may forgo that extra damage to instead force your target to make a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution saving throw (your choice). If they fail a Strength saving throw, you strike their throat, preventing them from making any noise above a quiet gurgle for 1 minute, including verbalizing a spell component. If they fail a Dexterity saving throw, you strike nerves in their arms, causing them to drop everything they're holding. If they fail a Constitution saving throw, you've struck them in the head, and they're either Blind for 1 round, or Deafened for 1 minute (your choice). (At the DM's discretion, you might be able to strike other pressure points in a given situation, such as inducing vomiting by striking the solar plexus. In other circumstances, the DM is fair to rule that you can't hit, for example, a giant's throat, arms, or head.)


    Night Knows Itself
    You may see normally in all mundane or magical darkness. Additionally, as far as divination and scrying magic is concerned, you do not exist. Divinations that target you do not work, predictions about future events do not take your actions into account, and when you enter into the area of a scrying sensor targeting someone else, you appear as an indistinct, blurry shadow, your voice is garbled and unintelligible, phrases said by others that mention distinguishing features about you are censored, and no information can be garnered about you from similar magic.

    As an action, you may darken the mood of the surrounding narrative, shifting it down the noir axis, causing all sources of light within 100ft of you to convert 1/2 of their radius of bright light to dim light (for example, a torch would change from emanating 20ft of bright light and 20ft of dim light to 10ft of bright light and 30ft of dim light). The change is so gradual and subtle that no one is likely to notice unless they're specifically paying attention to, and measuring, how many feet they could clearly see by lantern this moment, as opposed, to a few seconds ago, as opposed to a few seconds ago. This radius of dim lighting moves with you. A bonus action deactivates this ability.

    Coiled Snake Preparation
    By spending a day in preparation, you may create a plan based around a pre-meditated course of action taking place in a predetermined location. For example, defending a building from invasion, pilfering art from a museum, invading a dragon's lair, or crashing a noble gala.

    The DM will have you roll the most relevant skill for preparing for the situation (casing a public gallery might be Investigation, while intuiting what you might later have to deal with in a dungeon might be Arcana, while snooping around an estate you shouldn't be at might be Stealth) against an appropriate DC. A medium difficulty (DC 15) should be sufficient for sneaking around or preparing for mundane mortal opposition, while a hard difficulty (DC 20) or greater might be required for dealing with exceptional or montrous foes.

    If you succeed by 5 or more, you gain five Preps. If you succeed by 4 or less, you gain three Preps. If you fail by 4 or less, you gain three Preps, and if you fail by 5 or more, you gain one Prep. However, if you fail, the opposition you are preparing against is tipped off, or else you've seriously miscalculated something; at some point during the operation, the DM will reveal what went wrong and make your life complicated because of it.

    Spending Prep is identical to using World-Shaping Demiurge Authority to spend Inspiration, save that your domain is "Preparations I did for this operation".

    You may only have one operation planned at a time.

    Example
    Spoiler
    Show
    Ted the Adversary is about to execute Operation: Steal The Royal Crown At The Annual New-Year's Court Gala. He has defined Where the operation will occur, and What the operation entails. The DM has him roll Stealth to infiltrate the grounds of the hall where the majority of the celebration will be held. He sets a DC of 15 because the people trying to notice him are just bog-standard human guards. Ted rolls a 4, plus his Dexterity of 5, plus his Proficiency bonus of 4, for a total of 13. He fails, tipping off a guard to someone suspicious lurking about the place, who informs his captain. He does, however, still gain 3 Prep.

    The night of the gala, he shows up in his best clothes with a forged invitation. Not knowing the art of forgery himself, he obtained outside help - not the best of help. The guards notice the fake and turn him away. He spends a Prep - fortunately, he prepared for just such an occasion! He introduces this fact: While casing the joint, he stole some servants' clothes from the laundry and stashed them outside the entrance to the kitchens around back. He goes back around, changes, and slips in the back. The cooks and waitstaff, underpaid and under great pressure currently, don't pay any attention.

    Ted grabs a tray of food and enters the opulent two-story hall, with its floor cleared for what the noble consider dancing, and plenty of seating on the sides for gossip and intrigue. To his chagrin, the king is not fraternizing with his courtier as he usually does. Tipped off to potential mischief, the captain of the royal guard has the king cordoned off with a bolstered retinue of forty soldiers massed around him.

    Ted spends a Prep to introduce another fact - while snooping around days ago, he overheard that the gala was special this year, for the king's daughter had come of age. Before releasing her to dance with eligible suitors, it's customary for the king and his daughter to have a ceremonial dance to commemorate the occasion. Ted hangs around for a while until the time comes, activating Darkness Walking In Day to subtly dim the lighting - the king rises and makes a speech, before leaving the protective custody of his guard for the duration of a single dance.

    Ted strides confidently onto the dance floor. The moment that every head in the room turns to him, he spends his last Prep. While in the dance hall during his preparatory phase, he sabotaged the chandelier's supports connecting it to the ceiling; enough that one point of damage would be enough to destabilize it. He spends his action whirling the serving tray skyward, where it impacts the chandelier, causing it to come hurdling to the ground, shattering and plunging the room into darkness and chaos.

    The guards come rushing towards the last place they saw the king, but Ted had the advantage in moving first. Ted's next turn, he rushes the king in the dark, swiping the crown from his head with a Sleight of Hand check - the king doesn't even feel the absence - and using the rest of his movement to make for a side corridor which he can clearly see because of Night Knows Itself.

    Once light and order is restored, Ted is long gone with no one the wiser.


    Renaissance Serpent
    Choose one of the three following abilities to acquire.

    Interpretive Shadow Puppetry
    When speaking, you may choose to have anyone with a shadow understand what you're saying, regardless of language. When you are spoken to, you may choose to understand what's being said, regardless of language (this fails if the one(s) speaking to you do not have shadows).

    When you use this ability, your shadow and those that are speaking to you, or are being spoken to, move and gesticulate ever so slightly differently than their owners. An impossible (DC 30) Perception check can pick this detail out, or a medium (DC 15) check if a character is specifically examining shadows. No check is possible in the dark, or other situations where shadows are not visible.

    A Snake Of Many Stripes
    You gain proficiency with two Skills of your choice.

    Varied Talent Virulence
    Choose two Skills you are proficient in. You apply twice your proficiency bonus when using them. You may choose Thieve's Tools in place of one Skill.




    Darkness Walking In Day
    Choose one of the three following abilities to acquire.

    Shadow Asks The Night
    When another character uses the Investigation skill to discern clues about the actions, motives, and identities surrounding the scene of one of your crimes, they have Disadvantage on the roll. Further, when you commit a crime, you may choose to warp the situation such that those who fail on their rolls to investigate the scene draw a plausible, but false conclusion of your choice.

    For example, a constable questioning witnesses about a back-alley stabbing might get only confused half-stories from drunks and distant bystanders, but piece it all together by a series of sound logical steps that draw the completely untrue conclusion that it was a surly traveler staying at the local inn who did it, rather than finding a trail that leads to you (who happened to be wearing a similar, albeit highly mundane and common traveling cloak).

    In addition, you have Advantage on Investigation checks when scoping out a crime scene for clues or searching for traps, and on Perception checks to notice a crime being committed (such as an urchin using Sleight of Hand to pick a pocket, or a burglar breaking into a house).

    Nameless Things Lurk
    When you stand lightly or heavily obscured, you may spend an action to disguise yourself as someone else; make an Intelligence roll as if you were using a Disguise Kit (if you are proficient with Disguise Kits, apply your proficiency bonus as normal) to assemble your disguise. You may disguise yourself using clothing, cosmetics, and accessories that you do not have.

    This ability is not supernatural; you do not create something from nothing. Rather, onlookers merely mistake you for someone else in the poor lighting. You cannot greatly exceed the bounds of a mundane disguise (for example, a young human male with a well-stocked wardrobe and some acting skills could pull off being an elder elven women, but he couldn't impersonate a storm giant), but you can add specific details, such as a guard mistakenly seeing you wearing a very specific signet ring when you are not. If you know enough about your target to understand details like this that would make your disguise extra convincing, your disguise roll has Advantage.

    Your disguise ends when you spend another action to return to your normal guise or to assume a new one, or when you are no longer obscured at all.

    Blood of Black Ophidian
    To take this ability, you must be proficient with a Poisoner's Kit. Your proficiency bonus is doubled when using such tools, and you multiply the amount of progress you make when crafting poisons with these tools by (your Intelligence modifier, minimum 1). For example, an Adversary with an Intelligence of 16 would make 15gp of progress per day.

    You have Resistance to Poison damage and Advantage on saving throws against Poison.

    Finally, when you roll for initiative, you may apply one dose of a poison on your person to a drawn weapon without spending an action.




    Aside The Light Of Truth
    "I Am." said the Empyrean, and so it was that she existed. And outlined by the light of that universal truth, the All-Shadow whispered, "I Am Not." and by the lie of his beginning, he entered false existence. In that act was the genesis of all deceit.

    Choose one of the following three abilities to acquire.

    Insidious Gossip Infection
    When you use the Deception skill to tell someone something emotionally manipulative, misleading, or false, you may activate this ability to transform your lie into an insidious mental parasite, giving it a particular identity to seek out. Your Deception automatically fails against its original target, who does not believe what you've said, but your parasite scrambles inside of its shadow and lurks there, undetected.

    The next time the infected person is nearby whomever's identity you gave the parasite, they will be compelled to repeat your parasitic falsehood to them, secretly, as if gossiping. Your original Deception check is then applied to this newest person, who may very well be deceived into believing it is true. The parasite then dies, having fulfilled its task. If it would be unusual for the parasite's host to gossip with its intended recipient (for example, a lesser noble whispering in the king's ear at court), the host may be allowed a Charisma saving throw to resist the compulsion, at which point the parasite dies anyway.

    One of these mental parasites can survive a maximum of (your Charisma modifier) weeks in wait, before it expires prematurely.

    Two-Faced Instigator Method
    Miscommunications happen every day. Two people with the best of intentions argue over nothing, incited by slightly misplaced semantics or a misheard word. People with fundamentally identical beliefs fight with one another over small differences in their ideology's window-dressing. The All-Shadow is not a victim of miscommunication, he is its progenitor, and it is his weapon - a broken sword that cuts down nations without ever being drawn.

    When you speak, you may choose to say two things. One is your primary message, which is heard by everyone by default. One is your secondary message, which replaces your primary message for specific individuals that you mentally target (you must be aware of a person's presence to target them, though you need not necessarily see them).

    If both of your messages are largely similar, but for a few small changes, there is no saving throw. If your messages are wildly different, then you must make a Deception check against your audiences in order to keep your words straight between them; a failed check means that someone has realizes you're trying to dupe them, though they don't necessarily know how, why, or into what.

    For example, you might address a senate divided into three parties. You begin speaking, delivering a default message of supporting a particular piece of legislature, which you choose for the progressive and moderate parties to hear, as well as anyone who happens to be wandering about whose presence you are unaware of and are not specifically targeting - however, you choose for the traditionalist party to hear your secondary message, which is that you vehemently oppose the same piece of legislature. Because both messages are about the same thing, just slightly different, you need not make a Deception check.

    For a second example, you might be talking to a man in his home, aware that his wife is in the next room, listening. The default message you give for all to hear is a suggestion that you and the man go hunting this weekend, to which he is heartily in favor of. The secondary message, which only the wife hears, is a conspiratorial plot to help her husband murder her - she hears this, as well as her husband's excitement at doing so this weekend. Because these messages are quite different, you must make a Deception check opposed by both people. If the husband succeeds in opposition, he might get the impression that this hunting trip suggestion is really innuendo about how much you hate his wife, while the wife succeeding might divulge to her that you're saying a lot of horrible things about her, but that her husband has nothing to do with it and is talking past you about something else.

    Society-Felling Apathy Scythe
    As an action, you may make a Deception check targeting everyone that has just witnessed a horrible, scandalous, socially unacceptable act that you were present for. As part of the check, you do not necessarily tell a lie, but rather inform everyone that they would personally be better off if they simply ignore what has just transpired - to talk about it would only invite personal inconvenience upon them.

    Those that fail to oppose the check are still very much aware that the act transpired, but will not talk about it with anyone unless they are directly facing imminent death in retribution for not speaking of it. They will deny with every fiber of their being that they saw anything at all, swear to their gods that they weren't there, and pretend for the rest of their life that what they're doing is okay. You become mentally aware of anyone targeted by this ability that succeeded in opposing your check, but your targets are also aware that you'll know if they aren't convinced. Some bystanders will intentionally fail the check to avoid your wrath, if they suspect you have wrath to give.

    For example, you stab a drunk to death in the middle of a crowded bar and then activate this ability. You tell everyone that, if they don't just turn around and go back about their business, they're putting themselves at risk for the same. "You forget a thousand things every day. Make sure this is one of them." Several people fail their opposed check but some succeed. You grab one of the ones who succeeded and stab them to death too, then activate the ability again. This time, no one succeeds; imagine that. An hour later, a few new faces walk in, see the bodies, and run to the town guard. The guards show up, question everyone, but mysteriously no one saw anything; the bodies just appeared covered in stab wounds for no reason. The guards start roughing up the barkeep, breaking a few stools, smashing some glasses, making threats, but he swears nothing like that happened in his bar. Meanwhile, you hang out in the corner making everyone super uncomfortable.




    The Illusion Of Ownership
    Choose one of the following three abilities to acquire.

    Twisting Larceny Claw
    When you qualify for a Treachery Bonus, you may forgo all damage inflicted by the attack to instead pilfer one object off your target's person, provided you have the empty hand or hands required to hold it. The object stolen can be anything, even the exceedingly ridiculous or improbable, such as stealing the target's pants without tearing them, taking the spellbook out of their Bag of Holding, or the only silver coin out of their purse of hundreds of gold pieces. You must either know the object is on them, or guess. If you guess an object, and there is nothing similar to it on them, you steal nothing. If you attempt to steal something the target is currently holding, they are allowed a Strength saving throw to resist.

    Word Of Lost Thoughts
    Each time a person enters a room and forgets what they were doing, the All-Shadow knows (and is laughing about it).

    As an action, you may address a creature of greater than animal intelligence and speak a subject to them. This can be the name of a person, an object, a location, an area of knowledge (about as broad as a skill), or something similar. They must make an Intelligence saving throw (the DC for this saving throw is based on your Charisma) or else forget all knowledge that they had about the presented subject for the next 24 hours, during which time you gain the same knowledge.

    For example, a warrior might be made to forget everything they know about the longsword, losing their proficiency in it. A diplomat and orator might be made to forget their proficiency in the Persuasion skill, turning them into a foul-mouthed oaf moments before the most important speech of their life. A merchant might be made to forget which market stall belongs to them, and a child might be made to forget who their mother is.

    A single creature may only be made to forget a single thing at a time, and once a creature has succeeded on their saving throw against this ability, they are immune to further uses for the next week.

    Liberating Copper Fields
    As an action, you may steal an object as large or larger than a person, up to the size of a large house (or a portion of a greater object about that size, like one segment of a castle wall), with the condition that no one must be looking directly at it when you do so (the final act that seals the action is a moment where you close your eyes and reopen them to see that the object has vanished). You are unaware of how you are able to do this, and are incapable of explaining it to anyone.

    After stealing something with this ability, you must reveal where you've stashed it to someone within 24 hours. To properly do this revelation, you must direct a person's attention to a space large enough to fit the object, and the space must not have had anyone directly looking at it prior to you doing so. The object will be there. If you fail to make this revelation within 24 hours, a compulsion will come over everyone currently at the original site of the object, causing them all to blink, sneeze, or turn away at exactly the same moment, and the object will reappear where it was.

    For example, you might sneak ahead of an invading army and, after silently dispatching the two guards in the castle gatehouse, steal the massive iron portcullis intended to keep out just such an invasion force. Once you've returned to the main force, hours later, you report back to the general in charge. He asks you to prove that you performed such a miraculous feat, to which you direct him to climb a nearby hill. The two of you make your way up the hill and, lo and behold, the 20-ton portcullis is laying in a field on the other side. After staring agape at it for several long moments, he asks how you did it, to which you answer truthfully, "I've no goddamn idea."

    After using this ability, you must wait one week before you may use it again.




    Dusk Swallows The Sun
    You gain one of the following abilities, based on which ability you chose for the Darkness Walking In Day class feature.

    The Abyss That Stares
    You gain this ability if you possess Shadows Asks The Night.

    When you commit a crime and leave evidence behind in a distinctive way, you may create a Persona (name it something, like "Jim The Butcher" or "The Neverwinter Strangler") and inscribe its essence on the scene. You may have as many such Personas as you like.

    When an investigator fails to pick up your trail on two separate occasions because of Shadow Asks The Night, and you infused both scenes they investigated with the same Persona, they become aware via a flash of insight that they have been duped all along and that this Persona is a real person which has perpetrated both crimes (this usually happens after they pursue the wrong trail on the second crime, possibly after prosecuting the incorrect person). They become mildly obsessed with this Persona and their artful methods, going over and over the few clues that they kept from both scenes - after a few days, this culminates in an Intelligence save to stave off a bout of Long-Term Madness (DMG pg260).

    Each time they fail to Investigate a crime perpetrated by the same Persona, and are affected by Shadow Asks The Night, after this, they find out again, once it is too late, that the same Persona was behind it all long, and must make another Intelligence saving throw against a bout of Long-Term Madness. If they have already suffered Long-Term Madness once from this ability, they suffer an Indefinite Madness instead. If they have suffered an Indefinite Madness already, they instead snap completely.

    Snapping completely, in this case, means that they lose touch with reality and believe that they are the Persona they have been chasing. They will change their mannerisms and personality to reflect the idealized version of this perfect criminal they have created in their mind, and begin perpetrating crimes in the likeness of the Persona, based on the distinctive methodologies you have left behind to teach them. If they were not already proficient in Deception and Stealth, they gain those proficiencies. Some may maintain their public image, leading a double life while stealing or killing once the sun goes down, while others cut all ties and plunge entirely into the underworld.

    The Dark Hiding Between Thoughts
    You gain this ability if you possess Nameless Things Lurk.

    As an action, you may detach your shadow and send it forth to hide in the shadow of another creature within 30ft. The target must make a Perception check opposed by your Stealth check to notice your shadow performing this action. If they succeed, your shadow winks out of existence and reappears attached to you - that person is immune to this ability for a week afterward. If they fail, your shadow successfully infiltrates them via their own.

    Once your shadow has infiltrated into another person, you experience all of their senses in addition to your own; the feeds are kept separate in your mind and this does not interfere with your everyday performance. In addition, you may speak telepathically to them over any distance (as long as you are on the same plane of existence), but they may not speak back (though if they talk aloud, you will hear via their sense of hearing). When you speak telepathically to them, your voice sounds like how they hear their own inner voice.

    Finally, the moment they see a creature, you may make an Intelligence check (which you are proficient in if you are proficient with a Disguise kit) to disguise that creature as another, similar creature (roughly within the bounds of a mundane disguise), opposed by their Perception check to pierce the disguise. Once they see through three such disguises, or you spend a bonus action, they break free of your shadow and it reappears beside you again, ending this ability's effect on them.

    You may only have your shadow infiltrating a single person at a time.

    Spitting Viper Method
    You gain this ability if you possess Blood Of Black Ophidian.

    As an action, you may invisibly disperse a held vial of poison. That poison then coats itself over an object, or mixes itself with food or drink, within 30ft. A person watching for suspicious behavior (like a guard) is allowed a Perception check when you do this, opposed by a Stealth or Deception check from you, to notice that you have moved in a suspicious way (the subtle kata used to channel and direct the essence of the poison), but a successful check alone does not divulge what you have done (unless the person watching is also an Adversary with this ability).

    You are also immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.




    Flickering Shadow Withdrawal
    Like a shadow jumping before a beam of lantern light, you reflexively dodge away when challenged.

    Whenever you roll initiative, you may disappear into your shadow, which flickers up to 30ft away to an area of light or heavy obscurity or cover and deposits you there, if one such place exists. If you are now in a place viable to hide from your enemies in, you may then make a Stealth check to hide without using an action. Enemies with lower initiative than you have Disadvantage until the beginning of your next turn when using Perception to locate you.




    Imagine No Possessions
    You gain one of the following abilities, based on which ability you chose for The Illusion Of Ownership class feature.

    Ten Thousand Finger Discount
    You gain this ability if you possess Twisting Larceny Claw.

    As an action, you may prepare this ability by making an attack roll against nothing. For the rest of your turn, your arms become indistinct blurs and, the first time you move adjacent to a given creature, if their Armor Class is lower than the result of your prepared attack roll, you steal something from them as if by Twisting Larceny Claw. When stealing something in this way, you may drop the stolen item, place it into a container (such as a backpack or belt pouch) on your person, or add it to a pile of items in your blurry whirlwind of arms. At the end of your turn, if both of your hands are empty, you may choose to be holding this accumulated pile; if not, or if you choose not to, the pile falls at your feet.

    After using this ability, you must take a long rest before using it again.

    Sudden Ignorance Vacuum
    You gain this ability if you possess Word Of Lost Thoughts.

    As an action, you may activate Word Of Lost Thoughts, whispering the intended subject of forgetfulness, and all valid creatures within 500ft (other than you) hear the word or words and must make the Intelligence save. A failed save functions just as for Word Of Lost Thoughts. You might steal the medical knowledge of an entire hospital, cause a whole church to forget who their god is, or make the small army of town guards chasing you forget who you are as you slip into a crowd.

    After using this ability, you must take a long rest before using it again.

    Carmine Sand of Ego Style
    You gain this ability if you posses Liberating Copper Fields.

    You may use Liberating Copper Fields to steal larger structures, as large as a mansion or thereabout. Further, the things you steal can be obscured rather than having no one looking directly at them. In the shifting haze of a dense fog-bank, a bridge might disappear, or a museum might be lost in the dead of night, leaving the guards inside wandering a vacant lot with so many questions.




    Legless Lizard Feint
    It is a well-known quality of lizards that, when attacked, they may shed their tail to get away with their lives. The All-Shadow, being almost 100% tail with a head at one end, is obviously far superior at such a pursuit.

    As a reaction, you may invisibly swap your essence with your shadow's. As a shadow now, you may break away from your former body and scurry away up to 30ft, where you rematerialize as a duplicate of your original body with all of your equipment. If you are in a position to hide, you may make a Stealth check to hide as part of this reaction.

    Meanwhile, your shadow inhabits your old body. Unfortunately, your mortal form was not built to run on the energy of shadows in place of a soul, and will not live for more than one round. During that round, your shadow will mostly mimic how it thinks you would behave before keeling over and dying. The corpse it leaves has no shadow (which can be discovered with a Perception check once your body is examined; otherwise onlookers will assume your corpse is just laying on top of its shadow, which is pretty normal), and any equipment you had on you is a flimsy illusion made of shadow-stuff that will melt in a matter of hours (because you have the real stuff).

    Your new duplicate body is fine. It has none of the conditions or ongoing magical effects your previous body had on it, and 1/2 of your maximum hit points (if this reaction interrupts a successful attack, the damage is not applied to you). It does not have a shadow, which it must regrow over the course of the next week, during which time you cannot use any abilities that require you to have a shadow.

    (At the DM's discretion, if you ruined someone's life, and they hunted you down and ostensibly murdered you with all certainty, but you then escape with this ability and reappear at a later date, the psychological trauma may cause a relevant Short-Term, Long-Term, or Indefinite Madness [DMG pg 260] in them.)




    Omnipresent Master Of Shadows
    Your shadow has grown powerful enough to reach out to its fellows and assert its dominance over them. The spatial dimensions that mortals occupy mean little to a shadow's ear, and it has no trouble extending its senses as far as it needs to.

    This ability has several functions.

    • As an action, you may ask your shadow to tune itself to your surroundings and extend your hearing into its own. Your hearing becomes perfect within 30ft of yourself, foiling all Stealth attempts as you can clearly pick up every heartbeat, every pumping vein, every rustle of threads in a shirt or a boot nearby. However, if this perfect hearing picks up a very loud sound (like shouting, or the clang of metal on metal), you are Deafened until the sound stops or you spend another action to deactivate this ability.
    • As an action, you may ask your shadow to tune itself into a specific person's shadow somewhere on the same plane of existence. You must know either a person's name, or have seen their face, to target them. Once tuned, you simultaneously hear what's going on around you, but also hear the surroundings of that person's shadow as if you were there (and you may make Perception checks through it to pick out faint or far-away things). A sliver of your own shadow worms its way invisibly into the target's, which acts as a scrying sensor for effects that can detect them, though the sensor is not magical, and cannot be dispelled with Dispel Magic, though a Daylight spell cast on it acts like Dispel Magic would on a magical sensor. The target is allowed a Charisma saving throw (the DC is based on your Charisma modifier) when initially targeted; success prevents you from using this ability on them for 24 hours, and gives them a distinctive chilling sensation, though they would not know its source unless informed. Another action unattuned you from an attuned target. You may only be tuned to one person at a time.
    • When someone on the same plane of existence speaks your name or one of your pseudonyms, in direct reference to you (if you name is Ted, but someone is referring to a different Ted, it doesn't count), your shadow is notified of their name and will give you a mental nudge to that effect. If, before the end of your next turn, you activate this ability's second function to attune your hearing to that person's shadow, they have Disadvantage on the saving throw to resist.

    Other members of the Adversary class are immune to the effects of this ability.
    Last edited by Xefas; 2017-05-05 at 04:39 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Orc in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: 5e Mythos - The Adversary

    Word of Lost Thoughts.

    Liberating Copper Fields.

    The Abyss That Stares.

    Carmine Sand of Ego Style (really?).

    Legless Lizard Feint.

    These five are some of the best things I have read. Pure, bull**** magic.

    One question though, is there a reason for Omnipresent Master of Shadows being the "level 20" ability? It feels very useful, and methodical, and practical. But come on. Stealing bridges/ideologies/everything that isn't nailed down (+ the nails) is just so ... cool.

    Bonus points for: "You were grievously harmed (physically or otherwise) for completely morally justified reasons."
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    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: 5e Mythos - The Adversary

    Quote Originally Posted by spwack View Post
    These five are some of the best things I have read. Pure, bull**** magic.


    Quote Originally Posted by spwack View Post
    Carmine Sand of Ego Style (really?).
    Was this pun/reference somehow worse than the others?

    Digression:
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    It's sort of a double pun as well, for folks familiar with Exalted. In Exalted, the highest form of martial arts is called Sidereal Martial Arts. Each Sidereal Martial Art's name is formed [(Color) (Thing) of (Concept) Style], and they use kung fu to manipulate concepts obtusely. Examples include Citrine Poxes of Contagion Style, which uses kung fu to manipulate disease, and Quicksilver Hand of Dreams Style, which uses kung fu to manipulate dreams.

    Carmine Sand of Ego Style would, I assume, be a style that uses kung fu to manipulate the concept of ownership, which is a somewhat important concept in Exalted. Once 3rd edition comes out with its rules for Sidereal Martial Arts, writing it will be a priority for me.


    One question though, is there a reason for Omnipresent Master of Shadows being the "level 20" ability? It feels very useful, and methodical, and practical. But come on. Stealing bridges/ideologies/everything that isn't nailed down (+ the nails) is just so ... cool.
    But they're all cool! One of them had to be the half-capstone, I chose the one that lets you wiretap the planet.

  4. - Top - End - #4
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    Default Re: 5e Mythos - The Adversary

    Quote Originally Posted by Xefas View Post
    The guards come rushing towards the last place they saw the king, but Ted had the advantage in moving first. Ted's next turn, he rushes the king in the dark, swiping the crown from his head with a Sleight of Hand check - the king doesn't even feel the absence - and using the rest of his movement to make for a side corridor which he can clearly see because of Darkness Walking In Day.
    Shouldn't this say 'Night Knows Itself'?
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    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: 5e Mythos - The Adversary

    Quote Originally Posted by Inevitability View Post
    Shouldn't this say 'Night Knows Itself'?
    Good catch! It's been fixed.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: 5e Mythos - The Adversary

    I like how this class's various abilities require shadows and darkness to work. It's a nice thematic weakness that if someone with a sufficiently searing light has an edge over an Adversary, if only they can find him. Which so far looks like the Cynosure has that ability.

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