Druid - Circle of Sacrifice
Over millenia of isolation, the dense and suffocating jungles of Yharn have since given birth to a form of druidism distinct from the rest of Terre. Nature here is unforgiving and unrelenting, and the residents, children of Xbeltz’aloc, must seize every mean necessary to survive and appease the Three-Eyed nightcrawler, even those as morbid as sacrificing the blood of others and their own.
While often ostracized and branded as blasphemous elsewhere, for Yharnic tribals, the practicing of blood sacrifice is as natural as the ground beneath them. After all, the definition of morality has never been simple, even less so in the face of survival.
Circle Spells
The sacrifices you have made and the pledges you have undertaken forms a pact between you and the hostile nature, granting powers more foreign and occult than that desired by other beliefs. You gain access to some spells when you reach certain levels in this class.
Once you gain access to one of these spells, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.
- 2nd: Ceremony, False Life
- 3rd: Darkness, Warding Bond
- 5th: Life Transference, Vampiric Touch
- 7th: Blight, Death Ward
- 9th: Enervation, Geas
Fortitude of Blood
When you take this circle at 2nd level, your maximum hitpoint increases by 2. Whenever you gain a level in this subclass in the future, your maximum hitpoint increases by 1.
Additionally, your blood is thickened with druidic magic, granting you extra vitality and fortitude. Whenever you recover hitpoints with your hit dice, you recover the maximum amount.
Sanguine Binding
Starting at 2nd level, you gain the ability to draw on your blood to bind wild spirits into the waking realm. As an action, you can expend one use of your Wild Shape feature as well as some hitpoints to summon a blood beast, rather than assuming a beast form.
The blood beast appears in an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within 30 ft of you. It can take on any form that you can assume, but is translucent and crimson-shaded in appearance, and its creature type is Monstrosity. The blood beast uses the chosen form’s statistics, and you expend hitpoints equal to the form’s maximum hitpoint to summon it. The blood beast cannot take on a form for which you do not have enough hitpoints to expend.
The blood beast is telepathically bound to you, obeys your commands, and shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. You may mentally issue commands to the blood beast (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any, or is otherwise incapable of mentally issuing commands, it takes the Dodge action and uses its move to avoid danger.
The blood beast manifests for as long as your Wild Shape feature lasts, until it is reduced to 0 hitpoints, until you use this feature to summon the blood beast again, until you fall unconscious, or until you die.
Vessel of Sacrifice
Starting at 6th level, your life is marked as a vessel of sacrificial blood, and Xbeltz’aloci exerts his influence as you inch closer between life and death. While your hitpoint is at or below half of its maximum amount, you gain the following features:
- You and your blood beast’s attacks are magical.
- You are resistant to physical and necrotic damage.
- The amount of healing you receive is rolled with advantage.
Exsanguinating Bond
Starting at 10th level, your sacrificial rituals link you and your blood beast through a bond of blood. You gain the following features:
- Whenever your blood beast is reduced to 0 hitpoints, you may use your reaction to expend hitpoints equal to half of the blood beast’s form’s maximum hitpoint, and recover that much for the blood beast. You cannot use this feature if you do not have the requisite amount of hitpoints.
- Whenever you fall unconscious, your blood beast dissipates and returns to your blood stream, restoring hitpoints equal to its remaining hitpoint.
Parade of the Reaped
At 14th level, your mastery over sacrifice allows you to perform morbid and sanguine rituals most spectacular, blooming in an explosion of blood streams. When using the Sanguine Binding feature, you can summon up to three blood beasts with one use of the Wild Shape feature, and you can summon blood beasts in unoccupied spaces up to 60 ft away. You must pay the hitpoint cost of each blood beast individually.