3rd Level Vestiges (5e Other)

Andromalius the Repentant Rogue

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.

Sneak Attack: Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 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. If you get a sneak attack bonus from another source, the bonuses to damage stack. For every five binder levels you possess beyond 5th, this feature deals an additional 1d6 damage (up to 4d6 damage at 20th level).

See the Unseen: You see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible, and you can see into the Ethereal Plane. Ethereal creatures and objects appear ghostly and translucent. You can suppress or activate this feature as a bonus action.

Sense Trickery: You have advantage 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.

Locate Item: You can use an action to find an item, as the locate object spell. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses on a short or long rest.

Jester’s Mirth: As an action, you can cause an opponent to break into uncontrollable laughter, as the Tasha’s hideous laughter spell. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you are unable to do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Arete, the First Elan

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. You cannot cast any spells you know from another class or from the binder sects 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, healing word, 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, or by expending a spell slot of the spell's level or higher.

Resistance: Your gain advantage on 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

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.

Lightning Strike: As an action, you can call down a bolt of lightning that strikes any target you designate, as long as it is within 80 feet of you. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 3d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. This feature functions outdoors, indoors, underground, and even underwater. For every five binder levels you possess beyond 5th, the range of this feature increases by 40 feet (up to 200 feet at 20th level), and it deals an additional 1d6 lightning damage (up to 6d6 lightning damage at 20th level).

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

Aura of Sadness: Every hostile creature within 5 feet of you has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. When a creature starts its turn in this area, or when it enters it for the first time on a turn, it can make a Charisma saving throw. If a creature's saving throw is successful, the creature is immune to your Aura of Sadness for the next 24 hours. 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. For every five binder levels you possess beyond 5th, the range of this feature increases by 15 feet (up to 75 feet at 20th level), and the target is blinded for an additional turn (up to four turns at 20th level).

You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you are unable to do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Karsus, Hubris in the Blood

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 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. Additionally, when you use a spell scroll to cast a spell of a higher level than you can normally cast, you have advantage on the ability check to cast it.

Karsus’s Senses: You can use your action to sense magic auras, as the detect magic spell. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

Karsus’s Touch: You can use your action to produce a dispel magic effect with a touch, as the dispel magic spell. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you are unable to do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Paimon, The Dancer

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.

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

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

Paimon’s Skills: You gain proficiency with the Dexterity (Acrobatics) skill. In addition, you gain advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks and Charisma (Performance) checks.

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.

Dance of Death: You can use your action and make one melee weapon attack against each creature of your choice you move past this turn. Make a separate attack roll for each target. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you are unable to do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

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. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you are unable to do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

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