Way of the Empty World (5e Subclass)

Way of the Empty World

“	This world is so full of people standing at my side, yet it is also silent.	”
—Karen Mok, 这世界那么多人

Despite the world that is seemingly crowded with innumerable people, it is seemingly empty to monks of the way of the empty world. These monks are heavily invested in their own inner mind, which plays off the Cartesian idea that only the self which thinks is true and exists. Everything else is false and meant to mislead. This may seem egocentric, but true practitioners of this way are able to see the subliminal minimalism of the world. Most people, unenlightened, have an unrealized existence, rendering them hollow and flat, whereas people like heroes and powerful villains have a much greater presence and dimensionality. However, in such a grand world, there are only so many special people among the seas of empty-minded, milling individuals. The empty world monks can shrug off the effects and passivity of the world around them and bring about dynamic change with their own soul to fill what is an otherwise empty and lonely place.

A Door in the Crowd

Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, the space of emptiness between people is a vast distance that you can close within the span of a moment, a blink of an eye. When you use your movement speed, you can teleport instead of your normal movement. You must end your movement in a space that is unoccupied that you can see, within the distance of your movement speed, that is adjacent to another creature you can see. You can use this feature in combination with other movement speeds you have and augment your distance with your step of the wind ki feature. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, regaining all uses after you finish a long rest.

Drifting Thoughts, Drawn-Out Life

At 6th level, you manifest the impressive power to draw out life and extend it from what would otherwise be emptiness. When a creature within 10 feet of you is reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to teleport into an unoccupied space adjacent to that creature and touch them. The creature automatically regains 1 hit point. You can use this feature once, regaining all use when you finish a long rest.

Few Frames Flash

Beginning at 11th level, you can utilize the echoes within emptiness to create a series of effects, almost twisting it to your will with your inner power. You gain the following repertoire of reverberations to use at your disposal. You can only use one reverberation per turn.

• Reverberate into Existence, Spinning Speed: You create a single, simple, non-magical object that you have seen before in your hand. This object must be something you can comfortably hold in one hand. This item lasts for 1 hour unless you use this reverberation again, the item takes damage, is dispelled (no action required), stowed, dropped, or otherwise lost from your hand(s). Items created through this spell have no gold cost and are seen as lacking value. If creating an item like a book, the contents are chosen by the conjurer, though only as accurate as you can remember.

• Echo into Nothingness, Fly Away: When you hit a creature with your flurry of blows ki feature, your ki has a chance to disrupt their very existence and momentarily make them an empty shell. On a critical hit with your flurry of blows, the target is stunned until the start of their next turn.

• Lasting Ripples, Old Floating Faces: Using your ki within yourself, you anchor your existence and empower yourself with the ripples that exude from your very own being. When you make a successful hit on a creature with your flurry of blows, you regain a number of hit points equal to the number of ki points you have remaining in your ki pool.

• Field of Dreams: Because the world is empty, you can shape it to be something else for your own purpose. As a bonus action, you make the terrain in a 45-foot cube, centered around you, change its appearance, sound, and smell into a terrain of your choice. Thus, open fields or a road can be made to resemble a swamp, hill, crevasse, or some other difficult or impassable terrain. A pond can be made to seem like a grassy meadow, a precipice like a gentle slope, or a rock-strewn gully like a wide and smooth road. Manufactured structures, equipment, and creatures within the area aren't changed in appearance.

The tactile characteristics of the terrain are unchanged, so creatures entering the area are likely to see through the illusion. If the difference isn't obvious by touch, a creature carefully examining the illusion can attempt an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your ki save DC to disbelieve it. A creature who discerns the illusion for what it is, sees it as a vague image superimposed on the terrain. This terrain lasts for 1 minute. At the start of each of your turns, while you remain in this terrain, you regain ki points equal to your Wisdom modifier. You can use this reverberation once, regaining use once you finish a short or long rest.

Empty Light Dispels Dark Noise

At 17th level, you gain control of the most powerful reverberations available to a monk of the empty world way. You gain one of the following reverberations. You can change your choice as part of your meditation during a short or long rest.

• Empty Resounding Slam: You gain the ability to send about a powerful reverberation that shatters even emptiness with something like death. When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can spend 3 ki points to create a huge burst of energy, no further action necessary. This burst radiates out to 15 feet from you and all creatures within range of this burst must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, they take 10d10 necrotic damage, and take half as much damage on a successful save.

• Grateful Time: Time seems to lose its meaning as there is little to tell of its passing, and you use this to your advantage when it comes to increasing your limits as a singularity within an empty world. At the start of your turn, you can force your ki to recycle through your body without an action. You regain a number of ki points equal to your monk level. You can use this reverberation once, regaining use once you finish a short or long rest.

• Sounding Gong: As an action, you can spend 3 ki and create a burst of rippling energies from your existence from yourself. Roll 10d6; the total is how many hit points of creatures this reverberation can affect. Each creature you choose within 30 feet of you regains hit points to restore to their maximum from this pool. Subtract each creature's hit points from the total before moving on to the next creature you choose.

• Unbearable Existence: As an action, you can spend 3 ki and focus to impose your will onto that of another and convince them of their own weak existence, causing them to collapse physically. Choose a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see. They must make a Charisma saving throw against your ki save DC. On a failed save, the creature is reduced to 0 hit points. On a successful save, the creature has disadvantage on all saving throws, attack rolls, and skill checks until the end of its next turn. If the creature has hit points below half of its maximum, it makes this save with disadvantage.

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