Soul-Seer
The raven-haired seer kneels in the silent of the night, their fervent incantations echoing in the ancient crypt. In their hands lies a maul forgotten to time, its size simply too large for such a frail person to wield, even as an offering. Shadowy hands begin to envelop them and the familiar weapon, drowning their forms in oily darkness. Berren senses a soul within the darkness, a soul wishing to return to the light. An agreement between living and dead is made, a pact to aid one another. The shadows relinquish, slipping away behind the seer's eyes, some foreign sense of trust pulsing within. As Berren slowly wanders out of the crypt, they cannot help but sense the ghost inside them stare at the ancient maul, a crippling sadness now felt by both souls.
The cobalt-skinned aasimar stands strong as the giant’s death shakes the earth, humored at the tiny soul it had provided her. Soon, the ground shakes once more, bringing forth the soul-seer's attention to two more giants ascending the hill. Sensing her companion spirit whisper hexes, Alcera crushes the dead giant's spirit in her grasps, its undying strength quickly coursing through her like a relentless wave. With a single heave she lifts the huge corpse over her head, and with another it soars in the air, spinning lifelessly before crashing into its astonished kin.
Be it cursed to forever coexist alongside the restless undead, a sworn aid to those who died before they could accomplish their wishes, or someone who wishes to ensure there is nothing trapped between life and death, soul-seers possess varied origins that are nevertheless bound to the dead.
Master of Spirits
To soul-seers, the spirits of the dead are just as much companions to them as the living. Their deep connection to the concept of souls, primordial energy within every living being small or large, makes them attuned to a specific aspect of the world and the creatures that reside within it.
This connection extends to the dead souls that remain stuck within the material world, their spirits refusing to move on as unfinished goals and desire tether them to the living. While a soul-seer may use their magical talents to aid those that walk the earth, their main goals are to soothe the restless dead so that they may properly depart our world.
Through this spiritual magic, soul-seers can harness the latent energy within souls, allowing them to alter the world and minds around them for better or for worse. This energy is most frequent through residual pools of energy left behind by the dead, to which soul-seers can harness best when they themselves lay witness to it. To simply kill a creature for their spiritual energy is highly taboo amongst soul-seers, as many believe it directly harms a creature's path to the beyond.
To Serve the Dead
To best aid the restless dead with moving towards the afterlife, soul-seers offer them a chance at accomplishing the goals they had life by sharing their body. Through these bonds the undead souls can revisit the joys of mortality and the flesh, in turn providing their tenant with supernatural talents they had gained in their past lives. Great strife and challenges are always present to soul-seers who try their very best at aiding their communed spirits, but to witness the dead ascend appeased is a marvel they will never forget.
Adventuring Soul-Seers
The path of adventuring is one not uncommon for soul-seers. Spirits do not all manifest in the same place, and so soul-seers often travel great lengths to find restless spirits. Even then, desires of vengeance, travel, or unfinished debts from these spirits can push their soul-seer to adventure places they never expected to be. Perhaps a spirit might even commune with an adventurer they bonded with, vowing to finish their glories together?
When creating your soul-seer, you choose with your DM how your character came to possess their soul magic, and can use the Soul-Seer Origin table as possible inspirations for your class origins.
Soul-Seer Origin
| d8 | Origin |
|---|---|
| 1 | You come from a long line of mediums who have worked with the dead. You treat many spirits as family. |
| 2 | You came to witness what lies after death, yet you managed to survive. Through this, you seek to aid the spirits that may have been stuck where you left. |
| 3 | You were at fault for the death of someone incredibly close to you, and now you wander with this curse. Perhaps by saving enough souls, they might forgive you. |
| 4 | You were trained to balance the flow of life and death, ensuring that you would help aid the lingering dead so that they do not harm this balance. |
| 5 | You have lost someone close to you, and you have bonded yourself to the dead in order to find them. |
| 6 | You remain as the lone survivor of a massacre, having made a promise to avenge each and everyone one of those who died that day. |
| 7 | You sought out the powers of dead legends so that they in turn might make you part of history. |
| 8 | You have sworn yourself to an order of warriors, aiding them console the spirits of their dead kin that were incapable to die in a glorious fight. |
Class Features
As a soul-seer, you gain the following class features.
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per soul-seer level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per soul-seer level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
Weapons: Simple weapons
Tools: None
Saving Throws: Wisdom, Charisma
Skills: Choose two from Arcana, Insight, History, Nature, Perception, and Persuasion.
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
- (a) a light crossbow with 20 bolts or (b) any simple weapon
- (a) leather armor or (b) scale mail
- (a) a scholar's pack or (b) a dungeoneer's pack
- A spellcasting focus
- Any simple weapon, and two daggers
| Level | Proficiency Bonus | Features | Cantrips Known | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | +2 | Sixth Sense, Spellcasting | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | — |
| 2nd | +2 | Blessed Body, Communion (2) | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | — |
| 3rd | +2 | Medium's Approach | 2 | 3 | — | — | — | — |
| 4th | +2 | Ability Score Improvement | 2 | 3 | — | — | — | — |
| 5th | +3 | Undying Tether, Communion (3) | 2 | 4 | 2 | — | — | — |
| 6th | +3 | Approach feature | 2 | 4 | 2 | — | — | — |
| 7th | +3 | Sixth Sense Improvement | 2 | 4 | 3 | — | — | — |
| 8th | +3 | Ability Score Improvement | 3 | 4 | 3 | — | — | — |
| 9th | +4 | Aid Spirit, Communion (4) | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | — |
| 10th | +4 | Approach feature | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | — |
| 11th | +4 | Restore Soul | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | — | — |
| 12th | +4 | Ability Score Improvement | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | — | — |
| 13th | +5 | Communion (5) | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — |
| 14th | +5 | Approach feature | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — |
| 15th | +5 | Unrelenting Spirit | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — |
| 16th | +5 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — |
| 17th | +6 | Communion (6) | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 18th | +6 | Restore Soul Improvement | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 19th | +6 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 20th | +6 | Master of the Spirits | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Quick Build
You can quickly create a soul-seer by following these suggestions. Make Wisdom your highest ability score, followed by Dexterity. Then, choose the Inheritor or Haunted One background. Third, choose the Chill Touch and Spare the Dying cantrips. Conclude with the 1st level spells: Bless, Detect Evil and Good, and Dissonant Whispers.
Optional Rule: Multiclassing
If your group uses the optional rule on multiclassing in the Player's Handbook, here's what you need to know if you choose the soul-seer as one of the classes.
- Ability Score Minimum. As a multiclass character, you must have at least a 13 Wisdom and 13 Strength or Dexterity to take a level in this class, or to take a level in another class if you are already a soul-seer.
- Proficiencies Gained. If soul-seer isn't your initial class, you gain proficiency in Light and Medium armor, as well as shields.
- Spell Slots. Add half your levels in the soul-seer class to the appropriate levels from other classes to determine your available spell slots.
Sixth Sense
1st-level Soul-Seer feature
Your connection to the dead allows you to detect them and their killers. As an action, you can temporarily widen your sight to see within the realm of the deceased. Until the end of your next turn, you gain one of following benefits of your choice:
- You know the location of any undead creatures and corpses within 60 feet of you. You also know where a creature was killed if its death happened within this area.
- Choose a creature within 60 feet of you and a creature type. You know if your target has killed anything of that creature type within the last 7 days.
- You can see into the Ethereal Plane up to a range of 60 feet.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to Wisdom modifier, regaining any expended uses upon finishing a long rest.
Spellcasting
1st-level Soul-Seer feature
You have learned the art of magecraft and its ties to life, casting spells centered around altering the spirit. You use this power to aid or trick the spirits of those you encounter, changing their lives for the better or worse.
Cantrips
You know two cantrips of your choice from the soul-seer spell list. You learn additional cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Soul-Seer table.
Preparing and Casting Spells
The soul-seer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level or higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a spell slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
You prepare the list of soul-seer spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the soul-seer spell list. When you do so, choose a number of soul-seer spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + half your soul-seer level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.
For example, if you are a 5th-level soul-seer, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With an Wisdom of 16, your list of prepared spells can include five spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell *Bless*, you can cast it using a lst-level or a 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn't remove it from your list of prepared spells.
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of soul-seer spells requires time sent attuning and familiarizing with yourself and the life around you: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Spellcasting Ability
Wisdom is your spellcasting for your soul-seer spells. Your potency with magic stems from your connection to the souls of both living and dead. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a soul-seer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Ritual Casting
You can cast a soul-seer spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell prepared.
Sanctified Body
2nd-level Soul-Seer feature
Your expertise on souls makes you immune to being possessed, as well as preventing your body from becoming an undead.
Communion
2nd-level Soul-Seer feature
Upon reaching 2nd level, you allow yourself to attune to an undead spirit, also known as a Communion Spirit, housing them within you so that you may aid each other. Choose one of the following Communion Spirits. Housing a spirit provides you two Communion Talents, inherent benefits that that type of spirit can grant you, of your choice from that spirit's list. These talents are listed in their respective Spirit's page.
You gain an additional Communion Talent of your choice at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level. Each time you gain an additional talent, you can choose one of the talents you have and replace it with another talent that you could learn at that level or lower.
At times, a soul-seer and its spirit may come to a clash, with the former desiring a new spirit to aid them. You can perform this replacement ritual over the course of 4 hours, which can be done during a long rest. At the end of these 4 hours, roll a d20. If you roll a number equal to or lower than half your soul-seer level, you bond with a new spirit as your previous one leaves you. You choose the type of spirit this new Communion Spirit is. If you succeed, you cannot attempt this again until 7 days have passed. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a long rest.
Whenever you succeed in bonding with a new Communion Spirit, you replace your previous Communion Talents with those available with your new spirit. You must choose at least one talent from each available prerequisite level.
Medium's Approach
3rd-level Soul-Seer feature
You have chosen your approach with how to meld your necromantic powers with the world of the living. Choose one of the following aspects. Your choice grants you features at 3rd, 6th, 10th, and 14th level.
| Approach of Imminent Mortality |
| Approach of Ethereal Flesh |
| Approach of the Haunted Vessel |
| Approach of the Poltergeist |
| Approach of the Spectral Harvest |
Ability Score Improvement
4th-level Soul-Seer feature
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Spiritual Training
Whenever you reach a level in this class that grants an Ability Score Improvement feature, you can do one of the following, representing you training yourself or your Communion Spirit:
- Replace an amount of talents equal to your proficiency bonus. These talents must be from the spirit you possess, and you can replace a talent with another of its prerequisite level or lower.
- Replace one cantrip you learned from this class's Spellcasting feature with another cantrip from the soul-seer spell list.
Undying Tether
5th-level Soul-Seer feature
You can anchor the recently dead to yourself. When a creature dies within 30 feet of you through means other than old age, you can spend a reaction to bond to their soul or magical essence. An unwilling creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC, escaping on a success. You can have a number of tethered spirits equal to your Wisdom modifier at any given time, and obtaining one while you already are at full releases the oldest tethered spirit.
You can tether a spirit in this manner for a number of days equal to half your level in this class, at which point they depart as if they had just died. For the duration, the spirit's corpse (if any) is protected from decay and can't become undead. Additionally, the spirit is treated as having just died for creatures attempting to revive it from the dead. When this happens, you choose if your captured spirit is resurrected or if this process fails.
While you have a tethered spirit, you can ask it questions (no action required). The spirit can choose to answer or refuse to, but you both understand each other regardless of the languages either of you use. The spirit only knows what it knew in life.
Sixth Sense Improvement
7th-level Soul-Seer feature
You have an easier time detecting the beyond. Whenever you use your Sixth Sense feature, it now lasts for a minute or until you end it early as a bonus action.
Once per long rest, you can also release a seized spirit from your Seize the Departed feature to gain all three benefits at once.
Deathly Empowerment
9th-level Soul-Seer feature
You can channel the pain of the recently dead to empower you. As part of casting a spell, you can release one of the tethered spirits you have. Doing so causes the spell to treat itself as being cast with a spell slot one level higher than the one used (to a maximum of 6th level).
If the sole target of this spell is an undead creature or a creature that knew the tethered spirit, they have disadvantage on their saving throw against this spell.
Once you have used this feature, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest. Using this feature and releasing the spirit of a creature with a CR double or higher than the spell slot level expended does not consume a use of this feature.
Restore Soul
11th-level Soul-Seer feature
You can attempt to resurrect a tethered spirit you currently have as part of a long rest. You must have the creature's corpse, the spirit's willingness to be resurrected, and a total gp amount of incense equal to 30 times the creature's CR or character level, which is expended during the process. If your long rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity - at least 1 minute of anything more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, or tending to wounds - you fail to resurrect this spirit, and the spirit departs.
On a success, the creature is returned to 1 hit point, all its wounds close, and it is cured of any exhaustion or nonmagical poisons or diseases it had when it died. The creature then gains two levels of exhaustion.
At 18th level, you can resurrect your tethered spirit without needing their corpse. Doing so creates a new body for them, replacing any damaged or missing organs and limbs, while also neutralizing any diseases and poisons they may had in life.
Unrelenting Spirit
15th-level Soul-Seer feature
You have anchored your soul to the world of the living. Upon dropping to 0 hit points, you can choose to force your spirit out of your body. Until you die or are brought to 1 hit point, you gain an ethereal body while your actual body remains unconscious. You can act and move while in this new form. You cannot target or interact with yourself, undead, constructs, or creatures that lack a soul.
This ethereal form cannot take damage, can move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, has a flying speed equal to your walking speed, and cannot be targeted by Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution saving throws. You can also manifest any weapons you are proficient with as a bonus action, of which only you can wield. A weapon that requires ammunition produces its own in this state each time you make an attack with it, and the ammunition vanishes after a hit or miss.
Once you have used this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest. While you have no remaining uses, you can gain a level of exhaustion to use it. These levels of exhaustion are all removed once you finish a long rest.
Master of the Spirits
20th-level Soul-Seer feature
Your manipulation with souls and the dead has reached its peak. You can seize up to 10 spirits through your Undying Anchor feature, and you regain all expended uses of your Sixth Sense upon finishing a short or long rest.
