Anima Witch
Standing hunched and panting over her recent foe's body, a sharp featured Half-Orc takes no time to tend her wounds before beginning the ritual that will bind the powerful enemy's soul into her service.
The air chills slightly as a robed and hooded Gnome enters the funeral parlor with his young aide. With the utmost seriousness and reverence, he unpacks his ritual supplies, along with the urn that will house the spirit of the deceased, that it may provide counsel to its family for generations to come.
A pretty human girl strides daintily through a twilit graveyard. It isn't flowers or memorial candles she carries, but spell components and research notes. Her lips are curved into an impish smile, and there is something strange and terrible behind her eyes. A distant flash of thunder seems to illumine shadowy figures standing all around her.
The Anima Witch eschews the necromantic arts dealing in the flesh of the dead, in favor of communing with, and binding departed spirits. Somewhere between the ghoulish necromancer and the charismatic priest, the Anima Witch's domain is in ghostly apparitions and whispering presences.
In the Death Trade
The souls of the dead are the Anima Witch's constant companion as well as their stock-in-trade. They've each found a way to leverage a meager magical talent into greater knowledge and power by communing with the ethereal.
The Anima Witch has the singular ability to not only commune with spirits, but negotiate their service by word and spell. The bound dead then serve as catalyst, conduit, and substance of their future spellcraft.
Stewards of the Past
Many Anima Witches are driven to the trade by stark necessity, using death as a resource to extend the lives of those around them in the most hostile environments. To them, the knowledge and skillsets of the departed are a valuable resource that must be preserved.
Others are called by a peculiar empathy for the ghostly remnants of intelligent creatures, and wish to protect them from harm, rehabilitate or contain hostile spirits, and act as ambassadors for those whose voices are not heard. They provide a service to their community by taking up a guardianship of the beloved dead, as well as quarantining the violent dead from harming the living.
Some are simply mages who found another discipline too daunting, thinking exploiting the dead a faster road to power, without the looming hazard a Warlock invokes by dealing with entities who exist on a scale they can hardly comprehend, or the stigma of raising shambling corpses. The most bookish might aspire to a library-like collection of souls to interrogate at leisure.
At their core, the role of an Anima Witch is to form relationships with the dead. The manner of those relationships depends on the mage.
The Anima Witch
| Level | Proficiency Bonus | Features | Cantrips Known | Spell Slots | Slot Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | +2 | Gravesight | 2 | - | - |
| 2nd | +2 | Pact Magic | 2 | 2 | 1st |
| 3rd | +2 | Witch Doctrine | 2 | 3 | 1st |
| 4th | +2 | Ability Score Improvement | 3 | 4 | 1st |
| 5th | +3 | 3 | 5 | 1st | |
| 6th | +3 | Doctrine Feature | 3 | 6 | 1st |
| 7th | +3 | 3 | 7 | 1st | |
| 8th | +3 | Ability Score Improvement | 3 | 8 | 2nd |
| 9th | +4 | 3 | 9 | 2nd | |
| 10th | +4 | Class Feature, Doctrine Feature | 4 | 10 | 2nd |
| 11th | +4 | 4 | 11 | 3rd | |
| 12th | +4 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 | 12 | 3rd |
| 13th | +5 | 4 | 13 | 3rd | |
| 14th | +5 | Doctrine Feature | 4 | 14 | 3rd |
| 15th | +5 | 4 | 15 | 3rd | |
| 16th | +5 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 | 16 | 3rd |
| 17th | +6 | Class Feature | 4 | 17 | 3rd |
| 18th | +6 | Doctrine Feature | 4 | 18 | 4th |
| 19th | +6 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 | 19 | 4th |
| 20th | +6 | Class Capstone | 4 | 20 | 4th |
Creating an Anima Witch
When putting together your Anima Witch, think about your relationship with the spirits of the dead. Your tribal culture might have a venerable tradition of spirit-talkers, or perhaps your attraction to the ethereal undead is peculiar and unique to you. Do you foster a mutual respect with your charges, or do you bind them as slaves to your will? Do you see yourself as a spellcaster who uses the forces of death as a medium, or are you more the servant to the unseen than the other way around?
Also consider your relationship with the living around you. Has your craft left you ostracized for its association with necromancy, or have you more often been appreciated for the specialist service you provide? What is it that drove your character to become an adventurer? Ambition, desperation, or a lust for knowledge that you couldn't sate where you came from? Your character might even seek after one elusive spirit in particular, gathering more and more power in hopes of reaching it.
Quick Build
You can make an Anima Witch quickly by following these suggestions. First, Charisma should be your highest ability score, followed by Constitution. Second, choose the Hermit background. Third, blur de blur, figure out how the dumb class works and do that.
Class Features
As an Anima Witch, you gain the following class features
Hit Points
- Hit Dice: 1d6 per Anima Witch level
- Hit Points at 1st Level: 6 + your Constituion modifier
- Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d6 (or 4) + your Constituion modifier per Anima Witch level after 1st
Proficiencies
- Armor: None
- Weapons: Simple weapons
- Tools: None
- Saving Throws: Wisdom, Charisma
- Skills: Choose two from Arcana, History, Intimidation, Insight, Persuasion, Nature, and Religion
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) a component pouch or (b) an arcane focus
- (a) a priest's pack or (b) a scholar's pack
- two daggers
Gravesight
At 1st level, you can spend an action to enter an induced state in which you are attuned to the spiritual world. While using Gravesight you can see any incorporeal undead around you, including weaker and unmanifested spirits undetectable by other means. You also determine if a creature has died in a radius of 20 feet within the past 24 hours. If you maintain this state for at least 1 minute, you can see into the Border Ethereal up to 30 feet.
You maintain the state as long as you continue concentration. While you use Gravesight you may communicate with any present spirit entity, including that of any dead creature whose remains are nearby. Communicating can be done this way using speech even if you do not share a language. If the undead creature's intelligence is under 4, you may use sounds and gestures to communicate simple ideas.
This spell-like ability functions similarly to Speak With Dead. You gain advantage on Perception(Wisdom) and Investigation(Intelligence) checks on the spiritual state of your environment.
In addition, you gain advantage on Insight(Wisdom) and Persuasion(Intelligence) checks when dealing with the incorporeal undead at all times.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier. When you finish a long rest you regain all expended uses.
Pact Magic
Anima Witches interact with the arcane forces through spectral beings with access to spells and spell-like abilities. Manipulating the spirits into casting for you requires no spoken words or gestures, but does require material components or a focus. If a material cost is listed for a spell component, that component is required. See Chapter 10 of the PHB for the general rules of spellcasting.
Cantrips
You know two cantrips of your choice from the warlock list. You learn additional captrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown on the Anima Witch table. Cantrips do not require Ghost Control expenditure or a roll as detailed under Casting Spells.
Don't forget!
Add the following to stuff ghosts can do:
Dancing Lights
Message
Thaumaturgy
Spell Slots
The Anima Witch table shows how many spell slots you have. The table also shows what the level of those slots is; all of your spell slots are the same level. To cast one of your spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a spell slot. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a short or long rest.
For example, when you are
Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher
Spellcasting Ability
Charisma is your spellcasting ability for Anima Witch spells, as you are dependent on cajoling ghostly forces into casting on your behalf. You use Charisma any time a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. You also use Charisma when setting the saving throw DC of an Anima Witch spell you cast, and when rolling Ghost Control.
Spell Save DC = 8 + Proficiency + CHA
Spell Attack Modifier = Proficiency + CHA
Spellcasting focus
You can use a cool thing as a focus. Like, a preserved lizard or some shit.
Mantles of Legacy
In your communion with the transcendent, you have acquired mantles of power or skill belonging to the departed.
At 2nd level
Anima Witch Doctrine
At 3rd level, you commit to a Doctrine of Anima Witchery: Doctrine of the Collector, Doctrine of the Psychopomp, or Doctrine of the Haunt, all detailed at the end of the class description. The Doctrine you choose grants you features at 3rd level, and again at 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th level.
Ability Score Improvement
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.
Ghost Control
At 2nd level, you may expend Ghost Control points to impose your will on common incorporeal undead.
A Minor in Exorcism
An Anima Witch may attempt to banish intractable or unruly ghosts and other incorporeal creatures, forcing the target to enter the afterlife. This ability may only be cast on an undead target that is either evil aligned or has refused attempts to negotiate peacefully, and functions as the banishment spell. Unlike the spell, it does not require concentration after casting, and the target does not return. You may use this feature a number of times equal to 1 plus your caster level, after which you must take a long rest before you can use it again.
The target makes a contested roll of et cetera. If the target has below some HP, blah blah.
Shade Binding
You may choose to bind a discrete ghost or incorporeal undead instead of banishing or destroying it. To do so, you must spend Ghost Control to create a slot for it, for as long as the spirit is bound. Ghost Control spent in this way is not recovered after a long or short rest, and you may only restore the Ghost Control once the spirit is released. Releasing a spirit is a bonus action unless otherwise stated.
You gain the service of this spirit and benefits depending on its nature. It may appear in an unoccupied space within view, but is incorporeal.
Your bound shade acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. It does not take part in combat unless otherwise stated. A shade can’t attack, but it can take other actions as normal.
If it drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You may not contact the destroyed shade again.
While your bound shade is within 30 feet of you, you can communicate with it using Spiritcraft.
As an action, you can temporarily dismiss your bound ghost. It disappears into a pocket dimension where it awaits your summons. Alternatively, you can dismiss it forever. As an action while it is temporarily dismissed, you can cause it to reappear in any unoccupied space within 30 feet of you.
Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your bound shade delivers the spell as if it had cast the spell. It must be within 100 feet of you, and it must use its reaction to deliver the spell when you cast it. If the spell requires an attack roll, you use your action modifier for the roll.
Possessor
Anima Witch Doctrines
Doctrine of the Collector
The Collector seeks out the shades of the most learned and intelligent beings, sifting secrets from them like panning for gold.
Bonus Proficiencies
Choose two skills from the Bound Shade to gain proficiency in.
Ghost Library
At 6th level, the Collector may ritually prepare a vessel costing 500GP to receive a Bound Shade when it is released, storing it for later use.
Doctrine of the Psychopomp
Soothe Spirits
At 3rd level, the Anima Witch gains the ability to impose calm on incorporeal undead. You cannot control the spirit but may postpone hostile action by the affected spirit for 1 minute or round per caster level, during which the spirit is communicative, if not amiable. This ability can sooth or quiet neutral undead, heal allied undead, or rebuke enemy undead.