Homebrew:College of Mourning

(OOC: This is an implementation of the College of Mourning subclass from Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else)

Base Class: Bard

Bards of the College of Mourning specialize in easing the transition from life to death. While most bards derive their artistic catalogue from celebrating the lives of the valiant, mourning bards create a gateway for dead knights, faithful priests, and wise viziers who dedicated their lives in service, to accomplish any lingering obligations of the Material Plane.

While some see romanticizing death as macabre, the college spent centuries observing religious rites and composing teachings of necromancy in prose to entreat the dead to remain long enough to fulfill their purpose.

Whether woodwind or brass, string or drum, these bards are versed in delicate affairs and often find work in parades krewes, as pallbearers, or on other occasions where tact and taste are tantamount. Mourning bards improvise their melodies to mask the cries and wails of grieving loved ones, and often turn dour occasions into celebrations of remembrance. Whatever their method, their purpose is always to complement the spirits’ shuffle to the afterlife in ceremonious display with arrangements of grace and style.

Mourning Glory

When you join the College of Mourning at 3rd level, you learn the spare the dying cantrip. You also gain proficiency in the MedicineWisdom (Medicine)skillA Wisdom (Medicine) check lets you try to stabilize a dying companion or diagnose an illness. and ReligionIntelligence (Religion)skillYour Intelligence (Religion) check measures your ability to recall lore about deities, rites and prayers, religious hierarchies, holy symbols, and the practices of secret cults. skills.

Grief Note

Also at 3rd level, when a creature you can see within 60 feet, including you, deals damage to a target other than itself, you can use your reaction to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and adding the number on the die to the damage of the attack. The creature also regains hit points equal to the number on the die.

Dirge of the Departed

At 6th level, you can use your action to sing a yearning song of remembrance. Each undead within 30 feet of you that can hear you must make a successful Wisdom saving throw or become incapacitated for 1 minute or until it takes any damage as it weeps for those it left behind. Creatures that have advantage on saving throws to resist being turned also have advantage on this save.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Dread Parade

At 14th level, you can summon a ghostly procession of minstrel spirits of yesteryear. You lead a number of spectral troubadours equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1) that march in a tight formation behind you for 1 minute, whose music gives pause those would do you harm.

At the start of each of your turns, each creature of your choice within 60 feet must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage for each minstrel you summon, and has disadvantage on their next attack roll.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.