Homebrew:The Cryptic Oracle

(OOC: This is an implementation of The Cryptic Oracle subclass from Tasha's Crucible of Everything Else volume 2)

Base Class: Warlock

Your patron is a being of inscrutable intellect and an immortal guardian of forgotten knowledge. Such beings often fiercely guard these secrets in long-buried sanctums and lost temples. Others have minds that exist outside of time, simultaneously seeing what has been and what is yet to come, passing on this foresight to those they deem worthy. Some are simply bored, and will often bestow great boons or terrible curses upon those who succeed or fail their riddles.

Beings that forge such pacts with mortals might include sphinxes, mummy lords, nagas or even powerful spellcasters on the cusp of godhood. Maybe you have impressed such a creature and as a reward they have imparted you a sliver of their power, imparting some of their great knowledge upon you. Or perhaps you answered a riddle incorrectly and now must serve their whims, sent out into the world to obtain obscure knowledge and secrets for your master.

Variant: Intelligence-Based Pacts

Due to the nature of dealing with entities of law, order, or knowledge, some warlocks might have obtained an otherworldly patron through intellect and logic, rather than by force of personality and presence. At the DM's option, warlocks who have the Cryptic Oracle or the Inevitable as their otherworldly patron can choose to use Intelligence instead of Charisma for their spellcasting ability, saving throw proficiencies, and other warlock class features.

If your group uses the optional rule on multiclassing in the Player's Handbook, Intelligence also replaces Charisma as an ability score minimum for these characters to multiclass as a warlock.

Note: D&D Beyond has no method of implementing this variant rule. If you wish to use it, you will have to track the changes in some other way.

Expanded Spell List

1st-level The Cryptic Oracle feature

The Cryptic Oracle lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Cryptic Oracle Expanded Spells

Spell Level	Spells
1st	detect evil and good, identify
2nd	detect thoughts, locate object
3rd	bestow curse, meld into stone
4th	confusion, divination
5th	insect plague, legend lore

Hidden Knowledge

1st-level The Cryptic Oracle feature

You gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: ArcanaIntelligence (Arcana)skillYour Intelligence (Arcana) check measures your ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes., HistoryIntelligence (History)skillYour Intelligence (History) check measures your ability to recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, and lost civilizations., NatureIntelligence (Nature)skillYour Intelligence (Nature) check measures your ability to recall lore about terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles., or 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.. You also learn the guidance cantrip. It counts as a warlock cantrip for you, but it doesn't count against your number of cantrips known.

Rule of Three

1st-level The Cryptic Oracle feature

You can deliver riddles with your patron's power to aid your allies or confound your foes. As a bonus action, choose a creature other than you that is within 60 feet of you. If the creature can hear and understand you, it must make an Intelligence saving throw against your warlock spell save DC to attempt to solve the riddle.

If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, you can choose to grant it a boon, which the creature can spend to gain advantage on one type of roll of your choice: an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, you can either grant yourself the boon, or cause the creature to suffer a curse in the form of disadvantage on its next roll of the chosen type. The boon or curse fades when the roll is made, or when the recipient finishes a long rest.

You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it whenever you finish a long rest. Each time you use it, you must choose a different type of roll.

Step of Secrets

6th-level The Cryptic Oracle feature

You can discover secrets by getting into places few others can. As an action, you can teleport to a space within 30 feet of you. You travel the distance in a form of your choosing, perhaps as a fine stream of sand, snow, or glowing runes. You don't need to see your destination, provided there is a path to it (at least 1 inch wide) within 30 feet of you. If the targeted space is occupied, the action fails, but your use of the feature isn't expended.

You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it whenever you finish a long rest.

Inscrutable Mind

10th-level The Cryptic Oracle feature

Your thoughts can't be read by telepathy or other means unless you allow it, and Wisdom (InsightWisdom (Insight)skillYour Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.) checks made to discern your intentions or sincerity are made with disadvantage. In addition, you also gain proficiency in Intelligence saving throws.

Riddle for the Ages

14th-level The Cryptic Oracle feature

You can force your enemies into a contest of wits with your patron. As an action, choose a creature within 60 feet of you. That creature is teleported across time and space to your patron's domain, where it must answer three perplexing riddles. While before your patron, the creature is incapacitated.

At the start of its next turn, the creature must make three consecutive Intelligence saving throws against your warlock spell save DC. If the creature fails any of its saving throws, it is hurled through time and space, either into the past or future of a plane of your patron's choice and according to its whims. For each failed save, the creature takes 3d10 psychic damage and ages by 1 year, but its statistics otherwise remain the same.

At the end of the creature's turn, it reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied.

You can use this feature once, and you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.

Hurled Through Time

The target of Riddle of the Ages is subject to the whims of an extremely intelligent and ultimately unknowable being. The patron has its own desires and motivations, so who can guess what purpose punishing a creature in this way might serve?

This presents a unique way for the DM to interact with the world. Will the party stumble across hints of what the target might have done in its temporal banishment? What twists might occur in the storyline? Are there major retcons of past events, or just minor, comical changes to the current timeline? Or perhaps the party will encounter the creature again sometime in the future, during the time of its estrangement.