College of Puppetry
Bards use all sorts of tools to make their art, but for some, the official subclasses may not be unnerving enough. For those of you looking to for something a little more uncanny, we offer you the bard devoted to puppets. Just normal puppets, we promise; very realistic, perhaps, and with an odd expression, maybe, but look how charmingly they dance around! …where are their strings? They got cut during playtesting, unfortunately… but they still work, look! All of the running and leaping and dancing, but with no strings to keep them from… well, nothing at all, they’re just puppets!
If you want the full PDF of our new puppeteering bard, as well as the full versions of our almost two year backlog, donate to our Patreon, and all of our brews can be yours! And if you want to tell us the terrible mischief you got up to with some entirely normal non-magical puppets, join our Discord, where we’re always eager to hear about your spooky game tales or technically-not-crimes by puppet-proxy.
College of Puppetry
Bards of the College of Puppetry are storytellers and masters of caricature. They create models and dolls to represent characters in their tales, magically manipulating the figures to enhance their stories.
These bards are not necessarily welcomed by all. While they are by no means inherently evil or malicious, they often use their talents as a way of expressing themselves to others. This can be off putting to some, who find their craft to be a creepy curiosity at best. As such, the College of Puppetry tends to attract bards who can’t blend in with everyday folk, or at the very least don’t care to.
Bonus Proficiencies
3rd-level College of Puppetry feature
You gain proficiency with weaver’s tools and woodcarver’s tools if you don’t already have it, and you can use them to create puppets. This process usually takes about 1 hour.
Magical Marionettes
3rd-level College of Puppetry feature
You can turn puppets into magical marionettes, extensions of your bardic magic. As a bonus action, you can choose a mundane puppet within 60 feet and transform it into a magical marionette.
You can use a magical marionette as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells, and you can cast bard spells and use your Bardic Inspiration feature as if you occupied the marionette’s space so long as you can see it within 60 feet of you. Magical marionettes act on your turn when you mentally command them (no action required). They can’t attack, have a movement speed of 30, have AC 10 and 10 hit points, and are immune to poison and psychic damage. When a magical marionette makes a skill check or a saving throw, it uses your statistics and proficiencies to do so.
You can create a maximum number of magical marionettes equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of one). When you create a marionette while at your maximum, another marionette of your choice loses its magic and returns to normal. When you finish a long rest or are reduced to 0 hit points, your magical marionettes revert to mundane puppets, as the magic that animates them fades.
Illusory Sculptor
3rd-level College of Puppetry feature
You can use your bonus action to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration in order to transform an ongoing illusory creature or object that you have created, such as a goblin created with the silent image spell, into a magical marionette so long as it is within 60 feet of you. An illusory marionette created this way doesn’t count against your maximum number of marionettes.
The illusory marionette can’t occupy another creature or object’s space when you transform it, or the transformation fails. The illusion becomes a corporeal puppet that matches the appearance of the creature or object for up to 10 minutes. After the duration, or if the illusory marionette is reduced to 0 hit points, it fades away.
Ventriloquist
6th-level College of Puppetry feature
You have mastered the art of ventriloquism, able to create voices and noises from places that you don’t occupy. You can throw your voice to a location within 60 feet that is not obscured by full cover, speaking as if you were there. In order to see through the trick, a creature can succeed a Wisdom (Insight) check contested by your Charisma (Deception) check.
Puppet Master
14th-level College of Puppetry feature
You can temporarily seize a creature’s body, using it as a living puppet. As an action, you can choose a creature that you can see within 60 feet. The target must succeed on a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC or becomes a magical marionette for 10 minutes. The target maintains its senses and is aware of what is happening while transformed. After the duration, or if the magical marionette is reduced to 0 hit points, it transforms back into a creature, and any excess damage does not carry over to the creature.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you expend a spell slot of 5th level or higher to use it again.
