School of the Painted Cave

Knotted cord, an ochre handprint on a flat stone, a carved antler. That's what's in the satchel this wizard uses for a spellbook, and it works as one in every way. Copying a spell in costs half the usual gold and time. It can't be burned or soaked, and a lost impression gets remade, one each Long Rest. One impression always rides along as a spell that's prepared without counting.

Read the Old Marks tells the wizard what was made at a site and roughly when, and lets them understand any writing or art left by something that had a language. At 6th level a prepared spell can be swapped for one in the satchel in a minute. At 10th, places become pages. Paint a wall or stack a cairn and it holds three spells, prepared whenever the wizard stands near it. By 14th those painted places make up a gallery to re-prepare from, and once a day the wizard can walk through it.

WHAT'S INSIDE

• One full subclass on the 2024 rules, with features at levels 3, 6, 10, and 14.
• Balanced against the strongest official 2024 subclasses.
• A play note and a d6 flavor table.
• A conversion sidebar for the 2014 rules.
• A screen edition and a plain-white print edition, both US Letter, plus the full text as a plain text file for VTT import.
• The PDF is bookmarked, with no password or lock on it.

Compatible with the 2024 rules for fifth edition. Includes material from the SRD 5.2 by Wizards of the Coast LLC under CC-BY-4.0. Full license statement in the PDF. Unaffiliated with Wizards of the Coast.

This school and three more deep-time subclasses make up The First Age (Options No. 7, $5.95).

We'll Pick Up Next Week, the free letter: sleepersartifice.substack.com