Courseur philosophy encourages physical fitness so that one’s swift movements can inspire rapid progress and innovation. No group combines these two aspects of the ideology more flamboyantly than the Wayfarer Cirquelistes, a group of acrobatic performers in a traveling circus who can use their movement to fuel magic, with a particular penchant for teleportation.

Prerequisite: Brook No Delay feat, proficiency in Acrobatics, Arcana, and Athletics, must have trained with the Wayfarers Cirque, character level 7th

Features

Hit Dice: 1d8 per wayfarer cirqueliste level.

Hit Points: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per wayfarer cirqueliste level.

Wayfarer’s Athleticism

You can double your proficiency bonus when making Acrobatics and Athletics checks. Your base speed increases by 5 feet.

Wayfarer’s Kineticism

You can create and empower magic through movement.

Whenever you move at least 20 feet on your turn, you gain a “step” of power. If you move more than your speed on your turn (such as by taking the Dash action or flinging yourself with a trebuchet), you gain an additional step of power. This gathered power lasts until you spend it or until you finish your turn and have not moved at
least 20 feet, and you can have up to a maximum of three steps of power stored at a time.

Holding this power over a long period of time is perilous, so you only gather steps of power when you are clearly in danger. You start each encounter with zero steps of power, even if you were moving just before the encounter begins.

You can spend steps in the following ways.

• Without using an action, spend one step to gain the effects of freedom of movement until the end of your next turn.
• Without using an action, when you are endangered by something triggered by your movement like a trap or hazard, spend one step to gain advantage on a Dexterity saving throw or impose disadvantage on an attack roll against you.
• Spend one step to cast misty step as an action, or two steps to cast it as a bonus action. Instead of being transported in silvery mist, however, your departure and arrival points are marked with a harmless burst of flame that lingers in the shape of your body. Often cirquelistes will teleport in the middle of acrobatic flips, appreciating the aesthetic of leaving dramatic flaming afterimages of their movement.
• When you or an ally you can see casts a spell, spend two steps to modify that spell with one of the following sorcerer Metamagic abilities: Distant Spell, Empowered Spell, or Persistent Spell. You can use your Dexterity modifier in place of your Charisma modifier for this effect.

Wayfarer’s Leap

You can cast dimension door . After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest .

Nomadic Strike

When you teleport within 5 feet of a creature, the first attack you make against that creature before the end of your current turn has advantage .

Sense Teleportation

You are aware whenever a creature within 150 feet arrives or departs using teleportation, and you know the distance and direction to their origin and destination.

Wayfarer Guide

Whenever you teleport you can bring three extra creatures within 20 feet of you along with you, even if your method of teleporting would normally only teleport you (such as with misty step ). After you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest .

Grand Journey

You can cast teleportation circle . After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest . When you gain this ability, the wayfarers typically share their full collection of sigil sequences.

Ready to Move

You start each encounter with one “step” charged up.

Only a handful of mystics among the vekeshi learn the rituals of the fallen goddess Srasama. Though she has passed on, fragments of her power remain scattered across the world, and can still be touched by those who maintain sufficient devotion.

These true believers excoriate their skin and use fire to cauterize and scar in symbols sacred to Srasama, commemorating her three forms of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Excoriants often either find themselves in charge of local cells of vekeshi mystics, or they altogether transcend hierarchies and pursue their own agendas. Every night however they focus their will by reciting the teachings of Vekesh, so that they maintain a purity of purpose to protect the weak and punish those who would abuse them.

Prerequisite: Hand of Retribution feat, proficiency in History and Religion, must have three iconic scars somewhere on the body, character level 10th

Features

Hit Dice: 1d12 per vekeshi excoriant level.

Hit Points: 1d12 (or 7) + your Constitution modifier per vekeshi excoriant level.

Ally of the Goddess

The mystic rites you have undertaken to connect you to the goddess have strengthened your will and freed your will to resist worldly temptations. You are proficient in Wisdom saving throws . If you are already proficient in Wisdom saving throws, gain an expertise die on Wisdom saving throws.

You also add your proficiency bonus to death saving throws.

Daunting Presence

On your turn, you can choose to adopt terrifying mannerisms designed to drive your foes back. If you do, you cannot make normal opportunity attacks until the start of your next turn. However, when a creature within your reach would make an attack against you, you can use a reaction to force the creature to make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier). On a failure the creature is frightened of you until the end of its next turn, or on a success it is immune to your Daunting Presence for 24 hours.

Threefold Presence

At the start of your turn, you may call upon the threefold presence of Srasama. During this turn, when you move, you can trace three different paths from your initial starting position, as if you were splitting into three versions of yourself. At the start of your next turn, you must choose which of those locations is your actual location, at which point the other two versions of you disappear.

Before you choose your actual location, you can act as if you were in any of the three locations, and you can be affected by others as if you were in any of those locations.  Things that would affect you more than once, such an area attack that would hit two of your locations, only affect you once.

Before the start of your next turn, you can take one extra action, one extra bonus action, and one extra reaction. You cannot have any one of your three versions take more than one action, one bonus action, and one reaction each. You cannot use an extra action if you have been granted an extra action the same turn.

After using this feature, you cannot use it again until you take a short or long rest .

Vengeful Gaze of the Goddess

As a bonus action you can choose a creature you can see. Guided by the divine sight of Srasama, you unerringly know the  direction to the target until you finish a long rest . You cannot use this power again until you finish a long rest.

Triune Blessing

You can call upon the three aspects of the goddess Srasama as a bonus action. For each of these blessings, choose yourself or one creature you’re aware of to affect; you can choose the same creature multiple times.

The maiden grants advantage on the creature’s next saving throw , and their next attack roll .

The mother heals 5d8+5 points of damage to that creature.

The crone hexes the creature, so that until the start of your next turn, attacks that hit the creature deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage.

After using this ability, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest .

Live for Vengeance

Whenever you succeed a death saving throw, you can spend two Hit Dice and heal that many hit points, allowing you to regain consciousness.

Vestige of Srasama

As an action, you can call upon a vestige of your goddess . A towering, flaming image of a woman steps into existence. Her features shift by the moment, from youthful warrior, to mature healer, to withered and skeletal sorceress. She strides toward your enemies, six burning swords held in or floating beside her six hands. This aspect of Srasama does not act with any real intelligence; the only word she ever says is for her guttering desperation attack. She is focused on defeating your enemies. She acts on your initiative as soon as you summon her. She follows your desires without you needing to take any action to direct her. This manifestation does not require concentration to maintain as long as any enemies are present, but once you are no longer in danger, you can maintain concentration to keep the aspect present and on guard.

After using this power again, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest . Any wounds the aspect suffers remain the next time you summon her, though all her injuries heal at the start of the next full moon. If the aspect is reduced to 0 hit points, she fades away and cannot be summoned until the start of the next full moon.

Mediums can sense the lingering thoughts of spirits of the dead, but people have for ages referred to cities as having a spirit, a genius loci. Especially in a place where so many have died over the years, with the right mindset it becomes possible for a medium to attune to the psychic nature of cities. The city begins to sustain them, speak to them, and protect them.

This close communion with urban environments has its limitations, of course. A medium who devotes themselves to speaking with cities can still use their powers in the wilderness, but in a much weakened capacity. In the smog-choked streets of a burgeoning industrial metropolis, though, they have a veritable army at their command.

Prerequisite: Unfinished Business feat, proficient in Persuasion and Insight, character level 7th

Features

Hit Dice: 1d6 per urban empath level.

Hit Points: 1d6 (or 4) + your Constitution modifier per urban empath level.

Spellcasting

Add the following spells to all of your classes’ spell lists: conjure elemental , enrage architecture , knock , locate creature , message , searing equation , tiny hut (takes the appearance of a small house). Whenever you gain a level in this class, it grants or advances your choice of bard , cleric , druid , sorcerer , or wizard spellcasting , or warlock Pact Magic. This advancement includes spell slots, spells prepared, and spells known.

Every Building a Welcoming Home

As a bonus action, you can ask a city to let you through. Until the end of your turn, you can move through manmade  structures as if they weren’t there. After using this ability you cannot use it again until you take a short or long rest .

Urban Bond

While in an urban environment (defined generally as a bounded area with a population density of at least 1000 people per square mile), you need neither food nor drink, and you gain an expertise die on Acrobatics, Athletics, and Perception checks.These effects generally extend as long as you’re within 3 miles of the border of an urban area.

The City Comes Alive

As an action you can call upon the city to strike an enemy and possibly trap it in a maw of bricks and cobblestones. Make a melee spell attack with a range of 30 feet; the target must be within 5 feet of a manmade structure, even just a wall or street.

If the attack hits, the target takes 2d12 damage, and if it is a Large or smaller creature you may choose to knock it  prone , but if you do, it has cover while prone. This damage increases to  3d12 at 11th level, and 4d12 at 17th level.

The City Whispers

You can listen to the spirit of the city to learn what it hears and sees. This communion functions similar to the commune with nature ritual, granting you knowledge of three facts the city can share. Sample “facts” include:

The general state of every publicly accessible location within 3 miles.

Disturbances in private locations if they could be seen or heard from a public area.

Choose a creature or small group that the city can identify through some physical means. You learn whether it is in the area and where, unless it entered a private area in which case you learn when it entered.

Gain intuitive understanding of all publicly traversable terrain in the area, allowing you to navigate perfectly.

For the purpose of this, “private” generally means somewhere legally owned and off-limits to outsiders. While a museum is owned, the public can access it, and while the sewers are not normal thoroughfares, usually there is no personal ownership of a sewer.

The city doesn’t have precise recollection, and cannot convey conversations or subtle actions, but could share details of a broadly witnessed speech. This power functions to a distance of three miles in an urban environment, but only to 300 feet outside an urban area.

After using this ability you cannot use it again until you take a short or long rest .

Every Window an Eye

You gain tremorsense out to 60 feet in an urban environment, and can sense the presence and location of creatures that have concealment or cover as long as they are hidden by manmade structures.

The City Marches to War

You can call upon a city in your time of dire need, causing walls, streets, and gates to move at your command.

As an action, you cause the terrain in a 40-foot-radius burst within 100 feet of you to rise up and hinder your foes. Enemies that enter that area or end their turn there take 2d6 bludgeoning damage. As a bonus action, you can cause up to six 5-foot cubes of terrain in the area to move up to 30 feet, or to extrude into the area from an existing wall or floor, or to withdraw into an existing wall or floor. This moving terrain can only enter unoccupied spaces, and it is generally composed of whatever the prevailing building materials in the area are. The area lasts for five minutes or until dismissed.

Outside an urban area, instead you can affect a 10-foot-radius burst within 50 feet of you.

After using this ability you cannot use it again until you take a short or long rest .

If you can build a quadruped contraption that can fire a gun or channel magical energy, it’s merely a matter of scale to produce a larger vehicle, perhaps something someone could wear like a suit of armor. Now, a person would have to be a fool to strap into a heat-conducting pile of metal powered by an arcane engine, but well, you’ve invented the damned thing. It’d be more foolish to let it go to waste.

In the past technologists designed suits powered by arcane steam boilers, but today they are more likely to use wayfarer engines, which are lighter and don’t belch obscuring vapors. The name steamsuit has become the common parlance, however, and some traditionalists still add boilers merely for the aesthetic.

Each technologist who tries to design a steamsuit adds their own flair and quirks. Sometimes an elf wants a verdigris suit of skintight plate armor that merely increases her strength and speed. Sometimes a gnome wants to ride around in a mechanized gorilla the size of a bear and tear through everything in his path. But invariably, these suits are just machines, and any machine, no matter how ingeniously crafted, can break.

Prerequisite: Arctech Tinkerer feat, proficient in Arcana and Engineering, character level 7th, access to a technology lab with at least 5,000 gp in components.

Features

Hit Dice: 1d8 per steamsuit pilot level.

Hit Points: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per steamsuit pilot level.

Steam & Steel

You have designed an arcanoscientific power matrix which you can integrate into a suit of armor as a sort of steam engine, enhancing your strength and ability to move while wearing the armor. Indeed, the power matrix can even let you wear armor larger than your actual body.

If you start with a suit of armor and spend one day and 500 gp in raw materials, you can upgrade that armor with a power matrix and the necessary enchantments and steam valves to operate it. The armor can be your size or larger, up to Large size. Large armor costs the same as medium or small armor, since the main expense
is labor, not materials. The archetypical steamsuit is modified Large full plate, whose only drawback is that it might not fit in some places. (You can certainly build a leather steamsuit, or multiple steamsuits, but you can only operate one at a time.)

A steamsuit is inert without a pilot, and since you designed it for yourself only a creature the same size as you can fit into your suit. You can enter or exit a suit by spending 10 feet of movement. Most suits are designed with masterful locking mechanisms which can be opened either by a key as a bonus action, or by a DC 20 thieves’ tools check as an action. When you enter the suit you can lock it without spending an action.

You are restrained and blinded while inside a suit that is deactivated. Activating or deactivating the arcane steam engine takes a bonus action. While the engine is active, you are considered proficient in whatever type of armor the suit is. You have a magical link to your steamsuit, so any magical enchantments on what you’re wearing also apply to the steamsuit’s armor. Your steamsuit will typically have hands, so it can wield weapons. If you have a magic weapon, it can wield that weapon, or if it has the same type of weapon and you have the weapon on your person while inside the suit, the weapon the suit wields benefits from that enchantment.

As long as the engine is active, you must maintain the power matrix. As creator of the suit your magical link lets you do this without spending an action as long as you’re inside the suit, even if you’re incapacitated . If anyone else is in the suit, they must make a DC 15 Intelligence check at the start of each turn or else be restrained and unable to use any of the suit’s powers until the start of their next turn.

While in your suit, your Strength score is increased to 19, or to 23 if you are proficient in the type of armor the suit is made out of (i.e., you don’t need the suit to do as much work for you), unless your Strength is already higher. You have double the lifting capacity of a normal creature your size with that Strength. Your suit doesn’t count toward your encumbrance.

You are considered proficient with your suit’s unarmed attacks, which deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage.

At the end of your turn, if you took damage since your last turn while in the suit, make an Intelligence saving throw (DC 10) to keep the suit’s power matrix stable. If you fail three saves, the engine enters a safe mode. This reduces your Strength to its normal amount, imposes a –2 penalty on AC and Dexterity saving throws , and prevents you from taking reactions that require movement. You can repair the suit during a short or long rest .

Personal Touches

Choose up to ten objects that can be held in one hand (or two-handed objects, which take up two “slots”). You integrate these objects into your suit and can retrieve them and swap between them without limit on your turn, plus they can be hidden from casual view. Sure, it’s obvious you’re in a a halfton clanking shell of steel, but your enemies won’t know you’ve got a shotgun, a musket, a shield, a lantern, a portable ram, and a pair of integrated scimitars. You can still only make use of two hands’ worth of weapons or shields at a time.

Additionally, choose a 1st level spell from the wizard spell list, as long as it does not require an expensive material component. You can use the suit to cast that spell one time, using your Intelligence as the spellcasting ability. Afterward you cannot use it to cast that spell again until you finish a short rest .

At 2nd level, add a 2nd level wizard spell to your capabilities, and at 3rd level add a 3rd level wizard spell. You can cast each spell once between short or long rests.

If a spell the suit casts has the duration of concentration , whenever you take damage you may make an Intelligence saving throw instead of Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration.

Power Fist

Steam pistons in your suit’s arm can launch a devastating punch. When you hit an enemy with your suit’s unarmed strike, you can trigger the power  fist. The attack deals an extra 1d6 damage, and the target must make a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency modifier + your Intelligence modifier) or else be shoved 10 feet. You can only use this ability once per turn, and you cannot use it if your suit is in safe mode.

Defensive Shield

You can enhance your armor’s resilience with charged wards with limited duration. As a bonus action choose a damage type and gain resistance to that damage type until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this ability if your suit is in safe mode.

Matrix Stability

If your suit goes into safe mode, you can repair it by spending an action.

Redline Rush

On your turn you can overheat your engine to increase your suit’s speed. You double your walking speed for the turn and gain a +5 bonus to all Acrobatics and Athletics checks during this movement. This destabilizes the engine as if you had taken damage, forcing you to make an Intelligence save at the end of your turn, in addition to any save you’d normally make due to taking damage. You cannot use this ability if your suit is in safe mode.

Quick-Don

Without spending an action, you can cause your suit to magically collapse into a mechanical object that fits into your palm and weighs only five pounds. You can spend an action or bonus action to cause this object to transform into your suit, and may have the suit form around you and activate the engine. It thus becomes relatively easy to have multiple suits for different occasions.

Ballistics is a science. Angle, velocity, force—all these can be calculated and refined for the perfect shot. Medicine is likewise a science. Arteries, ligaments, organs—damage to these in varying intensities cause readily-measured negative consequences to the injured party. Similarly the kinetics of motion, the materials science of armor and weapon, even the nascent study of psychology and sociology all can lend understanding to the complex system that is a battle.

As a polyhistor you are well-learned, versed in an expansive list of sciences, all with a focus on their relation to warfare and combat. Using your diverse knowledge and your keen intellect you can compose at a moment’s notice the ideal method of attack for any situation. Of course, sometimes an immediate attack is not optimal. Better perhaps to observe a foe’s patterns, and to let him leave an opening you can exploit

Prerequisite: At least one savant level or Martial Studies feat, proficient in Culture, character level 7th; must have contacts with a college, university, or military academy.

Features

Hit Dice: 1d10 per polyhistor level.

Hit Points: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per polyhistor level.

Studied Proficiency

You are proficient in all weapons. For your Martial Studies feat, you can prepare two techniques after you complete a long rest , but one must be either experimental strike or committee defense.

Combat Focus

At the end of your turn, if in the past round you took a hostile action against a foe, a foe took hostile action against you, or you witnessed a foe taking or receiving hostile action, you gain 1 focus, to a maximum of five. Whenever five minutes pass without you gaining any focus, your focus resets to however many levels you have in this prestige class (1, 2, or 3).

You can use focus to temporarily access combat feats and gain other benefits.

Adaptive Style

You have learned a diverse set of fighting styles, and while you are master of none, as you gain insight into a battle you can discern moments where such techniques could be useful.

During your turn, you can spend 1 focus to gain the benefits of a combat feat. You must meet any prerequisites, and the feat must provide some benefit during combat and not provide an ability score increase. Whether a feat qualifies is at the Narrator’s discretion.

(If you’re playing Level Up, consider that you can use this ability to temporarily acquire new combat maneuvers via the feat Martial Scholar.)

You can gain access to up to two bonus feats this way at a time, which last until the end of combat, to a maximum of five minutes.

Inner Defenses

You have devised techniques to recognize mental threats and divert them. Whenever you need to make a saving throw , you can spend 1 focus to become proficient in that type of save until the end of the combat (to a maximum of five minutes).

Perfect Aim

If you have advantage on an attack roll and you hit with both attack rolls , you can spend 2 focus to treat the attack as a critical hit.

Cunning Defense

You can anticipate your enemy’s moves, plotting out strikes, parries, and ripostes like gambits on a chessboard. You can replace your Dexterity modifier with your proficiency bonus when calculating your Armor Class.

Masterstroke

It is mentally exhausting, but you can use your considerable intellect to compose the perfect attack amidst the seeming randomness of battle. As an action, you can study the battlefield. Then until the end of your next turn you have advantage on all attack rolls, and if the unmodified die roll of an attack you make is 12 or lower, treat it as if you had rolled a natural 13. Additionally until the end of your next turn, your polyhistor abilities do not cost focus to use.

After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest .