The Night Domain (Cleric)
“You merely adopted the darkness. I was born in it — molded by it.”
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Spells: Chilling Darkness, Shadow Lance
Art Credit: https://www.artofmtg.com/art/author-of-shadows/
The deeper the darkness, the more primal fear it typically inspires. But while most choose to ward off the darkness with campfires and twilight, there are some who thrive in the darkness — or even worship it. Rather than relying on armor or weapons, these dark-dwellers trust that the cloak of night will protect them and that the arrows of umbral fear will pierce the hearts of their enemies. If the existing options for clerics such as Twilight or Death just aren’t quite right for your cleric of darkness (for either mechanics, balance, or flavor reasons), then you might appreciate D&D Unleashed’s new preview from The Impermissicon, the upcoming compendium of homebrew content themed around forbidden and dangerous magic and lore: the Night Domain cleric subclass for D&D 5th Edition.
The Night Domain cleric was originally designed to be a more generalized darkness-focused cleric subclass, but when Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything released the Twilight Domain, we adapted our revisions for the Night Domain to help differentiate it from the Twilight Domain. The Twilight Domain fills a specific thematic and mechanical role that allows the space for the Night Domain to continue to exist; otherwise, we wouldn’t release the Night Domain at all. A decent amount of the content that we originally made as homebrew and planned to release has been cut from release because official content was published that superseded it, and we would have had no issues doing so with this subclass as well if it became obsolete.
Instead, the Night Domain leans into the unarmored-cantrip-user side of cleric subclasses and focuses on pure darkness, snuffing out light, debilitating their enemies, and spreading fear. In this way, it distinguishes itself directly from the Twilight Domain, a subclass that leans into the martial armored-weapon-user side of clerics and focuses on preserving traces of dim light, buffing and protecting allies, and warding against fear. The Night Domain often serves well for villainous or evil NPCs (or even PCs), but it can also be used for characters that are drawn in moral shades of grey: either clerics of a misunderstood god that sometimes uses fear and shadow in the style of the Oath of Shadows, or conflicted worshippers of a malevolent god of darkness that are disagree with their god’s morality but can’t bring themselves to discard the faith of their community, their loved ones, and the one that protects them.
If you don’t have access to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, the new compendium will also provide a list of replacement spells for spells from that book which you can use in spell lists that reference them. For the Night Domain’s spell list, you can use the new blackout spell in place of cause fear, and you can use Evard’s black tentacles instead of shadow of Moil.
A special mention goes to author Ursula K. Le Guin for The Tombs of Atuan, for the amazing depiction of a priest of terrifying darkness that she gave us within that classic book.
PDF Link | D&D Beyond Link
Spells: Chilling Darkness, Shadow Lance
