Identity
Salt Druids draw a single bright line from a tide-pool to the high vacuum. Their teaching is that salt is salt — that the body of brine that bears a Norskan longship and the rime of mineral crust on the outside of a Halcyion station's airlock are the same substance in different phases of cosmic weather. Aesir and Njordir bloodlines are over-represented in the Circle; so are Aurelion void-monks and Frontier asteroid prospectors who never quite came back the same. The Circle preserves. The Circle drowns the things that should drown.
Features
- L3 Sea-Bond
You gain a swim speed equal to your walking speed and you can breathe water as easily as air. You gain resistance to cold damage. You take no penalty for performing strenuous activity in water of any pressure short of crush-depth, and you ignore the visibility penalty of murky water out to 60 ft. Additionally, salt is an active material to you: you can sense the presence of significant salt (any body of water with notable salinity, salt deposits, rime, salted ash) within 60 ft, and you may treat ordinary handfuls of salt as a usable channel focus and material catalyst for any Druid channel that would otherwise call for a material catalyst of up to 25 credits in value.
- L7 Voidwalker
Your bond to salt extends past the atmosphere. You no longer take damage from exposure to hard vacuum, near-vacuum, or extreme cold of natural cosmic origin (you still take damage from active cold-damage attacks). You do not need to breathe in vacuum and can speak normally (your voice carries through your channeling field; Druidic and any spoken languages you know can be heard by creatures within 30 ft who are themselves in atmosphere, suit, or vacuum). You gain a flying speed of 30 ft (hover) usable only in zero-gravity, low-gravity, or vacuum conditions. You also gain advantage on Acrobatics checks made to navigate zero-G environments, and you ignore the standard maneuverability penalty for unsuited vacuum activity.
- L11 Salt Ward
You may, as an action and the expenditure of a channel slot of 1st level or higher, lay a Salt Ward in a 10-ft-radius emanation around a point you touch. The ward lasts 1 hour. While the ward is active: • Undead, fiends, and corrupted-Rift creatures (GM call; includes Myrrhiam-converted creatures with active Bloom-link) take 2d8 radiant damage when they enter the area for the first time on a turn or start their turn there, and have disadvantage on saves against your channels while inside it. • Living allies in the ward have resistance to necrotic damage, immunity to the effects of natural decay (food does not spoil, wounds do not infect), and advantage on saves against being Charmed or possessed. • You and any willing creature in the ward may remain motionless within it as if Subject to time-slowed preservation: you do not need to eat, drink, or breathe while wholly within the ward, and aging effects are suspended (the ward does not extend lifespan; it pauses the count while active). A Salt Ward is destroyed early if the salt circle marking it is broken, the ward is dispelled, or you cast another Salt Ward (you may have only one active at a time). Casting at a slot level higher than 1st extends the radius by 5 ft per level above 1st, to a maximum of 30 ft.
- L15 Tide Mastery
Your work with Water-school channels has become reflexive and efficient. Water-Rifting channels that you cast have their channel slot cost reduced by one level when cast (a 3rd-level Water channel may be cast using a 2nd-level slot, a 1st-level Water channel may be cast at-will up to a number of times per long rest equal to your WIS modifier without expending a slot at all; 6th-level and higher Water channels are unaffected by the reduction). Additionally, when you cast a channel that deals cold or kinetic damage, you may reroll one damage die per casting; you must keep the new result. Finally, you can speak with creatures of the sea and the void — fish, cetaceans, void-adapted lifeforms, certain old vacuum-ghosts — as if using a permanent low-grade speak-with-animals channel for water- and vacuum-native creatures.
- L18 Salt of the Stars
Once per long rest, as an action, you become a moving column of brine and starlight for 1 minute. While in Salt of the Stars form: • You have resistance to all damage except fire and radiant. • You have a flying (hover) speed of 60 ft, usable in atmosphere, water, and vacuum alike. • You ignore the effects of pressure, vacuum, and extreme cold, and creatures of the type undead or fiend within 30 ft of you have disadvantage on attack rolls against you. • Once per turn, when you cast a channel that targets one or more creatures, choose one of: each hostile target takes an additional 2d10 cold or radiant damage (your choice) on a failed save against the channel; or each ally target gains 2d10 + your WIS modifier temporary HP. • While the form is active, you may cast Water-school channels of 5th level or lower with a casting time of 1 action as a bonus action instead (up to once per turn). The form ends early if you are reduced to 0 HP.