The fifth image in the series is dedicated to Arcanos Inhabit. The ability to manipulate and control inanimate objects, as well as transform unfortunate souls into various interesting things.
I like how "Guildbook: Artificers" shows different sides of this Arcanos, demonstrating both the ancient art of blacksmithing and modern electronics management, and something in between. It's amazing. I wanted to depict the various aspects of this Arcanos.
Here I turned to my best friend's OC, @tomatikoma thank you for the wonderful blacksmith.
You know how there was that debate a while back about people with disabilities in fantasy worlds? How everyone complained that dungeons wouldn't be handicap accessible? Why did no one raise the obvious solution of enchanted leg armor or mobility chairs with all-terrain war forged spider legs? We already have some of the tech in real life.
It adds flavor to a character and lets any artificers in your party have something to tinker with during long rests. At higher levels your party could customize the mobility gear to shoot fire or climb walls or whatever.
Okay, so the basic impetus of this was the idea that artificers are the mad scientists of the D&D world, and who is the archetypal mad scientist in fiction? Obviously, Frankenstein. But I kinda didn’t want to do a subclass based around golems/homunculi/zombies, because the Battlesmith artificer already exists and what would a golem be but a more squelchy Steel Defender? (Also, being honest, I didn’t want to do the stat block). So I kinda shifted away from ‘creating a monster of stitched corpses’ and more towards biopunk, alteration, ‘the body as a machine’. Artificers are tinkerers, after all. Although I’ve possibly veered back towards the Alchemist instead while I was at it? Eh.
ARTIFICER SPECIALIST: FLESHWEAVER
A Fleshweaver is an artificer who has realised that the body is merely another device, an object to be imbued, altered, fine-tuned and perfected. Or, should the occasion call for it, perhaps disrupted and sent into disrepair. Fleshweavers specialise in the use of tools and magic to alter and imbue the physical form directly. They are tinkerers of the flesh, and perfecters of the physical form.
TOOL PROFICIENCY
When you adopt this specialization at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with weaver’s tools. If you already have this proficiency, you gain proficiency with one other type of artisan's tools of your choice.
FLESHWEAVER SPELLS
Starting at 3rd level, you always have certain spells prepared after you reach particular levels in this class, as shown in the Fleshweaver Spells table. These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don't count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.
Fleshweaver Spells
Artificer Level Spells
3rd Cure Wounds, False Life
5th Aid, Enhance Ability
9th Haste, Revivify
13th Death Ward, Polymorph
17th Contagion, Greater Restoration
BODILY ALTERATIONS
At 3rd level, you figure out how to translate your observations on the biological machine into magical alterations. As an action, with your weaver’s tools in hand, you can touch a willing creature (including yourself) and temporarily alter their physical form, perhaps by altering their limbs, organs or bodily composition, to produce one of the following effects:
You grant the creature darkvision for a number of hours equal to your Intelligence modifier. If the creature already has darkvision, you increase the range of their darkvision by 30ft for the same duration.
You grant the creature advantage on all perception checks for 1 hour.
You double the creature’s walking speed for 10 minutes.
You grant the creature a swimming speed equal to their walking speed and the ability to breathe underwater for 1 hour.
Once you have used this feature, you cannot do so again until you have finished a long rest.
When you reach certain levels in this class, you gain additional uses of this ability per long rest: two total at 6th level, three total at 13th level, and four total at 17th level. An individual creature can only endure one alteration before finishing a long rest, so additional uses must be on a different creature each time.
HOSTILE ALTERATION
At 5th level, you figure out how to disrupt the bodies of your enemies if they are in contact with you or your magic. Whenever you hit a creature with a weapon or deal damage to them with a spell cast with your weaver’s tools as a focus, you can force them to make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the creature has disadvantage on all Strength, Dexterity and Constitution saves until the end of your next turn.
EXPERT ALTERATIONS
Starting at 9th level, you gain the ability to perform more advanced Bodily Alterations. When you touch a creature and subject them to your Bodily Alteration, you can choose one of the following more advanced effects instead:
You grant the creature blindsight to a range of 30ft for 10 minutes.
You grant the creature a flying speed equal to its walking speed for 1 hour.
You grant the creature resistance to one damage type of your choice for 1 minute.
You grant the creature a limited regenerative ability for 1 minute: at the start of their turn, they regain a number of hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier, as long as they have at least 1 hit point and have not taken fire damage within the last round.
SYMPATHETIC ALTERATION
At 15th level, your magic has suffused your own body to its core, with the following implications:
Your body can accept multiple Bodily Alterations per long rest.
Whenever you touch another creature and grant them a Bodily Alteration, you can grant yourself the same alteration as part of the same action and use of the ability.
[ID: a digital pencil sketch of three pieces of artificer’s equipment. the one at the top is a flamethrower made of brass and a glass vial of green liquid, strapped to a person’s arm over her olive green jacket. The second is a triangular green gem strapped to the person’s palm with leather studded straps. The third is a row of green vials attached to the person’s boot at the heel. The boot is black, and her pants are gray. The attachment is made of brown studded leather, similar to the hand straps. end ID]
Piper’s Artificer Spells
I’m playing a grumpy Eberron war vet artificer in my DnD campaign, so figured I would try to visualize what some of her spell equipment looks like! (I’m only level 2, so nothing fancy yet).
Piper Warren’s a very non-nonsense, no-frills person with a brown and green color scheme, so I tried to stick to that. (While also giving myself some glowy stuff, because I deserve it).
