College of Existentialism

Life is terrifying, hard, and short. Thoughts of what lies beyond fill your sleepless nights and pervade your waking nightmares. Gut wrenching fear as taken a hold of your heart, and it refuses to let go. Maybe you want it to go away. Or maybe you want to share your realization with the world, whatever way possible. Regardless, you have taken to the arts as a tool and an outlet for these thoughts.

The College of Existentialism is perhaps one of the oddest. People of all walks, all social classes, all creeds and nations will join the college as a way to vent these feeling of hopelessness. At any given meeting of members, you may find a young farmer sharing a joke with an old wealthy aristocrat, or the patriotic owner of the local pub comforting a foreigner who barely speaks the local tongue. Because of this, the College of Existentialism is perhaps the least formal of all the colleges, yet the most close knit. Everyone leans on each other for support, and the college holds itself together in defiance of the void.

The ultimate goal for most members of the college is to craft works of art that perfectly capture, or fight against, the creeping angst that permeates themselves. The greatest bards of this college can bring people to frightful tears with just a sentence, save the suicidal, or anything in between. For they truly understand suffering. And, so shall you.

Word of Terror When you join this college at 3rd level, you learn the viscous mockery cantrip if you do not already know it. If you already know it, you may choose one other bard cantrip, so long as it as a verbal component.

Spread the Dread Also at 3rd level, you have learned how to invoke existential terror in your art. As an action, you may expend one of your bardic inspiration to force one creature you can see to make a wisdom saving throw against your bard spell DC, as you share your fears with them. On a failure, they are frightened of everything for one minute. They may repeat the saving throw at the end of each of their turns. They may use their action to close their eyes and calm themself, giving them advantage on their roll.