Before the domain, there was just someone who noticed. Who tracked the person at the edge of the group — the one not quite laughing along, the one who drifted back when the danger passed. The instinct was not heroism. It was maintenance: an ongoing, low-level monitoring of the room, making sure no one was being overlooked.
The Breath Link is the mechanisation of that instinct. The two-link cap is the mechanisation of its cost — this cleric can hold most of the party, but not all of it. Someone is always left out. That is the mechanic because it was already true.
The domain's central mechanic is the Breath Link: breath shared out across the party — a living line of ambient awareness and small gifts, freely given, persistent until severed. What travels it is presence, not power. Up to two may be held at once — at a standard party size, someone is always left out, and that scarcity is the mechanic.
The Anchor. Whoever does the work of forging and curating the network is called the Anchor. At Level 3, the cleric is the Anchor. From Level 4, when the Aspect's Bond forms, the role transfers: the cleric's wide reach narrows into devotion to one person, and the community-building hand passes to the Bond's Anchor. If no Bond is active, the cleric is again the Anchor and may forge links normally.
| Level | Name | Network | Core Abilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lv. 3 | The First Breath | Touch to forge; 2 links max; unlimited range once forged | Felt Presence · Steadied by the Link (adv vs Frightened) · Felt Across the Distance · Into the Brace (Reaction, CD, halve damage) |
| Lv. 6 | The Breath Between | 30 ft range; prior touch required | Wordless Impressions (emotional texture) · Conduit (object transfer, 60 ft, no LoS) |
| Lv. 17 | The Last Breath | — | Catch: Stasis instead of 0 HP; exits at 1 HP after 2 rounds; once per creature per long rest |
At Level 3 the cleric is the Anchor: the one who forges the network and keeps it open. A touch leaves a link behind — the first breath shared out — and through it the cleric feels the others: their direction, their distress, the half-instant before a blow lands. The reach is unlimited once made; the hands are not. Two links at a time, and someone is always left outside the breath.
As a
A Breath-linked creature may use their
All network members sense one another through the link — a vague awareness of direction and proximity. Not exact location, not identity beyond who is already known to be linked. A felt sense of that way. When the network shatters, this awareness simply fades — an absence where there had been company. The link is invisible to outsiders; Detect Magic registers something vague between linked creatures but reveals nothing of structure or mechanics.
While Breath-linked, a creature has
You sense through the network at all times — a sense that is yours alone and does not pass with the Anchor role. Whenever a Breath-linked creature is hurt, you feel it: not numbers, just impact, direction, severity, distress. Distance is no barrier to this. If a linked creature is harmed, you know the moment it happens, however far away you are.
Nearer to you, the sense gains an edge. Within
Feeling the blow is not the same as meeting it. When you feel a Breath-linked creature
The cleric keeps no sense of their own in reserve. They borrow everyone else's — and only as far as the breath still reaches.
What the cleric cannot feel, they cannot catch. If the creature is unaware of the blow and the cleric cannot see it, there is no brace to step into — the hit lands. Beyond 60 feet the same is true for a different reason: the network carries the distress, but too dull and too late to act on. In both cases the cleric feels the harm afterward, like any blow that finds someone they are tied to.
Strictly, the call comes as the blow lands, before its number is known. In practice it plays cleaner to let it come once the damage is announced — allow either. What stays fixed is the sense: something has to register the blow coming, or there is nothing to step into.
| Cleric Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | Bless, Heroism |
| 3rd | Aid, Calm Emotions |
| 5th | Beacon of Hope, Aura of Vitality |
| 7th | Death Ward, Aura of Purity |
| 9th | Greater Restoration, Rary's Telepathic Bond |
At Level 3 the breath was the cleric's own, a sense reaching outward. Now it passes between. A link re-forms across distance; the emotional weather of the bound travels alongside the old directional sense; a held object crosses to whoever needs it. Nothing new is added — the breath has only learned to carry.
The Anchor may establish a Breath Link as a
The network's awareness deepens. Emotional texture now travels alongside the directional sense from Level 3 — only what the body cannot conceal. A mood. A weight. A separated party member's fear reaches the others before any signal could. Words, images, thought, and intent do not pass through; the network carries presence, not message.
As an
The monitoring instinct reaches its limit and refuses it. When a linked creature would drop — even to something that would kill outright — the cleric can hold them suspended, untouchable, just beyond death's reach, and return them a breath later. Not a healing. A refusal to let go, for two rounds.
When a Breath-linked creature would be reduced to
Stasis lasts
While in Stasis. The creature is suspended — aware, but unable to act or speak. Something reaches them from outside: steady, wordless, not urgent.
this is the same Stasis described in the Aspect section. The experience notes there apply generally, except that the Stased creature cannot push impressions outward (that requires an active Bond). Everything else — including what the outside character feels through the connection — applies as written.
If the Domain is breath — shared out, airy, spread thin across a whole party — the Aspect is that same breath gone into the blood: heavier, singular, kept in one body and not given back. It is the turn from reaching toward many to binding utterly to one.
A cleric naturally has breadth — a wide spell list, abilities across roles. The Domain is already a specialization, but a clean one: it adds without taking away. The Aspect goes further. It narrows the cleric's spell access to what the domain truly represents, leans fully into its spirit, and attaches the Flaw — rule-enforced compulsions that come with that commitment. The Domain alone is already complete; the Aspect is how far this character is willing to go.
Someone who learned early that closeness had to be earned through utility — give before asked, absorb before offered. The Breath Link was already the shape of that reaching; the magic just gave it a name.
The Aspect arrived and narrowed it — breath into blood, the many into the one. The compulsion to protect everyone became the compulsion to protect this one, formalized into rules: a damage type, a Saving Throw, a range in feet. It offered exactly what they had always wanted — permanence, inescapability — and folded the disaster inside the gift. They will not understand the full cost until they find that being unreachable in Stasis is the most rest they have ever had.
The cleric's magic should protect, sustain, or connect — not harm or diminish. The test: could this spell flow through a Breath Link? Bless can. Hold Person cannot.
Abjuration and enchantment on the cleric and paladin lists are a natural starting point — that's where most of it lives. But anything fitting the intent qualifies; the schools are a direction, not a fence. A campaign may relax this restriction, but this is the version that holds together.
The Flaw — Mechanics make the character fail saves, shatter bonds, freeze when their Anchor walks away. No opting out at the table.
The Spell Restriction — The cleric draws from a narrow field: protection, sustain, connection. Damage and coercion were never learned.
The Psychology — This is a specific kind of person to play. The rules don't enforce the characterization, but it is part of the package.
| Level | Name | Bond Mechanic | Core Ability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lv. 4 | The Anchoring | Touch to establish; 60 ft range | Life Transfer: intercept Anchor's damage as Psychic; Bond shatters on extreme hits |
| Lv. 6 | The Wellspring | 30 ft range (prior touch required) | Well absorbs Life Transfer first; collapses on voluntary breaks; death save adv. while non-empty |
| Lv. 8 | The Eternal Tether | Permanent; no range limit — via The Asking | Stasis replaces 0 HP; Resonance + Shared Fortitude; risk of Eternal Stasis |
| Flaw | Hollow Without You | Aspect-granted; always active | Compulsive Sacrifice · Ache of Absence · Separation Anxiety · The Secret |
The breath narrows. The wide, airy reach of the network — spread thin across many — collapses here into a single line to one person, and takes on weight. The cleric steps in front of what would have struck them and pays its price in their own body: in blood, where before there was only breath.
As an
The fixed point that steadies the cleric, and the weight that holds them in place.
The Bond persists as long as you remain conscious, the Anchor is alive, and neither of you is more than
When your Anchor takes damage, you may use your
This is visible. The cleric flinches, pales, takes the blow into a body that was never touched — while the Anchor feels nothing. Witnesses who notice this pattern consistently may eventually piece it together — triggering discovery consequences under The Secret.
If intercepted damage exceeds
This fear is not rational. That is the point.
At Level 8, the Permanent Bond cannot be shattered — but the Frightened condition still triggers. The tether holds. The cleric is afraid of the person they cannot leave.
While the Bond is active, the Anchor takes over the Breath Link network. You can no longer forge Breath Links. Only the Anchor can.
If the Bond breaks, all Breath Links shatter.
The Bond deepens. Proximity is no longer needed to begin one — and the cleric learns to open a well between themselves and the Anchor: a reserve of shared lifeblood, drawn from them both and held in common, spent down and refilled. What was paid from the body now has somewhere to gather first.
You may establish the Bond as an
You carry a
When Life Transfer triggers, damage is drawn from the
Either bonded character may donate up to their
Either bonded character may withdraw up to their
The Well is a shared reserve — both characters choose whether to spend it offensively (buffering Life Transfer) or defensively (spot healing in a pinch).
If the Bond breaks while the Well holds any HP, both you and the former Anchor immediately take
Collapse triggers on:
Collapse does not trigger if you dissolve the Bond and establish a new one in the same Action — the Well carries across intact. Breath Links shatter regardless; the new Anchor rebuilds the network from scratch. Collapse also does not trigger on involuntary breaks from outside forces (enemy dispels, forced movement, environmental effects). It is reserved for breaks that come from within.
A cleric who needs to switch Anchors mid-combat can do so freely — but one who simply lets go, with no one to reach toward, pays the price of that emptiness.
While the Well holds at least
The connection is a lifeline in more ways than one.
The Bond stops being a choice. The line that grounded them pulls taut and sets — iron run through them both now, permanent, unbreakable by distance or circumstance. What the anchor began, the tether finishes. There is no letting go from here.
Leveling up unlocks the ability to perform
Once permanent: the Bond persists regardless of distance, unconsciousness, or temporary death states. It cannot be broken by outside forces.
The cleric must have an active Bond before beginning. The ritual transforms an existing Bond — it cannot create a new one.
The cleric initiates by making a small wound on their palm and extending their open hand toward the Anchor without a word. If the Anchor takes the hand and mirrors the wound — blood meeting blood, the same lifeblood the well already holds between them — the ritual begins. Neither character needs to understand what is happening. One of them does.
The cleric then performs a gesture of their choosing — tracing a symbol on the Anchor's wrist, pressing joined hands to their chest, holding the silence. What matters is that it feels like a threshold. Something offered that cannot be taken back. There are no words, because the cleric cannot speak the truth of what this is.
Then the cleric goes still. And waits.
The ritual completes when the Anchor, of their own will, asks the cleric something personal — directed at them, about them, for them. Not logistics. Not tactics. Something that treats the cleric as a person whose inner life matters. If the Anchor doesn't ask — pulls away, fills the silence, or simply doesn't — the ritual quietly fails. No penalty. The cleric's hand closes around nothing, and the night continues.
If the Anchor has previously discovered the Flaw and requires verbal consent to form a Bond, the personal question during The Asking serves as that consent.
The Anchor does not need to know what they agreed to. They only need to ask. What the Anchor reads in the cleric's face in that moment — the relief, the grief, the gratitude — is all the truth they are going to get. It has always been enough for people to look at this cleric and not quite understand what they are seeing, and decide to stay anyway.
Both bonded characters add the other character's
Once per
When either bonded character reaches
If both bonded characters would be reduced to 0 HP by the
The Stased character is present and aware — held, unable to act or reach anyone. Whatever was pressing before grows distant. Something reaches them from outside: presence. Not urgency. Weight that expects nothing in return.
If the Stased character has an active Bond, they may push impressions outward through it — not words or images, but emotional texture. Calm. Waiting. They cannot demand, warn, or instruct. Whatever they emit arrives as mood, not message.
For the cleric: the monitoring stops. The Anchor exists somewhere beyond reach — warm, continuous — and the cleric cannot lose them from here, cannot fail them, cannot perform. They would describe it later, if asked, as restful. Which is the most complicated thing they could say.
If you are the Stased character, you may choose to emit not yet — meaning: I am safe here; the cost of reaching in is real; wait. This is a choice, not a feature of Stasis itself. You know what Breaking Stasis costs. Whether you want to be retrieved, and when, is yours to decide.
The connection changes texture — two-way current becomes one-directional. The Stased character is present but unreachable.
The connection communicates this without words. It always has.
You could say: “Something is waiting for you. Not urgency. Not pain. Weight.” Through the connection, the outside character understands instinctively that reaching in will cost something real.
A bonded character uses their
Breaking Stasis mid-combat is almost never the correct decision. The Stased character is immune to all damage and untargetable — safer inside Stasis than anywhere on the battlefield. The risk: if the rescuer takes more damage than their remaining HP, they enter Stasis themselves. If the now-freed character then drops to 0, both are in Stasis simultaneously — Eternal Stasis. Before attempting rescue, confirm your HP comfortably exceeds the maximum possible cost (30 + CON modifier).
The bond's felt weight during Stasis is itself a warning. Trust it.
If both bonded characters are in Stasis simultaneously, neither can rescue the other. They persist indefinitely —
A DC 30 ritual with rare, specific components (DM-determined) may free them. Each linked member who joins the ritual lessens its difficulty, at the DM's discretion. Even so, the ritual is a kindness, not a given.
This is not a tragedy that announces itself. It arrives like a held breath — and waits.
What Eternal Stasis feels like from the inside is deliberately left undefined. Neither character can ever report it. The network registers them as present — direction, faint weight, the slow steady pulse of two people who have not let go. What the party makes of that, what they build around it, is not for the rules to say.
The Aspect did not give the cleric their abilities cleanly. It revealed the pattern already there and made it mechanical: the permanent counterweight to all three Bond abilities. The Flaw has four manifestations — each covering a different context, ensuring the cleric cannot optimise around it.
When your Anchor takes damage and you are within range and able to trigger Life Transfer, you must make a
This is not a decision. It never was.
The Bond requires the Anchor to ask you something personal at least once per long rest — your opinion, your feelings, whether you are alright. A logistical question does not qualify. If a long rest passes without it, the Bond breaks silently at dawn.
While no Bond is active:
The cleric cannot ask for this question. Asking dissolves the thing they need. They have to wait. They are very good at waiting.
While bonded, if the Anchor has been more than
Note: Frightened prevents willingly moving closer to the fear's source — you freeze rather than pursue.
The person they fear losing most is the one who locks them in place by walking away.
At Level 8, the Permanent Bond removes the distance-break condition, so the Bond never shatters — but Separation Anxiety still fires. The cleric will periodically become frightened of their bonded partner whenever they step too far away, save out of it after a turn or two, and carry on. This is not a bug.
You cannot directly explain the Flaw — the compulsions, the bond, the need — to anyone. If you attempt to, you are immediately
If an Anchor discovers the Flaw on their own — witnesses Compulsive Sacrifice trigger, pieces together the pattern, or you confess despite the silence — the Bond's dynamic shifts permanently. From that point, you cannot establish the Bond with that Anchor unilaterally: the Anchor must
The cleric used to be able to simply reach out and take the connection. Now they have to ask for it, without being able to explain why, and wait to see if the answer is yes.