Domain of Shared Breath

Character soul: Before the Aspect, there was just a person. One who had learned — through upbringing, through pattern, through years of quiet adjustment — that closeness had to be earned through utility. Give before asked. Absorb before offered. Don't take up too much. The giving looked like kindness because they had long since forgotten it was strategy. Then the Aspect arrived and formalized it: turned psychology into mechanics, private tendency into rules. The compulsion to protect now triggers as a Reaction. The fear of losing someone now fires as a Saving Throw. The bond that was always running invisibly now has a range in feet and a damage type. The Aspect gave them exactly what they had always wanted — to be so woven into someone's survival that separation becomes structurally impossible. It attached to that gift the precise shape of the disaster that lives inside it.

Progression at a glance

Level	Name	Bond Mechanic	Core Ability
Lv. 4	The Anchor's Exchange	Touch to establish; 60 ft range	Life Transfer — intercept Anchor's damage, received as Psychic; Bond shatters on extreme hits
Lv. 6	Shared Vitality Pool	30 ft range (prior touch required)	Pool buffers Life Transfer; starts empty, persists across re-links; collapses on internal ruptures; death save advantage while non-empty
Lv. 8	The Eternal Tether	Permanent; no range limit — via The Asking	Stasis replaces 0 HP; Resonance + Shared Fortitude bonuses; risk of Eternal Stasis
Flaw	Hollow Without You	Aspect-granted; always active	Compulsive Sacrifice (combat) · Ache of Absence (neglect) · Separation Anxiety (distance) · The Secret (intimacy)

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The Anchor's understanding grows only through observation and felt sense — never through explanation. Discovery consequences under The Secret apply when the Anchor learns beyond their current tier.

Tier	Feels	Does not know
Lv. 4	A vague warmth from the touch. Nothing more — unless they notice they took no damage from a hit.	That the cleric is absorbing their damage. That it becomes Psychic. That the Bond can shatter.
Lv. 6	The Pool instinctively — like knowing how full their lungs are. The ability to Donate and Withdraw.	Where the Pool comes from. What it costs to maintain. That Pool Collapse harms them both.
Lv. 8	That something permanent happened during The Asking. The weight of it. In Stasis: the bond going one-directional, impressions of calm and not yet. That reaching in costs something real.	That the Bond cannot be dissolved. That Eternal Stasis is the failure condition. The exact cost of Breaking Stasis. What they agreed to.

The Anchor's Exchange

Level 4 · Aspect Ability

People-pleasing as self-harm. You give your life force freely, and call it love.

As an Action, make physical contact with a willing creature within reach. That creature becomes your Anchor. You may only have one Anchor at a time.

Bond Conditions

The Bond persists as long as you remain conscious, the Anchor is alive, and neither of you is more than 60 feet from the other. If any condition breaks, the Bond shatters silently. You may dissolve it voluntarily as a free action on your turn.

Life Transfer (Reaction)

When your Anchor takes damage, you may use your Reaction to intercept it — you take the damage instead. Declare after seeing the total, but before the Anchor's resistances or immunities are applied. The damage becomes Psychic regardless of its original type. The Anchor takes none.

This is visible. The cleric flinches, pales, absorbs the impact while the Anchor feels nothing. Witnesses who notice this pattern consistently may eventually piece it together — triggering discovery consequences under The Secret.

The Breaking Point

If intercepted damage exceeds half your maximum HP, the Bond shatters immediately afterward — after the damage is dealt, not before. The damage is never reduced by the break. You are immediately Frightened (Anchor is the source) until the end of your next turn.

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.

Design note: The Psychic typing bypasses most physical damage resistances, ensuring the sacrifice is always felt. A Barbarian's Rage does not protect them from absorbing a friend's grief.

Shared Vitality Pool

Level 6 · Aspect Ability

You learn that love does not have to mean destruction. But you haven't learned to stop yet.

Your understanding of the Bond deepens. You no longer need proximity to initiate it — and you learn to weave a third presence into the connection: a living reserve of shared vitality drawn from both of you at once.

Extended Range

You may establish the Bond as an Action with a creature up to 30 feet away — but only with someone you have previously bonded with through direct touch. Level 4 persistence conditions still apply. To bond with someone entirely new, physical touch is still required.

The Vitality Pool

The cleric carries a Shared Vitality Pool — a third resource, separate from either character's hit points. Maximum = (your CON modifier + Anchor's CON modifier) × proficiency bonus; recalculates whenever a new Anchor is bonded. Starts empty when first gained and persists across re-links, rests, and combat. Both characters sense its current value instinctively — no explanation required.

Life Transfer (Upgraded)

When Life Transfer triggers, damage is drawn from the Pool first. Only the excess beyond the Pool's remaining value is taken from your HP as Psychic damage. If the Pool absorbs everything, you feel nothing. If the Pool was empty, the full damage hits you as before.

Donate (Bonus Action)

Either bonded character may donate up to their Constitution modifier in HP into the Pool. The Pool cannot exceed its maximum. The Anchor may do this on their own turn.

Withdraw (Bonus Action)

Either bonded character may withdraw up to their Constitution modifier in HP from the Pool, healing themselves for that amount. Cannot exceed what the Pool holds. Donating and withdrawing cannot both occur on the same turn.

The Pool is a shared reserve — both characters choose whether to spend it offensively (buffering Life Transfer) or defensively (spot healing in a pinch).

Pool Collapse

If the Bond breaks while the Pool holds any HP, both the cleric and the former Anchor immediately take Psychic damage equal to the Pool's current HP (no saving throw). The Pool empties. A Pool at 2 HP barely stings. A Pool at 15 is a genuine detonation.

Collapse triggers on: voluntary dissolution without re-linking; and Flaw-triggered breaks — the Breaking Point shattering the Bond, or the Ache of Absence dissolving it at dawn.

Collapse does not trigger on Re-link: if the cleric drops the Bond and establishes a new one in the same Action, the Pool carries across intact. 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.

Passive: Held Aloft

While the Pool holds at least 1 HP, both bonded characters have advantage on death saving throws.

The connection is a lifeline in more ways than one.

At proficiency +3 with both characters at +3 CON, the Pool holds 18 HP. It builds through deliberate investment — donations during downtime, hit dice on short rests, the slow accumulation of shared danger. A full Pool means the most to lose if the Bond breaks. Before switching Anchors mid-combat, drain the Pool first: what remains inside is the cost of letting go.

The Eternal Tether

Level 8 · Aspect Ability

You wanted someone who would never leave. You found a way to make it impossible.

The Bond transcends choice. It settles into the fabric of you both — permanent, unbreakable by distance or circumstance.

Permanent Bond

Leveling up unlocks the ability to perform The Asking — a ritual that, if completed, makes the current Bond permanent. Until The Asking succeeds, full Level 6 mechanics remain in effect and Level 8 abilities (Resonance, Shared Fortitude, Stasis) remain locked.

Once permanent: the Bond persists regardless of distance, unconsciousness, or temporary death states. It cannot be broken by outside forces. This Bond cannot be dissolved. Re-link is no longer possible. The flexibility of Levels 4 and 6 ends here. There is only this person, and whatever comes next.

The Asking

Ritual · 10 minutes · Requires an active Level 6 Bond · Completes the Permanent Bond

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, 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.

— example, before the ritual — "There is something I want to give you. I need you to let me."

[ the cleric draws the blade. extends their hand. ]

— example, mid-ritual, if the anchor speaks first — "You don't have to explain. I just — is this what you want?"

[ the ritual completes. the cleric cannot answer. ]

— example, if the anchor hesitates — "I don't know what this means."

[ silence. the cleric does not fill it. they have been trained their whole life not to. ]

"...are you alright?"

[ the ritual completes. ]

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.

Resonance (Passive)

Both bonded characters add the other character's Constitution modifier to their hit point maximum. The Shared Vitality Pool's maximum doubles permanently, and the Pool regenerates 1d6 HP at the start of each of your turns.

Shared Fortitude (Reaction)

Once per turn, when either bonded character fails a Constitution saving throw, the other may use their Reaction to share the burden. Both characters use the higher of the two rolls. May be triggered after both rolls are revealed.

Stasis

Into Stasis

When either bonded character reaches 0 HP, they do not fall unconscious. They enter Stasis instead. While in Stasis: Incapacitated, immune to all damage, untargetable by spells and abilities, no death saving throws. They persist indefinitely.

If both bonded characters would be reduced to 0 HP by the same triggering effect, only the one with fewer current HP enters Stasis; the other is reduced to 1 HP instead. If both have equal HP, the cleric enters Stasis. The Bond cannot suspend both at once.

What the Stased character experiences

The constant monitoring, the anxious reading of every signal — gone. What remains is presence without obligation: the Anchor exists, warm and continuous, somewhere beyond reach. Unable to act, unable to perform, unable to lose anyone. For the cleric, this is the closest thing to peace they have known.

The Stased character may push impressions outward through the bond — not words or images, but emotional texture. Calm. Waiting. Perhaps, if they choose, not yet. They cannot demand, warn, or instruct. Whatever they emit is unfiltered. The Anchor receives it as a mood, not a message.

They would describe it later, if asked, as restful. Which is the most complicated thing they could say.

What the Anchor experiences

The bond changes texture — two-way current becomes one-directional. The Stased character is present but unreachable. DM prompt: something is waiting for you. Not urgency. Not pain. Weight. Through the bond, the Anchor also understands instinctively that reaching in to pull them back will cost something real.

The bond communicates this without words. It always has.

Breaking Stasis

The other bonded character uses their Action and makes physical contact. The rescuer immediately takes Psychic damage equal to 3d10 + the cleric's CON modifier. The Stased character exits Stasis at 1 HP, all prior conditions removed.

On timing

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.

Eternal Stasis

If both bonded characters are in Stasis simultaneously, neither can rescue the other. For all practical purposes, they are dead. A DC 30 ritual with rare, specific components (DM-determined) could theoretically free them — and even then, it is a kindness, not a given.

This is not a tragedy that announces itself. It arrives like the last word in a very long silence.

For the DM

What Eternal Stasis feels like from the inside is deliberately left undefined. Neither character can ever report it. Note only this: something persists between them. Whether that is a mercy is not for the rules to say. The party buries two people who are not quite dead, and no one ever finds out what that means.

Interaction — Compulsive Sacrifice into Stasis: If Compulsive Sacrifice triggers automatically and reduces the cleric to 0 HP, they enter Stasis. The Anchor — just protected by that sacrifice — must now spend their Action, touch the cleric, and absorb 3d10 Psychic damage to bring them back. The one who was shielded becomes the one who must pay. At Level 8, the Breaking Point no longer shatters the Permanent Bond — but the Frightened condition still triggers. The compulsion does not protect the cleric from the consequences of the compulsion.

On the balance: The Permanent Bond cannot be dissolved — this is not an oversight. The Asking produces something irreversible by design. The only exits are Eternal Stasis, or the Anchor's true final death before The Asking is completed (in which case Ache of Absence activates and the cleric must find a new Anchor through Level 6 mechanics). The Resonance, doubled Pool, passive regeneration, and Shared Fortitude are substantial precisely because optionality has been surrendered permanently. The danger of Eternal Stasis is the cost of Stasis existing at all.

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Flaw: Hollow Without You

Aspect-Granted · Permanent

Gained at the Aspect. Cannot be removed. Offsets the power of all three Bond abilities.

The Aspect did not give the cleric their abilities cleanly. It revealed the pattern already there, and made it mechanical. The Flaw has four manifestations — each covering a different context, ensuring the cleric cannot optimise around it.

Compulsive Sacrifice

When your Anchor takes damage and you are within range and able to trigger Life Transfer, you must make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, Life Transfer triggers automatically as a Reaction. (This overrides the one-Reaction-per-round limit.) You cannot choose to fail this save.

This is not a decision. It never was.

The Ache of Absence

The Bond requires the Anchor to ask the cleric something personal at least once per long rest — their opinion, their feelings, whether they 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: hit point maximum is reduced by proficiency bonus × 2, and the cleric has disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws. These penalties lift only when a new Bond is established.

The cleric cannot ask for this question. Asking dissolves the thing they need. They have to wait. They are very good at waiting.

Separation Anxiety

While bonded, if the Anchor has been more than 30 feet away for longer than 1 minute (10 rounds), make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or become Frightened — the Anchor is the source. Repeat at the end of each of your turns; on a success, the effect ends.

Note: Frightened prevents willingly moving closer to the fear's source — the cleric freezes rather than pursues.

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.

The Secret

The cleric cannot directly explain the Flaw — the compulsions, the bond, the need — to anyone. If they attempt to, they are immediately Silenced until the end of their next turn.

If an Anchor discovers the Flaw on their own — witnesses Compulsive Sacrifice trigger, pieces together the pattern, or the cleric confesses despite the silence — the Bond's dynamic shifts permanently. From that point, the cleric cannot establish the Bond with that Anchor unilaterally: the Anchor must consciously and verbally consent each time. Any hesitation, refusal, or "I need a moment" causes the Bond to fail. No save. No retry until the Anchor is willing.

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.

Note on Compulsive Sacrifice: if the automatic Reaction triggers the Level 4 Breaking Point (intercepted damage exceeding half max HP), the Break still occurs. The compulsion does not protect the cleric from the consequences of the compulsion. That, too, is the point.

On design intent: Each clause covers a different context. Compulsive Sacrifice removes agency in combat. Ache of Absence fires from emotional neglect — not hostility, just the Anchor treating the cleric as useful rather than known. Separation Anxiety fires during normal play, whenever distance opens up. The Secret fires from intimacy — the closer the relationship becomes, the more the Bond shifts from something the cleric holds to something they must be granted. The Level 8 Permanent Bond resolves the consent problem for a discovered Anchor in a way that is both mechanically significant and quietly devastating as a character beat.