Sacred Plants and Wood A druid holds certain plants to be sacred, particularly alder, ash, birch, elder, hazel, holly, juniper, mistletoe, oak, rowan, willow, and yew. Druids often use such plants as part of a spellcasting focus, incorporating lengths of oak or yew or sprigs of mistletoe. Similarly, a druid uses such woods to make other objects, such as weapons and shields. Yew is associated with death and rebirth, so weapon handles for scimitars or sickles might be fashioned from it. Ash is associated with life and oak with strength. These woods make excellent hafts or whole weapons, such as clubs or quarterstaffs, as well as shields. Alder is associated with air, and it might be used for thrown weapons, such as darts or javelins. Druids from regions that lack the plants described here have chosen other plants to take on similar uses. For instance, a druid of a desert region might value the yucca tree and cactus plants. Druids and the Gods Some druids venerate the forces of nature themselves, but most druids are devoted to one of the many nature deities worshiped in the multiverse (the lists of gods in appendix B include many such deities). The worship of these deities is often considered a more ancient tradition than the faiths of clerics and urbanized peoples.

Breaking Your Oath A paladin tries to hold to the highest standards of conduct, but even the most virtuous paladin is fallible. Sometimes the right path proves too demanding, sometimes a situation calls for the lesser of two evils, and sometimes the heat of emotion causes a paladin to transgress his or her oath. A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a cleric who shares his or her faith or from another paladin of the same order. The paladin might spend an all- night vigil in prayer as a sign of penitence, or undertake a fast or similar act of self-denial. After a rite of confession and forgiveness, the paladin starts fresh. If a paladin willfully violates his or her oath and shows no sign of repentance, the consequences can be more serious. At the GM’s discretion, an impenitent paladin might be forced to abandon this class and adopt another.

Your Pact Boon Each Pact Boon option produces a special creature or an object that reflects your patron’s nature. Pact of the Chain. Your familiar is more cunning than a typical familiar. Its default form can be a reflection of your patron, with sprites and pseudodragons tied to the Archfey and imps and quasits tied to the Fiend. Because the Great Old One’s nature is inscrutable, any familiar form is suitable for it. Pact of the Blade. If your patron is the Archfey, your weapon might be a slender blade wrapped in leafy vines. If you serve the Fiend, your weapon could be an axe made of black metal and adorned with decorative flames. If your patron is the Great Old One, your weapon might be an ancient-looking spear, with a gemstone embedded in its head, carved to look like a terrible unblinking eye. Pact of the Tome. Your Book of Shadows might be a fine, gilt-edged tome with spells of enchantment and illusion, gifted to you by the lordly Archfey. It could be a weighty tome bound in demon hide studded with iron, holding spells of conjuration and a wealth of forbidden lore about the sinister regions of the cosmos, a gift of the Fiend. Or it could be the tattered diary of a lunatic driven mad by contact with the Great Old One, holding scraps of spells that only your own burgeoning insanity allows you to understand and cast.

Your Spellbook The spells that you add to your spellbook as you gain levels reflect the arcane research you conduct on your own, as well as intellectual breakthroughs you have had about the nature of the multiverse. You might find other spells during your adventures. You could discover a spell recorded on a scroll in an evil wizard’s chest, for example, or in a dusty tome in an ancient library. Copying a Spell into the Book. When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it. Copying that spell into your spellbook involves reproducing the basic form of the spell, then deciphering the unique system of notation used by the wizard who wrote it. You must practice the spell until you understand the sounds or gestures required, then transcribe it into your spellbook using your own notation. For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it. Once you have spent this time and money, you can prepare the spell just like your other spells. Replacing the Book. You can copy a spell from your own spellbook into another book-for example, if you want to make a backup copy of your spellbook. This is just like copying a new spell into your spellbook, but faster and easier, since you understand your own notation and already know how to cast the spell. You need spend only 1 hour and 10 gp for each level of the copied spell. *If you lose your spellbook, you can use the same procedure to transcribe the spells that you have prepared into a new spellbook. Filling out the remainder of your spellbook requires you to find new spells to do so, as normal. For this reason, many wizards keep backup spellbooks in a safe place. The Book’s Appearance. Your spellbook is a unique compilation of spells, with its own decorative flourishes and margin notes. It might be a plain, functional leather volume that you received as a gift from your master, a finely bound gilt-edged tome you found in an ancient library, or even a loose collection of notes scrounged together after you lost your previous spellbook in a mishap.