Urbanist

Cities have intention, and in a world where psychic collectives can manifest as physical creatures, and where unified pious faith can conjure miracles, it is possible to understand – even communicate with – a city’s spirit: its genius loci.

People began to claim to hear the voice of their city call to them, beckoning them to come underground or to climb the highest spire, sometimes even warning them of unstable bridges or guiding them to just the right person they need to find out of tens of thousands.

Most arcane scholars have dismissed such stories as poppycock, but if these claims of metropolises enlisting avatars are true, is it a benign manifestation of the will of the public, or something malevolent feeding on the dreams and desires of citizens? What do these cities want, what if any opinion do they have of the people who live within them, and worryingly, what do they know of each other?

Expanded Spell List

The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Spell Level Spells

1st  disguise self , sanctuary

2nd find traps , knock

3rd  meld into stone , speak with dead

4th  private sanctum , stone shape

5th  passwall , wall of stone

The Talk of the Town

Starting at 1st level, you are adept at talking in a city – any community of at least 5,000 people. You intuitively can speak in the prevailing language of the city and use an accent and slang like a local if you desire.

More importantly, you can speak with any city’s genius loci. Typically, you simply speak out loud, and if the city chooses to respond, it does so telepathically, often in a flood of sensation.

The Narrator should consider the city’s spirit to be an amalgam of the general will of the community. It is knowledgeable of things that an average city dweller would know, and you can ask it about things going on in a crowded public place at that very moment, but it cannot convey events that happened at another time, unless those are commonly known. For example, you could learn from Flint the generally agreed upon description of a fugitive seen fleeing down a street a few days ago, or perhaps hear from afar a speech being given to a crowd at that very moment, but the city could not tell you where that fugitive went after the public lost sight of him, nor whether someone in the crowd was planning to assassinate the speaker.

Spend one minute and make a Charisma-based check – usually Persuasion, but sometimes Deception, Intimidation, or Performance might be appropriate. The higher your result, the more useful the city’s response is or the more obscure information it can share. You have advantage on this check in the city you personally are bound to. If you don’t speak the most commonly used languages in the city where you use this ability, you have disadvantage on this check. The same city will only respond to only two of your requests in the same day.

For example, learning basic information like directions to a business, or the general situation at a crowded event across town, might be DC 5. Learning something a few hundred people witnessed a few days ago might be DC 10. Getting information that only a dozen people saw would be DC 15, and even that would only be possible if those people would freely share that information to someone who asked. Remember, the city’s spirit is an amalgam of its population, and if the people who know something would be secretive, so would the city.

A city might sometimes ask favors of you in exchange for information, though the nature of the request will vary based on the city’s personality. Alais Primos might request you help an aged petitioner make her way to church for a particular holy day, while Trekhom could ask you to hide a gun behind a toilet stall in a restaurant.

Beware of lying to or intimidating a city, unless you conceal your identity from it. If you tell a city that you’re looking for a popular local vigilante to help her, and then locals see you attack the woman, people on the street may find themselves instinctually distrustful of you. If you threaten a city that you will burn down a landmark unless it tells you what you want to know, law enforcement might later on interfere in your affairs. A genius loci cannot physically retaliate, however.

Secret Shopper

At 6th level, you always maintain an odd liminal presence in your bonded city. This allows you to purchase any commonly available good from that city at any time. Items you buy this way must be something you can carry in your hands, so no producing boats out of your sleeve. Also, you can only buy items that the seller would freely offer to a random, anonymous buyer, which typically precludes anything of uncommon or greater rarity. However, you could easily get a meal from your favorite restaurant, get clothes from any public shop, and even buy a newspaper to keep abreast of current events.

You can use this ability at any time. You simply spend an action to hand your money to empty space. The money vanishes, and the item you purchase appears in your hand.

Public Transportation

At 10th level, while in a city you can spend an action to teleport to any location you are aware of within that city that is serviced by public transportation options, including subrail stations, gondola docks, and – if there are carriages for hire, rickshaws, or similar vehicles – basically any place along a public street. When you use this ability you can bring along up to eight willing creatures you can see.

Instead of teleporting within your current city, you can travel from any location (even if you’re not currently in a city) to a public entrance to your bonded city, such as the main docks, the city gates, or the primary rail station.

After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest .

Get Lost

At 14th level, you gain the ability to lure foes into a demiplane that resembles a stylized version of your bonded city. You can spend an action to have the essence of your bonded city bleed into a 60 foot radius around you. Enemies in that area see phantom images of streets, alleys, tunnels, and other pathways, and feel their sense of place being assaulted. If a creature ends its turn in the area, you can end the phantom images and cast maze on them, trapping them in your demiplane until they can escape. Maintaining the phantom images or the maze requires concentration.

After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.