Unearthed Arcana: Twilight Domain, Circle of Wildfire, and School of Onomancy

Even more new subclasses with a new Unearthed Arcana. I really have to wonder if Wizards of the Coast are gearing up to release a new Xanathar's style supplement. We've only seen one new subclass per class in these, but nearly all of them have really gotten me excited, and this one might be the most exciting to me.

So let's go through them:

Clerics' Twilight Domain is themed around darkness and darkvision. Despite this, there's also a lot about bravery, meaning this is looks like a very good option for "dark is not evil" characters (also, I love that the page quote is Mark Rosewater talking about Black in Magic: the Gathering, which I credit as probably the biggest influence for me to enjoy playing dark characters in RPGs.) Mechanically, you get darkvision and certain ways to protect allies in magical darkness while also allowing yourself and others to see through it.

Druids' Circle of Wildfire is maybe my favorite of the three. This is all heavily about fire damage, and gives you access to spells like Scorching Ray and Fireball. The key to it is that you can summon a fiery elemental spirit to assist you, helping allies with healing flames or just burning things. I've always wanted to play a sort of scary pagan druid (there was a show I saw as a kid about building Rome that had some animated segments, and I remember there was a scene with a Gaul cursing Caesar, wearing a big stag's skull as a helmet, and I've always thought that was a really badass image.) While Circle of Spores mostly fit in with that idea - druidic zombies, and the like - this might be even better. I imagine a druid with a wildfire spirit that looks like a walking wicker man with a stag's head.

Wizards' School of Onomancy is positively dripping with flavor. The concept behind it is that you can empower your magic by learning a creature's true name - which can be beneficial if you're casting spells on your friends (you get Bless and Bane for free and have an alternate way of casting them without using spell slots) or, of course, you can use it on your enemies (you also get an ability at level 2 that lets you try to get a creature to tell you their true name.) I feel like this is the kind of subclass you can build a campaign around, with a mysterious enemy whose name the party needs to learn in order to defeat them.

Anyway, I've been really enjoying these new subclasses. Basically all of them have been really exciting, and so I hope this is all a prelude to the introduction of a new book that will have the ones that make the cut, editorially.