Continuing with our review of subclass options found in Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, we get to the Cleric. Here, we find two subclasses. I believe one of these (I want to say Blood) was found in the original, now out-of-print Tal'dorei book, but we'll just take it on its own terms.
Blood:
The Blood Domain is connected in-universe to the Claret Orders, which are basically badass monster hunters who use forbidden magic. This gives us the Blood Hunter class (one that I've sort of come around to and might start letting players take it in my campaigns) but also this divine domain.
If Grave isn't quite enough for you and your DM doesn't let you go with Death Domain, here's another edgelord option!
Your domain spells are False Life, Sleep, Hold Person, Ray of Enfeeblement, Haste, Slow, Blight, Stoneskin, Dominate Person, and Hold Monster. Haste and Slow are both very powerful spells, though while some of the others here are pretty good, I don't know that anything else really blows me away.
At level 1 you get proficiency with martial weapons - no heavy armor, though, so you might simply use a Longbow or Heavy Crossbow as your default move.
Lastly at 1, you get Bloodletting Focus. When you cast a damage-dealing spell of 1st level or higher whose duration is instantaneous, any creature with blood that takes damage from the spell takes extra necrotic damage qual to 2 + the spell's level.
So, it's kind of the opposite of the Life Domain's bonus healing. This clearly sets the Blood Cleric up as a damage-dealer, though I don't know if 3 extra damage on a Guiding Bolt is going to be all that enormous. The best spells to take advantage of this would be AoE damage spells, though Clerics only get a few of those - Sunburst (part of the Tasha's expanded spell list for Clerics) does 12d6 radiant damage to creatures in a 60-foot radius sphere, so around 42 damage, which this would bump up to 52. Sadly, Spirit Guardians doesn't benefit from this because it's not instantaneous.
At level 2, you get Channel Divinity: Crimson Bond. Using your Channel Divinity, you can form a supernatural bond with a creature you can see or one for which you possess a blood sample. The bond lasts 1 hour or until your concentration is broken.
While in effect, you can use an action to learn the target's approximate distance and direction from you, as well as its current hit points and any conditions affecting it if it's within 10 miles of you. You can also use an action to try to connect with the target's senses. If you do so, you take 2d6 necrotic damage and the target makes a Constitution saving throw. If they succeed, the bond ends. If they fail, you can choose to either see or hear through their senses for a number of minutes equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1,) during which you are blinded or deafened (respectively) regarding your own senses. When the conneciton ends, the bond does too.
Regardless of outcome, the target feels a sense of unease when they make the saving throw.
So, this is flavorful as hell. How useful it is is really subject to the sort of campaign you're playing in. Do you have recurring villains? And can you get a blood sample of said villains? Honestly, I think this is more likely to be useful when used on friends, who can donate a vial of blood to allow you to find them should they be captured or otherwise lost.
At 6th level, you get Channel Divinity: Blood Puppet. Using an action, you can target a Large or smaller creature or corpse within 60 feet of you that has blood. A creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become charmed by you - unconscious creatures automatically fail the save, and are not incapacitated while under the effects. A corpse gains a semblance of life that you control.
On the creature or corpse's turn, you can command it (no action) to move up to half its speed and interact with an object, make a single attack, or do nothing. Animated corpses or unconscious creatures take their turn immediately after yours, and use their statistics as if they were alive/conscious. The control lasts for 1 minute or until you lose concentration.
So, here's one of those cases where I think the wording could be a little more precise - after all, a 9th level Guiding Bolt is still technically an attack. I assume this is meant to mean weapon attack. However, with all the new spellcaster stat blocks that use magical attacks rather than traditional spells as their bread-and-butter, perhaps this becomes quite strong.
This is an ability that could be insanely powerful at higher levels - if you're fighting a group of, say, Evocation Wizards and your party kills one, you can then pick up that body and have it start throwing powerful blasts at its former friends. Also, any foe with sneak attack might wind up being a really good option here.
Also at level 6, you get Sanguine Recall. You can sacrifice health to regain spell slots. The spell slots can have a combined level equal to or less than half your cleric level (rounded up) and none can be 6th level or higher. You then take 1d8 necrotic damage for each spell slot level (so, you get a 2nd and 3rd level slot and you're taking 5d8) and this damage can't be reduced in any way (sorry Aasimar). You can use this feature once per long rest.
So, I don't think there are any heals that can give you an HP profit here (barring really lucky rolls - low for this feature and high for the healing) but taking 5d8 to get a slot to cast Mass Cure Wounds (3d8+Wis to up to 6 people) could be a very effective way to spread life around.
This is also a great thing to use right before a short rest - do your Harness Divine Power and then this, and then just heal up with hit dice.
At level 8, you get Divine Strike, dealing necrotic damage.
Finally, at 17th level, you get an upgrade to Blood Puppet, allowing you to use it on Huge corpses and creatures (puppeteering a dead giant? Yes, thank you.)
Also at 17, you get Vascular Corruption Aura. As an action, you can create a 30-ft radius aura around you for 1 minute. Any hostile creature with blood that starts its turn in the aura or enters it for the first time on their turn takes 3d6 necrotic damage. If a hostile creature in that aura has blood, when it regains hit points, it only regains half the amount it normally would. You can use this once per long rest.
Unavoidable damage in a huge area with built-in IFF? That's pretty good. The healing aspect could be useful, though of course only in some circumstances.
Overall, I think the biggest thing about this subclass is that you'll want to talk to your DM about defining what kind of creatures have blood or not. Does a zombie have blood? What about a Corpse Flower? Fiends have blood, right? Well, not Shadow Demons, maybe. Does a Bone Devil have blood?
I also think it's important to note that two of the subclass' features require concentration, which is a pretty precious resource in 5th Edition. Honestly, I think Blood Puppet is the coolest and strongest element to this subclass, and might be enough to justify it, though I think its other features are a little lackluster.
Moon
In the Exandria setting, there are two moons - Catha is the fairly straightforward moon that acts much like the one in the real world, while Ruidus, the mysterious, smaller, red moon that appears at unpredictable times.
The subclass is fairly setting-specific, with references to these two moons in its mechanics. For a broader celestial/nighttime-focused cleric Domain, I'd recommend going with Twilight from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, but if you're playing in Exandria, let's see how this domain works.
Your domain spells are Faerie Fire, Silent Image, Invisibility, Moonbeam, Hypnotic Pattern, Major Image, Greater Invisibility, Hallucinatory Terrain, Dream, and Passwall.
Honestly, this is a pretty good collection. I particularly like Faerie Fire, Moonbeam, Hypnotic Pattern, and Greater Invisibility here (being an invisible healer could be pretty clutch).
At 1st level, you get Clarity of Catha - when a creature within 30 feet of you makes a Wisdom saving throw, you can use your reaction to give them advantage on that save. You can do this PB times per long rest.
I think this is decently useful, and fairly flexible, if a bit of a minor effect.
At level 2, you get Channel Divinity: Blessing of the Full Moon. As an action, using your Channel Divinity, you can give a willing creature one of the following benefits:
Watchful Moon: For 1 hour, the creature's speed increases by 10 feet and it has advantage on Wisdom (Perception or Survival) checks involving smell or made to track a creature.
Blood-Drenched Moon: For 10 minutes, the blessed creature has advantage on attack rolls against a target if at least one of the blessed creature's allies is within 5 feet of the target and isn't incapacitated.
And it's here where we start to develop a bit of a werewolf theme - the former giving something akin to a bonus to senses affiliated with wolves, and the latter giving, effectively, pack tactics.
The Blood-Drenched Blessing has very clear and good combat applications, while the Watchful one could come in handy in lots of situations.
It's good.
At level 6, you get Channel Divinity: Mind of Two Moons. You can expend a use of Channel Divinity when you cast a concentration spell while already concentrating on another spell, as long as both are Moon domain spells. If you have to make a concentration save, you do so at disadvantage and lose concentration on both upon a failure.
So, while your concentration is harder to maintain, this will allow you to keep up multiple spells. The limit to domain spells is a pretty significant restriction, but this would allow you to have, say, Greater Invisibility and Hypnotic Pattern up at the same time - harder to break your concentration when the enemy can't see you and half of them can't even do anything.
At level 8, you get Empowered Cantrips.
Finally, at 17, you get Eclipse of Ill Omen: As a bonus action, you can manifest an area of reddish dim light in a 60 foot radius around you. Creatures in this area make saving throws at disadvantage, but when you create it, you can designate any number of creatures to be unaffected by it. The eclipse lasts for 1 minute while you concentrate on it - and this counts as a Moon Domain spell for the purpose of using Mind of Two Moons.
Additionally, once per turn when you deal radiant damage to any creatures within the light, you can curse one of the creatures until the eclipse ends, reducing their speed by half and making them unable to regain hit points.
You can use this ability once per long rest.
So, this is a hell of a capstone. It's a massive area, and you can keep stacking that curse up on foe after foe. Disadvantage on all saving throws is pretty massive, and cutting out absolutely all healing is also huge (I really like that the Loup-Garou from Van Richten's does actually require you to get silver weapons to kill it, except that you can get around this with something as simple as Chill Touch).
So, I have to say, I think I like the Moon domain quite a bit. Again, the feature names tie it pretty directly to Exandria, but I think the overall theme of it is pretty strong, and a number of its features as well.
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