What Might an Elden Ring Sequel Be About?

 I'll concede immediately that the premise of the title of this post is flawed. Arguably, Elden Ring has a sequel, with Nightreign.

While I've been doing my best to follow the lore of Nightreign as best as I can, I have a certain allergy to live-service style games - I play WoW, which is kind of the exception that proves the rule, as I don't want to get sucked into the weaponized FOMO that such models of gaming use to keep you stuck with them (WoW got its hooks into me twenty years ago, when such models were far rarer).

Still, I'm also given to understand that Nightreign is sort of apocryphal - imagining an alternate timeline for the Lands Between. The lore that it explores - again, as I understand it - is less about fleshing out more about Elden Ring's lore, but more about exploring the individual characters' stories within that lore.

Naturally, this is all up for debate - the nature of FromSoft lore tends to be that any aspect of the lore is open to interpretation, to the extent that sometimes I wonder if they put references to lore that intentionally contradicts itself: for instance, I wonder if the Nox and the Shamans are both off-shoots of the Numen, or if Marika's past as a shaman is actually inconsistent with her being a Numen.

I think one could potentially read Nightreign as what would happen with Ranni's Rain of Stars ending, which has apparently been the most popular ending people have gone for when playing Elden Ring (the fact that it's the one with the most involved quest chain does help it feel like the "truest" ending). But maybe not.

Let me make this clear: Elden Ring's lore is my favorite FromSoft has given us. I like it better than the lore of Dark Souls and Demon Souls, and even though I adore Bloodborne, I think I like Elden Ring's lore better.

Now, that might be in part because I got on at the ground floor with Elden Ring, playing it only a month or so after it came out (the only reason I delayed was because I thought I could only buy either the PS4 or PS5 version, and hoped to upgrade my console, but then realized I could get it for both as a single purchase). I never beat Dark Souls, getting stuck on Ornstein and Smough (I got much farther in DSIII, only leaving Midir, Gael, and Soul of Cinder - the latter out of fear that it'd lock me into NG+ if I beat it).

But having played Dark Souls III, I wonder if there's a message there about sequels. DSIII is a game I read as an allegory for franchises and sequels losing their potency over time. The world has constantly been refreshed and rebooted as countless Lords of Cinder have reignited the First Flame, and you can feel the entire world straining under the ashes of an Age of Fire prolonged far, far beyond its intended period. Even the first game shows a world struggling with stagnation due to Gwyn's linking of the fire, but while that game perhaps leaves open some interpretation that following in his footsteps might at least grant the world some good times once again, the final game truly makes the linking of the flame feel futile.

Both Dark Souls and Elden Ring are about the dangers of stagnation, of trying to keep a good thing going past its time. That being said, I don't know that Elden Ring is as primarily concerned with stagnation as a natural inevitability.

The truth is that there's so little we know for certain about how Marika's age turned sour. Shadow of the Erdtree suggests that the seeds of its downfall were there from the beginning, the madness of Metyr and her Two Fingers setting things on a catastrophic course, and the cycle of hatred and violence and revenge making freedom-fighters into tyrants.

Still, my reading is that the most important event in the timeline that is never addressed directly is when the Erdtree burns down the first time. That might surprise you if you hadn't heard this argument before, but basically, Leyndell is already filled with ash when we get there, and the tree we see looks more like a ghostly spirit than a physical organism made of wood. There are references to Marika distributing the Erdtree's sap as a blessing in some earlier age of abundance, but with the tree in its incorporeal state, its tangible, direct benefits have literally dried up, making the world's devotion to Marika an article of faith alone.

I suspect this is also what precipitates Godfrey's exile and his replacement by Radagon, which would neatly tie the two Elden Lords to their respective eras.

If we assume that the player is a completionist, finishing both the base game and the DLC and defeating every boss, we can probably check off most of the key figures of Elden Ring's pantheon. Miquella is dead. Radahn is dead twice over. Mohg is dead. Morgott is dead. The last of the Fire Giants is dead. Placidusax is dead.

But who is still alive?

Well, Ranni, at least in her doll body, is still alive. Even if we don't go for the Age of Stars ending, I don't believe there's any way to kill her.

Marika might still be alive. If you get either of the two special endings, the Lord of Frenzied Flame or the Age of Stars, she seems to pass away (more peacefully in the latter). But if you use any of the Mending Rune endings, or the Age of Fracture, Marika is presumably still a god and still the vessel of the Elden Ring, though likely bereft of agency similarly to how she is when we find her.

Interestingly, though, I wonder if, even if Marika persists, if Radagon is dead. His body becomes the sword wielded by the Elden Beast, and we don't see it change back. But his body is Marika's body, so... It's not clear.

Rykard is dead... probably. Arguably, he was dead before the game started when he fed himself to the God-Devouring Serpent, but that allowed him to become a part of it, and a rather dominant part of it. We see Lady Tannith eating what remains of him in an act that I imagine is meant to allow him to live on within her. As Rykard says, "a serpent never dies," which is actually a weird thing to say because serpents for sure die in the real world. But the God-Devouring Serpent is, I'd guess, linked to the idea of an Ouroboros, the snake devouring itself that symbolically represents eternity. I suspect that Rykard's dominance of the serpent's will might be over, the the serpent itself is probably still around in some form (I wouldn't be shocked if Tannith transformed after consuming it. We can kill her for some special loot while she's doing this, and fight off her Crucible Knight bodyguard, but I'm not as convinced that that event would be treated as canonical).

Malenia is also an interesting story: the hardest "superboss" in the base game (I haven't gone back to fight her again, but boy after fighting Consort Radahn, I suspect she'd feel easier,) there also seems to be some implication that she's not truly dead, with the Aeonian bloom she leaves behind perhaps giving her a path to rebirth. (How literal should we take it that her second phase calls her the Goddess of Rot? We don't get a "God Slain" victory toast when she falls, but is that because we haven't actually killed the goddess?)

Melina is also in an interestingly ambiguous position. Ironically, despite the state of the world in it, the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending quite emphatically portrays Melina as alive, because she's on her way to put you down. (Is she the Gloam-Eyed Queen? Possibly, but I had some other theories about how she got that indigo eye). However, if we don't have the Frenzied Flame, she uses herself as kindling to burn the Erdtree, seemingly perishing in this conflagration.

(I've never tried this, but if we want to be cheeky, I think we can have her burn herself to burn the Erdree and then get the Flame of Frenzy, which I believe removes the stinger on the end of the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending.)

Still, I'm not even convinced that Melina is actually dead even if she does burn herself. Again, there's strong evidence that the Erdtree burned once before, when it was still a physical tree that granted tangible sap. I think it's very possible that Melina already performed this role once, which might be why she's so emphatic about not worrying ourselves about the role she has to play. The Flame of Ruin that she is kindling is not the spirit-burning Frenzied Flame, after all, so maybe she's literally fine (though we never see her again after she kindles the flame). Sure, if she were around, she ought to still be around to threaten the Lord of Frenzied Flame, so... Hm.

(If we're considering a full clear canon, we might imagine that the Tarnished does save her by using the Frenzied Flame but then uses Miquella's Needle to cleanse themself, leaving her pissed off that they did something so dangerous but without the need to slay them.)

Rellana's alive - a character that I think we are truly unable to kill, even though we fight her in a boss fight. While she's in a sadly pathetic state of mind, one wonders if Radagon's defeat might break her out of her funk, and if Ranni has truly ascended to godhood, I could imagine one of the first items on her agenda would be to restore her mother to her former state of glory (though we should also probably expect Ranni to be a distant and non-interventionist deity).

Friendly NPCs that survive the game are somewhat few in number. Kenneth Haight and Nepehli Loux are still around, now presiding over Limgrave (along with Gatekeeper Gostoc). Jarbairn is still there in Jarburg with the surviving Warrior Jars. Boc the Seamster survives if you convince him not to undergo a rebirth ritual. Selen is... kinda sorta alive if you complete her quest and side with her, though if you go against her, I believe Witch-Hunter Jerren survives as well. Other than a whole bunch of merchants, though, that... uh, that might be everyone. (Oh! Sage Gowry as well, whatever the hell he is.)

Of course, listing the surviving NPCs is hardly going to tell us whether you could make a sequel. If there was one, it might be ages later, and the NPCs that we know might be long dead, even just of age (assuming that the end of Marika's age means that that happens now).

The question is what threads could be picked up.

Godwyn feels like a huge dangling thread. Many assumed the DLC was going to focus on him (though had it done so, I feel that there would be an equal if not greater contingent wondering what was going on with Miquella). While his horrifyingly distorted body is kind of just a stationary object, it is his soul that is said to be dead, while his body yet lives.

What... uh, what does that mean? Is that what it means to "live in death?" Is soulless life what the Deathroot is and spreads?

Perhaps I'm conflating the works of George R. R. Martin too much, but I feel like Godwyn plays a similar role to Rhaegar from A Song of Ice and Fire. Rhaegar comes off as the most ideally heroic would-be protagonist of the series, only he died like fifteen years before the books start. Like Rhaegar, Godwyn seemed to be an honorable man, turning the dragons from enemies into allies, and was seemingly universally beloved. His diplomacy with the dragons and his horrific assassination with the curse that spread from it, but also his apparent offspring and lineage, mean that Godwyn touches a ton of the lore for a posthumous character.

It always seemed he ought to have some greater presence in the lore, and that he deserved some time in the spotlight.

Of course, the other figure utterly shrouded in mystery is the Gloam-Eyed Queen, only ever mentioned in item descriptions and never mentioned (to my knowledge) by NPCs. The GEQ is the ultimate "center of the conspiracy corkboard" figure (I believe Gwyn's banished son held a similar place until we fought him as the Nameless King in DSIII - kind of the Malenia of that game). Said to have been "defeated" but not explicitly slain, From's got the narrative elbow room to have her show up if they want.

Another figure who remains mysterious but I think gets far less discussion is Renna, the Snow Witch who mentored Ranni, and whose appearance the doll is based on. Given the structure of her name, it would not be unlikely to find that Renna was a Carian, perhaps the mother of Rellana and Rennala and thus Ranni's grandmother. Or, perhaps, given that her tower is one of the Three Sisters, perhaps she is Ranni's aunt, and sister to Rellana and Rennala.

Hell, she could be the Gloam-Eyed Queen.

The truth is that an Elden Ring sequel could introduce a lot of its own new lore. We have seen some interesting new ideas brought forth in Nightreign, especially with the Forsaken Hollows DLC giving us the Balancers and the Dreglord. Again, I don't know how seriously to take Nightreign's canonicity, especially when it brings in figures like the Nameless King and Artorias from Dark Souls (I'm given to understand these are more like world bosses, rather than actual Lords of Night).

The mass and breadth of Elden Ring lore is fitting given how huge the game's world is. At the same time, though, I wonder if the creators at FromSoft might be burned out on it, having had to come up with so much stuff for it.

Only Dark Souls ever got direct sequels (again, not counting Nightreign) of From's souls-like games, and like I said before, I think that the third entry is itself an argument against sequels. But I'd still be really excited to see what they did with a revisit to the Lands Between (or Yharnam/wherever a Bloodborne II would take place).

Adventure Pitch: The Worst Bar in the Multiverse

 I've long had this idea brewing in my head, and I've finally (started) to put it to (digital) paper.

The Planescape setting makes the planes, usually only tangentially relating to the plots of ordinary campaign set in the Prime Material Plane, into detailed and fleshed-out locations in their own right.

The oddness of this is that while a normal campaign might have a villain's plan be to open a portal to a nightmarish realm of terrifying demons, ushering in an apocalyptic invasion of evil monsters, Planescape portrays The Abyss as, well, yeah, bad, but also a place with towns and inns and mortal people who just kind of, you know, live there.

Philosophically, Planescape campaigns are encouraged to be, well, more philosophical. While you certainly can fight things in them, the objectives are more up for the players to debate. Even in a cosmos built on the axes of good/evil and law/chaos, the Planescape factions present arguments that muddy the water, where a faction like the Bleak Cabal, who see existence as a curse and are found in large numbers in the lower planes, are actually very generous and kind, while the Fated have greater presences in the Upper Planes despite being basically Randian Objectivists (you'd think they'd be found in Gehenna, the plane most associated with greed). The tension between goodness and respect for others' agency is brought up by the Sect (like a Faction but no official role in the governance of Sigil) called the Order of Planes-Militant, which seeks to essentially conquer parts of neighboring planes for Mount Celestia - a plane that is, yes, very much like heaven, but doesn't it feel wrong that it should be trying to take pieces of other good-aligned planes like Bytopia or Arcadia?

Anyway, D&D campaigns famously often start in taverns, and the treatment of the planes as functional places where people live gave me the following idea: What if you started your campaign in the worst dive bar in the entire multiverse?

And by worst, I don't necessarily mean most dangerous or horrific (though it's certainly a bit of both,) but just the epitome of the kind of place where, should you find yourself drinking there, you will ask yourself very serious questions about just what went wrong in your life that you would end up there.

Cue the Rotten Dug, a bar out in the middle of the wastelands of the Plain of Infinite Portals, the uppermost layer of The Abyss.

Built inside the poorly-taxidermied corpse of some abyssal beast, the Rotten Dug is infamous for its Pus Pies, which are like little pot-pies made with the ever-oozing pus from the dead colossus (I told you the taxidermy was done poorly) that is technically edible and nutritious if you can keep it down (demons like it fine, but mortals generally only eat it if they are starving, and even that's a risk).

Run by an (abyssal) tiefling barkeep named Lavender, with a cannibal human cook named Stark, and their security guard, a disgraced, emaciated Vrock named Corvap (who responds only to threats against the staff or the structure of the building - customers are on their own,) it's the only place to take shelter for miles around (though given it's the Outer Planes, the distances aren't consistent).

I've been trying to design adventures that are more sandbox-like, as I worry my tendency is to create things that are too linear, so the idea here would be that the players begin at level 1 (might up that to level 3 just to give myself more options for monsters,) stuck like everyone else there, when a demon gang comes in looking for a guy from the Fraternity of Order who has bounties on his head from several different powerful individuals seeking him out.

In doing various quests radiating out from the tavern, they'll discover that the Guvner (a common term for members of the Fraternity) knows how to get out of the Abyss, and that he stole knowledge from a demon lord (Dagon) relating to a ritual of apotheosis, putting him in very high demand indeed.

Eventually, they'll find that he's been captured by Yugoloth bounty hunters, and will need to find some way to get him released, which will likely involve making a lot of money out in the wastelands.

One side quest I've come up with is that they meet a Yuan-Ti petitioner (the soul of a dead person - because the Outer Planes are also afterlives, petitioners are just like other NPCs here, except that they're bound to the plane). The Yuan-Ti sacrificed itself to a secret serpent god in the hopes that by giving it their body and soul, they would effectively merge with the Abyssal Serpent (think Rykard from Elden Ring, if you're familiar with that). But when they died after the rite, they woke up on the first layer of the Abyss. Now, they're looking for the correct sinkhole to jump into to take them to the proper layer with their god (the sinkholes are the eponymous infinite portals). The likely conclusion to this story is that the Abyssal Serpent isn't real, but is just Tharizdun luring people to their dooms, but I think there could be some fun philosophical questions about godhood and individuality here, so the little gut-punch ending might not even be necessary.

Anyway, my interpretation of the Plain of Infinite Portals is that it's the bleakest, most miserable desert imaginable, with demon ichor bubbling up like tar and hardpan that sends clouds of asbestos as it crumbles underfoot, with oily, sharp-leafed shrubs and razorvine growing as sparse flora. Borrowing from 2nd Edition's Planes of Chaos, it's dotted with iron fortresses, many of which have rusted and fallen to ruin. Basically, I'd give it a bit of a Western vibe, but really dialing up the wretched misery of it all (actually, I should probably watch more of the Fallout tv show, as I think that would probably have some of the vibes I'm looking for).

I've tended to think that grunge music from the 1990s seems like the right soundtrack for Planescape (I'm biased, also, because grunge/alt rock from the 90s is my childhood comfort-food music), and I recently got the album Frogstomp by Silverchair - an album whose art I remember distinctly from childhood but that I never actually listened to. There's a song off of it called Tomorrow (I think it was the album's big single) that describes what sounds like a bar down in hell, including that there's no bathroom and just a faucet with no sink with water that is "very hard to drink." I think I might work that detail into the Rotten Dug, with just a faucet that spills brown water onto the floor. I looked up the music video to it, which actually pretty closely matches the aesthetics I imagine.

Anyway, as an adventure in the Abyss, it's going to be dark and unhinged, with lots of gross-out bits and casually gruesome violence. The Abyss is a place of nihilistic violence, so I think that kind of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad feel is appropriate.

Just Who Is Actually an Albinauric?

 Since growing up with Star Trek: The Next Generation and loving Data as a character, I've always had a real fascination with artificial people. Robots are a pretty classic staple of sci-fi, and I'm a big fan of them, but the notion of making a person who is meant to be not just human-like in behavior, but truly emulate human appearance and intelligence, is one that feels threaded throughout science fiction and even myth.

We're in a weird era regarding the development of artificial intelligence. The Large Language Models like Chat-GPT kind of took the world by storm, and everyone's trying to integrate them into their businesses and digital services before we really have a great sense of how useful they'll really be (my dad is a now-semi-retired professor of computer science at one of the top CS departments in the world, and has developed something of a reputation as one of the few vocal LLM skeptics in the field). Personally, I don't think that we've actually created real intelligence, nor digital consciousness (though proving consciousness is more of a philosophical debate than a technical one).

Still, the idea of an artificial person who thinks and feels is one I don't think is strictly impossible. After all, our own bodies and brains are just organic machines that have developed over billions of years of trial-and-error evolution. It stands to reason that we could make something similar with artificial materials.

Elden Ring has vast lore, and in typical FromSoft style, the nature of that lore is vague and implied, and very much open to interpretation. Just getting a broad timeline can be difficult, and I suspect that some might even contradict itself, the information we find in-game being imperfect.

However, within the lore, we have a type of being called the Albinaurics, and they've always fascinated me. Generally pale in complexion (whenever I type this I feel like it must be the UK spelling of the word, but then "complection," which feels like how it should be spelled, is always caught by spell-check functions), there are three kinds of Albinaurics we see in-game. Some look like wizened old men. Others look like fairly healthy young women. And lastly, we have bizarre bulbous-headed ones that look vaguely frog-like in appearance. The former two are both paraplegic, and in the case of the old men, their legs are literally fading from existence. The loss of their legs seems to be fatal - likely coinciding with other internal issues.

We know them to be artificial people, but it's not strictly clear who made them.

One possibility is that they're made by the Nox of the Eternal Cities, underground (in Elden Ring's "underdark"). But we don't actually see a lot of them there, other than the bloody red ones around Mohgwyn Palace. Instead, we see larval tears, the mercury-like blobs that can transform into people.

I suspect there's a connection between them, but I don't know that we can strictly say that the Albinaurics are created in the same way that the Mimic Tears are.

There are a few pretty clear suspects (even sometimes identified explicitly). Loretta, whom we fight a summoned spirit of at Caria Manor and later fight for real at Miquella's Haligtree (she's basically the midway boss in the Haligtree/Ephael legacy dungeon) is very likely an Albinauric. She has at least been a champion to them, and seems to have come there to protect Albinauric refugees seeking acceptance into Miquella's new society there (there are also some cocoons not unlike Miquella's that seem to have Albinaurics attempting to be reborn there - though, and this is a real aside, I saw a take somewhere that suggested that the body in the cocoon is actually Mohg's, not Miquella's, which honestly solves a lot of lore questions I've had, and we can just assume the Mohg we fight is a kind of projected manifestation of his through his blood, given that he and Morgott are clearly very adept at manifesting such projections. And hey, isn't the plan for Mohg to be "reborn" as Radahn?)

Anyway, all that aside, the fact that we face Loretta on horseback is actually kind of telling - while the wizened man Albinaurics will sometimes crawl at us, the Albinauric women often ride wolves to give them mobility. None of the non-frog-like Albinaurics can walk.

Put a pin in that.

Similar to Loretta, Gaius in the Shadow of the Erdtree is said I think explicitly to be an albinauric. He rides a massive boar (with what sometimes feels like an impossible large attacking hit-box that's insanely hard to dodge). His armor consists of only a chestpiece, gloves, and helmet, because he doesn't have legs (though we can find a set of leg armor that was evidently there to mock him).

Now, artificial life is not necessarily restricted to the Albinaurics. Already, we have the Mimic Tears. But as we discover in Shadow of the Erdtree, the Jar Warriors (who certainly count even in modern days) were originally created by stuffing Marika's people into jars in the hopes of creating a "Saint."

The exact meaning of "Saint" is an interesting one (I can think of two people explicitly called Saints, namely Trina and Romina,) but I think there's a very strong implication that Marika might have actually been the result of one of these jar rituals actually being a success. This would mean that, while the core of Marika was one of the Shamans from the village, she might have actually been combined with others to form an amalgam capable of being an Empyrean.

Her dual nature as Marika and Radagon has long been associated with the creation of the Alchemical Rebis, which is a goal of Alchemy.

But I wouldn't call her an Albinauric - she just might be a "made" person, and I'd even hesitate to say "artificial." (Though the fact that her form is like a crumbled statue at the end of the game really makes you wonder how organic she truly is - or anyone, for that matter.)

One thing that does seem to link Albinaurics - at least those of the first generation (and I will say now, I can't think of any real interesting stuff to say about there being a second generation of albinaurics with frog heads) - is the failure of their legs.

And you know who doesn't seem to have functional legs?

Literally all of Radagon and Renalla's children.

Admittedly, this is a bit circumstantial. We never see a full picture of Rykard before he merged with the God-Devouring Serpent, only portraits that are at best waist-up. We also never see Ranni in her original body, only the seemingly burned corpse she left at the top of the Liurnian Divine Tower.

But we do see Radahn in his original body.

One of the really endearing things about Radahn is that he mastered gravity magic so that his ancient horse, Leonard, could continue to carry him even when he grew to enormous size. Leonard is there in the boss fight against him in Caelid (we can presume the poor horse dies when we take him down).

Now, when we fight Radahn again in Enir-Elim at the end of the DLC, he's fully capable of running around on his own, but that's because he's literally been transplanted into Mohg's body. Much like Ranni has no problem standing up in the Age of Stars ending, it's because she's not in her original body (actually kind of interesting that the three children of Renalla aren't really in their original bodies anymore).

Anyway, Radahn is always on Leonard, even in the pre-release trailer when he faces off against Malenia. You know what else you might notice about his model during the boss fight?

Dude's got no feet.

Now, I think earlier on, there was speculation that this was just the result of his long madness under the effects of the Scarlet Rot, and that his feet were basically sanded away by his endless wandering across the battlefield.

But... what if the children of Radagon and Renalla are actually Albinaurics? Then, the degradation of Radahn's feet would be consistent with the affliction that the Albinaurics suffer. It would also explain the desperation that Ranni and Rykard each felt to find new bodies.

But what about Renalla and Radagon?

It's a real matter of debate as to whether Radagon was ever an independent individual, or if he was always just Marika's masculine persona (her animus, to use a Jungian term).

I'm inclined to think that neither of them is an Albinauric. Radagon obviously has no problem standing when we fight him at the end of the game (indeed, with all the botanical imagery in the game, Radagon represents a trellis with his Great Rune). And while Renalla cannot walk when we fight her (the second phase of the fight is actually an illusion created by Ranni to give her mother some dignity,) her sister Relanna is perfectly capable of walking around when we fight her, so Renalla's bed-ridden status might not be physiological so much as psychological.

How would that work, though?

Well, the first phase of the Renalla fight has a ton of legless children endlessly reborn by Renalla, who might actually be Albinaurics.

And this is something I've always struggled to unpack:

Why are the Knights of the Cuckoo called that?

The Cuckoo is a bird famous (infamous?) for destroying the eggs of other birds and laying their eggs in the empty nest. The mother bird victim will then raise the young Cuckoos, thinking they are her own.

And so, I had always thought that Renalla must be the victim of some similar plot. Was it just the amber-like egg containing her Rune of Rebirth?

Or was it three artificial children?

Look, it's a lot harder to trick a mother into thinking that children are hers than a father, given how physiology works (yes, I know that a trans father can be the one to carry the baby to term, but I'm using "mother" and "father" here in the sense of their reproductive role). But in Elden Ring, it's clear that birthing offspring does not necessarily work the way it does in our world.

There's lots of reason to believe that Radagon's marriage to Renalla was a matter of political expediency, and fully exploited the fact that Renalla probably thought it was a real act of love and equal partnership. Ranni is rightfully enraged that her mother was used so poorly, knowing what a magnificent and powerful person she had been. Renalla was clearly broken by Radagon's abandonment.

But given the callousness with which Radagon treated Renalla, I also think it is well within reason to think that he took full control over her heirs and offspring, making them rather than siring them.

Ironic, then, that if we consider the Age of Stars ending canonical (I don't think any single ending is likely to be considered canon, but the Age of Stars one feels the most right to me,) then it was one of these artificial children who would unmake the Golden Order and overthrow Marika.

UA: Vestige Patron Warlock

 You know what's metal as hell?

Forging a pact with a dying god.

Yes, the Vestige is a patron that was once a powerful deity, but is on their way out, soon (or maybe already) adrift on the Astral Sea. Conceptually, there's certainly some potential for this to overlap with the Great Old One, but I think the GOO is implied to have never really been tied directly to the religious framework of gods, celestials, and fiends. But I think the potential for deeply esoteric lore and ancient secrets is very strong with this concept. Let's hope the mechanics match that potential!

Before we get into them, though, the Vestige patron is notably a pet subclass, giving you a manfiestation of that vestige that acts as a battle companion. Maybe it's because I played WoW first, but it always struck me as strange that there was no Warlock pet subclass.

Patron Spells:

The approach here is very different: you pick from the Life, Light, Trickery, or War domains of Clerics. Your Vestige spells are the same list as the Cleric subclass' spells.

I'd probably say that Life and War are the best options, but I'm not very confident in that. Life will of course give you a lot of healing, if that's something your party could use. Cure Wounds at 5th level is an average of probably 50 healing.

Level 3:

Vestige Companion

You get a combat pet, like Beast Masters or Battle Smiths. Your is a Vestige Companion, which can be a Celestial, Fiend, or Undead. You can re-summon it when you finish a long rest and change its appearance and its creature type.

Like other subclass pets, you need to use a bonus action to direct it unless you're incapacitated. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks to let it take an attack each turn.

If the vestige is reduced to 0 HP, you can spend 1 minute performing a magical ceremony to get it back - unlike the other subclass pets, you don't need to expend any spell slot to do this, so you should basically always get it back unless you have two fights in quick succession.

Also, unlike other pets, you can dismiss the vestige into a pocket dimension as an action, like a familiar, and then you can use an action while it's dismissed this way to summon it to an unoccupied space within 30 feet of you.

The companion is Small, has an AC of 13+ your Charisma (so likely starting 16 and going up to 18) and has a 30-foot hovering fly speed. It's immune to being Charmed, Frightened, or Prone. It has resistance to the damage associated with its type (fire for Fiends, necrotic for Undead, or radiant for Celestials).

It has an attack called Vestige's Strike, which is either melee or ranged up to 60 feet, and deals 1d6+3+your Charisma, dealing the damage associated with its type (see above).

It also has a bonus action it can do 1/day, which depends on its type:

Cursed Invocation (Undead): The vestige curses a target within 30 feet of it that you can see for 1 minute. While cursed, the target has disadvantage on attacks against you or your vestige.

    Solid enough, and definitely best to use against a tough boss monster.

Fiendish Swap (Fiend): If you are within 60 feet of each other, you and the vestige teleport to swap places.

    There's some fun utility you can get out of this, though the 1/day limit will make you probably try to hold on to it too much.

Healing Touch (Celestial): The vestige touches another creature, who regains HP equal to 2d8 + your Charisma and they end one of either the Blinded, Deafened, or Poisoned condition.

    A pretty solid emergency heal. Nothing enormous, but nice to have. Not quite as exciting if we take the Life domain spell list, but still good to have.

Level 6:

Vestige Recovery

The Vestige now regains its bonus action Divine Power (the three bonus action options in its stat block) when you take a Short or Long rest or when you use your Magical Cunning feature.

    Ok, you know what? I just said that these things were less impressive with such limited use. This addresses that. This might not be that exciting for our whole level 6 feature, but it's welcome.

Level 10:

Aura of Power

Your vestige becomes more powerful and can manifest an aura in a 30-foot emanation when you use a Magic action to activate it. The aura lasts a number of hours equal to your Charisma modifier or until the Vestige disappears or is temporarily dismissed. You, the vestige, and your allies within the aura gain resistance to Fire, Necrotic, and Radiant damage and have immunity to the charmed and frightened conditions. You can manifest this aura once per long rest.

Also, when you drop to 0 HP while within the aura, you instead change your HP to a number equal to your Warlock level plus your Charisma. The vestige is then dismissed to its pocket dimension and can't be returned until you finish a long rest.

    Ok, a lot to unpack:

    Getting all three resistances and the condition immunities make this pretty powerful. And it can last quite a long time. You won't be able to play any dismiss/summon shenanigans while it's active, as that'll cancel the aura.

    I'd honestly prefer getting something other than the "drop to zero" protection, as I think we already get that with other subclasses like the Undead patron.

Level 14:

Semblance of Life

Once per long rest, while the Vestige is within 90 feet of you, you can cast a special version of Summon Fiend, Summon Undead, or Summon Celestial without requiring any material components or expending a spell slot. Rather than summoning a new creature, your Vestige takes on the stat block of the summoned spirit for the duration of the spell, reverting to its normal form when the spell ends. The spell is cast at a level equal to half your Warlock level, rounded down (maximum 9th level) and its duration is reduced to 1 minute.

    Phew, ok, let's unpack this:

    Warlocks normally can't upcast Summon spells beyond 5th level, with Summon Fiend as the only one they can cast at higher levels via Mystic Arcanum. When you get this, you'll be casting it at 7th level. Effectively, this gives you an extra 7th level spell, and later an extra 8th level and 9th level, though limited in which spell that can be. That being said, Summon spells are quite good and scale well.

    I'd like to see it clarified, but I think that if the "spirit" version of the vestige is reduced to 0 HP, it ought to revert to its normal form rather than dying - in theory a Warlock could just drop concentration right when it would take lethal damage, so as a DM I'd just rule it like the 5.0 version of polymorph and Wild Shape, where any damage carries over to the original form.

Overall Thoughts:

    My instinct is that this is probably pretty good. I think it would be cool if they expand the Patron spells to work with any Cleric domain, which would let the subclass continue to grow a little. Because the pet can fly and make ranged attacks, it should be able to attack pretty reliably.

    What I find kind of weird though, is that the "pet" warlock subclass would be "a dying god." It feels like an inversion of the patron/warlock relationship, even if the vestige is more like an avatar than the deity themselves. Of all patrons, the Vestige feels like it should be the one that fills the warlock with awe (and possibly dread).

And that marks the last of the Mystic subclasses. Very curious to see where these might be found - I think we're due for a new "general rules expansion" book in the vein of Xanathar's and Tasha's, and book with a theme of "magic" would be a great place for these four and the Arcane subclasses seen earlier.

UA: Magic Stealer Rogue

 The Rogue, of course, already has a subclass that focuses on magic. The Arcane Trickster is a popular option as a 1/3 caster. But did you want to play a Rogue who could interact a lot with magic while not actually casting any spells themselves?

Like the Spellguard Paladin, the Magic Stealer (can't call it Magic Thief I guess because of the Thief subclass) has a kind of love/hate relationship with spellcasters, with some features that disrupt enemy spellcasters and some that can aid friendly ones.

Let's take a look:

Level 3:

Empower Sneak Attack

When a creature within 30 feet of you casts a level 1+ spell (I see we're using more efficient language here) you can use a reaction to absorb some of the spell's energy. Until the end of your next turn, the next time you hit with a Sneak Attack, you deal extra Force damage equal to a number of d6s equal to the spell's level.

You can take this reaction Int times per long rest (minimum 1).

    So, on one hand, we have a similar issue with the Scion of the Three Rogue - a feature that is very cool, but also very limited in use. Not that it makes this better - arguably it makes it worse - but you might not encounter many enemies casting leveled spells, especially at early levels, but also depending on the foes you face. Against a Lich? This will be quite nice. Against an Elemental Cataclysm? Not so much. The damage boost is nice - Rogues honestly need a bit more damage-boosting in their subclasses, as the base class' damage output leaves something to be desired. But it's very limited use - likely 3 times per day until level 10 or so. Luckily, you get a second 3rd level feature, and this one's... maybe really good.

Drain Magic

As a magic action, you can touch a willing creature under the effects of a 1st or 2nd level spell. You end the spell's effects on them, and then that creature regains an expended spell slot of 2nd level or lower (their choice). You can do this once per short or long rest.

    Make no mistake: this lets your friend level up a spell slot.

    While it would obviously be best to use on some hostile spell - someone casts Blindness/Deafness on them, for example - the more likely way for you to use this is to have a, say, Wizard cast Detect Magic on themselves, and then right when the 10-minute duration is up, you end the spell six seconds early and give them a 2nd level spell slot.

    The limit per short rest of course prevents you from going too crazy with it, likewise the spell level limitation (though check back in with me later,) but the ultimate fact here is that you're essentially turning a 1st level spell slot into a 2nd level spell slot, which is cool. And unlike the other feature, you're almost certain to be able to use this regularly in any campaign.

Level 9:

Magical Sabotage

You gain the following new Cunning Strike options:

Spell Susceptibility (cost 2d6): The target has Disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes against a spell until the start of your next turn.

    While somewhat costly for our damage, this can set an ally up very nicely.

Disrupt Spell (cost 3d6): Whenever the target casts a spell before the start of your next turn, they must make an Intelligence saving throw or the spell dissipates, wasting the action/bonus action/reaction used to cast it, though if it was cast with a spell slot, the slot is not expended.

    Couple things: First, this is essentially a preemptive counterspell that targets Int saves. Granted, while a lot of monsters don't have good Intelligence saving throws, spellcasters often can. However, this also works on all spells they try to cast before your next turn, so if they fail to cast a spell with their action, they still also have to save to cast a spell as a bonus action. Another nuance here that I think we need to figure out the ruling on for DMs is this: NPCs don't use spell slots anymore. When a Lich casts Chain Lightning as a 1/day spell, does it get to retain the spell slot if it's counterspelled or prevented with this feature? Or, because it's not a spell slot, is that use still expended? Is this meant to favor players? Or are we meant to treat those X/day spells as using spell slots?

Steal Resistance (cost 2d6): Choose one kind of damage. If the target has resistance to that kind of damage, until the start of your next turn, the target loses that resistance and you gain it.

    This becomes way more powerful if you're fighting foes from pre-5.5 sources that have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage made with non-magical weapons. That was everywhere in 5.0, and most monsters also didn't have magical weapon attacks. More likely, though, is doing something like grabbing a Demon's fire resistance.

    One hitch here is that a lot of very elemental-themed monsters are fully immune to the damage they're associated with. This doesn't work if you use it on a Fire Elemental, both failing to make them any more vulnerable and failing to grant you resistance. I think my fix might be to say that if they're immune, they remain immune, but you still get the resistance.

Level 13:

Improved Drain Magic

You can now use Drain Magic as a bonus action. Additionally, you can now end 3rd level spells as well as 1st or 2nd as before. The target recovers an expended slot of 3rd or lower now.

    3rd level spells are a pretty huge leap from 2nd, so this is a big bonus. Being able to turn a Mage Armor into a, like, Fireball, is a pretty huge deal. Also, by making this a bonus action instead of an action, it's much easier to use on detrimental spells (though I don't know how often you'll have 3rd or lower spells cast on your friends when you're level 13). Still, I think this is a good improvement to what is already the best feature for this subclass.

Level 17:

Eldritch Implosion

When you use Empower Sneak Attack, you can force the target to make a Con save (DC based on your Dex). On a failure, the spell dissipates with no effect and the target has the Stunned condition until the start of its next turn.

    You know, I actually think this is a pretty cool capstone. A counterspell (though notably, unlike Counterspell 5.5, they don't get to keep the spell slot) that also stuns the target is pretty great. Again, you're only going to be able to do this a few times per day, and your foes are going to need to be casting actual spells for this to work.

    But I like that this effectively disincentivizes them from casting spells - not only might it not work, but they might get stunned. That dragon might elect to stop casting spells as part of their multiattack.

Overall Thoughts:

    Once again, like the Spellguard Paladin, I think this subclass could do very well in campaigns with a lot of spells flying around. But truly, I think Drain Magic has a lot of potential. Even if the subclass doesn't wind up being that powerful on closer analysis, I applaud that it truly feels very different from any other I've seen, even the Arcane Trickster.

UA: Oath of the Spellguard Paladin

 So, my main in World of Warcraft for nearly my entire time playing the game (it'll be 20 years this September) is a Protection Paladin. When I first encountered the Paladin class, it was in Quest for Glory V, and in that, you started with a shield that had a big sort of mystic eye on it, so I initially thought of Paladins as a more arcane/esoteric class. While I do enjoy the righteous, holy light feel of my WoW Paladin, it would be cool to give him a more arcane aesthetic (as I've written many times, I love "Battlemages" like the Eldritch Knight).

The Spellguard has some of those vibes - a Paladin oath dedicated to countering wicked spellcasters. But on top of that, they're also strongly oriented around being bodyguards. While they don't work quite like the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, for example, they will be very good at protecting an ally.

Frankly, the RP potential to have a party with a Wizard and their loyal friend and protector Paladin is strong (like an Aes Sedai and their Warder from The Wheel of Time).

Let's get into features:

Oath Spells:

1st: Detect Magic, Shield

2nd: See Invisibility, Silence

3rd: Counterspell, Dispel Magic

4th: Freedom of Movement, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere

5th: Circle of Power, Hallow

    Ok, first things first: Shield is insane on a character who wears heavy armor. I could almost never be hit on my Eldritch Knight, and a Paladin has better spell progression. But there are also some very solid spells here, like Dispel Magic, Freedom of Movement, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.

    Silence, Counterspell, and some others here really secure this subclass as the, if you'll pardon the expression, "Mage-Fucker" subclass.

Level 3:

Guardian Bond:

As a magic action, you can expend your Channel Divinity to forge a bond with a creature within 5 feet of you for one hour or until you're unconscious. (You can also end it early if you want, and it ends if you use this on another creature).

If the creature is within your reach and it hit within attack, you can use a reaction to add your Charisma to the bonded creature's AC (minimum of +1) and potentially make the attack miss.

    This is strong, though we should note that you need to really stick close to the ally. "Within reach" is interesting, because you might thus really want to fight with a reach weapon (and maybe be a Bugbear as well) to ensure that you have the most ability to protect them.

    If we assume you try to start off with a +3 to Charisma, this is pretty solid, and if you're able to cap it, that becomes basically a Shield spell you can cast on your friend. Notably, while it only lasts an hour and takes your Channel Divinity, the actual uses of the reaction are unlimited, so if you can stay close to your buddy, you can really protect them quite a lot. But that range is, admittedly, pretty tight.

Spellguard Strike:

Also at 3, when you see a creature within your reach casting a spell with Verbal, Somatic, or Material components, you can take a reaction to make a melee attack against them with a weapon or Unarmed Strike.

    This is nice - but we also need to reckon with how spellcasting NPCs have changed in 5.5. While they still often cast real spells, most of their "bread-butter" damaging "spells" aren't technically spells, and there's no indication on whether an Archmage's Arcane Burst involves any components. Technically, I think they don't. Still, they'll often cast a real spell especially on the first few rounds of combat.

Level 7:

Aura of Concentration

Your Aura of Protection grants advantage on Constitution saving throws that you and affected allies make to maintain Concentration.

    While I'd advise nearly any spellcasting character to pick up War Caster ASAP, thus making this redundant, it's likely you won't have that, and you're the person who most often benefits from your aura. With advantage and your Charisma bonus to the saves, this will make it very hard for you or nearby allies (like the one you're probably protecting with Guardian Bond) to lose concentration.

Level 15:

Spell-Breaking Blade

After you hit a creature with your Spellguard Strike, you can cast Counterspell as part of the same Reaction. If the creature is still able to cast their spell despite your Counterspell, your spell slot is not expended.

    Again, this is very dependent on whether you are facing a lot of spellcasters that are actually casting spells. If you are, I think this is great, getting both some damage and locking them down on top of that. This could be insanely clutch if it stops something like a villain escaping with a Dimension Door spell. And I like the refund here, especially given that a 3rd level slot is probably a lot more precious to you as a half-caster.

Level 20:

Eternal Spellguard

As a bonus action, you can empower your Aura of Protection for 1 minute (or until you end the effect for some reason). You can do this once per long rest, but regain the ability if you expend a 5th level spell slot. You get the following:

Bodyguard: When the target of your Guardian Bond is in the aura, they have resistance to all damage.

Protection from Magic: You and your allies in the aura have advantage on saving throws against spells.

Spell Ward: Spell attack rolls against you and your allies in the aura have disadvantage.

    Really important clarification needs to be made: In the 5.5 monster stat blocks, they don't mention if something is a "spell attack" or a "weapon attack." But I'd argue that an Arcane Burst from an Archmage is 100% a spell attack, even if it's not technically a spell being cast. If it's only "spells that use an attack roll," this becomes much less powerful.

    But I think one of the really great things here is the Bodyguard feature, really expanding the use of Guardian Bond.

Overall Thoughts:

    This subclass has the potential to be awesome in the right campaign. But you are going to need to be fighting a bunch of mages, which largely means humanoid NPCs. That said, it need not only be such monsters. Yes, we've got Liches, but also most adult/ancient dragons now incorporate spellcasting into their multiattack, and powerful fiends like Pit Fiends have spellcasting as part of their suite of abilities.

    As a DM, I'm super grateful that spellcasting monsters don't have a ton of spell slots to track anymore, but I do think especailly at higher levels, you will still see them casting real spells, and this subclass is very well-suited to dealing with them.

    Guardian Bond is one of the subclass' biggest universal features, but you've got to think a lot about who you want to protect with it - protecting a squishy Wizard does make sense, but that might make it harder to wade into melee while the casters are far away. You might actually be better-suited putting it on a Monk or Bladelock.

    Yeah, I think this is quite powerful, and situationally insanely so. But I can also imagine scenarios where you've just picked this for the wrong campaign, and that would feel bad.

UA: Warrior of the Mystic Arts Monk

 Spellcasting is a common feature in 5E - only four classes don't get it or Pact Magic, and the Rogue and Fighter each have a subclass that allows you to get a very limited form of spellcasting. Even as only 1/3 casters, the Arcane Trickster Rogue and the Eldritch Knight Fighter are considered among if not the very best of their respective classes' subclasses.

Well, chalk up a third one-third caster: the Monk Warrior of the Mystic Arts.

It's a little bit different, though for the most part functions similarly to the others, and particularly has a lot of parallels with the Eldritch Knight. Let's get to it!

Level 3:

    Spellcasting:

This is your sole 3rd level feature, though it's a pretty big one. Again, like EKs and ATs, MAs (I guess?) get one-third spell progression. So, at level 3, you'll have 1st level spells, getting 2nd level spells at 7, 3rd level spells at 13, and 4th level spells at 19. Thus, you're really going to have to focus a lot on efficient spells and cantrips.

Monks already focus on one of their mental stats a lot anyway, so thankfully they just make your spellcasting ability Wisdom, rather than Intelligence like the other 1/3 casters. However, the other big difference here is that you'll be taking spells from the Sorcerer spell list, rather than the Wizard one.

Spell slot and cantrip progression is the same as the other 1/3 casters, but there's absolutely no limitation on spell school (something that was relaxed but not eliminated in the 5.5 revamp for the others).

    I will say, some of the spells that I get really excited about on an EK are not quite as impressive here - Shield, for example, is still not a bad choice to pick up, but thanks to Deflect Attack, you have some powerful competition for that reaction, and already had something that does a roughly equivalent thing.

    But, obviously, spellcasting is very powerful, and between utility spells like Jump (which is extra cheap for Monks given their high movement speed) and anything that can boost the damage of their attacks (admittedly there aren't a ton of those at 1st or 2nd level) will be very powerful, though at least looking solely at the PHB, they don't get, like Conjure Minor Elementals, and while they get Magic Weapon, that's not going to help with Fury of Blows. Oh man, they don't get Spirit Shroud either...

    Still, I'm sure there are some good spells to pick from, and it's the kind of feature that technically expands every time they add new Sorcerer spells to the game.

    For Cantrips, True Strike can work fine, but I'd go for Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade if you can use older content. Monks can fight fully unarmed, but you can use a weapon for your main Attack Action attacks. (We'll also see soon why we want a good attack cantrip). Booming Blade can combo well with a Shove as a bonus action, especially as it scales up at higher levels and will eventually out-damage an unarmed strike, probably (4d8 is like 18, and a tier 4 unarmed strike with +3 Wraps is 1d12+8, or 14.5. Even at level 20 with 24 Dexterity it's only 16.5).

    One thing that feels a little wrong here is that we don't get any other 3rd level feature. Arcane Tricksters get Mage Hand Legerdemain and Eldritch Knights get War Bond. These guys ought to get something on that power level.

Level 6:

    Mystic Focus

Much like a Sorcerer can convert spell slots to sorcery points and vice versa, MA Monks can do the same with Focus Points. You can expend a spell slot to regain FP equal to the slot's level (no action required). And then, as a bonus action, you can convert FP into spell slots, gaining a 1st level slot for 2, 2nd level for 3, 3rd level for 5, and 4th level for 6 (you can only regain expended slots, and thus can't get higher level slots at a lower level).

    I believe this is the same cost progression that Sorcerers have. But there's a real powerful hack here: Monks get FP back on a short rest. Thus, you can kind of be a "coffee monk," converting all leftover FP before you take a short rest into recovered spell slots, so you could theoretically keep recovering your spell slots constantly if your DM allows you to take lots of short rests. Monks also have a lot more ways to regain FP in 5.5, so this could be really, really strong.

    Mystic Fighting Style:

When you take the Attack Action, you can replace one of your attacks with a casting of a Sorcerer cantrip that has a 1 action casting time.

    So yes, looks like the "Bladesinger Extra Attack" feature is becoming much more common. This is obviously good. While we might be less excited about weapon-based cantrips like True Strike, Booming Blade, or Green-Flame Blade given that we want to be punching things, there's no reason we can't have a Spear or what-have-you. Indeed, thanks to Martial Arts, the weapon we use to attack with one of these cantrips is going to scale in damage. I tend to like GFB for its multi-target damage, but Booming Blade, as mentioned before, works nicely with the Monks' ability to make Unarmed Strikes as a bonus action, so you can Booming Blade them and then shove them away, potentially forcing them to take the extra damage if they want to close the distance again (it's not quite as elegant as just using a Push weapon with it, but still good). I will also say that something like Mind Sliver could be great for making Stunning Strike more likely to work. And Blade Ward (one of the suggested spells) can effectively boost your AC by 1d4 for the cost of an attack (potentially supplemented with Shield).

Level 11:

    Centered Focus

When you expend a Focus Point on Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, or Step of the Wind, you have advantage on any saving throw you make to maintain concentration on a spell until the start of your next turn.

    By level 11, I think this basically means every turn. Getting a big chunk of the Warcaster feat is also really nice for a class that is very multiple ability-score dependent (you'd prefer to just take ASIs for the most part). Now, what your best concentration spells? Enlarge is a strong option to give yourself an extra d4 on each of your attacks (I'd forgotten about that when figuring out good spells for MA Monks) but there are also lots of crowd control/utility spells to consider (Sleep, for instance).

Level 17:

    Improved Mystic Fighting Style

When you take the attack action on your turn, you can replace two of the attacks with a casting of one of your level 1 or 2 Sorcerer spells that has a casting time of an action.

    This is utterly worthless. Ok, maybe it's not utterly worthless, because if you take two levels of Fighter and want to Action Surge... No, this is worthless.

    This is a copy-and-paste of the Eldritch Knight's Improved War Magic, but spending two attacks to cast a spell makes sense because a Fighter at these high levels has three attacks. For a Monk, why in the world are we not just going to cast a spell of any level we can with the Magic action?

    Now, if this let us replace any two attacks on our turn with the casting of a 1st or 2nd level spell, that would be different - we could Flurry of Blows to cast a spell as a bonus action and then have an Unarmed Strike left over (remember that we get 3 attacks from FoB by level 10 now). But here, two attacks is the entirety of our Attack Action. So we're just not getting anything out of this.

Overall Thoughts:

Just having spellcasting is going to make this a powerful subclass. But I think they could do some more work on making it interesting beyond the spells it gains. Whatever is added doesn't need to - and in fact, should not be - very powerful, but I just want to get a little bit of special flavoring here.

And again, the capstone is profoundly worthless, essentially not even a feature at all. (The only scenario in which I can possibly imagine it being useful is if you multiclass into Fighter to get action surge, and for some reason you need to attack a target before casting the chosen spell, and your DM is a stickler about making you take your regular action before your action-surge action, which cannot be the Magic action. This is such a profound corner-case that I just don't think it justifies this nothing feature.) Given how pointless it is, I really wonder if the intent is instead that you can replace any two attacks with a spell, including your bonus action attacks, which would actually make this feature somewhat decent. But the way it's worded implies it's only from the attacks you get with the Attack action. (Oh, and maybe if you somehow got a weapon mastery and a nick weapon, you'd technically be making three attacks with your action. Still an edge case.)

Being able to cast a spell as part of, say, a Flurry of Blows would actually be somewhat akin to a Sorcerer using Quickened Spell, which would reinforce why Mystic Arts Monks get the mostly inferior Sorcerer spell list rather than the Wizard one.

Basically, really solid potential, and it might already be one of the best Monk subclasses, but it needs another pass or two.