Pact of the Whispered Secret

A confidence kept can change the world as surely as a truth revealed.

The Unspoken Clause

1st-Level Subclass Feature

You gain proficiency in Investigation or Insight. As a bonus action, choose one willing creature you can see within 30 feet. For 10 minutes, while within 60 feet of each other, you can exchange mental messages of up to 25 words each on your respective turns. You must share a language; neither can read the other’s thoughts. You can end the link at any time without an action. Only one link may exist at a time. Creating a link is usable PB times per long rest.

An Answer Withheld

1st-Level Subclass Feature

Once per turn when you invoke a Petition, you may accept this Term: until the start of your next turn, you cannot speak or provide verbal spell components. You remain able to invoke Petitions because they are not spells. In exchange, choose yourself or your linked partner within 60 feet; the creature gains advantage on its next Dexterity (Stealth) or Charisma (Deception) check before the end of its next turn. This is a Term for Temptation’s Price.

Veiled Play. Accepting lets you voluntarily gain 1 Arousal.

Unveiled Play. You may instead reduce your Arousal by 1; if you do, the chosen creature also has advantage on its next EROSave before the end of its next turn. An Answer Withheld never grants the ability to lie through truth-detecting magic.

Ritual and Social Identity — The Sealed Confidence

1st-Level Subclass Feature

During a short or long rest, spend 10 minutes with one willing creature, placing an invented symbol or a voluntarily offered confidence into a sealed token. Neither the player nor character must disclose personal information. Before the next long rest, the participant may add 1d4 to one Wisdom (Insight) or Intelligence (Investigation) check after rolling but before the outcome. Each creature can receive this benefit once per long rest.

Unveiled Play. You may spend 1 Libido during the rite to let the participant also reduce its Arousal by 1. Opening the token has no mechanical penalty. It is not a canonical Whisper, cannot be traded as one, and gives your patron no automatic access to the confidence.

Veiled Play. You may gain 1 Arousal during this rite to grant its other participant advantage on its next EROSave before its next long rest. Each creature can receive this benefit once per long rest; resolve any resulting Climax immediately.

Redacted Intention

3rd-Level Subclass Feature

As a reaction when a creature you can see within 60 feet makes an attack roll against you or your linked partner within 60 feet, spend 1 Favor and subtract 1d6 from that roll. Declare this after the roll but before the outcome is announced. Use this feature PB times per long rest.

Veiled Play. You may gain 1 Arousal when using this reaction to move 5 feet without provoking opportunity attacks after the triggering attack resolves.

Unveiled Play. You may spend 1 Libido when using this reaction to roll 1d8 instead of 1d6. This is an optional expenditure; it does not accept a Term.

Release Without Revelation

6th-Level Subclass Feature

As an action, draw a veil around yourself or one willing creature you can see within 30 feet. The target becomes invisible until the end of your next turn; the effect ends early immediately after the target makes an attack or casts a spell. Use this feature once per short or long rest.

Veiled Play. When you use this feature as an action, you may gain 1 Arousal to let its target move 5 feet without opportunity attacks. Immediately after your own Climax and Fulfillment resolve, you may instead expend its available use without an action to make yourself or your linked partner within 60 feet invisible for its normal duration. This grants no additional Petition.

Unveiled Play. When using this feature as an action, you may spend 1 Libido to let the target move up to half its speed without opportunity attacks. After your own Climax and Fulfillment resolve, you may instead expend its available use without an action to let yourself or your linked partner within 60 feet move up to its speed without opportunity attacks. This alternative grants no invisibility or additional Petition.

The Secret the World Cannot Hold

14th-Level Subclass Feature

Once per long rest, as a bonus action, cloak yourself in your patron’s redaction for 1 minute, ending early if you are incapacitated. You gain resistance to psychic damage, and magic cannot read your thoughts unless you allow it. Once on each of your turns when you invoke Petition of Revelation, you may also force its target, if visible within 60 feet, to make a Wisdom save. On a failure, it cannot see you until the start of your next turn; this affects only its sight of you, not its knowledge of your position, and ends early immediately after you damage it.

Veiled Play. During the cloak, accepting An Answer Withheld lets you use its voluntary 1 Arousal gain to gain advantage on your next EROSave before your next turn; do not add a second gain. Once during the cloak, your own Fulfillment may activate Release Without Revelation’s Veiled Climax effect without expending its use, replacing its ordinary activation for that Climax.

Unveiled Play. Once during the cloak, when using Release Without Revelation as an action, you may spend 1 Libido to affect both yourself and your linked partner, if within 60 feet of each other. Each invisibility ends independently. After your own Climax and Fulfillment resolve during the cloak, you may immediately replace your linked partner with another willing creature within 30 feet without expending a link use or using an action.

Combat Identity

Investigator and controller who protects private knowledge and interrupts hostile intentions.

Desire Identity

Pressure remains unspoken until its release can protect rather than expose; Libido sustains guarded interventions.

Class Integration

Using This Patron Pact.

You gain these features at Pactsworn levels 1st, 3rd, 6th, 14th. This subclass works through Patron Pact, Terms, Favor, Petitions, and Fulfillment; your Pact Boon is a separate 3rd-level choice. Use the costs, triggers, limits, and recovery stated in the individual features and parent class.

Choose this subclass through the Pactsworn’s 1st-level Patron Pact. It grants Patron features at levels 1, 3, 6, and 14. Your 3rd-level Pact Boon (Blade, Chain, Tome, or Veil) is a separate choice; any boon can accompany this pact. Your patron may be any suitable supernatural power: this pact describes the bargain, not a new deity.

Ritual and Social Use

Use sealed tokens and private counsel without requiring an actual secret or disclosure. The Ritual and Social Identity — The Sealed Confidence feature gives the applicable observance and its complete benefits; this guidance adds no additional ritual reward.

Example of Play

Use the private link to coordinate, then weigh the cost of withholding speech against the advantage of concealment. An entrusted warning that must reach its recipient, or a patron asking you to protect a rival’s true name, offers adventure without compulsory disclosure. Any investigation still requires evidence; this pact grants no automatic knowledge of another creature’s hidden desires.

Additional Rules

Rules and Modes.

PB means proficiency bonus. Your pact save DC is 8 + PB + your Charisma modifier. Favor, Petitions, Terms, Temptation’s Price, and Fulfillment retain their base-class rules and limits. These features add no new resource pool. Temporary hit points never stack. A subclass use is expended even if its Term refunds Favor through Temptation’s Price; a refund never restores a use.

Resolution and Safeguards.

Follow the current Mechanics of Desire and Pactsworn rules. At 6 Arousal, resolve the applicable Climax Effect, reduce Libido by 1 where tracked, reset Arousal to 0, and then resolve Pactsworn Fulfillment and any applicable subclass rider. In Unveiled Play, lose 1 Libido as instructed by the core rules; at 0 Libido you are Depleted, not unable to use class features. You cannot spend Libido you do not have. These subclasses impose no automatic healing or Exhaustion on Climax; use only the applicable effect and the core Depletion rules. Arousal gains obey the core limit of 3 per turn. A feature cannot reduce Arousal below 0. Subclass riders neither duplicate Fulfillment nor replace its Favor, Petitions, or later improvements. Nearby Climax events use the base class’s rules and grant no additional subclass effect unless expressly stated. All effects preserve player agency and may be narrated abstractly.