Confessor

Every denial has a seam. The Confessor knows where to pull.

The Weight of Guilt

3rd-Level Subclass Feature

Gain proficiency in Insight or Intimidation. If you are already proficient in both, choose another skill from the Veilwalker skill list instead. When you successfully use Expose against a creature you can perceive within 60 feet, you can ask the DM to identify one observable inconsistency, hesitation, or emotional tell supported by the scene. You learn a reasonable inference, not proof of guilt, a hidden memory, or a guaranteed lie.

Before that Opening closes, you or one ally who can hear your explanation may make one Wisdom (Insight) or Intelligence (Investigation) check directly concerning the tell with advantage. Using this benefit exploits and closes the Opening. This provides no attack, free action, or compelled admission.

Veiled Play. Once on each of your turns, before making an Expose check to identify a creature’s tell, you may gain 1 Arousal to gain advantage on that check. If the gain causes your Climax, resolve it before making the check.

Unveiled Play. Once on each of your turns, when you use Expose against a creature that currently has at least 2 Arousal, you may spend 1 Libido to gain advantage on the check. The DM checks eligibility without revealing the creature’s exact Arousal. This does not grant the Veiled Arousal option.

Echoes into Understanding

3rd-Level Subclass Feature

The scrutiny of a scene changes when pressure breaks. The following benefits share one use, which you regain when you finish a long rest. This feature provides no extra attack, no automatic Opening, and no additional use when you change play modes.

Veiled Play. Once per long rest, after your own Climax fully resolves, you may attempt Expose against one creature, object, place, or situation you can perceive within 60 feet without expending your bonus action. Make the normal check. A meaningful Opening must actually exist in the changed scene.

Unveiled Play. Once per long rest, after your own Climax fully resolves, regain one expended use of Press the Confession. This grants no Expose attempt, attack, or Revelation activation. This and the Veiled benefit share the same once-per-long-rest use.

Press the Confession

3rd-Level Subclass Feature

Immediately after you successfully use Expose against a creature within 60 feet that can see or hear you, you may exploit and close that Opening without an action to confront it with the weakness or contradiction you have uncovered. The creature makes a Wisdom saving throw against your Confessor save DC (8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier). On a failed save, it cannot take reactions until the start of your next turn, and it has disadvantage on the next Charisma (Deception) check it makes within 1 minute. On a successful save, it suffers neither effect. The Opening closes regardless of the save. You can use Press the Confession a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

The target can speak truthfully, lie, bargain, or remain silent. This feature never forces speech, reveals a secret without evidence, or certifies the truth of an answer.

Veiled Play. When you activate Press the Confession, you may first gain 1 Arousal. If you do, the target makes an EROSave against your Confessor save DC instead of the Wisdom saving throw. On a failed EROSave it suffers the baseline effects and gains 1 Arousal; on a success it suffers neither. Resolve any Climax before follow-up effects. No additional save is made.

Unveiled Play. When you activate Press the Confession, you may spend 1 Libido to require an EROSave against your Confessor save DC instead of the Wisdom saving throw. On a failed EROSave the creature suffers the baseline effects and gains 1 Arousal. If it already had at least 3 Arousal before this save, you also have advantage on your next Expose check against it before the end of your next turn. This does not apply the Veiled self-Arousal cost or benefit.

Ritual — The Black Ledger

3rd-Level Subclass Feature

Once per long rest, during a short rest, you may spend 10 minutes comparing clues, Echoes, physical evidence, and statements freely available to your party about one creature, event, or location you have investigated. Choose yourself or one willing creature taking part in the ritual. The chosen creature has advantage on its next Wisdom (Insight) or Intelligence (Investigation) check about the subject before its next long rest. The ritual cannot invent evidence, reveal a hidden secret automatically, or make an unreliable statement true.

Veiled Play. During the ritual, you may voluntarily gain 1 Arousal. If you do, you also add 1d4 to your next Expose check concerning the studied subject before your next long rest. Resolve any Climax before continuing the ritual. This benefit does not require a confession.

Unveiled Play. Instead, you may spend 1 Libido during the ritual to determine whether one Echo you personally observed in the investigated scene bears signs of illusion, enchantment, or supernatural concealment. The DM gives a truthful indication of detectable interference, not the identity of a culprit or the content of a concealed memory. You gain no Veiled 1d4 benefit.

Instruments of Truth

9th-Level Subclass Feature

Choose Insight or Intimidation. You gain proficiency in that skill if you lack it, and your proficiency bonus is doubled for ability checks you make with that skill. When a creature that can see or hear you fails its saving throw against Press the Confession, you may also make it frightened of you until the start of your next turn. A creature immune to the frightened condition ignores this additional effect; the other effects of Press the Confession still apply.

The Instruments may be an investigator’s ledger, a sacred warrant, a voice trained to command a courtroom, spectral evidence, or a threatening implement. The appearance changes nothing about the saving throw, damage rules, or reliability of a statement.

Veiled Play. When you frighten a creature using this feature, you may gain 1 Arousal to add your proficiency bonus to your next Wisdom (Insight) check against that creature before the end of your next turn. If the gain causes Climax, resolve Climax before making the check. This does not add Arousal to the target.

Unveiled Play. If a creature had at least 3 Arousal when it failed the EROSave for Press the Confession, you may spend 1 additional Libido to extend the frightened effect until the end of your next turn instead. It may repeat an EROSave against your Confessor save DC at the end of each of its turns, ending the fright on a success. This does not apply the Veiled bonus or self-Arousal gain.

No Secret Buried Deep

13th-Level Subclass Feature

When a creature you can perceive within 60 feet attempts to hide from you, makes a Charisma (Deception) check you can hear or observe, or visibly changes a situation to close an Opening you had Exposed, you may use your reaction to attempt Expose against it. You make the usual skill check and can reveal only an Opening supported by what you can actually perceive. This reaction neither cancels the triggering action nor sees through total cover or undetectable invisibility. You can use this reaction a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.

Veiled Play. When this reaction successfully Exposes an Opening, you may gain 1 Arousal to direct one ally within 30 feet who can hear you to exploit it. That ally has advantage on its next attack roll against the creature before the start of your next turn. The attack consumes the Opening, hit or miss. Resolve your Climax first if triggered; no attack is granted by this feature.

Unveiled Play. When a creature you can perceive within 60 feet gains Arousal from your Press the Confession, you may spend 1 Libido and use your reaction to attempt Expose against that creature immediately after the Arousal gain and any resulting Climax resolve. This uses one of your normal uses of No Secret Buried Deep. The creature must have a new, meaningful Opening; this does not inherit the Veiled attack benefit.

The Final Confession

17th-Level Subclass Feature

Once during each activation of Revelation, when you successfully Expose an Opening in a creature you can perceive within 60 feet, you may close that Opening without an action and confront the creature with all the evidence its Echoes betray. If the creature can see or hear you, it makes a Wisdom saving throw against your Confessor save DC. On a failed save, it is laid bare for up to 1 minute: the DM identifies one meaningful discrepancy discernible from the evidence or Echoes already available (or states that none is discernible); the creature has disadvantage on Charisma (Deception) checks directly concerning that evidence; and once on each of your turns you may grant advantage to the next attack roll you or an ally makes against that creature before the start of your following turn. This scrutiny does not bypass total cover, grant sight through invisibility, or compel it to speak.

At the end of each of its turns, the creature may repeat the Wisdom saving throw, ending these effects on a success. The effects also end if you are incapacitated or Revelation ends. On a successful initial save, the creature suffers none of these additional effects. The Opening closes regardless.

Veiled Play. Once during this feature’s duration, when the affected creature gains Arousal, you may voluntarily gain 1 Arousal to gain advantage on your next Expose check against it before the end of your next turn. Resolve your Climax before attempting Expose. This does not give the target more Arousal.

Unveiled Play. Once during this feature’s duration, when the affected creature resolves a Climax, you may spend 1 Libido to attempt Expose against it immediately after the Climax and its aftermath resolve, without expending your bonus action. Make the usual check; an Opening must genuinely exist. This does not extend The Final Confession, trigger another Climax, or grant the Veiled advantage.

Combat Identity

Investigator and control-focused skirmisher. Expose a real Opening, press a creature’s defenses, deny reactions, and later turn intimidation into brief fear. Your strongest combat turns depend on observation and a target you can actually confront.

Desire Identity

Arousal represents mounting pressure under accusation, fear, anticipation, or the strain of holding a dangerous secret. Veiled Play lets the Confessor risk personal Arousal for sharper scrutiny or to inflict Arousal on a target after an EROSave. Unveiled Play exchanges Libido for more controlled and sustained pressure. No mechanic assigns a new Arousal state, demands intimacy, or guarantees an admission.

Class Integration

You gain Calling features at Veilwalker levels 3, 9, 13, and 17. Expose remains the parent class’s bonus-action observation unless a feature expressly grants another timing. You do not create an Opening simply by accusing someone: the DM must determine that a meaningful vulnerability or contradiction exists. Sneak Attack retains all of its normal conditions. Revelation provides the 17th-level window for The Final Confession.

Using This Calling. Press the Confession expends the Opening that enables it and uses its own proficiency-bonus-per-long-rest pool. No Secret Buried Deep uses a separate proficiency-bonus-per-long-rest pool and consumes your reaction. The Final Confession is available once per activation of Revelation. Other features retain their stated actions, costs, and recharge.

Ritual and Social Use

The Black Ledger reconstructs testimony from traces and corroborated evidence. A Confessor may conduct a careful interview, expose contradictions in a trial, interrogate a prisoner, or confront a supernatural deceiver. The rule does not dictate the method or outcome of questioning. Darkness, threats, intimidation, and torture may appear as narrative possibilities only where the table has explicitly agreed to include them. No additional information, truth guarantee, mechanical bonus, or exemption from normal damage rules is awarded merely for using cruelty.

Example of Play

A Veilwalker Confessor questions an envoy whose account does not match the Echoes of a sealed chamber. The Veilwalker uses Expose as a bonus action and succeeds, uncovering an observable contradiction. She spends a use of Press the Confession, closes the Opening, and forces a Wisdom saving throw. When the envoy fails, he cannot take reactions until her next turn and has disadvantage on his next Deception check within 1 minute. He might deny everything, remain silent, or offer a story that needs corroboration; he is not compelled to speak truthfully.

Veiled Play Example. Before Press the Confession, the Confessor voluntarily gains 1 Arousal. The envoy instead makes an EROSave and, on failure, gains 1 Arousal in addition to the baseline effects. If either creature reaches Arousal 6, resolve its Climax immediately. Unveiled Play Example. The Confessor spends 1 Libido instead of taking personal Arousal to demand the EROSave. The two mode options are not combined.

Additional Rules

Confessor Save DC. Unless a feature specifies otherwise, the DC for this Calling is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier. The Wisdom saving throws in the baseline features are ordinary saving throws. A feature that calls for an EROSave uses the defender’s choice of Constitution or Wisdom, including proficiency only if the defender has it in the chosen saving throw.

Interrogation and Agency. Intimidation, pain, magical scrutiny, and psychological pressure are not truth-detection abilities. A creature can refuse an answer, produce false testimony, or believe something false. The DM reveals only what the Echoes and available evidence could reasonably support. No subclass ability forces a player character to surrender control of beliefs, lasting feelings, private history, or intimacy. Table-level safety and withdrawal choices always supersede in-fiction procedures.

Openings, Arousal, and Climax. An Exposed Opening normally lasts until used, the situation changes meaningfully, or 1 minute passes. Opening-related benefits do not reopen an already consumed Opening unless a feature expressly permits another Expose attempt. Unless a feature specifically overrides the limit, a creature can gain at most 3 Arousal per turn. Resolve any Climax and its consequences before using a benefit that occurs afterward. Healing or Exhaustion results only from an applicable rule, never automatically. Arousal does not establish attraction, willingness, guilt, or consent.