Sign of the Crown | Astrologer Astral Sign, and on subclass spells

With the Sign of the Crown we introduce another homebrew-for-homebrew, this time for Nimademe's excellent astrologer class. Seriously, give this class a read! It's one of the most innovative, well-designed, and evocative homebrew classes I have ever seen.

So, what is the Sign of the Crown?

Nimademe recommends that every astral sign draw inspiration from one of the Ptolemaic Constellations. These are the early "original" Greco-Roman constellations as described by Ptolemy. Why not all constellations? Well, it's fair to say that Microscopium might not fit all Dungeons & Dragons settings. But it's much more reasonable to think that various campaign settings might have parallels to Sagittarius, Libra, and Aquarius—an archer constellation, scales constellation, and vessel constellation respectively.

I chose to create a homebrew for Corona Borealis, a constellation representing a crown and often associated with the story of Theseus and Ariadne. In this case, the Corona Borealis is supposed to be Ariadne's diadem—hence the name of the capstone. Since most Greco-Roman capstones signify male heroes, I wanted to try to invert expectations and find a female figure to base the subclass around, and I feel lucky that I was able to.

The subclass is relatively straightforward in a way that well-executes the themes. Crown of Leadership allows an astrologer to support their allies while hanging back from the fray. Sovereign Territory helps keep melee enemies away from the backline, and Hold the Line is a nice defense boost that makes it even easier for an astrologer to hold their ground during a Cosmic Ritual. Finally, Ariadne's Edict is a fun, potent way to impose one's leadership even on enemy forces.

One other interesting element of this homebrew is my inclusion of homebrew spells for the Crown of Leadership's Spells table. This is not the first time I've done this—you've probably seen it in other homebrew I've made. But I feel like it's worth pointing out and talking about. Sometimes I feel like I have a hard time finding fitting spells for a given subclass. Often the theme I have in mind is only represented by a few existing official spells, and sometimes the spells that would fit strike me as too strong or too weak. To resolve that issue, I like to introduce brand new spells to fill out these subclass lists.

Zealous accusation and overwhelm are actually not technically new; I created them for another homebrew that I haven't yet published on this blog and simply "yoinked" them for use here. Having a variety of already-created homebrew spells is pretty nice sometimes. It basically adds to the existing spells and becomes part of the repertoire I can use. Vigorous surge is brand new, and I created it specifically for the Sign of the Crown. I wanted a leadership-themed spell at 5th level that fit in with the astrologer's slow casting style. Using vigorous surge to end a battle has a certain dramatic flair to it that is very fitting!

Anyhow, do read Nimademe's astrologer, and I hope you enjoy that class and this Sign of the Crown subclass!