Gods of the grave watch over the line between life and death. To these deities, death and the afterlife are a foundational part of the multiverse’s workings. To resist death, or to desecrate the dead’s rest, is an abomination. Deities of the grave include Kelemvor, Wee Jas, the ancestral spirits of the Undying Court, Hades, Anubis, and Osiris. These deities teach their followers to respect the dead and pay them due homage. Followers of these deities seek to put restless spirits to rest, destroy the undead wherever they find them, and ease the suffering of dying creatures. Their magic also allows them to stave off a creature’s death, though they refuse to use such magic to extend a creature’s lifespan beyond its mortal limits.
Grave Domain Spells
| Cleric Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | bane, false life |
| 3rd | gentle repose, ray of enfeeblement |
| 5th | revivify, vampiric touch |
| 7th | blight, death ward |
| 9th | antilife shell, raise dead |
Bonus Proficiency
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you gain proficiency with heavy armor.
Circle of Mortality
At 1st level, you gain the ability to manipulate the line between life and death. When you cast a spell that restores hit points to a living creature currently at 0, treat any dice rolled to determine the spell’s healing as having rolled their maximum result. In addition, if you have the spare the dying cantrip, you can cast it as a bonus action.
Gift of the Gravetender
Starting at 1st level, your connection to your god allows you to call up knowledge of death and burial rites of any race, however ancient. They also give you the power to perform those rites in place of a figure if a special title or person is needed.
If you spend 1 minute of uninterrupted contemplation, you gain the knowledge of how to perform the proper burial rite for any number of corpses of your choice within 100 feet of you. If you perform these rites, then you may communicate with the soul of the corpse and they are automatically friendly to you for performing their death rites properly. Both you and the soul can understand each other, no matter what language you speak. If the creature does not have a language, then you can only communicate basic concepts and questions.
Channel Divinity: Path to the Grave
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to mark another creature’s life force for termination.
As an action, you touch a creature. The next time that creature takes damage from a spell or an attack from you or an ally, it is vulnerable to that spell or attack’s damage. If the source of damage has multiple damage types, the creature is vulnerable to all of them. The vulnerability applies only to the first time that source inflicts damage, and then ends.
If the creature has resistance or is immune to the damage, it instead loses its resistance or immunity against that spell or attack when it first applies damage.
Sentinel at Death's Door
Starting at 6th level, you gain the ability to impede death’s progress. As a reaction when you or an ally that you can see within 30 feet of you suffers a critical hit, you can turn that attack into a normal hit. Any effects triggered by a critical hit are canceled.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.
Keeper of Souls
At 17th level, you gain the ability to manipulate the boundary between life and death. When an enemy you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you or one ally of your choice that is within 30 feet of you regains hit points equal to the enemy’s number of Hit Dice. You can use this feature as long as you aren’t incapacitated, but no more than once per round.