Ranger Conclave: Rat Queen
Forgoing the bigger companions of beast masters, rat queens form a special bond with the critters that make a home in both the wilds and the city. Often regarded as foolish and weak, they soon break such assumptions by unleashing a tide of vermin only slightly less devastating than the plague.
Rat Queen Magic
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the Rat Queen Spells table. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know.
Rat Queen Spells
| Ranger Level | Spell |
|---|---|
| 3rd | Ray of Sickness |
| 5th | Ray of Enfeeblement |
| 9th | Stinking Cloud |
| 13th | Sickening Radiance |
| 17th | Contagion |
Plague Bringer
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your bond with the vermin kind lends a certain distasteful quality to your strikes. Once per turn when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you may deal an additional 1d6 poison damage to the target.
Call of the Queen
Starting at 7th level, you gain the assistance of your own rodent companion. You permanently have a rat companion, which you may count as a familiar as per the find familiar spell, except that if it is killed it is returned to you at no cost the next dawn.
Once per long rest, you may cause this familiar to transform into a swarm of rats for one minute, during which time it can attack and take actions as per a regular creature on its own initiative. After one minute, or when the swarm is reduced to 0 hit points, it transforms back into your familiar on the same umber of hit points it had before transforming. If your familiar is dead, you may instead summon the swarm in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of you; this does not return the familiar to life.
Pestilential Multitude
By 11th level, your link with the rats grows ever deeper. Your swarm of rats from the Call of the Queen feature gains a hit point maximum equal three times your ranger level. Once on each of the swarm's turns, when it damages a creature with a melee attack, it may deal an additional 1d6 poison damage to the target.
Additionally, you may now summon the swarm once every short or long rest.
Empire of Pestilence
At 15th level, your Call of the Queen feature gains the following upgrades:
- Your rat familiar now transforms into two separate swarms of rats when you use this feature.
- If you are within 5ft of one of your swarms and one of you is attacked, you may use your reaction to split the damage equally between you.
- When you or a swarm deals poison damage to a creature, that creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or become poisoned until the end of its next turn (if it passes, it becomes immune to this feature for 24 hours).