The Chaos Domain (Cleric)
“Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this: my own Glorious Purpose.”
— Loki, God of Chaos
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Chaos Domain
Art Credit: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=518424
If you’ve been watching the new Loki series, you’ve been reminded more than a few times that the eponymous god is the god of chaos in addition to trickery. And while there are many cleric domains for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, including a trickery domain and order domain, there is no official domain for this aspect of the famous god of chaos. However, D&D Unleashed is here with the perfect Chaos Domain to oppose the gods of the Order Domain and fill out the more capricious and unpredictable ends of fantasy pantheons. This domain focuses on change and on random effects, wielding the wild powers of destruction and creation that deities of chaos tend to invoke. Let’s talk about the design!
Some of the class features in the Chaos Domain, such as the Wild Blessing Channel Divinity and its table of random results, may seem familiar to anyone well-acquainted with the Wild Magic sorcerer or barbarian subclasses. In fact, because the Chaos Domain’s 1st level feature “Chaotic Fate” can be used to alter the roll for a table in a class feature or spell, a chaos cleric makes the perfect support for another wild magic character. If your ally rolls up a bad result for their Wild Surge, you can use your Chaotic Fate feature to let them reroll for a (hopefully) better result. You can even use it on poor results for spells such as teleport and reincarnate or on your own rolls for your Wild Blessing Channel Divinity. As the opposite of the Order Domain and a subclass themed around destruction, the Chaos Domain grants access to martial weapons instead of heavy armor. It also has Divine Strike instead of the Potent Spellcasting feature, but its special Divine Strike determines its damage type randomly based on the damage rolled, similarly to the chaos bolt spell that appears on the spell list.
Much like the Divine Strike, the domain’s Channel Divinity at 2nd level can deal a wide range of damage types at random to represent the wild powers of chaos, but it also creates special unique effects at random as well. The effects granted by Wild Blessing are all beneficial, but the chaos cleric doesn’t know when it is activated whether they’ll have a support, offensive, or defensive effect. Each effect is slightly weaker than a similar Channel Divinity that only had one effect would do. For example, the healing is worse than the Channel Divinity for the Life Domain and for the Peace Domain, and while the fire effect is similar to the Channel Divinity for the Light Domain, the fire effect hits a smaller area, uses a worse damage type, and also hits allies in the area instead of only enemies. Once they reach 6th level, the cleric makes an unexpected choice every time they use their Channel Divinity by rolling twice and choosing one of the results. With two uses of Channel Divinity every short rest, the cleric will end up with many, many chaotic decisions between level 6 and level 17. At 17th level, the cleric can finally choose which result to obtain from Wild Blessing every time. They also gain the ability to move a magical effect from one creature to another, an ability that clerics of the Change Domain classically had in previously editions.
There are two D&D Unleashed spells referenced in this subclass: jinx and water to acid, both of which have already been previewed/released. Those spells will also be appearing in The Impermissicon, the same compendium that the Chaos Domain will reside in. The spell list for the chaos domain shares the same general themes as the rest of the class itself: change, as with alter self, polymorph, and reincarnate, and random effects, especially random penalties, like the bane, bestow curse, and jinx spells. The domain spell list also calls back to the Chaos and Change domains from previous editions, which is why it includes animate objects and shatter. Using the 17th level feature, a chaos cleric can even grant an ally the benefits from its alter self or blink spells! Animate objects, chaos bolt, and shatter also match with the destructive nature of the features of the subclass, such as its martial weapon proficiency and the many offensive and destructive effects in the Channel Divinity.
The Chaos Domain combines many themes and ideas with a mechanical implementation that fits similarly chaotic subclasses from other classes, but with a particular cleric spin that defies the boundaries of other cleric subclasses. It is wild, unpredictable, and liable to change any battlefield or story that it is thrown into, just like chaotic deities. Like most D&D Unleashed subclasses, it is both broad and unique, and fills many as-of-yet unfilled niches without stepping on the toes of the official subclasses, allowing you to build the characters you’ve already been wanting to build but haven’t been able to!
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Chaos Domain
