Reclaimer
Artificer Subclass — Campaign homebrew for Heretics of the Old Gods
Overview
Aeorian ruins run beneath Bassuras like a second city, and every one of them contains arcanotech a thousand years beyond anything currently manufactured. Most Wrenches who go down there are looking for parts. A Reclaimer is looking for function — a way to make dead, half-understood machinery work again without fully knowing why it works, using patience, salvage instinct, and a willingness to be wrong in a way that’s usually survivable.
Reclaimers aren’t scholars. They don’t reverse-engineer anything in the academic sense — nobody in Nuxan has the infrastructure left for that. What they have is an accumulated, improvisational feel for scavenged tech: enough to jury-rig a working effect out of a fragment whose original purpose is lost, even if that effect only holds together for a few minutes before it burns out.
Reclaimer Spells
You always have the following spells prepared once you reach the levels shown. They don’t count against the number of spells you know.
| Artificer Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 3rd | comprehend languages, alarm |
| 5th | arcane lock, magic weapon |
| 9th | glyph of warding, tiny servant |
| 13th | fabricate, stone shape |
| 17th | animate objects, wall of force |
Features
3rd Level: Tool Proficiency
You gain proficiency with mason’s tools or navigator’s tools, reflecting time spent in collapsed structures and unmapped tunnels rather than a proper workshop. If you already have both, you instead gain proficiency with one additional type of artisan’s tools.
3rd Level: Salvager’s Eye
You’ve handled enough dead tech to read it fast. You have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks made to determine the age, function, or origin of an unfamiliar object, mechanism, or ruin. Additionally, you can cast identify a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier, without expending a spell slot or requiring the normal material component. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. You can also determine whether a single object you touch is magical, with no action required, as though you had cast detect magic targeting only that object.
3rd Level: Reclaimed Components
You carry a satchel of scavenged, partially-understood tech fragments — call them reclaimed components. You start with a number of components equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1). You regain all expended components after a long rest, provided you spend at least 10 minutes salvaging from scrap, ruins, or comparable material — rarely a problem in Bassuras.
As a bonus action, you can expend one reclaimed component to jury-rig a burst of function into your gear. Choose one:
- Borrowed spark. Replicate the effect of a cantrip you don’t know, from any class’s spell list, as a single unstable burst. It sparks, smokes, or hums audibly when used.
- Fast reference. Gain advantage on the next Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma check you make before the end of your turn.
- Overclock. A creature within 30 feet of you (including yourself) gains a +1d4 bonus to their next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw made before the start of your next turn.
5th Level: Jury-Rig Mastery
If you’ve examined an item with Salvager’s Eye or handled it for at least 1 minute, you can spend an action and 2 reclaimed components to grant yourself or a willing creature you touch an unstable duplicate of one of that item’s properties for 1d4 minutes. Work out the specific effect with your DM — it should land around the power of a 2nd- or 3rd-level spell, not replicate the item wholesale. You must maintain concentration on the effect for its duration, as you would a spell; if your concentration ends early, the jury-rig ends with it.
9th Level: Stabilized Salvage
Your instincts have caught up with your ambition. Jury-Rig Mastery’s duration increases to 1d6 minutes, and the effect no longer requires concentration to maintain.
Additionally, once per long rest, you can spend an action and 3 reclaimed components to assemble a temporary construct or tool from pure scavenged material: a climbing anchor, a lockpicking automaton, a brace that shores up a collapsing passage, or a comparably scoped utility effect. It functions for 10 minutes or until its task is clearly complete, whichever comes first. This isn’t a combat feature — work out the specific capability with your DM based on what’s actually available to scavenge in the scene.
15th Level: Ghost in the Machine
Jury-Rig Mastery’s duration increases to 2d6 minutes. If you roll doubles on the highest possible result (double 6s), the jury-rigged effect doesn’t expire on a timer at all — it persists until whatever it’s anchored to is destroyed.
Additionally, once per long rest, as an action, you can attempt a full, stable activation of one significant piece of ancient tech in your immediate environment — an Aeormaton husk, a sealed vault mechanism, a piece of Aeorian infrastructure nobody’s touched in centuries. This is scene- and DM-dependent, not a guaranteed combat button, and should be treated as a genuine narrative event when it comes up.