School of Ruin

Wizard Subclass — Heretics of the Old Gods homebrew, merged from the Evoker and Necromancer (PHB 2024)

Overview

Evocation and Necromancy were always the same trade under two names: the magic of ending things. In a world with an ungoverned Shadowfell full of accumulated dead, the blaster and the corpse-handler are the same feared, practical professional — muscle for whoever can afford them, a liability to everyone else. The merged school is a glass cannon that feeds on the deaths it causes. It does not raise armies; the minion-master’s craft was cut in the collapse and survives only as Lost Art fragments.

Features

Reaping Fire (Level 3)

Grim Harvest. Once per turn, when you kill one or more creatures with a spell of level 1+, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell’s level, or three times its level if it’s a necromancy spell. You gain nothing for killing constructs or undead.

Potent Cantrip. When you cast a cantrip at a creature and miss with the attack roll, or the target succeeds on its saving throw, the target still takes half the cantrip’s damage (if any) but suffers no additional effect.

Sculpt Spells (Level 6)

When you cast an evocation spell that affects other creatures you can see, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the spell’s level. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and take no damage if they would normally take half on a success.

Empowered Evocation (Level 10)

Whenever you cast a wizard evocation spell, you can add your Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of that spell.

Overchannel (Level 14)

When you cast a wizard spell of level 1–5 that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with it. The first time between long rests is free. Each subsequent use before a long rest deals 2d12 necrotic damage to you per level of the spell, increasing by 1d12 for each use after that. This damage ignores resistance and immunity.

Overchannel is the keystone of the merge: evocation output paid for in necrotic decay. It is the point where the two old schools stop being separate.

Note on the Lost Curriculum

The necromantic minion tradition was cut in the merge. Inured to Undeath (necrotic resistance) and Command Undead survive only as Lost Art fragments — a Ruin wizard who wants to hold ground against the dead, rather than just outburn them, reconstructs these.