It's All About The Love For Animals: The Zoophile Subclass

Lizbeth had to deal with a great elk and the druid who wanted to stop it. The elk had been targeting humans coming into its forest and the druid wanted to stop it. She had put herself between the two, literally. She yelled at the druid in his own tongue. “Have you tried talking to it?”

He was shocked, and responded in the same arcane language. “You speak our tongue? Then you know we see a balance here.”

“I know. But let me try something. She focused on the elk while speaking other arcane words. “Dear elk, why are you attacking the humans?”

The elk reared. “They killed my mate. They deserve to die?”

She slumped a little in sympathy. She glared at the druid. “His mate was killed, you idiot.” She returned to the elk. “Can you describe the hunter.”

The elk grunted. “He had a shiny bit on his cloak that looked like a bow in front of a sun.”

Her eyes rolled. She knew exactly who the killer was. She had been having problem with the Duke’s moron son ever since he had claimed the Royal Ranger, and the responsibility of the forest. Suffice to say he was known for his drunken revelries more than his ability to judge wrongs. “If I can give you a chance to kill the killer, would you abate your attacks?”

The paused for a moment. “I could work with that.”

She nodded. “I’ll see about making it happen.” She glared at the druid. “The situation has been dealt with.” The druid nodded and walked away. “Great. Now I just need to the Duke’s son and the elk together.” She smiled. “About time he faced justice.”

Wizards getting tired of politics and just wanting to deal with nature is hardly an uncommon theme. The zoophile started there, with her love of animals and nature in general fueling her passion for magic. She wants to get back to nature, and use her magic to find more animal friends. Zoophiles tend to more laid back yet hurried at the same time; they don’t really understand deadlines but want to get to the birth of a foal as quickly as possible. They are likely to spend hours with druids talking about the latest blossoms and rangers about herd migrations, and not care about the latest dresses or politics. They are nature lovers first and foremost, and it shows in everything they do.

It should be noted that not all zoophiles are nice people. Some have no problem stealing entire herds of animals to punish humans or changing the flow of a river to make a point. Some zoophiles want to punish people for the evil domestication of animals, modifications to the land itself, and other such evils, and they will take their pound of flesh. Zoophiles can be good or evil just like anyone else, and they have the power to back it up.

[Design Considerations: This is the outside wizard, the one who prefers dealing with animals over people. They tend to be great friends with druids and rangers, and are likely to take up a few levels of either class. They look for any proficiency to help them survive, usually Animal Handling, a wide mix of tool proficiencies, and common languages. Feats they may look into include Crafter, Crossbow Expert, Lucky, Observant, Speedy. and Tough. If they take the Magic Initiate feat, they are likely to look at the druidcraft, mending, resistance, and shillelagh cantrips, and animal friendship, create or destroy water, detect poison and disease, and purify food and drink spells.]

Level 3: Conjuring Savant

You can add two spells from the Conjuration school to your spellbook for free, as long as they are Level 1 or 2. Each time you can add spells due to your increasing wizard level, you can add another Conjuration spell that you can cast.

Level 3: Survival Expert

You gain proficiency in Stealth, Survival, and Druidic. If you already have proficiency in them, you can choose Animal Handling or tool proficiencies instead.

Level 6: Bond with Nature

When your spells target beasts, oozes, or plants, the target of your spell has disadvantage on saving throws versus your spells. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus per long rest.

Level 10: Backwoods Research

You can add arcane versions of animal friendship, beast sense, locate plants and animals, speak with animals, and summon beast to your spellbook. Non-zoophile mages cannot copy the spells, but you can otherwise treat them as arcane spells.

Level 14: Animal Conjurer

You gain two advantages here: When you cast a spell involving a beast, your spell is treated as if it’s two levels higher (a Level 1 spell is cast if it were a Level 3 spell). If you cast a Conjuration spell that summons a beast, you summon one more beast. These bonuses are cumulative.