Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Stealer of Souls

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted offer up blood and souls for a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character. This Stealer of Souls character build for 5E D&D came about because frankly we just wanted to make a paladin/Hexblade warlock character. While discussing it, a certain albino anti-hero from literature came up, so we leaned into the connection. Let’s get into it.

Behind the CBG — Stealer of Souls

Every CBG we create considers the journey as much as the final outcome. We aim to present a guide suitable for any level of 5E D&D play whether you’re pursuing an epic campaign from start to finish, starting beyond 1st level or choosing a character for a one shot. Then we take those concepts and develop an NPC or creature version of the character build for DMs to incorporate into their games. All of this gets packaged up and laid out in a PDF you can find over at Dungeon Master’s Guild. We’ve got dozens of pay what you want products at DMG, many of them best sellers so if you want to check those out start with the Stealer of Souls here.

All about the character story

Each CBG starts with a character concept sticking to a particular schtick, from the Mind Breaker’s psyche crushing smites to the Stealer of Souls’ chaotic relationship with their patron and their own modus operandi. Sometimes puns and pop culture references instigate the creation of a CBG too. We felt the tiefling is the closest analog to our inspiring character. A race with ties to fiendish entities, often shunned and feared in the world sounds on brand. With your Dungeon Master’s permission, perhaps your Stealer of Souls was the ultimate ruler of their culture, but abdicated their throne and left everything behind to follow their quest.

For us it’s important to consider who these characters are as individuals and why they follow these particular paths. One special thing to note with this CBG is while we always aim to make the journey to 20th level as practical as possible — none of these characters “come online” after an awkward slog through many levels — the Stealer of Souls feels solidly and appropriately bad ass by 11th level when the majority of campaigns tend to end. Don’t worry though if your campaign goes all the way. The Stealer of Souls leaps forward in power at just about every level thereafter too.

Two things worth noting in particular for this CBG are it was one of the earliest we’d created and this was back when we made a point to create these following Adventurers League rules. We felt like this was the most accessible way to present these are most broadly useful. Since they’re very easy to change and adapt to your liking it was important to us to follow those guidelines, which have since changed. The other noteworthy aspect to the Stealer of Souls is it holds the title for our most popular DM’s Guild product as an Electrum Best Seller. Since all of our titles there are pay-what-you-want prices we’re extra proud when any of them achieve any sort of best seller status.

Umbral Knight NPC for 5E D&D

Full disclosure — the NPCs and creatures we make in CBGs are some of my favorite bits of 5E D&D content to create. We step back and look at the character build to find the standout features that feel like signature abilities. The juice! From there we consider what sort of person or people would possess or gain these abilities and build a stat block around them. More often than not the section of a CBG For Dungeon Masters presents a generic creature.

Because this was one of our earliest CBGs another distinction is we stuck a lot closer to the player character mechanics for the NPC creature version too. Now with nearly 60 of these in our library we’ve grown much more flexible since. Nevertheless we still put a great deal of thought into each of these to present creatures and NPCs to give DMs both inspiration for engaging encounters and the stat block mechanics to make them memorable and impactful for players’ experiences and dangerous adversaries for their characters.

When an umbral knight is conscripted into service to their decadent rulers, their souls are bound in a pact to the powers of darkness and chaos. This pact manifests as armor and blades made of cursed darkness, and they are dispatched into the world to reap souls. When they die, the umbral knights arms and armor fade, returning to the nothingness from whence they came. Scholars have postulated that it is the armor and sword, not the creature wielding them, that is the true umbral knight.

Vanguard of Cruelty. Umbral Knights represent the vestiges of a vast, decadent civilization. Long ago, the rulers of this kingdom made dark pacts with fiendish entities from the Shadowfell. Their blood mingled with these chaotic powers, and as their power grew their culture became cruel and depraved.

“Call on the Curse (Recharge 5-6). As an action, the umbral knight can end the Cursed Hex on any number of affected creatures within 60 feet. The targets must make a DC 18 Charisma saving throw or take 14 (4d6) necrotic damage and be stunned until the end of the umbral knight’s next turn, or half as much damage and the target is not stunned on a successful save”

If your next 5E D&D game needs a character who seeks souls for their thirsty patron — whether you’re the DM or a player — check out the Stealer of Souls Character Build Guide here.

*Featured image — When it comes to fantasy art there are few who’ve had the impact on and instant recognition from D&D nerds quite like Gerald Brom. His gorgeous paintings helped defined the Dark Sun setting. Among his many other incredible works he illustrated covers for several of author Michael Moorcock’s novels about Elric of Melnibone, the original bad ass dark hero with the soul stealing sword. This particular painting from 2017 is called quite fittingly Soul Stealer. [Art by Brom]

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