Some deities direct mortal hands to bloody their altars. Hecatombs earn power from their god and the fearful respect of their followers through the power of sacrifice. While nearly all deities that appoint Hecatombs have a certain disregard for mortal life, they are not exclusively evil, however. To such clerics, the axes of good and evil and law and chaos matter little—they are all secondary to the divine will.
Table: Hecatomb Spells
| Cleric Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1 | bane, divine favor |
| 3 | blindness/deafness, enthrall |
| 5 | bestow curse, blood-writ bargain |
| 7 | black tentacles, blight |
| 9 | geas, raise dead |
Starting at 1st level you gain the ability to dedicate a melee weapon that deals slashing or piercing damage as a ritual blade to your faith by performing rituals over the course of a short rest. You are always considered proficient with your ritual blade. This blade is a necessary component to features granted by this archetype and you can only have one blade dedicated in this way at a time. If the blade is destroyed while it is dedicated, a d4 is subtracted from your attack rolls and saving throws until you finish a short rest.
Also at 1st level, you gain the ability to perform a sacrificial ritual on the corpse of a creature of CR 1 or higher that has been dead no longer than an hour using your ritual blade. This feature has no effect on living creatures (or those still animated, in the case of undead). You must participate in the defeat of this creature (as determined by the Narrator) for the offering to be effective. This sacrificial ritual requires 10 minutes of focused work and completely consumes the corpse as it is made into an offering to your faith. If this ritual is interrupted, the corpse remains intact and unaffected. You can perform a number of sacrificial rituals equal to your proficiency bonus and you regain all expended uses whenever you finish a long rest.
Once you complete a sacrificial ritual, you may choose one of the following boons determined by the sacrificed creature’s CR:
Starting at 2nd level, you can channel your divinity as a bonus action to enter a religious fervor for the next minute. While in a religious fervor, you can choose to use your Wisdom modifier on attack and damage rolls made with your ritual blade. Such attacks also score critical hits on a result of 19–20. If you already have a feature that increases the range of your critical hits, your critical hit range increases by 1 (maximum 17–20).
Starting at 6th level, whenever you sacrifice a creature using your Sacrificial Ritual feature you gain the benefits of both options.
Starting at 8th level, whenever you use your ritual blade you appear as a terrifying agent of your faith. When you damage a creature with your ritual blade while under the effects of your Religious Fervor Channel Divinity option, enemy creatures within 30 feet must make a Wisdom saving throw or are frightened of you until the end of your religious fervor. A frightened creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Starting at 17th level, you have perfected the use of your ritual blade. Your Sacrificial Ritual feature only takes 1 minute to complete. Alternately, you can spend 10 minutes to gain one of two new boon options:
To choose this boon the sacrificed creature’s CR must be 18 or higher.