Druids of the Circle of the Cycle believe that death and life are merely part of the same cycle: not only is death a beautiful, natural event, but it is also essential for life to flourish. However, these druids take this concept a step further than simply consuming flesh or reusing bones to make tools. Instead, they take the body parts of slain creatures and incorporate them into their shapeshifting abilities to bolster their own powers. While even other druids see this as overly pragmatic, Druids of the Circle of the Cycle see it as a final honour to the dead, allowing them to walk the earthly plane one last time.
These druids wander the land, ensuring the cycle is unbroken. They are just as adept at ending a suffering creature’s life as they are at helping to birth a new one. They absolutely abhor the undead, who they see as being the ultimate perversion of the cycle; it is not uncommon for these druids to be spurred to great action if it means ending an undead presence in their land.
| Druid Level | Feature |
|---|---|
| 2nd | Healing Through Change |
| 6th | Accelerate the Cycle |
| 10th | Death and Rebirth |
| 14th | Monstrous Wild Shape |
When you choose this circle at 2nd level, whenever you cause yourself or an ally to change into another form through magic (such as with your Wild Shape feature or through the polymorph spell), that creature recovers hit points equal to your Druid level plus your Wisdom modifier. These hit points are added to their original hit points instead of their new form.
Starting at 6th level, whenever you succeed on an attack roll against a creature, you may choose to add two extra damage dice to your total damage dealt. If your target is undead or a creature that has less than half of its maximum hit points, you roll three extra dice instead.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain one expended use whenever you kill a creature or whenever you expend a spell lot to cause a creature other than you to regain hit points. You also regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.
At 10th level, you learn how to harness the energy of the recently deceased to instantly cause new life to spring forth from the corpse. Whenever a creature you can see dies within 60 feet of you, you can use your reaction to conjure a beast of your choice that has a challenge rating of 2 or less in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the deceased creature. You must have seen this beast before in order to conjure it in this way. When you reach 14th level in this class, you may conjure beasts that have up to a challenge rating of 4.
The summoned beast is friendly to you and your companions. Roll initiative for the summoned beast, which has its own turns. It obeys any verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions. The beast lasts for 1 hour, until it drops to 0 hit points, or if you dismiss it as an action, after which, the beast disappears into a cloud of energy that quickly dissipates.
Once you use this feature once, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
At 14th level, your mastery of the cycle allows you to transform into the monsters you have harvested. As an action, you may expend a use of your Wild Shape feature to cast the Shapechange spell. When cast in this way, you may only assume the form of a creature with the beast, dragon, giant, humanoid, or monstrosity creature types, there is no challenge rating limit to what creature you can transform into, and you do not need any of the spell’s normal components. Instead, the spell consumes a heart harvested by you from the creature you are transforming into. If you wish to change into another form during the duration of the spell, you must expend another heart using the same rules.