Critical Role and Wizards of the Coast recently announced that March would see the release of a new campaign setting, the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount. Entirely based on the continent of Wildemount featured in the story of Critical Role’s second campaign, the guide lays out a massive variety of new features, including deities, monsters, and our current topic, three new subclasses.
These three subclasses – Graviturgist, Chronurgist, and Echo Knight – all share a theme of heavily utilizing the magic of Dunamancy, a homebrewed family of magic created by Mercer. Dunamancy has a strong focus on control and alteration, changing the fabric of reality itself through the manipulation of gravity and time itself, as well as a resource called Dunamis.
As the name suggests, the Graviturgist’s trademark is the manipulation of gravity. This is something we’ve already seen showcased a few times in Critical Role, where one NPC controlled gravity not only to stun and levitate an opponent, but also to crush their torso inwards and fatally injure them.
“The graviturgist deals with the density and placement of the forces of gravity on the battlefield,” Mercer describes, speaking on the way that the Graviturgist has learned to “alter the density and gravity affecting creatures – including themselves.”
There’s plenty of utility in this specialization of magic. As Mercer describes, the Graviturgist has the ability to lower the gravity affecting a target, allowing them to jump higher and farther, or to change the speed of a target. This isn’t completely positive, though, as it also takes away what perks there may be behind the force of gravity, such as the strength behind a physical attack.
Altering gravity also allows the Graviturgist to heavily control the battlefield, moving items and creatures about as they see fit. One of the spells that Mercer outlines is Gravity Fissure, which works as a line-target spell that draws in targets before crushing them with the force of gravity.
Past that, another use that Mercer outlines is the ability to enhance the damage of your allies, such as increasing the force of a physical attack. Specifically, he speaks on increasing the velocity of a sword to hit significantly harder, dealing more damage in the process.
Much of the Graviturgist’s abilities seem to work in a support vein, but one that runs support by allowing allies to be as effective as possible rather than defensive-based supports that many Cleric and Paladin subclasses offer. There’s still plenty more to know about these classes, so keep your eye out at your local game store for the release of the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount in March.
