- There's another Unearthed Arcana for the Cleric that focuses
on a very different domain. What was the inspiration for this? - We have long wanted to have a Cleric, essentially, of shadow. In our early Fifth Edition work, that Cleric of Shadow actually turned into the Trickery Domain that's
in the Player's Handbook but this notion of shadow, or darkness, as the opposite of the Light Domain that is also in the Player's Handbook, that notion has stuck with us and so we've been tinkering with this idea of sort of the Shadow Cleric and the more we tinkered with it, the more it evolved into what has become the Twilight Domain where
we wanted something, not about total darkness, partly because we feel that we've gone to that design well
several times elsewhere in our class design. - [Todd] Shadow Sorcerer, Monk. - Yeah, and so rather than
going all in on shadow again, which we've done before, we wanted to explore a
space sort of in between and that's where we
ended up with Twilight. This is a Cleric who
might walk in darkness, but who also walks in light and who also walks in
the Border Territory. I also really wanted us to delve into an aspect of the night, of nighttime, that often gets ignored
in fantasy storytelling and that is night is also when we rest, not just when we're afraid, and often in fantasy storytelling, darkness and night is
associated with terrible, dark, scary things, and that's great. We will continue to do so in D&D. - [Todd] There are things to fight. - Yes, there are terrors in the night, but night is also when we rest, night is also, especially
when we are in our homes, we feel safe. Night is often a quieter time for us and so I wanted us to, again, explore that liminal space
between light and darkness, that twilight realm where
things might be scary but it also might be a place of comfort. It might be that place that
because the light isn't shining on you harshly, you feel
safer, you feel calmer, and I hope this resonates with people. Any time we do a more kind
of nuanced arc type like this I'm always fascinated to find out what my fellow fans think of it because it doesn't have
the same broad swing of light or darkness. - [Todd] Yeah, or the Grave Domain. - Yeah, there is appropriate
to a Twilight Domain, there's a quietness about it, but I think there can be a great power, not only in storytelling, but also in life, of the quiet places where
the light is softer, where things dim a bit. Now, that all sort of
high level talk aside, I think the subclass just
has some neat stuff in it where we explore, for instance, the ability for a character
to be able to see clearly in darkness at any distance. This feature, that the
subclass gets right away, of being able to see at any
distance in the darkness, I'm suspected, and we, the
team that worked on this, myself, Dan Dillon, Ben
Petrisor and Wes Schneider, thought people might
actually read it so fast, they might miss what makes it special, forgetting that, in D&D, dark vision almost always has a range, typically 60 feet,
occasionally 100, 120 feet, but usually it's only about up to 60 feet and then beyond that, you can't see. The Twilight Domain gives
the Cleric the ability to see in darkness, no
matter the distance, so already that's something special. Then they have the ability
to give that ability, a limited number of times, to their friends. So imagine you're in the Underdark, or you're trapped in some
other subterranean location, you have no light source, this is the Cleric who can say suddenly, everyone, we can see, but still maintain the darkness, because maybe we wanna
get the jump on people and we don't wanna cast the light spell or use some other means of
generating illumination. - Now, now it's less ethereal to me and now it's almost like a black ops team. - Yes, yeah, so again, we want, again, that liminal space where
this could be used to, you can imagine, rid people
of their fear of the dark. This could be the Cleric
who is a source of comfort to people where you can't see
and we have no source of light but we can make darkness our friend, but this ability could also
be used to sneak into a place and pull off an amazing ambush because you are moving in darkness and all of you able to see as
if you were in the daylight. So, again, really neat, I think, in terms of how this could play out. - It's such an insanely
valuable guide as well, in a very weird aside, I think of Riddick, he's the only person who
can see in the darkness and to have that power, you can become such an instrumental part of the party to survive. You see that dragon before
the dragon sees you. - And that was something we talked about; being of use to the group. We talked about it in our design, because typically when a person
chooses to paly the Cleric, the Cleric, so many of
it's ability are about helping other people, and the Cleric certainly
has a number of abilities that are just fun for the Cleric but I always try to make
sure that there's something in the Cleric, whether it was back then when we were working on the base class, but now in the subclass, that benefits your buddies, and so initially when we
did this see in the dark, it actually only benefited the Cleric, but, honestly, we could
do a feature like that in any class. In fact, in Xanathar's
Guide we have the Ranger who is also a friend to the darkness, but here, to really
distinguish this subclass from a similar theme elsewhere, we wanted to make it so that
you could help your friends, 'cause that's, again, a very Cleric thing to be able to do. It's also why this Cleric
is able to give advantage to themself or someone else
on their next initiative role. This idea that you can bring
vigilance to your group. This Cleric is such a friend to the night that they eventually gain the ability to essentially walk on darkness. I really loved when Dan Dillon put that in the initial draft, this idea, again, of this Cleric just sort
of striding upon the night. It's, again, there's kind
of a witchy quality to it which also makes it possible, I think, to make some Cleric concepts
that maybe some of our other subclasses don't fully realize. If you want to make a Cleric of the moon, you could certainly do that with some of our other subclasses 'cause the moon is associated in myth with many different things. You could associate the moon
with the Knowledge Domain, the Life Domain, the Grave Domain, but this domain let's you
focus more on nighttime itself and your relationship with
darkness and twilight and light so I think it's, again, it's a very rich area, not only in terms of
what the subclass can do, but also in terms of the types of Clerics you can make with it. - It's such a transitive moment too, particularly for kids for
some reason, in my mind, like you're waiting for Halloween and the sun begins to set. It is a transition somehow mentally, for all of us, always. Whether you're going out
and you're going to a party, or go see the movies, or go
trick or treating for candy, there is something about twilight that is the border of all of that. From the moment you work, even growing up on a farm, the moment you are working, to the moment where
you can't work any more and then things are fun. There is something kind of
like ingrained in all of us and walking on shadows is always cool. (laughing) Like how can you not want to do that? So that makes a lot of sense, like if you're a Cleric
that worships the moon, or moon deity, how would you do this for a philosophy, that's a toughy in my mind. - So if your Cleric follows a philosophy or a force instead of a God or a pantheon, you could imagine a
philosophy of transition or of change, or a concept of mystery because, not only does this
domain give you the ability to pierce darkness with your sight and stride up on darkness, but this also allows
you to create darkness. So, in a way, it's like you have this two-sided relationship with darkness. You can use it, or de-fang it, or you can use it against others. You can conjure up darkness, and then eventually, at a high enough level in the subclass, you can make it so that,
with the darkness spell, you and your friends can see through it. Which, again, is one of those things where a person might read
it and say eh, big deal, but remember the darkness.
- [Todd] No. - The darkness spell.
- [Todd] No. - The darkness spell
cannot be seen through even by normal dark vision and so to have a group
that can walk around in the area of a darkness spell, and keep in mind when
other people can't see you and they try to attack you, they have disadvantage on
all their attack roles, and if you can see them
and they can't see you, you have advantage on your attack roles, oh boy could this be devastating
in certain circumstances. - It's so terrifying. My wife and I use darkness together, when we get a chance to play together, that's our go to. We drop some darkness, like Shadow Sorcerer,
Warlock with devil sight and it's just like one, two, punch, right? Again, disadvantage against us, advantage for us against them and then things get really dark if you get the sentinel feat or you have eldritch blast
that slows people down. So now you have three
subclasses that can all, well in the entire class here, but you can have three
different characters that are all about the darkness and treading that line, and that's very exciting
and very advantageous, because, before, doing
that trip with darkness has a very alienating effect because it's just you in the dark. - [Jeremy] Right, yeah. - And the party watching you do this. Can you grant that
ability to other people? - Yes, yeah, and again, that is the Cleric twist where the Twilight Cleric is
able to share this ability which, again, might be scary for your foes but can also then be
comforting for your friends, and again, it goes back
to the two-sided nature of the Twilight Domain.
