The Stillmind

A contemplative who has held the mind still until the world began to lean toward it, and who strikes with a force no arm could throw.

Campaign rules apply. Thirteen spells are banned and two are modified in this campaign; the campaign’s spell point rule does not apply to this class, which manifests Mind Spells rather than casting spells — see Campaign Rules. This document already conforms: banned spells have been removed and replaced at the same level, and modified spells are annotated where they appear.

Identity

You do not cast spells. You attain, and the attaining is the hard part, not the power: behind the stillness other people mistake for calm, you are working, watching each breath all the way in and all the way out and refusing the thought that wants to be thought. The old masters warned their students that a settled mind starts to bend things — that levitation, the reading of intentions and the strike that lands where no hand reaches arrive not as gifts but as symptoms of a discipline turned inward until it overflowed, and that the powers are a trap. In a story you are the calmest person in every disaster and the most unsettling one: the student who was told the point was never to fly, and learned to fly anyway.

The Stillmind is a Wisdom-based contemplative whose “magic” is a menu of Mind Spells, the powers of a perfected mind, unlocked not by study or bargain but in a fixed contemplative sequence, like the degrees of a hard-won craft. Your baseline weapon is a strike the body should not be able to throw (Mind Over Body, force landing harder than the arm behind it); your artistry is the Mind Spell menu, a ladder of psionic effects — levitation, telekinesis, water-walking, precognition, thought-reading — bought with Qi and manifested without a word, a gesture, or a component anyone can interrupt. Where a wizard reaches for a book and a cleric for a god, you reach for nothing at all, and find that nothing, held perfectly still, is the most powerful thing in the room. Wisdom is how still you can hold it.

Casting ability: Wisdom.

Class Overview

Manifesting summary. You don’t cast spells; you manifest Mind Spells using Wisdom as your manifesting ability: a closed, component-free menu of seventy-five (forty of the class’s own and thirty-five official spells), opened by Degree at fixed levels and paid for with Qi points, not spell slots (see Mind Spells, level 2). Manifestation save DC = 8 + your Wisdom modifier + your Proficiency Bonus; manifestation attack modifier = your Wisdom modifier + your Proficiency Bonus. No damaging cantrips — your at-will “magic” is your Martial Arts and your Mind Over Body strike, plus utility-only Lesser Mind Spells (levels 2, 7 and 13) at no Qi. From level 13, Mystic Arcanum adds three Great Mind Spells: outside the Degrees, no Qi, once per Long Rest each.

Class Table

Mind Over Body Qi cost: 1 at levels 2–10, 2 at levels 11–16, 3 at levels 17–20 (die count as shown). You have no Qi and no Mind Over Body at level 1. Mind Spells Known: 2 at level 2, rising to 11 at level 20 as the Mind Spells Known column shows. You choose them from any Degree you have unlocked, and when you gain a Stillmind level you can replace one Mind Spell you know with another you have access to. Lesser Mind Spells and Great Mind Spells are separate and don’t count against this number. Lesser Mind Spells: 1 at level 2, 2 at level 7, 3 at level 13 — utility only. Unarmored Movement: +10 ft at level 2, +15 ft at level 6, +20 ft at level 10, +25 ft at level 14, +30 ft at level 18; vertical surfaces and liquids from level 9. Mystic Arcanum: one Great Mind Spell equivalent to a 6th-level spell at 13, a 7th-level at 16, an 8th-level at 19 — each manifested once per Long Rest, costing no Qi, belonging to no Degree, and chosen permanently at that level.

Class Features

Level 1: Martial Arts

While you are unarmed or wielding a simple weapon and you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you gain the following benefits.

• Martial Arts die. You can roll your Martial Arts die (see the class table) in place of the normal damage of your Unarmed Strikes and simple weapons.
• Composed strikes. You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your Unarmed Strikes and simple weapons.
• Second breath. When you take the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a simple weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action.

Level 1: Unarmored Defense

While you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, your base Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Wisdom modifier.

Level 1: Counted Breath

Before there are any powers there is the breath. When you fail a saving throw to avoid or end the Charmed or Frightened condition, you can count one breath and reroll the save, and you must use the new roll. This costs no action, Bonus Action or Reaction, and you can use it on any creature’s turn. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a Long Rest.

Level 2: Still Mind

The quiet takes a year of sitting before it holds anything. From level 2 you have a pool of Qi points equal to your Stillmind level. You regain all expended Qi when you finish a Short or Long Rest. Qi fuels Mind Over Body, your Mind Spells and your Discipline; every feature that costs Qi says so.

Level 2: Mind Over Body

The strike lands harder than the arm behind it. Once on each of your turns, immediately after you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike or a simple weapon, you can spend Qi to drive the blow with your will as a free rider — 1 Qi at levels 2–10, 2 Qi at levels 11–16, and 3 Qi at levels 17–20 — this costs no action, Bonus Action, or Reaction, and doesn’t replace any other part of your turn.

Roll a number of dice of your Martial Arts die size and add your Wisdom modifier; the target takes that much extra force or psychic damage (your choice each time, or the strike’s own type). The number of dice is 1 at levels 2–10, 3 at levels 11–16, and 5 at levels 17–20, as shown in the Mind Over Body column.

Because Mind Over Body is limited to once per turn, throwing more strikes only gives you more chances to land it — it never fires twice on the same turn, and no Mind Spell or Discipline feature stacks additional Mind Over Body dice onto the same strike.

Distant Mind. The mind does not need to be within arm’s reach. Mind Over Body works on your ranged telekinetic Unarmed Strikes exactly as it does in melee, and its damage can’t be reduced by a target’s Reaction, such as the Shield spell.

Level 2: Mind Spells

You reach the first Degree of Mind Spell. From now on you can spend Qi to manifest Mind Spells from the closed menu indexed in The Mind Spell Menu later in this document (full entries in the Appendix of New Spells, under The Stillmind — Mind Spells), which holds the class’s own Mind Spells and the official spells you manifest as Mind Spells.

Degrees. You reach the First Degree at level 2 and higher Degrees at the levels shown in the Highest Degree column (Second at 5, Third at 9, Fourth at 13, Fifth at 17). A Degree is a ceiling, not a grant: reaching it makes that tier, and every tier below it, legal for your next choice; it does not by itself teach you anything.

Mind Spells known. You know the number of Mind Spells shown in the Mind Spells Known column of the class table — 2 at level 2, rising to 11 at level 20 — chosen from any Degree you have unlocked. Nothing about them is prepared: every Mind Spell you know is always available. When you gain a Stillmind level you can replace one Mind Spell you know with another you have access to. That is the only way to change the Mind Spells you know.

Paying for them. Each Mind Spell lists its Qi cost, action to manifest, range, duration, and any recharge limit. You can spend Qi on a Mind Spell only if you have that much Qi; nothing lets you exceed your pool. Your manifestation save DC and attack modifier are given in the Manifesting summary above.

Level 2: Component-Free Manifestation

A Mind Spell is not a spell, and this is the heart of what you are. Your Mind Spells:

• have no Verbal, Somatic, or Material components — you need not speak, gesture, or hold anything. A creature that can see you can still tell the moment you manifest: there is a stillness to it, brief and unmistakable, which is what gives Counterspell something to answer (see below);
• are not spells for any other purpose. They don’t trigger Reactions or wards keyed to spellcasting, don’t count against any limit on spells prepared or known, gain nothing from features that improve spells, and can’t be redirected, absorbed or copied by effects that work on spells. Antimagic Field, Globe of Invulnerability and Magic Resistance don’t reach them. The official spells you manifest are the exception: those three effects, and any other effect that blocks, suppresses or protects against spells, reach a manifested spell like any spell of its level (see Manifested spells under The Mind Spell Menu);
• can be Counterspelled and dispelled. Every Mind Spell can be answered by Counterspell and Dispel Magic. A Mind Spell counts as a spell of level equal to its Degree — First is 1st, Fifth is 5th, a Lesser Mind Spell is a cantrip, and a Great Mind Spell uses the level of the spell it duplicates — for Counterspell, dispel magic, and any effect that specifically ends or interrupts magic of a given level. Two things soften this, and they are the compensation for it: you have Advantage on the Constitution saving throw against Counterspell; and if a Mind Spell is countered before it takes effect, you regain the Qi you spent on it;
• function while you are Restrained, Grappled, or unable to speak, and while you are in an area of magical silence;
• still require Concentration where the Mind Spell says so, following all the normal rules for it: you can concentrate on only one Mind Spell at a time, and taking damage forces a Constitution saving throw (DC 10 or half the damage, whichever is higher) to keep it.

The trade for all of this is severe and deliberate: Mind Spells are short-ranged, and most of them can only ever target you.

Level 2: Lesser Mind Spells

You gain 1 Lesser Mind Spell at level 2, a 2nd at level 7, and a 3rd at level 13 — each an at-will, component-free psionic utility (it makes no attack roll, deals no damage, and imposes no saving throw to avoid damage). They use Wisdom as their spellcasting ability. You can swap one when you gain a level. Choose from the following cantrips, each of which you know and use exactly as written in the rules, reflavored as pure mind:

• Mage Hand (you call it the telekinetic hand)
• Message (you call it mind-speech)
• Light (you call it the inner light)
• Guidance (you call it steadying focus)
• Mending (you call it knit-flesh)
• Prestidigitation (you call it unseen tidying)
• Minor Illusion (you call it the planted image)
• Blade Ward (you call it the half-step aside)

You spend no Qi on these. They are Mind Spells (see Component-Free Manifestation): they have no Verbal, Somatic, or Material components, a gag, a grapple or magical silence doesn’t stop them, and they can be Counterspelled and dispelled as cantrips. They are not manifested spells: Antimagic Field, Globe of Invulnerability and Magic Resistance don’t reach them.

Level 2: Unarmored Movement

What the old teachings call lightness of body. While you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, your Speed increases by 10 feet. This bonus increases to +15 feet at level 6, +20 feet at level 10, +25 feet at level 14, and +30 feet at level 18.

Starting at level 9, on your turn you can move along vertical surfaces and across liquids without falling during that movement. This is not flight.

Level 3: Discipline

Choose a Discipline — of the Unmoved, the Unseen Hand, the Open Eye, the Shared Mind, the Weightless Step, or the Burning Focus, each described later in this document. You gain its level 3 features, and additional features at levels 6, 11, and 17.

Level 3: Effortless Recovery

When you finish a Short Rest you may, in addition to recovering all Qi, drop one effect you are currently concentrating on to end a Charmed or Frightened condition on yourself. In addition, when you roll Initiative and have no Qi remaining, you regain Qi equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).

Level 4, 8, 12, 16: Ability Score Improvement

You gain the Ability Score Improvement feat or another feat of your choice for which you qualify.

Level 5: Extra Attack

You can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Level 5: Settled Reflexes

You have Advantage on Initiative rolls, and while you are conscious and don’t have the Incapacitated condition, being surprised doesn’t give you Disadvantage on your Initiative roll.

Level 7: Detached Mind

Detachment is not blankness; it is practice. You gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. If you already have this proficiency, you instead gain proficiency in Charisma saving throws. If you already have both, you gain no new proficiency. In addition, when you fail a saving throw against being Charmed or Frightened, you can spend 2 Qi to succeed instead (no action, Bonus Action or Reaction required).

Level 7: Evasion

When you’re subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw and only half damage if you fail. You don’t benefit from this feature while you have the Incapacitated condition.

Level 9: The Unemptied Well

As a Bonus Action, you can settle yourself mid-fight: spend no Qi and regain 2 expended Qi, or end one of the following conditions on yourself — Blinded, Deafened, or Poisoned. Once you use this feature you can’t use it again until you finish a Short or Long Rest.

Level 10: Untouched Center

You have Resistance to psychic damage, and you can’t be forced to act against your nature by magic that would make you attack an ally — an effect that would compel you to do so (such as being Charmed into striking a friend) fails against you, though other compulsions still apply. You also no longer need to eat, drink, or breathe, though you may still choose to.

Level 13: Fourth Degree

You reach the Fourth Degree of Mind Spell (see Mind Spells and The Mind Spell Menu).

Level 13: Mystic Arcanum

What you call the Great Mind Spell: one act of the settled mind so total that it empties the stillness under it until a whole day’s practice puts it back.

At level 13 you gain one Great Mind Spell equivalent to a 6th-level spell, chosen from the Great Mind Spells list in The Mind Spell Menu; at level 16 a second, equivalent to a 7th-level spell; and at level 19 a third, equivalent to an 8th-level spell. You can manifest each one once without spending Qi, and you regain that use when you finish a Long Rest. Each has its own use, not a shared pool: manifesting one does not spend the others. Great Mind Spells use Wisdom as your manifesting ability, belong to no Degree, are never at-will, and don’t count against your Mind Spells Known.

The choice is permanent. Unlike your ordinary Mind Spells, which you may exchange one at a time as you level, a Great Mind Spell is chosen once and can’t be exchanged later. You will make this choice exactly three times.

They are still Mind Spells. A Great Mind Spell has no Verbal, Somatic, or Material components and is not a spell for the purposes of wards, Reactions keyed to spellcasting, or any limit on spells. You can manifest one while Grappled or Restrained, while unable to speak, and inside an area of magical silence. Like your own Mind Spells, and unlike a manifested spell, it is not reached by Antimagic Field, Globe of Invulnerability or Magic Resistance. Where a Great Mind Spell duplicates a spell, use that spell’s rules — range, area, duration, saving throw, and Concentration, which you track as Concentration — and ignore its components entirely. While you are concentrating on a Great Mind Spell, you have Advantage on Constitution saving throws made to maintain that Concentration.

It can, however, be Counterspelled or dispelled, at the level of the spell it duplicates, under this campaign’s psionics ruling; your Advantage on the Constitution save applies, and a countered Great Mind Spell is not expended — you may manifest it again later that day.

Level 14: Equanimity

When you make a saving throw and don’t have the Incapacitated condition, you can spend 2 Qi — this costs no action, Bonus Action or Reaction, even on someone else’s turn — to turn a failure into a success, or a success into a critical avoidance that also lets you move up to half your Speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks. You can use this only once on each turn, and only against effects you’re aware of.

Level 15: Sustained Stillness

You have Advantage on saving throws made to maintain Concentration, and when you fail one you can spend 2 Qi to succeed instead; this costs no action, Bonus Action or Reaction, and you can use it once on each turn. In addition, the Qi cost of each of the eight First-Degree Mind Spells of your own (not a manifested spell) is reduced by 1 (minimum 0).

Level 18: Timeless Body

You no longer age, can’t be aged magically, and are immune to disease and to the Poisoned condition. You can still die.

Level 19: Epic Boon

You gain an Epic Boon feat or another feat of your choice for which you qualify. The Boon of Fate or the Boon of the Night Spirit sits especially well on a Stillmind.

Level 20: The Attainment Beyond Attainment

Past the powers, at the stillness they were only symptoms of. As a Bonus Action, you enter perfect equanimity for 1 minute. While it lasts:

• you have Immunity to psychic damage and to the Charmed, Frightened, Stunned, and Paralyzed conditions;
• you can’t lose Concentration involuntarily;
• every Mind Spell you manifest has no Display, and checks to notice you manifesting are made with Disadvantage. It is not immunity: a creature that still notices can Counterspell you normally, and the campaign’s ruling holds;
• once on each of your turns, when you manifest a Mind Spell of Third Degree or lower, it costs no Qi;
• and at the start of each of your turns you regain 3 Qi.

When the minute ends, you gain 1 Exhaustion level. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a Long Rest.

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Disciplines (Subclasses)

Six Disciplines describe which corner of the Mind Spell ladder you have made your life’s work. Each grants features at 3rd, 6th, 11th, and 17th level. Each Discipline’s names in other worlds are given under In Different Worlds, and its real-world touchstones are credited under Origins and Inspiration.

Discipline of the Unmoved

The mountain does not decline the storm. It simply remains a mountain. Adepts of the Unmoved perfect the first and hardest attainment — the refusal to be moved, in body or in mind. They are the still point the fight breaks against, and the calm the panicking party steers toward.

Rooted Stillness · Level 3 · Passive; the answer costs no action, once per turn · 1 Qi for the answer Self; the answer 5 ft · Continuous · 1 MA + Wis force/psychic · — · tactile, obvious You can’t be moved against your will unless you allow it: you have Advantage on saving throws against being knocked Prone, and against effects that would push, pull, or teleport you, and your Speed can’t be reduced against your will. In addition, once per turn when a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with an attack, you can spend 1 Qi — this costs no action, Bonus Action or Reaction, even on someone else’s turn — to answer the blow with stillness: the attacker takes force or psychic damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die + your Wisdom modifier. The wall hits back by being a wall.

Imperturbable · Level 6 · Passive · — Self · Continuous · — · — · none You have Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed, Frightened, Stunned, or Paralyzed. When you succeed on a saving throw against any of these while you have at least 1 Qi, you regain 1 Qi — every attempt to move you settles you further.

The Weight of a Settled Mind · Level 11 · Bonus Action · 3 Qi Self; 5 ft Emanation · 1 min, no Concentration · — · Wis save · visual, obvious As a Bonus Action, spend 3 Qi to become truly immovable for 1 minute or until you choose to end it (no Concentration required). While it lasts you can’t be moved, knocked Prone, or teleported by any effect you don’t consent to, you have Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage, and any creature that starts its turn within 5 feet of you and can see you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your manifestation save DC or have its Speed halved until the start of its next turn, dragged still by your gravity.

Retributive Stillness · Level 17 · Reaction, when a creature damages you or an ally within 15 ft · 2 Qi 15 ft · Instant · 2 MA + Wis psychic · Wis save · tactile, obvious Your calm has become a hazard to those who disturb it. Whenever a creature within 15 feet of you deals damage to you or to an ally within 15 feet of you, you can take a Reaction to spend 2 Qi and reflect the disturbance: the creature makes a Wisdom saving throw against your manifestation save DC, taking psychic damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die + your Wisdom modifier on a failure (half on a success) and, on a failure, has the Stunned condition until the end of its next turn. You can use this Reaction even while concentrating on a Mind Spell.

Playing an Unmoved adept: you are the calmest person in every disaster, and it is not an act — it is repetition. Stand where the panic is worst and refuse to add to it; let the fight learn, blow by blow, that you were the wrong thing to hit.

Discipline of the Unseen Hand

The hand is a convenience. The intention was always the weapon. Adepts of the Unseen Hand extend the telekinetic attainment until reach stops mattering — they strike, seize, shove, and crush across a room as easily as another monk throws a punch. They are the reason the archers stop feeling safe.

Telekinetic Reach · Level 3 · Part of any Unarmed Strike · — 30 ft · Instant · as your Unarmed Strike · — · visual, subtle You manifest a spectral hand of pure will. Whenever you make an Unarmed Strike, whether in the Attack action, as Second breath’s Bonus Action or through a feature, you can make it against a target within 30 feet instead of 5 feet; these ranged strikes use your normal attack and damage rolls, count as Unarmed Strikes in every respect, and — crucially — can carry Mind Over Body, so your striking rhythm works at range. This doesn’t extend your reach for Opportunity Attacks, and a strike made beyond 5 feet this way uses the Unarmed Strike’s damage option only: its Grapple and Shove options still need a target within your normal reach (Shove and Seize, at level 6, is the hand’s way of doing both at range). You can also use this hand to perform the Distant Hand First-Degree Mind Spell at no Qi cost, whether or not it is one of the Mind Spells you know — a Discipline’s free Mind Spell never counts against your Mind Spells Known.

Shove and Seize · Level 6 · Part of an Unarmed Strike, in place of its attack roll · — 30 ft (120 ft from level 17), moving the target 15 ft · Instant · forgoes the strike’s attack roll and damage · Str or Dex save · visual, subtle When you make an Unarmed Strike against a creature within range of your Telekinetic Reach (30 feet, or 120 feet from level 17), you can have the unseen hand seize or shove it instead of making the attack roll. The target must be Huge or smaller. It makes a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (its choice) against your manifestation save DC. On a failed save, choose one effect:

• Shove. You push it up to 15 feet in any direction, upward included, or pull it up to 15 feet toward you. A creature held aloft or pulled off a ledge falls when your turn ends unless something else holds it.
• Seize. It has the Grappled condition, held by the unseen hand. The grapple ends if the creature escapes, if it moves or is moved out of your Telekinetic Reach’s range, or if you have the Incapacitated condition. The escape DC is your manifestation save DC (the creature takes an action to make a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against it).

Holds. The unseen hand holds one creature at a time (two from level 17; see Everything Within Reach). If a creature fails the save, you choose Seize, and the hand already holds as many creatures as it can, the hand first lets go of one held creature of your choice. Holding a creature uses neither of your own hands and doesn’t limit your other strikes or Mind Spells. You can seize a creature that has you Grappled or has engulfed you.

A strike used this way deals no damage and can’t carry Mind Over Body. Because it makes no attack roll, Disadvantage on attack rolls doesn’t affect it.

Crushing Grip · Level 11 · Bonus Action · 3 Qi, then 1 Qi each later turn 30 ft, a creature your hand has Grappled · Until it escapes · 3 MA + Wis force · Str save · tactile, obvious When you have a creature Grappled by your unseen hand, you can spend 3 Qi as a Bonus Action to close the fist: the target makes a Strength saving throw against your manifestation save DC, taking force damage equal to three rolls of your Martial Arts die + your Wisdom modifier on a failure (half on a success), and on a failure it also has the Restrained condition for as long as it stays Grappled by the hand. At the start of each of your later turns, you keep the fist closed by spending 1 Qi (this costs no action, Bonus Action or Reaction); if you don’t, the Restrained condition ends, though the target stays Grappled. Keeping the fist closed deals no further damage.

Everything Within Reach · Level 17 · Passive; the extra strike is part of the Attack action, once on each of your turns · 3 Qi for the extra strike 120 ft · Continuous · as your Unarmed Strike · — · visual, subtle Your reach with Telekinetic Reach and all your telekinetic Mind Spells increases to 120 feet, and the unseen hand can hold up to two creatures at once (see Shove and Seize). In addition, once on each of your turns when you take the Attack action, you can spend 3 Qi to make one additional ranged Unarmed Strike against a second creature, other than one the unseen hand already holds, as part of that action — the hand is quick now, and it is never only one hand.

Playing an Unseen Hand adept: you fight the whole battlefield at once, and you never have to be near the danger to end it. Delight in the archer you drag off the wall and the caster you crush mid-word; play the person who has quietly stopped needing to touch anything.

Discipline of the Open Eye

The future is only the present, seen from a little further back. Adepts of the Open Eye refine precognition until the next few seconds arrive early. They are never surprised, rarely hit, and always — infuriatingly — a step ahead of the plan.

Foreseen · Level 3 · Passive; Reaction, when a creature you can see attacks you · 1 Qi for the Reaction Self · Continuous · — · — · none You add your Wisdom modifier to your Initiative rolls (in addition to the Advantage from Settled Reflexes at 5th). More: when a creature you can see makes an attack roll against you, you can take a Reaction to spend 1 Qi and half-step out of the blow — the attacker has Disadvantage on that roll. You knew it was coming before the arm did.

Read the Moment · Level 6 · Bonus Action · 2 Qi, or 1 Qi to reopen Self; enemies within 30 ft · 1 min (Conc.) · — · — · none As a Bonus Action, spend 2 Qi to open the eye for 1 minute (Concentration). While it lasts, you have Advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t yet taken a turn in the combat or that you’ve hit since your last turn, attacks made against you have Disadvantage while at least one enemy is within 30 feet, being surprised doesn’t give you Disadvantage on your Initiative roll, and no creature gains Advantage on an attack roll against you from flanking (an optional rule some tables use). If your Concentration ends, you can reopen the eye for 1 Qi.

The Branch Not Taken · Level 11 · Reaction, when you or an ally within 30 ft is hit or fails a save · 3 Qi, once per rest (6 Qi for a second use) 30 ft · Instant · — · — · none When you or an ally within 30 feet is hit by an attack or fails a saving throw, you can take a Reaction to spend 3 Qi and revise the moment: the triggering roll is rerolled, and the new result must be used. You saw the version where it went otherwise, and you nudged the two together. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a Short or Long Rest, unless you spend an additional 3 Qi (so a second use in the same rest costs 6).

Precognitive Command · Level 17 · No action to store; the stored action is any one action, one Mind Spell of Third Degree or lower, or a spent Reaction · 2 Qi to spend it Self · Until spent or the combat ends · — · — · none The next few seconds are simply available to you. Whenever you roll Initiative, you gain a stored foreseen action; you can hold only one, and it is lost when that combat ends. Once before then, you can spend the foreseen action and 2 Qi to take an extra action on your turn (any single action, or manifest one Mind Spell of Third Degree or lower), or to take a Reaction when you have already used your Reaction this round. In addition, you always act on the first turn of any combat as though your Initiative were 30, regardless of the roll — you were already moving.

Playing an Open Eye adept: you are the person who ducks before the crash, answers before the question, and is halfway to the exit when the floor gives way. Play the quiet unnerving certainty of someone who has already seen how this goes — and the loneliness of rarely being surprised by anyone.

Discipline of the Shared Mind

A wall between two minds is a courtesy, not a law. Adepts of the Shared Mind perfect telepathy until the boundary of the skull turns soft — reading intention, lending thought, and, at the far end of the practice, bending a will that isn’t theirs. They are the party’s nerve center and, when they must be, its quietest weapon.

The Open Mind · Level 3 · Passive; the flinch costs no action, on an Unarmed Strike hit · 1 Qi for the flinch 60 ft · Continuous; the flinch to the start of your next turn · — · — · none You have telepathy with a range of 60 feet: you can speak mind-to-mind with any creature you can see (it can reply only if it shares a language with you), and you can maintain simultaneous channels with any number of willing allies within range, letting them relay short thoughts to one another through you. In addition, when you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike, you can spend 1 Qi to make the mind flinch as the body does: the target has Disadvantage on the next attack roll or ability check it makes before the start of your next turn.

Coordinated Minds · Level 6 · Reaction, when a linked ally rolls · 2 Qi; or Bonus Action · 1 Qi 60 ft · Instant · — · — · none When an ally you’re telepathically linked to (within 60 feet) makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can take a Reaction to spend 2 Qi and feed them the instant of clarity you already have: they add your Wisdom modifier to the roll. You can also, as a Bonus Action for 1 Qi, let one linked ally within 60 feet immediately use their Reaction to move up to half their Speed — you saw the gap before they did.

Bend the Will · Level 11 · Magic action; steered with a Bonus Action once on each of your turns · 4 Qi 60 ft · 1 min (Conc.) · — · Wis save, and again at the end of each of its turns · auditory, subtle As a Magic action, spend 4 Qi to press on a mind you can see within 60 feet. The target makes a Wisdom saving throw against your manifestation save DC. On a failure, for 1 minute (Concentration) you can, once on each of your turns as a Bonus Action, dictate one of the following: the creature must move where you direct on its next turn, or attack a target you choose, or waste its action doing nothing. The target repeats the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success, and gets Advantage on the save if it or its allies are being harmed by you or your allies. A creature that succeeds is immune to this feature for 24 hours.

Sovereign of the Shared Mind · Level 17 · Passive; the interference costs no action, once per turn · 3 Qi to interfere 1 mile to speak, 60 ft to interfere · Continuous · — · — · none Your telepathy extends to 1 mile with any mind you have touched before, and you read intention as plainly as speech: you always know whether a creature within 60 feet intends to lie to, attack, or flee from you before it acts. Once per turn, when a creature within 60 feet you can see makes an attack roll or a saving throw, you can spend 3 Qi — this costs no action, Bonus Action or Reaction — to make the choice for it — impose Disadvantage on the attack, or Advantage on the save if it’s an ally, treating the target’s mind as briefly your own.

Playing a Shared Mind adept: you are never the loudest person at the table and always the one who knew first. Hold ally coordination as your default fun; keep domination for the moment it’s genuinely the least bad option — and sit, afterward, with what it means that you can.

Discipline of the Weightless Step

The ground is a suggestion the heavy agree to. You stopped agreeing. Adepts of the Weightless Step take levitation to its conclusion — walking on water, then on air, then between two points without troubling the space between. They are the party’s impossible scout and its most frustrating opponent.

Untethered · Level 3 · Passive · — Self · Continuous · — · — · none Difficult terrain costs you nothing, and you can move across liquids, thin branches, and other precarious surfaces as though they were solid ground, without falling. Your jump distance is doubled, and you take no falling damage from falls of 30 feet or less — you always land the way a settled mind lands. You can also perform the Lifting Breath First-Degree Mind Spell at no Qi cost, whether or not it is one of the Mind Spells you know — a Discipline’s free Mind Spell never counts against your Mind Spells Known.

Air Beneath the Foot · Level 6 · Bonus Action · 2 Qi Self · 1 min (Conc.) · — · — · visual, obvious As a Bonus Action, spend 2 Qi to gain a Fly Speed equal to your Speed for 1 minute (Concentration); if your Concentration ends while aloft, you drift gently down as if by feather fall. While you have this Fly Speed you can hover, and Opportunity Attacks against you are made with Disadvantage — no one can predict which way weightlessness moves.

Blink-Step · Level 11 · Bonus Action · 2 Qi 30 ft · Instant · +1d8 force on your next Unarmed Strike that turn · — · visual, subtle As a Bonus Action, spend 2 Qi to teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. The first Unarmed Strike you make after you Blink-Step, before the end of that turn, deals an extra 1d8 force damage if it hits. If you Blink-Step away from a creature after hitting it, you don’t provoke Opportunity Attacks from it this turn. Because Blink-Step takes your Bonus Action, you can use it only once on each of your turns (Nowhere and Everywhere adds a second step at level 17).

Nowhere and Everywhere · Level 17 · Passive; the step is part of other movement, once on each of your turns · 1 Qi for the step Self; the step 60 ft · Continuous · — · — · visual, obvious You have a permanent Fly Speed equal to your Speed and can hover, and you can breathe and move freely in any environment (underwater, thin air, the smoke of a fire) as though it were still, open ground. In addition, once on each of your turns you can Blink-Step (as your level 11 feature) up to 60 feet for 1 Qi as part of any other movement, weaving in and out of the space between places. You are the hardest thing on the field to pin down, and you have stopped thinking of walls as relevant.

Playing a Weightless Step adept: you go where the party can’t follow and arrive where the enemy didn’t guard. Scout the impossible route, cross the chasm the plan assumed was uncrossable, and play the lightness as an inner state — nothing weighs on you because you have, with great effort, set nearly everything down.

Discipline of the Burning Focus

Hold one thought hot enough, long enough, and the world starts to smoke. This is the rare and dangerous branch: the mind as a weapon in its own right, attention narrowed to a single incandescent point until it burns. Adepts of the Burning Focus are the answer to armor, wards, and anything a punch can’t reach — a psychic assault that treats the target’s own mind as the wound.

Mind-Fire · Level 3 · Magic action · 1 Qi 60 ft · Instant · 2 MA + Wis psychic or fire · manifestation attack roll · visual, obvious You learn to project your focus as searing force. As a Magic action, you can spend 1 Qi to lash a creature you can see within 60 feet: make a manifestation attack roll; on a hit the target takes psychic or fire damage (your choice) equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die + your Wisdom modifier. This attack counts as an Unarmed Strike for the purpose of Mind Over Body, so your once-per-turn Mind Over Body can ride it at range. On a hit, the target also can’t take Reactions until the start of its next turn — the pain occupies it.

Concentrated Assault · Level 6 · No action, riding Mind-Fire · 1 additional Qi As Mind-Fire · To the start of the target’s next turn · Wis modifier psychic, and +1d8 against a concentrating target · Con save · visual, obvious When you damage a creature with Mind-Fire, you can spend 1 additional Qi to make the burn cling: at the start of the target’s next turn it takes psychic damage equal to your Wisdom modifier and must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your manifestation save DC or lose Concentration and have Disadvantage on the first attack roll it makes that turn. Against a creature that is currently Concentrating on a spell or effect, your Mind-Fire deals an extra 1d8 damage.

Kindle the Concentration · Level 11 · Magic action · 4 Qi 30-ft Cone, or three creatures within 60 ft · Instant · 3 MA + Wis psychic or fire · Int save · visual, obvious As a Magic action, spend 4 Qi to loose your held focus in a 30-foot Cone or on up to three creatures you can see within 60 feet. Each target makes an Intelligence saving throw against your manifestation save DC, taking psychic or fire damage equal to three rolls of your Martial Arts die + your Wisdom modifier on a failure (half on a success); a creature that fails is also Blinded until the end of its next turn, its senses scorched. This does not benefit from Mind Over Body (it isn’t a strike).

The Sun Held Still · Level 17 · Passive; Reaction, when you reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points with psychic or fire damage · — , and you regain 2 Qi As Mind-Fire · Continuous · as Mind-Fire · as Mind-Fire · visual, obvious Your Mind-Fire now ignores Resistance to psychic and fire damage, and treats Immunity to those types as Resistance instead — a mind on fire acknowledges no ward. In addition, when you reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points with psychic or fire damage, you can take a Reaction to regain 2 Qi and immediately make one Mind-Fire attack against a different creature within range — the focus jumps to the next thing before it can cool. Spending your Reaction is the cost and the brake: the jump competes with Foreseen, Unblinking Guard and everything else you hold a Reaction for, and it can happen at most once a round rather than once on each of your turns.

Playing a Burning Focus adept: you are the exception to your own tradition — the sibling who kept the mind hot when everyone else was told to let it cool, and you know the warnings were about you specifically. Play the tension: this power works, it works terribly well, and every use of it is a small argument you’re having with everything the discipline was supposed to be for.

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The Mind Spell Menu

This section replaces a conventional spell list, and it is closed: every Mind Spell you know comes from it, and the DM does not add others. Each Degree holds eight Mind Spells of the class’s own, followed by the official spells you manifest as Mind Spells (see Manifested spells, below): 17 / 22 / 16 / 10 / 10 at the First through Fifth Degree, 75 in all. How you learn, swap and pay for them is under Mind Spells (level 2), and what a Mind Spell is under Component-Free Manifestation; the Great Mind Spells, which belong to no Degree, are under Mystic Arcanum (level 13).

The index below lists every Mind Spell with its Qi cost and a one-line summary. The full entries are printed in the Appendix of New Spells, under The Stillmind — Mind Spells; where the index and an entry differ, the entry governs.

Reading an entry. Every Mind Spell, and every Discipline feature, opens with the same two lines. The first carries name · Degree or level · action · Qi cost; the second carries range · duration · damage · saving throw · Display. A field reads “—” where it does not apply, damage is abbreviated (2 MA + Wis force means two rolls of your Martial Arts die plus your Wisdom modifier, force damage), and a duration in parentheses marked Conc. requires Concentration. The body of the entry follows, and it governs wherever the two lines are too short to be exact.

Display, and who notices you. Manifesting is never wholly hidden — there is always the brief, unmistakable stillness the campaign rules describe, which is what gives Counterspell something to answer. The Display field says what else a Mind Spell puts into the world, and how hard it is to catch:

A creature that succeeds on the check may react normally, Counterspell included; the check gates recognition, never the answer. No Mind Spell is ever immune to Counterspell. A Display decides only whether a creature notices the manifestation; it never decides whether Antimagic Field or Magic Resistance applies. Displays are visual, auditory, olfactory or tactile, and each entry names its type and describes it in a line.

Manifested spells. After each Degree’s own eight Mind Spells comes a list of official spells (2024 Player’s Handbook) that a settled mind produces without casting them. You manifest each of these as a Mind Spell of the Degree equal to its spell level, and it follows your Mind Spell rules:

• Qi cost equals its level (1 Qi at the First Degree, up to 5 Qi at the Fifth). It is always manifested at that level: ignore any “Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot” text. No feature reduces its Qi cost. You can’t manifest it as a Ritual.
• Manifesting. It has no Verbal, Somatic or Material components, including any component with a cost. It uses your manifestation save DC and attack modifier, and its casting time becomes the action you take to manifest it. Its range, targets, area, duration, saving throw and Concentration are as the spell describes.
• Display: subtle, visual — a creature notices a brief, unnatural stillness settle over you.
• Known and swapped like any other Mind Spell: each one you know counts against your Mind Spells Known.
• Component-Free Manifestation applies, with one exception. It is not a spell for other rules purposes: it trips no Reaction or ward keyed to casting a spell, counts against no limit on spells, and gains nothing from features that improve spells. Counterspell and Dispel Magic treat it as a spell of its level, with your Advantage on the save and the Qi refund. The exception: unlike your own Mind Spells, it is reached like any spell of its level by every effect that blocks, suppresses or protects against spells. Antimagic Field suppresses it, Globe of Invulnerability stops it if its level is low enough, and a creature with Magic Resistance has Advantage on saving throws against it.
• A feature that improves a named Mind Spell, or a kind of Mind Spell (such as “telekinetic Mind Spells”), doesn’t improve a manifested spell unless the feature names that spell.

The Mind Spells by Degree

Italic names are manifested official spells; the others are the class’s own. “Conc.” means Concentration.

First Degree (available at level 2) — 17 Mind Spells

Second Degree (available at level 5) — 22 Mind Spells

Third Degree (available at level 9) — 16 Mind Spells

Fourth Degree (available at level 13) — 10 Mind Spells

Fifth Degree (available at level 17) — 10 Mind Spells

Great Mind Spells (Mystic Arcanum, at levels 13, 16, and 19)

You choose these with Mystic Arcanum (levels 13, 16 and 19), which gives their rules. Each entry names the official spell whose rules the Great Mind Spell uses, so the effect can be looked up at the table, followed by the name you know it by; ignore the spell’s components.

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Multiclassing

To take your first level of Stillmind while multiclassing, you need Dexterity 13 and Wisdom 13. When you enter the class you gain proficiency with simple weapons, but not the class’s saving throw proficiencies (Dexterity and Intelligence), which come only from your first class; Detached Mind’s proficiency still applies at Stillmind level 7. If you don’t already have them, you gain Martial Arts and Unarmored Defense (10 + Dex + Wis), and you gain Counted Breath. From your second Stillmind level you gain Qi and Mind Over Body: your Stillmind Qi entry and your Martial Arts die follow your Stillmind level on this class’s table, never your total character level, and you reach each Degree of Mind Spell at the Stillmind levels shown (First at 2, Second at 5, Third at 9, Fourth at 13, Fifth at 17). Because Mind Spells are not spells and use no spell slots, they never combine with, and are never combined into, the spellcasting of any other class — a Stillmind/Cleric, for example, keeps two entirely separate economies (Qi for Mind Spells, slots for spells), and the component-free properties — silence-immunity, working while Grappled or gagged, the Advantage on the save against Counterspell — apply only to your Mind Spells, not to that other class’s spells. You reach features like Extra Attack based on Stillmind level, and Extra Attack doesn’t stack with the same feature from another class.

Qi from more than one class. If another class in this library also gives you Qi points, or the Monk class gives you Focus Points, you have a single pool of Qi points; your Monk features spend it as Focus Points. Its maximum is the total of each class’s Qi or Focus entry for your level in that class (including any feature that raises a class’s maximum). A feature from any of those classes can spend from it. Each class’s share recovers by that class’s own rule, and a feature that reduces one class’s maximum reduces only that class’s share. Each feature keeps its own limits (once per turn, Surge dice, and so on). While your pool combines more than one class, you can use each class’s Surge no more times between one rest and the next than your level in that class. A feature that restores all of a class’s Qi or Focus Points restores no more than that class’s entry.

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In Different Worlds

Setting layer. Everything above this heading works unchanged in each of these worlds; only names, looks and stories differ. Names here are setting names, each mapped to the neutral name the rules use. No example changes a Display: a Mind Spell keeps its Display type and its obvious, subtle or none rating everywhere, and only the description of what onlookers see, hear, smell or feel is reskinned.

Mythic culture — the yogic siddhi traditions (the class’s origin)

Who has it. Forest hermits, wandering ascetics and the students of a few strict hermitages, in a world built on the contemplative traditions of the subcontinent. They are not priests. The powers come from practice — years of breath, posture and one-pointed attention — and every teacher who can produce them also warns against them.

What they call it. The class is the Siddha, “one who is accomplished”. Mind Spells are siddhis, Unarmored Movement is laghimā, lightness, and the Unbearable Gaze is the Third-Eye Glare, the eye that burned Kāma to ash. Each Discipline is a lineage with its own title (table below).

How it looks and sounds. A mat, a counting-cord of seeds, an empty bowl. A manifestation is the hush of a hermitage at dawn carried into a market. The Unbearable Gaze’s line of light on the brow is read as the third eye opening.

Story hook. A celebrated siddha in a pilgrimage town levitates for the crowds every evening and grows rich on their offerings. His old hermitage asks the Stillmind to bring him home before the powers finish what the teachers warned they would. He does not want to come.

Rules caveat. None. No feature needs a god, a scripture or an initiation. These are living traditions; borrow from them with the care you would want for your own.

Neutral name (rules)	Siddhi-tradition name
Mind Spells (level-2 feature) · The Mind Spell Menu	Siddhis · the Siddhi menu
Mind Spell, or attainment, as a common noun in prose	siddhi
lightness of body (Unarmored Movement’s nickname, and in unweighting)	laghima
The Unbearable Gaze · “an eye that is not an eye”	Third-Eye Glare · “the eye that burned Kama to ash”
the adept who weighs nothing	the yogi who weighs nothing
“what the old stories meant by walking on clouds” (Ascended Body)	“the immortal on the cloud”
a knotted counting-cord worn smooth by use	a coil of prayer-cord worn smooth by counting
Stillmind (class)	the Siddha
Discipline of the Unmoved · Unseen Hand · Open Eye	lineage titles: the Earth-Witness · the Empty-Hand Master · the One Who Sees Ahead
Discipline of the Shared Mind · Weightless Step · Burning Focus	lineage titles: the Heart-Reader · the Cloud-Walker · the Third Eye Opened

Apart from the rows above, the Disciplines, the class features, the Mind Spells and the Great Mind Spells go by their rules names here too; each Discipline’s lineage title is its name in this world.

Gritty low magic

Who has it. Nobody here would teach it. A Stillmind is a survivor: the soldier who came back from a siege and never raised her voice again, the shepherd who sat out three nights of blizzard and walked down with something new behind his eyes. Villages keep them at arm’s length.

What they call it. The class is a Hush. Mind Spells are knacks, Mind Over Body is the shove, and Unarmored Movement is walking light. Disciplines are what the camp calls you behind your back:

Discipline	Nickname
Unmoved · Unseen Hand · Open Eye	the Doorpost · the Long Arm · the Ducker
Shared Mind · Weightless Step · Burning Focus	the Whisperer · the Featherfoot · the Scorcher

How it looks and sounds. A subtle visual Display is a smear on the eye, like heat over a road; an obvious one is something nobody in the room can pretend not to have seen. Thoughtcast’s breath that nobody took is the worst thing a sentry has ever heard. Hushes learn which knacks are subtle, because an obvious one before the wrong crowd ends with a rope.

Story hook. A village has a stranger in its cellar and a dead reeve in its well, and wants the Hush to read the stranger and say he did it. He didn’t, and the person who did is holding the rope.

Rules caveat. Such worlds often have no other planes. Astral Stride names no plane and never leaves the world, so it works as written. Etherealness reaches nothing without an Ethereal Plane: at level 16, pick one of the other three. The “same plane” clauses simply always hold. Displays are unchanged.

Arcane-industrial

Who has it. The Fellowship of Governors, licensed contemplatives in a city of foundries, signal towers and cargo cranes. A governor is the part of an engine that keeps it from running away, and the guild’s members keep things steady for a living: they hold loads, carry messages without wire and walk girders nobody else will.

What they call it. The class is a Governor. Mind Spells are settings, Mind Over Body is the drop-hammer, and the Great Mind Spells are master settings, entered in the Fellowship’s register. Disciplines are guild locals:

Discipline	Local
Unmoved · Unseen Hand · Open Eye	Ballast · Crane · Signals
Shared Mind · Weightless Step · Burning Focus	Exchange · Steeplejack · Arc-Lamp

How it looks and sounds. The Fellowship’s hall smells of machine oil and is perfectly silent. A Governor at work is the one still figure on a shaking gantry. Thought Theft’s smell of hot dust is, here, an overheated bearing.

Story hook. Night operators at the Exchange local keep routing calls to the wrong boards, and every one of them swears the choice was theirs. The guild suspects a lapsed member of working Dominant Suggestion on the shift, whose instruction arrives in a voice the hearer takes for their own, and asks the Stillmind to sit a night at the board.

Rules caveat. None. The licence and the guild are fiction, and no feature needs machinery. Factory noise is description, not a rule: an auditory Display is still perceived as its entry says.

Origins and Inspiration

Inspiration, not setting. Nothing here is a rule, and nothing here is assumed by one.

The siddhis. The class’s root is the siddhi (Sanskrit, “accomplishment, perfection”), the extraordinary powers that the yogic literature of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions says arise from deep meditative practice. The best-known source is the third chapter of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras, the Vibhūti Pāda, variously dated between the second century BCE and the fifth century CE. It lists powers that come from saṃyama, the combined practice of concentration, meditation and absorption (dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi), aimed at a chosen object: knowledge of past and future (3.16), knowledge of other minds (3.19), freedom from contact with water, mud and thorns, and rising upward (3.39; numbering varies by one between editions). The Sūtras then warn that these powers are obstacles to samādhi, even though they look like perfections to the outward-turned mind (3.37 or 3.38, depending on the edition). Sūtra 4.1 says the siddhis can come from birth, herbs, mantra, austerity or samādhi. The Sūtras mention these only in passing, as “aṇimā and the rest” (3.45 in the common numbering); the commentarial tradition, beginning with the Bhāṣya attributed to Vyāsa, spells out the list of eight great siddhis (aṣṭa-siddhi), among them aṇimā (becoming minute), mahimā (becoming vast), laghimā (lightness) and prāpti (reach: touching the moon with a fingertip). The lists vary between texts.

The Buddhist and Jain parallels. Buddhist texts describe the iddhi (Pali; Sanskrit ṛddhi), the powers among the higher knowledges (abhiññā, Sanskrit abhijñā). The Sāmaññaphala Sutta (DN 2) lists becoming many, passing through walls, walking on water as on land and travelling cross-legged through the air, alongside the divine ear, knowledge of others’ minds, recollection of past lives and the divine eye. The caution is just as old. In the Kevaddha Sutta (DN 11) the Buddha declines to perform wonders and ranks the “wonder of instruction” above them. In the Vinaya (Cullavagga V), after Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja levitates to win a sandalwood bowl, the Buddha forbids monks to display superhuman powers to lay people. Jain sources speak of labdhi (and, in Digambara texts, ṛddhi), extraordinary capacities that arise from austerity; Indrabhūti Gautama, Mahāvīra’s chief disciple, is traditionally credited with many. The class’s name in the siddhi-tradition example, Siddha, “one who is accomplished”, has several meanings. In Jainism it names a fully liberated soul. In Hindu traditions it names the Nāth and Tamil Siddhar adepts, and in Buddhist tantra the eighty-four mahāsiddhas. The class borrows the general sense, not any one lineage.

The third eye. In Kālidāsa’s Kumārasambhava (canto 3), and in Purāṇic retellings, Kāma, the god of desire, takes aim at Śiva with his flower-arrows to break his meditation. The fire of Śiva’s third eye burns Kāma to ash. That is the image behind the Burning Focus and behind the Unbearable Gaze, the Third-Eye Glare of the siddhi-tradition example: concentration so complete that whatever disturbs it is consumed.

East Asian internal arts and Daoist stillness. Several Disciplines draw on Chinese sources. The first chapter of the Zhuangzi has Liezi riding the wind (yù fēng), returning only after fifteen days, and still, the text notes, dependent on something; the same chapter’s spirit-man of Mount Gushe (also read Guye) “rides the clouds and mounts flying dragons”, an image later lore gives to the immortals (xiān). In chapter 13 the still mind of the sage is “the mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of the ten thousand things”. Wuxia fiction adds qīnggōng (the lightness skill), nèigōng (internal training), the hard-qìgōng “iron shirt” of a body that will not yield, and kōngjìn (“empty force”, striking without contact). The last is a martial-arts claim and a fiction trope, not a classical text.

Modern fiction and the game. The class also owes debts to Star Wars (the Jedi’s telekinesis, precognitive reflexes and “mind trick”), and to Frank Herbert’s Dune (the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear and the Voice). It draws as well on the psionics of earlier editions of D&D, whose psion and mind flayer’s mind blast are the classic “psychic assault”.

The Disciplines and their touchstones

Discipline	Mythic and fictional touchstones	Lineage title (one-line reskin)
Unmoved	The Buddha touching the earth as Māra’s armies fail to move him; the sage’s still mind in the Zhuangzi; the Litany Against Fear; wuxia iron-shirt training	The Earth-Witness — stillness as devotional groundedness, the calm of one who has already refused the worst temptation
Unseen Hand	The Jedi’s telekinetic throw and choke; the siddhi of prāpti, reach; wuxia kōngjìn	The Empty-Hand Master — an internal-arts adept whose force crosses the room, a fist that never needs to arrive
Open Eye	The Yoga Sūtras‘ knowledge of past and future; the Jedi’s precognitive combat sense; prescience in Dune; the Buddhist divine eye	The One Who Sees Ahead — an oracle-monk who lives a half-breath early, cursed with rarely being surprised
Shared Mind	Knowledge of others’ minds (Yoga Sūtras 3.19; the Buddhist abhiññā); the Bene Gesserit Voice; the Jedi mind trick; the friends of the Zhuangzi whose hearts had nothing between them	The Heart-Reader — a compassionate telepath whose gift for knowing others is also, terribly, a lever
Weightless Step	Liezi riding the wind; the cloud-riding xiān; laghimā and the Sūtras‘ freedom from water and thorns; walking on water in DN 2; wuxia qīnggōng; the Jedi’s Force-speed	The Cloud-Walker — an immortal-in-training who has set down enough of the world’s weight to leave the ground
Burning Focus	The Sūtras‘ warning that the siddhis are obstacles; Śiva’s third eye burning Kāma; the psionic mind blast	The Third Eye Opened — the dangerous adept who kept the inner fire lit, revered and quietly feared

Notes on the touchstones.

• The Yoga Sūtras list no telekinesis as such. The Unseen Hand’s reach is the eight siddhis’ prāpti, which the commentaries name and the Sūtras cover only as “aṇimā and the rest”; the nearest sūtra (3.25 in the common numbering) gives knowledge of hidden and distant things.
• In Dune, prescience belongs chiefly to the Guild navigators and to Paul. The Bene Gesserit’s gift is Other Memory.
• The Bene Gesserit read people’s tells; they do not read minds. Their Voice is command, not telepathy.

How the material was adapted

The class is a contemplative built on the yogic siddhis and filled out with Daoist lightness and the psionics of fantasy fiction. Its rules keep the root’s one big idea: these powers are side effects of a discipline whose real goal lies elsewhere, and the teachers who produced them distrusted them. What the rules do not carry is any term, deity or text from a living religion. In the rules, siddhi is Mind Spell (and attainment in the prose), laghimā is lightness of body and the Third-Eye Glare is the Unbearable Gaze; the lineage titles belong to the origin world above. The Sanskrit, Pali and Chinese names appear only in that world and in these notes, where they are credited rather than used as decoration.

Playing a Stillmind

The core of the character is that serenity is work. A Stillmind is not a placid person to whom nothing happens; a Stillmind is a person to whom everything happens, who has decided, breath by breath, not to be dragged by it. The powers are the easy part — they arrive on their own once the mind is quiet enough. The discipline is staying quiet enough on purpose, in a burning building, over a friend’s body, with a knife at your throat. The interesting question at the table is never “can you do it?” You visibly can. It’s “what is it costing you to stay this calm, and what happens the day the cost comes due?”

A physical relationship with power. Your stillness is not the absence of feeling; it’s a held note. Give your Qi pool a bodily reality: a full pool is level water, a spent one is a struck bell still ringing. When you manifest a Mind Spell, nothing dramatic happens on the outside — no words, no gestures — which means the drama is all interior, and it’s yours to narrate. You lift off the ground the way you’d exhale. You crush a distant enemy without raising a hand, and your face doesn’t change, and that is the most frightening thing about you. When you spend your last point, describe the small effort of finding stillness with an empty reservoir.

The classical warning. Every tradition that taught these powers also warned against them: they are obstacles, distractions that mistake the symptom for the goal. The old teachers were blunt about it — the Mind Spells are perfections that arise on the path and can trap you on it. So the Stillmind carries a built-in tension no other class has: the better you get, the more your own teachers would have worried about you. Decide in session zero where you stand. Are the powers tools you keep in their place? A temptation you’re losing to? A thing you’ve made peace with because the world needs someone who can do them? The Burning Focus Discipline is this question with the safety off.

Where did the stillness come from? A monastery that trained it into you over years, whose warnings you carry (and maybe defy); a survival, some catastrophe that quieted you the way only near-death can, and left the powers behind like a scar; a lineage, a teacher who saw the stillness in you as a child and could not, in conscience, leave it untrained; or a discovery, a stillness you found alone and unsupervised, which means no one ever taught you the warnings and you’re learning them the hard way.

Quirks (d6). 1: You count your breaths under your breath when a situation gets bad — allies have learned it as a warning. 2: You sit perfectly still for so long that people forget you’re there. 3: You never take the last of anything, out of a habit of non-grasping you can’t quite explain. 4: You correct your own posture mid-sentence, always. 5: Loud rooms make you serene and quiet ones make you talkative — the opposite of everyone. 6: You keep one small pointless discomfort (a pebble in your shoe, a cold bath) “to have something to not mind.”

Bonds and hooks (d6). 1: Your master forbade you a specific Mind Spell, and you’ve reached the Degree that unlocks it. 2: Another student of your lineage let the powers win, and you’ve been sent — or sent yourself — to find what’s left of them. 3: A ruler wants you as a living lie-detector and reader of intentions; you’ve refused, so far. 4: You made a vow of stillness that a coming choice will force you to break. 5: Someone you love is loud, grasping, frightened, alive in all the ways you’ve trained out of yourself — and you’d trade every Mind Spell you know to stay near them. 6: You once used a power in anger and it worked perfectly, and you have never fully trusted yourself since.

The arc by tier. Levels 1–4: stillness is effortful and the powers are small — play the discipline as visible labor, the sitting and the breath-counting and the refusal. Levels 5–10: mastery arrives, and with it the first real temptation — the powers are easy now, and easy is the danger the old texts named. Levels 11–16: the powers are enormous and the interior cost is showing; Untouched Center and Timeless Body mean the world has started to slide past you while you hold still, and the people you love age and you don’t. Levels 17–20: you stand where the warnings pointed — capable of nearly anything, and finally facing the question underneath all of it, which was never about power at all: can you set even this down?

In the party. You’re a durable, mobile skirmisher-controller who never needs the right words, the right components, or a clear line to a god — you work Restrained, Silenced, blinded, and mid-grapple, which makes you the answer to exactly the situations that shut other casters down. Your Mind Spells cover scouting (flight, projected senses), control (telekinetic holds, stuns, domination), defense (precognition, imperturbability), and a clean force/psychic damage lane, so you slot in wherever the party is thin. Your best social move is often to say nothing and simply know — but remember the warning, and let the group decide when reading a mind is wisdom and when it’s a violation you’ve talked yourself into.

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