Artificer Specialist: Corewright

At 3rd level, you create a magical core that animates a golem of your design. This core serves as the heart of your construct and may be rebuilt or replaced as your craft evolves.

• You can create or rebuild your golem during a long rest.
• You can have only one active golem at a time unless a later feature states otherwise.
• Your golem acts on your initiative.
• You command your golem with a bonus action.
• If you do not issue it a command, the golem takes the Dodge action.

Your golem is the foundation of the subclass. As you gain levels, you refine it through infusions, templates, and ultimately an awakened engine.

At 5th level, you learn to weave specialized arcane systems into your golem. These infusions represent reinforced frames, mobility enhancements, reactive defenses, and other modular refinements.

• You choose infusions when your golem is created or rebuilt.
• The maximum number of active infusions on your golem equals your Intelligence modifier (minimum of 0).
• Infusions remain active until you rebuild the golem or replace them with different choices.

Golem Infusions are the Corewright’s principal method of tuning a construct toward defense, mobility, utility, control, or offense.

Beginning at 9th level, your mastery extends beyond magical systems and into physical composition. You can shape your golem from specialized materials, each of which confers its own strengths and weaknesses.

• A template represents the fundamental construction of the golem’s body.
• Templates influence its defenses, statistics, and passive traits.
• Examples include stone, wood, metal, and other more exotic constructions.

Where infusions are upgrades, templates are identity. They determine what your construct is made of, and how it endures the world.

At 15th level, you learn to refine your golem’s animating core into a true living engine. This engine grants an elemental or conceptual specialization that changes how the construct fights and moves.

• Flame: ignites foes, radiates heat, and enhances aggressive damage output.
• Storm: increases mobility and rewards pressure across multiple targets.
• Earth: hardens the frame and improves durability through rooted resilience.
• Aether: improves mobility and may grant flight or similar movement advantages.

A Living Engine Core is more than an upgrade. It is the point at which your construct begins to feel singular—its own engine of war, purpose, and identity.

As a bonus action, you can merge with your construct, entering a fused state for up to 1 minute, or until the fused form is reduced to 0 hit points. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

While fused:

• You use the construct’s Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Armor Class, and hit points, and you retain your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.
• The fused form acts on your turn and doesn’t require commands to take actions.
• Arcane Co-Pilot. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the damage of one attack you make.
• Overclocked Conduit Frame. Your spells are channeled directly through the fused core. You gain a +2 bonus to spell attack rolls and to your spell save DC. In addition, once on each of your turns when you cast a spell that deals damage, you can add your Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of that spell.
• Integrated Combat Matrix. You can use Strength or Dexterity, whichever is higher, for the attack and damage rolls of your weapon attacks.
• Spell Conduit. When you cast a spell with a range of touch, the fused form can deliver the spell as if it were the caster.
• Unified Vitality. When the fusion begins, you gain temporary hit points equal to your artificer level.

If the fused form is reduced to 0 hit points, the fusion ends and the construct’s body is destroyed, though its core remains intact. You are separated and cannot reconstruct the golem until you finish a long rest.

You can end the fusion early (no action required). If you do so while the construct still has hit points, it remains active and functions as normal.

Your Golem Core approaches true sentience. The construct no longer functions merely as an extension of your command, but as an independent guardian shaped by your will.

• Your golem rolls its own initiative and acts independently.
• It no longer requires your bonus action to act, though it still follows your commands.
• Its Intelligence score becomes 16, its Wisdom score becomes 14, and its Charisma score becomes 14, unless a score is already higher.
• It gains a bonus to saving throws equal to your Intelligence modifier.
• It can take reactions normally.
• Once on each of its turns, it can add your Intelligence modifier to one attack roll or damage roll it makes.
• The awakened construct is proficient in Investigation, Perception, Insight, Persuasion, and Intimidation.
• The awakened construct can independently take skill-based actions, including Search, Study, and Influence, as the situation requires.
• If you are incapacitated, the golem continues to defend you and your allies to the best of its ability.

You learn to divide the animating principle of your craft, creating a paired expression of your golem rather than a single body.

• Whenever you create a golem, you can instead create two golems, each with half the normal hit points.
• Both golems act on the same initiative and take their turns after yours.
• You command both golems with the same bonus action.
• Each golem makes one attack when it takes the Attack action.
• If one of the two golems is destroyed, the remaining golem regains hit points equal to your artificer level.

This option represents mastery through multiplicity: not one perfected body, but two linked engines acting in concert.