Twilight Domain Cleric 5e: The Power of Shadows

Last Updated on January 22, 2023

Of all the classes in 5e D&D, none is more diverse than the cleric. Often thought of as healers and little more, clerics draw their strength from the very gods that rule over the multiverse.

Clerics follow in the footsteps of their deities, mastering powerful magic of a specific domain.

With 14 domains to choose from, we can find ourselves making a pretty difficult decision at just 1st level.

It’s my hope that I can make that decision a whole lot easier by introducing you to one of the most impressive cleric subclasses there is.

Today, we’re talking about the Twilight Domain clerics, warrior priests that harness the power of darkness itself to gain the advantage on their foes.

With an amazing subclass spell list and some of the coolest abilities you can grab, this is the beginning of a character you’ll remember for years to come.

What Is a Twilight Domain Cleric?

The twilight domain is reserved for clerics with a deep respect for darkness. This subclass understands that while the night may be dark and full of terrors, it is also a time for rest and recovery. 

These clerics are guardians of the twilight hours, protecting those who seek refuge from the horrors of the night.

At the same time, these clerics harness the power of the darkness for themselves. They understand that the best defense against an enemy is its own weapons.

Gods of the Twilight Domain

All clerics worship gods, and naturally, a cleric of this subclass will serve a god who reigns over the twilight domain.

Gods that have this domain in their portfolio are actually quite varied, although most fall into the good or neutral alignments.

Here are some examples of gods your twilight cleric might serve.

Selune, The Moonmaiden

In the Forgotten Realms, Selune was a chaotic good god with dominion over the moon, stars, navigation, and more.

This goddess’s appearance and demeanor changed with the phases of the moon, and yet she remained compassionate and caring throughout.

Worshippers of Selune recognize the beauty in change and transitions in one life. Sailors, questers, and those who worked by the light of the moon prayed for her protection, guidance, courage, and strength.

Ilmater, The Broken God

Another god of the Faerûnian pantheon, Ilmater’s dominion over twilight was less literal. As the god of martyrdom, suffering, and perseverance, Ilmater’s relationship to the transition of twilight was often more metaphorical.

This god welcomed those who laid down for their final rest and protected those who wished to open their eyes to another day.

Followers of Ilmater are saviors of the tortured and will fight to their dying breaths to ensure the safety of the innocent.

Yondalla, The Blessed One

Halflings might be particularly drawn to the domain of twilight, as it is the domain of Yondalla, their creator goddess.

This nurturing matriarch of the halfling pantheon and the race as a whole is also seen as the most dutiful protector of the small people. Just as she serves her children, so too do her clerics make an oath to protect those in need.

Celestian, The Far Wanderer

A god from the Dragonlance setting that roams the stars, Celestian encourages his devout to wander through the cosmos in search of meaning.

His followers seek refuge in him because while the light of the sun may be harsh, the stars offer solace to all.

Class Defining Abilities

• Powerful Spell List
• Auras of Support
• Flight and Great Martial Capabilities

Spell List: Twilight Domain Spells

The twilight cleric has an absolutely stacked spell list with not a single spell already offered to the cleric class.

This means that each of the 10 spells you get for free from this subclass was especially chosen for this domain and not just thrown in as go-to cleric spells.

Starting it off with faerie fire and sleep at 1st level, we already have the makings of a cleric with control over the battlefield.

Faerie fire will allow you to not only shed light on creatures attempting to hide in the darkness, but it will also give advantage to all attacks made against them.

Sleep is one of those spells that is just amazing in the early game. You get to knock out up to 40 hit points worth of creatures. This can be used in so many ways, but most often it will be used to put a swift end to any combat you’re in.

See invisibility might feel like a repeat of faerie fire, but it lasts for an hour, and when combined with your 300-feet darkvision, it is going to make it virtually impossible for you to miss any action. 

Then we get Moonbeam, a spell that was previously reserved for druids.

This spell packs a lot into a 2nd-level spell slot, allowing you to create a large beam of light that is going to deal radiant damage every turn for as long as you hold concentration.

The couple of aura spells we get as we continue to level up are going to be invaluable in supporting our allies and will work amazingly with our Channel Divinity, which we’ll get into in a bit.

This spell list also brings us some amazing spells like Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Greater Invisibility, and Mislead.

Each of these are extremely powerful in their own way, great for all three pillars of D&D. 

There’s just one last spell we need to talk about in depth though – Circle of Power.

Circle of power is a 5th-level abjuration spell that normally functions as a capstone spell for paladins. For twilight clerics though, this comes as soon as 9th level.

This spell is one of the best supportive spells out there, providing advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects to any ally within 30 feet of you.

With this spell set as the focus of your concentration, your team will be almost impervious to all of the crazy abilities your foes might try to throw at you.

If that weren’t enough, your allies will also take no damage when they would normally take half damage from a successful save. 

There’s a reason paladins don’t get this until 17th level, but lucky for you, you’re not a paladin.

Twilight Sanctuary

A cleric’s channel divinity is normally pretty central to the subclass’s playstyle, and that is definitely going to ring true here.

This ability gives you an aura of 30-foot radius that can end harmful statuses on your allies and provide temporary hit points, along with some more abilities as you level up.

As with all channel-divinity abilities, you’ll only be able to use this once per rest until 6th level. At 6th you can use it twice, regaining expended uses on a short or long rest, and at 18th level this moves up to three times.

What’s impressive about this channel divinity is that it lasts for a whole minute. For that duration, you and your allies benefit from one of the effects whenever they end their turn inside of the aura.

That means every turn you’ll be able to give yourself 1d6 temporary hit points plus your cleric level or end a charmed or frightened condition on yourself. 

Your allies will want to spend as much time as possible inside this aura, which is a big part of why you pick up the heavy armor and martial weapons proficiencies.

You’re going to be right up in the fight, side by side with your allies to protect them from evil.

Your capstone at 17th level is even going to give half cover to your allies that are inside of the aura. That’s an automatic +2 to AC and dexterity saving throws for anyone smart enough to stay close to you.

What’s more is that this aura sheds dim light, affecting some of your other abilities and making perception checks difficult for anything that doesn’t have darkvision.

On top of this beautiful channel divinity, you’ll probably want to use some of your aura spells, just to make the space around you that much more enticing.

Aura of Vitality is going to be perfect for healing without wasting actions or more than one spell slot. 

Aura of Life, on the other hand, is going to be insanely useful when going up against any of the numerous creatures with abilities that reduce maximum hit points, since it negates that entirely.

It will also bring creatures with 0 hit points back up to 1 if they’re inside the aura – a nice way to keep your allies in the fight.

You’ll also want to pick up Holy Aura once you get those 8th-level spell slots.

This spell is like Circle of Power ramped up to 11, and when put together with twilight sanctuary at its full potential, your team will be unstoppable.

Flying Combatant

Proficiency in heavy armor and martial weapons is huge, and most people gravitate toward the few cleric subclasses that get them for good reason.

There’s no better way to protect your allies than by getting right up next to them and having the capacity to take a hit.

The flight comes on at 6th level with the Steps of the Night feature, giving you a flight speed equal to your walking speed as a bonus action whenever you’re in dim light or darkness.

Considering you’ll almost always have your twilight sanctuary up and running, this is basically going to happen every combat. 

A flight speed is incredible for maneuverability, allowing you to stay out of reach from your foes as you get toward the ally that needs help or the enemy that needs killing. 

While there isn’t much more in the way of martial prowess, you do get Divine Strike at 8th level, which allows you to deal extra radiant damage once each turn when you hit with a weapon attack. 

If you’re more worried about casting cantrips for damage, you can actually trade this feature out for Blessed Strikes, an optional variant that gives the same 1d8 bonus to cantrips or weapon attacks.

The only downside is that this variant feature won’t increase to 2d8 at 14th level.

Limitations

The twilight domain cleric presents itself almost like a paladin, with powerful healing auras and an impetus to get right into the frontlines of a battle.

The only problem with that is a lack of actual martial abilities. 

Sure, you can rely on powerful cantrips like Toll the Dead and Sacred Flame for the bulk of your damage dealing, but then we’re putting that martial weapon proficiency to waste.

If the only thing you have going for you in the weapon department is the ability to use big weapons while adding your proficiency bonus, you’re not doing much.

Paladins, and by extension any martial class, can rely on weapons because they work efficiently with their actions; they respect action economy.

Without an extra attack ability or something making your attacks a whole lot stronger, this subclass has no real reason to use weapons.

To fix this, we’ll want to pick up some abilities through feats or racial features that let us swing that warhammer or longsword and really pack a punch.

Anything we can do to make weapons a reliable form of combat will really make this subclass sing.

Black Citadel’s Ranking and Tier System

Color and Tier ranking is very helpful when you’re trying to digest a lot of information. 

In our ongoing series of 5e class guides, we use the following color rating scheme:

• Red – C Tier. Red options can sometimes be situationally useful and might make for an interesting narrative choice, but they are largely less effective than other tiers.
• Green – B Tier. Solid but nothing that is absolutely critical for a build, or Green can be very good but only in very specific situations.  
• Blue – A Tier. An excellent choice. Widely regarded as powerful in some way, useful, and highly effective. 
• Purple – S Tier. The top of our rankings. Objectively powerful or transformative in some way.  No choice in D&D is essential, but these options are worth strongly considering when you create your character.

Our goal here is to provide scannable but comprehensive guides for you as you develop your character.

While we might sometimes make reference to unofficial or homebrew content to illustrate a point (or just because it’s too cool not to talk about), every option we suggest is legal in the official rules for D&D 5e as published by Wizards of the Coast.

Race Options

Choosing the right race is becoming less and less about your ability scores and more about the actual abilities.

With most races now giving you the option to choose your own ability score increases as you build your character, we can really focus on themes and features.

As it stands, we’re looking for abilities that can improve our martial abilities or boost our capabilities as a support class.

Here are some races that work excellently with the twilight domain cleric.

Note: Custom ASI refers to the new method of ability score increases adopted by 5e. This allows you to take a +2 in one ability and a +1 in another or a +1 in three abilities of your choice.

Hill Dwarf

+2 Constitution, +1 Wisdom.

This subrace of dwarves is going to be excellent for a sturdy, frontline build.

Your movement speed won’t be reduced by heavy armor, and you’ll get an increase to hit point maximum equal to your level.

Not to mention, you’ll be picking up dwarven resilience: resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against poison.

Kobold (MMotM)

Custom ASI.

This version of the kobold race has an ability named Draconic Cry that gives you and your allies advantage on attack rolls against enemies within 10 feet of you that can hear you. 

You’ll also want to choose draconic sorcery for your Kobold Legacy feature. This will give you one sorcerer cantrip, and there are plenty of great choices.

As a bonus, you also have advantage on saving throws against being frightened, synergizing excellently with your twilight sanctuary 

Aasimar (MMotM)

Custom ASI.

This version no longer has subraces, meaning you can choose the various abilities of the aasimar later in your campaign.

The three different abilities of the Celestial Revelation (which replaces subraces) are all excellent bonus to combat. 

You can have some great damage dealing abilities, or you can keep that fly speed more consistently while also dishing out some extra radiant damage.

This race also comes with a great healing ability that you can use to supplement your other spells and features.

Dhampir

Custom ASI.

Who is a better fit to be a guardian of the twilight hours than someone cursed by creatures of the night? This race has a lot going for it both thematically and mechanically.

You’ll get a climb speed on top of that flying speed, and you get a great vampiric-bite attack that will give a nice way to heal yourself without burning spell slots.

Ghostwise Halfling

+2 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom.

If there’s any halfling that would be perfect for following Yondalla, it’s the ghostwise subrace. They get the wisdom bonus and are also telepathic to a range of 30 feet. 

On top of that, they’ll get the normal halfling feats – lucky and brave. Lucky is going to let you reroll your 1s, and brave will give you advantage on saves against being frightened. Both of these work perfectly for a twilight cleric.

Skill Choices

We should probably be choosing our skill proficiencies based on our highest stats, but we can always pick things up that fit the character we’re trying to roleplay, especially since adding your proficiency bonus might compensate for a not-so-good ability modifier.

The suggestions below are more based on logic than roleplay, so feel free to ignore anything that doesn’t apply to you.

The cleric class is given the ability to choose two skills from History (INT), Insight (WIS), Medicine (WIS), Persuasion (CHA), and Religion (INT)

• History (INT) – History isn’t that important to us unless we are trying to play a cleric with deep knowledge about the history of creatures of the night. This one is really up to how you plan to roleplay.
• Insight (WIS) – Insight is always incredibly useful, and any cleric with a good wisdom score should take it. As someone with great knowledge of the stars, your insight should be better than most. 
• Medicine (WIS) – This is another skill we want to take because of our wisdom. It’s going to be of great help if we decide to start doing some healing outside of spellcasting.
• Persuasion (CHA) – Leave this to a character with more persuasion.
• Religion (INT) – Religion checks are hit or miss, often being reflavored as innate knowledge or history checks. Discuss this with your DM, and see if they’re going to be incorporating religion into the campaign. Of course, if you really want to take this, it can obviously be pertinent to a cleric.

Twilight Domain Cleric Progression

This progression shows class and subclass abilities. Features that you automatically obtain through the Twilight Domain will appear in Orange.

Filling Out the Character Sheet (Level 0)

Hit Dice: 1d8 per Cleric level

Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier

Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per cleric level after 1st

Proficiencies

Armor:Light armor, medium armor, shields

Weapons: All simple weapons

Tools: None

Saving Throws: Wisdom, Charisma

Skills: Choose two from History, Insight, Medicine, Persuasion, and Religion

Equipment:

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a mace or (b) a warhammer (if proficient)
• (a) scale mail, (b) leather armor, or (c) chain mail (if proficient)
• (a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts or (b) any simple weapon
• (a) a priest’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
• A shield and a holy symbol

1st Level

Spellcasting: 

Clerics use wisdom as their spellcasting ability, so your spell save DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier, and your spell attack modifier is your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier.

Clerics can prepare their spells from their list of available cleric spells when they finish a long rest. Their list of prepared spells is equal to their Wisdom modifier + their cleric level.

You can cast a cleric spell as a ritual if it has the ritual tag and you have it prepared.

Divine Domain:

Your domain is chosen based on the deity you choose to serve and the gifts they grant you. As a twilight domain cleric, you worship a deity that rules over the twilight domain.

Bonus Proficiencies:

You gain proficiencies with heavy armor and martial weapons.

Eyes of Night:

You have 300 feet darkvision. You can also share this darkvision with a number of creatures up to your wisdom modifier.

This lasts 1 hour, and you can only use this ability once per long rest or until you expend a spell slot of any level to use it again.

Vigilant Blessing:

As an action, you can give one creature you touch (can be yourself) advantage on the next initiative roll they make. You can only use this on one creature at a time.

Twilight Domain Spells:

Your domain gives you access to certain spells outside of the cleric spell list. These spells are always prepared once you reach the appropriate level. At 1st level you gain access to Faerie Fire and Sleep.

Faerie Fire sheds light in a 20-foot cube that leaves an outline on objects and creatures that fail a dexterity saving throw. Creatures outlined in this way can’t benefit from invisibility, and attacks made against them are made with advantage.

Sleep allows you to roll 5d8 and put the rolled amount of hit points of creatures asleep. Creatures within range fall asleep in ascending order. 

For example, there are five creatures within range, three have 6 hit points, one has 8, and one has 10. You roll a 28.

The three 6 HP creatures fall asleep first and then the 8 HP creature, but you only can affect 1 more hit point and so the creature with 10 HP stays awake. This magical sleep lasts for 1 minute.

2nd Level

Channel Divinity:

You can channel divine energy to use one of your available channel divinity effects, either Turn Undead or Twilight Sanctuary.

Uses replenish on a short or long rest. At 2nd level you can use this ability once, at 6th you can use it twice, and at 18th you can use this three times.

Channel Divinity (Turn Undead) :

As an action, you present your holy symbol and speak a prayer, forcing each undead that can see or hear you within 30 feet of you to make a Wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, it is turned for 1 minute or until it takes any damage.

A turned creature must spend its turns trying to move as far away from you as it can, and it can’t willingly move to a space within 30 feet of you. It also can’t take reactions.

For its action, it can use only the Dash action or try to escape from an effect that prevents it from moving. If there’s nowhere to move, the creature can use the Dodge action.

Channel Divinity (Twilight Sanctuary):

As an action, you create a 30-foot aura centered on you that is full of dim light. When a creature ends its turn in the aura, you can choose one of the following effects on it.

• Grant it temporary HP equal to 1d6 + your cleric level.
• End one effect causing them to be charmed or frightened.

Harness Divine Power (Optional): 

You can choose to use your channel divinity to regain an expended spell slot. The level of the slot must be no greater than half of your proficiency bonus (rounded down).

If you use your channel divinity in this way, that expended use is not regained until you take a long rest. 

3rd Level

Twilight Domain Spells:

At 3rd level you gain access to Moonbeam and See Invisibility. 

Moonbeam creates a cylinder (5-foot radius, 40 feet high) of pale light that you can move as an action after you’ve cast the spell.

The light deals radiant damage to a creature that enters or starts its turn in the beam. The damage is 2d10 on a failed Con save or half on a success. The damage increases by 1d10 for each higher level spell slot you use.

See Invisibility lets you see invisible creatures and into the ethereal plane for up to an hour.

4th Level

ASI: 

You can either increase one ability by 2 points or two abilities by 1. Alternatively you can choose a feat, if you already have great stats, this is a great choice.

Cantrip Versatility (Optional):

Whenever you reach a level where you gain an ASI, you can also replace one Cantrip you know with another cantrip from the cleric spell list.

5th Level

Destroy Undead:

When an undead fails its saving throw against your Turn Undead feature, the creature is instantly destroyed if its challenge rating is at or below a certain threshold, as shown in the Cleric table above.

Twilight Domain Spells:

At 5th level you gain access to Aura of Vitality and Leomund’s Tiny Hut.

Aura of Vitality creates a 30-foot aura centered on you. You can use a bonus action to cause a creature inside of the aura to regain 2d6 hit points.

Leomund’s Tiny Hut, which can be cast as a ritual, creates a 10-foot radius dome of force that can fit up to nine creatures of medium size or smaller.

This 8 hour hut is virtually impenetrable, opaque from the outside, and transparent from the inside. It’s perfect for long rests, stake outs, and anything else you can think of.

6th Level

Steps of the Night:  

You can use a bonus action to gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed while in dim light. This lasts for 1 minute, and you can activate it a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus.

7th Level

Twilight Domain Spells:

At 7th level you gain access to Aura of Life and Greater Invisibility.

Aura of Life creates a 30-foot radius aura that provides necrotic damage resistance to non-hostile creatures and negates the effects of abilities that would reduce hit points.

Non-hostile, living creatures with 0 hit points also regain 1 hit point at the start of their turn.

Greater Invisibility lets you turn a creature and anything they are wearing or carrying invisible for up to a minute.

8th Level

ASI

Divine Strike: 

Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can deal an extra 1d8 radiant damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

Blessed Strikes (Optional):

You can choose to replace your divine-strike ability with this ability.

When a creature takes damage from one of your cantrips or weapon attacks, you can also deal 1d8 radiant damage to that creature. Once you deal this damage, you can’t use this feature again until the start of your next turn.

9th Level

Twilight Domain Spells:

At 9th level you gain access to Circle of Power and Mislead.

Circle of Power creates a 30-foot aura that gives friendly creatures (including yourself) advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. 

When a friendly creature would take half damage on a successful save, they instead take no damage.

Mislead allows you to become invisible while an illusory double takes your place. You control the double and can have it move (up to twice your movement speed), speak, behave, and gesture, as you wish.

You can even switch your senses to the double as a bonus action, blinding yourself while you are seeing through its eyes.

10th Level

Divine Intervention:

You can call on your deity to intervene on your behalf when your need is great.

As an action, describe the assistance you seek, and roll percentile dice. If you roll a number equal to or lower than your cleric level, your deity intervenes.

The DM chooses the nature of the intervention; the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate.

If your deity intervenes, you can’t use this feature again for 7 days. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a long rest.

At 20th level, your call for intervention succeeds automatically, no roll required.

12th Level

ASI

16th Level

ASI

17th Level

Twilight Shroud: 

You and your allies benefit from half cover while inside of your Twilight Sanctuary.

19th Level

ASI

Feats

Feats are an excellent way to improve your build. The selections below are great options to either make yourself more of a martial threat or to make yourself an even better caster.

• Durable – An excellent feat for clerics, it boosts your constitution and makes it so that the minimum amount you can heal from your hit die is double your constitution modifier.
• War Caster – With all the aura spells you’ll want to cast at various times, concentration is going to be incredibly important. This feat will give you advantage on con saves to hold your concentration.

Of course, we wouldn’t put it on here if that was it. This feat also allows you to cast spells as a reaction in place of an opportunity attack and gives you the ability to cast somatic elements while holding a weapon.

• Magic Initiate – It may seem silly to grab this as a full caster, but picking up shillelagh from the druid class will make you an incredibly better martial combatant without the need to focus on multiclassing or any other martial feats. It will also let you stay focused on your wisdom score and not worry so much about your strength or dexterity.
• Fey Touched – This is a great way to get a +1 to your wisdom and still see some new abilities. Mainly, you’ll get access to misty step, a spell you can use to hop around the battlefield and put your aura where it needs to be.

Multiclassing

While multiclassing is a great option to make a more versatile character, I wouldn’t suggest multiclassing outside of the twilight cleric.

Unlike some classes or subclasses where higher level abilities have little effect on the overall character, this subclass consistently gets better as we level up.

It’s hard to multiclass with this subclass and not sacrifice our channel divinity improvements or our higher level spell slots. 

If you do want to multiclass, I suggest no more than a two-level dip into another class. Anything more and you’ll likely end up with a M.A.D. (multi-ability dependent) character that isn’t seeing the full scope of their abilities.

Here are some two-level dips that might work nicely if you’re dead set on a multiclass.

War Magic Wizard

We pick up some cantrips and 1st-level spells from the wizard spell list. This does require us having at least a decent intelligence score.

The main reason we might take this subclass is for the Arcane Deflection ability that gives us a +2 to AC or a +4 to a saving throw.

This will only happen every so often, and we’ll have to rely on weapon attacks for a turn after we use it, but it can be functional.

Druid

Druids also use wisdom as their spellcasting bonus and have some nice spells that allow them to function as a frontliner.

They also get access to their subclasses and wild shape at 2nd level, giving us a really fun way to stay in the battle. We simply turn on our aura, and then charge in as whatever beast we want to.

Circle of the Moon – Moon druids are going to give us the best wild shape forms with only a two-level dip.

Starry Forms – This subclass’s wild shape ability creates bright light, which will nullify our steps of the wind. Avoid this even if it has a nice theme alignment.

Circle of Shepherds – This subclass works excellently because its 2nd-level feature also creates a 30-foot aura.

The hawk totem aura is perfect, letting you use your reaction to give an ally advantage on an attack roll against a creature in the aura.

Since Twilight Sanctuary starts up on an action and Spirit Totem starts up on a bonus action, you have an excellent turn one play.

Twilight Domain Cleric for Beginners

If you’re looking to play a cleric that can stay on the front lines of battle while providing some meaningful support to your allies, this is the subclass for you.

As a devout follower of a protector god, you will be the number one character your party calls upon for aid.

Harnessing the Twilight

This subclass is focused on harnessing the power that lies between day and night. Using the spells and abilities granted by their deity, they protect their allies and conquer their enemies.

Central to any cleric subclass is their channel divinity feature. This domain offers up an ability called Twilight Sanctuary, which basically creates an aura of dim light with healing properties.

If any of your allies end their turn within this aura you can either give them some temporary hit points or an effect causing them to be frightened or charmed.

This aura feeds into a few other parts of the character as a whole.

First, the dim light is central to the 6th-level feature that grants this subclass flight. Flight will be a huge help in putting yourself exactly where you need to be on the battlefield.

The other benefit of the aura is that it gives you a template for how to play. With several aura spells in the subclasses domain spell list, you’ll be focusing on putting up the right auras at the right time and staying close to your allies.

This can include healing auras, auras of protection, and even an 8th-level spell called Holy Aura that makes your allies virtually invincible.

Most aura spells do require concentration, so you’re only going to have your channel divinity and another up at the same time.

Once you have your auras up and running, the rest of your playstyle is up to you. You can opt to be an offensive tank, focusing on your martial weapons and getting as much benefit from heavy armor as possible. 

You can pick up some cantrips through feats, multiclassing, or racial features so that you can still deal damage without having to stay away from high constitution and wisdom. 

Realistically, with Greater Invisibility on your domain spell list and a number of stealthy options coming from your subclass features, you can even go for a sneaky cleric that lurks in the shadows to provide support.

Since clerics choose their prepared spells at the beginning of each day, you can play this character basically however you want.

You can try out new things over the course of different combat encounters until you find what works for you.

Just remember that any feats you pick up are final – you’re not going to be switching those out because they no longer match your playstyle. 

Vigilant Protectors

Roleplay is incredibly important in D&D. It is an RPG after all. Finding your motivation for a twilight cleric can be largely influenced by the god you choose. Luckily, there’s a lot of variety to be found there.

Twilight is one of the more recently added domains. So there aren’t many gods designed as twilight gods. Instead, the list of gods who have dominion over twilight is compiled of gods that have a versatile portfolio.

From martyr gods like Ilmater, whose claim to twilight is more metaphorical, to moon and star gods like Selune and Celestial, with very obvious claims, the concept of twilight can be easily molded to your interpretation.

At its core, the twilight domain represents a transition, which isn’t always so obvious as “between day and night.” Anyone who values continued change in any variety might find themselves worshipping one of these gods.

It also is a reminder that there are dangers lurking in the shadows. Twilight clerics are protectors; their abilities make that very clear.

Their duty is to protect those who wish to rest from any evils hiding in the night. Again, this can be taken literally or metaphorically; the interpretation is up to you.

Creating a character that falls into this domain is fairly simple.

Your backstory might include some sort of tragedy related to the night and so you’ve vowed to protect innocents from that very same danger.

Or, your backstory might just be that of an acolyte, raised in a faith or culture that values the twilight hours.

You could even be a sailor who worshipped a twilight god for the guidance they offered you from the stars.

Unlike some other domains with pretty obvious roleplay value, this is an open-ended subclass that asks, “what does twilight mean to you?”

As long as the answer to that question isn’t something to do with the Carlisles, you’re in good shape.

I hope this guide has helped you learn more about your next D&D character.

May the stars guide your way on this new journey. And as always, happy adventuring.