Influence fate and destiny with this divination subclass for the 3rd party Magus class.
The Sidereal Cabal are a subclass of the Magus class from 3rd party creator, Sterling Vermin. They possess the powers of Divination, tracking fate and destiny through stars and signs and can use this knowledge to influence outcomes. Ages ago, the Sidereal Cabal believed in a balance between destiny and free will. Now they are divided into 2 factions; kismetists influence fate discreetly, nudging events in a determined direction whereas volitionists insert themselves into crucial moments of destiny to guide it down the right path.
With this knowledge of destiny comes a set of powers that allow this subclass to influence fate by altering die rolls. They have various methods for doing this, making them more profound in this regard than the diviner wizard. They also possess many divination spells and magic that can affect the speed of motion.
The magus released on D&D Beyond on the 29th September 2026 and is also available as a PDF from Sterling Vermin’s website. It includes the full class, 6 subclasses and 31 spells. This article focuses on the Sidereal Cabal subclass for which I’ve evaluated every feature, given some advice on using them and reviewed the subclass.
At a glance
- Half caster with more spellcasting acumen than rangers and paladins
- Can manipulate dice rolls to ensure fate is often on their side
- Possesses plenty of divination and speed altering spells
5/5 – Possibly a little too powerful, but not game-breakingly so. The Sidereal cabal has a lot of ways to manipulate dice rolls and ensure the dice gods are working in favour of the party. If you want to boost the party’s d20 tests and frustrate your DM’s rolls, then you can have loads of fun with this subclass that borrows a bit from the diviner wizard, then dials them up to 11!
Sidereal Cabal features
Selenite mark (Lv3) – 4/5
You sort of have the opposite effects here with aegis and enspell. Enspell is better when you can do it as no reaction is required, but you might only miss with about a third of your weapon attacks and you’re probably only making one weapon attack per turn (unless you’re dual wielding).
Aegis is more likely to occur in a round as creatures are often getting hit. I’d also argue that there’s likely to be something you’re up against that’s hitting harder than you are (certainly when you have mystic mark active for some of the tougher encounters). So I’d say I prefer aegis a little here unless you really need your reaction for other things like counterspell or opportunity attacks. Both are still good though.
Sidereal Cabal magic (Lv3) – 3/5
| Magus Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 3 | Misfortune missile, overexposure, bane, bless |
| 5 | Augury, mind spike |
| 9 | Haste, slow |
| 13 | Cascade of hours, divination |
| 17 | Dream, scrying |
Plenty of good spells in this list like bless, haste, slow and scrying. I’m less of a fan of mind spike and dream as I think their practical uses can be kind of situational, but of the official spells, these are mostly good.
In my analysis of the new spells included in the magus class pack, I rated misfortune missile really highly as a mind sliver alternative. Overexposure Is alright, but relies on lucky die rolls still for a potentially big boost. Unfortunately, I found cascade of hours to be practically useless and even when it is useful, hardly ever for a major problem to work around.
Starlit sight (Lv3) – 5/5
Like a diviner’s portent feature, but you just have one die you can alter instead of 2. Portent is really good, though this makes it half as effective. It’s great for really crucial die rolls like nasty saving throws or potentially critical attacks.
The lack of a 2nd portent die is partially made up for with darkvision and proficiency/expertise in perception. Both are great. Magi aren’t necessarily the best of scouts, which these capabilities tend to be best for, but both of these are useful on anyone. I’d be really tempted to grab perception proficiency so this can give you expertise as one excellent skill tends to be better than 2 good skills as there’s usually enough members of the party that someone can handle most skill checks.
Celestial clockwork control (Lv7) – 5/5
A really potent use of spell slots. If you know how close to passing or failing a creature was, you can gauge the spell slot you expend to handle that. Unlike wizards, magi are pretty decent even when spell slots have run out so I could see this being used fairly frequently in exchange for spell slots. This will be especially good on adventuring days with few encounters and when you can be a little more cavalier with your use of spell slots.
I would argue that this makes the Sidereal Cabal better at divining than the diviner wizard which is quite something! I’d perhaps suggest that this is maybe too powerful, despite the spell slot cost, though not game-breakingly so.
Seal fate (Lv14) – 5/5
The Sidereal Cabal keeps on manipulating the wheels of fate with another way to influence dice rolls. This time, it makes advantage better or disadvantage worse.
Again, you can use this for really crucial rolls to help the party or hinder an enemy. Once per short rest means you get a decent number of these available too on top of portent and your celestial clockwork control.
Starfinder (Lv20) – 5/5
This will give you even more uses of seal fate which is excellent. First speech is great for social encounters, but works best on a charisma build. Using it on a magus actually balances the spell a bit better (as on a bard, it can trivialise social encounters), but you’re unlikely to be the best person to be doing the talking. Would I waste my highest level spell slot on making my magus still worse than a bard at charisma skills? Probably not unless I don’t have a party face.
True seeing can be great in certain circumstances. Just remember that using these spells will expend spell surge without allowing you to regenerate a spell slot.
How good is the Sidereal Cabal?
The Sidereal Cabal is really good at manipulating d20 rolls. In fact, I’d argue that they’re a little too good at this, outperforming the diviner at their own games from level 7 onwards. I still think this subclass would be really fun to play, and I don’t think it’s overpowered enough to frustrate or ruin gameplay (especially as it’s quite a helpful subclass so everyone in the party benefits from their shenanigans). But I do think it’s more powerful than any official subclass so one to be aware of DMs before allowing this in your games.
If you do want a magus that can manipulate dice rolls to their favour, then the Sidereal Cabal does a really good job of this. I also think their features will make for loads of fun and tricky choices at the table.
5/5
Optimising a Sidereal Cabal magus build
The Sidereal Cabal subclass changes very little about how you build a magus. If you want some advice on how to build a magus, you can check out my magus class guide below.
