Creating the Abhorson In 5th

[ForgottenAvatar]

One of my future players for my upcoming Campaign would like to play an Abhorson, from the Garth Nix books. I have a few Ideas going around in my head, but I am unsure how to do the rules for it. I am thinking of doing it as a Bard Archetype, and then creating a background for it that gives them the Book of the Dead. Also, the bells would be a magical Item that they would get at 3rd level, before then they would have either training pipes, or training bells (still trying to figure that out with the player). We have discussed just removing the idea of Charter magic altogether because it wouldn't really fit in with the world. Other then that I am basically stumped. Any help would be wonderful and I hope there are some good ideas out here on the internet for this.

[Landis963]

The Abhorsen's major job description is the binding of Dead things, so I'd say Cleric or Paladin, actually. I'd need to look up what the Power Words do to get them to match the bells, but that'd be the best place to start.

[theblazeuk]

I agree that a better base class would be the cleric due to the powers, but (and I'm not very across all of this), it seems like a prestige class a la the errata might be the most fitting way to accomplish the Abhorsen within the wider world of 5E.

My reasoning is that there's only one of them, their equipment is key to their skills, and their use of charter magic/weaponry etc is all dependent on their training prior to taking up the mantle. Acquiring or bolstering existing abilities to turn, destroy and command undead; healing and resurrection; sense undead; protect from negative energy - each using a different bell.

At it's simplest you could just go with a Cleric using bells as a holy symbol?