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So one of my party has been enslaved by an Aboleth, however the party has a Twilight Domain Cleric which comes with Twilight Sanctuary

You can use your Channel Divinity to refresh your allies with soothing twilight.

As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light. The sphere moves with you, and it lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated or die. Whenever a creature (including you) ends its turn in the sphere, you can grant that creature one of these benefits:

You grant it temporary hit points equal to 1d6 plus your cleric level. You end one effect on it causing it to be charmed or frightened.

Now my question is in 2 parts

Would Twilight Sanctuary auto end the Aboleth Enslave condition (which is a charm effect) or does the Cleric have to state which condition they are removing?

And

The Character who is enslaved has no idea what Twilight Sanctuary does (this is the first time the cleric will have used it) and as a result can't "avoid" it to stop being un enslaved as per the Aboleths command so to my mind the player is ok to allow the character to be in the sanctuary as long as they don;t know what it will do.

As far as RAW goes how would you rule this?

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1 Answer 1

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If the cleric suspects their ally is charmed, they can choose to end one effect causing charmed.

The description of Twilight Sanctuary states:

You end one effect on it causing it to be charmed or frightened.

The cleric need only state they are using this ability as written:

I end one effect causing ally to be charmed or frightened.

The aboleth’s Enslave effect ends. The ability is not conditioned on knowing the particular effect causing the charmed condition - if it were, it would say that.

As far as how the enslaved character behaves, that’s up to the DM:

The charmed target is under the aboleth's control

Since the DM controls the aboleth, the DM controls enslaved character.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Ok the cleric has no idea the character has been charmed they haven’t done anything obvious yet, but they do know people are being mind controlled (whole thing so far has had a horror invasion of the body snatchers vibe with the NPCs the characters know changing in personality and behaviour, the character has only just been enslaved so hasn’t had a chance to exhibit this yet. \$\endgroup\$
    – Richard C
    Jan 12, 2022 at 23:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ @RichardC I play a twilight cleric in a game now. If I suspected an ally was being mind controlled, Twilight Sanctuary would be the first thing I tried. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 12, 2022 at 23:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ I have no issue with the mechanic I just need to make sure the party are not accidentally metagaming this, right now the player has done nothing different, the party are about to go into combat with allies of the Aboleth and the Aboleth will have the enslaved character attack it's allies to maintain the deception. Will see how it plays out next session. \$\endgroup\$
    – Richard C
    Jan 13, 2022 at 8:37
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    \$\begingroup\$ Honestly on my twilight cleric I clear charms as a matter of course every turn they don't need the temp HP, or of there is time after every fight, it's free. But I am a paranoid player and character. \$\endgroup\$
    – SeriousBri
    Jan 14, 2022 at 15:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SeriousBri Yup, that's exactly how I run it as well. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 14, 2022 at 16:03

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