101 Incantations

Okay, I love these things from Unearthed Arcana so I wanted to test out my incantation creating muscles. I thought it would be a neat idea to see some of the fun ideas that fellow ENWorlders could come up with. So, I guess I'll start.

Creeping Mist of Allishon
Necromancy
Effective Level: 6th
Skill Check: Knowledge (arcana) DC 20, four successes; Knowledge (religion) DC 20, two successes.
Failure: Death
Components: V,S,M,XP,SC,B
Casting Time: 60 minutes.
Range: Touch
Duration: 4 rounds
Save: See Below
Spell Resistance: Yes

This incantation calls forth a black cloying mist infused with negative energy, spreading out from the primary caster. This mist, once created, moves away from the caster to bring death to all nearby sentient creatures. The incantation can only be cast at night, and the mist immediately disperses if the sun rises. Once the incantation is complete, the dark mist fills an 60 foot spread around the caster. Any creature (except the casters, see below) within the mist immediately receives a negative level. Each subsequent round, the area expands by 30 feet up to a 150 ft spread on round 4 before dispersing on round 5. Anyone who dies because of these negative levels rises up as a wraith 1d4 rounds later. These wraiths are not necessarily under the control of the caster.

Failure: The caster that rolls the second failure dies and rises as a wraith 1d4 rounds later.
Material Component: An orb of black onyx (worth at least 1000 gp) serves as the focal point of the spell. Upon completion, the orb turns into a fine powder carried by the expanding mist.
XP Component: 500xp
Backlash: Every caster involved in the process also suffers 1 negative level upon completion. Any caster who dies from this backlash rises as a wraith 1d4 rounds later.
Extra Casters: 12 other casters must cooperate with the primary caster, chanting litanies to the gods of death.

34 – 1 (Requires multiple skills) – 2 (Moderately restricted casting time) –2 (Expensive Material Component) –4 (12 Secondary Casters) –5 (XP Cost) –3 (Negative Backlash on secondary casters) +3 (Large area of effect) = 20

Let me know what you think on this. Let's see how many we can come up with!

Mechanically, this looks fine, but...

What would the purpose of this incantation be? Why would someone use this spell?


It takes an hour to cast, can only be cast at night, it requires 12 other people to chant alongside the caster. As it reads, it seems to hit any particular target once as it spreads out, so each person in the overall radius gets one negative level. It raises those who die from this as wraiths, but these wraiths aren't controlled by the caster.

This spell has almost no combat utilization -- the number of casters and time make it unusable in a standard fight, unless the casting was already going on for 59.9 minutes before the combat starts.

While you could use this to kill loads of single HD ordinaries, they all rise as uncontrolled wraiths, which IIRC have 3-4HD and turn resistance... so... they go from 1 HD to effectively 5-6HD for the purposes of attempting to control them. This makes it of incredibly limited use as a ritual for raising an army of undead, unless all the secondary casters are also potent acolytes capable of controlling portions of this newly created gaggle of wraiths. Otherwise, casting this ritual would be suicide -- the primary caster couldn't control all the wraiths without some secondary means of controlling a large number of moderately powerful undead, or unless he has a means to render himself immune to their attacks.

Failure on this ritual is of limited possibility at best, because of the limitations set on it -- a DC 20 check in either of these skills becomes almost a given for anyone who will be using it, because the only person this ritual would potentially appeal to is a very powerful acolyte (he's the only person that might actually pull it off and have a chance at controlling any of the created undead, as well as resisting the attacks of the uncontrolled undead). Other people could attempt it, but as I said before it would be suicide from them without protection.


I think you should consider the following...
Make the undead controlled by the primary caster for some length of time (not necessarily permanent) -- this would GREATLY increase the usefulness of this ritual, but would also increase the DCs of the checks. If such were the case, I could see people using this ritual; they could kidnap a group of bumkins, slaughter them with this ritual, and then use their wraiths to complete some other atrocity.

Mordane76 said:

Mechanically, this looks fine, but...

What would the purpose of this incantation be? Why would someone use this spell?

Click to expand...

I guess I was thinking pretty much the same thing. Why would I go to all the trouble of performing this ritual? It does not appear to do anything for me at all, other than surround me with wraiths I can't control. If my point is to fill the countryside with wraths for sheer mischief, then I'm good, but otherwise...

BTW, I like the thread idea, and when I have the rules in front of me, I'll try to work on some incantations to add to it.

Well, as to the why's, I'd planned this as more of a plot device incantation and not something the players would necessarily use. To defend a few points first: I'll agree this isn't very combat effective with the long casting time, but none of the sample ones are either. Especially with a casting time of at least an hour, none of these things can really be used in combat.

In some ways, I was basing this off of the Fires of Dis incantation. This requires secondary casters, transports the primary caster to Dis, unleashes fiery damage in an 80 foot spread (IIRC) and then summons a pit fiend (uncontrolled) to unleash havoc (probably starting with the poor secondary casters). Now, I don't incredibly like this as is, but I did like the idea of "evil cultists are preparing an apocalyptic spell and the PCs must stop it." I figured this was a better shot at that. I could easily see this incantation being used more as a plot device than anything else.

But, mileages vary. It's easy enough (without tweaking the power level too much) to say the casters are protected for some short duration.

I've got another idea that's more party friendly, but I'll have to wait till this weekend to get the time to write it up.

I thought the spell was pretty cool...for many of the same reasons I thought fires of dis was cool...I am an incantation sucker

Cool thread idea. I really like the incantation idea, so I'll try to come up with some.

One piece of advice, I think that all of these work well with more flavour text.

Fight Back the Encroaching Madness

Fight Back the Invading Madness
Abjuration
Effective Level: 8th
Skill Check: Knowledge (the Planes) DC 20, 8 successes
Failure: Mirrorcast
Components: V, S, M, XP, B
Casting Time: 80 minutes
Range: 50 feet
Target: One portal to the Far Realms.
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This incantation closes a portal to the Far Realm, the homeland of the
Kaorti. This incantation requires five casters. Each secondary caster
stands at one of the four cardinal points, with the primary caster standing
in the center, representing the horizon.

During the ritual, the primary caster must create 42 mystic symbols
representing the 42 Precepts of the Universe on the floor in a circle.
These symbols must be drawn in ink created from alchemical silver and
powdered diamond.

Once the ritual is complete, the caster then shatters a small crystal sphere
if incredible quality. Once the sphere is shattered, the portal closes.

Should the incantation fail, rather than closing the portal, the fabric of
space is shredded and torn asunder, tearing a hole into the Far Realm a
half-mile in diameter.

Material Components: Special ink to draw the symbols. This ink must be
made of liquified alchemical silver and mixed with crushed diamond. The ink
costs 5,000gp per vial. One vial of ink is required per casting. The crystal globe must be of pristine quality and costs 500gp.

XP Component: Each of the casters must pay 200 XP, for a total of 1,000XP

Backlash: The sudden rush of planar energies deals 6d6 points of damage to
all casters involved in the incantation. There is no saving throw against
this damage.

Nightchilde-2 said:

Fight Back the Invading Madness

Click to expand...

Ohhh... now this is something I can use in my campaign!

Just one thing: is this really a abjuration, and not a transmutation?

Nightchilde-2 said:

Fight Back the Invading Madness
Abjuration
Effective Level: 8th
Skill Check: Knowledge (the Planes) DC 20, 8 successes
Failure: Mirrorcast
Components: V, S, M, XP, B
Casting Time: 80 minutes
Range: 50 feet
Target: One portal to the Far Realms.
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This incantation closes a portal to the Far Realm, the homeland of the
Kaorti. This incantation requires five casters. Each secondary caster
stands at one of the four cardinal points, with the primary caster standing
in the center, representing the horizon.

During the ritual, the primary caster must create 42 mystic symbols
representing the 42 Precepts of the Universe on the floor in a circle.
These symbols must be drawn in ink created from alchemical silver and
powdered diamond.

Once the ritual is complete, the caster then shatters a small crystal sphere
if incredible quality. Once the sphere is shattered, the portal closes.

Should the incantation fail, rather than closing the portal, the fabric of
space is shredded and torn asunder, tearing a hole into the Far Realm a
half-mile in diameter.

Material Components: Special ink to draw the symbols. This ink must be
made of liquified alchemical silver and mixed with crushed diamond. The ink
costs 5,000gp per vial. One vial of ink is required per casting. The crystal globe must be of pristine quality and costs 500gp.

XP Component: Each of the casters must pay 200 XP, for a total of 1,000XP

Backlash: The sudden rush of planar energies deals 6d6 points of damage to
all casters involved in the incantation. There is no saving throw against
this damage.

Click to expand...

This sounds like you're trying to make a reverse incantation - the negative effects of failure are so much worse than the positive aspects of success that I doubt anyone would ever cast it intending to succeed.

hmmm, I can't seem to find a way to subscribe without posting on these new boards, so don't mind me. I'm just subscribing.