Some spellbooks

[Bupp]

We now move on to Dragon Magazine issue #92, and I'll be pulling from Pages from the Mages by Ed Greenwood, and a collection of spellbooks, and, of course, new spells.


Phase trap is listed as a transmutation spell, but I changed it to abjuration. Just felt right. I will also add phase trap to my sorcerer spell list. Seems to fit with the ectoplasmic spell ability of the incantatrix I posted.


For whatever reason, the thunderlance description is getting weird formatting. Keeps adding all the extra spaces. I've tried to fix it, but to no avail.

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Aubayreer’s Workbook

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[h=1]Appearance[/h]This book is fashioned of a long strip of green hiexel bark, folded and refolded upon itself accordion-fashion. It is bound, protected, between two rectangular pieces of oiled wood held together with hempen cord. Upon one of the boards is carved a rune, thus:

​

and by this rune the work can be identified as that of the mage Aubayreer.


History and description
Aubayreer was a mage of the Dalelands in the first days of settlement, and later sailed east to what is now Aglarond, where he founded a sorcerous ruling dynasty that continues to this day. The many works Aubayreer made while High Mage of Aglarond, and later Mage-King, are kept securely in the libraries of the palace there, but the original workbook Aubayreer developed as an apprentice to the mages of the Covenant has been lost.



Early in the reign of Lurskas, grandson of Aubayreer, thieves broke into the royal libraries. Several were slain by the guardians and protective magics of the place, and these indeed kept the more powerful tomes safe, but the workbook was stolen. It vanished into the debatable lands east and south of Aglarond, and no definite trace of it has been found since, although reports of the activities of several mages (notably Nuzar of the Seven Curses) have hinted that they have perused Aubayreer’s Workbook, or at least copies of the two spells Aubayreer developed which end the work.



That the book still exists is attested to by the unceasing efforts of the royal house of Aglarond to recover it. The present ruler, the shapeshifting Mage-Queen known as “The Simbul”, is known to have slain the wizard Thanatus and to have ransacked the libraries of the school of magic at Mirrorstar in her attempts to seize the workbook.



Aubayreer’s lone apprentice, the now-dead mage Nytholops, set down in his Chronicles the contents of the workbook, for it was from this book (and no other) that Aubayreer taught him the Art.



There are (or were) 18 faces of folded bark in Aubayreer’s Workbook. The foremost is usually blank; it served as a surface for various protective magics (explosive runes, symbols, and the like) when desired.



The next 14 surfaces contain the spells dancing lights, light, message, burning hands, identify, shield, detect thoughts, arcane lock, enlarge/reduce, dispel magic, glyph of warding, fireball, ice storm and stoneskin. Then follow two special spells—phase trap and thunderlance.



Phase Trap

4th level abjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S, M (small transparent colorless gem of not less than 50 gp, which is consumed)

Duration: 1 minute



This spell affects any one target creature possessing the ability to phase-shift (become astral or ethereal). If the creature fails a Wisdom saving throw, it is forced into its opposite phase and magically held there for the duration of the spell. An encountered phase spider, for example, that was in phase, physically attacking, at the instant of the caster’s completing the casting of a phase trap, would be forced out of phase, and thereby unable to attack, until the expiration of the spell. If it was out of phase (ethereal) when affected, it would be forced back into phase and be vulnerable to physical attack.



This spell will affect creatures employing spells or natural powers, and is effective against blink and dimension door, halting creatures employing either completely and forcing them into phase on the Prime Material Plane.





Thunderlance

4th level evocation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 300 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, until triggered

Casting this spell brings into being a thin shaft of faint grey, shimmering force extending 2 feet from the caster’s pointing finger. This lance is weightless and intangible, but if any creature touches or passes through any part of it, the lance vanishes with a loud clap of thunder, and the creature struck is dealt 6d6 points of thunder damage.




The caster can employ the thunderlance in many ways. Held steady as a barrier against some creature’s passage or as a tripwire, at ankle height, to stop a pursuer. It is also highly effective when wielded as a weapon; the caster can move his arm and finger about to strike with the lance. In any combat situation against a thunderlance, potential victims are regarded as having a base armor class of 10 (before any dexterity adjustments); the blow of the lance is transmitted through armor and shields, and the presence of such protection does not benefit the target of a thunderlance attack. However, the bonuses of magic armor and shields are not negated, and will improve a target’s effective AC by the amount of the bonus.




The touch of a thunderlance destroys a shield spell, wall of force, or

minor globe of invulnerability but the lance itself discharges (vanishes, without damaging anyone) upon such contact. Stronger protective spells (such as anti-magic shell) will also cause the lance to discharge, but will themselves withstand the shock of its strike and remain in existence. A lance penetrates fire, water (including ice and snow), and electrical discharges of natural or magical (e.g., wall of fire, wall of ice) origin without discharging, and thus the caster may strike through such phenomena at an enemy.




Anyone wielding a thunderlance cannot be harmed by magic missile spells, regardless of what direction these strike from; their force passes harmlessly through the lance wielder to be absorbed by the lance, increasing the damage it does (by 2-5 hp per missile) when it discharges. A lance does not confer any protection against other forms of magical attack, nor can it be passed to any other creature without discharging it.




At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the thunder damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 4th.

 

[Bupp]

I've also added the spells to the enworld database.

 

[Bupp]

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Like I've mentioned before, I work at UPS, and have survived yet another peak season. Now I can get back on a more regular posting schedule.

This brings us back again to Dragon Magazine issue #92, and another spellbook by Ed Greenwood, Orjalun's Arbatel, and two new spells, encrypt, which lets you send hidden messages, and secure, a beefed up version of arcane lock.


Orjalun’s Arbatel
Appearance
This volume consists of nine plates of beaten and polished mithril, stamped by the elvish smiths of Silverymoon with letters of the High Tongue, graven on small dies that are positioned on the page and then struck sharply with a hammer so as to leave their distinct impressions. The plates are pierced at the top and bottoms of their left sides (as they are read), and fastened together with bronze rings. The work had an ornate case of stained wood and was carried wrapped in canvas, but these may well have perished.

History and description
Orjalun, the white-haired High Mage of Silverymoon in the early days of the North (now believed dead), oversaw and took a large part in the construction of this work, designed to be a permanent repository for the most useful defensive spells he could provide for the continued safety and security of his beloved city in the years to come. But it never served so, for when Orjalun gave his staff of office to his chosen successor, Sepur, and left the city, Sepur revealed his true nature: taking the Arbatel and staff as his own, he also left that fair city.

Sepur’s fate is unknown, although the sage Alphontras recounts the finding of a broken staff atop a lonely, scorched tor in the Trollmoors. The Arbatel is first identified in the village of Longsaddle by Alphontras’s colleague Eelombur the Learned, who observed it in the possession of the sorcerer Arathur Harpell. Arathur was later slain in a magical duel by the necromancer Marune, who held the Arbatel only briefly. Marune lost it somewhere in the winter snows when fleeing from the Lords of Waterdeep, and it must have changed hands several times in the following decade, for many hints of it are found in various re-
cords of the North.

It is mentioned once in this period by the sage Maerlus, who is represented in the Letters to the Court of Elfrin (“Collected by the King’s Own Hand, being a record and discourse most fascinating upon our lands
and times”) by a letter he penned to the monarch, King Elfrin, wherein the sorcerer-sage described a number of items of power known to be within Elfrin’s realm. In the letter, Maerlus describes several works and speculates on their locations; the Arbatel, he says, is in the hands of the reclusive wizard Lios -- unless Marune has overcome him and regained it.

Elminster believes that Marune did slay Lios, but says that the activities of Marune from that time to the present reveal that he has not recovered the Arbatel, despite his repeated attempts to do so. Its recent and present whereabouts are unknown.

Orjalun was tutored by The Masked, most mysterious of the Seven Wizards of Myth Drannor, and two of the spells in the book are believed to be of his tutor’s personal crafting: encrypt and secure (an improved version of wizard lock).

The first and last plates of the Arbatel are featureless, so as to reveal nothing of the contents within, but the seven interior plates bear one spell each (the method of scripting allows only one side of a plate to be used). These are, in order of appearance, mending, charm person, encrypt, dispel magic, identify, guards and wards, and secure.

All of the commonly known spells in the Arbatel appear in the standard form, and the two unique spells therein are reproduced below, from the books of Vauth, another apprentice of The Masked.

Encrypt
4th level illusion
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (a pinch of dust or grey lint fluff, and a feather, and are consumed in the casting)
Duration: Permanent
You make a short message, up to 66 characters, or about 15 words, completely unreadable, even to magic like true seeing. The only ones that can read it are you, and any beings named or visualized by you at the time of casting. Such a message will appear to all others as an illegible, smudged area.

An encrypted message will remain until willed to disappear by you (no matter the distance), or a dispel magic is cast on the surface. Weathering and other physical effects such as burning, scrubbing, or defacing the smudged area will not destroy the message as long as the actual surface It was written on survives (encrypt can be safely cast on any reasonably stable surface, such as stone, wood, or paper, but not usually with success on messages scrawled in soot, dust, or snow); it will still be clearly legible to those identified above.

The message does not glow or in any way attract attention to itself; an intended recipient may well not see it if not looking for a message or not chancing to look in the right place. A message encrypted in a language not known to the intended recipient is not made understandable by means of this magic; nor will it magnify script too small for the recipient to read.

No part of any message longer than the first 66 characters will be obscured or protected by this magic: attempting to encrypt such an overlong message would result in wastage of the spell; the entire message could be read (or destroyed) normally. Additional writing in the same after the spell is cast will not affect an encrypted message — thus, a second message can be written on top of an encrypted one to further conceal the former, without rendering the original message unreadable by those for whom it is intended. Morever, adding words or characters to a message known to be encrypted will not cause it to appear; the additions will remain clearly visible and the original will remain concealed. Multiple encrypt spells cast on the same or adjacent areas will not allow messages longer than 66 characters to be concealed; rather, when a second encrypt spell is cast, the concealed message of the first encrypt spell will vanish forever, replaced by the second message. Writing used in encrypted messages can be very large or very small, written on walls, mountainsides, or even small bones or slivers of wood, and still be concealed so long as the maximum of 66 characters is not exceeded.

Encrypt may be used to conceal messages written by others, regardless of time elapsed since the writing, and will be effective in obscuring even runes deeply graven in stone, or letters formed by patterns of colored mosaic tiles. In such a case, the surface will appear faded, stained, discolored, or even covered with a smoky, sooty deposit so that the message is concealed. As aforementioned, no amount of physical cleaning will reveal the concealed message.

Secure
4th-level abjuration
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (gold dust worth at least 25gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Until dispelled

You touch a closed door, window, gate, chest, or other entryway, and it becomes locked for the duration. You and the creatures you designate when you cast this spell can open the object normally. You can also set a password that, when spoken within 5 feet of the object, suppresses this spell for 1 minute. Otherwise, it is impassable until it is broken or the spell is dispelled or suppressed.

Secure also protects against passage by ethereal, astral or dimension altering means such as blink and dimension door. A knock spell is not effective against a secured passage.

While affected by this spell, the object is more difficult to break or force open; the DC to break it or pick any locks on it increases by 10.

http://5egrognard.blogspot.com/2014/12/orjaluns-arbatel.html

 

[Bupp]

Here's another spell book by Ed Greenwood from Dragon Magazine #92. I like this one even though it contains no new spells, but it does conceal a dangerous guardian.


The Scalamagdrion
Appearance
This is a large volume fashioned of parchment bound between slabs of wood and sewn to the black hide of an unknown creature, which has been stretched over the boards to form a cover. It bears no external markings of any kind. Its covers are edged with beaten copper, now discolored to a vivid green by the elements. There are 26 yellowed and curling pages within, and some owners report a binding strip of black hide which the book now apparently lacks.

The size and weight of the tome precludes its easy transportation by hand, under arm, or in satchel, and indeed it does not show the wear (scratched cover or corners, blotched or warped parchment due to wetness) typical of books that have seen much traveling out-of-doors.

History and Description
The true origin of The Scalamagdrion is not known. It is first mentioned in the writings of the mage Hethcanter, who owned the book in his youth. He does not mention how he acquired it, but does record that he gave the book to Hym Kraaven (one of the Seven Wizards of Myth Drannor) in payment for magical training. Shortly thereafter his writings end; Hethcanter is remembered today chiefly for his spectacular suicide, hurling himself to his death from the highest pinnacle of the crag now known as Hethcanter’s Leap. He did this when chased by almost a score of illithids; the sage Orfidel believes that these hated creatures sought The Scalamagdrion itself; an opinion shared by Elminster, Hym Kraaven never revealed or used the work in his teachings at the school in Myth Drannor, possibly because of the contents of one of its pages. Of Hym Kraaven’s fate or the means by which the book passed into the hands of its next known owner, nothing is recorded, but the sages Orfidel and Maerlus of the North were both present on Watcher’s Tor when a hitherto unknown magic-user named Valathond used its spells to destroy the mage Gaerlammon in a formal duel.

Valathond was later slain by the Company of the Raven, but his killers did not discover the book amidst the treasure in his keep, nor does an examination of their tales of encounters and skirmishes with the mage over an entire season ere his fall suggest that he still possessed it. Auvidarus, sage of Hillsfar, and Laeral, wizardess and leader of the adventurers known as The Nine; two observers almost a world apart; have both recorded rumors ascribing ownership of the book to this or that mage. One of Laeralís collected rumors, interestingly, again mentions a group of illithids. But the veracity of these rumors is untested; the present whereabouts of the work are a matter of conjecture.

Elminster described the tome’s contents, drawing upon his study of Hethcanter’s careful notes, as follows: The Scalamagdrion’s first and last pages are blank. The remainder bear 23 spells, one to a page and with each page having a blank (rear) face, and one page contains only a curious illustration. The contents of the pages are as follows, in order of appearance from the front of the book: (blank), False life, longstrider, tongues, message, unseen servant, arcane lock, identify, animate objects, modify memory, blink, disintegrate, (illustration), feeblemind, fly, circle of death, scorching ray, delayed blast fireball, invisibility, levitate, conjure elemental, globe of invulnerability, wall of force, remove curse, dispel magic, and (blank). The irregular order of the spells suggests that the book was created with its spells arranged according to the creator’s wishes, and thus was not the workbook of a magic-user progressing slowly in magical ability under tutelage.

The unique feature of the work is the illustration found on the page between disintegration and feeblemind. It is of “warm, velvety texture,” according to Hethcanter’s notes, and is a strikingly realistic painting of some unknown, seemingly endless caverns (perhaps on some other plane), in which crouches a dimly visible, winged, reptilian monster on a bed of human bones. A word or name has been spelled out clearly in Common across the bottom of the page, by the arrangement of bones: “Ningulfim.” Hethcanter notes that if this word is spoken over the open page or the illustration is stared at for too long, the monster depicted therein will move.

From other sources not divulged to me, Elminster states with certainty that the page is a gate or portal to some unidentified plane or extra-dimensional space of endless caverns, and can be passed through both ways. Once the gate is activated, the monster will emerge from the page into the Prime Material Plane and attack all creatures nearby, seeking to slay and carry its prey back into the caverns to devour. Its true nature is a mystery, but what is known of it can be summarized as follows:

Scalamagdrion (“Guardian of the Tome,” “Ningulfim”)
The scalamagdrion resembles a grey-scaled, green-eyed dragon with stubby wings and a long, bone-spiked prehensile tail. It has statistics as a wyvern, with a few extra abilities. It is fearless, enjoys human flesh, and is cunning enough to take a victim’s body, fallen items and all, back to its lair to avoid being caught eating. The scalamagdrion radiates silence, 15’ radius about itself, and has Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the scalamagdrion fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

This makes it a deadly foe for magic-users; and indeed, none have yet prevailed against it.

Several wands and rings can be seen amid the bones upon which the scalamagdrion crouches. The monster and the gate to and from its abode cannot be destroyed or harmed by tearing out or destroying the page on which it appears, although any attempt at such activities will certainly cause it to issue forth.

http://5egrognard.blogspot.com/2014/12/scalamagdrion.html

 

[Umbran]

Moderator's Note:

So you know, EN World does not support copyright violation. It follows that you cannot just take stuff from old issues of Dragon, copy it, and post it here. While putting some stats on a spell may be okay, this giving full backgrounds, and using proper names and fluff from published sources is right out. Please don't continue the series in this manner. Thanks.