Would you like salt & pepper with that Spellbook?

[Grundle]

I wizard PC in my game has managed to REALLY piss off a high level mage. Said high-level mage will eventually (attempt to) kill this PC, but he wants the satisfaction of toying with the him first.

His plan: To place the following Lesser Geas on the insolent young wizard PC...
"You will not rest until you have eaten all the non-blank pages of your spell book(s) ."

The PC's are currently 1 1/2 days from the nearest town. My questions to the esteemed Rat-Bastard DMs of these boards are:

What do you think is the longest that it can take a compelled character to eat a page of a spellbook? I would imagine the PC would want to really masticate each bite well, but eventually he has to swallow or he is just chewing (not eating).

Can you imagine a better phrasing of this Geas?

 

[Aeolius]

..."You will not rest until you have eaten all the non-blank pages of your spell book(s) ."...

Ouch. I am envisioning this in my undersea campaign, where many spellbooks are made of thin tablets of hardened sand, large shells, and so on.

 

[seasong]

My best guess is about 2 minutes or so per quarter of a page, assuming modern paper. Maybe round it off to 10 minutes per page.

That's a really nasty geas. Very flavorful and fairy-tale like, too!

 

[Zad]

The phrasing seems solid.

As for eating, you're being literal. What about cooking the pages into a pulp and then eating the batch? Be a lot easier than chewing paper.

Of course, it's really cruel. You're basically taking away the entire ability of this character, and rendering him destitute as well. It's as if you went to the paladin, and had a rust monster wipe out his weapons and armor. The wizard will go broke making new spellbooks.

But the wizard would be a fool to actually do it, so it's moot. Assuming you can get a remove curse in town, then the wizard simply doesn't rest til they get to town. Or he just rests, and takes the -2 on his abilities for the trip, and gets the remove curse in town. I'm not sure what level character this is or what the party makeup is, but Remove Curse is only a third level cleric spell, so maybe the party cleric can cast it the next day.

This geas has a HUGE shock value impact, but when you look at the actual execution, there are a number of ways the character can get around it, so the odds are he won't actually be eating those pages. Nice work

 

[Henry]

EDIT - at first I thought it was just the blank pages. My mistake.

THAT is cruel!

If I were the wizard, i'd sell the spell books to one of the other characters, free and clear of all lien. The spell books are preserved, because they are no longer his spell books. The other player can then sell them back later for a fee.

 

[Grundle]

My best guess is about 2 minutes or so per quarter of a page, assuming modern paper. Maybe round it off to 10 minutes per page.

That's a really nasty geas. Very flavorful and fairy-tale like, too!

Yes, pretty mean-spirited geas from a very evil wizard. But, perhaps I should give you a feeling for why this guy would be bothered to harbor such ill will toward a mere 5th level hedge wizard (PC)...

The PCs followed a walking corpse (a revenant, unbeknownst the the PCs) back to this guys room at a roadside inn. The PCs had stayed at this inn the night before and this high-level wizard made several racially disparaging remarks when they tried to engage him in conversation. This was an ambiguous situation in which an undead creature (who took no offensive action against the PCs) was attempting to kill an NPC who several party members disliked and suspected may guilty of something.

A battle ensued in which the most offensive actions taken by the NPC wizard were a slow spell cast on the creature and several PCs and a lesser geas cast on one of the PCs commanding him to destroy the creature. Most of the PCs took offsensive action against this mage, brining him near death.

At this point, the NPC mage began screaming "Murders! Murders!", and the PC's began asking themselves why they were trying to kill this mage in the first place. All the PC's but the wizard PC left the room at this point. This wizard PC demanded that the NPC mage immediately turn over all your magic items, and gold, and surrender to me, or we will kill you." At this point, the NPC mage recalled a dimension door wand from his glove of storing and got the heck out of dodge.

Needless to say, this NPC mage is pretty pissed off.

 

[Olive]

thats amazingly cruel. It works and all , but i don't think i could bring myself to do that to a wizard unless they were had spell mastery.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

so umm he's pissed because he attacked the party with a slow spell and mind control magics and so the party attacked back.

well i hope the PC wizard figures out the curse dodges people her already mentioed like jsut delaing with the curse until getting to town.(or heck maybe the PC cleric can handle the decursing) Or seeling his spellbok, so he doesn't have to eat it.

 

[Aeolius]

Would you like salt & pepper with that Spellbook?

and perhaps some slaad dressing?

 

[Grundle]

so umm he's pissed because he attacked the party with a slow spell and mind control magics and so the party attacked back.

Imagine you are sitting in your room and suddenly the door is broken down by an undead creature and a group of armed travelers who happen to be staying at the same inn. This creature is obviously trying to kill you. You cast a readied Slow spell on the creature and the group of armed individuals who just burst into your room without cause. They grapple the creature then threaten to release it on you unless you "talk now", so you cast a lesser geas on one of them forcing him to destroy the undead creature. I'd hardly characterize the situation as the PCs attacking "back". BTW none of the PCs started this encounter with an evil alignment.

well i hope the PC wizard figures out the curse dodges people her already mentioed like jsut delaing with the curse until getting to town.(or heck maybe the PC cleric can handle the decursing) Or seeling his spellbok, so he doesn't have to eat it.

There are ways a clever character might get around this geas. Even it he doesn't think of any of them, I don't intend to allow him to eat the entire book - just enough to scare the crap out of him.