Friday, June 21, 2013

New spell and other miscellanry

Do you like session reports? I like session reports. I've mentioned before that what finally inspired me to run the Temple of Elemental Evil is session reports, especially Peter's. +Jason Woollard has a blog full of well-written session reports. They read like stories, which is the best kind.

Mucking around with putting together a small dungeon on the side, I invented a new spell. Some background: the precept of the dungeon is that it's a reptile-man shrine, from back when their civilization ruled the earth, à la H.P. Lovecraft or R.E.H.

Blessing of the Eye      (Special)

Duration: See below
Cost to cast: 5. Cannot be maintained, must be recast. See below
Time to cast: 10 sec
Prerequisites: None, or See Secrets, or whatever. The idea is this is a secret spell.

Casting Blessing of the Eye requires the caster to draw a rune of Kiskig's Eye on a solid surface in his own blood. The caster takes 1 HP of damage for each day of duration, chosen at time of casting, that does not heal until the spell ends. Once cast, the Eye disappears from the surface as though soaking in (though Mage Sight will allow it to be seen).

While the Eye is active, the caster can see through it at any time without concentration and can cast spells through the Eye as though in its exact location.

Any night the caster sleeps while the eye is active, he is affected by nightmares as per the Nightmares disadvantage on B144 (SC roll 12 or less). I recommend something like The Shadow out of Time

Questions I forsee

Why cast this instead of Wizard Eye or Invisible Wizard Eye? You can cast through Kiskig's Eye. You cannot cast through Wizard Eyes. Also, this lasts longer.

What abuse potential do you see? First thing that popped into my mind when I put my player hat on was drawing this on a sheet of paper and slipping it under doors. Second was drawing this on my allies so I could always see where they were and cast spells on them or their enemies. This might be especially egregious since I could sit at home in my tower and still be useful on the adventure.

If you don't like these potential uses, specify that the spell must be cast on some relatively immovable surface (like a wall or a door) and/or that the maximum range is also dependent on HP expenditure; something like 1 HP per mile or league should work.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the nod.

    About the spell, is the HP cost all paid up front, when casting? or is it paid 1 HP per day it is cast? I would ASSUME its paid up front, because 1HP per day would be pretty easy to mitigate.

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    Replies
    1. The idea is an up-front cost. Note also that this HP loss does not heal until the spell ends.

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    2. Could you use someone else's blood for the spell?

      If so, you might want to make the entire cost in HP - blood magic!

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    3. I thought about and discarded the idea of using someone else's blood. I wanted this to be a creepy exception to the way magic works, rather than a gateway to a whole new creepy sort of magic.

      That said, it could certainly serve as the latter, and then yes, I'd make the cost entirely in HP, probably at a 3:1 or even 5:1 ratio so people were actually tempted to sacrifice HP instead of FP.

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  2. Also making the caster blind in one eye for the duration, with an inability to see through the painted eye unless the other is closed, and a problem of superimposition attempting to see through their unaffected eye, unless the image is covered.

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