Over the weekend, I learned the word atrous from playing Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. It’s not the main topic of this post, but I strongly recommend this game if you liked the classic Master of Magic. (I’d love to see a Myrror-like addition to Fallen Enchantress, though it has to be admitted that lands within the Empires’ zones of control have something close to the look of Myrror.) This post is, in fact, about how atrous is a cool word for “jet-black.” My mental image of these spells is, admittedly, inspired to some degree by Mass Effect, particularly this.
In between sinking vast amounts of time into the aforementioned video game, I’ve been vaguely pondering creating new spells for Aurikesh, to fit in with an idea I had a long time ago for replacing the traditional schools of magic. It’s far from ready for primetime as a whole, but this is a little piece of the idea. I want to add more factors to the player’s decision-making in learning, preparing, and casting spells. To be clear, I don’t want the choices to become so difficult that the player agonizes over every action – I just want the choices to be interesting. Further, I’ve come to feel like D&D’s classic spells are a bit lacking in nuance and flavor, so maybe this post will give other people ideas for their own home-brewed content.
Without further ado, the spells, with more commentary to follow.
Evocation of the Atrous Spike
First-level evocation (D&D), or First-level spell of Sechir
You cause a jet-black spike to erupt out of the earth, transfixing your enemy and exuding necrotic power.
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 50 ft
Duration: Concentration
Effect: A jet-black spike erupts out of the earth, to a height of five feet. It is sharp and slender; anyone standing in the place where it erupts (one 5′ x 5′ square) suffers 1d8+4 piercing damage and is restrained. On a successful Dexterity saving throw, the target suffers half damage and is not restrained. The target can break out of the restrained condition by waiting for the end of the spell’s duration, or by tearing itself off of the atrous spike, taking an additional 2d8 piercing damage. Most incorporeal creatures take the initial damage as normal, but cannot be restrained and do not take damage from escaping.
The atrous spike’s necrotic aura starts with no charges. It can only gain charges when a creature that is not dead (living, undead, and constructs all qualify) is restrained upon it; the spells that cause it to gain charges are specified as such in their own descriptions. Once the spike gains four or more charges, as a free action, the original caster can either inflict 4d8 necrotic damage on a target restrained upon the spike, or may drain 2d8+4 hit points from a restrained target, healing the caster for the same amount. This may occur more than once during the spike’s duration.
At the end of the spell’s duration, the atrous spike crumbles into small chunks of black stone.
Spike of Sorrow
First-level necromancy (D&D), or First-level spell of Sechir
You funnel power through an atrous spike, bringing despair to your enemies and enhancing the spike’s necrotic aura.
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 50 ft
Duration: 1 minute
Target: An atrous spike that you created
Effect: Necrotic power flows from you into the atrous spike, enhancing its necrotic aura. All living creatures within 25 ft of the atrous spike must pass a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for this spell’s duration.
Additionally, this spell grants the atrous spike one charge, and any creature currently restrained upon the spike suffers 1d8 necrotic damage.
Spike of Torment
Second-level necromancy (D&D), or Second-level spell of Sechir
You funnel power through an atrous spike, bringing torment to an enemy and enhancing the spike’s necrotic aura.
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 50 ft
Duration: Instantaneous
Target: An atrous spike that you created
Effect: Necrotic power flows from you into the atrous spike, enhancing its necrotic aura. One enemy within 50 ft of the atrous spike must pass a Constitution saving throw or suffer disadvantage on all Strength and Dexterity attack rolls, dealing no more than 1 damage with such attacks, for 1 minute.
Additionally, this spell grants the atrous spike two charges, and any creature currently restrained upon the spike suffers 2d8 necrotic damage.
Spike of Ruin
Third-level necromancy (D&D), or Third-level spell of Sechir
You funnel power through an atrous spike, bringing ruin to your enemies and enhancing the spike’s necrotic aura.
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 50 ft
Duration: Instantaneous
Target: An atrous spike that you created
Effect: Necrotic power flows from you into the atrous spike, enhancing its necrotic aura. All enemies within 20 ft of the atrous spike must roll a Constitution saving throw, suffering 6d6 necrotic damage on a failure and half damage on a success.
Additionally, this spell grants the atrous spike three charges, and any creature currently restrained upon the spike suffers disadvantage on its saving throw against this spell’s necrotic damage.
Further Design Notes
These spells certainly demonstrate my characteristic desire to add counters or charges to things. It may be a little unhealthy; if I’m not careful it can get egregiously cumbersome. Still, I really like the combination of the horrifying visual and the transformation of the battlefield. I would totally let a character include the spike in stunts of one kind or another – if the first target escaped, maybe a very strong character can throw someone else onto it. The idea of the wizard’s spells opening up new options for the fighter-types throughout the battle appeals to me. I also like the feeling that the wizard’s second spell is building on the first, and so on – one spell that unlocks the use of another, with a further conditional benefit if the original target is still suffering. The spells you cast after the initial are very much like other spells of their respective levels (cause fear, ray of enfeeblement, fireball), with an additional effect on the still-impaled target. Necromancy isn’t known for large AoE spells at low levels, making the spike of ruin a little more appealing even than its lower-level kindred. Making the initial spell an evocation was deliberate, but might be a bad idea. WotC has only scratched the surface of wizard specialization in the playtest packets so far.
The general idea of spells that create an object – either portable or large and stationary – intrigues me, with various other possibilities springing off from that. Such spells should be good for getting players to envision and really think about the terrain of the battle, making the scene a bit more memorable. The Lightwell spell of World of Warcraft’s priests was, of course, never popular with anyone ever, but the differences in pacing, action options, and data management might make a fount of luminous essence into something that enriches a cleric’s gameplay options – maybe it gathers up dice of healing energy whenever the cleric does a particular thing, such as casting any non-cantrip spell, and anyone within 5 ft of the font can either drink from the fountain or use its waters to damage nearby undead. (Even though healing spells don’t damage the undead in the current packet, the holy water theme of this idea would be enough to get me to let that work.) Maybe there’s a horn of plenty spell that druids cast to open up cool spellcasting options for themselves.
The goal is to find the perfect intersection where magic is easy enough to handle on a systemic front, but still feels mysterious and evocative. In Aurikesh, Sechir represents the kind of darkness, terror, and corrupting influence that I have in mind when I think of these spells. It doesn’t have a lock on attack spells or anything like that, but I wanted to carve out a distinctive space for it. I’m not yet sure how a spellcaster might practice a specialization in Sechir’s body of spells, but it’s probably possible.
As with any time I use the “free content” tag, I am releasing these ideas into the wild. If someone were to pick them up and use them, I hope they’d give me credit, but what I care about more than that is hearing about it and how it worked out for them. (…okay, this is drifting rather close to begging for free playtesting. Not quite what I had in mind, but if the shoe fits…)
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