Monday, May 3, 2021

Spells as ingredients to craft beings

In some editions of the Monsters Manual, the descriptions of the various golems include a list of spells that you need to cast upon their body materials to create them.
  • Clay Golem: resurrection, animate object, commune, prayer and bless.
  • Flesh Golem: wish, polymorph any object, geas, strength, and protection from normal missiles.
  • Iron Golem: cloud kill, wish, geas and polymorph any object.
I like the spell collecting aspect of this, let try to craft lower levels constructs recipes. The moral (ML) rating of these being is determined by their creator's CHA loyalty. If multiple magic users work together to cast the spells, use the CHA of the magic user who cast the last spell. 

I rolled some random spells and I came up with these recipes: 

Level 1 spells recipe: Dreaming Flame Homunculi 
Spells: Shield, Light, Charm Person, Floating Disk and Sleep 
Needed: candle made of rare material worth 1000GP 
  1. Cast shield upon the flame to form a magical mold.
  2. Gently blow the flame while casting Light into the shield. 
  3. Cast Charm Person on the light to give it a personality. 
  4. Cast Floating Disk upon Shield to enable it to levitate. 
  5. Cast sleep upon the light to connect it to the dreamland.
This create a friendly sleepy will-o-the-wisp like homunculi. 
1+1 HD, AC 15 (17 vs missiles), dream lights: can spend 1HP to shape it light into a illusion coming from someone past dreams (save vs spells to forbid access to your dreams), blinding: save vs spells or be blinded for d4 rounds. 

Level 1 and 2 spells recipe: Language Homunculi 
Spells: Read Language, Detect Magic, Ventriloquism and Detect Invisible 
Needed: magical ink and fine papyrus worth 2000GP 
  1. Write random made up words on the papyrus and cast read language on them.
  2. This will create a concept chimera, cast detect magic to delimitate it and to be able to perceive it.
  3. Cast Ventriloquism on it to give it a voice. 
  4. Cast Detect Invisible to enable it to perceive words 
This create a talkative language homunculi, it is insubstantial but faintly glow  when it talk (like a detect magic aura). It can translate spoken language but is unable to read texts. 
It love puns and word plays and you may have a hard time keeping it quiet (not good for stealth). 
It have no HP but can be "killed" by dispel magic. 

Level 2 spells recipe: Mesmerizing Moth 
Spells: Phantasmal Force, Mirror Image, Web and Knock 
Needed: 3000GP worth of silk made from the cocoons of polyphemus moth.
  1. Burn the silk and cast Phantasmal Force to shape the smoke into the form of a moth. 
  2. Cast Mirror Image on the illusory moth to multiply it. 
  3. Cast Web to bind the mirror images together to form a cocoon. 
  4. Cast Knock to open the cocoon and release the Mesmerizing Moth.
This create a delicate moth made of living silk. It have 1HP and a AC of  12 but always cast image mirror when attacked to create d4+1 images. It can use the "eyes" on it wings to mesmerize for d6 rounds. It can mesmerize 1 target per mirror image or focus it mirror images on a same target to inflict -1 to saving throw per image. 

9 comments:

Evlyn said...

It was fun to craft these based on the random spells I rolled (and the order I rolled them).

qpop said...

These are so cool! I am glad you mentioned that you respected the random roll order too I did not catch that at first. I think Mesmerizing Moth is my favorite but I love the idea if lower level golems.

Anonymous said...

This is delightful! I might make a few of my own.

Dada Dan Akiko said...

So nice... That reverse process of yours (first to roll random spells, only then find out what they together can do) looks like final exams in wizard school.
Did you ever check the old tsr's Books of Wondrous Inventions? This sort of things remind me of that

Evlyn said...

@Jonnie I never read the Books of Wondrous Inventions, the title look promising. :)

H-Town said...

This is gold. Very evocative. Great stuff

H-Town said...

This is great and very evocative. I want to do something similar for dwarven inventions. Instead of spells maybe components.

Alistair said...

This is wonderful. I’m trying to collect a short list of ideas that can be used to help anchor the feel and tone of a campaign, and this seems like such a thing. Would you consider it a possible way to approach creating enchanted or magical items (and perhaps places)?

Evlyn said...

@Alistair Yes, it could be great for making magical items. The components and spells recipe could add a lot of flavor.