Lapis Tablet (Three Theurgic Bronze Age Wizard Schools)

I, G_d willing, intend to whip my brain back into DMing shape with some very casual, low-stakes dungeoncrawling gaming, with the very very cool Tell Arn. Bronze age, swords and sorcery, the works. I was urged to consider who the gods of the larger setting were by a certain someone, and after a bit of thought and back-and-forth landed on something simple and fun. 

So, here are three wizard schools. I'm not including a full class with it, there's more than enough GLOG wizard templates out there to pull from and adapt. One little idea I am including is a required implement/fetish/material component for each spell, as I think wizards should be encouraged to carry around a lot of random junk. Also, this implies a theurgic wizard-priest model where magic is acquired through devotion to a certain god, rather than wizardry and clericry necessarily being seperate. As a final note, as usual, many of these spells are stolen from friends around the GLOGosphere (mostly loch, let's be real).

Nurgle

1. Bind
Component: a heavy metal shackle clamped around your ankle and wrist

Gesture at [sum] HD of creatures you can see; their limbs are bound together and their backs weighed down with heavy iron chains and manacles.

 

2. Shatter 
Component: a set of iron molars, replacing your own in your mouth
Clack your teeth together, and glare at something inanimate that you want broken. At 1 dice, affected as a weighty hammer blow; at 2 dice, two people with tools; at 3 dice, as six people with levers and pulleys; at 4 dice, a dozen workers with a full day.

 

3. Corpse-Eaters' Call 
Component: a rattle filled with human teeth
Shake the rattle with one hand and make a rude gesture at something or someone with the other, and [sum] HD of animals will swarm from nowhere to harrass and savage it. At 1 dice these are flies and scorpions; at 2 dice bats and rats; at 3 dice crows and jackals; at 4 dice vultures and dogs.

 

4. Agonize 
Component: a poultice made of blood and stinging nettles
Apply the poultice to a hand; it is effective for [dice] uses. Those touched by said hand must save vs. agony, in the Arnoldian sense; if they attempt to take any other action besides shuddering in pain they take 1d4 nonlethal damage. They may repeat this save each minute.

 

5. Cone of Exhaustion 

Component: A rod topped with a piece of polished agate worth at least 75 gp

Project a 90 degree, 30 ft cone of green light from the tip of the rod. All creatures caught within gain [sum] slots of fatigue, save for half. Plants affected by the cone wither, and domestic animals must save vs. death.

 

6. Speak With Dead

Component: a lead box, hinged on one side and with an amplification cone protruding out another

Place a skull or severed head inside the box, compelling the soul of the dead to answer [sum]+[dice] answers to the best of their ability. You may compel them to speak the truth in exchange for -[lowest] to the total of questions asked.  

 

7. Curse

Component: a lead tablet, inscribed with the target's full name and driven through with nails

Place a curse on the named target with up to [dice] negotiated effects, to slowly take effect over the course of [sum]+7 days. This curse may only have potentially (directly) fatal effects if cast with 3 dice or more.

 

8. Heat Metal

Component: a sword sealed in a scabbard filled with blood

With a wave of your hand, [sum] slots of metal become burning hot to the touch for [dice] minutes, dealing 1d6 damage per round of contact. Casting on loadbearing metal objects may cause structural degradation.

 

9. Pyromancy

Component: a fire-blackened human bone

Roll MD and choose one of the following effects: a) cause a fire to grow [dice + 1] times in size, power, and brightness, (b) create a huge amount of smoke from an open flame, that lingers for [sum] minutes, (c) cause a fire you can see to spread even in defiance of logic, (d) ignite something that is meant to be burnt, such as a match, kindling or pipe. If cast with 3 dice or more you may also choose to change the affected flame into hellfire, black flames which can only be extinguished by your command and which produce a horrible keening wail and rotten stench.

 

10. Summon Guardian 
Component: an iron spike driven through a freshly severed human hand

Drive the spike into something and a daemon with [dice]+3 HD will burrow up from the ground to swear fealty to you. It will defend the spike and the area around it to the very best of its abilities, but is unable to stray more than 60 ft away from it. It is a fearsome fighter, but also dull and meanspirited, and if the spike is ever uprooted it is banished.

 

11. Locust Storm 

Component: a dried stomach of a human or cow, converted into a bag

A black swarm of locusts rushes out of the bag, and devours all plant life within [sum]*[dice] acres around you.  

12. Contagion 
Component: a large ceramic jar with one human corpse interred in it per MD spent, buried in filth and allowed to melt into malfeasance.

Shatter the jar and let miasma billow out. Everyone exposed to the gas, which spreads in a 20ft cloud, must save vs infection against a noxious disease of your design. It has [highest]+1 symptoms of your choice, [dice] transmission methods, and is fatal in 20-[sum] days if not properly treated. You yourself are automatically infected but asymptomatic.

 

Dooms
1 - Your skin turns grey, and you now weigh twice as much as you did before.

2 -  Your flesh becomes tough hide, giving you a natural AC of 12. Your eyes become solid red orbs, and you now weigh four times as much as you did before. It's difficult to move at any pace faster than walking - you need to succeed at a check in order to break into a jog.

3 - You have been judged worthy. Your skin fully hardens into stone, and you now weigh eight times as much as you did before. The earth swallows you up and you plummet down to the citadel of Nurgle in the underworld. You are condemned to serve as a common soldier for the rest of eternity, ambitions forever stymied.

 

You may escape your doom by destroying an entire city and every man, woman, and child within it, proving yourself of continued use as an active agent to your god.

 

Tzeentch

 1. Unseen Servants 

Component: A clay figurine with lapis eyes worth 10gp, one for each servant summoned

Summon [dice] unseen servants who tend to your fires, cook your meals, and otherwise do all menial labor and chores that you wish done for you. They are invisible, except for the occasional set of footprints wet with freshwater, and silent, except for the odd childish giggle when they think you can't hear. They last until dispelled by you or until their corresponding figurine is destroyed. If you can see invisible things then they appear as humanoids made of starlight, with nonsense mismatched anatomy.

 

2. Counterspell
Component: a set of silver incisors, replacing your own in your mouth 

You may cast this as a reaction to another magician's spell. Snip your teeth together and shear apart another work of magic, subtracting your [sum] and [dice] from the original working.

 

3. Weirdfire
Component: a lantern with special-made colored lenses, costing at least 25gp

Shine the lantern's light on a target, who becomes coated in heatless blue flames. All attacks against them have +[dice] to-hit and they are incapable of hiding or concealing themselves. This lasts for [sum] rounds. 

 

4. Fog of Reverie
Component: a small bellows constructed of serpent's skin and a newborn's caul
Pump the bellows and blow out an opaque cloud of silvery fog, lasting for [sum] minutes in still air or [sum] rounds in wind. Those caught in the fog must save vs hallucinations, which linger for [dice] dungeon turns after the fog dissipates. 

 

5. Consult the Heavens

Component: a set of astrological tools 

Measure and calculate the position of the moon and stars relative to each other. You may ask the heavens [sum] questions; it knows about the events of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the workings of magic, and about anything that can be seen from the open sky.

 

6. Illusion
Component: a set of five different pigments

Dip a different finger into each pigment and trace your hand through the air. Create an illusion [sum]*5 square feet which fools [highest] senses. It can be reshaped at will and lingers for [dice] hours.

 

7. Rarify Mind

Component: a vial of smelling salts

Inhale the salts; for [dice] hours you can understand, read, and write (but not speak) in all languages, and read at a pace of 2,000 words per minute. 

 

8. Lightning Bolt
Component: a wand of fulgurite

Point your wand and fire a blast of terrible silver lightning, 5ft across and 60ft long, dealing [sum]+[dice] damage to all hit, save for half. Those in metal armor cannot save.

 

9. Suspend
Component: a bronze disk with a diamond of at least 100gp at the center 

Brandish the disk at up to [dice] objects or people, who become suspended frozen in time and space for [sum] rounds, unable to be moved or affected in any way. Unwilling creatures may save. 

 

10. Summon Spy
Component: a glass bottle with a human brain kept preserved within
Call down an invisible daemon from the top of the firmament down to serve you. If you can see invisible things it appears as a devilfish whose head sprouts many wings and whose tentacles end in many talons. You can see through its eyes; it moves at the speed of the wind and serves loyally for [highest] hours before returning to the sky. At 2 dice you may also hear through it, at 3 dice you may speak through it, and at 4 dice you may cast spells through it.

 

11.  Transmute
Component: a set of weights fashioned out of the seven planetary metals

With a touch, transform one material into another for [dice] days. At 1 dice this can transmute copper, tin, wood, and chalk into one another; at 2 dice bronze, lead, and stone are added to this list; at 3 dice iron and glass are added; at 4 dice, the change becomes permanent and gold, silver, and mercury are added.

 

12. Implant Thought
Component: a silver sheet on which an intricate sigil has been engraved, each corresponding to a single kind of implantation; a sheet can be reused to repeat its effect. Takes 50gp of silver and a day of effort per MD spent

The first person besides you who sees the sigil after the MD have been rolled has a new thought or belief implanted in their head, decided by you. At 1 dice this is a passing, single coherent thought or idea; at 2 dice an implication and complex knowledge; at 3 dice a motivation and will to act on it; at 4 dice, definite knowledge which overwrites any and all contradictory memories and values.

 

Dooms

1 - The skin on your extremities becomes translucent. You become double-jointed, and your blood turns a brilliant golden color.

2 - All the skin on your body becomes translucent and squishy. You can no longer wear any armor, it's simply too painful. Your eyes turn pearlescent and can now see magic and invisible things. 

3 - You have been judged worthy. Your mind spills out of your head as so much vapor as your body collapses into a pile of clear jelly. It rises to the apex of the firmament where the great tower of Tzeentch hangs. You are given a new, more apt body and condemned to serve as a common scribe for all eternity, ambitions forever stymied.

 

You may escape your doom by rendering a language extinct on this earth such that it only exists in the archives of heaven, proving yourself of continued use as an active agent of your god.

 

Slaanesh

1. Pride
Component: a lion's tooth

Summon [dice]+1 loyal, intelligent [dice] HD big cats to fight alongside you. Their sharp, sharp claws and teeth have [dice] to-hit and deal 1d8+[dice] damage.

 

2. Feed
Component: a set of golden canines, replacing your own in your mouth.
Sink your teeth into another person and drink, making an attack roll to hit if appropriate. Deal [sum] damage to them and replenish [sum] of your own HP; you may decide if this damage is lethal or nonlethal. This experience is extremely pleasurable for both parties.

 

3. Aura of Hands
Component: a golden amulet of two interlocking hands, worth at least 20gp

For [sum] rounds you have an infinite number of translucent hands of solid air, which can only reach as far as you can.

 

4. Bottomless Appetite
Component: a silver tongue piercing
Create [sum] inventory slots of space within your stomach, which lasts for [dice] days. You store things in here by harmlessly swallowing them, and can regurgitate them with an action; if the spell ends while you still have things swallowed, you harmlessly spit them back up. Additionally, you can digest and destroy any nonmagical item you have swallowed, and are immune to most ingested poisons while it's active.

 

5. Dazzle
Component: a prayer wheel studded with at least 100gp of gemstones
So long as you spin the wheel, a warbling sphere of light appears above your head; creatures who look at it must save vs becoming stunned as they stare entranced at the light. Creatures with less than [dice] HD get no save. If a creature takes any amount of damage the spell's hold on them instantly ends.

 

6. Disguise Self
Component: a makeup kit
As you apply the makeup, your form shifts and changes into any person that you can picture for [sum] hours, fooling [highest] senses. While the spell is active you may shed and don the disguise as you wish.

 

7. Gracefulness
Component: a set of four bracelets with jangling bells around the ankles and wrists
For [sum] rounds you cannot be grappled. You gain [dice]+1 AC, take half damage on a failed save to dodge a threat and none on a successful one, and can squeeze through anything that you can fit your head through.

 

8. Wall of Blades
Component: a bronze sickle
Raise a wall from the ground up to [dice]*10ft long, in any precise configuration that you wish. Churning machinery powers cycling, scything blades on the side facing away from you, which deal 1d8+[dice] damage to anyone within 5ft of the wall. The wall has [sum] HP. When reduced to 0 HP, or after [dice] hours, the machinery fails and the wall tears itself apart. 

 

9. Split in Two
Component: an electrum torc worn around the neck, worth at least 40 gp

With a snap of your fingers divide yourself and become one mind in two bodies, distributing your HP as you two between the two halves. You still possess a shared pool of MD. When one half is reduced to 0HP, it dissolves into sparkling light, and the surviving half is revealed to be the real you, with whatever current HP that half had. If [dice] hours pass, you must choose which is the real you, and the other half dissolves.

 

10. Summon Friend

Component: a human tongue encased in gold

Beckon a beautiful feathered daemon from the middle air, invisible to all but you. At your command, it will sit atop another person's shoulders and influence their thoughts. While influenced, said person regards you as a trusted friend, and all their emotions both positive and negative are greatly exaggerated. The daemon may flit from one person's shoulders to another, but will leave again for the sky after [dice] hours.  

 

11. Fly

Component: a cape of eagles' feathers

You may fly for [dice] hours.

 

12. Call Forth the Legion  

Component: a clay mask sculpted and watered in human blood, one for each MD spent

At your command, [sum] 1 HD soldiers rise from the earth, faceless men who come equipped with spears, shields, and helmets, and which are otherwise nude. They have [dice] to-hit, will defend you to the death, and will follow commands diligently but literally. After [highest] hours they crumble back into dirt.

 

Dooms

1 - Your body becomes perfectly symmetrical and shapely, and your face becomes unnaturally beautiful. You always smell of perfume, and you weigh half as less as before.

2 - All your hair falls out and is replaced with brightly-colored feathers. The smell of perfume around you increases greatly; check for random encounter rolls twice. You weigh a quarter as much as you did before; you should consider wearing ankle weights so you don't float off or get blown by the wind.

3 - You have been judged worthy. Your face twists and freezes into a smiling ivory mask. You weigh an eighth as much as you did before, and the winds carry you up and away to Slaanesh's palace at the apex of the middle air. You are condemned to serve as a common concubine for all eternity, ambitions forever stymied.

 

You may escape your doom by throwing a tremendous wasteful party/feast/orgy at at least 50,000gp of expense, proving yourself of continued use as an active agent of your god.

 

And, of course, Khorne grants no spells.