The Baroque Spell Scroll

As posted on Paolo's Lost Pages, my Baroque Spell / Folio Spell series has come to magnificent life thanks to his layout and bookbinding chops. The titles included, in full ...

Cheirosciamancy
The Radiating Cloud of Seven Interfering Bands
The Prelapsarian Pavilion of Mundjogo
The Caryatid Cordon of Cerysse
Hester's Exacting Accountancy
The Appeal to the Seven Worthy Elders
The Contundent Chaos, Without Form and Void
The Multifarious Mandaglore
The Ovo Sub Aquea of Bellorand
The Five Swords of Severity

Now, Paolo is selling a very limited number of copies, but we are also thinking of expanding the book, putting more content on the back of the book/scroll, and so forth.

Perhaps these following sinister spells and items will be involved ... although the risk of publication is great, the watchful Eyes of St. Damien being what they are, and buyers must be most discreet:

Alas! The Passenger

Madame Hildred's Dance

HYAASTAAGSHEGGTYU'U

But enough about us. What would you put in an accordion-folded book?

And Now, the Next Set of Baroque Spells ...

Illustrations from Robert Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi. These tend to a more destructive bent.

The Radiating Cloud of Seven Interfering Bands...

Mattoon's Perchancical Quartermaster ...

 

 The Subaqueous Egg of Bellorand ...

The Destructive and Formless Chaos and Void ...

Wundite's Whirligig ...

And this ... the Facade of Apollo and Marsyas, which may have once been invoked as a spell, but now is a permanent architectural feature of the magical academy at Dol Deriun.

Hester's Exacting Accountancy

Also known as "My last two posts met, fell in love, and had a baby together."

Another Orange-Silver School hybrid, the spell being of the third rank and comprehensible by casters of level five and above. The skinflint wizard of the nineteenth aeon, Hester Zeleny, gave this spell her name and some of her nature.

This spell creates a communicative bond with up to ten thousand coins within a 10' radius of the caster, who must handle a few of the coins to get the spell working. Groups of coins that are visually hidden from the caster are not included.. The coins may be commanded to do any of the following within the spell's three-hour duration:

1. Count themselves. After 1 minute, a spokes-coin for the hoard - the most valuable metal, the most venerable date - leaps up and gives an exact count of the stash, by material and number. Coins speak in the voice of the monarch, deity or other personage on their obverse, otherwise in the voice of whatever heraldic beast decorates either side, and lacking even that, in a tinny, emotionless voice.

2. Pack themselves. In the space of 1 minute, the coins roll and dutifully hop into whatever new containers the caster provides, organizing themselves as best they can.

3. Roll on. The coins arise en masse, balance themselves on their edges, and roll as a herd, subject to the caster's will, as long as he or she maintains eye contact with the lead coins. The mass moves at a rate from 60' to 120.' Two-legged creatures who try to move with coins underfoot must save as if standing on magical grease or fall, unless the caster commands the swarm to avoid them.

4. Tell tales. One of the coins, at the caster's choice, once per casting of the spell, will relate how it last changed hands (other than to the caster). This may include what the trade was for, who stole it or picked it up, etc.

The Appeal to the Seven Worthy Elders

This augury mingles Orange School with Silver School principles. Its author is lost to our knowledge, but was likely prompted by the idea that multiple authorities are more reliable than just one. The efficacy in praxis of the concept is left to the caster to judge, who must be of at least the fourth caster level, notwithstanding this being a spell of the second rank.

On casting this spell, disembodied luminous heads appear in the air before the caster, bearing portions of the intellect and personality of seven deceased sages and solons from long-forgotten kingdoms. A question may be put to them, which they will endeavor to answer. Alas! their knowledge is as dusty as their original tombs. Each of the seven Elders answers in turn. Roll a d12 if the question concerns the natural world, matters more than a thousand years old, or the secrets of the cosmos; a d20 if it concerns matters gone by between a thousand and a hundred years ago; and d100 if you trouble the Elders with the trivia of the past hundred years. If you ask them for a secret that has been known to fewer than ten people, their only true answer will be a profession of ignorance.

1-2: The Elder will give an accurate and mostly true answer.
3-4: The Elder will give a partly true answer, possibly veiled in a second meaning.
5-6: The Elder will give a completely wrong answer, which however will be the same as the wrong answers advanced by other Elders on a roll of 5-6.
7-8: The Elder will give a completely wrong answer different from any other Elder.
9-10: The Elder admits ignorance of the matter.
11: The Elder takes exception with the immediately preceding Elder's opinion, giving the true answer if the other's answer was false, or a false answer (as on a roll of 5-6) if the other Elder's answer was true. If this is rolled for the first Elder, he or she will admit ignorance.
12-100: The Elder spouts gibberish or irrelevancy.

Moreover, on an odd roll the answer of the Elder will be delivered with confidence and certitude, while on an even roll, hedging and doubts will surround it.

A great variety of personalities will reply to the call of this spell, which often creates a lively contrast of styles.Below are some of the more frequently encountered characters.

Ignoramus the Know-Nothing (self-effacing)
The Unheeded Prophetess of Yort (manic/depressive)
Zossimus (terse)
Elmo the Eclectic (wildly speculative)
Hypatia (calm)
Bonobius the Cynic of Cynics (sneering)
Abdul Alhazred (sinister)
The Violet Bard (rhyming)
Balsamo the Brazen (blustery)
Carnacq (smug)
Sophronia the Conqueror (stern)
Vingax, the Enlightened Gnome (obsequious)
Aratron Chobasion (jovially cryptic)
Grug Big-Head (words of one syllable)
The Dust Lich Vorbogue (wistful)
Quothar (argumentative)
Yi Piao the Hundred-Mother (scolding)
Xig of Fomalhaut (ineptly colloquial)
Mahalogonnis (skeptical to a fault)
NULLITY, The Philosopher Formerly Known as Baranerges (resigned, despairing)

Folio Spells: The Caryatid Cordon of Cerysse

Cerysse the alchemist-wizard sometimes took her allegories too literally. By casting this best-known of her spells, you conjure four marble statues of maidens which stand on spheres representing the four elements and carry unbreakable glass vases on their heads, each with a different being inside. This is a spell available to wizards of the seventh caster level, being at the fourth spell rank, and partakes of the Silver (Summoning) and White (abjuration) schools.

The seven-foot-tall maidens must each come into being within 5' of the nearest one. Otherwise, they can be positioned and turned in any configuration desired, but will not move until the spell ends.They remain in existence for an hour and then vanish.

Each one has the effect of excluding a certain type of material  from moving past her, from her front to her back, in a 10' high by 15' wide plane centered on her. A person carrying that kind of material and trying to pass will have to get rid of it, for the field will detain it. From left to right in the illustration, the maidens guard against:

Earth: Stone and metal are excluded
Water: Fresh and salt water are excluded, but not water contained in a living thing or mingled with organic material (such as wine, potions).
Air: Air cannot flow through, but it is harder than you'd expect to suffocate someone using this; one person at rest takes 12 hours to use up the oxygen in a cubic meter of air.
Fire: Any heat above 100 degrees C (212 F) will be left outside the barrier, though the previously heated object might still pass through.

Each maiden's jar also contains a guardian creature which will emerge and attack any living being who enters a 10' arc in front of the caryatid. The creature dissolves if destroyed.

Earth: A homunculus
Water: A crab, growing to giant size out of the jar
Air: An eagle, growing to giant size out of the jar
Fire: A lion, with full stats but which manifests only as a face (bite attack only)

If a stone maiden takes enough damage to break it (4 or more blows with a blunt instrument each doing 7 or more points of damage), it crumbles into dust, its creature vanishes, and its effect ceases.

This spell is a frequent candidate for permanence status in guarding a wizard's lair, the four caryatids being positioned one behind the other to create a gauntlet of sorts in a corridor.

Folio Spells: Multifarious Mandaglore

Like I said ... to hell with simplicity, here's the first of my purposefully baroque spells.

The Multifarious Mandaglore is no doubt the most well-known remnant of the fad for multiple-use spells among the wizards of some eight hundred years ago. Its promise was great, but exceeded by an even weightier set of limitations. It may be learned at the fifth caster level, being itself of the third rank, and belongs largely to the Blue School of Creation but with infiltrations from other disciplines.
 .

When the Mandaglore is cast, the wizard's own right hand is augmented by six small luminous objects that magically adhere to the fingers and palm. Once each object is used, it disappears. The spell is not considered spent until all six objects have been put to use and disappeared; until that time, it occupies a slot in the caster's memory, preventing re-memorization or replacement with a new spell.

Key (Little finger): Will fit any normal lock. Disappears when used to open a lock.

Bell (Ring finger): Mark a spot on the ground; the bell will ring, then disappear, when a living being not known to the caster passes over that spot.The bell disappears in any case when six hours have passed after the marking.

Sun (Middle finger): This creates a magical light at the caster's fingertip when activated, similar to a light spell, that disappears after six hours, or exposure to the light of the actual sun.

Starry Messenger (Index finger): The caster points at a visible star in the night sky and whispers a message of nineteen words or fewer. The next caster who uses the Mandaglore's Starry Messenger to point at that star anywhere in the world, instead of sending a message, will hear the first message. Depending on the frequency of this spell in the world there is a 2 to 10% chance that any arbitrarily chosen star will already have a message on it, which may be improvised to the DM's taste. Astronomical lore and a system of claims to particular stars were, in past epochs, very helpful in working out a useful system of communication.

Fool's Crown (Thumb): Can be ordered to expand and land without error on the head of a being within 30.' It stays on for six rounds, causing 1 hit point damage per round, and temporary reduction to 6 INT and 6 WIS from headaches (the stats return at 1 point per round). Cannot be cast without a victim.

Poisson Brûlant (Palm): When the hand is immersed in a quantity of water no smaller than ten gallons, the flaming fish will swim out into it and move at the caster's command within the caster's visual range, causing the water to boil in a 20 foot radius around it and doing 1d6 damage per round to creatures within.

Folio Spells

I know I've been putting out some very short spell descriptions, ones that fit on a card - not even a full-sized magic card but the Yu-gi-oh size that fits the Zatchbell spell books.

What this doesn't leave room for is the truly way-out and florid spell descriptions. Not ones that try to jam every loophole with rule on rule, but the ones that have a random table, or some crazy convoluted effect. And I'm not trying to have every spell work that way, DCC style. But it would be good to have a few spells that act like crazy trick rooms in a dungeon - that you can carry with you!

Instead of card-sized spells, let's call them folio spells, because you'd need a really big spellbook to lug them all around. And let's have each one be inspired by a different old engraving.

Above is the inspiration for the up-jumped Augury I call: The Appeal to the Seven Worthy Elders. 

This illustrates the casting of Hester's Exacting Accountancy.

What does the Strict and Allegorical Parnassus do exactly? Good question.

Equally mysterious, the Multifarious Mandaglore. But all will be explained over the coming weeks - even as more prosaic magics make their appearance here ...