More Necromancy

I started writing up new 5E necromancy spells because regular death magic is so bare bones. Previous batch here.

Bare bones necromancy, get it?

BLOODLINK

Take a discarded bandage, curse someone from the comfort of your secluded mansion. Drawbacks, sure - you need fresh body parts of their intended victim, burn twice as many spell slots, and will need a lot of time to cast high level magic. On the plus side, you get to channel all their hate into a high gothic ritual with chanting and candles and skulls. Too bad those attract meddling hero types like flies. I see this spell being used in two ways: one, as a simple range extender to harrass too-powerful opponents; and two, as an evil working by an enemy wizard that the party will have to thwart. 

You have five days to find the necromancer before he turns the princess to stone! (Or takes over her mind via Magic Jar...)

Level 1 Necromancy - warlock, wizard
Casting time: special, components: VSM (fresh body part)
Target: someone you have a sample of flesh or blood of

Range: special

Toe nail clippings, a hair follicle, a drop of blood - enough of the soul remains in these to forge a link with the greater body. Bloodlink lets you harness that link and send another spell across it. This spell consumes the body part used to make the Bloodlink.

(Which is why cursecraft and scrying is so much easier with some fresh blood on hand. Which is why many experienced wizards never cut their nails and epilate all their hair. Freaks.)


What Bloodlink does for you

Bloodlink lets another spell  with a single target ignore the distance to the target - see the "at higher levels" section for the range. Bestow Curse yes; Fireball or Cloudkill no. If the spell requires an attack roll, you roll this at advantage. The body part must be fresh; generally, no longer than a day old. Gentle Repose can help out here. Undead flesh comes pre-preserved - liches are extra careful with lost body parts, and extra vindictive if you try to target them this way. Constructs or Elementals have no souls.

You need to power Bloodlink with a spell slot at least equal to the level of the spell that will travel across it. Want to Vampiric Touch someone at range? Pay an extra 3rd level spell slot or higher.

Thoth-Amon

How to defend against Bloodlink
Targets can sense Bloodlink by a growing sense of foreboding; an Arcana roll (difficulty 20) by themself or another makes it clear that there is a Bloodlink being formed.

These feelings of unease happen once every [largest lower category] of time remaining, so a ritual taking 1 hour to cast would give a warning every 10 minutes, then once per minute, then once per round. A year-long ritual first pings every season, then every month, week, day, hour, and so on.)

Scrying attempts by the target on the caster of Bloodlink work as if they were very familiar with them. If the target is in a Magic Circle powered with at least the same spell slot as Bloodlink, they gain advantage against any saves and the attacker rolls any attack at disadavantage. At higher levels, counter-striking via scry/teleport becomes viable.

Casting time per spell level:
L1 - 1 round. L2 - 1 minute. L3 - 10 minutes. L4 - 1 hour. L5 - 8 hours. L6 - 1 week*. L7 - 1 month*. L8 - 1 season*. L9 - 1 year*.

* 8h/day; can cast take short breaks and cast other spells during this period, maximum 10 minutes between stopping this spell and picking it up again.

I've been fiddling with a way to lower the casting town of higher level spells down to a full day, but got hung up on pricing. 10% of total character wealth (I used 1 XP --> 1 gp) sounds not unreasonable for lowering the casting time all the way, but XP progression is nonlinear and I didn't want to calculate polynomials at the table.

At higher level:
level 1-3: range 1 mile/level
level 4-6: range 10 miles/level
level 7-9: range anywhere on same plane

Again, I was tempted to tack extra effects onto the spell, like higher levels ignoring saves or even resistances. In the end I decided that this was turning Bloodlink into the one tool every wizard would want to use for getting rid of rivals - no save against Disintegrate cast from 100 miles away? No thanks. You'll get a week's worth of premonitions to prepare. Either scry for the person attacking you, or sleep in a warding circle.

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse (1886)

BONE CHIMES

Let's do a simpler spell. This is basically Alarm, but more freaky and useful as an early warning system against torchbearing mobs. Of course it means hiding bird bones all around your house, which may raise the kind of questions that lead the mob to form in the first place.


Level 2 Necromancy, wizard / warlock / druid
Range: jackdaw bones touched, 1 mile range from central skull
Duration: 24h

A good host is always prepared for guests - especially those of the torch and pitchfork persuasion. While Skullsight helps to spy on the mob from afar, Bone Chimes lets a necromancer know they should start paying attention in the first place.

Bone chimes enchants the bones of a jackdaw, which can then be hidden around a necromancer's abode. Each bone functions as the centre of an Alarm spell (range 20ft from the bone). The jackdaw's skull will caw the name of a triggered bone. The caster can enchant one bone per level of the spell slot used (so 2 bones minimum).

Once the bones are hidden, recasting the spell means visiting them all with the jackdaw's skull in hand. Individual bones can be included and excluded at each casting.

More creepy precautions. "Ribcage! Wing bone! Spine! Ankle!" Also works with monkey skeletons or fishbones, for necromancers in other climes.

Totally inconspicuous. From.

DEATH CURSE

Quite the opposite of subtle necromancy, this is a last all-out strike before you die. Put the fear of the Authority in the witch hunters that decide to come after you.

Level 3 Necromancy - cleric, warlock, wizard

Range: 30 feet

You die without any hope of resurrection. A Wish or Miracle can maybe rebuild something approximating you, but there will be clear personality changes and memory gaps.

That's the bad news.

Interestingly, your corpse cannot even be animated as an undead - this spell shreds every last part of your soul as you die in agony.

Or you can try and use Death Curse to overclock a Passwall spell. Who am I to judge. From

Good to know you won't come back to haunt people, I guess. So what's the good news?

Death Curse is lightning fast and releases enough energy to power a hefty geas or curse. The standard spell functions like Bestow Curse, but if you have other curse-like spells prepared (see below), you can use those instead.

This spell is fast enough to cast as a reaction (5E) to something that would kill you; a fatal wound, an incoming fireball, a deadly axe swipe, a dragon landing on you. Can use this after you hear how much damage you will take, but otherwise has to be used right away or not at all.

You can target anyone within 30 feet with your Death Curse, up to the number of targets allowed by the spell effect. Make an attack if the spell effect calls for one, and targets make any save to resist the spell at disadvantage. If you only target the person who kills you, they do not get a save at all.

Can you make every spell a Death Curse if you're undead? I'd rule no, but my players don't need to know that.

Powering this spell with a higher spell slot lets you unleash more inventive curses. Spell effects last for 1 day per level of the spell slot unless permanent (i.e. death spells).

Good spell effects for Death Curse are:

(3rd level slot) - Bestow Curse, Fear, Slow
(4th level slot) - Confusion, Polymorph
(5th level slot) - Geas, Nightmare, Modify Memory
(6th level slot) - Eyebite, Otto's Irresistable Dance
(7th level slot) - Etherealness*, Sequester, Symbol
(8th level slot) - Antipathy**/Sympathy***, Feeblemind, Maze****
(9th level slot) - Imprisonment, Power Word Kill

Obviously these spells need some ruling to make them work well as ongoing curses. Here's my take on things:

* target becomes ethereal -a ghost- for the duration. Does not need food or drink.

** "may you never know love"

*** "may you smell delicious"

**** target still needs food and drink for the duration. Escape checks rolled once per day, not per round. Planar travel spells should also work, or try Banishing yourself to your home plane.

A death spell? You'll wish it was a death spell. Now Otto's Irresistable Dance forever.