Seething Death [Spell]

[Lysander]

This is a spell from Lawrence Watt-Evan's Ethshar series of books that I wanted to write up. Very terrifying apocalyptic magic:

Seething Death
Level 9 Sor/Wiz
Evocation [Chaos]
Components: V, S, M, XP
Casting Time: 24 hours
Range: 0 ft
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

The caster creates a drop of raw chaos and contains it inside a golden thimble. As long as the drop is not spilled the spell remains dormant. Once the drop spills forth and hits any solid or liquid it immediately transforms into a pea-sized sphere of green chaos that utterly destroys anything that enters its area. The sphere is fixed in space and cannot be moved by any means, but its diameter expands by one foot every 24 hours. Over long periods of time it can consume entire worlds. No barrier can stop its slow creeping expansion.

The sphere does not damage objects, it instantly negates their existence. Only the part of any object that actually enters the sphere is destroyed. If poured on a creature the initial pea sized drop only causes around 2d6 damage, but bypasses any form of damage resistance or hardness. An artifact that enters the sphere's area is destroyed, but many artifacts are repulsed by the sphere and cannot be pushed inside. The Seething Death does not act like a negative pressure area to gasses or liquds, so there is no continuous torrent of wind or current of water flowing into the sphere.

The only spells that can affect The Seething Death are anti-magic fields, which only suppress the area within the field, and Mage's Disjunction, Wish, or Miracle, which can reverse one day of growth but cannot destroy it entirely. A spell to permanently destroy the Seething Death was invented by its creator but been lost to history.

Materials
10,000gp in equipment, gold thimble, rope used to hang a man, 2 pints of green dragon blood

Experience
5,000xp

[Silverscale]

A total death/destruction spell that once started can NEVER be stop even by wish/miracle, and will eventually consume an entire planet, maybe even a solar system.....that seems like it is firmly in the realm of Epic magic to me.

[The Mentalist]

I think this is why epic spells were invented. Let's assume wish as the most broken omni-spell in the game, now assuming we don't Candle of Invocation chain can we destroy a planet with a wish? That and the fact that a wish can't destroy it, maybe it can destroy the pea-sized would be an option, it allows a few hundred wishes to get rid of it.

Edit: Congratulations on your levels in ninja Silverscale.

Edit 2: Also if this spell has been cast and can't be negated, it's just a matter of time for the universe. Plot hook... A green spot appeared in the sky.

[Lysander]

The way to permanently stop it is to have endless shifts of wizards with 6th level spells stand next to it with an anti-magic field activated. That would stop it from growing if the entire area is covered in the anti-magic field. Or figure out a way to make a permanent anti-magic area around it.

Perhaps the spell should be epic though, and have an epic countercharm as well.


Edit 2: Also if this spell has been cast and can't be negated, it's just a matter of time for the universe. Plot hook... A green spot appeared in the sky.

Wow. That would be an awesome start to a campaign. At a certain point I suppose the gods themselves would intervene to stop it, but it's possible their intervention would be ordering their clerics to build a monastery around the thing and spend eternity keeping it small.

[Kuma Kode]

but it's possible their intervention would be ordering their clerics to build a monastery around the thing and spend eternity keeping it small. Obviously. Gods are stupidly inefficient in fiction.

But yeah. While it sounds like a great plot device, it's too powerful for 9th level. See Apocalypse from the Sky in the Book of Vile Darkness for an other example of plot-device spells.

Though I guess the fact that it is ridiculously slow is a balancing factor. Seriously. Half an inch of utter destruction per hour? Only a lich has that kind of time.

[Myou]

Congratulations, you've made a spell that's even more broken than Shapechange! :smallbiggrin:

Seriously though, bad idea, and pretty much unusable by anyone but the DM, who should just make an artifact instead. Sorry. ^^;

[Zeta Kai]

Yeah, there's no way to balance this to make it non-Epic with allow more ways to permanently counter it. A team of wizards casting AMF around the clock to stop its progress is a disaster waiting to happen. All it takes is reasonably large force of demons/devils/yugoloth/vampires/whatever to distract the wizards for a little while & then you have an out of control doomsday device. This is a plot-spell, one that only the DM can allow to be cast. And you can have non-Epic plot spells (curse, wish, miracle, MDJ, etc.), but this is just too much.

[Lysander]

While I agree that maybe it should be upped to epic, it's totally possible to have a possibly world destroying situation that needs round the clock maintenance to keep in check. Look at nuclear weapons for instance. One screw up there and everyone's dead.

I imagine the Seething Death would be the equivalent of dumping radioactive waste in terms of how people look at it. It's a big hassle to clean up and keep in check, and there's no real way to get rid of it. Wizards maintaining anti-magic fields would be the equivalent of EPA clean up crews.

Is there a way to create a permanent anti-magic field though? I know some dungeons have "dead magic" areas. Is there a way to make them as a PC?

[Myou]

While I agree that maybe it should be upped to epic, it's totally possible to have a possibly world destroying situation that needs round the clock maintenance to keep in check. Look at nuclear weapons for instance. One screw up there and everyone's dead.

No, nuclear weapons are a means of killing eachother if we choose to. If we just left the missiles to rot nothing would happen. But that's irrelevant.


I imagine the Seething Death would be the equivalent of dumping radioactive waste in terms of how people look at it. It's a big hassle to clean up and keep in check, and there's no real way to get rid of it. Wizards maintaining anti-magic fields would be the equivalent of EPA clean up crews.

Toxic waste doesn't destroy the whole world if you fail you maintain a constant high-level guard on it. A single spell of any level requiring a constant team of wizards just to stop it auto-killing everything in the world is honestly pretty ridiculous.


Is there a way to create a permanent anti-magic field though? I know some dungeons have "dead magic" areas. Is there a way to make them as a PC?

There probably is, but even if there is, the spell is just a bad idea. It's almost unusable, impossible to balance, horrendously overpowered and adds nothing to the game. If you want an effect like this (which is a cool plot hook) then make it the effect of an artifact.

So, in short, great idea, but a spell is the worst way to implement it.

[DracoDei]

Bah... Wonderous item of continuous AMF probably doesn't even hit 100k by the suggested prices...
I could do the math, but mostly I am just wondering why nobody else has.

Of course, "by the book" might be underpriced for that item...

And that still requires that you beat it back with 9th level spells to its minimum size...

Sounds like a plot spell to me...

[dalthorn]

How about this for a plot device. Imagine a Lich you've been spending a large amount of effort hunting down. You kill him and you notice that a green Ioun stone around his head is starting to grow a little bit. And to make it worse you still haven't found his phylactery.