A 3.5e version of Karsus's Avatar w/o epic rules

[JustACrab]

Hello everyone! I have been a lurker without an account since the pandemic started. I simply wanted to get a few ideas while creating random D&D homebrew stuff. Well, after some time of deliberation I decided to start posting here a few of my ideas to get the conversation going. The first homebrew i wanted to share was a spell. The spell that started the whole thing with wizards having to prepare their spells. If you know your lore you will know that I am talking about Karsus's Avatar. I first saw this spell in a 2nd edition book and wanted to give it actual rulings since it was so open ended. If you have any questions or suggestions about this "reworked" spell feel free to ask (especially with the components of the spell. Sorry in advance, i just wrote random nearly impossible stuff to obtain since they have been described as being veeery costly). So without further ado, here is the spell:

Karsus’s Avatar
Level: 12th
School: Enchantment, Evocation, Transmutation
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 6 hours
Range: Unlimited
Target: One god
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell allows the caster to steal the power of a divine being temporarily. The caster gains all of the chosen god’s divine abilities (including their divine spark). While the spell’s duration is permanent a caster that didn’t have a divine spark beforehand can only steal a god’s divine powers for 1 second per caster level – the god’s divine rank in seconds before having to give up the power and return it to the god that it was stolen from. Even if the god isn’t notified of the spell’s casting and isn’t entitled to a saving throw, they can choose to kill themselves to stop the caster from ever actually using their newly attained divine powers. If this is the case the caster must succeed in a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 50 + the god’s divine rank or become petrified for 1 minute before dying themselves and (if they are not accepted by any god) become a vestige. Even if the prettification is reversed within this time limit, the caster still dies and their soul is (from then on) always considered unwilling to return. If the save is successful, the caster may continue using the now dead god’s powers normally but this spell’s duration now becomes instantaneous. Effectively the caster gains that god’s powers and divinity forever.

Material Components
A stone-filled gizzard of a gold dragon, a mixture of tarrasque blood and a 12-headed hydra’s bile, a mythallar, the divine symbol of the chosen god, the umbilical cord of an atropal, the tails of five different colored chromatic dragons, and a demilich’s phylactery all of which the spell consumes.

[Saintheart]

Hey, welcome indeed JustACrab! Always nice to see a new face around here.

Couple of quick thoughts, intended as constructive criticism:

(1) Normally one posts homebrew over in the dedicated homebrew forum from this one - might be worth remembering in future.

(2) I think there's elements of the Forgotten Realms setting at least that make this spell impossible, at least under third edition rules. Karsus casting Karsus's Avatar was the event that literally broke the Weave and caused the entire magocracy of Netheril to collapse, since all magic stopped functioning when Karsus stole the goddess of magic's power. Mystra reincarnated instantly, but she also altered the Weave so as to prevent the casting of spells greater than 9th level. So a 12th level spell would really transgress those limits. The writers dropped about as big a fluff bomb as they could without outright saying "No, you can't cast a spell to make yourself a god ... we have infinite wishes via Chain-Gating Solars and Pun-Pun builds for that." :)

[JustACrab]

Thanks for the criticism!

1. I'm still trying to get the hang of the site so this has been a serious help to get me in the right direction!

2. I am well aware of the hijinks of the Forgotten Realms and its writers. The only reason this homebrew exists is because I wanted to make a conversion with actual rulings (and not much fluff). In fact I always intended that, if this spell was to be used, it would be in either a time traveling adventure or an adventure that would already take place in the years before Karsus's Folly.

Again, thanks for the criticism and keeping it civil! I look forward to such replies in the future!

[Tzardok]

Did you come up with those material components or is there canon on that matter? I just think they are a bit over the top, especially the demilich phylactery. Those components aren't used only during casting, but also during the experimentation phase of development, and even though I don't know the statistics on the population of demilichs I doubt that there are enough around to fuel the development of a spell with so many variables.

[JustACrab]

If I remember correctly, only the gold dragon gizzard, tarrasque blood, and the 12-headed hydra bile were confirmed components. Though since it has been stated that they were just to "enchant one of the spell's material components". I just took the quickest route and added them as raw components and added other random hard to get stuff there. Any alternatives are always welcome.

[Tzardok]

I would suggest replacing the phylactery and maybe the atropal's umbilic cord with pieces of rock from one of the god corpses on the Astral Plane. Alternatively, if rock is too simple, on many of those corpses exist strange substances with wonderous qualities, like god's blood, strange crystals or metals with qualities that reflect the cause of death. This appears to me as something that exists in sufficient amounts to experiment with while at the same time being an appropriate challenge to harvest, on account of the Gravekeeper of the gods getting pissed at you if you try to steal it.

Another component that could be added (if you want to keep the association with souls the phylactery gives) could be a high level outsider (for example a balor, a throne archon or a secundus) caught using trap the soul. It could maybe bring balance to the spell by requiring an outsider whose alignment is the opposite of the alignment of the targeted god.

Also, it may be a missunderstanding on my part, but if I understood it correctly Mystryl didn't chose to die; instead she died and Karsus was caught in the backlash as a result of an unforseen interaction between Mystryl's nature as being one with the Weave and the spell stealing her power. I would cut that part of the description.

Lastly, I also strongly advise you to remove the vestigification thing. Every vestige is a unique accident, a "divide by zero" error in reality. I don't think there should be anything that can make vestiges repeatedly and semi-reliably, not even an epic/high level spell.

Edit: Incidentally, can you remember which book it was that mentioned the spell? I'd like to look it up, please.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Did you come up with those material components or is there canon on that matter? I just think they are a bit over the top, especially the demilich phylactery. Those components aren't used only during casting, but also during the experimentation phase of development, and even though I don't know the statistics on the population of demilichs I doubt that there are enough around to fuel the development of a spell with so many variables.

Honestly, this is Karsus' Avatar. It's litterally a spell to kill a god (and/or become one). Having some material components be nigh-impossible to fulfill is par for the course, and having some "fragments of divinity" like the atropal's cord and the divine symbol of the god (though you could even go as far as "the holy symbol of the god soaked by the blood of a 20th level cleric of that god" to make it even more blasphemous to even research the spell) is really cool and on-topic imo. I mean, do you even know what it takes to fill a gold dragon's gizzard (I assume the dragon is at least ancient) with stones? A dragon's gizzard is where all its breath power concentrates before it breathes. As such, it is the second most magical part of their body. Anything you put in there is immediately disintegrated by the sheer strength of the dragon's breath. I believe you'd have to trick the dragon into swallowing enough stones to fill its gizzard in the 1d4 rounds between breathes, then kill it immediately and harvest the gizzard. Not completely impossible for an epic wizard, but still really hard and luck-based. Add Tarrasque's blood (known to be an ingredient of +5 equipments) and hydra's bile (obviously of the highest number of heads) and that's only one component. Doesn't surprise me that some of the others are things like a demilich's phylactery. And I don't think you would have to use all these components except for the actual casting of the spell. I mean, you don't have to pay 50 times (or something) the material components of a spell you research in D&D. Research is akin to simulation, and you only have to use the real components when you actually cast the spell.

About the spell itself, the "Duration: Permanent" is misleading. A "See text" or "up to 1 round/6 levels or Instantaneous" would be better in my opinion. I'm not sure what you mean by "without epic rules". Do you mean having a wizard continue gaining spell slots of higher levels at levels 19, 21 and 23, but without being able to take Epic feats like Epic Spellcasting?

[JustACrab]

Thanks for the material recommendations! Indeed I am also not sure how Mystryl died so I will just add a "if the chosen god dies while their powers are stolen from them" part and I think that should cover it. About the vestige part, I think you are absolutely correct but the reasons as to why Karsus became a vestige are very convoluted so I just chose to make the spell that if the caster were to not be chosen by any gods, their soul doesn't go to the Fugue Plane (I think that's what its called) and they instead become a vestige. After all the spell was only cast one time and then became one of the most guarded secrets ever.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Lastly, I also strongly advise you to remove the vestigification thing. Every vestige is a unique accident, a "divide by zero" error in reality. I don't think there should be anything that can make vestiges repeatedly and semi-reliably, not even an epic/high level spell.

Agreed.


Edit: Incidentally, can you remember which book it was that mentioned the spell? I'd like to look it up, please.

"Netheril: empire of magic" (1996)
Obviously also referenced (not by name) in the Tome of Magic.

[JustACrab]

Yeah. I've been meaning to change the permanent duration to Instantaneous OR Special; see text. As for the w/o epic rules thing. As I said in a previous reply: This spell was made just as a conversion of the 2e spell just for the sake of it. The spell as all true 10+ level spells are all hidden by Mystra. This spell is made for adventures with time travel available or adventures that take place in the time period that 10+ level spells were "available".

[Saintheart]

Also, it may be a missunderstanding on my part, but if I understood it correctly Mystryl didn't chose to die; instead she died and Karsus was caught in the backlash as a result of an unforseen interaction between Mystryl's nature as being one with the Weave and the spell stealing her power. I would cut that part of the description.

Per FRCS:

...Karsus created a link to Mystryl so that he could steal her power and become a deity. Upon compleing the spell, his body swelled with divine power and his mind expanded with unimaginable knowledge - including the knowledge of the horrible mistake he had just made. Having stolen the divinity from the one being capable of constantly repairing the damage to the Weave the magic-gluttonous Netherese and phaerimms caused, Karsus threatened the existence of magic on Faerun, since he was not prepared for such a task.

Mystryl sacrificed herself to save the Weave before the damage was irreparable. This severed her link to Karsus, petrifying him and temporarily negating all magic in the world. The Netherese flying cities plummeted, and Karsus' stone form, still containing a fading omniscience, watched as all he knew and cared about was destroyed because of his folly. ... The goddess of magic was reincarnated as Mystra, and in recreating the Weave was able to safely bring to earth three of the flying cities -- Anauria, Asram, and Hlondath -- that were high above the ground at the time of Karsus' act. This new Weave had stricter requirements for spellcasting, preventing the heights of power and potential for destruction the Netherese had attained.

[Tzardok]

Yeah, that doesn't look to me like something part of the of the spell, but instead something Mystryl was able to do on her own.