Using Mirage Arcane in CoS

[FiddleForge]

Baba Lysaga survived her battle with the party and will definitely return for revenge. She has the spell Mirage Arcane and it sounds really awesome, but all the research I do on it is very inconclusive. Nobody seems to know how it should function. I'm imagining some kind of environmental skill challenge the party must overcome to reach her like enduring blaring heat or freezing cold with negative effects every round or perhaps the area looks entirely featureless but actually has trees and pits they can run into.

What are your thoughts? Could this possibly be used inside Castle Ravenloft like a fantasy Mysterio from Far From Home? Let me know.

[Segev]

I'll start by pointing you at the last spoiler block in the OP of this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?477658-Illusionist-Tricks), at the risk of tooting my own horn.

Mirage arcane is an incredibly powerful spell. It is a matter of DM adjudication whether creatures can actually drown in illusory water created by it, or breathe that water if aquatic. I would be inclined to say "no" and "yes" to those in order to avoid it being something I feel it shouldn't be (a way to instantly kill people) while making it something it should be (a way to enable exotic environs). You can definitely swim in the illusory water. You can walk through illusory holes in walls converted to ruins by this spell. You can climb illusory towers created by this spell, and sleep in its illusory beds. If the illusion covers real, rotten beds, or converts hard stone pallets to comfortable down beds, the comfort of the illusion prevails as long as it lasts.

A hag using this spell should use it to do things like create comfortable inns with sturdy defenses that vanish in the middle of the night, once the werewolves have gathered around it. This can be done by making the inn itself as an illusion, then dispelling it, or by casting the spell on the very real inn to overlay an illusion of ruin and desolation.

A hag could use this spell to curse a wealthy city, covering it with an illusion of decay. Make the wealthy centers into slums. Make the marketplaces flooded with rancid sewage or swamp water. Put holes in the outer walls through which enemies may easily invade.

She could convert lush fields of crops to withered and empty wasteland. She could cause rice paddies to become swamps. She could cause rivers to become brine or blood.

As long as it wouldn't offend the Count (or if she doesn't care), she could make an illusion of Castle Ravenloft on the precipice of whatever town the heroes are staying in.

She can ensure no edible foliage, no drinkable water, no shelter from the elements, and no pleasant weather can be found in the whole of the region of the spell. She can make it harsh winter or cruel death valley summer. She might even be able to prevent the sun from setting or rising in the area, as far as anybody within can tell. Either directly, or with clever use of illusory components to hide it or to put a false one in the sky.

It can also be used to make castles in the clouds that, if anybody can get to them, can be explored as long as the spell lasts.

[FiddleForge]

The theory of it is all well and good but how would YOU use it? I'm looking for inspiration.

[Segev]

The theory of it is all well and good but how would YOU use it? I'm looking for inspiration.

I am not sure what you're asking for. I can come up with more suggestions of what illusions to create with it, but it sounds like that isn't the kind of inspiration you mean?

If you mean, what might be thematic for a hag to do ... turn the site of a village or town that annoys her into a swamp with no buildings. Replace farm land with barren desert. Dry up rivers. Turn a house painted with lead paint into a gingerbread house made of candy and cackle when the spell ends and those who partook now have lead or other poisons in their systems. Make her lair look like one of the PCs' home town, or other place they love and cherish, and use seemimg if she can get it to make many of her minions look like the people's who live there. Make them fight their own loved ones to get to the hag.

The interiors of buildings can be actual part of the lair (maybe even cheating on the space and arrangement thanks to her power).