Spell: druid's newest weapon (PEACH)

[Stycotl]

Primeval Movement
Transmute
Level: Druid 9
Components: V, S, DF, XP
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: 50 feet/level
Target: Circle centered on you of 100 feet radius/level
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates, see text
Spell Resistance: Yes


When properly cast, this spell will imbue the land immediately around the caster with a century’s worth of aging and growth during a single night. This phenomenal growth sprouts whole forests, carves gullies, and forms streams and small rivers, all under cover of darkness. The druid must begin this ritual one hour before the sun sets completely below the horizon. The timing is demanding; it could conceivably require a high-DC survival or knowledge (nature) check, or a spell in order to time the ritual correctly. The spell itself consists of moving widdershins around the area to be considered the epicenter of the spell, where the druid must stand at the moment the sun sinks below view, and chanting softly to the earth, urging and encouraging it to speed up its cycle of life.

This spell is used to heal the scars inflicted to the land through logging, mining, farming, and building. The staggering amount of time inflicted upon the land in this spell is enough to heal it of most blights, taints, and scars, even those of supernatural origin.

There are three effects going on simultaneously as soon as this spell is cast: cleansing/new growth, upheaval, and disintegration/erosion.

Cleansing/New Growth: When this spell is completed, the land stirs to life, all but trembling and groaning with the movement and growth active within it. The rate at which natural processes behave increases dramatically, but along with change comes the cleansing touch of nature that purges all harmful magics and poisons. Toxins in the soil break down; ground that had been blighted through necromantic rituals, etc, is purged and cleansed; tainted auras of magic dissolve under the weight of time unless they were of permanent duration. Erosion and sedimentation can produce new features such as valleys, hills, etc. these effects depend on the whim of the DM and the surrounding landscape, though a wise druid would have carefully studied and planned the changes that would take place by sculpting the land as much as possible beforehand. Plant life springs from the ground as would be logical for the type of local environment (cypress, vines and mangroves in a swamp; fir, pin, and spruce in a sub arctic forest; cactus and scrub bushes in a desert), and is nearly mature enough to be considered old-growth.

Upheaval: The changes brought on by this spell are violent and, once loosed, uncontrollable. Unattended objects of any kind must make a Fortitude save to resist the crushing, grinding effects of such rapid movement and upheaval, as stones split, buildings collapse, and plants cover and invade every feasible space. Failure inflicts 4d6 bludgeoning damage, and 3d6 abrading damage. Hardness does apply to this damage. While fast, this growth is not fast enough to trap mobile, living organisms. Plants, and any immobilized creatures within the radius of the spell must save against this damage as well. They may well be pinned or trapped by morning even if they did not take any damage.

Disintegration/Erosion: Even if not pulverized completely, affected unnatural materials (glass, metal alloys, etc) are irretrievably destroyed, crumbled, rusted, or disintegrated away by a century’s worth of decay; natural materials decompose, erode, and abrade as normal for one-hundred years of exposure. Attended and magical items can resist this damage through the Fortitude save as normal. Unattended, nonmagical items receive no save against this entropy effect; unnatural items and structures will not exist by morning, and natural items and structures will be severely worn, if not destroyed. Unless the Fortitude save is successful all unattended unnatural materials take 1 damage every two minutes, until the sun touches the horizon in the morning (assuming an 8-hour night, that means 240 untyped damage). Hardness does not apply to this damage. Unattended natural items take 1 point of damage every 10 minutes (meaning 48 damage over the period of an 8-hour night).

Exposed creatures made of nonliving organic, or unnatural materials (undead, and some constructs for example) are required to make the save against the disintegration effect as well, taking damage dependant on how much time they spent within the radius of the spell.

Casting this spell requires a 500 XP sacrifice, and the use of a divine focus.

[Stycotl]

ok, editing issues:

1: name. spent almost an hour thesaurus'ing different ideas. wanted something about the aging quality and the transformation

2: is it clear? i know it is complicated. someone give me an idea if they have a better mechanic for this.

3: damage. i realize that the decay damage is high. but it is over the period of 8 to 12 hours or so, so i didn't think it was that bad. and i couldn't come up with a better mechanic there. tried a set number of dice broken down over the hours, but that was ridiculous.

i know it would have been easier to just say it happens instantly. but then you run into stepping-on-epic-spell-type problems, and i wanted this to be a longer-duration, ritual type feel.

4: anything else you got, bring it.

thanks a million. aaron out.

[Triaxx]

Other than being a level low, I think it just screams Druid BBEG. Slip into the midst of the city the PC's are protecting, by wildshaping into a rat. An hour before sundown, he starts casting. PC's go to sleep and when they wake up (assuming they wake up period), there's nothing but trees where the city used to be.

[magic8BALL]

The area...

...hmmm...

Excuse me. I am not american, and thus use metric units.

10 ft = 3 m.

Hence, 50 ft / level = 15 m / level

8th level spell, min 15th level caster, min radius 225 m.

That means the minimum area is roughly 15% of a square kilometre. Not a very big area at all...

...That is, the BBEDruid could make a new park in a city overnight, but not totally hand the place back to nature.

I have no problem with the spell at all. In fact, it's quite cool, really.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Looks like a good spell. I like it. I would make the area bigger though. At least a kilometer.

[Triaxx]

Right, forgot that we aren't assuming Epic Level BBEG's. I always calculate for level 30 BBEG's.

And it's actually closer to 250m.

[ThunderEagle]

Minor point: you might want to change the save line to "fortitude negates, see text", as it currently seems to indicate that a single save can end the entire effect.

also, this is the best way to deal with nuclear waste ever.

[Stycotl]

thanks for the pointers. bigger area. change save text. i like your critiques. about the nuclear waste thing: that is exactly the kind of idea i was going for. i was just thinking to day that i did not clarify enough how the spell does not just speed up nature, but that it does totally eradicate any harmful auras, ahrmful magics and harmful chemical/biological/etc effects. nature's way of bringing the balance back.

triaxx, you think it should be 9th level? i was debating that myself...

anyway, thanks a million. aaron out.

[Stycotl]

ok, upped it to 9th level, made it 100 foot radius per caster level, fixed the fort save text, and clarified in the cleansing text that there is a targeted purification by mother nature herself.

[knightsaline]

What about the natural animals? Are they killed in the rebirth of the land? I always think that druids take a vow to never willingly harm an animal or eat its flesh.

[Stycotl]

the text states that any mobile creature can leave the area. even if it doesn't leave the area, it can still generally evade the effects of the land's movement. in most cases the changes are drastic, but not monumentally so. it is understood that some creatures (newborn birds for example) will not make it out of the area in time. but honestly the majority of those will survive, and even the ones that don't decompose instantly and add to the cycle. druids worship the balance of nature above all things. that means that if they come upon a tiger killing a goat, they will be more likely to be grateful for the chance to witness the great dance of life, than to run up and save the goat.

i suppose that it might not be a bad idea to say that all animal life in the area of effect become increasingly nervous throughout the hour-long casting(kinda like before an earthquake), and leave the area if possible prior to sundown. kind of adds some flavor and drama to the scene as well. you are rolling out your bedroll after a hard day's work of felling trees in a glen, when herds of deer, flocks of birds, entire families of bears, etc, start migrating away from the area. that would make me nervous...

how does that sound?