The revised spellcasting rules in Lamentations of the Flame Princess had some miscast rules that made this an interesting exercise, but I never used it in anger.

An amateur “flame-in-hand” illusion with a hidden tealight candle.Image by Роман Рябенко, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Recovered: Some Spells

Drown

Magic User 1
Duration: 2 rounds/level
Rage: Touch
Special: Must have unwillingly taken drowning damage to learn this spell.
Trick a brain into drowning. Each round that the target fails a save (paralyzation), choose to either advance the spell a stage or return to 0th stage. The 0th degree takes effect immediately.

  • Stage 0: Target cannot move, but can speak and breathe. Further saves at a disadvantage.
  • Stage 1: Additionally, target cannot breathe and takes 1d6 subdual damage this round.
  • Stage 2: Additionally, target takes 1d6 (normal) damage.
  • Stage 3+: Additionally, target loses one point from a random ability score (permanent).

If subdual damage + real damage > HP, the target is unconscious and the spell ends. The target must be physiologically able to drown.

Miscasts

  1. Also trick your own brain. The spell affects you the same as the target (use target’s saves for progression).
  2. Trick everyone’s brain. The spell affects everyone around you in a 120’ radius (use target’s saves for progression).
  3. PTSD. Must save or flee from water. Rerolls mean save is at progressive penalty.
  4. Water elemental that loves drowning people is jealous, attacks you (1 HD/level).
  5. Casting this spell is always risky. Reroll frees the caster from this result, as they become hardened to its effects.
  6. Target is immune to the spell, and can now hold their breath twice as long as usual. Caster grows to irrationally hate them if they don’t already.

Gills

Magic User 1
Duration: 6 Turns/level
Range: Touch
As Water Breathing, except lose ability to breathe air. The reverse is Lungs.

Miscasts

  1. Permanent deep one mutation (nictitating eyelids, webbed fingers, etc.)
  2. Spell is permanent.
  3. Greater mutation for duration of spell.
  4. Gills are non-functional, and now you can’t breathe.
  5. The fish love you, maybe a little too much. Actions and visibility underwater are hindered by schools of fish, if any are nearby.
  6. You have been chosen for a quest1 from Dagon (or other suitable entity). Details will come to you in your dreams.

Raft

Cleric 1
Providence sends a raft of sufficient buoyancy and size to support 1d4 person-days/level. It appears on the horizon drifting towards you, such that it can be reached by an unencumbered swimmer without issue (barring other circumstances). The form will vary but it will have no inherent means of propulsion. Some forms may include:

  • volcanic raft
  • iceberg
  • dense seaweed mat
  • carcass of a great beast
  • empty barrels & crates lashed together
  • low-lying fossil cloud
  • strange metal disc
  • empty shell of a dragon turtle
  • ants

Read Wakes

Magic User 1
Duration: 1 Round/level
Range: Self
In a perfect Newtonian world, information is never lost, it merely gets quieter and quieter. This spell lets you read the history of the ocean before you. Once each round, you may learn one of the following things:

  • What was the bearing of the most recent ship to pass here, and when was that?

  • What direction is the nearest stationary object?

  • Where and when did anything most recently break the surface of the water intermittently (like a whale surfacing or a stone skipping)?
    This spell does not work in the rain or when the water is otherwise busy. If a question is asked again, you can read further back in history (e.g. the second most recent ship to pass).

    Miscasts

  1. Visions of the rain—severe headache incapacitates caster for 1d6 rounds/level. No information gained.
  2. Echoes of creation—permanent deafness (this does not hinder the spell).
  3. Ghosts of the flood—each day save or be possessed by an antediluvian ghost (with their own, worse CHA, WIS, & INT). They lose interest after a week of saves.
  4. Harmony of nature—save or be compelled to join your ghostly whale friends swimming through the sea.
  5. Bad point of reference—information given is actually about the future. This could raise issues about free will, but don’t let it bother you. At least it’s good information.
  6. Transmission from the stars—1d4 permanent damage to a random ability score, and you learn a weird new spell.

Transmute

Magic User 1
Duration: Permanent
Range: Touch
When you learn this spell, roll for two materials, then roll for 1 more material/level. When you gain a level, roll again for an additional material. You can transmute the volume of 1 person/level from any one material you know to any other material you know. Allow saves as appropriate. Some materials include others, and this is not a mistake. For example, stone” includes marble”. You cannot choose to transmute to the more specific material if you do not know how.

Miscasts

  1. Transmutation fails, and target is immutable to any future magic.

  2. Transmutation fails, and you forget the target material.

  3. Transmutation is successful, but only for 3d6 (1d4: 1-seconds, 2-minutes, 3-hours, 4-days).

  4. Target goes to a random target material.

  5. Target goes to a random target material, and you learn to transmute that material!

  6. Transmutation is successful, but grafts itself to your body.

    Materials (4d20)

    If you re-roll a material, move up or down the list until you find a new one.

4d20 Material Notes, Examples
4 illusion like a hologram or something
5 lava
6 diamond
7 sponge
8 snakes
9 poison retain form but become poisonous
10 nitrogen ~79% of air, asphyxiant
11 mercury
12 liquor
13 jade
14 ink
15 gunpowder
16 Bakelite
17 amber
18 aerogel
19 gold
20 wool felted, loose, pelt
21 wax
22 tin
23 silver
24 sand
25 rubber
26 rags
27 needles
28 ice
29 chocolate
30 ceramic
31 brimstone i.e. sulfur
32 arsenic
33 steel
34 mud
35 fungus edible, myconids, mycelium, magic
36 flesh
37 charcoal
38 bread
39 wood
40 metal
41 keratin hair, fingernails, fur, hooves, horns, feathers
42 dung
43 leather
44 stone
45 bone
46 chalk
47 clay unfired
48 fruit
49 glass
50 oil
51 tubers
52 ashes the solid remains of any fire
53 bronze
54 chitin exoskeletons, scales
55 copper
56 lead
57 paper papier-mâché, origami, stacked
58 ropes
59 salt
60 seeds
61 soap
62 water
63 wine
64 bottles normal bottles, anything hollow and bottle-like
65 acid standard fantasy acid”
66 air
67 ants for range purposes, maybe consider a hive as one organism
68 blood
69 honey
70 ivory
71 leaves
72 marble
73 nacre
74 oxygen does not itself burn, but in pure oxygen most things do
75 rust
76 sodium reacts with water
77 tea pressed, loose, steeped
78 ectoplasm makes a thing into a ghost, or vice versa
79 radium does radiation make superheroes or corpses?
80 void as sphere of annihilation

Materials (flat)

The table above is vaguely weighted with more common materials in the middle, so that hopefully you aren’t stuck with Transmute lava/ectoplasm/jade” as your only options. But I’ve been wanting to try out Spwack’s thing, so you can also use this to roll flat across the whole table if you feel chaotic.



Magic Mouth

I also tried to come up with mishaps for the existing Magic Mouth spell.

  1. Continued recording for double duration.
  2. No volume control. Playback causes sonic damage.
  3. Backmasked. Voice sounds demonic and words are gibberish.
  4. Fourth wall-breaking. Spell captures the caster’s player’s most recent voicemail.
  5. There is no trigger, the spell just plays on loop and can’t be stopped.
  6. The intent of the recording is inverted (e.g. “not” is added in front of the right words).
  7. Actually records the caster confessing a secret.
  8. Actually records a secret about the campaign world, or a heresy. 50% chance true.

The spells Drown, Gills, Raft, Read Wakes, and Transmute were first shared November 11, 2018. The Magic Mouth mishaps were shared on July 16, 2019. The material generator was re-built using the most recent version of Spwack’s generator generator.


  1. This once linked to a quest generator, which is, alas, no more.↩︎



Date
September 1, 2023



Comment