If you watch a lot of Shonen anime you'll notice a surprising trend; the characters love to blow themselves up!
Warning: Major spoilers below.
Some examples:
DBZ: Vegeta vs Fat Buu.
DBZ: Farewell Tien!
The Last Hero Inuyashiki: The Meteor
Hunter x Hunter: *SUPER MAJOR SPOILERS*
Dragon Quest, The Adventure of Dai: Avan vs Hadlar
Now what if there was a spell in your elf games where you could sacrifice yourself to deal massive damage to your enemies? Look no further.
The Forlorn Conclusion
Magic-User 1
Duration: Instant
Range: 10ft per caster level radius from the caster
This spells consumes the caster's life essence and fate in order to lash out one final time against the caster's enemies as a chaos burst explosion. The explosion deals 1d6 damage per caster level plus additional damage for each dice rolled equal to the caster's INT bonus* to all inside the spell's range. For each 6 rolled roll an additional d6, repeat as necessary. The caster is killed in the process and their body and all belongings are completely destroyed. Roll to see if magic items are destroyed as normal. Those slain by the spell are completely obliterated and leave no remains except their shadow burned into a nearby surface.
*A 5th level M-U with a +2 INT MOD casting this spell would roll 5d6+10 damage, if another 6 is rolled they would roll an additional 1d6+2.
Now obviously this is a very dangerous spell to introduce to a campaign. Especially because it's first level. You could have an insane M-U churning out this spell as scrolls and forcing his apprentices to blow themselves up in combat. Shit, I could see a kingdom sending secret suicide m-u (thief?) squads with this scroll to blow up key fortifications. Anyways let me know what you think, too much? What are some unforeseen consequences of introducing this to a campaign world?
Lots of uses for it, lvl 1 means almost any caster could have it. Might be called different things for different classes or caster races. I could see it also as a "you won't take me alive and none of you will escape" move as well. Hmm knowing caster could detonate themselves might make handling them difficult for the law (in charge of the area) as well.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I think the existence of this spell warrants some further deep dives into how it would effect a fantasy world. Maybe a future blog post? :D
DeleteI dig it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading!
DeleteThe Hungarian RPG M.A.G.U.S. had a similar spell for the Witch class. You could convert all your leftover spellpoints, psionic points, and hit points into a swirling storm of raw magical energy; however, you only fall unconscious (and cannot use magic for a couple of days), but survive :D
ReplyDeleteDunno, maybe something based on an AD&D 1e/2e spell.
Very interesting. This spell is getting my creative brain juices going lol. Thanks for reading!
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