Top Ten Spells I’d Like To See In Spell Books


10) Luxury Camping Bubble

Despite what people say, and I’m sure they’re pretending, camping isn’t fun. It’s wet, cold, dark and uncomfortable. There are bitey, buzzy insects everywhere and strange noises keeping you awake. Whether you’re in the chasms of Bign Asty, in a deep, dark forest or on a strange plane where the cows talk Swedish, you need the Luxury Camping Bubble spell. When cast, this spell creates a space large enough for one, a shimmering bubble of peace and solitude. There’s no noise, no insects, no strange animals. The temperature is exactly as you like it, and the bubble is soft and springy just like your own bed. It’s fully water tight and even filters out smells. The walls block the passage of anyone but you or invited guests, and the bubble is anchored to the ground in case of flood/strong wind/jealous party members trying to roll it into a cess pit. It can also be made to sing you to sleep, guaranteeing you’ll wake fully rested and ready for anything.

9) The Spell Stacking Spell Of Easy Casting

For those days when you aren’t feeling yourself (Steady!) and just want a bit of a lie down, this spell is your friend. The stacking spell is cast first, and creates a magical containment that can hold other spells. When resting in your Luxury Camping Bubble, you can then cast the spells you think you’re going to use into the containment, and it will hold them there until they’re needed. The next day, when it all kicks off and you need to cast the spells, you simply activate the containment and it will cast the spells in the order you selected at the speed required and you can go and have a rest, maybe make some French toast, read a racey scroll, whatever you’re into really. If the party are going to be inactive for some time, you can create several of these containments, customise them and just carry them around ready to be used. You will then have more spare time to move onto potatoes dauphinoise, the second scroll in the series, or even do a watercolour of your colleagues fighting the demon-horde. Those things sell very well, and could provide an income for your retirement.

8) A Fiery Steed of Suitable Heroicness

You know what it’s like, there’s a horse appreciation fair on, there’s been an outbreak of werewolves and the burning orange urine plague has just hit the next village. The only thing left to ride in the entire town is a small donkey called Donald, who isn’t in the best of health, has a limp, and doesn’t even like you, and would probably bite you if he had any teeth. Bring on the spell of A Fiery Steed of Suitable Heroicness! In no time at all, you’ll have a steed worthy of the name. It can be any colour you like, will be a tall, gleaming and handsome an example of horse flesh, the best you’ve ever seen. But not just that, no sirree, it will be a fully trained war horse, valiant and true, afraid of nothing and ready to run like the wind and fight like a ninja. It will be caparisoned in your own colours, with your family crest and everything. A mount to suit a hero, and everywhere you ride, people will point and say, “isn’t that him off the tele?” and “can’t be, they haven’t been invented yet.” and “whooo, nice horse, pity about the rider.”

7) The Spell of Knowing Exactly Where You’re Going, Even When It’s Dark

In addition to allowing you to never be lost, and always knowing which way to go in even the most labyrinthine labyrinth, this spell also makes sure you choose the least dangerous path. If the shortest route through the dungeon is guarded by a dragon, for instance, the spell will guide you around it. If there are two or more routes, all guarded, the spell will guide you down the path to the beast you are least afraid of, based on previous encounters. If there’s only one way through, and it’s controlled by a giant flesh eating troll, the spell will warn you in plenty of time where it is and what it’s doing. The spell even works in complete darkness, guiding the caster with a mental image. The best part of the spell is it’s completely discreet and undetectable by others, so people will think you’re just good at pathfinding and be impressed, if you survive the flesh eating troll.

6) The Gore, Peril and Fear Masking Spell of Apparent Bravery

As we all know, adventuring can be a messy business, as well as frightening and literally stomach-turning. This kind of exposure can lead to nightmares, long-term health problems and name-calling by party members. This spell masks all the danger, blood and plopping internal organs, as well as the foul stenches, the obligatory hissing of monsters and other spine-chilling sounds, the ominous footsteps of approaching doom and cackles of laughter from the dark places. The spell replaces all of those bad things with less frightening sights and sounds, like the cleaned up and toned down comedy violence seen in children’s films. Instead of blood, guts and slaughter, howling and death screams, the caster will see confetti, tumbling vegetables and people being bonked over the head with balloons, and hear “boyoyng” and “clonk” sounds.
As well as preventing long-term problems such as phobias, insomnia and recurring nightmares, the spell also makes it look like you’re the bravest person in the world, as you don’t shy away from even the worst of the action and danger.

5) Spell of Protection Against the Next Thing That Attacks You

In this uncertain and dangerous world, you never know what’s lurking around the next corner. You might be chasing werewolves, or cultists with poison darts, or the undead, but you could still get attacked by creatures using hypnosis or blinding lights. But worry not (apart from worrying about being attacked in a dark dungeon, obviously) because with this spell you don’t need to think about such things. The spell will automatically adjust itself to protect you from the danger, whether that’s poison, arrows, lycanthropy, black rot or mind control, completely negating the threat and allowing you to concentrate on engulfing the thing attacking you in a sun-hot fireball. The spell will work on the very next attack against you, even if that’s an AoE. The spell won’t be triggered by pats on the back and other congratulatory or intimate contact, but will stop accidental “friendly” damage.

4) The Spell of Curing Things Before They Happen

Imagine sneaking along a dungeon passage, through a misty graveyard, or inside a strange building, when suddenly “sproing!” and your leg is a bloody ruin. With this spell that could be a thing of the past. All you’d see is the trap go off, feel a little warmth, make a quiet “oo” sound, although this is optional, and nothing else. No rolling on the ground screaming and shouting “healer!”, no embarrassing emissions or stains, you just carry on as if nothing happened. The spell works by cutting out the time between the injury and the cure, even if that’s several days. It cures any physical injury inflicted on the caster that would normally be cured by a single spell, including regrowing limbs, mending broken bones and healing burns and abrasions, as well as replacing eyes or ears, etc.

3) The Universal Spell of Undetectability With Optional Selectivity

It can be very embarrassing, not to say lethal, to cast an invisibility spell on yourself and then be attacked by a giant mutant nose, or cast a spell of silence and then be wiped out by an Argus beast. This spell takes the guesswork out of trying to decide which senses the creature you’re about to be attacked by uses to hunt. It masks all the five senses, prevents mind reading and other mental detection, and stops the caster leaving footprints even in deep mud or snow. The spell can be set to allow other members of the party to still see you, so they don’t accidentally cast a fireball at you, shoot you in the head, or leave you behind when they move on.

2) Fireball Spell That Can Use Other Things As Well

Fireballs are cool, everyone knows that. But sometimes they aren’t practical, or are useless against the thing you’re attacking. For instance, if someone summons a fire elemental and sends it at you, a fireball isn’t the best thing to use. An iceball on the other hand might do some damage, a windball might blow it out, and a waterball would be very effective. But why stop there? What if you’re attacked by a giant or a golem, you could drop a ball of mud on it to slow it down. If you were mobbed by a hundreds of gobbos, you could cast a ball of arrows and kill them all at once. If a pack of ravenous wolves attacked you, a ball of meat would distract them while you escaped, and remove the very reason for them attacking you in the first place. If you upset someone in authority and they sent a lynch mob after you, you could cast a ball of leaflets, and they’d be delayed reading them while you made a swift getaway. And what about a ball of fish to keep a flock of rampant gulls busy, a ball of wool to distract a mutant kitten, and a ball of rubber bands to delay a bunch of mad scientists. (“What are these wondrous circles of stretchiness?”) I’m sure you can think of many more materials and uses, so why limit yourself to just fire?

1) The Steve Dean Patented* Just-Get-On-With-It Spell

It’s been a long day, deep inside the dungeon of the cult of the lost of the blah-blah something about blood and body parts. You’re tired, hungry, (the potatoes dauphinoise went hours ago) thirsty, there’s an annoying itch inside your armour and the cut above your eye has opened up again. One of the party members is singing that annoying hymn of devotion to their deity to “keep our spirits up” and another one won’t shut up about how they cut two, two! heads clean off back there when the Kobalds attacked. You finally arrive at the inner sanctum of the blah-blah bloke, and there’s a bunch of cultists and some demon-type thing they’ve summoned, and that’s before you can even have a crack at the high priest. You really, really want a hot bath, preferably with the party member with the large breastplate, and then sleep for many hours. But no, now you’ve got to decide which spell to cast and what’s going to work and what isn’t. Well, relax, because now, with The Steve Dean Patented Just-Get-On-With-It Spell you don’t have to worry about these things. Simply choose your target, point, and whoosh! off it goes. The spell itself then works out the best effect; fireballs for flesh, acid for stone, silence on casters, lightning bolts on iron golems, etc. Once that’s done, simply choose another target, or indeed the same one, and cast again, safe in the knowledge you don’t have to think too hard. In addition, there's none of those icky components to worry about, and no twisting your hands to make strange gestures that will almost certainly cause you arthritis in later life.
The spell is available in demon black, frost-elf white and limited edition dragon-eye red, and can be made to go “woooomph”, “pyewwww”, “ka-tush”, and “fhh-ting” as well as the default “whoosh”. Wizarding and Warlocking Weekly gave the spell five wands, and said “This spell if perfect, the only one you’ll ever need, buy it now!”

*Patent Pending.