More Spells from Vecna’s Grimoire

Since Glen Terry asked for them in a recent comment, I’m doing more spells themed around Vecna, the Whispered One. I love spell design, and designing weird things you can do with high-level spells is an especially interesting space.

Vecna’s Spellbook | More Spells

Anoint Death Knight

8th-level necromancy (cleric, warlock, wizard)

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (a suit of plate armor, which the target can be wearing)
Duration: 24 hours

When you cast this spell, you touch one willing creature, suffusing them with profane magic. For the duration of the spell, the target gains the following benefits:

· Its Type becomes Undead.

· It gains resistance to necrotic and poison damage, and gains immunity to the exhaustion, frightened, and poisoned conditions.

· It has advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects not cast by you.

· The target and Undead creatures within 60 feet of it have advantage on saving throws against effects that turn undead.

· When it hits with a melee weapon attack, it deals an additional 3d8 necrotic damage.

· It gains 35 (10d6) temporary hit points, and regains these temporary hit points when it finishes a short rest.

Eradicate Lore

8th-level enchantment (bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard)

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a scroll of hammered gold worth 1,000 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Instantaneous

When you cast this spell, choose one fact about a person, place, or thing. This fact might be widely known or a closely held secret. That fact can’t be learned through magic, including commune and contact other plane. Creatures currently aware of the fact must roll a Wisdom saving throw to retain the knowledge. Ability checks using the Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion skills automatically fail, and the DC to learn the information with an Intelligence (Investigation) check is 30 if it isn’t already higher than that. Creatures can still learn the fact from texts, or from conversing with other creatures that retain knowledge of the fact.

A creature’s name – the fact that this specific name refers to that creature – can’t be eradicated against the creature’s will.

Ethereal Vortex

6th-level abjuration (sorcerer, wizard)

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Arcane energies swirl around you, draining power into the Ethereal Plane. For the duration of the spell, you have resistance to force damage and psychic damage. When a creature other than you casts a spell within 30 feet of you, you can use your Reaction to make the caster roll a Constitution saving throw. On a failure, their spell is countered unless they spend an additional spell slot of the same level or higher, or they take psychic damage equal to three times the level of the spell.

If they choose to spend an additional spell slot, creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you take psychic damage equal to the level of the spell slot. If they choose to take psychic damage, you regain hit points equal to the damage they take.

Rend Divinity

9th-level necromancy (sorcerer, warlock, wizard)

Casting Time: 24 hours
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (golden reliquary worth 10,000 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: 1 month

When you cast this spell, choose one god, or an Aberration, Celestial, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, or Fiend with a CR of 18 or higher. You must speak its name clearly, and it immediately becomes aware that you are casting this spell. The target rolls a Constitution saving throw, an Intelligence saving throw, a Wisdom saving throw, and a Charisma saving throw.

· If it fails its Constitution saving throw, the target gains vulnerability to one damage type of your choice. You can’t choose a damage type that it has damage immunity against.

· If it fails its Intelligence saving throw, the target loses any Blindsight, Truesight, or similar extraordinary forms of perception, and can’t cast spells of the Divination school.

· If it fails its Wisdom saving throw, the target can’t grant spells above 6th level to its followers, including clerics, paladins, and warlocks.

· If it fails its Charisma saving throw, the target can’t reply to commune, contact other plane, or gatespells for the duration of the effect. Attempts to contact or summon it with these spells fail.

Any Legendary Resistance spent to pass these saving throws can’t be regained for the duration of this spell.

If you can see the target of the spell and you are within 60 feet of it at the time of casting, the casting time is reduced to 1 minute. The target must remain within that range throughout the casting time.

Design Notes

I feel like I’m taking some substantial design risks here, so I hope you find that kind of thing compelling even if you decide that I haven’t nailed the power level.

Anoint Death Knight is just a way to tell a little bit of Kas’s story with a spell. It definitely doesn’t go well for Kas or Vecna here. I’m kinda thinking of this as Tenser’s Transformation and Holy Weapon rolled into one.

Eradicate Lore is about Vecna as a keeper of secrets. This should make it a lot more possible to, you know, do that. How do you hide things in a setting with legend lore?

Ethereal Vortex is about Vecna presenting you with situations where every choice is painful. It’s borrowing from the new version of Counterspellthat came out in today’s Unearthed Arcana 2023 – Player’s Handbook 7 packet. Which I will, someday, write about in Tribality!

Rend Divinity is touching on the story of Vecna taking Iuz’s essence to attack Sigil in the late-2e Vecna adventures – and also about what kinds of cosmically awful things 9th-level spells might let you do. I doubt there are many cases where a PC would go through the work of doing this, but I don’t know your life.