Week 4: Tools of War

Many say that the best magicians are those with a wide repertoire of spells that allow them to control a situation without any need for violence. But many also say that the longest-lived magicians are those with a few combat spells up their sleeves, just in case of emergency. Don’t dash into battle – but if you must, knowing one or more of these tricks is likely to help you stagger back out again.

War Cape

You clothe yourself in your culture’s tokens of martial excellence, and for a time, this spell gives you a shimmering aura and grants you might and skill appropriate to the costume. For as long as you concentrate the War Cape adds acuity to your senses, strength and precision to your muscles, and endurance to your lungs, as if all your magical training had instead gone into the warrior arts. An advanced version of the spell will even stave off pain and fatigue – for as long as you maintain the magic.

Find Strike

You send a weapon flying to attack a foe on your behalf. This requires some token that binds the magic to the proper target – a personal possession, a true name, a lock of hair or other body part – but the weapon will pursue its victim at a swift running pace for as long as they are alive and it has the capacity. Beware, though: a weapon that you have enchanted is bound to your magic, and another magician can use it as if it were your possession, to find and strike back at you.

Claming Blow

You strike someone with a blunt object and render them mute. The blow does not need to cause any harm, but it does need to connect hard enough for the target to feel it. The final word of the spell, which you speak while striking, determines the length the enforced silence lasts – for a few moments, for a day, for a year, or until the next time they are struck by this spell.

Grasping Light

For this spell you build a small flame and feed it special minerals until it glows a spectral shade of blue. You then pick it up in your hands (the flame is cold to the touch) and blow it into an area – where instead of burning, it will be attracted to the souls of things, limning almost everything in light with color and brightness matching the strength and type of soul present. This reveals people, of course, and differentiates them from unthinking animals, plants, the natural spirits of soil, stone, and water, and other entities. Soulless undead will show up as voids of pure darkness, in an area of effect where even seemingly-bare stone takes on a faint iridescent sheen.

Healing of Bat

You catch a live bat, enchant it in a surprisingly humane ritual – and then release it to carry on with its life as usual. However, when possible, the bat will eat a little more than usual, and save up the excess in the form of magical energy. When the time comes, you may call the bat back to you and use it in an even more surprisingly humane ritual to call forth healing vibrations that will knit closed even the most horrific wounds within minutes. (Note that this cannot save anyone who is dead before the ritual is completed.) Rumor whispers that a large enough flock of bats may be used to gain true immortality, but there are no records of any sorcerers who remained sane long enough to enchant the requisite number.

Crusading Disk

You summon a spinning, screaming disk of force and fling it in a direction that you strongly dislike. After its release, the disk is entirely out of your control – it will tear and crush and ruin friend, foe, or innocent alike, fanatically ricocheting around with inconsistent speed and counterintuitive changes in direction until its energy is spent.

Shield of Farts

You weave certain airborne essences into a tangible barrier that resists motion with a strength proportional to the velocity. Any attacks directed against the one you choose to protect will respond as if being pushed through rubber, or layer after layer of woollen batting. For whatever reason, though, only warm and aromatic essences may be used, so a wise magician who plans to use this spell will carefully regulate what, and when, they eat – or perhaps just carry a handy bundle of incense.

Magic!