The Gaming Den

As far as I know there's no actual spell which explains "a wizard bred them" for account for owlbears and all.

Someone asked about this so I decided "Fuck it, I'll give it a try".

Blend

Transmutation
Sorcerer/Wizard 6
Components: V, S, M (see text)
Casting time: 1 standard action full-round action
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

Effect: This is the infamous spell used to make owlbears and duckoxes and the many many varieties of elves.

The caster chooses a target creature, and then a creature or concept to try to imbue into that creature. When the spell is cast, the caster must then begin trying to expose the target over the next day with elemental substances, if they apply (shadow, fire, cold, etc), usually through ingestion, injection, or covering them in it. Creating a blend of two different creatures requires injecting blood or other tissue from one into the target.

Once that's done, it's a wait-and-see to see if it takes. There's a 50% chance of death inside a week, which goes down 5% by every CR of the target creature until it's gone at CR 10.

If it takes, the target creature now has new properties and is essentially a new kind of creature. Generally, being Blended with something naturally stronger than you are makes you stronger, with some of its traits; physical traits differences come across much more easily than mental ones, like spellcasting. Any offspring with its former kind will share its new traits.

You can only Blend a creature once.

You're pretty much on your own for coming up with the results.

If you want your own pretty point-eared servants, this might help:

Variant Elf

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I chose spell level 6 because it comes on at level 11, which is when you're suited to be researched by Legend Lore and therefore might as well have some legendary-grade things to do. The reducing percentage chance of death is so you can play mad scientist with cohorts all you'd like but making a viable population of new creatures is much more time-consuming and icky.

I'm well aware that this is Yet Another Wizards Win D&D thing. It's set up in the fluff, I wanted to explain it.

Okay, folks. Rip me a new one.

Make the duration instantaneous, unless you want the blending to be dispelled.

Also, while it's nice to have a spell, all you've really done is said "You must be this tall to perform this MTP." At the very least, a spell of this nature should create some vague guidelines rather than just say "roll some dice to see if you actually succeed." One way would be to make it essentially an "add a template" spell that creates a new creature that can breed true.

Prak_Anima wrote:Also, while it's nice to have a spell, all you've really done is said "You must be this tall to perform this MTP." At the very least, a spell of this nature should create some vague guidelines rather than just say "roll some dice to see if you actually succeed." One way would be to make it essentially an "add a template" spell that creates a new creature that can breed true.

True. Gotta hash out that stuff.

Well, it's a start anyway.

I don't think you really want a single spell that does all of these - there's a bunch of different kinds of creatures whose existence is explained by "a wizard did it", and different kinds should be created by different spells. Hybrid beasts and other low-int non-magical mostly-from-scratch monsters should probably be an Astral Construct style set of menus, probably bottoming out at 3rd level spells with mouse-sized things like Mimmoths. Even for those, I'd make them a bit more of a project - nothing should be as obnoxious as RAW magic item creation, but it shouldn't be done in a day. For fairly basic alterations to an existing creature (CR +1 templates, minor adjustments to ability scores), you'd probably want a different set of rules, maybe even a simple spell with a minimum caster level based off the CR or HD of the starting creature. Adding non-standard magical abilities, creating a sentient species from scratch, or other similar things should probably be more along the lines of epic spells - a bunch of costs and limitations, and then you spend forever actually making it happen.

Yeah, that would really be ideal, but if you did want a single spell, you could do worse than working in templates, a genericized material component (bit of whatever you're mixing in) and some handwavium.

I would go the route of using Punnet squares-ish style stuff and so have a whole bunch of rolls (representing it being a long and arduous process.) For each trait in which the parent species differed, you would randomly determine which one they got; a roll which could be influenced by the magician spending time and gold beforehand to weigh the odds, but which they could never be entirely sure of. That way your octopus-Elf might come out with the unexpected ability to squirt ink or severe agoraphobia or some other unforeseen consequence.

Now naturally you could do the thing several times until you came up with something you liked. This is a good thing because it means that a) your tunnels are littered with the bodies of your lab failures (or the surrounding countryside is ravaged by them), making it fun for adventurers; b) you're constantly fiddling with your formula and trying to improve it, which is utterly appropriate for mad-scientist type wizards; and c) at some point you'll throw up your hands and say "fuck it, close enough" which will lead to gloriously, characterfully imperfect creations.

You could also take a leaf out of Dying Earth's book and have a pair of rolls at the end: "does it live?" and "does it try to kill you?" Everyone has to die sometime, and being devoured by one's own lab creation is a suitably impressive way for wizards to do so.

Personally I think "Create Owlbear" should be a custom spell. If you research it, you are the Owlbear creator, and if you don't show it to anyone then no one else can do it. So some other wizard can be known for her Froghemoths instead, and a third for his Unipegataurs.

Material Components are obviously an Owl, and a Bear. Casting time is stupid long, like a month. If you want a breeding pair you make two of them, or preferably about 500.


Of course, in ACKS, it's just a thing Wizards can do on their off days. Even Halflings are just a Wizard did it, and every monster is too. Gnolls are like a 4th-tier crossbreed, they just get messier and meaner as you go.