Misspells

Bonus XP if you know who this is!

When you write as much as I do, you get used to dealing with typographical errors. Some of them are rather amusing – I remember one blog post in which some room trap involved a wench rather than a winch lifting something heavy. I suppose anybody who has ever visited modern D&D message boards knows about that game’s very mysterious “rouge” class (which I have now decided I am going to write).

One area in which I have made more than a few errors, and repeated errors at that, is with spell names. Sometimes, these screwed up spell names actually make a sort of weird sense, and it occurred to me that errors in spelling on scrolls might lead to some amusement in a game of D&D (et. al.) Grammatically incorrect scrolls could be a new category of cursed magic item – the magic-user thinks they’re casting one thing, but discover their spell has a different effect.

A few ideas follow:

Altar Self: The caster is turned into an altar for the duration of the spell. Note sure if I want to know where the holy water comes from.

Animate Trope: This one takes some work for the GM. Think of a role playing trope and make it come to life (literally) during the game.

Baste: Warm meat juice is squirted on the caster, making them more delicious and stickier.

Blank: The caster’s face disappears for the duration of the spell.

Cane of Cold: A walking stick made of ice appears in your hand. Feel free to shake it angrily at your foes.

Charm Parson: As charm person, but it only works on clerics and druids (and the like).

Dorkness: The lights stay on, but the caster becomes socially awkward (Charisma 5) for duration of the spell.

Find Familiar: More of an incorrect inflection than misspelling, this spell causes they caster to find strangers strangely familiar. He just knows he knows them from somewhere, and it’s maddening that he cannot think of who they are. As a result of this frustration, he suffers a -1 penalty to Will saves for the duration of the spell.

Obscuring Mast: The mast of a ship grows from the ground right in front of somebody, obscuring their vision until they move out of the way.

Slaw: A jar of coleslaw appears.

Spectral Ham: A ghostly swine appears and otherwise acts as the spectral hand spell. This one might be an improvement over the original.

Summon Munster: Roll randomly on a d10: (1-2) Herman (i.e. a goofy flesh golem); (3-4) Grandpa (i.e. a vampire); (5-6) Eddie (i.e. a 1 HD werewolf); (7-8) Lily (not sure here – she’s Dracula’s daughter); (9-10) Marilyn (i.e. human female with high Charisma).

Tireball: A belted radial is launched bouncing towards a target point, and then explodes with a loud noise, sending shreds of rubber out. Basically as a fireball, without the “fire” damage and dealing minimum damage within the blast radius.

Have at it folks – I’m sure these can be improved upon and better versions can be invented.