1. Collective Unconscious Desire for Suicide
The biological instinct to survive and the intrinsic arrogant assumption of importance in all self-aware beings merely delude the mind about the ultimate truth about the universe: It hates you because you exist and it wants you to die, and sooner or later it will kill you and you will turn to dust. Yet deep below conscious thought, the self knows this to be true and longs to satisfy the universe's desires. The sum of this desire in all beings has become inde- pendently sentient in another realm, and with the casting of this spell the membrane between worlds is sundered and the submerged living thought fights to become an active idea.
Everyone that the caster is aware of in the imme- diate area (including the caster) must make a saving throw versus Magic every Round. If they fail, instead of their desired action (even if it was no action at all) they will attempt to harm themselves in the most severe manner possible. If there is a conve- nient cliff or spiked pit, a character will fling himself over the edge. If he possesses poison, he will drink it. If nothing obvious is available, a character will attack himself with his weapons, doing 1d6 damage each Round with no roll needed to hit. Those with no other options will simply slam their heads into the wall or floor, doing 1d2 damage each Round. Only when all affected characters successfully save
in a Round and/or are unconscious or completely incapacitated will the effect pass.
2. Disruption of the Universal Order
All of reality is structured by laws and rules which allow it to function, all administered by a petty tyrant, but a disruption of the normal flow of time and causality changed this, putting a new petty
tyrant in charge in a way that threatens the cohe- sion of creation. The Referee must randomly select one player in the group and hand over all adventure materials to that player, who is now the Referee of the group. The previous Referee must then create a brand new, 0xp character. The new Referee must continue the current adventure being played and run it impartially. If the ex-Referee is able to level up his character by the end of the adventure, then everything returns to normal. If he does not, the temporary Referee's character gains a level, and a different random player becomes Referee and will run the next adventure. The former Referee will regain his seat when either his character levels up or he is randomly selected to be the Referee again. If the ex-Referee's character dies before the end of an adventure, then every character (except for the temporary Referee's) loses one level, and all magic items carried by the party (except for those carried by the temporary Referee's player) permanently lose their enchantment.
3. Fear of a Blackened Planet
When is the end of the world? Tomorrow? Next year? In a thousand years? Today? What will cause it? Will pestilence scrape every last living thing from the planet? Will it be the Last Judgment of the creator? A magical blasphemy of great power? Will the almighty sun burn off our water and air in a thousand thousand thousand years' time? Everyone knows that nothing lasts forever, but who knows when and how the end will come? Our reality is governed by physical laws mutable only by magic and divine will. Yet other realities are different. In some of those, imagination and thought create reality.
The combined sum of mankind's apocalyptic fears will stream through the portal between worlds, infecting all living creatures within 240'. Every such creature must make a saving throw against Para- lyzation or fall into a catatonic state for the next 2d100 weeks. Catatonic characters are conscious, will walk if physically led, but will take no action on their own. They will not defend themselves if attacked, nor will they eat, drink or remove cloth- ing before relieving themselves. Those who succeed their saving throw will begin to hoard survival
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materials—food and water, mostly, but also weap- ons and other gear that would be useful to living alone in the wilderness. All characters will seek to gain and hoard such materials by any means neces- sary. If they already have some such material to hand and are weaker than others who seek it, they will flee. Animals will be slain for food and fur, as will rivals for their precious resources. When no rivals are nearby, a character will take his supplies and go as far into the wilderness as possible to avoid other scroungers. Characters can make a saving throw versus Magic after every damaging blow they strike against another of the same race to shrug off the effects, or if alone can make a saving throw weekly.
4. Imaginary Equation, Incorrect yet True
Make have is the to and of them meaning numbers power order no sufficient no. 1 ≠ 1. a = b, b = c, c > a. 0 > ∞. f ≠ f. a + a = a. (x + 1)² = x. To act player must roll dice not his own, multiple dice only multiple owners, roll unimportant just pile of dice with most owners wins. Count sideways, subtract behind. No decision = no action. All actions accompanied by spontaneous spellcasting of 1d4 level random spell. Random targets, in hindsight calculated. Clerics retain faculties, keeps time slipping, must kill the stalwart stabilitist to stabilize. Kill until it is dead. First to next sleep dies as brain flees.
5. Lament of a Mother for her Dead Child
In a world where the religious consider it their duty to slay those that have slightly different beliefs, in a world where plague and disease are common- place and skilled medical care is rare, in a world where rulers believe that they have true dominion over their subjects by birthright, in a world where eldritch scholars crack the shell between worlds to summon unknown things to do their bidding, it is sometimes difficult to remember that life indeed has value. If you ever need be reminded of this, ask a mother who has had to bury her son.
Piercing the cosmic reservoir where the sum of this feeling has collected will fill all in the area with an acute sense of guilt and disgust concerning vio- lence and conflict. Everyone involved will lay down their arms and cease hostility. None of those present can ever take any action which will result in harming
any of the others present. A successful saving throw versus Magic must be made if an affected charac- ter wants to take an offensive action against anyone else, even if that person is himself being violent. However, these restrictions only apply to those of the same race as the character in question.
6. Lust of a Betrayed Lover
Thoughts are not formless things. Every thought we have, every impulse we feel, is a creature from another realm leaking through the fabric of exis- tence. Our personalities, our philosophies, are formed by the coincidence of which of these entities we are more attuned to at the random periods when we are most impressionable. Our proclivity for indi- viduality and need for personalities to make that happen enrages Those From Beyond. It steals parts of them and their realms, it fills their existence with the feedback of thoughts and contemplations which in their world were never meant to be intertwined, without the context, without the knowledge of tem- poral cause-and-effect—time does not move there as it does here. Imagine every moment of an intense love affair turned bad, from the first meeting to the last bitter parting, separated and then experienced in random order. And then some foolish mage med- dling with forces that he neither understands nor can control, pulls that collection of moments into our world. People are going to die.
All characters within the local area (to be deter- mined by the situation) roll 1d6. Those that roll a 1 are at fault for the situation. All characters not at fault will become allies in the drive to hunt down, subdue, and mutilate the genitals of all who are at fault. After this is done, all who are not at fault must make a saving throw versus Magic. Those who fail will seek to kill the parties at fault, and all who stand in their way of doing so. The effect ends only when all of the characters at fault have been dealt with, although they will not be hostile with any of the characters present who are not at fault , even if they were hostile or longtime enemies before Summon
142 Rules & Magic If nobody is at fault, then things will get ugly. All characters become obsessed and fixated on one random other character in the vicinity, and will attempt to have sex with that character—at any cost. The character will first attempt to subdue the subject of his obsession, to unconscious if he can or death if he must, before having his way. Male- female pairings will result in conception, and 10% of male-male pairings will as well. The offspring will be an otherworldly creature—use these Summon
charts to determine exactly what, assuming a 1 HD creature—which will do 1d10 damage to a woman carrying it as it is born, 2d10 to a man. The effect ends for a character when his lust is sated.
7. Memories of Pre-Conception
Do you remember anything from before you were born? What about before you were conceived? Is your essence simply a result of biological forces which go into motion as your father's sperm pene- trates your mother's egg? Or is that intrusion itself a cosmic event, opening a gateway and trapping a free spirit into a mortal form? What were you before you were you? You were nothing really; nothing impor- tant or else you would not have been weak enough to be trapped in a physical shell. You were a minor element of a greater reality, but without the gracious ignorance of insignificance that mortality grants a being. You had no self, no will, while at the same time being able to feel. These memories stream through the existential wall, reminding everyone just who they really are. Or perhaps it is a lie as cer- tain parties take advantage of a person's inability to conceptualize nonexistence.
Everyone present needs to roll 1d20, Wisdom modifiers apply. If there is a tie for the highest- roll, those tied will fight to determine the true high roller. The highest rolling character has been infiltrated by a (slightly) greater entity which sees an opportunity to rule. This character retains all intelligence, while all other characters are reduced to an effectively mindless state while still retaining all physical and class abilities. They will obey all orders given to them by the leader character and completely disregard all features of the material world unless explicitly instructed to interact with them. The effects will last for as many weeks as the
difference between the character's d20 roll and the leader's d20 roll. When all followers are free of the influence, the leader character will return to normal as well.
8. Regret for Unchosen Possibilities
Every decision you make, even one so inconse- quential as which side of a piece of toast to first bite into, splits the time-line. As you continue making decisions, alternate versions of you have made different decisions and their lives play out differently as a result. An infinite number of time- lines have been created by each and every person and creature that exists. And this result brings the knowledge of all those alternate timelines crash- ing into the brains of all present. While there will be momentary relief at the confirmation of most decisions bringing about a better life than what might have been, there will be hundreds, thou- sands, even millions of alternate timelines which resulted in greater success and greater glory. The negative consequences of choosing the life being led will be made plain.
This will result in every character present losing all confidence in themselves and second-guessing every action that they are going to take. The result- ing failures only further degrade their confidence. Every character nearby gains a –1 penalty to every roll he has to make. Every time a roll is failed, the penalty increases one point for the individual character who failed the roll. Succeeding in a roll does not break the penalty, just prevents it from advancing. Only by making a perfect roll (before modifiers) on a single die no smaller than a d10, for example, rolling 10 on a d10, 12 on a d12, and 20 on a d20, will the character regain enough confidence such that all penalties end.
9. Space Between the Ticks of a Clock
All of the time between counted time exists... some- where. Here it comes crashing through like a wave, disrupting local time. The Referee rolls 1d10, and every character within 120' of the caster needs a d10 rolled for them as well. Begin counting down from 10 as if this is Initiative for a combat Round, but only the characters that rolled 10 get to act (if more than one character rolled the same number, run
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this as a regular combat Round with Initiative with only those that rolled 10 involved). For the next Segment (say, 9), all of the characters who rolled that number and all the characters that had rolled a higher number have a normal combat Round. Con- tinue the countdown down to 1. The characters that rolled the same number as the Referee are directly attacked by the lost time—roll a number of d6s equal to the Segment number (each character gets a separate roll) and add it to their age. If the time gets to attack at least one character, then the entire effect ends after the countdown gets to 1. If the time attacks on a Segment that no one rolled, then the Referee must roll another d10 roll and do another iteration. Note that moving outside of the 120' area does not end the effect nor is a new character entering the 120' area caught up in the effect—it is the characters in the initial area that are affected, not the area itself. The entire 10-to-1 sequence (or sequences) takes place before the next Seg- ment of regularly rolled Initiative—less than a second. As long as the sequence does not end, it is quite possible for a character to move around and cause great mischief to those not similarly affected.
10. World Under Water
Instead of summoning a creature, a portal was opened to a dimen- sion of infinite liquid. Whether this liquid is something mundane like water or something more exotic is up to the Referee. The sea level will begin to rise immediately, worldwide, at a rate of 10' per Turn until the water reaches a level 50' higher than the caster was when the spell was cast. Once it reaches this level, it will drain away at a rate of 1d10 feet per day.
The Referee is of course free to add his own Forms, Appendages, and Powers to the tables, replace or remove certain powers, or devise his own unique tables to suit his individual campaigns, as well as invent specific Thaumaturgic Circles which have more specific effects.
Summon spells to call specific beings can be
researched (or discovered). They will be first
level spells but must be researched as if they were a level equal to the summoned creature’s Hit Dice + Number of Powers.
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