CHAPTER 4
The Dark Art
Mirtul 17, Year of the Bow
Three days after skirting Carcathen, we sighted a westward sail—a Nelantherese
caravel, Retaliatior, standing high in the wind with a full complement of
pirates. We tried to beat them to the Race, but they caught us off Nemesser’s
Tower, though not within sight of land, or we would have surely been lost. As I was
calling the crew to clear for action, one of our passengers, the Lady Doctor
Tolbert, came on deck and watched the approaching ship with a look of mixed
disgust and annoyance.
“My husband hated pirates,” the Lady said. I hastily agreed, for she was a
sorceress of sorts, as well as a surgeon. In the past, when the topic of her
husband came up, her eyes became distant and sad, almost dangerous. “Gerard’s last
action was against pirates in these waters,” she said to no one in particular,
before withdrawing below.
The final action with Retaliator came as a surprise. Once the caravel closed
to boarding distance and called for our surrender, Lady Ellandra came back on
deck, this time shielded by a cold, blue aura. She began to speak in a soft and
deadly whisper, her gaze fixed on the wildly shouting men on the pirate ship’s
quarter deck. Many of the rogues had climbed up into the rigging, where they
fired arrows onto our ship. One of the bolts struck Ellandra square in the face,
but it was brushed aside by her magical warding.
As the Lady intoned the last syllable of her dreadful spell, a greenish vapor
formed in the rigging above the pirate’s quarter deck. Wailing resounded from
the skyward cloud, like a distant chorus of lamentations. Ghostly images swirled
in the haze. The billowing mist quickly descended onto the decks of
Retaliator, and horrific screams rose in a deafening crescendo from the ghastly cloud,
echoed now by the terrified men in its midst. Shriveled bodies plummeted from the
rigging, each with a sickening thud, onto the decks below. One by one, the
pirates’ flesh withered like burned paper, and the scant survivors beheld many
more vaporous ghosts now swirling in the foul mist around them. And after the
eternity of a few seconds, the howling cloud began to dissipate, leaving behind the
wracked and twisted corpses of Retaliator’s crew. The pirate ship sailed on,
crewed only by the dead, fixed in its final course by a blasted corpse whose
corrupted hands still clenched the helm.
Once the distant screaming abated, the Lady warned us to leave their ship
behind as a warning to others. She then demurely withdrew again to her cabin, where
she stayed for the rest of the voyage to Calimshan. But the remainder of the
trip was not a happy one, for every night we could hear her muffled sobs,
calling out to her long-dead husband, echoing throughout the ship.
—From the log of Waterdeep’s Pennance,
Captain George Toal commanding
The most dreaded powers of a wizard come from the spells at his or her
disposal. The Dark Art has many uses, the least of which brings death in a horrible
and excruciating manner. The necromancer can drain the life force of a victim,
command shadowy spirits of the netherworld, or animate the remains of the dead.
Yet, for all the attention focused on the manifestly evil spells of the
archetypal sorcerer, little concern has been devoted to exploring the more useful and
even beneficial applications of the so-called Dark Art. In addition to its
stereotypical negative uses, necromancy can also heal the afflicted, provide
protection from the dead, and inform the living.
This chapter explores both the beneficial and baneful sides of this feared
school of magic. First we present a few guidelines for choosing necromantic spells
to reflect a wizard’s alignment. Finally, the majority of the chapter
describes over two dozen new wizard spells.
The massive amount of necromantic spells available to wizards can be a bit
overwhelming for DMs accustomed to the limited selection in the PHB. Appendices at the end of the book have been designed to ease the burden of
NPC spell selection for the DM. Appendix One contains all spells available to
necromancer wizards, listed by level and general application. Appendix Two lists
all of the spells in the expanded school of Necromancy, compiled from this and
other sources. Finally, the DM may use the spell index in Appendix Four to
easily locate necromantic spells in this book and other references.
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