Wednesday, May 6, 2020

The Wish Spell



I remember the first time I sat with my group and made ADnD 2nd Edition characters and the conservation swung around to the Wish spell and we all marveled over the possibilities and cracked jokes about how Todd, our DM, would screw us over with the wording.

I won't lie, the Wish spell had only played a part in one of my campaigns, the only DnD campaign I've ever run from 1st to 20th level. This was a few years ago using 5E and the characters needed a Wish to kill the Tarrasque (I don't know where I picked up this being necessary to kill it, but that's how my multiverse works). I was super hyped to run that fight and because I hadn't caught on to how CR worked in 5E it was a pretty short fight. The characters...or more precisely the players were too adept with their abilities and the Tarrasque was a chump.

What's interesting is that a Wish spell and the Tarrasque are part of the conversation with one of my current DnD 5E games on Roll20.

While not all of my DnD games take place on the same Prime Material Plane, they all share the same multiverse. For instance, in my multiverse, the Tarrasque is Vorel, the older brother of Bahamut and Tiamat. Tiamat is dead and has been replaced by Ashardalon. St. Cuthbert has disappeared from Oerth because he was trapped within Demiplane of Dread. A Wish is needed to kill the Terrasque and the Tarrasque only appears when one of the God of Dragons is killed. Last time it appeared because Tiamat was assassinated.

Wish is not a spell that a caster can learn. There are always five Wish scrolls available and they are all guarded by Sphinxes. The big drawback to the Wish spell is that the person who casts it (and anyone can) is completely consumed in the process, their body and soul empowering the magic they invoke with a small portion used to create and hide the Wish spell that replaces it and create the Sphinx including their lair. Essentially, when you cast a Wish spell you die and it is impossible to resurrect you. Unless, of course, someone else wants to cast a Wish to do it.

I gave the Players a Wish spell last session and one of my players cast it. Now they have traveled back in time and are about to face the Tarrasque. But that's a story for another post.

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