The Complete Works Of Zorin Greystar

Part 5

Damn, Not A Lot Of Series Make It To Five

A New Beginning, I Guess

Here we are at what is probably the end, as I’ve reached the new spells section, which is the last part of note. On the other hand, it’s also more than a fourth of the book’s length, so… I dunno. We’ll see how much there is to comment on, in praise, mockery, or both, and how distracted I am, and so on. Look, folks, you get the quality you pay for here, and this site is free, so… do the math.

Come to think of it, “do the math” is a good slogan for this whole book! Ba-dum bum!

See what I mean about getting what you pay for?

But anyway…

Spells

Alright, already wasted time between writing the header and getting to here skimming social media, so this is off to a great start. But I am writing…. now!

These Go To Twelve!

Skimming the list of new spells, I see they do, indeed, go past 9th level, as I suspected in… uh… some prior part of this series. I commented when reviewing The Necromican, that, despite what Old School Revisionists say, real Old School gaming was not all copper pieces, pouring water on the floor to see where it pooled, and “fantasy fucking Vietnam”. I’m sure some people played that way. Boring people. For me, and my friends, old-school was over-the-top munchkinism! Will this book, written in the tail end of that glorious era, continue in that tradition, or will the 12th level spells be kinda meh? Come with me, and we shall find out… together.

OK, first thing to note, the spells have a ‘magical casting time’ and a ‘clerical casting time’, either of which can also be ‘n/a’, meaning, I suppose, that casters of that type can’t cast it. As Druids and Illusionists were listed under the experience and saving throw charts, they existed in the Zorin-verse, so I’m wondering if we’ll see spells noted as being for them, but not ‘standard’ MUs or clerics.

As usual, I won’t be commenting on every spell, just that strike me, for some reason, as comment-worthy. And we start with…

First Level

Dispel Type 1: This spell allows you to dispel… your own spells. Hey, don’t laugh! Several times in the BECMI game I’m playing in, it was problematic that I could not end some spells I had cast when I wanted them to end (vs. the listed duration), and I wasn’t going to waste the Dispel Magic I could cast once per freakin’ day to do so! Most modern incarnations of D&D-derived games have ongoing effects be dismissable at-will, or by a single round of concentration, but that wasn’t so in the old days.

Second Level

Cat Sleep: I’d make this 1st level, but it’s an interesting concept:  The target sleeps lightly, will hear any unusual sounds, and is considered awake for purposes of surprise/initiative. Make it affect multiple creatures, and it would be a good 2nd level spell in modern games, esp. if given to rangers, druids, or especially assassins. (I miss the 3.x assassins who had their own spell lists.)

Magic Missile II: I blorped over Magic Missile I, as it seemed just a redundant restatement of the classic Magic Missile, but now I see the pattern — instead of low-level spells becoming more effective at higher levels, they just have higher-level versions of the spells. Given this is how D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e do it, it’s fairly prescient, though those systems have a more elegant notational structure. No matter — Zorin was genuinely ahead of the curve here. Also: Double Lacunae alert!

their exact number is not ??? to observers or victims. (I presume ‘known’)
That is, one cannot tell a ??? level by how (I presume ‘casters’)

(A quick note: After reading through the entire list, this was not a consistent pattern; there are a number of spells where the effect depends on caster level. And there is no Magic Missile III, IV, etc. Just I and II. Ah well.)

Third Level

Dispel Type II: “This spell affects any one spell, and some magical ???” I think “effects”? Reading down, though, it also mentions “items”. And there’s some complex stuff about how if an effect relies on multiple casters (one cast a ‘water breathing’ spell, another, higher level, made it permanent) how to resolve that. And, of course, there’s math: % Chance to dispel = 5 (L – C) – S + 2 . Not to be confused with: % Chance to dispel = 5 (L – I – P) + 2 5, which is for items.  An aside: This spell takes twice as long for clerics to cast as mages, which actually seems to be a pattern — not sure why. Perhaps because clerics had a better AC and ‘to hit’ rolls and didn’t have to spend all their time casting spells? That would integrate, a bit, with how the revised combat works and how a well-prepared caster can basically machine-gun multiple spells in one round, as previously discussed.

Fourth Level

Empathy/Atrophy: Alright, this spell takes longer for magic-users than for clerics, so maybe the different casting times are to make some spells more preferred for one class while not banning them entirely? The “Empathy” version will transfer all disease and damage from the target to the caster (possibly killing them, as there’s no way to take only some of it, and this is explicitly called out — it’s not an oversight). If reversed, it becomes ‘Atrophy’ and sends the caster’s damage to another creature, and… look. ‘Atrophy’ simply isn’t the opposite of ’empathy’. Sorry. It just isn’t. “Antipathy”? Even “Cruelty”? But not “Atrophy”.

Magic Armor: This spell creates magical armor, giving the caster an Armor Class of L. Wait, what? No, that’s what it says!

The new armor class is determined by the following equation:
L = Level of caster

In case you were wondering, Zorin does use descending AC, so AC 0 is better than AC 4, and so on. So, uh, clearly there’s a missing part of the equation. Possibly, it is ’10-L’, which would make some sense, but there’s also a note to ’round up’, so there’s a division that has to be made somewhere, and I don’t know what it could be.

Lacunaes: Not even once!

Fifth Level

Protection From Gasses: Essential when everyone stops at Taco Bell before the game. Hah!

Seventh Level

(Nothing too interesting for 6th level)

Protection From Curses: Curses weren’t very common in any of the games I played in the era, and this is awfully high level for this kind of spell, so I assume it’s an outgrowth of the specific style of play Zorin got up to. Of note is that it partially protects from ‘cursed’ magic items, giving the specific example of a -2 dagger which also drives the wielder insane. It would protect from the ‘insane’ part, but not the -2 part. I see a lot of arguments over interpreting this.

Protection From Normal Weapons: This is an oddly-specialized spell that makes the caster into a creature which can only be hit by magic weapons, following the formula “(L / 6) – 1, round down”, but capped at a minimum of +1 and a maximum of +4. Useful, I suppose, but if you’re a 14th level magic user and you’re in melee combat, something has gone very, very wrong. On the other hand, if you want to wade into an army of creatures with non-magic weapons and go “Neener neener, you can’t hurt me!”, this can be useful.

Eighth Level

Tactile Protection: OK, this one is weird, and it is, IMO, very over-leveled. This would be an interesting 2nd or 3rd level spell, but 8th? Basically, it doesn’t make you desolid, it makes you feel desolid. You can still get hit by an axe, but the person swinging the axe doesn’t feel like they hit you (although they can see the blood, see you wince, and so on). It provides a small bonus to AC and a small reduction in damage done because it confuses warriors who need to feel their blade burying itself in your flesh, or something. D-. 

Ninth Level

Final Strike: At this point, they call in the Pinkertons. No, rather, it’s an example of a fairly common concept in supplements of this era — it lets the mage go out with a bang, and not the kind you see on PornHub (though that would be my current PC’s preferred method). Well, I mean, I think it does, as we have a Lacunae Alert! “It allows the mage to store 1 level of spells per experience level to be released at the time of the ???” Probably “mage’s death”.  OK, double lacunae, and this one is really confusing: “Release time is 1 segment, directly the ???” I genuinely am not sure how to finish that sentence. 

Zaardoz Spell of Soul Stealing: Summons Sean Connery in a speedo.

Tenth Level

Elessa’s Adamantine Arrows: A little less impressive than the 10th level spells from other supplements, but not useless. It summons magic arrows, 1 per caster level, that do 3d10 damage, but with some neat fillips: They are ‘real’, so not subject to dispel magic, and they are particularly effective against structures.

Improved Shield: Yeah, it got better after an awkward first season where they had to spin their wheels waiting for the Captain America 2 tie-in episodes. Where was I? Oh, yeah, this creates multiple magical shields, one per “5 experience”, which I guess means “5 levels”. Each blocks 20 points of damage, shattering if more than that is done, and each can only block one attack at a time. Given the kind of damage being dished out at the point where this spell is viable, it seems notably under-powered – especially since, as written, a volley of normal arrows would easily overwhelm it. A 20th level mage could have only four such shields, so the fifth arrow, and all following, would turn them into a pincushion.

Eleventh Level

Teleportation Type III: In essence, this is “Teleport Without Error”, but only when you’re dead. It’s a triggered spell that will return your corpse to some designated location, such as Sam’s Adventuring Hut, where you have a cleric on-call at all times for just such an emergency. Oh, and unless it’s also cast on your clothing and items (each requiring a separate casting) you will arrive naked. This can make paying Sam’s bill rather difficult. I recommend having a good line of credit. It’s not clear if you need to ‘reserve’ the spell points expended until the spell is triggered, but I assume so — otherwise, you would simply cast it many times during downtime prior to each adventure, so all your gear was covered. (If you cast it in on a bag of holding, does it teleport empty, or does it include all items within it? Heck, the same can be asked of a mundane backpack.)

Twelfth Level

Indestructibility: Rather than making the caster indestructible, as you’d expect from a 12th level spell, it merely makes an item indestructible. For 12 hours per level. But you can cast it on a person — and it kills them in 1d10 turns. 

In Conclusion….

Sorry, Zorin, your post-9th level spells are not up to ‘Summon Black Hole’ standards.

Lo, There Shall Be… An Ending!

And after five parts, we are done! Overall, a bit dryer than most unofficial books of the era, which went deep into gonzo, but with some surprisingly forward-thinking mechanical ideas, that were hampered by poor and over-written explanation.