Advanced Rituals allow spellcasters to weave multiple spells into a single spell with a more advanced outcome. They take more time, may consume more specific components, and may involve multiple spellcasters. Advanced Rituals expand the capability of ritual casting. Ritual casting takes time and occurs only outside combat and within the story and exploration of roleplaying. Advanced Rituals may be used as a plot device, a new player reward, and a flavorful creativity outlet for players. Please consult the rules on Advanced Rituals for details on how these rituals may be used.
Advanced Rituals are rarely written as "spells" in the tidy way a modern arcanist expects. They tend to be preserved as workings, ceremonies, contracts, songs, diagrams, and procedures because the magic lives as much in sequence and circumstance as it does in words. A character might discover an Advanced Ritual as a chapter in a massive grimoire, bound in lacquered hide and chained to a lectern, where the ink changes color under moonlight and the margins are crowded with generations of corrections ("Do not speak the Third Name before the salt is laid"). Others are found as folio packets in a cracked reliquary: thin sheets of hammered metal or vellum stitched with silver thread, each page a single step of the rite, meant to be laid out on the ground like a map. In temples, they may be preserved as liturgical appendices, call-and-response passages hidden inside hymnals, requiring the right choir to even complete the sentence.
Just as often, Advanced Rituals survive outside books entirely. Some are architectural: carved into the walls and ceiling of a vast cavern where the stone itself forms the diagram, so the caster must stand at specific points and speak upward into glyphs older than language. You might find a rite etched as a spiral of runes down a forgotten stairwell, each landing another instruction, with the "final word" only visible from the bottom looking back up—meaning you literally cannot read the whole thing without committing to the descent. In ruins, a ritual might be encoded as a mosaic floor or stained-glass constellation, where the sequence is learned by walking the pattern at the correct pace while holding the proper components. And in the darkest places, the working is preserved as a living record: a bound spirit that recites the rite only to those who bargain correctly, or a chorus of preserved skulls whose harmonies supply the missing parts a lone caster can’t pronounce.
Acquiring an Advanced Ritual is less like learning a spell and more like recovering a method, an orchestration with choreography. A character might need to copy it by hand under dangerous conditions, decipher a missing stanza, or perform a lesser version to prove they understand the cadence before the full working reveals itself. Some are traded as contraband, sold in candlelit backrooms as performance scripts, disguised as playbooks or shipping ledgers—while others are granted as honors by orders that guard them jealously. Even after discovery, mastery usually requires practice: the first attempt is rehearsal, the second is competence, and only then does the ritual become something the lead caster can reliably conduct -- especially when choral casting, rare components, or an attuned location turns the rite from a procedure into a moment that the world remembers.
Below are roughly 140 unique recommended advanced rituals which may be discovered in your campaigns.
None.
You conjure a thick fog bank and stitch a swallowing hush into its drifting edge. Within the shroud, sound dies in the mist—perfect for infiltration, covert meetings, or a quiet approach that must leave no audible trace.
Specific effects: When completed, a 20-foot-radius sphere of heavy fog (heavily obscuring all creatures and objects within) is anchored at a chosen point, and a 20-foot-radius sphere of magical silence is woven through it — no sound can be created or pass through the overlapping area. Creatures inside are simultaneously blinded by the fog and unable to produce audible sound, preventing both sight-based and sound-based detection. The fog drifts with wind as normal, carrying the silence along with it.
You vanish from sight and soften your passage into something the world struggles to remember. Footprints fade, disturbed dust settles, and the path behind you looks untouched—ideal for scouting, heists, and controlled retreats.
Specific effects: When completed, the subject becomes invisible (attacks end the effect as normal) and simultaneously gains a +10 bonus to all Dexterity (Stealth) checks while leaving no tracks, scent, or disturbed ground. Detecting the subject requires both a means of seeing through invisibility and the ability to beat a Stealth modifier that begins at +10 before any other bonuses — two independent obstacles that must be overcome simultaneously.
You draw a pocket of living dark and braid concealment through it, so even close eyes struggle to confirm what's there. It's a classic ambush working: a hidden operative inside a lightless veil, repositioning without betraying their outline.
Specific effects: When completed, a 15-foot-radius sphere of magical darkness (impenetrable even by darkvision) is fixed at a point, and one invisible creature moves freely within it. Creatures that cannot see in magical darkness have no means of targeting the occupant at all; even those rare individuals who can see in magical darkness must still contend with the invisibility. The combination renders the subject effectively undetectable to almost any conventional perception.
You sweep a scene for lingering auras and then focus your attention into a single, conclusive reading. This ritual is favored by investigators and dungeon-delvers who need answers now—what was cast here, what item matters, and what magic is still “warm.”
Specific effects: When completed, the caster senses all magical auras within 30 feet and can identify the school of each (Detect Magic). For any object physically touched during that same window, the caster instantly learns its full magical properties, how to activate them, any required attunement, and its remaining charges (Identify) — without using a spell slot. The combined effect converts a vague "something is magical here" reading into an immediate, complete disclosure without a second casting.
You don't just decode language—you create true exchange. Words arrive with intent intact, idioms don't collapse into nonsense, and tone carries cleanly across cultures, making this rite invaluable for delicate parley and first contact.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster understands any spoken or written language for 1 hour (Comprehend Languages) and simultaneously speaks in a way any creature with a language comprehends perfectly, including nuance, idiom, and tone (Tongues). Comprehend Languages alone is one-directional; Tongues alone requires the caster to already speak the initiating words. Together they create genuine two-way universal communication — reading any text and speaking intelligibly to any creature simultaneously, for the full hour.
You secure an entry with stubborn arcana and set an invisible tripwire of warning around it. The result is simple and effective: a barrier that resists casual intrusion and a notice the moment someone tests it.
Specific effects: When completed, a chosen entry point is magically locked — the DC to force it or disable it magically is raised by 10 (Arcane Lock) — and simultaneously fitted with an invisible Alarm ward that alerts the caster (mental ping or audible bell at their choice) the moment any Tiny or larger creature crosses the threshold without a spoken passphrase. A creature that forces through the lock triggers the alarm in the same action; both defenses operate as one integrated barrier.
You bind a lock to a will and give it a voice—one that can challenge, warn, or deceive. This rite turns a doorway into a sentry: it can demand a passphrase, announce intruders, or bait the careless into revealing themselves.
Specific effects: When completed, a door, gate, or chest is magically locked (DC raised by 10 for Strength checks and bypass attempts) and fitted with a stored voice message of up to 25 words that triggers on any condition the caster specifies — such as any creature approaching, touching the handle, or uttering the wrong passphrase. The lock holds the barrier; the mouth challenges, warns, or misdirects. Together they create a sentry that both resists entry and speaks for itself.
You command a lock to yield while smothering the spell's telltale boom. It's the quintessential “heist-only” working—too slow for a frantic chase, but priceless when the plan demands a quiet breach.
Specific effects: When completed, one lock, bar, chain, or door (including one warded by Arcane Lock) opens or loosens, and a 20-foot-radius sphere of absolute silence surrounds the entry point for 1 minute. The distinctive resonant boom that Knock normally produces is entirely suppressed, and the sounds of the door, lid, or gate opening are swallowed with it. The result is a breach that leaves no audible trace — the impossibility the spell alone cannot achieve.
You inscribe a waiting ward that doesn't kill—it takes. When triggered, the glyph snaps like a chain, locking a trespasser in place long enough for guards to arrive or for an ambush to close cleanly.
Specific effects: When completed, an invisible glyph is inscribed on a surface (detected only with an Investigation check against the spell save DC). When any humanoid triggers the glyph's condition, Hold Person discharges — the target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become Paralyzed, with new saves each turn. The glyph waits indefinitely, delivers the paralysis the instant the trigger is met, and takes targets alive. No active watch is required.
You bottle destruction into a patient mark and leave it sleeping on stone, wood, or steel. When the ward awakens, it delivers a prepared blast—ideal for siege work, traps, and deterrents that don't require your presence.
Specific effects: When completed, an invisible glyph is inscribed on a surface that waits indefinitely for its trigger. When the trigger is met, a Fireball (8d6 fire damage, Dexterity save for half) detonates in a 20-foot radius centered on the glyph's location. Because the ward is invisible and its trigger is chosen by the caster, the blast arrives with no visible warning — a catastrophic explosion delivered from a patient, hidden inscription.
You raise a comfortable refuge and teach it caution. The hut becomes more than shelter: it's a camp that knows when someone approaches, buying you the precious moments that separate rest from ruin.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-radius hemispherical dome shelters up to 9 creatures for 8 hours (Leomund's Tiny Hut — wind, rain, and temperature controlled inside, impervious to passing creatures). Simultaneously, an Alarm ward is anchored at the dome's threshold: any Tiny or larger creature that crosses the perimeter without the passphrase immediately alerts the caster. The shelter provides true rest and the alarm provides early warning — so the party sleeps inside a refuge that knows when something approaches.
You combine protection with logistics, turning a safe camp into a supplied camp. This rite is beloved on long expeditions: it reduces the need for hunting, preserves momentum, and keeps the party fed without drawing attention.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-radius dome shelters up to 9 creatures for 8 hours, and enough food (45 pounds, feeding up to 15 Medium humanoids or 5 steeds) and 30 gallons of clean, fresh water appear inside. The combined effect allows a full party to rest, eat, and hydrate in magical safety without spending any carried rations or searching for water — a complete logistical solution for one night on the road.
You grant your companions command of the water's two worlds—below and above. Whether you must cross a lake under moonlight or walk a flooded corridor as if it were stone, this ritual turns a watery obstacle into a route.
Specific effects: When completed, up to 10 willing creatures can breathe underwater for 24 hours (Water Breathing), and simultaneously walk atop the surface of water and other liquids as if on solid ground — or choose to descend willingly (Water Walk). The combination gives complete command of an aquatic environment: full mobility above the waterline, full mobility below it, and the ability to transition freely between the two for the entire duration.
You weave swift ascent with a promise of mercy if the magic fails. The working is intentionally cautious: it enables aerial movement while ensuring a sudden fall doesn't become an epitaph.
Specific effects: When completed, a willing creature gains a flying speed of 60 feet for up to 10 minutes (Fly, concentration required). If concentration breaks — whether from damage, incapacitation, or spell disruption — Feather Fall immediately activates on the falling creature, reducing its descent to 60 feet per round and ensuring a safe landing. The combination eliminates the single greatest danger of magical flight: being knocked out of the sky and falling to death.
You turn walls and ceilings into stealthy roads. With this rite, the party can take the “impossible” route above a guard line, moving with spiderlike certainty while leaving almost nothing behind to be found later.
Specific effects: When completed, a willing creature moves freely on vertical surfaces and ceilings at full walking speed, with hands free (Spider Climb) for up to 1 hour. Simultaneously, that creature gains a +10 bonus to all Stealth checks and leaves no tracks, scent, or disturbed surface behind it (Pass without Trace). Any guard scanning a ceiling faces both the near-impossibility of spotting an invisible-quality mover and the complete absence of evidence that the route was ever used.
You don't rely on a single “no lies” circle—you pressure truth from two angles at once. Words are constrained, intent is read, and evasions become obvious, making this rite best suited to controlled social scenes rather than combat urgency.
Specific effects: When completed, creatures within a 15-foot-radius sphere cannot speak deliberate lies for up to 10 minutes (Wisdom save resists Zone of Truth). Simultaneously, the caster reads the surface thoughts of any creature in range (Detect Thoughts, Wisdom save to resist deeper probing), detecting evasive-but-technically-true statements as they form. The two layers work together: Zone of Truth blocks lies, and Detect Thoughts catches the evasions that technically-true speech permits.
You calm the room before you redirect it. This ritual is persuasion with safety rails—useful when you need compliance without panic, and when emotional volatility would make an ordinary suggestion brittle or dangerous.
Specific effects: When completed, creatures in a 20-foot-radius sphere are subjected to Calm Emotions (charmed creatures can be made indifferent; frightened creatures have the condition suppressed), eliminating the hostility or panic that would make a suggestion brittle. The caster then issues a Suggestion to one creature in that calmed state — a reasonable course of action lasting up to 8 hours on a failed Wisdom save. The calm creates the receptive condition; the suggestion then exploits it.
You lay illusion atop actual alteration, so the mask holds up to proximity and scrutiny. Where a simple glamour might fail under touch or odd angles, this rite anchors deception in real changed features.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster appears to be a different creature (Disguise Self — illusory changes to height, weight, features, and equipment, 1 hour) while simultaneously altering their physical body to match that appearance (Alter Self — actual physiological changes that survive physical contact, concentration up to 1 hour). A simple glamour fails under touch; Alter Self alone requires concentration and lacks fine illusory control. Together they produce a disguise that defeats both distant visual scrutiny and close physical examination.
You don a disguise and teach it to “read” correctly—or incorrectly—under magical inspection. The result is a counterfeit presence: a face for eyes, and a separate lie for divinations and aura-reading.
Specific effects: When completed, the target's magical aura is falsified for 24 hours — it reads as a chosen creature type or alignment to all divination spells (Nystul's Magic Aura) — while their visual appearance is altered for 1 hour (Disguise Self). Anyone checking both by eye and by magical inspection sees two coherent, synchronized lies: a matching false face and a false aura. The two deceptions reinforce each other rather than leaving gaps for a careful investigator to exploit.
You sharpen your sight for both concealed creatures and concealed workings. Invisible interlopers stand out, auras betray traps, and the usual “either/or” choice between seeing beings or seeing magic becomes unnecessary.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster can see invisible and ethereal creatures and objects (See Invisibility, up to 1 hour) and simultaneously detects all magical auras within 30 feet with their school of magic (Detect Magic, up to 10 minutes). The normal restriction — a caster must choose between seeing the invisible and sensing the magical — is eliminated. Hidden creatures and hidden workings are both revealed at the same time, removing the guesswork of sequential detection.
You locate a specific object and immediately “put eyes near it” to confirm the find. This is the working of recovery teams: identify where the prize is, then verify the surrounding situation before anyone risks a retrieval.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster senses the direction and approximate distance to any described object within 1,000 feet (Locate Object, 10-minute concentration window) and simultaneously projects an invisible clairvoyant sensor to a location they know — including the object's vicinity once detected — to see and hear remotely (Clairvoyance, up to 10 minutes). The result is both a directional fix and a visual confirmation: the working answers not just "where" but "what surrounds it."
You keep remains intact and then coax coherent answers from them. This ritual is a cornerstone of grim investigations: it buys you time, prevents further decay, and ensures the dead can still speak when you're ready to listen.
Specific effects: When completed, a corpse is preserved against decay for 10 days and its eligibility for Speak with Dead is sustained across that window (Gentle Repose), after which the caster questions it for up to 10 minutes with up to 5 questions (Speak with Dead). Normally Speak with Dead must be used immediately and expends a use of the body. This ritual allows the testimony to be taken on the caster's schedule and can be repeated within the preservation period without depleting the corpse's eligibility.
You draw a circle of warding and sanctify its intent, making it harder for hostile outsiders and influences to press through. It is a practical rite for safe rooms, summoning sites, and nights when the air feels watched.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-radius, 20-foot-tall cylinder of magical warding prevents specified creature types (aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, or undead) from voluntarily entering, suppresses their charm and possession abilities while near it, and bars them from making direct attacks against creatures inside (Magic Circle, 1 hour). Each creature inside also gains individual protection from the same types — their attacks against those creatures are made with disadvantage, and they cannot charm, frighten, or possess them (Protection from Evil and Good). The circle guards the perimeter; the individual protection guards the person.
You don't simply break a curse—you strip away the spellwork supporting it. This ritual is used when you suspect layered malice: hex plus hidden scaffolding, curse plus contingency, or an affliction anchored by a separate enchantment.
Specific effects: When completed, one curse is lifted from a creature or object (Remove Curse), and one separate magical effect active on the same target is simultaneously dispelled (Dispel Magic — automatic success for effects of 3rd level or lower; ability check for higher). The ritual specifically addresses layered afflictions: a hex held in place by a supporting enchantment, or a curse anchored by a contingency. Both layers are stripped in the same working.
You cleanse the body and then reinforce it against a second wave. This rite is favored in venomous regions and plague-warrens—places where “cured” can quickly become “reinfected” without ongoing protection.
Specific effects: When completed, one disease, one debilitating condition (blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned), or one ability score reduction is eliminated from the target (Lesser Restoration). Simultaneously, that same creature becomes immune to the poisoned condition and all poison damage for 1 hour (Protection from Poison). The cure and the prevention are delivered together — specifically designed for environments with ongoing toxic exposure where a single cure quickly becomes insufficient.
You join two lives with protective sympathy and then add a reserve of grit to the bond. This ritual is best cast before danger: it turns a fragile ally into someone who can survive the first brutal exchange.
Specific effects: When completed, a Warding Bond links the caster and one target: the target gains resistance to all damage, +1 to AC, and +1 to all saving throws, while the caster takes the same damage the target takes (1 hour). Aid simultaneously raises the target's hit point maximum and current hit points by 5. The bond provides resilience at cost to the caster; the Aid provides a buffer. Together they create the most protected party member possible from a two-spell working.
You create a dependable baseline defense and then reinforce it with a visible blessing. This is a “start-of-the-day” working—simple, efficient protection meant to carry you through the first surprise.
Specific effects: When completed, the target's AC is set to 13 + Dexterity modifier (Mage Armor, 8 hours — bypassing the need for armor) and simultaneously receives a +2 bonus to AC (Shield of Faith, concentration up to 10 minutes). While Shield of Faith's concentration holds, the effective AC is 15 + Dexterity modifier — the highest AC achievable from these two spells alone. When concentration ends, Mage Armor's 8-hour baseline continues providing its protection.
You harden flesh and toughen the body's surface into something closer to living armor. The ritual is slow but decisive—built for frontline work where endurance matters more than speed.
Specific effects: When completed, the target gains resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage (Stoneskin, concentration up to 1 hour, 100 gp component consumed) and their AC cannot drop below 16 regardless of equipment or conditions (Barkskin). All nonmagical weapon strikes deal half damage, and a minimum defensive floor is maintained simultaneously. The combination addresses both incoming damage quantity and defensive baseline — the essential needs of a frontline combatant.
You grant sight in darkness and teach the eyes to reject invisibility's lie. This rite is a delver's blessing: shadows lose their advantage, and unseen predators become merely predators.
Specific effects: When completed, a willing creature gains 60 feet of darkvision (or extends existing darkvision by 60 feet) for 8 hours (Darkvision), and for up to 1 hour simultaneously, that same creature can see invisible and ethereal creatures and objects as if they were visible (See Invisibility). For the overlapping hour, darkness and invisibility both fail as concealment tools. When See Invisibility expires, the darkvision continues for the remaining hours.
You flood a space with honest light and then peel away hostile spellwork that clings to it. This rite is performed before a breach or after a haunting—when you need an area cleared, not merely illuminated.
Specific effects: When completed, a 60-foot-radius sphere of bright light — which suppresses magical darkness — is fixed at a chosen point for 1 hour (Daylight). In the same action, Dispel Magic strips one active magical effect within range: automatic success for effects of 3rd level or lower, ability check for higher (Dispel Magic — instantaneous). The working clears both the darkness and the magic that generated it in a single casting, specifically countering the common tactical combination of a conjured darkness zone anchored by a separate spell.
You negotiate meaning with a creature and then give that creature a clear task and destination. In civilized lands it's quaint; in hostile wilderness it's a lifeline—messages delivered without roads, riders, or obvious tracks.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster communicates freely with a Tiny beast for 10 minutes (Speak with Animals), negotiating its willingness and suitability as a courier, before enchanting it with Animal Messenger to travel to a specific destination and deliver a prepared message of up to 25 words. Animal Messenger alone gives no opportunity to assess or communicate with the beast before committing to it. Speak with Animals first ensures the beast is willing, capable of reaching the destination, and fully briefed — a negotiated courier rather than a compelled one.
You search for traps with both mundane caution and arcane awareness. This rite doesn't just “ping danger”—it helps you interpret it, separating old mechanisms from fresh wards and telling you where caution must be absolute.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster becomes aware of the presence and general location of any trap within 120 feet (Find Traps — instantaneous) and simultaneously detects all active magical auras within 30 feet with their school of magic (Detect Magic, up to 10 minutes). The combined effect produces a categorized hazard map: Find Traps flags any danger regardless of type, and Detect Magic identifies which flagged hazards are spell-based versus mechanical — giving the party prioritized, actionable intelligence.
You open a small extradimensional refuge and then scrub the approach of signs that it was ever used. It's an escape artist's rite: vanish into safety, and leave the pursuers with nothing reliable to follow.
Specific effects: When completed, a rope hangs from an invisible extradimensional opening (holding up to 8 Medium creatures safely for 1 hour, invisible from outside) at a chosen point, while Pass without Trace simultaneously erases all tracks, scent, and physical evidence across the surrounding area for 1 hour. Pursuers who reach the rope's location find no evidence of the party's passage; and even if they search the right spot, the entrance is invisible. The refuge hides itself and erases the evidence of its use.
You set valuables beyond easy reach and then wrap the hiding place in divination-resistant silence. This rite is a downtime classic: stash something that must survive betrayal, scrying, and “friendly” curiosity.
Specific effects: When completed, a chest (up to 12 cubic feet, any contents) is sent to an extradimensional space and can only be recalled by touching the miniature replica to the ground (Leomund's Secret Chest). Nondetection simultaneously prevents the caster, the replica, and anything in contact with the caster from being targeted or detected by divination magic or scrying for 8 hours. A would-be thief must find the protected replica using only mundane means — magical tracking of both the chest and the person carrying its key is blocked.
You identify contamination precisely and then remove it with practiced certainty. This working is common among expedition leaders: it prevents a single tainted barrel, bite, or spore cloud from turning the whole journey into a slow collapse.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster detects the presence, type, and location of any poison, disease, or contamination in creatures and objects within 30 feet for up to 10 minutes (Detect Poison and Disease). In the same working, touched food or drink (up to 5 cubic feet) within range is purified, neutralizing all poison and disease present (Purify Food and Drink — instantaneous). The ritual diagnoses the entire camp's stores and purifies what it finds in one session — identification and remediation without a second casting.
You create an enduring light and bind a prepared message into its glow. The flame becomes a sentinel: it can warn, signal allies, mislead intruders, or serve as a living “sign” that can't be quietly removed.
Specific effects: When completed, a flame that cannot be extinguished by any nonmagical means is fixed to an object (Continual Flame — indefinite), and a Magic Mouth is bound to the same object carrying a message of up to 25 words that activates on a chosen trigger. The flame burns indefinitely and serves as an unmistakable landmark; the mouth activates on schedule or condition — challenging intruders, relaying passwords, or sounding alarms. The two together create a permanent sentinel that can see in the dark and speak.
You lay sticky strands and then make the ground beneath them treacherous. Victims slip, stick, and struggle—an excellent capture or corridor-denial trap when you have time to prepare the field.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-square patch of Grease (Dexterity save or fall prone, difficult terrain for 1 minute) is laid directly beneath a 20-foot-cube Web (difficult terrain, Strength save or restrained for concentration up to 1 hour). Creatures entering the area fall prone from the Grease before attempting their save against the Web — and the Web's Strength save is made with disadvantage while prone. Restrained creatures attempting to escape the Web while prone face the Grease's difficult terrain if they break free.
You call a sleet-lashed squall and give it direction like a battering ram of winter air. Visibility collapses, footing fails, and the storm presses foes where you want them—best used as ambush or siege preparation.
Specific effects: When completed, a 40-foot-tall, 20-foot-radius cylinder of freezing sleet (difficult terrain, Dexterity save or fall prone, concentration checks for spellcasters inside) is driven by a sustained blast of wind in a chosen direction (60-foot line, difficult terrain moving against it, Strength save or pushed back 15 feet, disadvantage on ranged attacks). The storm both restrains movement within it and shoves creatures at its edge — used to push enemies into the center of the sleet field or deny a specific corridor entirely.
You accelerate wild growth and then teach it to grab what moves within it. The result is a living trap: brush that becomes a net, vines that become hands, and a path that turns into a mistake.
Specific effects: When completed, all natural plants in a 100-foot radius surge into dense overgrowth — tripling movement costs through the area permanently until cleared (Plant Growth, overgrowth effect). Simultaneously, vines and roots within a 20-foot square erupt to grapple creatures (Entangle, Strength save or restrained, concentration up to 1 minute). Restrained creatures pay triple movement cost to escape and must succeed at their Strength save; unrestrained creatures must pay triple cost simply to reach them. The two effects together create a zone that is nearly impassable and actively holds those who enter it.
You seed the ground with hidden pain and then smother the screams it causes. This rite is a brutal ambush tool: movement becomes punishment, and panic can't rally allies with sound.
Specific effects: When completed, a 20-foot-radius area is sown with spike-sharp growth (2d4 piercing damage per 5 feet moved, difficult terrain, Spike Growth — concentration up to 10 minutes) while a 20-foot-radius sphere of magical silence is anchored over the same area (no sound in or out, no verbal spells, Silence — concentration up to 10 minutes). Creatures entering the field are injured by every step, cannot cry out for help, and cannot cast spells with verbal components — the field is a silent killing zone that offers no recourse to those caught inside it.
You add water to the world and then take command of its shape and behavior. Whether you need a sudden moat, a breached canal, or a controlled surge through a fortress level, this ritual is engineering by incantation.
Specific effects: When completed, up to 10 gallons of water (or more with upcast) are created or destroyed at a chosen point (Create or Destroy Water — instantaneous), providing an immediate water source, and Control Water simultaneously takes command of that water (and any water nearby) — parting it, directing its flow, raising its level by up to 20 feet, or creating a whirlpool (Concentration, up to 10 minutes). The creation spell provides raw material where none exists; Control Water turns it into a directed force.
You raise stone walls and then immediately shape the ground around them into trenches, berms, and defensible angles. The rite is slow compared to battle magic—but fast compared to any army with shovels.
Specific effects: When completed, Wall of Stone raises panels of solid rock — up to fifty 5-by-10-foot sections in any configuration (Concentration up to 10 minutes, permanent if maintained to completion) — while Mold Earth simultaneously reshapes the natural soil around the new stone: cutting trenches, raising berms, and forming firing positions that integrate with the wall's geometry. The stone provides the main barrier; the shaped earth provides the defensive earthwork system around it.
You link minds for coordination and then punch a single clear instruction across distance. This is mission-control magic: establish team cohesion, then deliver a decisive message even when the group is scattered across miles.
Specific effects: When completed, Rary's Telepathic Bond links up to 8 willing creatures in a two-way mental communication network that bypasses language barriers for 1 hour. Into that synchronized network, Sending delivers a single high-priority message of up to 25 words to any specific creature on any plane — even one outside the bond's range — with a 25-word reply. The bond provides ongoing distributed coordination; Sending provides a decisive long-distance command that can reach beyond the group.
You mimic death convincingly and then cloak the subject from easy magical discovery. It's an escape rite and a smuggler's safeguard: the body “rests,” and divinations struggle to find what they are not meant to notice.
Specific effects: When completed, a willing creature enters a state of apparent death — blinded, incapacitated, speed 0, resistance to all damage except radiant — indistinguishable from a corpse for up to 1 hour (Feign Death). Simultaneously, Nondetection prevents any divination magic, scrying sensor, or similar effect from locating the creature or the caster for 8 hours. A search party relying on magic finds nothing; a physical searcher finds only what appears to be a body. The two protections together make the subject effectively unlocatable by any conventional means.
You heighten capability and then hide the capable one from hostile attention. This ritual creates the classic “invisible specialist”—the lockpicker, scout, or saboteur who can work in plain view without being seen.
Specific effects: When completed, one creature gains advantage on all ability checks using a chosen ability score for up to 1 hour (Enhance Ability, concentration) and simultaneously becomes invisible for up to 1 hour (Invisibility, concentration — broken by attacking or casting a spell). The combination creates an invisible specialist — a lockpicker, saboteur, scout, or infiltrator who works with heightened effectiveness and cannot be casually observed. Both effects share the same concentration slot.
You fuse raw acceleration with the refusal to be restrained. Cast before battle, this rite creates a spearpoint ally who moves too fast to pin down and too freely to be stopped by terrain, bindings, or grapples.
Specific effects: When completed, one creature's speed is doubled, its AC gains +2, it has advantage on Dexterity saving throws, and it can take one additional action on each of its turns (Haste, concentration up to 1 minute). Simultaneously, for 1 hour, that creature's movement cannot be reduced by difficult terrain or any magical effect, and it cannot be restrained or paralyzed by nonmagical means (Freedom of Movement). The combination creates a combatant who acts twice per turn at doubled speed and cannot be stopped, tripped, or grappled — an essentially uncatchable spearpoint.
You lock a victim in place and then turn their metal into a confession. This working is rarely a “combat cast” due to time; instead it's used as trapcraft, intimidation, or controlled punishment when you can force the moment.
Specific effects: When completed, a humanoid must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become Paralyzed for up to 1 minute (Hold Person, concentration — new save each turn). Simultaneously, one metal object the creature wears or carries is heated to extreme temperature: 2d8 fire damage on contact, disadvantage on attack rolls using it, and a Constitution save to avoid dropping it (Heat Metal, concentration). Paralysis prevents the creature from releasing the metal even on a failed Constitution save — the rule that allows dropping on a failed save requires an action the paralyzed creature cannot take.
You create a plan for the worst day and the discipline to survive it. The fallen are preserved against time, making revival possible even when you cannot act immediately—an insurance policy written in incense and diamond dust.
Specific effects: When completed, Gentle Repose extends a corpse's viability for revival and preserves it against decay for 10 days, while simultaneously the ritual holds the Revivify working in readiness (its 300 gp diamond consumed as part of the ritual). At any point within the 10-day window, a single action restores the creature to life with 1 hit point — the normal 1-minute deadline is replaced by a 10-day window. The ritual converts a frantic last-second spell into a prepared insurance policy.
You repaint the land with illusion and then erase the evidence of your passage through it. Ambushers, fugitives, and guerrillas favor this rite: the terrain lies convincingly, and the ground refuses to testify.
Specific effects: When completed, a natural landscape up to 150 feet on a side is overlaid with false terrain for 24 hours — rocky ground becomes forest, a clearing becomes a swamp, or any other natural-to-natural substitution (Hallucinatory Terrain — physical examination can reveal the illusion). Pass without Trace simultaneously erases all tracks, scent, and physical evidence of the party's movement through or around the area for 1 hour. The terrain lies visually; the ground refuses to testify.
You craft writing that only the right eyes can read—and those eyes find it strangely persuasive. This is courtly sabotage and criminal leverage: a message that lands cleanly and nudges the reader toward the outcome you want.
Specific effects: When completed, a written document is made illegible or differently worded to all readers except the intended recipient for 10 days (Illusory Script — any other reader sees either gibberish or an alternative text the caster composed). The intended reader, upon reading the document, must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be compelled to follow a reasonable Suggestion for up to 8 hours. The message arrives encoded, unlocks only for the right eyes, and carries a nudge that arrives feeling like the reader's own conclusion.
You layer concealment, silence, and a refusal to leave evidence into a single seamless working. It's the “perfect infiltration” rite: unseen, unheard, and untracked—best cast as preparation when precision matters more than speed.
Specific effects: When completed, the subject is invisible (attacks or spells break the effect), gains a +10 bonus to all Stealth checks, leaves no physical tracks or scent, and produces no audible sound within the 20-foot radius of the Silence sphere that moves with them. Detecting this subject requires simultaneously penetrating invisibility, exceeding a Stealth modifier that starts at +10, and doing so without any sound cue — three independent thresholds that must all be cleared at once.
You establish a secure shelter, set warning wards, and add a decisive line of consequence for anyone who crosses it. This ritual turns a campsite into a defensible strongpoint—built for nights when the wilderness feels hungry.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-radius dome shelters up to 9 creatures for 8 hours (Leomund's Tiny Hut). An Alarm ward is anchored at the threshold (alerting the caster at crossing). A Glyph of Warding is inscribed at the entry point, holding a stored spell of the caster's choice (from those available at casting time) that discharges against any creature that breaches the threshold without the correct passphrase. The shelter is defended, alarmed, and booby-trapped — three layers of protection on a single campsite.
You identify what magic is present, learn what it is, and then disguise what it appears to be. This is counter-intelligence for spellcasters: understand the truth first, then author the lie everyone else will see.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster detects all magical auras within 30 feet and identifies their school (Detect Magic, up to 10 minutes). Any object touched during that window has its full magical properties, usage, attunement requirements, and charges revealed (Identify). Nystul's Magic Aura then falsifies the aura of one chosen creature or object — making it register as a different creature type, alignment, or magical school to all divination spells for 24 hours. The ritual reads the truth in full, then replaces it with a chosen lie.
You compel honesty, read intent, and then steer the subject toward the next truthful step. This rite is designed for controlled social pressure—interviews, interrogations, and public reckonings where every lie has witnesses.
Specific effects: When completed, creatures within a 15-foot sphere cannot speak deliberate lies for up to 10 minutes (Zone of Truth, Wisdom save to resist). The caster reads the surface thoughts of any creature in that zone, detecting evasive but technically-true statements as they form (Detect Thoughts, Wisdom save to resist deeper probing). A Suggestion then nudges one creature toward a specific cooperative disclosure or action (Wisdom save, up to 8 hours). The three layers together constrain speech, detect evasion, and steer behavior.
You seal an entry, place a warning, and give the ward a voice to challenge intruders. The door becomes a guard and a storyteller: it can announce threats, demand passwords, or bait an enemy into revealing themselves.
Specific effects: When completed, a door, gate, or chest is magically locked (Arcane Lock — DC raised by 10 to force or bypass magically), fitted with an invisible Alarm ward that alerts the caster when any Tiny or larger creature approaches or touches it, and equipped with a Magic Mouth that speaks a stored message of up to 25 words on the same trigger. The alarm tells the caster someone is present; the mouth challenges or misdirects that creature; the lock delays breach. Together they form a three-stage interactive sentry.
You open the way while stripping the action of its two biggest tells: sound and visibility. This rite is built for infiltration—doors yield, alarms go unheard, and the breacher becomes a rumor rather than a witness.
Specific effects: When completed, one lock, bar, or magically sealed door opens or loosens (Knock). A 20-foot-radius sphere of absolute silence suppresses all sound at the breach point for 10 minutes (Silence, no verbal spells, no audible noise). The breacher is simultaneously invisible (Invisibility, 1 hour, broken by attacks or spells). The three effects together accomplish what none achieves alone: a loud spell cast silently, the door opened noiselessly, and the breacher invisible as they pass through.
You prepare a dive party for hostile water: lungs don't fail, bodies don't bind, and currents can be negotiated rather than endured. This is expedition magic—cast ahead of time, then used to make the environment obey.
Specific effects: When completed, up to 10 willing creatures can breathe water for 24 hours (Water Breathing). Freedom of Movement simultaneously ensures that water's physical properties — difficult terrain, forced movement from currents, restraining effects — cannot impede any of the affected creatures for 1 hour. During that hour, Control Water allows the caster to shape the surrounding water (part it, redirect currents, raise or lower levels, create a whirlpool — Concentration up to 10 minutes). The party breathes freely, moves unimpeded, and the caster commands the water itself.
You grant flight, sharpen the tempo of battle, and keep a safety net ready for sudden failure. This rite is for planned assaults and daring insertions—too slow to improvise, but terrifying when executed as designed.
Specific effects: When completed, a willing creature gains a 60-foot flying speed (Fly, concentration up to 10 minutes), doubled speed and one additional action each turn (Haste, simultaneous concentration), and Feather Fall protection in the event concentration breaks mid-flight. The flying combatant acts twice per turn at doubled aerial speed; if any disruption breaks concentration, Feather Fall activates and prevents the fall from being fatal. The combination creates an airborne striker who is fast, dangerous, and safe.
You turn ceilings into roads, erase evidence of passage, and remove the body from sight. This is a clean infiltration package: above the guards, beyond footprints, and wrapped in quiet certainty.
Specific effects: When completed, the subject moves freely on walls and ceilings at full walking speed with hands free (Spider Climb, 1 hour), is invisible (Invisibility, concentration up to 1 hour — broken by attacks or spells), and leaves no tracks, scent, or evidence of passage (Pass without Trace, +10 Stealth). Moving above guards at full speed, invisible, leaving no physical trace, the subject is detectable only through active magical scanning — no passive perception check can locate them.
You locate the prize, place eyes near it, and then coordinate the team that will act on that knowledge. This ritual is “operations magic”—best during downtime or preparation when precision beats speed.
Specific effects: When completed, an invisible clairvoyant sensor is projected to a location the caster can see or knows (Clairvoyance, concentration up to 10 minutes — see and hear remotely). Locate Object simultaneously finds a specific described object within 1,000 feet, providing directional guidance to the sensor's search. Sending then delivers a 25-word intelligence report to any creature on any plane (with a 25-word reply). The complete cycle in one working: find it, see what surrounds it, and report.
You find the quarry, confirm the quarry, and then relay decisive instruction with no ambiguity. This rite is how organized forces hunt: eyes on target, then orders delivered before the target can move again.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster senses the direction and approximate distance to a known creature within 1,000 feet (Locate Creature). Scrying simultaneously projects a sensor to that creature's location for remote visual confirmation — the creature must fail a Wisdom saving throw modified by familiarity (concentration up to 10 minutes). Sending then delivers a decisive 25-word tactical update to any creature on any plane. The working answers three questions in sequence: where is the quarry, what is their situation, and what are the orders.
You preserve the body, bridge language, and extract testimony that would otherwise be garbled. This rite is especially valuable in old ruins and foreign lands where the dead may know the truth—but not your tongue.
Specific effects: When completed, the corpse is preserved against decay and its Speak with Dead eligibility is sustained for 10 days (Gentle Repose), and the caster then questions it for up to 10 minutes (up to 5 questions, Speak with Dead). Tongues simultaneously ensures that all answers can be understood regardless of the language the deceased spoke in life. Ancient bodies, foreign nationals, and creatures who communicated in extinct or obscure languages can all give clear, comprehensible testimony.
You draw warding geometry, add consecration, and include an unweaving clause for hostile magic that tries to ride the boundary. This is a sanctum ritual—cast on purpose, in a chosen place, to make a line that holds.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-radius, 20-foot-tall Magic Circle bars specified creature types from entering and suppresses their charm and possession abilities for 1 hour. Each creature inside the circle simultaneously receives individual protection against the same types — those creatures attack them with disadvantage and cannot charm, frighten, or possess them (Protection from Evil and Good). Dispel Magic is also woven into the casting and strips any hostile enchantment that attempts to cross the boundary at the moment of entry. The circle provides perimeter denial; the individual protection guards the person; the dispel addresses attempts to ride the barrier magically.
You target layered afflictions with deliberate thoroughness: identify what's wrong, restore what's been warped, and strip away the supporting spellwork. This ritual is for the “complicated cases” ordinary cures can't safely untangle.
Specific effects: When completed, one curse is broken on a creature or object (Remove Curse — instantaneous). Greater Restoration simultaneously eliminates one charmed, petrified, or cursed condition, one ability score reduction, one hit point maximum reduction, or one exhaustion level (Greater Restoration). Dispel Magic then strips any separate magical effect that anchored or was sustaining the curse (automatic for effects of 3rd level or lower; ability check for higher). The three spells work in sequence: break the curse, repair the damage it caused, and strip the scaffolding that held it.
You treat acute conditions, reinforce the patient's resilience, and add a protective ward against poison's return. This is battlefield medicine performed off the battlefield—used in camps, clinics, and plague zones between crises.
Specific effects: When completed, one disease or condition (blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned) is removed from one creature (Lesser Restoration). Aid simultaneously raises the hit point maximum and current hit points of up to three creatures by 5 each. Protection from Poison makes one creature immune to all poison damage and the poisoned condition for 1 hour. The three effects address the acute case, bolster the survivors, and guard the most vulnerable against immediate recurrence — field medicine for three patients in a single working.
You set a baseline arcane barrier, reinforce it with a blessing, and add sympathetic protection through a bonded link. This rite is meant for the party's most exposed ally—layered defenses that stay relevant when plans go wrong.
Specific effects: When completed, the target's AC becomes 13 + Dexterity modifier (Mage Armor, 8 hours, no armor required) and gains a +2 AC bonus (Shield of Faith, concentration up to 10 minutes). A Warding Bond simultaneously links the caster to the target: the target gains resistance to all damage and an additional +1 to AC and saves, while the caster takes the same damage the target takes (1 hour). For the duration of all three, the target is armored, shielded, and damage-resistant — at meaningful cost to the caster who sustains the bond.
You fuse hardened flesh with a steady, barklike resilience and then back it with extra vitality. The result is not subtle—it is survival made visible, designed for those who will stand where others would fall.
Specific effects: When completed, the target gains resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage (Stoneskin, concentration up to 1 hour, 100 gp consumed) and their AC cannot drop below 16 regardless of armor, conditions, or effects (Barkskin). Aid simultaneously raises their hit point maximum and current hit points by 5. All nonmagical weapon strikes deal half damage, a minimum defensive floor is held constant, and the target enters the fight with extra stamina — three concurrent survivability improvements.
You see through darkness, catch the outline of the unseen, and read the magical “color” behind it all. This rite is a delver's staple—turning a hostile complex into something you can interpret rather than fear.
Specific effects: When completed, a willing creature gains 60 feet of darkvision (or extends existing darkvision by 60 feet) for 8 hours (Darkvision). For up to 1 hour simultaneously, that creature sees all invisible and ethereal creatures as if visible (See Invisibility). Detect Magic simultaneously reveals all magical auras within 30 feet and their school for up to 10 minutes. During the overlap, the recipient perceives through darkness, through invisibility, and through magical concealment — three of the dungeon's most common sensory obstacles addressed at once.
You create uncompromising illumination and then layer in the ability to expose and strip magical concealment. This rite is for clearing a site—forcing hidden glamours into the open and burning away the tricks that protect them.
Specific effects: When completed, a 60-foot-radius sphere of bright light — which suppresses all magical darkness within it — is fixed at a chosen point for 1 hour (Daylight). All invisible and ethereal creatures within that sphere become visible to the caster (See Invisibility). Dispel Magic simultaneously strips one hostile magical effect in the area (automatic for effects of 3rd level or lower; ability check for higher). The working illuminates the space, reveals hidden occupants, and dismantles the most dangerous active enchantment — site-clearing in one casting.
You find hazards, understand which ones are magical, and lay warnings behind you as you advance. This is disciplined dungeon procedure—best when you expect pursuit, backtracking, or the kind of ruin that punishes careless exits.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster becomes aware of the presence and general location of every trap within 120 feet (Find Traps — instantaneous). Detect Magic simultaneously reveals all magical auras within 30 feet with their school, identifying which traps are spell-based versus mechanical for up to 10 minutes. An Alarm ward is simultaneously placed on one chosen entrance behind the party (alerting them if anyone follows, for 8 hours). The combined effect maps dangers ahead, categorizes them, and secures the retreat route in one casting.
You create a concealed refuge, ward its entrance, and scrub the approach of evidence. This is the “we can actually rest here” rite—used when enemies are clever, persistent, or both.
Specific effects: When completed, an invisible extradimensional refuge holds up to 8 Medium creatures safely for 1 hour (Rope Trick — invisible from outside). An Alarm ward is anchored at the rope's base, alerting the occupants if any Tiny or larger creature approaches the entry point. Pass without Trace simultaneously erases all tracks, scent, and physical evidence in the surrounding area for 1 hour (+10 Stealth for the party). The refuge hides its occupants, warns them of approach, and leaves no evidence of its location — the ideal conditions for true rest under pursuit.
You hide valuables away, secure the cache against tampering, and resist magical tracking of what you've hidden. This rite is for paranoid professionals: the kind who assume betrayal is not a possibility, but a schedule.
Specific effects: When completed, a chest is sent to an extradimensional space (Leomund's Secret Chest — recalled only via the miniature replica). Arcane Lock secures the replica against tampering (DC raised by 10 to force or bypass magically). Nondetection simultaneously prevents the caster, the replica, and anything they carry from being detected by divination magic for 8 hours. A thief must find the protected replica through mundane means alone, then bypass a magical lock, then breach a warded extradimensional space — three independent barriers in sequence.
You forge a false landscape, reinforce it with real overgrowth, and ensure the scene won't betray you through tracks or disturbed ground. This is hideout magic: the land becomes complicit in your disappearance.
Specific effects: When completed, a natural landscape up to 150 feet on a side is overlaid with false terrain for 24 hours (Hallucinatory Terrain — physical examination can reveal the illusion). Plant Growth simultaneously thickens all natural vegetation in a 100-foot radius to triple movement cost — making the terrain physically obstructed even for a creature that disbelieves the illusion. Pass without Trace erases all tracks and scent from the party's entry for 1 hour. The area is visually deceptive, physically impassable, and evidentially clean.
You create a snaring, painful field and then deny it the mercy of sound. Trapped targets can't easily call for help, and the usual chaos of combat noise doesn't carry—an ambush rite meant to end problems quietly.
Specific effects: When completed, vines and roots erupt in a 20-foot square to grapple creatures (Entangle, Strength save or restrained, concentration up to 1 minute). Spike Growth fills the same or overlapping area with needle-sharp growth (2d4 piercing per 5 feet of movement, difficult terrain). Silence suppresses all sound in a 20-foot radius over the field. Restrained creatures take damage on every escape attempt, cannot cry out for help, and cannot cast spells with verbal components — a silent field where the injured can neither flee nor call for aid.
You design a capture, not a fight: slick footing, adhesive restraint, and a final paralysis to stop any last escape. The ritual is slow, but the result is decisive when triggered or used as planned setup.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-square patch of Grease (Dexterity save or fall prone) is laid beneath a 20-foot-cube Web (difficult terrain, Strength save or restrained — made with disadvantage while prone, concentration up to 1 hour). Hold Person simultaneously paralyzes one humanoid on a failed Wisdom save (concentration up to 1 minute). A creature caught in all three is prone, restrained, and potentially paralyzed — three overlapping conditions that make escape or rescue by allies nearly impossible without first breaking the ritual's concentration.
You summon driving sleet, add directional pressure, and thicken sightlines into near nothing. This rite turns a battlefield into confusion and disorientation—best used as ambush preparation, retreat cover, or siege harassment.
Specific effects: When completed, a 40-foot-tall, 20-foot-radius cylinder of freezing sleet creates difficult terrain and forces Dexterity saves against falling prone (Sleet Storm, concentration up to 1 minute). A sustained gust of wind drives in a chosen direction — creatures moving against it face difficult terrain, make Strength saves or are pushed back 15 feet, and suffer disadvantage on ranged attack rolls. A Fog Cloud obscures an additional 20-foot-radius sphere at the edge of the storm. The three effects together create a zone of total meteorological chaos: movement, footing, visibility, and ranged combat all compromised simultaneously.
You raise stone, shape the ground to control approaches, and seed the structure with a triggered punishment. This is fortification with teeth—built to funnel enemies into a predictable mistake.
Specific effects: When completed, Wall of Stone raises up to fifty 5-by-10-foot panels of solid rock in any configuration (concentration up to 10 minutes — permanent if maintained to full duration). Mold Earth simultaneously reshapes the natural soil around the new stone into trenches, berms, and chokepoints that integrate with the wall's geometry. A Glyph of Warding is inscribed in the most likely entry point, holding a stored spell that discharges against any creature that passes through without the correct condition being met. The fortification has engineered terrain, a physical barrier, and an automatic lethal consequence for breach.
You add water, command its shape, and ensure your allies can ignore it as a hazard. The ritual creates chaos for enemies and advantage for friends—an engineering rite for breaches, defenses, and terrain denial.
Specific effects: When completed, Create or Destroy Water introduces up to 10 gallons of water at a chosen point, providing an immediate water source in a dry location. Control Water simultaneously commands that water (and any existing water nearby) — parting it, flooding an area, redirecting flow, or creating a whirlpool (concentration up to 10 minutes). Water Walk simultaneously allows the caster's allies to walk atop water as if solid ground for 1 hour. The combined effect creates an improvised water barrier that enemies cannot cross while the caster's side moves freely over it.
You establish safe shelter and solve the two hidden killers of long travel: hunger and contamination. This ritual creates a bivouac that is defensible, provisioned, and far less likely to turn a party's supplies into poison.
Specific effects: When completed, a 10-foot-radius dome shelters up to 9 creatures for 8 hours (Leomund's Tiny Hut). Create Food and Water produces enough food (45 pounds) and 30 gallons of clean water for 15 Medium humanoids simultaneously. Purify Food and Drink simultaneously cleanses any existing food or drink within reach of contamination. The three spells together provide complete logistical support — shelter, fresh rations, safe water, and purified existing supplies — without consuming any carried resources.
You create an enduring light, bind a voice into it, and then disguise its magical “fingerprint.” This rite is covert communication: a signal lantern that can speak the right phrase—and won't look like what it is to casual detection.
Specific effects: When completed, an inextinguishable flame is anchored to an object (Continual Flame — indefinite). A Magic Mouth is bound to the same object, carrying a stored message of up to 25 words triggered by a chosen condition. Nystul's Magic Aura then falsifies the combined object's magical signature for 24 hours — making it register as nonmagical or as a different spell school to Detect Magic. The result is a covert signal device that burns indefinitely, speaks on cue, and lies about its own nature to magical inspection.
You blend superficial disguise, physical alteration, and aura misdirection into a single coherent identity. This rite is built to survive scrutiny—eyes, touch, and the casual divination that would expose lesser impostors.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster's appearance changes (Disguise Self — illusory, up to 1 foot height change, weight, features, equipment, 1 hour) while their physical body simultaneously alters to match (Alter Self — actual physiological change that survives touch, concentration up to 1 hour). Nystul's Magic Aura rewrites the caster's magical signature — creature type, alignment, or spell aura — for 24 hours. The three effects defeat the three most common exposure methods: Disguise Self for distant visual inspection, Alter Self for physical contact, and Nystul's for divination.
You stabilize the body, deepen the feigned death, and cloak it from divinations. This is the “survive the manhunt” rite—used when the safest place to be is “dead,” and the second-safest is “undetectable.”
Specific effects: When completed, a willing creature enters apparent death — blinded, incapacitated, speed 0, resistance to all damage except radiant — indistinguishable from a corpse for up to 1 hour (Feign Death). Gentle Repose prevents the body from deteriorating and preserves it for 10 days. Nondetection simultaneously prevents any divination magic, scrying sensor, or similar effect from locating the subject or the caster for 8 hours. A magical search returns nothing; a physical search finds a preserved corpse. The combination is the complete "dead and undetectable" package.
You enhance capability, remove the body from sight, and grant the environment new routes. This is the “heist toolkit” rite—skill, concealment, and mobility packaged for planned intrusion.
Specific effects: When completed, one creature gains advantage on all ability checks using a chosen ability score (Enhance Ability, concentration up to 1 hour), is invisible (Invisibility, concentration up to 1 hour — broken by attacks or spells), and can move freely on walls and ceilings at full speed with hands free (Spider Climb, 1 hour). The combination delivers skill, concealment, and unrestricted mobility simultaneously — the full infiltration toolkit in one working.
You make one ally faster, harder to restrain, and tougher to drop. This rite is for the one who goes first—when the plan demands momentum and the enemy demands you pay for it.
Specific effects: When completed, one creature's speed is doubled, its AC gains +2, it has advantage on Dexterity saves, and it can take one additional action each turn (Haste, concentration up to 1 minute). Freedom of Movement simultaneously prevents any magical or physical effect from reducing its speed, restraining it, or paralyzing it for 1 hour. Aid raises its hit point maximum and current hit points by 5. The creature enters the fray faster than anything it faces, acting twice, uncatchable and unrestrained, with extra resilience to survive the opening exchange.
You restrain the subject, enforce honesty, and read intent to catch evasions before they form. This rite is interrogation by design—meant for controlled spaces, not for the chaos and timing demands of battle.
Specific effects: When completed, Zone of Truth prevents deliberate lies within a 15-foot sphere (Wisdom save to resist, concentration up to 10 minutes). Hold Person paralyzes a humanoid in that zone on a failed Wisdom save (concentration up to 1 minute). Detect Thoughts reads the surface thoughts of any creature in range, revealing the intent behind every evasive but technically-true statement (Wisdom save to resist deeper probing). The subject cannot lie, cannot leave, and cannot conceal the thoughts forming behind their words.
You create a trap designed to take a target alive without noise. When it triggers, the victim is halted and silenced—an abductor's favorite because it prevents both escape and alarm.
Specific effects: When completed, an invisible glyph is inscribed on a surface (spotted only with an Investigation check against the spell save DC). When any humanoid meets the trigger condition, the glyph discharges Hold Person (Wisdom save or Paralyzed, new save each turn) while a 20-foot-radius sphere of magical silence simultaneously suppresses all sound at the trigger point for 10 minutes. The trap activates soundlessly — no magical crack, no cry from the victim. Guards in adjacent rooms hear nothing.
You bind lingering misfortune to a ward and lace it with terror on impact. This trap isn't just harm—it's control: victims panic, companions hesitate, and the curse's shadow makes every decision feel wrong.
Specific effects: When completed, an invisible glyph is inscribed on a surface that waits indefinitely. When triggered, Bestow Curse afflicts the creature (Wisdom save — disadvantage on checks and saves for one attribute, disadvantage on attack rolls, or necrotic damage each turn, up to concentration 1 minute). Fear is simultaneously discharged (Wisdom save or frightened — the creature must dash away from the glyph, dropping held items, for concentration up to 1 minute). Cursed and panicking, the target loses effectiveness, flees through whatever danger lies behind them, and cannot suppress the flight response.
You prepare false signage that matters because it's backed by real warning and an audible announcement. This rite is equal parts intrigue and security—misdirect the curious while alerting allies the moment someone ignores the warning.
Specific effects: When completed, a written document is made illegible or shows a different text to all readers except the intended recipient for 10 days (Illusory Script). An Alarm ward on the same object or location alerts the caster whenever anyone approaches or handles it. Magic Mouth activates on the same trigger with a stored message of up to 25 words — a challenge, bluff, or warning. The object watches, reports, and speaks: three layers of surveillance and misdirection from a single inscribed item.
You link minds, establish remote sight, and add reliable long-range instruction. This is “mission control” in spell form: see what's happening, keep the team synchronized, and deliver decisions instantly from afar.
Specific effects: When completed, Rary's Telepathic Bond links up to 8 willing creatures in two-way mental communication for 1 hour. An invisible Clairvoyance sensor is simultaneously projected to a remote location — transmitting sight and sound to the caster for up to 10 minutes. Sending delivers a precise 25-word command to any creature on any plane with a 25-word reply. Together the three provide: a coordination network for the team, real-time remote vision of the operation area, and long-range decisive communication with anyone.
You locate the object and then strip away the most common deceptions that conceal it. This rite is for retrieval after theft: it finds the prize and makes sure you're not being fooled about what you found.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster senses the direction and approximate distance to any described object within 1,000 feet (Locate Object, concentration up to 10 minutes). Detect Magic simultaneously reveals whether any magical aura is surrounding the object's location — identifying concealment wards. See Invisibility confirms whether an invisibility or illusion effect is masking the object's true position. Together, the three defeat the three most common concealment tactics: hiding the object, magically warding it, and rendering it invisible.
You recruit an animal, ride its senses for reconnaissance, and then send it out with a message. This rite turns local wildlife into a scouting network—subtle, inexpensive, and surprisingly effective where humanoids are watched.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster communicates with a Tiny beast for 10 minutes (Speak with Animals), negotiating its role as a scout. Beast Sense then allows the caster to see and hear through that same animal's senses for up to 1 hour (Concentration). After the reconnaissance, Animal Messenger enchants the beast to travel to a designated destination and deliver a 25-word spoken message. The sequence is: recruit and brief the scout, experience the reconnaissance through its senses, then dispatch it with orders — a complete intelligence-gathering and communication pipeline.
You identify illness, sanitize supplies, and treat the afflicted in one sustained working. This rite is how communities survive contagion—best performed methodically, with space, time, and a calm perimeter.
Specific effects: When completed, the caster identifies all poisons, diseases, and contamination in creatures and objects within 30 feet for up to 10 minutes (Detect Poison and Disease). Any contaminated food or drink within range (up to 5 cubic feet per use) is simultaneously purified (Purify Food and Drink — instantaneous). Lesser Restoration simultaneously clears one poisoned or diseased condition from one creature. The working diagnoses the environment, sanitizes the food and water supply, and treats one patient — a complete quarantine management cycle in one casting.
You preserve a body against time, restore life when the moment comes, and then bolster the revived against immediate collapse. This rite is triage planning—expensive, slow, and invaluable when death is likely.
Specific effects: When completed, Gentle Repose preserves a corpse against decay and sustains its Revivify eligibility for 10 days. Aid is applied to one or more at-risk party members, raising their hit point maximum and current HP by 5. The Revivify component is held in readiness (its 300 gp diamond consumed as part of the ritual), allowing a single action to restore life at any point within the 10-day window — without the normal 1-minute deadline. The working prepares both the fallen for revival and the living for the shock of the attempt.
You restrain with force, paralyze with compulsion, and secure exits against clever hands. This ritual is for dangerous captives—when you need the prison to hold even while you look away.
Specific effects: When completed, Hold Person paralyzes one humanoid on a failed Wisdom save (concentration up to 1 minute). Telekinesis sustains physical restraint of that creature with up to 1,000 lbs of force regardless of whether Hold Person's concentration continues (concentration up to 10 minutes). Arcane Lock seals all exit doors, lids, or containers in the immediate area (DC raised by 10 to force or bypass magically). The subject is simultaneously magically compelled, physically pinned, and barred from any exit.
You raise a wall of flame, shroud it, and silence the panic it causes. The result is psychological warfare and concealment together—best as an ambush setup, a retreat screen, or a terrifying barrier during a siege.
Specific effects: When completed, a 60-foot-long, 20-foot-tall wall of fire deals 5d8 fire damage to creatures that pass through or end a turn within 10 feet of one side (Wall of Fire, concentration up to 1 minute). Silence simultaneously suppresses all sound in a 20-foot radius around the wall — the crackle, the screaming of anyone burned, and any verbal spells. A Fog Cloud obscures a 20-foot-radius sphere on the far side of the wall, blocking visibility for those approaching. The barrier burns, silences the response, and blinds the approach.
You set a lethal ward, bind a prepared explosion into it, and disguise the ward's magical signature so it appears harmless or unrelated. This is bait-trap craftsmanship: the rune lies, then the fire tells the truth.
Specific effects: When completed, a Glyph of Warding is inscribed holding a Fireball (8d6 fire damage, 20-foot radius, Dexterity save for half). Nystul's Magic Aura simultaneously falsifies the glyph's magical signature for 24 hours — making it register as nonmagical to Detect Magic and similar divination. The trap cannot be found by the most common ward-detection tool; it waits patiently as ordinary stone or wood until its trigger is met, then detonates without warning.
You combine freezing devastation with storm-driven battlefield control. The ritual is slow, but the outcome is catastrophic when staged—ideal for a planned ambush, a chokepoint defense, or a siege where you can choose the moment.
Specific effects: When completed, a Cone of Cold discharges an 8d8 cold damage blast in a 60-foot cone (Constitution save for half, speed reduced to 0 on a failed save) into a Sleet Storm field (difficult terrain, prone on Dex fail, concentration checks for spellcasters) that is simultaneously driven by Gust of Wind (Strength save or pushed back 15 feet, disadvantage on ranged attacks moving against it). Targets in the combined field are blasted, prone, slowed to 0 speed, and driven back — multiple overlapping conditions from a single combined discharge.
You locate hostile magic, strip it away, and prepare to blunt the retaliation that follows. This rite is for breaches—when you expect a ward to scream, and you want it to die quietly anyway.
Specific effects: When completed, Detect Magic identifies all active magical effects in the target area with their school (up to 10 minutes, concentration). Dispel Magic is then directed at the most dangerous effect detected — automatic success for effects of 3rd level or lower; ability check for higher. Counterspell is readied to interrupt any defensive magic that reactivates or retaliates when the dispel resolves. The three spells work as a sequence: scan, strip, then suppress the reload. Together they accomplish a clean breach of magical security that a single Dispel Magic cannot reliably achieve.
You construct a safer binding environment by layering warding geometry and a clause for stripping planar tricks. This is a downtime rite—performed in a prepared site—meant to reduce the odds of a bound entity escaping through clever magic.
Specific effects: When completed, a Magic Circle of warding geometry is established, preventing the named creature type from leaving once inside (concentration up to 10 minutes, then self-sustaining for 1 hour). Planar Binding compels the target entity to serve for up to 24 hours on a failed Charisma save (1,000 gp component consumed). Dispel Magic is woven in to strip any ongoing magical effect the entity uses to circumvent or escape the circle — Etherealness, Misty Step, or similar. The binding is thus reinforced against the most common magical escape methods.
You give the group false faces, erase travel signs, and resist the divinations that would identify you anyway. This rite is covert movement at scale—ideal for escaping a city, crossing borders, or traveling while hunted.
Specific effects: When completed, all creatures within range take on a new appearance chosen by the caster (Seeming — Wisdom save to disbelieve, 8 hours). Pass without Trace simultaneously erases all tracks, scent, and physical evidence of the group's movement and adds +10 to all Stealth checks for 1 hour. Nondetection prevents the caster and all creatures they touch from being detected or targeted by divination magic or scrying for 8 hours. Visual identification, physical tracking, and magical detection are defeated simultaneously.
You fix a creature's identity inside a scrying vision and then open a gate with chilling certainty. The destination does not drift: the portal anchors to the viewed creature's location as the ritual resolves, effectively pulling the “there” to your “here.”
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a precise remote view of a known creature's location — the creature must fail a Wisdom saving throw modified by the caster's familiarity with it. Gate then opens a portal anchored to that exact scryed location rather than to a named plane or memorized destination. All who step through arrive adjacent to the scryed creature, wherever in the multiverse it stands. The scrying converts a gate's broad targeting into surgical precision.
You open a gate into a prepared warding circle so the arrival point is immediately constrained by sigil geometry. This rite turns summoning into negotiation: the circle becomes both barrier and boundary, enabling controlled parley—or containment—at the moment of contact.
Specific effects: When completed, a Magic Circle is established at the ritual site, preventing specified creature types from leaving the cylinder without the caster's permission (up to 1 hour). Gate then opens a portal naming a specific entity, pulling it through into the prepared circle. The entity arrives already constrained — the circle's geometry is ready the instant the gate opens. Summoning becomes controlled reception: the entity is inside a binding before it can take any action.
You call a prepared, marked object to your hand and braid a verification thread through the same working. The scrying element confirms what arrives (and hints at tampering), making this rite beloved by spies, nobles, and anyone who cannot afford counterfeit keys.
Specific effects: When completed, the sapphire-inscribed object is instantly called to the caster's hand from wherever it resides (Drawmij's Instant Summons — the sapphire is consumed). Scrying simultaneously projects a sensor toward the object's former location, allowing the caster to observe in real time whether the retrieval left visible signs, whether the vault was watched, and whether anything threatening surrounds the now-empty spot. The working delivers the object and delivers intelligence about the delivery simultaneously.
You observe an object through scrying and then teleport, anchoring your arrival to the relic's witnessed location. Treasure-hunters prize the rite because it converts “we saw it once” into “we can reach it now,” as long as the divination holds true.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a remote visual of the target location — the caster can observe conditions, verify the destination is safe, confirm the relic's presence, and check for wards (Wisdom save required for creatures, not locations). Teleport then uses that fresh mental image as its destination reference, treating it as "seen casually" — reducing the chance-of-mishap category and the risk of a catastrophic teleportation failure. The working converts a risky blind teleport into a significantly informed one.
You don't merely sever a curse—you diagnose it, unwind it, and then restore what it distorted. The working is favored for heirlooms and layered afflictions where breaking the curse is only half the victory.
Specific effects: When completed, Identify first reveals the curse's specific properties, school of magic, and source. Remove Curse then lifts the identified curse from the creature or object. Greater Restoration simultaneously repairs one ability score reduction, hit point maximum reduction, exhaustion level, or lingering condition that the curse caused. The three work in sequence — understand it, break it, repair what it broke — specifically designed for afflictions where blind removal leaves the damage behind.
You learn the curse's story—names, vows, origins—before you try to break it, and that knowledge becomes leverage in the breaking. This rite is the answer to ancient maledictions that resist ordinary solutions, because it attacks the root rather than the symptom.
Specific effects: When completed, Legend Lore reveals the curse's history, the vows or events that created it, its conditions for breaking, and any figures or objects at its origin — providing leverage specific to that curse's logic. Remove Curse severs the binding, strengthened by the knowledge of what it is. Greater Restoration simultaneously repairs all lingering ability score reductions, hit point maximum losses, and conditions the curse inflicted. The working attacks the root rather than the symptom: understanding the origin is part of the mechanism of breaking it.
You raise powerful undead within warded geometry, so the circle's runes become instructions hammered into bone and shadow. Compared to crude battlefield animation, this rite produces results that feel disciplined—like soldiers assembled with doctrine, not merely commanded with force.
Specific effects: When completed, the Magic Circle's warding geometry conditions the undead as they rise — the sigils function as command architecture woven into the animation itself. Create Undead then raises ghouls, ghasts, wights, or mummies (depending on slot level) within the prepared circle. Danse Macabre simultaneously compels up to 5 undead within 60 feet to follow complex tactical instructions beyond simple commands (Wisdom save). The result is an ordered undead unit, not merely animated corpses — raised with discipline already installed.
You bind an extraplanar spirit into prepared corpses and enforce obedience through planar law and sigil constraints. The result is an undead lieutenant whose will is leashed by binding terms—an abomination created with contract precision rather than brute necromancy alone.
Specific effects: When completed, a Magic Circle is established at the ritual site, creating the containment framework for the binding. Create Undead raises one or more animated bodies within the circle. Planar Binding then compels a specific extraplanar spirit to enter and animate one of those corpses — it must fail a Charisma saving throw or be bound to service for up to 24 hours (1,000 gp consumed). The spirit-driven undead lieutenant obeys the terms of the binding contract rather than the vagaries of pure necromantic command — an abomination created with contract precision.
You lace compulsion into the same sympathetic thread that lets you observe your target. The geas rides the divinatory conduit like a verdict whispered across leagues, reaching a creature you can see—so long as the scrying holds.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a remote view of the target — the creature must fail a Wisdom saving throw modified by familiarity. Geas is then delivered through that scrying conduit as a binding compulsion (Charisma save; if the target acts against the sworn task, they suffer 5d10 psychic damage per day for 30 days). The target need not be present, need not know the caster's identity, and need not be within any conventional spell range. The oath reaches through the scrying link like a verdict whispered across leagues.
You don't help a field—you rewrite a season. Weather arrives on time, winds spare blossoms, soil reshapes where it needs to, and growth surges across broad farmland. This is a civic rite performed from attuned places and is rarely useful in battle, but it can change the fate of a region.
Specific effects: When completed, Control Weather adjusts regional conditions to optimal growing patterns for up to 8 hours. Plant Growth simultaneously enriches the soil within a half-mile radius so it produces twice the normal yield for the next full year (instantaneous, permanent enrichment effect). Move Earth reshapes terrain to improve irrigation and drainage within the affected area (concentration up to 2.5 hours). The three working together address weather, soil fertility, and terrain simultaneously — agricultural transformation at regional scale in a single ceremony.
One thread shows you the quarry, another points to the quarry, and the third teaches your feet the fastest honest route. The result is brutally practical: “There—and this is how we get there,” even through tangled roads and forgotten passes.
Specific effects: When completed, Locate Creature establishes the direction and approximate distance to a known creature within 1,000 feet. Scrying simultaneously projects a remote sensor to that creature's location for direct visual confirmation (Wisdom save required, modified by familiarity). Find the Path then reveals the most direct physical route to the quarry's current location — even through barriers, mazes, or deliberate misdirection — guiding the party step by step for up to 24 hours. Three questions answered in sequence: where is the quarry, what is their situation, and how do we reach them.
You conjure a celebration that feels like legend: streets become rivers of light, music arrives on cue, and a feast fit for dignitaries anchors the revel. The spectacle is large enough to move crowds—pageantry for hundreds—meant as a civic or downtime rite rather than a battlefield trick.
Specific effects: When completed, Heroes' Feast provides a restorative meal (immunity to poison and fright for 24 hours, advantage on Wisdom saves, 2d10 temporary HP) for up to 12 creatures. Mirage Arcane overlays a vast area with a festival landscape — lights, banners, transformed streets — for 10 days. Programmed Illusion installs self-repeating theatrical scenes within that landscape (triggered by time, location, or phrase, recurring indefinitely). The feast fortifies its participants with real magical benefits; the landscape creates the stage; the illusion animates it on schedule.
This ritual is performed in a circle of carefully placed lights—candles, lanterns, or coals—each one representing a question that must
be asked gently. The lead caster invites a voice from remains, then extends the conversation outward: to ancestors, to distant powers,
and finally to the cold, precise answers of fate itself.
The rite is not safe in the way a locked door is safe. It is safe in the way a well-written contract is safe: so long as every phrase
is exact. Many casters record the entire working in advance and read it aloud without improvisation.
Specific effects: When completed, four distinct sources of knowledge are consulted in a single session: a corpse's memory (Speak with Dead — up to 5 questions, 10-minute window), a divine power's yes/no answers (Commune — 3 questions), an extraplanar entity's knowledge (Contact Other Plane — 5 questions, Wisdom save to avoid psychic damage), and a prophetic omen about a chosen course of action (Divination). Each component answers its specific category of question; together they form a coherent inquiry covering memory, divine knowledge, planar observation, and near-future guidance simultaneously.
The caster does not “send a spell.” The caster opens a lawful channel to a higher sky and convinces that sky to answer. Through scrying,
the lead caster fixes the place in mind with cruel clarity; through the gate, a thin wound in reality opens above the distant ground; and
then the judgement falls—radiant, vertical, and absolute.
This working is the terror of tyrants and the last resort of righteous orders. It is slow enough to require planning, but decisive enough
to end a siege, shatter a war camp, or erase a ritual site before the enemy can complete their own work.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a precise remote view of the target location (concentration up to 10 minutes). Gate opens a narrow celestial aperture high above that location — controlled to allow energy through rather than creature passage. A Flame Strike (4d6 fire + 4d6 radiant damage, Dexterity save for half) is channeled through the gate aperture, descending as a 10-foot-radius column of divine fire at the scryed point. The casters deliver a strike at any location they can scry from an unreachable position — the distance between the casters and the consequence is the entire defense.
This rite is how a city becomes a stage—and how the stage lies back. Streets subtly re-angle, distance becomes unreliable, landmarks “move”
in the mind, and the people themselves are wrapped in a coordinated illusion of identity. A traveler might walk for an hour and swear they
never left the same square. A spy might meet a contact and later realize the contact's face was a deliberate fiction.
In the hands of a benevolent ruler, the rite can be used for festival wonder and citywide celebration. In the hands of a paranoid regime,
it becomes a tool of fear: a metropolis where no one trusts what they see, including themselves.
Specific effects: When completed, Mirage Arcane reskins an area of natural or urban terrain up to 1 mile on a side for 10 days — streets change their apparent layout, distances become unreliable, landmarks shift. Programmed Illusion installs looping scripted scenes within the illusion (recurring indefinitely on chosen triggers). Seeming simultaneously changes the apparent appearance of any number of creatures in the affected area for 8 hours (Wisdom save to disbelieve). Nystul's Magic Aura falsifies the entire illusion complex's magical signature for 24 hours, making it register as nonmagical to Detect Magic. Four layers of deception that resist visual inspection, physical investigation, and magical analysis.
Where ordinary divinations offer hints, this rite demands coherence. The caster gathers omens, consults a higher will, interrogates the
boundary of the unknown, and then seals the answers into a single actionable guidance—often tied to a specific person, mission, or choice.
When the ritual resolves, the lead caster (and often the primary beneficiary) receives a structured vision: warnings, likely outcomes,
and a “true north” principle that remains reliable even when details shift. Many orders use this rite before crusades, expeditions into
forbidden realms, or political gambits that could topple dynasties.
Specific effects: When completed, Augury delivers a near-term omen about a specific course of action (weal, woe, mixed, or nothing). Divination provides a short prophetic verse about a specific plan from a divine power. Commune asks a divine power three yes/no questions with truthful answers. Foresight then grants the beneficiary advantage on every ability check, attack roll, and saving throw while denying opponents advantage against them for 8 hours. The first three spells refine and confirm the plan; Foresight then equips the beneficiary to execute it with supernatural preparedness.
This rite is a fortress made of promise. The area becomes hostile to fiends and undead, sanctified against corruption, and wrapped in
protective law that discourages intrusion even by clever magic. When combined with a great burst of radiant force, it becomes not just a
ward—but a statement: “Nothing unclean may remain here.”
Temples cast it before relic processions. Paladin orders cast it before last stands. Some DMs reserve it for holy sites and legendary
moments, where the land itself is asked to take a side.
Specific effects: When completed, Forbiddance bars all extraplanar creatures from teleporting into or within the warded area and deals 5d10 radiant or necrotic damage (depending on alignment) to trespassing extraplanar creatures (1,000 gp consumed, can be made permanent with repeated castings). Hallow dedicates the space with one chosen ongoing effect from a fixed list (Courage, Daylight, Fear, Silence, Energy Protection, or others). Sunburst discharges a 60-foot-radius burst of radiant light as the rite's inaugural cleansing (12d6 radiant, Dexterity save; blinded on fail). Dispel Evil and Good grants one creature protection against extraplanar charm, possession, and attacks for concentration up to 10 minutes. The rite cleanses the site, sanctifies it with permanent wards, marks the dedication with a catastrophic holy burst, and individually shields one participant.
This is a heist-team's favorite “get out” plan and a rescue order's favorite “get in” plan. The caster first establishes certainty about
the target's location, then prepares a stable arrival/exit point, and finally masks the team's movement so pursuit becomes guesswork.
Used responsibly, it retrieves captives from enemy territory. Used irresponsibly, it retrieves artifacts from museums and calls it
“rebalancing history.” Either way, it's a 12-hour commitment—an operation, not a spell.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a remote view of the destination or captive's location. Locate Object finds a specific described object (a key, relic, captive's worn item, or identifying token) within 1,000 feet, confirming its position. A Teleportation Circle is inscribed at the ritual site — any creature that knows the sequence can use it to return instantly, even from a distance. Pass without Trace erases all tracks and adds +10 to Stealth for the extraction team for 1 hour. The working confirms the target, finds a key object, establishes an escape route, and conceals the team — a complete extraction operation in one ritual.
This rite is used by rulers, inquisitors, and—sometimes—merciful healers. The caster establishes a divinatory link to a subject, invades
the subject's sleep with a shaped dream, and binds the experience to a lasting lesson the mind struggles to ignore. It is not a “conversation.”
It is a verdict delivered in metaphor.
In gentler hands, the dream can be a warning that saves lives. In harsher hands, it becomes a tool of coercion. As always, the DM is the
final judge of what a combined ritual can reasonably accomplish at the table.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes the target's identity and location (Wisdom save modified by familiarity). Dream enters the sleeping target with a scripted vision of up to 1 hour, delivering any message or experience the caster designs. Geas delivers a compulsion within the dream (Charisma save; if the target acts against the stated task, 5d10 psychic damage per day for 30 days). Modify Memory reshapes how the target remembers the dream so the compulsion feels like a remembered personal vow or naturally formed conviction rather than an external command. The four layers perform invisible, remote psychological and compulsory conditioning without the target ever meeting the caster.
This rite is civic magic at its most theatrical: the city becomes a living festival. Streets bloom with illusory banners, music and
light arrive on cue, and every plaza can host a scene that repeats perfectly for days. A final thread of suggestion encourages joy,
calm, and cooperation—turning chaos into celebration and crowds into chorus.
When used for benevolent ends, it is remembered for generations. When used for propaganda, it is remembered too—just with a different
kind of shiver.
Specific effects: When completed, Mirage Arcane creates a festival landscape across a vast area for 10 days. Programmed Illusion installs self-repeating theatrical scenes within it (triggered by time, location, or phrase, recurring indefinitely). Major Image places a dynamic, detailed spectacle that can include sight, sound, smell, and temperature (concentration up to 10 minutes). Mass Suggestion simultaneously issues a single behavioral nudge — joy, calm, cooperation, or celebration — to up to 12 creatures in range (Wisdom save). Together, the four create a city-scale illusion environment with behavioral direction and scripted performances already running inside it.
The rituals below are examples of truly consequential workings—rites that shape nations, settle wars, and rewrite the terms of survival. Many require four or five spells, and their ritual casting times (12 hours or 3 days) make them the province of preparation, pilgrimage, and dramatic set-pieces rather than improvisation.
This rite is spoken like a funeral and sung like a coronation. The lead caster calls lost souls back through the veil, restores the body
to wholeness, and then floods the returned with vitality enough to survive the shock of reunion. Priests of great temples perform it at
consecrated altars; archmagi perform it at leyline nexuses; tyrants perform it in sealed vaults and call it “inventory recovery.”
The working is not subtle. The air grows warm, then cold, then painfully alive. Names are spoken. Promises are demanded. When it ends, the
returned gasp as though surfacing from deep water—alive, restored, and very aware that something vast has been asked on their behalf.
Specific effects: When completed, Gentle Repose preserves multiple bodies for 10 days (sustaining their eligibility). Raise Dead restores any creature dead for up to 10 days. True Resurrection restores any creature dead for up to 200 years, reconstituting the body from nothing if needed (25,000 gp consumed). Mass Heal delivers up to 700 points of healing divided among any number of creatures and simultaneously ends the blinded, deafened, and diseased conditions on all recipients. Heroes' Feast fortifies the returned with a restorative meal: immunity to poison and fright, advantage on Wisdom saves, and 2d10 temporary hit points. The working revives the dead across a range of death durations and immediately fortifies them for the living world.
This rite is how a “safe room” becomes a sanctum and how a sanctum becomes a legend. It layers planar exclusion, sacred (or profane)
dedication, privacy against scrying, internal defenses, and a final clause of consequence for trespass. When the working is complete,
the threshold feels heavier—like the building has decided to remain standing regardless of the world outside it.
Many fortresses are built with stone. This one is built with certainty. Cast repeatedly in the same place, it can become a keystone
of permanent wards and generational strongholds.
Specific effects: When completed, Forbiddance bars all extraplanar creatures from teleporting into the warded space and deals 5d10 radiant or necrotic damage to trespassers (1,000 gp consumed — can become permanent with repeated castings). Hallow dedicates the space with one chosen ongoing effect. Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum prevents magical scrying, eavesdropping, teleportation into or out of the area, and planar travel within it. Guards and Wards mazes the interior, fills it with magical fog, locks all doors, and optionally adds dancing lights or stinking cloud zones. Glyph of Warding inscribes a punitive trigger spell at the most likely entry point (200 gp consumed). All five operate simultaneously as a complete, multi-layer security architecture.
This is not “good farming.” This is a treaty between land and caster. The rite brings rain on schedule and sunlight at the right angle,
reshapes irrigation channels and terraces as if the valley itself remembers how it wants to be tended, and sanctifies the growth so blight,
taint, and unnatural pestilence struggle to gain a foothold.
When cast at an attuned location—standing stones, an ancient druid grove, a sainted river confluence—the valley seems to breathe out.
The work is slow, but the reward is political power: food, stability, and the quiet loyalty of thousands who eat because you acted.
Specific effects: When completed, Plant Growth enriches a half-mile radius of soil so it produces twice the normal yield for one full year. Control Weather shifts regional weather to optimal growing conditions for up to 8 hours. Move Earth reshapes terrain to improve drainage, irrigation, and crop access across the affected area (concentration up to 2.5 hours). Create or Destroy Water seeds specific water features within the area. Hallow simultaneously sanctifies the land against magical blight, contamination, and unnatural pestilence for 24 hours (can be repeated for permanence). The five working together transform a region's agricultural capacity for an entire growing season.
Cities don't fall because walls are low; they fall because someone opens a door. This rite turns a district—sometimes an entire keep—
into a paranoid, watching thing. Wards mislead intruders, deny planar entry, punish trespass, and keep the interior hidden from distant
scrutiny. The warding “feels” present: torches seem to look back, hallways subtly guide strangers the wrong way, and doors resist as if
personally offended.
Rulers commission this rite the way they commission fleets: as a declaration that what lies within is not meant to be taken.
Specific effects: When completed, Guards and Wards fills the defended space with obscuring mists, magically locked and re-lockable doors, sealed stairwells, and optional zones of dancing lights or stinking cloud. Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum prevents magical scrying, eavesdropping, and unwanted planar transit within the area. Forbiddance bars extraplanar entry and damages trespassers (1,000 gp consumed). Symbol inscribes a powerful glyph at the chosen entry point (Death, Discord, Fear, Hopelessness, Insanity, Pain, Sleep, or Stunning — 1,000 gp consumed). Arcane Eye provides the caster with an indefinitely mobile invisible sensor to observe within the warded space. All five form an integrated, self-monitoring fortress: the caster watches in real time through wards that trap, bar, confound, and punish intruders.
A rite sung over candles that refuse to gutter and water that will not cool, the Grand Requiem calls the departed back as a chorus calls a refrain. The working binds five separate “permissions” into one: the body's readiness, the soul's willingness, the severing of mortal injuries, the rekindling of breath, and the restoration of the spirit's place in the world.
When completed, choose a sanctified space you have maintained for the full casting (often a hall, chapel, grove, or battlefield shrine). Any number of dead creatures of your choice whose remains (or meaningful portion thereof) lie within the sanctified space may be restored to life, provided each creature could be returned by at least one of the component resurrection spells used in this ritual. Creatures return with renewed bodies, closed wounds, and a sense of having “missed only a breath” — though memory of the afterlife is indistinct, as if waking from a long dream.
The ritual is famously impractical in urgent circumstances; it is a work of aftermath, vows, and hard-won miracles. Many temples keep the rite locked away, requiring oaths, offerings, and witnesses.
Specific effects: When completed, all four resurrection spells operate in parallel tiers: Revivify restores creatures dead 1 minute or less (300 gp consumed). Raise Dead restores creatures dead up to 10 days (500 gp consumed). Resurrection restores creatures dead up to 100 years (1,000 gp consumed). True Resurrection restores any creature dead up to 200 years, reconstituting the body from nothing (25,000 gp consumed). Heroes' Feast then provides the returned with a restorative meal — immunity to poison and fright, advantage on Wisdom saves, 2d10 temporary HP (1,000 gp consumed). The working accepts fallen across all categories of death duration and immediately fortifies the living and returned alike.
Farmers tell the tale as a prayer; druids keep it as a treaty. This rite does not merely encourage growth - it negotiates with the land. Over three days the casters lay thirteen furrows or lines of stones (as the terrain allows), anoint them with incense and oil, awaken a chosen living landmark (an ancient tree, a venerable hedge, a great standing reed-bed), and then knit weather and soil into a single obedient season.
When the covenant is sealed, a valley-sized region (or a comparable tract chosen by the DM) enters an unnatural year of plenty: rains arrive when needed, frosts retreat from tender shoots, and pests turn away as if smelling a predator. Crops grow thick, fruit swells heavy, and weeds struggle to take hold. The awakened landmark becomes a local steward; it cannot command the harvest, but it can warn of blight, fire, flood, or cruel magic.
The rite is slow and public by nature. In wartime it becomes a beacon-and therefore a target.
Specific effects: When completed, Plant Growth enriches a half-mile radius of soil for one full year of doubled yields. Control Weather manages regional weather across the growing season (up to 8 hours active, effects persist). Move Earth reshapes terrain for irrigation, drainage, and planting access. Awaken transforms one chosen living plant into a sentient steward — Intelligence 10, able to speak, perceive the land, and warn of threats (1,000 gp consumed). Hallow simultaneously sanctifies the region against magical blight and unnatural pestilence. The working creates a self-sustaining agricultural system with a permanent guardian that continues to watch after the casters have left.
This rite is a chamber-council for the dead and the unseen. Over three nights the casters light a strict pattern of candles, trace a circle of names, and invite voices from three directions: the corpse’s memory, the world’s remembered stories, and the vast outsiders who observe mortal history with cold patience.
When completed, the ritual creates a formal “session” that lasts for the duration. During the session, you may ask questions as if you were casting the component divinations in turn, but the answers come as a single, coherent testimony: the dead speak, lore clarifies, omens weigh the truth of statements, and an otherworldly perspective corrects deliberate deception. If the session is held in a quiet, respected place (a shrine, tomb, library, or battlefield cairn), the voices tend toward clarity; in a profaned place, the testimony is bitter, cryptic, or laden with accusation.
Many who perform the Parliament of Echoes make the mistake of treating it as interrogation. The rite works best as diplomacy.
Specific effects: When completed, five distinct knowledge sources are consulted in a single session lasting 1 hour: a corpse's memory (Speak with Dead — up to 5 questions), a divine power's yes/no answers (Commune — 3 questions), an extraplanar entity's observations (Contact Other Plane — 5 questions, Wisdom save required), the world's accumulated lore on a named subject (Legend Lore — 450 gp consumed), and a near-term omen about a specified action (Augury). Each source answers its specific category; together they cover personal memory, divine knowledge, planar observation, historical record, and prophetic guidance in a single coherent inquiry.
A fortress made of rules, not stone. This rite braids holiness (or unholiness) with absolute boundaries: trespass becomes difficult, scrying becomes unreliable, concealed keystones vanish from all sense, and every doorway can become a trap if spoken to in the correct tongue. The Bastion is the classic answer to “How do we keep it safe when we must leave?”
When completed, choose a site you have occupied throughout the casting. The site becomes warded against planar travel, intrusion, and distant observation. The ward can be keyed to allow chosen creatures to pass or to be repelled; it can be made gentle as a warning or violent as a condemnation. In addition, one hidden anchor-object within the site (often a cornerstone, reliquary, or sealed vault) is sequestered from discovery, and one or more glyphs can be bound into the site’s architecture as final, cruel punctuation.
This ritual is almost never completed in secret. Those who attempt it in the open usually do so because they can defend the casting for three full days.
Specific effects: When completed, Forbiddance bars extraplanar entry and damages trespassers (1,000 gp consumed). Hallow dedicates the site with a chosen ongoing protective or punitive effect. Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum seals the site against magical scrying, eavesdropping, teleportation, and planar transit from outside. A Glyph of Warding inscribes a punitive trigger spell at the critical entry point or container (200 gp consumed). Sequester hides one chosen anchor object within the site from all detection, scrying, and physical discovery — rendering it effectively inert and invisible until a chosen trigger (5,000 gp consumed). The five together create a site that cannot be observed from outside, cannot be breached from the planes, punishes the approach, and conceals its most critical contents beyond any known detection.
The Star-Spear is an infamous working: an act of distant wrath delivered with ceremonial precision. The casters first secure the “view” (a scryed truth), then open a narrow, deliberate connection to a higher realm, and finally let judgment fall like a pillar through a keyhole. Witnesses describe it as a silent lance of radiance, followed by thunder that seems to arrive late, as if reality needed time to admit what happened.
When completed, you designate a creature you can scry (or a location whose truth you have fixed through the casting). A celestial aperture opens high above the target point and a column of radiant devastation descends. The strike may arrive as a single catastrophic moment or as a sustained “burn” that lingers for the duration (DM’s choice based on the fiction and the ritual’s amplification). Storm and wind gather in sympathy; clouds curl as if pulled by a hook.
This rite is the opposite of subtlety. Its greatest defense is the distance between the casters and the consequence.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a precise remote fix on a target location or creature (Wisdom save if targeting a creature, modified by familiarity). Control Weather gathers storm conditions that create a natural focal point and amplify the rite's atmospheric drama (up to 8 hours). Gate opens a narrow celestial aperture high above the scryed target point. Through that aperture, Sunburst channels a 60-foot-radius radiant burst (12d6 radiant, Dexterity save — blinded on fail) simultaneously with Flame Strike (10-foot-radius column, 4d6 fire + 4d6 radiant, Dexterity save for half). The two strikes arrive together as overlapping divine devastation delivered from a position beyond conventional counter-attack range.
Citywide illusion is not merely size. It is continuity. This rite binds five separate deceits: the landscape lie, the crowd lie, the story lie, the scheduled lie, and the warded lie. The Masque is how a city becomes a stage that refuses to break character.
When completed, a city district (or an area chosen by the DM) is overlaid with a grand illusion that changes streets, hides routes, invents plazas, and makes barriers feel real to the touch. Within that area, selected inhabitants can be given consistent disguises, while scripted scenes can be triggered by time, location, or a spoken phrase. The illusion can be designed to feel celebratory, protective, or cruelly predatory-and it can be tuned to mislead divinations by presenting a false “normal.”
The Masque is often used defensively: not to stop invaders, but to make them waste days walking circles.
Specific effects: When completed, Mirage Arcane reskins district-level terrain for 10 days — rearranging apparent street layouts, creating phantom plazas, and making navigation unreliable. Hallucinatory Terrain overlays natural features within the area to further confuse spatial reasoning (24 hours). Seeming simultaneously changes the apparent appearance of any number of creatures in the affected area for 8 hours (Wisdom save to disbelieve each). Programmed Illusion installs scripted looping scenes that run indefinitely on chosen triggers. Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum prevents magical scrying of the area from outside, so the illusion's true nature cannot be revealed by remote divination. Five interlocking deceptions: terrain, creature appearances, scripted performances, and a shield against magical analysis.
Some divinations predict. This rite persuades. Over three days, the casters layer omen, counsel, and story until fate begins to behave like a well-rehearsed play. The Chronicle is recorded as words, knots, chalk-marks, or carved runes; each “line” of the Chronicle is a promise the world becomes more likely to keep.
When completed, you name a course of action for a group (a journey, a negotiation, a trial, a hunt, a heist) and a window of time. For the duration, those who follow the Chronicle receive a persistent sense of the “right next step”: a pull away from doomed choices, a taste of warning before ambush, and a quiet confidence when the promised path is still open. The Chronicle does not negate risk, but it tilts chance. The DM may represent this with advantage on key checks, reduced uncertainty, or clearer prophetic guidance-always with the understanding that the Chronicle is strongest when obeyed.
Specific effects: When completed, Augury delivers a near-term omen about a specific action. Divination provides a short prophetic verse from a divine source. Commune asks a divine power three yes/no questions with truthful answers. Legend Lore reveals historical precedent, relevant lore, and any legendary significance of the named course of action (450 gp consumed). Foresight then grants the primary beneficiary advantage on all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws while removing opponents' ability to gain advantage against them — for 8 hours. The first four spells converge to confirm, shape, and validate the plan; Foresight equips the beneficiary to execute it with supernatural foresight already in hand.
This rite is spoken like a legal document and drawn like a trap. The caster does not merely open a way to a creature; the caster prepares a place for the creature to arrive, a moment for it to be caught, and a sentence it must hear before it can speak its own.
When completed, you may call a specific creature whose name you know (or whose identity you have established through the casting) to a prepared circle within the ritual site. The creature is pulled through a gate and arrives within the bounds of a binding circle. The working presses immediately into restraint, compulsion, and terms: the creature may be held, compelled to hear your proclamation, and bound to a demanded service or bargain.
The rite is infamous for the consequences of arrogance. Calling a creature is easy; surviving the creature’s opinion of you is not.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a precise view of the target creature's location (Wisdom save modified by familiarity). Magic Circle creates the containment geometry — the named creature type cannot leave the cylinder once inside. Gate opens a portal naming the specific entity, pulling it through into the prepared circle (5,000 gp consumed). Hold Monster paralyzes the arriving creature on a failed Wisdom save (any creature type, concentration up to 1 minute). Geas delivers a binding compulsion (Charisma save; 5d10 psychic damage per day for disobedience, up to 30 days). The sequence is five steps in series: observe, contain the space, summon into that space, immobilize on arrival, compel to service.
A treasure is only truly owned when it can be summoned. This rite creates a durable sympathetic link between a marked object and a prepared receiving-place. The object is hidden from casual discovery, its vault is hardened against intrusion, and a single decisive gesture can call the prize home.
When completed, you touch a sapphire to the object you wish to bind and speak its “true receipt” into the ritual ledger. The object becomes difficult to locate or steal by mundane means; locks harden, wards settle, and the object seems to “refuse to be found.” At any later time, you may break the sapphire to summon the object to the prepared receiving-place, even across vast distance, so long as the object still exists and is not under effects that explicitly prevent such travel (DM’s call).
This rite is popular among archmages for a simple reason: it turns paranoia into a mechanism.
Specific effects: When completed, Drawmij's Instant Summons links the marked object to a sapphire (1,000 gp consumed) — breaking the sapphire later instantly calls the object to hand from any distance. Sequester simultaneously hides the object from all detection and scrying and optionally renders it invisible, preventing it from being found by conventional or magical search (5,000 gp consumed). A Glyph of Warding inscribes a punitive trap on the hiding place (200 gp consumed). Arcane Lock reinforces the physical container (25 gp consumed). Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum prevents scrying of the vault and its contents. The five together make the object hidden, trapped, physically barred, magically concealed, and instantly recallable — paranoia made into mechanism.
Maps show distances. This rite abolishes them. The Relic Road first learns the correct path, then draws a circle of return, and finally folds the travelers through a single, decisive step. It is frequently used to recover lost heirlooms, stolen regalia, or artifacts that have been buried in deliberate secrecy.
When completed, you name an object you seek (or a location strongly associated with it) and present a token from that place or story. The ritual reveals the most direct route in the moment the casting ends-and then, if you choose, it carries you along that route in a single instant to a safe arrival point near the destination (as determined by the DM). A prepared teleportation circle is etched as part of the rite, allowing immediate retreat or reinforcement.
This rite is the reason many vaults are built to be found only once.
Specific effects: When completed, Find the Path reveals the most direct route to a named location or object — even through barriers, mazes, or deliberate misdirection — guiding the party step by step for up to 24 hours (100 gp consumed). A Teleportation Circle is inscribed at the ritual site, providing an instant return route for anyone who knows the sequence (50 gp consumed). Passwall opens a 5-foot-wide passage through solid stone at the destination if a physical barrier blocks the final approach. Teleport carries the party to the destination. Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum seals the ritual site from scrying during the working. The combined effect is: navigate, transport, breach any barrier, and maintain a secured escape portal.
Curses cling like stories: they have beginnings, rules, and endings that refuse to be rushed. This rite identifies the curse as a narrative, strips its hooks from the victim, restores what it damaged, and seals the object so the same malice cannot easily reattach itself.
When completed, you cleanse a single cursed object and all creatures presently bound by its curse. The rite reveals the curse’s nature, origin, and triggers (when such knowledge is possible), then breaks the binding, mends lingering afflictions, and sanctifies (or profanes, if performed by darker hands) the object’s presence so that re-cursing requires deliberate, renewed effort.
The Purification is loved by adventurers, hated by witches, and respected by everyone else.
Specific effects: When completed, Identify reveals the curse's specific properties, school of magic, origin, and trigger conditions in full (100 gp consumed). Remove Curse severs the binding from all creatures and objects presently affected. Greater Restoration simultaneously repairs all ability score reductions, hit point maximum losses, exhaustion levels, or lingering conditions the curse caused (100 gp consumed). Dispel Evil and Good wards the purified object and its carrier against the creature type responsible for the original curse (concentration up to 10 minutes). Hallow sanctifies the object against re-cursing, making future imposition of the same malice require deliberate renewed effort (1,000 gp consumed). The five work in sequence: reveal, sever, repair, protect, consecrate.
Tyrants love distance. So do the righteous. This rite is a five-link chain that reaches through vision, enters sleep, lays down law, edits memory to make the law feel inevitable, and then delivers the final phrasing in the waking world. Those who survive it describe the sensation as waking up already convinced.
When completed, you designate a creature you can scry. Over the duration, the creature becomes vulnerable to a procession of messages: a waking sending, a dream visitation, a binding geas, and a subtle rearrangement of recollection that makes the geas feel like a remembered promise rather than an imposed command. The working is strongest when the edict is phrased as a vow the target can rationalize. A creature whose will is unbroken may still resist, but even resistance leaves a scar of certainty: “Something tried to make me swear.”
This rite is forbidden in many lands-and quietly preserved in many more.
Specific effects: When completed, Scrying establishes a precise remote view of the target creature (Wisdom save modified by familiarity, 1,000 gp consumed). Dream enters the sleeping target with a scripted vision of up to 1 hour. Geas delivers a binding compulsion within the dream (Charisma save; 5d10 psychic damage per day for disobedience for 30 days). Modify Memory reshapes the target's recollection of the dream so the compulsion feels like a remembered personal vow or naturally formed conviction. Sending delivers a final waking message of up to 25 words to seal the decree with a real-world echo. Five layers of influence delivered without the caster ever meeting the target: observe, invade sleep, compel, rewrite the memory of the compulsion, confirm with a waking message.
The Panopticon is not a single eye; it is an institution. This rite assembles pursuit from five disciplines: story, sight, supernatural scouting, relentless location, and the refusal to be fooled by glamours. It is how inquisitors become legends and fugitives become myths.
When completed, you designate a quarry by name and description. For the duration, you can locate and observe the quarry with brutal precision, even as they flee, disguise themselves, or hide behind mundane barriers. The ritual supplies a constant sense of “there” (direction and distance), intermittent vision when circumstances allow, and contextual lore that helps you predict where the quarry will go next. In practice, the Panopticon turns a chase into an inevitability-unless the quarry has the power to break the rules of the world as thoroughly as you do.
Specific effects: When completed, Legend Lore reveals historical information, behavioral patterns, and any legendary significance of the quarry (450 gp consumed). Locate Creature establishes direction and approximate distance to the quarry within 1,000 feet. Scrying projects a remote sensor to the quarry's location for direct visual confirmation (Wisdom save modified by familiarity, 1,000 gp consumed). Arcane Eye provides a mobile invisible sensor that moves 30 feet per round, allowing active scouting around the quarry's location. True Seeing ensures all five layers of information penetrate invisibility, illusions, polymorphs, and shapechanging (25 gp consumed). No conventional concealment method can defeat this combined surveillance.
A festival that cannot be forgotten is a spell with a crowd. This rite feeds the people, clothes the city in light, scripts harmless wonders into alley and plaza, and gently persuades despair to step aside. In times of war, it has been used as resistance; in times of peace, it has been used as a founding myth.
When completed, a celebration blooms across an area chosen by the DM: food appears in abundance, music carries without tiring the musicians, lanterns drift as if they know where to gather, and illusions perform on schedule-dancing constellations above rooftops, ghostly fireworks over rivers, and staged “miracles” that make children scream with delighted terror. The rite can also be keyed to perform civic functions: calming riots, honoring the dead, or turning a coronation into an unassailable symbol.
Specific effects: When completed, Heroes' Feast provides a restorative meal for up to 12 creatures (immunity to poison and fright for 24 hours, advantage on Wisdom saves, 2d10 temporary HP — 1,000 gp consumed). Hallucinatory Terrain creates a festival landscape for 24 hours. Major Image adds a dynamic, detailed spectacle (sight, sound, smell, and temperature, concentration up to 10 minutes). Programmed Illusion installs self-repeating scripted performances that activate on schedule or trigger (25 gp consumed). Mass Suggestion simultaneously issues a behavioral nudge to up to 12 creatures — joy, calm, or cooperation (Wisdom save). The feast fortifies participants with real magical benefits; the three illusion spells animate the environment around them; the suggestion shapes how the crowd responds to it.
This is necromancy as architecture. The casters raise bodies, animate them into temporary frenzy to “loosen” the dead from fear, then bind the resulting horde under a single crowned will. The final sanctification is inverted: a hallowing that blesses emptiness and declares life an intruder.
When completed, you create a hierarchy of undead within the ritual site: newly made undead rise in ordered ranks, their obedience sharpened and their hunger disciplined. For the duration, the site itself becomes an ally to the dead - sounds dampen, warmth leaches away, and the living feel watched. The crown of command may be a literal circlet, a rune-etched skull, or a spoken title that only the dead recognize. If the crown is destroyed, the structure of control fractures (often violently).
The Ossuary Crown is a war crime in many kingdoms, and a rite of passage in a few.
Specific effects: When completed, Animate Dead raises skeletons and zombies (up to three bodies for a 3rd-level slot, more at higher levels — free undead per turn for 24 hours). Create Undead animates more powerful undead — ghouls, ghasts, wights, or mummies depending on slot level (150 gp per corpse consumed). Danse Macabre compels up to 5 undead within 60 feet to follow complex tactical orders beyond simple commands (Wisdom save, concentration up to 1 hour). Finger of Death deals 7d8 + 30 necrotic damage to a living creature (Constitution save for half) and permanently animates it as a zombie under the caster's absolute control if it dies. Hallow — profanely applied — dedicates the site as a sanctum of death, penalizing living intruders and reinforcing the dead. Together the five create, discipline, add to, and anchor an undead hierarchy.
This rite is a bargain with magic itself: “Be quiet here.” It layers personal protections, countermagic, and absolute interdiction into a ward that feels like stepping behind thick glass. Wizards describe the sensation as comforting; sorcerers describe it as suffocating.
When completed, you designate a sanctuary boundary within the ritual site. Within that boundary, hostile magic struggles to take hold; charms and compulsions slide off, detection fails or lies, and transmutation that would harden or break the body is resisted. At the DM’s discretion (and often as a reward for strong amplification or an attuned location), the sanctuary may briefly manifest as a true null-zone that suppresses ongoing magical effects at the boundary’s heart, while allowing explicitly invited magic to function.
The rite takes three days because it must convince the world that this place is an exception.
Specific effects: When completed, Antimagic Field suppresses all spells, magical effects, and magic item properties within a 10-foot-radius sphere centered on the caster (moves with the caster). Globe of Invulnerability prevents all spells of 5th level or lower from affecting creatures inside a stationary 10-foot-radius sphere. Mind Blank makes one creature immune to psychic damage, immune to divination, and immune to the charmed condition for 24 hours. Stoneskin grants resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage (concentration up to 1 hour, 100 gp consumed). Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum prevents magical scrying, eavesdropping, teleportation, and planar transit into or out of the area. The five address five distinct categories of threat simultaneously: magical offense, spell-based attacks, psychic and divination, physical weapon damage, and remote observation.