Flowstone
- SchoolAlteration
- SphereElemental Earth
- ComponentsV, S, M
- Range10 yds.
- Area3 cubic feet/level
- Casting time8
- Duration1 rd.
- SaveSpecial
This spell makes stone flow like syrup, and then harden. The stone flows in response to gravity, but can be directed by beings (such as skilled dwarves) wielding wooden paddles or erecting temporary dams. The flowing stone is not heated or altered in hue. Dwarves often use this spell to shape stone conduits, by flowing stone around logs that are later burnt away, and to sculpt stone into smooth door surrounds, covering or shielding embedded locks and the like.
The spell can also allow escape from stone prisons, by using wooden poles to open holes in the melted stone of walls and to uproot manacle bolts or other fastenings. Its most deadly use is to trap beings by entombing them or encasing their feet or other body parts in the hardening stone.
Any creature in contact with flowing stone is allowed a saving throw vs. poison. If successful, the creature entirely avoids having stone cling or envelop any part of it. It wins free of the affected area without harm (but must save again upon reentering).
A creature that fails this save is partially encrusted with stone, slowed in movement rate, and suffer a two-point Dexterity penalty until the stone is washed off (within 2 rounds) or shattered and scraped off (thereafter).
If an encrusted being is immobile, or is in the center of an affected area more than 10 feet across when the round of flowing ends, a saving throw vs. spell is also necessary. If it fails, the being is stuck. A Strength check is allowed to beings struggling against the hardening stone. If successful, they reach the edge of the affected area, emerging with one or more limbs encased in immobilizing blobs of stone. Failure traps the creature in the hardening stone. If stone covers breathing organs (in most beings, the head), death occurs in 1d4+1 rounds. If stone merely prevents movement, the being dies of starvation in 1d10+10 days, or whenever overcome by rising
water, attacking beasts, or the like.
Attacks on the stone transmit half damage directly to the trapped person; an encased limb can typically be freed by either amputating it (loss of one-quarter hit points, plus an immediate system shock survival roll), or inflicting 20 points of crushing or piercing damage on the stone (10 points to the trapped being). A second flowstone
spell can free trapped beings without harm.
The material components of this spell are a drop of water, a daub of mud, a grain of sand, and a pebble.
Notes: Granted by the dwarven goddess Sharindlar
Sources: Priest's Spell Compendium