Lusus Naturae

This is the spell for which a merlane is infamous. Lusus naturae allows the wizard to create new life and form new breeds, for good or ill. This is no easy task, and failure is common.

This is not a swift spell like teratism; rather it takes at least a month to attempt to fashion a lusus naturae. During that time, the merlane must be deeply involved in imbuing in his creation all the traits he desires, an effort that calls for painstaking research, careful administration of additional spell-casting or rare components (see below), and the casting of lusus naturae every third day to ensure that the source stock is affected.

Before the casting of the spell, much time should be spent in preparation. The player and the DM should meet and confer on what sort of life the merlane character wishes to create. The DM then can consider the proposal and suggest the means to that end in regards to material components.

Such components should be either animal parts that will be related to the final result or actual living specimens.

The base chance of success is equal to the merlane's Intelligence plus five times his level of experience. Of course, there are modifiers, as shown in the table above.

Unnatural abilities can be imbued to a lusus naturae through the casting of similar spells and/or rare material components during the process. For instance, if the merlane wishes to create a gigantic scorpion with a stinger that can ignite into flames, he may need to cast burning hands around the source stock every day, and perhaps let it lie on a bed of rare charcoal specially imported from far-away lands.

If the spell fails to work, the DM then rolls the percentage chance again, secretly to see if something horrible and unexpected does come from the experiment. If that roll succeeds then a creature is created, but not the sort the merlane had anticipated let alone wanted.

Lusus naturae can breed amongst their own kind. Their ecology will vary, but is still dependent on the source stock from which they came. Thus, a creature made from canine stock will be easier to train, be a carnivore, and tend to travel in packs if let loose in the wild. Something fashioned from fish stock may be hard to control, dependent on water, and be omnivorous. A merlane can never truly be totally sure what the consequences of shaping new life may bring.

Much like teratism, this spell does not in any way make the created creature domesticated to the merlane's will. He must go through the slow process of handling and training the young creature if he is to be its master.

Lusus naturae modifiers Situation | Modifier ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------- Have studied a similar creature before | +10% Have cast discern sire on specimen of creature to be bred | +20% Have created a similar creature before | +25% New species | 25% Creature is a combination of different animal classes (mammal, avian, insect, etc.) | -10%/class Each Hit Die of creature | 5% For every additional spell that needs to be cast | -5% For every additional week in experimentation spent in the past month | +5%