Epic Level Handbook

You dream of power.In shades of shrieking red, endless black, andbrilliant yellow, the cosmic forces underlyingthe multiverse make themselves known to you.Inexplicable equations scribed in a thousand forgottenalphabets take up arcane orbit around yourhead . . . but you understand them. What’s more,something you suspected all along is now revealed toyou in full: Reality is a fragile thing, composed of ahost of forces beyond the ken of most, awaiting onlythe hand that knows and eyes that see. Power beckons.Arc you ready?You’ve heard about spells that transcend the commonlyunderstood arts, scribed in the margins ofancient tomes and whispered, among the acolytes ofmageguilds. In various times and places, epic spellshave been personified as “the Serpent,” codified as TriteDweomers, and encoded as part of an ancient lore calledthe Language Primeval. Whether epic spells really arestraight from the Serpent’s maddening whispers or arerevealed to you over countless curious volumes ofhidden lore, you are ready to grasp the ultimate level of,mortal magic.Casting epic spells is nothing less than the directmanipulation of reality itself. Even deities fear mortalcasters of epic spells.BEYOND 9TH-LEVELSPELLSEpic spellcasters begin to understand how magicreally works. Through application of formidableintellect, vast wisdom, or sheer force of personality,a spellcaster can manipulate cosmic and personalenergy directly. Such a spellcaster isreleased from the shackles imposed by leveldependentspell casting. The classification ofpower by level loses all meaning to the caster ofepic spells.The tradeoff for such transcendent power istime and resources. Developing and castingepic spells is a time-consuming and costlyundertaking. Only spellcasters who havealready mastered the ability to cast 9th-levelspells can hope to tread the road of epicspellcasting.WHAT ARE EPIC SPELLS?Epic spells are spells developed from theground up using a list of magical ingredientscalled seeds. Despite their power, epicspells still follow the basic rules for castingspells, except as specifically noted otherwisein this chapter.EPIC SPELLS CHAPTER TWO71