Further Meanderings of Merinda @merindab - Tumblr Blog

Unpacking mechanics in "A Mote of Possibility" - 1/2

Take as read that The Mighty Nein Animated will almost certainly take some liberties with 5e mechanics as much as it does with the rest of canon. I certainly would if I were adapting a dnd game for TV. All of this is just for fun.

These are my best guesses at what 5e spells, abilities, and so forth are the inspiration for or being gestured at in what we've seen onscreen so far in 01x01, "A Mote of Possibility," as well as a few speculations about connections to Exandria-specific canon. Corrections and conjectures extremely welcome!

Mondo spoilers under the cut.

Achess

Not 5e, but the ceremony shown here is probably the culmination of achess. According to The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (EGtW),

If a life continues long enough to achieve a state of clarity called achess, where [a person believes] that they've learned all they can learn from their current life, they can choose to partake in a ritualistic termination of their current life, assisted by an umavi in proximity to a beacon, thereby setting them on a path to a new birth. While considered an honor within the Kryn Dynasty, this practice is misunderstood and seen as barbaric outside their culture. (EGtW p. 38)

Nothing in the campaign suggests that a soul being drawn to a beacon is visible, of course, but it's obvious why it's helpful to show it clearly here.

Perhaps later we'll learn for certain where this event takes place, but I would assume for now Asarius, City of Beasts. Geographically it makes the most sense: Astrid, Eadwulf, and Dain flee to Rockguard Garrison, seemingly on foot, which is a hell of a lot closer to Asarius than Rosohna.

Furthermore, while consecution theoretically should mean a great deal of diversity all over the Dynasty, what we actually see in the campaign is that Asarius is a lot more diverse than most other settlements. According to EGtW, Asarius (pop. 48k) is 41% goblinoids (includes bugbears), 32% gnolls, 10% drow, and 17% other. Compare that to the capital of Rosohna (pop. 113k), which is 66% drow, 9% goblinoids, 7% duergar, and 18% other. In this scene, the married couple at the center of the ritual look to be bugbears; the umavi presiding is probably a slightly reskinned gnoll.

Gnolls in 5e don't have horns that I've ever heard of; given Leylas Kryn's own famous horned headdress, it may be that the umavi here is wearing a headdress of her own, and that the horns have some wider religious significance (perhaps related to the first confirmed reincarnation in the Luxon?). Or, maybe she's just got horns, and this is the first glimpse of a running theme in the animated series: it distances itself from 5e mechanics and archetypes as carefully as it nods to them.

Speaking of reincarnation in the Luxon:

2. Theocracy

This lovely religious sculpture made to house the beacon could be just about anything, and is most likely a generic drow elf standing in awe as Leylas Kryn reveals the beacon to them. But I kind of like to imagine it's Leylas and Quana, specifically. The taller figure has visible age lines on her face, which, among elves, implies not just maturity but someone fuckoff old. Perhaps it's a depiction of Leylas telling Quana not to be afraid, just as the bugbear woman in the previous ceremony did.

3. Steel Wind Strike Shadow Blade

Steel Wind Strike (XGtE) 5th-level conjuration Casting Time: 1 action Range: 30 feet Components: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp) Duration: Instantaneous You flourish the weapon used in the casting and then vanish to strike like the wind. Choose up to five creatures you can see within range. Make a melee spell attack against each target. On a hit, a target takes 6d10 force damage. You can then teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 5 feet of one of the targets you hit or missed.

This could absolutely just be melee strikes on a surprise round: for one thing, we see Astrid physically dash to her second target, instead of teleporting. The main reason I thought of SWS in this scene, apart from the fact that I really like it as a Volstrucker spell, is that unless these elite guards have the hitpoints of a wet paper bag, it's very hard to buy a Bladesinger wizard one-shotting them the old-fashioned way, even if she critted twice.

In addition, Astrid's blade appears spectral and vanishes into smoke after the second blow, which fits with SWS. However, the intended implication might well be just that she's a fancy wizard with a fancy wizard weapon.

The fact that every Volstrucker we see wields something spectral-looking for their primary weapon—dagger for Owelia, dagger or shortsword for Astrid, big fuck-off hammer for Eadwulf—kept nagging at me, and very belatedly it occurred to me: duh, Shadow Blade.

Shadow Blade (XGtE)

2nd-level illusion

Casting Time: 1 bonus action Range: Self Components: V, S Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You weave together threads of shadow to create a sword of solidified gloom in your hand. This magic sword lasts until the spell ends. It counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient. It deals 2d8 psychic damage on a hit and has the finesse, light, and thrown properties (range 20/60). In addition, when you use the sword to attack a target that is in dim light or darkness, you make the attack roll with advantage.

If you drop the weapon or throw it, it dissipates at the end of the turn. Thereafter, while the spell persists, you can use a bonus action to cause the sword to reappear in your hand.

Upcast to 5th, it would do respectable damage (still embarrassing for these guards that it one-shot them, but that would be no less true of SWS. I guess Asarius is just hurting for leveled personnel). I'd forgotten the clause, "If you drop the weapon or throw it, it dissipates at the end of the turn," but that's also a better match for the way we see Astrid's knife discorporate.

4. Silence

Eadwulf appears to cast Silence over the vault door:

Silence (PHB) 2nd-level illusion (ritual) Casting Time: 1 action Range: 120 feet Components: V, S Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes For the duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are deafened while entirely inside it. Casting a spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there.

The way the exterior guard's voice goes muffled as the radius engulfs him tends to confirm this.

What's interesting about this, though, is that Silence is not on the wizard spell list. It's available to 5e bards, clerics, and rangers. This could be a liberty taken--or, maybe animated Eadwulf is going to have the cleric levels the Liam thought he would when Caleb saw him wearing the symbol of the Raven Queen.

5. Residuum demolitions

Nothing definitive to cite from 5e here, because this obviously is not a 5e thing. From the text of this episode, though, we know that refined residuum "amplifies magic." So, what spell did Astrid cast that these crystals amplified enough to destroy the door?

It appears to cause an explosion: the door doesn't disintegrate (so, not Disintegrate); it explodes outward and kills the guard on the other side. It can't be Shatter or anything else thunder-based, because Silence nullifies thunder damage. (Interestingly, there's nothing in the spell text that suggests you couldn't use Silence to negate the major downside of Knock, but not all abjurations can be overcome by a second-level spell.) The effect appears to be instantaneous rather than concentration.

The vault door, being solid metal, probably has some threshold that has to be met even to damage it (think Greater Toughness in bg3). An upcast Pulse Wave might do it--but that's dunamancy, and there's no way for Astrid to know it. Force damage is probably the ticket here regardless, with thunder damage being a no-go, surely metal of that quality and heft is at least resistant to most elemental damage, if not outright immune.

Even if Astrid were an Order of Scribes wizard, which she extremely isn't, there isn't much on the wizard spell list below 5th level that deals force damage and isn't dunamancy, which means there isn't a level-appropriate damage formula for her to use to swap the damage type of, say, Fireball. I could maybe buy Cone of Cold + force damage swap + residuum amplification, but now we're getting into really remote hypotheticals.

Taking all this together, my best guess for the spell here is Rule of Cool (9th-level evocation).

6. Feather Fall

Feather Fall (PHB) 1st-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls Range: 60 feet Components: V, M (a small feather or piece of down) Duration: 1 minute Choose up to five falling creatures within range. A falling creature’s rate of descent slows to 60 feet per round until the spell ends. If the creature lands before the spell ends, it takes no falling damage and can land on its feet, and the spell ends for that creature.

They've reskinned Feather Fall as Leaf Fall!! Love that for them!!!

(Nothing bad ever happens to a leaf on the wind)

7. Jump

Jump (PHB) 1st-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 action Range: Touch Components: V, S, M (a grasshopper’s hind leg) Duration: 1 minute You touch a creature. The creature’s jump distance is tripled until the spell ends.

Someone's been playing a lot of BG3. In BG3, which in hindsight was pretty clearly a way for WotC to playtest quite a bit of 6e (oh, sorry, "5e 2024") material and then fire people for their successes, Enhanced Leap, aka Jump, is hands-down the best mobility spell in the game. It's way less OP on tabletop, but I'm fine with it getting a glow-up here.

A couple things stand out here. One, Eadwulf casts it. Unlike Silence, Jump is a wizard spell; but it's also a ranger spell, and Silence is on the ranger list, too. A wizard/ranger multiclass would be a lot funkier than his canonical wizard/fighter, but maybe less so than wizard/cleric. Although a dip into either for support casting that doesn't require a high save DC really wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Two, Eadwulf casts it on the party, which is not how Jump works. Unlike Longstrider, there's no option to upcast to target additional creatures with the same casting. But I'm pretty confident pegging this as Jump regardless. I've seen both Expeditious Retreat and Haste suggested here, but with all the emphasis on vertical movement in this sequence, I don't think they fit as well. I would very much believe that all three Volstrucker pre-cast Expeditious on themselves before they left the vault, though.

8. Clitoral Hood Tower

Clitoral Hood Tower appreciation post. Not a 5e spell, I just like it.

9. Manifest Echo

Manifest Echo (EGtW) At 3rd level, you can use a bonus action to magically manifest an echo of yourself in an unoccupied space you can see within 15 feet of you. This echo is a magical, translucent, gray image of you that lasts until it is destroyed, until you dismiss it as a bonus action, until you manifest another echo, or until you're incapacitated.

First Echo of the series! Not much to say here; liberties with apparent range aside, that's pretty clearly what this is.

10. Explodey Dart Thing

Whatever this spell is, two things are clear: it requires a ranged attack roll, and there is a further area effect after impact.

There aren't that many things on the wizard list that fit those criteria. Melf's Acid Arrow does:

A shimmering green arrow streaks toward a target within range and bursts in a spray of acid. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 4d4 acid damage immediately and 2d4 acid damage at the end of its next turn. On a miss, the arrow splashes the target with acid for half as much of the initial damage and no damage at the end of its next turn.

What we see isn't a great match, though, with a single projectile exploding into arcane shrapnel. MAA's AOE is also a delayed effect, whereas this seems to be immediate an explosive. The color seems evocative, and that's about it.

Melf's Minute Meteors matches much better in terms of effect:

You create six tiny meteors in your space. They float in the air and orbit you for the spell’s duration. When you cast the spell — and as a bonus action on each of your turns thereafter — you can expend one or two of the meteors, sending them streaking toward a point or points you choose within 120 feet of you. Once a meteor reaches its destination or impacts against a solid surface, the meteor explodes. Each creature within 5 feet of the point where the meteor explodes must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 2d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

but none of the first part does; we see Dain huck a single dart, not conjure a swarm as a concentration effect. (And if the party really is concentrating on Expeditious Retreat, anything else concentration is right out.)

If we assume it may be reskinned to deal force, fire, or additional piercing damage, however, the humble Ice Knife is actually a pretty good candidate.

You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of the point where the ice exploded must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.

I've never known Ice Knife to be remotely that effective, but maybe Dain upcast it.

That's about it for options from the wizard spell list (please do LMK if I've overlooked anything). There are things on the ranger list that are strongly reminiscent, like Hail of Thorns and Conjure Barrage. You could make some arguments for the value of a ranger multiclass on a mission to infiltrate deep into hostile territory, but those spells would use wisdom rather than intelligence for their save DCs, and I sure as shit wouldn't want to bank on the save DC of my dip class while running for my life. My vote goes to reskinned Ice Knife.

11. Shatter Dayshield

The narrative purpose of having the infiltration group escape this way, rather than with a standard teleport, appears to be to introduce the concept of the Kryn Dynasty's dayshield. (If it has a canonical name I'm mucking up, please LMK!) Since the dayshield is specific to the Wildemount setting, obviously there's no standard 5e spell that would accomplish what we see here.

Dain uses an object to cast the spell. It could be a component (a piece of mirror, maybe, from the way he bleeds when he closes his fist around it); but from the way Astrid prompts him to use it, I'd guess it's a unique magical item created for their mission, and he happened to be the one carrying it.

12. Time Ravage

Time Ravage (EGtW) 9th-level necromancy (dunamancy:chronurgy) Casting Time: 1 action Range: 90 feet Components: V, S, M (an hourglass filled with diamond dust worth at least 5,000 gp, which the spell consumes) Duration: Instantaneous You target a creature you can see within range, putting its physical form through the devastation of rapid aging. The target must make a Constitution saving throw, taking 10d12 necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. If the save fails, the target also ages to the point where it has only 30 days left before it dies of old age. In this aged state, the target has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, and its walking speed is halved. Only the Wish spell or the Greater Restoration spell cast with a 9th-level spell slot can end these effects and restore the target to its previous age.

Time Ravage is a single-target spell, not an AOE. It's also a 9th-level spell, meaning you need a minimum of 17 levels in wizard to cast it. The group lying in wait for Astrid/Eadwulf/Dain could have contained a war mage that elite: we know the Kryn care about the beacons enough. But everyone we saw looked like an Echo Knight. Maybe a caster was just out of sight, but otherwise, the effect that desiccated several horses and half-mummified Dain was triggered by somebody with, at absolute minimum, proficiency with light armor and scimitars. (Possible for a Bladesinger, I grant.)

The range of effect we see in this episode is insane. Again, Time Ravage, a max-level spell that would be castable by a handful of people on the entire planet, still only wreaks its damage on a single target. Beau comments that the effect extends along a clear line, reminiscent of Gravity Fissure, but even if Gravity Fissure caused temporal disruption (it doesn't), its effect extends along a single 100-foot line. That's already Real Big by 5e standards. On screen, we see horses get hit by this blast a mile off, or something--and according to the aerial shots and Zeenoth's later description, that was just one ray of twelve.

Nevertheless, Time Ravage is the only 5e spell that induces rapid aging. Anywhere. That is not a thing outside of very, very high-level dunamancy, which is surely part of what makes dunamancy so dangerous and frightening to the Empire.

So given that there's nothing else this could be and it's still a lousy match, and that the Kryn operatives look more like warriors than mages, maybe Astrid's group weren't the only ones with an insanely powerful magical item.

My hypothesis is that Rockguard Garrison's devastation in the animated series is going to serve roughly the purpose the near-destruction of the Zauberspire did in the campaign. Rockguard is nowhere as public as downtown Zadash, but Ikithon's wartime propaganda will probably suffice to get the devastation there into the public consciousness. Zeenoth describes same as a "twelve-sided explosion." It could be that someone cast Time Ravage, and the beacon's proximity transformed and amplified the spell, like residuum on steroids (Eadwulf to Trent: "I think one of them hit the beacon with some kind of magic--"); it could be the Kryn strike team had an item created by Professor Waccoh or other Dynasty researchers, like a highly advanced version of Ikithon's dunamantic egg in the campaign. But either way, Rockguard serves to advertise the threat of the Kryn and the alien power of dunamancy, a classic casus belli.

13. Echo Stone or Magic Mouth

"Barking dog trap. Classic."

The object Nott retrieves from the dog statue is a magical block that plays a prerecorded sound and seems to trigger from proximity.

An Echo Stone is a wondrous item created for the Tal'dorei campaign setting, which

records all sound made within 15 feet of it while glowing, then repeats that recorded sound at an equal volume once every 5 minutes. This cycle of repetition continues until the stone is squeezed again as an action, which silences it. Squeezing the stone twice in quick succession as an action causes it to play the sounds it has most recently recorded, rather than recording new sounds.

So not a great fit, beyond being a magic object that can record any sound, not just a spoken message.

A possible alternative would be something enchanted with a Magic Mouth spell. In MM's favor,

[Y]ou can have the spell…repeat its message whenever the trigger occurs. The triggering circumstance can be as general or as detailed as you like, though it must be based on visual or audible conditions that occur within 30 feet of the object. For example, you could instruct the mouth to speak when any creature moves within 30 feet of the object or when a silver bell rings within 30 feet of it.

That behavior matches what Nott and Caleb encounter pretty well. It could also be cast on any object, whereas an Echo Stone is specifically described as a "dull-blue river stone" that's "soft to the touch."

On the other hand, a Magic Mouth spell is so named because "a magical mouth appears on the [enchanted] object," which we don't see at all. It also specifies that "[y]ou implant a message within an object," which you do by "speak[ing] the message, which must be 25 words or less." It's not really a "record ambient sound" spell.

The barking dog trap here is probably a mashup of both, but if there is a single 5e spell or item that I'm overlooking, please let me know!

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Tumblr has a limit of 30 images per post, so continued here.

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