Campaign Design - Spells: Create Life

Create Life (from Gods)
Conjuration (Creation)

Level: Fabrication 9
Components: V, S, M, DF
Casting Time: 1 day
Range: Touch

Target, Effect, or Area: Instantaneous

Duration: See below

Saving Throw: See below
Spell Resistance: No

with this spell, the cleric comes close to true divinity. This spell creates one living thing of up to one size larger than the caster, at any age from infant to young adulthood. The creation has no memories, but it does have knowledge appropriate to its age. Infants grow at the normal rate as nature literally takes its course. The created being's alignment tends towards that of the caster, even if the being created is normally "always" another alignment. The creation is a free willed creature, and may end up with an outlook similar to the caster's, or it may decide to follow a completely different path in life. Parenthood has its rewards and hazards after all.

A created creature older than a toddler (or the equivalent) has the same alignment as the caster and the capacity to walk, talk (if applicable), and otherwise function as a creature of its type, age, and Intelligence. Creatures of animal Intelligence have all the traits of an average being of its type by childhood, except for Strength and Constitution. Any non-sentient creature created is utterly devoted to the caster and obeys him to the best of its limited ability. Sentient creatures are favorably disposed towards the caster, as if charmed, though this effect is considered extraordinary and is not affected by anti-magic effects. Extended periods of mistreatment end this effect unless the creature is both less powerful than the caster and kept isolated from all contact with society. Good clerics who create a living thing and deliberately mistreat it lose their spell casting abilities and must atone by teaching their creation about the ways of good, as well as anything else their deity may require of them.

There is a great danger in creating a being old enough to think. It has no memories and no past, and will begin to question its purpose and even its existence. Unless the caster takes great pains to give the creation a purpose in life, the creation must make a DC 15 Will save every month after the first. On a natural 20, the creation resolves its crisis permanently, though its goals are unlikely to be identical to the caster's and tension will probably follow.

On a failure, the creation spends the next month questioning its existence and suffers a -4 morale penalty on all attacks, damage, skill checks, ability checks, and saving throws. On a critical failure, the creation falls into a deep depression and a crisis of faith. if the creation has been mistreated, it resolves this crisis by developing an alignment roughly opposite to its tormentors. If the caster has been loyal to the creation despite its difficulties, its loyalty remains and it doesn't develop an opposed alignment. On the other hand, if the caster has mistreated the creation, its loyalty will be replaced by a deep enmity. If the creation has not suffered such indignity, the creation must make a second Will save. If successful, the creation withdraws entirely from the world for the next month, unable to muster the will to do more than merely survive. If the second Will save fails, the creation becomes suicidal and kills itself at the first opportunity unless restrained. For every day it is kept alive, the creation is allowed another Will save, the difficulty dropping by one if it is being encouraged (and increasing by one if it is being tormented). Once it makes a Will save, it spends the rest of the month withdrawn, as detailed above.

If the caster has given the creature purpose for a full year, or it goes a full year without succumbing to depression, the creation has enough roots in the world that it no longer needs to make a monthly Will save. As long as the creation is loyal to the caster, it is treated as a cohort. The caster does not need the Leadership feat.

Material component: Enough raw material to create a body (25 shillings for a Fine creature, quadrupling with each size increase). The materials may be of almost any type, but a number of alchemical compounds must be obtained for the process, in quantities appropriate to the size of the creature being created. The materials must then be shaped into a rough approximation of the creature to be created.

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