Skywrite: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s… Another Ad?
Usable By: Artificer, Bard, Druid, Wizard
Spell Level: 2
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Sight
Duration: 1 hour
Components: V, S
You cause up to ten words to form in a part of the sky you can see. The words appear to be made of cloud and remain in place for the spell’s duration. The words dissipate when the spell ends. A strong wind can disperse the clouds and end the spell early.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
“Congratulations Tim and Tracy!” “It's a Boy!” “You Owe Me Money, Steve!” When you’re in the market for a biplane banner or good old fashioned skywriting, look no further than Skywrite. What is it practically useful for in a game of wizards and dragons, you say? What makes this worth a 2nd level spell slot, and take your concentration? That's an excellent question that scientists today still wonder.
Honestly, this is like a 2nd level spell version of Prestidigitation. It's a spell that gives you an effect that more or less exclusively is for presentation, and nothing more. It being a ritual slams that message home, where this isn’t really meant to ever be cast for a 2nd level slot. This is a ten minute long castable feature that lets you rearrange clouds into some crude words about the local barkeep who threw you out after you started a fight. You take Skywrite when you want to alert the entire town about how a single vendor ripped you off. That’s the real purpose of Skywrite.
This use case makes it a surprisingly effective DM tool. Being able to alert the entire city of the parties' crimes as they commit them can open up instantaneous consequences in what feels like a fair way.
Will you ever need Skywrite in a world full of telepathic communication and teleportation? Absolutely not! But at such a tiny cost of a prepared or known spell, it doesn’t ever really hurt you to have it. It's a spell whose entire goal is to entertain you or make large areas aware of something; it's certainly not worth a spell slot, but as a ritual, this spell’s great.
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