Characters as Pokémon Trainers

🔀 Crossover / Alternate Universe

I don't play Pokémon much anymore, but I still keep up with the franchise and appreciate their designs. In late 2022 I started imagining my D&D characters as if they were Pokémon trainers with kitted teams. What would they be like in a Pokémon alternate universe and why would they have the pokémon they do?

• Look

Astral Arc Attack

Evocation Cantrip
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Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade are awesome spells that are identifiably gish / spellsword in playstyle. There's definitely more design space in the realm of "weapon attack + magic effect" for cantrips and Astral Arc Attack was a very early homebrew creation meant to explore that idea. Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade are both scaled in a way that adds extra damage plus confers a rider effect. Of course, Green-Flame Blade is the fire jumping to an adjacent creature and Booming Blade is the target taking more damage upon their own movement. Both of these rider effects have their own condition that doesn't necessarily always trigger, so these spells have ideal circumstances that they're most effective.To follow in that philosophy, Astral Arc Attack must have something similar. Currently, it's that the target takes an additional 1d6 radiant damage upon enduring another melee attack by the end of the caster's next turn. Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade's rider effects are both 1d8 in damage, but Astral Arc Attack's rider effect is typically easier to trigger, being simply "hit the target again with a melee attack", therefore a lower damage die would suitably balance that. I think there's a fun playstyle in strategizing how to effectively utilize Astral Arc Attack's rider effect (which is part of the fun for Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade in the first place!). Since Astral Arc Attack's a cantrip, you can't use Extra Attack with it nor Two Weapon Fighting. So an ally would need to successfully hit it or you'd need to be lucky and hit it with a melee attack on your next turn. Plus, there's some subclasses, feats, and magic items that confer bonus action attacks! They would work exceptionally with triggering Astral Arc Attack's rider effect.I also think there's an interesting, albeit minor parallel between Astral Arc Attack and Guiding Bolt being both radiant spells that "prime" the target for further damage, in their own respective ways of course.

Astral Flare

Evocation Cantrip
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Previously, Astral Flare was simply 1d10 damage melee or ranged spell attack. It was just a better Fire Bolt and a better Primal Savagery. Being one of the first homebrew spells I created during the campaign my character invented them, I thought then that simply replacing Fire Bolt's firestarting secondary effect was a reasonable balance. Now though, in order to distinguish it more from these two cantrips, I nerfed Astral Flare's damage to be 1d8 across the board. Most damaging cantrips have a secondary effect, like Shocking Grasp taking away reactions or Chill Touch nullifying healing. 1d10 is a decently high damage die for a cantrip, and the reason Fire Bolt and Primal Savagery can maintain that is because they don't really have mechanical secondary effects (since the firestarting effect of Fire Bolt is mostly a ribbon). Astral Flare's identity and secondary effect is its flexibility between melee or ranged, so it shouldn't trump either of these in terms of raw power.

Tenebrous Torment

Enchantment Cantrip
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The main idea with Tenebrous Torment is a cantrip that specifically exploits a target's worst saving throw! Since the likelihood of the target failing the saving throw is decently high, Tenebrous Torment's damage must be very low for the benefit its unique secondary effect brings to the table. The only other 1d4 damaging cantrips are Sapping Sting and Vicious Mockery. Though Sapping Sting is already subclass exclusive, its secondary effect of knocking the target prone is powerful. Likewise, Vicious Mockery's exclusivity to the Bard class allows its secondary effect to be similarly powerful with its disadvantage on next attack. That's any attack! Unlike Frostbite's disadvantage on next weapon attack. Starlight spells are meant to be esoteric in nature as well, only permissible and learnable at the DM's discretion, so it fits with the arguable theming of "exclusivity = higher potency." Looking at you, Eldritch Blast.Fun lil tidbit! This spell used to have a 2nd level variant where the creature would take variable damage and suffer an additional effect based around which saving throw they failed, such as a lethargic effect for a failed DEX save and more. I felt like this was too gimmicky on top of an already unique idea and scrapped it. Plus it was quite difficult to come up with secondary effects for the mental stats without being ableist or otherwise unmindful.

Revitalizing Glow

Transmutation Cantrip
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A healing cantrip! I had to approach this very carefully, since there's a certain notoriety around homebrew healing cantrips being horribly unbalanced (and they're right!). There's quite a lot of restrictions on this cantrip for it to find its very specific and balanced niche amongst the already existing methods of healing.

[✨v4 Update] Why does Revitalizing Glow need to have a 1 minute cast time? What's wrong with it being a combat spell? Point one already mentions why this cantrip requires the target creature to have 1 HP minimum. And realistically, because the creature only rolls one of its hit dice at maximum, the spell isn't a viable combat spell at levels 5+. 1d8 healing isn't going to be very useful when you're taking a lot more damage in battle and when your fullcasters have access to 3rd level spells. The cantrip's scaling affects how many times the spell can heal a creature, not how many hit dice they can spend upon a single casting. This change enables Revitalizing Glow to be much more useful in tier 1 gameplay, where every HP matters. Suddenly, your level 2 party will scramble and plead for this cantrip's invigoration when the support's exhausted their precious slots from Healing Word or Cure Wounds. It makes the earlier levels more bearable and less precarious from one good damaging hit, or even a crit.

Sparkle

Conjuration Cantrip
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There's very little in the way of cantrips dealing damage in a selectable area. Sure, there's the "deal damage around me" cantrips Sword Burst, Word of Radiance, and Thunderclap, but pointing and choosing a select area to deal damage in is only explored in Create Bonfire. Even then, Create Bonfire's scaling is by damage. I wanted to create a cantrip that scales by area. Such a cantrip's secondary effect would need to be applicable for most, if not all tiers of play, even if the damage will always be 1d8.A lesser variant of Faerie Fire works here. A creature can resist the cantrip with a DEX save, but the area will always reveal invisible and Hidden creatures for a round. Because the area is small, a creature can simply and easily move away (as opposed to Faerie Fire sticking to them for the duration) but this enables Sparkle to be a sort of detection spell. And, as the area grows upon scaling progression, it becomes a better detection tool and area denial cantrip against invisible foes.

Red Sprite

Evocation Cantrip
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Unrelated to the mechanics of this cantrip but when I first discovered the existence of red sprites in the atmosphere, I was enamored. They look so eerie! I definitely had to homebrew something using that rad imagery. I was partially inspired by their nomenclature and how they were named after mythological sprites for their elusive nature. Plus, other similar atmospheric electrical phenomena are named after fantasy creatures like elves, trolls, gnomes, and pixies.Mechanically, making a lightning cantrip gave me the excuse to explore more damage types under the Lux Asterum Phari umbrella other than the dominant radiant damage. Due to the real life phenomenon's eerie nature, I decided the cantrip's secondary effect to be related to something similarly supernatural. Like spellcasting. What if a spell could force disadvantage on concentration saves? 95% of instances of concentration are via spellcasting and the only other method I know for disrupting concentration is the Mage Slayer feat. With Red Sprite, we give another tool for spellcasters to harry an enemy's spellcasting. Can't Counterspell something? You can always hope they don't resist your Red Sprite. DEX saves are typically a weakness for mages after all.

Gamma Flash

Necromancy Cantrip
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There's not many necromancy spells in Lux Asterum Phari. As of v4, there was only Crystalline Preservation and Aurora Vitalis before Gamma Flash came along. Some time ago I had an idea to utilize gamma radiation as the visual flavor for a spell, fitting for both the space theming of the homebrew and to add another deserved necromancy spell to the roster. But gamma radiation felt a bit too scientific to use in a fantasy TTRPG, especially when the rest of the Starlight spells lineup represent similar phenomena in a mystical manner (like Blacklight Blade representing ultraviolet radiation and the inverse spells being closely tied to dark matter or dark energy). Side note, it might be the name; gamma isn't exactly the most setting-agnostic friendly term and assumes a lot of the scientific process (more so than names like this homebrew's Pulsar and the solid starlight forging flavor that could be handwaived, but this is a tangent).Still, gamma radiation being strongly affiliated with the concept of decay (both in physics and its withering effects on life) made it perfect for a necromancy background. I was motivated to build something that works.Anyway, let's move onto the mechanics. I've researched on Gamma Ray Bursts since they were quite interesting from an astrophysics perspective and translating that to D&D, but them being described as "the most powerful explosions in the universe" felt like 9th level spell territory. I'm not trying to design 9th level spells! So what's the next best thing? That's right, a cantrip. It'd save me the headache of trying to make something that was conceptually distinct from the similar Pulsar.So when thinking about the idea of mechanicalizing the concept of decay, my mind jumped to the notion of an effect becoming more potent against critically injured targets. That's a niche not really explored in 5e. Making a cantrip of that would allow it to be relevant in all tiers of play, especially when damage numbers increase during progression. If a target is in critically low health, then this cantrip capitalizes on that and saves future action economy by forcing them to hit 0 HP. It's an effective tool for finishing off weaker mooks and allowing you to move onto the next. And even if the criteria for its secondary effect isn't applicable, the additional d4 of damage helps you reach your goals anyway. It's not flashy (get it), but it gets the job done.Numbers-wise, a d6 and a d4 are equivalent to a d11 in damage, making it decently potent. An earlier draft of this cantrip was making it two d4s instead, equivalent to a d9. To balance out the d11 damage being on the higher side, I decided to make Gamma Flash a melee touch attack. It also works nicely since the other two necrotic damage cantrips Toll the Dead and Chill Touch are ranged spells. I still hate Chill Touch's naming scheme by the way.

Perturb

Transmutation Cantrip
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Lemme get this out of the way first, Perturb is a reference to the astronomical term perturbation, not the more common definition of annoying someone haha. It's a celestial object's deviation in motion caused by the gravitational force of something else.Which was the perfect idea to explore an ally-based movement-centric cantrip. Those don't really exist. And Lightning Lure, Thorn Whip, and an Eldritch Blast tricked out on Eldritch Invocations like Grasp of Hadar or Repelling Blast are dangerous due to damaging your party. The closest we have is one of Gust's options of pushing a Medium or smaller creature away from you.Gust costs an action. In terms of action economy you almost never want to use your action to reposition allies in a very specific "5 ft. away from you" scenario. You more so want to utilize Gust to capitalize on the opportunity of pushing an enemy off a cliff or bridge. I wanted Perturb to be an effective combat spell that promotes strategy in repositioning. Which means it needed to be a bonus action and its effect needed to allow movement to any unoccupied adjacent space.Because Perturb is focused solely on readjusting allies, I can make it a bonus action. I can make it scale. I can make it target your Large-sized Rune Knight Fighter. Why? Because if it wasn't, it'd be too easy to move enemies without a saving throw. And if it had a saving throw to allow it to target enemies it'd be too powerful as a bonus action (especially with scaling). What I'm describing is the Telekinetic feat's bonus action shove but supercharged for your team.Here's how: forced movement. Forced movement breaks grapples. Forced movement allows you to escape a foe from reacting with Opportunity Attacks. And depending on the cantrip's scaling, you can move a creature 5 ft., 10 ft., 15 ft., or 20 ft. more on your turn. Perturb lets you yourself move in, make your Attack(s) or cast a blade cantrip, then swoosh yourself away. You can safely use your melee attacks and escape away when you know your party's Barbarian's engaged with four different hostiles and any of them leaving the Barb's range would provoke their Opportunity Attack. Perturb lets you extend an ally's movement at very low cost both in resources and action economy, allowing for superior battlefield control. You can nudge your Beastmaster Ranger's companion closer to an enemy or encourage your melee Rogue to continuously use Steady Aim while you break them away from the woes of being a melee Rogue (that being the enemy just bopping the Rogue on their next turn). Your party's Fighter can even Ready their action to Attack your adversary after being moved by you to just within their reach. Perturb enables you to secure an ally to safety beyond difficult or hazardous terrain without the issue of needing to use your own movement to drag them yourself (it bypasses difficult terrain rules due to forced movement).There's two very specific and intentional drawbacks of the spell. One is that it's got a range of 30 ft., so you'll have to be nearby to effectively utilize it. The next range increment is 60 ft., and at that point I felt Perturb was too powerful of a positional tool. The second flaw is that Perturb's scaling was written very carefully: "you can cause this spell's effect to happen 1 more time on the same creature". Should it have been written, for example, like this: "you increase the distance you push a creature by 5 ft.", then by level 5 we're allowing casters to push creatures 10 ft. and scaling entire building floors with a bonus action. 15 ft. by level 11. Using Perturb as a movement tool, while creative, does break the bounds of its power budget for a cantrip. Restricting the wording so that you're only ever moving a creature 5 ft., and the scaling merely lets you bump a creature additional times was required to reign in the cantrip's potency.

Prismatic Grasp

1st-level Evocation
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Prismatic Grasp was the first Starlight homebrew spell I created during the campaign my character invented these spells. It was also my first foray into homebrew spellcraft. My idea at the time was to create a variant of Guiding Bolt so that said Artificer character could synergize it with their Battle Smith subclass and their faithful Steel Defender. In contrast to Guiding Bolt, Prismatic Grasp has a saving throw, less damage, less range, and imparts the restrained condition. STR saves are uncommon compared to the likes of DEX and WIS, but you're still less likely to pull this spell off on Big Burly Monsters™ or dragons. Against meek or frail mages, however, getting them restrained is a big benefit for everyone in the party as opposed to only the next attack roll being granted advantage from Guiding Bolt (and such mages are likely to have the Shield spell as well to protect against attack rolls). With that in mind, Prismatic Grasp has its own niche compared to Guiding Bolt. Guiding Bolt works well against lower AC targets, such as the aforementioned Big Burly Monsters™. Prismatic Grasp is most effective against physically weaker enemies and can also be used as a tool to prevent escape akin to Hold Person.

Spectrum Shroud

1st-level Abjuration
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The second Starlight homebrew spell I created. Spectrum Shroud is a defensive utility spell useful in actively hostile environments like dungeons or enemy fortresses. My main inspiration was taking Hellish Rebuke and transforming it into a briefly passive shield. Though it has less damage and imparts the blinded condition, it's entirely possible the spell could be wasted if not triggered within the 10 minute timeframe. Spectrum Shroud also acts as a light in dimly lit areas, but it also makes you an obvious target with the visible shroud of starlight. Additionally, it's also entirely possible that Spectrum Shroud is simply wasted on a trap; the spell does not distinguish the source of the damage, it just retaliates against it. With Hellish Rebuke, you have the choice of damaging your attacker even if it costs you your reaction.

Irisation

1st-level Evocation
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With Irisation I wanted to homebrew a support spell that bolsters another spellcaster's spellcasting. I think it enables awesome combos and synergy between party members, like if the halfcaster Paladin or Ranger augments the Wizard's Fireball by 1 spell level. There's so many combinations one can do with this.For example, if a Wizard previously expended their only 5th level spell slot and there's two powerful enemies on the battlefield that are in need of Banishment, their Sorcerer ally can react with Irisation to upcast that Banishment at 5th level—and able to target both enemies.Though Irisation is a very potent and versatile tool, it needed to be limited somehow. You cannot use Irisation to make another spell be upcast to a spell level the caster doesn't have, which is a fair trade-off for disallowing, uhh, an 16th level Delayed Blast Fireball. It's also worthwhile to keep in mind that you can upcast Irisation to further upcast the augmented spell. Fireball + Irisation at 2nd level = 5th level Fireball. Useful if the fullcasters are drained on spell slots but the halfcasters are still juiced up.I do think, however, that DMs will have to use discretion when Irisation is cast on NPCs with statblocks that don't have traditional spellcasting. Such as with most modern statblocks in 5e. Since these statblocks typically come with "1/Day", "3/Day", "at will", etc., there's no direct upgrade and Irisation can't work RAW. You will have to make the judgment call if such a spell is able to be upcast with Irisation. I would personally lean on Rule of Cool.Non-mechanically, Irisation's name stems from an optical phenomenon surrounding a type of vibrant pastel-colored clouds. It's the process of making something iridescent! I like to think the spell is augmenting another by heightening its magic and making it lustrous!

Stardust

1st-level Conjuration
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Stardust is an attempt to borrow the mechanics from Crown of Stars and translate it into a purely support spell. The main purpose and identity of Stardust is granting dis/advantage on attack rolls to control the tide of battle. It's easy to conclude upon first impression that Stardust is busted for its ability to grant 6 instances of dis/advantage for a 1st level spell. Here's what I think balances it out:

Dark Matter Vortex

1st-level Evocation
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One of my favorites in its uniqueness! Dark Matter Vortex marked the first of a subset of riskier spells that deal with unpredictability, themed with the flavor of "inverting" starlight into dark energy (hence the different coloring in the title!). I was inspired by Pokémon's Magnitude move, where its power is randomly determined between magnitudes 4 - 10. Here, Dark Matter Vortex is very variable and chaotic. You must upcast the spell to roll more dice and determine your magnitude, which then will determine the spell's array of effects. I love this spell's design because you can absolutely cast the dice and gamble for higher results—and thus more damage and potent secondary effects—but simultaneously misfortune might smile upon you and you roll low.The balance of this spell is meant to be erratic, but not so in a way that's entirely overpowered. To aid with balancing I drafted a probability distribution chart that expresses the chances of each magnitude for every possible spell slot used to cast Dark Matter Vortex. Sans 9th level, because… why would you? I then compared these damage numbers with other spells in their respective spell level and determined if the highest probability for each spell level was appropriate for the tier. Fittingly, upcasting Dark Matter Vortex at 3rd level yields a ~53% chance of returning the Flame magnitude, which is similar to Fireball's damage. I admit that the damage numbers could use more adjustments, but I feel they're in the right ballpark for now.Here's the final results of the chart! Maybe it might be interesting.

Aperture Magic

1st-level Evocation
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There's rarely any spells that empower others, mostly because this is the domain of a Sorcerer's Metamagic. Aperture Magic is partially inspired by the Sorcerer's Empowered Spell and meant to be even more potent for the cost of a spell slot and your reaction. With Metamagic you must utilize the resource before you know if the spell will deal its full effect, therefore presenting a risk and reward element. For options like Careful Spell or Distant Spell, this isn't a problem. And many Sorcerers are probably using Quickened Spell anyway. But for options like Empowered Spell, Heightened Spell, Seeking Spell, or Twinned Spell, there's a distinct possibility your spell will still be resisted, and/or your Metamagic makes the spell somehow less effective. Such as in the case of rerolling damage dice with Empowered Spell and getting lower results. Or using Seeking Spell to miss the attack roll again.While Aperture Magic won't bestow good luck on attack roll spells, it's a direct upgrade for damaging spells with saving throws. Dissonant Whispers bolstered by Aperture Magic does a minimum of 9 psychic damage. A Fireball bolstered by a 3rd level Aperture Magic does a minimum of 24 fire damage. Even when resisted, the minimum damage of such spells is nothing to laugh at! And unless you roll below the minimum threshold of half for all dice, you're going to get even higher numbers.Aperture Magic is a surefire method of packing a greater punch in situations where you're confident in a spell's execution. If you're casting Inflict Wounds and have advantage on the attack roll, 3d10 is suddenly a much more dangerous dice notation when the minimum is 15 damage. You can even bolster healing spells with this too! No longer must you be disappointed in rolling a 1 on a Cure Wounds.To not powercreep a Sorcerer's Metamagic, Aperture Magic needed to have limitations to fit its role as a proper spell. Concentration spells can often have a damage-over-time effect. Bolstering those would be overpowered, so this spell cannot be used in tandem with them. Aperture Magic also requires your reaction as well, an arguably greater cost than Sorcery Points. If you use your reaction and still miss that bolstered Ray of Frost, then you're fresh out of reactions for Shield or Counterspell. Speaking of cantrips, Aperture Magic remains relevant at higher tiers of play thanks to cantrips being 0th level and their unique cantrip scaling progression. At 11th level and 3 dice, your cantrips empowered by Aperture Magic are even more deadly.There's also something to be said about combining Empowered Spell with Aperture Magic to greed for that high potential damage, since even if your rerolls are low, the minimum threshold is the halfway value.The inspiration for this spell's name was the fact that apertures, or openings, are used in optics to focus light traveling through it. By adjusting the diameter of a telescope's lens, you can sharpen the focus on faint objects. The spell is sharpening your spell's focus and magnifying its power!As a final note for this already lengthy commentary, you're allowed to cast a reaction spell on your own turn when you've already casted a level spell. This interaction already exists when a spellcaster casts a spell, provokes an Opportunity Attack, and casts Shield to defend themself. The rule about being unable to cast two leveled spells on your turn applies only to bonus action spells.[✨v4 Update] After some feedback I decided to re-increase the power of Aperture Magic to its original draft variant of maximizing all damage. My original concern with this variant was how it causes spells like Chaos Bolt to infinitely jump and activate their secondary effects. All you needed to do to win a fight was cast Chaos Bolt, bolster it with Aperture Magic, and hit with all your attack rolls. Even in Lux Asterum Phari, Flickerburn grants all damage dice against its target the ability to explode and compound. Aperture Magic in combination with that would be a surefire way of guaranteeing even more damage without much effort. It was the reason why Aperture Magic needed to be limited in some way. But through testing I've discovered that, in most cases, Aperture Magic was simply too weak and inefficient for a 1st level spell slot. Earlier in this commentary I mentioned bumping Inflict Wounds to half damage would be valuable—it wasn't. You'd just cast Inflict Wounds again on your next turn to get more value. And while understandably it requires more action economy (two turns with two actions instead of one turn with one action and one reaction), it's way more statistically likely that you'd reach higher damage just by pure chance of 6d10 than 3d10 minimum 15.So thus, to address the original concern while maintaining the original's potency, I decided to add the clause that prevents Aperture Magic from activating any secondary effects more than once. I still want players to feel powerful when they cause Chaos Bolt to jump or Flickerburn to explode, but anything beyond once would cause 5e's already delicate balance to simply collapse haha.

Resonance

1st-level Transmutation
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A spell that mostly benefits gishes and spellblades, Resonance really meshes with frontline combatants. I wanted to create a spell that rewards the defender / tank playstyle and shines in situations where one might be outnumbered. It's a niche spell to be sure, especially since it can't block non-physical damage, but when a Paladin captures five attacks' worth of damage from a boss's minions, that boss is in for a world of hurt when that Paladin waltzes up to them and unleashes a full smite's worth on top of that +5d4 damage.I've added the upcasting option of upgrading the stored energy die to higher values as a way of making Resonance more enticing at higher levels of play. It might be costly for halfcasters, but melee-oriented subclasses like Bladesinger and Swords Bard also exist for fullcasters. If they can survive the onslaught, then that Steel Wind Strike looks mighty tempting with a 5th level Resonance. Why cast Shield to nullify Magic Missile when you can rather obliterate the Wizard who did it instead? That's a powerful message.Resonance's name comes from the quality of being deep, full, and reverberating. In physics, this relates to amplitude, and I think it fits the nature of this spell capturing and amplifying attacks!

Dazzle Dart

1st-level Evocation
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The mechanics of Magic Missile are fascinating—not the guaranteed damage mind you—but the way you launch multiple missiles simultaneously. I wanted to build upon that foundation and explore a niche where a missile can be sent towards a foe or towards an ally, where the target receives either a debuff or a buff respectively. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge enthusiast for flexibility and versatility. I suppose that's why one of the biggest characteristics about my 5e characters is that they're gishes who can fill any role.Dazzle Dart was made with versatility at its core. Each dart can damage an enemy for a negligible amount, yet it primes the target for further damage much like Astral Arc Attack. For one dart, an enemy might only take 4 radiant damage now, but the Fighter's next strike against them will deal an additional 8. If both darts hit it? That's double of 2d4. Likewise, you also have the option to send a dart to an ally to instead imbue them with the doubled d4 damage without harming them. While this loses out on minor damage, it's helpful in situations where a foe's AC might be high and you're not confident in your spell attacks. Plus, if you bestow this buff upon an ally, a critical hit would double the initial d4 from a single dart. Meaning a critical hit is double the result of 2d4!Unlike Magic Missile, Dazzle Dart possesses but 2 darts initially. When comparing damage numbers using 2 darts, it aligns more with the average damage of Chromatic Orb, Inflict Wounds, and Guiding Bolt. Magic Missile's lower-than-average-for-it's-level damage comes from its guaranteed nature. Dazzle Dart requires every dart to be made with an attack roll.And though this spell only generates 2 darts at 1st level, upcasting grants more, which brings us to the secondary effect of the spell: the CON save. This acts as both a boon and a bane. Hitting all three attack rolls on a 2nd level Dazzle Dart also imparts the chance of blinding the target. But you must also be aware that you can't simply supercharge an ally with all darts for risk of blinding them too. For enemies, this encourages focusing on a single target, but for allies, this encourages spreading out the darts' buff. Imposing this shared risk pushes the caster to strategize and think about how flexible they want to bend their darts and who to aim them at.For those worried about the spell bloating damage numbers and needing to keep track of the darts' lingering bonuses, I see it more akin to a floating, temporary Hex.
Why would you use this spell instead of opting for a more direct and damaging approach? Mayhaps the enemies are hidden and you wish to prime your allies for when they seek them out and attack. Perhaps one of your party members is built to crit-fish; priming a foe with a few darts could boost a critical hit for even higher damage. The possibilities are limited to your creativity!

Astral Parser

1st-level Transmutation
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Astral Parser is thoroughly weird; it's undoubtedly one of the most complex spells in this homebrew (though Tesseract might take the cake). When first designing this spell the main concept was to relocate active effects. But that's kinda vague and the spell itself can be somewhat ambiguous on what's eligible to be relocated. "Effects" could refer to difficult terrain caused by Spike Growth, heavy fog produced by Fog Cloud (or just weather even), or magical effects present in an area such as Healing Spirit, Spirit Guardians, Sickening Radiance, or even Arcane Gate. But things can be muddy when spells create solid objects. What about things produced by Creation, or even much bigger objects like Galder's Tower? A lot of the interpretation of this spell is meant to be at the DM's discretion. Personally, I feel it's impossible and unproductive to list all eligible and ineligible candidates. If a caster wants to use this spell to temporarily relocate a dark crusader's Circle of Power to later throw down potent damaging spells upon them, I'd say to lean on Rule of Cool and allow it. If a caster attempts to use this spell to relocate an acidic geyser from an aboleth's lair, that might be tougher to sell considering its physical nature. Even such acid spewed by the geyser could be interpreted in either direction. Is an acid pool an effect?Though this spell can easily be seen as murky and unclear, it's intended to be a creative means of battlefield control. Astral Parser being a bonus action reinforces that idea, allowing a caster to capitalize on the results. Besides, 5e already has official material with multiple interpretations and busted yet probably unintentional flexibility. Like Creation Bard. How I love Creation Bard's complete and utter absurdity (sorry Jay).Additionally, Astral Parser being a bonus action prevents it from being eligible for the Ready action. The Ready action is only available for spells with a 1 action cast time. Not having this spell use an action minimizes bizarre circumstances of trying to relocate something as soon as a trigger occurs, such as moving a spellcaster's Wall of Force as soon as they cast it upon your group. I personally thought these sorts of situations are difficult and potentially frustrating to arbitrate, and left the spell as a bonus action.

Stargaze

1st-level Divination
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Most divination spells that aid detection deal with pinpointing specific things. Detect Magic, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Object, Locate Creature, Detect Evil and Good, Detect Poison and Disease—they all have a specific target and use. Rarely are these spells used as a general boost to navigation. Mostly because I believe they were originally designed with these niches so that players have tools to solve those specific situations in-game; like a hiding thief being detected with Locate Creature or using Detect Evil and Good to out a disguised fiend. With these Starlight spells, I wanted to explore surprisingly uncharted territory in the form of a generic navigation aid. This was partially done with this homebrew's A Star to Guide spell, but even that has its niche too, along with being 5th level.
I created Stargaze to greatly help with the exploration pillar of D&D. And, like with A Star to Guide, astronavigation is a traditionally huge theme with the stars and cosmos. Stargaze grants advantage on Survival checks to determine location and following a route, prevents you from being lost except by magical means, and grants you knowledge of true north. All these benefits would amazingly bolster a Ranger's toolkit as a leader of exploration and gives parties with a lack of a Ranger the ability to mimic one for a brief time. When designing these benefits, I asked myself two questions, 1) how could this help both Rangers and non-Rangers without making the former obsolete, and 2) what would most relate to astronavigation?

It's for all these reasons why Stargaze requires sight of at least one celestial body to function. The stars can't necessarily help if you're in a deep cavern. Unless there's a cave-in and you can see the sky above.

Photon Bomb

2nd-level Conjuration
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Sticky grenades. That's the spell. I wanted to design something that emulated the fun of classic Halo plasma grenades. Not only does Photon Bomb stick to creatures on a failed DEX save, it also acts as effective area denial. With the caster being able to detonate any launched orb during any of their turns, it presents a threat to enemies and can potentially even cause them to panic and hurriedly try to scrape off the orbs if the caster is intimidating enough. They can't succeed on a DEX save to resist an orb's damage if it's stuck to them after all.Comparing this spell to other area damage 2nd level spells, Photon Bomb averages higher with its 6d4 total. That being said, it's spread out through a minimum of 3 turns at 2nd level and it requires committing your bonus action for these turns. Luckily, it doesn't require concentration, meaning the caster conjures the orbs and can do with them as they please.Recently I buffed the spell to now have a 10 minute duration, resembling a blend of Produce Flame and Crown of Stars with its ability to keep hold of the orbs and hurl them as desired. Both example spells don’t require concentration either and Photon Bomb's previous 1 minute duration made me question "what if a caster doesn't want to immediately throw the orbs?" I feel this change benefits adaptability during combat by throwing orbs at strategic locations or creatures per turn as opposed to the foresight that could be previously required by hurling them all simultaneously.

Luster Matrix

2nd-level Transmutation
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Luster Matrix is a great spell that emphasizes combo potentiality and synergy. Imagine Hex or Hunter's Mark. Then imagine: instead of targeting a creature, it target's a space and amplifies the damage done within that space. Archers will love a caster who summons a Luster Matrix right before their volley of arrows. If you know you're going right before your party's Warlock and they've got a Hex maintained on the boss, casting Luster Matrix boosts their upcoming Eldritch Blasts by acting as a double Hex bonus.This spell was partially inspired by Baptiste's Amplification Matrix in Overwatch where it functions very similarly. Unlike the Overwatch ability, however, Luster Matrix is equally a risk if improperly placed. You might be enhancing the Barbarian's strikes, but a whole mob of goblin attacks might be aimed directly at them in retaliation. Luster Matrix must amplify every instance of damage done within its area, and because there's a limitation to how many times it can amplify (so as to not be completely overpowered), it's only wise to place the spell in strategic locations to maximize ally benefit and minimize hostile exploitations. The upcast scaling on this spell is also unique in the sense that you can expand the matrix's area, enabling more interesting rotation configurations when moving it as a bonus action.

Blacklight Blade

2nd-level Transmutation
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I designed this spell to emulate the flavor of weaponizing UV light and attach an interesting "poison+" condition to it. As a side note, while I enjoy spells like Flame Blade and Shadow Blade (which I based this spell's foundation on), I didn't appreciate those spells forcing you to conjure the appearance of scimitars and swords respectively. Blacklight Blade, flavor-wise, allows casters to conjure any reasonable melee weapon as its appearance. I realize this is a minor nitpick, but I nonetheless strive for inclusivity and allowing players to RAW summon whatever they wish.Flame Blade deals 3d6 damage upon a hit. Shadow Blade is 2d8 but emulates an actual weapon with weapon properties by contrast. Blacklight Blade's 3d4 deals the least amount of damage by average of the three. To make up for this, the spell has an additional effect. Upon scoring a critical hit or rolling max damage, you inflict the poisoned condition with the added debuff of preventing invisibility. Scoring a critical hit is normally just a 5% chance. But rolling max damage on three d4s? That's barely 1.5%. It doesn't seem like much currently, but it gives us an excellent base to build upon.
Unlike the other two Blade spells I decided to go in a different direction for Blacklight Blade's upcasting instead of a straightforward damage increase. When you upcast this spell, it really buffs the probability of achieving that poison+ condition.At 4th level, the chance of rolling maximum on at least half of 4d4 is 26.2%. With the added 5% chance to critically hit, that's 31.2%.At 6th level, the chance of rolling maximum on at least half of 5d4 (rounded down, so 2 of 5) is 36.7%. The chance of not rolling a 1 on any of the damage dice is 23.7%. With the added 5% chance to critically hit, this all totals to 65.4%.Blacklight Blade might not the be most useful damaging spell compared to the other Blade spells also at 2nd level, but upcasting it clearly shows its strength as a means of controlling and debilitating enemies.

Cosmic Effusion

2nd-level Transmutation
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Cosmic Effusion's gone through a couple iterations. Its first iteration had its secondary effect cause the target to lose a spell slot of equal or lower level. 5e NPC and creature statblock design has been steering away from complex spellcasting traits in modern times, simplifying the way to run these creatures by focusing more on the "1/Day", "3/Day", "at will" system. This put Cosmic Effusion in an awkward spot. How can a creature lose a spell slot if it doesn't have any?Upon realizing this I came up with the spell's second iteration which was a bit more friendly to the new design philosophy. The spell would deal more damage depending on how many non-cantrip spells the creature had cast since its long rest. Still, I was unsatisfied by this for a few reasons.

That leads me to the third iteration. Its balance is still something I'd wish to see further tested, but I based it on the second iteration and replaced "spell" with effectively any non-passive magical ability. In order to (mostly) remove the information-seeking aspect of the spell, I changed "since last long rest" to only count instances of magic made in the last minute. A DM would have an easier time determining if a creature had casted any magic in the minute before a combat starts, especially if the PCs can visibly see them. With this in mind, and considering how some magical actions can be part of a Multiattack, I've reduced the damage die to d4s. It might be easier to reach the maximum in this way if a creature is brazen with their use of magic.

Rainbow

2nd-level Evocation
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Fun fact! Any queer person is immune to this spell's damage. It says so in the text. Can't see it? Try looking for a comment in the HTML.Rainbow summons a multi-stringed ranged weapon. Like Blacklight Blade, I wanted to ensure inclusivity with how a caster might portray their weapon, as it might not necessarily be a bow like the pun suggests. If you cast this spell and sculpt it to be a rain-slingshot, please tell me.The concept of this spell draws from taking the powerful multi-colored effects from Prismatic Wall and Prismatic Spray and incorporating them into a conjurable ranged weapon accessible at lower levels. I also wanted to add the idea of the weapon gaining power upon successful consecutive hits as a snowball / momentum mechanism. Both Prismatic spells have analogous damage types for most of the colors except for Indigo and Violet, to which I translated as necrotic and radiant respectively in my attempts of assigning damage types to those effects as close I could.Rainbow deals a base of 2d6 damage, lower than both Blade spells and even Blacklight Blade. If you hit, you add 1d6 more. If you miss, it resets to 2d6. Either way, making an attack consumes that color string. Additionally, Rainbow can be used to seek out resistances and vulnerabilities with its myriad damage types. Comparatively, Rainbow's max of 7 ammo limits its potential when Flame Blade and Shadow Blade can be used infinitely for their whole durations. The former compensates with its momentum mechanism. To further compare with a spell like Scorching Ray, Rainbow is meant to be more of a gamble—a risk / reward play that… you see a lot of in here. Scorching Ray is three different attack rolls for a total of 6d6. Rainbow at its very best is 35d6, assuming all attacks hit over the course of 7 rounds. That scenario is a miracle (that I hope happens one day) and the chances of that is effectively 0%. You could deal more frontloaded damage with Scorching Ray, or distribute it over several rounds with Rainbow in hopes to deal more damage and banking on the momentum mechanism. Even Acid Arrow does guaranteed damage on a miss; you could miss all your shots with Rainbow and/or lose concentration.Range-wise, a normal longbow is 150 feet before disadvantage; Rainbow's range is 120 feet max. This was to match spells like Scorching Ray, Magic Missile, Guiding Bolt, Chaos Bolt, and even Phantasmal Killer. The only single-target damaging spells greater than these in distance (to my knowledge) are Chain Lightning and Feeblemind, possessing 150 feet range.All in all, I wanted to turn a pun into an actual functional homebrew spell that pulls from my apparent and subconscious desire of having a risk/reward effect. Personally it's quite hype to see a PC rack up the damage and truly get their worth from a 2nd level spell.

Protospell

2nd-level Evocation
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More in the realm of flexibility, Protospell has it all! Well, not all. It has quite a few restrictions when mimicking a spell; the spell must be 1 spell level lower than Protospell, it can't require concentration, it must use either a bonus action or an action, and it must be from the Evocation school.Taking inspiration from the formation of stars, or protostars, this spell's primary purpose is to mimic and form other spells to suit the situation. Of course it can't be as powerful as the original spell and you're restricted in a few senses, so you're still encouraged to find ways to cast the original spell. But in a pinch? Protospell can offer healing by way of Cure Wounds or Healing Word, exploit an undead's radiant vulnerability with Guiding Bolt, or bypass powerful defenses with Magic Missile. Even upcasting Protospell to 3rd level grants access to the powerfully non-concentration Spiritual Weapon.You also need to have seen the spell cast before in order to mimic it akin to a Druid using Wild Shape. If you don't have a Cleric in your party, the chances of seeing Guiding Bolt are significantly lower. Like Druids, Protospell for spellcasters can be heavily influenced by background. A Druid from the desert might transform into beasts native to the dunes. Likewise, a caster with access to Protospell having grown up at an abbey is more likely to have seen Cleric spells than Wizard or Sorcerer spells. Though all Starlight spells ought to be discussed collectively to see if they're appropriate for any game, Protospell in particular is one where a DM and a player should hammer out the possibilities. A prepared caster would have access to all eligible spells on their list when preparing Protospell, thus giving it more weight and potency. A learned caster would be reliant on external spells for Protospell to be more flexible.On a particular note, the act of having the mimicked spell be 25% weaker has not been explored in 5e spell design before. Percentages in spells are almost always in reference to two things: the penalty on consecutive castings of divination spells like in Commune or Augury or teleportation mishaps like Teleport. For Protospell, this is odd. It calls for using mathematics after resolving the spell to make it weaker, using mechanics that you don’t see in a typical 5e game. This might not always be possible on the fly and may slow down the flow of the game. For example, if you had cast Chaos Bolt and resulted in 14 thunder damage, you'd have to calculate 75% of 14, which is 10. Of course, I'm probably overthinking this with easier-than-easy access to virtual tabletops and any decent computing device—but my main concern was introducing an unfamiliar mechanic to 5e's systems.

Opposition

2nd-level Abjuration
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This spell's rather straightforward but it explores a niche that hasn't been done before in 5e. Like with Resonance, Opposition is particularly effective in close range and used by frontline combatants, and especially against single hit large damage attacks. A red dragon might think twice about biting you once they feel the force of their own attack split against them. An assassin trying to Sneak Attack you? Goodbye, little rogue. A cheeky Wizard trying to use Steel Wind Strike against you? Remind them why they have d6 hit dice.I wanted to give more reaction options with these Starlight spells that provide more of a choice than simply taking Shield. Shield is fine and useful, but what if you could clash against a creature and split the damage? Not only is the visual much cooler in my opinion, you've also done more damage than what Shield could do and potentially even more than Hellish Rebuke. Of course, me being me, there's the risk element of missing your spell attack. Feels just as bad as a missed Opportunity Attack except you still take all the damage.In astronomy, opposition refers to when two objects are on opposite sides of a celestial body, like the full moon and the sun. This spell has you create a copy of the attack and you oppose it on the opposite side!

Conversion Screen

2nd-level Transmutation
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Conversion Screen was designed to be a spell you take when you know your enemy and can prepare ahead. You might have equipment, spells, and other gear that protect against fire damage, but you know you're about to battle a frost salamander. You know their freezing breath can be quite deadly if unmitigated. You opt to prepare Conversion Screen so as to convert the cold damage into fire, and thus resist it. You can turn a successful saving throw against a freezing breath into a mere quarter of its damage. Similarly, a party member might be an aasimar, so using this spell to convert oncoming damage to radiant or necrotic ensures a guaranteed way for them to resist it. If you know your enemy's preferred damage type and have ways to resist other damage types in the spell, Conversion Screen is a potent tool to give you an edge in combat.I wanted to limit the spell's ability to only physical damage so as to be consistent with other similar spells in this homebrew like Glint and Resonance. The flavor of Conversion Screen is that you physically manifest a screen to transmute kinetic force. It's difficult to accomplish that when you're the target of a Mind Spike and the source of damage is inside your head.

Luminous Lance

2nd-level Evocation
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I wanted to create a spell that was sensitive to the current status of both you and creatures you target. It's another variant of "this spell gets stronger in certain conditions" that I quite enjoy. Ideally, you use this spell later in an encounter to maximize the potential damage, where foes are suffering from conditions and you have buffs. In a party that takes joy in watching foes writhe in agony under 50 debuffs simultaneously, Luminous Lance is a great spell to capitalize on that sadism.4d4 is subpar for a 2nd level, purely damaging spell, but if you can find that perfect circumstance it'll really shine. Since the upcast is a 2d4 increase per level, and consuming a buff on yourself to change the d4s into d6s, this spell's damage can quickly cascade and ramp up with the right strategy, cooperation, and a little luck. A worthwhile tactic could even be prebuffing yourself with something cheap and expendable from a magic item to activate Luminous Lance's effect of upgrading the dice.I designed Luminous Lance to be a line spell mostly because 5e is lacking in that department. Other than Lightning Bolt, Aganazzar's Scorcher, Sunbeam, and Tasha's Caustic Brew, can you name any memorable line spells? Plus, the imagery of a piercing lance of starlight is also quite flavorful.

Flickerburn

2nd-level Evocation
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Flickerburn's current expression came from me wanting to implement exploding dice in 5e, a completely new dice mechanic in the official system, and coming up with a way to make it widely applicable. The way I see it, the main appeal of exploding dice is the unparalleled instinctual feeling of "big numbers getting bigger = good". Like a critical hit! And why should I limit it to just the caster enjoying it?My previous idea for Flickerburn was debuffing an enemy and making them suffer a flat extra bonus damage every time they take damage. It functioned (and still does!) akin to Tasha's Caustic Brew where it covers creatures and they continue to suffer the debuff until they scrape it off with action economy. Instead of a line, though, Flickerburn targets a specific creature. This was a good basis so I exchanged the flat bonus damage for the possibility of exploding dice. Giving the spell the ability to prematurely end if it's scraped off can justify the existence of exploding dice in 5e. Unlike repeatable saving throws, both Flickerburn and Caustic Brew have a guaranteed method of being removed. It does take action economy but it's not a risk to attempt it. This way, effects that might be too powerful using other methods of removal (saving throw or otherwise) give enemies agency on how it's removed.Mechanically, exploding dice is much more swingy than its original incarnation of a flat +1d4 damage at the start of its next turn, even if a singular d4 is the minimum die you see in gameplay, it's still a guaranteed amount. In its current iteration, Flickerburn only transforms the damaging dice into exploding dice, meaning if no dice roll its maximum, the spell adds no bonus damage. Still, it's personally much more exciting to have you and your allies completely assault the target and watch the damage dice roll along the (virtual) table, hoping that you maximize the potential bonus damage.
However, because it's swingy and how exploding dice probability works, there's a couple of situations where the spell can really pop off and rack up the numbers. Spells like Magic Missile or others with d4 for damage dice can easily explode and compound; and spells like Lightning Bolt, as shown in the provided example on the homebrewery, have a ton of dice and are statistically likelier to explode. Not only spells but features as well, like a Rogue's Sneak Attack. For this reason I needed to curb the explosiveness somehow. I decided to limit how many bonus damage dice to the level of the spell slot used to cast the spell. For example, a max of +2 dice with its standard 2nd level spell slot. This puts great value on upcasting! Not only do you get one extra target per level, but you also increase the upper threshold for damage dice. As another minor limit, a bonus damage die that resulted from an explosion can't itself be exploded. For example, let's say I hit a target with a Chromatic Orb and roll an 8, 3, and a 1 on the 3d8 damage. The 8 explodes, so I roll another d8. I then roll another 8 on that bonus die. That die can't further compound.Flickerburn can almost be thought of as a pseudo-crit generation spell. Although exploded dice aren't counted as part of a critical hit's dice doubling aspect (the exploding happens after a critical hit's damage is determined), a weapon attack that rolls max on its damage is often being doubled anyway! A Fighter striking with a longsword and rolling an 8 on the 1d8 damage is basically achieving a critical hit when it explodes. This is particularly applicable with weapons or other attacks with a singular die for damage.Finally, I enjoyed the visuals of smearing liquid light on a creature. A lot of Lux Asterum Phari is storing liquid starlight in crystals and sculpting it to whatever manifestation you like. Oftentimes this is something like solid starlight, keeping it in its volatile liquid state is certainly a possibility too! That volatile, shapable form can describe how kinetic force is amplified when it connects with the substance. Plus, it gives a nice ribbon of shedding light on the creature each time damage gets exploded. A prismatic lightshow is a pretty unique visual for a spell!

Spellflux

2nd-level Transmutation
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Baldur's Gate 3 released and gave us a wonderfully unique Illithid Power called Concentrated Blast. I really enjoyed how it interacts with the concentration mechanic in 5e and wanted to try my hand at something similar: ending concentration to drastically boost the potency of a spell. But unless I wanted to invent a whole new spell component of "concentrating on a spell", Spellflux needed to have a baseline. Acquisitions Incorporated introduced a "royalty" component of paying per casting, but that is so silly and I don't know anyone who really abides by them for the three spells that do it.Despite the spell design mandating it, you never really want to use Spellflux at its base. 2d10 damage and a save negates everything is thoroughly subpar. A cantrip like Fire Bolt does more damage starting at level 5+. No, I wanted Spellflux to adapt based on what spell a caster ended concentration on to make it feel malleable and transmutative. Depending on the power level of the ended spell, Spellflux too increases in destruction.Spellflux somewhat lessens the feeling of dismay when enemies resist your concentration spells or eventually pass their save at the end of their turn. Or when you need to cast another high-value concentration spell but you've already got one active. When you can resort to Spellflux transforming it into brilliant wrath, your enemies may be relieved for a split second when they're no longer suffering . . . before they realize what's coming for them.Web may have been useful for the first three rounds of combat, but all of the mob boss's minions bypassed the cube by now; casting Spellflux ensures you maximize the worth of that concentration. It turns into a 4d10 cube AoE. Hypnotic Pattern may have been effective for a time but the enemies' been using their action to shake each other out of its stupor. They've gotta be all adjacent to each other to do that action, right? Make them regret it by translating that concentration into a 6d10 cube AoE. Is your Summon Elemental about to lose all its HP and vanish? That's potentially a 8d10 single target Spellflux right there. In an extremely potent situation, a Delayed Blast Fireball is doubly powerful; end concentration on it at the opportune moment to both cause it to explode and for Spellflux to deal 14d10 damage in the same area!Why is Spellflux allowed to do so much potential damage? Because ending concentration is always a trade-off. Spellflux rewards that trade-off and enables capitalizing on circumstances where the concentrated spell is less effective over time for whatever reason. Spellflux requires you to expend a minimum of two spell slots (one preferably higher-leveled) to achieve its inane damage potential. It demands commitment, since the spell on its own is horrible. You need to continue to maintain concentration too, so if you lose it between rounds you're unfortunately left in the dust. Plus the ideal situation won't always be dangling in front of your face; you may have casted a 3rd level Hold Person, but one of your targets succeeded the save. Do you go for the 6d10 two-target Spellflux, or do you keep the single target paralyzed?To expand upon the homebrew's note, there's a few effects that require concentration but aren't strictly spells, such as a Graviturgy Wizard's Adjust Density, a Ranger's Favored Foe, or a Glamour Bard's Mantle of Majesty. If you're a DM and decide to allow these to be viable with Spellflux, remember that some of these non-concentration effects are infinite use. This is an easy way to break the precarious balance of Spellflux, so be careful! Don't be afraid to be unconventional with the damage either, like with how you're allowed to be with the shape or range.As a fun final note, Spellflux's name is kind of a pun. Flux can mean fluctuation, but also the word "lux" is in there too. That means light!

Zenith / Nadir

2nd-level Evocation
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Quite a few games let you critically heal with your abilities. It's always a concept I wanted to explore in D&D, but with how central the existing healing spells are, there isn't much room to maneuver by way of a homebrew spell. Anything to do with critical healing is generally explored with entirely unique house rule systems. Then I came across an interesting game called Mini Healer that simulates the experience of MMO raid healing. There was a spell there called "Shadow Ripple", a very fast and efficient heal that can crit, but if you overheal (heal more than your target's max HP), then its drawback happens. The spell costs 5x more mana.So if I wanted a spell that can crit-heal but there's a risk, what could that risk be? "Mana" is most equivalent to a spell slot, but risking another spell slot is almost never worth the cost. How would you otherwise handle a situation where a spellcaster is out of spell slots or doesn't even use spell slots? I think having a spell backfire on you in a damaging way would be an interesting drawback. Health is a universal resource, and if the risk is damage, then the risk analysis becomes even more prudent to make. This also sparked another very similar idea: a high damaging spell, but if the target succeeds on the saving throw, it backfires on the caster.I wanted to create these two on the same spell as different facets of each other, like Blindness / Deafness and even our own Dazzle Dart. Versatility is a staple Frosty spell trait after all. Both aspects of this spell—the damaging and healing—share the identity of being high risk high reward, differentiating it from being a simple reskinned Cure Wounds or Chromatic Orb. Besides, Wither and Bloom exists and it has both damage and healing packaged into one instantaneous effect! While having both a damaging and healing component of the spell makes it quite valuable of a pick (like Vampiric Touch or the aforementioned Wither and Bloom), its numerical strength needs to justify the high risk.For the healing option Zenith, a great benefit is that it's the same range as a Healing Word, but even higher healing than a Cure Wounds. A 2nd level Healing Word is 2d4 + spellcasting mod, while a 2nd level Cure Wounds is 2d8 + spellcasting mod. Assuming a mod of +3, Cure Wounds averages at 12 healing and Zenith's 4d6 + spellcasting mod averages at 17. Very potent! Even more so if you manage to "crit" by rolling a 20 on the d20 prerequisite. With this much healing it's no sweat to top someone off. But you want to avoid that by all means, because that'd mean you're also enduring average 17 force damage! This encourages waiting to use Zenith until someone is unconscious or in critical HP.For the damaging option Nadir, 8d6 damage is considerably high for a 2nd level spell! That's on par with Fireball. While Fireball does AoE damage, this much damage for a single target spell is nothing to scoff at. Its highest competitors are a 2nd level Inflict Wounds's 4d10, a 2nd level Guiding Bolt's 5d6, an Acid Arrow's 6d4, and all three Scorching Rays hitting for 6d6. Those are all attacks, too. If you miss, that's 0 damage. If we consider saving throw spells where passing the save halves the damage, then our second highest competitors are Mind Spike's 3d8, a 2nd level Hellish Rebuke's reactionary 3d10, and a 2nd level Dissonant Whispers's 4d6. 8d6 compared to this looks absurd, I get it. But when Constitution is often the highest stat for tougher and important enemies and when the spell backfires upon the target's success, the dice notation makes more sense. Part of the flavoring for this spell is channeling magic difficult to control; it's easy to let it slip. Use Nadir when you've got surefire methods of debuffing foes or manipulating their dice rolls! Use spells and abilities like Bane, Silvery Barbs, Portent, Chronal Shift, or Heightened Spell Metamagic.To cap off this commentary, the names Zenith / Nadir possess significant astronomical relevance beyond their normal definitions! While Zenith can refer to the time where something is most powerful, it's also a vertical point above an observer on a celestial sphere. Nadir is the polar opposite! To evoke the duality of the spell, I wanted to make use of a fitting naming scheme that calls power from the highest and lowest points—really raising the dam to unleash that astral energy! As a fun fact, Zenith is also the name for my Artificer Opus's custom-built "boltblade" legendary weapon!

Superposition

2nd-level Divination
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When coming up with a homebrew consumable item with the same effect as this spell, I thought "wouldn't this be much cooler as a spell instead"? I was already calling it a Superposition Shard, so why not convert it? Superposition refers to the quantum property of being in multiple states simultaneously until it's measured. In 5e, "states" aren't really a thing. Conditions can be a state, but there's no room to play with for "being in multiple states". So I opted for something more mechanically defying—what if you could claim an attack roll was really a saving throw instead? Or a saving throw as an ability check? With how many systems interact with the specificity of what kind of d20 rolls you're making, Superposition can get out of hand quickly. At least, in a way that personally makes me feel like I'm bending the system to my advantage as a player. Discovering hidden interactions and cheeky methods of turning the tides in your favor from that one feature you have.With a casting time of 1 minute (marking it a pre-combat buff), Superposition grants a creature the ability to make one d20 roll simultaneously count as a save, an attack, and a check. The example I gave in the homebrew note is a Fighter's Indomitable feature, which states that they can reroll a saving throw that they failed. If they miss an attack, they can expend the buff. It's reasonable to consider that a "failed saving throw" resembles a "missed attack roll", so the Fighter can thus reroll the missed attack and potentially hit.How else can you leverage this boon? Let's think of a few examples:

So, why take this over Fortune's Favor? Fortune's Favor grants, essentially, a luck point. It's not advantage, it's Elven Accuracy. It's also a 2nd level divination spell. Barring the 1 hour duration and 100g consumed component, why take Superposition over Fortune's Favor? One huge limitation of the latter is its exclusivity to the Chronurgy and Graviturgy Wizard. Let's ignore that for a sec, what if we gave it the benefit of the doubt and that a generous DM would allow more spell lists to have it? In that scenario, Fortune's Favor is an amazing pre-buff applicable in any situation. But while it may confer super-advantage, Superposition allows you to exploit traits and features like Aura of Protection or Reliable Talent to give flat numerical bonuses to your rolls. It's harder to seize the right circumstance to effectively utilize the quantum boon, but should you do so, you're more likely to break bounded accuracy.

Chromatic Aberration

3rd-level Transmutation
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One of the early experiments in Starlight spellcraft. As also a video game developer, I often notice games using chromatic aberration as a cheap filter for "permanently scar the player's eyes." While that's not my intention with this spell, my idea was to capture a similar vibe to torment our characters and/or enemies. The spell alters its area to be heavily obscured, putting it on the same level as Fog Cloud, Stinking Cloud, and Incendiary Cloud. Unlike those, and unlike the darkness-generating spells, Chromatic Aberration doesn't actually produce mist, haze, or magical darkness. It just makes it extremely difficult to see as if you cranked up a Gaussian blur filter to 75x. A strong wind can't blow it away like with the Cloud spells, and a strong light spell can't override it like with Darkness or Shadow of Moil. This gives Chromatic Aberration a subtle, but distinct advantage. Still, it does have its counters. Blindsight and other similar senses and traits still bypass Chromatic Aberration as with Cloud and Darkness spells. While creatures with blindsight can still normally sense in all these spells, they're still liable to be affected by any additional mechanics. Like a Stinking Cloud's poison or being damaged in retaliation by Shadow of Moil. A creature with blindsight or immunity to blindness is completely invulnerable to Chromatic Aberration—their senses are simply built different to be bothered by blurry vision.I think that gives a good base to build three distinct debuffs representing each color the player can distort. The spell, I feel, is allowed to be versatile (as I so love) with its choices because it's more or less ineffective against a decent swathe of opponents. You wouldn’t take this spell in a trip to the Underdark. For the debuffs themselves, I wanted to make each one equally viable, but somehow fitting for the color itself. A completely subjective task of equating conditions to the emotions evoked by color, but it was a fun exercise!Red's debuff is that affected creatures can't maintain concentration. The phrase "seeing red" is often related to anger, and a Barbarian's Rage prevents them from maintaining concentration.Green's debuff is that affected creatures can't take reactions. Sickness and ailments are often coded as green. Just look at this: 🤢 Try being agile and responsive when you're, ahem, "green in the gills."Blue's debuff is that affected creatures have halved movement speed, referring to blue being a common color to represent ice, frigid temperatures, and thus sluggish movements. Less punny but hey, it fits my name!

Maledict Mirage

3rd-level Evocation
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Another of the early forays into Starlight spellcraft my character created during their campaign! The main idea behind this was to build a single target Delayed Blast Fireball focused around using starlight and mirages to prevent invisibility. Like with Delayed Blast Fireball, there's a strategic element when to "detonate" the mirage with this spell. Holding onto it ramps up the damage over time but prevents concentration on other spells. You could "flash" the spell for a base 4d10 damage, particularly useful in blocking a foe's invisibility instantly should they fail the WIS save. It's worth noting that dropping concentration is something you could do at any time, meaning you can end your turn, bump the damage up to 5d10, and immediately drop concentration to have the mirage detonate. 5d10 is around the average for a 3rd level single target damaging spell, so keeping hold of it longer only increases the bang for your (spell slot) buck.One of the great features of Maledict Mirage is that it's attached to a creature as soon as you cast it upon them. If the creature moves to the opposite end of the plane, you can still have the mirage detonate and deal damage as there's no range limit. There's no way for a creature to manually remove a mirage attached to them—without stuff like Dispel Magic of course.Adding to the mirage theming is the ribbon feature at the end of the spell generating the creature's afterimage upon detonation, no matter if the creature succeeds or fails the saving throw. This might not seem like much upon first glance during combat, but a creature can only succeed in hiding if they have total cover (assuming they failed the WIS save). Even should they dart from cover to cover, the lingering afterimage provides a helpful clue to their whereabouts. It sheds dim light too, so you can't miss it in shady back alleys!

Glint

3rd-level Abjuration
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Glint is the result of looking at Abjuration Wizard's Arcane Ward and thinking "what if you could quickly summon a similar HP barrier as a reaction?" Sometimes Shield just isn't good enough, or your Fighter's Interception fighting style is simply ineffective against a raging dragon's breath weapon. Glint's here to protect you, as long as it's not psychic damage directly done in your head.Assuming a +4 spellcasting modifier by 5th level (the level you gain 3rd level spells, and thus the option for Glint), Glint's generated barrier can average to be around 29 hit points. That's quite sizable! If you're a 5th level character playing a class with d8 hit dice, your max HP could range from 33 to 48 depending on your CON mod! With a d6 hit dice? That's 27 - 42. Glint is nearly doubling your HP when used and is a strong defensive tool for any spellcaster's kit. It lasts until the end of your next turn too, meaning it enables more risky plays if you still have some barrier remaining at the start of your next turn. Opportunity Attacks can be less scary.Is this too powerful? I don't necessarily think so. All fullcasters have d6 or d8 hit dice, so by the time they reach the level in which they can naturally learn this spell, they would have those HP values I mentioned above. A fullcaster at level 5 would have to commit an entire 3rd level spell slot (which they only have two by now) for a reaction. That could've been a Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Revivify, Haste, or Fly—equally tide-changing spells at that level for that tier of play. Glint should have that potential to heavily dampen a foe's big attack—a fullcaster at this level has less HP than martials and the spell is competing with 8d6 damage, revival from death, and strong utility.Conversely, halfcasters generally have d10 hit dice. Paladins and Rangers can withstand larger damage better than squishy mages (even Artificers are better equipped with their features despite having d8 hit dice). These classes gain 3rd level spells at 9th level. Which means they could have a range of 67 - 103 max HP depending on CON mod. That's triple digits if you have a +5! If you're a Hill Dwarf or got the Tough feat, both which greatly benefit any kind of martial character, even better. By 9th level, fullcasters gain access to 5th level spells and Cone of Cold is no joke. Trust me, one of my characters died to that. I think halfcasters can keep up with increasing damage at this tier of play if they choose to take Glint. They're typically closer in the fray and thus at risk for taking more damage, would have to use one of their valuable higher leveled spell slots (that could've been a big big smite), and have to decide if they want to spend their reaction on Glint or something else like an Opportunity Attack or the Protection fighting style.And our thirdcaster friends Eldritch Knight Fighter and Arcane Trickster Rogue? Well, Arcane Trickster is barred from learning Glint since it's not an enchantment or an illusion spell, but for Eldritch Knight they would be able to learn Glint at 13th level. I don't think I need to analyze the differences here.One final thought that I think justifies Glint's power level: it must also compete with Counterspell at the same spell level. Counterspell is wildly useful (though bizarrely less so nowadays with modern 5e creature statblock design straying away from spells, but that's for another day) and probably one of the best reactions out there. It's also one of the highest leveled reactions out there. The only higher leveled ones are Temporal Shunt and Soul Cage. The former of which is restricted to two subclasses, and the latter you're only using in very specific circumstances—or it's used as a DM tool. If a caster decides to choose Glint over Counterspell when using their reaction (or choosing which to learn), then Glint has to be as worthwhile as possibly preventing a deadly spell washing over the party. Starlight spells introduce a good number of reactions, but the power level of each ought to be weighed with what might be considered "best in slot." It's quite difficult to compete with Shield, Counterspell, and Silvery Barbs!

Dark Nebula

3rd-level Conjuration
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Another in the subset of dark energy inversion spells, Dark Nebula can equally harm as well as help if not careful in its placement. A similar ritual spell Silence can shut down a verbal spellcaster if they're kept within the area, but it doesn't completely disable spellcasting. Dark Nebula was designed to mark a place as a "magic dampening zone." It's not at the level of Antimagic Field that completely blocks magic, but it can be seen as almost a lesser variant. This spell is a strong defensive utility against mages and other casters, but it simultaneously puts the party's own casters in a tough position. This could even incapacitate Warforged characters if the DM deems them eligible as "constructed by magic." Like with Silence, I feel one of the best use cases of Dark Nebula is to entrap dangerous entities within the zone for a decent chunk of the encounter. A tactic like this could allow valuable preparation to best combat the entity while they struggle to counterattack.Previously, Dark Nebula did not have the 50% chance of suppressing a magical effect. I added it in to reinforce the erratic nature of this subset of spells and to solidify Dark Nebula's position as securing an advantage in battlefield control.Dark Nebula's name was inspired by the real life eponymous phenomenon. Dark nebulae are classified as such because their molecular clouds are so dense that they obfuscate light. Quite fitting for the spell to similarly obscure magic. Previously this spell was named Magic Void, but I felt Dark Nebula was a much more gratifying and evocative name.

Coalesce into Cosmos

3rd-level Conjuration
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This was a fun one to design! I played a couple characters with a starlight or cosmic theming to them and I usually found a way to gain the Misty Step spell. Whenever I casted it, I flavored it in the same way as how I describe this spell. I then decided "why not make this into a mechanically starlight version of Thunder Step?" Thunder Step has an extra component to it that makes it unique from every other teleport spell: a damaging burst at the starting location. I approached Coalesce into Cosmos with the same mindset.To not entirely mimic Thunder Step, I pushed forward the idea of having this extra damage component be baked into the distance between the start and end points. It'd form an actual line, like a comet or a nebular trail just like how I flavored Misty Step in the past. Originally I just left it as 3d6 cold damage if a creature was caught in the line, but I wasn't quite satisfied.At the time I was inspired by Mass Effect's biotics—aka space magic. Say what you want about Mass Effect 3, but it had a gratifying system of priming and detonating combos using different powers. One such priming power was Lifting an enemy off the ground and keeping them suspended in the air, making them prime targets for combo detonation. I replicated that combo-potential with Coalesce into Cosmos. Not only are you combining damage and instant travel, but also area control by priming creatures for combo attacks. An attack roll doing an extra 1d10 force damage upon hit doesn't seem like much, but the 15 ft. push is excellent for repositioning enemies right where you want them. You could even launch a creature into another and your DM might grace you with collision damage. You'd be hard-pressed to get a Large-sized creature to fail the initial CON save to suspend them in the air, but there's tools for forcing failures, right?

Realignment

3rd-level Conjuration
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The quintessential sentiment of this spell is "now you're thinking with portals." Realignment, on paper, looks incredibly similar to Arcane Gate. Both spells produce linked portals over a distance that creatures can pass through. In practice these two are functionally very distinct. Realignment has the great benefit of vision between portal entrances and express interaction to and fro each side. You can attack from one side to another and you can even shoot a Fireball through it! As long as you've got the right angle, you're golden. Realignment warps space and makes both squares adjacent, meaning if you can measure a point beyond through that portal, you effectively have +30 ft. reach to whatever it is you're trying to do.So, why is Realignment a 3rd level spell, half of Arcane Gate's 6th level? Here's the obvious differences: Arcane Gate has a 10 minute duration, a range of 500 ft., its portal is 10 ft. wide, and the portal can be rotated as a bonus action. Realignment has a 1 minute duration, a range of 30 ft., a 5 ft. wide portal, and cannot be rotated. Arcane Gate's portal is obscured, meaning you can't effectively do anything beyond it without passing through, but Realignment provides clear vision to enable these shenanigans. Arcane Gate's function is less combat-oriented. It can be effective for engaging in battle or infiltration, but its misty obscuration is a drawback. Arcane Gate is more practical for ferrying folks and large-scale transportation between distant points, including running away. By the time 6th level spells are obtained, distance between objectives can tend to be larger to account for the tools a party has in their repertoire. Stakes are higher too; higher stakes call for more powerful options. Realignment is primarily intended to be a combat spell. The space between the portals cannot be totally obstructed, so you can't have a sly Wizard buddy pop this spell on the other end of a locked vault door. That's what Passwall's for. I think Realignment is thought best as a mind twisty spell to achieve previously-thought-impossible ranges and angles for amazing combos. A Cleric Readying their action to cast Realignment so the Rogue can immediately backstab an unsuspecting foe.And, like usual, it wouldn't be a Frosty homebrew spell if it didn't come with its high risk high reward style. Your enemies can equally exploit the connected portals as well, so you might want to think twice before plopping one down. Or simply just fight Large enemies.Previously, the spell disabled other AoE spells from passing through the portal. I felt however that this made little logical sense. A player can easily argue that the target point beyond the portal is in range of their Hypnotic Pattern. Distinguishing between what made spells' AoE eligible for portal travel required too much DM fiat.To help illustrate my thought process with Realignment, I visualized some scenarios in Roll20 with our friend Taroo and included them here.

Equator

3rd-level Conjuration
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Equator was conceived as a way of exploring battlefield control in the form of "absolute neutrality." Normally the fun in D&D stems from casting the dice and praying to the RNG gods. We hope for the critical successes for that epic moment in battle, and we hope the passing-by evil lord doesn't roll high to insight the group. Even failures work wonders for storytelling; it'd be boring if we succeeded every check. There'd be no thrill. A vast amount of mechanics in 5e involve manipulating the dice in some way, allowing us to gently nudge fate in our preferred direction. Of course, the gods don't have to grant us such deliverance, but that makes it all the more exciting—spending so much resources on modifiers and advantage on a d20 only to have it ultimately fail, for example.For Equator I decided to take all that fun away. It's a spell that says "I'm tired of fate's shenanigans today. Let not Jesus take the wheel." You cast Equator to equalize the playing field and heavily block fate's capricious whims. Limit RNG and suddenly all those optimization and powergaming strategies, charts, builds—you can throw them out. Equator will get you to succeed by sheer force of having you roll merely the average.There's very little in 5e that meaningfully explores this kind of gimmick. Besides Clockwork Soul Sorcerer. So I took that kit and cranked it up to 11. Rolling 2d10 instead of 1d20 mean all ability checks, attack rolls, saving throws, and the like now follow a bell curve with 11 being the average. Nullifying dis/advantage and criticals further enforces the bell curve effect with little being able to modify it. There shouldn't be much to modify it anyway. Replacing the core and iconic d20 can really break the game so there has to some assurance to prevent that. Even the oddballs that bypass the dis/advantage system like Silvery Barbs, Fortune's Favor, and Elven Accuracy needed to be addressed too. Equator may read a bit clunky but the gist of it is: every d20 is only 2d10.A 40-foot cube is quite sizable and nothing to scoff at too; it can cover all manner of smaller skirmishes. If you're in a position that prevents enemies from engaging directly, Equator can entirely boost your party by a decent margin. Rain fire from above and all but guarantee the hits. Still, this is a Frosty spell—which means there's risk to using it and strategic thinking is paramount. Obviously standing in the zone can equally (get it?) boost hostiles as well. Multiattack is much more dangerous and a smart spellcaster will exploit the forced averages to maintain concentration.One of the more interesting parts of this spell is that it's classified as a ritual; it won't cost a spell slot if you take the time to cast it with an extra 10 minutes. Such classification encourages its use in non-combat situations. There's a bit to unpack here with a spell like Equator granting neutralized d20 rolls in out-of-combat circumstances.Skill checks are a big factor. If you can afford the opportunity to take 10 minutes to ritually cast Equator, and a skill check could be accomplished within the spell's 10 minute duration, this confers great utility in the form of the old "Take 10" rule in prior editions. This old rule allowed a character to choose to forgo a d20 roll and set it to 10 when in a calm situation. Equator doesn't actually mimic Take 10, because you're still rolling 2d10—but you're still likelier to achieve an average result. Although Take 10 doesn't exist in 5e because Passive skills like Passive Perception or Insight took its place, a spell like Equator considerably changes how checks can be made with how similar it can be to Take 10. It can make many checks safer to perform while minimizing the risk of low results, such as for:

Is this overpowered because it can be spammed for any of these examples each and every time for predictable rolls? Personally, I don't think so. There's a big opportunity cost when you cast Equator. Namely, you're nullifying any benefits you might want for situations like these. You're negating boons like Enhance Ability, Pass without Trace, the Lucky feat, and even high-leveled stuff like Glibness. If you rolled low with 2d10, you're stuck with that roll; you don't have any assurances to reroll it and rely solely on modifiers, proficiencies, and bonuses like Bardic Inspiration or Guidance. The DM is also completely in their right to rule that many checks take longer than 10 minutes to accomplish, including many of the above examples I provided. A poison might take long to craft or an Intelligence check might require more than 10 minutes to perform. Additionally, a common style that I've seen around is using checks to determine the quality and amount of time an activity takes; Equator doesn't exactly mesh with that. Finally, and unfortunately, Wizards can't benefit from this spell in scribing spell scrolls to their spellbook. Even a 1st level spell takes 2 hours to scribe. However, Scribes Wizards love this spell for that express purpose; they only need 2 minutes per spell level! They can benefit from Equator for 1st to 5th level spell copying (and even cast this spell ritually as an action)!DMs, carefully consider Equator before introducing it in your game. The spell fundamentally alters d20 rolls to a point where you or your players might not take joy in how predictable, or even boring this spell could make some situations out to be. If this spell's myriad uses out of combat are concerning, you might find it imperative to tune it down or even block the spell's inclusion for that reason alone. Whatever your decision is, it's valid! The main purpose of homebrew, and especially Lux Asterum Phari, is to enhance your group's enjoyment.Finishing this commentary, previously this spell was named Dark Nebula. However I felt that Magic Void (what the current Dark Nebula was previously named) fit the bill better with its effects of obscuring magic. To rectify this spell's lack of a good name, I chose Equator as a semi-punny name with an astronomy theming to it.

Magnetar Motes

3rd-level Evocation
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I wanted to create a spell that interacted with metal using AoE. Existing spells of that nature are single target—Heat Metal and Shocking Grasp. And even then, Shocking Grasp just provides the simple bonus of advantage upon targeting a metallic opponent. What prompted Magnetar Mote's expression was a friend's idea of "orbiting projectile that restricts movement (by fear of taking damage)". I don't remember the last time I saw a donut-esque AoE in official content 5e. Because of that, this spell can be quite unconventional. Why a donut and not a simple cube or sphere? Wouldn't that be easier to track? I wanted to really lean in on that idea of whatever you trap in the center having to make the conscious decision to interact with the AoE rather than outright suffer an immediate effect. Do they risk enduring the Donut Damage™? Or do they remain in the center and "safe"? This explores indirect battlefield control and can be a great insight on how your opponents think and fight.As the spell suggests, it works effectively well against metallic foes, whether wearing metal armor or a metal construct. Such creatures generally have decent STR saves as well, so forcing disadvantage on them levels the playing field. This spell also works really well if an enemy heavily relies on physical metallic weapons to disable them. Take heed though! This is a Frosty spell, so consider your own martials attacking them as well if you want them to continue liking you!The ribbon effect is more nefarious than you might think. An arrow that misses its target through the spell would find itself oscillating around the donut AoE. Clever casters could use it as a great way to disarm master-at-arms; if you take their weapon and toss it in the motes, they'll need to succeed a STR check to retrieve it. All in all, I hope the combination of donut AoE, metallic interactions, and indirect battlefield control can come together to make an unique spell.In real life, magnetars are a type of star that have an extremely powerful magnetic field, which is what I wanted to emulate with this spell! Not many spells in 5e that deal with magnetism either, unless you count like… Telekinesis?

Diffraction

3rd-level Enchantment
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Diffraction was designed alongside Aperture Magic. The latter boosts your spell's dice to the halfway value while the former was created to be the polar opposite and minimize an enemy's magical potency. Short of outright Counterspelling a caster, or being unable to because modern 5e creature design is straying away from spells, Diffraction is a great option to stymie the threat of a magical creature. Its functionality was made to be similar to spells like Blindness / Deafness. If it were a concentration spell, it likely wouldn't've had the ending clause of being able to repeat the save to resist the effect. Diffraction can be devastating, and even one turn can really shut down a caster and turn the tide of battle—a Fireball goes from average 28 damage to 8, without accounting for saving throws or resistances. To balance for that, those affected by this spell should be given continuous opportunity to break free. And I don't think having that ending clause would combine well with concentration; the cost would be too great. Plus, if you're targeting a Wizard or other intelligent creature, it's likely they'll succeed anyway unless you spend more resources to lower their chances.Previously this spell only affected a target's spells, but as we move more towards spell-lite creature design philosophy in modern 5e, less and less creatures cast spells and opt for simply spell-like actions. Like 3.5e. Diffraction was updated to account for that, but it also introduces some ambiguity of what exactly is considered a magical action. The DM will have to arbitrate the origins of a creature's abilities and if they're affected by this magic-restraining spell. A part of me thinks this could serve as a fun opportunity to research upcoming targets, bounties, or monsters your party might encounter. Are they a caster? A large beast? Is what they do magical or is it physiological? Maybe both?
Diffraction's name comes from the process of which light (or other waves) are spread and bent as they pass through or around an obstacle. Essentially, the spell is heavily interfering with a creature's magical prowess by dispersing it like light! Oftentimes diffraction is accomplished through openings called apertures, which was how Aperture Magic was named.

Prismatic Echo

3rd-level Evocation
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It can sometimes be difficult to quickly examine and poke at a creature to discover their weaknesses and resistances. Most spells that do damage only deal one type. Multi-typed damage-dealing spells tend to fall into a couple categories: select only one of few (Chromatic Orb, Dragon's Breath, Fire Shield, Wrath of Nature, Glyph of Warding), are unpredictable (Chaos Bolt), or are locked behind higher-leveled slots (Flame Strike, Prismatic Spray/Wall, Bigby's Hand). Really, the most accessible spells of this nature are Hunger of Hadar, Storm Sphere, and Ice Knife, the last two of which include minor impact damage of bludgeoning or piercing respectively before dealing their main elemental damage. Unless you're a Scribes Wizard or a Sorcerer who doesn't mind spending sorcery points on the Transmuted Spell metamagic, your ability to draw out vital resistance/vulnerability information is limited to how many turns you can afford to spend. Barring magic items, other abilities, and in-game lore research, of course.Prismatic Echo is an accessor spell made to fill in this gap. The primary purpose of this spell is to test a creature's reaction to various common damage types (acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, and thunder). Quickly you can ascertain key information on how they resist these damage types, are vulnerable to them, or have some other interactions. Should you find a particular weak spot, you choose that damage type to echo at the end of their next turn and exploit it even further.In terms of damage, I homebrewed this spell to be somewhat on the weaker end. 6d4 initial damage is poor for a 3rd level damaging spell. Combined with the echo damage, 10d4 is nothing to write home about in a 3rd level spell when you're competing with Fireball's 8d6 to multiple creatures. The true value of Prismatic Echo is its information gathering aspect. Discovering an enemy's flaw will easily allow you to form strategies to capitalize on it. Discovering an enemy's resistances or absorption traits will inform you to avoid those damage types. This might not useful for veterans with metaknowledge of the game's bestiary (even if their characters might not know and they roleplay their best to convey that), but chances are, if your game is using Lux Asterum Phari, the DM might be also including homebrew enemies as well.Your Scribe Wizard will also drool over this spell.

Stellar Wind

3rd-level Evocation
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Some Wall spells, like Wall of Ice / Force / Stone, are very fun. Take Wall of Ice: you get ten 10-foot square panels to arrange into a squiggly sculpture of frost and torment everyone around it. These spells are 5th - 6th level though, so it's not every day you get to see their splendor. I homebrewed Stellar Wind with a similar but distinct mechanic when approaching it. These Wall spells allow you to arrange the panels in any configuration you like. What if, instead, our homebrew spell is made so it must originate from the caster? That limitation can definitely lower its potential spell level since the range is now merely "self".To add onto this, Wall spells tend to stick around. You know. As walls. But Stellar Wind is instantaneous! So we can get extra spicy for determining what it can do. After all, unlike the Wall spells where you're carefully determining how to split the battlefield, Stellar Wind just has you attempting to clip every enemy and avoid every ally. Ultimately I couldn't fight my bias for versatility decided to offer two options that both befit what solar wind actually is.The Ionizing variant has creatures make CON saves or take lightning damage. On a failure, they must also spend movement on their turn or face suffering additional lightning damage. The Repulsing variant has creature make STR saves or take force damage. They also get pushed back. Both variants possess different damage dice and different targeted saving throws: effective against certain targets. Both variants as well proffer different ideal configurations. An Ionizing Stellar Wind wants to target creatures in melee range, forcing them to choose between more lightning damage or the risk of Opportunity Attacks. A Repulsing Stellar Wind wants to target creatures to move them towards more beneficial positions to capitalize upon (like, say… off a cliff). In a way, both variants involve movement, just one is by choiceBecause both variants have different damage dice, I opted for the upscaling aspect of the spell to increase in panels and further the range.

Lightspeed

3rd-level Transmutation
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Teleportation spells are often getting you from point A to point B. And unless you mishap, you're gonna be skipping the journey. What if these teleport spells didn't have to do that? Stargazing is often about the journey rather than the destination, and Lightspeed was homebrewed to capture that feeling. Instead of ferrying you to a singular point, Lightspeed gives you 100 ft. fly speed and encourages you to spend it however you like. Think of it like an upgraded Kinetic Jaunt that lasts until the end of your turn. This spell ends up acting as a very effective scouting tool, allowing you to reconnoiter deep dungeons without needing to make a guess with Dimension Door.I find that Lightspeed works well for a 3rd level spell. Both Misty Step and Kinetic Jaunt are 2nd and Dimension Door is 4th. In the middle, Thunder Step is 3rd and has a range of 90 feet, a damage component, and you can bring someone else along with you. Those two elements can be exchanged with Lightspeed's benefits and similar range and be around the same power level.When you use this spell to transform yourself into pure light, you also gain a hefty number of damage resistances. While most of these make sense, like fire having a hard time trying to burn a being of literal light, its exceptions can be difficult to understand at first glance. Thunder is an odd one, but I found that thunder is an effective force that disrupts and bends light waves with vibrations and shockwaves. For psychic damage, you still have a mind even when you're a constellate being of light, meaning you're still susceptible. And for force damage, it typically represents raw magic or energy and should rarely be resisted.

Wall of Nebulae

3rd-level Evocation
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I was gushing about loving Wall spells when talking about Stellar Wind that I just felt like I ought to design my own. Big hurdle I faced though: Wall of Light already exists and that's pretty light-y. So I gotta turn to the cosmic theming. Most Wall spells do some sort of damage or have some other interesting effect, and I'm keener on the latter. Wall of Sand is among the weakest Wall spells but it blocks line of sight and blinds passersby. Wall of Water starts the trend of turning a wall into a ring, and its secondary effect is… well, doing watery stuff like dampen fire and projectiles. At the time of designing Wall of Nebulae, I already had designed Asterism and I was really proud of that one. Asterism acts as a sort of pseudo-wall, so this spell needed to have its own distinctiveness.In the end, I didn't feel like damage was appropriate. Cold damage that could reasonably represent nebulae is already explored via Wall of Ice. What else could it have been, Wall of Psychic Damage? Well, that doesn't sound too bad in hindsight, but my main thought was using Wall of Nebulae as a method of fortifying a particular position. Wall spells can generally accomplish this, but they're mostly corporeal and can greatly constrain your own party's movements if poorly placed. So rather than limit movement, I wanted Wall of Nebulae to be a Wall spell in spirit. It doesn't block line of sight (for the most part) and you can still pass through it. What kind of effect could it have if it's so lightweight like this? Being able to magically reduce inertia.What if Wall of Water's dampening of projectiles could apply to everything with Wall of Nebulae? If it must pass through the wall, then the nebulae will reduce its potency. It secures the defender's position akin to a trench and forces hostiles to approach and engage if they can afford it. And unlike most Frosty spells, this spell doesn't sport much foreseeable detriment; if you wisely designate the diminishing side of the wall your party will be safe. I wanted to also diminish the potency of healing spells to account for the fact that melee enemy fighters might be unbothered in engaging. However, healers and clerics would struggle to top off their frontline warriors unless they risk also engaging.Wall of Nebulae also has the benefit of unique upcast scaling. Higher leveled casts allow for even more diminishing of damage or healing. A 5th level Wall of Nebulae is strong battlefield control with its 4d4 reduction on attacks passing through. That's average of 10 less you might be suffering per hit.

Tarot

3rd-level Divination
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Tarot is a result of wanting to explore the aspect of fortune-telling commonly used in astrology, one of the themes of these Starlight spells. As I so love to do in my homebrew spellcraft, there's a clear gamble with using this spell. Tarot is for the high risk/reward casters that enjoy the thrill of nudging the stakes in a battle. When you make a prediction with Tarot, you're essentially announcing your intentions and inviting your allies to ensure it comes to pass and your foes to prevent it by any means. The best method of using this spell is in a situation where you can maximize your chances of any particular option, such as choosing Death and defeating a low health enemy or Temperance and hiding away. Still, a prediction spell such as this is a great choice for players who enjoy tactical thinking and being rewarded for their shrewdness. For DMs, it's a fun mix-up when a hostile caster uses it; it forces the players to rethink their entire strategy and can make for a memorable encounter.This spell is extremely bizarre with how many mechanics it alters and how specific it requires you to be when you cast it. You can only cast this spell at the beginning of your turn. Otherwise you can exploit it by doing the very thing you were going to predict and casting the spell after you accomplished it, gaining inspiration without effort. There is some precedent here with the Rogue's Cunning Action: Aim only being usable if the rogue had not moved that turn. Second, this spell breaks a cardinal rule in 5e's casting system: it lets you cast another leveled spell during your turn, not just a cantrip. Why? Let's consider the Magician option. If you weren't allowed to cast another leveled spell, you're limited to only cantrips and magical actions. Barring magic items and subclass features, the majority of your options here are saving throw cantrips. That makes the option much less appealing in my opinion. I considered extending the time limit so that the prediction is judged at the end of your next turn, but that too is unfortunately unbalanced. It would give you two chances to fulfill the Strength and Death options, where the intent of the spell is that you're predicting your current turn. I personally don't think having this spell break the cardinal rule is that sinful; Tarot is a gamble spell after all. Your reward on a successful prediction is inspiration/advantage and your punishment for a failed prediction is disadvantage at the DM's whim. Having the risk baked in can allow it some leeway in its rule-bending and reward thrill-seeking or tactically-focused players with a unique mechanic. Besides, I feel like there's an elephant in the room when we talk about this problem. Silvery Barbs. 1st level spell, reaction (therefore not counting against your action economy), it doesn't interact with the disadvantage system when forcing the reroll, and it guarantees advantage to a creature you choose. It's extremely good. Too good. You could even use it to force a reroll on a trivial d20 roll and bestow advantage for a much more important one. Tarot, in my opinion, can scarcely compete.I want to comment on the spell's requirement for the predictions to be in relation to "at least one or more hostile targets of at least mild threat". I always felt wording like this read as video-gamey. Still, I lifted the phrase from Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter homebrew class, specifically the Profane Soul subclass's Undying Rite Focus trait. The Blood Hunter is very much not official content but it's so popular that it's kind of in this pseudo-official territory. I myself love it to pieces (if that wasn't obvious from my love of Roscoe and Lýtingr). What I mean is that there's some valid precedent of this wording's existence. For that Blood Hunter trait, its wording was to prevent abusing an infinite healing exploit. It's easy to take a Bag of Tricks, yoink a tiny critter from it, and slay it for healing. With Tarot, any of the prediction options could easily be exploited the same way. I view the wording as a necessary evil for designing fun options for a unique spell, but minimizing unintentional, overpowered misuse. Even if it doesn't entirely make logical sense. (Though you could flavor the Blood Hunter limitation as the patron being ill-satisfied from such a lowly sacrifice as I had before and Tarot's limitation as the fates demanding worthy action to justify their calling.)

Crystalline Preservation

3rd-level Necromancy
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I wanted to make a spell that interacted more with Hit Dice. Revitalizing Glow was the small dip in the water, plus Wither and Bloom was the pioneer for this concept of magic. Hit Dice is usually spent to recover health during short rests, but what if you can frontload that healing? I homebrewed Crystalline Preservation as a way to do that.But I didn't want it to be a simple "take one Hit Die and heal it," because then it'd just be a worse Cure Wounds or even Healing Word. Also, we got feats and magic items that do that. Instead, I wanted it to be a preparation spell and ideally cast during downtime, much like a short rest. Crystalline Preservation was conceived to be like a backup emergency heal that one would use almost like a healing potion.Most healing spells feature some upcasting progression that increases restoration. You can't really do that with Hit Dice as easily. So though this spell doesn't have any upcasting, I designed it so that the spell is allowed to store up to half of a creature's Hit Dice. Meaning we've got a soft upcasting of sorts!Balancing this spell is difficult but an interesting challenge. Crystalline Preservation isn't the foremost spell you'd cast at level 5 where a full caster learns 3rd level spells. At this level, an equivalent Cure Wounds's 3d8+mod is much better statistically; you can't get more than 2 Hit Dice if you cast Crystalline Preservation so even a Barbarian's 2d12+mod is lesser (even if it's a miniscule loss). Crystalline Preservation's value grows upon leveling up and crossing the tiers of play. A level 10 Barbarian can store 5d12 Hit Dice, which means a 5d12+mod heal averages to 32.5 - 37.5 depending on the modifier. That's a sizeable amount and very efficient for a 3rd level spell slot. Of course, while much higher than an equivalent Cure Wounds, Crystalline Preservation requires two actions to fully cast—one to store the Hit Dice and one to release the healing—meaning that it's much less efficient in the midst of combat.This spell rewards foresight and, of course, means there's a choice at play here. Casting a 3rd level spell during the first two tiers of play is a big cost that could be used for all manner of different spells. There's no guarantee that Crystalline Preservation might be used, but you might have spent that last 3rd level slot when you needed Dispel Magic to disenchant a magical trap… The other consideration is that it prevents the Hit Dice provider from using these Hit Dice while they're being preserved. They can't be used during a short rest. Naturally (get it?), you can end the spell prior to a short rest if the Hit Dice are needed then (since a short rest adds CON mod to every roll), but then that's a wasted 3rd level spell.DMs will have to exercise caution when Crystalline Preservation is used on NPCs. NPCs typically have a much higher amount of Hit Dice and are calculated differently, meaning this spell could absolutely be abused with a friendly dragon ally to a party. Consider limiting the potency of this spell when used in such occasion or only have the NPC offer a limited amount of Hit Dice. After all, RAW the spell's description states the touched creature decides the amount of Hit Dice to provide.A quick commentary on the necromancy classification of this spell. Most healing spells in 5e are classified as evocation and are now becoming abjuration in the One D&D playtests (as of April 2023)! They were even conjuration before 5e. I'm one of the folks that believes the older editions' classification of healing spells as necromancy was the most fitting. Necromancy's theming in my mind revolves around the manipulation of life and death, which is more fitting than any other school of magic. Still, the schools of magic and classification of spells are so muddied and nigh-interchangeable that it's really mostly used as a consideration for their interactions with other features. Crystalline Preservation is absolutely necromancy due to its nature of siphoning of a creature's natural healing processes and storing it away. You are borrowing a creature's ability to recuperate.Anyway and finally, when balancing this spell I made a chart comparing different healing options and their statistical averages. You can check it out here:

Cascading Coment

3rd-level Evocation
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Cascading Comet was designed on the premise of a spell continuing to grow in power and effect until a caster's luck runs out. This is sort of explored in Rainbow, but I wanted to explore this through a different angle via an instantaneous, cold damaging spell. And I suppose this also lines up with being a Frosty spell from its risk/reward nature. Huh, I punned there and it wasn't intentional.I like to think of this spell as a supercharged Scorching Ray. Scorching Ray is simple and consistent. 3 attack rolls, 2d6 damage each, done. For Cascading Comet, you continue to make attack rolls until you inevitably miss. You are rewarded for multiple successions by increasing the damage of each consecutive attack, but your attack roll incurs a -1 penalty each time. Just so the probability will eventually work against you and not make the spell overpowered. Do you go for Scorching Ray for the simple consistency and assured 3 rays? Or do you gamble and hope you don't miss with Cascading Comet's first attack and end the spell?A gamble like this puts a spotlight on spells like Scorching Ray. Why should you cast Cascading Comet instead of upcasting Scorching Ray? To further reward the risk, I added the element of cumulative impacts against a single target causing increasing debuffs. It was pretty fun imagining the different types of cold-related debuffs one might suffer when being struck by multiple shards of a comet. To me, the best use of this spell is during a period where you have multiple bonuses to attack rolls or a consistent way of gaining advantage. Bless, a Peace Cleric's Emboldening Bond, a Clockwork Amulet, a restrained target, and Faerie Fire are just a few that come to mind! Cascading Comet benefits significantly more from teamwork than Scorching Ray can hope to!

Twilit Convalescence

3rd-level Evocation
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Most methods of healing are instantaneous as you often want them to be. This spell, on the other hand, isn't. It was concepted to be a sort of blend between protection and healing with a unique mode of delivering the latter. Healing spells and features are fine and all, but they cost action economy. That's action economy not being spent to resolve an encounter or defeat an enemy. In any multiplayer game, a healer or support role contributing to damage (or accomplishing a goal) in a cooperative environment reigns supreme over one that doesn't. Simply put, if you can optimize action economy by preventing the need to heal, then that's the golden strategy.Twilit Convalescence is an attempt to combine both worlds with its two components, the goal being to encourage bold moves and brazen temerity in combat. First, it reduces incoming damage to an ally within 60 feet of you (that's a large radius!) by 1d4. This is quite literally the minimum possible common die roll. So individually it might not mean much, but across a whole round of multiple attacks or a swathe of damage blanketing an area, that'll add up. Each time the spell reduces damage, it adds that number to a pool of points. At the start of the caster's next turn, the spell will end and the second component activates. The caster can distribute healing to any ally within that same 60-foot radius based on the pool of points accumulated. Cure Wounds is a spell that reacts to damage, and a spell like Shield of Faith is a proactive spell that hopes to lessen damage by way of increasing AC. Twilit Convalescence is both. It still takes an action to cast, but the hope is that, by casting it, you're egging on your party to focus on the offensive knowing that the damage against them will be somewhat lessened. That proactive aspect of the spell allows for its reactive secondary aspect. For example, your Fighter got severely damaged by a hydra's heads, so you focus all the action-free healing at the start of your next turn on restoring them up. In turn, this also enables the caster to be flexible with their tactics next round too. Another caster might be panicking trying to cast Healing Word to prevent the Bard from dying on the ground, but a caster using Twilit Convalescence can rest assured knowing the Bard will return to consciousness no matter what action economy they do. That caster is free to blast the enemy.Despite all these arguments I was making in favor of it, Twilit Convalescence is a risky spell. Against a smaller amount of opponents or opponents who focus on single attacks or blasts, this spell's effectiveness leaves something to be desired and may not even match an equivalent level Cure Wounds. Perhaps even your foes might have a different focus in mind instead of trying to hurt the party, like using crowd control or other means of manipulating the battlefield in their favor. In that case, Twilit Convalescence could even be completely ineffective. However, in the perfect situation against a multitude of enemies or you're certain to receive many instances of damage, this spell will shine. A single AoE against 3 PCs is 3d4 reduced and 3d4 healing. And that's only one instance of damage. A dragon would still have its multiattack.A lil fun note on the name of this spell. Convalescence refers to gradually recovering one's health after injury or ailment. In that same sense, this spell gradually reduces the damage one might take and restores health after a moment or two.

Prism Nexus

3rd-level Conjuration
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I once designed a homebrew encounter where the faction my party was battling employed mages that would summon "Anchor Stones". This faction's vanguard were fashioned with crystals that were attuned to these Anchor Stones and they could use a bonus action to teleport back to the Anchor Stone within a certain radius. They were notorious for charging headfirst and ferociously attacking without abandon, a very deadly troop of warriors. They knew they were in little danger, for because at the end of their unrelenting assault they shunted back to the safety of the Anchor Stone in the backlines. Thus the mages were given free rein to rain fire from above without fear of harming their own countrymen in their AoEs. And the warriors returned close by to guard any flanking force. It was a very memorable fight, since my party's usual strategy was completely countered by the combination of the faction's evasiveness and overpowering recklessness. My players had to really think on how to quickly shut off the Anchor Stone. It lead to the awesome moment of the party's Rogue Readying his action to swipe the crystal from a charger and use it himself to teleport to the Anchor Stone and disable the mage who summoned it, stranding the other warriors and allowing the rest of the party to capitalize on the advantage gained from their Reckless Attacks.I wanted to recapture that fun and present it as an option for players, leading to the conception of Prism Nexus! Like how my faction utilized it, you too can use Prism Nexus to allow your frontline Fighters, Paladins, and/or Barbarians to charge in and teleport back. Unfortunately, I couldn't design Prism Nexus to have the same 120-foot radius as the Anchor Stones without raising its spell level, so I settled on a 30-foot radius as a decent range. A base 30-foot radius is about the same for the movement speed of most PCs, allowing for good maneuverability and an extension of your party's reach. I also wanted to give Prism Nexus some flexibility in its radius so I elected to have its upcasting increase the radius; a 5th level Prism Nexus's 40-foot radius could be invaluable in certain situations.The idea of translating these Anchor Stones to a playable spell was to open the floodgates of creativity. There's way more uses than how the faction used it for aggression! Another option is that a caster could teleport across a wide gap, then cast Prism Nexus so they could pull in the others in their party! Prism Nexus could be cast prior to an ambush so your group could surprise attack your quarry and teleport back to the shadows; they'll never know what hit 'em.

Embrace Umbra

3rd-level Transmutation
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I first designed Lightspeed, a spell that transformed you into light and allowed you to move very fast for the rest of your turn. But what is light without shadow? Thus Embrace Umbra was born. But it's not enough for a spell to simply use shadow magic, these are Starlight spells after all! Not only is umbra a word often used for the shadow of a celestial object, but the idea of embracing it lead to the concept of merging with your own shadow as a movement tool. Turns out, when you brainstorm names first and go for alliterations, you get a neat spell concept! To put an even more cosmic twist on it, the crystal used in these Starlight spells store liquid light. So instead this spell is in the subset of inverted spells in that converts it into dark light, interacting with dark matter and enabling such merging.Shadow magic is surprisingly unexplored in official 5e. Most of what we get are spells that generate magical darkness like Shadow of Moil and Darkness, or something like Hunger of Hadar where it isn't technicallydarkness but might as well be. The closest unique interaction we've got is Shadow Blade granting advantage on attacks made in low light areas. Lux Asterum Phari may be focused on starlight and its prismatic energy, but darkness is equally a core component of the cosmos so I wanted to explore this angle as well. Lightspeed is a movement spell, and when thinking of its counterpart, I wanted Embrace Umbra to be one too. What better way to move as a shadow would? A classic trope in storytelling, both fantasy and otherwise, is the idea of a sourceless or living shadow walking about, a potentially frightening terror that might lash out at any moment. This also exists in D&D too; there's literally a Shadow statblock in 5e. What mechanics can we pull from that concept in mind?Merging with your own shadow is funny and bizarre if you think about it. Without a physical body to cast the shadow, what is actually casting your shadow? Not wanting to break my brain, I opted to employ the idea of your shadow being cast from an invisible, nonexistent version of yourself. So instead of acting like a blurry, circular shadow from a low-poly video game, your every movement could be reflected in your own merged shadow. With that in mind, each aspect of the spell seems rather straightforward:

All this leads to the main drawback of this spell and why it's categorized as a 3rd level spell as opposed to something higher for the amount of utility it provides. You're briefly abandoning your source while melded. Therefore, it's quite difficult to manipulate anything in the world. In fact, it’s impossible. How do you cast a spell if your hands aren't there for the somatic component? How do you attack with a scimitar if your physical weapon is melded with you? How can you make noise if there's nothing to make noise from? You get the point. While it's still possible to be damaged because your form is your shadow while melded, your options are purposefully limited. This also serves as a fair gameplay balance rule to an otherwise very potent tool for any caster. Effectively, this makes Embrace Umbra a spell primarily used for scouting, reconnaissance, and observation. It's also quite practical for sneaking across a long distance, especially if your game features a shadowy realm like the Shadowfell.To cap this commentary, Embrace Umbra is additionally limited to only affect the caster with a range of self. Not only was this done to mimic Lightspeed, but it also suppresses strategies like melding the Rogue or the Paladin and having them sneak up to absolutely nova down a tough creature. Of course, Paladins could potentially prepare the spell if the DM deems it appropriate for their character, but 3rd level spells on Paladins are acquired much later than a 3rd level on a fullcaster.

Transmute Weapon

3rd-level Transmutation
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Weapons are fun™. Sometimes you find a magical weapon and it possesses an awesome enchantment, but it's just a weapon you can't use, a weapon that would be much better in another form, or it's just simply boring. Transmute Weapon was designed to offer temporary customization to weapons you discover out there in the world. It emphasizes creativity to overcome specific obstacles and adapt to different combat scenarios. One quick example being a Flame Tongue greatsword transforming into a longbow to exploit the fire vulnerability of flying, icy creatures. Even nonmagical weapons with interesting enhancements could be transmuted as well, like an adamantine dagger found in a random dungeon's chest becoming a sizable maul to crush buildings and structures. This spell adds incredible depth to any martial's arsenal with its ability to optimize even weaker magical weapons into something worthwhile.You can push the boundaries of magical weapons that exist in only one form, like modifying a Staff of Striking from its meager quarterstaff form to a formidable greatsword, changing it to an extremely vicious +3 weapon with bonus damage. Or a Dagger of Venom, normally ideal in the hands of a Rogue, turned into a hulking halberd for the Paladin's delight. And on the flipside, a Paladin's righteous Duskcrusher, a radiant warhammer, turned into a concealable dagger for the inquisitive Rogue.Transmute Weapon's purpose is to shift the base properties of a weapon from one form to another while keeping its enhancements and unique attributes. Let's take a simple Moon-Touched Greatsword as an example, where the Moon-Touched enchantment causes a bladed weapon to shed light in darkness. Greatswords are martial weapons with the Heavy and Two-handed properties. If we cast this spell and transmute it into a Moon-Touched Handaxe, we turn it into a simple weapon with the Light and Thrown properties. It sheds (get it?) its greatsword properties for the handaxe's, all while keeping its glow effect (that normally isn't available for handaxes). With this, we can now let our Halfling Fighter friend (who just so happens to specialize in thrown weaponry) wield it without suffering from the Heavy property giving them disadvantage on attack rolls and being able to see in darkness.Besides its main shifting effect, the spell has a bunch of other uses too. In a pinch, this spell can also infuse the magical property to a mundane weapon and allow it to fully damage incorporeal creatures. The Magic Weapon spell can also accomplish this but from my experience it's seldomly used. In another situation your weapons might be confiscated but your Ranger is very attached to their Dragon Wing Longbow. Casting this spell and turning it into a tiny dagger can let them better conceal it on their person. And, as an action, you can end the spell and let them wield their bow once more when combat breaks out. Thirdly, you can cast Transmute Weapon alongside Disguise Self to give yourself an edge in impersonating soldiers or guardsmen by mimicking their weapons of choice.Though enabling many interesting solutions limited only to the imagination, this spell has its own balancing constraints. Let's talk about them.

I mentioned it earlier above as an example, but this spell is most comparable with Magic Weapon. Magic Weapon is a 2nd level bonus action concentration spell that grants a +1 magical bonus to a nonmagical weapon. At first glance it can seem that Transmute Weapon powercreeps Magic Weapon. Why doesn't Transmute Weapon also require concentration? I was admittedly see-sawing between requiring concentration or not when designing the spell, but ultimately I decided to not require it on the basis that Transmute Weapon isn't innately a direct, meaningful upgrade. Its only pure upgrade is suffusing a nonmagical weapon with the magical property to fight resistant enemies. Conceivably this spell's best use is transforming a weak weapon into something your martial ally might thrive with, but the circumstances to enable that are quite dependent on your campaign and your party's access to such weaponry. A DM might be stingy with their game's loot. In which case, Magic Weapon is leagues better since it doesn't require a preexisting "good" weapon. It confers a flat +1 bonus, and that's not only a decent boost at the time you get 2nd level spells, but it's universally applicable to any nonmagical weapon. Transmute Weapon might turn a dagger's 1d4 damage to a greatsword's 2d6, but unless a dire situation calls for it, you don't need a 3rd level spell to accomplish this for mundane weapons. You'd just want a greatsword on hand. It doesn't increase the DPR of a character unless you've got the components of a good enchantment on a simple weapon and transmuting it to a higher-damaging martial weapon. It's for this reason why I think this spell fits my vision of being non-concentration. Who knows though? Perhaps with further playtesting we might discover that Transmute Weapon's totally busted.Last on the docket for this rather extensive commentary is that while this spell mechanics don't scream Starlight magic, I like exploring unique interactions with this game's systems enough that I just don't mind. I'd rather not force myself to arbitrarily limit myself on ideas that perfectly fit the cosmos bill when I can flavor any homebrewed spell with such theming. Plus, a liquid light mold? Now that's rad.UPDATE: Okay that was a lie, this is the last thing. With One D&D around the corner and a new edition coming in 2024, this spell has an even greater benefit if translated over to that system. Weapon mastery properties are often unique to specific weapons and being able to shift between masteries is a neat boon for your martial allies. If it survives the UA playtesting phase, that is.

Retrograde

3rd-level Transmutation
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Spacetime, as a result of being deeply intertwined with the cosmos, is heavily involved in Starlight magic as well. Being able to manipulate time might be more in the realm of a chronomancer or a Chronurgy Wizard, but it's not something we can't play with as well. We see this in other homebrew spells here, like Paradox and Relativity. Playing with time is very dangerous though, so both those two, as well as Retrograde, are in the inverted spells subset due to their mechanics being particularly riskier than a typical spell here. When I thought about these two aforementioned spells I designed earlier, I noticed they both twisted time in an area. So, what about a creature?Well, we got that already. It's Time Stop. A 9th level spell. So it's gotta be something less powerful than that! Granting yourself more turns in a row is already incredibly powerful, so what if we can go back in time? But isn't that… absurd? Even the Wish spell struggles with resolving something like this. And that's another 9th level spell. And if I want this spell to be, at max, a 6th level spell to remain with my homebrew's scope, then it's gotta be much less potent. Maybe then, instead of sending a person back in time in their entirety as if through teleportation, what if we rewind what happened to their body to reverse what happened to it?One cool interpretation I've seen of healing magic is taking a person's wound and telling their body that the wound never happened, causing it to seal up in order to correct this supposed discrepancy in time. Retrograde was built upon that idea—a spell that reverses what happened to a creature's body from the last 6 seconds. Because it's a 3rd level spell however, it's balanced to be hazardous when trying to manipulate something as erratic as dark energy. And though this spell can potentially have three functions all combined, there's an innate risk for each of them. Let's go through each property.The first property is reversing damage. You choose one instance of damage the creature received last round, and it regains 2dX hit points, where X is the die type of that damage. For example, if you were hit with a Fireball, whose damage is 8d6, Retrograde would restore 2d6 hit points. Though this property's the least risky overall, the 2dX healing isn't ideal if used alone. Unless the damage's die type was a d10 or a d12, it might simply be better to use an equivalent level Cure Wounds. Especially since Retrograde doesn't add the caster's modifier to the HP regained (because this isn't technically healing—it's reversing damage via rewinding the body through time). This property also comes with the obvious caveat that the creature can't regain more than what they lost, specifically for that instance of damage.Let's consider the following hypothetical scenario of a single round: if a giant warrior's greataxe attack struck you for 1d12+5 damage and they rolled 1+5, the 6 damage isn't that threatening. But a giant shaman's spell blasted you for 12d6 damage, dealing way more. If you were to pick the d12 from the greataxe, 2d12 restoration can't be higher than 6; not the total amount of damage you accumulated that last round.Other than this scenario, this property of the spell can be useful in the uncommon situation of wanting to restore hit points to an undead or a construct without other means of doing so, for the same reason as mentioned before in parentheses. Useful in the case of not having Life Transference or Negative Energy Flood for healing undead, or Mending or Fabricate for constructs.The second property is reversing a condition. You choose one negative condition the creature is suffering from via a failed saving throw and allow them to reattempt it. While the Cauterizing Corona spell in this homebrew achieves a similar effect, Retrograde isn't limited by what type of condition. Any negative prolonged effect is eligible to be reversed, even grappled or restrained (in which I imagine the body bursts free if successful). Comparatively, Cauterizing Corona, though it comes with the condition (get it?) of the ally needing to suffer a small amount of fire damage, does grant them advantage on the saving throw and isn't limited to an effect from the previous round.In many situations it might simply be better to cleanse the condition yourself with Lesser Restoration than risk a failed saving throw. Even if it were an effect caused by an enemy's ability, you'd have to weigh the efforts between using Retrograde and damaging the enemy enough to force them to lose concentration (if it is such kind of effect). If a condition was brought about with a great deal of damage, Retrograde might be preferable to Cauterizing Corona.The third property is reversing resource expenditure. This is by far the most powerful and subsequently riskiest option, allowing you to choose a multi-use resource the creature consumed during the last round and potentially regain it. The requirement of a multi-use resource is entirely for balance reasons, as allowing a Fighter regain their Action Surge (as mentioned in the spell's description) would be entirely too good. It does, however, mean that a level 17 Fighter could regain their Action Surge, since they get two of 'em!When attempting to regain a resource, the creature must succeed on a CHA saving throw. This can be a hassle for the less charismatic in your party, since a failure means they suffer 2d10 force damage that you can't reduce. As this happens after the first property, it could even undo the damage you just reversed, or worse, cause them to take more damage! Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks won't have a tough time with their CHA save proficiency (and they've got good multi-use resources), but those who dump CHA might want to be careful. Luckily, Retrograde allows the creature to make the choice of attempting the saving throw; they can deny it if they're not confident.An important note for this spell is that the resource regained can't exceed the level of the spell slot used to cast Retrograde. I don’t want to allow someone terribly cheesing the game by casting an 8th level Earthquake, regaining it with Retrograde, then casting it again haha. Even if someone were to cast Retrograde at 8th level on the Druid who used Earthquake for this purpose, you better hope there's some assurances for them to succeed that CHA save and not have to endure 7d10 force damage.The ability to restore resources is an amazing utility—better than the first two properties by far—so the danger of damage is there to force decision making and risk management. Though Retrograde shines in combat, resource expenditure is not limited to battle. So the risk must be universally applicable. And damage is pretty universal.Why is it a CHA save though, like a decent few of these homebrew spells seem to be? I mentioned it in Redshift Transferspell and Blueshift Pilferspell's tirade of a commentary, but I view CHA saves as the mental strength and force of will, character, and soul—the counterpart to physical STR. With both CHA and STR, you're actively exerting your presence and conviction to resist something, whether mentally or physically. Banishment tries to manipulate your existence on the current plane; a ghost tries to remove your soul and personality with their possession; Bane tries to diminish your own capability and character; Calm Emotions forcibly replaces your emotional state. Retrograde is a lot like a ghost's possession from my perspective, at least in how a ghost enters the body to attempt it—dark energy is suffusing the creature's body and trying to alter it on a fundamental level by reversing the last 6 seconds on it.Beyond all this, Retrograde was named so because it's a term to refer to both the reversal of time and the observation of another celestial body moving backwards from your position. Causing the body to rewind the last 6 seconds of it fits both these descriptions pretty well. Hmm, does this mean that Retrograde causes someone to be physically 6 seconds younger when cast? So… a 5th level caster who casts this spell twice every day for a year would be… (12*365)/60… physically 73 minutes younger. I think I just accidentally designed an age-reversing spell 😶

Bound by Fate

3rd-level Enchantment
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Originally the idea behind Bound by Fate was to share non-HP status with two creatures, akin to how Tether Essence shares healing and damage. Its prior incarnation allowed either creature, as a reaction, to intercept damage or healing meant for the other connected by the thread braided between them. I didn't quite like the niche of this spell though, and felt that a name like Bound by Fate would be better suited if it actually referred to a fate or destiny concept. The red thread imagery directly references the East Asian belief of intertwined fate, after all.Fate is often represented in tabletop games through the rerolling or predetermining of dice. If two creatures' destinies are intertwined, how should their rolls be similarly entangled? If they're so bound, perhaps they instead roll for each other. If Creature A does something that requires a roll, Creature B makes the roll in their stead. This places the results of one creature's destiny in the hands of the other.But it's not just the fact that you make roll in the other creature's stead—that effectively does nothing other than change who has the fun job of rolling the dice. The main gimmick this spell introduces is that Creature B can manipulate the rolls they make in Creature A's stead. This concept is much more interesting, mechanically unique, and a significant change to the core system in D&D—rolling dice. Creature A uses Creature B's modifiers and dis/advantages, but can alter and control the roll in the myriad ways we already do in 5e.I gave several examples in the Tips & Notes box on the homebrew doc, but those are only just the tip of the iceberg. You might be Bound with your Sorcerer ally who happens to specialize in pure damage and destruction; so when you cast Chromatic Orb, a spell requiring an attack roll, your ally could even use their Empowered Spell Metamagic when they make your roll. And their Elemental Adept feat could additionally apply when they roll damage for you. If you're a gnome and you Bind yourself with your Barbarian ally, every mental saving throw against magic you make in their stead now uses your advantage thanks to your Gnome Cunning trait! This connection is symbiotic too, for when you're grappled by that tough scary burly monster, your ally's Rage gives them advantage when rolling your Athletics check to escape the monster's grasp. This spell doesn't have to be solely reserved for optimizing rolls between allies, it's also a great tool to curse your enemies' rolls with your own bad luck (or active effects, but mostly bad luck to be honest). While you still use the creature's stats and modifiers when making their roll (your Wizard can't force an ogre to make an attack roll with -1 STR), if something applies to a roll you would make, it's applicable for that roll too. Your character might be cursed in a way that switches how their darkvision works—you can see perfectly in the dark, but in the light you cannot perceive beyond 60 feet. When Bound to an enemy who relies on long-ranged attacks, your rolls on behalf of their attacks would be at disadvantage because you can't perceive the enemy.There are so many possibilities here it's impossible to list even 5% of them. BUT, there are two major considerations to critically think about before your group introduces this homebrew spell in your game.The first is arbitrating which manipulations are valid. The DM has great say in what's valid for Creature A to manipulate when making a roll in Creature B's stead. My rule of thumb is manipulations done with mechanical effects have greater weight than those that don't. The core of this guideline stems from the fact that Creature B is performing the action, not Creature A. To better explain this, I created a table comparing valid and invalid manipulations from my POV. DMs, of course, feel free to completely disregard my opinions if they don't mesh with your style; the spell was written with an open-ended nature for this reason.

The second consideration is metagaming. As mentioned in the Tips & Notes box in the homebrew doc, using this spell effectively against your foes can very easily provide a ton of information, in and out of combat. Take these few examples:

While this is information the PCs don't necessarily know about or can tell, the players certainly can. This spell enables the potential for some bad metagaming if used inappropriately; it requires fair restraint to disconnect the knowledge a player knows and what their character knows. Conversely, a DM might be uncomfortable with their players being able to discern these statistics of their creatures, preferring to keep them secret. Especially if they subscribe to a playstyle where they might dynamically alter them on the fly for the drama effect. If the metagaming aspect of the spell leaves a sour impression for you or your table, consider skipping out on Bound by Fate.

Exaltation

3rd-level Abjuration
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There are very little spells in 5e that grant a direct buff to your own spellcasting. I can only think of Bless to boost your own attack roll spells, Fortune's Favor to let you reroll a missed spell attack, and Greater Invisibility to confer that good ol' hidden advantage for attack rolls. And while there are spells that lessen the likelihood of enemies passing your spell save DC (such as Bane or Synaptic Static), they generally require them to fail one in the first place and/or cost you your concentration. Self-buffs are typically in the realm of subclass features, like a Divine Soul Sorcerer's Favored by the Gods, a War Cleric's Channel Divinity: Guided Strike, or a Spirits Bard's Spiritual Focus. But what if there was a self-buffing spell that could really ensure that you pull off your next trick, regardless of the subclass you've got?That's the inspiration for Exaltation. It's rather straightforward, granting you a bonus to the first attack roll or saving throw you force creatures to make alongside ensuring you don't easily drop concentration. Although a 3rd level spell slot can be expensive for a small numerical bonus, the bonus being tied to your half your proficiency bonus means Exaltation gains in value the higher leveled you are. Levels 5 - 8 grant a +1 bonus, levels 9 - 15 grant a +2 bonus, and levels 16 - 20 grant a +3 bonus. Besides that, at higher tiers of play, 3rd level spell slots tend to be less of the playmakers that they were at levels 5 - 8. Your high-value Fireballs generally upgrade to Walls of Fire or Fire Storm.There's two aspects of Exaltation that make it really enticing for me. One, it's not just for spellcasting; it also buffs features. This makes it applicable for just about any class with access to spells or any DM with the benevolent idea of turning Exaltation into an item for pure martials. Two, the fact that your concentration is enhanced so that you don't drop it the first time you'd otherwise do so is an incredible buff. That part itself pretty much justifies its 3rd level spell categorization. Maintaining concentration on a single spell can sometimes be an integral component of a strategy in a crucial battle, but unlucky rolls, an average CON score, or your Artificer's selfish hoarding of their Mind Sharpener infusion can lead to disappointing pains when concentration does drop.Even though it's a bonus action to cast Exaltation, the multiple leveled spells a turn rule doesn't allow a casting of another leveled action spell, so RAW this means that the empowered spell you cast must be on your next turn. This isn't quite taxing on action economy due to it being a bonus action (and main action cantrips aren't bad), but it's certainly an evaluation of worth of how long you can delay your big spell. But because Exaltation isn't concentration itself and has a duration of 1 minute, there are perhaps situations where you could use this to your advantage and prebuff your opening salvo in an important boss fight.As a fun aside, the spell's name in an astrological context means being in a favorable, strong, and harmonious state! Quite fitting for a buff that directly empowers your spellcasting.

Shining Shield

3rd-level Abjuration
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You have no idea how validated I feel with this spell's design. Not because of how simple it is, but because I created it in October 2023. In November 2023, Wizards of the Coast put out Playtest 8 for One D&D, which had a spell called Power Word Fortify. A 7th level enchantment spell for Bards and Clerics that granted 120 temporary hit points, divided equally amongst 6 targets. Seeing something similarly aligned to what I created by the official designers, even if it's not finalized, made me feel like I'm doing something right at least! I never thought I'd design something so similar after Star-Cross, but here we are!As much as that's surreal . . . a 7th level spell? Really? C'mon. Why are you only benefiting tier 4 play when Aid is a 2nd level spell and more potent with how it's one of the very few mechanics that directly boosts max HP? I understand the implications of Power Word spells being exclusive to high levels, but it's so easy to break that tradition with a new edition of D&D if you want to make it accessible to lower tiers of play. Also, why is it classified as an enchantment spell? While Power Word Kill, Pain, and Stun are also classified as such (with the flavor of literally speaking a word of power to affect the mental state of targets), Power Word Heal is not. It's marked as evocation, as most direct healing spells are. So WotC's breaking their own traditions here.I dunno, I think Shining Shield is better. Maybe that's bias, but an effect so straightforward and elegant as granting temp HP to your party should be accessible to lower levels. It's gotta compete with Aid, Warlocks' Armor of Agathys, False Life, and Heroism, all of which are 1st level spells (with the exception of Aid, of course). The main appeal of them are that they're scalable. Armor of Agathys particularly benefits Warlocks who always cast with their highest level!Shining Shield was primarily designed to also be scalable as an AoE variant of False Life. Ultimately it doesn't scale to become as potent as Power Word Fortify; the latter being 120 at 7th level, with Shining Shield being 85 at 7th level. But it's very enticing in that, unlike Power Word Fortify, you're not forced to equally divide the temp HP between all targets. 120 temp HP on 6 targets means 20 temp HP to each, or 30 for a four person party. With Shining Shield, you can grant 20 temp HP to your frontline Barbarian while giving the remaining 5 to yourself who may have gotten hurt during the last battle.While I pride myself in trying to push the boundaries of 5e's spell design with Lux Asterum Phari, Shining Shield ended up being deceptively simple that it almost feels like it doesn't belong. And yet, nothing in current 5e is like it! And there's no guarantee Power Word Fortify makes it to One D&D's full release in 2024 either. The closest we have is Motivational Speech from Acquisitions Incorporated, which is sorta like a cross between an AoE Heroism and Beacon of Hope. Unfortunately, the spell only functions when you have the meager 5 temp HP. Terribly easy to shed even in the first round of the first combat you get yourself involved in. It's also a prebuff spell entirely with its cast time being 1 minute. I wanted Shining Shield to be applicable as a combat cast too.Getting the base number of temp HP right was tougher than I originally thought for a spell as simple as this. To compare, a 3rd level Aid grants +10 max HP to 3 allies, a 3rd level Armor of Agathys gives 15 temp HP to yourself along with 15 retaliatory damage, a 3rd level False Life grants 1d4+14 temp HP to yourself, and a 3rd level Heroism grants replenishing 3-5 temp HP to 3 allies along with immunity to fear. With Shining Shield granting 25 temp HP divided amongst 5 allies, why is it strictly better than False Life? 25 temp HP to one selectable ally is always better than a max of 19 temp HP to yourself. My reasoning for this powercreep is that False Life is typically a tier 1 spell that drastically drops in effectiveness beginning at tier 2 (level 5 with 3rd level spells). The only reason to take False Life is if you don't have Armor of Agathys. So while Armor of Agathys is limited to Warlocks (another good reason for taking a 1-2 level dip), Conquest Paladins, Clockwork Soul Sorcerers (being able to swap their subclass spells), and a couple feats (one being campaign-setting restricted and requires an evil alignment), it's already much more valuable than False Life. A 2nd level Armor of Agathys gives 10 temp HP compared to a 2nd level False Life giving a max of 13. Yet Armor of Agathys also deals cold damage whenever you're hit. If you poorly roll on a 2nd level False Life and get 10 temp HP, you're gonna feel bad when your Warlock buddy is also dishing out a frigid fury in retaliation with their Armor of Agathys. False Life is generally only great in three situations. One, levels 1-2 where every HP matters and nearly anything can one-shot you from how precarious those levels are. Two, you're higher leveled, you don't really use your lower level spell slots frequently, and there's no other concentration-free self-buffs that are viable for you. And three, you've got the Fiendish Vigor Eldritch Invocation to always grant 8 temp HP before any fight (bonus points for being a Abjuration Wizard with the Eldritch Adept feat for the Arcane Ward boost). Shining Shield shines (get it) at tiers 2+, and is meant to be decently scalable so that it remains relevant alongside the greatest HP pre-buffs like Aid. At 3rd level it's gotta compete with Fireball too, after all. False Life unfortunately teeters out in its survivability value.Power Word Fortify actually gave me insightful feedback on how I should balance Shining Shield's scaling viability. 120 temp HP is a lot, especially if you stack it all on one or two party members. With One D&D so far leaning more into 5e's modern high DPR playstyles and optimizations, Power Word Fortify's number can make sense. But I couldn't have Shining Shield scale that high without invalidating other HP buffing spells and abilities from castings at 4th to 6th level. I still have to play by 2014 D&D rules even if a lot of it is outdated by 2024. With an equivalent 7th level Shining Shield putting it at 85 temp HP granted, I felt it more in line with current 5e's limits. It also helped me realize that another Lux Asterum Phari spell, Eclipse, was horribly lowballed with how much its Solar Eclipse option provided in terms of temp HP. So I bumped that up for v4 too! A v4 Shining Shield easily triumphs over a v3's Eclipse.One last word on the flavor of this spell: I was inspired by the phenomenon called Earthshine, or "ashen glow". It's when the Earth reflects the sun's light onto the moon. It's a rad visual to imagine how Shining Shield's temporary barrier is theoretically invisible, but you can see the multitude of colors coming from the glow on their person thanks to the planetshine cast off by the spell!

Eyes of the Stars

4th-level Transmutation
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Currently there are three spells that creates sunlight: Dawn, Sunbeam, and Sunburst. They're all pretty similar if you compare them. The spell sheds light through a slightly different AoE: cylinder, line, and sphere respectively. And that light deals radiant damage. For the latter two they also inflict blindness. These spells are higher leveled, accessible only at 5th and above. I was thinking of disassembling these sunlight spells and building a homebrew variant that's more utility-based than damage burst. Plus, Starlight spells ought to have a spell that creates sunlight in some variety—they're emitting the light of actual suns!Sunburst is 8th level and blinds all creatures who failed their save for 1 minute. If we take only the blinding aspect of it, perhaps we can severely shed (get it?) the level by at least half? Still, AoE blindness spells already exist: Pyrotechnics (even if niche), Wall of Sand, Hunger of Hadar, any darkness spell, and even Color Spray at the very early levels.Targeted blindness? As far as I know, well, Blindness is the only one that does this. (Update: I've since learned that it's an option in Contagion but who does that??) I wanted Eyes of the Stars to be something like Blindness+ packaged together with sunlight, but not simply an uninteresting variant of the PHB spell.What I arrived at was a utility control spell of targeting specific creatures each turn to inflict them with blindness. I think it's a rad visual of turning your eyes into beams of pure light to burn and blind a foe.

Twin Constellations

4th-level Enchantment
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Twin Constellations was, at first, a spell-ified version of a Sorcerer's Twinned Spell metamagic. As time went on, I gradually became more distasteful over the concept of directly copying a class feature that's core to its identity. Twinned Spell is available through the Metamagic Adept feat and I wanted to respect that feat option, even if it only provides two sorcery points and thus only 2nd level spells could be twinned from such an acquisition.The Twinned Spell metamagic has a confining restriction of only being applicable for single target spells. Sorcerers are all about blasting and exuding their wrath with potent magic. The prior Twin Constellations shared this with other non-Sorcerer, 3rd level+ spells. With no level cap. Meaning this enabled duplications such as Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Negative Energy Flood, and higher leveled spells like Heal, Harm, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Regenerate, Feeblemind, Maze, Mind Blank, Reality Break, and even Foresight and True Polymorph. While I personally didn't think this was overpowered for when those spells entered higher tier play, I thought about simplifying the criteria and broadening its scope.In its current iteration, Twin Constellations allows the beneficiary to recast the same spell it had cast in the prior round. There's the stipulation now that it must succeed on a spellcasting ability check to cast spells of 5th level+. Failures aren't devastating though, it only disables further higher leveled recast attempts. The current version of the homebrew spell also allows the beneficiary to recast any spell with the next minute—or the next 10 rounds.I think this shines with teamwork more so than the old Twin Constellations. It doesn't duplicate the effect of Maze for a single concentration, but expending your own slot to have an ally caster continue raining down their ire is a great combo. You might have a good number of slots, but your Sorcerer might've burnt through them all with three Quickened Fireballs. They'd sure appreciate it if you lent them this spell for another Fireball! You can no longer pack more effect in concentration spells so if your companion is trying to recast Fly, then please remind them that their first Fly target might fall to their death.I want to end this commentary off with a vigil. In the previous iteration of this spell, you were able to cast Twin Constellations on yourself to duplicate Twin Constellations, thereby resulting in a quadruple cast split between your two targets. I'm sorry for deleting this amazingly cheesy strategy 😔[UPDATE: I've learned the most recent One D&D playtest - April 26th 2023 - had redesigned the Twinned Spell metamagic to follow a lot like how I redesigned this homebrew spell. I redesigned this spell a month prior. Guess I was going somewhere right, huh!]

Infrared Sight

4th-level Transmutation
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One of my most favorite fantasy ancestries that I worldbuilt are the Ihelmen. They're crimson, volcanic humanoids who live in extremely hot underground pockets. Though they were modeled after humanoids of the surface, they possess no facial anatomy. Save for large ear-like protrusions they appear to be faceless. These ihelmen sense and "see" through infrared sight with these "ears", benefiting from acute sensitivity to the difference in environmental thermal temperatures. If that interested you at all, check out the ihelmen entry on this very website here.The reason for the preface was that this spell was based on the ihelmen's infrared sight!
I also like to think infrared sight is appropriate for these Starlight spells because of infrared's association within the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes visible light as well. I wanted to explore different modes of vision beyond Darkvision and True Seeing and this is what first popped into mind. The ihelmen's infrared sight occupies a nice middle ground between these two spells and I thought it would work excellently as a spell itself. Infrared sight itself works like a modified blindsight in 5e. Normally, blindsight lets you perceive your surroundings through other senses but it's almost never restricted nor detrimental. Yet, this homebrew spell can potentially leave you blinded if you're looking at something extremely hot. I think this is a convenient drawback that allows this spell to even exist since truesight and blindsight can be very alike. The differences between them seem to be truesight's vision into the Ethereal Plane, seeing the true form of shapechangers, and seeing through all illusions.Unlike with truesight, creatures with blindsight can be tricked with illusions that counter their heightened sense, like sound for an echolocator. In contrast, Infrared Sight can counter many illusions unless the illusion itself is additionally emitting heat. You don't normally think about giving your illusions appropriate heat radiation though so this is something the DM would have to consider if allowing this spell in their game. Besides its illusion-piercing function, Infrared Sight can be used for a myriad purposes: better night vision for navigation and detection (the contrast between heat temperature is much greater than darkvision's grayscale), spotting any lingering heat signatures that could allude to recent activity, and helping in medical checks to name a few.

Paradox

4th-level Divination
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I was reminded how gimmicky and unique Pokémon's Trick Room move was and thought that would be awesome to replicate in D&D. Trick Room's function is to reverse the order of when Pokémon act—slower mons act first and faster mons act last. Entire teams are built around this move and it's really fascinating to watch competitive matches with it in play. Conceptually this can be quite fun when used in 5e but it can easily break the core system of combat, so I had to go about it carefully. Even in its current iteration it feels wonky, so due to its overall weirdness I decided to put Paradox in the subset of dark energy inversion spells. It's pretty fitting too with how much it shifts the tide of battle.Paradox has two methods of expression, one during combat and one out of combat. This already makes it an odd spell since no other spell in 5e has this interaction to my knowledge. You can't make a "combat only" spell in D&D since this isn't a video game with programming limitations—it's a collaborative storytelling tabletop game where your character exists like how any person logically would. Yet, you also can't reverse initiative order while out of combat. There's just no initiative. So while the first method of expression is how we can expect Paradox to work if it were mimicking Trick Room, the second method had to be different in some manner that functions out of combat but interacts with initiative and has the same general vibe.It's not quite like Trick Room, since you can't really replicate that in a non-combat scenario, but the second method is Paradox setting everyone's next initiative to 10. No modifiers. Just 10. Which means the only way of determining who goes first is through Dexterity scores and/or my preferred method, rollies! I think it's on point of a spell named Paradox to set the speediest ninja's initiative equal with the slowest tortle, and if you have to rely on the luck of the die to go first, even better. The Rogue going last while the Cleric goes first? Now that's an oddity.Still, Paradox is kind of a niche spell. It's awesome if you're in the low numbers—you get to go again right after! If you're in the high numbers then you wouldn't want to use this at all. Or maybe you do and you can take a nap before your next turn arrives. Paradox costs an action to cast, so during combat you'll have to judge if the value it brings is worth more versus doing anything else to resolve an encounter. You're not directly reaching that resolution, but using Paradox as a means to facilitate an advantageous order in which to do so. Honestly, this spell requires some good luck with how the initiative order ends up being to maximize its effectiveness, but if you've got the means to grant that Wizard one extra turn to Fireball before anyone else goes, then maybe it's all worth it in the end.

Redshift Transferspell & Blueshift Pilferspell

4th-level Abjuration
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I want more interactions with spells. Dispel Magic and Counterspell are evergreen but these just make the tip of the iceberg. Along with Antimagic Field and Globe of Invulnerability, these spells are "you don't get to enjoy magic" in nature. Ironic because they too are magic spells. Anyway, let's expand from the negation. What else can we do with spell interaction? Relocating persistent spell AoEs is covered with Astral Parser in this homebrew, so how about transferring spells from one to another? Is that something explored in 5e? The best we can get is passing around a magic item and recasting the spell using a charge, or something like the Artificer's Spell-Storing Item. But this isn't bestowing a spell's "ownership" to another or even stealing a spell from an enemy caster.Both these spells were previously combined into a singular Colorshift spell. But with feedback and iteration, it soon became apparent that stealing a spell and bestowing a spell fill different niches that are too resourceful to be merged. It's like Dispel Magic and Counterspell. Both negate spells but the former is used against active magical effects and the latter is used to cancel a spell about to fire off. You have to choose which is more valuable to you when preparing or learning spells. Although the nomenclature of these homebrew spells can be strange (why not just Transferspell and Pilferspell to follow Counterspell?), I wanted to grandfather the colorshift aspect to maintain their identity as a Starlight spells. Both redshift and blueshift relate to the increase / decrease of light wavelengths.Let's talk Redshift Transferspell. This one allows you to take a spell presently active on you and bestow it upon another creature. There's a few creative uses for this that I can imagine.

What's the deal with this spell's saving throw flexibility? With Redshift Transferspell you can impart different types of spells onto unwilling creatures; the physical burning of Heat Metal, an accursed Hex spell, the mystical light from Faerie Fire, and more. All these examples are different saving throws. By transferring the spell onto another, you are subjecting them to the same saving throw they had you make when they had casted it upon you. As for the fallback CHA save, Charisma saves are the rarest in 5e and are often misunderstood. To me, I view it as a force of will, character, and soul—the counterpart to STR. With both CHA and STR, you're actively exerting your presence and conviction to resist something. For STR, it's the physical strength to maintain your footing on turbulent ground or break against entanglement. For CHA, it's the mental strength to resist a ghost possessing your body, your soul whisked away by Plane Shift, or your morale tampered by Calm Emotions or Bane. If there is no saving throw listed for a spell but still you are imparting it on an unwilling creature, I imagine it's the creature's mental willpower making every attempt to push back against a debilitating force of magic altering their being. Also, WotC doesn't know how to assign mental saving throws to anything and be consistent.Is Redshift Transferspell overpowered? After all, many spells are limited to a range of self as a measure of balance to not grant martials and/or other spellcasting classes access to them. Being able to return an enfeebling spell to its caster is much worse than simply dispelling it. Personally I don't think this is overpowered. This spell has a range of touch, so you need to be directly engaging with your target—a difficult task against slippery casters. And, like with Dispel Magic and Counterspell, you need to succeed on a check to transfer spell levels 4+, meaning you could completely waste your turn and a valuable spell slot on a failure. That's right, even if this spell is 4th level, it can only apply for 3rd level spells and lower, just like Dispel Magic and Counterspell. This spell's level and the transferable spell aren't equivalent to address the potency this spell offers. Succeeding on a check still applies for friendly targets too, so you might be approaching an encounter with one less resource because you failed the check to transfer that Haste to the Rogue. Thirdly, even if you succeed the check, your target might succeed the saving throw and still resist it; an enemy Wizard is going to be proficient on INT saves and more protected against spells like Enemies Abound. In this respect it's much like Plane Shift where there's two elements for success required (successful attack roll + failed save) rather than the typical one. Finally, unlike Dispel Magic and Counterspell, Redshift Transferspell is acquired as a 4th level spell, available only beginning at level 7 for fullcasters. This means that it's commonly only going to be utilized beginning with tier 2 play, a suitable introduction for the interactions this spell brings to the table in my opinion. Plus, it's only until level 9 where fullcasters gain their third and final 4th level spell slot; using Redshift Transferspell needs to be carefully considered for the resource it consumes.Now let's talk about Blueshift Pilferspell. This one allows you to take a spell presently active on a target and yoink it for yourself. Stealing spells? Dang, now that's my kind of nightblade! I think its uses are quite obvious and devious. If you know the enemy Wizard possesses a Death Ward… take it. Make them fear death. If you know they've got Mage Armor, rub salt in the wound and steal that. Oh the sheer magnitude of spells ripe for plunder. If you're a Sorcerer, use the Distant Spell metamagic and pluck a poor mage's Fly spell to send them hurling to the earth below. If that Cloud Giant thinks they're clever with that Telekinesis, why don't you snatch it and show them how it's done? If you're feeling particularly dauntless, aim for that Contingency. Or even Mind Blank.Huh? Mind Blank? Stealing that with a 4th level spell? Isn't that overpowered? If you manage to pull it off, maybe. But if you do, you're a lucky devil. In this hypothetical scenario, consider who would have access to Mind Blank. It's an 8th level spell that blocks mind reading, divination, and charm effects among other things. Only some of the most powerful—and paranoid—mages would have access to this spell. These types of mages are the kind that build the Dungeon of the Mad Mage. What I mean is that you're contending with someone who takes every precaution to protect themself; engaging them in touch range is going to be a challenge in and of itself. Next, you need to know the spell is active in order to pilfer it. How do you do this with Mind Blank? Detect Magic could be a clue to reveal its school of magic and thereby narrowing down your guesstimates. This would work… for any other spell that doesn't block divination magic. So how would you puzzle out this spell's presence? I can only imagine via trial and error—and thereby expending more resources. Attempting to use psychic damage against them is the easiest. That, or attempting to Scry on them, though even that could be ambiguous if the spell failed from a successful saving throw or through immunity. Finally, you'll need to succeed on the check when casting the spell to pilfer it, against a DC of 18. The point I'm trying to make with this lengthy example is that higher leveled spells usually originate from creatures and NPCs that shouldn't be easy chumps to steal from. Good DMs, especially those that use homebrew (like Lux Asterum Phari), are keen in tailoring the game to fit the group's enjoyment. A DM who enables Blueshift Pilferspell should know to expect it and plan around that expectation. Starlight spells don't have innate caster lists anyway, so there ought be an active discussion on who's allowed what if these are offered to players as options.Also, another quick teeny observation on Blueshift Pilferspell's balancing: you might be worried about this spell being a better Dispel Magic if you can steal spell effects rather than simply negate them. Consider that Dispel Magic is capable of negating all spells on a target, even if you don't know about its existence. Dispel Magic can additionally negate non-spell magical effects. This homebrew spell requires your awareness of a spell's existence and you can only steal one.Okay, to cap this extensive commentary, I want to write a note on modern 5e creature statblock design. I've mentioned it before in other spell design commentaries, but official 5e content in recent years is leaning away from including complex spellcasting in creature statblocks. These are instead featuring actions and other traits that heavily resemble existing spells; if a creature casts spells, they follow the "1/Day", "3/Day", "at will" philosophy. This diminishes Redshift Transferspell and Blueshift Pilferspell's value as it does with Counterspell. All three of these spells require another spell as a target. Magical actions are not spells even if they are direct copies of one. To give an example, Iggwilv from Wild Beyond the Witchlight has a reaction called Negate Spell and it functions extremely similar to a Counterspell upcast to 8th level. You can't attempt to Counterspell her variant since it's not a spell. Thus your spell fails against the almighty Tasha. Keep these creature design trends in mind when thinking about introducing these two homebrew spells in your game. Redshift Transferspell and Blueshift Pilferspell are more than just reactions to cancel a spell being cast, it's easy to assume they interact with many things that appear spell-like but aren't.

Pillars of Light

4th-level Abjuration
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When I first came across the real life phenomena of light pillars I was enamored by how surreal they look. Especially if you see 'em during sunset or just after sundown, the contrast is beautiful with these mystical beams. I wanted to translate this into D&D somehow. They can vary in how they manifest; there might be a bunch of thin light pillars of different colors and heights aligned in a strip or a large and sporadic pillar acting as a halo. I thought this would work pretty well as its own unique expression in 5e. Instead of a singular cylindrical AoE, what if the spell summoned multiple small cylinder AoEs and you could arrange them in whatever configuration desirable? This would differentiate itself from basic radius spells like Moonbeam and give it an identity.Light pillars in real life aren't physically beams of light—they appear that way from how light is vertically reflected from falling ice crystals in the atmosphere and how humans perceive these reflections from a distance. This means you generally only see them in very cold temperatures with a decent bit of humidity. In terms of mechanics, I was floating around a couple defensive ideas that would fit this theme of shimmering, reflective lights and settled on the variant most similar to a communal Mirror Image. These falling ice crystals are acting as mirrors! Mirror Image summons illusory duplicates that can cause attacks to miss as long as one exists. Instead of trying to discern which figure is the non-duplicate, I borrowed the percentage chance for an attack to miss and associated it with the idea of trying to accurately aim for the target amongst the brilliant pillars of light.There's a couple more components to this spell than merely the miss chance. Pillars of Light is a flat rate of 20% across the board compared to Mirror Image's initial 75% that gradually dwindles. I didn't want to have a miss chance higher than 30% without some condition, so I opted to give the spell a temporary buff in the form of a small +1 AC boost that vanishes upon a hit. If an enemy does manage to aim and strike true, then the bedazzling lights aren't much of a deterrent now, right? There's also the nice ribbon addition of suppressing invisibility within the pillars, but unlike Faerie Fire it's only within those AoE pillars.Talking about conditional boosts, Pillars of Light becomes stronger under the night sky. I wanted to encourage ideal situations (or even situations where you plan around this boost) where you'd cast this spell. A 30% miss chance is much stronger to represent the beautiful display of reflective lights when seen in front of a contrasting night sky.I teetered back and forth between classifying this as abjuration or illusion. Illusion might fit the Mirror Image similarities and the fact that blindsight negates the miss chance. Heck, conjuration and evocation are both valid choices too. Moonbeam is the latter, and many summoning spells of a similar nature are the former. Ultimately, abjuration is the simplest and most appropriate: it's a defensive spell and it's intended case use is to fortify a position.

Star-Cross

4th-level Enchantment
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When I first saw the One D&D playtests and their revision for Exhaustion being a stacking -1 debuff to d20 rolls and the saving throw DC of your features, I had two reactions:
One, "huh, they took an idea I had for a debuff."
Two, "oh, that means my idea is decent if WotC also had it."
[UPDATE: Apparently Playtest 5 removed this in April 2023? Why.]I thought of the idiom "star-crossed" for misfortune and wanted to represent that with this stacking debuff. The fates are not kind with a curse like this. Originally, I conceived this spell with two variants, Requited and Unrequited—to go with that romantic trope the idiom is often used with. Thanks Shakespeare. The Requited variant debuffed cursed targets if they strayed too away from their "fated companions" and the Unrequited variant did the opposite. I wanted to homebrew a spell that focused on strategic positioning and manipulating the enemy's formation. The spell isn't directly forcing your foes to abandon their position, but remaining steadfast will sure to make them suffer a nasty debuff. And not any minor curse either, a stacking -1 to everything you can do will severely inhibit your presence in an encounter.Initially I designed Star-Cross as a gradual stacking debuff. The cursed targets would receive another stack if they didn't fulfill the requirements of being safe at the start of their turns and remove a stack if they did. This felt too slow though, only becoming more of a threat after 3ish rounds assuming all turns imposed a stack. I also felt there was an exploit with the Requited variant; it was too easy to forcibly teleport or banish a cursed target and make it significantly harder for them to counterplay.I decided to iterate on feedback from a friend, transforming the spell to be more immediate with a flat penalty derived from proximity with other cursed targets. This fits shorter combats, which is more common in modern 5e. It instantly penalizes cursed targets for not reacting or being incapable of moving away from others. When upcast to higher levels and multiple targets fail, this can be devastating. This also demands less from the DM when tracking the spell's debuff stack counter; all they need to do is measure if any cursed targets are within range with each other.
This spell shines when the party synergizes on herding cursed targets close together. Either the spell is cast in a strategic location like a choke point that leaves little room to move, or other measures are taken like a Wall spell being cast or an Enlarged Barbarian blocking a flanking exit.When figuring out this spell's saving throw, I fluctuated between WIS and CHA. I began with CHA to represent its similarities with Bane, then switched to WIS because Bestow Curse also uses WIS. I'm back with CHA because I believe the other two mental saves don't suit it more. I mentioned it in Redshift Transferspell and Blueshift Pilferspell's tirade of a commentary, but I view CHA saves as a force of will, character, and soul—the counterpart to STR. With both CHA and STR, you're actively exerting your presence and conviction to resist something, whether mentally or physically. Banishment tries to manipulate your existence on the current plane; a ghost tries to remove your soul and personality with their possession; Bane tries to diminish your own capability and character; Calm Emotions forcibly replaces your emotional state. Star-Cross isn't trying to make you afraid or scramble your mind's memory, it's invoking a curse to alter your very presence and soul with misfortune. Everything you do while cursed is subject to unluckiness. Honestly we ought to return to Reflex, Fortitude, and Willpower saves but that's not a conversation for a homebrew spell commentary haha. The second reason why I remain fixed on using CHA for the save is the balancing reason of WIS being much more commonly proficient and resisted. Star-Cross requires multiple failures to be valuable and keying the saving throw off of CHA is more likely to make that happen.

Cauterizing Corona

4th-level Evocation
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Corona means crown in Latin by the way! I'm not trying to name a spell after the COVID pandemic. Its name is like that because I wanted to alliterate!I wanted an AoE spell that could equally affect foes and allies, and a solar crown that washes from you and cascades out was the answer I arrived to. The damage of this spell is lower than average of its kind and it certainly ain't no Flame Strike in power. Cauterizing Corona's strength lies with its frontline range and creature selecting capability. To emphasize the cauterizing component of the spell, I designed it so that an ally could take a minimal amount of damage for a chance of breaking free from a prolonged effect. I like to think this spell's unique expression of being a self-emanating AoE with selectable targets makes it work best with casters unafraid to stand with martials. Or who may be martials themselves. 4th level spells come late in the game for halfcasters like Paladins, Rangers, and Artificers, but a melee Cleric or a dueling Bard could definitely capitalize on this. Instead of using a turn to cast Lesser Restoration and directly contribute less in an encounter, you could place your faith in Cauterizing Corona and hope they pass their saving throw this time. But, as is common for Frosty spells, the success isn't guaranteed and the 1d6 damage could be more than just a tickle at level 7 where they first become available for fullcasters.One of this benefits of this spell is that it can potentially give two chances to rescue someone from an ailment. If the damage from this spell causes a caster to drop concentration, then that's another worthy use! Just don't expect your Warlock to make that INT save—they knew what they were getting into with that pact.We also need more dual damage-typed spells. It's always fun to imagine the blend between fire and radiance with Flame Strike.

Asteroid Belt

4th-level Conjuration
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One of my favorite spells is Crown of Stars and the aspect of summoning motes around you to later utilize is an exciting method of expression. Melf's Minute Meteors is the only other spell in its category! It absolutely warrants exploration and I thought an asteroid belt would make perfect sense.Asteroids… they've gotta add some defensive bonus. Then you can trade that off for blasting one at a poor sod. I imagine they're Iarge swirling boulders that orbit around you. I first thought about giving a flat AC bonus for each asteroid, but man +4 AC in total is a doozy. You can Shield on top of that. And/or Shield of Faith. Or have any other number of methods to build on top of that. So, well, while it's still AC in some manner, I thought about implementing cover. Cover as a direct boon was never explored in 5e spell design until Fizban. Particularly his Platinum Shield spell giving cover to the target. It was possible via other spells to conjure objects capable of providing cover, like a Wall of Stone for example, but mobile cover-shields never. With Asteroid Belt, you gain three-quarters cover at launch. What? +5 AC and DEX saves? Wasn't I just critical of +4 AC?Yes.At a cost.Your movement speed is halved when you have 4+ asteroids, the eligibility for three-quarters cover. You have to significantly densify yourself to justify having 4 or more large [holographic] boulders to orbit around you. It's just like wearing plate armor when you don't meet the STR requirement, but more punishing. The movement speed reduction is another tradeoff component baked in. Smart casters will use this spell with some other means of transportation like Find Steed.Each boulder causing knockback is a great ribbon to tie the gift and help with positioning (especially if you have halved speed).

Tesseract

4th-level Illusion
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Okay I honestly feel like I need a PhD to understand how this spell works. And I designed it. Tesseract's whole gist is summed up with "I want to exist in two positions simultaneously." But this isn't a Major Image, Mislead, or Project Image. These spells conjure intangible copies that aren't you. It's a clear distinction between you and your copy because it's just an illusion—a fake. Your hand passes through.Tesseract's function is inspired by its namesake in that it's attempting to unfurl your three-dimensional presence in the world into fourth-dimensional space. We [normally] can't perceive 4D space, so this spell projects a corporeal duplicate of yourself to represent your presence there. Yet Tesseract is an illusion spell too, and that's because while you can use Starlight magic to project a solid hologram representing you in 4D space, it's still a duplicate. It's not fake, mind you, but you cannot have two consciousnesses; otherwise the duplicate would be considered another creature entirely and we'd have a Simulacrum on our hands. Thus you have to swap between which of your bodies you're operating. Comparatively Mislead and Project Image both allow you to "remotely check in" your illusory copy's senses rather than occupy it as an extension of yourself. (By the way, Simulacrum being an illusion spell is why Tesseract is also one.)All this to say, game-wise, that you exist in two locations simultaneously. Why would you want to do this if it makes you more susceptible to danger? You don't get more action economy and the hologram isn't another character as with Simulacrum, so you're forced to share what you have between managing your two bodies. The spell also requires concentration, so you can't really bust out your hologram along with another exciting spell.I personally look at Tesseract and see all the shenanigans you can pull with an Echo Knight but done tenfold. Echo Knight is one of my favorite subclasses to play and to DM for because of all the positional high jinks one can somehow accomplish. There's so much possibility to it that every time I play with one I feel like I learn a completely new way to game the system from their playstyle. Like there's this secret cabal of Echo Knights and they're all trying to push the boundaries of bending 5e to their will. Tesseract is my hope of taking that fun and amplifying it. Because Lux Asterum Phari spells aren't class restricted to allow flexibility with each D&D group, every spellcasting class can potentially capitalize on its tomfoolery. And not just every spellcasting class, the DM is absolutely free to create magic items with these spells included too. Pure martials can fully benefit too!The obvious use I can foresee is to dramatically extend your range. You can swap with your hologram as long as it's within 120 feet, for free. And you can even do so again on the same turn with your bonus action! If you're a Sorcerer, get that Quickened Spell revved up and fire off against two different targets leagues apart. You can also keep your hologram in the backlines or with the rest of your party as you scout the flanks in the shadows. Perhaps you might keep your hologram by the Paladin to reap their Aura of Protection while perching high above on the rooftops for a great vantage point in a street brawl. Perhaps you've got some benefit that grants you Pack Tactics and you can give yourself advantage on attack rolls if you're beside your hologram. Or you want to cast Warding Bond on your hologram for those tiny buffs since you're not actually splitting damage. And maybe! Just maybe! You could solve a pressure plate puzzle by yourself!Be careful about stepping in two different bad puddles with your duplicate though.If I were to liken Realignment to "now you're playing with portals", then Tesseract is the personification of playing 4D chess.

Summon Zodiac

4th-level Conjuration
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With Tasha's finally getting summon spells right I wanted to have my own too. But what could I do that unique and distinct from Summon Celestial and astrology inspired? Of course! The zodiac! It just makes perfect sense; it was just begging to be designed and introducing a statblock to Lux Asterum Phari would be an interesting addition.Concepting a Summon spell became much more difficult the moment I was trying to find its own niche. A vast majority of creature types already have an associated Summon spell that embody the essence of what they do. These statblocks are fitted with three or four options that generalize that creature type, like Summon Beast's terrain environment, Summon Fey's mood, Summon Elemental's… element, Summon Undead's form, Summon Draconic Spirit's scale family, you get the picture. The zodiac in western astrology is divided in twelve signs and each of them are vastly different. Not to mention that any D&D setting would almost certainly have a different type of zodiac if it exists. How do I condense that into a handful of options?Although the adaptation isn't 1-to-1, the concept of essential dignity referring to the zodiac's strength and alignment would be an appropriate start. Essential dignities are, to my knowledge, generally only to measure planets, but the Sun and Moon would excellently balance out the Planets and so I combined both concepts. Each of these also have their own damage type, that makes it easier to flesh out each variant's identity!Returning to mechanics design, whilst I've got three representative types of the zodiac, how do I differentiate them in combat and make them unique? I don't want Summon Zodiac to be a reskinned Summon Celestial.A lot about essential dignities, the zodiac, and astrology in general concerns their location as a key factor in discerning information. Ecliptic longitude, celestial latitude, angle, direction, their relation to time, etcetera. There's a lot that goes into it and I thought a summoned zodiac spirit should embrace that identity of making location matter. That line of reasoning lead me to its current form today, where the Zodiac Spirit uses its bonus action to place a star mote in a space. Then its unique action, determined by the essential dignity chosen upon casting, interacts with these star motes in their own way. The Zodiac Spirit cares a great deal on how its positioned on the battlefield to maximize its effects. Without taking advantage of this you're only summoning a less adept creature than other 4th level Summons. Having the Zodiac Spirit placing star motes means that you will ultimately require setup for the creature to do its best, so the payoff ought to be equally satisfying. Summon spells from Tasha's are already powerful in that they introduce additional action economy that significantly boost damage per round—how can we make this setup result in something impactful that respects the time investment? It's much easier to grab another Summon spell and command it to multiattack every turn, so this needs to have a leg up.Zodiac Spirits aligned to the Sun are the most straightforward and aggressive. Their action, Solar Decan, causes star motes to explode in the adjacent spaces around them for 2d8 radiant damage each. These spirits want to be in the thick of combat and place mines to blow up later, catching every enemy possible. They're not particularly defensive or hardy so they'll need protection as you command them to do their thing, but the payoff is grand. Surrounding a Large creature with three motes is 6d8 radiant damage, much higher than a multiattack's potential damage that turn. Such creatures also tend to be less equipped to handle DEX saves as well. Once enemies know of the spirit's capability of exploding star motes they also serve well as battlefield control, deterring foes from nearing those spaces.Zodiac Spirits aligned to the Moon are debuffers. Their action, Lunar Bounds, allows you to form lines between any placed star motes; if any line intersects a creature they are dazed for a penalty on their next attack roll or saving throw. Due to this, Lunar Bounds requires at least two turns to activate. I originally had this require a failed WIS saving throw, but I honestly felt the minimum two turn setup, the use of an action, and the positional requirements were enough of cost. It'd be hard to justify using Moon spirits if you can't be certain of its benefits to the encounter. Summon the Moon spirit to cut through as many enemies at once in one fell swoop, then have your big blaster unleash their devastating flare for a better chance of them failing the respective saving throw! Combine this with other debuffing effects like Synaptic Static or Mind Sliver and your party is sure to land that important spell. Well, as long as that big bad is out of Legendary Resistances.Zodiac Spirits aligned to the Planets are support buffers. Their action, Planetary Rulership, allows you to form polygons using any placed star motes; all friendly creatures inside will be imbued with advantage and an increased 3d6 force damage for their next successful attack. If Lunar Bounds required two turns to activate, Planetary Rulership requires three at minimum. A lot can happen in three rounds during an encounter. You could lose concentration, the spirit could die, your enemies might have shifted to another location, change of plans requiring you to retreat to cover, and more. Planetary Rulership has to be an impactful boon in order to justify the three turn requirement of forming a polygon. Not any ol' polygon either, if you're doing the minimum three vertices, that triangle ought to be covering all your allies; that can take some extra movement to nail down. To compensate for the hefty setup, this buff imbues allies with permanent advantage on attacks until they hit at least once. It's less effort to choose to summon a Sun spirit, but Planet spirits can really change the tide of combat. In addition to that, Planet spirits are affiliated with force damage, the least resisted damage type. Your spirit will likely be dealing its full force (get it?) of damage between the turns using its multiattack before you get your Planetary Rulership off.

Nursery Cocoon

4th-level Conjuration
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One of my favorite spells in 3.5e is Rejuvenation Cocoon from the interesting mechanics associated with it and the flavor of shielding an ally from assault. I distinctly remember mending my character's closest friend's broken leg mid-combat with it and his leg sheened with the draconic scales of my god. I wanted to modernize this spell and introduce it to 5e with a Starlight theme!Its healing of 5d6+(mod × 2) is not a difference to gloss over compared to an equivalent leveled Cure Wounds's 4d8+mod. If we assume a +3 spellcasting mod, then the former averages to 24.5 and the latter to 21. The difference is greater is a +4 or a +5 spellcasting mod. Nursery Cocoon also cleanses a disease or a common condition, seemingly making the homebrew spell much more viable in comparison. It's important to note though that this simultaneously renders the target a sitting duck in combat for the duration. It does protect them with total cover and total resistance, but they're still liable from AoE damage until the healing kicks in a round later. The most the target can do is Ready an action upon the cocoon's dissolution. But so can any foes in waiting. Either friend or foe can additionally move the cocoon as well, so against mighty strong creatures this might be an issue to address. We don't want a dragon to be eating our friend!If we're to scrutinize this spell's capability for out-of-combat healing, we just need to look at Aura of Vitality's 20d6 for a 3rd level spell.When modernizing the spell I was concerned with its 2 round duration. 5e did away with unusual durations and most of everything is either instant, 1 round, 1 minute, or beyond that in reasonable and expected intervals. But we do have a precedent in the form of Tsunami's 6 rounds so something like Nursery Cocoon can exist, I feel. This spell doesn't translate well to other durations. For Nursery Cocoon's HP I mainly mimicked that of 3.5e's, but its AC was tougher. 5e does have an equivalent to 3.5e's hardness rule in the form of damage thresholds, as the original spell used, but it doesn't quite make sense to use that here. I opted to give its AC a decent number that scales with the user's spellcasting mod.I think this spell's niche in 5e is to rescue an ally in a critical and dire spot, but a straight heal won't be immediately effective. It can be used to stall for time and reposition, as the cocoon's movable nature allows it to be dragged like any other creature.

Instill-o'-Wisp

4th-level Evocation
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There's a lack of heal over time spells in 5e. Aura of Vitality requires a bonus action per turn to dole it out, Healing Spirit requires you to stay in the spirit's space and it only heals up to a max of 6 times at a +5 mod, and Regenerate is both a 7th level spell and a 1 minute cast time (not to mention its main use is to regrow missing limbs over the 1/HP per turn healing). This concept could be explored in 5e and perhaps with Instill-o'-Wisp we could accomplish that.Very rarely do combats last 10 rounds, but this homebrew spell lasts for a minute with a total of 10d8 healing. That's pretty densely packed for a 4th level spell as the equivalent leveled Cure Wounds's is 4d8+mod. Out of combat this spell's pretty impressive, but we only need to look at Aura of Vitality's total of 20d6 healing to remember that WotC enabling this 3rd level spell on Clerics and Druids significantly powercrept out of combat restoration.This spell is intended for combat use primarily, so let's focus on that. Since the average number of rounds in a modern 5e combat is around 4-5, that much healing in d8s might not be the most enticing. But you can use a bonus action to convert the rest of the duration into a lesser amount of d4s if you truly need the burst healing then and there. It's not the best but it's an option. Getting 2d8 healing for the first two rounds then suffering a nasty Circle of Death might just prompt such an emergency. The spell halves the remaining duration to convert to d4s, but 8 rounds to 4d4 isn't that bad either. Previously, the emergency burst healing required an action, but costing a major part of action economy for the common results of 3d4 or 2d4 isn't very impactful. Adjusting it to a bonus action aligns it more to Healing Word; besides, the action to cast this spell was already done.Like all niche spells this one certainly has its ideal situations. For longer combats your frontline warrior would love to be the recipient of Instill-o'-Wisp. You might even elect to prebuff one of your party members before a likely combat to prepare for the opening salvo of damage.Instill-o'-Wisp's strange name originates from the will-o'-wisp. In D&D they're depicted as malevolent trickster lights who would lure hopeful, lost wanderers into dangerous places and feed on their suffering. Likely based on Lord of the Rings. They can be quite frightening in 5e combat if you find yourself unconscious. But for me, I enjoy the folklore of will-o'-wisps that attest or describe them as metaphors for hope, a goal that's far out of reach but still attainable. Albeit much less told than the folklore that describe them as misleading spirits, this relates it more to the themes of stars and starlight. Since these spirits often are in the presence of the dead, I feel Instill-o'-Wisp slowly bestowing its rejuvenation is a cute lampshade or counterpart to the common tale. A hope to press onward! Previously the spell was named Knit-o'-Wisp to give the sense of stitching wounds, but instill works better as a rhyme to will.

Shooting Star

4th-level Divination
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If I'm doing a series of homebrew spells based on starlight and the stars, I'd be remiss to not have one named Shooting Star. It's all about luck, which makes this spell extremely strange since there's no strict mechanics for it. It's basically a "hello DM, help?" spell. The idea of divining good fortune and luck is difficult to translate in 5e mechanics without resorting to advantage or flat / dice bonuses. I didn't want that; we already have spells like Fortune's Favor, Bless, and even our own Stardust. So instead I mechanicalized the concept of praying for good luck rather than immediately receiving it and knowing how it works. Oftentimes we don't know how our good luck manifests until we've seen it firsthand. We rely on faith that it aids us in our time of need. Shooting Star asks for that faith. That good luck will come… in some form or manner.And although the description offers suggestions on how to resolve the spell in combat (to which the DM is not beholden to resolve then), this is entirely up to DM fiat. This spell will not work for all tables. It's intentionally kept vague so the DM can resolve the spell however they think appropriate. For rules-heavy or combat-oriented games, this spell might be a nightmare to deal with. For narrative-centric games or those that focus on the pillars of exploration or social, this spell might be wonderful. Especially if there's divinity involved or much emphasis on cosmology. Many spells and features in 5e are more loose and need DM interpretation to work with, so Shooting Star's inclusion is not totally out of left field. For example, I played a Creation Bard; I loved using Performance of Creation to conjure the wildest objects out of thin air to help with all manner of circumstances. It still required me working in collaboration with my DM to make it appropriate and fair for the table and the enjoyment we want out of D&D. Shooting Star is the same way. If you deem it valuable for your game then please use it! You should always be considering the power level and the narrative of your game when wanting to introduce anything from Lux Asterum Phari. You're not obligated to include every spell.

Mirror Magic

4th-level Enchantment
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Spell mimicry is an unexplored aspect of 5e's gameplay. It partly lead me to design the Azurist homebrew class, which, of course, is heavily inspired by Final Fantasy's Blue Mage job. But other than that, with how little spells tend to interact with one another beyond negation or dispelling, I wanted to dig a trench in that niche and call it my own. I started off with creating Redshift Transferspell and Blueshift Pilferspell, but I wanted to go further. I like to imagine that Mirror Magic is on the opposite face of the same coin shared by Protospell. Where Protospell is long term in nature and demands writing a list of eligible spells you've seen before (much like a Druid keeping track of Wild Shapes), Mirror Magic lets you copy any spell you've seen in the last 10 minutes. It's quite divergent from how Refraction works as well. Refraction is the user allowing a target to borrow from the user's spell list; Mirror Magic is the user copying any spell they've recently witnessed.There's lots of applications for this, albeit costly in spell slot consumption (as with Refraction). But in terms of comparing Protospell, Refraction, and Mirror Magic, this spell is by far the most direct, immediate, and versatile. It allows you to be flexible and double down on any ally's magic. Sorcerer just scorched the enemy with a classic Fireball? Copy that and put it in your back pocket in case of reinforcements—it's better than Flame Strike (especially considering its 5th level spell slot cost). Wizard just Hasted the Barbarian but the Ranger is feeling left out? Copy that and boost that longbow boy to their eternal gratitude. The possibilities are limitless.It'll be tough to pull this off on hostile spellcasters. Besides the whole modern trend of turning spells to actions in creature statblock design that I won't go over yet again in these commentaries, Mirror Magic calls for a saving throw of their spellcasting ability. Enemies that cast spells are typically going to be decent at the stat they use to cast spells with. If not even proficient with the corresponding saving throw. In higher tiers of play they are also commonly equipped with Legendary Resistances. But if you're able to manage a failure, being able to dish back the enemy's own medicine is such an unparalleled feeling. Make them regret not Counterspelling you.The reasoning behind the "if this spell's duration expires while you're casting a copied spell, the copied spell fails" aspect stems from wanting to close off cheesy interactions with the more mechanically complex and out-of-combat spells like Heroes' Feast, Hallucinatory Terrain, Awaken, Glyph of Warding, Hallow, or even Scrying. Those spells aren't generally meant to be used in battle—I personally see them as ritualistic in their fantasy and flavor rather than a swift one-off wave-of-the-wand blast. To that end, even if you time it perfectly with a 10 minute spell being cast by another, then you casting Mirror Magic. The 1 round, 6 second difference between finishing that copied spell's casting and Mirror Magic's duration ending will cause you to fail it.

Synodic Shift

4th-level Enchantment
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I always wondered how 5e would work if there was a mechanic that reversed the rules of dis/advantage. How much could you break the system? How could it be useful? With the game hinging a lot of its bounded accuracy on how dis/advantage works, Synodic Shift can either be extremely powerful or completely incompetent. And to me it feels like there can be no in between.
So let's make it a spell! To be frank, with something as system-bending as this, it's difficult to figure out what could even be remotely balanced for its components. 4th level, concentration, WIS save? That seeeeems to be okay. But who knows, maybe you'll see a future version of this commentary that says "I was completely wrong!!!" In either case, Synodic Shift is competing with spells like Slow, Confusion, Banishment, and Polymorph. Is its odd fantasy enough to justify a spot on a caster's spell list? Let's explore for a bit:
Using the lower roll for advantage

Using the higher roll for disadvantage

Considering all this, it makes sense that Synodic Shift is one of the inverted spells. It toys a ton with 5e's mechanics. In combat it completely flips the script on how to approach battle in the way that maximizes the way you lessen your allies' "bad advantages" and exploit your own "good disadvantages". And the other way around. You want to make sure the enemy has as much "bad advantages" and less "good disadvantages" as possible.

Corustcate

4th-level Evocation
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There's a surprising lack of rusting mechanics in 5e. As far as I know, the only two things are the basic Rust Monster in the Monster Manual and the Dust of Corrosion item in Wild Beyond Witchlight (which is sourced from the former). Rusting is great flavor for a debuff involving metals, but as much as I enjoy the fantasy, I never felt it fit for a homebrew spell compendium revolving around light and the cosmos.And then I learned the word "coruscate" (a flash of light) and added a T to make the rust pun. It was all the excuse I needed to finally crack my knuckles and craft a fun spell!But it was difficult to really base anything off of precedent with the aforementioned mechanical absence. Most homebrew I've seen are very specific in their targeting, yet I wanted to make something adaptable as a 4th level spell. Something for that power level should be able to corrode most things, yeah?Which ends up being quite potent. Lots of homebrew generally focus on targeting one specific creature or target. Corustcate allows you three separate targets. That could be three creatures or three objects. And each can potentially inflict a -3 penalty to AC. Or impair the damage of a weapon, which was something I never really saw. Which means, when battling against a well-equipped knight, target the knight themself, their armor, and their shield for a potential -9 AC. Until they scrape it off, that is.Although 4d4 isn't much—worse than Acid Arrow—it's icing on the cake for reducing a beast or predator's natural armor by 3. Corustcate's malleability on what it can target makes it valuable as a 4th level spell pick. Expose one creature entirely or make more creatures vulnerable across the board? The choice is yours.When first designing the spell, I noticed many similar homebrew material requiring metal to be effective in the slightest. It makes sense in thematics, but a spell of this caliber, especially one that's liquid starlight, feels silly to not encompass all armor and weapons to be eligible. Equally, I do understand how silly it is that an archdruid's verdant mantle of leaves and twine supposedly being "rusted" by this spell. Which is why I wanted to add the stipulation of the spell not permanently destroying anything that's magical or nonmetallic.

Aurora Vitalis

4th-level Necromancy
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The original concept behind Aurora Vitalis was having the downed or dead continue to participate in combat. It's frustrating when you're unable to do anything on account of that; you wait upwards to an hour for your turn (especially in larger groups or very involved battles), roll a death save, then move on. It's worse if you're dead: you do literally nothing. It's boring and unengaging. Death and dying are supposed to be a significant aspect of D&D as a risk for all adventurers, both mechanically and narratively. And while amazing roleplaying moments and tensions can arise from it, it stops effectively being a major issue beginning at level 5 if your party has a fullcaster with access to Revivify (and assuming diamonds are accessible in your setting). And while there's many homebrew solutions attempting to offset the pains of not playing the game when in this state, I wanted to try my hand at a specific spell rather than an entire new system.Aurora Vitalis is difficult to write commentary for; I was quite unsatisfied with its function in v3. In v3 the spell targeted a dead creature and extended the time limit for raising them by an additional 5 minutes. It allowed a group time to breathe when Revivifying a dead ally, but more importantly it allowed the dead creature to expend those minutes for one of three effects on their turn: Encumber, Succor, and Wrath. Encumber imparted disadvantage against a nearby creature, no saving throw needed. Succor granted temporary hit points to an ally. Wrath was a ranged spell attack for some radiant damage.My problem with v3's iteration was that it was never worth a 4th level spell slot to grant 5 instances (one per turn) of those effects. An ally might be dead and the player may or may not be frustrated that they don't get to actively play the game, but the "correct" solution was to always end the fight faster and then Revivify them. A 4th level Fireball or control spell was much more valuable and efficient in that circumstance. The second most "correct" solution is to simply Revivify them if your party's got the action economy to heal them for a non-insignificant amount; Revivify is 1 action after all, it was designed to be usable in combat. If your Cleric can pull that off, your Fighter can toss the newly resurrected a Healing Potion so they can play defensive.So Aurora Vitalis has to be more worthwhile as a 4th level spell. Or be classified as 3rd instead. With my intent for the spell to be something to bridge the gap between Revivify and Raise Dead, I wanted to stick with its 4th level classification. It's got the non-consumable diamond material component after all. Aurora Vitalis's niche is to continue allowing a player to play this TTRPG, and while Revivify (if dead) and healing (if downed) partially serve this purpose, those are fragile fixes that foes easily overwhelm. I wanted this spell to explore an area in 5e combat where you don't have to be frightened of a death spiral because the Barbarian you just healed back to consciousness went down on literally the next action. There's a common proverb in the 5e community that preaches the best healing is done when someone is unconscious, mainly reinforcing that action economy is king when determining the outcome of fights.Prior to v3's iteration Aurora Vitalis actually functioned similar to its iteration in v4. Pre-v3 the spell was quite short range, but allowed you to target a dead or dying creature and grant it the ability to continue fighting as normal, using their regular action economy. It had a duration of 3 rounds, and should they fail their 6th death saving throw, the spell ends.I was convinced out of it, but I think how poorly I designed v3 called for a revamp in v4. I didn't want to buff the numbers in v3's iteration. Shy of making them absurdly powerful to the point where it's more potent than a PC who's alive, it was never worth taking the spell to begin with for the reasons I mentioned above. Plus, I believe it's lackluster in design to forcibly swap a PC's entire action economy rather than let them play the character they created and have more fun with.This brings us to v4's appearance. Aurora Vitalis's goal is to allow a dying ally to continue fighting. It must be a viable option versus Revivfying (should they die) or healing. Thus, the creature can still continue battling no matter the amount of death saves it fails. But if the caster drops concentration? It's over. No need to worry about death ping-pong when constantly casting Healing Word after your frontliners go down every turn, now you just need to solely worry if you're going to maintain concentration.Lastly, I wanna note on the flavorful visuals that Aurora Vitalis exudes! Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis are beautiful phenomena, captivating in every way. In certain folklore, they are the bridges from the living to the afterlife, which prompted ample inspiration for me to design something like this spell! There's lots of different mythology and beliefs surrounding the polar lights, each with their own cultural meanings and significance. Especially around death and spirituality. I wanted to bring that aspect to this spell's concept. Of course, however, Borealis and Australis are both terms that point to particular regions on our own Earth. I gave Aurora Vitalis its name to rhyme with those, remove its region affinity, and allude to its function!

A Star to Guide

5th-level Divination
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The original in-universe inventor of these Lux Asterum Phari spells, Opus Loregit, was a devout adherent of the Wayfinder, god of the stars, magic, and family. They were the co-discoverer of him and his Guiding Star, the equivalent to our Polaris. When I played Opus, one of their fascinations as a young history buff was cartography and maps. Thus one of the original Starlight spells they invented early on (and that I designed) was one to call upon the Guiding Star's aid to help navigate a map.Fantasy maps are one of those tiny details that I dearly love in D&D and just gaming in general. You can see all the worldbuilding, history, and lore before your eyes. Sometimes, through a wide variety of reasons, these maps can be a struggle to read. They might be unfinished, lacking cohesion, unusual style, ambiguous markings, or anything else both in-character and out-of-game.A Star to Guide can alleviate some of these woes by acting like any video game map screen, which was the main idea behind this spell's function. You can stick the lapis lazuli pin from the spell's material components anywhere on the map and a route will be drawn towards your destination. Thankfully, unlike some of those unhelpful waypoint markers in video games, you can give the spell criteria for drawing the route. Such as by choosing to only draw a route through water when sailing on a ship to an island in the middle of the ocean.This spell is enjoyable to me due to its encouragement to utilize maps more often. A world map becomes way more valuable and world knowledge all the more practical when determining your route. For regions, countries, continents, organizational influence, or other detailed maps, this could also be incredibly helpful for strategic planning.A quick fun tidbit on the lapis lazuli pin: I chose the blue-colored stone as the material for the pin due to its ancient Egyptian symbolism of divinity and guiding souls to the afterlife. Relating it back to Opus's reverence to the Wayfinder and his Guiding Star.

Refraction

5th-level Transmutation
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Refraction was the first spell I designed early on that I felt really tested the boundaries of 5e's spell system and balance. Honestly, Refraction can't be ever be truly balanced. But I think that's why it's thrilling. You can give your entire spell list to another caster to borrow from for one spell. It's limited in that the eligible lent spells are two levels lower than the level you cast Refraction at, but this opens up the floodgates to so many possibilities and combos. At some point I wouldn't be surprised if there was some broken synergy that resulted from this spell. It takes clever thinking to see how it could interact with your squad and how you can maximize combinations. Could you even lend Refraction when casting Refraction? With a 7th level slot maybe! But why? Maybe you want your ally's spell in turn! Sharing is caring (even if it takes a 7th and 5th level slot for a 3rd or lower spell).Another great aspect about Refraction? It works with more than just the Spellcasting trait. Warlocks too can utilize it and lend their Pact Magic. Ancestries with innate spells can grant them to others, like genasis as one example. And folks with but a simple feat for their magic could also lend it to another, like with Magic Initiate or Fey-Touched. If they somehow gained access to Refraction, that is. NPCs can also lend their spells too! Even with the modern 5e statblocks greatly simplifying spellcasting.Conversely, one important thing to note about this spell is that it can't lend spells granted by magic items. Those spells aren't considered ones you know or prepare as they originate from the item itself. You may cast Cone of Cold from a Staff of Frost, but is the magic coming from you or the staff? This is a good rule of thumb for anything that might be unclear with its distinctions.I liked the word refraction to describe this spell since it refers to the bending of light through a different medium, a la the bending of your spell knowledge to another creature. If you know Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album, that prism converting a ray of light into a rainbow is partially what refraction is (along with dispersion) and how I imagine this spell manifests.

Asterism

5th-level Evocation
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With constellations and stars being a heavy focus of Starlight magic, I desperately needed to design a spell that functioned basically like Create-A-Constellation. Before Wall of Nebulae, this was the Wall spell I conceived of, inspired by the idea that asterisms are smaller kinds of constellations. This spell is really flexible and versatile since I wanted it to be representative of myriad types of constellations your setting might possess. Place three stars within 20 feet of each other and choose two aspects to define the spell's effects.The list of 7 aspects contain both detrimental and beneficial effects, ranging from a pull, damage, blindness, saving throw advantage, temporary HP, and cover. It's meant to be an evergreen spell viable for a great deal of circumstances. It's also a great opportunity to sprinkle in your own flavor when casting the spell. For example, invoking the constellation of Vindir, the flame-licking anteater with the Aspects of Gravity and Ire to snare and harm your foes. Or you might invoke the constellation of the Guardian, an armored wolf with the Aspects of Resolve and Shelter to protect your allies in the face of a draconic assault. There's 21 different possible combinations with Asterism's aspects to experiment with.Another major aspect (get it?) of the spell's versatility is the mix of five things: the ability to configure the stars in any way upon being cast, the ability to move any star 20 feet as a bonus action, the fact that you can optionally cause the spell to affect an eligible creature, that any creature can choose to fail it and guarantee its effects, and that you can choose which of the selected aspects to affect it. You can choose both a harming aspect and a helpful aspect and selectively distribute them based on ally or foe.Asterism is one of my favorites thanks to the imagery it evokes and the way you can beseech the aid of different constellations in different situations. It also continues to explore the direct use of cover in spells that Fizban's started with his Platinum Shield. CON saves might not work as effectively against the burly creatures, but perhaps the stars could instead help your party stand their ground.

Parhelion

5th-level Abjuration
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A parhelion is an absolutely striking optical phenomena of a halo around the sun. I thought it the perfect visual for a spell idea I had of delaying oncoming damage. In 5e where combats average 4-5 rounds, being able to delay damage until later is a potent mitigation tool. This spell doesn't technically reduce damage, so if you eventually build a pile of damage ready to harm you it could be very dangerous to lose the spell. So dangerous that it could even approach death by massive damage numbers. You'll definitely want to maintain concentration.Luckily, if you cast Parhelion on yourself the total damage resistance means that your CON saves to maintain concentration are also easier. Be wary about the spell's end though. While it might last through a combat to grant your party victory, you'll want to prepare immediate healing the moment the target's blasted. Characters with resistance to radiant damage are prime targets as they will significantly reduce the delayed damage. Your time has come, aasimars!In the same breath, characters with several pre-existing resistances might not find too much benefit from Parhelion. Even if your fire genasi innately shrugs off fire damage, all damage that gets resisted during Parhelion's duration will come back to bite them. So in effect they'll be taking the normal amount of damage that the fire source imparted. This spell still might be resourceful if you're certain to come up against a hard hitter, but it's a detail to consider.

Pulsar

5th-level Conjuration
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Like with Magnetar Motes, I designed Pulsar to specialize in battlefield control but with a twist on normal patterns. Pulsars, akin to magnetar stars, are highly dense and magnetic. Though not as heavy as magnetars, pulsars do sport an interesting "lighthouse effect" with how they pulse and emit their electromagnetic radiation beams. Read it up if you've got time! It's quite fascinating.I wanted to combine both components for this spell to give it a strong identity but differentiate it enough from Magnetar Motes in this homebrew. Magnetar Motes preferred method of battlefield control is indirect and through intimidation—the spaces around the target can damage it and halve its speed, with metal creatures worse off. For Pulsar, I gave it a consistent gravitational pull in a 15-foot radius. Most gravitational effects and spells are instantaneous and don't persist, even spells exclusive to Graviturgy Wizards. Pulsar's direct threat is removing key players from their ideal positions. Gravity isn't the only feature of the spell though, I incorporated the lighthouse effect via the guaranteed 4d4 radiant damage to everyone in its radius. Casters will definitely want to preserve their bonus action to reactivating this damage much like Heat Metal. Pulsar ensnares those unfortunate enough to suffer its gravity as folks need to succeed a STR to even exit the radius.I think this gives Pulsar an enticing and potent quirk that warrants consideration in learning or preparing. Enemy spellcasters can be dangerous but they are often lacking in the strength department. Exploit that. A whole horde of kobolds or devils on your tail? Plant Pulsar in the air and watch them swirl helplessly. If you ask me, a dangerous and delightful combo would be for two Starlight casters to combine Pulsar and Magnetar Motes for the ultimate control.Why did I give Pulsar guaranteed damage though? A 15-foot radius persistent AoE doing 4d4 damage seems awfully powerful. That's around 10 damage on average. I think the balance comes from the fact that the damage only occurs on your turn, so you can really only count on the first turn you cast it to be guaranteed. It also requires consistent use of your bonus action to dole it out, so classes with an abundance of bonus action opportunities might want to consider another spell to take. About its damage, Melf's Acid Arrow does 4d4 as a 2nd level spell, and though it only guarantees half on a miss, 4d4 damage at level 9 where 5th level spells are gained isn't too devastating.Ashardalon's Stride at 3rd level is guaranteed 1d6 fire damage to anyone you can graze while moving; you've got increased movement speed with that spell, so upcast that kid and watch your foes burn. A 5th level upcast of that is 3d6 damage and with more freedom of dealing it through your movement than Pulsar's static location.

Aura of Glory

5th-level Evocation
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Aura of Glory is a niche but fantastic spell trying to follow in the footsteps of the other Aura spells, Vitality, Purity, and Life. These formerly Paladin-exclusive spells focused on protection and support and a variant related to interacting with other spells was something I was keen on tapping into. Aura of Glory heals allies in the radius whenever they cast a spell an amount equal to that spell's level. Your casters will love you should you wear this spell. If you're anticipating a heavy-duty battle, popping this pre-battle can cover for the opening salvo with your casters retaliating back with the big guns themselves. It enables a more offensive strategy by not spending time needing to recover from something like a dragon's breath weapon. In parties with majority casters or a good few magic items you might opt to take advantage of Aura of Glory, as it'll only become more valuable with each level y'all gain.I'm pretty proud of the spell's name honestly. Aura of Glory could easily refer to the prestige and splendor of magic pushing the boundaries of endurance. But glories are also optical phenomena that resemble halos formed from light passing through mist or clouds. Both work!

Illuminate the Past

5th-level Divination
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As a mystery solving tool, the idea of paranormal psychometry is a fun concept to play with. It's briefly explored with the feature Grim Psychometry from Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter homebrew class but it's specific in that it extracts only sinister or tragic histories from the object. A generalized spell variant of that would be clever utility to use in situations where glimpsing the recent past could reveal invaluable information. Many divination spells revolve around trying to divine the future and foresight, but rarely do they clarify the past unless you happen to be using spells like Commune or Divination to ask these specific questions to a deific entity. As is, well, in the nature of the spell school's very name. But I think we don't have to limit ourselves to the future when the act of fortune-telling is also often used to make sense of the uncertain past. Legend Lore might be a great lore-dump spell for relevant topics in your setting this way, but it's not your first choice when detecting or perceiving recent events. So I sought to design a spell that took after psychometry for the detectives and fortune-tellers in our games. Fortune-telling is one of the subthemes of Starlight magic, making it a fitting addition. To make this spell versatile, I wrote it to allow the caster to choose the method of how it functions: unveiling the past around an area, or unveiling the past around an object.You might turn to the area option should a locale be suspicious. Perhaps your group is pursuing a thief and couldn't catch the direction of their escape. Maybe you're literally a detective for your city or organization, making this spell an excellent forensics tool for your crime scene investigations. Did your group discover that a clandestine cult meeting occurred in the cellar of an abandoned warehouse recently? This spell's got you covered.When you suspect an object might've had rather a frequent turn of hands, or that the object was in transit recently, the spell's other option might be better. Are you weary of a potentially poisoned wine bottle? This spell might reveal the visage of the perpetrator, a much better solution than simply cleansing it with Purify Food and Drink. Is your group tracking a kidnapped child and discover they dropped a toy? This spell could grant a lead in the direction of the culprit's movements. Your party's Rogue might've stolen a key item from a dubious noble; this spell might give a glimpse at what the noble was doing for the last 24 hours, provided that the item was on their person for that duration.With the optional function of a caster attempting to peer further back into the past, a player could chance the risk and hope to discern even more information. Not all important, vital clues happen within 24 hours of the players arriving there, so designing this spell its open-ended nature can even let DMs give juicy breadcrumbs to entice their group to take that risk. It's entirely in the DM's discretion how further back this spell could glimpse (depending on the roll, too) and how clear the holographic recreations appear. Something a week back, for example, might appear very blurry to the point where identifying key figures is a futile task. And, regardless on a success or a failure, the caster suffers one level of exhaustion; they must commit to the decision and be willing to accept the result, even if unsatisfactory.For DMs, you might notice that the spell's duration is 10 minutes but is able to recreate events that occurred 24 (or more) hours ago. The timing is not meant to be one-to-one; this spell doesn't access a realtime recording of an area or object. Tailor the recreated events to be something relevant and/or enjoyable for the players. We don't necessarily need to know that a soldier's sword was sheathed in its scabbard for 23 of those hours before a battle.I like to think of Illuminate the Past as a reverse Scry spell. A creature could ward against mind-reading and scying attempts, but they can't as easily ward against the things they've done and their imprint on the world around them. Illuminate the Past allows players to gain valuable information and delve deeper into the story of a game, greatly enabling collaborative puzzle-solving, good roleplay moments, and shocking reveals.To quickly dive into the flavor of this spell, I wanted to lean in on the psychometry aspect of it and its pseudo-science nature. Starlight magic's flavoring is half-scientific in how it manifests as holograms thanks to my Artificer character Opus's themes. The visuals of a spell scanning disturbed light particles in an area and being able to thoroughly examine them is a rad concept I came up with so I called it luminal psychometry. Without wanting to name the spell something esoteric like that though, I called it Illuminate the Past as a fun allusion to using light in revealing information hidden in the dark.

Relativity

5th-level Transmutation
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Playing with time in any game is a slippery, albeit fun slope. Especially designing gameplay mechanics for them. Chronomancy and time magic is one of the most popular homebrew themes in 5e, at least by how many times I see it in my feeds. But I also can't deny that spacetime and the theory of relativity is very relevant to the cosmos theme and space subtheme of Starlight magic. So I wanted to design an interesting, unique twist that toyed with it.Relativity has no saving throw. That's because it affects the environment itself rather than specific creatures like Slow or Haste. That restricts some of the power budget afforded to me with how drastic I can make its effects. However, Slow and Haste do provide excellent templates to start off from. And if I want Relativity to be flexible (as a Frosty spell likes to be) in providing options to either quicken or slow time, then these effects must be interchangeable.Common threads in both Slow and Haste include AC adjustments, speed changes, affecting DEX saves, and altering action economy. I felt iffy on changing AC and altering action economy without a saving throw, but the others were a great base indicative of how time-based spells in D&D tend to represent that flavor in their mechanics. Without altering action economy, that really freed the power allotment I had for this spell. Action economy is king, but one thing I see rarely represented in 5e spell design is altering initiative. I played with this for the other spacetime spell I designed called Paradox, but I felt like I could branch off into something more targeted compared to a whole battlefield-wide effect. Something you could use to your advantage and plan strategies around. With Double Time doubling initiative and Half Time halving initiative, that can be so crucial in determining the flow of battle. Allowing all of your allies to go first enables devastating combos, especially if used in the beginning of battle where enemies are less likely to be up close and personal with the party. Halving the enemies' initiatives, especially when they're clustered together, makes it a valuable control spell that allows for repositioning of your party or the continuous blast of multiple casters that exploit their weakened DEX saves.But because there's no saving throw this can easily be as detrimental to the party as it is beneficial, particularly as fights drag on and rounds tick by. Your party will mix with the opposition, so doubled initiatives, speeds, and advantaged DEX saves will benefit both your Fighter and the rampaging beast (that can now reach your d6 hit dice Wizard in the far back corner of the battlemap).I also wanted to introduce a stranger, unusual element to Relativity: affecting durations of other game abilities. I didn't want Double Time to just simply be the ally-buff variant and Half Time to be the enemy-debuff variant. Double Time will cause other effects, like the buff from Bless or the debuff of a foe's Bane, to additionally tick by faster than normal. While Half Time will extend these effects. It's not entirely relevant, for most battles don't last long enough rounds that buffs ending early would matter, but for the higher leveled combats where rounds can get to 10+, having a Haste end early on round 5 and imparting lethargy is going to be rough. It also, however, means that tracking durations will require more thought and effort. Sorry about that!Besides combat though, I also realized after designing the spell that Relativity has some creative use outside of it. While it requires a looser reading of the spell's description (i.e. "the spell causes time in the area to pass at double / half the rate"), I would personally encourage DMs to favor Rule of Cool. Timing is crucial in fast-paced encounters. Halving time would allow you to cross a collapsing bridge before it fully gives way, attain more leniency for time-sensitive puzzles, and react quicker to slowed-down traps in a dungeon!

Paraselene

6th-level Abjuration
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Paraselenes are the moon counterpart to parhelions' sun! With Parhelion being a protective mitigation spell Paraselene was bound to keep the trend. Due to the moon's light being a reflection of the sun, only its brightest phases were capable of producing these "moon dogs" as they're called. And they're much more faint and subtle compared to a parhelion, or "sun dog". To match this energy I wanted to give the spell Paraselene a more subtle effect compared to Parhelion's damage delay function.I turned to lunar deities for inspiration. They're abundant and broad amongst cultural folklore, mythology, and religion and a few of them share two common threads of nightly protection and hunting. I translated that into its current idea of protecting those in your care from falling unconscious.Paraselene lets the caster spend their reaction to prevent someone from being reduced to 0 HP. Think of a Half-Orc's Relentless Endurance or the Death Ward spell and supercharge it. A user of this spell could be in the thick of the hunt to ensure their companions do not suffer defeat, pressing on the attack. A user of this spell could also be a benevolent healer from behind who draws upon lunar power to shield a friend from certain death. As long as they've got their reaction, no one is going down.While this does cost your reaction every time, it's a great boon to be nigh unkillable and buys you time to afford more support and protection to who needs it most. Still, you might not want to pick this spell if you're a caster who enjoys using Shield, Absorb Elements, Counterspell, or any other reaction. Halfcasters don't get access to this spell since it's 6th level, so fullcasters will have to determine if the spell's value is worth the positioning effort, reaction tax, and concentration requirement. They could be using another concentration spell to end fights further, for example. To some folks it may be more resourceful to invest in Aura of Life and simply restore creatures back to consciousness when they reach 0 HP.[✨v4 Update] Paraselene really underperformed mechanically. With its costly 500g component, all the aura did was allow the caster to use an additional reaction. It provided no passive benefits, unlike the vast majority of other aura spells. I set out to add passive effects that match Paraselene's potency as a 6th level spell, but to keep the subtly that I described in the original design commentary. I settled on two, one being a mechanic that I enjoyed and wanted to explore in a spell, and another I felt more thematic for the flavor of the spell.The first was soft crit negation. I always liked the idea of turning critical hits into normal hits. Kind of like a step below adamantine or mizzium armor since I didn't want to offer blanket immunity. Originally, this property would turn a critical hit into a normal hit. The pacing and flow was quite awkward though… Imagine: your Fighter gets crit for 40 damage total. They pass the CON save DC 20 to turn the hit into a normal hit. But in core RAW 5e, crits aren't simply [double the end result number], they're [double the dice]. How do you retroactively determine the normal hit's damage? Do you shave off the other half of dice? Which do you choose? Chances are the DM's moved on or had forgotten which dice were which. This property slowed down the game's flow too much. But in order to make critical hits still maintain their impact and threat, the DC needed to be variable. It couldn't be against the caster's spell save DC or it'd be simply unfair. So while I couldn't design this property to be as elegant as reverting a crit to a normal hit, halving the critical hit's damage is as close as we'll get. Unfortunately this still does mean that the attack was a critical hit, so you better hope that you're dancing with a vorpal blade-wielding swordsman!The second property is that shapechangers have disadvantage on attack rolls in the aura. I think this part is quite significant if you're able to predict facing off against a band of werecreatures (or even certain dragons). I remembered Moonbeam's secondary effect in being particularly effective versus these types of creatures and wanted to incorporate that in Paraselene, another spell that evokes the moon's light. Of course, you can designate your party's lycanthropes to be immune to this!

Eclipse

6th-level Conjuration
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Eclipse is a doozy of a spell. It differs depending on the type of eclipse and is generally weaker indoors or when there's no celestial body in the sky, leading to its rather lengthy description. At a glance, with the spell's 1 minute cast time, consumable costly material component, and non-concentration duration of 1 hour, Eclipse is a spell you cast in preparation for a big showdown. It may be one of Lux Asterum Phari's most niche spell in that regard but with its array of powerful defensive and offensive options, it's an indispensable tool when the moment presents itself. If you find your party often needing to prepare to battle tough enemies and can control the time of engagement, you might find merit in utilizing Eclipse. Plus it's got a rather wicked visual of forging a black disc to literally block out the sun / moon from far up above. I can easily imagine Eclipse used as the backdrop to a critical climatic battle of a campaign, NPC allies and all.Solar Eclipse is the first option and can only be cast during the day. It generates a pool of points, and allies who are damaged within its large AoE can draw from this pool as a reaction to gain temporary HP that's drained first. 14d4+20 averages to about 55, a big hoard of points that can shield allies from assault. This option is best if you anticipate high damage during the encounter you're preparing for or favor a defensive approach, though it will require reactions from those hurt to mitigate any of it. As a fun fact, this option's pool of points was borrowed from the scrapped variant of the Pillars of Light spell in this homebrew.Lunar Eclipse is the second option and can only be cast during the night. It turns the moon into the blood moon and invokes the ferocity often found in feral predators and werecreatures. This option is ideal for an offensive approach; cast this and pounce upon your foes with unrelenting brutality! Imbued allies will get a stacking movement speed buff upon hitting an enemy, immunity to fear and charm effects, and Pack Tactics with a bonus to damage. Essentially this all encourages your group to never back down and maintain aggressive tactics. Pursue cowards like wolves and ravage those who stand in your way. For a group of martials this will heavily enhance their bloodletting, so don't be afraid to use it even when you're facing off against an apex predator. Show them who's the real predator.The last option is when there's no celestial bodies visible or you're indoors. Eclipse is much more potent while outdoors but I didn't want the spell to be completely ineffective while inside. Many times we can't control the location of engagement and sometimes you just have to accept you're fighting the malevolent god of the duergar in her underground mechanical metropolis. Or is that just me? Anyway, this option takes from both the solar and lunar variants, bestowing something along the lines of Magic Weapon and Heroism combined. It's not the best and it might not even be worth a 6th level spell slot or the 500g costly component, but for prebuffing any boon is welcome in my eyes. On the bright side, outdoor battles frequently have large environments that combat could stroll across while indoors are [generally] much more confined, meaning this option could potentially cover an entire arena.[✨v4 Update] Turns out, 14d4+20 is not a big hoard of points for a 6th level spell! I talk about this more in Shining Shield's commentary, but in order for Shining Shield to have competitive scaling for higher spell slots, it actually triumphed over Eclipse's Solar Eclipse's numerical strength. Can't have that; Solar Eclipse is supposed to be the option you prepare in advance when you anticipate a tough battle. So many potential creatures can draw from that temp HP pool. I've increased the pool by 20 points, meaning the average is brought up to 75. More fitting for a 6th level spell with a costly component and long casting time I'd say!

Horoscope

6th-level Divination
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Before I designed Tarot in this homebrew I came up with Horoscope. I wanted to explore the divination school of magic as something that could be offensive in nature. We've only got Mind Spike for that and even that classification is tenuous at best. This set of two spells, Horoscope and Tarot, revolve around predicting the flow of combat and match their namesake as astrology terms. I love Horoscope because I love calling out and planning different courses of action and anticipating what really happens. As a player, whenever I know a combat's to occur next session, I usually enjoy planning for what my character would likely do next, what the enemies might do, how to play around that, and other contingency strategies. Horoscope fits that fantasy for me because it's a minigame between the players and the DM. A secret game.The caster doesn't have to show the DM their prediction. Of course, the best fun is when things are fair and the prediction isn't manipulated after the casting. That's just trust and honesty. Because the spell doesn't require you to share the prediction, your DM may desire full transparency and that's valid too. However, I love that this spell could incite a huddle between the players, away from the DM, and strategize about what might happen and/or how to make it happen.Because, yes, while you may predict a certain course of action, you can also force it to happen. Personally it's less fun to do that (is it really a prediction if you're influencing it?) but I equally think it can be more fun for others in making it a communal goal in the group to ensure its occurrence. Spells like Crown of Madness, Compelled Duel, or the Dominate spells can ensure a clever synergy to make the prediction come true, along with class features like an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian "taunting" a creature or a Rune Knight Fighter using their Cloud Rune to redirect an attack to the predicted target.
That's also why this spell doesn't have guaranteed damage. Some courses of action might just be really easy to predict. An ogre will continue to club your party or a dragon on the first turn of battle will likely want to use their breath weapon.10d12 is mindblowingly absurd damage, especially for a 6th level spell! That averages 65 damage! Even Harm is just 14d6 in damage—55 average! Despite 10d12 being extremely swingy as well, we have to remember that Disintegrate is 10d6+40—75 damage on average. With much more consistency and a much more devastating effect for a 6th level spell. If we want to make Horoscope a viable and enticing pick, it needs to compete with Disintegrate. Horoscope has to be comparable in damage because it's entirely possible that your prediction doesn't occur, even with your best efforts. Just like if someone passes the DEX save for Disintegrate, Horoscope would have done nothing. That's a 6th level slot wasted. Other factors we have to consider is that Disintegrate is immediate while Horoscope takes a round to pass, Disintegrate's force damage is far less resisted than Horoscope's psychic, and that Disintegrate has much more utility. It's mentioned in many spells as the only thing capable of destroying their respective thing, including this homebrew.If you're using Disintegrate, you're making a statement. I want that same energy—using Horoscope and predicting accurately sends a rather chilling statement too.

Essential Debility

6th-level Enchantment
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I quite enjoy the concept of controlling a creature's flow of combat by deterring it from repeating the same action. It's not a direct limitation like Tasha's Mind Whip or Slow, but if a target were to continue their normal course they're going to suffer and quickly realize the predicament they're in. Essential debility in astrology refers to the weakness of a planet, so casting this enfeeblement upon a foe inhibits their ability to persist. Beyond the first CHA save for the debuff to take hold, the damage the creature would take is guaranteed. There's no save. It just happens. They will feel the cosmos punishing them for acting against fate. They can only attempt to break out of these mental shackles by taking the damage first, then making another CHA save. This acts as a lose-lose trap for whomever you deign to invoke this upon.By having Essential Debility be tied to CHA saves, I'm keying it off of the target's force of will, character, and soul. Souls who brace against Essential Debility must exert their presence and conviction to resist it as the very fates seek to degrade them.Part of the fun I imagine with using this spell is the fact that every target might circumvent it in different ways. An enemy spellcaster and a burly brute would approach their curse oppositely I would think. Leading to a memorable encounter of playing around their circumvention and guiding them further to your wrath.It can be especially difficult to recover from a debuff like this, especially for subpar or average CHA targets. It's the reason why this spell is 6th level and only attainable beginning at level 11. At this tier of play parties will encounter or have encountered a diverse set of foes on their path. Compared to tier 1, much more of these enemies will be equipped to handle Essential Debility; and in turn these enemies will also be fleshed out with more complex abilities, traits, and tactics that Essential Debility can exploit.

Remote Satellite

6th-level Divination
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I once joked to myself "what if I turned the International Space Station into a spell?Then it wasn't a joke anymore.There's not many scouting tools in a spellcaster's arsenal. Divination-wise, the Locate X spells are like a radar and getting pinged for specific targets, Scrying is constrained to just peeping on a particular creature or place, and Clairvoyance requires familiarity with the place you want to observe. Arcane Eye is the one of the closest we've got—allowing you to invisibly scope out a joint or perform reconnaissance. For the strategic and cautious player, it's useful in the cases it was designed for even if the 4th level spell slot price is steep. It can act as a cheaper Scrying for targets you might want to tail nearby or help out with mapping interior enemy territories closely without risk of getting caught. But it's slow, limited, and not a ritual spell. For mapping out entire regions, Arcane Eye won't get that job done for you. The closest we got for that is casting Fly upon yourself, physically levitating a mile above the terrain, and hoping your Perception checks are good enough. If I were to compare, Arcane Eye / Fly is like a GoPro camera attached to a hiker.I wanted Remote Satellite to be the drone. When trying to draft this concept and realize the earlier joke, I turned to one of the coolest aspects of navigation in video games: the map. Specifically, a few games have an animation of literally pulling back the camera from the player character and showing an overhead view of the region or world, like in one of my favorite games Outer Wilds. Remote Satellite was meant to capture that feeling of the camera raising above you to the skies and gaining a bird's eye view of the entire region.Despite only being available at around tier 3 of play, Remote Satellite is a very valuable intel-gathering tool. It was designed to fill the gap that Arcane Eye / Fly cannot reliably achieve. Infiltrating an enemy fortress is much easier when you can see from above exactly how the battlements are structured, the patrol patterns, and any weaknesses from within its walls. With a top-down view you can scout entire cities, discern the best trail up a hazardous mountain, surveil hostile-rich zones, discover the location of a kidnapped VIP at a camp, and even search for high-value targets hiding from your party. The advantage on Perception checks really helps vs. trying to rely on the sluggish Arcane Eye or putting yourself in harm's way by casting Fly and surveying a bandit camp yourself.This spell does have its flaws though. Notably because it's a bird's eye view of the region. As mentioned in the description, it can only work outdoors and clouds could potentially obstruct your vision. While an evil mage may prepare for Arcane Eye intrusions with See Invisibility mechanisms and Dispel Magic traps, nature itself could coincidentally block your sight simply because it's a rainy day. Dense forests with clustered canopies might make it difficult to tune your senses within and buildings with overhang architecture make it nearly impossible to see underneath. And due to the tax of the spell requiring a 100g telescope (theoretically not a hurdle at this level of play), it still means that you can't simply prepare this brand new spell and snap your fingers. It requires advanced preparation to use. But when the scenario is right, you can be certain that this ritual spell will be at your aid for any number of castings.

Convergence

6th-level Transmutation
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I love to blast boss music in my ears when designing important fights and statting out beefy statblocks. It doesn't usually inspire me with homebrew spells, but listening to Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit from Kirby and the Forgotten Land had that effect on me. Convergence is the result of me imagining how a spell breaking the Roche Limit would look like!Convergence deals a lot with manipulating gravity and as such can be a complex spell with many components (especially when you see a variable in the spell's description). But let's break them down one by one.First, pick two targets to make STR saves. Convergence shines when they're very far apart. You'll want to keep the end location in mind when picking targets, since a target two sizes larger than the other automatically succeeds on the STR save and change the following components. If you want to fling both targets towards the midpoint of a straight line connecting them, pick similarly-sized targets. If you want one target to be flung all the way to the other, pick the other target to be much larger. Because the spell says "targets" and not "creatures", objects are valid here!The second component asks who failed the STR save. Did both targets fail the save? They're flung in a straight line towards each other, destined to collide at the midway point. If only one target failed, they're flung to the other one (likely a longer distance). For this, you've gotta calculate how many times a target travels 10 ft. before they collide. That's the variable: Distance. For example, 40 ft. equals 4.The third component is mostly a conditional check. Since the spell never requires a straight unimpeded travel path between both targets, there can be other hazards obstructing our big boom. It's possible for our targets to collide with them before each other, so if any of these hazards are creatures, they can make a DEX save to avoid being the center of their own collision.Fourth is the spectacle—the collision. This can be one larger collision (if nothing intercepted the targets' travel path) or two smaller collisions (if something did intercept). When a target collides, they and whatever they collide with takes Distance d6 bludgeoning damage. In our earlier example, that would be 4d6. As a small rules notes, if this is one large collision, both targets only take this damage once. Finally, if either target is a creature that failed the initial STR save from the first component, they're also knocked prone.Fifthly and lastly, another spectacle—an explosion! For each collision (1-2), calculate an explosion sphere's radius using Distance * 5. With our earlier example, that's 4*5=20. That's a 20 ft. radius sphere, just like Fireball! Each creature in that area must make a CON save or take Distance d10 force damage—4d10 in our example. Half on a success.Phew! Lots of math for a spell, huh? It's something I felt should've belonged to a Graviturgy Wizard. Gravity Sinkhole and Gravity Fissure are fine, but they target areas, I want to be able to fling targets whole! Regarding the whole variable business, when I first concepted the spell I had a flat number on both the collision damage and the explosion damage. But that never felt right. You could cast this spell on two targets adjacent to each other; they'd never be flung more than 5 ft. and yet had the same impact as two targets 100 ft. away from each other. I wanted to reward the best situation that Convergence shines in and make it feel realistic to the mechanics that drive it, so that meant converting the damage to the Distance variable. It also means that it's best cast in outdoorsy environments with lots of space between targets and least useful in tight interior confines. Fling the enemy mage from the fortress's battlements and onto fair playing grounds. Bonus points if the midway point is midair—they'll have to contend with falling damage as well!

Entropy

7th-level Transmutation
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When I first published Lux Asterum Phari I never anticipated designing anything above 6th level spells. It's harder to balance for that level simply because balance typically collapses inward at tiers 3 and 4. Less games are played at that level, leading me to prefer designing fun, new, and unique toys for tiers 1 and 2. However, that being said, some ideas are so wacky and game-shattering that their power budget simply necessitates higher spell levels. I'm not even sure if their inclusion here is really necessary or warranted, but they're enjoyable, satisfactory to use, and incredibly impactful. So I want to give it a shot at the very least. Also, there was feedback on including some higher leveled spells, so there is some demand!Entropy was heavily inspired by a fan favorite Illithid Power called Mind Sanctuary in Baldur's Gate 3. Every time I see it, it's another way on how to utterly destroy the game's balance and annihilate [insert any boss here] or simply to show off absolutely silly interactions. So why not translate that to tabletop 5e too! I'm sure it'd be fiiiine.Entropy here resembles Mind Sanctuary very closely: both allow you to use any action as a bonus action and vice versa. But there's two key differences with Entropy. One, if you use the same action twice, you're going to take force damage. And two, if you decide to cast two spells, only one can be higher than 5th level. That's the [hopeful] saving grace for Entropy and my meager attempt at balancing this monster of an ability. You can't cast anything more than a 5th level spell on the same turn you cast Entropy (assuming you're within your own AoE), and if you do, you're taking damage that could potentially cause you to drop concentration.And like in BG3, enemies can fully exploit this as well. An ancient dragon is not gonna care about the force damage if they know they can Multiattack you twice. Of course, will the ancient dragon survive a salvo of high leveled spells and extra Extra Attacks from your party?I haven't had the opportunity of trying out Honor Mode yet in BG3, but after looking on the wiki, apparently Mind Sanctuary was changed to provide AoE Haste? That does take away some of the unique game-breaking flavor of the power, but I suppose it makes sense for a hard+ mode . . .

Event Horizon

7th-level Transmutation
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Like with Entropy, I had an idea for a high power, odd, yet fascinating spell that could only be acceptable in higher tiers of play. I was always intrigued with game mechanics—particularly in card games—that have you play a game within the game. And not like a Mario Party minigame, I mean mechanics like "play the same game before you can continue the original game". Like the Enter the Dungeon, Tug of War, or even Karn Liberated cards from Magic the Gathering. It segments the game into something smaller.One of D&D's biggest pillars is combat. A majority of mechanics and rules revolve around it. So if we're to segment D&D into a smaller subgame, how does that work? Well, in combat, we can say you have to play a round within a round.That's what Event Horizon is; in my opinion, a much more interesting Time Stop. You literally cause spacetime to shatter and force time to reorient itself. By that, of course, I mean you conjure a 15-ft. radius sphere and cause everyone within to play a subround of combat. It can be used to isolate enemies from their friends and gang up on them, as an opportunity to give your whole party another round to activate buffs or heal up, or to cinch a critical moment in combat with the battle's most important fighters. There's a lot of possibilities, several I can't even begin to imagine.Just like how I can't even begin to imagine how much this breaks gameplay. It certainly slows down a combat, especially at tiers 3+, but this Duel Dome™ enables a vast variety of intriguing synergies when you're able to contain exactly who you want to isolate. You're able to Ready actions (you regain reactions too!), recuperate effectively, and strictly control the flow of engagement. Unlike Entropy where you're punished and limited for casting two Fireballs in the same turn, with Event Horizon you're able to exploit the distinct split in initiative—assuming you roll well, that is. Event Horizon proffers many tactical uses, even in non-ideal situations. Because a creature forfeits their special turn if they're moved outside the dome, one PC could use their turn to Shove or Thunderwave them away.To remotely balance this spell, I gave it a costly, consumed component of a 500g onyx touched by the light of a collapsed star. No idea where folks would find something like that, but good luck!