Bootleg Spells

Wizard City has a spell patent system. Here are the quick rules:

• Any spell that incorporates a Name in your rule set is patented. (e.g. Gary’s Gigantic Goat)
• If there are no named spells in your rule set, select a few to have names. (Table to be made soon)
• One must either purchase rights to cast patented spells, or use them illegally. The bureaucracy that keeps track of who bought what is notoriously inept.
• The right to cast any particular spell is about as much as thrice the cost to copy it into one’s spellbook. These rights typically last for a year.
• Illegally using a patented spell summons the Patent Police. They arrive in force to the scene in 4d4 Rounds after cast. Generally speaking they are excessively destructive, and have a tendency to shoot first then ask questions. This should quickly end whatever conflict is happening.
• Bootleg Spells are a thing. They are potentially dangerous but don’t summon the Patent Police.
• Some Bootleg Spells are more fun than the original.

Giles Woodward made this.

Bootleg Spells

Original	Spell Name	What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Magic Missile	Marvin’s Moderately Collateral Projectiles	Every third missile veers off into semi-random target. Makes loud fireworks noises. Veering missiles prioritize innocent bystanders.
Cure Wounds	Dr. Flasnaw’s Fantastic Medicinal Cure-All!	1 in 6 chance of: 1) Temporary blindness. 2) Grow identical tumor twin-head out of neck. 3) Head turning 180-degrees. 4) Passing a snake. 5) Skin turning neon yellow 6) Kidney Failure
Prestidigitation	Mordimort’s Magical Magnificience	50% chance that hands catch on fire. Actual fire, not illusory.
Color Spray	Ginny’s Glitterbomb	Doesn’t spray color, just explodes a metric ton of glitter at targets. Same spell effect. Not even magical dry cleaning can remove all of the glitter.
Comprehend Languages	Percival’s Personal Polyglot	Summons magical kindergartener to translate for you. They understand what’s being said but just don’t have a very sophisticated vocabulary yet.
Hideous Laughter	Harry’s Horrible Har-de-har	Everyone affected, in addition to laughing uncontrollably, also begins vomiting and shitting their pants uncontrollably. Also affects caster.
Knock	Martha’s Master Key	Loudly explodes thing open, 50% chance of damaging caster.
Suggestion	Roald’s Reverse Psychology	60% chance that the target will do the exact opposite of what you told them to.
Web	Weber’s Web	Same spell, but it smells… musky. Gross.
Fireball	Timur’s Time Bomb	Fireball detonates 1d4 rounds after cast, add 5ft to radius for every round delayed. This roll is made secretly by GM.
Phantom Steed	Nani’s Noble Steed	Takes the form of an old donkey, speed is 20ft slower than normal steed.
Invisibility	Gyges’s Great Devisualization	1 in 3 chance that the caster is not actually invisible, but cannot be convinced that they aren’t.
Gentle Repose	Pat’s Preservation	It just dumps about 10 gallons of formalin on the body. Does nothing beyond that.
Magic Mouth	Sally’s Sassy Mouth	Mouth only delivers message once, then it will loudly complain about everything and anything, particularly the caster.
Dimension Door	Reginald’s Rematerialization	Creates exact copy of persons at target location, murders originals. 50% chance that original will have incompletely disintegrated, and will emerge along with copy, painfully burning and screaming as they turn to ash before your eyes.
Geas	Gunny’s “Get Me A Beer”	1 in 4 chance that the target, instead of intended compulsion, goes to get the caster a beer.
Magnificent Mansion	Cob’s Crackhouse	Summons extradimensional crackhouse for you and your friends to romp around in! Even comes with its own crackheads, oh boy!
Clone	Raggathar’s Replication	The Clone must grow as a tumorous conjoined twin during the gestation process. Eventually separates but must be connected by umbilical cord until used. Also the Clone probably wants to kill you and absorb your nutrients.
Wish	Wilhelm’s Wish	Same as original, except that the only Wish you can wish for is to be erotically pummeled by several dominatrixes dressed as clowns.

Original	Spell Name	What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Finger of Death	Stubb’s Stink Eye	Summons grisly, dirty old man to give target the Stink Eye of Death. 1 in 6 cumulative chance he’ll wheel around and give it to the caster instead.
Reverse Gravity	Velma’s Variable Vector	No control over the direction of the gravity shift. Completely random. Direction changes once during spell’s duration.
Magic Jar	Mogrom’s Mason Jar	Causes target to shrink down and be trapped inside a mason jar. They do not need sustenance. They are helpless and cannot cast magic. They may, however, make loud commentary that can be heard well outside the jar.
True Seeing	Neville’s Near-Hit	Incapable of visualizing clothes, except underwear.
Stone to Flesh	Stephanie’s Stone to Bleh	Oh, it’ll unpetrify someone, but it also turns them into a (figurative) bag of goo. Target becomes lethargic, depressed, and won’t want to be moved around at all.
Circle of Death	Cobok’s Circle of Slow And Painful Death	Takes a rather long time with killing someone. Instead of insta-death, it causes a very slow, painful, drawn-out death. Requires 1d10 minutes to kill someone with this spell, during which they’ll be impatiently dying but totally in control of their faculties. Requires target to remain in circle the entire duration.
Jump	Pearson’s Pole Vault	Summons magical spring-pole to vault upon. 10% chance of hilariously listing to the left or right. 5% chance of catapulting backwards.
Legend Lore	Bueller’s Bargain Bin Book	Summons an outdated school textbook from which you can learn about the chosen subject. 60% chance of being oversimplified, historically un-factual, and politically incorrect.
Dream	Desmond’s Dream… With a Guy Named Larry In It.	Largely works as intended, although every instance will produce an appearance of Larry in the dream. Larry is just your average office worker, who loudly eats potato chips in his striped shirt and khakis while watching the dream with interest. He insists upon being ignored and to “go on and continue the show”.
Cone of Cold	Connie’s Cone of Cold	Due to translation error, has a 20% chance of giving all in target area a minor cold instead of freezing them to death.
Faithful Hound	Voltairn’s Very Good Boy	Rather than summoning an invisible hunter-killer phantom hound, it just summons a normal domesticated phantom dog. You can pet it, it borks at things, and loves belly rubs. Doubtful how great it’ll be for biting stuff, though.
Private Sanctum	Mark’s Man-Box	It’s private, for sure! It just smells like a damn men’s locker room in there. There are loads of crushed beer cans around, and anyone entering must save to avoid gagging.
Contact Other Plane	Grandma Phoebe’s Phone The Pharmacist	Summons ancient rotary phone for which you can attempt to call your destination, inevitably fail, then call the operator’s number, have to talk to the chatty operator for 10 minutes, who will finally, maybe, connect you to the wrong number.
Hallucinatory Terrain	Feeb’s Far-Out Experience	Doesn’t craft illusion so much as get everyone involved really really high, who then actually hallucinate alien landscapes
Stone Shape	Dick’s Dimorphic Stone Shape	Perfectly functional, though a bit awkward, as every stone you shape must be composed of stone-dicks. Options include many many small dicks, plenty of slight-larger-than-average dicks, a few really big dicks, or one massive dick.
Polymorph	Cicero’s Chickenmorph	Only functions if the target is being turned into some kind of chicken: small chicken, big chicken, fried chicken, etc.
Haste	Toshley’s Time Dilation	10% chance that caster will freeze time, provoking the Time Police to have to show up and fix everything. Penalties range from “Getting Off Easy” to “Time Jail”.
Detect Thoughts	Kelvin’s Kink Shame	50% chance while using that you’re going to find out a lot more about this person than you wanted, and nothing else.
Feather Fall	Falala’s Feather Bed	Instead summons a bed of feathers to fall upon. Hope you aren’t wearing anything sticky...