The Empress' New Spellbook
For Glaugust 2026, in response to Phlox's prompt: Spells of the Evil King.
Alright, so first let's imagine an evil King. Actually, I want to do an evil Queen. Fuck it, we’ll do an empress. The prompt here was “spells of the evil King,” and I’m taking that quite literally. This Empress has no complex motivation; she’s just mean. Her spells are mean. I’m picturing an Ojou-Sama type in my head, very haughty, very ostentatious, army of golden soldiers.
We’ll call her Lady Ione.
I’m going to format these spells for Revolver, but the magic system there is fairly similar to the original GLOG, so should be pretty easily convertible.
The Aurum Amulet
A royal Heirloom Ione constantly wears. The amulet makes the user obsessed with amassing wealth, and paranoid that allies will steal their riches. It is a simple golden amulet with a toothy mouth carved into its face.
The Amulet powers all of Ione’s Spells.
Rituals
Ione has fucked up spells that take time and money to cast, and she’s got plenty of both. These provide ways for the empress to mess with the party from a distance without throwing an army at them. These spells have casting times and component requirements.
Bring Me Their Head
Range: Anywhere within Ione's domain
Target: Any creature
Duration: 1 month
Casting Time: 12 hours
Components: A sample of hair, spit or blood from the target, ink.
An arcane script draws itself across the target’s head, displaying the amount of money the crown is offering for the individual’s head. The script glows green in the dark.
Attend Me!
Range: Touch
Target: All Golden Statues in a 30-foot radius
Duration: Perpetual
Casting Time: 6 hours
Components: The Aurum Amulet
The statue becomes a living construct that directly follows orders from its creator.
Large Statue
15 grit, 16 Brawn, 5 Agility, 3 Mind, Smash: 1d10
Medium Statue
10 grit, 12 Brawn, 8 Agility, 3 Mind, Punch: 1d8
Small Statue
5 grit, 6 Brawn, 12 Agility, 3 Mind, Pinch: 1d4
Spells When You Fight Ione
Here are the spells our empress casts when you actually fight her. I’m keeping it to 3; I think when enemies have more than 3 or 4 abilities they start to get a little annoying to run.
I imagine Ione would let her soldiers do most of the fighting, so all her spells are designed to limit, humiliate, or annoy the party instead. I want them to feel a little frustrated fighting her.
Still, when you intentionally make spells annoying, you run the risk of making a really unfun encounter. So I wanted to add a limitation. All of Ione’s combat spells cost her gold to cast. For each spell, she stuffs coins into the Aurum Amulet’s mouth. The Amulet makes a horrible crunching sound as each spell manifests.
Ione typically carries 100 Gold pieces on her person. Depending on where you fight her, she may be able to get more, or you may be able to find her at a time when she isn’t carrying as much.
Chrysopoeia
Range: Nearby
Target: 1 living creature
Duration: 1 minute
Cost: 20 GP
The target’s flesh begins to shift to gold, expanding up from their feet. On each of their turns, they make a Brawn Check. After failing once, their lower body is solid gold, and they cannot move. After failing twice, they become completely coated in gold. They cannot move or act.
Acid or extremely high temperatures can remove the gold coating.
Kneel!
Range: Nearby
Target: 1 living creature
Duration: 1 round per 10 GP spent
Cost: 10 GP+
concentration
The target must make a Mind Check. On a failure, they drop anything they are holding and kneel. While kneeling, they cannot act. This effect persists as long as the caster continues feeding the Amulet gold each round.
Counterspell
Range: Nearby
Target: 1 living creature casting a spell
Duration: instant
Cost: 20 GP per casting die
This spell can be cast outside of the user’s turn. The target’s spell fizzles harmlessly. (The GM should do an ojou-sama laugh when Ione uses this spell, otherwise, don’t bother.)