Selkie Spells and Warlock Options

Four selkie spells and some warlock options (a pact and six invocations) that I've been working on. The spells and most of the invocations are techniques selkies developed, often to solve various practical problems, but are not necessarily selkie-only. The Pact of the Skin and the two invocations which have it as a prerequisite do require the warlock to either be a selkie, or possess the sealskin of one. See the Pact of the Skin below for details.

Spells

Give these to any class you want. None of them are combat spells, and all of them are well within the “balance” guidelines for what those classes should be able to do.

Crown of Perfect Recall

2nd-level transmutation

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 day

You destroy a single written work, converting the text into a halo of glowing blue words orbiting your head. You have disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks while the halo is in effect.

This spell can be used on spellbooks and scrolls. At the referee's discretion, there is a chance of mishap.

By taking 10 minutes, you can regurgitate the words onto blank material, after which the spell ends. If there is insufficient material, roll on the following table to determine what happens.

If the spell ends or is dispelled before any regurgitation, the words are lost forever.

1d6	Consequence
1	Text squished, requires a microscope to read.
2	Text cuts off once material runs out, remainder is lost forever.
3	Text overflows onto the closest blank materials.
4	Text permanently etches itself onto your skin.
5	Target material somehow contains all the text without changing size, by some non-euclidean packing of its surface area.
6	Text rejects the target material and spills onto the ground as a lego-like mess of tiny glowing words. They gain sapience and start a society. Their society is structured along linguistic principles, and they wield punctuation marks as tiny tools and weapons. They hate you for dispossessing them of their home.

Knitted Servant

2nd-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (yarn and combustible salts worth 50 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Permanent

You create a knitted servant. At a certain time each day, chosen when you cast the spell, the servant will animate and perform a programmed task. This can be any simple task that a human servant could do, such as fetching objects that match a given description, cleaning, mending, folding clothes, lighting fires, serving food, and pouring wine.

The servant cannot be given additional orders unless it is reprogrammed. Reprogramming a servant requires unraveling it and recasting the spell, though this doesn't require the expenditure of additional material components.

The servant has AC 10, 1 hit point, and a Strength of 2, and it can't attack. If it drops to 0 hit points, the spell ends.

If tasks cause two or more knitted servants to come within 10 ft of each other, their magic weaves tangle and corrupt each other’s programs. Roll on the table below to determine the form this corruption takes.

1d6	Consequence
1	Complete unraveling, both servants cease to function.
2	Servants swap nouns, e.g. a pair of servants programmed to "sweep the floor" and "fetch firewood" become "sweep firewood" and "fetch the floor"
3	One servant (chosen randomly) overwrites the others' programming with its own.
4	Time derailment. One servant (chosen randomly) now performs its task seven times a day, the other only once a week.
5	Both servants revert to an inert state, listening for new orders. They will interpret and follow, literally, the first imperative statement they overhear from any creature
6	Servants fall in a mechanistic simulation of love and elope. They travel 6 miles each day in a random direction, but continue performing their programmed tasks each day at the appropriate time, if possible.

Magewind

2nd-level evocation (ritual)

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self (100 ft sphere)
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 hour

You change the current wind speed and direction. You can change wind speed one stage up or down on the following scale. The effect persists in a 100 ft radius sphere around you.

The spell ends prematurely if you no longer have a clear path to the sky. After the spell ends, the wind returns to normal.

Stage	Wind Speed
1	Calm
2	Moderate
3	Strong
4	Gale
5	Storm

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd or higher level, the radius affected increases by 100ft for each slot level above 2nd.

For every two slot levels above 2nd, you can change the wind speed by an additional stage.

For example, if you cast this spell with a 6th level slot and the weather is currently calm, a radius of 500 ft is affected, and you can change the wind speed to anywhere from calm to a gale, as well as changing its direction.

Seafoam Clothes

1st-level transmutation (ritual)

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self (100 ft sphere)
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 hour

You fashion seawater into clothing on your body, of any appearance you wish. If iron (but not steel) touches the clothing, make a concentration saving throw (DC 15) or the clothing reverts to seawater.

Selkie Warlocks

The unbreakable bond between a selkie and their sealskin holds a mysterious power. Though most selkies are loath to tamper with such an integral part of their identity, those looking for quick power will find many otherworldly patrons eager to dig their claws in, all in the name of collaboration, of course.

Pact of the Skin

Your patron has taught you to exploit the magical bond between you and your sealskin. Choose a number of warlock spells you know equal to your proficiency bonus. You can cast those spells while in seal form.

Whenever your proficiency bonus increases, you add another spell to the list. Whenever you gain a warlock level, you can choose one spell on this list and replace it with another warlock spell you know.

This pact is exclusive to selkies. However, a warlock who acquires a selkie’s pelt can learn invocations that have this pact as a prerequisite. In this case, the invocations only function while the warlock has the sealskin on their person. The selkie must be alive, but does not have to be a warlock themselves.

Even after death, the pelts of selkie warlocks with this pact carry traces of the magic the warlock knows. These spells may be successfully discerned (and transcribed into a spellbook, if wizard) with an Intelligence (Arcana) check with a DC equal to the warlock's spell save DC.

Warlock Invocations

Fey crossing

You can expend a spell slot to sense the direction towards the nearest gateway to the realm of Faerie. An active fey crossing is detectable from 12 miles away, while a dormant one is detectable from 6 miles away.

Additionally, you have a strong intuitive sense of the means by which one can open such a crossing. When you touch a fey crossing, you automatically receive a clue from the referee without the need for an ability check. This can take the form of a short phrase, cryptic rhyme, or riddle.

Fog Sight

You can see through fog (including clouds, haze, or steam) unimpeded to a distance of 120 ft. and through heavy fog beyond that distance as though it were only light fog.

At the referee's discretion, this also applies to clouds of ice (such as cirrus clouds), of other chemicals such as those exuded by certain trees, or to dust clouds.

Lore of Shifting

Prerequisites: 5th level, Pact of the Skin

You learn the alter self spell. It counts as a warlock spell for you, but does not count against the number of warlock spells you know.

When you cast alter self, its range is Touch instead of Self. Regardless of target, you choose the form taken, and can change it with an action, but an unwilling creature can resist the spell with a Wisdom saving throw.

Additionally, when you cast alter self, it has the following form option and “At Higher Levels” text:

Flight Adaptation. The creature’s weight halves, and its arms change into wings. They can be the wings of a bird, bat, or any other animal. The creature gains a fly speed equal to its walking speed, but cannot hold or wear items on its wings (rings, gloves, etc. are forced off by the transformation), nor can it use them to perform somatic components of spells.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each slot level above 2nd. The same form must be chosen for each target, and when you use your action to change the chosen form, all affected targets change form together.

Skin Puppet

Prerequisites: 5th level, Pact of the Skin

You learn the animate dead spell. It counts as a warlock spell for you, but does not count against the number of warlock spells you know.

When you cast animate dead, you can target an unattended skin or hide. This includes suits of leather, studded leather, or hide armor. It also includes a selkie’s sealskin, even if that selkie is still alive.

Some special cases follow:

• If you are a selkie and animate your own sealskin, you can use your action to dismiss the spell.
• Animated hides use the stats for animated objects (reproduced below), except they are undead, and can squeeze through spaces two size categories smaller than them.
• Animating skin that is still attached to a corpse merely produces a zombie.

Animated Object Statistics

Size	HP	AC	Str	Dex	Attack
Tiny	20	18	4	18	+8 to hit, 1d4 + 4 damage
Small	25	16	6	14	+6 to hit, 1d8 + 2 damage
Medium	40	13	10	12	+5 to hit, 2d6 + 1 damage
Large	50	10	14	10	+6 to hit, 2d10 + 2 damage
Huge	80	10	18	8	+8 to hit, 2d12 + 4 damage

Weather Augur

You learn the augury spell. It counts as a warlock spell for you, but does not count against the number of warlock spells you know.

If you are outdoors and clouds are visible, you can cast augury without the normal material components.

Weatherworker

You learn the druidcraft cantrip.

You add the following spells to your warlock class spell list, though not to your spells known; you must still select them normally:

1st: create or destroy water, fog cloud
2nd: magewind¹, gust of wind
3rd: call lightning, sleet storm
4th: control water, ice storm
5th: commune with nature, conjure elemental²
8th: control weather
9th: storm of vengeance
¹ new spell, see above
² air or water elemental only.

Eight Magic Items for Selkies

I'm a bit of a selkie tragic, it's true. I have a lot of stuff written for them -- see the selkie tag, but it's a matter of getting it into a form that's presentable, intelligible, and ultimately, gameable. That's going to take a while. For now, here's some magic items a selkie might make or possess.

Some of these are items created to solve problems selkies have, such as securing their sealskin from theft, or having a weapon once one resumes human form. Others are included for the aesthetic.

If you like these, check out my dungeon. It has four more magic items, plus a few thousand words of other weird stuff for your players to find. Or you could buy me a ko-fi?

Bad Penny

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

This silver piece is obviously clipped and the lustre looks off, like the metal's been debased.

There is a 2-in-6 chance an NPC will refuse it unless it’s hidden in a large transaction.

The penny bears a subtle charm of teleportation. Regardless of whether it's discarded, given away, or used in payment, it will always return to your person after a certain amount of time. Roll a d4 to determine units of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days). The penny takes 1d6 × that time unit to return to you.

Cobble of Conversion

Wondrous Item, Rare

This flat beach cobble has a hole in it that looks naturally worn. It is astonishingly heavy.

Pouring seawater through the hole turns it to freshwater, and vice versa. The rock stores extracted salt within its mineral matrix, and will stop converting freshwater if it runs out. When found, it holds d100 pounds of salt. Seawater has roughly 3 pounds of salt per 10 gallons.

If the stored salt exceeds 255 pounds, the rock explodes in a spray of rock shards and salt. The explosion deals 10d6 piercing damage to all creatures in a 30-foot-radius sphere. A creature takes half damage if they succeed on a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw.

Driftwood Club

Weapon (club or staff), Uncommon (requires attunement)

This looks like a piece of driftwood.

You use a d8 damage die when attacking with this weapon.

You can will it to follow you when you swim. It does so in a way that appears natural, following water currents where possible. When you leave the water it will wash up some time later and distance away, though always within 100 ft and 10 minutes.

An observer can tell the movement is unnatural with an Intelligence (Investigation) check made with disadvantage, versus your spell save DC, or DC 10 if you are not a spellcaster.

Glamered Lockbox

Wondrous Item, Rare

A mossy boulder. You can hear a faint echo of childish laughter

This weatherproof lockbox requires no key, it instead has a combination lock of great cunning (DC 20 to pick or bypass).

It is glamered to look like a rock, like many such fairy charms this can be dispelled with a channel divinity attempt in addition to the usual dispel magic.

Sand Dollar Skeleton

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

A five-lobed hand-sized disc of chalk, bleached white.

This sea urchin skeleton, or test, can conjure a huge spectral sand dollar once per lunar month. This functions as the floating disc spell, except you can direct the disc to move anywhere within range (i.e. it doesn't have to follow you). The conjured sand dollar lasts until the next sunrise.

If you snap the test in half, you instead conjure twelve spectral sand dollars.

Seaglass Ring

Wondrous Item, Rare

A chunky ring of green, pitted seaglass. If immersed in water, its colour drains away.

The wearer of this ring is invisible while fully underwater. However, their body and any worn or held items become as fragile as glass.

• All worn armour is ignored, and their AC becomes 10 + their Dex modifier.
• Spells such as shatter affect them accordingly.
• If they suffer physical chips and breaks, these remain when the ring is removed.
• If reduced to 0 hp, they shatter and die without making death saving throws.

Secret Seashell

Wondrous Item, Uncommon

A spiraling seashell, pearlescent lavender, that tapers to an imperceptibly thin point.

If the owner of this seashell brings it to a place on the ocean or shore, they can perform a 10 minute ritual where they bind the seashell to that location.

After that, as long as they’re on the same plane, they can listen to the seashell’s hole and hear the ambient noise at that location. Performing the ritual again at a different location causes the shell to forget its original binding.

This is divination magic that can be blocked by measures such as nondetection or private sanctum.

Starskin Weapon

Weapon or Wondrous Item (any metal), Rare

This velvet-black weapon is decorated with dim motes of light reminiscent of stars. As you shift it, the motes slide across its surface.

Pilgrims from the firmament once visited our world, offering exotic materials harvested from their celestial home for the right to visit sites they considered sacred.

These weapons are a recent invention, born of experimentation with the now-dwindling, much-coveted supply of firmament. Dissolving firmament in aqua regia, then bonding it to a steel surface, produces a material which always shows an accurate starry sky among other useful properties. Every navigator who has resorted to dead reckoning on an overcast open sea dreams of finding one of these rumoured marvels.

While any steel object can be treated this way, daggers and shortswords are most common.

A starskin weapon has the following properties:

• It will not rust.
• It is a magic weapon that deals radiant damage instead of its normal damage type.
• It always show the stars as though its surface was a mirror that only reflects their light, and did so regardless of intervening obstacles. This allows navigation by the stars, but any ability checks to do so are made at disadvantage, owing to the limited field of view.
• The stars illuminate with dim light out to 5 ft, but are of course visible from much further away.

Sea Cave of the Selkie

I have a dungeon adventure for sale at itch.io, Sea Cave of the Selkie. I'm quite proud of it, and hope you check it out.

The module has ten keyed rooms, three NPC/monster descriptions, four magic items, and one riddle. It is ~4,500 words, though I have done my best to keep the writing terse, evocative, and in service of play at all times.

Suggested price is $3, with a minimum of $1 if you're strapped for cash (aren't we all).

If you review modules, particularly those of an OSR nature, hit me up on twitter for a free download key (it doesn't require an itch account). I don't care how small your blog/channel/podcast is -- obviously a big audience is great for exposure and hopefully sales, but I also want feedback to continue learning and growing as an RPG writer.

Cartography is by Pat Eyler -- @mountain_foot, patreon
Internal illustration is by Anna Aphelion -- portfolio

The wordcount is also a little deceptive -- to make the module accessible for referees who use a screenreader, all the room keys describe their interconnectivity in a way that that doesn't require reference to a map.

Examples

(note the hyperlinks don't go anywhere, they do in the actual dungeon!)

3. Lichen Garden

Stone-eating lichen in a variety of colours are growing in rectilinear plots. Some stones are freshly scraped clean.

• Short northern passage opens into 6. Painting Room, the bright light from beyond silhouettes that room's square form.
• Eastern passage leads to fork: east leads to 4. Salt Pans, south leads to 2. Empty Cavern.

Secrets: The witch uses most of the lichen as pigments and is unaware of their other effects, except the one she uses to keep her kidnapped townsfolk comatose. Characters identify one lichen on the table below for each of the following categories they fall under.

• Dwarves and other ground-dwellers
• Wilderness-oriented class or background
• Trained herbalist or alchemist

Any character identifying a lichen also misidentifies a lichen — for these, roll once for description and once for effect.

Though I have also put some thought into usability for sighted referees. Here is the dungeon map, hover the cursor over room keys to get cursory info on each dungeon room.

A referee-facing print version of this map is forthcoming. It needs more work to lay out information in a way that's readable.

S

S

1. Sea Cave
Entrance 2. Empty
Cavern 3. Lichen
Garden 4. Salt
Pans 5. Bat
Passages 6. Painting
Room 7. Glow-Worm
Farm 8. Witch's
Sanctum 9. Cassowary
Ossuary 10. Sinkhole
to Surface

Why Is This HTML and not PDF?

Mostly because my fumbling attempts at screenreader accessibility have been in HTML so far.

However, if you excuse me for tilting at windmills, I think PDF's monopoly as the format for digitally distributed rulesets and adventures is undeserved. I'm still a beginner at web design (as you can tell from earlier fumblings on this blog), and this adventure doesn't use any javascript.

But imagine:

• a map you can drag tokens around upon without needing to upload it to some (powerful, but slow) site like Roll20
• a random encounter table (particularly a complex or nested one) you can just click a button for.
• a dropdown ruleset selection, that converts all ability/skill check names & DCs, inline stats for monsters, the destination of all external links to spells & monsters to the correct online SRD, etc.

And all of this within the webpage, no talking to some external server needed. The OSR has been on fire with creating hyperfunctional print layouts, but not as much with screen layouts. I think it's time to change that.

Anyway, that's enough for now. If you run this adventure, tell me about it! Especially if a character eats 10 pounds of magic guano, or gets bestowed with the jumbo shrimp oxymoronic boon.

Twenty Humble Rewards for Kind Adventurers

These are written for a rugged coastal/archipelago setting.

1. locket from a drowned sailor, oil painting of her lover’s eye on a thumbnail-sized piece of ivory, lock of his hair concealed within.
2. nålbound woolen jumper with embroidered narwhals. soft and not itchy in the slightest.
3. mussel shell engraved with overlapping circles and strung on a leather cord. A talisman that keeps your spine limber, able to hold weird poses for hours.
4. small leather knife roll holding a pair of brass knives for oyster & clam shucking. Fit perfectly in the hand.
5. textile cone shell, concealed poison dart within.
6. accurate maps, indicate 1d3 sunken wrecks still worth looting.
7. basket of pigface fruit, deep red succulent flesh, salty-sweet.
8. painted pebble, floats in water despite its weight, reputed to ward off water-borne diseases.
9. earthenware pot of salted, fermented fish. Putrid to those not used to it.
10. vial of anti-blood, covers up the smell of blood in air or water, repels sharks and possibly other predators.
11. vase that preserves cut flowers indefinitely as long as the water is changed.
12. hole-punched tin lantern shaped like an anglerfish.
13. jar of silt from the most fertile floodplain in the known world. Spread over a hectare (~2.5 acres) will double crop yield indefinitely.
14. dried seaweed, triples dive-time when consumed.
15. reed panflute shaped like a dorsal fin, perfectly tuned, timbre carries feeling of low menace.
16. wax-paper packet of peppercorns.
17. ebony comb, cool in the hand, never snags or breaks a tooth.
18. pocket hymnbook, well-worn, each melody annotated with improvements.
19. mother of pearl snuffbox, filled with a mixture of powdered tobacco and willow bark, temporarily suppresses exhaustion.
20. shepherd’s crook, linen strip tied to it always flutters in direction of lost flock. Also works on ranger’s companions and similar bonded animals.

Selkies for 5e

Artist: Annachronism (follow tumblr link for high-res version)

Necessary Prelude About Sexual Violence

I've seen other attempts at a selkie player race, but they tend to avoid the folklore trope of humans coercing them into relationships by stealing their pelts.

To be absolutely clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with just wanting to play a humanoid who can shapechange into a seal. Especially in a game where druids can do so without any strings attached. Just as there's nothing wrong with wanting to play in a setting where LGBT characters are fully accepted by society, sexism only exists in evil antagonist societies if at all, and all that Blue Rose kind of stuff.

But it's not what I want. Folklore, spec-fic and tabletop gaming provide valuable spaces for metaphorically exploring different experiences. Just as Eberron changelings are fantastic for interrogating what gender might mean for a creature whose sexual characteristics are mutable at will, just as tieflings are very popular right now for exploring what it's like to be marginalised on appearance alone, I think selkies who have to treat literally every human as a potential threat to their liberty and autonomy can be really interesting.

But obviously, GMs and players should establish common boundaries on this. A non-exhaustive list of questions:

1. Should the sealskin be a thing?
2. Should there be an actual in-game possibility of NPCs stealing your pelt? Or should you just agree to roleplay as though that risk exists?
3. Is PvP pelt-stealing OK?
4. If a pelt is stolen, should any consequences be kept "fade to black", be confined to exploiting the PC for menial/slave labour of a non-sexual nature, or be otherwise "PG-rated"?

(my personal answers as either player or GM are "yes, yes, no, fade-to-black")

And if you want to use this homebrew in your game but omit the Sealskin trait, I'll still be flattered.

Likewise, if you use the Sealskin guidelines for swan maidens or another similar myth, let me know how it goes.

(5e mechanics and notes about a possible selkie culture after the cut)