Earthwave

A battlefield spell that sends a wave of earth and fire to smash through enemies.

Effect

This spell causes the ground to vibrate and a 10ft high, 200ft wide mound of earth to rise up. The mound turns into a wave of earth that moves forward in a straight line at around 15ft a second. The wave tears up trees, bushes and plants, smashing them to the pieces as the earth rolls over them. Creatures caught in the wave will also be battered by the moving soil, stones, and bits of wood. Those that survive end up buried between 5 and 10ft underground with their only hope being that someone comes to dig them out quickly.

Discovery

This spell began life as a question from an apprentice wizard at the college evocation. During a lecture on battlefield magic the apprentice enquired if it was possible for earth based effects to become battlefield spells, beyond the already well know acid cloud. The lecturer wasn't aware of any spells like but was intigued enough by the idea to start putting some thoughts together.
The testing of some of these thoughts caught the attention of other members of the college, and within a year, half the college seemed to be involved with coming up with and testing ideas. The college leadership was content to allow these experiements as they were considerably safer than some of the experiments in fire, ice, and lightning that had been attempted over the years.
Several approaches were tried from hurling spears of rock to creating giant boulders but these proved inefficient. Some of the spells strayed too close to conjuration, while others like the spears, simply didn't have the range or lethality required from a battlefield spell.

The problem was solved when one of the wizards hit on the idea of combining pure force with power drawn from the plane of earth. Using the material that already made up the ground, reduced the strain on casters and cut the casting time of the spell from an hour to 15 minutes. The force energy could be used to set up vibrations to loosen the ground and direct the wave, while drawing on the plane of earth could add just enough extra material to get things moving.

One of the advantages seems to be the lack of bodies....wait is that an arm sticking out there.

— A wizard viewing the aftereffects of earthwave

Once the basics of the spell had been worked out most of the wizards involved congratulated themselves on a job well done and promptly lost interest. It was left to the warcasters to experiment and learn the concept's limitations. A trip to Siantrin Tower was called for to see what the spell could really do. As usual with such trials the mages of Siantrin were first tasked with facing the spell without any prior knowledge of it's capabilities. The results were spectacular as the spell bypassed many of the common defences against warfare level spells. But the abjurers didn't waste any time dissecting the spell and in later encounters they were able to overcome the spell, providing there was time for sufficient prepartion of the battefield.
The spell was deemed a qualified success, powerful but in limited circumstances. Although it never became as popular as something like firestorm, the spell saw plenty of use against the magic wielding foes of The Alliance.

Related Organizations

• Colleges of Magic

Material Components

Each of the 15 participants in the casting ritual requires an iron rod set with obsidian, onyx and garnet. The rods need to have the ritual's arcane runes carved into them. Each participant also requires a censer made out of claym and painted with runes for the ritual. The censers must be filled with sufficient incense to burn for 15 minutes. The censers are smashed at end of the crescendo that marks the activation of the spell.

Related School

Evocation

Related Element

Earth

Effect Duration

1 minute

Effect Casting Time

15 minutes

Applied Restriction

This spell will only work where the ground is made of soil, dirt, other loose material. It has no effect on liquids and will not work on stone. If the spell effect encounters stone that is at least 4ft across and 3ft high before the spell expires, anything directly behind the stone will not be affected by the spell.

Miscast

One of the advantages of earthwave is that the consequences of a miscast are typically less dire than with the more direct evocation spells. Most miscasts cause an mild tremour or the accidental creation of a hill rather than incinerating allies. That is not to say that things cannot go hideously wrong. It is still possible to send the spell in the wrong direction which can have terrible consequences for allies.