Hideous Confusion of Tongues

Cost: 35m
Target: Area and infected creatures

The sorcerer makes the Sign of the Shattered Tower into the spell's Essence. The resulting burst of turquoise light carries a linguistic curse. Everyone who was within 100 yards of the sorcerer speaks gibberish from then on, though they are not aware of this fact. Once an affected creature attempts to communicate with someone else, that character's player may roll (Perception + Awareness), difficulty 3, once per minute of interaction, for the character to realize he's speaking nonsense. A (Perception + Occult) roll may also be made at the time of casting to understand what the spell did, without needing to speak. The curse lasts (caster's Essence x 2) hours, and it affects only a victim's ability to communicate. Charm use and spell casting are not affected, unless they rely on communication.

Moreover, this curse is contagious. People who hear the victims' gibberish are themselves affected by it, though they resist infection with a successful (Stamina + Linguistics) roll, with a difficulty equal to the sorcerer's Essence. The curse can even re-infect a victim after its first effects have worn off. Like a person directly cursed by the spell, infected victims may realize how the Hideous Confusion of Tongues has passed to them.

Sapphire Countermagic can remove the curse from an individual, but the only time it can affect the spell as a whole is when the curse is being cast. Victims cured by Sapphire Countermagic become immune to subsequent re-infection from that casting's effect. Hideous Confusion of Tongues also does not affect the caster or any creature with an Essence greater than the caster's own.