Void Cocoon Warrior

Cost: 33+m (committed)
Target: Summoned warstrider

Like [[Rattled Bones of War]], Void Cocoon Warrior creates a warstrider for the character to pilot in battle. The necromancer's words and mudras call a great black nothingness out of the world around her. Blobs of gray-black metal appear about her and lock into place, lifting her into the air until she sits in the cockpit of a 20-foot tall noble warstrider, interfacing with it through tendrils of solidified Void that burrow into her brain and spine. She may choose to sacrifice a lethal health level in the casting, which causes her to cough up impossible volumes of blood into the gray-black Oblivion the spell sheathes around her. The spell-forged metal turns a red-stained black and swells, growing another five feet in height or thickening and becoming more squat—the character makes the warstrider into either a colossus or a royal. The sacrificed health level does not heal until after the spell ends.

The Void Cocoon Warrior appears with a grand daiklave, humming softly as it annihilates the air around it with the power of the Abyss. At the caster's option, she may adorn her construct with Void-crafted artifacts of war. She can summon into existence a black, Oblivion-twisted version of any ranged artifact or Essence weapon that can normally be mounted on warstriders. Doing so increases the spell's cost (and commitment) by the Essence required to attune a mounted version of that weapon.

Finally, the character may add an integrated flight system to the noble or royal warstriders for another eight motes added to the spell's cost and commitment. The warstrider also possesses one of the effects bestowed by Oblivion's Avatar.

After two hours of operation, the Void-born warstrider begins to vibrate dangerously, then rocks the battlefield in a series of Abyssal explosions. Any creatures within 20 yards take twenty levels of lethal damage that cannot be dodged, and anyone between 20 and 50 yards suffers 10 levels of lethal damage. (The caster herself is unharmed.) The necromancer can extend the warstrider's period of operation for another hour by reflexively spending a number of motes equal to half its committed cost. See the appendix of Wonders of the Lost Age for detailed information about warstriders.