Baneful Sun and Shadow

Cost: 22m
Target: One creature

A necromancer can taint a soul so it shrivels in the light of Creation. In the sunlit realm, the victim feels weak and vaguely ill, suffering a -1 internal penalty to all actions. If he spends too much time outside the Underworld or a shadowland, he slowly withers and dies—and if the spell kills him, he rises as a ghost. For each continuous month spent in Creation, the target suffers one unsoakable level of aggravated damage that neither time nor magic can heal in Creation. Returning to the Underworld allows the damage to heal naturally.

Cast upon a heroic character, the players of both the necromancer and the character make a resisted Essence roll. If the necromancer triumphs, the target is cursed until countermagic or the necromancer's whim ends the spell. Baneful Sun and Shadow can apply the same unhealthy effects with respect to the Underworld, but one necromancer cannot place both versions of the spell on the same target. The mere attempt ends the previous casting. Gentle Call of Lethe protects against the curse.

In the Old Realm's decadence, sorcerer-kings used this spell to banish unloved subjects to the Underworld. Today, the Deathlords use it to force ghosts away from their worldly Fetters and passions or to curse them into Creation, where they cannot regain Essence.