Gabbling Skull of Volant Doom write by substatique Circle: Labyrinth Cost: 10 + 5 per passenger Description: The Gabbling Skull is conjured from an ordinary human one. The caster touches the skull and invests motes. As she does so, the skull begins to loudly speak words appropriate to the onetime owner of the skull, but with such illucid syntax that little to no meaning can be derived (except by characters with the Whispers background). Each round of mote investment enlarges the skull enough to fit one additional person inside (starting from zero, obviously). A skull big enough for one weighs 200 pounds; add 100 pounds for each additional capacity. This is in addition to the weight of the passengers. The caster can choose to make an overly large skull to give her passengers more room, or even make a giant skull just for herself and install a wet bar... Once everyone is inside, the caster can direct the skull to fly. Crackling with black lightning, it immediately streaks into the air, breaking down any walls in its way. If necessary, the skull will slam repeatedly into a barrier in order to break it down, but the passengers always remain unharmed. While airborne, the skull trails black smoke, visible from the ground as a straight line marking its path. It continues to shout gibberish. The skull destroys nearly anything it lands on, and it blackens the area around its landing site. While it can never fly again, the skull remains, cursing its environs with its empty gaze until otherwise removed. System: Five additional motes can be invested into the skull each round immediately after casting. This mote investiture cannot be delayed. For each 5 motes beyond the base cost of 10 motes, the skull grows large enough to fit an additional person snugly inside. The maximum number of passengers is twice the caster's Essence. Once the skull is fully grown, it will remain active for the caster's Essence in hours, waiting for the command to fly. Likewise, the skull can remain airborne for the caster's Essence in hours. The skull flies at 100km/h (60m/h). It will gladly fly through anything that restrains it, as it has a soak of 20 B/L and 20 health levels. Its coat of black lightning deals twice the caster's Essence in dice of damage to anyone touching the outside of the flying skull. To whatever it lands on, the skull deals twice the caster's Essence in damage dice, plus 2 dice per 5 motes invested in the spell (so a one-man skull would do six additional dice). In addition, the black smoke emitted by the skull blinds and chokes anyone in the immediate area of the landing. The spot where the skull lands becomes tainted--it is blackened and rendered lifeless. As long as the skull remains, nothing can live within a radius of one yard per mote spent on the spell in total. The caster can choose to throw a gabbling skull without enlarging it at all. In this case, it deals (Essence x 2) + 4 damage dice, as per the above calculation. A thrown skull is dodged normally, while a giant flying skull can be avoided without a roll unless the target is somehow unable to react. A caster cannot throw an enlarged skull. You may prefer this as a Celestial level Sorcery spell. In that case, the gibbering of Oblivion is easily replaced with something Infernal.