Swarm of Chepera

General description: The caster conjures into existence a supernatural swarm of ravenous Karnachian (scarab) beetles.  The spell has two forms.  The first form is an area effect, the second is a specific target.  The form used in casting must be declared during initiative and cannot be changed once declared.   A Karnachian beetle attacks its prey by biting on with two powerful mandibles and then excreting a pugent and powerful acid in the bite area.  The beetle then uses it's probiscus like mouth part to rapidly lap-up dissolved tissue.  Understandably, this is excruciating, and the typical beetle will affect a 1"x1" chunk of flesh with it's attack.

The first form: This is a 40' diameter sphere area effect.  Each creature withing 20' of the center point chosen by the caster must make a dexterity saving throw or take 8d6 acid/bite damage.  A successful save halves this damage.  If a creature is immune to acid, they will take half damage (only the bites will affect them) and one quarter damage on a successful save.  For purposes of creature immute to normal weapons, this should still be considered a "magical" attack.

The second form: This is a horrifying curse targeting one specific individual or target creature.  The beetles erupt from the ground underneath and around the target in a 5' area and voraciously attempt to burrow into the victim.  For the next three rounds, the cosen target must make a dexterity save or take 8d6, 4d6, and 2d6 respectively.  Additionally, each round, if the target fails their dexterity saving throw, the beetles attempt a burrow attack.  The first round, roll to-hit four times - the victims AC (including dexterity) is used normally, and these are 1 HD beetles and have no "bonuses" to hit.  The second round, roll two attacks if the target fails their DEX save.  The third round, roll only one attack roll on a failed save.  On every successful hit, the victim takes an additional 1d4 points of additional damage at the end of each round, and will continue to take 1d4 per successful burrowing beetle each round.  The beetles will continue to do 1d4 points of damage at the end of each round until they are removed.

To remove a burrowing beetle, the victim needs to take a round to either dig out the burrowing beele with a reasonable weapon (dagger, short sword, edged weapon ) or use touch-based magic attacks (shocking grasp, cause wounds, etc) to kill the beetles burrowing inside of them.  It's at the DM's discretion how much damage should be taken from these measures.  A recommendation is 1-2 points when cutting out a burrowing beetle and 1/2 damage for spell effects. 

Second form example encounter: The barbarian half-giant Azariah is "cursed" with this spell.  The first round, he successfully saves and takes 8d6/2 damage.  Because he saved successfully, none of the beetles make a burrowing attack.  The second round, the swarm of vile beetles chase him down and he panics, failing his saving throw.  He takes 4d6 in damage and four beetles get to make an attack roll to see if they burrow into his flesh successfully.  The beetles miss three times as his AC of 18 is relatively high.  However, one of them manages to hit, and he takes and additional 1d4 that round as the beetle burrows into his inner thigh.  The last round, Azariah fails his saving throw and takes 2d6 damage and another two beetles attempt to burrow into him.  He takes another 1d4 from the beetle that's burrowing into his leg, making its way to his abdomen.  One of the last two beetles manages to hit, and he takes another 1d4 points as this one digs into his back.  Mairee, the party cleric, casts "cause light wounds" on "the lump moving down his back" doing 1d8+8 (8th level cleric) doing 12 points to the beetle killing it.  (The beetles have 3hp each) killing it, and because it is a specific touch spell, the DM rules Azariah is undamaged.  Azariah opts to dig the one out of his thigh, taking 1-2 points of damage in the process.

The party Bard suggested to use shocking grasp (of which Azariah vehemently rejected.)  If the "Shocking Grasp" spell had been used, the DM could rule that the damage from the spell would be "shared" by the beetles.  The bard is 8th level, so "Shocking Grasp" would do 2d8, which would in all likelyhood kill both beetles....but also do direct damage to the barbarian.  If this spell does enough damage to kill the target, the beetles were able to burrow deep enough to destroy critical organs (lungs, heart, brain) and/or much of the victims flesh is outright devoured, leaving clean bones behind. 

Magara's Notes:  This spell is only known by the native magic-users who make their home in the Gray Sands of Karnach.  Outsiders called these peoples "The Charred" but they call themselves ""Meh'Ique." (May-heek)  These are an extremely secretive and violently territorial collective of clans with very little communication with any other civilizations - by choice.  Their understanding of magic is completely alien, and they do not use "spell books" or "scrolls" as most mages would understand it.  Instead, Meh'ique wizards carve minute and intricate patterns on special "blackrock" staves.  These staves are hewn from jet-black towering shards of some unknown and incredibly dense rock which jut out from the ground like massive claws. These blackrock shards are considered sacred places and their locations are a strictly kept secret even amongst the Meh'Ique themselves.  Every spell a "Gray" wizard knows is recorded on a carefully carved ring with set of rows on their blackstone staff.   It perhaps would be possible using powerful "comprehend languages" and much study, to transcribe spells like these from such a staff to a "normal" spellbook or scroll.  Such matters are for another sage to discern....