Once this spell is successfuly cast, you create a wall of floating letters that appears at a point of your choice within the range of one hundred and twenty feet. The wall appears in any orientation you choose: in can be horizontal like a plate, vertical like a real wall, or at an angle like a ramp of any slope; it can be free floating, resting on a solid surface, or intersecting a solid surface. The main width and hieght of the wall cannot be larger than ten feet, and the specific area of the wall can be in any form you choose. All parts of the wall must be connected together. For instance, the wall cannot be a splatter of disconnected polka-dots, or long vertical bars, without rods at least one inch thick connecting them. Using this, you could wrap your wall around a column to create a platform, but you could not create two walls on opposite sides of a solid obstruction that prevents the two parts from touching.
If the wall, when cast, cuts vertically through a creature's space, the creature is pushed to either side of the wall (your choice of which side) with no ill effect. Since you can shape the wall how you choose, you can cut an outline, silhouette, or simmilar hole in the wall, possibly capturing the creature. If the hole is not big enough for the creature, they are again, pushed harmlessly into the closest area with enough room for them.
Regardless of the size of the wall, the wall is one-fourth inch in thickness. The wall is entirely invisible, except for the text on its surface. This text will appear in the color of the ink used as a material component to cast this spell. Description of these words is detailed later in the spell description. The words glow faintly in their color and shed dim light in a five foot radius from both sides of the wall (it is invisible after all).
You have the ability to dismiss the wall at any time by spending an action. This causes the wall to harmlessly disappear. Any creature or object being supported by the wall will fall.
As part of the verbal component required when casting this spell, you must speak a message - in the language Common - that will appear on the wall. OR, you may discard a piece of parchment with your message written (in the Common script) on it. The maximum number of words* contained in the message you speak (or write) scales with your spellcaster level, as described under the at higher levels section below.
Any creature that can read any written language can read and understand the message written on the wall. This is because the message appears on the wall written in the language the reading creature knows best. Generally, any common or exotic language can be read. In the case of knowing special languages like Deep Speech that dont have a written language, the message is written in the reading creature' next best known language. A creature that has the ability to read the message written on the wall cannot move through the wall. No matter what means they try, they cannot pass through the wall, unless they use a magical effect to bypass the area, such as a teleport spell.
Weapons, objects, projectiles, affects, and spells also cannot move through the wall, if in the position of, fired from, or orriginating from a creature two cannot move through the wall. In affect, the wall provides total cover from everything on the opposite side of the wall.
When you initially cast this spell, you can designate creatures that are unaffected by the wall's universal movment restriction. Your designated creatures must be within line of sight when you cast this spell, or you can designate a group of creatures based on type or physical appearance (like humanoids or men wearing blue hats), but not meta data, like class levels or hit points. Similarly, non-self-aware creatures - A.K.A. creatures with an Intelligence of 3 or lower - or creatures that don't know a written language are also unaffected by the wall's movement restrictions. If a creature cannot speak (for instance a human with their tongue cut out) they cannot pass through the wall, because they cannot speak the words to enable them to. Finally, the wall is immune to all damage in addition to extending to the Ethereal Plane. This means it blocks ethereal travel through its location in the Prime Material Plane, but not teleportation, as with the teleport or dimension door spells.
If they wish to do so, a creature that can read the message written on the wall can use its action to read the wrtitten text out loud with a normal speaking voice. A reading creature can only read a maximum of twenty words by using this action. If twenty words does not read the entirety of the text written on the wall, the creature must spend subsequent actions to continue reading the text on the wall (again, twenty words at a time). While reading, the creature must remain within ten feet of the wall in order for the reading to have any effect. Reading the entire message on the wall while remaining within ten feet allows the creature to move through the wall unhindered until the end of theat creature's next turn. Magical silence - as from a silence spell - prevents the reading action from taking effect.
If the creature is part way through reading the message on the wall and is stopped, either by a silence or similar spell affecting them, they are the target of an attack, spell, or ability that requires a saving throw, they choose to stop, or they use an action that is not reading the message written on the wall; the creature must make an Intelligence saving throw against the spellcaster's spell save DC. If they fail, they are shocked by the abhorrent and astounding length of the message written on the wall, causing the creature to become stunned. This stun ends after 1 minute or if another creature uses their action to shake the stunned creature. After the save - no matter if they failed or succeeded - the creature needs to start reading the message from the beginning to be able to move through the wall, as detailed above.
A creature might not initially figure out the correct way through the wall, as reading the entire message out loud might not be their first idea. A creature may use an the Search action to discover the way through the wall. Instead of the regular Intelligence (Investigation), the creature may make a Wisdom (Insight) instead. In both cases, the DC of this check is the spellcaster's spell save DC. The creature has advantage on this check if it has already seen another creature read the text and immediately move through the wall within one turn. Once a creature figures out how to move through the wall, it can be remined by the DM how to move through the wall with a successful DC 8 Intelligence check as a free action.
At higher levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of fourth level or higher, both of the maximum dimensions of the wall increase by five feet. This increase is applied for every level of the spell slot above third level.
When casting the spell with a spell slot of higher than third level, the spell slot will not have any affect on the maximum word count. The total amount of words you may have in your message is directly scaled by your spellcasting level.
At first level your message can contain a maximum of three words. At second level your message can contain a maximum of five words. At thrid level your message can contain a maximum of eight words. At fourth level your message can contain a maximum of eleven words. At fifth level your message can contain a maximum of fifteen words. At sixth level your message can contain a maximum of twenty words. At seventh level your message can contain a maximum of fourty words. At eighth level your message can contain a maximum of fifty words. At ninth level your message can contain a maximum of sixty words. At tenth level your message can contain a maximum of seventy words. At eleventh level your message can contain a maximum of eighty words. At twelfth level your message can contain a maximum of ninety words. At thirteenth level your message can contain a maximum of one hundred and twenty words. At fourteenth level your message can contain a maximum of one hundred and sixty words. At fifteenth level your message can contain a maximum of two hundred words.
At sixteenth level your message can contain a maximum of two hundred and fourty words. At seventeenth level your message can contain a maximum of two hundred and eighty words. At eighteenth level your message can contain a maximum of three hundred and fourty words. At nineteenth level your message can contain a maximum of three hundred and sixty words. At twentieth level your message can contain a maximum of four hundred words.
If this spell is cast as a ritual, the spellcaster can double the maximum amount of words written in the message of the wall. If a spell slot of at least seventh level was used to cast this spell, or if the spell was cast as a ritual at at least 5th level, the wall cannot be dispelled by spells such as dispel magic cast below nineth level.
* The definition of a "word" can be a bit fuzzy around the edges, so the description below is helpful in elaborating.
A word is a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed. When spoken to be the message written on the wall, words will be written as their closest match to something in the English language. If a word is a proper noun, like a name of a person or place, the word will be written in the way the caster perceives it in their mind when speaking the word. Unusual punctuation such as hyphens, underscores, andpersat/ampersands, hash-tags, asterixis, percents, carrots, tildes, plus/equals signs, etc, will be replaced by spaces whenever grammatically correct. Run-on words like "OhMyGodWhatTheHeck" will also be spaced out according to standard English rules. For the terms of counting words, each compound word only counts as one word.
Finally, at the end of each sentence, the correct punctuation mark will be placed depending on the tone of voice. If the tone is raised at the end, a question mark will be used. Just the opposite, if the tone lowers or stays the same a period is placed. An exclamation mark will be used instead if the sentence is spoken in a loud or surprised tone of voice. If followed by a list, a colon is inserted. Semi-colons are used when grammatically correct. If the sentence is cut off abruptly a hyphen is used. And lastly, an ellipsis is placed if the sentence is slowly trailed off.
If you're using a written message, the same rules apply, except all words will be written on the wall exactly as they are written on the parchment. All handwritings will be corrected into a blocky-easily read plain text, keeping gramar, special symbols, and spelling as simmilar as possible. Additionally, any formating from the original writing will appear the same, this includes (but is not limited to); unusual capitolizAtions, underlines, italics, bolding, or comBinatioNs therein.
When translated into another language for another creature's ease of reading, the word count might be messed up. If this is the case, the creature gains a sense of how many words were used in the original sentence. This could allow an enemy wizard to gain an idea of how powerful the opposing caster was. This also allowes a creature to understand how long it would take to read the message at a rate of tweanty English words per action.
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