Blessing of the Woven Cradle

You perform a sacred rite that weaves the living essence of several willing creatures together and opens a path for new life.

The rite requires two to four willing creatures, called the intended parents, and one willing creature capable of carrying a child, called the carrier. The carrier may be one of the intended parents or a consenting surrogate. Every participant must remain within 10 feet of you throughout the casting.

Absolute Consent

Every participant must understand the nature and consequences of the rite and must freely consent to their role.

The spell fails immediately if an intended parent or the carrier:

• Is unwilling.

• Is unable to give informed consent.

• Is magically compelled to participate.

• Becomes unconscious.

• Withdraws consent at any point during the casting.

Consent created through the Charmed condition, magical domination, a Geas spell, supernatural contracts, threats, coercion, or deliberately concealed information is not valid. The spell recognizes coercion even when the caster does not.

If the spell fails because consent was absent or withdrawn, the personal sacrifices and other material components are not consumed.

The Woven Child

When the casting is successfully completed, a viable pregnancy begins within the carrier.

The resulting child is a natural living descendant of every intended parent. Magic and supernatural effects that determine bloodline, ancestry, inheritance, or kinship recognize every intended parent as one of the child's true parents.

The carrier need not be genetically related to the child unless they are also designated as an intended parent.

The spell harmonizes differences between the intended parents' ancestries and the carrier's body sufficiently to allow conception and a healthy beginning to the pregnancy. The pregnancy thereafter progresses naturally according to the carrier's physiology.

The child may inherit physical, magical, or ancestral traits from any intended parent or from their wider bloodlines. The rite does not divide visible traits equally and cannot determine which traits will manifest.

This spell does not:

• Create or manufacture a soul.

• Summon, capture, or select a particular soul.

• Create a Construct, clone, homunculus, Simulacrum, or artificial being.

• Produce the reincarnation of a specific creature.

• Determine the child's appearance, sex, personality, abilities, magical potential, alignment, or destiny.

• Guarantee the continued health of the pregnancy after the rite is completed.

The rite creates the possibility of life. It does not design the person who will be born.

Personal Sacrifice

Each intended parent must freely surrender something that represents a meaningful and irreplaceable part of their life.

An acceptable sacrifice might include:

• An irreplaceable family heirloom.

• An object tied to a defining relationship.

• A cherished memory, which is permanently forgotten.

• One year of the intended parent's natural lifespan.

• A permanent fragment of magical power.

• Another possession or quality whose loss the intended parent would sincerely grieve.

Wealth alone is never sufficient. An object purchased specifically for the rite, borrowed, stolen, or offered by another creature is not accepted.

The DM determines whether a sacrifice is sufficiently personal and meaningful.

When the spell succeeds, each sacrifice is permanently consumed or surrendered. A memory, lifespan, or similar intangible sacrifice cannot be restored by Greater Restoration or similar magic. It can be recovered only through a Wish spell, direct divine intervention, or an equivalent extraordinary event.

Strain of Creation

When the spell succeeds, the participants suffer the following effects:

• Each intended parent gains 2 Exhaustion levels.

• The carrier gains 1 additional Exhaustion level.

• The caster gains 1 Exhaustion level.

These Exhaustion levels are cumulative if one creature fills more than one role in the rite.

Exhaustion gained from this spell cannot be removed by magic. It is removed normally through Long Rests or another nonmagical method permitted by the DM.

A creature that served as an intended parent or carrier cannot participate in another casting of this spell for one year and one day.

Sacred Tradition

This spell is most commonly preserved by clerics whose faith concerns life, healing, nature, death, fate, family, or renewal. Traditions devoted to the Everlight, the Wildmother, and the Matron of Ravens each possess their own form of the rite.

Learning the spell normally requires initiation by an existing practitioner, the recovery of sacred teachings, or the direct blessing of an appropriate divine power. Merely reaching a level at which a cleric can cast level 6 spells does not automatically reveal the rite.