Balrick’s Borrowed Name

You study a humanoid you can clearly see and speak its name aloud, taking that name for your own. You must know the target's name to cast this spell. The target must be Small or Medium, and of the same size category as you.

For the entire casting time, you must keep the target in sight and remain within range. If the target leaves your sight or your range before the casting completes, the spell fails and the slot is expended.

Holding the Name. When the casting completes, you hold the borrowed name unspent, and nothing about you outwardly changes. At any time during the next hour, you can assume the target's form as a bonus action. If you have not done so when that hour elapses, the spell ends.

Once assumed, the transformation lasts 1 hour. Your body reshapes into a duplicate of the target, and you take on its bearing, gait, and manner of speech. The transformation is physical rather than illusory and holds up to touch and close inspection. Your statistics are unchanged, and your equipment is unaffected — it neither transforms nor is subsumed.

Extended Casting. You can double the casting time to also take what you need to wear the name. The target makes a Wisdom saving throw when the casting completes.

On a failed save, you learn the target's manner of address for up to three specific people it knows, its current mood and immediate goal, and one secret currently weighing on its mind. The target is unaware that anything has occurred.

On a successful save, you gain only what you could have observed — mannerisms, speech, and surface habits — and the target feels a brief pressure behind its eyes, aware that something touched its mind but not what it was or where it came from.

The transformation succeeds in either case.

Ending the Spell. The spell ends early if you dismiss it (no action required), if you lose concentration, or if you drop to 0 hit points, and you immediately revert to your true form. A creature with truesight sees your true form, and dispel magic ends the spell.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the transformation's duration increases by 1 hour for each slot level above 3rd.