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Making Fire Feel Real

By

Logan Shen

In the real world, there is no such thing as ‘Fireproof.’ With enough heat and

time, any substance known to the human race will eventually degrade into oblivion. The

confusion comes from advertisement, where if a substance can resist burning enough, it

can legally be called fireproof. The truth of the matter is this, when a fire scientist hears

someone say something is fireproof, the scientist says,

“Challenge accepted.”

So first understand this about the term ‘Fireproof’. Even a building made out of

metal and concrete can burn. The term in the truest form is a myth. Nothing is safe from

fire.

In this book, I will be discussing details and truths about fire that will aid you in

your storytelling to bring forth the most authentic fire elements to your stories.

Hollywood has done a great job of mucking up the water on how fire behaves. Nothing

makes a conflict more dramatic than throwing some fire into the environment.

After all, it isn’t enough for the building to be on fire while the heroes struggle to

put it out only to have zombies break in through the windows, changing the airflow into

the room and thus resetting all the rules of how the fire behaves in an unpredictable

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panic of chaos. Or when the heroes are using a flamethrower to chase the monsters

into a corner only to get too close to the wall where the flames will reflect off the wall

and toward new directions! Or even as simple as debating rather or not a hero would be

able to figure out how to use a fire extinguisher in a time of extreme distress.

This book will answer all these questions and more as I give you a crash course

in how fire behaves.

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 Chapter 1, Our Greatest Tool

Fire: A rapid oxidation process that is a chemical reaction resulting in the evolution of

light and heat in varying intensities.

(In this chapter we will be discussing a brief piece of the science of fire and what fire

actually is.)

In the real world, fire is one of the elements that separate us from the rest of the

animals on our planet. While other animals have forms of communication, tool crafting

and tool-using, and even group dynamics, none have mastered the use of fire as

humans have. In our journey to master flame, we have created laws to help teach

others how flame works.

Fire needs oxygen, fuel, and heat. Without just one of these three, we do not

have a fire, with all three we have a chemical reaction that manifests in rapid oxidation.

Also known as combustion. Oxygen, fuel, heat, chemical reaction, these four elements

make up a model known as the fire tetrahedron, and we need all four to maintain

continued combustion.

So, when we have ignition, we have a flame, that heats up the surrounding area

to give off fuel to continue to burn. Essentially it is transforming matter while also

converting a very small portion of it, into energy. When a log burns to ash, it will have

less mass and have entirely different physical properties.

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 The best example to learn from would be from a candle and learning how it

works. The purpose of a candle is to provide light for a time and in some cases smell

good. For it to fulfill that purpose it must burn for a significant amount of time, but what

is actually happening?

First thing is that you ignite the wick. The wick burns but is not truly the real

source of fuel (though it does provide some and is key in the initial ignition of the whole

process). As the wick burns the flame gives off heat, which the wax absorbs until it

reaches latent heat (the temperature when states of matter begin to change). When it

reaches this point, the wax releases fuel into the open flame, sustaining the combustion.

This is why the wax turns to liquid and disappears as the flame continues to burn.

Studying this, you learn a few things. First, ignition and sustained combustion are

two different things. A spark from flint and steel is not a fire. Second, you need an

ignition to have sustained combustion. Third, your ignition needs to be hot enough to

heat up the would-be fuel so it will actually release the fuel.

While the flint and steel can create a spark hot enough to heat up dried leaves

enough for it to release fuel for sustained combustion, you will have no such luck if you

try that fire-starting method on concrete.

Some fuels have a low ignition temperature (the lowest temperature that is

required for a substance to burn) while others have a higher ignition temperature.

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 LETS BURN A MYTH!

“Wood is very flammable!”

Contrary to common belief, wood is not highly flammable. Too often in video

games, wooden shields proved utterly useless against the volcanic lizard, or a character

has ignited a wooden pillar with the use of their burning torch. Truth be told that shield

could very well protect the user better than a metal one, and that pillar is not going to

burn so easily. While I’m not saying that shield could not fail or would not survive, and

I’m not saying that the pillar couldn’t burn, I am saying that wood resists fire fairly well.

Think about it, why do you use wood in a fireplace or in a campfire? Because it

burns for long and it burns for so long because wood is good at resisting burning. So

just because something is commonly used for fuel does not mean it easily ignites.

So, in review, fire is energy being released that manifests itself in the form of

heat. This process is started with oxygen, heat, and fuel (the fire triangle) which is called

ignition and the sustained combustion is maintained with oxygen, heat, fuel, and

chemical reaction (the fire tetrahedron) which is called burning.

Burning is the process of a substance being heated to the point where it decays

and releases energy. Different substances release energy at different rates as some

materials burn faster and burn hotter. While in most cases wood will burn hot enough to

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ruin metal (with enough air and materials), while thermite will burn a hole right through

metal.

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 Chapter 2, Forged in Fire

Detonation: Instantaneous combustion or conversion of a solid, liquid, or gas into larger

quantities of expanding gas accompanied by heat, show, and noise. The flame

propagation tends to shatter material with a shock wave that goes above the speed of

sound.

(In this chapter we will be discussing what it is like to be in a burning environment.)

'Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and i​f you gaze into the

abyss, the abyss also gazes into you​.' -Friedrich Nietzsche

The last end of this quote is often utilized by storytellers who are H.P. Lovecraft

enthusiasts and authors to detail the idea of cosmic horror. To bring forth the idea that

not only is there something out there, but even if there weren’t, the sheer expanse of the

universe is itself a form of entity that can invalidate our existence. To seek out the abyss

is to create one in yourself, to become a shell.

However, that is just one part of the quote, remember the first quote is also a

warning to those who see nothing but monsters and thus dooms themselves to develop

an affinity with monsters. The entire quote is important as it discusses the idea of

personal transformation that damages the psyche. However, the latter half is the most

popular.

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 It is so popular that even I recalled only the latter half of the quote the first time I

was in a burning building surrounded by fire. I bring up the entire quote, however

because it has been used so heavily to bring to mind cosmic horror when Nietzsche’s

warning was very grounded, and thus what I am about to discuss is also very grounded.

As most know you do not need to go into space or dive down into the depths of R’lyeh

to experience utter horror. However, most also tend to associate complete horror with

hysteria as well, the only time they think of the horror of their own insignificance is when

a H.P. Lovecraft story is involved.

But that kind of horror can be experienced right here on the surface of the Earth!

Allow me to share my experience in my training and during my time as a firefighter. As a

firefighter, sometime during your career, be it in one of your many trainings or while

you’re in the field, you will enter into a burning building that is so enveloped by the

flames, that the smoke will reach up and touch the sky.

During my first time in one of these experiences I was in full gear, mask on,

oxygen tank full, LED shoulder mount light, with another heavy LED light in my left

hand. I had breached the building and was searching for the fire which took my route

up. I didn’t notice what had happened at first and I still can’t really describe it completely

but as I climbed the stairs, the lights just went out.

The best description I can add is that the world just faded away, but it had

happened so quickly it was more like it was sucked away. It seemed like there was an

invisible barrier, on one side, our world and on the other side, nothing but black. Mind

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you, I had two light sources on my person with the power to light up an entire road, one

of those lights right next to my head and I still saw nothing but black.

I say nothing but black instead of darkness because to me darkness implies that

it is empty and I knew in this black that it wasn’t empty, there was, in fact, a fire that was

consuming the building and everything in the way. The shock of seeing this black that

snuck up and stole the world right in front of you yet still by surprise somehow causes a

person to pause and at that moment be in horrifying awe. Then the realization hits you,

rather or not to go forward is up to you, if you don’t you increase your chances of safety

as you go back but if you don’t move forward whatever happens beyond that black will

most likely stay there as unlike you, they will be choked and burned by the smoke. But

to go forward, it means facing that black.

You can find footage of that experience online if you search for firefighter helmet

cams and while it may be daunting to witness, it still won’t really relay the actual

experience in the entirety. Understand this though, to introduce fire to the environment

is to introduce a level of horror. Fire feels no pain, it has no fear, and it consumes

everything it can to stay alive, it won’t be reasoned with.

Fire does not concern itself with sides and so it will pose a threat to all parties

involved and while it cannot be reasoned with, it can be influenced. The factors that can

influence the fire vary greatly but we can create two different kinds of categories.

Enclosed and open, fire outside in the world and fire inside a building. To begin, we will

go off my example, fires inside buildings.

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 These fires can be significantly dangerous as you must deal with walls and

airflow. First, every building that is on fire has a clock, a timer that ticks down as the

room the heroes are in have a certain amount of time before it too combusts. The

material of the building and walls cause serious danger as it will dictate how they will

burn and transfer heat.

LETS BURN A MYTH!

“Heat rises!”

Heat does not rise! Heat expands in all directions equally. The reason why

people believe that heat rises is because hot air is less dense than cold air and so the

hot air will rise, but make no mistake, a fire will deliver heat in all directions. This is

important because some materials transfer heat faster than others.

An example can be wood and metal. If you go into your kitchen and pick up a

metal spoon, it will feel cold. That is because metal transfers heat very quickly. That

cold feeling you feel initially is the metal sucking the heat out of you. The opposite

applies, if you grab a metal fire poker in a burning fireplace outside of the handle (the

metal part) you will burn yourself as the heat will transfer from the fire, through the

metal, into you!

Now take this concept and apply it to wood. Wood does not transfer heat very

well and thus if you touch a wooden spoon it will not feel cold and you are safe to stir

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boiling stew. This property of wood is the reason why most fire tool handles are made

out of wood.

So now you understand that just because your room doesn’t have the fire, that

doesn’t mean the heroes aren’t feeling the heat because even if they are in a wooden

building, wood though it doesn’t transfer heat very fast, will still transfer heat if the fire is

hot enough! On top of that, the fire isn’t the only thing they are trapped in the building

with. Anything that needs to breath should also be concerning themselves with smoke! I

will go over more of that element of an enclosed fire more in Chapter Five.

So you are in a burning building, you know you have to get out soon, it is getting

hot because heat travels in all directions and now oxygen is starting to get low because

of the smoke, what is the next thing you feel you need to do? Why break a window or

open a door of course! There is a problem with that idea though. Remember one of the

things fire needs is oxygen, which means you and fire are going in the same direction.

More accurately put, in the real world a burning building has a set of rules that

the fire will obey, opening/breaking a window or door is like taking those rules and

resetting them. If there is no other way out, of course, use one of those methods, but it

is far safer for you, and any companions that may be with you and still inside the

building to find an opening that is already open. Fire will travel to wherever the most

oxygen is and the bigger it is, the faster it will go.

Real-life rookie firefighters have learned this lesson plenty of times when

attempting to rush in, they will open a door or a window, just for them to be blown back

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as fire explodes out (This is called a backdraft, a phenomenon in which a fire that has

consumed all available oxygen suddenly explodes when more oxygen is made

available). There are some fire chiefs that pull everyone back out of a building if a

window gets broken just so they can re-examine the situation and see how this new

stream of air will affect the fire. To go into a burning building is to face the fire head-on,

to try and escape a burning building is to have fire licking at your heels the entire way.

So, you’ve escaped the burning building to the outside only to find yourself in a

dry grassy field during the summer. The fire from the building chased you out and has

now ignited the surrounding environment. It only took the building five minutes to

become a raging inferno and raise the surrounding temperature to eighty degrees, your

situation does not seem to have truly improved as you feel a strong wind blow over you.

The fire begins to rise almost as if it were a dance, twirling higher and higher until you

witness a fire tornado be born. In this scenario, we are dealing with fire outside which

means we are less likely to be trapped but have a new set of factors to contend with.

When telling a story about dealing with fire, we first must figure out three things.

What is the physical environment like, what is the current weather like, and what is the

current temperature? First, what is the physical environment like, is it wet or dry, did it

recently rain, is there snow on the ground, what sort of combustibles are in reach of the

fire?

Dead dry leaves are more likely to ignite than wet ones, a fire will travel farther

on grass than it will on snow, haystacks will combust faster than living trees. Second,

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what is the current weather? A fire will of course struggle in a rainstorm, but a nice

warm breeze can cause a fire to exponentially grow and consume even more with much

haste! Fire will expand in all directions, but it will follow where the wind takes it, even if it

is in circles. On rare occasions, a rare phenomenon can even occur called a fire tornado

(that is exactly what it sounds like, and yes, there is footage of that you can find as well)

which allows a fire to travel at great speeds.

The more official term for these fire tornados is known as fire whirls and some

famous examples include one in Japan that killed over 38,000 people in fifteen minutes,

several produced by the atomic bombs in WWII, and one in Australia that had a vertical

speed of 160 mph enabling it to decimate 300 acres of land in .4 seconds.

Third and lastly, what is the current temperature? Fire can grow in dry heat but

struggles more so in cold or humid environments. The temperature the fire is in can be

what the fire fights against as it continues to raise the temperature to the level it requires

or can be what helps it as that is one more factor that doesn’t hurt the fire. Cold or

humid environments can shorten the length of time heroes have to fight the fire while

dry hot weather can allow the fire to carry on for days.

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 Chapter 3, Going In Hot!

Pyrolysis: The chemical decomposition of a compound into one or more other

substances by heat alone. Pyrolysis often precedes combustion.

(In this chapter we will be discussing the relationship of fire and heat.)

We begin to feel pain from heat roughly around 107 Fahrenheit or about 42

Celsius. If you hold a lit candle to someone; you will cause extreme pain. If you touch

your food immediately after you microwave it, you will burn yourself. When you deal with

fire, you deal with heat, but you also need heat to make a fire.

Heat factors into how something ignites based on material and surface area.

Again, let us use wood as an example material. If you take a match, light it, and set it

down on a log, it will smolder out. Now, if you take that lit match and set it down on a

pile of sawdust, you will likely get a fire! Why? What is happening there? Does the

sawdust have a lower ignition temperature than the log?

Both the log and the sawdust are made of wood, so they have the same ignition

temperature and will even release the same amount of energy per unit of material. So,

what really changed here? Surface area. Surface area is a big factor in how something

ignites and how fire behaves.

Because dust has a small amount of surface area, more heat can be applied

over it. When the match was set down on the long, the heat dispersed completely on

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the surface of the log where on the sawdust, each piece of dust had heat applied over

the entirety of it. When fire burns, it will burn stronger on vertical walls than on horizontal

surfaces due to the amount of surface area being heated.

LETS BURN A MYTH!

“If you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out immediately! If you put a frog in tepid

water and then boil it, the frog will fail to see the danger and cook to death!”

Frogs can sense heat just like any other living animal and thus, it will jump out of

the pot once the water begins to get too hot for it. There are three ways heat travels that

will alert your senses. Convection, radiation, and conduction. Convection is heat

traveling by the circulation within a medium such as gas or a liquid.

Imagine a pot of boiling water. If you were to stick your hand into the boiling

water, you would burn yourself via convection as the water would transfer the extreme

heat into your hand. Radiation is heat traveling via electromagnetic energy. This can be

confusing as if you were to hover your hand over a boiling pot of water, you would both

feel the heat by convection and radiation, convection by the moist air rising into your

hand and also by the heat (electromagnetic energy) itself.

Remember in the previous chapter when I busted the myth that heat rises? Well,

heat travels in all directions, so while you would feel the heat above the pot both from

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the heat radiating from it as well as the moist air, if you held your hand to the side and

still felt the heat, the heat transfer would be solely radiation at that point. To put it

simply, the heat itself is a form of radiation.

Lastly is conduction which is the easiest to explain as it is direct contact. If you

were to touch the pot or the burner, you would feel the heat transfer directly into you,

conduction! All these modes that heat transfers play a key component in your

storytelling toolbox.

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 Chapter 4, Going On Empty!

Fuel: A material that maintains combustion under specified environmental conditions.

(In this chapter we will be discussing the relationship of fire and fuel.)

Like us, fire requires energy to sustain itself. It gets that through fuel. Through the

burning of different materials fire can burn at different intensities. The more rapidly fuel

is consumed, the more energy produced (also, the more of a possibility of an

explosion). However, the longer the fire burns, the hotter it can also get as it builds.

While gasoline will initially burn hotter than a log, a grand burning fire pit will be hotter

than a pool of gasoline.

These are factors to consider as despite being brief, a burning fuel source can

still do a lot of damage. Take thermite for example. A simple chemical mixture that can

ignite and burn through steel in less than a minute! An uncontrolled well-ventilated flame

can turn a house into a raging inferno in less than two minutes. If the heroes ignore a

fire, then the heroes have made a serious mistake.

In your stories, if the heroes ignore a fire, in 6-12 seconds the fire becomes large

enough to be a significant threat. After that, the fire becomes exponentially dangerous.

Some examples of this would be the Station Night Club of 2003 where the firefighter

response time was roughly around 6 minutes and it did not matter because over 100

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people had already died in four minutes from being crushed, burned, and inhaling too

much smoke.

Fire simply cannot be ignored as it will move from fuel to fuel on the wind once

the air gets hot enough. The haystack in the barn will ignite, which will ignite the drapes

on the steps, which will ignite the animal droppings, and soon the barn is lost, all in just

a few minutes. To give a better idea, a firefighter’s first duty is to save the people, not

the building. A common tactic for firefighters is to pull everyone out and ensure that the

fire doesn’t spread, even if that means burning the building itself down to the ground.

You must understand that essentially fire gets to a point where it becomes

unstoppable, ignoring it is like ignoring a large hole in your floatation device. Based on

the fuel in the area, this fact becomes even more dangerous especially when you

consider that there will rarely ever be just one kind of fuel in the area. Remember, like

the wind, fire spreads.

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 Chapter 5, The Darkness is more active than you think

Suffocation: The state or process of dying from being deprived of air or unable to

breathe.

(In this chapter we will be discussing the relationship of fire and oxygen.)

The most key element we have in common with fire is our need for oxygen. For

this reason, it will always seem that fire and smoke are chasing us when in reality, it is

just trying to gain access to the same resource we need. Oxygen.

As stated previously, a fire will always move towards the largest source of

oxygen, that is why the heroes should avoid creating new openings in a building. That is

not the only thing that is moving though. Depending on the type of fuel will determine

the type of smoke you will deal with.

As a general rule, the more man-made the material, the nastier and more toxic

the smoke. Initially, you won’t even notice you are breathing in this toxic, and then it will

hit you all at once. In rather enclosed spaces or areas right next to the fire, it can feel

like you are attempting to breathe in solids. Before long, your head will go woozy and if

you do not recover soon, you will lose your ability to focus, and then fall unconscious,

where you will die unless someone saves you.

From the moment you take in smoke, it is trying to kill you. A common line of

logic would dictate that it will attack your lungs first but understand why firefighters wear

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bunker gear. It isn’t just to protect themselves from fire but to protect their eyes and

skin.

Smoke does not discriminate either as it will also kill fire as well despite being a

product of the former. This is why fire will move towards the area with the most oxygen,

to continue to gain oxygen. When the heroes are in a situation with fire, it can be easy

to focus entirely on the actual fire itself but remember, where there is fire, there is

smoke!

Smoke can affect your heroes in a number of ways. The most common is to

impair their breathing and sight but if the materials that are burning are particularly

nasty, the smoke can even start to distort their vision and break down the mind. Much

like a zombie, the smoke feels nothing, it feels no fear, and it will not stop until dealt

with.

So, your heroes are being attacked by smoke. First, let’s keep it simple, how

does choking on smoke feel differently than choking in general. Start by addressing

your fire and the environment in your story first. When choking on smoke, not only can

you not breathe properly but you are also getting burned inside your lungs and feeling it

in your throat.

Depending on the intensity of the fire will determine the severity of the burns. As

said before, when choking, it won’t just be lack of oxygen you feel, while you are

choking, you will feel like you have hot coals stuck in your throat. If the fire is burning

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hot enough to produce smoke with intense heat, this effect alone can be debilitating and

bring heroes down to their knees immediately!

The first immediate reaction when smoke is attacking your lungs is the instinct to

breathe harder as unlike when drowning or being strangled, your body is actually taking

in air (just not the kind of air it wants and needs) and so it will redouble the efforts to

gain more oxygen, causing a nightmarish cycle as you suck in even more smoke. As

stated before, smoke can burn the insides of your lungs and so even if the hero

survives, they may need to be hospitalized where even then they could still die.

Maybe the smoke the heroes have to deal with isn’t thick, but the environment is

a burning plastic (or another man-made material) factory. At this point, prolonged

(roughly about 6-12 seconds) fighting in this kind of environment will cause them to go

blind until their eyes can properly clean themselves (and in some cases, the blindness

can be longer or even permanent!). First, their eyes will water horribly, which is the

body’s way of trying to help which will bring no relief until they get out of there.

The sweat and tears in their eyes aside from causing agitation can absorb even

more of the smoke. To make matters worse, your skin will absorb smoke as well. This

matters in terms of vision because another response to agitation of the eyes is to

instinctively wipe and rub them, which if smoke is in your skin, you are just rubbing more

chemicals into your face!

Maybe your heroes are prepared and came with suitable gear and gas masks.

Hopefully, all your heroes are clean-shaven, or they will not be able to properly seal

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their gas mask (that is why service people are only allowed to grow a mustache). More

specifically, seals are designed to be as tight as possible to reduce the likely chance of

it breaking but remember in stories, heroes get hit in the head a lot! Add to the fact that

their peripheral vision has been reduced to zero percent and it is even more likely that

they will take a blow to the head.

When the seal breaks, there is a good chance that the hero will not know until it

is too late. On the rare chance that they do know that the seal was broken, there is not a

true possibility of getting that seal back before it is too late. Once a seal is broken, the

foreign gas can get inside in roughly around three seconds. As the chapter stated, it is

more active than you think!

LETS BURN A MYTH!

“Fire is of course the most dangerous part of a burning building!”

While fire poses the most obvious danger, as this chapter has now covered,

smoke is dangerous, but it is even more dangerous than the fire itself. A building can

become a raging inferno in less than four minutes. If a building can be so quickly

consumed, it can be filled with pitch-black smoke even sooner, meaning that heroes will

be limited to crawling blindly on the floor if the fire and smoke are left uncheck.

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 Chapter 6, It has no fear, but it is far from invincible

Fire Retardant: A liquid, solid, or gas that tends to inhibit combustion when applied on,

mixed in, or combined with combustible materials.

(In this chapter we will be discussing how to combat fire.)

Fire has no fear and is unapologetic in the consumption of everything in the fire’s

path. It cannot be reasoned with, but it can be fought in three different ways. Deny one

of these three elements, heat, fuel, and oxygen, and the fire will die.

Materials need to maintain a specific ignition temperature, or they cannot stay

ignited. Trying to deny heat from a fire is the most difficult as a material that is already

ignited will continue to sustain heat until the fuel is depleted. However, it is not

impossible as by example when you blow out a candle. When you blow out a candle

you are supplying it with more oxygen, but you are lowering the candle’s temperature. If

the candle does not go out, then the flame does indeed get stronger in that moment.

The greater the fire, the greater the resistance the fire has against lowering the

temperature and in some cases, the greater the risk of making the fire stronger. While a

tornado can blow out a burning building, the tornado can also become a mode of

transportation of the fire as the fire is given more oxygen and fuel to travel with the

tornado. Take the heat away from the fire and it will not burn.

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 Fuel denial is a method most often used to fight fires. Firefighters deploy several

different methods to deny a fire fuel. One method is cutting the fuel off. One of the first

things a firefighter does on the scene is turn the building’s gas and electrical systems

off. Fire can’t burn, what isn’t there. In the early stages of a brick house burning, turning

off the gas can save the building because though brick can burn, it must get to a

specific temperature to burn. While there are several ways the fire can still build up to

that temperature, gas burns hotter than most materials fastest and so cutting off the gas

will give an advantage to the firefighter. Another method deployed by firefighters is to

move everything away from a fire.

Sometimes a building is lost. When this is the case (and this is the case often),

once the firefighters have rescued everyone that they can, they will remove all ignitable

materials away from the building and allow the fire to burn the building to the ground

(consuming all available fuel). Another common method used by firefighters (usually as

a last resort) is burning all available surrounding fuel if there is too much. Firefighters

will create a perimeter where they have more control over the boundaries, remove all

ignitable materials at this border, and ignite their own fire. This concludes with the fire

burning itself out after the building and the surrounding area in the boundaries are

consumed. This is the phrase, fighting fire with fire.

The last method is oxygen denial. The most common way everyone fights fire is

with water. Spray a candle with water and the candle will go out. Dump a gallon of water

on a campfire and you will reduce the burning considerably. Dump dirt or sand on fire,

and it will struggle to burn. If the fire cannot breathe then it cannot burn. Dumping water,

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dirt, or closing off oxygen ways and the fire will go out rapidly. This is why stair doors

open in one direction as to self-close and limit the amount of oxygen the fire can get to.

If you cover your candle, the fire will go out in smoke.

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 Chapter 7, Spark of Madness

“You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”  

-Robin Williams

(In this chapter we will be discussing new spells for fire magic for the 5E System for

both a fantasy setting and modern to future setting. Some spells will have multiple

names depending on what sort of setting you are running with the high fantasy setting

name first and the modern to future fantasy setting name second.)

Blister Nerves

Corrupt Soul/Corrupt Lungs

Draconic Encouragement/Ventilate

Dragon Fang/Blow Torch

Fire Devil

Infernal Gate/Back Draft

Scorched Breath/Curse of Napalm

Blister Nerves

Level- 1

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Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: Touch

Duration: Instantaneous

Your touch inflicts an intense serious burn to a limb. As you touch the creature,

your palm glows white hot and the heat you transfer into the creature is so intense that

instead of feeling pain in the area, they feel a sudden coldness. Make a melee spell

attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, you afflict the creature with a burn

that will cause serious complications with continued use.

The creature has a -2 on rolls involving the limb and will take 1D12 damage each

time they use it. You may cast this spell again on the same target, targeting another

limb. If you cast this spell on the same target, targeting the same limb, the damage will

not stack, but the modifiers using that limb will.

This is a serious burn and the modifiers will remain so long as the limb is in the

burned condition. Casting this spell on a construct or any unfeeling target (like zombies

and other forms of undead) will leave a visible mark but will do nothing more.

Corrupt Soul/Corrupt Lungs

Level- 5

Casting Time: 1 Action

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Range: 30 Feet

Duration: 1 Week

You inhale deeply and then belches forth a small cone of solid smoke that dives

down the target’s throat, forcing itself into the lungs. High ranking royal healers have

recorded this spell to cause a disease that effects the very soul as dissected corpses

show the insides of the chest to be filled with tar like substance, while modern day

medical experts can conclude this spell causes advance forms of lung cancer. Since the

target is infected with a natural lung disease, any effect that removes a disease or

otherwise ameliorates a disease’s effects apply to it.

The Creature must make a Constitution save or be infected. Once infected, the

Creature has disadvantage on all Constitution saving throws and all skills linked to

Constitution. Next, the Creature immediately falls on their hands and knees and spends

their first round vomiting up blood causing 2D12 points of damage and will continue to

do so during each of their turns. Whenever the Creature takes damage from another

source (not from vomiting their own blood), it is stunned until the end of its next turn.

The Creature may make a saving throw at the end of each of its turns to stop

itself from vomiting blood. Otherwise, it will continue to do so until unconscious or until it

saves. Making this save does not cure them of the disease. Finally, the disease will kill

them within a week if they are not cured.

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Draconic Encouragement/Ventilate

Level- 2

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 100 feet

Duration: 3 Turns

With a searing glare you spot a flame or continually burning spell and send a

rush of pure oxygen straight to the center of it! The flame doubles in size in all directions

and the damage dice for continually burning spells double. Casting this spell again on

the same fire will not double the damage dice again but will double the expansion of the

fire again.

You should keep in mind that causing the fire to expand so fast will cause the fire

to consume exponential amounts of oxygen (How much this poses a problem is up to

GM’s discretion). Finally, if the fire does not find more fuel to burn, it will reduce back to

its original size after three turns.

Dragon Fang/Blow Torch

Level- 4

Casting Time: 1 Action

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Range: N/A

Duration: Concentration up to a failed Saving Throw

You extend two fingers and with extreme focus produce a blue white-hot flame

that burns like a dragon’s bite that extends to a dagger’s length. Scientists have

recorded this spell’s temperature can burn up to 3,000 Celsius. You can maintain this

spell as long as you maintain concentration, however the spell requires a significant

amount of magical energy to maintain at such extreme temperatures.

You gain 1 level of exhaustion after five minutes of maintaining this spell. After

ten minutes you gain another level of exhaustion and must make a constitution save to

avoid from passing out. After every five minutes after that, you must continue to make

additional saving throws gaining cumulative -1 to your rolls or pass out.

The flame instantly ignites flammable substances and melts and destroys metal

equipment and damages even the strongest walls. If you attack with this flame, you will

do serious damage with each hit and ignore AC provided by armor. Hitting flesh will

cause a serious disgusting scar and deal 8D6 fire damage.

Shields hit with this spell will be destroyed, wood combusting and falling apart,

metal melting before making an ear-piercing screech as it is pulled in half by its own

weight or supporting a large glowing, compromising hole. Leather armor hit with this

spell will be destroyed as it combusts and falls off the wearer as the stitching is

atomized and buckles are seared through. Forms of chain mail will be destroyed as well

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as the flames will cut through the ringlets and metal broken rings will quickly fall off and

clatter to the ground.

Finally, even plate mail cannot withstand the temperature of this spell, but unlike

a shield, this metal is worn. As the spell burns through the armor, the edges of the

seared tears will continue to burn hot and harm the wearer. While the destroyed armor

is worn, it will continue to do 1D4 points of burn damage at the end of the creature’s turn

and force the wearer disadvantage on all their rolls until it is taken off or 3 minutes has

passed. Lastly, any weapon used to parry this spell will be destroyed or will be warped

beyond use.

Fire Devil

Level- 1

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: N/A

Duration: 5 Rounds

Also known as a Fire Tornado you create a phenomenon that fire scientists

would refer to as a small fire whirl that is 4 ft by 4 ft (Creature Size Small). You ignite a

flame that swirls in a spiral and moves in the direction you command it, dealing 1D4

points of fire damage to each target it touches or passes through. During your turn, you

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can change the direction the Fire Devil(s) travels as a bonus action (The Fire Devil

moves in a straight line).

Fire Devils move at a speed of 6 squares plus the caster’s spell casting ability.

As the spell moves by the wind, it is not affected by difficult terrain nor is it effected by

most forms of damage. In fact, the only way to put the Fire Devil down is by smothering

the flame itself. Finally, the Fire Devil is also immune to any form of mind manipulation

as it does not have a mind.

At Higher Levels:​ When you cast this spell using a 3​rd​ level spell slot you may summon

up to 1 Fire Devil per your caster level. When you cast this spell using a 4​th​ level spell

slot, you could choose to combine all the Fire Devils you would normally summon into

one large Fire Devil. A large Fire Devil deals 1D6 per each Fire Devil that was used to

create it.

Furthermore, a larger Fire Devil takes up 2 ft by 2ft of space for each Fire Devil

that was used to create it. Lastly, a larger Fire Devil attacks each target that is adjacent

to it with intense heat and flame while also igniting flammable substances. The caster

should also keep in mind that many Fire Devils or Large Fire Devils consume great

amounts of oxygen (How much this poses a problem is up to GM’s discretion).

When you cast this spell using a 5​th​ level spell slot, you gain a little bit more

control and may choose to combine some of your Fire Devils to create a larger one

while also summoning forth smaller ones along with it (The minimum Fire Devils it takes

to create a Large Fire Devil is 6). Then finally, when you cast this spell using a 6​th​ level

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spell slot, you display your complete mastery over this spell and may choose to

combine multiple groups of Fire Devils to create multiple larger Fire Devils and regular

Fire Devils. Example: The Caster’s level is 14, they choose to create 2 large Fire Devils

(combining 6 Fire Devils in each) and summon 2 normal Fire Devils.

Infernal Gate/Back Draft

Level- 7

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: Self (120 feet Cone)

Duration: 30 Seconds

You pull from the ground as if you are opening a window, from your feet rushes

air that quickly ignites into explosive fire that rolls out in front of you. For the next 30

seconds, fire continues to roar out from the spot you cast the spell from. Creatures in

the first initial blast must make a dexterity save to quickly jump out of the way.

A creature takes 9D6+40 fire damage on a failed saving throw, or half as much

on a successful save. Creatures that are reduced to zero hit points in this spell are

reduced to white ash along with anything on their person. The creature can be restored

to life only by means of a true resurrection or a wish spell.

Creatures that were in the initial blast or move into the spell immediately combust

along with all objects on their person and will gain 1 level of exhaustion. Creatures that

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move into the spell will take the damage as if they failed the saving throw during the

initial blast and must make a death save. A creature that spends 2 turns within ten feet

of the spell will gain 1 level of exhaustion from the intense heat of the fire.

After the third turn, the creature will be making death saves at the end of each of

their turns, not realizing that they are dying (these death saves will reset once the

creature’s temperature cools down). After the second failed death save, they will have

disadvantage on all their rolls until they take a long rest. If they fail three death saves,

the creature does not collapse.

For their next turn, the creature will wonder around wide-eyed away from the fire.

At the end of that turn, they will then collapse dead. Firefighters have noted that these

individuals are dead, the brain and body just don’t know it yet.

At Higher Levels:​ When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 8​th​ level or higher, the

damage increases by 3D6 for each spell slot level above 7​th​.

Scorched Breath/Curse of Napalm

Level- 5

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 60 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

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 You gesture at the creature in a come here motion and suddenly their mouth

snaps open as they belch a gout flame! Autopsies on creatures felled by this spell show

similar results of that of napalm victims, lungs that took in deep breaths of super-heated

air. A creature targeted by this spell must make a constitution saving throw.

The target takes 10D6+40 fire damage on a failed save and half as much on a

successful one. If their hit points were reduced to zero, they automatically fail their first

death save and have disadvantage on their next death save if they are not stabilized

before then.

At Higher Levels:​ When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6​th​ level or higher, the

damage increases by 3D6 for each spell slot level above 5​th​.

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