Guards and Wards: Build-a-Dungeon

Spell Level: 6

School: Abjuration

Casting Time: 10 minutes

Range: Touch

Duration: 24 hours

Components: V, S, M (Burning incense, a small measure of brimstone and oil, a knotted string, a small amount of umber hulk blood, and a small silver rod worth at least 10 gp)

You create a ward that protects up to 2,500 square feet of floor space (an area 50 feet square, or one hundred 5-foot squares or twenty-five 10-foot squares). The warded area can be up to 20 feet tall, and shaped as you desire. You can ward several stories of a stronghold by dividing the area among them, as long as you can walk into each contiguous area while you are casting the spell.

When you cast this spell, you can specify individuals that are unaffected by any or all of the effects that you choose. You can also specify a password that, when spoken aloud, makes the speaker immune to these effects. Guards and Wards creates the following effects within the warded area.

Corridors. Fog fills all the warded corridors, making them heavily obscured. In addition, at each intersection or branching passage offering a choice of direction, there is a 50 percent chance that a creature other than you will believe it is going in the opposite direction from the one it chooses.

Doors. All doors in the warded area are magically locked, as if sealed by an Arcane Lock spell. In addition, you can cover up to ten doors with an illusion (equivalent to the illusory object function of the Minor Illusion spell) to make them appear as plain sections of wall.

Stairs. Webs fill all stairs in the warded area from top to bottom, as the Web spell. These strands regrow in 10 minutes if they are burned or torn away while guards and wards lasts.

Other Spell Effect. You can place your choice of one of the following magical effects within the warded area of the stronghold.

Place Dancing Lights in four corridors. You can designate a simple program that the lights repeat as long as Guards and Wards lasts.
Place Magic Mouth in two locations.
Place Stinking Cloud in two locations. The vapors appear in the places you designate; they return within 10 minutes if dispersed by wind while Guards and Wards lasts.
Place a constant Gust of Wind in one corridor or room.
Place a Suggestion in one location. You select an area of up to 5 feet square, and any creature that enters or passes through the area receives the suggestion mentally.

The whole warded area radiates magic. A Dispel Magic cast on a specific effect, if successful, removes only that effect.

You can create a permanently guarded and warded structure by casting this spell there every day for one year.

Review by Samuel West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

There comes a time in every adventurer's life where they decide to settle down, start a family with the dozen or so NPCs their party has adopted, and begin a quiet life. This humble origin, paired with Guards and Wards, are how most of the dungeons of old seemingly sprang into existence.

Guards and Wards turns your base (or somebody else's) into a dungeon. The honest use is setting up your own castle, farmstead, or giant turtle-back mobile fortress into a gauntlet for protection. At most, this’ll help in a handful of encounters, and just be something neat to take to flavorfully develop a home base.

Where the spell gets interesting is when you’re left alone for ten minutes in somebody else's fortress! Start with Greater Invisibility on yourself, get your ranger to hit you with a Pass without Trace, then proceed to walk the mundane halls of a corrupt prince’s estate and make their life a living hell! They now notice there are entire doors and rooms missing, are constantly getting lost in the fog that permeates the space. Phallic dancing lights taunting them wherever they go, and they can hear a Magic Mouth endlessly tormenting them with insults and slander from somewhere in the floors. It sure would be rough if their bedchamber was a windtunnel, wouldn’t it? It’d be a crying shame if the entire kitchen staff was perpetually subject to Suggestion, suggesting they throw all the food they make at their lord!

DMing with Guards and Wards is DMing on easy mode. If you’re planning on running a well defended dungeon of a high level caster and need some traps, look no further than the organic ones found in the Player’s Handbook. The fog, Arcane Lock, Stinking Cloud, and Web effects all lend themselves to a variety of interesting encounters. You really don’t need a whole lot else to make some fun nights of dungeon crawling and monster slaying than a Monster Manual, Guards and Wards, and a map.

There are few spells in D&D that are at their best as silly pranks; Guards and Wards is my personal favorite of the bunch. The honest way to cast it can be great a handful of times, as it does an admirable job at protecting a space. It can aid the transition from player to DM, and offers a fundamental toolkit for new DMs looking to fill a dungeon with traps and magic. All in all, Guards and Wards is an excellent spell; now go transform the local baron’s estate into a personalized nightmare for him.

5e Spells

Guards and Wards: Build-a-Dungeon