The Oathroot Codex
A grave-warden’s moss-bound tome preserves the dead, roots its bearer against danger, and binds its strongest protections to ancient blood-oaths.
Spellbook · Wizard, School of Necromancy · Level 5
The Oathroot Codex
A grave-warden’s moss-bound tome preserves the dead, roots its bearer against danger, and binds its strongest protections to ancient blood-oaths.
Ex librisEdrin ValeWizardry, School of Necromancy
At a glance
Level
5
Wizard, School of Necromancy
Spells
10
1 cantrip, 3 signature
Spell slots
1st level
2nd level
3rd level
At the table
A margin note
Plot hook
Spells
10 spellsCantrips
1- Choose a 5-foot cube of loose earth and move it along the ground, excavate it, or cause its ground to become difficult terrain, subject to the spell's limits. The damage applies only to a creature standing on the ground when it is moved.
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Target
- One 5-foot cube of loose earth
- Components
- V, S
- Damage
- bludgeoning
- Higher levels
- No scaling.
- Source
- Xanathar's Guide to Everything
1st level
3- Set an alarm against unwanted entry into a designated area. Choose an audible or mental alarm; the spell alerts you when a Tiny or larger creature enters or touches the warded area.
- Duration
- 8 hours
- Target
- A door, window, or area within range
- Components
- V, S, M (a tiny bell and a piece of fine silver wire)
- Higher levels
- No scaling.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
- Protect one willing creature against aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. Those creatures have disadvantage on attacks against the target, which cannot be charmed, frightened, or possessed by them; existing effects are suppressed.
- Duration
- Concentration, up to 10 minutes
- Target
- One willing creature
- Components
- V, S, M (holy water or powdered silver and iron, which the spell consumes)
- Higher levels
- No scaling.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
- Bolster yourself with a necromantic facsimile of life, gaining temporary hit points.
- Duration
- 1 hour
- Target
- Self
- Components
- V, S, M (a small amount of alcohol or distilled spirits)
- Higher levels
- When cast using a 2nd-level or higher slot, gain 5 additional temporary hit points for each slot level above 1st.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
2nd level
3- Choose one creature you can see to make a Constitution saving throw or become blinded or deafened for the duration. The target can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns.
- Duration
- 1 minute
- Target
- One creature you can see
- Components
- V, S, M (a pinch of dried carrot or an agate)
- Save or attack
- Constitution saving throw
- Higher levels
- When cast using a 3rd-level or higher slot, target one additional creature for each slot level above 2nd.
- Conditions
- Blinded, Deafened
- Source
- Player's Handbook
- Touch a corpse or other remains. The target is protected from decay and cannot become undead; the spell also extends the time limit for raising it from the dead.
- Duration
- 10 days
- Target
- One corpse or other remains
- Components
- V, S, M (a pinch of graveyard soil)
- Higher levels
- No scaling.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
- Touch one creature or object and mask or alter how spells and magical effects perceive it, choosing the permitted aura or creature-type effect.
- Duration
- 8 hours
- Target
- One creature or object
- Components
- V, S
- Higher levels
- When cast using a 3rd-level or higher slot, the duration becomes 24 hours. Casting it on the same target each day for 30 days makes it permanent until dispelled.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
3rd level
3- Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid to raise as a skeleton or zombie. The spell can also reassert control over undead you created, as described in the spell.
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Target
- A pile of bones or corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid, or undead created by this spell
- Components
- V, S, M (a drop of blood, a piece of flesh, and a pinch of bone dust)
- Higher levels
- When cast using a 4th-level or higher slot, animate or reassert control over two additional undead for each slot level above 3rd.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
- Grant a corpse a semblance of life so it can answer up to five questions. It must have a mouth, must not have been undead when it died, and cannot have been targeted by this spell within the last 10 days.
- Duration
- 10 minutes
- Target
- One corpse within range
- Components
- V, S, M (burning incense)
- Higher levels
- No scaling.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
- Put a willing creature into a deathlike state. It appears dead to outside inspection, is blinded and incapacitated, and gains resistance to all damage except psychic damage; poison and disease effects are suspended.
- Duration
- Concentration, up to 1 hour
- Target
- One willing creature
- Components
- V, S, M (a drop of water and a pinch of soil)
- Higher levels
- No scaling.
- Source
- Player's Handbook
In the margins
4 notes
WarningA ward is a promise made to the earth. Break it, and the earth remembers.
DiaryThe old cedar answered only after I apologized for disturbing its roots.
DiagramFor the burial circle, mark the boundary with nine stones, leaving the northern gap open for the departed.
FormulaBlood is not fuel. It is witness. Never offer more than the oath requires.
The book itself
The burial moss grows pale and brittle when an oath sworn over the book is broken.
Its protective rites treat graves as sanctuaries, not stores of bodies.
Several diagrams show roots curling around a sealed tomb rather than breaking into it.
The caster
Wizardry, School of NecromancyEdrin Vale
Studies: Necromancy shaped by funerary rites, protective wards, and the slow persistence of roots.Manner: Soft-spoken and attentive, with the grave patience of someone accustomed to waiting beside a sealed tomb.Focus: A petrified-root wand wrapped in burial moss and tied with a thread stained by the caster’s own blood.Quirk: Before entering a graveyard or cutting a branch, he quietly asks permission.Wants: Find the missing guardian and learn why the oldest blood-oath in the book has begun to fade.Edrin Vale was raised by a family of grave-keepers who maintained an ancient woodland burial ground. He learned necromancy to protect its dead from desecration, and recorded the rites in this tome after an oathbound guardian failed to return.
The book
A heavy, iron-cornered tome bound in petrified wood, its spine threaded with ancient burial moss. The pages smell of wet soil and preserve faint impressions of pressed leaves, bone dust, and dark red thumbprints.
Its wards · GM only
About the book
FormatPetrified-wood codex
ThemeNature
Written by aWizard, School of Necromancy
Caster level5
SystemDungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
Plot hooks
1The moss on the codex has begun to blacken, though its owner insists no oath has been broken. A sealed family barrow nearby has started to open from within.
2A village wants the necromancer to raise its honored dead as guardians, but the codex’s oldest oath forbids disturbing anyone buried beneath a living tree.
3Someone has stolen a petrified-wood leaf from the codex. Without it, one of the book’s protective wards no longer recognizes its owner.
Media
0 imagesNo images yet.
Visual sheet
Turn The Oathroot Codex into a sheet
A high-res, share-ready sheet you can post or print.