Take a Break from Existence by Flickering Out
/The life of an adventurer in most games of Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons is turbulent and dangerous. I say most because I don't want to generalise. I have a gaggle of players who want to play a One Shot of various peasants in a town near a famous dungeon, all doing their best to live a normal pastoral life while pesky adventurers keep messing things up. This will make it into their games, and it's own article very soon.
As for the usual main character in a game of D&D, the outside world full of monsters and opportunity is dangerous. Particularly for those who try to master arcane arts. Wizards don't spend the time learning to defend themselves the way fighters do. Though their magic gives them this kind of defence.
Fateful Flickering
The mage can truly feel the pressure when faced against many foes. This is why some who have mastered Conjuration spells, the art of being able to make things appear or disappear, have mastered a rare magical art called flickering. Sometimes it's useful to take a break from existence.
Out, Swift and ethereal - ‘Flicker of Fate’ by Tomasz Jedruszek
The flickering effect is a hard to master magical form of displacement. Most Conjuration teleports a person or object across distances great and small. Flickering can appear like a Conjurer is putting themselves into a later point, much like the Blink spell. In actual fact, Flickering just sends them to the Ethereal in a much more controlled.
Discovered by accident by hedge mages hundreds of years ago, Flickering has been used consistently to ensure a quick moment of reprieve and safety from danger. Some circles consider removing and returning yourself from existence cowardly, while others consider it crafty.
Flicker Spell Generated with Homebrewery
A particularly tricky NPC may use this spell to their advantage. As annoying as it may be to players, imagine how the monsters feel, unable to land a hit on a squishy wizard because they consistently turn to smoke.
Now we want to hear from you. How would characters you play use Flickering? How would NPCs you DM use Flickering? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.
Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, they write about card gaming and PC gaming to a corner of the internet he carved out themselves. On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree.
