Serenity's Calm

This spell is a part of the Loss of Self spell chain and can be found in the Loss of Self rune stone.

Serenity is not a weapon. The necromancer has always been careful to understand this distinction. Serenity is a state, a condition, the particular quality of stillness that settles over things when death is near and the struggle has finally stopped. It does not cause harm. It does not intend anything. It simply is what it is, present and absolute and indifferent to whatever the living make of it.

What the necromancer makes of it is this. When this spell is cast Serenity flows outward from the necromancer and wraps itself around the target. This is not as an attack or a threat, Serenity cares not for such things. It is a sudden, genuine calm. The noise of the battle recedes. The urgency drains away. For just a moment the target exists in the particular stillness of something that has already ended, and it feels, against all reason, almost peaceful.

Then Serenity shows them what that peace costs. The injuries arrive without warning inside the calm. The injuries do not come from outside nor do they come from any visible source. They come from within the stillness itself, as if the target's own body has simply remembered what it was always going to feel. The damage dealt is 3d10 as Serenity delivers its truth and then, just as quietly as it arrived, releases the target back into the chaos of the battle. The wounds are real. The calm is gone. What remains is the particular disorientation of someone who just had a moment of peace and came out of it bleeding.