Aura of Sheer Terror

This spell is a part of the Frightful Touch spell chain and is found in the Frightful Touch rune stone.

Dread does not always announce itself. That is perhaps its cruelest quality. There is no buildup, no warning, no reason given. One moment everything is fine. The next, it isn't. It is as if the body has already decided, faster than thought can follow, that something is catastrophically wrong, and that feeling of wrong manifests into  one of the most misunderstood and terrifying aspects of Dread - the panic attack. The timoramancer knows well the panic attack and Dread, they have felt it within themselves, they have felt it within others, and for so long they have sought to strengthen themselves against it - holding it back and keeping it pushed far away until the time comes that they must simply release it. 

Aura of Sheer Terror is not cast so much as it is released. The timoramancer opens themselves to Dread and simply stops holding it back, letting it radiate outward in a wordless, reasonless wave. Those within the aura receive no explanation for what they feel. There is none to give. The panic simply arrives - sudden, total, and without justification. Every round spent within the aura targets - friend or foe - are afflicted with Anxiety as Dread whispers without words that something is terribly, fundamentally wrong, forcing a Normal Mental Balance check against fear each round just to function. Alongside it comes Restlessness - Dread settling into the bones, making it impossible to find calm even after the source is gone, unable to concentrate and to make focused attacks or to cast spells that require them to focus for longer than a round. A target may flee the aura. They cannot flee what the aura has already put inside them. Presence warns. Dread simply is.