This spell is a part of the Trepidatious Bracing spell chain and is found in the Trepidatious Bracing rune stone.
The neophyte timoramancer is coming to learn the many faces of Dread. Dread, the dark symbol of an already dark affinity, is the power of crippling fear. A fear that is so complete that it can distort vision and cause harm, unless one learns to live and walk beside Dread. To learn Dread, to accept Dread, this is the timoramancer's purpose. Doing so will help them to fill the world around them and not break. The one who masters fear fears nothing. To wear Dread as armor, that is what the timoramancer seeks most.
Dread's Armor is the timoramancer calling Dread forward and letting it settle into the target's armor - not as a concealment, not as a shadow, but as a presence. An aura of wrongness that makes enemies instinctively hesitant, requiring a Normal Perceive -2 check simply to focus their attention on the protected target long enough to act against them. When attacks do land, Dread feeds, 20% of the damage taken is converted to Soul as Dread absorbs the fear felt within the attacker generated by the strike and returns it as sustenance. Magic damage is reduced by 25% as Dread's presence weakens the caster's resolve thus reducing the spell.
The cost is Anxiety. To wear Dread is to feel Dread and Dread does not sit quietly. It whispers constantly, and the target wearing it feels every whisper. For the duration the protected target carries Anxiety, Dread's restless presence making stillness impossible even as it keeps them safe. Protection and unease, inseparable. That is simply what Dread offers. The timoramancer who so longs for this is unable to wear Dread as armor, they simply are not ready yet. When the timoramancer has mastered Dread itself by having all of Dread's named spells, then and only then can the timoramancer cast the spell upon themself and wear it with no fear, no anxiety, no dread.
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