This spell is a part of the Trepidatious Bracing spell chain and is found in the Trepidatious Bracing rune stone.
The one who understands fear fears nothing. The timoramancer who reaches Embraced Horrors has arrived at the end of that truth - not as a concept to be studied but as a state of being to inhabit completely. They are no longer a person wearing Dread. They are what Dread looks like when it has found a willing home.
There is no spell effect visible. No aura, no glow, no dramatic transformation. What changes is simply what the timoramancer is - and what every living thing within range instinctively recognizes them as. No target can willingly remain within 4 spaces of them, the primal fear response overriding every other consideration. No attack can be directed at them - not physical, not ranged, not magical - the mind refusing to complete the action of striking at something that registers as the embodiment of fear itself. Mental Balance attacks are meaningless - there is nothing left in the timoramancer to destabilize that fear has not already claimed and made its own. Any fear effect directed at them instead adds to their armor defense and armor spirit at a rate of the timoramancer's Arcana, Dread absorbing what was meant to harm and wearing it as additional armor.
The cost is Spiritual Balance. What the timoramancer has embraced is real, and it has taken something. The spirit that remains is more vulnerable than it was - the part of them that exists beyond fear thinned by how much of themselves they have given to Dread's keeping. All Spirit Balance checks are increased by 1 level in difficulty. They do not regret it. The timoramancer has worked for this, and regret - that too is something they left behind.
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