New Spell: Soul Blade
The most updated version of this content can be found within The Impermissicon, a free 254-page compendium that you can download right here, filled with 24 subclasses, 3 prestige classes, 2 feats, 107 spells, 118 spell variants, 91 monsters, 61 magic items, 24 poisons, 23 diseases, and even more goodies themed around lycanthropes, vampires, and forbidden magic for both players and DMs!
“A wounded soul can be the most dangerous thing in the world.”
Links: PDF | D&D Beyond: Soul Blade
Art Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/jasontn/art/Holy-Smite-542211013
Soul Magic — one of the forbidden magicks that The Impermissicon focuses on — has two main forms. The manipulation of souls that have left their bodies (such as ghosts, or those who are astrally projected), or the manipulation of souls which haven’t… yet. No soul magic is easily available to lower level characters, because of its naturally esoteric and challenging nature, and so the lowest level soul magic spell in the compendium is detect souls, at 5th-level. Today’s spell is the lowest level soul magic spell that actually does damage.
Soul Blade (designed in the same vein as flame blade) offers great power to the caster, but at potentially great cost. If you’re careful, you can reclaim the piece of your soul used to make the blade, but if your concentration is broken or the spell is dispelled, that piece is gone, and you’ll have to face the consequences of an injured soul! Because the spell requires you to enter melee range to get any value out of it, it’s almost impossible to use in a completely risk-free way. It works very well for casters with the War Caster feat and high Constitution, who have already been focusing on boosting their saving throws for concentration. Watch out for the damage on an accidental ending. Just like a creature hit by the blade, the caster will also have its soul injured if the spell’s damage kills it — including the 6d6 necrotic damage.
If you’re not using alignment, your DM has a few options for this spell. The first is to simply pick one choice (either radiant or necrotic) that makes sense for souls in the campaign setting, and have the spell always deal that damage type. Another would be to let individual spellcasters choose which damage type they use when they first learn or prepare the spell. Your DM could also choose for each individual character based on their own impressions of that spellcaster’s morality.
Links: PDF | D&D Beyond: Soul Blade
