Patron Bond and the Price of Invoke Patron
In Dungeon Crawl Classics, wizards and elves cast Patron Bond (a level 1 spell) to swear service to an entity like Bobugbubilz or Sezrekan. Success grants access to Invoke Patron and any patron spells the judge hands over. The mechanic worth reading twice: on a check result of 12 or higher the bond forms, but the same table forces the caster to roll on that patron’s taint table. Higher results reduce the taint incurred. They do not eliminate it.
Invoke Patron is the other half. Unlike most spells, it has no true failure line where nothing happens. The result depends on your relationship with the patron and the roll, and the judge interprets accordingly. Patron taint stacks across sessions. Each entry rewrites some habit, tic, or physical feature, and once a taint category is exhausted the effects escalate to something worse. Players treat the bond as a one-time transaction. It is a ledger.
At the table: When a player rolls Patron Bond and hits 12, do not skip the follow-up taint roll to keep things moving. Roll it, record it, and read the new taint aloud so the wizard’s changed behavior is on the sheet before the next scene.
Related
Daily field notes, weekly Issues. Follow @ItsAlrdyWritten or subscribe via RSS.