Ice 9 (3.5e Spell)

''The ice began spreading over the water rapidly. Before you knew it, the entire pond is frozen solid, but the ice is no cooler than the surrounding stone.''

Your touch creates a highly dangerous polymorph of water which freezes at room temperature, doesn't melt until 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and converts all water into more Ice 9. If used on a creature, the creature must succeed on a Fortitude save or die as the water content of its body is frozen solid. Even on a successful save, the creature takes 1d6 points of damage per level from the shock of the attempted conversion. This is not actually cold damage, though immunity to cold does grant immunity to this spell. The spell can also be cast on a body of water, freezing a 10 ft cube of water into a block of ice. The ice is larger, but not significantly so as the ice is rather dense for ice.

The danger comes in additional water or water-bearing creatures exposed to Ice 9's byproduct. They must make a Fortitude save (with a -8 penalty on the DC) or be converted as if touched by the spell, and taking half damage on a successful save. For a body of water, this means the entire mass is converted to Ice 9 at an exponential rate! Fortunately the Ice 9 created by this spell is unstable, and 50 points of damage done to it will send a chain reaction through the entire mass, shattering and melting the whole thing back into normal water. However affected creatures remain dead. This is fortunate so that is does not become a world-ending threat, but rumors persist that this spell is just a pale shadow of an epic spell which creates an unstoppable version of this effect.

Material Component: A frozen shard of mud.