Hellmouth (3.5e Spell)



You indicate a place, either on a vertical or horizontal surface, using intricate binding circles written in sacrificial blood. When completed, a doorway to the flames of hell is called into being at the designated location, allowing you to call forth evil outsiders to greater effect. This is a one-way portal to a single Lower Plane of your choice and cannot be used to enter that or any other plane, although any creature that passed into the material plane through the hellmouth can return back normally. A hellmouth is big enough to let creatures of up to Gargantuan size pass through.

As the hellmouth opens, a portion of the essence from the lower plane on the other side pours through the portal, emulating certain planar traits inherent to that plane in the portal's vicinity. As a result, in a 1-mile radius around the hellmouth, any outsiders native to the plane on the other side lose their Extraplanar subtype and cannot be banished or otherwise compelled to return to their home plane. Any outsider native to the connected plane within 200 feet of the hellmouth is empowered, gaining a +4 enhancement bonus to all physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity and Constitution) as well as a +4 profane bonus to their attack rolls, Armor Class, saves and spell resistance.

When using your hellmouth to summon fiends from the plane on the other side, the effective level of the summoning spell increases by 2; a summon monster I becomes a summon monster III and you can use a summon monster IX spell to call up to 1d4+1 similar creatures from the Level 9 creature table. Furthermore, the duration of any summoning spell that summons a fiend from the plane on the other side increases tenfold (rounds become minutes).

Finally, it is possible to use the hellmouth as a conduit to turn a summoning spell into an actual calling effect. The caller may command the creature as they would an ordinary summon, but the creature is effectively called; it cannot be dispelled or dismissed as one would a summon. Neither the level or the duration of the summoning spell is increased when it is used to call a creature through the hellmouth. To call stronger outsiders or enlist an outsider for a longer period of time, a binding contract must be made, as per planar ally. In order to forcibly call forth an evil outsider through the hellmouth that exceeds the limitations of summon monster spells, a number of rounds of concentration is needed equal to the outsider's Hit Dice. Outsiders with a challenge rating exceeding your level -3 cannot be bound to service, nor can a number of similar creatures with a total encounter level exceeding that number. At any rate, only a single calling can be sustained by the hellmouth at any one time, even if the calling consists of multiple creatures.

A hellmouth cannot be dispelled or destroyed with any spell other than miracle or wish, but it can be closed or even sealed. A dimensional lock over the hellmouth prevents any demonic presence from coming through and an antimagic field similarly bars passage, but doesn't prevent summoned or called creatures from returning to the plane behind the portal when their time runs out. When the hellmouth is open, any creature indigenous to the plane on the other side can use it and return through it at will as long as they are aware of its location.

A planar binding on the hellmouth can lock it permanently, or allow you to unlock it only when desired. If the hellmouth takes the shape of a real gate, performing a planar binding on the doors renders the hellmouth completely sealed when the gate itself is closed and locked. No mortal or immortal power can force a hellmouth open from the other side when it is sealed, except for a deity of at least lesser deity rank.

A hellmouth can be made permanent with the permanency spell. Including the XP cost, in order to make a hellmouth permanent not one but five sacrifices are required.

Material Component: Blood from a sacrifice. The sacrifice must be human (or similarly sapient) and healthy. In so doing, the sacrifice is condemned to an eternity of suffering on the plane the hellmouth connects to. Note that willfully sacrificing a sentient creature or attempting to cast the spell are both acts of irredeemable evil and will cause your moral alignment to change to evil.