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Today i have a confession to make: i'm a little bit of a minmaxer. And honestly, i think that's a pretty desirable trait in a DM. The minmaxer knows the rules, and exploits them to maximum efficiency.
"But wait, what does that have to do with spell use in society?" - someone, probably.
Well, the thing is that humans are absolutely all about minmaxing. There's a rule in the universe that reads "gas expands when hot", and suddenly we have steam engines (or something like that, i'm a political scientist not an engineer). A rule says 1+1 = 2, and suddenly we have calculus, computers and all kinds of digital stuff that runs on math. Sound is energy? Let's convert that shit into electricity, run it through a wire and turn it back into sound on the other side.
Bruh. Science is just minmaxing the laws of nature. Humanity in real life is just a big bunch of munchkins, and it should be no different in your setting.
And that is why minmaxing magic usage is something societies as a whole would do, specially with some notable spells. Today i will go in depth on how and why each of these notable mentions has a huge impact on a fantasy society.
We'll go from lowest level to highest, keeping in mind that the lower level a spell the more common it should be to find someone who has it, so often a level 2-3 spell will have more impact than a level 9 spell.
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Mending (cantrip).
Repair anything in one minute. Your axe lost its edge? Tore your shirt? Just have someone Mend it.
Someone out there is crying "but wait! Not every village has a wizard!" and while that is true, keep in mind any High Elf knows a cantrip, as can any Variant Human.
A single "mender" could replace a lot of the work a smith, woodworker or seamstress does, freeing their time to only work on making new things rather than repair old ones.
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Prestidigitation (cantrip).
Clean anything in six seconds. Committed axe murders until the axe got blunt, and now there's blood everywhere? Dog shit on your pillow out of spite? Someone walked all over the living room with muddy boots? Just Prestidigitate it away.
This may look like a small thing, but its actually huge when you apply it to laundry. Before washing machines were a thing housewives had to spend several hours a week washing them manually, and with Prestidigitation you can just hire someone to get it done in a few minutes.
A single "magic cleaner" can attend to several dozen homes, if not hundreds, thus freeing several hours of the time of dozens of women.
Fun fact: there's an interesting theory that says feminism only existed because of laundry machines and similar devices. Women found themselves having more free time, which they used to read and socialize. Educated women with more contacts made for easy organization of political movements, and the fact men were now able to do "the women's work" by pushing a button meant men were less opposed to losing their housewives' labor. Having specialized menders and magic cleaners could cause a comparable revolution in a fantasy setting, and help explain why women have a similar standing to men even in combat occupations such as adventuring.
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Healing in general (1st-2nd level).
This one is fairly obvious. A commoner has 4 hit points, that means just about any spell is a full heal to the average person. That means most cuts, stab wounds, etc. can be solved by the resident cleric. Even broken bones that would leave you in bed for months can be solved in a matter of seconds as soon as the holy man arrives.
But that's nothing compared to the ability to cure diseases. While the only spell that can cure diseases is Lesser Restoration, which is second level, a paladin can do it much more easily with just a Lay on Hands. This means if one or two people catch a disease it can just be eradicated with a touch.
However doing that comes with a cost. If everyone is instantly expunged of illness, the populace does not build up their immune systems. Regular disease becomes less common, sure, but whenever it is reintroduced (by, say, immigrants or contact with less civilized humanoids) it can spread like wildfire, afflicting people so fast that no amount of healers will have the magic juice to deal with it.
Diseases become rare, plagues become common.
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Continual Flame (2nd).
Ok, this one is a topic i love and could easily be its own post.
There's an article called "Why the Falling Cost of Light Matters", which goes in detail about how man went from chopping wood for fire, to using animal fat for candles, then other oils, whale oil, kerosene, then finally incandescent light bulbs, and more recently LED lights. Each of these leaps is orders of grandeur more efficient than the previous one, to the point that the cost of light today is about 500,000 times cheaper than it was for for a caveman. And until the early 1900s the only way mankind knew of making light was to set things on fire.
Continual Flame on the other hand allows you to turn 50gp worth of rubies and a 2nd level spell slot into a torch that burns forever. In a society that spends 60 hours of labor to be able to generate 140 minutes of light, this is a huge game changer.
This single spell, which i am 99% sure was just created as an excuse for why the dungeon is lit despite going for centuries without maintenance, allows you to have things like public lighting. Even if you only add a new "torchpost" every other week or month sooner or later you'll be left with a neatly lit city, specially if the city has had thousands of years in which to gather the rubies and light them up.
And because the demand of rubies becomes so important, consider how governments would react. Lighting the streets is a public service, if its strategically relevant to make the city safer at night, would that not warrant some restrictions on ruby sales? Perhaps even banning the use of rubies in jewelry?
Trivia: John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in history, gained his wealth selling kerosene. Kerosene at the time was used to light lamps. Gasoline was invented much later, when Rockefeller tasked a bunch of scientists to come up with a use for some byproducts of the kerosene production. This illustrates how much money is to be had in the lighting industry, and you could even have your own Rockefeller ruby baron in your game. I shall call him... Dohn J. Stonebreaker. Perfect name for a mining entrepreneur.
Whether the ruby trade ends up a monopoly under the direct supervision of the king or a free market, do keep in mind that Continual Flame is by far the most efficient way of creating light.
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Gentle Repose (2nd).
Cast it on a corpse, and it stays preserved for 10 days.
This has many potential uses, from preserving foodstuffs (hey, some rare meats are expensive enough to warrant it) to keeping the bodies of old rulers preserved. Even if a ruler died of old age and cannot be resurrected, the body could be kept "fresh" out of respect/ceremony. Besides, it keeps the corpse from becoming undead.
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Skywrite (2nd).
Ok, this one is mostly a gag. While the spell can be used by officials to make official announcements to the populace, such as new laws or important news, i like to just use it for spam. I mean, its a ritual spell that writes a message on the sky; what else would people use it for?
Imagine you show up in a city, and there's half a dozen clouds reading "buy at X, we have what you need", "get your farming supplies over at Joe's store" or "vote Y for the city council".
The possibilities are endless, and there's no way the players can expect it. Just keep in mind that by RAW the spell can only do words, meaning no images. No Patrick, "8===D" is not a word.
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Zone of Truth (2nd).
This one is too obvious. Put all suspects of a crime into a ZoT, wait a couple minutes to make sure they fail the save, then ask each one if he did it. Sure its not a perfect system, things like the Ring of Mind Shielding still exist, but it's got a better chance of getting the right guy than most medieval justice systems. And probably more than a few contemporary ones. All while taking only a fraction of the time.
More importantly, with all the average crimes being handled instantly, the guards and investigators have more time to properly investigate the more unusual crimes that might actually involve a Thought Shield, Ring of Mind Shielding or a level 17 Mastermind.
There is a human rights argument against messing with people's minds in any way, which is why this may not be practiced in every kingdom. But there are definitely some more lawful societies that would use ZoT on just about every crime.
Why swear to speak the truth and nothing but the truth when you can just stand in a zone of truth?
Another interesting use for ZoT is oaths. When someone is appointed into an office, gets to a high rank in the military or a guild, just put them in a ZoT while they make their oath to stand for the organization's values and yadda yadda. Of course they can be corrupted later on, but at least you make sure they're honest when they are sworn in.
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Sending (3rd).
Sending is busted in so many ways.
The more "vanilla" use of it is to just communicate over long distances. We all know that information is important, and that sometimes getting information a whole day ahead can lead to a 40% return on a massive two-year investment. Being able to know of invasions, monsters, disasters, etc. without waiting days or weeks for a courier can be vital for the survival of a nation. Another notable example is that one dude who ran super fast for a while to be the first to tell his side of a recent event.
But the real broken thing here is... Sending can Send to any creature, on any plane; the only restriction being "with which you are familiar". In D&D dead people just get sent to one of the afterlife planes, meaning that talking to your dead grandfather would be as simple as Sending to him. Settling inheritance disputes was never easier!
Before moving on to the next point let me ask you something: Is a cleric familiar with his god? Is a warlock familiar with his patron?
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Speak With Dead (3rd).
Much like Sending, this lets you easily settle disputes. Is the senate/council arguing over a controversial topic? Just ask the beloved hero or ruler from 200 years ago what he thinks on the subject. As long his skeleton still has a jaw (or if he has been kept in Gentle Repose), he can answer.
This can also be used to ask people who killed them, except murderers also know this. Plan on killing someone? Accidentally killed someone? Make sure to inutilize the jaw. Its either that, being so stealthy the victim can't identify you, or being caught.
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Note on spell availability.
Oh boy. No world-altering 4th level spells for some reason, and suddenly we're playing with the big boys now.
Spells up to 3rd level are what I'd consider "somewhat accessible", and can be arranged for a fee even for regular citizens. For instance the vanilla Priest statblock (MM348) is a 5th level cleric, and the standard vanilla Druid (MM346) a 4th level druid.
Spells of 5th level onward will be considered something only the top 1% is able to afford, or large organizations such as guilds, temples or government.
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Dream (5th).
I was originally going to put Dream along with Sending and Telepathy as "long range communication", but decided against it due to each of them having unique uses.
And when it comes to Dream, it has the unique ability of allowing you to put your 8 hours of sleep to good use. A tutor could hire someone to cast Dream on him, thus allowing him to teach his student for 8 hours at any distance. This is a way you could even access hermits that live in the middle of nowhere or in secluded monasteries. Very wealthy families or rulers would be willing to pay a good amount of money to make sure their heirs get that extra bit of education.
Its like online classes, but while you sleep!
Another interesting use is for cheating. Know a princess or queen you like? She likes you back? Her dad put 400 trained soldiers between you? No problemo! Just find a 9th level Bard, Warlock or Wizard, but who am i kidding, of course it'll be a bard. And that bard is probably you. Now you have 8 hours to do whatever you want, and no physical evidence will be left.
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Raise Dead (5th).
Few things matter more in life than death. And the ability to resurrect people has a huge impact on society. The impact is so huge that this topic needs topics of its own.
First, diamond monopoly. Remember what i said about how Continual Flame would lead to controlled ruby sales due to its strategic value? This is the same principle, but a hundred times stronger. Resurrection is a huge strategic resource. It makes assassinations harder, can be used to bring back your officials or highest level soldiers over and over during a war, etc. This means more authoritarian regimes would do everything within their power to control the supply and stock of diamonds. Which in turn means if anyone wants to have someone resurrected, even in times of peace, they'll need to call in a favor, do a quest, grease some hands...
Second, resurrection insurance. People hate risks. That's why insurance is such a huge industry, taking up about 15% of the US GDP. People insure their cars, houses... even their lives. Resurrection just means "life insurance" is taken more literally. This makes even more sense when you consider how expensive resurrection is: nobody can afford it in one go, but if you pay a little every month or year you can save up enough to have it done when the need arises.
This is generally incompatible with the idea of a State-run monopoly over diamonds, but that just means different countries within a setting can take different approaches.
To make things easier, i even used some microeconomics to make a sheet in my personal random generators to calculate the price of such a service. Just head to the "Insurance" tab and fill in the information relative to your setting.
With actual life insurance resurrection can cost as little as 5gp a year for humans or 8sp a year for elves, making resurrection way more affordable than it looks.
Also, do you know why pirates wore a single gold earring? It was so that if your body washes up on the shore whoever finds it can use the money to arrange a proper burial. Sure there's a risk of the finder taking it and walking away, but the pirates did it anyway. With resurrection in play, might as well just wear a diamond earring instead and hope the finder is nice enough to bring you back.
I got so carried away with the whole insurance thing i almost forgot: the possibility of resurrection also changes how murders are committed.
If you want someone dead but resurrection exists, you have to remove the vital organs. Decapitation would be far more common. Sure resurrection is still possible, but it requires higher level spells or Reincarnate, which has... quirks.
As a result it should be very obvious when someone was killed by accident or an overreaction, and when someone was specifically out to kill the victim.
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Scrying (5th).
This one is somewhat obvious, in that everyone and their mother knows it helps finding people. But who needs finding? Well, that would be those who are hiding.
The main use i see for this spell, by far, is locating escaped criminals. Just collect a sample of hair or blood when arresting someone (or shipping them to hard labor which is way smarter), and if they escape you'll be almost guaranteed to successfully scry on them.
A similar concept to this is seen in the Dragon Age series. If you're a mage the paladins keep a sample of your blood in something called a phylactery, and that can be used to track you down. There's even a quest or two about mages trying to destroy their phylacteries before escaping.
Similarly, if you plan a jailbreak it would be highly beneficial to destroy the blood/hair sample first. As a matter of fact i can even see a thieves guild hiring a low level party to take out the sample while the professional infiltrators get the prisoner out. Keep in mind both events must be done at the same time, otherwise the guards will just collect a new sample or would have already taken it to the wizard.
But guards aren't the only ones with resources. A loan shark could keep blood samples of his debtors, a mobster can keep one of those who owe him favors, etc. And the blood is ceremoniously returned only when the debt is fully paid.
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Teleportation Circle (5th), Transport Via Plants (6th).
In other words, long range teleportation. This is such a huge thing that it is hard to properly explain how important it is.
Teleportation Circle creates a 10ft. circle, and everyone has one round to get in and appear on the target location. Assuming 30ft. movement that means you can get 192 people through, which is a lot of potential merchants going across any distance. Or 672 people dashing.
Math note: A 30ft radius square around a 10ft. diameter square, minus the 4 original squares. Or [(6*2+2)^2]-4 squares of 5ft. each. Hence 192 people.
Getting hundreds of merchants, workers, soldiers, etc. across any distance is nothing to scoff at. In fact, it could help explain why PHB item prices are so standardized: Arbitrage is so easy and cheap that price differences across multiple markets become negligible. Unless of course countries start setting up tax collectors outside of the permanent teleportation circles in order to charge tariffs.
Transport Via Plants does something very similar but it requires 5ft of movement to go through, which means less people can be teleported. On the other hand it doesn't burn 50gp and can take you to any tree the druid is familiar with, making it nearly impossible for tax collectors to be waiting on the other side. Unfortunately druids tend to be a lot less willing to aid smugglers, so your best bet might be a bard using spells that don't belong to his list.
With these methods of long range teleportation not only does trade get easier, but it also becomes possible to colonize or inhabit far away places. For instance if someone finds a gold mine in the antarctic you could set up a mine and bring food and other supplies via teleportation.
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Major Image (6th level slot).
Major Image is a 3rd level spell that creates an illusion over a 20ft cube, complete with image, sound, smell and temperature. When cast with a 6th level slot or higher, it lasts indefinitely.
That my friends, is a huge spell. Why get the world's best painter to decorate the ceiling of your cathedral when you can just get an illusion made in six seconds?
The uses for decorating large buildings is already good, but remember: we're not restricted to sight.
Cast this on a room and it'll always be cool and smell nice. Inns would love that, as would anyone who always sleeps or works in the same room. Desert cities have never been so chill.
You can even use an illusion to make the front of your shop seem flashier, while hollering on loop to bring customers in.
The only limit to this spell is your imagination, though I'm pretty sure it was originally made just to hide secret passages.
Trivia: the ki-rin (VGM163) can cast Major Image as a 6th level spell, at will. It's probably meant to give them fabulous lairs yet all it takes is someone doing the holy horsey a big favor, and it could enchant the whole city in a few hours. Shiniest city on the planet, always at a nice temperature and with a fragrance of lilac, gooseberries or whatever you want.
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Simulacrum (7th).
Spend 12 hours and 1500gp worth of ruby dust, and get a clone of yourself. Notably, each caster can only have one simulacrum, regardless of who the person he cloned is.
How this changes the world? By allowing the rich and powerful to be in two places at once. Kings now have a perfect impersonator who thinks just like them. A wealthy banker can run two branches of his company. Etc.
This makes life much easier, but also competes with Continual Flame over resources.
It also gives "go fuck yourself" a whole new meaning, making the sentence a valid Suggestion.
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Clone (8th).
If there's one spell i despise, its Clone.
Wizard-only preemptive resurrection. Touch spell, costs 1.000gp worth of diamonds each time, takes 120 days to come into effect, and creates a copy of the creature that the soul occupies if the original dies. Oh, and the copy can be made younger.
Why is it so despicable? Because it makes people effectively immortal. Accidents and assassinations just get you sent to the clone, and old age can be forever delayed because you keep going back to younger versions of yourself. Being a touch spell means the wizard can cast it on anyone he wants.
In other words: high level wizards, and only wizards, get to make anyone immortal.
That means wizards will inevitably rule any world in which this spell exists.
Think about it. Rulers want to live forever. Wizards can make you live forever. Wizards want other stuff, which you must give them if you want to continue being Cloned. Rulers who refuse this deal eventually die, rulers who accept stick around forever. Natural selection makes it so that eventually the only rulers left are those who sold their soul to wizards. Figuratively, i hope.
The fact that there are only a handful of wizards out there who are high enough level to cast the spell means its easier for them organize and/or form a cartel or union (cartels/unions are easier to maintain the fewer suppliers are involved).
This leads to a dystopian scenario where mages rule, kings are authoritarian pawns and nobody else has a say in anything. Honestly it would make for a fun campaign in and of itself, but unless that's specifically what you're going for it'll just derail everything else.
Oh, and Clone also means any and all liches are absolute idiots. Liches are people who turned themselves into undead abominations in order to gain eternal life at the cost of having to feed on souls. They're all able to cast 9th level wizard spells, so why not just cast an 8th level one and keep undeath away? Saves you the trouble of going after souls, and you keep the ability to enjoy food or a day in the sun.
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Demiplane (8th).
Your own 30ft. room of nothingness. Perfect place for storage and a DM's nightmare given how once players have access to it they'll just start looting furniture and such. Oh the horror.
But alas, infinite storage is not the reason this is a broken spell. No sir.
Remember: you can access someone else's demiplane. That means a caster in city 1 can put things into a demiplane, and a caster in city 2 can pull them out of any surface.
But wait, there's more! There's nothing anywhere saying you can't have two doors to the same demiplane open at once. Now you're effectively opening a portal between two places, which stays open for a whole hour.
But wait, there's even more! Anyone from any plane can open a door to your neat little demiplane. Now we can get multiple casters from multiple planes connecting all of those places, for one hour. Sure this is a very expensive thing to do since you're having to coordinate multiple high level individuals in different planes, but the payoff is just as high. We're talking about potential integration between the most varied markets imaginable, few things in the multiverse are more valuable or profitable. Its a do-it-yourself Sigil.
One little plot hook i like about demiplanes is abandoned/inactive ones. Old wizard/warlock died, and nobody knows how to access his demiplanes. Because he's at least level 15 you just know there's some good stuff in there, but nobody can get to it. Now the players have to find a journal, diary, stored memory or any other way of knowing enough about the demiplane to access it.
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True Polymorph (9th).
True Polymorph. The spell that can turn any race into any other race, or object. And vice-versa. You can go full fairy godmother and turn mice into horses. For a spell that can change anything about one's body it would not be an unusual ruling to say it can change one's sex. At the very least it can turn a man into a chair, and the chair into a woman (or vice-versa of course).
But honestly, that's just the tip of the True Polymorph iceberg. Just read this more carefully:
> You transform the creature into a different creature, the creature into a nonmagical object, or the object into a creature
This means you can turn a rock or twig into a human. A fully functional human with, as far as the rules go, a soul. You can create life.
But wait, there's more! Nothing there says you have to turn the target into a known creature on an existing creature. The narcissist bard wants to create a whole race of people who look like him? True Polymorph. A player wants to play a weird ass homebrew race and you have no idea how it would fit into the setting? True Polymorph. Wizard needs a way to quickly populate a kingdom and doesn't want to wait decades for the subjects to grow up? True Polymorph. Warlock must provide his patron 100 souls in order to free his own? True Polymorph. The sorcerer wants to do something cool? Fuck that guy, sorcerers don't get any of the fun high level spells; True Poly is available to literally every arcane caster but the sorcerer.
Note: what good is Twinned Spell if all the high level twinnable spells have been specifically made unavailable to sorcerers?
Do keep in mind however that this brings a whole new discussion on human rights. Does a table have rights? Does it have rights after being turned into a living thing? If it had an owner, is it now a slave? Your country will need so many new laws, just to deal with this one spell.
People often say that high level wizards are deities for all intents and purposes. This is the utmost proof of that. Clerics don't get to create life out of thin air, wizards do. The cleric worships a deity, the wizard is the deity.
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Conclusion.
Intelligent creatures not only can game the system, but it is entirely in character for them to do so. I'll even argue that if humanoids don't use magic to improve their lives when it's available, you're pushing the suspension of disbelief.
With this post i hope to have helped you make more complex and realistic societies, as well as provide a few interesting and unusual plot hooks
Lastly, as much as i hate comment begging i must admit i am eager to see what spells other players think can completely change the world. Because at the end of the day we all know that extra d6 damage is not what causes empires to rise and fall, its the utility spells that make the best stories.
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Edit: Added spell level to all spells, and would like to thank u/kaul_field for helping with finishing touches and being overall a great mod.

In the nights of old long forgotten when Man was younger still and had yet to forsake his fear of the dark, a great beast roamed the land. A beast without conscience or fear, whose love of wanton cruelty was matched only by his insatiable thirst for the freshly spilled blood of humankind, whom he both loved and hated in equal measure, not unlike a lover scorned by the object of his affections. Though it would come to pass that a later generation of Man would come to give him countless names and titles such as the Dark One, the Night Father, the Prince of Hunger, the Son of the Serpent, and perhaps the simplest and most widely recognized by humankind, the Vampire, those few brave men and women who gazed at him across the battlefield called him by his name, Torrak Mourn. A name of the Old Tongue, which meant " Forsaken Son."
Man was mighty in those days but had yet to build his tall cities or perfect his engines of war, and thusly found himself constantly pushed to the edge of the abyss by His most hated enemy whose terrible malice seemed to only be thwarted by the light of dawn. Many sought to destroy Torrak Mourn, but there were others among Man who lusted after his power.
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"Who among us can truly stand against the Serpent?"
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they asked as they threw themselves at his feet in worship. More often than not, the Vampire simply slew these men in disgust, for his once human-heart still burned with hatred for those who would commit treachery against their own. As time passed however, Torrak Mourn's heart grew heavy with weight of being both the first and last of his kind, and he began to allow those he deemed worthy to drink of his blood and be thusly be remade in his image. These were the Nightkin, the first lords of Shadow. With them by his side, Torrak Mourn united the scattered tribes of Man and established a nation of the Night which he called Nelgoth. Another name of the Old Tongue, meaning "Our Land." With the intention of ruling over both his kindred and his hated enemies, the humans, for all time.
But the Vampire, like the humans he so despised, was a creature of hunger and ambition, it was not in his nature to ever truly be satisfied, and thusly once he conquered all that lay before him, he sought through blackest sorcery to trap the Old Gods of Death and Life, into mortal form, so he might taste of their blood and absorb their divine power for his own.
However, The Old Gods were more clever than the Vampire, and on the eve of his dark ritual, the God of Death whispered promises of power everlasting to the Night Kin, if they would but end their father's madness, while the God of Life appeared before the warrior king of Mankind, called Garric the Lion, and gave unto him a spear crafted from the wood of the Tree of Life, a weapon that could deprive the Vampire of his unholy magic, if it but pierced his heart.
With spear in hand and the God's blessing, Garric took an army and stormed Torrak Mourn's keep that had been left undefended by all but the loyalist of the Night Kin, and a battle that shook the earth itself ensued. Weakened and distracted by his ritual but far from defenseless, Torrak Mourn unleashed his fury upon his enemies, killing scores of them and even beheading Garric the Lion himself. The Vampyre's victory over both mankind and the Gods themselves seemed imminent, until his own daughter Helena, for reasons that only she will ever know, took the spear from the Warrior King's corpse and drove it into her father's heart, vanquishing him.
It was on that night and all the nights that followed that Helena the Redeemer made a pact of peace with humankind, and erected a grand tomb around her father's keep so that no one, whether they be a child of Man or a child of Night, could disturb it. Many ages have passed since that time, and Man has grown confident and complacent behind His high walled cities. He has forgotten the deeds of Helena the Redeemer and no longer fears the dark places of the world. He has declared war on the Children of the Night, and sworn to drive them to extinction in the name of His new God while the Children of the Night stand divided and bickering among themselves, some calling for peace, others for war. In these nights of confusion, of ill-omens, dark whispers, and fast approaching war, the tale of the Witch, the Vampire Hunter, and the Lunatic would begin amidst a grand celebration of the rich and powerful.
The ballroom was alight with the flickering flames of thousands of candles and was clearly visible even from far off in the dark and the haunting sounds of the violinist’s song echoed throughout the obscenely luxurious villa so that not even the drunken laughter of its many guests could drown it out. They had come by the thousands tonight, most by carriage, some by boat, while others who had not the good fortune to be born into affluence came on foot, braving the perilous trek through the forest from the nearest villages miles away despite the wolves, bandits, and far darker things that prowled the woods after sun down.
For the poor folk of Nelgoth, it was all worth it for a chance to enjoy a night of hospitality in the home of Lord Faerdoth Thrane, a merchant whose vast wealth, polished oratory skills, and generous disposition had earned him the title of “Prince” among the common people. He was an aristocrat of the eccentric sort, in the sense that unlike virtually every other one of his countrymen that was his equal in wealth and influence, he offered his hospitality freely so that anyone, be they regal-born noble or beggar off the streets, was welcome at his extravagant celebrations where they could feel free to partake of expensive wines, finely cooked meats, and of course the pleasurable company of his many servant girls. Prince Thrane always aimed to please his guests and spared no expense to that end, and if his guests should find themselves too tired or too drunk to return home by daybreak, they could of course recover their strength in one the hundreds of furnished bed chambers that filled the villa. Whenever he was questioned by his fellow nobles about this outrageous policy, Prince Thrane would just flash his signature smile and say,
“ He who is closest to the poor is closest to the Gods.”
Needless to say, he was one of the most popular men in the region, if not the whole country, and to Thomas Lechance, it was painfully obvious that he was a vampyre. Tommy had seen the like before. Most of the people of Nelgoth thought of vampyres as savage undead predators that kept to the wilds and hunted in packs, killing whatever unfortunate soul was unwise enough to wander into the forests alone after dark for fear of wandering too far into civilized lands. Which wasn’t untrue, Many of them did behave like that. But the larger truth that the people either didn’t realize or chose to deny, was that the smarter and more cunning of the vampyres had long ago learned to blend into human society, living among their food source as true wolves in sheep’s clothing or in Thrane’s case, a wolf in Shepherd’s clothing. It made Tommy’s job as a hunter of their kind all the more difficult.
“ Fucking sneaky leeches.”
He thought to himself as he ascended the marble steps that led to the villa entrance. He was taking a lot of risks tonight, big ones; he had to stay focused because in the business of hunting the hunters, a distracted man is a dead one. The ornate archway that was the villa entrance seemed unguarded save a modestly armored door man with a thick grey beard and a sleepy look painted across his face. A less experienced or novice hunter would have taken such laughable security as carelessness on the part of his target, but Tommy was not a novice. He knew his intended target well enough to know that it wasn’t carelessness, but rather arrogance that lay behind Thrane’s lax security. It was his style to taunt would-be pursuers in that way, as if to say “Go on, come into my home, It won’t make any difference.” Tommy straightened out his black overcoat as he approached, making sure to keep the various silver blades and spring-loaded firing mechanisms hidden beneath it ready to draw for what he felt was the inevitable confrontation that lay ahead of him tonight. As he cleared the final step towards the entrance he tipped his hat to the guard and greeted him cordially.
“Evening.”
The old door guard replied with a nod and returned to his dazed half-sleep as Tommy entered the villa.
“Poor bastard probably breaks his back for shit pay from a monster.”
Tommy couldn’t help but think to himself as he passed the old man and pressed onward into the villa. The marble walkway gave way to an extravagant courtyard lined with lanterns and statues, some of which were of animals like lions, wolves, and bears.
While others were stone depictions of famous warriors from Nelgoth’s history such as Nestor the Black, with his imposing war hammer and cold eyes, Martin the Selfless, his passionate fury against the injustices of his time captured admirably in stone, and even Garric the Lion, his stern and uncompromising gaze near life-like.
In the gardens that surrounded these statues seemingly on all sides were dozens of drunks from all walks of life. Young noblemen drank and mingled with beggars, farmers, craftsmen, bakers, stone masons, architects, soldiers, laborers, and old street whores while the younger and fairer serving girls of the villa made their rounds with silver trays of wine. Though to be fair “mingled” was probably an understatement, The courtyard was in a state of complete pandemonium. Every way Tommy looked, people were laughing, dancing, brawling, puking, and fucking the night away; he hadn’t even made it into the building itself yet.
Chaos made Tommy uneasy, because he knew that vampires lived for chaotic situations such as this, when the prey was divided, distracted and unaware. The ballroom seemed to be on the villa’s uppermost terrace about three floors up as far as Tommy could tell, and since he was certain that Thrane would be entertaining his guests in the ballroom that meant there were at least three floors of witnesses, guards, and gods know what else between him and the leech he was there to gut. A weary look painted his already rough features as he weighed his options on how to proceed.
“ An outright assault is out of the question.”
He concluded in short order. He also doubted he could take Thrane by surprise, since he had already buried a string of colleges who had attempted as much, and there hadn’t been much of them left to bury. He also considered the very real possibility that the entire villa could be crawling with vampires, not just Thrane and he found himself wishing he’d been a bit more sober when that slippery old bastard Isaac jokingly asked him if he thought he could handle a suicide mission.
He could just picture the old man right now, rocking back and forth in that rickety old chair he loved so much back at Fort Vigilance, with a glint in his cloudy grey eyes as he drank himself stupid and took bets on how much of Tommy would be left when the blood-suckers were done with him. The thought made Tommy promise to himself that once he made it back to Fort Vigilance, he was going to slug the decrepit old bastard right in his smug little grin. The music from within the villa shifted from a joyful drinking tune to something more solemn and ominous as Tommy made his way inside, almost as if to warn him that he was now in the lion’s den. The building’s interior was no less extravagant than the courtyard, A fine red carpet stretched from the doorway into the spacious parlour that was lined on either side with long tables packed with food. Various portraits and scenic paintings covered the walls and the center of the room was filled with people laying back on expensive furniture, raising odd looking pipes to their mouths and blowing out white smoke that gave off a distinct sickly-sweet odor that Tommy couldn’t quite place.
In contrast to the courtyard, the parlour was much less chaotic, in fact, the only people who seemed to be on their feet at all were the servants who paced back and forth with their wine trays. One of them, a pretty looking dark-haired girl that looked to be in her early twenties, approached him with a smile as he walked by.
“ Wine M'lord?” she offered.
“ No thanks.” he replied bluntly.
She looked a bit crestfallen at that, but attempted to make conversation regardless:
“ I’ve not seen you here before, is this your first celebration?”
“ You could say that.”
“ Did you travel far?”
“ Far enough.”
“Are you tired; do you need someone to help you forget your long journey?”
She asked him in an overtly provocative and flirtatious manner as she suddenly leaned in close to him, pressing her breasts against his shoulder.
That made Tommy chuckle, “ Sorry love, you’re not my sort.”
Which was true enough; it was just simpler for him to say that than it was to explain to her that he preferred the company of men to that of women, a concept which seemed to be utterly baffling and offensive to most people for some reason. The girl, who clearly had very little experience with rejection, pursed her lips into a pronounced pout. “ Fine, you probably couldn’t handle me anyway.” she huffed as Tommy walked away without another word.
With that distraction out of the way Tommy was looking for a way upward, a staircase, a low-hanging balcony, something. But luck seemed to be totally against him tonight because everywhere he looked, he only saw more winding hallways lined with countless portraits, and each time he passed through a door, there was only another hallway which shouldn’t have been possible in this relatively small building.
In Tommy’s mind, this could have meant a few different things, either he was a very poor judge of the villa’s layout, or there was a sorcerer at work nearby, and he sincerely hoped that the former was the case. At first, there were party goers at every corner, stumbling around, rutting in the bedrooms, or simply passed out on the floor. The more he explored however, the less and less people he saw until he was pacing through the wide corridors alone.
That was when the whispers started, low and quiet at first, but they gradually began to grow in volume and pitch, and seemed to come from all directions.
“Thomasss. Come dance with us Thomasss, the master is waiting.” they coed.
“ Oh fuck me raw.” thought Tommy as he went for a blade, fully expecting to be pounced on at any moment.
Though he would never admit it to anyone, he was afraid. Even the greenest hunter knew that you had to get the drop on the leeches first if you wanted the hunt to go well, and that if they got the drop on you, you were as good as dead.
A cold chill pressed up his spine as he pushed forward, drawing a long dagger from his sleeve while the whispers started to taunt him.
“ We can smell your terror human, it is sweet like the red-mead in your veins. Won’t you let us taste it?” they mocked.
The long corridor seemed to stretch on forever, and the legion of painted faces on the walls seemed to look down on Tommy with amused contempt as he made his way toward the end of the corridor.
“ When you are one of us, you will know true joy Thomas, the night is boundless and beautiful , and it will consume all.”
the whispers promised as Tommy did his best to ignore them and stay alert, since he knew that this was how the vampyre hunted its prey, by wearing them down from a distance before moving in for the kill when they were tired and terrified.
Tommy was neither,and he swore to himself that if he was going to die this night, he was going to cut open a few of the pale fuckers first. Somewhere ahead of him, candle lights flickered and danced to the same ominous violin tune he had heard in the parlour, and he could make out the faint silhouettes of figures dancing in the shadows.
“ Time to do or die.” he thought grimly.
The whispers were frantic at this point, no longer speaking to Tommy himself, but rather to each other in some language he could not recognize. They seemed to go completely quiet once Tommy took his first step into the lavish ballroom. On either side of him, men in finely tailored suits donned painted wolf masks and danced with ladies in exquisite silk dresses who themselves wore similar masks depicting deer, rabbits, foxes and various other woodland creatures. The polished obsidian floor radiated with an unnatural warmth, as if by magic, and the high ceiling was covered in paintings of angels with solemn, pitying expressions drawn on their faces. In the ballroom’s center stood a figure in a golden robe and an ornate mask of a lion that obscured nearly all of his features with the exception of his fiery red hair.
“ Welcome, Mr. Lechance, to my Summer celebration.”
He bellowed as Tommy approached.
“ I hope the road treated you well.”
Tommy strode forward with purpose in his step and blades in his hands.
“ Why don’t we skip the bullshit and get to the part where I cut you open.”
He said with exasperation. Laughter filled the ballroom.
“ I like to take my time Mr. Lechance and it is not often that I get to enjoy the company of a fellow hunter, for we are both hunters of a sort are we not? Consider it a courtesy.”
replied Thrane jovially.
“ Is this the part where you launch into a long monologue about how we aren’t so different, and that good and evil are just points of view, and that my narrow view of morality keeps me from seeing the obvious superiority of the vampire race, and that if I would just throw down my weapons and join you, I could have power beyond my wildest dreams and the rest of eternity will be filled with world peace, rainbows, and gumdrops?”
“ I was actually going to ask if the wine was any good. I can’t taste it myself because of my condition, but I pay good money for it and it would be nice to know if I’m getting my money’s worth.”
replied Thrane in a cynical tone.
“It’s overpriced shit, just like everything else here.”
said Tommy bluntly. Thrane burst out laughing.
“You know, I wish I could get that kind of honesty out of my servants, you are a treat Mr. Lechance.”
Tommy responded by throwing his dagger across the room directly into Thrane’s chest. A collective gasp filled the room as all the masked guests stopped dead in their tracks and began to hiss. Thrane looked down at the blade sticking out from his chest as if it didn’t phase him at all. He held up his hand and all the hissing ceased.
“Calm down everyone, no need to get excited.”
he said as he reached down and pulled the blade out from his abdomen and let it drop to the floor. Tommy had heard stories of vampyres powerful enough to survive a blow to the heart, but to see it first hand was… frightening.
“Fuck.” he thought to himself.
“I can see we’ve both been through this enough times to be bored with it Mr. Lechance, So why don’t we just skip the bullshit as you put it, and get to the business at hand. You and your merry band of murderers at Fort Vigilance would like to see me dead because you believe me to be one of humanity’s greatest enemies no? That if you destroy me you cut off the head of the Vampyre Nation? Am I close?” he asked.
“Close enough.” said Tommy drawing another blade.
“Then what if I were to tell you that even if you succeeded, your victory would be for naught? That a darkness far worse than I draws closer and closer every moment? A darkness that is as much an enemy to me as it is to you, that you cannot hope to destroy without my aid?”
“ I would say it sounds like bullshit.” scoffed Tommy.
Thrane paid no mind to Tommy’s reply and continued.
“You will believe in time, for now I will present you with three gifts, the first is your life, cherish it while you can, for it is short and too often wasted. The second is a name, Selene Cairn, find her in the Marshes to the south, she is closer to the coming darkness than anyone, and will be a necessity in the battles to come. The third is the key to salvation itself.”
With a clap of his hands Thrane ushered one of his masked servants forward carrying a stone case, she walked directly up to Tommy and presented the case to Tommy with a curtsey.
“M’lord” she said with a giggle.
Tommy recognized the voice of the servant girl from the parlour.
“I knew it.”
He took the case from her and opened it. Within the case was what looked to be a an old tree branch sharpened to a point on one end.
“What’s this?”
“Keep it safe Mr.Lechance, that stick of wood is more valuable than you.” said Thrane matter-of- factly.
“Time is of the essence and I trust you know the way out. Good evening, Mr. Lechance, there may not be many of them left.”
With a wave of his hand, the ballroom began to shimmer and glow, until it became like vapor and drifted off into the night, taking the entire villa with it guests and all, leaving Tommy alone on an otherwise barren hillside. In all his life, Tommy had never felt so relieved. He dropped to his knees and vomited all over the ground.
He had been so sure that he was going to die in there, and now the damp night air had never tasted sweeter. He took a moment to gather himself, then he scooped up the box that had been left with him and took off running back to the horse he had left tied to a tree in the valley below, Fort Vigilance was a two day ride to the west from where he was, but he intended to get there by sunrise.