Creating a Spell

A working, rollable spell in the DCC system is made of two parts:

1. A Spell Item — this is what sits on the character sheet and gets cast.
2. A Rollable Table — this holds the spell check results (what happens on a 12, an 18, a 32, etc.).

You link the table to the spell so that when the spell is cast, the system automatically looks up the result matching the spell check roll.

Save time: The DCC Core Book module includes every core rulebook spell with its result tables already set up. You only need to build spells by hand for homebrew or third-party content.

Step 1: Create the Spell Item

Spells are Items in FoundryVTT. Open the Items Directory (the suitcase icon) and click Create Item. Give it the spell's name and select Spell in the Type dropdown.

Open the new spell and fill in the spell details (level, range, duration, casting time, save, etc.) just as they appear in the rulebook.

Don't enter Mercurial Magic — each player rolls that for themselves after adding the spell to their character sheet.

Step 2: Create the Rollable Table

Go to the Rollable Tables tab in the sidebar and click Create Table. Name the table after the spell.

Add one row per result band from the spell's description, using the Range columns for the spell check values. Use a low number like -99 for the bottom of the first row and a high number like 99 for the top of the last row so that extreme rolls still match a result.

Optional: Show spell data in chat when cast

If you put the spell's stats in the table's Description, they will appear in the chat window whenever the spell is cast.

To match the formatting of the Core Book spells, edit the description as HTML (the </> button in the editor) and paste in this template, replacing the placeholders with your spell's data:

<h1>SPELL NAME</h1>
<p><strong>Level:</strong> LEVEL</p>
<p><strong>Range:</strong> RANGE</p>
<p><strong>Duration:</strong> DURATION</p>
<p><strong>Casting Time:</strong> CASTING TIME</p>
<p><strong>Save:</strong> SAVE</p>
<p><strong>Page:</strong> PAGE #</p>
<p>SPELL FLAVOR TEXT</p>

Optional: Manifestation, Misfire, and Corruption tables

If the spell has Manifestation, Misfire, or Corruption sub-tables, create each of those as its own Rollable Table the same way (e.g. Animal Summoning Manifestation, Animal Summoning Misfire, Animal Summoning Corruption). Then link them from the main spell table's description so the judge can jump straight to them from chat: drag each sub-table from the sidebar into the description editor to create a link, like so:

<p><strong>Manifestation:</strong> @UUID[...]{SPELL NAME Manifestation}</p>
<p><strong>Misfire:</strong> @UUID[...]{SPELL NAME Misfire}</p>
<p><strong>Corruption:</strong> @UUID[...]{SPELL NAME Corruption}</p>

(Dragging the table into the editor fills in the @UUID[...] link for you.)

The Roll Manifestation button on the spell finds its table by the SPELL NAME Manifestation naming convention, searching the configured Spell Side Effects compendium first and then your world's Rollable Tables. Worlds running a translation module (e.g. Babele) are handled automatically — the lookup also matches on the untranslated original names. Advanced pack authors can instead point a spell at an arbitrarily-named table by setting system.manifestation.table (a table name, id, or RollTable.<id>) and optionally system.manifestation.collection (a compendium key) in the spell's source data, mirroring how system.results references the spell-check results table.

Step 3: Link the Table to the Spell

The spell needs to know which table to roll on. There are two ways to connect them:

Option A — Drag and drop (easiest): Open the Spell Item and drag the Rollable Table from the sidebar (or from a compendium) onto the spell's sheet.

Option B — Copy the UUID: Open the Rollable Table and click the small ID card icon in its title bar (Copy Document UUID).

Then open the Spell Item, click the ⋮ menu and choose Config, and paste the UUID into the Result Table field. Click Save Config.

To verify the link worked, open the spell's Config — you should see data in the Result Table field (and Result Compendium, if the table came from a compendium):

Step 4: Add the Spell to a Character

Drag the finished Spell Item from the Items Directory onto a character sheet and it will appear in their spell list. You can create a spell once and share it with any number of characters this way.

Casting it from the Spells tab of the character sheet rolls the spell check, looks up the result on the linked table, and posts both to chat.