Imprisonment
- Level: 9
- School: Abjuration
- Class: Warlock, Wizard
- Casting Time: 1 minute
- Range: 30 feet
- Components: V, S, M (a statuette of the target worth 5,000+ GP)
- Duration: Until dispelled
You create a magical restraint to hold a creature that you can see within range. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the target is unaffected, and it is immune to this spell for the next 24 hours. On a failed save, the target is imprisoned. While imprisoned, the target doesn't need to breathe, eat, or drink, and it doesn't age. Divination spells can't locate or perceive the imprisoned target, and the target can't teleport.
Until the spell ends, the target is also affected by one of the following effects of your choice:
Burial. The target is entombed beneath the earth in a hollow globe of magical force that is just large enough to contain the target. Nothing can pass into or out of the globe.
Chaining. Chains firmly rooted in the ground hold the target in place. The target has the Restrained condition and can't be moved by any means.
Hedged Prison. The target is trapped in a demiplane that is warded against teleportation and planar travel. The demiplane is your choice of a labyrinth, a cage, a tower, or the like.
Minimus Containment. The target becomes 1 inch tall and is trapped inside an indestructible gemstone or a similar object. Light can pass through the gemstone (allowing the target to see out and other creatures to see in), but nothing else can pass through by any means.
Slumber. The target has the Unconscious condition and can't be awoken.
Ending the Spell. When you cast the spell, specify a trigger that will end it. The trigger can be as simple or as elaborate as you choose, but the GM must agree that it has a high likelihood of happening within the next decade. The trigger must be an observable action, such as someone making a particular offering at the temple of your god, saving your true love, or defeating a specific monster.
A Dispel Magic spell can end the spell only if it is cast with a level 9 spell slot, targeting either the prison or the component used to create it.
Tactical Usage
Ultimate Removal: Imprisonment provides the most complete creature removal possible, eliminating targets from existence while keeping them technically alive. Reserve for legendary threats, campaign villains, or situations where permanent removal is necessary.
Trigger Strategy: The spell's trigger mechanism allows for sophisticated conditional releases. Design triggers that serve campaign needs - defeat specific threats, complete story arcs, or fulfill character development requirements.
High-Stakes Resource: As a 9th-level spell with expensive components, Imprisonment represents ultimate resource commitment. Use only when standard removal methods prove insufficient or when narrative importance justifies the expense.
Spell Combinations
Divination Preparation: Use divination magic to research the target thoroughly before casting Imprisonment. Knowledge of their capabilities, resistances, and escape methods ensures the spell's success and appropriate option selection.
Contingency Setup: Prepare Contingency with Imprisonment for emergency removal of extremely dangerous threats. This creates a safety net against enemies who might otherwise prove insurmountable.
Wish Follow-up: In extreme cases, Wish might modify Imprisonment effects or triggers. This combination handles threats so dangerous that standard magical solutions prove inadequate.
Material Component Details
Statuette Economics: The 5,000+ GP statuette requirement represents one of the most expensive spell components in the game. This massive investment reflects the spell's ultimate power and permanent consequences.
Component Specificity: The statuette must represent the specific target, requiring advance preparation and potentially custom creation. This adds planning requirements and limits spontaneous usage significantly.
Investment Protection: Unlike consumable components, consider the statuette's security and storage. Such valuable components become targets for theft or might require special protection or insurance arrangements.
Creator Notes
Campaign Impact: Imprisonment can remove major campaign elements permanently. Consider whether elimination serves the story better than continued engagement with transformed or reformed antagonists.
Escape Planning: Design triggers that allow for potential story development rather than permanent character removal. Even defeated enemies might return under specific circumstances that serve narrative purposes.
24-Hour Immunity: Failed saves grant immunity for 24 hours, preventing immediate retry attempts. This forces careful planning and ensures targets have defense against repeated imprisonment attempts.
Environmental Interactions
Option Selection: Each imprisonment type creates different environmental effects. Burial affects local geography, chaining creates permanent fixtures, while minimus containment creates portable prison objects.
Divination Blocking: The complete divination immunity makes imprisoned creatures undetectable through magical means. This creates absolute security but also prevents monitoring or communication possibilities.
Planar Considerations: Hedged prison creates a custom demiplane, potentially affecting planar ecology or creating new locations that might be discovered or accessed through planar travel research.
Common Rulings & Clarifications
Trigger Complexity: The trigger must have high likelihood of occurring within a decade, preventing impossible or overly specific release conditions. Balance story needs with realistic probability assessment.
Dispel Requirements: Only 9th-level Dispel Magic can end the spell, making reversal extremely difficult and expensive. This ensures imprisonment remains meaningful even at high levels.
Option Permanence: Once chosen, the imprisonment type cannot be changed without ending and recasting the entire spell. Select options carefully based on long-term campaign considerations.
Alternative Applications
Protective Custody: Use slumber option to preserve dying allies indefinitely while seeking powerful healing or resurrection options. The suspended animation prevents death while allowing time for solutions.
Artifact Security: Minimus containment provides ultimate security for dangerous artifacts or items that cannot be destroyed but must be contained safely and portably.
Planar Prison: Hedged prison creates secure holding for extraplanar threats that cannot be returned to their home planes safely or that pose ongoing dimensional risks.
Related Spells
Banishment: Lower-level alternative that removes creatures temporarily to their home planes. Use Banishment for temporary removal and Imprisonment for permanent elimination needs.
Maze: Provides temporary removal with automatic escape possibility. Choose Maze for tactical removal and Imprisonment for permanent threat elimination scenarios.
Plane Shift: Offers involuntary planar transportation as removal method. Consider Plane Shift for repositioning threats and Imprisonment for complete elimination requirements.
Scaling Analysis
High Levels Only (17+): Imprisonment becomes available only at the highest levels where 9th-level spells represent ultimate magical power. The spell serves as campaign-ending solution for major threats.
Campaign Climax Usage: Most appropriate for final confrontations with major antagonists or as ultimate contingency against threats that cannot be defeated through conventional means.
Resource Competition: Competes with other 9th-level spells like Wish, Time Stop, or Meteor Swarm. Choose based on whether permanent removal serves campaign needs better than other ultimate magical effects.
Narrative Flavor
Power Manifestation: Reality bends around your target as you speak words of ultimate binding. The expensive statuette dissolves into motes of power that weave themselves into chains of pure magical force.
Imprisonment Process: The target begins to fade from existence as the chosen imprisonment takes hold. Whether sinking into the earth, wrapped in ethereal chains, or shrinking into a gemstone prison, their removal becomes absolute and terrifying.
Aftermath Silence: Once completed, the spell leaves an unnatural quiet where the target once stood. Divination magic finds nothing, creating an eerie void that emphasizes the completeness of their removal from reality.