Hmbown/Wizards-of-the-Ghosts - Page 4

thunderwave

Use this skill for intentionally theatrical or forceful actions, but only behind explicit confirmation and a hard safety boundary.

tongues

Tongues is universal translation across languages, formats, and protocols. It can mean English to Spanish, JSON to XML, REST to GraphQL, Python to JavaScript, or one team's business vocabulary to another team's schema. The spell is not just about swapping…

true-polymorph

In D&D, True Polymorph is the permanent transformation — the target becomes something fundamentally different, and if held long enough, the change is irreversible. Unlike Polymorph (temporary disguise or adaptation), True Polymorph means the old identity is…

true-seeing

Use this spell when the surface presentation is misleading and you need to see what is actually there — beneath the marketing, the abstractions, the outdated docs, or the complexity.

true-strike

Use this spell for preflight certainty: dry runs, validation checks, dependency verification, and rehearsals that make the next deploy, query, or command much more likely to succeed. It trades a little time up front for fewer blind swings and fewer expensive…

unseen-servant

Use this spell when you need a tireless helper that organizes, tidies, triages, and maintains without requiring your constant attention.

vicious-mockery

The bard's cantrip that deals psychic damage through insults. In practice this is adversarial review — the art of finding and articulating exactly what is wrong with something in a way that is impossible to ignore. Unlike polite feedback that gets filed and…

zone-of-truth

Enter a mode where every assertion is backed by evidence, confidence is calibrated, speculation is flagged, and hallucination is actively resisted.

animate-objects

This spell transforms inert → reactive. It does NOT create new tools, train models, run one-off fixes, or build physical systems. The key pattern: existing artifact + trigger/watcher + bounded autonomy.

awaken

Awaken gives a non-intelligent system a usable voice without pretending the underlying system became sentient. The real move is to wrap a thermostat, spreadsheet, legacy database, shell script, or crusty internal tool in a conversational or agent-like…

dimension-door

Dimension Door is the quick-switch spell: branch to branch, environment to environment, project to project. It is not a migration and it is not discovery. It assumes both endpoints are known, prepared, and close enough in shape that you can step across with…

knock

Knock is specifically about restoring legitimate access through authorized channels. It is NOT about: - Performance optimization (slow queries, throughput issues) → different spell - Removing safety controls (approval gates, compliance checks) → different…

longstrider

Longstrider is the optimization spell for systems that already work. It makes the path shorter without changing the destination. It cares about sustained pace, not flashy one-off benchmarks.

polymorph

This spell is about representation change, not: - Naming changes (same structure, different identifiers) - Execution changes (same code, different runtime) - Architecture changes (new system design) - Duplication (same thing, different place) The key test:…

prestidigitation

Prestidigitation transforms. It does not fix, build, scaffold, migrate, or actuate. If the user says "make this look better" or "convert this to that format" — use prestidigitation. If the user says "make this work" or "set this up" or "build this system" —…

sleight-of-hand

Sleight of Hand is not about solving a problem — the solution is already known. It is about executing a known change with zero collateral damage. The skill is precision, not creativity.

teleport

Teleport is FULL-CONTEXT migration, not partial transformation. The defining characteristic is that EVERYTHING must move together and keep working: data, dependencies, auth, traffic routing, background jobs, secrets, and human workflows. The old system must…

forcecage

Forcecage creates a pre-tested containment boundary around a subject that has not yet run. It is not about stopping, pausing, or muting something already in motion. The cage is built first, self-tested, then the subject enters. The operator watches from…

shatter

Shatter is proactive, controlled destruction for learning. You are the attacker against your own system. The goal is a brittleness report with remediation priorities.

charm-person

Charm Person is about ONE-TO-ONE interpersonal communication where warmth, honesty, and respect for autonomy are the primary constraints. It is not about persuasion tactics, conversion rates, conflict mediation, public performance, or operational…

hold-person

Hold Person = hard freeze. Nothing moves. In-flight operations stop. Requires authority. Used for security incidents, fraud, compliance holds, misbehaving systems. Sleep = graceful suspension. State is preserved and queued. Operations resume automatically.…

sleep

Sleep = temporary, reversible suspension with guaranteed state preservation. The target stops acting but wakes up intact. No data loss, no corruption, no permanent change.

suggestion

Suggestion is about the craft of the single nudge — not campaigns, not arguments, not automation. It produces one carefully placed prompt at the moment a user is most receptive. The planted idea must be reasonable and defensible. If the user would feel…

vicious-mockery

The bard's cantrip that deals psychic damage through insults. In practice this is adversarial review — the art of finding and articulating exactly what is wrong with something in a way that is impossible to ignore. Unlike polite feedback that gets filed and…

detect-magic

Use this skill when you need a fast, structured scan for where the real magic is hiding in a repo, workflow, or system.

etherealness

Etherealness is observational only. It answers "what is happening?" or "what would happen?" without changing anything. The system under study continues normally; you add a ghost layer that watches, mirrors, or dry-runs without becoming part of the live…

faerie-fire

Faerie Fire marks things that are already known. It does not search, discover, explain, translate, or fix. The user has already identified what matters; your job is to make those items impossible to overlook by annotating, tagging, highlighting, or visually…

foresight

Foresight produces bounded forecasts with explicit uncertainty to guide decisions. It is NOT: - Preflight checks: Verifying prerequisites before executing a known action (disk space, backups, connection strings). Those are safety gates, not forecasts. -…

identify

Identify is static analysis for operational understanding. It answers "What is this?" by inspecting structure, naming, dependencies, and runtime touchpoints. It does NOT search for artifacts, debug failures, monitor systems, verify claims, or modify code.

speak-with-dead

This spell is archaeology, not history research. It operates on specific artifacts from a specific dead system to answer specific questions. It is NOT general tech history, NOT interviewing living people, and NOT monitoring live systems.

zone-of-truth

Enter a mode where every assertion is backed by evidence, confidence is calibrated, speculation is flagged, and hallucination is actively resisted.

magic-mouth

Magic Mouth is trigger → message. The entire craft is specifying the trigger boundary, the message payload, and the suppression/escalation rules. It is NOT: - One-time messages: "Send a Slack message now saying X" (no trigger, no automation) - Full chatbots:…

disguise-self

Disguise Self changes how something is said, never what is said. The input content is already correct — only the delivery surface needs adjustment. If the user wants to change facts, add new information, transform code implementations, or produce multiple…

light

Use this cantrip when a system, process, or codebase has blind spots that need illumination - not detection of hidden things, but creation of visibility where none exists.

silence

Use this spell when you are drowning in notifications, verbose logs, irrelevant alerts, or context that does not serve the current task.

cure-wounds

Cure Wounds is the hotfix spell: immediate triage to stop bleeding and restore function. It is NOT root-cause analysis, refactoring, redesign, or long-term remediation. The goal is the minimum viable fix that stops the damage NOW. Deeper investigation comes…

greater-restoration

Lesser Restoration = one thing is wrong, fix it directly (reset a flag, clear a cache, remove a curse). Greater Restoration = many things are wrong because they decayed together over time, and fixing one thing without fixing the others will fail.

lesser-restoration

In D&D, Lesser Restoration ends a specific condition: blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned. The real-world version is clearing a stuck state: a feature flag that should have been toggled, a queue that is stuck, a lock that was not released, a status…

mending

Mending is surgical repair of a known-working artifact that has a specific, identifiable break. It is NOT: - Triage/diagnosis: If the problem is "API is throwing 500s, figure out why" — that's investigation, not mending. Mending requires the break to already…

minor-illusion

Minor Illusion produces artifacts that are explicitly labeled as disposable and exist only to provoke reaction. If the artifact could be mistaken for finished work, you're casting the wrong spell.