Implant Dark Young

5th-level conjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You create a small boil on a target creature you can see within range that is not a construct or undead. The target’s maximum hit points are reduced by 3d6 until it finishes a long rest and it must make a Constitution saving throw. On a successful save, the boil withers and falls off within 1 round. On a failed save, the boil grows with amazing speed. At the start of your next turn, the target takes 3d6 slashing damage as an adolescent dark young of Shub-Niggurath bursts from the boil in a shower of pus and blood. When the spell ends, the dark young does not vanish but immediately leaves to seek its own mysterious goals.

The dark young is hostile to all creatures it considers potential threats, which includes everything that is not a beast, plant, or obviously a servant of Shub-Niggurath, to which it is indifferent. Roll initiative for the dark young, which has its own turns. The dark young pursues and attacks the nearest potential threat, fighting that creature or creatures until they are destroyed, at which point it turns to the next nearest threat until the spell’s duration elapses.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using an 8th-level spell slot, you instead call forth an adult dark young of Shub-Niggurath.