Dungeon Master

Dungeon Master binds the moving parts of a prepared structure to its caster. Doors open, portcullises fall, valves turn, bridges rotate, elevators move, and traps fire when commanded from afar. The spell creates no machinery: every movement must belong to an installation that was actually built.

Before casting, the caster prepares each installation by touching it and tracing a control mark for 1 minute. Preparing a central control also prepares every part that control already operates. The marks remain inert until the spell is cast and may be prepared over any length of time. A battery of crossbows sharing one trigger is one installation. Independent traps remain separate installations even when they stand in the same corridor.

Issuing a command is a General action (1 tick). One command may operate every linked part of one installation: closing both halves of a gate, releasing a row of crossbows, or beginning a prepared flooding sequence. The caster can command no more than the listed number of installations during the same tick. Continuous work, such as turning a winch for several rounds, occupies one of those commands each tick until it ends.

Strings of Mana

For as long as the spell lasts, every bound installation stays tied to the caster by a thin string of active mana. That standing link is why a command needs no concentration and no new casting: the mana is already in place, waiting to be pulled. Detect Magic perceives each string as a faint transmutation enchantment on the installation it holds.

Hands Without Eyes

The spell provides no senses, alarm, or report. It does not reveal whether a door is open, a corridor is occupied, a trap has fired, or a mechanism is broken. A command sent to a jammed or destroyed installation fails without telling the caster why. Divination magic, guards, alarms, or ordinary sight are the usual ways to observe the structure. Without them, the caster acts from memory and guesswork.

Dungeon Master provides manual control. It cannot choose when to act or evaluate a condition. A mechanism that must observe events and activate itself requires a separate magical or mechanical trigger.

Mechanical Force

For the purpose of operating or resetting a linked installation, the spell produces the Fine Manipulation of Telekinesis at the level listed in the progression table. It uses that version's control capacity, object sizes, and Fine Manipulation speed. It gains neither Projection nor Destruction and cannot affect anything outside the prepared installation.

The installation keeps every real mechanical advantage it was built with. The spell may pull a light rope through a pulley to reset a trap far heavier than the objects its telekinetic force could lift directly. Levers, counterweights, gears, springs, water pressure, and gravity continue doing their own work after activation.

Resetting a trap takes as long as its mechanism requires. A winch that needs three rounds of turning still needs three rounds. When no resetting rig survives, the force may instead seize the installation's own movable components directly, within the size, capacity, and speed of its Telekinesis equivalent. At high levels, this allows blades, crushing walls, fallen boulders, and other massive components to be returned to their starting positions. The spell cannot repair a broken rope, replace a missing gear, reload absent ammunition, or seize creatures, carried equipment, loose treasure, or unrelated debris.

Progression

Dungeon Master Level	Installations Bound	Command Distance	Telekinesis Equivalent	Installations Commanded per Tick	Duration
2	1 per CL	Long	Level 1	1	hours per level
4	2 per CL	1 mile	Level 3	2	days per level
6	5 per CL	Same plane	Level 5	1 per 5 INT, minimum 1	weeks per level
8	10 per CL	Same plane	Level 7	1 per 2 INT, minimum 1	months per level
10	Any prepared installation within 10 km per CL	Any plane	Level 9	1 per INT, minimum 1	Indefinite while a Level 10 slot stays reserved

At Level 10, the spell lasts as long as the caster keeps one Level 10 spell slot reserved. That slot reduces the caster's maximum usable Level 10 slots and cannot be spent or recovered until the caster releases the structure. An Arcane enchanter may instead make any version permanent with gold under the enchantment rules. A permanent installation needs no reserved slot.

Psychic Maintenance. A Psychic can keep any version of Dungeon Master active indefinitely by reserving one spell slot of the same level. That slot cannot be spent or recovered until the Psychic releases the structure. Gold has no effect on blue mana: a Psychic's dungeon answers only while its keeper lives and holds it.

Sequences

Beginning at Level 6, one installation may contain a prepared sequence. A single command can close a door, open a sluice, turn a series of gears, and release a counterweight in the order built into that control. Delays can come from the machinery itself. The sequence cannot observe events, branch between choices, or decide whether to continue.