Working up to Spider Climb

I love finding a Spider Climb spell.

What does that mean? Spider Climb is a spell that’s been in Dungeons & Dragons since some of the game’s earliest editions, and it does just what it sounds like—lets someone climb walls or “whatever a spider can.”

—Yes, I was a Spider-Man comics fan even before that. But this is different.

What gets my juices flowing here as a gamer, reader, and writer is that in D&D you can find a spell like this in some treasure chest. Not just develop it out of the abilities the character’s been using, but simply discover something brand new. One minute that castle wall was too high and smooth to scale, or those gems back in that unstable ruin were out of reach. The next minute, every surface is potentially a highway that gives a new angle on the world.

Think, what would you do if you came across a power like that? What rooftops would you climb to watch a sunset from? What places would you go, or just how would you look at those feet of “empty space” between your head and the ceiling?

It’s one of my favorite things to write: how having some magic or ability, or really any gain, it changes how characters see things. Remember the first time you drove a car, or the first time you went out with friends and realized they had your back no matter what happened? I think it’s fair to say, our world shifts.

And when someone in my kind of story is searching for answers, or trying to trust a new ally, or fighting for their lives, those world shifts mean even more.

Starting in 2022, you’re going to see a few walls climbed.