Blindness or deafness

Blindness or deafness was a necromancy—or, in a variant, illusion —spell that rendered a target blind or deaf as chosen by the caster.

Effects
There were several versions of this spell. The later version could be cast at any creature (living or undead) within and rendered them blind or deaf for up to one minute. The target continually attempted to resist the magic of this spell, and the stronger its constitution, the more likely it would recover before the minute was up. If cast at a higher level, more creatures could be targeted.

The older version of this spell had a much longer range (a minimum of ) and the target only got one chance to resist or was struck blind or deaf permanently. This magically-induced condition could only be reversed by a remove blindness or deafness spell, or more powerful magics. Only living creatures were affected by this spell.

There also existed two older separate versions based on illusion magic, where one could only inflict blindness, the other deafness.

Components
The different versions of this spell required only a verbal utterance to cast, except deafness, where also gestures and beeswax were needed.

History
The deafness spell was developed by Netherese arcanist Cragh of Northreach, himself deaf since birth, in 1860 NY (−1999 DR) as Cragh's deafness. It was his only spell. blindness was an invention of his prolific colleague Smolyn in 1895 NY (−1964 DR), then accordingly named Smolyn's blindness.

By the 1360s DR both spells were uncommon among magic-users in Faerûn and widespread among those in Zakhara.

In 1372 DR, the Year of Wild Magic, a combined version came into use in the magical community, quickly replacing the two more restrictive spells.