Mold touch

Mold touch was a divine magic spell available to priests of Eldath and clerics of Mielikki and Silvanus. It gave the caster a handful of brown mold spores that could be transferred to a target by touch.

Effects
There were at least two versions of this spell that differed slightly in some aspects. The older version, when cast, turned the material component of this spell into brown mold spores held safely in one of the caster's hands. If the caster successfully touched another creature with this hand within six minutes, the mold was transferred to that creature and the spellcaster was free of it. If no creature was touched within the time limit, the spores disappeared harmlessly. For the newer version, the mold could be placed anywhere the caster could touch, but the caster only had one chance to touch an unwilling target.

For the older version of mold touch, the first creature touched, whether friend or foe, became infected with brown mold but could not transfer the infection to others. As the brown mold began to absorb the body heat of the victim, it did a large amount of freezing damage in the first minute. As it spread rapidly, the potency was also spread out and was only about half as chilling during the second minute. If the victim managed to resist the magic of mold touch, then he or she only suffered half as much damage as usual. After two minutes, the mold was so spread out that it only did a small amount of cold damage, but continued to do so until the victim successfully resisted, thus ending the spell.

For the newer version, the mold was initially 5 ft (1.5 m) in diameter and did not grow with absorbed body heat. However, if a fire source was brought within 5 ft (1.5 m) of the mold, it instantly doubled in size. The chilling damage of this version of mold touch was even greater than the older version, was constant over time, affected all creatures within 5 ft (1.5 m) of the brown mold, and could not be resisted. However, unlike the older version, this cold-based damage was not lethal.

Brown mold could be delayed or destroyed by magical cold attacks and spells like disintegrate, but any attack on mold infecting a creature likely harmed the victim as well. The mold created by the older version of this spell could not be transferred to plants or inorganic surfaces or materials, and did no harm to cold-using creatures such as white dragons, ice toads, remorhaz, or winter wolves.

Components
In addition to verbal and somatic components, the older version of this spell converted leaves of oak, holly, or mistletoe into spores of brown mold. The newer version only required the cleric's holy symbol or divine focus.