The Genius Guide to Homophone Spells by Jason Keeley is a role playing game supplement published by Rogue Genius Games for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

The supplement is available as a 10-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $2.95 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover, one the front matter and three the Open Game License.

The Sound of Magic is a bit of text that explains after the mage Weh Zhard died, her stuff was gone through and new spells were discovered. However, these spells sounded like others and were therefore deemed too confusing for the public and locked up.

The spells then follow. There are 14 new spells, and a 15th that is a mass version of one. Each spell has a name that sounds like an existing spell, but has a different result. Brake enchantment makes brakes better. Make hole makes a hole. Miner creation creates a miner. Thyme stop makes food bland. And so on.

The Genius Guide to Homophone Spells in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. Navigation is good. The text maintains a two-column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are a number of black and white illustrations that look to be custom. Presentation is decent.

This is quite clearly a joke supplement, even before the April 1st release date is seen; it’s reminiscent of a couple of April articles in old copies of Dragon. The names naturally only work if English is spoken and some of them are pretty decent. Some of the spells are useful and some may be a little unbalanced but there’s also the problem of trying to make spells fit the homophonic names, and that can be tricky. This isn’t a bad supplement, but for one that’s clearly a joke, it’s perhaps on the pricey side. Not for the amount of content, but for what it is; it might have been better to have less spells and a lower price. The Genius Guide to Homophone Spells can be found by clicking here.