Bus Factor

2nd-level Legacy Systems & Zombie Projects

Casting Time: 1 action, typically cast unintentionally during a performance review or team restructuring
Range/Area: Touch, one creature and one system
Components: V, S, M (an org chart listing exactly one name under “Owner”)
Duration: Until the designated creature becomes unavailable for any reason
Classes: Engineering Manager, Director of Engineering, whoever drew the original org chart

You designate one willing or unwilling creature as the sole point of failure for a target system. For the duration, the designated creature becomes remarkably effective at maintaining the system, gaining advantage on all checks made to operate, extend, or repair it. The system itself gains a measure of stability it did not previously have.

This stability is not real. If the designated creature becomes unavailable for any reason — resignation, extended leave, promotion out of the role, or otherwise — the spell ends immediately, and the system takes damage equal to all the institutional knowledge that was never documented while the spell was active. This damage cannot be reduced, resisted, or prepared for in advance, even by a creature who suspected this might happen.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you may designate one additional creature as a secondary point of failure. This does not reduce the damage dealt when the primary designated creature becomes unavailable; it only means the system takes the same damage again, later, when the second creature also leaves.

Flavor: “Alex has really become the go-to person for the billing system — we probably couldn’t survive without them at this point, which is a great problem to have.” — performance review, manager’s comments section