Crisis Management

8th-level Marketing & Optics

Casting Time: 1 action, must be cast within 24 hours of the precipitating event
Range/Area: Unlimited (any creature capable of encountering news about your organization)
Components: V, S, M (a prepared statement, consumed; an unrelated positive story, timed to coincide)
Duration: Until a creature makes a deliberate effort to recall the original event, or 1 year, whichever is longer
Classes: CMO, General Counsel, CEO

Choose one event that has caused, or is about to cause, significant public harm to your organization’s reputation. For the duration, any creature not directly harmed by the event must succeed on a Discovery saving throw to recall the event’s specifics without deliberate effort; on a failure, the event is remembered only as a vague impression — “something happened, I think it got resolved” — rather than as specific, actionable knowledge.

This spell has no effect on any creature directly harmed by the event, and does not prevent the event from being true, documented, or discoverable by a creature making a deliberate effort — a journalist, a regulator, a plaintiff’s attorney.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 9th level, it additionally generates a competing news cycle large enough to occupy the attention of any creature who would otherwise be investigating deliberately, granting disadvantage on their Discovery saving throw for as long as the competing cycle can be sustained.

Flavor: “We take this extremely seriously and have already begun a thorough internal review.” — statement, issued once, never followed by a public accounting of what the review found