I was reading the back of a Lucky Charms cereal box today (as you do) and I learned some things that were SHOCKING. SHOCKING.
Here’s the cereal box in question.
It gives a breakdown of all 8 of Lucky the leprechaun’s marshmallows, and what magical power they give him. I was expecting some wishy washy baloney – this marshmallow gives Lucky the power of friendship! stuff like that – but in fact, nearly all of them are legit magic abilities. In fact, they map onto D&D spells to an astonishing degree, with only a few questions to be cleared up.
And not only that, the cereal box ended with a sinister revelation that nearly made me do a spit take. In my opinion, this box strongly implies, if not states outright, that Lucky is a horrific villain that steals mortal children. I mean, that’s par for course for leprechauns – why does Rumplestiltskin want that baby in the Grimm’s story? – but pretty surprising content on the back of a cereal box. We’ll talk more about Lucky’s secret later on, when we get to the final marshmallow.
Dark revelations aside, the real importance of the box is this: finally, we can stat up Lucky as a D&D character. Mankind’s age-old quest is finally complete!
Lucky’s Level
According to the cereal box, Lucky uses the MAGIC OF THE CHARMS to make his world a more enchanted place! Charms = marshmallows, I guess. There are eight marshmallows: hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, blue moons, unicorns, rainbows, and red balloons, each with their own powers.
For the most part, each of Lucky’s powers seem to be arcane spells. Lucky could be a wizard or sorcerer, but you can make a strong case for a warlock – fey pact, obviously. And in fact, I have a guess at his level! Lucky knows 8 spells (or more, if the list on the back of the box isn’t exhaustive). According to the Spells Known column of the Warlock table, that would make him at least a 7th level warlock (with access to 4th level spells).
OK, now let’s get to the crux of the issue: what exactly are Lucky’s powers? Let’s take a closer look at that cereal box.
“Hearts let Lucky bring objects to LIFE.” OK, this is obviously animate object. And, right off the bat we learn something new. That’s a fifth level spell – just out of reach for a 7th level caster. Is Lucky level 9, not level 7? That would mean he had at least 10 known spells, two of which weren’t listed on the box. What powers does Lucky have that General Mills doesn’t want you to know about? *
“Stars give Lucky the power to FLY.” That’s obviously the 3rd level spell fly, no questions there.
“Horseshoes help lucky SPEED things up.” That’s haste, another 3rd level spell.
“Clovers bring Lucky GOOD LUCK.” This was maybe the toughest call. What spell brings good luck? It can’t be Lucky (a feat) Luck (a halfling trait) or Stone of Good Luck (an item). After racking my brains, I realized that the luck provided by Clovers doesn’t refer to a spell at all: they’re the Leprechaun 1/day magical ability Gift of Luck. After all, Lucky is not just a warlock, he’s a leprechaun too!
“Blue Moons make Lucky invisible.” Invisibility, next.
“Unicorns bring COLOR to Lucky’s world.” At first glance, this seems like the kind of vague faux-magic I was expecting from Lucky before I realized he was the real deal. Brings color to Lucky’s world? What kind of nonsense is that? But then I thought, maybe this is a euphemistic reference to a combat spell. After all, General Mills can’t say something like “Bone-white fingers allow Lucky to kill you and raise you as an undead!” Even if Lucky had finger of death they’d have to wrap it up in a bow. With that in mind, I think that unicorns either bestow prismatic spray, prismatic wall, or, most likely, Hypnotic Pattern, which uses a “twisting pattern of colors” to incapacitate foes who are trying to steal your Lucky Charms. That’s another 3rd level spell.
“Rainbows give Lucky the power of TELEPORTATION.” Ok, hold on. Teleport is super high level – a 7th-level spell – and it’s not even on the warlock spell list? So Lucky’s teleportation is probably some more limited spell. Dimension door is a warlock spell, and it’s 4th level, easily within Lucky’s grasp even if he’s only level 7. The box COULD go on to say that it gives Lucky “the power of TELEPORTATION to a space within 500 feet” and go on to describe the force damage Lucky takes if he teleports into a solid object. But maybe some misguided editor cut that part out.
The last spell: “Red balloons give Lucky the power to FLOAT.” I think this is levitation – a little redundant when you have fly, but what are you gonna do. The real story here is not that Lucky has a non-optimal spell choice. The real story is that Lucky
is
Pennywise
Or at least extremely closely related to Pennywise. The same species? “We all float down here!” says Lucky, as he clutches his red balloon, and leads kids on a fruitless treasure hunt that leads right to his lair. Where do these kids go? I think we all know the answer. All these child-abducting fey – Lucky, Pennywise, Peter Pan, the Pied Piper – are the same. Dressed in a cartoonishly cheerful guise, they lure victims into their neverland marshmallow sewers, never to return – or, like Peter Pan’s Lost Boys and IT‘s Losers Club, to return different.
So maybe I’m on the wrong track here statting up Lucky as a character. I should be making him as a villain – a Legendary stat block. Kill him and free the children in his clutches. Your reward will be a pot o’ gold filled with all the marshmallows you can eat.
* To figure out Lucky’s secret spells, we should probably start by looking at a list of retired Lucky Charms marshmallows. There used to be a crystal ball marshmallow (scrying?) and a pot o’ gold marshmallow (Leomund’s Secret Chest perhaps?) Those are very plausible 9th and 10th spells. Interestingly, there also used to be an hourglass marshmallow, which, according to Wikipedia, let Lucky STOP TIME. That can be no other spell than time stop – a 9th level spell. What gives? Why did Lucky have a spell so much more powerful than the ones he has today? Can a fey warlock patron give a spell – and then take it away? Perhaps what Lucky did with time stop went beyond the pale even for an amoral archfey patron. Once possessing powers rivaling or exceeding those of the mightiest mortal archfey, Lucky is now stripped of most of his powers, haunting the Feywild as a grim reminder of the fate of those whose ambition exceeds their grasp.
Thank you for this vital investigative journalism. I look forward to your next hard hitting piece on the rabbit from the Trix cereal box.
The glimpse into his sordid past as a Time Stop user was especially revealing.
Finally got around to reading this, and it really tracks. As Frank says, good reporting.
I checked the website (and my own memory), and there are a lot of other marshmallows that were discontinued!
-Diamonds: There’s probably a better option here, but maybe it makes your skin as hard as diamond, which is basically Stoneskin?
-Green Trees: I feel like this could be Speak With Plants, Plant Growth, Awaken, or even Tree Stride!
Leprechaun Hats: I feel like this is just a literal Hat of Disguise rather than a spell.
General Mills should not be legally allowed to call those rubbery little bits of styrofoam “marshmallows,” to say nothing of selling them for human consumption. They’re magically disgusting.