Halloween Spells

This article is about the tool items. For the special Halloween pickups, see Magic spells.

Halloween Spells
Basic Information
Released:	October 26, 2012 Patch (Spectral Halloween Special)
Availability:	Haunted Halloween Gift (expired) or Pile of Curses (expired)
Tradable:	No
Craftable:	No
Available Qualities
Unique

“

Like your tiny heads? THANK MAGIC! Click to listen — Merasmus on cosmetic spells

”

Halloween Spells are tool items. They are represented by a glass alchemy flask filled with a colorful liquid and sealed with a cork.

Halloween Spells are used to give various Halloween-themed effects to weapons, cosmetic items, or classes, depending on the spell. They were added during Scream Fortress 2012, and were enabled and obtainable annually during subsequent Halloween events, prior to Scream Fortress 2015.

The Spell Items released during the Scream Fortress 2012 event lasted from October 26, 2012 to November 9, 2012. They could be found during Halloween events inside of Haunted Halloween Gifts on Ghost Fort, or from a Pile of Curses. Any spell effects that were applied to any items, along with any unused spells, were erased from players' inventories upon launching Team Fortress 2 after the end of this event.

They were enabled and made obtainable again for Scream Fortress 2013, which lasted from October 29, 2013 to November 11, 2013. As of the November 11, 2013 Patch, the effects of Halloween spells were made visible only during Halloween events, Full Moons, or on servers under the effects of the Enchantment: Eternaween tool item. Spell effects were no longer removed from the items they had been applied to, but spell potions that had not been applied to an item vanished from a player's backpack if the game was opened after the Halloween event.

As of the October 23, 2014 Patch, Halloween spell potions were tradable even outside the time frame of a Halloween event.

Scream Fortress 2014 would be the last Scream Fortress update to allow players to gather Halloween spells. Since Scream Fortress 2015, Halloween spells are not acquirable, as Haunted Halloween Gifts were replaced with the Soul Gargoyle, which did not distribute spells.

Halloween spells remained tradeable despite the spell potions being erased again after November 12th, 2014, resulting in a loophole being found that allowed players to trade spells into the inventories of players already in-game, circumventing the vanish-upon-entry that came with opening the game. These spells are sometimes referred to as "post-life spells".

Following Scream Fortress 2015, the Tough Break Update made Halloween spells untradable as an undocumented change, thus removing the loophole of applying any previously existing Halloween Spells.

Update history

October 26, 2012 Patch (Spectral Halloween Special)

• Halloween Spells were added to the game.

October 29, 2013 Patch (Scream Fortress 2013)

• Enabled Halloween Spell Potions.

November 11, 2013 Patch

• Updated Halloween spells so that the effects will only be visible during Halloween/Full Moon events.
• [Undocumented] Halloween spells are no longer tradable.

November 12, 2013 Patch

• Fixed some Halloween spells not working during Eternaween.

December 6, 2013 Patch

• Fixed some cases where Halloween spell effects on items would not appear when they were supposed to.

October 23, 2014 Patch

• Updated Halloween Spells to be tradable.

December 12, 2014 Patch

• Fixed Halloween footstep spells being displayed for disguised Spies.

November 9, 2015 Patch

• Fixed Halloween spell effects not cycling the colors.

December 17, 2015 Patch (Tough Break Update)

• [Undocumented] Halloween spells are no longer tradable.

March 30, 2023 Patch

• [Undocumented] Renamed "Voices From Below" to "Voices from Below".

Notes

• When applying a Vocal Effect spell, the effect will be listed as "Voices from Below" rather than the actual name of the spell. The spells only limit which cosmetics it can be applied to.

Bugs

• The backpack icons for the spells incorrectly use the coloring overlays intended for Paint Cans.
• The spells cannot be applied to Stock weapons. The player is able to select a spell from the backpack and a confirmation message appears, but the effect is not applied and the spell is not consumed.
• Spells meant to be used with only one class can be applied to cosmetics which can be equipped by multiple classes, granting the spell's ability to whatever class wears the affected cosmetic.
• Gourd Grenades cannot be applied to the Sticky Jumper, and Squash Rockets cannot be applied to the Rocket Jumper.
• Sentry Quad-Pumpkins can be applied to the Gunslinger, despite the fact that the Mini-Sentry is unable to fire rockets.
• Squash Rockets can be applied to the Cow Mangler 5000, despite the fact that the Cow Mangler 5000 does not fire rockets.
• Voices from Below does not work on the Highland Hound taunt.
• For the Vocal Effect spells' shared item description, "[...] the Merc's voices [...]" incorrectly places the apostrophe before the -s.

Trivia

• The backpack icons are screenshots of the models. Each type of flask and its textures are present in the game files.
  • The liquid of those flasks is set to be paintable.
• There is an unused flask model, which resembles the format of the Exorcism Halloween spell. The biggest difference is that the model contains a sticker of the Merasmus hat at the back and it also includes a pickup rotating animation.
  • The unused flask model is also set to be paintable and there are seven different skins for each color of the Halloween spells that appears on the backpack icons (red, orange, cyan, green, alternative cyan, blue, and purple).
    • The green and purple flasks are used as magic spells pickups on the community-made map Monster Bash.

Gallery

• 

  The unused flask model with the first skin.

• 

  The unused flask model with the second skin.

• 

  The unused flask model with the third skin.

• 

  The unused flask model with the fourth skin.

• 

  The unused flask model with the fifth skin.

• 

  The unused flask model with the sixth skin.

• 

  The unused flask model with the seventh skin.