D&D 5E Ceremony spell from UA quick question

I was wondering how this spell would work in the following instance.

Knowing that this spell takes 1 hour to cast and is a first level spell, what happens if the caster were to Investiture Ceremony to another caster?

The Investiture portion says that the target must cast the spell within an hour of Ceremony completing or lose the invested spell. Does this mean that someone who is the target of Ceremony receiving a spell that takes an hour to cast must start casting it immediately after Ceremony completes or do they just have to start casting it within the hour? And if the casting time of the new spell is considered in the one hour limit, does that mean that a spell that takes more than an hour to cast can never be Invested through Ceremony?

Undrhil said:

I was wondering how this spell would work in the following instance.

Knowing that this spell takes 1 hour to cast and is a first level spell, what happens if the caster were to Investiture Ceremony to another caster?

The Investiture portion says that the target must cast the spell within an hour of Ceremony completing or lose the invested spell. Does this mean that someone who is the target of Ceremony receiving a spell that takes an hour to cast must start casting it immediately after Ceremony completes or do they just have to start casting it within the hour? And if the casting time of the new spell is considered in the one hour limit, does that mean that a spell that takes more than an hour to cast can never be Invested through Ceremony?

Click to expand...

I don't remember if the RAW says somewhere that a spell is considered 'cast' only when the casting is completed, but I am pretty sure the RAI behind Ceremony (Investiture) is to just allow someone else to cast one of your spells instead of you, and considering the 1 hour limit and the fact you're effectively spending 2 slots instead of one and that this works only for 1-st level spells, I am sure you can allow it to work if you start casting within the 1-hour limit.

That said... the final version of Ceremony in Xanathar's Guide to Everything might have had the Investiture option removed. Check out this preview from GF9 spells cards:



I almost lost my sight trying to read it but I cannot guarantee that Investiture is still there, in fact there seems to be 6 entries instead of 7. Atonement, Bless Water, Funeral Rite and Marriage seem to be there (the latter two extended from 24 hours to 7 days), and there are two more in the middle, but my guess is exactly that Investiture is removed.

It is even possible that Investiture has become its own spell, perhaps extended to be cast at a higher level to transmit a higher level spell.