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There have been questions about using Minor Illusion for communication but all of them where about trying to mimic speech. This question is about communication in general, so it is no duplicate of this or that question.

As the other questions where so specific about using speech answers that dealt with other forms of communication were downvoted. But as I see them as useful for the general concept of communicating via Minor Illusion I asked this question specifically to allow them.

Are there ways of communication Minor Illusion can be used for that are not using speech?

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'd like to know the reason for the close-vote. \$\endgroup\$
    – Umbranus
    Commented Feb 8, 2017 at 11:02
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    \$\begingroup\$ As such this is effectively an idea generation request -- "tell me ways to use this please", which will invite streams of ideas -- instead of an attempt to get a problem solved or to check facts -- "Can this be used this way?" which invites a yes/no plus examples and elaboration. If you are not attempting to solicit idea generation for varieties of different ways Minor Illusion can be used for communication, I suggest you rephrase the way you're asking your question. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Commented Feb 8, 2017 at 11:03

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YES

Minor illusion can be used to create an illusion of any thing that fits inside a 5' cube. This gives you many, many ways of using it to communicate, probably making the question too open. However, trying to keep it simple, these are the main ways that I can think of:

  • produce writing (an open scroll, glowing words hanging in the air, graffiti painted on a wall etc)
  • produce a visual model of what you want to happen (a sword sticking through the enemy, a small replica of your bowman shooting an arrow at the enemy, a map of where you want someone to go etc)
  • produce a visual model of the information you want to communicate (a map, a person revealed to be they truly are etc)

Whatever illusion you produce will be static, so to update or add to the information you would have to recast, unless you are a high enough level wizard of the illusionist tradition which has the Malleable Illusion class feature.

Minor illusion is actually a very, very useful spell. Imagine being able to make a 3d hologram of anything you can think of/imagine in the modern world, whenever you want, and what that would mean for your work and play.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Might be worth mentioning that unless you are an illusionist you cannot change the subject of an illusion on the fly and thus would need to recast the spell for each new paragraph or whatever. Given it is a cantrip that is not really an issue but something to consider for higher level illusions used the same way. \$\endgroup\$
    – Slagmoth
    Commented Feb 8, 2017 at 20:43
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Minor Illusion can be used for various ways of non verbal communication:

  • Using different sounds (for example different bird's voices) can communicate something to those who know what they mean. Sometimes even without eavesdroppers noticing
  • Morse code can be delivered via Minor Illusion
  • Throughout history flag signals have been used for communication. Something Minor Illusion is clearly capable of (it might take several casts but it is a cantrip so who cares)
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