52 Pages: Spells for Prophets

Like I said, the final 52 Pages version is going to swap out prophetic miracles for spells on cards that fit better with magic item generation and keeping your powers in front of you as a player.

A few things:

Flame Princess style, turning is a spell, so it's limited in use. I haven't decided yet but am leaning towards making prophets able to repeat their "miracle" casting of spells.

Restoring hit points is a separate per-day ability, so the low levels of the "gold" healing miracles are aimed at optimizing healing and managing injury, which is what happens when HP hit zero.

I resolved the "prophecy" problem by making it a level 1 orange spell, Augury, but giving it a fairly weak effect for anyone else but prophets.



Okay, now the mechanical part of the 52 pages is really done except for the tweaking. Play examples and GM advice, you are next.

The Grand Mysteries: Gold and Brown

With this post, the spell lists and mysteries come to a close.

I just want to give a peek at what's coming next. I have come to the conclusion that a) magic systems, especially sacred magic, imply a lot about their setting; b) I would rather present material that covers a variety of possible settings; c) there are three main ways that D&D campaigns typically treat the metaphysical world; d) each of these ways understands alignment differently; e) the understanding of alignment is crucial to the way sacred magic is handled.

So starting with a discussion of alignment, we are eventually going to end up with spellcaster classes and lists for three different template worlds: Sorcery World, Pantheon World, and Church World.

And now, the final mysteries of chromatic magic.

The Grand Mystery of the Golden School: The Angel of Resurrection

"Mercy given to those who deserve it not? That is the act of the fool, and of the Most Sublime" - so goes the saying that distinguishes Mercy from Justice. In the Golden School of healing and helping, the greatest mercy is contained in the Mystery of Resurrection - the restoration to full life and freedom of those long dead, or imprisoned on some far-off plane. The Angel, so the holy writings attest, need only hear the name and understand the identity of the person to bring him or her back in an instant.

Such power, exercised wholly on the behalf of another, nonetheless has its risks. Those who carefully read accounts of Resurrections will see hints at a toll taken upon the master who has invoked the Mystery - a diminishing of life in some way, the same risk of painful death as a woman in childbirth, a mysterious growing lesser even as the restored person strides about the world and grows greater.

There is also a more insidious shadow underlying the Great Golden Mystery. The simpler miracle of Raising the Dead merely calls back the spirit from its journey to the afterlife; the Resurrection brings the whole being, body and soul, back from its existence on another plane. It is precisely the unworthy - those condemned to the torments of Hell, or to the tedium reserved for the noncommittal - who most rejoice in their new life; but such people may not be properly grateful to their rescuer. On the other hand, those of good will are plucked from paradise, and the consequences of that shift are unpredictable. Saint Yvale used her profound understanding of this Mystery to have the Angel revive the legendary hero Ragnuoth at a time of great need for the Cities of the Wood. Ragnuoth, alas! had spent five hundred years purging his wrathful sins, and stepped forth as gently as a new-hatched chick, content only to tend the wounded and stir the gruel kettle while the Cities burned. 

The Grand Mystery of the Brown School: The Genius of the Earth

The final arcanum of the Brown School is certainly not something that mankind has created, so much as approached. It is spoken of as a place, an impossible place for those who do not hold the surest command of the earth and elements - a deep cavern with no entrances, a chasm at the heart of an impassable and corrupted forest, a circle of stones in the lightless and crushing depths of the sea. Perhaps in each of these places the aspirant may find one face of the Genius of the Earth, and learn from it the mysteries of the First Things, of magic before reason or revelation.

Great indeed must be the determination of the aspirant to learn these things and not feel compelled to settle down as a hermit, Protector of some sacred part of the Earth. Indeed, some who have studied the Transcendence doubt that the Brown School's Mystery is necessary to attain it; it is a dead end, they claim, a primitive first stab at magic whose final revelation ends up chaining its master to the Earth.

What is clear is that a master of the Brown School, settled or no, possesses immense powers over the whole natural world, tending towards its preservation or restoration. The best-known legend is that of the proud city of Cithar, Cithar of the high-helmeted swordsmen, who sought to honor its founder by sculpting a nearby mountain peak into his likeness. They knew nothing of the nameless Protector who held that peak as holy. A year later, Cithar was a wooded jumble of hills and rocks, inhabited by tribes of pointy-headed monkeys hitting each other with sticks, the carving's one finished eye left on the mountain peak as a grim warning.

Brown Magic : Levels 4-6

We grow near the end of our long chromatic journey. I thank you for your patience. Up here is where stuff gets ... Biblical.

So let it be written ... so let it be done!

Reincarnation - one of the most simultaneously fun and annoying spells out there. "Dude ... you're a badger." Sylvan Being Table (and guidelines for playing them!) coming with the complete spell descriptions, most likely in a pdf-tipware format.

Animal Growth is meant to combo with one of the low level animal control or summoning spells.

I could not resist the tribute to Metallica. But did resist the tribute to Vangelis.

LEVEL 4

1	Animal Growth	Brown	90’	1 day	None
Create giant from normal animals, or double hit dice of animals without giant kind, with final HD up to caster’s level
2	Mastery of Plants	Brown	90’	1 hour	None
Control up to 16 HD of plant creatures, animate a tree as treant, or animate up to 30’ square of foliage
3	Mastery of Weather	Brown	0’	1 day	None
Control weather within 1 mile (or 10 miles if weather is normal for season), change within 1 minute to storm, snow, or gale  winds
4	Reincarnation	Brown	0’	None	None
Reincarnate known dead person as a random sylvan being within 7 days of death

LEVEL 5

1	Mastery of Animals	Brown	90’	1 hour	None
Call (in 1d20 rounds) and/or control up to 16 HD of animals
2	Mastery of Earth	Brown	90’	None	None
Turns one kind – earth, mud/quicksand, stone – into another, up to 30’ square and 5’ deep; or moves a like amount of earth.
3	Mastery of Water	Brown	90’	3 hours	None
Creates a passage, wave, or pillar in water, up to 5 10’ cubes per caster level

LEVEL 6

1	Creeping Death	Brown	30’	1 day	Body (Con)
Creates 30’ wide, 90 HP front of crawling insects that marches at 9” rate up to 100’ long, doing 10 damage/round and lethal poison
2	Chariot of Eli	Brown	30’	1 day	None
Creates burning flying chariot with 24” move; 4d6 damage within 10’ radius, except for caster and up to 5 passengers
3	Earthquake	Brown	90’	None	Speed (Dex)
Makes chasms in floor (4d6 falling damage, save) and collapses walls and ceiling (8d6 damage, save for half) in up to 60’ radius

Brown Magic Supplement

Turns out Brown Magic really needs 4 spells/level at the high levels.

So here are the 4th spells for the first three levels.

All three of these, in my view, really add to the problem solving and creative use potential of this magic school.

Level 1

4	Heat Metal	Brown	30’	6 rounds	None
Metal weapon does 1d3 extra damage; metal armor burns wearer in 1 round for 1d3 damage/round; metal held objects dropped

Level 2

4	Command Wood	Brown	30’	Perm.	None
A non-magical section or piece of wood up to 3’ square is bent or reshaped

Level 3

4	Aid of the Waters	Brown	90’	3 hours	None
Water in 10’ radius rises or recedes up to 10’, supports walking, or becomes breathable

Brown Magic: Levels 1-3

"A strange race of  people ... the Druids ..." Although some of these spells also show up in the clerical lists. The main theme is somewhat different from the other color schools - it is the realm of what is affected, rather than functionally what is done, that unites these spells. This sets up Brown magic to be the primal, original, shamanic form of nature magic, and represent the control over natural forces that's present in many conceptions of magic - from Merlin's ravens to Elisha's bears.

As with sacred magic, the Brown spells are only a core for any possible druid, nature cleric, or hedge witch character class. Certainly there are forms of healing, protective, charm, attack, etc. magic that fit very well into those classes.

Yes, Brown's better in the outdoors ... but I've tried to include more spells of general utility and jettison some of the more notorious clunkers (um ... Shillelagh anyone?)

LEVEL 1

               Name                                Color           Range      Duration       Save

1	Animal Friends	Brown	30’	1 hr	Will (Wis)
Calms 1d6 HD of animals, +1 HD/ level; keep 1 with HD <= level as pet
2	Aid of the Earth	Brown	90’	3 min	None
Plants and earth hide or halve move along 100’ x 10’ trail
3	Speak with Animal	Brown	30’	3 min	None
Hold conversation with normal animal

LEVEL 2

1	Aid of the Meek	Brown	90’	12 hrs	None
Up to 6 tiny animals appear in 1-3 rounds and act as familiars
2	Aid of the Trees	Brown	0	1 hr	None
Caster can merge with a tree, remaining aware, and talk with it
3	Call Animals	Brown	30’	1 hr	None
4 HD of friendly animals appear in 1d20 rounds and follow commands

LEVEL 3

1	Aid of the Sky	Brown	90’	Special	Speed (Dex)
Only open sky, 1 minute to summon clouds if needed, then 1 bolt / round for rounds = caster level strikes for 6d6 damage, save for half
2	Aid of the Stones	Brown	30’	30 min	None
Rock underfoot ensnares or damages (1d4/round of travelling) beings travelling on foot over it in 30’ square area
3	Insect Cloud	Brown	90’	30 min	Body (Con)
Stinging insects make all in 30’ square area take 2 hp damage/round, -2 to hit rolls and no casting, save or flee.