Mother of Answers

It is said that the hermit-wizards of Khezh knew a ritual to conduct when they had a singular question.  They must write their question on rose petals and consume them.  They must build a ship, christen it the name of their question, then sink it.  They must compose a verse in the manner of the stressed poems of Bahim and recite it in front of a ruler.  And if these were done in accordance with the strictures, the wizard would become gravid with the bearer of the answer.  The person that knew the answer to the singular question, wherever they were in the world, would become gravely ill.  They would die in seven days.  And on the seventh day the wizard would give birth to a misshapen child whose first words would be to utter the answer.

I Know What You Did and I Follow

If the caster makes a mask of the face of someone slain, for as long as they wear it, they will know which direction to take to find the killer.

It's said that the cruel lich of the North, Two-Thumbs-Digging, mistakenly performed this ritual on someone they had killed themselves and spent their last days paranoid, confused, and traveling in circles.

Five Weighty Spells

Palimpsest Pack
Load yourself to your limit with bags and goods and cast this spell. The pack will disappear into the luminous aether and return whenever you call it, requiring a turn to materialize.  You can cast the spell multiple times (one pack per level).  Wear a normal pack as well and carry all the comforts with you into the wild.

Baba's Ox
Cut the ox's throat and cast this spell before the last drop of blood drains from it.  It will pull loads silently while needing no water, no food, no rest, and no sleep, for as many days as you are powerful (level).  Peasants consider this evil.

My Pretties
Cry "Take These!" to call small creatures forth (1d6 per level) which will each take a few items from you (up to 7.5 pounds) and then scatter back into the landscape.  Cry "My Pretties!" to call them back and retrieve your items.  These creatures-- monkeys, opossums, raccoons, bats, rats, cats, anything that can grasp or bite-- will shadow you along your path as quiet as their kind, until called again.

Burdensome Kiss
Cast the spell and kiss someone within an hour.  That person will then feel the weight of all you bear for a week.  They will also know what you did.

Gold adds Light to the Air
A solid gold model of an object is made and the spell cast on it.  The original, will be light as a coin and perfectly balanced.  Hide the golden model somewhere safe.

Shape Change Mini-Game

Wouldn't it be cool to capture the feel of a mythic shapeshifting chase/duel?  I have the glimmering of an idea of a mini-game that could be engaging for players as well as interesting in-game.  I'll tell you what I'm thinking and maybe you can finish the idea.

You have a diagram of possible creature shapes.  The wizard enters the diagram by becoming one of the weaker/smaller creatures.  I'm thinking d6 +level, so more powerful mages can jump right to bigger things.  Then they can shift form once each round, but they have to achieve the number or higher to move between the creature shapes.

This would become interesting and strategic if they were having to shift from flight to swimming and then from swimming to burrowing.  Or if they were matching fire resistance to a fire breather, etc.

It's possible you could have different diagrams for different schools, say a reptile only, or a mythic beast only diagram.  But that ups the complexity and the number of pages you have to have around.

You might make this interesting by tying it to a magic item that forces a player to shift each round (or else why ever shift from hydra once you get there?).

Or maybe when you get deeper into the chart it gets harder to get back out.

My example diagram is triangular but I imagine a complete circle of choices you could navigate around.  I'd need some more silhouettes and some ideas of which creatures to use.

The Dreamers are Dreaming . . .

This one's for Richard who asked on G+ what the citizens of Bukhara might be dreaming of.  It took me a while.   I just started listing things at first, then thought it might be cool if the dreams had actual in-games effects on the dreamer when they wake.  So, this pdf:

Chariot Stolen - Recovered

Call at 2AM "Did you loan your car to anyone?" Nope.  "Can you come pick it up in 30 minutes?" Yep.  I'm starting to think my chariot doesn't want me for a master-- 3rd time it's wandered off in the last year. 

Okay, make it game related.  Give me a curse for the next guy to take my chariot.  I'll start:

1) Any gold you touch will turn to silver.

2) Dogs will bark constantly in your presence.

Magic System Features

I've been thinking about psionics and how to make a system that satisfies me with its simplicity and flavor.  In doing so, I realized that psionics differ from Vancian magic in lots of categories.  I think it might be helpful to try to map out those categories.  Once we have them, we might even be able to generate a new unthought-of system of magic.  So, just as they come to me:

How much preparation?  Priests in 2e needed none.  Warlocks needed none.  First edition material components add another degree to the mix, meaning you have to decide what to cast and be literally prepared.  Rituals requiring components are the opposite.  So, it seems there are two divisions here: Spell selection and then literal preparation.

What spells are possible?  So, even though a priest may call spells as needed, what those spells are does not change.  The opposite would be Ars Magic, or how I was envisioning runic magic; magic that must be creatively constructed at time of casting.  This is a little different than selection, because a system might allow for creation of spells but require selection of castable one each day.

How long to cast?  This seems minor to me because abstracted time can be fast forwarded and it seems to only come into play as instant casting/long enough to be disrupted.  (What if spells took multiple sessions to cast?) I'm thinking now that this an preparation could be combined into how difficult magic is to cast.

What is the cost of casting?  If you take away the simple device of Vancian spell slots, how is magic limited?  The second most common option seems to be spell points.  Psionics takes this approach.  Any system involving blood sacrifice is dealing with this feature.  Material components hit this too, when an expensive gem needs to be used up in casting.

How learnable is magic? This can be like D&D's % chance to know a spell or Psionics chance of knowing devotions.  But it can also be who can learn, because Psionics traditionally could be had by any class.  So, this may be two categories, too.  Who can learn, and how difficult to learn spells (even if limited to magic-uers).  Let's call the first accessibility and the second availability.

How powerful is magic?  Old school D&D's system sections spells off into level by how powerful they are.  Many spells are affected by caster level too.  With old school psionics you could randomly end up with a minor devotion or a major science and yet, the effectiveness of most powers rose with character level.  A spell point system might allow variable powered casting of the same spell.

How reliable is magic?  Second edition psionics treated powers like proficiencies, i.e. skills.  You could fail.  This is like Fourth editions chance of stinking cloud to "miss."  Older editions have a little of this show up in saving throws.

What does magic effect?  Okay, this is probably a lot of categories in one, but I'm thinking of psionics' direct attack powers here.  Some magic-users spells are similar, but most affect targets or not depending on saving throws. Psionics has something similar to melee combat, only it isn't.  I'm thinking wizard spell duels might fit here. Does magic affect hit points, target state, target stats, etc.

What is necessary for magic?  I don't really consider clerics asking gods for spells "magic."  But traditional ideas of magic often involved asking for effects from otherworldly powers.  This shows up in Fantasy Wargaming and even 2e's Al-Quadim caster type. I'm not sure how to categorize this.  Does a spell system identical to 1e's, but requiring demons look any different in practice?  Maybe the difference is the implied risk.  So, this would be another possible cost.  Maybe we could call it caster risk.

As always with categories, we could probably combine some of these and divide others, but to reorganize these into a draft list:
What is magic?

• Creation
• Selection
• Affects

Who uses magic?

• Accessibility
• Availability

What is the cost of magic?

• Preparation
• Limitations
• Risk

How effective is magic?

• Reliability
• Power

And now, without the organizing questions:

1. Creation
2. Selection
3. Affects
4. Accessibility
5. Availability
6. Preparation
7. Limitations
8. Risk
9. Reliability
10. Power

The Manual of Planes has a numerical system of denoting how magical alternate prime material planes are.  I don't have it in front of me, but we might use a similar system here.  Assign a number to each category will tell you how difficult, how reliable etc.  I'm naturally drawn to 1-10, so, you could roll 1d10 for each category and see if you can make sense of the magic system that results.

I'm at work with no dice, but let me try a web dice roller:
4,2,7,2,8,8,3,1,8,9

That looks like: Although possible to create new spells, spells are pretty much set.  Spells probably have no saves or rolls to hit, might even function identical to melee combat. Only magic-users can use spells but they can use pretty much any of the set spells.  Preparation is a pain, probably a system of rituals.  Few limitations, which makes sense if there is a lot of cost already built into the preparations. No risk at all.  Spells are super reliable and very powerful.

Spell Components

Tim at Gothridge Manor dropped an idea yesterday about using spell components as enhancers to magic, not requirements.  I'm so taken with this, if he'd written about it a week earlier I might have included it in my house rule anthology.

When I asked for what might need house ruling there was some talk of magic in general but it didn't trigger in my mind a memory of material components.  I love them-- eye of newt, toe of frog-- what could be more magical.  And yet from my experience 1e's material component requirements for casting spells were largely handwaved, you were either assumed to have them or maybe paid a lump sum to represent the value of the components.  (Maybe anything that was largely ignored in 1e, and seems worthy of saving, would be a great place to look for possible elegant solutions).

Anyway, with Tim's suggestion spell and potions work as normal.  If you add components they work better.  This is nice because 1) everything works as a baseline; don't want to mess with components, you don't need to 2) flavor can be easily injected without complicating things-- I'm thinking small bonuses or additional damage, range etc. 3) players get to decide when to do that: have a very important charm person attempt coming up, better gather some materials 4) players can also get involved creatively in working out what materials might work 5) this makes them interact with your world more, maybe even causing hooks as they seek out certain rare things.  That's a lot of good stuff for very little in system price.

I'm going to try to re-cast it a little in my own words.  This may be the only time I've wanted to add complexity to a house rule, but I think there is room here for a little more flavor without complicating things too much.  The thing about material components is what exactly makes any one material more likely to make a spell work better.  This is where we can get the flavor of sympathy, contagion and correspondences into our games.

These ideas can overlap a little but sympathy is when the material is like the effect you are trying to get, so, little wooden wings might help a fly spell, the sand used for sleep is reminiscent of the Sandman, etc.  Contagion is when the item is infused with what you want to affect, traditionally you collected fingernails and hair clippings to cast a spell on someone, the true name of a person etc.  The two can overlap when you start thinking, does salamander skin help a fire spell for one reason or the other, or both?  I think I would artificially simplify these concepts so that contagion meant only the thing you were wanting to affect has touched, owned, loved the component.  I'd say salamander skin helps in a sympathetic way; you can make fire better because the salamander skin is very fire-like, besides you're trying to make fire not cast a spell on a salamander.

Correspondences are more systematic, even arbitrary relationships.  Take a look at the tables in Fantasy Wargaming if you have it.  Certain numbers, star signs, gems, and woods are better suited for certain effects.  The material component might be a beech wand set with seven rubies.  None of these give much hint to their sympathetic effects, but if you are an initiate into the arcana you would know what the wand would be best suited for.

So, having explored that a little, here's how I might explain to a player:

"You can cast spells as written, but sacrificing certain items will make your magic more likely to take effect and more powerful.  Using the Principle of Contagion will make your spells more likely to affect a target, the Principle of Sympathy will make your spells more powerful, and using the System of Correspondences will allow you to choose either of those results."

As a DM I'm fine with making rulings on the fly, or negotiating this with players, but I want to do a little thinking ahead of time about how I might handle things.  Below is the order I might apply effects, so if a player has used multiple components, rather than giving a target a -7 to save I might click over and do all these things before coming back around:

Principle of Contagion:
names, things owned, parts of target = minus to target save > + to damage > + to range > + to duration

Principle of Sympathy
items that are similar in nature to the desired effect = + to damage > + to aof > + to # affected > + to range > + duration

Correspondences
These numbers, symbols, items are traditionally associated with the desired effect = player chooses which effect to enhance

Rarity
For all materials, the harder it is to obtain the more effective.  Ubiquitous items may have no effect. Basically, more expensive is better.  But difficult to obtain comes into play here to: for contagion, finger nail clippings would be more powerful than knowing a target's name.

I want to make a nice, simple chart of correspondences to give to players.  I suppose you could also dish that info out as they climb in levels and are entered into the mysteries of their art, too.  Or let them find books with this info as treasure.  Lots of possibilities.  Thanks Tim!

Rune Magic

Runes are cool for three reasons 1) they are a unique alphabet/system of writing something that has fascinated me since childhood when I memorized the Phonecian alphabet from an old encyclopedia 2) They involve rune poems which give a mysterious sense that "Fehu," for example is much more than just an "f" sound, and 3) these rune poems usually involve kennings making them thrice cool.

Just to give you an example of what I'm mean:


Wealth is a source of discord amongst kin;
and fire of the arms.



Ulcer is fatal to children;
death makes a corpse pale.

So, what I want to do is incorporate rune magic into my campaign. I don't see the class as much different from a cleric, it's the mechanics of the magic that will differ. To me that's what's interesting that there are different kinds of magic in a game world. So, I would focus on the things that make runes cool and different.

First, they are not spells to be cast, runes have to be inscribed. So, they are either ritual like inscriptions that affect an area or thing inscribed, or they must be inscribed on amulets ahead of their time of usefulness.

Second, The magic should be cool in a combinatory way. That's sort of the point. There aren't 24 rune spells (because of the 24 Eldar Futhark runes) that would be very boring. There are spells that are brought about when you combine Fehu + Kaunan, or even Kaunan + Fehu.

It sounds like the first requirement might make a runecaster pretty useless on an adventure, but I'm not so sure. Those spells that later editions of D&D call "utility," like something you pull out of a mop closet, are the things that would be the most useful in real situations. I'm thinking something like Othila (Estate/Property) + Kaunan (Ulcer), for example, would make a door brittle and allow chracters to smash through locked doors or even chests.

Two ways of parcelling out this power to the runcaster that I'm thinking of 1) the dreaded spell components, i.e. to inscribe take some expensive dyes or gold leaf if you aren't actually carving into stone. To draw on human flesh would take expensive, aromatic oils. 2) Knowledge of the runes is incomplete. You could accomplish this by saying you can't achieve this rune combination until level 3, but that seems very video gamey to me. I'd rather say, you don't know what the Kaunan rune looks like. Hmm, I'm sort of unconvincing myself. Maybe the chracter knows all 24 runes to start, but needs to know the rune poems to use them effectively. That would be something they could be searching for in play, the way old school mages hunt scrolls.