Ok, I love this thread. Much of my thinking for my magical systems where made on a process similar to this one. With the difference that I'm leaving the option for gms/players to create new magic systems as needed and trying to give guidelines for that purpose.

Quote from: Spike;638848So, Divine Magic is simply 'More Powerful' than any other form.  By itself it offers very few drawbacks, the single biggest being that a God has to deign to power it... it is not actually under the control of the Caster.

This, to me, is a key aspect of divine magic. The big thing is how to implement that in the system so that it actually feels that way mechanically while playing, with the rules enforcing that. Instead of, you know, just stating that and then letting the player of the priest character having has much control over the magic as a wizard which, in my mind, kind of makes that drawback mute.

The post I've made on the jibbajibba's thread was mostly all about this.

All: Sorry, I was on the road for most of the week and didn't hop right on this when I got back.

BOrg: I hope to start addressing one approach to mechanics within a few more posts, so about a month from now at the rate I'm going...    

Spiritualism:

Like all the Divine catagories of magic, Spiritualism is essentially barginning with metaplanar beings for power, specifically spirits.  Obviously this will alter radically depending on the assumptions of the world builder re:critters, though the ideas presented here could be dropped into even wildly incompatible settings such as D&D... depending on how 'monster tied' you want make it.

As bargining with spirits for Power is the very heart, by definition, of Spiritualism, it is necessary first to establish our terms: What is a Spirit?

Keeping in step with traditional superstitions and some animist traditions, Spirits are essentially miniature divine beings, not quite up to the level of gods, but essentially divorced from mortality. They have, generally, no corporeal form and only the most powerful of them even have the option to directly manifest physically, and then only under extremely unusual or limited circumstances.  They generally do not have or desire worshippers and their thought processes are fairly alien to us, being mostly known through the manners by which they act or are acted upon.  They are countless in number. THey are not, however, necessarily tied to physical locations or objects, though they can freely chose to do so.  

Like the Gods, their power flows from an intimate, even instictive, connection with the Primordial Chaos that surrounds reality, and many, if not all spirits are older than Reality, having fled to the stability of Reality during its creation.  The weakest spirits have little control over this primordial 'possibility', and may only use it in limited ways, while the most powerful are seperated from the Gods only by their desire to influence mortals, or lack thereof.  


As for Spiritualism itself: Have you ever knocked on wood for luck? If so, in Haven, you would have been practicing the very meanest sort of spiritualism.

Almost every person practices, or attempts to practice, Spiritualism in their daily lives. These sorts of general superstitious practices may be assumed, their combined blessings and curses cancelling out. The true Spiritualist has amassed a body of lore and, to one extent or another, systemized his practices to acheive some semblance of true power.  While largely the province of more primative cultures (tribal shamans, untouchable outcasts in more civilized lands, etc...), it is not actually a poor country cousin to more civilized practices of 'Miracles' or Wizardry, merely different.

Essentially Spiritualsim has three seperate disciplines.

Totemic Magic

Barginning

Binding

The simplest, and least powerful, is Binding. It is, itself, a very specific form of Barginning. The Spiritualist 'traps' a minor spirit and gains its power by releasing the spirit when it is needed.  This requires very little knowledge beyond the exact methods of trapping and the outcome.

For example: A folk woman may take a length of red thread and loosely tie a specific, complicated knot in it, and leave it suspended from a fireplace. After some time she notes that the knot has been pulled tight, and thus she knows she has now trapped a spirit of the hearth.  She gives the thread to her son, who, so long as he carries it close, is protected from minor illnesses. Eventually the knot breaks, and the hearth spirit goes free and the protection ends.

She also provides her son a necklace which has a number of tiny stamped tin medallions. The shape of the stamping is obscure, but is known to 'hold' a certain type of spirit, trapped there in the moment of the medallions creation. When he is set upon by ruffians in the street he may pull a medallion from the necklace, releasing a Spirit of the Dust, blinding his foes long enough for him to escape unharmed.

As a minor note: Objects used to bind spirits may not be reused, and are generally quite cheap.

One key thing here is that the exact nature of the spirit and its power is essentially limited to accumulated lore... a spell list if you will. In order to expand the power of the Spiritualist, it is necessary to find new methods of binding spirits and to repeat them precisely.  More powerful bindings naturally require a lot more effort, generally exotic locations and times and rarer, more carefully designed 'traps'.

What seperates the Barginner from the Binder is that the Barginner may perceive and even converse with spirits.  Most spirits have little to say and must be enticed to deal, and it is easier to simply bind the smallest spirits using accepted practices first. The Barginner may, in fact, then negotiate terms with the bound spirits, offering freedom in return for more specific services, and the Barginner's knowledge may allow him to determine new methods of binding, though this is not simple.

Aside from being able to alter the traditional terms of a bound spirit, the most important aspect of the Barginner is that he is able to gain long term, flexible service from fairly potent spirits in return for ritualized service. One assumes that the barginner somehow 'feeds' the spirit daily (possibly expending spell points in the process), and in turn the spirit grants specific powers to the barginner in return. Failure to meet his obligations (again, usually daily, though this is not fixed) means the deal is broken and must be struck anew rather than merely sustained.

This means that most of a barginner's spells will be more 'long term' than flashy. Keeping a spirit of thunder appeased day after day on the off chance you need his lightning bolts is probably more work than its worth!

On the other hand, the Barginner may also Bind more powerful spirits than your usual 'binder', often with the Spirits full permission. One wouldn't sustain a long term deal with a thunder spirit for the occasional lightning bolt, one would bind the spirit to a token which would be broken when the bolt was needed! Cheaper and easier all around.

Not all long term deals would necessarily require daily upkeep. A specific form of enchanting would be possible here as well, binding a spirit of bloodshed into a sword, the spirit taking its payment in the spilt blood and the spread of its prowess... and possibly making certain demands of owners for minimum standards of care and service of its blade.  

Totemic Magic, or Shamanism, is the 'highest', meaning Rarest and potentially Strongest, form of spiritualism, though it is often an entry point for most traditional spiritualists.  Essentially, the Spiritualist must contact one of the most powerful Spirits in a powerful ritual and essentially bind himself to the Spirit in question for a period of time (life is common, though more limited terms, generally not less than a year, are not unheard of in some traditions. The nature of the spirit in question matters here as well...), and in return gains a measure of power.  It isn't necessary to be a spiritualist to make such a deal, but a spiritualist must be involved.

Totemic spirits make powerful demands of their bound agents.  Sacrifices of health, magic ability and more may all be made. While each spirit has its own personal wants, they also value most sacrifices that genuinely affect the giver (that is: A mundane Totem warrior giving up half his magic is a weak sacrifice even to a totem spirit that appreciates such gifts normally...).  Taboos are nearly universal.  It is possible to have more than one totem, but the accumulation of sacrifices and taboos makes it prohibitive. Violating a Taboo may have many consequences, from the loss of power to punitive retribution.

For example:  Old Ray guides the the Warrior Black Sand to find a willing Totem guide to aid him in life, and oddly enough a powerful Spirit of the River responds to the call. Normally the Spirit of the River would ask for Mana, but as Black Sand has no use for his Mana, She places a powerful Taboo upon him: Like the River, Black Sand may never rest. Should he spend more than 12 hours in any one location (defined by an area of about a mile), then his loved ones will be consumed by giant crocodiles. He may, of course, move back to the same area, for the River flows endlessly in its banks.  Black Sand also loses half of his Mana (though he scarcely notices this...).

A taboo, a Totemic bargin is never forced, though the unwary may not realize every element of the deal until after they've accepted, generally a wise guide will help.  Likewise, if a Taboo becomes burdensome, a Spiritualist may attempt to break the Totemic Bargin... though this carries a heavy price: no one who has broken faith with a Totemic Spirit can make such a deal again. That is: Once you've broken off with a Totem Spirit, no other Spirit will deal with you, period.  This is different from violating Taboos and losing power.

Most Totemic bargins give, essentially, permanent buff conditions. Some totem spirits may go further and grant limited access to specific 'spell' abilities. A thunderbird totem might grant lightning three times until it is appeased by a specific, lengthy ritual.




Essentially: Spirit magic trades a lot of work 'up front' for a nice arsenal of abilities on the back end. In a way it is 'gear magic': One has guns with ammo (offensive spell bindings) and armor (defensive bargins and buffs), and utility tools (spirits of unlocking, blinding, prophylaxsis... whatever), but you have to have it with you, and once you've used it, its gone.

Functionally, there are two seperate skill sets here: one is the lore that allows one to do simple bindings and draw on a known 'spell list'.  The second is the broader ability to interact with spirits directly, which would require ritual initiation, the 'wakening the third eye', if you will. Belief in any doctrines is not required or even necessarily expected. Once the spirit sight is awakened very little knowledge is necessary to actually bargin, though perhaps some generalized lore about spirits (where to find them, what they like and dislike) is helpful.

Seperating a spiritualist from his power is only slightly different than a wizard. Remove a wizards implements and you cripple his ability to cast spells until he can gather simple replacements. Remove a spiritualists tokens and bindings and you literally break all of his magic, but keeping him from casting more is essentially impossible.  The more knowledgable and powerful the Spiritualist, the more likely he is to be able to just call up just the right spirit for the moment and strike a quick, if unfavorable, bargin to accomplish whatever he needs.  Breaking a Totem bond is almost impossible unless you know the taboos the spiritualist is under and can force him to violate them, and even that is often less effective than you might hope.

One key factor is that the vast majority of spirit magic requires no actual ability to use.  Bound talismans may be handed over freely to anyone, totem binding can be, and was, used frequently by even the most mundane heroes, with entire cultures ritually bonding all members of the tribe to patron spirits as a rite of passage to adulthood (the Max'cai, for example, in Haven ritually hunt and slay a Korribe (a large catlike beast), and 'bond' its spirit to their own... or rather: The ritual act of the hunt and the sacrifice of the beast to a great Korribe Spirit helps seal a pact with the Totem Spirit. In return the Korribe Spirit protects the Max'cai from evil magics (specifically possession, shape changers and other 'identity' curses), but demands the Max'cai paint/dye themselves blood red...).  Everyone in the tribe undergoes this ritual to become an adult, and abides by the Taboos his entire life, normally, yet very very few Max'cai tribes have full time shamans to guide them.

Even the core ability of the spiritualist: Spirit Sight, can be gained by anyone willing to undergo the proper rituals. So too, one might say that the knowledge of Wizarding and the faith of Miraculous magic are also available to anyone willing to work to gain them, so thats a sort of non-starter.  Essentially, so far and for the foreseeable future, magic in this system is pretty egalitarian, at least from a character perspective.

I'm going to try to speed things up a bit by doing a bit of shorter entries on multiple styles together, parsing out the relevant data without the deep textual analysis of how I got there. Not universally, of course, but I'd like to move on to turning my thematics into mechanics while I still remember what I'm doing (on that note: Remind me to post my notes on a made up language to see if anyone can help me remember what the hell I was doing with it...)


So here are some quick glosses:

Alchemy:

The alchemist brews potions that hold magical effects, using both natural properties of various substances (nightshade/atropine relaxes muscles, etc) and their less well known mystic properties.  I could go on and on about symbolic vs random connections, but won't. I've noticed symbolism leads me down some truly epic diversions.

Alchemy thus works much like Spiritualism, in that the Alchemist isn't casting spells on the spot but building them in advance and carrying them physically. The primary difference is that the Alchemist is, like the wizard, primarily tapping his knowledge rather than 'Other'.  As noted, but it needs to be stress, in our Divine Magics, the actual Knowledge of the Caster is merely an adjudant, something useful and helpful but not actually necessary.  While certainly we can suppose an unskilled man could drink an alchemical potion, to brew it absolutely requires a deep understanding of what is going on.  I have thought that mechanically the Alchemist should 'imbue' the potions with his own magic power, however we define it, but this isn't actually necessary. I do think that alchemy is highly reductive: To produce a few ounces of useable magic potions one must start with gallons of raw materials, and it should be somewhat time consuming, both in active process and automatic process (a few hours tinkering with the stuff, a day or two letting it cook, say...).   I don't object to including a Philosopher's Stone 'higher goal' to Alchemy, but again: Gloss.

Potions work by being drunk, applied or 'thrown', and thus may be buffs, defensive or offensive in nature, making them somewhat flexible in application. Once brewed, however, they are 'fixed' in nature. Durations are probably fairly long for drunk potions and ungents, and short/instant for thrown/opened potions.  One weakness would be that while magics may normally affect things in magical ways (chopping ghosts with a ghost cutting sword, a death bolt that ignores armor...) potions are fundamentally physical things (liquids, maybe some powders) with magical effects. No potion will ever ignore its own physical rules (a toxic cloud would affect men in armor but not things that don't breath, a corrosive acid would splash against a sheild, and do nothing against the man behind it, and incorporeal would utterly ignore it).

For an adventurer, the study of Alchemy (vs just buying potions) might allow some more unusual applications. An attack potion might be used to burn out a lock... by someone who grasps the nature of magical acids. This gets into tricky areas of blocking OC knowledge and thus denying player creativity for balance.


Elementalism: In conception this is sort of a specialized form of wizardry, though thematically it may draw on ideas of Divine Magic. For bonus fun I am strongly tempted to include an 'Inspired by Avatar, the Last Airbender' aspect.
Elementalists draw on the four fundamental 'Elements' which are strongly used by Alchemists (FIre, Water, Air and Earth), and often deal with powerful, primaly 'Spirits' of those four, but not to draw on their power. However they are not tied to laboratories and potions, and in fact are only distantly tied to tool using (that is, their tools are the elements themselves, which are somewhat omnipresent). One might almost view Elementalism as tapping into Reality Itself (though that really sounds like Alchemy here...).
In short: The Wizard taps Chaos to create matter and energy (the four elements). The Elementalist taps into Reality to manipulate the four elements more directly, thus putting the very structure of reality itself between him and Chaos.  It is safe and it is powerful, but it is also extremely limited.
The Elementalist can create some things, Fire where there is no source of fire (he pulls it out of the ground and air around him, or water in a desert (alchemically, sand is earth and water, so as teh Elementalist 'created' water he would be turning sand into rock as a byproduct... a lot of work for poor rewards, but still impressive).  Obviously spells are broken down in to elemental catagories, and difficulty is given based on environmental factors, the more 'raw' stuff available, the less personal power the elementalist needs to invest. It is possible to conceive that the elementalist requires a seperate skill for each element he wants to work with, though that could be considered punitive in some systems...
The 'Inspired by Avatar' part comes in the idea that the elments flow constantly and maybe be manipulated by physical motion... martial arts. I don't need to include that, but it is a fun idea, and a good contrast to stuffy wizard types.  
At the highest level of power the Elementalist may, in fact, summon actual Elementals and direct them to do his bidding, as referenced earlier in the gloss.


Diabolism: This is obviously in the Divine subcatagory of magic. In essence the Diabolist is calling on beings of Divine power but not divine nature and asking them to grant power.  Demons don't require faith and don't particularly care about mortals one way or another and have their own methods of 'tending' reality other than generic spell casting.  Thus the Diabolist must bargin with the demons for what he wants, even force them if he can.
Demons want all sorts of things. Hell, for lack of a better word, is an unpleasant place because the Demons that shaped it were merely aping the works of the Gods, and produced a vastly inferior product, so many Demons crave things of the Mortal realm that they can't get in Hell... fine silks and objects d'art and so forth.  These demons can be quite mercenary in their demands, but are probably safer than most to deal with.   On the other hand, Demons grow in power by absorbing (eating) their fellows, and Hell is very, very darwinistic.  Human souls are particularly powerful or easy to digest, but they are, essentially, free.  Now, I could explain why sacrifices are better than just wanton consumption, but thats actually irrelevant. No demon is ever truly against the idea of eating a person for a little extra power, period.
And the Diabolist is trying to get some of the demon's power for himself, so even the most mercenary of Demons is likely to look for opportunities to make up the cost in a few human souls.  Dealing with demons is bad, not because the Gods are against it per se, but because demons are vicious predatory fiends.
So what does the Diabolist GET out of his dealings? The easy answer is 'spells', but that is actually wrong. Demons generally don't grant spells directly (a few higher order princes might, but then you're talking more 'dark gods' than 'demonic pacts'... and the costs are prohibitive to even the most dark hearted souls (sacrificing entire cities might sound like fun... but the logistics involved!!!). Most bargin for a demon's services, or the services of their subordinate, lesser demons. Almost anything in the Mortal Realm has a dark mirror in Hell. Beautiful, obedient sex slaves? If you don't mind the fact that they eat babies, sure. Horses that never get tired but feed on blood? Okay.  Most of the time the demonic version of something is actually better than the mortal version in many ways. It might be best to describe it as "A demon woman can be more beautiful, more loyal and better in bed, chose two", while facile it does work. In addition to being flawed in some other, unspecified way, they come with the costs of being, well, demons.

So diabolists quickly accumulate demonic minions. Hellhounds and Shadow-assassins and so forth, but that is, in itself, a poor reason to deal with demons in general.  Gaining the services of such minor servants is good pratice, not to risky, for later deals. Higher order demons will do all sorts of mundane tasks quickly and with no question.... if they can do it quickly and get paid well.  Most people can't form and army and lay seige to a kingdom, but a diabolist can conjure up a powerful demon and have it murder everyone in the palace just fine.

Of course, most people get into magic, especially dark magic, for reasons other than just having bad-ass flunkies. Demons may not grant magic spells, per se, but they can easily infuse a mortal body with demonic traits. Demons can grant immortality, strength... all that stuff. Its costly in many ways. The demon isn't just expending a little energy to do X, its actually giving up a peice of itself permanently (or until it eats the summoner...). Unsurprisingly, Immortality is one of the 'bigger' requests, as the mortal is more or less asking to be remade as a minor demon, though they may not realize that up front.  All demonic 'grants' corrupt the owner, even the most trivial, rendering them unable to use (or benefit) from Miracles directly, and in the worst cases actually making them Anathema. While anyone short of an Immortal can't simply be banished to Hell, as they aren't actually in violation of divine law, this is a big deal regardless.  Worse, the more 'corrupt' the more the Diabolist (or their minions. One does not have to be willing to have a demonic grant...), the more they'll begin thinking like a demon. This may be harder on creative sorts, as their works will become greater, but with crippling flaws, but anyone can suffer from the sort of profound alienation of being removed from normality.  There are other costs as well, such as endangering one's afterlife.  While the realm of the Dead isn't depicted in Haven as an actual Paradise, its not a bad way to spend eternity.  Even Necromancers have the option of having a good afterlife (in fact, they are defined by their rejection of it more than anything else...)  Too many Demonic Grafts, and you pretty much insist on getting eaten by a demon and digested when you die, or other unpleasant fates.  Immortals are particulary problematic.  Like Demons they don't actually 'die' when physically killed, they are just rendered utterly helpless until either absorbed into something (another demon, chaos, whatever), or restored (magic healing).  Worse, while they have no place in the afterlife, an Immortal so killed is treated more or less as an undead, even if restored, which means the Gods are even more against their being there. Lastly, any demon would leap at the chance to consume a wayward Immortal (easy on the digestion, full of power, and generally much easier to kill than another demon...), so paranoia becomes a way of life, and should they be banished to hell things can get really bad for them very quickly. Not that its impossible, the banished 'tribe' of Elves of Haven have persisted in hell for millennia through the means of having a lot of personal power, patrons and a general native ruthlessness that even demons can appreciate.
So two things make Diabolism 'divine' magic: First that very little knowledge is necessary. It helps, but a 'lucky' caster might get a friendly demon who is more interested in the rewards of service (access to the mortal realm being a big one) than in a quick snack, right out the gate. Many Diabolists actually have very little idea of what they are doing, merely aping the rituals and rites they found in musty old tomes (ironically: Demon Summoning Rituals are a subset of Divine Law, though Demon CONTROLLING Rituals, along with contract terms of service,  are covered by Demonic Law... something radically different!).  The power comes from the patron demon. The very worst part, a secret unknown to virtually every Diabolist, is that demons almost always serve entirely of their own volition.  They chose to give weight to binding circles and obey the tenets of a sealed contract. Demons respect their own laws instinctively, almost unthinkingly, but they could, if they chose, ignore them.  The penalities for doing so would be terrible, but entirely of no help to the wayward summoner that found himself ripped asunder and consumbed by Gorgath the Hungry on a bad day, despite his perfect incantation and flawless, never failed, summoning circle.  

The exception to this is Divine Law. While Demons can, and frequently do, ignore summons (which are Divine Law, but are more accurately expressed by calling them Invitations, or perhaps Permissions, rather than Summons), the penalties for violating Divine Laws governing Demons (only in the Mortal Realm, or the Heavens), are swiftly and brutally enforced. Demons normally aren't given the CHOICE to ignore Divine Laws.  Naturally, Demons prefer not to be bound and controlled with Divine Law Rituals, thus they tend not to respond to 'summons' by Diabolists who have used such rituals in the past. Thus teh Demonic versions are much more popular with Diabolists.

It is possible to steal a demon's power from it, and one could argue for an 'arcane' branch of Diabolism that involved the use of such stolen power, but I'd keep it all together.  A demon's power is invested/stored in his own flesh. Body and Soul are one to a demon, thus removing parts of the body is a good source of Demonic Power. USING such power is problematic, but 'grafting' a demonic hand in place of a mortal hand (for example) is surprisingly simple, if unpleasant.  Depending on factors that are poorly understood this may or may not 'maim' the Demon in question. Some demons wind up short a hand until they can reclaim their own (or steal another), while others simply regrow the hand but are just less powerful ever after. Demon Artifact are merely inanimate expressions of this metaphysical truth, being physical manifestions of demonic 'power', only without 'will'.


Damnit, that last bit was a lot longer than I intended. Ah well. You'll survive.

Next big post will be Elder Sorcery, which will be the last main entry, if not the last 'branch' of Magic before I start trying to turn my themes into a rule framework (or two...).

I will remind people that this is purely an intellectual exercise on my part and that I have no real interest at this time in actually producing something, so feel free to steal whatever you want from it.

Elder Sorcery:

So named because it is believed to be the oldest, purest form of magic. That isn't wrong, as it is very nearly what the Gods themselves do.

When a Wizard does magic he touches the sea of Chaos with his mind and forces upon the smallest portion of it his will, and brings that portion to reality, channelling it through his tools and implements. An Alchemist gathers natural materials that accumulated the raw energies of Reality and forms them into something greater than the sum of its parts. The Elementalist directs and channels the currents of reality into new forms.

The Sorcerer rips open a hole in reality and lets the Chaos in, and then attempts to force his will upon it.

As with most branches of magic, this 'branch' actually governs a somewhat wide ranging group of similar activities. It is, for example, possible for a mortal man to find the very edge of Reality Itself and on that rocky shore wade into the Sea of Chaos... and if he is powerful enough he can, for a time, drag Reality Itself after him, literally walking the boundaries of what is Real behind him. Most men simply die, dissolved back into the primordial sea that even the Gods fear, but a few Heroes do more. This is Elder Sorcery at its best, and yet requires less skill than iron will and determination beyond sense or survival. Those who succeed are not rewarded except in the most abstract of ways and those who fail are beyond even the Gods.

At the other end of the spectrum is one of the riskiest, most destructive forms of Magic ever discovered, banned from mortal hands by the Gods themselves, though to little effect.  

As the 'Edge of Reality' is normally not a physical place, but a metaphysical barrier between what is and what might be, 'tearing open a hole' is not a simple task.  In the earliest days of the World, stray bits of Chaos could be found, hardened and solidified, like bits of Amber, there Possibilities trapped within. This paradox, this fixed and frozen Chaos, this unchanging Change, had many properties, some of which even the Gods found useful, an unintended side effect of their very creation of Reality, and they gathered all they could find for themselves.

But even the Gods couldn't find it all, and so Mortals found it, races long lost and gone.  Countless ways of using them were discovered and lost again and occasionally found again.  It is acknowledged (on Haven) that the Titans were the greatest masters of these more exotic forms of Elder Sorcery, but their civilization was destroyed by the Gods for Hubris, and their knowledge was lost, forbidden to them.  It wasn't until the rise of Men, the Dragon Kings of Tabor, that it was rediscovered, and for all their efforts, the Gods have never been able to stamp out the knowledge discovered  by the Men of Tabor.  By arranging a number of these stones, these strange purple gemstones into relatively simple geometric patterns, resonances were created that opened channels into Chaos and allowed it to flow into reality. The simplest shapes they mastered merely 'created' the chaos in place, pouring from the pattern, with only slightly greater shapes opening such portals at a distance.  From there the Dragon Kings could attempt to work the raw substance into forms more useful or pleasing to them, dangerous, hard work that drove many mad and destroyed many others.

Eventually more complex patterns were designed that not only directed the flow of Chaos, but actually began the work of shaping it directly. At their height the works of the Dragon Kings were virtually indistinguishable from modern wizardry.

When the Dragon Kings were destroyed, most of their knowledge was lost, but not their works. It wasn't until the rise of Irem that Elder Sorcery was rediscovered. The Iremi favored Alchemy, and considered Amorphia (their name for the liquid chaos) merely to be the purest of reagents, and Elder Sorcery merely a part of their alchemical discipline. While their works may never have approached the wonders of the Dragon Kings, it is indisputable that their mastery of Elder Sorcery was greater than any other, even the Gods acknowledged this, but theirs is also an object lesson in the risks, for while the Gods tried (and FAILED!!) to destroy Irem, their Elder Sorcery not only destroyed their entire civilization but also put all of reality at risk, creating the lesser Sea of Chaos in what is now known as the Iremi Wastes.

But before the end the Iremi discovered a means to create, not just new life, but new fragments of solid Chaos, artificial stones that allowed them to perform their Elder Sorcery without needing the found gems of previous ages.

Even the Gods lacked this ability, one so often overlooked in discussions of Irem. One might suggest, truthfully, that the Gods never tried.


The very basics of Elder Sorcery are thus: a wooden board with grooves and cups carved in its surface and a collection of small stones of either purple or green, obviously unnatural. The green stones are iremi, and are not compatable with the purple ones (caveats abound), and are not wisely used with patterns designed for purple stones (and vise versa). Most boards may be used to create several different patterns, so make poor guides.  

As most 'modern' stones have been worked, that is cut and formed into various shapes and sizes, it is not so simple as merely placing random stones into random cups... ironically making random experiments MORE dangerous than they were when all stones were natural and unworked, and thus had fewer variables between them. (the Dragon Kings called the stones Tears of Life).  

The boards are not actually necessary, merely guides, beginner handbooks if you will. Once the pattern is mastered, the Sorcerer can suspend the stones in the very air, and patterns may occupy three or even MORE dimensions (how many is... unknown. And unwise to contemplate.).  

Some people call Elder Sorcery 'Pattern Magic', because one builds patterns to cast spells. Without a supply of Tears, no sorcery can be done, with enough stones (and knowledge), anything can be done. Gods have been killed by Elder Sorcery (directly and indirectly). Reality itself could, in theory, be rewoven by a large enough pattern, though unless one plans to raid the vaults of Heaven, it is difficult to imagine even finding enough stones, much less designing the pattern.

It is also tempting to imagine most Sorcerers do nothing but learn old, known patterns, or engage in extraordinarily risky guessing games, but this is false. This is how beginners discover Elder Sorcery, and with the right patterns (or enough knowledge to adapt known patterns), it is possible for even a novice to appear powerful. No, one's 'power' has very little to do with one's knowledge in elder Sorcery.  Safety... safety and flexibility, however do grow.

While the works of the Dragon Kings and the Iremi Alchemists are long gone,  the underlying... call it math... of the patterns is just as true as ever, and may be discovered naturally. Once known a certain ability to improvise and adapt known patterns develops, and from there teh creation of all new patterns becomes possible. A true Elder Sorcerer no longer relies on musty tomes or painstaking experimental research (this differs from the Wizard, who must develop his spell theories and then prove them, or simple read what others have already done...). Once the 'Pattern Math' is known, if you will the underlying code structure of Reality, it is simply a matter of building the proper 'equation'.  Even the nature of mistakes may be predicted.

Of course, one is still attempting to work pure chaos with a purely mortal will, and even the purest equation, the most elegant pattern won't help if a fundamental misunderstanding has occurred.  For example: The Iremi attempted to rewrite all of reality to make themselves (and by extension all men) into the equals of Gods. What they actually wound up doing, or attempting to do, was create a new Reality inside the existing Reality. They didn't know that this was essentially a recursive error, and they actually 'crashed' all of their local reality, causing it to dissolve back to the primordial chaos, which is where most of the Lesser Sea came from. The original, massive, hole they 'opened' to power their spell still exists within the Sea itself, still pouring a slightly more reasonable amount of Chaos into reality, which is why the Gods spent so much effort trying to fix it. Instead they more or less built a 'dam' around it instead.  

So, it is obvious that failure in Elder Sorcery can be pretty damn catastrophic, and simply 'knowing the maths' won't do much to mitigate the damage. The best one can hope for is to avoid random mistakes.

When I noted at the beginning that the Gods more or less do Elder Sorcery, I was being only slightly glib. To be sure, teh Gods DON"T, normally, put a bunch of chaos stones into clever patterns to do stuff. They can, and probably better than any mortal, but that's like a race car driver trying to use his mad track skills to race a toddler on a big-wheel. What value they derive from the stones is one of the many, many divine mysteries (it is notable that demons don't seem to care about the stones either way).  To be a God is to be able to Safely channel chaos into reality and to shape it to one's wishes, or at least that is a major part of it.  Elder Sorcery is, to keep our metaphor going, Reality Hacking, while Gods are Sys-admins and programmers. Its a weak metaphor, but illustrative.

Aside from its absolute reliance on artifacts, and the extreme risks involved, there is one more drawback to Elder Sorcery: Building patterns out of stones is slow work. Even the simplest pattern would take several minutes to assemble properly, and tens of seconds to do in a rush. The more complex the working, the longer it takes to do.

Of course, as noted, power and complexity are two seperate things. The simplest 'attack spell' available to a Sorcerer is to simply create a stream of chaos directed at his enemy. There is no more destructive attack in all of reality.  Skill comes in aiming it and mitigating collateral damage... and possibly in creating opportunities to act (note: raw chaos can easily kill even a God. However, the Gods are not subject to conventional initiative checks, movement restrictions or any other form of conventional combat rules, not when contesting a mortal. Likewise, they are very hard to ambush. Thus truly complex workings have to be done before an attack can even be planned, much less executed. The Iremi did this more than once, but they preferred other means of dealing with the Divine. Note too: Anything short of a god or demonic prince is most likely killed, with a chance of instead, fundamentally altered, while Gods may survive with horrific wounds or somewhat less fundamental alterations to their divine being. Anything (even a God) killed by this sort of attack is gone. No soul, no afterlife, no ressurection. Gone. The oldest and most powerful gods would still sneer at this sort of thing: They lived in Chaos for eternities (timeless as well as formless) before making or invading reality. A little spray might make them mildly nostalgic...)

There is definitely a synergy between Elder Sorcery and Alchemy. While an Alchemist is unable to draw Amorphia into the world, the knowledge of the Iremi, in this regard, was not lost with their destruction... any Alchemist should be very familiar with how to USE amorphia, and trade in the stuff persists (it can be stored and transported if one has a death wish, from teh lesser sea of chaos, in specially made, alchemically prepared vessels. There is a time limit, however...), and one might suggest that the Philosopher Stone might be a metaphor, in this case, for the recreation of a specific form of Elder Sorcery... the creation of Amorphia in the laboratory.

I do suggest that Elder Sorcery does require something more than a pattern, but the infusion of a bit of magic into the pattern to make it work. This provides a sort of framework to the rules discussion later.

Aside from slow (ish!) casting times, and an absolute dependence upon extraordinarily rare and valuable artifacts, the Elder Sorcerer has some weakness.  Using Elder Sorcery as a buff/debuff or other transformative act is nearly impossible, at least safely. Everything has to be done at some remove. Making yourself stronger? Impossible. Making a suit of living armor that has its own supernatural strength? Relatively simple.

I feel I should caveat this 'attack' spell I was discussing earlier. Directed Chaos is powerful, the raw stuff of magic and reality both, and lethal to anything (er...). However, it is still a stream of substance and can be dodged, avoided, even blocked for a brief period of time, and as noted, in Reality it becomes Amorphia, which is slightly less potent than the natural form, and is subject to magical rules and alchemical manipulations. A magic energy sheild would deflect Amorphia just fine, possibly even become supercharged by it, and an alchemically treated shield would hold up under the deluge for longer than any sane person would keep the spell running (now, about that pool of raw amorphia forming under your feet? And the dissolving landscape? Those are other issue... as are the random creations of unfettered chaos as it.. um... evaporates.) Again: All reasons why simply attacking a god with it is unlikely to work. And unwise.

Ok, well a few days of doing other things means this is going to be less fresh and less creative than I had planned.

To avoid shooting my load of awesome too early I'm going to start with a D&D, a 3E D&D anyway, style of rule set.

There are a few ways to go here, and until I get into designing spell sets, the exact method of character creation (the 3e part of the above) is actually unimportant.

Alchemy: I would be content to leave the Alchemy skill more or less alone (combined with, or eliminating the Create Potions feat...), other than to codify common potions, but as I am notionally designing a rule set here that is a cop out.

Likewise, the easiest way to handle Wizardry is to simply tweak the existign wizard class (making metamagic feats core instead of item creation), and altering the spell list. Again, cop out.

What I won't be doing is writing entire spell lists, however. This is a framework not the entire notional game.

However, due to my previous work I am forced to confront the fact that what I feel is proper for my existing framing is NOT proper for a D&D system.

That is to say: None of the Divine Magics require, in my opinion and as presented, a 'Class'. However, D&D essentially demands they be given a class and a level, rather than stand alone systems.



Spells, in D&D terms are rated in terms of spell casting 'level', which goes from 1 to 9, which must be distributed among the twenty levels of caster accordingly, with some obvious to follow patterns, which I will have to force my spell lists to fit, even given my framing.  I, however, will explore some radical directions rather than towing the party line. Watch how I soar.

Wizards:  For the main, I'm content to let Wizards be wizards. Robed and bearded scholarly fellows with crappy health and few survival skills. Sexy and underdressed femme fatales may also apply, so long as they have big brains. Intelligence is a key trait (as it will be for most arcane schools). Wizards will even have the same number of spells per day for simplicity.  Spells known, however...  well, we'll address that momentarily.

Now: As noted before, wizard spells have five suits, or casting implements, and they also have material requirements (metal, wood, bone, stone, crystal* etc..), with potential sub-components.  A wizards "spells known' then actually represents what tools and materials he knows how to use. I'm content to let a wizard start with one component (wands/staves if I were forced to pick for them, any otherwise) and 1 material at first level, but they can cast any spells that require those two. I am also fairly content to eliminate materials as a restriction component, but bear with me.  A wizard who grows in knowledge will be able to use tools outside of his original list, say one new material every four levels (so all five by level 15 or 16, depending on where you start counting). Materials, if restricted, come in faster (as there would presumably be more of them...).  Note that some spells might require two or more tools or two or more materials, and all such tools/materials would have to be 'opened' before the caster could access them.

Now: Tools, for the most part, represent the target. Wands are useful for direct casting offensive magic, cups work on oneself/allies, orbs/coins are more generic area based magics or divinations (which presumably precudes seeing the future due to our framing), swords(athame) are used for indirect curses or metamagics and so forth. The fifth suit would be the Major Arcana, which would be our slow ritualized magic. Hah, though I screwed up with five suits, did you?   Gotcha!  Um.. moving on. Arcana spells would either be purely arcana or arcana optional, meaning spells that could be cast as rituals but don't have to be. Presumably arcana would be the last choice, due to the other tools being still required to cast rituals.

Materials reflect the nature of the spell being cast, with specific materials representing various elemental energies, types of targets and so forth. Again, I'm pretty willing to expand this list and make it much more open to wizards, and I'd be pretty reluctant to force a wizard to avoid a certain spell simply because he can't 'use iron yet' or whatever.

How would this work? So far: If a wizard wants to cast a lightning bolt at someone he'd have to use a wand (Direct attack spell), made of Iron (Associated with electricity). If he wanted to stop another wizard from casting a lightning bolt he would use an iron knife (any knife in a pinch).

Now on to spell lists: as noted, all wizard magics largely involve creation. Creation of energy is easier than creation of materials. Lets put out three tiers of spells. First teir spells involve creating energy, from lightning bolts to illusions. The second tier is impermanent or simple materials: a flying battering ram that disappears after a set period, conjured water (since water is 'formless' it is easier to create from Chaos...), and the third tier are solid, permanent conjurations (though less permanent than real objects). Now, at the moment we're talking about literally making these spells first through third level, but designing them in such a way that they appear pretty gimped. If a spell requires mulitiple tools or multiple materials raise its level by one (each). This gives us spells from 1 to 5. Recall then that the wizard ALTERS his spells. Metamagic is assumed to be a class feature (possible gained as class abilities), rather than enchantment.  Secondly: the actual power of the final spell is based entirely on what level it is cast at (not the wizards level, as is currently done, but the spell's actual 'spell level'.) Essentially a wizard's ability to channel MORE spell power both determines how complex a spell can get (tiers and metamagics) and how much power he can pump into it (how much damage it does, or how long an iron wall is...).

One minor change is that we remove 'Force' as a spell catagory. Most force spells instead do a non-specific arcane 'damage'. Rules specifically governing interactivity with 'Force' no longer apply (thus 'magic missiles' doesn't actually hit incorporeal, and 'force' walls no longer automatically block teleportation, or what have you...).  

So: First level wizard spells are various attack spells using the various elemental traits of D&D (fire, cold, sonic, etc. Acid is second level I suppose), which are mechancially very similar in damage terms. Call it 1d6 of elemental damage here. Likewise, elemental 'shields' may be created to directly oppose various attack forms or provide other simple effects, not to dissimilarly to how they work now. Simple audible or visual illusions may be made, and some low level detection magics. Anti-magics and cursing is simply a different casting approach (so a first level athame wizard can break any spell, if its not to powerful for him, but is forced to use indirect cursing magic to harm people).  Note that directed 'area' attack spells require a wand and a 'coin'.

Second level the wizard may chose to cast any of his first level spells as a second level spell (thus doing 2d6 damage) or may chose to 'metamagic' it in some way, such as making it an area spell (thus Fireball, for 1d6, is a second level spell.. though, without two implements...).  Or the wizard may conjure water or any other liquid, or may create a stable, but temporary object, or an unstable but essentially permanent object (water, again... but a really ricketty shack might qualify...). Making existing matter do 'weird' things is a second level spell, a more difficult and complex use of 'energy', essentially.  

At third level the wizard may continue to pump up his existing spells, or he may make permanent objects, a stone chair or a summoned sword, a wall of stone!. At third level they won't be terribly impressive, but complexity OR size maybe be raised at higher level.

Fourth level spells are nothing more than third level spells that require addtional tools or materials to cast. Pretty much all ritual magic starts here and moves up.  Fifth level magic are moderately more complex, and no canon sixth level magic should exist unless I'm smoking something and forgot a step along the way.

A wizard DOES NOT learn a lightning bolt spell.  Any wizard who has mastered wands and the material of IRon (and I am tempted to find 20 potential materials just to give people something to look forward to along the way..) may chose to carry the right ritualized tools, or not to cast any spell he might possible be able to cast.  Provided he's holding the right implements, casting is fairly quick, so wizards can be overwhelmed if they have to change spells frequently in combat.

More on materials: I am thinking that a material for each of the six 'elemental' effects, then maybe for some 'types'  (Iron for electricty, obsidian for fire, glass for sonic, silver for ice, ceramic for acid, quartz for arcane (force), wood for living creature, bone for the dead, stone for Earth, copper for shape changers... I dunno, needs work...),  Traditional 'necromantic' spells would probably use bone as a material, while something like wall of thorns would use wood (or a type of wood... Like I said, I haven't really gotten TOO deep with this).

Canon spells (lightning bolt) would include guidelines on typical ways they are enhanced at higher levels, to provide a 'quick glance' for the wizard on the go.  Ideally, a smart player with a good, flexible GM could see how to fit new spells into the framework as well (making skeletons that beat you with lightning infused fists requires implements of bone and iron (two materials), and involves making impermanent materials (animating existing materials), and probably requires athame (metamagics) and cups (the skeletons are 'allied') or coins (area; Boneyard), and may require a ritual (arcana), and is thus a fourth level spell. Creating the skeletons from pure magic is a fifth level spell, because they are 'permanent', but didn't actually exist.

A note on improvised tools: While a wizard absolutely must have a proper implement, they don't have to be perfect to work.  A wooden porridge bowl would work perfectly well as a 'cup' and for the material 'wood', and a simple metal spoon might make a servicable 'iron' wand, even if its really made of tin. However: Proper wizarding requires a lot more than four simple tools and a dozen or so fairly generic materials. For GAME purposes, there are a lot more minor details that are glossed over, stuff that 'real' wizards obsess and experiment over. Does this color of quartz work better or wors than that color for this operation, and so forth. Even once all the basic materials are covered teh wizard is likely to have 'duplicate' wands (or whatever) with subtle differences (to include symbolic inscriptions and so forth) and different methods of preparation...

... all this is to say that a wizard without his 'tools' is functioning using improvised implements, and that makes everything harder... that is effectively raising the 'cost' of the spell casting by one level (but not the effect, unlike other raises), or more if the GM rules that it is particularly poor substituitions (using a tin spoon for an Iron wand, using a tiny little twig for a wooden wand, or a toothpick for an athame... if he even allows it) require even more power. Yes, a wizard with improvised tools literally can't cast first level spells, which may mean a generous GM simply lets him burn twice as many first level slots for teh simplest spells.

That is a revamped wizard.  I'll do a second Arcane caster, as contrast, to close out this post.

Elder Sorcerer: The elder sorcerer is still an intelligence based caster, due to his mastery of pattern math. I was going to make him a Charisma caster based on the sort of bastardized "Force Of Personality" Issue, but I already used 'Mathematicican hacker' as a metaphor for this guy and I'm gonna stick with that.

However, as they must acquire and keep rare chaos stones, and their studies are much narrower than wizards (most Sorcerers don't really understand WHY certain 'functions' work they way they do, nor care, they just know they work. Wizards understand why and how much faster, must, in fact.)

In order to cast the Sorcerer absolutely needs at least five stones and some means of 'drawing' the pattern.  Pattern boards are common, but lines in the dirt work just as well... if with more room for error.  Note: A low level Sorcerer NEEDS a pattern board, the distances and angles between the stones is too precise to be eyeballed by an amateur.  The board may be recreated with time, as there is nothing inherently magical about it. A Sorcerer also needs additional stones to progress in complexity, but not power. Luckily channelling raw amorphia does occassionally result in new, raw stones, which may be worked into useful stones (the chips and fragments are useful in the most complex patterns, and should be saved...), so we can hand wave this, even if in 'reality' it would be infrequent enough not to rely on it for progression. These stones may be either natural (purple) or artificial, but not both (and artificial stones would not appear naturally...), and patterns using the wrong sort of stone would be more difficult to create for a sorcerer specializing in the opposite sort.  On the other hand, having both sorts of stones does allow for concurrent, complimentary patterns, which is not possible with just one sort of stone.

We CAN suggest Sorcerers use a system of spell levels to establish how much amorphia they can tap 'safely' (they are, after all, touching Chaos more or less directly when they build a pattern...).

Say by fifth level the pattern boards may be replaced by improvised patterns, by tenth the sorcerer may dispense with written patterns all together and by fifthteenth level the sorcerer may 'hang' the stones in the air.  One factor here is time, spell casting gets faster for more experienced sorcerers, and they get less vulnerable.  Elder Sorcerers may also gain (as a feat?) an ability to make Sorcerous Devices, or magic items powered by complex, and often moving, arrangements of stones permanently affixed (usually the chips and fragments of larger stones).  Such devices are automatically 'cast' as twentieth level spells for purposes of disruption, and may resist indirect divine interventions. These are essentially artifacts, and there are powerful limits on their construction (such as using up one or more stones the caster could be using.

Elder Sorcery spells:  Patterns are rated in terms of complexity, which for game purposes will range from 1 to 20, and the ability of a sorcerer to 'quickly' build a pattern (combat casting) is rated by his level. If a lower level sorcerer knows a higher level pattern he may cast it in combat and risk catastrophic failure (save vs oh my fucking god, you're fucked!) or take his time and do it right (add an additional round of casting time/aide).

Hmm... let me brainstorm: COmplexity is number of stones (minimum of five, which is arbitrary) and dimensionality (2 being the smallest), and subtracting aides. A single pattern board, as a no-fail device (having no 'wrong' options), is the fastest, and removes complexity (say -3), a multiple pattern 'board', which has options that aren't used on any given pattern is still pretty fast if you know the pattern (-2), though a single patter 'board' that is truly flat (a sheet of paper), without 'divots' for the stones is almost as fast. A multi-pattern 'sheet' is better than nothing (-1).  Improvised dirt patterns or hand scribed quicky cheet sheets are slower (+1-2), no pattern at all is really slow (+4) and hanging stones in the air (almost required for multidimensional patterns...) is +5 or more.  THis does suggest that some patterns work in more than three dimensions (fourth dimension is time? Patterns that require movement of the stones in order to function properly?). Casting time is essentially rounds or minutes per complexity, minus caster level?

What one does with complexity is 'build' the desired effect. 1 point is required simply to channel one spell point of amorphia (one spell level), up to 9 for 'big' spells. Say one point is a 'pool' of amorphia roughly a meter cubed?, possibly growing exponentially (two meters, four meters, 16 meters (level 4) to... 81 meters cubed? that's a pretty big lot of amorphia... also relatively transparent to the player, as exact measurements are problematic for 'chaos'.)

Causing the amorphia to appear within line of sight is an additional point of complexity, causing it to appear in a specific spot is an additional point, causing it to appear at a sort of known place out of sight is an additional point, more exactitude more points, unknown spot with known characteristics? More complexity.

Causing it to come in 'aspected' in some fashion (pre-formed), more complexity. Burning pools of fire are simple, showers of gemstones are a bit harder, a solid block of inflexible crystal? Hardest.  Directing it to transform a specific target, more complexity, shaping the transformation in a specific way? Harder.

And so on.

Casting time is based on complexity, after bonuses or penalities for aide and again by level (that is: Reduce complexity by level to find final casting time...): If the modified complexity is lower than the caster's level, then its rounds per complexity, if its greater than than its in minutes. Yes, even really, really complex spells are somewhat fast to cast in the grand scheme of things.

The number of patterns 'memorized' is essentially a spells known catagory, and the process of creating and casting NEW patterns matters. I'm inclined to start with a 1 hour for the first level of complexity, but I am underwhelmed with the idea of 20 hours for complexity twenty (or above!), but I don't think exponential growth would work here... maybe (four hundred hours?).  Casting a spell that is not a memorized pattern absolutely requires some sort of aide (even for a pattern 'hanger', who might reference a book he wrote on this pattern), and is always cast as if higher level than the caster (minutes per complexity).

That is the form of it, anyway, and all we've gained so far is the ability to create and, in some fashion move and shape 'amorphia', very slowly compared to other casters.

In its raw state Amorphia tends to dissolve objects by rendering them more volatile (stone dissolves into first sand, then the sand becomes water, the water becomes steam... in the simplest series of transformations), though unpredictible (stone may become wood instead, and instead of dissolving it merely transforms). This process does cause the Amorphia to evaporate slightly, but not completely. Eventually Amorphia will change states into something new. Often this is highly energetic (energy, such as fire), which quickly 'burns' the amorphia away as fuel, but more exotic transformations are far from uncommon (new life forms, always fun...), requiring a sort of 'wild magic' table to cover.  However, it can be saved and stored for later. One 'pool' of amorphia, if properly handled, may actually produce several 'stable' units of Amorphia (one or two ounce vials of alchemically prepared crystal glass with specially designed stoppers..., roll a d4 per 'level' of amorphia. Note that bigger pools may have exponentially more amorphia, getting it before it goes 'bad' is the problem...).  Each unit of amorphia is valuable to alchemists as a reagent, but also valuable to arcane spell casters as 'spell points' (each unit is worth one spell level), ironically Sorcerers can not make use of this, as their 'spell levels' represent more the ability to tap chaos and remain sane, rather than actual stored power. Note, however, that an unkeyed 'Pattern' may be triggered by anyone by pouring a single unit of amorphia on the pattern. This will destroy the board, but will 'trigger' the pattern. However: Without a conscious mind directing the incoming Amorphia, the chance of catastrophic failure increases wildly.

Most Elder Sorcerers forget the value of raw Amorphia to others, and have to much respect for the danger it represents. While patterns to shape amorphia into more stable states prior to arriving in Reality are harder to cast they are much safer for the caster.

It is important to note that Eldar Sorcery is something Done to Another.  It is very powerful, but pretty inflexible.  Turning a rock into pudding to feed a starving village is shockingly easy, but convincing a town guardsman to ignore your little indiscretion is impossible.  Kill him or turning him into a frog are almost the same spell, and to the sorcerer the difference between 'turn into a frog' and 'turn into pudding' is 'which pattern did I memorize?  

Synergistic Patterns and Enchantments: As noted there are two types of chaos stones and while they work the same in the general sense, they do not work together... or for that matter use the same patterns (the same underlying math, yes. It may help to think of the stones as X and X+1 in value. Substituiting an X+1 stone for an X stone doesn't change the math, but it does change the result!).  While it is impossible for one sorcerer to build two patterns at once (the resonances will start acting as one, incoherent, pattern), if he uses both types of stones he can do things he can't do with just one sort. This automatically raises the complexity (the second pattern requires at least five discrete stones, is its own pattern (with its own dimensionality, and its own discrete aides, or lack), but it can do some amazing things easier than trying to do it within a single pattern could (Off hand I'm thinking like burning an entire city in a lake of fire, but exempting that one house where your girlfriend lives....  Building a complex geometric shape of 'the entire city, but with a hole' is much harder than just 'big area' and 'protected smaller area'.)

Sorcerous Enchanting:  At its heart, Sorcerous Enchanting is simply building a very complex pattern out of mostly smaller peices, something complex enough and fine enough that the more casual combat casting isn't really feasible. Since the default level of complexity is much higher, most of the normal effects (with their varying shades of complexity) don't even register.  While it is demonstrated that high enough levels of complexity allow the creation of actual living beings (or things that function like living beings, such as the Godslayer), we are essentially moving into the realms of Sorcerous Enchanting at some point. One thing to consider is that you are essentially creating a perpetual motion machine, a spell that literally draws power directly from chaos to itself in perpetuity.  In Haven at least two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (Famine and Pestilance) are actually Elder Sorcery doomsday weapons created by the Titans.  That is to say you could make a demigod level living being with enough time and effort. Actual rules for this would necessarily be.... difficult. Its not something I'd throw down casually, and I'd restrict it to level twenty Elder Sorcerers to start with, and probably put a crippling xp cost on it as well (in addition to using at least one of their precious, artifact level casting stones...)

Another consideration is that this sort of 'enchanting' doesn't require a base object. Literally, once the pattern starts it weaves the appropriate 'thing' around itself. A 'Pattern Sword', if we wanted to be slightly silly, would be a spinning, glowing gyroscopic 'thing' that creates a sword shape (of almost any imaginable shape... depending on teh creator's whim) Around itself, and maintains that shape in the face of almost any insult. Perhaps it would be visible (a big cutout in the base of the blade), or perhaps it would be protected (inside a gemlike pommelstone).  A certain level of artistic liscense is given here, as the magic would not require the 'blade' to make any sort of realistic sense... even to the point of not requiring an actual edge of any sort... beating someone with a never quite rotten monster arm, which produces actual cuts and limb severances, is possible if unwise. With Chaos, imagination is more important than reality. The more improbable the device the more power it draws from Chaos to sustain itself, which means the harder it is to build, and the more disasterous the failure. However, by conventional means such objects are indestructable. even throwing them into a raw pool of amorphia is useless, unless you're looking for a 'safe' way to 'burn off' the stuff.

Tomorrow/next post?: I'll turn my attentions to Miraculous Magic and Spiritualism.  Depending on how froggy I feel I'll try my hands at a D&Desque turn for alchemy and diabolism. Then its on to a unique take on magical systems... the truly building it from the ground up. As always, feel free to comment, observe or generally participate in the brainstorming, or just observe and steal shamelessly.

I will note that while I may have an idea for a starting point of each promised post, I have not actually bothered to 'think it through'. THis is, after all, brainstorming. Thus I am not sure how far I'll change things when I jump systems.

Having slept on my last entry I'm vaguely unhappy with my work on Elder Sorcery. First, I feel it needs a LOT more work than the Wizardry entry would to actually be usable. Two, I feel it would need a LOT more playtesting than the Wizardry Entry would to be balanced, and Three, I'm not at all convinced I did more than a yoeman's work explaining it.  A piss poor yoeman's work at that.

Among other things I left out was detailing any real mechanism for the beginning Sorcerer to use the raw amorphia that he or she is incidentally restricted to using. I explained how more capable Sorcerers might actually use Sorcerery to get magical effects, of course...

So a sort of vague addendum:

Raw Amorphia may be shaped by an Elder Sorcerer's will. Any arcane caster may attempt this, but Elder Sorcerers are better (D&D so we'll say something like a Will Save with a +5 class bonus? A level bonus? Something along those lines). Each successful attempt may manipulate the Summoned Amorphia is a given way (possibilities for multi-success based on increments of five?): Transform the Amorphia into an elemental energy, which persists as long as the Amorphia would have lasted but only inflicts damage according to its element. Move the Amorphia 1 square (per success, per round of checking). This may used instead to shape the amorphia.  Cause the Amorphia to become solid matter (any solid matter. Gold, for example. Yes, I am implying a magical system where traditional wealth is quickly rendered irrelevant!).  

For shaping and then transforming, synergistic use with artistic or craft skills are still necessary to produce anything of use or merit, a statue or a sharp sword. Time is obviously fast compared to traditional means, but I'm not sure that it needs to be any easier.

The same will check could be used for focus the transformative/corrosive effects into more useful ones.   Just splashing amorphia on a dude is pretty devestating... but it is also unpredictable. You might turn a goblin into an insane minotaur analog (not a perfect minotaur, but something resembling one) instead of a cloud of pretty butterflies (with wings made of crystalized dreams...). With a check the actual form of the 'dissolving' can be crudely controlled.  Obviously DC levels would have to be made to make it work properly, and a 1 would be one of those automatic 'something really not-good happens instead' sort of moments. Like accidentally turning a goblin into a ten foot tall angry (and insane) killing machine.

Anyway. I'm moving my sleep schedule around, so I'm sort of burned out, no long post tonight.  That will give me time to try and pre-brainstorm my Miracles entry for tomorrow.  And god help me the Annie song just popped in my head.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, there's always tomorrow... the miracle post is just a day away!!!!!!

Rather than dwell on 'might have beens', as this is meant only as a starting point, rather than to create an actual D&D style game based on my personal prejudices, we'll move on to our Divine Magic.

The first thought I've had since turning to do this entry was that Divine Magic simply cannot be cast one oneself. You can personally benefit from casting it, but you can't cast it ON YOURSELF.  This is to stress the sort of communal aspect. Another thought I've had is to de-emphasize the need for the recipient to be 'of the faith'.  One major purpose behind the very existance of Divine Magic is to guide and shape mortal behavior. Thus it seems likely that it would be possible to bless an Anathema (mortal, at least), and have that blessing hold as long as his actions, following the blessing, were actually righteous in the eyes of the gods. The motives behind gaining such a blessing might be no more or less cynical than the Gods in providing it, but by default it shapes how the recipient acts into ways the Gods approve of.  Does that make sense?


 A secondary issue is the idea of Backfiring. The Gods don't miss, either the caster cast the spell, or he didn't, that's simple. However, the Caster may not realize that the Gods consider him just as unworthy as his targets. This is leading into my actual mechanics, so I'm reluctant to explain too much. Illustration: The 'priest' decides to punish the bandits that have been raiding his congregations fields, thus depriving the people of needed food, so he curses the non-believers so that all food will turn to ashes in their mouth until they've repented.  However, rather than just striking the bandits, half the community is stricken, to include the priest, because they'v been hiding their food and claiming bandits stole it, and in the priest's case because he's been living off of, or enriching himself, off the farmers for decades, setting himself up as a sort fo pocket 'divine king', and the Gods decided he needs a lesson in humility.  THe spell worked as the Gods intended, despite the intent of the priest.  Obviously this shouldn't be terribly common, but it should be possible. I could put it down to GM fiat, but I'd like to see if I can address it.

THus: D&D class mechanics:

First of all, like all Divine Spellcasting, the Caster does not gain 'Spell Levels'. This is frankly nonsense, as the source of the power is, definitevely, not the caster.  As such: Divine Magic is open to anyone who has the right knowledge skill, in this case Knowledge: Religion and Knowledge: Rituals of Religion (or something similar). Yes, I would make them have a seperate skill, limited by the first.  Being able to recite from memory a latin mass is pointless if you don't know the context what it means to the faith.  Knowing how to cast a wedding ritual is pointless without knowing what a wedding is meant to be. We take it for granted in the case of weddings, but as further illustration: As a non-catholic I have only the vaguest notions of what is so important about eating crackers and drinking wine. As a non-muslim, I have only the vaguest notions why people throw rocks at a stone pillar once a year and touch a rock on a big black cube. I can (and have) learned these things, but that required gathering 'knowledge'.  This is, however, a debateable topic, and a distraction at that.

A final note, perhaps a reminder: I consider Divine Magic to be largely dependent upon Charisma rather than Wisdom, seeing as how they are based on dealing with others, and specifically for Miracles how one interacts with a congregation of fellow travellers.

Regardless:

As this is D&D, however, we do require a class and level based system to make casting work. Thus we have clerics and paladins, maybe even rangers (and why not? Of course, I feel it more likely that Rangers would be inclined to spiritualism than Miraculism by default, so well leave it at that...).

So aside from having a class skill that allows magic, what exactly do these classes gain to make them worth investing it?

Faith.  A cleric gains one point of Faith (attribute?) every level, a Paladin gains one every other (every third?) level.

Now: I actually dislike the term faith. Piety perhaps, or Righteousness might be more accurate (piety I really do like, and it sort of works), but lets face it, players will Grok "Faith" faster than any other means.  Faith becomes a sort of Casting Stat, establishing how powerful a spell the Gods are willing to grant, or how likely they are to grant it. Miracles have a sort of Difficulty check, and Faith (ALONE) is used to beat That Check. The Knowledge check is used to Know the Ritual (or to cast it. Yes, Divine magic might require two dice rolls to get a spell off, one to cast the ritual properly, one to prove you are worthy).

Now: Faith goes higher than twenty, or at least the Difficulty of miracles. The reason for this is that Faith may be 'bought' by direct action.  Quest for the Gods? You get some Faith Points.  Built a temple or shrine? Get some faith points.  Cast a potent Miracle? Loose some Faith Points.  THe difference is that the class based points are self refreshing, and are gained through performing 'behind the scenes' class actions.  So, while a dude who made a pilgrimage that one time to the Lost Temple of the Seven Moons might have the mojo to bless a marriage before the Gods, he probably wants to save his divine favor for something with a bit more kick, while the Cleric thinks nothing of it, because his Faith Points are depleted by such simple rituals.

For the purposes of the game, however, things like Weddings would fall under a sort of simple generic 'utility' rituals, each 'costing' one Faith Point to cast. I can imagine a senario when being able to provide a divine blessing on a marriage would be a Big Fucking Deal, but not so much as to want to hard code it into the game specifically.  So maybe: Witness Divine Oath generic utility ritual instead of 'Wedding rites'?

Essentially a Cleric's Faith pool (his class based mojo) depletes first and reknews itself constantly. The rate at which he regains faith is debatable, but I'm happy with a miserly 1 a day (or Charisma bonus per day?), with a 'full refresh' for specific community based ritual behaviors (Conducting a Sunday Mass would provide a full refresh, but could only be done once a week, or something).

Anyway: Most simple rituals are easily learnable, and have trivial effects and can be cast for a single Faith point (gainable by just attending weekly services), and may affect a handful of people.  The cool shit is what we're actually interested in. I could, and possibly should, detail such things as blessing all the croplands of a significant community, but I think for a PHB style entry its better to establish that such ritual castings are common, and leave them unspecified, while focusing on more adventure based spells.

As noted all Spells are essentially Rituals on some level, so they are difficult to cast in the middle of a fight.  I see no reason to exclude divine healing and 'pre-fight blessings' from castable miracles.  

As noted in my previous discussion, the power of a miracle is based largely on the value of the Ritual.  I'm vaguely interested in establishing a sort of cross level baseline here... more exotic and 'powerful' rituals require less Faith to cast than more common and practiced rituals (the act of searching for and learning such a ritual is essentially a specific act of piety maybe???).

I am fond of using self defined casting to abstract an entire world building exercise. The GM can build a specific ritual (Saint Fred's Warding of the Whills, say, written by Saint Fred himself after he used it at the Battle of Figgy Pudding Downs...), which provides the specific effects of a typical Warding but has a very high Learn DC, and a higher than usual Casting DC (since it is so rarely used its hard to master even for those who know it), but, because it was written by St Fred Himself, and is also very old and very rare, it actually has a lower Faith DC to cast and may 'cost' less Faith as well.  THis is something the PCs can research and learn (the GM wrote it and put it in the campaign.), but a newly created fifth Level Cleric might decide his Cleric is on a holy campaign to wipe out vampires (a specific form of Undead) and thus has a Warding that is particularly effective against vampires, and thus 'wrote his own' Warding spells. In truth his character would have researched through archives of previous vampire hunters until he found a ritual that appealed to him, the player's input being entirely removed from the characters efforts.

So our theoretical Warding Spells might look like this:

Saint Fred's Warding of the Whills:
Learn DC: 25 (rare and hard to find)
Cast DC:  20 (hard to cast properly, St Fred had bad penmenship)
Faith Cost: 2 Faith, most Wards are cheap, and St Fred's Wards tended to be cheaper still
Faith Check: 10.  The Gods really liked Saint Fred, and thus tend to go easy on poeple invoking his name.
Effect:  Cast on a free standing wall (that is: Not the exterior or interior wall of a building or larger structure), the Wall gains 5 points of hardness and those declared 'Enemies of the Faith'... specifically people of Hegacli extraction, may not cross over the top of the wall nor burrow under it. As long as the wall remains intact any attempts of a Hegacli to do so earns the wrath of the gods (a -5 penalty to all actions until they return to 'their side'). While not specifically intended against Anathema (demons, undead and divine criminals of all stripes), the effect of the warding applies to them for one hour after their unlawful crossing.  However: Invoking the Martyrdom of Saint Fred (by his own allies!) destroys the Warding instantly, as does any impious reference to the God Julie by a defender of the wall (anyone standing on it, or the 'warded' side of the wall counts.). Famously, the Warding of the Whills failed on the second day of the battle when a soldier on the wall swore by Julie's Tits upon seeing the size of the remaining Hegecli Army seiging the city, which led directly to Saint Fred being murdered by the people he swore to protect and his body being tossed over the wall. In a related divine miracle, his notes on the Ritual were not written until ten days later.


Obviously, my wordiness could be pared down. Note the specificity: Hegecli people (a now dead ethnic group, but in theory those decended from them would still be effected) suffer a permanent -5 penalty so long as they remain on the wrong side of a warded wall (though breaching the wall is allowed by the spell, just harder), and other anathema (who are ALWAYS affected by Divine Wards!) suffer a temporary penalty, and that any given idiot can ruin it for everyone.  In case you are wondering, I just made up the Hegecli, and Saint Fred on the spot for this illustration. Julie's Tits, on the other hand remain fabulous.  Also Note that no attempt to limit the size of teh wall being warded is mentioned.  Assume a single contiguious Wall, from one surrounding a city to the Great Wall of China applies.

Wilhelms Ward against Willful Fiends of the blood (ran out of alliterative words)
DC to Learn: 20 (somewhat rare and exotic, but otherwise not noteworthy)
DC to Cast: 20  (Still somewhat challenging to get right)
Faith Cost: 2 (A simple and highly specific Ward)
Faith DC: 8, even relatively unfaithful people can cast it reliably.
Effect: The Caster describes a limited area (Charisma bonus squared in meter radius?) that he remains within. The limits must be clearly defined ( a circle marked with a line of, lets say ashes in this case).  So long as he remains in the unbroken circle, any vampire who crosses the line immediately becomes helpless, losing all supernatural abilites (including strength).  Other Anathema suffer a -1 and may not use supernatural means to cross the circle. No anathema (to include vampires) may willingly or unwillingly break the circle, but if it is broken by any mortal, or the caster leaves it, the spell ends.  (crossing and breaking are two seperate effects. A vampire may be dragged across the circle, though if you have that sort of power its sort of unnecessary) without breaking it.

I know that is a pretty god damn small spell selection to start with, two 'wards' out of four types of spells, but you sort of see the mechanics I'm aiming at, right?  Yes, reducing your faith pool (after casting, for simplicty) does make future spell casting harder.  Likewise I don't really cover casting times in those two cases. I would suggest that the Casting time for Saint Fred would be the time it takes to walk then entire wall (thus: weeks for the Great Wall of China... Hours, at least, for a city wall), while the casting time for Wilhelms Ward would be a handful of minutes at most.

Faster casting times trade off the ritual requirment to duration. Say instead of a circle that couldn't be crossed, Wilhelm's Ward was recited out loud. Casting time is seconds (to get the spell rolling) but only remains in effect as long as the ward is continually recited (nominally by the original caster, but I've seen enough movies to buy an awkward and dangerous hand-off of casters if someone wants to suggest it..      )

That leave me two more D&D entries before I can move on to building from the ground up.

This is more a short reminder for me than a full post.

On the subject of spiritualism I expect I'll have a functional skill, a full on barginer class, and a sort of 'Totem Warrior' class framework, so at least two classes with significant spell casting and a skill write up.

All of that so I can, at last, put away the D20isms and work on actually building up a system from scratch, as the thread promises.

I'll shoot for tomorrow.