Theories of magic IYC

What are the theories of magic in your campaign?

For example, IMC (which has an Egyptian theme) most magic is "associative", meaning the wizard associates him or herself with a powerful figure, often a god, legendary magical creature, or divine hero. An example of the verbal component for a wizard casting a curative spell would be: "I am Isis who chases evil from the wound. Like a sparrow I sweep low and pull out the worms of infection. This one shall not go to the underworld today. They are protected by my wings. Isis, great in magic, calls upon the wound to heal!”

For me this explains why someone observing a spell cannot just duplicate it - They haven't honed their minds to make the proper associations even if they get all the components right.

In my siblings game the main ones are: totem shamen, book-taught arcanists, self-taught mages, nomadic gypsies who must keep moving to maintain the height of their power, and pretty much anything anyone wants (Elements of Magic is so flexible!)

Thanks for raising this question. I have had a lot of difficulty theorizing what exactly arcane magic in D&D is within the system of physics. Given that divine magic is clearly granted by spiritual beings to the characters, I sort of assume that arcane magic, especially wizardly magic, being so textually based, is different.

Therefore I have made the divine/arcane distinction map to the pretty standard division between demonic and natural magic. But I have no real sense of how to map the arcane fire and forget casting to any system of natural magic I'm familiar with. It doesn't seem sympathetic nor does it fit neatly into any of the other categories within natural magic. So, unlike most things in D&D physics, I haven't really problematized the relationship between arcane magic and the overall physics of the game. So I'm eager to hear how it works for other people.

Well, what ya wanna do is lay out all your cards according to casting cost. Ideally you should see sort of a bell curve, swelling around 2 and 3 for faster...

Wait. Wrong Magic. Sorry.

Divine magic is a power granting some of its essence to a follower. The follower uses this essence to shape reality.

Arcane magic, on the other hand, is about understanding the fundamentals of reality and using techniques to change them. At least, for wizards. For sorcerers, it's really more an innate ability to change reality through force of will.

For my part I set magic as the ability to manipulate magical energy (heka) in a constructive fashion. In theory anybody can do it, but in practice it appears to take some sort of knack. The ability, and willingness, to see things differently. To, in a sense, think outside the box.

On the other hand, there are natural talents, psychic abilities. The various forms the paralyzation ability takes among my basilisks for example. Or the dragon's ability to fly. Here what a person can do is limited, but he does not have to learn how to activate the power. Though he can learn how to better use it.

They are explained in FRCS/MoF.

Bye
Thanee

Magic is not one distinct energy or force. Each school of magic is an entirely unraleted method of altering the structure of the universe. Several schools utilize mathematics, some use words of power, and some call upon the names of great powers to make changes on the casters behalf. Some magic even utilizes innate psionic potential within the caster.

Here's something I came up with for an attempt to escape from the D&D Archetypes by writing my own classes:


Some say magic is an all-encompassing force.

They're wrong. There universe does not consist of one ever-present energy. There are thirteen seperate energies: Light, Darkness, Nature (animal), Nature (plant), Thought, Form, Love, Hatred, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Elemental Chaos

Magic is the art of controling those energies. And the various magicians have different means of achieving that control:

Everything in nature contains a small amount of one or more magical energies. And Witches are those that are skilled in manipulating that little bit of energy within themselves and other living things. What they do is subtle, but effective none-the-less.

Blood Mages lack the Subtlety of Witches. Rather than making the most from tiny bits of energy, they use sinister rituals to extract more from others, willing and unwilling.

Elementalists have no need of questionable rituals to gain vast ammounts of energy. They are those who by some fluke of nature were born with vast internal reserves of elemental power.

While the Witch, the Blood Mage, and the Elementalist are all able to control multiple types of energy, none has the versitility of the Arcanist. His forté is not any one energy, but instead the interaction between them. While he cannot control fire as easily as an elementalist, nor Hatred as skillfully as a witch, He alone can combine the two, causing his enemies to consume themselves in the flames of their own rage.

Last (but not least), is the Paragon. While the paragon is more a warrior than a magician, the sheer force of his belief allows him a small degree of control over a few energies that are most connected to his cause.


Having decided that I don't have enough experience with mechanics to create a new set of core classes, I'm instead preparing a d20Modern Urban Arcana Campaign.

Toril has magic. Oerth has magic. Eberron* has magic.

Earth Has none. The Magic that exists in the world today must be drawn through the shadow from these other universes. It's not easy. Only a little arcane magic can slip through the shadow to our side of the fence, and only the most powerful of gods can hear the prayers of their devoted servants.

Sure, Earth has Psionics, but even that is weak. And as the power of shadow-world magic slowly grows, the power of psionics seems to be shrinking by the year.
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*(out of curiosity, Is Eberron the name of the world as well as the campaign setting and the dragon thing?)

In one game I ran, clerical magic was having access to the network of computers and Clarks' law level technology that was originally put in place to terraform the world - like GAEA, the Global Agricultural Engineering Authority. As clerics advanced in level they would be granted more user priveleges.

In contrast, wizards were hackers. Their spells exploited buffer overruns and similar bugs in the system.

Of course, nobody knew this, that knowledge having been lost in the aftermath of an interstellar war...

J

drnuncheon said:

In one game I ran, clerical magic was having access to the network of computers and Clarks' law level technology that was originally put in place to terraform the world - like GAEA, the Global Agricultural Engineering Authority. As clerics advanced in level they would be granted more user priveleges.

In contrast, wizards were hackers. Their spells exploited buffer overruns and similar bugs in the system.

Of course, nobody knew this, that knowledge having been lost in the aftermath of an interstellar war...

J

Click to expand...

Have you ever read The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge? Your idea echoes hers.