I want to give some background, as it might help out, but if you want to skip ahead be my guest.
For my next setting there are two kinds of magic. The rarer and darker is blood magic, used mostly by orcs. The more common kind is based around the 20 or so divine words that the gods used to create the earth. This is a low magic setting with simple rules. Simple is the key, so no adding up a bunch of bonuses. I'm also thinking of not going with character classes and instead doing something like this:
starting hp = CON, gain 2 hp level
8 skill points level, all skills are class skill, no 4x at first level, all DCs are dropped
each level add 0.8 to one of these three, 0.6 to another and 0.4 to the last:
Fort
Will
Ref
Do the same with these:
BAB
BDB (defense)
BMB
Then there would be some feats and stuff, perhaps on odd levels you have to take a racial ability and on even you take something else. Magical items are rare and unique but the players will end up with one or two each eventually. There are four races: two human (one sort of Germanic/Norse with stuff like ringmail and the other sort of Roman), one orc (a desert race), and the tree people (very proud and competitive).
Ok enough background. I want about 20 words that can be strung together to make spells. Normally a character would speak one word per turn. As he speaks magical effects start taking place (or he can hold it, if he doesn't want that effect). There would be a check each round, a failed check would mean that the spell ends. The roll is d20+BMB+WIS. You can take 10. If you want to speak more than one word per round you can, but then you can't take 10, you use your CHA instead of WIS, and if you fail a check you take WIS damage. Maybe 1d8+ the number of words you spoke that spell.
Now the trick to the words is that I don't want them to be boring. I don't want one to be "Fire" and another to be "Ball". So instead of saying the word "frost" you might say "Morning's Crystal", then to freeze an enemy with them you might say "Adorn". You would bellow our the adorn and point at the guy for dramatic effect. So that would take three rounds the slow way, or one hard check the second way.
Now as you say it, the first round the area around you "becomes" morning, though nothing actually changes, but maybe if there is a rooster around he crows because somehow he knows that it is morning. The next round the spell so far is Morning's Crystal, so maybe slight traces of frost form in the area, though since you haven't said where it isn't significant. Then you speak out "adorn" and frost covers the guy.
Now at this point you decide that you want to cover your sword with frost. If you could just throw "Sword" onto there it would adorn your sword with morning crystal (add cold damage to your sword strikes). Now that would be too easy, so there is no word for sword. How about Forge Born Talon? Though I probably wouldn't want born to be a magic word. Maybe just Forge Harvested Talon?
So this spell would be a continuation of the first. You get two spells off with six words. Actually you could get four. If there were a forge in the area you could freeze it, and then you could freeze a forge born (a golem? fireelemental? dwarf?). With divine words you could combo spells together and you wouldn't have to choose what spell(s) you are casting.
The words were those used by the god or gods (various religions exist, with monotheistic sun gods being the most common) to create the earth. So combat magic will take a lot of words, but more divine tasks will take fewer. I think that taking multiple rounds to cast spells will add a sense of drama, as you will get situations where you might protect the caster who is casting some grand world changing spell. Remember that everyone will be a lot more similar, there will be no wizard class. A few words might be reletively common knowledge and so would be learnable 1 per feat. Maybe you could spend a feat (feats will be more common, maybe 1/level) to know a random word at first level, handed down through your family. You could find them in ruined temples.
So any ideas, especially coming up with words?
edit:
Here is a preliminary list of words, I am thinking of going up to maybe 30 now.
Morning
Day
Night
Sea
Field
Forest
Forge
Talon
Maw
Hoof
Crystal
Tear (the thing that rolls down your face, not a way to destroy paper)
So to say shooting stars you would say Night Sky's Tears. Then the sky would fill with shooting stars. Maybe it would have an effect that enraptures everyone, and the battle would stop while people looked at the beauty of it all. Forge's Tears would be sparks. I'm thinking that I will translate them into some fantasy language, probably based on a real language. Then the players will have to figure out what they mean through trial and error (though as other magic users are working on the problem, about half of them have good translations already).
For my next setting there are two kinds of magic. The rarer and darker is blood magic, used mostly by orcs. The more common kind is based around the 20 or so divine words that the gods used to create the earth. This is a low magic setting with simple rules. Simple is the key, so no adding up a bunch of bonuses. I'm also thinking of not going with character classes and instead doing something like this:
starting hp = CON, gain 2 hp level
8 skill points level, all skills are class skill, no 4x at first level, all DCs are dropped
each level add 0.8 to one of these three, 0.6 to another and 0.4 to the last:
Fort
Will
Ref
Do the same with these:
BAB
BDB (defense)
BMB
Then there would be some feats and stuff, perhaps on odd levels you have to take a racial ability and on even you take something else. Magical items are rare and unique but the players will end up with one or two each eventually. There are four races: two human (one sort of Germanic/Norse with stuff like ringmail and the other sort of Roman), one orc (a desert race), and the tree people (very proud and competitive).
Ok enough background. I want about 20 words that can be strung together to make spells. Normally a character would speak one word per turn. As he speaks magical effects start taking place (or he can hold it, if he doesn't want that effect). There would be a check each round, a failed check would mean that the spell ends. The roll is d20+BMB+WIS. You can take 10. If you want to speak more than one word per round you can, but then you can't take 10, you use your CHA instead of WIS, and if you fail a check you take WIS damage. Maybe 1d8+ the number of words you spoke that spell.
Now the trick to the words is that I don't want them to be boring. I don't want one to be "Fire" and another to be "Ball". So instead of saying the word "frost" you might say "Morning's Crystal", then to freeze an enemy with them you might say "Adorn". You would bellow our the adorn and point at the guy for dramatic effect. So that would take three rounds the slow way, or one hard check the second way.
Now as you say it, the first round the area around you "becomes" morning, though nothing actually changes, but maybe if there is a rooster around he crows because somehow he knows that it is morning. The next round the spell so far is Morning's Crystal, so maybe slight traces of frost form in the area, though since you haven't said where it isn't significant. Then you speak out "adorn" and frost covers the guy.
Now at this point you decide that you want to cover your sword with frost. If you could just throw "Sword" onto there it would adorn your sword with morning crystal (add cold damage to your sword strikes). Now that would be too easy, so there is no word for sword. How about Forge Born Talon? Though I probably wouldn't want born to be a magic word. Maybe just Forge Harvested Talon?
So this spell would be a continuation of the first. You get two spells off with six words. Actually you could get four. If there were a forge in the area you could freeze it, and then you could freeze a forge born (a golem? fireelemental? dwarf?). With divine words you could combo spells together and you wouldn't have to choose what spell(s) you are casting.
The words were those used by the god or gods (various religions exist, with monotheistic sun gods being the most common) to create the earth. So combat magic will take a lot of words, but more divine tasks will take fewer. I think that taking multiple rounds to cast spells will add a sense of drama, as you will get situations where you might protect the caster who is casting some grand world changing spell. Remember that everyone will be a lot more similar, there will be no wizard class. A few words might be reletively common knowledge and so would be learnable 1 per feat. Maybe you could spend a feat (feats will be more common, maybe 1/level) to know a random word at first level, handed down through your family. You could find them in ruined temples.
So any ideas, especially coming up with words?
edit:
Here is a preliminary list of words, I am thinking of going up to maybe 30 now.
Morning
Day
Night
Sea
Field
Forest
Forge
Talon
Maw
Hoof
Crystal
Tear (the thing that rolls down your face, not a way to destroy paper)
So to say shooting stars you would say Night Sky's Tears. Then the sky would fill with shooting stars. Maybe it would have an effect that enraptures everyone, and the battle would stop while people looked at the beauty of it all. Forge's Tears would be sparks. I'm thinking that I will translate them into some fantasy language, probably based on a real language. Then the players will have to figure out what they mean through trial and error (though as other magic users are working on the problem, about half of them have good translations already).
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