The Magic in Wizards (or, how to make arcane spellcasters more "alien")

[Psionicist]

Come on ENW, you can do better than this. =)

 

[pensiv]

Maybe you want to setup spellcasting classes as PrC only?

Of course, they'd probably have to be more powerful than your average vanilla spellcaster class, but beef up requirements to make them relatively tough to get.

That would be the mechanical aspect.
The flavor aspect could build upon this in many ways.
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Maybe low-level casters are required to be sequestered by their order. There would be very few low-level caster adventurers, if any, since they're all holed up in magical "monasteries."

This would also discourage multiclassing.

 

[Mallus]

I think it was "Black Sun Rising". One of the most powerful and immortal sorcerers in the world gained his power by ritually sacrificing his beloved wife and children. And he was one of the "good" guys! Although definitely more of a dark anti-hero. Very dark.

The character was Gerald Tarrant in C.S. Friedmans' Coldfire Triology [Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, Crown of Shadows].

And he did kill his entire family, ostensibly to save the human race, as it existed on this newly founded colony planet at the egde of the galaxy.

What was really neat [neater than familocide?!] was that the real mechanics of said sacrifice. He wasn't trying to appease some dark planetary gods, he was trying to establish a kind of communication with [and control of] this seemingly quantum-level lifeform that permeated the planet's ecosystem [called the fae. Sacrifice was the only conceptual structure that bridged the gap between humanity and the fae. If I'm getting this right, its been a while since I read them...