Magic in Orre

What is magic?

In Orre, it's fairly uncommon to find someone without at least a little magical capability. Though this ability is extremely raw and unpredictable when untrained, a mage who undergoes training and attempts to wrangle the power inside will be quickly rewarded. However, the power of your average mage is somewhat limited. Every being in Orre is considered a vessel for things of unlimited power known as a Soul. When a Soul is ripped from the spirit plane the trauma causes it to align with one of the six elements:

Air: Not just making tornadoes, the ability to control air also includes the ability to move particles, create sound, and create lightning. Fire: Along with providing a dazzling light show, one who controls fire also controls space and emotion. Rock: Rock applies to the control of solids. It's also believed to be responsible for the creation of living vessels. Water: Some can control water in all of its forms. Water is also attributed to time and intelligence Light: Along with making sure you can see, light can be used to gain knowledge and help tether a Soul to a weakened body. Dark: Along with making sure you can't see, dark controls death and the purest essence of magic. It's often the source of most necromancy.

With a little training, a mage can learn to control and use their own element. With substantially more training, a mage can learn to control a secondarily innate element, and combinations of certain elements will allow access to a third group of spells. A well trained mage can be a real force. Though a mage can never truly master other elements, with enough study they can gain some ability with other magic.

How magic will work in this campaign

I will be using the Ritual Magic rules outlined in Magic (P. 200) and Thaumatology (P. 72). There's a twist, however. When you buy Ritual Magery, you must get it with the limitation One College only. You may take up to two different colleges of magery, but they are each independent from each other, and additionally one must always be higher than the other. The levels of one only applies to that school. For example:

Johnson the mage wants to learn both fire and water based magery. He decides he wants to be better at fire magic, so he buys Magery 2 (One College: Fire) and Magery 1 (One College: Water). Whenever he casts a fire spell he gets two added to skill, but whenever he casts a water spell, he gets only 1. When Johnson gains 6 character points and increases magery, he will only be able to increase the magery that affects his fire spells. Next time he can pick fire or water.

As for your very hard skill, you must take the ritual magic skill that corresponds to your element. For example, Johnson would need to buy both ritual magic (fire) and ritual magic (water). He will also have to buy skill for the water and fire college. If you have two elements, the skill in the one with your lowest level of magery cannot equal or exceed the highest. So Johnson's skill in the ritual magic (water) and the water college can't equal or exceed his skill in ritual magic (fire) and the fire college.

At this point it might seem better to specialize, but there is a bonus. Certain combinations will allow you to master another college at zero character point cost. For example, Johnson has both fire and water magery, allowing him to also cast gate spells. He gets to use his skill in ritual magic (water) and the water college to cast it, and is treated as if he had magery 1 in that college (which may not get far, but with a little training will be quite powerful).

A starting PC can only take up to 3 levels of magery, split into one or two colleges as they see fit. There is always room to grow with magery, and there is no true limit on the levels you can gain.

School of magic

Air: Air magic corresponds to its like named college. Simple!

Fire: Fire also corresponds to its like named college.

Rock: Corresponds to earth.

Water: Corresponds to water.

Light: Corresponds to healing spells (not Light&Dark)

Dark: Corresponds to light and dark spells.

Combinations

Rock/Light: Corresponds to Animal Spells

Rock/Air: Corresponds to Body Control Spells

Light/Air: Communication and Empathy spells

Fire/Rock: Food Spells

Fire/Water: Gate spells

Light/Dark: Necromantic spells

Rock/Dark: Making and Breaking Spells

Water/Dark: Mind Control Spells

Rock/Water: Plant Spells

Air/Fire: Protection and Warning Spells

Air/Dark: Sound spells

Air/Water: Weather spells

Light/Water: Illusion and Creation Spells

Legality of Necromancy

In many fantasy settings Necromancy is usually looked down upon if not outright banned by society. In Orre, it is believed that when you die your soul returns to the spiritual plane and your body remains as an empty vessel. Because of this view, necromancy is merely seen as enchanting a corpse, much as one might enchant a chair or a staff. Though most necromantic spells can be aggressive in nature and most would prefer you don't practice it in the streets, there is no repercussion to telling someone you reanimated their dear aunt Sally the other day. They may even invite you in for tea.

However, due to this view, forcing a soul to remain on this plane is seen as the most abominable and evil act one could commit. Resurrection spells are frowned upon, and summoning spirits is a good way to get an angry mob on your tower door step. Becoming a Lich won't win you any friends either (well, not any living ones). Knowledge of these kinds of spells is highly illegal, and casting them in public could lead to cell time or a death sentence.

Wild Magic

Though the elements are rigid in what they may allow a character to do, there exists newer, more potent forms of tapping into inner power. Mana, in this campaign known as "Orrium", isn't a whole substance as it exists today. As it exists today it comes in the six usual elemental varieties, but TRUE orrium contains all six. There exist ways, highly unstable but they exist, to convert the ambient orrium back into its pure form and use that power to cast spells. This can allow the caster to cast any spell from any college and only have to upgrade one magery, and to learn it quickly. However, failing to cast a Wild Magic spell can lead to disastrous results, and given the instability of this process, failure is common.

How common? All wild magic spells critically fail on a 12 or higher at effective skills of 12-15, 13 at 16-18, 14 at 19-21, and 15 at 22+. This isn't as bad as it sounds, though, as Wild Magic that critically fails rolls on a table different from a typical spell critical failure. In addition, Wild Mages may learn the "Wild Surge" skill (Will/VH) and attempt to control a surge, intentionally create a surge, or shape a surge into a different spell.

Taking Wild Magic is much the same as taking regular magic. Buy Ritual Magic with the Wild limitation (-50%). Take Ritual Magic (Wild), and take as many magic colleges as you wish, along with the Wild Surge skill if you wish to use it.

Misc. Notes

Can Wild Magic be used with elemental magic?

It sure can! However, given that characters are limited to three levels of magery, and given the limitation upon keeping one elemental magery higher than the other, it's impossible to take two elemental mageries and wild magic from the start.

Why use this method?

I feel it restricts magic from being too powerful while at the same time giving PCs an opportunity to quickly obtain the "fun stuff". Between mixing elemental magic and wild magic there's a lot of opportunity to personalize a character. It also fits the setting, which is perhaps the biggest driving factor here. For those who wish for some other way to use magic, don't despair. These are the only two ways to start out with magic, but there are other ways of learning and obtaining spells you might not be able to this way (Power Investiture is a good example).