Vancian and Moorcockian Magic

Inspired by Pitsperilous, I started thinking about how Vancian of magic fits into Dungeonworld.

Other Kinds of Magic

My Three Power Systems seperate into power from without, power from without and power from divine. yet really the last one could be power from other.

Magic, is power from without. Harnessing Elemental forces via code words, gestures, material effects and runes to force the laws of reality to shift momentarily, so you can perform magical effects. You need to understand these rules to be able to alter the rules.

At its basic level, though, magic is just pre-scripted sets of these code words and gestures, understood by ancient magicians and taught down the lineage to newer magicians, without any thought as to 'how' that rule does what it does.

Material Component for Fireball!

How does someone cast a fireball? what is going on to create that fireball? for the most part, players don't care and so its understood that the magic user has less care, he knows that if he moves his fingers thus, speaks the command word just so and has a pouch of sulfer in his hands as he does so, a ball of fire will appear from his gesture, and move at haste towards the target.

Its only when a mage reaches some greater understanding of magic, that he might question the very art he practices and delve deeper into its mechanics enough to adjust the fireball to become hotter, faster, invisible, or appear at the target instead of thrown towards them.

When this happens, the system needs to already have all those parameters worked out to allow the mage to attempt to adjust and create new varieties of spells..

Which is probably why my spell system has taken 20 years to develop.

Yet since 99% of players will never care, there is no need to have those rules in the core books. just list the spells and what they do.

The Same could be said for all the arts.

So, Vancian and Moorcockian systems might simply plug directly in. Since the above fireball cost to cast has a material component, then maybe instead all spells have a memory slot component, or in the case of Moorcock, the spell requires the knowledge of a being that reduces the magic point cost..

Except we've crossed the line into Priestly abilities.

When developing the system, I decided that the process of Vancian Magic made sense if instead of a memory slot, it was goodwill of a god.

When a young priest begins his journey, he has very little sway with his god, so he asks of his god a prayer, and given than he is indeed a pious priest, the god will award him with that prayer, but if he asks too much of his god, a second prayer or third, he risks the gods ire, or at least is ignored.

This works almost directly with the D&D Vancian style. Priests have X number of slots, based on their relationship with their god. A level 10 priest, might have 1 level 4 prayer, 2 level 3 prayers and so on, allowing the priest to perform a daily ritual, to 'stock up' his prayers, then uses them during the course of the day, if he is strapped for a specific prayer he might ask in abnormal times according to his god, but maybe, godwilling (or GM willing if it makes story sense) the god says yes and the power is bestowed upon the priest, but maybe at some extra cost.. ("don't ask again for a week!")

Vincent Muhr, god of wind!

So, Moorcockian Magic would instead be a external power from others, If you need to cast calm, you pray to Muhr in a windy shaft, and he brings you the power of calm, to be used within 48 hours.

Of course, you'd have to know Muhr, or at least his name and his environmental rules, and have some clout in the elemental realms, akin to belief in the priestly area.

This creates a whole subclass of 'powered' which seems akin to the classic warlock or a neolithic shaman. Its a mage, but uses the priest lifestyle and deals with spirits, demons and elementals instead of gods. It seems cheaper, and easier, like priest powers, but likely with time has terrible after affects. 

Comparing Systems for Completeness

I saw a post about comparing their games break-away dice system, to show it off.. Though I might use the template and see if my system would do the same:

Heres the Link

Will your game system deal nicely with this:

Charter Authority (CA): You have received a gilded envelope with very flowery writing.
Beatrix: Does this look like the last envelope sent by the House of Celebration?
CA: It does, the handwriting is also recognizable to you.
Beatrix: I want to check if the envelope is rigged like the last one and, if so, open it safely. No mess this time!
CA: What skills do you wish to employ?
Beatrix: I have a 12 in Insight, I'll roll to boost: rolled a 6 and 3, success +2.
CA: Ok, If there is any rigged gear, lets see if you notice (GM rolls for stealth vs player perception+2) a 1 and a 3.. doubtful
Beatrix: So that's a failed roll.
CA: You open the envelope, trying to take great care with it until, suddenly, you're covered in glitter. It's all up in your feathers.
Beatrix: Curses!
Kace: Can I try to get a sneaky picture of her covered in glitter?
CA: Roll your Stealth against her Perception.
Beatrix: Aw, you can't just leave my poor character in peace? Does insight help.
Kace: Ooo a Setback! I rolled a pass, but with an 11.
CA: That's a mixed success! You both have a success and a failure. I think I'll let you decide what Beatrix's fumble should be, Kace.
Beatrix: Don't you dare, Kace!
Kace: I think...my character uploads the picture to my holoprofile and shows it to Beatrix.
Beatrix: My character runs at him!
Kace: He runs away! There's no way he's getting covered in glitter too!
Jackson: While this is going on, I get a picture of the chase and upload it with the tag #DD12.
CA: It gets 135 Hearts and you have 10 new followers.
Jackson: Indeed.

Its something I do from time to time, when I see people posting about their game rules. If I come across an issue, I ask myself, do my rules cover this? Can my players do this? and more often, do I want my players to be able to do this, or will it spoil their experience if they assume other rulesets.

In the above example, its the player asking to engage in a perception action.. Us humans, we assume that we're just not engaged with the world, and we need to 'enact' our engagement. 'be aware'. Having been in several life threatening situations, I can attest that your body does this for you automatically. Your awareness heightens, and the only thing you get to choose is where to focus that attention.

For DW, Its assumed that you are in 3 possible states of awareness, Asleep, Awake and Alert. the GM is instructed to give characters the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are in the most appropriate state for the situation. If a person was asleep, and you start describing some sound, then they are awake.

There are of course situational modifiers, lack of sleep, drugs, alcohol, blows to the head, etc, but the base score is Asleep = 0, Awake = half, and Alert = full.

When Beatrix asks to check if the envelope is rigged, its because she has previous experience with such things. So she automatically gains her insight bonus, and can roll to gain it again. (players love to roll) by being cautious and looking for the trigger.

The GM rolled a 4, with a 1, so, unless Beatrix has amazing perception + skills, its doubtful that a 4 would ever fail, so we don't even check if the roll was success or not, that 1 pretty much says it will be.

When Kace tries to stealth against Beatrix, we know the scores, Kace passes the roll, but rolls a fumble (10, 11 or 12) on one of the dice. Having players choose their own fumble is far more entertaining.

Once again, I am relieved. While I had to 'fudge' the text for the Insight roll, I'm just aware that I have to double up on the rules text about how opposed rolls work.

p.s. I have friends who glitter bomb their invites.. vacuuming for weeks!

p.p.s. OMG As Google+ goes down, all their related sites just fail. Appologies, I only now noticed that the text above was forced a white background for certain browsers, AND I can't comment to the fact, as Google+ is now blacklisted by DNS blockers from commenting.. ??

World Build October Part 29

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Monday the 29th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a ceremonial object"

In A time long gone, The Angels who flew the world left the 'candleholders'. They were collected and distributed amongst the churches of the Holy order of the Tree and are used in ceremonies to celebrate the festivals.

They are light weight, have a heavy pointed end and a hollow end. When placed in the ground or on a wooden table, they balance easily and the weight of the candle usually has no bearing on the balance.

When lit, they give off a glow toward the ground, some show special symbols and patterns, some a generic circle.

Some have been told, hold the bones of the angels and are regarded as holy relics, stored in ancient vaults beneath great churches.









unrelated..

The light weighted bird race invented a spear, that could be segregated into 6-8 parts, and carried on a belt at the waist, connectable in times of need as a dagger, or short bladed sword, a polearm or a full spear. 

World Build October Part 28

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 28th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a common pet or companion animal"

I'm going to go with this from Players.

Typically you'd expect that players would go with a familiar or pet that matches something either easily accessable, OR something rare and exotic.. now while thats true for most players, a larger majority decided that declaring their horse as their pet/companion, was the best choice.

In that line of thread, it seems fair that at least amongst the more common folk, a riding beast or beast of burdern would be most likely as the commonest..

Which brings me to the Yakult. A six legged Oxen/beast of burden, quite friendly, mildly magical, and very strong when it comes to pulling heavy loads. They have tough skinned hands instead of hooves and have been known to grip trees and stones to pull themselves forward.

Since the wild Steppe of the Ashigaru plains have many nomdaic races, which use the Yakult for many reasons, statistically speaking, the Yakult is the most common animal companion.

World Build October Part 27

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Saturday the 27th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) an average citizens home"

Average? for where? The houses of the medieval European cities are single roomed, sometimes built upon a structure to keep above the dirt, which affords the owner a cooler storage place. Colder climates need a hearth of sorts, while warmer climes can do without.

Being a generic, from all worlds, fantasy trope place, its not hard for any gamesmaster to throw any kind of house into the world and it being fairly normal.

Wood Elves live in forests, high up in treehouses. Dwarves carve their places into the stone of hills and mountains. Deep Dwarves live completely underground. Caitshee tend to be nomads or live in moving tribes and Dryads live inside of trees.

An Average citizen of a High Elven city, might live in a 4 roomed, 2 story building, perched on the side of a cliff, while the average halfling lives in a communal hall with his brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.

The People of Rel'Whenderfel live on house boats, and the people of the lands of the Water God Innusi live on mounds of dried dirt, in a land of perpetual swamp.

World Build October Part 26

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Friday the 26th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a predatory animal from your world"

Ok, so since dangerous, roleplay worlds are pretty much filled to the brim with predatory animals, who have yet to starve themselves out of the food chain. I'll have to roll on my chart of animals, and pick one that isn't standard trope, already in any other rpg...

here goes.. 

The Mortubus.

Most likely a demon-dog hybrid? The few who have encountered the Mortubus have described it as either a dog with tusks, or a warthog with a lithe body, but the most unpleasant thing that has always been said about it is that it has the hindquarters of a human, even though it runs on the ground. As a result, its end is raised in the rear.

None have been killed and brought in for study by any mage schools or monster hunter guilds, so it can only be thought of as one of the many gorgons that inhabit the world. i.e. the variety of creatures that seem to be made by warped gods who stitch random creatures together.

It is a deadly creature, possessing some semblance of intelligence. It fights with crazed fevour and uses some mildly clever tactics to corner its victim. The tusks are sharp and long, penetrating armour easily and doing some severe damage, often also infecting the wound, causing the victim to die days later and their organs seeping from the wound.

Its suggested that the Mortubus cannot properly chew, and needs to poison the victim into a more slush like food to be lapped up.

Its hind quarters are its vulnerable location, being human-like, cuts easy, yet any strike to the latter half will result in the creature retreating and fleeing from combat.

World Build October Part 25

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Thursday the 25th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a prey animal from your world"

Besides all the standard earth world predator-prey examples that you can google, and all the ones that match, i.e. any animal that tries to catch and eat another, and this can include alot of ones that might be world-buildy.. i.e.

the plant that captures other plant/animals and eats them?

or the animal that captures sentient plants that walk around?

or the rock elemental that chases down dust-bunnies?

How about this one:

Living coins.

For some strange reason, magic tends to give everyday objects sentience and purpose, without any reason. The weirder variety of these are living coins.

They can cause themselves to roll, if they manage to fall from a shelf or high enough surface, in order to move themselves around the world. They tend to 'park' themselves upright against walls or furniture so they can move off at a later point, because if they ever end up flat on the ground, they are immobile.

They tend to want to be picked up by humanoids, placing themselves in places to get noticed. If they get into an empty bag of coins, they escape. Working their way up the sides with each jostle until they jump out. Sometimes, its noted that they take other coins hostage?

But they are, for the most part, trying to escape the dungeon they are located in, because eventually the mimic will find them and eat them. 

World Build October Part 24

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 24th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) an extreme form of weather that exists in your world"

You'd think a cyclone of sharks, or an earthquake that has sentience would be bad enough.. but what about blood rain that causes all living things to become undead.

In the most recent times, the queen of death, from another dimension, decided to target the coyn world, and the whole that she came through ripped the fabric of reality, causes rain to become blood and within it a disease which caused living tissue to suffer and dead tissue to attempt to live once more.. in other words.. zombies.

The whole continent is now under heavy rain of blood, heroes everywhere are seeking out the source in an attempt to 'save the world'.

Meanwhile in sunny Archronite, there is a sentient cup of tea having a heated argument with an air- water sprite.

World Build October Part 23

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Tuesday the 23rd - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) some plants from your world"

There is a strange little flower that grows all over the world, in various forms. The colours it displays to the average person can ranger from a single pigment to a rainbow of shifting patterns, depending on the time of year and the moving leylines.

Yet to a wizard, the flower represents potential. The flower exhibits magical properties, seems to be magical, yet is the alchemists stone of the magical herbalists community. Nothing can be discovered about it enough to make use of its properties.

-----

In the northern jungles, in the shade of the Kalikuri mountain, There is a plant that having observed wildlife, create a two part structure. One, looks like a predator, and the other a grassy knoll. When someone or something comes along, sees the predator, is startled and falls back, they fall on the grassy knoll, which is instead a pit trap with spikes.

Smaller varities of the plant produce snake-like vines with huge heads and beady looking eyes, larger varieties have been told to shape into giant cats and even fantastical creatures unseen before.. Anything to scare the victim into the trap.

-----

The world seems to have a strange sense of humour, many plants have grown in a way that suggests some level of sentience, or an external force. Once such plant is the dandy-lion. The flower of which represents a lion, with a smile, with leaves that look like a suit of a 17th Century Victorian dandy. Curiously, boiling the flower heads, results in a tea that has been known to bring courage to the imbiber.

Another curious plant is the blood-wart. It grows on the sides of things.. other plants, buildings, people if they stay still long enough. Its green, but in the core is a wart of blood. it can be squeezed, and blood like substance will come out. It has no known use and is considered a weed as it makes places and things look quite grotesque with all these little blood coloured warts all over it. 

World Build October Part 22

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Monday the 22nd - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) one of your worlds man-made wonders"

The Original city of Middlehelm was a sprawling great city, people built both up and down. Many houses of the affluent were severl stories high, with a floating chamber in the house that allowed anyone quick access to float up to higher floors or float down to lower ones. Stairs still existed for several purposes, but not common everyday access. This was due to the fact that the city had been built on a magical leyline of the element of earth and air, allowing almost fee gravity spells.

The Tallest Tower in the city was run by the University of the Coyn. Due to their almost inexhaustible supply of gravity stones, They were a hub of magical travel by means of a variety of floating paths, and hover carts. The Tower boasted over a few hundred levels, yet, one could argue that placing a floor half way between the floor above and the floor below, on the outside of the two, did not constitute as a seperate level. If we disclude those, the tower rose 498 levels from the ground, and was over 900 levels in total.

When the great flood of mud buried everything, the top 70 or so levels were not flooded and buried. But, as a result of the shift in magic, they almost immediately collapsed. The surviving wizards and dirtomancers managed to rebuild a new University with the bricks and stones of those 70 levels.. not up so much.. but more around. Yet still boasts a tower of 13 levels, held up more with engineering than magic.

The New city of middlehelm, still benefits from a pulse of magic that comes from deep with the land, and worthy adventurers come from miles around to delver deep into those dungeons, plunder the ancient treasures and return (if they return) rich enough to retire.

The City is a wonder to behold, and the caverns below more-so.