(A) Arcane comes from the Void – Disturbing MU spells
This is archival material from previous blog
Most of you won’t know about this project of mine. I signed up for FinishIt23 jam https://itch.io/jam/finishit23 and one of my eternally stuck in drawer projects is part of it. It is as the title of this post says – project to add disturbing and dark flavour to Magic-User spells.
I always liked the notion of magic being something dangerous, unpredictable and unknowable. But it is hard to translate such ideas to a game. I don’t blame DnD creators for making magic such reliable. You get a bunch of spells ready to cast, no roll, no miscast danger, some may be saved against. They are a resource, few narrow tricks, not some mysterious force influencing the world around. But it is gameable and easy to understand. Prepare tricks. Pull off tricks. Sleep. Repeat. Of course at some point you can stop time and wish to change the world forever but even then these are your tricks, your Vancian brain spells (I really recommend reading Dying Earth of Jack Vance, it changes perspective on that type of magic).
On the other hand people try very hard to make magic less crunchy and more flowy, the Mercurial Magic type. Like Warhammer Fantasy, where you rolled for your spells and they could either not work, work as intended (but still with strict rules on what they do) or work and cause Chaos Manifestation – some minor mutation, spoil milk in village nearby and other things people accused witches of in the bad old days. Now we have also DCCs, varying levels of result (it can be either magic spark, fireball or raging inferno) and various random consequences. It makes magic more wild, more gonzo, chaotic. But not necessarily dark and dangerous as advertised. And it also is not that much mysterious. It’s like 5e’s Wild Magic tables. Fun, chaotic, you can cast fireball on yourself when trying to cast water bucket or whatever but even when you risk your life it still has a whimsy feel to it.
The real dark and disturbing is magic of rituals. It was also partially in Warhammer Fantasy where you had to cut off chaos shamans head and use it as an ingredient of a ritual or enchant your body with pure gold, risking losing your nose or hand. It is the folk magic, killing birds to cast love spells (Practical Magic 1998), planting someone an disgusting amulet attracting your spells (Marianne series on Netflix) or hanging a deer on a tree to appease your dark god from the forest (The Ritual 2017). But how do you make something like this part of you regular game? Killing animals in order to cast spells will end up trivial after your player do this X times per session. Dark and disturbing magic cannot be a part of regular gameplay loop, cannot be regular and casual. Disturbing magic can be a part of largely non magical game. Or, as it happened in WFRP, additional element besides “casual” magic.
But I encountered once Voidcallers system. It is a magic variant in Fate System Toolkit https://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit voidcallers. It is genius. Casting spells is of course not like in DnDish games, where they are reliable resource, these are more like WFRP rituals. But there is this disturbing element, the additional danger. Casting spells summons various creatures, some more tangible, some more abstract, and they all carry issues. Some cause ecological danger, spreading around if unchecked. Some devour their host, others further the agency of the “Void”, the force they all come from. Mineo Toadstool for example causes diseases to be more rough around but can heal your loved one from terminal condition. How could you not use it? Of course you can plan one after another and situation then escalates quickly but you’re careful enough.
Here it is. For now I try to make it for 1st level spells. I guess it could work better when you use OSE with Mage class from Carcass Crawler because then spells are less prevalent. Please check out the preview. Each spell also gets some information on how the consequences can be prevented, what danger it pose and ideas for use in campaign.
Charm Person – spell summons butterfly with hypnotizing, impossibly intricate patterns on its wings. Butterfly activate spell (as is in spell description) and flies to target person, hiding somewhere on their body and making a cocoon. After person shakes off the spell cocoon tears apart, releasing a bunch of new, independent butterflies – the longer spell holds the more new butterflies. Cocoon is invisible for the person affected.
-> prevention – butterfly and cocoon can be destroyed without affecting spell. The easiest way is to destroy it immediately. Ecological danger only applies once the spell is broken by targets willpower after they failed it at first. In the wild butterflies will be hunted by predators so the danger is minimal there.
-> danger – independent Charm Person Butterflies may not be the most dangerous plague but are nonetheless problematic. They cast the spell from one unsuspecting person to the other in order to manipulate social order and societal relations which rarely ends up very bad, mostly confusing. However they can be easily used by any spellcaster or magically oriented entity in order to further their agenda in more organized manner.
-> ideas – what happens in affected villages and towns? Suddenly a bunch of people starts considering someone their friend, following them and doing favors for them. No issue if it’s someone responsible and kind. Can be awkward if it is local asshole. But what if it is secret cultist or ambitious “contender for the throne”? What if affected people are not some random bystanders but people with power and influence? Suddenly a few factions can start support unpopular faction and topple current power structure.
Detect Magic – once you cast the spell small proboscis bursts painfully from your head. If you want to remove it the process is painful and leaves slowly healing wound. If not removed proboscis slowly grows roots in ones head and drains brainpower, starting stronger drain each three times the spell is cast. At first it only causes headaches every day you don’t cast the spell, then nightmares, then permanent intelligence drain and in last stage partial amnesia. It is assumed person fully devoured by Detect Magic Proboscis becomes something else, more powerful entity with its own agenda.
Floating Disk – it appears nearby and is controlled by casters thought. It is transparent yet slightly discoloured. After sudden impact or exposition to daylight at the end of spell duration it breaks in hundreds of very fragile shards. Anyone who walks there spreads them with their feet. Feral disks are small and grow very slowly in the dark. They like to create invisible walls and close spaces in which they build structures used to summon higher terrors.
It can be very specific spin on Magic-Users since the spells are cast rarely and alien effects are not usually visible from the start. It shouldn’t saturate the game with weirdness unless MU will cast things in downtime. It can be also enchanting at the start – each Charm Person ends up summoning beautiful butterfly. The effects are usually affecting someones mind and flesh, taking out the proboscis off your head (probably with a knife) should be described, such as it will be in case of ear snails (with higher level spells) and such. The “disturbing” comes from ones body and mind autonomy (and also ecological danger of alien organisms affecting society) which is also the reason EVERYONE AT THE TABLE SHOULD AGREE TO USE THIS. Don’t drop such a system into your regular game without informing others.