Beyond Vancian Magic - Wizards of Sword of Don II
This post is made for RPG Blog Carnival hosted here: https://elementalreductions.blogspot.com/2024/11/rpg-blog-carnival-beyond-vancian-magic.html
I'm at the wizards topic again! This time from the magic standpoint instead of social one. So, wizardry in Sword of Don is... kinda Vancian.
The basic premise is ancient world after Bronze Age Collapse. But it's the gods that collapsed, killed by human hubris. In this equation Wizards are people who studied the magic as universal principles of the world, even if the knowledge and secrets of it were given to them by the sun god (The Enlightenment) they weren't actually depending on divinity and magic was (and still is) separate from divine power.
With time wizards built a whole culture and "elite" society around knowledge of their spells. They also built physical manifestation of their own importance and magical monopoly - Bronze Towers of Marano (the islander Greek/Minoan/Phoenician culture). They trained and studied in these towers and fought real hard against anyone using this knowledge without their permission. They had special wizard unit to dispatch 'renegades'.
During centuries of tradition wizards discovered a lot of spells. There was, according to ancient texts, around a hundred and twenty unique spells stored in Towers libraries, not counting variations of them. But as it is with history and time when the fall came the towers fell too.
Currently there are around twelve known spells in the wide community you could call inheritors of wizarding legacy. Among them each practitioner usually knows eight at a time unless they actively search or trade for them. Starting character gets 8 of 12 spells. This is an incentive - you know there is more out there from the get go. You may even know how they're called and what they can do. But you need to search for other practitioners to trade, steal or fight them to get these spells or explore ancient ruins in hope you'd find long lost wizard lore.
Wizard character starts with a spellbook or other form they keep to store the knowledge of their spells. In opposition to true vancian magic they still know their spells even if the spellbook is lost. The spellbook serves other purpose. There is a ritual of spell preparing that requires concentration and an hour. You may prepare four spells using your spellbook and that's it or risk for more. You can prepare only one type of spell at once - not more than one fireball at a time. If you take the risk you learn first spell for free and choose next and roll. You can do that until you decide to stop or run out of spells you know or fail. If you fail you don't preprate last chosen spell and have a condition that causes you to have it more difficult if you try to prepare spells that way for a day.
This system of spell preparing is not limited to once per day. You can prepare spells more times if you have time - but each is a strain on your mind and you may be really tired if you prepare spells more than twice per day. Also the risk option is for special situations - you may end up with 1-2 spells and either try again with disadvantage or humbly get back to your spellbook. You're wasting a lot of time this way.
Since you remember your spells without spellbook you're not too vulnerable (like in regular vancian magic) but in order to write them into new spellbook you have to prepare them first. So you go risk road each time you want to write spell back and waste time, which makes spellbook stealing/destruction more like a nuisance than magic-user-deletion issue.
Spells don't have levels. They are not equal in power but there are also not obviously attack spells. You can hurt people with them but they are more open ended and utilitarian in use. Besides some form of magic missile, it's a staple.
So being a wizard kinda sucks, aye? Well, what current era wizards lack in knowledge and versatility they make up for in preparation. There is still living tradition of Low Magic - sometimes called Craft Magic - which are all the things magical that are not Vancian-Mind-Spells. Alchemy of potions and consumables, arfiticery of magical items with limited charges, summoning of spirits and demons and gods to do your bidding. And if you're unlucky enough you may be born or become gifted with Wild Magic - which is just a set of telepathic and telekinetic powers without limited use but huge chance for collateral damage. And usually being hunted by various types to be used in their schemes.