Biggest Mistake - Mystical Raw Power
Oops I did it again ; (
Yeah, I promised myself not to do that but it turns out my mind wanders into OSR homebrewing when I'm bored. Still. I'm just tired of myself.
This time maybe something actually useful and creative came out from this. I was thinking about subtle and weak magic that all mystical classes could use on basis of their natural power unconstrained from magic items, spells and spellbooks and all sorts of stuff. Like the image of a "wizard" looking you in the eyes and messing with your brain, or "witch" cursing someone on a whim, summoning and banishing of creatures and stuff. Minor crap.
Cantrips from many games are too much. Some are not subtle, like in all Pathfinder-like games, others are okay but are specific and focused on dungeoneering stuff like those of Mage class from Carcass Crawler zine. I didn't have a template that would suit to my needs and I guess it was brewing on the back of my head for years now. Because I try to come up with something like this actually years ago. I even did something similar to this based on Fate check this out!
I even mentioned it on Mastodon once: https://dice.camp/@vdonnut/115860158704887499
Mana Pool and mana drainage
Until recently I didn't even realise that this whole thing is kinda similar to GLOG does magic, but without stacking multiple magic dice for one "spell". Either way the main thing is that a character gets Mana Pool (yes, I thought of other names, it's all still in early stage) equal to their level. I expected this to be used in a system with limited 6-level progression but since powers are rather weak I don't think even with 10-level characters it would break.
In order to activate power (purposely avoiding word "cast" to differentiate this ability from regular spellCASTing) player has to roll save. It can be Will save, Wisdom test, save versus Spells or some other thing given the system. The case is that power is activated regardless, roll is only for retaining the mana/not exerting yourself.
The power being activated always (if you have at least one mana point) is the crucial point. It gives the player feeling of stability and reliability. You know you will be able to use it. I feel designers often don't take it into consideration when designing magic systems and their limitations. For Vancian magic has clear limitation of amount of spells because the spells are sure to be cast. This evokes feeling of power - magic-user has a bunch of powerful tools to be used in an instant - but also has a specific logistical limit due to attrition because the spells cannot be cast until the limiting point, be it relearning from a book, nights rest, knowledge test.
On the other hand Skill-based magic seems more... goofy? I always come back to my memories of playing Warhammer Fantasy, where I wanted to create this atmosphere of all-powerful Chaos and it's worshippers yet all Chaos spellcasters constantly goofed up their spells to the point I stopped because of how pathetic it looked. And it didn't stop with enemies, magical characters also constantly whiffed. You don't feel that powerful and dangerous when you intimidate an enemy and all you conjure is a bunch of sparks and farts.
And I know at some point there was this move in broader OSR community to make magic "Dark and Dangerous" and all it did was attaching a bunch of wacky and zany random tables with chaotic effects and only further make it MORE GOOFY. Tentacles growing from your beard doesn't sound that dark. Troika! at least doesn't try to pretend it is so serious and grim and calls it "The OOPS! Table".
This is why it is designed like that. Reliability and sureness of your power but also random attrition so you cannot know how much powers you'll be able to activate (but you can always point out to the minimum you can do).
Pure Power, Raw Power, Mystical Initiation (or other working names)
Now that we know the limitations of the system we can get to what it actually allows us to do. And there is a lot, and most of it is a draft. The amount of powers changed slightly with time and is still open to change. Presenting powers:
Banish - exorcise weak spirits, trap, slow or weaken more powerful entities.
Summon - call some local weak spirit to aid you in your spelled out activity.
Two counteractive powers. Summoning doesn't let you choose what you summon, just the activity in which help you need. It creates potential to summon something evil, malign or just inconvenient. Though never directly aggressive or hostile. Banishing not only directly banishes such weak spirits but may also affect actually powerful spirits. I think similar capability had the witchers from books and games.
Bless - target receives +1 to chosen type of tests until next dusk or dawn.
Curse - target receives -1 to chosen type of tests until next dusk or dawn.
Two counteractive powers again. The descriptions I used are purely mechanical, I would provide more about them, like you can curse or bless with charisma (reactions), confidence (skills), luck (saves) and so on. Additionally, maybe, cursed and blessed objects could be used to hurt creatures immune to physical damage, create holy/cursed water and places. These are weak blessings and curses so besides minor dressing I don't think they should be actually specific and visible like rash, boils or stink. They also cannot counteract powerful curses/blessings.
Force/Evoke/Focus - concentrate and release energy in environment, which may take form of gust of wind, wave of water, crack in stone, temperature raise.
The most 'vulgar' of powers. It is directly connected to homebrew magic system that I found fifteen to twenty years ago on some long abandoned website. "Concentrate and release energy" is such a powerful image to me. Oh, so this is the power that let's you manipulate environment a little. It is also the one that potentially brings you light, if you have something flammable nearby. I cannot decide on the name.
These were the easy powers to present, what comes next is harder to pinpoint.
Charm - cause target to treat chosen person as if their reaction was one step better.
So this is mind manipulation that relies specifically on mechanic of reaction rolls. It is not bad, I would actually like to address more forms of mind manipulation under this power like "these are not droids you're looking for" or making someone forget they saw you but if it is not specific it will allow for such a wide variety of effects it will become some superpower (pun intended), so I guess this needs to stay as is. Also it would require kind of time limit. My guess all those powers could wane with dusk/dawn?
Scry - ask a question to the void and receive and answer from something in form of a vague vision.
I would love some kind of divination as it is a staple of magic in culture and popculture but bringing it in a game tends to be problematic. Refer to this: Divination Anyone. As the description stands it is just as summoning - you don't have control over what answers you. Might not be friendly.
Now we're getting to more meta powers that refer to magic system itself.
Block - cancel other power while it is activated, in case of spells get a chance to redirect them.
This is my counterspell. When you see someone activating power or casting a spell you might try to block/redirect it. Blocking would work always - weak powers diminishing each other - but for heavy duty spells it would be more like a chance to avoid it or something. The limiter here is that you need to block the moment someone casts it - this is not universal anti-magic thing. I loathe universal anti-magic things, they suggest all magic is the same. I would intend this power to be the only meta anti-magic thing out there. No counterspells, no dispel magics, no antimagic shells. Also the name could be better.
Reveal - detect if there is an enchantment, blessing, curse or active spell placed on an object or a creature.
So one thing I really hate about mentioned somewhere at the start of this post Mage from Carcass Crawler zine is that two of it's "mage skills" are Detect Magic and Read Magic. Wohoo, so magical, so powerful. Did I mention I hate anti-magic stuff? I kind of hate detecting magic too. Again it boils down to the same thing - you get magic sight and you can see all magic around you. It is either something to dismiss or something to put huge cognitive and preparative load on a GM. I wrote about it in Divination Anyone post also mentioned above. Fortunately my idea for detecting-magic-power is that you choose one specific creature or object and cast it and receive yes/no answer. That's it. It let's you know if something is magical. And not vaguely magical, just if there is currently spell or enchantment on it. That is it. Useful? Situationally yes. Most of the time not really. And it doesn't identify shit.
Enchant? - seal another power in a token in order for it to affect person holding it.
This is the power that went out. At first I thought I was so clever with it, you can enchant objects to have these cool effects and stuff so you may prepare your curses earlier and not let anyone catch you or block your efforts, you just gotta be sneaky about it. But it would require second roll which could potentially cut your power usage by half (and totally invalidate it at first level), also it would need special case for situation you'd use Enchant and then not have any mana left to cast it the other power. And it might interact with other future rules regarding powers and subvert them in unforeseen ways and I can go on about it for fifteen minutes why it was a bad idea. Which is why I decided you can just activate powers onto objects as a baseline and Reveal took it's place.
I also thought about expanding this list, with clear inspiration mentioned in a post about petty magic: Fate Subtle Art, but for the moment I think these nine powers are good enough. I don't want to encumber it with too much stuff, it has to be subtle magic, ain't it?
What now?
Well, first thing is that this "cantrip" system should be added below another magic system if it would be of use in OSR-style game. Unless it is very low magic setting in which this might be it. In other types of games, like in Trad and Storygame, I would directly use Subtle Art from Fate SRD, it is way more organic in there than my stuff.
To me this thing is the active and improvisational magic system built to complement slow and prep-heavy magic of scrolls and rituals. I wouldn't use Vancian, Skillish or Mercurial or whatever - you can cast spells you know/have recipes for as long as you spend X amount of time either preparing them in place or making them into instant-use scrolls in downtime. So these weak but somewhat plentiful powers complement it.
I also thought about using spellbooks that not only have spells in them but also affect them powers. Look at these six pretty spellbooks. Imagine having some demonic spellbook which allows you - as long as you hold it - to activate more powerful curses than you can naturally - for a price of them being uncontrollable or infectious. Or holy prayer book that makes blessing powerful as long as gods portfolio checks out. Or elemental book and elemental bending done with force/focus/evoke. Endless possibilities as long as you have proper spellbook in your hand.
Is it going anywhere? Knowing me it is going directly to nowhere and this post will probably be the only place you'll find it unless someone gets inspired by my shit and does their own spin on it in their own game. I don't even play OSR-style games anymore, besides maybe that Troika! x Barkeep on the Borderlands that I run but Troika! doesn't even fall close to DnDish systems mechanically.
So yeah rip it apart for your own uses and show me what you did with it! And mention being inspired by VDonnut if you do, I'd feel really validated if you'd do that. Cheers!