GURPS: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

[Xuub]

The Three Human Estates of Magick

The so-called “Three Estates” refer to the three major institutions of magickal practice in the cultures of the Modern Old World.

The First Estate is Divine Magicks, the oldest and most conservative tradition of magicks. Divine Magick was never outlawed. The practice of magic in the cult of the Earth Mother extends in an unbroken line back through the millennia into the obscurity of prehistory, and many historical cults still count their lineage in tens of centuries. The magickal abilities of cult practitioners are universally recognized as the gifts of the gods; man does not shape these powers, but humbly accepts them in the forms chosen by their divine patrons.

Many spells and Paths of Magic are specific to individual deities. New spells are rare, but magickal objects of ancient or obscure religions, or lost spells or practices, provide occasional sources of magickal novelty.

The Second Estate is Hedgewizardry. Always condemned and persecuted by the Old World, this Primitive Sorcery, obscure in its origins, though variously thought to have grown from sorcery learned from Elven and Dwarven mentors, or the invention of renegade divine magicians, or even to have been purchased at dire cost from daemonic sources. Because of persecution, transmission of the practices of Hedgewizardry from generation to generation has always been furtive and unreliable; certainly, a great many magickal wonders have been discovered, only to be lost with the death of their discoverers. Even at present, Primitive Sorcery tends to be quite modest in power and eclectic in its methods and sources, though in the past individual practitioners have occasionally risen to levels of achievement rivaling the greatest of modern Academic Wizards.

The practice of Hedgewizardry is typically confined to rural and wilderness regions. Hedgewizards are few and furtive, and generally eccentric, varying greatly in style, ambition, and principles. Most hedgewizards are solitary and independent, though several modest clandestine societies provide communications and mutual defense against cult persecution. Spells and rituals are widely varied in effects, but relatively weak in power. With the increasing tolerance of sorcery, some hedgewizards hope to make fortunes openly practicing the skills they hitherto had to keep secret; others, skeptical of the current tolerant climate, remain in seclusion, anticipating a return of cult persecutions. Since many persons still fear and scorn wizards, the safest place to practice hedgewizardry is in the wilderness, in expansionist Imperialism, or in individual treasure-hunting.

The Third Estate is Academic Sorcery, the systematic study of the magickal sciences in academies sanctioned and supported by the State. Originally established by ruling princes to provide their armies with ever more powerful War Wizards, the academies now graduate in increasing numbers wizards who find employment among the aristocracy and mercantile interests. The dominating ethic of Academic Sorcery is the expansion of magickal knowledge and practice, with the immediate goal of enhancing the power and security of the state (or the financial interests of their employers), and with the long-term goal of transforming society with the wonders of magickal technology.

Academic sorcery is officially sanctioned but widely disapproved, feared, and distrusted. In larger urban areas where the academies and guilds are prominent, tolerance or respect is more common. Academic sorcery is rigidly formal in methods, principles, and structures of authority and regulation, but dynamic in ambition and expectations. Academic wizards are often hired by wealthy patrons or adventurers, or dispatched on missions for the state. Recent graduates are also free to try their luck at adventuring, though academics generally prefer the easier life of steady employment, and may require a sizable, non-portable lab and library for their researches.

The Wizards Academy of Sorcerery

The Imperial Institute of Battle Magicks, also known as the War College or the Academy of War Wizardry, is the largest of the academic arcane disciplines. Based on the ancient Battle Magicks descended from Elven and Dwarven sources, Wizardry is primarily concerned with the military applications of sorcery. The ancient Battle Magick spells and rituals are narrowly defined, but relatively quick in casting and reliable: important considerations for battlefield use. War Wizards are generalist wizards; as such their effects are typically more modest in power than those of the other disciplines, but their versatility lets them improvise and adapt to circumstances more effectively than other arcane specialists. (Thus, if you can have only one sorcerer to support your expedition, a war wizard is often the best choice.)

The atmosphere in War Colleges is competitive and aggressive. Scholarship in itself is discouraged; wizards are supposed to learn how to use magick on the battlefield, not to spend hours poring through dusty volumes searching for arcane knowledge. Drill and mock-combat is an important part of the curriculum, and the practice of magickal dueling for sport and honor, while publicly discouraged, is privately encouraged by guild elders.

Consequently, many war wizards are obsessively proud, quick to take offense, and impulsively violent in protecting their honor. In combat they are trained to avoid hand-to-hand engagement or exposure to missile fire, but they are otherwise aggressive in exercising their destructive abilities. Wizards are also trained to play a defensive role, particularly in scouting and small group tactics, where their spells are particularly effective. Wizards with more gentle, intellectual dispositions are steered into quiet postings with lesser nobles and secure garrisons, or remain at the academy as researchers and instructors. Such rarely become adventurers, except through misfortune or desperate circumstance.

[Xuub]

The Elemental Academy of Sorcerery
Elementalists trace their traditions from the earliest human wizards, those Great Druids who turned their backs on the worship of the Earth Mother and turned their knowledge of the First Runes, the Great Pacts, and the Elemental Powers and Dominions to their own purposes. Though, like other wizards, Elementalists employ a number of relatively simple spells handed down from ancient Elven and Dwarven magickal practice, the core of Elementalist magickal muscle depends on the summoning of Elemental entities.

In many ways, Elementalists are closer to divine spellcasters than the rest of their arcane colleagues, because their powers depend on their relationship with the magickal entities of the Elemental Dominions. Some Elemental entities may be commanded, some must be bargained with, some must be entreated with worship and respect. Entities from each of the Dominions have their own distinctive personalities, motivations, and history of relations with man, and each must be treated with individual care and understanding. In this sense, an Elementalist is something like a priest dealing with gods and their lesser divine servants, though the Elemental Powers are generally less powerful and capricious than the gods, and they are bound to the service of man by the Great Pacts, which oblige them to treat Elementalists more as equals than worshippers.

Because of their close relationship with nature and the Elements, and because of the unreliable and potentially dangerous character of their Elemental servants, Elementalists spend more time in the trackless wilds than they do in study at the universities. Elementalists prefer to operate in the wilderness, where they can be less concerned for public safety when their Elemental charges get out of hand.

Elementalists have a reputation for indifference to worldly goods, and are most likely to be motivated by desire for more knowledge and power in the Elemental Dominions for its own sake. They are also generally more venturesome than their bookish brethren.
Since Elemental powers, like battle elephants, have a reputation for turning on their own forces, they are of limited popularity among generals, though many armies employ Elementalists for sieges and other special situations.

Unlike the other arcane professions, Elementalists have a relaxed attitude toward formal institutions and personal status. They respond poorly to discipline, and are known for wandering off on their own for extended periods without so much as a by-your-leave. This eccentric behavior is tolerated with resignation by the state and military, partly in acknowledgment of the Elementalists peculiar psychological needs, and partly because folks are perfectly happy to have them practice their Elemental summonings at a safe distance from flammable structures and innocent bystanders.

The Alchemists Academy of Sorcerery

Alchemy produces magickal effects from the distillation, preparation, preservation, and enhancement of the magickal properties inherent in various substances and aethyrs. Alchemists themselves do not often appear on the battlefield, but their creations often do. These creations (elixirs, tinctures, dusts, powders, gases, solutions, and other compounds) can be employed by scouts, soldiers, and heroes during battles. In practice, the great expense of producing alchemicals, and their short shelf life, limits their availability. In combat, these scarce resources are usually distributed only to key personnel with special missions, or to nobles, heroes, and generals of particular importance to the preservation of the state.

In times of war, all alchemists are assigned to the support roles with various military units. In times of peace, all but a few staff military and state alchemists are permitted to pursue private trade in their wares. Most of the products sold to the citizenry are modest and unambiguously beneficial in nature, like herbal potions and love philtres. Alchemists are forbidden by law to sell alchemical compounds with military applications (ie, poisons, Greek Fire, etc.) to private citizens without license from the state, academy, or guild, but such trade is lucrative for alchemists, and the law is loosely enforced.

Adventurers and criminals with ready cash generally have no trouble finding an alchemist to provide alchemical creations for sale. Alchemists are either entrepreneurs or scholars by temperament. As entrepreneurs they produce what their clientele requires, and try to produce it cheaply and sell it dearly. Such men rarely seek adventure except where there is a profit, and even then would prefer to hire someone else for the dangerous stuff. As scholars they tend to be colorful, flaky crackpots, seeking the mythical alchemical processes for transmuting lead to gold. They spend most of their time in labs breathing poisonous fumes and heating volatile fluids over open flames, or in traveling to the ends of the earth to pursue the esoteric mysteries of alchemy.

The Mentalists Academy of Sorcerery
Mentalists, popularly known as Illusionists, specialize in the manipulation of mind and perception. Their castings usually work directly on the mind of the subject, though they also have spells which produce magickal external images and impressions.
Such castings have numerous battlefield applications, and Mentalists do play an important part in Old World military strategies. However, Mentalists also play a variety of valuable peacetime roles. As entertainers, they are very effective, particularly when supporting more traditional presentations of the dramatic and performance arts, or when presenting colorful magickal pageants at fairs and state celebrations. Mentalists also play a more sinister peacetime role in the diplomatic and intelligence corps, where their persuasive, distracting, and concealing magicks are of great value.

Though Mentalists are obligated to military and state service like all other state-sanctioned wizards, they quickly find their way into the service of important state officials, merchants, and nobles, where they are much in demand as counselors and consultants. Ostensibly they are tightly bound by the strict ethical codes of their profession, as established by the guilds and academies. Mentalists are enjoined to practice their magicks only for the welfare of the people and the sovereign, and explicitly prohibited from using their arcane abilities for the advancement or profit of themselves or their patrons or masters. The punishments for offenses against the ethical codes are harsh and vigorously prosecuted, but in practice many Mentalists casually bend the letter of the codes to suit their purposes, while other Mentalists ignore the codes so long as they have a reasonable chance of avoiding discovery.

The Necromancers Guild
Most cults of the Old World prohibit summoning, command, or binding of the Spirit after the death of the Flesh, except by the agency of a cult priest, where the consent of the deity is presumed. Further, most Old World cults prohibit the animation of the Flesh without the unity with the Spirit vouchsafed unto that Flesh by the gods at that being’s birth. These strictures usually interpreted to include prohibition against animation of artificial creatures of Flesh, such as golems, as well as animation of corpses of beings abandoned by the Spirit at death. Thus, while the Old World cults have grudgingly accepted the legalization of most arcane practices, it is doubtful that they will ever accept legalization of necromancy.

The Demonology Guild
Most Old World cults maintain that communication, negotiation, and worship of daemons in any form is evil, and in most Old World nations, the practice of Daemonology is a capital crime.

Daemons are the material manifestations of aethyrial beings of certain shadowrealms beyond the Void. Daemons cannot normally manifest in a mundane world without aid from this side of the Void, typically through arcane or divine summoning. However, here in Warhammer World, where the Realm of Chaos has been averted into the Material Realm by the collapse of the Warp Gates, hordes of daemons are found in the remote Chaos Wastes. This ready access to our plane may also account for reported incidences of daemonic possession through dreams, trances, and other spiritual phenomena.

[Xuub]

Clerical Magic

Technically, clerics don’t cast spells. They invoke a prayer to their deity who casts the spell through the cleric. Clerics in effect, serve as a ‘conduit’ for the spell. Deities can produce magical spells from their plane of existence without the help of a cleric, it just happens to be very expensive for them to do so. Using a cleric to perform minor castings (by deitific standards) is a much easier way to exert control on the physical world. The relationship between cleric and deity is then symbiotic; the cleric providing the deity with influence in human affairs and the deity providing the cleric with magical power in the same league as wizards.

Casting a spell
Clerical magic differs slightly from Arcane magic. Although all magcik comes from the same source, clerics do not actually manipulate it. They pray for their spells and their deity casts the spell through them. A Clerics grimorire is then considered a book of prayers, and not really a spell book.
A Cleric’s Warp Empathy works just like the Ritual Magery advantage and can be bought up to level 5 (GURPS: Magic p200) , The rules for Ritual Magic are reworded here for simplicity:

Each college of magic is an IQ./Very Hard “college skill” (Path) that defaults to the Ritual Magic -6 (Core) College skill can never exceed Ritual Magic skill. Clerics can cast spells at default! Each spell is a Hard technique with a default to the associated college skill. The default penalty is equal to the spell’s prerequisite count. Clerics can cast all spells from their Path at Default level or spend points to raise them.

Before casting a spell, characters must meet the following three criteria:
***Clerics must have at the Warp Empathy advantage (level 0-5)

***Clerics must have the Ritual Magic Skill

***Clerics must have the Path skill for the appropriate college of spell to be cast. This skill level can never be higher than the Clerics Ritual Magic Skill.




Colleges of Magic

Each Sorcerery Guilds specializes in 7 colleges of magic.
Only those colleges known to the guild are available for new characters.

Each Deity grants 5 Paths of magic. Clerics are limited to learning spells (prayers) from these 5 Paths.

[Xuub]

I forgot this one. I'm not yet sure if I like it, but anyway here it is.


Unusual Background: Runesmith --- 30 points
Runesmiths are a clan containing a few ancient families who have passed down the knowledge and skills of Runesmithing over the generations. Each Master Runesmith teaches the fundamentals of fire and forge to young members of his family, selecting the most talented to become Apprentices. Runesmiths rarely write down the secrets of their craft and even when they do, the knowledge is buried beneath riddles and puzzles. Runesmiths often devote years of their lives searching for ancient secrets, exploring the world to uncover ancient weapons and artifacts of great age, hoping to uncover lost Runes of ancient and fabled Runesmiths. Such quests take Runesmiths into dangerous places, such as ruined holds, dragon lairs, the depths of Elf forests, and worse. In their later years, Runesmiths withdraw from the world, sequestering themselves away to learn the deeper secrets of the Master Runes and perhaps create a few of their own.


Runesmith Cult Rank 5 points / level
The Runesmith is a member of an elite clan of Dwarfs able to craft wondrous items by imbuing them with magickal Runes. (See Unusual Background: Runesmith). Ranks in this cult function differently than most others. New characters should not be allowed to begin beyond Rank 1 or 2.

Runesmiths have access to the Enchantment College of spells and never need to meet the prerequisites for spells. The Runesmith can never learn spells from other colleges. Each spell is considered a Rune. Each Rune (spell) is a IQ/Hard Technique which defauts to the Runesmiths Symbol Drawing: Runes skill. A Runesmith may never know a Rune (spell) at a level higher than his Symbol Drawing: Runes skill. Runesmiths may add their Ranks in the Runesmith Cult to their Symbol Drawing and Rune (spell) skills in much the same way a Cleric benefits from Warp Empathy. Runesmiths never actually cast spells and the enchantment process involves much physical labor, hammering and working the materials of the item to be crafted, then finally etching and empowering the Runes. Game Masters should use the rules for magic item creation found in the GURPS: Magic book p. 16-17.

PREREQUISITE ADVANTAGE / DISADVANTAGE: Unusual Background: Runesmith
PREREQUISITE SKILL: Armory: Body Armor, Armory: Heavy Weapons, Smith: Iron, Symbol Drawing: Runes
TITLE_______________LEVEL_________COST
Runelord_____________6_____________30
Master Runesmith______5_____________25
Runesmith____________4_____________20
Journeyman Runesmith__3_____________15
Apprentice Runesmith___2_____________10
Apprentice____________1______________5

[Tiger Maggot]

Originally Posted by Xuub

Magick

There is no K in "magic." The K is pure Crowleyanity. He added it to make his gematria work, and then his followers picked it up.

[naloth]

In the warhammer world, I don't believe that all magic springs from chaos. The old ones which gave the divine plan to the slann priests preceded the collapse of the warp gates and the rift at the northern regions. I'ld have to check the (everchanging) source material.

So far it's pretty interesting, though I haven't had the opportunity to read it all.

Are you using WHFB or WHRP for source?

[Kuroshima]

Excelent writeup of the warhammer fantasy setting. I only object to a couple of things, but it might be miscomprehension on my part:

Why do you use the standard enchantments for runesmiths? I would use the syntactic magic option with the runes system as presented in Magic 208?

Also, did you account on clerics purchasing the coledge skills from default?

[Xuub]

Originally Posted by Tiger Maggot

There is no K in "magic." The K is pure Crowleyanity. He added it to make his gematria work, and then his followers picked it up.

Upon inspection my source material I realize that you are correct. Mostly. In Warhammer book they refer to the language of magic as Magick and the actual use of magic without the 'k'.

Originally Posted by naloth

In the warhammer world, I don't believe that all magic springs from chaos.

Are you using WHFB or WHRP for source?

I'm using many sources. There have been many changes over the years to the background material.

The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay book that I have was by Games Workshop, printed in the UK 1986. It's the book that uses Magick (with a 'k').

I'm also using a book I bought in the 1990's called "The World of Warhammer: The official illustrated guide to the fantasy world" This book is great. It has no game information and is 100% background material for the world. I love it because it can be used with any system and nothing needs to be converted because there are no rules. It is this book that says "Magic does not exist naturally in the Warhammer World but originates from the dimension of Chaos". The book does talk about the Old Ones. It says they wielded arcane technologies and power but "The polar Gateway was the source of their power, harnessing forces even greater than those of nature itself." When the Gateway collapsed, Chaos (and Magic) were loosed upon the world.

I like this idea because it makes sense then that people would outlaw magic. It also makes sense that wizards and especially demonologists sometimes develop mutations from when a spell critically fails.

Other souce material comes from various Army books for the Fantasy Battle game.

More ideas have come from the internet. About 5 years ago I was running a campaign and found various things out there. Much of it I never bothered to write down the authors name because it was never intended that I would be reworking it years later and then reposting it on the web. I appologize to anyone whos work I've pilfered... One source I was inspired by is called Gurpshammer and can still be found floating around I think.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Why do you use the standard enchantments for runesmiths? I would use the syntactic magic option with the runes system as presented in Magic 208?

Also, did you account on clerics purchasing the coledge skills from default?

You are right about the Rune Magic. It was a bad idea and I sort of knew it as I was doing it. I will be re-working the Syntactic and Symbolic stuff from the Magic book to fit better with my idea of Warhammers Rune Magic.

As far as clerics, I'm not sure I understand your question. Yes, they can purchase Paths from default. They can cast any spell from a college Path their deity grants access to. Does that make sense?

Xuub

[Xuub]

Here's my idea for the various colleges of magick and who they are available to:

Colleges of Magic
Anyone with Warp Resonance can learn any spell; however characters can only begin play with spells from colleges appropriate to where they learned magick. After characters begin their adventures they are free to learn spells anywhere they can find them. Members of one of the Four Academies can freely access their library later during their careers and will always have free teaching (see Learning Magick) when learning spells from their colleges. Spells outside these colleges must be bought, borrowed, or stolen.


Alchemy Colleges
Communication & Empathy
Fire
Enchantment
Knowledge
Making & Breaking
Meta-spells
Sound

Demonology Colleges
Body Control
Communication & Empathy
Fire
Gate
Light & Darkness
Necromancy
Protection & Warning

Elementalsim Colleges
Air
Animal
Earth
Fire
Light & Darkness
Water
Weather

Hedgewizard Colleges
Hedgewizards may start play with up to 20 points in spells from ANY college except Technology; however they may not start with more than 5 points spent in any single college. They will also have a hard time learning new spells.

Mentalism Colleges
Body Control
Communication & Empathy
Illusion & Creation
Knowledge
Mind Control
Sound
Water

Necromancy Colleges
Animal
Body Control
Communication & Empathy
Gate
Earth
Necromancy
Protection & Warning


Wizardry Colleges
Air
Body Control
Fire
Making and Breaking
Movement
Protection & Warning
Sound

Wood Elven Colleges
Air
Animal
Earth
Food
Plant
Protection & Warning
Water

[Durandal]

Wow! Good work in that. Just thanks for ya posting such a long and elaborate conversion guidelines of a good scenario.