Conan/Elric Magic

[Ezra]

I have a friend who liked Stormbringer, and I might run some campaigns in the world of Elric or Conan. I'm curious which version of magic would suit the Conan-/Elric-style of spell casting (calling on demons that require negative consequences, etc.) Would Ritual Path Magic work for this kind of setting, or something else from the Thaumatology source book?

[Refplace]

I think RPM plus Corruption and Adept being super rare would work.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, Conan and Elric use different magic systems (the best one representing Conan is the old Mongoose Publishing version while the best one representing Elric is the old Chaosium version). In the former case, RPM could work, the system appears to be heavily influenced by Howard's works, though Path/Book Magic could also work (the Paths/Books would be the various schools of magic codified by Mongoose Publishing). In the latter case, I would actually use Powers as Magic over RPM.

In any case, allowing mages to tap into corruption to gain unlimited power would be thematic. If using RPM or Path/Book Magic, each point of corruption would replace one point of energy, allowing fell mages to perform great works without difficulty at the cost of their sanity. In using Powers as Magic, each point of corruption would grant one use only of 5 CP of abilities, allowing foolish mages to briedly gain the power of the gods.

[Ezra]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

... the best one representing Conan is the old Mongoose Publishing version ...

Is there a sensible conversion for the classic GURPS Conan system? It had a system for rolling types of demons and such.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Ezra

I have a friend who liked Stormbringer, and I might run some campaigns in the world of Elric or Conan. I'm curious which version of magic would suit the Conan-/Elric-style of spell casting (calling on demons that require negative consequences, etc.) Would Ritual Path Magic work for this kind of setting, or something else from the Thaumatology source book?

The core book for the D20 Conan had an interesting take on the unwritten laws of magic in REH's Conan stories, used books should be cheap.

Often the magic in REH's Conan stories is high tech (a super-magnet, the laser wand in Red Nails, resurrected dinosaurs ...) To him hypnotism was on the border between science and mysticism. But his great wizards do make pacts (Thugra Khotan and the thing which is almost a camel), and even Conan gets in trouble in "Beyond the Black River" for writing a Sign that he has no right to make.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Ezra

I have a friend who liked Stormbringer, and I might run some campaigns in the world of Elric or Conan. I'm curious which version of magic would suit the Conan-/Elric-style of spell casting (calling on demons that require negative consequences, etc.) Would Ritual Path Magic work for this kind of setting, or something else from the Thaumatology source book?

Magic in those stories went one of two ways. Minor magics were more like Psi powers. Almost all big magics involved summoning a god, spirit, or demon, to do the work. So to quickly check for magic or ghosts, it's a Psi-like power. To destiry a castle, summon something nasty

[Stormcrow]

Sounds like Basic Set ritual magic to me, with required Pact limitations on Magery.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ezra

Is there a sensible conversion for the classic GURPS Conan system? It had a system for rolling types of demons and such.

There were randomly rolled demons in Magic 1e but I don't remember that in Gurps Conan.

I would use Path Book with Effect Shaping. Energy Accumulation is too mechanical. There would be both Paths and Books. Paths for Shaman-types and Books (most especially the Book of Skelos) for educated sorcerors.

Elite types like Thoth-Amon might have some levels of Adept but most non-Talisman associated effects require Rituals. Magical artifacts like the Heart of Ahriman are big in the stories.

Generally Path/Book is quite a good fit. You've got your Scrying, your Weather-working and your demon-summoning and that's most of what you need. For PC magic-users I would allow Succor because rpgs are addicted to fast healing and the alternative tends to be authorial contrivance.

[Ezra]

OK. You've given me a lot of good ideas to try. Thank you! 🙂

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In any case, allowing mages to tap into corruption to gain unlimited power would be thematic.

H146 suggests a cap of 6 x Magery for free points, which I'm guessing is on a per-spell basis?

To draw on even higher amounts of corruption, I think it might be cool to allow mages to use the "Extra Effort" rules in GURPS Powers to temporarily multiply their magery to be able to multiply that cap for a minute. That would cost even more energy, and could risk crippling their magery if it fails.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If using RPM or Path/Book Magic, each point of corruption would replace one point of energy, allowing fell mages to perform great works without difficulty at the cost of their sanity.

Given that it's based on Meditative Magic / Point Debt in F161/162, still not sure how 1 day (8 hours) is "equivalent to gaining one character point through 200 hours of study and spending it on 25 points of magical Signature Gear"

That would mean 1 point of signature gear is gained per 8 hours of study... matching F131's "one character point trades for 25 energy points of enchantment" but it doesn't cost 1 energy to enchant an energy reserve... Mana Stone is the cheapest I know of and it costs 5 energy.

So it's basically inventing some kind of "Mana Stone usable by just one person, -80%" which costs 1 energy to enchant. Which also has the benefit of being unstealable... undestroyable... doesn't actually interfere with using an actual manastone/powerstone...

The ratio on the next page (F162) is -5 disadvantage from -125 debt which works out to gaining 1 quirk per 25 energy points, the same ratio from F131. H147 lets you take corruption at 1 quirk per 10 energy points, which is weirdly cost-efficient, I guess because maybe it's a bad thing (-5 disadvantage to potentially gain -2 disadvantage) to have a 'surprise' disadvantage thrown at you in the future...

Along with whatever a malevolent aura is worth... a -1 reaction (from "anti-Corrupt beings") per 25 points is -2 per 50 points, or -0.4 per 10 points (quirk).

To avoid the problem of someone taking 2 levels of corruption (gaining 2 points) and no reaction penalty at all, I think it might be cool to not require a "full" 25 points, and instead round up for establishing reaction penalties.

Also, to make it a little more interesting... maybe if a character doesn't have a full -25 points of corruption, you could still make them do the Will roll, and if they critically fail it, their corruption total increases 10%? I'd allow tracking it in 0.1 corruption intervals if they only had 1 corruption, but they'd gain a full point if they had 10 corruption, 2 points if they had 20, etc.

That would be interesting since then even 1 point of it could be dangerous and there is incentive to remove it and worry about it.

If that's not a baseline rule then would it maybe count as an enhancement to the corruption disadvantage? Or just a special rules quirk? That would be dangerous even if you began with 0 since anybody can get it via Derangement (H142)