[THM] Magic for my custom setting

[reverse_atomic_roger]

Hi Guys and Girls,

I'm building a medieval fantasy setting that I hope to run several campaigns in, probably with a couple of different groups. The first group is two players, plus me, and in the other I'll have 6 or 7 players. I might be going a bit overboard with the detail, but I want something I can grow into.

I was inspired by the Making Mages Colourful thread to try and make the magic particularly interesting, and the setting naturally supports having several magic systems.

In particular, this quote from Miles rang true with me:

There needs to be both low cost and high cost magic. This is something that the first point enables. On the one hand, you want players to have to sacrifice to obtain real power. On the other hand, you want small, subtle magic to give them that mysterious flavor. So give them a constant trickle of power with little cost, and then make them pay heavily for the rest.

The first game will be with the group of two, and I don't plan on either PC being an actual mage, but I want to give them the chance to play with a bit of magic. As the adventures continue, I'd like them to be able to develop into mages, and maybe, if they build new characters at some point (with higher point values) they could build a mage from the start.

So I have 4 magic systems in mind, flavour-wise at least. I don't want everyone to have magic, so I'm currently thinking of requiring at least magery 0 for mages. I'd allow raising magery by study, but it might be linked to thaumatology somehow;

1) Low powered "skills based" magic. This is what I'd like my first two PCs to use, if they want magic. I'd have skill pre-requisites that unlock a few related spells. So for example if you have a stealth skill at 16+, you have access to spells for No sound, no smell, invisibility, or similar. I'm thinking of requiring a ritual, so that casting takes minutes rather than seconds.

2) Narrow but reasonably powerful religious magic. There are 3 or 4 gods in the setting, and each gives his or her followers access to some spells. Characters require religious rank, maybe clerical investment, or something similar, and ritual magic, which gives them access to a set spell list. Higher ranks in the appropriate church allow them to learn more advanced or powerful spells.

3) Wide ranging and powerful magic. These guys are the "real" mages. They can learn (more or less) any of the spells from Magic with the usual pre-requisite chains. In addition, they can't have a spell at a higher level than their thaumatology skill. I only want really rare and powerful mages to be one man armies though, so I'm trying to think of a way to keep them away from casting fireballs in a few seconds routinely. Again I'm thinking about ritual magic for this, with the ritual adept advantage being available to really good mages, allowing them to do the one man army thing eventually. The problem with this is I'm not sure I want all 4 systems to use ritual magic, I want a bit more differentiation. And the fourth system was the first to be made ritual...

4) Shamanic magic. This is a bit inspired by the shamans in Xena, if you've seen that. They'd use ritual magic, with lots of symbolism and sympathy, etc. Most effects would be long range and reasonable subtle, things like curses and working in the spirit world, although I don't foresee inventing a lot of specific spirits to work with.


So its a bit of a half formed idea at the moment. What do you think? Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas for making the systems seem different whilst meeting with the stated goals? I'm fairly sure of options 2 and 4, but 1 and 3 still feel a bit vague.

Thanks in advance