[Banestorm] What if some form of Hedge Magic were Yrth's main magic system?

[Prince Charon]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away back in third edition, S. John Ross wrote an article on a system he called Hedge Magic, which the Wayback Machine has faithfully archived. Though written for 3e, conversion to 4e as it stands is pretty easy, as the only bits that would be wrong in 4e are the names of skills: For Agronomy, read 'Farming,' Astronomy in the context given would probably be 'Fortune-Telling (Astrology),' and for purposes of Yrth specifically, Physician would be 'Pharmacy (Herbal)' and Meteorology would be 'Weather Sense,' because I'm not changing the tech level, just the magic system. I'm starting this thread both to discuss how Hedge Magic might work in 4e on Yrth, and to explore how the setting would be changed by it. You might also want to look at this thread about the article.

To briefly summarize the reasonably brief article, Hedge Magic is pretty much 'applying magic to mundane skills.' You don't buy up a separate set of magical skills and advantages, beyond the Hedge Magic advantage itself (which I'll go into below), it's just that you do various rituals and/or add various items along with your mundane skills, and mostly roll on those to get a result that's noticeably better than expected. It's a very freeform style, requiring the GM and players to be willing to work together without a complex set of rules to lawyer with. It's also usually a pretty subtle magic, though more blatant effects are somewhat possible. This caught my attention because that's how a lot of magic in Tolkien's Legendarium seems to work, especially elven 'magic' (a term the elves dislike, or at least Galadriel finds confusing, because the mortal races use the same term for anything they don't understand): They aren't casting spells, they just have an understanding of the Higher Mysteries of the Universe, allowing them to do stuff that sometimes looks impossible.

The Hedge Magic advantage as written costs 20 points, and lets you use the Hedge Magic system. Fine for 3e, but with 4e it might make more sense to treat it as just another form of Magery 0, or not require an advantage to use it at all, just base it on skills. In the latter case, once you get to a certain skill level (16? 20?), you start to understand the higher mysteries of the craft, and can apply the magic of the world to improve the effects of an action; alternatively, you might use a variant of Mysteries of the Trade from GURPS Fantasy pp162-163: (Profession or Skill) Magic is an IQ/VH skill that is used for Hedge Magic, defaulting from Base Skill-6, but without the other rules in Mysteries of the Trade. Optionally, you might get a head start on the higher mysteries by learning various esoteric skills (Occultism, Ritual Magic, Symbol Drawing, Thaumatology, et cetra); otherwise, they serve as Complementary Skills, or have no significant effect. You could also do it as a Realm system, with each skill having its own Realm (far more realms than is normal for Realm systems).

For my own version, I'm going to say that Magery 0 treats Hedge Magic the same as it does regular magic, although you can use Hedge Magic without any Magery at a -5 skill penalty. Esoteric skills do give you a leg up, in that if you do have one or more of those skills at 12 or higher, you can apply rituals to any skills you have, whereas if you don't, you can only apply them to skills that you know at 15 or greater. They also serve as Complementary Skills when applying magic to a mundane skill only (and I'm using this Complementary Skills houserule). Levels in the Magery talent do apply, but again, only when you are taking extra time to do rituals and/or putting in other forms of extra effort, to use magic with that skill or skills. Both Magery 0 and the Magery talent are learnable advantages. Other posters in this thread may prefer a different version, and that's fine.

An important question is why, in-story, Hedge Magic is the primary magic system. It could be that the standard, spell-based system is much more rare than in the main Yrth timeline, or completely absent. If so, was it always like this, or is it a new thing? For my purposes, I'll say that Hedge Magic was there all along, since long before even the elves or dragons remember. The spell-based system was developed by elves of an academic bent, at first just to have magic that behaved in a more systematic and consistent manner, and later because spells made it less difficult to perform the more unsubtle effects. The dwarves came at the problem from a different direction, developing a couple of forms of Symbol Drawing magic. Neither was extremely common, and they became less so after the Banestorm ritual blew up in the Dark Elves' faces: Many spellcasters died, or were taked elsewhere by the Banestorm, and those that remained were often less popular with their fellows. The Symbol wizards likewise often died or vanished, but did not suffer from the social isolation the elven spell-users did, as they were not blamed for the disaster.

Now, spell-based magic is vanishingly rare, save among the Djinn, the Dark Elves, and ironically, a few tribes in the Orclands (none of which helps its reputation). Finding a teacher if you aren't in one of those categories would require a quest (and if you aren't an elf, put you at significant risk of the Dark Elves murdering you), and starting with it if you aren't a Djinn, Dark Elf, or part of one of those tribes would be worth a serious Unusual Background cost (possibly around 50 points, or 20 if you grew up in the Orclands). Elves who know spell-based magic are often very old and very powerful, especially if they aren't Dark Elves. Symbol Drawing styles are rare outside of Zarak and the Nomad Lands (about a 20 point UB cost), and still quite uncommon within them (about a 5 point UB cost in Zarak, & 10 points in the Nomad Lands), although Symbol Drawing as an aid to Hedge Magic is relatively common. Spell-casters and some symbol-wizards are among the very few in this setting who would call Hedge Magic by that name (or sometimes 'Low Magic' or 'Vulgar Magic'), to distinguish it from their own 'High Magic.' To pretty much everyone else, it's just magic.

I'd say that Mysticism works as is: it's simply a different expression of the concept of 'magic in everything.' Alchemy and Herb-Lore could be used as written, or one or both might be Hedge Magic versions of their mundane counterparts, Chemistry/TL3^ and Pharmacy (Herbal)/TL3^. For my purposes, Alchemy/TL3^ is the version from GURPS Magic, and was developed by scholarly elves, dwarves, and gnomes (and later humans), based on studies of the Hedge Magic forms of Pharmacy (Herbal) and Chemistry, much like spell-based magic and Symbol Drawing were developed from other skill-rituals. Chemistry/TL3^ still exists, and is also called Alchemy, because anyone who hasn't studied the Alchemy skill at least a little wouldn't know the difference (mainly, Hedge Magic Chemistry is cheaper and mostly more subtle than Alchemy, although it can be used to create some fairly impressive smoke and fire effects).

The article mentions using the Meteorology skill to not only predict the weather and see omens in it, but to manipulate it as well, so it makes sense that Fortune-Telling skills could be used not only for divination, but for altering probability, and perhaps laying curses. Gambling could likewise be used to change luck when using Hedge Magic with it, especially combined with Fortune-Telling. Arranging for someone to be stuck by lightning would not be easy, though - I suggest that it should require at least Weather Sense, a Fortune-telling skill, and one or more esoteric skills, if allowed at all. Probability-altering effects in general could be very helpful with any other skill, of course, especially if related - e. g. Fortune-Telling (Astrology) and Esoteric Medicine (Astrological).

Still hating the character limit.