Reinventing AD&D's Schools of Magic

[Alex]

I am not sure this topic will get a single response, but I hope some of you are willing to help me, or at least tell me what you think about this mess I am making. Basically, I am re-thinking AD&D schools of magic for a future campaign in a game world I have been working for a while. I want to go over the eight big schools of magic in AD&D and a few others, and make remodel them so they fulfil some of my objectives. Namely: They all have at least a few interesting spells that PCs will want to use in a dungeon crawl or a normal session, they all have at least a few interesting spells that PCs may use during down time to interact with the game world, they all have a particular identity that make them as real parts of the game world's "lore" rather than just a mechanic and they all have an interesting personality that can be endless expanded by me and the players with new and interesting spells. I am thankful to anyone who might bother to share their thoughts on this, but I will specifically ask Zed Duke of Banville, JarlFrank, Cryomancer and JamesDixon since I think they might have insight about this.

So, a small intro to arcane magic in this world, most people in backwards planets are distrustful of it, and for good reason. A certain kind of magic, called chaos magic, can cause enormous problems when it goes awry. Basically, in order to prepare a spell, a mage usually has to do some ritualistic actions. But it is not just about the ritual, it is also about the source of magic power itself. Some sources, like nodes, are part of the natural world, places that even without magic senses seem somehow special (a great and calm lake, a volcano, a deep gorge, etc). But most other sources of magic are part of human society and draw their power from being used by people. A simple example would be a cemetery, where a necromancer might draw more power the more people are buried there. The issue is, when chaos magic goes awry, the very source of magic can be corrupted by the spell. If the source is a volcano and the spell in question a fireball, for instance, this could mean an eruption. A badly cast necromantic spell could mean every body in the cemetery powering it suddenly gets up and starts looking for yummy brains, etc. So, basically, mages are like wild mages in AD&D 2e, only worse and with their effects hitting much more than the party. Not surprising, then, most people kill mages on sight and powerful mages are also warlords that subjugate communities to use them as sources of magic power.

Well, at least, that is how most places in the campaign world are, but not on the central planet. A race known as Mercane (or Arcane, which gives the in-game reason for the name of the magic) developed a magic system where spells are separated into chaos magic and clean magic. Clean magic is not 100% safe, but it never cause problems with the magic source. The mercane further developed other aspects of magic. For instance, before, a magic source would be associated with a single spell, whereas today it is possible to prepare several spells tied to a single source, and the use of magic schools of thought that allows one to understand several spells at once, instead of studying each spell individually¹. Strangely enough, Mercane claim to be unable to use magic themselves. Rather they work by teaching their knowledge to others, helping clear up the name of magic and then, once they have established a decent knowledge of magic on a planet or nation, they demand their former pupils pay their debts with magic items. Although their practices are somewhat predatory, their objective is not to exploit the would be mages, but rather to establish the place they have gone as a magic market with them as a primary actor, with the sale of magic items, especially spelljammers, being their main practice. Despite their claim of being unable to use magic, they certainly can use magic items and are willing to do it.

At any rate, the most important planet of the setting and assumed starting point embraced this new arcane magic particularly well. Governed by an immortal emperor that claims to be a god, the empire established a very complex guild system that elevated much of its population to a new middle class based around higher and lower guilds. Guilders, as they are usually called², usually belong to a lower guild, such as blacksmiths or physicians or masons, and through it gain token access to one of the higher guilds (each related to one of the 8 magic schools of philosophy, such as illusion or alteration³). Usually, guilders receive very small magical training according to their professions (every guild in the empire now incorporates magic use in their craft) so they can assist a master, though some professions require more individual understanding (carpenters, for instance, only learn more of magic by the time they are ready to become masters, while physicians learn some from the get go as they are expected to act alone often). People who show a natural aptitude for magic, however, may be enrolled into a high guild apprenticeship right away, or receive special training in a lower one.

So, basically, most magic-users PCs in the setting will be a high-guilder of some sort. Alternatively, they may be nobleman who learned magic at a university, a disguised druid⁴ or something more exotic. But whatever they may be, they are very unlikely to begin having access to knowledge of all 9 schools. Rather, they should have greater or lesser access to some schools and be completely ignorant of the working of others. This means that the wide range of spells of the generalist mage in AD&D must be worked towards to, you won't start off with access to everything. Even if you try to make a character the has learned of several schools already, each school has degrees of mastery, with more complex and difficult spells requiring greater knowledge of the school in question (which means that "specialist" mages now will have more exclusive spell lists, though).

Also, I wanted to mention some sources of inspiration; especially in the hopes of you guys adding to those. A few places I am drawing inspiration for how magic works in this setting are: The AD&D books (obviously. Also, mostly 2e, but I have nothing against using something from D&D, 1e or even the later editions if it is good), GURPS Magic (the magic system in GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimoire has always been really interesting, and it gives players a lot of interesting tools that are all objectively much weaker than modern weaponry, but can do things way beyond modern science), Rifts (and Palladium Fantasy), Warhammer (although, to be honest, the spells there are more about appearance than substance), Fighting Fantasy (especially the Sorcery! books), Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, Magic: the Gathering and Master of Magic. Inspiration of more literary nature are also welcome.

Well, with enough preamble out of the way, I would like to make posts where I discuss how each of these schools is going to look in my game. The post below should, unless I messed up, describe the school of abjuration in the setting.

¹Modern arcane magic is a big revolution from what witches and warlocks have used in the past; but it is not on the level of the mythic times magic. The magic of the children of the gods was said to be boundless. While a great mage back then might know only three spells, for instance, those three spells could be used to do all kinds of things; being both wide ins how they could be applied and boundless in how much energy could be used to augment them. For instance, rather than being a limited spell like fly, an enchantment spell would have a wide variety of uses. Perhaps it might allow the mage to apply any characteristic from a living creature on another, so it could be used for applying a bird's power of flight, or a mole's power of digging, or an elephant's strength, etc. Further, by using more magic, the mage would be able to extend the effect to many people. If enough magic energy was available, it would be possible to make a whole army fly, for instance. These ancient spells are the things of legends, and mages are always looking to get their hands in them.

²I am bad with names. I don't have names for half of this stuff and the ones I have are a bit lacking, but I will focus on that once I have everything else better defined.

³The setting actually has a ninth school of magic, "meta-magic". But this school doesn't have a formal guild and while every mage learns a bit of it, focusing on it is usually a privilege of the well born. Meta-magic holds spells that all mages end up needing to a degree, such as detect magic, read magic and dispel magic, as well as actual meta-magic spells such as far reaching, steal enchantment and invert spell.

⁴Druids in this setting are not divine spellcasters at all, but rather chaos mages that have a tendency to make pacts with spiritual beings. They are loathed by the empire, but many learn to hide themselves in normal society. Think here less of some eco-priest and more as druids are presented in the life of St. Patrick.

 

[Alex]

Abjuration​

Abjuration is perhaps a difficult school; as it is focused on defense. Defense in AD&D tends to be really important, though.

Verbs: I will try to describe each school in terms of specific verbs and nouns. These should help explain what the school is all about and also to expand the existing spells with new ones, as well as helping you find out what schools you will need for a certain spell (many spells require more than one school in order to be used). The role of abjuration is to protect, to guard, to warn, to banish, to imprison, to hide, to trap and to free. To protect creates protections over the targets directly. These spells don't protect due to some "physics", they are protection itself. A spell like stone skin protects because if changes the skin of the mage into something far harder. Protection spells, on the other hand, protect directly, their entire substance is to protect something. The most clear example of this is protection from evil. Higher level spells can provide better and far reaching protection, while more complex spells may provide protections against more subtle and complex things. 2e had a pretty good variety of "protection from" spells in it, and making more can be easy and fun. Protection spells higher level protection spells can be better used offensively, but it should be noted that offense is the opposite of what these spells are made to do, so even very high level protection spells tend to have limitations on how they can attack. For instance, a high level circle of protection vs poison spell might cause poison in its area to burn off, eliminating it and possibly harming poisonous creatures (and poisoned ones too, but also curing them). But it would probably have a major limitation, such as losing duration for each cc of poison burned this way.

To guard is to stop undesired intruders (or fugitives). The most obvious example of this is the alarm spell, but more forceful spells such as Von Gasik's Refusal and even sign of sealing are similar. These spells often are cast on areas, but others can also affect a person or even an entity, such as an alarm spell that warns the caster if anyone unauthorised is near his ward or even near property of the guild, with higher level spells allowing for more abstract targets, greater security and more complex separation of who has access and who doesn't.

To warn is similar to guarding, with the difference that rather than focusing on who can or can't do something (or be somewhere), it focuses on giving the mage information about incoming danger. Examples include halo of eyes and find traps spells (find traps still requires divination, though, but wuld be a higher level spells if attempted to be made without using abjuration with it). Higher level spells can warn the caster of even abstract dangers such as offending someone important.

To banish is one of the more flashy aspects of abjuration. It allows abjurers to send creatures away and keep them away. The most obvious example is, of course, the Banishment spell. Less flashy (and less high level) spells may banish a creature to an area in the same plame; Banishment here is a bit different than 2e. Unsummoning and even sending away are spells from the conjuration/summoning school. Banishment, on the other hand, stops the creature from returning to the plane it was banished from, resisting any attempts to travel the planes for as long as it lasts (which means that even if the creature can traverse planes at will, the banishment will keep it away from returning). Note that this verb needs not to involve planar aspects. We could have spells that forbid the target from entering a city, country, continent, etc from where he was banished from. The banishment needs not to be absolute either. For instance, a lower level banishment spell might cause pain and damage each turn a character is inside the place he was banished from.

To imprison is actually very similar to banishing, but it is more restrictive on the target. The most obvious spells here, Imprisonment, is a very powerful version of this. But less absolute spells, such as one that locks the target in some prison outer plane like the carceri, or even one that creates a hard to escape prison are possible too. In particular, this combined with illusion could make for a spell that makes it impossible, for instance, for the character to leave a forest, making him keep losing his way whenever he is near the borders.

To hide is to keep the subject from detection, obviously. The most obvious spell of this sort in 2e that I know of is Sequester. But hide needs not to concern magical detection only. In fact, I have half a mind to make normal invisibility an abjuration spell, leaving improved invisibility as an illusion spell. This would finally give a reason why the spell ends after attacking someone; being an abjuration spell, the objective of normal invisibility is to hide away, and attacking would go directly against it. More complex hiding spells might be selective andbe based on random chance. For instance, you could have an "avoidance" spell that makes it much less likely you will meet a certain kind of creature; orcs for instance. Using it might allow you to change the probabilities of random encounters.

To trap is similar to guarding, but rather than stopping someone from entering somewhere (or doing something) it punishes them for it. Contrary to the other verbs, this one affects mostly spells that weren't originally in the abjuration school. Explosive Runes, Sepia Snake Sigil and Symbol are all examples of trapping spells. Combining this with other schools can permit the traps to have more powerful effects too.

Finally, to free is, in a way, the opposite of to imprison. But it should be understood in a more abstract way, such as to free one from certain evils. The most obvious example from the mage's spell list in 2e would be remove curse. But also cure disease and such.

Nouns: Working together with verbs, nouns are aspects of reality normally under the purview of this school. To make it clear, verbs and nouns are not something "in-setting". They are just a way for players to better understand what the school is about. Important nouns for abjuration include wards and runes. Wards are specially marked areas on which some form of guarding spell takes place. The most common of which are cricles of protection, like those from Protection from Evil, 10' radius. Wards can also work as prison boundaries. Runes, also called glyphs, symbols or characters, usually hold some sort of magic. A very common use for them is as traps, but they can also work to enhance the usability and resilience of what they mark. For instance, a rune on a shield might make it resist breaking or rusting. I know there were some cool use of runes in the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy RPG, I might want to check it. I think Palladium Fantasy also had some cool magic circle using class I could use for inspiration for wards.

Magic Items: Unlike how AD&D 2e does it, in this game, creating a magic item is a matter of having the right spells to do so, not of being of a certain level or other. Each magic schools has different forms of permaent (or at least long lasting) items it can create. For abjuration, common permanent items include the above mentioned nouns. Runes can be cast as to remain until triggered, even centuries later. Or, much more costly, to "regenerate" after enough time has passed. Wards, likewise, may be permanent, and are actually an important part of the setting. Rich nobles pay very good money to have their houses build with wards against poverty, evil eye, thieves, vermin, etc. Another item type made with abjuration are amulets. Often worn on a chain on one's neck, or pinned to clothing or armour, amulets can bestow powerful protections to the wearer. Talismans, peripats, necklaces and broochs fall into the same category. Of course, not all of these items are defensive in nature, but tneh should at least have some sort of problem they are trying to hold at bay. For instance, an amulert may shield the wearer's thoughts against being read by creatures able to do so. Another, the Medallion of ESP, actually enables the reading of thoughts, but the medallion is possible because ESP it is a protection against being fooled or surprised.

Guilds: There are a few lower guilds over which the Abjurer's Guild holds power. But the one they are most entrenched in is the vaulters guild. Vaulters are a kind of banker. They can take your money and store it for your, provide you with credit letters and, if you allow them to invest the said money, even give you interest. They also work as more normal storage service, guarding precious objects in deep underground vaults with many powerful wards keeping their location a secret and making uninvited entrance all but impossible. The vaulters also use their vaults as magic sources, meaning they become more powerful the more valuable objects they store in them.

Stonemasons is another lower guild with a strong Abjurer's Guild presence. While most stonemasons are part of the Transmuter's Guild (and use their magic to make the materials more resilient), abjurers are also an important part of the masons. As mentioned, they will build into the walls wards and even runes to keep the place they build safe.

The warden's guild is different from most other guilds in that it primarily works for the emperor rather than for the public in general, though powerful slave owners also use their services. The primary purpose of the warden is creating a prison and running it. Most wardens have extensive weapon and tactics training and sometimes are attached to army legions. In cities, the guild hall is also a large prison and criminals as well as slaves may be held there for punishment. This guild should (hopefully, if I don't bungle up things too much) be somewhat similar to the Guild of Torturers from the New Sun books. As such, many wardens belong to the Necromancer's Guild as they learn both means to cause much pain and to keep people alive. A few, on the other hand, are diviners, using their magic to watch their charges and find them if they escape. Wardens also do less shady work doing security work for rich households, often hiring bodyguards and setting up security schemes for the family.

Because spells like cure disease belong to the abjuration school, the abjurers also have some influence in the physician's guild, though this one is dominated by necromancers and transmuters.

 

[JarlFrank]

Interesting setting and magic concept, having to draw from power sources is something I have toyed with myself in ideas for magic, but never systematized.

Which leads to the most important question: how does the magic work mechanically, particularly the wild magic that can fuck up a power source if it goes wrong?
Can you cast a fire spell anywhere or do you need to be near a source?
Does the level of the spell make a difference in what that source has to be? For example - a low level fire spell can be pulled from a campfire, but a 9th level spell requires a volcano nearby. This would make magic very interesting as it adds a lot of planning to playing a mage, making players prefer certain landmarks, or making them bring little focuses along for lower level spells to draw from.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

So you want to keep the same list of schools? In that case, the inspirations that come to my mind aren’t really applicable.

 

[JamesDixon]

Interesting twist on leylines and drawing power from them. I would recommend that you jettison the names of the existing schools and replace them with something that fits your world. My other recommendation is to use GURPS Powers for a starter since the rules follow the convention that everything is a special effect and the mechanics are generic. Tie in the use of power disadvantages into each spell's build.

 

[NecroLord]

Transmutation is complete bonkers.
Always has been.
Contains some of the most OP spells.