Tag Archives: classes

Outcast Mages

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In my last two posts, I’ve played with the idea that Magic Users can be established in a campaign as hermits, con-men and outcasts. This can be done without changing the rules or the class in any appreciable way, aside from perhaps changing the way the Read Magic spell is learned.

Here’s a few brief character backgrounds that you might find useful.

Renard (level 1) was a wagon driver’s son. When a hitchhiking traveler felled bandits by throwing rainbow lights from his hands, he was in the way, but lived. The old man’s chanting suddenly made sense to him, which lead to nightmares. Years later, as an apprentice to a bookbinder, he discovered he could read a client’s book that contained the old man’s verse. This was First Spell (read magic). He copied the entire book and has memorized one other poem from it (magic missile). He can’t wait to say the verse aloud to see what happens.

Nicolette (Level 2) married well, passing from her father’s modest but noble household into the house of her husband’s father, the Count Dufresne. The morning after her wedding night, her mother-in-law instructed her in the expectations of the ladies of House Dufresne. She was horrified to discover that the women of Dufresne, unbeknownst to their husbands, have maintained the family position and wealth through the use of witchcraft. After a year she escaped, hoping to find some way of atoning for her great sin of sorcery. Unfortunately, she cannot get through the day without spells in her head, so she has brought along a spell book. She has no idea where she will go and is sure her mother-in-law is hunting her. (She is right but does not know her mother-in-law is a lich).

Asa (Level 5) is a wife, mother of four and the matriarch of troupe of traveling performers. She is no longer the acrobat she once was, but the magic she learned as a child from her grandmother has helped her on many occasions. She uses it to enhance fireworks, catch falling acrobats, cover the tracks of her pickpocket son, and grow and remove the beard from her prettiest daughter. The women of her clan know the spells of illusion and scrying. The men learn magical combat and the ceremonies of summoning. Her husband is level 4. Most of the clan’s adults are levels 1-3.

Le Grognard (Level 12) is what the locals call Pollard of Huc. He mumbles to himself as he goes about his day. He is old, fat and unkempt. He spends most of his time traveling to far-away cities, looking through old libraries and temples for bits and pieces of spells. He is convinced that he can unlock the secrets of the spell creators. Although he himself knows a fortune’s worth of spells, he considers them of little value and sells them to anyone with the coin he needs to keep up his research. He cares not for good nor evil and is capable of both in great extremes, provided they further his quest.

Prince Johann (Level 4) wanted to be a mage since his nanny first tried to frighten him with stories of mages who turn bad little princes into newts. He killed an outcast mage girl for her spells, after making her teach him the First Spell at knifepoint. He pays top dollar for spells and kills any seller he deems weaker than himself. This expensive habit could not be hidden from his father’s bookkeepers, so he has incurred considerable personal debt in pursuit of his hobby. He has considered going on the road to seek out new spells and new treasures, hoping to either pay back or kill his debtors.

Leo (Ex-Cleric level 5, now a Mage level 2) was the Abbot of the Swan Abbey. He had sent a Knight of the Sun on a quest to bring him a scroll that, according to Leo’s interpretation of scripture, outlined the long lost vigil prayer Raise Dead. Leo was close, but wrong on one crucial detail. The scroll contained the First Spell, followed by an arcane spell which animated the bodies of the abbey’s long-dead abbots. After those monsters killed all Leo’s brothers and burned down the monastery, Leo was, to say the least, a changed man with a crisis of faith. He is now quite mad, and knowing no other spells, casts animate dead almost daily, hoping to resurect his lost monks. (Yes, he isn’t high enough level to cast it normally. Who cares? He’s an NPC.)

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Rethinking Magic Users 2

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Magic is not learned from a college. Like jazz, blues and any non-formalized style of music, it’s acquired by observation. You steal it from your betters.

Let’s look at how mages come to be. He or she might come from any walk of life, but most mages are born slaves, peasants or in wandering communities of traders, thieves or actors. As I mentioned yesterday, mages are reviled in most places. Their magic is considered blasphemy by clerics, uncontrollable by kings and dangerous by normal folk. They are often persecuted and must hide their talents.

So how does one get on this road?

It starts with the First Spell, which has many names, but in game mechanics, it most resembles Read Magic. It is a short spell that can be understood by anyone, regardless of their native language.

In its verses are every sound of spoken magic and a thorough and unsettling explanation of the chaotic worldview that underlies all non-divine magic . Anyone speaking the entire spell can thenceforth read their native tongue and any written magic (provided they have recited the spell enough to commit it to memory so it comes off the tongue as easily as any cast spell). He or she is also immediately of chaotic alignment (this is obviously taken from LotFP Weird Fantasy). The meaning of the verse is not kind knowledge and some who do memorize it and speak aloud its secret go mad, never to learn a second spell.

Anyone who hears the spell often enough is bound to learn it eventually. A mages’ lover, spouse, child or even close neighbor will hear it under her breath as she performs almost any activity (this is similar to the way Tibetans repeat mantras in everyday life). If you pester a mage as he sits in a pub, disturbing his peace, he might grab you by the collar and shout the words in your face until you piss off. You might pick up the entire spell by accident. Some mages will teach it to those they feel the petitioner would fit in well with the community or who have money, food or other service to offer. Many mages fall into magic because they have no other prospects, no land to farm and no skills.

Once one has said the spell, he or she is forever a mage and is overcome by a desperate need to learn more spells. This stage is most like an addiction. New spellcasters have been known to spend their last penny or sign into service for a year or more for a simple spell or two (an experienced mage would teach nothing dangerous to a novice). This is as close to a master/apprentice relationship as you are likely to find and it does not always end happily. After the first few levels, the mage is able to calm down and the need is more of an intense desire or life goal than a desperate need.

In the mage community, wealth has a tendency to travel quickly to the top, where mages with large spell books are able to charge fortunes from the less-skilled.

There are magic users who actually research, but they are very rare. It is difficult to conduct experiments from a mule-drawn wagon and there are many costs and dangers associated with settling down. The few labs there are can be found in remote towers or underground caves. Besides, most mages would tell you that researching magic is a waste of time. Magic’s secrets are long lost and the errant fools who would re-invent it would be better off searching the world for long lost spell books than blowing themselves up in labs. Spells are usually named after their discoverer, not the author (if even a name is known).

One dirty secret the elves don’t like to talk about: Many assume that arcane magic came from the elves. Some mages even hunt or extort elves to get more spells. A select few know that elven magic of old was far more powerful than anything any human mage has cast. The elves are actually very capable casters of human magic, magic they have learned from vagabonds and con-men.

I’m going to cook u a few backstories to serve as examples, but I think you are all bright enough to come up with your own scenarios.

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Rethinking Magic Users

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For better or worse, I have always imagined magic users as being learned men and women who studies at a magic college, apprenticed to a master, poured over dusty tomes in the stacks of arcane libraries. I’m going to throw most all of that out and see if there isn’t something more interesting that can be done without going against most of the rules of the basic edition and its clones.

Ever wonder why there is no minimum intelligence score to make a magic user in Basic D&D? Magic Users (mages) are memorizers of lines who require no real skill beyond concentration and the ability to speak.  Instead of trying to decode and research magic, most just learn what spells they can get access to. Any who uncover an ancient forgotten spell had best keep it to themselves or be able to defend against challengers who will not take no for an answer.

Magic users live on the fringes of society, often without a home or family that will welcome them. Many live among travelling communities, where their skills are valued as protection against angry villagers, sheriffs and the creatures of the dark. Like magicians, gun-slingers and comics in our more recent times, they all know each other by reputation and most mages in any culturally similar area will have met at least once.

Most are poor, by the standards of lower nobility. They talk to themselves or to unseen beings and all of them are decidedly eccentric. Most mages, male and female, dress outlandishly with large hats (with thanks to JB at B/X Blackrazor). It is very rare to find a mage that isn’t an athiest, or if they believe gods exist, they do not revere them as The Gods but rather fear them. Because of this, many mages are prone to overdrinking or heavy addictions to laudanum or purple mushroom powder.

Most mages know prestidigitation, common confidence games and will use those with their magic powers to relieve the gullible of their pie, meade, drugs, money and virginity. Because this leads to trouble, they often have different names they use in different towns. In many communities, mages are immediately locked up, put in the stock or hanged not just for the abomination of magic (which in some places is not such a big deal) but because the reputation mages have with the locals. The common thief is considered more respectable.

From time to time, mages will engage in duels with one another, although usually this is a means of demonstrating power, which can then be traded. Occasionally, mages gather in a specific place (determined by the stars) and socialize, trade secrets, stories, hats and so forth. Mages will also come together in cases where a renowned magic user has come to harm. Especially loved magic users, or those well-known outside the magic world are avenged in ghastly ways rarely forgotten. For a few years after, mages will not be harassed as aggressively.

Unlike thieves, mages do have their own language, which is a pidgin mixing any local tongue they know with words from the Read Magic spell (the one spell all mages know, the nature of which is explained next post). They also communicate with secret symbols carved on trees, rocks and in mud.

More to come. (Honest, I’ve already written it!)

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