Magic on Grandilar

What follows is my most successful effort to modify the shape of Grandilar; it was written after a great deal of back and forth with Sue, and was eventually published on the Black Dragon website. Its main inspiration was a rumor that came to me about characters who were both Witches and Necromancers, an idea that seemed very wrong to me.

Three Schools of Magic

Be it known that on the tenth day of the second month of the third year of his reign, His Royal Highness King Lenarius of Selenay expressed a desire to learn to practice magic, and tasked me with determining which of the various schools of magic would be best suited for the study of a king. My report follows.

First, it is well known that there are three schools of magic each with different philosophies and methods for gathering supernatural energy—Od—and harnessing it to effect the natural world. One Master I questioned, a practitioner of all three disciplines, spoke of the three philosophies in terms of the ways a person might gather water. “The Witch,” he told me, “Draws Od from the richness of Elethay, much as a man might draw water from a river. The water is abundant, but the river goes where it will, and the man must follow it. The Shaman draws his water from a rain barrel. He may build his house where he pleases, and while there is water in the barrel it is easy to get, but his supply is always dependent on the whims of the rain. The Wizard draws his water from a well he has dug himself; he will have water when he wants it, where he wants it, but it will always be work to draw it up from the depths of the earth.”

My king, I was very confused by this at first (though Your Highness will no doubt understand it at once), but over time I realized that it illustrates some very basic truths of the three schools.

Witchcraft

Witchcraft draws its energy from the physical plane, and is in many ways the least demanding of the crafts. But it should be noted that Witchcraft is inextricably linked to the worship of Elethay (not a bad thing, for a devout man like Your Highness); most Elethay clergy are witches, and any witch can act as clergy if the need arises. The mechanism which witches use to tap the Od of nature and harness it is one of harmony and conformity with the earth, and the goddess. The witch must be aware of, and consonant with, the “web of nature” at all times, and witches who deliberately act in disregard of the “Heart of the Goddess” will soon find their powers failing. I have heard it said that one does not learn witchcraft; one attunes oneself to the Goddess, and the spells follow naturally.

Since all witches have the Goddess in common, it is unheard of for any two witches to be enemies in their own persons. Two witches may dislike each other, but they will still respect each other; two witches may face each other across a battlefield, but they will always work for peace between two nations which both acknowledge Elethay. Witches will also always have an affinity for animals, which does not so much mean that all animals will like all witches (though many witches do have an uncanny ability to relate to animals), but that all witches will respect all animals, even if they find them hostile or terrifying. It is said that the true daughter of Elethay sees the beauty of the wild beasts even as they devour her.

Shamanism

Shamanism draws on the Spirit plane as its source of Od; this requires shamans to develop a high degree of sensitivity to spirits and the Spirit Plane, which usually interferes with their ability to deal with the natural world somewhat. Shamans tend to seem distracted and out of focus; this is because they are seeing a broader world than those who do not follow the shaman’s path. The “rain” of the old master’s analogy represents the fact that when the shaman reaches for Od on the Spirit Plane, he gets NOTHING unless he has a spirit in that plane to direct it into his hand. All shamans have at least one Spirit Guide; many have several. Spirit Guides can range in power from weak spirits who can only manifest in the shaman’s own dreams to spirits so powerful they can manifest for days at a time (though such are very rare). Shamans generally have much more freedom of action and attitude than do witches; a strong shaman with a weak Spirit Guide can bully his guide to do whatever he wishes; a clever shaman will find a Spirit Guide who shares his own attitudes and goals. Of course, it is not unknown for powerful Spirit Guides to reduce their respective shamans to servants or even slaves; the shaman’s path is horribly dangerous for the careless or the unprepared.

Shamans have certain characteristics in common, but this does not include any kind of moral direction. A shaman who is guided by dead ancestors (as, in fact, most shamans are) will be loyal to the goals of his family; a shaman who is guided by spirits of evil will himself be evil. Shamans who have not been called to their task by specific spirits (usually ancestors) will usually attempt to locate spirit guides who will agree with their goals and follow their wishes, whatever those might be.

Wizardry

Wizardry looks to the astral plane for Od, and the only thing that shapes the magic is the wizard’s will. There is neither divine assistance nor spirit guidance involved. Thus, while wizardry requires the greatest amount of effort, it also offers the greatest amount of freedom. The are currently two subclasses of wizards practicing in Selenay; one group calls itself the Prismatic School, and every wizard I spoke to was a follower of this tradition. The other group is known as the Collegium Obscurum, and what little I know of it is from wizards who have left it and joined the Prismatic School.

Wizardry accomplishes magical effects by channeling Od through a mind in which certain specific patterns of thought exist. Prismatic wizards create these patterns by visualizing light of different colors passing through various lenses of different colors to produce a specific pattern of shapes and colors on a three dimensional surface. A wizard showed me a device which contained four light sources and eight lenses, all of which could be moved, and told me that a student needed to be able to visualize this device in all of its permutations before he could cast a spell. (No wonder wizards keep such elaborate notebooks!) I have been told that other colleges have used different tools; certainly a college once existed that used music rather than light as its focus, as did another which used only complex shapes, and a third which used only abstract symbols, but none of these currently exist in Selenay.

Prismatic wizards study for a very long time before they can cast a single spell, but once they reach that point, it is relatively easy to learn new spells, and even to improvise spells that one has seen but never studied. It is still a very difficult thing to develop a spell which has never before existed, however. The Obscurantists follow a different path; they teach each spell as a separate entity, without bothering with the central knowledge from which the spell flows. Thus, their apprentices cast their first spells early in their training, but never acquire the ability to learn new spells quickly that is characteristic of the Prismatic School. Obscurantists seem to like things this way; they lure their students with easy power, but keep them on a short leash. Given that the Obscurantists are rumored to be experimenting with Warp magics (warp is known to most wizards as a toxic side effect of mis-cast spells) and even with Necromancy, this is hardly surprising.

All that can be said of wizards as a group is that they are intelligent, patient, and make very bad enemies; beyond that, they are as varied as humans (and humanoids) in general.

Conclusion

Such is my report, your Highness. My conclusion is simple: A King must be his own man, and of the three magicians, only the wizard is master of his own course. I must say that even wizardry requires a long apprenticeship, and I can only wonder if it is appropriate for a monarch to subject himself to a master, even on a temporary basis. But I am not a monarch, and my judgement of such things is no doubt faulty.

Dennold of Bridgeport, Scribe to His Majesty

Gaming notes:

This is intended to give information to players who want to know their characters a little better. None of it is intended to have any direct effect on game mechanics. In a nutshell:

Witches are naturally religious people. They are in tune with nature, and they hate warp with a passion. Also, as noted above, they tend to respect and trust other witches, even if they don’t LIKE them. Witches will be VERY inclined to have familiars, and pets.

Shamans are always going to be a bit spirit addled when nothing else is going on. And, as it says, they will always have at least one Spirit Guide. Unless/until more appropriate cards are released, Spirit Guides can be assumed to be ancestor spirits who are just powerful enough to make themselves heard by the shaman whenever they want. They can’t manifest physically in any way, though the gamemaster may rule that a Warding spirit is the Spirit Guide. Spirit Guides are intended to be role-play aids for the gamemaster to use, abuse, or ignore as he wishes. Spirit Guides of Spirit Speakers will almost certainly be ancestors of the character; Spirit Guides of characters who earn the Shaman card can be anything that makes sense, including dead player characters.

Wizards is wizards. You were expecting something else? Wizards on Grandilar are similar in outlook and temperament to wizards in most other games. One interesting point: While wizards are trained to improvise spells off the central body of prismatic spell craft, warp magic does NOT flow out of that body of knowledge. Just another reason why player wizards don’t use warp magic.

Paul Haynie
9/7/2000