I've been running an ongoing Crystal Frontier campaign using the "Fistful of Crystals" ruleset for the past several months, and at the same time finishing up editing and layout on a larger dungeon for publication - the Iron Barrow. Both projects mean that I've had to take a long look at how I treat spells and magic users.
Below is a set rules and in world explanation for how I see sorcery in my games, and the rules I use to make it more interesting. In the attached document I've also included examples of several starting grimoires and a grimoire of high magic - an necromantic text that effectively provides a "Necromancer" Subclass.
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| Stena the Beautiful - Plague Prophet, Lich and Antagonist from Bones of Bronze |
Sorcery on the Crystal Frontier
Standard magical practice comes from many traditions, and each magic user is likely to command only the one they are originally taught or naturally adept at. Only through long study and the discovery of specialized, advanced forms of magic can sorcerers switch this focus, and again, only to a particular field or magic. The nobility of the Empire, would quibble with this distinction, claiming that their academic arcanism is the study and knowledge of magic itself, but this is a theoretical debate - Imperial wizards simply cannot perform the feats of sorcery that other magical traditions excel at.
It is more common to think of the majority of magical arts, including arcanism, as “common spellery”, or simply as “magic”, with numerous distinct, but related traditions. This means that only followers of a tradition may use its spells, but that there is enough similarity in the way the forms of common spellery function for practitioners to transcribe spells from one tradition to another, much as one might translate between languages.
More advanced, or at least unique, fields of magic exist as well. These are sometimes referred to as “Mantia” or incorrectly as “High Magery” and though not always more powerful or complex than common forms, function in unique ways that are antithetical to the forms of common magic. The practice of a Mantia is an all consuming study for a magic user who undertakes it and they such practitioners must rely only on their own research or spells from within the tradition to expand their spellbooks.
