Wednesday, February 20, 2019

The Sorcerer and Spell Mutations

Something in your family tree wasn't mortal. It might have been a dragon, or a fae, or an old one, or a god, or a spell. Your ancestry made your mind a fertile breeding ground for spells. They honeycomb your lobes, making grey matter into a playground for their arcane workings, slipping into and out of your thoughts like dolphins breaking the surface of the sea. Other spells alight in your brain as well, seeking lodgings and entertainment. You are a font of magical power, raw and untamed and impossible, beyond the wildest workings of wizards and the strangest miracles of forgotten gods. You are...

The Sorcerer
Image result for dnd sorcerer
Are you a mortal dreaming that you are a spell, or a spell dreaming that you are a mortal?

Sorcerer 1: Spellhive
Sorcerer 2: Empower Spell, Spell Hatchery
Sorcerer 3: Spellchemist
Sorcerer 4: Embody Spell

Hit Die: d6
Starting Equipment: Spellscar of your Spellhive spell, clothing/other materials you can use to conceal the scar
Background Skills (d3): 1. Hermit, 2. Scoundrel, 3. Test Subject

Spellhive: You can cast spells (see Flux Spellcasting rules). You know one particular spell, plus Sorcerer level random spells, randomized each morning. Your spells each come with a random mutation, and whenever you cast one, the mutation changes for the next spell.

Empower Spell: You may add random mutations to your spells up to your Sorcerer level minus 1 as you cast it. For each mutation added this way, add 1 die, but also make your Flux Table roll at +1.

Spell Hatchery: When you would cast a spell, you may instead release it into the wild as an Animate Spell with 1 HD. You can speak with it, ask it questions, and give it instructions, so long as they align with its newly-born, childish, impulsive nature, and you can only control HD of spells equal to your Sorcerer level. Spells dissipate on your next daily or long rest.

Spellchemist: When you cast a spell, you can combine it with your Spellhive spell to make a new spell. Figure the child-spell's effect out with your GM.

Embody Spell: Your spellscar spreads across your skin and you become physically part spell. You can prepare extra spells equal to your CHA (minimum 0). You can smell and taste magic, and speak with spells in the wild, whether in books, other casters' heads, or en route to their targets. You how to cause one mutation of your choice by heart, and can apply it to spells you cast, or to other spells in the outside world (if the spell is opposed to you, it gets a save).

Flux Spellcasting
Each day, you begin with 0 Flux. Gain 1 Flux after you cast a spell. When you cast a spell, dice equals your current Flux (if your Flux is 0, dice and sum is 1), to a maximum number of dice equal to level+1. Some powerful spells require high Flux (or other conditions) to cast.

Flux decreases by 1 after taking a short rest, and to 0 after a long rest.

Casting Process
1. Cast spell at current Flux (max dice is level+1); if Flux is 0, treat dice and sum as 1.
2. Roll d10+Flux on the Flux Table.
3. Gain 1 Flux.

Flux Table
1. Don't gain Flux.
2-3. Forget the spell you just cast until your Flux returns to 0.
4. Fatigue for (Flux)d6 rounds, -Flux STR/DEX/CON
5. Take 2*Flux damage.
6. Arcane flare alerts everyone in area to you casting spell, target gets additional save to resist.
7. Turn into a random small mundane creature for (Flux)d6 rounds.
8. Spell targets something else at random.
9. Gain an additional Flux.
10. Immediately cast another random spell you know, gaining Flux as normal.
11. Summon an Animate Spell of the spell you just cast with HD equal to your Flux.
12+. DOOM.

Dooms
First Doom. Lose the ability to cast spells for a day. Gain a spellscar.
Second Doom. Lose the ability to cast spells for a week. Gain a spellscar.
Final Doom. Magic Itself shows up, berates you, and takes away your magical powers forever.

Spell Mutations
1. Anthropomorphized: The spell manifests as a creature that carries out its duty at your behest, and dissipates once its effects have been performed. It's not particularly smart, it follows your orders to the letter rather than the spirit, but does so with enthusiasm.
2. Atomised: Split into multiple spells cast simultaneously at different targets, each of which hs one separate partial effect of the original spell.
3. Chaotic: Every target of the spell also rolls on the Flux table.
4. Delocalized: Spread the effects of the spell out across a 50'*dice radius, and decrease them proportionally. A sum damage spell with 1 target instead divides its damage among many targets, or a charm spell merely gives good feelings to an entire crowd.
5. Flighty: The spell, after its effects take place, will move to the mind of a nearby creature at random who can then cast it before their next daily/long rest. There's a dice-in-6 chance that it'll come back to you.
6. Fluid: The spell leaks from your fingers and pools around you as a gooey liquid. Anyone besides you who touches it gets affected by it at dice proportional to the amount they touched, and that bit dissipates.
7. Hungry: Instead of being powered by Flux, the spell is powered by flesh. The spell has 1 die for every 4 HP sacrificed (yours or someone else's) during casting.
8. Imbued: Enchant an item with the spell. Whenever an eligible target interacts with it (whether that's touching it, being hit by it, etc) you can cast the spell at 1 die on that target. You can do this a number of times equal to the initial Flux you cast the spell at.
9. Inconspicuous: The spell manifests its effects in ways not improbable for the local environment. This can cause odd side effects as the environment moves to fulfill the spell's demands, but no one without magical expertise can tell that the effect was magical in nature.
10. Influenced: The spell seeks out something nearby with deep symbolic meaning, like a gemstone, flower, colour, or tarot card, and modifies its effect through that lens.
11. Inscribed: To cast the spell, you need to write it down in your own blood. This takes 1 minute and Flux HP of blood. When someone reads it, it casts itself at them or another appropriate target associated with the reader. Each time it's read, it has a dice-in-6 of remaining on the page to cast itself again at some other hapless reader.
12. Inverted: Reverse the main effect of the spell. A Fireball becomes an Iceball, Disguise Self becomes Reveal Other, hold person becomes Move Object...
13. Lingering: The effects of the spell remain in the area where its target is for d6 minutes. This increases to hours at 2 dice, days at 3 dice, and weeks at 4 dice. Targets entering the area must save or have the spell affect them at dice 1.
14. Lucky: All dice above half their value are treated as maximum. All dice below or equal to half their value are treated as minimum.
15. Misspelled: Change or remove one of the letters in the spell name and cast the resulting spell.
16. Possessive: The spell manifests itself through you. You gain a special ability for sum minutes related to the spell's effects.
17. Reapplied: The target of the spell changes to d4: 1. item, 2. creature, 3. spell/effect, 4. material
18. Rhyming: Perform an effect that rhymes with the original spell's name. Sleep could become Creep and increase sneakiness, Illusion could become Delusion and cause hallucinations, Cone of Cold could become Loan of Old and temporarily age the targets...
19. Void: The spell breaks reality over its knee. It is notable by its absence from everything, and all its poignant lack touches grieves for the existence that has been lost. Observers of its casting and effects, including you, must save vs. fear.
20. Warping: The spell pulls its energy from everyone around its target, causing some negative effect. Charm siphons positivity from those around the target, Fireball flash-freezes the air, Light creates a glowing orb in the middle of a cloud of darkness...

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