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Calen
2015-03-27, 05:37 PM
(For context 4e homebrew-world campaign.)

Hello Playgrounders, I have been developing some characters for a cult that my players have been fighting. One of the primary sources of recruits for this Cult is wizards/magicians/magic users who are inclined to practice dark magic or in other words magic that would be morally negative or ambiguous. What I am looking for is ideas for what these magic wielders could be using. I am especially looking for ideas that go beyond the traditional necromancer or whatever.

I have re-flavored vampires to be a melee combat blood-mage.
I have a wizard that favors mind-control spells.

Any suggestions about other legends or dark magic sources I could mine for ideas? Thanks!

Beta Centauri
2015-03-27, 05:56 PM
Arcane defiling from Dark Sun. There's a version for players, and then there are some creatures/NPCs who have their own version. Basically, the magic is powered by nearby sources of life, causing agony and destruction and empowering the caster.

Mr.Moron
2015-03-27, 06:11 PM
* Magic that uses suffering as power source. The cult takes & keeps captives to torture to keep their powers topped off.

* Spells that consume rather shape & manipulate the magic of the world. As they use more spells the more magic is destroyed. As the magic dies natural forces break. Water no longer replenishes thirst, fertile soil no longer grows crops, wind stops moving and so on. One mage using minor magic spells, might ruin a small pond in a year. A whole cult a lake and surrounding fields. The whole cult using moderate spells or a single mage using strong ones, might rot a country in as little as month.

* Spells that return the life force of those they slay to the dark realm. Restoring the power of the great sealed evil.

* Magic that makes the user more violent and unstable every time they use it, without dulling their senses or reducing them to mindless berserkers.

* Magic that runs on the power of captured souls. As the mind matures however, the power of the soul becomes ever more hard to manipulate. Even that of a infant is barely of use. So they drain the souls of the unborn. If the connection is made before to the soul before the mind takes hold, access remains easy. They gain access to the expectant mothers by using some front to offer services to the poor. The process is subtle and the mothers are unaware of what happens. The children are born normally as even at a distance the soul remains linked to them. However, each time the soul is used to a cast spell it shortens their lifespan without aging them. A soul fueling the spells of weak mage might live 12 years. Those being used to fuel powerful spells will be lucky to see their 4th birthday.

* Magic gathered from demonic parasites implanted in innocent people. That periodically turn the victims into monsters, while they're unaware of anything. The more people they kill, the more magic power gets fed back the mages.

* There is no cult!: Not really anyway. All the mages there did call on a dark force to perform magic. All of them did betray a friend to make the pact. In short order though that dark force overtook their minds. Their bodies are now simple puppets. It uses their minds and memories to make pretend at being them. They are aware but not in control. The acts their bodies now commit are far more depraved than anything they had orginally intended.

Calen
2015-03-27, 06:47 PM
Thanks for the ideas. I can use some of these. *rubs hands together in anticipation*

Phoenixguard09
2015-03-27, 08:49 PM
* Magic that uses suffering as power source. The cult takes & keeps captives to torture to keep their powers topped off.

* Spells that consume rather shape & manipulate the magic of the world. As they use more spells the more magic is destroyed. As the magic dies natural forces break. Water no longer replenishes thirst, fertile soil no longer grows crops, wind stops moving and so on. One mage using minor magic spells, might ruin a small pond in a year. A whole cult a lake and surrounding fields. The whole cult using moderate spells or a single mage using strong ones, might rot a country in as little as month.

* Spells that return the life force of those they slay to the dark realm. Restoring the power of the great sealed evil.

* Magic that makes the user more violent and unstable every time they use it, without dulling their senses or reducing them to mindless berserkers.

* Magic that runs on the power of captured souls. As the mind matures however, the power of the soul becomes ever more hard to manipulate. Even that of a infant is barely of use. So they drain the souls of the unborn. If the connection is made before to the soul before the mind takes hold, access remains easy. They gain access to the expectant mothers by using some front to offer services to the poor. The process is subtle and the mothers are unaware of what happens. The children are born normally as even at a distance the soul remains linked to them. However, each time the soul is used to a cast spell it shortens their lifespan without aging them. A soul fueling the spells of weak mage might live 12 years. Those being used to fuel powerful spells will be lucky to see their 4th birthday.

* Magic gathered from demonic parasites implanted in innocent people. That periodically turn the victims into monsters, while they're unaware of anything. The more people they kill, the more magic power gets fed back the mages.

* There is no cult!: Not really anyway. All the mages there did call on a dark force to perform magic. All of them did betray a friend to make the pact. In short order though that dark force overtook their minds. Their bodies are now simple puppets. It uses their minds and memories to make pretend at being them. They are aware but not in control. The acts their bodies now commit are far more depraved than anything they had orginally intended.

These are awesome. I might pinch a couple for myself if that's okay.

Fable Wright
2015-03-27, 11:22 PM
Inside each person are thousands of microscopic living beings, growing and evolving in an ecosystem that ultimately ends when the host dies. One insane druid took a rather particular interest in these ecosystems, learning how to keep them growing, surviving, feeding off the host after death, and how to accelerate the process. How to make the cells and germs coalesce into a larger being, making horrible amorphous beings seeking only to free their kind from the mortal gut and ingest the food enough to live. As they spread, the druid's power waxes, tied to the bizarre ecosystem he perpetuates.

Another practices the black art of gifting, giving away all of his mortal possessions in exchange for power. Power over the people he's given to, the power to reclaim a gift, the power to demand a gift of others. He has given to the community, and the price he's demanded was their love and fealty. He's given to advisors and information brokers, in exchange for information. In combat, he's generous; he'll wave his hand, and a mountain of copper coins will materialize in your coin purse. In exchange, he'll take a minor payment; your sword, worth half the value he's given, and a couple of ongoing favors, whether the character realizes it or not.

There's a legend that each location has a spirit representing it, and the condition of the spirit represents the condition of the land. If the land grows ill, so does the spirit. If the spirit grows ill, so does the land. There's a mage who specializes in binding these spirits to his staff, and he doesn't really like the wilderness. He'll call the spirits of foes' hometowns on them, each blow against it a blow against their kin. He'll drain them for power in a heartbeat, causing untold suffering for his spells. He'll threaten and cajole and force your cooperation if you want the soul of an important city to live. He's not a very nice man.

Another is an angel-summoner. Self-explanatory; he binds angels to his bidding as others do demons, forcing them to commit atrocities, forcing them to fall in his name. When they finally fall all the way down, he's still got his absolute control over their demon forms, and everyone knows that angels fall into forms of power when they go.

One last one is a bit of a planar anomaly. They believe that everything originated as ideas, and that objects are merely ideas crystallized into a physical form. By releasing the form back into the source of all ideas, the astral plane, energy is released; energy he harnesses. In essence, everything he touch is banished. When he touches a wall, it vanishes to the aether, and it powers his next divination or force spell. When he blocks a blade, bits of it begin to dematerialize. For his more powerful workings, he's vanished entire buildings and in one case, a small town, leaving behind only flat land and the echoes of magic. Generations of work, gone, to fuel one divination.

Talyn
2015-03-31, 03:31 PM
This is 4e, right?

Magic that lets you steal the energy from others (willing or not) and give yourself a significant mechanical benefit. Maybe you can spend your enemy's healing surges. Maybe you know a special Ritual which will let you sacrifice a helpless victim to restore a Daily power of a level equal to their level or lower.

This cult believes, like most mages, that magic has a price. The reason they are using "dark" magic is because they can get someone else to pay that price for them.