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View Full Version : What are some origins for a sorcerer's magic? Non descended for storm,dragon,wild?



Rfkannen
2015-05-05, 07:23 AM
So, I like sorcerers, there is something cool about haveing internal magic. But although the "being descended from some powerful thing" story is cool and all, I think there are tons of other origins that could also make cool stories. So what ones can you think of? What ways might a sorcerer get there magic other than simply being born with it from being descended from some magical thing?

Keltest
2015-05-05, 07:27 AM
Um... Being born with it is pretty much their shtick. Wizards work for it and Warlocks buy it. But there are things you could do other than have a draconic ancestor. Perhaps they liked to play in a river as a child, and that river happened to be over a Ley-line. Perhaps their mother was hit with a spell or something while pregnant. Perhaps youre possessed by a spirit of some sort, but it didn't take all the way.

Rfkannen
2015-05-05, 07:51 AM
Um... Being born with it is pretty much their shtick. Wizards work for it and Warlocks buy it. But there are things you could do other than have a draconic ancestor. Perhaps they liked to play in a river as a child, and that river happened to be over a Ley-line. Perhaps their mother was hit with a spell or something while pregnant. Perhaps youre possessed by a spirit of some sort, but it didn't take all the way.

Cool ones, and yeah I suppose that is the sorcerers stick, I suppose I more meant other than just being the decendant of some big powerful creature.

Those are some cool ones.


Here are a few others I have heard.

Getting hit with lighting three times in a row
a mysical cult ritual where they infuse kidnapped people with the blood of horrible abominations in order to try to make a host for their dark master.
You were stillborn and then a cleric brought you back
the pure might of a dragon wizards breath bathed you in magical fire, but you survived, but were bathed in magic and you now are scarred physically, but managed to get magic power.
you payed another sorcerer a lot of money for a blood transfusion
an old sorcerer in a final attempt to keep their magic alive even when they would die infused a young human with a pure heart with their magic blood.
A dragon one day in human form decided to enter a blood drive, the next day 5 new sorcerers were made.
when you were being made(Warforged) someone stuck a bound elemental inside you.

Keltest
2015-05-05, 07:58 AM
The family could have a curse on it, but something about you "ate" the curse and used it to gain sorcerer powers.

Perhaps you just ARE a big powerful creature.

Maybe you are granted your powers through a bond to your familiar (bonus points if its a unique or otherwise unusual creature).

Perhaps you consume magic from the world around you to fuel your abilities.

Depending on how much extra baggage you can handle including, I can come up with a fair bit.

Joe the Rat
2015-05-05, 08:06 AM
Other "Birth" Origins

Descended from "other"
Under the right alignment of stars
Seventh offspring of a seventh son
A little blue potion was involved in your "originating event", with unforseen side effects.


Other Options

Recieved an unusual blessing from a passing priest-who-is-actually-a-deity-in-disguise.
As above, but replace with just about any magical creature (can overlap with the warlock themes)
Fell in an enchanted well.
Blasted by a magic - collateral effects of a wizard's duel, interrupted a summoning, hit by a wave of magical energy during an edition change.
Mad Chiurgeon used you as a test subject and implanted an organ from a magical creature. He probably wants it back.
It was something you ate - Made a stew out of a fairy ring, hit the jackpot while mixing potions, maybe you shouldn't have eaten that suspicious sausage.
Spent time trapped in another dimension. It rubbed off on you.
You really should be more careful about your choice of partner(s) for a one-night stand.
Tired of being 98-pound weakling. Studied Muscle Mystery to gain strength and poise and learn to control magic through precise flexing.

Forrestfire
2015-05-05, 08:07 AM
Bitten by a radioactive dragon.
Got injected with a radioactive dragon serum.
Caught in the middle of a fireball and now whenever you get angry, you turn into a radioactive dragon.
You're actually a radioactive dragon from a dead world, raised by peasant farmers in the middle of nowhere.
Punched a radioactive dragon so hard your hand turned magic.
Fell into a vat of toxic radioactive dragon waste.
Stole a radioactive dragon before coming back in time to the present day.
Had a radioactive dragon grafted to you.
Got resurrected incorrectly and came back as a radioactive dragon.
A radioactive dragon killed your parents, and now you hunt the streets of Sharn fighting crime.
Your bones got plated with radioactive metallic dragons, giving you Claw attacks and magic powers.
You're from the island of radioactive dragons.
A radioactive dragon from space gave you a magic ring that gives you radioactive dragon powers.
You've tapped into the radioactive dragonforce, becoming a swiftblade.
Blasted by dragon radiation while on a mission into the ethereal plane.
An elder evil radioactive dragon made you his herald, and you teleport to planets to tell them they're doomed.
You built a radioactive dragon IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!


I always liked how sorcerers' origins can be as varied as you want them to be. Even just in D&D, there's a ton of canon ways of doing it, including (but not limited to) the standard "descended from something weird" origin, genetic engineering, being born in an area with magical radioactive fallout, being turned into a sorcerer by an evil dragon, being affected by planar convergences, being directly granted power by the god, getting your magic thanks to a supernatural connection to various landmasses...

The editions of D&D have basically given sorcerers a blank check for unique backstories. I use this as an excuse to look at superhero backstories for inspiration.

Keltest
2015-05-05, 08:12 AM
An elder evil made you his herald, and you teleport to planets to tell them they're doomed.

I bet it was an elder evil radioactive dragon.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-05, 08:16 AM
Born during an unnatural/supernatural thunderstorm
Bear a crescent-shaped (star-shaped, etc.) birthmark
Had a twin that died at birth
Mother drank from the Well of Souls while pregnant with you
Parents were wizards
First pet was a familiar
Crib was placed in a summoning circle
Raised by ancestral spirits after village was destroyed
Nightly visits from a leprechaun when an infant

JAL_1138
2015-05-05, 08:30 AM
An unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch, and a pair of rubber bands. Although that one usually results in immortality, not magic.

Eighth son of an eighth son. Although that usually results in something quite a bit more powerful than a sorcerer, no "u".

You found a big ostrich-egg and decided to make the biggest omelet you've ever had. The fact that the egg was red and a bit leathery did not, for some reason, deter you.

You were at ground zero when the last of the "Locate City Bombs" went off in the Edition War, and somehow survived. This has marked you with a strange connection to magical forces.

Edit: several of these got ninja'd.

Kantaki
2015-05-05, 08:31 AM
Your godfather or godmother was: a fairy/ nymph/ angel/demon/ death in disguise and the magic is their gift for you.

goto124
2015-05-05, 08:56 AM
Your godfather or godmother

were literal gods :smallcool:

TheCountAlucard
2015-05-05, 09:25 AM
In games other than D&D, "sorcerer" isn't necessarily "caster with magical bloodline granting inherent magic."

Sometimes you're blessed with power by a god or demon. Or perhaps a group of god-kings engaged in a magical working that ingrained the workings of sorcery into the very fabric of reality. Or maybe a cadre of warlocks bound a number of spirits, fae, and elementals to teach those with sufficient will to learn it. Or maybe you bartered for this power with a powerful genie.

Ettina
2015-05-05, 09:51 AM
Tired of being 98-pound weakling. Studied Muscle Mystery to gain strength and poise and learn to control magic through precise flexing.


Wouldn't that be a monk?

goto124
2015-05-05, 10:04 AM
Yea, terminology differs from setting to setting, system to system, game to game...

Urpriest
2015-05-05, 10:28 AM
You could also just be at the high end of natural human variation for magical talent.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-05, 10:34 AM
You could be "the One", as foretold in a prophecy.

Will be very disappointing when you get beaten to death in a sewer at 2nd-level by a couple of goblin thugs with wooden clubs.

Joe the Rat
2015-05-05, 10:40 AM
Wouldn't that be a monk?

Only if you spent your time punching people as opposed to standing around in leopard print trunks and flexing until your target explodes in a ball of fire. Somatic components, y'know?

Psyren
2015-05-05, 10:50 AM
Pathfinder's Sorcerer Bloodlines (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/bloodlines) all represent different ways that sorcerers come into or access their magic. Between those and the third-party ones you should have plenty.

Segev
2015-05-05, 11:05 AM
You were apprenticed to a wizard (or a druidic acolyte, or training to be a priest), but weren't very good at it. Sure, you managed to learn to interact with the spirit world, but all the rote learning, all the ritual and rigamorale just never clicked for you. It was boring to learn and you felt silly doing it, especially when you made what were, to your fellow students, hillarious blunders that botched the efforts.

Still, the spirits you could talk to were nice. You got along well with them. And eventually, you figured out that you could just ask them to do the end result as a favor. So what if your ritual performance was lackluster, or you forgot the fourth word of the second stanza of the incantation; the spirit likes you and knew what you were trying to do, so he did it anyway. Your biggest problem is making sure your friendly spirits know what you're trying to do, not remembering the precise commands to demand they obey.

Fable Wright
2015-05-05, 02:36 PM
*Your grandson will be so powerful that just being an ancestor of him, much less his descendant, grants you vast supernatural powers.
*Your tribe believed that by eating the hearts of their enemies, they would gain their power. As it turns out, they were wrong. Magic comes from the mind.
*When you were a young child, you were fed demon/angel/dragon/slaad blood to make you strong. It worked.
*Your mother was a powerful yet mundane ritualist. (Ceremony feats in and the like.) Just being in her womb as she performed her magics granted you powers.
*You used to bully wizards out of their spell slots on their way to wizard school, and later picked up the knack of making them yourself.
*You were born to a truenamer, who named you s'shi'auz'zhaaumnm. Calling out your name now turns you into a radioactive dragon.

Segev
2015-05-05, 03:13 PM
After a frustrating string of sons and daughters growing up to be fighters, rogues, and one aristocrat, a powerful wizard Wished for his next child to be born with natural magical talent.

You found a ring of three Wishes as a youth, and your three Wishes were to be well-liked, rich, and for magical power. The second wish seemed a dud until you realized that the first and last have led you on a life of spectacularly lucrative adventure.

You eloped with a dragon/sirine/nymph/incubus/supernatural creature when you were young and impetuous. Turns out the marriage vows of sharing your lives were a little more literally binding than originally imagined.

You found and cared for a dragon egg for years, and found that your closeness to it made you sensitive to magic. Now, as you're approaching 6th level, it looks ready to hatch...

A cruel wizard "adopted" you as a small child, and used you as a living spellbook, tattooing them on you as you grew. The arcane runes have infused your very being with a natural talent.

You actually started your adventuring career young, as a rogue pilfering loot from a mystical castle in the clouds. It turned out, however, that one of the things you stole was the giant's magical power. (Do you suppose he might want it back?)

Studying in a monestary to learn the secrets of discipline and martial arts, you found accessing your chi to be easy. You lacked the focus to bring it to bear with your physical efforts, however. On the other hand, using it through surges of emotion and your strong will creates blatant magical effects.

As a child, you were sick unto death, or perhaps even briefly possessed by a ghost. Either way, you shouldn't have survived...but you did. This has left you with an unnatural connection to the negative energy plane. (Also a good excuse for the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat and Dread Necromancer levels.)

You threw your eye into the well of wisdom.

You were conceived on an equinox and born on a solstice (or vice-versa).

You grew up in an enchanted forest.

Your parents bargained for you with a fey.

A demon was sealed into your body. You are slowly learning to tap its power.

You stayed all night in the abandoned, cursed temple. You know you lost something there, but you can't quite remember what. But you came back knowing how to cast Prestidigitation.

You returned the last missing piece of a dragon's once-stolen hoard, and he paid you back with a gift of power.

The village in which you grew up dwelt under the protection of a Formian hive. You and the other children who grew up there always dreamed within the mind of the Queen. You learned your magic from her dreams.

VoxRationis
2015-05-05, 03:46 PM
You could also just be at the high end of natural human variation for magical talent.

That's one that I like and seems like it was forgotten about by WotC. The 3e PHB had the "draconic ancestry" thing be but one possible explanation as for sorcerous powers, with the possibility also floating about that that's just a pretty story. (I remember the Starter Set's character sheet for Aramil the elf sorcerer said that draconic ancestry was something he "likes to tell himself," or something to that effect.) But it got seized on by everyone else and the "something interbred with humans, therefore they have magic" just kind of stuck. I think in a world where a bunch of distantly related things have magical powers (i.e., it's clearly something that can re-evolve multiple times), it's entirely plausible that some humans just have innate connections to magic. It bothers me that that doesn't really get modeled in 5e.

JAL_1138
2015-05-05, 04:45 PM
You were hired to help build a gnomish device that was intended to compress raw Wild Magic into synthetic Ioun stones without need of spellcasting to craft them. Of course, it promptly exploded, as gnomish devices are wont to do. Fragments of the half-finished octarine-colored stone produced by the bizarre contraption are still embedded in your body. Along with a few screws, bolts, shards of glass, and pieces of bronze, but still.

BluesEclipse
2015-05-05, 05:03 PM
A wizard was experimenting with the Clone spell, attempting to modify it to create new life. He succeeded, but found that the new beings drew power from his own magic. He attempted to eliminate them all before they learned to harness that, but one escaped - you.

Jay R
2015-05-05, 09:42 PM
You don't know where it's from, everything you know about magic says that your abilities should be impossible, and you suspect that there is some dire situation that requires you to learn where your powers come from.

Joe the Rat
2015-05-06, 07:37 AM
That's one that I like and seems like it was forgotten about by WotC. The 3e PHB had the "draconic ancestry" thing be but one possible explanation as for sorcerous powers, with the possibility also floating about that that's just a pretty story. (I remember the Starter Set's character sheet for Aramil the elf sorcerer said that draconic ancestry was something he "likes to tell himself," or something to that effect.) But it got seized on by everyone else and the "something interbred with humans, therefore they have magic" just kind of stuck. I think in a world where a bunch of distantly related things have magical powers (i.e., it's clearly something that can re-evolve multiple times), it's entirely plausible that some humans just have innate connections to magic. It bothers me that that doesn't really get modeled in 5e. While they do step away from "it's in the bloodline" a bit in their fluff suggestions, pure "peak innate ability" isn't really touched upon, but can be reasonably represented with the wild magic option. This suggests that there are some control issues involved, or that magic is inherently fickle and unpredictable.

It's actually kind of interesting. Many stories and settings treat magic as something that requires innate ability as well as training - you need that special something to even be able to become a "wizard," which is part of why "oh just learn some magic" isn't always an option.

rafet
2015-05-06, 07:53 AM
As a babe, your family was attacked by a dark wizard. As he killed your mother, she laid a powerful ancient spell on you that protected you, but left a mark on your forehead. The wizard ran away, and when you were found, you sent to your relatives, until you were old enough to be trained by an old family friend.
----Totally Originial

Segev
2015-05-06, 08:26 AM
A wizard died somewhere near where you lived. Maybe he was a hero saving your village from orcs, or rescuing you from kidnappers. Maybe he was a villain terrorizing the region who was finally taken down. Regardless, you found yourself a new pet shortly thereafter; you adopted his familiar. The familiar formed a bond with you, and now you find yourself with echoes of that wizard's powers...

malkarnivore
2015-05-06, 11:23 AM
So, I like sorcerers, there is something cool about haveing internal magic. But although the "being descended from some powerful thing" story is cool and all, I think there are tons of other origins that could also make cool stories. So what ones can you think of? What ways might a sorcerer get there magic other than simply being born with it from being descended from some magical thing?

Alchemical transmutation into a half-dragon (this was a background for an NPC I used 80 years previous to the story)

Since, as far as I can tell, most half dragons in golarion are more result of tampering than amorous urges.

I can just see a dragon looking at a human and equating that with bestiality somehow in their mind.