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View Full Version : Hints of Other Magics [Eberron]



Afgncaap5
2018-05-03, 06:41 PM
In Eberron, druidic magic stands a bit apart from other divine magic sources; it was specifically given by a dragon, theoretically to help combat invaders from another realm.

I'm working on the histories of giants and dragons and things (both for Eberron and for other settings) and I'm having fun with the idea of multiple "kinds" of magic that the more magically advanced societies might have developed while the humans were still busy figuring out (what amounts in other settings to) rudimentary wizardry.

I'm wondering if vague concepts like "Shadow" and "Sky" and "Emotion" are too vague, especially since I'm just wanting their to be hints of these things without the players really being able to get their hands too much on it. Any thoughts?

Nifft
2018-05-03, 08:49 PM
The gods are silent -- if they even exist -- and yet Clerical magic was already pretty well-established before the dragon gave humanoids Druidic magic.

How'd that happen?

You could drop hints that the current Clerical paradigm, including worship of the Sovereign Host as a pantheon, is unexpectedly recent, and people did things very differently back before the Giant Empire fell.


There are supervolcano-sized smoke signals coming from Sarlona that they have a weird new status quo which nobody on Khorvaire really understands.


Daelkyr magic isn't well understood -- and perhaps can't be well understood, since it might be like smoking crystal madness.


The Overlords were reality-warpers. The merest fragment of one might be an artifact which operates exclusively within its own paradigm -- and any overt external effects might be mere side-effects to its internal processes. Incompatible & inexplicable magic.


The Mourning was a new thing. We kinda expect something new to be born from it -- or to crawl from its grave.



I'm not really sure what you mean by vague concepts which are those three words. Hope this was helpful anyway.

Spore
2018-05-04, 05:01 AM
"Magic" in its sense accordingly to roleplaying games is usually real world religion esoterics and ancient (and modern) world theories taking literally. If you take Ancient Greece's aether element that fills the skies. Faerun has made its weave out of it, basically a magic network that permeates everything. I will not go down that road further both because I lack any other knowledge about esoterics and discussing RL religions is frowned upon here.

I have always enjoyed the "industrialization" flavor of magic of Eberron. Dragon Shards are basically a resource that can be crafted into magic items, vehicles and even life forms. Similarly I like alchemy as the industrious version of magic. You do not have to pray and spend some cash at an altar of the Silver Flame to get healed. You simply waltz into an alchemist's shop and get the right potion.

Afgncaap5
2018-05-04, 05:05 PM
I have always enjoyed the "industrialization" flavor of magic of Eberron. Dragon Shards are basically a resource that can be crafted into magic items, vehicles and even life forms. Similarly I like alchemy as the industrious version of magic. You do not have to pray and spend some cash at an altar of the Silver Flame to get healed. You simply waltz into an alchemist's shop and get the right potion.

Right, alchemy and industrialized magic are well documented and understood across Khorvaire. What I'm asking about are suggestions for other magics developed by other societies, like the dragons or giants. A green dragon gave druidic magic to the orcs, a boon that might've saved the world. The elves stole pieces of necromancy to turn the tables on the giants during their uprising. And while elemental binding has definitely been industrialized, there are hints that this magic was stolen from the Drow, who themselves only knew it because of what the giants developed.

Basically, I'm doing a campaign that's going to focus on places where dragons have directly involved themselves in the affairs of lesser races, leading to world-changing results. One that I'll be focusing on early on, for instance, involves a dragon I'm calling Katakti the Basilisk Lord, who altered Dhakaani history by giving techniques of stealth and death to what would otherwise have been an unremarkable tribe of goblin warriors back in the glory days of the old empire.

While I don't plan on inventing any brand new magic systems for the game, I do plan on having players encounter tastes of otherworldly things.

-EDIT-

At least, I *WASN'T* planning on having a representative of Katakti's granted magic system, because I didn't want to invent "a Cleric or Wizard, but using THIS magic" or "a Druid, but with all stealth and death spells" or something like that. But then I remembered that the Assassin prestige class exists with its own unique flavor of magic spells that circle around stealth and death, and suddenly having an assassin following Katakti's tradition sounds very appealing (even if I can't figure out how to differentiate it from dragonmark-related traditions of assassin magic, or even if I need to make that distinction since the game's got plenty of non-elf assassins...)

Beneath
2018-05-05, 06:40 PM
The Tome of Magic in late 3e had a whole Shadow Magic system, so it's definitely a big enough concept to be a usable system. Can't say about Sky, and Emotion is possibly already well-trod ground (telepathic psionics, for ex)