How Do You Describe Your Vancian Mornings?

[unseenmage]

Each morning a Vancian caster must memorize, pray for, or otherwise ready their spells, infusions, and whatnot.

How do you describe this part of your character's day? Is it the same for each spellcaster you play?

Does it differ depending on class, race, locale, or other variable?

[noob]

I say that I prepare my spells when I am playing a wizard and I say I am praying while playing a cleric and I still did not play other prepared spell casters.

[heavyfuel]

In real life? I might say I prepare my spells, but in reality there's the assumption that everyone with prepared spells does this, so most of the time I don't even say anything. If I'm preparing anything too out of the ordinary, I'll tell my DM that I have that particular spell for the day, but most of the time the DM trusts the players to not screw over their prepared spells.

In the game? Exactly as it says on the book. Clerics pray for their deity; Druids also pray, I guess (not very familiar with Druid spellcasting, even though I'm currently playing one); Wizards do the ritual and complete 99% of their spells, leaving only the last spell components left to finish the ritual 100% and having the spell take effect.

[Falontani]

Wizard/Archivist: I pour over my notes, like a college student cramming for a test each morning, I meticulously count out every spell component I may need for the day, I visualize the magic in play, and if I have a colleague I will do scenarios with them and see what the proper response would be. I inform my comrades of my decisions and see if they have recommendations or requests for the types of magic that they may think is useful. I will hear out their plans, and decide that perhaps I will need a scroll of this spell for the singular use they believe I could use the spell for. Sorcerers make good at improvising a spell for different uses, so I listen to them, but always check to see if a different spell will accomplish their improvisation better.

Clerics/Druids: I attune myself to my provider of magic. I hear what it says, I hear it in my very soul. I call out in a thankful, but resolute tone demanding the magic, aligning myself to my calling. I will listen to the voices of my companions, but it is the powers that be that will have the final say in my magic for the day.

Artificer: I prepare my mundane implements, giving them the capability to channel the magic of the world. I feel the magic in my equipment, ensure it is operational, and look over the notes of those creators of magic that have come before. From the priests of Onatar to the scribes of Svis to the druids of the Eldeen, and to the Giants of Xendrik, and all between. Their example shows me the possibilities.

[Malphegor]

I always imagine my wizard/dweomerkeeper/geometer/cleric (just need 3 more classes in that mix before he’s done) levitating his spellbook in front of him, flicking through his notes with his mind, mumbling a pathetic prayer to Wee Jas asking for Omen of Peril (if I’m gonna take one cleric level I’m gonna take the really cool mini-augury), whilst spooning in his oatmeal. with his habds

But in reaity he actually doesn’t have the spells to levitate a book yet minus cantrips I guess

It’s just a thing you do during breakfast as a wizard

[Zaq]

I once played a spirit shaman whose backstory was a combination of Boatmurdered (a ridiculous and amazing communal LP of Dwarf Fortress; look it up, even if you know nothing about DF) and The Chrysanthemum Vow (an Edo-period ghost story made famous in Akinari’s “Ugetsu Monogatari”). The idea was that his spirit guide was actually his dead husband, who had killed himself so that his spirit could attend a promised meeting with my character that he wouldn’t have been able to attend in person.

But part of the joke was that my character didn’t know this. He knew that his husband had died while in the army off fighting in the Elephant Wars, but he didn’t know that this elephant spirit that showed up every morning was actually his lost beloved. So as I described it, his morning “ritual” for retrieving spells was basically just him drinking until the elephant went away. I worked with the GM to buy a proper everfull mug that would actually satisfy a stereotypically hard-drinking dwarf in preparation for this sort of thing. I had this character planned out for a few months before I got to bring him to the table, and most/all of the group knew this character was going to join the game and they knew this much of the joke.

So anyway, my character actually joined the party at some point. The first morning in-character, the GM asks what everyone’s doing to prep for the day. I look everyone in the eye and say, 100% deadpan, “Ach, there’s that damned elephant again! Very well. I take out my mug, fill ‘er up, and I commune with the spirits.”

It... took a few minutes for the group to regain composure. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of my pun delivery. Especially since I’d set it up so long ago without letting the punchline slip for months.

I stopped playing a spirit shaman when I realized that I, the player, was spending significantly more time than the character was on retrieving spells, and I realized I wasn’t okay with that. High-level prepped casting is a lot of work, and SS casting is only semi-prepped!

[Bakkan]

I don't always describe preparation in detail, but one of my characters, a Chaotic Transmuter who drew on the power of entropy to effect change, would pull out a small clockwork toy and drop it on the ground ritualistically, causing it to break and "releasing" its entropy.

[Segev]

Wizards prepare their spells by poring over their spellbooks for the specific rules and regulations, contracts and agreements, causes and effects they want to create the end result spells they'll prepare. They then perform rituals, incant words of bargains, make offerings, and - especially as they get higher level - cleverly balance trading deeds they must perform to fulfil their half a contract as things that they can PERMIT other beings to perform to also broker things the wizard needs.

In the end, his prepared spells are a number of effects he has performed ritual observances, spiritual favors, and magical brokerage according to well-defined rules and agreements which entitle him to the services of the forces of nature, magic, and reality according to specific gestures and words (and occasiona symbolic materials) which he can use to call in what he is owed in the form of particular effects.


Sorcerers and Bards do a less rigorous thing, entertaining and communing with spirits and entities which have befriended them and which owe them fealty, or whose masters have assigned them as servants. This communion establishes their duties to the spellcaster, which are - again - fulfilled for the day after they've provided services according to the spellcaster's precise words and gestures used to invoke those services and instruct their use.


Clerics pray for their spells, and are assigned things akin to what the wizard is owed or the sorcerer or bard has serving him, save that they're all operating in the same hierarchy and working ultimately for the same god(s), and thus the cleric's words and gestures need not be quite so precise, as the beings are both used to working with such spellcasters and more inclined to be forgiving of mistakes, due to common cause.


Druids have similar invocation benefits to Clerics, but have neither the extensive contracts of the wizards nor the personal retinue of spontaneous Cha-based casters. Lacking, too, the hierarchy of the clergy, they instead are inducted, themselves, into the same courts and families as the spiritual beings of nature themselves. They don't have to bargain; it is simply expected that their observances will in general serve Nature's purpose, and so Nature's spirits cooperatively respond to their prayers. There are enough out there that there's almost always some willing to answer and wait on the druid's call, though a druid who has not been sufficiently reverent towards nature may find more and more often that none will answer him.

[noob]

sadly sorcerers and bards are not vancian so it does not counts in the vancian morning routines.
Also it is definitively not what is written in the core set: sorcerers concentrate so you should specify that communing this way needs a lot of focus or something like that.

[DrBloodbathMC]

I've always imagined the way magic works in DnD similar to the Weave, even before I heard of it. Wizards particularly have notes on arcane formulas and once they study them for the day and decide what to prepare they pull on magic strands that connect the planes of existence, each spell needing energy from different planes so they reach out and pinch in mid-air dragging the strands around. Later the resulting spell is the energy releasing itself and returning to the plane it came from...so yeah VERY similar to the weave.