Schools, -mancies, -turgies, vagaries and other magical proficiencies

[Lacco]

Hello fellow Playgroundworldbuilders!

I turn to you because I am out of ideas and you have always been able to provide these! My newest old project has multiple magic systems and one of those is based on different "proficiencies"/"vagaries" of magic - basically a self-standing, relatively narrow areas of magic that the practitioner learns on their own.

It's for a sword & sorcery game and the specific magic tradition is something between sorcery, dark arts and Conanesque magic (plenty of bad things). However, I will be glad for any suggestions.

The fields can be as narrow as you like - they should not be too wide (e.g. "manipulation of light" is fine if it doesn't include illusions; that should be a different vagary). It should provide several possibilities, or just a single one. Also, don't worry about the power level or mechanics at this point - it's definitely going to be used outside of D&D, so no real issue with imbalance - the more "powerful" ones will be assigned to higher path and the less powerful to the lower path (lesser mysteries of magic) with higher/lower cost of entry.

I'm looking for both ideas for interesting magic (not necessarily combat-oriented or even useful!) and names for the vagaries/schools. Feel free to suggest multiple ones.

One suggestion: suffix "-mancy" is planned to be used as "divination" or "art", while "-urgy" as "execution" or "craft". Therefore necromancy is the art of talking to the dead and getting answers from spirits, while necrourgy is the one you use to create undead. But even that can be ignored

Spoiler: Ideas so Far

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Maledictio the vagary of Cursing
Used to curse, hex and put a bane on someone.

Pyromancy the vagary of Divination from Flames
Used to divine answers and destinies from flames & ashes.

Pyrurgy, school of Flames
Used to create, control and manipulate flames. Higher path, requires knowledge of Pyromancy.

Necromancy the Spiritual Divination
Used to conjure spirits of ancestors, local spirits and the dead to divine answers and destinies.

Necrarchy
Used to create and control undead. High path, requires knowledge of Necromancy. For creation of "high undead" (intelligent undead, including liches), knowledge of thymodesmia is required.

Curatio the vagary of Mending and Healing
Used to speed up the healing process, curing of diseases and ailments. Can be reversed to cause pain.

Imperium the vagary of Enslavement and Control
Used to mind control the living using short commands and suggestion.

Demonomancy
Used to summon reflections of demonic beings to divine answers and destinies. Can be reversed to summon also reflections of divine beings.

Demonourgy
Used to summon demonic beings and bind them to perform services for the caster. High path, requires knowledge of Demonomancy and Necromancy.

Phylakomancy
Used to divine defences one is currently using (both magical and non-magical). Can be targeted at place, person or item and allows the caster to divine the protections, protectors, traps and defences that have been set up to protect the target.

Phylakeia, the art of Warding
Used to create magic wards and protections.

Thymodesmia
Used to bind souls to inanimate objects (creating constructs). High path, requires knowledge of Necromancy or Demonomancy.

Carnoturgy
Allows one to change shape of one's body parts or shape bodies of others temporarily. High path, requires knowledge of Theriostesis (allows temporary change of body parts into animal body parts) or Curatio (allows temporary change of body parts to resemble a different humanoid). Requires careful study and each shape needs to be learned separately.

Onomatomancy, the vagary of Taboo Name
Allows one to detect when certain name is spoken. High path, requires knowledge of Scrying, Imperio and one of Necromancy or Demonomancy. The ritual is long and complicated, but needs to be done only once per certain time.

Onomaturgy, the vagary of Cursed Name
Allows the caster to set a spell that acts when certain name is spoken. High path, requires knowledge of Nomenmancy and the spell that is used. Needs to be learned separately per effect.

Geofthoria the Dark Art of Blight
Allows one to call blight on land, causing terrible things to happen - withering plants, terrible weather, pestilence on animals. High path, requires knowledge of Cursing and either Necroturgy or Demonoturgy.

Loimurgy the Dark Art of Plague
The same as Blight, but works on people. High path, requires knowledge of Cursing and either Necroturgy or Demonoturgy.

Theriostesis
Used to borrow senses of beasts and understanding of their thoughts.

Spoiler: Ideas with bad/no names

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Transfiguratio
Allows one to change whole body into a different shape, either animalistic (using Carnoturgy and Theriostesis) or humanoid (using Carnoturgy and Curatio). Requires careful study and each shape needs to be learned separately.

Scrying
Used for sending one's consciousness to a distant location to observe events.

Witchfire
Using magic for attack.

Beast Control
Used to control animals and call them to one's aid and service temporarily. High path requires control of Beastmancy. For full, non-temporary control, knowledge of Animaligoturgy is required.

Spoiler: Ideas from the Thread

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Kudos to sktarq and Metastachydium):

Chronurgy/chronomancy: The magic of time (may need to be split - chronurgy for the control, chronomancy for viewing). Includes such things as being able to see back in time (think like WOD-Vampire's spirit touch), haste, slow, gentle repose, and later time stop but can also cause people to loose time in general...Can also be combined carefully if for example a heavily damaged item is not understood Cronomancy can pull the "memory" of what the item was like from the past and then use Assemble to restore it.

Litharchy : The type of magic for move earth, stone shape, earth to stone, stone to earth, wall of stone etc.

Thanaturgy: Enervate, tire, depress, and eventually drain the very life and soul from your targets. Possible hauntings and non-corporeal undead may be an issue/side effect.

Phytarchy : Growth, fertility, crop growth, animated vines, blue roses, aggressive nettles and briars, covering tracks, that animated oak tree smacking your target on the top of the head and then telling you that someone has put a body under its roots.

Tool/pocket Magic: Summon a temporary item for use. Need a rope?, A weapon? Always have what you need! Also comes in handy for creating infinite arrows for enchanted bows and cleverclogs can do all sorts with it.

Dream Magic: Kinda what it says. But has a fair number of uses. Not only can it cause nightmares, it can lead to powerful if vague divination effects when fully mastered, and gain information from and about targets. Rumours of being able to contact the "world dream"/ "dreamland"/"Arcadia" are all given polite smiles by the masters of this art.

Tying Magic: Needs to have one other school before this one. Mostly works on other magic, it creates effects like permanent spells, contingency spell effects (with if/then statements getting better as you master it), delayed effects and the like. Also key to creating magic items. [/QUOTE]

Taboo Magic: Used to create a powerful aura that masks the target - people will walk around it, avoid it for no reason, ignore it as far as possible. It is removed from awareness of people.

Vampiric Magic: Weakening spells, I was thinking of transferring attributes temporarily or even finally from the target to the caster or another person. Basically you take their intellect, strength or even charm... temporarily. The caster can not hold it for long, so regular refills are necessary

Emotional Manipulation: Increases or decreases the intensity of feelings of a person or even a crowd. The caster can only use emotions that are present, but makes them much stronger. Requires either eye contact or speaking.

Charm/Eros emotional manipulation. More subtle, long lasting, and works on an emotional basis instead of order basis. Very useful in long term manipulation. And the lack of hard control produces less triggers to say things are wrong. Which I would think would be a good target. Plus in keeping "free will" the targets are prone to being...story worthy...they will do stuff on their own initiative but basically beyond the direction of the caster...including lots of ways to screw things up. If you want to make emotions a more hard limit like telepathy I get that but if it overlap that is a lot of ground you are asking Imperio to cover then. May want to break it up depending on how often it has a chance to come up. Requires Emotional Manipulation.

Fear/Attraction: Creating an aura for the target. Make your scarecrows actually spook crows, make fish extra interested in your lure, herd people away from your tower but toward your shop, and the glow up we can do before the ball every young suitor will be amazed! All these and more for your time and mastery of this school!


Weather Control: Call rain, summon a sunny day for friend's wedding. Mass with an invading army by turning fields to mud or push their fleets away from your shore. If you're really good at it feeling frisky maybe call down a lightning bolt or tornado.

Invisible Force: Think Wall of Force, maybe mage armor, the various Bigby's Hand spells, Tenser's disk, and with AI invisible servant, and a sorting type spell (VERY USEFUL...think gold nuggets, agricultural uses etc)

Space Magic: May need to be divided between high and low levels. But makes for your Rope trick, bags of holding, passwall, and eventually teleport type magics.

Planned death: The use of death energy in healing. Where others repair this kills in a targeted way to shift the balance of life and death. Solves cancer, fungus, parasites, some forms of possession, and bacterial infections for example. If you really want to mess with people make some other type of necromantic spellcraft a prerequisite for this one.

Genis Loci: High Path Binds magic to land itself. Can cast through the land,an d cast over MUCH larger areas. This path is known to be highly tied to Fae magic and the Fae themselves who, for example, can combine it with space magic to have entire parties skip over their lands.

Control Sound: Basically the realm of spells like silence, shout, and sonic illusions. I guess in theory a clever mage could pull sound themselves allowing them to eavesdrop to a fair degree.

Mana Manipulation: Controling the mana levels by changing the way it ebbs and flows. Negating magic or reinforcing certain kinds of magic.

Oinomancy ('divination from wine') which could include stuff like reading the future from spilled drinks and (this would be my highlight) the ability to enter an oracular trance via getting drunk

Hemomancy: Requires necromancy. A form of divination by blood that allows for questions to be asked about the person who "donated"...even if that person doesn't know in their mind. May also be used to ask questions about the ancestors of donor but at a penalty.

Hematurgy, or the manipulation of blood, which could be used for anything ranging from causing strokes through increasing heartbeat to put someone in a given emotional state to increasing blood flow to the brain to temporarily enhance mental faculties. Also, weakening through stopping of blood and ability to clot/unclot wounds and making people bleed.

Squirt/wend by sliding the spaces between space a mage can cover the distance between in almost no time. This involves squeezing one's self through a single 0 dimensional point and coming out elsewhere. While much simpler and reliable than the Space method of teleportation it is quite limited in range (about 100m blind or 500 m in line of sight?). It is technically possible to pull someone along you when casting this spell if quite difficult. Also this always leaves the caster disoriented and nauseous afterward (effectively stunned on arrival and can't use it too much)

Quiet passage/forget: Requires necromancy and (imperio or taboo)? . This dead are forgotten. Much of what they are is lost when they die and some of that is left behind. TIny fragments of personality and memory. This magic collects this and coats the caster in these tiny fragments of personality. By itself it makes the caster seem to fade in the background of the human world. Sure he is there but he is just another person. This would hover be easily broken by anyone interacting with them except that the magic is reinforced with the magic of imperio or taboo for others to not truly look at the issue. Thus the caster can largely avoid notice. It is not that they are not seen but just not cared about or remembered. Others will say the caster was normal and their memories are blurry (he was just some guy ya know?). This spells effects are broken if any dramatic or violent action is taken by the caster (are limited to medium walking speed) and are also limited to the most basic social interaction (quick purchases, hellos, directions, etc)...nor may the casters equipment call attention to themselves....But if nothing disturbs the spell it allow the caster to move around their daily business with few paying much attention to them. The spell even extends to a mage's aura. This spell also lasts a great deal of time without additional magical exertion. Many such mages find this power very useful when traveling but tedious near their homes.

Bedlam: This creates a blast of chaotic energy that infects the minds of the people around the caster. In short it causes people around the caster to go nuts. Hallucinations, extreme random violence, catatonia, you name it. No force can control the specific effects of the blast as the caster is calling on the forces of chaos itself but violence is common as is a general drop in inhibition.

Okay playground, don't let me down! I'm counting on your ideas!

Also, questions are welcome.

[Metastachydium]

Hello fellow Playgroundworldbuilders!

I turn to you because I am out of ideas and you have always been able to provide these! My newest old project has multiple magic systems and one of those is based on different "proficiencies"/"vagaries" of magic - basically a self-standing, relatively narrow areas of magic that the practitioner learns on their own.

It's for a sword & sorcery game and the specific magic tradition is something between sorcery, dark arts and Conanesque magic (plenty of bad things). However, I will be glad for any suggestions.

The fields can be as narrow as you like - they should not be too wide (e.g. "manipulation of light" is fine if it doesn't include illusions; that should be a different vagary). It should provide several possibilities, or just a single one. Also, don't worry about the power level or mechanics at this point - it's definitely going to be used outside of D&D, so no real issue with imbalance - the more "powerful" ones will be assigned to higher path and the less powerful to the lower path (lesser mysteries of magic) with higher/lower cost of entry.

I'm looking for both ideas for interesting magic (not necessarily combat-oriented or even useful!) and names for the vagaries/schools. Feel free to suggest multiple ones.

One suggestion: suffix "-mancy" is planned to be used as "divination" or "art", while "-turgy" as "execution" or "craft". Therefore necromancy is the art of talking to the dead and getting answers from spirits, while necroturgy is the one you use to create undead. But even that can be ignored

Spoiler: Ideas so Far

Show

Maledictia the vagary of Cursing
Used to curse, hex and put a bane on someone.

Pyromancy the vagary of Divination from Flames
Used to divine answers and destinies from flames & ashes.

Pyroturgy, school of Flames
Used to create, control and manipulate flames. Higher path, requires knowledge of Pyromancy.

Necromancy the Spiritual Divination
Used to conjure spirits of ancestors, local spirits and the dead to divine answers and destinies.

Necroturgy
Used to create and control undead. High path, requires knowledge of Necromancy. For creation of "high undead" (intelligent undead, including liches), knowledge of Animaligoturgy is required.

Curatio the vagary of Mending and Healing
Used to speed up the healing process, curing of diseases and ailments. Can be reversed to cause pain.

Imperio the vagary of Enslavement and Control
Used to mind control the living using short commands and suggestion.

Demonomancy
Used to summon reflections of demonic beings to divine answers and destinies. Can be reversed to summon also reflections of divine beings.

Demonoturgy
Used to summon demonic beings and bind them to perform services for the caster. High path, requires knowledge of Demonomancy and Necromancy.

Defendomancy
Used to divine defences one is currently using (both magical and non-magical). Can be targeted at place, person or item and allows the caster to divine the protections, protectors, traps and defences that have been set up to protect the target.

Deterroturgy, the art of Warding
Used to create magic wards and protections.

Animaligoturgy
Used to bind souls to inanimate objects (creating constructs). High path, requires knowledge of Necromancy or Demonomancy.

Carnoturgy
Allows one to change shape of one's body parts or shape bodies of others temporarily. High path, requires knowledge of Beastamancy (allows temporary change of body parts into animal body parts) or Curatio (allows temporary change of body parts to resemble a different humanoid). Requires careful study and each shape needs to be learned separately.

Nomenmancy
Allows one to detect when certain name is spoken. High path, requires knowledge of Scrying, Imperio and one of Necromancy or Demonomancy. The ritual is long and complicated, but needs to be done only once per certain time.

Nomenturgy
Allows the caster to set a spell that acts when certain name is spoken. High path, requires knowledge of Nomenmancy and the spell that is used. Needs to be learned separately per effect.

Spoiler: Ideas with bad/no names

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Shapeshifting
Allows one to change whole body into a different shape, either animalistic (using Carnoturgy and Beastamancy) or humanoid (using Carnoturgy and Curatio). Requires careful study and each shape needs to be learned separately.

Scrying
Used for sending one's consciousness to a distant location to observe events.

Witchfire
Using magic for attack.

Beastamancy
Used to borrow senses of beasts and understanding of their thoughts.

Beast Control
Used to control animals and call them to one's aid and service temporarily. High path requires control of Beastmancy. For full, non-temporary control, knowledge of Animaligoturgy is required.

Blight
Allows one to call blight on land, causing terrible things to happen - withering plants, terrible weather, pestilence on animals. High path, requires knowledge of Cursing and either Necroturgy or Demonoturgy.

Plague
The same as Blight, but works on people. High path, requires knowledge of Cursing and either Necroturgy or Demonoturgy.

Okay playground, don't let me down! I'm counting on your ideas!

Also, questions are welcome.

Okay.
1. I'm really-really glad to see -mancy used with its proper meaning.
2. There's no such suffix as -turgy. The suffix you are looking for is in fact -ergy, which mostly appears to be -urgy because the epsilon contracts witha root final omicron (Greek is weird like that). Therefore, *pyroturgy should, in fact, be pyrurgy and so on.
3. Mixing Latin (or (heaven forbid!) English) roots with Greek prefixes is not all that elegant, if you ask me. *Nomenmancy (here you should use the proper root (nomin-), rather than the nominative form) should be onomatomancy (and *nominergy should be onomaturgy).
4. Don't shy away from using less common prefixes! Your *beastamancy could be something like theriostesis ('beast-sensing') instead.
5. Not everything needs a fancy prefix. Your (horribly mangled) *deterroturgy could simply be (e.g) phylakeia.
Other assorted notes: instead of maledictia and imperio (?) I'd use maledictio and imperium; I think your *defendomancy is a redundant category: while other forms of divination are differentiated based on the method used, this is not a method or approach, but rather a goal; I have no idea how you made *animaligoturgy, but I wouldn't use it – I would suggest you call the thing pneumaturgy or something like that instead.

[Lacco]

1. I'm really-really glad to see -mancy used with its proper meaning.

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Everything helps.

And I'm glad I did something right

2. There's no such suffix as -turgy. The suffix you are looking for is in fact -ergy, which mostly appears to be -urgy because the epsilon contracts witha root final omicron (Greek is weird like that). Therefore, *pyroturgy should, in fact, be pyrurgy and so on.

Okay, changing as far as possible/as far as I know how.

Please check if I have messed it up more.

3. Mixing Latin (or (heaven forbid!) English) roots with Greek prefixes is not all that elegant, if you ask me. *Nomenmancy (here you should use the proper root (nomin-), rather than the nominative form) should be onomatomancy (and *nominergy should be onomaturgy).

Question: what would be the rules for using -turgy vs. -urgy? I am asking becuase of the onomaturgy - is there a rule "if the core word ends on a, t is added"?

"Nominmancy" sounds better but I'll go with Onomatomancy.

As for the mixing - yeah, should have studied languages more, but that's why I come here! People teach me stuff

4. Don't shy away from using less common prefixes! Your *beastamancy could be something like theriostesis ('beast-sensing') instead.

Nice one!

...what are the less common prefixes?

5. Not everything needs a fancy prefix. Your (horribly mangled) *deterroturgy could simply be (e.g) phylakeia.
Other assorted notes: instead of maledictia and imperio (?) I'd use maledictio and imperium; I think your *defendomancy is a redundant category: while other forms of divination are differentiated based on the method used, this is not a method or approach, but rather a goal; I have no idea how you made *animaligoturgy, but I wouldn't use it – I would suggest you call the thing pneumaturgy or something like that instead.

What does "phylakeia" mean?

With defendomancy - the goal is to provide a very specific spell category. Specifically, you focus on your target and in your minds' eye you see the defences implemented. Measure of success of your roll will determine how precise the vision will be and how much information you gain. Still, the name is terrible, but I have no idea how to rename it.

As for animaligoturgy - it was google translate *blushes*. Well, I took the words for soul & bind and put them together as the barbarian I am. Pneumaturgy sounds great, but I'd use that one for underwater breathing or something like that.

Still, thanks for the quick response and thorough linguistic help! If you have more, or have a suggestion, I'll be glad to hear it (read it).

[Metastachydium]

Okay, changing as far as possible/as far as I know how.

Please check if I have messed it up more.

The u in -urgy is an u rather than an e because the e merges with a short o before it. Thus *necrourgy, *demonourgy would be necrurgy and demonurgy, respectively.

Question: what would be the rules for using -turgy vs. -urgy? I am asking becuase of the onomaturgy - is there a rule "if the core word ends on a, t is added"?

Like I said, there's no such thing as *-turgy. The actual root of nouns that have their nominatives in -ma is -mat- (I'm not kidding). The t is part of the root and not the suffix.

...what are the less common prefixes?

Uh, by prefixes I meant suffixes, and by suffixes I meant truncated words that you can slap to other words with forming compounds in mind. Another such suffix you could try is -archy. If you assume that, say, necrarchy or theriarchy are contracted from genetivi obiectivi, they could mean 'rule/control over the dead/beasts' (if I remember correctly, you need a term for the latter).

What does "phylakeia" mean?

'Protection'.

With defendomancy - the goal is to provide a very specific spell category. Specifically, you focus on your target and in your minds' eye you see the defences implemented. Measure of success of your roll will determine how precise the vision will be and how much information you gain. Still, the name is terrible, but I have no idea how to rename it.

Shouldn't that be something you can do in numerous ways (consulting the flames, the dead, the demons etc.)?

As for animaligoturgy - it was google translate *blushes*. Well, I took the words for soul & bind and put them together as the barbarian I am. Pneumaturgy sounds great, but I'd use that one for underwater breathing or something like that.

Ah, I see. I had no idea where the g came from, but now it's clear. Still, this one must go. I'd personally try and convince you to take pneumaturgy for this, since underwater breathing sounds a bit narrow for a specialization (or, at any rate, hardly comparable to binding souls to objects, which can be a versatile tool), but if you don't like the idea, we'll figure out something else.

Still, thanks for the quick response and thorough linguistic help! If you have more, or have a suggestion, I'll be glad to hear it (read it).

Hm. You could use geofthoria ('land-destruction') for blight, I suppose. By the way, is plague an upgrade of blight that also works on people, or it is blight applied to people specifically?

[quinron]

As somebody who's a big fan of all the various -mancies and their particular crafts, this is pretty fun for me. However, considering you're using -mancy correctly as a divination-related suffix, I wonder whether you're actually going to see much use from it (the suffix, that is).

The various forms of divination all more-or-less did the same thing - seeing the future - just in varying forms and to varying degrees. Cartomancy could answer a specific question from an individual and tasseomancy could give general ideas of an individual's future, while haruspicy could see the fate of an important figure like a king or even see the fate of a whole city or nation.

I think that having a vagary that's just "cursing" hamstrings this a lot. Considering curses can be very easily read as "malign manipulations of fate," it could be fun to include certain cursing potential in every form of divination. And honestly, it could be as simple as "giving false readings of the cards/tea leaves/entrails to suggest negative courses of action," but it could also easily be active malediction of some kind.

[Lacco]

The u in -urgy is an u rather than an e because the e merges with a short o before it. Thus *necrourgy, *demonourgy would be necrurgy and demonurgy, respectively.

In this case I'll go with "what is easier on the eyes/reading".

Like I said, there's no such thing as *-turgy. The actual root of nouns that have their nominatives in -ma is -mat- (I'm not kidding). The t is part of the root and not the suffix.

Makes perfect sense. And I'm not kidding either.

Uh, by prefixes I meant suffixes, and by suffixes I meant truncated words that you can slap to other words with forming compounds in mind. Another such suffix you could try is -archy. If you assume that, say, necrarchy or theriarchy are contracted from genetivi obiectivi, they could mean 'rule/control over the dead/beasts' (if I remember correctly, you need a term for the latter).

Necrarchy sounds even better than necrourgy/necrurgy, so I'll be taking that.

Shouldn't that be something you can do in numerous ways (consulting the flames, the dead, the demons etc.)?

Yes.

Think of it as follows:
You can either train in demonomancy and then summon a dangerous demon that may or may not be irritated by you encroaching upon his time just to ask about what protects your target and if something goes badly, you get something terrible and angry... or you can train in demonomancy and demonurgy and summon a demon to ask him to overcome the protection of your target... or you can practice the simple, but narrowly focused discipline that makes you see images of traps, locks and guards and the worst case you get is a headache and no images at all...

That one is mainly for dabblers that do not wish to go into magic seriously, but I think it has a place.

I also think people would experiment with magic and try to find all kinds of strange uses for it (think prestidigitation in D&D - one of its uses is changing taste of food... for me? One of the most logical spells...).

So yes, it's a bit redundant - but it offers options. And I like those in a magic system.

Ah, I see. I had no idea where the g came from, but now it's clear. Still, this one must go. I'd personally try and convince you to take pneumaturgy for this, since underwater breathing sounds a bit narrow for a specialization (or, at any rate, hardly comparable to binding souls to objects, which can be a versatile tool), but if you don't like the idea, we'll figure out something else.

I'm open to suggestions and will gladly make rid of that one if you offer a good suggestion. I'm not against pneumaturgy - as we can definitely talk about creating golems with that one and that means "breathing life into that which is dead"... but I'm not sure about it. Maybe something with spirits? Animi? Dunno. Or maybe we could look at even more obscure languages

As for pneumaturgy... I am now almost convinced it needs to be one of the disciplines. Not only breathing under water, but breathing as such - water, poison gas, void, being choked, even CPR.

And don't worry about narrow specializations: the system this is intended for works nothing like D&D. The way it works is that a starting magic user character has on average about 7 points to invest into these, with 1 point in Pneumaturgy providing all of the possible effects I mentioned. So they can put the rest into other, more wide disciplines.

Will it be niche? Yes, most probably. But that's fine.

Hm. You could use geofthoria ('land-destruction') for blight, I suppose. By the way, is plague an upgrade of blight that also works on people, or it is blight applied to people specifically?

I'd say the latter. If you want the land intact, you choose the latter.

The former goes for the land. It's there mostly to get druids angry.

As somebody who's a big fan of all the various -mancies and their particular crafts, this is pretty fun for me. However, considering you're using -mancy correctly as a divination-related suffix, I wonder whether you're actually going to see much use from it (the suffix, that is).

In this case I see it as a suggestion, not an actual rule. I know, it sounds a bit contradictory - I would like the names of the disciplines as close to actual function as possible, but I also think of these as a matter of "fad". Meaning that you can get a "mancy" that actually does something beyond divination and "urgy" that divines. So go wild!

The various forms of divination all more-or-less did the same thing - seeing the future - just in varying forms and to varying degrees. Cartomancy could answer a specific question from an individual and tasseomancy could give general ideas of an individual's future, while haruspicy could see the fate of an important figure like a king or even see the fate of a whole city or nation.

I'll make sure to include these into the list - mechanically they are the same (see below).

I think that having a vagary that's just "cursing" hamstrings this a lot. Considering curses can be very easily read as "malign manipulations of fate," it could be fun to include certain cursing potential in every form of divination. And honestly, it could be as simple as "giving false readings of the cards/tea leaves/entrails to suggest negative courses of action," but it could also easily be active malediction of some kind.

And that's why there is "...and destinies" in every "mancy" so far.

There is a fair bit of mechanics beyond it, but it boils down to the following: when you use divination mechanics, you can ask a question ("will the king succeed?"; "Who is the dark man?", etc.) or you can state a prophecy ("I foresee that the king will not succeed!"). The first one gives you an answer - determined by the dice/the GM - and possibly Omen. The second one gives you just the Omen. Omen is a dice pool mechanic, which acts as modifier to rolls that bring in the destiny as stated.

Spoiler: King Example

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King Example of Exempligratia calls Prophy the Prophet (a PC) to tell him his fate. He asks Prophy "How will I die?" and Prophy looks into flames, using his powerful pyromancy magic.
Prophy rolls his 10d10 with target number of 6, getting 3 successes (not a bad result). The GM already has a fate for the king in his mind and gives him a strong vision of king's head on an orcish spear, city burning with fires of war, betrayal of a red headed woman and the dark moon.
The king gets an Omen 1 (which means whenever he tries to fight the destiny, he gets a penalty of -1 to his roll, and whenever he does something that will bring the destiny closer to fruition, he gets additional 1 die).

Cursing works similarly, but with more power and less long-term impacts. You see, if Prophy from the example did instead Curse the king, he would get Curse 6 (similarly as Omen it would work as penalty for the King to avoid the curse, but also as bonus for everybody else to bring it closer!)... but every time something bad happens to the king, the curse rating gets lower and lower as the curse runs its course.

[Metastachydium]

Necrarchy sounds even better than necrourgy/necrurgy, so I'll be taking that.

Cool! How do you feel about theriarchy for beast control?

Yes.

Think of it as follows:
You can either train in demonomancy and then summon a dangerous demon that may or may not be irritated by you encroaching upon his time just to ask about what protects your target and if something goes badly, you get something terrible and angry... or you can train in demonomancy and demonurgy and summon a demon to ask him to overcome the protection of your target... or you can practice the simple, but narrowly focused discipline that makes you see images of traps, locks and guards and the worst case you get is a headache and no images at all...

That one is mainly for dabblers that do not wish to go into magic seriously, but I think it has a place.

I also think people would experiment with magic and try to find all kinds of strange uses for it (think prestidigitation in D&D - one of its uses is changing taste of food... for me? One of the most logical spells...).

So yes, it's a bit redundant - but it offers options. And I like those in a magic system.

Understood. I will recommend phylakomancy for this, then. It's not perfect (the first half of these words normally denotes the thing one divines from, but that's not applicable here), but it's simple which is not a bad thing.

I'm open to suggestions and will gladly make rid of that one if you offer a good suggestion. I'm not against pneumaturgy - as we can definitely talk about creating golems with that one and that means "breathing life into that which is dead"... but I'm not sure about it. Maybe something with spirits? Animi? Dunno. Or maybe we could look at even more obscure languages

As for pneumaturgy... I am now almost convinced it needs to be one of the disciplines. Not only breathing under water, but breathing as such - water, poison gas, void, being choked, even CPR.

And don't worry about narrow specializations: the system this is intended for works nothing like D&D. The way it works is that a starting magic user character has on average about 7 points to invest into these, with 1 point in Pneumaturgy providing all of the possible effects I mentioned. So they can put the rest into other, more wide disciplines.

Will it be niche? Yes, most probably. But that's fine.

How about thymodesmia (appr. 'soul-binding')?

I'd say the latter. If you want the land intact, you choose the latter.

The former goes for the land. It's there mostly to get druids angry.

Alright. I'd still suggest geofthoria for blight and you could go with, I don't know, loimurgy (<λοιμος 'plague') for, well, plague.

[sktarq]

Okay so just some ideas.
As you still seem to be working working systems of naming stuff and naming takes a long time for me anyway (and may need multiple names in various areas of the world) I'll just skip a lot of that. And while I totally get that this is not for D&D spells I'm going to uses some as examples of the things you can do with one of the mini-schools. Also a lot of these would be aimed at the NPC's of the world more than the PC's but would be socially important and shape the world the PC's interact with.

Assembly/Craft Magic: Fabricating of non magical stuff from non living matter using magic. Turn a bunch of cut hemp into a rope for example...can also repair/restore objects if properly understood.

Tool/pocket Magic: Summon a temporary item for use. Need a rope?, A weapon? Always have what you need! Also comes in handy for creating infinite arrows for enchanted bows and cleverclogs can do all sorts with it.

Tying Magic: Needs to have one other school before this one. Mostly works on other magic, it creates effects like permanent spells, contingency spell effects (with if/then statements getting better as you master it), delayed effects and the like. Also key to creating magic items.

Telepathy: Basically what it says on the tin. Can detect minds, read minds, and talk to minds.

Alter Senses: Must know Telepathy...but can now alter how the target's senses report back to their mind. While it does not create an illusion anyone can see it can create powerful illusions for the target, can remove certain things from their awareness, but can also just be used to blind deafen, or make very clumsy (by blocking their kinethetic sense)...careful users can even manipulate touch so that targets don't feel bindings, or can cause social havoc by giving a target the sense of being touched when nobody nearby should be able/allowed to.

Charm/Eros Magic: The realm of your charm person, type spells, as well as love potions and the like....requires telepathy. More emotional that Imperio.

Dream Magic: Kinda what it says. But has a fair number of uses. Not only can it cause nightmares, it can lead to powerful if vague divination effects when fully mastered, and gain information from and about targets. Rumours of being able to contact the "world dream"/ "dreamland"/"Arcadia" are all given polite smiles by the masters of this art.

Plant Magic: Growth, fertility, crop growth, animated vines, blue roses, aggressive nettles and briars, covering tracks, that animated oak tree smacking your target on the top of the head and then telling you that someone has put a body under its roots...lots of uses for this stuff. [B]

Cronomancy: The magic of time (may need to be split). Includes such things as being able to see back in time (think like WOD-Vampire's spirit touch), haste, slow, gentle repose, and later time stop but can also cause people to loose time in general...Can also be combined carefully if for example a heavily damaged item is not understood Cronomancy can pull the "memory" of what the item was like from the past and then use Assemble to restore it.

AI/Ghost mind: Where demonology calls an intelligent spirit, and some necromancy calls a dead intelligent soul this magic creates a magic intelligence that is a reflection of mage themselves. By itself it creates, in effect, an internal personal assistant. Very good at helping with calendars, remembering lists, keeping track of the time, etc. And with some skill they can even be used as personal trainers (reminding to behave certain ways etc). And don't underestimate this, these people tend to be highly organized, hard to distract, and remember people's names/birthdays/kids etc ... even if they tend to mutter to themselves quite often. But when combined with other magic this school very much shines, especially with animation invisible force fire etc...interesting it doesn't make good classic constructs but can make homonculi when properly combined.

Animation: Animate object on a grand and complicated scale. Turning winches, self opening doors, self opening locks, are chatty gargoyle plaque etc....Also helps with swords that bend toward their targets and the like. Usually very dumb unless combine with AI

Invisible Force: Think Wall of Force, maybe mage armor, the various Bigby's Hand spells, Tenser's disk, and with AI invisible servant, and a sorting type spell (VERY USEFUL...think gold nuggets, agricultural uses etc)

Alter Life: A very advanced school this one allows for the permanent changes to a living being. Change eye color or give someone a beak. Over time monsters can be created but at only great risk of failure.

Stonework: The type of magic for move earth, stone shape, earth to stone, stone to earth, wall of stone etc. But can also fertilize fields.

Weather Control: Basically what it says. Call rain, summon a sunny day for friend's wedding. Mass with an invading army by turning fields to mud or push their fleets away from your shore. If you're really good at it feeling frisky maybe call down a lightning bolt or tornado.

Fear/Attraction: Make your scarecrows actually spook crows, make fish extra interested in your lure, herd people away from your tower but toward your shop, and the glow up we can do before the ball every young suitor will be amazed! All these and more for your time and mastery of this school!

Death Energy: Enervate, tire, depress, and eventually drain the very life and soul from your targets. Possible hauntings and non-corporeal undead may be an issue/side effect.

invigorate high magic: requires curatio and death energy. Allows for the tiredness etc to be drawn out and replaced with healing energy. At first just allows for magic all nighters, long marches etc but can with full master slow ageing itself to a crawl.

Space Magic: May need to be divided between high and low levels. But makes for your Rope trick, bags of holding, passwall, and eventually teleport type magics.

Planned death: The use of death energy in healing. Where others repair this kills in a targeted way to shift the balance of life and death. Solves cancer, fungus, parasites, some forms of possession, and bacterial infections for example. If you really want to mess with people make some other type of necromantic spellcraft a prerequisite for this one.

Genis Familia/bloodline magic: Use the spirits, memories, and skills of your ancestors (or the ancestors of someone you have blood of handy) to aid you today...oh and this isn't a nice chat with grandad this is actually a form of semi-controlled possession.

Genis Loci: High Path Binds magic to land itself. Can cast through the land,an d cast over MUCH larger areas. This path is known to be highly tied to Fae magic and the Fae themselves who, for example, can combine it with space magic to have entire parties skip over their lands.

Control Sound: Basically the realm of spells like silence, shout, and sonic illusions. I guess in theory a clever mage could pull sound themselves allowing them to eavesdrop to a fair degree.

Adjust item change an item harden, sharpen, change colour...make your enemies sword limp as noodle. you get the idea. important school for crafters of magic objects

unwind take apart or suppress other magic

[Lacco]

Cool! How do you feel about theriarchy for beast control?

Not sure about that one - any other options?

Understood. I will recommend phylakomancy for this, then. It's not perfect (the first half of these words normally denotes the thing one divines from, but that's not applicable here), but it's simple which is not a bad thing.

Phylakomancy it is.

Now that I think about it... is it the same core word as the one used for "phylactery"?

How about thymodesmia (appr. 'soul-binding')?

I'm a bit on the fence about this one - I like the second part, but not the first part. It's still better than the one I have currently... so if nothing else comes up, I'll use it. Thank you.

Alright. I'd still suggest geofthoria for blight and you could go with, I don't know, loimurgy (<λοιμος 'plague') for, well, plague.

These two I definitely like.

Okay so just some ideas.
As you still seem to be working working systems of naming stuff and naming takes a long time for me anyway (and may need multiple names in various areas of the world) I'll just skip a lot of that. And while I totally get that this is not for D&D spells I'm going to uses some as examples of the things you can do with one of the mini-schools. Also a lot of these would be aimed at the NPC's of the world more than the PC's but would be socially important and shape the world the PC's interact with.

I'm glad for any inputs at this point. And yes, naming's my weakness as well. So let's see:

Assembly/Craft Magic: Fabricating of non magical stuff from non living matter using magic. Turn a bunch of cut hemp into a rope for example...can also repair/restore objects if properly understood.

I'm all for the assembly magic/repair magic, but outright creation should be really hard. Still, the repair/restore will be definitely used.

But it will have most probably something with time.

One thing I should also mention: I like the unknowable. The unnamable. Fan of Lovecraft, all that stuff. Especially with magic: while most systems give explanations, I prefer giving multiple explanations that may or may not be wrong. And magic, while definitely used also for repairs/assembly, should be too dangerous to use too commonly. And while there may be few locations where magic is used freely, magic has its cost and people do not view it as helpful tool, but as a tool of power (that does not mean there are no helpful uses).

I know, this goes against most of playstyles, but I'm a niche guy .

That's why I'd go for repair magic actually being the "it turns time a bit back to the point where the weapon was sharp", with dangers equal to people messing with time magic.

Tool/pocket Magic: Summon a temporary item for use. Need a rope?, A weapon? Always have what you need! Also comes in handy for creating infinite arrows for enchanted bows and cleverclogs can do all sorts with it.

Temporary simple tools yes. Made out of pure raw mana, renewed at each moment. An archmage will be able to wield a staff of mana, but a student will be happy to create a magic stone.

Tying Magic: Needs to have one other school before this one. Mostly works on other magic, it creates effects like permanent spells, contingency spell effects (with if/then statements getting better as you master it), delayed effects and the like. Also key to creating magic items.

A metamagic. Yes, definitely will use this one.

The idea is that there are 4 types of casting (and associated skills) for this tradition: spellcasting, ritual casting and weaving being the standard, enchanting being an outlier. First one is just a simple spell - e.g. you fire a curse or a bolt of energy at your enemy. Second one takes time, resources, but will allow you to strike from afar, unnoticed, using ritual components and links and help. Weaving allows you to mix & match spells: for example casting a warding spell together with the curse, to weave simple wards into any spell you cast.

Casting times will also come into play, where you can shorten the time it takes to cast a complex spell, but at a cost of higher difficulty. Weaving will allow you to defend yourself or even multitask.

And the "tying magic" will contain components for weaving, just as you mentioned. Also useful for enchanting, as you will need to perform multiple spells just to make the enchantment last for longer than just few minutes.

I'd even suggest a thematic name - thaumaturgy? Maybe something that says "spells for spells/other spells". Will have to think about it.

Telepathy: Basically what it says on the tin. Can detect minds, read minds, and talk to minds.

I'd avoid full on telepathy - reading surface thoughts, moods, even influencing them - definitely yes. Sending thoughts as voice into someone's head? Yep. But reading minds... I was thinking of it and it would have to be nerfed hard (e.g. fine with drugged, tied down subjects, with sufficient time, but not really useful during normal times).

Alter Senses: Must know Telepathy...but can now alter how the target's senses report back to their mind. While it does not create an illusion anyone can see it can create powerful illusions for the target, can remove certain things from their awareness, but can also just be used to blind deafen, or make very clumsy (by blocking their kinethetic sense)...careful users can even manipulate touch so that targets don't feel bindings, or can cause social havoc by giving a target the sense of being touched when nobody nearby should be able/allowed to.
Charm/Eros Magic: The realm of your charm person, type spells, as well as love potions and the like....requires telepathy. More emotional that Imperio.

Already included in Imperium spells. You basically tell the other guy what he sees/feels/knows and he reacts accordingly. They get chance to snap out of it, but if you tell them their weapon is a deadly spider, they will try to throw it away, kill it and if bitten - in their mind - they may actually die.

There is a downside. You need direct eye contact and the target has it easier if the command/feelings are very out of place.

But you had a nice idea - the taboo spells and the "clumsy" spells.

For the taboo spell, you create a powerful aura that just masks the target - people will walk around it, avoid it for no reason, ignore it as far as possible. It is removed from awareness of people.

For the proficiency in weakening spells, I was thinking of transferring attributes temporarily or even finally from the target to the caster or another person. Basically you take their intellect, strength or even charm... temporarily. The caster can not hold it for long, so regular refills are necessary...

As for the Charm/Eros Magic... reverse taboo spell?

Dream Magic: Kinda what it says. But has a fair number of uses. Not only can it cause nightmares, it can lead to powerful if vague divination effects when fully mastered, and gain information from and about targets. Rumours of being able to contact the "world dream"/ "dreamland"/"Arcadia" are all given polite smiles by the masters of this art.

This one is kinda nice. Will have to think about it a bit more when I get some sleep.

Plant Magic: Growth, fertility, crop growth, animated vines, blue roses, aggressive nettles and briars, covering tracks, that animated oak tree smacking your target on the top of the head and then telling you that someone has put a body under its roots...lots of uses for this stuff. [B]

Noting down this one.

Cronomancy: The magic of time (may need to be split). Includes such things as being able to see back in time (think like WOD-Vampire's spirit touch), haste, slow, gentle repose, and later time stop but can also cause people to loose time in general...Can also be combined carefully if for example a heavily damaged item is not understood Cronomancy can pull the "memory" of what the item was like from the past and then use Assemble to restore it.

Yup, that's the idea. However, time travelling would be extremely physically taxing for anything organic.

Otherwise definitely going for this one.

AI/Ghost mind: Where demonology calls an intelligent spirit, and some necromancy calls a dead intelligent soul this magic creates a magic intelligence that is a reflection of mage themselves. By itself it creates, in effect, an internal personal assistant. Very good at helping with calendars, remembering lists, keeping track of the time, etc. And with some skill they can even be used as personal trainers (reminding to behave certain ways etc). And don't underestimate this, these people tend to be highly organized, hard to distract, and remember people's names/birthdays/kids etc ... even if they tend to mutter to themselves quite often. But when combined with other magic this school very much shines, especially with animation invisible force fire etc...interesting it doesn't make good classic constructs but can make homonculi when properly combined.

Animation: Animate object on a grand and complicated scale. Turning winches, self opening doors, self opening locks, are chatty gargoyle plaque etc....Also helps with swords that bend toward their targets and the like. Usually very dumb unless combine with AI

I think this is already included in thymodesmia. And now here's where the lovecraftian/dark magic strikes again: a homunculus would be part of your body and soul, formed from part of you and your intelligence. The animated objects would require a soul (necrourgy) or eldritch energy (demons) from beyond the world to work.

Invisible Force: Think Wall of Force, maybe mage armor, the various Bigby's Hand spells, Tenser's disk, and with AI invisible servant, and a sorting type spell (VERY USEFUL...think gold nuggets, agricultural uses etc)

I like the idea of invisible force spells. Will have to think and will most probably include it.

Stonework: The type of magic for move earth, stone shape, earth to stone, stone to earth, wall of stone etc. But can also fertilize fields.

Will take this one, definitely. Causing earthquakes is fun.

Weather Control: Basically what it says. Call rain, summon a sunny day for friend's wedding. Mass with an invading army by turning fields to mud or push their fleets away from your shore. If you're really good at it feeling frisky maybe call down a lightning bolt or tornado.

Weather witches will be happy today! Definitely including this one. The "higher" part will actually deal with rather unnatural weather (e.g. making the sun being blotted out of the sky for few hours, etc.)

Fear/Attraction: Make your scarecrows actually spook crows, make fish extra interested in your lure, herd people away from your tower but toward your shop, and the glow up we can do before the ball every young suitor will be amazed! All these and more for your time and mastery of this school!

This one comes with the territory. Every magic user in this tradition acquires Taint - a residual mana that makes their eyes glow, their veins glow, their aura to become visible and rather unpleasant... exact effects depend on the mage, but are never "liked" in general.

But yeah, I could see a school of magic that focuses on emotional manipulation... not necessarily only on the fear/attraction scale, but also calm/aggressive... gonna think about it.

Death Energy: Enervate, tire, depress, and eventually drain the very life and soul from your targets. Possible hauntings and non-corporeal undead may be an issue/side effect.

Going to have this one. Maybe another "Necro-" proficiency... Mainly for catching those souls and draining lives.

Space Magic: May need to be divided between high and low levels. But makes for your Rope trick, bags of holding, passwall, and eventually teleport type magics.

Ah, space as... spatial manipulation?

If non-euclydean spaces are involved, count me in

Planned death: The use of death energy in healing. Where others repair this kills in a targeted way to shift the balance of life and death. Solves cancer, fungus, parasites, some forms of possession, and bacterial infections for example. If you really want to mess with people make some other type of necromantic spellcraft a prerequisite for this one.

I like the idea of preserving lives using the dark side of magic. This is going in definitely, although there will be some changes (e.g. you need to be transferring life force/sicknesses to/from other people for this one). So you can keep someone alive, but somebody else will pay for it.

Nice.

Genis Familia/bloodline magic: Use the spirits, memories, and skills of your ancestors (or the ancestors of someone you have blood of handy) to aid you today...oh and this isn't a nice chat with grandad this is actually a form of semi-controlled possession.

Already included in necromancy and druidic tradition (which is separate from this one).

Genis Loci: High Path Binds magic to land itself. Can cast through the land,an d cast over MUCH larger areas. This path is known to be highly tied to Fae magic and the Fae themselves who, for example, can combine it with space magic to have entire parties skip over their lands.

Huuuuuuh.

Definitely interesting idea. Binding oneself to the land... taking its power, but for a price... again, have to think about this one longer, but it's definitely on the list.

Control Sound: Basically the realm of spells like silence, shout, and sonic illusions. I guess in theory a clever mage could pull sound themselves allowing them to eavesdrop to a fair degree.

Yup. This one's going on the list too.

Adjust item change an item harden, sharpen, change colour...make your enemies sword limp as noodle. you get the idea. important school for crafters of magic objects

Nope, too mainstream . Also, would work better maybe as set of separate spell types (e.g. wood/metal/water manipulation).

Unwind take apart or suppress other magic

If we are talking about counterspelling, that's a separate mechanic.

If we are talking about manipulating mana - directly - by changing how it ebbs and flows... yeah. Could suck the whole area dry of mana to complicate matters, or change the "flavor" so only my spells work...

Mana manipulation is on the list. Will have to think about the actual mechanics at that point.

Thank you for the list! There were some great ideas! And now I'm off to the bed.

[sktarq]

Spoiler: Questions from reaction

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On the Charm/Eros I was thinking an emotional manipulation vs an order. More subtle, long lasting, and works on an emotional basis instead of order basis. Presence vs Dominate in WOD vampire terms. Not exactly useful in say combat but very useful in long term manipulation. And the lack of hard control produces less triggers to say things are wrong. Which I would think would be a good target. Plus in keeping "free will" the targets are prone to being...story worthy...they will do stuff on their own initiative but basically beyond the direction of the caster...including lots of ways to screw things up. If you want to make emotions a more hard limit like telepathy I get that but if it overlap that is a lot of ground you are asking Imperio to cover then. May want to break it up depending on how often it has a chance to come up. May need the more general "Emotional Manipulation" as a prerequisite?

and the Fear/Attraction I was mostly thinking charms and putting it on other things for the effects. Like it would be something you'd go buy at the local witch doctor's...and once you start buying from the witch doctor well he has hexing items to sell you if you are interested...or how people get in debt to such a mage. And while a specialist line may not be appropriate what do you think would be a good way for that story and social role to be filled?

I don't know what the druid is up to with this for the Genius Familia/Bloodline idea or what you were thinking of with normal necromancy. But I generally would guess Necromancy would be like a Ouji board or verbal discussion in general no? I know I was coming to this line as much from the point of view of a merger with the dead instead. And you get things like their muscle memory and so know how how to fight/climb/whatever better...you may gain their wit and quick social reactions....You are basically "borrowing" traits from the dead....but may not only get the memories you want...you are not in total control of your actions (while your own family would probably be co-operative and like the feeling of being alive a bit again using other blood may lead to souls who would not be)...and things could get weird. Get to experience your own birth, from your mothers perceptive for example...So if this overlaps with how you saw normal necromancy I'm curious and would like to know more.

Also with the earthworks...it is the answer to the question of who the hell built the damn thing out here and how did they drag so many stones so far when the party/protagonist/etc finds the lair of the antagonist...and a gift to build whatever fun lair's you want

On using the death to heal thing....got me thinking....if you take curio (normal healing by body functions just boosted)....death healing (killing the stuff that you don't want like infections or cancer so that normal healing can start) and use them as perquisites for more major healing....where things start needing a high price. Things like organ failure (not covered by either), regeneration (the kinds of wounds that wouldn't normally heal) ...so every major healer needs to know some death magic...turn the often mentioned necromancers are those best able to fend off death" trope in RAW?

More ideas:

Possession: High Magic needs Imperio. This magic allows a mage to control another body as if it is your own. Unless additional work is done (usually using imperio) the host's mind is wide awake and just unable to effect the world. The degree of control that a mage takes over another person is also directly propotional to the amount of control they loose over their own body. So while they can reach out, touch a target and freeze their arm while using the target's arm to reach farther this normally means that the mage's body drops into a coma while they are "out". This body is very vulnerable to outside possession by spirits, demonic entities, and loose souls of the dead that may happen to be in the area.

Tenebrimancy/darkness-mancy: High Magic requires both necromancy and pyromancy. Some things are unknown to the dead, and fires can be unclear...but at the moment of death both can be used together to learn such things. while there is some cultural variation of the rituals of this path all involved the burning of a living being and their death (not always the same)...this death allows a path to open between the living and dead...a path through something poorly understood and in that place/noplace there things exisit outside of time. And by capturing the soul of the sacrifice in the channel between the living and the dead the mage can find answers they otherwise would not. No creature of soul that has be subject to this effect has ever been able to be called back by necromancy. Basically allows retests of failed divination/clearer divination/divination of subjects otherwise unallowed. Yes this communing with creatures from beyond the world of the living.

Hemomancy: Requires necromancy. A form of divination by blood that allows for questions to be asked about the person who "donated"...even if that person doesn't know in their mind. May also be used to ask questions about the ancestors of donor but at a penalty.

Desire: Prerequisites (Imperio or Emotional Manipulation) This detects, inspires, or (with create difficulty) creates and obsession within the the target. They then pursue that obsession as if it was natural to them. Intensity and duration of the obsession is variable with the roll. Can work as simple distraction but can also be used to do things like send people on quests, or destroy a targets social bonds. The mental health of the target is usually heavily worse for wear in more intense applications of this magic. In extreme cases targets will forget to sleep, eat properly, practice even minimal hygiene, or maintain their social decorum and norms (they may exploit their friends for example). Such desires must be able to be described in a short sentence ex) "Beat V at (skill), "Grow the perfect rose","Posses the staff of W", "find out what is in that barrel","Marry X","become the local baron" "Find out who killed Y", "fill my basement with gold", "Locate the tomb of Z"

Squirt/wend by sliding the spaces between space a mage can cover the distance between in almost no time. This involves squeezing one's self through a single 0 dimensional point and coming out elsewhere. While much simpler and reliable than the Space method of teleportation it is quite limited in range (about 100m blind or 500 m in line of sight?). It is technically possible to pull someone along you when casting this spell if quite difficult. Also this always leaves the caster disoriented and nauseous afterward (effectively stunned on arrival and can't use it too much)

Adapt: Requires shapeshift Allows the target (usually the caster) to survive environments they shouldn't. Poison gas, underwater, the bitter chill of the arctic, even vacuum of space if they are good enough. This often results in certain changes to the targets form as long as the magic is in effect such as fur, gills, chitinous skin, etc

Quiet passage/forget: Requires necromancy and (imperio or taboo)? . This dead are forgotten. Much of what they are is lost when they die and some of that is left behind. TIny fragments of personality and memory. This magic collects this and coats the caster in these tiny fragments of personality. By itself it makes the caster seem to fade in the background of the human world. Sure he is there but he is just another person. This would hover be easily broken by anyone interacting with them except that the magic is reinforced with the magic of imperio or taboo for others to not truly look at the issue. Thus the caster can largely avoid notice. It is not that they are not seen but just not cared about or remembered. Others will say the caster was normal and their memories are blurry (he was just some guy ya know?). This spells effects are broken if any dramatic or violent action is taken by the caster (are limited to medium walking speed) and are also limited to the most basic social interaction (quick purchases, hellos, directions, etc)...nor may the casters equipment call attention to themselves....But if nothing disturbs the spell it allow the caster to move around their daily business with few paying much attention to them. The spell even extends to a mage's aura. This spell also lasts a great deal of time without additional magical exertion. Many such mages find this power very useful when traveling but tedious near their homes.

Bedlam: This creates a blast of chaotic energy that infects the minds of the people around the caster. In short it causes people around the caster to go nuts. Hallucinations, extreme random violence, catatonia, you name it. No force can control the specific effects of the blast as the caster is calling on the forces of chaos itself but violence is common as is a general drop in inhibition.

Otherfire: (requires Pryurgy? blight? Bedlam? plague? not sure but high magic) turns the caster into a becon of light for a short time (a couple seconds). This light however is unlike any natural light and plays out in beams (much like spotlights) onto the surrounding area from the casters body. wherever the light touches glows similarly for a fraction of a second before ...seeming to shine with a fire of the same light (a ghostly wisp of fire like illusion-think a alcohol vapor fire in iridescent colours mostly of purple/green) as well as .... changing. Solid dry surfaces may suddenly become sticky or flow like liquid, Soil may grow plants that don't exist, or perhaps those plants are made of small crystals, bricks may reorganize or sprout drum-skins. The closer something is to the caster the higher the likelihood that it is effected and perhaps even changing more than once over the course of the fire. All within the area of effect take damage as flesh becomes incompatible with the rest of the body attached to it or may be subject to a shapeshift spell. Structures may be damaged as supports are no longer doing their job. After a minute or so the fire-like wisps of color fade and material reverts to "normal"...but damage done stays. So the stone may hold its melted shape, or if the crystal herbs where pulled from soil minerals they would stay but no longer be alive...and flesh that has been burned from clothes that turned to acid would all still persist. There is no known way for anyone to control the specifics of the effects of such a blast and the few mages who have used it have been considered desperate, insane, or utterly without care for their fellow beings. However things on occasion are chaotic and stick around...some changes just are. This is entirely up to DM fiat.

[Metastachydium]

Not sure about that one - any other options?

I don't know. Maybe therionomy/therionomia (very roughly 'beast herding')?

Phylakomancy it is.

Now that I think about it... is it the same core word as the one used for "phylactery"?

That's right!

I'm a bit on the fence about this one - I like the second part, but not the first part. It's still better than the one I have currently... so if nothing else comes up, I'll use it. Thank you.

Yeah, well. There's only so many words in Greek for soul. Other than θυμος we have ψυχη (for psychodesmia, but I'm not sure you want that) and πνευμα (for pneumatodesmia, but you said you'd rather use pneuma for something else).

Now, let's see what else we can name! *Cronomancy should probably be chronurgy instead; death energy could be thanaturgy; for stonework I think I'd recommend litharchy; for sound control, ekhematurgy; for shapeshifting transfiguratio and planned death could be nekropoiesis ('deathmaking'), although I'm not sure about the last one. I'm also not sure what to recommend for plant magic. Phyturgy, dendrurgy and phytadurgy don't sound all that good. Maybe phytarchy (since it seems to be mostly about controlling growth and movements)? Also, could I convince you to drop *carnoturgy (which is kind of a mess) in favour of, say, somaturgy?

Lastly, I'd like to suggest two new vagaries as well:
1. oinomancy ('divination from wine') which could include stuff like reading the future from spilled drinks and (this would be my highlight) the ability to enter an oracular trance via getting drunk;
2. hematurgy, or the manipulation of blood, which could be used for anything ranging from causing strokes through increasing heartbeat to put someone in a given emotional state to increasing blood flow to the brain to temporarily enhance mental faculties.

[sktarq]

Hmmm.... Planned death (death healing) names...
morboccidere
Morbocide
necrocide (actually that would be a good anti-undead one)
Apoptosis (falling off but is also a real term for planned cell death)

[Lacco]

Well, this is going to be a long one. Still, thank you for the input, I really appreciate it.

Spoiler: sktarq response

Show

Charm/Eros

For this one, I'm intrigued. Lack of hard control and just building a positive feelings... yeah, there is a game mechanic to simulate that. Basically, you choose a Passion (love/hate/loyalty/friendship) and whenever you protect the target of your passion, try to help them, etc., you gain additional dice.
This one could work by creating a temporary Passion, which will have to be resisted or obeyed (requiring good roll for the former, providing additional dice for the latter).
I think there was already a "emotional manipulation" basic discipline which allowed to bolster or decrease the emotions of the person.
So, will be thinking of the one.

Fear/Attraction *snip* And while a specialist line may not be appropriate what do you think would be a good way for that story and social role to be filled?

Well, enchanting will be definitely a possibility, but I'd say the Fear/Attraction would be definitely a matter of placing aura on people/items. Temporary ones would be easy, long-term ones a bit more complicated... I see a good use in this one, as you can use it easily as a bait or "avoid this place!" sign. Also: magic bug repellant

So the basic one would work like "I don't like this guy, so everybody will avoid him like plague!". For the people nearby him, he would be unpleasant - providing also mechanical disadvantage due to the distraction - and that goes also for places (good to make those pesky heroes avoid your wonderful lair).

But I think there is also a place for a specialist line: transferring Taint. As stated somewhere above, when you cast, you acquire taint and that works similarly - your aura, visage, smell, etc. all get a bit wonky at first, and then threatening. Good for intimidation, not for getting a date at local temple of Goody Goodness. So if you master this technique, you can actually use it to transfer some of your Taint to the poor guy/gal/spot.

Works well in theory, but would have to be restricted - Taint is a limiting mechanic, so it shouldn't be easy to get rid of.

I don't know what the druid is up to with this for the Genius Familia/Bloodline idea or what you were thinking of with normal necromancy. But I generally would guess Necromancy would be like a Ouji board or verbal discussion in general no? I know I was coming to this line as much from the point of view of a merger with the dead instead. And you get things like their muscle memory and so know how how to fight/climb/whatever better...you may gain their wit and quick social reactions....You are basically "borrowing" traits from the dead....but may not only get the memories you want...you are not in total control of your actions (while your own family would probably be co-operative and like the feeling of being alive a bit again using other blood may lead to souls who would not be)...and things could get weird. Get to experience your own birth, from your mothers perceptive for example...So if this overlaps with how you saw normal necromancy I'm curious and would like to know more.

Should avoid writing long responses when tired.

So: druidic magic is another possible type of magic. The "cleanest" one - almost without risks if used correctly. Orcs are natural users, but it can be passed to other races too. One of the uses is talking to your ancestors and walking their dreams and memories (mechanically not really done yet).
Necromancy allows you - in general - to use memories of the dead and access their knowledge, but not skills.

So my bad... and this is again, very interesting idea - maybe I could implement it, but in a bit different way. So:
- druids get to borrow skills, memories and even abilities of their ancestors through the Dreamland (work in progress name). In case of normal result, they get one of their ancestors to help out - which means the worst that can happen is that you get some comments towards your life, in exchange for what they provide (in line with what you wrote). You are not in complete control, but they usually respect you enough to not go out of their way to make it unpleasant.
- users of arcane magic (the stuff we discuss) get the possibility to use advanced necrurgy (or even demonurgy) to get posessed by a spirit or a demon, gaining some of their memories, skills or abilities... but for a price. And if you are not strong enough... they use you as an uber.

Also with the earthworks...it is the answer to the question of who the hell built the damn thing out here and how did they drag so many stones so far when the party/protagonist/etc finds the lair of the antagonist...and a gift to build whatever fun lair's you want

At this point I'm no longer going for "low magic" feel, but to avoid the "high magic": the power is limited a bit. Worldbuilding history reasons: the magic is dying. Slowly, yes, but the golden era is long gone and even the ageless elves remember only the silver era.

They were able to build spires that touch the heavens. Masters of the arcane built towers with a wink and castles in just few days - but the best you can do now is drag out few columns and you'll be viewed as a master. Dwarven rune masters were able to create words of power and weld them onto their machines and artifacts.

Most don't know how to do that anymore. You can find fragments of knowledge and power, but only the most fervent seekers are able to pull off the stuff of legends.

At least that's what I'm going for. So: epic magic? A master of earth magic will be able to tear a city in two halves, but will most probably need few days' preparation and then rest. Destroying a castle wall will be something easier, if the castle is not one of the ancient ones - which have the dwarven runestones protecting them from magic like this...

Still, I like the idea and it allows for some fun

On using the death to heal thing....got me thinking....if you take curio (normal healing by body functions just boosted)....death healing (killing the stuff that you don't want like infections or cancer so that normal healing can start) and use them as perquisites for more major healing....where things start needing a high price. Things like organ failure (not covered by either), regeneration (the kinds of wounds that wouldn't normally heal) ...so every major healer needs to know some death magic...turn the often mentioned necromancers are those best able to fend off death" trope in RAW?

Necrurges

Yeah, I like this idea. Also, pulling life force from your surroundings to extend one's life just to allow regeneration or even return from the deaths' door...

Possession: High Magic needs Imperio. This magic allows a mage to control another body as if it is your own. Unless additional work is done (usually using imperio) the host's mind is wide awake and just unable to effect the world. The degree of control that a mage takes over another person is also directly propotional to the amount of control they loose over their own body. So while they can reach out, touch a target and freeze their arm while using the target's arm to reach farther this normally means that the mage's body drops into a coma while they are "out". This body is very vulnerable to outside possession by spirits, demonic entities, and loose souls of the dead that may happen to be in the area.

Okay, this one will go in.

The host can fight it - in his mind - but it's not easy.

I like this one a lot.

Of course, there will be also the possibility to take over a dead body (temporarily) or "prepared" voluntary/involuntary host...

Tenebrimancy/darkness-mancy: High Magic requires both necromancy and pyromancy. Some things are unknown to the dead, and fires can be unclear...but at the moment of death both can be used together to learn such things. while there is some cultural variation of the rituals of this path all involved the burning of a living being and their death (not always the same)...this death allows a path to open between the living and dead...a path through something poorly understood and in that place/noplace there things exisit outside of time. And by capturing the soul of the sacrifice in the channel between the living and the dead the mage can find answers they otherwise would not. No creature of soul that has be subject to this effect has ever been able to be called back by necromancy. Basically allows retests of failed divination/clearer divination/divination of subjects otherwise unallowed. Yes this communing with creatures from beyond the world of the living.

Oof. Again, great idea!

I'd allow this one for even more. Bargaining.

Hemomancy: Requires necromancy. A form of divination by blood that allows for questions to be asked about the person who "donated"...even if that person doesn't know in their mind. May also be used to ask questions about the ancestors of donor but at a penalty.

No problem. This one's quite clear.

Desire: Prerequisites (Imperio or Emotional Manipulation) This detects, inspires, or (with create difficulty) creates and obsession within the the target. They then pursue that obsession as if it was natural to them. Intensity and duration of the obsession is variable with the roll. Can work as simple distraction but can also be used to do things like send people on quests, or destroy a targets social bonds. The mental health of the target is usually heavily worse for wear in more intense applications of this magic. In extreme cases targets will forget to sleep, eat properly, practice even minimal hygiene, or maintain their social decorum and norms (they may exploit their friends for example). Such desires must be able to be described in a short sentence ex) "Beat V at (skill), "Grow the perfect rose","Posses the staff of W", "find out what is in that barrel","Marry X","become the local baron" "Find out who killed Y", "fill my basement with gold", "Locate the tomb of Z"

Huh... a bit too close to Imperium - as that one allows you exactly to implant a thought like this and makes the target obsessed with it (it's basically a compulsion with a possible trigger) until they break the spell, do the deed or get dead.

I had this idea about making items extremely desirable (basically making it a fool's errand getting them), but I have currently no idea how to implement it.

Squirt/wend by sliding the spaces between space a mage can cover the distance between in almost no time. This involves squeezing one's self through a single 0 dimensional point and coming out elsewhere. While much simpler and reliable than the Space method of teleportation it is quite limited in range (about 100m blind or 500 m in line of sight?). It is technically possible to pull someone along you when casting this spell if quite difficult. Also this always leaves the caster disoriented and nauseous afterward (effectively stunned on arrival and can't use it too much)

Again... interesting idea. Will think of a way to implement this.

Maybe several separate uses: one of them being opening such portals at completely random (you aim it at your target, but care not where it goes - just send it somewhere else, not really far but not close)... or opening them temporarily for short distances.

Of course, line of sight or known areas.

Adapt: Requires shapeshift Allows the target (usually the caster) to survive environments they shouldn't. Poison gas, underwater, the bitter chill of the arctic, even vacuum of space if they are good enough. This often results in certain changes to the targets form as long as the magic is in effect such as fur, gills, chitinous skin, etc

I'm not sure about this one. What would be the difference to carnoturgy?

Quiet passage/forget: Requires necromancy and (imperio or taboo)? . This dead are forgotten. Much of what they are is lost when they die and some of that is left behind. TIny fragments of personality and memory. This magic collects this and coats the caster in these tiny fragments of personality. By itself it makes the caster seem to fade in the background of the human world. Sure he is there but he is just another person. This would hover be easily broken by anyone interacting with them except that the magic is reinforced with the magic of imperio or taboo for others to not truly look at the issue. Thus the caster can largely avoid notice. It is not that they are not seen but just not cared about or remembered. Others will say the caster was normal and their memories are blurry (he was just some guy ya know?). This spells effects are broken if any dramatic or violent action is taken by the caster (are limited to medium walking speed) and are also limited to the most basic social interaction (quick purchases, hellos, directions, etc)...nor may the casters equipment call attention to themselves....But if nothing disturbs the spell it allow the caster to move around their daily business with few paying much attention to them. The spell even extends to a mage's aura. This spell also lasts a great deal of time without additional magical exertion. Many such mages find this power very useful when traveling but tedious near their homes.

Okay, this one will go in. I like it.

There will be ways how to spot this if you know what you are doing or are strong of will, but for normal people...

Bedlam: This creates a blast of chaotic energy that infects the minds of the people around the caster. In short it causes people around the caster to go nuts. Hallucinations, extreme random violence, catatonia, you name it. No force can control the specific effects of the blast as the caster is calling on the forces of chaos itself but violence is common as is a general drop in inhibition.

Yup. Yuuuup.

Otherfire: (requires Pryurgy? blight? Bedlam? plague? not sure but high magic) turns the caster into a becon of light for a short time (a couple seconds). This light however is unlike any natural light and plays out in beams (much like spotlights) onto the surrounding area from the casters body. wherever the light touches glows similarly for a fraction of a second before ...seeming to shine with a fire of the same light (a ghostly wisp of fire like illusion-think a alcohol vapor fire in iridescent colours mostly of purple/green) as well as .... changing. Solid dry surfaces may suddenly become sticky or flow like liquid, Soil may grow plants that don't exist, or perhaps those plants are made of small crystals, bricks may reorganize or sprout drum-skins. The closer something is to the caster the higher the likelihood that it is effected and perhaps even changing more than once over the course of the fire. All within the area of effect take damage as flesh becomes incompatible with the rest of the body attached to it or may be subject to a shapeshift spell. Structures may be damaged as supports are no longer doing their job. After a minute or so the fire-like wisps of color fade and material reverts to "normal"...but damage done stays. So the stone may hold its melted shape, or if the crystal herbs where pulled from soil minerals they would stay but no longer be alive...and flesh that has been burned from clothes that turned to acid would all still persist. There is no known way for anyone to control the specifics of the effects of such a blast and the few mages who have used it have been considered desperate, insane, or utterly without care for their fellow beings. However things on occasion are chaotic and stick around...some changes just are. This is entirely up to DM fiat.

I'd give this one and similar ones a special status: because this is not something you can "practice" - it sounds like something you get on a stone tablets.

I'd however definitely make a "chaotic ray" - you point your finger and anything that stands in the way gets this treatment.

Maybe the weak elf turns into a minotaur, his body scarred from where his clothes burned into his body, but at least there is no ground but lava. Basically: you control the direction and range, but not the effect.

I don't know. Maybe therionomy/therionomia (very roughly 'beast herding')?

Question: are there any variant words for "beast"? Creature? Or something else?

That's right!

Well, it makes sense now

Yeah, well. There's only so many words in Greek for soul. Other than θυμος we have ψυχη (for psychodesmia, but I'm not sure you want that) and πνευμα (for pneumatodesmia, but you said you'd rather use pneuma for something else).

I'm not against using a mix of greek, latin or even other languages. After all, not all the proficiencies were made in one country or even by a single scientifically minded entity - so few different names can work easily.

Now, let's see what else we can name! *Cronomancy should probably be chronurgy instead; death energy could be thanaturgy; for stonework I think I'd recommend litharchy; for sound control, ekhematurgy; for shapeshifting transfiguratio and planned death could be nekropoiesis ('deathmaking'), although I'm not sure about the last one. I'm also not sure what to recommend for plant magic. Phyturgy, dendrurgy and phytadurgy don't sound all that good. Maybe phytarchy (since it seems to be mostly about controlling growth and movements)? Also, could I convince you to drop *carnoturgy (which is kind of a mess) in favour of, say, somaturgy?

Cronomancy = chronurgy. Got that.

Thanaturgy is good.

Litharchy rocks!

Again, not so sure about ekhematurgy.

Transfiguratio is all right. Seems like Mrs. Rowling had similar ideas .

Nekropoiesis? Question: what is the difference between the root of "thanaturgy" and "necrurgy"? I mean, both are about death, but if we can somehow differentiate logically...

Phytarchy is fine for me.

Somaturgy... somaturgy... not sure. What's the word for meat? Flesh?

Lastly, I'd like to suggest two new vagaries as well:
1. oinomancy ('divination from wine') which could include stuff like reading the future from spilled drinks and (this would be my highlight) the ability to enter an oracular trance via getting drunk;
2. hematurgy, or the manipulation of blood, which could be used for anything ranging from causing strokes through increasing heartbeat to put someone in a given emotional state to increasing blood flow to the brain to temporarily enhance mental faculties.

Oinomancy would be definitely in! And entering trance through meditation, substances or some other ways is almost requirement for most divination magic uses.

Hematurgy... huh. Do you think we could use that for weakening a person? Like you get no blood to your extremities, so you are almost unable to move (or are able to move, but very weak and can't really control movement)? Because I like the idea of controlling blood... also, stopping bleeding, speeding up bleeding... causing bleeding... Damn. I'm feeling evil today.

Hmmm.... Planned death (death healing) names...
morboccidere
Morbocide
necrocide (actually that would be a good anti-undead one)
Apoptosis (falling off but is also a real term for planned cell death)

Necrocide? Huhh... I'd like to have magic that disrupts the bindings that make undead work... something like turning undead (priests with the power of true faith can actually do it relatively easily, but magic users would have to study it)...

Any ideas for Disruption magic? I mean, something like entropy on speed - things rot in front of your eyes, the tooth of age starts chewing like crazy...

Also, Disruption of magic. Causing magic stuff to fail, unbinding things. A more general discipline as the (work in progress) necrocide, which works well on undead/constructs but not other kinds of magic.

Again, thank you for all those ideas. I think I'll have to put the magic into a separate rulebook

[KragBrightscale]

Ok, I intended to contribute some ideas but after reading through those names, Im unsure about the names for my magics. Here they are anyway:

Liquidication magic: Liquify non-organic matter by infusing mana into it. This effectively melts things without increasing its temperature. Resulting liquid solidifies gradually after mana supply is cut off.

Bubblemancy: blow bubbles, see scenes from the past or future inside them.

Bubbleurgy: create, control and pop bubbles using nearby liquids. Can be used on matter liquified through liquification magic. Bubbles can be used for defense, offense, and utility purposes with a little creativity.

Trapmancy: After you trigger a trap mechanism, a glimpse of what you did wrong flashes through your mind. Functions a bit like hindsight. Alternatively, a glimpse of the previous person to trigger the trap flashes through your mind.

Musclemancy: When used, a vision of all the hours the target spent training their muscles and working out plays in training montage style. Upbeat music optional.

Muscleurgy: Manipulate your muscles with magic. Pull off amazing feats of strength, show people that your more than a bookworm, be the meat shield you always dreamed of having. Warning: Stretch well before use and don’t use on an empty stomach as nutrients are needed to fuel the magic. Extended use may result in symptoms including but not limited to: muscle cramps, joint aches, muscle pain, muscle deterioration, anemia, dehydration, faintness of breath, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, heart failure.

Puppeturgy: Create thin threads of mana from your fingers and attach them to targets to move them like puppets. Basic: open doors, pull things towards you, low level telekinesis. Advanced: control non-living targets’ movement. Mastery: control living targets’ movement. Number of threads related to strength of control, if cut loss of control.

Wave manipulation magic; manipulate waves nearby by adjusting amplitude and frequency. Muffle sounds, turn choppy water into big waves, protect yourself from harmful shockwaves.

Rock Surf-magic: Create and send waves through solid mediums. Ride the waves until they break. Requires wave manipulation and liquification magic.

Coinmancy: flip a coin, heads is yes, tails is no. Doing this magically results in relatively better results.

I’ve got more, but this’ll do for now.

[Metastachydium]

[QUOTE=lacco36;24976088]Well, this is going to be a long one. Still, thank you for the input, I really appreciate it.

Question: are there any variant words for "beast"? Creature? Or something else?

Well, there's ζωον (zoo-n), but I don't think it sounds good in compounds.

I'm not against using a mix of greek, latin or even other languages. After all, not all the proficiencies were made in one country or even by a single scientifically minded entity - so few different names can work easily.

As the annexed figure shows, I have nothing against Latin, but I have very strong reservations about half-Greek-half-Latin compounds.

Again, not so sure about ekhematurgy.

Kind of saw that coming. Phonurgy just didn't have that ring for me, but it's on the table too, though.

Nekropoiesis? Question: what is the difference between the root of "thanaturgy" and "necrurgy"? I mean, both are about death, but if we can somehow differentiate logically...

Φανατος means 'death', νεκρος means 'dead [thing]'.

Somaturgy... somaturgy... not sure. What's the word for meat? Flesh?

It's κρεας, but there's a very good reason why I didn't bring it up. It has one of those creepy weird roots in sigma (if I'm not mistaken) with sibilants dropped and ugly contractions. Believe me, it's a mess.

Oinomancy would be definitely in! And entering trance through meditation, substances or some other ways is almost requirement for most divination magic uses.

Hematurgy... huh. Do you think we could use that for weakening a person? Like you get no blood to your extremities, so you are almost unable to move (or are able to move, but very weak and can't really control movement)? Because I like the idea of controlling blood... also, stopping bleeding, speeding up bleeding... causing bleeding... Damn. I'm feeling evil today.

A lot of things you can do with blood!

Necrocide? Huhh... I'd like to have magic that disrupts the bindings that make undead work... something like turning undead (priests with the power of true faith can actually do it relatively easily, but magic users would have to study it)...

Remember when I told you there's a whole lot of Greek-derived quasisuffixes floating out there? Guess what? There's one for this job, namely -ctony/-ktonia ('killing'). You could go with necroctony/necroktonia here.

[Lacco]

Ok, I intended to contribute some ideas but after reading through those names, Im unsure about the names for my magics. Here they are anyway:

Welcome! Don't worry about the names, these are usually a product of this thread - I am terrible at naming things.

Let's see...

Liquidication magic: Liquify non-organic matter by infusing mana into it. This effectively melts things without increasing its temperature. Resulting liquid solidifies gradually after mana supply is cut off.

Interesting idea. What happens e.g. to a sword once liquified and the mana supply is cut off? Will it regain original form?

Bubblemancy: blow bubbles, see scenes from the past or future inside them.

Again, could be workable. The bubbles do not fit my specific aesthetic, but something like drawing a window into air and seeing through it would...

Bubbleurgy: create, control and pop bubbles using nearby liquids. Can be used on matter liquified through liquification magic. Bubbles can be used for defense, offense, and utility purposes with a little creativity.[/QUTOE]

Again, not really the aesthecic... but I'll be thinking.

Trapmancy: After you trigger a trap mechanism, a glimpse of what you did wrong flashes through your mind. Functions a bit like hindsight. Alternatively, a glimpse of the previous person to trigger the trap flashes through your mind.

The latter sounds as a great idea - something like the shadows of dying people in Souls games.

Kind of a warning.

Theoretically it would allow you to see how persons died in this location - and successful roll would tell you which ones are actually relevant.

The traphindsight idea sounds as a good idea for a joke item.

Musclemancy: When used, a vision of all the hours the target spent training their muscles and working out plays in training montage style. Upbeat music optional.

Muscleurgy: Manipulate your muscles with magic. Pull off amazing feats of strength, show people that your more than a bookworm, be the meat shield you always dreamed of having. Warning: Stretch well before use and don’t use on an empty stomach as nutrients are needed to fuel the magic. Extended use may result in symptoms including but not limited to: muscle cramps, joint aches, muscle pain, muscle deterioration, anemia, dehydration, faintness of breath, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, heart failure.

Verbal component: aggressive yell or mighty grunt.

Puppeturgy: Create thin threads of mana from your fingers and attach them to targets to move them like puppets. Basic: open doors, pull things towards you, low level telekinesis. Advanced: control non-living targets’ movement. Mastery: control living targets’ movement. Number of threads related to strength of control, if cut loss of control.

Now this one... yeah, that will go in. Definitely. No need to separate it into basic/advanced/mastery: you need to overcome the strength/resistance of the target. That should be sufficient.

Still, the target knows something is wrong, can scream, shout, try to pull free... so yeah, this one I definitely like.

Wave manipulation magic; manipulate waves nearby by adjusting amplitude and frequency. Muffle sounds, turn choppy water into big waves, protect yourself from harmful shockwaves.

The idea by itself is a nice one... but a bit too scientific. Especially with some of my players I would immediately get my NPCs microwaved . Manipulation of sound should be one of the disciplines... and sea magic (manipulation of waves and maybe wind) could be other.

Rock Surf-magic: Create and send waves through solid mediums. Ride the waves until they break. Requires wave manipulation and liquification magic.

Definitely a cool idea.

Coinmancy: flip a coin, heads is yes, tails is no. Doing this magically results in relatively better results.

Dices, coins and runestones would be definitely used for divinations/prophecies.

I’ve got more, but this’ll do for now.

Thanks! It's a nice set!

[QUOTE=Metastachydium;24977263]

Well, this is going to be a long one. Still, thank you for the input, I really appreciate it.

Well, there's ζωον (zoo-n), but I don't think it sounds good in compounds.

Yup. That one doesn't work either.

As the annexed figure shows, I have nothing against Latin, but I have very strong reservations about half-Greek-half-Latin compounds.

Kind of saw that coming. Phonurgy just didn't have that ring for me, but it's on the table too, though.

Understandable.

Φανατος means 'death', νεκρος means 'dead [thing]'.

Okay, that sets up few possibilites. Although so far we had only the "nekros" part, not really the "thanatos".

It's κρεας, but there's a very good reason why I didn't bring it up. It has one of those creepy weird roots in sigma (if I'm not mistaken) with sibilants dropped and ugly contractions. Believe me, it's a mess.

Yeah, looks a bit hard to read. And while I remember some of the greek symbols from the time I tried to learn hlaholika, I'm no good at it.

A lot of things you can do with blood!

Just don't try to donate it in a bucket. They ask you a lot of strange things...

Remember when I told you there's a whole lot of Greek-derived quasisuffixes floating out there? Guess what? There's one for this job, namely -ctony/-ktonia ('killing'). You could go with necroctony/necroktonia here.

Well, necroktonia looks a bit better for me for the undead disruption. Still thinking about the entropy/rot disruption-style magic.

---

Again, thank you for the inputs.

I'm currently thinking of putting together some of the disciplines (e.g. prophecy/divination) into one group. When you put a point into it, you get additional discipline (e.g. you start with Divination 1 (Coinomancy), but by adding another point you get Divination 2 (Coinomancy, Oinomancy)). That would mean your overall ability to divine grows with more divination skills.

I was thinking of also adding some of the other options together (Necromancy, Necrurgy, Nekropoiesis...) into groups, where you would get bonus dice due to synergies... but I'm not sure if it will work or how to categorize. I'll think about it.

[Metastachydium]

Yeah, looks a bit hard to read. And while I remember some of the greek symbols from the time I tried to learn hlaholika, I'm no good at it.

Yeah, Greek is a crazy one. I think it would ultimately look something like kreargy, but like I said this is a tricky root, so I might be wrong.

Just don't try to donate it in a bucket. They ask you a lot of strange things...

I know! People are so weird.

Well, necroktonia looks a bit better for me for the undead disruption. Still thinking about the entropy/rot disruption-style magic.

Hm. Pythosis maybe?

I'm currently thinking of putting together some of the disciplines (e.g. prophecy/divination) into one group. When you put a point into it, you get additional discipline (e.g. you start with Divination 1 (Coinomancy), but by adding another point you get Divination 2 (Coinomancy, Oinomancy)). That would mean your overall ability to divine grows with more divination skills.

I was thinking of also adding some of the other options together (Necromancy, Necrurgy, Nekropoiesis...) into groups, where you would get bonus dice due to synergies... but I'm not sure if it will work or how to categorize. I'll think about it.

Sounds like a good idea. It would tidy up things a bit which is necessary anyway when a system gets this complex.

♣

And now, some more suggestions: stateromancy for coinomancy; vecordia ('madness') for bedlam; oneiromancy/oneiropoiesis for dream divination/causing dreams; maybe neurospasis (appr. 'moving (lit. drawing) by strings') for puppeteering; maybe thanatosthesis ('deathsensing') for the thing with seeing how people died; and maybe-maybe myonurgy for the muscles.

[sandmote]

It's all greek to me, but I do like the sound of this. Particularly given the description of how you're using lower level magic to set up higher level magic, which I imagine taking up several turns and where the stongest effects would likely require multiple party members to stack their magical effects on top of each other. I'm imagining something like a water mage going inland and needing to wait for the weather mage to summon a rainstorm before they have enough material to bring a wave over an enemy army. Or the king gives out an impossible task before he'll let the princess marry the bard and the party needs to find a fey capable of manipulating the right material to complete the task.

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Tool/pocket Magic: Summon a temporary item for use. Need a rope?, A weapon? Always have what you need! Also comes in handy for creating infinite arrows for enchanted bows and cleverclogs can do all sorts with it.

Invisible Force: Think Wall of Force, maybe mage armor, the various Bigby's Hand spells, Tenser's disk, and with AI invisible servant, and a sorting type spell (VERY USEFUL...think gold nuggets, agricultural uses etc)

Space Magic: May need to be divided between high and low levels. But makes for your Rope trick, bags of holding, passwall, and eventually teleport type magics.

Squirt/wend by sliding the spaces between space a mage can cover the distance between in almost no time. This involves squeezing one's self through a single 0 dimensional point and coming out elsewhere. While much simpler and reliable than the Space method of teleportation it is quite limited in range (about 100m blind or 500 m in line of sight?). It is technically possible to pull someone along you when casting this spell if quite difficult. Also this always leaves the caster disoriented and nauseous afterward (effectively stunned on arrival and can't use it too much)

I like the "repair by turning back time" idea, but I also think there should also be object manipulation magics, almost like working with particular trades. For instance, to create a rope you need to have both creation magic and rope magic under your belt.

Ex:

Nimurgy Manipulation and storage of threads, including things like spinning and manipulating ropes. For things like making a cambric shirt without no seams nor needle work, having ropes tie themselves into knots and on rigging, or just grappling enemies.

Force Creation Allows the creation of material from a chosen form of object manipulation. High path, requires knowledge of a chosen form of manipulation.

To break up low space magic:

Hammerspace Manipulation Allows the manipulation to change an object's size to fit in into small spaces.

Life Hammerspace Allows the manipulation of the size of a living creature. Requires knowledge of hammerspace manipulation.

Cranny Split Allows a magic user to increase the width of an existing passage without affecting structure, maximum distance/width subject to magic user's power.

Path Through Space Allows the creation of paths hidden through solid objects. Power affects the path's size (so the preceding magic is helpful without being necessary).

Although to be honest, by the end there I'm not so sure about giving the longer range to space magic over squirt/wend.

Weather Control: Call rain, summon a sunny day for friend's wedding. Mass with an invading army by turning fields to mud or push their fleets away from your shore. If you're really good at it feeling frisky maybe call down a lightning bolt or tornado.

Per the above:

• general cloud creation/destruction (prerequisite for other weather effects)
• general wind manipulation (including shoving/deafnening)
• rain manipulation (bring showers in particular areas)
• create flood (with rain as a prerequisite)
• atmospheric cold (for things like snow in summer)
• Maybe start off electricity with static effects and work up to lightning bolts in ideal conditions?

Pushing fleets should maybe be moved to ocean magic though.

[Quizatzhaderac]

There's also a third way to construct your names, apart from latin and greek: Anglish

You may know Anglish from he Lord of the rings and 1984. The basic idea (for our purposes) is that making words by combining existing English (or old English) words. This is the main reason Tolkien could make up so many words without being annoying or confusing.

The downside being that is sounds less mysterious and fancy.

Particular suffixes I'd recommend are :
-dom: Control, rule. As in dominate, kingdom.
-ken: Knowledge.
-work
-speak
-sight

Here are some roots that I've confirmed are English/Germanic/Saxon/Frisian:
name, fire, water, death, heal (hale), flesh, soul, curse (curs), shape, ghost (gest), earth, blood, time (tid)

Here are some lost words where English only uses the romance word now.
faran - travel
iht - animal
wig - war
sweg- sound

Of special note is "galdor" which is the old English word for a magic spell.

If anyone else wants to look more stuff up I was mostly using these two websites:
https://www.etymonline.com/
https://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/

Phonurgy just didn't have that ring for me,.....

Ba-dum-boom, pish!

[JeenLeen]

You could have a 'side bar' in your vagaries to make other -mancies, with pyromancy as a template.
If a player wants a cartomancer (divination via cards), or someone using tea leaves, or whatever.

For a gruesome example, I had the idea of thanatomancy: divination via killing. Kill something (or someone!) and the results of the blood splatter or viscera reveal details about the future. Presumably gets better results than others in exchange for the sacrifice. Perhaps with some finesse can get things particularly linked to the person: e.g., kill a rival merchant's wife using this, and you can get really good insights into what he is planning or what will happen to him.

EDIT: I guess that already exists in some common lore. Like kill a chicken and look at the insides to divine a question. So that could be a less gruesome application of this.